“This is what Lucy will never listen to,” said Jock, solemnly; “she says it can’t be true; she says there never was a woman like that. She says she’ll beat me if I go on; but it is the real end to the story all the same. Well, you know, the woman was wild; she didn’t know what she was doing. Just when they were going to crunch her with their teeth in her neck, she turned round, and she took up one of the children and flung it out into the middle of the wolves; and the little thing gave just one more cry (he was crying, you know, before), and the wolves caught him in their big teeth, and tore him, one a piece here, and another a piece there, hundreds and hundreds of them; and the old white horse galloped on and on. “Well, but then that was only one,” said Jock, resuming after a pause; “when they had eaten that little thing all up, they were not half satisfied, and they said to each other, ‘Come on,’ and two minutes after, what should the woman hear but the whole mob of them after her again, and the sound of them panting and their breaths on her neck. And she took hold of another little child--” “You needn’t tell me any more,” said the old man; “where did you get these dreadful stories; they turn one sick.” “She threw them all out, the first, and the second, and the third,” cried the boy, making haste to complete his narrative, “and then she was saved herself. Lucy never gets further than the first; but you’ve heard the second. And she says it can’t be true; but it is true,” said Jock, severely; “many people have told it. I’ve read another story--” “Hold your tongue, child,” said the old man. Which Jock did at once. He was ready to come forward, to recount his experience, or instruct others by his large amount of miscellaneous reading whenever it was necessary, but he did not thrust his information upon unwilling ears. He turned round again promptly, and, laying his book down on the white rug, supported himself on his elbows and resumed his reading. Jock had a perfectly good conscience, and could hear any number of parables (though he was always suspicious of them) without turning a hair.