If she had shown herself aggressively
disagreeable, they would have made some attempt to conciliate her; but
as it was, she became at once the object of a succession of spiteful
annoyances, varying in intensity with the fluctuating invention of the
two boys. At one time they satisfied themselves with making grimaces of
as insulting a character as they could produce; at another they rose to
the rubbing of her face with dirt, or the tripping up of her heels.
Their persecution bewildered her, and the resulting stupefaction was a
kind of support to her for a time; but at last she could endure it no
longer, being really hurt by a fall, and ran crying into the shop,
where she sobbed out,
"Please, sir, they winna lat me be."
"Dinna come into the chop wi' yer stories. Mak' it up amo' yersels."
"But they winna mak' it up."
Robert Bruce rose indignant at such an interruption of his high
calling, and went out with the assumption of much parental grandeur. He
was instantly greeted with a torrent of assurances that Annie had
fallen, and then laid the blame upon them; whereupon he turned sternly
to her, and said--
"Annie, gin ye tell lees, ye'll go to hell.
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