Saunders was wholly sceptical and when ordered by his master to wash the froth from the sufferer's mouth prospected with such good will for soap within that Matteo, had he dared, would gladly have bitten the finger off. He was compelled to swallow what might have served him another time.
"Dowse him wi' a bucket o' water, and let him gang his ways. I like not the look o' the speldron. He is like the Brownie that my Uncle Jock yince saw on the Lang Hill o' Lowden—a fearsome taed it was, juist like this Eytalian."
"Hold your peace, Saunders," commented my father. "You, he, and I are as God made us, and little that matters. What is written of us in the Book, that alone shall praise or condemn us!"
"Lord's sake, Maister Cawdor," said Saunders, who always wilted before my father in his moments of spiritual reproof, "I was sayin' and thinkin' no different. The Book and What is Written Therein! That's the rub, an' no to be spoken o' lichtly. And after a' the craitur's a craitur, though I will say——"
"Say nothing, Saunders, till you have given the unfortunate to eat and drink. Then when he is recovered I shall speak with him a moment."
"Weel, Maister Cawdor, let your speech be silver, and no gowden."
"You mean, Saunders?"
"I juist mean that the buckie has a gallow's look aboot him, and if ye are so ill-advised and—aye, I will say it—sae wicked as to gie him gold, we shall a' hae our throats cuttit in our beds yin o' thae nichts!"
Whereupon my father reproved his old servant for narrow-mindedness and evil thinking, but Saunders held his own.
"Narrow-mindedness here and ill-thinkin' there," he said, "blessed are they that think no evil, I ken, and that blessing ye are sure o', Maister Cawdor. But ye pay me a wage to keep watch and ward for ye over all evil-doers, and may I never taste porridge mair if this lad doesna smell the reek o' the deil's peats a mile away."