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Bonnie Prince Charlie : a Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty
page 16 of 368 (04%)
a good Scotch housewife.

Even on that first day he did not come punctually to his meals. He was
away about the town looking up old acquaintance, came in at dinner and
again at supper after the meal had already begun, and dropped into his
place and began to eat without saying a word of grace. He stamped about
the house as if he had cavalry spurs still on his heels; talked in a
voice that could be heard from attic to basement; used French and Flemish
oaths which horrified the good lady, although she did not understand
them; smoked at all hours of the day, whereas Andrew always confined
himself to his after supper pipe, and, in spite of his assertions on the
previous evening, consumed an amount of liquor which horrified the good
woman.

At his meals he talked loudly, kept the two apprentices in a titter with
his stories of campaigning, spoke slightingly of the city authorities,
and joked the bailie with a freedom and roughness which scandalized her.
Andrew was slow to notice the incongruity of his brother's demeanour and
bearing with the atmosphere of the house, although he soon became dimly
conscious that there was a jarring element in the air. At the end of a
week Malcolm broached the subject to him.

"Andrew," he said, "you are a good fellow, though you are a bailie and an
elder of the kirk, and I thank you for the hearty welcome you have given
me, and for your invitation to stay for a long time with you; but it will
not do. Janet is a good woman and a kindly, but I can see that I keep her
perpetually on thorns. In good truth, fifteen years of campaigning are
but an indifferent preparation for a man as an inmate of a respectable
household. I did not quite know myself how thoroughly I had become a
devil may care trooper until I came back to my old life here. The ways of
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