However, I shall move along a little faster
now. Next morning I was off to Lochtully, which, as you
know, is in the north of Perthshire. It stands three
miles from the station, a great gray pinnacled house,
with two towers cocking out above the fir woods, like a
hare's ears from a tussock of grass. As we drove up to
the door I felt pretty solemn--not at all as the main
line should do when it condescends to visit the cadet
branch. Into the hall as I entered came a grave learned-
looking man, with whom in my nervousness I was about to
shake hands cordially. Fortunately he forestalled the
impending embrace by explaining that he was the butler.
He showed me into a small study, where everything stank
of varnish and morocco leather, there to await the great
man. He proved when he came to be a much less formidable
figure than his retainer--indeed, I felt thoroughly at my
ease with him from the moment he opened his mouth. He is
grizzled, red-faced, sharp-featured, with a prying and
yet benevolent expression, very human and just a trifle
vulgar. His wife, however, to whom I was afterwards
introduced, is a most depressing person,--pale, cold,
hatchet-faced, with drooping eyelids and very prominent
blue veins at her temples. She froze me up again just as
I was budding out under the influence of her husband.
However, the thing that interested me most of all was to
see my patient, to whose room I was taken by Lord
Saltire after we had had a cup of tea.
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