He drew a large-jointed coarse hand through his tangled beard and chuckled to himself.
“Are you aware of that?” he went on. “An end coming to it. Oh! I see things; I’m no fool: I could have told your father long ago, but he’s putting an end to it in his own way, and for his own reasons.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” she said, surprised at the portentous tone. She was not a bit afraid of him, though he was so little in sympathy with her youth, so apparently in antagonism to her.
“What would you say to a man?” he asked cunningly.
“It would depend, uncle,” she said readily and cheerfully, though a sudden apprehension smote her at the heart. “It would depend on what he said to me first.”
The old man grinned callously as the only person in the secret.
“Suppose he said: ‘Come away home, wife, I’ve paid a bonny penny for ye’?”
“Perhaps I would say, if I was in very good humour at the time, ‘You’ve got a bonny wife for your bonny penny.’ More likely I would be throwing something at him, for I have my Uncle Jamie’s temper they say, but I’m nobody’s wife, and for want of the asking I’m not likely to be.”
“Well, we’ll see,” said the uncle oracularly. Then abruptly, “Have you heard that your father’s got an appointment?”
“I—I heard just a hint of it, of course he has not told me all about it yet,” she answered with a readiness that surprised herself when she reflected on it later, for the news now so unexpectedly given her in the momentary irritation of the old man was news indeed, and though she was unwilling to let him see that it was so, a tremendous oppression seized her; now she was to be lonely indeed. Half uttering her thoughts she said, “I’ll sooner go with him than stay here and——”