“COME along, Johnson,” said Eddy; “don’t be shy. The nature of great scholars, Rankin, is that they’re dreadfully shy, don’t you know. A man that you couldn’t put out by the heaviest argument will give in at the sight of a young lady. That’s like our friend here: he thinks every woman he sees is going to bite him, or—marry him, perhaps, out of hand, as you do in Scotland, don’t you know.”
“There is a great deal o’ nonsense prevalent about Scotch marriages,” said Rankin. “It’s nothing of the kind. Come away ben, Mr. Johnson, I’m real glad to see you. Dod! he’s no so lo’esome in his ain person that he should be frichtened for the leddies; but study’s mair embellishin’ for the mind than the body. Come in by, sir, and gi’e me a shake o’ your hand. You and me’s had mony a controversy, but nane sae bitter but that we may meet as friends.”
“Eh! what’s the man saying? What have I got to do with him?” cried Johnson, stumbling in, with eyes as yet unaccustomed to the light.
“I tell you,” said Eddy, “of course you never expected to find here the great Ros-beg, your opponent on the question of—What question was it, Rankin? Don’t attempt to hide your honours, Johnson, my boy. Everybody here knows you’re Johnson of St. Chad’s. You have only got to behave yourself as such, and recognise the power of learning wherever you see it. This, I tell you, is Ros-beg, your adversary on——”
“I say, Eddy, none of your humbug! I’ve got to talk to you on serious business, and here you are agoing on with your pranks to drive a man out of his senses.”
“I have nothing to do with it,” said Eddy. “This gentleman here in the bed, though you mightn’t think it, is a great scholar, Johnson. He’s driven you into a corner and holds you there. We know what you mean when you pretend ignorance. It’s because you’re shut up. You might find an argument if you were in your own study among all your books at St. Chad’s; but here, face to face with the great Ros-beg, you’ve not got a word to say.”
“Be canny with him, be canny with him, sir,” said Rankin, a glow of complacency on his face. “A man’s no to be expected to be ready wi’ his weepons just at a moment’s notice. Coming into a Highland cottage, how was he to think he was to be confronted by an adversary? Na, na; great allowances must be made. Sit down, sir, and tak’ time and come to yourself.”
“By Jove!” said Johnson, with most un-don-like force, “I think you mean to drive me mad, Eddy Saumarez! One day it’s with your ladies, and another day it’s with this old——”
“Let him get it oot, let him get it oot,” cried Rankin. “Oh, ay! it’s easier to abuse your opponent than to answer him; that’s a trick weel kent in controversy. An auld—what, sir?—get it oot; it will ease your mind, and it will do me nae hairm.”
“Johnson, you fool, can’t you see that you’ve got a character to keep up,” cried Eddy, half-choking with laughter. The youth was full of mischievous delight in his mystification, but he was not without a meaning behind it, which was the thing most interesting to his present victim.
“I see your game, Mr. Eddy,” said Johnson: “but you aint going to get the better of me. Be done with that stuff, and come out and let us have a bit of serious talk. You know as well as I do what’s hanging over your head. If you can’t bring him something to stop his mouth, that old cove will—— or give him security as you’re to be married before a certain day. I don’t mind who I speak before. If you’ll not listen to me one time, you’ll have to listen another!” cried Johnson, working himself up into energy. Eddy stood facing the light with the ruddy glow of the flames playing over him, his somewhat worn and pale young face broadened with laughter. The effect of his youth, and perhaps a special impishness of nature, gave him a delight in mischief which the most serious emergency could not destroy.
“I told you,” he said, “this man’s always got his thoughts filled with marrying—especially in Scotland, where you can always do it at a moment’s notice. When he’s not in terror for himself he’s in terror for me.”
“Ye may deliver your soul o’ a’ such terrors,” said Rankin angrily. “There’s naebody will marry ye here but the minister, and him no afore a’ inquiry’s made. There’s an awfu’ deal o’ nonsense prevalent about Scotch marriages. It’s a question I would have no objection to argue oot with ye, if ye prefer that to a mair learned subject,” said the gamekeeper with a disdainful wave of his hand.
“I argue!” cried Johnson; “I’ll not argue; it aint my line. I’m not a parson, nor I aint a lawyer; I’m a plain man, by Jove! I’ve got my own business, and I know how to do it; and this I tell you, Master Eddy, if you aint ready with that cash, and before the month’s out, come by it as ye will——”
“Can’t you hold your d——d tongue! Can’t you see what’s expected of you!” said Eddy in a rapid whisper.—“Rankin,” he said, raising his voice, “I’m ashamed of my man. He hasn’t pluck enough to come up to the scratch. The sight of you has routed him hand and foot. There’s no spirit left in him at all.”
“He never said a truer word,” said Rankin, “than when he said he couldna argue. I’m glad he has that much knowledge o’ himsel’. It was aye a wonder to me that the editor let him in wi’ his disjectae membrae and hotchpotch o’ reasoning. I’m no surprised, for my pairt; but after this exheebition, I’m thinking it would be just as weel to tak’ the cratur away. It’s a’e thing to ha’e the gift o’ sound argument, which is no given to everybody, and it’s anither thing to be ceevil to a man in his ain house. Maybe, however, he thinks because I’m here in a cottage and no able for any exertion, that it’s no me. But I can gi’e him evidence that it’s me.” Rankin put up his hand to a box of papers fastened within his reach by the wall, and dived into it, much as, on the other hand, he dived into the nest of his dogs. “There’s the editor’s ain hand of write addressed to John Rankin, Esquire, which will maybe convince him. No that it matters a brass bodle to me, if a man, when he’s worsted in arguments, forgets his mainners. It’s just of as little consequence as the yelping of thae beasties of dogues.” Rankin took the puppies, who had been stumbling, with little whines and sniffs, over the heights and hollows of his own person, and dropped them one after another into what seemed some invisible pocket, their disappearance acting as a sort of energetic punctuation to his words. The letter, which he had flung towards the stranger, was indeed directed as he had said, and disclosed as it fell on the bed a number of proof-sheets or cuttings, very conclusive to the instructed eye. But Mr. Johnson did not look at them at all. He said, “What have I to do with the old—gentleman’s letters,” substituting that word for “fool,” which he had intended to use, on the compulsion of Eddy’s eye.
“Then, good-bye, Rankin, I’ll soon come back,” said Eddy, shaking the old gamekeeper’s hand; “but, look here, I’ll bring no more of my grand friends to see you from the Universities, if you are going to crumple them up like this.”
Rankin laughed the satisfied laugh of the controversialist who has demolished his adversary. “He hadna a word to say for himself, no’ a word. It’s one thing compiling nonsense out o’ books in a library, and meeting a man face to face. Ye just saw for yoursel’ that the beggar hadna a word to say.”
“Eh me,” said Janet, who had gone out to the door to see the visitors fairly off, “that was an awfu’ like man to be one of your great scholars, as ye call them. I’ve seen the college gentlemen in my young days, and fine lads some o’ them were. I wadna have believed that was a college gentleman if it had been tell’t to me.”
“And what do you know about it?” said Rankin, scornfully. “There’s the evidence that he just would not face me, the moment he heard who I was. I never thought he had the root of the maitter in him. Just a blethering retailer o’ other men’s opinions, no fit to haud his ain in any real controversy. I’m a wee disappointed, for it would have been a grand sensation to have it oot with ane of those Oxford ignoramuses in my ain house; but ye see he could not put out a finger without his authorities at his back.—I think I’ll maybe take a pickle mair broth.”
“If yon’s a college man and a gentleman,” said Janet, “I’ll just allow that I never was mair deceivit in my life.”
Eddy took his friend’s arm as they issued out from the shadow of the cottage. “Why didn’t you show fight?” he said, “you fool! You can act well enough when you like. Why didn’t you be civil and draw him out? He’d have done all the talk himself, and you’d have saved your character as a college fellow and a don.”
“There’s been enough of this nonsense,” said Johnson. “I tried it on with the lady the other day, and I put my foot into it. She didn’t believe I was a don, as you call it, any more—than any other person would. What was I to say to that old fool? I didn’t know what he was talking about. Look here, we must have some talk serious, none of your humbug. I have my orders as clear as daylight. If he can’t pay up—”
“I know,” said Eddy, impatiently, “I know! I’ve heard all that before.”
“You’ll not hear it again, my fine fellow, or else it’ll be before the judge for something that is more ticklish than debt. Don’t you know there’s that little bit of paper as was refused at the bank. No assets, just your luck to keep you from the Old Bailey. But he’s got it all the time. If you’re safe to marry the railway man’s daughter, perhaps I might get him persuaded to wait. For I’m your friend, Eddy Saumarez, you know as I always stand your friend when you don’t play any of your tricks. I can’t go bail for him that he’ll do that; for what with putting him off, and never answering his letters, and letting things swing, he’s in the temper of the very——; but if it’s certain and settled, and the figure of her fortune known, and all that—”
“You saw for yourself how things were going,” said Eddy, not without a faint blush of shame, “the other day on the hill.”
“Oh, I saw you, fast enough—carrying on. But when I said to the lady, ‘That’s a case if ever there was one,’ she looked at me as if she could have knocked me down. ‘If you mean it’s an engagement,’ she says, as sharp as anything, ‘you’re mistaken, and it wouldn’t be allowed for a minute on either side.’”
“You put that into her head, you everlasting fool!” cried Eddy. And then with an effort of self-control, or rather with the natural facility of his easy temper, he added, bursting into a laugh, “She’s the stepmother, and they hate her all round. The more she opposes it the more it’s sure to be, so you see there’s more things in heaven and earth, Johnson, than are in your philosophy. What she says is just the thing that will never come to pass. I say, if you’ll behave a little decent, and get up the character, I’ll make her send you an invitation to the big ball!”
“The ball!”
“I know you’re fond of high life, and seeing smart people: and you can act when you like. Now look here, put a good face upon it and let’s have a little more time. Write to him that you’ve got a promise of having everything settled if you wait till after the 30th, and that you’re going to a ball at Rowland’s house under my wing; and then you’ll wire about the engagement and all that as soon as ever it comes off. You’ll never have such a chance again,” said Eddy; “crême de la crême, my boy, and all that sort of thing.”
“People of the place,” said Johnson, with a sneer.
“People of the place! Well I hope when it’s Clydesdale and his lot, that’s good enough for you. And perhaps you call the Duke of Arran one of the people of the place. So he is, for it all belongs to him: and the Huntingshaws and the Herons, who, I rather think, have been heard of even in London town.”
“Oh, well,” said Johnson, with half eager, half reluctant acquiescence; “but if that lady is the one to give the invitations, you will never get her to ask me.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Eddy, complacently, “I think I know what I’m about.”
“You know a deal too well what you’re about. For a fellow of your age, you are the oldest fellow and the most artful I ever knew. I do believe it’s only to gain time, and that there’s nothing in it. Carrying on with a girl is nothing to you; you can get ‘em to believe you when another fellow hasn’t even the chance to have a hearing. There’s that tall one, your sister, looks at me as if I was the dirt under her feet. I’ll tell you what, if you’ll make her give me a dance at this thundering ball of yours, I’ll do it—whatever the Governor may say.”
“Well you can ask her,” said Eddy, in lightness of heart, “like any other gentleman. You don’t want an introduction, because you’ve met her before. A woman can’t refuse without being ill-bred, and nobody could ever say of the Saumarez that they were ill-bred. Of course she’ll dance with you—if you ask her,” he said, with a laugh.
“What’s that laugh for?” said Johnson, suspiciously.
“Oh come, if a man isn’t allowed to laugh! It’s for the fun of the thing. I’ve seen you in a good many queer circumstances, but I never saw you at a society ball dancing with girls—of that sort, don’t you know. I’ll get you an introduction to the Duchess,” cried Eddy, “and you can ask her to dance. By Jove what fun it will be! I shouldn’t wonder if you had what they call a great success. But mind, whatever you do, you must learn up the part.”
“Where shall I get it?” said Johnson. The idea of success in the world which was “smart” turned his head. The thought went through his mind that it might be but the beginning of triumph. The Duchess, if she found his dancing to her mind, might invite him during the season. She might ask him to the Cumbraes, that princely mansion. The light swam in Johnson’s eyes. He felt as if he were on the verge of a new world. He could learn a part with any man, and mind his cues and enter into his rôle. Where could he get it? He ran over all the plays he knew, which was saying a good deal, but he could not remember the part of a don. “Hang it all,” he said, “I wish you had introduced me as a plunger or a Guardsman, or something of that sort. I could have got ‘em as easy as look at ‘em; but I don’t remember no don.”
“There are plenty in novels,” said Eddy.
“Oh, novels!—I don’t read any except the yellow kind. I say how d’ye dress the part? Is it a long coat and a white tie? or what is it? I don’t know nothing about it,” said Johnson, falling in his anxiety into the dialect of his kind.
“In the evening,” said Eddy, “all gentlemen dress alike, except when they’re parsons. Johnson of St. Chad’s is not a parson. Probably in the day time he wears an easy coat, and smokes a pipe. But we’d better leave that. You only want your evening things—I suppose they’re decently cut—and a flower in your coat; but mind you have not a bouquet like a coachman at a drawing-room.”
“I think I know enough for that,” said the novice; “but you’d better get me one of those dashed novels if I’m to learn up the part.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes towards the moor; great visions filled the mind of Johnson. “I say,” he resumed after a while, “couldn’t you get me asked for the shooting one day? The young fellow aint much of a swell, whatever the rest of them may be; and I should like to shoulder a gun on a real moor, just for once in a way. It’s a thing to have done. The Governor would like it too. ‘My son’s up shooting in Scotland,’ he’d tell everybody, ‘with some of his smart friends.’”
“He can say it all the same, whether or not,” said Eddy.
“That’s true; but it feels much nicer when there’s something in it. I say—I don’t mind standing a sovereign to the gamekeeper, if you’ll manage that. I’d give a sovereign any day to have some birds to send up to town with that heather stuff round ‘em, and a label, ‘From A. Johnson, Esquire.’”
“You had better give the sovereign to me,” said Eddy, “if I am to take the trouble of it. Well, I’ll try—and you’ll have to get up that part too, Johnson, the don on the moors.”
“Oh, I aint frightened for that. Do they ask you to shoot at the Cumbraes—that’s the Duke’s place?” said Johnson, with greater and greater visions of delight rising before his eyes.
“They don’t ask me, but they might ask you,” cried Eddy, with a peal of laughter. “‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’ When once you get to know a Duke, all the rest follows like clockwork.”
“That was what I thought,” Johnson said modestly. He marched on by Eddy’s side for some time over the heather. Then he paused, and looked his companion in the face. “Mind,” he said, “I don’t say as I shan’t like all this very much, and if I get on, I shall never forget as it was you as launched me, Master Eddy. But that’s not to interfere with business: you’ll have to keep to your day and square your account, or else the Governor will be down upon you, and there’s not a little thing in the whole affair as won’t be brought to the light of day.”
“And who will that harm most?” said Eddy. “I’ll pay up, of course; but who do you think would suffer most—I, only a boy when you got me into your accursed hands, or him, an old bloated, money-lending, sixty per cent., blood-sucking——”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head. Do you think he’ll mind what the papers may say? Look here, Eddy Saumarez, why don’t you go to your Governor and make a clean breast of it, and settle it up so as nothing should ever be brought against you again? You’ve got a lot of relations that wouldn’t like to be dragged through the mud.”
“Do you think they mind what the papers may say?” said Eddy, sardonically; “when that’s the case on both sides, there can’t be much to be done either way.”
“Well, smart people don’t, somehow,” said Johnson, “no more than we do—they’re so used to it. It aint my business to dictate how you’re to do it, but somehow you’ll have to do it. You may get the money how you please, but you must get it, and not a moment later than the 31st. Now that’s settled, I can give my thoughts to getting up the part.”
When he was left by his companion, Eddy went up by himself upon the moors, which was a kind of excursion he did not usually enjoy. He went up breasting the hill like a deer or a mountaineer, nor caring where he went, through ling and bracken, among the prickly whins, and over the treacherous quagmires of moss and bog. Something was in his mind which made him indifferent to all the accidents of the way. When he had reached the very top of the ridge he threw himself down upon the dark heather with his face upon the ground, falling as if he had been shot, and lay there for a few moments motionless as if he had died. Nature accommodates herself very easily to any vagary of rest. The dark figure seemed for a moment to disturb and break the line of vegetation, but had not been there a moment before the grasses and the ling seemed to take a new beginning, starting up from under him, the long myrtles rustling their heads, the Grass of Parnassus waving its white stars. So they would have done had he been dead, covering him over, hiding him in the bosom of the soil. He lay for a little while thus, harmonised and composed into quiet under the still touch of the hill, so that when he got up again he seemed to leave a broad and angry void where he had been. What passed in his mind while he buried his face in the coolness of the earth, and hid himself from the eye of day, it would be hard to tell—perhaps only the working of his quick brain as to what he could do in the emergency in which he found himself, perhaps compunction, miserable thoughts of the past, more miserable reflections on the future. But nothing of this was visible when he raised himself from that momentary collapse. He sat down upon the heather with his face towards the lake, and pondered, clutching at his hair with both his hands, setting his elbows on his knees. What was it he was thinking of out there upon the lonely moor, not a living creature near him except the wild creatures on the hills, the insects in the moorland vegetation. His short-sighted eyes roamed vaguely over the heather, pausing upon here and there a gleam of water in a hollow, turning instinctively, like a child toward a light, to the deep loch lying far below. But he saw little or nothing with these wandering eyes. They were bent upon visionary objects, seeing scenes and visions which had nothing to do with the moor or the loch of Rosmore.
Presently Eddy took something from his pocket, a piece of paper with a few words upon it, which he studied intently. His eyes came back from their roaming to fix themselves intently, with the contraction of the eyebrows which marked their defect, upon the paper. They were sharp eyes though they were short-sighted, seeing everything within their limited range with a keenness and mastery of every detail quite unusual, a power of observation which was more precious than the longest sight. What was it he was trying to master? A few uninteresting words, nothing of the slightest importance. Then he took out a pencil and wrote something, repeating the same characters again and again. What was it? He kept the paper so cautiously in his hand that had he been startled by any intruder he could have doubled it up in a moment, and hidden it in his hollowed palm. It was somewhat strange to see such a precaution taken on the wide stretch of moor, which was as desolate as a moor could be, some part of it dark with the blistered stems of heather which had been burned, the rest dewy and glistening with the moisture with which a few days of rain had soaked the country. The very insects were hushed by the cold of the October afternoon. A few desolate cheepings low among the heather betrayed a lowly nest here and there. In the distance a road came like a black ribbon over a corner of the slope. Eddy sent another anxious look round him, and returned to his paper, writing the same letters over and over again. Was it the name of his love? What was it? He held it so carefully under the shadow of his hand that even had some one risen silently from the heather, and looked over his shoulder, it would have been difficult to see.
This was not exactly what happened. What happened was that—coming along the dark road in the distance, Eddy spied a figure, which made him start to his feet and hastily return to his pocket the little document. He sat down again, but with his face that way, watching who it was who was approaching. There was something in the outline and the gait, those points which are all the short-sighted have to go upon, which seemed to indicate a person he knew. It was not the moment which Eddy would have chosen to encounter Archie Rowland, but there was something in his own occupation just suspended, and in the curious fancy which had brought him here, the object which he only knew, which made him eager to disarm any possible suspicion on the part of his hosts at Rosmore—which impelled him at least not to avoid the meeting. Suddenly he got up and began waving his arms about to attract the attention of the passer-by, who, pausing and standing still a moment to consider who called him, at length decided to change his course and came towards the figure thus signalling to him across the summit of the hill.