“Get across?” said Uncle Charles, in consternation. “Who is going to Edinburgh to-night?” “Oh! Uncle Charles, my heart is breaking! Tom has had a terrible accident. Perhaps he is dying. We must go to him at once. And papa will not believe me; he will not understand how serious it is.” “God bless me!” said Mr. Charles. He made a few sudden steps towards the house, and then he came back. “My dear May, there’s you to think of. What is it? I’ll go myself.” “No, no, no,” she said. “It was me he sent for. Oh, uncle, quick! bid them make haste with the carriage; we shall lose the train.” When the carriage came round to the door ten minutes after, Mr. Charles put aside the two travelling bags which had been placed inside, and took his place opposite the father and daughter on the front seat. “I’m coming too,” he said. Mr. Heriot gave vent to another strange little laugh. “We had better have Milly in, and Mrs. Simpson, and all the rest,” he cried; but he made no further remark or objection. His ruddy, rural countenance had paled somehow. It looked as Marjory had seen it after a period of confinement in town (town meant Edinburgh more than London to the Hay-Heriots, though sometimes they went to London too), when the sun-burnt brownness had worn off. He leant back in his corner and did not speak; he had not even asked where they were going. He seemed eager to keep up his appearance of indifference; but his heart had failed him. Mr. Charles, however, on the contrary, seemed to feel that all the amusement of the party depended upon him. He kept up a perpetual stream of talk, till the very sound of his voice made Marjory sick. “We’ll find him drinking beer, like the man in Thackeray’s book,” said Mr. Charles; “a ruffianly sort of hero in my way of thinking; but that’s what you like, you young folk. We’ll find him drinking beer, I’m saying, May, as well as ever he was. I think I can hear the great laugh he will give when he sees the whole procession of us coming in.” Mr. Heriot was nettled by his brother’s interference, yet not disposed to depart from his own _rôle_ of indifference. “It’s a fool’s errand,” he said; “but you may diminish the procession, Charles, if you like. It will be no procession, if there is only May and me.” Mr. Charles made no reply to this; he continued his cheerful talk. “It’s the penalty of all violent sports,” he said; “even your cricket that such a fuss is made about. There’s no risks of that kind with golf, now, for instance; and in my way of thinking, a far nobler game; but as for horses and hounds, they’re simple destruction--in the first place to a man’s living, and in the second to his bones.” “You never were great across country,” said Mr. Heriot, satirically. “It was never one of the sins you were inclined to commit. That must be taken into account.”