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 faintshwish-shwishbroke 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 rapFor a rational man to play,Into which some misfortune, some mishapCannot possibly find its way."
"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!
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 makeherlife 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 beganseriatimon 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 preciousacquatofana. 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 supposeyouhave 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 Donalddiddeliver 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.