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The inn-keeper, who was the first to see the lad, stopped his speech with confusion and reddened. They gave him a stare and a curt acknowledgment of his passage of the time of day as the saying goes, looked after him as he passed round Old Islay's corner, and found no words till he was out of sight.
Major Mac-Nicol, ludicrous in a bottle-green coat with abrupt tails and an English beaver hat of an ancient pattern, jinked here and there among the people, tip-toeing, round shouldered, with eyes peering and alarmed, jerking his head across his shoulder at intervals to see that no musket barrel threatened, and at times, for a moment or two, he would hang upon the outskirts of Young Islay's levée, with a hand behind an ear to listen to his story, filled for a little space with a wave of vague and bitter recollection that never broke upon the shore of solid understanding, enchanted by a gleam of red and gold, the colours of glory and of youth.
She and her darling were looking over the window at the tumultuous crowd of children scrambling for Young Islay's bowl-money scattered by Black Duncan in the golden syver sand. Miss Mary in that position could not but have her arm about his waist, and her hand unconsciously caressed the rough home-spun of his jacket. The brothers, unobserved, stood silent in the doorway.
Evening crept, lights came, the father went out to give some orders at the barn; they were left alone. The instrument that might have been a heavenly harp at once lost its dignity and relapsed to a tinkling wire, for Nan was silent, and there crowded into Young Islay's head all the passion of his people.
"I could not help it," he answered lamely. "You you you made me do it. I love you!" She drew back shocked. He stepped forward again, manly, self-possessed again, and looked her hungrily in the eyes. "Do you hear that?" he said. "Do you hear that? I love you! I love you! There you look at me, and I'm inside like a fire. What am I to do? I am Highland; I am Long Islay's grandson. I am a soldier.
There is a stone at Old Islay's corner that yet one may see worn with the feet of Gilian, so often he stood there turning on his heel, lending a gaze to the street where Nan might be, and another behind to the long road over the bridge whence she must sometime come. Years after he would stop again upon the blue slab and recall with a pensive pleasure those old hours of expectation.
The street was emptying, one by one the people had dispersed. Young Islay's group broke up, and went their several ways. The Paymaster and Miss Mary and Gilian went in to dinner. "What's the matter with you, my dear?" whispered Miss Mary at the turn of the stair when her brother had gone within. "Matter?" said Gilian, surprised at her discovery. "Nothing that I know of.
"You were ashamed of your book; you come here often with books; you do nothing like anybody else; you should have been a girl!" All the resentment of the Paymaster's boy sprung to his head at this taunt; he threw the book down and dashed a small fist in Young Islay's face. There he found a youth not slow to reply.
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