e yet more; and, a thought coming into my head, I asked if
he and my father had been twins.

He jumped upon his stool, and the horn spoon fell out of his hand upon
the floor. "What gars ye ask that?" he said, and he caught me by the
breast of the jacket, and looked this time straight into my eyes: his
own were little and light, and bright like a bird's, blinking and
winking strangely.

"What do you mean?" I asked, very calmly, for I was far stronger than
he, and not easily frightened. "Take your hand from my jacket. This is
no way to behave."

My uncle seemed to make a great effort upon himself. "Dod, man, David,"
he said, "ye shouldna speak to me about your father. That's where the
mistake is." He sat a while and shook, blinking in his plate: "He was
all the brother that ever I had," he added, but with no heart in his
voice; and then he caught up his spoon and fell to supper again, but
still shaking.

Now this last passage, this laying of hands upon my person and sudden
profession of love for my dead father, went so clean beyond my
comprehension that it put me into both fear and hope. On the one hand, I
began to think my uncle was perhaps insane, and might be dangerous; on
the other, there came up into my mind (quite unbidden by me, and even
discouraged) a story like some ballad I had heard folk singing, of a
poor lad that was a rightful heir and a wicked kinsman that tried to
keep him from his own. For why should my uncle play a part with a
relative that came, almost a beggar, to his door, unless in his heart he
had some cause to fear him?

With this notion, all unacknowledged, but nevertheless getting firmly
settled in my head, I now began to imitate his covert looks; so that we
sat at table like a cat and a mouse, each stealthily observing the
other. Not another word had he to say to me, black or white, but was
busy turning something secretly over in his mind; and the longer we sat
and the more I looked at him, the more certain I became that the
something was unfriendly to myself.

When he had cleared the platter, he got out a single pipeful of tobacco,
just as in the morning, turned round a stool into the chimney-corner,
and sat a while smoking, with his back to me.

"Davie," he said at length, "I've been thinking"; then he paused, and
said it again. "There's a wee bit siller that I half promised ye before
ye were born," he continued; "promised it to your father. O, naething
legal, ye understand; just gent