"Bend doon bonny, Alec my man, doon on your knees!" said she.
The boy glanced up at her. He had long yellow hair like Jean Hamilton's little Alec.
"Wull it be sair?" he asked. "Think ye, Maggie? I houp it'll no be awfu' sair!"
"Na, Alec," his sister made answer, "it'll no be either lang or sair."
But the boy of ten, whose name was James Johnstone, neither bent nor knelt.
"I hae dune nae wrang. I'll juist dee this way," he said; and he stood up like one that straightens himself at drill.
Then Westerha' bid fire over the bairns' heads, which was cruel, cruel work, and only some of the soldiers did it. But even the few pieces that went off made a great noise in that lonely place. At the sound of the muskets some of the bairns fell forward on their faces as if they had been really shot. Some leapt in the air, but the most part knelt quietly and composedly.
The little boy Alec, whose sister had his hand clasped in hers, made as if he would rise.
"Bide ye doon, Alec," she said, very quietly, "it's no oor turn yet!"
At this the heart within me gave way, and I roared out in my helpless pain a perfect "gowl" of anger and grief.