“Aye, child, so it was. But the girl David loved and that Lochore man—well, well, I can only surmise. But in the end there was devil’s work, fighting and duelling! David was brought home wounded, mad, and like to die; and for days and nights, my dear, Simon and Horatio nursed him between them and would not let any one near him while his ravings lasted—not even me, think of that! Of course, my love,” she added comfortably, “it is not that my Horatio has not the highest opinion of my discretion; but he had to humour David, and he would die rather than break his word even to a——” She paused, and significantly tapped her forehead. “Well, well, the poor lad got better at last, and then——Oh, if it were not true no one could have believed it! Maud, his sister (I never could endure her, with her bold black eyes and her proud ways), nothing would serve her but she must marry the very man who all but murdered her own brother! She became Lady Lochore—that was all she cared for! Pride was always eating into her! ‘Proud and haughty scorner is her name, and her proud heart stirreth up strife.’—Proverbs, dear.” “And David?” “David, when he heard the news, fell into the fever again; worse than ever. Many was the night Horatio never came home at all, expecting each morning to be the last! It was a terrible time, but, thank the Lord, he got well, if well it can be called. And then this kind of thing began. He withdrew himself completely, no one was ever admitted. Bindon became a waste and a desert. He cannot forgive, child, and he cannot forget—and that is the long and the short of it! Horatio has secured an honest bailiff for the estate, ’twas all he could avail—but, inside, that rogue Margery Nutmeg reigns supreme! And, upon my soul, if something’s not done, brother Simon and cousin David will be both fit for bedlam before the end of the chapter!” Here the flow of Madam Tutterville’s eloquence was suddenly checked. She sniffed, she snorted; there was a rattle of buckram skirts as of the clank of armour resumed. With finger sternly extended she pointed in the direction of the window—all the gossip in her again sunk in the apostle. Ellinor’s eyes followed the direction of the finger. The casement gave upon a green-hedged path that led from one of the moat-bridges to the courtyards behind the keep. By this path the villagers were admitted to Bindon House. The head of a lame man bobbed fantastically across Ellinor’s line of vision. This apparition was succeeded immediately by that of a fiery shock of hair over which met, in upstanding donkey’s ears, the ends of a red handkerchief folded round an almost equally red expanse of swollen cheek. The silhouette of a girl holding her apron to one eye next flitted past. “In the name of Heaven,” exclaimed Ellinor, “is the whole of Bindon sick this morning? And what brings them to the house?”