"Eh, Maister Bishopriggs," cried the girl, "here's a braw young leddy speerin' for ye by yer ain name at the door."
"A leddy?" repeated Bishopriggs, with a look of virtuous disgust.
"Ye donnert ne'er-do-weel, do you come to a decent, 'sponsible man like me, wi' sic a Cyprian overture as that? What d'ye tak' me for? Mark Antony that lost the world for love (the mair fule he!)? or Don Jovanny that counted his concubines by hundreds, like the blessed Solomon himself? Awa' wi' ye to yer pots and pans; and bid the wandering Venus that sent ye go spin!"
Before the girl could answer she was gently pulled aside from the doorway, and Bishopriggs, thunder-struck, saw Anne Silvester standing in her place.
"You had better tell the servant I am no stranger to you," said Anne, looking toward the kitchen-maid, who stood in the passage staring at her in stolid amazement.
"My ain sister's child!" cried Bishopriggs, lying with his customary readiness. "Go yer ways, Maggie. The bonny lassie's my ain kith and kin. The tongue o' scandal, I trow, has naething to say against that.--Lord save us and guide us!" he added In another tone, as the girl closed the door on them, "what brings ye here?"
"I have something to say to you. I am not very well; I must wait a little first. Give me a chair."
Bishopriggs obeyed in silence. His one available eye rested on Anne, as he produced the chair, with an uneasy and suspicious attention. "I'm wanting to know one thing," he said. "By what meeraiculous means, young madam, do ye happen to ha' fund yer way to this inn?"
Anne told him how her inquiries had been made and what the result had been, plainly and frankly. The clouded face of Bishopriggs began to clear again.
"Hech! hech!" he exclaimed, recovering all his native impudence, "I hae had occasion to remark already, to anither leddy than yersel', that it's seemply mairvelous hoo a man's ain gude deeds find him oot in this lower warld o' ours. I hae dune a gude deed by pure Tammy Pennyquick, and here's a' Pairth ringing wi the report o' it; and Sawmuel Bishopriggs sae weel known that ony stranger has only to ask, and find him. Understand, I beseech ye, that it's no hand o' mine that pets this new feather in my cap.
As a gude Calvinist, my saul's clear o' the smallest figment o' belief in Warks. When I look at my ain celeebrity I joost ask, as the Psawmist asked before me, 'Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?' It seems ye've something to say to me," he added, suddenly reverting to the object of Anne's visit.
"Is it humanly possible that ye can ha' come a' the way to Pairth for naething but that?"
The expression of suspicion began to show itself again in his face. Concealing as she best might the disgust that he inspired in her, Anne stated her errand in the most direct manner, and in the fewest possible words.
"I have come here to ask you for something," she said.
"Ay? ay? What may it be ye're wanting of me?"
"I want the letter I lost at Craig Fernie."
Even the solidly-founded self-possession of Bishopriggs himself was shaken by the startling directness of that attack on it. His glib tongue was paralyzed for the moment. "I dinna ken what ye're drivin' at," he said, after an interval, with a sullen consciousness that he had been all but tricked into betraying himself.
The change in his manner convinced Anne that she had found in Bishopriggs the person of whom she was in search.
"You have got my letter," she said, sternly insisting on the truth. "And you are trying to turn it to a disgraceful use. I won't allow you to make a market of my private affairs. You have offered a letter of mine for sale to a stranger. I insist on your restoring it to me before I leave this room!"
Bishopriggs hesitated again. His first suspicion that Anne had been privately instructed by Mrs. Glenarm's lawyers returned to his mind as a suspicion confirmed. He felt the vast importance of ****** a cautious reply.
"I'll no' waste precious time," he said, after a moment's consideration with himself, "in brushing awa' the fawse breath o' scandal, when it passes my way. It blaws to nae purpose, my young leddy, when it blaws on an honest man like me. Fie for shame on ye for saying what ye've joost said--to me that was a fether to ye at Craig Fernie! Wha' set ye on to it? Will it be man or woman that's misca'ed me behind my back?"
Anne took the Glasgow newspaper from the pocket of her traveling cloak, and placed it before him, open at the paragraph which described the act of extortion attempted on Mrs. Glenarm.
"I have found there," she said, "all that I want to know."
"May a' the tribe o' editors, preenters, paper-makers, news-vendors, and the like, bleeze together in the pit o' Tophet!" With this devout aspiration--internally felt, not openly uttered--Bishopriggs put on his spectacles, and read the passage pointed out to him. "I see naething here touching the name o'
Sawmuel Bishopriggs, or the matter o' ony loss ye may or may not ha' had at Craig Fernie," he said, when he had done; still defending his position, with a resolution worthy of a better cause.
Anne's pride recoiled at the prospect of prolonging the discussion with him. She rose to her feet, and said her last words.
"I have learned enough by this time," she answered, "to know that the one argument that prevails with you is the argument of money.
If money will spare me the hateful necessity of disputing with you--poor as I am, money you shall have. Be silent, if you please. You are personally interested in what I have to say next."
She opened her purse, and took a five-pound note from it.