before of
Sandy's wife, for I am not gifted with appropriate and religious
reflections in the writing of letters myself. But very greatly do I
admire the accomplishment. Jean was in time of peace greatly closed up
within herself; but in time of extrusion and suffering, her narrow heart
expanded. Notwithstanding the strange writing-desk of stone by the
water-side, the letter was well written, but the great number of words
which had been blurred and corrected as to their spelling, revealed the
turmoil and anxiety of the writer. I have kept it before me as I write
this history, so that I might give it exactly.

Thus we learned that Sandy's side of the house was safe; but what of our
mother and Maisie Lennox?

"Jean says nothing," said Sandy, when I told him. "Good news is no
news!"

And truly this is an easy thing for him to say, who has heard news about
his own. Jean Gordon sent over to her sister's son at Barscobe for word,
but could hear nothing save that the Earlstoun ladies had been put out
of their house without insult or injury, and had gone away no man knew
whither. So with this in the meantime we were obliged to rest as content
as we might.

CHAPTER XXXII.

PLAIN WORDS UPON MEN.

"Heighty-teighty," said Jean Gordon, of the Shirmers, coming in to me
with a breakfast piece one morning as soon as she heard that I was
awake. "The silly folks keep on bletherin' that I cam' awa' here to dee
for love. Weel, I hae leeved forty year in Jean's cot o' the Garpel and
I'm no dead yet. I wat no! I cam' here to be oot o' the men's road. Noo,
there's my sister ower by at Barscobe. She was muckle the better o' a
man, was she no? Never sure whether he wad come hame sober and weel
conditioned frae kirk or market. In the fear o' her life every time that
she heard the soond o' his voice roarin' in the yaird, to ken what was
crossin' him, and in what fettle the wee barn-door Almichty wad be
pleased to come ben-the-hoose in! Wadna the like o' that be a bonny
exchange for the peace and quaitness o' the Garpel side?"

And the old lady shook the white trimmings of her cap, which was
daintily and fairly goffered at the edges. "Na, na," she said, "yince
bitten, twice shy. I hae had eneuch o' men--nesty, saucy, ill-favoured
characters. Wi' half a nose on ye, ye can tell as easy gin yin o' them
be in the hoose, as gin he hed been a tod!"

"And am I not a man, Aunty Jean?" I asked, for indeed she had been very
kind to me.