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"By the way," he continued, rising and going to the mantelpiece, "you may be interested to have a look at the so-called 'waeful dagger. Young Jarnock was kind enough to present it to me, as a little memento of my adventure." He handed it 'round to us and whilst we examined it, stood silent before the fire, puffing meditatively at his pipe.
An' tell 'em this, too" and, as he rose, his whole face and figure assumed a dignity, an awfulness, which I had never seen before in him "tell them that ha' driven out and , an' every one that daur speak a word o' common sense, or common humanity them that stone the prophets, an' quench the Spirit o' God, and love a lie, an' them that mak the same them that think to bring about the reign o' love an' britherhood wi' pikes an' vitriol bottles, murther an' blasphemy tell 'em that ane o' fourscore years and mair ane that has grawn grey in the people's cause that sat at the feet o' Cartwright, an' knelt by the death-bed o' Rabbie Burns ane that cheerit Burdett as he went to the Touer, an' spent his wee earnings for Hunt an' Cobbett ane that beheld the shaking o' the nations in the Ninety-three, and heard the birth-shriek o' a newborn world ane that while he was yet a callant saw Liberty afar off, an' seeing her was glad, as for a bonny bride, an' followed her through the wilderness for threescore weary waeful years sends them the last message that e'er he'll send on airth: tell 'em that they're the slaves o' warse than priests and kings the slaves o' their ain lusts an' passions the slaves o' every loud-tongued knave an' mountebank that'll pamper them in their self-conceit; and that the gude God'll smite 'em down, and bring 'em to nought, and scatter 'em abroad, till they repent, an' get clean hearts and a richt speerit within them, and learn His lesson that he's been trying to teach 'em this threescore years that the cause o' the people is the cause o' Him that made the people; an' wae to them that tak' the deevil's tools to do his wark wi'! Gude guide us!
I stooped over it and pointed. There, driven right through the thick steel breastplate, was the 'waeful dagger. "Good God!" said young Jarnock again. "Good God! It's the dagger! The thing's been stabbed, same as Bellett!" "Yes," I replied, and saw him glance swiftly toward the entrance of the Chapel. But I will do him the justice to say that he never budged an inch.
Tell her of the fool lies I sent to Thrums, but dinna forget what a bonny place I thought it all the time, nor how I stood on many a driech night at the corner of that street, looking so waeful at the lighted windows, and hungering for the wring of a Thrums hand or the sound of the Thrums word, and all the time the shrewd blasts cutting through my thin trails of claithes.
He lifted his face, lined with sudden shadows, to the stars that now were lighting to the east, and I heard his teeth grind. "So that's the bitter end of it!" said I to myself, stunned by this pitiful conclusion. My mind groped back on the events of the whole waeful winter.
Here she heaved a sigh, which set the S. S. U. C. to laughing, and began. Wee, crimson-tippet Willie Wink, Wae's me, drear, dree, and dra, A waeful thocht, a fearsome flea, A wuther wind, and a'. Sair, sair thy mither sabs her lane, Her een, her mou, are wat; Her cauld kail hae the corbies ta'en, And grievously she grat. Ah, me, the suthering of the wind! Ah, me, the waesom mither!
"Babbie, Babbie," exclaimed Nanny, with spirit, "may I never be so far left to mysel' as to change my kirk just because I like another minister better! It's easy seen, lassie, that you ken little o' religious questions." "Very little," Babbie admitted, sadly. "But dinna ba so waeful about it," the old woman continued, kindly, "for that's no nane like you. Ay, and if you see muckle mair o' Mr.
"Dogs! dogs! heaven's worst ill on ye, dogs!" she cried, a waeful spectacle, and she spat on us as we carried her beside the fire to try and staunch her wound. She had a fierce knife at her waist and would have used it had she the chance, but we removed it from her reach, and she poured a fresher, fuller stream of malediction.
"You've given away a' your bonny things, Grizel," he said, "one by one, and this notion is the bonniest o' them a'. I'm thinking that when it cam' into your head you meant it for yoursel'." Grizel smiled at him. "I mind," Corp went on, "how when you was little you couldna see a bairn without rocking your arms in a waeful kind o' a way, and we could never thole the meaning o't.
"The wild flowers spring, and the wee birdies sing, And in sunshine the waters are gleaming, But the broken heart, it kens nae second spring, Though the waeful may cease frae their greetin'." She joined him then in the refrain, both keeping perfect time:
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