“I have more courage than you, Janet, for I daur to say it. What! my bonnie Esk no a living thing! What was ever more living than the bonnie running water? Eh, woman, running water is not like anything else in the world! It’s just life itself! It sees everything happen and flows on--no stopping for the like of us creatures of a day. It heartens me to think that there’s aye some bairns sitting playing by it, or some young thing dreaming her dream, or some woman with her little weans--not you and me, for our time is past, but just other folk.” “I’m no like you, mem. I get little comfort out of that. It’s a bonnie stream, and I like the sough of it coming up through the trees; but none of the paper-mills would stop that. And when you think that it will bring siller into the place and wark, and more comfort for the poor folk----” “Will it do that? God forbid that I should go against what brings work and comfort. It will bring new families, Janet, and strange men to sit and drink, and roar their dreadful songs at the public-house door; and more publics, and more dirty wives and miserable weans. I’m just for doing the best we can with what we have,--and that is not an easy thing.” “And I’m for ganging forward,” cried Janet. “The more ye produce the better off ye are--that’s what the books ca’ an axiom. I carena for the new folk; but it is a grand thing to be making something, and putting work into men’s hands to do. Thae poor Millers themselves get but little out of it. They say there’s another of them, the little one with the curly head, that is just going like the rest.” “Oh, Janet, the Lord forbid! the little blue-eyed one, that was just the comfort of the house?” “That’s what folk say. I’m no answering for it. In an unfortunate family like that, ye canna have a sair finger but they’ll say it’s the auld trouble breaking out.” “Poor man, poor man!” cried Mrs Ogilvy. “My heart is wae for him, Janet. He is like the man in the Bible that built Jericho. He has laid his foundations in his first-born, and established his gates on his youngest son. You must tell Andrew that I will want him and Sandy to-morrow to go and inquire. No the bonnie little one that was his comfort!--oh, not her, not her, Janet!” “Mem, it is aye the Lord that kens best.” “I am not misdoubting that; but I’ve had many a thought--I would not aye be blaming the Lord. When the seed is put into the ground, we should be prepared for what it will bring forth, and no look for leaves of silver and apples of gold; but why should I speak? for there is little meaning in words, and we are a strange race--oh, just a strange race--following our wild ways.” Mrs Ogilvy had dropped her stocking by this time into her lap, and she wrung her slender hands as she spoke, with a look that was not like the calm of the place. Whether Janet noted this or merely followed the instinct of her wandering record of events, it was impossible to tell from her steady countenance, which did not change.