"Aye, aye," mumbled Gowrie, "I'm gey auld, and ma child,--weeckedly as she talks to her puir auld faither, must nae be left wi'oot a protector, when I'm in ma lang hame, the which is the grave."
"You have no idea of going to your long home for years," said Kind, coolly. "You lay low and did not come forward to save Mr. Herries until you saw that it would be to your advantage."
"As how?" asked Gowrie politely, but his face grew red.
"You saw in the newspapers that Herries inherited his uncle's money."
"On condeetions, mind ye," chuckled Gowrie.
"So that is why you have come?" asked Elspeth, angrily.
Gowrie rose to his full height, which was tall enough nearly to touch the roof of the caravan, and thrust one hand into the breast of his ragged frock-coat in quite a Napoleonic attitude.
"That," he said in his grand mellow voice, and now quite restored to his native impudence by the whisky, "that is my reason. Whether I guessed that you had assisted Herries to escape or not, matters little. I may have guessed from your betraying eyes at the inn that you had fallen in love with him at once, or I may not. Let that pass. But I am a good father, and it went to my heart to think that one of my blood should slave at a poor inn, when she should be occupying a lady's position, seeing that she,--I allude to you, Elspeth,--is a lady born and bred. I therefore said, when I saw that Herries was likely to become a millionaire, I said to myself that it would be as well to be his father-in-law. And I charge you, Elspeth, as you are my daughter, to marry this man, and keep your father in comfort in his old age. 'Honour thy father and thy mother' says the Book of books, and do not----"
This episode of the devil quoting scripture to gain his own ends was cut short by a choking laugh, which came from under Mr. Gowrie's feet. The old man jumped up, as though a bomb was about to explode, and Elspeth began to explain.
"It's the dog," she said in a hurried tone. "It's the----"