“To Earl’s-hall.”
“To Earl’s-hall! And what have you been doing at Earl’s-hall? No drawing and fiddling while the poor auld man lies dying? Ye’re ill enough, but surely you have not the heart for that?”
“I have neither been drawing nor fiddling—indeed I did not know that I could fiddle; but, all the same, I have come from Earl’s-hall,” he said. “Let me in, mother; I’ve been sitting in the wood, and the night has got cold.”
“What have you been doing—sitting in the wood? There’s no light to take your views—tell me,” said Mrs. Glen, with determination, “what have you been doing, once for all.”
“I may as well tell you,” he said; “I have been sitting in the wood with Margaret.”
“With—Margaret? you’re no blate to speak o’ a young lady like that. Rob, my bonnie man, I aye thought you were to be the lucky bairn of my family. Have ye naething mair to tell me about—Margaret? I would like weel, real weel, to hear.”
“Can you keep a secret, mother?” he said. “I will tell you something if you will swear to me never to repeat it, never to hint at it, never to brag of what is coming, or to give the slightest ground for suspicion: if you will promise me this—”
“I was never a tale-pyet,” said Mrs. Glen, offended, “nobody ever laid tittle-tattle, or bragging of ony kind, to my door. But if you canna trust your mother without promises, I see not why you should trust her at all.”
“It is not that I doubt you, mother; but you know how difficult it is not to mention a thing that is much in your mind. Margaret Leslie is my own; it is all settled and fixed between us. She came out to me in her trouble when she found her father was dying, and what could I do but comfort her, and support her, and show my feeling—”
“Oh, ay, Rob,” his mother interpolated, “you were aye grand at that!”