the summer noon
`` And do you say that is how I have been able to buy my house at Greenock , '' said Colin Laing , angrily , `` with a garden , and a boathouse , too ? '' `` I do not know about that , '' said Hamish ; and then he called out some order to one of the men . Macleod was at this moment down in the saloon , seated at the table , with a letter enclosed and addressed lying before him . But surely this was not the same man who had been in these still waters of the Thames in the by-gone days -- with gay companions around him , and the band playing `` A Highland Lad my Love was born , '' and a beautiful-eyed girl , whom he called Rose-leaf , talking to him in the quiet of the summer noon . This man had a look in his eyes like that of an animal that has been hunted to death , and is fain to lie down and give itself up to its pursuers in the despair of utter fatigue . He was looking at this letter . The composition of it had cost him only a whole night 's agony .