In half an
hour, the good lady started on foot for Duff Harbour. It was already
growing dark; but there was one feeling Miss Horn had certainly
been created without, and that was fear.
As she approached her destination, tramping eagerly along, in
a half cloudy, half starlit night, with a damp east wind blowing
cold from the German Ocean, she was startled by the swift rush of
something dark across the road before her. It came out of a small
wood on the left towards the sea, and bolted through a hedge on
the right.
"Is that you, laird?" she cried; but there came no answer.
She walked straight to the house of her lawyer friend, and, after
an hour's rest, the same night set out again for Portlossie, which
she reached in safety by her bedtime.
Lord Lossie was very accessible. Like Shakspere's Prince Hal, he
was so much interested in the varieties of the outcome of human
character, that he would not willingly lose a chance of seeing
"more man." If the individual proved a bore, he would get rid of
him without remorse; if amusing, he would contrive to prolong the
interview. There was a great deal of undeveloped humanity somewhere
in his lordship, one of whose indications was this spectacular
interest in his kind. As to their bygone history, how they fared
out of his sight, or what might become of them, he never gave
a thought to anything of the kind--never felt the pull of one
of the bonds of brotherhood, laughed at them the moment they were
gone, or, if a woman's story had touched him, wiped his eyes with
an oath, and thought himself too good a fellow for this world.
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