"I believe the mysterious influence of that Sanctuary has gone out and charmed all the country about Edinburgh," said our young Doctor. "I suppose you know that there are several plants, poisonous elsewhere, that are quite harmless in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. You remember I told you, Miss Avon, that evening we went out to Arthur's Seat?"
It was well done, Queen Titania must have thought, to expose this graceless flirt before her new friends. So she had been walking out to Arthur's Seat with him, in the summer afternoons?
"Y—yes," says the girl.
"Ay; that is a most curious thing," says the Laird, not noticing her downcast looks and flushed cheeks. "But what were they, did ye say?"
"Umbelliferous plants," replies Angus Sutherland, in quite a matter-of-fact manner. "The Œnanthe crocata is one of them, I remember; and I think the Cicuta virosa—that is, the Water Hemlock."
"I would jist like to know," says the Laird, somewhat pompously, "whether that does not hold good about the neighbourhood of Glesca also. There's nothing so particular healthy about the climate of Edinburgh, as far as ever I heard tell of. Quite the reverse—quite the reverse. East winds—fogs—no wonder the people are shilpit-looking creatures as a general rule—like a lot o' Paisley weavers. But the ceety is a fine ceety, I will admit that; and many's the time I've said to Tom Galbraith that he could get no finer thing to paint than the view of the High Street at night from Prince's Street—especially on a moonlight night. A fine ceety: but the people themselves!—" here the Laird shook his head. "And their manner o' speech is most vexsome—a long, sing-song kind o' yaumering as if they had not sufficient manliness to say outright what they meant. If we are to have a Scotch accent, I prefer the accent—the very slight accent—ye hear about Glesca. I would like to hear what Miss Avon has to say upon that point."
"I am not a very good judge, sir," says Miss Avon, prudently.
Then on deck. The leaden-black waves are breaking in white foam along the shores of Kingairloch and the opposite rocks of Eilean-na-Shuna; and we are still laboriously beating against the southerly wind; but those silver-yellow gleams in the south have increased, over the softly-purple hills of Morvern and Duart. Black as night are the vast ranges of mountains in the north; but they are far behind us; we have now no longer any fear of a white shaft of lightning falling from the gloom overhead.
The decks are dry now; camp-stools are in requisition; there is to be a consultation about our future plans, after the White Dove has been beached for a couple of days. The Laird admits that, if it had been three days or four days, he would like to run through to Glasgow and to Strathgovan, just to see how they are getting on with the gas-lamps in the Mitherdrum Road; but, as it is, he will write for a detailed report; hence he is free to go wherever we wish. Miss Avon, interrogated, answers that she thinks she must leave us and set out for London; whereupon she is bidden to hold her tongue and not talk foolishness. Our Doctor, also interrogated, looks down on the sitting parliament—he is standing at the tiller—and laughs.
"Don't be too sure of getting to Castle Osprey to-night," he says, "whatever your plans may be. The breeze is falling off a bit. But you may put me down as willing to go anywhere with you, if you will let me come."