"It will do ye good, lad," observed the Laird, in the most heartless manner; "and I will now trouble ye to pass me the marmalade."
Patiently, all day long, we beat up against that inexorable north wind, until, in the afternoon, it veered a point or two to the east, which made an appreciable difference in our rate of progress. Then, the farther the wind veered, the more it became a land wind; and the sea abated considerably: so that long before we could make out Castle Osprey on the face of the hill, we were in fairly calm waters, with a light breeze on our starboard beam. The hot sun had dried the decks; there was a possibility of walking; some went below to prepare for going ashore.
We were returning to the world of telegrams, and letters, and newspapers; we should soon know what the Commissioners of Strathgovan were doing, and whether Johnny Guthrie had been fomenting sedition. But it was not these things that troubled the Laird. He had been somewhat meditative during the afternoon. At last, finding an occasion on which nearly everybody was below but his hostess, he said to her, in a low voice—
"The more I reflect on that matter we spoke of this morning, the more I am driven to a conclusion that I would fain avoid. It would be a sad blow to me. I have built much on the scheme I was telling ye of: perhaps it was but a toy; but old people have a fondness for their toys as well as young people."
"I don't quite understand you, sir," said the other.
"We will soon learn whether I am right," said the old Laird, with a sigh; and then he turned to her and regarded her.
"I doubt whether ye see this girl's character as clearly as I do," said he. "Gentle, and soft, and delicate as she seems to be, she is of the stuff the martyrs in former days were made of: if she believes a thing to be right, she will do it, at any cost or sacrifice. Do ye mind the first evening I met her at your house—how she sate and talked, and laughed, with her sprained ankle swollen and black all the time, just that she might not interfere with the pleasure of others?"
The Laird paused for a moment or two.
"I have been putting things together," he continued—but he did not seem proud or boastful of his perspicacity: perhaps he would rather have fought against the conclusion forced on him. "When she was up in the north, it seemed to you as if she would have married the young man Sutherland?"
"Most undoubtedly."