“Ye—yes,—my Lord, sir,” answered Jeanie, blushing, and with hesitation.
“Aha! then, if the Laird starts, I suppose my friend Butler must be in some danger?”
“O no, sir,” answered Jeanie, much more readily, but at the same time blushing much more deeply.
“Well, Jeanie,” said the Duke, “you are a girl may be safely trusted with your own matters, and I shall inquire no farther about them. But as to this same pardon, I must see to get it passed through the proper forms; and I have a friend in office who will for auld lang syne, do me so much favour. And then, Jeanie, as I shall have occasion to send an express down to Scotland, who will travel with it safer and more swiftly than you can do, I will take care to have it put into the proper channel; meanwhile you may write to your friends by post of your good success.”
“And does your Honour think,” said Jeanie, “that will do as weel as if I were to take my tap in my lap, and slip my ways hame again on my ain errand?”
“Much better, certainly,” said the Duke. “You know the roads are not very safe for a single woman to travel.”
Jeanie internally acquiesced in this observation.
“And I have a plan for you besides. One of the Duchess’s attendants, and one of mine—your acquaintance Archibald—are going down to Inverary in a light calash, with four horses I have bought, and there is room enough in the carriage for you to go with them as far as Glasgow, where Archibald will find means of sending you safely to Edinburgh.—And in the way I beg you will teach the woman as much as you can of the mystery of cheese-making, for she is to have a charge in the dairy, and I dare swear you are as tidy about your milk-pail as about your dress.”
“Does your Honour like cheese?” said Jeanie, with a gleam of conscious delight as she asked the question.
“Like it?” said the Duke, whose good-nature anticipated what was to follow,—“cakes and cheese are a dinner for an emperor, let alone a Highlandman.”