"I say," said he in his London drawl, as the rider dismounted and, removing his hat, stood before him – a fine figure of a man in Scotch tweeds, measuring a good six-feet-two of staunch muscle and bone, with the shoulders of a giant and a big-featured, kindly face, and the blue eyes and high hooked nose of the typical Scotsman; the all-observing eye of Cleek noticed that one of the stranger's fingers was bandaged, as if it had recently been cut. Cleek instinctively liked him. "Can you tell me," he said – "awfully sorry to stop you and all that – but can you possibly tell me if this is Aygon Castle? Looks like it from the pictures, b' Jove, but photography's frightfully deceptive – what? Friend of mine – a Miss Duggan – Miss Maud Duggan, I think the name is – lives there, doesn't she? I happened to come up here yesterday for the fishin' – awfully fond of it and that sort of thing – and promised to call whenever I was out this way. I'm right, am I not?"
"Perfectly right." Cleek liked the deep, ringing voice which answered him, as he liked the shrewd blue eyes that travelled so rapidly over his tweeds. Liked, too, the hard, grim mouth which broke into such a charming smile, transfiguring the whole face as though a light had been set behind it. "And Miss Duggan does live here. You're keen on fishing, I take it. Well, so am I. It's a man's sport, and there's few Scotsmen who don't like it. My name's Tavish – James Tavish – and I'm agent for Sir Andrew Duggan's estates. We'll possibly meet each other up the river some time, for I spend most of my spare time there."
"Thanks. I'd like it immensely. Fishin's a lonesome game alone. And though I've brought my man with me, and he's a dab hand with the tackle, one gets a bit bored sometimes. I'll probably see you up at the Castle, Mr. Tavish, and we'll improve our acquaintance. Many thanks for your courtesy."
So saying, Cleek passed on up the rough road, while his new friend remounted the little chestnut mare he rode so magnificently, and went galloping off up the incline, making a fine picture against the rugged scenery of which he seemed such an inseparable part.
Cleek reached the Castle gates at last, rang the huge bell, and waited while the lodge-keeper unfastened them for him and inquired his name, went with him up the long sweep of gravelled driveway with its bordering of yews and young pine trees lending an air of picturesque gloom to the place even upon that bright morning. And having reached the great oaken front door – a monstrous affair scarred by the ruthless hand of Time as much as by the mailed fists which must have thudded upon it in far-off days, or by the spears and battle-axes of past Duggans who in this fashion had left something more definite than a memory for their ancestors to cherish – pulled the chain of the bell, and waited while the jangling echoes of its noise died away into silence before his summons was answered.
At length the door opened. He caught a glimpse of a dim interior, lofty as a church and dark with the panellings of old oak which flanked it upon all four sides, and then gave his name to the pompous old butler, and was taken into a little ante-room redolent of age – that mothy, curtained odour as of a room but rarely opened and still more rarely used – and within a moment or two Miss Duggan was standing there before him.
"Mr. Deland! How good of you to have come so soon – how very good!" she said warmly, extending a hand to him in greeting. "You must surely stay and lunch with us, now that you have come all this distance. And I want you to meet my father." Her voice dropped a tone or two. "Paula is with him now, going over the housekeeping accounts – it is a daily matter upon which he is very insistent. Ross is in the laboratory, tinkering over something to do with the lights, but he'll be out in a minute. I told him I had met you on the train, and that we had got into conversation and found we were congenial friends through Ailsa Lorne. You know her well, don't you, Mr. Deland?"
He smiled, and for a moment his eyes softened.
"Rather well, I fancy, as she has consented some day to throw in her lot with me and marry me," he returned in a happy, low-pitched voice. "And that is why any friend of hers, you know, must be a friend of mine as well. I'd like very much to have a look at the Castle, if I might be so permitted. Architecture interests me immensely. It's a hobby of mine. And this is surely one of the grandest old stately homes that Scotland possesses!"
"Isn't it? – isn't it? I can see you have the love of Home and Race in you, too, Mr. Deland, just as I have it in me," she responded, with a little happy sigh. "And if only I had not this other trouble which hangs over me like the sword of Damocles itself, life would be a very happy thing, indeed. For when one loves and is loved – " Her voice trailed off into silence, and she stood a moment looking out of the window, eyes alight, face aglow.
"Oho!" thought Cleek, with upflung brows. "So Love finds its way even into these Highland fastnesses. First James Tavish and Lady Paula's companion (if what Mr. Fairnish said was true), and now Miss Duggan herself."
"Who is the happy man?" he said smilingly, as she sighed and turned toward him.
"How did you know there was one?"
"How does any one know that any one loves any one else – when oneself loves?" he returned enigmatically. "Remember I, too, belong to the happy band. He lives close here, Miss Duggan?"
"Yes. Only a couple of miles away. But, alas! my father will hear nothing of him, and has even forbidden him the house."
"And may I ask why?"
"Certainly. Because he is poor. Father's god is Mammon, Mr. Deland. He knows and acknowledges no other. And Angus Macdonald has received very little at the hands of that god."
"But a good deal at the hands of the only God that matters, I take it," put in Cleek softly, with a smile at her. "Well, they say that Love laughs at locksmiths, and always finds a way. Time will give you your chance, Miss Duggan, and you'll have to be brave enough to take it… There's someone coming, I think."
There was someone coming, for even as Cleek spoke the door swung open and a tall, gaunt, white-haired old man, with a back like a ramrod and a face of granite, and with eyes that shone like pin-points of steel in the smooth pallor of it, came into the room, followed by a dark-eyed, dark-haired, sallow-complexioned woman with the long nose of the Italian and the brand of the true coquette stamped all over her.
Cleek recognized them at once. Here were the chief actors in the little comedy of what was at present a girl's imaginings, and which he sincerely hoped would never become anything else. What a hard face the man had! What a trap-like mouth! What a merciless, seeking eye! And the woman with him – all soft curves and roundness, with those luminous eyes of southern Italy looking out at him from the frame of her pale, ivory-tinted face, with already a hint of coquetry in their velvet depths for any well-dressed, well-apportioned specimen of mankind. Beside the something rugged and clear-cut in Maud Duggan's personality – the something Scotch and enduring which is the birthright of those born beyond the boundary-line of England – this woman's pale suavity fell into a kittenish foolishness, became instantly trivial and beyond recognizance.
At sound of their approach Maud Duggan turned hurriedly and waved a hand toward Cleek.
"Father," said she in her low, level-toned voice, "this is Mr. Deland of whom I told you last night. Mr. Deland is engaged to Ailsa Lorne, my old school friend at the convent in Paris – and he has come down for the fishing, and did me the honour to call upon me the very first thing. I have asked him to stay and lunch with us."
Sir Andrew bowed stiffly and then extended a blue-veined and tremulous hand. Cleek took it and bent over it like a courtier.
"Very pleased indeed to see you, Mr. Deland," said Sir Andrew, in a deep, full-throated voice that spoke more of the man he had been than of the man he was now. "You are welcome to our hospitality now and at any other time."
"I am deeply grateful, sir, and during my short stay in these parts I shall hope to make fuller acquaintance of you and your family – your wife? How do you do, Lady Paula? I am enamoured of your charming surroundings and your glorious home. May I be permitted to congratulate you upon both?"
A fleet look flashed from her eyes, a swift warmth