“Wicked rogue, Walter, that thou art!” said she in a tone of merry railery, “fie for shame on thee! to steal into thy lady mother’s bower to catch her asleep in her arm-chair! In sooth I was not altogether well last night, else had I joined thee at the festive board, to rejoice with thee over the spoils of that grim gaffer wolf, whom they tell me thou hast so nobly slain.”
“Thou did’st indeed seem somewhat indisposed, madam,” said Sir Walter with a peculiarly significant emphasis, and with a penetrating look which she alone could understand.
“I was very much indisposed as you say, Walter,” replied she, as if quite unconscious that he had intended to convey to her any covered meaning; “that foolish old woman, Nancy, the miller’s wife, took it into her wise head to come a plaguing me, to reckon with her about the kain fowls she had paid into the castle since last quarter-day; and she talks—Holy Virgin, how the woman does talk!”
“Truly the woman does talk marvellously,” replied Walter, biting his nether lip to keep down his vexation.
“As thou say’st, son Walter, she does e’en talk most marvellously. Her tongue seems to have learned the art of wagging from the clapper of old John’s mill. I protest I would as lieve sit listening to the one as to the other. My head aches still with the noise of her clatter.”
“I wonder not indeed that thy head should ache,” replied Sir Walter.
“And then, forsooth, I behoved to call up meat for the greedy cummer,” continued the lady,—“Holy Mother, how the woman did swallow the eatables and drinkables!”
“She must have swallowed enough of both sorts,” said Sir Walter, with a meaning in his mode of speaking, that he began to suspect he might have made almost too plainly marked; and, hastening to change the subject, “Madam,” continued he, “I fear you have forgotten Sir Allan this morning.”
“Holy Saints, but so I have!” cried she, starting up from her seat,—“what have I been thinking of? My poor Sir Allan!” continued she, as she hastened to him with a covered silver dish, that contained the minced food the old man was wont to take; and, after making of him, with all the fuss and phrase she would have used to an infant, she put a napkin around his neck, and proceeded to feed him.
“Where is Murdoch this morning?” demanded Patrick of his brother.