"When we were at Salen yesterday I saw Major Stuart, and he has just came back from Dunrobin. And he was saying very great things about the machine for the drying of crops in wet weather, and he said he would like to go to England to see the newer ones and all the later improvements, if these was a chance of any one about here going shares with them. And it would not be very much. Keith, if you were to share with him; and the machine it can be moved about very well; and in the bad weather you could give the cotters some help, to say nothing about our own hay and corn. And that is what Major Stuart was saying yesterday, that if there was any place that you wanted a drying-machine for the crops it was in Mull."
"I have been thinking of it myself," he said, absently, "but our farm is too small to make it pay--"
"But if Major Stuart will take half the expense? And even if you lost a little, Keith, you would save a great deal to the poorer people who are continually losing their little patches of crops. And will you go and be my agent, Keith, to go and see whether it is practicable?"
"They will not thank you, Janet, for letting them have this help for nothing."
"They shall not have it for nothing," said she--for she had plenty of experience in dealing with the poorer folk around--"they must pay for the fuel that is used. And now, Keith, if it is a holiday you want, will not that be a very good holiday, and one to be used for a very good purpose, too?"
She left him. Where was the eager joy with which he ought to have accepted this offer? Here was the very means placed within his reach of satisfying the craving desire of his heart; and yet, all the same, he seemed to shrink back with a vague and undefined dread. A thousand impalpable fears and doubts beset his mind. He had grown timid as a woman. The old happy audacity had been destroyed by sleepless nights and a torturing anxiety. It was a new thing for Keith Macleod to have become a prey to strange unintelligible forebodings.
But he went and saw Major Stuart--a round, red, jolly little man, with white hair and a cheerful smile, who had a sombre and melancholy wife.
Major Stuart received Macleod"s offer with great gravity. It was a matter of business that demanded serious consideration. He had worked out the whole system of drying crops with hot air as it was shown him in pamphlets, reports, and agricultural journals, and he had come to the conclusion that--on paper at least--it could be made to pay. What was wanted was to give the thing a practical trial. If the system was sound, surely any one who helped to introduce it into the Western Highlands was doing a very good work indeed. And there was nothing but personal inspection could decide on the various merits of latest improvements.
This was what he said before his wife one night at dinner. But when the ladies had left the room, the little stout major suddenly put up both his hands, snapped his thumb and middle finger, and very cleverly executed one or two reel steps.
"By George! my boy," said he, with a ferocious grin on his face, "I think we will have a little frolic--a little frolic!--a little frolic!
You were never shut up in a house for six months with a woman like my wife, were you, Macleod? You were never reminded of your coffin every morning, were you? Macleod, my boy, I am just mad to get after those drying-machines!"
And indeed Macleod could not have had a merrier companion to go South with him than this rubicund major just escaped from the thraldom of his wife. But it was with no such high spirits that Macleod set out. Perhaps it was only the want of sleep that had rendered him nerveless and morbid; but he felt, as he left Castle Dare, that there was a lie in his actions, if not in his words. And as for the future that lay before him, it was a region only of doubt, and vague regrets, and unknown fears; and he was entering upon it without any glimpse of light, and without the guidance of any friendly hand.
CHAPTER XX.
OTTER-SKINS.
"AH, pappy," said Miss Gertrude White to her father and she pretended to sigh as she spoke--"this is a change indeed!"
They were driving up to the gate of the small cottage in South Bank. It was the end of October. In the gardens they pa.s.sed the trees were almost bare; though such leaves as hung spa.r.s.ely on the branches of the chestnuts and maples were ablaze with russet and gold in the misty sunshine.
"In another week," she continued, "there will not be a leaf left. I dare say there is not a single geranium in the garden. All hands on deck to pipe a farewell:
"Ihr Matten, lebt wohl, Ihr sonnigen Weiden Der Senne muss scheiden, Der Sommer ist hin."
Farewell to the blue mountains of Newcastle, and the sunlit valleys of Liverpool, and the silver waterfalls of Leeds; the summer is indeed over; and a very nice and pleasant summer we have had of it."
The flavor of sarcasm running through this affected sadness vexed Mr.
White, and he answered, sharply,
"I think you have little reason to grumble over a tour which has so distinctly added to your reputation."
"I was not aware," said she, with a certain careless sauciness of manner, "that an actress was allowed to have a reputation; at least, there are always plenty of people anxious enough to take it away."
"Gertrude," said he, sternly, "what do you mean by this constant carping? Do you wish to cease to be an actress? Or what in all the world do you want?"
"To cease to be an actress?" she said, with a mild wonder, and with the sweetest of smiles, as she prepared to get out of the open door of the cab. "Why, don"t you know; pappy, that a leopard cannot change his spots, or an Etheopian his skin? Take care of the step, pappy! That"s right. Come here, Marie, and give the cabman a hand with this portmanteau."
Miss White was not grumbling at all--but, on the contrary, was quite pleasant and cheerful--when she entered the small house and found herself once more at home.
"Oh, Carry," she said, when her sister followed her into her room; "you don"t know what it is to get back home, after having been bandied from one hotel to another hotel, and from one lodging-house to another lodging-house, for goodness knows how long."
"Oh, indeed!" said Miss Carry, with such marked coldness that her sister turned to her.
"What is the matter with you?"
"What is the matter with _you?_" the younger sister retorted, with sudden fire. "Do you know that your letters to me have been quite disgraceful?"
"You are crazed, child--you wrote something about it the other day--I could not make out what you meant," said Miss White; and she went to the gla.s.s to see that the beautiful brown hair had not been too much disarranged by the removal of her bonnet.
"It is you are crazed, Gertrude White," said Carry, who had apparently picked up from some melodrama the notion that it was rather effective to address a person by her full name. "I am really ashamed of you--that you should have let yourself be bewitched by a parcel of beasts" skins. I declare that your ravings about the Highlands, and fairies, and trash of that sort, have been only fit for a penny journal--"
Miss White turned and stared--as well she might. This indignant person of fourteen had flashing eyes and a visage of wrath. The pale, calm, elder sister only remarked, in that deep-toned and gentle voice of hers,
"Your language is pretty considerably strong, Carry. I don"t know what has aroused such a pa.s.sion in you. Because I wrote to you about the Highlands? Because I sent you that collection of legends? Because it seemed to me, when I was in a wretched hotel in some dirty town, I would rather be away yachting or driving with some one of the various parties of people whom I know, and who had mostly gone to Scotland this year? If you are jealous of the Highlands, Carry, I will undertake to root out the name of every mountain and lake that has got hold of my affections."
She was turning away again, with a quiet smile on her face, when her younger sister arrested her.
"What"s that?" said she, so sharply, and extending her forefinger so suddenly, that Gertrude almost shrank back.
"What"s what?" she said, in dismay--fearing, perhaps, to hear of an adder being on her shoulder.
"You know perfectly well," said Miss Carry, vehemently, "it is the Macleod tartan!"
Now the truth was that Miss White"s travelling-dress was of an unrelieved gray; the only sc.r.a.p of color about her costume being a tiny thread of tartan ribbon that just showed in front of her collar.
"The Macleod tartan?" said the eldest sister, demurely. "And what if it were the Macleod tartan?"
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gerty! There was quite enough occasion for people to talk in the way he kept coming here; and now you make a parade of it; you ask people to look at you wearing a badge of servitude--you say, "Oh, here I am; and I am quite ready to be your wife when you ask me, Sir Keith Macleod!""
There was no flush of anger in the fair and placid face; but rather a look of demure amus.e.m.e.nt in the downcast eyes.
"Dear me, Carry!" said she, with great innocence, "the profession of an actress must be looking up in public estimation when such a rumor as that could even get into existence. And so people have been so kind as to suggest that Sir Keith Macleod, the representative of one of the oldest and proudest families in the kingdom, would not be above marrying a poor actress who has her living to earn, and who is supported by the half-crowns and half-sovereigns of the public? And indeed I think it would look very well to have him loitering about the stage-doors of provincial theatres until his wife should be ready to come out; and would he bring his gillies, and keepers, and head-foresters, and put them into the pit to applaud her? Really, the role you have cut out for a Highland gentleman--"
"A Highland gentleman!" exclaimed Carry. "A Highland pauper! But you are quite right, Gerty, to laugh at the rumor. Of course it is quite ridiculous. It is quite ridiculous to think that an actress whose fame is all over England--who is sought after by everybody, and the popularest favorite ever seen--would give up everything and go away and marry an ignorant Highland savage, and look after his calves and his cows and hens for him. That is indeed ridiculous, Gerty."
"Very well, then, put it out of your mind; and never let me hear another word about it," said the popularest favorite, as she undid the bit of tartan ribbon; "and if it is any great comfort to you to know, this is not the Macleod tartan but the MacDougal tartan, and you may put it in the fire if you like."
Saying which, she threw the bit of costume which had given so great offence on the table. The discomfited Carry looked at it, but would not touch it. At last she said,
"Where are the skins, Gerty?"
"Near Castle Dare," answered Miss White, turning to get something else for her neck; "there is a steep hill, and the road comes over it. When you climb to the top of the hill and sit down, the fairies will carry you right to the bottom if you are in a proper frame of mind. But they won"t appear at all unless you are at peace with all men. I will show you the skins when you are in a proper frame of mind, Carry."
"Who told you that story?" she asked quickly.