I remember I ran after him, calling him to come back; but he never heeded me till I pulled him by the coat tails. It was away up near the march dyke, and I could hardly speak with running so fast. He stared as if he did not know me.
"Oh, dinna—dinna—come back!" I cried (and I think I wept); "dinna vex my mither!—And—there's 'rummelt tawties'{#} to the supper!"
[#] "Rummelt tawties," i.e., a sort of purée of potatoes, made in the pot in which they have been boiled, with sweet milk, butter, and sometimes a little flavouring of cheese. All hands are expected to assist in the operation of "champing," that is, pounding and stirring them to a proper consistency of toothsomeness.
But Willie would not stop for all I could say to him.
However, he patted me on the head.
"Bide at hame and be Jacob," he said; "they have cast out this Esau."
For he had been well learned in the Bible, and once got a prize for catechism at the day school at Whinnyliggate. It was Boston's Fourfold State, so, though there were three copies in the house, I never tried to read it.
So saying, he took the hillside like a goat, while I stood open-mouthed, gazing at the lithe figure of him who was my brother as it grew smaller, and finally vanished over the heathery shoulder of the Rig of Drumquhat.
That night I heard my father and mother talking far into the morning, while I made a pretence of sleeping.
"I will never own him!" said my father, who was now the angry one.