under the table, he could not say.
Certain it is that on that first night of his return to the home of his fathers Marmaduke Muir was hopelessly drunk.
Certain also that he erred in company, the only sober man being Jack Jardine, who invariably sought the shelter of the table at an early period and lay there comfortably, his head on a buffet, listening to the commiserations on his weak head until he fell asleep, to wake when the carouse was over, and see that the gentlemen's gentlemen sorted their respective masters to their respective beds.
CHAPTER IV
Marrion Paul sat in the semi-darkness of the summer night waiting for her grandfather to return from his duties at the Castle. She did not generally do so, for he was apt to be late; but on this, the first day of Captain Duke's return, sleep would have been out of the question until she heard something of the evening. For she did not mince matters with herself; those six years of independent life in Edinburgh had opened her eyes to the world, and the first sight of Marmaduke Muir had told her that the long ten years had not changed her at all; that he was as much the sun in her heaven as he had been in the old childish days. The sun in her heaven, and something more superadded to those olden times.
Then the day had been disturbing. Everyone had come to her praising the Captain's looks and ways and general charm; to all of which she had replied coolly, feeling the while in a perfect quiver of gladness. Miss Margaret had been the hardest to damp when she had appeared in the afternoon with the sporting dogs and a stout crop in her hand on her way to take them a scramble over the rocks and round by the lower bay.
"Oh, Marrion!" she cried enthusiastically. "Saw you ever the like? Elizabeth says he's like the Apollo Belvidere!"
"I am not knowing the gentleman," protested Marrion distantly. "But Captain Duke has grown to a fine figure. But has Miss Muir seen Andrew Fraser? He's twice the man he was when he went away."
It was a false move on Marrion's part, for it brought on her instantly the hearty reply--
"I'm glad to hear it, Marmie; so I suppose we will be having you cried in the kirk before long. Duke says he has been most faithful."
Whereupon the speaker called to her dogs in a stentorian voice worthy her father's, cracked her whip scientifically, and strode away for an hour or two's freedom. For the atmosphere of the dower house was stifling, and there was always a chance of meeting the Rev. Patrick Bryce on the sands below the rocks, where he went always to compose his sermons, with which the reverend gentleman had no little difficulty. Not because he was stupid, but because he found it laborious to reconcile his own views with those of his flock; they, however, being inclined to be lenient with one who had earned for himself the nickname of "the bonny parson," and who was known to be the best shot and fisherman in the district. For this reason he would have been welcome at the Castle, but for his unswerving outspoken protest against its general behaviour.
Marrion, meanwhile, finding more peace as the day died down, took to wandering at the far side of the quadrangle listening to the distant sounds of revelry; her hands, as she walked, busy with her knitting-pins--after the fashion of Scotchwomen in those days--going faster and faster as her thoughts grew hotter over what she knew was happening at the other side of the blank wall. Guzzling and boozing! First the masters, then the men-servants, while away in the back premises the scullerymaids and kitchenmaids were working hard. It was a shame, a burning shame; but if ever she had a son she would see to it that he was different.
But she never would have a son; anyhow, not Andrew Fraser's, be he ever so sober, so upright. That was the worst of it. With an impatient sigh she hurried outside the keep door to stand and watch the last faintly flushed clouds of sunset in the nor'-west fade over the darkling stretches of moorland.
It must be nigh twelve of the clock, for eastwards, over the darkling stretches of the sea, a faint lightening of the horizon, which held such a hint of restlessness even in its shadow, told where the sun would soon rise again. For in those high northern latitudes there is a bare two hours' darkness in a summer night.
Twelve o' the clock, and after that would be their birthday. Well, good luck to him wherever he went! Some day he must be the laird--Baron Drummuir. Nothing to hinder that must come into his life--nothing!
The faithfulness of inherited service was in her blood. She recognised this and sometimes wondered if her own devotion to the honour and welfare of the House of Drummuir was not stronger even than her grandfather's; possibly because her father, by all repute, had been a faithful servant, too; such things are not to be escaped.
She was aroused from her thoughts by a wavering step in the quadrangle, and returned to meet her grandfather in the expansive stage of intoxication.
"Aye, my lass," he went on, when he had wept a few easy tears over her goodness in sitting up for him, "it was just a gran' nicht. The pipes seemed fey and I blawed at them till we was baith like to burst. An' my lord, he was for havin' oot the biggest bottle o' pickled foxes' tongues, an' he devilled them himsel' in a chaffin' dish afore them all, an' they a' drunk wi' mirth an' guid claret. Jock, the butler, was tellin' me--there was twal o' them--that they were drinkin' thirty bottles o' the best, forbye sixteen tum'lers of hot whisky-toddy, the Sheriff and the Lord Provost had, honest gentlemen, to their lane--an' there wud be no 'hoot-toots' where the Shirra was concerned! Then the laird o' Balbuggo--he has a weak head, yon man, was for ridin' hame and was no to be hindered frae it; sae Captain Duke an' anither young spark jest perched his saddle to the loupin'-on-stane and pit the guid man to it. An' there he sat tittuping away his lane for an hour or sae quite blythe, till they tell't him he was at Balbuggo, and he just aff an' awa tae his bed like a lammie."
"And Captain Duke?" asked the girl, with scorn in her voice, pity in her heart, despite the irrepressible smile in her eyes. "Was he drunk, too?"
Old Davie winked solemnly.
"Aye, that was he--he was fair fou--but," he added carefully; "he took his cups real well! Not like Mr. Peter, that syne gets tae sickness and----"
"Gran'father," cried the girl passionately, interrupting him, "it's gettin' late! You must away to your bed, or you'll no be up the morn to pipe 'Hey! Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?' I'll see to the doors."
"No be up?" contended the old man. "I tell ye if the arkaungel Gabbriel was tae soun' his trump any day at half-after seven, he'd find Davie Sims--aye, and his forbears an' descendants--skirling awa' at that same tune up an' dune a' the passages in Drummuir Castle tae wake the gentlefolk! Aye, that wad he"--here he began stumbling up the stair with his candle held at an angle of forty-five--"though it's hard on a body that's had tae pipe to the deil ower nicht to think o' his duty tae the sluggard."
Here his maunderings became unintelligible, and the girl he left turned to the closing of the house, her heart hot as fire with indignation, chill as ice with scorn.
What else was there to expect? Like father, like son! When she had drawn the bolts she went up to her own room and flung its little window wide. The full moon shone round like a shield, and by its light she could see the whole wild coast stretching northwards from Drumkirk Point to Rattray Head. And after that? The North Pole, of course! Dear inaccessible region to all but the strong, the single of heart, the men who could command others--and themselves.
She scarcely knew what it was that she raged against as slowly, methodically, she began to undress. The little
