"Then deleever it word for word to me, young mon, and I'll trudge off to Frances."
"Your daughter is not at home?"
"What words wu'l ye have me bear to her, lad?" he asked.
That was too much for a youth in a peevish state of convalescence. What lover could send his heart's eloquence by word of mouth with a peppery, prosaic father?
"Tell Mistress Sutherland I must see her at once," I quickly responded with a flash of temper that was ever wont to flare up when put to the test.
"Aye," he answered, with an amused look in the cold, steel eyes. "I'll deleever y'r message when—when"—and he hesitated in a way suggestive of eternity—"I'll deleever y'r message when I see her."
At that I turned my face to the wall in the bitterness of spirit which only the invalid, with all the strength of a man in his whims and the weakness of an infant in his body, knows. I spent a feverish, restless night, with the hard-faced Scotchman watching from his armchair at my bedside. Once, when I suddenly awakened from sleep, or delirium, his eyes were fastened on my face with a gleam of grave kindliness.
"Mr. Sutherland," I cried, with all the impatience of a child, "please tell me, where is your daughter?"
"I sent her to a neighbor, sin' ye came to y'r senses, lad," said he. "Ye hae kept her about ye night and day sin' ye gaed daft, and losh, mon, ye hae gabbled wild talk enough to turn the head o' ony lassie clean daft. An' ye claver sic' nonsense when ye're daft, what would ye say when ye're sane? Hoots, mon, ye maun learn to haud y'r tongue——"
"Mr. Sutherland," I interrupted in a great heat, quite forgetful of his hospitality, "I'm sorry to be the means of driving your daughter from her home. I beg you to send me back to Fort Douglas——"