FullReads

“What does he mean by a’ that screed?” she asked. “It’s like a bit o’ a sermon.”

Now, my wife takes the general good out of a sermon, but she does not always trouble to translate pulpit language into plain talk.

“He means that there’s six o’ yin an’ half a dizzen o’ the ither,” I explained, to smooth her down.

“Na, they’re no’ that,” said Mrs. M’Quhirr; “my laddie may be steerin’, I’m no’ denyin’; but he’s no’ to be named in the same day as that misleered hound, the minister’s loon!”

It was evidently more than ever necessary to proceed with circumspection.

“At any rate, let us hear what the laddie has to say for himsel’. Where is he?” I said.

“He’s in the barn,” said his mother shortly.

To the barn I went. It is an old building with two doors, one very large, of which the upper half opens inwards; and the other gives a cheery look into the orchard when the sugar-plums are ripening. One end was empty, waiting for the harvest, now just changing into yellow, and the other had been filled with meadow hay only the week before.

“Alec!” I cried, as I came to the door.

There was an answer like the squeaking of a rat among the hay, and I thought, “Bless me, the boy’s smothered!” But then again I minded that in his times of distress, after a fight or when he had been in some ploy for which he dared not face his father, Alec had made himself a cave among the hay or corn in the end of the barn. Like all Lowland barns, ours has got a row of three-cornered unglazed windows, called “wickets.” Through one of these I have more than once seen Alec vanish when hard pressed by his mother, and have been amused even under the sober face of parental discipline. For, once through, no one could follow the boy. There was no one about the farm slender enough to scramble after. I had not the smallest doubt that the scapegrace was now lying snugly in his hole, impregnable behind the great hay-mow, provisioned with a few farls of cake from his mother, and with his well-beloved Robinson Crusoe for sole companion of the solitary hours.

I went round to the opening and peered in, but could see nothing. “Alec,” says I, “come oot this moment!”

“Nae lickin’, then, faither?” says a voice out of the wicket.

“No, if ye come oot an’ tell the truth like a man.”

So I took him ben to the “room” to be more solemn-like, and bade him tell the whole story from the start. This he did fairly on the whole, I am bound to confess, with sundry questions and reminders here and there from his mother and me.

“Weel, mither, the way o’ it was this. We had only a half-day yesterday at the schule,” he began, “for the maister was gaun to a funeral; an’ when I cam’ oot at denner-time I saw Airchie Marchbanks, an’ he said that his faither was gaun up the lochside veesitin’, that he was gaun, too, an’ if I likit I could hing on ahint. So I hid my buiks aneath a stane–“

“Ye destructionfu’ vagabond, I’ll get yer faither to gie ye a guid–“

“But, mither, it was a big braid stane. They’re better there than cadgin’ them hame an’ maybe lossin’ them. An’ my faither promised that there was to be nae lickin’ if I telt the truth.”

“Weel, never mind the buiks,” said I, for this had nothing to do with the minister’s letter. “Gae on wi’ your story.”

“The minister startit aboot twa o’clock wi’ the auld meer in the shafts, Airchie on the front seat aside his faither, an’ me sittin’ on the step ahint.”

“Did the minister ken ye war there?” asked his mother.

“Nae fears!” said Alexander M’Quhirr the younger, unabashed. It is a constant wonder to his mother whom he takes after. But it is no great wonder to me. It had been indeed a greater wonderment to me that Alec should so readily promise to accompany the minister; for whenever either a policeman or a minister is seen within miles of Drumquhat, my lad takes the shortest cut for the fastnesses of Drumquhat Bank, there to lie like one of his hunted forebears of the persecution, till the clear buttons or the black coat have been carefully watched off the premises.