As she spoke she was doing her best, with many expressions
of pity, for his hand. When she had bathed and
bound it up, and laid it in a sling, he wished her
goodnight.
Arrived at home he found, to his dismay, that things
had not been going well. Indeed, while yet several
houses off he had heard the voices of the Partan’s
wife and his grandfather in fierce dispute. The
old man was beside himself with anxiety about Malcolm;
and the woman, instead of soothing him, was opposing
everything he said, and irritating him frightfully.
The moment he entered, each opened a torrent of accusations
against the other, and it was with difficulty that
Malcolm prevailed on the woman to go home. The
presence of his boy soon calmed the old man, however,
and he fell into a troubled sleep—in which
Malcolm, who sat by his bed all night, heard him,
at intervals, now lamenting over the murdered of Glenco,
now exulting in a stab that had reached the heart
of Glenlyon, and now bewailing his ruined bagpipes.
At length towards morning he grew quieter, and Malcolm
fell asleep in his chair.
CHAPTER XX: ADVANCES
When he woke, Duncan still slept, and Malcolm having
got ready some tea for his grandfather’s, and
a little brose for his own breakfast, sat down again
by the bedside, and awaited the old man’s waking.
The first sign of it that reached him was the feebly
uttered question, —“Will ta tog be
tead, Malcolm?”
“As sure ’s ye stabbit him,” answered
Malcolm.
“Then she ’ll pe getting herself ready,”
said Duncan, making a motion to rise.
“What for, daddy?”
“For ta hanging, my son,” answered Duncan
coolly.
“Time eneuch for that, daddy, whan they sen’
to tell ye,” returned Malcolm, cautious of revealing
the facts of the case.
“Ferry coot!” said Duncan, and fell asleep
again.
In a little while he woke with a start.
“She ’ll be hafing an efil tream, my son
Malcolm,” he said; “or it was ’ll
pe more than a tream. Cawmill of Clenlyon, Cod
curse him! came to her pedside; and he’ll say
to her, ‘MacDhonuill,’ he said, for pein’
a tead man he would pe knowing my name,—’MacDhonuill,’
he said, ‘what tid you’ll pe meaning py
turking my posterity?’ And she answered and
said to him, ’I pray it had peen yourself, you
tamned Clenlyon.’ And he said to me, ’It
’ll pe no coot wishing tat; it would be toing
you no coot to turk me, for I’m a tead man.’—
‘And a tamned man,’ says herself, and would
haf taken him py ta troat, put she couldn’t
mofe. ‘Well, I’m not so sure of tat,’
says he, ’for I ’fe pecked all teir partons.’—’And
tid tey gif tem to you, you tog?’ says herself.—’Well,
I’m not sure,’ says he; ’anyhow,
I’m not tamned fery much yet.’—’She’ll
pe much sorry to hear it,’ says herself.
And she took care aalways to pe calling him some paad
name, so tat he shouldn’t say she ’ll be
forgifing him, whatever ta rest of tem might be toing.
