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Title: Macleod of Dare

Author: William Black

Release Date: April 8, 2005 [EBook #15587]

Language: English

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               MACLEOD OF DARE.

                      BY

                WILLIAM BLACK,

                   AUTHOR OF

"A PRINCESS OF THULE," "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON,"
        "A DAUGHTER OF HETH," ETC., ETC.

       *       *       *       *       *

                   NEW YORK:

           JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER,

                      1883.


       *       *       *       *       *


               MACLEOD OF DARE.


       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER I.

THE SIX BOYS OF DARE.


The sun had sunk behind the lonely western seas; Ulva, and Lunga, and
the Dutchman's Cap had grown dark on the darkening waters; and the
smooth Atlantic swell was booming along the sombre caves; but up here in
Castle Dare, on the high and rocky coast of Mull, the great hall was lit
with such a blaze of candles as Castle Dare had but rarely seen. And yet
there did not seem to be any grand festivities going forward; for there
were only three people seated at one end of the long and narrow table;
and the banquet that the faithful Hamish had provided for them was of
the most frugal kind. At the head of the table sat an old lady with
silvery-white hair and proud and fine features. It would have been a
keen and haughty face but for the unutterable sadness of the
eyes--blue-gray eyes under black eyelashes that must have been beautiful
enough in her youth, but were now dimmed and worn, as if the weight of
the world's sorrows had been too much for the proud, high spirit. On the
right of Lady Macleod sat the last of her six sons, Keith by name, a
tall, sparely built, sinewy young fellow, with a sun-tanned cheek and
crisp and curling hair, and with a happy and careless look in his clear
eyes and about his mouth that rather blinded one to the firm lines of
his face. Glad youth shone there, and the health begotten of hard
exposure to wind and weather. What was life to him but a laugh: so long
as there was a prow to cleave the plunging seas, and a glass to pick out
the branching antlers far away amidst the mists of the corrie? To please
his mother, on this the last night of his being at home, he wore the
kilts; and he had hung his broad blue bonnet, with its sprig of
juniper--the badge of the clan--on the top of one of many pikes and
halberds that stood by the great fireplace. Opposite him, on the old
lady's left hand, sat his cousin, or rather half-cousin, the
plain-featured but large-hearted Janet, whom the poor people about that
neighborhood regarded as being something more than any mere mortal
woman. If there had been any young artist among that Celtic peasantry
fired by religious enthusiasm to paint the face of a Madonna, it would
have been the plain features of Janet Macleod he would have dreamed
about and striven to transfer to his canvas. Her eyes were fine, it is
true: they were honest and tender; they were not unlike the eyes of the
grand old lady who sat at the head of the table; but, unlike hers, they
were not weighted with the sorrow of years.

"It is a dark hour you have chosen to go away from your home," said the
mother; and the lean hand, resting on the table before her, trembled
somewhat.

"Why, mother," the young man said, lightly, "you know I am to have
Captain ----'s cabin as far as Greenock; and there will be plenty of
time for me to put the kilts away before I am seen by the people."

"Oh, Keith," his cousin cried--for she was trying to be very cheerful,
too--"do you say that you are ashamed of the tartan?"

"Ashamed of the tartan!" he said, with a laugh. "Is there any one who
has been brought up at Dare who is likely to be ashamed of the tartan!
When I am ashamed of the tartan I will put a pigeon's feather in my cap,
as the new _suaicheantas_ of this branch of Clann Leoid. But then, my
good Janet, I would as soon think of taking my rifle and the dogs
through the streets of London as of wearing the kilts in the south."

The old lady paid no heed. Her hands were now clasped before her. There
was sad thinking in her eyes.

"You are the last of my six boys," said she, "and you are going away
from me too."

"Now, now, mother," said he, "you must not make so much of a holiday.
You would not have me always at Dare? You know that no good comes of a
stay-at-home."

She knew the proverb. Her other sons had not been stay-at-homes. What
had come to them!

Of Sholto, the eldest, the traveller, the dare-devil, the grave is
unknown; but the story of how he met his death, in far Arizona, came
years after to England and to Castle Dare. He sold his life dearly, as
became one of his race and name. When his cowardly attendants found a
band of twenty Apaches riding down on them, they unhitched the mules and
galloped off, leaving him to confront the savages by himself. One of
these, more courageous than his fellows, advanced and drew his arrow to
the barb; the next second he uttered a yell, and rolled from his saddle
to the ground, shot through the heart. Macleod seized this instant, when
the savages were terror-stricken by the precision of the white man's
weapons, to retreat a few yards and get behind a mesquit-tree. Here he
was pretty well sheltered from the arrows that they sent in clouds about
him, while he succeeded in killing other two of his enemies who had
ventured to approach. At last they rode off: and it seemed as though he
would be permitted to rejoin his dastardly comrades. But the Indians had
only gone to windward to set the tall grass on fire; and presently he
had to scramble, burned and blinded, up the tree, where he was an easy
mark for their arrows. Fortunately, when he fell he was dead. This was
the story told by some friendly Indians to a party of white men, and
subsequently brought home to Castle Dare.

The next four of the sons of Dare were soldiers, as most of the Macleods
of that family had been. And if you ask about the graves of Roderick and
Ronald, what is one to say? They are known, and yet unknown. The two
lads were in one of the Highland regiments that served in the Crimea.
They both lie buried on the bleak plains outside Sevastopol. And if the
memorial stones put up to them and their brother officers are falling
into ruin and decay--if the very graves have been rifled--how is England
to help that? England is the poorest country in the world. There was a
talk some two or three years ago of putting up a monument on Cathcart
Hill to the Englishmen who died in the Crimea; and that at least would
have been some token of remembrance, even if we could not collect the
scattered remains of our slain sons, as the French have done, but then
that monument would have cost £5000. How could England afford £5000?
When a big American city takes fire, or when a district in France is
inundated, she can put her hand into her pocket deeply enough; but how
can we expect so proud a mother to think twice about her children who
perished in fighting for her? Happily the dead are independent of
forgetfulness.

Duncan the Fair-haired--Donacha Ban, they called him, far and wide among
the hills--lies buried in a jungle on the African coast. He was only
twenty-three when he was killed: but he knew he had got the Victoria
Cross. As he lay dying, he asked whether the people in England would
send it to his mother, showing that his last fancies were still about
Castle Dare.

And Hector? As you cross the river at Sadowa, and pass through a bit of
forest, some cornfields begin to appear, and these stretch away up to
the heights of Chlum. Along the ridge there, by the side of the wood,
are many mounds of earth. Over the grave of Hector Macleod is no proud
and pathetic inscription such as marks the last resting-place of a young
lieutenant who perished at Gravelotte--_Er ruht saft in wiedererkampfter
deutscher Erde_--but the young Highland officer was well beloved by his
comrades, and when the dead were being pitched into the great holes dug
for them, and when rude hands were preparing the simple record, painted
on a wooden cross---"_Hier liegen--tapfere Krieger_"--a separate memento
was placed over the grave of Under-lieutenant Hector Macleod of the
----th Imperial and Royal Cavalry Regiment. He was one of the two sons
who had not inherited the title. Was it not a proud boast for this
white-haired lady in Mull that she had been the mother of four baronets?
What other mother in all the land could say as much? And yet it was that
that had dimmed and saddened the beautiful eyes.

And now her youngest--her Benjamin, her best-beloved--he was going away
from her too. It was not enough that the big deer forest, the last of
the possessions of the Macleods of Dare, had been kept intact for him,
when the letting of it to a rich Englishman would greatly have helped
the failing fortunes of the family; it was not enough that the poor
people about, knowing Lady Macleod's wishes, had no thought of keeping a
salmon spear hidden in the thatch of their cottages. Salmon and stag
could no longer bind him to the place. The young blood stirred. And when
he asked her what good things came of being a stay-at-home, what could
she say?

Suddenly old Hamish threw wide the oaken doors at the end of the hall,
and there was a low roar like the roaring of lions. And then a young
lad, with the pipes proudly perched on his shoulder, marched in with a
stately step, and joyous and shrill arose the Salute. Three times he
marched round the long and narrow hall, finishing behind Keith Macleod's
chair. The young man turned to him.

"It was well played, Donald," said he, in the Gaelic; "and I will tell
you that the Skye College in the old times never turned out a better
pupil. And will you take a glass of whiskey now, or a glass of claret?
And it is a great pity your hair is red, or they would call you Donull
Dubh, and people would say you were the born successor of the last of
the MacCruimins."

At this praise--imagine telling a piper lad that he was a fit successor
of the MacCruimins, the hereditary pipers of the Macleods--the young
stripling blushed hot; but he did not forget his professional dignity
for all that. And he was so proud of his good English that he replied in
that tongue.

"I will take a glass of the claret wine, Sir Keith," said he.

Young Macleod took up a horn tumbler, rimmed with silver, and having the
triple-towered castle of the Macleods engraved on it, and filled it with
wine. He handed it to the lad.

"I drink your health, Lady Macleod," said he, when he had removed his
cap; "and I drink your health, Miss Macleod; and I drink your health,
Sir Keith; and I would have a lighter heart this night if I was going
with you away to England."

It was a bold demand.

"I cannot take you with me, Donald; the Macleods have got out of the way
of taking their piper with them now. You must stay and look after the
dogs."

"But you are taking Oscar with you, Sir Keith."

"Yes, I am. I must make sure of having one friend with me in the south."

"And I think I would be better than a collie," muttered the lad to
himself, as he moved off in a proud and hurt way toward the door, his
cap still in his hand.

And now a great silence fell over these three; and Janet Macleod looked
anxiously toward the old lady, who sat unmoved in the face of the
ordeal through which she knew she must pass. It was an old custom that
each night a pibroch should be played in Castle Dare in remembrance of
her five slain sons; and yet on this one night her niece would fain have
seen that custom abandoned. For was not the pibroch the famous and
pathetic "Cumhadh na Cloinne," the Lament for the Children, that Patrick
Mor, one of the pipers of Macleod of Skye, had composed to the memory of
his seven sons, who had all died within one year? And now the doors were
opened, and the piper boy once more entered. The wild, sad wail arose:
and slow and solemn was the step with which he walked up the hall. Lady
Macleod sat calm and erect, her lips proud and firm, but her lean hands
were working nervously together; and at last, when the doors were closed
on the slow and stately and mournful Lament for the Children, she bent
down the silvery head on those wrinkled hands and wept aloud. Patrick
Mor's seven brave sons could have been no more to him than her six tall
lads had been to her; and now the last of them was going away from her.

"Do you know," said Janet, quickly, to her cousin across the table,
"that it is said no piper in the West Highlands can play 'Lord Lovat's
Lament' like our Donald?"

"Oh yes, he plays it very well; and he has got a good step," Macleod
said. "But you will tell him to play no more Laments to-night. Let him
take to strathspeys if any of the lads come up after bringing back the
boat. It will be time enough for him to make a Lament for me when I am
dead. Come, mother, have you no message for Norman Ogilvie?"

The old lady had nerved herself again, though her hands were still
trembling.

"I hope he will come back with you, Keith," she said.

"For the shooting? No, no, mother. He was not fit for the shooting about
here: I have seen that long ago. Do you think he could lie for an hour
in a wet bog? It was up at Fort William I saw him last year, and I said
to him, 'Do you wear gloves at Aldershot?' His hands were as white as
the hands of a woman."

"It is no woman's hand you have, Keith," his cousin said; "it is a
soldier's hand."

"Yes," said he, with his face flushing, "and if I had had Norman
Ogilvie's chance--"

But he paused. Could he reproach this old dame, on the very night of his
departure, with having disappointed all those dreams of military service
and glory that are almost the natural inheritance of a Macleod of the
Western Highlands? If he was a stay-at-home, at least his hands were not
white. And yet, when young Ogilvie and he studied under the same
tutor--the poor man had to travel eighteen miles between the two houses,
many a time in hard weather--all the talk and aspirations of the boys
were about a soldier's life; and Macleod could show his friend the
various trophies, and curiosities sent home by his elder brothers from
all parts of the world. And now the lily-fingered and gentle-natured
Ogilvie was at Aldershot; while he--what else was he than a mere
deer-stalker and salmon-killer?

"Ogilvie has been very kind to me, mother," he said, laughing. "He has
sent me a list of places in London where I am to get my clothes, and
boots, and a hat; and by the time I have done that, he will be up from
Aldershot, and will lead me about--with a string round my neck, I
suppose, lest I should bite somebody."

"You could not go better to London than in your own tartan," said the
proud mother; "and it is not for an Ogilvie to say how a Macleod should
be dressed. But it is no matter, one after the other has gone; the house
is left empty at last. And they all went away like you, with a laugh on
their face. It was but a trip, a holiday, they said: they would soon be
back to Dare. And where are they this night?"

Old Hamish came in.

"It will be time for the boat now, Sir Keith, and the men are down at
the shore."

He rose, the handsome young fellow, and took his broad, blue bonnet with
the badge of juniper.

"Good-by, cousin Janet," said he, lightly. "Good-by, mother. You are not
going to send me away in this sad fashion? What am I to bring you
back--a satin gown from Paris? or a young bride to cheer up the old
house?"

She took no heed of the passing jest. He kissed her, and bade her
good-by once more. The clear stars were shining over Castle Dare, and
over the black shadows of the mountains, and the smoothly swelling
waters of the Atlantic. There was a dull booming of the waves along the
rocks.

He had thrown his plaid round him, and he was wondering to himself as he
descended the steep path to the shore. He could not believe that the two
women were really saddened by his going to the south for awhile; he was
not given to forebodings. And he had nearly reached the shore, when he
was overtaken by some one running, with a light step behind him. He
turned quickly, and found his cousin before him, a shawl thrown round
her head and shoulders.

"Oh, Keith," said she, in a bright and matter-of-fact way, "I have a
message for you--from myself--and I did not want aunt to hear, for she
is very proud, you know, and I hope you won't be. You know we are all
very poor, Keith; and yet you must not want money in London, if only for
the sake of the family; and you know I have a little, Keith, and I want
you to take it. You won't mind my being frank with you. I have written a
letter."

She had the envelope in her hand.

"And if I would take money from any one, it would be from you, Cousin
Janet; but I am not so selfish as that. What would all the poor people
do if I were to take your money to London and spend it?"

"I have kept a little," said she, "and it is not much that is needed. It
is £2000 I would like you to take from me, Keith. I have written a
letter."

"Why, bless me, Janet, that is nearly all the money you've got!"

"I know it."

"Well, I may not be able to earn any money for myself, but at least I
would not think of squandering your little fortune. No, no; but I thank
you all the same, Janet; and I know that it is with a free heart that
you offer it."

"But this is a favor, Keith," said she. "I do not ask you, to spend the
money. But you might be in trouble; and you would be too proud to ask
any one--perhaps you would not even ask me; and here is a letter that
you can keep till then, and if you should want the money, you can open
the letter, and it will tell you how to get it."

"And it is a poor forecast you are making, Cousin Janet," said he,
cheerfully. "I am to play the prodigal son, then. But I will take the
letter. And good-bye again, Janet; and God bless you, for you are a
kind-hearted woman."

She went swiftly up to Castle Dare again, and he walked on toward the
shore. By-and-by he reached a small stone pier that ran out among some
rocks, and by the side of it lay a small sailing launch, with four men
in her, and Donald the piper boy perched up at the bow. There was a lamp
swinging at her mast, but she had no sail up, for there was scarcely any
wind.

"Is it time to go out now?" said Macleod to Hamish who stood waiting on
the pier, having carried down his master's portmanteau.

"Ay, it will be time now, even if you will wait a little," said Hamish.
And then the old man added, "It is a dark night, Sir Keith, for your
going away from Castle Dare."

"And it will be the brighter morning when I come back," answered the
young man, for he could not mistake the intention of the words.

"Yes, indeed, Sir Keith; and now you will go into the boat, and you will
take care of your footing, for the night is dark, and the rocks they are
always slippery whatever."

But Keith Macleod's foot was as familiar with the soft sea-weed of the
rocks as it was with the hard heather of the hills, and he found no
difficulty in getting into the broad-beamed boat. The men put out their
oars and pushed her off. And now, in the dark night, the skill of the
pipes rose again; and it was no stately and mournful lament that young
Donald played up there at the bow as the four oars struck the sea and
sent a flash of white fire down into the deeps.

"Donald," Hamish had said to him on the shore, "when you are going out
to the steamer, it is the 'Seventy-ninth's Farewell to Chubraltar'
that you will play, and you will play no other thing than that."

And surely the Seventy-ninth were not sorry to leave Gibraltar when
their piper composed for them so glad a farewell.

At the high windows of Castle Dare the mother stood, and her niece, and
as they watched the yellow lamp move slowly out from the black shore,
they heard this proud and joyous march that Donald was playing to herald
the approach of his master. They listened to it as it grew fainter and
fainter, and as the small yellow star trembling over the dark waters,
became more and more remote. And then this other sound--this blowing of
a steam whistle far away in the darkness?

"He will be in good time, aunt; she is a long way off yet," said Janet
Macleod. But the mother did not speak.

Out there on the dark and moving waters the great steamer was slowly
drawing near the open boat; and as she came up, the vast hull of her,
seen against the starlit sky, seemed a mountain.

"Now, Donald," Macleod called out, "you will take the dog--here is the
string; and you will see he does not spring into the water."

"Yes, I will take the dog," muttered the boy, half to himself. "Oh yes,
I will take the dog; but it is better if I was going with you, Sir
Keith, than any dog."

A rope was thrown out, the boat dragged up to the side of the steamer,
the small gangway let down, and presently Macleod was on the deck of the
large vessel. Then Oscar was hauled up too, and the rope flung loose,
and the boat drifted away into the darkness. But the last good-bye had
not been said, for over the black waters came the sound of pipes once
more, the melancholy wail of "Macintosh's Lament."

"Confound that obstinate brat!" Macleod said to himself. "Now he will go
back to Castle Dare and make the women miserable."

"The captain is below at his supper, Sir Keith," said the mate. "Will
you go down to him?"

"Yes, I will go down to him," said he; and he made his way along the
deck of the steamer.

He was arrested by the sound of some one crying, and he looked down, and
found a woman crouched under the bulwarks, with two small children
asleep on her knee.

"My good woman, what is the matter with you?" said he.

"The night is cold," she said in the Gaelic, "and my children are cold;
and it is a long way that we are going."

He answered her in her own tongue.

"You will be warmer if you go below; but here is a plaid for you,
anyway;" and with that he took the plaid from round his shoulders and
flung it across the children, and passed on.

That was the way of the Macleods of Dare. They had a royal manner with
them. Perhaps that was the reason that their revenues were now far from
royal.

And meanwhile the red light still burned in the high windows of Castle
Dare, and two women were there looking out on the pale stars and the
dark sea beneath. They waited until they heard the plashing of oars in
the small bay below, and the message was brought them that Sir Keith had
got safely on board the great steamer. Then they turned away from the
silent and empty night, and one of them was weeping bitterly.

"It is the last of my six sons that has gone from me," she said, coming
back to the old refrain, and refusing to be comforted.

"And I have lost my brother," said Janet Macleod, in her simple way.
"But he will came back to us, auntie; and then we shall have great
doings at Castle Dare."




CHAPTER II.

MENTOR.


It was with a wholly indescribable surprise and delight that Macleod
came upon the life and stir and gayety of London in the sweet June time,
when the parks and gardens and squares would of themselves have been a
sufficient wonder to him. The change from the sombre shores of lochs Na
Keal, and Iua, and Scridain to this world of sunlit foliage--the golden
yellow of the laburnum, the cream-white of the chestnuts, the rose-pink
of the red hawthorn, and everywhere the keen, translucent green of the
young lime-trees--was enough to fill the heart with joy and gladness,
though he had been no diligent student of landscape and color. The few
days he had to spend by himself--while getting properly dressed to
satisfy the demands of his friend--passed quickly enough. He was not at
all ashamed of his country-made clothes as he watched the whirl of
carriages in Piccadilly, or lounged under the elms at Hyde Park, with
his beautiful silver-white and lemon-colored collie attracting the
admiration of every passer-by. Nor had he waited for the permission of
Lieutenant Ogilvie to make his entrance into, at least, one little
corner of society. He was recognized in St. James's Street one morning
by a noble lady whom he had met once or twice at Inverness; and she,
having stopped her carriage, was pleased to ask him to lunch with
herself and her husband next day. To the great grief of Oscar, who had
to be shut up by himself, Macleod went up next day to Brook Street, and
there met several people whose names he knew as representatives of old
Highland families, but who were very English, as it seemed to him, in
their speech and ways. He was rather petted, for he was a handsome lad,
and he had high spirits and a proud air. And his hostess was so kind as
to mention that the Caledonian Ball was coming off on the 25th, and of
course he must come, in the Highland costume; and as she was one of the
patronesses, should she give him a voucher? Macleod answered,
laughingly, that he would be glad to have it, though he did not know
what it was; whereupon she was pleased to say that no wonder he laughed
at the notion of a voucher being wanted for any Macleod of Dare.

One morning a good-looking and slim young man knocked at the door of a
small house in Bury Street, St. James's, and asked if Sir Keith Macleod
was at home. The man said he was, and the young gentleman entered. He
was a most correctly dressed person. His hat, and gloves, and cane, and
long-tailed frock-coat were all beautiful; but it was, perhaps, the
tightness of his nether garments, or, perhaps, the tightness of his
brilliantly-polished boots (which were partially covered by white
gaiters), that made him go up the narrow little stairs with some
precision of caution. The door was opened and he was announced.

"My dear old boy," said he, "how do you do?" and Macleod gave him a grip
of the hand that nearly burst one of his gloves.

But at this moment an awful accident occurred. From behind the door of
the adjacent bedroom, Oscar, the collie, sprang forward with an angry
growl; then he seemed to recognize the situation of affairs, when he saw
his master holding the stranger's hand; then he began to wag his tail;
then he jumped up with his fore-paws to give a kindly welcome.

"Hang it all, Macleod!" young Ogilvie cried, with all the starch gone
out of his manner; "your dog's all wet? What's the use of keeping a
brute like that about the place?"

Alas! the beautiful, brilliant boots were all besmeared, and the white
gaiters too, and the horsey-looking nether garments. Moreover, the
Highland savage, so far from betraying compunction, burst into a roar of
laughter.

"My dear fellow," he cried, "I put him in my bedroom to dry. I couldn't
do more, could I? He has just been in the Serpentine."

"I wish he was there now, with a stone and a string round his neck!"
observed Lieutenant Ogilvie, looking at his boots; but he repented him
of this rash saying, for within a week he had offered Macleod £20 for
the dog. He might have offered twenty dozen of £20, and thrown his
polished boots and his gaiters too into the bargain, and he would have
had the same answer.

Oscar was once more banished into the bedroom; and Mr. Ogilvie sat down,
pretending to take no more notice of his boots. Macleod put some sherry
on the table, and a handful of cigars; his friend asked whether he
could not have a glass of seltzer-water and a cigarette.

"And how do you like the rooms I got for you?"

"There is not much fresh air about them, nor in this narrow street,"
Macleod said, frankly; "but that is no matter for I have been out all
day--all over London."

"I thought the price was as high as you would care to go," Ogilvie said;
"but I forgot you had come fresh up, with your pocket full of money. If
you would like something a trifle more princely, I'll put you up to it."

"And where have I got the money? There are no gold mines in the west of
Mull. It is you who are Fortunatus."

"By Jove, if you knew how hard a fellow is run at Aldershot," Mr.
Ogilvie remarked, confidentially, "you would scarcely believe it. Every
new batch of fellows who come in have to be dined all round; and the
mess bills are simply awful. It's getting worse and worse; and then
these big drinks put one off one's work so."

"You are studying hard, I suppose," Macleod said, quite gravely.

"Pretty well," said he, stretching out his legs, and petting his pretty
mustache with his beautiful white hand. Then he added, suddenly,
surveying the brown-faced and stalwart young fellow before him, "By
Jove, Macleod, I'm glad to see you in London. It's like a breath of
mountain air. Don't I remember the awful mornings we've had
together--the rain and the mist and the creeping through the bogs? I
believe you did your best to kill me. If I hadn't had the constitution
of a horse, I should have been killed."

"I should say your big drinks at Aldershot were more likely to kill you
than going after the deer," said Macleod, "And will you come up with me
this autumn, Ogilvie? The mother will be glad to see you, and Janet,
too; though we haven't got any fine young ladies for you to make love
to, unless you go up to Fort William, or Fort George, or Inverness. And
I was all over the moors before I came away; and if there is anything
like good weather, we shall have plenty of birds this year, for I never
saw before such a big average of eggs in the nests."

"I wonder you don't let part of that shooting," said young Ogilvie, who
knew well of the straitened circumstances of the Macleods of Dare.

"The mother won't have it done," said Macleod, quite simply, "for she
thinks it keeps me at home. But a young man cannot always stay at home.
It is very good for you, Ogilvie, that you have brothers."

"Yes, if I had been the eldest of them," said Mr. Ogilvie. "It is a
capital thing to have younger brothers; it isn't half so pleasant when
you are the younger brother."

"And will you come up, then, and bury yourself alive at Dare?"

"It is awfully good of you to ask me, Macleod; and if I can manage it, I
will; but I am afraid there isn't much chance this year. In the
meantime, let me give you a hint. In London we talk of going _down_ to
the Highlands."

"Oh, do you? I did not think you were so stupid," Macleod remarked.

"Why, of course we do. You speak of going up to the capital of a
country, and of going down to the provinces."

"Perhaps you are right--no doubt you are right; but it sounds stupid,"
the unconvinced Highlander observed again. "It sounds stupid to say
going up to the south, and going down to the north. And how can you go
down to the Highlands? You might go down to the Lowlands. But no doubt
you are right; and I will be more particular. And will you have another
cigarette? And then we will go out for a walk, and Oscar will get drier
in the street than indoors."

"Don't imagine I am going out to have that dog plunging about among my
feet," said Ogilvie. "But I have something else for you to do. You know
Colonel Ross of Duntorme."

"I have heard of him."

"His wife is an awfully nice woman, and would like to meet you, I fancy
they think of buying some property--I am not sure it isn't an island--in
your part of the country; and she has never been to the Highlands at
all. I was to take you down with me to lunch with her at two, if you
care to go. There is her card."

Macleod looked at the card.

"How far is Prince's Gate from here?" he asked.

"A mile and a half, I should say."

"And it is now twenty minutes to two," said he, rising. "It will be a
nice smart walk."

"Thank you," said Mr. Ogilvie; "if it is all the same to you, we will
perform the journey in a hansom. I am not in training just at present
for your tramps to Ben-an-Sloich."

"Ah! Your boots are rather tight," said Macleod, with grave sympathy.

They got into a hansom, and went spinning along through the crowd of
carriages on this brilliant morning. The busy streets, the handsome
women, the fine buildings, the bright and beautiful foliage of the
parks--all these were a perpetual wonder and delight to the new-comer,
who was as eager in the enjoyment of this gay world of pleasure and
activity as any girl come up for her first season. Perhaps this notion
occurred to the astute and experienced Lieutenant Ogilvie, who
considered it his duty to warn his youthful and ingenuous friend.

"Mrs. Ross is a very handsome woman," he remarked.

"Indeed."

"And uncommonly fascinating, too, when she likes."

"Really."

"You had better look out, if she tries to fascinate you."

"She is a married woman," said Macleod.

"They are always the worst," said this wise person; "for they are
jealous of the younger women."

"Oh, that is all nonsense," said Macleod, bluntly. "I am not such a
greenhorn. I have read all that kind of talk in books and magazines: it
is ridiculous. Do you think I will believe that married women have so
little self-respect as to make themselves the laughing stock of men?"

"My dear fellow, they have cart-loads of self-respect. What I mean is,
that Mrs. Ross is a bit of a lion-hunter, and she may take a fancy to
make a lion of you--"

"That is better than to make an ass of me, as you suggested."

"--And naturally she will try to attach you to her set. I don't think
you are quite _outre_ enough for her; perhaps I made a mistake in
putting you into decent clothes. You wouldn't have time to get into your
kilts now? But you must be prepared to meet all sorts of queer folks at
her house, especially if you stay on a bit and have some tea--mysterious
poets that nobody ever heard of, and artists who won't exhibit, and
awful swells from the German universities, and I don't know what
besides--everybody who isn't the least like anybody else."

"And what is your claim, then, to go there?" Macleod asked.

"Oh," said the young lieutenant, laughing at the home-thrust, "I am only
admitted on sufferance, as a friend of Colonel Ross. She never asked
_me_ to put my name in her autograph-book. But I have done a bit of the
jackal for her once or twice, when I happened to be on leave; and she
has sent me with people to her box at Covent Garden when she couldn't go
herself."

"And how am I to propitiate her? What am I to do?"

"She will soon let you know how you strike her. Either she will pet you,
or she will snuff you out like winking. I don't know a woman who has a
blanker stare, when she likes."

This idle conversation was suddenly interrupted. At the same moment both
young men experienced a sinking sensation, as if the earth had been cut
away from beneath their feet; then there was a crash, and they were
violently thrown against each other; then they vaguely knew that the
cab, heeling over, was being jolted along the street by a runaway horse.
Fortunately, the horse could not run very fast, for the axle-tree,
deprived of its wheel, was tearing at the road; but, all the same, the
occupants of the cab thought they might as well get out, and so they
tried to force open the two small panels of the door in front of them.
But the concussion had so jammed these together that, shove at them as
they might, they would not yield. At this juncture, Macleod, who was not
accustomed to hansom cabs, and did not at all like this first experience
of them, determined to get out somehow; and so he raised himself a bit,
so as to get his back firm against the back of the vehicle; he pulled up
his leg until his knee almost touched his mouth; he got the heel of his
boot firmly fixed on the top edge of the door: and then with one forward
drive he tore the panel right away from its hinges. The other was of
course flung open at once. Then he grasped the brass rail outside,
steadied himself for a moment, and jumped clear from the cab, lighting
on the pavement. Strange to say, Ogilvie did not follow, though Macleod,
as he rushed along to try to get hold of the horse, momentarily expected
to see him jump out. His anxiety was of short duration. The axle-tree
caught on the curb; there was a sudden lurch; and then, with a crash of
glass, the cab went right over, throwing down the horse, and pitching
the driver into the street. It was all the work of a few seconds; and
another second seemed to suffice to collect a crowd, even in this quiet
part of Kensington Gore. But, after all, very little damage was done,
except to the horse, which had cut one of its hocks. When young Mr.
Ogilvie scrambled out and got on to the pavement, instead of being
grateful that his life had been spared, he was in a towering
passion--with whom or what he knew not.

"Why didn't you jump out?" said Macleod to him, after seeing that the
cabman was all right.

Ogilvie did not answer; he was looking at his besmeared hands and
dishevelled clothes.

"Confound it!" said he; "what's to be done now? The house is just round
the corner."

"Let us go in, and they will lend you a clothesbrush."

"As if I had been fighting a bargee? No, thank you. I will go along till
I find some tavern, and get myself put to rights."

And this he did gloomily, Macleod accompanying him. It was about a
quarter of an hour before he had completed his toilet; and then they set
out to walk back to Prince's Gate. Mr. Ogilvie was in a better humor.

"What a fellow you are to jump, Macleod!" said he. "If you had cannoned
against that policeman you would have killed him. And you never paid the
cabman for destroying the lid of the door; you prized the thing clean
off its hinges. You must have the strength of a giant."

"But where the people came from--it was that surprised me," said
Macleod, who seemed to have rather enjoyed the adventure. "It was like
one of our sea-lochs in the Highlands--you look all round and cannot
find any gull anywhere but throw a biscuit into the water, and you will
find them appearing from all quarters at once. As for the door, I
forgot that; but I gave the man half a sovereign to console him for his
shaking. Was not that enough?"

"We shall be frightfully late for luncheon," said Mr. Ogilvie, with some
concern.




CHAPTER III.

FIONAGHAL.


And, indeed, when they entered the house--the balconies and windows were
a blaze of flowers all shining in the sun--they found that their host
and hostess had already come downstairs, and were seated at table with
their small party of guests. This circumstance did not lessen Sir Keith
Macleod's trepidation; for there is no denying the fact that the young
man would rather have faced an angry bull on a Highland road than this
party of people in the hushed and semi-darkened and flower-scented room.
It seemed to him that his appearance was the signal for a confusion that
was equivalent to an earthquake. Two or three servants--all more solemn
than any clergyman--began to make new arrangements; a tall lady, benign
of aspect, rose and most graciously received him; a tall gentleman, with
a gray mustache, shook hands with him; and then, as he vaguely heard
young Ogilvie, at the other end of the room, relate the incident of the
upsetting of the cab, he found himself seated next to this benign lady,
and apparently in a bewildering paradise of beautiful lights and colors
and delicious odors. Asparagus soup? Yes, he would take that; but for a
second or two this spacious and darkened room, with its stained glass
and its sombre walls, and the table before him, with its masses of roses
and lilies-of-the-valley, its silver, its crystal, its nectarines, and
cherries, and pineapples, seemed some kind of enchanted place. And then
the people talked in a low and hushed fashion, and the servants moved
silently and mysteriously, and the air was languid with the scents of
fruits and flowers. They gave him some wine in a tall green glass that
had transparent lizards crawling up its stem; he had never drunk out of
a thing like that before.

"It was very kind of Mr. Ogilvie to get you to come; he is a very good
boy; he forgets nothing," said Mrs. Ross to him; and as he became aware
that she was a pleasant-looking lady of middle age, who regarded him
with very friendly and truthful eyes, he vowed to himself that he would
bring Mr. Ogilvie to task for representing this decent and respectable
woman as a graceless and dangerous coquette. No doubt she was the mother
of children. At her time of life she was better employed in the nursery
or in the kitchen than in flirting with young men; and could he doubt
that she was a good house-mistress when he saw with his own eyes how
spick and span everything was, and how accurately everything was served?
Even if his cousin Janet lived in the south, with all these fine flowers
and hot-house fruits to serve her purpose, she could not have done
better. He began to like this pleasant-eyed woman, though she seemed
delicate, and a trifle languid, and in consequence he sometimes could
not quite make out what she said. But then he noticed that the other
people talked in this limp fashion too: there was no precision about
their words; frequently they seemed to leave you to guess the end of
their sentences. As for the young lady next him, was she not very
delicate also? He had never seen such hands--so small, and fine, and
white. And although she talked only to her neighbor on the other side of
her, he could hear that her voice, low and musical as it was, was only a
murmur.

"Miss White and I," said Mrs. Ross to him--and at this moment the young
lady turned to them--"were talking before you came in of the beautiful
country you must know so well, and of its romantic stories and
associations with Prince Charlie. Gertrude, let me introduce Sir Keith
Macleod to you. I told Miss White you might come to us to-day; and she
was saying what a pity it was that Flora MacDonald was not a Macleod."

"That was very kind" said he, frankly, turning to this tall, pale girl,
with the rippling hair of golden brown and the heavy-lidded and downcast
eyes. And then he laughed. "We would not like to steal the honor from a
woman, even though she was a Macdonald, and you know the Macdonalds and
the Macleods were not very friendly in the old time. But we can claim
something too about the escape of Prince Charlie, Mrs. Ross. After Flora
Macdonald had got him safe from Harris to Skye, she handed him over to
the sons of Macleod of Raasay, and it was owing to them that he got to
the mainland. You will find many people up there to this day who believe
that if Macleod of Macleod had gone out in '45, Prince Charlie would
never have had to flee at all. But I think the Macleods had done enough
for the Stuarts; and it was but little thanks they ever got in return,
so far as I could ever hear. Do you know, Mrs. Ross, my mother wears
mourning every 3d of September, and will eat nothing from morning till
night. It is the anniversary of the battle of Worcester; and then the
Macleods were so smashed up that for a long time the other clans
relieved them from military service."

"You are not much of a Jacobite, Sir Keith," said Mrs. Ross, smiling.

"Only when I hear a Jacobite song sung," said he. "Then who can fail to
be a Jacobite?"

He had become quite friendly with this amiable lady. If he had been
afraid that his voice, in these delicate southern ears, must sound like
the first guttral drone of Donald's Pipes at Castle Dare, he had
speedily lost that fear. The manly, sun-browned face and clear-glancing
eyes were full of animation; he was oppressed no longer by the
solemnity of the servants; so long as he talked to her he was quite
confident; he had made friends with this friendly woman. But he had not
as yet dared to address the pale girl who sat on his right, and who
seemed so fragile and beautiful and distant in manner.

"After all," said he to Mrs. Ross, "there were no more Highlanders
killed in the cause of the Stuarts than used to be killed every year or
two merely out of the quarrels of the clans among themselves. All about
where I live there is scarcely a rock, or a loch, or an island that has
not its story. And I think," added he, with a becoming modesty, "that
the Macleods were by far the most treacherous and savage and
bloodthirsty of the whole lot of them."

And now the fair stranger beside him addressed him for the first time;
and as she did so, she turned her eyes towards him--clear, large eyes
that rather startled one when the heavy lids were lifted, so full of
expression were they.

"I suppose," said she, with a certain demure smile, "you have no wild
deeds done there now?"

"Oh, we have become quite peaceable folks now," said he, laughing. "Our
spirit is quite broken. The wild boars are all away from the islands
now, even from Muick; we have only the sheep. And the Mackenzies, and
the Macleans, and the Macleods--they are all sheep now."

Was it not quite obvious? How could any one associate with this
bright-faced young man the fierce traditions of hate and malice and
revenge, that makes the seas and islands of the north still more
terrible in their loneliness? Those were the days of strong wills and
strong passions, and of an easy disregard of individual life when the
gratification of some set desire was near. What had this Macleod to do
with such scorching fires of hate and of love? He was playing with a
silver fork and half a dozen strawberries: Miss White's surmise was
perfectly natural and correct.

The ladies went upstairs, and the men, after the claret had gone round,
followed them. And now it seemed to this rude Highlander that he was
only going from wonder to wonder. Half-way up the narrow staircase was a
large recess dimly lit by the sunlight falling through stained glass,
and there was a small fountain playing in the middle of this grotto and
all around was a wilderness of ferns dripping with the spray, while at
the entrance two stone figures held up magical globes on which the
springing and falling water was reflected. Then from this partial gloom
he emerged into the drawing-room--a dream of rose-pink and gold, with
the air sweetened around him by the masses of roses and tall lilies
about. His eyes were rather bewildered at first; the figures of the
women seemed dark against the white lace of the windows. But as he went
forward to his hostess, he could make out still further wonders of
color; for in the balconies outside, in the full glare of the sun, were
geraniums, and lobelias, and golden calceolarias, and red snapdragon,
their bright hues faintly tempered by the thin curtains through which
they were seen. He could not help expressing his admiration of these
things that were so new to him, for it seemed to him that he had come
into a land of perpetual summer and sunshine and glowing flowers. Then
the luxuriant greenness of the foliage on the other side of Exhibition
Road--for Mrs. Ross's house faced westward--was, as he said, singularly
beautiful to one accustomed to the windy skies of the western isles.

"But you have not seen our elm--our own elm," said Mrs. Ross, who was
arranging some azaleas that had just been sent her. "We are very proud
of our elm. Gertrude, will you take Sir Keith to see our noble elm?"

He had almost forgotten who Gertrude was; but the next second he
recognized the low and almost timid voice that said.

"Will you come this way, then Sir Keith?"

He turned, and found that it was Miss White who spoke. How was it that
this girl, who was only a girl, seemed to do things so easily, and
gently, and naturally, without any trace of embarrassment or
self-consciousness? He followed her, and knew not which to admire the
more, the careless simplicity of her manner, or the singular symmetry of
her tall and slender figure. He had never seen any statue or any picture
in any book to be compared with this woman, who was so fine, and rare,
and delicate that she seemed only a beautiful tall flower in this garden
of flowers. There was a strange simplicity, too, about her dress--a
plain, tight-fitting, tight-sleeved dress of unrelieved black, her only
adornment being some bands of big blue beads worn loosely round the
neck. The black figure, in this shimmer of rose-pink and gold and
flowers, was effective enough; but even the finest of pictures or the
finest of statues has not the subtle attraction of a graceful carriage.
Macleod had never seen any woman walk as this woman walked, in so
stately and yet so simple a way.

From Mrs. Ross's chief drawing-room they passed into an
antedrawing-room, which was partly a passage and partly a conservatory.
On the window side were some rows of Cape heaths, on the wall side some
rows of blue and white plates; and it was one of the latter that was
engaging the attention of two persons in this anteroom--Colonel Ross
himself, and a little old gentleman in gold-rimmed spectacles.

"Shall I introduce you to my father?" said Miss White to her companion;
and, after a word or two, they passed on.

"I think papa is invaluable to Colonel Ross," said she: "he is as good
as an auctioneer at telling the value of china. Look at this beautiful
heath. Mrs. Ross is very proud of her heaths."

The small white fingers scarcely touched the beautiful blossoms of the
plant; but which were the more palely roseate and waxen? If one were to
grasp that hand--in some sudden moment of entreaty, in the sharp joy of
reconciliation, in the agony of farewell--would it not be crushed like a
frail flower?

"There is our elm," said she, lightly. "Mrs. Ross and I regard it as our
own, we have sketched it so often."

They had emerged from the conservatory into a small square room, which
was practically a continuation of the drawing-room, but which was
decorated in pale blue and silver, and filled with a lot of knick-knacks
that showed it was doubtless Mrs. Ross's boudoir. And out there, in the
clear June sunshine, lay the broad greensward behind Prince's Gate, with
the one splendid elm spreading his broad branches into the blue sky, and
throwing a soft shadow on the corner of the gardens next to the house.
How sweet and still it was!--as still as the calm, clear light in this
girl's eyes. There was no passion there, and no trouble; only the light
of a June day, and of blue skies, and a peaceful soul. She rested the
tips of her fingers on a small rosewood table that stood by the window:
surely, if a spirit ever lived in any table, the wood of this table must
have thrilled to its core.

And had he given all this trouble to this perfect creature merely that
he should look at a tree? and was he to say some ordinary thing about an
ordinary elm to tell her how grateful he was?

"It is like a dream to me," he said, honestly enough, "since I came to
London. You seem always to have sunlight and plenty of fine trees and
hot-house flowers. But I suppose you have winter, like the rest us?"

"Or we should very soon tire of all this, beautiful as it is," said
she; and she looked rather wistfully out on the broad, still gardens.
"For my part, I should very soon tire of it. I should think there was
more excitement in the wild storms and the dark nights of the north;
there must be a strange fascination in the short winter days among the
mountains, and the long winter nights by the side of the Atlantic."

He looked at her and smiled. That fierce fascination he knew something
of: how had she guessed at it? And as for her talking as if she herself
would gladly brave these storms--was it for a foam-bell to brave a
storm? was it for a rose-leaf to meet the driving rains of
Ben-an-Sloich?

"Shall we go back now?" said she; and as she turned to lead the way he
could not fail to remark how shapely her neck was, for her rich
golden-brown hair was loosely gathered up behind.

But just at this moment Mrs. Ross made her appearance.

"Come," said she, "we shall have a chat all to ourselves; and you will
tell me, Sir Keith, what you have seen since you came to London, and
what has struck you most. And you must stay with us, Gertrude. Perhaps
Sir Keith will be so kind as to freeze your blood with another horrible
story about the Highlanders. I am only a poor southerner, and had to get
up my legends from books. But this wicked girl, Sir Keith, delights as
much in stories of bloodshed as a schoolboy does."

"You will not believe her," said Miss White, in that low-toned, gravely
sincere voice of hers, while a faint shell-like pink suffused her face.
"It was only that we were talking of the highlands, because we
understood you were coming; and Mrs. Ross was trying to make out"--and
here a spice of proud mischief came into her ordinarily calm eyes--"she
was trying to make out that you must be a very terrible and dangerous
person, who would probably murder us all if we were not civil to you."

"Well, you know, Sir Keith," said Mrs. Ross, apologetically, "you
acknowledge yourself that you Macleods were a very dreadful lot of
people at one time. What a shame it was to track the poor fellow over
the snow, and then deliberately to put brushwood in front of the cave,
and then suffocate whole two hundred persons at once!"

"Oh yes, no doubt!" said he; "but the Macdonalds were asked first to
give up the men that had bound the Macleods hand and foot and set them
adrift in the boat, and they would not do it. And if the Macdonalds had
got the Macleods into a cave, they would have suffocated them too. The
Macdonalds began it."

"Oh, no, no, no," protested Mrs. Ross; "I can remember better than that.
What were the Macleods about on the island at all when they had to be
sent off, tied hand and foot, in their boats?"

"And what is the difference between tying a man hand and foot and
putting him out in the Atlantic, and suffocating him in a cave? It was
only by an accident that the wind drifted them over to Skye."

"I shall begin to fear that you have some of the old blood in you," said
Mrs. Ross, with a smile, "if you try to excuse one of the cruelest
things ever heard of."

"I do not excuse it at all," said he, simply. "It was very bad--very
cruel. But perhaps the Macleods were not so much worse than others. It
was not a Macleod at all, it was a Gordon--and she a woman, too--that
killed the chief of the Mackintoshes after she had received him as a
friend. 'Put your head down on the table,' said she to the chief, 'in
token of your submission to the Earl of Huntly.' And no sooner had he
bowed his neck than she whipped out a knife and cut his head off. That
was a Gordon, not a Macleod. And I do not think the Macleods were so
much worse than their neighbors, after all."

"Oh, how can you say that?" exclaimed his persecutor. "Who was ever
guilty of such an act of treachery as setting fire to the barn at
Dunvegan? Macdonald and his men get driven on to Skye by the bad
weather; they beg for shelter from their old enemy; Macleod professes to
be very great friends with them; and Macdonald is to sleep in the
castle, while his men have a barn prepared for them. You know very well,
Sir Keith, that if Macdonald had remained that night in Dunvegan Castle
he would have been murdered; and if the Macleod girl had not given a
word of warning to her sweetheart, the men in the barn would have been
burned to death. I think if I were a Macdonald I should be proud of that
scene--the Macdonalds marching down to their boats with their pipes
playing, while the barn was all in a blaze fired by their treacherous
enemies. Oh, Sir Keith, I hope there are no Macleods of that sort alive
now."

"There are not, Mrs. Ross," said he, gravely. "They were all killed by
the Macdonalds, I suppose."

"I do believe," said she, "that it was a Macleod who built a stone
tower on a lonely island, and imprisoned his wife there--"

"Miss White," the young man said, modestly, "will not you help me? Am I
to be made responsible for all the evil doings of my ancestors?"

"It is really not fair, Mrs. Ross," said she; and the sound of this
voice pleading for him went to his heart: it was not as the voice of
other women.

"I only meant to punish you," said Mrs. Ross, "for having traversed the
indictment--I don't know whether that is the proper phrase, or what it
means, but it sounds well. You first acknowledge that the Macleods were
by far the most savage of the people living up there: and then you tried
to make out that the poor creatures whom they harried were as cruel as
themselves."

"What is cruel now was not cruel then," he said; "it was a way of
fighting: it was what is called an ambush now--enticing your enemy, and
then taking him at a disadvantage. And if you did not do that to him,
he would do it to you. And when a man is mad with anger or revenge, what
does he care for anything?"

"I thought we were all sheep now," said she.

"Do you know the story of the man who was flogged by Maclean of
Lochbuy--that is in Mull," said he, not heeding her remark. "You do not
know that old story?"

They did not; and he proceeded to tell it in a grave and simple fashion
which was sufficiently impressive. For he was talking to these two
friends now in the most unembarrassed way; and he had, besides, the
chief gift of a born narrator--an utter forgetfulness of himself. His
eyes rested quite naturally on their eyes as he told his tale. But first
of all, he spoke of the exceeding loyalty of the Highland folk to the
head of their clan. Did they know that other story of how Maclean of
Duart tried to capture the young heir of the house of Lochbuy, and how
the boy was rescued and carried away by his nurse? And when, arrived at
man's estate, he returned to revenge himself on those who had betrayed
him, among them was the husband of the nurse. The young chief would have
spared the life of this man, for the old woman's sake. "_Let the tail go
with the hide_," said she, and he was slain with the rest. And then the
narrator went on to the story of the flogging. He told them how Maclean
of Lochbuy was out after the deer one day; and his wife, with her child,
had come out to see the shooting. They were driving the deer; and at a
particular pass a man was stationed so that, should the deer come that
way, he should turn them back. The deer came to this pass; the man
failed to turn them; and the chief was mad with rage. He gave orders
that the man's back should be bared, and that he should be flogged
before all the people.

"Very well," continued Macleod. "It was done. But it is not safe to do
anything like that to a Highlander; at least it _was_ not safe to do
anything like that to a highlander in those days; for, as I told you,
Mrs. Ross, we are all like sheep now. Then they went after the deer
again; but at one moment the man that had been flogged seized Maclean's
child from the nurse, and ran with it across the mountain-side, till he
reached a place overhanging the sea. And he held out the child over the
sea; and it was no use that Maclean begged on his knees for forgiveness.
Even the passion of loyalty was lost now in the fierceness of his
revenge. This was what the man said--that unless Maclean had his back
bared there and then before all the people, and flogged as he had been
flogged, then the child should be dashed into the sea below. There was
nothing to be done but that--no prayers, no offers, no appeals from the
mother, were of any use. And so it was that Maclean of Lochbuy was
flogged there before his own people, and his enemy above looking on. And
then? When it was over, the man called aloud, 'Revenged! revenged!' and
sprang into the air with the child along with him; and neither of them
was ever seen again after they had sunk into the sea. It is an old
story."

An old story, doubtless, and often told; but its effect on this girl
sitting beside him was strange. Her clasped hands trembled; her eyes
were glazed and fascinated as if by some spell. Mrs. Ross, noticing this
extreme tension of feeling, and fearing it, hastily rose.

"Come, Gertrude," she said, taking the girl by the hand, "we shall be
frightened to death by these stories. Come and sing us a song--a French
song, all about tears, and fountains, and bits of ribbon--or we shall be
seeing the ghosts of murdered Highlanders coming in here in the
daytime."

Macleod, not knowing what he had done, but conscious that something had
occurred, followed then into the drawing-room, and retired to a sofa,
while Miss White sat down to the open piano. He hoped he had not
offended her. He would not frighten her again with any ghastly stories
from the wild northern seas.

And what was this French song that she was about to sing? The pale,
slender fingers were wandering over the keys; and there was a
sound--faint and clear and musical--as of the rippling of summer seas.
And sometimes the sounds came nearer; and now he fancied he recognized
some old familiar strain; and he thought of his cousin Janet somehow,
and of summer days down by the blue waters of the Atlantic. A French
song? Surely if this air, that seemed to come nearer and nearer, was
blown from any earthly land, it had come from the valleys of Lochiel and
Ardgour, and from the still shores of Arisaig and Moidart? Oh yes; it
was a very pretty French song that she had chosen to please Mrs. Ross
with.

    "A wee bird cam' to our ha' door"--

this was what she sang; and though, to tell the truth, she had not much
of a voice, it was exquisitely trained, and she sang with a tenderness
and expression such as he, at least, had never heard before,--

      "He warbled sweet and clearly;
    An' aye the o'ercome o' his sang
      Was 'Wae's me for Prince Charlie!'
    Oh, when I heard the bonnie bonnie bird
      The tears cam' drappin' rarely;
    I took my bonnet off my head,
      For well I lo'ed Prince Charlie."

It could not have entered into his imagination to believe that such
pathos could exist apart from the actual sorrow of the world. The
instrument before her seemed to speak; and the low, joint cry was one of
infinite grief, and longing, and love.

    "Quoth I, 'My bird, my bonnie, bonnie bird,
      Is that a sang ye borrow?
    Are these some words ye've learnt by heart,
      Or a lilt o' dool an' sorrow?
    'Oh, no, no, no,' the wee bird sang;
      'I've flown sin' mornin' early;
    But sic a day o' wind an' rain--
      Oh, wae's me for Prince Charlie!'"

Mrs. Ross glanced archly at him when she discovered what sort of French
song it was that Miss White had chosen; but he paid no heed. His only
thought was, "_If only the mother and Janet could hear this strange
singing!_"

When she had ended, Mrs. Ross came over to him and said, "That is a
great compliment to you."

And he answered, simply, "I have never heard any singing like that."

Then young Mr. Ogilvie--whose existence, by-the-way, he had entirely and
most ungratefully forgotten--came up to the piano, and began to talk in
a very pleasant and amusing fashion to Miss White. She was turning over
the leaves of the book before her, and Macleod grew angry with this idle
interference. Why should this lily-fingered jackanapes, whom a man could
wind round a reel and throw out of window, disturb the rapt devotion of
this beautiful Saint Cecilia?

She struck a firmer chord; the bystanders withdrew a bit; and of a
sudden it seemed to him that all the spirit of all the clans was ringing
in the proud fervor of this fragile girl's voice. Whence had she got
this fierce Jacobite passion that thrilled him to the very finger-tips?

    "I'll to Lochiel, and Appin, and kneel to them,
     Down by Lord Murray and Roy of Kildarlie:
    Brave Mackintosh, he shall fly to the field with them;
     These are the lads I can trust wi' my Charlie!"

Could any man fail to answer? Could any man die otherwise than gladly if
he died with such an appeal ringing in his ears? Macleod did not know
there was scarcely any more volume in this girl's voice now than when
she was singing the plaintive wail that preceded it: it seemed to him
that there was the strength of the tread of armies in it, and a
challenge that could rouse a nation.

    "Down through the Lowlands, down wi' the Whigamore,
     Loyal true Highlanders, down wi' them rarely!
    Ronald and Donald, drive on wi' the broad claymore
     Over the neck o' the foes o' Prince Charlie!
    Follow thee! follow thee! wha wadna follow thee,
     King o' the Highland hearts, bonnie Prince Charlie!"

She shut the book, with a light laugh, and left the piano. She came over
to where Macleod sat. When he saw that she meant to speak to him, he
rose and stood before her.

"I must ask your pardon," said she, smiling, "for singing two Scotch
songs, for I know the pronunciation is very difficult."

He answered with no idle compliment.

"If _Tearlach ban og_, as they used to call him, were alive now," said
he--and indeed there was never any Stuart of them all, not even the Fair
Young Charles himself, who looked more handsome than this same Macleod
of Dare who now stood before her--"you would get him more men to follow
him than any flag or standard he ever raised."

She cast her eyes down.

Mrs. Ross's guests began to leave.

"Gertrude," said she, "will you drive with me for half an hour--the
carriage is at the door? And I know the gentlemen want to have a cigar
in the shade of Kensington Gardens: they might come back and have a cup
of tea with us."

But Miss White had some engagement; she and her father left together;
and the young men followed them almost directly, Mrs. Ross saying that
she would be most pleased to see Sir Keith Macleod any Tuesday or
Thursday afternoon he happened to be passing, as she was always at home
on these days.

"I don't think we can do better than take her advice about the cigar,"
said young Ogilvie, as they crossed to Kensington Gardens. "What do you
think of her?"

"Of Mrs. Ross?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I think she is a very pleasant woman."

"Yes, but," said Mr. Ogilvie, "how did she strike you? Do you think she
is as fascinating as some men think her?"

"I don't know what men think about her," said Macleod. "It never
occurred to me to ask whether a married woman was fascinating or not. I
thought she was a friendly woman--talkative, amusing, clever enough."

They lit their cigars in the cool shadow of the great elms: who does not
know how beautiful Kensington Gardens are in June? And yet Macleod did
not seem disposed to be garrulous about these new experiences of his; he
was absorbed, and mostly silent.

"That is an extraordinary fancy she has taken for Gertrude White," Mr.
Ogilvie remarked.

"Why extraordinary?" the other asked, with sudden interest.

"Oh, well, it is unusual, you know. But she is a nice girl enough, and
Mrs. Ross is fond of odd folks. You didn't speak to old White?--his head
is a sort of British Museum of antiquities; but he is of some use to
these people--he is such a swell about old armor, and china, and such
things. They say he wants to be sent out to dig for Dido's funeral pyre
at Carthage, and that he is only waiting to get the trinkets made at
Birmingham."

They walked on a bit in silence.

"I think you made a good impression on Mrs. Ross," said Ogilvie, coolly.
"You'll find her an uncommonly useful woman, if she takes a fancy to
you; for she knows everybody and goes everywhere, though her own house
is too small to entertain properly. By-the-way, Macleod, I don't think
you could have hit on a worse fellow than I to take you about, for I am
so little in London that I have become a rank outsider. But I'll tell
you what I'll do for you if you will go with me to-night to Lord
Beauregard's who is an old friend of mine. I will ask him to introduce
you to some people--and his wife gives very good dances--and if any
royal or imperial swell comes to town, you'll be sure to run against him
there. I forget who it is they are receiving there to-night; but anyhow
you'll meet two or three of the fat duchesses whom Dizzy adores; and I
shouldn't wonder if that Irish girl were there--the new beauty: Lady
Beauregard is very clever at picking people up."

"Will Miss White be there?" Macleod asked, apparently deeply engaged in
probing the end of his cigar.

His companion looked up in surprise. Then a new fancy seemed to occur to
him, and he smiled very slightly.

"Well, no," said he, slowly, "I don't think she will. In fact, I am
almost sure she will be at the Piccadilly Theatre. If you like, we will
give up Lady Beauregard, and after dinner go to the Piccadilly Theatre
instead. How will that do?"

"I think that will do very well," said Macleod.




CHAPTER IV.

WONDER-LAND.


A cool evening in June, the club windows open, a clear twilight shining
over Pall Mall, and a _tete-a-tete_ dinner at a small, clean, bright
table--these are not the conditions in which a young man should show
impatience. And yet the cunning dishes which Mr. Ogilvie, who had a
certain pride in his club, though it was only one of the junior
institutions, had placed before his friend, met with but scanty
curiosity: Macleod would rather have handed questions of cookery over to
his cousin Janet. Nor did he pay much heed to his companion's sage
advice as to the sort of club he should have himself proposed at, with a
view to getting elected in a dozen or fifteen years. A young man is apt
to let his life at forty shift for itself.

"You seem very anxious to see Miss White again," said Mr. Ogilvie, with
a slight smile.

"I wish to make all the friends I can while I am in London," said
Macleod. "What shall I do in this howling wilderness when you go back to
Aldershot?"

"I don't think Miss Gertrude White will be of much use to you. Colonel
Ross may be. Or Lord Beauregard. But you cannot expect young ladies to
take you about."

"No?" said Macleod, gravely; "that is a great pity."

Mr. Ogilvie, who, with all his knowledge of the world, and of wines and
cookery, and women, and what not, had sometimes an uneasy consciousness
that his companion was laughing at him, here proposed that they should
have a cigar before walking up to the Piccadilly Theatre; but as it was
now ten minutes to eight, Macleod resolutely refused. He begged to be
considered a country person, anxious to see the piece from the
beginning. And so they put on their light top-coats over their evening
dress and walked up to the theatre.

A distant sound of music, an odor of escaped gas, a perilous descent of
a corkscrew staircase, a drawing aside of heavy curtains, and then a
blaze of yellow light shining within this circular building, on its red
satin and gilt plaster, and on the spacious picture of a blue Italian
lake, with peacocks on the wide stone terraces. The noise at first was
bewildering. The leader of the orchestra was sawing away at his violin
as savagely as if he were calling on his company to rush up and seize a
battery of guns. What was the melody that was being banged about by the
trombones, and blared aloud by the shrill cornets, and sawed across by
the infuriated violins? "When the heart of a man is oppressed with
care." The cure was never insisted on with such an angry vehemence.

Recovering from the first shock of this fierce noise, Macleod began to
look around this strange place, with its magical colors and its
profusion of gilding; but nowhere in the half-empty stalls or behind the
lace curtains of the boxes could he make out the visitor of whom he was
in search. Perhaps she was not coming, then? Had he sacrificed the
evening all for nothing? As regarded the theatre or the piece to be
played, he had not the slightest interest in either. The building was
very pretty, no doubt; but it was only, in effect, a superior sort of
booth; and as for the trivial amusement of watching a number of people
strut across a stage and declaim--or perhaps make fools of themselves to
raise a laugh--that was not at all to his liking. It would have been
different had he been able to talk to the girl who had shown such a
strange interest in the gloomy stories of the Northern seas; perhaps,
though he would scarcely have admitted this to himself, it might have
been different if only he had been allowed to see her at some distance.
But her being absent altogether? The more the seats in the stalls were
filled--reducing the chances of her coming--the more empty the theatre
seemed to become.

"At least we can go along to that house you mentioned," said he to his
companion.

"Oh, don't be disappointed yet," said Ogilvie; "I know she will be
here."

"With Mrs. Ross?"

"Mrs. Ross comes very often to this theatre. It is the correct thing to
do. It is high art. All the people are raving about the chief actress;
artists painting her portrait; poets writing sonnets about her different
characters--no end of a fuss. And Mrs. Ross is very proud that so
distinguished a person is her particular friend."

"Do you mean the actress?"

"Yes; and makes her the big feature of her parties at present; and
society is rather inclined to make a pet of her, too--patronizing high
art, don't you know. It's wonderful what you can do in that way. If a
duke wants a clown to make fellows laugh after a Derby dinner, he gets
him to his house and makes him dance; and if the papers find it out, it
is only raising the moral status of the pantomine. Of course it is
different with Mrs. Ross's friend: she is all right socially."

The garrulous boy was stopped by the sudden cessation of the music; and
then the Italian lake and the peacocks disappeared into unknown regions
above; and behold! in their place a spacious hall was revealed--not the
bare and simple hall at Castle Dare with which Macleod was familiar, but
a grand apartment, filled with old armor, and pictures, and cabinets,
and showing glimpses of a balcony and fair gardens beyond. There were
two figures in this hall, and they spoke--in the high and curious
falsetto of the stage. Macleod paid no more heed to them than if they
had been marionettes. For one thing, he could not follow their speech
very well; but, in any case, what interest could he have in listening to
this old lawyer explaining to the stout lady that the family affairs
were grievously involved? He was still intently watching the new-comers
who straggled in, singly or in pairs, to the stalls. When a slight
motion of the white curtains showed that some one was entering one of
the boxes, the corner of the box was regarded with as earnest a gaze as
ever followed the movements of a herd of red deer in the misty chasms of
Ben-an-Sloich. What concern had he in the troubles of this over-dressed
and stout lady, who was bewailing her misfortunes and wringing her
bejewelled hands?

Suddenly his heart seemed to stand still altogether. It was a light,
glad laugh--the sound of a voice he knew--that seemed to have pierced
him as with a rifle-ball; and at the same moment from the green shimmer
of foliage in the balcony there stepped into the glare of the hall a
young girl with life, and laughter, and a merry carelessness in her face
and eyes. She threw her arms around her mother's neck and kissed her.
She bowed to the legal person. She flung her garden hat on to a couch,
and got up on a chair to get fresh seed put in for her canary. It was
all done so simply, and naturally, and gracefully that in an instant a
fire of life and reality sprang into the whole of this sham thing. The
woman was no longer a marionette, but the anguish-stricken mother of
this gay and heedless girl. And when the daughter jumped down from the
chair again--her canary on her finger--and when she came forward to pet,
and caress, and remonstrate with her mother, and when the glare of the
lights flashed on the merry eyes, and on the white teeth and laughing
lips, there was no longer any doubt possible. Macleod's face was quite
pale. He took the programme from Ogilvie's hand, and for a minute or two
stared mechanically at the name of Miss Gertrude White, printed on the
pink-tinted paper. He gave it him back without a word. Ogilvie only
smiled; he was proud of the surprise he had planned.

And now the fancies and recollections that came rushing into Macleod's
head were of a sufficiently chaotic and bewildering character. He tried
to separate that grave, and gentle, and sensitive girl he had met at
Prince's Gate from this gay madcap, and he could not at all succeed. His
heart laughed with the laughter of this wild creature; he enjoyed the
discomfiture and despair of the old lawyer as she stood before him
twirling her garden hat by a solitary ribbon; and when the small, white
fingers raised the canary to be kissed by the pouting lips, the action
was more graceful than anything he had ever seen in the world. But where
was the silent and serious girl who had listened with such rapt
attention to his tales of passion and revenge, who seemed to have some
mysterious longing for those gloomy shores he came from, who had sung
with such exquisite pathos "A wee bird cam' to our ha' door?" Her cheek
had turned white when she heard of the fate of the son of Maclean:
surely that sensitive and vivid imagination could not belong to this
audacious girl, with her laughing, and teasings, and demure coquetry?

Society had not been talking about the art of Mrs. Ross's _protegee_ for
nothing; and that art soon made short work of Keith Macleod's doubts.
The fair stranger he had met at Prince's Gate vanished into mist. Here
was the real woman; and all the trumpery business of the theatre, that
he would otherwise have regarded with indifference or contempt, became a
real and living thing, insomuch that he followed the fortunes of this
spoiled child with a breathless interest and a beating heart. The spell
was on him. Oh, why should she be so proud to this poor lover, who stood
so meekly before her? "Coquette, coquette" (Macleod could have cried to
her), "the days are not always full of sunshine; life is not all youth,
and beauty, and high spirits; you may come to repent of your pride and
your cruelty." He had no jealousy against the poor youth who took his
leave; he pitied him, but it was for her sake; he seemed to know that
evil days were coming, when she would long for the solace of an honest
man's love. And when the trouble came--as it speedily did--and when she
stood bravely up at first to meet her fate, and when she broke down for
a time, and buried her face in her hands, and cried with bitter sobs,
the tears were running down his face. Could the merciful heavens see
such grief, and let the wicked triumph? And why was there no man to
succor her? Surely some times arise in which the old law is the good
law, and a man will trust to his own right arm to put things straight
in the world? To look at her!--could any man refuse? And now she rises
and goes away, and all the glad summer-time and the sunshine have gone,
and the cold wind shivers through the trees, and it breathes only of
farewell. Farewell, O miserable one! the way is dark before you, and you
are alone. Alone, and no man near to help.

Macleod was awakened from his trance. The act drop was let down; there
was a stir throughout the theatre; young Ogilvie turned to him,--

"Don't you see who has come into that corner box up there?"

If he had told that Miss White, just come up from Prince's Gate, in her
plain black dress and blue beads, had just arrived and was seated there,
he would scarcely have been surprised. As it was, he looked up and saw
Colonel Ross taking his seat, while the figure of a lady was partially
visible behind the lace curtain.

"I wonder how often Mrs. Ross has seen this piece?" Ogilvie said. "And I
think Colonel Ross is as profound a believer in Miss White as his wife
is. Will you go up and see them now?"

"No," Macleod said, absently.

"I shall tell them," said the facetious boy as he rose and got hold of
his crush hat, "that you are meditating a leap on to the stage to rescue
the distressed damsel."

And then his conscience smote him.

"Mind you," said he, "I think it is awfully good myself. I can't pump up
any enthusiasm for most things that people rave about, but I do think
this girl is uncommonly clever. And then she always dresses like a
lady."

With this high commendation, Lieutenant Ogilvie left, and made his way
upstairs to Mrs. Ross's box. Apparently he was well received there, for
he did not make his appearance again at the beginning of the next act,
nor, indeed, until it was nearly over.

The dream-world opens again; and now it is a beautiful garden, close by
the ruins of an old abbey, and fine ladies are walking about there. But
what does he care for these marionettes uttering meaningless phrases?
They have no more interest for him than the sham ruins, so long as that
one bright, speaking, pathetic face is absent; and the story they are
carrying forward is for him no story at all, for he takes no heed of its
details in his anxious watching for her appearance. The sides of this
garden are mysteriously divided: by which avenue shall she approach?
Suddenly he hears the low voice--she comes nearer. Now let the world
laugh again! But, alas! when she does appear, it is in the company of
her lover, and it is only to bid him good-by. Why does the coward hind
take her at her word? A stick, a stone, a wave of the cold sea, would be
more responsive to that deep and tremulous voice, which has now no
longer any of the art of a wilful coquetry about it, but is altogether
as self-revealing as the generous abandonment of her eyes. The poor
cipher! he is not the man to woo and win and carry off this noble woman,
the unutterable soul surrender of whose look has the courage of despair
in it. He bids her farewell. The tailor's dummy retires. And she? in her
agony, is there no one to comfort her? They have demanded his sacrifice
in the name of duty, and she has consented: ought not that to be enough
to comfort her? then other people appear from other parts of the garden,
and there is a Babel of tongues. He hears nothing; but he follows that
sad face, until he could imagine that he listened to the throbbing of
her aching heart.

And then, as the phantasms of the stage come and go, and fortune plays
many pranks with these puppets, the piece draws near to an end. And now
as it appears, everything is reversed, and it is the poor lover who is
in grievous trouble, while she is restored to the proud position of her
coquetries and wilful graces again, with all her friends smiling around
her, and life lying fair before her. She meets him by accident.
Suffering gives him a certain sort of dignity: but how is one to retain
patience with the blindness of this insufferable ass? Don't you see,
man--don't you see that she is waiting to throw herself into your arms?
and you, you poor ninny, are giving yourself airs, and doing the grand
heroic! And then the shy coquetry comes in again. The pathetic eyes are
full of a grave compassion, if he must really never see her more. The
cat plays with the poor mouse, and pretends that really the tender thing
is gone away at last. He will take this half of a broken sixpence back:
it was given in happier times. If ever he should marry, he will know
that one far away prays for his happiness. And if--if these unwomanly
tears--And suddenly the crass idiot discovers that she is laughing at
him, and that she has secured him and bound him as completely as a fly
fifty times wound round by a spider. The crash of applause that
accompanied the lowering of the curtain stunned Macleod, who had not
quite come back from dreamland. And then, amidst a confused roar the
curtain was drawn a bit back, and she was led--timidly smiling, so that
her eyes seemed to take in all the theatre at once--across the stage by
that same poor fool of a lover; and she had two or three bouquets thrown
her, notably one from Mrs. Ross's box. Then she disappeared, and the
lights were lowered, and there was a dull shuffling of people getting
their cloaks and hats and going away.

"Mrs. Ross wants to see you for a minute," Ogilvie said.

"Yes," Macleod answered, absently.

"And we have time yet, if you like, to get into a hansom and drive along
to Lady Beauregard's."




CHAPTER V.

IN PARK LANE.


They found Mrs. Ross and her husband waiting in the corridor above.

"Well, how did you like it?" she said.

He could not answer offhand. He was afraid he might say too much.

"It is like her singing," he stammered, at length. "I am not used to
these things. I have never seen anything like that before."

"We shall soon have her in a better piece," Mrs. Ross said. "It is being
written for her, That is very pretty, but slight. She is capable of
greater things."

"She is capable of anything," said Macleod, simply, "if she can make you
believe that such nonsense is real. I looked at the others. What did
they say or do better than mere pictures in a book? But she--it is like
magic."

"And did Mr. Ogilvie give you my message?" said Mrs. Ross. "My husband
and I are going down to see a yacht race on the Thames to-morrow--we did
not think of it till this evening any more than we expected to find you
here. We came along to try to get Miss White to go with us. Will you
join our little party?"

"Oh, yes, certainly--thank you very much," Macleod said, eagerly.

"Then you'd better meet us at Charing Cross, at ten sharp," Colonel Ross
said; "so don't let Ogilvie keep you up too late with brandy and soda. A
special will take us down."

"Brandy and soda!" Mr. Ogilvie exclaimed. "I am going to take him along
for a few minutes to Lady Beauregard's--surely that is proper enough;
and I have to get down by the 'cold-meat' train to Aldershot, so there
won't be much brandy and soda for me. Shall we go now, Mrs. Ross?"

"I am waiting for an answer," Mrs. Ross said, looking along the
corridor.

Was it possible, then, that she herself should bring the answer to this
message that had been sent her--stepping out of the dream-world in which
she had disappeared with her lover? And how would she look as she came
along this narrow passage? Like the arch coquette of this land of
gaslight and glowing colors? or like the pale, serious, proud girl who
was fond of sketching the elm at Prince's Gate? A strange nervousness
possessed him as he thought she might suddenly appear. He did not listen
to the talk between Colonel Ross and Mr. Ogilvie. He did not notice that
this small party was obviously regarded as being in the way by the
attendants who were putting out the lights and shutting the doors of the
boxes. Then a man came along.

"Miss White's compliments, ma'am, and she will be very pleased to meet
you at Charing Cross at ten to-morrow."

"And Miss White is a very brave young lady to attempt anything of the
kind," observed Mr. Ogilvie, confidentially, as they all went
downstairs; "for if the yachts should get becalmed of the Nore, or off
the Mouse, I wonder how Miss White will get back to London in time?"

"Oh, we shall take care of that," said Colonel Ross. "Unless there is a
good steady breeze we sha'n't go at all; we shall spend a happy day at
Rosherville, or have a look at the pictures at Greenwich. We sha'n't get
Miss White into trouble. Good-bye, Ogilvie. Good-bye, Sir Keith.
Remember ten o'clock, Charing Cross."

They stepped into their carriage and drove off.

"Now," said Macleod's companion, "are you tired?"

"Tired? I have done nothing all day."

"Shall we get into a hansom and drive along to Lady Beauregard's?"

"Certainly, if you like. I suppose they won't throw you over again?"

"Oh no," said Mr. Ogilvie, as he once more adventured his person in a
cab. "And I can tell you it is much better--if you look at the thing
philosophically, as poor wretches like you and me must--to drive to a
crush in a hansom than in your own carriage. You don't worry about your
horses being kept out in the rain; you can come away at any moment;
there is no fussing with servants, and rows because your man has got out
of the rank--HOLD UP!"

Whether it was the yell or not, the horse recovered from the slight
stumble: and no harm befel the two daring travellers.

"These vehicles give one some excitement," Macleod said--or rather
roared, for Piccadilly was full of carriages. "A squall in Loch Scridain
is nothing to them."

"You'll get used to them in time," was the complacent answer.

They dismissed the hansom at the corner of Piccadilly, and walked up
Park Lane, so as to avoid waiting in the rank of carriages. Macleod
accompanied his companion meekly. All this scene around him--the
flashing lights of the broughams, the brilliant windows, the stepping
across the pavement of a strangely dressed dignitary from some foreign
land--seemed but some other part of that dream from which he had not
quite shaken himself free. His head was still full of the sorrows and
coquetries of that wild-spirited heroine. Whither had she gone by this
time--away into some strange valley of that unknown world?

He was better able than Mr. Ogilvie to push his way through the crowd of
footmen who stood in two lines across the pavement in front of
Beauregard House, watching for the first appearance of their master or
mistress; but he resignedly followed, and found himself in the avenue
leading clear up to the steps. They were not the only arrivals, late as
the hour was. Two young girls, sisters, clad in cream-white silk with a
gold fringe across their shoulders and sleeves, preceded them; and he
was greatly pleased by the manner in which these young ladies, on
meeting in the great hall an elderly lady who was presumably a person of
some distinction, dropped a pretty little old-fashioned courtesy as they
shook hands with her. He admired much less the more formal obeisance
which he noticed a second after. A royal personage was leaving; and as
this lady, who was dressed in mourning, and was leaning on the arm of a
gentleman whose coat was blazing with diamond stars, and whose breast
was barred across with a broad blue ribbon, came along the spacious
landing at the foot of the wide staircase, she graciously extended her
hand and said a few words to such of the ladies standing by as she knew.
That deep bending of the knee he considered to be less pretty than the
little courtesy performed by the young ladies in cream-white silk. He
intended to mention this matter to his cousin Janet.

Then, as soon as the Princess had left the lane, through which she had
passed closed up again, and the crowd became a confused mass of
murmuring groups. Still meekly following, Macleod plunged into this
throng, and presently found himself being introduced to Lady
Beauregard--an amiable little woman who had been a great beauty in her
time, and was pleasant enough to look at now. He passed on.

"Who is the man with the blue ribbon and the diamond star?" he asked of
Mr. Ogilvie.

"That is Monsieur le Marquis himself--that is your host," the young
gentleman replied--only Macleod could nor tell why he was obviously
trying to repress some covert merriment.

"Didn't you hear?" Mr. Ogilvie said at length. "Don't you know what he
called you? That man will be the death of me--for he's always at it. He
announced you as Sir Thief Macleod--I will swear he did."

"I should not have thought he had so much historical knowledge," Macleod
answered, gravely. "He must have been reading up about the clans."

At this moment Lady Beauregard, who had been receiving some other late
visitors, came up and said she wished to introduce him to--he could not
make out the name. He followed her. He was introduced to a stout elderly
lady, who still had beautifully fine features, and a simple and calm air
which rather impressed him. It is true that at first a thrill of
compassion went through him; for he thought that some accident had
befallen the poor lady's costume, and that it had fallen down a bit
unknown to herself; but he soon perceived that most of the other women
were dressed similarly, some of the younger ones, indeed, having the
back of their dress open practically to the waist. He wondered what his
mother and Janet would say to this style.

"Don't you think the Princess is looking pale?" he was asked.

"I thought she looked very pretty--I never saw her before," said he.

What next? That calm air was a trifle cold and distant. He did not know
who the woman was, or where she lived, or whether her husband had any
shooting, or a yacht, or a pack of hounds. What was he to say? He
returned to the Princess.

"I only saw her as she was leaving," said he. "We came late. We were at
the Piccadilly Theatre."

"Oh, you saw Miss Gertrude White," said this stout lady; and he was glad
to see her eyes light up with some interest. "She is very clever, is she
not--and so pretty and engaging. I wish I knew some one who knew her."

"I know some friends of hers," Macleod said, rather timidly.

"Oh, do you, really? Do you think she would give me a morning
performance for my Fund?"

This lady seemed to take it so much for granted that every one must have
heard of her Fund that he dared not confess his ignorance. But it was
surely some charitable thing; and how could he doubt that Miss White
would immediately respond to such an appeal?

"I should think that she would," said he, with a little hesitation; but
at this moment some other claimant came forward, and he turned away to
seek young Ogilvie once more.

"Ogilvie," said he, "who is that lady in the green satin?"

"The Duchess of Wexford."

"Has she a Fund?"

"A what?"

"A Fund--a charitable Fund of some sort."

"Oh, let me see. I think she is getting up money for a new training
ship--turning the young ragamuffins about the streets into sailors,
don't you know."

"Do you think Miss White would give a morning performance for that
Fund?"

"Miss White! Miss White! Miss White!" said Lieutenant Ogilvie. "I think
Miss White has got into your head."

"But the lady asked me."

"Well, I should say it was exactly the thing that Miss White would like
to do--get mixed up with a whole string of duchesses and
marchionessses--a capital advertisement--and it would be all the more
distinguished if it was an amateur performance, and Miss Gertrude White
the only professional admitted into the charmed circle."

"You are a very shrewd boy, Ogilvie," Macleod observed, "I don't know
how you ever got so much wisdom into so small a head."

And indeed, as Lieutenant Ogilvie was returning to Aldershot by what he
was pleased to call the cold-meat train, he continued to play the part
of mentor for a time with great assiduity, until Macleod was fairly
confused with the number of persons to whom he was introduced, and the
remarks his friend made about them. What struck him most, perhaps, was
the recurrence of old Highland or Scotch family names, borne by persons
who were thoroughly English in their speech and ways. Fancy a Gordon who
said "lock" for "loch;" a Mackenzie who had never seen the Lewis; a Mac
Alpine who had never heard the proverb, "The hills, the Mac Alpines, and
the devil came into the world at the same time!"

It was a pretty scene: and he was young, and eager, and curious, and he
enjoyed it. After standing about for half an hour or so, he got into a
corner from which, in quiet, he could better see the brilliant picture
as a whole: the bright, harmonious dresses; the glimpses of beautiful
eyes and blooming complexions; the masses of foxgloves which Lady
Beauregard had as the only floral decoration of the evening; the pale
canary-colored panels and silver-fluted columns of the walls; and over
all the various candelabra, each bearing a cluster of sparkling and
golden stars. But there was something wanted. Was it the noble and
silver-haired lady of Castle Dare whom he looked for in vain in that
brilliant crowd that moved and murmured before him? Or was it the
friendly and familiar face of his cousin Janet, whose eyes he knew,
would be filled with a constant wonder if she saw such diamonds, and
silks and satins? Or was it that _ignis fatuus_--that treacherous and
mocking fire--that might at any time glimmer in some suddenly presented
face with a new surprise? Had she deceived him altogether down at
Prince's Gate? Was her real nature that of the wayward, bright,
mischievous, spoiled child whose very tenderness only prepared her
unsuspecting victim for a merciless thrust? And yet the sound of her
sobbing was still in his ears. A true woman's heart beat beneath that
idle raillery: challenged boldly, would it not answer loyally and
without fear?

Psychological puzzles were new to this son of the mountains; and it is
no wonder that, long after he had bidden good bye to his friend
Ogilvie, and as he sat thinking alone in his own room, with Oscar lying
across the rug at his feet, his mind refused to be quieted. One picture
after another presented itself to his imagination: the proud-souled
enthusiast longing for the wild winter nights and the dark Atlantic
seas; the pensive maiden, shuddering to hear the fierce story of Maclean
of Lochbuy; the spoiled child, teasing her mamma and petting her canary;
the wronged and weeping woman, her frame shaken with sobs, her hands
clasped in despair; the artful and demure coquette, mocking her lover
with her sentimental farewells. Which of them all was she? Which should
he see in the morning? Or would she appear as some still more elusive
vision, retreating before him as he advanced?

Had he asked himself, he would have said that these speculations were
but the fruit of a natural curiosity. Why should he not be interested in
finding out the real nature of this girl, whose acquaintance he had just
made? It has been observed, however, that young gentlemen do not always
betray this frantic devotion to pyschological inquiry when the subject
of it, instead of being a fascinating maiden of twenty, is a
homely-featured lady of fifty.

Time passed; another cigar was lit; the blue light outside was becoming
silvery; and yet the problem remained unsolved. A fire of impatience and
restlessness was burning in his heart; a din as of brazen
instruments--what was the air the furious orchestra played?--was in his
ears; sleep or rest was out of the question.

"Oscar!" he called. "Oscar, my lad, let us go out!"

When he stealthily went downstairs, and opened the door and passed into
the street, behold! the new day was shining abroad--and how cold, and
still, and silent it was after the hot glare and whirl of that
bewildering night! No living thing was visible. A fresh, sweet air
stirred the leaves of the trees and bushes in St. James's Square. There
was a pale lemon-yellow glow in the sky, and the long, empty
thoroughfare of Pall Mall seemed coldly white.

Was this a somnambulist, then, who wandered idly along through the
silent streets, apparently seeing nothing of the closed doors and the
shuttered windows on either hand? A Policeman, standing at the corner of
Waterloo Place, stared at the apparition--at the twin apparition, for
this tall young gentleman with the light top-coat thrown over his
evening dress was accompanied by a beautiful collie that kept close to
his heels. There was a solitary four-wheeled cab at the foot of the
Haymarket; but the man had got inside and was doubtless asleep. The
embankment?--with the young trees stirring in the still morning air; and
the broad bosom of the river catching the gathering glow of the skys. He
leaned on the gray stone parapet, and looked out on the placid waters of
the stream.

Placid, indeed, they were as they went flowing quietly by; and the young
day promised to be bright enough; and why should there be aught but
peace and goodwill upon earth toward all men and women? Surely there was
no call for any unrest, or fear, or foreboding? The still and shining
morning was but emblematic of his life--if only he knew, and were
content. And indeed he looked contented enough, as he wandered on,
breathing the cool freshness of the air, and with a warmer light from
the east now touching from time to time his sun-tanned face. He went up
to Covent Garden--for mere curiosity's sake. He walked along
Piccadilly, and thought the elms in the Green Park looked more beautiful
than ever. When he returned to his rooms he was of opinion that it was
scarcely worth while to go to bed; and so he changed his clothes, and
called for breakfast as soon as some one was up. In a short time--after
his newspaper had been read--he would have to go down to Charing Cross.

What of this morning walk? Perhaps it was unimportant enough. Only, in
after-times, he once or twice thought of it; and very clearly indeed he
could see himself standing there in the early light, looking out on the
shining waters of the river. They say that when you see yourself too
vividly--when you imagine that you yourself are standing before
yourself--that is one of the signs of madness.




CHAPTER VI.

A SUMMER DAY ON THE THAMES.


It occurred to him as he walked down to the station--perhaps he went
early on the chance of finding her there alone--that he ought seriously
to study the features of this girl's face; for was there not a great
deal of character to be learned, or guessed at, that way? He had but
the vaguest notion of what she was really like. He knew that her teeth
were pearly white when she smiled, and that the rippling golden-brown
hair lay rather low on a calm and thoughtful forehead; but he had a less
distinct impression that her nose was perhaps the least thing
_retrousse_; and as to her eyes? They might be blue, gray, or green, but
one thing he was sure of was that they could speak more than was ever
uttered by any speech. He knew, besides, that she had an exquisite
figure: perhaps it was the fact that her shoulders were a trifle squarer
than is common with women that made her look somewhat taller than she
really was.

He would confirm or correct these vague impressions. And as the chances
were that they would spend a whole long day together, he would have
abundant opportunity of getting to know something about the character
and disposition of this new acquaintance, so that she should no longer
be to him a puzzling and distracting will-o'-the-wisp. What had he come
to London for but to improve his knowledge of men and of women, and to
see what was going on in the larger world? And so this earnest student
walked down to the station.

There were a good many people about, mostly in groups chatting with each
other; but he recognized no one. Perhaps he was looking out for Colonel
and Mrs. Ross; perhaps for a slender figure in black, with blue beads;
at all events, he was gazing somewhat vacantly around when some one
turned close by him. Then his heart stood still for a second. The sudden
light that sprang to her face when she recognized him blinded him. Was
it to be always so? Was she always to come upon him in a flash, as it
were? What chance had the poor student of fulfilling his patient task
when, on his approach, he was sure to be met by this surprise of the
parted lips, and sudden smile, and bright look? He was far too
bewildered to examine the outline of her nose or the curve of the
exquisitely short upper lip.

But the plain truth was that there was no extravagant joy at all in
Miss White's face, but a very slight and perhaps pleased surprise; and
she was not in the least embarrassed.

"Are you looking for Mrs. Ross," said she, "like myself?"

"Yes," said he; and then he found himself exceedingly anxious to say a
great deal to her, without knowing where to begin. She had surprised him
too much--as usual. She was so different from what he had been dreaming
about. Here was no one of the imaginary creatures that had risen before
his mind during the stillness of the night. Even the pale dreamer in
black and blue beads was gone. He found before him (as far as he could
make out) a quiet, bright-faced, self-possessed girl, clad in a light
and cool costume of white, with bits of black velvet about it; and her
white gloves and sunshade, and the white silver chain round her slender
waist, were important features in the picture she presented. How could
this eager student of character get rid of the distressing trivialities?
All night long he had been dreaming of beautiful sentiments and
conflicting emotions: now his first thought was that he had never seen
any costume so delightfully cool, and clear, and summer-like. To look at
her was to think of a mountain spring, icy cold even in the sunshine.

"I always come early," said she, in the most matter-of-fact way. "I
cannot bear hurry in catching a train."

Of course not. How could any one associate rattling cabs, and excited
porters, and frantic mobs with this serene creature, who seemed to have
been wafted to Charing Cross on a cloud? And if he had had his will,
there would have been no special train to disturb her repose. She would
have embarked in a noble barge, and lain upon couches of swans-down, and
ample awnings of silk would have sheltered her from the sun, while the
beautiful craft floated away down the river, its crimson hangings here
and there just touching the rippling waters.

"Ought we to take tickets?"

That was what she actually said; but what those eloquent, innocent eyes
seemed to say was, "_Can you read what we have to tell you? Don't you
know what a simple and confiding soul appeals to you?--clear as the
daylight in its truth. Cannot you look through us and see the trusting,
tender soul within?_"

"Perhaps we had better wait for Colonel Ross," said he; and there was a
little pronoun in this sentence that he would like to have repeated. It
was a friendly word. It established a sort of secret companionship. It
is the proud privilege of a man to know all about railway tickets; but
he rather preferred this association with her helpless innocence and
ignorance.

"I had no idea you were coming to-day. I rather like those surprise
parties. Mrs. Ross never thought of going until last evening, she says.
Oh, by the way, I saw you in the theatre last evening."

He almost started. He had quite forgotten that this self-possessed,
clear-eyed, pale girl was the madcap coquette whose caprices and griefs
had alternately fascinated and moved him on the previous evening.

"Oh indeed," he stammered. "It was a great pleasure to me--and a
surprise. Lieutenant Ogilvie played a trick on me. He did not tell me
before we went that--that you were to appear."

She looked amused.

"You did not know, then, when we met at Mrs. Ross's that I was engaged
at the Piccadilly Theatre?"

"Not in the least," he said, earnestly, as if he wished her distinctly
to understand that he could not have imagined such a thing to be
possible.

"You should have let me send you a box. We have another piece in
rehearsal. Perhaps you will come to see that."

Now if these few sentences, uttered by those two young people in the
noisy railway station, be taken by themselves and regarded, they will be
found to consist of the dullest commonplace. No two strangers in all
that crowd could have addressed each other in a more indifferent
fashion. But the trivial nothings which the mouth utters may become
possessed of awful import when accompanied by the language of the eyes;
and the poor commonplace sentences may be taken up and translated so
that they shall stand written across the memory in letters of flashing
sunlight and the colors of June. "_Ought we to take tickets?_" There was
not much poetry in the phrase but she lifted her eyes just then.

And now Colonel Ross and his wife appeared, accompanied by the only
other friend they could get at such short notice to join this scratch
party--a demure little old lady who had a very large house on Campden
Hill which everybody coveted. They were just in time to get comfortably
seated in the spacious saloon carriage that had been reserved for them.
The train slowly glided out of the station, and then began to rattle
away from the midst of London. Glimpses of a keener blue began to
appear. The gardens were green with the foliage of the early summer;
martins swept across the still pools, a spot of white when they got into
the shadow. And Miss White would have as many windows open as possible,
so that the sweet June air swept right through the long carriage.

And was she not a very child in her enjoyment of this sudden escape into
the country? The rapid motion, the silvery light, the sweet air, the
glimpses of orchards, and farm-houses, and millstreams--all were a
delight to her; and although she talked in a delicate, half-reserved,
shy way with that low voice of hers, still there was plenty of vivacity
and gladness in her eyes. They drove from Gravesend station to the
river-side. They passed through the crowd waiting to see the yachts
start. They got on board the steamer; and at the very instant that
Macleod stepped from the gangway on to the deck, the military band on
board, by some strange coincidence, struck up "A Highland lad my love
was born." Mrs. Ross laughed, and wondered whether the band-master had
recognized her husband.

And now they turned to the river; and there were the narrow and shapely
cutters, with their tall spars, and their pennons fluttering in the
sunlight. They lay in two tiers across the river, four in each tier, the
first row consisting of small forty-tonners, the more stately craft
behind. A brisk northeasterly wind was blowing, causing the bosom of the
river to flash in ripples of light. Boats of every size and shape moved
up and down and across the stream. The sudden firing of a gun caused
some movement among the red-capped mariners of the four yachts in front.

"They are standing by the main halyards," said Colonel Ross to his
women-folk. "Now watch for the next signal."

Another gun was fired; and all of a sudden there was a rattling of
blocks and chains, and the four mainsails slowly rose, and the flapping
jibs were run out. The bows drifted round: which would get way on her
first? But now there was a wild uproar of voices. The boom end of one of
the yachts had caught one of the stays of her companion, and both were
brought up head to wind. Cutter No. 3 took advantage of the mishap to
sail through the lee of both her enemies, and got clear away, with the
sunlight shining full on her bellying canvas. But there was no time to
watch the further adventures of the forty-tonners. Here and closer at
hand were the larger craft, and high up in the rigging were the mites of
men, ready to drop into the air, clinging on to the halyards. The gun is
fired. Down they come, swinging in the air; and the moment they have
reached the deck they are off and up the ratlines again, again to drop
into the air until the gaff is high hoisted, the peak swinging this way
and that, and the gray folds of the mainsail lazily flapping in the
wind. The steamer begins to roar. The yachts fall away from their
moorings, and one by one the sails fill out to the fresh breeze. And
now all is silence and an easy gliding motion, for the eight competitors
have all started away, and the steamer is smoothly following them.

"How beautiful they are!--like splendid swans," Miss White said: she had
a glass in her hand, but did not use it, for as yet the stately fleet
was near enough.

"A swan has a body," said Macleod. "These things seem to me to be all
wings. It is all canvas, and no hull."

And, indeed, when the large top-sails and big jibs came to be set, it
certainly seemed as if there was nothing below to steady this vast
extent of canvas. Macleod was astonished. He could not believe that
people were so reckless as to go out in boats like that.

"If they were up in our part of the world," said he, "a puff of wind
from the Gribun Cliffs would send the whole fleet to the bottom."

"They know better than to try," Colonel Ross said, "Those yachts are
admirably suited for the Thames; and Thames yachting is a very nice
thing. It is very close to London. You can take a day's fresh air when
you like, without going all the way to Cowes. You can get back to town
in time to dine."

"I hope so," said Miss White, with emphasis.

"Oh, you need not be afraid," her host said, laughing. "They only go
round the Nore; and with this steady breeze they ought to be back early
in the afternoon. My dear Miss White, we sha'n't allow you to disappoint
the British public."

"So I may abandon myself to complete idleness without concern?"

"Most certainly."

And it was an enjoyable sort of idleness. The river was full of life and
animation as they glided along; fitful shadows and bursts of sunshine
crossed the foliage and pasture-lands of the flat shores; the yellow
surface of the stream was broken with gleams of silver; and always, when
this somewhat tame, and peaceful, and pretty landscape tended to become
monotonous, they had on this side or that the spectacle of one of those
tall and beautiful yachts rounding on a new tack or creeping steadily up
on one of her opponents. They had a sweepstakes, of course, and Macleod
drew the favorite. But then he proceeded to explain to Miss White that
the handicapping by means of time allowances made the choice of a
favorite a mere matter of guesswork; that the fouling at the start was
of but little moment: and that on the whole she ought to exchange yachts
with him.

"But if the chances are all equal, why should your yacht be better than
mine?" said she.

The argument was unanswerable; but she took the favorite for all that,
because he wished her to do so; and she tendered him in return the bit
of folded paper with the name of a rival yacht on it. It had been in her
purse for a minute or two. It was scented when she handed it to him.

"I should like to go to the Mediterranean in one of those beautiful
yachts," she said, looking away across the troubled waters, "and lie and
dream under the blue skies. I should want no other occupation than that:
that would be real idleness, with a breath of wind now and then to
temper the heat; and an awning over the deck; and a lot of books. Life
would go by like a dream."

Her eyes were distant and pensive. To fold the bits of paper, she had
taken off her gloves: he regarded the small white hands, with the blue
veins and the pink, almond-shaped nails. She was right. That was the
proper sort of existence for one so fine and pale, and perfect even to
the finger-tips. Rose Leaf--Rose Leaf--what faint wind will carry you
away to the south?

At this moment the band struck up a lively air. What was it?

    "O this is no my ain lassie,
     Fair though the lassie be."

"You are in great favor, to-day, Hugh," Mrs. Ross said to her husband.
"You will have to ask the band-master to lunch with us."

But this sharp alternative of a well-known air had sent Macleod's
thoughts flying away northward, to scenes far different from these flat
shores, and to a sort of boating very different from this summer
sailing. Janet, too: what was she thinking of--far away in Castle Dare?
Of the wild morning on which she insisted on crossing to one of the
Freshnist islands, because of the sick child of a shepherd there; and of
the open herring smack, and she sitting on the ballast stones; and of
the fierce gale of wind and rain that hid the island from their sight;
and of her landing, drenched to the skin, and with the salt-water
running from her hair and down her face?

"Now for lunch," said Colonel Ross; and they went below.

The bright little saloon was decorated with flowers; the colored glass
on the table looked pretty enough; here was a pleasant break in the
monotony of the day. It was an occasion, too, for assiduous helpfulness,
and gentle inquiries, and patient attention. They forgot about the
various chances of the yachts. They could not at once have remembered
the name of the favorite. And there was a good deal of laughter and
pleasant chatting, while the band overhead--heard through the open
skylight--still played,

    "O this is no my ain lassie,
     Kind though the lassie be."

And behold! when they went up on deck again they had got ahead of all
the yachts, and were past the forts at the mouth of the Medway, and were
out on an open space of yellowish-green water that showed where the tide
of the sea met the current of the river. And away down there in the
south, a long spur of land ran out at the horizon, and the sea
immediately under was still and glassy, so that the neck of land seemed
projected into the sky--a sort of gigantic razor-fish suspended in the
silvery clouds. Then, to give the yachts time to overtake them, they
steamed over to a mighty ironclad that lay at anchor there; and as they
came near her vast black bulk they lowered their flag, and the band
played "Rule, Britannia." The salute was returned; the officer on the
high quarterdeck raised his cap; they steamed on.

In due course of time they reached the Nore lightship, and there they
lay and drifted about until the yachts should come up. Long distances
now separated that summer fleet; but as they came along, lying well over
before the brisk breeze, it was obvious that the spaces of time between
the combatants Would not be great. And is not this Miss White's vessel,
the favorite in the betting, that comes sheering through the water, with
white foam at her bows? Surely she is more than her time allowance
ahead? And on this tack will she get clear round the ruddy little
lightship, or is there not a danger of her carrying off a bowsprit? With
what an ease and majesty she comes along, scarcely dipping to the slight
summer waves, while they on board notice that she has put out her long
spinnaker boom, ready to hoist a great ballooner as soon as she is round
the lightship and running home before the wind. The speed at which she
cuts the water is now visible enough as she obscures for a second or so
the hull of the lightship. In another second she has sheered round; and
then the great spinnaker bulges out with the breeze, and away she goes
up the river again. Chronometers are in request. It is only a matter of
fifty seconds that the nearest rival, now coming sweeping along, has to
make up. But what is this that happens just as the enemy has got round
the Nore? There is a cry of "Man overboard!" The spinnaker boom has
caught the careless skipper and pitched him clean into the plashing
waters, where he floats about, not as yet certain, probably, what course
his vessel will take. She at once brings her head up to wind and puts
about; but meanwhile a small boat from the lightship has picked up the
unhappy skipper, and is now pulling hard to strike the course of the
yacht on her new tack. In another minute or two he is on board again;
and away she goes for home.

"I think you have won the sweepstakes, Miss White," Macleod said. "Your
enemy has lost eight minutes."

She was not thinking of sweepstakes. She seemed to have been greatly
frightened by the accident.

"It would have been so dreadful to see a man drowned before your
eyes--in the midst of a mere holiday excursion."

"Drowned?" he cried. "There? If a sailor lets himself get drowned in
this water, with all these boats about, he deserves it."

"But there are many sailors who cannot swim at all."

"More shame for them," said he.

"Why, Sir Keith," said Mrs. Ross, laughing, "do you think that all
people have been brought up to an amphibious life like yourself? I
suppose in your country, what with the rain and the mist, you seldom
know whether you are on sea or shore."

"That is quite true," said he, gravely. "And the children are all born
with fins. And we can hear the mermaids singing all day long. And when
we want to go anywhere, we get on the back of a dolphin."

But he looked at Gertrude White. What would she say about that far land
that she had shown such a deep interest in? There was no raillery at all
in her low voice as she spoke.

"I can very well understand," she said, "how the people there fancied
they heard the mermaids singing--amidst so much mystery, and with the
awfulness of the sea around them."

"But we have had living singers," said Macleod, "and that among the
Macleods, too. The most famous of all the song-writers of the Western
Highlands was Mary Macleod, that was born in Harris--Mairi Nighean
Alasdair ruaidh, they called her, that is, Mary, the daughter of Red
Alister. Macleod of Dunvegan, he wished her not to make any more songs;
but she could not cease the making of songs. And there was another
Macleod--Fionaghal, they called her, that is the Fair Stranger. I do not
know why they called her the Fair Stranger--perhaps she came to the
Highlands from some distant place. And I think if you were going among
the people there at this very day, they would call you the Fair
Stranger."

He spoke quite naturally and thoughtlessly: his eyes met hers only for a
second; he did not notice the soft touch of pink that suffused the
delicately tinted cheek.

"What did you say was the name of that mysterious stranger?" asked Mrs.
Ross--"that poetess from unknown lands?"

"Fionaghal," he answered.

She turned to her husband.

"Hugh," she said, "let me introduce you to our mysterious guest. This is
Fionaghal--this is the Fair Stranger from the islands--this is the
poetess whose melodies the mermaids have picked up. If she only had a
harp, now--with sea-weed hanging from it--and an oval mirror--"

The booming of a gun told them that the last yacht had rounded the
lightship. The band struck up a lively air, and presently the steamer
was steaming off in the wake of the procession of yachts. There was now
no more fear that Miss White should be late. The breeze had kept up
well, and had now shifted a point to the east, so that the yachts, with
their great ballooners, were running pretty well before the wind. The
lazy abandonment of the day became more complete than ever. Careless
talk and laughter; an easy curiosity about the fortunes of the race; tea
in the saloon, with the making up of two bouquets of white roses,
sweet-peas, fuchias, and ferns--the day passed lightly and swiftly
enough. It was a summer day, full of pretty trifles. Macleod,
surrendering to the fascination, began to wonder what life would be if
it were all a show of June colors and a sound of dreamy music: for one
thing, he could not imagine this sensitive, beautiful, pale, fine
creature otherwise than as surrounded by an atmosphere of delicate
attentions and pretty speeches, and sweet, low laughter.

They got into their special train again at Gravesend, and were whirled
up to London. At Charing Cross he bade good-bye to Miss White, who was
driven off by Mr. and Mrs. Ross along with their other guest. In the
light of the clear June evening he walked rather absently up to his
rooms.

There was a letter lying on the table. He seized it and opened it with
gladness. It was from his cousin Janet, and the mere sight of it seemed
to revive him like a gust of keen wind from the sea. What had she to
say? About the grumbling of Donald, who seemed to have no more pride in
his pipes, now the master was gone? About the anxiety of his mother over
the reports of the keepers? About the upsetting of a dog-cart on the
road to Lochbuy? He had half resolved to go to the theatre again that
evening--getting, if possible, into some corner where he might pursue
his profound pyschological investigations unseen--but now he thought he
would not go. He would spend the evening in writing a long letter to his
cousin, telling her and the mother about all the beautiful, fine, gay,
summer life he had seen in London--so different from anything they could
have seen in Fort William, or Inverness, or even in Edinburgh. After
dinner he sat down to this agreeable task. What had he to write about
except brilliant rooms, and beautiful flowers, and costumes such as
would have made Janet's eyes wide--of all the delicate luxuries of life,
and happy idleness, and the careless enjoyment of people whose only
thought was about a new pleasure? He gave a minute description of all
the places he had been to see--except the theatre. He mentioned the
names of the people who had been kind to him; but he said nothing about
Gertrude White.

Not that she was altogether absent from his thoughts. Sometimes his
fancy fled away from the sheet of paper before him, and saw strange
things. Was this Fionaghal the Fair Stranger--this maiden who had come
over the seas to the dark shores of the isles--this king's daughter clad
in white, with her yellow hair down to her waist and bands of gold on
her wrists? And what does she sing to the lashing waves but songs of
high courage, and triumph, and welcome to her brave lover coming home
with plunder through the battling seas? Her lips are parted with her
singing, but her glance is bold and keen: she has the spirit of a king's
daughter, let her come from whence she may.

Or is Fionaghal the Fair Stranger this poorly dressed lass who boils the
potatoes over the rude peat fire, and croons her songs of suffering and
of the cruel drowning in the seas, so that from hut to hut they carry
her songs, and the old wives' tears start afresh to think of their brave
sons lost years and years ago?

Neither Fionaghal is she--this beautiful, pale woman, with her sweet,
modern English speech, and her delicate, sensitive ways, and her hand
that might be crushed like a rose leaf. There is a shimmer of summer
around her; flowers lie in her lap; tender observances encompass and
shelter her. Not for her the biting winds of the northern seas; but
rather the soft luxurious idleness of placid waters, and blue skies, and
shadowy shores ... _Rose Leaf! Rose Leaf! what faint wind will carry you
away to the south?_




CHAPTER VII.

THE DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE.


Late one night a carefully dressed elderly gentleman applied his
latch-key to the door of a house in Bury Street, St. James's, and was
about to enter without any great circumspection, when he was suddenly
met by a white phantom, which threw him off his legs, and dashed outward
into the street. The language that the elderly gentleman used, as he
picked himself up, need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that the
white phantom was the dog Oscar, who had been shut in a minute before by
his master, and who now, after one or two preliminary dashes up and down
the street, very soon perceived the tall figure of Macleod, and made
joyfully after him. But Oscar knew that he had acted wrongly, and was
ashamed to show himself; so he quietly slunk along at his master's
heels. The consequence of this was that the few loiterers about beheld
the very unusual spectacle of a tall young gentleman walking down Bury
Street and into King Street, dressed in full Highland costume, and
followed by a white-and-lemon collie. No other person going to the
Caledonian fancy-dress ball was so attended.

Macleod made his way through the carriages, crossed the Pavement, and
entered the passage. Then he heard some scuffling behind, and he turned.

"Let alone my dog, you fellow!" said he, making a step forward, for the
man had got hold of Oscar by the head, and was hauling him out.

"Is it your dog, sir?" said he.

Oscar himself answered by wrestling himself free and taking refuge by
his master's legs, though he still looked guilty.

"Yes, he is my dog; and a nice fix he has got me into," said Macleod,
standing aside to let the Empress Maria Theresa pass by in her
resplendent costume. "I suppose I must walk home with him again. Oscar,
Oscar, how dare you?"

"If you please, sir," said a juvenile voice behind him, "if Mr. ----
will let me, I will take the dog. I know where to tie him up."

Macleod turned.

"_Co an so?_" said he, looking down at the chubby-faced boy in the
kilts, who had his pipes under his arm. "Don't you know the Gaelic?"

"I am only learning," said the young musician. "Will I take the dog,
sir?"

"March along, then, Phiobaire bhig!" Macleod said. "He will follow me,
if he will not follow you."

Little Piper turned aside into a large hall which had been transformed
into a sort of waiting-room; and here Macleod found himself in the
presence of a considerable number of children, half of them girls, half
of them boys, all dressed in tartan, and seated on the forms along the
walls. The children, who were half asleep at this time of the night,
woke up with sudden interest at sight of the beautiful collie; and at
the same moment Little Piper explained to the gentleman who was in
charge of these young ones that the dog had to be tied up somewhere, and
that a small adjoining room would answer that purpose. The proposal was
most courteously entertained. Macleod, Mr. ----, and Little Piper walked
along to this side room, and there Oscar was properly secured.

"And I will get him some water, sir, if he wants it," said the boy in
the kilts.

"Very well," Macleod said. "And I will give you my thanks for it; for
that is all that a Highlander, and especially a piper, expects for a
kindness. And I hope you will learn the Gaelic soon, my boy. And do you
know 'Cumhadh na Cloinne?' No, it is too difficult for you; but I think
if I had the chanter between my fingers myself, I could let you hear
'Cumhadh na Cloinne.'"

"I am sure John Maclean can play it," said the small piper.

"Who is he?"

The gentleman in charge of the youngsters explained that John Maclean
was the eldest of the juvenile pipers, five others of whom were in
attendance.

"I think," said Macleod, "that I am coming down in a little time to make
the acquaintance of your young pipers, if you will let me."

He passed up the broad staircase and into the empty supper-room, from
which a number of entrances showed him the strange scene being enacted
in the larger hall. Who were these people who were moving to the sound
of rapid music? A clown in a silken dress of many colors, with bells to
his cap and wrists, stood at one of the doors. Macleod became his
fellow-spectator of what was going forward. A beautiful Tyrolienne, in a
dress of black, silver, and velvet, with her yellow hair hanging in two
plaits down her back, passed into the room, accompanied by Charles the
First in a large wig and cloak; and the next moment they were whirling
along in the waltz, coming into innumerable collisions with all the
celebrated folk who ever lived in history. And who were these gentlemen
in the scarlet collars and cuffs, who but for these adornments would
have been in ordinary evening dress? he made bold to ask the friendly
clown, who was staring in a pensive manner at the rushing couples.

"They call it the Windsor uniform," said the clown. "_I_ think it mean.
I sha'n't come in a fancy dress again, if stitching on a red collar will
do."

At this moment the waltz came to an end, and the people began to walk up
and down the spacious apartment. Macleod entered the throng to look
about him. And soon he perceived, in one of the little stands at the
side of the hall, the noble lady who had asked him to go to this
assembly, and forthwith he made his way through the crowd to her. He was
most graciously received.

"Shall I tell you a secret, Lady ----?" said he. "You know the children
belonging to the charity; they are all below, and they are sitting doing
nothing, and they are all very tired and half asleep. It is a shame to
keep them there--"

"But the Prince hasn't come yet; and they must be marched round: they
show that we are not making fools of ourselves for nothing."

A sharper person than Macleod might have got in a pretty compliment
here: for this lady was charmingly dressed as Flora Macdonald; but he
merely said:--

"Very well; perhaps it is necessary. But I think I can get them some
amusement, if you will only keep the director of them, that is, Mr.
----, out of the way. Now shall I send him to you? Will you talk to
him?"

"What do you mean to do?"

"I want to give them a dance. Why should you have all the dancing up
here?"

"Mind, I am not responsible. What shall I talk to him about?"

Macleod considered for a moment.

"Tell him that I will take the whole of the girls and boys to the
Crystal Palace for a day, if it is permissable; and ask him what it will
cost, and all about the arrangements."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Why not? They can have a fine run in the grounds, and six pipers
to play for them. I will ask them now whether they will go."

He left and went downstairs. He had seen but few people in the hall
above whom he knew. He was not fond of dancing, though he knew the
elaborate variations of the reel. And here was a bit of practical
amusement.

"Oh, Mr. ----," said he, with great seriousness, "I am desired by Lady
---- to say that she would like to see you for a moment or two. She
wishes to ask you some questions about your young people."

"The Prince may come at any moment," said Mr. ---- doubtfully.

"He won't be in such a hurry as all that, surely."

So the worthy man went upstairs; and the moment he was gone Macleod shut
the door.

"Now, you piper boys!" he called aloud, "get up and play us a reel. We
are going to have a dance. You are all asleep, I believe. Come, girls
stand up. You that know the reel, you will keep to this end. Boys, come
out. You that can dance a reel, come to this end; the others will soon
pick it up. Now, piper boys, have you got the steam up? What can you
give us, now? 'Monymusk?' or the 'Marquis of Huntley's Fling?' or 'Miss
Johnston?' Nay, stay a bit. Don't you know 'Mrs. Macleod of Raasay?'"

"Yes," "Yes," "Yes," "Yes," "Yes," "Yes," came from the six pipers, all
standing in a row, with the drones over their shoulders and the chanters
in their fingers.

"Very well, then--off you go! Now, boys and girls, are all ready?
Pipers, 'Mrs. Macleod of Raasay!'"

For a second there was a confused roaring on the long drones; then the
shrill chanters broke clear away into the wild reel; and presently the
boys and girls, who were at first laughingly shy and embarrassed, began
to make such imitations of the reel figure, which they had seen often
enough, as led to a vast amount of scrambling and jollity, if it was not
particularly accurate. The most timid of the young ones soon picked up
courage. Here and there one of the older boys gave a whoop that would
have done justice to a wedding dance in a Highland barn.

"Put your lungs into it, pipers!" Macleod cried out, "Well played, boys!
You are fit to play before a prince?"

The round cheeks of the boys were red with their blowing; they tapped
their toes on the ground as proudly as if every one of them was a
MacCruimin; the wild noise in this big, empty hall grew more furious
than ever--when suddenly there was an awful silence. The pipers whipped
the chanters from their mouths; the children, suddenly stopping in their
merriment, cast one awestruck glance at the door, and then slunk back to
their seats. They had observed not only Mr. ----, but also the Prince
himself. Macleod was left standing alone in the middle of the floor.

"Sir Keith Macleod?" said his Royal Highness, with a smile.

Macleod bowed low.

"Lady ---- told me what you were about. I thought we could have had a
peep unobserved, or we should not have broken in on the romp of the
children."

"I think your Royal Highness could make amends for that," said Macleod.

There was an inquiring glance.

"If your Royal Highness would ask some one to see that each of the
children has an orange, and a tart, and a shilling, it would be some
compensation to them for being kept up so late."

"I think that might be done," said the Prince, as he turned to leave.
"And I am glad to have made your acquaintance, although in--"

"In the character of a dancing-master," said Macleod, gravely.

After having once more visited Oscar, in the company of Phiobaire bhig,
Macleod went up again to the brilliantly lit hall; and here he found
that a further number of his friends had arrived. Among them was young
Ogilvie, in the tartan of the Ninety-third Highlanders; and very smart
indeed the boy-officer looked in his uniform. Mrs. Ross was here too and
she was busy in assisting to get up the Highland quadrille. When she
asked Macleod if he would join in it, he answered by asking her to be
his partner, as he would be ashamed to display his ignorance before an
absolute stranger. Mrs. Ross most kindly undertook to pilot him through
the not elaborate intricacies of the dance; and they were fortunate in
having the set made up entirely of their own friends.

Then the procession of the children took place; and the fantastically
dressed crowd formed a lane to let the homely-clad lads and lasses pass
along, with the six small pipers proudly playing a march at their head.

He stopped the last of the children for a second.

"Have you got a tart, and an orange, and a shilling?"

"No, sir."

"I have got the word of a prince for it," he said to himself, as he went
out of the room; "and they shall not go home with empty pockets."

As he was coming up the staircase again to the ball-room he was preceded
by two figures that were calculated to attract any one's notice by the
picturesqueness of their costume. The one stranger was apparently an old
man, who was dressed in a Florentine costume of the fourteenth
century--a cloak of sombre red, with a flat cap of black velvet, one
long tail of which was thrown over the left shoulder and hung down
behind. A silver collar hung from his neck across his breast: other
ornament there was none. His companion, however, drew all eyes toward
her as the two passed into the ball-room. She was dressed in imitation
of Gainsborough's portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire; and her
symmetrical figure and well-poised head admirably suited the long
trained costume of blue satin, with its _fichu_ of white muslin, the
bold coquettish hat and feathers, and the powdered puffs and curls that
descended to her shoulders. She had a gay air with her, too. She bore
her head proudly. The patches on her cheek seemed not half so black as
the blackness of her eyes, so full of a dark mischievous light were
they; and the redness of the lips--a trifle artificial, no doubt--as she
smiled seemed to add to the glittering whiteness of her teeth. The
proud, laughing, gay coquette: no wonder all eyes were for a moment
turned to her, in envy or in admiration.

Macleod, following these two, and finding that his old companion, the
pensive clown in cap and bells, was still at his post of observation at
the door, remained there also for a minute or two, and noticed that
among the first to recognize the two strangers was young Ogilvie, who
with laughing surprise in his face, came forward to shake hands with
them. Then there was some further speech; the band began to play a
gentle and melodious waltz; the middle of the room cleared somewhat; and
presently her Grace of Devonshire was whirled away by the young Highland
officer, her broad-brimmed hat rather overshadowing him, notwithstanding
the pronounced colors of his plaid. Macleod could not help following
this couple with his eyes whithersoever they went. In any part of the
rapidly moving crowd he could always make out that one figure; and once
or twice as they passed him it seemed to him that the brilliant beauty,
with her powdered hair, and her flashing bright eyes, and her merry
lips, regarded him for an instant; and then he could have imagined that
in a by-gone century--

"Sir Keith Macleod, I think?"

The old gentleman with the grave and scholarly cap of black velvet and
the long cloak of sober red held out his hand. The folds of the velvet
hanging down from the cap rather shadowed his face; but all the same
Macleod instantly recognized him--fixing the recognition by means of the
gold spectacles.

"Mr. White?" said he.

"I am more disguised than you are," the old gentleman said, with a
smile. "It is a foolish notion of my daughter's; but she would have me
come."

His daughter! Macleod turned in a bewildered way to that gay crowd under
the brilliant lights.

"Was that Miss White?" said he.

"The Duchess of Devonshire. Didn't you recognize her? I am afraid she
will be very tired to-morrow; but she would come."

He caught sight of her again--that woman, with the dark eyes full of
fire, and the dashing air, and the audacious smile! He could have
believed this old man to be mad. Or was he only the father of a witch,
of an illusive _ignis fatuus_, of some mocking Ariel darting into a
dozen shapes to make fools of the poor simple souls of earth?

"No," he stammered, "I--I did not recognize her. I thought the lady who
came with you had intensely dark eyes."

"She is said to be very clever in making up," her father said, coolly
and sententiously. "It is a part of her art that is not to be despised.
It is quite as important as a gesture or a tone of voice in creating the
illusion at which she aims. I do not know whether actresses, as a rule,
are careless about it, or only clumsy; but they rarely succeed in making
their appearance homogeneous. A trifle too much here, a trifle too
little there, and the illusion is spoiled. Then you see a painted
woman--not the character she is presenting. Did you observe my
daughter's eyebrows?"

"No, sir, I did not," said Macleod, humbly.

"Here she comes. Look at them."

But how could he look at her eyebrows, or at any trick of making up,
when the whole face, with its new excitement of color, its parted lips
and lambent eyes, was throwing its fascination upon him? She came
forward laughing, and yet with a certain shyness. He would fain have
turned away.

The Highlanders are superstitious. Did he fear being bewitched? Or what
was it that threw a certain coldness over his manner? The fact of her
having danced with young Ogilvie? Or the ugly reference made by her
father to her eyebrows? He had greatly admired this painted stranger
when he thought she was a stranger; he seemed less to admire the
artistic make-up of Miss Gertrude White.

The merry Duchess, playing her part admirably, charmed all eyes but his;
and yet she was so kind as to devote herself to her father and him,
refusing invitations to dance, and chatting to them--with those
brilliant lips smiling--about the various features of the gay scene
before them. Macleod avoided looking at her face.

"What a bonny boy your friend Mr. Ogilvie is!" said she, glancing across
the room.

He did not answer.

"But he does not look much of a soldier," she continued. "I don't think
I should be afraid of him if I were a man."

He answered, somewhat distantly:--

"It is not safe to judge that way, especially of any one of Highland
blood. If there is fighting in his blood, he will fight when the proper
time comes. And we have a good Gaelic saying--it has a great deal of
meaning in it, that saying--'_You do not know what sword is in the
scabbard until it is drawn._'"

"What did you say was the proverb?" she asked; and for second her eyes
met his; but she immediately withdrew them startled by the cold
austerity of his look.

"'_You do not know what sword is in the scabbard until it is drawn_,'"
said he, carelessly. "There is a good deal of meaning in it."




CHAPTER VIII.

LAUREL COTTAGE.


A small, quaint, old-fashioned house in South Bank, Regent's Park; two
maidens in white in the open veranda; around them the abundant foliage
of June, unruffled by any breeze; and down at the foot of the steep
garden the still canal, its surface mirroring the soft translucent
greens of the trees and bushes above, and the gaudier colors of a barge
lying moored on the northern side. The elder of the two girls is seated
in a rocking-chair; she appears to have been reading, for her right
hand, hanging down, still holds a thin MS. book covered with coarse
brown paper. The younger is lying at her feet, with her head thrown back
in her sister's lap, and her face turned up to the clear June skies.
There are some roses about this veranda, and the still air is sweet with
them.

"And of all the parts you ever played in," she says, "which one did you
like the best Gerty?"

"This one," is the gentle answer.

"What one?"

"Being at home with you and papa, and having no bother at all, and
nothing to think of."

"I don't believe it," says the other, with the brutal frankness of
thirteen. "You couldn't live without the theatre, Gerty--and the
newspapers talking about you--and people praising you--and bouquets--"

"Couldn't I?" says Miss White, with a smile, as she gently lays her hand
on her sister's curls.

"No," continues the wise young lady. "And besides, this pretty, quiet
life would not last. You would have to give up playing that part. Papa
is getting very old now; and he often talks about what may happen to
us. And you know, Gerty, that though it is very nice for sisters to say
they will never and never leave each other, it doesn't come off, does
it? There is only one thing I see for you--and that is to get married."

"Indeed!"

It is easy to fence with a child's prattle. She might have amused
herself by encouraging this chatterbox to go through the list of their
acquaintances, and pick out a goodly choice of suitors. She might have
encouraged her to give expression to her profound views of the chances
and troubles of life, and the safeguards that timid maidens may seek.
But she suddenly said, in a highly matter-of-fact manner:--

"What you say is quite true, Carry, and I've thought of it several
times. It is a very bad thing for an actress to be left without a father
or husband, or brother, as her ostensible guardian. People are always
glad to hear stories--and to make them--about actresses. You would be no
good at all, Carry--"

"Very well, then," the younger sister said, promptly, "you've got to get
married. And to a rich man, too; who will buy you a theatre, and let you
do what you like in it."

Miss Gertrude White, whatever she may have thought of this speech, was
bound to rebuke the shockingly mercenary ring in it.

"For shame, Carry! Do you think people marry from such motives as that?"

"I don't know," said Carry; but she had, at least, guessed.

"I should like my husband to have money, certainly," Miss White said,
frankly; and here she flung the MS. book from her on to a neighboring
chair. "I should like to be able to refuse parts that did not suit me. I
should like to be able to take just such engagements as I chose. I
should like to go to Paris for a whole year, and study hard--"

"Your husband might not wish you to remain an actress," said Miss Carry.

"Then he would never be my husband," the elder sister said, with
decision. "I have not worked hard for nothing. Just when I begin to
think I can do something--when I think I can get beyond those
coquettish, drawing-room, simpering parts that people run after
now--just when the very name of Mrs. Siddons, or Rachael, or any of the
great actresses makes my heart jump--when I have ambition and a fair
chance, and all that--do you think I am to give the whole thing up, and
sink quietly into the position of Mrs. Brown or Mrs. Smith, who is a
very nice lady, no doubt, and very respectable, and lives a quiet and
orderly life, with no greater excitement than scheming to get big people
to go to her garden parties?"

She certainly seemed very clear on that point.

"I don't see that men are so ready to give up their professions, when
they marry, in order to devote themselves to domestic life, even when
they have plenty of money. Why should all the sacrifice be on the side
of the woman? But I know if I have to choose between my art and a
husband, I shall continue to do without a husband."

Miss Carry had risen, and put one arm round her sister's neck, while
with the other she stroked the soft brown hair over the smooth forehead.

"And it shall not be taken away from its pretty theatre, it sha'n't!"
said she, pettingly; "and it shall not be asked to go away with any
great ugly Bluebeard, and be shut up in a lonely house--"

"Go away, Carry," said she, releasing herself. "I wonder why you began
talking such nonsense. What do you know about all those things?"

"Oh! very well," said the child, turning away with a pout; and she
pulled a rose and began to take its petals off, one by one, with her
lips. "Perhaps I don't know. Perhaps I haven't studied your manoeuvres
on the stage, Miss Gertrude White. Perhaps I never saw the newspapers
declaring that it was all so very natural and life-like." She flung two
or three rose petals at her sister. "I believe you're the biggest flirt
that ever lived, Gerty. You could make any man you liked marry you in
ten minutes."

"I wish I could manage to have certain schoolgirls whipped and sent to
bed."

At this moment there appeared at the open French window an elderly woman
of Flemish features and extraordinary breadth of bust.

"Shall I put dressing in the salad, miss?" she said, with scarcely any
trace of foreign accent.

"Not yet, Marie," said Miss White. "I will make the dressing first.
Bring me a large plate, and the cruet-stand, and a spoon and fork, and
some salt."

Now when these things had been brought, and when Miss White had sat
about preparing this salad dressing in a highly scientific manner, a
strange thing occurred. Her sister seemed to have been attacked by a
sudden fit of madness. She had caught up a light shawl, which she
extended from hand to hand, as if she were dancing with some one, and
then she proceeded to execute a slow waltz in this circumscribed space,
humming the improvised music in a mystical and rhythmical manner. And
what were these dark utterances that the inspired one gave forth, as she
glanced from time to time at her sister and the plate?

"_Oh, a Highland lad my love was born--and the Lowland laws he held in
scorn--_"

"Carry, don't make a fool of yourself!" said the other flushing angrily.

Carry flung her imaginary partner aside.

"There is no use making any pretence," said she, sharply. "You know
quite well why you are making that salad dressing."

"Did you never see me make salad dressing before?" said the other, quite
as sharply.

"You know it is simply because Sir Keith Macleod is coming to lunch. I
forgot all about it. Oh, and that's why you had the clean curtains put
up yesterday?"

What else had this precocious brain ferreted out?

"Yes, and that's why you bought papa a new necktie," continued the
tormenter; and then she added, triumphantly, "_But he hasn't put it on
this morning, ha--Gerty?_"

A calm and dignified silence is the best answer to the fiendishness of
thirteen. Miss White went on with the making of the salad-dressing. She
was considered very clever at it. Her father had taught her: but he
never had the patience to carry out his own precepts. Besides, brute
force is not wanted for the work: what you want is the self-denying
assiduity and the dexterous light-handedness of a woman.

A smart young maid-servant, very trimly dressed, made her appearance.

"Sir Keith Macleod, miss," said she.

"Oh, Gerty, you're caught!" muttered the fiend.

But Miss White was equal to the occasion. The small white fingers plied
the fork without a tremor.

"Ask him to step this way, please," she said.

And then the subtle imagination of this demon of thirteen jumped to
another conclusion.

"Oh, Gerty, you want to show him that you are a good housekeeper--that
you can make salad--"

But the imp was silenced by the appearance of Macleod himself. He
looked tall as he came through the small drawing-room. When he came out
onto the balcony the languid air of the place seemed to acquire a fresh
and brisk vitality: he had a bright smile and a resonant voice.

"I have taken the liberty of bringing you a little present, Miss
White--no, it is a large present--that reached me this morning," said
he. "I want you to see one of our Highland salmon. He is a splendid
fellow--twenty-six pounds four ounces, my landlady says. My cousin Janet
sent him to me."

"Oh, but, Sir Keith, we cannot rob you," Miss White said, as she still
demurely plied her fork. "If there is any special virtue in a Highland
salmon, it will be best appreciated by yourself, rather than by those
who don't know."

"The fact is," said he, "people are so kind to me that I scarcely ever
am allowed to dine at my lodgings; and you know the salmon should be
cooked at once."

Miss Carry had been making a face behind his back to annoy her sister.
She now came forward and said, with a charming innocence in her eyes:--

"I don't think you can have it cooked for luncheon, Gerty, for that
would look too much like bringing your tea in your pocket, and getting
hot water for twopence. Wouldn't it?"

Macleod turned and regarded this new-comer with an unmistakable "Who is
this?"--"_Co an so?_"--in his air.

"Oh, that is my sister Carry, Sir Keith," said Miss White. "I forgot you
had not seen her."

"How do you do?" said he, in a kindly way; and for a second he put his
hand on the light curls as her father might have done. "I suppose you
like having holidays?"

From that moment she became his deadly enemy. To be patted on the head,
as if she were a child, an infant--and that in the presence of the
sister whom she had just been lecturing.

"Yes, thank you," said she, with a splendid dignity, as she proudly
walked off. She went into the small lobby leading to the door. She
called to the little maid-servant. She looked at a certain long bag made
of matting which lay there, some bits of grass sticking out of one end.
"Jane, take this thing down to the cellar at once! The whole house
smells of it."

Meanwhile Miss White had carried her salad dressing in to Marie, and
had gone out again to the veranda where Macleod was seated. He was
charmed with the dreamy stillness and silence of the place, with the
hanging foliage all around, and the colors in the steep gardens, and the
still waters below.

"I don't see how it is," said he, "but you seem to have much more open
houses here than we have. Our houses in the North look cold, and hard,
and bare. We should laugh if we saw a place like this up with us; it
seems to me a sort of a toy place out of a picture--from Switzerland or
some such country. Here you are in the open air, with your own little
world around you, and nobody to see you; you might live all your life
here, and know nothing about the storm crossing the Atlantic, and the
wars in Europe, if only you gave up the newspapers."

"Yes, it is very pretty and quiet," said she, and the small fingers
pulled to pieces one of the rose leaves that Carry had thrown at her.
"But you know one is never satisfied anywhere. If I were to tell you the
longing I have to see the very places you describe as being so
desolate--But perhaps papa will take me there some day."

"I hope so," said he; "but I would not call them desolate. They are
terrible at times, and they are lonely, and they make you think. But
they are beautiful too, with a sort of splendid beauty and grandeur that
goes very near making you miserable.... I cannot describe it. You will
see for yourself."

Here a bell rang, and at the same moment Mr. White made his appearance.

"How do you do, Sir Keith? Luncheon is ready, my dear--luncheon is
ready--luncheon is ready."

He kept muttering to himself as he led the way. They entered a small
dining-room, and here, if Macleod had ever heard of actresses having
little time to give to domestic affairs, he must have been struck by the
exceeding neatness and brightness of everything on the table and around
it. The snow-white cover; the brilliant glass and spoons; the carefully
arranged, if tiny, bouquets; and the precision with which the smart
little maiden-servant, the only attendant, waited--all these things
showed a household well managed. Nay, this iced claret-cup--was it not
of her own composition?--and a pleasanter beverage he had never drank.

But she seemed to pay little attention to these matters, for she kept
glancing at her father, who, as he addressed Macleod from time to time,
was obviously nervous and harassed about something. At last she said,--

"Papa, what is the matter with you? Has anything gone wrong this
morning?"

"Oh, my dear child," said he, "don't speak of it. It is my memory--I
fear my memory is going. But we will not trouble our guest about it. I
think you were saying, Sir Keith, that you had seen the latest additions
to the National Gallery--"

"But what is it, papa?" his daughter insisted.

"My dear, my dear, I know I have the lines somewhere; and Lord ---- says
that the very first jug fired at the new pottery he is helping shall
have these lines on it, and be kept for himself. I know I have both the
Spanish original and the English translation somewhere; and all the
morning I have been hunting and hunting--for only one line. I think I
know the other three,--

    'Old wine to drink.
     Old wrongs let sink,
     *    *    *    *
     Old friends in need.'

It is the third line that has escaped me--dear, dear me! I fear my brain
is going."

"But I will hunt for it, papa," said she; "I will get the lines for you.
Don't you trouble."

"No, no, no, child," said he, with somewhat of a pompous air. "You have
this new character to study. You must not allow any trouble to disturb
the serenity of your mind while you are so engaged. You must give your
heart and soul to it, Gerty; you must forget yourself; you must abandon
yourself to it, and let it grow up in your mind until the conception is
so perfect that there are no traces of the manner of its production
left."

He certainly was addressing his daughter, but somehow the formal phrases
suggested that he was speaking for the benefit of the stranger. The prim
old gentleman continued; "That is the only way. Art demands absolute
self-forgetfulness. You must give yourself to it in complete surrender.
People may not know the difference; but the true artist seeks only to be
true to himself. You produce the perfect flower; they are not to know of
the anxious care--of the agony of tears, perhaps you have spent on it.
But then your whole mind must be given to it; there must be no
distracting cares; I will look for the missing lines myself."

"I am quite sure, papa," said Miss Carry, spitefully, "that she was far
more anxious about these cutlets than about her new part this morning.
She was half a dozen times to the kitchen. I didn't see her reading the
book much."

"The _res angustę domi_," said the father, sententiously, "sometimes
interfere, where people are not too well off. But that is necessary.
What is not necessary is that Gerty should take my troubles over to
herself, and disturb her formation of this new character, which ought to
be growing up in her mind almost insensibly, until she herself will
scarcely be aware how real it is. When she steps on to the stage she
ought to be no more Gertrude White than you or I. The artist loses
himself. He transfers his soul to his creation. His heart beats in
another breast; he sees with other eyes. You will excuse me, Sir Keith,
but I keep insisting on this point to my daughter. If she ever becomes a
great artist, that will be the secret of her success. And she ought
never to cease from cultivating the habit. She ought to be ready at any
moment to project herself, as it were, into any character. She ought to
practise so as to make of her own emotions an instrument that she can
use at will. It is a great demand that art makes on the life of an
artist. In fact, he ceases to live for himself. He becomes merely a
medium. His most secret experiences are the property of the world at
large, once they have been transfused and moulded by his personal
skill."

And so he continued talking, apparently for the instruction of his
daughter, but also giving his guest clearly to understand that Miss
Gertrude White was not as other women but rather as one set apart for
the high and inexorable sacrifice demanded by art. At the end of his
lecture he abruptly asked Macleod if he had followed him. Yes, he had
followed him, but in rather a bewildered way. Or had he some confused
sense of self-reproach, in that he had distracted the contemplation of
this pale and beautiful artist, and sent her downstairs to look after
cutlets?

"It seems a little hard, sir," said Macleod to the old man, "that an
artist is not to have any life of his or her own at all; that he or she
should become merely a--a--a sort of ten-minutes' emotionalist."

It was not a bad phrase for a rude Highlander to have invented on the
spur of the moment. But the fact was that some little personal feeling
stung him into the speech. He was prepared to resent this tyranny of art.
And if he now were to see some beautiful pale slave bound in these iron
chains, and being exhibited for the amusement of an idle world, what
would the fierce blood of the Macleods say to that debasement? He began
to dislike this old man, with his cruel theories and his oracular
speech. But he forbore to have further or any argument with him; for he
remembered what the Highlanders call "the advice of the bell of
Scoon"--"_The thing that concerns you not meddle not with._"




CHAPTER IX.

THE PRINCESS RIGHINN.


The people who lived in this land of summer, and sunshine, and
flowers--had they no cares at all? He went out into the garden with
these two girls; and they were like two young fawns in their careless
play. Miss Carry, indeed, seemed bent on tantalizing him by the manner
in which she petted and teased and caressed her sister--scolding her,
quarrelling with her, and kissing her all at once. The grave, gentle,
forbearing manner in which the elder sister bore all this was beautiful
to see. And then her sudden concern and pity when the wild Miss Carry
had succeeded in scratching her finger with the thorn of a rose-bush! It
was the tiniest of scratches: and all the blood that appeared was about
the size of a pin-head. But Miss White must needs tear up her dainty
little pocket-handkerchief, and bind that grievous wound, and condole
with the poor victim as though she were suffering untold agonies. It was
a pretty sort of idleness. It seemed to harmonize with this still,
beautiful summer day, and the soft green foliage around, and the still
air that was sweet with the scent of the flowers of the lime-trees. They
say that the Gaelic word for the lower regions _ifrin_, is derived from
_i bhuirn_, the island of incessant rain. To a Highlander, therefore
must not this land of perpetual summer and sunshine have seemed to be
heaven itself?

And even the malicious Carry relented for a moment.

"You said you were going to the Zoological Gardens," she said.

"Yes," he answered, "I am. I have seen everything I want to see in
London but that."

"Because Gerty and I might walk across the Park with you, and show you
the way."

"I very much wish you would," said he, "if you have nothing better to
do."

"I will see if papa does not want me," said Miss White, calmly. She
might just as well be walking in Regent's Park as in this small garden.

Presently the three of them set out.

"I am glad of any excuse," she said, with a smile, "for throwing aside
that new part. It seems to me insufferably stupid. It is very hard that
you should be expected to make a character look natural when the words
you have to speak are such as no human being would use in any
circumstance whatever."

Oddly enough, he never heard her make even the slightest reference to
her profession without experiencing a sharp twinge of annoyance. He did
not stay to ask himself why this should be so. Ordinarily he simply made
haste to change the subject.

"Then why should you take the part at all?" said he, bluntly.

"Once you have given yourself up to a particular calling--you must
accept its little annoyances," she said, frankly. "I cannot have
everything my own way. I have been very fortunate in other respects. I
never had to go through the drudgery of the provinces, though they say
that is the best school possible for an actress. And I am sure the money
and the care papa has spent on my training--you see, he had no son to
send to college. I think he is far more anxious about my succeeding than
I am myself."

"But you have succeeded," said Macleod. It was, indeed, the least he
could say, with all his dislike of the subject.

"Oh, I do not call that success," said she, simply. "That is merely
pleasing people by showing them little scenes from their own
drawing-rooms transferred to the stage. They like it because it is
pretty and familiar. And people pretend to be very cynical at
present--they like things with 'no nonsense about them;' and I suppose
this son of comedy is the natural reaction from the rant of the
melodrama. Still, if you happen to be ambitious--or perhaps it is mere
vanity?--if you would like to try what is in you--"

"Gerty wants to be a Mrs. Siddons: that's it," said Miss Carry,
promptly.

Talking to an actress about her profession, and not having a word of
compliment to say? Instead, he praised the noble elms and chestnuts of
the Park, the broad white lake, the flowers, the avenues. He was greatly
interested by the whizzing by overhead of a brace of duck.

"I suppose you are very fond of animals?" Miss White said.

"I am indeed," said he, suddenly brightening up. "And up at our place I
give them all a chance. I don't allow a single weasel or hawk to be
killed, though I have a great deal of trouble about it. But what is the
result? I don't know whether there is such a thing as the balance of
nature, or whether it is merely that the hawks and weasels and other
vermin kill off the sickly birds: but I do know that we have less
disease among our birds than I hear of anywhere else. I have sometimes
shot a weasel, it is true, when I have run across him as he was hunting
a rabbit--you cannot help doing that if you hear the rabbit squealing
with fright long before the weasel is at him--but it is against my rule.
I give them all a fair field and no favor. But there are two animals I
put out of the list; I thought there was only one till this week--now
there are two; and one of them I hate, the other I fear."

"Fear?" she said: the slight flash of surprise in her eyes was eloquent
enough. But he did not notice it.

"Yes," said he, rather gloomily. "I suppose it is superstition, or you
may have it in your blood; but the horror I have of the eyes of a
snake--I cannot tell you of it. Perhaps I was frightened when I was a
child--I cannot remember; or perhaps it was the stories of the old
women. The serpent is very mysterious to the people in the Highlands:
they have stories of watersnakes in the lochs: and if you get a nest of
seven adders with one white one, you boil the white one, and the man who
drinks the broth knows all things in heaven and earth. In the Lewis they
call the serpent _righinn_, that is, '_a princess;_' and they say that
the serpent is a princess bewitched. But that is from fear--it is a
compliment--"

"But surely there are no serpents to be afraid of in the Highlands?"
said Miss White. She was looking rather curiously at him.

"No," said he, in the same gloomy way. "The adders run away from you if
you are walking through the heather. If you tread on one, and he bites
your boot, what then? He cannot hurt you. But suppose you are out after
the deer, and you are crawling along the heather with your face to the
ground, and all at once you see the two small eyes of an adder looking
at you and close to you--"

He shuddered slightly--perhaps it was only an expression of disgust.

"I have heard," he continued, "that in parts of Islay they used to be so
bad that the farmers would set fire to the heather in a circle, and as
the heather burned in and in you could see the snakes and adders
twisting and curling in a great ball. We have not many with us. But one
day John Begg, that is the schoolmaster, went behind a rock to get a
light for his pipe; and he put his head close to the rock to be out of
the wind; and then he thought he stirred something with his cap; and the
next moment the adder fell on to his shoulder, and bit him in the neck.
He was half mad with the fright; but I think the adder must have bitten
the cap first and expended its poison; for the schoolmaster was only ill
for about two days, and then there was no more of it. But just think of
it--an adder getting to your neck--"

"I would rather not think of it," she said, quickly. "What is the other
animal--that you hate?"

"Oh!" he said, lightly, "that is a very different affair--that is a
parrot that speaks. I was never shut up in the house with one till this
week. My landlady's son brought her home one from the West Indies; and
she put the cage in a window recess on my landing. At first it was a
little amusing; but the constant yelp--it was too much for me. '_Pritty
poal! pritty poal!_' I did not mind so much; but when the ugly brute,
with its beady eyes and its black snout, used to yelp, '_Come and kiz
me! come and kiz me!_' I grew to hate it. And in the morning, too, how
was one to sleep? I used to open my door and fling a boot at it; but
that only served for a time. It began again."

"But you speak of it as having been there. What became of it?"

He glanced at her rather nervously--like a schoolboy--and laughed.

"Shall I tell you?" he said, rather shamefacedly. "The murder will be
out sooner or later. It was this morning. I could stand it no longer. I
had thrown both my boots at it; it was no use. I got up a third time,
and went out. The window, that looks into a back yard, was open. Then I
opened the parrot's cage. But the fool of an animal did not know what I
meant--or it was afraid--and so I caught him by the back of the neck and
flung him out. I don't know anything more about him."

"Could he fly?" said the big-eyed Carry, who had been quite interested
in this tragic tale.

"I don't know," Macleod said, modestly. "There was no use asking him.
All he could say was, '_Come and kiz me;_' and I got tired of that."

"Then you have murdered him!" said the elder sister in an awestricken
voice; and she pretended to withdraw a bit from him. "I don't believe in
the Macleods having become civilized, peaceable people. I believe they
would have no hesitation in murdering any one that was in their way."

"Oh, Miss White," said he, in protest, "you must forget what I told you
about the Macleods; and you must really believe they were no worse than
the others of the same time. Now I was thinking of another story the
other day, which I must tell you--"

"Oh, pray, don't," she said, "if it is one of those terrible legends--"

"But I must tell you," said he, "because it is about the Macdonalds; and
I want to show you that we had not all the badness of those times. It
was Donald Gorm Mor; and his nephew Hugh Macdonald, who was the heir to
the chieftainship, he got a number of men to join him in a conspiracy to
have his uncle murdered. The chief found it out, and forgave him. That
was not like a Macleod," he admitted, "for I never heard of a Macleod of
those days forgiving anybody. But again Hugh Macdonald engaged in a
conspiracy; and then Donald Gorm Mor thought he would put an end to the
nonsense. What did he do? He put his nephew into a deep and foul
dungeon--so the story says--and left him without food or water for a
whole day. Then there was salt beef lowered into the dungeon; and
Macdonald he devoured the salt beef; for he was starving with hunger.
Then they left him alone. But you can imagine the thirst of a man who
has been eating salt beef, and who has had no water for a day or two. He
was mad with thirst. Then they lowered a cup into the dungeon--you may
imagine the eagerness with which the poor fellow saw it coming down to
him--and how he caught it with both his hands. _But it was empty!_ And
so, having made a fool of him in that way, they left him to die of
thirst That was the Macdonalds, Miss White, not the Macleods."

"Then I am glad of Culloden," said she, with decision, "for destroying
such a race of fiends."

"Oh, you must not say that," he protested, laughing. "We should have
become quiet and respectable folks without Culloden. Even without
Culloden we should have had penny newspapers all the same; and tourist
boats from Oban to Iona. Indeed, you won't find quieter folks anywhere
than the Macdonalds and Macleods are now."

"I don't know how far you are to be trusted," said she, pretending to
look at him with some doubts.

Now they reached the gate of the gardens.

"Do let us go in, Gerty," said Miss Carry. "You know you always get
hints for your dresses from the birds--you would never have thought of
that flamingo pink and white if you had not been walking through here--"

"I will go in for a while if you like, Carry," said she; and certainly
Macleod was nothing loath.

There were but few people in the Gardens on this afternoon, for all the
world was up at the Eton and Harrow cricket-match at Lord's, and there
was little visible of 'Arry and his pipe. Macleod began to show more
than a school boy's delight over the wonders of this strange place. That
he was exceedingly fond of animals--always barring the two he had
mentioned--was soon abundantly shown. He talked to them as though the
mute inquiring eyes could understand him thoroughly. When he came to
animals with which he was familiar in the North, he seemed to be
renewing acquaintance with old friends--like himself, they were
strangers in a strange land.

"Ah," said he to the splendid red deer, which was walking about the
paddock with his velvety horns held proudly in the air, "what part of
the Highlands have you come from? And wouldn't you like now a canter
down the dry bed of a stream on the side of Ben-an-Sloich?"

The hind, with slow and gentle step, and with her nut-brown hide shining
in the sun, came up to the bars, and regarded him with those large,
clear, gray-green eyes--so different from the soft dark eyes of the
roe--that had long eyelashes on the upper lid. He rubbed her nose.

"And wouldn't you rather be up on the heather, munching the young grass
and drinking out of the burn?"

They went along to the great cage of the sea-eagles. The birds seemed to
pay no heed to what was passing immediately around them. Ever and anon
they jerked their heads into an attitude of attention, and the golden
brown eye with its contracted pupil and stern upper lid, seemed to be
throwing a keen glance over the immeasurable leagues of sea.

"Poor old chap!" he said to one perched high on an old stump, "wouldn't
you like to have one sniff of a sea-breeze, and a look round for a
sea-pyot or two? What do they give you here--dead fish, I suppose?"

The eagle raised its great wings and slowly flapped them once or twice,
while it uttered a succession of shrill _yawps_.

"Oh yes," he said, "you could make yourself heard above the sound of the
waves. And I think if any of the boys were after your eggs or your young
ones, you could make short work of them with those big wings. Or would
you like to have a battle-royal with a seal, and try whether you could
pilot the seal in to the shore, or whether the seal would drag you and
your fixed claws down to the bottom and drown you?"

There was a solitary kittiwake in a cage devoted to sea-birds, nearly
all of which were foreigners.

"You poor little kittiwake," said he, "this is a sad place for you to be
in. I think you would rather be out at Ru-Treshanish, even if it was
blowing hard, and there was rain about. There was a dead whale came
ashore there about a month ago; that would have been something like a
feast for you."

"Why," said he, to his human companion, "if I had only known before!
Whenever there was an hour or two with nothing to do, here was plenty of
occupation. But I must not keep you too long, Miss White. I could remain
here days and weeks."

"You will not go without looking in at the serpents," said she, with a
slight smile.

He hesitated for a second.

"No," said he; "I think I will not go in to see them."

"But you must," said she, cruelly. "You will see they are not such
terrible creatures when they are shut up in glass boxes."

He suffered himself to be led along to the reptile house; but he was
silent. He entered the last of the three. He stood in the middle of the
room, and looked around him in rather a strange way.

"Now, come and look at this splendid fellow," said Miss White, who, with
her sister, was leaning over the rail. "Look at his splendid bars of
color! Do you see the beautiful blue sheen on its scales?"

It was a huge anaconda, its body as thick as a man's leg, lying coiled
up in a circle; its flat, ugly head reposing in the middle. He came a
bit nearer. "Hideous!" was all he said. And then his eyes was fixed on
the eyes of the animal--the lidless eyes, with their perpetual glassy
stare. He had thought at first they were closed; but now he saw that
that opaque yellow substance was covered by a glassy coating, while in
the centre there was a small slit as if cut by a penknife. The great
coils slowly expanded and fell again as the animal breathed; otherwise
the fixed stare of those yellow eyes might have been taken for the stare
of death.

"I don't think the anaconda is poisonous at all," said she, lightly.

"But if you were to meet that beast in a jungle," said he, "what
difference would that make!"

He spoke reproachfully, as if she were luring him into some secret place
to have him slain with poisonous fangs. He passed on from that case to
the others unwillingly. The room was still. Most of the snakes would
have seemed dead but for the malign stare of the beaded eyes. He seemed
anxious to get out; the atmosphere of the place was hot and oppressive.

But just at the door there was a case some quick motion in which caught
his eye, and despite himself he stopped to look. The inside of this
glass box was alive with snakes--raising their heads in the air, slimily
crawling over each other, the small black forked tongues shooting in and
out, the black points of eyes glassily staring. And the object that had
moved quickly was a wretched little yellow frog, that was not motionless
in a dish of water, its eyes apparently starting out of its head with
horror. A snake made its appearance over the edge of the dish. The
shooting black tongue approached the head of the frog; and then the
long, sinuous body glided along the edge of the dish again, the frog
meanwhile being too paralyzed with fear to move. A second afterward the
frog, apparently recovering, sprung clean out of the basin; but it was
only to alight on the backs of two or three of the reptiles lying coiled
up together. It made another spring, and got into a corner among some
grass, But along that side of the case another of those small, flat,
yellow marked heads was slowly creeping along, propelled by the
squirming body; and again the frog made a sudden spring, this time
leaping once more into the shallow water, where, it stood and panted,
with its eyes dilated. And now a snake that had crawled up the side of
the case put out its long neck as if to see whither it should proceed.
There was nothing to lay hold of. The head swayed and twisted, the
forked tongue shooting out; and at last the snake fell away from its
hold, and splashed right into the basin of water on the top of the frog.
There was a wild shooting this way and that--but Macleod did not see the
end of it. He had uttered some slight exclamation, and got into the open
air, as one being suffocated: and there were drops of perspiration on
his forehead, and a trembling of horror and disgust had seized him. His
two companions followed him out.

"I felt rather faint," said he, in a low voice--and he did not turn to
look at them as he spoke--"the air is close in that room."

They moved away. He looked around--at the beautiful green of the trees,
and the blue sky, and the sunlight on the path--God's world was getting
to be more wholesome again, and the choking sensation of disgust was
going from his throat. He seemed, however, rather anxious to get away
from this place. There was a gate close by; he proposed they should go
out by that. As he walked back with them to South Bank, they chatted
about many of the animals--the two girls in especial being much
interested in certain pheasants, whose colors of plumage they thought
would look very pretty in a dress--but he never referred, either then or
at any future time, to his visit to the reptile house. Nor did it occur
to Miss White, in this idle conversation, to ask him whether his
Highland blood had inherited any other qualities besides that
instinctive and deadly horror of serpents.




CHAPTER X.

LAST NIGHTS.


"Good-night, Macleod!"--"Good-night!"--"Good-night!" The various voices
came from the top of a drag. They were addressed to one of two young men
who stood on the steps of the Star and Garter--black fingers in the
blaze of light. And now the people on the drag had finally ensconced
themselves, and the ladies had drawn their ample cloaks more completely
around their gay costumes, and the two grooms were ready to set free the
heads of the leaders. "Good-night, Macleod!" Lord Beauregard called
again; and then, with a little preliminary prancing of the leaders, away
swung the big vehicle through the clear darkness of the sweet-scented
summer night.

"It was awfully good-natured of Beauregard to bring six of your people
down and take them back again," observed Lieutenant Ogilvie to his
companion. "He wouldn't do it for most folks. He wouldn't do it for me.
But then you have the grand air, Macleod. You seem to be conferring a
favor when you get one."

"The people have been very kind to me," said Macleod, simply. "I do not
know why. I wish I could take them all up to Castle Dare and entertain
them as a prince could entertain people--"

"I want to talk to you about that, Macleod," said his companion. "Shall
we go upstairs again? I have left my hat and coat there."

They went upstairs, and entered a long chamber which had been formed by
the throwing of two rooms into one. The one apartment had been used as a
sort of withdrawing room; in the other stood the long banquet-table,
still covered with bright-colored flowers, and dishes of fruit, and
decanters and glasses. Ogilvie sat down, lit a cigar, and poured himself
out some claret.

"Macleod," said he, "I am going to talk to you like a father. I hear you
have been going on in a mad way. Surely you know that a batchelor coming
up to London for a season, and being asked about by people who are
precious glad to get unmarried men to their houses, is not expected to
give these swell dinner parties? And then, it seems, you have been
bringing down all your people in drags. What do those flowers cost you?
I dare say this is Lafitte, now?"

"And if it is, why not drink it and say no more about it? I think they
enjoyed themselves pretty well this evening--don't you, Ogilvie?"

"Yes, yes; but then, my dear fellow, the cost! You will say it is none
of my business; but what would your decent, respectable mother say to
all this extravagance?"

"Ah?" said Macleod, "that is just the thing; I should have more pleasure
in my little dinner parties if only the mother and Janet were here to
see. I think the table would look a good deal better if my mother was at
the head of it. And the cost?--oh, I am only following out her
instructions. She would not have people think that I was insensible to
the kindness that has been shown me; and then we cannot ask all those
good friends up to Castle Dare; it is an out-of-the-way place, and there
are no flowers on the dining-table there."

He laughed as he looked at the beautiful things before him; they would
look strange in the gaunt hall of Castle Dare.

"Why," said he, "I will tell you a secret, Ogilvie. You know my cousin
Janet--she is the kindest-hearted of all the women I know--and when I
was coming away she gave me £2000, just in case I should need it."

"£2000!" exclaimed Ogilvie. "Did she think you were going to buy
Westminster Abbey during the course of your holidays?" And then he
looked at the table before him, and a new idea seemed to strike him.
"You don't mean to say, Macleod, that it is your cousin's money--"

Macleod's face flushed angrily. Had any other man made the suggestion,
he would have received a tolerably sharp answer. But he only said to his
old friend Ogilvie,--

"No, no, Ogilvie; we are not very rich folks; but we have not come to
that yet. 'I'd sell my kilts, I'd sell my shoon,' as the song says,
before I touched a farthing of Janet's money. But I had to take it from
her so as not to offend her. It is wonderful, the anxiety and affection
of women who live away out of the world like that. There was my mother,
quite sure that something awful was going to happen to me, merely
because I was going away for two or three months, And Janet--I suppose
she knew that our family never was very good at saving money--she would
have me take this little fortune of hers, just as if the old days were
come back, and the son of the house was supposed to go to Paris to
gamble away every penny."

"By the way, Macleod," said Ogilvie, "you have never gone to Paris, as
you intended."

"No," said he, trying to balance three nectarines one on the top of the
other, "I have not gone to Paris. I have made enough friends in London.
I have had plenty to occupy the time. And now, Ogilvie," he added,
brightly, "I am going in for my last frolic, before everybody has left
London, and you must come to it, even if you have to go down by your
cold-meat train again. You know Miss Rawlinson; you have seen her at
Mrs. Ross's, no doubt. Very well; I met her first when we went down to
the Thames yacht race, and afterwards we became great friends; and the
dear little old lady already looks on me as if I were her son. And do
you know what her proposal is? That she is to give me up her house and
garden for a garden party, and I am to ask my friends; and it is to be a
dance as well, for we shall ask the people to have supper at eight
o'clock or so; and then we shall have a marquee--and the garden all
lighted up--do you see? It is one of the largest gardens on Campden
Hill; and the colored lamps hung on the trees will make it look very
fine; and we shall have a band to play music for the dancers--"

"It will cost you £200 or £300 at least," said Ogilvie, sharply.

"What then? You give your friends a pleasant evening, and you show them
that you are not ungrateful," said Macleod.

Ogilvie began to ponder over this matter. The stories he had heard of
Macleod's extravagant entertainments were true, then. Suddenly he looked
up and said,--

"Is Miss White to be one of your guests?"

"I hope so," said he. "The theatre will be closed at the end of this
week."

"I suppose you have been a good many times to the theatre."

"To the Piccadilly Theatre?"

"Yes."

"I have been only once to the Piccadilly Theatre--when you and I went
together," said Macleod, coldly; and they spoke no more of that matter.

By and by they thought they might as well smoke outside, and so they
went down and out upon the high and walled terrace overlooking the broad
valley of the Thames. And now the moon had arisen in the south, and the
winding river showed a pale gray among the black woods, and there was a
silvery light on the stone parapet on which they leaned their arms. The
night was mild and soft and clear, there was an intense silence around,
but they heard the faint sound of oars far away--some boating party
getting home through the dark shadows of the river-side trees.

"It is a beautiful life you have here in the south," Macleod said, after
a time, "though I can imagine that the women enjoy it more than the
men. It is natural for women to enjoy pretty colors, and flowers, and
bright lights, and music; and I suppose it is the mild air that lets
their eyes grow so big and clear. But the men--I should think they must
get tired of doing nothing. They are rather melancholy, and their hands
are white. I wonder they don't begin to hate Hyde Park, and kid gloves,
and tight boots. Ogilvie," said he, suddenly, straightening himself up,
"what do you say to the 12th? A few breathers over Ben-an-Sloich would
put new lungs into you. I don't think you look quite so limp as most of
the London men; but still you are not up to the mark. And then an
occasional run out to Coll or Tiree in that old tub of ours, with a
brisk sou'-wester blowing across--that would put some mettle into you.
Mind you, you won't have any grand banquets at Castle Dare. I think it
is hard on the poor old mother that she should have all the pinching,
and none of the squandering; but women seem to have rather a liking for
these sacrifices, and both she and Janet are very proud of the family
name; I believe they would live on sea-weed for a year if only their
representative in London could take Buckingham Palace for the season.
And Hamish--don't you remember Hamish?--he will give you a hearty
welcome to Dare, and he will tell you the truth about any salmon or stag
you may kill, though he was never known to come within five pounds of
the real weight of any big salmon I ever caught. Now then, what do you
say?"

"Ah, it is all very well," said Lieutenant Ogilvie. "If we could all get
what we want, there would scarcely be an officer in Aldershot Camp on
the 12th of August. But I must say there are some capitally good fellows
in our mess--and it isn't every one gets the chance you offer me--and
there's none of the dog-in-the-manger feeling about them: in short. I do
believe, Macleod, that I could get off for a week or so about the 20th."

"The 20th? So be it. Then you will have the blackcock added in."

"When do you leave?"

"On the 1st of August--the morning after my garden party. You must come
to it, Ogilvie. Lady Beauregard has persuaded her husband to put off
their going to Ireland for three days in order to come. And I have got
old Admiral Maitland coming--with his stories of the press-gang, and of
Nelson, and of the raids on the merchant-ships for officers for the
navy. Did you know that Miss Rawlinson was an old sweetheart of his? He
knew her when she lived in Jamaica with her father--several centuries
ago you would think, judging by their stories. Her father got £28,000
from the government when his slaves were emancipated. I wish I could get
the old admiral up to Dare--he and the mother would have some stories to
tell, I think. But you don't like long journeys at ninety-two."

He was in a pleasant and talkative humor, this bright-faced and stalwart
young fellow, with his proud, fine features and his careless air. One
could easily see how these old folks had made a sort of a pet of him.
But while he went on with this desultory chatting about the various
people whom he had met, and the friendly invitations he had received,
and the hopes he had formed of renewing his acquantainceship with this
person and the next person, should chance bring him again to London
soon, he never once mentioned the name of Miss Gertrude White, or
referred to her family, or even to her public appearances, about which
there was plenty of talk at this time. Yet Lieutenant Ogilvie, on his
rare visits to London, had more than once heard Sir Keith Macleod's name
mentioned in conjunction with that of the young actress whom society was
pleased to regard with a special and unusual favor just then; and once
or twice he, as Macleod's friend, had been archly questioned on the
subject by some inquisitive lady, whose eyes asked more than her words.
But Lieutenant Ogilvie was gravely discreet. He neither treated the
matter with ridicule, nor, on the other hand, did he pretend to know
more than he actually knew--which was literally nothing at all. For
Macleod, who was, in ordinary circumstances, anything but a reserved or
austere person, was on this subject strictly silent, evading questions
with a proud and simple dignity that forbade the repetition of them.
"_The thing that concerns you not, meddle not with:_" he observed the
maxim himself, and expected others to do the like.

It was an early dinner they had had, after their stroll in Richmond
Park, and it was a comparatively early train that Macleod and his friend
now drove down to catch, after he had paid his bill. When they reached
Waterloo Station it was not yet eleven o'clock; when he, having bade
good-bye to Ogilvie, got to his rooms in Bary Street, it was but a few
minutes after. He was joyfully welcomed by his faithful friend Oscar.

"You poor dog," said he, "here have we been enjoying ourselves all the
day, and you have been in prison. Come, shall we go for a run?"

Oscar jumped up on him with a whine of delight; he knew what that taking
up of the hat again meant. And then there was a silent stealing
downstairs, and a slight, pardonable bark of joy in the hall, and a wild
dash into the freedom of the narrow street when the door was opened.
Then Oscar moderated his transports, and kept pretty close to his master
as together they began to wander through the desert wilds of London.

Piccadilly?--Oscar had grown as expert in avoiding the rattling
broughams and hansoms as the veriest mongrel that ever led a vagrant
life in London streets. Berekely Square?--here there was comparative
quiet, with the gas lamps shining up on the thick foliage of the maples.
In Grosvenor Square he had a bit of a scamper; but there was no rabbit
to hunt. In Oxford Street his master took him into a public-house and
gave him a biscuit and a drink of water; after that his spirits rose a
bit, and he began to range ahead in Baker Street. But did Oscar know any
more than his master why they had taken this direction?

Still farther north; and now there were a good many trees about; and the
moon, high in the heavens, touched the trembling foliage, and shone
white on the front of the houses. Oscar was a friendly companion; but he
could not be expected to notice that his master glanced somewhat
nervously along South Bank when he had reached the entrance to that
thoroughfare. Apparently the place was quite deserted; there was nothing
visible but the walls, trees, and houses, one side in black shadow, the
other shining cold and pale in the moonlight. After a moment's
hesitation Macleod resumed his walk, though he seemed to tread more
softly.

And now, in the perfect silence, he neared a certain house, though but
little of it was visible over the wall and through the trees. Did he
expect to see a light in one of those upper windows, which the drooping
acacias did not altogether conceal. He walked quickly by, with his head
averted. Oscar had got a good way in front, not doubting that his master
was following him.

But Macleod, perhaps having mustered up further courage, stopped in his
walk, and returned. This time he passed more slowly, and turned his head
to the house, as if listening. There was no light in the windows; there
was no sound at all; there was no motion but that of the trembling
acacia leaves as the cold wind of the night stirred them. And then he
passed over to the south side of the thoroughfare, and stood in the
black shadow of a high wall; and Oscar came and looked up into his face.

A brougham rattled by; then there was utter stillness again; and the
moonlight shone on the front of the small house; which was to all
appearances as lifeless as the grave. Then, far away, twelve o'clock
struck, and the sound seemed distant as the sound of a bell at sea in
this intense quiet.

He was alone with the night, and with the dreams and fancies of the
night. Would he, then, confess to himself that which he would confess to
no other? Or was it merely some passing whim--some slight underchord of
sentiment struck amidst the careless joy of a young man's holiday--that
had led him up into the silent region of trees and moonlight? The scene
around him was romantic enough, but he certainly had not the features of
an anguish-stricken lover.

Again the silence of the night was broken by the rumbling of a cab that
came along the road; and now, whatever may have been the fancy that
brought him hither, he turned to leave, and Oscar joyfully bounded out
into the road. But the cab, instead of continuing its route, stopped at
the gate of the house he had been watching, and two young ladies stepped
out. Fionaghal, the Fair Stranger, had not, then, been wandering in the
enchanted land of dreams, but toiling home in a humble four-wheeler from
the scene of her anxious labors? He would have slunk away rapidly but
for an untoward accident. Oscar, ranging up and down, came upon an old
friend, and instantly made acquaintance with her, on seeing which,
Macleod, with deep vexation at his heart, but with a pleasant and
careless face, had to walk along also.

"What an odd meeting!" said he. "I have been giving Oscar a run. I am
glad to have a chance of bidding you good-night. You are not very tired,
I hope."

"I am rather tired," said she; "but I have only two more nights, and
then my holiday begins."

He shook hands with both sisters, and wished them good-night, and
departed. As Miss Gertrude White went into her father's house she seemed
rather grave.

"Gerty," said the younger sister, as she screwed up the gas, "wouldn't
the name of Lady Macleod look well in a play-bill?"

The elder sister would not answer; but as she turned away there was a
quick flush of color in her face--whether caused by anger or by a sudden
revelation of her own thought it was impossible to say.




CHAPTER XI.

A FLOWER.


The many friends Macleod had made in the South--or rather those of them
who had remained in town till the end of the season--showed an unwonted
interest in this nondescript party of his; and it was at a comparatively
early hour in the evening that the various groups of people began to
show themselves in Miss Rawlinson's garden. That prim old lady, with her
quick, bright ways, and her humorous little speeches, studiously kept
herself in the background. It was Sir Keith Macleod who was the host.
And when he remarked to her that he thought the most beautiful night of
all the beautiful time he had spent in the South had been reserved for
this very party, she replied--looking round the garden just as if she
had been one of his guests--that it was a pretty scene. And it was a
pretty scene. The last fire of the sunset was just touching the topmost
branches of the trees. In the colder shade below, the banks and beds of
flowers and the costumes of the ladies acquired a strange intensity of
color. Then there was a band playing, and a good deal of chatting going
on, and one old gentleman with a grizzled mustache humbly receiving
lessons in lawn tennis from an imperious small maiden of ten. Macleod
was here, there, and everywhere. The lanterns were to be lit while the
people were in at supper. Lieutenant Ogilvie was directed to take in
Lady Beauregard when the time arrived.

"You must take her in yourself, Macleod," said that properly constituted
youth. "If you outrage the sacred laws of precedence--"

"I mean to take Miss Rawlinson in to supper," said Macleod; "she is the
oldest woman here, and I think, my best friend."

"I thought you might wish to give Miss White the place of honor," said
Ogilvie, out of sheer impertinence; but Macleod went off to order the
candles to be lit in the marquee, where supper was laid.

By and by he came out again. And now the twilight had drawn on apace;
there was a cold, clear light in the skies, while at the same moment a
red glow began to shine through the canvas of the long tent. He walked
over to one little group who were seated on a garden chair.

"Well," said he, "I have got pretty nearly all my people together now,
Mrs. Ross."

"But where is Gertrude White?" said Mrs. Ross; "surely she is to be
here?"

"Oh yes, I think so," said he. "Her father and herself both promised to
come. You know her holidays have begun now."

"It is a good thing for that girl," said Miss Rawlinson, in her quick,
_staccato_ fashion, "that she has few holidays. Very good thing she has
her work to mind. The way people run after her would turn any woman's
head. The Grand D---- is said to have declared that she was one of the
three prettiest women he saw in England: what can you expect if things
like that get to a girl's ears?"

"But you know Gerty is quite unspoiled," said Mrs. Ross, warmly.

"Yes, so far," said the old lady, "So far she retains the courtesy of
being hypocritical."

"Oh, Miss Rawlinson, I won't have you say such things of Gerty White!"
Mrs. Ross protested. "You are a wicked old woman--isn't she Hugh?"

"I am saying it to her credit," continued the old lady, with much
composure. "What I say is, that most pretty women who are much run after
are flattered into frankness. When they are introduced to you, they
don't take the trouble to conceal that they are quite indifferent to
you. A plain woman will be decently civil, and will smile, and pretend
she is pleased. A beauty--a recognized beauty--doesn't take the trouble
to be hypocritical. Now Miss White does."

"It is an odd sort of compliment," said Colonel Ross, laughing. "What do
you think of it Macleod?"

"These are too great refinements for my comprehension," said he,
modestly. "I think if a pretty woman is uncivil to you, it is easy for
you to turn on your heel and go away."

"I did not say uncivil--don't you go misrepresenting a poor old woman,
Sir Keith. I said she is most likely to be flattered into being
honest--into showing a stranger that she is quite indifferent, whereas a
plain woman will try to make herself a little agreeable. Now a poor lone
creature like myself likes to fancy that people are glad to see her, and
Miss White pretends as much. It is very kind. By and by she will get
spoiled like the rest, and then she will become honest. She will shake
hands with me, and then turn off, as much as to say, 'Go away, you ugly
old woman, for I can't be bothered with you, and I don't expect any
money from you, and why should I pretend to like you?'"

All this was said in a half-jesting way; and it certainly did not at all
represent--so far as Macleod had ever made out--the real opinions of her
neighbors in the world held by this really kind and gentle old lady. But
Macleod had noticed before that Miss Rawlinson never spoke with any
great warmth about Miss Gertrude White's beauty, or her acting, or
anything at all connected with her. At this very moment, when she was
apparently praising the young lady, there was a bitter flavor about what
she said. There may be jealousy between sixty-five and nineteen; and if
this reflection occurred to Macleod, he no doubt assumed that Miss
Rawlinson, if jealous at all, was jealous of Miss Gertrude White's
influence over--Mrs. Ross.

"As for Miss White's father," continued the old lady, with a little
laugh, "perhaps he believes in those sublime theories of art he is
always preaching about. Perhaps he does. They are very fine. One result
of them is that his daughter remains on the stage--and earns a handsome
income--and he enjoys himself in picking up bits of curiosities."

"Now that is really unfair," said Mrs. Ross, seriously. "Mr. White is
not a rich man, but he has some small means that render him quite
independent of any income of his daughter's. Why, how did they live
before they ever thought of letting her try her fortune on the stage?
And the money he spent, when it was at last decided she should be
carefully taught--"

"Oh, very well," said Miss Rawlinson, with a smile; but she nodded her
head ominously. If that old man was not actually living on his
daughter's earnings, he had at least strangled his mother, or robbed the
Bank of England, or done something or other. Miss Rawlinson was
obviously not well disposed either to Mr. White or to his daughter.

At this very moment both these persons made their appearance, and
certainly, as this slender and graceful figure, clad in a pale summer
costume, came across the lawn, and as a smile of recognition lit up the
intelligent fine face, these critics sitting there must have
acknowledged that Gertrude White was a singularly pretty woman. And then
the fascination of that low-toned voice! She began to explain to Macleod
why they were so late: some trifling accident had happened to Carry. But
as these simple, pathetic tones told him the story, his heart was filled
with a great gentleness and pity towards that poor victim of misfortune.
He was struck with remorse because he had sometimes thought harshly of
the poor child on account of a mere occasional bit of pertness. His
first message from the Highlands would be to her.

    "O, Willie brew'd a peck o'maut,"

the band played merrily, as the gay company took their seats at the long
banquet-table, Macleod leading in the prim old dame who had placed her
house at his disposal. There was a blaze of light and color in this
spacious marquee. Bands of scarlet took the place of oaken rafters;
there were huge blocks of ice on the table, each set in a miniature lake
that was filled with white water-lilies; there were masses of flowers
and fruit from one end to the other; and by the side of each _menu_ lay
a tiny nosegay, in the centre of which was a sprig of bell-heather. This
last was a notion of Macleod's amiable hostess; she had made up those
miniature bouquets herself. But she had been forestalled in the pretty
compliment. Macleod had not seen much of Miss Gertrude White in the cold
twilight outside. Now, in this blaze of yellow light, he turned his eyes
to her, as she sat there demurely flirting with an old admiral of
ninety-two, who was one of Macleod's special friends. And what was that
flower she wore in her bosom--the sole piece of color in the costume of
white? That was no sprig of blood-red bell-heather, but a bit of real
heather--of the common ling; and it was set amidst a few leaves of
juniper. Now, the juniper is the badge of the Clan Macleod. She wore it
next her heart.

There was laughter, and wine, and merry talking.

    "Last May a braw wooer,"

the band played now; but they scarcely listened.

"Where is your piper, Sir Keith?" said Lady Beauregard.

"At this moment," said he, "I should not wonder if he was down at the
shore, waiting for me."

"You are going away quite soon, then?"

"To-morrow. But I don't wish to speak of it. I should like to-night to
last forever."

Lady Beauregard was interrupted by her neighbor.

"What has pleased you, then, so much?" said his hostess, looking up at
him. "London? Or the people in it? Or any one person in it?"

"Oh," he said, laughingly, "the whole thing. What is the use of
dissecting? It is nothing but holiday making in this place. Now, Miss
Rawlinson, are you brave? Won't you challenge the admiral to drink a
glass of wine with you? And you must include his companion--just as they
do at the city dinners--and I will join you too."

And so these old sweethearts drank to each other. And Macleod raised his
glass too; and Miss White lowered her eyes, and perhaps flushed a little
as she touched hers with her lips, for she had not often been asked to
take a part in this old-fashioned ceremony. But that was not the only
custom they revived that evening. After the banquet was over, and the
ladies had got some light shawls and gone out into the mild summer
night, and when the long marquee was cleared, and the band installed at
the farther end, then there was a murmured talk of a minuet. Who could
dance it? Should they try it?

"You know it?" said Macleod to Miss White.

"Yes," said she looking down.

"Will you be my partner?"

"With pleasure," she answered, but there was some little surprise in her
voice which he at once detected.

"Oh," said he, "the mother taught me when I was a child. She and I used
to have grand dances together. And Hamish he taught me the sword-dance."

"Do you know the sword-dance?" she said.

"Any one can know it," said he; "it is more difficult to do it. But at
one time I could dance it with four of the thickest handled dirks
instead of the two swords."

"I hope you will show us your skill to-night," she said, with a smile.

"Do you think any one can dance the sword-dance without the pipes?" said
he, quite simply.

And now some of the younger people had made bold to try this minuet, and
Macleod led his partner up to the head of the improvised ball-room, and
the slow and graceful music began. That was a pretty sight for those
walking outside in the garden. So warm was the night that the canvas of
one side of the marquee had been removed, and those walking about in the
dark outside could look into this gayly lighted place with the
beautifully colored figures moving to the slow music. And as they thus
walked along the gravel-paths, or under the trees, the stems of which
were decorated with spirals of colored lamps, a new light arose in the
south to shed a further magic over the scene. Almost red at first, the
full moon cleared as it rose, until the trees and bushes were touched
with a silver radiance, and the few people who walked about threw black
shadows on the greensward and gravel. In an arbor at the farthest end of
the garden a number of Chinese lanterns shed a dim colored light on a
table and a few rocking-chairs. There were cigarettes on the table.

By and by from out of the brilliancy of the tent stepped Macleod and
Fionaghal herself, she leaning on his arm, a light scarf thrown round
her neck. She uttered a slight cry of surprise when she saw the picture
this garden presented--the colored cups on the trees, the swinging
lanterns, the broader sheen of the moonlight spreading over the foliage,
and the lawn, and the walks.

"It is like fairyland!" she said.

They walked along the winding gravel-paths; and now that some familiar
quadrille was being danced in that brilliant tent, there were fewer
people out here in the moonlight.

"I should begin to believe that romance was possible," she said, with a
smile, "if I often saw a beautiful scene like this. It is what we try to
get in the theatre; but I see all the bare boards and the lime light--I
don't have a chance of believing in it."

"Do you have a chance of believing in anything," said he, "on the
stage?"

"I don't understand you," she said, gently; for she was sure he would
not mean the rudeness that his words literally conveyed.

"And perhaps I cannot explain," said he. "But--but your father was
talking the other day about your giving yourself up altogether to your
art--living the lives of other people for the time being, forgetting
yourself, sacrificing yourself, having no life of your own but that.
What must the end of it be?--that you play with emotions and beliefs
until you have no faith in any one--none left for yourself; it is only
the material of your art. Would you not rather like to live your own
life?"

He had spoken rather hesitatingly, and he was not at all sure that he
had quite conveyed to her his meaning, though he had thought over the
subject long enough and often enough to get his own impressions of it
clear.

If she had been ten years older, and an experienced coquette, she would
have said to herself, "_This man hates the stage because he is jealous
of its hold on my life_," and she would have rejoiced over the
inadvertent confession. But now these hesitating words of his seemed to
have awakened some quick responsive thrill in her nature, for she
suddenly said, with an earnestness that was not at all assumed:

"Sometimes I have thought of that--it is so strange to hear my own
doubts repeated. If I could choose my own life--yes, I would rather live
that out than merely imagining the experiences of others. But what is
one to do? You look around, and take the world as it is. Can anything be
more trivial and disappointing? When you are Juliet in the balcony, or
Rosalind in the forest, then you have some better feeling with you, if
it is only for an hour or so."

"Yes," said he; "and you go on indulging in those doses of fictitious
sentiment until--But I am afraid the night air is too cold for you.
Shall we go back?"

She could not fail to notice the trace of bitterness, and subsequent
coldness, with which he spoke. She knew that he must have been thinking
deeply over this matter, and that it was no ordinary thing that caused
him to speak with so much feeling. But, of course, when he proposed that
they should return to the marquee, she consented. He could not expect
her to stand there and defend her whole manner of life. Much less could
he expect her to give up her profession merely because he had exercised
his wits in getting up some fantastic theory about it. And she began to
think that he had no right to talk to her in this bitter fashion.

When they had got half way back to the tent, he paused for a moment.

"I am going to ask a favor of you," he said, in a low voice. "I have
spent a pleasant time in England, and I cannot tell you how grateful I
am to you for letting me become one of your friends. To-morrow morning I
am going back home. I should like you to give me that flower--as some
little token of remembrance."

The small fingers did not tremble at all as she took the flower from her
dress. She presented it to him with a charming smile and without a word.
What was the giving of a flower? There was a cart-load of roses in the
tent.

But this flower she had worn next her heart.




CHAPTER XII.

WHITE HEATHER.


And now behold! the red flag flying from the summit of Castle Dare--a
spot of brilliant color in this world of whirling mist and flashing
sunlight. For there is half a gale blowing in from the Atlantic, and
gusty clouds come sweeping over the islands, so that now the Dutchman,
and now Fladda, and now Ulva disappears from sight, and then emerges
into the sunlight again, dripping and shining after the bath, while ever
and anon the huge promontory of Ru-Treshanish shows a gloomy purple far
in the north. But the wind and the weather may do what they like to-day;
for has not the word just come down from the hill that the smoke of the
steamer has been made out in the south? and old Hamish is flying this
way and that, fairly at his wits' end with excitement; and Janet Macleod
has cast a last look at the decorations of heather and juniper in the
great hall; while Lady Macleod, dressed in the most stately fashion, has
declared that she is as able as the youngest of them to walk down to the
point to welcome home her son.

"Ay, your leddyship, it is very bad," complains the distracted Hamish,
"that it will be so rough a day this day, and Sir Keith not to come
ashore in his own gig, but in a fishing-boat, and to come ashore at the
fishing quay, too; but it is his own men will go out for him, and not
the fishermen at all, though I am sure they will hef a dram whatever
when Sir Keith comes ashore. And will you not tek the pony, your
leddyship? for it is a long road to the quay."

"No, I will not take the pony, Hamish," said the tall, white-haired
dame, "and it is not of much consequence what boat Sir Keith has, so
long as he comes back to us. And now I think you had better go down to
the quay yourself, and see that the cart is waiting and the boat ready."

But how could old Hamish go down to the quay? He was in his own person
skipper, head keeper, steward, butler, and general major-domo, and ought
on such a day as this to have been in half a dozen places at once. From
the earliest morning he had been hurrying hither and thither, in his
impatience making use of much voluble Gaelic. He had seen the yacht's
crew in their new jersies. He had been round the kennels. He had got out
a couple of bottles of the best claret that Castle Dare could afford. He
had his master's letters arranged on the library table, and had given a
final rub to the guns and rifles on the rack. He had even been down to
the quay, swearing at the salmon-fishers for having so much lumber lying
about the place where Sir Keith Macleod was to land. And if he was to go
down to the quay now, how could he be sure that the ancient Christina,
who was mistress of the kitchen as far as her husband Hamish would allow
her to be, would remember all his instructions? And then the little
granddaughter Christina, would she remember her part in the
ceremony?

However, as Hamish could not be in six places at once, he decided to
obey his mistress's directions, and went hurriedly off to the quay,
overtaking on his way Donald the piper lad, who was apparelled in all
his professional finery.

"And if ever you put wind in your pipes, you will put wind in your pipes
this day, Donald," said he to the red-haired lad. "And I will tell you
now what you will play when you come ashore from the steamer: it is the
'Farewell to Chubraltar' you will play."

"The 'Farewell to Gibraltar!'" said Donald, peevishly, for he was bound
in honor to let no man interfere with his proper business. "It is a
better march than that I will play, Hamish. It is the 'Heights of Alma,'
that was made by Mr. Ross, the Queen's own piper; and will you tell me
that the 'Heights of Alma' is not a better march than the 'Farewell to
Gibraltar?'"

Hamish pretended to pay no heed to this impertinent boy. His eye was
fixed on a distant black speck that was becoming more and more
pronounced out there amidst the grays and greens of the windy and sunlit
sea. Occasionally it disappeared altogether, as a cloud of rain swept
across toward the giant cliffs of Mull, and then again it would appear,
sharper and blacker than ever, while the masts and funnel were now
visible as well as the hull. When Donald and his companion got down to
the quay, they found the men already in the big boat, getting ready to
hoist the huge brown lugsail; and there was a good deal of laughing and
talking going on, perhaps in anticipation of the dram they were sure to
get when their master returned to Castle Dare. Donald jumped down on the
rude stone ballast, and made his way up to the bow; Hamish, who remained
on shore, helped to shove her off; then the heavy lugsail was quickly
hoisted, the sheet hauled tight; and presently the broad-beamed boat was
ploughing its way through the rushing seas, with an occasional cloud of
spray coming right over her from stem to stern. "Fhir a bhata," the men
sung, until Donald struck in with his pipes, and the wild skirl of "The
Barren Rocks of Aden" was a fitter sort of music to go with these
sweeping winds and plunging seas.

And now we will board the steamer, where Keith Macleod is up on the
bridge, occasionally using a glass, and again talking to the captain,
who is beside him. First of all on board he had caught sight of the red
flag floating over Castle Dare; and his heart had leaped up at that sign
of welcome. Then he could make out the dark figures on the quay, and the
hoisting of the lugsail, and the putting off of the boat. It was not a
good day for observing things, for heavy clouds were quickly passing
over, followed by bewildering gleams of a sort of watery sunlight; but
as it happened, one of these sudden flashes chanced to light up a small
plateau on the side of the hill above the quarry, just as the glass was
directed on that point. Surely--surely--these two figures?

"Why, it is the mother--and Janet!" he cried.

He hastily gave the glass to his companion.

"Look!" said he. "Don't you think that is Lady Macleod and my cousin?
What could have tempted the old lady to come away down there on such a
squally day?"

"Oh yes, I think it is the ladies," said the captain; and then he added,
with a friendly smile, "and I think it is to see you all the sooner, Sir
Keith, that they have come down to the shore."

"Then," said he, "I must go down and get my gillie, and show him his
future home."

He went below the hurricane deck to a corner in which Oscar was chained
up. Beside the dog, sitting on a campstool, and wrapped round with a
tartan plaid, was the person whom Macleod had doubtless referred to as
his gillie. He was not a distinguished-looking attendant to be
travelling with a Highland chieftain.

"Johnny, my man, come on deck now, and I will show you where you are
going to live. You're all right now, aren't you? And you will be on the
solid land again in about ten minutes."

Macleod's gillie rose--or, rather, got down--from the campstool, and
showed himself to be a miserable, emaciated child of ten or eleven, with
a perfectly colorless face, frightened gray eyes, and starved white
hands. The contrast between the bronzed and bearded sailors--who were
now hurrying about to receive the boat from Dare--and this pallid and
shrunken scrap of humanity was striking; and when Macleod took his hand,
and half led and half carried him up on deck, the look of terror that he
directed on the plunging waters all around showed that he had not had
much experience of the sea. Involuntarily he had grasped hold of
Macleod's coat as if for protection.

"Now, Johnny, look right ahead. Do you see the big house on the cliffs
over yonder?"

The child, still clinging on to his protector, looked all round with the
dull, pale eyes, and at length said,--

"No."

"Can't you see that house, poor chap? Well, do you see that boat over
there? You must be able to see that."

"Yes, sir."

"That boat is to take you ashore. You needn't be afraid. If you don't
like to look at the sea, get down into the bottom of the boat, and take
Oscar with you, and you'll see nothing until you are ashore. Do you
understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come along, then."

For now the wild skirl of Donald's pipes was plainly audible; and the
various packages--the new rifle, the wooden case containing the
wonderful dresses for Lady Macleod and her niece, and what not--were all
ranged ready; to say nothing of some loaves of white bread that the
steward was sending ashore at Hamish's request. And then the heaving
boat came close to, her sail hauled down; and a rope was thrown and
caught; and then there was a hazardous scrambling down the dripping iron
steps, and a notable spring on the part of Oscar, who had escaped from
the hands of the sailors. As for the new gillie, he resembled nothing so
much as a limp bunch of clothes, as Macleod's men, wondering not a
little, caught him up and passed him astern. Then the rope was thrown
off, the steamer steamed slowly ahead, the lugsail was run up again, and
away the boat plunged for the shore, with Donald playing the "Heights of
Alma" as though he would rend the skies.

"Hold your noise, Donald!" his master called to him. "You will have
plenty of time to play the pipes in the evening."

For he was greatly delighted to be among his own people again; and he
was eager in his questions of the men as to all that had happened in his
absence; and it was no small thing to them that Sir Keith Macleod should
remember their affairs, too, and ask after their families and friends.
Donald's loyalty was stronger than his professional pride. He was not
offended that he had been silenced; he only bottled up his musical
fervor all the more; and at length, as he neared the land, and knew that
Lady Macleod and Miss Macleod were within hearing, he took it that he
knew better than any one else what was proper to the occasion, and once
more the proud and stirring march strove with the sound of the hurrying
waves. Nor was that all. The piper lad was doing his best. Never before
had he put such fire into his work; but as they got close inshore the
joy in his heart got altogether the mastery of him, and away he broke
into the mad delight of "Lady Mary Ramsay's Reel." Hamish on the quay
heard, and he strutted about as if he were himself playing, and that
before the Queen. And then he heard another sound--that of Macleod's
voice:

"_Stand by lads!... Down with her!_"--and the flapping sail, with its
swinging gaff, rattled down into the boat. At the same moment Oscar made
a clear spring into the water, gained the landing-steps, and dashed
upward--dripping as he was--to two ladies who were standing on the quay
above. And Janet Macleod so far forgot what was due to her best gown
that she caught his head in her arms, as he pawed and whined with
delight.

That was a glad enough party that started off and up the hillside for
Castle Dare. Janet Macleod did not care to conceal that she had been
crying a little bit; and there were proud tears in the eyes of the
stately old dame who walked with her; but the most excited of all was
Hamish, who could by no means be got to understand that his master did
not all at once want to hear about the trial of the young setters, and
the price of the sheep sold the week before at Tobermory, and the stag
that was chased by the Carsaig men on Tuesday.

"Confound it, Hamish!" Macleod said, laughing, "leave all those things
till after dinner."

"Oh, ay, oh ay, Sir Keith, we will hef plenty of time after dinner,"
said Hamish, just as if he were one of the party, but very nervously
working with the ends of his thumbs all the time, "and I will tell you
of the fine big stag that has been coming down every night--every night,
as I am a living man--to Mrs. Murdoch's corn: and I wass saying to her,
'Just hold your tongue, Mrs. Murdoch'--that wass what I will say to
her--'just hold your tongue, Mrs. Murdoch, and be a civil woman, for a
day or two days, and when Sir Keith comes home it iss no more at all the
stag will trouble you--oh no, no more at all; there will be no more
trouble about the stag when Sir Keith comes home.'"

And old Hamish laughed at his own wit, but it was in a sort of excited
way.

"Look here, Hamish, I want you to do this for me," Macleod said; and
instantly the face of the old man--it was a fine face, too, with its
aquiline nose, and grizzled hair, and keen hawk-like eyes--was full of
an eager attention. "Go back and fetch that little boy I left with
Donald. You had better look after him yourself. I don't think any water
came over him; but give him dry clothes if he is wet at all. And feed
him up: the little beggar will take a lot of fattening without any
harm."

"Where is he to go to?" said Hamish, doubtfully.

"You are to make a keeper of him. When you have fattened him up a bit,
teach him to feed the dogs. When he gets bigger, he can clean the guns."

"I will let no man or boy clean the guns for you but myself, Sir Keith,"
the old man said, quite simply, and without a shadow of disrespect, "I
will hef no risks of the kind."

"Very well, then; but go and get the boy, and make him at home as much
as you can. Feed him up."

"Who is it, Keith?" his cousin said, "that you are speaking of as if he
was a sheep or a calf?"

"Faith," said he, laughing, "if the philanthropists heard of it, they
would prosecute me for slave-stealing. I bought the boy--for a
sovereign."

"I think you have made a bad bargain, Keith," his mother said; but she
was quite prepared to hear of some absurd whim of his.

"Well," said he, "I was going into Trafalgar Square, where the National
Gallery of pictures is, mother, and there is a cab-stand in the street,
and there was a cabman standing there, munching at a lump of dry bread
that he cut with a jack-knife. I never saw a cabman do that before; I
should have been less surprised if he had been having a chicken and a
bottle of port. However, in front of this big cabman this little chap I
have brought with me was standing; quite in rags; no shoes on his feet,
no cap on his wild hair; and he was looking fixedly at the big lump of
bread. I never saw any animal look so starved and so hungry; his eyes
were quite glazed with the fascination of seeing the man ploughing away
at this lump of loaf. And I never saw any child so thin. His hands were
like the claws of a bird; and his trousers were short and torn so that
you could see his legs were like two pipe-stems. At last the cabman saw
him. 'Get out o' the way,' says he. The little chap slunk off,
frightened, I suppose. Then the man changed his mind. 'Come here,' says
he. But the little chap was frightened, and wouldn't come back; so he
went after him, and thrust the loaf into his hand, and bade him be off.
I can tell you, the way he went into that loaf was very fine to see. It
was like a weasel at the neck of a rabbit. It was like an otter at the
back of a salmon. And that was how I made his acquaintance," Macleod
added, carelessly.

"But you have not told us why you brought him up here," his mother said.

"Oh," said he, with a sort of laugh, "I was looking at him, and I
wondered whether Highland mutton and Highland air would make any
difference in the wretched little skeleton; and so I made his
acquaintance. I went home with him to a fearful place--I have got the
address, but I did not know there were such quarters in London--and I
saw his mother. The poor woman was very ill, and she had a lot of
children; and she seemed quite glad when I offered to take this one and
make a herd or a gamekeeper of him. I promised he should go to visit her
once a year, that she might see whether there was any difference. And I
gave her a sovereign."

"You were quite right, Keith," his cousin said, gravely; "You run a
great risk. Do they hang slavers?"

"Mother," said he, for by this time the ladies were standing still, so
that Hamish and the new gillie should overtake them, "you mustn't laugh
at the little chap when you see him with the plaid taken off. The fact
is, I took him to a shop in the neighborhood to get some clothes for
him, but I couldn't get anything small enough. He _does_ look
ridiculous; but you mustn't laugh at him, for he is like a girl for
sensitiveness. But when he has been fed up a bit, and got some Highland
air into his lungs, his own mother won't know him. And you will get him
some other clothes, Janet--some kilts, maybe--when his legs get
stronger."

Whatever Keith Macleod did was sure to be right in his mother's eyes,
and she only said, with a laugh,--

"Well, Keith, you are not like your brothers. When they brought me home
presents, it was pretty things; but all your curiosities, wherever you
go, are the halt, and the lame, and the blind; so that people laugh at
you, and say that Castle Dare is becoming the hospital of Mull."

"Mother, I don't care what the people say."

"And indeed I know that," she answered.

Their waiting had allowed Hamish and the new gillie to overtake them;
and certainly the latter, deprived of his plaid, presented a
sufficiently ridiculous appearance in the trousers and jacket that were
obviously too big for him. But neither Lady Macleod nor Janet laughed at
all when they saw this starved London waif before them.

"Johnny," said Macleod, "here are two ladies who will be very kind to
you, so you needn't be afraid to live here."

But Johnny did look mortally afraid, and instinctively once more took
hold of Macleod's coat. Then he seemed to have some notion of his duty.
He drew back one foot, and made a sort of courtesy. Probably he had seen
girls do this, in mock-heroic fashion, in some London court.

"And are you very tired?" said Janet Macleod, in that soft voice of hers
that all children loved.

"Yes," said the child.

"Kott bless me!" cried Hamish, "I did not know that!"--and therewith the
old man caught up Johnny Wickes as if he had been a bit of ribbon, and
flung him on to his shoulder, and marched off to Castle Dare.

Then the three Macleods continued on their way--through the
damp-smelling fir-wood; over the bridge that spanned the brawling brook;
again through the fir-wood; until they reached the open space
surrounding the big stone house. They stood for a minute there--high
over the great plain of the sea, that was beautiful with a thousand
tints of light. And there was the green island of Ulva, and there the
darker rocks of Colonsay, and farther out, amidst the windy vapor and
sunlight, Lunga, and Fladda, and the Dutchman's Cap, changing in their
hue every minute as the clouds came driving over the sea.

"Mother," said he, "I have not tasted fresh air since I left. I am not
sorry to get back to Dare."

"And I don't think we are sorry to see you back, Keith," his cousin
said, modestly.

And yet the manner of his welcome was not imposing; they are not very
good at grand ceremonies on the western shores of Mull. It is true that
Donald, relieved of the care of Johnny Wickes, had sped by a short-cut
through the fir-wood, and was now standing in the gravelled space
outside the house, playing the "Heights of Alma" with a spirit worthy of
all the MacCruimins that ever lived. But as for the ceremony of welcome,
this was all there was of it: When Keith Macleod went up to the hall
door, he found a small girl of five or six standing quite by herself at
the open entrance. This was Christina, the granddaughter of Hamish, a
pretty little girl with wide blue eyes and yellow hair.

"Halloo, Christina," said Macleod, "won't you let me into the house?"

"This is for you, Sir Keith," said she, in the Gaelic, and she presented
him with a beautiful bunch of white heather. Now white heather, in that
part of the country, is known to bring great good fortune to the
possessor of it.

"And it is a good omen," said he, lightly, as he took the child up and
kissed her. And that was the manner of his welcome to Castle Dare.




CHAPTER XIII.

AT HOME.


The two women-folk, with whom he was most nearly brought into contact,
were quite convinced that his stay in London had in nowise altered the
buoyant humor and brisk activity of Keith Macleod. Castle Dare awoke
into a new life on his return. He was all about and over the place
accompanied by the faithful Hamish; and he had a friendly word and
smile for every one he met. He was a good master: perhaps he was none
the less liked because it was pretty well understood that he meant to be
master. His good-nature had nothing of weakness in it. "If you love me,
I love you," says the Gaelic proverb; "_otherwise do not come near me_."
There was not a man or lad about the place who would not have adventured
his life for Macleod; but all the same they were well aware that the
handsome young master, who seemed to go through life with a merry laugh
on his face, was not one to be trifled with. This John Fraser, an
Aberdeen man, discovered on the second night after Macleod's return to
Castle Dare.

Macleod had the salmon-fishing on this part of the coast, and had a
boat's crew of four men engaged in the work. One of these having fallen
sick, Hamish had to hire a new hand, an Aberdeenshire man, who joined
the crew just before Macleod's departure from London. This Fraser turned
out to be a "dour" man; and his discontent and grumbling seemed to be
affecting the others, so that the domestic peace of Dare was threatened.
On the night in question old Hamish came into Macleod's conjoint library
and gun-room.

"The fishermen hef been asking me again, sir," observed Hamish, with his
cap in his hand. "What will I say to them?"

"Oh, about the wages?" Macleod said, turning round.

"Ay, sir."

"Well, Hamish, I don't object. Tell them that what they say is right.
This year has been a very good year; we have made some money; I will
give them two shillings a week more if they like. But then, look here,
Hamish--if they have their wages raised in a good year, they must have
them lowered in a bad year. They cannot expect to share the profit
without sharing the loss too. Do you understand that, Hamish?"

"Yes, Sir Keith, I think I do."

"Do you think you could put it into good Gaelic for them?"

"Oh ay."

"Then tell them to choose for themselves. But make it clear."

"Ay, Sir Keith," said Hamish. "And if it was not for that ---- man, John
Fraser, there would be no word of this thing. And there is another thing
I will hef to speak to you about, Sir Keith; and it is John Fraser,
too, who is at the bottom of this, I will know that fine. It is more
than two or three times that you will warn the men not to bathe in the
bay below the castle; and not for many a day will any one do that, for
the Cave bay it is not more as half a mile away. And when you were in
London, Sir Keith, it was this man John Fraser he would bathe in the bay
below the castle in the morning, and he got one or two of the others to
join him; and when I bade him go away, he will say that the sea belongs
to no man. And this morning, too--"

"This morning!" Macleod said, jumping to his feet. There was an angry
flash in his eyes.

"Ay, sir, this very morning I saw two of them myself--and John Fraser he
was one of them--and I went down and said to them, 'It will be a bad day
for you,' says I to them, 'if Sir Keith will find you in this bay.'"

"Are they down at the quay now?" Macleod said.

"Ay, they will be in the house now."

"Come along with me, Hamish. I think we will put this right."

He lifted his cap and went out into the cool night air, followed by
Hamish. They passed through the dark fir-wood until they came in sight
of the Atlantic again, which was smooth enough to show the troubled
reflection of the bigger stars. They went down the hillside until they
were close to the shore, and then they followed the rough path to the
quay. The door of the square stone building was open; the men were
seated on rude stools or on spare coils of rope, smoking. Macleod called
them out, and they came to the door.

"Now look here, boys," said he, "you know I will not allow any man to
bathe in the bay before the house. I told you before; I tell you now for
the last time. They that want to bathe can go along to the Cave bay; and
the end of it is this--and there will be no more words about it--that
the first man I catch in the bay before the house I will take a
horsewhip to him, and he will have as good a run as ever he had in his
life."

With that he was turning away, when he heard one of the men mutter, "_I
would like to see you do it!_" He wheeled round instantly--and if some
of his London friends could have seen the look of his face at this
moment, they might have altered their opinion about the obliteration of
certain qualities from the temperament of the Highlanders of our own
day.

"Who said that?" he exclaimed.

There was no answer.

"Come out here, you four men!" he said. "Stand in a line there. Now let
the man who said that step out and face me. I will show him who is to be
master here. If he thinks he can master me, well; but it is one or the
other of us who will be master!"

There was not a sound or a motion; but Macleod sprang forward, caught
the man Fraser by the throat, and shook him thrice--as he might have
shaken a reed.

"You scoundrel!" he said. "You coward! Are you afraid to own it was you?
There has been nothing but bad feeling since ever you brought your ugly
face among us--well, we've had enough of you!"

He flung him back.

"Hamish," said he, "you will pay this man his month's wages to-night.
Pack him off with the Gometra men in the morning; they will take him out
to the _Pioneer_. And look you here, sir," he added, turning to Fraser,
"it will be a bad day for you the day that I see your face again
anywhere about Castle Dare."

He walked off and up to the house again, followed by the reluctant
Hamish. Hamish had spoken of this matter only that Macleod should give
the men a renewed warning; he had no notion that this act of vengeance
would be the result. And where were they to get a man to put in Fraser's
place?

It was about an hour later that Hamish again came into the room.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said he, "but the men are outside."

"I cannot see them."

"They are ferry sorry, sir, about the whole matter, and there will be no
more bathing in the front of the house, and the man Fraser they hef
brought him up to say he is ferry sorry too."

"They have brought him up?"

"Ay, sir," said Hamish, with a grave smile. "It was for fighting him
they were one after the other because he will make a bad speech to you;
and he could not fight three men one after the other; and so they hef
made him come up to say he is ferry sorry too; and will you let him stay
on to the end of the season?"

"No. Tell the men that if they will behave themselves, we can go on as
we did before, in peace and friendliness; but I mean to be master in
this place. And I will not have a sulky fellow like this Fraser stirring
up quarrels. He must pack and be off."

"It will not be easy to get another man, Sir Keith," old Hamish ventured
to say.

"Get Sandy over from the _Umpire_."

"But surely you will want the yacht, sir, when Mr. Ogilvie comes to
Dare?"

"I tell you Hamish, that I will not have that fellow about the place.
That is an end of it. Did you think it was only a threat that I meant?
And have you not heard the old saying that 'one does not apply plaster
to a threat?' You will send him to Gometra in the morning in time for
the boat."

And so the sentence of banishment was confirmed; and Hamish got a young
fellow from Ulva to take the place of Fraser; and from that time to the
end of the fishing season perfect peace and harmony prevailed between
master and men.

But if Lady Macleod and Janet saw no change whatever in Macleod's manner
after his return from the South, Hamish, who was more alone with the
young man, did. Why this strange indifference to the very occupations
that used to be the chief interest of his life? He would not go out
after the deer; the velvet would be on their horns yet. He would not go
out after the grouse: what was the use of disturbing them before Mr.
Ogilvie came up?

"I am in no hurry," he said, almost petulantly. "Shall I not have to be
here the whole winter for the shooting?"--and Hamish was amazed to hear
him talk of the winter shooting as some compulsory duty, whereas in
these parts it far exceeded in variety and interest the very limited
low-ground shooting of the autumn. Until young Ogilvie came up, Macleod
never had a gun in his hand. He had gone fishing two or three days; but
had generally ended by surrendering his rod to Hamish, and going for a
walk up the glen, alone. The only thing he seemed to care about, in the
way of out of door occupation, was the procuring of otter-skins; and
every man and boy in his service was ordered to keep a sharp lookout on
that stormy coast for the prince of fur-bearing animals. Years before he
had got enough skins together for a jacket for his cousin Janet; and
that garment of beautiful thick black fur--dyed black, of course--was as
silken and rich as when it was made. Why should he forget his own theory
of letting all animals have a chance in urging a war of extermination
against the otter?

This preoccupation of mind, of which Hamish was alone observant, was
nearly inflicting a cruel injury on Hamish himself. On the morning of
the day on which Ogilvie was expected to arrive, Hamish went in to his
master's library. Macleod had been reading a book, but he had pushed it
aside, and now both his elbows were on the table, and he was leaning his
head on his hands, apparently in deep meditation of some kind or other.

"Will I tek the bandage off Nell's foot now, sir?"

"Oh yes, if you like. You know as much as I do about it."

"Oh, I am quite sure," said Hamish, brightly, "that she will do ferry
well to-morrow. I will tek her whatever; and I can send her home if it
is too much for her."

Macleod took up his book again.

"Very well, Hamish. But you have plenty to do about the house. Duncan
and Sandy can go with us to-morrow."

The old man started, and looked at his master for a second. Then he
said, "Ferry well, sir," in a low voice, and left the room.

But for the hurt, and the wounded, and the sorrowful there was always
one refuge of consolation in Castle Dare. Hamish went straight to Janet
Macleod; and she was astonished to see the emotion of which the keen,
hard, handsome face of the old man was capable. Who before had ever seen
tears in the eyes of Hamish MacIntyre?

"And perhaps it is so," said Hamish, with his head hanging down, "and
perhaps it is that I am an old man now, and not able any more to go up
to the hills; but if I am not able for that, I am not able for anything;
and I will not ask Sir Keith to keep me about the house, or about the
yacht. It is younger men will do better as me; and I can go away to
Greenock; and if it is an old man I am, maybe I will find a place in a
smack, for all that--"

"Oh, nonsense, Hamish!" Janet Macleod said, with her kindly eyes bent on
him. "You may be sure Sir Keith did not mean anything like that--"

"Ay, mem," said the old man, proudly, "and who wass it that first put a
gun into his hand? and who wass it skinned the ferry first seal that he
shot in Loch Scridain? and who wass it told him the name of every spar
and sheet of the _Umpire_, and showed him how to hold a tiller? And if
there is any man knows more as me about the birds and the deer, that is
right--let him go out; but it is the first day I hef not been out with
Sir Keith since ever I wass at Castle Dare; and now it is time that I am
going away; for I am an old man; and the younger men they will be better
on the hills, and in the yacht too. But I can make my living whatever."

"Hamish, you are speaking like a foolish man," said Janet Macleod to
him. "You will wait here now till I go to Sir Keith."

She went to him.

"Keith," said she, "do you know that you have nearly broken old Hamish's
heart?"

"What is the matter?" said he, looking up in wonder.

"He says you have told him he is not to go out to the shooting with you
to-morrow; and that is the first time he has been superseded; and he
takes it that you think he is an old man; and he talks of going away to
Greenock to join a smack."

"Oh, nonsense!" Macleod said. "I was not thinking when I told him. He
may come with us if he likes. At the same time, Janet, I should think
Norman Ogilvie will laugh at seeing the butler come out as a keeper."

"You know quite well, Keith," said his cousin, "that Hamish is no more a
butler than he is captain of the _Umpire_ or clerk of the accounts.
Hamish is simply everybody and everything at Castle Dare. And if you
speak of Norman Ogilvie--well, I think it would be more like yourself,
Keith, to consult the feelings of an old man rather than the opinions of
a young one."

"You are always on the right side, Janet. Tell Hamish I am very sorry. I
meant him no disrespect. And he may call me at one in the morning if he
likes. He never looked on me but as a bit of his various machinery for
killing things."

"That is not fair of you, Keith. Old Hamish would give his right hand to
save you the scratch of a thorn."

She went off to cheer the old man, and he turned to his book. But it was
not to read it; it was only to stare at the outside of it in an absent
sort of way. The fact is, he had found in it the story of a young
aid-de-camp who was intrusted with a message to a distant part of the
field while a battle was going forward, and who in mere bravado rode
across a part of the ground open to the enemy's fire. He came back
laughing. He had been hit, he confessed, but he had escaped: and he
carelessly shook a drop or two of blood from a flesh wound on his hand.
Suddenly, however, he turned pale, wavered a little, and then fell
forward on his horse's neck, a corpse.

Macleod was thinking about this story rather gloomily. But at last he
got up with a more cheerful air, and seized his cap.

"And if it is my death-wound I have got," he was thinking to himself, as
he set out for the boat that was waiting for him at the shore, "I will
not cry out too soon."




CHAPTER XIV.

A FRIEND.


His death-wound! There was but little suggestion of any death-wound
about the manner or speech of this light-hearted and frank-spoken fellow
who now welcomed his old friend Ogilvie ashore. He swung the gun-case
into the cart as if it had been a bit of thread. He himself would carry
Ogilvie's top-coat over his arm.

"And why have you not come in your hunting tartan?" said he, observing
the very precise and correct shooting costume of the young man.

"Not likely," said Mr. Ogilvie, laughing. "I don't like walking through
clouds with bare knees, with a chance of sitting down on an adder or
two. And I'll tell you what it is, Macleod; if the morning is wet, I
will not go out stalking, if all the stags in Christendom were there. I
know what it is; I have had enough of it in my younger days."

"My dear fellow," Macleod said, seriously, "you must not talk here as if
you could do what you liked. It is not what you wish to do, or what you
don't wish to do; it is what Hamish orders to have done. Do you think I
would dare to tell Hamish what we must do to-morrow?"

"Very well, then, I will see Hamish myself; I dare say he remembers me."

And he did see Hamish that evening, and it was arranged between them
that if the morning looked threatening, they would leave the deer
alone, and would merely take the lower-lying moors in the immediate
neighborhood of Castle Dare. Hamish took great care to impress on the
young man that Macleod had not yet taken a gun in his hand, merely that
there should be a decent bit of shooting when his guest arrived.

"And he will say to me, only yesterday," observed Hamish,
confidentially--"it wass yesterday itself he wass saying to me, 'Hamish,
when Mr. Ogilvie comes here, it will be only six days or seven days he
will be able to stop, and you will try to get him two or three stags.
And, Hamish'--this is what he will say to me--'you will pay no heed to
me, for I hef plenty of the shooting whatever, from the one year's end
to the other year's end, and it is Mr. Ogilvie you will look after.' And
you do not mind the rain, sir? It is fine warm clothes you have got
on--fine woollen clothes you have, and what harm will a shower do?"

"Oh, I don't mind the rain, so long as I can keep moving--that's the
fact, Hamish," replied Mr. Ogilvie; "but I don't like lying in wet
heather for an hour at a stretch. And I don't care how few birds there
are, there will be plenty to keep us walking. So you remember me, after
all, Hamish?"

"Oh ay, sir," said Hamish, with a demure twinkle in his eye. "I mind
fine the time you will fall into the water off the rock in Loch na
Keal."

"There, now," exclaimed Mr. Ogilvie. "That is precisely what I don't see
the fun of doing, now that I have got to man's estate, and have a
wholesome fear of killing myself. Do you think I would lie down now on
wet sea-weed, and get slowly soaked through with the rain for a whole
hour, on the chance of a seal coming on the other side of the rock? Of
course when I tried to get up I was as stiff as a stone. I could not
have lifted the rifle if a hundred seals had been there. And it was no
wonder at all I slipped down into the water."

"But the sea-water," said Hamish, gravely; "there will no harm come to
you of the sea-water."

"I want to have as little as possible of either sea-water or
rain-water," said Mr. Ogilvie, with decision, "I believe Macleod is half
an otter himself."

Hamish did not like this, but he only said, respectfully.

"I do not think Sir Keith is afraid of a shower of rain whatever."

These gloomy anticipations were surely uncalled for; for during the
whole of the past week the Western Isles had basked in uninterrupted
sunlight, with blue skies over the fair blue seas, and a resinous warmth
exhaling from the lonely moors. But all the same, next morning broke as
if Mr. Ogilvie's forebodings were only too likely to be realized. The
sea was leaden-hued and apparently still, though the booming of the
Atlantic swell into the great caverns could be heard; Staffa, and Lunga,
and the Dutchman were of a dismal black; the brighter colors of Ulva and
Colonsay seemed coldly gray and green; and heavy banks of cloud lay
along the land, running out to Ru-Treshanish. The noise of the stream
rushing down through the fir-wood close to the castle seemed louder than
usual, as if rain had fallen during the night. It was rather cold, too:
all that Lady Macleod and Janet could say failed to raise the spirits of
their guest.

But when Macleod--dressed in his homespun tartan of yellow and
black--came round from the kennels with the dogs, and Hamish, and the
tall red-headed lad Sandy, it appeared that they considered this to be
rather a fine day than otherwise, and were eager to be off.

"Come along, Ogilvie." Macleod cried, as he gave his friend's gun to
Sandy, but shouldered his own. "Sorry we haven't a dog-cart to drive you
to the moor, but it is not far off."

"I think a cigar in the library would be the best thing for a morning
like this," said Ogilvie, rather gloomily, as he put up the collar of
his shooting-jacket, for a drop or two of rain had fallen.

"Nonsense, man! the first bird you kill will cheer you up."

Macleod was right; they had just passed through the wood of young
larches close to Castle Dare, and were ascending a rough stone road that
led by the side of a deep glen, when a sudden whir close by them
startled the silence of this gloomy morning. In an instant Macleod had
whipped his gun from his shoulder and thrust it into Ogilvie's hands. By
the time the young man had full-cocked the right barrel and taken a
quick aim, the bird was half way across the valley; but all the same he
fired. For another second the bird continued its flight, but in a
slightly irregular fashion; then down it went like a stone into the
heather on the opposite side of the chasm.

"Well done, sir!" cried old Hamish.

"Bravo!" called out Macleod.

"It was a grand long shot!" said Sandy, as he unslipped the sagacious
old retriever, and sent her down into the glen.

They had scarcely spoken when another dark object, looking to the
startled eye as if it were the size of a house, sprang from the heather
close by, and went off like an arrow, uttering a succession of sharp
crowings. Why did not he fire? Then they saw him in wild despair whip
down the gun, full-cock the left barrel, and put it up again. The bird
was just disappearing over a crest of rising ground, and as Ogilvie
fired he disappeared altogether.

"He's down, sir!" cried Hamish, in great excitement.

"I don't think so," Ogilvie answered, with a doubtful air on his face,
but with a bright gladness in his eyes all the same.

"He's down, sir," Hamish reasserted. "Come away Sandy, with the dog!" he
shouted to the red-headed lad, who had gone down into the glen to help
Nell in her researches. By this time they saw that Sandy was recrossing
the burn with the grouse in his hand, Nell following him contentedly.
They whistled, and again whistled; but Nell considered that her task had
been accomplished, and alternately looked at them and up at her
immediate master. However, the tall lad, probably considering that the
whistling was meant as much for him as for the retriever, sprang up the
side of the glen in a miraculous fashion, catching here and there by a
bunch of heather or the stump of a young larch, and presently he had
rejoined the party.

"Take time, sir," said he. "Take time. Maybe there is more of them about
here. And the other one, I marked him down from the other side. We will
get him ferry well."

They found nothing, however, until they had got to the other side of the
hill, where Nell speedily made herself mistress of the other bird--a
fine young cock grouse, plump and in splendid plumage.

"And what do you think of the morning now, Ogilvie?" Macleod asked.

"Oh, I dare say it will clear," said he, shyly; and he endeavored to
make light of Hamish's assertions that they were "ferry pretty
shots--ferry good shots; and it was always a right thing to put
cartridges in the barrels at the door of a house, for no one could tell
what might be close to the house; and he was sure that Mr. Ogilvie had
not forgotten the use of a gun since he went away from the hills to live
in England."

"But look here, Macleod," Mr. Ogilvie said; "why did not you fire
yourself?"--he was very properly surprised; for the most generous and
self-denying of men are apt to claim their rights when a grouse gets up
to their side.

"Oh," said Macleod simply, "I wanted you to have a shot."

And indeed all through the day he was obviously far more concerned about
Ogilvie's shooting than his own. He took all the hardest work on
himself--taking the outside beat, for example, if there was a bit of
unpromising ground to be got over. When one or other of the dogs
suddenly showed by its uplifted fore-paw, its rigid tail, and its slow,
cautious, timid look round for help and encouragement, that there was
something ahead of more importance than a lark, Macleod would run all
the risks of waiting to give Ogilvie time to come up. If a hare ran
across with any chance of coming within shot of Ogilvie, Macleod let her
go by unscathed. And the young gentleman from the South knew enough
about shooting to understand how he was being favored both by his host
and--what was a more unlikely thing--by Hamish.

He was shooting very well, too; and his spirits rose and rose until the
lowering day was forgotten altogether.

"We are in for a soaker this time!" he cried, quite cheerfully, looking
around at one moment.

All this lonely world of olive greens and browns had grown strangely
dark. Even the hum of flies--the only sound audible in these high
solitudes away from the sea--seemed stilled; and a cold wind began to
blow over from Ben-an-Sloich. The plain of the valley in front of them
began to fade from view; then they found themselves enveloped in a
clammy fog, that settled on their clothes and hung about their eyelids
and beard, while water began to run down the barrels of their guns. The
wind blew harder and harder: presently they seemed to spring out of the
darkness; and, turning, they found that the cloud had swept onward
toward the sea, leaving the rocks on the nearest hillside all glittering
wet in the brief burst of sunlight. It was but a glimmer. Heavier clouds
came sweeping over; downright rain began to pour. But Ogilvie kept
manfully to his work. He climbed over the stone walls, gripping on with
his wet hands. He splashed through the boggy land, paying no attention
to his footsteps. And at last he got to following Macleod's plan of
crossing a burn, which was merely to wade through the foaming brown
water instead of looking out for big stones. By this time the letters in
his breast pocket were a mass of pulp.

"Look here, Macleod," said he, with the rain running down his face, "I
can't tell the difference between one bird and another. If I shoot a
partridge it isn't my fault."

"All right," said Macleod. "If a partridge is fool enough to be up here,
it deserves it."

Just at this moment Mr. Ogilvie suddenly threw up his hands and his gun,
as if to protect his face. An extraordinary object--a winged object,
apparently without a tail, a whirring bunch of loose gray feathers, a
creature resembling no known fowl--had been put up by one of the dogs,
and it had flown direct at Ogilvie's head. It passed him at about half a
yard's distance.

"What in all the world is that?" he cried, jumping round to have a look
at it.

"Why," said Macleod, who was roaring with laughter, "it is a baby
blackcock, just out of the shell, I should think."

A sudden noise behind him caused him to wheel round, and instinctively
he put up his gun. He took it down again.

"That is the old hen," said he; "we'll leave her to look after her
chicks. Hamish, get in the dogs, or they'll be for eating some of those
young ones. And you, Sandy, where was it you left the basket? We will go
for our splendid banquet now, Ogilvie."

That was an odd-looking party that by and by might have been seen
crouching under the lee of a stone wall with a small brook running by
their feet. They had taken down wet stones for seats; and these were
somewhat insecurely fixed on the steep bank. But neither the rain, nor
the gloom, nor the loneliness of the silent moors seemed to have damped
their spirits much.

"It really is awfully kind of you, Ogilvie," Macleod said, as he threw
half a sandwich to the old black retriever, "to take pity on a solitary
fellow like myself. You can't tell how glad I was to see you on the
bridge of the steamer. And now that you have taken all the trouble to
come to this place, and have taken your chance of our poor shooting,
this is the sort of day you get!"

"My dear fellow," said Mr. Ogilvie, who did not refuse to have his
tumbler replenished by the attentive Hamish, "it is quite the other way.
I consider myself precious lucky. I consider the shooting firstrate; and
it isn't every fellow would deliberately hand the whole thing over to
his friend, as you have been doing all day. And I suppose bad weather is
as bad elsewhere as it is here."

Macleod was carelessly filling his pipe, and obviously thinking of
something very different.

"Man, Ogilvie," he said, in a burst of confidence, "I never knew before
how fearfully lonely a life we lead here. If we were out on one of the
Treshanish Islands, with nothing round us but skarts and gulls, we could
scarcely be lonelier. And I have been thinking all the morning what this
must look like to you."

He glanced round--at the sombre browns and greens of the solitary
moorland, at the black rocks jutting out here and there from the scant
grass, at the silent and gloomy hills and the overhanging clouds.

"I have been thinking of the beautiful places we saw in London, and the
crowds of people, the constant change, and amusement, and life. And I
shouldn't wonder if you packed up your traps to-morrow morning and
fled."

"My dear boy," observed Mr. Ogilvie, confidently, "you are giving me
credit for a vast amount of sentiment. I haven't got it. I don't know
what it is. But I know when I am jolly well off. I know when I am in
good quarters, with good shooting, and with a good sort of chap to go
about with. As for London--bah! I rather think you got your eyes dazzled
for a minute, Macleod. You weren't long enough there to find it out. And
wouldn't you get precious tired of big dinners, and garden-parties, and
all that stuff, after a time? Macleod, do you mean to tell me you ever
saw anything at Lady Beauregard's as fine as _that?_"

And he pointed to a goodly show of birds, with a hare or two, that Sandy
had taken out of the bag, so as to count them.

"Of course," said this wise young man, "there is one case in which that
London life is all very well. If a man is awful spoons on a girl, then,
of course, he can trot after her from house to house, and walk his feet
off in the Park. I remember a fellow saying a very clever thing about
the reasons that took a man into society. What was it, now? Let me see.
It was either to look out for a wife, or--or----"

Mr. Ogilvie was trying to recollect the epigram and to light a wax match
at the same time, and he failed in both.

"Well," said he, "I won't spoil it; but don't you believe that any one
you met in London wouldn't be precious glad to change places with us at
this moment?"

Any one? What was the situation? Pouring rain, leaden skies, the gloomy
solitude of the high moors, the sound of roaring waters. And here they
were crouching under a stone wall, with their dripping fingers lighting
match after match for their damp pipes, with not a few midges in the
moist and clammy air, and with a faint halo of steam plainly arising
from the leather of their boots. When Fionaghal the Fair Stranger came
from over the blue seas to her new home, was this the picture of
Highland life that was presented to her?

"Lady Beauregard, for example?" said Macleod.

"Oh, I am not talking about women," observed the sagacious boy; "I never
could make out a woman's notions about any thing. I dare say they like
London life well enough, for they can show off their shoulders and their
diamonds."

"Ogilvie," Macleod said, with a sudden earnestness, "I am fretting my
heart out here--that is the fact. If it were not for the poor old
mother--and Janet--but I will tell you another time."

He got up on his feet, and took his gun from Sandy. His
companion--wondering not a little, but saying nothing--did likewise. Was
this the man who had always seemed rather proud of his hard life on the
hills? Who had regarded the idleness and effeminacy of town life with
something of an unexpressed scorn? A young fellow in robust health and
splendid spirits--an eager sportsman and an accurate shot--out for his
first shooting-day of the year: was it intelligible that he should be
visited by vague sentimental regrets for London drawing-rooms and vapid
talk? The getting up of a snipe interrupted these speculations; Ogilvie
blazed away, missing with both barrels; Macleod, who had been patiently
waiting to see the effect of the shots, then put up his gun, and
presently the bird came tumbling down, some fifty yards off.

"You haven't warmed to it yet," Macleod said, charitably. "The first
half hour after luncheon a man always shoots badly."

"Especially when his clothes are glued to his skin from head to foot,"
said Ogilvie.

"You will soon walk some heat into yourself."

And again they went on, Macleod pursuing the same tactics, so that his
companion had the cream of the shooting. Despite the continued soaking
rain, Ogilvie's spirits seemed to become more and more buoyant. He was
shooting capitally; one very long shot he made, bringing down an old
blackcock with a thump on the heather, causing Hamish to exclaim,--

"Well done, sir! It is a glass of whiskey you will deserve for that
shot."

Whereupon Mr. Ogilvie stopped and modestly hinted that he would accept
of at least a moiety of the proffered reward.

"Do you know, Hamish," said he, "that it is the greatest comfort in the
world to get wet right through, for you know you can't be worse, and it
gives you no trouble."

"And a whole glass will do you no harm, sir," shrewdly observed Hamish.

"Not in the clouds."

"The what, sir?"

"The clouds. Don't you consider we are going shooting through clouds?"

"There will be a snipe or two down here, sir," said Hamish, moving on;
for he could not understand conundrums, especially conundrums in
English.

The day remained of this moist character to the end; but they had plenty
of sport, and they had a heavy bag on their return to Castle Dare.
Macleod was rather silent on the way home. Ogilvie was still at a loss
to know why his friend should have taken this sudden dislike to living
in a place he had lived in all his life. Nor could he understand why
Macleod should have deliberately surrendered to him the chance of
bagging the brace of grouse that got up by the side of the road. It was
scarcely, he considered, within the possibilities of human nature.




CHAPTER XV.

A CONFESSION.


And once again the big dining-hall of Castle Dare was ablaze with
candles; and Janet was there, gravely listening to the garrulous talk of
the boy-officer; and Keith Macleod, in his dress tartan; and the
noble-looking old lady at the head of the table, who more than once
expressed to her guest, in that sweetly modulated and gracious voice of
hers, how sorry she was he had encountered so bad a day for the first
day of his visit.

"It is different with Keith," said she, "for he is used to be out in all
weathers. He has been brought up to live out of doors."

"But you know, auntie," said Janet Macleod, "a soldier is much of the
same thing. Did you ever hear of a soldier with an umbrella?"

"All I know is," remarked Mr. Ogilvie--who, in his smart evening dress,
and with his face flashed into a rosy warmth after the cold and the wet,
did not look particularly miserable--"that I don't remember ever
enjoying myself so much in one day. But the fact is, Lady Macleod, your
son gave me all the shooting; and Hamish was sounding my praises all day
long, so that I almost got to think I could shoot the birds without
putting up the gun at all; and when I made a frightful bad miss,
everybody declared the bird was dead round the other side of the hill."

"And indeed you were not making many misses," Macleod said. "But we will
try your nerve, Ogilvie, with a stag or two, I hope."

"I am on for anything. What with Hamish's flattery and the luck I had
to-day, I begin to believe I could bag a brace of tigers if they were
coming at me fifty miles an hour."

Dinner over, and Donald having played his best (no doubt he had learned
that the stranger was an officer in the Ninety-third), the ladies left
the dining-hall, and presently Macleod proposed to his friend that they
should go into the library and have a smoke. Ogilvie was nothing loath.
They went into the odd little room, with its guns and rods and stuffed
birds, and, lying prominently on the writing-table, a valuable little
heap of dressed otter-skins. Although the night was scarcely cold enough
to demand it, there was a log of wood burning in the fireplace; there
were two easy-chairs, low and roomy; and on the mantelpiece were some
glasses, and a big black broad-bottomed bottle, such as used to carry
the still vintages of Champagne even into the remote wilds of the
Highlands, before the art of making sparkling wines had been discovered.
Mr. Ogilvie lit a cigar, stretched out his feet towards the blazing log,
and rubbed his hands, which were not as white as usual.

"You are a lucky fellow, Macleod," said he, "and you don't know it. You
have everything about you here to make life enjoyable."

"And I feel like a slave tied to a galley oar," said he, quickly. "I
try to hide it from the mother--for it would break her heart--and from
Janet too; but every morning I rise, the dismalness of being alone
here--of being caged up alone--eats more and more into my heart. When I
look at you, Ogilvie--to-morrow morning you could go spinning off to any
quarter you liked, to see any one you wanted to see--"

"Macleod," said his companion, looking up, and yet speaking rather
slowly and timidly, "if I were to say what would naturally occur to any
one--you won't be offended? What you have been telling me is absurd,
unnatural, impossible, unless there is a woman in the case."

"And what then?" Macleod said, quickly, as he regarded his friend with a
watchful eye, "You have guessed?"

"Yes," said the other: "Gertrude White."

Macleod was silent for a second or two. Then he sat down.

"I scarcely care who knows it now," said he, absently "so long as I
can't fight it out of my own mind. I tried not to know it. I tried not
to believe it. I argued with myself, laughed at myself, invented a
hundred explanations of this cruel thing that was gnawing at my heart
and giving me no peace night or day. Why, man, Ogilvie, I have read
'Pendennis!' Would you think it possible that any one who has read
'Pendennis' could ever fall in love with an actress?"

He jumped to his feet again, walked up and down for a second or two,
twisting the while a bit of casting-line round his finger so that it
threatened to cut into the flesh.

"But I will tell you now, Ogilvie--now that I am speaking to any one
about it," said he--and he spoke in a rapid, deep, earnest voice,
obviously not caring much what his companion might think, so that he
could relieve his overburdened mind--"that it was not any actress I fell
in love with. I never saw her in a theatre but that once. I hated the
theatre whenever I thought of her in it. I dared scarcely open a
newspaper, lest I should see her name. I turned away from the posters in
the streets: when I happened by some accident to see her publicly
paraded that way, I shuddered all through--with shame, I think; and I
got to look on her father as a sort of devil that had been allowed to
drive about that beautiful creature in vile chains. Oh, I cannot tell
you! When I have heard him talking away in that infernal, cold, precise
way about her duties to her art, and insisting that she should have no
sentiments or feelings of her own, and that she should simply use every
emotion as a bit of something to impose on the public--a bit of her
trade, an exposure of her own feelings to make people clap their
hands--I have sat still and wondered at myself that I did not jump up
and catch him by the throat, and shake the life out of his miserable
body."

"You have cut your hand, Macleod."

He shook a drop or two of blood off.

"Why, Ogilvie, when I saw you on the bridge of the steamer, I nearly
went mad with delight. I said to myself, 'Here is some one who has seen
her and spoken to her, who will know when I tell him.' And now that I am
telling you of it, Ogilvie, you will see--you will understand--that it
is not any actress I have fallen in love with--it was not the
fascination of an actress at all, but the fascination of the woman
herself; the fascination of her voice, and her sweet ways, and the very
way she walked, too, and the tenderness of her heart. There was a sort
of wonder about her; whatever she did or said was so beautiful, and
simple, and sweet! And day after day I said to myself that my interest
in this beautiful woman was nothing. Some one told me there had been
rumors: I laughed. Could any one suppose I was going to play Pendennis
over again? And then as the time came for me to leave, I was glad, and I
was miserable at the same time. I despised myself for being miserable.
And then I said to myself, 'This stupid misery is only the fancy of a
boy. Wait till you get back to Castle Dare, and the rough seas, and the
hard work of the stalking. There is no sickness and sentiment on the
side of Ben-an-Sloich.' And so I was glad to come to Castle Dare, and to
see the old mother, and Janet, and Hamish; and the sound of the pipes,
Ogilvie--when I heard them away in the steamer, that brought tears to my
eyes; and I said to myself, 'Now you are at home again, and there will
be no more nonsense of idle thinking.' And what has it come to? I would
give everything I possess in the world to see her face once more--ay, to
be in the same town where she is. I read the papers, trying to find out
where she is. Morning and night it is the same--a fire, burning and
burning, of impatience, and misery, and a craving just to see her face
and hear her speak."

Ogilvie did not know what to say. There was something in this passionate
confession--in the cry wrung from a strong man, and in the rude
eloquence that here and there burst from him--that altogether drove
ordinary words of counsel or consolation out of the young man's mind.

"You have been hard hit, Macleod," he said, with some earnestness.

"That is just it," Macleod said, almost bitterly. "You fire at a bird.
You think you have missed him. He sails away as if there was nothing the
matter, and the rest of the covey no doubt think he is as well as any
one of them. But suddenly you see there is something wrong. He gets
apart from the others; he towers; then down he comes, as dead as a
stone. You did not guess anything of this in London?"

"Well," said Ogilvie, rather inclined to beat about the bush, "I thought
you were paying her a good deal of attention. But then--she is very
popular, you know, and receives a good deal of attention; and--and the
fact is, she is an uncommonly pretty girl, and I thought you were
flirting a bit with her, but nothing more than that. I had no idea it
was something more serious than that."

"Ay," Macleod said, "if I myself had only known! If it was a plunge--as
people talk about falling in love with a woman--why, the next morning I
would have shaken myself free of it, as a Newfoundland dog shakes
himself free of the water. But a fever, a madness, that slowly gains on
you--and you look around and say it is nothing, but day after day it
burns more and more. And it is no longer something that you can look at
apart from yourself--it is your very self; and sometimes, Ogilvie, I
wonder whether it is all true, or whether it is mad I am altogether.
Newcastle--do you know Newcastle?"

"I have passed through it, of course," his companion said, more and more
amazed at the vehemence of his speech.

"It is there she is now--I have seen it in the papers; and it is
Newcastle--Newcastle--Newcastle--I am thinking of from morning till
night, and if I could only see one of the streets of it I should be
glad. They say it is smoky and grimy; I should be breathing sunlight if
I lived in the most squalid of all its houses. And they say she is going
to Liverpool, and to Manchester, and to Leeds; and it is as if my very
life were being drawn away from me. I try to think what people may be
around her; I try to imagine what she is doing at a particular hour of
the day; and I feel as if I were shut away in an island in the middle of
the Atlantic, with nothing but the sound of the waves around my ears.
Ogilvie, it is enough to drive a man out of his senses."

"But, look here, Macleod," said Ogilvie, pulling himself together; for
it was hard to resist the influence of this vehement and uncontrollable
passion--"look here, man; why don't you think of it in cold blood? Do
you expect me to sympathize with you as a friend? Or would you like to
know what any ordinary man of the world would think of the whole case?"

"Don't give me your advice, Ogilvie," said he, untwining and throwing
away the bit of casting-line that had cut his finger. "It is far beyond
that. Let me talk to you--that is all. I should have gone mad in another
week, if I had had no one to speak to; and as it is, what better am I
than mad? It is not anything to be analyzed and cured: it is my very
self; and what have I become?"

"But look here, Macleod--I want to ask you a question: would you marry
her?"

The common-sense of the younger man was re-asserting itself. This was
what any one--looking at the whole situation from the Aldershot point of
view--would at the outset demand? But if Macleod had known all that was
implied in the question, it is probable that a friendship that had
existed from boyhood would then and there have been severed. He took it
that Ogilvie was merely referring to the thousand and one obstacles that
lay between him and that obvious and natural goal.

"Marry her!" he exclaimed. "Yes, you are right to look at it in that
way--to think of what it will all lead to. When I look forward, I see
nothing but a maze of impossibilities and trouble. One might as well
have fallen in love with one of the Roman maidens in the Temple of
Vesta. She is a white slave. She is a sacrifice to the monstrous
theories of that bloodless old pagan, her father. And then she is
courted and flattered on all sides; she lives in a smoke of incense: do
you think, even supposing that all other difficulties were removed--that
she cared for no one else, that she were to care for me, that the
influence of her father was gone--do you think she would surrender all
the admiration she provokes and the excitement of the life she leads, to
come and live in a dungeon in the Highlands? A single day like to-day
would kill her, she is so fine and delicate--like a rose leaf, I have
often thought. No, no, Ogilvie, I have thought of it every way. It is
like a riddle that you twist and twist about to try and get the answer;
and I can get no answer at all, unless wishing that I had never been
born. And perhaps that would have been better."

"You take too gloomy a view of it, Macleod," said Ogilvie. "For one
thing, look at the common-sense of the matter. Suppose that she is very
ambitious to succeed in her profession, that is all very well; but, mind
you, it is a very hard life. And if you put before her the chance of
being styled Lady Macleod--well, I may be wrong, but I should say that
would count for something. I haven't known many actresses myself--"

"That is idle talk," Macleod said; and then he added, proudly, "You do
not know this woman as I know her."

He put aside his pipe; but in truth he had never lit it.

"Come," said he, with a tired look, "I have bored you enough. You won't
mind, Ogilvie? The whole of the day I was saying to myself that I would
keep all this thing to myself, if my heart burst over it; but you see I
could not do it, and I have made you the victim, after all. And we will
go into the drawing-room now; and we will have a song. And that was a
very good song you sang one night in London, Ogilvie--it was about
'Death's black wine'--and do you think you could sing us that song
to-night?"

Ogilvie looked at him.

"I don't know what you mean by the way you are talking, Macleod," said
he.

"Oh," said he, with a laugh that did not sound quite natural, "have you
forgotten it? Well, then, Janet will sing us another song--that is,
'Farewell, Manchester.' And we will go to bed soon to-night, for I have
not been having much sleep lately. But it is a good song--it is a song
you do not easily forget--that about 'Death's black wine.'"




CHAPTER XVI.

REBELLION.


And where was she now--that strange creature who had bewildered and
blinded his eyes and so sorely stricken his heart? It was, perhaps, not
the least part of his trouble that all his passionate yearning to see
her, and all his thinking about her and the scenes in which he had met
her, seemed unable to conjure up any satisfactory vision of her. The
longing of his heart went out from him to meet--a phantom. She appeared
before him in a hundred shapes, now one, now the other; but all
possessed with a terrible fascination from which it was in vain for him
to try to flee.

Which was she, then--the pale, and sensitive, and thoughtful-eyed girl
who listened with such intense interest to the gloomy tales of the
Northern seas; who was so fine, and perfect, and delicate; who walked so
gracefully and smiled so sweetly; the timid and gentle companion and
friend?

Or the wild coquette, with her arch, shy ways, and her serious laughing,
and her befooling of the poor stupid lover? He could hear her laugh now;
he could see her feed her canary from her own lips. Where was the old
mother whom that madcap girl teased and petted and delighted?

Or was not this she--the calm and gracious woman who received as a
matter of right the multitude of attentions that all men--and women
too--were glad to pay her? The air fine about her; the south winds
fanning her cheek; the day long, and balmy, and clear. The white-sailed
boats glide slowly through the water; there is a sound of music and of
gentle talk; a butterfly comes fluttering over the blue summer seas. And
then there is a murmuring refrain in the lapping of the waves: _Rose
Leaf! Rose Leaf! what faint wind will carry you away to the south?_

Or this audacious Duchess of Devonshire, with the flashing black eyes,
and a saucy smile on her lips? She knows that every one regards her; but
what of that? Away she goes through the brilliant throng with that young
Highland officer, with glowing light and gay costumes and joyous music
all around her. What do you think of her, you poor clown, standing all
alone and melancholy, with your cap and bells? Has she pierced your
heart too with a flash of the saucy black eyes?

But there is still another vision; and perhaps this solitary dreamer,
who has no eyes for the great slopes of Ben-an-Sloich that stretch into
the clouds, and no ears for the soft calling of the sea-birds as they
wheel over his head, tries hardest to fix this one in his memory. Here
she is the neat and watchful house-mistress, with all things bright and
shining around her; and she appears, too, as the meek daughter and the
kind and caressing sister. Is it not hard that she should be torn from
this quiet little haven of domestic duties and family affection to be
bound hand and foot in the chains of art, and flung into the arena to
amuse that great ghoul-faced thing, the public? The white slave does not
complain. While as yet she may, she presides over the cheerful table;
and the beautiful small hands are helpful, and that light morning
costume is a wonder of simplicity and grace. And then the garden, and
the soft summer air, and the pretty ways of the two sisters: why should
not this simple, homely, beautiful life last forever, if only the summer
and the roses would last forever?

But suppose now that we turn aside from these fanciful pictures of
Macleod's and take a more commonplace one of which he could have no
notion whatever. It is night--a wet and dismal night--and a four-wheeled
cab is jolting along through the dark and almost deserted thoroughfares
of Manchester. Miss Gertrude White is in the cab, and the truth is that
she is in a thorough bad temper. Whether it was that the unseemly
scuffle that took place in the gallery during the performance, or
whether it is that the streets of Manchester, in the midst of rain and
after midnight are not inspiriting, or whether it is merely that she has
got a headache, it is certain that Miss White is in an ill-humor, and
that she has not spoken a word to her maid, her only companion, since
together they left the theatre. At length the cab stops opposite a
hotel, which is apparently closed for the night. They get out, cross the
muddy pavements under the glare of a gas-lamp; after some delay get into
the hotel; pass through a dimly lit and empty corridor; and then Miss
White bids her maid good-night and opens the door of a small parlor.

Here there is a more cheerful scene. There is a fire in the room; and
there is supper laid on the table; while Mr. Septimus White, with his
feet on the fender and his back turned to the lamp, is seated in an
easy-chair, and holding up a book to the light so that the pages almost
touch his gold-rimmed spectacles. Miss White sits down on the sofa on
the dark side of the room. She has made no response to his greeting of
"Well, Gerty?"

At length Mr. White becomes aware that his daughter is sitting there
with her things on, and he turns from his book to her.

"Well, Gerty," he repeats, "aren't you going to have some supper?"

"No, thank you," she says.

"Come, come," he remonstrates, "that won't do. You must have some
supper. Shall Jane get you a cup of tea?"

"I don't suppose there is any one up below; besides, I don't want it,"
says Miss White, rather wearily.

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing," she answers; and then she looks at the mantelpiece. "No
letter from Carry?"

"No."

"Well, I hope you won't make her an actress, papa," observes Miss White,
with no relevance, but with considerable sharpness in her tone.

In fact, this remark was so unexpected and uncalled-for that Mr. White
suddenly put his book down on his knee, and turned his gold spectacles
full on his daughter's face.

"I will beg you to remember, Gerty," he remarked, with some dignity,
"that I did not make you an actress, if that is what you imply. If it
had not been entirely your wish, I should never have encouraged you; and
I think it shows great ingratitude, not only to me but to the public
also, that when you have succeeded in obtaining a position such as any
woman in the country might envy, you treat your good fortune with
indifference, and show nothing but discontent. I cannot tell what has
come over you of late. You ought certainly to be the last to say
anything against a profession that has gained for you such a large share
of public favor--"

"Public favor!" she said, with a bitter laugh. "Who is the favorite of
the public in this very town? Why, the girl who plays in that farce--who
smokes a cigarette, and walks round the stage like a man, and dances a
breakdown. Why wasn't I taught to dance breakdowns?"

Her father was deeply vexed; for this was not the first time she had
dropped small rebellious hints. And if this feeling grew, she might come
to question his most cherished theories.

"I should think you were jealous of that girl," said he, petulantly, "if
it were not too ridiculous. You ought to remember that she is an
established favorite here. She has amused these people year after year;
they look on her as an old friend; they are grateful to her. The means
she uses to make people laugh may not meet with your approval; but she
knows her own business, doubtless; and she succeeds in her own way."

"Ah, well," said Miss White, as she put aside her bonnet, "I hope you
won't bring up Carry to this sort of life."

"To what sort of life?" her father exclaimed, angrily. "Haven't you
everything that can make life pleasant? I don't know what more you want.
You have not a single care. You are petted and caressed wherever you go.
And you ought to have the delight of knowing that the further you
advance in your art the further rewards are in store for you. The way is
clear before you. You have youth and strength; and the public is only
too anxious to applaud whatever you undertake. And yet you complain of
your manner of life."

"It isn't the life of a human being at all," she said, boldly--but
perhaps it was only her headache, or her weariness, or her ill-humor,
that drove her to this rebellion; "it is the cutting one's self off from
everything that makes life worth having. It is a continual
degradation--the exhibition of feelings that ought to be a woman's most
sacred and secret possession. And what will the end of it be? Already I
begin to think I don't know what I am. I have to sympathize with so many
characters--I have to be so many different people--that I don't quite
know what my own character is, or if I have any at all--"

Her father was staring at her in amazement. What had led her into these
fantastic notions? While she was professing that her ambition to become
a great and famous actress was the one ruling thought and object of her
life, was she really envying the poor domestic drudge whom she saw
coming to the theatre to enjoy herself with her fool of a husband,
having withdrawn for an hour or two from her housekeeping books and her
squalling children? At all events, Miss White left him in no doubt as to
her sentiments at that precise moment. She talked rapidly, and with a
good deal of bitter feeling; but it was quite obvious, from the
clearness of her line of contention, that she had been thinking over the
matter. And while it was all a prayer that her sister Carry might be
left to live a natural life, and that she should not be compelled to
exhibit, for gain or applause, emotions which a woman would naturally
lock up in her own heart, it was also a bitter protest against her own
lot. What was she to become, she asked? A dram-drinker of fictitious
sentiment? A Ten-minutes' Emotionalist? It was this last phrase that
flashed in a new light on her father's bewildered mind. He remembered it
instantly. So that was the source of inoperation?

"Oh, I see now," he said, with angry scorn. "You have learned your
lesson well. A 'Ten-minutes' Emotionalist:' I remember. I was wondering
who had put such stuff into your head."

She colored deeply, but said nothing.

"And so you are taking your notion, as to what sort of life you would
lead, from a Highland savage--a boor whose only occupations are eating
and drinking and killing wild animals. A fine guide, truly! He has had
so much experience in ęsthetic matters! Or is it _metapheesics_ is his
hobby? And what, pray, is his notion as to what life should be? that the
noblest object of a man's ambition should be to kill a stag? It was a
mistake for Dante to let his work eat into his heart; he should have
devoted himself to shooting rabbits. And Raphael--don't you think he
would have improved his digestion by giving up pandering to the public
taste for pretty things, and taking to hunting wild-boars? that is the
theory, isn't it? Is that the _metapheesics_ you have learned?"

"You may talk about it," she said, rather humbly--for she knew very well
she could not stand against her father in argument, especially on a
subject that he rather prided himself on having mastered--"but you are
not a woman, and you don't know what a woman feels about such things."

"And since when have you made the discovery? What has happened to
convince you so suddenly that your professional life is a degradation?"

"Oh," she said, carelessly, "I was scarcely thinking of myself. Of
course I know what lies before me. It was about Carry I spoke to you."

"Carry shall decide for herself, as you did; and when she has done so, I
hope she won't come and blame me the first time she gets some ridiculous
idea into her head."

"Now, papa, that isn't fair," the eldest sister said, in a gentler
voice. "You know I never blamed you. I only showed you that even a
popular actress sometimes remembers that she is a woman. And if she is a
woman, you must let her have a grumble occasionally."

This conciliatory tone smoothed the matter down at once; and Mr. White
turned to his book with another recommendation to his daughter to take
some supper and get to bed.

"I will go now," she said, rather wearily, as she rose. "Good-night,
papa--What is that?"

She was looking at a parcel that lay on a chair.

"It came for you, to-night. There was seven and sixpence to pay for
extra carriage--it seems to have been forwarded from place to place."

"As if I had not enough luggage to carry about with me!" she said.

But she proceeded to open the parcel all the same, which seemed to be
very carefully swathed in repeated covers of canvas. And presently she
uttered a slight exclamation. She took up one dark object after another,
passing her hand over them, and back again, and finally pressing them to
her cheek.

"Just look at these, papa--did you ever in all your life see anything so
beautiful?"

She came to a letter, too; which she hastily tore open and read. It was
a brief note, in terms of great respect, written by Sir Keith Macleod,
and begging Miss White's acceptance of a small parcel of otter-skins,
which he hoped might be made into some article of attire. Moreover, he
had asked his cousin's advice on the matter; and she thought there were
enough; but if Miss White, on further inquiry, found she would rather
have one or two more, he had no doubt that within the next month or so
he could obtain these also. It was a very respectful note.

But there was no shyness or timidity about the manner of Miss White when
she spread those skins out along the sofa, and again and again took them
up to praise their extraordinary glossiness and softness.

"Papa," she exclaimed, "it is a present fit for a prince to make!"

"I dare say you will find them useful."

"And whatever is made of them," said she, with decision, "that I shall
keep for myself--it won't be one of my stage properties."

Her spirits rose wonderfully. She kept on chatting to her father about
these lovely skins, and the jacket she would have of them. She asked why
he was so dull that evening. She protested that she would not take any
supper unless he had some too: whereupon he had a biscuit and a glass of
claret, which, at all events, compelled him to lay aside his book. And
then, when she had finished her supper, she suddenly said,--

"Now, Pappy dear, I am going to tell you a great secret. I am going to
change the song in the second act."

"Nonsense!" said he; but he was rather glad to see her come back to the
interest of her work.

"I am," she said, seriously. "Would you like to hear it?"

"You will wake the house up."

"And if the public expect an actress to please them," she said, saucily,
"they must take the consequences of her practising."

She went to the piano, and opened it. There was a fine courage in her
manner as she struck the chords and sang the opening lines of the gay
song:--

    "'Threescore o' nobles rode up the King's ha'
     But bonnie Glenogie's the flower of them a',
     Wi' his milk-white steed and his bonnie black e'e.'"

--but here her voice dropped, and it was almost in a whisper that she
let the maiden of the song utter the secret wish of her heart--

    "'_Glenogie, dear mither, Glenogie for me_.'

"Of course," she said, turning round to her father, and speaking in a
business-like way, though there was a spice of proud mischief in her
eyes, "There is a stumbling-block, or where would the story be! Glenogie
is poor; the mother will not let her daughter have anything to do with
him; the girl takes to her bed with the definite intention of dying."

She turned to the piano again.

    "'There is, Glenogie, a letter for thee,
     Oh, there is, Glenogie, a letter for thee.
     The first line he looked at, a light laugh laughed he;
     But ere he read through it, tears blinded his e'e.'

"How do you like the air, papa?"

Mr. White did not seem over well pleased. He was quite aware that his
daughter was a very clever young woman; and he did not know what insane
idea might have got into her head of throwing an allegory at him.

"The air," said he, coldly, "is well enough. But I hope you don't expect
an English audience to understand that doggerel Scotch."

"Glenogie understand it, any way," said she, blithely, "and naturally he
rode off at once to see his dying sweetheart.

    "'Pale and wan was she, when Glenogie gaed ben,
      But rosy-red grew she when Glenogie sat down.
      She turned away her head, but the smile was in her e'e,
      _Oh, binna feared, mither, I'll maybe no dee_.'"

She shut the piano.

"Isn't it charmingly simple and tender, papa?" she said, with the same
mischief in her eyes.

"I think it is foolish of you to think of exchanging that piece of
doggerel--"

"For what?" said she, standing in the middle of the room. "For this?"

And therewith she sang these lines--giving an admirable burlesque
imitation of herself, and her own gestures, and her own singing in the
part she was then performing:--

    "The morning bells are swinging, ringing,
            Hail to the day!
     The birds are winging, singing
            To the golden day--
            To the joyous day--
     The morning bells are swinging, ringing,
            And what do they say?
        O bring my love to my love!
            O bring my love to-day!
        O bring my love to my love!
            To be my love alway!'"

It certainly was cruel to treat poor Mrs. Ross's home-made lyrics so;
but Miss White was burlesquing herself as well as the song she had to
sing. And as her father did not know to what lengths this iconoclastic
fit might lead her, he abruptly bade her good-night and went to bed, no
doubt hoping that next morning would find the demon exorcised from his
daughter.

As for her, she had one more loving look over the skins, and then she
carefully read through the note that accompanied them. There was a smile
on her face--perhaps of pleasure, perhaps of amusement at the simplicity
of the lines. However, she turned aside, and got hold of a small
writing-desk, which she placed on the table.

    "'Oh, here is, Glenogie, a letter for thee,'"

she hummed to herself, with a rather proud look on her face, as she
seated herself and opened the desk.




CHAPTER XVII.

"FHIR A BHATA!"


Young Ogilvie had obtained some brief extension of his leave, but even
that was drawing to a close; and Macleod saw with a secret dread that
the hour of his departure was fast approaching. And yet he had not
victimized the young man. After that first burst of confidence he had
been sparing in his references to the trouble that had beset him. Of
what avail, besides, could Mr. Ogilvie's counsels be? Once or twice he
had ventured to approach the subject with some commonplace assurances
that there were always difficulties in the way of two people getting
married, and that they had to be overcome with patience and courage. The
difficulties that Macleod knew of as between himself and that impossible
goal were deeper than any mere obtaining of the consent of friends or
the arrangement of a way of living. From the moment that the terrible
truth was forced on him he had never regarded his case but as quite
hopeless; and yet that in no way moderated his consuming desire to see
her--to hear her speak--even to have correspondence with her. It was
something that he could send her a parcel of otter-skins.

But all the same Mr. Ogilvie was in some measure a friend of hers. He
knew her--he had spoken to her--no doubt when he returned to the South
he would see her one day or another, and he would surely speak of the
visit he had paid to Castle Dare. Macleod set about making that visit as
pleasant as might be, and the weather aided him. The fair heavens shone
over the windy blue seas; and the green island of Ulva lay basking in
the sunlight, and as the old _Umpire_, with her heavy bows parting the
rushing waves, carried them out to the west, they could see the black
skarts standing on the rocks of Gometra, and clouds of puffins wheeling
round the dark and lonely pillars of Staffa; while away in the north, as
they got clear of Treshanish Point, the mountains of Rum and of Skye
appeared a pale and spectral blue, like ghostly shadows at the horizon.
And there was no end to the sports and pastimes that occupied day after
day. On their first expedition up the lonely corries of Ben-an-Sloich
young Ogilvie brought down a royal hart--though his hand trembled for
ten minutes after he pulled the trigger. They shot wild duck in Loch
Scridain, and seals in Loch-na-Keal, and rock-pigeons along the face of
the honey-combed cliffs of Gribun. And what was this new form of sport?
They were one day being pulled in the gig up a shallow loch in the hope
of finding a brood or two of young mergansers, when Macleod, who was
seated up at the bow, suddenly called to the man to stop. He beckoned to
Ogilvie, who went forward and saw, quietly moving over the sea-weed, a
hideously ugly fish with the flat head and sinister eyes of a snake.
Macleod picked up the boat-hook, steadied himself in the boat, and then
drove the iron spike down.

"I have him," he said. "That is the snake of the sea--I hate him as I
hate a serpent."

He hoisted out of the water the dead dog-fish, which was about four feet
long, and then shook it back.

"Here, Ogilvie," said he, "take the boat-hook. There are plenty about
here. Make yourself St. Patrick exterminating snakes."

Ogilvie tried the dog-fish spearing with more or less success; but it
was the means of procuring for him a bitter disappointment. As they went
quietly over the sea-weed--the keel of the boat hissing through it and
occasionally grating on the sand--they perceived that the water was
getting a bit deeper, and it was almost impossible to strike the
boat-hook straight. At this moment, Ogilvie, happening to cast a glance
along the rocks close by them, started and seized Macleod's arm. What
the frightened eyes of the younger man seemed to see was a great white
and gray object lying on the rocks, and staring at him with huge black
eyes. At first it almost appeared to him to be a man with a grizzled and
hairy face; then he tried to think of some white beast with big black
eyes; then he knew. For the next second there was an unwieldy roll down
the rocks, and then a heavy splash in the water; and the huge gray seal
had disappeared. And there he stood helpless, with the boat-hook in his
hand.

"It is my usual luck," said he, in despair. "If I had had my rifle in my
hand, we should never have got within a hundred yards of the beast. But
I got an awful fright. I never before saw a live seal just in front of
one's nose like that."

"You would have missed him," said Macleod, coolly.

"At a dozen yards?"

"Yes. When you come on one so near as that, you are too startled to take
aim. You would have blazed away and missed."

"I don't think so," said Ogilvie, with some modest persistence. "When I
shot that stag, I was steady enough, though I felt my heart thumping
away like fun."

"There you had plenty of time to take your aim--and a rock to rest your
rifle on." And then he added: "You would have broken Hamish's heart,
Ogilvie, if you had missed that stag. He was quite determined you should
have one on your first day out; and I never saw him take such elaborate
precautions before. I suppose it was terribly tedious to you; but you
may depend on it it was necessary. There isn't one of the younger men
can match Hamish, though he was bred a sailor."

"Well," Mr. Ogilvie admitted, "I began to think we were having a great
deal of trouble for nothing; especially when it seemed as though the
wind were blowing half a dozen ways in the one valley."

"Why, man," Macleod said, "Hamish knows every one of those eddies just
as if they were all down on a chart. And he is very determined, too, you
shall have another stag before you go, Ogilvie; for it is not much
amusement we have been giving you since you came to us."

"That is why I feel so particularly jolly at the notion of having to go
back," said Mr. Ogilvie, with very much the air of a schoolboy at the
end of his holiday. "The day after to-morrow, too!"

"To-morrow, then, we will try to get a stag for you; and the day after
you can spend what time you can at the pools in Glen Muick."

These last two days were right royal days for the guest at Castle Dare.
On the deer-stalking expedition Macleod simply refused to take his rifle
with him and spent all his time in whispered consultations with Hamish,
and with eager watching of every bird whose solitary flight along the
mountain-side might startle the wary hinds. After a long day of patient
and stealthy creeping, and walking through bogs and streams, and slow
toiling up rocky slopes, the party returned home in the evening; and
when it was found that a splendid stag--with brow, bay, and tray, and
crockets complete--was strapped on to the pony, and when the word was
passed that Sandy the red-haired and John from the yacht were to take
back the pony to a certain well-known cairn where another monarch of the
hills lay slain, there was a great rejoicing through Castle Dare, and
Lady Macleod herself must needs come out to shake hands with her guest,
and to congratulate him on his good fortune.

"It is little we have been able to do to entertain you," said the old
silver-haired lady, "but I am glad you have got a stag or two."

"I knew what Highland hospitality was before I came to Castle Dare,"
said the boy, modestly. "But you have been kinder to me even than
anything I knew before."

"And you will leave the heads with Hamish," said she, "and we will send
them to Glasgow to be mounted for you, and then we will send them South
to you."

"Indeed no," said he (though he was thinking to himself that it was no
wonder the Macleods of Dare were poor); "I will not put you to any such
trouble. I will make my own arrangements with Hamish."

"Then you will tell him not to forget Aldershot."

"I think, Lady Macleod," said the young lieutenant, "that my
mess-companions will be sorry to hear that I have left Dare. I should
think they ought to have drunk your health many times ere now."

Next day, moreover, he was equally successful by the side of the deep
brown pools in Glen Muick. He was a pretty fair fisherman, though he had
had but small experience with such a mighty engine of a rod as Hamish
put into his hands. When, however, he showed Hamish the fine assortment
of salmon flies he had brought with him, the old man only shook his
head. Thereafter, whenever Hamish went with him, nothing was said about
flies until they neared the side of the brawling stream that came
pouring down between the gray rocks and the patches of moist brown moor.
Hamish would sit down on a stone, and take out a tin box and open it.
Then he would take a quick look round--at the aspect of the clouds, the
direction of the wind, and so forth; and then, with a nimbleness that
any one looking at his rough hands and broad thumbs would have
considered impossible, would busk up a weapon of capture that soon
showed itself to be deadly enough. And on this last day of Ogilvie's
stay at Castle Dare he was unusually lucky--though of course there were
one or two heartrending mishaps. As they walked home in the evening--the
lowering day had cleared away into a warm sunset, and they could see
Colonsay, and Fladda, and the Dutchman's Cap, lying dark and purple on
a golden sea--Ogilvie said:--

"Look here, Macleod, if you would like me to take one of these salmon
for Miss White, I could take it as part of my luggage, and have it
delivered at once."

"That would be no use," said he, rather gloomily. "She is not in London.
She is at Liverpool or Manchester by this time. I have already sent her
a present."

Ogilvie did not think fit to ask what; though he had guessed.

"It was a parcel of otter-skins," Macleod said. "You see, you might
present that to any lady--it is merely a curiosity of the district--it
is no more than if an acquaintance were to give me a chip of quartz he
had brought from the Rocky Mountains with a few grains of copper or
silver in it."

"It is a present any lady would be glad to have," observed Mr. Ogilvie,
with a smile. "Has she got them yet?"

"I do not know," Macleod answered. "Perhaps there is not time for an
answer. Perhaps she has forgotten who I am, and is affronted at a
stranger sending her a present."

"Forgotten who you are!" Ogilvie exclaimed; and then he looked round to
see that Hamish and Sandy the red-haired were at a convenient distance.
"Do you know this, Macleod? A man never yet was in love with a woman
without the woman being instantly aware of it."

Macleod glanced at him quickly; then turned away his head again,
apparently watching the gulls wheeling high over the sea--black spots
against the glow of the sunset.

"That is foolishness," said he. "I had a great care to be quite a
stranger to her all the time I was in London. I myself scarcely
knew--how could she know? Sometimes I thought I was rude to her, so that
I should deceive myself into believing she was only a stranger."

Then he remembered one fact, and his downright honesty made him speak
again.

"One night, it is true," said he--"it was the last night of my being in
London--I asked a flower from her. She gave it to me. She was laughing
at the time. That was all."

The sunset had gone away, and the clear northern twilight was fading
too, when young Ogilvie, having bade good-bye to Lady Macleod and her
niece Janet, got into the broad-beamed boat of the fishermen,
accompanied by his friend. There was something of a breeze, and they
hoisted a lugsail so that they should run out to meet the steamer.
Donald the piper lad was not with them; Macleod wanted to speak to his
friend Ogilvie as he was leaving.

And yet he did not say anything of importance. He seemed to be chiefly
interested in finding out whether Ogilvie could not get a few days'
leave, about Christmas, that he might come up and try the winter
shooting. He was giving minute particulars about the use of arsenic
paste when the box of skins to be despatched by Hamish reached London;
and he was discussing what sort of mounting should be put on a strange
old bottle that Janet Macleod had presented to the departing guest.
There was no word of that which lay nearest his heart.

And so the black waves rolled by them; and the light at the horizon
began to fade; and the stars were coming out one by one; while the two
sailors forward (for Macleod was steering) were singing to themselves:

          "_Fhir a bhata (na horo eile)
          Fhir a bhata (na horo eile)
          Fhir a bhata (na horo eile)
    Chead soire slann leid ge thobh a theid u!_"

that is to say,

                      "O Boatman,
                       And Boatman,
                       And Boatman,
    A hundred farewells to you wherever you may go!"

And then the lugsail was hauled down, and they lay on the lapping water;
and they could hear all around them the soft callings of the guillemots
and razor-bills, and other divers whose home is the heaving wave. And
then the great steamer came up and slowed; and the boat was hauled
alongside and young Ogilvie sprang up the slippery steps.

"Good-bye, Macleod!"

"Good-bye, Ogilvie! Come up at Christmas."

The great bulk of the steamer soon floated away, and the lugsail was run
up again, and the boat made slowly back for Castle Dare. "Fhir a bhata!"
the men sung; but Macleod scarcely heard them. His last tie with the
South had been broken.

But not quite. It was about ten o'clock that night that word came to
Castle Dare that Dugald the Post had met with an accident that morning
while starting from Bunessan; and that his place had been taken by a
young lad who had but now arrived with the bag. Macleod hastily looked
over the bundle of newspapers, etc., they brought him and his eager eyes
fell on an envelope, the writing on which made his heart jump.

"Give the lad a half-crown," said he.

And then he went to his own room. He had the letter in his hand; and he
knew the handwriting: but there was no wind of the night that could
bring him the mystic message she had sent with it:

    "_Oh, here is, Glenogie, a letter for thee!_"




CHAPTER XVIII.

CONFIDENCES.


For a second or two he held the letter in his hand, regarding the
outside of it; and it was with more deliberation than haste that he
opened it. Perhaps it was with some little tremor of fear--lest the
first words that should meet his eye might be cruelly cold and distant.
What right had he to expect anything else? Many a time, in thinking
carefully over the past, he had recalled the words--the very tone--in
which he had addressed her, and had been dismayed to think of their
reserve, which had on one or two occasions almost amounted to austerity.
He could expect little beyond a formal acknowledgment of the receiving
of his letter, and the present that had accompanied it.

Imagine, then, his surprise when he took out from the envelope a number
of sheets closely written over in her beautiful, small, neat hand.
Hastily his eye ran over the first few lines; and then surprise gave way
to a singular feeling of gratitude and joy. Was it indeed she who was
writing to him thus? When he had been thinking of her as some one far
away and unapproachable--who could have no thought of him or of the too
brief time in which he had been near to her--had she indeed been
treasuring up some recollection that she now seemed disposed to value?

"You will guess that I am woman enough," she wrote, "to be greatly
pleased and flattered by your sending me such a beautiful present; but
you must believe me when I say that its chief value to me was its
showing me that I had another friend in the world who was not disposed
to forget me the next day after bidding me good-bye. Perhaps you will
say that I am cynical; but actresses are accustomed to find the
friendships they make--outside the sphere of their own profession--of a
singularly temporary character. We are praised and flattered to-day, and
forgotten to-morrow. I don't complain. It is only natural. People go
away to their own families and home occupations; why should they
remember a person who has amused them for an hour?"

Miss Gertrude White could, when she chose, write a clever and
interesting letter--interesting from its very simplicity and frankness;
and as Macleod read on and on, he ceased to feel any wonder that this
young lady should be placing before him such ample revelations of her
experiences and opinions. Indeed, it was more than suggested in this
confidential chat that Sir Keith Macleod himself had been the first
cause of her having carefully studied her own position, and the
influence likely to be exerted on her by her present mode of life.

"One meets with the harsher realities of an actress's life," she said,
"in the provinces. It is all very fine in London, when all the friends
you happen to have are in town, and where there is constant amusement,
and pleasant parties, and nice people to meet; and then you have the
comforts of your own home around you, and quiet and happy Sundays. But a
provincial tour!--the constant travelling, and rehearsals with strange
people, and damp lodgings, and miserable hotels, and wet Sundays in
smoky towns! Papa is very good and kind, you know; but he is interested
in his books, and he goes about all day hunting after curiosities, and
one has not a soul to speak to. Then the audiences: I have witnessed one
or two scenes lately that would unnerve any one; and of course I have to
stand helpless and silent on the stage until the tumult is stilled and
the original offenders expelled. Some sailors the other evening amused
themselves by clambering down the top gallery to the pit, hanging on to
the gas-brackets and the pillars; and one of them managed to reach the
orchestra, jump from the drum on to the stage, and then offered me a
glass of whiskey from a big black bottle he had in his hand. When I told
papa, he laughed, and said I should be proud of my triumph over the
man's imagination. But when the people roared with laughter at my
discomfiture, I felt as though I would rather be earning my bread by
selling watercresses in the street or by stitching in a garret."

Of course the cry of the poor injured soul found a ready echo in his
heart. It was monstrous that she should be subjected to such
indignities. And then that cruel old pagan of a father--was he not
ashamed of himself to see the results of his own cold-blooded theories?
Was this the glory of art? Was this the reward of the sacrifice of a
life? That a sensitive girl should be publicly insulted by a tipsy
maniac, and jeered at by a brutal crowd? Macleod laid down the letter
for a minute or two, and the look on his face was not lovely to see.

"You may think it strange that I should write thus to you," she said;
"but if I say that it was yourself who first set me thinking about such
things? And since I have been thinking about them I have had no human
being near me to whom I could speak. You know papa's opinions. Even if
my dearest friend, Mrs. Ross, were here, what would she say? She has
known me only in London. She thinks it a fine thing to be a popular
actress. She sees people ready to pet me, in a way--so long as society
is pleased to have a little curiosity about me. But she does not see the
other side of the picture. She does not even ask how long all this will
last. She never thinks of the cares and troubles and downright hard
work. If ever you heard me sing, you will know that I have very little
of a voice, and that not worth much; but trifling as it is, you would
scarcely believe the care and cultivation I have to spend on it, merely
for business purposes. Mrs. Ross, no doubt, sees that it is pleasant
enough for a young actress, who is fortunate enough to have won some
public favor, to go sailing in a yacht on the Thames, on a summer day,
with nice companions around her. She does not see her on a wet day in
Newcastle, practising scales for an hour at a stretch, though her throat
is half choked with the fog, in a dismal parlor with a piano out of
tune, and with the prospect of having to go out through the wet to a
rehearsal in a damp and draughty theatre, with escaped gas added to the
fog. That is very nice, isn't it?"

It almost seemed to him--so intense and eager was his involuntary
sympathy--as though he himself were breathing fog, and gas, and the foul
odors of an empty theatre. He went to the window and threw it open, and
sat down there. The stars were no longer quivering white on the black
surface of the water, for the moon had risen now in the south, and
there was a soft glow all shining over the smooth Atlantic. Sharp and
white was the light on the stone-walls of Castle Dare, and on the
gravelled path, and the rocks and the trees around; but faraway it was a
milder radiance that lay over the sea, and touched here and there the
shores of Inch Kenneth and Ulva and Colonsay. It was a fair and peaceful
night, with no sound of human unrest to break the sleep of the world.
Sleep, solemn and profound, dwelt over the lonely islands--over Staffa,
with her resounding caves, and Fiadda, with her desolate rocks, and
Iona, with her fairy-white sands, and the distant Dutchman, and Coll,
and Tiree, all haunted by the wild sea-birds' cry; and a sleep as deep
dwelt over the silent hills, far up under the cold light of the skies.
Surely, if any poor suffering heart was vexed by the contentions of
crowded cities, here, if anywhere in the world, might rest and peace and
loving solace be found. He sat dreaming there; he had half forgotten the
letter.

He roused himself from his reverie, and returned to the light.

"And yet I would not complain of mere discomfort," she continued, "if
that were all. People who have to work for their living must not be too
particular. What pains me most of all is the effect that this sort of
work is having on myself. You would not believe--and I am almost ashamed
to confess--how I am worried by small and mean jealousies and anxieties,
and how I am tortured by the expression of opinions which, all the same,
I hold in contempt. I reason with myself to no purpose. It ought to be
no concern of mine if some girl in a burlesque makes the house roar, by
the manner in which she walks up and down the stage smoking a cigar; and
yet I feel angry at the audience for applauding such stuff, and I wince
when I see her praised in the papers. Oh! these papers! I have been
making minute inquiries of late; and I find that the usual way in these
towns is to let the young literary aspirant who has just joined the
office, or the clever compositor who has been promoted to the
sub-editor's room, try his hand first of all at reviewing books, and
then turn him on to dramatic and musical criticism! Occasionally a
reporter, who has been round the police courts to get notes of the night
charges, will drop into the theatre on his way to the office, and 'do a
par.,' as they call it. Will you believe it possible that the things
written of me by these persons--with their pretentious airs of
criticism, and their gross ignorance cropping up at every point--have
the power to vex and annoy me most terribly? I laugh at the time, but
the phrase rankles in my memory all the same. One learned young man said
of me the other day: 'It is really distressing to mark the want of unity
in her artistic characterizations when one regards the natural
advantages that nature has heaped upon her with no sparing hand.' The
natural advantages that nature has heaped upon me! 'And perhaps, also,'
he went on to say, 'Miss White would do well to pay some little more
attention before venturing on pronouncing the classic names of Greece.
Iphigenia herself would not have answered to her name if she had heard
it pronounced with the accent on the fourth syllable.'"

Macleod brought his fist down on the table with a bang.

"If I had that fellow," said he, aloud--"if I had that fellow, I should
like to spin for a shark off Dubh Artach lighthouse." And here a most
unholy vision rose before him of a new sort of sport--a sailing launch
going about six knots an hour, a goodly rope at the stern with a huge
hook through the gill of the luckless critic, a swivel to make him spin,
and then a few smart trips up and down by the side of the lonely Dubh
Artach rocks, where Mr. Ewing and his companions occasionally find a few
sharks coming up to the surface to stare at them.

"Is it not too ridiculous that such things should vex me--that I should
be so absolutely at the mercy of the opinion of people whose judgment I
know to be absolutely valueless? I find the same thing all around me. I
find a middle-aged man, who knows his work thoroughly, and has seen all
the best actors of the past quarter of a century, will go about quite
proudly with a scrap of approval from some newspaper, written by a young
man who has never travelled beyond the suburbs of his native town, and
has seen no acting beyond that of the local company. But there is
another sort of critic--the veteran, the man who has worked hard on the
paper and worn himself out, and who is turned off from politics, and
pensioned by being allowed to display his imbecility in less important
matters. Oh dear! what lessons he reads you! The solemnity of them!
Don't you know that at the end of the second act the business of Mrs.
So-and-So (some actress who died when George IV. was king) was this,
that, or the other?--and how dare you, you impertinent minx, fly in the
face of well-known stage traditions? I have been introduced lately to a
specimen of both classes. I think the young man--he had beautiful long
fair hair and a Byronic collar, and was a little nervous--fell in love
with me, for he wrote a furious panegyric of me, and sent it next
morning with a bouquet, and begged for my photograph. The elderly
gentleman, on the other hand, gave me a great deal of good advice; but I
subdued even him, for before he went away he spoke in a broken voice,
and there were tears in his eyes, which papa said were owing to a
variety of causes. It is ludicrous enough, no doubt, but it is also a
little bit humiliating. I try to laugh the thing away, whether the
opinion expressed about me is solemnly stupid or merely impertinent, but
the vexation of it remains; and the chief vexation to me is that I
should have so little command of myself, so little respect for myself,
as to suffer myself to be vexed. But how can one help it? Public opinion
is the very breath and life of a theatre and of every one connected with
it; and you come to attach importance to the most foolish expression of
opinion in the most obscure print."

"And so, my dear friend, I have had my grumble out--and made my
confession too, for I should not like to let every one know how foolish
I am about those petty vexations--and you will see that I have not
forgotten what you said to me, and that further reflection and
experience have only confirmed it. But I must warn you. Now that I have
victimized you to this fearful extent, and liberated my mind, I feel
much more comfortable. As I write, there is a blue color coming into the
window that tells me the new day is coming. Would it surprise you if the
new day brought a complete new set of feelings? I have begun to doubt
whether I have got any opinions--whether, having to be so many different
people in the course of a week, I have any clear notion as to what I
myself am. One thing is certain, that I have been greatly vexed and
worried of late by a succession of the merest trifles; and when I got
your kind letter and present this evening, I suddenly thought, Now for a
complete confession and protest. I know you will forgive me for having
victimized you, and that as soon as you have thrown this rambling
epistle into the fire you will try to forget all the nonsense it
contains and will believe that I hope always to remain your friend,

                                                  "GERTRUDE WHITE."


His quick and warm sympathy refused to believe the half of this letter.
It was only because she knew what was owing to the honor and
self-respect of a true woman that she spoke in this tone of bitter and
scornful depreciation of herself. It was clear that she was longing for
the dignity and independence of a more natural way of life. And this
revelation--that she was not, after all, banished forever into that cold
region of art in which her father would fain keep her--somewhat
bewildered him at first. The victim might be reclaimed from the altar
and restored to the sphere of simple human affections, natural duties,
and joy? And if he--

Suddenly, and with a shock of delight that made his heart throb, he
tried to picture this beautiful fair creature sitting over there in that
very chair by the side of the fire, her head bent down over her sewing,
the warm light of the lamp touching the tender curve of her cheek. And
when she lifted her head to speak to him--and when her large and lambent
eyes met his--surely Fionaghal, the fair poetess from strange lands,
never spoke in softer tones than this other beautiful stranger, who was
now his wife and his heart's companion. And now he would bid her lay
aside her work, and he would get a white shawl for her, and like a ghost
she would steal out with him into the moonlight air. And is there enough
wind on this summer night to take them out from the sombre shore to the
open plain of the sea? Look now, as the land recedes, at the high walls
of Castle Dare, over the black cliffs, and against the stars. Far away
they see the graveyard of Inch Kenneth, the stones pale in the
moonlight. And what song will she sing now, that Ulva and Colonsay may
awake and fancy that some mermaiden is singing to bewail her lost lover?
The night is sad, and the song is sad; and then, somehow, he finds
himself alone in this waste of water, and all the shores of the islands
are silent and devoid of life, and there is only the echo of the sad
singing in his ears--

He jumps to his feet, for there is a knocking at the door. The gentle
Cousin Janet enters, and hastily he thrusts that letter into his pocket,
while his face blushes hotly.

"Where have you been, Keith?" she says, in her quiet, kindly way.
"Auntie would like to say good-night to you now."

"I will come directly," said he.

"And now that Norman Ogilvie is away, Keith," said she, "you will take
more rest about the shooting; for you have not been looking like
yourself at all lately; and you know, Keith, when you are not well and
happy, it is no one at all about Dare that is happy either. And that is
why you will take care of yourself."

He glanced at her rather uneasily; but he said, in a light and careless
way,--

"Oh, I have been well enough, Janet, except that I was not sleeping well
one or two nights. And if you look after me like that, you will make me
think I am a baby, and you will send me some warm flannels when I go up
on the hills."

"It is too proud of your hardihood you are, Keith," said his cousin,
with a smile. "But there never was a man of your family who would take
any advice."

"I would take any advice from you, Janet," said he; and therewith he
followed her to bid good-night to the silver-haired mother.




CHAPTER XIX.

A RESOLVE.


He slept but little that night, and early the next morning he was up and
away by himself--paying but little heed to the rushing blue seas, and
the white gulls, and the sunshine touching the far sands on the shores
of Iona. He was in a fever of unrest. He knew not what to make of that
letter; it might mean anything or nothing. Alternations of wild hope and
cold despair succeeded each other. Surely it was unusual for a girl so
to reveal her innermost confidences to any one whom she considered a
stranger? To him alone had she told this story of her private troubles.
Was it not in effect asking for a sympathy which she could not hope for
from any other? Was it not establishing a certain secret between them?
Her own father did not know. Her sister was too young to be told.
Friends like Mrs. Ross could not understand why this young and beautiful
actress, the favorite of the public, could be dissatisfied with her lot.
It was to him alone she had appealed.

And then again he read the letter. The very frankness of it made him
fear. There was none of the shyness of a girl writing to one who might
be her lover. She might have written thus to one of her
school-companions. He eagerly searched it for some phrase of tenderer
meaning; but no there was a careless abandonment about it, as if she had
been talking without thinking of the person she addressed. She had even
joked about a young man falling in love with her. It was a matter of
perfect indifference to her. It was ludicrous as the shape of the lad's
collar was ludicrous, but of no more importance. And thus she receded
from his imagination again, and became a thing apart--the white slave
bound in those cruel chains that seemed to all but herself and him the
badges of triumph.

_Herself and him_--the conjunction set his heart throbbing quickly. He
eagerly bethought himself how this secret understanding could be
strengthened, if only he might see her and speak to her. He could tell
by her eyes what she meant, whatever her words might be. _If only he
could see her again:_ all his wild hopes, and fears, and doubts--all his
vague fancies and imaginings--began to narrow themselves down to this
one point; and this immediate desire became all-consuming. He grew sick
at heart when he looked round and considered how vain was the wish.

The gladness had gone from the face of Keith Macleod. Not many months
before, any one would have imagined that the life of this handsome young
fellow, whose strength, and courage, and high spirits seemed to render
him insensible to any obstacle, had everything in it that the mind of
man could desire. He had a hundred interests and activities; he had
youth and health, and a comely presence; he was on good terms with
everybody around him--for he had a smile and a cheerful word for each
one he met, gentle or simple. All this gay, glad life seemed to have
fled. The watchful Hamish was the first to notice that his master began
to take less and less interest in the shooting and boating and fishing;
and at times the old man was surprised and disturbed by an exhibition of
querulous impatience that had certainly never before been one of
Macleod's failings. Then his cousin Janet saw that he was silent and
absorbed; and his mother inquired once or twice why he did not ask one
or other of his neighbors to come over to Dare to have a day's shooting
with him.

"I think you are finding the place lonely, Keith, now that Norman
Ogilvie is gone," said she.

"Ah, mother," he said, with a laugh, "it is not Norman Ogilvie, it is
London, that has poisoned my mind. I should never have gone to the
South. I am hungering for the fleshpots of Egypt already; and I am
afraid some day I will have to come and ask you to let me go away
again."

He spoke jestingly, and yet he was regarding his mother.

"I know it is not pleasant for a young man to be kept fretting at home,"
said she. "But it is not long now I will ask you to do that, Keith."

Of course this brief speech only drove him into more vigorous
demonstration that he was not fretting at all; and for a time he seemed
more engrossed than ever in all the occupations he had but recently
abandoned. But whether he was on the hillside, or down in the glen, or
out among the islands, or whether he was trying to satisfy the hunger of
his heart with books long after every one in Castle Dare had gone to
bed, he could not escape from this gnawing and torturing anxiety. It was
no beautiful and gentle sentiment that possessed him--a pretty thing to
dream about during a summer's morning--but, on the contrary, a burning
fever of unrest, that left him peace nor day nor night. "Sudden love is
followed by sudden hate," says the Gaelic proverb; but there had been no
suddenness at all about this passion that had stealthily got hold of
him; and he had ceased even to hope that it might abate or depart
altogether. He had to "dree his weird." And when he read in books about
the joy and delight that accompany the awakening of love--how the world
suddenly becomes fair, and the very skies are bluer than their wont--he
wondered whether he was different from other human beings. The joy and
delight of love? He knew only a sick hunger of the heart and a continual
and brooding despair.

One morning he was going along the cliffs, his only companion being the
old black retriever, when suddenly he saw, far away below him, the
figure of a lady. For a second his heart stood still at the sight of
this stranger; for he knew it was neither the mother nor Janet; and she
was coming along a bit of greensward from which, by dint of much
climbing, she might have reached Castle Dare. But as he watched her he
caught sight of some other figures, farther below on the rocks. And then
he perceived--as he saw her return with a handful of bell-heather--that
this party had come from Iona, or Bunessan, or some such place, to
explore one of the great caves on this coast, while this lady had
wandered away from them in search of some wild flowers. By and by he saw
the small boat, with its spritsail white in the sun, go away toward the
south, and the lonely coast was left as lonely as before.

But ever after that he grew to wonder what Gertrude White, if ever she
could be persuaded to visit his home, would think of this thing and of
that thing--what flowers she would gather--whether she would listen to
Hamish's stories of the fairies--whether she would be interested in her
small countryman, Johnny Wickes, who was now in kilts, with his face and
legs as brown as a berry--whether the favorable heavens would send her
sunlight and blue skies, and the moonlight nights reveal to her the
solemn glory of the sea and the lonely islands. Would she take his hand
to steady herself in passing over the slippery rocks? What would she say
if suddenly she saw above her--by the opening of a cloud--a stag
standing high on a crag near the summit of Ben-an-Sloich? And what would
the mother and Janet say to that singing of hers, if they were to hear
her put all the tenderness of the low, sweet voice into "Wae's me for
Prince Charlie?"

There was one secret nook that more than any other he associated with
her presence; and thither he would go when this heart-sickness seemed
too grievous to be borne. It was down in a glen beyond the fir-wood; and
here the ordinary desolation of this bleak coast ceased, for there were
plenty of young larches on the sides of the glen, with a tall
silver-birch or two; while down in the hollow there were clumps of
alders by the side of the brawling stream. And this dell that he sought
was hidden away from sight, with the sun but partially breaking through
the alders and rowans, and bespeckling the great gray boulders by the
side of the burn, many of which were covered by the softest of
olive-green moss. Here, too, the brook, that had been broken just above
by intercepting stones, swept clearly and limpidly over a bed of smooth
rock; and in the golden-brown water the trout lay, and scarcely moved
until some motion of his hand made them shoot up stream with a lightning
speed. And then the wild flowers around--the purple ling and red
bell-heather growing on the silver-gray rocks; a foxglove or two
towering high above the golden-green breckans; the red star of a
crane's-bill among the velvet moss. Even if she were overawed by the
solitariness of the Atlantic and the gloom of the tall cliffs and their
yawning caves, surely here would be a haven of peace and rest, with
sunshine, and flowers, and the pleasant murmur of the stream. What did
it say, then, as one sat and listened in the silence? When the fair
poetess from strange lands came among the Macleods, did she seek out
this still retreat, and listen, and listen, and listen until she caught
the music of this monotonous murmur, and sang it to her harp? And was it
not all a song about the passing away of life, and how that summer days
were for the young, and how the world was beautiful for lovers? "Oh,
children!" it seemed to say, "why should you waste your lives in vain
endeavor, while the winter is coming quick, and the black snowstorms,
and a roaring of wind from the sea? Here I have flowers for you, and
beautiful sunlight, and the peace of summer days. Time passes--time
passes--time passes--and you are growing old. While as yet the heart is
warm and the eye is bright, here are summer flowers for you, and a
silence fit for the mingling of lovers' speech. If you listen not, I
laugh at you and go my way. But the winter is coming fast."

Far away in these grimy towns, fighting with mean cares and petty
jealousies, dissatisfied, despondent, careless as to the future, how
could this message reach her to fill her heart with the singing of a
bird? He dared not send it, at all events. But he wrote to her. And the
bitter travail of the writing of that letter he long remembered. He was
bound to give her his sympathy, and to make light as well as he could of
those very evils which he had been the first to reveal to her. He tried
to write in as frank and friendly a spirit as she had done; the letter
was quite cheerful.

"Did you know," said he, "that once upon a time the chief of the
Macleods married a fairy? And whether Macleod did not treat her well, or
whether the fairy-folk reclaimed her, or whether she grew tired of the
place, I do not know quite; but, at all events, they were separated, and
she went away to her own people. But before she went away she gave to
Macleod a fairy banner--the _Bratach sith_ it is known as--and she told
him that if ever he was in great peril, or had any great desire, he was
to wave that flag, and whatever he desired would come to pass. But the
virtue of the _Bratach sith_ would depart after it had been waved three
times. Now the small green banner has been waved only twice; and now I
believe it is still preserved in the Castle of Dunvegan, with power to
work one more miracle on behalf of the Macleods. And if I had the fairy
flag, do you know what I would do with it? I would take it in my hand,
and say: '_I desire the fairy people to remove my friend Gertrude White
from all the evil influences that disturb and distress her. I desire
them to heal her wounded spirit, and secure for her everything that may
tend to her lifelong happiness. And I desire that all the theatres in
the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland--with all their musical
instruments, lime-light, and painted scenes--may be taken and dropped
into the ocean, midway between the islands of Ulva and Coll, so that the
fairy folk may amuse them selves in them if they will so please_.' Would
not that be a very nice form of incantation? We are very strong
believers here in the power of one person to damage another in absence;
and when you can kill a man by sticking pins into a waxen image of
him--which everybody knows to be true--surely you ought to be able to
help a friend, especially with the aid of the _Bratach sith_. Imagine
Covent Garden Theatre a hundred fathoms down in the deep sea, with
mermaidens playing the brass instruments in the orchestra, and the
fairy-folk on the stage, and seals disporting themselves in the stalls,
and guillemots shooting about the upper galleries in pursuit of fish.
But we should get no peace from Iona. The fairies there are very pious
people. They used to carry St. Columba about when he got tired. They
would be sure to demand the shutting up of all the theatres, and the
destruction of the brass instruments. And I don't see how we could
reasonably object."

It was a cruel sort of jesting; but how otherwise than as a jest could
he convey to her, an actress, his wish that all theatres were at the
bottom of the sea? For a brief time that letter seemed to establish some
link of communication between him and her. He followed it on its travels
by sea and land. He thought of its reaching the house in which she
dwelt--perhaps some plain and grimy building in a great manufacturing
city, or perhaps a small quiet cottage up by Regent's Park half hidden
among the golden leaves of October. Might she not, moreover, after she
had opened it and read it, be moved by some passing whim to answer it,
though it demanded no answer? He waited for a week, and there was no
word or message from the South. She was far away, and silent. And the
hills grew lonelier than before, and the sickness of his heart
increased.

This state of mind could not last. His longing and impatience and unrest
became more than he could bear. It was in vain that he tried to satisfy
his imaginative craving with these idle visions of her: it was she
herself he must see; and he set about devising all manner of wild
excuses for one last visit to the South. But the more he considered
these various projects, the more ashamed he grew in thinking of his
taking any one of them and placing it before the beautiful old dame who
reigned in Castle Dare. He had barely been three months at home; how
could he explain to her this sudden desire to go away again?

One morning his cousin Janet came to him.

"Oh, Keith!" said she, "the whole house is in commotion; and Hamish is
for murdering some of the lads; and there is no one would dare to bring
the news to you. The two young buzzards have escaped!"

"I know it," he said. "I let them out myself."

"You!" she exclaimed in surprise; for she knew the great interest he had
shown in watching the habits of the young hawks that had been captured
by a shepherd lad.

"Yes; I let them out last night. It was a pity to have them caged up."

"So long as it was yourself, it is all right," she said; and then she
was going away. But she paused and turned, and said to him, with a
smile, "And I think you should let yourself escape, too, Keith, for it
is you too that are caged up; and perhaps you feel it now more since you
have been to London. And if you are thinking of your friends in London,
why should you not go for another visit to the South before you settle
down to the long winter?"

For an instant he regarded her with some fear. Had she guessed his
secret? Had she been watching the outward signs of this constant torture
he had been suffering? Had she surmised that the otter-skins about which
he had asked her advice were not consigned to any one of the married
ladies whose acquaintance he had made in the South, and of whom he had
chatted freely enough in Castle Dare? Or was this merely a passing
suggestion thrown out by one who was always on the lookout to do a
kindness?

"Well, I would like to go, Janet," he said, but with no gladness in his
voice; "and it is not more than a week or two I should like to be away;
but I do not think the mother would like it; and it is enough money I
have spent this year already--"

"There is no concern about the money, Keith," said she, simply, "since
you have not touched what I gave you. And if you are set upon it, you
know auntie will agree to whatever you wish."

"But how can I explain to her? It is unreasonable to be going away."

How, indeed, could he explain? He was almost assuming that those gentle
eyes now fixed on him could read his heart, and that she would come to
aid him in his suffering without any further speech from him. And that
was precisely what Janet Macleod did--whether or not she had guessed the
cause of his desire to get away.

"If you were a schoolboy, Keith, you would be cleverer at making an
excuse for playing truant," she said, laughing. "And I could make one
for you now."

"You?"

"I will not call it an excuse, Keith," she said, "because I think you
would be doing a good work; and I will bear the expense of it, if you
please."

He looked more puzzled than ever.

"When we were at Salen yesterday I saw Major Stuart, and he has just
came back from Dunrobin. And he was saying very great things about the
machine for the drying of crops in wet weather, and he said he would
like to go to England to see the newer ones and all the later
improvements, if these was a chance of any one about here going shares
with them. And it would not be very much. Keith, if you were to share
with him; and the machine it can be moved about very well; and in the
bad weather you could give the cotters some help, to say nothing about
our own hay and corn. And that is what Major Stuart was saying
yesterday, that if there was any place that you wanted a drying-machine
for the crops it was in Mull."

"I have been thinking of it myself," he said, absently, "but our farm is
too small to make it pay--"

"But if Major Stuart will take half the expense? And even if you lost a
little, Keith, you would save a great deal to the poorer people who are
continually losing their little patches of crops. And will you go and be
my agent, Keith, to go and see whether it is practicable?"

"They will not thank you, Janet, for letting them have this help for
nothing."

"They shall not have it for nothing," said she--for she had plenty of
experience in dealing with the poorer folk around--"they must pay for
the fuel that is used. And now, Keith, if it is a holiday you want, will
not that be a very good holiday, and one to be used for a very good
purpose, too?"

She left him. Where was the eager joy with which he ought to have
accepted this offer? Here was the very means placed within his reach of
satisfying the craving desire of his heart; and yet, all the same, he
seemed to shrink back with a vague and undefined dread. A thousand
impalpable fears and doubts beset his mind. He had grown timid as a
woman. The old happy audacity had been destroyed by sleepless nights and
a torturing anxiety. It was a new thing for Keith Macleod to have become
a prey to strange unintelligible forebodings.

But he went and saw Major Stuart--a round, red, jolly little man, with
white hair and a cheerful smile, who had a sombre and melancholy wife.
Major Stuart received Macleod's offer with great gravity. It was a
matter of business that demanded serious consideration. He had worked
out the whole system of drying crops with hot air as it was shown him in
pamphlets, reports, and agricultural journals, and he had come to the
conclusion that--on paper at least--it could be made to pay. What was
wanted was to give the thing a practical trial. If the system was sound,
surely any one who helped to introduce it into the Western Highlands was
doing a very good work indeed. And there was nothing but personal
inspection could decide on the various merits of latest improvements.

This was what he said before his wife one night at dinner. But when the
ladies had left the room, the little stout major suddenly put up both
his hands, snapped his thumb and middle finger, and very cleverly
executed one or two reel steps.

"By George! my boy," said he, with a ferocious grin on his face, "I
think we will have a little frolic--a little frolic!--a little frolic!
You were never shut up in a house for six months with a woman like my
wife, were you, Macleod? You were never reminded of your coffin every
morning, were you? Macleod, my boy, I am just mad to get after those
drying-machines!"

And indeed Macleod could not have had a merrier companion to go South
with him than this rubicund major just escaped from the thraldom of his
wife. But it was with no such high spirits that Macleod set out. Perhaps
it was only the want of sleep that had rendered him nerveless and
morbid; but he felt, as he left Castle Dare, that there was a lie in his
actions, if not in his words. And as for the future that lay before him,
it was a region only of doubt, and vague regrets, and unknown fears;
and he was entering upon it without any glimpse of light, and without
the guidance of any friendly hand.




CHAPTER XX.

OTTER-SKINS.


"AH, pappy," said Miss Gertrude White to her father and she pretended to
sigh as she spoke--"this is a change indeed!"

They were driving up to the gate of the small cottage in South Bank. It
was the end of October. In the gardens they passed the trees were almost
bare; though such leaves as hung sparsely on the branches of the
chestnuts and maples were ablaze with russet and gold in the misty
sunshine.

"In another week," she continued, "there will not be a leaf left. I dare
say there is not a single geranium in the garden. All hands on deck to
pipe a farewell:

    'Ihr Matten, lebt wohl,
     Ihr sonnigen Weiden
     Der Senne muss scheiden,
     Der Sommer ist hin.'

Farewell to the blue mountains of Newcastle, and the sunlit valleys of
Liverpool, and the silver waterfalls of Leeds; the summer is indeed
over; and a very nice and pleasant summer we have had of it."

The flavor of sarcasm running through this affected sadness vexed Mr.
White, and he answered, sharply,

"I think you have little reason to grumble over a tour which has so
distinctly added to your reputation."

"I was not aware," said she, with a certain careless sauciness of
manner, "that an actress was allowed to have a reputation; at least,
there are always plenty of people anxious enough to take it away."

"Gertrude," said he, sternly, "what do you mean by this constant
carping? Do you wish to cease to be an actress? Or what in all the world
do you want?"

"To cease to be an actress?" she said, with a mild wonder, and with the
sweetest of smiles, as she prepared to get out of the open door of the
cab. "Why, don't you know; pappy, that a leopard cannot change his
spots, or an Etheopian his skin? Take care of the step, pappy! That's
right. Come here, Marie, and give the cabman a hand with this
portmanteau."

Miss White was not grumbling at all--but, on the contrary, was quite
pleasant and cheerful--when she entered the small house and found
herself once more at home.

"Oh, Carry," she said, when her sister followed her into her room; "you
don't know what it is to get back home, after having been bandied from
one hotel to another hotel, and from one lodging-house to another
lodging-house, for goodness knows how long."

"Oh, indeed!" said Miss Carry, with such marked coldness that her sister
turned to her.

"What is the matter with you?"

"What is the matter with _you?_" the younger sister retorted, with
sudden fire. "Do you know that your letters to me have been quite
disgraceful?"

"You are crazed, child--you wrote something about it the other day--I
could not make out what you meant," said Miss White; and she went to the
glass to see that the beautiful brown hair had not been too much
disarranged by the removal of her bonnet.

"It is you are crazed, Gertrude White," said Carry, who had apparently
picked up from some melodrama the notion that it was rather effective to
address a person by her full name. "I am really ashamed of you--that you
should have let yourself be bewitched by a parcel of beasts' skins. I
declare that your ravings about the Highlands, and fairies, and trash of
that sort, have been only fit for a penny journal--"

Miss White turned and stared--as well she might. This indignant person
of fourteen had flashing eyes and a visage of wrath. The pale, calm,
elder sister only remarked, in that deep-toned and gentle voice of hers,

"Your language is pretty considerably strong, Carry. I don't know what
has aroused such a passion in you. Because I wrote to you about the
Highlands? Because I sent you that collection of legends? Because it
seemed to me, when I was in a wretched hotel in some dirty town, I would
rather be away yachting or driving with some one of the various parties
of people whom I know, and who had mostly gone to Scotland this year? If
you are jealous of the Highlands, Carry, I will undertake to root out
the name of every mountain and lake that has got hold of my affections."

She was turning away again, with a quiet smile on her face, when her
younger sister arrested her.

"What's that?" said she, so sharply, and extending her forefinger so
suddenly, that Gertrude almost shrank back.

"What's what?" she said, in dismay--fearing, perhaps, to hear of an
adder being on her shoulder.

"You know perfectly well," said Miss Carry, vehemently, "it is the
Macleod tartan!"

Now the truth was that Miss White's travelling-dress was of an
unrelieved gray; the only scrap of color about her costume being a tiny
thread of tartan ribbon that just showed in front of her collar.

"The Macleod tartan?" said the eldest sister, demurely. "And what if it
were the Macleod tartan?"

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gerty! There was quite enough
occasion for people to talk in the way he kept coming here; and now you
make a parade of it; you ask people to look at you wearing a badge of
servitude--you say, 'Oh, here I am; and I am quite ready to be your wife
when you ask me, Sir Keith Macleod!'"

There was no flush of anger in the fair and placid face; but rather a
look of demure amusement in the downcast eyes.

"Dear me, Carry!" said she, with great innocence, "the profession of an
actress must be looking up in public estimation when such a rumor as
that could even get into existence. And so people have been so kind as
to suggest that Sir Keith Macleod, the representative of one of the
oldest and proudest families in the kingdom, would not be above marrying
a poor actress who has her living to earn, and who is supported by the
half-crowns and half-sovereigns of the public? And indeed I think it
would look very well to have him loitering about the stage-doors of
provincial theatres until his wife should be ready to come out; and
would he bring his gillies, and keepers, and head-foresters, and put
them into the pit to applaud her? Really, the role you have cut out for
a Highland gentleman--"

"A Highland gentleman!" exclaimed Carry. "A Highland pauper! But you are
quite right, Gerty, to laugh at the rumor. Of course it is quite
ridiculous. It is quite ridiculous to think that an actress whose fame
is all over England--who is sought after by everybody, and the
popularest favorite ever seen--would give up everything and go away and
marry an ignorant Highland savage, and look after his calves and his
cows and hens for him. That is indeed ridiculous, Gerty."

"Very well, then, put it out of your mind; and never let me hear another
word about it," said the popularest favorite, as she undid the bit of
tartan ribbon; "and if it is any great comfort to you to know, this is
not the Macleod tartan but the MacDougal tartan, and you may put it in
the fire if you like."

Saying which, she threw the bit of costume which had given so great
offence on the table. The discomfited Carry looked at it, but would not
touch it. At last she said,

"Where are the skins, Gerty?"

"Near Castle Dare," answered Miss White, turning to get something else
for her neck; "there is a steep hill, and the road comes over it. When
you climb to the top of the hill and sit down, the fairies will carry
you right to the bottom if you are in a proper frame of mind. But they
won't appear at all unless you are at peace with all men. I will show
you the skins when you are in a proper frame of mind, Carry."

"Who told you that story?" she asked quickly.

"Sir Keith Macleod," the elder sister said, without thinking.

"Then he has been writing to you?"

"Certainly."

She marched out of the room. Gertrude White, unconscious of the fierce
rage she had aroused, carelessly proceeded with her toilet, trying now
one flower and now another in the ripples of her sun-brown hair, but
finally discarding these half-withered things for a narrow band of blue
velvet.

    "Threescore o' nobles rode up the king's ha',"

she was humming thoughtlessly to herself as she stood with her hands
uplifted to her head, revealing the beautiful lines of her figure,

    "But Bonnie Glenogie's the flower o' them a';
     Wi' his milk-white steed and his coal-black e'e:
     Glenogie, dear mither, Glenogie for me!"

At length she had finished, and was ready to proceed to her immediate
work of overhauling domestic affairs. When Keith Macleod was struck by
the exceeding neatness and perfection of arrangement in this small
house, he was in nowise the victim of any stage-effect. Gertrude White
was at all times and in all seasons a precise and accurate
house-mistress. Harassed, as an actress must often be, by other cares;
sometimes exhausted with hard work; perhaps tempted now and again by the
self-satisfaction of a splendid triumph to let meaner concerns go
unheeded; all the same, she allowed nothing to interfere with her
domestic duties.

"Gerty," her father said, impatiently, to her a day or two before they
left London for the provinces, "what is the use of your going down to
these stores yourself? Surely you can send Jane or Marie. You really
waste far too much time over the veriest trifles: how can it matter what
sort of mustard we have?"

"And, indeed, I am glad to have something to convince me that I am a
human being and a woman," she had said, instantly, "something to be
myself in. I believe Providence intended me to be the manager of a Swiss
hotel."

This was one of the first occasions on which she had revealed to her
father that she had been thinking a good deal about her lot in life, and
was perhaps beginning to doubt whether the struggle to become a great
and famous actress was the only thing worth living for. But he paid
little attention to it at the time. He had a vague impression that it
was scarcely worth discussing about. He was pretty well convinced that
his daughter was clever enough to argue herself into any sort of belief
about herself, if she should take some fantastic notion into her head.
It was not until that night in Manchester that he began to fear there
might be something serious in these expressions of discontent.

On this bright October morning Miss Gertrude White was about to begin
her domestic inquiries, and was leaving her room humming cheerfully to
herself something about the bonnie Glenogie of the song, when she was
again stopped by her sister, who was carrying a bundle.

"I have got the skins," she said, gloomily. "Jane took them out."

"Will you look at them?" the sister said, kindly. "They are very pretty.
If they were not a present, I would give them to you, to make a jacket
of them."

"_I_ wear them?" said she. "Not likely!"

Nevertheless she had sufficient womanly curiosity to let her elder
sister open the parcel; and then she took up the otter-skins one by one,
and looked at them.

"I don't think much of them," she said.

The other bore this taunt patiently.

"They are only big moles, aren't they? And I thought moleskin was only
worn by working-people."

"I am a working-person too," Miss Gertrude White said: "but, in any
case, I think a jacket of these skins will look lovely."

"Oh, do you think so? Well, you can't say much for the smell of them."

"It is no more disagreeable than the smell of a sealskin jacket."

She laid down the last of the skins with some air of disdain.

"It will be a nice series of trophies, anyway--showing you know some one
who goes about spending his life in killing inoffensive animals."

"Poor Sir Keith Macleod! What has he done to offend you, Carry?"

Miss Carry turned her head away for a minute; but presently she boldly
faced her sister.

"Gerty, you don't mean to marry a beauty man!"

Gerty looked considerably puzzled; but her companion continued,
vehemently,--

"How often have I heard you say you would never marry a beauty man--a
man who has been brought up in front of the looking-glass--who is far
too well satisfied with his own good looks to think of anything or
anybody else! Again and again you have said that, Gertrude White. You
told me, rather than marry a self-satisfied coxcomb, you would marry a
misshapen, ugly little man, so that he would worship you all the days of
your life for your condescension and kindness."

"Very well, then!"

"And what is Sir Keith Macleod but a beauty man?"

"He is not!" and for once the elder sister betrayed some feeling in the
proud tone of her voice. "He is the manliest-looking man that I have
ever seen; and I have seen a good many more men than you. There is not a
man you know whom he could not throw across the canal down there. Sir
Keith Macleod a beauty man!--I think he could take on a good deal more
polishing, and curling, and smoothing without any great harm. If I was
in any danger, I know which of all the men I have seen I would rather
have in front of me--with his arms free; and I don't suppose he would
be thinking of any looking-glass! If you want to know about the race he
represents, read English history, and the story of England's wars. If
you go to India, or China, or Africa, or the Crimea, you will hear
something about the Macleods, I think!"

Carry began to cry.

"You silly thing, what is the matter with you?" Gertrude White
exclaimed; but of course her arm was round her sister's neck.

"It is true, then."

"What is true?"

"What people say."

"What do people say?"

"That you will marry Sir Keith Macleod."

"Carry!" she said, angrily, "I can't imagine who has been repeating such
idiotic stories to you, I wish people would mind their own business. Sir
Keith Macleod marry me!"

"Do you mean to say he has never asked you?" Carry said, disengaging
herself, and fixing her eyes on her sister's face.

"Certainly not!" was the decided answer; but all the same, Miss Gertrude
White's forehead and cheeks flushed slightly.

"Then you know that he means to; and that is why you have been writing
to me, day after day, about the romance of the Highlands, and fairy
stories, and the pleasure of people who could live without caring for
the public. Oh, Gerty, why won't you be frank with me, and let me know
the worst at once?"

"If I gave you a box on the ears," she said, laughing, "that would be
the worst at once; and I think it would serve you right for listening to
such tittle-tattle and letting your head be filled with nonsense.
Haven't you sufficient sense to know that you ought not to compel me to
speak of such a thing--absurd as it is? I cannot go on denying that I am
about to become the wife of Tom, Dick, or Harry; and you know the
stories that have been going about for years past. Who was I last? The
wife of a Russian nobleman who gambled away all my earnings at Homburg.
You are fourteen now, Carry; you should have more sense."

Miss Carry dried her eyes; but she mournfully shook her head. There were
the otter-skins lying on the table. She had seen plenty of the absurd
paragraphs about her sister which good-natured friends had cut out of
provincial and foreign papers and forwarded to the small family at South
Bank. But the mythical Russian nobleman had never sent a parcel of
otter-skins. These were palpable and not to be explained away. She
sorrowfully left the room, unconvinced.

And now Miss Gertrude White set to work with a will; and no one who was
only familiar with her outside her own house would have recognized in
this shifty, practical, industrious person, who went so thoroughly into
all the details of the small establishment, the lady who, when she went
abroad among the gayeties of the London season, was so eagerly sought
after, and flattered, and petted, and made the object of all manner of
delicate attentions. Her father, who suspected that her increased
devotion to these domestic duties was but part of that rebellious spirit
she had recently betrayed, had nevertheless to confess that there was no
one but herself whom he could trust to arrange his china and dust his
curiosities. And how could he resent her giving instructions to the
cook, when it was his own dinner that profited thereby?

"Well, Gerty," he said that evening after dinner, "what do you think
about Mr. ----'s offer? It is very good-natured of him to let you have
the ordering of the drawing-room scene, for you can have the furniture
and the color to suit your own costume."

"Indeed I shall have nothing whatever to do with it," said she,
promptly. "The furniture at home is enough for me. I don't wish to
become the upholsterer of a theatre."

"You are very ungrateful, then. Half the effect of a modern comedy is
lost because the people appear in rooms which resemble nothing at all
that people ever lived in. Here is a man who gives you _carte blanche_
to put a modern drawing-room on the stage; and your part would gain
infinitely from having real surroundings. I consider it a very
flattering offer."

"And perhaps it is, pappy," said she, "but I think I do enough if I get
through my own share of the work. And it is very silly of him to want me
to introduce a song into this part, too. He knows I can't sing--"

"Gerty!" her sister said.

"Oh, you know as well as I. I can get through a song well enough in a
room; but I have not enough voice for a theatre; and although he says
it is only to make the drawing-room scene more realistic--and that I
need not sing to the front--that is all nonsense. I know what it is
meant for--to catch the gallery. Now I refuse to sing for the gallery."

This was decided enough.

"What was the song you put into your last part, Gerty?" her sister
asked. "I saw something in the papers about it."

"It was a Scotch one, Carry; I don't think you know it."

"I wonder it was not a Highland one," her sister said, rather
spitefully.

"Oh, I have a whole collection of Highland ones now, would you like to
hear one? Would you, pappy?"

She went and fetched the book, and opened the piano.

"It is an old air that belonged to Scarba," she said, and then she sang,
simply and pathetically enough, the somewhat stiff and cumbrous English
translation of the Gaelic words. It was the song of the exiled Mary
Macleod, who, sitting on the shores of "sea-worn Mull," looks abroad on
the lonely islands of Scarba, and Islay, and Jura, and laments that she
is far away from her own home.

"How do you like it, pappy?" she said, when she had finished. "It is a
pity I do not know the Gaelic. They say that when the chief heard these
verses repeated, he let the old woman go back to her own home."

One of the two listeners, at all events, did not seem to be particularly
struck by the pathos of Mary Macleod's lament. She walked up to the
piano.

"Where did you get that book, Gerty?" she said, in a firm voice.

"Where?" said the other, innocently. "In Manchester, I think it was, I
bought it."

But before she had made the explanation, Miss Carry, convinced that
this, too, had come from her enemy, had seized the book and turned to
the title-page. Neither on title-page nor on fly-leaf, however, was
there any inscription.

"Did you think it had come with the otter-skins, Carry?" the elder
sister said, laughing; and the younger one retired, baffled and
chagrined, but none the less resolved that before Gertrude White
completely gave herself up to this blind infatuation for a savage
country and for one of its worthless inhabitants, she would have to run
the gauntlet of many a sharp word of warning and reproach.




CHAPTER XXI.

IN LONDON AGAIN.


On through the sleeping counties rushed the train--passing woods,
streams, fertile valleys, and clustering villages, all palely shrouded
in the faint morning mist that had a sort of suffused and hidden
sunlight in it; the world had not yet awoke. But Macleod knew that, ere
he reached London people would be abroad; and he almost shrank from
meeting the look of those thousands of eager faces. Would not some of
them guess his errand? Would he not be sure to run against a friend of
hers--an acquaintance of his own? It was with a strange sense of fear
that he stepped out and on to the platform at Euston Station; he glanced
up and down; if she were suddenly to confront his eyes! A day or two ago
it seemed as if innumerable leagues of ocean lay between him and her, so
that the heart grew sick with thinking of the distance; now that he was
in the same town with her, he felt so close to her that he could almost
hear her breathe.

Major Stuart has enjoyed a sound night's rest, and was now possessed of
quite enough good spirits and loquacity for two. He scarcely observed
the silence of his companion. Together they rattled away through this
busy, eager, immense throng, until they got down to the comparative
quiet of Bury Street; and here they were fortunate enough to find not
only that Macleod's old rooms were unoccupied, but that his companion
could have the corresponding chambers on the floor above. They changed
their attire; had breakfast; and then proceeded to discuss their plans
for the day. Major Stuart observed that he was in no hurry to
investigate the last modifications of the drying-machines. It would be
necessary to write and appoint an interview before going down into
Essex. He had several calls to make in London; if Macleod did not see
him before, they should meet at seven for dinner. Macleod saw him depart
without any great regret.

When he himself went outside it was already noon, but the sun had not
yet broken through the mist, and London seemed cold, and lifeless, and
deserted. He did not know of any one of his former friends being left in
the great and lonely city. He walked along Piccadilly, and saw how many
of the houses were shut up. The beautiful foliage of the Green Park had
vanished; and here and there a red leaf hung on a withered branch. And
yet, lonely as he felt in walking through this crowd of strangers, he
was nevertheless possessed with a nervous and excited fear that at any
moment he might have to quail before the inquiring glance of a certain
pair of calm, large eyes. Was this, then, really Keith Macleod who was
haunted by these fantastic troubles? Had he so little courage that he
dared not go boldly up to her house and hold out his hand to her? As he
walked along this thoroughfare, he was looking far ahead; and when any
tall and slender figure appeared that might by any possibility be taken
for hers, he watched it with a nervous interest that had something of
dread in it. So much for the high courage born of love!

It was with some sense of relief that he entered Hyde Park, for here
there were fewer people. And as he walked on, the day brightened. A
warmer light began to suffuse the pale mist lying over the black-green
masses of rhododendrons, the leafless trees, the damp grassplots, the
empty chairs; and as he was regarding a group of people on horseback
who, almost at the summit of the red hill, seemed about to disappear
into the mist, behold! a sudden break in the sky; a silvery gleam shot
athwart from the south, so that these distant figures grew almost black;
and presently the frail sunshine of November was streaming all over the
red ride and the raw green of the grass. His spirits rose somewhat. When
he reached the Serpentine, the sunlight was shining on the rippling blue
water; and there were pert young ladies of ten or twelve feeding the
ducks; and away on the other side there was actually an island amidst
the blue ripples; and the island, if it was not as grand as Staffa nor
as green as Ulva, was nevertheless an island, and it was pleasant enough
to look at, with its bushes, and boats, and white swans. And then he
bethought him of his first walks by the side of this little lake--when
Oscar was the only creature in London he had to concern himself
with--when each new day was only a brighter holiday than its
predecessor--when he was of opinion that London was the happiest and
most beautiful place in the world; and of that bright morning, too, when
he walked through the empty streets at dawn, and came to the peacefully
flowing river.

These idle meditations were suddenly interrupted. Away along the bank
of the lake his keen eye could make out a figure, which, even at that
distance, seemed so much to resemble one he knew, that his heart began
to beat quick. Then the dress--all of black, with a white hat and white
gloves; was not that of the simplicity that had always so great an
attraction for her? And he knew that she was singularly fond of
Kensington Gardens; and might she not be going thither for a stroll
before going back to the Piccadilly Theater? He hastened his steps. He
soon began to gain on the stranger; and the nearer he got the more it
seemed to him that he recognized the graceful walk and carriage of this
slender woman. She passed under the archway of the bridge. When she had
emerged from the shadow, she paused for a moment or two to look at the
ducks on the lake; and this arch of shadow seemed to frame a beautiful
sunlit picture--the single figure against a background of green bushes.
And if this were indeed she, how splendid the world would all become in
a moment! In his eagerness of anticipation he forgot his fear. What
would she say? Was he to hear her laugh once more, and take her hand?
Alas! When he got close enough to make sure, he found that his beautiful
figure belonged to a somewhat pretty, middle-aged lady, who had brought
a bag of scraps with her to feed the ducks. The world grew empty again.
He passed on, in a sort of dream. He only knew he was in Kensington
Gardens; and that once or twice he had walked with her down those broad
alleys in the happy summer-time of flowers, and sunshine, and the scent
of limes. Now there was a pale blue mist in the open glades; and a
gloomy purple instead of the brilliant green of the trees; and the cold
wind that came across rustled the masses of brown orange leaves that
were lying scattered on the ground. He got a little more interested when
he neared the Round Pond; for the wind had freshened; and there were
several handsome craft out there on the raging deep, braving well the
sudden squalls that laid them right on their beam-ends, and then let
them come staggering and dripping up to windward. But there were two
small boys there who had brought with them a tiny vessel of home-made
build, with a couple of lugsails, a jib, and no rudder; and it was a
great disappointment to them that this nondescript craft would move, if
it moved at all, in an uncertain circle. Macleod came to their
assistance--got a bit of floating stick, and carved out of it a rude
rudder, altered the sails, and altogether put the ship into such
sea-going trim that, when she was fairly launched, she kept a pretty
good course for the other side, where doubtless she arrived in safety,
and discharged her passengers and cargo. He was almost sorry to part
with the two small ship-owners. They almost seemed to him the only
people he knew in London.

But surely he had not come all the way from Castle Dare to walk about
Kensington Gardens! What had become of that intense longing to see
her--to hear her speak--that had made his life at home a constant
torment and misery? Well, it still held possession of him; but all the
same there was this indefinable dread that held him back. Perhaps he was
afraid that he would have to confess to her the true reason for his
having come to London. Perhaps he feared he might find her something
entirely different from the creature of his dreams. At all events as he
returned to his room and sat down by himself to think over all the
things that might accrue from this step of his, he only got farther and
farther into a haze of nervous indecision. One thing only was clear to
him: with all his hatred and jealousy of the theatre, to the theatre
that night he would have to go. He could not know that she was so near
to him--that at a certain time and place he would certainly see her and
listen to her--without going. He bethought him, moreover, of what he had
once heard her say--that while she could fairly well make out the people
in the galleries and boxes, those who were sitting in the stalls close
to the orchestra were, by reason of the glare of the foot-lights, quite
invisible to her. Might he not, then, get into some corner where,
himself unseen, he might be so near to her that he could almost stretch
out his hand to her and take her hand, and tell, by its warmth and
throbbing, that it was a real woman, and not a dream, that filled his
heart?

Major Stuart was put off by some excuse, and at eight o'clock Macleod
walked up to the theatre. He drew near with some apprehension; it almost
seemed to him as though the man in the box-office recognized him, and
knew the reason for his demanding one of those stalls. He got it easily
enough; there was no great run on the new piece, even though Miss
Gertrude White was the heroine. He made his way along the narrow
corridors; he passed into the glare of the house; he took his seat with
his ears dinned by the loud music, and waited. He paid no heed to his
neighbors; he had already twisted up the programme so that he could not
have read it if he had wished; he was aware mostly of a sort of
slightly choking sensation about the throat.

When Gertrude White did appear--she came in unexpectedly--he almost
uttered a cry: and it would have been a cry of delight. For there was a
flesh and blood woman, a thousand times more interesting, and beautiful,
and lovable than all his fancied pictures of her. Look how she
walks--how simply and gracefully she takes off her hat and places it on
the table! Look at the play of light, and life, and gladness on her
face--at the eloquence of her eyes! He had been thinking of her eyes as
too calmly observant and serious: he saw them now, and was amazed at the
difference--they seemed to have so much clear light in them, and
pleasant laughter. He did not fear at all that she should see him. She
was so near--he wished he could take her hand and lead her away. What
concern had these people around with her? This was Gertrude White--whom
he knew. She was a friend of Mrs. Ross's; she lived in a quiet little
home, with an affectionate and provoking sister; she had a great
admiration for Oscar the collie; she had the whitest hand in the world
as she offered you some salad at the small, neat table. What was she
doing here--amidst all this glaring sham--before all these people?
"_Come away quickly!_" his heart cried to her. "_Quick--quick--let us
get away together: there is some mistake--some illusion: outside you
will breathe the fresh air, and get into the reality of the world again;
and you will ask about Oscar, and young Ogilvie: and one might hold your
hand--your real warm hand--and perhaps hold it tight, and not give it up
to any one whatsoever!_" His own hand was trembling with excitement. The
eagerness of delight with which he listened to every word uttered by the
low-toned and gentle voice was almost painful; and yet he knew it not.
He was as one demented. This was Gertrude White--speaking, walking,
smiling, a fire of beauty in her clear eyes; her parted lips when she
laughed letting the brilliant light just touch for an instant the
milk-white teeth. This was no pale Rose Leaf at all--no dream or
vision--but the actual laughing, talking, beautiful woman, who had more
than ever of that strange grace and witchery about her that had
fascinated him when first he saw her. She was so near that he could have
thrown a rose to her--a red rose, full blown and full scented. He
forgave the theatre--or rather he forgot it--in the unimaginable delight
of being so near her. And when at length she left the stage, he had no
jealousy of the poor people who remained there to go through their
marionette business. He hoped they might all become great actors and
actresses. He even thought he would try to get to understand the
story--seeing he should have nothing else to do until Gertrude White
came back again.

Now Keith Macleod was no more ignorant or innocent than anybody else;
but there was one social misdemeanor--mere peccadillo, let us say--that
was quite unintelligible to him. He could not understand how a man could
go flirting after a married woman; and still less could he understand
how a married woman should, instead of attending to her children and her
house and such matters, make herself ridiculous by aping girlhood and
pretending to have a lover. He had read a great deal about this, and he
was told it was common; but he did not believe it. The same authorities
assured him that the women of England were drunkards in secret; he did
not believe it. The same authorities insisted that the sole notion of
marriage that occupied the head of an English girl of our own day was as
to how she should sell her charms to the highest bidder; he did not
believe that either. And indeed he argued with himself, in considering
to what extent books and plays could be trusted in such matters, that in
one obvious case the absurdity of these allegations was proved. If
France were the France of French playwrights and novelists, the whole
business of the country would come to a standstill. If it was the sole
and constant occupation of every adult Frenchman to run after his
neighbor's wife, how could bridges be built, taxes collected,
fortifications planned? Surely a Frenchman must sometimes think, if only
by accident, of something other than his neighbor's wife? Macleod
laughed to himself in the solitude of Castle Dare, and contemptuously
flung the unfinished paper-covered novel aside.

But what was his surprise and indignation--his shame, even--on finding
that this very piece in which Gertrude White was acting was all about a
jealous husband, and a gay and thoughtless wife, and a villain who did
not at all silently plot her ruin, but frankly confided his aspirations
to a mutual friend, and rather sought for sympathy; while she, Gertrude
White herself, had, before all these people, to listen to advances
which, in her innocence, she was not supposed to understand. As the play
proceeded, his brows grew darker and darker. And the husband, who ought
to have been the guardian of his wife's honor? Well, the husband in
this rather poor play was a creation that is common in modern English
drama. He represented one idea at least that the English playwright has
certainly not borrowed from the French stage. Moral worth is best
indicated by a sullen demeanor. The man who has a pleasant manner is
dangerous and a profligate; the virtuous man--the true-hearted
Englishman--conducts himself as a boor, and proves the goodness of his
nature by his silence and his sulks. The hero of this trumpery piece was
of this familiar type. He saw the gay fascinator coming about his house;
but he was too proud and dignified to interfere. He knew of his young
wife becoming the byword of his friends; but he only clasped his hands
on his forehead, and sought solitude, and scowled as a man of virtue
should. Macleod had paid but little attention to stories of this kind
when he had merely read them; but when the situation was visible--when
actual people were before him--the whole thing looked more real, and his
sympathies became active enough. How was it possible, he thought, for
this poor dolt to fume and mutter, and let his innocent wife go her own
way alone and unprotected, when there was a door in the room, and a
window by way of alternative? There was one scene in which the faithless
friend and the young wife were together in her drawing-room. He drew
nearer to her; he spake softly to her; he ventured to take her hand. And
while he was looking up appealingly to her, Macleod was regarding his
face. He was calculating to himself the precise spot between the eyes
where a man's knuckles would most effectually tell; and his hand was
clinched, and his teeth set hard. There was a look on his face which
would have warned any gay young man that when Macleod should marry, his
wife would need no second champion.

But was this the atmosphere by which she was surrounded? It is needless
to say that the piece was proper enough. Virtue was triumphant; vice
compelled to sneak off discomfited. The indignant outburst of shame, and
horror, and contempt on the part of the young wife, when she came to
know what the villain's suave intentions really meant, gave Miss White
an excellent opportunity of displaying her histrionic gifts; and the
public applauded vehemently; but Macleod had no pride in her triumph. He
was glad when the piece ended--when the honest-hearted Englishman so far
recovered speech as to declare that his confidence in his wife was
restored, and so far forgot his stolidity of face and demeanor as to
point out to the villain the way to the door instead of kicking him
thither. Macleod breathed more freely when he knew that Gertrude White
was now about to go away to the shelter and quiet of her own home. He
went back to his rooms, and tried to forget the precise circumstances in
which he had just seen her.

But not to forget herself. A new gladness filled his heart when he
thought of her--thought of her not now as a dream or a vision, but as
the living and breathing woman whose musical laugh seemed still to be
ringing in his ears. He could see her plainly--the face all charged with
life and loveliness; the clear bright eyes that he had no longer any
fear of meeting; the sweet mouth with its changing smiles. When Major
Stuart came home that night he noticed a most marked change in the
manner of his companion. Macleod was excited, eager, talkative; full of
high spirits and friendliness; he joked his friend about his playing
truant from his wife. He was anxious to know all about the major's
adventures, and pressed him to have but one other cigar, and vowed that
he would take him on the following evening to the only place in London
where a good dinner could be had. There was gladness in his eyes, a
careless satisfaction in his manner; he was ready to do anything, go
anywhere. This was more like the Macleod of old. Major Stuart came to
the conclusion that the atmosphere of London had had a very good effect
on his friend's spirits.

When Macleod went to bed that night there were wild and glad desires and
resolves in his brain that might otherwise have kept him awake but for
the fatigue he had lately endured. He slept, and he dreamed; and the
figure that he saw in his dreams--though she was distant, somehow--had a
look of tenderness in her eyes, and she held a red rose in her hand.




CHAPTER XXII.

DECLARATION.


November though it was, next morning broke brilliantly over London.
There was a fresh west wind blowing; there was a clear sunshine filling
the thoroughfares; if one were on the lookout for picturesqueness even
in Bury Street, was there not a fine touch of color where the softly red
chimney-pots rose far away into the blue? It was not possible to have
always around one the splendor of the northern sea.

And Macleod would not listen to a word his friend had to say concerning
the important business that had brought them both to London.

"To-night, man--to-night--we will arrange it all to-night," he would
say, and there was a nervous excitement about his manner for which the
major could not at all account.

"Sha'n't I see you till the evening, then?" he asked.

"No," Macleod said, looking anxiously out of the window, as if he feared
some thunder-storm would suddenly shut out the clear light of this
beautiful morning. "I don't know--perhaps I may be back before--but at
any rate we meet at seven. You will remember--seven?"

"Indeed I am not likely to forget it," his companion said, for he had
been told about five-and-thirty times.

It was about eleven o'clock when Macleod left the house. There was a
grateful freshness about the morning even here in the middle of London.
People looked cheerful; Piccadilly was thronged with idlers come out to
enjoy the sunshine; there was still a leaf or two fluttering on the
trees in the square. Why should this man go eagerly tearing away
northward in a hansom--with an anxious and absorbed look on his
face--when everybody seemed inclined to saunter leisurely along,
breathing the sweet wind, and feeling the sunlight on their cheek?

It was scarcely half-past eleven when Macleod got out of the hansom, and
opened a small gate, and walked up to the door of a certain house. He
was afraid she had already gone. He was afraid she might resent his
calling at so unusual an hour. He was afraid--of a thousand things. And
when at last the trim maid-servant told him that Miss White was within,
and asked him to step into the drawing-room, it was almost as one in a
dream that he followed her. As one in a dream, truly; but nevertheless
he saw every object around him with a marvellous vividness. Next day he
could recollect every feature of the room--the empty fireplace, the
black-framed mirror, the Chinese fans, the small cabinets with their
shelves of blue and white, and the large open book on the table, with a
bit of tartan lying on it. These things seemed to impress themselves on
his eyesight involuntarily; for he was in reality intently listening for
a soft footfall outside the door. He went forward to this open book. It
was a volume of a work on the Highland clans--a large and expensive work
that was not likely to belong to Mr. White. And this colored figure? It
was the representative of the clan Macleod: and this bit of cloth that
lay on the open book was of the Macleod tartan. He withdrew quickly, as
though he had stumbled on some dire secret. He went to the window. He
saw only leafless trees now, and withered flowers; with the clear
sunshine touching the sides of houses and walls that had in the summer
months been quite invisible.

There was a slight noise behind him; he turned, and all the room seemed
filled with a splendor of light and of life as she advanced to him--the
clear, beautiful eyes full of gladness, the lips smiling, the hand
frankly extended. And of a sudden his heart sank. Was it indeed of her,

    "The glory of life, the beauty of the world,"

that he had dared to dream wild and impossible dreams? He had set out
that morning with a certain masterful sense that he would face his fate.
He had "taken the world for his pillow," as the Gaelic stories say. But
at this sudden revelation of the incomparable grace, and
self-possession, and high loveliness of this beautiful creature, all his
courage and hopes fled instantly, and he could only stammer out excuses
for his calling so early. He was eagerly trying to make himself out an
ordinary visitor. He explained that he did not know but that she might
be going to the theatre during the day. He was in London for a short
time on business. It was an unconscionable hour.

"But I am so glad to see you!" she said, with a perfect sweetness, and
her eyes said more than her words. "I should have been really vexed if I
had heard you had passed through London without calling on us. Won't you
sit down?"

As he sat down, she turned for a second, and without any embarrassment
shut the big book that had been lying open on the table.

"It is very beautiful weather," she remarked--there was no tremor about
_her_ fingers, at all events, as she made secure the brooch that
fastened the simple morning-dress at the neck, "only it seems a pity to
throw away such beautiful sunshine on withered gardens and bare trees.
We have some fine chrysanthemums, though; but I confess I don't like
chrysanthemums myself. They come at a wrong time. They look unnatural.
They only remind one of what is gone. If we are to have winter, we ought
to have it out and out. The chrysanthemums always seem to me as if they
were making a pretence--trying to make you believe that there was still
some life left in the dead garden."

It was very pretty talk, all this about chrysanthemums, uttered in the
low-toned, and gentle, and musical voice; but somehow there was a
burning impatience in his heart, and a bitter sense of hopelessness, and
he felt as though he would cry out in his despair. How could he sit
there and listen to talk about chrysanthemums? His hands were tightly
clasped together; his heart was throbbing quickly; there was a humming
in his ears, as though something there refused to hear about
chrysanthemums.

"I--I saw you at the theatre last night," said he.

Perhaps it was the abruptness of the remark that caused the quick blush.
She lowered her eyes. But all the same she said, with perfect
self-possession,--

"Did you like the piece?"

And he, too: was he not determined to play the part of an ordinary
visitor?

"I am not much of a judge," said he, lightly. "The drawing-room scene is
very pretty. It is very like a drawing-room. I suppose those are real
curtains, and real pictures?"

"Oh yes, it is all real furniture," said she.

Thereafter, for a second, blank silence. Neither dared to touch that
deeper stage question that lay next their hearts. But when Keith
Macleod, in many a word of timid suggestion, and in the jesting letter
he sent her from Castle Dare, had ventured upon that dangerous ground,
it was not to talk about the real furniture of a stage drawing-room.
However, was not this an ordinary morning call? His manner--his
speech--everything said so but the tightly-clasped hands, and perhaps
too a certain intensity of look in the eyes, which seemed anxious and
constrained.

"Papa, at least, is proud of our chrysanthemums," said Miss White,
quickly getting away from the stage question. "He is in the garden now.
Will you go out and see him? I am sorry Carry has gone to school."

She rose. He rose also, and he was about to lift his hat from the table,
when he suddenly turned to her.

"A drowning man will cry out; how can you prevent his crying out?"

She was startled by the change in the sound of his voice, and still
more by the almost haggard look of pain and entreaty in his eyes. He
seized her hand; she would have withdrawn it, but she could not.

"You will listen. It is no harm to you. I must speak now, or I will
die," said he, quite wildly; "and if you think I am mad, perhaps you are
right, but people have pity for a madman. Do you know why I have come to
London? It is to see you. I could bear it no longer--the fire that was
burning and killing me. Oh, it is no use my saying that it is love for
you--I do not know what it is--but only that I must tell you, and you
cannot be angry with me--you can only pity me and go away. That is
it--it is nothing to you--you can go away."

She burst into tears, and snatched her hand from him, and with both
hands covered her face.

"Ah!" said he, "is it pain to you that I should tell you of this
madness? But you will forgive me--and you will forget it--and it will
not pain you to-morrow or any other day. Surely you are not to blame! Do
you remember the days when we became friends? it seems a long time ago,
but they were beautiful days, and you were very kind to me, and I was
glad I had come to London to make so kind a friend. And it was no fault
of yours that I went away with that sickness of the heart; and how could
you know about the burning fire, and the feeling that if I did not see
you I might as well be dead? And I will call you Gertrude for once only.
Gertrude, sit down now--for a moment or two--and do not grieve any more
over what is only a misfortune. I want to tell you. After I have spoken,
I will go away, and there will be an end of the trouble."

She did sit down; her hands were clasped in piteous despair; he saw the
tear drops on the long, beautiful lashes.

"And if the drowning man cries?" said he. "It is only a breath. The
waves go over him, and the world is at peace. And oh! do you know that I
have taken a strange fancy of late--But I will not trouble you with
that; you may hear of it afterward; you will understand, and know you
have no blame, and there is an end of trouble. It is quite strange what
fancies get into one's head when one is--sick--heart-sick. Do you know
what I thought this morning? Will you believe it? Will you let the
drowning man cry out in his madness? Why, I said to myself, 'Up now, and
have courage! Up now, and be brave, and win a bride as they used to do
in the old stories.' And it was you--it was you--my madness thought of.
'You will tell her,' I said to myself, 'of all the love and the worship
you have for her, and your thinking of her by day and by night; and she
is a woman, and she will have pity. And then in her surprise--why--' But
then you came into the room--it is only a little while ago--but it seems
for ever and ever away now--and I have only pained you--"

She sprang to her feet; her face white, her lips proud and determined.
And for a second she put her hands on his shoulders; and the wet, full,
piteous eyes met his. But as rapidly she withdrew them--almost
shuddering--and turned, away; and her hands were apart, each clasped,
and she bowed her head. Gertrude White had never acted like that on any
stage.

And as for him, he stood absolutely dazed for a moment, not daring to
think what that involuntary action might mean. He stepped forward, with
a pale face and a bewildered air, and caught her hand. Her face she
sheltered with the other, and she was sobbing bitterly.

"Gertrude," he said, "what is it? What do you mean?"

The broken voice answered, though her face was turned aside,--

"It is I who am miserable."

"You who are miserable?"

She turned and looked fair into his face, with her eyes all wet, and
beautiful, and piteous.

"Can't you see? Don't you understand?" she said "Oh, my good friend! of
all the men in the world, you are the very last I would bring trouble
to. And I cannot be a hypocrite with you. I feared something of this;
and now the misery is that I cannot say to you, 'Here, take my hand. It
is yours. You have won your bride.' I cannot do it. If we were both
differently situated, it might be otherwise--"

"It might be otherwise!" he exclaimed, with a sudden wonder. "Gertrude,
what do you mean? Situated? Is it only that? Look me in the face, now,
and as you are a true woman tell me--if we were both free from all
situation--if there were no difficulties--nothing to be thought
of--could you give yourself to me? Would you really become my wife--you
who have all the world flattering you?"

She dared not look him in the face. There was something about the
vehemence of his manner that almost terrified her. But she answered
bravely, in the sweet, low, trembling voice, and with downcast eyes,--

"If I were to become the wife of any one, it is your wife I would like
to be; and I have thought of it. Oh, I cannot be a hypocrite with you
when I see the misery I have brought you! And I have thought of giving
up all my present life, and all the wishes and dreams I have cherished,
and going away and living the simple life of a woman. And under whose
guidance would I try that rather than yours? You made me think. But it
is all a dream--a fancy. It is impossible. It would only bring misery to
you and to me--"

"But why--but why?" he eagerly exclaimed; and there was a new light in
his face. "Gertrude, if you can say so much, why not say all? What are
obstacles? There can be none if you have the fiftieth part of the love
for me that I have for you! Obstacles!" And he laughed with a strange
laugh.

She looked up in his face.

"And would it be so great a happiness for you? That would make up for
all the trouble I have brought you?" she said, wistfully; and his answer
was to take both her hands in his, and there was such a joy in his heart
that he could not speak at all. But she only shook her head somewhat
sadly, and withdrew her hands, and sat down again by the table.

"It is wrong of me even to think of it," she said. "Today I might say
'yes,' and to-morrow? You might inspire me with courage now; and
afterward--I should only bring you further pain. I do not know myself. I
could not be sure of myself. How could I dare drag you into such a
terrible risk? It is better as it is. The pain you are suffering will
go. You will come to call me your friend; and you will thank me that I
refused. Perhaps I shall suffer a little too," she added, and once more
she rather timidly looked up into his face. "You do not know the
fascination of seeing your scheme of life, that you have been dreaming
about, just suddenly put before you for acceptance; and you want all
your common sense to hold back. But I know it will be better--better for
both of us. You must believe me."

"I do not believe you, and I will not believe you," said he, with a
proud light in his eyes; "and now you have said so much I am not going
to take any refusal at all. Not now. Gertrude, I have courage for both
of us: when you are timid, you will take my hand. Say it, then! A word
only! You have already said all but that!"

He seemed scarcely the same man who had appealed to her with the wild
eyes and the haggard face. His look was radiant and proud. He spoke with
a firm voice; and yet there was a great tenderness in his tone.

"I am sure you love me," she said, in a low voice.

"You will see," he rejoined, with a firm confidence.

"And I am not going to requite your love ill. You are too vehement. You
think of nothing but the one end to it all. But I am a woman, and women
are taught to be patient. Now you must let me think about all you have
said."

"And you do not quite refuse?" said he.

She hesitated for a moment or two.

"I must think for you as well as for myself," she said, in a scarcely
audible voice. "Give me time. Give me till the end of the week."

"At this hour I will come."

"And you will believe I have decided for the best--that I have tried
hard to be fair to you as well as myself?"

"I know you are too true a woman for anything else," he said; and then
he added, "Ah, well, now, you have had enough misery for one morning;
you must dry your eyes now, and we will go out into the garden; and if I
am not to say anything of all my gratitude to you--why? Because I hope
there will be many a year to do that in, my angel of goodness!"

She went to fetch a light shawl and a hat; he kept turning over the
things on the table, his fingers trembling, his eyes seeing nothing. If
they did see anything, it was a vision of the brown moors near Castle
Dare, and a beautiful creature, clad all in cream-color and scarlet,
drawing near the great gray stone house.

She came into the room again; joy leaped to his eyes.

"Will you follow me?"

There was a strangely subdued air about her manner as she led him to
where her father was; perhaps she was rather tired after the varied
emotions she had experienced; perhaps she was still anxious. He was not
anxious. It was in a glad way that he addressed the old gentleman who
stood there with a spade in his hand.

"It is indeed a beautiful garden," Macleod said, looking round on the
withered leaves and damp soil; "no wonder you look after it yourself."

"I am not gardening," the old man said, peevishly. "I have been putting
a knife in the ground--burying the hatchet, you might call it. Fancy! A
man sees an old hunting-knife in a shop at Gloucester--a hunting-knife
of the time of Charles I., with a beautifully carved ivory handle; and
he thinks he will make a present of it to me. What does he do but go and
have it ground, and sharpened, and polished until if looks like
something sent from Sheffield the day before yesterday!"

"You ought to be very pleased, pappy, you got it at all," said Gertrude
White; but she was looking elsewhere, and rather absently too.

"And so you have buried it to restore the tone?"

"I have," said the old gentleman, marching off with the shovel to a sort
of out house.

Macleod speedily took his leave.

"Saturday next at noon," said he to her, with no timidity in his voice.

"Yes," said she, more gently, and with downcast eyes.

He walked away from the house--he knew not whither. He saw nothing
around him. He walked hard, sometimes talking to himself. In the
afternoon he found himself in a village in Berkshire, close by which,
fortunately, there was a railway station; and he had just time to get
back to keep his appointment with Major Stuart.

They sat down to dinner.

"Come, now, Macleod, tell me where you have been all day," said the
rosy-faced soldier, carefully tucking his napkin under his chin.

Macleod burst out laughing.

"Another day--another day, Stuart, I will tell you all about it. It is
the most ridiculous story you ever heard in your life!"

It was a strange sort of laughing, for there were tears in the younger
man's eyes. But Major Stuart was too busy to notice; and presently they
began to talk about the real and serious object of their expedition to
London.




CHAPTER XXIII.

A RED ROSE.


From nervous and unreasoning dread to overweening and extravagant
confidence there was but a single bound. After the timid confession she
had made, how could he have any further fear? He knew now the answer she
must certainly give him. What but the one word "_yes_"--musical as the
sound of summer seas--could fitly close and atone for all that long
period of doubt and despair? And would she murmur it with the low, sweet
voice, or only look it with the clear and lambent eyes? Once uttered,
anyhow, surely the glad message would instantly wing its flight away to
the far North; and Colonsay would hear; and the green shores of Ulva
would laugh; and through all the wild dashing and roaring of the seas
there would be a soft ringing as of wedding-bells. The Gometra men will
have a good glass that night; and who will take the news to distant
Fladda and rouse the lonely Dutchman from his winter sleep? There is a
bride coming to Castle Dare!

When Norman Ogilvie had even mentioned marriage, Macleod had merely
shaken his head and turned away. There was no issue that way from the
wilderness of pain and trouble into which he had strayed. She was
already wedded--to that cruel art that was crushing the woman within
her. Her ways of life and his were separated as though by unknown
oceans. And how was it possible that so beautiful a woman--surrounded by
people who petted and flattered her--should not already have her heart
engaged? Even if she were free, how could she have bestowed a thought on
him--a passing stranger--a summer visitor--the acquaintance of an hour?

But no sooner had Gertrude White, to his sudden wonder, and joy, and
gratitude, made that stammering confession, than the impetuosity of his
passion leaped at once to the goal. He would not hear of any obstacles.
He would not look at them. If she would but take his hand, he would lead
her and guard her, and all would go well. And it was to this effect that
he wrote to her day after day, pouring out all the confidences of his
heart to her, appealing to her, striving to convey to her something of
his own high courage and hope. Strictly speaking, perhaps, it was not
quite fair that he should thus have disturbed the calm of her
deliberation. Had he not given her till the end of the week to come to a
decision? But when, in his eagerness, he thought of some further reason,
some further appeal, how could he remain silent? With the prize so near,
he could not let it slip from his grasp through the consideration of
niceties of conduct. By rights he ought to have gone up to Mr. White and
begged for permission to pay his addresses to the old gentleman's
daughter. He forgot all about that. He forgot that Mr. White was in
existence. All his thinking from morning till night--and through much of
the night too--was directed on her answer--the one small word filled
with a whole worldful of light and joy.

"If you will only say that one little word," he wrote to her, "then
everything else becomes a mere trifle. If there are obstacles, and
troubles, and what not, we will meet them one by one, and dispose of
them. There can be no obstacles, if we are of one mind; and we shall be
of one mind sure enough, if you will say you will become my wife; for
there is nothing I will not consent to; and I shall only be too glad to
have opportunities of showing my great gratitude to you for the
sacrifice you must make. I speak of it as a sacrifice; but I do not
believe it is one--whatever you may think now--and whatever natural
regret you may feel--you will grow to feel there was no evil done you
when you were drawn away from the life that now surrounds you. And if
you were to say 'I will become your wife only on one condition--that I
am not asked to abandon my career as an actress,' still I would say
'Become my wife.' Surely matters of arrangement are mere trifles--after
you have given me your promise. And when you have placed your hand in
mine (and the motto of the Macleods is _Hold Fast_), we can study
conditions, and obstacles, and the other nonsense that our friends are
sure to suggest, at our leisure. I think I already hear you say 'Yes;' I
listen and listen, until I almost hear your voice. And if it is to be
'Yes,' will you wear a red rose in your dress on Saturday? I shall see
that before you speak. I will know what your message is, even if there
are people about. One red rose only."

"Macleod," said Major Stuart to him, "did you come to London to write
love-letters?"

"Love-letters!" he said, angrily; but then he laughed. "And what did
you come to London for?"

"On a highly philanthropic errand," said the other, gravely, "which I
hope to see fulfilled to-morrow. And if we have a day or two to spare,
that is well enough, for one cannot be always at work; but I did not
expect to take a holiday in the company of a man who spends
three-fourths of the day at a writing-desk."

"Nonsense!" said Macleod, though there was some telltale color in his
face. "All the writing I have done to-day would not fill up twenty
minutes. And if I am a dull companion, is not Norman Ogilvie coming to
dinner to-night to amuse you?"

While they were speaking, a servant brought in a card.

"Ask the gentleman to come up," Macleod said, and then he turned to his
companion. "What an odd thing! I was speaking to you a minute ago about
that drag accident. And here is Beauregard himself."

The tall, rough-visaged man--stooping slightly as though he thought the
doorway was a trifle low--came forward and shook hands with Macleod, and
was understood to inquire about his health, though what he literally
said was, "Hawya, Macleod, hawya?"

"I heard you were in town from Paulton--you remember, Paulton, who dined
with you at Richmond. He saw you in a hansom yesterday; and I took my
chance of finding you in your old quarters. What are you doing in
London?"

Macleod briefly explained.

"And you?" he asked, "what has brought you to London? I thought you and
Lady Beauregard were in Ireland."

"We have just come over, and go down to Weatherill to-morrow. Won't you
come down and shoot a pheasant or two before you return to the
Highlands?"

"Well, the fact is," Macleod said, hesitatingly, "my friend and I--by
the way, let me introduce you--Lord Beauregard, Major Stuart--the fact
is, we ought to go back directly after we have settled this business."

"But a day or two won't matter. Now, let me see. Plymley comes to us on
Monday next, I think. We could get up a party for you on the Tuesday;
and if your friend will come with you, we shall be six guns, which I
always think the best number."

The gallant major showed no hesitation whatever. The chance of blazing
away at a whole atmosphereful of pheasants--for so he construed the
invitation--did not often come in his way.

"I am quite sure a day or two won't make any difference," said he,
quickly. "In any case we were not thinking of going till Monday, and
that would only mean an extra day."

"Very well," Macleod said.

"Then you will come down to dinner on the Monday evening. I will see if
there is no alteration in the trains, and drop you a note with full
instructions. Is it a bargain?"

"It is."

"All right. I must be off now. Good-by."

Major Stuart jumped to his feet with great alacrity, and warmly shook
hands with the departing stranger. Then, when the door was shut, he went
through a pantomimic expression of bringing down innumerable pheasants
from every corner of the ceiling--with an occasional aim at the floor,
where an imaginary hare was scurrying by.

"Macleod. Macleod," said he, "you are a trump. You may go on writing
love-letters from now till next Monday afternoon. I suppose we will have
a good dinner, too?"

"Beauregard is said to have the best _chef_ in London; and I don't
suppose they would leave so important a person in Ireland."

"You have my gratitude, Macleod--eternal, sincere, unbounded," the major
said, seriously.

"But it is not I who am asking you to go and massacre a lot of
pheasants," said Macleod; and he spoke rather absently, for he was
thinking of the probable mood in which he would go down to Weatherill.
One of a generous gladness and joy, the outward expression of an eager
and secret happiness to be known by none? Or what if there were no red
rose at all on her bosom when she advanced to meet him with sad eyes?

They went down into Essex next day. Major Stuart was surprised to find
that his companion talked not so much about the price of machines for
drying saturated crops as about the conjectural cost of living in the
various houses they saw from afar, set amidst the leafless trees of
November.

"You don't think of coming to live in England, do you?" said he.

"No--at least, not at present," Macleod said. "Of course; one never
knows what may turn up. I don't propose to live at Dare all my life."

"Your wife might want to live in England," the major said, coolly.

Macleod started and stared.

"You have been writing a good many letters of late," said his companion.

"And is that all?" said Macleod, answering him in the Gaelic. "You know
the proverb--_Tossing the head will not make the boat row_. I am not
married yet."

The result of this journey was, that they agreed to purchase one of the
machines for transference to the rainy regions of Mull; and then they
returned to London. This was on Wednesday. Major Stuart considered they
had a few days to idle by before the _battue;_ Macleod was only
excitedly aware that Thursday and Friday--two short November days--came
between him and that decision which he regarded with an anxious joy.

The day went by in a sort of dream. A pale fog hung over London: and as
he wandered about he saw the tall houses rise faintly blue into the gray
mist; and the great coffee-colored river, flushed with recent rains,
rolled down between the pale embankments; and the golden-red globe of
the sun, occasionally becoming visible through the mottled clouds, sent
a ray of fire here and there on some window-pane or lamp.

In the course of his devious wanderings--for he mostly went about
alone--he made his way, with great trouble and perplexity, to the court
in which the mother of Johnny Wickes lived; and he betrayed no shame at
all in confronting the poor woman--half starved, and pale, and emaciated
as she was--whose child he had stolen. It was in a tone of quite
gratuitous pleasantry that he described to her how the small lad was
growing brown and fat; and he had the audacity to declare to her that as
he proposed to pay the boy the sum of one shilling per-week at present,
he might as well hand over to her the three months' pay which he had
already earned. And the woman was so amused at the notion of little
Johnny Wickes being able to earn anything at all, that, when she
received the money and looked at it, she burst out crying; and she had
so little of the spirit of the British matron, and so little regard for
the laws of her country, that she invoked Heaven knows what--Heaven does
know what--blessings on the head of the very man who had carried her
child into slavery.

"And the first time I am going over to Oban," said he, "I will take him
with me, and I will get a photograph of him made, and I will send you
the photograph. And did you get the rabbits?" said he.

"Yes, indeed, sir, I got the rabbits."

"And it is a very fine poacher your son promises to be, for he got every
one of the rabbits with his own snare, though I am thinking it was old
Hamish was showing him how to use it. And I will say good-by to you
now."

The poor woman seemed to hesitate for a second.

"If there was any sewing, sir," wiping her eyes with the corner of her
apron, "that I could do for your good lady, sir--"

"But I am not married," said he, quickly.

"Ah, well, indeed, sir," she said with a sigh.

"But if there is any lace, or sewing, or anything like that you can send
to my mother, I have no doubt she will pay you for it as well as any one
else--"

"I was not thinking of paying, sir; but to show you I am not
ungrateful," was the answer; and if she said _hun-grateful_, what
matter? She was a woman without spirit; she had sold away her son.

From this dingy court he made his way round to Covent Garden market, and
he went into a florist's shop there.

"I want a bouquet," said he to the neat-handed maiden who looked up at
him.

"Yes, sir," said she; "will you look at those in the window?"

"But I want one," said he, "with a single rose--a red rose--in the
centre."

This proposition did not find favor in the eyes of the mild-mannered
artist, who explained to him that something more important and ornate
was necessary in the middle of a bouquet. He could have a circle of
rose-buds, if he liked, outside; and a great white lily or camellia in
the centre. He could have--this thing and the next; she showed him how
she could combine the features of this bouquet with those of the next.
But the tall Highlander remained obdurate.

"Yes," said he, "I think you are quite right. You are quite right, I am
sure. But it is this that I would rather have--only one red rose in the
centre, and you can make the rest what you like, only I think if they
were smaller flowers, and all white, that would be better."

"Very well," said the young lady, with a pleasing smile (she was rather
good-looking herself). "I will try what I can do for you if you don't
mind waiting. Will you take a chair?"

He was quite amazed by the dexterity with which those nimble fingers
took from one cluster and another cluster the very flowers he would
himself have chosen; and by the rapid fashion in which they were
dressed, fitted, and arranged. The work of art grew apace.

"But you must have something to break the white," said she, smiling, "or
it will look too like a bride's bouquet;" and with that--almost in the
twinkling of an eye--she had put a circular line of dark purple-blue
through the cream-white blossoms. It was a splendid rose that lay in the
midst of all that beauty.

"What price would you like to give, sir?" the gentle Phyllis had said at
the very outset. "Half a guinea--fifteen shillings?"

"Give me a beautiful rose," said he, "and I do not mind what the price
is."

And at last the lace-paper was put round; and a little further trimming
and setting took place; and finally the bouquet was swathed in soft
white wool and put into a basket.

"Shall I take the address?" said the young lady no doubt expecting that
he would write it on the back of one of his cards. But no. He dictated
the address, and then lay down the money. The astute young person was
puzzled--perhaps disappointed.

"Is there no message, sir?" said she--"no card?"

"No; but you must be sure to have it delivered to-night."

"It shall be sent off at once," said she, probably thinking that this
was a very foolish young man who did not know the ways of the world. The
only persons of whom she had any experience who sent bouquets without a
note or a letter were husbands, who were either making up a quarrel with
their wives or going to the opera, and she had observed that on such
occasions the difference between twelve-and-sixpence and fifteen
shillings was regarded and considered.

He slept but little that night; and next morning he got up nervous and
trembling, like a drunken man, with half the courage and confidence,
that had so long sustained him, gone. Major Stuart went out early. He
kept pacing about the room until the frightfully slow half-hours went
by; he hated the clock on the mantelpiece. And then, by a strong effort
of will, he delayed starting until he should barely have time to reach
her house by twelve o'clock, so that he should have the mad delight of
eagerly wishing the hansom had a still more furious speed. He had chosen
his horse well. It wanted five minutes to the appointed hour when he
arrived at the house.

Did this trim maid-servant know? Was there anything of welcome in the
demure smile? He followed her; his face was pale, though he knew it not;
in the dusk of the room he was left alone.

But what was this on the table? He almost uttered a cry as his
bewildered eyes fixed themselves on it. The very bouquet he had sent the
previous evening; and behold--behold!--the red rose wanting! And then,
at the same moment, he turned; and there was a vision of something all
in white--that came to him timidly--all in white but for the red star of
love shining there. And she did not speak at all; but she buried her
head in his bosom; and he held her hands tight.

And now what will Ulva say--and the lonely shores of Fladda--and the
distant Dutchman roused from his winter sleep amidst the wild waves? Far
away over the white sands of Iona--and the sunlight must be shining
there now--there is many a sacred spot fit for the solemn plighting of
lovers' vows; and if there is any organ wanted, what more noble than the
vast Atlantic rollers booming into the Bourg and Gribun caves? Surely
they must know already; for the sea-birds have caught the cry; and there
is a sound all through the glad rushing of the morning seas like the
sound of wedding-bells. _There is a bride coming to Castle Dare_--the
islands listen; and the wild sea calls again; and the green shores of
Ulva grow greener still in the sunlight. There is a bride coming to
Castle Dare; and the bride is dressed all in white--only she wears a red
rose.




CHAPTER XXIV.

ENTHUSIASMS.


She was seated alone, her arms on the table, her head bent down. There
was no red rose now in the white morning-dress, for she had given it to
him when he left. The frail November sunshine streamed into the room
and put a shimmer of gold on the soft brown of her hair.

It was a bold step she had taken, without counsel of any one. Her dream
was now to give up everything that she had hitherto cared about, and to
go away into private life to play the part of Lady Bountiful. And if
doubts about the strength of her own resolution occasionally crossed her
mind, could she not appeal for aid and courage to him who would always
be by her side? When she became a Macleod, she would have to accept the
motto of the Macleods. That motto is, _Hold Fast_.

She heard her sister come into the house, and she raised her head.
Presently Carry opened the door; and it was clear she was in high
spirits.

"Oh, Mopsy," said she--and this was a pet name she gave her sister Carry
when the latter was in great favor--"did you ever see such a morning in
November? Don't you think papa might take us to Kew Gardens?"

"I want to speak to you, Carry--come here," she said, gravely; and the
younger sister went and stood by the table. "You know you and I are
thrown very much on each other; and we ought to have no secrets from
each other; and we ought to be always quite sure of each other's
sympathy. Now, Carry, you must be patient, you must be kind: if I don't
get sympathy from you, from whom should I get it?"

Carry withdrew a step, and her manner instantly changed. Gertrude White
was a very clever actress; but she had never been able to impose on her
younger sister. This imploring look was all very fine; this appeal for
sympathy was pathetic enough; but both only awakened Carry's suspicions.
In their ordinary talk sisters rarely use such formal words as
"sympathy."

"What do you mean?" said she, sharply.

"There--already!" exclaimed the other, apparently in deep
disappointment. "Just when I most need your kindness and sympathy, you
show yourself most unfeeling--"

"I wish you would tell me what it is all about," Carry said,
impatiently.

The elder sister lowered her eyes, and her fingers began to work with a
paper-knife that was lying there. Perhaps this was only a bit of
stage-business: or perhaps she was really a little apprehensive about
the effect of her announcement.

"Carry," she said, in a low voice, "I have promised to marry Sir Keith
Macleod."

Carry uttered a slight cry of horror and surprise; but this too was only
a bit of stage effect, for she had fully anticipated the disclosure.

"Well, Gertrude White!" said she, apparently when she had recovered her
breath. "Well--I--I--I--never!"

Her language was not as imposing as her gestures; but then nobody had
written the part for her; whereas her very tolerable acting was nature's
own gift.

"Now, Carry, be reasonable--don't be angry: what is the use of being
vexed with what is past recalling? Any other sister would be very glad
at such a time--" These were the hurried and broken sentences with which
the culprit sought to stave off the coming wrath. But, oddly enough,
Miss Carry refrained from denunciations or any other stormy expression
of her anger and scorn. She suddenly assumed a cold and critical air.

"I suppose," said she, "before you allowed Sir Keith Macleod to ask you
to become his wife, you explained to him our circumstances."

"I don't understand you."

"You told him, of course, that you had a ne'er-do-well brother in
Australia, who might at any moment appear and disgrace the whole
family?"

"I told him nothing of the kind. I had no opportunity of getting into
family affairs. And if I had, what has Tom got to do with Sir Keith
Macleod? I had forgotten his very existence--no wonder, after eight
years of absolute silence."

But Carry, having fired this shot, was off after other ammunition.

"You told him you had sweethearts before?"

"No, I did not," said Miss Gertrude White, warmly, "because it isn't
true."

"What?--Mr. Howson?"

"The orchestra leader in a provincial theatre!"

"Oh yes! but you did not speak so contemptuously of him then. Why, you
made him believe he was another Mendelssohn!"

"You are talking nonsense."

"And Mr. Brook--you no doubt told him that Mr. Brook called on papa, and
asked him to go down to Doctors' Commons and see for himself what money
he would have--"

"And what then? How can I prevent any idiotic boy who chooses to turn
me into a heroine from going and making a fool of himself?"

"Oh, Gertrude White!" said Carry, solemnly. "Will you sit there and tell
me you gave him no encouragement?"

"This is mere folly!" the elder sister said, petulantly; as she rose and
proceeded to put straight a few of the things about the room. "I had
hoped better things of you, Carry. I tell you of an important step I
have taken in my life, and you bring out a lot of tattle and nonsense.
However, I can act for myself. It is true, I had imagined something
different. When I marry, of course, we shall be separated. I had looked
forward to the pleasure of showing you my new home."

"Where is it to be?"

"Wherever my husband wishes it to be," she answered, proudly; but there
was a conscious flush of color in her face as she uttered--for the first
time--that word.

"In the Highlands, I suppose, for he is not rich enough to have two
houses," said Carry; which showed that she had been pondering over this
matter before. "And he has already got his mother and his old-maid
sister, or whatever she is, in the house. You will make a pretty
family!"

This was a cruel thrust. When Macleod had spoken of the far home
overlooking the Northern seas, what could be more beautiful than his
picture of the noble and silver-haired dame, and of the gentle and
loving cousin who was the friend and counsellor of the poor people
around? And when he had suggested that some day or other Mr. White might
bring his daughter to these remote regions to see all the wonders and
the splendors of them, he told her how the beautiful mother would take
her to this place and to that place, and how that Janet Macleod would
pet and befriend her, and perhaps teach her a few words of the Gaelic,
that she might have a kindly phrase for the passer-by. But this picture
of Carry's!--a houseful of wrangling women!

If she had had her will just then, she would instantly have recalled
Macleod, and placed his courage and careless confidence between her and
this cruel criticism. She had never, in truth, thought of these things.
His pertinacity would not allow her. He had kept insisting that the only
point for her to consider was whether she had sufficient love for him to
enable her to answer his great love for her with the one word "Yes."
Thereafter, according to his showing, everything else was a mere trifle.
Obstacles, troubles, delays?--he would hear of nothing of the sort. And
although, while he was present, she had been inspired by something of
this confident feeling, now when she was attacked in his absence she
felt herself defenceless.

"You may be as disagreeable as you like, Carry," said she, almost
wearily. "I cannot help it. I never could understand your dislike to Sir
Keith Macleod."

"Cannot you understand," said the younger sister, with some show of
indignation, "that if you are to marry at all, I should like to see you
marry an Englishman, instead of a great Highland savage who thinks about
nothing but beasts' skins. And why should you marry at all, Gertrude
White? I suppose he will make you leave the theatre; and instead of
being a famous woman whom everybody admires and talks about, you will be
plain Mrs. Nobody, hidden away in some place, and no one will ever hear
of you again! Do you know what you are doing? Did you ever hear of any
woman making such a fool of herself before?"

So far from being annoyed by this strong language, the elder sister
seemed quite pleased.

"Do you know, Carry, I like to hear you talk like that," she said, with
a smile. "You almost persuade me that I am not asking him for too great
a sacrifice, after all--"

"A sacrifice! On his part!" exclaimed the younger sister; and then she
added, with decision: "but it shan't be, Gertrude White! I will go to
papa."

"Pardon me," said the elder sister, who was nearer the door, "you need
not trouble yourself: I am going now."

She went into the small room which was called her father's study, but
which was in reality a sort of museum. She closed the door behind her.

"I have just had the pleasure of an interview with Carry, papa," she
said, with a certain bitterness of tone, "and she has tried hard to make
me as miserable as I can be. If I am to have another dose of it from
you, papa, I may as well have it at once. I have promised to marry Sir
Keith Macleod."

She sank down in an easy-chair. There was a look on her face which
plainly said, "Now do your worst; I cannot be more wretched than I am."

"You have promised to marry Sir Keith Macleod?" he repeated, slowly, and
fixing his eyes on her face.

He did not break into any rage, and accuse Macleod of treachery or her
of filial disobedience. He knew that she was familiar with that kind of
thing. What he had to deal with was the immediate future, not the past.

"Yes," she answered.

"Well," he said, with the same deliberation of tone, "I suppose you have
not come to me for advice, since you have, acted so far for yourself. If
I were to give you advice, however, it would be to break your promise as
soon as you decently can, both for his sake and for your own."

"I thought you would say so," she said, with a sort of desperate mirth.
"I came to have all my wretchedness heaped on me at once. It is a very
pleasing sensation. I wonder if I could express it on the stage. That
would be making use of my new experiences--as you have taught me--"

But here she burst into tears; and then got up and walked impatiently
about the room; and finally dried her eyes, with shame and mortification
visible on her face.

"What have _you_ to say to me, papa? I am a fool to mind what a
schoolgirl says."

"I don't know that I have anything to say," he observed, calmly. "You
know your own feelings best."

And then he regarded her attentively.

"I suppose when you marry you will give up the stage."

"I suppose so," she said, in a low voice.

"I should doubt," he said, with quite a dispassionate air, "your being
able to play one part for a lifetime. You might get tired--and that
would be awkward for your husband and yourself. I don't say anything
about your giving up all your prospects, although I had great pride in
you and a still greater hope. That is for your own consideration. If you
think you will be happier--if you are sure you will have no regret--if,
as I say, you think you can play the one part for a lifetime--well and
good."

"And you are right," she said, bitterly, "to speak of me as an actress,
and not as a human being. I must be playing a part to the end, I
suppose. Perhaps so. Well, I hope I shall please my smaller audience as
well as I seem to have pleased the bigger one."

Then she altered her tone.

"I told you, papa, the other day of my having seen that child run over
and brought back to the woman who was standing on the pavement."

"Yes," said he; but wondering why this incident should be referred to at
such a moment.

"I did not tell you the truth--at least the whole truth. When I walked
away, what was I thinking of? I caught myself trying to recall the way
in which the woman threw her arms up when she saw the dead body of her
child, and I was wondering whether I could repeat it. And then I began
to wonder whether I was a devil--or a woman."

"Bah!" said he. "That is a craze you have at present. You have had fifty
others before. What I am afraid of is that, at the instigation of some
such temporary fad, you will take a step that you will find irrevocable.
Just think it over, Gerty. If you leave the stage, you will destroy many
a hope I had formed; but that doesn't matter. Whatever is most for your
happiness--that is the only point."

"And so you have given me your congratulations, papa," she said, rising.
"I have been so thoroughly trained to be an actress that, when I marry,
I shall only go from one stage to another."

"That was only a figure of speech," said he.

"At all events," she said, "I shall not be vexed by petty jealousies of
other actresses, and I shall cease to be worried and humiliated by what
they say about me in the provincial newspapers."

"As for the newspapers," he retorted, "you have little to complain of.
They have treated _you_ very well. And even if they annoyed you by a
phrase here or there, surely the remedy is simple. You need not read
them. You don't require any recommendation to the public now. As for
your jealousy of other actresses--that was always an unreasonable
vexation on your part--"

"Yes, and that only made it the more humiliating to myself," said she,
quickly.

"But think of this," said he. "You are married. You have been long away
from the scene of your former triumphs. Some day you go to the theatre;
and you find as the favorite of the public a woman who, you can see,
cannot come near to what you used to do. And I suppose you won't be
jealous of her, and anxious to defeat her on the old ground."

"I can do with that as you suggested about the newspapers: I need not go
to the theatre."

"Very well, Gerty. I hope all will be for the best. But do not be in a
hurry; take time and consider."

She saw clearly enough that this calm acquiescence was all the
congratulation or advice she was likely to get; and she went to the
door.

"Papa," said she, diffidently, "Sir Keith Macleod is coming up to-morrow
morning--to go to church with us."

"Yes?" said he, indifferently.

"He may speak to you before we go."

"Very well. Of course I have nothing to say in the matter. You are
mistress of your own actions."

She went to her own room, and locked herself in, feeling very lonely,
and disheartened, and miserable. There was more to alarm her in her
father's faintly expressed doubts than in all Carry's vehement
opposition and taunts. Why had Macleod left her alone?--if only she
could see him laugh, her courage would be reassured.

Then she bethought her that this was not a fit mood for one who had
promised to be the wife of a Macleod. She went to the mirror and
regarded herself; and almost unconsciously an expression of pride and
resolve appeared about the lines of her mouth. And she would show to
herself that she had still a woman's feelings by going out and doing
some actual work of charity; she would prove to herself that the
constant simulation of noble emotions had not deadened them in her own
nature. She put on her hat and shawl, and went downstairs, and went out
into the free air and the sunlight--without a word to either Carry or
her father. She was trying to imagine herself as having already left the
stage and all its fictitious allurements. She was now Lady Bountiful:
having looked after the simple cares of her household she was now ready
to cast her eyes abroad, and relieve in so far as she might the distress
around her. The first object of charity she encountered was an old
crossing-sweeper. She addressed him in a matter-of-fact way which was
intended to conceal her fluttering self-consciousness. She inquired
whether he had a wife; whether he had any children; whether they were
not rather poor. And having been answered in the affirmative on all
these points, she surprised the old man by giving him five shillings and
telling him to go home and get a good warm dinner for his family. She
passed on, and did not observe that, as soon as her back was turned, the
old wretch made straight for the nearest public-house.

But her heart was happy; and her courage rose. It was not for nothing,
then, that she had entertained the bold resolve of casting aside forever
the one great ambition of her life--with all its intoxicating successes,
and hopes, and struggles--for the homely and simple duties of an
ordinary woman's existence. It was not in vain that she had read and
dreamed of the far romantic land, and had ventured to think of herself
as the proud wife of Macleod of Dare. Those fierce deeds of valor and
vengeance that had terrified and thrilled her would now become part of
her own inheritance: why, she could tell her friends, when they came to
see her, of all the old legends and fairy stories that belonged to her
own home. And the part of Lady Bountiful--surely, if she must play some
part that was the one she would most dearly like to play. And the years
would go by; and she would grow silver-haired too; and when she lay on
her deathbed she would take her husband's hand and say, "Have I lived
the life you wished me to live?" Her cheerfulness grew apace; and the
walking, and the sunshine, and the fresh air brought a fine light and
color to her eyes and cheeks. There was a song singing through her head;
and it was all about the brave Glenogie who rode up the king's ha'.

But as she turned the corner of a street, her eye rested on a huge
colored placard--rested but for a moment, for she would not look on the
great, gaudy thing. Just at this time a noble lord had shown his
interest in the British drama by spending an enormous amount of money in
producing, at a theatre of his own building, a spectacular burlesque,
the gorgeousness of which surpassed anything that had ever been done in
that way. And the lady who appeared to be playing (in silence mostly)
the chief part in this hash of glaring color and roaring music and
clashing armor had gained a great celebrity by reason of her handsome
figure, and the splendor of her costume, and the magnificence of the
real diamonds that she wore. All London was talking of her; and the vast
theatre--even in November--was nightly crammed to overflowing. As
Gertrude White walked back to her home her heart was filled with
bitterness. She had caught sight of the ostentatious placard; and she
knew that the photograph of the creature who was figuring there was in
every stationer's shop in the Strand. And that which galled her was not
that the theatre should be so taken and so used, but that the stage
heroine of the hour should be a woman who could act no more than any
baboon in the Zoological Gardens.




CHAPTER XXV.

IN SUSSEX.


But as for him, there was no moderation at all in the vehemence of his
joy. In the surprise and bewilderment of it, the world around him
underwent transfiguration; London in November was glorified into an
earthly paradise. The very people in the streets seemed to have kindly
faces; Bury Street, St. James's--which is usually a somewhat misty
thoroughfare--was more beautiful than the rose-garden of an Eastern
king. And on this Saturday afternoon the blue skies did, indeed,
continue to shine over the great city; and the air seemed sweet and
clear enough, as it generally does to any one whose every heart-beat is
only another throb of conscious gladness.

In this first intoxication of wonder, and pride, and gratitude, he had
forgotten all about these ingenious theories which, in former days, he
had constructed to promise to himself that Gertrude White should give up
her present way of life. Was it true, then, that he had rescued the
white slave? Was it once and forever that Nature, encountering the
subtle demon of Art, had closed and wrestled with the insidious thing,
had seized it by the throat, and choked it, and flung it aside from the
fair roadway of life? He had forgotten about these things now. All that
he was conscious of was this eager joy, with now and again a wild wonder
that he should indeed have acquired so priceless a possession. Was it
possible that she would really withdraw herself from the eyes of all the
world and give herself to him alone?--that some day, in the beautiful
and laughing future, the glory of her presence would light up the dull
halls of Castle Dare?

Of course he poured all his pent-up confidence into the ear of the
astonished major, and again and again expressed his gratitude to his
companion for having given him the opportunity of securing this
transcendent happiness. The major was somewhat frightened. He did not
know in what measure he might be regarded as an accomplice by the
silver-haired lady of Castle Dare. And in any case he was alarmed by the
vehemence of the young man.

"My dear Macleod," said he, with an oracular air, "you never have any
hold on yourself. You fling the reins on the horse's neck, and gallop
down hill; a very slight check would send you whirling to the bottom.
Now, you should take the advice of a man of the world, who is older than
you, and who--if I may say so--has kept his eyes open. I don't want to
discourage you; but you should take it for granted that accidents may
happen. I would feel the reins a little bit, if I were you. Once you've
got her into the church, and see her with a white veil over her head,
then you may be as perfervid as you like--"

And so the simple-minded major prattled on, Macleod paying but little
heed. There had been nothing about Major Stuart's courtship and marriage
to shake the world: why, he said to himself, when the lady was pleased
to lend a favoring ear, was there any reason for making such a fuss?

"Your happiness will all depend on one thing," said he to Macleod, with
a complacent wisdom in the round and jovial face. "Take my word for it.
I hear of people studying the character, the compatibilities, and what
not, of other people; but I never knew of a young man thinking of such
things when he was in love. He plunges in, and finds out afterward. Now
it all comes this--is she likely, or not likely, to prove a sigher?"

"A what?" said Macleod, apparently awakening from a trance.

"A sigher. A woman who goes about the house all day sighing, whether
over your sins or her own, she won't tell you."

"Indeed, I cannot say," Macleod said, laughing. "I should hope not. I
think she has excellent spirits."

"Ah!" said the major, thoughtfully; and he himself sighed. Perhaps he
was thinking of a certain house far away in Mull, to which he had
shortly to return.

Macleod did not know how to show his gratitude toward this good-natured
friend. He would have given him half a dozen banquets a day; and Major
Stuart liked a London dinner. But what he did offer as a great reward
was this: that Major Stuart should go up the next morning to a
particular church, and take up a particular position in the church, and
then--then he would get a glimpse of the most wonderful creature the
world had seen. Oddly enough, the major did not eagerly accept this
munificent offer. To another proposal--that he should go up to Mr.
White's, on the first day after their return from Sussex, and meet the
young lady at luncheon--he seemed better inclined.

"But why shouldn't we go to the theatre to-night?" said he, in his
simple way.

Macleod looked embarrassed.

"Frankly, then, Stuart," said he, "I don't want you to make her
acquaintance as an actress."

"Oh, very well," said he, not greatly disappointed. "Perhaps it is
better. You see, I may be questioned at Castle Dare. Have you considered
that matter?"

"Oh no," Macleod said, lightly and cheerfully, "I have had time to
consider nothing as yet. I can scarcely believe it to be all real. It
takes a deal of hard thinking to convince myself that I am not
dreaming."

But the true fashion in which Macleod showed his gratitude to his friend
was in concealing his great reluctance on going down with him into
Sussex. It was like rending his heart-strings for him to leave London
for a single hour at this time. What beautiful confidences, and tender,
timid looks, and sweet, small words he was leaving behind him in order
to go and shoot a lot of miserable pheasants! He was rather gloomy when
he met the major at Victoria Station. They got into the train; and away
through the darkness of the November afternoon they rattled to Three
Bridges; but all the eager sportsman had gone out of him, and he had
next to nothing to say in answer to the major's excited questions.
Occasionally he would rouse himself from this reverie, and he would talk
in a perfunctory sort of fashion about the immediate business of a
moment. He confessed that he had a certain theoretical repugnance to a
_battue_, if it were at all like what people in the newspapers declared
it to be. On the other hand, he could not well understand--judging by
his experiences in the highlands--how the shooting of driven birds could
be so marvellously easy; and he was not quite, sure that the writers he
had referred to had had many opportunities of practising, or even
observing, so very expensive an amusement. Major Stuart, for his part,
freely admitted that he had no scruples whatever. Shooting birds, he
roundly declared, was shooting birds, whether you shot two or two score.
And he demurely hinted that, if he had his choice, he would rather shoot
the two score.

"Mind you, Stuart," Macleod said, "if we are posted anywhere near each
other--mind you shoot at any bird that comes my way. I should like you
to make a big bag that you may talk about in Mull; and I really don't
care about it."

And this was the man whom Miss Carry had described as being nothing but
a slayer of wild animals and a preserver of beasts' skins! Perhaps, in
that imaginary duel between Nature and Art, the enemy was not so
thoroughly beaten and thrown aside, after all.

So they got to Three Bridges, and there they found the carriage awaiting
them; and presently they were whirling away along the dark roads, with
the lamps shining alternately on a line of hedge or on a long stretch of
ivied brick wall. And at last they passed a lodge gate, and drove
through a great and silent park; and finally, rattling over the gravel,
drew up in front of some gray steps and a blaze of light coming from the
wide-open doors. Under Lord Beauregard's guidance, they went into the
drawing-room, and found a number of people idly chatting there, or
reading by the subdued light of the various lamps on the small tables.
There was a good deal of talk about the weather. Macleod, vaguely
conscious that these people were only strangers, and that the one heart
that was thinking of him was now far away, paid but little heed; if he
had been told that the barometer predicted fifteen thunder-storms for
the morrow, he would have been neither startled nor dismayed.

But he managed to say to his host, aside:--

"Beauregard, look here. I suppose, in this sort of shooting, you have
some little understanding with your head-keeper about the posts--who is
to be a bit favored, you know. Well, I wish you would ask him to look
after my friend Stuart. He can leave me out altogether, if he likes."

"My dear fellow, there will be scarcely any difference; but I will look
after your friend myself. I suppose you have no guns with you?"

"I have borrowed Ogilvie's. Stuart has none."

"I will get one for him."

By and by they went upstairs to their respective rooms, and Macleod was
left alone, that is to say, he was scarcely aware of the presence of the
man who was opening his portmanteau and putting out his things. He lay
back in the low easy-chair, and stared absently into the blazing fire.
This was a beautiful but a lonely house. There were many strangers in
it. But if she had been one of the people below--if he could at this
moment look forward to meeting her at dinner--if there was a chance of
his sitting beside her and listening to the low and sweet voice--with
what an eager joy he would have waited for the sound of the bell! As it
was, his heart was in London. He had no sort of interest in this big
house, or in the strangers whom he had met, or in the proceedings of the
morrow, about which all the men were talking. It was a lonely house.

He was aroused by a tapping at the door.

"Come in," he said, and Major Stuart entered, blooming and roseate over
his display of white linen.

"Good gracious!" said he, "aren't you dressed yet? It wants but ten
minutes to dinner-time. What have you been doing?"

Macleod jumped up with some shamefacedness, and began to array himself
quickly.

"Macleod," said the major, subsiding into the big armchair very
carefully so as not to crease his shining shirt-front, "I must give you
another piece of advice. It is serious. I have heard again and again
that when a man thinks only of one thing--when he keeps brooding over it
day and night--he is bound to become mad. They call it monomania. You
are becoming a monomaniac."

"Yes, I think I am," Macleod said, laughing; "but it is a very pleasant
sort of monomania, and I am not anxious to become sane. But you really
must not be hard on me, Stuart. You know that this is rather an
important thing that has happened to me; and it wants a good deal of
thinking over."

"Bah!" the major cried, "why take it so much _au grand serieux?_ A girl
likes you; says she'll marry you; probably, if she continues in the same
mind, she will. Consider your self a lucky dog; and don't break your
heart if an accident occurs. Hope for the best--that you and she mayn't
quarrel, and that she mayn't prove a sigher. Now what do you think of
this house? I consider it an uncommon good dodge to put each person's
name outside his bedroom door; there can't be any confounded
mistakes--and women squealing--if you come up late at night. Why,
Macleod, you don't mean that this affair has destroyed all your interest
in the shooting? Man, I have been down to the gun-room with your friend
Beauregard; have seen the head-keeper; got a gun that suits me
firstrate--a trifle long in the stock, perhaps, but no matter. You won't
tip any more than the head-keeper, eh? And the fellow who carries your
cartridge-bag? I do think it uncommonly civil of a man not only to ask
you to go shooting, but to find you in guns and cartridges; don't you?"

The major chatted on with great cheerfulness. He clearly considered that
he had got into excellent quarters. At dinner he told some of his most
famous Indian stories to Lady Beauregard, near whom he was sitting; and
at night, in the improvised smoking-room, he was great on deer-stalking.
It was not necessary for Macleod, or anybody else, to talk. The major
was in full flow, though he stoutly refused to touch the spirits on the
table. He wanted a clear head and a steady hand for the morning.

Alas! alas! The next morning presented a woful spectacle. Gray skies;
heavy and rapidly drifting clouds; pouring rain; runnels of clear water
by the side of every gravel-path; a rook or two battling with the
squally south-wester high over the wide and desolate park: the
wild-ducks at the margin of the ruffled lake flapping their wings as if
the wet was too much even for them; nearer at hand the firs and
evergreens all dripping. After breakfast the male guests wandered
disconsolately into the cold billiard-room, and began knocking the balls
about. All the loquacious cheerfulness of the major had fled. He looked
out on the wet park and the sombre woods, and sighed.

But about twelve o'clock there was a great hurry and confusion
throughout the house; for all of a sudden the skies in the west cleared;
there was a glimmer of blue; and then gleams of a pale wan light began
to stream over the landscape. There was a rash to the gun-room, and an
eager putting on of shooting-boots and leggings; there was a rapid tying
up of small packages of sandwiches; presently the wagonette was at the
door. And then away they went over the hard gravel, and out into the wet
roads, with the sunlight now beginning to light up the beautiful woods
about Crawley. The horses seemed to know there was no time to lose. A
new spirit took possession of the party. The major's face glowed as red
as the hip that here and there among the almost leafless hedges shone in
the sunlight on the ragged brier stem.

And yet it was about one o'clock before the work of the day began, for
the beaters had to be summoned from various parts, and the small boys
with the white flags--the "stops"--had to be posted so as to check
runners. And then the six guns went down over a ploughed field--half
clay and half chalk, and ankle deep--to the margin of a rapidly running
and coffee-colored stream, which three of them had to cross by means of
a very shaky plank. Lord Beauregard, Major Stuart, and Macleod remained
on this side, keeping a lookout for a straggler, but chiefly concerned
with the gradually opening and brightening sky. Then far away they heard
a slight tapping on the trees; and almost at the same moment another
sound caused the hearts of the two novices to jump. It was a quick
_cuck-cuck_, accompanied by a rapid and silken winnowing of the air.
Then an object, which seemed like a cannon-ball with a long tail
attached, came whizzing along. Major Stuart fired--a bad miss. Then he
wheeled round, took good aim, and down came a mass of feathers,
whirling, until it fell motionless on the ground.

"Well hit!" Macleod cried; but at the same moment he became conscious
that he had better mind his own business, for there was another whirring
sound, and then he saw this rapidly enlarging object coming straight at
him. He fired, and shot the bird dead; but so rapid was its flight that
he had to duck his head as the slain bird drove past his face and
tumbled on to the ground behind him.

"This is rather like firing at bomb-shells," he called out to Lord
Beauregard.

It was certainly a new experience for Macleod to figure as a novice in
any matter connected with shooting; but both the major and he speedily
showed that they were not unfamiliar with the use of a gun. Whether the
birds came at them like bomb-shells, or sprung like a sky-rocket through
the leafless branches, they met with the same polite attention; though
occasionally one would double back on the beaters and get clear away,
sailing far into the silver-clear sky. Lord Beauregard scarcely shot at
all, unless he was fairly challenged by a bird flying right past him: he
seemed quite content to see his friends having plenty of work; while, in
the interest of the beaters, he kept calling out, in a high monotone,
"Shoot high! shoot high!" Then there was some motion among the
brushwood; here and there a man or boy appeared; and finally the
under-keeper with his retriever came across the stream to pick up the
dead birds.

That bit was done with: _vorwarts!_

"Well, Stuart," Macleod said, "what do you think of it? I don't see
anything murderous or unsportsmanlike in this kind of shooting. Of
course shooting with dogs is much prettier; and you don't get any
exercise standing in a wet field; but the man who says that shooting
those birds requires no skill at all--well, I should like see him try."

"Macleod," said the major, gravely, as they plodded along, "you may
think that I despise this kind of thing; but I don't: I give you my
solemn word of honor that I don't. I will even go the length of saying
that if Providence had blessed me with £20,000 a year, I should be quite
content to own a bit of country like this. I played the part of the wild
mountaineer last night, you know; that was all very well--"

Here there was a loud call from Lord Beauregard, who had overtaken
them--"_Hare! hare! Mark hare?_" The major jumped round, put up his gun,
and banged away--shooting far ahead in his eagerness. Macleod looked on,
and did not even raise his gun.

"That comes of talking," the major said, gloomily. "And you--why didn't
you shoot? I never saw you miss a hare in my life."

"I was not thinking of it," Macleod said, indifferently.

It was very soon apparent that he was thinking of something other than
the shooting of pheasants or hares; for as they went from one wood to
another during this beautiful brief November day he generally carried
his gun over his shoulder--even when the whirring, bright-plumaged birds
were starting from time to time from the hedgerows--and devoted most of
his attention to warning his friend when and where to shoot. However, an
incident occurred which entirely changed the aspect of affairs. At one
beat he was left quite alone, posted in an open space of low brushwood
close by the corner of a wood. He rested the butt of his gun on his
foot; he was thinking, not of any pheasant or hare, but of the beautiful
picture Gertrude White would make if she were coming down one of these
open glades, between the green stems of the trees, with the sunlight
around her and the fair sky overhead. Idly he watched the slowly
drifting clouds; they were going away northward--by and by they would
sail over London. The rifts of blue widened in the clear silver; surely
the sunlight would now be shining over Regent's Park. Occasionally a
pheasant came clattering along; he only regarded the shining colors of
its head and neck brilliant in the sunlight. A rabbit trotted by him; he
let it go. But while he was standing thus, and vaguely listening to the
rattle of guns on the other side, he was suddenly startled by a quick
cry of pain: and he thought he heard some one call, "Macleod! Macleod!"
Instantly he put his gun against a bush, and ran. He found a hedge at
the end of the wood; he drove through it, and got into the open field.
There was the unlucky major, with blood running down his face, a
handkerchief in his hand, and two men beside him, one of them offering
him some brandy from a flask. However, after the first flight was over,
it was seen that Major Stuart was but slightly hurt. The youngest member
of the party had fired at a bird coming out of the wood; had missed it;
had tried to wheel round to send the second barrel after it; but his
feet, having sunk into the wet clay, had caught there, and, in his
stumbling fall, somehow or other the second barrel went off, one pellet
just catching the major under the eye. The surface wound caused a good
shedding of blood, but that was all; and when the major had got his face
washed he shouldered his gun again, and with indomitable pluck said he
would see the thing out. It was nothing but a scratch, he declared. It
might have been dangerous; but what was the good of considering what
might have been? To the young man who had been the cause of the
accident, and who was quite unable to express his profound sorrow and
shame, he was generously considerate, saying that he had fined him in
the sum of one penny when he took a postage-stamp to cover the wound.

"Lord Beauregard," said he, cheerfully, "I want you to show me a
thorough-going hot corner. You know I am an ignoramus of this kind of
thing."

"Well," said his host, "there is a good bit along here, if you would
rather go on."

"Go on?" said he. "Of course!"

And it was a "hot corner." They came to it at the end of a long double
hedgerow connected with the wood they had just beaten; and as there was
no "stop" at the corner of the wood, the pheasants in large numbers had
run into the channel between the double line of hedge. Here they were
followed by the keepers and beaters, who kept gently driving them along.
Occasionally one got up, and was instantly knocked over by one of the
guns; but it was evident that the "hot corner" would be at the end of
this hedgerow, where there was stationed a smock-frocked rustic who,
down on his knees, was gently tapping with a bit of stick. The number of
birds getting up increased, so that the six guns had pretty sharp work
to reckon with them; and not a few of the wildly whirring objects got
clean away into the next wood--Lord Beauregard all the time calling out
from the other side of the hedge, "Shoot high! shoot high!" But at the
end of the hedgerow an extraordinary scene occurred. One after the
other, then in twos and threes, the birds sprang high over the bushes;
the rattle of musketry--all the guns being together now--was deafening:
the air was filled with gunpowder smoke; and every second or two another
bird came tumbling down on to the young corn. Macleod, with a sort of
derisive laugh, put his gun over his shoulder.

"This is downright stupidity," he said to Major Stuart, who was blazing
away as hard as ever he could cram cartridges into the hot barrels of
his gun. "You can't tell whether you are hitting the bird or not. There!
Three men fired at that bird--the other two were not touched."

The fusillade lasted for about eight or ten minutes; and then it was
discovered that though certainly two or three hundred pheasants had got
up at this corner, only twenty-two and a half brace were killed--to five
guns.

"Well," said the major, taking off his cap and wiping his forehead,
"that was a bit of a scrimmage!"

"Perhaps," said Macleod, who had been watching with some amusement his
friend's fierce zeal; "but it was not shooting. I defy you to say how
many birds you shot. Or I will do this with you--I will bet you a
sovereign that if you ask each man to tell you how many birds he has
shot during the day, and add them all up, the total will be twice the
number of birds the keepers will take home. But I am glad you seem to
enjoy it, Stuart."

"To tell you the truth, Macleod," said the other, "I think I have had
enough of it. I don't want to make a fuss; but I fancy I don't quite see
clearly with this eye. It may be some slight inflammation; but I think I
will go back to the house, and see if there's any surgeon in the
neighborhood."

"There you are right; and I will go back with you," Macleod said,
promptly.

When their host heard of this, he was for breaking up the party; but
Major Stuart warmly remonstrated; and so one of the men was sent with
the two friends to show them the way back to the house. When the surgeon
came he examined the wound, and pronounced it to be slight enough in
itself, but possibly dangerous when so near so sensitive an organ as the
eye. He advised the major, if any symptoms of inflammation declared
themselves, to go at once to a skillful oculist in London, and not to
leave for the North until he was quite assured.

"That sounds rather well, Macleod," said he, ruefully.

"Oh, if you must remain in London--though I hope not--I will stay with
you," Macleod said. It was a great sacrifice, his remaining in London,
instead of going at once back to Castle Dare; but what will not one do
for one's friend?




CHAPTER XXVI.

AN INTERVIEW.


On the eventful morning on which Major Stuart was to be presented to the
chosen bride of Macleod of Dare, the simple-hearted
soldier--notwithstanding that he had a shade over one eye, made himself
exceedingly smart. He would show the young lady that Macleod's friends
in the North were not barbarians. The major sent back his boots to be
brushed a second time. A more smoothly fitting pair of gloves Bond
Street never saw.

"But you have not the air," said he to Macleod, "of a young fellow going
to see his sweetheart. What is the matter, man?"

Macleod hesitated for a moment.

"Well, I am anxious she should impress you favorably," said he, frankly;
"and it is an awkward position for her--and she will be embarrassed, no
doubt--and I have some pity for her, and almost wish some other way had
been taken--"

"Oh, nonsense?" the major said, cheerfully. "You need not be nervous on
her account. Why, man, the silliest girl in the world could impose on an
old fool like me. Once upon a time, perhaps, I may have considered
myself a connoisseur--well, you know, Macleod, I once had a waist like
the rest of you; but now, bless you, if a tolerably pretty girl only
says a civil word or two to me, I begin to regard her as if I were her
guardian angel--_in loco parentis_, and that kind of thing--and I would
sooner hang myself than scan her dress or say a word about her figure.
Do you think she will be afraid of a critic with one eye? Have courage,
man. I dare bet a sovereign she is quite capable of taking care of
herself. It's her business."

Macleod flushed quickly, and the one eye of the major caught that
sudden confession of shame or resentment.

"What I meant was," he said, instantly, "that nature had taught the
simplest of virgins a certain trick of fence--oh yes, don't you be
afraid. Embarrassment! If there is any one embarrassed, it will not be
me, and it will not be she. Why, she'll begin to wonder whether you are
really one of the Macleods, if you show yourself nervous, apprehensive,
frightened like this."

"And indeed, Stuart," said he, rising as if to shake off some weight of
gloomy feeling, "I scarcely know what is the matter with me. I ought to
be the happiest man in the world; and sometimes this very happiness
seems so great that it is like to suffocate me--I cannot breathe fast
enough; and then, again, I get into such unreasoning fears and
troubles--Well, let us get out into the fresh air."

The major carefully smoothed his hat once more, and took up his cane. He
followed Macleod down stairs--like Sancho Panza waiting on Don Quixote,
as he himself expressed it; and then the two friends slowly sauntered
away northward on this fairly clear and pleasant December morning.

"Your nerves are not in a healthy state, that's the fact, Macleod," said
the major, as they walked along. "The climate of London is too exciting
for you; a good, long, dull winter in Mull will restore your tone. But
in the meantime don't cut my throat, or your own, or anybody else's."

"Am I likely to do that?" Macleod said, laughing.

"There was young Bouverie," the major continued, not heeding the
question--"what a handsome young fellow he was when he joined us at
Gawulpoor!--and he hadn't been in the place a week but he must needs go
regular head over heels about our colonel's sister-in-law. An uncommon
pretty woman she was, too--an Irish girl, and fond of riding; and dash
me if that fellow didn't fairly try to break his neck again and again
just that she should admire his pluck! He was as mad as a hatter about
her. Well, one day two or three of us had been riding for two or three
hours on a blazing hot morning, and we came to one of the irrigation
reservoirs--big wells, you know--and what does he do but offer to bet
twenty pounds he would dive into the well and swim about for ten
minutes, till we hoisted him out at the end of the rope. I forget who
took the bet, for none of us thought he would do it: but I believe he
would have done anything so that the story of his pluck would be
carried to the girl, don't you know. Well, off went his clothes, and in
he jumped into the ice-cold water. Nothing would stop him. But at the
end of the ten minutes, when we hoisted up the rope, there was no
Bouverie there. It appeared that on clinging on to the rope he had
twisted it somehow, and suddenly found himself about to have his neck
broken, so he had to shake himself free and plunge into the water again.
When at last we got him out, he had had a longer bath than he had
bargained for; but there was apparently nothing the matter with him--and
he had won the money, and there would be a talk about him. However, two
days afterward, when he was at dinner, he suddenly felt as though he had
got a blow on the back of his head--so he told us afterward--and fell
back insensible. That was the beginning of it. It took him five or six
years to shake off the effects of that dip--"

"And did she marry him, after all?" Macleod said, eagerly.

"Oh dear, no! I think he had been invalided home not more than two or
three months when she married Connolly, of the Seventy-first Madras
Infantry. Then she ran away from him with some civilian fellow, and
Connolly blew his brains out. That," said the major, honestly, "is
always a puzzle to me. How a fellow can be such an ass as to blow his
brains out when his wife runs away from him beats my comprehension
altogether. Now what I would do would be this: I would thank goodness I
was rid of such a piece of baggage; I would get all the good-fellows I
know, and give them a rattling fine dinner; and I would drink a bumper
to her health and another bumper to her never coming back."

"And I would send you our Donald, and he would play, 'Cha till mi
tuilich' for you," Macleod said.

"But as for blowing my brains out! Well," the major added, with a
philosophic air, "when a man is mad he cares neither for his own life
nor for anybody else's. Look at those cases you continually see in the
papers: a young man is in love with a young woman; they quarrel, or she
prefers some one else; what does he do but lay hold of her some evening
and cut her throat--to show his great love for her--and then he coolly
gives himself up to the police, and says he is quite content to be
hanged."

"Stuart," said Macleod, laughing, "I don't like this talk about hanging.
You said a minute or two ago that I was mad."

"More or less," observed the major, with absolute gravity; "as the
lawyer said when he mentioned the Fifteen-acres park at Dublin."

"Well, let us get into a hansom," Macleod said. "When I am hanged you
will ask them to write over my tombstone that I never kept anybody
waiting for either luncheon or dinner."

The trim maid-servant who opened the door greeted Macleod with a
pleasant smile; she was a sharp wench, and had discovered that lovers
have lavish hands. She showed the two visitors into the drawing-room;
Macleod silent, and listening intently; the one-eyed major observing
everything, and perhaps curious to know whether the house of an actress
differed from that of anybody else. He very speedily came to the
conclusion that, in his small experience, he had never seen any house of
its size so tastefully decorated and accurately managed as this simple
home.

"But what's this!" he cried, going to the mantelpiece and taking down a
drawing that was somewhat ostentatiously placed there. "Well! If this is
English hospitality! By Jove! an insult to me, and my father, and my
father's clan, that blood alone will wipe out. 'The Astonishment of
Sandy MacAlister Mhor on beholding a Glimpse of Sunlight,' Look!"

He showed the rude drawing to Macleod--a sketch of a wild Highlander,
with his hair on end, his eyes starting out of his head, and his hands
uplifted in bewilderment. This work of art was the production of Miss
Carry, who, on hearing the knock at the door, had whipped into the room,
placed her bit of savage satire over the mantelpiece, and whipped out
again. But her deadly malice so far failed of its purpose that, instead
of inflicting any annoyance, it most effectually broke the embarrassment
of Miss Gertrude's entrance and introduction to the major.

"Carry has no great love for the Highlands," she said, laughing and
slightly blushing at the same time; "but she need not have prepared so
cruel a welcome for you. Won't you sit down, Major Stuart? Papa will be
here directly."

"I think it is uncommonly clever," the major said, fixing his one eye on
the paper as if he would give Miss White distinctly to understand that
he had not come to stare at her--"Perhaps she will like us better when
she knows more about us."

"Do you think," said Miss White, demurely, "that it is possible for any
one born in the South to learn to like the bagpipes?"

"No," said Macleod, quickly--and it was not usual for him to break in in
this eager way about a usual matter of talk--"that is all a question of
association. If you had been brought up to associate the sound of the
pipes with every memorable thing--with the sadness of a funeral, and the
welcome of friends come to see you, and the pride of going away to
war--then you would understand why 'Lord Lovat's Lament,' or the
'Farewell to Gibraltar,' or the 'Heights of Alma'--why these bring the
tears to a Highlander's eyes. The pibrochs preserve our legends for us,"
he went on to say, in rather an excited fashion, for he was obviously
nervous, and perhaps a trifle paler than usual. "They remind us of what
our families have done in all parts of the world, and there is not one
you do not associate with some friend or relative who is gone away, or
with some great merrymaking, or with the death of one who was dear to
you. You never saw that--the boat taking the coffin across the loch, and
the friends of the dead sitting with bowed heads, and the piper at the
bow playing the slow Lament to the time of the oars. If you had seen
that, you would know what the 'Cumhadh na Cloinne' is to a Highlander.
And if you have a friend come to see you, what is it first tells you of
his coming? When you can hear nothing for the waves, you can hear the
pipes! And if you were going into a battle, what would put madness into
your head but to hear the march that you know your brothers and uncles
and cousins last heard when they marched on with a cheer to take death
as it happened to come to them? You might as well wonder at the
Highlanders loving the heather. That is not a very handsome flower."

Miss White was sitting quite calm and collected. A covert glance or two
had convinced the major that she was entirely mistress of the situation.
If there was any one nervous, embarrassed, excited, through this
interview, it was not Miss Gertrude White.

"The other morning," she said, complacently, and she pulled down her
dainty white cuffs another sixteenth of an inch, "I was going along
Buckingham Palace Road, and I met a detachment--is a detachment right,
Major Stuart?--of a Highland regiment. At least I supposed it was part
of a Highland regiment, because they had eight pipers playing at their
head; and I noticed that the cab horses were far more frightened than
they would have been at twice the noise coming from an ordinary band. I
was wondering whether they might think it the roar of some strange
animal--you know how a camel frightens a horse. But I envied the officer
who was riding in front of the soldiers. He was a very handsome man; and
I thought how proud he must feel to be at the head of those fine,
stalwart fellows. In fact, I felt for a moment that I should like to
have command of a regiment myself."

"Faith," said the major, gallantly, "I would exchange into that
regiment, if I had to serve as a drummer-boy."

Embarrassed by this broad compliment? Not a bit of it. She laughed
lightly, and then rose to introduce the two visitors to her father, who
had just entered the room.

It was not to be expected that Mr. White, knowing the errand of his
guests, should give them an inordinately effusive welcome; but he was
gravely polite. He prided himself on being a man of common-sense, and he
knew it was no use fighting against the inevitable. If his daughter
would leave the stage, she would; and there was some small compensation
in the fact that by her doing so she would become Lady Macleod. He would
have less money to spend on trinkets two hundred years old; but he would
gain something--a very little no doubt--from the reflected lustre of her
social position.

"We were talking about officers, papa," she said, brightly, "and I was
about to confess that I have always had a great liking for soldiers. I
know if I had been a man I should have been a soldier. But do you know,
Sir Keith, you were once very rude to me about your friend Lieutenant
Ogilvie?"

Macleod started.

"I hope not," said he gravely.

"Oh yes, you were. Don't you remember the Caledonian Ball? I only
remarked that Lieutenant Ogilvie, who seemed to me a bonnie boy, did not
look as if he were a very formidable warrior; and you answered with some
dark saying--what was it?--that nobody could tell what sword was in a
scabbard until it was drawn?"

"Oh," said he, laughing somewhat nervously, "you forget: I was talking
to the Duchess of Devonshire."

"And I am sure her Grace was much obliged to you for frightening her
so," Miss White said, with a dainty smile.

Major Stuart was greatly pleased by the appearance and charming manner
of this young lady. If Macleod, who was confessedly a handsome young
fellow, had searched all over England, he could not have chosen a fitter
mate. But he was also distinctly of opinion--judging by his one eye
only--that nobody needed to be alarmed about this young lady's exceeding
sensitiveness and embarrassment before strangers. He thought she would
on all occasions be fairly capable of holding her own. And he was quite
convinced, too, that the beautiful clear eyes, under the long lashes,
pretty accurately divined what was going forward. But what did this
impression of the honest soldier's amount to? Only, in other words, that
Miss Gertrude White, although a pretty woman, was not a fool.

Luncheon was announced, and they went into the other room, accompanied
by Miss Carry, who had suffered herself, to be introduced to Major
Stuart with a certain proud sedateness. And now the major played the
part of the accepted lover's friend to perfection. He sat next Miss
White herself; and no matter what the talk was about, he managed to
bring it round to something that redounded to Macleod's advantage.
Macleod could do this, and Macleod could do that; it was all Macleod,
and Macleod, and Macleod.

"And if you should ever come to our part of the world, Miss White," said
the major--not letting his glance meet hers--"you will be able to
understand something of the old loyalty and affection and devotion the
people in the Highlands showed to their chiefs; for I don't believe
there is a man, woman, or child about the place who would not rather
have a hand cut off than that Macleod should have a thorn scratch him.
And it is all the more singular, you know, that they are not Macleods.
Mull is the country of the Macleans; and the Macleans and the Macleods
had their fights in former times. There is a cave they will show you
round the point from _Ru na Gaul_ lighthouse that is called
_Uamh-na-Ceann_--that is, the Cavern of the Skulls--where the Macleods
murdered fifty of the Macleans, though Alastair Crotach, the humpbacked
son of Macleod, was himself killed."

"I beg your pardon, Major Stuart," said Miss Carry, with a grand
stateliness in her tone, "but will you allow me to ask if this is true?
It is a passage I saw quoted in a book the other day, and I copied it
out. It says something about the character of the people you are talking
about."

She handed him the bit of paper; and he read these words: _"Trew it is,
that thir Ilandish men ar of nature verie prowd, suspicious, avaricious,
full of decept and evill inventioun each aganis his nychtbour, be what
way soever he may circumvin him. Besydis all this, they ar sa crewall in
taking of revenge that nather have they regard to person, eage, tyme, or
caus; sa ar they generallie all sa far addictit to thair awin ty
rannicall opinions that, in all respects, they exceed in creweltie the
maist barbarous people that ever hes bene sen the begynning of the
warld."_

"Upon my word," said the honest major, "it is a most formidable
indictment. You had better ask Sir Keith about it."

He handed the paper across the table; Macleod read it, and burst out
laughing.

"It is too true, Carry," said he. "We are a dreadful lot of people up
there among the hills. Nothing but murder and rapine from morning till
night."

"I was telling him this morning he would probably be hanged," observed
the major, gravely.

"For what?" Miss White asked.

"Oh," said the major, carelessly, "I did not specify the offence.
Cattle-lifting, probably."

Miss Carry's fierce onslaught was thus laughed away, and they proceeded
to other matters; the major meanwhile not failing to remark that this
luncheon differed considerably from the bread and cheese and glass of
whiskey of a shooting-day in Mull. Then they returned to the
drawing-room, and had tea there, and some further talk. The major had by
this time quite abandoned his critical and observant attitude. He had
succumbed to the enchantress. He was ready to declare that Gertrude
White was the most fascinating woman he had ever met, while, as a matter
of fact, she had been rather timidly making suggestions and asking his
opinion all the time. And when they rose to leave, she said,--

"I am very sorry, Major Stuart, that this unfortunate accident should
have altered your plans; but since you must remain in London, I hope we
shall see you often before you go."

"You are very kind," said he.

"We cannot ask you to dine with us," she said, quite simply and frankly,
"because of my engagements in the evening; but we are always at home at
lunch-time, and Sir Keith knows the way."

"Thank you very much," said the major, as he warmly pressed her hand.

The two friends passed out into the street.

"My dear fellow," said the major, "you have been lucky--don't imagine I
am humbugging you. A really handsome lass, and a thorough woman of the
world, too--trained and fitted at every point; none of your farmyard
beauties. But I say, Macleod--I say," he continued, solemnly, "won't she
find it a trifle dull at Castle Dare?--the change, you know."

"It is not necessary that she should live at Dare," Macleod said.

"Oh, of course, you know your own plans best."

"I have none. All that is in the air as yet. And so you do not think I
have make a mistake."

"I wish I was five-and-twenty, and could make a mistake like that," said
the major, with a sigh.

Meanwhile Miss Carry had confronted her sister.

"So you have been inspected, Gerty. Do you think you passed muster?"

"Go away, and don't be impertinent, you silly girl!" said the other,
good-naturedly.

Carry pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket, and, advancing,
placed it on the table.

"There," said she, "put that in your purse, and don't tell me you have
not been warned, Gertrude White."

The elder sister did as she was bid; but indeed she was not thinking at
that moment of the cruel and revengeful character of the Western
Highlanders, which Miss Carry's quotation set forth in such plain terms.
She was thinking that she had never before seen Glenogie look so
soldier-like and handsome.




CHAPTER XXVII.

AT A RAILWAY STATION.


The few days of grace obtained by the accident that happened to Major
Stuart fled too quickly away, and the time came for saying farewell.
With a dismal apprehension Macleod looked forward to this moment. He had
seen her on the stage bid a pathetic good-by to her lover, and there it
was beautiful enough--with her shy coquetries, and her winning ways, and
the timid, reluctant confession of her love. But there was nothing at
all beautiful about this ordeal through which he must pass. It was harsh
and horrible. He trembled even as he thought of it.

The last day of his stay in London arrived; he rose with a sense of some
awful doom hanging over him that he could in nowise shake off. It was a
strange day, too--the world of London vaguely shining through a pale
fog, the sun a globe of red fire. There was hoar-frost on the
window-ledges; at last the winter seemed about to begin.

And then, as ill luck would have it, Miss White had some important
business at the theatre to attend to, so that she could not see him till
the afternoon; and he had to pass the empty morning somehow.

"You look like a man going to be hanged," said the major, about noon.
"Come, shall we stroll down to the river now? We can have a chat with
your friend before lunch, and a look over his boat."

Colonel Ross, being by chance at Erith, had heard of Macleod's being in
town, and had immediately come up in his little steam-yacht, the _Iris_,
which now lay at anchor close to Westminster Bridge, on the Lambeth
side. He had proposed, merely for the oddity of the thing, that Macleod
and his friend the major should lunch on board, and young Ogilvie had
promised to run up from Aldershot.

"Macleod," said the gallant soldier, as the two friends walked leisurely
down towards the Thames, "if you let this monomania get such a hold of
you, do you know how it will end? You will begin to show signs of having
a conscience."

"What do you mean?" said he, absently.

"Your nervous system will break down, and you will begin to have a
conscience. That is a sure sign, in either a man or a nation. Man, don't
I see it all around us now in this way of looking at India and the
colonies! We had no conscience--we were in robust health as a
nation--when we thrashed the French out of Canada, and seized India, and
stole land just wherever we could put our fingers on it all over the
globe; but now it is quite different; we are only educating these
countries up to self-government; it is all in the interest of morality
that we protect them; as soon as they wish to go we will give them our
blessing--in short, we have got a conscience, because the national
health is feeble and nervous. You look out, or you will get into the
same condition. You will begin to ask whether it is right to shoot
pretty little birds in order to eat them; you will become a vegetarian;
and you will take to goloshes."

"Good gracious!" said Macleod, waking up, "what is all this about?"

"Rob Roy," observed the major, oracularly, "was a healthy man. I will
make you a bet he was not much troubled by chilblains."

"Stuart," Macleod cried, "do you want to drive me mad? What on earth are
you talking about?"

"Anything," the major confessed, frankly, "to rouse you out of your
monomania, because I don't want to have my throat cut by a lunatic some
night up at Castle Dare."

"Castle Dare," repeated Macleod, gloomily. "I think I shall scarcely
know the place again; and we have been away about a fortnight!"

No sooner had they got down to the landing-step on the Lambeth side of
the river than they were descried from the deck of the beautiful little
steamer, and a boat was sent ashore for them. Colonel Ross was standing
by the tiny gangway to receive them. They got on board, and passed into
the glass-surrounded saloon. There certainly was something odd in the
notion of being anchored in the middle of the great city--absolutely cut
off from it, and enclosed in a miniature floating world, the very sound
of it hushed and remote. And, indeed, on this strange morning the big
town looked more dream-like than usual as they regarded it from the
windows of this saloon--the buildings opal-like in the pale fog, a dusky
glitter on the high towers of the Houses of Parliament, and some touches
of rose red on the ripples of the yellow water around them.

Right over there was the very spot to which he had idly wandered in the
clear dawn to have a look at the peacefully flowing stream. How long
ago? It seemed to him, looking back, somehow the morning of
life--shining clear and beautiful, before any sombre anxieties and joys
scarcely less painful had come to cloud the fair sky. He thought of
himself at that time with a sort of wonder. He saw himself standing
there, glad to watch the pale and glowing glory of the dawn, careless as
to what the day might bring forth; and he knew that it was another and
an irrecoverable Macleod he was mentally regarding.

Well, when his friend Ogilvie arrived, he endeavored to assume some
greater spirit and cheerfulness, and they had a pleasant enough luncheon
party in the gently moving saloon. Thereafter Colonel Ross was for
getting up steam and taking them for a run somewhere; but at this point
Macleod begged to be excused for running away; and so, having consigned
Major Stuart to the care of his host for the moment, and having bade
good-by to Ogilvie, he went ashore. He made his way up to the cottage in
South Bank. He entered the drawing-room and sat down, alone.

When she came in, she said, with a quick anxiety, "You are not ill?"

"No, no," he said rising, and his face was haggard somewhat; "but--but
it is not pleasant to come to say good-by--"

"You must not take it so seriously as that," she said, with a friendly
smile.

"My going away is like going into a grave," he said, slowly. "It is
dark."

And then he took her two hands in his, and regarded her with such an
intensity of look that she almost drew back, afraid.

"Sometimes," he said, watching her eyes, "I think I shall never see you
again."

"Oh, Keith," said she, drawing her hands away, and speaking half
playfully, "you really frighten me! And even if you were never to see me
again, wouldn't it be a very good thing for you? You would have got rid
of a bad bargain."

"It would not be a very good thing for me," he said, still regarding
her.

"Oh, well, don't speak of it," said she, lightly; "let us speak of all
that is to be done in the long time that must pass before we meet--"

"But why '_must?_'" said he, eagerly--"why '_must?_' If you knew how I
looked forward to the blackness of this winter away up there--so far
away from you that I shall forget the sound of your voice--oh! you
cannot know what it is to me?"

He had sat down again, his eyes, with a sort of pained and hunted look
in them, bent on the floor.

"But there is a '_must_,' you know," she said, cheerfully, "and we ought
to be sensible folk and recognize it. You know I ought to have a
probationary period, as it were--like a nun, you know, just to see if
she is fit to--"

Here Miss White paused, with a little embarrassment; but presently she
charged the difficulty, and said, with a slight laugh,--

"To take the veil, in fact. You must give me time to become accustomed
to a whole heap of things: if we were to do anything suddenly now, we
might blunder into some great mistake, perhaps irretrievable. I must
train myself by degrees for another kind of life altogether; and I am
going to surprise you, Keith--I am indeed. If papa takes me to the
Highlands next year, you won't recognize me at all. I am going to read
up all about the Highlands, and learn the tartans, and the names of
fishes and birds; and I will walk in the rain and try to think nothing
about it; and perhaps I may learn a little Gaelic: indeed, Keith, when
you see me in the Highlands, you will find me a thorough
Highland-woman."

"You will never become a Highland-woman," he said, with a grave
kindness. "Is it needful? I would rather see you as you are than playing
a part."

Her eyes expressed some quick wonder, for he had almost quoted her
father's words to her.

"You would rather see me as I am?" she said, demurely. "But what am I? I
don't know myself."

"You are a beautiful and gentle-hearted Englishwoman," he said, with
honest admiration--"a daughter of the South. Why should you wish to be
anything else? When you come to us, I will show you a true
Highland-woman--that is, my cousin Janet."

"Now you have spoiled all my ambition," she said, somewhat petulantly.
"I had intended spending all the winter in training myself to forget the
habits and feelings of an actress, and I was going to educate myself for
another kind of life; and now I find that when I go to the Highlands you
will compare me with your cousin Janet!"

"That is impossible," said he, absently, for he was thinking of the time
when the summer seas would be blue again, and the winds soft, and the
sky clear; and then he saw the white boat of the _Umpire_ going merrily
out to the great steamer to bring the beautiful stranger from the South
to Castle Dare!

"Ah, well, I am not going to quarrel with you on this our last day
together," she said, and she gently placed her soft white hand on the
clinched fist that rested on the table. "I see you are in great
trouble--I wish I could lessen it. And yet how could I wish that you
could think of me less, even during the long winter evenings, when it
will be so much more lonely for you than for me? But you must leave me
my hobby all the same; and you must think of me always as preparing
myself and looking forward; for at least you know you will expect me to
be able to sing a Highland ballad to your friends."

"Yes, yes," he said, hastily, "if it is all true--if it is all
possible--what you speak of. Sometimes I think it is madness of me to
fling away my only chance; to have everything I care for in the world
near me, and to go away and perhaps never return. Sometimes I know in my
heart that I shall never see you again--never after this day."

"Ah, now," said she, brightly--for she feared this black demon getting
possession of him again--"I will kill that superstition right off. You
_shall_ see me after to-day; for as sure as my name is Gertrude White, I
will go up to the railway station to-morrow morning and see you off.
There!"

"You will?" he said, with a flush of joy on his face.

"But I don't want any one else to see me," she said, looking down.

"Oh, I will manage that," he said, eagerly. "I will get Major Stuart
into the carriage ten minutes before the train starts."

"Colonel Ross?"

"He goes back to Erith to-night."

"And I will bring to the station," said she, with some shy color in her
face, "a little present--if you should speak of me to your mother, you
might give her this from me; it belonged to my mother."

Could anything have been more delicately devised than this tender and
timid message?

"You have a woman's heart," he said.

And then in the same low voice she began to explain that she would like
him to go to the theatre that evening, and that perhaps he would go
alone; and would he do her the favor to be in a particular box? She took
a piece of paper from her purse, and shyly handed it to him. How could
he refuse?--though he flushed slightly. It was a favor she asked. "I
will know where you are," she said.

And so he was not to bid good-by to her on this occasion, after all. But
he bade good-by to Mr. White, and to Miss Carry, who was quite civil to
him now that he was going away; and then he went out into the cold and
gray December afternoon. They were lighting the lamps. But gaslight
throws no cheerfulness on a grave.

He went to the theatre later on; and the talisman she had given him
took him into a box almost level with the stage, and so near to it that
the glare of the foot-lights bewildered his eyes, until he retired into
the corner. And once more he saw the puppets come and go, with the one
live woman among them whose every tone of voice made his heart leap. And
then this drawing-room scene, in which she comes in alone, and talking
to herself? She sits down to the piano carelessly. Some one enters
unperceived, and stands silent there, to listen to the singing. And this
air that she sings, waywardly, like a light-hearted schoolgirl:--

    "Hi-ri-libhin o, Brae MacIntyre,
     Hi-ri-libhin o, Costly thy wooing!
                     Thou'st slain the maid.
     Hug-o-rin-o,    'Tis thy undoing!
     Hi-ri-libhin o, Friends of my love,
     Hi-ri-libhin o, Do not upbraid him;
                     He was leal
     Hug-o-rin-o,    Chance betrayed him."

Macleod's breathing came quick and hard. She had not sung the ballad of
the brave MacIntyre when formerly he had seen the piece. Did she merely
wish him to know, by this arch rendering of the gloomy song, that she
was pursuing her Highland studies? And then the last verse she sang in
the Gaelic! He was so near that he could hear this adjuration to the
unhappy lover to seek his boat and fly, steering wide of Jura and
avoiding Mull:--

    "Hi-ri-libhin o, Buin Bąta,
     Hi-ri-libhin o, Fag an dąthaich,
                     Seachain Mule,
     Hug-o-ri-no;    Sna taodh Jura!"

Was she laughing, then, at her pronunciation of the Gaelic when she
carelessly rose from the piano, and, in doing so, directed one glance to
him that made him quail? The foolish piece went on. She was more bright,
vivacious, coquettish than ever: how could she have such spirits in view
of the long separation that lay on his heart like lead? Then, at the end
of the piece, there was a tapping at the door, and an envelope was
handed in to him. It only contained a card, with the message
"Good-night?" scrawled in pencil. It was the last time he ever was in
any theatre.

Then that next morning--cold and raw and damp, with a blustering
northwest wind that seemed to bring an angry summons from the far seas.
At the station his hand was trembling like the hand of a drunken man;
his eyes wild and troubled: his face haggard. And as the moment arrived
for the train to start, he became more and more excited.

"Come and take your place, Macleod," the major said. "There is no use
worrying about leaving. We have eaten our cake. The frolic is at an end.
All we can do is to sing, 'Then fare you well, my Mary Blane,' and put
up with whatever is ahead. If I could only have a drop of real, genuine
Talisker to steady my nerves--"

But here the major, who had been incidentally leaning out of the window,
caught sight of a figure, and instantly he withdrew his head. Macleod
disappeared.

That great, gaunt room--with the hollow footfalls of strangers, and the
cries outside. His face was quite white when he took her hand.

"I am very late," she said, with a smile.

He could not speak at all. He fixed his eyes on hers with a strange
intensity, as if he would read her very soul; and what could any one
find there but a great gentleness and sincerity, and the frank
confidence of one who had nothing to conceal?

"Gertrude," said he at last, "whatever happens to us two, you will never
forget that I loved you?"

"I think I may be sure of that," she said, looking down.

They rang a bell outside.

"Good-by, then."

He tightly grasped the hand he held; once more he gazed into those clear
and confiding eyes--with an almost piteously anxious look: then he
kissed her and hurried away. But she was bold enough to follow. Her eyes
were very moist. Her heart was beating fast. If Glenogie had there and
then challenged her, and said, "_Come, then, sweetheart; will you fly
with me? And the proud mother will meet you. And the gentle cousin will
attend on you. And Castle Dare will welcome the young bride!_"--what
would she have said? The moment was over. She only saw the train go
gently away from the station; and she saw the piteous eyes fixed on
hers; and while he was in sight she waved her handkerchief. When the
train had disappeared she turned away with a sigh.

"Poor fellow," she was thinking to herself, "he is very much in
earnest--far more in earnest than even poor Howson. It would break my
heart if I were to bring him any trouble."

By the time she had got to the end of the platform, her thoughts had
taken a more cheerful turn.

"Dear me," she was saying to herself, "I quite forgot to ask him whether
my Gaelic was good!"

When she had got into the street outside, the day was brightening.

"I wonder," she was asking herself, "whether Carry would come and look
at that exhibition of water-colors; and what would the cab fare be?"




CHAPTER XXVIII.

A DISCLOSURE.


And now he was all eagerness to brave the first dragon in his way--the
certain opposition of this proud old lady at Castle Dare. No doubt she
would stand aghast at the mere mention of such a thing; perhaps in her
sudden indignation she might utter sharp words that would rankle
afterwards in the memory. In any case he knew the struggle would be
long, and bitter, and harassing; and he had not the skill of speech to
persuasively bend a woman's will. There was another way--impossible,
alas!--he had thought of. If only he could have taken Gertrude White by
the hand--if only he could have led her up the hall, and presented her
to his mother, and said, "Mother, this is your daughter; is she not fit
to be the daughter of so proud a mother?"--the fight would have been
over. How could any one withstand the appeal of those fearless and
tender clear eyes?

Impatiently he waited for the end of dinner on the evening of his
arrival; impatiently he heard Donald the piper lad, play the brave
Salute--the wild, shrill yell overcoming the low thunder of the Atlantic
outside, and he paid but little attention to the old and familiar
_Cumhadh na Cloinne_. Then Hamish put the whiskey and the claret on the
table, and withdrew. They were left alone.

"And now, Keith," said his cousin Janet, with the wise gray eyes grown
cheerful and kind, "you will tell us about all the people you saw in
London; and was there much gayety going on? And did you see the Queen at
all? and did you give any fine dinners?"

"How can I answer you all at once, Janet?" said he, laughing in a
somewhat nervous way. "I did not see the Queen, for she was at Windsor;
and I did not give any fine dinners, for it is not the time of year in
London to give fine dinners; and indeed I spent enough money in that way
when I was in London before. But I saw several of the friends who were
very kind to me when I was in London in the summer. And do you remember,
Janet, my speaking to you about the beautiful young lady--the actress I
met at the house of Colonel Ross of Duntorme?"

"Oh yes, I remember very well."

"Because," said he--and his fingers were rather nervous as he took out a
package from his breast-pocket--"I have got some photographs of her for
the mother and you to see. But it is little of any one that you can
understand from photographs. You would have to hear her talk, and see
her manner, before you could understand why every one speaks so well of
her, and why she is a friend with every one--"

He had handed the packet to his mother, and the old lady had adjusted
her eye-glasses, and was turning over the various photographs.

"She is very good-looking," said Lady Macleod. "Oh yes, she is very
good-looking. And that is her sister?"

"Yes."

Janet was looking over them too.

"But where did you get all the photographs of her Keith?" she said.
"They are from all sorts of places--Scarborough, Newcastle, Brighton--"

"I got them from herself," said he.

"Oh do you know her so well?"

"I know her very well. She was the most intimate friend of the people
whose acquaintance I first made in London," he said, simply, and then he
turned to his mother; "I wish photographs could speak, mother, for then
you might make her acquaintance; and as she is coming to the Highlands
next year--"

"We have no theatre in Mull, Keith," Lady Macleod said, with a smile.

"But by that time she will not be an actress at all: did I not tell you
that before?" he said, eagerly. "Did I not tell you that? She is going
to leave the stage--perhaps sooner or later, but certainly by that
time; and when she comes to the Highlands next year with her father, she
will be travelling just like any one else. And I hope, mother, you won't
let them think that we Highlanders are less hospitable than the people
of London."

He made the suggestion in an apparently careless fashion, but there was
a painfully anxious look in his eyes. Janet noticed that.

"It would be strange if they were to come to so unfrequented a place as
the west of Mull," said Lady Macleod, somewhat coldly, as she put the
photographs aside.

"But I have told them all about the place, and what they will see, and
they are eagerly looking forward to it; and you surely would not have
them put up at the inn at Bunessan, mother?"

"Really, Keith, I think you have been imprudent. It was little matter
our receiving a bachelor friend like Norman Ogilvie, but I don't think
we are quite in a condition to entertain strangers at Dare."

"No one objected to me as a stranger when I went to London," said he,
proudly.

"If they are anywhere in the neighborhood," said Lady Macleod, "I should
be pleased to show them all the attention in my power, as you say they
were friendly with you in London; but really, Keith, I don't think you
can ask me to invite two strangers to Dare--"

"Then it is to the inn at Bunessan they must go?" he asked.

"Now, auntie," said Janet Macleod, with a gentle voice, "you are not
going to put poor Keith into a fix; I know you won't do that. I see the
whole thing; it is all because Keith was so thorough a Highlander. They
were talking about Scotland: and no doubt he said there was nothing in
the country to be compared with our islands, and caves, and cliffs. And
then they spoke of coming, and of course he threw open the doors of the
house to them. He would not have been a Highlander if he had done
anything else, auntie; and I know you won't be the one to make him break
off an invitation. And if we cannot give them grand entertainments at
Dare, we can give them a Highland welcome, anyway."

This appeal to the Highland pride of the mother was not to be withstood.

"Very well, Keith," said she. "We shall do what we can for your friends,
though it isn't much in this old place."

"She will not look at it that way," he said, eagerly, "I know that. She
will be proud to meet you, mother, and to shake hands with you, and to
go about with you, and do just whatever you are doing--"

Lady Macleod started.

"How long do you propose this visit should last?" she said.

"Oh, I don't know," he said, hastily. "But you know, mother, you would
not hurry your guests; for I am sure you would be as proud as any one to
show them that we had things worth seeing. We should take her to the
cathedral at Iona on some moonlight night; and then some day we could go
out to the Dubh Artach lighthouse--and you know how the men are
delighted to see a new face--"

"You would never think of that, Keith," his cousin said. "Do you think a
London young lady would have the courage to be swung on to the rocks and
to climb up all those steps outside?"

"She has the courage for that or for anything," said he. "And then, you
know, she would be greatly interested in the clouds of puffins and the
skarts behind Staffa, and we would take her to the great caves in the
cliffs at Gribun; and I have no doubt she would like to go out to one of
the uninhabited islands."

Lady Macleod had preserved a stern silence. When she had so far yielded
as to promise to ask those two strangers to come to Castle Dare on their
round of the Western Islands, she had taken it for granted that their
visit would necessarily be of the briefest; but the projects of which
Keith Macleod now spoke seemed to suggest something like a summer passed
at Dare. And he went on talking in this strain, nervously delighted with
the pictures that each promised excursion called up. Miss White would be
charmed with this, and delighted with that. Janet would find her so
pleasant a companion; the mother would be inclined to pet her at first
sight.

"She is already anxious to make your acquaintance mother," said he to
the proud old dame who sat there ominously silent. "And she could think
of no other message to send you than this--it belonged to her mother."

He opened the little package--of old lace, or something of that
kind--and handed it to his mother; and at the same time, his impetuosity
carrying him on, he said that perhaps, the mother would write now and
propose the visit in the summer.

At this Lady Macleod's surprise overcame her reserve.

"You must be mad, Keith! To write in the middle of winter and send an
invitation for the summer! And really the whole thing is so
extraordinary--a present coming to me from an absolute stranger--- and
that stranger an actress who is quite unknown to any one I know--"

"Mother, mother," he cried, "don't say any more. She has promised to be
my wife."

Lady Macleod stared at him as if to see whether he had really gone mad,
and rose and pushed back her chair.

"Keith," she said, slowly and with a cold dignity, "when you choose a
wife, I hope I will be the first to welcome her, and I shall be proud to
see you with a wife worthy of the name that you bear; but in the
meantime I do not think that such a subject should be made the occasion
of a foolish jest."

And with that she left the apartment, and Keith Macleod turned in a
bewildered sort of fashion to his cousin. Janet Macleod had risen too;
she was regarding him with anxious and troubled and tender eyes.

"Janet," said he, "it is no jest at all!"

"I know that," said she, in a low voice, and her face was somewhat pale.
"I have known that. I knew it before you went away to England this last
time."

And suddenly she went over to him and bravely held out her hand; and
there were quick tears in the beautiful gray eyes.

"Keith," said she, "there is no one will be more proud to see you happy
than I; and I will do what I can for you now, if you will let me, for I
see your whole heart is set on it; and how can I doubt that you have
chosen a good wife?"

"Oh Janet, if you could only see her and know her!"

She turned aside for a moment--only for a moment. When he next saw her
face she was quite gay.

"You must know, Keith," said she, with a smile shining through the tears
of the friendly eyes, "that women-folk are very jealous; and all of a
sudden you come to auntie and me, and tell us that a stranger has taken
away your heart from us and from Dare; and you must expect us to be
angry and resentful just a little bit at first."

"I never could expect that from you, Janet," said he. "I knew that was
impossible from you."

"As for auntie, then," she said, warmly, "is it not natural that she
should be surprised and perhaps offended--"

"But she says she does not believe it--that I am making a joke of it--"

"That is only her way of protesting, you know," said the wise cousin.
"And you must expect her to be angry and obdurate, because women have
their prejudices, you know, Keith; and this young lady--well, it is a
pity she is not known to some one auntie knows."

"She is known to Norman Ogilvie, and to dozens of Norman Ogilvie's
friends, and Major Stuart has seen her," said he, quickly; and then he
drew back. "But that is nothing. I do not choose to have any one to
vouch for her."

"I know that; I understand that, Keith," Janet Macleod said, gently. "It
is enough for me that you have chosen her to be your wife; I know you
would choose a good woman to be your wife; and it will be enough for
your mother when she comes to reflect. But you must be patient."

"Patient I would be, if it concerned myself alone," said he; "but the
reflection--the insult of the doubt--"

"Now, now, Keith," said she, "don't let the hot blood of the Macleods
get the better of you. You must be patient, and considerate. If you will
sit down now quietly, and tell me all about the young lady, I will be
your ambassador, if you like; and I think I will be able to persuade
auntie."

"I wonder if there ever was any woman as kind as you are, Janet?" said
he, looking at her with a sort of wondering admiration.

"You must not say that any more now," she said, with a smile. "You must
consider the young lady you have chosen as perfection in all things. And
this is a small matter. If auntie is difficult to persuade, and should
protest, and so forth, what she says will not hurt me, whereas it might
hurt you very sorely. And now you will tell me all about the young lady,
for I must have my hands full of arguments when I go to your mother."

And so this Court of Inquiry was formed, with one witness not altogether
unprejudiced in giving his evidence, and with a judge ready to become
the accomplice of the witness at any point. Somehow Macleod avoided
speaking of Gertrude White's appearance. Janet was rather a plain woman,
despite those tender Celtic eyes. He spoke rather of her filial duty and
her sisterly affection; he minutely described her qualities as a
house-mistress; and he was enthusiastic ab