Stand Fast, Craig-Royston! (Volume II)

"But I think you might come!" he pleaded.

"Very well," said she, "I suppose I must begin with obedience."

And yet they seemed in no hurry to get on to the house. A robin perched himself on the wire fence not four yards away, and jerked his head, and watched them with his small, black, lustrous eye. A weasel came trotting down the road, stopped, looked, and glided noiselessly into the plantation. Two wood-pigeons went swiftly across an opening in the trees; a large hawk soared far overhead. On this still Sunday morning there seemed to be no one abroad; and then these two had much to say about a ring, and a locket, and similar weighty matters. Moreover, there was the assignation about the afternoon to be arranged.

But at length they managed to tear themselves away from this secluded place; they went round by the front of the big grey building; and in so doing had to pass the dining-room window.

"Oh my gracious goodness!" Mrs. Ellison exclaimed – and in no stimulated horror this time. "They're all in at lunch, every one of them, and I don't know how long they mayn't have been in! What shall I do!"

And then a sudden thought seemed to strike her.

"Hubert, my headache has come back! I'm going up to my room. Will you give my excuses to Mrs. Somerville? I'd a hundred times rather starve than – than be found out."

"Oh, that is all nonsense!" said he – but in an undertone, for they were now in the spacious stone-paved hall. "Go to your room, if you like; and I'll tell Mrs. Somerville, and she'll send you up something. You mustn't starve, for you're going round with me to Port Bân in the afternoon."

And, of course, the gentle hostess was grieved to hear that her friend had not yet got rid of her headache; and she herself went forthwith to Mrs. Ellison's room, to see what would most readily tempt the appetite of the poor invalid. The poor invalid was at her dressing-table, taking off her bonnet. She wheeled round.

"I am so sorry, dear, about your headache – " her hostess was beginning, when the young widow went instantly to the door and shut it. Then she came back; and there was a most curious look – of laughter, perhaps – in her extremely pretty eyes.

"Never mind about the headache!" she said to her astonished friend, who saw no cause for this amused embarrassment, nor yet for the exceedingly affectionate way in which both her hands had been seized. "The headache is gone. I've – I've something else to tell you – oh, you'd never guess it in the world! My dear, my dear," she cried in a whisper, and her tell-tale eyes were full of confusion as well as laughter. "You'd never guess – but – but I've gone and made a fool of myself for the second time!"

CHAPTER III.

"HOLY PALMER'S KISS."

This was a bright and cheerful afternoon in November; and old George Bethune and his granddaughter were walking down Regent-street. A brilliant afternoon, indeed; and the scene around them was quite gay and animated; for the wintry sunlight was shining on the big shop-fronts, and on the busy pavements, and on the open carriages that rolled by with their occupants gorgeous in velvet and silk and fur. Nor was George Bethune moved to any spirit of envy by all this display of luxury and wealth; no more than he was oppressed by any sense of solitariness amid this slow-moving, murmuring crowd. He walked with head erect; he paid but little heed to the passers-by; he was singing aloud, and that in a careless and florid fashion —

"The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith,
Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry,
The ship rides by the Berwick Law,
And I maun leave my bonnie Mary."

But suddenly he stopped: his attention had been caught by a window, or rather a series of windows, containing all sorts of Scotch articles and stuffs.

"Maisrie," said he, as his eye ran over these varied wares and fabrics, "couldn't you – couldn't you buy some little bit of a thing?"

"Why, grandfather?" she asked.

"Oh, well," he answered, with an air of lofty indifference, "it is but a trifle – but a trifle; only I may have told you that my friend Carmichael is a good Scot – good friend and good Scot are synonymous terms, to my thinking – and – and as you are going to call on him for the first time, you might show him you are not ashamed of your country. Isn't there something there, Maisrie?" he continued, still regarding the articles in the window. "Some little bit of tartan ribbon – something you could put round your neck – whatever you like – merely to show that you fly your country's colours, and are not ashamed of them – "

"But why should I pretend to be Scotch, grandfather, when I am not Scotch?" she said.

He was not angry: he was amused.

"You – not Scotch? You, of all people in the world, not Scotch? What are you, then? A Bethune of Balloray – ay, and if justice were done, the owner and mistress of Balloray, Ballingean, and Cadzow – and yet you are not Scotch? Where got you your name? What is your lineage – your blood – your right and title to the lands of Balloray and Ballingean? And I may see you there yet, Maisrie; I may see you there yet. Stranger things have happened. But come away now – we need not quarrel about a bit of ribbon – and I know Mr. Carmichael will receive you as his countrywoman even if you have not a shred of tartan about you."

Indeed he had taken no offence: once more he was marching along, with fearless eye and undaunted front, while he had resumed his gallant singing —

"But it's not the roar o' sea or shore
Wad mak' me langer wish to tarry,
Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar —
It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary!"

They went down to one of the big hotels in Northumberland Avenue; asked at the office for Mr. Carmichael; and after an immeasurable length of waiting were conducted to his room. Here Maisrie was introduced to a tall, fresh-coloured, angular-boned man, who had shrewd grey eyes that were also good-humoured. Much too good-humoured they were in Maisrie's estimation, when they chanced to regard her grandfather: they seemed to convey a sort of easy patronage, almost a kind of good-natured pity, that she was quick to resent. But how could she interfere? These were business matters that were being talked of; and she sate somewhat apart, forced to listen, but not taking any share in the conversation.

Presently, however, she heard something that startled her out of this apathetic concurrence, and set all her pulses flying. The tall, raw-boned, newspaper proprietor, eyeing this proud-featured old man with a not unkindly scrutiny, was referring to the volume on the Scottish Poets in America which George Bethune had failed to bring out in time; and his speech was considerate.

"It is not the first case of forestalling I have known," said he; "and it must just be looked on as a bit of bad luck. Better fortune next time. By the way, there is another little circumstance connected with that book – perhaps I should not mention it – but I will be discreet. No names; and yet you may like to hear that you have got another friend somewhere – somewhere in the background – "

It was at this point that Maisrie began to listen, rather breathlessly.

"Oh, yes, your friend – your unknown friend – wanted to be generous enough," Mr. Carmichael continued. "He wrote to me saying he understood that I had advanced a certain sum towards the publication of the work; and he went on to explain that as certain things had happened to prevent your bringing it out, he wished to be allowed to refund the money. Oh, yes, a very generous offer; for all was to be done in the profoundest secrecy; you were not to know anything about it, lest you should be offended. And yet it seemed to me you should be glad to learn that there was someone interesting himself in your affairs."

The two men were not looking at the girl: they could not see the pride and gratitude that were in her eyes. "And Vincent never told me a word," she was saying to herself, with her heart beating warm and fast. But that was not the mood in which old George Bethune took this matter. A dark frown was on his shaggy eyebrows.

"I do not see what right anyone has to intermeddle," said, he, in tones that fell cruelly on Maisrie's ear, "still less to pay money for me on the assumption that I had forgotten, or was unwilling to discharge, a just debt – "

"Come, come, come, Mr. Bethune," said the newspaper proprietor, with a sort of condescending good-nature, "you must not take it that way. To begin with, he did not pay any money at all. I did not allow him. I said 'Thank you; but this is a private arrangement between Mr. Bethune and myself; and if he considers there is any indebtedness, then he can wipe that off by contributions to the Chronicle.' So you see you have only to thank him for the intention – "

"Oh, very well," said the old man, changing his tone at once. "No harm in that. No harm whatever. Misplaced intention – but – but creditable. And now," he continued, in a still lighter strain, "since you mention the Chronicle, Mr. Carmichael, I must tell you of a scheme I have had for some time in mind. It is a series of papers on the old ballads of Scotland – or rather the chief of them – taking one for each weekly article, giving the different versions, with historical and philological notes. What do you think of that, now? Look at the material – the finest in the world! – the elemental passions, the tragic situations that are far removed from any literary form or fashion, that go straight to the heart and the imagination. Each of them a splendid text!" he proceeded, with an ever-increasing enthusiasm. "Think of Edom o' Gordon, and the Wife of Usher's Well, and the Baron o' Brackla; Annie of Lochryan, Hynde Etin, the piteous cry of 'Helen of Kirkconnell,' and the Rose of Yarrow seeking her slain lover by bank and brae. And what could be more interesting than the collation of the various versions of those old ballads, showing how they have been altered here and there as they were said or sung, and how even important passages may have been dropped out in course of time and transmission. Look, for example, at 'Barbara Allan.' The version in Percy's Reliques is as bad and stupid as it can be; but it is worse than that: it is incomprehensible. Who can believe that the maiden came to the bedside of her dying lover only to flout and jeer, and that for no reason whatever? And when she sees his corpse

'With scornful eye she looked downe,
Her cheek with laughter swellin'' —

"Well, I say that is not true," he went on vehemently; "it never was true: it contradicts human nature; it is false, and bad, and impossible. But turn to our Scottish version! When Sir John Graeme o' the West Countrie, lying sore sick, sends for his sweetheart, she makes no concealment of the cause of the feud that has been between them – of the wrong that is rankling at her heart:

'O dinna ye mind, young man,' said she,
'When the red wine ye were filling,
That ye made the healths gae round and round,
And slighted Barbara Allan?'

And proud and indignant she turns away. There is no sham laughter here; no impossible cruelty; but a quarrel between two fond lovers that becomes suddenly tragic, when death steps in to prevent the possibility of any reconciliation.

He turned his face unto the wa',
And death was with him dealing:
'Adieu, adieu, my dear friends a',
Be kind to Barbara Allan!'

Can anything be more simple, and natural, and inexpressibly sad as well? It is the story of a tragic quarrel between two true lovers: it is not the impossible and preposterous story of a giggling hoyden grinning at a corpse!"

And here it was probable that old George Bethune, having warmed to his subject, and being as usual wildly enamoured of his latest scheme, would have gone on to give further instances of the value of collation and comparison, but that Mr. Carmichael was forced to interrupt. The proprietor of the Edinburgh Chronicle was a busy man during his brief visits to town.

"Very well, Mr. Bethune," said he. "I think your idea a very good one – an excellent one, in fact, for the weekly edition of a Scotch paper; and I will give you carte blanche as to the number of articles. Who knows," he added, with a condescending smile, "but that they may grow to a book – to take the place of the one that was snatched out of your hands?"

And again, as his visitors were leaving, he said in the same good-humoured way —

"I presume it is not necessary for us to discuss the question of terms, especially before a young lady. If you have been satisfied with us so far – "

"I am quite content to leave that with you: quite," interposed the old man, with some little dignity.