A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [290]
He took a step to the side, found an alder, and cut a good stick from it, with which he firmly escorted the wee beastie off the path and into the wood. Affronted, the snake writhed off at a good rate of speed into a hobble-bush, and next thing, a loud shriek came from the other side of the bush.
He darted round it to find Malva Christie, making an urgent, though unsuccessful, effort to squash the agitated snake with a large basket.
“It’s all right, lass, let him go.” He seized her arm, causing a number of mushrooms to cascade out of her basket, and the snake decamped indignantly in search of quieter surroundings.
He crouched and scooped up the mushrooms for her, while she gasped and fanned herself with the end of her apron.
“Oh, thank ye, sir,” she said, bosom heaving. “I’m that terrified o’ snakes.”
“Och, well, that’s no but a wee king snake,” he said, affecting nonchalance. “Great ratters—or so I’m told.”
“Maybe so, but they’ve a wicked bite.” She shuddered briefly.
“Ye’ve no been bitten, have ye?” He stood up and dumped a final handful of fungus into her basket, and she curtsied in thanks.
“No, sir.” She straightened her cap “But Mr. Crombie was. Gully Dornan brought one of those things in a box, to Sunday meeting last, just for mischief, for he kent the text was For they shall take up poisonous serpents and suffer no harm. I think he meant to let it out in the midst of the prayin’.” She grinned at the telling, clearly reliving the event.
“But Mr. Crombie saw him with the box, and took it from him, not knowing what was in it. Well, so—Gully was shaking of the box, to keep the snake awake, and when Mr. Crombie opened it, the snake came out like a jack-i’-the-box and bit Mr. Crombie on the lip.”
Jamie couldn’t help smiling in turn.
“Did it, then? I dinna recall hearing about that.”
“Well, Mr. Crombie was that furious,” she said, trying for tact. “I imagine no one wanted to spread the story, sir, for fear he’d maybe pop with rage.”
“Aye, I see,” he said dryly. “And that’s why he wouldna come to have my wife see to the wound, I suppose.”
“Oh, he wouldna do that, sir,” she assured him, shaking her head. “Not if he was to have cut off his nose by mistake.”
“No?”
She picked up the basket, glancing shyly up at him.
“Well . . . no. Some say may be as your wife’s a witch, did ye ken that?”
He felt an unpleasant tightness in his wame, though he was not surprised to hear it.
“She is a Sassenach,” he answered, calm. “Folk will always say such things of a stranger, especially a woman.” He glanced sideways at her, but her eyes were modestly cast down to the contents of her basket. “Think so yourself, do ye?”
She looked up at that, gray eyes wide.
“Oh, no, sir! Never!”
She spoke with such earnestness that he smiled, despite the seriousness of his errand.
“Well, I suppose ye’d have noticed, so much time as ye spend in her surgery.”
“Oh, I should wish nothing but to be just like her, sir!” she assured him, clutching the handle of her basket in worshipful enthusiasm. “She is so kind and lovely, and she kens so much! I want to know all she can teach me, sir.”
“Aye, well. She’s said often how good it is to have such a pupil as yourself, lass. Ye’re a great help to her.” He cleared his throat, wondering how best to work round from these cordialities to a rude inquiry as to whether her father was interfering with her. “Ah . . . your Da doesna mind that ye spend so much time with my wife?”
A cloud fell upon her countenance at that, and her long black lashes swept down, hiding the dove-gray eyes.
“Oh. Well. He . . . he doesna say I mustna go.”
Jamie made a noncommittal sound in his throat, and gestured her ahead of him back to the path, where he strode along for a bit without further question,