"Yes—and at once."
In the pause that followed after his first cry of amazement, Dan thought only of the bad business of the killing of the oxen at the plowing match that morning, and so, in a tone of utter abasement, with his face to the ground, he went on, in a blundering, humble way, to allow that Ewan had reason for his anger.
"I'm a blind headstrong fool, I know that—and my temper is—well, it's damnable, that's the fact—but no one suffers from it more than I do, and if I could have felled myself after I had felled the oxen, why down ... Ewan, for the sake of the dear old times when we were good chums, you and I and little Mona, with her quiet eyes, God bless her—!"
"Go away, and never come back to either of us," cried Ewan, stamping his foot.
Dan paused, and there was a painful silence.
"Why should I go away?" he said, with an effort at quietness.
"Because you are a scoundrel—the basest scoundrel on God's earth—the foulest traitor—the blackest-hearted monster—"
Dan's sunburnt face whitened under his tawny skin.
"Easy, easy, man veen, easy," he said, struggling visibly for self-command, while he interrupted Ewan's torrent of reproaches.
"You are a disgrace and a by-word. Only the riff-raff of the island are your friends and associates."