Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/103

 She looked at me over the rim with an extraordinary expression. "I hope ye liked it?" said she.

"It is even a magnificent wine," said I.

"Well, it was my father laid it down," she said. "There were few knew more about port wine than my father, God rest him!" She settled herself in a chair with an alarming air of resolution. "And so there is some particular direction that you wish to go in?" said she.

"O," said I, following her example, "I am by no means such a vagrant as you suppose. I have good friends, if I could got to them, for which all I want is to be once clear of Scotland; and I have money for the road." And I produced my bundle.

"English banknotes?" she said. "That's not very handy for Scotland. It's been some fool of an Englishman that's given you these, I'm thinking. How much is it?"

"I declare to heaven I never thought to count!" I exclaimed. "But that is soon remedied."

And I counted out ten notes of ten pound each, all in the name of Abraham Newlands, and five bills of country bankers for as many guineas.

"One hundred and twenty-six pound five," cried the old lady. "And you carry such a sum about you, and have not so much as counted it! If you are not a thief, you must allow you are very thief-like."

"And yet, madam, the money is legitimately mine," said I. She took one of the bills and held it up. "Is there any probability, now, that this could be traced?" she asked.

"None, I should suppose; and if it were, it would be no matter," said I. "With your usual penetration, you guessed right. An Englishman brought it me. It reached me, through the hands of his English solicitor, from my