“There’s her uncle away by,” said the Paymaster, straining his head to follow a figure passing on the other side of the street. “If they had kept a stricter eye on her from the first when they had her they might have saved themselves all this.” “Stricter eye!” said the Cornal. “You ken as much about women as I ken about cattle. The veins of her body were full of caprice, that’s what ailed her, and for that is there any remede? I’m asking you. As if I did not ken the mother of her! Man, man, man! She was the emblem and type of all her sex, I’m thinking, wanting all sobriety, hating the thought of age in herself and unfriendly to the same in others. A kind of a splash on a fine day upon the deep sea, laughing over the surface of great depths. I knew her well, Dugald knew her----” “You had every chance,” said the Paymaster, who nowadays found more courage to retort when his brother’s shortness and contempt annoyed him. “More chance, of course I had,” said the Cornal. “I’m thinking you had mighty little from yon lady.” “Anyway, here’s her daughter to seek,” said the Paymaster, feeling himself getting the worst of the encounter; “my own notion is that she’s on the road to Edinburgh. They say she had aye a crave for the place; perhaps there was a pair of breeches there behind her. Anyway, she’s making an ass of somebody!” Gilian threw down the letter and stood to his feet with his face white. “You’re a liar!” said he. No shell in any of their foreign battles more astounded the veterans he was facing with wide nostril and a face like chalk. “God bless me, here’s a marvel!” cried the Cornal when he found voice. “You--you--you damned sheep!” blurted the Paymaster. “Do you dare speak to me like that? For tuppence I would give you my rattan across the legs.” His face was purple with anger; the stock that ran in many folds about his neck seemed like a garotte. He lifted up his hand as if to strike, but his brother caught his arm. “Let the lad alone,” said he. “If he had a little more of that in his make I would like him better.” Together they stood, the old men, facing Gilian with his hands clenched, for the first time in his life the mutineer, feeling a curious heady satisfaction in the passion that braced him like a sword and astounded the men before him. “It’s a lie!” he cried again, somewhat modifying his accusation. “I know where she is, and she’s not in Edinburgh nor on her way to it.” “Very well,” said the Paymaster, “ye better go and tell Old Islay where she is; he’s put about at the loss of a daughter-in-law he paid through the nose for, they’re saying.”