"How should I know him?" the young man replied, with a peculiar smile.
"I say foreign, for nae Englishman—or maybe rather nae Scotchman, for I am no so clear of the other side—would do such a dirty trick. Take a doited auld man's siller that had kith and kin and lawful progeny of his ain. Fiech! I couldna do it if I was starving. And I ha'e a wife and bairns, which are things that are aye craving for siller. The Lord haud us out o' temptation! But I wouldna do it—no, if I was master of mysel'."
"I did not know," said Grantley, with a forced gaiety, "that you were so scrupulous in Scotland. It is not the character you usually get in the world. But you are harsh judges all the same. Perhaps this unfortunate fellow did not know the circumstances. Perhaps——"
"Unfortinate! with the Lord kens how mony thoosands! I dinna ca' that misfortune, for my part."
"But then to balance the thousands he has not the privilege of possessing your esteem," Grantley said. He had an air of anger and pain under the pretended lightness of his tone, and meant to be bitterly satirical, forgetting evidently, in the warmth of the feelings raised by these animadversions, that the critic by his side was not very likely to be reached by shafts of this kind.
Duncan gave him a stolid stare.
"Ye'll be joking?" he said.
The young man perceived the ludicrousness of his attempted sarcasm, and burst into a laugh which was somewhat agitated, but betrayed no secret to Duncan, who joined in it quite good-humouredly; but, growing grave immediately, added,
"That's a' very weel. What I'm thinking of him's nae importance, nor what's thought in the countryside; but for a' that it's an ill thing to scandaleeze your fellow-creatures, whether they're folk of consequence or no. Yon's the 'Murkley Arms,' and Adam at the door. Ye maun be an awfu' keen fisher, sir, as I was saying, to leave a grand house like the 'George' for a country public, for it's no to call an inn—just a public, and no more. Here, Adam, here's a gentleman I've brought you; you'll have to give me a good dram for handsel, and him your best room, and as many trout as he can set his face to. He deserves it for coming here."
The person thus addressed was a tall man, with a red beard, revealing only about a quarter of a countenance, who stood smoking and leaning against the doorway of the "Murkley Arms." He looked up, but somewhat languidly, at the appeal, and said,