now had settled
upon it, giving the black dirty face and the clean eyes shining through
the dust, a weird strange appearance. "What makes you ask that?"

"Oh, I dinna ken, Rob, but jist thought you micht hae kent something,"
she answered evasively.

"No, I dinna ken onything at all aboot her, mither," he said. "If I had
kent onything, dae you think I'd hae kept quiet?"

"Oh, I dinna mean that, Rob," she replied with relief in her voice, "but
I thought that you might hae heard something. That Leezie Johnstone was
in here the day, an' you ken hoo she talks. She was makin' oot that
Mysie had gane wrang, and had ran awa' tae hide it."

"Leezie Johnstone had little to do sayin' onything o' the kind," he said
with some heat in his voice. "There never was a dirty coo in the byre
but it liket a neighbor. I suppose she'll be thinkin' that a' lasses
were like her. These kind of folk hae dam'd strange ideas aboot things.
They get it into their heads it is wrang to do certain things when folk
are no married, but the cloak of marriage flung aboot them mak's the
same things richt. They hinna the brains o' a sewer rat in their
noddles, the dam'd hypocrites that they are!"

"Dinna swear, Rob!" said Mrs. Sinclair, interrupting him. "Do you ken,"
she went on, her astonishment plainly evident in her face and voice,
"that is the first time I ever heard you swear in a' my life!"

"Well, mither, I am sorry; but I couldna' help it. Folk like that get my
temper up gey quick; because they get it into their heids that marriage
makes them virtuous, even though they may be guilty o' greater excesses
after than they were before marriage."

"Ay, that's true, Rob!" she agreed. "But it is a sad business a'
thegether. I wonder what has come owre the bit lassie. God knows where
she may be?"

But Robert was silent, and no matter how much she tried to get him to
speak, he would not be drawn into conversation, but answered merely in
short grunts; but she could see that he was very much disturbed at what
had happened. After a few days the sensation seemed to pass from the
minds of most of the villagers, who soon found something new to occupy
them, in connection with their own affairs.

About this time much interest was being manifested in mining circles.
The labor movement was beginning to shape itself into solidarity towards
political as well as industrial activity. Robert Smillie and the late J.
Keir Hardie, and many other tireless spirits, had