“Haud your peace, ye silly tawpie!” cried Mrs Mense. “Do ye mean to say that’s like a gentleman, speiring at the fuil of a gilpie, and me here?”
“Don’t be afraid, my girl,” said the stranger. “What is it that alarms you for Mossgray?”
“If you say anither word o’ your havers, I’ll fell ye, Jen!” exclaimed my housekeeper, in a voice shrill with passion. Then I heard a slight noise, as if the girl had made her escape.
“Well, Ma’am,” said the stranger, “I hope you’ll condescend to inform me what special reason you have that I should not see your master.”
Mrs Mense seemed to falter.
“I’ve nae special reason, Sir; only if Mossgray doesna heed about seeing strangers, it’s nae business o’ mine or yours either.”
“But why does he object to see strangers?” persisted the pertinacious visitor.
“I didna say he objected; I only said he wasna heeding; and it’s no my place to be aye asking the whys and the wherefores. Maybe you never were no weel, or had a sair heart yoursel? and if a gentleman like the laird canna be fashed wi’ a’ the gangrel bodies that come about the town, naebody has ony business wi’ that.”
“But I am no gangrel body,” said the stranger. “Come now, you have kept me out long enough; if the young man is unwell, that is only another reason why I should see him—I’m a physician.”
“I didna say he was no weel.”