“I want to speak to you, Ranald,” he said.
I remember so well how the barn looked that day. The upper half of one of the doors had a hole in it, and a long pencil of sunlight streamed in, and fell like a pool of glory upon a heap of yellow straw. So golden grew the straw beneath it, that the spot looked as if it were the source of the shine, and sent the slanting ray up and out of the hole in the door. We sat down beside it, I wondering why Turkey looked so serious and important, for it was not his wont.
“Ranald,” said Turkey, “I can’t bear that the master should have bad people about him.”
“What do you mean, Turkey?” I rejoined.
“I mean the Kelpie.”
“She’s a nasty thing, I know,” I answered. “But my father considers her a faithful servant.”
“That’s just where it is. She is not faithful. I’ve suspected her for a long time. She’s so rough and ill-tempered that she looks honest; but I shall be able to show her up yet. You wouldn’t call it honest to cheat the poor, would you?”
“I should think not. But what do you mean?”
“There must have been something to put old Eppie in such an ill-temper on Saturday, don’t you think?”
“I suppose she had had a sting from the Kelpie’s tongue.”