"That sounds rather well, Macleod," said he, ruefully.
"Oh, if you must remain in London--though I hope not--I will stay with you," Macleod said. It was a great sacrifice, his remaining in London, instead of going at once back to Castle Dare; but what will not one do for one"s friend?
CHAPTER XXVI.
AN INTERVIEW.
On the eventful morning on which Major Stuart was to be presented to the chosen bride of Macleod of Dare, the simple-hearted soldier--notwithstanding that he had a shade over one eye, made himself exceedingly smart. He would show the young lady that Macleod"s friends in the North were not barbarians. The major sent back his boots to be brushed a second time. A more smoothly fitting pair of gloves Bond Street never saw.
"But you have not the air," said he to Macleod, "of a young fellow going to see his sweetheart. What is the matter, man?"
Macleod hesitated for a moment.
"Well, I am anxious she should impress you favorably," said he, frankly; "and it is an awkward position for her--and she will be embarra.s.sed, no doubt--and I have some pity for her, and almost wish some other way had been taken--"
"Oh, nonsense?" the major said, cheerfully. "You need not be nervous on her account. Why, man, the silliest girl in the world could impose on an old fool like me. Once upon a time, perhaps, I may have considered myself a connoisseur--well, you know, Macleod, I once had a waist like the rest of you; but now, bless you, if a tolerably pretty girl only says a civil word or two to me, I begin to regard her as if I were her guardian angel--_in loco parentis_, and that kind of thing--and I would sooner hang myself than scan her dress or say a word about her figure.
Do you think she will be afraid of a critic with one eye? Have courage, man. I dare bet a sovereign she is quite capable of taking care of herself. It"s her business."
Macleod flushed quickly, and the one eye of the major caught that sudden confession of shame or resentment.
"What I meant was," he said, instantly, "that nature had taught the simplest of virgins a certain trick of fence--oh yes, don"t you be afraid. Embarra.s.sment! If there is any one embarra.s.sed, it will not be me, and it will not be she. Why, she"ll begin to wonder whether you are really one of the Macleods, if you show yourself nervous, apprehensive, frightened like this."
"And indeed, Stuart," said he, rising as if to shake off some weight of gloomy feeling, "I scarcely know what is the matter with me. I ought to be the happiest man in the world; and sometimes this very happiness seems so great that it is like to suffocate me--I cannot breathe fast enough; and then, again, I get into such unreasoning fears and troubles--Well, let us get out into the fresh air."
The major carefully smoothed his hat once more, and took up his cane. He followed Macleod down stairs--like Sancho Panza waiting on Don Quixote, as he himself expressed it; and then the two friends slowly sauntered away northward on this fairly clear and pleasant December morning.
"Your nerves are not in a healthy state, that"s the fact, Macleod," said the major, as they walked along. "The climate of London is too exciting for you; a good, long, dull winter in Mull will restore your tone. But in the meantime don"t cut my throat, or your own, or anybody else"s."
"Am I likely to do that?" Macleod said, laughing.
"There was young Bouverie," the major continued, not heeding the question--"what a handsome young fellow he was when he joined us at Gawulpoor!--and he hadn"t been in the place a week but he must needs go regular head over heels about our colonel"s sister-in-law. An uncommon pretty woman she was, too--an Irish girl, and fond of riding; and dash me if that fellow didn"t fairly try to break his neck again and again just that she should admire his pluck! He was as mad as a hatter about her. Well, one day two or three of us had been riding for two or three hours on a blazing hot morning, and we came to one of the irrigation reservoirs--big wells, you know--and what does he do but offer to bet twenty pounds he would dive into the well and swim about for ten minutes, till we hoisted him out at the end of the rope. I forget who took the bet, for none of us thought he would do it: but I believe he would have done anything so that the story of his pluck would be carried to the girl, don"t you know. Well, off went his clothes, and in he jumped into the ice-cold water. Nothing would stop him. But at the end of the ten minutes, when we hoisted up the rope, there was no Bouverie there. It appeared that on clinging on to the rope he had twisted it somehow, and suddenly found himself about to have his neck broken, so he had to shake himself free and plunge into the water again.
When at last we got him out, he had had a longer bath than he had bargained for; but there was apparently nothing the matter with him--and he had won the money, and there would be a talk about him. However, two days afterward, when he was at dinner, he suddenly felt as though he had got a blow on the back of his head--so he told us afterward--and fell back insensible. That was the beginning of it. It took him five or six years to shake off the effects of that dip--"
"And did she marry him, after all?" Macleod said, eagerly.
"Oh dear, no! I think he had been invalided home not more than two or three months when she married Connolly, of the Seventy-first Madras Infantry. Then she ran away from him with some civilian fellow, and Connolly blew his brains out. That," said the major, honestly, "is always a puzzle to me. How a fellow can be such an a.s.s as to blow his brains out when his wife runs away from him beats my comprehension altogether. Now what I would do would be this: I would thank goodness I was rid of such a piece of baggage; I would get all the good-fellows I know, and give them a rattling fine dinner; and I would drink a b.u.mper to her health and another b.u.mper to her never coming back."
"And I would send you our Donald, and he would play, "Cha till mi tuilich" for you," Macleod said.
"But as for blowing my brains out! Well," the major added, with a philosophic air, "when a man is mad he cares neither for his own life nor for anybody else"s. Look at those cases you continually see in the papers: a young man is in love with a young woman; they quarrel, or she prefers some one else; what does he do but lay hold of her some evening and cut her throat--to show his great love for her--and then he coolly gives himself up to the police, and says he is quite content to be hanged."
"Stuart," said Macleod, laughing, "I don"t like this talk about hanging.
You said a minute or two ago that I was mad."
"More or less," observed the major, with absolute gravity; "as the lawyer said when he mentioned the Fifteen-acres park at Dublin."
"Well, let us get into a hansom," Macleod said. "When I am hanged you will ask them to write over my tombstone that I never kept anybody waiting for either luncheon or dinner."
The trim maid-servant who opened the door greeted Macleod with a pleasant smile; she was a sharp wench, and had discovered that lovers have lavish hands. She showed the two visitors into the drawing-room; Macleod silent, and listening intently; the one-eyed major observing everything, and perhaps curious to know whether the house of an actress differed from that of anybody else. He very speedily came to the conclusion that, in his small experience, he had never seen any house of its size so tastefully decorated and accurately managed as this simple home.
"But what"s this!" he cried, going to the mantelpiece and taking down a drawing that was somewhat ostentatiously placed there. "Well! If this is English hospitality! By Jove! an insult to me, and my father, and my father"s clan, that blood alone will wipe out. "The Astonishment of Sandy MacAlister Mhor on beholding a Glimpse of Sunlight," Look!"
He showed the rude drawing to Macleod--a sketch of a wild Highlander, with his hair on end, his eyes starting out of his head, and his hands uplifted in bewilderment. This work of art was the production of Miss Carry, who, on hearing the knock at the door, had whipped into the room, placed her bit of savage satire over the mantelpiece, and whipped out again. But her deadly malice so far failed of its purpose that, instead of inflicting any annoyance, it most effectually broke the embarra.s.sment of Miss Gertrude"s entrance and introduction to the major.
"Carry has no great love for the Highlands," she said, laughing and slightly blushing at the same time; "but she need not have prepared so cruel a welcome for you. Won"t you sit down, Major Stuart? Papa will be here directly."
"I think it is uncommonly clever," the major said, fixing his one eye on the paper as if he would give Miss White distinctly to understand that he had not come to stare at her--"Perhaps she will like us better when she knows more about us."
"Do you think," said Miss White, demurely, "that it is possible for any one born in the South to learn to like the bagpipes?"
"No," said Macleod, quickly--and it was not usual for him to break in in this eager way about a usual matter of talk--"that is all a question of a.s.sociation. If you had been brought up to a.s.sociate the sound of the pipes with every memorable thing--with the sadness of a funeral, and the welcome of friends come to see you, and the pride of going away to war--then you would understand why "Lord Lovat"s Lament," or the "Farewell to Gibraltar," or the "Heights of Alma"--why these bring the tears to a Highlander"s eyes. The pibrochs preserve our legends for us,"
he went on to say, in rather an excited fashion, for he was obviously nervous, and perhaps a trifle paler than usual. "They remind us of what our families have done in all parts of the world, and there is not one you do not a.s.sociate with some friend or relative who is gone away, or with some great merrymaking, or with the death of one who was dear to you. You never saw that--the boat taking the coffin across the loch, and the friends of the dead sitting with bowed heads, and the piper at the bow playing the slow Lament to the time of the oars. If you had seen that, you would know what the "c.u.mhadh na Cloinne" is to a Highlander.
And if you have a friend come to see you, what is it first tells you of his coming? When you can hear nothing for the waves, you can hear the pipes! And if you were going into a battle, what would put madness into your head but to hear the march that you know your brothers and uncles and cousins last heard when they marched on with a cheer to take death as it happened to come to them? You might as well wonder at the Highlanders loving the heather. That is not a very handsome flower."
Miss White was sitting quite calm and collected. A covert glance or two had convinced the major that she was entirely mistress of the situation.
If there was any one nervous, embarra.s.sed, excited, through this interview, it was not Miss Gertrude White.
"The other morning," she said, complacently, and she pulled down her dainty white cuffs another sixteenth of an inch, "I was going along Buckingham Palace Road, and I met a detachment--is a detachment right, Major Stuart?--of a Highland regiment. At least I supposed it was part of a Highland regiment, because they had eight pipers playing at their head; and I noticed that the cab horses were far more frightened than they would have been at twice the noise coming from an ordinary band. I was wondering whether they might think it the roar of some strange animal--you know how a camel frightens a horse. But I envied the officer who was riding in front of the soldiers. He was a very handsome man; and I thought how proud he must feel to be at the head of those fine, stalwart fellows. In fact, I felt for a moment that I should like to have command of a regiment myself."
"Faith," said the major, gallantly, "I would exchange into that regiment, if I had to serve as a drummer-boy."
Embarra.s.sed by this broad compliment? Not a bit of it. She laughed lightly, and then rose to introduce the two visitors to her father, who had just entered the room.
It was not to be expected that Mr. White, knowing the errand of his guests, should give them an inordinately effusive welcome; but he was gravely polite. He prided himself on being a man of common-sense, and he knew it was no use fighting against the inevitable. If his daughter would leave the stage, she would; and there was some small compensation in the fact that by her doing so she would become Lady Macleod. He would have less money to spend on trinkets two hundred years old; but he would gain something--a very little no doubt--from the reflected l.u.s.tre of her social position.
"We were talking about officers, papa," she said, brightly, "and I was about to confess that I have always had a great liking for soldiers. I know if I had been a man I should have been a soldier. But do you know, Sir Keith, you were once very rude to me about your friend Lieutenant Ogilvie?"
Macleod started.
"I hope not," said he gravely.
"Oh yes, you were. Don"t you remember the Caledonian Ball? I only remarked that Lieutenant Ogilvie, who seemed to me a bonnie boy, did not look as if he were a very formidable warrior; and you answered with some dark saying--what was it?--that n.o.body could tell what sword was in a scabbard until it was drawn?"
"Oh," said he, laughing somewhat nervously, "you forget: I was talking to the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire."
"And I am sure her Grace was much obliged to you for frightening her so," Miss White said, with a dainty smile.
Major Stuart was greatly pleased by the appearance and charming manner of this young lady. If Macleod, who was confessedly a handsome young fellow, had searched all over England, he could not have chosen a fitter mate. But he was also distinctly of opinion--judging by his one eye only--that n.o.body needed to be alarmed about this young lady"s exceeding sensitiveness and embarra.s.sment before strangers. He thought she would on all occasions be fairly capable of holding her own. And he was quite convinced, too, that the beautiful clear eyes, under the long lashes, pretty accurately divined what was going forward. But what did this impression of the honest soldier"s amount to? Only, in other words, that Miss Gertrude White, although a pretty woman, was not a fool.
Luncheon was announced, and they went into the other room, accompanied by Miss Carry, who had suffered herself, to be introduced to Major Stuart with a certain proud sedateness. And now the major played the part of the accepted lover"s friend to perfection. He sat next Miss White herself; and no matter what the talk was about, he managed to bring it round to something that redounded to Macleod"s advantage.
Macleod could do this, and Macleod could do that; it was all Macleod, and Macleod, and Macleod.
"And if you should ever come to our part of the world, Miss White," said the major--not letting his glance meet hers--"you will be able to understand something of the old loyalty and affection and devotion the people in the Highlands showed to their chiefs; for I don"t believe there is a man, woman, or child about the place who would not rather have a hand cut off than that Macleod should have a thorn scratch him.
And it is all the more singular, you know, that they are not Macleods.
Mull is the country of the Macleans; and the Macleans and the Macleods had their fights in former times. There is a cave they will show you round the point from _Ru na Gaul_ lighthouse that is called _Uamh-na-Ceann_--that is, the Cavern of the Skulls--where the Macleods murdered fifty of the Macleans, though Alastair Crotach, the humpbacked son of Macleod, was himself killed."