“Weren't you tould the stuff that was in me?” he replied. “But God has gifted me, and sure that's one comfort, glory be to his name. Weren't—”
“Explain yourself, sir!” said his master, authoritatively. “What do you mean by the deed is done?' You haven't got married, I hope. Perhaps the cousin you went to see was your sweetheart?”
“No, sir, I haven't got married. God keep me a little while longer from sich a calamity? But I have put you in the way of being so.”
“How, sirra—put me into a state of calamity? Do you call that a service?”
“A state of repentance, sir, they say, is a state of grace; an' when one's in a state of grace they can make their soul; and anything, you know, that enables one to make his soul, is surely for his good.”
“Why, then, say 'God forbid,' when I suppose you had yourself got married?”
“Bekaise I'm a sinner, sir,—a good deal hardened or so,—and haven't the grace even to wish for such a state of grace.”
“Well, but what deed is this you have done? and no more of your gesticulations.”
“Don't you undherstand, sir!” he replied, extending the digit once more in the same direction, and with the same comic significance.
“She's safe, sir. Miss Gourlay—I have her.”