“Truly, Kenneth?”
“From the head to the heel of you, Aileen, lass. For you I would die, and that is all there is about it,” I cried, wildly.
“Well then, take me, Kenneth! I am all yours. Of telling love there will be many ways in the Gaelic, and I am thinking them all at once.”
And this is the plain story of how the great happiness came into Kenneth Montagu’s life, and how, though all unworthy, he won for his own the daughter of Raasay.
CHAPTER XIV
THE AFTERMATH
At Edinburgh we received check one. Aileen’s aunt had left for the Highlands the week before in a fine rage because the Duke of Cumberland, who had foisted himself upon her unwilling hospitality, had eaten her out of house and home, then departing had borne away with him her cherished household penates to the value of some hundred pounds. Years later Major Wolfe told me with twinkling eyes the story of how the fiery little lady came to him with her tale of woe. If she did not go straight to the dour Duke it was because he was already out of the city and beyond her reach. Into Wolfe’s quarters she bounced, rage and suspicion speaking eloquent in her manner.
“Hech, sir! Where have ye that Dutch Prince of yours?” she demanded of Wolfe, her keen eyes ranging over him.