"Mr. Sampson's been at hame these twa hours and mair, but I dinna think Mr. Harry cam hame wi' him."
"Not come hame wi' him?" said the lady; "desire Mr. Sampson to step this way directly."
"Mr. Sampson," said she, upon his entrance, "is it not the most extraordinary tiring in this world wide, that you, that have free up-putting—bed, board, and washing—and twelve pounds sterling a year, just to look after that boy, should let him out of your sight for twa or three hours?"
Sampson made a bow of humble acknowledgment at each pause which the angry lady made in her enumeration of the advantages of his situation, in order to give more weight to her remonstrance, and then, in words which we will not do him the injustice to imitate, told how Mr. Francis Kennedy "had assumed spontaneously the charge of Master Harry, in despite of his remonstrances in the contrary."
"I am very little obliged to Mr. Francis Kennedy for his pains," said the lady peevishly; "suppose he lets the boy drop from his horse, and lames him? or suppose one of the cannons comes ashore and kills him?—or suppose—"
"Or suppose, my dear," said Ellangowan, "what is much more likely than anything else, that they have gone aboard the sloop or the prize, and are to come round the Point with the tide?"
"And then they may be drowned," said the lady.
"Verily," said Sampson, "I thought M r. Kennedy had returned an hour since—Of a surety I deemed I heard his horse's feet."
"That," said John, with a broad grin, "was Grizzel chasing the humble-cow [A cow without horns] out of the close."
Sampson coloured up to the eyes—not at the implied taunt, which he would never have discovered, or resented if he had, but at some idea which crossed his own mind. "I have been in an error," he said; "of a surety I should have tarried for the babe." So saying, he snatched his bone-headed cane and hat, and hurried away towards Warroch wood, faster than he was ever known to walk before, or after.