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Updated: June 10, 2025
"I beg your pardon," I said, for I thought some one at my elbow was about to speak. "Ah! That is the other thing!" said Miss M'Leod. Her mother groaned.
Bethune, the parish minister, Magnus M'Leod, of Claggan, brother to Talisker, and M'Leod of Bay, two substantial gentlemen of the clan, dined with us. We had admirable venison, generous wine; in a word, all that a good table has. This was really the hall of a chief.
A young gentleman of the name of M'Lean, nephew to the Laird of the Isle of Muck, came this morning; and, just as we sat down to dinner, came the Laird of the Isle of Muck himself, his lady, sister to Talisker, two other ladies their relations, and a daughter of the late M'Leod of Hamer, who wrote a treatise on the second sight, under the designation of Theophilus Insulanus.
He owned, this morning, that one might have a greater aptitude to learn than another, and that we inherit dispositions from our parents. 'I inherited, said he, 'a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober. Lady M'Leod wondered he should tell this. 'Madam, said I, 'he knows that with that madness he is superior to other men.
These reflections secured me a night during which I rediscovered how, from purely mental causes, a man can be physically sick; but the sickness was bliss compared to my dreams when the birds waked. On my departure, M'Leod gave me a beautiful narwhal's horn, much as a nurse gives a child sweets for being brave at a dentist's.
"He's the only living soul I can get at who was connected with Holmescroft," I said. "Ah! Living soul is good," said M'Leod. "At any rate our little girl will be pleased that you are still interested in us. Won't you come down some day this week?" "How is it there now?" I asked. He screwed up his face. "Simply frightful!" he said. "Thea is at Droitwich."
M'Leod had built fences, had cut and stacked the matured hay, and had even engaged men to erect new buildings and to repair some of those which had escaped utter destruction. Near the spot where the colonists had landed in 1812 he had selected an appropriate site and had begun to erect a large domicile for the governor.
M'Leod coming through the gate, she would send Christy after him to the castle, to get his bill paid; so that I might then, without exciting suspicion, talk to him in private, and we might learn from his own lips the particulars of what he saw and heard in the cavern.
As twilight drew on they all went away, and I was left alone with Mr. and Mrs. M'Leod, while tall menservants and maidservants took away the tennis and tea things. Miss M'Leod had walked a little down the drive with a light-haired young man, who apparently knew everything about every South American railway stock. He had told me at tea that these were the days of financial specialisation.
That might explain his change of countenance, and it was just possible that her demented influence still hung about Holmescroft; but the rest was beyond me. I was relieved when I reached M'Leod's City office, and could tell him what I had done not what I thought. M'Leod was quite willing to enter into the game of the pretended purchase, but did not see how it would help if I knew Baxter.
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