"Ay, all but and well nigh," said Austin; "has the old gentleman gone to bed yet? Supper is not over till he's gone, I think."
"No, he's not gone yet," answered the host, "but he's just dawdling over some nuts."
"Well, then, he'll entertain my lord till I've taken another cup," replied Austin Jute; and he set himself to work again to make his companions laugh, with an affectation of insolence he did not really feel.
A minute or two after, however, the landlord returned, saying, "The old gentleman's gone now--and I'm thinking you had better not let your lord know how long you've been here."
"Oh dear, yes, I shall," replied the servant, starting up at once. "I never hide anything from him, Master Host, whatever you may think;" and away he went, without pause or hesitation.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The supper had been gay and cheerful, the materials better than might have been expected in a small country inn of Scotland at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and Julia and Gowrie were alone once more, for Mr. Rhind had now become quite accustomed to his position, and forgetting all his sage decorums, consulted little but his own ease. The night was cold and clear, the fire in the large open chimney blazed bright and cheerfully, and a gay and happy sensation, as if the presentiment of coming joy, was in the heart both of the lady and of her lover. When they crossed the border, indeed, and re-entered the native land of both, their feelings had been different; a sort of dread had come upon Julia's mind--that kind of oppressive sensation which often overpowers us when some great fact, to which we have long looked forward, is accomplished, deciding our destiny for ever, and yet leaving the results hidden in darkness till they are evolved by time. When Gowrie had said, "Here we are, in Scotland," the land of her fathers, where they had ruled, and bled, and suffered--the land where her own fate was to be worked out; where the brightest happiness which the wildest flight of her young fancy could reach, or the deepest grief which a fearful heart could portray, was to be enjoyed or endured; an overpowering impression of great things, past and to come, fell upon her for an instant, and she could hardly sit her horse.
The feelings of Gowrie were somewhat similar. After a long absence, he, too, was returning to his native land. With him, too, there was much that was painful in the history of the past. In this land his father had perished on the scaffold; from it that father's father had fled an exile to linger out a few short years of sickness in a foreign country; while many and many a relation and friend had here wetted the scaffold with their blood. What was before himself? he asked; and as he crossed the frontier, he strove to cast his eye forward, as if to penetrate the dark and heavy veil which hides the future of all mortal fate: nor did he do so without dread.
Such feelings, however, had passed away. The morning had been clear, though cold. The scenes through which they passed were fair enough, and there was that blue freshness in the hues of the bright wintry landscape which compensates, in some degree, for the warmer colouring of the summer. All had gone well, too, on the road. Nothing had occurred to harass or disturb. The delicate complexion of the beautiful girl, nurtured under a softer sky, had acquired a brighter glow in the bracing influence of the northern air, and she looked lovelier than ever in Gowrie's eyes; while, as she turned a look to him, he seemed to ride with that prouder air which one ever feels inclined to assume when, after a long absence, we again tread the land of our birth and of our love.
Thus, by the time they reached the inn for the night, all dark fancies had been swept away; and now they sat with their feet to the bright lire, and with their hearts overflowing with those words of love which had been repressed during the day by the presence of another.