[THE DUKE'S PIPER:]
A STORY OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER IV.
For a week Maggie saw nothing and heard nothing of Angus. She became quite pale and worn with anxiety and distress. She hardly spoke to her father; and Janet reported that she was sure 'the mistress' was going into 'a decline,' because she hardly touched her food. To make matters worse, a letter came one day from her lover to say that he too was so miserable that he could bear it no longer; he was going to leave the Duke's yacht and go away—never more to return to Inversnow. Maggie was driven to the brink of despair by this letter—almost the only letter she had ever received in her life, and she forthwith wore it with the lock of his hair she had long treasured, next to her heart.
One afternoon a message came from the kitchen of the castle to ask the piper if he could oblige the cook with a dozen or so new-laid eggs, the cook's store having run short. Maggie took her basket, and went with the eggs to the castle kitchen. She went with a sad heavy heart, and remained as short a time as possible, for her little romance with Angus and its sudden collapse were well known among the servants and, as she knew, discussed. Inversnow Castle stands in the midst of its own lovely park, close by the sea-loch, and girt about by wooded and heather-mantled hills. It was a warm sunny afternoon as Maggie tripped from the castle homeward; she was in no mood to meet any one; and to avoid doing so, she struck off the public path through the woods towards Glen Heath. A robin was piping pathetically among the elms, and the squirrels were gamboling in the sunshine among the branches overhead. As she walked slowly over the turf she drew forth Angus's letter to read once more, and as she read, the tears started afresh to her young eyes, and she sobbed as she went.
Presently she was surprised by a voice, a kind gentle voice, addressing her in a familiar tone: 'Well, Maggie Cameron, what may all these tears be about? You look sadder than a young and bonnie lass like you has any right to be, surely! Are you well enough?'
The girl looked and looked again, and the flush came and went in her cheeks as she became conscious that, stretched at full length on the grass close by, under the shade of an elm, with a book in one hand and a lighted cigar in the other, was—the Duke!
Maggie courtesied low with a natural politeness, and in her confusion dropped her letter, but hardly dared to stoop to pick it up.
'I'm sure, Your Grace, I peg your pardon humbly; it wass a great liberty I will be takin' in coming home this way instead o' the road.'