"I'm feared he doesna look strong!" answered my mother in the darkness.
"He shall sup sorrow for the way he spoke to the father that begat him and the mother that bore him!" said my father.
"Dinna say that, guidman!" pled my mother; "it is like cursin' oor ain firstborn. Think how proud ye were the time he grippit ye by the hand comin' up the loanin' an' caa'ed ye 'Dadda!'"
After this there was silence for a space, and then it was my mother who spoke.
"No, Alexander, you shallna gang to Edinbra to bring him hame. Gin yin o' us maun gang, let it be me. For ye wad be overly sore on the lad. But oh, the madam—the Jezebel, her that has wiled him awa' frae us, wait till I get my tongue on her!"
And this is how my mother carried out her threat, told in her own words.
* * * * *
"Oh, that weary toon!" she said afterwards. "The streets sae het and dry, the blawin' stoor, the peetifu' bairns in the gutter, and the puir chapman's joes standin' at the close-mouths wi' their shawls aboot their heads! I wondered what yin o' them had gotten haud o' my Willie. But at last I cam' to the place where he lodged. It was at a time o' the day when I kenned he wad be at his wark. It was a hoose as muckle as three kirks a' biggit on the tap o' yin anither, an' my Willie bode, as it were, in the tapmaist laft.
"It was an auld lame woman wi' a mutch on her head that opened the door. I askit for Willie.
"'He's no here,' says she; 'an' what may ye want wi' him?'