“My faither-in-law to be, Sam Blake, says he’ll come to Scotland for the wadd’n, but he’ll no’ stop. He’s that fond o’ the sea that he canna leave ’t. It’s my opeenion that he’ll no’ rest till he gits a pirit’s knife in his breed-baskit. Mair’s the peety, for he’s a fine man. But the best news I’ve got to tell ’e, mither, is, that Colonel Brentwood an’ his wife an’ daughter an’ her guidman—a sensible sort o’ chiel, though he is English—are a’ comin’ doon to spend the autumn on the Braes o’ Yarrow.
“Noo, I’ll stop. Susy’s waitin’ for me, an’ sends her love.—Yer affectionate son, David Laidlaw.”
We must take the liberty now, good reader, of directing your attention to another time and place.
And, first, as regards time. One day, three weeks after the events which have just been narrated, Mrs Brentwood took Susan Blake through a stained glass door out upon a leaded roof and bade her look about her. The roof was not high up, however. It only covered the kitchen, which was a projection at the back of the Colonel’s mansion.
Susan, somewhat surprised, looked inquiringly in the lady’s face.
“A fine view, is it not?” asked Mrs Brentwood.
“Very fine indeed,” said Susy, and she was strictly correct, for the back of the house commanded an extensive view of one of the most beautiful parts of Hampstead Heath.
“Does it not remind you, Susan, a little, a very little, of the views from the garret-garden?” asked the lady, with a curious expression in her handsome eyes.
“Well, hardly!” replied Susan, scarce able to repress a smile. “You see, there is no river or shipping, and one misses the chimney-pots!”
“Chimney-pots!” exclaimed Mrs Brentwood, “why, what do you call these?” pointing to a row of one-storey stables not far off, the roofs of which were variously ornamented with red pots and iron zigzag pipes. “As to the river, don’t you see the glimmer of that sheet of water through the trees in the distance, a pond or canal it is, I’m not sure which, but I’m quite sure that the flag-staff of our eccentric naval neighbour is sufficiently suggestive of shipping, is it not?”