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Sonachan and the baron-bailie quarrelled away about some point of pedigree as they sat, a towsy, unkempt pair, in a dusty corner of the byre, with beards of a most scraggy nature grown upon their chins. Their uncouthness gave a scruple of foppishness to M'I ver, and sent him seeking a razor in the widow's house.
And we must be on the other side of Dalness before very long. You have been very good to us, and my name's John M'I ver of Barbreck a kind of a Campbell with a great respect for the Mac-Donalds, of whom I kent a few perfect gentry in foreign wars I have been at the fighting of. And good day, mistress, we must be going. My friends have the very small manners surely, for they're off down the road.
M'I ver turned round and looked her, with cunning humour, in the face. "I might well guess that," he said; "you have the best name in the countryside for these offices, that many a fumbling dame botches. I suppose," he added, when the pleasure in her face showed his words had found her vanity "I suppose you mean the bairn up in Carlunnan?"
"Stop, stop, John," he cried; "now that for once I've got the truth from you, let us be better friends than ever before." "Never the same again," said M'I ver, firmly, "never the same again, for you ken my estimate of you now; and what avails my courtesy?" "Your flatteries, you mean," said Argile, good-natured.
"I'm here, and I'm making a fair show at an easy mind," said M'I ver; "but I've been in cheerier circumstances ere now." "So have I, for that part of it," said Betty with spirit, half humorously, half in an obvious punctilio. "Mistress," said he, sitting up gravely, "I beg your pardon. Do you wonder if I'm not in a mood for saying dainty things? I wish "
"I have a bit of a halt myself," said M'I ver, with his usual folly; "and I'm sure I'm none the worse for it." The oldest boy sat up in bed and gloomed at us very sullenly. He could scarcely be expected to understand the conceits of M'Iver's tale about his lameness, that any one with eyes could behold had no existence.
"Give a rap, and when she answers the door we can tell our needs peaceably," said the minister. "I'm not caring about rapping, and I'm not caring about entering at all now," said M'I ver, turning about with some uneasiness. "I wish we had fallen on a more cheery dwelling, even if it were to be coerced with club and pistol.
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