Tibbie murmured a direction or two and showed wine and
bread set in the deep window. Then with a courtesy and a breathed,
"Gie ye gude night, sirs!" she was forth to her own rest. The door
closed softly behind her. Strickland stepped as softly to the chair
beyond Alexander. The couch was spread for the watchers' alternate
use, if so they chose; on a table burned shaded candles. Strickland
had a book in his pocket. Sitting down, he produced this, for he would
not seem to watch the man by the fire.
Alexander Jardine, large and strong of frame, with a countenance
massive and thoughtful for so young a man, bronzed, with well-turned
features, gazed steadily into the red hollows where the light played,
withdrew and played again. Strickland tried to read, but the sense of
the other's presence affected him, came between his mind and the page.
Involuntarily he began to occupy himself with Alexander and to picture
his life away from Glenfernie, away, too, from Edinburgh and Scotland.
It was now six years since, definitely, he had given up the law,
throwing himself, as it were, on the laird's mercy both for long and
wide travel, and for life among books other than those indicated for
advocates. The laird had let him go his gait--the laird with Mrs.
Jardine a little before him. The Jardine fortune was not a great one,
but there was enough for an heir who showed no inclination to live and
to travel _en prince_, who in certain ways was nearer the ascetic
than the spendthrift.
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