"Well, he waited and waited and cracked away wi' the lass, for there seemed nobody about but just Meg the gleevitch, and she had talk eno' for five men, and a trim pair o' ankles forbye.
"'I'll be goin' now, mistress,' says the stranger, rising.
"'I'm sorry for that,' says Meg, and looked as if she meant it.
"'If ye'll just give me my change. . . .'
"'Change!' she cries, 'God save us, change; we sell naething here,' and she lifted the guinea oot the old jug on the shelf and handed it back. 'I thought it was just a present,' says she, makin' eyes at him, 'for a thankfu' man's free wi' his siller. Ye were lucky to get the only drop o' drink in the hoose,'—and that was true enough, for the time they had been talkin' and Meg kiltin' her skirt tae kind o' divert the stranger's attention, the lads had the keg in a safe place. Aweel, and so he had just to take shank's mare for it. I'll come back tae the hole in the wa'. There was one in the old house, and Meg cut a divot and stuffed the hole wi' it if there was nae danger, and if she had word o' excisemen or gaugers on the lookout for smuggling she took the turf oot, and that's how the place got it's name (and why we pass the word that the 'turf's in' if there's word o' a run), but it must have hurt Meg to gie back the guinea, for she's a wild long eye for siller."
We were now close to a white house, stone built and thatched, set among big plane-trees, and looking to the sea. At the door I heard Gaelic songs and great laughing, and then we went inside. At first I saw nothing but two ship's lanthorns, swung from hooks such as we use to hang hams on, and the blazing fire, where a ship's timber burned with wee blue flames licking out, as the fire got at the salt of the seven seas. Then I made out the swarthy faces turned to us, and heard Dan's name voiced by the revellers, and a woman, stout built and perky but still young, that I took to be Meg the gleevitch, from her bird-like way of making little rushes, or, as we express it, "fleein' at things," brought us steaming glasses of toddy, so strong that I think she had watered the whisky with more whisky, for the tears started to my eyes as I drank my first drink. But I felt fine and warm inside for all that. Captain McGilp, as tough a looking seaman as ever shook out a reef, hoisted himself beside Dan. He had not mind of me, I think.
"We did yon business o' Scaurdale's," he whispered, "and got the len' of a cow to keep the wean in milk, and I'll no' say but I forget where the beast came frae, for it's in the barrel now, what's left o't. The wean's in France in a convent among the nuns, where I'm envying her her innocence," and the captain became so wild and heedless in his speech that I drew away. "Ho, my cockerel," says he, "Miss Mim-mou (mim-mouth), that's the bonniest wie I ken o' gettin' yir wesan cut," and to Dan, "There's a lot o' the stallion to that colt." This would mean that I resembled my father, the minister now dead, for he survived my mother, the Laird's sister, by but a few years.
"Let the lad be, Jock McGilp, or you and me'll be cuttin' wesands," says Dan, and I could have flown at the burly smuggler's throat for the joy of Dan's backing.
"It'll be his first night, hey? Well, look at McNeilage there; he's been drunk fifteen flaming years."
"A bonny mate that—fifteen flaming years."