Page:Edgar Wallace--Tam o the Scoots.djvu/187

 Bruce and Wallace and Rob Roy and all those people?"

"Oh, aye," said Tam cautiously, "by what A' read in the paper it's a gay fine country."

"And the red deer and glens and things—it must be lovely."

"A've seen graund pictures of a glen," admitted Tam, "but the red deer in Glascae air no' sae plentiful as they used to be—A'm thinkin' the ship-yard bummer hae scairt 'em away."

She shot a sharp glance at him, then, it seemed for the first time, noticed his stripes.

"Oh, you're a sergeant," she said. "I thought—I thought by your 'wings' you were an officer. I didn't know that sergeants—"

Tam smiled at her confusion and when he smiled there was an infinite sweetness in the action.

"Ye're right, Mistress. A'm a sairgeant, an' A' thocht a' the time ye were mistakin' me for an officer, an' A'd no' the heart to stop ye, for it's a verra lang time since A'