“The fishing here is not so good as I expected,” he said. “I think I shall go further west.”
“I would not do that if I were you,” Mrs. Bellingham said, with a very serious face. “I would not be so long away from your good father and mother. Of course you will be going somewhere to shoot after the 12th. So is Aubrey. Ladies have not much chance in comparison with the grouse. And, do you know, I thought them very much failed, both of them. They are getting old people, Randal. I am sure you are a good son, and would do anything you can to please them; and I could see that your good mother did not like you to come away for the fishing, though she would not say anything. As for Loch Katrine, I don’t think it all likely that we shall be able to make it out.”
Randal was at no loss to understand what this meant. He smiled to himself to think how mistaken she was, and how little it really mattered who went or stayed, so far as Margaret was concerned; but, after all, why should he follow Margaret? why should he run the risk of making himself hate Rob Glen, and wonder at his “luck” more than he did now? However, he said to himself, there ought not to be any danger of that. He did not think there was any danger. What danger could there be when there was a clear understanding that some one else was master of the field? But still, he could not suppose that the moment of fate, the tragical moment at which he could be of use to Margaret, was coming now. And why should he insist upon going where he was not wanted? So he yielded and sighed, and took his dismissal, though both the girls protested.
“Oh, why will you go and spoil the party?” cried Effie.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Bellingham, “I am afraid there will not be much more of the party, for your papa is going to meet us in Glasgow to take you home.”
This threw a cloud over poor little Effie, who went to her own room in tears. Was it over, then, this beautiful holiday? Margaret said good-bye to Randal with a cloudy look between smiles and tears.
“You will never pass me by again as if I was not good enough to be spoken to?” she said, with a little broken laugh; and he once more hurriedly adjured her “if she should ever want anything,” “if she should want a friend to stand by her.” Margaret smiled, and gave him her hand like a young princess. “But how can I ever want anybody,” she said, “when there is Jean?” which was not so satisfactory. He felt more lonely, more dismal, more altogether out of place than there was any reason for, when, finally, Mrs. Bellingham packed her little comforts into the carriage, and Miss Grace entreated everybody to take her place, and the travellers rolled away, waving their hands to him as he stood at the inn door.
It is always a dismal thing to stand at the door of an inn and see the greater part of the party who have been rambling, walking, talking, laughing, and crying together, drive away. Randal felt his heart sink in his breast. To be sure, Margaret Leslie was nothing to him, except a child whom he had known all his life. He stood there and fell a thinking, while the landlord nodded and winked to the waiter, and the maids behind pitied the poor young gentleman. How well he remembered the little motherless baby in her black ribbons, whom his mother had once placed in his astonished arms! He had told Margaret of it only yesterday; but he did not tell her what Mrs. Burnside said. “It will be time enough for you to marry, Randal, when she is old enough to be your wife,” the prudent mother had said. She would never be his wife now, nor anybody’s who could understand her who was worthy of her. To think of that creature falling to the lot of Rob Glen! The blood rushed to Randal’s face, and he clenched his hands unawares; then, coming to himself, seized his fishing-tackle, which had been of so little use, and hurried away.
And Margaret was very quiet all the day after, leaving Effie to respond to Aubrey’s witticisms from the box. It had come to be the habit that Effie should reply. Mrs. Bellingham was just as comfortably placed as usual, and had her eau-de-cologne, and her paper-knife, and plenty of shillings in her purse for the Highland tolls, and everything as she liked it; but she was not so amiable as in the earlier part of the journey. For one thing, there was not at all a satisfactory place for luncheon, and the wind was cold, and she had not the kind of large pin she liked to fasten her shawl.
“We are going to have a wet August,” she said. “When August is wet, the best thing to do is to get out of Scotland. It is bad enough anywhere, but it is abominable in the Highlands. There are the same sort of looking tourists you find in Chamouni, only poorer, and it is cold, which it is not in Switzerland; at least, it is not always cold in Switzerland. Your papa, Effie, is to meet us in Glasgow on Tuesday, and then I think we shall go South.”