'I, sir—a poor girl without a halfpenny in the world!'
'You. Would you not like to leave the glen and enter into the service of a lady in the Lowlands. I know one, a fine and motherly old dame, whose strict, moral, and religious principles——'
'No—no, I could not leave Glen Ora and the Mac Innons.'
'The Mac Innons,' laughed Snaggs, 'will soon be but a memory here: long ere this day twelve months, the grass will grow is green on their hearths, as it waves on the hearths of Glentuirc.'
'Then I will still have Callum Dhu,' murmured Minnie, in a voice that trembled.
'Callum Dhu,' reiterated Snaggs, with scornful impatience; 'what is he that you should regret him?'
'My betrothed husband,' said Minnie, with honest pride; 'and none can reap in harvest or handle the cashcroimh like he; but he preferred to be a hunter like his fathers before him; and at shinty, wrestling, racing, tossing the stone, the hammer, or the caber, there is no one on the Braes of Loch Ora like Callum Dhu Mac Ian.'
'Stuff! These qualities, lassie, only fit him for the trade of a housebreaker. Better would it be for him if he read his prayers; for as the divine Blair sayeth, "every prayer sent up from a secret retirement is listened to." See, here is money, dear Minnie,' continued the wily Snaggs, holding before her a handful of bank-notes; 'those wretched pieces of paper which cause so much misery and crime, will be yours if——'
'If—what?'
The tempter whispered in her ear, and his eyes gleamed in the moonlight.