“My own idea exactly, Hector——”
“An’ the hand o’ her, John!”
“Ah, so you have noticed them also, Hector? So white and shapely ... and pretty——”
“Pretty? Hoot awa’, ’tis their gentleness, their quickness——”
“Such slender fingers, Hector, such pink palms——”
“Umph-humph!” snorted Sir Hector, and turned to stare landwards. “A fair prospect, John lad!” quoth he suddenly in his precise English. “’Tis better than your perfumed salons in Paris, or the gilded pomp and pageantry of Versailles. Aye, a sweet and homely prospect—though, mind ye, ’tis no’ tae be compared wi’ Scotland, whateffer.”
“Why did you leave Scotland, Hector? And how come you, of all men, to be friends with Mr. Nye and his fellow-smugglers?”
“Egad, ’tis a long story, John! But, briefly, you must know that chancing to have the better o’ my good cousin Lauchlan—‘the MacLean’—(o’er a point o’ strategy, if I mind rightly), I left the MacLean country and the hame o’ my forefaythers, though my heart was sair waefu’, John, an’ became a roofless wight—a hameless wanderer!”
“And all by reason of a quarrel with your cousin, Hector?”