"You are a widow, I think, Mrs. Macpherson?" and Carmichael's voice took a tone of sympathy. "Have you any children?"
"My husband iss dead, and I had one son, and he iss dead also; that iss all, and I am alone;" but in her voice there was no weakening.
"Will you let me say how sorry I am?" pleaded Carmichael, "this is a great grief, but I hope you have consolations."
"Yes, I will be having many consolations; they both died like brave men with their face to the enemy. There were six that did not feel fery well before Ian fell; he could do good work with the sword as well as the bayonet, and he wass not bad with the dirk at a time."
Neither this woman nor her house were like anything in Drumtochty, for in it there was a buffet for dishes, and a carved chest and a large chair, all of old black oak; and above the mantelpiece two broadswords were crossed, with a circle of war medals beneath on a velvet ground, flanked by two old pistols.
"I suppose those arms have belonged to your people, Mrs. Macpherson; may I look at them?"
"They are not anything to be admiring, and it wass not manners that I should hef been boasting of my men. It iss a pleasant evening and good for walking."
"You were at the meeting, I think?" and Carmichael tried to get nearer this iron woman. "We were sorry you had to go out before the end. Did you not feel at home?"
"I will not be accustomed to the theatre, and I am not liking it instead of the church."
"But surely there was nothing worse in my singing alone than praying alone?" and Carmichael began to argue like a Scotsman, who always fancies that people can be convinced by logic, and forgets that many people, Celts in especial, are ruled by their heart and not by their head; "do you see anything wrong in one praising God aloud in a hymn, as the Virgin Mary did?"