“Are you studying the weather, James?” said Evelyn from her place at the head of the table.
“That’s not a subject that repays contemplation in this country, Mrs. Rowland,” said Sir John Marchbanks with his mouth full.
“It wants variety, it’s always raining: the glass may say what it likes, but you’re sure of that.”
“The glass,” said another gentleman, strolling towards the window to join the laird, “has little effect in this district. But just for the fun of the thing, Rowland, what does it say?”
James Rowland was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, but neither had he that super-admirable discipline of society which rouses the spirits to special force in order to conceal a calamity. He turned round upon the inquirer somewhat sharply: “The fun of the thing? I see no fun in the thing. Corn still out on those high-lying fields, and frost in the air, and the glass falling: it’s not funny to me.”
Nothing was funny to him at that moment, to look at his flushed and clouded face. He had held himself in for some time, but the tension was unbearable. Was Archie coming, and all as usual? was he sulking in his room? was he—terrible question—gone; gone for ever out of his father’s house? His trouble took, as in so many middle-aged minds, the form of acute irritation. And yet he did his best to restrain himself.
“Oh, that’s true,” said the other, somewhat disconcerted. “Perhaps we don’t think enough of the poor bodies’ bit fields. But they should learn better than to put corn there. You will find no decent farmer doing that.”
“Corn’s but a delusion at the best, in these days,” said a country gentleman with a sigh.
“But if we are going out to take you your luncheons to the hill,” cried the pretty Miss Marchbanks, “we must be sure of the weather. Oh, I am not going out upon the hill if it rains, to go over my ankles in every bog.”
Rowland had turned from the window and was looking round the table with a faint hope of finding his son there. He had tried to smooth out his troubled countenance, and at this speech he contrived to smile. “I will go and consult the big glass in the hall for your satisfaction, Miss Marchbanks,” he said.