“She’s a new boat, an’ there’s anither day’s wark on her afore we win oot.—Wadna ye like a row the nicht, my leddy?”
“No, certainly; it’s much too late.”
“It’ll be nane mirker nor ’tis; but I reckon ye’re richt. I cam ower by jist to see whether ye wadna like to gang wi’ the boats a bit; but yer leddyship set me aff thinkin’, an’ that pat it oot o’ my heid.”
“It’s too late now anyhow. Come to-morrow evening, and I’ll see if I can’t go with you.”
“I canna, my leddy—that’s the fash o’ ’t! I maun gang wi’ Blue Peter the morn’s nicht. It was my last chance, I’m sorry to say.”
“It’s not of the slightest consequence,” Lady Florimel returned; and, bidding him good-night, she shut and locked the door.
The same instant she vanished, for the tunnel was now quite dark. Malcolm turned with a sigh, and took his way slowly homeward along the top of the dune. All was dim about him—dim in the heavens, where a thin veil of gray had gathered over the blue; dim on the ocean, where the stars swayed and swung, in faint flashes of dissolving radiance, cast loose like ribbons of sea-weed; dim all along the shore, where the white of the breaking wavelet melted into the yellow sand; and dim in his own heart, where the manner and words of the lady had half hidden her starry reflex with a chilling mist.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE FEAST.
To the entertainment which the marquis and Lady Florimel had resolved to give, all classes and conditions in the neighbourhood now began to receive invitations—shopkeepers, there called merchants, and all socially above them, individually, by notes, in the name of the marquis and Lady Florimel, but in the handwriting of Mrs Crathie and her daughters; and the rest generally, by the sound of bagpipes, and proclamation from the lips of Duncan MacPhail. To the satisfaction of Johnny Bykes the exclusion of improper persons was left in the hands of the gatekeepers.
The thing had originated with the factor. The old popularity of the lords of the land had vanished utterly during the life of the marquis’s brother, and Mr Crathie, being wise in his generation, sought to initiate a revival of it by hinting the propriety of some general hospitality, a suggestion which the marquis was anything but loath to follow. For the present Lord Lossie, although as unready as most men to part with anything he cared for, could yet cast away magnificently, and had always greatly prized a reputation for liberality.