"Ow, ay! I daursay!--But wha kens--wi' sic a mither!"
She burst out crying, and ran into the street.
Malcolm understood it now.
"She's like a' the lave (rest)!" he said sadly, turning to her
mother.
"I'm jist affrontit wi' the bairn!" she replied, with manifest
annoyance in her flushed face.
"She's true to him," said Malcolm, "gien she binna fair to me.
Sayna a word to the lassie. She 'll ken me better or lang. An' noo
for my story."
Mrs Mair said nothing while he told how he had come upon Lizzy,
the state she was in, and what had passed between them; but he had
scarcely finished, when she rose, leaving a cup of tea untasted,
and took her bonnet and shawl from a nail in the back of the door.
Her husband rose also.
"I 'll jist gang as far 's the Boar's Craig wi' ye mysel', Annie,"
he said.
"I'm thinkin' ye'll fin' the puir lassie whaur I left her," remarked
Malcolm. "I doobt she daured na gang hame."
That night it was all over the town, that Lizzy Findlay was in a
woman's worst trouble, and that Malcolm was the cause of it.
CHAPTER LI: THE LAIRD'S BURROW
Annie Mair had a brother, a carpenter, who, following her to Scaurnose,
had there rented a small building next door to her cottage, and
made of it a workshop. It had a rude loft, one end of which was
loosely floored, while the remaining part showed the couples through
the bare joists, except where some planks of oak and mahogany, with
an old door, a boat's rudder, and other things that might come
in handy, were laid across them in store.
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