"Rob, if only mithers wad
be mair open wi' their lassies an' tell them o' the things they
shouldna' do, an' the dangers that lie afore them. But tell me aboot
them a'. What did my faither say aboot it? How are they a' keepin'?"
This was the question which Robert had feared most, for although Matthew
Maitland had said very little, everybody knew that he grieved sorely
over his daughter's disappearance, and at the time was lying very ill.
He was fast nearing the end, which most colliers of the day reached--cut
off in middle life, made old by bad ventilation in the mines, and black
damp. His condition was almost despaired of by the doctor, and when
Robert left Lowwood that evening for Edinburgh, he was in a very
critical state. Two months before, the oldest boy, who was some two
years younger than Mysie, had been taken suddenly ill, and had died
after a few days' illness.
How was he to tell Mysie of this? How tell her that John was dead, and
her father perhaps dying? How tell of her mother eating out her heart in
the hungry longing for news of the missing girl, and killing herself
with work and worry?
"Your faither's no' very weel, Mysie," he began evasively, his eyes
turned away from her, in an attempt at hiding what he felt.
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