Red Rowans Part 13

"Hand her over to me--I can generally manage to get on with people,"

he said, watching the tongs greedily; for the question of sugar in his tea was the cause of much dispute between him and his wife. A slow smile came to her face as she replaced the lump.

"No! my dear; it wouldn't be good for you," she said, coming back to the present, and then she frowned. "I cannot think what induced Paul to ask her just when so much depends on the Woodwards feeling themselves to be _the_ guests _par excellence_," she continued, after a brief but picturesque description of the offender. "And this woman is sure to sing, and play, and dance, and act. I saw it in her face."

"Jolly sort of person to have in a country house, I should say,"

remarked her husband, secretly impressed.

"I knew _you_ would say that, George," put in his wife, resignedly.

"Yes! she is just the sort of woman men love to dangle round."

"Then ask someone to dangle. That will leave the coast clear for Paul and Miss Woodward."

Lady George raised her eyebrows scornfully. "As if that would do any good! That sort of woman always insists on having the best men, and Paul looks that in most society; besides I don't feel called upon to pave the way to an heiress for anyone else but my brother. That is what it would come to. No! I cannot conceive why Paul should make things so--so much more difficult for himself."

"Natural depravity, my dear," suggested her husband, helping himself on the sly to sugar. "There is such a thing--Hullo! what's that?"

That was the sudden discovery on Blazes' part that an Ionic column, when used as an engine funnel, would, if hit violently with a good, squat Norman one, break off in the middle; a discovery which was followed by an outburst of that craze for destruction which healthy children display on the least provocation.

"He--he is not a 'Kindergarten' child," remarked his mother, plaintively, when after a time the upstairs bell had once more been rung and the offender carried off shrieking amid awed whispers of intense enjoyment, about "welly welly naughty little boys" from Adam and Eve.

"No, my dear, he isn't," a.s.sented Lord George, cheerfully. "Some of us are made that way; his uncle, for instance; but he isn't a fool, and he knows which side his bread is b.u.t.tered; a fact which has a marvellous effect in keeping a man straight."

"My dear George! what a terrible thing to say. It is a reversion to that fear of punishment----"

"My dear! I should like a second cup of tea, and this time I think you might let me have a small lump of sugar--quite a small one."

That evening Blanche wrote a long letter to her brother, which gave her some trouble to compose. In it she lavished endless praises on dear Mrs. Vane, who, to judge from her _looks_, must have had great _trouble_, and fully deserved dear, kind Paul's grateful remembrance of past services; which, by the way, she seemed to have extended to many other fortunate invalids. Altogether a most delightful woman, of _varied experiences_ if a trifle _manieree_; "though this," she added, "my dear Paul, is, I fear, a common fault with women who have been made much of _by many men_."

As it so happened he read this remark at a small picnic party where Marjory, the only lady present, was dispensing tea to Will Cameron, himself, the Reverend James Gillespie, Father Macdonald, Mr. Wilson, and Donald Post, who had been waylaid on the road just above the little creek on the loch, where they had lit their fire, to say nothing of the minister's man holding the Manse dogcart until its occupants should choose to tear themselves away from temptation and proceed on their journey.

"_Quid datur a Divis felice optatius hora?_" quoted the minister gallantly, as he set aside the girl's offer of another cup and rose to go, while little Father Macdonald, following his example, quoted a verse from Ta.s.so to show that the memory of a pleasant hour might give even greater pleasure than the hour itself. Paul Macleod, watching them, and fully alive to the adoring look on the Reverend James's face, continuing, as it were the kindly affection of Will's, gave a short laugh as he tore up his letter and threw it into the embers of the dying fire.

Marjory looked at him inquiringly.

"Only something that seems singularly out of place with my present surroundings," he said in quick response; "but the world has a knack of seeming very far away when one is in Gleneira."

CHAPTER VIII.

It was true. The more so because the heat-haze lingered, turning the hills which lay between the Glen and the world beyond it, into a pale blue, formless wall, which seemed somehow more of an arbitrary division than it would have done had the contours of each successive rise been clearly visible. The fierce sun beat down on the limestone rocks, giving a russet tinge even to their mosses, and Paul Macleod's useless rod lay in its case, since the river was reduced to a mere tinkle of clear water in a moraine of boulders. So he took to haymaking instead, partly because it suited his mood to play the role of country proprietor--for to a certain extent he shared his sister's dramatic temperament--and partly because Marjory always brought Will Cameron's tea into the fields. It was quite idyllic to watch her from afar, making it ready on the outskirts of a nut coppice or belt of firs, and then to see her stand out into the rolling, undulating waves of new cut gra.s.s which were creeping up the hillsides before the scythes, and call to them in her clear, young voice, for, of course, the laird could not be left out in the heat when his factor was enjoying the cool. So he used to lounge about as Will did in the scented hay, and talk nonsense, with infinite grace and skill, until, with the extinction of his pipe, the latter's tardy sense of duty would take fire, and he would insist on a return to work.

On the whole, it was scarcely what Paul would have expected to amuse him, and yet, after ten years of a land where hay-fields are not, and it is unsafe to sit about for fear of snakes, it was strangely pleasant. And so delightfully innocent! This came home to him one night when, on going to his room, he saw his purse on the dressing-table, and remembered that for a whole week he had not opened it. The world had gone on as if there were no such thing in it as money. He mentioned the fact next day among the hay-c.o.c.ks, declaring that if someone would only be responsible for his bills, he himself would never care to see a shilling again.

"Not I," said Will, rather dolefully; "for I'm afraid, Gleneira, these masons and carpenters will cost a lot more than we fancied. It is always the way when one touches a place. I remember when Inveresta began he told me I wasn't to exceed a thousand, and before he was half way through his list of absolute necessaries, the figures had pa.s.sed fifteen hundred. And yet I don't think it can be helped."

He blew disconsolately at his pipe as if it were in fault, for he prided himself on managing the estates in his charge with strict economy, but Paul smiled indifferently.

"My owner will be able to pay, I expect, when I get one. For when the worst comes to the worst, Miss Carmichael, I can always put myself up to auction. Do you think I should fetch a fair price? Item, one Highland estate, seriously damaged by the Crofter Commission, and an ancestral tree, ditto, by Darwinism. N.B.--Property enc.u.mbered by several mortgages and one extravagant proprietor." He lay back against a hay-c.o.c.k with his hands behind his head, looking the personification of lazy content as he watched her face shift and change. "You don't seem to approve of my plan," he went on, in the same light tones, "but the idea has infinite charm for me; it would save so much trouble, and do so little harm. People sell themselves to the devil, we are told, and that may be reprehensible--at any rate, it would be uncomfortable.

But what inconvenience or immorality can there be in making yourself over, soul and body, to some virtuous Christian man or woman who, in all probability, is far more capable of running the coach respectably than you are?"

"The same immorality as there is in any other form of suicide, I suppose," she replied coldly; but he was not to be put off.

"And what immorality is there in suicide, Miss Carmichael? I hold that my life is my own, unless I make over the responsibility of it to someone else, which you say is wrong. Therefore, I have a perfect right to do what I please with it."

"Once you have overcome the initial difficulty of discovering what you do please," she retorted sharply. And he smiled.

"You use a detective camera apparently, but I admit it. I am only certain of one thing, it pleases me to please myself. It pleases me now to forget that there is such a thing as money, and to go to bed at ten o'clock."

"Which shows that you are virtuously inclined, and that, therefore----"

"I refuse to be whitewashed by your charity," he interrupted. "I am of the earth, earthy; though sometimes I can lie on my back in the hay and see heaven opening----" His voice, with a sudden cadence in it, ceased as he sprang lightly to his feet.

"Come along, Cameron--you are intolerably long over that pipe--my energy, Miss Carmichael, does not arise from Goodness, but from Greed.

If the hay is not in tonight, it may rain; if it rains, the hay will be spoilt. If it is spoilt I shall have to buy more, and if I buy more I shall not have that shilling to spend on myself. It comes to that in the end, even in Arcadia."

There were similar endings to many conversations in which Marjory tilted bravely at various objects, which, in her heart of hearts, she feared might be windmills. For she was never quite sure if he was in earnest or not, and even when he had palpably played the fool with her pet theories, or scouted a serious thought, a word, even a look, would come to redeem the past, and give a curious zest to the future. Yet in a way it distressed her also by confusing her clear-cut, unswerving outlook on life. A man even professing such atrocious sentiments ought to be unendurable, and this man was not. Far from it. And what was almost more disconcerting, he evidently understood her better than honest Will did; while, as for the Reverend James! the very thought made her laugh. Yet, on the whole, she welcomed a reasonable cause which, despite the holiday she had imposed on herself in obedience to Cousin Tom's wishes, came to make an absence from the hay-fields less marked, and a reversion to the young clergyman's company quite natural. This being nothing more or less than a visit from the Bishop, which, coming as it did in this holiday time, gave to the person who was ostensibly responsible for the pupils' duties towards their neighbours fearful antic.i.p.ations of failure. For James Gillespie was one of those persons who cannot teach; well meaning, fairly well-educated, people who know the information they wish to impart and cannot impart it, people who, in a repet.i.tion, invariably prompt the wrong word, and send the hesitating memory hopelessly astray. And this was a question of repet.i.tion, since the Bishop never interfered with the secular teaching, which he left, with a Levite shake of the head, to the Government inspector. So Marjory, relieved she scarcely knew why, spent these afternoons in hammering the necessary precision into the children's heads while the Reverend James sate watching her rapturously and feeling that the whole parish, including himself, would have no excuse for not knowing its duty towards its neighbour if she were the clergyman's wife.

And on the third day someone else seemed bitten with a desire to learn, for Captain Macleod strolled in lazily and sate down on the furthest bench, saying he had come to fetch the letters, and with her permission would await their arrival in the cool. Why his presence should have immediately aroused her to a resentful consciousness of the adoring expression on the face beside her, she did not understand, but the certainty and the uncertainty of it combined made her turn to her companion with an audible asperity of tone:

"I really think, Mr. Gillespie, that you might try and get the little ones perfect in their hymn. You must remember that the last time the Bishop inspected he told the children that the youngest Christian should know one hymn, and the infants are not even perfect in the 'Happy Land.'"

To hear being to obey, Mr. Gillespie retired towards the post-office portion of the room where, with a semicircle of tiny bare-legged la.s.sies and laddies before him, he sate beside Paul Macleod and began his task. It was rather a Herculean one, owing to the fact that his pupils having no English, as the phrase runs, the simple stanzas were to them mere gibberish.

"It is three months they will be learnin' it, whatever," said Mr.

McColl, cheerfully, when the last of the semicircle had failed hopelessly.

"It is impossible, quite impossible," retorted Mr. Gillespie, in a white heat of anxiety. "Some of them must have picked up something in that case----"

"'Deed, no, sir. Naethin's impossible with bairnies. And wee Paulie there has it fine, for he is at me to learn it on him many a time, because Miss Marjory was saying he would be a fool if he didn't. Speak up, Paulie," he added, in the Gaelic, "you have it fine."

Wee Paulie hung his close-cropped fair head with its odd little fringe left over the forehead, so that nothing was to be seen but a rising flush, and murmured some half-inaudible words, whereat the biggest boy in Marjory's cla.s.s said triumphantly:

"He is saying that he will no be saying it to him, but to her."

"Hush! Donald," came the quick, clear, dictatorial young voice; "that is not the way to speak. Stand down two places. Paul, come here."

The big Paul, seated on the back bench, looked up and smiled, feeling it would be rather pleasant than otherwise to obey; and little Paul pattered shamefacedly across to the girl's side, yet with a confident air which raised the sleek head a little, and showed a pair of very long lashes on the flushed cheeks. As he edged close Marjory pa.s.sed her arm round him, and with the other hand raised his chin square and straight.

"Now, Paul, if you please," she said, in the Gaelic; "clasp your hands, and say it right out--to the whole school, remember. You know it quite well, and you should never, never pretend that you don't know when you do. It is mean."

Big Paul, thinking that even reproof sounded pleasant in that voice, and, at any rate, must be bearable in that position, smiled again, and continued smiling unavoidably, as little Paul reeled off the whole hymn from beginning to end in confused, unintelligible fluency, broken only by hurried gasps for breath.

"A pretty little fellow," said Captain Macleod, in an undertone to his neighbour. "Who is he?"

"Old Peggy Duncan's grandson--Jeanie Duncan's child--you must remember her."