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It's a gentleman's policy, I would think, to have the squabble in the open air, and save the women the likely sight of bloody gashes." "What do you think, Elrigmore?" Betty cried to me the next moment, and I said it were better the gentleman should go.
"Oh, Elrigmore!" said the Marquis, in an offhand jovial and equal way; "I thought you would like to meet my cousin here M'Iver of the Barbreck; something of a soldier like yourself, who has seen service in Lowland wars." "In the Scots Brigade, sir?" I asked M'lver, eyeing him with greater interest than ever.
I would have thought his own paid curate and a neighbour so close as Elrigmore would never waste the hours due to sleep upon treason to the man who deserved better of them." "You should have eavesdropped earlier and you would have learned that there was no treason in the matter. I'm as leal friend to my lord of Argile as you or any of your clan.
What pleased me first and foremost about this girl Betty, daughter of Provost Brown, were her eyes, then, that showed, even in yon dusky passage, a humoursome interest in young Elrigmore in a kilt coming up-stairs swinging on a finger the key of Lucky Fraser's garret. "Betty lass, 'tis you," said I, putting out a hand and shaking her soft fingers.
"You see, Elrigmore, what a happy King of the Highlands I am," said the Marquis, despondently. "Fortunate Auchinbreac, to be all bye with it after a moment's agony!" "He died like a good soldier, sir," I said; "he was by all accounts a man of some vices, but he wiped them out in his own blood." "Are you sure of that?
Is it not the old folly of the code of honour, the mad exaltation of mere valour in arms, that makes you think so? What if he was spilling his drops on the wrong side? He was against his king at least, and oh, my wits, my wits, what am I saying?... I saw you did not drink my wine, Elrigmore; am I so low as that?" "There is no man so low, my lord," said I, "but he may be yet exalted.
"'Where shall we go to-day on our rounds? said I; 'Where but to Elrigmore, said she; 'I have not seen Colin for an age! Yet I'll warrant you thought the cunning jade shy of a gentleman soldier! Ah, those kirtles, those kirtles! I'll give you a word of wisdom, sir, you never learned in Glascow Hie Street nor in the army."
It happened on a night of nights as the saying goes that thus we were gathered in the rushy flat of Elrigmore and our hearts easy as to reivers for was not MacCailein scourging them over the north? when a hint came to us of a strange end to these Lorn wars, and of the last days of the Lord of Argile.
"And so much of the dandy too!" put in M'Iver, himself perjink enough about his apparel. "I'll wager there's a girl in the business." He laughed low, looked from one to the other of us, yet his meaning escaped, or seemed to escape, the lady. "Elrigmore is none of the kind," she said, as if to protect a child. "He has too many serious affairs of life in hand to be in the humour for gallivanting."
Now all fear of facing the street deserted me. I felt a man upright, imbued with a strong sense of justice; I felt I must seek out John Splendid and get his mind, of all others, upon a villany he eould teach me to avenge. "Elrigmore!" he cried; "sir, I give you welcome to Inneraora! You will not know the place, it has grown so much since you last visited its humble street."
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