‘You have made the port just in time,’ remarked Argyll; ‘the rain is coming down heavily, and the night is as black as a wolf’s throat. You seem to have bought largely at Donnelly’s sale.’
‘All the dairy cows and heifers, and a few steers for fattening,’ answered Wilfred. ‘I suppose we might have had some trouble in collecting them if they had got away from us to-night.’
‘So much that you might have never seen half of them again,’ said Mr. Churbett promptly. ‘You would have been hunting for them for weeks, and picked them up “in twos and threes and mobs of one,” as I did my Tumut store cattle, that broke away the first night I got them home.’
Wilfred felt in a condition to do ample justice to the roast chicken and home-cured ham, and even essayed a shaving of the goodly round of beef, which graced one end of the table. After concluding with coffee, glorified with delicious cream, Wilfred, as they formed a circle round the fire, came to the conclusion, either that it was the best dinner he had eaten in the whole course of his life, or else that he had never been quite so hungry before.
In despite of Mrs. Teviot’s admonitions, none of the party sought their couches much before midnight. There was a rubber of whist—perhaps two. There was much general conversation afterwards, including literary discussion. One of the features of the apartment was a well-filled bookcase. Finally, when Mr. Hamilton escorted Wilfred to his chamber, he said, ‘You needn’t bother about getting up early to-morrow. Trust old Dick to have the cattle away at sunrise; he and the boy can drive them easily now, till you overtake them. We breakfast about nine o’clock, and Fred Churbett will keep you company in lying up.’
The night was murky and drizzling; the morning would probably resemble it. Wilfred was tired. He knew that Dick would be up and away with the dawn. He himself wished to consult his new friends about points of practice germane to his present position. On the whole he thought he could safely take Mr. Hamilton’s advice.
His slumbers that night, in bed-linen fragrant as Ailie Dinmont’s, were deep and dreamless. Surely it could not have been morning, it was so dark, and still raining, when he heard knocking at a window, and a voice thrice repeat the words, ‘Maister Hamilton, are ye awauk?’ but the words melted away—a luxurious drowsiness overpowered his senses. The rain’s measured fall and tinkling plash changed into the mill-wheel dash of his childhood’s wonder in Surrey. When he awoke, the sky was dark, but there was the indefinable sensation that it was not very early. So he dressed, and beholding a large old pair of ‘clodhoppers’ standing temptingly near, he bestowed himself in them and cautiously made towards the milking-yard. He looked across to the enclosure where his cattle had been during the previous night. It was a smooth and apparently deep sea of liquid mud, so sincerely churned had it been during the wet night. He felt grieved for the discomfort of the poor cattle, but relieved to know that they had been hours before on the grass, and were well on their way to Warbrok Chase.