"A compulsory rate," suggested Frank Meredyth, "levied on landlords, of course—for the relief of bed-ridden peat-hags——"
"Oh, stop that nonsense!" Mary interposed, laughing in a shamefaced kind of way. "They can't be as ignorant as all that."
"Oh, can't they?" said he, coolly. "I've seen lots of worse things—accompanied by eloquent, if occasionally ungrammatical, denunciations of the brutal landlords. You are a landlord, Miss Stanley; and you have taken the wages of blood and sin. If I were you I should feel inclined to throw down the thirty pieces of silver and depart and go and hang myself."
"She won't do that," said her brother. "But what she is more likely to do is to give up the pasture of Meall-na-Fearn that those people demand. And then Mrs. Jackson Noyes will telegraph to the Connecticut Radiator that a great triumph has been achieved, and that the American banner has begun to wave over the benighted Highlands."
"I wish the American banner didn't wave over so many Highland deer-forests," said Meredyth, briefly; and there an end for the moment.
But the talk of the two young men when they were by themselves was very different.
"What ought to be done, and done at once," said Fred Stanley, "is to send over to Dingwall for a body of police. Indeed, the meeting should be suppressed altogether: it is a clear instigation to riot. I don't see how a riot can be avoided—if those howlers are allowed to rave. But my sister won't hear of it. Oh, no! Everything is to be amiable and friendly and pleasant. She is quite sure that the crofters are grateful to her for their lowered rents and all that. Grateful!—they don't know what gratitude is!"
"But at all events you must remember this," said Meredyth, "that your sister has been here a much longer time than you; and she has been doing her best to get to understand these people and their wants and their habits of thinking. She may be a little too confident: in that case, it is for you and me to see that she is kept out of harm's way. And as far as I can judge, the main event of the day is to be a raid into Glen Orme forest——"
"By the Lord, they'll get a warm reception if they try that!" young Stanley broke in. "I can tell you, from what I've heard of him, Colonel Tomlins isn't the sort of man to let a lot of vagabonds march past Glen Orme Lodge and take possession of the forest—I should think not. The ragged army will find a sufficient force awaiting them—keepers, foresters, gillies, and the guns of the house-party: there may be driving—but it won't be the deer that will be driven off."
"That as it may be," said Meredyth, with much calmness. "But even if there is a scrimmage up there, what has that got to do with us? I don't care a brass farthing about the Glen Orme deer; I want to see your sister safe. And if the torrent of revolution flows peacefully past this house, and goes to expend itself in Glen Orme—let it, and welcome!"