“Good morning!” said the youth.
“Good morning, sir!” returned Donal, and went away.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MORVEN ARMS.
On Wednesday evening Donal went to The Morven Arms to inquire for the third time if his box was come. The landlord said, if a great heavy tool-chest was the thing he expected, it had come.
“Donal Grant wad be the name upo’ ’t,” said Donal.
“’Deed, I didna luik,” said the landlord. “It’s i’ the back yard.”
As Donal went through the house to the yard, he passed the door of a room where some of the townsfolk sat, and heard the earl mentioned.
He had not asked Andrew anything about the young man he had spoken with; for he understood that his host held himself not at liberty to talk about the family in which his granddaughter was a servant. But what was said in public he surely might hear! He requested the landlord to let him have a bottle of ale, and went into the room and sat down.
It was a decent parlour with a sanded floor. Those assembled were a mixed company from town and country, having a tumbler of whisky-toddy together after the market. One of them was a stranger who had been receiving from the others various pieces of information concerning the town and its neighbourhood.
“I min’ the auld man weel,” a wrinkled gray-haired man was saying as Donal entered, “—a varra different man frae this present. He wud sit doon as ready as no—that wud he—wi’ ony puir body like mysel’, an’ gie him his cracks, an’ hear his news, an’ drink his glaiss, an’ mak naething o’ ’t. But this man, haith! wha ever saw him cheenge word wi’ brither man?”