The younger people strayed out without waiting for the conclusion of the controversy which was thus opened between the ladies; for Mrs. Bellingham was quite able to dispense with her sister’s society, though kind Miss Grace, with many a whisper behind her back, declared that she did not at all mind, but that it would never do to leave dear Jean alone. They went out discussing their own curious relationships with a great deal of natural amusement; for there was no doubt that Effie at seventeen and a half was the unquestionable niece of Margaret, who had not yet arrived at her eighteenth birthday. “And as Miss Leslie is my aunt Grace, it is unquestionable that Miss Margaret Leslie must be my aunt Margaret, most venerable of titles,” said Aubrey, taking off his hat and making her a reverential bow. He protested that no Christian name could be added to the title of aunt which could produce so profound an impression of age and awe. Aunt Grace might sound skittish and youthful, and Aunt Jean be no more than matronly; but nothing less than a white-haired grandmother could do justice (they all allowed) to the name of Aunt Margaret. Effie, who was a great novel-reader, reckoned upon her fingers how many there were to be found in books.
Thus discussing, they went lightly along through the soft Highland evening all scented with the peat. The sky was still blue and clear, but in the village street it was almost dark, glimmers of the never-extinguished fires shining cheerfully from the cottage-windows, and the few passengers about looking at each other with puckered eyelids, “as an old tailor looks at the eye of his needle,” according to Dante. Some one contemplating them thus, with contracted pupils and projected head, attracted the notice of the girls as they went along, in a little pause after their laughter—some one with a fishing-basket over his shoulder—and came to a sudden pause before them.
“Randal Burnside!” Margaret cried, with a little start. And Randal made a very elaborate explanation as to how he had been under an old engagement to come here to fish, and how much surprised he was to see them arriving whom he had parted from only about ten days before.
“I could not believe my eyes,” he said.
Why should not he believe his eyes? Mrs. Bellingham, when told of this explanation, declared indignantly that she had herself told him of her intention to stay a few days at Killin.
“What should he be surprised at?” she asked; but this was a question to which nobody could reply.
He turned with them, as was natural, and they all continued their walk together. There were no lamps nor other worldly vulgarities in Killin; there was no railway even, in those days, invading the silence of the hills—nothing but the cottages, low, homely places, in pleasant tones of gray, and red, and brown, with soft blue pennons of the aromatic peat-reek floating over them, and clouds of white convolvulus threaded up and down their homely walls—and the big shadows of the hills forming the background, or, when you reached higher ground, the silver brightness of the loch. And how quiet it was! the distant roar of the wild water only heightening, as with a great abstract voice of nature, taking no note of humanity, the tranquillity and softened dimness of the village. The little group took in the stranger and increased itself, then unconsciously sundered and formed into two and two.
Was it not the merest accident that the two in advance were merry Effie and the gay Englishman, and the two behind Randal and Margaret? Nothing could have been more natural. But Margaret’s hesitating laughter was quenched henceforward. She was half ashamed of it, as not befitting her orphanhood and her black dress: and then she could not but think of the other evening, not so very long ago, when Randal’s appearance had startled her before: the time when he had not taken any notice, not even taken off his hat. Margaret had never got over the humiliation of that greeting withheld. He had seen her, for she had heard him say so: but then and there, she felt, Randal must have lost his respect for her— Randal, who had known her all her life. Even in the excitement of the moment this had given Margaret a wound; and she had not got over it, though that evening had so many recollections that were painful to her. Two or three times now in the soft gloom, as they walked along side by side, she raised her head and gave him a furtive, timid glance, with the words on her lips, “Why did you take no notice that night?” But though her mind was full of it, she had not the courage to ask the question. Effie and Aubrey went on before, their voices sounding softly through the night; but Randal did not say very much, and Margaret nothing at all. The spell of the momentary gayety was broken. A little moisture even stole into her eyes under cover of the night; and yet she was not unhappy, if only she could have had the courage to ask why it was that he “took no notice.” They went as far as the bridge and stood there, looking at the torrent as it foamed down, leaping and dashing in white clouds over the rocks.
Margaret had never seen such a scene; even the brawling cataracts of the Tummel and Garry, which had been her first experience of the kind, were not like this. In the midst of the wild commotion a knot of stately firs held themselves aloof, intrenched in a citadel of rock amidst all the rage of the torrents, the wild water raging on every side, but the tree-island, coldly proud, scarcely owning, by a quiver of its leaflets, the influence of so much passion roused. Randal said something to her as he stood by her, but she could not hear a syllable. She looked up at him and shook her head, and he smiled. Somehow he did not look (though it was so dark that she could scarcely see) as if he had lost his respect for her, after all.
“What a row,” said Aubrey, as they came away, “for such a cupful of water! If it had been Niagara, there might have been some excuse.”