Presently Peter came in with his trouts, for in the loch of Lochinvar the spotted beauties were infinitely less shy and infrequent than in later days they have become.
"Benedictus benedicat!" quoth Peter, who knew his Latin by ear, and sat him down.
"That's a daft, heathen-like grace," said Jean. "I shouldna wonder gin the folks did rabble ye and tear your white clouts ower your head, if ye gied them balderdash like that in the pulpit."
The curate smiled a wry, discomfortable smile at the prophecy, but nevertheless he proceeded to take his breakfast with some fortitude, looking up occasionally to see that the trouts did not burn as they made a pleasant skirling noise in the pan.
"There's nocht like a loch trout newly catched, in a' this bonny God's warld," he said. "I wonder how men can be haythens and ill-doers when there's sic braw loch trout in Gallowa'! And burn trout are just as guid—in fact, there's some that actually prefers them!"
All this day Jean Gordon might have been heard in solemn confabulation with the curate, while Wat lay and listened to the din of their voices, sometimes uplifted in controversy, sometimes hushed in gossip, but ever coming to him pleasantly dulled and harmonized through the thick walls and long echoing passages of the house of Lochinvar. It was a windy day also, and the water sang him a lullaby of his childhood, as it lapped and swished all about him, with a noise like the leafy boughs of trees brushing against the foundations of his ancient castle.
"To-morrow! To-morrow! To-morrow!" said Wat, over and over to himself. "To-morrow my die will be cast for life or death."