"Come immediately. Unfortunate complication here. Require you to explain fully.—Heriot Walkingshaw."
"Come immediately. Unfortunate complication here. Require you to explain fully.—Heriot Walkingshaw."
He looked considerably sobered.
"Of course I didn't really mean what I was saying—"
Lucas interrupted him brusquely.
"I'm off. Look after things here. What the devil—"
He strode down the lane, hailed a cab, and droveoff to an accompaniment of the most anxious speculations.
"This way, sir," said the attendant at the Hotel Gigantique.
Lucas followed him, still racking his brains for some explanation not too disastrous to his hopes. The man opened the door of a sitting-room and closed it quietly behind him. In the room there was only one person, a girl with the sunniest hair and the straightest little nose and the most delightfully astonished face imaginable.
"Jean!" he cried.
He took a quick step towards her and then remembered the gravity of the summons.
"What's the matter?" he demanded.
"Then it was you!" she exclaimed.
"Me?"
"Father only told me that some one—a man—"
He held out the telegram abruptly.
"What do you make of that?"
She read it, and then read it again, and her bewilderment seemed to change into another emotion.
"What did your father tell you to do?" asked Lucas.
She gave him the queerest look.
"Get rid of the man if I could," she said.
He ran his fingers through his mop of brown hair.
"But I don't understand—what's the 'complication'?"
She began to smile shyly—
"Lucas, don't you think—don't you see—there's nothing else.Imust be the complication here."
"Ahem!" coughed Mr. Walkingshaw.
The lovers endeavored to look as though the artist had been merely posing his patron's daughter.
"Well?" inquired that patron genially.
Lucas had not altogether lost his ready audacity.
"I came at once, sir," he replied, "and I have explained fully. The complication has been cleared up."
Laughing gleefully, chattering away much more like the prospective best man than the future father-in-law, he led them (an arm thrown about each) towards the sofa, where they sat together, crowded but happy.
"What would you put your income at now, Lucas?" he inquired mischievously.
Lucas looked a little rueful.
"The same fluctuating figures, I'm afraid," he confessed.
"My dear fellow, don't worry," said Heriot kindly. "Money isn't everything in this world. Youth and love and pluck are the main things. Hang it, what if you do get into debt occasionally? You've got a pretty oofy father-in-law. Of course, my dear chap, I don't encourage extravagance; far from it"—he glanced complacently at the chaste upholstery of the Hotel Gigantique. "I believe in paying your way, and laying by for a rainy day, and all that kind of thing, just as much as ever I did—in theory, anyhow. But in practice I may just as well tell you at once, to ease your mind, that Jean will have three hundred a year to keep the pot boiling."
He pooh-poohed their gratitude with the most genial air.
"Don't mention it, my dear young people, don't mention it. It comes out of Andrew's share, so it's all right."
"But I couldn't dream of robbing Andrew!" cried Jean warmly.
"He spends his days in robbing our clients," chuckled the senior partner, "so you needn'tworry about him. Besides, he doesn't know how to spend money even when he has got it." He lowered his voice confidentially. "Andrew hasn't a spark of the sportsman in him; he's all very well as a partner—one wants 'em tough; but as a son—good Lord!"
And then the good gentleman tactfully retired to the billiard-room, leaving behind him the two happiest people in London.
Naturally, Lucas stayed to dinner, and naturally also he and Jean were left in uninterrupted occupation of the private sitting-room, while her father and Frank smoked and talked together in a quiet corner of the hall. Mr. Walkingshaw was radiant with the reflection of the happiness he had brought about. He could do nothing but make little plans for introducing Lucas to his picture-buying acquaintances, select eligible districts of London for their residence, and jot down various articles of furniture or ornament that he could spare them from his own mansion. Frank seemed equally delighted, though his good spirits were occasionally interrupted by fits of reverie.
"Somehow or other," said Mr. Walkingshaw, "I feel more and more like a friend of Jean and you, and less and less like your father. Odd thing, isn't it, Frank?"
"A jolly fine thing," said Frank warmly. "By Jove, sir, I can't tell you how much I prefer it!"
"Do you really? Well, then, I won't worry about the feeling any more."
Mr. Walkingshaw had not given the impression that he was worrying about that or any other feeling, but one was bound to take his word for it.
"I enjoy the sensation far more myself," he went on. "It produces a kind of mutual confidence and that sort of thing. I hardly feel inclined to explain the cause of this improvement yet, Frank; but you may take my word that there is nothing in the least discreditable about it. In fact, when one comes to think of it, there's nothing so very extraordinary either. It's a perfectly sound scientific idea, perfectly sound; so you can make your mind at ease too, Frank."
As a matter of fact, Frank's mind had already wandered far afield from these interesting but slightly obscure speculations.
"Oh, that's all right, I assure you," he answered vaguely.
"It's a grand thing to know that Jean's love affair has turned out so happily," his father continued. "I can't tell you what a satisfaction it is to me."
"Yes, isn't it?" Frank murmured from the clouds.
"I only wish I could feel as sure of Andrew falling on his feet."
Frank's wits were wide awake now.
"Andrew!" he exclaimed. "Good heavens, do you mean to say you don't think he has fallen on his feet?"
His father shook his head dubiously.
"But, my dear father, I thought you agreed with me—agreed with all of us, I mean—that Ellen's just the—well, the—er—the—er—the nicest girl in the world."
"Oh, she's all that."
"Then what on earth do you mean?"
Mr. Walkingshaw leant confidentially over the arm of his easy-chair.
"Between ourselves, Frank, I'm rather doubtful whether she thinks Andrew the nicest man in the world."
"But—but—surely she—er—I mean, they are engaged."
"Frank, my boy, not a word of this to a soul—not even to Jean or Lucas. I may be wrong, and I don't want to make mischief; but I have a strong suspicion there's another fellow."
"What kind of fellow?"
"A rival."
"Good God!" cried Frank. "Who the devil is he?"
"Hush, hush—not so violently, my dear fellow. It's pretty sickening, of course; but till you know who he is, you can't knock him down."
"Well, then, tell me who he is."
"That's just what I'd like to know myself. It's some one in Perthshire."
"How do you know?" demanded Frank.
He controlled his voice, but in his eyes burned a light that boded ill for his brother's rival when he caught him.
"Well, you can judge for yourself how I know. Andrew noticed the change in Ellen's manner the first time he saw her after she'd been staying with us. The only fellow she met in Edinburgh was yourself, so it must be some one in Perthshire."
The militant Highlander fell back in his chair with a gasp, and the light of battle died out of his eyes.
"Don't you agree with me?" asked his father.
"I—er—I don't know," he stammered.
Mr. Walkingshaw had grown none the less shrewd as his weight of years was lightened.
"Eh?" he demanded quickly, "what do you know about it? Be perfectly frank with me."
"But why should you think that—er—I—"
"Tell me this—do you know of any one who's been paying attention to Ellen Berstoun?"
Poor Frank's color grew deeper and deeper.
"There—there was one fellow, I'm ashamed to say."
"Ashamed? Why should you be ash—" Mr. Walkingshaw broke off suddenly and gazed at his son with very wide-open eyes. "Frank—it was yourself!"
The treacherous brother hung his head. And then, in the depths of his penitence, he heard these extraordinary words—
"My dear, dear chap, this is almost too good to be true!"
"Toogood!" gasped Frank.
"What did you do—kiss her?"
"No, no; not so bad as that!"
"You let her know, though? There's no mistake about that, eh?"
"I'm afraid I did."
His father took his hand.
"She is yours," said he.
"Mine?But, my dear father, she is Andrew's!"
"She was; but he's such a perfect sumph, I'm thankful she's got quit of him."
"What! Is it broken off?"
"It will be."
"An engagement?"
"What's an engagement? Speaking as a lawyer of many years' standing, I may tell you candidly that engagements, and agreements, and bargains are simply devices for keeping rascals from swindling one another. If honest men agree, they don't need a stamped bit of paper; and if they disagree, where's the point in leashing them together, like a couple of growling dogs? And the case is a thousand times stronger when it comes to a man and a girl. I was only afraid I should lose a charming daughter-in-law, and now you've taken that weight off my mind. I can't tell you how happy I feel!"
Frank's young face was grave and his candid eyes looked straight at his father.
"Look here," he replied, "I'm going to do the straight thing by Andrew. I don't know that I've ever loved him as much as I ought, but that's all the more reason why I shouldn't chisel him now."
"Oh, that's your military idea of discipline and all the rest of it; but let me tell you, falling in loveis a different kind of thing from forming fours."
For the first time the young soldier clearly disapproved of his father's rejuvenation.
"Duty is duty," he persisted, "and I tell you honestly I'm not going to sneak in behind my brother's back."
"Is Ellen to have nothing to say in the matter? Do you propose to marry her to the man she doesn't love, instead of the man she does, without so much as giving her the choice?"
The soldier met this flank attack by a change of front.
"But Andrew has the means to marry her, and I've not."
"I'll give you the means," said his father.
Frank began to realize that Duty was in a very tight corner.
"But I haven't any grounds whatever for thinking that Ellen cares for me."
"I have."
"You'll have to convinceme."
"Is it not clearly your duty to settle that point first?"
Frank hesitated.
"Well—perhaps it is."
The crafty strategist smiled.
"We'll settle it!"
"When?"
"At once. Where's a time-table?"
"But look here, my dear father, there's the question of honor to be settled after that."
"After that—exactly; I'm with you all the way. But in the meanwhile, first get this into your head. An engagement is an affair of two hearts, not of two pockets or two heads. If the hearts are off, the bargain's off. That's the whole ethics of an engagement. And let me tell you I'm not without some experience."
"Heriot!" exclaimed a familiar voice.
The W.S. looked round with a start. There, through the middle of the hall, attired in a most becoming traveling coat of fur, advanced the sympathetic widow.
"My dear Madge!" cried her betrothed.
Almost in the same instant his off eye signaled to his son a hurried but expressive warning.
The hour was late, but in spite of Heriot's kindly suggestion that the rapture he anticipated from her conversation should be postponed till she had recovered from the fatigues of her journey, his fiancée unselfishly preferred to recompense him immediately for his prolonged deprivation of her society. He acceded at once to her wishes, with the most amiable air imaginable.
"And now, my dear Madge," said he, when they were seated in a secluded corner of the lounge, "tell me all your news. In the first place, how's my own precious?"
"I am very well, thank you," replied the lady, a little coolly.
"Delighted to hear it!"
"You could, of course, have discovered it sooner by simply writing to inquire," she pointed out, with the same air.
"But I did, my dear girl, I did."
"Once."
"Only once, was it? Now, I could have sworn it was twice."
"And did you think twice was often enough?"
"Well, you see, Madge," he explained, "we got engaged in such a deuce of a hurry, and I had to rush off next morning, and so on. I didn't have time to ask you how often you wished me to write."
"Didn't my last two unanswered letters give you any idea on the subject?"
"Two letters, Madge? Now, do you know, I could have sworn it was only one."
She looked at him steadily.
"Heriot, what is the meaning of your conduct?"
"To what points in it do you refer, my dear?"
"I may tell you I have heard from Charlie Munro."
It was remarkable how quickly Mr. Walkingshaw had developed. That reputation he still clung to when he saw her last was no longer a brake upon his downward career.
"Poor old Charlie!" he laughed. "By Jove, Madge, I jolly well hoisted him with his own thingamajig!"
She regarded him stonily.
"And what of the business you went to see him about?"
"Did I say I was going to see him on business?"
"You did!"
"Oh, no, no, my dear girl; you must have misunderstood me. Of course, it was natural enough; we were both rather carried away by our feelings that night, weren't we, Madge?"
He took her hand and pressed it affectionately, but it made no response.
"Why didn't you come to see me when you were in Edinburgh?" she inquired.
"I ought to have," he answered, with an expression of the sincerest apology. "Yes, I suppose I ought to have."
"You suppose! Didn't it occur to you at the time?"
"Oh, yes, it occurred. In fact, my difficulty was to keep myself away from you."
"May I ask why it was necessary to make the effort?"
"Well, the fact is," he explained, "I had a little scheme for Jean which I wanted to keep a secret—"
"And you couldn't trust me!" she interrupted.
"A charming woman and a secret?" he smiled archly. "My dear girl, your rosy lips would have gone chatter, chatter, chatter all over the town!"
She snatched her hand away with some degree of violence.
"You talk like an idiot!" she replied.
"My dear Madge! This is your own Heriot?"
She took out a little handkerchief of lace and gently touched first one eye and then the other.
"I don't believe you love me!"
Heriot's kind heart was sincerely moved.
"I adore you!"
A faint smile at last appeared upon her face.
"How can you possibly when you go on like this?"
"Like what?"
The smile died away and a quick frown took its place.
"Heriot! Do you mean to say you think your behavior has looked like loving me?"
"It's the heart that counts, Madge, not the behavior," he assured her.
She sat up in her chair with an air of decision.
"The behavior does count; so please don't talk as though you thought I was a fool. For your own sake, for the sake of your reputation and yourfamily, you've got to come back with me to-morrow!"
He seized her hand.
"My dear Madge, that's just what I meant to do."
He rose and bent over her with every symptom of affection.
"And now you must really go to bed. You're looking tired; really you are. It quite distresses me."
She still kept her seat.
"You promise to come with me?"
"I assure you I've got to come."
"I must have your promise."
He looked hurt.
"Hang it, Madge, can't you trust me?"
"No, I cannot. Give me your promise."
His air of affection decidedly diminished, but he gave the pledge—
"I promise to go north to-morrow."
"I can really trust you?"
He began to frown.
"Implicitly."
She rose at last, and they went together towards the lift.
"When do you breakfast?" she asked.
He answered somewhat stiffly—
"There is no necessity of starting before two o'clock. Breakfast when you like."
"We shall say ten o'clock, then."
"That is fairly late, isn't it?"
"You forget that I have had a tiring day, and perhaps you hardly realize whose conduct has tired me. Good-night."
"Good-night," he replied in an unimpassioned voice.
As the widow ascended she told herself that she had adopted entirely the right attitude. She might relent to-morrow, but till then it was well he should be deprived of the sunshine of her smiles.
Next morning at the hour of 10:15 she stepped out of the lift to find Jean waiting in the hall. She greeted Mrs. Dunbar with a markedly composed air.
"I hope you won't mind breakfasting alone?" she said.
It was evident that the widow did mind.
"Do you mean to say your father has actually breakfasted without me?"
"Unfortunately, he had to."
"Had to!"
"He and Frank found they must catch the ten o'clock train."
Mrs. Dunbar gasped.
"He—has gone?"
"Yes."
"But he promised to go with me!"
"I understood him to say," said Jean quietly, "that he had merely promised to go north."
"Oh, indeed! Then he has run away?"
"From whom?" asked Jean demurely.
The widow bit her lip.
"I consider his conduct simply disgraceful—"
Jean interrupted her quickly—
"I had rather not discuss my father's conduct. Don't let me keep you from breakfast."
Mrs. Dunbar remained standing in silence, a magnificent statue of displeasure. In a moment she inquired—
"And why are you waiting here?"
"Father thought you might like my company on the journey."
"How very thoughtful of him! Then you go at two?"
"Yes."
The widow gazed at her intently.
"I can hardly believe this of Heriot. Is all this his own idea?"
Jean flushed slightly, but answered as demurely as ever—
"It is his wish."
"Ah, I see!" exclaimed Mrs. Dunbar bitterly, "I thought there was a woman's hand in this affair."
"Do you mean another woman's hand?"
The injured lady began uneasily to realize that there was a fresh factor in the situation. But who would have dreamt of little Jean Walkingshaw being dangerous? As Madge traveled north that afternoon, uncompromisingly secluded behind a lady's journal, she could not get out of her head the uncomfortable fancy that her trim, fair-haired escort sat like a protecting deity (heathen and sinister) between Heriot and all who desired, even with the most loving purpose, to chasten his faults and moderate the exuberance of his too virile spirit.
Jean herself was warmly conscious that some such duty was surely laid upon her. With what less reward could she repay all he had done for her? It will be discovered, however, from the succeeding instalment of facts, that though the guardianangel of Heriot Walkingshaw might go the pace with him thus far, it would probably have been beyond the power even of a genuinely celestial spirit to keep at his shoulder when he spurted.
Archibald Berstoun of that ilk ("of y' ilk" was the form that most delicately tickled his palate) still dwelt in the fortalice built by his ancestors at a time when to the average Scot the national tartan suggested but an alien barbarian who stole his cattle; and the national bagpipe, the national heather, and the national whisky were merely the noise the brute made, the cover that preserved him from the gallows, and the stuff that gave you your one chance of catching him asleep.
(A few reflections on the whirligig of time were here inserted, but have since been omitted, as they were found to occur in a modified form elsewhere.)
The castle stood in the lowland part of Perthshire, and was erected by the second of that ilk as a tribute to the dexterity with which his highland neighbors had removed the effects and cut the throat of the first. It was a sober and simple building, steep-roofed and battlemented at the top, turreted at the angles, and pierced with a few narrow windows so irregularly scattered about its grayharled walls as to suggest that no two rooms could possibly be on the same level. Naturally, the architectural genius who illumines the quiet annals of every landed family had knocked out a number of French windows into the lawn and constructed the first story of a Chinese pagoda, in which he proposed to store Etruscan curios with an aviary above; but his descendants had fortunately lacked the funds to complete these improvements. In fact, the stump of the pagoda was now so entirely overgrown with ivy that it had become the traditional fortress of Agricola.
This ancient habitation of a hard-fighting race was framed on two sides by a garden that looked as old as the walls which towered above it, and was well-nigh as simple and sober. Dark clipped yews, and smooth green grass, and graceful old-world flowers were its chief and sufficient ingredients. The genius who designed the pagoda had not yet turned his attention to the garden when Providence checked his career.
A wood of black Scotch firs stretched for a long way beyond this pleasant garden, and struck a stern northern note befitting the gnarled battlements; while, nearer the house, gray beech stems towered out of the brown dead leaves below upto the brown live buds a hundred feet nearer the clouds.
On the remaining two sides of the castle you were not supposed to bestow attention, since after the old custom the home farm approached more closely than is fashionable nowadays; though to the curious they were the sides best worth attention, owing to the cultured pagoda-builder having deemed it beneath his dignity to molest them.
One afternoon in early spring Ellen Berstoun walked slowly down a sheltered garden path. She had been singularly moody of late—so distressed, indeed, and so little like a lucky girl whose wedding might be fixed for any day she chose to name, that her five unmarried sisters held many private debates on the causes of her conduct. The three next to her in years expressed grave apprehensions lest the very fairly creditable marriage arranged for her should after all fall through. Ellen was not treating Andrew well, they complained; while on the other hand, the two youngest, being as yet irresponsibly romantic, declared vigorously that they had sooner dear Ellen remained single to the end of her days than introduced such a long-lipped, fat-cheeked brother-in-law into the family.
It was a part of poor Ellen's burden that she wasacutely conscious of the duty which her parents and all her aunts assured her she owed these sisters. But, on the other hand, to share the remainder of her existence with Andrew Walkingshaw—There rose vividly a picture of that most respectable of partners, and the emotion attendant on this vision drew from her a sigh that ought to have convinced the most skeptical she was very hard hit indeed.
It was at this moment that she spied a lad approaching from the house.
"Well, Jimmy?" she inquired.
With an appearance of some caution, he handed her a note.
"It was to be gi'en to yoursel' privately, miss," he said mysteriously, and turned to go.
"Is there no answer?" she asked.
"He said I wasna to bide for an answer."
He hurried off as though his directions had been peremptory, and Ellen opened the letter. It was written upon the notepaper of a local inn, and if she was surprised to discover the writer, she was still more astonished by the contents.
"My Dear Ellen," it ran, "I should take it as a very great favor indeed if you would come immediately on receiving this and meet me at thefarther end of the wood below your garden. Follow the path, and you will find me waiting for you. The matter is of such importance that I make no apologies for suggesting this romantic proceeding!—With love, yours affectionately,"J. Heriot Walkingshaw."P.S.—Don't say a word to one of your family. Secrecy is absolutely essential."
"My Dear Ellen," it ran, "I should take it as a very great favor indeed if you would come immediately on receiving this and meet me at thefarther end of the wood below your garden. Follow the path, and you will find me waiting for you. The matter is of such importance that I make no apologies for suggesting this romantic proceeding!—With love, yours affectionately,
"J. Heriot Walkingshaw.
"P.S.—Don't say a word to one of your family. Secrecy is absolutely essential."
Ellen stood lost in perplexity. Rumors had reached her of Mr. Walkingshaw's recent eccentricity. The request was entirely out of keeping with all her previous acquaintance with him; that point of exclamation after "romantic proceeding" struck her as uncomfortably dissimilar to his usual methods of composition. Ought she not to consult one of her parents, or at least a sister? And yet the postscript was too explicit to be neglected.
For a few minutes she hesitated. Then she made up her mind; her warm heart could not bear to disappoint anybody; and besides, Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw, however odd his conduct might have been lately was such a pompously respectable—indeed venerable—old gentleman that a maiden might surely trust herself with him alone, even in a grove of trees. And so, in a furtive and backward-glancingmanner, she stole into the wood. It was an unusual way of approaching one's father's man of business and one's financé's parent, but Ellen consoled herself by the reflection that an experienced Writer to the Signet should best know how these things were done.
She hurried down a narrow, winding glade, lined by countless slender columns supporting far overhead a roof of millions of dark green needles swaying and murmuring in the breeze. Suddenly sunshine and green fields filled the opening of the glade, and as suddenly a tall gentleman stepped from behind a tree and politely raised a fashionable felt hat. In all essential features he was the image of Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw, only that he was so very much younger.
"Well, my dear Ellen!" he exclaimed heartily.
She stared at him, too amazed for speech.
"Am I really so changed already?" he inquired with a smile. "That shows the beneficial effect of seeing you."
Even though his manner had altered as much as his appearance, she found the change so agreeable that she overlooked its strangeness. She smiled back at him.
"I am glad to see you looking so well," she said.
He beamed upon her in what he sincerely meant for a paternal manner.
"You, my dear child, look ripping! My hat, you are pretty! Ellen dear, my only wish is to make you as happy as you are bonny."
She looked at him searchingly, and her voice had a note of guarded alarm.
"What do you mean?"
His air became sympathy itself.
"My dear girl, I have been greatly distressed to hear that all has not been going smoothly with you and Andrew."
She gave him a quick glance and then looked away.
"Indeed!" she answered a little coldly. "Who told you that?"
"I can read it in my son's altered health."
She looked at him in surprise, but without anxiety.
"I didn't know there was anything the matter with him."
"He had to hasten up to London for a change of air."
"I hope it did him good," she said indifferently.
"My dear girl, have you no wish to hurry to his bedside?"
"I'm afraid I shouldn't be any good if I did."
"And you wouldn't find him in bed, either," smiled Mr. Walkingshaw, with a change of manner. "No, no, Ellen; you needn't pretend you're in love with Andrew if that's all the concern you feel. And I may tell you at once that he's as tough as ever, and as great a fool. The fellow is totally unworthy of you, so don't you worry your head about him any longer."
He bent over her confidentially.
"Supposing some one were to cut him out, eh?"
"Some one—" she stammered. "Who?"
"Guess!" he smiled.
She did guess; and it was a shocking surmise.
"I—I have no idea," she fibbed.
"Oh, come now, hang it, look me in the eye and repeat that!"
For an instant, she looked into that roguish eye, and her worst suspicions were confirmed.
"Mr. Walkingshaw," she answered, with trembling candor, "I feel very much honored, but really I must ask you not to—not to say anything more. Our ages—oh, everything—I couldn't! I had better go back now."
The philanthropic father gasped.
"Ellen! stop! My dear child, I don't meanmyself! Good heavens, I am far too old for a young girl like you!"
Yet it was at that moment that he suddenly realized he wasn't.
"Then—then what—" she began, and stopped, overwhelmed with confusion.
Hurriedly he endeavored to put things once more upon a paternal footing.
"My fault, my dear Ellen, my fault entirely. Naturally you thought—er—yes, yes, it was quite natural. I—I put it badly. I didn't think what I was saying. The fact is, I've been"—a brilliant inspiration suddenly illumined the chaos of his mind—"I've been so troubled about poor Frank!"
Her expression altogether changed.
"What's the matter?" she exclaimed.
His mind calmed down. Composing his countenance, he shook his head sadly.
"I don't think he'll get over it."
She laid her hand upon his arm with a quick, involuntary gesture.
"But what has happened? Tell me!"
The wisdom of age and the shrewdness of youth twinkled together in Mr. Walkingshaw's eye, but he managed to retain a decorously solemn air.
"You are really concerned this time?"
"Of course! I—I mean, naturally."
He drew her hand through his arm and led her along the fringe of the pine woods.
"Come and see," he said gently. "Poor boy he's had a bad fall."
"What! Is he here—with you?"
"Yes—yes," he answered, with an absent and melancholy air.
He led her a few paces into the trees, and there, seated on a fallen trunk, they saw the victim of fate smoking a cigarette with a meditative air. He sprang to his feet with a light in his eye that might have been the result of some acute disaster, but scarcely looked like it.
"Frank, my boy," said his father, "I have just been explaining to Ellen that you have fallen"—he turned to the girl with a merry air—"in love!" he chuckled, and the next moment they were listening to his flying footsteps and looking at one another.
High overhead the pines murmured gently, and Mr. Walkingshaw, strolling through the quiet colonnades below in solitude and shade, heard the strangest messages whispered down by those riotous tree-tops. He was no longer even middle-aged! Or at least his heart certainly was not. It seemed to keep a decade or so younger than his body, and Heaven knew that was growing younger fast enough! At this rate how much longer could he play the beneficent parent? Good Lord, he had jolly nearly fallen head over ears in love with sweet Ellen Berstoun in the course of five minutes' conversation! She wasn't a day too old for Heriot W. That's to say, he could do with a lassie of that age fine, and, by Gad, he shouldn't wonder but Ellen mightn't have rather cottoned to him if her heart had been free. She looked deuced coy when she thought he was proposing. Yes, a girl like Ellen was the ticket for him. But in that case, what about Madge?
For several minutes Mr. Walkingshaw stoodvery solemnly studying the bark on an entirely ordinary pine, concluding his scrutiny by hitting it a sharp smack with his walking-stick and turning away from the sight of it with apparent distaste. However, a minute or two later he seemed to find one he liked better, for he placed his back against it, removed his hat, and gazed upwards at the softly murmuring branches. Once more their whispers made him smile. Sufficient for the day were the difficulties thereof! That was the way to look at it. Meanwhile, the spring was young, and the little flowers in the wood were young, and the blue sky that showed in peeps through the swinging tree-tops looked as young as any of them, and certainly it was a young and lusty breeze that swayed them. By Jingo, what excellent company they all were for him!
And then he heard another murmuring sound, coming this time from behind him. He held his breath and caught the words—
"Ellen! I love you—I love you!"
He peeped round the tree, and for an instant saw them. A most gratifying tribute to his diplomacy—but devilish disturbing to a young fellow without a girl! Hurriedly he snapped a twig; he snapped another; he broke a branch; hewhistled, he coughed, he shouted. And then they looked up, vaguely surprised to find there was another person in the world.
"Well, Frank," said his father, as they walked back together towards their inn, "are you not feeling happy now, my boy, eh?"
"Happy!" exclaimed Frank. "I'm stupefied with happiness!"
As Heriot Walkingshaw strode between the spring breeze and the murmuring pines, his son's arm through his, listening to his gratitude and Ellen's praises, he too felt happier than ever before in his life. What a lot of pleasure he had learned how to give. And the way to give it was so simple once you found it out. Apparently you had merely to get in sympathy with people, and then do the things which naturally, under those circumstances, you would both like to be done. There was really nothing in it at all; still, it was jolly well worth doing.
Only as they neared the inn did a qualm begin to trouble Frank.
"It's deuced rough luck on Andrew, losing that girl," he said suddenly. "Hang it, it would killme!"
"It's only losing his money that'll ever hurtAndrew," replied his father cheerfully. "Don't you worry about what he'll say."
Unfortunately, Mr. Walkingshaw forgot that the provision for this happy marriage was, in fact, coming indirectly from Andrew's pocket. Even the youngest of us cannot foresee everything, or Heriot would not have been humming "Gin a laddie kiss a lassie," quite so lightheartedly.
"I must say I funk having it out with him," remarked Frank.
"Just you leave it all to me. I'm a match for Andrew any day."
It would have been well if Mr. Walkingshaw had "touched wood" as he made this vaunt; but at that moment his confidence was so serene that he felt master of any emergency conceivable by man.
"Andrew's not the mate for Ellen," he said presently. "The young are for each other, Frank; that's the law of nature."
He smiled to himself.
"I learnt that this afternoon. By Jove, what a pretty girl Ellen is!"
And then again his young heart remembered the sympathetic widow, and he stopped smiling.
The backbone of our country is that band of civic heroes who, when turmoil rages and disaster threatens, are the last men to desert the desk. In this glorious company Andrew Walkingshaw was numbered. His father might tear up and down the country like a disreputable whirlwind, his widowed relative fume and plot, his sister disgrace the family by an unsuitable engagement, his betrothed leave his affectionate letters unanswered, his own soul writhe in decorous anguish at these calamities, but Casabianca himself was not more faithful to his post than he. It is true, indeed, that he had once tried the alternative policy and chased that cyclone, but he had taken to heart the lesson, and thenceforth closed his ears to disquieting rumors, his eyes to distressing symptoms, and went about his work, if possible, more conscientiously than ever. That was the proper way to get through business—conscientiously. He was sickened with the people (clients of some eminence, but evidently with a screw loose)who kept deferring their more important concerns till the senior partner returned with his infernal headlong methods. Let them wait if they liked! Let them take their business elsewhere if they were such fools! Deliberately and calmlyhehad washed his hands of his senior partner. That was the end of him so far as he was concerned, said Andrew to himself. But alas! you may wash your hands of a tornado, but supposing it retorts by blowing down your house?
It was about nine in the evening, and he sat by himself, severely scrutinizing the pleadings drawn up by his clerk for a forthcoming case, connected with so large a sum of money that it was a pleasure merely to read the imposing figures. The ladies were upstairs in the drawing-room. So long as Mrs. Dunbar was among them, he was not likely to show his facethere.
The door opened, and he turned, frowning at the interruption, and then sprang up with a troubled eye. It was his father certainly; but what a remarkable change since he had seen him last! For the first time Andrew realized the full enormity of his conduct in growing younger. His very appearance had become a crying scandal.
"Sweating away at your old papers?" inquired Heriot pleasantly.
Andrew stiffly resumed his seat.
"Yes, I am busy," he replied, and took up the pleadings again.
But his father ignored the hint. Straddling comfortably before the fire, he remarked—
"Frank and I have been up to Perthshire."
Andrew looked up quickly, but merely answered—
"Oh, indeed?"
"We've been seeing Ellen."
"What about?"
Mr. Walkingshaw threw himself into a chair.
"My boy," said he, with the air of friendly commiseration which he felt that the occasion undoubtedly demanded, "I find I was right about your rival."
Andrew remained calm, though not quite so calm as before.
"Do you mean there's some one else after her?"
"He's got her."
The calm departed.
"Got! What the deuce d'ye mean?"
"She has chosen another, Andrew."
"Chosen! But she's no choice left her. She's engaged to me."
"She was engaged to you. She's now engaged to him."
"Tohim? Who the dev—er—what are you driving at? Who's the man?"
"Frank."
"Frank!"
Andrew stared at his father incredulously.
"I don't believe a word of it."
"Well, you may ask Frank if you like; but I assure you you can take my word for it."
It was characteristic of Andrew's robust mind that, instead of wasting time in noisy vaporings and sentimental sorrow, it seized at once the weak point in the case.
"But he can't afford to marry."
"Oh, I'll see to that."
"You'llsee!" shouted Andrew. "Do you mean to sayyou'vehad a finger in the pie?"
"Four fingers and a thumb," smiled his parent.
Once more Andrew, without waste of words in expostulation or commentary, summarized the situation in a sentence—
"This is fair damnable!"
"Come, come, my dear fellow," said Mr. Walkingshaw soothingly. "I owe you an explanation, of course, but when you've heard it, I know you'll agree I've done the right thing."
"An explanation!" exclaimed Andrew sardonically. "Go on, let's hear it."
"I can give you the gist of it in a sentence: she loves Frank, and she doesn't love you. Now, in that case, which of you ought she to marry?"
"That's nothing to do with it—"
"What! love's nothing to do with marriage?"
"When a woman's once engaged, she's got to implement her promise."
"Whether it makes her happy or miserable?"
"Who was miserable, I'd like to know?"
"Ellen."
"It's the first I've heard of it."
"Do you mean to say you couldn't see it for yourself?"
"No, I could not; and even if she was, there's not the shadow of an excuse for your conduct. You're just making a mess of everything you meddle with. Getting me jilted like this! What do you suppose people will say? What'll they be thinking of me? Oh, good Lord!"
The unhappy young man brooded somberly.Mr. Walkingshaw lit a cigar, and then settled himself down to remove by gentle argument the cloud that temporarily obscured his son's serenity.
"Just look at the thing for a moment in a quiet and reasonable light, Andrew. Happiness, as you are well aware, is the chief aim of humanity. Damn it, our religion teaches us that—or practically that. A kind of warm and amiable gleefulness—that's the ideal. Now, how can a young girl like Ellen be happy or gleeful married to a sober old codger like you, eh? Man, the thing's clean impossible. She's no more suited to you than a lace cover to a coal-scuttle. Well, then what's the obvious thing to do? Hand her over to a brisk young fellow who can do her justice, of course. Besides, just think of your own brother pining away in the—what do they call it?—torrid zone, all for love of a girl who's pining away for love of him. The thing's totally illogical. A society of hedgehogs would have more sense than to allow an arrangement like that. You see my point now, don't you?"
"I've heard you say with your own lips," retorted Andrew, "that all a girl required was a comfortable home and a husband who knew his own mind."
"But you must remember," explained his father, "I was an old fool then."
Andrew sprang to his feet with a wry and bitter face.
"You certainly haven't the qualities of age now. I never heard such daft-like rubbish in my life. For Heaven's sake, just try to use any common sense you've got left. Frank will never have enough money to keep her properly."
"Ah, but naturally I mean to alter my arrangements."
Gradually the full possibilities of the situation were revealing themselves to the well-regulated mind of the junior partner.
"You mean to change your will?"
"I do."
Yet another horrid possibility showed its head.
"And are you going to alter Jean's share too, so that this precious Vernon fellow may have something to squander?"
"Something respectable to live on," corrected his parent. "You mustn't starve art, you know."
Andrew stared at him in silence, and when he spoke, it was with the air of a much-wronged worm which has deliberately resolved to turn at last.
"I'm not wanting any of your Ellen Berstouns. If she's played this trick on me, that's enough of her. But I tell you plainly I'm not going to let you rob me to keep a pack of worthless painters and people out of the gutter, without taking some steps. I warn you of that."
"My dear Andrew," said his father reproachfully, "that's hardly the attitude of a professing Christian. Just think, now; is it? You'll easily find a decent, quiet woman with a bit of money and no objection to hearing every day for an hour or two how you've been worried by your clients and swindled by your father, and I do honestly believe you'll get as near happiness as you're capable of. That's common sense, now; isn't it?"
The slamming of the door answered him.
"What a sulky fellow he is!" said Heriot to himself.
Yet so conscious was he of the rectitude of his intentions, and so confiding had his disposition grown, that it never crossed his mind to beware of an infuriated lawyer. Besides, when Andrew had slept over it, he would surely realize how unanswerable were his father's arguments.
"We'll see the old stick-in-the-mud dancing atFrank's wedding!" thought he. "There's no vice in Andrew; only a bit of obstinacy. It's all bark and no bite with him."
With these amiable reflections he speedily consoled himself for the discomfort of any little temporary friction. And then the door opened gently.
"I heard you had come back again," said Mrs. Dunbar.
She closed the door as gently as she had opened it. The action pathetically expressed the quiet sorrow of a much-wronged woman's heart.
"Yes," said Heriot gallantly, "I'm back again to Scotland, home and beauty. Ha, ha! Now that was quite pretty, wasn't it?"
But her black eyes declined to sparkle, as she glided silently to a chair. Out of the corner of his own eye her lover looked at her critically.
"I'm delighted to see you again, Madge," he went on; but his words had a hollow ring, and his eye continued to express more doubt than passion.
"Have you no apology to offer me?" she inquired, with the same ominous calm.
"For what, my dear lady?"
She started a little and glanced at him apprehensively. "My dear lady" hardly indicated love's divinest frenzy.
"For treating me shamefully!"
"This is strong language," he smiled indulgently. "Tell me now, I say, just tell me what I've done."
Thus invited, the lady described his conduct in leaving her alone and unprotected in a London hotel, to the neglect of his affectionate assurances and the shame and confusion of herself, in language which did no more than justice to the theme.
"But I left Jean to look after you," he protested.
"When I want your daughter to look after me I shall ask you for her assistance," she replied tartly. "You broke your word to me, and you can't deny it."
"I do deny it," he replied, with dignity. "I told you I should travel north—"
"Oh!" she interrupted, with scathing contempt, "you were very straightforward and gentlemanly, I know!"
He looked at her ever more critically. A recollection of Ellen and the pine-wood returned forcibly.
"Put it as you will," he replied philosophically, and turned towards the fire.
She watched him jealously.
"But why did you run away?" she persisted."Where have you been since? Heriot, I insist upon knowing that—I insist!"
She rose and came towards him. He took her hand and pressed it gently.
"I shall tell you all," he said, as he led her back to her chair and drew another towards it. When they were about three feet apart he sat down himself and bent confidentially towards her. Yet he did not attempt to bridge entirely the intervening space.
"I have been up to Perthshire," he began, "assisting dear Ellen Berstoun to break off her engagement with Andrew."
Mrs. Dunbar sat up with a much more alert expression.
"I am glad to hear it," she said, with decision.
"I discovered that Frank and she loved one another. I am very glad to say he is now engaged to her instead."
She smiled at last.
"Do tell me what Andrew said!"
He shook his head.
"I'm afraid he is somewhat unreasonably annoyed."
She smiled more brightly still.
"How very good for him! Really, Heriot, you have done a very sensible thing indeed."
Heriot smiled back.
"It seemed to me," said he, "that there was really too much disparity in years. The young should marry the young, Madge."
"I agree with you entirely."
It was his smile that now seemed to indicate an increasing satisfaction.
"You agree also that under those circumstances it is no longer the duty of two people to marry, even if they have unfortunately become engaged?"
"I think it would only lead to wretchedness if they did. Honestly, I don't feel in the least sorry for Andrew. In fact, I thoroughly agree that people ought to have their engagements broken off for them if they haven't the sense to see they are unsuitable for themselves."
Heriot received this assurance with evident pleasure. His manner grew more confidential still.
"Madge," he said, "I think it is time I made you a very serious confession."
Her smile departed.
"You may have noticed," he continued, "a certain bloom, so to speak, upon me, a sort of freshness, and so on. Madge, it is the bloom of youth."
She grew uneasy.
"Oh, really?"
"It is a literal, physical fact. I am rapidly approaching thirty."
She moved into the farthest corner of her chair, but made no other comment.
"You will thus see that it is merely a question of time before there will be an even greater disparity of years between you and me than between Ellen and Andrew."
Her expression changed entirely.
"Heriot!" she exclaimed indignantly.
"Yes, Madge, I grieve deeply to resign the hopes of happiness I had formed on a life spent in your society, but alas! I must. Your adult charms cannot be thrown away upon an unappreciative youth; it would be a tragedy."
"You are many years older than I!"
"I was a short time ago, but to-day we are roughly speaking, twins—though with this difference, that as I am looking forward to a strenuous youth, and you to a handsome old age, naturally I feel a chicken compared with you. But then think of the next year or two, when I shall perhaps be playing football, and you will find it no longer possible to keep your gray hairs soartistically brushed beneath your black tresses: think of that, Madge!"
"Are you out of your mind?" she gasped.
"On the contrary, I have never been clearer-headed in my life."
"Then," she exclaimed wrathfully, "you are merely inventing a ridiculous fable to excuse your shuffling out of your engagement!"
"My dear lady," he replied pacifically, "shall I jump over this chair to convince you?"
"Nothingwould convince me."
"Ah," he said, with a friendly smile, "I see that you want to have me whether I'm a suitable mate or not, whether my feelings have changed—"
"I certainly do not!" she interrupted.
"Then in that case shall we call it off?"
He rose and picked up an evening paper.
She tried the resource of tears. The spectacle of a handsome woman weeping had brought him temporarily to his senses once before. But this time, though his manner was as kind as any widow could desire, his words brought the unfortunate lady no more consolation than his conduct.
"My dear Madge, just look at the thing sensibly. Surely you are old enough by this time to take a practical view of what after all is a very simplesituation. You laid down the law yourself not five minutes ago, and laid it down very justly. If two people are unsuitably mated, the engagement should be broken off. Very well; just try to realize for a moment what it means to marry a man who is getting fuller and fuller of beans all the time—at your age, mark you. The fact is, we are just like two trains rushing in opposite directions. For a moment we may be side by side, and then—whit!—we have passed each other and are getting a couple of miles farther apart every minute."
Even this graphic allegory failed to dry her tears.
"You are deserting me—you are breaking my heart!" she wailed.
"Hush, hush," he answered soothingly; "on the contrary, I am sparing you—sparing you no end of anxiety."
She looked at him like a tragedy queen.
"Have you no thought of how my reputation will suffer, Heriot?"
"How can it suffer? Nobody knows we've been engaged."
"Do you suppose they haven't guessed?"
"Not from anything I've said or done, I can assure you."
She sprang up indignantly.
"Have you no sense of honor?"
"Look here," he answered, with his most ingratiating manner, "I'll be a son to you, Madge—an affectionate, dutiful—"
"You coward!" she cried.
Heriot found himself alone in his library with his engagement satisfactorily ended.