Warlock o' Glenwarlock Part 19

"Mr. Warlock!" said Lord Mergwain, and spoke with a snarl, "you will not deprive us of the only pleasure we have--that of your company?"

"I shall be back in a few minutes, my lord," replied his host; and added, "I must see about lunch too."

"That was wonderful claret!" said his lordship, thoughtfully.

"I shall see to the claret, my lord."

"If I MIGHT suggest, let it be brought here. A gentle airing under my own eye, just an introduction to the fire, would improve what is otherwise perfect.--And look here," he added, as, with a kindly bow of a.s.sent, the laird was going, "--you haven't got a pack of cards, have you?"

"I believe there is a pack somewhere in the house," replied the laird, "but it is very old, and I fear too much soiled for your lordship's hands."

"Oh, confound the dirt!" said his lordship. "Let us have them.

They're the only thing to make the time pa.s.s."

"Have you a library?" asked Lady Joan--mainly to say something, for she was not particularly fond of books; like most people she had not yet learned to read.

"What do you want with a library?" growled her father. "Books are nothing but a pack of lies, not half so good for killing time as a pack of cards. You're going to play a rubber, not to read books!"

"With pleasure, papa," responded Lady Joan.

"_I_ don't want to kill the time. I should like to keep it alive for ever," said Cosmo, with a worshipping look at the beautiful lady--a summer-bird of heaven that had strayed into their lonely winter.

"Hold your tongue; you are an idiot!" said his lordship angrily.

"--Old and young," he went on, unaware of utterance, "the breed is idiotic. 'Tis time it were played out."

Cosmo's eyes flashed. But the rudesby was too old to be served as he had served the schoolmaster! He was their guest too, and the father of the lady by his side!

The hand of the lady stole to his, and patting it gently, said, as plainly as if it had been her mouth, "Don't mind him; he is an old man, and does not know what he is saying." He looked up in her face, and his anger was gone.

"Come with me," he said, rising; "I will show you what books we have. There may be one you would like another time. We shall be back before the cards come."

"Joan!" cried her father, "sit still."

She glanced an appeal for consideration to Cosmo, and did not move.

Cosmo sat down again. A few minutes pa.s.sed in silence. Father and daughter stared into the fire. So did Cosmo. But into what different three worlds did the fire stare! The old man rose and went to the window.

"I MUST get away from this abominable place," he said, "if it cost me my life."

He looked out and shuddered. The world seemed impa.s.sable as a dead world on which the foot of the living could take no hold, could measure no distance, make no progress. Not a print of man or of beast was visible. It was like a world not yet discovered.

"I am tied to the stake; I hear the fire roaring!" he muttered. "My fate has found me--caught me like a rat, and is going to make an end of me! In my time n.o.body believed such things! Now they seem to be coming into fashion again!"

Whoever would represent what is pa.s.sing in a mind, must say more than the man himself knows how to say.

The laird re-entered.

"Well, have you brought the cards?" said Lord Mergwain, turning from the window.

"I have, my lord. I am sorry it is such a poor pack, but we never play.--I think, Cosmo, you had better come with me."

"Hold you, laird, we're going to have a rubber!"

"Cosmo does not understand the game."

"I will teach him," said Lady Joan. "He shall be live dummy for a few rounds; that will be enough."

"My lord will not care to play for counters," persisted the laird, "and we cannot play for money."

"I don't care what the points are," said Lord Mergwain, "--sixpence, if you like--so long as it is money. None but a fool cares for victory where nothing is to be got by it."

"I am sorry to disappoint your lordship," returned the laird, "but play for money neither my son nor myself will. But perhaps you would like a game of draughts, or backgammon?"

"Will you bet on the game or the gammon?"

"On nothing, my lord."

"Oh, confound you!"

He turned again and went to the window.

"This is frightful!" he said to himself. "Nothing whatever to help one to forget! If the day goes on like this, I shall out with everything.--Maybe I had better!--How the clodpoles would stare! I believe I should laugh in the middle of it.--And that fellow lurking somewhere all the time about the place, watching his chance when the night comes!--It's horrible. I shall go mad!" This last he spoke aloud.

"Papa!" said his daughter sharply.

Lord Mergwain started, and looked troubled. What he might have uttered, he could not tell.

"A rubber, then," he said, approaching the fire again, "--on any terms, or no terms at all!"

He took up the cards.

"Ha, there's blood on them," he cried, and dashing them on the table, turned once more to the window.

He was like a bird in a cage that knows he cannot get out, and yet keeps trying, as if he dared not admit the impossibility. Twenty times that morning he went to the window, saying, "I must get out of this!" and returned again to his seat by the fire. The laird had removed the pack, and he said nothing more about a rubber. Lady Joan tried to talk, and Cosmo did his best to amuse her. The laird did his endeavour with his lordship, but with small success. And so the morning crept away. It might have been a pleasant one to the rest, but for the caged lord's misery. At last came Grizzie.

"Sir, an' my lord," she said, "come ye doon the stair. The kail's het, an' the cheirs is set, an' yer denner's waitin' ye there."

It may have been already observed, that to Grizzie came not unfrequently an odd way of riming what she said. She was unaware of this peculiarity. The suggestion of sound by sound was as hidden from her as it was deep-seated in her and strong. And this was not all: the riming might have pa.s.sed unperceived by others too, but for the accompanying tendency to rhythm as well. Nor was this by any means all yet: there was in her a great leaning to poetic utterance generally, and that arising from a poetic habit of thought. She had in her everything essential to the making of a poetess; yet of the whole she was profoundly ignorant; and had any one sought to develop the general gift, I believe all would have shrunk back into her being.

The laird rose and offered his arm to Lady Joan. Lord Mergwain gave a grunt, and looked only a little pleased at the news: no discomfort or suffering, mental or spiritual, made him indifferent to luncheon or dinner--for after each came the bottle; but the claret had not been brought to the drawing-room as he had requested!

When they reached the kitchen, he looked first eagerly, then uneasily round him: no bottle, quart or magnum was to be seen! A cloud gathered, lowering and heavy, on the face of the toper. The laird saw it, remembered that, in his anxiety to amuse him, he had forgotten his dearest delight, and vanished in the region behind.

Mrs. Warlock, according to her custom, was already seated at the head of the table. She bowed just her head to his lordship, and motioned him to a chair on her right hand. He took it with a courteous acknowledgment, of which he would hardly have been capable, had he not guessed on what errand his host was gone: he had no recollection of having given her offence.

"I hope your ladyship is well this morning?" he said.

"Ye revive an auld custom, my lord," returned his hostess, not without sign of gratification, "--clean oot o' fashion noo-a-days, excep' amang the semple. A laird's wife has no richt to be ca'd MY LEDDY,'cep' by auncient custom."