Not, however, beyond his majority. Now that he had reached the age of one-and-twenty, he was free to go where he pleased. What should hold him after that? Ah! he was on his way to the attraction at that very moment. The bond that held him was not at the cottage.
CHAPTER VI.
ON WITCH’S CRAG.
When Percy reached the castle he found Cordelia all ready for her ramble, with her maid in waiting to attend her. Mary Seymour was this maid’s name, a cheery-faced, intelligent, pretty girl, just a year older than was her mistress. She had flaxen hair and blue eyes—eyes full of good-nature and frolic; straightforward, truthful and honest.
The friendship between Percy Maitland, the smuggler’s son, and the daughter of Sir William Chester was something curious. It had commenced within a month after the girl’s first appearance at Allerdale—shortly before she had completed her twelfth year of life.
One of the first impressions made upon the baronet, after he had accepted a home at the castle, had been in relation to the earl’s grandson—Matthew Brandon—who, as we remember, had then entered upon his sixteenth year; or he was about entering upon it when the baronet and his daughter arrived.
Instinctively—in spite of his love and esteem for the boy’s noble father; in spite of his love and deep reverence for the good old grandfather, he conceived a strong, shuddering dislike toward that boy. He fought against it, but without avail.
Under these circumstances little Cordelia chanced to fall in with Percy Maitland, and a mutual attachment, as strong and enduring as it was sudden and unbidden, was the result.
Percy took her in his boat, and led her by the banks of the river, and taught her to fish, and he guided her through the wild passes of the crag, and gathered for her all the beautiful flowers he could find.
At length the boy of the stone cottage came under the eye of Sir William. Cordelia brought him. She had told so much about him that her father had become eager to see and know him.