"I'd go on the mountain if I were you, and get into a habit of steady loading."
"Perhaps I will take a turn,—just to find out how I feel in the knickerbockers. At what time shall I dine if you don't come back?"
"I shall certainly be here to dinner," said Frank, "unless the pony fails me or I get lost on the mountain." Then he started, and Herriot at once went to work on Stone and Toddy, with a pipe in his mouth. He had travelled all night, and it is hardly necessary to say that in five minutes he was fast asleep.
So also had Frank travelled all night, but the pony and the fresh air kept him awake. The boy had offered to go with him, but that he had altogether refused;—and, therefore, to his other cares was added that of finding his way. The sweep of the valleys, however, is long and not abrupt, and he could hardly miss his road if he would only make one judicious turn through a gap in a certain wall which lay half way between the cottage and the castle. He was thinking of the work in hand, and he found the gap without difficulty. When through that he ascended the hill for two miles, and then the sea was before him, and Portray Castle, lying, as it seemed to him at that distance, close upon the sea-shore. "Upon my word, Lizzie has not done badly for herself," he said almost aloud, as he looked down upon the fair sight beneath him, and round upon the mountains, and remembered that, for her life at least, it was all hers, and after her death would belong to her son. What more does any human being desire of such a property than that?
He rode down to the great doorway,—the mountain track which fell on to the road about half a mile from the castle having been plain enough, and there he gave up the pony into the hands of no less a man than Mr. Gowran himself. Gowran had watched the pony coming down the mountain-side, and had desired to see of what like was "her leddyship's" cousin. In telling the whole truth of Mr. Gowran, it must be acknowledged that he thought that his late master had made a very great mistake in the matter of his marriage. He could not imagine bad things enough of Lady Eustace, and almost believed that she was not now, and hadn't been before her marriage, any better than she should be. The name of Admiral Greystock, as having been the father of his mistress, had indeed reached his ears; but Andy Gowran was a suspicious man, and felt no confidence even in an admiral,—in regard to whom he heard nothing of his having, or having had, a wife. "It's my fer-rm opeenion she's jist naebody—and waur," he had said more than once to his own wife, nodding his head with great emphasis at the last word. He was very anxious, therefore, to see "her leddyship's" cousin. Mr. Gowran thought that he knew a gentleman when he saw one. He thought, also, that he knew a lady, and that he didn't see one when he was engaged with his mistress. Cousin, indeed! "For the matter o' that, ony man that comes the way may be ca'ed a coosin." So Mr. Gowran was on the grand sweep before the garden gate, and took the pony from Frank's hand. "Is Lady Eustace at home?" Frank asked. Mr. Gowran perceived that Frank was a gentleman, and was disappointed. And Frank didn't come as a man comes who calls himself by a false name, and pretends to be an honest cousin when in fact he is something,—oh, ever so wicked! Mr. Gowran, who was a stern moralist, was certainly disappointed at Frank's appearance.
Lizzie was in a little sitting-room, reached by a long passage with steps in the middle, at some corner of the castle which seemed a long way from the great door. It was a cheerful little room, with chintz curtains, and a few shelves laden with brightly-bound books, which had been prepared for Lizzie immediately on her marriage. It looked out upon the sea, and she had almost taught herself to think that here she had sat with her adored Florian, gazing in mutual ecstasy upon the "wide expanse of glittering waves." She was lying back in a low arm-chair as her cousin entered, and she did not rise to receive him. Of course she was alone, Miss Macnulty having received a suggestion that it would be well that she should do a little gardening in the moat. "Well, Frank?" she said, with her sweetest smile, as she gave him her hand. She felt and understood the extreme intimacy which would be implied by her not rising to receive him. As she could not rush into his arms there was no device by which she could more clearly show to him how close she regarded his friendship.
"So I am at Portray Castle at last," he said, still holding her hand.
"Yes,—at the dullest, dreariest, deadliest spot in all Christendom, I think,—if Ayrshire be Christendom. But never mind about that now. Perhaps, as you are at the other side of the mountain at the Cottage, we shall find it less dull here at the castle."
"I thought you were to be so happy here."
"Sit down and we'll talk it all over by degrees. What will you have,—breakfast or lunch?"