You have little enough to be proud of, my man, and the
less said the better. I advise you to mind what you're about, and
show suitable respect to your superiors, or as sure as judgment
you'll go back to fish guts."
While he spoke, Malcolm had been smoothing Kelpie all over with his
palms; the moment the factor ceased talking, he ceased stroking,
and with one arm thrown over the mare's back, looked him full in
the face.
"Gien ye imaigine, Maister Crathie," he said, "'at I coont it ony
rise i' the warl' 'at brings me un'er the orders o' a man less
honest than he micht be, ye're mista'en. I dinna think it's pride
this time; I wad ile Blue Peter's lang butes till him, but I winna
lee for ony factor atween this an' Davy Jones."
It was too much. Mr Crathie's feelings overcame him, and he was
a wrathful man to see, as he strode up to the youth with clenched
fist.
"Haud frae the mere, for God's sake, Maister Crathie," cried Malcolm.
But even as he spoke, two reversed Moorish arches of gleaming
iron opened on the terror quickened imagination of the factor
a threatened descent from which his most potent instinct, that of
self preservation, shrank in horror. He started back white with
dismay, having by a bare inch of space and a bare moment of time,
escaped what he called Eternity.
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