He sat looking up at Gilbert Speid[1] with considerable interest. Though he was not one to whom the finer details of another’s personality were apparent, he was yet observant in the commoner way. It did not escape him that his companion was shy, but he did not suspect that it was with the shyness of one, who, though well accustomed to the company of his kind, had no intimacies. A few hours ago, when starting to meet him at Whanland, he had told himself that his task would be easy, and he meant to be friendly, both from inclination and policy, with the strange laird, who was a stranger to his inheritance. But though he had been received with politeness a little different from the amenity of anyone he had known before, he felt that he was still far from the defences of the young man’s mind. As to Gilbert’s outward appearance, though it could hardly be called handsome, the lawyer was inclined to admire it. He was rather tall, and had a manner of carrying himself which was noticeable, not from affectation, but because he was a very finished swordsman, and had a precision of gesture and movement not entirely common. He did not speak with the same intonation as the gentry with whom it was Alexander Barclay’s happiness to be acquainted, professionally or otherwise, for, though a Scot on both sides of his family, he had spent most of his youth abroad, and principally in Spain. His head was extremely well set and his face gave an impression of bone--well-balanced bone; it was a face, rather heavy, and singularly impassive, though the eyes looked out with an extraordinary curiosity on life. It seemed, to judge from them, as though he were always on the verge of speaking, and Barclay caught himself pausing once or twice for the expected words. But they seldom came and Gilbert’s mouth remained closed, less from determination to silence than from settled habit. [1] Pronounced Speed. It was in the forenoon that Gilbert Speid had arrived at Whanland to find Barclay awaiting him on the doorstep; and the two men had walked round the house and garden and under the beech-trees, stopping at points from which there was any view to be had over the surrounding country. They had strolled up a field parallel with the road which ran from the nearest town of Kaims to join the highway at the bridge. There Gilbert had taken in every detail, standing at an angle of a fence and looking down on the river as it wound from the hazy distance of bare woods. ‘And my property ends here?’ he asked, turning from the fascinating scene to his companion. ‘At the bend of the Lour, Mr. Speid; just where you see the white cottage.’ ‘I am glad that some of that river is mine,’ said Gilbert, after a long pause. Barclay laughed with great heartiness, and rubbed his hands one over the other. ‘Very satisfactory,’ he said, as they went on--‘an excellent state of things.’