A group of whispering villagers had gathered about the inn door, and they joined Carthew in his well-meant remonstrances. But the anxious steward of the estate was not to be gainsaid by anyone.
"If the Lady Josceline Justice has come back to her own at last," he declared, shivering, "it is my undoubted duty to be on hand. And what matters else? Get the pipes out, lads, and gather together. Shall it be said of us that her ladyship lacked a true Highland welcome home?"
Carthew, seeing him so set in his purpose and not knowing how to prevent him except, perhaps, at Sallie's expense, saw nothing for it but to let events shape themselves. He brought the old man a little brandy, which served to steady him somewhat, so that he sat in his saddle none so limp at the head of the muster formed at his bidding. And Carthew walked up the hill by his side, partly to help him, and partly in hope of another glimpse of the girl who had surely bewitched himself.
At his heels tramped three stalwart pipers, and the still, star-lit night rang again to the shrill strains of the march they struck up; while close behind, keeping step to its lilt, came a couple of hundred or so of the villagers and their visitors from mountain and glen and shore. Blazing pine-knots served for torches and lighted the way well, until they at length reached the landward front of the castle, where the sick man marshalled them in a wide, crimson half-moon about the drawbridge, while Carthew held his horse for him at one side.
The postern-door opened noiselessly and Janet M'Kissock looked out from within. Herries crossed the drawbridge toward her, and, "Eh, Janet, woman!" said he, "what's all this I hear so late? They tell me that the Lady Josceline Justice has come to Loquhariot, and—"
"It was because you were so ill that I didn't send word at once, Mr. Herries," the housekeeper put in defensively as he paused. "The beacon was fired without her ladyship's knowledge by one of her friends. I don't—"
"It is her ladyship, then?" the factor demanded, searching her face with his keen, anxious, fevered eyes. "Whence came she so suddenly, Janet?"
"It is indeed her ladyship," the old woman answered solemnly. "But—more than that I do not know. I have had all to see to since the sun set, and—"
The other checked her plaint with an uplifted hand.
"I'll hear about everything else by and by. And meantime—I've brought some of her own folk up to offer her welcome—since it is she," he said, all his doubts evidently dispelled by Janet M'Kissock's emphatic assurance. "Will she come out to us for a few minutes, think ye?"