“Sst! Be still now with your foolishness. It is only an idle saying, I am thinking. Do it, and take the money and go. It will be hell enough for Adam Blair, miser as he was, if he is for knowing that five good shillings of his money are to go to a passing tramp because of an old, ancient silly tale.”
Neil Ross laughed low at that. It was for pleasure to him.
“Hush wi’ ye! Andrew Blair is waiting round there. Say that I have sent you round, as I have neither bite nor bit to give.”
Turning on his heel, Neil walked slowly round to the front of the house. A tall man was there, gaunt and brown, with hairless face and lank brown hair, but with eyes cold and grey as the sea.
“Good day to you, an’ good faring. Will you be passing this way to anywhere?”
“Health to you. I am a stranger here. It is on my way to Iona I am. But I have the hunger upon me. There is not a brown bit in my pocket. I asked at the door there, near the byres. The woman told me she could give me nothing—not a penny even, worse luck,—nor, for that, a drink of warm milk. ’Tis a sore land this.”
“You have the Gaelic of the Isles. Is it from Iona you are?”
“It is from the Isles of the West I come.”
“From Tiree? … from Coll?”
“No.”