“Eh, ’tis a bonny wee drappie of port whatever, Mistress Plaistow,” he said. “And I dinna ken that ye’re far wrang in jaloosing that Mistress Mapp might have a wee bitty word to say aboot it a’, ’gin she had the mind.”
“She was wrong about the portmanteau,” said Diva. “Confessed she was wrong.”
“Hoots! I’m not mindin’ the bit pochmantie,” said the Padre.
“What else does she know?” asked Diva feverishly.
There was no doubt that the Padre had the fullest attention of the two ladies again, and there was no need to talk Scotch any more.
“Begin at the beginning,” he said. “What do we suppose was the cause of the quarrel?”
“Anything,” said Diva. “Golf, tiger-skins, coal-strike, summer-time.”
He shook his head.
“I grant you words may pass on such subjects,” he said. “We feel keenly, I know, about summer-time in Tilling, though we shall all be reconciled over that next Sunday, when real time, God’s time, as I am venturing to call it in my sermon, comes in again.”
Diva had to bite her tongue to prevent herself bolting off on this new scent. After all, she had invested in crab to learn about duelling, not about summer-time.