“Sir,” said he, with some feeling, “there was never bed nor board grudged at Doom. It's like father like son a' through them. The Baron's great-gutcher, auld Alan, ance thought the place no' braw enough for the eye o' a grand pairty o' Irish nobeelity that had bidden themsel's to see him, and the day they were to come he burned the place hauf doon. It was grand summer weather, and he camped them i' the park behin' there, sparing time nor money nor device in their entertainment. Ye see what might hae been a kin' o' penury in a castle was the very extravagance o' luxury in a camp. A hole in the hose is an accident nae gentleman need be ashamed o', but the same darned is a disgrace, bein' poverty confessed, as Annapla says.”
It was a touchy servant this, Montaiglon told himself—somewhat sharper, too, than he had thought: he must hazard no unkind ironies upon the master.
“Charming, charming! good Mungo,” said he. “The expedient might have been devised by my own great-grandfather—a gentleman of—of—of commercial pursuits in Lyons city. I am less fastidious, perhaps, than the Irish, being very glad to take Doom Castle as I have the honour to find it.”
“But ye're thinkin' the Baron is in a hurry to billet ye elsewhere,” said the servant bluntly.
In an ordinary lackey this boldness would have been too much for Count Victor; in this grotesque, so much in love, it seemed, with his employer, and so much his familiar and friend in a ridiculous Scots fashion, the impertinence appeared pardonable. Besides, he blamed himself for the ill-breeding of his own irony.
“That, if I may be permitted to point it out, is not for us to consider, Monsieur Mungo,” said he. “I have placed myself unreservedly in the Baron's hands, and if he considers it good for my indifferent health that I should change the air and take up my residence a little farther along your delightful coast while my business as a wine merchant from Bordeaux is marching, I have no doubt he has reason.”
A smile he made no effort to conceal stole over Mungo's visage.
“Wine merchant frae Bordeaux!” he cried. “I've seen a hantle o' them hereaboots at the fish-curin' season, but they cam' in gabbarts to French Foreland, and it wasnae usual for them to hae Coont to their names nor whingers to their hips. It was mair ordinar the ink-horn at their belts and the sporran at their groins.”
“A malediction on the creature's shrewdness!” said Count Victor inwardly, while outwardly he simply smiled back.
“The red wine is my specialty,” said he, patting his side where the hilt of his sword should be. “My whinger, as you call it, is an auger: who the devil ever broached a pipe of Scots spirits with a penknife? But I see you are too much in the confidence of the Baron for there to be any necessity of concealment between us.”