The Prodigal Father Part 36

"You forget that I have had a tiring day, and perhaps you hardly realize whose conduct has tired me. Good-night."

"Good-night," he replied in an unimpa.s.sioned voice.

As the widow ascended she told herself that she had adopted entirely the right att.i.tude. She might relent to-morrow, but till then it was well he should be deprived of the sunshine of her smiles.

Next morning at the hour of 10:15 she stepped out of the lift to find Jean waiting in the hall. She greeted Mrs. Dunbar with a markedly composed air.

"I hope you won't mind breakfasting alone?" she said.

It was evident that the widow did mind.

"Do you mean to say your father has actually breakfasted without me?"

"Unfortunately, he had to."

"Had to!"

"He and Frank found they must catch the ten o'clock train."

Mrs. Dunbar gasped.

"He--has gone?"

"Yes."

"But he promised to go with me!"

"I understood him to say," said Jean quietly, "that he had merely promised to go north."

"Oh, indeed! Then he has run away?"

"From whom?" asked Jean demurely.

The widow bit her lip.

"I consider his conduct simply disgraceful--"

Jean interrupted her quickly--

"I had rather not discuss my father's conduct. Don't let me keep you from breakfast."

Mrs. Dunbar remained standing in silence, a magnificent statue of displeasure. In a moment she inquired--

"And why are you waiting here?"

"Father thought you might like my company on the journey."

"How very thoughtful of him! Then you go at two?"

"Yes."

The widow gazed at her intently.

"I can hardly believe this of Heriot. Is all this his own idea?"

Jean flushed slightly, but answered as demurely as ever--

"It is his wish."

"Ah, I see!" exclaimed Mrs. Dunbar bitterly, "I thought there was a woman's hand in this affair."

"Do you mean another woman's hand?"

The injured lady began uneasily to realize that there was a fresh factor in the situation. But who would have dreamt of little Jean Walkingshaw being dangerous? As Madge traveled north that afternoon, uncompromisingly secluded behind a lady's journal, she could not get out of her head the uncomfortable fancy that her trim, fair-haired escort sat like a protecting deity (heathen and sinister) between Heriot and all who desired, even with the most loving purpose, to chasten his faults and moderate the exuberance of his too virile spirit.

Jean herself was warmly conscious that some such duty was surely laid upon her. With what less reward could she repay all he had done for her?

It will be discovered, however, from the succeeding instalment of facts, that though the guardian angel of Heriot Walkingshaw might go the pace with him thus far, it would probably have been beyond the power even of a genuinely celestial spirit to keep at his shoulder when he spurted.

PART IV

CHAPTER I

Archibald Berstoun of that ilk ("of y' ilk" was the form that most delicately tickled his palate) still dwelt in the fortalice built by his ancestors at a time when to the average Scot the national tartan suggested but an alien barbarian who stole his cattle; and the national bagpipe, the national heather, and the national whisky were merely the noise the brute made, the cover that preserved him from the gallows, and the stuff that gave you your one chance of catching him asleep.

(A few reflections on the whirligig of time were here inserted, but have since been omitted, as they were found to occur in a modified form elsewhere.)

The castle stood in the lowland part of Perthshire, and was erected by the second of that ilk as a tribute to the dexterity with which his highland neighbors had removed the effects and cut the throat of the first. It was a sober and simple building, steep-roofed and battlemented at the top, turreted at the angles, and pierced with a few narrow windows so irregularly scattered about its gray harled walls as to suggest that no two rooms could possibly be on the same level.

Naturally, the architectural genius who illumines the quiet annals of every landed family had knocked out a number of French windows into the lawn and constructed the first story of a Chinese paG.o.da, in which he proposed to store Etruscan curios with an aviary above; but his descendants had fortunately lacked the funds to complete these improvements. In fact, the stump of the paG.o.da was now so entirely overgrown with ivy that it had become the traditional fortress of Agricola.

This ancient habitation of a hard-fighting race was framed on two sides by a garden that looked as old as the walls which towered above it, and was well-nigh as simple and sober. Dark clipped yews, and smooth green gra.s.s, and graceful old-world flowers were its chief and sufficient ingredients. The genius who designed the paG.o.da had not yet turned his attention to the garden when Providence checked his career.

A wood of black Scotch firs stretched for a long way beyond this pleasant garden, and struck a stern northern note befitting the gnarled battlements; while, nearer the house, gray beech stems towered out of the brown dead leaves below up to the brown live buds a hundred feet nearer the clouds.

On the remaining two sides of the castle you were not supposed to bestow attention, since after the old custom the home farm approached more closely than is fashionable nowadays; though to the curious they were the sides best worth attention, owing to the cultured paG.o.da-builder having deemed it beneath his dignity to molest them.

One afternoon in early spring Ellen Berstoun walked slowly down a sheltered garden path. She had been singularly moody of late--so distressed, indeed, and so little like a lucky girl whose wedding might be fixed for any day she chose to name, that her five unmarried sisters held many private debates on the causes of her conduct. The three next to her in years expressed grave apprehensions lest the very fairly creditable marriage arranged for her should after all fall through.

Ellen was not treating Andrew well, they complained; while on the other hand, the two youngest, being as yet irresponsibly romantic, declared vigorously that they had sooner dear Ellen remained single to the end of her days than introduced such a long-lipped, fat-cheeked brother-in-law into the family.

It was a part of poor Ellen's burden that she was acutely conscious of the duty which her parents and all her aunts a.s.sured her she owed these sisters. But, on the other hand, to share the remainder of her existence with Andrew Walkingshaw--There rose vividly a picture of that most respectable of partners, and the emotion attendant on this vision drew from her a sigh that ought to have convinced the most skeptical she was very hard hit indeed.

It was at this moment that she spied a lad approaching from the house.