Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/264

 *that wa' a comfort as regarded her, the on'y comfort; but as for him, the deceiver—I could hae torn his fause heart out.

"But Tibbie helped me in my thirst for revenge. Tibbie an' I haed been alone in the house wi' Alice—nabodie but she an' I kenned the terrible event of the night. She put it into my mind to conceal yer birth; she took ye, poor unconscious babe, under her plaidie, an' awa' wi' ye to the house o' her brither, who had a baby aboot the same age, an' left ye wi' his wife, who promised to rear ye wi' her ain young ane. Tibbie swore them to secrecy, an' kim bock to me; an' wi' our ain hands we made our darlin' ready for the grave—we were a' alane wi' our dead an' our dool; but if we had na' been, I wad hae let nae hand but my ain or Tibbie's touch her sweet bodie.

"An' so my precious Allie wa' laid in her grave, close by the side o' my father an' mither; an' then the auld rector, who knew an' loved my Alice, who haed baptized her, an' read the burial service ower her, an' who knew a' that the young folks cared to tell him, he wrote out to yer father, at the out