As he spoke the door opened and there came in a youth of seventeen,
tall and well-built, with clothing that testified to an encounter
alike with brier and bog. The hound Bran followed him. He blinked at
the lights and the fire, then with a gesture of deprecation crossed
the hall to the stairway. His mother spoke after him.
"Davie will set you something to eat."
He answered, "I do not want anything," then, five steps up, paused and
turned his head. "I stopped at White Farm, and they gave me supper."
He was gone, running up the stairs, and Bran with him.
The laird of Glenfernie shaded his eyes and looked at the fire. Mrs.
Jardine, working upon the gold streak in a tulip, held her needle
suspended and sat for a moment with unseeing gaze, then resumed the
bright wreath. The tutor began to think again of Mother Binning, and,
following this, of the stepping-stones at White Farm, and Elspeth and
Gilian Barrow balanced above the stream of gold. Mr. Touris put up his
snuff-box.
"That's a fine youth! I should say that he took after you, Glenfernie.
But it's hard to tell whom the young take after!"
CHAPTER III
The school-room at Glenfernie gave upon the hill's steepest, most
craglike face. A door opened on a hand's-breadth of level turf across
from which rose the broken and ruined wall that once had surrounded
the keep.
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