"Oh, my life, she is geblasted! I am undone! Oh, I am lost!"
"Will it be so bad as that, indeed?"
He looked up with a start, and perceived Dugald, his jailor, gazing upon him with an expression of indescribable sagacity.
"The master will be sending me with his car to tell the folks at Hechnahoul," added Dugald.
Still the Baron failed to comprehend the exchange of favors suggested by his jailor"s sympathetic voice.
"Go, zen!" he muttered, and bent his head.
"You will not be wishing to send no messages to your friends?"
At last the prisoner understood. For a sovereign Dugald promised to convey a note to the Count; for five he undertook to bribe the chauffeur to convey him to The Lash, when he learned where that gentleman was to be found. And he further decided to be faithful to his trust, since, as he prudently reflected--
"If he will be a real chentleman after all it shall not be well to be hard with him. And if he will not be, n.o.body shall know."
The Baron felt a trifle less hopeless now, yet so black did the prospect remain that he firmly believed he should never be able to raise his head again and meet the gaze of his fellow-men; not at least if he stayed in that room till the police arrived.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV
Not even the news of Flodden brought direr dismay to Hechnahoul than Mr.
Maddison"s brief note. Lord Tulliwuddle an impostor? That magnificent young man a fraud? So much geniality, brawn, and taste for the bagpipes merely the sheep"s clothing that hid a wandering wolf? Incredible! Yet, on second thoughts, how very much more thrilling than if he had really been an ordinary peer! And what a judgment on the presumption of Mr. and Mrs. Gallosh! Hard luck on Eva, of course--but, then, girls who aspire to marry out of their own station must expect this kind of thing.
The latter part of this commentary was naturally not that of the pretender"s host and hostess. In the throes of their anger and chagrin their one consoling reflection was that no friends less tried than Mr.
and Mrs. Rentoul happened to be there to witness their confusion. Yet other sufferers since Job have found that the oldest friends do not necessarily of er the most acceptable consolation.
"Oh, oh! I feel like to die of grief!" wailed poor Mrs. Gallosh.
"Aye; it"s an awful smack in the eye for you," said Mr. Rentoul sagely.
"Smack in the eye!" thundered his host. "It"s a criminal offence--that"s what it is! It"s a d.a.m.ned swindle! It"s a----"
"Oh, hush, hush!" interrupted Mrs. Rentoul in a shocked voice. "What words for a lady to hear! After all, you must remember you never made any inquiries."
"Inquiries! What for should I be making inquiries about my guests? YOU never dropped a word of such a thing! Who"d have listened if I had? It was just Lord Tulliwuddle this and Lord Tulliwuddle that from morning to night since ever he came to the Castle."
"Duncan"s so simple-minded," groaned Mrs. Gallosh.
"And what were you, I"d like to know? What were you?" retorted her justly incensed spouse. "Never a word did I hear, but just that he was such an aristocratic young man, and any one could see he had blue blood in his veins, and stuff of that kind!"
"I more than once had my own doubts about that," said the alcohol expert with a knowing wink. "There was something about him---- Ah, well, he was not exactly my own idea of a lord."
"YOUR idea?" scoffed his oldest and best of friends. "What do YOU know of lords, I"d like to know?"
"Well, well," answered the sage peaceably, "maybe we"ve neither of us had much opportunity of judging of the n.o.bility. It"s just more bad luck than anything else that you should have gone to the expense of setting up in style in a lord"s castle and then having this downcome. If I"d had similar ambeetions it might have been me."
This soft answer was so far from turning away wrath, that Mrs. Rentoul again felt compelled to stem the tide of her host"s eloquence.
"Oh, hush!" she exclaimed; "I"d have fancied you"d be having no thoughts beyond your daughter"s affliction."
"My Eva! my poor Eva! Where is the suffering child?" cried Mrs. Gallosh.
"Duncan, what"ll she be doing?"
"Making a to-do like the rest of the women-folk," replied her husband, with rather less sympathy than the occasion seemed to demand.
In point of fact Eva had disappeared from the company immediately after hearing the contents of Mr. Maddison"s letter, and whatever she had been doing, it had not been weeping alone, for at that moment she ran into the room, her face agitated, but rather, it seemed, with excitement than grief.
"Papa, lend me five pounds," she panted.
"Lend you--five pounds! And what for, I"d like to know?"
"Don"t ask me now. I--I promise to tell you later--some time later."
"I"ll see myself----! I mean, you"re talking nonsense."
Eva"s lip trembled.
"Hi, hist! Eva, my dear," said Mr. Rentoul; "if you"re wanting the money badly, and your papa doesn"t see his way----"
He concluded his sentence with a wink and a dive into his trousers-pocket, and a minute later Eva had fled from the room again.
This action of the sage, being at total variance to his ordinary habits (which indeed erred on the economical side), was attributed by his irate host--with a certain show of reason--to the mere intention of annoying him; and the conversation took a more acrimonious turn than ever. In fact, when Eva returned a few minutes later she was just in time to hear her father thunder in an infuriated voice--
"A German waiter, is he? Aye, that"s verra probable, verra probable indeed. In fact I might have known it when I saw you and him swilling a bottle and a half of my best port together! Birds of a feather--aye, aye, exactly!"
The crushing retort which the sage evidently had ready to heap upon the fire of this controversy was antic.i.p.ated by Miss Gallosh.
"He isn"t a German waiter, papa! He is a German BARON--and an amba.s.sador, too!"
The four started and stared at her.
"Where did you learn that?" demanded her father.
"I"ve been talking to the man who brought the letter, and he says that Lord Tulli--I mean the Baron--declares positively that he is a German n.o.bleman!"
"Tuts, fiddlesticks!" scoffed her father.
"Verra like a whale," p.r.o.nounced the sage.
"I wouldn"t believe what HE said," declared Mrs. Gallosh.
"One can SEE he isn"t," said Mrs. Rentoul.
"The kind of Baron that plays in a German band, perhaps," added her husband, with a whole series of winks to give point to this mot.
"He"s just a scoundrelly adventurer!" shouted Mr. Gallosh.