“I know,” said Eddy, impatiently, “I know! I’ve heard all that before.”
“You’ll not hear it again, my fine fellow, or else it’ll be before the judge for something that is more ticklish than debt. Don’t you know there’s that little bit of paper as was refused at the bank. No assets, just your luck to keep you from the Old Bailey. But he’s got it all the time. If you’re safe to marry the railway man’s daughter, perhaps I might get him persuaded to wait. For I’m your friend, Eddy Saumarez, you know as I always stand your friend when you don’t play any of your tricks. I can’t go bail for him that he’ll do that; for what with putting him off, and never answering his letters, and letting things swing, he’s in the temper of the very——; but if it’s certain and settled, and the figure of her fortune known, and all that—”
“You saw for yourself how things were going,” said Eddy, not without a faint blush of shame, “the other day on the hill.”
“Oh, I saw you, fast enough—carrying on. But when I said to the lady, ‘That’s a case if ever there was one,’ she looked at me as if she could have knocked me down. ‘If you mean it’s an engagement,’ she says, as sharp as anything, ‘you’re mistaken, and it wouldn’t be allowed for a minute on either side.’”
“You put that into her head, you everlasting fool!” cried Eddy. And then with an effort of self-control, or rather with the natural facility of his easy temper, he added, bursting into a laugh, “She’s the stepmother, and they hate her all round. The more she opposes it the more it’s sure to be, so you see there’s more things in heaven and earth, Johnson, than are in your philosophy. What she says is just the thing that will never come to pass. I say, if you’ll behave a little decent, and get up the character, I’ll make her send you an invitation to the big ball!”
“The ball!”
“I know you’re fond of high life, and seeing smart people: and you can act when you like. Now look here, put a good face upon it and let’s have a little more time. Write to him that you’ve got a promise of having everything settled if you wait till after the 30th, and that you’re going to a ball at Rowland’s house under my wing; and then you’ll wire about the engagement and all that as soon as ever it comes off. You’ll never have such a chance again,” said Eddy; “crême de la crême, my boy, and all that sort of thing.”
“People of the place,” said Johnson, with a sneer.
“People of the place! Well I hope when it’s Clydesdale and his lot, that’s good enough for you. And perhaps you call the Duke of Arran one of the people of the place. So he is, for it all belongs to him: and the Huntingshaws and the Herons, who, I rather think, have been heard of even in London town.”
“Oh, well,” said Johnson, with half eager, half reluctant acquiescence; “but if that lady is the one to give the invitations, you will never get her to ask me.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Eddy, complacently, “I think I know what I’m about.”
“You know a deal too well what you’re about. For a fellow of your age, you are the oldest fellow and the most artful I ever knew. I do believe it’s only to gain time, and that there’s nothing in it. Carrying on with a girl is nothing to you; you can get ‘em to believe you when another fellow hasn’t even the chance to have a hearing. There’s that tall one, your sister, looks at me as if I was the dirt under her feet. I’ll tell you what, if you’ll make her give me a dance at this thundering ball of yours, I’ll do it—whatever the Governor may say.”
“Well you can ask her,” said Eddy, in lightness of heart, “like any other gentleman. You don’t want an introduction, because you’ve met her before. A woman can’t refuse without being ill-bred, and nobody could ever say of the Saumarez that they were ill-bred. Of course she’ll dance with you—if you ask her,” he said, with a laugh.
“What’s that laugh for?” said Johnson, suspiciously.
“Oh come, if a man isn’t allowed to laugh! It’s for the fun of the thing. I’ve seen you in a good many queer circumstances, but I never saw you at a society ball dancing with girls—of that sort, don’t you know. I’ll get you an introduction to the Duchess,” cried Eddy, “and you can ask her to dance. By Jove what fun it will be! I shouldn’t wonder if you had what they call a great success. But mind, whatever you do, you must learn up the part.”
“Where shall I get it?” said Johnson. The idea of success in the world which was “smart” turned his head. The thought went through his mind that it might be but the beginning of triumph. The Duchess, if she found his dancing to her mind, might invite him during the season. She might ask him to the Cumbraes, that princely mansion. The light swam in Johnson’s eyes. He felt as if he were on the verge of a new world. He could learn a part with any man, and mind his cues and enter into hisrôle. Where could he get it? He ran over all the plays he knew, which was saying a good deal, but he could not remember the part of a don. “Hang it all,” he said, “I wish you had introduced me as a plunger or a Guardsman, or something of that sort. I could have got ‘em as easy as look at ‘em; but I don’t remember no don.”
“There are plenty in novels,” said Eddy.
“Oh, novels!—I don’t read any except the yellow kind. I say how d’ye dress the part? Is it a long coat and a white tie? or what is it? I don’t know nothing about it,” said Johnson, falling in his anxiety into the dialect of his kind.
“In the evening,” said Eddy, “all gentlemen dress alike, except when they’re parsons. Johnson of St. Chad’s is not a parson. Probably in the day time he wears an easy coat, and smokes a pipe. But we’d better leave that. You only want your evening things—I suppose they’re decently cut—and a flower in your coat; but mind you have not a bouquet like a coachman at a drawing-room.”
“I think I know enough for that,” said the novice; “but you’d better get me one of those dashed novels if I’m to learn up the part.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes towards the moor; great visions filled the mind of Johnson. “I say,” he resumed after a while, “couldn’t you get me asked for the shooting one day? The young fellow aint much of a swell, whatever the rest of them may be; and I should like to shoulder a gun on a real moor, just for once in a way. It’s a thing to have done. The Governor would like it too. ‘My son’s up shooting in Scotland,’ he’d tell everybody, ‘with some of his smart friends.’”
“He can say it all the same, whether or not,” said Eddy.
“That’s true; but it feels much nicer when there’s something in it. I say—I don’t mind standing a sovereign to the gamekeeper, if you’ll manage that. I’d give a sovereign any day to have some birds to send up to town with that heather stuff round ‘em, and a label, ‘From A. Johnson, Esquire.’”
“You had better give the sovereign to me,” said Eddy, “if I am to take the trouble of it. Well, I’ll try—and you’ll have to get up that part too, Johnson, the don on the moors.”
“Oh, I aint frightened for that. Do they ask you to shoot at the Cumbraes—that’s the Duke’s place?” said Johnson, with greater and greater visions of delight rising before his eyes.
“They don’t ask me, but they might ask you,” cried Eddy, with a peal of laughter. “‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’ When once you get to know a Duke, all the rest follows like clockwork.”
“That was what I thought,” Johnson said modestly. He marched on by Eddy’s side for some time over the heather. Then he paused, and looked his companion in the face. “Mind,” he said, “I don’t say as I shan’t like all this very much, and if I get on, I shall never forget as it was you as launched me, Master Eddy. But that’s not to interfere with business: you’ll have to keep to your day and square your account, or else the Governor will be down upon you, and there’s not a little thing in the whole affair as won’t be brought to the light of day.”
“And who will that harm most?” said Eddy. “I’ll pay up, of course; but who do you think would suffer most—I, only a boy when you got me into your accursed hands, orhim, an old bloated, money-lending, sixty per cent., blood-sucking——”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head. Do you think he’ll mind what the papers may say? Look here, Eddy Saumarez, why don’t you go to your Governor and make a clean breast of it, and settle it up so as nothing should ever be brought against you again? You’ve got a lot of relations that wouldn’t like to be dragged through the mud.”
“Do you think they mind what the papers may say?” said Eddy, sardonically; “when that’s the caseon both sides, there can’t be much to be done either way.”
“Well, smart people don’t, somehow,” said Johnson, “no more than we do—they’re so used to it. It aint my business to dictate how you’re to do it, but somehow you’ll have to do it. You may get the money how you please, but you must get it, and not a moment later than the 31st. Now that’s settled, I can give my thoughts to getting up the part.”
When he was left by his companion, Eddy went up by himself upon the moors, which was a kind of excursion he did not usually enjoy. He went up breasting the hill like a deer or a mountaineer, nor caring where he went, through ling and bracken, among the prickly whins, and over the treacherous quagmires of moss and bog. Something was in his mind which made him indifferent to all the accidents of the way. When he had reached the very top of the ridge he threw himself down upon the dark heather with his face upon the ground, falling as if he had been shot, and lay there for a few moments motionless as if he had died. Nature accommodates herself very easily to any vagary of rest. The dark figure seemed for a moment to disturb and break the line of vegetation, but had not been there a moment before the grasses and the ling seemed to take a new beginning, starting up from under him, the long myrtles rustling their heads, the Grass of Parnassus waving its white stars. So they would have done had he been dead, covering him over, hiding him in the bosom of the soil. He lay for a little while thus, harmonised and composed intoquiet under the still touch of the hill, so that when he got up again he seemed to leave a broad and angry void where he had been. What passed in his mind while he buried his face in the coolness of the earth, and hid himself from the eye of day, it would be hard to tell—perhaps only the working of his quick brain as to what he could do in the emergency in which he found himself, perhaps compunction, miserable thoughts of the past, more miserable reflections on the future. But nothing of this was visible when he raised himself from that momentary collapse. He sat down upon the heather with his face towards the lake, and pondered, clutching at his hair with both his hands, setting his elbows on his knees. What was it he was thinking of out there upon the lonely moor, not a living creature near him except the wild creatures on the hills, the insects in the moorland vegetation. His short-sighted eyes roamed vaguely over the heather, pausing upon here and there a gleam of water in a hollow, turning instinctively, like a child toward a light, to the deep loch lying far below. But he saw little or nothing with these wandering eyes. They were bent upon visionary objects, seeing scenes and visions which had nothing to do with the moor or the loch of Rosmore.
Presently Eddy took something from his pocket, a piece of paper with a few words upon it, which he studied intently. His eyes came back from their roaming to fix themselves intently, with the contraction of the eyebrows which marked their defect, upon the paper. They were sharp eyes though they were short-sighted, seeing everything within their limited rangewith a keenness and mastery of every detail quite unusual, a power of observation which was more precious than the longest sight. What was it he was trying to master? A few uninteresting words, nothing of the slightest importance. Then he took out a pencil and wrote something, repeating the same characters again and again. What was it? He kept the paper so cautiously in his hand that had he been startled by any intruder he could have doubled it up in a moment, and hidden it in his hollowed palm. It was somewhat strange to see such a precaution taken on the wide stretch of moor, which was as desolate as a moor could be, some part of it dark with the blistered stems of heather which had been burned, the rest dewy and glistening with the moisture with which a few days of rain had soaked the country. The very insects were hushed by the cold of the October afternoon. A few desolate cheepings low among the heather betrayed a lowly nest here and there. In the distance a road came like a black ribbon over a corner of the slope. Eddy sent another anxious look round him, and returned to his paper, writing the same letters over and over again. Was it the name of his love? What was it? He held it so carefully under the shadow of his hand that even had some one risen silently from the heather, and looked over his shoulder, it would have been difficult to see.
This was not exactly what happened. What happened was that—coming along the dark road in the distance, Eddy spied a figure, which made him start to his feet and hastily return to his pocket the little document.He sat down again, but with his face that way, watching who it was who was approaching. There was something in the outline and the gait, those points which are all the short-sighted have to go upon, which seemed to indicate a person he knew. It was not the moment which Eddy would have chosen to encounter Archie Rowland, but there was something in his own occupation just suspended, and in the curious fancy which had brought him here, the object which he only knew, which made him eager to disarm any possible suspicion on the part of his hosts at Rosmore—which impelled him at least not to avoid the meeting. Suddenly he got up and began waving his arms about to attract the attention of the passer-by, who, pausing and standing still a moment to consider who called him, at length decided to change his course and came towards the figure thus signalling to him across the summit of the hill.
Archiecame over the hill, lifting his feet high among the heather. He had changed in his aspect a little since the old Glasgow days. For one thing he had changed his tailor, which always makes a great difference. And three months of the fresh Highland air and outdoor exercise, and something too of the growing habit of a little authority and command, and that of having things done for him, of saying to this man, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and hecometh, had changed the looks of Archie. And another more subtle influence had changed him. His brow had cleared of an overhanging cloud, once too ready to come down at a moment’s notice. He held his head more erect. It was not perhaps that he was in reality more sure of himself—but at least he had somehow acquired the air of being so—and he was of course more accustomed and at ease in the habits of his new life.
He could not think why he had been called in this way; and did not indeed recognise Eddy, whose presence here on the top of the moor was the last thing any one could have expected. Eddy was not fond of long walks. To stroll down to the beach with his hands in his pocket, and when he had got there, to sit on a rock and throw stones into the water, was the hardest exercise he generally indulged in, except a day’s shooting now and then, when he showed himself, notwithstanding his indolence, as to the manner born—a thing which Archie could never do. But how he should have got up here without any motive was a thing which young Rowland could not understand. “Is it you?” he cried with surprise when he came near enough to recognise his guest.
“It’s just me—which I perceive is the formula here,” cried Eddy. “I’ve no right to invite you to sit down, as this is your own place; but I can recommend that ling bush. It’s dry, and there is no gorse about to prick into your vitals. Are you in a hurry, or can you wait a bit here.”
“Oh, I am in no hurry,” said Archie. “It’s noteasy to be in a hurry when you’ve got nothing to do.”
“Do you think so? I’m always in a hurry and always late—though I have nothing to do.”
“I suppose it’s according to a man’s nature,” said Archie.
“Everything is that if you go to the bottom of things. You’re one of the restless fellows that want to be doing—I don’t. I love idleness,” said Eddy, stretching himself back over the ling, with his arms extended over his head and his eyes on the sky. The sky was covered with clouds, yet there was a break of blue just over Eddy’s head, which he regarded complacently as if it had been made for his special use.
“I was surprised to see you up so far—it’s a good climb from the loch side.”
“So it is;” said Eddy, “it was not for want of something to do. So long as there’s a billiard table handy, thank heaven, you never need be without occupation. If there’s nobody to have a game with, you can at least be improving your own play.”
“I did not think of that,” said Archie.
“No, for you don’t appreciate billiards,” cried the other, “which is a pity, for it’s a fine game. I say, Rowland, when are we to have another day’s shooting? This ball takes up a lot of time; but I hope you’ll take me out on the hills at least one day again before I go?”
“When you like,” Archie said shortly.
“Well, that’s curt,” said Eddy with a laugh. “And I always like, don’t you know. By the way, I’ve gota sort of a—favour to ask you. I don’t know what you’ll say.”
Archie did not make any reply but looked up, waiting without much excitement for the demand, whatever it might be.
“Well it’s this,” said Eddy embarrassed, which was almost a new sensation to him, and gave him a sense of youth and freshness which in its way was delightful. “I don’t know what you’ll say to me for asking such a thing. It’s not as if you had your governor out and a lot of big wigs. A couple of young fellows doesn’t matter.”
Archie kept his face towards his companion with the same look of indifferent expectation, but he said nothing to help him on.
“It is not even like an invitation to the house; and the ladies probably will not be coming out again.”
There was faintly indicated on Archie’s countenance a question as to this latter statement—a sort of interrogating curl in the curve of his eyebrows; but the young man was chary of his words, and spoke no more than was indispensable.
“It is getting late in the season you know,” said Eddy, “and cold for them.”
“They don’t mind the cold,” said Archie.
“Well it’s rather cutting up here, and Mrs. Rowland—isn’t so young as the girls. However, I’m afraid they didn’t care for my man when he appeared before. It was bad taste I allow, thrusting himself into the midst of our party. But I don’t pretend that he’s muchin the way of breeding. He’s a good fellow—enough—and he never had any opportunity of this sort of thing when he was younger. It’s that man Johnson, don’t you know. He’s hanging about here. I am always knocking up against him. He would be awfully pleased if you’d ask him to come with us out shooting. And I don’t think he’ll do much harm.”
“Oh,” said Archie, “the college man.”
“Yes,” replied Eddy, wincing a little, “the college man.” He had not minded at all promulgating that fiction to the ladies. It was immense fun. To do him justice it had been struck off on the spur of the moment, without any intention; but to say it to Rowland, two fellows on the hillside, was a different matter. He began to pull up the tenacious roots of the ling with both hands, struggling with them, and did not meet Archie’s eyes. Nothing could be more innocent than Archie’s eyes, which suspected nothing. Archie had scarcely been conscious of Johnson’s presence at all. He had made no mental remarks as to the breeding or want of breeding of the stranger. He had no theories about a College Don. It is doubtful, indeed, whether he had any clear impression as to what that character was. Eddy added quickly, “He’s a little uncouth. They don’t see much society, these fellows. I would not mix him up with the ladies: but he would be awfully pleased—and when it’s only two young fellows on a moor, you and me—”
“Oh, I have no objections,” said Archie. “Ask him if you like, Saumarez; it was hardly necessary to take the trouble of asking me.”
“You are an awfully good fellow, Rowland!” said Eddy, struck with a faint and very temporary sense of shame.
“Oh, if that’s all,” cried Archie with a smile which lighted up his face. It pleased him that anybody should think so, and still more that Eddy Saumarez should think so. In the exhilaration of that encouragement he went a little further, as the simple giver pleased with his own liberality is so apt to do.
“If there is anything else we can do for him? I’ll tell Roderick to see that it’s all right. And we can go out any day you like. I’m not such a hearty sportsman as you. If it wasn’t a kind of duty—but it’s pleasant when somebody enjoys it,” he said with a glow upon his brightened face.
“I enjoy it—down to the ground,” said Eddy. “It’s not that there’s so very much game; but then one has it all one’s own way. Nobody poking in before you, saying, ‘My bird?’ and then a young fellow has to give in. You’re a lucky dog, Rowland—the cock of the walk so far as the moor goes, and thought no end of at home.”
“Do you think so?” said Archie, with a sort of painful gratification. “I’m afraid that’s more than I can believe. I’m a disappointment to my father, Saumarez. I don’t know what he expected, but he expected something very different from me.”
“They are always like that,” said Eddy, with the air of an authority. “They put you in a certain grind, and then they look out for something quite different. I am just the product of my training; but the Governor jaws at me as if I were a monster: though if all tales be true, he could have given me odds, at my worst.”
Eddy spoke with the composed expression of a man whose worst had been very bad, and who had fathomed all the secrets of life. Archie could not but look on with a certain respect, though his blameless mind recoiled a little from this man of knowledge. He had no experiences of his own save of the most trifling kind, to produce.
“The worst of it all,” said Eddy, “is the money. We have all that’s nice, you know, in the way of living, and places to go to and so forth, but never any money in our pockets. I don’t know if the Governor himself is much better. It all goes on quite smoothly, and I suppose it gets paid. I don’t know. I never have a penny to bless myself with.”
“Oh, there’s no want here in that way,” said Archie. He took out a card case from his pocket, and took a piece of paper from it. “Here is something my father gave me this morning, for extra expenses he said. I told him I had no extra expenses, but it was no use. And I don’t know what to do with it,” Archie said; “you can’t buy anything at Rosmore. I’ll pay it into my bank, which is his bank too, and there it will lie.”
“Good life, Rowland! No use!” cried Eddy, with eager eyes fixed upon the cheque. He took it out of his companion’s hand, and examined it, gloating over every line. “One hundred pounds, James Rowland,” he cried. “I wish I had a few signatures like that. Iwish he’d take a few pieces of paper out of his pocket of this description and offer them to me.”
“I dare say he would,” said Archie, calmly, “if he knew you were in such great need of them; but you are just romancing on that score.”
“Romancing!” cried Eddy. “I romancing! It shows how little you know. You can’t think, Rowland, what temptations a young fellow is subjected to. And then all sorts of harpies about, thirsting for your blood. Before you know where you are, they’ve got you hard and fast, and after that you never dare call your soul your own. Why this fellow John——, I mean a man in London, has got his horrid thumb on me!—Romancing!” cried Eddy, “I’d give my little finger for a bit of paper like that—and one a day as long as they lasted for ever and ever.”
To see Archie’s countenance while his companion was speaking was an experience in its way. He raised himself erect the first minute out of his habitual lounging and careless attitude. His brow cleared more and more. He pushed his hat back, revealing it with the heavy ruddy hair, pushed back too, and standing up in a thick crest: his eyes so often overcast, or gleaming out in sudden gleams, half-timorous half-defiant, were bent steadily upon Eddy’s face with something celestial in their blueness—his mother’s eyes. He had never looked out upon the world so openly, so free, with so little self-consciousness, since the first day when his father’s heart had risen at the first look of him in the humble parlour at Sauchiehall Road; and there wassomething of a new-developed soul, something higher, something deeper in that look now.
“Would ye that?” he said, in his native tone and accent. He took up the paper where Eddy had laid it down, spread out upon the ling for admiration. “Your little finger would be of no use to me,” he said; “but if ye want this so much, and I don’t want it at all, take it, Saumarez. You are very welcome to it, and it’s little use to me.”
Eddy raised his eyes suddenly, with a gleam of eager covetousness, to the other’s face. They were hazel eyes, with a peculiar reddish gleam, and flashed out like lanterns on the steadfast blue of Archie’s look. Then a flush came over his face, and his eyelids, which were full and in many folds, went over these two lamps like curtains drawn. “Rowland, you cover me with shame,” he said, in a voice only half audible, trembling in the air.
“What for?” said Archie: as his countenance brightened, his tone went back more and more to that obnoxious Glasgow, which his father so disliked to hear. But though it was Glasgow, there was the very soul of music in Archie’s voice. It became soft and round and dewy and liquid, with the qualities of all melting things in one. “What for? when you want it so much, and me not at all. I have nothing to do with it; and you——”
“I have a hundred things to do with it,” cried Eddy, “if I could only tell you!—if you would only understand! But you wouldn’t—an honest fellow like you, that never had a thought you were ashamed of.Oh, yes, it’s life or death, that is about what it is! I could perhaps grapple on, and struggle out. Perhaps—I don’t know if it would be enough—— Oh, I say, Rowland, it’s too great a temptation. Put it away, back in your pocket. What does it matter what becomes of a wretched fellow like me!”
There was just enough reality in this struggle against himself to give to Eddy what was generally absent from his best endeavours—an air of truth. He did try to work himself up to the point of refusing this sudden windfall which had dropped into his very hand.
“Well,” said Archie, “don’t give it up for that. I have a little more in the bank. It is not very much; it’s about fifty pounds more. My father gives me an allowance. It’s a new thing for me to have all that money, and I just never spend it. What would I spend it upon here? I got two of Rankin’s little dogues—but they’re paid for, the little dashed beasts that have taken to—somebody else—that don’t care a button for me. Come, take it, lad: and if you’ll come to my room when we get home, I’ll give ye a cheque for the rest. If it was to buy anything, ye might demur, and say as well me as you; but when it’s to free you of something on your mind——”
“I should think it was on my mind,” Eddy said, not looking up at the other face which beamed benignant upon him. Archie perhaps, was never so much at ease with himself, so conscious of power and faculty, so flattered and gratified during his whole life.
“Well—and I have nothing on my mind,” he said with a happy laugh. He doubled up the cheque andthrust it into Eddy’s hand. “And just come to my room as soon as you get back—or perhaps——” He paused a little, wondering, as he had a favour to confer, which was the best way. “I’ll tell ye what’s the best. I’ll come to yours, and then there will be no difficulty,” Archie said.
He went down over the shoulder of the hill to Rosmore, never feeling for a moment the roughness of the way, laughing at himself as he stuck in a bog or stumbled over a rock, elated, happy, twice the man he was when he threaded slowly through the harsh bushes of the ling to where Eddy awaited him. What a half-hour that had been! He had never been able to be of use to any one all his life. The experience was quite new to him, delightful above all words. He did not even remember for some time that it was Rosamond’s brother whom he thus had it in his power to deliver from mysterious and unknown troubles. The first recollection of that additional inducement produced upon him indeed rather a sobering than an exciting effect. He divined instinctively that to Rosamond this would be a horror and humiliation. Heaven forbid she should ever know! He felt nothing but delight in being able to do something for Eddy, but the thought of Rosamond covered him with sudden cold dews of alarm. Never, never, must Rosamond know. She would blame him for it, Archie foresaw. It would raise a mountain of horrible obstacles between them. She would resent the mere possibility of such a link between her brother and himself. He must warn Eddy in the first place, who was so careless, who might letit out at any moment; and in the next, he must take every precaution that no one should ever discover what had passed. Even his cheque might be compromising to Eddy; there must be no way of betraying him, no possibility left. He turned over in his mind, as he hurried home, all the precautions that could be taken to conceal the transaction. Archie was not a man of business. He had little knowledge of the ways of banks and the manner of passing money from one hand to another. But when the heart is concerned, the mind becomes ingenious. And he had thought it well out, and how it was to be done, so that whatever secrets might be revealed, nothing of this should ever come out against Eddy, before he had reached home.
Eddy himself was too much ashamed of the part he was playing to walk home with the young man who had thus come to his help. There was so much grace left in him that he could not do that. He made the excuse that he was going a little way up the loch to speak to Alick Chalmers, the universal agent, about something that was wanted for the decoration of the ball-room, and when Archie had left him he stood watching his progress over the hill till he was out of sight. He had been really touched by Archie’s kindness, and by the absolute trust that young Rowland had showed in him, and something of compunction, something of unwonted tenderness was in Eddy’s eyes as he looked after that good Samaritan. “What a good fellow he is,” he said to himself; “but Jove! how badly he carries himself. To think he should treat a man like that whom he knows so little as he knowsme; but I ought to have gone with him, for he’ll be on his nose before he gets down to the road.”
He could not but laugh at the manner in which Archie cannoned off a big boulder and nearly rolled down the hill at one point in his progress. His heart was still touched, but yet to be as awkward as that, was what no man had any right to be. Then he threw himself down on the heather again and thought, steadily following out with puckered eyebrows and a set face the scheme which had sprung to being in his brain when he set his eyes on the cheque which now kept him warm against his bosom. How much fun and frolic there was in that bit of paper, if he could have used it for his own pleasure. It gleamed across him that he might yet use it for his own pleasure and let everything slide; but there are some things that are more necessary than pleasure even to the most sordid mind. He had hailed this money as a benediction from heaven when it first dropped so unexpectedly into his hands, to enable him perhaps to arrange his most pressing affairs and deliver himself from a galling presence. But by the time Eddy rose from his seat among the heather, the most lively feeling he felt in his mind was resignation, and a sense that he was giving up his personal wishes in the noble way of paying an old debt, when he might have got so much fun out of the money! It was a wonderful change of view.
He took his way to the upper end of the loch, but not to see Alick Chalmers. He went on for a mile or two on the crest of the hill, and then dropped down upon a little cluster of houses on a little knollamong the harvest fields where the scanty crop was only being gathered in in the end of October. Johnson came out of one of those houses as the young man approached.
“If you’ve anything particular to say, let us go up the hill,” he said. “It aint safe talking in these little holes. They can hear you in the other room, if not next door.”
“What makes you think I have anything to say?”
“Well, there’s those invitations you promised me,” said Johnson.
“Promised you! I said I’d ask for you. I’ll get them if you’ll do what I want for me.”
“Not a farthing more money, Master Eddy; it’s no use speaking. To mention it even, would be as much as my place is worth.”
“You fool! who’s talking of money?” said Eddy.
They mounted up slowly till they came to a little green knoll, a sort of oasis in the waste of the heather.
“There’s nobody can listen here,” he said. “I’ve brought you a payment on account, Johnson. Look here, if you’ll get him to take this, and wait for the rest till I can get it——”
“I daren’t make such a proposal, Master Eddy; he’ll have all or none—the whole sum, every penny—or he’ll write and expose you.”
“Hold your tongue, I say. Look at it first and see—it’s as good as sovereigns counted out upon the table—it’s not like a bill or that sort——”
“You don’t suppose he’d take a bill ofyou!”
“You needn’t be so dead sarcastic,” said Eddy.“He’s had many a worse fellow than me to deal with. Look here, Johnson, a hundred pounds down—or perhaps I could make it a hundred and fifty. It’s a pity to refuse good money. If anything were to happen to me to-morrow; if you were to put some shot into me, for instance, on Friday on the moor——”
“Do you mean?” cried Johnson, his unwholesome white face lighting up with pleasure. “I can’t do what you want, Mr. Eddy, for it don’t depend upon me: but I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, man. It’s the thing I’ve wished most.”
“And do you think,” said Eddy, “I’m going to do that for nothing? Not such a fool, my fine fellow. A hundred and fifty, Johnson—down; and as good as gold paid over the counter. Wire him that it’s an offer, and that you’ll be able to push business among the swells you will meet. I can introduce you to half the bigwigs about——, and if you don’t make something out of them.—But I must have that confounded paper back.”
“I don’t wonder that you say so; but it’s no use speaking. If I——it depended upon me! and Master Eddy, if I can do you a good turn another time I will. You never can tell when you may want a good turn.”
“I want this good turn—that confounded bit of paper, and a little ease of my life. Look here!—and there’s more where that came from.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Johnson. He took the cheque out of the young man’s hands and examined it closely. “Yes,” he said; “it’s as good as gold. Lord, what a pity, when he was doing it, he didn’t go a littlebit farther and add a nought! Another nought, and just a little bit of change in one word. Bless us all, how easy he could have done it—a touch of the pen.” Johnson put his hand on the cheque, pointing out lightly here and there where the improvement could have been made. “The one would be just as easy to him as the other,” he said “And think! then you would be set right in a moment; that bit of paper given up, and everything squared. When you have a friend like this, why can’t you get him to do something that’s of real use? A hundred’s nothing; I would advise you to keep that for yourself. It might be of use to you for pocket-money. It’s of no use to us.”
“It’s precisely a hundred pounds’ worth of use,” said Eddy.
“Ah! if you take it in that way; buthewouldn’t take it in that way. He would say it’s the tenth part of our claim, and I’m not going to let a young fellow like that (he would say—mind, it’s not me) off for a tenth of our claim. How much more money (he would say) d’ye think we’d get out of him after he had his bit of paper back. No, no, Master Eddy, no use to try on that little dodge, he’s far too old a bird. But, so far as I am concerned, if there’s anything in a moderate way I could help you in, after what you’re going to do for me——”
“How do you know I’ll do it for you now? It’s nothing for nothing in this world,” said Eddy, fiercely. “If you don’t help me, why should I take any trouble? Your day’s shooting and your ball depend upon me, and I’m willing to see you through these and introduce you to all the bigwigs, but if I get nothing in return——”
“Only a word of advice,” said Johnson. “Go back to your friend, Master Eddy, and get him to alter that thing there; he could do it with a scratch of his pen. Another nought, and there’s nothing easier for a man, when it’s his own writing, to change a word. If it looks blotchy, don’t you know he puts his initials to show it’s all right—I’ve seen it done a dozen times—that’s all he’s got to do, and everything would be square. Take it back to him, Master Eddy, that’s my advice.”
“I think you’re the devil in person, Johnson,” was what Eddy replied.
Onthe evening of the same day Archie Rowland knocked at Eddy’s door. It had been an evening of the lively order, which had now become habitual at Rosmore. Eddy and Marion had carried all before them. After a long discussion of the details of the ball, the decorations in which Eddy was collaborating with Mrs. Rowland, and fertile in a thousand suggestions, Rosamond had again struck up a waltz on the piano, and the two gayest members of the party had immediately started off. There were present some of Miss Eliza’s many nieces and nephews from the Burn, and in a few minutes two or three couples had “taken the floor,” winding in and out of the furniture, withdifficulties which increased the mirth. Mr. Rowland himself had come in from the dining-room while this lively scene was going on, and had looked upon it benignantly for a minute or two in the doorway, but had ended by going away, amused but perhaps a little bored by this unreasoning invasion of his quiet, as the father of a family not unfrequently does, not displeased that his children should enjoy themselves, but with an odd sense of bachelorhood and detachment as he takes refuge in his library, supposing him to have one. Evelyn had been looking on too, still more benignant, glad that the youthful members of the party should be occupied anyhow, ready to take her place at the piano, and help them to keep it up, yet a little disturbed by the withdrawal of her husband, and instantly conscious, sympathetically, that the too-prominent and continual amusement of the young people had its disadvantageous side. Probably had she been their mother, she would have taken their part more warmly, and with a vague blame in her mind of the man who could not blot himself out as she did, for what pleased the children. Archie, to whom this evening, in the greater number of performers, Rosamond could not offer herself as a partner, felt like his father, a little annoyed and very much amazed with himself for feeling annoyed. How much better, he said to himself, to be like Saumarez, able to give himself up to what other people wished, to amuse them, and make the evening “go off” for the guests. Archie felt that he himself would never be up to that. He would never be able to forget himself and throw off all his cares, and sacrifice himself on the altar ofhis guests. A secret longing forced itself upon him to get rid of them all, to be quiet, even as in the dull evenings before the arrival of the visitors. The evenings had been very dull, but still—. As for the old life in Glasgow, Archie somehow did not go back to that—it had retired so very far away out of his ken. If it had been thirty years ago instead of four months it could not have become more completely impossible, a thing got into the abyss of the past, not to be thought of any more.
It was late when he walked softly through the dim corridor upstairs, in which one lamp only was burning low, making a sort of darkness visible. Everybody was asleep, or at least so it appeared from the absolute stillness of the house. He felt as if his step now and then coming upon a plank in the flooring which creaked, must startle the people retired in those silent rooms like the tread of a thief in the night. Nothing could be more unlike a thief than Archie was, stealing along in the dark to give away all he possessed in the world to a man whom he did not by any means love, who was his neighbour only in the broadest sense of the word, one who wanted something which he possessed. He had made out all his generous foolish plans, as to how it could be best done, so that nobody need ever know that he had come to Eddy’s aid, not even a banker’s clerk. He knocked softly at the door from underneath which there was a glimmer of light, the only one in the long corridor where any sign of life was to be seen. His knock was not responded to for the first moment. He heard a little rustle and movement ofpaper, and then he knocked a second time, and again after a little interval Eddy came and opened the door.
“Oh it’s you, Rowland,” he said, admitting him instantly.
Eddy had been sitting at a writing table, with a number of papers before him, over which he had tossed a newspaper, the first thing that came handy, when he heard Archie’s knock. There was no reason why he should have covered up his papers so. What he had been lost in contemplation of, was Archie’s cheque, which was stretched out before him in his blotting book, and which he was poring over with no doubt the grateful sensations which a man has when a friend holds out to him, when he is drowning, a helpful hand. He had been looking at it with his head on one side, and a look of earnest and fixed observation, sometimes making a visionary line with his pencil in the air, here and there. Perhaps a little regret about that nought that was wanting might be in his mind. Eddy was very hard pressed. The bit of paper which the money-lender had in his possession, which he held over the unfortunate young man’s head, demanding a ransom as cruel and extravagant as any blood-money, was enough to ruin Eddy for ever and ever. No aid or succour from his friends would enable him to get over it, and he dared not on account of this examine the demand made upon him, or attempt to have it ratified. He must pay it or he himself must sink to the very pit of social annihilation. Eddy was very well known to be a littlemauvais sujet, as his father had been before him. Still that was a thing which society could ignore:it could even have permitted him to marry an heiress, with a sensation of pleasure in having him so well disposed of; but the bit of paper in the usurer’s hand was a different matter. That was a thing which could not be admitted, and could not be forgotten. At all hazards, at all costs, that must be got rid of. If there only had been that other nought, if only athad been prefixed to thehof the hundred, and sundry other unimportant alterations made! It was impossible not to think of this, not to see how easy it would have been, had Mr. Rowland been possessed by so good an idea. What a pity! what a pity! Eddy with all his thinking could not imagine a plan by which Rowland could be made to do that: and yet how easy it would be! He threw the Glasgow paper over it when he heard the knock at the door.
“Oh, is it you, Rowland? Come in. I was just looking at the—paper before I went to bed.”
“Its little interest it can have for you—a Glasgow paper,” said Archie with a smile. And then he said, “I’ve come to speak about what we were saying this afternoon on the hill.”
“Yes?” said Eddy. He has repented already, he said to himself with a deep drawn breath.
Archie stammered and hesitated, and blushed as he sat down at the table. He began to rustle and pluck at the corner of the paper unconsciously with those awkward fingers which he never knew what to do with. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, and could get out no more.
“Look here,” said Eddy nervously, “if you’ve beenthinking, Rowland, as would be quite natural, that you were taken by surprise to-day on the hill, that you handed over that cheque to me in a moment of weakness, and that now on thinking it over you felt that you had been a fool, and that my troubles were no concern of yours—don’t beat about the bush. I have been thinking just the same myself. Its monstrous you should be put out about a fellow’s concerns whom you had never seen a month ago, and never may see again. Say it out, there’s a good fellow; don’t hesitate and spare my feelings. I agree beforehand in every word you say.”
Archie stood open-mouthed while his companion delivered very rapidly this little oration, in which there was a great deal of genuine feeling: for Eddy thought it was almost inevitable that such a rash piece of generosity should be repented of, and yet was in so much mental excitement concerning the matter altogether, that his mind was full of impatient resentment against the man whose action (mentally) he approved, and whom he believed to be doing the most natural thing in the world.
“I suppose,” said Archie, “it’s the natural thing, because a man is a little behind in his company manners, and all that, and can’t ride, or shoot, or dance, or anything as well as you; that you should make sure he is a cad all round, as you say.”
“What do you mean?” cried Eddy, with his sharp eyes doing all he knew to read a face, to him altogether inscrutable in the simplicity of its single-mindedness.
“So long as you don’t ask me to discuss whatyoumean,” said Archie, with a careless disdain which stung the other: for, indeed, the lad was desperate in the feeling of being unable to get himself understood, whether from one side or another. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, “the best way of getting that money without compromising—any person. It’s a transaction between ourselves that nobody has anything to do with. My father might ask to see my bank book. I am perhaps doing him the same injustice that I think you are doing me; but he might, for my own good, if he thought I was spending too much. Now, I don’t want him to poke into this, and find perhaps your name, or—— Therefore I was thinking, suppose we go up to Glasgow, you and me? There’s these things that you want for the ball—that would be a very good excuse. And then I can draw out the money myself, in notes or gold, or whatever you please, which will leave no record on the books, so that I will be in it alone if there should be any remarks, and not you. Do you see? Here’s the cheque for the other fifty pounds. You can have it that way if you like, of course; but I can’t help thinking it would be better my way.”
“Rowland,” said Eddy, giving him one glance, then withdrawing his eyes quickly, as from an inspection he could not bear; “do you do all this for my sake?”
“I don’t know that it’s for any one’s sake. It’s just the easiest way—not to compromise any one. If I’m asked for an explanation, I can give it in my own way—about myself. But if I am asked for an explanation about you, I neither could give it, nor would I:you see the difference. It’s just a plain business view.”
“It is not a common kind of business,” said Eddy; “it’s the first time I ever heard that sort of thing called business. You’re a queer fellow, Rowland; but I think you must be about the best fellow I ever knew.”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Archie. “I have something I don’t want, and you want something you haven’t got. We niffer, that’s all. Oh, I suppose you don’t understand that word, it’s Scotch. We exchange, that’s what it means.”
“And what do I give in exchange?” said Eddy. The question was asked rather of himself than of Archie, who made no reply, except a little shame-faced laugh. Young Saumarez reflected a little, with working eyebrows and twitching mouth. He said at last, “I’ll take you at your word, Rowland; this will make it a debt of honour. I’ll take you at your word. A thing that’s got no evidence, that you couldn’t recover, is the only thing that presses on a man’s conscience. I’ll take you at your word.”
Archie again gave vent to a little laugh of embarrassment, and confused relief. He did not enter into the reasoning. Debts of honour, or debts of any kind, were unknown to him. It had driven him almost distracted to think how he was to pay for the two little puppies from Rankin—the doggies which he always thought of with a little bitterness, who had abandoned him and gone over to the enemy. No more than Eddy could have understood that difficulty, could Archie understand how it might be supposed he was securinghimself against loss by astutely giving the character of a debt of honour to the money he was bestowing upon his fellow-creature who was in need. He said simply, “We will consider this as settled, then; and we’ll run up to Glasgow to-morrow. I can show you the place: it is not like London, perhaps; but there’s things in it you couldn’t see in London. There’s a boat about ten o’clock.”
“Oh, I say! that means getting up in the middle of the night.”
“Well, there’s one at twelve. We’ll get there before the bank shuts. You’ll not be able to see so much of the town.”
“I can live without that,” said Eddy.
“Well, Glasgow’s a very fine place,” said Archie gravely, not wishing to permit any disparagement of his native town: and then he rose from the table. He had already unconsciously pulled the newspaper half away, and as he rose up his movement displayed it altogether, and he could not help seeing, notwithstanding Eddy’s eager half-movement to cover it again, the cheque lying opened out upon the blotting-book underneath. He said hastily, “You were just going to send it away——”
“Yes,” said Eddy, his heart beating, not understanding the question, but seizing at it as he would have done at any means of escape.
“Then I just came in time,” said Archie, with a pleased smile.
Eddy took up the cheque, with a feeling of despairclutching at his heart. “You had better have it back,” he said.
“You can bring it up with you,” said Archie; “nobody is likely to ripe your pockets and see what’s in them in the middle of the night.”
With this enigmatical speech, which Eddy did not in the least understand, Rowland bade him a hurried good-night, and took himself away.
Ripe his pockets: what did that mean? but this problem did not occupy much of the precious time which Eddy had to give up to thinking. He found the pencil lying where he had left it, the cabalistic pencil which he had been waving over Archie’s cheque, hoping perhaps to convey thus into it the alterations which James Rowland could have made so easily, which would have cost that millionaire so little, and done Eddy such a world of advantage. A malison on all millionaires! What they might do with a sweep of the pen, without ever feeling it, without knowing that a crumb had fallen off their well-covered tables for a dog to eat! Eddy flung the pencil from him in his indignation. The fellow meant very well, he allowed that. There was advantage in keeping this little transaction quite dark, in obliterating all traces of the loan or gift given him in this way. But, confound the fellow, all the same! Eddy flung his pencil out of his hand, and it fell on the floor at the foot of the table where Archie had been sitting. The dumb articles that one throws away generally have a prompt revenge over us in having to be groped after next minute; and this was what happened to Eddy. But as he stooped to pick it up,his heart began to beat with a wild commotion which almost choked him: for there at the foot of the table, underneath the chair which Archie had pushed away, lay a long booklet in a green paper cover. There could be no doubt to the most ignorant what it was. It was Archie’s cheque book, which he had brought in, in case Eddy should, after all, have preferred his money that way, with a cheque written out for Archie’s spare fifty pounds on the first page, and a dozen more blank cheques behind. The blood mounted up to Eddy’s face. It came in such a rush that he could scarcely see for the moment; and yet he knew very well what it was, and the inconceivable opportunity which the devil—was it the devil, or that something not always benevolent which people call providence, had put into his hand?
He scarcely went to bed at all that night. Hosts, armies, legions of thoughts came up and possessed him like an invaded country, marching and counter-marching through his mind. It was not without a struggle that he yielded, it was not without many struggles. Half-a-dozen times at least he was the victor, and rejected conclusively, triumphantly, the idea set before him; and then the landscape would change, the perspective alter, and regrets, doubts, convictions that wrong was right, specious arguments to show how entirely it had always been so, would rise up and bring back the rushing tide of battle. And then there were things he had to do. He went to bed only when the morning grey had come up over the little town on the other side of the loch, bringing it out of the darknesswith a curious furtive aspect, stealing into the light as if it had been lying in wait for this moment, which indeed was quite true. He tossed himself on his bed, and courted sleep ineffectually for half an hour, but after that time it came with all the force of a despot. He slept, as men or boys sleep only at twenty, till the day was bright all over the loch. At twenty! oh heavens, was that all the age he was, that haggard little grey face waking up and remembering in the great pale shining of the light.
He went into Archie’s room on his way downstairs and put back the cheque book which he had found. Archie had breakfasted an hour before, and explained to the family that he was going to Glasgow by the mid-day boat, and Saumarez with him, to see after those things for the ball.
“You seem to be getting great friends with Eddy,” Mrs. Rowland said in the pause which followed this speech. The words were simple enough, but they went with a wave of interest round the table.
“Well, no harm Evelyn, no harm,” said Rowland, pleased that his boy was making friends in what the poor man in his heart called “our own position.”
Marion put on a little conscious look, blushed a little and smiled a little, as if she knew the private cause of this friendship—while Rosamond opened a little wider her steady eyes, and turned them with an inquiry upon Archie. He did not shrink from the attention thus attracted towards him: his heart was soft to Eddy, to whom he was about to do so great a service. It is a wonderfully softening process to be verygood to any one, and makes us think better of the objects of our kindness. Eddy had become more interesting to Archie than he had ever thought it possible he would find him; and this not for any one’s sake, not even for Rosamond’s but for his own. The only effect, curiously enough, of this incident was to deepen his dislike to his stepmother. She was the one to question and object, he thought. Perhaps she thought him not good enough for Eddy—most likely, as Eddy was of her own kind. Eddy, though so late that the party had all dispersed from the table, except Mrs. Rowland herself, who was reading her letters, and Marion, who was making pretence of looking over the fashion papers in order to wait for his appearance, was in great spirits and full of the expedition he was about to make.
“Rowland is going to show me everything,” he said. He made a very bad breakfast, eating nothing, but he was full of talk and apparent enjoyment, and begged the ladies to give him commissions. “Archie may forget, but I will not forget.” He insisted that Marion and his sister should walk down to the pier to see them off.
“Come along, Rose,” he called to her as they all came out on the colonnade, “don’t you see I am going out sight-seeing. I am a British tourist. I am not sure that I am not a Tripper—and Rowland is taking care of me. Come and see me safe into the boat.” He continued in an extremely cheerful condition all the way to the ferry, keeping up a fire of banter.
“The laddie’s fey, I think,” said old Saunders on the pier, who resented too much liberty.
“And Eddy, I don’t think you are well. I think you are feverish,” said Rosamond.
“You don’t say those sisterly things,” said Eddy to Marion.
“Oh,” cried the girl, “I just never mind. What would I do if I were to make myself uneasy about everything? It is time enough when there is any occasion. And Archie would never mind what I said.”
“But I should mind always,” said Eddy, lowering his voice.
“You! but you would not like me to ask you if you were feverish.”
“I should tell you I was always feverish—with rage, when I saw you wasting your attention listening to fellows like that nephew. It is that that has made my head ache,” cried Eddy. “I thirst for his blood.”
“He has never done you any harm,” said Marion demurely.
“Thank heaven no one is coming to-night. I shall have you all to myself to-night. There will be no nephews about. I shall make Archie take me to where you used to live.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t like that at all,” said Marion. “It’s not a place to see. We were put there when we were little children, when it didn’t matter where we lived. Don’t go to any such place. There’s nothing to see.”
“There would always be some trace of you,” said Eddy, making great use of his eyes. And then they both burst into a laugh.
“You’re so silly that one doesn’t know how tospeak to you,” said Marion, “but for all that don’t go there.”
Rosamond walked along with her long tread in stately seriousness after them. She said, “You are very kind to take Eddy in hand. He wants so much to be steadied, and get a little solidity. I would much rather have him with you than with more——” She paused a moment, and looked her companion over with her steady gaze.
“How? You mean better company,” he said.
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean—people in the world: he is so much better out of the world, and seeing nobody he ever knew before.”
“Among the natives,” said Archie with a laugh.
Rosamond did not contradict him or look as if he had made any mistake. She said with a sigh, “Eddy wants a great deal of looking after. I wish I could find some one to pay a little attention to him. He will be good for a few days, and then he will go all wrong, as if he had never pulled up before.” She sighed, and added, “keep him safe for me to-day. Don’t let him go and roam about spending money.”
“I will do my best.”
“Are you a man that spends money yourself, Mr. Rowland. People don’t do that in Scotland, do they? They are different.”
“They cannot do that,” said Archie, with a laugh, “when they have nothing in their pockets to spend.”
“I beg your pardon. I thought you had quantities of money,” Rosamond said.