As with other books in this series, the author uses characters’ native dialect to bring that person to life. Whether they speak French, Irish, American English or English itself, he uses vernacular language to impart this.
Therefore when Scottish characters use words such as “richt” instead of “right”; “laird” for “lord”; “oopstairs” for “upstairs”; “haim” for “home”; “ain” for “own”; “gude sores” for “good sirs” and “wha” for who” plus many other phrases, please bear in mind that these are not spelling, OCR mistakes.
And in keeping with the Publisher’s house-style, we choose to use American English, which is more in keeping with the period stories.