'There are several.'
'Do let us hear at least one, Miss Ellinor,' urged Sir Redmond, as he placed the piano stool before the instrument.
Accordingly Ellinor, without further preface or pressing, seated herself, and sang with great sweetness and pathos neither David Mallet's affected stanzas nor Bryce's ludicrous lines, but the simple old song of the sixteenth century to its wonderfully beautiful air:—
'The evening sun was glinting bright
On Invermay's sweet glen and stream;
The woods and rocks in ruddy light
Appeared as in a fairy dream.
In loving fear I took my path
To seek the tryst that happy day,
With bonnie Mary, young and fair,
Among the Birks of Invermay.
'It wasna till the pale moonshine
Was glancing deep in Mary's e'e,
That with a smile she said, "I'm thine,
And ever true to thee will be!"
One kiss—the lover's pledge—and then
We spoke of all that lovers say,
And wandered hameward through the glen,
Among the Birks of Invermay.'
At the mention of Mary's name in the song, the eyes of Colville involuntarily sought those of her who bore it, and she coloured perceptibly. The performance of Ellinor was duly applauded by Sir Redmond, though he afterwards confided to Colville it was 'the silliest piece of Scotch twaddle' he had ever heard. Yet his admiration of Ellinor personally was open and unconcealed, perhaps too much so, and of its own kind was no doubt genuine enough, and while she sang, Ellinor was inwardly hoping her hair was tidy and looked well, as she felt conscious he was gazing straight down on it; while Mary had an uncomfortable feeling that visits from these gentlemen might be misconstrued by Lady Dunkeld, their hostess, and still more so by her daughter—a conviction that at times made her almost cold in her manner to Captain Colville, whom she believed to be that young lady's especial property. And she blamed herself, and blushed for herself, in the consciousness that she sometimes treasured up, and repeated to herself, little things he had said—appeals to her taste, her opinion, and so forth. While Colville, however he was situated with regard to Miss Galloway, made no secret of how he delighted in the quaint frankness of Mary Wellwood since the afternoon he had first met her, when both were fishing in the May.
'And so this locality is full of old legends of fairies and so forth?' said Colville, referring to a previous remark of Mary's.
'Yes; but then every foot of ground in Scotland has about it something historical or legendary—all teems with the past.'
'The present is more to my taste, Miss Wellwood,' said Sleath, twirling out his straw-coloured moustache.
'It would not be so if you lived always, as we do, under the shadow of the Ochil mountains.'