The Incendiary Part 7

Indigo and the piper entered from opposite doors at about the same time, the former fetching the "whey," which had a suspiciously reddish hue and was served in narrow bottles, the latter arrayed in all the bravery of his plaids, with a little boy by his side in similar costume.

"Hit her up, Sawnie," cried Kennedy.

"Let him wet his whistle first," said the Sunburst.

"And here's a handsel to cross his palm," added Harry, pa.s.sing the piper something invisible. The minstrel pocketed it with an awkward bow and drank down the proffered "whey" at one gulp.

"I'll be reminding you, gentlemen," he said in "braid Scots," "lest ye labor under a misapprehension of my cognomen, that my name is not Sawnie, but Duncan McKenzie Logan, and this is my wee bairn, Archibald Campbell of that ilk. We're half-lowland, as ye doubtless know, the Logans being a border clan."

"Why don't you make the youngster blow the bellows?" cried Idler. "The organ-player never does the pumping."

"I'm no organ-player, if you please. 'Tis the hieland pipes I play, and there's no blowing the bellows except with my ain mouth. But the laddie dances prettily. Show your steps, Archie. Show the gentlemen a fling. Ainblins they've never seen the like of it before."

Archie was as highland as his father in rig, from his jaunty feathered bonnet to the kilt just reaching below his bare, brown knees. His firm boyish face had a Scotch prettiness in it, nothing effeminate, yet sweet to look at, and he went through the steps of the highland fling gracefully, one hand on hip, the other over his head, reversing them now and then, and occasionally spinning around, while the piper struck up "Roy's Wife." The conclusion was greeted with a burst of applause.

"Can't we dance to that tune, boys?" shouted Harry, seizing Kennedy around the waist. "Choose your partners. Give us a Tarantella."

"There's nae such tune in the hielands," said the piper, gravely.

"Well, the skirt dance will do. Hit her up and I'll make you a present big enough to buy all your aunts and cousins porridge for a fortnight."

"There's nae skeert dance known to my pipes," said the highlander, shaking his head. "Dinna ye mean the sword dance?"

"Try 'Highland Laddie'," suggested Idler, hitting up a lively jig on the piano. The piper fell in and soon was pacing up and down the room, red in the face from his exertions, while the four merrymakers capered, kicked and skipped, with all sorts of offhand juvenilities. Harry, though the tallest present, was graceful as a girl.

"Hold up, fellows," cried the Sunburst, at last, puffing audibly. But the piper continued pacing up and down, forgetting everything in the furore of his enthusiasm except the moaning and shrieking of his instrument.

"Hold up, I say. Shut off your infernal drone. We can't hear ourselves think."

"'Tis the wind wailing on Craig-Ellachie I hear," said he of the Caledonian names.

"I think it's delirium tremens. Take a nip of the whey. That'll cure you. Here, Indigo, tap the geyser again for Sawnie."

Logan was not the man to set up frivolous punctilios against such an order as Idler's.

"There's medicine for the inner mon," he said, smacking his lips with gusto.

"Medicinal, eh? If you happen to take an overdose it's a medicinal spree, I suppose."

"I say, isn't tomorrow the Fourth?" cried Sunburst. "Play something patriotic, Sawnie, 'Hull's Victory,' or 'Lady Was.h.i.+ngton's Reel.'"

"There's nane o' them known to me or my instrument," said the minstrel. "It's a Scotch pipe and will play nane but the auld tunes of Scotland."

"Scotland! What's Scotland?" asked Idler.

"Wha--can it be ye never heard tell o' bonnie Scotland?" gasped the highlander, who was nearing the condition which Idler had described as a "medicinal spree."

"What is it, a man or a place? Did you ever meet the name before, fellows?"

All three solemnly shook their heads, whereat the Caledonian's jaw dropped in amazement.

"Wull, wull, I knew 'twas a most barbarous country I entered, but I'd thought the least enlightened peoples of the airth had heard of the glory and the celebrity of bonnie Scotland."

"Bonnie Scotland? Is Bonnie his first name?"

"Why, 'tis the country o' Scotland, I mean."

"Oh, I know," interposed Harry; "that little, barren, outlying province somewhere to the north of England."

"Oh, that!" cried the others, in contemptuous chorus.

"Where the coast line gets ragged, like an old beggar's coat," said Idler.

"And the people live on haggis and finnan haddie," added Kennedy.

"They are mostly exiles of Erin that have drifted back into barbarism," cried the Sunburst.

"Yes, that's the place," said Harry. "I've heard travelers tell of it. I believe it's put down in the latest gazetteer."

Poor Logan looked like a stifling man, but before he could launch his reply the long-drawn tones of a rival troubadour invaded the apartment. Once more the four roysterers rushed to the window.

"It's a dago!"

"Ahoy!" they signaled, waving their hands.

"Open the door for him, Indigo," cried Harry.

"Did you ever hear tell o' such savages, Archie?" whispered the piper to his son; "that had no enlightenment on the name o' bonnie Scotland, which is famous wherever valor and minstrelsy are honored."

"They maun be jestin', daddy."

"Jestin'? Tut, tut! Whaur's the jest?"

"Pres...o...b..llisimo, Paganini," cried the four youths, each rus.h.i.+ng to the door and welcoming the organ-grinder, with a warm shake-hands. The Italian smiled profusely and doffed his cap, his monkey climbing to the organ top and imitating him in every gesture.

"Tune up your bagpipes, Sawnie," cried Harry. "We are going to have a tournament. Take a smell, Paganini?"

"Noa," answered the Italian, shaking his head, "noa drink--a."

"Then you're a bigger fool than you look," cried Idler, stumbling tipsily. "(Hic) I'm losing control of my curves."

"What tunes have you got in that box?" asked Harry of the organ-grinder, while Logan eyed him grimly with a look of scorn.

"What-a sing-a? 'Anni Runi.'"

"That will do. Grind away. Hold on. Get a full breath, Sawnie. Now for a medley."

The organ-grinder began turning his crank, but the Scotchman sulked in the corner.

"Stop there, Paganini. False start. Try again."

"I'll accompany nae uncivilized barrel-box, that's only fit to dandle idiot bairns wi'."

"What are you talking about?" cried Idler. "Uncivilized! You wildman of the hills! A red outlaw in his war paint couldn't look and act more outlandish than you do."

"Smooth him down, Harry," cried Sunburst. "Here, Sawnie, how much will you take for your pipes?"

"Enough to buy me them back again," answered the Scotchman, cannily, "and a bonus for the time o' their privation."

"You'll do," said Idler.

"Have another nip of the whey and let's hear you drown the dago," whispered Harry, confidentially, patting Logan on the back.

"Drown him? 'Twad na tak' a big puddle to do that."

"Of course not. But he's vain enough to think just the opposite. A good swig! Start her up now."

Idler drummed on the piano a few bars of "Scots Wha Ha'e," which set the piper marching and stamping again. At a nod from Harry the bowing Italian resumed his tune, and when the four carousers took hands in a circle and began chanting "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot," the air was infernal with discord.

"Faster! Faster!" cried Harry. The Scotchman pranced in his industrious ecstasy, while the Italian put both hands to the organ-crank and turned for all that was in him.

"Oh, a smile for my Rosalie!" shouted Kennedy, maliciously, changing the air.

"None of that!" cried Harry, barely making his voice heard above the din. The little boy sitting in one corner had clapped both palms over his ears, and the monkey, watching his gesture, gravely climbed up and perched beside him, doing likewise.

"A kiss for my Rosalie," roared Kennedy, tantalizing his host. Half-angry, Harry caught up a wine bottle from the tray and pointed it at his tormentor.

"Pop!" the cork flew out and Kennedy put his hand to his eye with an exclamation of pain.

"h.e.l.lo! What have I done?" cried Harry.

"Didn't know it was loaded," jeered Idler. But the concert had stopped, and when Kennedy uncovered his eye there was a blue swelling already under the lid.

"A surgeon!" cried Sunburst. "Amputate his head. It is the only hope of saving the eye."

"What's good for a black eye?" asked Harry, less unfeelingly than the others.

"Black the other for symmetry," cried Sunburst.

"Get some beefsteak, Indigo," said Harry.

"Kill the Jersey cow, Indigo, and cut off a sirloin," mocked Idler, who was half-seas over now. Meanwhile the Scotchman and the Italian, counting their emoluments, had folded their instruments and silently stolen away; while Sunburst, apparently as porous as a sponge, calmly and steadily put the bottle Harry had popped to his lips and drained it to the dregs.

CHAPTER X.

APPEARANCES AND DISAPPEARANCES.

"Now for Sir Galahad in jail!" said Harry, touching the bay with the point of his whip.

"He was an awfully virtuous cad!" laughed Kennedy. Sunburst had offered to convey Idler safely home, while Kennedy, the black-eyed, accompanied Harry, himself none the better for his morning bottle-bout, to the clubhouse in town. On the way they would make the visit to Robert.

There was evidently a strong dash of the Arnold blood in Harry. He showed more resemblance to his cousin than to the proud, thin-lipped woman who had sat through Floyd's preliminary trial. A stranger might even confuse them at the first glance, though Harry was five years the older of the two. It could not be gainsaid that he bore his age well. His movements were leopard-like in their swiftness and ease and his eyes shone with mesmeric power. The little darkness under their lids might be a peculiarity of complexion, but occasionally, in moments of repose, a shadow, no more, seemed to cross the cheek and make it look worn. His companions had noticed that the cue-point wavered a trifle in his hands of late and that his ma.s.se shots sometimes failed to draw the b.a.l.l.s. But he was still facile princeps among gentlemen boxers of the city; and his long, brown arms were a delight to watch on the river, crossing and recrossing in the graceful rhythm of the practiced oarsman.

Arnold's true nature was hard to judge, for circ.u.mstances had conspired to spoil him from the cradle. A comely child, he had been allowed to carry the knickerbocker period of tossing curls and gratified whims far into his teens, and the discovery that her darling was a man, and no longer a painted picture to be gazed at and displayed, had come upon his mother suddenly, like an unforeseen catastrophe. It had cost her many a pang to realize that she, who aspired to be sole mistress of his heart, shared now only a divided affection with a score of alien interests. Still she continued to indulge and antic.i.p.ate his desires. They were rich and social station was her birthright. But it was with a jealous gnawing in her heart that she would sign the check for his new pleasure yacht or watch him pat the neck of his steeplechaser Aladdin.

The dislike she bore to Robert Floyd was a natural consequence of his uncle's partiality. The families were outwardly upon good terms. If early influence counts, there could not well be much similarity of taste between the youth whose steps had been guided by the virile head of Benjamin Arnold and the idol of that indulgent, worldly mother who never forgot that she belonged to the Brewsters of Lynn.

"Hold her ten minutes," said Harry, giving the reins to Kennedy at the outer gate of the jail. His name was a sufficient pa.s.sport to the officer who guarded the outer turnstile, and he was directed across a bricked yard to the jail building proper. Here a more detailed explanation was exacted. Harry answered the questions suavely but not without some suppressed impatience. A few moments of delay, which he beguiled with an incessant finger-tattoo, and he was conducted to murderers' row.

"This isn't much like home, Rob," was his greeting, fortified by a hand extended through the cell bars. Floyd pressed it somewhat coldly.

"I'm grateful for the visit, Harry," he said.

"I was deucedly down with malaria when uncle died, you know."

"I was sorry to hear that from your mother."

"Yes, might have come around to the trial, I suppose; but mother wouldn't have it. You understand how she feels. Besides, what good could I do?"

"You are better now?"

"Awoke this morning as fresh as a new-born babe. Going down to play with the foils awhile. Can't stop long."

Was it the glow of convalescence or of wine that shone in Harry's face? He made one or two imaginary pa.s.ses with his cane, regardless of the feelings of the prisoner, to whom such a picture of prospective enjoyment could hardly be soothing.

"But I say, Rob," he cried, apparently remembering himself, "this is hard on you. What do you think of it all?"

Floyd eyed his cousin, as if the appropriate answer were not easy to find.

"It is hard," he replied.

"What would Uncle Ben say if he were alive?"

"Uncle Benjamin would be the first to proclaim my innocence," said Robert, his voice vibrant with emotion.

"To tell the truth, Rob, I don't know whether to be sorry his old scrawl's canceled or not. I had my doubts how I fared at Uncle Ben's hands. Mother said my half was hunky, but you know uncle hadn't that respect for my precious person she has." Harry's laugh showed that he was well aware of his mother's weakness in that regard. "How was it? Do you know? Did the old gentleman forget me?"

"I believe we were treated nearly alike," answered Robert.

"Gad, then I owe you $5,000,000----"