The League of the Leopard Part 25

"Will ye no wait until ye are invit.i.t?" he inquired sardonically.

"Still, if there is anything good in yon basket ye can leave it with me."

A grimy hand descended into the basket Rae carried and reappeared clutching the neck of a bottle, while a derisive grin suffused the speaker's unwashed countenance.

"I'm thinking I'll just keep it with thanks. It's whiles more comforting than tracts."

The Reverend Andrew Rae had perhaps studied more than theology at a certain university, for there was a twinkle in his eyes as he laid one hand on Johnstone's wrist.

"Not so fast!" he said. "That is Miss Chatterton's property, and I did not hear you ask her permission."

He used no apparent violence, but his fingers tightened steadily, and Johnstone gasped with astonishment as he relinquished his hold upon the bottle.

"Am I to be insulted in my own house?" he cried. "Away with ye! A free man's dwelling is his castle."

"Havers!" exclaimed a voice behind them; and a neatly dressed young man joined the group. "If it's anybody's castle it's the man's who pays the rent, and that's more than Rab Johnstone has done for long, I'm thinking. If ye an' Miss Chatterton are for stepping in to see Mary we'd take it kindly, sir."

Johnstone senior slouched away down the street, frowning scornfully.

"I am glad to see you have prospered since you took to honest ways, Jim," Rae said.

"It's small thanks to any one but Mr. Dane. He was no too particular to help a poor man, ye see."

"Was that it?" asked Rae, a trifle awkwardly. "You are surely not turning back, Miss Chatterton!"

Lilian was certainly about to retreat; but being a young woman of spirit, she determined to make the best of it when the man, opening another door, announced:

"Miss Chatterton an' the minister to see ye, Mary."

She entered the poorly furnished room the next moment, but saw nothing of its interior, for her eyes were fixed upon the sick girl, who lay on a dilapidated sofa. Rae noticed the contrast between his companion and the seamstress. Miss Chatterton was a very dainty figure in costly furs, and the slight trace of haughtiness became her. The seamstress was pale, and hollow in face, with the sign of poverty stamped upon her, for the faded shawl about her shoulders and the little ragged garment told the same story.

Rae soon became conscious that there was a latent hostility between the women, and he felt it inc.u.mbent on him to break the silence.

"I am glad to see you better," he said; "but you should not work too soon. You must lie still and recover completely, because there are a number of customers waiting for you. Mrs. Gordon told me she was keeping quite a large order back until you were fit to undertake it."

Lilian had been present when, by dint of dogged persistence, the reverend gentleman had secured a reluctant promise to employ his protegee, and she wondered whether all his s.e.x, without exception, could be deluded by a pretty face. She was forced to admit that men of uncultivated taste might consider Miss Johnstone pretty.

"Poor folk cannot afford to be idle long, an' my wee sisters cannot go ragged," replied the sick girl. "Still, I'm no complaining. Jim has helped me bravely, and we're winning through a hard winter well, thanks to the gentleman who befriended him."

Rae observed that the speaker flashed a glance at Miss Chatterton, whose face remained icily indifferent. Feeling that the situation was becoming strained, he turned toward the boy.

"Being away at the time, I never quite got to the bottom of what preceded your acquittal. Do you mind telling me, Jim?"

"It's no great secret, an' all to the credit of the man who helped me.

Weel, I was locked up, charged with poaching and wounding."

"Innocently, I hope," said Rae; and there was a trace of Caledonian dryness in Johnstone's reply.

"Ye will mind the saying about speiring no questions and being telt less lies. Meanwhile two or three others consult.i.t with Lawyer Davidson, and he said conviction would be certain if Mr. Dane could swear to me.

Otherwise, he suspect.i.t I would go free. Then Mary would see Mr. Dane for the sake of the bairns. I was sore against it, but they had me jailed, an' what could I do? Well, she wrote asking him to meet her by the Hallows Brig, and Mr. Dane e'en promised to do his best for me, an'

tell n.o.body. May be he could no be quite certain. Ye will mind there was no moon just then, and the night was thick, Mr. Rae."

"I have heard that no man is expected to testify against himself," said the reverend gentleman dryly.

"That's what Davidson telt the fiscal," continued Johnstone, with a laugh. "Says he, 'It's the business o' your witnesses to convict him'; an' I'm no denying that they did their best, all but Mr. Dane. He just stuck to his story--it was dark, an' while the man he grappled with was like to me, he could swear to n.o.body who had just kicked him hard upon the knee."

Johnstone added further details, and then looked hard at the clergyman, as though expecting him to take up the challenge when he concluded, "May be there are folks who lightly Mr. Dane for what he done, but it was him an' no other who made an honest man of me, forby a promot.i.t foreman home on a holiday."

"I am not a lawyer," said Rae. "It is therefore not my business to judge him; and you need not stare at me. I already believed Mr. Dane to be a kindly gentleman. I am also open to admit that he did more than either I or my predecessor could accomplish. We are not, however, all friends of big contractors, you see."

Johnstone grinned in answer to the last thrust, while Lilian felt thankful that she sat in a shadowy corner, for the simple story which bore the truth stamped upon the face of it, had stirred her strangely.

The action narrated was characteristic of the man who was risking his life in Africa. She knew that he was very generous, and could be loyal to a pledge, even to his disadvantage. It was equally evident that the young workman with his unconcealed dislike to his benefactor's cla.s.s would be very unlikely to shut his eyes to any intrigue between Dane and his sister. Yet, though Lilian was angry with herself for the thought, it was possible that the brother might have been deceived, and she felt that she must learn the truth. The seamstress said nothing, and it dawned upon Rae that his presence was superfluous; so, making the first excuse available, he took his departure, and Johnstone with him.

CHAPTER XVI

ILLUMINATION

When the two men went out Miss Chatterton discovered that she had undertaken a very difficult task. The seamstress lay still looking at her, evidently expectant, but saying nothing. She, it appeared, felt herself mistress of the position. Lilian felt that the silence was growing painful, and determined to attack the subject boldly.

"Mr. Dane has clearly been a good friend to your brother, but may I ask whether that evening at the Hallows Bridge was the only time you spoke to him?"

A flush crept into the sick girl's cheeks, and a hardness into her eyes.

"I was expecting ye would ask me. What would ye say if I did not answer?"

"Probably nothing," returned Lilian, quietly. "Mr. Dane is, as we know, somewhat impulsive, as well as generous. Why do you tell me that you expected such a question?"

Mary Johnstone painfully raised herself on one elbow.

"Ye are a grand lady, but hard, I think, as some folk would call ye bonny. I am a poor sewing woman with the need to strive hard, an'

always, to keep hunger from the door--but in the hearts of us there is no that difference between you an' me. No--bide ye and listen."

Lilian had risen, but she sat down again. Something in the girl's voice and manner compelled her attention, for the seamstress spoke as equal to equal on the basis of their common humanity.

"I owe ye little, Miss Chatterton. What ye paid, I earned, an' some of it hardly, but when ye bade me come no more to The Larches, with no other word, there was many an ill tongue to cast dirt at me, forby lying tales that ye found things of value missing."

"I never suspected that would happen," said Lilian, a little uneasily.

"How should ye?" continued the seamstress. "But ye could not blame the slanderers, being quick yourself to think evil. May be ye did not know, either, that my good name means work and bread to more than me? So, if there was no other person interested, I would ask--how dare ye, thinking what ye think, come here and ask me that question?"

Lilian was contrite, realizing the harm she had unwittingly done, and recognizing the genuine ring of injured innocence in the speaker's voice. She was also slightly angry, as well as astonished, but she was sufficiently just to see that it would not become her to manifest displeasure.

"I did wrong, but how do you know what I thought, or if I thought anything at all?" she asked. "You have also avoided the question instead of answering me."

"What did I tell ye at the beginning?" said the sick girl with a curious smile. "Being poor, am I less a woman? Well, and not for your sake only, ye shall have the answer that should pleasure ye. That night at Hallows Brig was the one time only Mr. Dane had word with me. Are ye believing me?"