Three Boys Part 72

"Yes, father; he wants to get up and rush off at once; and I tell him it's all nonsense, and that he is to stay!"

The Mackhai was silent for a few moments, as he sat struggling with his pride, and, as he saw Max watching him eagerly, he coloured.

The gentleman triumphed, and he said quietly and gravely,--

"My dear boy, I want you to try and forget what pa.s.sed the other night, when, stung almost beyond endurance, I said words to you that no gentleman ought to have spoken toward one who was his guest, and more than guest, the companion and friend of his son. There, I apologise to you humbly. Will you forgive me?"

"Mr Mackhai!" cried Max, in a choking voice, as he seized the hand extended to him.

"Hah! that is frank and natural, my lad. Thank you. Now, shall we forget the past?"

Max nodded, but he could not trust himself to speak, while Kenneth ran round to the other side of the bed.

"And he is not to think of going, father?" he cried.

"I don't say that, Ken," replied his father. "Under all the circ.u.mstances, I can readily believe that Max would prefer to return to town; but I expressly forbid his hurrying away. Oblige me, Max, by staying with Kenneth till next Thursday, when I shall return. It will be dull for him alone."

"Are you going away, father?"

"Yes; I start for Edinburgh at once, and as I shall not see you again, Max, I will say good-bye. You will be gone before I reach Dunroe in the evening."

He shook hands once more, and left the room, Max thoroughly grasping the gentlemanly feeling which had prompted him to behave with so much delicacy.

"There, Max, you will stay now?" cried Kenneth.

"Yes, I will stay now," he replied.

"Then that's all right. We'll have some fishing and shooting--for the last few times," he said to himself, as he turned away to see his father before he left the place.

Max rose and dressed as soon as he was alone, but he was not long in finding that he was not in a fit condition to take a journey; and during the rest of his stay at Dunroe there were no more pleasure-trips, for the zest for them was in the case of both lads gone.

And yet those last days were not unpleasant, for there was a peculiar anxiety on the part of both to make up for the past. Kenneth was eager in the extreme to render Max's last days there such as should give him agreeable memories of their intercourse. While, on the other side, Max felt deeply what Kenneth's position must be, and he too tried hard to soften the pain of his lot.

Max had had a business-like letter from his father, telling him that he had been compelled, by The Mackhai's failure to keep his engagements, to foreclose certain mortgages and take possession of the estates. Under these circ.u.mstances, he wished his son to remain there and supervise the proceedings of the bailiffs, writing to him in town every night as to how matters stood.

It was a cool, matter-of-fact, legal letter, written by a clerk, probably from dictation, and signed by the old lawyer. But at the bottom there was a postscript in his own crabbed hand, as follows:--

"You will be able to watch over all with more pleasure, when I tell you that Dunroe is yours. I mean it to be your estate, and you can see now why I sent you down there to learn how to be a Scottish gentleman."

Max flushed as he read this, and he exclaimed aloud--"A Scottish gentleman could not bear to be placed in such a position!" and he sat down and wrote at once to say that he had been seriously unwell, and must return to town on a certain day.

"Squeamish young donkey!" said the hard-griping old man of the world, when he received his son's letter. "Bad as his weak, sensitive mother.

Know better some day. If I had been so particular, Dunroe would not be mine to leave."

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

A SAD PARTING.

"So you're off to-morrow, Max?" said Kenneth sadly.

"Yes. How beautiful everything looks, now I am going away!"

"Yes," said Kenneth, with a quaint glance first at the distant islands rising all lilac and gold from the sapphire sea; "how beautiful everything looks, now I am going away!"

"Oh, Ken!"

"And oh, Max! There, don't turn like that, old chap. It's the fortune of war, as they say. Good luck to you. I feel now as if I'd rather you had Dunroe than anybody else. I say, let's call Scoody, and get out the boat, and have one last sail together."

"Yes, do," cried Max eagerly.

"All right. I'll go and find Scoody. Get the lines. We may as well try for some mackerel as we go."

Kenneth ran out of the room, and Max went to the little study, got the lines, and then was about to follow his friend, when he recalled the fact that he had not been to see old Donald since he had been better.

So, going out into the courtyard, he made for the old man's quarters, knocked, was told to come in, and entered, to find the piper propped up in an easy-chair, and Long Shon and Tavish keeping him company.

The old man glared at him strangely, and grasped at something he had in his lap which emitted a feeble squeak, and Max saw that they were his pipes, about which his thin fingers played.

"I'm going away to-morrow, Donald," said Max, "and wanted to know how you were."

The old man neither moved nor spoke, but his deeply-sunken eyes seemed to burn, as he glared fiercely, and his breathing sounded deep and hoa.r.s.e.

"I hope you are better?"

There was no reply.

"He is better, is he not, Tavish?"

The great forester gazed straight before him at the wall, but made no reply.

"What is the matter, Shon?" said Max uneasily.

Long Shon took a pinch of snuff, and gazed at the floor.

"Look here!" cried Max earnestly; "I wanted to thank you all for your kindness to me since I have been here, and I may not have another chance. Donald, Long Shon, Tavish--just a little remembrance, and thank you."

As he spoke, he slipped a sovereign into the hands of the two first named, and two into that of the forester. But, as if moved by the same idea, all three dashed the money at his feet, the gold coins jingling upon the stone floor.

Max's eyes dilated, and he gazed from one to the other.

"I am very sorry," he said, after a painful pause. "Good-bye. It is not my fault."

He went slowly out, and before he had gone half a dozen yards the money struck him on the back, and Long Shon cried hoa.r.s.ely,--

"Tonal' sends ye his curse for blasting ta home o' ta Mackhais!"