“And what good would that do? They would only curse me, and go somewhere else.”
“Where could they go, where the same law wouldn’t hold, my lord? The coast is yours for miles and miles on both sides.”
“I don’t know that it should be.”
“Why not, my lord? It has belonged to your family from time immemorial, and will belong to it, I trust, while the moon endureth.”
“They used to say,” said the marquis thoughtfully, as if he were recalling something he had heard long ago, “that the earth was the Lord’s.”
“This part of it is Lord Lossie’s,” said Mr Cairns, combining the jocular with the complimentary in one irreverence; but, as if to atone for the freedom he had taken—“The Deity has committed it to the great ones of the earth to rule for him,” he added, with a devout obeisance to the delegate.
Lord Lossie laughed inwardly.
“You can even turn them out of their houses, if you please, my lord,” he superadded.
“God forbid!” said the marquis.
“A threat—the merest hint of such a measure is all that would be necessary.”