The poor woman had halted many times in her tale, and she was glad to make an end.  “You’ve forgotten what a life he led me in London,” she said, “and it could do you no good to hear it, though it might be a lesson to thae lassies at the dancing-school wha think so much o’ masterful men.  It was by betting at horseraces that your father made a living, and whiles he was large o’ siller, but that didna last, and I question whether he would have stuck to me if I hadna got work.  Well, he’s gone, and the Thrums folk’ll soon ken the truth about Jean Myles now.”

She paused, and then cried, with extraordinary vehemence:  “Oh, man, how I wish I could keep it frae them for ever and ever!”

But presently she was calm again and she said:  “What I’ve been telling you, you can understand little o’ the now, but some of it will come back to you when you’re a grown man, and if you’re magerful and have some lassie in your grip, maybe for the memory of her that bore you, you’ll let the poor thing awa’.”

And she asked him to add this to his nightly prayer:  “O God, keep me from being a magerful man!” and to teach this other prayer to Elspeth, “O God, whatever is to be my fate, may I never be one of them that bow the knee to magerful men, and if I was born like that and canna help it, oh, take me up to heaven afore I’m fil’t.”

The wardrobe was invisible in the darkness, but they could still hear Elspeth’s breathing as she slept, and the exhausted woman listened long to it, as if she would fain carry away with her to the other world the memory of that sweet sound.

“If you gang to Thrums,” she said at last, “you may hear my story frae some that winna spare me in the telling; but should Elspeth be wi’ you at sic times, dinna answer back; just slip quietly away wi’ her.  She’s so young that she’ll soon forget all about her life in London and all about me, and that’ll be best for her.  I would like her lassiehood to be bright and free frae cares, as if there had never been sic a woman as me.  But laddie, oh, my laddie, dinna you forget me; you and me had him to thole thegither, dinna you forget me!  Watch ower your little sister by day and hap her by night, and when the time comes that a man wants her—­if he be magerful, tell her my story at once.  But gin she loves one that is her ain true love, dinna rub off the bloom, laddie, with a word about me.  Let her and him gang to the Cuttle Well, as Aaron and me went, kenning no guile and thinking none, and with their arms round one another’s waists.  But when her wedding-day comes round—­”

Her words broke in a sob and she cried:  “I see them, I see them standing up thegither afore the minister!  Oh! you lad, you lad that’s to be married on my Elspeth, turn your face and let me see that you’re no’ a magerful man!”

But the lad did not turn his face, and when she spoke next it was to Tommy.