He was almost destitute of eyebrows, but had a massive chin; and as Allan Graham regarded him, as he lay stretched upon the grass leisurely smoking, he by no means showed his father's sentiment of friendship for this son of an old friend; and there grew in his breast a mysterious instinct—almost a presentiment—that Holcroft would in some way or other bring trouble upon them conjunctly or severally.
After the keepers and gillies had their repast, the luncheon apparatus was packed up, and, shouldering their rifles, the party set out for the shooting-box, which was situated in a pretty glen a few miles distant.
Angus, who was—as his father boasted—strong as Cuchullin, again lifted the deer to the pony's back, and preceded by the family piper, Ronald Gair, with his pipes in full blast to the air of 'The Birks of Aberfeldie,' they departed down the winding path towards the dark blue loch that lay at the foot of the solemn, pine-clad hills.
Like the gillies and keepers, Ronald was never seen without a sprig of the Buaidh craob na Laibhreis (the laurel-tree of victory), the badge of the Grahams, in his bonnet.
Ronald Gair's locks were silver now, but they had been dark enough when he played the Black Watch up the green slopes of the Alma, through all Central India, to the gates of Lucknow, and in later times to the corpse-encumbered swamps of Coomassie.
Holcroft winced at what he deemed the dissonance of the pipes, and cursed their sound in his heart; but he was too well-bred or too prudent to say anything on the subject as he strode by Cameron's side down the strath, with a huge regalia between his teeth. Indeed, he might have been pretty well used to their sound by this time, as Ronald Gair roused the household with them in the morning, preceded many a meal—dinner always—and seemed to spend most of his time in incessant 'tuning up' between.
'I have a suspicion that he is bad form, this Holcroft,' said Allan to his father, as they could converse, unheard by the other two, amid the din of the pipes, which Ronald blew as if to wake the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, or Holgar Danske in his cavern at Elsinore. 'I have heard that he half lives on play and his betting-book, and that his little place in Essex, or rather what remains of it, is dipped over head and ears. Indeed, he admitted jocularly to Cameron that it was mortgaged for thrice its value, three times over, a fact which would teach the holders prudence for the future. Why did you have him here or at Dundargue?'
'Well—his father and I were old friends, as you know; his father, in fact, by an act of great bravery, saved my life at the Alma, when three Russians were at the point of bayoneting me, as I lay helpless on the field; so you see, Allan, I cannot help being at least hospitable to the poor fellow, and certainly his friend.'
Indeed, Lord Aberfeldie had always been the latter to Holcroft, and not seldom his 'banker,' but of this Allan knew nothing, nor was ever likely to know, so far as his father was concerned.
'He seems to consider Olive an heiress,' said Allan, after a pause.