"Because his income isn't what theirs was to begin with. The place is heavily mortgaged; everyone knows it, so there is no reason why I shouldn't say so. Then Alick Macleod ran through a heap of money somehow, and left a lot of debts which had to be paid off. I don't say that the Captain mightn't have been more economical, but it isn't all his fault. And then he won't touch the estate. That is right enough in a way, and yet Smith, the hook-and-eye man, offered twice its value for that bit of moor that marches with his forest." "And Captain Macleod refused?" "Declined with thanks; and wrote me privately not to bother him again with any proposals of that sort from a bloated mechanic." Marjory's mouth turned down again. "Indeed! that was very noble of him." "So it was in a way," replied her companion, sticking to his own ill-concealed satisfaction, "for the man is offensive to the last degree. He has invented a tartan, and has a piper to play him to bed." "If he likes it, why not? Every man must have invented his own tartan, once upon a time, you know; the Macleods into the bargain." Will Cameron smiled languidly. "You are a beggar to argue, Marjory. But as I said before, the laird must marry money." "Sell himself instead of his property?" "Why not? he is worth buying, and she needn't be ugly." "Ugly! as if that were the only question! I believe it is all you men think of. Why, Will, you haven't told me anything about Captain Macleod except that he is good-looking; and I knew that before. I wanted to hear what he was like--he himself, I mean." He looked at her with comical amusement. "You have come to the wrong man, my dear. I never could tell my own character, much less anybody else's. But here is old John, beaming with satisfaction at the thought of coming slaughter among the birds. Ask him!" "Is it what the laird is like?" echoed the bent but active old man, pausing with a troop of wiry-haired terriers at his heels. "Then he is real bonnie, Miss Marjory; that's what he is." "So I told her; but she wants to know more." John Macpherson scratched his ear dubiously, then brightened up. "Then it's a terrible good shot he will be. Aye! ever since he was a laddie no higher than my heart. Just a terrible good shot, that's what he is." "After all," remarked Will, as the old man passed on, "that gives you as good a clue to the laird as anything else would do. Old John meant that as the highest praise. The coachman in all probability would say he was a first-rate rider. I have heard mother call him a good young man, but that was when _I_ had lost five pounds at the Skye gathering, and he had won. The fact being that he had a knack of warping people's judgment; it was he, by the way, who advised me to bet on a man who couldn't putt a bit. He used always to twist me round his little finger when we were boys together--and by Jove! he had a temper. Sulky, too, and obstinate as a mule."