‘Pack him off, my dear lady,’ said I: ‘pack off the impudent fellow double-quick! And if it may be, and if your good heart allows it, help him a little on the way he has to go.’
‘What’s this pie?’ she cried stridently. ‘Where is this pie from, Flora?’
No answer was vouchsafed by my unfortunate and (I may say) extinct accomplices.
‘Is that my port?’ she pursued. ‘Hough! Will somebody give me a glass of my port wine?’
I made haste to serve her.
She looked at me over the rim with an extraordinary expression. ‘I hope ye liked it?’ said she.
‘It is even a magnificent wine,’ said I.
‘Aweel, it was my father laid it down,’ said she. ‘There were few knew more about port wine than my father, God rest him!’ She settled herself in a chair with an alarming air of resolution. ‘And so there is some particular direction that you wish to go in?’ said she.
‘O,’ said I, following her example, ‘I am by no means such a vagrant as you suppose. I have good friends, if I could get to them, for which all I want is to be once clear of Scotland; and I have money for the road.’ And I produced my bundle.
‘English bank-notes?’ she said. ‘That’s not very handy for Scotland. It’s been some fool of an Englishman that’s given you these, I’m thinking. How much is it?’