Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [288]
“And failin’ that,” said Ian, “I’ve found myself on the same number of occasions, bent over a fence rail alongside Mr. Fraser there, listenin’ to him yell his heid off while waitin’ for my own turn.”
“Never!” replied Jamie indignantly. “I never yelled.”
“Ye call it what ye like, Jamie,” his friend answered, “but ye were awful loud.”
“Ye could hear the both of ye for miles,” Jenny interjected. “And not only the yelling. Ye could hear Jamie arguing all the time, right up to the fence.”
“Aye, ye should ha’ been a lawyer, Jamie. But I dinna ken why I always let you do the talking,” said Ian, shaking his head. “You always got us in worse trouble than we started.”
Jamie began to laugh again. “You mean the broch?”
“I do.” Ian turned to me, motioning toward the west, where the ancient stone tower rose from the hill behind the house.
“One of Jamie’s better arguments, that was,” he said, rolling his eyes upward. “He told Brian it was uncivilized to use physical force in order to make your point of view prevail. Corporal punishment was barbarous, he said, and old-fashioned, to boot. Thrashing someone just because they had committed an act with whose ram-ramifications, that was it—with whose ramifications ye didn’t agree was not at a’ a constructive form of punishment.…”
All of us were laughing by this time.
“Did Brian listen to all of this?” I asked.
“Oh, aye.” Ian nodded. “I just stood there wi’ Jamie, nodding whenever he’d stop for breath. When Jamie finally ran out of words, his father sort of coughed a bit and said ‘I see.’ Then he turned and looked out of the window for a little, swinging the strap and nodding his head, as though he were thinking. We were standing there, elbow to elbow like Jamie said, sweating. At last Brian turned about and told us to follow him to the stables.”
“He gave us each a broom, a brush, and a bucket, and pointed us in the direction of the broch,” said Jamie, taking up the story. “Said I’d convinced him of my point, so he’d decided on a more ‘constructive’ form of punishment.”
Ian’s eyes rolled slowly up, as though following the rough stones of the broch upward.
“That tower rises sixty feet from the ground,” he told me, “and it’s thirty feet in diameter, wi’ three floors.” He heaved a sigh. “We swept it from the top to the bottom,” he said, “and scrubbed it from the bottom to the top. It took five days, and I can taste rotted oat-straw when I cough, even now.”
“And you tried to kill me on the third day,” said Jamie, “for getting us into that.” He touched his head gingerly. “I had a wicked gash over my ear, where ye hit me wi’ the broom.”
“Oh, weel,” Ian said comfortably, “that was when ye broke my nose the second time, so we were even.”
“Trust a Murray to keep score,” Jamie said, shaking his head.
“Let’s see,” I said, counting on my fingers. “According to you, Frasers are stubborn, Campbells are sneaky, MacKenzies are charming but sly, and Grahams are stupid. What’s the Murrays’ distinguishing characteristic?”
“Ye can count on them in a fight,” said Jamie and Ian together, then laughed.
“Ye can too,” said Jamie, recovering. “You just hope they’re on your side.” And both men went off into fits again.
Jenny shook her head disapprovingly at spouse and brother.
“And we havena even had any wine yet,” she said. She put down her sewing and heaved herself to her feet. “Come wi’ me, Claire; we’ll see has Mrs. Crook made any biscuits to have wi’ the port.”
* * *
Coming back down the hall a quarter of an hour later with trays of refreshments, I heard Ian say, “You’ll not mind then, Jamie?”
“Mind what?”
“That we wed without your consent—me and Jenny, I mean.”
Jenny, walking ahead of me, came to a sudden stop outside the drawing room door.
There was a brief snort from the love seat where Jamie lay sprawled, feet propped on a hassock. “Since I didna tell ye where I