Such was the potency of this charm, that, after he had thrown one thought at Rolls, and perceived the absurdity of the event, and given vent to the excited commentary of that laugh, John abandoned himself altogether to the sea of fancies, the questions, the answers, the profound trains of reasoning which belonged to that other unresolved and all-entrancing problem. He discussed with himself every word of Edith's letter, turning it over and over. Did it mean this? or peradventure, after all, did it only mean that? But if it meant that and not this, would she have so replied to his looks? would not she have said something more definitely discouraging when he appealed to her for More! more? She had not given him a word more; but she had replied with no stony look, no air of angry surprise or disdain, such as surely——Yet, on the other hand, might it not be possible that compassion and sympathy for his extraordinary circumstances, and the wrong he had undergone, might keep her, so sweet and good as she was, from any discouraging word? Only, in that case, would she have cast down her eyes like that? would they have melted into that unspeakable sweetness? So he ran on, as so many have done before him. He thought no more of the matter which had affected him so deeply for the last week, or of Torrance, who was dead, or of Rolls, who was in jail, than he did of last year's snow. Every interest in heaven and earth concentrated to him in these endless delightful questions. When a man, or, for that matter, a woman, is in this beatific agitation of mind, the landscape generally becomes a sort of blurr of light around them, and, save to the inward eye, which more than ever at such a moment is "the bliss of solitude," there is nothing that is very clearly visible. John saw this much, but no more, in Miss Barbara's old-fashioned dining-room—the genial gentlemen still at table, and Miss Barbara herself, in her white shawl, forming only a background to the real interest; and he perceived no more of the country round him as he walked, or the glow of the autumn foliage, the distance rolling away in soft blueness of autumnal mists to Tinto. He managed to walk along the road without seeing it, though it was so familiar, and arrived at his own gate with great surprise, unable to comprehend how he could have come so far. When he opened the gate, Peggy Fleming came out with her apron folded over her hands; but when she saw who it was, Peggy, forgetting the soap-suds, which showed it was washing day, flung up her red moist arms to the sky, and gave utterance to a wild "skreigh" of welcome and joy. For a moment John thought nothing less than that he was to be seized in those wildly waving and soapy arms.
"Eh, it's the master!" Peggy cried. "Eh, it's himsel'! Eh, it's lies, every word; and I never believed it, no' a moment!" And with that she threw her apron over her head and began to sob—a sound which brought out all her children, one after another, to hang upon her skirts and eagerly investigate the reason why.
The warmth of this emotional welcome amused him, and he paused to say a word or two of kindness before he passed on. But he had not anticipated the excitement with which he was to be received. When he came in sight of his own house, the first sound of his step was responded to by the watchers within with an anxious alacrity. A head popped out at a window; a white-aproned figure appeared from the back of the house, and ran back at the sight of him. And then there arose a "skreigh" of rapture that threw Peggy's altogether into the shade, and Bauby rushed out upon him, with open arms, and all her subordinates behind her, moist and flowing with tears of joy. "Eh, Mr John! Eh, my bonny man! Eh, laddie, laddie—that I should call you sae! my heart's just broken. And have you come hame? and have you come hame?"
"As you see," said John. He began to be rather tired of this primitive rejoicing, which presupposed that his detention had been a very serious matter, although by this time, in the crowd of other thoughts, it had come to look of no importance at all. But he remembered that he had a communication to make which, no doubt, would much lessen this delight; and he did not now feel at all disposed to laugh when he thought of Rolls. He took Bauby by the arm, and led her with him, astonished, into the library. The other maids remained collected in the hall. To them, as to Peggy at the lodge, it seemed the most natural thing to imagine that he had escaped, and might be pursued. The excitement rose very high among them: they thought instantly of all the hiding-places that were practicable, each one of them being ready to defend him to the death.
And it was very difficult to convey to the mind of Bauby the information which John had to communicate. "Oh ay, sir," she said, with a curtsey; "just that. I was sure Tammas was at Dunnotter to be near his maister. He has a terrible opinion of his maister; but now you're back yoursel', there will be nothing to keep him."
"You must understand," said John, gently, "that Rolls—it was, I have no doubt, the merest accident; I wonder it did not happen to myself: Rolls—caught his bridle, you know——"
"Oh ay,—just that, sir," said Bauby; "but there will be nothing to keep him, now you're back yoursel'."
"I'm afraid I don't make myself plain," said John. "Try to understand what I am saying. Rolls—your brother, you know——"
"Oh ay," said Bauby, smiling broadly over all her beaming face, "he's just my brother—a'body kens that—and a real good brother Tammas has aye been to me."
John was at his wits' end. He began the story a dozen times over, and softened and broke it up into easy words, as if he had been speaking to a child. At last it gradually dawned upon Bauby, not as a fact, but as something he wanted to persuade her of. It was a shock, but she bore it nobly. "You are meaning to tell me, sir, that it was Tammas—our Tammas—that killed Pat Torrance, yon muckle man? Na,—it's just your joke, sir. Gentlemen will have their jokes."