'To be cut down and sold—a black, burning shame! Some o' the aiks are auld as the three Trees o' Dysart!'
'By whose order?' asked Roland, greatly ruffled.
'Oh, Mr. Hawkey Sharpe's, of course.'
'But why?'
'It is no for me to say, sir,' replied the old man uneasily; 'but folk hint that when a body backs the wrong horse at races some one maun pay the piper. Maister Sharpe cuts gey near the wind, and comes aftener wi' the rake than the shool; but he'll get a bite o' his ain bridle, I hope, yet!'
'Racing, is it? I shall see this matter attended to also. His presumption is unparalleled!' said Roland, as with something between a groan and an imprecation on his lips he passed on, to look after a mount for Annot Drummond, and to digest this new piece of information—that the so-called steward was about to cut down one of the oldest of the ancestral woods on the property to meet a gambling debt!
At the stables, warm indeed was the welcome he met from the veteran groom Johnnie, who did not seem older by a day since Roland had seen him last—hale, hardy, and lithe, though past his sixtieth year, with long body, short bandy legs, small, closely-shaven head, and sharp, keen, twinkling eyes—his white tie scrupulously folded, and attired as usual in a heavily flapped corduroy waistcoat, with large pockets, in one of which was stuck a curry-comb, and in his hands was a steel bridle-bit, which he was polishing with leather till it shone like silver.
Roland Lindsay had been so long away from among his own people and native country, that he felt the keenest pleasure at the warmth of his reception by any of the old servants whom the new régime permitted to linger about Earlshaugh.
'Eh, Captain, how like the Laird, your worthy father, you are!' exclaimed old Johnnie Buckle, with kindly eyes, adding, 'but I hope you'll never live to be sic a gomeral—excuse me, sir.'
Roland knew to what the old fellow referred, and was silent.