a'?"

"Na, nae freely. But cogues hae lugs, and bairns hae muckle een."

For Isie sat on her stool staring at her father and mother alternately,
and watching for the result of her mother's attempt at picking the lock
of her father's reticence. But the moment she heard the word _lugs_,
she knew that she had no chance, and her eyes grew less and their
pupils grew larger. Fearing he had hurt her, Andrew said,

"Winna ye hae a starnie jam, Isie? It's grosert-jam."

"Na, thank ye, daddie. Maybe it wad gie me a sair wame," answered the
solemn old-faced Scotchwoman of seven.

A child who refuses jam lest it should serve her as the little book did
the Apostle John, might be considered prudent enough to be intrusted
with a secret. But not a word more was said on the subject, till Isie
was in bed, and supposed to be fast asleep, in a little room that
opened off the parlour. But she was not asleep. And the door was always
left open, that she might fall asleep in the presence of her parents.
Their words therefore flowed freely into her ears, although the meaning
only played on her mind with a dull glimmer like that which played on
her wall from the fire in the room where they sat talking.

"Ay, woman," began Andrew, "it'll be sair news, this, to the lady ower
the watter."

"Ye dinna mean Mistress Forbes, Anerew?"

"'Deed I mean jist her."

"Is't her son? Has he met wi' ony mischeef? What's happent till him? Is
he droont, or killt? The Lord preserve's! She'll dee o' 't."

"Na, lass. It's a hantle waur nor a' that."

The woodcuts in Fox's _Book of Martyrs_, of which three folio volumes
in black letter lay in the room whence the conversation flowed to
Isie's ears, rose in all their hideousuess before the mental vision of
the child. In no other way than as torture could she conceive of worse
than being killed.

"Ye gar me grue," said Mrs Constable, with a shudder.

"Ay, woman, ye ken little o' the wickedness o' great toons--hoo they
lie in wait at ilka corner, wi' their gins and their snares and their
pits that they howk to catch the unwary yowth," said Andrew, in
something of the pride of superior knowledge.

From this elevation, however, he was presently pulled down in a rather
ignominious fashion by his more plain-spoken though not a whit more
honest wife.

"Anerew, dinna ye mint (aim) at speikin' like a chapter o' the Proverbs
o' Solomon, the son o' Dawvid. Say straucht oot 'at thae coorse jawds
that hing aboot