“Eh, auntie!” exclaimed Bessie. “Whatna gentleman?”
Jacky did not speak, but her thin, angular frame thrilled nervously, and she fixed her keen eyes upon Jean.
“Deed a gentleman ye’ve heard o’ often enough, Bessie,” said her aunt. “Miss Alice’s father—ye’ve heard your mother telling the story about Mr. Aytoun mony a time, nae doubt. Ye see, Jean, my sister was Mrs. Aytoun’s right-hand woman. I dinna ken how the puir lady would have won through her trouble ava, when Miss Alice was born, if it hadna been for our Bell—no that he was ower guid a man, if a’ tales were true, but nae doubt it was an awfu’ dispensation. Ane forgets ill and wrang when the doer o’t’s taen away—and a violent death like that!”
“Weel,” said Jean Miller, “a’body’s dear to their ain. But he wasna muckle worth the mourning for.”
“And how was he killed?” asked Jacky, with some trepidation.
“Anither gentleman—a fine, cheery, kindly lad as ye could see—shot him wi’ a gun. It was an awfu’ disgrace to the parish, as weel as a great crime; but, sae far as I could hear, the folk were mair wae for young Redheugh than they were for Mr. Aytoun.”
“And were they sure he did it?” asked Jacky, breathlessly.
“Sure! Lassie, what could be surer? They found his gun, wi’ his name on’t and they saw him himsel leaving the wood; and unco easy he had ta’en it, as the folk say, for he was gaun whistling and singing at a fule sang, and the man’s bluid on his hand.”
“If he took it easy, it’s mair than his friends did,” said Jean Miller, significantly.
“I never heard tell of ony friends he had in this part,” said the matter-of-fact Mrs. Young. “He was nephew to the auld family, and no son. I mind hearing ance that he was frae some place away in the Hielands—but maybe that was a’ lees.”