"
"Weel, weel, bairn, we _will_ see. But, oh, I'm muckle afraid; d'ye
know, Jeannie, Charlie has been robbing! And wha, think ye, was the
man--wha but--"
"Hush, hush, mother, I know it all already; but let me beneath your
cloak, I'm so frightened."
And the little sprite got in, keeping her head and the little cup of a
bonnet protruding every moment to look round; yet if it could have been
seen in the dark, with such a sly, half-humorous eye, as betokened one
of those curiously-made creatures who seem to be formed for studies to
the thoroughgoing decent pacers of the world's stage.
"Ah! now we're all safe, as poor Charlie will be to-morrow," she cried,
as they got to the foot of the long row, and she emerged in the light of
one of the lamps, so like a flash from a cloud, running before her
mother to get her to walk faster and faster, as if some scheme she had
in her head was loitering under the impediment of her mother's wearied,
oh, wearied step.
Having at length reached home, Jeannie ran and got the fire as bright as
her own eye, crying out occasionally, as she glanced about,
"Poor Charlie in a dungeon!" and again, a few minutes after, when
puffing at the fire with the bellows,
"No fire for dear Charlie; all dark and dismal!"
And then, running for the little paper packet with the cheese and bread,
and setting it down,
"But he'll see the sun to-morrow, and will sleep in his own bed
to-morrow night too; that he shall.
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