From over the wall he got a good view of the house as he jogged down the road, holding back the little roan, who, robbed of company, was eager for his stable. With its steep roofs and square turrets at either end of the façade, it stood in weather-beaten dignity among the elms and ashes, guiltless of ornament or of that outburst of shrubs and gravel which cuts most houses from their surroundings, and is designed to prepare the eye for the transition from nature to art. But Morphie seemed an accident, not a design; an adjunct, in spite of its considerable size, to the pasture and the trees. The road lay near enough to it for Speid to see the carved coat-of-arms over the lintel, and the flagged space before the door stretching between turret and turret. He hurried on when he had passed it, for splashes of rain were beginning to blow in his face, and the wind was stirring in the tree-tops.
Where a field sloped away from the fringe of wood, he paused a moment to look at one of those solid stone dovecots which are found in the neighbourhood of so many gentlemen’s houses in the northern lowlands of Scotland. Its discoloured whitewash had taken all the mellow tones that exposure and damp can give, and it stood, looking like a small but ancient fort, in a hollow among the ragged thorn-trees. At either end of its sloping roof a flight of crowsteps terminated in a stone ball cutting the sky. Just above the string-course which ran round the masonry a few feet below the eaves was a row of pigeon-holes; some birds circling above made black spots against the gray cloud.
Gilbert buttoned up his coat, and let the roan have his way.
[[1]]Pony.
[[2]]Ears.
[CHAPTER V
THE STRIFE OF TONGUES]
MR. BARCLAY held the happy position of chief bachelor in the polite circles of Kaims. Although he had viewed with displeasure the advent of a young and sporting banker and the pretensions of the doctor’s eldest son, who had an agreeable tenor voice, his position remained unshaken. Very young ladies might transfer their interest to these upstarts and their like, but, with the matrons who ruled society, he was still the backbone of every assembly, and its first male ornament. He was an authority on all local questions, and there clung about him that subdued but conscious gallantry acceptable to certain female minds.
It was a cold night when he gave his overcoat and muffler to the maid in the hall of a house which stood a little back from the High Street. A buzz of talk came to him through an open door, and, as he ascended the stairs, the last notes of a flute had just died away. The wife of the coastguard inspector was giving a party, at which tea, conversation, and music were the attractions. The expression which had been arranging itself on his face culminated as he entered the drawing-room.