The Scotch Twins | Page 7

longer. "It's lucky
there's a cover to the churn else you'd drop to sleep and fall in and
drown yourself in the buttermilk! The butter won't be here at this rate
till to-morrow, when it would break the Sabbath by coming!"
She seized the dasher, as she spoke, and began to churn so vigorously
that the milk splashed up all around the handle. Soon little yellow
specks began to appear; and when they had formed themselves into a
ball in the churn, she lifted it out with a paddle and put it in a pan of
clear cold water. Then she gave Jock a drink of buttermilk.
"Poor laddie!" she said. "You are all tired out! Take a sup of this to put
new strength in you, for you've got to go out and weed the garden. I
looked at the potatoes yesterday, and the weeds have got the start of
them already."
"If I must weed the garden, give me something to eat too," begged Jock.
"This milk'll do no more than slop around in my insides to make me
feel my emptiness."

Jean opened the cupboard door and peeped within.
"There's nothing for you, laddie," she said, "but this piece of a scone.
I'll have to bake more for the Sabbath, and you can have this to give
yourself a more filled-up feeling. And now off with you!"
She took him by the collar and led him to the door; and there on the
step was Tam.
"What are you doing here?" cried Jean, astonished to see him. "You
should be with Father, watching the sheep! It's shame to a dog to be
lolling around the house instead of away on the hills where he
belongs."
Tam flattened himself out on his stomach and dragged himself to her
feet, rolling his eyes beseechingly upward, and if ever a dog looked
ashamed of himself, that dog was Tam. Jean shook her head at him
very sternly, and oh, how the jolly little curls bobbed about
"Tam," she said, "you're as lazy as Jock himself. Whatever shall I do
with the two of you?"
Jock had already finished his scone and he thought this a good time to
disappear. He slipped round the corner of the house and whistled. All
Tam's shame was gone in an instant. He gave a joyous bark and
bounded away after Jock, his tail waving gayly in the breeze.
II. THE RABBIT AND THE GAMEKEEPER
Out in the garden a rabbit had for some time been enjoying himself
nightly in the potato-patch, biting off the young sprouts which were just
sticking their heads through the ground. When the rabbit heard Tam
bark she dashed out of sight behind a burdock leaf and sat perfectly still.
Now if Tam and Jock had come into the garden by the wicket gate, as
they should have done, this story might never have been written at all,
because in that case the rabbit would perhaps have got safely back to
her burrow in the woods without being seen, and there wouldn't have
been any story to tell.
But Tam and Jock didn't come in by the gate. They jumped over the
wall. Jock jumped first and landed almost on top of the rabbit, but
when Tam, a second later, landed in the same place, she was running
for dear life toward the hole in the stone wall where she had got in.
Shouting and barking, Jock and Tam tore after her. Round and round
the garden they flew, but just as they thought they had her cornered, the
rabbit slipped through the hole in the wall and ran like the wind for the

woods. Jock and Tam both cleared the wall at a bound and chased after
her, making enough noise to be heard a mile away.
It happened that there was some one much less than a mile away to
hear it. And it happened, too, that he was the one person in all the
world that Jock would most wish not to hear it, for he was gamekeeper
to the Laird of Glen Cairn, and the Laird of Glen Cairn owned all the
land for miles and miles about in every direction. He owned the little
gray house and the moor, the mountain, and the forest, and even the
little brook that sang by the door. To be sure, the Laird seemed to care
very little for his Highland home. He visited it but once in a great while,
and then only for a few days' hunting. The rest of the year his great
stone castle was occupied only by Eppie McLean, the housekeeper, and
two or three other servants. The Laird did not know his tenants, and
they did not know him. The rents were collected for him