"You have been writing a good many letters of late," said his companion.
"And is that all?" said Macleod, answering him in the Gaelic. "You know the proverb—Tossing the head will not make the boat row. I am not married yet."
The result of this journey was, that they agreed to purchase one of the machines for transference to the rainy regions of Mull; and then they returned to London. This was on Wednesday. Major Stuart considered they had a few days to idle by before the battue; Macleod was only excitedly aware that Thursday and Friday—two short November days—came between him and that decision which he regarded with an anxious joy.
The day went by in a sort of dream. A pale fog hung over London: and as he wandered about he saw the tall houses rise faintly blue into the gray mist; and the great coffee-colored river, flushed with recent rains, rolled down between the pale embankments; and the golden-red globe of the sun, occasionally becoming visible through the mottled clouds, sent a ray of fire here and there on some window-pane or lamp.
In the course of his devious wanderings—for he mostly went about alone—he made his way, with great trouble and perplexity, to the court in which the mother of Johnny Wickes lived; and he betrayed no shame at all in confronting the poor woman—half starved, and pale, and emaciated as she was—whose child he had stolen. It was in a tone of quite gratuitous pleasantry that he described to her how the small lad was growing brown and fat; and he had the audacity to declare to her that as he proposed to pay the boy the sum of one shilling per-week at present, he might as well hand over to her the three months' pay which he had already earned. And the woman was so amused at the notion of little Johnny Wickes being able to earn anything at all, that, when she received the money and looked at it, she burst out crying; and she had so little of the spirit of the British matron, and so little regard for the laws of her country, that she invoked Heaven knows what—Heaven does know what—blessings on the head of the very man who had carried her child into slavery.
"And the first time I am going over to Oban," said he, "I will take him with me, and I will get a photograph of him made, and I will send you the photograph. And did you get the rabbits?" said he.
"Yes, indeed, sir, I got the rabbits."
"And it is a very fine poacher your son promises to be, for he got every one of the rabbits with his own snare, though I am thinking it was old Hamish was showing him how to use it. And I will say good-by to you now."
The poor woman seemed to hesitate for a second.
"If there was any sewing, sir," wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron, "that I could do for your good lady, sir—"