Her stature, her lofty air, and calm decisive manner, awed the two English girls, and calmed their excessive agitation, while it dashed the somewhat brusque air of the gentlemen; and, reseating herself in her wide, old-fashioned chair, she spread her skirt all over it, in a way peculiar to ladies of 'the old school,' and then fixed her keen grey Highland eyes upon her unexpected and not over-welcome visitors, to learn the cause of all this commotion and alarm for one towards whom it may easily be supposed she felt but little love, as she deemed poor Sir Horace little better than a usurper, and was wont to stigmatize him roughly in Gaelic as 'a Hanoverian rat.'
I snatched a hunting-horn, Callum threw off his plaid, and leaving the two perfumed gentlemen to follow us as they best could in their well-glazed boots and tightly-strapped pantaloons, we took our way with all speed towards the rocky summit of Ben Ora.
CHAPTER IV
THE BOOK OF THE BOAR.
The sudden presence of Laura Everingham under my mother's roof had, for a moment, confused and astonished me, filling me with tremulous anxiety for the issue of their interview.
Laura was a lady-like girl, pretty rather than beautiful, and graceful rather than dignified, with a bright sunny English eye, a pale but interesting face, matchless hands and ankles, and a profusion of chestnut hair. She had trembled excessively when I presented her to my mother, whom she informed, as rapidly and coherently as her excessive agitation would permit, that Sir Horace, 'her dear, good, kind papa, would go to the summit of the mountain in the moonlight, in spite of all advice and the warnings of various shepherds.'
'The old gentlemen is, aw—aw, rather nocturnal in his tastes, madam,' yawned Mr. Snobleigh, who had been surveying the dining-room through his glass, with great apparent curiosity and much unmistakable depreciation; 'town habits, madam, won't suit this parallel—aw, of north latitude.'
'And he would visit the Craig-na-tuirc,' continued Laura; 'for dear papa is such an obstinate old thing, and we are always so afraid of the gout flying to his head, that we never dare to cross him. Well, we ascended that horrid mountain, and after great danger and labour reached the shoulder or cliff, Craig-na-tuirc, I think, you name it, just in time to see the moon rise above the hills, and a lovely moon it was—'
'Aw—for Scotland—very!' said Mr. Snobleigh.
'We were at the very verge of the precipice, with our little ponies, from which we had all dismounted, but dear old obstinate papa, who would keep his saddle, when suddenly an eagle soared up, with its huge flapping wings, from amid our feet—our wild ponies took to flight—scampered down the mountain, and vanished; that which bore papa accompanied them; we heard him crying piteously for help—oh, heaven, how piteously! And then, a white stag shot past—'