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He went into his public room, and "Mary," he cried to a maid, "a little drop of the French for Sergeant Cameron and me. You will allow me, Sergeant? I feel a little need of an evening brace." And he drank, for the sake of bygone dusks, with his customer. Nan and Gilian now walked on the pavement, a discreet distance apart. She stopped at the mantua-makers door.
Where doubtless many children had played, on the knowe below a single shrub of fir-wood beside the loch, Nan spread out the remains of her breakfast again and they prepared to make a meal. Gilian gathered the dry heather tufts, happy in his usefulness, thinking her quite content too, while all the time she was puzzling as to what was next to be done.
He went off laughing, and when he had gone away a few yards Gilian, walking slowly homewards, heard him break whistling into the air that Nan had sung in the parlour of Maam. Only for a single sleepless night was Gilian dashed by this evidence that the world was not made up of Miss Nan and himself alone.
"Are you tired, my dear?" he said, repeating it in the Gaelic. "It's a dreich dreich dying on a feather bed." He smiled once more feebly, and Gilian screamed, for the kitten had touched him on the leg. "Go downstairs, this is no place for you, my dear," said Miss Mary; and he went willingly, hearing a stertorous breathing in the bed behind him.
He was startled at the accident. It revealed to him for the first time how time was passing and he was growing. When he had come first to the Paymaster's that drooping ceil was just within the reach of his outstretched hand; now he could touch it with his brow. "Gilian! Gilian!" cried Miss Mary up the stair.
He dismounted, left the horse, and climbed to the strip of green before the place. None seemed about, all seemed within. Here was the fir-tree with the bench around so old a tree, watching life so long!... Now he saw that Jarvis Barrow sat here. But the old man was asleep. He sat with closed eyes, and his Bible was under his hand. Beside him, tall and fair, wide-browed, gray-eyed, stood Gilian.
He rose to leave the room. Miss Mary stopped him with the least touch upon the arm, a lingering, gentle touch of the finger-tips, and yet caressing. "Gilian," she said softly, "do you think you can be deceiving me? M'eudail, m'ieudail! I know there is a great trouble in your mind, and is it not for me to share?"
"It was 'The Rover' and 'The Man with the Coat of Green," said Gilian in an eager recollection. "Man! did I not ken it?" cried the Cornal. "Oh! I kent it fine. 'The Rover' was her mother's trump card. I never gave a curse for a tune, but she had a way of lilting that one that was wonderful." "She had, that," said the General, and he sighed.
He shook hands all round, he was newly come home from the lowlands, his tunic was without speck or crease, his chin was smooth, his strong hands were white; as Gilian returned his greeting he felt himself in an enviable and superior presence.
She laughed temptingly, drew back, warding her lips with the screen that now she had arranged in a new and pleasing fashion on her shoulders so that she looked some Gaelic huntress of the wilds. "So, so, Gilian!" said she, "you have found that there might be more in the books than simply to take the girl away with not so much as 'Have you a mouth? when she stepped out at the window."
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