The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [59]
Duncan was accompanied by a tall, thin, elderly gentleman, very neat but threadbare in appearance, his scanty white locks tied back from a high and balding brow. His mouth had collapsed from lack of teeth, but retained its humorous curve, and his eyes were blue and bright, set in a long face whose skin was stretched so tight across the bone as scarce to leave enough to wrinkle round the eyes, though deep lines carved the mouth and brow. With a long-beaked nose, and clad in rusty, tattered black, he looked like a genial vulture.
“A Smeòraich,” Duncan hailed Roger, looking pleased. “The very man I hoped to find! And I trust you’re weel-fettled against your marriage?” he added, his eyes falling quizzically on Roger’s stained coat and leaf-strewn hair.
“Oh, aye.” Roger cleared his throat, converting his coat-brushing to a brief thump of his chest, as though to loosen phlegm. “Damp weather for a wedding, though, eh?”
“Happy the corpse the rain falls on,” Duncan agreed, and laughed, a little nervously. “Still, we’ll hope not to die o’ the pleurisy before we’re wed, eh, lad?” He settled the fine crimson coat more snugly on his shoulders, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from the cuff.
“You’re very fine, Duncan,” Roger said, hoping to distract attention from his own disreputable state with a bit of raillery. “Quite like a bridegroom!”
Duncan flushed a little behind his drooping mustache, and his one hand twiddled with the crested buttons on his coat.
“Ah, well,” he said, seeming mildly embarrassed. “Miss Jo did say as she didna wish to stand up wi’ a scarecrow.” He coughed, and turned abruptly to his companion, as though the word had suddenly reminded him of the man’s presence.
“Mr. Bug, here’s Himself’s good-son, Roger Mac, him I tellt ye of.” He turned back toward Roger, waving vaguely at his companion, who stepped forward, extending his hand with a stiff but cordial bow. “This will be Arch Bug, a Smeòraich.”
“Your servant, Mr. Bug,” Roger said politely, slightly startled to observe that the large bony hand gripping his was missing its first two fingers.
“Ump,” Mr. Bug replied, his manner indicating that he reciprocated the sentiment sincerely. He might have intended to expand on the subject, but when he opened his mouth, a high-pitched feminine voice, a little cracked with age, seemed to emerge from it.
“It’s that kind, sir, of Mr. Fraser, and I’m sure as he’ll have nay reason to regret it, indeed he’ll not, as I said to him myself. I canna tell ye what a blessing it is, and us not sure where our next bite was comin’ from or how to keep a roof above our heads! I said to Arch, I said, now we must just trust in Christ and Our Lady, and if we mun starve, we shall do it in a state of grace, and Arch, he says to me . . .”
A small, round woman, threadbare and elderly as her husband, but likewise neatly mended, emerged into view, still talking. Short as she was, Roger hadn’t seen her, hidden behind the voluminous skirts of her husband’s ancient coat.
“Mistress Bug,” Duncan whispered to him, unnecessarily.
“. . . and no but a silver ha’penny to bless ourselves with, and me a-wondering whatever was to become of us, and then that Sally McBride was sayin’ as how she’d heard that Jamie Fraser had need of a good—”
Mr. Bug smiled above his wife’s head. She halted in mid-sentence, eyes widening in shock at the state of Roger’s coat.
“Why, look at that! Whatever have ye been up to, lad? Have ye had an accident? It looks as though someone’s knocked ye down and dragged ye by your heels through the dung heap!”
Not waiting for answers, she whipped a clean kerchief from the bulging pocket tied at her waist, spat liberally on it, and began industriously cleaning the muddy smears from the breast of his coat.
“Oh, you needn’t . . . I mean . . . er . . . thanks.” Roger felt as though he’d been caught in some kind of machinery. He glanced at Duncan, hoping for rescue.
“Jamie Roy’s asked Mr. Bug to come and be factor at the Ridge.” Duncan seized