"The leddy never bore the best
o' characters, as far 's my memory taks me,--an' that 's back
afore John an' her was merried ony gait. Na, na; John Stewart never
took a dwaum 'cause Ma'colm MacPhail was upo' the ro'd."
Miss Horn was sufficiently enigmatical; but her meaning had at
length, more through his own reflection than her exposition, dawned
upon Duncan. He leaped up with a Gaelic explosion of concentrated
force, and cried,
"Ta woman is not pe no mothers to Tuncan's poy!"
"Huly, huly, Mr MacPhail!" interposed Miss Horn, with good natured
revenge; "it may be naething but fowk's lees, ye ken."
"Ta woman tat ta peoples will pe telling lies of her, wass not pe
ta mother of her poy Malcolm. Why tidn't ta poy tell her ta why
tat he wouldn't pe hafing her?"
"Ye wadna hae him spread an ill report o' his ain mither?"
"Put she 'll not pe his mother, and you 'll not pelieve it, mem."
"Ye canna priv that--you nor him aither."
"It will pe more as would kill her poy to haf a woman like tat to
ta mother of him."
"It wad be near ban' as ill is haein' her for a wife," assented
Miss Horn; "but no freely (quite)," she added.
The old man sought the door, as if for a breath of air; but as he
went, he blundered, and felt about as if he had just been struck
blind; ordinarily he walked in his own house at least, as if he saw
every inch of the way. Presently he returned and resumed his seat.
"Was the bairn laid mither nakit intill yer han's, Maister MacPhail?"
asked Miss Horn, who had been meditating.
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