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'How old do you think I am, then?' I asked, struck by something in
her tone.
She hesitated, looking shyly from me to her mother.
'No, no,' said I. 'Tell me what you think yourself.'
She glanced at me again, then suggested in a small voice, 'sixty?'
Both Mrs. Ellmer and I began to laugh; and the child, blushing,
rubbed her cheek against her mother's sleeve.
'How much would you take off from that, Mrs. Ellmer?'
'Why, I'm sure you can't be a day more than forty-five.'
She evidently thought I should be pleased by this, the good lady
flattering herself that she had taken off at least five years. My first
impulse was to set them right rather indignantly, but the next
moment I remembered that I should gain nothing but a character for
mendacity by telling them that I should not be thirty till next year. So
I only laughed again, and then Babiole's voice broke in
apologetically.
'I only guessed what I did, Mr. Maude, because you are so very kind;
you seem always trying to do good to some one.'
'Here's a subtle and cynical little observer for you,' said I, glancing
over the child's head at the mother. 'She knows, you see, that
benevolence is the last of the emotions, and is only tried as a last
resource when we have used up all the others.'
Babiole looked much astonished at this interpretation, which she
understood very imperfectly, and Mrs. Ellmer shook her head in arch
rebuke as she rose to go. They went upstairs together to put on
their cloaks, but Babiole came flying down before her mother to
have a last peep at the portraits which had fascinated her. I followed
her into the drawing-room, where lamp and fire were still burning,
and she started and turned as she saw my reflection in the long
glass which hung between the pictures.
'Well, are you as happy at the cottage as you thought you would
be?' I asked.
'Oh, happier, a thousand times. It is too good to last,' with a
frightened sigh.
'Don't you miss the constant change of your travelling life, and the
excitement of acting?'
She seemed scarcely to understand me at first, as she repeated, in a
bewildered manner, 'excitement!' Then she said simply, 'It's very
exciting when you miss the train and the company go on without
you; but it's dreadful, too, because the manager might telegraph to
say you needn't come on at all'.
'But the acting; isn't that exciting?'
'It's nice, sometimes, when one has a part one likes; but, of course,
I only got small parts, and it's dreadful to have to go on with nothing
to say, or for an executioner, or an old woman, with just a line.'
'And don't you like travelling?'
'I like it sometimes in the summer; but in the winter it's so cold, and
the places all seem alike; and then the pantomime season comes,
and you have nothing to do.'
'What do you do then? What did you do last winter, for instance?'
'We went back to London.'
'Well?'
But Babiole had grown suddenly shy.
'Won't you tell me? Would you rather not?'
'I would rather not.'
At that moment Mrs. Ellmer's voice was heard calling, in sharp
tones, for 'Babiole!'
'Here we are, Mrs. Ellmer, taking a last look at the pictures,' I called
back, and I led the child out into the hall, where her mother gave a
sharp glance from her to me, and wished me good-night rather
curtly. I stood at the door to watch them on their way to the
cottage, as they would not accept my escort; and through the keen
air I distinctly heard this question and answer—
'You want to get us turned out, to spend another winter like the last,
I suppose. What did you tell him about your father?'
'Nothing, mother, nothing, indeed!——'
The rest of the child's passionate answer I could not catch, as they
went farther away. But I wondered what the secret was that I had
been so near learning.
 CHAPTER VIII
I enjoyed that evening so much that I was quite ready to go through
another preparatory penance of smoking chimneys and general
topsyturveydom to have another like it. But Fate and Ferguson ruled
otherwise. I mentioned to him one day that I proposed inviting the
ladies again for the following evening, and he said nothing; but
when I made a state call on Mrs. Ellmer that afternoon, she brought
forward all sorts of unexpected excuses to avoid the visit.
Circumstances had made me too diffident to press the point, and I
had to conclude, with much mortification, that the sight of my ugly
face for a whole evening had been too distressing to their artistic
eyes for them to undergo such a trial again. They, however, invited
me to dine with them on Christmas Day, but I was too much hurt to
accept the invitation. It was not until long afterwards I found out
that, on learning my intention of giving another 'party,' my faithful
Ferguson had posted off to the cottage and informed Mrs. Ellmer
that his poor mother was so ill she could scarcely keep on her legs,
and now master had ordered another 'turn out,' and he expected it
would 'do for her' altogether. I only knew, then, that when I told him
there was to be no 'party,' his wooden face relaxed into a faint but
happy smile, and that my feet ached to kick him.
That winter was what we called mild up there, and it passed most
uneventfully for my tenants and for me. We saw very little of each
other since that chill to our friendship; but I soon began to find that
the little pale woman, who was too acid to excite as much liking as
she did pity and respect, had no idea of allowing the obligations
between us to lie all on one side. Under the masculine régime which
had flourished in my household before the irruption of Mrs. Ellmer,
her daughter and Janet, the art of mending had been unknown and
ignored, and the science of cleaning my study had been neglected.
With regard to my own raiment, the Brass Age, or age of pins,
succeeded the Bone Age, or age of buttons, with unfailing regularity;
and when, with Janet, the Steel Age, or age of needles came in, I
sometimes thought I should prefer to go back to primitive barbarism
and holes in my stockings rather than hobble about with large lumps
of worsted thread at the corners of my toes,—which was the best
result of a process which the old lady called 'darning.'
The road to Ballater was for weeks impassable with snowdrifts; no
possibility of replenishing one's wardrobe even from the village's
meagre resources. At last, being by this time lamer than any pilgrim,
I boldly cut out the lumps in my stockings, and thereby enlarged the
holes. This flying in the face of Providence must have been an awful
shock to Janet, for she related it to Mrs. Ellmer with some acrimony;
the result of this was that the active little woman overhauled my
wardrobe, and everything else in my house that was in need of
repair by the needle; she tried her hand successfully at some
amateur tailoring; she hunted out some old curtains, and by a series
of wonderful processes, which she assured me were very simple,
transformed them from crumpled rags into very handsome tapestry
hangings for a draughty corner of my study; she carried off my old
silver, piece by piece, and polished it up until, instead of wearing the
mouldy rusty hue of long neglect, it brightened the whole room with
its glistening whiteness. I believe this last work was a sacred
pleasure to her; Babiole said her mother cooed over the tankards
and embraced the punch-bowl. The way that woman made old
things look like new savoured of sorcery to the obtuse male mind.
Ferguson would take each transfigured article, neatly patched
tablecloth, worn skin rug, combed and cleaned to look like new, or
whatever it might be, and hold it at arm's length, squinting horribly
the while, and then, with a sigh of dismay at the disappearance of
the old familiar rents, cast it from him in disgust. The climax of his
rage was reached when, one evening at dinner, surprised by an
unusually savoury dish, I sent a message of congratulation to Janet.
Like a Northern Mephistopheles, his eyes flashed fire.
'I didna know, sir, ye were so partial to kickshaws,' he said haughtily,
with the strong Scotch accent into which, on his return to his native
hills, he had allowed himself to relapse.
I saw that I had made some fearful blunder, and said no more; but I
afterwards learned from Babiole, as a great secret, that her mother
had prevailed upon Janet to yield up her daily duties as cook as far
as my dinner was concerned; and my heart began to melt and
soften as the winter wore on, towards the strictly anonymous little
chef who had delivered me from the binding tyranny of haggis and
cock-a-leekie.
When the snow melted away from all but the tops of the hills, and
there came fresh little sprouts of pale green among the dark feather
foliage of the larches, a change came over the tiny household of my
tenants. From early morning until the sun began to sink low behind
the hills Babiole was never to be found at the cottage. Sometimes,
indeed, she would dash in at midday to dinner, as fresh and sweet
as an opening rose; but more often she would stay away until
evening began to creep on, taking with her a most frugal meal of a
couple of sandwiches and a piece of shortbread. Even that was
shared with Ta-ta, whom I encouraged to attend the venturesome
little maiden on her long rambles; the dog would follow her now as
willingly as she did me, and could be fierce enough upon occasion to
prove a far from despicable bodyguard; while I generally contrived
to be about the grounds somewhere when she started, and, having
noted the direction she took, I went that way for my morning ride.
Often I passed them on the road, the girl walking at a sort of dance,
the dog leaping and springing about her. At sight of me, Ta-ta would
rush to her master, barking with joy; then, seeing that I would not
take the only sensible course of allowing her to follow both her
favourites together, she would run from the one to the other, in
delirious perplexed excitement, until by a few words and gestures I
let her know that her duty was with the beauty and not the beast.
Sometimes I would see the two climbing up a hill together, the collie
not more sure-footed than the child. Sometimes as I passed there
would be a great waving of handkerchief and wagging of tail from
some high cairn, to show me triumphantly how much more they
dared than I, trotting on composedly some hundreds of feet below. I
was always rather uneasy for the child, wandering to these lonely
heights and along such unfrequented roads without any companion
but the dog; but her mother, with the odd inconsistency which
breaks out in the best of us, could fear no danger to the girl from
coarse peasant or steep cliff, while against the wiles of the well-
dressed she put her strictly on her guard. As for the child herself, I
could only tell her to be careful of her footing on rugged
Craigendarroch, the nearest, the prettiest, the most dangerous of
our higher hills: to tell her not to wander whithersoever her fancy
led her would have been like warning a star not to mount so high in
the sky.
Then as evening fell and I began, like any old woman, to grow
anxious, I would hear Ta-ta's tired step in the hall outside my study,
and a scratching at my door which gave place to a piteous sniffing
and whining if I did not immediately rise to let her in. Then with a
gentle wag of the tail she would trot up to the hearthrug and lie
down, giving a sideways glance at To-to, who would hop down from
his perch and make a grab at her tail to punish her for gadding
about, and, finding that appendage out of reach, would sneak
quietly back again and resume his hunt for the flea who would never
be caught, to try to persuade us that his fruitless attempt had been
a mere inadvertency. How hard Ta-ta would try, when a nice plate of
gristle and potato at dinner time had revived her flagging energies,
to describe to me the events of the morning's walk! And how the
sound of a bright childish laugh from the kitchen would stimulate her
remembrance of that jolly run up-hill! I knew, though I said nothing,
that Babiole used to come across to find her mother, busy with my
dinner; and I could guess, from the altercations I often heard, that
the hungry girl stole her share, and laughed at any one who said her
nay. The dining-room always grew too hot when that bright laughter
penetrated to my ears, and I would say carelessly to Ferguson—
'You can leave the door open.'
He knew, you may be sure, why I liked to sit in a draught while
March winds were about; but the stern Scot, however much he
might still cherish enmity against the diabolical cleverness of the
mother, had had a corner of his flinty heart pulverised by the
blooming child.
And so the cold spring passed into cool summer, and I began to
notice, little as I saw of her, a change in the pretty maiden. As the
season advanced, her vivacity seemed to subside a little, her dancing
walk to give place to a more sedate step, while her rambles were
often now limited to a climb up Craigendarroch, which formerly
would have been a mere incident in the day's proceedings. I
remarked upon this to Mrs. Ellmer; for she and I had now, in our
loneliness, become great chums.
'Oh, don't you know?' said she, with her grating little laugh,
'Babiole's in love!'
'In love!' said I slowly. 'A child like that!'
'Oh, it's not a first attachment by any means,' said she, making
merry over my surprise, as she swung her little watering-pot with
one hand, and put her head on one side to admire a row of
handsome gladioluses which she had reared with some care. 'Her
first, what you may call serious passion, was at seven years old, two
whole years later than my earliest love. By the bye, Mr. Maude, I
really must beg you to let me make some cuttings from your rose-
trees; I have two excellent briars here, and I flatter myself I can
graft as well as any gardener.'
'You can do everything, Mrs. Ellmer,' said I gravely, with honest
gratitude and admiration. 'You can make cuttings from every tree in
the garden, if you please, and they will all hold their heads the
higher for it.'
The poor lady liked a little bit of simple flattery, and indeed it by no
means now seemed out of place. The Highland air had brought the
pink colour back to her wan face, and brightened her eyes, so that
one now noticed with admiration the extreme delicacy of her
features; while the rest and the relief from worry had softened both
her careworn expression and the haggard outline of her face. She
now, with coquettish sprightliness, tapped my shoulder and shook
her head to show me that she had no faith in my blandishments.
'Don't talk to me,' she said, but with a smile which contradicted the
prohibition; 'I'm too old for compliments, a woman with a grown-up
daughter!'
Now I was quite glad to go back to the subject suggested by her last
words.
'Who is the happy object of the young lady's preference?' I asked,
trying to speak in a tone of badinage, though indeed I thought
Babiole much too young and too pretty to bestow even the most
make-believe affection on any one north o' Tweed, or south of it
either, for that matter.
'It's one of the young Duncans, at Fir Lodge; the pretty-looking lad
with the curly fair hair.'
I gave a little 'hoch!' of disgust. A great freckle-faced lout of a boy—I
knew him! I remembered, too, that the Duncans had joined heartily
in a scandalised murmur, far-off sounds of which had reached my
ears, at the enormity of my bringing play-acting folk to my Highland
seraglio. With very few more words I left Mrs. Ellmer, more put out
than I cared to show. However, after looking angrily at the
rhododendrons in the drive for a little while, I happily remembered
that the annual visit of my four oddly-assorted friends was due
within a month, and that then I should have something more
interesting to occupy my mind than the flirtations of a couple of
children. 'And after that,' I said to myself, 'I think I shall set off on
my wanderings again for a little while, and the Ellmers can remain
here until they, too, are tired of it, and so we shall avoid any wrench
over the break-up.' That the break-up must come I knew, and, on
the whole, I felt that it had better come early than late—for me, at
any rate.
I climbed up Craigendarroch next day, and every day for a week
after; I never met any one, and every time I was alarmed by the
steepness of those rocks to the south, where a poor young fellow
who was out fern-hunting fell down the perpendicular cliff one
summer's day, and was found a shapeless, lifeless heap four days
after on the side of the hill. He was a stranger, and might have lain
there till his bones whitened on the rocks and ferns among the
young oak-trees, if a couple of Ballater lads had not stumbled upon
his body in their Sunday walk, and called out all the village to see
the sight. And these made the most of the excitement in a singular
way, holding a highly decorous and Presbyterian wake, settling
themselves in a business-like manner like a flock of crows on the
broken ground around the stone on which the dead man, scarcely
more silent and unconcerned than they, held his mournful levee.
This incident had already given a tragic interest to the south side of
the pretty hill; and although Babiole knew the place well, and was as
sure-footed and nimble as one of its native squirrels, I felt anxious
every day when there was no answer to my call of 'Ta-ta! Ta-ta!' and
was not satisfied until I had made the circuit of the hill, pushed my
way through the barriers of uprooted firs with which the gales of
early spring had encumbered the hillside on the north, and going on
in that direction, came to the bare and almost precipitous slope
which forms the southern wall of the Pass of Ballater.
On my eighth visit I heard a faint bark from the ridge of hill to the
north-west of the pass; considering this as a clue, I made my way
down Craigendarroch, across the meadows round Mona House, a
white building of simplest architecture, flanked by a garden where
straight rows of bright flowers looked quaintly picturesque against a
dark background of fir and hill. Crossing the road which ran at the
foot of the ridge, I began to climb. A rough steep path had here
been worn among the bracken, and was widened at every ascent by
falls of loose soil and stones. I knew what a pretty little nook there
was at the top, just the place where a lovelorn maid would delight to
make a nest. The path grew steeper than ever towards the top, and
led suddenly to a grassy hollow, one wall of which was a
perpendicular gray cliff, broken by narrow and inaccessible ridges on
which slender little birch-trees contrived to grow. On the opposite
side the mossy ground sloped gently, and the wild rabbits scurried
about among the stumps of fallen pines.
I had only gone a few steps along the soft ground when I caught
the sound of a light girlish voice; it came from the miniature chasm
at the foot of the cliff. I wondered who the child was talking to. But
as I came nearer, hearing no voice but hers, I supposed she must be
reading aloud.
'Oh no, Roderick,' at last I was close enough to hear, 'I love you
passionately, with the love one knows but once. But it is impossible
for me to do as you wish. You speak to me of your father; you urge
upon me that he would forgive my lowly birth, that he would
welcome to his ancestral halls the woman of your choice, whoever
she might be. But do not forget that I too have pride, that I too
have a duty to perform to my parents.' Then came a change of tone,
and a sort of practical parenthesis, hurried through quickly like a
stage direction: 'I don't mean my father of course, because he was
so clever that he had to think of his art and wasn't like a father at
all.' Then her tone became sentimental again: 'But my mother—
mamma is worthy to have all the wealth of kings showered at her
feet. She is beautiful, and clever, and good; Mr. Maude—indeed
everybody, admires and loves her. No, Roderick, I will not allow my
mother to become a mere mother-in-law.'
The bathos of the conclusion upset my gravity; I came close to the
edge of the pit and looked down. The little maid was not reading,
but was sitting by herself on a tree-trunk among the stones, with the
dog asleep on the edge of her frock, living in a world of her own,
and holding converse with the people there. I crept away as quietly
as I could and went back home in an amused but rather rapturous
state: the next time I saw my goddess, though, she was devouring
slice after slice of bread and jam with prosaic ravenousness at the
kitchen door.
And I concluded that at fourteen, even with a face like a flower and
a voice like a bird's, 'the love one knows but once' and perfect peace
of mind are not incompatible things.
 CHAPTER IX
It was Fabian Scott who, being by his profession less of a free agent
than any other member of my little circle of friends, fixed the date of
their yearly visit. As soon as he made known to me the first day
when he would be free, I summoned the rest, and not one of them
had ever yet failed me. Fabian wrote to me this year, giving the
fifteenth of August as the day on which the closing of the theatre at
which he was playing would leave him free.
The news of the expected arrivals quickly reached the ears of Mrs.
Ellmer, who came skipping along the garden towards me one
morning about a week before the visit, and attacked me at once
with much vivacity.
'Aha!' she began, 'and so we were to be left in ignorance of the gay
doings, were we?'
'If you allude to the meeting of half a dozen old fogeys on the
fifteenth, Mrs. Ellmer, I assure you I was coming to the cottage to
tell you about it. But we shall be about as sportive as a gathering of
the British Archæological Association, and as we shall be out on the
moors all day, I am afraid you won't find the place much livelier than
usual. I think,' I added, coming to the pith of the matter with some
feeling of awkwardness, 'that you had better keep Miss Babiole more
—more with you, while—while the gentlemen are here. Or—or if you
would like a trip to the seaside we might see about a couple of
weeks at Muchalls or Stonehaven, and that would give us an
opportunity of—of having the cottage whitewashed, you know,' I
finished up, with a sudden gleam of tardy inventive genius.
The fact was, I had begun to tingle at the thought of the merciless
'chaff'—as much worse to bear than slander as the stigma of fool is
than that of rogue—which the importation of my fair tenants would
bring down upon me. Besides, though my four visitors were all old
friends, and very good fellows, yet a pretty face may work such
Circe-like wonders, even in the best of us, that I thought it better
that our bachelor loneliness should be, as before, untempered by the
smiles of any woman lovelier than Janet. But Mrs. Ellmer, at my
hesitating suggestion, grew rigid and haughty.
'Of course, Mr. Maude,' she said, 'if you wish now to make use of the
cottage my daughter and I have done our best to keep in order for
you, we shall be ready to pack up at any time. We can go to-
morrow, if you like. I have no doubt that I shall be able to find an
opening for the autumn season with some company.'
'No, no, no!' interrupted I emphatically and with some impatience,
'Pray do not think of such a thing. There is plenty of room in my own
place for all my friends. My sole object in making the suggestion I
did was to prevent your being pestered with the attentions of a lot of
rough sportsmen, who, when they were tired of shooting, would find
nothing better to do than to worry you and Miss Babiole to death.
And you remember,' I ended, as a happy thought, 'how, when you
came here, you insisted on privacy.'
'One may have too much even of such a good thing as one's own
society,' said she, with an affected little laugh. 'I think I could bear a
little attention now, with much equanimity, even from a sportsman
who "could find nothing better to do." Of course, I could expect no
more than that from gentlemen of such rank as your guests,' she
added, rather venomously. 'But for a change even that might be
acceptable.'
Good heavens! The woman would not understand me.
'But Babiole!' I suggested quietly.
'Babiole is only a child; but even if she were not, a daughter of mine
would be perfectly able to take care of herself, Mr. Maude.'
After this snub, I could only bow and take myself off, spending the
interval before my guests' arrival in schooling myself for the
approaching ordeal.
The first to arrive on the fifteenth were Lord Edgar Normanton and
Mr. Richard Fussell, the latter, anxious to make the most of his
annual taste of rank and fashion, having lain in wait for the former
at King's Cross, and insisted on bearing him company during the
entire journey. I met them at Ballater station at 2.15 in the
afternoon, and was sorry to hear from Edgar, who never looked
otherwise than the picture of robust health, and who was, moreover,
getting fat, that he was far from well.
'I tell his lordship that he should take rowing exercise. Nothing like a
good pull every day on the river to keep a man in condition,' urged
Mr. Fussell, who was fifty inches round what had once been his
waist, and who seemed to radiate health and happiness.
They informed me that Fabian Scott had also travelled up by the
night mail, but in another compartment; so I went to meet the train,
which came into Ballater at 5.50, and found both Fabian and Mr.
Maurice Browne disputing so violently that they had forgotten to get
out. Fabian had indeed taken advantage of the stopping of the train
to stride up and down the confined area of the railway carriage,
gesticulating violently with his hatbox, rug, gun, and various other
unconsidered trifles. I guessed that they could only have travelled
together from Aberdeen, for there had been no bloodshed. They had
been having a little discussion on realism in art, of which Maurice
Browne was an ardent disciple. They were still hard at it, in terms
unfit for publication, when I mounted the step and put my head in at
the window. Excitable Fabian, with his keen eyes still flashing
indignation with 'exotic filth,' shook my hand till he brought on
partial paralysis of that member, while he fired a last shot into his
less erratic opponent.
'No, sir,' he protested vehemently, 'I deny neither your ability nor
your good faith, nor those of your French master; but I have the
same objection to the fictions of your school, as works of art, as I
should have to the performance of a play written by cripples for
cripples. It would be a curiosity, sir, and might attract crowds of
morbid-minded people, besides cripples; but it would be none the
less a disgusting and degraded exhibition, antagonistic to nature and
truth, to which the feeblest "virtue victorious and vice vanquished"
melodrama would be as day unto night. With minds attuned to low
thoughts, you seek for low things, and degrade them still further by
your treatment. You have a philosophy, I admit, sir, but it is the
philosophy of the hog.'
And, having poured out this persuasive little harangue with such
volubility that not even an Irishman could get in a word edgeways,
Fabian allowed himself to be enticed on to the platform, and began
asking me questions about myself with childlike affection. Maurice
Browne followed, somewhat refreshed by this torrent of abuse, since
the aim of his literary ambition was rather to scandalise than to
convince. He was tall, thin, and unhealthy-looking, with a pallid face
and pink-rimmed eyes, and an appearance altogether unfortunate in
the propagator of a new cult. I believe he was, on the whole, fonder
of me than Fabian was. My disastrous ugliness appealed to his
distaste for the beautiful, and having once, as a complete stranger,
very generously come to my aid in a difficulty, he felt ever after the
natural and kindly human liking for a fellow-creature who has given
one an opportunity of posing as the deputy of God. These two
gentlemen, with their strong and aggressive opinions, formed the
disturbing element in our yearly meeting, and, each being always at
deadly feud with somebody else, might be reckoned on to keep the
fun alive. Both talked to me, and me alone, on our way to the
house, with such sly hits at one another as their wit or their malice
could suggest. Fabian raved about the effects of descending sun on
heather and pine-covered hills, Maurice Browne bemoaned the stony
poverty of the cottages, and opined that constant intermarriages
between the inhabitants had reduced the scanty population to idiots.
Then Fabian told me how many inquiries had been made about me
by old acquaintances, who still hoped I would some day return from
the wilds, and Maurice instantly tempered my satisfaction by asking
me if I had heard that the Earl of Saxmundham was going to divorce
his wife. The question gave me a great shock, not so much on
account of the blow it dealt at an old idol still conventionally
enthroned in my memory as the last love of my life, as because I
knew how much distress such a report must cause to poor old Edgar.
I was quite relieved, on entering the drive, to meet my stalwart
friend and his faithful companion, both very merry over some joke
which had already made Mr. Fussell purple in the face. On seeing us
they burst out laughing afresh. I guessed what the joke was.
'Deuced lonely up here, isn't it?' said Mr. Fussell to me. 'No society,
nothing but books, books,—except for one short fortnight in the
year. Eh, Maude?'
'Eh? eh? what's this?' said Fabian.
'His only books are woman's looks, and I wonder they didn't teach
him the folly of bringing a band of gay and dashing cavaliers to read
them too,' said Edgar.
Fabian turned slowly round to me, with a look of extreme pain, and
shook his head mournfully.
'Oh, what a tangled web we weave,' he murmured sorrowfully, and
then began to dance the Highland fling, with his rug tartanwise over
his shoulder.
Maurice Browne gravely cocked his hat, pulled down his cuffs,
buttoned up his coat, and requesting Edgar to carry his bag,
proceeded up the drive with his hands in his pockets, whistling.
In fact the whole quartett had given themselves up to ribald gaiety
at my expense, and my explanation that I had merely given a poor
lady and her daughter shelter for the winter in an unused cottage
only provoked another explosion. It was understood that at these
bachelor meetings all rules of social decorum should be scrupulously
violated, so there was nothing for it but to join in the mirth with the
best grace I could.
'You know who it is,' I said, half aside, to Fabian, hoping to turn him
at least into an ally. 'It's poor little Mrs. Ellmer, the wife of that
drunken painter.'
But Fabian was flinty. Turning towards the rest, with his expiring
Romeo expression, he wailed: 'Oh, gentlemen, he is adding insult to
injury; he is loading with abuse the bereaved husband of this lady to
whom he has given shelter for the winter!'
'Which winter? How much winter?' asked the others.
The more they saw that I was getting really pained by their chaff the
worse it became, until Fabian, stalking gravely up to Ferguson, who
stood on the doorstep, pointed tragically in the direction of nowhere
in particular, and said, in a sepulchral voice—
'You are a Scotchman, so am I. I have been pained by stories of
orgies, debaucheries, and general goings on in this neighbourhood.
Tell me, on your word as a fellow-countryman, can these gentlemen
and myself, as churchwardens and Sunday-school teachers, enter
this house without loss of self-respect?'
'I dinna ken aboot self-respect, gentlemen; but if you don't come in,
ye'll stand the loss of a varra good dinner,' answered Ferguson, with
a welcoming twinkle in his eyes.
'I am satisfied,' said Fabian, entering precipitately.
And the rest followed without scruple.
At dinner, to my relief, they found other subjects for their tongues to
wag upon; for Maurice Browne, never being satisfied long with any
topic but literary 'shop,' brought realism up again, and there ensued
a triangular battle. For Edgar, who, now that he had passed the age
and weight for cricket, had grown distressingly intellectual, was an
ardent admirer of the modern American school of fiction in which
nothing ever happens, and in which nobody is anything in particular
for long at a time. He hungrily devoured all the works of that
desperately clever gentleman who maintains that 'a woman standing
by a table is an incident,' and looked down from an eminence of six
feet two of unqualified disdain on the 'battle, murder, and sudden
death' school on the one hand, and on the 'all uncleanness' school
on the other. Not at all crushed by his scorn, Fabian retorted by
calling the American school the 'School of Foolish Talking,' and the
battle raged till long past sundown, Mr. Fussell and I watching the
case on behalf of the general reader, and passing the decanters till
the various schools all became 'mixed schools.'
At this point a diversion was created by a fleeting view caught
through the door by Fabian, of Janet carrying dishes away to the
kitchen. He heaved a sigh of relief, and, with upturned eyes,
breathed gently, 'I would trust him another winter!'
I had bought a piano at Aberdeen, as Fabian had spread a report
that he could play, while all my guests nursed themselves in the
belief that they could sing. The instrument had been placed in a
corner of my study against the wall. But the Philistinism of this so
shocked Fabian that he instantly directed its removal into the middle
of the room. This necessitated a re-disposal of most of the furniture.
The centre table was piled high with my private papers. Fabian
looked hastily through these, and, observing, 'I don't see anything
here we need keep,' tumbled them all into the grate where the fire,
indispensable as evening draws on in the Highlands, was burning.
Mechanically, I saved what I could, while Fabian's subversive orders
were being carried out round me. After a few minutes' hard work, all
my favourite objects were out of sight. Maurice Browne was reclining
comfortably in my own particular chair, and most of the rest of the
seats having been turned out into the hall as taking up too much
room, I had to sit upon To-to's kennel. The curtains were also pulled
down in deference to a suggestion of Browne's that they interfered
with the full sound of the voice, but I wished they had been left up
when the caterwauling began.