“It is Saturday afternoon, Neil. Feyther and Eneas will be up from the boats anon. I dinna care to write for you, the now. Mither said I was to please mysel’ what I did, and I’m in the mind to go and see Faith Balcarry, and hae a long crack wi’ her.”
Neil looked at her in astonishment. There was a stubborn set to her lovely mouth, he had never seen there before. It was a feminine variety of an expression he understood well when he saw it on his father’s lips. Immediately he changed his tactics.
“Your eyes look luck on anything you write, Christine, and you know how important these last papers are to me—and to all of us.”
“Wouldna Monday suit them, just as weel?”
“No. There will be others for Monday. I am trusting to you, Christine. You always have helped me. You are my Fail-Me-Never!”
She blushed and smiled with the pleasure this acknowledgment 16 gave her, but she did not relinquish her position. “I am vera sorry, Neil,” she answered, “but I dinna see how I can break my promise to Faith Balcarry. You ken weel what a friendless creature she is in this world. How could I disappoint a lass whose cup is running o’er wi’ sorrow?”
“I will make a bargain with you, Christine. I will wait until Monday, if you will promise me to keep Cluny Macpherson in his place. He has no business making love to you, and I will make trouble for him if he does so.”
“What ails you at Cluny? He is in feyther’s boat, and like to stay there. Feyther trusts him, and Eneas never has a word out o’ the way with him, and you ken that Eneas is often gey ill to wark wi’, and vera demanding.”
“Cluny Macpherson is all right in the boat, but he is much out of his place holding your two hands, and making love to you. I saw him doing it, not ten minutes ago.”
“Cluny has made love to me a’ his life lang. There is nae harm in his love.”