"Will you just tell her, then, that Sir Arthur Lyle would take it as a great favor if she'd permit him to speak to her?"

The girl disappeared with the message, but did not return again for several minutes; and when she did, she looked slightly agitated. "My mistress is very sorry, sir, but she canna see ye the day; it's a sort of a headache she has."

"Mr. Anthony, is he at home?" asked he, curious to remark the effect of his question.

"He's no just at name the noo," was the cautious reply.

"He has not been up at the Abbey to-day," said he, carelessly; "but, to be sure, I came through the 'bracken,' and might have missed him."

A little dry nod of the head, to acknowledge that this or anything else was possible, was all that his speech elicited.

"Say that I was very sorry, Jeanie, that Mrs. Butler could not see me, and sorrier for the reason; but that I hope tomorrow or next day to be more fortunate. Not," added he, after a second thought, "that what I wanted to speak of is important, except to myself; don't forget this, Jeanie."

"I winna forget," said she; and courtesying again, closed the door. Sir Arthur rode slowly back to report that his emba.s.sy had failed.

CHAPTER IV. SOME NEW ARRIVALS

Day after day went over, and no tidings of Maitland. When the post came in of a morning, and no letter in his hand appeared, Mark's impatience was too perceptible to make any comment for his sisters either safe or prudent. Nor was it till nigh a week pa.s.sed over that he himself said, "I wonder what has become of Maitland? I hope he's not ill." None followed up the theme, and it dropped. The expected guests began to drop in soon after, and, except by Mark himself, Mr. Norman Maitland was totally forgotten. The visitors were for the most part squires, and their wives and families; solid, well-to-do gentlemen, whose chief objects in life were green crops and the poor-law. Their talk was either of mangold or guano, swedes or the union, just as their sons'

conversation ranged over dogs, horses, meets, and covers; and the ladies disported in toilette, and such details of the Castle drawing-rooms as the Dublin papers afforded. There were Mr. and Mrs. Warren, with two daughters and a son; and the Hunters, with two sons and a daughter.

There were Colonel Hoyle and Mrs. Hoyle, from regimental head-quarters, Belfast; and Groves Bulkney, the member for the county, who had come over, in the fear of an approaching dissolution of Parliament, to have a look at his const.i.tuents. He was a Tory, who always voted with the Whigs; a sort of politician in great favor with the North of Ireland, and usually supposed to have much influence with both parties. There were Ma.s.seys from Tipperary, and M'Clintocks from Louth; and, lastly, herald of their approach, three large coffin-shaped trunks, undeniably of sea-origin, with the words "Cap. Gambier Graham, R.N.," marked on them, which arrived by a carrier, with three gun-cases and an immense array of fishing-tackle, gaffs, and nets.

"So I see those odious Grahams are coming," said Mark, ill-humoredly, as he met his elder sister in the hall. "I declare, if it were not that Maitland might chance to arrive in my absence, I 'd set off this very morning."

"I a.s.sure you, Mark, you are all wrong; the girls are no favorites of mine; but looking to the staple of our other guests, the Grahams are perfect boons from Heaven. The Warrens, with their infant school, and Mrs. Maxwell, with her quarrel with the bishop, and the Ma.s.seys, with their pretension about that daughter who married Lord Claude Somebody, are so terribly tiresome that I long for the racket and noise of those bustling young women, who will at least dispel our dulness."

"At the cost of our good breeding."

"At all events, they are Jolly and good-tempered girls. We have known them for--"

"Oh, don't say how long. The younger one is two years older than myself."

"No, Mark, Beck is exactly your own age."

"Then I 'm determined to call myself five-and-thirty the first opportunity I have. She shall have three years tacked to her for the coming into the world along with me."

"Sally is only thirty-four."

"Only! the idea of saying _only_ to thirty-four."

"They don't look within eight or nine years of it, I declare. I suppose you will scarcely detect the slightest change in them."

"So much the worse. Any change would improve them, in my eyes."

"And the Captain, too. He, I believe, is now Commodore."

"I perceive there is no change in the mode of travel," said Mark, pointing to the trunks. "The heavy luggage used always to arrive the day before they drove up in their vile Irish jaunting-car. Do they still come in that fashion?"

"Yes; and I really believe with the same horse they had long, long ago."

"A flea-bitten mare with a twisted tail?"

"The very same," cried she, laughing. "I'll certainly tell Beck how well you remember their horse. She 'll take it as a flattery."

"Tell her what you like; she'll soon find out how much flattery she has to expect from _me!_" After a short pause, in which he made two ineffectual attempts to light a cigar, and slightly burned his fingers, he said, "I 'd not for a hundred pounds that Maitland had met them here.

With simply stupid country gentry, he 'd not care to notice their ways nor pay attention to their humdrum habits; but these Grahams, with all their flagrant vulgarity, will be a temptation too irresistible, and he will leave this to a.s.sociate us forever in his mind with the two most ill-bred women in creation."

"You are quite unfair, Mark; they are greatly liked,--at least, people are glad to have them; and if we only had poor Tony Butler here, who used to manage them to perfection, they 'd help us wonderfully with all the dulness around us."

"Thank Heaven we have not. I 'd certainly not face such a constellation as the three of them. I tell you, frankly, that I 'd pack my portmanteau and go over to Scotland if that fellow were to come here again."

"You 're not likely to be driven to such an extremity, I suspect; but here comes papa, and I think he has been down at the Burnside; let us hear what news he has."

"It has no interest for me," said he, walking away, while she hastened out to meet Sir Arthur.

"No tidings, Alice,--at least, none that I can learn. Mrs. Butler's headache still prevents her seeing me, though I could wager I saw her at work in the garden when I turned off the high-road."

"How strange! You suspect that she avoids you?"

"I am certain of it; and I went round by the minister's, thinking to have a talk with Stewart, and hear something that might explain this; but he was engaged in preparing his sermon, and begged me to excuse him."

"I wish we could get to the bottom of this mystery. Would she receive me, do you think, if I were to go over to the cottage?"

"Most likely not I suspect whatever it be that has led to this estrangement will be a pa.s.sing cloud; let us wait and see. Who are those coming up the bend of the road? The horse looks f.a.gged enough, certainly."

"The Grahams, I declare! Oh, I must find Mark, and let him be caught here when they arrive."

"Don't let the Commodore get at _me_ before dinner; that's all I ask,"

said Sir Arthur, as he rode round to the stables.

When Alice entered the house, she found Mark at the open window watching with an opera-gla.s.s the progress of the jaunting-car as it slowly wound along the turns of the approach, lost and seen as the woods intervened or opened.

"I cannot make it out at all, Alice," said he; "there are two men and two women, as well as I can see, besides the driver."

"No, no; they have their maid, whom you mistake for a man."

"Then the maid wears a wideawake and a paletot. Look, and see for yourself;" and he handed her the gla.s.s.

"I declare you are right,--it is a man; he is beside Beck. Sally is on the side with her father."

"Are they capable of bringing some one along with them?" cried he, in horror. "Do you think they would dare to take such a liberty as that here?"

"I 'm certain they would not. It must be Kenrose the apothecary, who was coming to see one of the maids, or one of our own people, or--"

Her further conjectures were cut short by the outburst of so strong an expletive as cannot be repeated; and Mark, pale as death, stammered out, "It's Maitland! Norman Maitland!"

"But how, Mark, do they know him?"