Cleek smiled. So even in these rocky fastnesses of the silent Highlands a man liked his bit of gossip, and loosened his tongue to pass the time of day with every stranger.
"Very interesting, Mr.——"
"Fairnish, Robairt Fairnish."
"Mr. Fairnish. And what about the rest of the family? Mean also?"
"Aw no, sair. Not Mistair Ross, at any rate, nor Miss Duggan, either," supplemented Mr. Fairnish, lighting his pipe with one horny hand and leaning out over the bar the better to address Cleek. "Another ale, sair?—cairtainly. Mr. Ross, now. A fine fellow, in spite of his strrange ways and his wonderful apparatus. He's lit th' whole Castle with electricity, sair; and Sair Andrew has no got ovair the effect o' it yet. He does nought but grrumble and growl at Mistair Ross for th' expainse and th' noosence of it, until, so I haird, th' Castle be no pleasant spot to live in. And his wife, Lady Paula Duggan——"
Mr. Fairnish raised his hands and eyes in a very expressive gesture.
"You don't like the lady of the Castle, then, Mr. Fairnish?" interposed Cleek, tossing off his ale and setting the empty tankard down upon the bar in front of him.
"Like her, do ye say, sair? Like her! Show me th' pairson in th' whole deestrict that does, and I'll tell him he's a liarr—if ye'll pardon my language. There's nought in the countryside that does like her—a black-haired, weecked foreigner like hersai'f—though ye'll no repeat my worrds, I pray, or 'twould go harrd with Robairt Fairnish when next rrent-day comes round. But never a bairnie that has ought to say that's plaisant o' her—th' black-eyed witch-wummun! An' that's a fact. She speaks a heathen tongue, sair, an' I never trusts a foreigner. They're suspeeshus characters, the best o' them."
Cleek threw back his head and laughed—laughed heartily.
"Well," said he, with a shake of the head, "perhaps you're right. Though I won't say that my experience has always been just that. However, the lady does not seem to find favour in your eyes. Mr. Ross Duggan I haven't met."