“Sit down there,” said the Cornal, pointing to the chair in which Gilian had first stood court-martial. The bottle was brought forth from the cupboard; the glasses were ranged again by the General. In the grate a sea-coal fire burned brightly, its glance striking golden now and then upon the polished woodwork of the room and all its dusky corners, more golden, more warm, more generous, than the wan disheartened rays of the candles that shook a smoky flame above the board. Gilian waited his punishment with more wonderment than fear. What could be said to him for a misadventure? He had done no harm except to cause an hour or two of apprehension, and if he had been with one whose company was forbidden it had never been forbidden to him.
“It’s a fine carry-on this,” said the Cornal, breaking the silence. “Ay, it’s a fine carry-on.” He stretched the upper part of his body over the low table with his arms spread out, and looked into the boy’s eyes with a glance more judicial than severe. “Here are we doing our best to make a man of you, more in a brag against gentry that need not be named in this house than for human kindness, though that is not wanting I assure you, and what must you be at but colloguing and, perhaps, plotting with the daughter of the gentry in question? I will not exactly say plotting,” he hastened to amend, remembering apparently that before him were but the rudiments of a man. “I will not say plotting, but at least you were in a way to make us a laugh to the whole community. Do you know anything of the girl that you were with?”
“I met her in the school before she got her governess.”
“Oh, ay! they must be making the leddy of her; that was the spoiling of her mother before her. As if old Brooks could not be learning any woman enough schooling to carry on a career in a kitchen. And have you seen her elsewhere?”
“I heard her once singing on her father’s vessel,” said Gilian.
“She was singing!” cried the Cornal, standing to his feet and thumping the table till the glasses rang. “Has she that art of the devil too? Her mother had it; ay! her mother had it, and it would go to your head like strong drink. Would it not, Dugald? You know the dame I mean.”
“It was very taking, her song,” said the General simply, playing with the empty glass, his eyes upon the table.
“And what now did she sing? Would it be——”
“It was ‘The Rover’ and ‘The Man with the Coat of Green,’” said Gilian in an eager recollection.
“Man! did I not ken it?” cried the Cornal. “Oh! I kent it fine. ‘The Rover’ was her mother’s trump card. I never gave a curse for a tune, but she had a way of lilting that one that was wonderful.”