"Yes. Miss Isla. Please, can I speak to you for a minute or so? There's things in this house that must be sorted."
"Sorted" was a great word with Margaret. She sorted everything from the fire to the hens that she chased out of the little garden or the keeper's boys whom she hounded back to the Moor. Her temper was quick and her tongue not very reserved, but her heart was of gold towards the house she served.
"Why, surely. Come into my room. What's the matter with you? You look angry."
"I hope it's a righteous anger, Miss Isla. All I want to ken iss--What are the duties of Diarmid an' what are mine in this hoose?"
"Dear me, Margaret, what a fuss! Whatever do you mean? Your duties are just what they have always been. I've never been asked the question before. How has it arisen now?"
"It's that Diarmid. He thinks himsel' as fine as the Laird himsel'. Just come here a minute, Miss Isla, will you?"
Isla followed her wonderingly across the narrow landing to the door of the room in which her father had slept in his lifetime. It was the best room in the house, and Margaret, in no doubt that the new Laird would occupy it on his return, had swept and garnished it. But he had refused point-blank, and all his things lay scattered now upon the floor and on the bed, and the drawers were open, giving the room a most untidy aspect.
"Here haf I toiled an' slaved to get the place ready, an' then Maister Malcolm, he will not sleep in it, he says."
"Well, Mr. Malcolm must please himself, Margaret," said Isla rather quickly. "It does not in the least concern you."
"I'm not sayin' that it does. But what I do want to know, Miss Isla, iss if I'm to wait on him as well as to do the cookin' an' look after the whole house. I brought down all Maister Malcolm's things from the attic an' put them in the drawers; an' all the General's things are in the big kists up the stairs. Then, when Maister Malcolm came in he fell into the most fearful rage an' swore like anything an' turned the drawers out on the floor an' roared to me to put them all back up the stairs again. An' what I want to know iss whether it iss my duty or Diarmid's to do that. I haf nefer been in a hoose where the man-servant did not wait upon the master; forby, I haf not time, and, unless you pid me, I will not lift the things up the stairs again. It is Diarmid that should pe doin' it."