no, Miss Marjory," replied the schoolmaster, selecting a thin envelope and holding it up shamelessly to the light--a bold stroke to divert attention from the greater offence of the hymn, "Forbye ain wi' the Glasky post-mark that will just be ain o' they weary circulars, for as ye may see for yoursel', Miss Marjory, the inside o't's leethographed."
"Thank you, Mr. McColl," said the girl, severely, as she took the letter, "but if you have no objection I should prefer finding out its contents in a more straightforward fashion."
"Surely! Surely!" Mr. McColl, having got a little more than he expected, gave another exculpatory cough, and looked round to Donald Post for moral support. Perhaps from a sense that he often needed a like kindness, this was an appeal which the latter never refused, and if he could not draw upon real reminiscence for a remark or anecdote bearing on the point, he never had any hesitation in giving an I. O. U. on fancy and so confounding his creditors. On the present occasion, however, he was taken at a disadvantage, being engaged in trying to conceal from Marjory's uncompromising eyes a bottle of whiskey which formed a contraband item in his bag; consequently he had only got as far as a preliminary murmur that "there wass a good mony wass liking to be reading their ain letters but that it was James Macniven"--when the schoolmaster plucked up courage for further defence.
"Aye! Aye! 'tis but natur'l to sinfu' man to be liking his ain. Not that they circulars interestin' readin', even if a body is just set on learnin' like Miss Marjory. And I'm thinkin' it will only be from a wine mairchant likely. It's extraordinair' the number of circulars they'll be sending out; but the whiskey is a' the same. Bad, filthy stuff, what will give parral--y--ses to them that drinks it."
This second bid for favour, accompanied as it was by an unfortunate glance for support at Donald--who was struggling unsuccessfully with the neck of the black bottle--proved too much for Marjory's dignity, and the consequent smile encouraged Mr. McColl to go on, oblivious apparently of his last remark.
"And it's whiskey we shall all be wanting, and plenty of it, to drink the young laird's health. But I was forgetting you could scarcely have heard the news, Miss Marjory, since it is only coming in the post just now. It is the laird, Miss Marjory, that is to be home to-morrow by the boat!"
The girl forgot an incipient frown in sheer surprise. "Here! Captain Macleod?"
"Aye! it's the machine is to meet him at the ferry, the light cart for his traps, and the house to be ready." In his desire for importance Mr. McColl in the last words had given himself away completely, for Marjory lived at Gleneira Lodge with her cousin, the factor.
"The house to be got ready! Impossible! Mrs. Cameron had heard nothing when I came out. Where did the news come from?" Marjory's voice, especially to those who knew and loved her, as these good folks did, never admitted of refusal, so the postmaster coughed again between the thumps of the office stamp, which he had begun to use in a hurry.
"It will be Mistress Macniven that was telling Donald Post, and Donald Post he will be telling it to me." The words came in a sort of sing-song, echoed by Donald himself in a croon of conviction.
"Hou-ay! it was Mistress Macniven wass tellin' it to me, and it iss me that iss tellin' it to Mr. McColl, and it is fine news--tamn me, but it is fine news whatever."
A twinkle came to Marjory's eyes, for in her character of Grand Inquisitress to the Glen, such startling language was too evidently a drag across the trail.
"But where did Mrs. Macniven hear it?"
"Aye! aye!" assented Donald, rising to go abruptly, "that is what it will be, but she was tellin' it to me, whatever."
"I don't believe a word of it," continued the girl; "Captain Macleod would have written to my cousin, I know. It is just idle gossip."
This was too much for the postmaster, who posed, as well as he might, for being an authority on such questions. In the present instance he preferred the truth to incredulity.
'"Deed, Miss Marjory," he said, with unblushing effrontery, "it'll just be one o' they postcards."
"Hou-ay!" echoed Donald, softly. "She'll be yon o' they postcards, whatever."
"A postcard! What postcard?"
Mr. McColl handed her one with the air of a man who has done his duty. "Will you be taking it with you, or shall I be giving it to Donald, here?"
Marjory looked at him with speechless indignation; at least, she trusted that was her expression, though the keen sense of humour, which is the natural heritage of the Celt, struggled with her dignity at first.
"I am really ashamed of you, Mr. McColl," she said at last, with becoming severity. "Of you and Mrs. Macniven; you ought to know better than pry into other folks' secrets."
But now that the cat was out of the bag, the postmaster showed fight. "'Deed, and I'm no for seeing it was a secret at all! It is a penny people will be paying if they're needin' secrets. And the laird is not so poor, but he would put a penny to it if he was caring; though yon crabbed writin' they teach the gentlefolk nowadays, is as most as gude as an envelope. Lorsh me! Miss Marjory, but my laddies would be gettin' tawse for a postcard like yon. It was just awful ill to read."
"To read! Mr. McColl, I really am surprised at you! It is most dishonourable to read other people's letters," protested the girl, with great heat.
"Surely! Surely! but yon's a postcard."
From this position he refused to budge an inch, being backed up in it by Donald, who, being unable to read, was busy in stowing away various letters in different hiding-places in his person, with a view to their future safe delivery at the proper destination. "It was a ferry useful thing," he said, "was postcards, and if Miss Marjory would mind it wass, when old Mistress Macgregor died her sons wass sending to Oban for the whiskey to come by the ferry. But it wass the day before the buryin' that a postcard wass coming to say the whiskey was to be at the pier. But young Peter's cart wass going to the ferry to fetch the whiskey and he was meeting Peter and telling him of the postcard. So if it had not been for the postcaird it wass no whiskey they would be having to Mistress Macgregor's funeral, whatever." A judicious mingling of fact and fiction which outlasted Marjory's wrath. She put the cause of offence in her pocket, remarking pointedly that as Donald had such a budget of important news to retail, that would most likely be the quickest mode of delivery, and then turned to her task of giving the children their usual Sunday lesson, which she began with such a detailed homily on the duty towards your neighbour, that Mr. McColl took the excuse of Donald's departure to accompany him into the garden, and remain there until she passed on to another subject.
For Marjory Carmichael ruled the Glen absolutely; perhaps because she was the only young lady in it. Girls there were and plenty, but none in her own class of life, and the result on her character had been to make her at once confident and unconscious of her own powers. She was not, for instance, at all aware what a very learned young person she was, and the fact that she had been taught the differential calculus and the theory of Greek accents affected her no more than it affects the average young man of one-and-twenty. The consequence being a restfulness which, as a rule, is sadly wanting in the clever girls of the period, who never can forget their own superiority to the mass of their female relations. Having been brought up entirely among men, her strongest characteristic was not unnaturally an emotional reserve, and up to the present her life had been pre-eminently favourable to the preservation of that bloom which is as great a charm to a girl as it is to a flower, and which morbid self-introspection utterly destroys. To tell the truth, however, she was apt to be over contemptuous of gush, while her hatred of scenes was quite masculine. In fact, at one-and-twenty, Marjory
