"I shall want my wages," said Vara, plucking up courage and remembering her master's words.
"Wages, ye randy," cried the good wife of Loch Spellanderie; "wages! Set ye up, indeed, ye crawlin' blastie! Think ye that honest folk's wages are for the like o' you, that canna bide awa' frae your deboshed paramours, and that lies in wait to entrap decent folk's men, silly craiturs that they are?"
"I am but a young lassie," said Vara, calmly, "and think on nane o' thae things. Neither will ony body believe them but yoursel'. But I'm gaun to hae my wages, or I'll gang to the kirk yett next Sabbath, and tell a' the neebours how ye treat your servants, starvin' them on scraps like dogs, making their lives a burden to them to get them no to bide aboot the hoose, and then at the hinder end threatening them to give them nae wages."
This threat, which would have feared no one who was conscious of good intent, somewhat stilled Mrs. McWalter's fury. For she knew that anything of the kind would be greedily listened to, and retailed at all the tea drinking in the neighbourhood. And she felt, also, that she had not quite the character in the country-side upon which such accusations would fall harmless.
She went to a locked drawer.
"Here's your wages," she said, "and an ill wish gang wi' them. Glad am I to be rid of you!"
Even thus Vara took her departure from the house of Loch Spellanderie. John McWalter covertly watched her carrying her bundle out of the yard. He was looking round the corner of a corn stack. He dared not come out and bid the girl farewell because of his wife. But the tear was now in his own eye.
"It micht hae been my ain lassie leavin' anither man's hoose. I am wae for her," he said. "But I'm glad it was a ten-pund note that I slippit her. And whatna state wad the wife no be in, gin she kenned!"
And there came a faint pleasure into his grieved heart as he watched Vara out of sight.
Meanwhile Mistress McWalter stood at the door with victory in the very poise of her ungainly figure. She had disdained to utter a word, as Vara went past her and quietly bade her "Good-night!" But now she cried, "Kit Kennedy! Kit Kennedy! Kit Kennedy!" with all the penetrative power of her voice.