There was a pause.
‘I kent a man that got a richt skelp from ane o’ they Blackport laddies,’ continued Jimmy; ‘’twas i’ the airm, too. It swelled, an’ the doctor just wheepit it off. I mind it well, for I was passin’ by the house at the time, an’ I heard him skirl.’
There was no reply from the corner of the hood and they pressed on; only Somerville, who had a habit of chirruping which attacked him the moment he took up the reins and only left him when he laid them down, relieved the silence. Thanks to the invisible moon, the uniform grayness which, though not light, was yet luminous, made the way plain, and the dark trees of Morphie could be seen massed in the distance.
‘I wonder they wad choose sic a night as this,’ remarked Jimmy; ‘it’s a peety, too, for they’ll likely see us if we dinna gang cannylike under the trees. Can ye run, Mr. Macquean?’
‘Ay, can I,’ replied the other, grinning from under the safe cover of the darkness. A project was beginning to form itself in his mind.
‘There’ll be mair nor three or four. I’d like fine if we’d gotten another man wi’ us; we could hae ta’en them a’ then. They’re ill deevils to ficht wi’.’
‘I could believe that,’ said Macquean.
His expression was happily invisible to Stirk.
‘If I’d time, I could cut ye a bit stick frae the hedge,’ said Jimmy.
‘Heuch! dinna mind,’ replied Macquean soothingly.