My puir bairn!"
Then she rushed to the stair and shouted,
"Jean, ye limmer! Jean! Fess some het watter, an' some linen cloots."
"I hae nane o' naither," replied Jean from the bottom of the stair.
"Mak up the fire an' put on some watter direckly.--I s' fin' some
clooties," she added, turning to Malcolm, "gien I sud rive the
tail frae my best Sunday sark."
She returned with rags enough for a small hospital, and until the
grumbling Jean brought the hot water, they sat and talked in the
glimmering light of one long beaked tallow candle.
"It's a terrible hoose, yon o' Lossie," said Miss Horn; "and there's
been terrible things dune intill't. The auld markis was an ill man.
I daurna say what he wadna hae dune, gien half the tales be true
'at they tell o' 'im; an' the last ane was little better. This
ane winna be sae ill, but it's clear 'at he's tarred wi' the same
stick."
"I dinna think he means onything muckle amiss," agreed Malcolm,
whose wrath had by this time subsided a little, through the quieting
influences of Miss Horn's sympathy. "He's mair thouchtless, I do
believe, than ill contrived--an' a' for 's fun. He spak unco kin'
like to me, efterhin, but I cudna accep' it, ye see, efter the w'y
he had saired my daddy. But wadna ye hae thoucht he was auld eneuch
to ken better by this time?"
"An auld fule 's the warst fule ava'," said Miss Horn. "But naething
o' that kin', be 't as mad an' pranksome as ever sic ploy could be,
is to be made mention o' aside the things at was mutit (muttered)
o' 's brither.
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