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A Private Of The King’s Own Scottish Borderers
by
One morning–it was a day in the summer of 1746; the heather was bursting into bloom, shadows of great fleecy clouds trailed sleepily over the quiet hillsides, larks sang high in the heavens, blue-bells swung their heads lazily in the gentle breeze, and all things spoke of peace–there came the tramp of horses down the glen, past the rocks where the rowan-trees grew, and so up to the cottage door.
“Hi, old lady!” shouted the sergeant in charge of a half-dozen dragoons, “we must ha’ some’at to eat and drink. We’ve been scouring them infernal hills since break o’ day, and it’s time we picked a bit.”
“Weel, sirs,” said the poor widow, “it’s but little I hae gotten, but that little ye shall freely hae.” And she brought them “lang kale” and butter, and for drink offered them new milk, saying, as she handed it to the man, that this was her whole stock.
“Whole stock!” growled one who did not relish such food, “whole stock! A likely story! I daresay, if the truth was known, the old hag’s feeding a rebel she’s got hidden away in some snug hole hereaway.”
“‘Deed, sirs, there’s no rebels here. An’ that’s a’ my son an’ me has to live on.”
“How do you live in this outlandish spot all the year round, then, mistress?”
“Indeed, sir,” said the woman, “the cow and the kailyaird, and whiles a pickle oat meal, wi’ God’s blessing, is a’ my mailen. The Lord has provided for the widow and the faitherless, and He’ll aye provide.”
“We’ll soon see about that,” said the ruffian. With his sabre, and paying no heed to the helpless woman’s lamentations or to the half-hearted remonstrances of his comrades, he killed the poor widow’s cow; then going to the little patch of garden, he tore up and threw into the burn all the stock of kail.
“There, you old rebel witch,” said he, with a heartless laugh, as the party set forward again, “you may live on God’s blessing now.”
It broke the poor toil-worn widow’s heart, and she died ere the summer was ended. Lost to the ken of his few friends, her boy wandered sorrowfully to another part of the country, and winter storms soon left but the crumbling walls and broken roof of what had been his home.
Thirteen years, almost to a day, passed ere fate brought together again the man who committed that foul wrong and his surviving victim. If retribution came with halting foot, it came none the less surely, for “though the mills of God grind slowly, they grind exceeding small.”