“Just so,” returned Ian, with a peculiar smile, “and, knowing this, I have come here to claim the knoll for my father and Elsie for myself.”
This was such a glaring absurdity in the old gentleman’s eyes that he uttered a short contemptuous laugh. At that moment Angus Macdonald appeared upon the scene. His look of amazement at beholding his son may be imagined. Angus was not, however, demonstrative.
He only stepped across the fire, and gave Ian a crushing squeeze of the hand.
“It iss fery glad to see you I am, my poy, but it is taken py surprise I am, whatever. An’ ho!” (as his eyes fell on Tony), “it iss the child you hef found. Well, it iss a happy father you will pe this night, Mr Ruvnshaw. I wish you choy. Don’t let me stop you, whatever. It wass something interesting you would pe telling these chentlemen when I came up.”
“I was just going to tell them, father,” said Ian, resting a hand on his sire’s shoulder, “that I have come straight from Willow Creek with the news that this day I have, with my own unaided hands,”—he cast a sidelong glance at the old gentleman—“transported your house to Mr Ravenshaw’s knoll, and have asked Elsie Ravenshaw to be my wife, and been accepted.”
“Moreover,” continued Ian, in a calm, steady tone, “my father’s biggest barn has, without any assistance from any one, stranded itself on Mr Ravenshaw’s lawn!”
“Bless me, Ian, iss it jokin’ ye are?”
“No, father. It’s in earnest I am.”
Good reader, the aspect of the party—especially of old Ravenshaw and Angus—on hearing these announcements is beyond our powers of description; we therefore prefer to leave it to your own vivid imagination.