“How dare you hint at any understanding between you and me?” exclaimed the girl in cold anger.
“Lord, mem! what hey I said to fess sic a fire-flaucht oot o’ yer bonny een? I thocht ye only did it ’cause ye wad’ na like to luik shabby afore the lass—no giein’ onything to the lad ’at brocht ye yer ain—an’ lippened to me to unnerstan’ ’at ye did it but for the luik o’ the thing, as I say.”
He had taken the coin from his pocket, and had been busy while he spoke rubbing it in a handful of sand, so that it was bright as new when he now offered it.
“You are quite mistaken,” she rejoined, ungraciously. “You insult me by supposing I meant you to return it.”
“Div ye think I cud bide to be paid for a turn till a neebor, lat alane the liftin’ o’ a buik till a leddy?” said Malcolm with keen mortification. “That wad be to despise mysel’ frae keel to truck. I like to be paid for my wark, an’ I like to be paid weel: but no a plack by sic-like (beyond such) sall stick to my loof (palm). It can be no offence to gie ye back yer half-croon, my leddy.”
And again he offered the coin.
“I don’t in the least see why, on your own principles, you shouldn’t take the money,” said the girl, with more than the coldness of an uninterested umpire. “You worked for it, I’m sure—first accompanying me home in such a storm, and then finding the book and bringing it back all the way to the house!”
“’Deed, my leddy, sic a doctrine wad tak a’ grace oot o’ the earth! What wad this life be worth gien a’ was to be peyed for? I wad cut my throat afore I wad bide in sic a warl’.—Tak yer half-croon, my leddy,” he concluded, in a tone of entreaty.
But the energetic outburst was sufficing, in such her mood, only to the disgust of Lady Florimel.
“Do anything with the money you please; only go away, and don’t plague me about it,” she said freezingly.