He moved from the window out of which he had been gazing with a fondness
that surprised and amused his visitor, and called loudly for Mungo.

In a moment the little retainer was at the door jauntily saluting in his
military manner.

"Hae ye been foraging the day, Mungo?" asked the master indulgently.

"Na, na, there was nae need wi' a commissariat weel provided for
voluntary. Auld Dugald brought in his twa kain hens yesterday; ane's
on the bank and the cauld corp o' the ither o' them's in the pantry.
There's the end o' a hench o' venison frae Strathlachlan, and twa oors
syne, when the tide was oot, there was beef padovies and stoved how-to
wdies, but I gied them to twa gaun-aboot bodies."

They both looked inquiringly at Count Victor.

"I regret the what-do-you-call-it?--the stoved howtowdy," said he,
laughing, "more for the sound of it than for any sense its name conveys
to me."

"There's meat as weel as music in it, as the fox said when he ate the
bagpipes," said Mungo.

"There's waur nor howtowdy. And oh! I forgot the het victual, there's
jugged hare."

"Is the hare ready?" asked the Baron suspiciously.

"It's no jist a'thegether what ye micht ca' ready," answered Mungo
without hesitation; "but it can be here het in nae time, and micht agree
wi' the Count better nor the cauld fowl."

"Tell Annapla to do the best she can," broke in the Baron on his
servant's cheerful garrulity; and Mungo with another salute disappeared.

"How do your women-folk like the seclusion of Doom?" asked Count Victor,
to make conversation while the refection was in preparation. "With the
sea about you so, and the gang of my marauding obese friend in the wood
behind, I should think you had little difficulty in keeping them under
your eye."

The Baron was obviously confused. "Mungo's quite enough to keep his eye
on Annapla," said he. "He has the heart and fancy to command a garrison;
there's a drum forever beating in his head, a whistle aye fifing in his
lug, and he will amuse you with his conceits of soldiering ancient and
modern, a trade he thinks the more of because Heaven made him so unfit
to become 'prentice to it. Good Mungo! There have been worse men; indeed
what need I grudge admitting there have been few better? He has seen
this place more bien than it is to-day in my father's time, and in
my own too before the law-pleas ate us up; you will excuse his Scots
freedom of speech, Count, he--"

A shot rang outside in some