"Good evening!" said she, rather nervously, to this young fellow with the bold brown eyes and the heavy scar across his forehead, who stood twirling his Balmoral in his fingers. "Won’t you be seated? I hope I have not put you to any inconvenience. The fact is, I wished to thank you for your kindness in leaving the two stenlock for me—I am sorry I was out—and—and perhaps you will take a glass of whiskey—will you help yourself?"
For Barbara had brought in a little tray, and placed it on the hall-table, and retired. Now, when the Gillie Ciotach received this invitation, which he had no thought of refusing, he went to the table; and finding there a tumbler, a wineglass, a decanter, and a carafe of water, and being far too polite to think of drinking by himself, he filled the wine-glass with whiskey, and half-filled the tumbler with the same fluid, and brought the former, as being the more elegant of the two, to Miss Stanley.
"Oh, no, thank you," said she, with an involuntary shudder.
"No, mem?" said he, in great surprise. "Well, well, now!" But not to waste good liquor he poured the contents of the wine-glass into the tumbler, and took that between his hands as he sate down, nursing it, as it were, while he listened respectfully.
"But first of all," she said, with a fine effort at jollity and good-comradeship, "I ought to know your real name, you know; I don’t consider nicknames fair—even although they may not be meant to be nicknames. And I wish to be good friends with everybody in the place—and to get to know all about them——"
"Aw, my own name?" said the Gillie Ciotach, after having, with careful manners, sipped a little of the whiskey. "Aw, it’s just Andrew Mac Vean."
"Very well, then, Andrew, I am very pleased to see you; and I am sure we shall be friends; and I wished to say, besides, that I hope everything will go peaceably here, and that there will be no more riotous proceedings, like the assault on the lobster-fishermen at Ru Minard——"
"Aw, God, that was a fine thing!" cried the Gillie Ciotach, with a loud laugh that led Mary to suspect he must have had a glass, or even two, before coming along. "Aw, it was a fine thing, that! And Miss Stanley has only to send us word, as she did before, and we’ll drive the squatters into the sea—them and their traps, and their huts, ahltogether into the sea! Never mind where they settle!—you send to me, mem, and we will drive the duvvles into the sea, and let them tek their chance of swimming the Minch!——"