"Oh," she said, "we ha’ena’ escaped. Lag often gi’es us a ca’, but there’s a kin’ o’ understandin’ between him and me. It’s this way, ye see; before she got married my mother was a sewing-maid to his mother, and when my faither deid and she was left ill-provided, and wi’ me to think o’, she went back to Mistress Grierson and tellt her her trouble. Weel, Mrs. Grierson liked my mother and she took her back, and she said: ’Mrs. Kilpatrick,’ says she, ’if you will come back, you can bring wee Jean wi’ ye. What a bairn picks will never be missed in a hoose like this, and the lassie can play wi’ my Robert. Ye see he has neither brither nor sister o’ his ain, and is like to be lonely, and your lassie, bein’ six or seeven years aulder than him, will be able to keep him oot o’ mischief.’ "And so it cam’ aboot, and for maybe eight years I was as guid as a sister to him. But he was aye a thrawn wee deevil--kind-hearted at times, but wi’ an awfu’ temper. Ye see his mother spoiled him. Even as a laddie he was fond o’ his ain way, and he was cruel then tae. I min’ weel hoo he set his dog on my white kittlin, but I let him ken aboot it, because when the wee thing was safe in the kitchen again I took him by the hair o’ the held and pu’d oot a guid handfu’. My mither skelped me weel, but it was naething to the skelpin’ I gie’d him the first chance I got. His mother never correkit him; it was ’puir Rob this, and puir Rob that,’ and if it hadna’ been that every noo and then, when my mither’s patience was fair worn oot, she laid him ower her knee, I’m thinkin’ Lag would be a waur man the day than he gets the blame o’ bein’. There’s guid in him; I’m sure o’t, for even the de’il himsel’ is no’ as black as he’s painted: but his heid has been fair turned since the King sent for him to London and knighted him wi’ his ain sword. "I bided in his mother’s hoose till I was maybe seventeen years auld, and then my mither got mairrit again and left Dunscore to come and live near Dairy. Weel, I had never seen Lag frae that day till maybe a year sin’, when the troopers began to ride through and through this country-side. Ae day I was oot-bye at the kirn when I heard the soond o’ horses comin’ up the loanin’, and turnin’, I saw Lag ridin’ at the heid o’ a company o’ armed men. There was a scowl on his face, and when I saw him and minded the ill wark that I heard he had done in ither pairts, I was gey feart. He shouted an order to his troop and they a’ drew rein. Then he cam’ forrit tae me. ’Woman,’ he said, ’Where’s yer man?’