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"No need to worry more, ma’am," he assured Mrs McGillivray "I knew Jamie Roy would take care of it, and so he has Your lad’s safe"

"Ja?" she said She looked doubtfully toward the sapling grove, but it was true; the attitudes of all thethe thief-taker back his set of manacles I saw the way he handled them, with brusque distaste He had worn irons, at Ardsmuir

"Gott sei dank," Mrs McGillivray said, with an explosive sigh Her massive form seemed suddenly to diminish as the breath went out of her

The littlehis ay fro irons at his belt reached us in a faint chime of metal, heard between the shouts of the crowd behind us Ja, while Fergus watched the thief-taker’s departure, frowning slightly

"Exactly what did Jaave rin "Jamie Roy told him serious-like that it was surely luck for the thief-taker--his name’s Boble, by the way, Harley Boble--that we done coive him to understand that if we hadn’t, then this lady here"--he bowed toward Ute--"would likely have taken hi, safe out of sight"

Myers rubbed a knuckle under his red-veined nose and chortled softly in his beard

"Boble said as how he didn’t believe it, he thought she was only a-tryin’ to scare him with that knife But then Jahta thought the same--only that he’d heard so e-e of bein’ served soht about then, Boble started to lose the color in his face, and when Jae to show him--"

"Oh, dear," I said, with a vivid ht it the day before from a vendor on the mountain, only to discover that it had been ily of rotting blood that no one had been able to sto remainder in his handkerchief and put it in his sporran, intending either to procure a refund or to shove it down the vendor’s throat "I see"

Myers nodded, turning to Ute

"And your husband, ma’am--bless his soul, Rob McGillivray’s a real born liar--chi to it all, shakin’ his head and sayin’ as how he’s got his work cut out to shoot enough ," Inga said softly toa chicken’s neck"

Myers raised his shoulders in a good-huh the wet grass

"So Jaentleman to protect Boble from you, and Boble promised on his word as awell, he said as he’d keep clear of young Manfred"

"H rather disconcerted She didn’tconsidered an habitual er--but was rather put out at having her reputation as a sausage-h I vould efferher nose in disdain at the odorous luh Ratzfleisch" She waved it aith a fastidious gesture, then turned to her husband and said so softly in Gerathering all her children like a hen clucking after chicks, urging thehtly at the chorus of thanks, bowing to her

"Gern geschehen," he said "Euer ergebener Diener, Frau Ute"

She bea in parting to Rob

"Such a fine, big Mann," she htly as she looked hilance frounsmith was a handsome man, with close-clipped, dark curly hair and a chiseled face, he was also fine-boned as a sparrow, and so approximately to the level of her brawny shoulder I couldn’t help wondering, given her apparent adged apologetically "Luff, you know" She sounded as though love were an unfortunate but unavoidable condition

I glanced at Ja it back into his sporran "Well, yes," I said "I do"

BY THE TIME we returned to our own ca been capably fed by the girls Fortunately, Jaht plenty of food from Jocasta’s camp, and I sat down at last to a pleasant meal of potato fritters, buttered bannocks, fried haht happen today There was plenty of time; the sun was barely above the trees, al rain clouds

A little later, pleasantly full of breakfast, and with a third cup of coffee to hand, I went and threw back the canvas covering what I thought of as in the business of organizing for thethe herb jars inup the medicines that must be made fresh