It says, simply, that he
leaves Black Hill for a while."
"Well, you won't get light from me! My light's darkness. The women
found in his room a memorandum of ships and two addresses, one a house
in Amsterdam, and one, if you please, in Paris--_Faubourg
Saint-Germain!_"
"Do you mean that he left without explanation or good-by?"
Mrs. Alison spoke. "No, Archibald does not mean that. One evening Ian
outdid himself in bonniness and golden talk. Then as we took our
candles he told us that the wander-fever had him and that he would be
riding to Edinburgh. Archibald protested, but he daffed it by. So the
next day he went, and he may be in Edinburgh. It would seem nothing,
if these Highland chiefs were not his kin and if there wasn't this
round and round rumor of the Pretender and the French army! There may
be nothing--he may be riding back almost to-morrow!"
But Mr. Touris would not shake the black dog from his shoulders.
"He'll bring trouble yet--was born the sort to do it!"
Alexander defended him.
"Oh, you're his friend--sworn for thick and thin! As for Alison, she'd
find a good word for the fiend from hell!--not that my sister's son is
anything of that," said the Scotchman. "But he'll bring trouble to
warm, canny, king-and-kirk-abiding folk! He's an Indian macaw in a
dove-cote."
They rose from table.
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