“Na, there’s some cods’ amo’ them; but they’re maistly haddicks’. I pikes them oot afore they’re sautit, an’ biles them; an’ syne I polish them i’ my han’s till they’re rale bonny.”
“Can ye tell me onything aboot the mad laird, Phemy?” asked Malcolm, in his anxiety too abruptly.
“Ye can gang an’ speir at my father: he’s oot aboot,” she answered, with a sort of marked coolness, which, added to the fact that she had never looked him in the face, made him more than suspect something behind.
“Div ye ken onything aboot him?” he therefore insisted.
“Maybe I div, an’ maybe I divna,” answered the child, with an expression of determined mystery.
“Ye’ll tell me whaur ye think he is, Phemy?”
“Na, I winna.”
“What for no?”
“Ow, jist for fear ye sud ken.”
“But I’m a freen’ till him.”