"Hoot, no!" interrupted Mrs. Cameron from the cake and wine; "good whiskey ne'er harmed a good man. It is just the idle, f.e.c.kless bodies getting drunken that gives it a bad name."

"But that is just the point, my dear lady," expostulated the young man, feeling sure of his ground. "It is for the sake of the weaker brother."

"Havers!" began Mrs. Cameron; but the Reverend James was firm, and quoted the text.

"Aye, aye!" continued the old lady, "I ken where it comes from fine, more's the pity, for I don't hold wi' it. It's just a premium on being a poor body, and is the clear ruination o' this world whatever it may be of the next. Gie me a useless, through--other man or woman, and hey! it's a weaker brother an' maun' be c.o.c.kered up."

She showed so much animation that her opponent retired from the contest discreetly by turning to the laird and beginning on a stock subject.

"I am sorry to say, Gleneira, that despite my own efforts, and the Bishop's earnest desire for the erection of a church, matters remain much as they were, when you were here last. That is to say, service has still to be conducted in the school-house, which, er--in addition to other illegitimate uses"--he glanced casually at his old enemy at this point--"also serves as a post-office; a plan which has great and undeniable inconvenience."

"And convenience, too," put in Mrs. Cameron, remorselessly. "You see, laird, the post is no delivered on the Sabbath-day, this bein' a Christian land, and so when folk go to kirk they can kill twa birds wi' one stane."

This was too much. "In my opinion," retorted the Reverend James, pompously, "it would be far less objectionable if Donald _did_ deliver the letters than that the last words of the blessing should be the signal for handing them round the congregation. But as is so often the case in Scotland, the veneration for the day--which, by the way, is not the Sabbath----"

"No, no!" interrupted the old lady, "I'm no going that gate. I've told ye oft, Mr. Gillespie, it is naught to me if it's the Sabbath or Sunday, or Lord's-day or the first day o' the week we are keeping. But I ken fine that in my learnin' days I was taught to keep it holy, so if there is ony mistake it was none o' my makin'. It's the fault of the minister."

Mr. Gillespie coughed. "The hours of service are eleven o'clock for matins, and four o'clock for evensong. Miss Marjory kindly helps us with the harmonium. Indeed, one of my reasons for coming on here was to ask her to settle the hymns for Sunday first, unless, indeed, you yourself would select one suitable--er--to the occasion."

Paul took the proffered hymn-book with visible embarra.s.sment, and looked appealingly towards Marjory, but it was impossible to laugh, for the Reverend James's proposition was saved from absurdity by its absolute simplicity.

"Really! my dear sir," he began, when Mrs. Cameron came to his rescue.

"Gie the laird a harvest hymn, Mr. Gillespie. I'll warrant he has sown his wild oats, though maybe after all, you would no care to be reapin'

them, Gleneira."

He laughed very boyishly. "My dear old friend, if they were fifty shillings a quarter, I should be the richest man in Lorneshire, instead of the poorest."

"Poor," she echoed grimly; "you couldna' be poor if you tried. It is no in some men. And now, Gleneira, there's some o' the farm folk waiting to drink your health outside, so come awa'. And you, too, Marjory, my dear, for you're a Gleneira la.s.s when all's said and done.

And the parson can tak' a gla.s.s for his oft infirmities if he'll no do it for anything less important."

They followed her out into the sunshine, where, in a solemn semi-circle, they found half-a-dozen or more of men and halflings, headed, of course, by old John Macpherson as spokesman. He held a wine gla.s.s in one hand, a black bottle in the other, and the liltiness of his att.i.tude, joined to a watery benevolence in his eye, told a tale of previous exertions towards the laird's good health. It was evident that, for the time being, he was an optimist, viewing the world as the best of all possible worlds. A gla.s.s more, and he would be ready to defend the proposition with his fists; another, and he would have wept over its denial, for Aladdin's genii of the bottle was not more powerful in metamorphosis than Scotch whiskey was on John Macpherson.

"An' here's to you, Gleneira," he said, when Paul returned the gla.s.s.

"An' it's wissing you as rich as the Duke o' Wellington--Pech!

Mistress Cameron, but yon's gude whiskey--water never touched it."

Even the refilled gla.s.s, as it pa.s.sed from hand to hand, seemed to have a vicarious effect on old John, who waxed more and more lilty, and finally, when the others moved off, lingered for an audible whisper, accompanied by an admiring glance at the laird.

"Gorsh! Miss Marjory, wa.s.s I no tellin' you he was bonnie, and iss he not bonnie, whatever?"

"A leading question, John," said Paul, readily; "witness can't be expected to answer it."

But the argumentative mood was beginning. "An' what for no. Miss Marjory will be a Highland la.s.s, an' a Highland la.s.s will no be so shamefast, but they will be knowing a bonnie lad when they see one."

"I quite agree with you, John," said the girl, quickly, with a suspicion of both a frown and a smile on her face.

Paul Macleod, as he walked home, found himself fully occupied in trying, as it were, to piece the girl's character together to his satisfaction. She was a novel experience, a pleasant one into the bargain.

So when she came to breakfast next morning, a bouquet of hot-house flowers lay on her plate with Captain Macleod's best wishes for her birthday.

"I think it is very kind of him," she said judicially, in reply to Mrs. Cameron's rapture over the laird's condescension; "but Peter Morrison will be furious at having his show spoilt. And he has amputated the poor things at the knee. Men ought never to pick flowers, they don't understand them, except gardeners, and they never want to pick them at all."

When she went up that afternoon to the Big House in order to aid Mrs.

Cameron's taste in the matter of new curtains, there was a little bunch of white heather and stag-horn moss tucked into her belt. In finding room amongst the vases for the newcomers this had seemed too pretty to throw away, that was all. But Paul Macleod's keen eyes fell on it at once with a certain satisfaction; nevertheless, he made no allusion to the subject, a reticence which he would not have observed towards most women of his acquaintance. It was sufficient for him to be aware of its complicated history. That sort of thing gave an infinite zest to life.

CHAPTER VI.

Even in the dusty glare of a dusty July sun, one of the largest houses in Queen's Gardens looked cool and pleasant with its delicate shades of grey on wall and portico, its striped jalousies and tiled window gardens gay with scarlet geraniums, yellow calceolarias, and blue lobelias; flowers, all of them, which seem somehow to have lost their flowerfulness by being so constantly a.s.sociated in one's mind with area railings, barrel organs, and the eternal rat-tat of the postman's knock--to be brief, with London. For all the pa.s.ser-by knew or cared, those lines of brilliant red, yellow, and blue blossoms might have been cunningly composed of paper, and would have served their purpose to the full as well had they been so, since no one, even inside the house, ever looked on them in the light of living, breathing plants going through a process of asphyxiation. It is difficult no doubt to resist the temptation to have pot-plants in London, but how often when brought face to face with the hideous ravages which a day or two of its poisonous atmosphere makes on our favourites has not the true flower-lover felt nothing short of murder. The inhabitants of the house in Queen's Gardens, however, had not even this chance for remorse, since the boxes were kept bright by contract, and if any poor plant was ill-advised enough to droop and complain, it was promptly rooted up and replaced by the man who came in the early mornings to "walk the hospitals" before the family appeared on the scene.

Within the house, the same spick and span, utterly impersonal attention to beauty prevailed. From bas.e.m.e.nt to attic it was simply perfect in its appointments. As it might well be, since an artist in copper utensils had been let loose in the kitchen, the greatest authority in the world on wall papers had been allowed his will in friezes and dados; and so on from cellar to roof. There is, of course, a good deal to be said in favour of this modern specialism. It is distinctly comforting to know, that if you have not reached perfection, you have at any rate paid for it; but to some barbarians the loss of individuality in such houses is very grievous. To begin with, you lose a most delightful study of character. And after all, if Mrs. Jones has a sneaking admiration for a pea-green carpet with pink cabbage roses sprinkled over it, why, in heaven's name, should she conceal the fact? No green that ever was dyed is greener than gra.s.s, no flower that ever was woven is half as brilliant as the blossom-mosaic which Nature spreads for you to tread upon when the snow melts from the upland Alps. Yet the house was charming enough in detail if a little confusing _en ma.s.se_ to those sensitive to their surroundings; since the drawing-room was Queen Anne, the dining-room Tudor, and various other corridors and apartments j.a.panesque, Renaissance, Early English, or Pompeian.

This again did not affect the inmates, who, indeed, would have scorned to feel as if time and s.p.a.ce had been annihilated in the course of half-a-dozen steps; such fanciful imaginations being almost wicked, when time and s.p.a.ce were distinctly necessary to the due performance of your duty in that state of life to which it had pleased Providence to call you.

On this particular morning in July, Mr. and Mrs. Woodward and their daughter Alice were seated at the breakfast table in the usual comfortable indifferent silence of people who keep a diary of outside engagements in a conspicuous place on the writing-table, and whose inner lives move in decorous procession from morn till eve. A canary was singing joyfully, but at the same time keeping a watchful eye on the grey Persian cat which walked up and down rubbing itself, as it pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, against Mrs. Woodward's gown, with an anxious look on the bread and milk she was crumbling for it. Mr. Woodward, at the other side of a central palm tree, studied the share list. Miss Alice Woodward, who had evidently come down later than the others, was still engaged listlessly on toast and b.u.t.ter; finally making a remark in an undertone to her mother that as Jack had settled to ride with her in the Park at eleven, she supposed it was about time to get ready; a remark which resulted in her pushing away her plate languidly.

"You have eaten no breakfast, my dear, and you are looking pale," said her mother, comfortably; "I will get you some more Blaud's from the Stores."

"Oh! I'm all right," replied the girl. "It's hot, and--and things are tiresome. They generally are at the end of the season, aren't they?"

She drifted easily, rather aimlessly, out of the room. Like everything else in the house she was costly and refined; pretty in herself but without any individuality. For the rest, blonde and graceful, with a faintly discontented droop of the mouth, and large, full, china-blue eyes.

Mr. Woodward watched her retreat furtively till the door closed behind her, then laid down his paper and addressed his wife with the air of a man who attends strictly to business. That was, in fact, his att.i.tude towards his daughter at all times. He did not, he said, understand girls, but he did his duty by them.

"I heard from Macleod this morning, my dear."

Mrs. Woodward went on crumbling bread gently, and there was a pause.

"Well, what does he say?"

"That the house will be ready for visitors by the 8th of next month, and that it will give him great pleasure to welcome us as soon after that date as we can manage."

"Nothing more?"

"Only the old story; that he is most anxious for our consent in order that he may speak definitely. There, read it yourself, a sensible, gentlemanly letter. I really don't think she could do better."

His tone was precisely what it would have been had he been recommending the purchase of debenture stock in a safe concern.

"Then I suppose we may consider it settled; I mean, if Alice likes the place."

"Just so; but I'm told it is charming; there is a man--in hooks-and-eyes, by the way--who has the moor next it. I met him at the Kitcheners' dinner. He said it only wanted money, and she will bring that. Besides, the man himself is all that can be desired, even by a girl."

Mrs. Woodward nodded her head. "Yes, that is such a comfort, and Lady George is so nice. Alice is quite fond of her, which is a great point with a sister-in-law. In fact, everything seems most satisfactory."

She paused a moment, and a faint shade of doubt showed on her face.

"Only, of course, there is Jack."