"You remember the pheasants' eggs incident, Kevan? You need not repeat your explanations, because I have no intention of raking it up, and merely wish to suggest that you find means of preventing your comrades from talking too much about what happened to-night. When a gentleman of Mr. Chatterton's years allows his excitement to overcome him to such an extent that he follows a poacher into a flooded river, he naturally would not like his adventures made public property."
"I'm a wee bit puzzled, sir," answered an invisible person; and Maxwell's voice rose faintly through the sound of retreating footsteps:
"I am not puzzled in the least; and that ought to be sufficient. You are sure you understand my wishes?"
He came in a few moments later to inform his guests that the dog-cart was waiting.
As they drove home, Chatterton said sententiously:
"We all make mistakes at times, Hilton; and that was most excellent punch. For instance, when one comes to know him, Maxwell is what might be termed a very good fellow. Hard up like the rest of them, of course; land and buildings, as everybody knows, burdened to the hilt, but—I suppose it was born in him—he bears the stamp, and his son wears it too. You and I aredifferent, you know, though travel has done a good deal for you. I have handled a good many men in my time, and I like that fellow's looks. He would be a very bad kind to tackle when the devil that smiles through his black eyes wakes up; and I think he'd stand by the man who played him fair through the damnedest kind of luck."
Dane, who fully endorsed this opinion, was afterward to discover that Thomas Chatterton was no bad judge of his fellow-men.
"They are neither of the type one associates with this part of the country," he commented.
"No," said Chatterton. "They were, I understand, always an adventurous family, and some of them who took part in the wars there in the old days intermarried with the Spaniards then holding the Low Countries. A strain of that kind takes a long time to work out, you know."
Chatterton's fishing was not without results, for in spite of, or perhaps because of, their different character and experience, it was the commencement of a friendship between himself and Maxwell of Culmeny. The iron-master had hewn his own way to fortune, and, being troubled by no petty diffidence, was, if anything, overfond of recounting has earlier struggles. The wild blood of the old moss-troopers still pulsed in the veins of the Maxwells, and the impoverished gentleman, who listened with interest, sighed as he remembered the sordid monotony of his own career, during which he had, by dint of painful economy, somewhat lightened the burden with which his inheritance had been saddled by the recklessness of his forbears.
Carsluith Maxwell took even more kindly to his newacquaintances; and there sprang up between himself and Dane a comradeship which was to stand a bitter test, while, as summer merged into autumn, he would sometimes wonder at himself. He said nothing about his African venture, and spent much time considering old rent books and the cost of moss-land reclamation schemes. The rest he spent shooting with Dane, or lounging at The Larches, if possible in Lilian Chatterton's vicinity; but, although he could rouse himself to temporary brilliancy, Maxwell was usually oversilent in feminine society, and Dane felt no jealousy. The latter rested content in the meantime with the knowledge that Lilian found a mild pleasure in his company; and only Mrs. Chatterton felt any misgivings respecting future possibilities. Being a wise woman, she kept her suspicions to herself until they became certainties, when one day Miss Margaret Maxwell, perhaps not wholly by accident, gave her a significant hint.
"I hear that your brother has undertaken an extensive drainage scheme," said the elder lady.
"We are hopeful that he will settle down at last," responded Margaret Maxwell. "My father's health is failing, and he has long desired his son's company; but Carsluith was always ambitious, and used to say he would never vegetate in poverty at Culmeny. Of late, however, we have been pleased to see that he is taking an almost suspicious interest in the improvement of the estate, and is now investing the money he made in Mexico in the reclamation of Langside Moss. As Carsluith seldom does anything without a reason, his sudden change of program puzzles us."
Mrs. Chatterton fancied she could supply the reason, but she made no comment. Lilian, she decided, had aright to choose for herself, and might make a worse selection than a Maxwell of Culmeny.
In the meantime, Dane still awaited his foreign commission, and might have waited indefinitely, but that once again a poacher played a part in the shaping of his destiny. There were plenty of them in that neighborhood; while rogue, and clown, and commonplace individual of average honesty usually outnumber either the saints or heroes in life's comedy. The poachers were netting the Culmeny partridges, and Dane promised to assist his comrade in an attempt to capture them.
It was a chilly night when Dane crouched in very damp clover beside a straggling hedge, waiting for the poachers, and wishing he had been wise enough to remain at home. Rain had fallen throughout the day, and now heavy clouds drifted overhead, while a chilly breeze shook an eery sighing out of the firs behind him. The moon was seldom visible, but a subdued luminescence filtered through, and he could just see Maxwell crouching in a neighboring ditch which was not wholly dry.
"What are you meditating upon, Hilton?" Maxwell asked.
"I was just thinking what a fool I was to come at all, and that it is almost time I went home again. When a man has had tropical fever it is his own fault if he suffers from indulgence in amusements of this description."
"I am not entirely comfortable either," Maxwell said dryly. "My boots are full of water, and my hair is thick with sand; but I dare say both of us have had worse experiences. If those fellows don't come in the next ten minutes I'll turn back with you."
Neither said anything further for a space. The firs moaned behind them, the dampness chilled them through, and the odor of wet clover was in their nostrils. When, instead of ten minutes, nearly half an hour had passed, there was a low whistle from a hidden keeper,and Dane could dimly see several indistinct figures in the adjoining meadow.
"Kevan and the constable should head them off," whispered Maxwell. "I'll race you for the first prisoner, Hilton!"
It was characteristic of Maxwell that he had worked an opening ready in the hedge, and slipped through it, while Dane hurled himself crashing upon the thorns. He broke through them, somehow, and noticed very little as he raced across the dripping aftermath except that two men strove to drag something over the opposite hedge. Before he could reach it, Maxwell had separated from him, and because the moon shone down through a rift in the clouds, he saw him clear the hedge in a flying bound. The next moment he had his hand on the collar of one man brought up by the thorns. Dane saw his face for an instant, and then, when the other kicked him savagely on the knee, he shifted his hand to his throat, and was doing his best to choke the fight out of him when he heard footsteps behind him, and something descended heavily upon his head. He fell with a violence that shook the remaining senses out of him, and lay vacantly listening to the sound of running feet and hoarse shouts which grew fainter in the distance, until Maxwell, returning, shook him by the arm. It was dark again now, for the moon had vanished, and a thin drizzle was falling. Dane's head ached intolerably, and a warm trickle ran into one of his eyes.
"Are you badly hurt, Hilton?" asked Maxwell, stooping and holding out a flask.
"No," Dane answered dubiously, as, gripping his comrade's hand, he staggered to his feet. "Mine is apretty thick cranium, but somebody did their best to test its solidity with the butt of a gun. Did you get them?"
"We did not." Maxwell, who seldom showed what he felt, evinced no chagrin. "The constable managed to stick fast in the one gap in the second hedge; but we got their net, and, although I don't wish to trouble you if you are not fit, if you could describe the fellow you grappled with, we should know where to find him."
Dane did so to the best of his ability.
"It's young Jim Johnstone!" the keeper exclaimed; "an' after this we should grip him trying to slip off by the night train. I'm minding Mr. Black told me he'd e'en be sitting up in case yon rascals killed onybody, an' ye needed authority. He's a pleasant-spoken gentleman, an' this is a clear case o' unlawful woundin'."
"Start at once with that fool of a policeman!" said Maxwell. "Now, Hilton, if you can manage to walk as far as the road, I will drive you home."
He held out his arm, but grew tired long before they reached his trap: Dane was no featherweight, and he leaned upon him heavily. When Maxwell helped his comrade down before The Larches there were lights in the lower windows, though it was very late, and its owner stood upon the steps awaiting them.
"I could not sleep until I heard whether you had caught the rascals," he began. "But what's this? Have they hurt you, Hilton?"
"Not much, sir," answered Dane.
Seeing Mrs. Chatterton in the hall, he shook off Maxwell's arm, and attempted to enter it unassisted to prove his assertion. The attempt, however, was a distinct failure. He tripped upon a mat, reeled forwarddrunkenly, and, clutching at the nearest chair, sank into it, presenting a sufficiently surprising spectacle, for his collar, as he subsequently found, was burst, while there were generous rents in his garments, and the red trickle flowed faster down his face. Then there followed confusion, for Mrs. Chatterton was a gentle but easily disconcerted lady, and her husband addicted to over-vigorous action. So, while the one proceeded in search of bandages, and, not finding them, returned to ask useless questions and, in spite of his feeble protests, pour cold water over Dane's injured head, Chatterton smote a gong and hurled confused orders at the startled servants. This lasted until a dainty figure came swiftly down the stairway, and chaos was reduced to order when Lilian took control with a firm hand.
"Don't trouble him with questions, Aunty, but get some brandy, quick!" she said. "Uncle, please do not make any more useless noise, but ask one of these foolish women to bring hot water. Annie, bring me the arnica, and the first piece of clean linen you can find. Now, Hilton, you are not hurt very badly, are you?"
She bent down, with the light of a big hanging lamp upon her, and, forgetting the faintness and pain, which was considerable, Dane felt his heart bound within him. In spite of her swift orderliness, the girl's eyes were anxious as well as very pitiful, and there was a tension in her voice.
"No," he replied, as carelessly as he could, for all his pulses were throbbing. "I am just a little dizzy, and shall be better presently. I am chiefly ashamed of making such a scene, Lily."
It did the man good to see the relief in his attendant'sface. Miss Chatterton flushed a little under his gaze and became once more strictly practical.
"The wound is worse than you suppose," she said, with a slight but perceptible shiver. "Take a mouthful of this brandy, and I will fix a dressing. Aunty, hold the bandage, and give me the scissors!"
She did all very cleverly, then slipped away; and ten minutes later Dane was glad to bid Chatterton and his wife good-night. His head still throbbed painfully—for the trigger-guard which struck his forehead had bitten deep—and, having seen what pleased him greatly, he desired to be alone to think.
When he had gone, Mrs. Chatterton looked at her husband.
"Did it strike you as significant that Lily should come down at a few moments' notice dressed just as she left us?" she asked.
"Am I quite a fool?" said Chatterton, and then added in oracular fashion: "Hilton Dane will make his mark some day; and it was his father's roll which started me on the way to prosperity."
As it happened, Lilian Chatterton had also food for reflection, and sat long by an open window looking out into the night. There was no doubt, she admitted, that she found Hilton Dane's society congenial. His swift deference to all her wishes pleased her; and as he had intimated that he desired nothing more than her friendship, there was no reason why it should not be granted him. Under different circumstances the girl fancied that her interest might have carried her farther; but Thomas Chatterton's thinly veiled command was a fatal barrier. Even then she frowned, remembering the summary manner in which he had purposed to dispose of her as though she were a chattel. Nevertheless, she had been badly startled by the sight of the wounded man; and the fact remained that when her eyes first rested upon him she grew almost faint with a sudden and wholly unexplainable fear. Lilian wondered, with a crimsoning of her face, whether she had betrayed the relief she certainly experienced on discovering that his injuries were not serious; and then she closed the window with somewhat unnecessary violence.
The next sun had not long risen when Dane went out shakily into the freshness of the morning. His brain had refused duty during the preceding night, and there were questions to be grappled with. Hilton Dane possessed a long patience, but, although a chivalrous person, he was not a fool. He shrank from the thought of allowing the iron-master's ward to be forced into a union with him, even if that were possible—about which, however, knowing the young lady's character, he was very doubtful. Also, he was at present a comparatively poor man, and though he believed there was a moderate fortune in his invention, he saw that some time must elapse before he could realize it. Abusing his host's interference fervently, he decided that because the continual effort to keep silence was wearing his resolution down, it would be well to avoid further temptation by leaving The Larches.
He had just arrived at this decision when Chatterton came upon him.
"You do not look at all fit, Hilton," said the elder man. "The cut on your forehead would, of course, account for that; but it has struck me lately that something is troubling you. I refrain on principle from prying into other folks' affairs; but, considering thetime I have known you, if you have any difficulty, I think you might confide it to me."
Dane understood what lay behind this, and he felt that it was the last thing under the circumstances he would think of doing.
"You have made my stay here so pleasant that if I remain much longer I shall never be fit for work again," he said. "I have accordingly decided to run up to London, and, if the railroad builders have not my work cut out, look round for another foreign commission."
Thomas Chatterton started a little, and tried to hide a frown.
"I thought you had changed your mind after the letter you showed me, and decided to stay in this country. It strikes me as downright folly to risk accidents and fevers abroad with such a patent in your hands. Your pump would beat the best pulsometer ever put into a mine. If you don't approve of the offers you have received, and my suggestions, why can't you sell it to the public through a limited company?"
Dane laughed a little.
"As I said before, sir, by the time I paid promoters and directors, there would be very little left for me. If the pump, which cost years of thought and experimenting, is to enrich anybody it shall be its inventor; and another good foreign commission should supply me with the necessary money."
"Listen to me," said Chatterton. "It is time I spoke plainly. I have been called a hard man, but I hope I am equally just, and I had to fight desperately for a foothold at the beginning. Well, I kept a mental ledger, and no man ever robbed or assisted me but I made against his name a debit or credit entry. Someof those debts were heavy, but in due time I paid them back in full."
For a moment Chatterton certainly looked a hard man as he shut his hand slowly, and with a very grim expression in his heavy-jawed visage, stared steadily at Dane. Then the grimness vanished as he added:
"There is still a sum standing to the credit of Henry Dane, and I feel ashamed often that I have let it stand so long. There is still one way in which you could help me wipe it off, if none of those mentioned already suits you. My niece will not leave me dowerless—and—for if it had not been so I should not have spoken—you expressed your admiration pretty openly some years ago."
Dane had no enviable task before him, but, remembering his compact, he was determined to accomplish it, even if it should be necessary to use a little brutality.
"I am afraid I see two somewhat important objections, sir," he answered quietly. "In the first place, it is not apparent that the lady approves of me."
"Pshaw!" said Chatterton. "When I was your age I never allowed such trifles to daunt me. You surely did not expect her to say she had been patiently waiting for you?"
"I think I mentioned two objections, sir, and the second is of almost equal importance," Dane responded gravely. "I am at present a poor man, you see."
Thomas Chatterton faced round on him again with his jaw protruded, and a deeper hue in his generally sufficiently florid countenance.
"You need not be, unless you are fond of poverty. You mean——"
"That a boy and girl attachment seldom lasts long—on either side."
Chatterton moved a few paces forward, with the dry cough which those who knew his temper recognized as a danger signal, then wheeled round upon his heel and strode toward the house; and Dane noticed that he kicked an unoffending dog he usually fondled.
As luck would have it, the next person Dane met was Lilian, and she looked very winsome as she stood bareheaded under the morning sunshine in her thin white dress. Dane's lips set tight as he watched her, then suddenly his face softened again.
"I am glad to see you recovering, Hilton," she greeted him. "That hat hides my bandages nicely. Do you feel able to walk slowly over to Culmeny with me to-day?"
It was a tantalizing question: Dane felt not only able but very willing to walk across the breadth of Scotland in Lilian Chatterton's company. He feared however, that his moral strength would prove unequal to the strain the excursion might impose, for it was growing very difficult to observe the conditions of the indefinite compact.
"I am very sorry, but I have letters to write," he said.
Lilian Chatterton was a trifle quick-tempered, and though Dane knew it, and considered it not a fault but a characteristic, he wondered at the ways of women as she answered:
"I could not, of course, expect you to delay your correspondence, which is no doubt important. Have you run out of those new powder cartridges?"
Dane felt that, under the circumstances, this was particularly hard on him, but he smiled dryly.
"The correspondence relates to my departure for London. I want you to listen, Lilian. I have just had an interview with your uncle, which makes my absence appear desirable. Perhaps you can guess its purport, and the gist of what he said."
The clear rose-color deepened a little in the girl's cheeks, but she answered steadily.
"I will admit the possibility. The most important question is what you said to him."
Now Dane had not only subdued mutinous alien laborers, and held them to their task, but he had even been complimented by a South American Spaniard upon the incisive vocabulary which helped him to accomplish it. Nevertheless, at that moment he felt almost abject, and found speech of any kind very difficult.
"Are you ashamed of your answer?" asked the girl.
"I am," Dane admitted. "There was, however, only one way in which I could satisfy Mr. Chatterton without running the risk of allowing him to apply considerable misdirected energy to the task of convincing a second person. Therefore, though I did not like it, I took that way. He was not pleased with me."
"You told him——" Lilian began, coloring still more.
"I did," said Dane grimly. "Horribly unflattering, wasn't it; but it was the best I could do for you."
The girl first experienced a wholly illogical desire to humiliate the speaker; but, recognizing the unreasonableness of this, she reflected a moment, and then laughed mirthlessly.
"It should certainly prove effective. Still, a woman would have found a neater way out of the difficulty!"
Lilian left him, and when the man passed out of earshot into the shrubbery, he used a few pointed and forbidden adjectives in connection with what he termed his luck.
He was leaning moodily upon a gate, looking down on a sunlit stubble-field the following afternoon, when the next link was forged in the chain of circumstances which, beginning with Chatterton's fishing, would drag him through strange adventures. There was late honeysuckle on the hedges, and festoons of warm-tinted straw. Running water sang soothingly beneath the pine branches overhanging a neighboring hollow; while all the wide vista of river, moor, and fell was mellowed by the golden autumn haze. Dane, however, was far from happy. He was in no way jealous of Carsluith Maxwell, which was perhaps surprising; but, in addition to his other troubles, it did not please him that the latter should have accompanied Miss Chatterton home on foot from Culmeny. They had also been an inordinate time over the journey.
Presently, a little brown-faced child came pattering barefooted down the lane, and stopping, glanced at him shyly, as though half afraid. She was a pretty, elfish little thing, though her well-mended garments betokened industrious poverty. She apparently gathered courage when the man smiled at her.
"Whom are you staring so hard at, my little maid?" said he.
The child fished out a strip of folded paper from somewhere about her diminutive person, and held it up to him.
"Ye will be the Mr. Dane who's staying at The Larches?"
Dane nodded, and the girl glanced up and down the lane suspiciously.
"Then Sis telt me to give ye this when there was naebody to see."
"And who is your sister, and what's it all about?" asked Dane; and the little thing smiled roguishly.
"Just Mary Johnstone. Maybe it would tell ye gin ye lookit inside it, sir."
She vanished the next moment, with a patter of bare feet, leaving Dane to stare blankly at the folded paper.
"Now, who is Mary Johnstone, and what can she want with me?" he wondered, as he prepared to follow the child's advice and read the missive. When this had been done, however, he was not greatly enlightened.
"I'm taking a great liberty," it ran. "I am in great trouble, and you are the one person who can help me. If you would not have two little children go hungry all winter, you will meet me by the planting at Hallows Brig in the gloaming to-morrow. I saw you at The Larches, and thought I could trust you."
"Very confiding of Miss Johnstone, whoever she is, but I'm thankful my conscience is clear," thought Dane. It was unfortunate that he did not obey the first impulse which prompted him to destroy the note. Instead of this, he lighted another cigar, and sat down to consider the affair.
Just then the local constable, who on an eventful occasion had also stuck fast in the hedge, came tramping through the stubble with elephantine gait.
"Grand weather the day, sir," he beamed. "Ye will have heard we grippit the man who broke yere heid."
"I'm summoned as a witness; but who is Mary Johnstone?" asked Dane. "You should know everybody about here."
"Old Rab Johnstone's daughter; and that's no great credit to the lass. Rab's overfond of the whisky, and never does nothing when he can help it, which is gey often, I'm thinking. The daughter's a hard working lass—sews for the gentlefolks; and she and her brither between them keep the two mitherless bairns fed. It's him we've got in the lock-up for breaking yere heid."
"Oh," said Dane, as a light dawned upon him. "Then Mary Johnstone would be the pretty, light-haired girl I saw sewing for Miss Chatterton?"
"That same, sir," answered the constable, with professional alacrity. "Miss Chatterton has missed nothing, has she?"
"Of course not!" Dane said impatiently. "I was only inquiring out of curiosity. You need not mention it. Would this coin be of any use to you?"
The official admitted that it might be; but when he appeared to smother a bovine chuckle, Dane turned upon him.
"What the deuce is amusing you so?"
"Naething, sir," the man answered sheepishly. "I'm taken that way whiles in hot weather."
The constable furnished further particulars about the poacher's family before he departed; and Dane, reflecting that his must be the most damaging testimony against the prisoner, understood why Mary Johnstone had sent for him. It was perhaps foolish, but the child's face had attracted him; and deciding that the lot of the pretty seamstress, struggling to bring up her sisters under the conditions mentioned, must be a hard one at the best, he resolved at least to hear what she had to say.
It was a clear, cool evening when Carsluith Maxwell leaned on the rails of a footbridge which spanned the river, looking up at the old place of Culmeny. It rose from the stony hillside, a straggling pile of time-worn masonry, with all its narrow windows aflame with the evening light, and the green of ivy softening its rugged simplicity. A square tower formed its major portion, and this had been built with no pretense at adornment in troubled days when the Maxwells had won and held their possessions with the mailed hand. They had been, for the most part, soldiers of fortune, and their descendant recalled the traditions of his race as, turning, he looked south and east across the shining flood-tide toward the Solway sands.
More of his forbears had, when there was scarcity at Culmeny—which was generally the case—ridden that way in steel cap and dinted harness than ever rode back, and Carsluith Maxwell had hitherto fulfilled the family destiny, chancing his life in modern ventures where the risks were perhaps as heavy as any the old moss-troopers ran. Now, however, he had come to a turning-point in his career, and that night must decide whether he applied his energies to the slow conversion of barren mosses into arable land, or went forth again to seek his fortune over seas. The wandering life appealed to his instincts; and fortune had not wholly evaded him; buthe had recognized of late that unless he could share it with one woman, even prosperity would have little value for him. There was a trace of melancholy almost akin to superstition in his nature, and it was with a curious smile that he turned toward Culmeny to put his fate to the test. If Lilian Chatterton would not listen, it was high time to begin his search for the African mine.
In the meantime, Hilton Dane sat in the hall of Culmeny waiting for a word with Maxwell, and also until it was time to keep his appointment at the Hallows Brig. Three narrow, diamond-paned windows with rose lights in the crown of their lancets pierced one end of the hall, and the fading sunlight beating through, forced up into brightness the pale-tinted dresses of his companions. They were young and comely women, and, because the rest of the dark-paneled room was wrapped in shadow, neither face nor dainty figure suffered from being silhouetted against a somber background. A cluster of late roses in a silver bowl, and the tawny skin of an African leopard on the polished floor, both touched by the tinted gleam, formed by contrast glowing patches of color. Nevertheless, Dane's eyes most often rested upon Lilian Chatterton, who sat near an open window with a ruddy glory blazing in her hair, while the dark oak behind it emphasized the delicate chiseling of her face. There was a stamp of decision upon it as well as refinement.
"Is it not wonderfully peaceful to-night?" she said, glancing out across the velvet lawn. A few roses still flowered along one side of it, a tall clipped hedge hemmed it in, and, beyond the lawn, fir wood, yellow stubble, and meadow rolled down to the silver shiningof the sea. The whole lay steeped in the sunset, serenely beautiful; but the black shadow of the firs lengthened rapidly across the grass.
"You are all very silent," the girl continued. "Why does not somebody agree with me? Don't you think it peaceful, Margaret? This might be an enchanted garden, and yonder hedge a barrier impassable to care. It is good to talk nonsense occasionally; and to-night one could almost fancy that no cause for trouble might enter here."
As she spoke, Dane noticed that the gloom of the firs had swallowed most of the lawn, and the coincidence struck him as an unfortunate augury. Lilian had known little of either sorrow or care; and having learned by painful experience that the balance of light and darkness is determined by immutable law, the man trembled for her.
Margaret Maxwell laughed a little.
"You are distinctly fanciful. Culmeny has seen very little of either peace or prosperity. The spot where this very garden stands was once worn down by the hoofs of stolen cattle, and the feet of armed men bent on exterminating the gentle Maxwells who plundered them. We also read that the serpent entered Eden, and have the authority of Milton and others for picturing the Prince of Darkness as a somewhat courtly gentleman; while one notices that when there is unusual harmony, trouble not infrequently follows the advent of a man. It is a coincidence, but that ditty should herald Carsluith's coming."
A voice rose out of the adjoining meadow chanting a plaintive ditty in an unknown tongue. The air resembled nothing Lilian had heard before, and sheleaned forward listening, for the refrain, pitched in a mournful minor key, was equally striking.
"I did not know your brother sang so well; but I do not like that song. It strikes one as uncanny," she said.
Margaret Maxwell nodded.
"It is West African, and that, I understand, is an uncanny country. My brother spent some time there. He really sings—as he does most things when he thinks it worth while, which is not always—tolerably well."
The song died away as Carsluith Maxwell came lightly across the lawn, and Dane noticed that the last of the sunlight faded and the shadows shut in both himself and Lilian Chatterton when the newcomer entered through the open window.
"I did not know I had such an audience, or I should have been too diffident to play the nightingale," Maxwell laughed.
"Miss Chatterton did not like your song, though she admired its rendering," said Margaret mischievously. "But what put that doleful composition into your head to-night?"
"Association of ideas, most probably," answered Maxwell, with a smile on his lips, but none in his eyes. "I met the post-carrier, and must decide forthwith whether I shall follow up my African scheme or not. It is curious, but by the same token I'm standing with my heel on the neck of the leopard, and I feel inclined to say God send it be a true augury. You have your foot upon him, too, Miss Chatterton; and that is a very ill-omened beast."
"How so?" asked Lilian. "It cannot be very large or terrible, to judge by its skin."
"It holds a country larger than Scotland in terror," replied Maxwell. "There are whole tribes of black men who tremble at the sight of a tuft of leopard's fur."
"As an insignia, I suppose; but the beast is clearly vulnerable." Lilian stooped and pointed to the fur. "Surely that is the work of a bullet."
"You have keen eyes," said Maxwell. "The taxidermist did his best to hide it. That hole was made when I first pitted myself against the leopard by shooting one to convince my carriers the thing was mortal. For some time I suspected that was the beginning of a duel."
"And now?" interposed his sister, with a trace of anxiety.
"Now I almost hope I was mistaken," said Carsluith Maxwell. "With your permission, I have one or two things to see to, and should like a word with Hilton."
They went out together, and presently Dane returned alone to bid Miss Maxwell adieu.
"You have been very patient during the last hour," said that lady. "Now that you have seen Carsluith, one could not, of course, expect too much from you."
"I have been very self-indulgent," said Dane, who had seen the elfish child again and promised to meet his correspondent. "Still, there is a limit to everybody's opportunities for enjoyment, and unfortunately I must tear myself away."
Margaret Maxwell glanced at him sharply, for she fancied that he spoke with sincerity, as indeed he did; but Dane, having given his promise, intended to keep it. She also glanced at Lilian, and decided that Miss Chatterton was not wholly pleased.
"Carsluith proposed to drive you both home. Can you not wait until he is ready?" she suggested.
"I fear I cannot," answered Dane, with a trace of confusion. "The fact is, I have an appointment to keep."
He left them a trifle abruptly, and Miss Maxwell turned to Lilian.
"Whom can your guest have an appointment with? He looked positively guilty. I fear that he must have fallen into the toils of some rustic beauty, which, considering his opportunities, shows a deplorably defective taste."
If Lilian felt any resentment she showed no sign of it; but she was a little more quiet than usual while they awaited the return of Carsluith Maxwell.
Dane, remembering Lilian's glance of interrogation, hurried toward the Hallows Brig in a somewhat uncertain humor. Though the hillside was still projected blackly against a pale gleam of saffron above, it was nearly but not quite dark when he reached the bridge, and the water sang mournfully through the deepening gloom of the firs. The cool air was fragrant with the faint sweetness of honeysuckle, and the calling of curlew rose from a misty meadow; and it seemed to Dane that the slight, shadowy figure which presently flitted toward him was in keeping with the spirit of the scene. When the girl halted beside him there was still just sufficient light to show that her face was comely. Hilton Dane was not given to wandering fancies, and had long carried Lilian Chatterton's photograph about with him; but he felt compassionate when he saw the anxiety in the thin face, and noticed that the girl's lips were quivering.
"Miss Johnstone, I presume?" he said. "Will you please tell me why you sent for me?"
"I will try, sir," was the answer. "I have two little sisters to bring up on what I earn by my needle, and what Jim can spare; but work has been ill to get at the quarries, and, now when Jim's in prison, and winter's no far away, I'm afraid to wonder what will be the outcome if he is convicted."
"He should have considered such risks before he attempted to steal another man's partridges," said Dane, with a poor attempt at severity.
"Poaching is not stealing, sir!" There was a ring in the girl's voice. "Sorrow on the game that steals the farmer's corn to make a rich man's pleasure, and tempts a poor man to his ruin! May ye never learn, sir, what it is to choose between stealing and starving."
"The question is, what do you wish me to do?"
"To let Jim off, sir," was the answer; and the girl's eyes were eager to tearfulness as she fixed them on the man, who frowned, perhaps because he felt the appeal in them almost irresistible. "It was a dark night, and maybe ye could not be quite certain. It was the others who tempted him. He will go no more poaching if he once wins clear, and if the fiscal sends him to prison the bairns will be hungry often or the winter's through. It's for their sakes I'm asking; and the neighbors say there will be no conviction if ye cannot swear to Jim."
Perhaps it was Dane's duty to sternly rebuke the pleader, but she appeared half-fed and desperately anxious; and the face of her tiny sister, with its look of childish confidence, rose up before his fancy. He had once, and with little compunction, cut down with a shovel a frenzied Italian laborer who led a mutiny,but now, though he set his lips firmly for a moment, his eyes were pitiful.
"I am afraid what you suggest would not be right," he said presently. "Does your father not help you at all?"
The girl's "No," expressed a good deal, and the despair in her voice completed the man's discomfiture.
"I'm sorry; I had no right to ask," he said. "I am sure, at least, that it was not your brother who broke my head, because—because he was not in a position to attack anybody just then—and, for the sake of the little ones, if there is any doubt at all—and I dare say there will be, he shall have full benefit. But I cannot set him at liberty to continue poaching; and the neighboring land-owners will probably see that he gets no more work at the quarries; so he must take a letter from me to a contractor who will no doubt find him employment."
Here, to the consternation of Dane, who did not know that his underfed and overworked companion had done a courageous and, in the eyes of her neighbors, a very suspicious thing, the girl broke out into half-choked sobbing.
"You really must not cry," he pleaded awkwardly. "It is distressing to me; and it is not my fault that your brother's friends cut my head open. However, as I am the unfortunate cause of your distress, if the little ones have suffered already it would be my duty to—to see they didn't—you understand me?"
The girl, though still tearful, drew herself up with some show of pride.
"I'm no asking ye for money. The relief was just overmuch for me; but, and it's a last favor, ye will notell Miss Chatterton. Her good word means work and bread to me."
"I am not likely to tell Miss Chatterton," the man assured her; then added in haste: "If I did, she would not blame you."
"Maybe! Ye will not tell her," the girl said enigmatically, and then once more caught her breath.
Dane, being unpleasantly uncertain what she might say or do in an hysterical attack, felt it incumbent on him to soothe her, and laid a hand reassuringly on her shoulder. It is possible that his companion found comfort in the grasp, or instinctively recognized the touch of an honest man, for she made no effort to evade it. As it happened, the lane was grass-grown and sandy, and the river frothed noisily down a rapid beyond the bridge. Thus neither of them heard the fall of hoofs until a sudden glare of light beat into the face of the man. Fate had decreed that the driver of the approaching vehicle should not only light the lamps a little earlier than usual, but choose the longest road.
The result was unfortunate, for Dane, acting on impulse, drew the girl farther back into the shadow of the hedge, and stood before her with his hand still on her arm. The light had partly dazzled him, but he recognized in the occupants of the dog-cart Lilian Chatterton and Carsluith Maxwell, and barely choked back an expletive. Neither, if they had seen him, showed any sign of recognition, which, however, was hardly to be expected under the circumstances. Then, as the vehicle jolted on, the girl, seeing the chagrin in the man's face, gazed at him curiously, and with half-coherent thanks hurried away, leaving Dane in a state of savage dismay.
"It is confoundedly hard on an unfortunate and innocent man! This is a situation which will require considerable explaining, and I shall probably never have an opportunity for attempting it," he muttered.
In the meantime Lilian Chatterton felt the hot blood surge upward from her neck, and was thankful that the darkness partly hid her face. It is true that she had effectively, so she hoped, put an end to any aspirations Dane might have cherished; but when he had once accepted the position there was no longer any necessity to conceal the fact that to a certain degree she found his society congenial, or to consider how far her interest in him might carry her. His complaisance had been the more gratifying because she fancied it was not every woman who could bend such an individual to her will. Lilian, however, had not only set up a somewhat elevated standard of conduct for herself, but was inclined to judge harshly those who fell beneath it; and now she was unmistakably, if illogically, angry. The knowledge that the man had gone out fresh from her presence to keep such an assignation stung her pride to the quick, and brought the crimson to her very forehead. It was, she considered, an unforgivable insult. Still, she had but seen him dimly for a second, and might be mistaken, and so she turned toward her companion.
"It is curious that I should fancy there was something familiar in the voices we overheard," she said as lightly as she could.
Maxwell had learned discretion.
"Voices are always deceptive," he answered. "One should never trust to a fanciful resemblance. The bridge is a favorite trysting-place for rustic lovers; as one result of the sudden appearance of a pair of them,this excitable beast managed to upset me the last time I approached it."
Carsluith Maxwell had done his best for his friend, and it was not his fault that he had only confirmed the girl's suspicions, and set her wondering if all men were equally perfidious.
"That being so, was it not very thoughtless of you to drive me this way?" she inquired, with some asperity.
"Guilty," laughed Maxwell. "May I plead in extenuation that it is the longest?"
He sprang down and looped the reins round a gatepost when they reached the winding drive which led up to The Larches.
"Do you mind alighting here, Miss Chatterton?" he asked.
"No," said Lilian. "But may I inquire the reason?"
"A desire not to risk your safety a second time. The drive is very dark, the horse addicted to bolting on opportunity; and it would be hard to do justice to what I must tell you if I were forced to watch him. The task is sufficiently beyond me already; I would give a good deal for the power of eloquence."
Lilian was startled, for the speaker had certainly not worn his heart on his sleeve.
"Could you not wait until to-morrow?" she asked with some trepidation.
"I am afraid not," said Maxwell, a trifle grimly. "I fear this must be a surprise to you, but circumstances prevent my waiting, and it is even better to hear one's sentence than to remain in suspense. Won't you listen?"
Lilian, seeing there was no escape, bent her head;and, if Maxwell had not the gift of eloquence, he could compress a good deal into a few brief sentences. There was no superfluous protestation. The man spoke abruptly, but Lilian could not doubt the earnestness in his voice, or, as he stood hat in hand under the lamplight, mistake the look in his eyes. She saw that what he offered was the enduring love of one who could be trusted to the utmost, and the few pointed words revealed depths of tenderness she had hardly suspected in him.
"I am sorry, very sorry—but it is impossible," she said softly.
Maxwell moved a pace or two forward, and his face seemed to have grown suddenly haggard.
"Think," he urged hoarsely. "This means so much to me. Will it always be impossible? I shall not change."
Lilian fancied she could believe him. She looked him fully in the eyes as she answered.
"It can never be possible. I am sorry. If I had known, I should have tried to warn you. You must forget me."
Maxwell recognized finality in her tone. For the space of several seconds he turned his head away. Then he faced round again, speaking very quietly:
"You have nothing to reproach yourself with. The mistake was mine. I shall, however, never forget you; and I want you to promise that if any adversity overtakes you—which God forbid—you will remember me. I sail for Africa shortly, and it may be long before we meet again. Now I will walk with you up the drive."
He held out his arm, and Lilian wondered a little athis composure as she laid her hand on it and they passed together into the blackness of the firs.
Miss Chatterton had not long joined her aunt when Dane came in, and glanced in her direction as he made some not oversapient observation to Chatterton. She did not avoid his gaze, but met it coldly, and, gathering up some needlework, moved without ostentation, but deliberately, out of the room. No speech could have been plainer, and Dane grew hot, while the fingers of one hand contracted without his will.
"You don't look well, Hilton," remarked Thomas Chatterton. "Is your head troubling you?"
"No," said Dane. "I must have walked tolerably fast, and I am perhaps a trifle shaky yet. With Mrs. Chatterton's permission I will go out and smoke a cigar."
He passed out, and the iron-master smiled as he looked at his wife.
"Can you tell me what is the meaning of this?" he asked.
"Your inquiry is indefinite; and why do you ask me?"
"Because I think you ought to know," Chatterton answered dryly. "Women generally have a finger in it whenever there is trouble."
"Even if true, that is not strikingly original," Mrs. Chatterton retorted. "I have not noticed anything unusual."
"Then listen," and Chatterton pointed toward the window. "When a young man goes out for a stroll he does not usually stamp in that savage fashion upon the gravel. Now, I want your candid opinion."
"You shall have it," said the lady, smiling. "I believe that no good ever resulted from a choleric elderly gentleman's interference in affairs beyond his comprehension."
Meanwhile Carsluith Maxwell stood talking to his sister in the hall of Culmeny.
"After what has happened, the sooner I get out on my African venture the more pleasant it will be for all concerned," he said gloomily. "It is a good country where one can forget one's troubles; in fact, there are so many peculiarly its own that I don't know a better."
"Poor Carsluith! It will be a heavy disappointment to father. He is failing more rapidly than I care to notice, and had begun to lean on you. I don't think I can forgive her. Yes; go out, and forget her."
"It was not Miss Chatterton's fault," Maxwell declared quickly. "She never, to use the inappropriate phrase, encouraged me. It was my own folly to hope that she could stoop to me."
"Without any wish to flatter you, I consider that Miss Chatterton might have stooped a good deal farther," said Margaret Maxwell. "However, we need not go into that; and I am only sorry you are so hardly hit. I wonder if it was because of Dane?"
"No," Maxwell answered with decision. "I can't exactly tell you why, but I am certain it was not because of Dane."
His sister said nothing further, though she was not convinced. Her heart was heavy for her brother, because she knew the Maxwell temperament, and that he was not the man to change.
Carsluith passed out into the darkness, and leaning against a fir, spoke half aloud:
"No man Miss Chatterton had smiled upon couldscatter his affections as Dane seems to have done. Pshaw! The thing is perfectly impossible!"
This was, perhaps, a greater tribute to the speaker's loyalty than to his knowledge of human nature, though Carsluith Maxwell was usually accounted a shrewd man.
It was in a combative humor that Hilton Dane presented himself in court on the day of the poacher's trial. It was impossible to ignore the summons, which alone had delayed his departure from The Larches; but the time he spent there waiting had passed very uncomfortably. Lilian had, so far as she could do so without attracting attention, sedulously avoided his company; and he fancied that both Chatterton and his wife regarded him with suspicion. Dane, knowing the iron-master's opinions, surmised that Chatterton would not have blamed him had he frankly related all that had passed; but he had pledged himself to secrecy, and it never occurred to him to break his promise.
Therefore he kept his own counsel, and went into court prepared for battle, further fortified by a contempt for the assumed omnipotence of petty local magnates which men of his kind, who have tasted power in the vigorous life of the newer lands, acquire. He decided that the prisoner, who was very young, looked free from inherent vice, and worthy of a chance to prove himself, in the main, honest. He was not absolutely certain that the man was the one with whom he had grappled, and he gave him the full benefit of the doubt. His answers provided the neighborhood with a sensational topic for conversation, and, while there were some who laughed at the legal functionaries' discomfiture andthe witness's nonchalance, the game preservers in the vicinity were emphatic in their indignation.
In any case, Dane left the court amid the plaudits of the assembled quarrymen, which the officials could not restrain. He hated the rôle of popular hero but he felt a certain grim satisfaction, though he guessed that every word he had spoken might cost him dearly. Also, because he did nothing by halves, he sought the discharged prisoner.
"I don't know whether you are the right man or not, and I don't want to," he said dryly. "If you are a wholly worthless rascal, you will no doubt drift back into the clutches of the police, when it is probable that the worthy gentlemen I addressed to-day will see that you don't get out again. It would not surprise me if they starved you out of this neighborhood; so, if you desire to make a fresh start, you will take this letter to the English waterworks contractor to whom it is addressed—and send your sister as much as possible of what he pays you."
"Would you believe that I'm sairly sorry, sir?" began the lad; but Dane turned upon him with a laugh and a frown.
"Sorry for what? Prove it by turning honest. Do you wish to convince me I did wrong to-day?"
The poacher departed with grateful protestations, and Dane was glad that he had vanished before Maxwell came up.
"I don't know whether I ought to congratulate you on your forensic abilities, or otherwise, but the spectacle was worth the journey," he said. "I hardly suspected that you possessed such talents; but why you displayed them is, of course, another question."
"It is also my particular business," Dane replied stiffly, and frowned when Maxwell smiled significantly.
"Confound you! Do you think——" he broke out; and Maxwell smiled again in ironical fashion as he moved away.
"I might make use of your own rejoinder, and say that I generally find it saves trouble to keep my opinions to myself," he returned. "However, since you asked me, what would any person of the most modest discernment think?"
Dane groaned inwardly as he climbed into the waiting vehicle, for the last speech placed beyond all doubt the fact that the occupants of the dog-cart had recognized him at Hallows Brig; and he knew that Lilian Chatterton held somewhat puritanical views. He had, it was evident, involved himself hopelessly.
That very evening, just as Dane had finished packing his few possessions, an irate game-preserving gentleman drove over to The Larches to express his indignation.
"I would not like to hurt your feelings, Chatterton, but your young friend did not give wholly unbiased testimony to-day," he said. "Considering his evident desire to shield the prisoner, I e'en felt it my duty to——"
He got no farther, for the choleric iron-master was equally loyal to those he honored with his good opinion, and prompt on any challenge to take up the cudgels.
"If that is all you called to tell me, you might have spared yourself the trouble, Black," he interrupted. "I have known Hilton Dane from boyhood, as I knew his father before him; and I haven't the slightest objection to hurting the feelings of any man who impugns the honesty of my friends."
"I'm thinking ye are very generous," replied Black, relapsing into his native idiom. "Man, do not be so testy, but bide and listen. He described his adversary so well that the police at once identified and arrested him; but he appeared troubled with a distressfully bad memory in court to-day.
"'What are ye meaning by the words, "A man like the prisoner"?' the fiscal asked him; and Mr. Dane answers: 'Just what I say.'
"'Can you not swear to him?' asked the fiscal severely; and your young friend smiled. 'Could you swear to the complexion and color of the eyes of any man who, on a dark night, had just kicked you hard upon the knee?' says he.
"It was not even respectful; and when the rabble cheered there was more than me who agreed with the fiscal: 'This place is a court of justice—or it ought to be,' said he."
Black, pausing, betrayed his indignation with a gesture, while Chatterton laughed in aggressive fashion.
"Considering my worthy neighbors' prejudices, I think there was something in that last remark," he said.
Just then Lilian, who may have overheard part of the colloquy, appeared in an opening in the tall hedge.
"Did you convict the malefactor, Mr. Black?" she asked.
"No," said that gentleman ruefully. "Unfortunately we did not, although I'm thinking that we did our best."
Lilian smiled a little, and Chatterton's eyes twinkled as he glanced at her encouragingly.
"Was that quite in accordance with the spirit of our glorious constitution?" she asked.
"Eh?" said Black sharply. "What's this I'm saying; and I see ye are laughing at me. I mean his guilt was manifest, but a friend of yours showed considerable audacity, forby a trace of talent, in his efforts to release him. Ye will mind that it's a principle of British justice to give even a poacher fair play, my dear young lady."
"So I was always taught," Lilian replied artlessly.
Thomas Chatterton chuckled again, and pointed toward a man who, in turn, passed through the opening in the hedge.
"I fancy that Mr. Black is anxious to talk to you, Hilton," he said.
Black, however, had evidently found two adversaries sufficient without engaging a third, and, as sometimes happens, he did not recollect the crushing things he might have said until the opportunity had passed; so, after a stiff greeting, he allowed Chatterton, who was rarely ungenerous to a beaten enemy, to lead him away.
Lilian had disappeared, but not before the manner in which she had ignored Dane had roused him to precipitate action. He forgot his prudence in a sudden fit of anger, and, remembering only that he might never have another opportunity for speech with her, he followed the girl. Miss Chatterton, however, had a fair start, and, perhaps being warned by the sound of his hurried footsteps, made the most of it; so that while Dane pursued her down two avenues, and through a shrubbery, the situation grew rapidly ludicrous. The humor of it did not strike him then, and he saw only the flicker of a white dress receding before him. Finally he came upon the fugitive in a narrow path between rows of choice chrysanthemums, where, as there was no room for two to pass,Lilian turned upon him with an ominous light in her eyes. It was evident that Miss Chatterton was seriously angry, as well as a little breathless.
"What brings you here?" she demanded.
Dane was not, as a rule, readily disconcerted; but for a moment the power of lucid speech deserted him.
"I came——" he gasped.
"That is unfortunately evident," retorted Lilian, chillingly. "What I desire to know is why, considering the size of the garden, you must, after seeing I wished to be alone, choose this particular path!"
Dane had slight cause for merriment, but he actually laughed.
"Any other place would have suited me, but you went so fast!"
This was a blunder, and he realized it as he heard the gravel crunch in a manner that suggested the pressure of somebody's heel. Lilian had clearly roused herself to face the situation.
"Admitting that it was so, will you explain why you cannot take a hint?"
"I will," Dane said quietly, though he was once more maladroit. "I wished to ask why you have avoided me like contagion lately?"
"Is that a necessary question, or is it generous to place the onus of such an explanation upon me?"
"Perhaps not," he admitted. "I am not so quick of wit as I could wish, to-day, but I am going away early to-morrow, and it may be very long before I see you again; so I could not help asking it. We have known each other a long time, Lily, and I would not care to leave England feeling that you were displeased with me."
"Have I told you that I was displeased?" asked the girl.
"Speech was hardly necessary."
Lilian Chatterton was not deficient in courage, and she no longer tried to evade the difficulty. "Please understand that I have neither the right nor the desire to inquire into your motives, but—since you insist—there are limits within which one must restrict one's friendship; and after comparing your own account of your nocturnal adventures with what I heard Mr. Black relate about your conduct in court to-day, it is hardly possible to avoid concluding that you have overstepped them."
"There may be an explanation. Is it fair, as you reminded that very gentleman, to condemn any one unheard?"
"Can you furnish one?" asked Lilian, with a quickness which was not wholly lost upon her companion. If he had spoken plainly, it is possible that the explanation might have changed a good deal for both of them; but that was just what the man had pledged himself not to do. He was not a casuist, and, having no time for reflection, saw only one course open to him. It was too late when he realized that it was the worst one possible from any point of view.
"I am afraid I cannot, at present," he said.
The girl's eyes grew almost wicked, for his hesitation was fatal, and she was angry that she had even allowed him to draw her into the discussion.
"That is comprehensible," she said. "You must already have taxed your imagination severely, and it is perhaps natural that the testimony of a quite disinterested gentleman should be more convincing. Besides, as I said already, it is certainly not my part to judge you."
"Then I can only hope that you will hear the fulltruth from some other person you consider more worthy of credit," Dane said somberly.
Miss Chatterton returned no answer, but, drawing her skirt to her side, brushed past the man, who stepped recklessly among the chrysanthemums. She had, of course, no intention of looking back in his direction, but, on turning at the end of the alley, it was almost necessary to do so, and she sometimes remembered, with both a smile and a sigh, how he had stood, a somewhat commanding, as well as a slightly ludicrous figure, staring straight before him, knee-deep among the chrysanthemums. That, however, was afterward, for then Lilian was in a royal rage with herself as well as the man, because she had allowed anything he could say or do to disturb her serenity.
Dane sighed a little, but there was resolution as well as indignation in his face as he moved away, and left the gardener, who had witnessed the scene with indignation, to assess the damage.
"Would nothing fit yon theatrical ijiot but stamping my new quilled Regents flat?" the gardener grumbled.
Early the next morning Chatterton and Dane stood waiting for the South express in the little country station.
"I don't altogether understand what you have been doing, Hilton, and, though nobody seems quite pleased with you, I won't ask," said the iron-master. "I know you had a good reason for it, whatever it was; and if that meddlesome Black or any of his friends feel inclined to make further unpleasant suggestions, I shall enjoy the opportunity for a little plain speaking. If you ever change your mind, remember what I said; and don't close with any offer unless it's tempting, but come backand wait at The Larches for a better. I can't help saying I'm sorry you did not altogether hit it with Lilian. Modern young women, however, often appear to consider cheap smartness more becoming than the genuine cordiality they may feel."
"It was not Miss Chatterton's fault, sir," declared Dane, who, growing slightly confused, wished the iron-master would favor anything else with his fixed attention. He was thankful that the approach of the express prevented the conversation from progressing further in that direction.
A few evenings later, Lilian dismounted from her pony in the shadow of a copse. For some reason she had been restless all day, and sought solace in a ride across the moor. The saddle had slipped a little, and she spent some time tightening the girth. Meanwhile two men came to a standstill in the stubble beyond the hedge, and she recognized Carsluith Maxwell in one spare figure. The sunset beat into his face, and she saw it was stamped with a curious melancholy as he looked down the deep-wooded valley toward Culmeny. Ridges of brown moorland, whose slopes were streaked by dark firs, hemmed the hollow in, and the tower rose blackly in the mouth of it against the shimmer of the sea.
"It is an inheritance to be proud of, sir," Carsluith said. "Perhaps it is because of the contrast with the rank luxuriance of the tropics, and their stifling heat, but each time I come home to the old place and breathe this keen sweet air, I feel that I love it better."
The second man, turning, laid his hand on the speaker's shoulder, and as he did so Lilian recognized the master of Culmeny.
"It will be yours some day which cannot be verydistant now," the elder man replied. "It is a barren heritage, and I have long regretted that, after the girls are provided for, its revenues will do little more than cover the interest on the burden you must take up along with it."
"I hope that day will be long in coming, sir; and I shall never rest contented until by some means I win enough to restore our former prosperity. To-morrow will see me on my way to London, and we must hope that my latest venture will prove successful!"
Lilian could not escape without attracting attention, and she was so close to the two men that she heard Brandram Maxwell sigh.
"I do not approve of it, but know I cannot dissuade you," he said, with a certain pride as well as wistfulness in the glance he cast upon his son. "I had hoped you might have settled here—and think she is good as well as bonny—but that was not to be. Prosperity! The old place was aye needy, and its plenishing has cost the life of many of those who have gone before you. You will mind Andrew's answer when he fell out dying in the retreat from Derby: 'I'm not caring greatly where I lie,' said he. 'Our kirkyard is not contracted. It runs from the Low Countries to the sands of Cree.' Maybe it's your destiny, but you will not forget that an old man is longing for the sight of you, longing the more because——"
He ceased abruptly, and Lilian noticed that Carsluith Maxwell made the slightest gesture of negation, while his face darkened a little. She recalled an old superstitious tale.
"We have outgrown belief in those fables, sir," he declared.
The ruler of Culmeny made no direct answer.
"The old tale is told over often, and the end is the same. God keep you, and bring you safe home from that dark land," he said solemnly.
Here the pair forestalled the unwilling spectator's intention by moving away, and left her troubled. She had done nothing to raise false hopes in Carsluith Maxwell, and in that respect her conscience was clear; but there had been a strange somberness in both men's faces, and she felt that she was mainly responsible for sending the younger one to Africa. He was of good family and accomplished, and she wondered why, when many another damsel would have gladly listened, she had so promptly declined him as a suitor. Then, even as she reflected that there was no one else she preferred to him, a tinge of color crept into her face, and, dismissing the subject, she mounted, and sent the pony at a gallop across the next meadow.
It was a depressing afternoon when Carsluith Maxwell found Dane lounging in the smoking-room of a London hotel. The air outside was foul with smoke and fog; and it was little more cheerful within. Dane was in distinctly low spirits. He had spent a fortnight haunting the offices of engineering firms, financiers, and company promoters, and had discovered once more that anybody willing to take up his invention would require the lion's share of the contingent profit. He could hear of no remunerative professional engagement; and the contractors who had promised him the foreign commission stated that the work would not be begun for some time.
"You do not look exactly pleased with either the world or yourself," observed Maxwell.
"I certainly don't feel so," Dane said shortly. "Several things have gone wrong with me lately, and I'm even more troubled than usual by a chronic shortness of capital. I want ten thousand pounds rather more badly than most folks do, and no mental effort will show me where to raise more than five."