“Is—he—is he with her?” said Simon.
“Oh, thereaboots, thereaboots,” admitted Mungo, cautiously. “There's nae doot they're gey and chief got sin! he cam' back, and she foun' oot wha created the collieshangie.”
“Ay, man, and she kens that?” said the Chamberlain with unnatural calm.
“'Deed does she, brawly! though hoo she kens is mair nor I can guess. Monsher thrieps it wasnae him, and I'll gie my oath it wasnae me.”
“Women are kittle cattle, Mungo. There's whiles I think it a peety the old law against witchcraft was not still to the fore. And so she kent, did she? and nobody tell't her. Well, well!” He laughed softly, with great bitterness.
Mungo turned the lantern about in his hand and had nothing to say.
“What's this I'm hearing about the Baron—the Baron and her—and her, leaving?” said the Chamberlain.
“It's the glide's truth that,” said the little man; “and for the oots and ins o't ye'll hae to ask Petullo doon-by, for he's at the root o't. Doom's done wi'; it's his decreet, and I'm no' a day ower soon wi' the promise o' the Red Sodger—for the which I'm muckle obleeged to you, Factor. Doom's done; they're gaun awa' in a week or twa, and me and Annapla's to be left ahint to steek the yetts.”
“So they tell me, Mungo; so they tell me,” said the Chamberlain, neither up nor down at this corroboration. “In a week or twa! ay! ay! It'll be the bowrer nae langer then,” he went on, unconsciously mimicking the Lowland Scots of the domestic. “Do ye ken the auld song?—
'O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
They were twa bonnie lassies!
They bigged a bower on yon burn-brae,
And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.'”