‘Come awa’, Castle Fairm!’ cried one of the crowd as Mr. Lindsay drove up. ‘Aw’m glaid to see ye; ye play a hantle better nor yer son.’
‘Na, na, Muirfuit,’ responded the laird; ‘my playin’-days are by.’
Meantime Lord Bantock strolled over to the dog-cart, his ostensible reason being to shake hands with Mr. Lindsay, whom he recognised in his fallen state as one of the small gentry of the county.
‘Are you going to honour us with your presence, Miss Lindsay?’ he asked, as he helped Margaret to alight.
‘Only for half an hour,’ she answered, as she sprang lightly to the ground. ‘You will be back by that time?’ she continued, addressing her father.
‘In less than an hour, at any rate,’ he answered as he drove away; and Margaret, seeing some schoolgirls whom she knew engaged in sliding, went off to speak to them.
At this point a loud roar of laughter came from the group of men standing at the side of the loch; and Lord Bantock, who dearly loved a joke, hurried back to them.
‘Old Simpson is telling some of his stories; let us go and hear him,’ said Alec Lindsay, as, passing his arm through his friend’s, he led him up to the little crowd.
A tall man with a lean, smooth face, dressed in a high hat and black frock-coat, and wearing an old-fashioned black silk handkerchief round his neck, was standing in a slouching attitude, his hands half out of his pockets, while the others hung around in silence, waiting for his next anecdote.
‘That minds me,’ he was saying, as Alec and Cameron came up, ‘that minds me o’ what auld Craig o’ the Burn-Fuit said to wee Jamieson the writer.[4] Craig was a dour,[5] ill-tempered man; and though he had never fashed the kirk muckle, the minister cam’ to see him on one occasion when it was thocht he was near his hinner-en’.