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Her bit lassies, Kate and Effie, were better off; for some years before, Nanse Banks had taken up a teaching in a garret-room of a house, at the corner where John Bayne has biggit the sclate-house for his grocery-shop. Nanse learnt them reading and working stockings, and how to sew the semplar, for twal-pennies a-week.
Nanse M'Collum had not been found, and the unfavorable rumor was still at its height, when one morning the town arose and found the walls and streets placarded with what was in those days known as the fatal challenge of the DEAD BOXER! This method of intimating his arrival had always been peculiar to that individual, who was a man of color.
He accordingly descended the Grassy Quarry, and sat on a mossy ledge of rock, over which the brow of a little precipice jutted in such a manner as to render those who sat beneath, visible only from a particular point. Here he had scarcely seated himself when the tread of a foot was heard, and in a few minutes Nanse M'Collum stood beside him.
But although this making of the trust-road was surely a great thing for the parish, and of an advantage to my people, we met, in this year, with a loss not to be compensated that was the death of Nanse Banks, the schoolmistress. She had been long in a weak and frail state; but being a methodical creature, still kept on the school, laying the foundation for many a worthy wife and mother.
She went, on the evening before the battle, to a small dark cabin in one of the most densely inhabited parts of the town, where, secure in their privacy, she found Nanse M'Collum, who had never left the town since the night of the robbery, together with the man called Rody, and another hardened ruffian with red hair.
I was sitting on a laigh stool at the fireside, between the chumley-lug and the gown-tail of old Nanse Snoddie, my mother's aunty, a godly woman, that in her eild we took care of; and as young and old came in, the salutation was in silence, as of guests coming to a burial.
The next morning, a little after the appointed hour, Nell, Rody, and Nanse McCollum, were sitting in deliberation upon their future plans of life, when he of the red hair entered the cabin. "Well," said Nell starting up "what was done? show me?" The man produced a dagger slightly stained with blood. "Damno orrum!" exclaimed the aged fury, "but you've failed an' all's lost if he beats the black."
"Heaven help the poor boy; sure, it's a shame to be tormentin' him this way; but in the name of goodness, Barney, and as you have a sowl to be saved, will you tell us all? Stand back, Nanse, and don't be torturin' the poor lad this way, as I said."
She declared that she felt the same mysterious attachment to them, and to her brother also, from the moment she heard the tones of his voice on the night the robbery was attempted. "Nor could I," said Lamh Laudher Oge, "account for the manner I loved you." Their attention was now directed to Nell, who again spoke. "Nanse, give her back the money I robbed her of.
"Why, thin, bad cess to you, Lamh Laudher," she exclaimed, "but it's a purty chase I had afther you." "The sorra any thing, at all, at all, only to see if you war here. Miss Ellen sent me to tell you that she's afeard she can't come this evenin', unknownst to them." "An' am I not to wait, Nanse?"
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