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Torrie, whom he knew as the agent in the purchase of Glashruach, and whom he supposed to have bought it for Major Culsalmon, a letter, more than respectful, stating that matters had come to light regarding the property which rendered his presence on the spot indispensable for their solution, especially as there might be papers of consequence in view of the points in question, in some drawer or cabinet of those he had left locked behind him.
The very day the session was over, they returned to Glashruach, where they were received by the laird, as he was still called, as if they had been guests. They found Joseph, the old butler, reinstated, and Angus again acting as gamekeeper.
He wrote at once to signify his gracious assent; and in the evening told his daughter he was going to Glashruach on business, and had arranged for Miss Kimble to come and stay with her till his return. At nine o'clock the schoolmistress came to breakfast, and at ten a travelling-carriage with four horses drew up at the door, looking nearly as big as the cottage.
As soon as he came home from college the next day and had hastily eaten his dinner, going upon his vague knowledge of law business lately acquired, he bought a stamped paper, wrote upon it, and put it in his pocket; then he took a card and wrote on it: Sir Gilbert Galbraith, Baronet, of Glashruach, and put that in his pocket also.
He did so, but kept his arm round her. She gave a deep sigh, and gazed bewildered. When she saw him, she smiled. "With you, Gibbie!" she murmured. " But they will be after us!" "They shall not touch you," signified Gibbie. "What was it all about?" she asked. Gibbie spelled on his fingers, "Because I offered to give you Glashruach, if your father would let you marry Donal."
Before the winter was over, the bond between them was strong. One principal duty required of Nicie her parents had named her after the mother of St. Paul's Timothy was to accompany her mistress every fine day to the manse, a mile and a half from Glashruach.
But either Mistress Jean's influx of caution came too late, and someone had overheard her suggestion, or the idea was already abroad in the mind bucolic and georgic, for that very night it began to be reported upon the nearer farms, that the Mains of Glashruach was haunted by a brownie who did all the work for both men and maids a circumstance productive of different opinions with regard to the desirableness of a situation there, some asserting they would not fee to it for any amount of wages, and others averring they could desire nothing better than a place where the work was all done for them.
That sort of day was in truth drearier for Donal than for Gibbie, for the books he had were not his own, and he dared not expose them to the rain; some of them indeed came from Glashruach the Muckle Hoose, they generally called it!
And just before the house of Glashruach fell the part in which my room was, he caught me up, because he could not speak, and carried me out of it; and when I told you that he had saved my life, you ordered him out of the house, and when he was afraid to leave me alone with you, dashed him against the wall, and sent for Angus to whip him again. But I should have liked to see Angus try it then!"
Fergus's father was a man of considerable property, Fergus himself almost a man of influence, and already in possession of a comfortable income: it was possible to imagine that the impoverished Thomas Galbraith, late of Glashruach, Esq., might contrive to swallow what annoyance there could not but in any case be in wedding his daughter to the son of John Duff, late his own tenant of the Mains.
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