"Did I know it?" he shrilled. "That lang-legged jackanapes of a Dickie Jennifer? Light o' love jade that she is, she never cared the snap of a finger for him."
"You are talking far enough beside the mark now," I retorted. "Your daughter loves Richard Jennifer well and truly; and with this entanglement brushed aside she will marry him when he comes back from the wars."
"She will, ye say? And what will become o' the braw acres of Appleby that gait, I'd like to know? But ye're daft, man; clean daft. Didn't I speir her giving him his quittance once for all that night when he rode away after they had pitten ye to bed? She tell't him flat she loved another man."
"Another man?" I echoed. "I—explain yourself, if you please, Mr. Stair. What other man—"
He was at the door by this, and he broke out upon me in such a blast of cursing as I hope never to hear from the lips of such an old man again.
"Ye cold-blooded, crusty devil!" he quavered, when all his breath was spent upon the bigger malisons. "Has it never come intil your thick numbskull that the poor fule lassie is sick wi' love for ye, ye dour-faced loon?"
And with that he let himself out and slammed the door behind him, and I heard him go pottering down the corridor, still cursing me by all the choice phrases he could lay tongue to.