He was now steering for the foot of the cliff. As they approached, the ruin expanded and separated, grew more massy, and yet more detailed. Still it was a mere root clinging to the soil.
“Suppose you were Lord Lossie, Malcolm, what would you do with it?” asked Florimel, seriously, but with fun in her eyes.
“I wad win at the boddom o’ ’t first.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Ye’ll see whan ye win in till ’t. There’s a heap o’ voutit places inside yon blin’ face. Du ye see yon wee bit squaur winnock? That lats the licht in till ane o’ them. There may be vouts aneath vouts, for them ’at ye can win intill ’s half fu’ o’ yird an’ stanes. I wad hae a’ that cleart oot, an syne begin frae the verra foondation, diggin’, an’ patchin’, an’ buttressin’, till I got it a’ as soun’ as a whunstane; an’ whan I cam to the tap o’ the rock, there the castel sud tak to growin’ again; an’ grow it sud, till there it stude, as near what it was as the wit an’ the han’ o’ man cud set it.”
“That would ruin a tolerably rich man,” said the marquis.
“Ony gait it’s no the w’y fowk ruins themsels noo-a-days, my lord. They’ll pu’ doon an auld hoose ony day to save themsels blastin’-poother. There’s that gran’ place they ca’ Huntly Castel!— a suckin’ bairn to this for age, but wi’ wa’s, they tell me, wad stan’ for thoosan’s o’ years: wad ye believe ’t? there’s a sowlless chiel’ o’ a factor there diggin’ park-wa’s an’ a grainery oot o’ ’t, as gien ’twar a quarry o’ blue stane! An’ what’s ten times mair exterord’nar, there’s the Duke o’ Gordon jist lattin’ the gype tak ’s wull o’ the hoose o’ his grace’s ain forbears! I wad maist as sune lat a man speyk ill o’ my daddy!”
“But this is past all rebuilding,” said his lordship. “It would be barely possible to preserve the remains as they are.”
“It wad be ill to du, my lord, ohn set it up again. But jist think what a gran’ place it wad be to bide in!”
The marquis burst out laughing.