However, she was pleased with the appearance and manner of the girl, and that was something; for, oddly enough, Mr. Hodson seemed to imagine that he had discovered this remote hamlet, and was responsible for it, and anxious that his daughter should think well of it, and of the people she might meet in it. He called her attention to the scent of the peat; to the neatness with which the joints on the table had been decorated with little paper frills; to the snugness and quiet of the sitting-room; to the spacious character of the views from the windows--one taking in Clebrig and the loch, the other reaching away up to Ben Loyal. All these things he had provided for her, as it were; and it must be said that she was a most excellent travelling-companion, always content, easily interested, never out of humour. So, when he proposed, after luncheon, that they should go along and call on Ronald Strang, she readily consented; no doubt a keeper's dwelling in these wilds would be something curious--perhaps of a wigwam character, and of course filled with all kinds of trophies of his hunting.
Well, they went along to the cottage, and Mr. Hodson knocked lightly on the door. There was no answer. He rapped a little more loudly; then they heard some one within; and presently the door was thrown open, and Ronald stood before them--a book in one hand, a pipe in the other, no jacket covering his shirt-sleeves, and the absence of any necktie showing a little more than was necessary of the firm set of his sun-tanned throat. He had been caught unawares--as his startled eyes proclaimed; in fact, he had been reading _Paradise Regained_, and manfully resisting the temptation to slip on to the gracious melody of _L'Allegro_, and _Il Penseroso_, and _Lycidas_; and when he heard the tapping he fancied it was merely one of the lads come for a chat or the last newspaper, and had made no preparations for the reception of visitors.
'How are you, Ronald?' said Mr. Hodson. 'I have brought my daughter to see you.'
'Will ye step in, sir?' said Ronald hastily, and with a terrible consciousness of his untidy appearance. 'Ay, in there--will ye sit down for a few minutes--and will ye excuse me--I thought you werena coming till to-morrow----'