The three heads bent forward towards a common centre—the Baron agog with suppressed excitement, Tulliwuddle revived with curiosity and a gleam of hope, Essington impressive and cool.
“I take it,” he began, “that if Mr. Darius P. Maddison and his coveted daughter could see a little of Lord Tulliwuddle—meet him at lunch, talk to him afterwards, for instance—and carry away a favorable impression of the nobleman, there would not be much difficulty in subsequently arranging a marriage?”
“Oh, none,” said Tulliwuddle. “They'd be only too keen, IF they approved of me; but that's the rub, you know.”
“So far so good. Now it appears to me that our modest friend here somewhat underrates his own powers of fascination.”
“Ach, Tollyvoddle, you do indeed,” interjected the Baron.
“But since this idea is so firmly established in his mind that it may actually prevent him from displaying himself to the greatest advantage, and since he has been good enough to declare that he would regard with complete confidence my own chances of success were I in his place, I would propose—with all becoming diffidence—thatIshould interview the lady and her parent instead of him.”
“A vary vise idea, Bonker,” observed the Baron.
“What!” said Tulliwuddle. “Do you mean that you would go and crack me up, and that sort of thing?”
“No; I mean that I should enjoy a temporary loan of your name and of your residence, and assure them by a personal inspection that I have a sufficient assortment of virtues for their requirements.”
“Splendid!” shouted the Baron. “Tollyvoddle, accept zis generous offer before it is too late!”
“But,” gasped the diffident nobleman, “they would find out the next time they saw me.”
“If the business is properly arranged, that would only be when you came out of church with her. Look here—what fault have you to find with this scheme? I produce the desired impression, and either propose at once and am accepted——”
“H'm,” muttered Tulliwuddle doubtfully.
“Or I leave things in such good train that you can propose and get accepted afterwards by letter.”
“That's better,” said Tulliwuddle.
“Then, by a little exercise of our wits, you find an excuse for hurrying on the marriage—have it a private affair for family reasons, and so on. You will be prevented by one excuse or another from meeting the lady till the wedding-day. We shall choose a darkish church, you will have a plaster on your face—and the deed is done!”
“Not a fault can I find,” commented the Baron sagely. “Essington, I congratulate you.”
Between his complete confidence in Essington and the Baron's unqualified commendation, Lord Tulliwuddle was carried away by the project.
“I say, Essington, what a good fellow you are!” he cried. “You really think it will work?”
“What do you say, Baron?”
“It cannot fail, I do solemnly assure you. Be thankful you have soch a friend, Tollyvoddle!”
“You don't think anybody will suspect that you aren't really me?”
“Does any one up at Hechnahoul know you?”
“No.”
“And no one there knows me. They will never suspect for an instant.”
His lordship assumed a look that would have been serious, almost impressive, had he first removed his eye-glass. Evidently some weighty consideration had occurred to him.
“You are an awfully clever chap, Essington,” he said, “and deuced superior to most fellows, and—er—all that kind of thing. But—well—you don't mind my saying it?”
“My morals? My appearance? Say anything you like, my dear fellow.”
“It's only this, that noblesse oblige, and that kind of thing, you know.”
“I am afraid I don't quite follow.”
“Well, I mean that you aren't a nobleman, and do you think you could carry things off like a—ah—like a Tulliwuddle?”
Essington remained entirely serious.
“I shall have at my elbow an adviser whose knowledge of the highest society in Europe is, without exaggeration, unequalled. Your perfectly natural doubts will be laid at rest when I tell you that I hope to be accompanied by the Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg.”
The Baron could no longer contain himself.
“Himmel! Hurray! My dear friend, I vill go mit you to hell!”
“That's very good of you,” said Essington, “but you mistake my present destination. I merely wish your company as far as the Castle of Hechnahoul.”
“I gom mit so moch pleasure zat I cannot eggspress! Tollyvoddle, be no longer afraid. I have helped to write a book on ze noble families of Germany—zat is to say, I have contributed my portrait and some anecdote. Our dear friend shall make no mistakes!”
By this guarantee Lord Tulliwuddle's last doubts were completely set at rest. His spirits rose as he perceived how happily this easy avenue would lead him out of all his troubles. He insisted on calling for wine and pledging success to the adventure with the most resolute and confident air, and nothing but a few details remained now to be settled. These were chiefly with regard to the precise limits up to which the duplicate Lord Tulliwuddle might advance his conquering arms.
“You won't formally propose, will you?” said the first edition of that peer.
“Certainly not, if you prefer to negotiate the surrender yourself,” the later impression assured him.
“And you mustn't—well—er——”
“I shall touch nothing.”
“A girl might get carried away by you,” said the original peer a trifle doubtfully.
“The Baron is the most scrupulous of men. He will be by my side almost continually. Baron, you will act as my judge, my censor, and my chaperon?”
“Tollyvoddle, I swear to you zat I shall use an eye like ze eagle. He shall be so careful—ach, I shall see to it! Myself, I am a Bayard mit ze ladies, and Bonker he shall not be less so!”
“Thanks, Baron, thanks awfully,” said his lordship. “Now my mind is quite at rest!”
In the vestibule of the restaurant they bade good-night to the confiding nobleman, and then turned to one another with an adventurer's smile.
“You are sure you can leave your diplomatic duties?” asked Essington.
“Zey vill be my diplomatic duties zat I go to do! Oh, I shall prepare a leetle story—do not fear me.”
The Baron chuckled, and then burst forth
“Never was zere a man like you. Oh, cunning Mistair Bonker! And you vill give me zomezing to do in ze adventure, eh?”
“I promise you that, Baron.”
As he gave this reassuring pledge, a peculiar smile stole over Mr. Bunker's face—a smile that seemed to suggest even happier possibilities than either of his distinguished friends contemplated.
It is at all times pleasant to contemplate thorough workmanship and sagacious foresight, particularly when these are allied with disinterested purpose and genuine enthusiasm. For the next few days Mr. Bunker, preparing to carry out to the best of his ability the delicate commission with which he had been entrusted, presented this stimulating spectacle.
Absolutely no pains were left untaken. By the aid of some volumes lent him by Tulliwuddle he learned, and digested in a pocketbook, as much information as he thought necessary to acquire concerning the history of the noble family he was temporarily about to enter; together with notes of their slogan or war-cry (spelled phonetically to avoid the possibility of a mistake), of their acreage, gross and net rentals, the names of their land-agents, and many other matters equally to the point. It was further to be observed that he spared no pains to imprint these particulars in the Baron's Teutonic memory—whether to support his own in case of need, or for some more secret purpose, it were impossible to fathom. Disguised as unconspicuous and harmless persons, they would meet in many quiet haunts whose unsuspected excellences they could guarantee from their old experience, and there mature their philanthropic plan.
Not only had its talented originator to impress the Tulliwuddle annals and statistics into his ally's eager mind, but he had to exercise the nicest tact and discernment lest the Baron's excess of zeal should trip their enterprise at the very outset.
“To-day I have told Alicia zat my visit to Russia vill probably be vollowed by a visit to ze Emperor of China,” the Baron would recount with vast pride in his inventive powers. “And I have dropped a leetle hint zat for an envoy to be imprisoned in China is not to be surprised. Zat vill prepare her in case I am avay longer zan ve expect.”
“And how did she take that intimation?” asked Essington, with a less congratulatory air than he had expected.
“I did leave her in tears.”
“My dear Baron, fly to her to tell her you are not going to China! She will get so devilish alarmed if you are gone a week that she'll go straight to the embassy and make inquiries.”
He shook his head, and added in an impressive voice—
“Never lie for lying's sake, Blitzenberg. Besides, how do you propose to forge a Chinese post-mark?”
The Baron had laid the foundations of his Russian trip on a sound basis by requesting a friend of his in that country to post to the Baroness the bi-weekly budgets of Muscovite gossip which he intended to compose at Hechnahoul. This, it seemed to him, would be a simple feat, particularly with his friend Bunker to assist; but he had to confess that the provision of Chinese news would certainly be more difficult.
“Ach, vell, I shall contradict China,” he agreed.
It will be readily believed that what with getting up his brief, pruning the legends with which the Baron proposed to satisfy his wife and his ambassador, and purchasing an outfit suitable to the roles of peer and chieftain, this indefatigable gentleman passed three or four extremely busy days.
“Ve most start before my dear mozzer-in-law does gom!” the Baron more than once impressed upon him, so that there was no moment to be wasted.
Two days before their departure Mr. Bunker greeted his ally with a peculiarly humorous smile.
“The pleasures of our visit to Hechnahoul are to be considerably augmented,” said he. “Tulliwuddle has only just made the discovery that his ancestral castle is let; but his tenant, in the most handsome spirit, invites us to be his guests so long as we are in Scotland. A very hospitable letter, isn't it?”
He handed him a large envelope with a more than proportionately large crest upon it, and drawing from this a sheet of note-paper headed by a second crest, the Baron read this epistle:
“MY LORD,—Learning that you propose visiting your Scottish estates, and Mr. M'Fadyen, your factor, informing me no lodge is at present available for your reception, it will give Mrs. Gallosh and myself great pleasure, and we will esteem it a distinguished honor, if you and your friend will be our guests at Hechnahoul Castle during the duration of your visit. Should you do us the honor of accepting, I shall send my steam launch to meet you at Torrydhulish pier and convey you across the loch, if you will be kind enough to advise me which train you are coming by.
“In conclusion, Mrs. Gallosh and myself beg to assure you that although you find strangers in your ancestral halls, you will receive both from your tenantry and ourselves a very hearty welcome to your native land. Believe me, your obedient servant,
“DUNCAN JNO. GALLOSH.”
“Zat is goot news!” cried the Baron. “Ve shall have company—perhaps ladies! Ach, Bonker, I have ze soft spot in mine heart: I am so constant as ze needle to ze pole; but I do like sometimes to talk mit voman!”
“With Mrs. Gallosh, for instance?”
“But, Bonker, zere may be a Miss Gallosh.”
“If you consulted the Baroness,” said Bunker, smiling, “I suspect she would prefer you to be imprisoned in China.”
The Baron laughed, and curled his martial mustache with a dangerous air.
“Who is zis Gallosh?” he inquired.
“Scottish, I judge from his name; commercial, from his literary style; elevated by his own exertions, from the size of his crest; and wealthy, from the fact that he rents Hechnahoul Castle. His mention of Mrs. Gallosh points to the fact that he is either married or would have us think so; and I should be inclined to conclude that he has probably begot a family.”
“Aha!” said the Baron. “Ve vill gom and see, eh?”
A carefully clothed young man, with an eyeglass and a wavering gait, walked slowly out of Euston Station. He had just seen the Scottish express depart, and this event seemed to have filled him with dubious reflections. In fact, at the very last moment Lord Tulliwuddle's confidence in his two friends had been a trifling degree disturbed. It occurred to him as he lingered by the door of their reserved first-class compartment that they had a little too much the air of gentlemen departing on their own pleasure rather than on his business. No sooner did he drop a fretful hint of this opinion than their affectionate protestations had quickly revived his spirit; but now that they were no longer with him to counsel and encourage, it once more drooped.
“Confound it!” he thought, “I hadn't bargained on having to keep out of people's way till they came back. If Essington had mentioned that sooner, I don't know that I'd have been so keen about the notion. Hang it! I'll have to chuck the Morrells' dance. And I can't go with the Greys to Ranelagh. I can't even dine with my own aunt on Sunday. Oh, the devil!”
The perturbed young peer waved his umbrella and climbed into a hansom.
“Well, anyhow, I can still go on seeing Connie. That's some consolation,” he told himself; and without stopping to consider what would be the thoughts of his two obliging friends had they known he was seeking consolation in the society of one lady while they were arranging his nuptials with another, the baptismal Tulliwuddle drove back to the civilization of St. James's.
Within the reserved compartment was no foreboding, no faint-hearted paling of the cheek. As the train clattered, hummed, and presently thundered on its way, the two laughed cheerfully towards one another, delighted beyond measure with the prosperous beginning of their enterprise. The Baron could not sufficiently express his gratitude and admiration for the promptitude with which his friend had purveyed so promising an adventure.
“Ve vill have fon, my Bonker. Ach! ve vill,” he exclaimed for the third or fourth time within a dozen miles from Euston.
His Bunker assumed an air half affectionate, half apologetic.
“I only regret that I should have the lion's share of the adventure, my dear Baron.”
“Yes,” said the Baron, with a symptom of a sigh, “I do envy you indeed. Yet I should not say zat——” Bunker swiftly interrupted him.
“You would like to play a worthier part than merely his lordship's friend?”
“Ach! if I could.”
Bunker smiled benignantly.
“Ah, Baron, you cannot suppose that I would really do Tulliwuddle such injustice as to attempt, in my own feeble manner, to impersonate him?”
The Baron stared.
“Vat mean you?”
“YOU shall be the lion,Ithe humble necessary jackal. As our friend so aptly quoted, noblesse oblige. Of course, there can be no doubt about it. You, Baron, must play the part of peer, I of friend.”
The Baron gasped.
“Impossible!”
“Quite simple, my dear fellow.”
“You—you don't mean so?”
“I do indeed.”
“Bot I shall not do it so vell as you.”
“A hundred times better.”
“Bot vy did you not say so before?”
“Tulliwuddle might not have agreed with me.”
“Bot vould he like it now?”
“It is not what he likes that we should consider, it's what is good for his interests.”
“Bot if I should fail?”
“He will be no worse off than before. Left to himself, he certainly won't marry the lady. You give him his only chance.”
“Bot more zan you vould, really and truthfully?”
“My dear Baron, you are admitted by all to be an ideal German nobleman. Therefore you will certainly make an ideal British peer. You have the true Grand-Seigneur air. No one would mistake you for anything but a great aristocrat, if they merely saw you in bathing pants; whereas I have something a little different about my manner. I'm not so impressive—not so hall-marked, in fact.”
His friend's omniscient air and candidly eloquent tone impressed the Baron considerably. His ingrained conviction of his own importance accorded admirably with these arguments. His thirst for “life” craved this lion's share. His sanguine spirit leaped at the appeal. Yet his well-regulated conscience could not but state one or two patent objections.
“Bot I have not read so moch of the Tollyvoddles as you. I do not know ze strings so vell.”
“I have told you nearly everything I know. You will find the rest here.”
Essington handed him the note-book containing his succinct digest. In intelligent anticipation of this contingency it was written in his clearest handwriting.
“You should have been a German,” said the Baron admiringly.
He glanced with sparkling eyes at the note-book, and then with a distinctly greater effort the Teutonic conscience advanced another objection.
“Bot you have bought ze kilt, ze Highland hat, ze brogue shoes.”
“I had them made to your measurements.”
The Baron impetuously embraced his thoughtful friend. Then again his smile died away.
“Bot, Bonker, my voice! Zey tell me I haf nozing zat you vould call qvite an accent; bot a foreigner—one does regognize him, eh?”
“I shall explain that in a sentence. The romantic tincture of—well, not quite accent, is a pleasant little piece of affectation adopted by the young bloods about the Court in compliment to the German connections of the Royal family.”
The Baron raised no more objections.
“Bonker, I agree! Tollyvoddle I shall be, by Jove and all!”
He beamed his satisfaction, and then in an eager voice asked—
“You haf not ze kilt in zat hat-box?”
Unfortunately, however, the kilt was in the van.
Now the journey, propitiously begun, became more exhilarating, more exciting with each mile flung by. The Baron, egged on by his friend's high spirits and his own imagination to anticipate pleasure upon pleasure, watched with rapture the summer landscape whiz past the windows. Through the flat midlands of England they sped; field after field, hedgerow after hedgerow, trees by the dozen, by the hundred, by the thousand, spinning by in one continuous green vista. Red brick towns, sluggish rivers, thatched villages and ancient churches dark with yews, the shining web of junctions, and a whisking glimpse of wayside stations leaped towards them, past them, and leagues away behind. But swiftly as they sped, it was all too slowly for the fresh-created Lord Tulliwuddle.
“Are we not nearly to Scotland yet?” he inquired some fifty times.
“'My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the dears!'” hummed the abdicated nobleman, whose hilarity had actually increased (if that were possible) since his descent into the herd again.
All the travellers' familiar landmarks were hailed by the gleeful diplomatist with encouraging comments.
“Ach, look! Beauteeful view! How quickly it is gone! Hurray! Ve must be nearly to Scotland.”
A panegyric on the rough sky-line of the north country fells was interrupted by the entrance of the dining-car attendant. Learning that they would dine, he politely inquired in what names he should engage their seats. Then, for an instant, a horrible confusion nearly overcame the Baron. He—a von Blitzenberg—to give a false name! His color rose, he stammered, and only in the nick of time caught his companion's eye.
“Ze Lord Tollyvoddle,” he announced, with an effort as heroic as any of his ancestors' most warlike enterprises.
Too impressed to inquire how this remarkable title should be spelled, the man turned to the other distinguished-looking passenger.
“Bunker,” said that gentleman, with smiling assurance.
The man went out.
“Now are ve named!” cried the Baron, his courage rising the higher for the shock it had sustained. “And you vunce more vill be Bonker? Goot!”
“That satisfies you?”
The Baron hesitated.
“My dear friend, I have a splendid idea! Do you know I did disgover zere used to be a nobleman in Austria really called Count Bonker? He vas a famous man; you need not be ashamed to take his name. Vy should not you be Count Bonker?”
“You prefer to travel in titled company? Well, be hanged—why not! When one comes to think of it, it seems a pity that my sins should always be attributed to the middle classes.”
Accordingly this history has now the honorable task of chronicling the exploits of no fewer than two noblemen.
Late that evening they reached a city which the home-coming chieftain in an outburst of Celtic fervor dubbed “mine own bonny Edinburg!” and there they repaired for the night to a hotel. Once more the Baron (we may still style him so since the peerage of Tulliwuddle was of that standing also) showed a certain diffidence when it came to answering to his new title in public; but in the seclusion of their private sitting-room he was careful to assure his friend that this did not arise from any lack of nerve or qualms zof conscience, but merely through a species of headache—the result of railway travelling.
“Do not fear for me,” he declared as he stirred the sugar in his glass, “I have ze heart of a lion.”
The liquid he was sipping being nothing less potent than a brew of whisky punch, which he had ordered (or rather requested Bunker to order) as the most romantically national compound he could think of, produced, indeed, a fervor of foolhardiness. He insisted upon opening the door wide, and getting Bunker to address him as “Tollyvoddle,” in a strident voice, “so zat zey all may hear,” and then answering in a firm “Yes, Count Bonker, vat vould you say to me?”
It is true that he instantly closed the door again, and even bolted it, but his display seemed to make a vast impression upon himself.
“Many men vould not dare so to go mit anozzer name,” he announced; “bot I have my nerves onder a good gontrol.”
“You astonish me,” said the Count.
“I do even surprise myself,” admitted the Baron.
In truth the ordeal of carelessly carrying off an alias is said by those who have undergone it (and the report is confirmed by an experienced class of public officials) to require a species of hardihood which, fortunately for society, is somewhat rare. The most daring Smith will sometimes stammer when it comes to merely answering “Yes” to a cry of “Brown!” and Count Bunker, whose knowledge of human nature was profound and remarkably accurate, was careful to fortify his friend by example and praise, till by the time they went to bed the Baron could scarcely be withheld from seeking out the manager and airing his assurance upon him. Or, at least, he declared he would have done this had he been sure that the manager was not already in bed himself.
Unfortunately at this juncture the Count committed one of those indiscretions to which a gay spirit is always prone, but which, to do him justice, seldom sullied his own record as a successful adventurer. At an hour considerably past midnight, hearing an excited summons from the Baron's bedroom, he laid down his toothbrush and hastened across the passage, to find the new peer in a crimson dressing-gown of quilted silk gazing enthusiastically at a lithograph that hung upon the wall.
“See!” he cried gleefully, “here is my own ancestor. Bonker, I feel I am Tollyvoddle indeed.”
The print which had inspired this enthusiasm depicted a historical but treasonable Lord Tulliwuddle preparing to have his head removed.
Giving it a droll look, the Count observed—
“Well, if it inspires you, my dear Baron, that's all right. The omen would have struck me differently.”
“Ze omen!” murmured the Baron with a start.
It required all Bunker's tact to revive his ally's damped enthusiasm, and even at breakfast next morning he referred in a gloomy voice to various premonitions recorded in the history of his family, and the horrible consequences of disregarding them.
But by the time they had started upon their journey north, his spirits rose a trifle; and when at length all lowland landscapes were left far behind them, and they had come into a province of peat streams and granite pinnacles, with the gloom of pines and the freshness of the birch blended like a May and December marriage, all appearance, at least, of disquietude had passed away.
Yet the Count kept an anxious eye upon him. He was becoming decidedly restless. At one moment he would rave about the glorious scenery; the next, plunge into a brown study of the Tulliwuddle rent-roll; and then in an instant start humming an air and smoking so fast that both their cases were empty while they were yet half an hour from Torrydhulish Station. Now the Baron took to biting his nails, looking at his watch, and answering questions at random—a very different spectacle from the enthusiastic traveller of yesterday.
“Only ten minutes more,” observed Bunker in his most cheering manner.
The Baron made no reply.
They were now running along the brink of a glimmering loch, the piled mountains on the farther shore perfectly mirrored; a tern or two lazily fishing; a delicate summer sky smiling above. All at once Count Bunker started—
“That must be Hechnahoul!” said he.
The Baron looked and beheld, upon an eminence across the loch, the towers and turrets of an imposing mansion overtopping a green grove.
“And here is the station,” added the Count.
The Baron's face assumed a piteous expression.
“Bonker,” he stammered, “I—I am afraid! You be ze Tollyvoddle—I cannot do him!”
“My dear Baron!”
“Oh, I cannot!”
“Be brave—for the honor of the fatherland. Play the bold Blitzenberg!”
“Ach, ja; but not bold Tollyvoddle. Zat picture—you vere right—it vas omen!”
Never did the genius of Bunker rise more audaciously to an occasion.
“My dear Baron,” said he, assuming on the instant a confidence-inspiring smile, “that print was a hoax; it wasn't old Tulliwuddle at all. I faked it myself.”
“So?” gasped the Baron. “You assure me truly?”
Muttering (the historian sincerely hopes) a petition for forgiveness, Bunker firmly answered—
“I do assure you!”
The train had stopped, and as they were the only first-class passengers on board, a peculiarly magnificent footman already had his hand upon the door. Before turning the handle, he touched his hat.
“Lord Tulliwuddle?” he respectfully inquired.
“Ja—zat is, yes, I am,” replied the Baron.
From the platform down to the pier was only some fifty yards, and before them the travellers perceived an exceedingly smart steam-launch, and a stout middle-aged gentleman, in a blue serge suit and yachting cap, advancing from it to greet them. They had only time to observe that he had a sanguine complexion, iron-gray whiskers, and a wide-open eye, before he raised the cap and, in a decidedly North British accent, thus addressed them—
“My lord—ahem!—your lordship, I should say—I presume I've the pleasure of seeing Lord Tulliwuddle?”
The Count gently pushed his more distinguished friend in front. With an embarrassment equal to their host's, his lordship bowed and gave his hand.
“I am ze Tollyvoddle—vary pleased—Mistair Gosh, I soppose?”
“Gallosh, my lord. Very honored to welcome you.”
In the round eyes of Mr. Gallosh, Count Bunker perceived an unmistakable stare of astonishment at the sound of his lordship's accented voice. The Baron, on his part, was evidently still suffering from his attack of stage fright; but again the Count's gifts smoothed the creases from the situation.
“You have not introduced me to our host, Tulliwuddle,” he said, with a gay, infectious confidence.
“Ah, so! Zis is my friend Count Bunker—gom all ze vay from Austria,” responded the Baron, with no glimmer of his customary aplomb.
Making a mental resolution to warn his ally never to say one word more about his fictitious past than was wrung by cross-examination, the distinguished-looking Austrian shook his host's hand warmly.
“From Austria via London,” he explained in his pleasantest manner. “I object altogether to be considered a foreigner, Mr. Gallosh; and, in fact, I often tell Tulliwuddle that people will think me more English than himself. The German fashions so much in vogue at Court are transforming the very speech of your nobility. Don't you sometimes notice it?”
Thus directly appealed to, Mr. Gallosh became manifestly perplexed.
“Yes—yes, you're right in a way,” he pronounced cautiously. “I suppose they do that. But will ye not take a seat? This is my launch. Hi! Robert, give his lordship a hand on board!”
Two mariners and a second tall footman assisted the guests to embark, and presently they were cutting the waters of the loch at a merry pace.
In the prow, like youth, the Baron insisted upon sitting with folded arms and a gloomy aspect; and as his nerve was so patently disturbed, the Count decidedly approved of an arrangement which left his host and himself alone together in the stern. In his present state of mind the Baron was capable of any indiscretion were he compelled to talk; while, silent and brooding in isolated majesty, he looked to perfection the part of returning exile. So, evidently, thought Mr. Gallosh.
“His lordship is looking verra well,” he confided to the Count in a respectfully lowered voice.
“The improvement has been remarkable ever since his foot touched his native heath.”
“You don't say so,” said Mr. Gallosh, with even greater interest. “Was he delicate before?”
“A London life, Mr. Gallosh.”
“True—true, he'll have been busy seeing his friends; it'll have been verra wearing.”
“The anxiety, the business of being invested, and so on, has upset him a trifle. You must put down any little—well, peculiarity to that, Mr. Gallosh.”
“I understand—aye, umh'm, quite so. He'll like to be left to himself, perhaps?”
“That depends on his condition,” said the Count diplomatically.
“It's a great responsibility for a young man; yon's a big property to look after,” observed Mr. Gallosh in a moment.
“You have touched the spot!” said the Count warmly. “That is, in fact, the chief cause of Tulliwuddle's curious moodiness ever since he succeeded to the title. He feels his responsibilities a little too acutely.”
Again Mr. Gallosh ruminated, while his guest from the corner of his eye surveyed him shrewdly.
“My forecast was wonderfully accurate,” he said to himself.
The silence was first broken by Mr. Gallosh. As if thinking aloud, he remarked—
“I was awful surprised to hear him speak! It's the Court fashion, you say?”
“Partly that; partly a prolonged residence on the Continent in his youth. He acquired his accent then; he has retained it for fashion's sake,” explained the Count, who thought it as well to bolster up the weakest part of his case a little more securely.
With this prudent purpose, he added, with a flattering air of taking his host into his aristocratic confidence—
“You will perhaps be good enough to explain this to the friends and dependants Lord Tulliwuddle is about to meet? A breath of unsympathetic criticism would grieve him greatly if it came to his ears.”
“Quite, quite,” said Mr. Gallosh eagerly. “I'll make it all right. I understand the sentiment pairfectly. It's verra natural—verra natural indeed.”
At that moment the Baron started from his reverie with an affrighted air.
“Vat is zat strange sound!” he exclaimed.
The others listened.
“That's just the pipes, my lord,” said Mr. Gallosh. “They're tuning up to welcome you.”
His lordship stared at the shore ahead of them.
“Zere are many peoples on ze coast!” he cried. “Vat makes it for?”
“They've come to receive you,” his host explained. “It's just a little spontaneous demonstration, my lord.”
His lordship's composure in no way increased.
“It was Mrs. Gallosh organized a wee bit entertainment on his lordship's landing,” their host explained confidentially to the Count. “It's just informal, ye understand. She's been instructing some of the tenants—and ma own girls will be there—but, oh, it's nothing to speak of. If he says a few words in reply, that'll be all they'll be expecting.”
The strains of “Tulliwuddle wha hae” grew ever louder and, to an untrained ear, more terrific. In a moment they were mingled with a clapping of hands and a Highland cheer, the launch glided alongside the pier, and, supported on his faithful friend's arm, the panic-stricken Tulliwuddle staggered ashore. Before his dazed eyes there seemed to be arrayed the vastest and most barbaric concourse his worst nightmare had ever imagined. Six pipers played within ten paces of him, each of them arrayed in the full panoply of the clan; at least a dozen dogs yelped their exultation; and from the surrounding throng two ancient men in tartan and four visions in snowy white stepped forth to greet the distinguished visitors.
The first hitch in the proceedings occurred at this point. According to the unofficial but carefully considered programme, the pipers ought to have ceased their melody; but, whether inspired by ecstatic loyalty or because the Tulliwuddle pibroch took longer to perform than had been anticipated, they continued to skirl with such vigor that expostulations passed entirely unheard. Under the circumstances there was nothing for it but shouting, and in a stentorian yell Mr. Gallosh introduced his wife and three fair daughters.
Thereupon Mrs. Gallosh, a broad-beamed matron whose complexion contrasted pleasantly with her costume, delivered the following oration—
“Lord Tulliwuddle, in the name of the women of Hechnahoul—I may say in the name of the women of all the Highlands—oor ain Heelands, my lord” (this with the most insinuating smile)—“I bid you welcome to your ancestral estates. Remembering the conquests your ancestors used to make both in war and in a gentler sphere” (Mrs. Gallosh looked archness itself), “we ladies, I suppose, should regard your home-coming with some misgivings; but, my lord, every bonny Prince Charlie has his bonny Flora Macdonald, and in this land of mountain, mist, and flood, where 'Dark Ben More frowns o'er the wave,' and where 'Ilka lassie has her laddie,' you will find a thousand romantic maidens ready to welcome you as Ellen welcomed Fitz-James! For centuries your heroic race has adorned the halls and trod the heather of Hechnahoul, and for centuries more we hope to see the offspring of your lordship and some winsome Celtic maid rule these cataracts and glens!”
At this point the exertion of shouting down six bagpipes in active eruption caused a temporary cessation of the lady's eloquence, and the pause was filled by the cheers of the crowd led by the “Hip-hip-hip!” of Count Bunker, and by the broken and fortunately inaudible protests of the embarrassed father of future Tulliwuddles. In a moment Mrs. Gallosh had resumed—
“Lord Tulliwuddle, though I myself am only a stranger to your clan, your Highland heart will feel reassured when I mention that I belong through my grandmother to the kindred clan of the Mackays!” (“Hear, hear!” from two or three ladies and gentlemen, evidently guests of the Gallosh.) “We are but visitors at Hechnahoul, yet we assure you that no more devoted hearts beat in all Caledonia! Lord Tulliwuddle, we welcome you!”
“Put your hand on your heart and bow,” whispered Bunker. “Keep on bowing and say nothing!”
Mechanically the bewildered Baron obeyed, and for a few moments presented a spectacle not unlike royalty in procession.
But as some reply from him had evidently been expected at this point, and the pipers had even ceased playing lest any word of their chief's should be lost, a pause ensued which might have grown embarrassing had not the Count promptly stepped forward.
“I think,” he said, indicating two other snow-white figures who held gigantic bouquets, “that a pleasant part of the ceremony still remains before us.”
With a grateful glance at this discerning guest, Mrs. Gallosh thereupon led forward her two youngest daughters (aged fifteen and thirteen), who, with an air so delightfully coy that it fell like a ray of sunshine on the poor Baron's heart, presented him with their flowery symbols of Hechnahoul's obeisance to its lord.
His consternation returned with the advance of the two ancient clansmen who, after a guttural panegyric in Gaelic, offered him further symbols—a claymore and target, very formidable to behold. All these gifts having been adroitly transferred to the arms of the footmen by the ubiquitous Count, the Baron's emotions swiftly passed through another phase when the eldest Miss Gallosh, aged twenty, with burning eyes and the most distracting tresses, dropped him a sweeping courtesy and offered a final contribution—a fiery cross, carved and painted by her own fair hands.
A fresh round of applause followed this, and then a sudden silence fell upon the assembly. All eyes were turned upon the chieftain: not even a dog barked: it was the moment of a lifetime.
“Can you manage a speech, old man?” whispered Bunker.
“Ach, no, no, no! Let me escape. Oh, let me fly!”
“Bury your face in your hands and lean on my shoulder,” prompted the Count.
This stage direction being obeyed, the most effective tableau conceivable was presented, and the climax was reached when the Count, after a brief dumb-show intended to indicate how vain were Lord Tulliwuddle's efforts to master his emotion, spoke these words in the most thrilling accents he could muster:
“Fair ladies and brave men of Hechnahoul! Your chief, your friend, your father requests me to express to you the sentiments which his over-wrought emotions prevent him from uttering himself. On his behalf I tender to his kind and courteous friends, Mr., Mrs., and the fair maids Gallosh, the thanks of a long-absent exile returned to his native land for the welcome they have given him! To his devoted clan he not only gives his thanks, but his promise that all rents shall be reduced by one half—so long as he dwells among them!” (Tumultuous applause, disturbed only by a violent ejaculation from a large man in knickerbockers whom Bunker justly judged to be the factor.)
“With his last breath he shall perpetually thunder: Ahasheen—comara—mohr!”
The Tulliwuddle slogan, pronounced with the most conscientious accuracy of which a Sassenach was capable, proved as effective a curtain as he had anticipated; and amid a perfect babel of cheering and bagpiping the chieftain was led to his host's carriage.