Coming to a watering-place for horses on the roadside, he sat down
by it, and opening his bag, was about to make what little of a
toilet was possible to him--was thinking whether he might venture,
as it seemed such a lonely road, to change his shirt, when round a
near corner came a lady, walking slowly, and reading as she came.
It was she! And there he stood without coat or waistcoat! To speak
to her thus would be to alarm her! He turned his back, and began to
wash in the pool, nor once dared look round. He heard her slowly
pass, fancied he heard her stop one step, felt her presence from
head to foot, and washed the harder. When he thought she was far
enough off, he put on the garments he had removed, and hastened
away, drying himself as he went.
At the turn of the road, all at once rose the towers of
Cairncarque. There was a castle indeed!--something to call a
castle!--with its huge square tower at every corner, and its still
huger two towers in the middle of its front, its moat, and the
causeway where once had been its drawbridge!--Yes! there were the
spikes of the portcullis, sticking down from the top of the
gateway, like the long upper teeth of a giant or ogre! That was a
real castle--such as he had read of in books, such as he had seen
in pictures!
Castle Warlock would go bodily into half a quarter of it--would be
swallowed up like a mouthful, and never seen again! Castle Warlock
was twice as old--that was something! but why had not Lady Joan
told him hundreds of stories about Cairncarque, instead of letting
him gabble on about their little place? But she could not love her
castle as he did his, for she had no such father in it! That must
be what made the difference! That was why she did not care to talk
about it! Was he actually going to see her again? and would she be
to him the same as before? For him, the years between had vanished;
the entrancing shadows of years far away folded him round, and he
was no more a man, but the boy who had climbed the wintry hills
with her, and run down them again over the snow hand in hand with
her.
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