Duff box his ears on the bridge; and you, papa, gave him over to that wretch, Angus Mac Pholp, to whip him--so at least Angus told me, after he had whipped him till he dropped senseless. I can hardly keep from screaming now when I think of it.""All this, Jenny, is nothing less than cursed folly. Do you mean to tell me you have all these years been cherishing resentment against your own father, for the sake of a little thieving rascal, whom it was a good deed to fright from the error of his ways? I have no doubt Angus gave him merely what he deserved.""You must remember, Miss Galbraith, we did not know he was dumb,"said Fergus, humbly.
"If you had had any heart," said Ginevra, "you would have seen in his face that he was a perfect angelic child. He ran to the mountain, without a rag to cover his bleeding body, and would have died of cold and hunger, had not the Grants, the parents of your father's herd-boy, Mr. Duff, taken him to their hearts, and been father and mother to him."--Ginevra's mouth was opened at last.--"After that," she went on, "Angus, that bad man, shot him like a wild beast, when he was quietly herding Robert Grant's sheep.
In return Sir Gilbert saved his life in the flood. And just before the house of Glashruach fell--the part in which my room was, he caught me up, because he could not speak, and carried me out of it;and when I told you that he had saved my life, you ordered him out of the house, and when he was afraid to leave me alone with you, dashed him against the wall, and sent for Angus to whip him again.
But I should have liked to see Angus try it then!""I do remember an insolent fellow taking advantage of the ruinous state the house was in to make his way into my study," said the laird.
"And now," Ginevra continued, "Mr. Duff makes question of his wits because he finds him carrying a poor woman's children, going to get them a bed somewhere! If Mr. Duff had run about the streets when he was a child, like Sir Gilbert, he might not, perhaps, think it so strange he should care about a houseless woman and her brats!"Therewith Ginevra burst into tears.
"Abominably disagreeable!" muttered the laird. "I always thought she was an idiot!--Hold your tongue, Jenny! you will wake the street.
All you say may or may not be quite true; I do not say you are telling lies, or even exaggerating; but I see nothing in it to prove the lad a fit companion for a young lady. Very much to the contrary. I suppose he told you he was your injured, neglected, ill-used cousin? He may be your cousin: you may have any number of such cousins, if half the low tales concerning your mother's family be true."Ginevra did not answer him--did not speak another word. When Fergus left them at their own door, she neither shook hands with him nor bade him good night.
"Jenny," said her father, the moment he was gone, "if I hear of your once speaking again to that low vagabond,--and now I think of it,"he cried, interrupting himself with a sudden recollection, "there was a cobbler-fellow in the town here they used to call Sir Somebody Galbraith!--that must be his father! Whether the Sir was title or nickname, I neither know nor care. A title without money is as bad as a saintship without grace. But this I tell you, that if I hear of your speaking one word, good or bad, to the fellow again, I will, I swear to Almighty God, I will turn you out of the house."To Ginevra's accumulated misery, she carried with her to her room a feeling of contempt for her father, with which she lay struggling in vain half the night.
