Macleod of Dare

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Chapter II. Mentor

It was with a wholly indescribable surprise and delight that Macleocl came upon the life and stir and gayety of London in the sweet June time, when the parks and gardens and squares would of themselves have been a sufficient wonder tc him. The change from the sombre shores of lochs Na Keal and lua, and Scridain to this world of sunlit foliage— the golden yellow of the laburnum, the cream-white of the chest nuts, the rose-pink of the red hawthorn, and everywhere the keen, translucent green of the young lime-trees — was enough to fill the heart with joy and gladness, though he had been no diligent student of landscape and color. The few days he had to spend by himself — while getting properly dressed to satisfy the demands of his friend — passed quickly enough. He was not at all ashamed of his country-made clothes as he watched the whirl of carriages in Piccadilly, or lounged under the elms at Hyde Park, with his beautiful silver-white and lemon-colored collie attracting the admiration of every passer-by. Nor had he waited for the permission of Lieutenant Ogilvie to make his entrance into, at least, one little corner of society. He was recognized in St. James’s Street one morning by a noble lady whom he had met once or twice at Inverness ; and she, having stopped her carriage, was pleased to ask him to lunch with herself and her husband next day. To the great grief of Oscar, who had to be shut up by himself, Macleod went up next day to Brook Street, and there met several people whose names he knew as representatives of old Highland families, but who were very English, as it seemed to him, in their speech and ways. He was rather petted, for he was a handsome lad, and he had high spirits and a proud air. And his hostess was so kind as to mention that the Caledonian Ball was coming off on the 25th, and of course he must come, in the Highland costume ; and as she was one of the patronesses, should she give him a voucher ?

STACf.Rt 7-> OR DARE.

Macleod answered, laughingly, that lie would be glad to have it, though he did not know what it was; whereupon she was pleased to say that no wonder he laughed at the notion of a voucher being wanted for any Macleod of Dare.

One morning a good-looking and slim young man knocked at the door of a small house in Bury Street, St. James’s, and asked if Sir Keith Macleod was at home. The man said he was, and the young gentleman entered. Ilf was a most correctly dressed person. His hat, and glovec and cane, and long-tailed frock-coat were all beautiful ; but it was, perhaps, the tightness of his nether garments, or, perhaps, the tightness of his brilliantly-polished boots (which were partially covered by white gaiters)* that made him go up the narrow little stairs with some precision of caution. The door was opened and he was announced.

“My dear old boy,” said he, “how do you do?” and Macleod gave him a grip of the hand that nearly burst one of his gloves.

But at this moment an awful accident occurred. From behind the door of the adjacent bedroom, Oscar, the collie, sprang forward with an angry growl ; then he seemed to recognize the situation of affairs, when he saw his master holding the stranger’s hand ; then he began to wag his tail ; then he jumped up with his fore-paws to give a kindly welcome.

“ Hang it all, Macleod 1” young Ogilvie cried, with all the starch gone out of his manner; “your dog’s all wet? What’s the use of keeping a brute like that about the place ? ”

Alas ! the beautiful, brilliant boots were all besmeared, and the white gaiters too, and the horsey-looking nether garments. Moreover, the Highland savage, so far from betray .ng compunction, burst into a roar of laughter.

“ My dear fellow,” he cried, “ I put him in my bedroom to dry. I couldn’t do more, could I ? He has just been in the Serpentine.”

“ I wish he was there now, with a stone and a string round his neck !” observed Lieutenant Ogilvie, looking at his boots ; but he repented him of this rash saying, for within a week he had offered Macleod £20 for the dog. He might have offered twenty dozen of £ 20 , and thrown his polished boots and his gaiters too into the bargain, and he would have had the same answer.

Oscar was once more banished into the bedroom ; and Mr. Ogilvie sat down, pretending to take no more notice of his boots. Macleod put some sherry on the table, and a

MAC f.EOD LA-' FA ,\E.

handful of cigars ; his friend asked whether he could not have a glass of seltzer-water and a cigarette.

“ And how do you like the rooms I got for you ? ”

“There is not much fresh air about them, nor in this narrow street,” Macleod said, frankly ; “ but that is no matter for I have been out all day — all over London.”

“ I thought the price was as high as you would care to ;o,” Ogilvie said ; “ but I forgot you bad come fresh up, with our pocket full of money. If you would like something a tilde more princely, I?ll put you up to it.”

“ And where have 1 got the money ? There are no gold mines in the west of Mull. It is you who are Fortunatus.”

“ By Jove, if you knew how hard a fellow is run at Aidershot,” Mr. Ogilvie remarked, confidentially, “you would scarcely believe it. Kvery new batch of fellows who come in have 10 be dined all round; and the mess bills are simply awful. It’s getting worse and worse ; and then these big drinks put one off one’s work so.”

“ You are studying hard, I suppose,” Macleod said, quite gravely.

“ Pretty well,” said he, stretching out his legs, and petting bis pretty mustache with his beautiful white hand. Then he added, suddenly, surveying the brown-faced and stalwart young fellow before him, “ By Jove, Macleod, I’m glad to see you in London. It’s like abreathof mountain air. Don’t ,1 remember the awful mornings we’ve had together — the rain and the mist and the creeping through the bogs ? I believe you did your best to kill me. If I hadn’t had the constitution of a horse, I should have been killed.”

“ I should say your big drinks at Aldershot were more likely to kill you than going after the deer,” said Macleod, “ And will you come up with me this autumn, Ogilvie ? The mother will be glad to see you, and Janet, too; though we haven’t got any fine young ladies for you to make love to, unless you go up to Fort William, or Fort George, or Inverness. And I was all over the moors before I came away; and if there is anything like good weather, we shall have plenty of birds this year, for I never saw before such a big average of eggs in the nests.”

“ I wonder you don’t let part of that shooting,” said young Ogilvie, who knew well of the straitened circumstances of the Macleods of Dare.

“ The mother won’t have it done,” said Macleod, quite simply, “ for she thinks it keeps meat home. But a young man cannot always stay at home. It is very good for you, Ogilvie, that you have brothers.”

“ Yes, if i had been the eldest of them,” said Mr. Ogilvie “ft is a capital thing to have younger brothers ; it isn t half so pleasant when you are the younger brother.”

“ And will you come up, then, and bury yourself alive at Dare ? ”

“It is awfully good of you to ask me, Macleod; and if 1 ;:an manage it, I will ; but I am afraid there isn’t much chance this year. In the meantime, let me give you a hint. In London we talk of going down to the Highlands.”

“ Oh, do you ? I did not think you were so stupid,” Macleod remarked.

“ Why, of course we do. You speak of going up to the capital of a country, and of going down to the provinces.”

“ Perhaps you are right — no doubt you are right ; but it sounds stupid,” the unconvinced Highlander observed again. “ It sounds stupid to say going up to the south, and going down to the north. And how can you go down to the Highlands ? you might go down to the Lowlands. But no doubt you are right ; and I will be more particular. And will you have another cigarette ? and then we will go out for a walk, and Oscar will get drier in the street than indoors.”

“Don’t imagine I am going out to have that dog plunging about among my feet,” said Ogilvie. “ But I have something else for you to do. You know Colonel Ross of Duntorme.”

“ I have heard of him.”

“ His wife is an awfully nice woman, and would like to meet you. I fancy they think of buying some property — I am not sure it isn’t an island— ill your part of the country; and she has never been to the Highlands at all. I was to take you down with me to lunch with her at two, if you caie to go. There is her card.”

Macleod looked at the card.

“ How far is Prince’s Gate from here ? ” he asked

“ A mile and a half, I should say.”

“And it is now twenty minutes to two,” said he, rising. 45 It will be a nice smart walk.”

“ Thank you,” said Mr. Ogilvie ; “if it is all the sam ± to you, we will perform the. journey in a hansom. , 1 am not in training just at present for your tramps to Ben-an-Sloich.”

“ Ah ! your boots are rather tight,” said Maclecd, with grave sympathy.

They got into a hansom, and went spinning along through the crowd of carriages on this brilliant morning. The busy stieets, the handsome women, the fine buildings, the bright and beautiful foliage of the parks — all these were a peipetual wonder and delight to the new-comer, who was as eager in the enjoyment of this gay world of pleasure and activity as any girl come up for her first season. Perhaps this notion occurred to the astute and experienced Lieutenant Ogilvie, who considered it his duty to warn h..s youthful and ingenuous friend.

“ Mrs. Ross is a very' handsome woman,” he remarked.

41 Indeed.”

*' And uncommonly fascinating, too, when she likes.”

44 Really.”

44 You had better look out, if she tries to fascinate you.”

44 She is a married woman,” said Macleod.

44 They are always the worst,” said this wise person ; “ for they are jealous of the younger women.”

44 Oh, that is all nonsense,” said Macleod, bluntly'. 44 I am not such a greenhorn. I have read all that kind of talk in books and magazines : it is ridiculous. Do you think I will believe that married women have so little self-respect as to make themselves the laughing stock of men ? ”

44 My dear fellow', they have cart-loads of self-respect. What I mean is, that Mrs. Ross is a bit of a lion-hunter, and she may take a fancy to make a lion of you-^-”

44 That is better than to make an ass of me, as you suggested.”

44 — And naturally she will try to attach you to her set. I don’t think you are quite outre enough for her ; perhaps I made a mistake in putting you into decent clothes. You wouldn’t have time to get into your kilts now' ? But you must be prepared to meet all sorts of queer folks at her house, especially if you stay on a bit and have some tea — mysterious poets that nobody ever heard of, and artists who won’t exhibit, and awful swells from the German universities, and I don’t know' what besides — everybody who isn’t the least like anybody else.”

44 And what is your claim, then, to go there ? ” Macleod asked.

44 Oh,” said the y'oung lieutenant, laughing at the homethrust, 44 1 am only admitted on sufferance, as a friend of Colonel Ross. She never asked me to pK my name in her autograph-book. But I have done a bit of the jackal for her once

A

,6 MACLEOD Of PARR

or twice, when I happened to be on leave ; and she has sent me with people to her box at Covent Garden when she couldn’t go herself.”

“ And how am I to propitiate her ? What am I to do ? **

“ She will soon let you know how you strike her. Kithei she will pet you, or she will snuff you out like winking. 1 don’t know a woman who has a blanker stare, when she likes.’

This idle conversation was suddenly interrupted. At the same moment both young men experienced a sinking sei sa tion, as if the earth had been cut away from beneath theii feet ; then there was a crash, and they were violently thrown against each other; then they vaguely knew that the cab, heeling over, .was being jolted along the street by a runaway horse. Fortunately, the horse could not run very fast, for the axle-tree,- deprived of its wheel, was tearing at the road ; but, all the same, the occupants of the cab though they might as -well get out, and so they tried to force open the two small panels of the door in front of them. But the concussion had so jammed these together that, shove at them as they might, they would not yield. At this juncture, Macleod, who was not accustomed to hansom cabs, and did not at all like this first experience of them, determined to get out somehow ; and so he raised himself a bit, so as to get his back firm, against the back of the vehicle ; he pulled up his leg until his knee almost touched his mouth ; he got the heel of his boot firmly fixed on the top edge of the door : and then with one forward drive he tore the panel right away from its hinges. The other was of course flung open at once. Then he grasped the brass rail outside, steadied himself for a moment, and jumped clear from the cab, lighting on the pavement. Strange to say, Ogilvie did not follow, though Macleod, as he rushed along to try to get hold of the horse,. momentarily expected to see him jump out. His. anxiety was of short duration. The axle-tree caught on the curb; there was a sudden lurch ; and then, with a crash of glass, the cab went right over, throwing down the horse, and pitching the driver into the street. It was all the work of a few seconds ; and another second seemed to suffice to collect a crowd, even :n :his quiet part of Kensington Gore. But, after all, very little damage was done, except to the horse, which had cut one of its hocks. When young Mr. Ogilvie scrambled out and got on to the pavement, instead of being grateful that his life had been spared, he was in a towering passion — with whom oi what he knew not

H Why didn’t you jump out ?” said Macleod tc him, afte, seeing that the cabman was all right.

Ogilvie did not answer ; he was looking at his besmeared hands and dishevelled clothes.

“ Confound it ! ” said he ; “ what’s to be done now ? The house is just round the corner.”

** Let us go in, and they will lend you a clothesbrush.”

“ As if I had been fighting a bargee ? No, thank you. I ftill go along till I find some tavern, and get myself put to rights.”

And this he did gloomily, Macleod accompanying him It "was about a quarter of an hour before he had completed his toilet ; and then they set out to walk back to Prince’s Gate.- Mr. Ogilvie was in a better humor.

“ What a fellow you are to jump, Macleod !” said he. “ If you had cannoned against that policeman you would have killed him. And you never paid the cabman for destroying the lid of the door ; you prized the thing clean off its hinges. You must have the strength of a giant.”

“ But where the people came from — it was that surprised me,” said Macleod, -who seemed to have rather enjoyed the adventure. “ It was like one of our sea-lochs in the High lands — you look all round and cannot find any guli anywhere but throw a biscuit into the water, and you will find then appearing from all quarters at once. As for the door, I forgot that ; but I gave the man half a sovereign to console him foi his shaking. Was not that enough ? ”

“ We shall be frightfully late for luncheon,” said Mr. Ogilvie, with some concern.

Chapter III. Fionaghal

And, ndeed, when they entered the house-— the balro* and window's were a blaze of flowers all shining in the sun— they found that their host and hostess had already come downstairs, and were seated at table with their small part) of guests. This circumstance did not less n Sir Keith Macleod’s trepidation ; for there is no denying th fact that the i8

young man would rather have faced an angry bulJ on High land road than this party of people in the hushed and semidarkened and Mower-scented room. It seemed to him that his appearance was the signal for a confusion that was equivalent to an earthquake. Two or three servants — all more solemn than any clergyman — began to make new arrangements; a tall lady, benign of aspect, rose and most graciouslv received him ; a tall gentleman, with a gray mustache, shook hands with him ; and then, as he vaguely heard young Ogilvie, at the other end of the room, relate the incident of the upsetting of the cab, he found himself seated next to this benign lady, and apparently in a bewildering paradise of beautiful lights and colors and delicious odors. Asparagus soup ? Yes, he would take that , but for a second or two this spacious and darkened room, with its stained glass and its sombre walls, and the table before him, with its masses of roses and lilies-of-the-valley, its silver, its crystal, its nectarines, and cherries, and pineapples, seemed some kind of enchanted place. And then the people talked in a low and hushed fashion, and the servants moved silently and mysteriously, and the air was languid with the scents of fruits and flowers. They gave him some wine in a tall green glass that had transparent lizards crawling up its stem ; he had never drunk out of a thing like that before.

“ It was very kind of Mr. Ogilvie to get you to come ; he is a very good boy ; he forgets nothing,” said Mrs. Ross to him ; and as he became aware that she was a pleasant-looking lady of middle age, who regarded him with very friendly and truthful eyes, he vowed to himself that he would bring Mr. Ogilvie to task for representing this decent and respectable woman as a graceless and dangerous coquette. No doubt she was the mother of children. At her time ol life she was better employed in the nursery or in the kitchen than in flirting with young men ; and could he doubt that she was a good house-mistress when he saw with his own eyes how spick and span everything was, and how accurately everything was served ? Even if his cousin Janet lived in the south, with all these fine flowers and hot-house fruits to serve her purpose, she could not have done better. He began to like this pleasant-eyed woman, though she seemed delicate, and a trifle languid, and in consequence he sometimes could not quite make out what she said. But then he noticed that the othei people talked in this limp fashion too : there was no precision about their words ; frequently they seemed to leave you tc f9

MAC u: CD CD DARE.

guess the end of their sentences. As for the young lady next him, was she not very delicate also ? He had never seen such hands — so small, and fine, and white. And although she talked only to her neighbor on the other side of her, he could hear that her voice, low and musical as it was. was only a murmur.

“ Miss White and I,” said Mrs. Ross to him — and at this moment the young lady turned to them — “ were talking be fore you came in of the beautiful country you must know sc well, and of its romantic stories and associations with Prince Charlie. Gertrude, let me introduce Sir Keith Macleod to you. I told Miss White you might come to us to-day ; and she was saying what a pity it was that Flora Macdonald was not a Macleod.”

“ That was very kind“ said he, frankly, turning to this tall, pale girl, with the rippling hair of golden brown and the heavy-lidded and downcast eyes. And then he laughed. “ We would not like to steal the honor from a woman, even though she was a Macdonald, and you know the Macdonalds and the Macleods were not very friendly in the old time. But we can claim something too about the escape of Prince Charlie, Mrs. Ross. After Flora Macdonald had got him safe from Harris to Skye, she handed him over to the sons of Macleod of Raasay, and it was owing to them that he got to the mainland. You will find many people up there to this day who believe that if Macleod of Macleod had gone out in ’45, Prince Charlie would never have had to flee at all. But I think the Macleods had done enough for the Stuarts ; and it was but little thanks they ever got in return, so far as I could ever hear. Do you know, Mrs. Ross, my mother wears mourning every 3d of September, and will eat nothing from morning till night. It is the anniversary of the battle of Worcester; and then the Macleods were so smashed up that for a long time the other clans relieved them from military service.”

“You are not much of a Jacobite; Sir Keith,” said Mis Ross, smiling.

“ Only when I hear a Jacobite song sung,” said he.

“ Then who can fail to be a Jacobite ? ”

He had become quite friendly with this amiable lady If he had been afraid that his voice, in these delicate south ern ears, must sound like the first guttral drone of Donald’s pipes at Castle Da/e, he had speedily lost that fear. The manly, sun-browned face and clenr-gkancing eyes were full of

MACLEOD OF DARE.

animation ; he was oppressed no longer by the solemnity of the servants ; so long as he talked to her he was quite con fident ; he had made friends with this friendly woman. But he had not as yet dared to address the pale girl who sat oii his right, and who seemed so fragile and beautiful and distant in manner.

“ After all,” said he to Mrs. Ross, “ there were no more Highlanders killed in the cause of the Stuarts than used to oe killed every year or two merely out of the quarrels of the clans among themselves. All about where I live there is scarcely a rock, or a loch, or an island that has not its story. And I think,” added he, with a becoming modesty, “ that the Macleods were by far the most treacherous and savage and bloodthirsty of the whole lot of them.”

And now the fair stranger beside him addressed him for the first time ; and as she did so, she turned her eyes towards him — clear, large eyes that rather startled one when the heavy lids were lifted, so full of expression were they.

“ I suppose,” said she, with a certain demure smile, “ you have no wild deeds done there now ? ”

“ Oh, we have become quite peaceable folks now,” said he, laughing. “Our spirit is quite broken. The wild boars are all away from the islands now, even from Muick ; we have only the sheep. And the Mackenzies, and the lilacleans, and the Macleods — they are all sheep now.”

Was it not quite obvious? How could any one associate with this bright-faced young man the fierce traditions of hate and malice and revenge, that makes the seas and islands of the north still more terrible in their loneliness ? Those were the days of strong wills and strong passions, and of an easy disregard of individual life when the gratification of some set desire was near. What had this Maclfeod to do with such scorching fires of hate and of love ? He was playing with a silver fork and half a dozen strawberries : Miss White’s surmise was perfectly natural and correct.

The ladies went upstairs, and the men, after the claret had gone round, followed them. And now it seemed to this rude Highlander that he was only going from wonder to wonder. Half-way up the narrow staircase was a large recess dimly lit by the sunlight falling through stained glass, and there was a small fountain playing in the middle of this grotto and all around was a wilderness of ferns dripping with the spray, while at the entrance two stone figures held up magical globes on which the springing and falling water wa: reflected.

MACLEOD OF DARE.

Then from this partial gloom he emerged into the drawing-room— a dream of rose-pink and gold, with the air sweetened around him by the masses of roses and tall lilies about. His eyes were rather bewildered at first ; the figures of the women seemed dark against the white lace of the windows. But as he went forward to his hostess, he could make out still further wonders of color; for in the balconies outside, in the full glare of the sun, were geraniums, and lobelias, and golden calceolarias, and red snapdragon, their bright hues faintly tempered by the thin curtains through which they were seen. He could not help expressing his admiration of these things that were so new to him, for it seemed to him that he had come into a land of perpetual summer and sunshine and glowing flowers. Then the luxuriant greenness of the foliage on the other side of Exhibition Road — for Mrs. Ross’s house faced westward — was, as he said, singularly beautiful to one accustomed to the windy skies of the western isles.

“ But you have not seen our elm— our own elm,” said Mrs. Ross, who was arranging some azaleas that had just been sent her. “ We are very proud of our elm. Gertrude, will you take Sir Keith to see our noble elm ? ”

He had almost foigotten who Gertrude was ; but the next second he recognized the lowr and almost timid voice that sa;d.

“ Will you come this way, then Sir Keith ?”

He turned, and found that it was Miss White who spoke. Bow' was it that this girl, who was only a girl, seemed to do things so easily, and gently, and naturally, without any trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness ? He followed her, and knew not Which to admire the more, the careless simplicity of her manner, or the singular symmetry of her tall and slender figure. He had never seen any statue or any picture in any book to be compared with this woman, who was so fine, and rare, and delicate that she seemed only a beautiful tall flower in this garden of flowers. There was a strange simplicity, too, about her dress — a plain, tight-fitting, tight-sleeved dress of unrelieved black, her only adornment being some bands of big blue beads worn loosely round the neck. The black figure, in this shimmer of rose-pink and gold and flowers, was effective enough ; but even the finest of pictures or the finest of statues has not the subtle attraction of a graceful carriage. Macleod had never seen any woman walk as this woman walked, in so stately and yet so simple a way.

From Mrs, Ross’s chief drawing-room they passed into ac

MAC l HOD 01- antedrawing-room, which was partly a passage and partly a conservatory. On the window side were some rows of Cape heaths, on the wail side some rows of blue and white plates ; and it was one of the latter that was engaging the attention of two persons in this anteroom — Colonel Ross himself, and a little old gentleman in gold-rimmed spectacles.

“ Shall I introduce you to my father ? ” said Miss White U) her companion ; and, after a word or two, they passed on.