WE return now to the day before Sir Digby’s ball.Richards lived in chambers, and in no great state. He never cared for it. Had you gone straight into his sitting-room from the fresh air, what would have struck you most would have been the smell of strong tobacco smoke; and I believe you would have come to the conclusion that the principal furniture consisted of tobacco-pipes. They were of all sorts and sizes, and hung in rows and racks, and lay on shelves and on the mantlepiece. Well, what did it matter?honest Richards was a bachelor, and not once in a blue moon did a lady look in to see him.But one afternoon, shortly before Sir Digby’s great ball, a lady did; and that lady was Mary herself.“Which I’ve been dying to see you, sir,” she began.“Sit down, my dear, sit down.”Mary sat down, and proceeded,—“It’s all up, Mr. Richards, it’s all up!”The poor girl was crying now bitterly.“Missus is as good as sold. She’s goin’ to the ball, and Sir Digby’s goin’ to propose. She told me, and Sir Digby kissed me and told me. Oh, oh, what ever shall I do?”Richards lit a huge pipe, and walked about smoking for fully five minutes. Then he went over and took Mary’s hand, and Mary looked up innocently in his face, and said innocently through her tears,—“Do you want to kiss me too, sir?”“Well, I wasn’t thinking about that; but there, Mary, there. Now, I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do; and I do believe it will all come right, even yet.”So Mary and Richards had a long “confab” together, and she went back home happy and smiling.After she had gone Richards lit another pipe, threw himself on a rocking-chair, and smoked longand thoughtfully. Then he got up and took a rapid turn or two up and down the floor. Presently he paused, and gazed curiously at himself in a mirror.“Old Richards,” he said, shaking his fist at his reflection, “I didn’t think it was in you. You’re a designing, unscrupulous old lawyer. Never mind; it’s all for my baby’s sake. I’ll do it. Hang me if I don’t.”An hour after this, Richards had called a carriage—a luxury he indulged in very seldom indeed. He first visited the lawyer who had transacted the business of the Grantley Hall mortgage for him. With this gentleman he was closeted for some considerable time. Then he drove to a fashionable tailor’s, then to a jeweller’s, and next to a wine-merchant’s, and as all those individuals showed him to his carriage with many gracious smiles and bows, it was evident that his business with them had been of a very agreeable kind indeed—to them. Richards drove to other places which I need not name; and when he got back home at last, he sank into his rocking-chair with a tired but happy sigh, and immediately lit his biggest pipe.He was smiling to himself. “I’ve done it,” he said half aloud, “and my baby’s safe for a time. Butif his rich old brother comes to the rescue, my game is spoiled. Poor Jack! I wonder what he is doing at this moment.”On the night of the great ball, Sir Digby Auld was very much with Miss Gordon; and everybody said how well matched they were, which certainly was paying no compliment to Sir Digby. He gave her many dances, and he said many soft and pretty things to her, which caused her to bend down her painted face and pretend to blush.In the course of the evening he forgathered with D’Orsay. D’Orsay lifted his brows and smiled.“Getting on famously?” he said.“I’ve been trying; but, D’Orsay, ’pon my life I can’t. And look you here: I may be a fool, I may be mad, but to-morrow forenoon I go to Keane’s and throw myself at Gerty’s feet. There! the die is cast.”A servant in livery at this moment approached him. “Beg parding, sir. Two gentlemen wants to speak to you a moment in the library.”Sir Digby turned pale.“I’d come, sir,” whispered the servant; “there will be a scene else.”Sir Digby followed him out.“Sorry we are, sir, to disturb yer ’onor; but we has a warrant for your ’rrest, and the carriage is awaitin’ at the door.”“At whose instance?”“Richards of the firm of Griffith, Keane, and Co.”Sir Digby muttered an oath. He staggered and almost fell.D’Orsay, a quarter of an hour after this, informed the guests that Sir Digby Auld had been taken suddenly ill, but that they were to continue to enjoy themselves all the same.Meanwhile the prisoner was being rapidly whirled away to the Fleet.And the letter that Keane had received that night was to the effect that the man who proposed marrying his daughter was a bankrupt and a beggar, and would that evening be arrested in his own house and among his guests.Having effectually disposed of Sir Digby for a time, Richards could afford to quietly await the turn of events. His practice had been sharp, but it was certainly justifiable. He had often hinted to his partner Keane, nay, even told him plainly, that the baronet was but a man of straw.“Owes a few thousands perhaps,” Keane had replied,with an ill-concealed sneer. “They all do it. A post-obit would clear that up. His brother can’t live for ever. Sir Digby will be a lord, you know, on his brother’s death.”“I’ll tell you what,” Richards had gone so far as to exclaim one day: “if I were you I’d pay Digby’s debts for him. Ten thou., I reckon, would do it. But I shouldn’t marry my only daughter to a beggar!”Keane turned on him sharply.“Richards,” he said, as calmly as he could, “I knew a gentleman once who made an immense fortune by a very simple process.”“Indeed; how?”“By minding his own business.” Then Keane cackled over his ledger. Richards said no more. But the idea of Keane, of all men, paying off a future son-in-law’s debts was too absurd.When Richards went to Keane’s house a few days after Digby’s incarceration, he found his partner in the throes of packing. He was going to Italy for a time with Gerty, and of course Mary would accompany her.Months went by, and many a long delightful letter did Richards receive from Gerty, and from Mary too, the latter always ending with “luv and sweet kisses.”Then came a final letter. They were coming home. Alas! the ship never reached England. She was captured by a Don, and all were made prisoners. Keane could have bought his liberty if he had cared to. He preferred to wait, and waiting—died.A few weeks afterwards poor lonely Gerty returned, and Mary. Richards constituted himself Miss Keane’s guardian. Indeed it had been Keane’s last wishes that he should do so. And, strange to say, the ruling passion had manifested itself strongly in death; for by the help of a priest he had written a letter to Richards, praying him, for the sake of their long acquaintanceship and friendship, to see that Gerty married Sir Digby. He died, he said, peacefully, knowing she would yet be Lady Auld.“A dying man’s last request,” said Richards to himself, “ought to be attended to; but—”Then he solemnly placed the letter in the fire, and it was cremated.Sir Digby made himself as comfortable as possible in the Fleet. Richards did not think it safe he should come out. Gerty was a strange girl. Her heart bled for the poor man, as she called him. For sake of her father’s memory, there was no denying that she might even yet sacrifice herself.D’Orsay paid many visits to Sir Digby in prison. He really acted like a true friend, and did all he could for him. He had even gone to see his old brother, and come back, figuratively speaking, with a finger in his mouth.“No good in that quarter,” he told Sir Digby bluntly. “Says you’re a spendthrift and a ne’er-do-weel, and that he means to live for twenty years yet; and ’pon honour, Digby, he looks as if he could. I did hear too that he was looking out for a wife.”“I shall go and see my hero in his dark dungeon, in his prison cell, in his chains and misery.”These are words spoken by Miss Gordon heroically to herself in the mirror one morning. She had strange ideas of the Fleet.She was astonished to find her hero in a flowered dressing-gown, smoking a Havana, which he threw into the fire when he saw her, and living in a handsomely-furnished room.She went again and again. I do not know how she managed it, but I do know that in a month’s time Sir Digby was a free man, and married to Miss Gordon.This event took place just two days before Jack’s ship staggered wearily into Plymouth Sound.While he still sat by his open port, gazing sadly landward, Tom Fairlie came in with a rush and a run. He too had a copy of theTimes.“Listen, Jack,” he cried, “and I’ll read something that will astonish you.”“Don’t, Tom, don’t. I have already seen the awful announcement. I am a broken and crushed man!”“Broken and crushed fiddlestick!” said Tom. “Listen, listen: ‘At St. Nicholas’ Church, on the 5th inst., by the Rev. Charles Viewfield, Sir Digby Auld to Miss Gertrude Gordon, daughter of—’”“Hurrah!” cried Jack, springing from his seat and overturning the chair. “Hurrah for the Rev. Charlie! Tom, shake hands, my dearest and best of friends. You’ve made me the happiest man in the British Islands. Hurrah!”In a week’s time theTonnerairewas paid off and safe in dock, and a carriage with postillions might have been seen tearing along the road that leads from Plymouth to Tor Bay.The carriage contained Jack Mackenzie and his friend Tom Fairlie.CHAPTER XXIV.BY THE OLD DIAL-STONE.“So heroes may well wear their armour,And, patient, count over their scars;Venus’ dimples, assuming the charmer,Shall smooth the rough furrows of Mars.”Dibdin.GENERAL GRANT MACKENZIE was lounging at breakfast one morning in his private rooms in the big barn-like barracks of C——. At his right hand sat one of his captains, with whom he was talking—languidly enough, it must be confessed.“You are right, Moore. By Jove, you’re right; and to-day I send in my resignation. Here have we been lying waiting the French for more than a year, and the rascals won’t show front. No; I shall go in for club life in London now.”“We’ll miss you, general.”“Ah, Moore, it is good of you to say so; but whatcana fellow do? When I rejoined the service, I expected to see some fighting. Disappointed. And now I’m parted from my daughter, and lying in this old barn positively getting mouldy. Besides—”“Some one to see you, sir,” said the servant.“Why, Richards, my dear old boy, who could have expected to see you? Nothing wrong, I hope?”“No, everything right—more than right. Prepare to hear news that—”He glanced at the captain.“My friend Captain Moore. No secrets from him—knows everything.—Captain Moore, Mr. Richards, my family lawyer, and, bar yourself, the best fellow in existence.”Richards bowed.“Well, Jack’s come. Had terrible fighting. I hurried over to tell you.”“But not for that alone?”“Nay, friend. Now sit down, or catch hold of something. I’m going to startle you. Your old uncle is dead.”“What, the man that disinherited me?”“The same; only—you are heir to Glen Pollok. It is all yours—a cool £10,000 a year.”The general could not speak for a moment; then he grasped the kindly old solicitor’s hand once more, and with tears in his eyes.“God in heaven bless you, Richards,” he exclaimed, “and his name be praised. Poor Jack and dear Flo, they will not now be beggars!”“And, Richards,” he added, “Flora shall be wedded with all the pomp and glory due to a daughter of the proud house of Grant Mackenzie.”“Ah!” laughed Richards, “there is the old reckless Celtic blood asserting itself again. Don’t forget, my friend, that even £10,000 a year can be spent, and that right easily too.”“I won’t, I won’t; you shall be my guide.”“And then, you see,” continued Richards, “there is the mortgage to pay off on Grantley Hall.”“Grantley Hall! why, isn’t that sold long ago?”Richards laughed heartily now. “O bother,” he cried. “I’ve let the cat out of the bag, and I didn’t mean to. I meant to give you such a pleasant surprise. Well, well, well,—‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice and menGang aft agley.’”Then Richards told him all he had done.The tears stood in General Mackenzie’s eyes. “Richards,” he said, “I could not have believed such kindness possible. I—I—I can’t say another word.”The meeting between Tom Fairlie and Flora was all that lovers could desire. Mary positively hugged Jack. He was still her boy. I’m not sure she did not shower upon him “luv and sweet kisses.”“But, bless me, Jack,” she said, “how tall you’ve got! and really you makes poor me feel old.”Gerty met Jack with a bonnie blush.Ah! how he longed to take her in his arms and tell her all, and all she had been to him throughout the last two long and eventful years. But no, he would not, dared not. When in a few months’ time a ship was once more at his command, he would go quietly away to sea; but he ne’er would speak of love.For his old Highland pride had come to his rescue. She was rich;hewas very poor indeed.No, it never could be. And so he told Tom, and so he told his sister. The former laughed at his scruples; the latter thought her brother was right.Richards and the general were at Grantley Halland as busy as the traditional bonnet-maker. They had a little secret between them, for neither Jack nor Flora had yet been told of the change in the fortunes of the Grant Mackenzies. It would be such a delightful surprise. And so the two old friends worked away, as merrily as school-boys building a rabbit-hutch, and in a few weeks’ time the old place was put to rights, and every nick-nack and every curio and souvenir and picture replaced in the drawing-room, just as it had been in the dear, reckless days of long ago.But near the finish of the arrangements MʻHearty was invited down and let into the delightful secret, for he it was who should bring Jack and his sister, with Tom, Gerty, and Mary the maid, down to the old place.“Do you know,” said MʻHearty about a week after this, as he stood with Jack and his sister on the balcony of the priest’s drawing-room at Torquay, “I’m dying to see old Grantley Hall just once again.”“And I too would like to see it,” sighed Jack, “if—if I thought Flora could stand it.”“Oh I think I could.”“The old dial-stone.”Page212.“Well, the weather is delightful; why shouldn’t we sail round?”“Agreed,” said Jack; “we shall.”They hired a yacht, not a very fast one. There were noThistlesin those days. But she was most clean and comfortable, and the party had favouring winds all the way round, and in due time arrived safely in Lowestoft harbour.Then nothing less than a coach and postillions would suit MʻHearty.“It shan’t be at your expense though, Captain Jack,” he said, “nor yours either, Tom. Why, I have made oceans of prize-money, and an old bachelor like me doesn’t really know how to spend it.”The surprise began when they reached the lodge gate. “Why,” cried Jack, “there is some one living here. I expected to find the place in ruins.” The surprise increased when they reached the lawn, for here the general and sly old Richards met them laughing. But when the party were ushered into the drawing-room, and saw everything in its place as it had been years ago, and the general and Richards “ready to die” stifling a laugh, why, then the surprise reached a climax.“Pinch me, Tom,” cried Jack. “I’m in a dream.”What a happy first-coming that was, to be sure! but there were many more to follow.The autumn tints were on the trees, evening primroses and dahlias nodded by the pathways, and many a rare old flower besides.One evening Jack, with his sister and Gerty, was walking in the bright moonlight along the broad and grassy path that swept under the lime avenue. Flora had gone on, and Jack had given Gerty his arm.Suddenly they came to the old dial-stone. And here they stopped, for Jack had remembered his dream. He was Gerty’s equal now in every way, and so he told her his dream, and he told her something else; told her of all his manly love that neither absence nor the vicissitudes of war could ever banish from his heart. And much more, too, he told her that we need not pry into. Flora went on and on. Just once she glanced behind. Gerty was very close to Jack.When, a whole hour after this, they entered the great drawing-room arm in arm, they looked very happy indeed. There was no one there but Richards and the general. “Why, where ever have you two truants been?” said the latter.“We have been cleaning the moss off the old dial-stone, and rolling back the scroll of time. Father, let me present to you your future daughter-in-law.”“My own brave boy,” said the general. “Gerty Keane.”That was all; but I do not know yet which was the happier man of the two—Jack’s father or Mr. Richards.As for Mary, as soon as she heard the glorious news she must seek out “her boy” at once. She found him in his room, and with the best grace he could muster he had to submit to “luv and sweet kisses” on the spot, Mary assuring him that he had made her the happiest girl in all Norfolk.There is a good deal of similarity about weddings; but it was generally admitted that the double event that took place at Grantley Hall in the spring of ’99—namely, the marriages of Tom and Flora, and Gerty and Jack—was the gayest wedding, or rather pair of weddings, that had ever taken place in the north. I cannot say that bonfires blazed on every hill, because there are no hills in Norfolk worthy of the name; but the rejoicing far and near was universal, and with all his old Highland hospitality and lavishness,General Grant Mackenzie, ably supported by Richards and the gallant MʻHearty, kept open house for a whole fortnight to all comers.Meanwhile, in a charming yacht, under blue skies and with favouring winds, the happy couples were sailing round the shores of merry England and green Caledonia.Ah! there is many a less happy life than that of the sailor, and many worse people than sailors; and had I my time to begin again, I should still be sweeping through the deep.the end
W
E return now to the day before Sir Digby’s ball.
Richards lived in chambers, and in no great state. He never cared for it. Had you gone straight into his sitting-room from the fresh air, what would have struck you most would have been the smell of strong tobacco smoke; and I believe you would have come to the conclusion that the principal furniture consisted of tobacco-pipes. They were of all sorts and sizes, and hung in rows and racks, and lay on shelves and on the mantlepiece. Well, what did it matter?honest Richards was a bachelor, and not once in a blue moon did a lady look in to see him.
But one afternoon, shortly before Sir Digby’s great ball, a lady did; and that lady was Mary herself.
“Which I’ve been dying to see you, sir,” she began.
“Sit down, my dear, sit down.”
Mary sat down, and proceeded,—
“It’s all up, Mr. Richards, it’s all up!”
The poor girl was crying now bitterly.
“Missus is as good as sold. She’s goin’ to the ball, and Sir Digby’s goin’ to propose. She told me, and Sir Digby kissed me and told me. Oh, oh, what ever shall I do?”
Richards lit a huge pipe, and walked about smoking for fully five minutes. Then he went over and took Mary’s hand, and Mary looked up innocently in his face, and said innocently through her tears,—
“Do you want to kiss me too, sir?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking about that; but there, Mary, there. Now, I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do; and I do believe it will all come right, even yet.”
So Mary and Richards had a long “confab” together, and she went back home happy and smiling.
After she had gone Richards lit another pipe, threw himself on a rocking-chair, and smoked longand thoughtfully. Then he got up and took a rapid turn or two up and down the floor. Presently he paused, and gazed curiously at himself in a mirror.
“Old Richards,” he said, shaking his fist at his reflection, “I didn’t think it was in you. You’re a designing, unscrupulous old lawyer. Never mind; it’s all for my baby’s sake. I’ll do it. Hang me if I don’t.”
An hour after this, Richards had called a carriage—a luxury he indulged in very seldom indeed. He first visited the lawyer who had transacted the business of the Grantley Hall mortgage for him. With this gentleman he was closeted for some considerable time. Then he drove to a fashionable tailor’s, then to a jeweller’s, and next to a wine-merchant’s, and as all those individuals showed him to his carriage with many gracious smiles and bows, it was evident that his business with them had been of a very agreeable kind indeed—to them. Richards drove to other places which I need not name; and when he got back home at last, he sank into his rocking-chair with a tired but happy sigh, and immediately lit his biggest pipe.
He was smiling to himself. “I’ve done it,” he said half aloud, “and my baby’s safe for a time. Butif his rich old brother comes to the rescue, my game is spoiled. Poor Jack! I wonder what he is doing at this moment.”
On the night of the great ball, Sir Digby Auld was very much with Miss Gordon; and everybody said how well matched they were, which certainly was paying no compliment to Sir Digby. He gave her many dances, and he said many soft and pretty things to her, which caused her to bend down her painted face and pretend to blush.
In the course of the evening he forgathered with D’Orsay. D’Orsay lifted his brows and smiled.
“Getting on famously?” he said.
“I’ve been trying; but, D’Orsay, ’pon my life I can’t. And look you here: I may be a fool, I may be mad, but to-morrow forenoon I go to Keane’s and throw myself at Gerty’s feet. There! the die is cast.”
A servant in livery at this moment approached him. “Beg parding, sir. Two gentlemen wants to speak to you a moment in the library.”
Sir Digby turned pale.
“I’d come, sir,” whispered the servant; “there will be a scene else.”
Sir Digby followed him out.
“Sorry we are, sir, to disturb yer ’onor; but we has a warrant for your ’rrest, and the carriage is awaitin’ at the door.”
“At whose instance?”
“Richards of the firm of Griffith, Keane, and Co.”
Sir Digby muttered an oath. He staggered and almost fell.
D’Orsay, a quarter of an hour after this, informed the guests that Sir Digby Auld had been taken suddenly ill, but that they were to continue to enjoy themselves all the same.
Meanwhile the prisoner was being rapidly whirled away to the Fleet.
And the letter that Keane had received that night was to the effect that the man who proposed marrying his daughter was a bankrupt and a beggar, and would that evening be arrested in his own house and among his guests.
Having effectually disposed of Sir Digby for a time, Richards could afford to quietly await the turn of events. His practice had been sharp, but it was certainly justifiable. He had often hinted to his partner Keane, nay, even told him plainly, that the baronet was but a man of straw.
“Owes a few thousands perhaps,” Keane had replied,with an ill-concealed sneer. “They all do it. A post-obit would clear that up. His brother can’t live for ever. Sir Digby will be a lord, you know, on his brother’s death.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Richards had gone so far as to exclaim one day: “if I were you I’d pay Digby’s debts for him. Ten thou., I reckon, would do it. But I shouldn’t marry my only daughter to a beggar!”
Keane turned on him sharply.
“Richards,” he said, as calmly as he could, “I knew a gentleman once who made an immense fortune by a very simple process.”
“Indeed; how?”
“By minding his own business.” Then Keane cackled over his ledger. Richards said no more. But the idea of Keane, of all men, paying off a future son-in-law’s debts was too absurd.
When Richards went to Keane’s house a few days after Digby’s incarceration, he found his partner in the throes of packing. He was going to Italy for a time with Gerty, and of course Mary would accompany her.
Months went by, and many a long delightful letter did Richards receive from Gerty, and from Mary too, the latter always ending with “luv and sweet kisses.”Then came a final letter. They were coming home. Alas! the ship never reached England. She was captured by a Don, and all were made prisoners. Keane could have bought his liberty if he had cared to. He preferred to wait, and waiting—died.
A few weeks afterwards poor lonely Gerty returned, and Mary. Richards constituted himself Miss Keane’s guardian. Indeed it had been Keane’s last wishes that he should do so. And, strange to say, the ruling passion had manifested itself strongly in death; for by the help of a priest he had written a letter to Richards, praying him, for the sake of their long acquaintanceship and friendship, to see that Gerty married Sir Digby. He died, he said, peacefully, knowing she would yet be Lady Auld.
“A dying man’s last request,” said Richards to himself, “ought to be attended to; but—”
Then he solemnly placed the letter in the fire, and it was cremated.
Sir Digby made himself as comfortable as possible in the Fleet. Richards did not think it safe he should come out. Gerty was a strange girl. Her heart bled for the poor man, as she called him. For sake of her father’s memory, there was no denying that she might even yet sacrifice herself.
D’Orsay paid many visits to Sir Digby in prison. He really acted like a true friend, and did all he could for him. He had even gone to see his old brother, and come back, figuratively speaking, with a finger in his mouth.
“No good in that quarter,” he told Sir Digby bluntly. “Says you’re a spendthrift and a ne’er-do-weel, and that he means to live for twenty years yet; and ’pon honour, Digby, he looks as if he could. I did hear too that he was looking out for a wife.”
“I shall go and see my hero in his dark dungeon, in his prison cell, in his chains and misery.”
These are words spoken by Miss Gordon heroically to herself in the mirror one morning. She had strange ideas of the Fleet.
She was astonished to find her hero in a flowered dressing-gown, smoking a Havana, which he threw into the fire when he saw her, and living in a handsomely-furnished room.
She went again and again. I do not know how she managed it, but I do know that in a month’s time Sir Digby was a free man, and married to Miss Gordon.
This event took place just two days before Jack’s ship staggered wearily into Plymouth Sound.
While he still sat by his open port, gazing sadly landward, Tom Fairlie came in with a rush and a run. He too had a copy of theTimes.
“Listen, Jack,” he cried, “and I’ll read something that will astonish you.”
“Don’t, Tom, don’t. I have already seen the awful announcement. I am a broken and crushed man!”
“Broken and crushed fiddlestick!” said Tom. “Listen, listen: ‘At St. Nicholas’ Church, on the 5th inst., by the Rev. Charles Viewfield, Sir Digby Auld to Miss Gertrude Gordon, daughter of—’”
“Hurrah!” cried Jack, springing from his seat and overturning the chair. “Hurrah for the Rev. Charlie! Tom, shake hands, my dearest and best of friends. You’ve made me the happiest man in the British Islands. Hurrah!”
In a week’s time theTonnerairewas paid off and safe in dock, and a carriage with postillions might have been seen tearing along the road that leads from Plymouth to Tor Bay.
The carriage contained Jack Mackenzie and his friend Tom Fairlie.
BY THE OLD DIAL-STONE.
“So heroes may well wear their armour,And, patient, count over their scars;Venus’ dimples, assuming the charmer,Shall smooth the rough furrows of Mars.”Dibdin.
G
ENERAL GRANT MACKENZIE was lounging at breakfast one morning in his private rooms in the big barn-like barracks of C——. At his right hand sat one of his captains, with whom he was talking—languidly enough, it must be confessed.
“You are right, Moore. By Jove, you’re right; and to-day I send in my resignation. Here have we been lying waiting the French for more than a year, and the rascals won’t show front. No; I shall go in for club life in London now.”
“We’ll miss you, general.”
“Ah, Moore, it is good of you to say so; but whatcana fellow do? When I rejoined the service, I expected to see some fighting. Disappointed. And now I’m parted from my daughter, and lying in this old barn positively getting mouldy. Besides—”
“Some one to see you, sir,” said the servant.
“Why, Richards, my dear old boy, who could have expected to see you? Nothing wrong, I hope?”
“No, everything right—more than right. Prepare to hear news that—”
He glanced at the captain.
“My friend Captain Moore. No secrets from him—knows everything.—Captain Moore, Mr. Richards, my family lawyer, and, bar yourself, the best fellow in existence.”
Richards bowed.
“Well, Jack’s come. Had terrible fighting. I hurried over to tell you.”
“But not for that alone?”
“Nay, friend. Now sit down, or catch hold of something. I’m going to startle you. Your old uncle is dead.”
“What, the man that disinherited me?”
“The same; only—you are heir to Glen Pollok. It is all yours—a cool £10,000 a year.”
The general could not speak for a moment; then he grasped the kindly old solicitor’s hand once more, and with tears in his eyes.
“God in heaven bless you, Richards,” he exclaimed, “and his name be praised. Poor Jack and dear Flo, they will not now be beggars!”
“And, Richards,” he added, “Flora shall be wedded with all the pomp and glory due to a daughter of the proud house of Grant Mackenzie.”
“Ah!” laughed Richards, “there is the old reckless Celtic blood asserting itself again. Don’t forget, my friend, that even £10,000 a year can be spent, and that right easily too.”
“I won’t, I won’t; you shall be my guide.”
“And then, you see,” continued Richards, “there is the mortgage to pay off on Grantley Hall.”
“Grantley Hall! why, isn’t that sold long ago?”
Richards laughed heartily now. “O bother,” he cried. “I’ve let the cat out of the bag, and I didn’t mean to. I meant to give you such a pleasant surprise. Well, well, well,—
‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice and menGang aft agley.’”
Then Richards told him all he had done.
The tears stood in General Mackenzie’s eyes. “Richards,” he said, “I could not have believed such kindness possible. I—I—I can’t say another word.”
The meeting between Tom Fairlie and Flora was all that lovers could desire. Mary positively hugged Jack. He was still her boy. I’m not sure she did not shower upon him “luv and sweet kisses.”
“But, bless me, Jack,” she said, “how tall you’ve got! and really you makes poor me feel old.”
Gerty met Jack with a bonnie blush.
Ah! how he longed to take her in his arms and tell her all, and all she had been to him throughout the last two long and eventful years. But no, he would not, dared not. When in a few months’ time a ship was once more at his command, he would go quietly away to sea; but he ne’er would speak of love.
For his old Highland pride had come to his rescue. She was rich;hewas very poor indeed.
No, it never could be. And so he told Tom, and so he told his sister. The former laughed at his scruples; the latter thought her brother was right.
Richards and the general were at Grantley Halland as busy as the traditional bonnet-maker. They had a little secret between them, for neither Jack nor Flora had yet been told of the change in the fortunes of the Grant Mackenzies. It would be such a delightful surprise. And so the two old friends worked away, as merrily as school-boys building a rabbit-hutch, and in a few weeks’ time the old place was put to rights, and every nick-nack and every curio and souvenir and picture replaced in the drawing-room, just as it had been in the dear, reckless days of long ago.
But near the finish of the arrangements MʻHearty was invited down and let into the delightful secret, for he it was who should bring Jack and his sister, with Tom, Gerty, and Mary the maid, down to the old place.
“Do you know,” said MʻHearty about a week after this, as he stood with Jack and his sister on the balcony of the priest’s drawing-room at Torquay, “I’m dying to see old Grantley Hall just once again.”
“And I too would like to see it,” sighed Jack, “if—if I thought Flora could stand it.”
“Oh I think I could.”
“The old dial-stone.”Page212.
“Well, the weather is delightful; why shouldn’t we sail round?”
“Agreed,” said Jack; “we shall.”
They hired a yacht, not a very fast one. There were noThistlesin those days. But she was most clean and comfortable, and the party had favouring winds all the way round, and in due time arrived safely in Lowestoft harbour.
Then nothing less than a coach and postillions would suit MʻHearty.
“It shan’t be at your expense though, Captain Jack,” he said, “nor yours either, Tom. Why, I have made oceans of prize-money, and an old bachelor like me doesn’t really know how to spend it.”
The surprise began when they reached the lodge gate. “Why,” cried Jack, “there is some one living here. I expected to find the place in ruins.” The surprise increased when they reached the lawn, for here the general and sly old Richards met them laughing. But when the party were ushered into the drawing-room, and saw everything in its place as it had been years ago, and the general and Richards “ready to die” stifling a laugh, why, then the surprise reached a climax.
“Pinch me, Tom,” cried Jack. “I’m in a dream.”
What a happy first-coming that was, to be sure! but there were many more to follow.
The autumn tints were on the trees, evening primroses and dahlias nodded by the pathways, and many a rare old flower besides.
One evening Jack, with his sister and Gerty, was walking in the bright moonlight along the broad and grassy path that swept under the lime avenue. Flora had gone on, and Jack had given Gerty his arm.
Suddenly they came to the old dial-stone. And here they stopped, for Jack had remembered his dream. He was Gerty’s equal now in every way, and so he told her his dream, and he told her something else; told her of all his manly love that neither absence nor the vicissitudes of war could ever banish from his heart. And much more, too, he told her that we need not pry into. Flora went on and on. Just once she glanced behind. Gerty was very close to Jack.
When, a whole hour after this, they entered the great drawing-room arm in arm, they looked very happy indeed. There was no one there but Richards and the general. “Why, where ever have you two truants been?” said the latter.
“We have been cleaning the moss off the old dial-stone, and rolling back the scroll of time. Father, let me present to you your future daughter-in-law.”
“My own brave boy,” said the general. “Gerty Keane.”
That was all; but I do not know yet which was the happier man of the two—Jack’s father or Mr. Richards.
As for Mary, as soon as she heard the glorious news she must seek out “her boy” at once. She found him in his room, and with the best grace he could muster he had to submit to “luv and sweet kisses” on the spot, Mary assuring him that he had made her the happiest girl in all Norfolk.
There is a good deal of similarity about weddings; but it was generally admitted that the double event that took place at Grantley Hall in the spring of ’99—namely, the marriages of Tom and Flora, and Gerty and Jack—was the gayest wedding, or rather pair of weddings, that had ever taken place in the north. I cannot say that bonfires blazed on every hill, because there are no hills in Norfolk worthy of the name; but the rejoicing far and near was universal, and with all his old Highland hospitality and lavishness,General Grant Mackenzie, ably supported by Richards and the gallant MʻHearty, kept open house for a whole fortnight to all comers.
Meanwhile, in a charming yacht, under blue skies and with favouring winds, the happy couples were sailing round the shores of merry England and green Caledonia.
Ah! there is many a less happy life than that of the sailor, and many worse people than sailors; and had I my time to begin again, I should still be sweeping through the deep.
the end