Chapter Two.
The Dinner by the Lake—Rory’s Run Round Africa—The Return of the Wanderers.
“When did you hear from Allan and Rory?” asked McBain that day, as they were seated at dinner in the little Highland cottage.
Mrs Morrison had done her best to put something nice before them, and not without success either—so thought Ralph, and so, too, thought his guest. At all events, both of them did ample justice to that noble lake trout. Five pounds did he weigh, if he weighed an ounce, and as red was he in flesh as if he had been fed upon beet. The juicy joint of mountain mutton that followed was fit to grace the table of a prince—it was as fragrant and sweet as the blooming heather tops that had brought it to perfection. Nor was the cranberry tart to be despised. The berries of which it was composed had not come over the Atlantic in a barrel of questionable flavour—no, they had been culled on the dewy braelands that very morning by the fair young fingers of wee Jeannie Morrison herself. The widow did not forget to tell them that, and it did not detract from their enjoyment of the tart. For drink they had fragrant heather ale—home-brewed.
“When did I hear from Allan and Rory?” said Ralph, repeating McBain’s question; “from the first, not for weeks—he is a lazy boy; from the latter, only yesterday morning.”
“And what says Rory?” asked McBain.
“Oh!” replied Ralph, “his letter is beautiful. It is twelve pages long. He is loud in his praises of the behaviour of the yacht, as a matter of course; but in no single sentence of this lengthy epistle does he refer definitely to the health or welfare of anybody whatever.”
“From which you infer—?”