“Set a cavalier at the side of an anker of brandy,” he cried, “an——”
Then he saw he was in company. He took off his bonnet with a sweep I’ll warrant he never learned anywhere out of France, and plunged into the thick of our discourse with a query.
“At your service, Mistress Brown,” said he. “Half my errand to town to-day was to find if young MacLach-lan, your relative, is to be at the market here to-morrow. If so——”
“He is,” said Betty.
“Will he be intending to put up here all night, then?”
“He comes to supper at least,” said she, “and his biding overnight is yet to be settled.”
John Splendid toyed with the switch in his hand in seeming abstraction, and yet as who was pondering on how to put an unwelcome message in plausible language.
“Do you know,” said he at last to the girl, in a low voice, for fear his words should reach the ears of her mother in-bye, “I would as well see MacLachlan out of town the morn’s night. There’s a waft of cold airs about this place not particularly wholesome for any of his clan or name. So much I would hardly care to say to himself; but he might take it from you, madam, that the other side of the loch is the safest place for sound sleep for some time to come.”
“Is it the MacNicolls you’re thinking of?” asked the girl.
“That same, my dear.”