A tall, slouching man, with red hair and heavy shoulders, was advancing towards them from the house. George turned to look.
“That is Bray himself. Look at the lazy fellow! You may tell his temperament from his gait.”
George Godolphin was right. The man was not walking along, but sauntering; turning to either side and bending his head as if flowers lay in his path and he wished to look at them: his hands in his pockets, his appearance anything but fresh and neat. They watched him come up. He touched his hat then, and accosted Mr. George Godolphin.
“My service to ye, sir. I didna know you were in these parts.”
“So you are still in the land of the living, Bray!” was Mr. George’s response. “How is business?”
“Dull as a dyke,” returned Bray. “Times are bad. I’ve hardly took a crown in the last three months, sir. I shall have to emigrate, if this is to go on.”
“I fear you would scarcely find another country so tolerant to your peculiar calling, Bray,” said George, some mockery in his tone. “And what would the neighbourhood do without you? It must resign itself to single blessedness.”
“The neighbourhood dunna come to me. Folk go over to the kirk now: that has come into fashion; and I’m going down. ’Twas different in past times. A man would give a ten-pun note then to have things done neatly and quietly. But there’s fresh notions and fresh havers; and, for all the good they have done me, I might as well be out of the world. Is this Miss Cecil?”
The last question was put abruptly, the man turning himself full upon Charlotte Pain, and scanning her face. George Godolphin was surprised out of an answer: had he taken a moment for reflection, he might have deemed the question an impertinence, and passed it by.
“Miss Cecilia is not in Scotland.”