From this room, the scene of most of my domestic life, I took a pair of silver candlesticks and a Dresden cup and saucer. Into the unused drawing-room, which I had had fitted up years ago in the Louis Quinze style, I just peeped; but there was nothing very tempting in white and gold curly-legged furniture tied up in brown holland on a cold polished floor, so I locked the door again, and carried away my prizes to the cottage, where they certainly improved the look of the sitting-room mantelpiece.
I had no sort of carriage more convenient than a Norfolk-cart, so on my way to Aberdeen I ordered a fly to be at Ballater Station on my return with my new tenants. Both the ladies were already dressed for their journey, and we started at once, Mrs. Ellmer hastening to inform me that she had sent most of her luggage to some friends in London, to account, I fancy, poor lady, for having only one shabby trunk and two stage baskets. Babiole sat very quietly during the railway journey, looking out of window at the now dreary and bleak landscape; and I spoke so little that any one might have thought I would rather have been alone. But, indeed, I was only afraid, from the happy excitement which glowed in the faces of both talkative mother and silent daughter, lest their bright expectations should be disappointed by the simplicity and desolation of the place they persisted in regarding as a palace of delights.
'It's a very homely place, you know,' I said solemnly, after being bantered in a sprightly manner by Mrs. Ellmer upon my artfulness in building myself a fortress up in the hills where, like the knights of old, I could indulge in what lawless pranks I pleased. 'And I assure you that nothing could possibly be more simple than my mode of life there. Whatever of the bold bad bandit there may have been in my composition ten years back has been melted down into mere harmless eccentricity long ago.'
'Ah! you are not going to make me believe that,' said Mrs. Ellmer, with a giddy shake of the head. 'Why, the very name Larkhall betrays you.'
I believe the dear lady really did think the name had been given in commemoration of 'high jinks' I had held there; but I hastened to assure her that 'lark' was simply the Highland pronunciation of 'larch,' a tree which grew abundantly in the neighbourhood. However, she only smiled archly, and seeing that the imaginary iniquities she seemed bent on imputing to me in no way lessened her exuberant happiness in my society, I left my character in her hands, with only a glance at Babiole, who seemed, with her eyes fixed on the moving landscape, to be deaf to what went on inside the carriage. I was rather glad of it.