"But what said he?"

"Weel! hm! hm!--He said it was fine frosty weather."

"Ay, nae doobt! He kent that by the way the shuttle flew. Was that a'?"

"Na, nae freely. But cogues hae lugs, and bairns hae muckle een."

For Isie sat on her stool staring at her father and mother alternately, and watching for the result of her mother's attempt at picking the lock of her father's reticence. But the moment she heard the word _lugs_, she knew that she had no chance, and her eyes grew less and their pupils grew larger. Fearing he had hurt her, Andrew said,

"Winna ye hae a starnie jam, Isie? It's grosert-jam."

"Na, thank ye, daddie. Maybe it wad gie me a sair wame," answered the solemn old-faced Scotchwoman of seven.

A child who refuses jam lest it should serve her as the little book did the Apostle John, might be considered prudent enough to be intrusted with a secret. But not a word more was said on the subject, till Isie was in bed, and supposed to be fast asleep, in a little room that opened off the parlour. But she was not asleep. And the door was always left open, that she might fall asleep in the presence of her parents.

Their words therefore flowed freely into her ears, although the meaning only played on her mind with a dull glimmer like that which played on her wall from the fire in the room where they sat talking.

"Ay, woman," began Andrew, "it'll be sair news, this, to the lady ower the watter."

"Ye dinna mean Mistress Forbes, Anerew?"

"'Deed I mean jist her."

"Is't her son? Has he met wi' ony mischeef? What's happent till him? Is he droont, or killt? The Lord preserve's! She'll dee o' 't."

"Na, la.s.s. It's a hantle waur nor a' that."

The woodcuts in Fox's _Book of Martyrs_, of which three folio volumes in black letter lay in the room whence the conversation flowed to Isie's ears, rose in all their hideousuess before the mental vision of the child. In no other way than as torture could she conceive of worse than being killed.

"Ye gar me grue," said Mrs Constable, with a shudder.

"Ay, woman, ye ken little o' the wickedness o' great toons--hoo they lie in wait at ilka corner, wi' their gins and their snares and their pits that they howk to catch the unwary yowth," said Andrew, in something of the pride of superior knowledge.

From this elevation, however, he was presently pulled down in a rather ignominious fashion by his more plain-spoken though not a whit more honest wife.

"Anerew, dinna ye mint (aim) at speikin' like a chapter o' the Proverbs o' Solomon, the son o' Dawvid. Say straucht oot 'at thae coorse jawds that hing aboot i' the gloamin' hae gotten a grip o' the bonnie lad.

Eh! but he'll fair ill; and the Lord hae mercy upo' him--and nane upo'

them!"

"Hoot! hoot! la.s.s; dinna speik wi' sic a venom. Ye ken wha says _Vengeance is mine_?"

"Ay, ay, weel eneuch. And I houp He'll tak's ain upo' sic brazen hizzies. You men-fowk think ye ken a hantle o' things that ye wad haud us ohn kent. But nane kens the wiles o' a wumman, least awa them 'at fa's into them, but anither wumman."

"It's nae savin' lore," said Andrew, a little troubled that his wife should a.s.sert a familiar acquaintance with such things. But she went on.

"Women's jist dreidfu'. Whan ance they gang the ill gait, they're neither to haud nor bin'. And to think o' them layin' han's upo' sic a bonnie weel-behaved laddie as that Alec Forbes, a ceevil, herty cratur, wi' a kin' word an' a joke even for the beggar 'at he geid a bawbee till! Weel, he'll come oot o' their cluiks, maybe no that nmckle the waur efter a', as mony a man frae King Dawvid doonwith afore him."

"Noo, wumman!" said Andrew, in a tone of authority blended with rising indignation; "ye're slidin' aff o' yer ain stule, and ye'll be upo' the grun' afore ye win on to mine. Richt or wrang aboot the women, I bude to ken mair aboot the men nor ye do; and I daur affirm and uphaud that never man cam' oot o' the grip o' thae poor deluded craters--"

Mrs Constable interposed with one single emphatic epithet, not admittable to the ears of this generation; but Andrew resumed, and went on.

"--poor deluded craters, withoot losin' a great pairt o' what was left in him o' the eemage o' G.o.d efter the fall. Woman, he tynes (loses) a heap!"

"Hoo sud ye ken onything aboot that, Anerew?" returned his wife sharply.

"The same way than ye ken sae weel aboot the she side o' the queston, la.s.s. We may jist enlichten ane anither a wee aboot some things, mayhap."

Meantime the ears of the little pitcher in bed had been growing longer and longer with curious horror. The something in itself awfully vague about Alec's fate was wrapt in yet deeper clouds of terror and mystery by the discord of opinion with regard to it on the part of her father and mother, whom she had rarely heard differ. She pictured to herself the image of his Maker being scratched off Alec by the claws of furies; and hot pincers tearing nail after nail from the hand which had once given her a penny. And her astonishment was therefore paralyzing when she heard her father say:

"But ye maun haud a quaiet tongue i' yer heid, guidwife; for weel as ye like the laddie, ye may blast his character gin ye say a word aboot it."

"I s' warran' it's a' ower Glamerton afore it comes to your lugs, Anerew," returned her mother. "They're no that gleg efter sic news. But I wad like sair to ken wha sent hame the word o' 't."

"I'm thinking it's been young Bruce."

"The Lord be praised for a lee!" exclaimed Mrs Constable. "Haena I tell't ye afore noo, sae that it's no upmak to pick the lock o' the occasion, Anerew, that Rob Bruce has a spite at that faimily for takin'

sic a heap o' notice o' Annie Annerson. And I wadna wonner gin he had set's hert upo' merryin' her upo' 's ain Rob, and sae keepin' her bit siller i' the faimily. Gin that be sae, he micht weel gie Alec Forbes a back-handit cloot (blow)."

"'Deed! maybe, gudewife. He's a burnin' and a shinin' licht amo' you missioners, though; and ye maunna say ill o' 'm, for fear he has ye up afore the kirk."

"Ay, deed is he! He's a burnin' shame, and a stinkin' lamp; for the grace o' G.o.d wasna hauden to the nib o' 'm lang eneuch to set him in a low (flame), but only lang eneuch to gar the ile o' 'm reek fit to scomfish (suffocate) a haill Sodom."

"Hoot, la.s.s! Ye're ower sair even upo' him. But it's verra true that gin the story cam' frae that en' o' the toon, there's room for rizzonable doobts. Sae we'll awa' to our beds, and houp things mayna be sae far gane as the soun' o' them. Only I drede there's aye some water whaur the stirkie droons."

It was long before little Isie got to sleep, what with attempting to realize the actual condition of Alec Forbes, and trying to excogitate the best means for his deliverance. Why should not all Glamerton set out in a body with flails and pitchforks? And if she must not meddle for that, seeing her father had said the matter must not be mentioned, yet his prohibition could not include Alec's mother, whom it would be wicked to keep in ignorance. For what would Isie think if she was taken prisoner by a cruel woman and they would not tell her mother? So she fell asleep, to wake in the morning with the sense of a mission upon her important little mind.

What rendered it probable that the rumour came from "that end of the town" was, that Bruce the younger was this year a bejan at Alec's college, and besides was the only other scion of Glamerton there grafted, so that any news about Alec other than he would care to send himself, must in all likelihood have come through him.--For Bruce the elder had determined that in his son he would restore the fallen fortunes of the family, giving him such an education as would ent.i.tle him to hold up his head with the best, and especially with that proud upstart, Alec Forbes.

The news had reached Thomas Crann, and filled him with concern. He had, as was his custom in trouble, betaken himself straightway to "the throne of grace," and "wrestled in prayer" with G.o.d that he would restore the prodigal to his mother. What would Thomas have thought if he had been told that his anxiety, genuine as it was, that his love, true as it was, did not come near the love and anxiety of another man who spent his evenings in drinking whisky and reading heathen poets, and who, although he knew not a little of his Bible, never opened it from one end of the year to the other? If he had been told that Cosmo Cupples had more than once, after the first tumbler of toddy and before the second, betaken himself to his prayers for his poor Alec Forbes, and entreated G.o.d Almighty to do for him what he could not do, though he would die for him--to rescue him from the fearful pit and the miry clay of moral pollution--if he had heard this, he would have said that it was a sad pity, but such prayers could not be answered, seeing he that prayed was himself in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.

There was much shaking of the head amongst the old women. Many an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and many a meditative _eh me_! were uttered over Alec's fall; and many a word of tender pity for his poor mother floated forth on the frosty air of Glamerton; but no one ventured to go and tell the dreary tidings. The men left it to the women; and the woman knew too well how the bearer of such ill news would appear in her eyes, to venture upon the ungracious task. So they said to themselves she must know it just as well as they did; or if she did not know, poor woman!

she would know time enough for all the good it would do her. And that came of sending sons to colleges! &c., &c.

But there was just one not so easily satisfied about the extent of her duties: that was little Isie Constable.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

The tertians gave a supper at Luckie c.u.mstie's, and invited the magistrands. On such an occasion Beauchamp, with his high sense of his own social qualities, would not willingly be absent. When the hour arrived, he took his place near the head of the table.

After all the solid and a part of the liquid entertainment was over, Alec rose in the s.p.a.ce between two toasts, and said:

"Mr Chairman and gentlemen, I propose, at my own proper cost, to provide something for your amus.e.m.e.nt."

Beauchamp and all stared at the speaker.