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Updated: June 8, 2025
"I will fetch it, my lord," he said, and disappeared in the milk-cellar, from which a steep stone-stair led down to the ancient dungeon. "The maister's gane wantin' a licht," muttered Grizzie; "I houp he winna see onything." It was an enigmatical utterance, and angered Lord Mergwain. "What the deuce should he see, when he has got to feel his way with his hands?" he snarled.
"If they are not worth looking at in themselves, the facts about them cannot be of much consequence, my boy," answered the laird. He was unwilling to leave Lord Mergwain. Lady Joan and Cosmo went without him. "Perhaps we may follow you by and by," said the laird. "Is the place very old, Cosmo?" asked Lady Joan on their way.
And that fellow lurking somewhere all the time about the place, watching his chance when the night comes! It's horrible. I shall go mad!" This last he spoke aloud. "Papa!" said his daughter sharply. Lord Mergwain started, and looked troubled. What he might have uttered, he could not tell. "A rubber, then," he said, approaching the fire again, " on any terms, or no terms at all!"
Poor as your accommodation is, it is better than the open road between this and Howglen; though, doubtless, before to-morrow morning you would be snug in the heart of a snow wreath." "Look here, sir," said Lord Mergwain, and rising, he went up to the laird, and laid his hand on his shoulder; "if I stop, will you give me another room, and promise to share it with me to-night?
Joan there has no more right than yourself to be called MY LADY. Neither has my son Borland the smallest right to the title; it is mine, and mine only, as much as Mergwain." The old lady turned her head, and fixed a stolen but searching gaze on her guest, and to the end of the meal took every opportunity of regarding him unobserved.
The laird scarcely heard his visitor's cry, and hastened from the room, taking huge strides with his long thin legs; but Cosmo resumed his seat as if nothing were the matter. Lord Mergwain was trembling visibly; his jaw shook, and seemed ready to drop. "Don't be alarmed, my lord," said Cosmo; "it is only one of the horses kicking against his stall."
In the one Cosmo recognized a large diamond; in the other Joan saw a dark stone engraved with the Mergwain arms. "This is a very valuable diamond," said Cosmo, looking closely at it. "Then that shall be your share, Cosmo," returned Joan. "I will keep this if you don't mind." "What have you got?" asked Cosmo. "My father's signet-ring, I believe," she answered.
Cosmo wrote to acquaint Lord Mergwain with the event, and had in return, from his lordship's secretary, an acknowledgment of the receipt of his letter.
But a fluctuating trouble was very visible in his countenance notwithstanding. A few poverty-stricken attempts at conversation followed, to which Lord Mergwain contributed nothing.
One would think, to enjoy his wine alone, a man must have either good memories or good hopes: Lord Mergwain had forgotten the taste of hope; and most men would shrink from touching the spring that would set a single scene of such a panorama unrolling itself, as made up the past of Lord Mergwain. However there he sat, and there he drank, and, truth to tell, now and then smiled grimly.
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