"I wish I could tell you how much I am obliged to you," she said, warmly. "If you had not let me know about those men coming, and if you had not appeared yourself, I believe there would have been murder done here this day. And now, Mr. Ross, would you get them to go on at once to Lochgarra, so as to be out of harm's way—and to-morrow they can go back by the mail-car? I will write to Mr. Purdie. There must be no further proceedings; and James Macdonald will not be put out of his croft—not if I have any say in the matter."
So the three officials were started off for the village; the morose crofter proceeded to pick up his bits of furniture and get them into the house again; and the crowd of women began to disperse—not silently, however, but with much shrill and eager decision—towards their own homes. Young Ross of Heimra went down with the two young ladies to the waggonette, which was waiting for them below in the road.
He saw them into the carriage.
"But won't you drive back with us?" said Mary.
"Oh, thank you—if I may," he said, rather diffidently; and therewith he went forward to get up beside the coachman, just as Mr. Purdie would have done.
The colour rushed to Mary's forehead.
"Mr. Ross," she said, "not there!"—and she herself opened the door of the waggonette for him, so that perforce he had to take his place beside them. And was this again (she may have asked herself) the pride that apes humility; or was it only part of his apparent desire to keep a marked distance between himself and her? She was vexed with him for causing her this embarrassment. He had no right to do such things. He might be a little more friendly. She, on her part, had been frank enough in expressing her obligations to him; nay, she had gone out of her way to ask, in a kind of fashion, for his approval. Were all the advances to come from her side?
But Kate Glendinning noticed this—that as they drew near to the dried-up waste that had once been Loch Heimra, and as they were passing the tumbled-down ruins of the ancient stronghold, he pretended that he did not see anything. He rather turned away his face. He talked of indifferent matters. Mary had forgotten that they would have to pass by Loch and Castle Heimra, or perhaps she might have thought twice about inviting him to drive with them. But quite simply and resolutely he turned away from those things that all too eloquently spoke of the irreparable wrong that had been done to him and his, and affected not to see them or remember them; and Käthchen—a not uninterested observer—said proudly to herself: "If that is not Highland courtesy, I do not know what is."
Wonders will never cease, truly. That evening the astounding rumour had found its way through the length and breadth of the township: there were eye-witnesses who could testify: Young Donald of Heimra had been seen in the same carriage with the two ladies from Lochgarra House.
CHAPTER III.