The old man looked at her through a blinding mist in his hazy eyes. "Tell me, my little lassie, tell me," he said.
"Oh, it's nothing," said Mercy. She had brushed away the tears and was smiling.
The Laird Fisher shook his head.
"It's nothing, father—only—"
"Only—what?"
"Only—oh, it's nothing!"
"Mercy, my lass," said the Laird Fisher, and the tears stood now in his own dim eyes, "Mercy, remember if owt goes wrong with a girl, and her mother is under the grass, her father is the first she should come to and tell all."
The old man had seated himself on a stout block cut from a trunk, and was opening the basket, when there was a light, springy step on the road.
"So you fire to-night, Matthew?"
An elderly man leaned over the stile and smiled.