Her visits were the greater comfort to Duncan, that Malcolm was now
absent almost every night, and most days a good many hours asleep;
had it been otherwise, Florimel, invisible for very width as was
the gulf between them, could hardly have made them so frequent.
Before the fishing season was over, the piper had been twenty times
on the verge of disclosing every secret in his life to the high
born maiden.
"It's a pity you haven't a wife to take care of you, Mr MacPhail,"
she said one evening. "You must be so lonely without a woman to
look after you!"
A dark cloud came over Duncan's face, out of which his sightless
eyes gleamed.
"She'll haf her poy, and she'll pe wanting no wife," he said
sullenly. "Wifes is paad."
"Ah!" said Florimel, the teasing spirit of her father uppermost
for the moment, "that accounts for your swearing so shockingly the
other day?"
"Swearing was she? Tat will pe wrong. And who was she'll pe swearing
at?"
"That's what I want you to tell me, Mr MacPhail."
"Tid you'll hear me, my laty?" he asked in a tone of reflection,
as if trying to recall the circumstance.
"Indeed I did. You frightened me so that I didn't dare come in."
"Ten she'll pe punished enough. Put it wass no harm to curse ta
wicket Cawmill."
"It was not Glenlyon--it wasn't a man at all; it was a woman you
were in such a rage with."
"Was it ta rascal's wife, ten, my laty?" he asked, as if he were
willing to be guided to the truth that he might satisfy her, but
so much in the habit of swearing, that he could not well recollect
the particular object at a given time.
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