"Good morning!" said he; and he bowed to Kate Glendinning: he was going away without so much as shaking hands with either of them, so distant and respectful was his manner. But Mary, in a confused kind of fashion, did not seem to think this was right. She accompanied him to the door; and that she left open; then she went out with him into the hall.
"I cannot believe that James Macdonald should have any serious grudge against me," she said, "for I told Mr. Purdie to tell him that the tax for the dyke was abolished, and also that fifteen years of it was to be given back. And, besides that, I said to Macdonald myself that thirty shillings an acre was too much for that land; and I propose to have it reduced to a pound an acre when I have all the rents of the estate looked into."
"Do you think Purdie did tell him?" young Donald Ross asked coldly.
"If he has not!" said Mary ... "But I am almost sure he did—I spoke to Macdonald myself almost immediately afterwards. And—and I wished to tell you, Mr. Ross," she continued (as if she were rather pleading for favour, or at least expecting approval), "that I have been down to the stranger fishermen at Ru-Minard, and I think it is all settled, and that they are going away peaceably. I am paying them for the lobster-traps that were burned—and perhaps a little more; and they understand that the Vagrant Act can be brought to bear on any others who may think of coming."
"Oh, they are going away?" said he.
"Yes."
"Mr. Purdie will be sorry for that."
"Why?"
"He could have had them removed, if he had wanted; but so long as they were an annoyance and vexation to the people here, he allowed them to remain—naturally."
These accents of contemptuous scorn: she was sorry to hear them somehow; and yet perhaps they were justified—she did not know.