Dr. Wodrow, the minister of Invermay (called of old the Kirktown of Mailler), was a tall, stout, and more than fine-looking man, with aquiline features, and a massive forehead, from which his hair, very full in quantity, and now silvery white, seemed to start up in Jove-like spouts, to fall behind over his ears and neck. He had keen, dark-grey eyes, always a pleasant smile, with a calm, kind, and dignified, if not somewhat pompous, manner, born, perhaps, of the consciousness that, after the laird, he was a chief man in the parish.
His one little vanity, or pet weakness, was pride in his descent from the pious but superstitious old author of 'Analecta Scotica,' and other almost forgotten works, but who was a great man in his time, before and after the Treaty of Union, and in honour of whom he had named his only son 'Robert.'
The afternoon tea proceeded in due course, served in fine old dragon china, brought in by old Elspat, a hard-featured little woman, in deep black, owing to her recent bereavement, who curtseyed in an old-fashioned way to each and all, and with whom the minister shook hands, somewhat to the surprise of his London friends.
'What a splendid type of dog you have here, Miss Wellwood—all muscle and sinew—half bull, half fox terrier,' said Colville, in a pause of the conversation, patting Jack, who was nestling close to Mary's skirt, for the captain deemed rightly that her dog was a safe thing to enlarge upon.
'He is indeed a pet—the dearest of dogs,' she replied, tickling Jack's ears, and getting a lick of his red tongue in return.
'Are you not afraid of him?' asked Sir Redmond, a little nervously.
'Afraid of Jack—I should think not!' replied Mary, laughing.
But somehow Jack seemed to have an antipathy for the baronet, and growled and showed his molar tusks very unmistakably each time that personage focussed him with his eyeglass.
The cabinet portrait of an old officer, in uniform with epaulettes and one or two medals, seemed to attract the interest of Leslie Colville.
'That is papa,' said Mary, in an explanatory tone.