[2] Old man.
[3] Cattle.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ROARING GAME.
When the Christmas holidays drew near, Alec obtained his father’s permission to ask his friend, Duncan Cameron, to spend a week at the Castle Farm; and, after a little hesitation, Cameron accepted the proposal.
‘There’s just one thing, Duncan, I would like you to mind,’ said Alec, as they drew near the farm; ‘my father’s an old man, and he doesn’t like to be contradicted. More than that, he doesn’t care to hear anyone express opinions contrary to his own, at least on two subjects—politics and religion. If you can’t agree with him on these points, and I dare say you won’t, hold your tongue, like a good fellow. And my sister—you’d better keep off religion in her case too.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ was Cameron’s inward thought; but he only said he would of course be careful not to wound the old gentleman’s susceptibilities.
Mr. Lindsay received his guest with a hearty welcome—it was not one of his faults to fail in hospitality—indeed, a stranger might have thought that he was better pleased to see his guest than his son. He led the way through the great stone-floored kitchen to the parlour, where an enormous fire of coals was blazing, and where the evening meal was already laid out on the snowy table-cloth.
‘You had better warm your hands before going upstairs,’ he said to Duncan. ‘You must have had a very cold drive. Margaret!’ he called out, finding that his daughter was not in the sitting-room. ‘Margaret! where are you? Come away at once.’
In his eyes Margaret was a child still. He was a little annoyed that she should have been out of the way, and not in her place, ready to welcome the guest.