His mouth tightened suddenly. A slight frown wrinkled his brow, and his eyes flickered quickly upon her, and then to the paper in her hand.
Suddenly, as though a nameless fear had gripped him, he glowered at her, and snatched the thing out of her fingers. Then, turning his back, he read it at a glance, and, flinging it upon the ground, burst into a torrent of Gaelic, his face a deep scarlet with fury. His unruffled composure was gone. In its place was the blazing Highland temper. Words poured from his lips, his eyes flashed with impotent rage, his whole body trembled with passion.
"Are you ill, sir?" cried Miss Macpherson, fearing he had gone mad.
But he only snarled at her. Then, swinging about, he began to stride backwards and forwards between the trees, muttering in low tones, his hands clenched, and his chin upon his chest. After a dozen turns in this fashion he seemed to recollect her presence and, halting a little below her, he raised his gleaming eyes to hers.
"Madam," he said, in a trembling, harsh tone, "I would give all I possess that you and your precious nephew had never seen the light of day. Oh—it is too much!" He broke off, kicking savagely at a tuft of grass.
"But, sir..." she broke in, for once considerably alarmed.
"Don't sir me!" raved Muckle John, snapping her up. "But go, and let me never see your face again!"
"But Rob?"
"The sly ninny! The whey-faced, ungrateful gowk! Let him go hang for his ain dourness! A pretty fool he has made o' me, madam; and no man nor boy either shall live to fling that in my teeth."
With the strength of a sudden terror she caught him by the arm.