The matter was very speedily settled between them.
"And if you want to beat him, Kirsty, you can beat him in Gaelic, and then he won't feel it," said my father, trying after a joke, which was no common occurrence with him, whereupon Kirsty and I laughed in great contentment.
The fact was, Kirsty had come to the manse with my mother, and my father was attached to her for the sake of his wife as well as for her own, and Kirsty would have died for the minister or any one of his boys.

All the devotion a Highland woman has for the chief of her clan, Kirsty had for my father, not to mention the reverence due to the minister.
After a little chat about the cows and the calves, my father rose, saying-- "Then I'll just make him over to you, Kirsty.

Do you think you can manage without letting it interfere with your work, though ?" "Oh yes, sir--well that! I shall soon have him reading to me while I'm busy about.

If he doesn't know the word, he can spell it, and then I shall know it--at least if it's not longer than Hawkie's tail." Hawkie was a fine milker, with a bad temper, and a comically short tail.

It had got chopped off by some accident when she was a calf.
"There's something else short about Hawkie--isn't there, Kirsty ?" said my father.
"And Mrs.Mitchell," I suggested, thinking to help Kirsty to my father's meaning.
"Come, come, young gentleman! We don't want your remarks," said my father pleasantly.
"Why, papa, you told me so yourself, just before we came up." "Yes, I did; but I did not mean you to repeat it.