The Ladies Lindores. Volume 3 of 3

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Oliphant Margaret. The Ladies Lindores. Volume 3 of 3

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLIII

CHAPTER XLIV

CHAPTER XLV

CHAPTER XLVI

CHAPTER XLVII

CHAPTER XLVIII

CHAPTER XLIX

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Rolls went up-stairs and dressed himself in his best – his "blacks," which he kept for going to funerals and other solemnities – not the dress in which he waited at table and did his ordinary business. The coat, with its broad, square tails, gave him an appearance something between that of a respectable farmer and a parish minister – a little too solemn for the one, too secular for the other; and to show that he was "his own man," and for to-day at least no man's servant, he enveloped his throat in a large black silk neckerchief, square in shape, and folded like a substantial bandage with a little bow in the front. His forehead was lined with thought. When he had finished his toilet, he opened the large wooden "kist" which stood in a corner of his room, and was the final receptacle of all his worldly goods. Out of that he took a blue-spotted handkerchief, in which a pocket-book was carefully wrapped up, and took from it a few somewhat dirty pound-notes. Then restoring the pocket-book, he locked the kist carefully, and went down-stairs with the key – a very large one – in his hand. This he gave to Bauby, who still hung about the door with her apron to her eyes. "You should go ben to your work, my woman," said Rolls, "and no make the worst of what's happened: in a' likelihood the master will be back afore the dinner's ready." "Do you think that, Tammas? do you really think that?" cried Bauby, brightening up and showing symptoms of an inclination to cry for joy as she had done for sorrow. "I'm no' saying what I think. I'm thinking mony things beyond the power o' a woman person to faddom," said Rolls, solemnly. "And if the maister should be back, it's real possible I mayna be back. You'll just behave conformably, and put forrit Marget. If she wasna so frightened, she's no' a bad notion at a' of waiting at table. And if there's ony question where I am, or what's become of me – "

"Oh, Tammas, what will I say? It will be the second time in a week. He'll no' like it," cried Bauby, diverted from one trouble to another. The absence of her brother when the dinner was ready was almost as extraordinary as her master's conveyance away to unknown dangers by the functionaries of the law.

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Nora was greatly impressed, not only by the gravity of what he said, but the air with which he said it. "It surely cannot be so bad as that: and he – is innocent, Lord Rintoul?"

"I have no doubt of it," cried Rintoul, eagerly, – "no doubt of it! If there is any one to blame, it is some one – whom most likely nobody suspects. What would you think of the man who had done it, and yet said nothing, but let John Erskine suffer for his fault?"

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