"Ay, you would. Your way of fighting is no just the canniest, but I like you no the worse for it. You might have got off without thon bloody clout on the top of your head if ye'd just clodded stones and then run like the rest of them. But that's no your way of fightin'. Did ye ever fight afore?"
"Just two nights ago," said Neal, "and I got the scrape on the side of my face then."
"And was it for a lassie you were fightin' thon time? I see well by the face of you that it was. And she liked you for it. Did she no? She'd be a quare one that didna. Did she give you a kiss to make the scrab on your face better? I wouldna think twice about giving you one myself only you wouldn't have kisses from the likes of me. Be quiet now, and sup up your tea. I willna have you offering to slabber ower my hand if that's what you're after."
Neal, who had felt himself goaded to some act of gallantry, returned sheepishly to his tea and toast.
"No," said Neal, "I'm from Dunseveric, right away in the north of the county."
"Ay, are you? Do you mind the old rhyme--
'County Antrim, men and horses, County Down for bonny lasses.'
Maybe your lassie, the one that kissed you, was out of the County Down?"
Peg Macllrea laughed with delight and clapped her hands.
"I knew rightly there was a lassie, and that she kissed you. Now you've tellt me yourself. But I willna split on you, nor I willna let on that you tellt on her. But I hope she's bonny, though she does not come from the County Down."
Neal grew angry. It did not seem fitting that this red-haired, freckled servant, with her bold tongue and red arms, should make game of Una St. Clair's kisses. They were sacred things in his memory.
"Now you're getting vexed," she said. "You're as cross as twa sticks. I can see it in your eyes. Well, I've more to do than to be coaxing you."
She turned her back on him and began to sing--
"I would I were in Ballinderry, I would I were in Aghalee, I would I were on bonny Ram's Island, Sitting under an ivy tree. Ochone! Ochone!"
"Peg," said Neal, "Peg Macllrea, don't you be cross with me."
"Peg," said Neal, "I've finished my tea, and I wish you'd turn round. Please do, please."
She turned to him at last with a broad smile on her face.