When he rose from his knees, and went out again, his face shining and his eyes misty, his wife was on the top of the cart, tying a rope across the cradle.
“Peter,” said Malcolm, “ye was quite richt to gang, but I’m glaid they didna lat ye.”
“I wad ha’e been half w’y to Port Gordon or noo,” said Peter.
“But noo ye’ll no gang to Port Gordon,” said Malcolm. “Ye’ll jist gang to the Salmon for a feow days, till we see hoo things gang.”
“I’ll du onything ye like, Ma’colm,” said Peter, and went into the house to fetch his bonnet.
In the street arose the cry of a woman, and into the close rushed one of the fisher-wives, followed by the factor. He had found a place on the eastern side of the village, where, jumping a low earth wall, he got into a little back yard, and was trampling over its few stocks of kail, and its one dusty miller and double daisy, when the woman to whose cottage it belonged caught sight of him through the window, and running out fell to abusing him in no measured language. He rode at her in his rage, and she fled shrieking into Peter’s close, where she took refuge behind the cart, never ceasing her vituperation, but calling him every choice name in her vocabulary. Beside himself with the rage of murdered dignity, he rode up, and struck at her over the corner of the cart, whereupon, from the top of it, Annie Mair ventured to expostulate.
“Hoot, sir! It’s no mainners to lat at a wuman like that.”
He turned upon her, and gave her a cut on the arm and hand, so stinging that she cried out, and nearly fell from the cart. Out rushed Peter and flew at the factor, who from his seat of vantage began to ply his whip about his head. But Malcolm, who, when the factor appeared, had moved aside to keep Kelpie out of mischief, and saw only the second of the two assaults, came forward with a scramble and a bound.
“Haud awa’, Peter,” he cried. “This belangs to me. I ga’e him back ’s whup, an’ sae I’m accoontable.—Mr Crathie,”—and as he spoke he edged his mare up to the panting factor, “the man who strikes a woman must be taught that he is a scoundrel, and that office I take. I would do the same if you were the lord of Lossie instead of his factor.”
Mr Crathie, knowing himself now in the wrong, was a little frightened at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, but the swift descent of Malcolm’s heavy riding whip on his shoulders and back made him voluble in curses. Then began a battle that could not last long with such odds on the side of justice. It was gazed at from the mouth of the close by many spectators, but none dared enter because of the capering and plunging and kicking of the horses. In less than a minute the factor turned to flee, and spurring out of the court, galloped up the street at full stretch.