e stranger's fingers was bandaged, as if
it had recently been cut. Cleek instinctively liked him. "Can you tell
me," he said--"awfully sorry to stop you and all that--but can you
possibly tell me if this is Aygon Castle? Looks like it from the
pictures, b' Jove, but photography's frightfully deceptive--what? Friend
of mine--a Miss Duggan--Miss Maud Duggan, I think the name is--lives
there, doesn't she? I happened to come up here yesterday for the
fishin'--awfully fond of it and that sort of thing--and promised to call
whenever I was out this way. I'm right, am I not?"

"Perfectly right." Cleek liked the deep, ringing voice which answered
him, as he liked the shrewd blue eyes that travelled so rapidly over his
tweeds. Liked, too, the hard, grim mouth which broke into such a
charming smile, transfiguring the whole face as though a light had been
set behind it. "And Miss Duggan does live here. You're keen on fishing,
I take it. Well, so am I. It's a man's sport, and there's few Scotsmen
who don't like it. My name's Tavish--James Tavish--and I'm agent for Sir
Andrew Duggan's estates. We'll possibly meet each other up the river
some time, for I spend most of my spare time there."

"Thanks. I'd like it immensely. Fishin's a lonesome game alone. And
though I've brought my man with me, and he's a dab hand with the tackle,
one gets a bit bored sometimes. I'll probably see you up at the Castle,
Mr. Tavish, and we'll improve our acquaintance. Many thanks for your
courtesy."

So saying, Cleek passed on up the rough road, while his new friend
remounted the little chestnut mare he rode so magnificently, and went
galloping off up the incline, making a fine picture against the rugged
scenery of which he seemed such an inseparable part.

Cleek reached the Castle gates at last, rang the huge bell, and waited
while the lodge-keeper unfastened them for him and inquired his name,
went with him up the long sweep of gravelled driveway with its
bordering of yews and young pine trees lending an air of picturesque
gloom to the place even upon that bright morning. And having reached the
great oaken front door--a monstrous affair scarred by the ruthless hand
of Time as much as by the mailed fists which must have thudded upon it
in far-off days, or by the spears and battle-axes of past Duggans who in
this fashion had left something more definite than a memory for their
ancestors to cherish--pulled the chain of the bell, and waited while the
jan