“Rodie, you’ll have to be a W. S.,” cried Elsie, “and let Jack go to India; nobody but a lawyer could have put it all out as clear as that.”
Rodie sprang to his feet, and struck out a powerful arm.
“If you were not a lassie,” he cried furiously, “I would just knock you down.”
When Mrs. Buchanan came into the room, this was what she saw against that wavering glow in the chimney; her son’s spring against an invisible foe, and Elsie demurely looking at him, with her work in her hands, from the other side of the fire.
“Eh, laddie,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, “you terrify me with your boxing and your fighting. What ails you at him, and who is the enemy now? And you’ve broken up my gathering coal that would have lasted the whole night through.”
“It’s me he is fechting, mother,” said Elsie, “and he says if I had not been a lassie, he would have knocked me down.”
“You’re never at peace, you two,” said the mother, with much composure; “and we all know that Rodie had aye a great contempt for lassies. Let us just see, Elsie, if some day or other he may not meet a lassie that will give him a good setting down.”
“What do I care about lassies,” cried Rodie, indignant; “you’re thinking of Frank Mowbray and Raaf Beaton. If ever two fellows made fools of themselves! looking as glum as the day of judgment, if Elsie turns her head the other way.”
“Hold your tongue, laddie,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, but with a smothered laugh. She was “weel pleased to see her bairn respected like the lave,” but she was a sensible mother, and would have no such nonsense made a talk of. “Your father is not coming down-stairs again,” she said; “he is busy with his sermon, so you can go to your bed when you like, Rodie. Bless me, the laddie has made the room insupportable with that great fire, and dangerous, too, to leave it burning. Elsie, my dear, I wish you were always as diligent; but you must fold up your seam now for the night.”
After a little while Rodie retired to find the supper which had been waiting for him in the dining-room; for his evening hours were a little irregular, and his appetite large.