“’Deed I dinna ken,” replied Cosmo with some embarrassment. “What wad ye hae me du, Aggie?”
“I wad hae ye set her doon whaur ye stude, gien upo’ the ro’d, than upo’ the dyke, gien i’ the hoose, than upo’ the nearest chair, and tak to yer legs an’ rin. Bide na to tak yer bonnet, but rin an’ rin till ye’re better nor sure she can never win up wi’ ye. An’ specially gien the name o’ the lass sud begin wi’ an’ E an’ gang on till an l, I wad hae ye rin as gien the auld captain was efter ye.”
“I hae had sma’ occasion,” said Cosmo, “to rin fra him.”
And therewith, partly to change the subject, for he now understood Aggie, and did not feel it right to talk about any girl as if she could behave in the manner supposed, partly because he had long desired an opportunity of telling her, he began, and gave her the whole history of the discovery of the diamonds, omitting nothing, even where the tale concerned Lady Joan. Before he got to the end of it, they were at the place where the man was waiting with his horse, and as that was the place where Aggie had to turn off to go to Muir o’ Warlock, there they parted.
CHAPTER LXII.
A DUET, TRIO, AND QUARTET.
The next day things went much the same, only that Elsie was not in the field. Cosmo, who had been thinking much over what Aggie had said, and was not flattered that she should take him for the goose he did not know himself to be, could hardly wait for the evening to have another talk with her.
“Aggie,” he said, as he overtook her in a hollow not many yards from the verge of the farm, “I dinna like ye to think me sic a gowk! What gars ye suppose a lass could hae her wull o’ me in sic a w’y ’s you? No ’at I believe ony lass wad behave like that! It’s no like yersel’ to fancy sae ill o’ yer ain kin’! I’m sure ye didna discover thae things i’ yer ain hert! There’s nae sic a lass.”
“What maitter whether there be sic a lass or no, sae lang as gien there was ane, she wad be ower muckle for ye?”
“That’s ower again what I’m compleenin’ o’! an’ gien it war onybody but yersel’ ’at has a richt, I wad be angry, Aggie.”
“Cosmo,” said Agnes solemnly, “ye’re ower saft-hertit to the women-fowk. I do believe—an’ I tell ye ’t again in as mony words—ye wad merry ony lass raither nor see her in trible on your accoont.”