"Yes, as interpreted by the law," repeated Mr. Coulson rather hotly. "The law sometimes speaks in a foreign language. If I thought my study of it was going to warp my ideas of right and wrong I'd go back home and pitch hay for the rest of my life."
The young man in the carriage looked at him closely. He was a handsome young fellow, about Mr. Coulson's own age, with a clever, clean-cut face. "There's something in your contention, John," he said, "but I'm acting for my client remember, and he has his ideas of right and wrong, too. He's paying for the place."
The young teacher's face fell, and old Sandy McLachlan, who had been watching him with eyes pitifully anxious, came a step nearer.
"They will not be turning me off?" he asked, half-fearfully, half-defiantly. "I would be working on this place for twenty years. Mr. Jarvis would be telling me it will be mine, as long as I live. And what will become of me and my little Eppie?"
"Well, well, Mr. McLachlan," said the jolly-looking man, not losing a whit of his jollity at the sight of the old man's distress. "Well, well, we won't discuss the matter any further to-day. You won't be disturbed until the fall anyway. And Mr. Huntley here will see that justice is done, whatever happens. He's one of the cleverest young lawyers in Cheemaun, you know."
"Hech!" interrupted old Sandy, his eyes blazing. "Yes, it is that I will be fearing. The Lord peety the man that will be falling into the hands of a clever lawyer!"
The comfortable-looking man seemed to take this as a grand joke. He laughed heartily and dug his elbow into the side of his young companion. "Hear that, Blake? Ha, ha! you lawyers deserve all you get. Ha! ha! that's good!"
The young man at his side did not reply to the raillery. He was looking past Mr. Coulson at the group of four children, standing open-mouthed, gazing at the men, and breathlessly listening to every word. He was particularly struck with the smallest one, a little girl in a torn, berry-stained blue pinafore and a sunbonnet of the same material. Her two small brown hands held in a tight grasp the hand of old Sandy's granddaughter, her cheeks were crimson, and her big eyes were blazing with an expression of mingled wrath and fear.
"Whose youngsters?" he asked, nodding towards them. "They don't all belong here, do they?" Mr. Coulson turned, and for the first time noticed the berry-pickers. "Hello! Charles Stuart and John Gordon and Lizzie herself!" he cried. "Been picking berries, eh?"
"Who's the little brown thing with all the eyes and hair?" asked Mr. Huntley.