“Na, it’s no sae muckle for that,” said Mrs. Melder; “though I have a cauld tremble whiles when I think o’ the water. Jacky’s no oncarefu. It’s a great charge being answerable for a stranger bairn, Miss Anne; but Lilie’s learning (it’s just a pleasure to see how fast she wins on) a’ manner o’ nonsense verses; and has her bit head fu’ of stories o’ knights and fairies, and I kenna a’ what. It’s Jacky’s doing and no ither. I am at times whiles far frae easy in my mind about it.”
“No fear,” said Anne, smiling. “Jacky will do Lilie no harm, Mrs. Melder.”
“To be sure,” said Mrs. Melder, thoughtfully, “she’s no an ill scholar, to be sic a strange lassie; and has been lookit weel after at the Tower. She was here the other day, when the minister was in—that’s Mr. Lumsden—he had a diet[*] in my house, Miss Anne—and it wad have dune ye gude to have heard her at the questions. No a slip; and as easy in the petitions as in man’s chief end. They say,” continued Mrs. Melder, somewhat overpowered, “that she can say the hundred and nineteenth psalm a’ out, without missing a word.”
[*] A diet of examination. One of the periodical visits made by Scottish clergymen in former times, during which the household, and especially its younger members, were examined on the “Shorter Catechism,” the universal text-book of Scottish Theology.
Leaving the miller’s kindly wife a good deal reassured by these signs of Jacky’s orthodoxy, Anne proceeded towards the Tower. The highroad was circuitous, and long; and the direct and universally-used path ran along the northern bank of the river, through the grounds of Strathoran. The little green gate, near which Alice had met Mr. Fitzherbert, was at the opposite extremity of this by-way, where it entered the precincts of the Tower.—As she drew near the stile, at which the narrow path was admitted into the possessions of the fallen house of Sutherland, Anne heard voices before her. One of them, whose loud tone was evidently full of anger and excitement, she recognised at once as Marjory Falconer’s; and having heard of her former adventure with Mr. Fitzherbert, and gallant defence of little Alice, Anne hurried forward, fearing that her friend’s prompt ire, and impetuous disposition, had involved her in some new scrape. It was evident that Marjory had some intention, in raising her voice so high. Anne could hear its clear tone, and indignant modulation, before she came in sight of the speaker.
He would venture to take the airs of a chieftain upon him—he, an English interloper, a mushroom lord! “Pull away the branches, George: never mind, let them indict you for trespass if they dare.”
Anne had quickened her pace, and was now close to the stile. Miss Falconer, her face flushed, her strong, tall, handsome figure swelling stronger and taller than ever, as she pulled, with an arm not destitute of force, one great branch which had been placed with many others, across the stile, barring the passage, stood with her head turned towards Strathoran, too much engrossed to notice Anne’s approach. The Falcon’s Craig groom was laboring with all his might to clear away the other obstructions, his broad face illuminated with fun, and hot with exertion, enjoying it with his whole heart. Miss Falconer went on:
“A pretty person to shut us out of our own country—to eject our cottars—honester men a hundredfold than himself; a chief forsooth! does he think himself a chief? I would like to see the clan of Gillravidge. Pull away these barriers, George; if Mrs. Catherine does not try conclusions with him, I do not know her.”
“Marjory,” said Anne, “what are you doing?—what is the matter now?”
“Anne Ross, is that you?—the matter!—why, look here—here is matter enough to make any one angry—our road, that belonged to us and our ancestors before this man’s race or name had ever been heard of—look at it, how he has blocked it up—look at this ‘notice to trespassers’—‘to be prosecuted with the utmost rigor of the law’—very well, let them prosecute!” continued Marjory, raising her voice, and sending a flashing, keen glance towards a corner of the adjoining plantation, “let them prosecute by all means—in five minutes more, they shall have some trespassers. These paltry little tyrants—these upstart Englishmen, daring, in a lowland country, and on poor Archibald Sutherland’s lands, to do what a highland chief would not venture on, on his own hills!”