"Captain, good night. I wish to speak with my son, David Lorimer."
"Wall, sir, you can't do it, not by no manner of means, just yet. David Lorimer is on watch till midnight."
He was perfectly civil, but there was something particularly irritating in the way Whaley named David Lorimer. So the two men sat almost silent before the camp fire until midnight. Then Whaley said, "Mr. Lorimer, your son is at liberty now. You'll excuse me saying that the shorter you make your palaver the better it will suit me."
Lorimer turned angrily, but Whaley was walking carelessly away; and the retort that rose to his lips was not one to be shouted after a man of Whaley's desperate character with safety. As his son approached him he was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in the young man's appearance.
Physically, he was all he could desire. No Lorimer that ever galloped through Eskdale had the national peculiarities more distinctively. He was the tall, fair Scot, and his father complacently compared his yellow hair and blue eyes with the "dark, deil-like beauty" of Whaley.
"Davie," and he held out his hand frankly, "I hae come to tak ye back to your ain hame. Let byganes be byganes, and we'll start a new chapter o' life, my lad. Ye'll try to be a gude son, and I'll aye be a gude father to ye."
It was a great deal for James Lorimer to say; and David quite appreciated the concession, but he answered—
"Lulu, father? I cannot give her up."
"Weel, weel, if ye are daft to marry a strange woman, ye must e'en do sae. It is an auld sin, and there have aye been daughters o' Heth to plague honest houses wi'. But sit down, my lad; I came to talk wi' ye anent some decenter way of life than this."
The talk was not altogether a pleasant one; but both yielded something, and it was finally agreed that as soon as Whaley could pick up a man to fill Davie's place Davie should return home. Lorimer did not linger after this decision. Whaley's behavior had offended him and without the ceremony of a "good-bye," he turned his horse's head eastward again.