its teeth. Gin it greits muckle, I maun jist tak
it oot to my mither. She'll sune quaiet it. Are ye haudin' better?'

'Hoot, ay. I'm a' richt noo. Is yer mither shearin'?'

'Na. She's gatherin'. The shearin' 's some sair wark for her e'en noo. I
suld hae been shearin', but my mither wad fain hae a day o' the hairst.
She thocht it wud du her gude. But I s' warran' a day o' 't 'll sair
(satisfy) her, and I s' be at it the morn. She's been unco dowie
(ailing) a' the summer; and sae has the bairnie.'

'Ye maun hae had a sair time o' 't, than.'

'Ay, some. But I aye got some sleep. I jist tuik the towie (string) into
the bed wi' me, and whan the bairnie grat, I waukit, an' rockit it till
't fell asleep again. But whiles naething wad du but tak him till 's
mammie.'

All the time she was hushing and fondling the child, who went on
fretting when not actually crying.

'Is he yer brither, than?' asked Robert.

'Ay, what ither? I maun tak him, I see. But ye can sit there as lang
's ye like; and gin ye gang afore I come back, jist turn the key 'i the
door to lat onybody ken that there's naebody i' the hoose.'

Robert thanked her, and remained in the shadow by the chimney, which
was formed of two smoke-browned planks fastened up the wall, one on each
side, and an inverted wooden funnel above to conduct the smoke through
the roof. He sat for some time gloomily gazing at a spot of sunlight
which burned on the brown clay floor. All was still as death. And he
felt the white-washed walls even more desolate than if they had been
smoke-begrimed.

Looking about him, he found over his head something which he did not
understand. It was as big as the stump of a great tree. Apparently
it belonged to the structure of the cottage, but he could not, in the
imperfect light, and the dazzling of the sun-spot at which he had
been staring, make out what it was, or how it came to be up
there--unsupported as far as he could see. He rose to examine it,
lifted a bit of tarpaulin which hung before it, and found a rickety box,
suspended by a rope from a great nail in the wall. It had two shelves in
it full of books.

Now, although there were more books in Mr. Lammie's house than in his
grandmother's, the only one he had found that in the least enticed him
to read, was a translation of George Buchanan's History of Scotland.
This he had begun to read faithfully, believing every word of it, but
had at last broken down at the fiftieth king or so. Ima