Shufflin’ Sandie seemed to spring from the earth right in front of him.
A queer little creature was Sandie, soul and body, probably thirty years old, but looking older; twinkling ferrety eyes and red hair, a tuft of which always stuck up through a hole on the top of the broad Prince Charlie bonnet he wore; a very large nose always filled with snuff; and his smile was like the grin of a vixen.
Sandie was the man-of-all-work at Bilberry. He cleaned knives and boots in-doors, ran errands, and did all kinds of odd jobs out of doors. But above all Sandie was a fisherman. Old as he was, Squire McLeod, or Laird, as he was most often called, went to the river, and Sandie was always with him. The old man soon tired; then Sandie took the rod, and no man on all Deeside could make a prettier cast than he. The salmon used to come at his call.
“Hullo!” said Laird Fletcher, “where did you come from?”
“Just ran round, sir, to see if you wanted your horse.”
“No, no, Sandie, not for another hour or two.”
The truth is that Sandie had been behind the arbour, listening to every word that was said.
Sandie slept in a loft above the stable. It was there he went now, and threw himself on his bed to think.
“Folks shouldn’t speak aloud to themselves,” he thought, “as Laird Fletcher does. Wants Farmer Nicol got out of the way, does he? The old rascal! I’ve a good mind to tell the police. But I think I’d better tell Craig Nicol first that there is danger ahead, and that he mustn’t wear his blinkers. Poor man! Indeed will I! Then I might see what the Laird had to say as well. That’s it, Sandie, that’s it. I’ll have twa strings to my bow.”
And Sandie took an enormous pinch of snuff and lay back again to muse.