“I aye do’t every nicht.” Jessie looks up again wistfully, wondering with a sudden pity. Can it be possible that he does not say his prayers, gentleman though he be?
“Say them here, little girl—I would like to hear your prayers”—and his own voice sounds reverent, low, as one who feels a great presence near.
But Jessie falters and cries—does not know what to answer, though it is very hard to contend against the impulse of instant obedience. “Oh, I dinna like—I canna say them out-by to a man,” she says in great trouble, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I just mind a’body, and little Davie—and give my soul to Christ to keep,” added the little girl solemnly, “for fear I shouldna wake the morn.”
There is a little silence. She thinks this kindly stranger is angry with her, and cries; but it is only a something of strong unusual emotion, which he must swallow down.
“Now, you must wake up little Davie, and I will take you home. Is it far? You do not know, poor little guardian. Come away—it is near Brigend? Well, we will manage to get there. Come, little fellow, rouse up and give me your hand.”
But Davie, very wroth at such a sudden interruption of his repose, shook his little brown clenched hand in the stranger’s face instead, and would hold by no other but his sister. So in this order they went on, Jessie, with much awe, permitting her hand to be held in Randall’s, and sleepy Davie dragging her back at the other side. They went on at a very different pace from Randall’s former rate of walking—threading their encumbered way with great difficulty through the moorland path—but by-and-by, to the general comfort, emerged once more upon the high-road, and near the cheerful light from a cottage door.
And here he would pause to ask for some refreshment for the lost children, but does not fail to glance in first at the cottage window. This woman sitting before the fire has a face he knows, and she is rolling up a heavy white-faced baby, and moving with a kind of monotonous rock, back and forward upon her seat. But there is not a murmur of the mother-song—instead, she is slowly winding up to extremest aggravation a little girl in a short-gown and apron, who stands behind her in a flood of tears, and whose present state of mind suggests no comfort to her, but to break all the “pigs” (Anglicè crockery) in the house and run away.
“Will I take in twa bairns?—what would I do wi’ twa bairns? I’ve enow o’ my ain; but folk just think they can use ony freedom wi’ me,” said the woman, in answer to Randall’s appeal made from the door. “I’m sure Peter’s pack micht be a laird’s lands for what folk expect; and because there’s nae ither cause o’ quarrelling wi’ a peaceable woman like me, I maun aye be askit to do things I canna do. It’s nane o’ my blame they didna get their denner. Lad, you had best take them hame.”
“I will pay for anything you give them cheerfully; but the little creatures are exhausted,” said Randall again from the door. He thought he had altered a good deal his natural voice.
The woman suddenly raised her head. “I’m saying, that’s a tongue I ken,” she said in an under-tone. “This is nae public to gie meat for siller, lad,” she continued; “but they may get a bit barley scone and a drink o’ milk—I’ve nae objections. Ye’ll no belang to this country yoursel?” For, with a rapidity very unusual to her, she had suddenly deposited her gaping baby in the cradle, and now stood at the door. Randall kept without in the darkness. The lost children were admitted to the fire.