Ronny was the pleased man to welcome me to his house, and Mirren, his wife, was at her best to be showing what a thrifty goodwife she was making, and she was very kind, and spoke good words to me; so, thinks I, Ronny will have been telling her about the talk we had yon day on the Isle.
"They will be saying," says Mirren, "that yon dark lass has her trouble past her."
"I am hoping that," said I, and looked at Ronny's mother sitting very bright and perky by the fire, with a clean white mutch on her head and the strings not tied.
"It is goot," says she, "to have a boy whatever—a boy iss a good thing, no matter which way he will be got," and she ended her little talk with a very brisk demand. "Gif me a dram, Mirren; yes"—and that set us to the laughing, for the young wife was setting the drink before us and not making signs of giving the old one any.
We sat down to a meal of roasted fowl, very tasty, and a very good drop of spirits to it, and I would be laughing inside of myself because of the boldness of McKinnon to be praising his wife's cooking before his ain mother, and Mirren was greatly pleased too; indeed, many's the time I will be thinking that the road to a quiet lass's heart will be to praise her cooking. When we had made an end of the eating I gave McKinnon the story of the stranger that came whistling at uncanny hours, and asked him where I would be like to find McGilp, for it appeared the man wanted speech with me.
"You are on the right tack," says he, "for I am waiting for his hand on the sneck any time this two hours past," and the dishes were hardly cleared away when the smuggler bent his head to be coming in the door, for in these days there were no locks in the Isle of the Peaks.
There came in with the man a kind of waft of the sea as he threw off his great-coat and clattered his cutlass in a corner—a fine figure of a man, towering up to the rafters, and his voice held in as though it would be more comfortable to hurl an order in the teeth of a gale.
"Ha!" says he, looking from McKinnon to his wife; "she has brought you to port finely." But he was mightily complimentary, and gave many good wishes with his glass in his great hand.
"And how are you, Mister Hamish?" says he. "Every plank sailing—in fine trim—and that's good hearing these days."
With that McKinnon got his fiddle, and played us many sprightly airs, for he was a very creditable performer, and the smuggler would be asking for this or that one, and nodding his head with great spirit.