“It’s a terrible hoose, yon o’ Lossie,” said Miss Horn; “and there’s been terrible things dune intill ’t. The auld markis was an ill man. I daurna say what he wadna hae dune, gien half the tales be true ’at they tell o’ ’im; an’ the last ane was little better. This ane winna be sae ill, but it’s clear ’at he’s tarred wi’ the same stick.”
“I dinna think he means onything muckle amiss,” agreed Malcolm, whose wrath had by this time subsided a little, through the quieting influences of Miss Horn’s sympathy. “He’s mair thouchtless, I do believe, than ill-contrived—an’ a’ for ’s fun. He spak unco kin’-like to me, efterhin, but I cudna accep’ it, ye see, efter the w’y he had saired my daddy. But wadna ye hae thoucht he was auld eneuch to ken better by this time?”
“An auld fule’s the warst fule ava’,” said Miss Horn. “But naething o’ that kin’, be ’t as mad an’ pranksome as ever sic ploy could be, is to be made mention o’ aside the things at was mutit (muttered) o’ ’s brither. I budena come ower them till a yoong laad like yersel’. They war never said straucht oot, min’ ye, but jist mintit at, like, wi’ a doon-draw o’ the broos, an’ a wee side shak o’ the heid, as gien the body wad say, ‘I cud tell ye gien I daur.’ But I doobt mysel’ gien onything was kent, though muckle was mair nor suspeckit. An’ whaur there’s reik, there maun be fire.”
As she spoke she was doing her best, with many expressions of pity, for his hand. When she had bathed and bound it up, and laid it in a sling, he wished her good-night.
Arrived at home he found, to his dismay, that things had not been going well. Indeed, while yet several houses off he had heard the voices of the Partan’s wife and his grandfather in fierce dispute. The old man was beside himself with anxiety about Malcolm; and the woman, instead of soothing him, was opposing everything he said, and irritating him frightfully. The moment he entered, each opened a torrent of accusations against the other, and it was with difficulty that Malcolm prevailed on the woman to go home. The presence of his boy soon calmed the old man, however, and he fell into a troubled sleep—in which Malcolm, who sat by his bed all night, heard him, at intervals, now lamenting over the murdered of Glenco, now exulting in a stab that had reached the heart of Glenlyon, and now bewailing his ruined bagpipes. At length towards morning he grew quieter, and Malcolm fell asleep in his chair.
CHAPTER XX.
ADVANCES.
When he woke, Duncan still slept, and Malcolm having got ready some tea for his grandfather’s, and a little brose for his own breakfast, sat down again by the bedside, and awaited the old man’s waking.
The first sign of it that reached him was the feebly-uttered question,—
“Will ta tog be tead, Malcolm?”
“As sure ’s ye stabbit him,” answered Malcolm.