And while the Seaton swarmed with “the goings on of life,” the town of Portlossie lay above it still as a country hamlet, with more odours than people about: of people it was seldom indeed that three were to be spied at once in the wide street, while of odours you would always encounter a smell of leather from the saddler’s shop, and a mingled message of bacon and cheese from the very general dealer’s—in whose window hung what seemed three hams, and only he who looked twice would discover that the middle object was no ham, but a violin—while at every corner lurked a scent of gillyflowers and southernwood. Idly supreme, Portlossie the upper looked down in condescension, that is in half-concealed contempt, on the ant-heap below it.
The evening arrived on which the greater part of the boats was to put off for the first assay. Malcolm would have made one in the little fleet, for he belonged to his friend Joseph Mair’s crew, had it not been found impossible to get the new boat ready before the following evening; whence, for this one more, he was still his own master, with one more chance of a pleasure for which he had been on the watch ever since Lady Florimel had spoken of having a row in his boat. True, it was not often she appeared on the shore in the evening; nevertheless he kept watching the dune with his keen eyes, for he had hinted to Mrs Courthope that perhaps her young lady would like to see the boats go out.
Although it was the fiftieth time his eyes had swept the links in vague hope, he could hardly believe their testimony when now at length he spied a form, which could only be hers, looking seaward from the slope, as still as a sphinx on Egyptian sands.
He sauntered slowly towards her by the landward side of the dune, gathering on his way a handful of the reddest daisies he could find; then, ascending the sand-hill, approached her along the top.
“Saw ye ever sic gowans in yer life, my leddy?” he said, holding out his posy.
“Is that what you call them?” she returned.
“Ow ay, my leddy—daisies ye ca’ them. I dinna ken but yours is the bonnier name o’ the twa—gien it be what Mr Graham tells me the auld poet Chaucer maks o’ ’t.”
“What is that?”
“Ow, jist the een o’ the day—the day’s eyes, ye ken. They’re sma’ een for sic a great face, but syne there’s a lot o’ them to mak up for that. They’ve begun to close a’ready, but the mair they close the bonnier they luik, wi’ their bits o’ screwed-up mooies (little mouths). But saw ye ever sic reid anes, or ony sic a size, my leddy?”
“I don’t think I ever did. What is the reason they are so large and red?”