“Do you dry your clothes at the windows in Doom?” asked her master quietly, with none of a master's bluntness, asking the question in English from politeness to his guest.
She replied rapidly in Gaelic.
“For luck,” said the Baron dubiously when he had listened to a long guttural explanation that was of course unintelligible to the Frenchman. “That's a new freit. To keep away the witches. Now, who gave ye a notion like that?” he went on, maintaining his English.
Another rapid explanation followed, one that seemed to satisfy the Baron, for when it was finished he gave her permission to go.
“It's as I thought,” he explained to Count Victor. “The old body has been troubled with moths and birds beating themselves against her window at night when the light was in it: what must she be doing but taking it for some more sinister visitation, and the green kerchief is supposed to keep them away.”
“I should have fancied it might have been a permanency in that case,” suggested Count Victor, “unless, indeed, your Highland ghosts have a special preference for Mondays and Wednesdays.”
“Permanency!” repeated the Baron, thoughtfully. “H'm!” The suggestion had obviously struck him as reasonable, but he baulked at any debate on it.
“There was also the matter of the horseman,” went on Count Victor blandly, pointing his moustache.
“Horseman?” queried the Baron.
“A horseman sans doute. I noticed most of your people here ride with a preposterously short stirrup; this one rode like a gentleman cavalier. He stopped opposite the castle this forenoon and waved his compliments to the responsive maid.”