"If only we'd been a mile lower down the Glen, Isla!" he looked round to say. "We might have had a haul off the Railway Companies, but that's just our luck all through. We miss it every time by the skin of our teeth. Do you mind if I just stop at the hotel and pass the time of day with Miss Macdougall?"
"Don't stop long, then, Malcolm. I want to get home to father as quickly as possible."
She sat with what patience she might for ten minutes while he was inside the hotel getting a drink, and soon after he had resumed his seat they began the gradual ascent of Glenogle. She was conscious of a quickened heart-beat as they came near to Achree; and presently the blaze of its lights could be seen through the trees.
"By Jove, Isla--no stint there!" he called over his shoulder. "Achree has never been illuminated like that within the memory of man. What are they saying about the new folk in the Glen, Jamie?"
"They like them not that pad, sir. They are fery civil-spoken and kind, forpy peing likely to spend a heap of money. They are fery anxious that whoefer hass things to sell in the Glen shall pring them to Achree. There are not many like that come now to the Glen, Maister Malcolm. The most of them do nothing put send for big boxes to come from the store. They will pe well likit, I'm thinking."
"Oh, yes, it sounds idyllic," said Malcolm drily, the meaning of which adjective Jamie did not grasp.
"It seems a shame to pass by the old place. I'm down to-morrow if I'm a living man, Americans or no Americans," said Malcolm to Isla. "Has he any women-folk?"
"I'll tell you about them later," she answered, and her voice shook a little, for she too felt a qualm as they passed by the gate and the little lodge.
It was a long cold climb to the Moor of Creagh, and she was heartily sick of it before they drew up at the unpretentious white gate from which a straight, short drive led up to the house.
Diarmid was in the porch to meet and welcome them, and, though there was an odd shrinking in the old man's eyes as they travelled with a look of anxious reproach to the young Laird's face, Malcolm himself seemed quite unaware of it. He grasped the old man's hand cordially, asked for his welfare, and then passed in to where the old General, holding himself rather erect and proudly, though leaning hard on his stick, was peering through the dim light for sight of his son.