If it is as ye say,
I'll more than make it up to him. I promise ye, his name shall not
suffer."
"I love you, Dad. I know you are just--but you're a hard-hearted old
Scot, just the same. You don't make many mistakes, but you have made
two--about Oskar, and about hiring that Wentworth. I told you you'd be
sorry."
"Well, maybe ye're right," and John McNabb never blinked an eye.
"See, didn't I just say you were hard-headed? You won't admit you made
a mistake even after what Orcutt told you to-day. But tell me
honestly, Dad, are you ruined?"
"Well, we won't worry about that, lass. D'ye hear the hoot-owl? I
like to hear them of nights. I found one's nest once an' I took the
three eggs out an' slipped them under a hen that Mother McFarlane had
settin'. It was at Long Lake post, Mother McFarlane was the factor's
wife, an' I was his clerk. The eggs had been sat on a long time an'
they hatched out before the hen eggs. Ye should have seen Mother
McFarlane's face when she caught sight of them chickens! It was one of
the best jokes I ever made."
"And here you ought to be as solemn as an owl yourself, and you are
talking of jokes. I don't understand you at all."
"Maybe I should be an owl. D'ye notice in the stories, they make the
Scots say, 'hoot'? But about Wentworth, now. If we should meet up
with him, don't let on ye know anything about my deal with Orcutt.
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