“No,” answered the lady. And the girl withdrew.
Drusilla called Pina to follow her and went slowly into her bedroom.
While taking off her bonnet and mantle and changing her dress for dinner, she was scarcely conscious of what she was doing. Her thoughts were absorbed by what had just occurred.
“Poor Alick,” she said; “to love his child, his only son and only child, and not feel free to caress him! Oh, Alick, Alick, dear, do you think I would keep him from you? Much as I love him, you might have him half the time; you might have him all day, so that you would be kind to him, and I know you would be, and would let me have him back at night. Yes, Alick, dear, though you might never see or speak to me again, I would not keep the child out of your way. Love your boy, Alick, dear, and take all the comfort from him you can. He has been a great comfort to me, Alick, the little son you gave me, has.”
So ran her thoughts as she mechanically put on a mauve taffeta dress and fastened her point lace collar with a diamond brooch, scarcely knowing what she wore.
Pina was also holding discourse, but not with herself or in silence.
“My precious little pet,” she said, as she dressed Master Lenny in his embroidered white frock. “My pretty little darling, did its Pea-nut leave it all alone with a stranger in a strange land, where Killchristians go about scalping little babies, my sugar? I will never leave it alone again as long as I live, or leastways as long as we stay in this land, where Killchristians cut and hew at babies! Suppose he had cut off its precious little finger or toe? What would its Pea-nut have done?” Then turning impatiently to her mistress, she said:
“Ma’am, you don’t seem to care at all now about that wild beast of a Killchristian rushing in upon little Lenny like a North American Indian with a drawn knife and scalping off his hair. Suppose it had been his precious nose or his ears that the savage took a fancy to? But it’s my belief after all he was a thief and wanted to sell Lenny’s pretty golden curls to a lady’s hair-dresser; and he would have cut all the curls off his head if he hadn’t heard me coming. Wish I had caught him at his tricks! Never mind, let me ever catch him near little Lenny again, that’s all! Lenny will be certain to know him again, if I do not!”
“You will know him, Pina; but you do not know of whom you are speaking. The gentleman who cut off Lenny’s curl had a perfect right to do so. Lord Killcrichtoun is Mr. Alexander Lyon, or was so until he got his ancestor’s title. Why should you be so astonished? Didn’t you know that he was in London?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Pina, unable to recover from her astonishment; “but London is a biggish willage, and I didn’t expect to see him, much less hear him called Killchristian. Howsever, I think, begging of your pardon, ma’am, as the name suits him very well. ’Deed it’s much of a muchness with the other name, for I reckon as lions kills Christians, and eats ’em too, whenever they get a chance!”