"I'll see to Mr. Herries," said he, with a great air of sympathy, and helped the sick man indoors.
Sallie looked a little uncertainly after him, and then faced the flickering torches alone again. The silent scrutiny of all the eyes regarding her was something of an ordeal, but she went bravely on across the drawbridge.
She did not notice the nip in the air, but some one among the assemblage had wrapped her about in a heavy plaid and drawn back before she could see who it was.
"Your ladyship will find the Jura tartan as warm as the welcome we all wish your ladyship," said a stalwart, bearded mountaineer, who had stepped to the front to speak for his fellows; and, as she smiled shy but very contentedly up into his scarlet face, he bent his head above the hand she had held out to him.
One after another the hill-men and fisherfolk of the village filed past her then, each with some stammered salutation, in difficult English or guttural Gaelic. And for each she had a shy, grateful smile and a word of thanks, until at the last came Justin Carthew and had also stooped and kissed her hand before she could prevent him.
He would have passed on like the others but that she, blushing hotly, begged him to wait. For Janet M'Kissock had come to her shoulder to say that at the Jura Arms in the village would be provided a loving-cup in which all might drink her ladyship's health, as was proper on such an occasion, and had brought out the big, silver-mounted hunting-quaich in which every new Earl of Jura had pledged his people on his accession.
The butts of the torches had been flung in a heap on the ground before the girl, and formed a fiery pyramid between her and the waiting throng.
She lifted up the drinking-horn, her eyes very bright, and cried at the pitch of her clear, sweet voice a single, strangely-sounding word in the Gaelic, that Janet M'Kissock had whispered to her once or twice. And the sudden, thunderous roar of response that rang out in answer, as if from a single throat, awoke wild echoes among the surrounding hills.
"Your ladyship will come inbye now," begged Mrs. M'Kissock, as the pipes struck up again at the head of the gathering on its way back to the village.
But, "Just in a minute, Janet," said Sallie, "I'm quite warm. And—you needn't wait."