In his bewilderment, he called
aloud:
"Nancy! Robbie! Johnnie! We're a' beeriet alive!"
"Preserve's a', Robert! what's happent?" cried his wife, rushing from
the kitchen.
"I'm no beeriet, that I ken o'," cried Robert the younger, entering
from the yard.
His father rushed to the back-door, and, to his astonishment and
relief, saw the whole world about him. It was a private judgment, then,
upon him and his shop. And so it was--a very private judgment. Probably
it was the result of his meditations upon it, that he never after
carried complaints to Murdoch Malison.
Alec Forbes had nothing to do with this revenge. But Bruce always
thought he was at the bottom of it, and hated him the more. He disliked
all _loons_ but his own; for was not the spirit of _loons_ the very
antipodes to that of money-making? But Alec Forbes he hated, for he was
the very antipode to Robert Bruce himself. Mrs Bruce always followed
her husband's lead, being capable only of two devotions--the one to her
husband and children, the other to the shop.--Of Annie they highly and
righteously disapproved, partly because they had to feed her, and
partly because she was friendly with Alec.
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