ling turkey there, him
I mean with the hop in his walk, who (if I know aught of fowls) would
roast well to-morrow. Thy mother must have preparation: it is no more
than reasonable. Now, have that turkey killed to-night (for his fatness
makes me long for him), and we will have him for dinner to-morrow, with,
perhaps, one of his brethren; and a few more collops of red deer's flesh
for supper, and then on the Friday morning, with the grace of God, we
will set our faces to the road, upon His Majesty's business."

"Nay, but good sir," I asked with some trembling, so eager was I to see
Lorna; "if His Majesty's business will keep till Friday, may it not keep
until Monday? We have a litter of sucking-pigs, excellently choice and
white, six weeks old, come Friday. There be too many for the sow, and
one of them needeth roasting. Think you not it would be a pity to leave
the women to carve it?"

"My son Jack," replied Master Stickles, "never was I in such quarters
yet: and God forbid that I should be so unthankful to Him as to hurry
away. And now I think on it, Friday is not a day upon which pious people
love to commence an enterprise. I will choose the young pig to-morrow at
noon, at which time they are wont to gambol; and we will celebrate his
birthday by carving him on Friday. After that we will gird our loins,
and set forth early on Saturday."

Now this was little better to me than if we had set forth at once.
Sunday being the very first day upon which it would be honourable for me
to enter Glen Doone. But though I tried every possible means with Master
Jeremy Stickles, offering him the choice for dinner of every beast
that was on the farm, he durst not put off our departure later than the
Saturday. And nothing else but love of us and of our hospitality would
have so persuaded him to remain with us till then. Therefore now my only
chance of seeing Lorna, before I went, lay in watching from the cliff
and espying her, or a signal from her.

This, however, I did in vain, until my eyes were weary and often would
delude themselves with hope of what they ached for. But though I lay
hidden behind the trees upon the crest of the stony fall, and waited
so quiet that the rabbits and squirrels played around me, and even the
keen-eyed weasel took me for a trunk of wood--it was all as one; no cast
of colour changed the white stone, whose whiteness now was hateful to
me; nor did wreath or skirt of maiden break the loneliness of the vale.