This cheering thought and the influence of the morning restored his satisfaction in the external world, and his hopes for what was before him, and the sense of being surrounded with novel circumstances in a new country with everything to learn and to enjoy, restored his spirits. One thing gave him a momentary annoyance, which, however, ended soon in the half mischievous, boyish pleasure which he felt in the expedient he thought of to meet it. The annoyance was his sudden recollection that the name of Lewis Grantley was no doubt well known at Murkley Castle. To allow himself to be known as that detested personage would baffle him in all his intentions. The way of eluding this was a sufficiently simple one, that of dropping his own name. Accordingly he took the first step in conciliating the family by doing the thing of all others at which they were most indignant—assuming the name of Murray, as Sir Patrick had wished. Sir Patrick had expressed a wish on the subject, but it was not mentioned in the will, nor was there any such stipulation made. And Mr. Allenerly had thought it inexpedient. Therefore it had been understood that Grantley he should continue to be. The best disguise he could assume, he felt, was to take the name which would be supposed to be the most unlikely he could hit upon, and yet to which he had a certain right. The idea of doing so amused while it annoyed him. Sir Patrick would have liked it. It would have been a pleasure to the old man; and to himself it would be a shield in this country of the Murrays where every third person to be met with bore the name. If at the same time a sense of deception and unreality crossed the young man's mind, he put it away as a piece of folly. He had nothing but a good meaning in this visit to his adversary's country, to the neighbourhood of the people whom he had wronged without knowing it, most innocently because altogether unawares.
This serious background of thought occupied his mind much while he lay awake in the stillness of the night. But the stillness did not continue long. The darkness was not much more than the twinkling of an eyelid, he thought, and the birds were all awake in a multitudinous chorus, and the sun shining into his room before drowsiness overcame him. At five and twenty, however, a great deal of noise and tumult is necessary to keep sleep away from the eyes, and Lewis, when he got the tangle of his cares unloosened, soon lost consciousness of the birds. And when he woke in the morning and found himself in a new world, with everything about him novel and unfamiliar, amusement and pleasure got the upper hand with scarcely an effort. Let the countryside think what it would of him, he knew himself better, and it would go hard with him, he said to himself, if he did not conquer even the countryside.
[CHAPTER III.]
"Ye'll be for the fushin', sir? Adam, that's my man, will give ye a' the information. He's fell at the saumon; and muckle need to be fell at something," added Janet; "for a mair fusionless man about a house doesna exist. He's no made for an innkeeper. I'm aye telling him that; but I might just as weel keep my breath for ither purposes. It never does him ony good."
"It is all the more to your credit, Mrs.——"
"Oh, you needna fash your head about the mistress. I've aye been Janet, and Janet I'll be to the end o' the chapter. If there had been ony pith in the man, we might, maybe, have risen like the rest of the world; for he's no ignorant, nor yet a gommeral, though ye might think sae to see him: but no pith in him—you would call it spirit, maybe, in English. That's 'the stalk o' carle-hemp in man,' that Robert Burns speaks about. You'll maybe mind? Na, he's no an ill man, but there's nae carle-hemp in him. Sae I have a' upon my shoulders. And, if everything shouldna be just as you wish, it'll be real kind to name it, Mr. Murray. So you're Murray, too? there are a hantle Murrays hereabout. Ye'll be of the Athol family, or——"
"I have lived abroad all my life," said Lewis, "and I have been an orphan since I was very young—so that I know very little about my relations."
He felt very self-conscious as he made this little explanation, and thought it so awkward that he must be found out, but Janet was entirely unsuspicious, and accepted it as a matter of course.
"Eh, that's an awfu' pity," she said, sympathetically; then added, "If ye've been abroad so lang as that, ye'll maybe have met with auld Sir Patrick about the world. That's the grandfather of our misses here—a real grand-looking auld gentleman as ever I set eyes on—but, I'm feared, sir, no sae good as he looked. He's been aye abroad sin ever I mind, and the general and him didna gree; and he has left every penny of his siller that he could meddle with, away frae his family. It's an awfu' hard case," Janet said.