Part 45 (2/2)
”Ow, the third thing I wad du--”
”I want to know the first thing you would think about.”
”I canna say yet what the third thing wad be. Fower year at the college wad gie me time to reflec upon a hantle o' things.”
”I insist on knowing the first thing you would think about doing,”
cried Florimel, with mock imperiousness, but real tyranny.
”Weel, my leddy, gien ye wull hae 't--but hoo great a man wad ye be makin' o' me?”
”Oh!--let me see;--yes--yes--the heir to an earldom.-- That's liberal enough--is it not?”
”That 's as muckle as say I wad come to be a yerl some day, sae be I didna dee upo' the ro'd?”
”Yes--that's what it means.”
”An' a yerl's neist door till a markis--isna he?”
”Yes--he's in the next lower rank.”
”Lower?--Ay!--No that muckle, maybe?”
”No,” said Lady Florimel consequentially; ”the difference is not so great as to prevent their meeting on a level of courtesy.”
”I dinna freely ken what that means; but gien 't be yer leddys.h.i.+p's wull to mak a yerl o' me, I'm no to raise ony objections.”
He uttered it definitively, and stood silent.
”Well?” said the girl.
”What's yer wull, my leddy?” returned Malcolm, as if roused from a reverie.
”Where's your answer?”
”I said I wad be a yerl to please yer leddys.h.i.+p.--I wad be a flunky for the same rizzon, gien 't was to wait upo' yersel' an'
nae ither.”
”I ask you,” said Florimel, more imperiously than ever, ”what is the first thing you would do, if you found yourself no longer a fisherman, but the son of an earl?”
”But it maun be that I was a fisherman--to the en' o' a' creation, my leddy.”
”You refuse to answer my question?”
”By no means, my leddy, gien ye wull hae an answer.”
”I will have an answer.”
”Gien ye wull hae 't than--But--”
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