“You are fery kind, Mr Ruvnshaw,” said Angus from an upper window, beneath which the canoe floated. “It iss not improbaple that my house will pe goin’ down the river like a post, but that iss nothing—not anything at all—when there will pe such a destruction goin’ on all over the settlement whatever. It iss fery coot of you, oo ay. I will put my fuddle into the canoe, an’ my sister she will pe ready at wance.—Wass you ready, Martha?”
A voice from the interior intimated that Miss Martha would be, “ready in two minutes.”
“Pe quick, then,” said Macdonald, looking inwards while he lowered his violin, to which he was passionately attached, into the canoe, “you hef not much time to waste, Martha, for it wass time we will pe goin’.”
In a few minutes Angus Macdonald’s house was abandoned to its fate, and himself and sister, with a couple of domestics, were added to the number of refugees who crowded to the abode of hospitable Sam Ravenshaw.
“Hef you forgotten the cawtie?” asked Angus of his sister, while assisting her to land on the steps from which Miss Trim had taken her dive.
“No, Angus, I’ve got it in my basket, but I fear the poor old hen has been lost. It’s all over the house I sought for it before comin’ away, but—”
A triumphant cackle from the cupboard overhead interrupted Miss Martha.
“Ha! ha!” shouted Mr Ravenshaw; “thats where the sound came from this morning! And I do believe it must have been that brute which caused Miss Trim to fall into the water.”
With a twinkle in his eye, the old gentleman related the incident of the morning, while Angus, with a grim expression, kept his eye on Beauty, who gazed inquiringly out at the half-open door of her retreat.
“It iss a pad craitur you’ve peen—fery pad—ever since I got you, but it iss no more mischief you will pe dooin’ after this—whatever.”