n--

"And if wicked boys will break down the trees--"

"I only pulled the bilberries," interposed Jamie, in a whine which
went off in a howl.

"James Duff!" said Adam, with awful authority, "I saw you myself
tumble over a young larch tree, not two feet high."

"The worse for me!" sobbed Jamie.

"Tut! tut! Mr. Adam! the larch tree wasn't a baby," said Turkey. "Let
Jamie go. He couldn't help it, you see."

"It _was_ a baby, and it _is_ a baby," said Adam, with a solitary
twinkle in the determined dead brown of his eyes. "And I'll have no
intercession here. Transgressors must be prosecuted, as the board
says. And prosecuted he shall be. He sha'n't get out of this before
school-time to-morrow morning. He shall be late, too, and I hope the
master will give it him well. We must make some examples, you see,
Turkey. It's no use your saying anything. I don't say Jamie's a worse
boy than the rest, but he's just as bad, else how did he come to be
there tumbling over my babies? Answer me that, Master Bannerman."

He turned and fixed his eyes upon me. There was question in his mouth,
but neither question nor speculation in his eyes. I could not meet the
awful changeless gaze. My eyes sank before his.

"Example, Master Bannerman, is everything. If you serve my trees as
this young man has done--"

The idea of James Duff being a young man!

"--I'll serve you the same as I serve him--and that's no sweet
service, I'll warrant."

As the keeper ended, he brought down his fist on the table with such a
bang, that poor Jamie almost fell off the stool on which he sat in the
corner.

"But let him off just this once," pleaded Turkey, "and I'll be surety
for him that he'll never do it again."

"Oh, as to him, I'm not afraid of him," returned the keeper; "but will
you be surety for the fifty boys that'll only make game of me if I
don't make an example of him? I'm in luck to have caught him. No, no,
Turkey; it won't do, my man. I'm sorry for his father and his mother,
and his sister Elsie, for they're all very good people; but I must
make an example of him."

At mention of his relatives Jamie burst into another suppressed howl.

"Well, you won't be over hard upon him anyhow: will you now?" said
Turkey.

"I won't pull his skin _quite_ over his ears," said Adam; "and that's
all the promise you'll get out of me."

The tall thin grim sister had sat all the time as if she had no right
to be aware of anything that was going on, but