IT need scarcely be said that the young Saumarez had been early made acquainted with Rankin’s cottage in the wood, and with the wonderful qualities of the “sma’” family which he kept about him. The humours of Roy and Dhu were by this time among the most cheerful features of the house at Rosmore. That little pair went tumbling over each other with ferocious curiosity into every corner, sniffing and investigating: they gave each other the word when, in the far distance, a carriage began to grind, or a footstep to disturb the gravel approaching the door—and flew like two balls of fur, with two little pairs of gleaming eyes and no legs to speak of, helter-skelter, head-over-heels to defend the house with ferocious, if infantile, barking. They walked out with Mrs. Rowland when she went out upon the lawn, making futile efforts to get upon the edge of her dress, and so be carried along as in a triumphal car on the silken train that touched the ground. They superintended every setting out and returning home, all but opening the door of the carriage when their mistress appeared. Archie had given them up to her with a sort of revulsion of feeling, kicking them from him when he found that the doggies hung on to his stepmother’s skirts in spite of all other blandishments. He addressed them only in kindly intercourse when she was out of the way, but when she appeared, gave a kick to one and tossed the other down out of his hands. They had this quality that they never were hurt, always came up again in a jovial entanglement of legs and hair, and were not too proud to talk to any one who would talk to them. Even the solemn butler, of whom Archie always continued to stand in awe, had been seen in a corner on his knees with a supply of biscuits, endeavouring to teach them to beg; which was an unsuccessful effort, since the little soft unformed backbones were as yet unfit for the effort. The young visitors, it is needless to say, were at once initiated into the worship of Roy and Dhu, and to become the happy possessors of other members of the family had early become the ambition of both Rosamond and Eddy—genuine on her part, perhaps only a pretext on his. For the worship of the dog is a very widespreading and varied rite, followed by some out of a real understanding of those faithful, little-discriminating, and often puzzled retainers of humanity, but by many out of pure vacancy and for love of the inferior company of grooms and kennel-keepers, who are the retainers, in their turn, of the nobler breed. It was natural that Eddy should gravitate towards a place where the dull hours were to be got through by such means. And Rosamond liked the little humorous creatures, and was amused by the old gamekeeper, and had pleasure in the quaint unknown aspect of the cottage life. Besides all these, when they escaped one morning together from the house, at a moment when Marion was out of the way, and Archie occupied, there was a little pleasure in the mere act of escaping and in the opportunity for consultations of their own. More than half their month in Rosmore was now over, and they had occasion for a little mutual understanding. It was a crisp morning of late October, very still, hoar frost white in all the hollows, and not yet melted into dew on the trees. Heaps of yellow leaves had come down in the night, and lay like gold at the foot of the now thin and trembling birches. The red trunks of the fir trees came out warmly in the sharpness of the atmosphere, and the big branches of the rowan berries drooped in consciousness of the approaching fall.
“What luck,” said Eddy, “to get off for once without those other two, as old Rowland calls them, at our heels.”
Rosamond assented briefly, but added, by way of qualification, “It is you generally who are at Marion’s heels.”
“Look here, Rose,” said the brother, “you know the governor better than I do. What was his object in sending you and me here?”
“To get rid of us for a month, and have no responsibility,” said Rosamond promptly.
“Oh, come, that’s not reason enough for him. Did he mean me to make up to this little thing here? I suppose she’s made of money—at least the father is; but what he’ll give her for her fortune is an unknown quantity. I don’t think he is very fond of her; do you? And I say, how old is Mrs. Rowland?—something would depend on that.”
“How should I know how old Mrs. Rowland is; and what would it matter if she were as old as—father himself?”
“She must be near it,” said Eddy thoughtfully, “or he would not have gone after her in his young days. Of course if she has no children, don’t you see, it makes all the difference. Let’s assume that she’ll have no children: then he must leave all his money between those two, and that would not be bad. If I am to marry for money, I don’t mean to let myself go cheap.”
“You would be worth so very much to any woman!” said Rosamond in high disdain.
“I am worth a decent sum,” said Eddy, “which is more than you are, for as much as you think of yourself; I and the old tumble-down house, which is what silly people like you admire so much—when the Governor hops off. If this new place does him a great deal of good, as he believes it will, I shan’t have such a good chance.”
“Poor father!” said Rosamond, but with perfect composure, “it is a pity to raise his hopes.”
“So I think,” said Eddy: “when you’ve had that before you for so long, you ought to be able to make up your mind to it. And it isn’t as if he did not have his fling in his day. However, the question is, what did he mean when he sent us here? Was it you or was it me?”
“What do you mean by me?” said Rosamond with irritation; “father knows quite well what I am going to do.”
“Oh yes, I believe you!” said Eddy, “doctoring or something, isn’t it? That is all bosh. You must just do like the rest. The question is, will old Rowland divide the money? when the one would be as good as the other, and I shouldn’t mind very much. But if the girl has only a little bit of a fortune, and the boy all the rest—that indicates you, my dear; and as you are always admiring the country, I suppose you are making up your mind to your fate?”
“I would not marry Archie Rowland if there was not another man in the world,” said Rosamond calmly. “Indeed, you may say there is not another man in the world, for I have no intention of marrying at all.”
“Then you are treating him as badly as can be,” said Eddy, “and you ought to be turned out of the house.”
“I!” said Rosamond, raising her calm eyebrows a little. “Why? It is only men who are pulled up for behaving badly. I am bringing him into shape. He is a great deal better already, and you will see he will behave quite decently at the ball.”
“If we could only find out,” said Eddy, who after all was but moderately interested in that side of the question which did not concern himself, “whether old Rowland means to divide the money! I should think he would, an old fellow with a sense of justice and who has made his own money. Why shouldn’t the girl have as much as the boy?”
“Why shouldn’t I have Gilston as well as you? That,” said Rosamond, “cuts both ways.”
“That’s quite a different thing,” said Eddy. “Gilston isn’t money, the more’s the pity; I wish it was.”
“You may be very glad it is not; for it would soon be gone in that case, and nothing would be left.”
“Well,” said Eddy, reflectively, “it’s always bait to catch a fish; no money, but a fine old house in the country, and a good name. The question is,” he said with much gravity, “whether it’s good enough to spend all that upon this little girl here, and perhaps find out at the end that she was no such prize after all? Why can’t one go honestly to the man and ask him, ‘What do you mean to give your daughter?’”
“You might try,” said Rosamond, with a laugh.
“And get turned out of the house! They would do it in France and never think twice; but in England it must be love, forsooth—Love!” said Eddy, with great disdain. “What is there to love in a little chit like that?”
“She is a pretty little thing,” said Rosamond, philosophically, “and she is quick enough. She would soon be just like other people, if she were about in town for a little. But Eddy, what is the use of talking when you are far too young to marry? At your age father could not have intended that.”
“I shall soon be old enough to be pulled up,” said Eddy, “on my own account. Don’t you know I’ll come of age in the beginning of the year? After that no one can come on the governor for my infant wants, don’t you know. I wish they would: he wouldn’t give them a farthing, and I should get all the fun; but they are far too cute for that. This Johnson fellow, don’t you know——”
“The don?” said Rosamond; “has he lent you money? I thought these men had never any money to lend.”
“Oh, that depends!” said Eddy. He burst into a great laugh, but immediately restrained himself. “He could get me into a pretty scrape if he liked, so I must keep friends with him. I mean to get Mother Rowland to ask him to the ball.”
“How dare you call her Mother Rowland?” said the girl, stamping her foot.
“Oh, dare! I dare do—whatever suits me,” said the young man. “Look here,” he added, “I don’t want you to dance with him all the same.”
Rosamond turned upon her brother and gave him a look of scorn. It was not often that she condescended to look at any one to whom she was talking; but her glance was very direct and keen when she took the trouble. And she did not make any reply. They were by this time at the entrance to the gamekeeper’s cottage, and she swept in at the always open door. “May we come in?” she condescended to say, but did not pause for an answer. Old Rankin was sitting up in bed, taking his forenoon refreshment: which he himself described as “supping a wheen broth.”
“Oh you’re welcome, my young leddy. Ye will have come about the dowg; but I think it is mair civil, in an ordinary way, if you would just chap at the door.”
“That’s what I say,” said Eddy; “but she takes her own way. I hope you’re better, Rankin, and no rheumatism. It’s not so cold, for there’s no wind this morning; but the hoar frost is still lying under the trees.”
“Ay,” said Rankin, “there will be rain the morn. These white frosts aye brings rain, no to say that it’s ever sweered to come. I’m muckle obliged to you for asking for me. You’re the only one of the young folk at the House that ever minds I am a man. And a very ill man. They think I’m some kind of a creature for producin’ dowgs.”
“I am very sorry for you,” said Rosamond; “my father is like you, he cannot move; but he does not like people to ask him how he is.”
“Ay, ay, ye hae a father like me? Poor gentleman, I’m sure he has my compassion,” said Rankin, “especially if he has no favourite purshoot like mine that makes the time pass.”
“Well, let us see your favourite purshoot,” said Eddy; “let us see them. They are great fun, the little beasts.”
“I am no reduced to that stage of intelligence,” said the gamekeeper, “to call the breeding o’ dowgs a purshoot. I just leave that to nature. What I really am, and I’m proud o’t, is an antiquary. There’s no many things ye can bring to me in the way of antiquities that would puzzle me. I’ve seen when half o’ this,” he laid his hand on a paper on the bed, “was my writing—whiles questions and whiles answers. It’s maybe no a profitable kind of study. I make nothing by it in the way of money; but it’s real entertaining. I’m just as pleased when a number comes in with me, answering a’ the scholars and putting them right, or them answering me and putting me right, as if it was so much siller in my pooch.”
“Oh ay,” said his wife, in the background, “you have had an awfu’ troke with the papers, John Rankin; but it would have sert ye muckle better if you had written something that would be of use, and got a little by it. Good siller is out o’ place in nobody’s pooch.”
“Do you mean to say that you—write for the papers?” said Rosamond.
“That do I, my bonny leddy; and ye should just recommend a study like mine to your father, poor gentleman. You’ll see many a thing from me there. I’m Ros-beg, that’s the name I took; which means the little Ros, just as Rosmore means the muckle Ros, and Ben Ros the hill. I’m grand upon Hieland antiquities, and considered one o’ the first authorities. Ye’ll see, ye’ll see,” said Rankin, waving his hand as he held out the paper to his visitor. It was a very well-known paper, one in which a great many questions are put and answered. The reader will not need to be told its highly respectable name.
“Is it you that has written all this about some bard—Donald—I can’t say his name? And there’s an answer from Ben Cruachan, and one from Mr. Davies, and G. Johnson—oh, Eddy! St. Chad’s, Cambridge!”
“I say,” Eddy had begun, “hand us out some of the doggies, and don’t talk;” but when he saw the page which Rosamond held out to him, he laughed out till the cottage rang. “Oh ho,” he said, “Johnson! Here is a lark! Johnson! Now we’ll have some fun. I say, gamekeeper! Johnson’s here.”
“What is your will, sir?” said Rankin, with great dignity. The purveyor of dogs could take a joke, but not the contributor to Notes and Queries. In the latter capacity, John Rankin veiled his bonnet to none.
“Why, Johnson, I tell you. Johnson’s here! Don’t you know what I mean? Johnson, the don,” and Eddy laughed again till the tears ran down his cheeks. “I’ll bring him to see you, old fellow. You shall have your fight out, and I’ll back you, old boy, to him, six to one.”
“My learned correspondent!” said Rankin, with a look of excitement. And then he turned to Rosamond. “Your brother is a wild laddie, but I suppose what he says is true?”
“I suppose so,” said Rosamond, with great gravity, while Eddy did his best to subdue the convulsions of laughter into which he had fallen. His sister was impatient of Eddy’s joke, and of the whole matter. “Let us, please, see the little dogs,” she said.
“Yes; but I’m far more interested about the other thing,” said Rankin, “for I would like well to put forth my views in a mair extended form. The space of the paper is real limited. They will sometimes leave out just your maist conclusive argument. Dod! but I’d like a crack with Mr. Johnson fine.”
“I wish you would not laugh like a fool,” said Rosamond, frowning. “What is there to laugh about? Mr. Johnson is not nearly so nice-looking as Mr. Rankin, and I think he’ll be disappointed in him. But you need not go on making a ridiculous noise in this way. I wish to have one of the little dogs to give to a lady I know. She will be very kind to it. She is my grandmamma. She likes her dogs better than anything else in the world.”
“The dogues are fine creatures,” said Rankin; “but no to be made a first objeck. I dinna agree with that. A leddy that likes her dogs better than anything else will just probably spile them, baith their health and their moral nature. Ye will observe, mem, that I am not wanting to sell my dogues. I have aye plenty of customers for them: the first houses in the land has my dogues. It’s no as if I was keen to sell. She will no doubt feed them in a ridiculous way—sweet biscuits and made dishes, instead of good porridge and a bone at a time. Na, I think I’ll no give you one for your grandmammaw, though I dinna like to disappoint a bonnie young leddy. If it was for yoursel’ now—”
“I would like to have this one for myself,” said Rosamond, as the little half-blind puppy curled on her lap and nibbled at her fingers. “It will be like little Roy at Rosmore.”
“That will it!” said old Rankin in the fervour of generous acquiescence, “or may be even finer. And ye shall have it, ye shall have it! I will give ye my directions, and ye’ll make a principle of carrying them out. If ye do that, ye’ll keep the little beastie in good health, and aye clean and pleasant—and he’ll be a pleasure to ye a’ his days. There are no finer bred dogues in a’ Scotland, though I say it that maybe shouldn’t. And if ye’ll be guided by me, ye’ll just call him Roy too. It is a fine handy little name. I call them all the same, like Dandy Dinmont’s terriers in Sir Walter, as maybe ye will remember. It’s a kind of token of the race: and ye may make real pleasant acquaintances about the world, or maybe, wha kens, be directed to a braw gentleman that will make ye a fine partner for life—just by the circumstance of having twa doggies by the name of Roy, baith from Rosmore!”
Rankin ended with a faint guffaw partly at his own humour, partly in the emotion of giving up to a stranger one of his cherished infants. He dived again into the mysterious receptacle in which the puppies feebly squeeled and whined, within reach of his hand, and produced, all warm and blurred from that nest, another ball of fur. “Ye can tak’ your choice,” he said; “this ane is of the line of Roy as well as that ane. It is the last I have, and I dinna see my way to pleasure Lady Jean till maybe geyan weel on in the next year. If ye were to fancy the twa, I wadna grudge them to ye: for I think you know what you’re about with dogues. Would you like to have it? Oh, it’s not to please me but to please you. I can dispose of the double of what I have got, or am like to get. There’s not a person comes to Rosmore but is keen for one of Rankin’s dogues. But I’m that pleased with you and your sense, that, if ye like, I’ll let you have the twa.”
Rosamond accepted the favour in her stately way. “Have we any money, Eddy?” she said. It did not in the least trouble her when her brother for answer turned his pockets inside out “It does not matter in the least,” she said. “I should like to have them both, and the money will come somehow.” She was not touched with doubt as Archie had been about the possibilities of paying. She was aware that she was poor, and had not a penny; but most things she wanted were procured for her in one way or another. This had been Rosamond’s experience since ever she remembered, and naturally it gave her mind a great calm.
“And yon you were saying about Mr. Johnson?” said the gamekeeper, turning to Eddy when the bargain was made.—“Wha’s that chapping at the door?” he added impatiently. “Some gangrel body with an e’e to the dogues, and muckle Roy out there just a senseless beast that bids a’ body welcome, and hasna a bark in him. Janet, woman! wha’s that chappin’ at the door?”
“It’s I,” said a voice that made Eddy start “It’s a friend—of your master’s, my good man.”
“My maister’s!” said Rankin, “Wha’s that, I would like to ken? Janet, just shut the door upon his nose, the uncivil person. My maister’s! It will be some English towerist body that kens no better,” he added condescendingly with a wave of his hand. “You may let him come in.”
“Why, Rankin,” cried Eddy, “you are in luck! This is the very gentleman—of St Chad’s, Cambridge. Johnson, come in—you’re in luck too, I can tell you. Here’s the champion that holds another view. You’re on the Welsh side, aren’t you?—here’s the great authority, Ros-beg, that takes the other view.”
“What?” said Johnson, coming in a little blinded from the winterly sunshine outside into the comparative gloom of the cottage, where the window was half covered with the drawn blind to keep out the sun. Mrs. Rankin had a notion, shared by many simple housekeepers, that the sun puts out the fire. “Eh—ah, who are you? I’ll swear that’s Eddy Saumarez’s voice.”
Rosamond rose up from her place by the gamekeeper’s bedside, and put back the puppy. The very sound of this man’s voice offended her. To be sure it was the usual thing for everybody to say Eddy Saumarez. She had seen him discussed by that name in the sporting papers, the horrible crumpled things which he left about—there was nothing surprising in it; but there was something exasperating in the sound of his voice.
“Oh, Miss Saumarez,” he said, stepping back a little. Her presence startled him as much as his appearance exasperated her.
“I think,” she said, “as you’ve found your friend, I’ll go back by myself, Eddy. And good-bye, Mr. Rankin. I will pay the greatest attention to your instructions when you send me the dogs.”
Then without taking any notice of the intruder, except by the slightest of bows, Rosamond turned and walked away. She waved her hand to Janet, but Janet was accustomed to scant ceremony, and was not offended. Rosamond was vaguely uneasy about this man and his frequent re-appearance, and Eddy’s intention of having him asked to Rosmore. Of course Mrs. Rowland would do it, if she were asked. Rosamond was not aware of the impression he had already made on Evelyn’s mind. Nor had she any doubts as to the truth of Eddy’s description. Everything, she was aware, had changed at the University as at other places. There were no tests, and anybody might become a don. Of course, if he was a don, there was no reason why he should not be given an invitation for any entertainment. But only she, Rosamond, would not countenance him. She would neither dance with him nor talk with him. His appearance meant no good to Eddy if he were a hundred times a don. Eddy was a boy whom it was impossible to keep out of mischief, whatever happened. If anything went wrong, she felt sure her father would hold her responsible, which would be extremely unjust, for what could she do? Thus she reasoned with herself as she walked very quickly through the woods, hurrying home. Home! is was not home. In about ten days or so, this visit would be over, and if Eddy played any tricks, probably Mrs. Rowland would never ask them again. And Eddy was almost certain to play tricks of one kind or another. His flirtation with Marion must come to some end. And what did father mean by sending him there? Was it intended that he should marry Marion? was Marion rich enough to make father wish that Eddy should marry her? These questions became disagreeably present with Rosamond as she walked back to the house, and gave her a great feeling of insecurity and discomfort of every kind. It really was not safe to go anywhere with Eddy: he was sure to get himself into scrapes and have disreputable acquaintances appearing after him. A curve of annoyance came over Rosamond’s smooth brow. It did not occur to her, however, as a thing possible, that any blame in any other way could turn upon herself.