"I'm wishing you'd come half an hour ago," he began. "Ishbel would ha'
given much to see you, and so wad some one else, I'm thinking."
"Have the ladies started already?" I asked, with painful carelessness.
"Losh, man, Maclachlan has 'em up and away the morn in fine style. He's
getting a very attentive chiel is Maclachlan, and I wonder ma Ishbel disna
like him better than she does. There's too damn few of us to be spitting
and sparring among ourselves."
"This is so, my lord," I said.
"I'm just plain Davie to ma friends," he said simply. "I'm no exactly a
man after God's ain heart, like my Bible namesake, but I hae no speeritual
pride where a guid man's concernit, and it ill becomes men who are in the
same boat, and that only a cockle-shell thing, to be swapping off court
terms wi' ane anither. They're aff, an' we mun step it out. An' I'm no
really a lord."
"I want the Prince's lodging, Davie," I explained, as we walked on the
causeway level with the head of his column.
"We march past it, an' I'll drop ye there. The young man takes it verra
ill. The heart's clean melted oot of him.
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