“Noddle or nut, Gourmand, it’s all the same to me. But what, my friend, would you think would be the best place to emigrate to?”
“Why not to Scotland, cap’n? It is the land of chivalry and romance, you know.
“Land of green heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood.”
“Land of fiddlesticks, Gourmie! Do you think it would pay?”
“Pay? Ay, all to pieces. Ours is just the sort of entertainment, cap’n, to draw bumper houses on the outskirts of Glasgow to begin with, and so on to Paisley and Greenock. The Scotch are naturally musical, and they adore a good play. Needn’t be so much blood and thunder in it either as for England here.”
“We’d have to throw in the kilts though, wouldn’t we, and make our company learn Scotch.”
“Nonsense, sir. We’d make fools of ourselves if we did. Believe me, captain, Scotch spoken by English lips never ends but in one thing.”
“And that is?”
“Ridicule. But the Scotch will hold out the right hand of friendship and hospitality to their English brothers if we go as English, and nothing assume. Brave young Johnnie with his Saxon strength will be a favourite first night. Wee Willie too, with his fiddle, and—well, and the rest of us.”
“Including Peggy, Gourmand?”