XV
As the girls sat basking in the window-seat for a few minutes after breakfast one morning, they surprised a private conversation between their cavalier and Master Johnnie Vautrin. Graeme, with his back to them, sat smoking on the low stone wall. Johnnie was, as usual, bunched up in the hedge opposite.
"Basking in the window-seat"
"Well, Johnnie?" they heard. "Seen any crows this morning?"
"Ouaie!"
"How many then, you wretched little croaker?"
"J'annéveu deu et j'annéveu troy."
"Ah now, it's not polite—as I've told you before—to talk to an uneducated foreigner, in a language he does not understand. How many, in such English as you have attained to, and what did they mean according to your wizardry?"