He rode on to the foot of the Horn, to the spot where Kirsty was usually at that season to be found; but she saw him coming, and went up the hill. Soon after, his mother contrived that he should pay a visit to some relatives in the south, and for a time neither the castle nor the Horn saw anything of him. Without returning home he went in the winter to Edinburgh, where he neither disgraced nor distinguished himself. David was to hear no ill of him. To be beyond his mother’s immediate influence was perhaps to his advantage, but as nothing superior was substituted, it was at best but little gain. His companions were like himself, such as might turn to worse or better, no one could tell which. CHAPTER XI KIRSTY AND PHEMY During the first winter which Francis spent at college, his mother was in England, and remained there all the next summer and winter. When at last she came home, she was even less pleasant than before in the eyes of her household, no one of which had ever loved her. Throughout the summer she had a succession of visitors, and stories began to spread concerning strange doings at the castle. The neighbours talked of extravagance, and the censorious among them of riotous living; while some of the servants more than hinted that the amount of wine and whisky consumed was far in excess of what served when the old colonel was alive. One of them who, in her mistress’s frequent fits of laziness, acted as housekeeper, had known David Barclay from his boyhood, and understood his real intimacy with her late master: it was not surprising, therefore, that she should open her mind to him, while keeping toward everyone else a settled silence concerning her mistress’s affairs: none of the stories current in the country-side came from her. David was to Mrs. Bremner the other side of a deep pit, into the bottom of which whatever was said between them dropped. ‘There’ll come a catastroff or lang,’ said Mrs. Bremner one evening when David Barclay overtook her on the road to the town, ‘and that’ll be seen! The property’s jist awa to the dogs! There’s Maister Donal, the factor, gaein aboot like ane in a dilemm as to cuttin ’s thro’t or blawin his harns oot! He daursna say a word, ye see! The auld laird trustit him, and he’s feart ’at he be blamit, but there’s nae duin onything wi’ that wuman: the siller maun be forthcomin whan she’s wantin ’t!’ ‘The siller’s no hers ony mair nor the lan’; a’s the yoong laird’s!’ remarked David. ‘That’s true; but she’s i’ the pooer o’ ’t till he come o’ age; and Maister Donal, puir man, mony’s the time he’s jist driven to ane mair to get what’s aye wantit and wantit! What comes o’ the siller it jist blecks me to think: there’s no a thing aboot the hoose to shaw for ’t! And hearken, Dauvid, but latna baith lugs hear ’t, for dreid the tane come ower ’t again to the tither--I’m doobtin the drink’s gettin a sair grup o’ her!’