Red Rowans Part 5

"If he likes it, why not? Every man must have invented his own tartan, once upon a time, you know; the Macleods into the bargain."

Will Cameron smiled languidly. "You are a beggar to argue, Marjory.

But as I said before, the laird must marry money."

"Sell himself instead of his property?"

"Why not? he is worth buying, and she needn't be ugly."

"Ugly! as if that were the only question! I believe it is all you men think of. Why, Will, you haven't told me anything about Captain Macleod except that he is good-looking; and I knew that before. I wanted to hear what he was like--he himself, I mean."

He looked at her with comical amus.e.m.e.nt. "You have come to the wrong man, my dear. I never could tell my own character, much less anybody else's. But here is old John, beaming with satisfaction at the thought of coming slaughter among the birds. Ask him!"

"Is it what the laird is like?" echoed the bent but active old man, pausing with a troop of wiry-haired terriers at his heels. "Then he is real bonnie, Miss Marjory; that's what he is."

"So I told her; but she wants to know more." John Macpherson scratched his ear dubiously, then brightened up. "Then it's a terrible good shot he will be. Aye! ever since he was a laddie no higher than my heart.

Just a terrible good shot, that's what he is."

"After all," remarked Will, as the old man pa.s.sed on, "that gives you as good a clue to the laird as anything else would do. Old John meant that as the highest praise. The coachman in all probability would say he was a first-rate rider. I have heard mother call him a good young man, but that was when _I_ had lost five pounds at the Skye gathering, and he had won. The fact being that he had a knack of warping people's judgment; it was he, by the way, who advised me to bet on a man who couldn't putt a bit. He used always to twist me round his little finger when we were boys together--and by Jove! he had a temper.

Sulky, too, and obstinate as a mule."

"Thank you," interrupted Marjory, drily; "that's quite enough. Well, I hope n.o.body nice will buy him."

Will Cameron flushed up quite hotly. "Now, I call that really nasty, Marjory, when it can't matter to you. And you know as well as I do that we want money awfully; you, who are always railing at the black huts, and the lack of chimneys, and----"

But Marjory, after a habit of hers when she was not quite sure of her ground, had s.h.i.+fted it, and pa.s.sed on to the house, whence the sounds of sweeping and hammering continued. Will shook his head at her retreating figure, smiled, and called out cheerfully:--

"Tell mother not to hurry, he can't come till the evening boat."

Vain message, since you might just as well have made such an appeal to old Time himself as to Mrs. Cameron, who, despite her seventy years and portly figure, was bustling about, the very personification of order, even in her haste. You felt instinctively that every symptom of hurry was the result of a conscientious conception of the importance of her part in the day's proceedings, and that to be calm would have been considered culpable. Yet, as she trotted about, her voluminous black skirts tucked through their placket-hole, not a hair of her flat iron-grey curls was astray, not a fold of her white muslin kerchief, or frill of her starched lace cap was awry, though her aides-de-camp, a couple of sonsy Highland maids, were generally dishevelled, cross, and hot.

"Eh! Marjory, my dear," she cried, catching sight of the latter, as she entered the large low hall, set round with antlers; "ye're just in the nick to help count the napery while I see to the laird's chamber.

He will be for having his old wee roomie, I mis...o...b.. me; he was always for having his own way, too. But he will just no have it, that's all.

Folks must accept their position, aye! and maintain their privileges in these days, when every bit servant la.s.sie claims a looking-gla.s.s to prink at." The last words were delivered full in the face of a pert South country maid, who, with an armful of towels, pa.s.sed by in rather an elaborate pink dress. It was merely a snap shot, however, for the old lady hurried on her appointed way, leaving Marjory and the offender, who was quite accustomed to being a target, in charge of the dark lavender-scented linen closet. Pleasant work at all times this, of handling the cool, smooth piles; the only household possessions which never seem to suffer from being laid away, which come out of their scented tomb with their smoothness emphasised by long pressure, their folds sharply accurate, their very gloss seeming to have grown in the dark. No fear of moth here; no hint of decay. Marjory, singling out a fine tablecloth and napkins for the laird's first meal at home, and choosing the whitest of sheets and pillow-cases for his bed, found herself unable to believe that long years had pa.s.sed since some woman's hand had carefully put them away. It seemed impossible that it should be so, and that they should be ready to begin their work as if not a day had pa.s.sed. Unchanged in a world of change! But the guest himself would be more changed than his surroundings; for he could only have been a boy--not much older than she herself--when he was last at Gleneira. The thought lingered, and after her task was over she wandered from room to room trying to put herself in his place, and guess how it would strike him. For it was pleasant sometimes, when one had an hour to spare, to spend it in that fanciful world of feeling, with which her practical life had so little to do.

His mother's sitting-room! That could not fail to be sad, even though the fair-haired original of the faded portrait in pastels over the mantelpiece had pa.s.sed from life when he was still a child. Yet, if _she_ by any chance could see even the smallest thing that had once belonged to that mother whose memory was a mere abstraction, who had never really existed for her at all, she would feel sad, and so he must also who had known his. Well, Captain Macleod's mother must have been dreadfully fond of fancy work, to judge by the room! And yet, not so long ago, she herself had been full of childish admiration for that terrible screen in the corner, which now only excited a wild wonder how any responsible human being could have wasted hours--nay! days, months--in producing such a fearful result. It represented a Highlander in full national costume, done in cross-st.i.tch; the flesh was worked in small pink beads, giving a horrible pimply appearance to the face and a stony glare to the eyes; in the distance rose purple silk hills, and the foreground consisted of an over-grown velvet pile mongrel with a tail in feather st.i.tch. In those childish days of admiration, however, it had had a fearful charm of its own, born of its inaccessibility. For, once within a certain radius, the whole picture disappeared into a senseless medley of silk, worsted, and beads. Only distance lent design, making four white beads and a black one a recognisable equivalent for the human eye. As she stood looking at it now, an amused smile curved her lips, with the remembrance that in still more childish days she had mixed up this magnificent Highlander with her conceptions of the absent laird. Probably it was quite as like him now as the crayon drawing, labelled "Paul," of a pallid boy holding a toy s.h.i.+p, which hung on the wall beside the pastel. On the other side was another pallid boy holding another s.h.i.+p, and labelled "Alick." As far as she could judge Alick might have grown up to be Paul, and Paul to be Alick. Only Paul held his s.h.i.+p in his right hand, and Alick in his left; but that was, of course, only because their portraits had to look at each other across the picture of their mother; because, as it were, of the exigencies of Art. She smiled to herself as she drifted on lazily to what Mrs. Cameron had considered the keystone of the laird's position. It was a dim, dignified room, with a dreadful bed. So large, so square, so evenly surrounded with Macleod tartan hangings that a sleeper immured therein might well on waking lose his airs, and which way he was lying. A bed which might have a dozen ghostly occupants, and the flesh and blood one be none the wiser of those dead and gone lairds of Gleneira.

Marjory, oppressed by the very look of it, threw the windows, wide as they would set, to the air and suns.h.i.+ne. Even so, it was a dreary, depressing room, especially to one coming alone, unwelcomed by kindred, to his old home. With a sudden impulse of pity she drew from her belt a bunch of white heather and stag-horn moss which she had gathered that morning, and arranged it neatly in a little empty vase which stood on the wide dressing-table. A poor effort, yet it gave a certain air of expectancy to the room; more appropriate also to the occasion than more elaborate garden flowers would have been, since white heather stood for luck, and the stag-horn moss was the badge of the Macleod clan. A charming little welcome, truly, if the laird had eyes to see! Her face, reflected in the looking-gla.s.s as she stood smiling over her task, would, however, have been a more charming welcome still could the laird have seen it. And then the sound of wheels on the loose gravel outside sent her to the window in sudden alarm; but it was only the Manse machine, drawn by the old grey horse, with Father Macdonald on the front seat beside Mr. Wilson, who, as he caught sight of her, stood up with profound bows, disclosing a curly brown Brutus wig. And there was Will lounging at the horse's head, and his mother on the steps with dignified gesticulations. Beyond towards the Strath was the wide panorama of hill and moor and sea, flooded in light. The sudden feeling that it is good to be here, which comes even to untransfigured humanity at times, filled the girl's heart with content as she nodded back to her two devoted old friends who were now both standing up in the dogcart, waving their hats. How good everyone was to her! How happy they all were together in the Glen! And she had never before seemed to realise it so completely.

"Heard I ever the like?" rose in Mrs. Cameron's most imperious tones.

"To pa.s.s by the house wi' an empty stomach, and it not even a fast! A fast, say I? A feast for Gleneira, and twa gla.s.ses o' port wine for Father Macdonald whether he will or no. Marjory, my la.s.s, away with them like good boys to the parlour and cry on Kirsty for the gla.s.ses.

Will, ye gawk, are there no grooms in Gleneira House that you must be standing there doing their wark. Now, Mr. Wilson, just come you down to _terry-firmy_, as you would say yourself. You're no golden calf, man, to be put up on a pedestal."

"My dear Madam!" cried he, gaily, clambering down with no small regard to the Graces. "If it is a question of wors.h.i.+p, 'tis I who should be at your feet. _Facilius crescit quam_."

"_A cader va chi troppo in alto sale_," interrupted Father Macdonald, clambering down on his side. He was a small man with round childish face, possessed of that marvellously delicate yet healthy complexion which one sees in Sisters of Charity; in those, briefly, who take no care for beauty and lead a life of austerity and self-denial. A complexion which a society woman would have given her eyes to possess.

"Hoot away wi' your gifts o' tongues," retorted the old lady, in mock indignation at the perennial jest of strange quotations. "Marjory, just take them ben and stop their mouths wi' cake and wine. And make them drink luck to the auld house that is to be graced wi' its master."

"Ah, my dear Madam," said the incorrigible offender, ambling up the steps, and giving a sly glance at Marjory, "you agree with our friend Cicero, '_Nec, domo dominus sed domino domus honestanda est_.'"

Mrs. Cameron treated the remark with silent contempt, and Marjory, leading the way into the morning room where Paul Macleod's portrait hung on the wall, looked back with a kind smile at the two old men who, never having owned chick or child of their own, treated her as a daughter. A sort of dream-daughter, dear yet far removed from the hard realities of every-day familiarity.

"I'm so glad you were pa.s.sing to-day, father," she said eagerly; "I found a little Neapolitan song among some old music here, and I want you to see if I sing it right."

Mr. Wilson, seated in the armchair, his legs disposed elegantly, straightened his necktie, and made a remark to the effect that the Neapolitans were the most debased Christian population in Europe. And that despite the fact that they lived, as it were, under the very nose of the Pope. An attack which was the result of an ever-green jealousy in regard to the little Jesuit's superior knowledge.

"Neapolitan! Ah! my dear young lady, the patois is almost beyond me.

If it had been Roman!" The smooth childlike face grew almost wistful thinking of the days so long ago spent in the still seclusion of the Scotch college, or out in the noisy colour of the Roman streets; a quaint memory for the old man who for fifty years had never seen a town, whose very occupation was pa.s.sing away from his life, as, one by one, the old adherents to the old faith still lingering among the mountain fastnesses, died and were buried by him.

"Ah! you will manage," said Marjory, cheerfully. "It isn't as if you didn't know the subject, for it is sure to be all about love. Songs always are."

So, while the cake and wine were coming in, she sate down to the piano and sang, guided by the two old men, of love; for Mr. Wilson, great on philology, had his views on the mutations of vowels and consonants, and stood beside the little priest beating time to the phrases with his gold eyegla.s.ses.

Mrs. Cameron found them so, and rallied them on their taste when there was good port-wine on the table.

"My dear Madam," retorted Mr. Wilson, positively s.h.i.+ning with delight at his own opportunity of showing that his acquaintance was not confined to dead languages. "We have only put the 'Weib und Gesang'

before the 'Wein'; and I am sure anyone who had the privilege of hearing Miss Marjory sing would do the same."

She made him a little mock curtsey, but Mrs. Cameron would none of it, and cut a huge slice of cake. "No! no! minister; from the very beginning o' things men-folks cared more for their stomachs than their hearts. If Eve, poor body, had only given Adam a better dinner he wouldna have been wantin' to eat apples betwixt whiles, and a deal o'

trouble might have been saved. But a woman's different. She takes it ill if a man doesn't fall in love with her; she's aye wantin'----"

"I'm sure I don't want anything," put in Marjory, with her head in the air.

"Don't be talkin' havers, child. I tell ye a woman's aye wantin' it.

Auld as I am----"

"My dear Madam," expostulated Mr. Wilson.

"Haud your whist, minister," interrupted Mrs. Cameron, tartly; "what will you be knowing o' a woman's heart? I tell you she may be auld and grey, she may hae left half the pleasures o' this world behind her, she may hae been a wife for two score years, and spent her heart's bluid in rearing weans, but what's left o' the heart will be turnin'

wi' regret to the time when the auld body who sits on the t.i.ther side o' the fire--girding at his food, maybe--was courtin' her. Or, maybe, when some ither auld body that's no at the t.i.ther side of the fire was courtin'. There's no sayin'."

There was a silence: and then the old priest said under his breath: "_Amor a nullo amato amor perdona_."

Mr. Wilson nodded his brown Brutus wig in a.s.sent. He did not mind that sort of Italian. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the humanities could understand so much. So they were merry over the cake and wine; merry even over the parting with it in obedience to the minister's Horatian order: "_Lusisti satis, editsi satis, alque bibisti, Tempus abire ibe est_"--which Mrs. Cameron insisted on having explained to her word by word. It was a complete exposition, she a.s.serted, of the whole duty of man as viewed by men. To eat, to drink, to amuse themselves, and then to run away.

That same evening, in the mirk end of the gloaming, Marjory, walking in the garden between the great borders of clove pinks which were sending out their fragrance to meet the coming night, heard the _feu de joie_, arranged by old John Macpherson to greet the laird's arrival, go off like the beginning of a battle. Half an hour afterwards Will Cameron returned, calling loudly for his supper, and full of enthusiasm.

"Upon my word, Marjory, I think he is handsomer and more charming than ever."

"Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain," said the young lady, taking a leaf out of Mr. Gillespie's book.

CHAPTER IV.

People who only know the West Highlands in the rainy months of August and September, when a chill damp, almost suggestive of winter, comes to the air, will scarcely credit the intense heat which June and July often bring to the narrow glens, shut in on all sides by sun-baked mountains. Then the springs fail, and the cattle break through the fences, seeking the nearest point of the river; or stand knee-deep in the estuary water, flicking away the plague of flies with their tails, and lowing seaward to the returning tides. Then the burns, fine as a silver thread down the mountain sides, run with a clear bell-like tinkle through the boulders over which they will dash with a roar and a rush in the coming Lammas floods. Then the cotton gra.s.s hangs motionless on its hair-like stem, and the bog myrtle gives out a hot, dry, aromatic scent, to mingle with that of the drying gra.s.s. On such days as these, everything having life instinctively seeks the shade.

So Marjory Carmichael, on the morning after the laird's return, left the dusty high-road, crossed the fast hardening bogs by the tussocks of gay mosses tufted with bell-heather, and so continued her walk along the alder-fringed bank of the river. Even at that early hour not a leaf was stirring; the very bees hung lazily on the pale lilac scabious flowers, and the faint hush of the river had a metallic sound. Marjory, clambering down a fern-clad bank, sat down beneath a clump of hazels, set with green nuts. Below her the river, between the alder stems, showed olive and gold in sunlight or shade, with every now and again a foam fleck sailing by; for, some fifty yards above her resting-place, the Eira, fresh from a boisterous half-mile scramble among the rocks, rushed through a narrow chasm at racing speed, and fell recklessly, das.h.i.+ng itself into a white heat of hurry in a seething whirling pool set in sheer walls of rock, and thence finding outlet for its pa.s.sion in a wider basin, and so, with ever clearing face, sliding into peace in the dark oily pool beneath the bank where Marjory sate. Her favourite nook, however, in all the river side, lay higher up, close to the leap, where she could watch the gleaming sea-trout and an occasional salmon patiently trying at the fall, see the flash of the rapids beyond the fringing ferns, or mark the drifting shadows on the opposite hillside. But the single rowan tree, clinging with distorted roots to the heather-tufted cliff, flung its branches over the fall, and gave no shade elsewhere; hence on this hottest of hot July mornings Marjory chose the hazel hollow instead, and leaning back among the flowering gra.s.ses, which sent a pinkish bloom of tiny fallen blossom on her curly hair, drew a long, closely written letter from her pocket, turned to its last sheet, and began to read it. Not for the first time, but then Cousin Tom's letters were worth a dozen of most people's, especially when they had something to say, as this one had:--