"Elijah?"
"That's it," replied Kitty. "_Just_ like Elijah." (All things
considered, I cannot imagine why Moses would not have done as well.)
"Then beside him was a perfectly dear old lady. Not so very old either;
say sixty. Of course they may not have belonged to Sir James at all: he
may just have been put in their pew. Still, they kept handing him
Bibles, and looking up places for him at singing time."
"That means nothing," said I. "It's the merest courtesy here."
"True," said our hostess. "I was having a most lovely little doze during
the Second Lesson, or whatever they call it, when a most officious young
woman three or four pews away took up an enormous Bible, found the
place, squeaked down the aisle, and thrust it under my nose. I had to
hold it up for fifty-seven verses," she concluded pathetically.
"Did you go and speak to Sir James after the service?" I inquired.
"No. That was _this_ child's fault," said Kitty, indicating Miss Buncle.
"How?"
"Well, there was a rather gorgeous-looking chieftain sort of person
sitting in a front pew, and I saw Maimie twisting her head all during
the service to look at him."
"Yes," admitted the culprit frankly. "Put me in the neighbourhood of a
kilt, and I'm a common rubberneck straight away, Mr Inglethwaite. I'm
just mad to know all those cunning tartans by heart."
"The moment the service was over," continued my wife severely, "I saw
her edging through the crowd in the churchyard towards the chieftain.
For a moment I thought she was going to ask him his name."
"I _wasn't_!" declared Miss Buncle indignantly.
"No, you did worse. She got close to the unfortunate man," continued my
wife to us, "and suddenly I noticed that she had in her hand one of
those little books you buy at railway book-stalls in the Highlands, with
patterns of all the tartans in them and the name of the clan underneath.
By the time I got up to her she had found the right tartan in the book,
and was matching it up against the back of the poor unconscious
creature's kilt. Then she turned to me in a triumphant sort of way and
simply _bellowed_--'M'Farlane!'"
"We shall probably be hauled up before the Kirk-session," said the
Admiral. "But I wonder who Sir James Fordyce's friends can be. I know
most of the people who have shootings about here, but none of them are
friends of his that I can think of. We must get him to come and shoot
here one day. Rather late for to-morrow's drive, but there will be
another on Thursday. I wonder who his host is, though?"
"I might help you," said Robin. "An old man, you said, with his wife?"
"Yes--oldish," said Kitty.
"Was there a son with them?"
"N-no."
"No? Well, he would be away at the lamb-sales, perhaps," said Robin
reflectively. "Was there a daughter?"
"Now you mention it," said Kitty, "there was. A nice, bonny-looking
girl. Twenty-four, I should say."
"Twenty-three," said Robin.
We all turned on him.
"Now then, what is all the mystery? Out with it! Who is the girl--eh?"
"She would be my sister," said Robin calmly. "And the others were my
father and mother."