David Elginbrod Part 34

He let himself in with a pa.s.s-key at a low door, and then conducted Hugh, by a stair whose narrowness was equalled by its steepness, to a room, which, though not many yards above the level of the court, was yet next to the roof of the low house. Hugh could see nothing till his conductor lighted a candle. Then he found himself in a rather large room with a shaky floor and a low roof. A chintz-curtained bed in one corner had the skin of a tiger thrown over it; and a table in another had a pair of foils lying upon it.

The German--for such he seemed to Hugh--offered him a chair in the politest manner; and Hugh sat down.

"I am only in lodgings here," said the host; "so you will forgive the poverty of my establishment."

"There is no occasion for forgiveness, I a.s.sure you," answered Hugh.

"You wished to know something of the subject with which that lecturer was befooling himself and the audience at the same time."

"I shall be grateful for any enlightenment."

"Ah! it is a subject for the study of a benevolent scholar, not for such a clown as that. He jumps at no conclusions; yet he shares the fate of one who does: he flounders in the mire between. No man will make anything of it who has not the benefit of the human race at heart. Humanity is the only safe guide in matters such as these.

This is a dangerous study indeed in unskilful hands."

Here a frightful caterwauling interrupted Herr von Funkelstein. The room had a storm-window, of which the lattice stood open. In front of it, on the roof, seen against a white house opposite, stood a demon of a cat, arched to half its length, with a tail expanded to double its natural thickness. Its antagonist was invisible from where Hugh sat. Von Funkelstein started up without making the slightest noise, trod as softly as a cat to the table, took up one of the foils, removed the b.u.t.ton, and, creeping close to the window, made one rapid pa.s.s at the enemy, which vanished with a shriek of hatred and fear. He then, replacing the b.u.t.ton, laid the foil down, and resumed his seat and his discourse. This, after dealing with generalities and commonplaces for some time, gave no sign of coming either to an end or to the point. All the time he was watching Hugh--at least so Hugh thought--as if speculating on him in general.

Then appearing to have come to some conclusion, he gave his mind more to his talk, and encouraged Hugh to speak as well. The conversation lasted for nearly half an hour. At its close, Hugh felt that the stranger had touched upon a variety of interesting subjects, as one possessed of a minute knowledge of them. But he did not feel that he had gained any insight from his conversation.

It seemed rather as if he had been giving him a number of psychological, social, literary, and scientific receipts. During the course of the talk, his eye had appeared to rest on Hugh by a kind of compulsion; as if by its own will it would have retired from the scrutiny, but the will of its owner was too strong for it. In seemed, in relation to him, to be only a kind of tool, which he used for a particular purpose.

At length Funkelstein rose, and, marching across the room to a cupboard, brought out a bottle and gla.s.ses, saying, in the most by-the-bye way, as he went:

"Have you the second-sight, Mr. Sutherland?"

"Certainly not, as far as I am aware."

"Ah! the Welch do have it, do they not?"

"Oh! yes, of course," answered Hugh laughing. "I should like to know, though," he added, "whether they inherit the gift as Celts or as mountaineers."

"Will you take a gla.s.s of--?"

"Of nothing, thank you," answered and interrupted Hugh. "It is time for me to be going. Indeed, I fear I have stayed too long already.

Good night, Herr von Funkelstein."

"You will allow me the honour of returning your visit?"

Hugh felt he could do no less, although he had not the smallest desire to keep up the acquaintance. He wrote Arnstead on his card.

As he left the house, he stumbled over something in the court.

Looking down, he saw it was a cat, apparently dead.

"Can it be the cat Herr Funkelstein made the pa.s.s at?" thought he.

But presently he forgot all about it, in the visions of Euphra which filled his mind during his moonlight walk home. It just occurred to him, however, before those visions had blotted everything else from his view, that he had learned simply nothing whatever about biology from his late host.

When he reached home, he was admitted by the butler, and retired to bed at once, where he slept soundly, for the first time for many nights.

But, as he drew near his own room, he might have seen, though he saw not, a little white figure gliding away in the far distance of the long pa.s.sage. It was only Harry, who could not lie still in his bed, till he knew that his big brother was safe at home.

CHAPTER XV.

ANOTHER EVENING LECTURE.

This Eneas is come to Paradise Out of the swolowe of h.e.l.l.

CHAUCER.--Legend of Dido.

The next day, Hugh was determined to find or make an opportunity of speaking to Euphra; and fortune seemed to favour him.--Or was it Euphra herself, in one or other of her inexplicable moods? At all events, she had that morning allowed the ladies and her uncle to go without her; and Hugh met her as he went to his study.

"May I speak to you for one moment?" said he, hurriedly, and with trembling lips.

"Yes, certainly," she replied with a smile, and a glance in his face as of wonder as to what could trouble him so much. Then turning, and leading the way, she said:

"Come into my room."

He followed her. She turned and shut the door, which he had left open behind him. He almost knelt to her; but something held him back from that.

"Euphra," he said, "what have I done to offend you?"

"Offend me! Nothing."--This was uttered in a perfect tone of surprise.

"How is it that you avoid me as you do, and will not allow me one moment's speech with you? You are driving me to distraction."

"Why, you foolish man!" she answered, half playfully, pressing the palms of her little hands together, and looking up in his face, "how can I? Don't you see how those two dear old ladies swallow me up in their faddles? Oh, dear? Oh, dear! I wish they would go. Then it would be all right again--wouldn't it?"

But Hugh was not to be so easily satisfied.

"Before they came, ever since that night--"

"Hush-sh!" she interrupted, putting her finger on his lips, and looking hurriedly round her with an air of fright, of which he could hardly judge whether it was real or a.s.sumed--"hush!"

Comforted wondrously by the hushing finger, Hugh would yet understand more.

"I am no baby, dear Euphra," he said, taking hold of the hand to which the finger belonged, and laying it on his mouth; "do not make one of me. There is some mystery in all this--at least something I do not understand."

"I will tell you all about it one day. But, seriously, you must be careful how you behave to me; for if my uncle should, but for one moment, entertain a suspicion--good-bye to you--perhaps good-bye to Arnstead. All my influence with him comes from his thinking that I like him better than anybody else. So you must not make the poor old man jealous. By the bye," she went on--rapidly, as if she would turn the current of the conversation aside--"what a favourite you have grown with him! You should have heard him talk of you to the old ladies. I might well be jealous of you. There never was a tutor like his."

Hugh's heart smote him that the praise of even this common man, proud of his own vanity, should be undeserved by him. He was troubled, too, at the flippancy with which Euphra spoke; yet not the less did he feel that he loved her pa.s.sionately.

"I daresay," he replied, "he praised me as he would anything else that happened to be his. Isn't that old bay horse of his the best hack in the county?"

"You naughty man! Are you going to be satirical?"

"You claim that as your privilege, do you?"

"Worse and worse! I will not talk to you. But, seriously, for I must go--bring your Italian to--to--" She hesitated.

"To the library--why not?" suggested Hugh.