"Just the sound of it, Mrs. Macpherson," and he repeated his three sentences, all that he had learned of his mother, who had become a Scotswoman in her speech.
"Call me Janet, my dear; and it iss the good Gaelic your mother must have had, and it makes my heart glad to think my minister iss a Farquharson, by the mother's side."
"We sing nothing but Psalms at church, Mrs. … Janet, so you will be pleased, and we stand to pray and sit to sing."
"Tuts, tuts, I am not minding about a bit hime at a time from a friend, but it iss those Lowlanders meddling with everything I do not like, and I am hoping to hear you sing again, for it wass a fery pretty tune;" and the smith, passing along the road when Carmichael left that evening, heard Janet call him "my dear," and invoke a thousand blessings on his head.
When he called again in the end of the week to cement the alliance and secure her presence on Sabbath, Janet was polishing the swords, and was willing enough to give their history.
"This wass my great-grandfather's, and these two nicks in the blade were made on the dragoons at Prestonpans; and this wass my husband's sword, for he wass sergeant-major before he died, a fery brave man, good at the fighting and the praying too.
"Maybe I am wrong, and I do not know what you may be thinking, but things come into my mind when I am reading the Bible, and I will be considering that it wass maybe not so good that the Apostles were fishing people."
"What ails you at fishermen, Janet?"
"Nothing at all but one thing; they are clever at their nets and at religion, but I am not hearing that they can play with the sword or the dirk.
"It wass a fery good intention that Peter had that night, no doubt, and I will be liking him for it when he took his sword to the policeman, but it wass a mighty poor blow. If Ian or his father had got as near as that, it would not have been an ear that would have been missing."