CHAPTER VII.

'IS SHE NOT PASSING FAIR?'

When she took her seat at table to partake of a meal which was something between a late dinner and an early supper, Roland saw how exquisitely fair Annot Drummond was, as with a pretty air of childishness she clung to Hester—an air that became her petite figure and mignonne face, but not her years, as she was some months older than her cousin, who with her dark hair and eyes he thought looked almost brown beside this flaxen fairy, that seemed to realize the comment of old Cambden, who says—'The women of the family of Drummond, for charming beauty and complexion, are beyond all others, and in so much that they have been most delighted in by kings.'

She had, however, greenish hazel eyes—greenish they were decidedly, yet lovely and sparkling, shaded by brown lashes and eyebrows, with golden hair, wonderful in quantity and tint, that rippled and shone. Her complexion was pure and pale, while her pouting lips seemed absolute scarlet, rather than coral; and her eyes spoke as freely as her tongue, lighting and brightening with her subject, whatever it was.

Annot's was indeed a tiny face; at times a laughing, a loving and petulant face, and puzzling in so far that one knew not when it was prettiest, or what expression became it most; yet Hester—a very close observer—thought there was something cunning and watchful in it at times now.

Seeing that Roland was closely observing the new arrival, she said:

'Would you ever imagine, cousin Roland, that Annot and I are just about an age? she looks like fifteen, and I was eighteen my last birthday.'

'Eighteen,' thought Roland Lindsay, toying with a few grapes; 'can it be?—that golden-haired dolly—old enough to be the heroine of a novel or a tragedy—old enough to be a wife and the mistress of a household? By Jove, it seems incredible.'

And as she prattled away of London, the Park and the Row, what plays were 'on' at the different theatres, of new dresses, sights and scenes, and so forth; of her journey down, a long and weary one of some hundred miles, and the attention she received from various gentlemen passengers, the bright chatterer, all smiles, animation, and full of little tricks of manner, seemed indeed a contrast to the taller, graver, dark-haired, and dark-eyed Hester, whose violet-blue eye looked quite black by gaslight.

Though a niece of Sir Harry's, Annot Drummond was no cousin to Roland Lindsay, yet she seemed quite inclined, erelong, to adopt the rôle of being one; for he was quite handsome enough and interesting enough in aspect and bearing to attract a girl like her, who instinctively filled up her time with every chance-medley man she met, and knew fully how to appreciate one whose prospects and positions were so undoubtedly good; thus she repeatedly turned with her irresistible smiles and espièglerie to him, as if he were her sole, or certainly her chief, audience.

Meanwhile old Sir Henry sat silently smoking his inevitable hookah, eyeing her with loving looks, and tracing—or rather trying to trace—a likeness between her and his favourite sister; and Hester, who had of course seen her cousin often before, sat somewhat silent, for then each girl was, perhaps unconsciously, trying to know, to learn, and to grasp the nature of the other.

'Hester,' said Annot in a well-managed aside, 'I saw your friend Skene of Dunnimarle in London, and he talked of you to me, and of no one but you, which I thought scarcely fair.'

'Why?'

'One girl doesn't care to hear another's praises only for an hour without end, I suppose.'

Hester looked annoyed, but Roland seemed to hear the remark as if he heard it not, which was not the case, as Hester's name had been more than once mentioned in conjunction with that of the young fellow in question.

'I remember when Skene of ours at Sealkote——' Sir Harry was beginning, when Hester contrived to cut the Indian reminiscence short.

Next morning Annot was in the garden betimes, natheless the fatigue of her long railway journey; she seemed bright as a summer butterfly, inhaling the fresh odour of the flowers, under the shady trees, amid the rhododendrons of every brilliant tint, the roses and sub-tropical plants that opened their rich petals to the August sunshine, and more than all did she seem to enjoy the fresh, soft breeze that came up the steep winding glen or ravine through which the Esk ran gurgling; and ever and anon she glanced at her companion Roland, indulging in that playful gaîté de coeur, which so often ends in disaster, for she was a finished flirt to the tips of her dainty fingers; and he was thinking, between the whiffs of his permitted cigar: What caused his present emotion—this sudden attraction towards a girl whom he had never seen before, and whose existence had been barely known to him? And now she was culling a dainty 'button-hole' for him, and making him select a bouquet for the breast of her morning dress, a most becoming robe of light blue cashmere with ribbons and lace of white.

Could it be that mysterious influence of which he had heard often, and yet of which he knew so little—a current of affinity so subtle and penetrating, that none under its spell could resist it? He was not casuist enough to determine; but looked about for his cousin Hester and muttered:

'Don't play the fool, Roland, my boy!'

Usually very diffident and reticent in talking about himself and his affairs, even the gentle and winning Hester had failed, as she said, to 'draw him out;' but now, Annot—the irrepressible Annot—led him on to do so by manifesting, or affecting to manifest, a keen interest in them, and thus lured him into flattering confidences to her alone about his garrison life in England and the Mediterranean, or as much as he cared to tell of it; his campaigns in Egypt; his escape from the slaughter of Kashgate; his risks and wounds; his medals and clasps; his regiment, comrades, and so forth, in all of which she seemed suddenly to develop the deepest interest, though perhaps an evil-minded person might have hinted that she had a deeper and truer interest in Earlshaugh and its surroundings, of which he had no conception as yet.

Hester quickly saw through these little manoeuvres, and at first she laughed at them, thinking they were all the girl's way; that Roland was the only young man at Merlwood; and so, by habit and nature, she must talk to him, laugh with him, make [oe]illades and dress for him; and in dressing she was an adept, choosing always soft and clinging materials of colours suited to her pure complexion and fair beauty, and well she knew by experience already that 'love feeds on suggestions—almost illusions,' as a French writer says; 'for the greatest charm about a woman's dress is less what it displays than what it only hints at;' and Annot had all that skill or taste in costume which is a great speciality of London girls.

During the whole day after this arrival, and even the following one, Hester was unpleasantly conscious that because Annot Drummond absorbed Roland so entirely, he had scarcely an opportunity of addressing herself alone, and still less of referring—beyond a glance and a hand pressure or so forth—to that evening, on the last minutes of which so much had seemed to hinge.

A little music usually closed each evening, and Annot performed, from Chopin and others, various 'fireworks' on the piano, as Roland was wont to term them; while at Hester's little songs, such as that one to the air of the 'Briar Bush,' she openly laughed, declaring they were quite 'too, too!'

Her voice was not so trained as Annot's, and was not remarkable for strength or compass, but it was clear and sweet, fresh and true, and she sang with unaffected expression, being well desirous of pleasing her cousin Roland—her lover as she perhaps deemed him now.

Annot's song, after Hester had given a little chanson from Beranger—'Du, du liegst mir im Herzen,' accompanied—though sung indifferently—with several [oe]illades at Roland, gave her an opportunity to make, what Hester termed, some of her 'wild speeches.'

'A sweet love song, Annot,' said the latter.

'A love song it is—but twaddle, you know,' replied Annot, turning quickly the leaves of her music.

'Twaddle—how?'

'About marrying for love only and not money, Hester. That is an old-fashioned prejudice which is fast dying out, mamma tells me. Thank Heaven I am poor!' she added, with a pretty shrug of her shoulders.

'Why?' asked Hester.

'Because, when poor, one knows one is loved for self alone.'

The reply was made in a soft voice to Hester, yet her upward glance was shot at Roland Lindsay, and she began a piece of music that was certainly somewhat confused, while he—sorely puzzled—was kept on duty turning over the leaves.

'Annot, I thought you were a finished performer!' said Hester with some surprise and pique.

'I was taught like other girls at Madame Raffineur's finishing school in Belgium; and I can get through a piece, as it is called, without many stoppages, though I often forget upon what key I am playing, and use the pedals too at haphazard, yet they are beyond my skill; but I find that whatever I play——'

'Even a noise?' suggested Hester.

'Yes, even a noise, while it lasts, puts down all conversation, and when it is over everyone graciously says, "Thanks—so much!" "Do I sing?" is next asked, but I mean to practise so sedulously when I return to London.'

'A bright little twaddler!' thought Hester, with a slight curl of her handsome upper lip.

'You talked of the Row—you ride, I suppose?' said Roland to change the subject.

'I have no horse,' replied Annot.

'No horse! At Earlshaugh I shall get you an excellent mount.'

'Oh, thanks so much, cousin Roland!' replied Annot, and while running her slender fingers rapidly to and fro upon the keys she gave him one of her glances which were never given without 'point.'

'You seem pleased with her, Roland?' said Hester as they drew a little way apart.

'Well, I think she is wonderfully fair.'

'Nothing more?'

'Well, fair enough, and all such little golden-haired women since the days of Lucrezia Borgia, I suppose, make no end of mischief.'

'Roland!' said Hester, her eyes dilating.

Her cousin laughed, but knew not, perhaps, how truly and prophetically he spoke.

'Did you like my song?' asked Hester, after a little pause.

'What song?'

'Can you ask me? The little chanson of Béranger, that you admire so much.'

'Oh, yes—pardon me.'

'You were thinking of her when you should have been listening to me,' said Hester with an unmistakable flash in her dark eyes, and he felt the rebuke.

'Well—I was thinking, perhaps—but not as you suppose, or say, Hester,' replied Roland, with a little laugh; but a time came when Annot Drummond and her presence proved to be no laughing matter.

Days passed on now; whether it was that Annot was perpetually in the way, or that no proper opportunity occurred—which in the circle of a country house seemed barely probable—Roland did not seek for the 'lost chord,' or seem prepared to resume the thread of the sweet old story that had been dropped so abruptly, and poor Hester felt in her secret heart perplexed and piqued on a most tender point, and would have been more than human had she been otherwise.

On an afternoon the quartette were seated under a spreading beech, the girls idling over their tea, Roland and his uncle smoking, when Annot suddenly proposed a walk to the ruins of Roslin Castle, through the woods. Roland at once rose and offered himself as escort; but Hester, who had already begun to feel herself a little de trop—a bitter and mortifying conviction—professed to have something to attend to, and quietly declined the stroll, on which, with something of an aching heart, she saw the two set forth together.

Archæology was not much in the way of Miss Annot Drummond, she knew; but she also knew that if any ice remained between these two (which was very improbable) it would be surely thawed before that stroll ended, while in assisting her over stiles and through hedges Roland's hand touched that of Annot, or when her skirt brushed him, as they wandered through freshly mown meadows and under shady trees, by the steep, narrow, and rocky paths that lead to the shattered stronghold of the Sinclairs—the glances and touches and hand-clasps, enforced by the surmounting of slippery banks and apparently perilous ditches, where the beautiful ferns grow thick and green; and then the rambling among the ruins that crown the lofty rock and overlook such lovely and seductive scenery.

Of what might have passed Hester could only, yet readily, guess; her heart was full of aching thoughts—full well-nigh to bursting at times—when the pair returned, silent apparently, very happy too, and inclined to converse more with their eyes than their lips; and singular to say, that of the sylvan scenery of that wonderful glen, and of the ruined abode of the whilom Dukes of Oldenburg and Princes of Orkney, Annot Drummond seemed to have seen or noted—nothing; and a sense of this, with what it implied, added to the secret mortification of Hester.

Thus, despite herself, that evening at dinner the latter failed to act a part, and scarcely spoke, but seemed to play with her knife and fork rather than eat; and fortunately no one observed her, save perhaps her father. She was painfully listless, yet nervously observant.

Had Roland Lindsay's thoughts not been elsewhere he must have seen how already the change in her looks was intensified by the brilliance, the sparkling eyes, and the soft, gay laughter of Annot, and how, when she did speak, she nervously twisted her rings round and round her slender fingers, seeming restless and distraite.

A charming girl was certainly no novelty to Roland; nor did he now regard one—as in his boyhood—as a strange and mystic being to worship. He knew girls pretty well, he thought, also their ways and pretty tricks, their fascinations and little artifices; yet those of Annot—and she was a mass of them—assuredly did bewilder him and attract his fancy, though he only admitted to Hester that she was as 'fashionably appointed and well-got-up a girl as could be found within a three-mile radius of Park Lane.'

She was indeed full of sweet and winning—if cultivated—ways. The inflexions of her voice were very sympathetic, and the ever-varying expression of her bright hazel eyes—albeit they were 'dashed' with green—added to her fascination and influence; whilst she had a childish and pleading way of putting her lovely white hands together when she asked for anything that—as old Sir Henry said—'would melt the heart of a cannon-ball.'

Then, with regard to Roland, she was always asking his advice about some petty trifle or book (though she was not a reader), and deferred to his opinion so sweetly that she gave him a higher idea of his own intellect than he had ever possessed before; for she had all the subtle finesse of flattery and flirtation, without seeming to possess or exert either; and thus poor Hester was—to use a sporting phrase—'quite out of the running.'

One night the latter had a new insight into her cousin's character, though Annot now never spoke, nor could be got to speak, if possible, of Roland Lindsay.

Prior to retiring to her bed, Annot had let down and was coiling up her wonderful wealth of golden hair, which reached almost to her knees; and she and Hester Maule, with whom she was still on perfectly amicable and apparently loving terms, were exchanging their gossiping confidences, as young girls often do at such a time; and on this occasion Hester thought—for a space—she might be wrong in supposing that Annot had any serious views upon Roland Lindsay, as she saw her drop, and then hastily snatch up, a photograph on which she had been gazing with a smile.

'Who is this, Annot?' asked Hester.

'Only old Bob.'

'Who?'

'Bob Hoyle,' replied Annot, laughing.

'Old; why, he seems quite a boy, In uniform, too.'

'He is not a boy, though I call him "old."'

'His age?'

'Is four-and-twenty; but I have known him so long, you know, Hester.'

'Since when?'

'Since he used to come and see his sister at Madame Raffineur's school in Belgium. He is awfully in love with me.'

'Is?' queried Hester, a little relieved of her suspicions.

'Well—was—when younger.'

'And now?'

'He loves me still, I have no doubt.'

'Do you mean to marry him?'

'He has never asked me.'

'Well, if he did—or does ask you?'

'I don't know about that,' said Annot, as with deft little fingers she finished and pinned her golden coil.

'Why so?'

'Oh, cousin Hester, how inquisitive you are! I like him immensely. He says openly that he can't stand the London girls; that they are all very well to flirt with, dance, drive, and talk with; but he wants a wife who in her own sweet person will combine all the charms of fashionable and domestic life, like me. But then he is so poor; has little more than his pay. I can't fancy being poorer than I am—love in a cottage is all bosh, you know; but I have promised him——'

'What?'

'To think about it; but I won't be bound by promises, Hester. When I marry I want to be rich. I must have a carriage, beautiful horses, diamonds and dresses, for I have no dot of my own. Marry for love, indeed! No, no, Bob, dear. Who in these days does anything so absurd as that? It is as much out of fashion as chivalry, duels, and periwigs.'

'Oh, Annot—so young and so mercenary!' exclaimed Hester.

'Not mercenary, only practical, cousin. Another dear fellow did so love me last winter, Hester!' said the girl, with a dreamy smile.

'And now?'

'We are less than nothing to each other, Hester—after all—after all.'

'How—why?'

'He was a second son—Mamma's bête noire; besides, a married lady took him off my hands.'

'A married lady?' exclaimed Hester.

'Yes—oh, my simple cousin! The mischief done in London nowadays by married flirts would amaze you, Hester; but good-night, I am so sleepy, dear.'

And kissing the latter with great empressement on each cheek, Annot departed to repose with one of her silvery laughs, leaving the impression that if 'she was passing fair' she was also passing heartless.

CHAPTER VIII.

'IT WAS NO DREAM.'

To Roland Lindsay there was some new and undefinable attraction towards Annot Drummond, against which, to do him justice, he strove in vain, and his eyes actually fell under the calm glance of his cousin Hester. 'Call it what one may,' says a writer, 'that such a power does exist, and most seriously influences our lives, is an undoubted fact. We may deride and deny it as we will; but who can honestly doubt that the sudden and mutual attraction felt by two persons who are in essential matters absolutely ignorant of each other, does occur in the lives of most of us, and it is not to be fought against or laughed away in any manner.'

Whether the attraction was quite mutual in this instance remains to be seen. As yet the intercourse between Roland and Miss Drummond seemed, with a little more empressement of manner, merely the well-bred companionship of two persons connected through mutual relations and residence in the same pleasant country house; but the change in Roland's manner to herself—veil it as he might—was subtly felt by Hester, and became apparent even to her father, the otherwise obtuse old Indian campaigner.

'He was ever attentive, full of fun, lightness, and merriment; but, oh, there is no mistaking that there is a change now—a change since she came. What can it be—what has come over him?' thought Hester.

'It is all very odd,' growled Sir Harry; 'I can't make out the situation now. Roland does not seem a flirting fellow, whatever the girl may be, and she is plain when compared with my Hester; yet he looks like a shorn Samson in the fairy hands of this little golden-haired Delilah, and seems never happy except when with her. It appears to me that people nowadays always fall in love when, where, and with whom they ought not. Ah, he is one of the "Lightsome Lindsays;" yet I never saw anyone so changed,' added Sir Harry, who had latterly found him wax weary of his Indian reminiscences.

Meanwhile Annot, who firmly believed in the dictum of Thackeray, 'that any woman who has not positively a hump can marry any man she pleases,' quietly pursued her own course; and day by day it was Hester's lot to see this courtship evidently in progress—herself at times ignored and reduced to 'playing gooseberry,' as Annot thought (if, indeed, she ever thought at all)—reduced again to her own inner life once more; and knowing that nothing of it could interest them now, so much did they seem bound in each other, she pursued her old avocations among the poor and parish people more than ever.

The love—the budding love—he certainly once loved her—was less than a shadow now!

She ceased to accompany them in their walks and long rambles in the woody glen by Mavisbank and Eldin groves, and knowing the time when Roland was certainly 'due' at Earlshaugh, she counted every hour till he should leave Merlwood.

'What a couple of wanderers you have become!' said Sir Harry, a little pointedly.

'Roland is so sympathetic,' simpered Annot; 'he appreciates fully all my yearnings after the beautiful, of which we can see nothing in the brick wilderness of London; and certainly your scenery on the Esk is surpassingly lovely, uncle!' though in reality she cared not a jot about it, and had somewhat the Cockney's idea of a landscape, 'that too much wood and too much water always spoiled it.'

One evening matters had evidently reached a culminating point with this pair.

Returning at a somewhat late hour for her, when the gloaming was deepening into darkness, from visiting a poor widow, to whom she had taken some comforts, Hester, on reaching Merlwood, paused in a garden path to look around her, pleased and soothed by the calmness and stillness of the dewy August evening, when not a sound was heard but the ceaseless murmur of the unseen Esk far down below. Suddenly, amid the shrubbery, she heard familiar voices, to which she listened dreamily, mechanically, at first; then, startled by their tenor, she was compelled to shrink between the great shrubs, and—however obnoxious and repugnant to her—was compelled to overhear; and till indignation came, as she listened, there was a passionate, pleading expression in Hester's eyes, which was unseen in the dark; as was the quivering of the lip that came from the torture of the soul.

Roland was speaking in accents low and eager, and in others that were broken and tremulous Annot was responding.

'You have made me so happy, dearest Roland, by the first whisper that you—you loved me,' sighed the girl.

'I seem scarcely to recollect what happened to me before I met you here, Annot,' said he.

'How so?' she asked coyly.

'It seems as if I had only existed then.'

'And now, Roland?'

'I live, my darling! for

"In many mental forms I vainly sought
The shadow of the idol of my thought,"

till now. In three days more—only three—my little Annot—my golden-haired darling, I shall have to leave you for Earlshaugh; and, till you join me there, what will life be without you?'

He drew her close to him, and poor Hester shivered; but flight was impossible.

'And what will life at Merlwood be to me?' replied, or rather asked, Annot, in that caressing and cooing tone which she well knew was one of her chief attractions.

'But Earlshaugh in time will be your home, Annot—yours, to make what alterations you choose on the quaint old place. You shall reign there—the fairest and dearest bride that ever came within its walls.'

'Do not talk thus, Roland!'

'Why?'

'It makes me feel as if I were selling myself.'

'Annot!' he expostulated; and she answered with that low, cooing laugh of hers which was such a wonderful performance.

'Now, tell me,' said she; 'were you ever in love before?'

'Why that question, Annot?'

'I have no motive—only curiosity, Roland—yet I could not bear to think that you had ever loved anyone else as you do me.'

'I never did! All men have, or have had fancies,' said he evasively.

'I don't mean a fancy—a real love!'

'Annot?'

'Did you ever ask a girl to marry you?'

'Never—never! My darling—my pet—my little fairy—you alone have crept into my heart and made it all your own! With all their real length, how short have seemed the August days since you came hither, Annot!—how brief and swift the hours we spend together! But—but—you must say nothing of all this, our hopes and our future, to Hester.'

'No—oh no; I love you too fondly to have a confidant in the world.'

'I must seal your lips, dearest Annot,' interrupted Roland. Then came a pause and many caresses and many endearing names, as they slipped softly away towards the lighted windows of the villa, and left the agonized and startled listener free—for startled she was, and, curiously enough, for all she had seen and suspected, she was scarcely prepared for such a scene as this; and every caress she saw had seemed to sink like a hot poniard into her heart, as she stole away to her room, and strove to think, as one might in a dream.

Vague and numb was the first impression the episode made upon her, till feverish jealousy and mortification made her clasp and wring her hot, dry hands, and gnaw her nether lip, while burning tears rolled down her cheeks, with the assurance that all was over now!

'After all—he meant nothing—nothing after all!' she muttered; 'why did you make me love you so, Roland!'

The man she had loved—who fully, as far as manner and almost words went, had answered her love for him, had meant nothing, but pour passer le temps. He had been, he thought perhaps, only kind, friendly, cousinly, while she—great Heavens!—had been on the point of laying her affectionate heart at his feet.

Oh, what humiliation was hers!

In explanation of the lateness of their return, they had been a long walk, the loiterers said, away below Roslin Chapel; but said nothing of what the walk had somewhat suddenly evolved.

When the gloaming was considerably advanced, and, though a ruddy sunset lingered in the north-west, there was no moon in the sky, where the evening star shone brilliantly, they had wandered down the river-side—its current flowing like molten silver when seen between and under the dark, overshadowing, and weird-like trees—to where, on the summit of its high and grassy knoll, the beautiful chapel of Roslin towered up between them and the sky-line—the solemn scene, as Scott has preserved it, of one of the most thrilling and poetical of all family presages of death and war; a legend deduced from the tomb-fires of the Norsemen, and, doubtless, transplanted from our stormy Northern Isles to the sylvan valley of the Esk by that old Prince of Orkney, whose bride, Rosabelle, perished, and when the chapel seemed filled with flame.

'O'er Roslin all that dreary night,
    A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam!
'Twas broader than the watchfire's light,
    And redder than the bright moonbeam.

Even as Roland was quoting these lines to Annot Drummond a wonderful but natural effect took place.

'Look, Roland,' cried she with a thrill of real terror; 'look, the chapel is on fire!'

'Oh, impossible,' said he, still intent on gazing on her sweet face.

'But look—look—it is!'

Whether she thought so or not Annot was evidently startled and discomposed, while Roland certainly was not without momentary astonishment. A row of red lights appeared through the branches of the dark trees high above where he and Annot stood. It was the last light of the orange and blood-red set sun gleaming though the double row of chapel windows—the rich red light that is peculiar to Scottish sunsets, and the phenomenon it produced had a powerful effect upon the vision and minds of the beholders—even on the volatile and unimaginative Annot, who, before the light faded out, was not slow to understand and to utilize the situation in her own way.

She clung to Roland in an access of terror apparently, and that it was more than partly simulated certainly he never thought. While seeming to be terrified by the ghostly sight, she hid her face in his neck; and then Roland felt it was all over with him!

'My darling—my darling, do not be so alarmed—it is only a transient sunset effect,' said he, kissing her cheek.

'Don't, Roland, don't—oh, you must not do that,' she murmured.

But Roland did that, again and again—pressing his lips to her eyes, her rippling hair—covering her face with kisses, while he half lifted, half led her homeward, up the steep and winding path to Merlwood, which they reached, as said, at a somewhat later period than usual.

'Well,' thought Hester, as she bathed her face and eyes to remove all traces of her late emotion, 'in three days I shall, for a time at least, see and hear no more of this. And yet—my heart will speak—I have loved him—all my life—ever since he was a boy; and she has known him, as it were, but yesterday!'

She put a hand to her forehead and pushed back the rings and rows of heavy brown hair, as if their weight oppressed her.

'Thank Heaven!' she thought, 'I can make my life a useful and a busy one, even here. Thank Heaven for the refuge of another love, with work and duty—love and duty to papa, and work for my poor people and their little ones! But why, oh why,' she added, while interlacing her fingers behind her neck, and looking round her wildly, 'did he love her after all?—why turn from me to her—that little golden-haired doll, with her winning ways and heartless nature; and how comes it that her languorous green eyes have power to awake such a passion as filled every accent of Roland's voice in the gloaming there? She came when she was not wanted; and both are cruel, heartless, treacherous!'

But, to do Annot justice, she knew nothing then of the tender relations that had begun to exist between Hester and her cousin, though we do not suppose that the knowledge would have much influenced that enterprising young lady in her plans and views, her wishes and purpose.

Hester felt that she had been ready enough—too ready, she now feared—to show him all her own heart, till that other girl came, and she thought till now that it had frozen up under Annot's presence and too evident influence on him.

That evening she did not appear at dinner, but sent excuses downstairs, and refused to receive even a visit from Annot. That would have been indeed too much to have undergone; but anon the mental storm passed away; the ruddy dawn stole into Hester's bedroom, and she rested her weary head against the open window to inhale the fresh morning breeze that came up the woody valley of the Esk, and over parterres of dewy flowers that were sweet enough to grace the bank whereon the Queen of Elfin slept.

That day she saw on Annot's mystic finger—the fourth of the left hand—a ring she had not observed before, and knew who was the donor, and what the gift meant, but the knowledge could not give her a keener pang. She thought of Roland's gift, and of the emotions that had filled her heart when he had clasped it round her neck. She could not return that gift to Roland without some reason; and she apparently had none; but yet its retention was most repugnant to her, and never would she wear it. He had given it to her as his cousin—nothing more, now it would seem. Did he mean it so, then?

The dainty slippers, with blue embroidery on buff leather, which had formed a portion of her daily and loving work, were relinquished now and cast aside, too probably to be never finished.

Hester Maule felt all the shame and sorrow of loving one in secret, whose heart and preference were given to another. What evil turn of Destiny had wrought this for her? Why had she so mistaken—if she had indeed done so—his mere playful, cousinly regard for aught else than its true value?

Yet—yet there had been times—especially on that night when he gave her the jewels—that a gleam of tenderness, of yearning, of love had lit up his dark eyes—an expression that had gone straight to her heart and made every nerve thrill. Why had she not guessed then—why not foreseen what was to happen? But the future is always oddly woven up with the present, we are told; and 'how strange are the small threads that first begin to spin the great woofs of our life story—unnoted, unheeded at the time—they stand out clearly and plainly to our mental vision afterwards, and we ask ourselves with bitter anguish, "Why did we not guess—why did we not foresee it?" Better, perhaps, that the power of prevision is denied us, since we can neither alter nor avert the doom that awaits us along the path of life.'

We do not mean to palliate or defend the indecision—change of love and regard—on the part of Roland Lindsay; but Hester had been from his earliest years so much of a younger sister to him, that, though loving, winning, and gentle, this golden-haired girl, with all her espièglerie, her bold little speeches, and pretty touches and tricks of manner, came as a new experience to him; and for the present certainly, to all appearance, had enslaved and bewildered him, dazzling his fancy to say the least of it.

Despite all her efforts, Hester, if she completely controlled her manner, could not conceal her pain; thus her eyes seemed dull, even sunken, and harsh lines marred the usual sweetness of her lips. If Roland noted these signs, he strove to ignore them. Annot had artfully instilled some petty jealous suspicions of young Skene of Dunnimarle in Roland's mind, and he sought mentally to make these a kind of apology to himself, while seeming indifferent to what the girl might suffer, even when her presence (despite the arrangement for secrecy she had overheard) scarcely at times interfered with the sotto voce babble of their lover-like but inane conversation.

To Hester it seemed as if she was in a bad dream, but

'It was no dream, and she was desolate.'

CHAPTER IX.

THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW.

So Roland Lindsay was engaged to Annot Drummond. Hester could have no doubt about that when she saw the ring upon her mystic finger; and she supposed rightly that till he could ascertain definitely 'how the land lay' at Earlshaugh nothing further was arranged, and at last, to her supreme satisfaction—an emotion she once never thought to feel, so far as Roland was concerned—the day of his departure for Fifeshire came.

'I must turn up at Earlshaugh now,' said he, when the last evening came. 'I have asked Jack Elliot, Skene, and one or two other fellows, over for the covert shooting; and also, I suppose, I shall have to give my attention to Mr. Hawkey Sharpe in the matters of subsoil and drainage, mangold wurzel, and all that sort of thing.'

'I don't think he will trouble you much on these matters,' said Sir Harry dryly.

'Why, uncle?'

'You will find that he deems them his own peculiar province and interest too,' replied Sir Harry, with a lowering expression of eye; and that his once jolly old uncle's manner was now somewhat cool to him Roland was unpleasantly sensible: and when the evening drew on, and, knowing that he would depart betimes in the morning, he had to bid Hester farewell, something of regret—even remorse—came across his mind. He suspected too surely all she had been led to hope of him in the past—the love he could not give her now, at least; and he strove to affect a light bearing to her, and appear his old insouciant self, while thinking over Annot's instilled suspicions.

'Skene!' he muttered; 'was my regard for Hester a passing infatuation, or an old revived fancy? Was it likely to have proved a lasting attachment if Annot had not come? And in Hester would I have but received the worn-out remnant of an attachment for another? Do not look so strange—so white, cousin,' said he in a low voice, as he touched her hand.

'White am I?' asked Hester with inexpressible annoyance; 'if so, it is caused by anxiety for papa—he is not strong, Roland.'

'Of course,' glad to affect or adopt any idea; 'but always trust to me——'

'To you!'

'Yes; we have ever been friends, and shall be so always, I hope, for I never forget that I am your cousin, though the privileges of such might turn a wiser head than mine,' he added, unwisely, awkwardly, and with a little laugh.

A gleam came into Hester's eyes, which always looked nearly as black as night, and there was an angry curl on her red lip for a moment.

Bewildered—besotted, in fact—though Roland had become, by the wiles, graces, and beauty of the brilliant Annot, it was impossible for him not to feel, we say, some compunction, and keenly too, for his treatment of the soft and gentle Hester. He could not and dared not in any fashion approach so delicate a subject with her—explanation or exculpation was not to be thought of; yet he felt reproach subtly in her manner; he could read it in her eyes, strive to conceal her emotions as she might; and confusion made him blunder again.

'Hester, we part but for a few days,' said he in a low voice, and with more empressement of manner than he had adopted for some time past; 'we have ever been excellent friends, have we not, my dear girl? and now we shall be more so than ever.'

Hester remained silent. 'Why now, more than ever?' thought she, while his half-apologetic tone irritated and cut her to the heart, and she knew that a much more tender leave-taking with Annot was over and had taken place unseen; and now, indulging in dreamy thoughts of her own, that young lady was idling over the keys of the piano.

'Will you miss me when I am gone?' he asked, with a little nervous smile.

'No doubt you will be missed—by papa especially.'

'Well, I hope so.'

'Why?'

'It is nice to feel one's self important to others,' said he. with another awkward attempt at a jest; adding, 'May I?' as he lighted a cigar.

She grew paler still; for a moment he looked sorrowfully into her white-lidded and velvety dark blue eyes, and attempted to touch her hand, but she shrank back.

'I should like,' he began, 'to stay a little longer, of course, but I must go; the covert shooting is at hand, and Earlshaugh must wait me.'

'It is more than some do there, papa thinks.'

'The more reason for me to go, cousin,' said he, with darkening face.

'Go—and the sooner the better,' thought Hester bitterly; 'there is now no middle course for me—for us; we must be everything or nothing to each other—and nothing it is!'

'Good-night, Hester dear,' said he, still lingering. 'Adieu, Annot. I shall be off to-morrow by gunfire, as we say in barracks, when all are asleep in Merlwood.'

'Good-night.'

And so they parted, but not finally.

Early though the hour next day, Hester was too active by habit, too much of a housewife, and too kind of heart to permit him to depart without being down betimes to give him a cup of coffee and to see him ere he went, despite his laboured apologies. How fresh and bright Hester seemed in her white morning dress, with all its frills—fresh from her bath, and both clear-skinned and fair, as only a dark-haired and dark-eyed girl usually looks at such a time, requiring none of that powdering and other odious process now known as 'making up.' Annot's low curtains remained closely drawn, and there was no sign of that young lady, for the sun was barely over the woods of Hawthornden.

Hester tendered her soft cheek for Roland's farewell salute, and carried it bravely off—better even than he did, as with a wave of the hand he was driven away.

He was gone—gone, and had ceased to be hers. Lingeringly the girl looked around her. To Hester every flower and shrub in the garden seemed to have a voice and say so. Every inanimate object told her so again and again. Fragments of his cigar lay about the gravel walks; there yet swung his hammock between the trees; and there was almost no task she could attempt now that was not associated with him, and, worse than all, with Annot Drummond.

Long did Hester sit on a garden sofa, as the former could see from her window, while brushing out her marvellous hair—sit with cold and locked hands and pathetic eyes, motionless and miserable, as she listened like one in a dream to the singing of the birds, the humming of the bees around her, and the pleasant murmur of her native Esk.

The fair and beautiful girl saw this and knew the cause thereof; yet in her great love and passion, if not in her artful design, she was pitiless!

She was too well trained, she thought, by her mother to be otherwise. Taught from her cradle to look upon wealth, and all that wealth could obtain, as the chief object of life, she had from the days of her short frocks and plaited hair, heard only of 'excellent matches,' of 'moneyed marriages,' and 'eligible men,' and so her mind was framed in another world from Hester's.

Men, thought the latter, cared little for a love that was easily won, she had read. Perhaps Roland valued hers lightly thus. Well, she would assert herself—might even go to Earlshaugh, meet him beneath his own roof, and in his own home show herself that she was heart-whole, could she but act the part her innate pride suggested.

At first she avoided Annot, whom she heard hourly idling over the piano; she felt, amid all her crushing and mortifying thoughts, that she would be happier if busy, and so she bustled about the house affecting to be dreadfully so; tied up, let down, snipped, and twined rose-bushes in the garden, and strove to look happy and cheerful, with a sick and sinking heart—even attempting to sing, but her voice failed her.

On the other hand, the frivolous, emotional, and perhaps somewhat sensuous nature of Annot required change, society, and above all some exciting incident to keep her even in tolerable humour and mental health; and now that she had no companion at Merlwood but Hester and her old uncle, with his inevitable hookah and Indian small talk, she became unmistakably triste and fidgety, impatient and absent—only awake and radiant when the postman was expected. She felt utterly bored by Merlwood now, and could not conceal her impatience to fulfil her visit to Earlshaugh.

'I quite look forward to that event,' said she.

'No doubt,' assented Hester.

'It will be so delightful—a country house full of people, and mamma not there to watch and scold me in private.'

'For what?'

'Ah, you should see or hear her after she has caught me idling much with a detrimental, or daring to leave my hand in his for a moment.'

'Annot!'

'I fear that I am a natural born flirt, Hester.'

The latter made no reply, as she thought, a little disdainfully, that these would-be artless speeches were merely meant to 'cast dust in her eyes,' and with regard to her own visit to Fifeshire, she was seldom twice in the same mood of mind.

'Invited to Earlshaugh—to meet, see, and associate hourly with him, and with her, too, there!' Hester would think. 'Better feign illness and stay at home—at sequestered Merlwood; but that would only be putting off the evil day. As her kinsman, she must meet him some time and face it boldly—meet him as little more than a friend, after all that had passed between them, and he had left—unsaid!'

'I cannot make you and Roly—I mean Roland—out!' said Annot on one occasion.

'How?' asked Hester. 'I do not understand you.'

'I always thought myself quick in discovering cases of spoon——'

'Don't be slangy, Annot.'

'Slang or not, you know the phrase and all it expresses!'

'Well?'

'When I first came here I made up my mind that Roland was entirely yours, though I could not be sure whether you returned his regard; but after being with you both for nearly a month, I find myself quite at a loss.'

'Do you?' said Hester icily.

'Yes—you parted last night without the least sign of regret or emotion, and all that sort of thing.'

'How dare she attempt to quiz me thus?' thought Hester, feeling almost that she could strike the smiling little speaker; 'how dare she?—but she knows not all I know—all I was compelled to overhear!'

So, as days passed on, beyond dark shadows under her eyes, the result of broken nights, there was little bodily sign of what Hester endured mentally.

'Why, Hester, you have really and truly received a letter at last from Earlshaugh!' exclaimed Annot one morning, to Hester's annoyance and pique, as the former quickly recognised the coat of arms and post-mark; and that Annot, who received missives from the same source daily, should jest over the event, made Hester, with all her innate gentleness of heart, almost hate the speaker.

It was from Roland at last, thanking her and Sir Harry for their great kindness to him, and hoping to see her and Annot Drummond together at Earlshaugh at the time proposed.

Nothing more!

'Go to Earlshaugh—no—no!' was again Hester's first thought, with a kind of shudder; 'to be with them morning, noon, and evening—the feeling would madden me—yet how am I to excuse myself?'

'You never go from home now, papa,' she took an opportunity of saying as she wound her soft arms round Sir Harry's time-silvered head and drew it down upon her breast; 'and seldom though I do so, I wish to escape this visit to Earlshaugh—I am most loth to leave you.'

'For a few weeks—a few miles' distance!'

'But who will take my place when I am gone? Who will make your breakfast so early, cut the papers, and brighten up the fire for you——'

'The housekeeper, of course.'

'Deck the room with flowers; walk with you along the woody paths by the river? Who will read, play, and sing to you at night? I do not wish to go at all, papa—let Annot go alone.'

'Nonsense, girl! I shall miss you, of course, but it is only for a time,' said her father, who knew and felt well that it was in the nature of Hester to think and anticipate his every wish, and do all that in its truest and holiest sense made Merlwood a home for him.

'You are not worrying yourself about anything, dear?' said the old gentleman, who had his own thoughts on the matter, as he put an arm caressingly round her, and eyed her anxiously.

'Of course not, papa,' replied Hester with assumed briskness; 'about what should I worry?'

'Little troubles look big at times,' said he, laying his head back in his easy-chair.

Her trouble was not a little one, however, and while pursuing his own thoughts her father made her pale cheek grow paler still.

'Annot seems to have taken a great fancy to Roland; but the fancies of town-bred girls are often mere moonshine.'

'Not the fancies of such girls as Annot, with a home-like Earlshaugh in prospective,' said Hester, with a forced laugh, as she recalled Annot's several confidences.

'Ah!' muttered the old gentleman dubiously, while tugging his wiry white moustache; 'still, it may be a fancy that will pass,' he continued, still pursuing his own thoughts; 'and things always come right in the end.'

'On the stage and in novels, papa,' replied Hester, laughing outright.

'But they do wind up rightly, dear, even in real life sometimes.'

'You know, papa, it is always said that no man ever marries his first love.'

'It may be so, Hester—it may be so; but one thing you may be sure of, if he is a true man.'

'And that is—

'He never can forget her.'

Sir Harry's eyes kindled, and his voice grew soft as he said this; for his thoughts were wandering away to the wife of his youth—she who now lay in the old kirkyard above the Esk—and of whom Hester seemed then a living reproduction, or the old man thought so; and when he spoke thus in the love and chivalry of his heart, he revived in Hester a moth-like desire to go to Earlshaugh after all, such is the idiosyncrasy of human nature; and as some one has it, 'to suffer that self-immolation, which is common to unhappy lovers. She longed to see Roland once more'—to feast her eyes upon the man who seemed happy with another, no matter what the after-pain might be.

What she meant to say or do, or how to look—when this new fancy seized her—she knew not. She only knew that—meanly, she thought—she hungered and thirsted for the sound of his voice and a glance of his eyes, before, perhaps, he—even as the husband of Annot Drummond—went to Egypt or elsewhere, it might be to return, perhaps, no more.

Meanwhile, that 'fair one with the golden locks' was all feverish impatience till the time came for quitting Merlwood, and had no doubt that Roland would cross the Forth to meet her.

'You seem strangely interested in the movements of Roland,' said Sir Harry rather grimly to her.

'He is almost half a cousin, is he not, uncle?' said Annot, in her most cooing and caressing way; 'but no one would think me so foolish as to lose my heart to a mere cousin.'

'None will suspect you of such a loss, indeed,' observed Hester, with some pardonable bitterness, as she recalled all she had so unwillingly overheard in the shrubbery on that eventful evening.

CHAPTER X.

ROLAND'S HOME-COMING.

Let us return to the day of Roland Lindsay's departure from Merlwood, when full of thoughts of a sorrowful cast, and perhaps in the frame described by Wordsworth as

'That sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.'

A letter that had come for him overnight—one from Annot's mother in South Belgravia—he scanned twice hurriedly, and consigned to his pocket. Annot, in that quarter, had made no secret, apparently, of the terms on which he and she were, and the congratulations of the old lady were palpable enough.

'What is next?' he muttered, as he opened a little basket and laughed. It contained sandwiches and sherry, peaches, grapes, and a little bouquet of hot-house flowers, all selected, he knew, by the white hands of Hester.

'Poor girl!' he muttered; 'does she think I am bound, not for Earlshaugh, but for Alexandria?'

He had beautifully-coloured photos of both girls in his pocket book—one of Annot, smiling, saucy, and arch, with her laughing eyes and golden hair; and one of Hester, with her calm, sweet expression, her dark, beseeching, and pleading eyes, and hair of rich dark brown; but he had one of the former's fair tresses—not the first of them that Annot had bestowed on 'Bob Hoyle' and others that he knew not of. But so it is—

'Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.'

Merlwood had vanished as the train sped on, and, away from the immediate influence of Annot, softer memories of Hester began to mingle upbraidingly with the idea of the former, and—as he thought it all over again—the past; he recurred mentally to many a loving and half-ended episode, to Hester's winning softness, her pleading, truthful eyes of violet blue, and he felt himself, though uncommitted by pledge or promise, inexpressibly false!

It was not a pleasant reflection or conviction even while caressing Annot's shining tress of hair—his tempter and her supplanter.

Some men, it has been said, when they form a new attachment, try to teach themselves that the old one contained no true love in it. This was not the case with Roland, nor could he be a man to love two at once, though some natures are thought to be capable of such an idiosyncrasy.

At last he was roused from his mingled day-dreams by his train clanking into the Waverley Station, and he saw Edinburgh, the old town and the new, with gables, spires, and tower-crowned rocks rising on each side of him, with a mighty bridge of round arches high in air spanning the space between.

The day was yet young, so he idled for a time at the United Service Club with Jack Elliot, his comrade in Egypt, on leave like himself, and now his sister Maude's fiancé, a fine, handsome, and soldier-like young fellow, of whom more anon—full of such earnest love and enthusiasm for the girl of his unwavering choice, that Roland—reflecting on his late proceedings at Merlwood—felt his cheek redden more than once, as well it might, and an involuntary sigh escaped him, though he could little foresee the future.

So full was he of his own thoughts, that it was not until he was landing on the Fife side of the Forth that he reflected with annoyance:

'What a fool I have been, when in the city, not to call upon old MacWadsett, the W.S., about the exact terms of my father's will. They never reached me in Egypt—the Bedouins at Ramleh made free with the mail-bags. Besides, I need not have gone before this, as the old fellow has been on the Continent.'

So he consoled himself with the inevitable cigar, while the train rolled on by many a familiar scene, on which he had not looked for an age, as it seemed now; by the 'lang, lang town' of Kirkaldy, and picturesque Dysart, with its zigzag streets, overlooked by the gaunt dwelling-place of Queen Annabella, and the sea-beaten rock of Ravenscraig; anon past Falkland Woods, and after he crossed the Eden he began to trace the landmarks of Earlshaugh, and the train halted at a little wayside station, close beside an old and almost unused avenue that led to the latter, and he sprang out upon the platform, where he seemed to be the only passenger. The two or three officials who were loitering about were strangers, and eyed him leisurely.

'Has not a trap come for my luggage?' he asked.

'For where, sir?'

'Earlshaugh.'

'No sir,' replied one, touching his cap, an ex-soldier recognising his questioner's military air. 'No trap is here.'

'Strange!' muttered Roland, giving his moustache an angry twist; 'and yet I wrote—I'll walk on, and send for my things,' he added.

The house was little more than a mile distant, and every foot of the way had been familiar to him from infancy.

On many a strange and foreign scene had he looked, and many a peril had he faced, in the land of the Pharaohs since last he had trod that shady avenue—the land of the Sphinx and the Pyramids, where the hot sand of the desert seemed to vibrate and quiver under the fierce glare of the unclouded sun.

Forgetful of old superstitions, he had entered the avenue by the Weird Yett. It was deemed unlucky for a Lindsay of Earlshaugh to approach his house after a long absence through that barrier; but as the gate was open, Roland, full of his own thoughts, passed in, heedless of the legend which told that the Lindsay fared ill who did so.

Two stone pillars, dated 1600, with an arch and coat of arms with the Lindsay supporters, two lions sejant, termed the barrier, which was usually closed by a massive iron gate, the barbs or pikes of which had once been gilt. A century later had seen it the favourite trysting-place of Roland Lindsay, the younger, of Earlshaugh, and a daughter of a neighbour, the Laird of Craigie Hall, till the former left with his regiment, the Scots Guards, for Spain. One evening the girl was lingering there, in the soft violet light of the gloaming, impelled by what emotion she scarcely knew, but doubtless to dream of her lover who she thought was far away, when suddenly a cry escaped her, as she saw him appear, in his scarlet uniform, with feather-bound hat—the Monmouth cock—his flowing wig, and sword in its splendid belt; but gouts of blood were upon his lace cravat, and she could see that his face was sad and pale, as face and figure melted away and she found herself alone.

Apparitions generally 'come in their habits as they lived,' says the authoress of the 'Night side of Nature,' 'and appear so much like the living person in the flesh that when they are not known to be dead, they are frequently mistaken for them. There are exceptions to this rule, but it is very rare that the forms in themselves exhibit anything to create alarm.'

So did the girl's lover appear to her as if alive.

With a power of reason beyond her years and time, she tried to think—could it be a dream of her excited brain? But no, she was awake with all her senses; she thought of the blood on his dress, and the awful knowledge came to her, that she had looked upon the face of the dead—on the wraith of her lover—who, a month after she learned, had perished at that very hour and time, shot by the Spaniards on the fatal field of Almanza.

'The divine arts of priming and gunpowder have frightened away Robin Goodfellow and the Fairies,' wrote Sir John Aubery of old; but the ghost of the Weird Yett lingered long in the unused avenue of Earlshaugh.

When he did recall the terror of his boyhood, Roland smiled; but kindly, for every feature round him spoke of home. Seen through the tree-stems was the old thatched hamlet of Earlshaugh, on the side of a burn crossed by one huge stone as a bridge—the hamlet where the clatter of the weaver's loom still lingered even in these days of steam appliances, and on the humble doors of which the old Scottish risp or tirling-pin was to be seen as elsewhere in the East Neuk; and as he looked at the gray fallen monolith by which the stream was crossed, he thought of the old song which seemed to describe it:

'Yet it had a bluirdly look,
    Some score o' years ago,
An' the wee burn seemed a river then,
    As it roared doon below;
And a bauld bairn was he,
    In the merry days lang gane,
Wha waded through the burn,
    Aneath the auld brig-stane.'

And, as if to complete the picture, an old woman, wearing one of those white mutches, with the modest black band of widowhood, introduced by Mary of Guelders, sat on a 'divot-seat' knitting at the sunny end of her little thatched cottage.

A love of his birthplace and a pride in his historic race were the strongest features in the character of Roland Lindsay, and Earlshaugh was certainly such a home as any man might be pardoned for regarding with something of enthusiasm.

As he looked upon the old manor house, high, square, and embattled, towering on its grassy steep above the haugh—that abode of so many memories, with all his pride in it, and pride of race and name, there came a stormy emotion, or sense of humiliation—even of rage, when he thought of the tenor or alleged tenor of that will, by which his father, in the senility of age (if all he heard were true), had degraded him to a cypher by leaving the estate entirely to an alien, to his second wife, who had been the artful companion of his first—to the exclusion of him—Roland, the heir of line and blood, save for such a pittance or allowance as she chose to accord him, for the term of his or her natural life, which, when the chances of war and climate were considered, was certain to exceed his own, his senior though she was in years.

After all he had endured in the deserts by the Nile, hunger, thirst, suffering, sickness, and wounds, facing and enduring all that a soldier may since last he had looked on old, gray Earlshaugh, as memory went flashing back he strove to forget for a brief time the wrong his father had done himself and his sister Maude, and to think only of his happy boyhood, and all that had been then.

Memories of his dead parents, of his gentle and loving mother, of his manly and fox-hunting father, who had taught him to ride, and shoot, and fish—of little brothers who lay buried by their side in the grave—of his childhood, of games, and old—or rather young—longings and imaginings, when the woods of Earlshaugh, and the trouting stream, were objects of vague mystery, the former peopled with fairies, and the latter the abode of a wicked kelpie!

Many a living voice and loving face had passed away since then—vanished for ever; but the memories of them were strong and pathetic. The rooks still clamoured in the old trees, and the birds sang amid the shrubberies as of old; he heard the men whistling and singing in the stable-yard. In the fields the soil had a fresh and grassy odour in the noonday sunshine familiar to him; and he felt the conviction that though he in many a sense had changed, Nature had not—'for the wind blows as it will through all the long years, and the land wakes glad and fragrant at the kiss of the pale dawn, and plain daily labour goes on steadily and unheedingly from generation to generation.'

As unnoticed and unseen he drew near the house—a massive old Scottish fortalice with tourelles at every angle—and surveyed its striking façade, he recalled the words of his uncle and Hester, and felt that he had now much that was practical to think about, much that was painful and dubious to forgive or submit to, while a vague sense of coming bitter annoyance—it might be humiliation, as we have said—rose before his haughty spirit, and the suspicion or emotion was not long of being put to the test.

A man with his hands in the back pockets of his coat, his hat set negligently into the nape of his neck—a thickset, well-to-do, little fellow, about thirty years of age, clad in a kind of semi-sporting style, with a straw in his mouth and much display of jewellery at his waistcoat—came leisurely down the front steps from a porte-cochère, which the late Laird had added to the old house—leisurely, we say, and with a very insouciant air, and accorded a nod—bow it could not be called—to Roland and paused.

'Oh,' said he, 'Captain Lindsay, I presume?'

'Yes,' replied the other, with surprise, and curtly.

'Ah, welcome; we've been expecting you. Did you walk from the station?'

'I was obliged to do so——'

'Ah.'

'And you, sir?' asked Roland inquiringly.

'Mr. Sharpe—Hawkey Sharpe, at your service.'

'The new steward?' said Roland, repressing a vehement desire to kick him along the terrace.

'If you please to call me so.'

('What the devil else does he think I should call him?' thought Roland.)

As Mr. Hawkey Sharpe neither touched nor lifted his hat Roland ignored his tardily proffered hand, which was replaced in his coat pocket.

'Had a pleasant morning journey, I hope.'

'Yes.'

'Ah, I am just going to the stables—all are well at home,' said this strange and very confident personage, passing on, while Roland stood for a moment rooted to the ground by the profound insouciance of the man; but from that moment there was a secret, if unnamed, hatred of each other in the eyes of these two—hate blended with contempt and indignation in those of Roland, who felt intuitively that the other, though, as he supposed, his underling, would yet work him a mischief if he could.

'D—n the fellow!' thought Roland. 'So this is Mr. Sharpe. I must put him to the rightabout! He ought to have ushered me in or preceded me.'

He rang the bell furiously.

A strange footman appeared promptly enough, but without the indignation a 'London Jeames' would have manifested at a summons so rough and impatient; for natheless his irreproachable livery and powdered hair, he had been born and bred in the East Neuk of Fife, and had no 'West-End' airs about him.

'All are strangers now hereabout,' thought Roland, who was about to enter, when the man distinctly barred his way.

'Name, sir, please?' said he.

'Is Miss Maude—Miss Lindsay, I mean—at home?'

'No, sir; out riding.'

'Your mistress, then?' said Roland sharply.

'Yes, sir—if you will give me a card.'

'Card, ha!' exclaimed Roland, losing his temper now, and with fury blazing in his dark eyes. 'Say that Captain Lindsay has arrived!'

On this the valet—Tom Trotter by name—threw the door wide open, with a grin of welcome not unmingled with astonishment and alarm, and Roland found himself again under the roof of Earlshaugh.