"You forget how he has been brought up—according to Mr. Purdie's account," Käthchen put in.
But Mary did not heed the interruption. She was very indignant on this point.
"It is quite excusable," said she, "for the poor, ignorant people about here to believe that the Rosses of Heimra are still the rightful owners of the land. They know nothing about the law courts and agent's offices in London. They only know that as far back as they have heard of, and down to their own day, the land has belonged to the Rosses; and their Highland loyalty remains staunch and true; it is not to be bought over by the stranger; and perhaps it is not even to be acquired by kindness—but we'll see about that in time. However, what I say is this, that I don't complain of these poor people having such mistaken ideas; but Mr. Ross knows better; he knows well enough that he has not the least shadow of right to anything belonging to the Lochgarra estate; and that if he takes a grouse, or a hare, or a salmon, he is constituting himself a common thief."
But now, and for an instant, she was stricken dumb. They had come in sight of the dried-up loch and the waste heap of stones that once was Castle Heimra; and this sad spectacle seemed to put some strange fancies into her head.
"Käthchen," said she, "do you think he does it out of revenge?"
Now Kate Glendinning herself was of Highland blood; and she made answer boldly—
"I have told you already, Mary, that if I were young Ross of Heimra, and such an injury had been done to me and mine—well, I should not like to say what I should be inclined to do in return. A sentimental grievance!—yes; but it is sentimental grievances that go deepest down into the Highland nature, and that are longest remembered. But then on the other hand it seems to me that shooting game or killing salmon is a very paltry form of revenge. That is not how I should try to have it out with Mr. Purdie—for who can doubt that it was Mr. Purdie destroyed the loch and the castle?—I saw his air of triumph when he told the story. No; poaching wouldn't be my revenge—"
"There is more than that, Käthchen," Mary said, absently. "It isn't merely defying the keepers, or being in league with them. There is more than that. I wonder, now, if it is he who has set those people against us, so that they will never regard us but as strangers and enemies? It is not natural, their sullen refusal of kindness. There is something hidden—something behind—that I don't understand." She was silent for a second or two: then she said—"I wonder if he thinks he can drive me out of the place by stirring up this bitter ill-will."
"There is one way to get over the difficulty," said Käthchen, lightly. "Ask him to Lochgarra House. He is a Highlander: if he has once sate down at your table, he cannot be your enemy afterwards."
A touch of colour rose to Mary's face.