“Do ye see yon scart upo’ the water?” he inquired; “yon ane wast the gray stane? Ay? Weel, it’ll no be like a letter, wull it?”
“Certainly it is,” I replied. “I have often remarked it. It is like a C.”
He heaved a sigh as if heavily disappointed with my answer, and then added below his breath: “Ay, for the Christ-Anna.”
“I used to suppose, sir, it was for myself,” said I; “for my name is Charles.”
“And so ye saw’t afore?”, he ran on, not heeding my remark. “Weel, weel, but that’s unco strange. Maybe, it’s been there waitin’, as a man wad say, through a’ the weary ages. Man, but that’s awfu’.” And then, breaking off: “Ye’ll no see anither, will ye?” he asked.
“Yes,” said I. “I see another very plainly, near the Ross side, where the road comes down—an M.”
“An M,” he repeated very low; and then, again after another pause: “An’ what wad ye make o’ that?” he inquired.
“I had always thought it to mean Mary, sir,” I answered, growing somewhat red, convinced as I was in my own mind that I was on the threshold of a decisive explanation.
But we were each following his own train of thought to the exclusion of the other’s. My uncle once more paid no attention to my words; only hung his head and held his peace; and I might have been led to fancy that he had not heard me, if his next speech had not contained a kind of echo from my own.
“I would say naething o’ thae clavers to Mary,” he observed, and began to walk forward.