Yes, everything was bright and pleasant. What though the early winter winds were raving through the leafless trees without, where swayed the rooks near their cheerless nests? what though the blasts were biting and cold in the uplands, and the Nith—brown and swollen—roared angrily over its rocky bed? Bright fires burned in every grate, and were reflected in patches of crimson from the massive mahogany furniture.
And Lady Alwyn’s face was cheerful too. Resigned and calm though she always appeared, to-day there was a sparkle in her eyes, that made her look almost young.
Rat-tat! It was a double knock at the front hall door which resounded through all the house.
Lady Alwyn started from her seat, and stood eager and expectant. She even went to meet the liveried servant, who presently entered with the telegram.
“Yes, yes!” she joyfully exclaimed in answer to Janet’s inquiring look. “My boy is coming to-day. I knew he would be. Alba, your master is coming.”
She embraced the bird again. Fingal, sure that something more than usual was on the tapis, began to scamper round the room, jumping over the chairs—a way he had when excited. He jumped all round the room twice, then he playfully snatched the telegram from Lady Alwyn’s hand and went jumping round again with that.
How much or how little of the truth Fingal guessed I cannot pretend to say. It was but a telegram. Had it been a letter written by his loved master’s hand, Fingal would have known it, even had the wanderer been years away.
So when Claude stepped briskly out of the train at the little station of P—, there, sure enough, was the great stately old carriage, with its two splendid dark bays, in their silvered harness, waiting to receive him.
His mother was not there; but Fingal was, and almost pulled his master down in the exuberance of his joy.
It was a long five-mile drive from the station to Dunallan. Charming enough, in all conscience, during the spring and summer months, and even when autumn tints were on the trees, but cold-looking and dreary now. All the more so that night was coming on apace, the little of lurid light which the sun had left in the west getting quickly absorbed in the heavy banks of rising cloud.