When, returning from his fourth visit, he
opened the door between the gardens, he started back in dismay, for
there stood the beautiful lady.
Robert hesitated for a moment whether to fly or speak. He was a
Lowland country boy, and therefore rude of speech, but he was three
parts a Celt, and those who know the address of the Irish or of the
Highlanders, know how much that involves as to manners and bearing.
He advanced the next instant and spoke.
'I beg yer pardon, mem. I thoucht naebody wad see me. I haena dune
nae ill.'
'I had not the least suspicion of it, I assure you,' returned Miss
St. John. 'But, tell me, what makes you go through here always at
the same hour with the same parcel under your arm?'
'Ye winna tell naebody--will ye, mem, gin I tell you?'
Miss St. John, amused, and interested besides in the contrast
between the boy's oddly noble face and good bearing on the one hand,
and on the other the drawl of his bluntly articulated speech and the
coarseness of his tone, both seeming to her in the extreme of
provincialism, promised; and Robert, entranced by all the qualities
of her voice and speech, and nothing disenchanted by the nearer view
of her lovely face, confided in her at once.
'Ye see, mem,' he said, 'I cam' upo' my grandfather's fiddle. But
my grandmither thinks the fiddle's no gude. And sae she tuik and
she hed it. But I faun't it again. An' I daurna play i' the hoose,
though my grannie's i' the country, for Betty hearin' me and tellin'
her.
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