A few days after, various members of the family arrived at the Castle Farm, with the intention of deciding what was to be done. An arrangement had been partially made with a young farmer of the district, who was ready to enter upon the remainder of the lease, and whom the factor on the part of the Duke was ready to accept as replacing Mrs. Murray in the responsibilities of the tenancy. This, of course, everybody felt was the natural step to be taken, and it left the final question as to how the old lady herself was to be disposed of, clear and unembarrassed. Even Edgar himself was not sufficiently Quixotic to suppose that Mrs. Murray’s feelings and pride should be so far consulted as to keep up the farm for her amusement, while she was no longer able to manage its manifold concerns. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell arrived first in their gig, which was seated for four persons, and which, indeed, Mr. Campbell called a phaeton. Their horse was a good steady, sober-minded brown horse, quite free from any imaginativeness or eccentricity, plump and sleek, and well-groomed; and the whole turnout had an appearance of comfort and well-being. They brought with them a young man whom Edgar had not yet seen, a Dr. Charles Murray, from the East-country, the son of Mrs. Murray’s eldest son, who had arrived that morning by the steamboat at Loch Arroch Head. From Greenock by the same conveyance--but not in Mr. Campbell’s gig--came James Murray, another of the old lady’s sons, who was “a provision merchant” in that town, dealing largely in hams and cheeses, and full of that reverential respect for money which is common with his kind. Lastly there arrived from Kildarton on the other side of Loch Long, a lady who had taken the opportunity, as she explained to Edgar, of indulging her young people with a picnic, which they were to hold in a little wooded dell, round the corner of the stubble field, facing Loch Long, while she came on to join the family party, and decide upon her mother’s destiny. This was Mrs. MacKell, Mrs. Murray’s youngest daughter, a good-looking, high-complexioned woman of forty-five, the wife of a Glasgow “merchant” (the phrase is wide, and allows of many gradations), who had been living in sea-side quarters, or, as her husband insisted on expressing it, “at the saut water,” in the pleasant sea-bathing village of Kildarton, opposite the mouth of Loch Arroch. The boat which deposited her at the little landing-place belonging to the Castle Farm, was a heavy boat of the district, filled with a bright-coloured and animated party, and provided with the baskets and hampers necessary for their party of pleasure. Mrs. MacKell stood on the bank, waving her hand to them as they hoisted the sail and floated back again round the yellow edge of the stubble field. “Mind you keep your warm haps on, girls, and don’t wet your feet,” she called to them; “and oh, Andrew, my man, for mercy’s sake take care of that awful sail!”