“If he was to be shot,” said the persistent Marion, “we would be blamed for not warning him.”
Perhaps Mrs. Rowland thought it would not be a bad thing if the stranger was shot (very slightly), as the best way of proving the peril of such unauthorised wanderings. But she said nothing and drove on, until the path was lost in the moor, and the ladies had to get out and walk.
It was too much of a good thing, however, they all felt, when the same man was seen to reappear, following closely in the footsteps of Sandy, who led the pony with the luncheon. They had reached by this time the appointed spot on the hill, which was high above the loch, a sort of natural platform, where a circle of grass broke the darker surface of the heather and underwood. Great bushes of high-growing ling, with the faded bells all stiffened into russet upon them, stood round this oasis, which was kept green, and in a wet season something more than green, by the burn, which made half a circuit round it, leaping downwards from little ridge to ridge of its course. All around among the heather grew the sweet gale, or bog-myrtle, sending up a grateful sweetness when any one crushed a self-sacrificing plant. The sky was of the triumphant yet not too well assured brightness, which is peculiar to Highland skies—a sort of heavenly triumph over difficulties, chastened by the sense that the conquered clouds may blow back at any moment. Deep down, the loch lay like a blue mirror, with all the little clouds floating upon it like boats, in reflections, among the grey willows and the yellow autumnal foliage. Was the grass so velvet, mossy, and beautiful of this little circle—slightly wet, perhaps boggy, “saft,” as Sandy said? Far from us be the thought: besides it was heaped with shawls and plaids, and what did it matter? The only members of the party who thought of the view were Evelyn and Rosamond. The others were satiated with views. And what did Eddy and Marion care for anything but their eternal war of words, their little mutual rudenesses and compliments? About Archie’s sentiments nobody knew. Sometimes he turned his back to the loch, sometimes would be seen with his eyes intent, as if he were watching something on the opposite side.
“Oh!” said Marion suddenly, with a long-drawn breath, “there is that man again!”
“What man?”
They had all been seated on the dry ridge of the ling, rustling and stiff with its dessicated flowers, above the less trustworthy level of the grass, and were watching with interest the broken hobble of the cart with the baskets, over the uneven ground.
“Roderick will tell him—” said Mrs. Rowland, “and persuade him to go away.”
“Ay will I, mem,” said the gamekeeper, jocund but grim. “I’ll persuade him—in the drawing of a breath.”
Here an exclamation from Eddy startled everybody. “Oh, hold on!” was all the young man said; but his tone had an expression which somehow roused the attention of every one. He made a spring among the heather towards the objectionable visitor. “Is it you, Johnson? I thought you were gone,” he was heard to say. And then it appeared that he had something private to add to the intruder, for he drew him away under the shelter of the clump of rowan trees, which lent an illumination of red berries to the scene.
The luncheon had been spread out, and everything was ready to begin upon when Eddy, certainly under the circumstances the most useful member of the party, came back. He was slowly followed by the tourist, and bore a somewhat embarrassed look. “Mrs. Rowland, may I introduce a friend of mine, Johnson of—St. Chad’s?” His countenance had been full of perplexity, but in the momentary pause which preceded the utterance of the last words, he suddenly recovered himself. “Distinguished don,” he added, “no end of a scholar. Came up here for a reading party; but some of them have not arrived yet.”