I had, indeed, something to tell Nell Kennedy that night when I rode home from Maybole. And upon the head of it we two sat long in talk, and were more than ever set on riding to Auchendrayne. But first we decided that the Dominie and I should carry William Dalrymple to the Earl, that he might certify to him what he had already testified to us at the schoolhouse in the Kirk Vennel.
But on the morrow we, that is the Dominie and I, had it set to ride to Cassillis by way of Maybole. On the way we came to the little hut of the widow Dalrymple, for William was a town's bursar, and so got his learning from the Session as a poor scholar. The door was shut, and a neighbour's wife cried to us that both the boy and his mother had gone on to Cassillis before us. So we rode forward. Yet we must have missed them on the way, for when we came to the castle yett there was nobody there before us, and the Earl himself had ridden forth to the hawking by the waterside.
Then came out to us foolish Sir Thomas Tode with his long story, which began as usual with the Black Vault of Dunure, and was proceeding by devious ways when his wife came round the corner—whereat right briskly he changed his tune.
'And as I was saying,' he said, 'on Tuesday seven nights we had a shrewd frost that nipped the buds.'
'It is as well for you, old dotard,' cried his wife, listening a moment, 'I had thought ye were at your auld tricks again.'
So we went in, and were busily partaking of the cheer of Mistress Tode when we became aware of the noise of altercation without.
'Save us,' said the cook, 'it is a mercy that neither my lord nor my lady are within gate, wi' a' that narration of noise outbye! What can it be at a'?'
And she went out to inquire.
But if the disturbance was loud before, it certainly became ten times worse when Mistress Tode disappeared. I got up to look, and the Dominie followed me. We saw a tall, grey-haired woman stand upon the causeway of the courtyard, with one hand on her hip, and with the other tossing back the straying witch locks from her brow.
'Where's my boy, Mistress Tode?' cried the newcomer fiercely, to our friend the cook, who stood upon the steps. 'What hae ye dune wi' my laddie at the black house of Cassillis? He left his hame to come here, by command o' my lord and young Launce of Culzean, at five this morning. An' Jock Edgar met him set on a pony between twa men on horseback, and he declares that the puir lad was greeting sair. What hae ye dune wi' him, ye misleared, ill-favoured Tode woman that ye are?'