" "Though I
wouldn't wonder if the widow herself had a touch of stiff-neckedness in
her," he added.
However that might be, Alister held with his mother, of course, and he
said little enough about his paternal relations, except one, whom he
described as "a guid man, and _verra_ canny, but hard on the failings of
the young." What youthful failings in our comrade had helped to snap the
ties of home we did not know, but we knew enough of Alister by this time
to feel sure they could not have been very unpardonable.
It was not difficult to see that it was under the sting of this man's
reproaches that the lad had taken his fate into his own hands.
"I'm not blaming him," said Alister in impartial tones; and then he
added, with a flash of his eyes, "but I'll no be indebted to him!"
We had returned to the town, and were strolling up the shady side of one
of the clean wooden streets, when a strange figure came down it with a
swinging gait, at a leisurely pace. She (for, after a moment's
hesitation, we decided that it was a woman) was of gipsy colouring, but
not of gipsy beauty.
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