“But,” said Mrs Ogilvy, “where would be my faith then, and my peace of mind? Nobody has harmed me all my days--not a living creature--if it were not them that were of my own house,” she added, after a moment’s pause. “And who am I that I should distrust my neighbours?--no, no, Mr Somerville. There is Robbie to take care of me, if there was any danger. But I am not feared for any danger--unless it were for him--and you think there will be none for him?” “That would be too much to say. If he were followed here by any of those ill companions---- Mind now, my dear lady. You say Robert will take care of you. It will be far more you that will have to take care of him.” “I have done that all his days,” she said, with a smile and a sigh; “but, oh, he is beyond me now--a big, strong, buirdly man.” They were Janet’s words, and it was in the light of Janet’s admiration that his mother repeated them. “I am scarcely higher than his elbow,” she said, with a more genuine impulse of her own. “And who am I to take care of a muckle strong man.” “Mind!” cried the old gentleman, with a kind of solemnity, “that’s just the danger. If there’s cronies coming after him, Lord bless us, it may just be life or death. Steek your doors, Mrs Ogilvy, steek your doors. Let no stranger come near you. And mind that it is you to take care of Robert, not him of you.” She came away much shaken by this interview. And yet it was very difficult to frighten her, notwithstanding all her fears. Already as she came down the dusty stairs from Mr Somerville’s office, her courage began to return. Everybody had warned her of the danger of tramps and vagabonds for the last twenty years, but not a spoon had ever been stolen, nor a fright given to the peaceful inhabitants of the Hewan. No thief had ever got into the house, or burglar tried the windows that would have yielded so easily. And it could not be any friend of Robbie’s that would come for any small amount of money she could have, to his mother’s house. No, no. Violence had been done, there had been quarrels, and there had been bloodshed. But that was very different from Mr Somerville’s advices about the money in the house. Robbie’s friends might be dangerous men, they might lead him into many, many ill ways; but her little money--no, no, there could be nothing to do with that. She went home accordingly almost cheerfully. To be delivered from her own thoughts, and brought in face of the world, and taught to realise all that had happened as within the course of nature, and a thing to be faced and to be mended, not to lie down and die upon, was a great help to her. She would lock the doors and fasten the windows as they all said. She would watch that no man should come near that was like to harm her son. To do even so much or so little as that for him, it would be something, something practical and real. She would not suffer her eyelids to slumber, nor her eyes to sleep. She would be her own