“Would it be 'Failte an Roich '?”
“Better than that by far; a masterly tune! Come out and hear him.”
But Old Boboon leaned with his arms on the wall and made no move to be off with his children.
“Come and stravaig,” said the girls, and his daughter Betty put a foot in a cranny and pulled herself up beside him to put coaxing arms round his neck.
“Calf of my heart!” said Boboon, stroking her hair, soft handed.
“We have the fine feeding,” said the girl in his ear. “Yesterday it was plotted trout in the morning and tunnag's eggs; dinner was a collop off a fat hind.”
“A grailoched hind?”
“No, nor grailoched! That is a fool's fashion and the spoiling of good meat. But come with us, father. Think of the burns bubbling, and the stars through the branches, and the fresh airs of the morning!”
“Down, down, you bitch! Would ye tempt me?” cried Boboon, pushing the girl from the wall and hurrying back with shaking knees to the Latin stone. The night was deep black, and for all he could tell by eyesight, he might have been in the middle of breezy Moor Rannoch, but the town gables crowded 'thick and solid round his heart. He missed the free flowing winds; there was a smell of peat and coal from dead house-fires, and he spat the dust of lime from his throat.
Over the wall the clan scraped and skurried as weasels do. They dared make no noise for fear the town should waken, but in hoarse voices they called all together—