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Red Rowans

by Flora Annie Webster Steel · English · Gutenberg #40141 · 707,048 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Red Rowans

Author: Flora Annie Webster Steel


        
Release date: July 4, 2012 [eBook #40141]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED ROWANS ***

Transcriber's Notes:

   1. Page scan source:
      http://books.google.com/books?id=N48nAAAAMAAJ
      (New York Public Library)

   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].






                              RED ROWANS






                              RED ROWANS




                                  BY

                           MRS. F. A. STEEL

                AUTHOR OF "MISS STUART'S LEGACY," ETC.





                               New York
                          MACMILLAN AND CO.
                              AND LONDON
                                 1895
                        _All rights reserved_






                           Copyright, 1894,
                         By MACMILLAN AND CO.






                      RED ROWANS: A LOVE STORY.




                              PROLOGUE.

             "Love took up the Harp of Life and
              .... smote the Chord of Self."


"Am I really like yon?"

A small brown hand pointed peremptorily to a finished drawing on a
sketcher's easel hard by, and a pair of blue eyes frowned somewhat
imperiously at a young man, who, with one knee on the ground, was
busily searching in the long grass for a missing brush, while palette
and colours lay beside him ready to be packed up. The frown, however,
was lost on the back of his head, for he gave a decisive denial,
without turning round to look at the questioner.

The girl's eyes shifted once more to the drawing, and an odd, wistful
curiosity came to her face as she took a step nearer to the easel.
What she saw there was really rather a clever study of herself as she
had been standing a few moments before, erect, yet with a kind of
caress towards the branch full of scarlet rowan berries, which one
round firm arm bent down from the tree above, against her glowing
face. There was a certain strength in the treatment; the artist had
caught something of the glorious richness of colouring in the figure
and its background, but the subject had been too much for him, and he
admitted it frankly. In truth, it would have needed a great painter to
have done Jeanie Duncan justice as she stood under the rowan tree that
autumn evening, and Paul Macleod was at best but a dabbler in art.
Still, it was a truthful likeness, though the nameless charm which
belongs to one face and not to another of equal beauty of form--in
other words, the mysterious power of attraction--had escaped pencil
and brush. There was nothing spiritual in this charm; it was
simply the power which physical beauty has sometimes to move the
imagination--almost the spiritual nature of men; and, such as it was,
it breathed from every curve of Jeanie Duncan's face and form. She was
very young, not more than seventeen at the most, and, as yet, in that
remote Highland glen, where every girl, regardless of her appearance,
had a jo, the pre-eminence of her own good looks had never dawned upon
her. So there was no mock humility in the words which followed on
rather a long pause.

"I'll no be sae bonnie, I'm thinking."

Something in her tone struck through even her companion's absorption;
for Paul Macleod was given to forgetting his world over trivialities.
He looked up sharply, rose hastily, stepped across to where she stood,
and laid his hand on her shoulder in easy familiarity.

"Why, Jeanie, what's the matter now?"

She moved away impatiently from his touch, and, as if from habit, her
arm, showing white under the russet bedgown she wore, went up to the
branch above her head. And there she stood once more with the ripe red
berries against her ripe red lips.

"I'm sayin' I'll no be sae bonnie as yon."

"Your eyes are not quite so blue, certainly; your cheeks not quite so
pink, your hair not quite so golden, nor your----"

"That's enough, sir; ye needn't fash yourself more. I'm no for sale by
public roup. I was sayin' myself that I'll no be near sae bonnie as
yon."

The rowan berries were being viciously stripped from their stems, and
allowed to fall in a defiant patter on the ground; yet there were
audible tears in the young voice.

"You little goose! I didn't know you were so vain, Jeanie," he began.

"I'm no vain," she interrupted, sharply. "It's no that, Mr. Paul. I
dinna care--at least no much--but if a lassie's bonnie----" she paused
suddenly and let the branch go. It swung back, sending a red shower of
overripe berries pattering round the girl and the man.

"Well, Jeanie! If a lassie's bonnie?" repeated Paul Macleod, watching
the rapid changes in her vivid face with amused admiration; "if a
lassie's bonnie, what happens?"

She confronted him with a certain dignity new to his experience of
her.

"Ye ken fine, Mr. Paul, the difference it makes to a lassie if she is
real bonnie. Wasn't it yourself was lilting the 'Beggar-Maid' at me
the morn?"

"Gracious Heavens, Jeanie! Ambitious as well! On which of the crowned
heads of Europe have you set your young affections? Tell me, that I
may kill him!"

His arm slipped easily to her waist, and he bent to look in the face
which fell as it were before his touch. Yet it was paler than it had
been; for Jeanie Duncan neither giggled nor blushed.

"It's no matter where I set my heart," she said, curtly, "when I'm no
bonnie."

"Who said so? Not I," he remarked, coolly.

"You said my eyes were no sae blue, my lips no sae red, my hair----"

"Thank heaven they're not! Why, Jeanie! You must surely know that you
are a thousand times more beautiful than that--that chromo-lithograph
over there, which is only fit for a second-class Christmas number or
an undergraduate's room!"

She withdrew herself from his arm, looking at him doubtfully, ready to
flare up in an instant.

"You're no pokin' fun at me?"

"Poking fun! Why"--his voice deepened suddenly, he stretched his hand
towards her again--"you are simply the most beautiful woman I have
ever seen."

There was no mistaking the ring of reality in his tone, and yet there
was nothing emotional about it. He seemed to be asserting the fact as
much for his own benefit as for hers; and she also was lost in
herself, in her own eagerness, as she looked again at the portrait.

"But it's real bonnie, Mr. Paul! Will it be as bonnie as the
Beggar-Maid?"

"Still harping upon kings!" he said, coming back to her lightly. "Take
my advice, Jeanie, and be content with commoners."

"But if I'm no content?"

"Uneasy lies the head! Don't you remember my reading that to you the
other day?"

She flashed round on him in an instant, superb in her quick response,
her quick resentment.

"I mind mony a thing ye've read, mony a thing ye've said, mony a thing
ye've done. I've a deal to mind; too much, may be."

It came as a shock to Paul Macleod. For his heart had, as yet, an
uncomfortable knack of acknowledging the truth. His head, however,
came to the rescue as usual, by swift denial that those long days
spent in painting Jeanie's portrait under the rowan tree were hardly
wise.

"One can't have too much of a good thing, and it has been pleasant,
hasn't it?"

"Mither says it's bin a sair waste o' time," replied the girl,
evasively.

"I haven't wasted mine," retorted the young man airily. "Just look at
that masterpiece! And I've been as good as a quarter's schooling to
you, little one; think of the information I've imparted to my model,
the books I've lent, the--the things I've taught----"

"Aye. You've taught me a deal. I ken that fine."

He gave an impatient toss of his head as he turned away to pack up his
belongings; the girl helping him silently as if accustomed to the
task.

Not a soul was in sight, though a wreath of blue peat smoke behind a
neighbouring clump of firs showed the near presence of a cottage. Save
for this one sign there was no trace of humanity in the scene except
those two in the foreground; both in their way types of youth, health,
and beauty--of physical nature at its best. But the solitude was not
silent. A breeze coming up with sunsetting rustled the rowan leaves,
and surged among the silver firs, in echo, as it were, to the long
hush of distant breakers on a rocky shore which came rhythmically to
mingle with the nearer rush of the burns streaking the hillside; while
far and near the air was filled with the wailing cry of lambs newly
separated from the ewes; most melancholy and depressing of all sounds,
especially when the sadness of coming night settles over earth and
sky, sending the shadows to creep up the hillsides and drive the
sunshine before their purple battalions. A veritable battle, this, of
assault and defence; each point of vantage, each knoll held by the
besieged until, surrounded by the enemy, the sunlight dies by inches,
gallantly, hopelessly, and the struggle begins again higher up.

The girl and boy--for Paul Macleod was still in the early
twenties--felt oppressed by their surroundings, and after the manner
of youthful humanity they resented a feeling which had no foundation
in themselves. Were they not happy, alive to the uttermost, ready to
face the unknown, eager for the experience which the world seemed to
find so dreary? Why should they be saddened by things which were not
as _they_ were; which had had their day, or did not care to have it?

"Come with me as far as the gate, Jeanie," he said, impatiently. "Ah!
I know you don't generally, but you might to-day. Then you can lock
it. If any of old Mackenzie's lambs were to get through to their
mothers he would lay the blame on you."

"Why not to you, Mr. Paul?"

He laughed rather contemptuously. "Because the road leads to your
croft, not mine; besides, no one ever lays blame to me. I never get
into trouble, somehow. I have all the luck that way, it seems, while
my brother--who is really no worse, I suppose--is always in hot water.
I never saw such a fellow."

"They're saying," began Jeanie--half to cover the fact that she had
taken the first step down the sheep track--"that the laird----" she
stopped abruptly and looked furtively at her companion.

"You may as well tell me what they are saying, Jeanie," he remarked,
coolly. "You always have to in the end, you know, and so there is no
use in making a fuss."

She was not a girl to be at every one's command, but sooner or later
most women find it pleasant to be under orders, for a time, at any
rate; doubtless as the result of that past slavery of which we hear so
much nowadays. The feeling will be eradicated in the next generation
or so, but it must be allowed for in this.

"They're sayin' Gleneira will have to sell the place, and"--she looked
at the face beside her critically, as if to judge how far she might
go--"they're sayin' it's a pity you were no the laird, Mr. Paul, for
you love every stick and stone about, and he is never coming near it
at all, at all."

The young man walked on in silence.

"Did ye know that I've never seen the laird, Mr. Paul, though me an'
mither has lived at the croft since I can mind anything; but, then,
she is no going down the strath, and he is no carin' for the fishin',
as you are; you're knowin' every stone in the river, I'm thinkin'."

He turned to her with a quick laugh as if to dismiss the subject. "And
every face beside it; for I like pretty things, and some of them are
pretty. I'll tell you what it is, Jeanie, Gleneira's the most
beautiful place I ever saw; and you are the most beautiful girl in it.
Beggar-Maids haven't a chance, so I shall expect to be invited to your
nuptials with King Cophetua; a poor laird's Jock like myself can't
compete with a crowned head." The bitterness of his tone had more to
do with the prospect of having to let Gleneira go, than to the
manifest difficulty of appropriating Jeanie Duncan without offending
his head or her heart.

"There's better worth having than crowns, maybe," said the girl,
doggedly.

"Right! crowned heads may be penniless; let us say an old monarch wi'
siller."

"There's better worth having than siller, maybe."

Paul looked at her curiously. Apparently it was not for nothing that
he had amused his sitter by reciting the almost endless repertoire of
old ballads and songs in which he had taken delight since his earliest
boyhood. For it was part of his rather complex nature that he should
admire the romance and sentiment in which, with the easily adopted
cynicism of a clever lad, he professed to disbelieve. It suited him as
a refuge from himself; and yet the fact that Jeanie Duncan had
accepted this admiration as a proof of eternal truth did not displease
him.

"Better worth than siller!" he echoed, wilfully provoking the answer
which he knew would come. "Why! there is nothing better worth than
siller--in the end."

"Aye, there is," she put in confidently, "there's love. You've tell't
me the sang, many a time;--It's love that gar's the world gang round."

Was it? They stood at the gate together, she holding it open for him
to pass, and the question came upon him suddenly. The old question
which comes to most men. Was it worth it? Should he, or should he not,
go the commonplace way of the world, and take what he could get? Yes,
if he could take it without bringing something into his life for ever,
which in all human probability he would not care to keep--_for ever_.
Even memory was a tie; and yet--his heart beat quicker, and the
knowledge that passion was beginning to disturb the balance of his
reason came home to him, bringing with it the same quick denial with
which he had met his own doubt as to the wisdom of the past. It was
his way of defending the emotional side of his nature.

"Take care, Jeanie!" he said, seizing on the first commonplace detail
which met his eye, "that gate is newly tarred; you'll dirty your
hands."

For the first time the girl challenged him deliberately.

"I'm no carin'," she said defiantly, "my hands is used to dirt. I'm
not like you. It'll no hurt me."

She closed the gate behind him sturdily, fastening the padlock, and
then without another word turned to go. In so doing she roused in an
instant all his obstinacy, all the imperious contrariety which would
not tolerate the decision of another, even though it tallied with his
own.

"Are you going without saying good-bye, Jeanie? That's rude," he
began, stretching his hand over the gate, and once more wilfully
provoking a situation. "Nonsense! The least you can do is to shake
hands, and say thank you for all the benefits----"

He paused, and the next instant had vaulted over the gate and was
kissing away her tears and calling everything to witness that he had
not meant to be unkind, that she was the dearest little girl in
creation. Both of which assertions were absolutely true to him at the
time; she had looked too bewilderingly sweet in her sudden burst of
grief for prudence.

For the next half-hour, if there be another motive power besides Love
behind the veiled mystery of Life bidding the world go round, these
two young people did not trouble themselves about it. The descending
mists crept down to meet the shadows, the shadows crept up to meet the
mists, but sea and sky and land were full of light for the boy and
girl absorbed in the vast selfishness of passion. So lost in the
glamour with which the great snare for youth and freedom is gilded,
that neither of them thought at all of the probable ending to such a
fair beginning. Jeanie, because to her this new emotion was something
divine; Paul, because her estimate of it aided a certain
fastidiousness which, in the absence of better motives, had served
hitherto to keep him fairly straight. So, in a measure, the idyllic
beauty of the position as they sate, side by side on a lichen-covered
stone looking into each other's eyes, and supremely satisfied with
each other's appearance, served to make Paul Macleod's professions
more passionate than they would have been had she been less innocent.

It was not until with a wrench he had acknowledged that it really was
time for her to be going home, and he was striding down the road
alone, that a chill came over him with the question--

"_Que diable allait il faire dans cette galere?_"

It was one which, like a floating log after the rapids are past,
always came to the surface of Paul Macleod's life when the turmoil of
emotion was over. This time it brought an unpleasant surprise with it,
for to tell truth he had imagined himself secure against assault. He
had considered the situation calmly; had, so to speak, played with it,
asserting his power of evading its natural consequences if he chose,
of accepting them if he considered it worth while. And now, with his
heart still beating, his face still flushed, and with Jeanie's kisses
still tingling on his lips, it was no use denying that he had been
taken by storm. And it annoyed him. Suddenly the thought that it was
just the sort of scrape his brother would have fallen into came to
enhance the odd contempt which Paul Macleod's head always had for his
heart. The certainty, however, that he shared that brother's extremely
emotional nature was so unwelcome that it served for a time to
strengthen him in denial of his own weakness of will. After all,
impulse was the essence of passion. Had he not, recognising this,
voluntarily bade reason and prudence step aside. Would not any man
have been a fool to think twice of the future with Jeanie Duncan's
face ready to be kissed? It was worth something; in a way it was worth
all the rest of the world put together. So the serio-comedy might have
ended as such serio-comedies usually do but for the merest triviality;
nothing more nor less than the perception that he had tarred his hands
in vaulting over the gate! The offending stains sobered him, as no
advice, no reasoning, no reproof, could have done. To begin with,
there was no possibility of denying to himself that, be Love what it
may, he, Paul Macleod, would never in a calm moment of volition have
dirtied his hands in that fashion. He hated to be touched or soiled by
common things, without, as it were, a "by your leave." Then there was
a prophetic tinge in the consequences of his setting barriers at
defiance which appealed to his imagination. After all, would it be
worth while to carry about for the rest of your life an indelible mark
of a past pleasure, which could scarcely fail to become a disagreeable
reminiscence, no matter what was the _denouement_ of the present
situation? Marriage? Hardly that. Not only was he too poor to marry
for love, but was it by any means certain that such love as this was
worth the sacrifice of freedom. On the other hand, the only possible
alternative was, to begin with, such shocking bad form. The Macleods
of Gleneira had always kept straight in Gleneira itself. Besides, if
he harmed the girl in any way, he knew perfectly well that the regret
would be a tie to him all his life. That was the worst of having an
imagination. Other men might do it; he could not, if only for his own
sake. Then there was Jeanie, to think of poor little Jeanie, who
didn't even grasp the fact that she was in danger--who would----

Ah! Was it worth while? The question came back insistently, as, with a
plentiful supply of the salt butter recommended by the housekeeper at
Gleneira, he tried to get rid of the tar. He was no milksop, though he
liked delicate surroundings, and found a certain refinement necessary
to his comfort, but, if he had no objections to soiling his hands in
obedience to his own sovereign will and pleasure, he was always eager
to have them clean again. And so it was with his life.

Poor little Jeanie Duncan! She in her innocent self-abandonment would
have welcomed anything which would have marked her as his indelibly.
And yet a real regard for her prompted his calculations. If he had
held her cheaper he would not have dreaded the remorse which would be
a tie to him all his life. It never occurred to him that this
squeamishness had come too late, or that the fine-weather flirtation
had in itself done the mischief; that the injury to an innocent girl
lies in the mind only.

"Tell Donald that I shall want the light cart at five to-morrow
morning. I have to catch the Oban steamer," he said to the astonished
housekeeper as he sate down to his solitary dinner; for he had come to
Gleneira with the intention of spending long-leave in pottering about
the old place with gun and rod.

So while Jeanie Duncan slept the sleep of perfect content, her lover
drove past the cottage in the grey mist of a rainy autumn morning
feeling intensely virtuous; and all the more so because his heart
really ached, even at the sight of the tarred gate. And no doubt
nine-tenths of the men he knew would have applauded his resolution in
running away, patted him on the back, told him he was a very fine
fellow, and said that but for his self-control the affair might have
ended miserably. Perhaps they would have been right; though, as a
matter of fact, Paul Macleod was running away from the natural
consequence of his own actions.

Jeanie Duncan read his note of farewell with a scared white face. It
was gentle, regretful, kindly, and it killed her belief in Love for
ever. And unfortunately Love had not come to her in its sensual guise.
It had represented to her all the Truth, and Goodness, and Beauty in
the world. So she lost a good deal; and naturally enough a great
restlessness and desire for something to fill the empty space took
possession of her. Finally, when Spring drew on, and the first broods
were trying their wings, she--to use the phrase adopted by those who
tired of life in the remote glens--"thought of service in Glasgow."
Vague euphemism for much seeing of that unseen world beyond the hills.

But while Paul Macleod in his travels carried with him the
consciousness of virtue, she had for memory the knowledge that she had
been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Two very different legacies from the same past.




                              CHAPTER I.


Within the long, low cottage the black smoke-polished rafters rose in
inky darkness above the rough whitewashed walls, and the mud floor
showed the traces of past leaks in many a hill and hollow. The two
tiny windows were set breathlessly agape, and through the open door a
flood of hot bright sunshine threw a bar of mote-speckled light across
the room, gilding the heads of the scholars who sat swinging their
legs on the benches and sending a sort of reflected glint from the
white wall up into the sombre shadow of the roof. Such was the
Episcopal Grant-in-Aid School of Gleneira one July day, some ten years
after Paul Macleod had driven down in the mist to catch the Oban
steamer.

Without, was a pale, heat-blanched sky set in tall spectral-looking
hills which had lost contour and individuality in a haze, blending
rock and heather, grass and fern, hollows and heights, into one
uniform tint of transparent blue. Between the mountains there was a
little level growth of green corn flecked by yellow marigolds, white
ox-eyes, and scarlet poppies; then a stretch of dusty road, ending in
cool shadows of sycamore and pine, beside the school-house garden.

A wonderful garden this. Of Liliputian size, yet holding in its tiny
clasp a specimen of almost every plant that grows and blows. Three
potato haulms, four cabbages, a dozen onions, half a yard of peas; a
tuft of parsley, two bronze-leaved beet-roots, a head of celery. This,
flanked by a raspberry cane, a gooseberry bush, and supported by an
edge of strawberry plants, constituted the kitchen garden. Beyond, in
the trim box-edged border leading to the school-house door, were
pansies, roses, geraniums, lilies, and peonies; every conceivable
flower, each family represented by one solitary scion. Last, not
least, the quaint drops of the Dielytra; which the children with
awestruck voices call "The Bishop." For when you strip away the pink,
sheathing petals, is there not inside a man in full white lawn
sleeves? And is not a man in lawn sleeves a disturbing element in a
remote Highland glen, where half the people are rigid Presbyterians?
Here in this little garden the bees hum lazily and the butterflies
come and go; sometimes one, misled by the stream of sunshine pouring
through the open door, floats in among the yawning scholars, rousing
them to momentary alertness and a faint wonder as to the ultimate fate
of the wanderer; whether he will philosophically give up the
enterprise or, foolishly persistent, lose himself amid the
smoke-blackened rafters.

The passing interest, however, dies down again into the sleepy stolid
indifference which is the outward and visible sign of that inward
desire for freedom felt by each child in the school. No keen longing,
but simply a dull wish to be out on the hillside, down by the burn,
under the trees; anywhere away from catechisms, collects, or shoes and
stockings. The last being the worst infliction of all to these wild
little Highland colts accustomed for six days of the week to bare
feet, since the coarse knitted hose and hobnailed boots belonging to
the seventh are a direful aggravation of the tortures of Sunday
school; while even the glorious gentility bestowed by a pair of side
springs is but poor compensation for the discomfort to the wearer.

Perhaps that was the reason why each pair of legs on the benches
swayed helplessly to the rhythm of a singularly unmelodious hymn which
the scholars were singing, led by the master in a muffled nasal chant.
The tune itself was old and quaint, having in its recurring semitones
a barbaric monotony which a lighter phrase here and there showed was
not so much due to the composition in itself as to its present
interpreter. The words were still more quaint, forming a sort of
Litany of the Prophets, with innumerable verses and many vain
repetitions.

Nevertheless, it was an evident favourite with the children; partly,
it may be hoped, from its own intrinsic merits, mostly, it is to be
feared, from the startling novelties in Scripture history which it was
capable of promulgating when, as in the present case, the schoolmaster
was engaged in his secondary profession of postmaster.

As the tune rose and fell, there came every now and again a pause, so
sudden, so absolute that a passer-by on the dusty road might well have
asked himself if some direful catastrophe had not occurred. Nothing of
the sort. A glance within would have shown him everything at its
usual; the scholars in rows, from the kilted urchin of four--guiltless
of English--to whom school is the art of sitting still, to the girl of
fourteen, blissfully conscious of a new silk handkerchief and the
admiration it excites in the bashful herd-boy on the opposite bench.
In the corner, at a table with a slanting desk, the master was busy
sorting the letters which Donald Post, as he is called, has just
brought in; the latter meanwhile mopping his hot face and disburdening
his bag of minor matters in the shape of tea, sugar, and bread, and
himself of the budget of news he has accumulated during his
fourteen-mile walk; in an undertone, however, for the hymn goes on.

"_Whair is noo' the pro-phet Dan'l?_" droned the master, followed by a
wavering choir of childish trebles and gruff hobbledehoy voices,
"_Whair is noo' the pro-phet Dan'l?_"

The exigencies of the tune necessitated a repetition of the momentous
question again and yet again, the tune dying away into a pause, during
which the master's attention wandered to a novel superscription on a
letter. The children held their breath, the hum of the bees outside
became audible, all nature seemed in suspense awaiting the answer.

"I'm thinking it will be from Ameriky," hazarded the master
thoughtfully to Donald Post, and, the solution seeming satisfactory,
he returned with increased energy to the triumphant refrain

"_Safe intil the Pro-mised Land_."

The children caught it up _con amore_ with a vague feeling of relief.
A terrible thing indeed, to Presbyterians or Episcopalians alike, if
the Prophet Daniel had been left hanging between heaven and another
place! So great a relief, that the gay progress of the tune and the
saint was barely marred by the master's renewed interest in a
postcard; which distraction led him into making an unwarrantable
statement that--

"_He went up in a fiery char-yot_."

True, the elder pupils tittered a little over the assertion, but the
young ones piped away contentedly, vociferously. The Promised Land
once attained, the means were necessarily quite a secondary
consideration; and mayhap to their simple imaginings a fiery chariot
was preferable to the den of lions.

"_Where is noo' the twal A-postles?_" led off the master again, after
a whispered remark to Donald Post, which provoked so interesting a
reply that the fate of the twelve remained trembling in the balance
long enough for the old refrain to startle the scholars from growing
inattention.

"_Safe intil the Promised Land_."

The sound echoed up into the rafters. Truly a blessed relief to reach
the haven after delays and difficulties.

"_They went through_"--began the master. But whether in orthodox
fashion it would have been "_great tri-bu-la-tion_," or whether, on
the principle of compensation, the den of lions would have been
allowed twelve saints, will never be known. The mote-speckled beam of
sunshine through the door was darkened by a slight girlish figure, the
children hustled to their feet with much clatter of the unaccustomed
boots and shoes, and the schoolmaster, drowning his last nasal note
under a guilty cough, busied himself over a registered letter. For
Miss Marjory Carmichael objected on principle to the Litany of the
Prophets.

The rather imperious frown, struggling with an equally obstinate smile
which showed on the newcomer's face, vanished at the sight of Donald
Post.

"Any for me?" she asked eagerly. It was a charming voice, full of
interest and totally devoid of anxiety. An acute ear would have told
at once that life had as yet brought nothing to the speaker which
would make post-time a delight or a dread. She had for instance no
right to expect a love-letter or a dun; and her eagerness was but the
desire of youth for something new, her expectancy only the girlish
belief in something which must surely come with the coming years. For
the rest, a winsome young lady with a pair of honest hazel eyes and
honest walking boots.

"'Deed no, Miss Marjory," replied the schoolmaster, selecting a thin
envelope and holding it up shamelessly to the light--a bold stroke to
divert attention from the greater offence of the hymn, "Forbye ain wi'
the Glasky post-mark that will just be ain o' they weary circulars,
for as ye may see for yoursel', Miss Marjory, the inside o't's
leethographed."

"Thank you, Mr. McColl," said the girl, severely, as she took the
letter, "but if you have no objection I should prefer finding out its
contents in a more straightforward fashion."

"Surely! Surely!" Mr. McColl, having got a little more than he
expected, gave another exculpatory cough, and looked round to Donald
Post for moral support. Perhaps from a sense that he often needed a
like kindness, this was an appeal which the latter never refused, and
if he could not draw upon real reminiscence for a remark or anecdote
bearing on the point, he never had any hesitation in giving an
I. O. U. on fancy and so confounding his creditors. On the present
occasion, however, he was taken at a disadvantage, being engaged in
trying to conceal from Marjory's uncompromising eyes a bottle of
whiskey which formed a contraband item in his bag; consequently he had
only got as far as a preliminary murmur that "there wass a good mony
wass liking to be reading their ain letters but that it was James
Macniven"--when the schoolmaster plucked up courage for further
defence.

"Aye! Aye! 'tis but natur'l to sinfu' man to be liking his ain. Not
that they circulars interestin' readin', even if a body is just set on
learnin' like Miss Marjory. And I'm thinkin' it will only be from a
wine mairchant likely. It's extraordinair' the number of circulars
they'll be sending out; but the whiskey is a' the same. Bad, filthy
stuff, what will give parral--y--ses to them that drinks it."

This second bid for favour, accompanied as it was by an unfortunate
glance for support at Donald--who was struggling unsuccessfully with
the neck of the black bottle--proved too much for Marjory's dignity,
and the consequent smile encouraged Mr. McColl to go on, oblivious
apparently of his last remark.

"And it's whiskey we shall all be wanting, and plenty of it, to drink
the young laird's health. But I was forgetting you could scarcely have
heard the news, Miss Marjory, since it is only coming in the post just
now. It is the laird, Miss Marjory, that is to be home to-morrow by
the boat!"

The girl forgot an incipient frown in sheer surprise. "Here! Captain
Macleod?"

"Aye! it's the machine is to meet him at the ferry, the light cart for
his traps, and the house to be ready." In his desire for importance
Mr. McColl in the last words had given himself away completely, for
Marjory lived at Gleneira Lodge with her cousin, the factor.

"The house to be got ready! Impossible! Mrs. Cameron had heard nothing
when I came out. Where did the news come from?" Marjory's voice,
especially to those who knew and loved her, as these good folks did,
never admitted of refusal, so the postmaster coughed again between the
thumps of the office stamp, which he had begun to use in a hurry.

"It will be Mistress Macniven that was telling Donald Post, and Donald
Post he will be telling it to me." The words came in a sort of
sing-song, echoed by Donald himself in a croon of conviction.

"Hou-ay! it was Mistress Macniven wass tellin' it to me, and it iss me
that iss tellin' it to Mr. McColl, and it is fine news--tamn me, but
it is fine news whatever."

A twinkle came to Marjory's eyes, for in her character of Grand
Inquisitress to the Glen, such startling language was too evidently a
drag across the trail.

"But where did Mrs. Macniven hear it?"

"Aye! aye!" assented Donald, rising to go abruptly, "that is what it
will be, but she was tellin' it to me, whatever."

"I don't believe a word of it," continued the girl; "Captain Macleod
would have written to my cousin, I know. It is just idle gossip."

This was too much for the postmaster, who posed, as well as he might,
for being an authority on such questions. In the present instance he
preferred the truth to incredulity.

'"Deed, Miss Marjory," he said, with unblushing effrontery, "it'll
just be one o' they postcards."

"Hou-ay!" echoed Donald, softly. "She'll be yon o' they postcards,
whatever."

"A postcard! What postcard?"

Mr. McColl handed her one with the air of a man who has done his duty.
"Will you be taking it with you, or shall I be giving it to Donald,
here?"

Marjory looked at him with speechless indignation; at least, she
trusted that was her expression, though the keen sense of humour,
which is the natural heritage of the Celt, struggled with her dignity
at first.

"I am really ashamed of you, Mr. McColl," she said at last, with
becoming severity. "Of you and Mrs. Macniven; you ought to know better
than pry into other folks' secrets."

But now that the cat was out of the bag, the postmaster showed fight.
"'Deed, and I'm no for seeing it was a secret at all! It is a penny
people will be paying if they're needin' secrets. And the laird is not
so poor, but he would put a penny to it if he was caring; though yon
crabbed writin' they teach the gentlefolk nowadays, is as most as gude
as an envelope. Lorsh me! Miss Marjory, but my laddies would be
gettin' tawse for a postcard like yon. It was just awful ill to read."

"To read! Mr. McColl, I really am surprised at you! It is most
dishonourable to read other people's letters," protested the girl,
with great heat.

"Surely! Surely! but yon's a postcard."

From this position he refused to budge an inch, being backed up in it
by Donald, who, being unable to read, was busy in stowing away various
letters in different hiding-places in his person, with a view to their
future safe delivery at the proper destination. "It was a ferry useful
thing," he said, "was postcards, and if Miss Marjory would mind it
wass, when old Mistress Macgregor died her sons wass sending to Oban
for the whiskey to come by the ferry. But it wass the day before the
buryin' that a postcard wass coming to say the whiskey was to be at
the pier. But young Peter's cart wass going to the ferry to fetch the
whiskey and he was meeting Peter and telling him of the postcard. So
if it had not been for the postcaird it wass no whiskey they would be
having to Mistress Macgregor's funeral, whatever." A judicious
mingling of fact and fiction which outlasted Marjory's wrath. She put
the cause of offence in her pocket, remarking pointedly that as Donald
had such a budget of important news to retail, that would most likely
be the quickest mode of delivery, and then turned to her task of
giving the children their usual Sunday lesson, which she began with
such a detailed homily on the duty towards your neighbour, that Mr.
McColl took the excuse of Donald's departure to accompany him into the
garden, and remain there until she passed on to another subject.

For Marjory Carmichael ruled the Glen absolutely; perhaps because she
was the only young lady in it. Girls there were and plenty, but none
in her own class of life, and the result on her character had been to
make her at once confident and unconscious of her own powers. She was
not, for instance, at all aware what a very learned young person she
was, and the fact that she had been taught the differential calculus
and the theory of Greek accents affected her no more than it affects
the average young man of one-and-twenty. The consequence being a
restfulness which, as a rule, is sadly wanting in the clever girls of
the period, who never can forget their own superiority to the mass of
their female relations. Having been brought up entirely among men, her
strongest characteristic was not unnaturally an emotional reserve, and
up to the present her life had been pre-eminently favourable to the
preservation of that bloom which is as great a charm to a girl as it
is to a flower, and which morbid self-introspection utterly destroys.
To tell the truth, however, she was apt to be over contemptuous of
gush, while her hatred of scenes was quite masculine. In fact, at
one-and-twenty, Marjory knew more about her head than her heart,
chiefly because, as yet, the call on her affections had been very
small. Her father, a shiftless delicate dreamer, brought up by a
brother years his senior, had married against that brother's wish, the
offence being aggravated by the fact that the bride with whom he ran
away was his brother's ward. One of those calm but absolutely hopeless
quarrels ensued which come sometimes to divide one portion of a family
from the other, without apparently much regret on either side. The
young couple had the butterfly instinct, and lived for the present.
They also had the faculty for making friends in a light airy fashion,
and after various vicissitudes, borne with the gayest good temper,
some one managed to find him a post as consul in some odd little
seaport in the south, where sunshine kept them alive and contented
until Marjory chose to put in an appearance and cost her mother's
life. The blow seemed to make the husband still more dreamy and
unpractical than ever, and, when cholera carried him off suddenly four
years afterwards, he made no provision whatever for the child's
future, save a scrawl, written with difficulty at the last moment,
begging his brother to look after Marjory for the sake of old times.

Perhaps it was the best thing he could have done, since nothing short
of despair would have affected Dr. Carmichael, who had by this time
become so absorbed in the effort to understand life that he had almost
forgotten how to feel it. People wondered why a man, who had gained a
European reputation for his researches, should have cared to linger on
in a remote country district like Gleneira, and some went so far as to
hint that something more than mere displeasure at his brother's
disobedience lay at the bottom of his dislike to the marriage and his
subsequent misanthropy.

Be that as it may, his first look at little Marjory's curly head was
absolutely unemotional, and he remarked to his housekeeper that it was
a good thing she seemed to take more after her mother than her father,
who had always been a cause of anxiety. For the rest, it was a pity
she was not a boy. Orphans should always be boys; it simplified
matters so much for the relations. However, Mrs. Campbell, the
housekeeper, must make the best of it, and bring her up as a girl. He
could not.

But Marjory took a different view of the situation, and before six
months had passed it dawned upon the Doctor that, as often as not, she
was trotting round with her doll in his shadow as he paced the garden,
or sitting in a corner of his study intent on some game of her own.

She was a singularly silent unobjectionable child at such times; at
others, if he might judge from the sounds that reached him, quite the
reverse. He laid down his pen to watch her as she sate in the sunshine
by the window one day, and heard her instantly tell her doll, that if
she was naughty and disturbed Dr. Carmichael she must be sent into the
garden. Another day he came upon her in his chair poring over a Greek
treatise in an attitude which even he recognised as a faithful copy of
his own. Finally, he discovered that she had taught her doll to draw
geometrical figures such as she often saw on the papers littered about
the room. This palpable preference for him and his occupations being
distinctly flattering, he began to take more notice of her, and try
experiments with her memory. So, by degrees, becoming interested in
her quick intelligence, he deliberately began to educate her, as he
would have educated a boy, with a view to her making her own living in
the future. As indeed she would have to do, in the event of his death;
since years before her advent he had sunk all his private means in an
annuity, and the expenses of his scientific work did not allow of his
saving much. The prospect neither pleased nor displeased the girl. It
came simply, naturally, to her, as it does to a boy. On the other
hand, she certainly worked harder than any boy would have done, partly
because she took it for granted that the tasks set her by Dr.
Carmichael were very ordinary ones, and partly because of that
feminine tolerance of mere drudgery which makes it so difficult to
compare the intellectual work of a man and a woman. For while you can
safely assume that an undergraduate has not worked more than so many
hours or minutes a day, it is quite possible that a girl student may
have sate up half the night over a trivial exercise. The primal curse
on labour, it must be remembered, was not extended to the woman, who
had a peculiar ban of her own.

So, by the time she was seventeen, Marjory Carmichael was learned
beyond her years in Greek and Latin, and displayed a genius for
mathematics which fairly surprised her uncle. Then he died suddenly,
leaving her to the guardianship of a distant relation and ardent
disciple in Edinburgh, who was instructed to spend what small sum
might remain, after paying just debts, on completing the girl's
education, and starting her, not before the age of twenty-one, in a
career; preferably teaching, which he considered the most suitable
opening for her. She was strong, he said, in the letter in which he
informed Dr. Kennedy of his wishes, and singularly sensible for a
girl, despite a distressing want of proportion in her estimate of
things. Being neither sentimental nor sensitive, she was not likely to
give trouble. So far good, but at the very end of the letter came a
remark showing that the old man was not quite the fossil he pretended
to be. It ran thus: "All this concerns her head only; of her heart I
know nothing. Let us hope she has none; for it is a terrible drawback
to a woman who has brains. Anyhow, it has had no education from me."

The description somehow did not prepare Dr. Tom Kennedy for either the
face or manner which greeted him on his arrival at the house of
mourning, but then he himself had the softest heart in the world, and
the mere sight of a lonely slip of a thing in a black dress gave him a
pang. But that was only for a moment; five minutes afterwards he
wondered how that suggestion of kissing and comforting her in
semi-fatherly fashion could have arisen. Yet the same evening after
she had bidden him good-night with a little stilted hope that he would
be comfortable, the temptation returned with redoubled force, when, on
going into the study for another volume of the book he had taken up to
his bedroom to read, he found her fast asleep in the dead man's chair,
her arms flung out over the table, her cheek resting on one of the
ponderous volumes which had been the dead man's real companions. Her
fresh young face looked happy enough in its sleep, though the marks of
tears were still visible, and yet Dr. Kennedy felt another pang. Had
the child no better confidante than that musty, fusty old book? Yet he
did not dare to rouse her, even though the room struck cold and
dreary, for he felt that the knowledge that he had so far been witness
of her weakness would be an offence, a barrier between them, and that
was the last thing he desired. So he crept out of the room again
discreetly, and smoked another cigar over the not uninteresting
novelty of his guardianship. For Tom Kennedy was sentimental, and
gloried in the fact.

"You are very kind," said Marjory to him, a day or two afterwards,
with a half-puzzled and critical appreciation of his tact and
consideration. "But I don't see why you should take such trouble about
me. I shall get on all right, I expect. I think it is a mistake that
uncle has forbidden my beginning work till I am twenty-one, but, as it
can't be helped, I must go on as I've been doing, I suppose. I would
rather not go to school if that can be arranged. You see I don't know
any girls, and I am not sure if I should get on with them. If I could
stop here, Mr. Wilson at the Manse would look over my work, and I
could come up to Edinburgh for my examinations, you know."

Evidently his guardianship was not going to be a burden to him. This
clear-eyed young damsel, despite a very dainty feminine appearance,
was evidently quite capable of looking ahead.

"I will do my best to arrange everything as you wish," he replied,
feeling somehow a little hurt in his feelings. "My great object, of
course, will be that you shall be as happy as possible."

"Happy?" she echoed, quaintly. "Uncle never said anything about that.
I'm not sure if I want that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?" he put in, rather aghast.

"Oh! nonsense, and all that; and yet----" She looked at him with
almost tragic earnestness. "I am not sure if I don't like it after
all. It is funny, but it is nice."

"What is nice?"

"You're being so kind. Only I think it would make me lazy, and that
wouldn't do at all. Uncle used to say I must never forget that I had
to earn my own living."

"And I--well! I'm afraid I should like to make you forget it," he
answered; "but we needn't quarrel about it, I suppose. At any rate,
not for the next four years."

"But I don't mean to quarrel with you at all," she said, very
sedately. "I mean to be friends; it is so much more convenient."
Perhaps it was on the whole; even though as the years went on Dr.
Thomas Kennedy, aged forty, began to wish that her twenty-first
birthday would find her willing to continue the tie on another
footing. And yet he recognised, not without a certain admiration, that
she was not likely to be happy, even if married to one whom she
trusted and liked as she trusted and liked him, unless she had first
faced the world by herself. Of course, if she were to fall in love it
would be different; then, like other women, she might take a certain
pride in giving up her future. But she was scarcely likely to fall in
love with him, unless he made love to her, and that was exactly what
he could not do. In a sort of whimsical way he told himself it would
not be fair, since in his heart of hearts he did not believe in the
master passion! not, at least, in the romantic form in which alone it
would appeal to a girl like Marjory. To affect her it must be
something very intense indeed; something, in short, which his infinite
tenderness for the girl prevented him from giving. Perhaps if there
had been any symptoms of another lover appearing on the scene all this
philosophic consideration might have disappeared under the pressure of
rudimentary jealousy; but there were none. Indeed, barring the
Episcopalian clergyman, who was quite out of the question, there was
no young man of Marjory's own rank, or near it, at Gleneira, where he
had arranged for her to stay on with a distant cousin of his own. And
neither Will Cameron, the factor, nor old Mr. Wilson, at the Manse,
nor any of the occasional visitors were more likely to stir the
romantic side of the girl's nature than he was himself. Less likely,
indeed, since he had the manifest charm of being a person of more
importance. In appearance he was a small, dark man with a vivacious
face and something of a foreign manner, the latter being due to his
having wandered about on the Continent for years seeking surgical
experience at the cannon's mouth. So, on his last visit to Gleneira,
where he spent all his rare holidays, he had told himself point-blank
that he of all men in the world was bound in honour not to take
advantage of his ward's innocence and undisguised affection. She was
exceptionally fitted for the future she had mapped out for herself, so
in a way he was bound to let her try it.

Consequently, as she sate that July afternoon teaching the children
their duty to their neighbour, there was no _arrière pensée_ of any
kind in her affectionate reliance on Cousin Tom's unfailing interest.
That would last until she grew tired of teaching, and he grew old.
Then, always supposing that it was agreeable to both parties, they
might settle down somewhere and be the best of friends till death did
them part.

Weary of teaching! That did not seem likely, to judge by the way she
taught; and yet through all her work she was conscious of that
postcard in her pocket; conscious of the fact that there was no
denying Donald's proposition, and that it brought great news whatever.
But as she followed the trooping children out of doors to the
horse-chestnut shade, she took no notice whatever of Mr. McColl's
evident desire to re-open the question, and, with a curt remark that
the children knew their duty to their neighbour admirably, she set off
with a light, rapid step down the white road.

Mr. McColl looked after her admiringly, unresentfully. Miss Marjory
was Miss Marjory, and without her help his grant in aid would be but a
poor thing, what with the Bishop's lawn sleeves and the new standards;
both of which are stumbling-blocks in a remote Highland parish even
when there is no other school within ten miles. Well, well, it was
grand news for the Glen that the laird was to be home, and there were
others besides Miss Marjory who would be glad to hear it.




                             CHAPTER II.


Mr. McColl was right, as Marjory herself had ere long to acknowledge;
for she had not gone far ere quick steps echoed behind her, and,
looking round, she saw the Reverend James Gillespie trying to overtake
her. She paused in resigned vexation, experience having taught her the
wisdom of waiting for him; the fact being that the fusion point of
mind and body was with him extremely low, and heat had a disastrous
effect on both; so she waited--that honest walking boot of hers
beating a very girlish tattoo of impatience the while against a rock.

"This is great news, Miss Marjory," he began, breathlessly. "Great
news--I may say, good news--is--is it not?"

The latter rather alarmed inquiry being the result of a glance at her
face; for she was in a contradictory mood, and the Reverend James
never had any fixed opinions in minor matters. He took them from his
friends and was, in consequence, often in the position of a child who,
having filled both hands with biscuits, is suddenly offered a sweetie.
Even then he was quite ready to swallow the new contribution if it was
firmly put into his mouth. There was no little excuse for him,
however, since his present environment in a measure forced him to a
poor opinion of himself in the past. The fact being that until the age
of fifteen he had been nothing more than the son of a poor crofter on
the estate of Gleneira. A clever lad, no doubt, who might perchance
rise to something above his father's fate. And then the Bishop, on the
lookout for recruits to the Gaelic-speaking clergy necessary to carry
on the work in the remoter glens, where the Episcopal faith still
lingers, had chosen him out like Samuel for the service of the Lord.
It had been a veritable translation, for the Bishop, being High
Church, had exalted views of the priesthood. The result being that
James Gillespie, fulfilled with a virtuous desire to justify the
Bishop's choice, soon lost the small amount of individuality he had
originally possessed. Educated by the Bishop, ordained by the Bishop,
made the Bishop's chaplain in order that the Bishop might coach him
through the rocks of social etiquette, he became, not unnaturally, a
sort of automaton, safe so far as his knowledge of the Bishop's views
went, but no further. On these points he was logic proof; on others
the veriest weathercock at the mercy of every breeze that blew. For
the rest, a good-looking, florid, fair young man, dressed rigorously
in clerical costume. This again being in deference to the Bishop who,
honest man, having his fair share of the serpent's wisdom, saw the
necessity of hedging this prophet in his own country about with every
dignity which might serve to emphasise the difference between his past
and present. The more so because the sparse congregations amid the
fastnesses of the hills were in the charge of different pastors. Once
a month or so the Reverend Mr. Wilson, from the Manse miles away down
the Strath, would drive up in a machine, put up with the Camerons at
the Lodge, and deliver a very cut-and-dried little sermon in the
school-house. On these occasions the Reverend Mr. Gillespie used to
trudge over the hills with his surplice in a brown paper parcel, so
leaving the Geneva gown and bands a fair field while he delivered an
equally cut-and-dried little homily to the still more outlying
faithful in a barn. About this arrangement, necessitated by ancient
custom, even the Bishop constrained his tongue, seeing that Mr. Wilson
belonged to the Church of Scotland, as by law established, and, what
is more, to the very highest and driest portion of it. He was a
courtly old gentleman, with a white tie, yards long, wound round his
neck numberless times, and finished off by an odd little bow made out
of the extreme ends; a learned old man with a turn of the leg,
suggesting a youth when calves were visible, and a vast store of
classical quotations remaining over from the days when he lectured on
the humanities at St. Andrews. Neither did the Bishop consider the
Reverend Father Macdonald, who came once in three months or so, and
generally on a week day, an intruder. On the contrary, the Reverend
James had instructions to ask him to dinner, and, if it was a Friday,
to have cockle soup and stewed lentils for him; that is to say, if the
invitation was accepted, which it was not as a rule, the Father
preferring to eat potatoes and butter at the Camerons, and endure the
old lady's good-natured scorn, for the sake of hearing Marjory sing
Scotch songs and play Scarlatti. For Dr. Carmichael's one relaxation
had been, music, in which, as in other things, the girl had proved
herself to be an apt pupil. As often as not, too, on these occasions,
old Mrs. Cameron would send a man with the dogcart down the Strath to
fetch up Mr. Wilson, and then the two old enemies could fence at each
other courteously over the single glass of port, for which the Jesuit
had a dispensation. And, if the buttons seemed inclined to come off
the foils, Marjory, in the next room, would strike up, "Come, bring to
me a stoup o' wine, and bring it in a silver tassie." Then their old
heads would wag, and they would give over the endless battle for the
sake of hearing a "bonnie lassie" sing their favourite song. But it
was very different when the Free Church missioner came round, for he
was an earnest, red-haired person, who any day of the week would
gladly have testified against Black Prelacy to the bitter end of the
stake. He was a stumbling-block, even to Marjory, who professed calm
tolerance; but then those courtly old admirers of hers, to say nothing
of Cousin Tom's rather foreign manners, had spoilt her. So that amid
all her theories--the theories of clever youth instinct with the love
of justice and liberty--she could not help being repelled by the
roughness of life when, as it were, she touched and handled it. The
people themselves, however, thought it a sign of strength to bang the
pulpit and bellow, as, indeed, it was, undoubtedly. So the consensus
of opinion in all sects was that the Free Church had the finest
preacher. Not that it mattered much in a place where church-going on a
Sunday was a recognised dissipation, which had to last for a week.
Thus, no matter who was in the pulpit, the little school-house on a
fine day overflowed; and even the Reverend Father Macdonald had not a
few applicants for a blessing against witchcraft if the cows did not
milk properly. This, however, was done on the sly, by accident as it
were, when the petitioners chanced to meet priestly authority in the
post-office.

In order, therefore, to hold his own amid the hosts of Midian, the
Reverend James spent quite a large slice of his modest income on
all-round collars and silk cassocks; and even when the old Adam arose
at the sight of a red-brown river, and he _had_ to creep away with a
hazel rod and a bag of worms to some seething pool where the sea-trout
lay, he still kept to his professional garments and sate on a rock
with his long coat-tails pinned behind his back, looking like a
gigantic crow about to fly.

Despite this and other ridiculous habits, Marjory, with her clear,
honest eyes saw the real desire to do his duty to Church and State
underlying the young man's indecision; but, fortunately for him, she
had no notion that of late this had taken the form of wishing to marry
her. The fact being that in a recent visit the Bishop had not only
remarked that the parish clergy should be the husbands of one wife,
but had rather pointedly referred to the immense improvement in the
school standard, since Miss Carmichael had begun to practise teaching
there. The direct consequence of which had been to make the Reverend
James believe himself in love, and at the same time to make him regard
all Marjory's opinions as episcopally blessed. An effort needing
mental gymnastics of the highest class, especially when, as now, she
was bent on mischief.

"Good news," she echoed. "Well, I hardly know; that must surely depend
entirely on what sort of person Captain Macleod turns out to be." This
she knew must, to begin with, savour of blasphemy to one born and bred
on the estate.

"Naturally, I may say, of course, but----" he looked at her
pathetically, like a dog when asked to perform a difficult trick;
"you--you--you surely have not heard anything against him, have you?"

Marjory's eyes twinkled, but only for a moment; after all it was poor
fun depolarising his mental compass.

"Anything against him? No; except that he is too good-looking, I am
told."

"Handsome is that handsome does," remarked the Reverend James,
cheerfully; it was a favourite proverb at the palace, and he felt sure
of his ground. Unfortunately, since it roused Marjory to
contradiction.

"Nonsense! As if all the goodness in the world could change a snub
nose into a Grecian."

"But surely, my dear Miss Marjory," protested the young man feebly,
"the proverb does not assert--em--that sort of thing. I have always
understood it--em--I mean the latter half--perhaps I should say the
simile--alludes to moral worth."

"Now, Mr. Gillespie! does that mean you consider beauty and goodness
to be the same, or simply that you deny the value of physical beauty
altogether?" asked Marjory in aggrieved tones.

"I--I don't think I mean either," he replied, so naively that she was
obliged to laugh; "but indeed," he went on, "it seems to me, as I
remember the Bishop said in his sermon on All Souls, that beauty and
goodness are in a measure synonymous, that----"

"Do you mean," she interrupted hastily, but with a sort of quick
hesitation which came often to her speech when she was really
interested, "that not only are good things necessarily beautiful in a
way, but that beautiful things must be good? Look at Tito! All his
vileness did not mar the perfection of his beauty. It was a tower of
strength to him till the day of his death. It must be so--you can't
help it. The thing is good in itself."

Never having read "Romola," the Reverend James fell back discreetly on
a more unimpeachable proverb, by remarking, with the air of a man
making a valuable contribution to the argument:--

"Beauty is but skin deep."

"Who wants it to be more?" she asked, hotly. "That is all you see. No
one asks whether the muscles follow the proper curves beneath the
skin, or the bones are strong. And, after all, it seems to me that
goodness and beauty appeal to the same chord--the love of everything
that is clear, defined, orderly. Ugliness is so incoherent, so
indistinct, Mr. Gillespie! Did it ever strike you how unnecessarily
ugly we all are? Now, don't deny the fact. Remember the Bishop's hymn
says, 'only man is vile.'"

"But that really does apply to his moral."

"I don't agree with you. Some of us, perhaps, are wicked, but most of
us are hideous."

"Do you really think so?" And the self-conscious look on his smug,
comely face was too much for her gravity. She laughed merrily.

"There are exceptions to every rule, Mr. Gillespie; I only meant to
say that since the strongest and best, and therefore, according to
you, the most beautiful, had survived in the struggle for
existence----"

"By the bye," he put in, for him quite eagerly, "the Bishop has just
sent me an excellent reply to the Darwinian----"

Marjory went on remorselessly, "That we were singularly plain-looking,
as a rule. For my part I would gladly have eliminated the Carmichael
nose if I had had any choice in the matter."

The remark left a grand opening for a compliment if he could at the
moment have thought of anything save the crude assertion that he
considered it the most beautiful nose in the world. So he remained
silent, casting about in his mind for a less absolute form, with such
concentrated admiration in his face, that even Marjory could not avoid
noticing it, and with a sudden curl of her lip, changed the subject by
asking him, in her best categorical manner, when he had last been to
see old Peggy, who was bad with her rheumatism. Now old Peggy's
cottage was not an inviting-looking abode--a boulder-built hut with a
peat roof and a rudimentary chimney--and it lay close by in a hollow
between the road and a bog full of waving cotton grass. So the
Reverend James regretfully gave up his opportunity as lost for the
time; but a gleam of manly resolution came to him as he looked first
at the hut, then down the road, the pleasant sunshiny road stretching
away to where a thin blue smoke from the chimneys of Gleneira Lodge
rose above the silver firs and copper beeches to the right of the big
house. All that distance to traverse with Marjory, as against Peggy
Duncan the pauper, who was bad enough at the best, but, with the
rheumatism, simply appalling.

"I'm afraid I haven't time to-day," he began, with admirable regret,
which, however, changed to consternation as his companion paused and
held out her hand.

"Then good-bye! I promised to look in on my way home. And on the whole
it is better as it is, for it is positively unsafe to visit old Peggy
in couples when she is ill. So long as she has but one visitor, you
know, the fear of losing a gossip bridles her tongue; but when there
are two, one is always a scapegoat." Now, Marjory looked at her
companion gravely, and spoke deliberately, "You wouldn't, I'm sure,
care to hear me abused; so it is wiser for me to go alone. Good-bye."

She was off as she spoke down the brae, leaving him disappointed, yet
still vaguely content, the very thought of in the future having a wife
who would go and visit old Peggy filling him with peace, for that old
woman was a sore trial to his dignity, since she invariably made a
point of remembering his youth as a barefoot cotter's boy. But then at
heart she was a Presbyterian who did not believe in the sanctity of
orders. So he went on his way down the loch fairly satisfied with
himself, while Marjory took his place beside the sick bed of the
rheumatic old woman.

The girl gave one regretful glance at the sunshine before she dived
into the darkness of the cottage. It was mean and squalid in the
extreme, yet to those accustomed to the dirt and warmth, the
discomfort and the cosiness of a Highland hut, its air of tidiness was
unusual. The mud floor was even and clean swept, the single pane of
glass doing duty as a window was neither broken nor patched with rags,
while the crazy, smoke-blackened dresser was ranged with common
earthenware. A gathering peat, just edged with fire, lay on the huge
stone hearth, above which a tiny black pot hung in the thin column of
pale blue smoke which, as it rose to the dim rafters, was illumined by
the only ray of sunlight in the house--that which streamed through the
round hole in the roof which did duty as a chimney. Beside the hearth
a fair-haired boy of about six lay fast asleep, while from a settle in
the darkness a pair of gleaming green eyes revealed the presence of a
cat.

Nothing more to be seen by Marjory's sun-blinded sight. Not a sound to
be heard, until suddenly a grey hen roosting in the rafters began to
cluck uproariously with much sidelong prancings of a pair of yellow
legs, and downward dips of a quaint, irascible, tufted head. Instantly
from a recess bed arose a patient moan and a pious aspiration that the
Lord's will might be done at all costs.

"Good afternoon, Peggy! I hope your sleep has done you good," said
Marjory blithely, as she sate down on the edge of the bed, and looked
steadily at the occupant's face. Old Peggy Duncan, with the assertion
that she had not slept for days trembling on her tongue, wavered
before the girl's decision, and murmured something about closing an
eye.

"That is better than nothing, isn't it?" continued the uncompromising
visitor. "And as for wee Paulie! he's been having a fine snooze.
Haven't you, Paulie?"

The child by the fire, rubbing his eyes drowsily, smiled back at her
rather sheepishly.

"'Deed it's so," broke in the querulous voice, satisfied at finding a
legitimate object for complaint. "He's just the laziest, weariest
wean, and no caring a tinker's damn for his nanny. Just lyin'
sleepin', and me in an agony. Could ye not watch?--Ay!--Ay! But what
can one expect o' a child o' the devil----"

"Peggy! You're a wicked old woman to speak like that. Paul does more
than most boys twice his age. I'll be bound he has been stuffing
indoors with you all day long without a grumble. Run away now, dear
laddie, and get the fresh air."

The order, spoken in Gaelic, produced a sudden flash of life all over
the little fellow, and he was out of the door in a second. Marjory
looked after him with a pleasant smile.

"He is a pretty boy, isn't he, Peggy?--quite the prettiest in the
glen."

"Aye! he has the curse o' beauty. Sae had his mither. Ay! an' her
father before her. Thank the Lord, Miss Marjory, you're no bonnie."

"I shall do nothing of the sort, Peggy. And how is the pain? Better
for that liniment I rubbed in yesterday?"

"Better!" There was a world of satisfied scorn in the old voice.
"Better frae ae teaspoonful o' stuff. Lord be gude to us, Miss
Marjory! Naethin' short o' a meeracle'll better me, an' ye talk o' a
carnal rubbin' doing it."

"It would be a miracle if it did, wouldn't it, Peggy?" retorted the
girl, calmly; "but if it did no good at all there is no use in
repeating it, so I'll be off and leave you to your sleep again."

"Hoot awa! an' you tired wi' your walk. Just sit ye down and rest a
bit and dinna mind me. I'm used to being no minded, ye ken. Wha minds
a bit pauper body but the pairish? Two an' saxpence a week, an' a boll
o' meal term-day that's no meal at a', but just grits; grits and
dirt. I'm no wondering that they puts soddy (soda) until't at the
poor's-house to gar't swall. Ay! Aye! and me lyin' a week without
spiritual food, an' I cravin' for it from anyone."

"Now, Peggy, you know quite well you told Mr. Gillespie you wanted
none of his priestcraft, the last time he was here. You are just a
bad, ungrateful old woman, and I've a great mind to go away without
making you a cup of tea or telling you the news."

The old face set close in its white cap frills brightened visibly at
the last words. "Weel! Weel! I must na be hard on the puir lad. There
be divers gifts, an' may be he's gotten one somewhere. And but for the
pain makin' me clean wud, I'd have had the tea for you. Just cry on
Paulie--the kettle's on the fire, and he'll no be long, puir lammie."

But Marjory preferred to leave the boy to his play, and set about the
task herself quickly, dexterously, while old Peggy watched her with
sagacious eyes; for she herself had been a notable worker, and had
still a regretful admiration for the capability in others. Rather a
despicable object, perhaps, this fretful rheumatic old woman,
grumbling and growling at everything; and yet, could the secrets of
all hearts be revealed, she might have seemed more of a heroine and
martyr than many a canonised saint. A youth of ceaseless plodding toil
had been given in stolid honesty to her master's interests; then late
in life, when the hopes of womanhood were almost over, had come a
brief St. Martin's summer, where a wandering Englishman engaged on
some mining venture close by had married the sober lass as a means of
being comfortable for the time, and after a year had deserted her
shamefully, leaving her to work harder than ever for the sake of the
little daughter who remained to show that Peggy's short spell of love
had not been a dream. Some, indeed, there were who maintained that it
had never had any solid foundation, and that the marriage had been but
a pretence. This coming to the mother's ears had roused in her a
fierce anger, which in its turn gave rise to a passionate desire to
prove this child of hers to be above their petty spite, superior to
their plodding lives. And in a measure she succeeded. Jeanie Duncan
grew up in what, to a girl of her class, was luxury, while her mother
sold brown sugar, herrings, tarred rope, and tobacco--in fact, kept a
general store. Until the girl, like many another, fretted at home,
sought service, and disappeared beyond the circle of blue hills; to be
followed after a time by her mother.

But though pretty Jeanie Duncan never returned, old Peggy did,
bringing with her a baby. Not an unusual sequel to the story; and so,
though the neighbours shook their heads, there was no need to question
the woman. What else could have been expected from flighty Jeanie
Duncan, whose head had been turned by Mr. Paul's painting her picture.
And Peggy said nothing, even while she concealed nothing. Silent from
her youth, she was more silent than ever as she reverted again to the
hard toil of those early days, until one January the cold settled into
her ill-clad old bones when she was gathering sticks in the woods and
left her a cripple. And then the loss of her independence broke her
spirit and turned her into a fretful scold. A dreary, toil-worn,
barren youth, desertion, degradation, outrage of love and pride--all
this gamut of grief had she sounded without an answering groan. The
straw which broke her patience was not the hardness but the charity of
her fellow-creatures. A most irrational old lady, no doubt, yet not
altogether blameworthy in her self-satisfied appreciation of the tea
"that was no from the pairish, praise be to the Lord," and very human,
certainly, in her eager desire to hear the news of that parish. Yet
her face when Marjory told her of the laird's return seemed to settle
into a strange indifference. "The laird! It will be Mr. Paul you're
meaning."

"Yes, Mr. Paul; he is the laird now, you know, and he hasn't been here
for nine years. He has been away in India with his regiment."

"Lord sakes! as if I did na' know that; he has been the laird these
sax years gone. I mind it weel. And I mind him, too; ower weel, maybe.
A winsome laddie, fond of painting; but 'Thou shalt not make to
thyself the likeness,' ye ken. So he is coming home at last--bonnie
nae doot; and she, my Jeanie, is dust and ashes."

It was seldom that Peggy alluded to her dead daughter, and there was a
wistful look in the crabbed old face. Marjory, quickly responsive,
stroked the crabbed old hand which lay on the coverlet gently; but old
Peggy would none of her sympathy and drew it away, while her voice
took almost a triumphant tone.

"Ay! Dust and ashes! That's what we a' come to. Young and auld, Miss
Marjory, my dear, rich and poor. Ay! and pairish officers, forbye;
it's no to be escapit, thank the Lord! And if you're going ye might
just open yon drawer in the aumry an' tak' oot my deid claes. There's
a bonnie blaze in the fire that maun-na be wasted, and in life we are
in death, ye ken, so it's as weel to hae them aired. There's a deal o'
sickness comin' frae damp linen, and I'm sae subjec' to the
rheumatism."

"That would be one of the ills you would leave behind you, Peggy,"
suggested Marjory, with a tender smile at the oddity of the old
woman's thought.

"I'm sure I hope sae, for it wad be maist terrible in the wings,"
replied Peggy, gravely. Her eyes, following the girl as she complied
with the grim request, lit up with satisfaction, her mouth trembled in
the effort for calm indifference.

"Ay! sure enough it's the best of cloth, yon, and there is twa rows
back stitchin' as fine as fine, and a frill down the front. Some has a
lace edgin', but I'm no sure o' furbelows. It wad no be decent for me
to come before my Maker prinked oot like a young lass; though Mary
McAndrews, who was a gude four year aulder nor me, had real
Valenciennes. But, there! she was ae' flighty, puir thing; her mind
set on bows and gum flowers, no on things above. Fine cloth an' a
cambric frill's gude eneuch for my funeral; an' the coffin no from the
pairish, thank the Lord!"

As old Peggy lay there in the bay bed gossiping over her shroud she
was a grim sight; yet a pathetic one, since there is nothing in the
wide world which appeals to the humanity within us so much as the
tired, toil-wasted hands of old age folded on a coverlet waiting for
death. Marjory, with her strong young ones straightening the dead
clothes, felt a strange thrill at her heart, even as she thought of
the long years of welcome struggle before she, too, would be glad of
rest.

"So Mr. Paul is to come hame again?" quavered the old voice, softened
inexplicably by that chill thought of death. "Aye, aye! he will be
bonnie still, for he was aye of the kind to mak' a bonnie corp. And no
that bad for a man--not by ordinair. Weel! when ye see him tell him
that ould Peggy's gone on the pairish, but that it'll no be a pairish
funeral. For there's twa bottles gude whiskey in the draw wi' the deid
claes, my dear, and that's eneuch to carry me to my grave as I sou'd
be carried."




                             CHAPTER III.


Will Cameron the grieve, or, in plain English, the land steward of the
Gleneira property, was leaning lazily over the shrubbery gate,
watching two men mowing a narrow strip of grass on either side of the
grand approach leading up to the Big House; a proceeding which gave
the whole place a most ridiculous half-shaven air. It had its merits,
however, in Mr. Cameron's eyes, seeing that it was supposed to make
the roadway look kempt while it preserved the rest of the lawn for
hay; an economy sorely needed at the Big House, after the late laird's
riotous living. Even now, when matters had mended somewhat, honest
Will did not care to think of those times when all he saw of the laird
of Gleneira was a signature on I O U's; for, when all was said and
done, his own honesty seemed bound up in that of the old place. A
gardener was nailing up the creepers covering the porch; the windows
of the house were set wide open, and through them a noise of hammering
and brushing floated out into the crisp morning air as Marjory came
up the road from the lodge; her footsteps crunching in the loose
sea-gravel, which not even the coming and going of years had worn into
compactness, and leant over the gate likewise. Will shifted a little,
almost unconsciously, to make room for her, with loose-limbed easy
good-nature, and in so doing revealed the whole attitude of his
individuality towards Marjory Carmichael. Briefly she was the dearest
girl in the world, but rather apt to make a fellow move on, when he
would much rather have stopped where he was. Yet they were the best of
friends, almost playmates, although he was double her age and
distinctly bald. For the rest a very straightforward simple person,
with nothing complex about him. One of those men whom Nature has made
firstly a sportsman, secondly a farmer; in other words, a descendant
of both Cain and Abel. Marjory herself was very fond of him, and no
wonder, since during the years she had spent with his mother he had
set himself to make things pleasant for her as a man about a house can
do when he has absolutely no ulterior object in view. The mere
suggestion of such an object would have filled him with terror, for
Marjory's energy was appalling.

"What a pretty place it is after all," she said suddenly, and in so
saying spoke the truth. Framed in by an amphitheatre of purple
heather-clad hills and dark green fir-clad spurs, Gleneira House with
its swelling lawns stretching away to the rocky beach of the loch, its
tall silver pines and clumps of rhododendrons looked bright and
cheerful despite the nameless want which hangs always round an empty
house; the dead look, as if, the soul having passed from it, naught
remained save for it to hasten back to the dust whence it came. There
was something, however, which struck one as homelike in its low
irregular outline, its bow windows set in rose, jasmine, and magnolia;
above all in its clustered stacks of chimneys rising without respect
to symmetry and suggesting comfortable firesides within. Cosy
firesides in corners, not set back to back in pairs after the modern
fashion. A conglomerate building altogether, not unlike a two-storied
summer-house full of French windows. An airy feminine sort of house,
unlike the usual aggressively stony Scotch mansions, yet fitting in
strangely with its fairylike background of hills, and woods, and
lochs.

"Very pretty, but awfully out of repair," replied Will,
disconsolately. "The roof won't last much longer."

"Why doesn't he--Captain Macleod I mean--put on a new one?"

"My dear Marjory! He can't afford it. A man has to spend a lot in an
expensive regiment like his, and----"

"Nine years since he was in the Glen," interrupted the girl, bent on
her own thoughts. "I don't remember him a bit. What is he like, Will?"

"Awfully handsome; about the handsomest boy I ever saw, and I don't
suppose he has changed much."

"I know that--anything more?"

"Spends a heap of money."

"I know--anything more?"

"Yes; you will like him."

"Why?"

"Women always do."

Marjory turned down the corners of her mouth; a trick which with her
meant disapproval, disgust, dislike, disappointment,--such a variety
of small d's that Will was wont to say it was quite as reprehensible
as the collective big one of his sex.

"He really is an awfully nice fellow," continued Will; "but the place
is going to rack and ruin. The farm houses are so poor that the south
country men won't take them, and a slack style of tenant only means
going from bad to worse. He ought to marry money. It is the only way
out of the difficulty, since he won't skin the woods or let the
place."

"Why doesn't he come and live here as his fathers did," put in the
girl, quickly; "why shouldn't he be satisfied to do his duty to the
people as his fathers did?"

"Because his income isn't what theirs was to begin with. The place is
heavily mortgaged; everyone knows it, so there is no reason why I
shouldn't say so. Then Alick Macleod ran through a heap of money
somehow, and left a lot of debts which had to be paid off. I don't say
that the Captain mightn't have been more economical, but it isn't all
his fault. And then he won't touch the estate. That is right enough in
a way, and yet Smith, the hook-and-eye man, offered twice its value
for that bit of moor that marches with his forest."

"And Captain Macleod refused?"

"Declined with thanks; and wrote me privately not to bother him again
with any proposals of that sort from a bloated mechanic."

Marjory's mouth turned down again. "Indeed! that was very noble of
him."

"So it was in a way," replied her companion, sticking to his own
ill-concealed satisfaction, "for the man is offensive to the last
degree. He has invented a tartan, and has a piper to play him to bed."

"If he likes it, why not? Every man must have invented his own tartan,
once upon a time, you know; the Macleods into the bargain."

Will Cameron smiled languidly. "You are a beggar to argue, Marjory.
But as I said before, the laird must marry money."

"Sell himself instead of his property?"

"Why not? he is worth buying, and she needn't be ugly."

"Ugly! as if that were the only question! I believe it is all you men
think of. Why, Will, you haven't told me anything about Captain
Macleod except that he is good-looking; and I knew that before. I
wanted to hear what he was like--he himself, I mean."

He looked at her with comical amusement. "You have come to the wrong
man, my dear. I never could tell my own character, much less anybody
else's. But here is old John, beaming with satisfaction at the thought
of coming slaughter among the birds. Ask him!"

"Is it what the laird is like?" echoed the bent but active old man,
pausing with a troop of wiry-haired terriers at his heels. "Then he is
real bonnie, Miss Marjory; that's what he is."

"So I told her; but she wants to know more." John Macpherson scratched
his ear dubiously, then brightened up. "Then it's a terrible good shot
he will be. Aye! ever since he was a laddie no higher than my heart.
Just a terrible good shot, that's what he is."

"After all," remarked Will, as the old man passed on, "that gives you
as good a clue to the laird as anything else would do. Old John meant
that as the highest praise. The coachman in all probability would say
he was a first-rate rider. I have heard mother call him a good young
man, but that was when _I_ had lost five pounds at the Skye gathering,
and he had won. The fact being that he had a knack of warping people's
judgment; it was he, by the way, who advised me to bet on a man who
couldn't putt a bit. He used always to twist me round his little
finger when we were boys together--and by Jove! he had a temper.
Sulky, too, and obstinate as a mule."

"Thank you," interrupted Marjory, drily; "that's quite enough. Well, I
hope nobody nice will buy him."

Will Cameron flushed up quite hotly. "Now, I call that really nasty,
Marjory, when it can't matter to you. And you know as well as I do
that we want money awfully; you, who are always railing at the black
huts, and the lack of chimneys, and----"

But Marjory, after a habit of hers when she was not quite sure of her
ground, had shifted it, and passed on to the house, whence the sounds
of sweeping and hammering continued. Will shook his head at her
retreating figure, smiled, and called out cheerfully:--

"Tell mother not to hurry, he can't come till the evening boat."

Vain message, since you might just as well have made such an appeal to
old Time himself as to Mrs. Cameron, who, despite her seventy years
and portly figure, was bustling about, the very personification of
order, even in her haste. You felt instinctively that every symptom of
hurry was the result of a conscientious conception of the importance
of her part in the day's proceedings, and that to be calm would have
been considered culpable. Yet, as she trotted about, her voluminous
black skirts tucked through their placket-hole, not a hair of her flat
iron-grey curls was astray, not a fold of her white muslin kerchief,
or frill of her starched lace cap was awry, though her aides-de-camp,
a couple of sonsy Highland maids, were generally dishevelled, cross,
and hot.

"Eh! Marjory, my dear," she cried, catching sight of the latter, as
she entered the large low hall, set round with antlers; "ye're just in
the nick to help count the napery while I see to the laird's chamber.
He will be for having his old wee roomie, I misdoubt me; he was always
for having his own way, too. But he will just no have it, that's all.
Folks must accept their position, aye! and maintain their privileges
in these days, when every bit servant lassie claims a looking-glass to
prink at." The last words were delivered full in the face of a pert
South country maid, who, with an armful of towels, passed by in rather
an elaborate pink dress. It was merely a snap shot, however, for the
old lady hurried on her appointed way, leaving Marjory and the
offender, who was quite accustomed to being a target, in charge of the
dark lavender-scented linen closet. Pleasant work at all times this,
of handling the cool, smooth piles; the only household possessions
which never seem to suffer from being laid away, which come out of
their scented tomb with their smoothness emphasised by long pressure,
their folds sharply accurate, their very gloss seeming to have grown
in the dark. No fear of moth here; no hint of decay. Marjory, singling
out a fine tablecloth and napkins for the laird's first meal at home,
and choosing the whitest of sheets and pillow-cases for his bed, found
herself unable to believe that long years had passed since some
woman's hand had carefully put them away. It seemed impossible that it
should be so, and that they should be ready to begin their work as if
not a day had passed. Unchanged in a world of change! But the guest
himself would be more changed than his surroundings; for he could only
have been a boy--not much older than she herself--when he was last at
Gleneira. The thought lingered, and after her task was over she
wandered from room to room trying to put herself in his place, and
guess how it would strike him. For it was pleasant sometimes, when one
had an hour to spare, to spend it in that fanciful world of feeling,
with which her practical life had so little to do.

His mother's sitting-room! That could not fail to be sad, even though
the fair-haired original of the faded portrait in pastels over the
mantelpiece had passed from life when he was still a child. Yet, if
_she_ by any chance could see even the smallest thing that had once
belonged to that mother whose memory was a mere abstraction, who had
never really existed for her at all, she would feel sad, and so he
must also who had known his. Well, Captain Macleod's mother must have
been dreadfully fond of fancy work, to judge by the room! And yet, not
so long ago, she herself had been full of childish admiration for that
terrible screen in the corner, which now only excited a wild wonder
how any responsible human being could have wasted hours--nay! days,
months--in producing such a fearful result. It represented a
Highlander in full national costume, done in cross-stitch; the flesh
was worked in small pink beads, giving a horrible pimply appearance to
the face and a stony glare to the eyes; in the distance rose purple
silk hills, and the foreground consisted of an over-grown velvet pile
mongrel with a tail in feather stitch. In those childish days of
admiration, however, it had had a fearful charm of its own, born of
its inaccessibility. For, once within a certain radius, the whole
picture disappeared into a senseless medley of silk, worsted, and
beads. Only distance lent design, making four white beads and a black
one a recognisable equivalent for the human eye. As she stood looking
at it now, an amused smile curved her lips, with the remembrance that
in still more childish days she had mixed up this magnificent
Highlander with her conceptions of the absent laird. Probably it was
quite as like him now as the crayon drawing, labelled "Paul," of a
pallid boy holding a toy ship, which hung on the wall beside the
pastel. On the other side was another pallid boy holding another ship,
and labelled "Alick." As far as she could judge Alick might have grown
up to be Paul, and Paul to be Alick. Only Paul held his ship in his
right hand, and Alick in his left; but that was, of course, only
because their portraits had to look at each other across the picture
of their mother; because, as it were, of the exigencies of Art. She
smiled to herself as she drifted on lazily to what Mrs. Cameron had
considered the keystone of the laird's position. It was a dim,
dignified room, with a dreadful bed. So large, so square, so evenly
surrounded with Macleod tartan hangings that a sleeper immured therein
might well on waking lose his airs, and which way he was lying. A bed
which might have a dozen ghostly occupants, and the flesh and blood
one be none the wiser of those dead and gone lairds of Gleneira.
Marjory, oppressed by the very look of it, threw the windows, wide as
they would set, to the air and sunshine. Even so, it was a dreary,
depressing room, especially to one coming alone, unwelcomed by
kindred, to his old home. With a sudden impulse of pity she drew from
her belt a bunch of white heather and stag-horn moss which she had
gathered that morning, and arranged it neatly in a little empty vase
which stood on the wide dressing-table. A poor effort, yet it gave a
certain air of expectancy to the room; more appropriate also to the
occasion than more elaborate garden flowers would have been, since
white heather stood for luck, and the stag-horn moss was the badge of
the Macleod clan. A charming little welcome, truly, if the laird had
eyes to see! Her face, reflected in the looking-glass as she stood
smiling over her task, would, however, have been a more charming
welcome still could the laird have seen it. And then the sound of
wheels on the loose gravel outside sent her to the window in sudden
alarm; but it was only the Manse machine, drawn by the old grey horse,
with Father Macdonald on the front seat beside Mr. Wilson, who, as he
caught sight of her, stood up with profound bows, disclosing a curly
brown Brutus wig. And there was Will lounging at the horse's head, and
his mother on the steps with dignified gesticulations. Beyond towards
the Strath was the wide panorama of hill and moor and sea, flooded in
light. The sudden feeling that it is good to be here, which comes even
to untransfigured humanity at times, filled the girl's heart with
content as she nodded back to her two devoted old friends who were now
both standing up in the dogcart, waving their hats. How good everyone
was to her! How happy they all were together in the Glen! And she had
never before seemed to realise it so completely.

"Heard I ever the like?" rose in Mrs. Cameron's most imperious tones.
"To pass by the house wi' an empty stomach, and it not even a fast! A
fast, say I? A feast for Gleneira, and twa glasses o' port wine for
Father Macdonald whether he will or no. Marjory, my lass, away with
them like good boys to the parlour and cry on Kirsty for the glasses.
Will, ye gawk, are there no grooms in Gleneira House that you must be
standing there doing their wark. Now, Mr. Wilson, just come you down
to _terry-firmy_, as you would say yourself. You're no golden calf,
man, to be put up on a pedestal."

"My dear Madam!" cried he, gaily, clambering down with no small regard
to the Graces. "If it is a question of worship, 'tis I who should be
at your feet. _Facilius crescit quam_."

"_A cader va chi troppo in alto sale_," interrupted Father Macdonald,
clambering down on his side. He was a small man with round childish
face, possessed of that marvellously delicate yet healthy complexion
which one sees in Sisters of Charity; in those, briefly, who take no
care for beauty and lead a life of austerity and self-denial. A
complexion which a society woman would have given her eyes to possess.

"Hoot away wi' your gifts o' tongues," retorted the old lady, in mock
indignation at the perennial jest of strange quotations. "Marjory,
just take them ben and stop their mouths wi' cake and wine. And make
them drink luck to the auld house that is to be graced wi' its
master."

"Ah, my dear Madam," said the incorrigible offender, ambling up the
steps, and giving a sly glance at Marjory, "you agree with our friend
Cicero, '_Nec, domo dominus sed domino domus honestanda est_.'"

Mrs. Cameron treated the remark with silent contempt, and Marjory,
leading the way into the morning room where Paul Macleod's portrait
hung on the wall, looked back with a kind smile at the two old men
who, never having owned chick or child of their own, treated her as a
daughter. A sort of dream-daughter, dear yet far removed from the hard
realities of every-day familiarity.

"I'm so glad you were passing to-day, father," she said eagerly; "I
found a little Neapolitan song among some old music here, and I want
you to see if I sing it right."

Mr. Wilson, seated in the armchair, his legs disposed elegantly,
straightened his necktie, and made a remark to the effect that the
Neapolitans were the most debased Christian population in Europe. And
that despite the fact that they lived, as it were, under the very nose
of the Pope. An attack which was the result of an ever-green jealousy
in regard to the little Jesuit's superior knowledge.

"Neapolitan! Ah! my dear young lady, the patois is almost beyond me.
If it had been Roman!" The smooth childlike face grew almost wistful
thinking of the days so long ago spent in the still seclusion of the
Scotch college, or out in the noisy colour of the Roman streets; a
quaint memory for the old man who for fifty years had never seen a
town, whose very occupation was passing away from his life, as, one by
one, the old adherents to the old faith still lingering among the
mountain fastnesses, died and were buried by him.

"Ah! you will manage," said Marjory, cheerfully. "It isn't as if you
didn't know the subject, for it is sure to be all about love. Songs
always are."

So, while the cake and wine were coming in, she sate down to the piano
and sang, guided by the two old men, of love; for Mr. Wilson, great on
philology, had his views on the mutations of vowels and consonants,
and stood beside the little priest beating time to the phrases with
his gold eyeglasses.

Mrs. Cameron found them so, and rallied them on their taste when there
was good port-wine on the table.

"My dear Madam," retorted Mr. Wilson, positively shining with delight
at his own opportunity of showing that his acquaintance was not
confined to dead languages. "We have only put the 'Weib und Gesang'
before the 'Wein'; and I am sure anyone who had the privilege of
hearing Miss Marjory sing would do the same."

She made him a little mock curtsey, but Mrs. Cameron would none of it,
and cut a huge slice of cake. "No! no! minister; from the very
beginning o' things men-folks cared more for their stomachs than their
hearts. If Eve, poor body, had only given Adam a better dinner he
wouldna have been wantin' to eat apples betwixt whiles, and a deal o'
trouble might have been saved. But a woman's different. She takes it
ill if a man doesn't fall in love with her; she's aye wantin'----"

"I'm sure I don't want anything," put in Marjory, with her head in the
air.

"Don't be talkin' havers, child. I tell ye a woman's aye wantin' it.
Auld as I am----"

"My dear Madam," expostulated Mr. Wilson.

"Haud your whist, minister," interrupted Mrs. Cameron, tartly; "what
will you be knowing o' a woman's heart? I tell you she may be auld and
grey, she may hae left half the pleasures o' this world behind her,
she may hae been a wife for two score years, and spent her heart's
bluid in rearing weans, but what's left o' the heart will be turnin'
wi' regret to the time when the auld body who sits on the tither side
o' the fire--girding at his food, maybe--was courtin' her. Or, maybe,
when some ither auld body that's no at the tither side of the fire was
courtin'. There's no sayin'."

There was a silence: and then the old priest said under his breath:
"_Amor a nullo amato amor perdona_."

Mr. Wilson nodded his brown Brutus wig in assent. He did not mind that
sort of Italian. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the humanities
could understand so much. So they were merry over the cake and wine;
merry even over the parting with it in obedience to the minister's
Horatian order: "_Lusisti satis, editsi satis, alque bibisti, Tempus
abire ibe est_"--which Mrs. Cameron insisted on having explained to
her word by word. It was a complete exposition, she asserted, of the
whole duty of man as viewed by men. To eat, to drink, to amuse
themselves, and then to run away.

That same evening, in the mirk end of the gloaming, Marjory, walking
in the garden between the great borders of clove pinks which were
sending out their fragrance to meet the coming night, heard the _feu
de joie_, arranged by old John Macpherson to greet the laird's
arrival, go off like the beginning of a battle. Half an hour
afterwards Will Cameron returned, calling loudly for his supper, and
full of enthusiasm.

"Upon my word, Marjory, I think he is handsomer and more charming than
ever."

"Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain," said the young lady, taking
a leaf out of Mr. Gillespie's book.




                             CHAPTER IV.


People who only know the West Highlands in the rainy months of August
and September, when a chill damp, almost suggestive of winter, comes
to the air, will scarcely credit the intense heat which June and July
often bring to the narrow glens, shut in on all sides by sun-baked
mountains. Then the springs fail, and the cattle break through the
fences, seeking the nearest point of the river; or stand knee-deep in
the estuary water, flicking away the plague of flies with their tails,
and lowing seaward to the returning tides. Then the burns, fine as a
silver thread down the mountain sides, run with a clear bell-like
tinkle through the boulders over which they will dash with a roar and
a rush in the coming Lammas floods. Then the cotton grass hangs
motionless on its hair-like stem, and the bog myrtle gives out a hot,
dry, aromatic scent, to mingle with that of the drying grass. On such
days as these, everything having life instinctively seeks the shade.
So Marjory Carmichael, on the morning after the laird's return, left
the dusty high-road, crossed the fast hardening bogs by the tussocks
of gay mosses tufted with bell-heather, and so continued her walk
along the alder-fringed bank of the river. Even at that early hour not
a leaf was stirring; the very bees hung lazily on the pale lilac
scabious flowers, and the faint hush of the river had a metallic
sound. Marjory, clambering down a fern-clad bank, sat down beneath a
clump of hazels, set with green nuts. Below her the river, between the
alder stems, showed olive and gold in sunlight or shade, with every
now and again a foam fleck sailing by; for, some fifty yards above her
resting-place, the Eira, fresh from a boisterous half-mile scramble
among the rocks, rushed through a narrow chasm at racing speed, and
fell recklessly, dashing itself into a white heat of hurry in a
seething whirling pool set in sheer walls of rock, and thence finding
outlet for its passion in a wider basin, and so, with ever clearing
face, sliding into peace in the dark oily pool beneath the bank where
Marjory sate. Her favourite nook, however, in all the river side, lay
higher up, close to the leap, where she could watch the gleaming
sea-trout and an occasional salmon patiently trying at the fall, see
the flash of the rapids beyond the fringing ferns, or mark the
drifting shadows on the opposite hillside. But the single rowan tree,
clinging with distorted roots to the heather-tufted cliff, flung its
branches over the fall, and gave no shade elsewhere; hence on this
hottest of hot July mornings Marjory chose the hazel hollow instead,
and leaning back among the flowering grasses, which sent a pinkish
bloom of tiny fallen blossom on her curly hair, drew a long, closely
written letter from her pocket, turned to its last sheet, and began to
read it. Not for the first time, but then Cousin Tom's letters were
worth a dozen of most people's, especially when they had something to
say, as this one had:--

"What a hurry you seem to be in to begin work; and I am always in such
a hurry to begin play. But then you have arrived, or are about to
arrive, at the years of discretion, and I am a mere child of
forty-one. Twenty years between us, dear! It is a lifetime; and what
right have I, or any other old foozle, to dictate to you, Mademoiselle
Grands-serieux, who, clever as she is, hardly knows, I think, when her
most affectionate and unworthy guardian is attempting a jest. It is an
evil habit in the old. Expect to hear from the School Committee in
Hounslow before many days are over. I think all is settled fairly, but
I hear there is no chance of your being needed before the beginning of
November. And this is still July. Three whole months, therefore, ere
Mademoiselle need take up the burden of teaching vulgar little boys
the elements of Euclid. And yet the momentous coming of age, when
Wisdom, let us hope, is to be justified of one of her children, is
this week. Marjory, my dear! Fate has given you a real holiday at
last! Of course, I am an incorrigible idler compared to you, but,
believe me, my heart has ached at times over your sense of duty! Life
is not all work, even if it is not all beer and skittles. So take the
goods the gods provide (as dear old Wilson would say in the proper
tongue--my Latin is merely a catalogue of dry bones)--put away all the
books--let two and two be five or five hundred for the time, while you
cross the Asses' Bridge with the rest of humanity. Wake up, my dear
little girl! or rather begin to dream! Of what? you ask. Of anything,
my dear, except Woman's Suffrage. By the way, I have six new reasons
against the latter, which I will detail to Mademoiselle Grands-serieux
when a detestable bacillus, who will neither be born nor die, permits
of my joining her in the earthly paradise. Meanwhile have a good
time--a real good time."

Marjory leant back again on a great basket of spreading lastrea which
gave out scent like honey as she crushed it. Cousin Tom was
delightful, and perhaps he was right. The sudden content with Life as
it was which had come to her the day before when she realised its
peace, its beauty, its kindliness, returned now. Through the arching
hazel boughs the sunlight filtered down in a tempered brilliance
restful to the eyes; a grasshopper shrilled in the bents; a yellow
butterfly, settling on a leaf beside her, folded its wings and,
apparently, went to sleep. An earthly paradise, indeed! Surely if one
could dream anywhere it would be here.

Suddenly a faint _shwish-shwish_ broke the silence. _Shwish-shwish_,
at regularly recurring intervals. Marjory, recognising the sound,
wondered listlessly who could be fishing the lower pool at this early
hour. One of the keepers, perhaps, hopeful of a trout for his master's
breakfast; rather a forlorn chance even in the pot above, with that
cloudless sky. A jarring whizz, accompanied by a convulsion in the
alder branches, broke in on her drowsiness, making her sit up with
intelligent appreciation of the cause. The somebody, whoever he might
be, was "in" to the tree. Another convulsion, gentler, but more
prolonged; another short and sharp, as if somebody were losing his
temper. Then a persuasive wiggle to all points of the compass in turn,
and finally the whirr of a check reel.

Somebody being evidently about to try conclusions with Nature, Marjory
leant forward in deep interest, knowing by bitter experience that it
was two to one against humanity. At last, as she expected, there came
a series of short, sharp jerks; then something she had not expected.
On the morning air one comprehensive monosyllable--"Damn." That was
all. No affix, no suffix; without nominative or accusative; soft, but
trenchant.

"A gentleman," said Marjory to herself, without a moment's hesitation,
as she rose to peer through the thick tangle of alders. If so, the
laird, of course. Yes! It must be he, on the opposite bank, standing
irresolute; weighing the pros and cons of breaking in, no doubt.
Marjory's experienced eyes following the taut line, rested finally on
the cast looped round a branch just above her, and apparently within
reach. The mere possibility was sufficient to make her forget all save
the instinct to help.

"Don't break, please, I can get it."

Her eager voice, unmistakably girlish and refined, echoed across to
Paul Macleod, who, after a moment's astonished search, traced it to a
face half-seen among the parting leaves. He took off his hat
mechanically, for though it might have been a pixie's there was no
mistaking its gender, and the sex found a large measure of outward
respect in Paul Macleod. For the rest, help offered was with him
invariably help accepted; a fact which accounted for a large portion
of his popularity, since people like those around whom the memory of
their own benevolence can throw a halo. So he stood watching Marjory
settle methodically to her task, wondering the while who the girl
could possibly be. For that she had white hands and trim ankles was
abundantly evident, and neither of these charms was to be expected in
the rustic beauties of the Glen.

"I am afraid I am giving you a lot of trouble," he said
sympathetically, as for the third time the branch flew back from
Marjory's hold with a sudden spring.

"Not at all," she gasped jerkily; one cannot speak otherwise on tiptoe
with both hands above one's head.

"Perhaps I had better help."

"Perhaps you had," she answered resentfully, desisting for a moment
after a fourth rebuff. "There is no positive necessity for you to
remain idle. You might for instance reel in as I pull."

His faint smile was tempered by respect. The young lady on the
opposite bank knew what she was about, and, perhaps, might even be
good looking, if she were not quite so red in the face. So he obeyed
meekly, and was rewarded by a gasp of triumph.

"There! I've got it. I knew you could help if you tried."

"I'm immensely obliged," he began; then the girl's foot slipped, the
branch sprang from her hand, she made an ineffectual jump after it,
and the next instant the all but disentangled cast, flung into the air
by the rebound, was hard and fast in a higher twig.

Marjory could have stamped with despite; thought it wiser to laugh,
but found the opposite bank full of silent, grieved sympathy.

"I'll get it yet," she called across the water, with renewed
determination.

"I think, if you'll allow me, I will break in," came the deferential
voice after a time. "It really must be very tiring to jump like that."

"Not at all; thank you," she retorted, without a pause. "I never--give
in."

"So it appears. Will you allow me to come over and help?"

Come over and help, indeed! Marjory's growing anger slackened to
contempt. As if he could come over without a detour of half a mile
down or quarter of a mile up the river; and he must know it, unless he
had no memory. "You can't," she jerked between her efforts. "You
had--better slack line--and sit down--I'll get it somehow."

Very much "somehow." Her hat fell off first. Then, after a desperate
spring, in which she succeeded in clutching a lower branch, a hairpin
struck work. Hot, dishevelled, exasperated, yet still determined, she
persevered without deigning another reference to the silence over the
way, until an arm clothed in grey tweed reached over hers and bent the
branch down within her reach. She looked round, and, even in her
surprise, the great personal charm and beauty of the face looking into
hers struck her almost painfully; for it seemed to soothe her quick
vexation, and so to claim something from her.

"I jumped," he said, answering the look on hers. "It is quite easy by
the fall."

Something new to her, something which sent a lump to her throat, made
her turn away and say stiffly: "I am sorry I gave you the trouble of
coming. It would have been better if you had broken in. Good morning."

He stood grave as a judge, courteous, deferential, yet evidently
amused, still bending down the bough.

"Will you not finish the task you began? You said you never gave in;
besides, I can hardly do it for myself." The fact was palpable; it
required two hands to disentangle a singularly awkward knot. To deny
this would be to confess her own annoyance, so she turned back again.
Rather an awkward task with a face so close to your own, watching your
ineptitude. And yet she forgot her impatience in a sudden thought. If
he had fallen! If that face had had the life crushed out of it!

"You ought not to have jumped," she said, impulsively. "It was very
dangerous."

"Pardon me; I have done it hundreds of times when I was a boy."

"Boys may do foolish things."

He smiled. "And men should not; but are dangerous things necessarily
foolish?"

"Needlessly dangerous things are so, surely?"

"In that case, what becomes of courage?"

She paused, frankly surprised both at herself and him. How came it
that he understood so quickly, that she followed him so clearly? Yet
it was pleasant.

"Courage has nothing to do with the question."

His smile broadened. "Thanks. I began by saying so. The fact being
that the jump is not dangerous."

"No one else jumps it," she persisted.

"Pardon me for mentioning that I am an unusually good jumper.
Besides--


             "The game is never yet worth a rap
                For a rational man to play,
              Into which some misfortune, some mishap
                Cannot possibly find its way."


Again something new to her, something which this time sent a thrill of
answering recklessness through her veins, something of the mere joy
and pride of life made her ask in quick interest--"Who wrote that?"

"A man who gave in at last; he shot himself."

Marjory's face paled. Yes; men did that sort of thing, she knew. She
had read of it, and accepted the truth of it calmly. Now for the first
time she felt that she understood it, that she too stood on the brink
of the Great Unknown Sea, which might bring her to the haven where she
would be, or to shipwreck. Then in quick relief came a new cause for
resentment in the perception, as she began to wind up the now
disentangled cast, that a large portion of line remained attached to
it. In other words, her companion had deliberately cut it, and brought
his rod with him; had risked his life not for the sake of his flies,
but simply to amuse himself at her expense.

"I think that is all I can do for you," she said, in a white heat of
annoyance. "Good morning, Captain Macleod."

The name slipped from her unawares, and she recognised her own mistake
immediately. Her knowledge of his identity being a sort of
introduction, from which she could scarcely escape. For his position
as laird of Gleneira, owner of the very ground on which she was
trespassing, could not be ignored. She could not dismiss him like a
tramp. He took the advantage she had given him, coolly.

"Thanks, so many," he said, holding back a branch to allow of her
passing before him, "but I am going also. It is too bright for sport.
In truth, I never expected any, and only came out to renew my
acquaintance with the river, and discover, what I expected, that I
have almost forgotten how to throw a fly."

"Indeed, you have not forgotten how to break in, at any rate," she
replied viciously; then ashamed of her unnecessary heat, since surely
it was none of her business if he broke every cast he possessed, she
added, in superior tones, "there is no reason, however, why you should
not get a fish in the Long Pool. The sun won't touch it for half an
hour."

"The Long Pool," he echoed, "which is that? I'm afraid I have almost
forgotten it, too."

It was a palpable excuse for continuing the conversation, and as such
Marjory resented it; at the same time, no one ever appealed to her for
information without meeting with prompt attention, the teaching
element being strong in her. So was impatience at crass stupidity; or,
as Captain Macleod preferred to call it, a deficient bump of locality.

"I'll see you as far as the Alder Island," she said at last, with some
irritation, "then you can't possibly make a mistake." That, at any
rate, would be better than trailing the whole two miles back to
Gleneira beside him. Not that he was forward or objectionable; on the
contrary, he treated her with a deference which would have been
pleasant had it not covered a quiet coercion which was perfectly
intolerable. So the glint of the Long Pool behind the Alder Island
came as a relief, and she pointed to it in a sort of triumph.

"I'm afraid it is no use," he said despondently. "Too fine; besides, I
haven't had my breakfast, and it is growing late. I'll get Cameron to
come down afterwards and show me the casts. A river changes in ten
years."

"You can't possibly judge from here; and I can show you the cast
perfectly," she retorted. It had come to a stand-up fight with the
gloves on between his will and hers, and accustomed as she was to
instant submission from everybody of the opposite sex, she would not
confess her own defeat by getting rid of him with a crude dismissal.
To begin with he scarcely merited the insult, and, in addition, it
might be awkward afterwards. So she pointed out the probable lie of
the fish, and, her sporting instincts overcoming her contempt,
exclaimed against the gaudy cast he selected--a cast no decent fish
would have looked at except in flood time.

"No! no!" she cried, in real eagerness. "Something less like a
firework, if you have one--a brown body and turkey wing. Ah! here's
the very thing. I don't believe in the steel loops, though, do you--?
Will doesn't. And you have bridge rings I see; I never saw them
before. They look good. Now then! Just below the break, down the slidy
bit, and across to the ripple--Oh-h!"

The exclamation was caused by a fall as of a coiled hawser on the
water, and a separate "blob" of each fly on the surface.

"You had better try again," she said gravely, "and don't thrash so;
use your wrist."

"If there was more wind," he suggested.

"Nonsense! you ought to be able to throw that distance anyhow. It's
all knack; it will come back after a cast or two. I'm sure it will."

Apparently she was wrong. The line ceased, it is true, to fall in a
heap like an umbrella, yet failed by many feet to reach the break
above the slidy bit.

"Give me the rod a moment," she cried, "and I'll show you the turn of
the wrist. You'll recognise it then."

There was an instant's pause as she stood, one foot planted against a
stone, her lithe figure thrown backwards, her chin following the
little toss of her head, tilted sideways; so that her eager young face
was in full view of her companion; and then the long line flew out in
the spey cast and seemed to nestle down just where the water broke.

"Bravo!" cried Captain Macleod, as much to the picture as to the
skill. And then before he could say another word came an eddy, a noise
like the cloop of a cork, a glint of a silvery side, and the whirr of
the reel. Things to drive all else from a fisherman's brain.

"In to him!" shouted the Captain, excitedly; "and a beauty, too. No!
no; keep it. I'd rather you kept it! I'd like to see you land him--if
you can."

The implied doubt, joined to the vicious shooting of something like a
huge silver whiting with its tail in its mouth into the air, warning
the girl of the danger of a slack line, had the desired effect. She
set her teeth and gave herself up to repairing the error of
indecision. The fish, having got his head, was now further down the
pool than he should have been, and close to an ugly snag, towards
which he bored with the strange cunning which seems born in fish.
Marjory gave him the butt bravely, but he fought like a demon, and for
one instant the reel gave out an ominous clicking.

"Perhaps I had better," came an eager voice beside her. "It is heavier
than I thought."

"Please not! Please let me keep it now! I'd rather lose him--there!" A
rapid wind-up emphasised her excitement. "I can manage him, you
see--if you will go down--there by the white stones--I'll get him
into the shallow--the tackle is so light I can scarcely bring him
up--and--and--don't be in a hurry--I'll bring him in right over the
click."

The old imperiousness was back in full swing, and once again she had a
willing slave, eager as she was for the sight of something long and
brown curving, snakelike, into the shallow as if of its own free will,
or coming in despairingly "this side up." It was a sharp, swift
struggle, all the sharper and swifter because of that ominous snag
over the way; and then an eight-pound grilse with the sea-lice still
on him lay on the bank.

"Oh! What a beautiful creature! One of the prettiest I have ever
seen," cried Marjory, ecstatically, on her knees beside the prize.

"Very much so, indeed." Captain Macleod's voice was absent, and his
eyes were not on the fish. "You killed him splendidly."

The light went out of the girl's face; she rose to her feet slowly.

"I wish I had given you the rod," she said, still looking down on the
palpitating, quivering bar of silver.

"That is most forgiving of you!"

She turned upon him almost indignantly. "Oh! I wasn't thinking of all
that--that stuff! I was thinking--it seems so cruel."

"Many things seem so afterwards. One might spend a lifetime in
regretting, if it was worth it; but it isn't."

"Isn't it? I wish anyhow that I hadn't killed that fish."

"Why not go further back, and wish you hadn't interfered to safe my
cast? for, as it happens, the one you chose out was the very one Fate
had ordained should remain in an alder bush----"

"Perhaps I do," she replied stiffly, realising how he had played upon
her for the first time. The knowledge, rather to her own surprise,
brought tears to her eyes.

"I don't wonder that you regret having helped me," he said with a
sudden change of manner. "If you will tell me where to leave the fish
I will no longer trouble you. I am sorry for having given you so much
already."

There was no mistaking the hidden depth of his apology. As he stood
there in the sunlight, looking at her gravely, Marjory felt to the
full the charm of his gracious presence. Who could really be angry
with him for such a trifle? For it was a trifle after all.

"My name is Marjory Carmichael," she said briefly, "and I live at the
Lodge with the Camerons. But I don't want the fish. I don't indeed."

"Then you shall not have it. I owe you some obedience, do I not?--and
thanks beyond measure."

He stood there with his cap off smiling at her, and she, feeling
apologetic in her turn, hesitated. After all, if he was going her way
it would be foolishness itself to tramp that mile and a half with an
interval of fifty yards or so between them.

"And now I must emulate your skill," he said cheerfully, "though I
can't expect your luck." And as she moved away she saw his flies
settle softly as thistledown in the right place. Well! that was better
than keeping up the pretence.

As for him, though he continued to fish conscientiously, his thoughts
were with the figure of the retreating girl. She had amused him and
interested him greatly. A relation, he supposed, of Dr. Carmichael's;
in fact, he had a dim recollection of a curly-haired child scampering
about on a Sheltie ten years before; though he had never known the
doctor, who had lived as a recluse. But how came she here still, and
with the Camerons? A cut above them surely! By Jove! how she had hung
on to that grilse, and how nearly she had cried over it afterwards.
Maudlin sentimentality, of course, and yet he had felt the same a
hundred times over a wounded deer. The look in her eyes had been like
that, somehow; uncommonly pretty eyes they were, too, into the
bargain!




                              CHAPTER V.


Paul Macleod sate in the business-room, where so many lairds of
Gleneira had received rents and signed cheques, playing his part with
great propriety, much to Will Cameron's delight and astonishment.
Captain Macleod was, undoubtedly, the laird, and as such bound to a
semi-parental interest in every living thing, to say nothing of every
stick and stone about the old place. On the other hand, he had been
away in a perfectly different environment for nearly ten years, and it
seemed nothing short of marvellous to the factor that he should
remember every farmer and cottier, nay, more, their wives, and sons,
and daughters, by name. And so, perhaps it was; though, to tell truth,
the mental qualities it represented were small, being no more nor less
than a quick responsiveness to the renewal of past sensation; that
very responsiveness which ten years before had made Paul shrink from
giving an unpleasant memory a place in his life. Moralists are apt to
sneer at the popularity which the possessor of this faculty enjoys;
and, of course, it is easy to cheapen the sympathy of the man, who
when he sees you, is instantly reminded of all the past connected with
you in detail, and proceeds to inquire eagerly about your ox and ass,
your manservant and your maidservant, and everything that is within
your gate. Yet, when all is said and done, and though he certainly
gives the false impression that these things have never been out of
his mind, the gift is not only an enviable one, but in itself argues a
quicker sensibility than that possessed by his more stolid, if more
honest, neighbours.

So there was no effort to Paul Macleod in taking up the thread of his
past life at Gleneira; at the same time, he felt no more regret at
hearing, as he did through Will's answers to his inquiries, of Jeanie
Duncan's death, somewhere in the vague South country, than he did for
many another item of news. Partly because that old life had really
passed out of existence for him altogether, and partly because Will,
being a good-natured kindly soul, said nothing about the child which
poor old Peggy had brought with her. There are many men of this
sort--more men for the matter of that than there are women--who hate
to face the sad aspect of life, and slur over a painful story whenever
they can.

Thus Captain Macleod was able to quit the past and plunge into the
future without even the slight regret which the news must have brought
him; for in his way he had really loved Jeanie, and the thought that
his admirable self-sacrifice had not availed to keep her memory
pleasant, would have been a distinct annoyance. As it was, he began at
once on plans and arrangements, which convinced Will Cameron that the
laird must be going, unconsciously, to follow his advice, and marry a
rich wife. Nothing else could explain the fact that Gleneira House had
to be generally smartened up for the present, pending more solid
repairs during winter, that carriages and horses had to be bought at
once, and preparations of all sorts made for the houseful of guests
which would come with the shooting season. In the matter of slates,
glass, stables, and garden, Will Cameron felt himself equal to the
occasion, but when chintzes and furniture came under discussion he
meekly suggested a reference to Maples', or Morris, or his mother.

"I should prefer Mrs. Cameron," replied the laird, with a laugh. "If I
wanted the other sort of thing my sister Blanche would do it for me
fast enough. Take a brougham by the day--to save her own horse, you
know--and re-create poor old Gleneira. First day, paper, painting,
draping; second day, furnishing; third day, creeping things
innumerable--you know them. Chenille things climbing up the lamp, a
Japanese toad on the writing-table, and a spider on the edge of a
teacup." He rose and went to the window. "But that sort of thing is
desecration of this," he went on, looking out on the opalescent
shimmer of sea and sky and hills; "though it does well enough in South
Kensington. I never could fit myself out, even in clothes, with a view
to both hemispheres, and though some folk profess to prepare for
heaven and enjoy earth at the same time, I'm not made that way."

He pulled himself up with an airy smile, and turned round again.

"So let us be off to Mrs. Cameron, and perhaps that young lady who is
staying with you--I met her by the river this morning----"

"Marjory," put in Will, eagerly; "why, yes, of course, she is the very
person we want--has awfully good taste."

"Indeed," said the other, smiling again. He was thinking that in that
case he could not claim distinction since she had not favoured him
with much of her approval. Not that it mattered, since he had quite
made up his mind that during the next few weeks, before his married
sister came to do hostess, Marjory would be a decided acquisition to
the limited society at his command; for Paul was distinctly gregarious
in his tastes. It did not take much to amuse him; but he needed some
gentle interest to start the wheels of his pleasure, and that interest
was, preferably, a woman. So, being able thus to combine duty and
amusement by a visit to the Lodge, he calmly suggested an adjournment
on the spot, to which Will agreed, blissfully oblivious of the fact
that not half-an-hour before he had left his mother in the agonies of
redding up the best parlour, with a view to the laird's expected visit
in the afternoon.

No doubt when the women of the future have won large interests for
themselves, such a spectacle as Mrs. Cameron presented when she saw
two tweed-clad figures lounging up the path together will be
impossible. Even nowadays the attempt to describe her feelings must
fall far short of the reality, since few of this generation can grasp
the mental position of the last, and Mrs. Cameron belonged to the
generation before that. Of far better birth than many a farmer's wife
who would be ashamed at being discovered engaged in household work,
Mrs. Cameron would as a rule have gloried in what was to her the sole
aim and object of woman's creation; but this was no ordinary occasion;
how could that be one which necessitated clean muslin curtains at a
time when clean muslin curtains should not be, a cake made after her
mother's original recipe baking in the oven, and a bottle of her dead
husband's very best Madeira waiting to be decanted on the sideboard?

She stood transfixed on the steps, in the very act of running a tape
through the stiffened hem of the curtain, an operation which in itself
had reduced her patience to the lowest ebb; and then, after an
instant's pause, her resentment found an outlet in one expressive
epithet.

"The Gowk!" For it was Will's fault, of course; had not the lad been a
perfect dispensation ever since he was born? (this being her favourite
word for describing all the inevitable trials of her life). Besides,
after the manner of most housewifely women, she always visited any
failure in domestic arrangements on the head of the nearest male
belonging to the family. No one but a man, no one but a man, sent to
make _her_ life a burden, could have been guilty of such a disgraceful
blunder, when a word, a hint, could have kept the laird from coming
until the afternoon. The conviction brought a sort of martyred
resignation with it, as she continued in a lower key, "and the parlour
as bare as the loof o' my hand, save for the tea leaves on the
drugget."

A more forlorn picture of discomfort could not have been suggested,
and Marjory, standing by with needle and thread, promptly suggested
that the laird should be shown into her study, since she was on the
point of going out; an assertion which mollified the old lady by its
suggestion that the visit must be to her alone. And wherefore not,
since she had seen three generations of Macleods come and go? So, with
vague remarks about sparing the rod and spoiling the child, which it
is to be supposed bore reference to poor Will's education, she hurried
off to meet her guest in the old-fashioned style, and take it out of
the offender--who in the meantime had, for hospitality's sake, to go
scot free--by a display of almost subservient humility to their
employer.

"Come ben! Come ben, Gleneira, to your ain house. And tho' it is no so
tidy as I might have wished" (here a savage glance at her son
emphasised the stab) "it is not for me to say you nay, for even if we
have been here father and son, a' these years, it is no for us to be
forgettin' oor position and dependence."

"Don't keep the laird standing on the steps all day," put in Will,
hurriedly; "he wants to have a crack with you, mother; let us go into
the parlour."

"The parlour, William, as you should ken fine, is being redd up, so I
must fain ask the laird's pardon for takin' him to our boarder's wee
sitting-room."

As a rule Mrs. Cameron would sooner have died than call Marjory a
boarder, and so level herself to the bit farmer-bodies who let
lodgings in the summer time; but at present any weapon against her
son's dignity was welcome, and she rejoiced to see him growing more
and more impatient. Letting lodgings, indeed! Aye, that was what the
poor shiftless creature would come to if he hadn't her to make both
ends meet!

"My dear Mrs. Cameron," replied Paul, still holding her old hand and
looking sentimentally into her old face, "the pleasure of seeing you
is all I care for now. To begin with, it makes me feel years younger.
And how young I was when you caught me stealing your jam! I have
never forgotten the lecture you gave me, never! And then, do you
remember----?" He was fairly afloat on the sea of reminiscence now,
much to the old lady's gratification. But since this was distinctly an
irregular method of getting through a state visit, she led the way
defiantly to Marjory's little snuggery upstairs, with another sniff at
poor Will, which sent him off muttering something about letting its
owner know; a remark which increased his mother's wrath, and made her
more than ever set on a strict observance of the ceremony due to the
occasion. So she sat exactly opposite Paul on a high chair, and began
_seriatim_ on all domestic events in the Gleneira family during the
past nine years, until his head whirled, and the life which had seemed
to him so varied and gay, reduced itself to a mere excerpt from the
first column of the Times. Yet his deferential courtesy never failed,
and, as usual, brought him its own reward; for after a time, the old
lady, finding it impossible to resist his charm, thawed completely,
and finally getting quite jolly, frankly confessed her annoyance, and
hurried off to see if the cake were not sufficiently baked to admit of
Gleneira's breaking bread in the house, just for luck's sake.

Paul, left alone, began to frown. This was Miss Carmichael's room;
but, apparently, she meant to steer clear of it while he was there.
Girls did that sort of thing; it made them feel independent.
Meanwhile, what sort of a girl was she, judged by her room; that sort
of knowledge often came in very useful when the dear creatures were
shy. Fond of flowers, certainly, and in a rational way; these were not
arranged in bouquets, but set one or two in a vase wherever a vase
could stand, so that you could see them. Books? A closed bookcase full
of the dreariest backs; they must have belonged to her uncle, or
perhaps to old Cameron, who had been a bit of a student; but scarcely
to a girl who could throw a salmon line like Miss Carmichael. Yes! She
had certainly looked as well as she was ever likely to look, when
swaying her lithe body to the sway of the rod. Pictures? A good
photograph that, over the mantelpiece, of Andrea del Sarto's
Maddelena; from the original, of course, and full size. That was the
best of photographs, you could have them exact, and sometimes half an
inch made such a difference. How well he remembered his first sight of
the picture in that dark corner of the Borghese gallery, and the
effect its dreamy eyes had had on him; the wonder, too, whether the
casket really held a very precious ointment, or a still more precious
_acquatofana_. Either was possible with that dim, mysterious smile;
and the woman herself--for it was Del Sarto's wife, of course--had
been a lying devil who made her husband's life a perfect hell. Now,
had Miss Carmichael chosen that photograph for herself; and, if so,
why? Since it did not fit the salmon fishing any better than the
books. Ah! there in the bow window, cut off from the rest of the room
by muslin drapery, was a low wicker chair, placed close to a revolving
bookstand.

"Now for the last new novel," he said to himself cynically. "What is
the odds on anything in these latter times. I have seen nice girls
since I came home reading things in public which I would not leave
about in the smoking-room for fear the housemaid might be shocked.
Eheu!"

It was a sort of prolonged low whistle of surprise and disappointment,
mingled with a distinct personal aversion to the treatise on Conic
Sections, which he took up inadvertently. The fact being that Paul
Macleod had at one period of his life thought of Woolwich, and that
particular book had, as it were, stood in the way of his ambition.
Perhaps it was that which made him fling it down contemptuously,
with a sort of vague indictment against the owner. She had not looked
like it certainly, yet for all he knew she might be one of those
clear-headed, hard-hearted nondescripts--the opposite extreme from
that angel-faced, sensual-minded demon over the mantelpiece--who
despised the emotions they were born to create, and would scorn to
have a foolish, illogical, unreasoning, lovable sentimentality. There
he paused abruptly, and whistled again; for on the stand among the
books was a little vase holding some white heather and stag-horn moss.
A curious coincidence truly, even if it were nothing more. He stood
looking at it for a minute or two, and then quite coolly exchanged it
for a similar bouquet which he was wearing in his buttonhole; a
bouquet which he had found in a vase on his dressing-table.

Just then the door opened, at first gently, then hurriedly, while
Marjory's voice exclaimed in joyous relief, "Gone at last! What a
relief!"

Paul emerged from his concealment with outstretched hand.
"Good-morning, Miss Carmichael," he said in that charming voice of
his, "delighted to find you at home." She looked at him with level,
puzzled eyes.

"I think you must have heard what I said just now, didn't you?" Her
directness went straight through the veneer of conventional
politeness, and startled him into corresponding frankness.

"Yes; every word," he said, turning to take up his cap.

"Oh, please don't," she broke in eagerly. "It will make me feel so
ashamed. And it was only because I wanted to finish some papers and
send them off. You see to-morrow is my birthday, and I promised Tom to
take a holiday. But I forgot," she added with a quick apologetic
smile, "you don't know who Tom is, and it can't interest you----"

"I beg your pardon," he interrupted, returning somewhat to his more
elaborate manner; "it interests me exceedingly to know who Tom is."

Again her perfect unconsciousness drove him back to simplicity.

"Tom is my guardian--Dr. Thomas Kennedy. I don't suppose _you_ have
heard of him, but most people have; I mean of that sort. He is in
Paris now busy over a bacillus."

"Indeed!" said Paul, beginning to weary; "and so to-morrow is your
birthday, and you are to have a holiday; a whole holiday. That sounds
very virtuous, Miss Carmichael, to a man who has perpetual holidays."

"But I am going to have six weeks! A real vacation. The first I've
ever had; because you see I've never been to school or college, and
work has always been more or less of an amusement to me. One must have
something to do, you know."

"Pardon me, but I seldom find the necessity. Life in itself occupies
all my spare time; I mean all the time I can spare from things that
are necessary to keep in life."

She looked at him again with frankly puzzled, half-amused eyes. "How
funny that sounds. I don't understand it a bit, but I daresay I shall
when I have really been idle for two or three weeks. Tom says it will
do me good before I start regular work. I am going to teach in a Board
school in November."

"That seems a pity."

"Why? I have to earn my own living, remember!"

"Pardon me for saying that that seems to me a greater pity still."

The puzzled, amused look grew more pronounced. "And that sounds still
funnier. Can't you see that some of us must work; there are so many of
us nowadays. Besides, I like work; uncle used to say that was lucky,
because I had to. You see I am absolutely alone in the world."

"And that is the greatest pity of all." His voice, soft, kind,
courteous, carried them beyond the lightness of ordinary conversation
in a moment, and Marjory, recognising the fact, felt none of her
usually quick resentment at the intrusion of a stranger into her inner
life; for she was not of those who parade their possession of a soul,
perhaps because she took it as a matter of course.

"I suppose it is, in a way," she assented; "but I have been accustomed
to the position all my life, and somehow I never regret it."

"That seems to me rather unnatural in a girl."

"It is very lucky," she retorted. "What would become of me if I were
afraid?"

"You would probably lead a far happier life."

"Why?"

They were standing opposite each other, looking into each other's
faces, and the beauty of his, the unconsciousness of hers, held them
both captive.

"Because in all probability you would marry."

There was a silence for a moment, but Paul Macleod, no mean judge of
character, partly because of the complexity of his own, had rightly
gauged the measure of what he had to deal with. What many girls might
have deemed an impertinence Marjory passed by as a mere truism.

"I have often thought of that myself," she replied quietly; "but I
think you are mistaken."

It was his turn now to put that terse, unconditional "Why?"

"I am not likely to marry; as uncle used to say, I have not purchasing
power equal to my requirements."

"Meaning, of course, that your ideal is too high. I should have
fancied so. You are very young, Miss Carmichael. And I am old;
besides, ten years knocking about in Indian cantonments disposes
effectually of the theory of twin souls. It is very beautiful, no
doubt; but I fancy mine must have died in the measles, or some other
infantile ailment. It did not survive to riper years, at any rate. But
here comes Mrs. Cameron, so I shall escape scathing this time. I
generally do."

Marjory felt she could well believe it, palpably unjust though such
immunity might be, as she watched the laird give back the fervid
greeting of the Reverend James Gillespie, who followed close on the
tray of cake and wine.

"My dear sir; welcome to the Glen," cried the young clergyman. "I have
been up at the Big House, and, hearing you were at the Lodge, ventured
to follow you. As parish clergyman----"

"'Deed no! Gillespie," put in Mrs. Cameron, sharply.

"I did not say minister, my dear Madam," retorted the Reverend James
with uncommon spirit; "I said clergyman; and considering that the
lairds of Gleneira have ever clung loyally to the Church." Here
something in the old lady's face made him, as it were, climb down
again. "Well, let us say parish priest."

"'Deed no, again," interrupted the good lady, with a grim smile. "What
would Father Macdonald be saying?"

The Reverend Mr. Gillespie climbed down still further for the sake of
peace, though the vexed question of effectual orders was a favourite
hunting-ground of the Bishop's. "As a native of Gleneira, deeply
interested in the spiritual and moral welfare of its inhabitants,
allow me to express my sincere pleasure in your return. Believe me,
Gleneira, the people welcome you to their midst."

"It is really awfully kind of you all, when I have been such a
shocking ne'er-do-weel absentee. I assure you, Miss Carmichael, that
the number of times I've had to drink my own health in raw whiskey
this morning is incredible; enough to ruin it for the next year."

The Reverend James put on his most professional air. "Too true. As the
Bishop says, whiskey is indeed the bane----"

"Hoot, no!" interrupted Mrs. Cameron from the cake and wine; "good
whiskey ne'er harmed a good man. It is just the idle, feckless bodies
getting drunken that gives it a bad name."

"But that is just the point, my dear lady," expostulated the young
man, feeling sure of his ground. "It is for the sake of the weaker
brother."

"Havers!" began Mrs. Cameron; but the Reverend James was firm, and
quoted the text.

"Aye, aye!" continued the old lady, "I ken where it comes from fine,
more's the pity, for I don't hold wi' it. It's just a premium on being
a poor body, and is the clear ruination o' this world whatever it may
be of the next. Gie me a useless, through--other man or woman, and
hey! it's a weaker brother an' maun' be cockered up."

She showed so much animation that her opponent retired from the
contest discreetly by turning to the laird and beginning on a stock
subject.

"I am sorry to say, Gleneira, that despite my own efforts, and the
Bishop's earnest desire for the erection of a church, matters remain
much as they were, when you were here last. That is to say, service
has still to be conducted in the school-house, which, er--in addition
to other illegitimate uses"--he glanced casually at his old enemy at
this point--"also serves as a post-office; a plan which has great and
undeniable inconvenience."

"And convenience, too," put in Mrs. Cameron, remorselessly. "You see,
laird, the post is no delivered on the Sabbath-day, this bein' a
Christian land, and so when folk go to kirk they can kill twa birds
wi' one stane."

This was too much. "In my opinion," retorted the Reverend James,
pompously, "it would be far less objectionable if Donald _did_ deliver
the letters than that the last words of the blessing should be the
signal for handing them round the congregation. But as is so often the
case in Scotland, the veneration for the day--which, by the way, is
not the Sabbath----"

"No, no!" interrupted the old lady, "I'm no going that gate. I've told
ye oft, Mr. Gillespie, it is naught to me if it's the Sabbath or
Sunday, or Lord's-day or the first day o' the week we are keeping. But
I ken fine that in my learnin' days I was taught to keep it holy, so
if there is ony mistake it was none o' my makin'. It's the fault of
the minister."

Mr. Gillespie coughed. "The hours of service are eleven o'clock for
matins, and four o'clock for evensong. Miss Marjory kindly helps us
with the harmonium. Indeed, one of my reasons for coming on here was
to ask her to settle the hymns for Sunday first, unless, indeed, you
yourself would select one suitable--er--to the occasion."

Paul took the proffered hymn-book with visible embarrassment, and
looked appealingly towards Marjory, but it was impossible to laugh,
for the Reverend James's proposition was saved from absurdity by its
absolute simplicity.

"Really! my dear sir," he began, when Mrs. Cameron came to his rescue.

"Gie the laird a harvest hymn, Mr. Gillespie. I'll warrant he has sown
his wild oats, though maybe after all, you would no care to be reapin'
them, Gleneira."

He laughed very boyishly. "My dear old friend, if they were fifty
shillings a quarter, I should be the richest man in Lorneshire,
instead of the poorest."

"Poor," she echoed grimly; "you couldna' be poor if you tried. It is
no in some men. And now, Gleneira, there's some o' the farm folk
waiting to drink your health outside, so come awa'. And you, too,
Marjory, my dear, for you're a Gleneira lass when all's said and done.
And the parson can tak' a glass for his oft infirmities if he'll no do
it for anything less important."

They followed her out into the sunshine, where, in a solemn
semi-circle, they found half-a-dozen or more of men and halflings,
headed, of course, by old John Macpherson as spokesman. He held a wine
glass in one hand, a black bottle in the other, and the liltiness of
his attitude, joined to a watery benevolence in his eye, told a tale
of previous exertions towards the laird's good health. It was evident
that, for the time being, he was an optimist, viewing the world as the
best of all possible worlds. A glass more, and he would be ready to
defend the proposition with his fists; another, and he would have wept
over its denial, for Aladdin's genii of the bottle was not more
powerful in metamorphosis than Scotch whiskey was on John Macpherson.

"An' here's to you, Gleneira," he said, when Paul returned the glass.
"An' it's wissing you as rich as the Duke o' Wellington--Pech!
Mistress Cameron, but yon's gude whiskey--water never touched it."

Even the refilled glass, as it passed from hand to hand, seemed to
have a vicarious effect on old John, who waxed more and more lilty,
and finally, when the others moved off, lingered for an audible
whisper, accompanied by an admiring glance at the laird.

"Gorsh! Miss Marjory, wass I no tellin' you he was bonnie, and iss he
not bonnie, whatever?"

"A leading question, John," said Paul, readily; "witness can't be
expected to answer it."

But the argumentative mood was beginning. "An' what for no. Miss
Marjory will be a Highland lass, an' a Highland lass will no be so
shamefast, but they will be knowing a bonnie lad when they see one."

"I quite agree with you, John," said the girl, quickly, with a
suspicion of both a frown and a smile on her face.

Paul Macleod, as he walked home, found himself fully occupied in
trying, as it were, to piece the girl's character together to his
satisfaction. She was a novel experience, a pleasant one into the
bargain.

So when she came to breakfast next morning, a bouquet of hot-house
flowers lay on her plate with Captain Macleod's best wishes for her
birthday.

"I think it is very kind of him," she said judicially, in reply to
Mrs. Cameron's rapture over the laird's condescension; "but Peter
Morrison will be furious at having his show spoilt. And he has
amputated the poor things at the knee. Men ought never to pick
flowers, they don't understand them, except gardeners, and they never
want to pick them at all."

When she went up that afternoon to the Big House in order to aid Mrs.
Cameron's taste in the matter of new curtains, there was a little
bunch of white heather and stag-horn moss tucked into her belt. In
finding room amongst the vases for the newcomers this had seemed too
pretty to throw away, that was all. But Paul Macleod's keen eyes fell
on it at once with a certain satisfaction; nevertheless, he made no
allusion to the subject, a reticence which he would not have observed
towards most women of his acquaintance. It was sufficient for him to
be aware of its complicated history. That sort of thing gave an
infinite zest to life.




                             CHAPTER VI.


Even in the dusty glare of a dusty July sun, one of the largest houses
in Queen's Gardens looked cool and pleasant with its delicate shades
of grey on wall and portico, its striped jalousies and tiled window
gardens gay with scarlet geraniums, yellow calceolarias, and blue
lobelias; flowers, all of them, which seem somehow to have lost their
flowerfulness by being so constantly associated in one's mind with
area railings, barrel organs, and the eternal rat-tat of the postman's
knock--to be brief, with London. For all the passer-by knew or cared,
those lines of brilliant red, yellow, and blue blossoms might have
been cunningly composed of paper, and would have served their purpose
to the full as well had they been so, since no one, even inside the
house, ever looked on them in the light of living, breathing plants
going through a process of asphyxiation. It is difficult no doubt to
resist the temptation to have pot-plants in London, but how often when
brought face to face with the hideous ravages which a day or two of
its poisonous atmosphere makes on our favourites has not the true
flower-lover felt nothing short of murder. The inhabitants of the
house in Queen's Gardens, however, had not even this chance for
remorse, since the boxes were kept bright by contract, and if any poor
plant was ill-advised enough to droop and complain, it was promptly
rooted up and replaced by the man who came in the early mornings to
"walk the hospitals" before the family appeared on the scene.

Within the house, the same spick and span, utterly impersonal
attention to beauty prevailed. From basement to attic it was simply
perfect in its appointments. As it might well be, since an artist in
copper utensils had been let loose in the kitchen, the greatest
authority in the world on wall papers had been allowed his will in
friezes and dados; and so on from cellar to roof. There is, of course,
a good deal to be said in favour of this modern specialism. It is
distinctly comforting to know, that if you have not reached
perfection, you have at any rate paid for it; but to some barbarians
the loss of individuality in such houses is very grievous. To begin
with, you lose a most delightful study of character. And after all, if
Mrs. Jones has a sneaking admiration for a pea-green carpet with pink
cabbage roses sprinkled over it, why, in heaven's name, should she
conceal the fact? No green that ever was dyed is greener than grass,
no flower that ever was woven is half as brilliant as the
blossom-mosaic which Nature spreads for you to tread upon when the
snow melts from the upland Alps. Yet the house was charming enough in
detail if a little confusing _en masse_ to those sensitive to their
surroundings; since the drawing-room was Queen Anne, the dining-room
Tudor, and various other corridors and apartments Japanesque,
Renaissance, Early English, or Pompeian.

This again did not affect the inmates, who, indeed, would have scorned
to feel as if time and space had been annihilated in the course of
half-a-dozen steps; such fanciful imaginations being almost wicked,
when time and space were distinctly necessary to the due performance
of your duty in that state of life to which it had pleased Providence
to call you.

On this particular morning in July, Mr. and Mrs. Woodward and their
daughter Alice were seated at the breakfast table in the usual
comfortable indifferent silence of people who keep a diary of outside
engagements in a conspicuous place on the writing-table, and whose
inner lives move in decorous procession from morn till eve. A canary
was singing joyfully, but at the same time keeping a watchful eye on
the grey Persian cat which walked up and down rubbing itself, as it
passed and repassed, against Mrs. Woodward's gown, with an anxious
look on the bread and milk she was crumbling for it. Mr. Woodward, at
the other side of a central palm tree, studied the share list. Miss
Alice Woodward, who had evidently come down later than the others, was
still engaged listlessly on toast and butter; finally making a remark
in an undertone to her mother that as Jack had settled to ride with
her in the Park at eleven, she supposed it was about time to get
ready; a remark which resulted in her pushing away her plate
languidly.

"You have eaten no breakfast, my dear, and you are looking pale," said
her mother, comfortably; "I will get you some more Blaud's from the
Stores."

"Oh! I'm all right," replied the girl. "It's hot, and--and things are
tiresome. They generally are at the end of the season, aren't they?"

She drifted easily, rather aimlessly, out of the room. Like everything
else in the house she was costly and refined; pretty in herself but
without any individuality. For the rest, blonde and graceful, with a
faintly discontented droop of the mouth, and large, full, china-blue
eyes.

Mr. Woodward watched her retreat furtively till the door closed behind
her, then laid down his paper and addressed his wife with the air of a
man who attends strictly to business. That was, in fact, his attitude
towards his daughter at all times. He did not, he said, understand
girls, but he did his duty by them.

"I heard from Macleod this morning, my dear."

Mrs. Woodward went on crumbling bread gently, and there was a pause.
"Well, what does he say?"

"That the house will be ready for visitors by the 8th of next month,
and that it will give him great pleasure to welcome us as soon after
that date as we can manage."

"Nothing more?"

"Only the old story; that he is most anxious for our consent in order
that he may speak definitely. There, read it yourself, a sensible,
gentlemanly letter. I really don't think she could do better."

His tone was precisely what it would have been had he been
recommending the purchase of debenture stock in a safe concern.

"Then I suppose we may consider it settled; I mean, if Alice likes the
place."

"Just so; but I'm told it is charming; there is a man--in
hooks-and-eyes, by the way--who has the moor next it. I met him at the
Kitcheners' dinner. He said it only wanted money, and she will bring
that. Besides, the man himself is all that can be desired, even by a
girl."

Mrs. Woodward nodded her head. "Yes, that is such a comfort, and Lady
George is so nice. Alice is quite fond of her, which is a great point
with a sister-in-law. In fact, everything seems most satisfactory."
She paused a moment, and a faint shade of doubt showed on her face.
"Only, of course, there is Jack."

"Jack! heaven and earth, Sophia! what has Jack to do with it?"

"Nothing, of course, only you know, or at any rate you might have seen
that he--well, that he may object."

Mr. Woodward's face passed from sheer amazement to that peculiar
expression of virtuous indignation which so many English fathers
reserve for those who, without a nomination, have the temerity to
admire their daughters.

"Jack! that boy Jack?"

"He is older than Alice, my dear," put in his wife, with meek
obstinacy. She, on the contrary, was smiling, for, no matter how
ineligible the victim, a scalp is always a scalp to a mother; and
Jack was not ineligible. On the contrary, he was the head of the
soap-boiling business, now that her husband had received a
consideration for his interest, and retired into the more genteel
trade of blowing soap bubbles on 'Change.

"Pooh!" retorted Mr. Woodward, angrily, "if he is troublesome send him
to me, I'll settle him. The lad must marry position, like Alice." He
paused, and his manner changed. "You don't, of course, mamma,
insinuate that--that Alice--that your daughter has been foolish
enough----"

Mrs. Woodward rose with dignity, and gave the cat its bread and milk.
"_My_ daughter is a dear, good, sensible girl, Mr. Woodward; but that
doesn't alter the fact that your _nephew_ may be foolish. I consider
it extremely likely that he may be; it runs in the family."

Mr. Woodward took up the share list again, using it--after the manner
of his kind when in domestic difficulties--as a shield, and his wife
put a fresh lump of sugar in the canary's cage, saw to its seed and
water, and left the room placidly. The bird was her bird, the cat her
cat, and therefore she did her duty by them. In the same conscientious
spirit she interviewed the housekeeper and ordered a very good dinner
for her husband because he was her husband. Some people have the knack
of getting a vast deal of purely selfish satisfaction out of their own
virtues. Finally, she went into the morning-room, and began to think
over the best way of doing her duty by her daughter also; for there
was this difficulty in the way, here, that she and Alice were too much
alike for sympathy. They found each other out continually, and, what
is more, placidly disapproved of the various little weaknesses they
shared in common. It is this inevitable likeness which is really at
the bottom of that state of affairs, which is expressed in the
feminine phrase, "they don't get on at home, somehow." But Alice was
not a revolting daughter. Apart from other considerations, she would
have thought it vulgar not to behave nicely to her parents, while Mrs.
Woodward herself would have felt her complacent self-respect
endangered if she had not had a high estimate of her own child; and
Alice was, in this aspect, a far easier subject than her brother Sam,
who, to tell truth, gave even his mother a few qualms in regard to his
personal appearance.

But Alice was perfect in that respect, simply perfect. Not too
pronouncedly pretty; not the sort of girl whose photograph would be
put up surreptitiously in the shop windows, but really quite
unexceptionable as she came in to her mother's room and stood at the
window in her trim habit waiting for the horses to come round. Then
she turned to her mother composedly.

"Father had a letter from Captain Macleod this morning, hadn't he?
When does he expect us?"

Mrs. Woodward gave a sigh of relief. It was an advantage sometimes to
be seen through, especially when you were anxious to give a word of
warning before that long ride with Jack in the Park, and you did not
quite know how to set about it.

"On the 8th; that will suit your father nicely; he will have done his
meetings by then. And you will like the change, won't you, darling?"

"Immensely, of course. Then we had better go round to Redfern's to-day
and order tailor-made things; something that looks rough, you know,
but isn't. I hate rough things, they make me feel creepy. Ah! there is
Jack coming round the gardens. Good-bye, dearest."

She stooped to kiss her mother dutifully ere leaving, and Mrs.
Woodward seized the opportunity.

"Good-bye, darling, and before you go, Alice, about Jack."

"What about Jack, mamma?"

"You might tell him--perhaps."

"What shall I tell him?" asked the girl, a trifle petulantly. "That we
are going down to stay at Gleneira with the Macleods. That is really
all there is to tell--as yet."

"I know that, my dear; still--still it would be better if Jack did not
follow you about so much."

"Of course, it would be better, and I have told him so often; I will
tell him again, if you like, so don't be anxious, you good, pretty
little mamma. I am very fond of Jack--he is a dear fellow--but I don't
intend to marry him. I see quite well how foolish it would be for us
both."

Mrs. Woodward, as she watched the riders pass down the road, told
herself that Alice was one in a thousand, and deserved to be happy, as
no doubt she would be if she married Paul Macleod, who was so very
nice-looking. This point of good looks was one upon which Mrs.
Woodward laid great insistence, and it enabled her to spend the next
hour or two in finishing a sentimental novel in which the lovers,
after sternly rejecting the counsels of parents and guardians, were
rewarded in the third volume with £50,000 a year and a baronetcy. For,
like most mothers, poor Mrs. Woodward was sadly at sea on the
matrimonial question. Its romantic side appealed to her fancy, its
business side to her experience, since no woman can have done her duty
in the married state for a quarter of a century without seeing that
where personal pleasure has been the motive power in one point, sheer
personal self-abnegation has been the motive in ten.

Meanwhile the cousins, after cantering round the Row, had reined in
their horses for a walk. Alice rode well, and the exercise had brought
an unwonted animation to her appearance. Jack, on the other hand, was
a tall, burly young fellow, a trifle over-dressed, but otherwise
unobjectionable, looked his best, with a heartwhole admiration for his
companion on his honest face. What a pretty couple they would make,
thought an old spinster, taking her constitutional in Kensington
Gardens, and began straightway to dream of a certain hunt ball where
someone had danced with her five times before supper. How many times
afterwards she had never had to confess, even to her twin sister;
thanks to the extras, which, of course, need not count. And yet
nothing had come of it! And just as she got so far in her
reminiscences Alice was saying to Jack pleasantly, "I shall miss these
rides of ours, Jack, shan't you?"

"Why should you miss them?" he asked anxiously, for there was a
superior wisdom in her tone which he knew and dreaded. "I'm going down
to Heddingford when you go. We can ride there."

"But we are going to Scotland first; didn't mamma tell you? We are to
stay with Captain Macleod."

Poor Jack's heart gave a great throb of pain.

"Macleod?" he echoed, "that is the tall, handsome fellow, isn't it,
who used to hang round you before I came up from the works?"

This allusion to Paul's good looks was unfortunate, since Jack's were
not improved by the sudden flush which crimsoned even his ears.

"I don't know what you mean by hanging round," retorted the girl,
quickly. "It is a very vulgar expression."

This again was unwise, for Jack, knowing his strong point was not
refinement, felt instantly superior to such trivialities, and took the
upper hand.

"Call it what you like, Ally. You know perfectly well what I mean, and
what he meant, too."

There was no denying it, and, after all, why should it be denied? Had
she not a right to have other lovers besides Jack?

"Let us come for another canter," she said, in the tone of voice which
an elder sister might have used to a troublesome little brother, who
required to be coaxed out of ill humour. "There is no use being cross
about it, you know."

She went a little too far, and roused him into laying his hand on her
rein, abruptly. And the action startled her, for she hated any display
of emotion, being, in truth, totally unaccustomed to it.

"Not yet, Ally! I want to have this out first. It is time I did. And
yet I don't know how to begin; perhaps because it never had a
beginning. I've always cared for you--you know that. Ever since----"
the young man's eyes grew moist suddenly over some childish
recollection, and then an almost savage look came to his face. "And
you--you cared. I'm sure you cared----"

Some people have the knack of saying the wrong thing, and in this case
poor Jack Woodward gave his mistress a handle both to her pride and
her prudence.

"Care," she echoed, in a patronising tone. "Of course, Jack, I cared.
I cared for you very much, and I care for you now. So much so that I
am not going to let you be foolish any more. We didn't understand what
things really meant in those old days----"

"You don't understand now," he broke in hotly.

"Don't I," she continued; "perhaps I don't, for I don't really see
what there is to make such a fuss about. And it is very selfish----"

"Do you mean to say that it is selfish of me to love you?" he cried.
"Selfish to----"

She interrupted him again with the same facile wisdom.

"Very selfish, if we stand in each other's way. And, after all, Jack,
what we both need to make life really successful is something we
have neither of us got. We are only soap-boilers, you know, and
society----"

"Society!" he echoed sternly. "What has society to do with it? I
didn't think you were so worldly."

"I am not worldly," she retorted, in quite an aggrieved tone; "unless,
indeed, it is worldly to be sensible, to think of you as well as of
myself--to be unselfish and straightforward."

"Straightforward! What, do you call it straightforward to let me hang
round you as I have done?"

"Really, Jack, you are _impayable_ with your hangings round! Can you
not find a less objectionable phrase?"

She was fencing with him, and he saw it, saw it and resented it with
the almost coarse resentment of a nature stronger and yet less
obstinate than hers.

"Yes, if you like. I'll say you have played fast and loose with me--as
you have. You have known for years that I cared for you, and that I
intended to marry you. And when a girl allows that sort of thing to go
on without a word, and doesn't mean it, I say she is a flirt--a
heartless flirt, and I have nothing more to do with her."

He turned his horse as he spoke, and without another word rode off,
leaving her to go home with the groom. Inexcusable violence, no doubt.
Alice told herself so again and again in the vain effort to get rid of
a certain surprised remorse, for the girl was emphatically a moral
coward, and any display of high-handed resentment, so far from rousing
her opposition, invariably made her doubtful of her own wisdom. She
hated scenes most cordially, hated, above all things, to have
opprobrious epithets hurled at her; for she clung with almost piteous
tenacity to her own virtue. It was too hard, too unkind of Jack to
blame her, and yet despite this, his condemnation seemed to dim that
lodestar of her firmament--common sense. After all, if he liked her,
why should they not marry? Why should such devotion be sacrificed to
the Moloch of position? In truth, as she thought over the incident, an
odd mixture of anger and regret came to upset her usual placidity, so
that, much to her own surprise, she broke down helplessly into tears
over her mother's conventional inquiry as to how she had enjoyed her
ride. Nor could she find any reason for this unwonted emotion, beyond
the fact that Jack had been brutal and called her a flirt, and had
ridden away, declaring that he would have nothing more to say to her.
That such would be the case Mrs. Woodward, as she administered sal
volatile and talked about the trying heat, felt was most devoutly to
be wished; but a long course of three volume novels warned her of the
danger of trusting to the permanence of lovers' quarrels. So after her
daughter had been provided with darkness and eau-de-cologne, and a
variety of other feminine remedies against the evil effects of
emotion, she went off to her own sitting-room to consider the position
by the light of her five-and-forty years of human experience. To begin
with, the girl's feelings were clearly more deeply implicated than
she, or for the matter of that Alice herself, had imagined. The
question, therefore, came uppermost whether this fact ought to be
admitted or deprecated; whether in short this evident dislike to
giving her cousin pain was the result of a romantic attachment or
simply the natural kindliness of a girl for a young fellow she had
known from infancy. Now the cogitations of mothers over their
daughters' matrimonial prospects are always fair game for both
moralist and novelist. For some mysterious reason the least display of
prudence is considered worldly; yet, on the face of it, a woman who
has had, say, five-and-twenty years of married life cannot possibly
fail to see how much of her own life has been made or marred by
influences which she never considered in accepting Dick, Tom, or
Harry. In nine cases out of ten it is the remembrance of her own
ignorance which makes her espouse the cause of the lover who can bring
the greatest number of chances for content. And it is idle to deny,
for instance, that a girl marrying into a family which will welcome
her is far less likely to quarrel with her husband than one who is
looked on askance by her mother-in-law. There is, in sober truth, an
immense deal to be said in favour of the French theory which holds
that given a favourable nidus, and kindly atmosphere, the germ of
happiness is more likely to grow into a goodly tree, and bear fruit a
thousandfold, than when it is planted in a hurry by two inexperienced
gardeners in the first pot which they fancy in the great Mart. Owing,
however, to our somewhat startling views as to the sanctity of the
romantic passion over the claims of duty towards oneself and others,
these minor considerations are considered mercenary to the last
degree, and the mother who is courageous enough to confess them openly
is held up to obloquy. Why, it is difficult to say, since none of us
really believe in the popular theory. It will not hold water for an
instant when put to the practical test of experience; even if we leave
out of consideration the fact that fully one-half of the people one
meets have never felt, and have never felt the desire to feel, an
absorbing passion.

Mrs. Woodward, for instance, had not; moreover she had brought Alice
up from the cradle to share her views of life, and had never once
found her way barred by any bias towards a more passionate outlook. In
fact, she was, in her mother's estimate, the very last girl in the
world to find sentiment soothing. On the contrary, it distressed her,
made her cry, necessitated her lying down with smelling-salts and a
hot-bottle. Then above all things she loved a certain refined
distinction and exclusiveness. Even as a child she had held her head
high in the soap-boiling connection, and though she would no doubt be
very fairly happy with Jack, the Macleod family was distinctly more
suitable. The question, therefore, soon resolved itself, not into
whether the outworks of the girl's placidity should be defended, but
how this could best be effected. How in short Jack could be prevented
from posing as a martyr; for Mrs. Woodward was sharp enough to see
that, at present at any rate, the danger lay entirely in her
daughter's remorse.

"It was very unkind of Jack I must say," she commented skilfully on
the story which Alice unfolded to her after a time; "but you mustn't
be hard on him, my dear. Men never have so much self-control as we
have, and no doubt the knowledge that you were right vexed him. They
get over these little rebuffs very quickly."

"It--it seemed to hurt him though--and I hate--all that sort of
thing," murmured the girl doubtfully, looking as if she were going to
cry again.

"And it hurts you apparently, though you know quite well that you only
did your duty."

"I suppose so," remarked Alice, still more doubtfully; "only I wish he
hadn't been so unreasonable."

"So do I; but in these cases the girl always has to have sense for
both. Besides Jack has a vile temper. But it is soon over. You will
see that he will come to dinner as usual--it is the opera night, and
he wouldn't miss that for anything--not even for you, my dear."

Alice smiled a watery smile, and said she did not think it meant so
little to him as all that; but Mrs. Woodward maintained her position,
having, in fact, some grounds for her belief, owing to the despatch of
a certain little note which she had sent off before coming in to
console Alice, and which ran thus:--


"Dear Jack,--Alice tells me you were very much put about to-day
regarding our visit to Scotland; why, I can scarcely understand. Dear
boy, if only for your own sake--since you can scarcely wish to quarrel
with her, or us--do try and keep that temper of yours a little more
under control. The poor girl came home crying, and I really cannot
allow you to go out with her again if you are so inconsiderate. You
ought to know quite well how sensitive she is, so for goodness' sake
don't let this stupid misunderstanding disturb us all.--Your
affectionate Aunt,

                                  "Sophia Woodward."

P.S.--"We dine earlier to-day, as Alice wants to be in time for the
overture, 'Tannhauser.'"


A note which meant all or nothing according to the wishes of the
reader. In this case it meant all, for Jack, returning to his rooms
after a disastrous attempt to begin his future rôle in life by playing
whist with the old fogies at his club, was feeling that life, even as
a misogynist, was unendurable, when the sight of his aunt's
handwriting made his heart beat. The note was not in the least what he
had expected to receive, and made him somehow feel as if he had
grossly exaggerated the necessity for grief.

"Aunt Soph is on my side, anyhow," said the young man, with a certain
elation, "and I was a brute, I'm afraid."

The result being, that before Alice, who had been spending the
afternoon with Paul Macleod's sister, Lady George Temple, had returned
from her drive, Jack, with a big gardenia in his coat, was ushered
into the drawing-room, where his aunt, in satin and diamonds, was
skimming through the last few pages of another novel which had to be
returned to the library that evening.

"Good boy!" she said, smiling. "Now, I hope you won't spoil Alice's
pleasure to-night by even alluding to your rudeness."

Jack looked a little aghast. "But, Aunt Sophia, I must beg her
pardon."

"Then you had better do it at once," replied Mrs. Woodward, "and get
it over. For there she is at the door. You can run downstairs and meet
her, for she will have to go up to dress at once. She is late as it
is."

Begging your mistress's pardon on the way upstairs, before the eyes of
a butler and a footman, was not quite what Jack had pictured to
himself; but it was better than nothing, and Alice's unfeigned look of
relief at seeing him could not be mistaken.

Mrs. Woodward slept soundly that night, feeling that she had done a
good day's work, and steered the bark of her daughter's happiness out
of a great danger. And happiness to her philosophy meant much, since
virtue was so very much easier of attainment when life went smoothly.
This was partly the reason why she did not detail the past danger to
her husband after the manner of some wives, who love to chase sleep
from their good man's eyes by breaking in upon the delicious
drowsiness of the first ten minutes in bed by perfectly needless
revelations of past woe.

The tie, in fact, between these two whose night-capped heads reposed
side by side, was a curious one if absolutely commonplace. It
consisted of a vast amount of mutual respect for each other's position
as husband or wife, a solid foundation of placid affection, and no
confidence. For instance, Mrs. Woodward knew considerably more about
her son Sam Woodward's debts than his father did, to say nothing of
minor points in the matter of household management; but then at least
two-thirds of Mr. Woodward's life was absolutely unknown to the wife
of his bosom. He breakfasted and dined at home on week days, and on
Sundays he added lunch to the other meals; what is more, he never
deserted her for the club on the occasion of "At Homes." But of his
life between 10 A.M. and 7 P.M. she knew nothing, except that he
lunched at a bar in the City. So far as this went, he was to her
exactly what he was to the outside world; that is to say, Mr.
Woodward, the lucky financier, whose name meant money. Even the
success or failure of the companies which she saw advertised with his
name as director did not interest her, for she knew by experience that
money and to spare was always forthcoming. And to tell the truth, Mr.
Woodward was a singularly lucky man. When the smash came to the
company "For Preserving the North American Indian from Total
Extinction by Supplying him with a Sparkling Beverage, Exhilarating
but non-Alcoholic, to take the Place of the Deleterious Fire Water,"
he had happened to sell his last remaining share the day before; and
even when the scheme for supplying hard-boiled eggs to the settlers in
Africa failed, it did not affect the home supply at all. And yet Mr.
Woodward's character as a business man stood above suspicion, and the
worst that had ever been said of him was that he could sail a point or
two nearer to the wind with safety than most men.

So that night he also slept the sleep of the just, undisturbed by the
thoughts of Jack's temerity. Even if he had known of it, it is to be
feared that he would have set the question aside with the mental
verdict that it was clearly the business of the girl's mother to see
to such things. Poor mothers! who as they look at the bald head on the
pillow beside their own cannot but feel, even while they would not now
part with it for all the world, that life would have been less
disappointing if circumstances had been more kind.

As for Alice herself, she slept peacefully also, the doubt which poor
Jack's pain had raised in her gentle mind having been allayed by his
prompt submission. And Jack snored--positively snored; for he was
rather fatigued with his own excitement, being of the sort which takes
most things not so much keenly as heavily. To tell the truth, also,
his determination to marry his cousin was so fixed that the greater
part of his pain had been sheer inability to grasp the idea of denial;
so that he reverted gladly to the old position without asking
questions as a less tenacious man might have done.




                             CHAPTER VII.


Lord George Temple sate moodily in the armchair of his study in his
little house in Mayfair chewing the end of a cigar and looking
disconsolately at a tray of whiskey and water and a plate of oval thin
Captain's biscuits on the table. He was a red-haired smooth-faced man
with rather a long upper lip, and a good-natured, somewhat whimsical
expression.

"It is a confounded shame!" he said to his wife, who, with an opera
cloak slipping from her pretty bare shoulders, was resting for a
moment before going upstairs to bed. "Graham gives his cook
twenty-five pounds a year--I heard her telling you so one day when she
was wanting a new one--and yet there wasn't a thing fit to eat on the
table----"

"Well, I don't know," put in Lady George, absently; "I think those
stuffed larks came from Mirobolants. I saw that style of decoration in
his place the other day, and I'm quite sure the iced soufflé was
Bombardi's; I know the shape."

"Exactly what I said!" continued the husband, "not a thing fit for a
gouty man to eat at the table, and yet a woman on twenty-five pounds
ought to be up to roast chicken and a rice pudding."

Blanche Temple looked at her spouse with the compassionate air of
tolerance which she invariably extended to his views.

"But you can't give your friends roast chicken and rice pudding; you
can't, indeed, nowadays. People wouldn't come."

"My dear girl," interrupted Lord George, obstinately, "there were four
men at the table who, like myself, partook of soup, fish, and cheese
straws. And one poor beggar didn't even have the soup." The thought
was apparently comforting, for he began more contentedly on a biscuit.
But his wife was now interested in the subject. Most things interested
her, either to affirmation or denial, for Paul Macleod's sister was a
very clever woman, if at the same time curiously conventional.

"Well! I don't know who eats the things, then," she said, aggrievedly.
"Why, the last time we had a dinner-party--I mean when the Woodwards
were here--I'm sure Paul ought to be infinitely obliged to me for the
trouble I take--the cook who came in used pounds on pounds of stock
meat, and quarts on quarts of cream; to say nothing of a whole bottle
of whiskey. 'You had better give it her, my lady,' said Jane, 'for
fear as the dinner might 'ave no appearance.'"

Among other unknown and despised talents which did not suit Lady
George's theory of her own rôle in life was a distinct turn for
mimicry. Her admirable impersonation of Jane, therefore, made her
husband burst out laughing; since by a whimsical perversion of affairs
he loved his wife dearly for the very qualities which she feigned not
to possess. For Blanche was essentially a theatrical woman, loving to
pose in all the relations of life, her present one being that of a
dutiful sister. On Paul's return from India she had not only hastened
to impress on him the absolute necessity for his marrying an heiress
if he wished to keep Gleneira in the family, but had also introduced
him to Alice Woodward, as a girl who would suit the part admirably.
For Lady George knew her brother's foibles thoroughly, and understood
that if he married for money, the bride must be a person who would
neither offend his refinement, nor require much display of affection;
since Paul would certainly never give himself away by pretending a
depth of sentiment he did not feel, and yet would not marry without
something of the sort. That she felt was the worst of him. _Au fond_
he was absolutely truthful to himself.

"Of course you could sell if you liked," she had said to him
skilfully, well knowing that the very thought was utterly repugnant;
"trade is always ready to buy a Highland property. The only
alternative is to marry a girl with money. I know one, pretty,
lady-like, refined; a girl of whom you would be very fond if she were
your wife. Her father is a speculator. Not quite so safe, of course,
as a solid business--buttons or tallow--though, by the way, he has
something to do with soap. Still, these Woodwards are quite
presentable, and _Monsieur le père_ has his wits about him. And then
you know there are always settlements, and deeds of gift, and those
sort of things which creditors make such a fuss about."

Her brother winced visibly. "I should prefer not to have a row with
anybody else's creditors," he said shortly. "_I_ shall have enough
apparently to do in keeping my own quiet. England is a terribly
expensive place to live in."

"London, you mean," retorted his sister, gaily. "You can always go
down to Gleneira and vegetate."

That had been at the beginning of the season, and now Paul had gone
down, not to vegetate, but to prepare the old place for the visit of
inspection; not without a certain resentful irritation at the
necessity for it. Though at the same time it put the affair on an
easier footing for the present.

Afterwards, however, Paul had every intention of imparting sentiment
into the transaction, if it could be done; and he knew himself to have
a vast capacity for falling in love, after the approved romantic
fashion, with any pretty girl who was willing to let him make love to
her. So his sister, bewailing the pounds of stock meat and quarts of
cream expended on his behalf, yet felt that she had been successful;
but, then, she would hardly have recognised herself if she had not
been so, since in her own little world, which she carefully avoided
extending unwisely either upwards or downwards, Lady George Temple was
always cited as a success in all the rôles which she felt called upon
to play.

"I heard from Paul to-day, by the way," she said, as she gathered up
her gloves and fan. "He wants me to go and call on that Mrs. Vane. You
remember who I mean, of course?"

"No, I don't," replied Lord George, relapsing into moodiness over the
biscuits.

"You never do remember what I mean, dear! But she is the Colonel's
wife, who nursed Paul when he nearly died in India. Of course they do
it very often, I know, and it is more confusing than sending for a
woman whom you can pay and get rid of afterwards. Still, she really
did save his life--under Providence, of course--at least, Paul always
said so. Well, her husband, who, I believe, drank, or did something,
died two years ago, leaving her dreadfully off, so she went to live
with somebody--an uncle or an aunt, who, I fancy, must have left her
some money, for she has just taken a house somewhere in Chelsea. And
Paul, who hasn't seen her since those old days, has asked her to
Gleneira, and wants me to make her acquaintance first. Rather a bore,
for I wish to have a particularly pleasant party, and she will most
likely be an old frump."

"Scarcely, my dear, if she nursed your brother, and he survived,"
remarked Lord George, gravely.

His wife frowned. "How can you be so absurd, dear; she must be quite
old, for Paul wrote she was a perfect mother to him, and that is quite
six years ago."

Lord George's eyes twinkled again. "My dear Blanche, you and Paul have
exaggerated notions on the subject of a mother's----" He paused, at a
rattle on the door-handle, and looked apprehensively at his wife. The
next instant two charming little figures in frilled white nightgowns
burst into the room, and flinging themselves into their mother's arms
began to cover her with kisses. The daintiest little creatures, a boy
and a girl, with angelic faces and shrill, excited, happy, little
voices.

"Oh, you bad children!" cried Blanche, without a trace of vexation.
"So you wanted to see mother, did you? And now you have seen her, off
to bed with you before Nannie comes after you, there's dear ones!
Quick! or she will be coming."

"Quick, Adam! Quick, Evie!" echoed the happy voices excitedly, in a
rush to the open door, which ended in a sudden pull up, and a still
more excited cry. "Oh, mammy! Oh, daddy! here's Blazes comin' down the
stairs."

Lord George's face lost its apprehensiveness in resignation. Yet, as
he settled himself back in his chair, his long upper lip betrayed a
disposition to smile, for Blasius, his youngest son, was apt to amuse
him. A very different child this, short, squat, and red-haired, who,
after sundry thumpings and bumpings outside, suggestive of falls,
appeared, rubbing his eyes sleepily, at the door; then the broad,
good-natured face expanded into a grin. "_Bickys'!_" he said,
laconically, as he toddled across to the tray.

"Oh! what a welly greedy little boy, ain't he, Evie?" said Adam. "We
come to see our darlin' mummie, didn't we, duckums?" He was at her
side for a swift caress, and back again to stand expectantly beside
his sister, whose little dancing feet were keeping time to her nodding
golden head. As pretty a picture of light-hearted innocent enjoyment
as heart could desire, even at eleven o'clock at night!

"Give him a biscuit, do, and let him go," said Lady George, hurriedly.
"It won't hurt him, they are quite plain. Dada will give you a
biscuit, Blasius, and then you can go back to bed, like a dear, can't
you?"

Blasius' large, round, blue eyes assumed a look of vacuity as the
sentence proceeded; but as he stood sturdily on his little bare feet
beside his father both little chubby hands went out at once, and a
singularly full voice for so young a child gave out conglomerately:--

"Blathe's--'ll--take two, ta."

Lord George shot a glance at his wife and complied; while from the
door came a little whisper, intended to be one of horror. "Oh, Addie!
ain't he a welly greedy little boy?"

"And now Blasius will go to bed like a good boy, with his good little
brother and sister," remarked Lady George, with forced optimism. "Adam
and----" Her voice failed before a soft thud as Blasius sat down
solidly, and stuck his little bare feet beyond his little white
nightgown.

"Mummie can go, Blazeth'll stay with dada--ta."

Those two at the door stood bolt upright, with sidelong looks of pious
horror at each other--

"Oh, Evie!   \
              >  Ain't he a weally naughty little boy?"
"Oh, Addle!  /

"Blasius _must_ go to bed," began his mother, quite firmly,
"or--or--mummie will be very much grieved. Her little boy wouldn't
like to grieve his mummie, would he?"

Lord George, who had looked hopeful at the decision of tone, sank back
in his chair and twiddled his thumbs.

"You had better ring for nurse at once, Blanche. It always comes to
that in the end, and the child will get cold."

His wife frowned. Her theories had been so successful with Adam and
Eve that the necessity for reverting to the _vi et armis_ with this
baby was grievous. She sate down beside him on the floor, and began in
mellifluous tones.

"Listen, Blasius. Mummie wants her little Blasius to do something to
please her; she wants him to do something very much----" She got no
further, being gagged by a little soft hand and a very hard biscuit
together.

"Blazeth's not a deedy 'ickle boy. Blazeth'll give poor 'ickle mummie
hith bicky, and be a dood 'ickle boy. Then daddy'll gif him anofer."

Little chortles of intense enjoyment came from those angelic faces at
the door.

"Go to bed, children; off with you at once," said their father,
quickly, whereupon an obedient patter of bare feet fled up the stairs
with an accompanying cackle of high, eager voices, busy over the pros
and cons of Blasius versus authority.

"Do you think she'll assuade him, Evie? I don't." "I think he ought to
be smacked, I do." "I'd let him cry, it don't hurt a child to cry.
Nanna's mother says it's good for the lungs." "And Blazes likes to
cry, he does." "I say, Addie! how long will it be afore Duckum's
mummie has to ring the bell?"

The last wonder being faintly audible from the landing above, settled
the business downstairs. Lord George rose and took the law into his
own hands.

"Oh, George!" cried his wife, reproachfully, "how can you expect to
train up children in the way they should go if you are so impatient?
If once I could have got Blasius to understand what was really
required of him----"

Here the advent of a big, stalwart figure in a wrapper, bearing a
white shawl, brought such sudden comprehension to the stalwart little
one, that the room for one brief moment resounded with yells. The next
found the door closed upon them, and Lady George looked disconsolately
at her husband, as she listened to the retreating struggles of her
youngest born.

"I cannot think what makes him so different from the others," she
said, gloomily.

"My dear," replied her husband, consolingly, "Cain came after Adam and
Eve; perhaps the next will be Abel. Besides, Blasius was a risky name.
I told you so at the time."

"Saint Blasius was a very worthy man," retorted his spouse, hotly,
"and, considering that you and the boy were both born on his day, I
must say I think it quite natural that I should call my child George
Blasius--or, let me see, was it Blasius George?"

"It is a matter of no importance, my dear," replied her husband,
drily. He did not remind his wife, nor did she choose to remember that
at the time she had been playing the ultra ritualistic rôle. To tell
the truth, she did not care to be brought face to face with her past
impersonations, unless the fancy seized her to revert to them; when,
at a moment's notice, she could resume the character as if she had
never ceased to play it.

So, the next day, with a view to making a suitable impression on
Paul's widow, as she chose to call Mrs. Vane, she put on her most
dowdy garments, and actually went in an omnibus down the King's-road.
Thus far her environment suited her foregone conclusions, but, as she
stood in the wide stretch down by the river, the brilliant sunshine
streaming upon a very bright knocker and a very white door, a certain
feeling of distrust crept over her. Nor was the darkened room into
which she was ushered reassuring. The parquet floors were almost bare,
the windows beneath the striped Venetian awnings were set wide open to
a balcony wreathed with blossoming creepers, and hung with cages of
singing birds. A scent of flowers was in the air, a coolness, an
emptiness, and yet the first impression was one of ease and comfort.
Not the room, this, of an old frump. And this was not an old frump
rising from a cushioned lounge and coming forward like a white shadow
in the half light.

"How good of you to come!"

Lady George, dazzled as she was by the change from the sunlight
outside to the darkness within, yet saw enough to make her gasp. Lo!
this little bit of a woman with syren written all over her from the
tip of her dainty Parisian shoe to the crown of her fair, curly head,
was Paul's widow. His mother, forsooth! A pretty mother, indeed!

Having got so far as this, Blanche, being, amongst other things,
somewhat of an artist, felt bound to admit that Violet Vane was very
pretty indeed; so pretty that it was a pleasure to watch the piquant
face, full of a quaint sort of humour and freshness, grow clear of the
shadows. In this half light she looked younger, no doubt, than she
really was; still, even in the garish day, Lady George felt
instinctively that her charm would remain. In fact, she was not at
all, no! not in the least, a suitable companion for Paul, when so much
depended on his being reasonable.

"I haven't seen your brother for years," came the sweet but rather
thin voice. "It is so good of him to remember me. So more than good of
him to ask me down to Gleneira that I mean to go, if only to ensure
the kindness being credited to him. I wonder if he is much changed?"

There was a certain challenge in the speech which Lady George was
quick enough to recognise, and, as she recognised it, wondered if her
own astonishment had been too palpable, as that in itself would be a
mistake, so she replied deftly:

"He is not changed in one thing--his gratitude to you. And I am
grateful also, for Paul is very dear to me. The dearest fellow in the
world, is he not?"

It was a statement to which, in the language of poker, Mrs. Vane could
hardly go one better, and therefore it left her, as it were, to an
under-study of devotion.

"He used to be very nice when I knew him; but, then, sick people are
always nice; they are so much at one's mercy," said the little lady,
airily. They were, in their way, admirable types of their kind, these
two women; both artificial, yet with an artificiality which sprang
from the head in the one case, from the heart in the other; for Mrs.
Vane saw through herself, and Lady George did not.

"So that is Paul's sister," said the former to herself as, on the way
back to her lounge, after escorting her visitor in friendliest fashion
to the stairs, she paused to take up a photograph case lying on the
table. It contained Paul's portrait as he had been before the time
when she had watched his fair head tossing restlessly on the pillow in
that hot Indian room which nothing would cool. The memory of those
dreary days and nights came back to her in a rush, making her,
paradoxically, look years older, worn, haggard, and anxious. She
seemed to be back in them; to hear the gathering cry of the jackals
prowling past the open door, to see the flicker of the oil night-light
gleam on the splintered ice, turning it for a brief second to
diamonds, as she prepared it for the burning forehead above those
bright, yet glazed eyes; and, more than all, she seemed to feel the
old passionate protest against the possibility of his passing for ever
out of her life joined to the fierce determination to save him to the
uttermost. From what? from herself, perhaps. For Mrs. Vane had
performed the most unselfish act of her life when she had laughed and
scoffed at the devotion and gratitude of her patient. She had had
many, she said, and they had always felt like that during some period
of their convalescence. There was nothing for these sequelæ of jungle
fever like three months' leave to the bears in Kashmir; and, if he
liked, he might bring her home one of those little silk carpets for
her sitting-room as a fee; she would prefer a carpet to anything else.
And so Paul had come back with his unromantic offering, cured, as she
had prophesied, of his feverishness, but not of his friendliness. That
had lasted, despite a separation of years. And something else had
lasted also, to judge by the look on Mrs. Vane's face as she stood
with Paul's photograph in her hand.

Lady George Temple took a cab home, and tried to regain a sense of
lost importance by having the children down to tea. Paul had kept this
thing secret from her; he had allowed her for years to speak kindly,
effusively of the woman who had saved his life as if she were an old
frump, when she was really--Blanche, being a person of sense, felt
forced to acknowledge the truth--one of the most charming little
creatures imaginable, with just that half-sympathetic, half-bantering
manner which was so taking. And Paul, having done this, her own rôle
of devoted sisterhood suffered thereby; so she fell back upon her
motherhood.

Thus, when her husband returned, he found the room littered with
Kindergarten toys, while Adam was threading beads by the
multiplication table, and Eve was busily engaged in marking the course
of the River Congo in red back-stitching on a remarkably black
continent of Africa, which was afterwards to do duty as a
kettleholder. Blasius, meanwhile, having been so far beguiled into the
Zeit-Geist as to consent to build a puff-puff out of some real
terra-cotta bricks and columns which were intended for an
architectural object lesson.

"Oh, George!" began his wife, pausing with a lump of sugar in the
tongs over his cup, "Paul's widow is dreadful; I don't know what I
shall do with her."

"Hand her over to me--I can generally manage to get on with people,"
he said, watching the tongs greedily; for the question of sugar in his
tea was the cause of much dispute between him and his wife. A slow
smile came to her face as she replaced the lump.

"No! my dear; it wouldn't be good for you," she said, coming back to
the present, and then she frowned. "I cannot think what induced Paul
to ask her just when so much depends on the Woodwards feeling
themselves to be _the_ guests _par excellence_," she continued, after
a brief but picturesque description of the offender. "And this woman
is sure to sing, and play, and dance, and act. I saw it in her face."

"Jolly sort of person to have in a country house, I should say,"
remarked her husband, secretly impressed.

"I knew _you_ would say that, George," put in his wife, resignedly.
"Yes! she is just the sort of woman men love to dangle round."

"Then ask someone to dangle. That will leave the coast clear for Paul
and Miss Woodward."

Lady George raised her eyebrows scornfully. "As if that would do any
good! That sort of woman always insists on having the best men, and
Paul looks that in most society; besides I don't feel called upon to
pave the way to an heiress for anyone else but my brother. That is
what it would come to. No! I cannot conceive why Paul should make
things so--so much more difficult for himself."

"Natural depravity, my dear," suggested her husband, helping himself
on the sly to sugar. "There is such a thing--Hullo! what's that?"

That was the sudden discovery on Blazes' part that an Ionic column,
when used as an engine funnel, would, if hit violently with a good,
squat Norman one, break off in the middle; a discovery which was
followed by an outburst of that craze for destruction which healthy
children display on the least provocation.

"He--he is not a 'Kindergarten' child," remarked his mother,
plaintively, when after a time the upstairs bell had once more been
rung and the offender carried off shrieking amid awed whispers of
intense enjoyment, about "welly welly naughty little boys" from Adam
and Eve.

"No, my dear, he isn't,

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