“She's as honest a wife as ever—”
“Fairly, fairly, I'll allow—when the wind's in that airt. It's been a dull place this for her, and I have small skill of entertainment; but, man, I thought of her often, away in the camp!”
He was taking off his jacket as he spoke, and looking past George Mor's shoulder and in between the trees at the loch. And now the day was fairly on the country.
“A bit foolish is your wife—just a girl, I'm not denying; but true at the core.”
“Young, young, as ye say, man! She'll make, maybe, all the more taking a widow woman. She'll need looks and gaiety indeed, for my poor cause is lost for good and all.”
“We saved the castle for you, at any rate. But for my friends in-by and myself the flambeau was at the root o't.”
“So, my hero? In another key I might be having a glass with you over such friendship, but the day spreads and here's our business before us.”
“I've small stomach for this. It's a fool's quarrel.”
“Thoir an aire!—Guard, George Mor!”
They fought warmly on the mossy grass, and the tinkle of the thin blades set the birds chirping in the bushes, but it could not be that that wakened my lady dovering in her chair in the room of guttering candles.