“But this Glen Shira,” said she, pretending merriment, “it’s the white girl’s grave for me, Duncan. Should not I be glad to be getting out of it?” And now her eyes were suffused with tears though her lips were smiling.
“I know, I know,” said he, casting a glance up that lone valley that was so much their common grief. “And could we not be worse? I’m sure Black Duncan, reared in a bothy in Skye, who has been tossed by the sea, and been wet and dry in all airts of the world, would be a very thankless man if he was not pleased to be here safe and comfortable, on a steady bed at night, and not heeding the wind nor the storm no more than if he was a skart.”
“Oh! you’re glad enough to be here, then?” said she.
“Am I?” said he. And he sighed, so comical a sound from that hard mariner that she could not but laugh in spite of the anxieties oppressing her.
“I’m not going with him,” she proceeded.
“I know,” said he. “At least I heard—I heard otherwise, and I wondered when you said it, thinking perhaps you had made him change his mind.”
“You thought I had made him change—what do you mean?” she pressed, feeling herself on the verge of an explanation, but determined not to ask directly.
Black Duncan became cautious.
“You need not be asking me anything: I know nothing about it,” said he shortly. “I am very busy—I——” He hissed at his work more strenuously than ever.
Then Nan knew he was not to be got at that way.