"Ye might just call him a scoundrel, as ye suggested Nancy's doing. His grace might receive it better coming from a man," I said cheerfully. "Sit ye down, lad," Sandy said at length; "sit ye down. And stop making a windmill of your arms as ye stand on that rise, or we may think we are all Dutch folk together; and just give over thinking ye know all women, because ye've made love to some senseless London fillies with no brains in their heads whatever. It's a wise man that understands that no two women are alike. John Stair and I have seen something of life in our time, aye, and something of women; but Nancy's a different creature from anything in our ken. Ye might just trust a little to our judgment of her." If Danvers were abashed by this speech he showed it never a whit, but stood very erect, his brows drawn into a scowl not unlike Nancy's own, glowering first at his father and then at me. Sandy, who was, in his mind's eye, re-rigging a schooner, went on with his paper-and-pencil work, unconscious of his son's scrutiny. I dropped my eyes to the Allan Ramsay, which I had opened at random, but lost nothing of Danvers's conduct, and liked him for it. He had known but the women who needed protection, and his attitude to my mind bespoke the chivalrous gentleman. "Will she go alone?" he inquired abruptly. "She will probably take Father Michel." "And might I inquire without discourtesy who Father Michel is?" "He is a priest who came up with us from Landgore, and the best man I ever knew," said I. "'Tis he who attends to the burn people." "And will he tell her what to say to his Grace of Borthwicke?" "She will not need to be told," I answered. "Indeed, Dandy Carmichael, this is not the first time she has gone on such errands." "And does she get her way?" "She has never failed yet." "It's true," Danvers went on, "that I've met none of her kind, but if she go to the Duke of Borthwicke, as man to man----" "She will not go as man to man," Sandy broke in with a smile. "She will go as woman to man. There's a mighty differ." "You see, Dandy," said I, trying to smooth the talk a bit, "although she's my own, there's sure no harm in my saying that she is an extraordinary creature. That she has great beauty a blind man could see; but that's the least of her, for she has the heart and the principles of the purest and the best. But, oh, laddie, in her dealings with men she has the knowledge of the deil himself. Mayhap she'll cry a bit, or flout the duke, or laugh at his ways. She'll do the thing which she finds his mood and the hour suit, and she'll come away with the pardon in her hand, and say ever after that the duke is maligned and that at heart he is a very good man. And she'll believe it, too."