nes, which had been drawn up
from the menacing tides so that its prow obtruded on the half-hearted
privacy of the lady's bower. Deer were on the shore, one sail was on the
blue of the sea, a long way off, a triumphant flash of sun lit up the
innumerable glens. A pleasant interlude of weather, and yet Mungo was in
what he called, himself, a tirravee. He was honestly becoming impatient
with this undeparting foreigner, mainly because Annapla was day by day
the more insistent that he had not come wading into Doom without boots
entirely in vain, and that her prediction was to be fulfilled.

"See! Mungo," said the Count, "the daw, if my memory fails me not,
had his plumes pecked off him, but I seem fated to retain my borrowed
feathers until I pluck myself. Is it that you can have them at the first
opportunity restored to our connoisseur in _contes_--your friend the
Chamberlain? It comes to occur to me that the gentleman's wardrobe may
be as scanty as my own, and the absence of his coat may be the reason,
more than my unfortunate pricking with a bodkin, for his inexplicable
absence from--from--the lady's side."

Mungo had heard of the duel, of course; it was the understanding in Doom
that all news was common property inasmuch as it was sometimes almost
the only thing to pass round.

"Humph!" said he. "It wasna' sae ill to jag a man that had a wound
already."

"Expiscate, good Master Mungo," said Count Victor, wondering. "What
wound already? You speak of the gentleman's susceptible heart perhaps?"

"I speak o' naethin' o' the kind, but o' the man's airm. Ye ken fine ye
gied him a push wi' your whinger that first night he cam' here wi'
his fenci-ble gang frae the Maltland and play-acted Black Andy o'
Arroquhar."

"The devil!" cried Count Victor. "I wounded somebody, certainly, but
till now I had no notion it might be the gentleman himself. Well, let me
do him the justice to say he made rather pretty play with his weapon
on the sands, considering he was wounded. And so, honest Mungo, the
garrison was not really taken by surprise that night you found yourself
plucked out like a periwinkle from your wicket? As frankness is in
fashion, I may say that for a while I gave you credit for treason to the
house, and treason now it seems to have been, though not so black as I
thought. It was MacTaggart who asked you to open the door?"

"Wha else? A bonny like cantrip! Nae doot it was because I tauld him
Annapla's prophecy aboot a ma