Mr. Douglas was sitting over his newspaper with the air of being very much absorbed in it. It was no less than a London paper, a copy of the Times which Glendochart had brought, which had been sent to him from London with the news of the escape of Boney, news that made Drumcarro wild to think that Jock was but fourteen and could not be sent off at once with such chances of promotion as a new war would bring. He had given the lad a kick with a “Useless monkey! Can ye not grow a little faster;” as Jock had clattered up to bed in his country shoes the previous night. But he was not reading, though he pretended still to be buried in the paper when Kirsteen came in. He took no notice of her till she had been standing for a minute before him repeating, “Did you want me, father?” when he looked up, as if surprised.
“Oh, you’re there. I calculated ye would take an hour to come.”
“Jock said you wanted to speak to me, father.”
“And so I did—but you might have had to put your gown on, or to brush your hair or something—for anything I knew.”
“I never do that at this time of the day.”
“Am I to mind your times of day? Kirsteen, I have something to say to you.”
“So Jock told me, father.”
“Never mind what Jock told ye. It is perhaps the most serious moment of all your life; or I might say it’s the beginning of your life, for with the care that has been taken of ye, keepit from the cold and shadit from the heat, and your meat provided and everything you could require—the like of you doesn’t know what life is as long as ye bide in your father’s house.”
Kirsteen’s heart gave a throb of opposition, but she did not say or scarcely think that this position of blessedness had never been hers. She was not prepared to blaspheme her father’s house.
“Well! now that’s all changed, and ye’ll have to think of acting for yourself. And ye are a very lucky lass, chosen before your sister, who is the eldest, and according to the law of Laban—— But I think he was too particular. What the devil maittered which of them was to go first so long as he got them both safe off his hands?”