"So you did not bring in your gentlemen?" said John, as we were preparing to go. "I was half afraid some one might find his way unbidden, and then it was all bye with two poor soldiers of fortune."
"John MacDonald the bard, John Lorn, as we call him, went bye a while ago," she answered simply, "on his way to the clan at Kilcumin."
"I have never seen the bard yet that did not demand his bardic right to kail-pot and spoon at every passing door."
"This one was in a hurry," said the woman, reddening a little in confusion.
"Just so," said M'Iver, fumbling in his hand some coin he had taken from his sporran; "have you heard of the gold touch for fever? A child has been brought from the edge of the grave by the virtue of a dollar rubbed on its brow. I think I heard you say some neighbour's child was ill? I'm no physician, but if my coin could--what?"
The woman flushed deeper than ever, an angered pride this time in her heat.
"There's no child ill that I know of," said she; "if there was, we have gold of our own."
She bustled about the house and put past her blankets, and out with a spinning-wheel and into a whirr of it, with a hummed song of the country at her lips--all in a mild temper, or to keep her confusion from showing itself undignified.
"Come away," I said to my comrade in English; "you'll make her bitterly angry if you persist in your purpose."
He paid no heed to me, but addressed the woman again with a most ingenious story, apparently contrived, with his usual wit, as he went on with it.
"Your pardon, goodwife," said he, "but I see you are too sharp for my small deceit I daresay I might have guessed there was no child ill; but for reasons of my own I'm anxious to leave a little money with you till I come back this road again. We trusted you with our lives for a couple of hours there, and surely, thinks I, we can trust you with a couple of yellow pieces."
The woman stopped her wheel and resumed her good-humour. "I thought," said she,--"I thought you meant payment for----"
"You're a bit hard on my manners, goodwife," said John. "Of course I have been a soldier, and might have done the trick of paying forage with a sergeant's blunt-ness, but I think I know a Gaelic woman's spirit better."