He leaned back in the carriage beside Somerville, very silent, and, when they reached Whanland and he had seen his friend installed for the night, he went to his own room. What had become of Macquean he did not know and did not care. He sat late by the fire, listening to the snoring of the sailor, which reached him through the wall. A violent headache woke him in the morning and he lay thinking of the events of the preceding night. He put his hand up to his cheek to feel if the plaster was in its place. Macquean came in, according to custom, with his shaving-water, looking neither more nor less uncouth and awkward than usual. Though he shifted from foot to foot, the man had a complacency on his face that exasperated his master. ‘What did you mean by leaving the carriage last night?’ said Gilbert. ‘A’ went awa’ to Morphie,’ said Macquean. ‘And who told you to do that?’ ‘Aw! a’ didna’ speir[1] about that. A’ just tell’t them to gang awa’ down to the doo’cot. Her ladyship was vera well pleased,’ continued Macquean, drawing his lips back from his teeth in a chastened smile. [1] Ask. ‘Get out of the room, you damned fellow! You should get out of the house, too, if it weren’t for--for--get out, I say!’ cried Gilbert, sitting up suddenly. Macquean put down the shaving-water and went swiftly to the door. When he had shut it behind him he stood a moment to compose himself on the door-mat. ‘He shouldna speak that way,’ he said very solemnly, wagging his head. CHAPTER VIII THE HOUSE IN THE CLOSE TO say that the Miss Robertsons were much respected in Kaims was to give a poor notion of the truth. The last survivors of a family which had lived--and, for the most part, died--in the house they still occupied, they had spent the whole of their existence in the town. It was nearly a hundred years since a cousin of the Speid family, eldest and plainest of half a dozen sisters, had, on finding herself the sole unmarried member of the band, accepted the addresses and fortune of a wealthy East India merchant whose aspiring eye was turned in her direction. The family outcry was loud at his presumption, for his birth was as undistinguished as his person, and the married sisters raised a chorus of derision from the calm heights of their own superiority. Mr. Robertson’s figure, which was homely; his character, which was ineffective; his manners, which were rather absurd, all came in for their share of ridicule. The only thing at which they did not make a mock was his money. But Isabella was a woman of resolute nature, and, having once put her hand to the plough, she would not look back. She not only married Mr. Robertson in the face of her family, but had the good sense to demean herself as though she were conquering the earth; then she settled down into a sober but high-handed matrimony, and proceeded to rule the merchant and all belonging to him with a rod of iron. The only mistake she made was that of having thirteen children.