ad cut one of its hocks. When young Mr.
Ogilvie scrambled out and got on to the pavement, instead of being
grateful that his life had been spared, he was in a towering
passion--with whom or what he knew not.

"Why didn't you jump out?" said Macleod to him, after seeing that the
cabman was all right.

Ogilvie did not answer; he was looking at his besmeared hands and
dishevelled clothes.

"Confound it!" said he; "what's to be done now? The house is just round
the corner."

"Let us go in, and they will lend you a clothesbrush."

"As if I had been fighting a bargee? No, thank you. I will go along till
I find some tavern, and get myself put to rights."

And this he did gloomily, Macleod accompanying him. It was about a
quarter of an hour before he had completed his toilet; and then they set
out to walk back to Prince's Gate. Mr. Ogilvie was in a better humor.

"What a fellow you are to jump, Macleod!" said he. "If you had cannoned
against that policeman you would have killed him. And you never paid the
cabman for destroying the lid of the door; you prized the thing clean
off its hinges. You must have the strength of a giant."

"But where the people came from--it was that surprised me," said
Macleod, who seemed to have rather enjoyed the adventure. "It was like
one of our sea-lochs in the Highlands--you look all round and cannot
find any gull anywhere but throw a biscuit into the water, and you will
find them appearing from all quarters at once. As for the door, I
forgot that; but I gave the man half a sovereign to console him for his
shaking. Was not that enough?"

"We shall be frightfully late for luncheon," said Mr. Ogilvie, with some
concern.

CHAPTER III.

FIONAGHAL.

And, indeed, when they entered the house--the balconies and windows were
a blaze of flowers all shining in the sun--they found that their host
and hostess had already come downstairs, and were seated at table with
their small party of guests. This circumstance did not lessen Sir Keith
Macleod's trepidation; for there is no denying the fact that the young
man would rather have faced an angry bull on a Highland road than this
party of people in the hushed and semi-darkened and flower-scented room.
It seemed to him that his appearance was the signal for a confusion that
was equivalent to an earthquake. Two or three servants--all more solemn
than any clergyman--began to make new arrangements; a tall lady, benign
of aspect, rose and most