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Then it dawned upon Drumsheugh that the doctor was attempting the Highland fling. "He's ill made tae begin wi'," Drumsheugh explained in the kirkyard next Sabbath, "and ye ken he's been terrible mishannelled by accidents, sae ye may think what like it wes, but, as sure as deith, o' a' the Hielan' flings a' ever saw yon wes the bonniest.
"Gae 'wa!" he told her, shaking her off with a contempt for her fears. "Are ye still i' the daft Hielan' notion that it's a ghaist that's playin' there? That was a story he made up himsel', and the need for 't's done.
"Na, na; ye ken a' never tell lees like the graund ceety doctors, and a'll warrant Flora 'ill be in kirk afore Martinmas, an' kiltin' up the braes as hardy as a hielan' sheltie by the new year." Flora puts an arm round her father's neck, and draws down his face to hers, but the doctor is looking another way. "Dinna fash wi' medicine; gie her plenty o' fresh milk and plenty o' air.
"Oh, he's good enough, I daresay," she answered without looking aside a moment. "I would think him much better if he was an inch or two taller, a shade blacker, and Hielan' to boot. But tell me this, and tell me no more, Sim; where has your lordship been for three whole days? Three whole days, Simon MacTaggart, and not a word of explanation. Are you not ashamed of yourself, sir?
"I wonder if you're on the same track as myself, for I'm like the Hielan' soldier I have a Frenchman of my own. There's one, I mean, up by there in Doom, and coming down here to-morrow or the day after, or as soon as I can order a lodging for him in the town." "Oh, hell!" cried the secretary, amazingly dumfoundered.
"The whole settlement was ready to go bail for my grandfather if he wanted it, and for the health of him he needed to be in the open air, and so he gave Tuncan-Macdonnell of the Greenfields, and Æneas Macdonald of the Sandfields, for his bail, and he promised, on his Hielan' word of honor, not to go beyond the posts.
Gin yer mother had lived, I wad hae had mair houp, I confess, for she was a braw leddy and a bonny, and that sweet-tongued! She cud hae wiled a maukin frae its lair wi' her bonnie Hielan' speech. Nae mair cud yer father hoot! yer gran'father, I mean though his father cud speyk it weel.
"No, I'm no' exactly a'thegether a Hielan'man," Mungo admitted, "though I hae freends con-nekit wi' the auldest clans, and though I'm, in a mainner o' speakin', i' the tail o' Doom, as I was i' the tail o' his faither afore him peace wi' him, he was the grand soger! but Hielan' or Lowland, we gied them their scuds at the 'Forty-five. Scots regiments, sir, a' the warld ower, hae had the best o't for fechtin', marchin', or glory.
Eat he could not, sleep he could not: all night he would be groaning, and all day he would be walking around by the posts, wishing that he had not passed his Hielan' word of honor not to go beyond a post; for he thought how he could have broken out like a chentleman, and gone to see his sick child, if he had stayed inside the jail wall.
Many's the house she has saved with that same Hielan' pony, for Gilchrist, a game lad among gangers, canna keep anything from Mirren, and here she is among the heather wi' word o' treachery, and d'ye ken who she will be doing it for?" "No," said I, "except this McKinnon ye spoke of."
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