Mungo looked incredulous. That any one should let go the chance of conveying so rare a piece of gossip to persons so immediately concerned was impossible of belief. "Na, na," said he, shaking his head; "she has every word o't, or her faither at least, and that's the same thing. But shoon or nae shoon, yon's the man for my money!"

"Again he has my felicitations," said Count Victor, with a good humour unfailing. Indeed he could afford to be good-humoured if this were true.

So here was the explanation of Olivia's condescension, her indifference to her lover's injury, of which her father could not fail to have apprised her even if Mungo had been capable of a miracle and held his tongue. The Chamberlain, then, was no longer in favour! Here was joy!

Count Victor could scarce contain himself. How many women would have been flattered at the fierceness of devotion implied in a lover's readiness to commit a.s.sa.s.sination out of sheer jealousy of a supposit.i.tious rival in her affections? But Olivia--praise _le bon Dieu!_--was not like that.

He thrust the coat into Mungo's hands and went hurriedly up to his room to be alone with his thoughts, that he feared might show themselves plainly in his face if he met either the lady or her father, and there for the first time had a memory of Cecile--some odd irrelevance of a memory--in which she figured in a masque in a Paris garden. Good G.o.d!

that he should have failed to see it before; this Cecile had been an actress, as, he told himself, were most of her s.e.x he had hitherto encountered, and 'twas doubtful if he once had touched her soul. Olivia had shown him now, in silences, in sighs, in some unusual _aura_ of sincerity that was round her like the innocence of infancy, that what he thought was love a year ago was but its drossy elements. Seeking the first woman in the eyes of the second, he had found the perfect lover there!

CHAPTER x.x.xV -- A d.a.m.nATORY DOc.u.mENT

Mungo took the coat into the castle kitchen, the true arcanum of Doom, where he and Annapla solved the domestic problems that in later years had not been permitted to disturb the mind of the master or his daughter. An enormous fireplace, arched like a bridge, and poorly enough fed nowadays compared with its gluttony in those happier years of his continual bemoaning, when plenty kept the spit perpetually at work, if it were only for the good of the beggars who blackened the road from the Lowlands, had a handful of peat in its centre to make the yawning orifice the more pathetic to eyes that had seen the flames leap there.

Everywhere the evidence of the old abundant days--the rusting spit itself, the idle battery of cuisine, long rows of shining covers.

Annapla, who was a.s.sumed to be true tutelary genius of these things, but in fact was beholden to the martial mannikin of Fife for inspiration and aid with the simplest of ragouts, though he would have died sooner than be suspected of the unsoldierly art of cookery,--Annapla was in one of her trances. Her head was swathed mountainously in shawls; her wild, black, lambent eyes had the look of distant contemplation.

"Lord keep 's!" said Mungo, entering, "what are ye doverin' on noo?

Wauken up, ye auld b.i.t.c.h, and gie this coat a dight. D'ye ken wha's ocht it? It belangs to a gentleman that's no' like noo to get but this same, and the back-o'-my-haun'-to-ye oot o' Doom Castle."

She took the coat and brushed it in a lethargy, with odd, unintelligible chanting.

"Nane o' your warlock canticles!" cried Mungo. "Ye gied the la.s.sie to the man that cam' withouten boots--sorrow be on the bargain! And if it's cast-in' a spell on the coat ye are, I'll raither clean't mysel'."

With that he seized the garment from her and l.u.s.tily applied himself.

"A bonny-like hostler-wife ye'll mak'," said he. "And few'll come to Mungo Byde's hostelry if his wife's to be eternally in a deevilish dwaam, concocting Hielan' spells when she should be stirring at the broth. No' that I can blame ye muckle for a want o' the up-tak in what pertains to culinairy airts; for what hae ye seen here since ye cam' awa frae the rest o' the drove in Arroquhar but lang kail, and oaten brose, and mashlum bannocks? Oh! sirs, sirs!--I've seen the day!"

Annapla emerged from her trance, and ogled him with an amusing admiration.

"And noo it's a' by wi't; it's the end o' the auld ballant," went on the little man. "I've kept auld Doom in times o' rowth and splendour, and noo I'm spared to see't rouped, the laird a dyvour and a nameless wanderer ower the face o' the earth. He's gaun abroad, he tells me, and settles to sit doon aboot Dunkerque in France. It's but fair, maybe, that whaur his forbears squandered he should gang wi' the little that's to the fore. I mind o' his faither gaun awa at the last hoved up, a fair Jeshurun, his een like to loup oot o' his heid wi' fat, and comin'

back a pooked craw frae the dicing and the drink, nae doot amoung the scatter-brained white c.o.c.kades. Whatna shilpit man's this that Leevie's gotten for her new jo? As if I dinna see through them! The tawpie's taen the gee at the Factor because he played yon ploy wi' his lads frae the Maltland barracks, and this Frenchy's ower the lugs in love wi' her, I can see as plain as Cowal, though it's a shameless thing to say't. He's gotten gey far ben in a michty short time. Ye're aye saying them that come unsent for should sit unserved; but wha sent for this billy oot o'

France? and wha has been sae coothered up as he has since he cam' here?

The Baron doesnae ken the shifts that you and me's been put to for to save his repitation. Mony a lee I tauld doon there i' the clachan to soother them oot o' b.u.t.ter and milk and eggs, and a bit hen at times; mony a time I hae gie'n my ain dinner to thae gangrel bodies frae Glencro sooner nor hae them think there was nae rowth o' vivers whaur they never wer sent awa empty-haunded afore. I aye keepit my he'rt up wi' the notion that him doon-bye the coat belangs to wad hae made a match o't, and saved us a' frae beggary. But there's an end o' that, sorry am I. And sorry may you be; ye auld runt, to hear't, for he's been the guid enough friend to me; and there wad never hae been the Red Sodger Tavern for us if it wasnae for his interest in a man that has aye kep' up the airmy."

Annapla seemed to find the dialect of Fife most pleasing and melodious.

She listened to his monologue with approving smiles, and sitting on a stool, cowered within the arch, warming her hands at the apology for a flame.

"Wha the deevil could hae tauld her it was the lad himsel' was here that nicht wi' his desperate chiels frae the barracks? It couldna' be you, for I didna' tell ye mysel' for fear ye wad bluitter it oot and spoil his chances. She kent onyway, and it was for no ither reason she gie'd him the route, unless--unless she had a notion o' the Frenchman frae the first glisk o' him. There's no acc.o.o.ntin' for tastes; clap a bunnet on a tawtie-bogle, wi' a c.o.c.k to the ae side that's kin' o' knowin', and ony woman'll jump at his neck, though ye micht pap peas through the place whaur his wame should be. The Frenchy's no' my taste onyway; and noo, there's Sim! Just think o' Sim gettin' the dirty gae-bye frae a glaikit la.s.sie hauf his age; and no' his equal in the three parishes, wi' a leg to tak' the ee o' a hal dancin'-school, and auld Knapdale's money comin' till him whenever Knapdale's gane, and I'm hearin' he's in the deid-thraws already. Ill fa' the day fotch the Frenchy! The race o'

them never brocht ocht in my generation to puir Scotland worth a bodle, unless it micht be a new frica.s.see to fyle a stamach wi'. I'm fair bate to ken what this c.o.o.nt wants here. 'Drimdarroch,' says he, but that's fair rideeculous, unless it was the real auld bauld Drimdarroch, and that's nae ither than Doom. I winna wonder if he heard o' Leevie ere ever he left the France."

Annapla began to drowse at the fire. He saw her head nod, and came round with the coat in his hand to confirm his suspicion that she was about to fall asleep. Her eyes were shut.

"Wauken up, Luckie!" he cried, disgusted at this absence of appreciation. "What ails the body? Ye're into your d.a.m.nable dwaam again.

There's them that's gowks enough to think ye're seein' Sichts, when it's neither mair nor less than he'rt-sick laziness, and I was ance ane o'

them mysel'. Ye hinnae as muckle o' the Sicht as wad let ye see when Leevie was makin' a gowk o' ye to gar ye hang oot signals for her auld jo. A bonny-like brewster-wife ye'll mak', I warrant!" He tapped her, not unkindly, on the head with the back of his brush, and brought her to earth again.

"Are ye listenin', ye auld runt?" said he. "I'm goin' doon to the toon i' the aifternoon wi' this braw coat and money for Monsher's inn acc.o.o.nt, and if ye're no' mair wide-awake by that time, there's deil the cries'll gae in wi' auld MacNair."

The woman laughed, not at all displeased with herself nor with her rough admirer, and set to some trivial office. Mungo was finished with the coat; he held it out at arm's length, admiring its plenitude of lace, and finally put off his own hodden garment that he might try on the Chamberlain's.

"G.o.d!" said he, "it fits me like an empty ale-cask. I thocht the c.o.o.nt looked gey like a galo-shan in't, but I maun be the bonny doo mysel'.

And I'm no that wee neither, for it's ticht aboot the back."

Annapla thought her diminutive admirer adorable; she stood raptly gazing on him, with her dish-clout dripping on the floor.

"I wonder if there's no' a note or twa o' the New Bank i' the pouches,"

said Mungo, and began to search. Something in one of the pockets rustled to the touch, and with a face of great expectancy he drew forth what proved to be a letter. The seal was broken, there was neither an address nor the superscription of the writer; the handwriting was a faint Italian, betokening a lady--there was no delicate scrupulosity about the domestic, and the good Mungo unhesitatingly indulged himself.

"It's no' exactly a note," said he, contracting his brows above the doc.u.ment. Not for the first time Annapla regretted her inability to read, as she craned over his shoulder to see what evidently created much astonishment in her future lord.

"Weel, that bates a'!" he cried when he had finished, and he turned, visibly flushing, even through his apple-red complexion, to see Annapla at his shoulder.

"It's a guid thing the Sicht's nae use for English write," said he, replacing the letter carefully in the pocket whence it had come.

"This'll gae back to himsel', and naebody be nane the wiser o't for Mungo Byde."

For half an hour he busied himself with aiding Annapla at the preparation of dinner, suddenly become silent as a consequence of what the letter had revealed to him, and then he went out to prepare his boat for his trip to town.

Annapla did not hesitate a moment; she fished out the letter and hurried with it to her master, less, it must be owned, from a desire to inform him, than from a womanly wish to share a secret that had apparently been of the greatest interest to Mungo.

Doom took it from her hands in an abstraction, for he was whelmed with the bitter prospect of imminent farewells; he carelessly scanned the sheet with half-closed eyes, and was well through perusing it before he realised that it had any interest. He began at the beginning again, caught the meaning of a sentence, sat bolt upright in the chair where Annapla had found him lolling, and finished with eagerness and astonishment.

Where had she got this? She hesitated to tell him that it had been pilfered from the owner's pocket, and intimated that she had picked it up outside.

"Good woman," said he in Gaelic, "you have picked up a fortune. It would have saved me much tribulation, and yourself some extra work, if you had happened to pick it up a month ago!"

He hurried to Olivia.

"My dear," he said, "I have come upon the oddest secret."

His daughter reddened to the roots of her hair, and fell to trembling with inexplicable shame. He did not observe it.

"It is that you have got out of the grip of the gled. Yon person was an even blacker villain than I guessed."

"Oh!" she said, apparently much relieved, "and is that your secret? I have no wonder left in me for any new display of wickedness from Simon MacTaggart."

"Listen," he said, and read her the d.a.m.natory doc.u.ment. She flushed, she trembled, she well-nigh wept with shame; but "Oh!" she cried at the end, "is he not the n.o.ble man?"

"The n.o.ble man!" cried Doom at such an irrelevant conclusion. "Are you out of your wits, Olivia?"

She stammered an explanation. "I do not mean--I do not mean--this--wretch that is exposed here, but Count Victor. He has known it all along."

"H'm," said Doom. "I fancy he has. That was, like enough, the cause of the duel. But I do not think it was n.o.ble at all that he should keep silent upon a matter so closely affecting the happiness of your whole life."

Olivia saw this too, when helped to it, and bit her lip. It was, a.s.suredly, not right that Count Victor, in the possession of such secrets as this letter revealed, should allow her to throw herself away on the villain there portrayed.

"He may have some reason we cannot guess," she said, and thought of one that made her heart beat wildly.

"No reason but a Frenchman's would let me lose my daughter to a scamp out of a pure punctilio. I can scarcely believe that he knew all that is in this letter. And you, my dear, you never guessed any more than I that these attacks under cover of night were the work of Simon MacTaggart."