CHAPTER II.

MARY'S ADVENTURE.

On the following day, after seeing old Elspat duly installed in one of the cosiest rooms of the old portion of the mansion as a kind of housekeeper, Mary Wellwood put on her garden-hat, brought forth her fishing-tackle, tied a pretty basket round her waist, and, taking her rod, a dainty little one—the gift of Ellinor's admirer, Robert Wodrow—set forth, accompanied by Jack, to get a trout or two from the May, for Mary was an expert angler, giving, ere she departed, a last look at her favourite hen, with a callow brood of primrose-coloured chickens, over which she clucked noisily in the sunshine amid a wisp of straw, while eyeing Jack the terrier with keen alarm and antagonism.

Mary left Ellinor again at her easel, and smiled when she saw that the latter had given some finishing touches to her costume, and had stuck a sprig in her lace collarette, in expectation of a visit from Robert Wodrow and his mother. She knew well of the loving friendship and incipient regard that had long existed between Rob and Ellinor; and that as friends of years' standing each had begun—she hoped—to feel that in all the world the other was the dearest, and a union for life would of course follow.

But young Wodrow, who was now past his twentieth year, had 'his way to make' in the world, and, till he had graduated in medicine, matrimony was not to be seriously thought of.

She had one or two errands of mercy to fulfil ere she reached the river side, and began to put her rod together, and deftly did so with purpose-like little hands, that were cased in her garden-gloves, while Jack kept close by her side. In the woods there were no cats to worry, but he had sharp eyes for the rabbits that scudded about—sharp as any poacher or gamekeeper could have.

The day was a bright and lovely one in summer. The pale primrose had come and gone, and the bluebells were already fading out of the woods; the sorrel was becoming redder, and the wild strawberry, with its little white flowerets, was peeping out in unlikely places. The grass in the meadows was green and studded with golden buttercups, and the voice of the cushat dove could be heard at times among the silver birches—the 'siller birks' that cast their quivering and aspen-like shadows on the waters of the bonnie May, which is a fine stream for trout, ten miles in length, from its rise among the Ochils to its confluence with the lovely Earn.

Everywhere here the scenery is rich and beautiful, and the banks of the May are very varied. In one part a long and deep channel has been worn by its waters through the living rocks which almost close above it, and far down below they gurgle in obscurity with a deep and mysterious sound. At another place they pour in silver spray over a linn, thirty feet in height, and form a beautiful cascade, and everywhere the glen scenery is picturesque and richly wooded with the graceful silver birch, which is so characteristic of the Scottish Highlands, where it climbs boldly the brows of the steepest hills and rocks, though the oak prevails in the valleys of the Grampians.

There had been recently a 'spate,' or summer flood in the river, so the trout took to the fly greedily, and intent on her task Mary had nearly filled the little basket that hung at her waist with fish—two or three of which weighed heavily—and cost her little fingers no small trouble to disengage the hook from their gills, ere she became aware that she had a companion in her sport, of which she was very fond. But though Mary loved to dangle a little rod over a brook that teemed with finny denizens, it was, of course, quite beyond her strength or skill to hold a big rod over a river for the chance of hooking a 'pounder.'

Mary Wellwood had reached a part of the stream where it was more difficult to fish, as its banks were thickly wooded, when she saw near her, similarly occupied, a gentleman, who, though he did not seem to watch her, certainly did so, for to his eyes angling seemed an odd amusement for a young girl—a lady especially—though it is not more so than archery, and certainly not so much as bringing down a grouse upon the wing, a feat attempted by some damsels now-a-days.

Clad in a rough tweed suit, with fishing-boots that came above his knees, a straw hat, the band of which was garnished with flies and lines, he was a man above the middle height, apparently nearer thirty than twenty, handsome in figure and in face. The latter was of a rich, dark complexion, with regular features; a heavy, dark brown moustache, and unmistakably keen hazel eyes. He was a man with a fine air and of decided presence.

He had been observing Mary Wellwood for some time before she was aware of his presence or vicinity, and the consequence was that for each trout he caught the girl caught three; for while she was solely intent on making the fly, with which her hook was baited, alight on the eddying water in the most delicate manner directly above where she supposed the fish to be, he was, as he would have phrased it, 'taking stock' of her lissom and graceful figure, which her tight costume showed to the utmost advantage as she stooped over the stream; the perfect form of her 'thoroughbred' ears and hands, and the exceeding fairness of her skin, which was of that snowy kind which usually accompanies light brown hair, and Mary's was of a brilliant light brown, shot with gold, when the ruddy flakes of sunshine struck it through the trees aslant.

Desirous of getting away alike from his observation and vicinity, Mary lifted her line in haste, but, alas! it was caught by the root of a silver birch, which held it fast a little beneath the water, and from which, after drawing off her gloves, she sought in vain to disentangle it. Here was a dilemma.

'Permit me?' said the stranger, planting his rod in the turf, and lifting his hat as he came towards her. He at once succeeded in releasing her hook and line, while Jack at once fraternised with him.

'Thanks—thank you so much,' said Mary, colouring a little, as she quickly wound the line up, and with a bow passed on to a part of the stream some yards further down; the stranger had looked at her shapely white hand, as if he longed to take it within his own, and, as if by magnetism, was strongly attracted towards it.

But Mary—who intended to catch just one more fish—had barely resumed her operations before a most unforeseen mishap occurred to her. After a 'spate,' the water of the May is often dark in some places, and to reach a pool wherein she knew by past experience some fine trout were sure to be lurking, by the assistance of a stone she reached a flat boulder fully six feet from the bank, but her foot—light thought it was—had barely left the former ere it turned over in the current and vanished, leaving her isolated amid the stream, whereat her terrier yelped and barked furiously.

The distance was too great for her to leap; moreover, the bank was steep there, and to fall would end in a complete immersion, and, gathering her skirts above her little booted feet, she looked around her with a comical air of perplexity and dismay, which her companion of the rod was not slow to perceive, and again he instantly approached, but this time with an absolute smile rippling all over his face.

'You cannot leap this distance without risk, and so must permit me to assist you again,' said he, stepping at once into the water, which rose midway up his long fishing-boots. He put an arm round her—a strong arm she felt it to be—and at once lifted her to the bank.

'I have to thank you again, sir,' said Mary, blushing in earnest now.

'I am so glad that I was within sight—you were quite in a scrape, perched on that fragment of rock, with the dark water eddying round you,' said he, again lifting his hat; 'but perhaps you can repay me by indicating the nearest path to Craigmhor?'

Mary did so, on which, still lingering near, he remarked,

'And so these are the Birks of Invermay, so famed in Scottish song, and story, too, I believe? It is indeed a lovely spot!'

'Lovely, indeed,' replied Mary, as the praise of her native glen went straight to her heart; 'even we, who live here all the year round, never tire of its beauty.'

'I am here for the first time; I came to this quarter only yesterday, and the alternately bold and sylvan nature of the scenery impressed me greatly. You must be fond of fishing,' he added, with a well-bred smile, 'and seem more expert with your rod than I.'

'But I only know the May,' replied Mary, taking her rod to pieces as a hint that she was about to withdraw, on which the stranger began to do the same.

'I have fished for trout in many places—even in the Lake of Geneva,' said he, 'and, curiously enough, the fish there are precisely the same as those in Lough Neagh in Ireland.'

'In weather so clear and light as this—even after flood—it is no easy task to lure them to destruction here,' replied Mary, 'and a light enough basket is often carried home, even from the best parts of the stream.'

'Such has been my fortune to-day,' said he, as he quietly proceeded by her side; but now Mary remembered that the path she had indicated to him as leading to Craigmhor was also the one she had to pursue to reach Birkwoodbrae.

'Our May trout are very beautiful, and are as good in quality as in appearance,' remarked Mary, scarcely knowing what to say.

'I hope you do not venture to such places as this in winter,' said he, pointing to some rocks that overhung the shaded stream.

'Why?' asked Mary, laughing.

'Because, when the water freezes—as I suppose it does—and these rocks are covered with snow, there must be danger.'

'I fear you look at them with a Londoner's eyes.'

'I am a Londoner—in one fashion—Captain Colville of the Guards.'

'Oh, I do not fear the snow,' said Mary; 'I have been up on the summit of yonder hill when it was covered deep with snow,' she added, pointing to a spur of the Ochils, while her eyes kindled, for under the shadow of those mountains she was born; 'but I was only a child then.'

'And what object took you up at such a time, may I ask?'

'To save a wee pet lamb, that else must have perished in the snow.'

'And did you carry it down?'

'Yes—of course.'

'By Jove!' exclaimed the Guardsman, twirling his moustache.

'We call that place Crow Court,' said Mary.

'Why?' he asked.

'Because sometimes in summer the crows collect there in such numbers that the green hillside is blackened with them, as if they had all been summoned for the occasion; and sometimes they have been known to wait for a day or two while other crows were winging their way hither from every quarter of the sky. Then a great clamour and noise ensue among them, and the whole will fall upon one or two crows that have been guilty of something, and after picking and rending them to death they disperse in flights as they came.'

The Guardsman knew not what to make of this bit of natural history, and could only stroke his moustache again.

Something in this girl's sweet but determined profile—something in the freshness of her character, and her slightly grave manner, as that of one already accustomed, but gently, to rule others, had a strange charm for Leslie Colville—for such was his name—though he was evidently a man accustomed to the ways of West-End belles and Belgravian mammas. Yet this girl never flattered him even by a smile, and her violet-blue eyes met his keen dark hazel ones as calmly as if their sexes were reversed, while her whole manner had the provoking indifference and the conscious air of self-possession which can only be acquired in the best society; and yet, to his very critical eye, her costume was rather unsuited to the atmosphere of Regent Street and Tyburnia, being extremely plain, and destitute of every accessory in the way of brooch, bracelet, ring, or even the inevitable bow.

To him it seemed quite refreshing to talk to a girl who, with all her loveliness, evidently seemed not to know how to flirt or even think about it.

'I must now bid you good-morning,' said Mary, on reaching a hedge-bordered path that led to her home.

'What is the name of that house so charmingly embosomed among birches?' he asked.

'Birkwoodbrae.'

'Birkwoodbrae—indeed!' he repeated, with a start that Mary detected, but believed it to be simulated, and felt somewhat offended in consequence.

'The name seems to interest you,' said she, coldly, almost with hauteur.

'Do you reside there?' he asked, while regarding her so curiously that Mary felt her natural colour deepen.

'Yes, and have done so since my father's death,' and, bowing again, she quickly withdrew, while he, with hat in hand, looked after her.

'These are the last trout we shall have for a time—of my own fishing at least, Ellinor,' said Mary, as she relieved herself of the basket and told of the forenoon adventures.

'Why?'

'I have no wish to be escorted by any of the visitors at Craigmhor; least of all by Captain Colville, the
fiancé
, as I understand he is, of that intolerable girl, Blanche Galloway.'

'I should think not,' replied Ellinor, laughing at her sister's unusual air of annoyance.

But the sisters had not heard the last of Captain Leslie Colville.