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"Just so," said M'Iver, fumbling in his hand some coin he had taken from his sporran; "have you heard of the gold touch for fever? A child has been brought from the edge of the grave by the virtue of a dollar rubbed on its brow. I think I heard you say some neighbour's child was ill? I'm no physician, but if my coin could--what?" The woman flushed deeper than ever, an angered pride this time in her heat. "There's no child ill that I know of," said she; "if there was, we have gold of our own." She bustled about the house and put past her blankets, and out with a spinning-wheel and into a whirr of it, with a hummed song of the country at her lips--all in a mild temper, or to keep her confusion from showing itself undignified. "Come away," I said to my comrade in English; "you'll make her bitterly angry if you persist in your purpose." He paid no heed to me, but addressed the woman again with a most ingenious story, apparently contrived, with his usual wit, as he went on with it. "Your pardon, goodwife," said he, "but I see you are too sharp for my small deceit I daresay I might have guessed there was no child ill; but for reasons of my own I'm anxious to leave a little money with you till I come back this road again. We trusted you with our lives for a couple of hours there, and surely, thinks I, we can trust you with a couple of yellow pieces." The woman stopped her wheel and resumed her good-humour. "I thought," said she,--"I thought you meant payment for----" "You're a bit hard on my manners, goodwife," said John. "Of course I have been a soldier, and might have done the trick of paying forage with a sergeant's blunt-ness, but I think I know a Gaelic woman's spirit better." "But are you likely to be passing here again at any time?" cried the woman, doubt again darkening her face, and by this time she had the money in her hand. "I thought you were going back by the Glen?" "That was our notion," said my comrade, marvellously ready, "but to tell the truth we are curious to see this Keppoch bard, whose songs we know very well in real Argile, and we take a bit of the road to Kilcumin after him." The weakness of this tale was not apparent to the woman, who I daresay had no practice of such trickery as my friend was the master of, and she put the money carefully in a napkin and in a recess beneath one of the roof-joists. Our thanks she took carelessly, no doubt, because we were Campbells. I wa
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