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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 54538
   :PG.Title: Miss Esperance and Mr Wycherly
   :PG.Released: 2017-04-10
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \L. Allen Harker
   :DC.Title: Miss Esperance and Mr Wycherly
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1908
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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MISS ESPERANCE AND MR WYCHERLY
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      MISS ESPERANCE AND
      MR WYCHERLY

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      BY

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      \L. ALLEN HARKER

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      AUTHOR OF "A ROMANCE OF THE NURSERY," "CONCERNING
      PAUL AND FIAMMETTA," "HIS FIRST LEAVE," ETC.

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      NEW YORK
      CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
      1908

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      COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
      CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

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      Published September, 1908

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   BOOKS BY L. ALLEN HARKER

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   PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

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   Miss Esperance and Mr. Wycherly
   His First Leave
   Concerning Paul and Fiammetta
   A Romance of the Nursery

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   CONTENTS

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   CHAPTER

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I.  `Which Introduces Them`_
II.  `The Coming of the Children`_
III.  `The Education of Mr. Wycherly`_
IV.  `The Secretiveness of Mause`_
V.  `Robina`_
VI.  `The Awakening of Mr. Wycherly`_
VII.  `Elsa Drives the Nail Home`_
VIII.  `Edmund Rechristens Mr. Wycherly`_
IX.  `Cupid Abroad`_
X.  `The Sabbath`_
XI.  `Loaves and Fishes`_
XII.  `The Village`_
XIII.  `A Meeting`_
XIV.  `A Parting`_
XV.  `The Bethune Temperament`_
XVI.  `The Coming of the Colonel`_
XVII.  `Mr. Wycherly Goes Into Society`_
XVIII.  `Montagu and His Aunt`_
XIX.  `The Fond Adventure`_
XX.  `A Question of Theology`_
XXI.  `In which Mr. Wycherly Hangs Up His College Arms`_
XXII.  `Vale`_

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"*Love is an excellent thing, a great good
indeed, which alone maketh light all that is
burthensome and equally bears all that is
unequal.  For it carrieth a burthen without
being burthened and maketh all that which
is bitter sweet and savoury.*"





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.. _`WHICH INTRODUCES THEM`:

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   MISS ESPERANCE AND
   MR. WYCHERLY

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   CHAPTER I

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   WHICH INTRODUCES THEM

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And the kingdom of heaven is of the child-like, of those
who are easy to please,
who love and who give pleasure.—R.L.S.

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Just as a Royal Princess is known only by
her Christian name, so "Miss Esperance"
was known to her many friends by hers.  It
would have seemed an impertinence to add
anything more: there was only one Miss
Esperance, and even quite commonplace people,
deficient in imagination and generally prosaic
in their estimate of their acquaintance,
acknowledged, perhaps unconsciously, that in
Miss Esperance was to be found in marked
degree "that hardy and high serenity,"
distinguishing quality of the truly great.

A little, old lady, her abundant white hair
demurely parted under the species of white
muslin cap known in the North country as a
"mutch," with beautiful, kind eyes, and a
fresh pink-and-white complexion, having a slim,
long-waisted figure, always attired in garments
something of a cross between those of a Quakeress
and a Sister-of-Mercy; a little, old lady, who
walked delicately and talked deliberately the
English of Mr. Addison; who lived in a small,
square house set in a big, homely garden, on an
incredibly small income; and out of that
income helped innumerable people poorer than
herself, to say nothing of much greater
responsibilities undertaken at an age when most
of us look for rest and a quiet life.

Long before there was a village of Burnhead
at all, that small stone house had stood
four-square to all the winds of heaven, and winds
are boisterous in that cold North.  So lonely
had it been—that little house—that far back,
beyond the memory of even hearsay it had
been called "Remote."  Now the village had
crept up round it, but still it stood just a little
aloof, alone in its green garden at the end of
the straggling village street.  And it seemed a
singularly suitable setting for Miss Esperance
who, also, by reason of her breeding and her
dignified, dainty ways, moved wholly unconsciously
and gracefully on a somewhat different
plane from that of the homely folk amongst
whom she spent her simple days.

Such was Miss Esperance; regarded by the
inhabitants of her own village, and those of the
big town on whose outskirts it lay, with
something of the possessive pride with which they
looked upon their famous Castle.

And then there was Mr. Wycherly.

For some years he had lived with Miss
Esperance, occupying two rooms on the first
floor.  A very learned man was he, absorbed
in the many books which lined his little
sitting-room.  Something of a collector, too, with a
discriminating affection for first editions and
a knowledge concerning them excelling that of
Mr. Donaldson himself, the great second-hand
dealer.

The attitude of Miss Esperance toward
Mr. Wycherly somewhat resembled that of Miss
Betsy Trotwood to Mr. Dick, with this
difference—that Mr. Wycherly's lapses from a
condition of erudite repose were only occasional.
He had what Miss Esperance tenderly called
"one foible."  On occasion, particularly at
such times as he left the safe shelter of the
village on a book-hunting expedition in the
neighbouring town, "he exceeded"—again to
quote Miss Esperance—the temperate tumbler
of toddy and single glass of port which she
accorded him; and would return in a state
of boisterous hilarity, which caused Elsa, the
serving-woman, to shake her head and mutter
something about "haverals" on his first
wavering appearance at the far end of the garden
path which led to the front door.

Then would she march upstairs and sternly
"turn down" his bed; descending hastily again
and, in spite of his protests, trundle him up
the staircase, divest him of his boots, nor
leave him till he was safe between the sheets.
There he continued to sing lustily till he fell
asleep.

He was never otherwise than courteous in his
cups; but at such times his usually austere
manner would unbend, and he would compare
Elsa—who was older than Miss Esperance and
extremely hard-favoured—to sundry heathen
goddesses, eulogising her eyes and her
complexion, and interspersing his compliments with
sonorous Latin quotations; for, like Mr. Addison,
"his knowledge of the Latin poets, from
Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and
Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound."

Even when most mirthful he sang only two
songs, "Here's a Health Unto His Majesty"
and "Down Among the Dead Men."  In his
more sober moments he professed entire
ignorance of music.

There were people who said that he was a
descendant of the Mr. Wycherly who wrote
plays, but he was never heard to claim any
such relationship.  When he first came to live
with Miss Esperance his family and hers almost
despaired of him, and even talked of putting
him "in a home"; for his "foible" had become
a habit, and health and brain were both
seriously affected.  Then Miss Esperance
suggested that he should come to her, and he and
his relatives were only too glad to fall in with
the suggestion.  What he could pay would
make things easier for her, and she, if any one
in the world, might reclaim him.  But if his
friends thought to make things more comfortable
for Miss Esperance by the quarterly payments
they made for his board and lodging,
they were very far wrong.  She deducted a
few shillings for his rooms, but the rest was
most religiously expended upon Mr. Wycherly;
and as his health improved and the fine, keen,
scholarly brain reasserted itself, he was only
too glad to leave everything to Miss Esperance,
never concerning himself so much as to order a
pair of boots unless she accompanied him to
be measured.

He "exceeded" less and less; his vocal
exercises were confined to some four times in the
year, and Miss Esperance rejoiced over him as
a book-lover rejoices over some rare folio
rescued from the huckster's stall to play an
honoured part among "the chosen and the
mighty of every place and time."

"It is of inestimable advantage to me to be
able to listen daily to the instructive
conversation of so cultivated a man as my good
friend Mr. Wycherly," Miss Esperance would
say.  "He seems to comprise in his own person
the trained intelligence of the ages."

And no matter to whomsoever she said it, he
would bow gravely and look impressed.  It was
surprising what beautiful manners quite
uncouth people developed in the society of Miss
Esperance.

She had many relations in high places, and
all who crossed her threshold were her life-long
friends, eager to serve her, but she would
accept pecuniary assistance from none of them.

She and Elsa, the faithful servant and friend
of some fifty years, cooked and washed and
gardened, caught and groomed the shaggy pony
in the little paddock, and cleaned the queer
little carriage in which Miss Esperance used to
drive into Edinburgh, with a shawl pinned over
her bonnet, on cold days, to protect her ears.

She and Elsa seldom tasted meat except on
Sundays.  "A man, my dear, is different," she
would say, when chops were frizzling for
Mr. Wycherly; but she always had a meal for a
friend, and a good and daintily served meal it was!

When you stayed with Miss Esperance, Elsa
would put her head into your bedroom—it
seemed in the small hours—demanding loudly,
"Will ye tak' a herring or an egg to your
breakfast?"  And you were wise if you chose
the herring, for herrings "brandered" by Elsa
were of a succulence unknown to ordinary
mortals.

It fell upon a time during Mr. Wycherly's
sojourn that one Archie, a young nephew of
Miss Esperance, came to visit them, and in no
time the jolly young middy, whose ship was
anchored at Leith, had made a conquest of
them, all three, with his youth, and good looks,
and kindly, cheery ways.

Mr. Wycherly heard that a first edition of
"Beaumont and Fletcher" was to be seen at
some bookseller's in the new town, and set
forth early with five pounds in his pocket, to
see if he could secure such a find.

The day waned, and still no Mr. Wycherly
returned triumphant to display his treasure
before the admiring eyes of Miss Esperance and
"that vastly agreeable youth," as he styled
Archie.

Miss Esperance visibly grew more and more
anxious, and Archie, who was quite ignorant
of Mr. Wycherly's "foible," wondered why his
aunt should concern herself that a dignified
middle-aged gentleman had not returned by
five o'clock on a spring afternoon.  So
perturbed did she become that Archie volunteered
to go and look for him.

His aunt hesitated, then said slowly, "Dear
Archie, I am not sure whether it would be right
to let you go.  You are very young, and poor
dear Mr. Wycherly——"

"Hoots, Miss Esperance," interrupted Elsa
from the half-open door, where she had been
listening in the most barefaced fashion, "just
let the laddie gang: he is better suited to see
after yon puir drucken body than you are
yersel'!"

With that blessed reticence which characterises
all honest and well-disposed boys, Archie
asked no questions.  The whole situation
"jumped to the eye"; so, kissing his aunt, he
seized his jaunty cap and was gone before Miss
Esperance recovered from her wonder and
indignation at Elsa's "meddling."

Archie walked smartly, keeping a sharp
lookout to right and left till he reached the
outskirts of the town: but he met nobody other
than an occasional drover.

Presently he became aware of a little crowd
which surrounded some one who was apparently
sitting on the curbstone and singing.

The group of rough lads and fisher-girls
joined derisively in the chorus of the song,
marking the time by means of various missiles
more calculated to soil than to injure their target.

With a sense of foreboding curiosity as the
discordant "Fal-la-la, la, la la, la" smote upon
his ears, Archie squeezed himself into the press
under the arms of its taller members, and to
his dismay discovered Mr. Wycherly—hatless,
almost coatless, dirty and dishevelled—endeavouring
to sing "Here's a Health Unto His
Majesty" in very adverse circumstances.

Archie pushed through to his side, saying
haughtily, "Don't you see that the gentleman
is drunk?  Be off, and let me take him home."

But the lads and lassies by no means saw it
in that light, and in less time than it takes to
write the sentence Archie was engaged single-handed
in a free fight with all and sundry, and
there seemed every likelihood of his getting
decidedly the worst of it.

Fortune favours the brave, however, and a
big collier lad, who had been the first to point
out Mr. Wycherly's peculiarities of gait and
costume to his companions, suddenly sided
with Archie, and not only did he succeed in
dispersing his quondam friends, but he fetched
a "hackney coach" and lifted Mr. Wycherly
bodily into it.

The "Beaumont and Fletcher" had proved
to be a reprint, and Mr. Wycherly had drowned
his sorrows in the flowing bowl.

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At twenty-two, with nothing but his pay to
live upon, Archie married a pretty girl whose
face was her sole fortune.  Two charming little
boys were born to them in the next seven years,
then Archie and his wife both died of typhoid
fever at Portsmouth.

There were no living near relatives on either
side, but kindly strangers forwarded a letter,
written by Archie a week before his death, to
Miss Esperance.

She was then nearly seventy years old, but
in this matter she did not even consult
Mr. Wycherly.  She merely informed him of what
had occurred, and announced her speedy
departure for Portsmouth "to fetch dear Archie's
children home."

She had not left her own house for a single
night in fifteen years.

Mr. Wycherly took her frail, beautiful old
hand in his and raised it to his lips.  As he laid
it down, he said beseechingly, "You will let me
act as joint guardian with you to Archie's
children?  I will undertake the education of
those boys myself—it will be a great interest
for me."

"They will indeed be fortunate boys!" said
Miss Esperance, and she raised such beautiful,
trustful eyes to her old friend that he was fain
to kiss her hand again and hasten from the room.

Shortly afterward he left the house and
might have been seen hurrying along the road
in the direction of Edinburgh, with a large and
seemingly heavy parcel under his arm.

He was not long away, and he walked steady
and straight, but all the same he sang softly
under his breath, "and he that will this health
deny," as he shut the garden gate with a clang
and hurried toward the house.

Miss Esperance was standing in the little
hall dressed for driving, looking pale and
perturbed.  She, too, had a parcel, a small square
parcel, and Elsa was evidently remonstrating,
for Mr. Wycherly heard her say as he came up:
"It's just fair redeeklus, and onny o' them would
be just prood to be askit—an' me wi' all yon
wages lyin' idle i' the bank these thirty year!"

She paused abruptly as Mr. Wycherly appeared
in the open door.  Elsa had sharp ears
in spite of her years, and the last "let him lie"
sent her up the staircase as fast as her old legs
would carry her.

"Miss Esperance," said Mr. Wycherly, "we
start this afternoon.  See, I have bought the
tickets," and he waved them triumphantly.
"I have made all our arrangements.  We shall
reach Portsmouth about midday to-morrow,
and there is plenty of money for present
expenses, so please—" he took the little square
parcel from her very gently, and reached it up
to Elsa, who stood on the top step of the curly
staircase.  Through the paper he felt it was
the little leather jewel-case that had been her
mother's.  "We could not allow that, Miss
Esperance!" he continued.  "Journeys are a
man's business."

Miss Esperance sat down on the only chair
in the hall and began to cry.

Next day, when they were far away, and
Elsa was dusting Mr. Wycherly's books—he
took them out and dusted them himself three
times a week; there were no glass doors, for he
said he could not bear "to see his friends
through a window"—she came on several gaps
in the well-filled shelves.  "The right edition
of Gerard" was nowhere to be seen.  The long
row of "kind-hearted play-books" was loose in
the shelf, for "Philip Massinger" was a-missing.
And in the sacred place devoted to "first folios"
there was a yawning chasm.

Elsa paused, duster in hand.  "She maun
never ken," she whispered.  "They buiks was
more to him than her braws is tae a woman.
She maun never ken."





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.. _`THE COMING OF THE CHILDREN`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   THE COMING OF THE CHILDREN

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   |  A sudden rush from the stairway,
   |    A sudden raid from the hall;
   |  By three doors left unguarded
   |    They enter my castle wall.
   |                      LONGFELLOW.

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Elsa had barely finished dusting Mr. Wycherly's
books when Lady Alicia Carruthers
walked over from the "big hoose" to
see if she could be of any use.  People found
Elsa more approachable in this respect than
Miss Esperance, and often seized such times as
they had seen the mistress pass in her little
pony carriage to tackle the maid, as to whether
anything could be done to increase the old
lady's comfort, without her knowledge.

And now that the news of her journey, and
its reason, had flamed through the village with
all the wonder of a torchlight procession, it was
only what Miss Esperance herself would have
described as "fitting" that the chief lady in
it should be first in the field to offer her services.

Very managing was Lady Alicia, strong,
kind-hearted, dictatorial; mother of many
children and inclined to regard all the rest of
the world as being equally in need of supervision.

"What on earth will she do with two wee
things like that?" she cried to Elsa, as that
worthy met her in the passage.  "One's but
a baby, isn't he?"

"Two years and one month," answered Elsa
cheerfully; "he'll be walkin' onnyway."

"You know the little room leading from Miss
Esperance's into the passage, you must put
them both there," said Lady Alicia decidedly.
"Have you got any beds?  But of course you
haven't.  I'll send a bed for the older boy and
a crib for the baby, and bedding, and sheets,
and I've found the very girl to look after
them—Robina Tod, a good douce lassie—you'll
remember her mother, Elsa?"

"I ken her fine," said Elsa slowly.  "But yer
Leddyship, d'ye think Miss Esperance will
consent?  And where would the lassie sleep?"

"Miss Esperance just must consent.  Robina
will be thankful to come to get trained and for
her food, and she must come at six in the
morning, and go home at night to sleep, after
they are bedded.  You must manage Miss
Esperance in this, Elsa—she will be so
bewildered at having children here at all at first,
that you'll find it easier than you expect.
What does she know of the wants of little
children?  Just you tell her that you made
arrangements because she hadn't time."

Elsa stood fingering her apron, and made no
answer, nor did she look at Lady Alicia, who
was looking hard at her.

"Come, now, Elsa, you know there's nothing
for it but to give in gracefully.  They must
sleep somewhere, poor lambs, and you can't
put an infant in a four-post bed."

"I'm thinkin'," said Elsa slowly, "that
Master Montagu will have to sleep in the big
bed, for yon room will never hold three beds,
and Miss Esperance would never part wi' yon
that's in there."

"Very well, then, I will only send the crib,
and a bath, and Robina, and—anything else
that comes into my head.  You understand, Elsa?"

"I'll no promise Miss Esperance'll keep onny o'
it, but you'll jest see.  If it pleases ye to send
the bits o' things, it's no for me to say ye nay."

Here Elsa raised her head and looked straight
at Lady Alicia, and they understood one
another perfectly.

When, later in the afternoon, Robina, a
rosy-cheeked lass of sixteen, appeared in a spring
cart along with the crib and a variety of other
useful things, Elsa received her with but
grudging courtesy, and might have been heard
to mutter as she went about the house, "There's
some folk that simply canna keep their fingers
out o' other folk's business, and the worst o't
is, that one must just thole't."

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It is one of the eternal verities that no man
knows what he can do till he tries.  Mr. Wycherly
suddenly developed a "handiness" with
regard to babies that surprised himself, and
caused Miss Esperance to regard him with
almost worshipful astonishment.

Montagu, the elder boy, fitted into his new
surroundings at once.  He was a thoughtful,
dreamy child, gentle and biddable, with an
inborn love of books that immediately endeared
him to Mr. Wycherly.  But the baby, Edmund,
was a strenuous person of inquiring mind, who
toddled and crawled and tumbled into every
corner of the little house; who poked his fat
fingers into the mustard, the ink, and the
mangle, impartially; who pulled Mr. Wycherly's
heaviest books out of the shelves, and
built a tower with them, which fell upon and
almost buried him in the ruins, whence, howling
dismally, he was rescued by Mr. Wycherly
himself, only consenting to be comforted when
that gentleman "gappled" with him round the
garden, Edmund sitting enthroned upon his
shoulders, and admonishing him to "gee up."

"Walking" indeed!  I should think he was
walking—swarming, climbing, crawling,
tumbling in every unimaginable direction, and
celebrating his innumerable accidents by
vociferous outcries which invariably brought the
whole household to his assistance.  Robina,
who in spite of Elsa's fears had been retained
as the children's attendant, declared that
Master Edmund was "ayont her," but Elsa,
manifesting a wholly unexpected toleration for
mischief of all kinds, declared him to be a
"wee, stumpin stoozie" after her own heart.

Lady Alicia proved to be right.  Miss Esperance
on her return with the children expressed
no objection to any of the preparations they
had made for her.  Furthermore, she accepted
gratefully, and with a dignified humility very
affecting to those who knew her, the offers of
"help with the children" that poured in upon
her from all sides.

"For myself it was only fitting that I should
be somewhat reserved," she gently explained
to Elsa when that honest woman exclaimed in
surprise at her meek acceptance of so much
neighbourly "interference," "but dear Archie's
children are different, I have no right to refuse
kindness toward them: and my good friends
have been so wonderfully kind—and as for you,
Elsa, you are the most wonderful of all—look
how little Edmund loves you!"

Elsa exclaimed, "tuts havers!" and hastened
back to the kitchen, where she relieved her
feelings by making more of the gingerbread
"pussies" beloved of Baby Edmund.

Mr. Wycherly found his learned leisure
considerably curtailed by the new arrivals.  Both
Montagu and Edmund (it was curiously characteristic
of the household that the children
were "Montagu" and "Edmund" from the
very first, never "Monty" or "Baby")
infinitely preferred his society to that of Robina,
even though she was so much nearer their own
age.  Children are very quick to see where they
may tyrannise, and gentle, scholarly Mr. Wycherly,
who had loved few people, and those
few so dearly, fell an easy victim to "dear
Archie's boys."

Montagu was called after him, but if on this
score the elder boy may seem to have had more
claim on his attention than Baby Edmund, the
little brother made up in what Montagu called
"demandliness," what he may have lacked in
legitimate pretension.

Even in a very large house it is impossible
to conceal the presence of children.  They are
of all human creatures the most ubiquitous, the
least repressible.  Wherever they are they
betray themselves in a thousand ways no
foresight can presage.  Their very belongings seem
possessed of their own all-pervading spirit, and
toys and small shed garments have a way of
turning up in the most unlikely places.

When, three days after the little boys arrived
at Remote, Mr. Wycherly discovered an absurd
small glove, with holes in every finger, shut
inside the "Third Satire of Horace," he
remembered to have heard Elsa loudly rebuking the
lass, Robina, for having suffered it to get lost.
He took it out and looked at it, fingering it
with wistful wonder and tenderness: then,
almost guiltily he put it back again and closed
the book, apologising to himself with the
reflection that it really was quite worn out.

The spare bedroom with the four-post bed
was next to Mr. Wycherly's bedroom, and as
it was the only room in Remote that was
possible as a night nursery, he heard in the early
morning all sorts of mysterious sounds
connected with the toilet of the two small boys.
The little high voices: Baby Edmund's bubbling
laugh that was exactly like the beginning
of a thrush's song: equally often, Baby
Edmund's noisy outcries when things displeased
him: Robina's pleadings, and the gentle counsels
of Miss Esperance—all these things smote
upon the ears of Mr. Wycherly as he lay in bed
waiting for the big can of hot water which,
every morning, Elsa dumped down outside his
door that he might take the chill off his bath.
This matutinal bath being something of a
grievance with Elsa, who considered it as a part
of Mr. Wycherly's general "fushionlessness"
that he should require so much more washing
than other folk.

Thus did she always set down the can with a
thump, and perform a species of tattoo on
Mr. Wycherly's door, exclaiming loudly, "Here's
yer bawth watter—sir."  The "sir" always
following after a pause, for it was only added
out of deference to continual admonishment on
the part of Miss Esperance, who thought that
Elsa's manner to Mr. Wycherly was frequently
lacking in respect, as indeed it was.  She could
never be got to look upon him as other than a
poor, silly pensioner of her mistress.

A few days after the children arrived,
Mr. Wycherly was awakened by the voice of
Edmund in the next room, vociferously demanding
"man."  Mr. Wycherly sat up in bed and
listened.

"Want man, want to see man."

Murmured remonstrances from Robina, laboured
explanations as to the impossibility of
beholding any man when he was still in his
bed.

"Want man, want to see man," in tones ever
growing louder and more decided from Baby
Edmund.

This went on for about half an hour, while
all the time Mr. Wycherly lay awake listening
and longing to get up and join the little person
who showed so flattering a desire for his society;
but that he dared not do till Elsa brought his
hot water.  At last it came: dumped down as
usual with a resounding impact with the floor,
while Elsa knocked loudly with her wonted
vibrant announcement.

Mr. Wycherly was just preparing to get up
when there were new and strange sounds
outside his door: rustlings and whisperings and
curious uncertain fumblings with the handle.
Suddenly the door was pushed open to show
the children standing on the threshold behind
the hot-water can.

"Man!  Man'!  Me see man in bed," cried
Edmund, jumping up and down gleefully.  He
made a plunge forward to reach Mr. Wycherly,
and of course fell up against the can, which
upset, while the baby capsized on to the top of
it.  The water was hot and the baby was very
frightened.  So was Mr. Wycherly.  As loud
wails rent the air he leaped out of bed to rush
to the rescue, only to skip back again with even
greater haste as he heard Elsa and Robina on
the stairs.  Edmund was picked up and
carried off, Robina volubly explaining how she
had only left them for a minute.  Mr. Wycherly's
door was banged to, indignantly, as
though he was entirely to blame, and the hot
water continued to stream gaily over the carpet.

Mr. Wycherly stood in great awe of Elsa.
Here was a most tremendous mess, and so long
as he was in bed no one could or would come to
his assistance.  He arose hastily, arrested the
flow of the stream in one direction with his big
bath sponge, sopped up the water as well as he
could, and concluded the operation by the
employment of all his towels.

Presently there came a new thump on his
door.  "Have ye moppet it up?" asked Elsa
anxiously.

"As well as I could," Mr. Wycherly replied
humbly.  "I don't think it will soak through
to the room below."

"Pit oot the can an' I'll bring ye some mair
hot watter—sir."  Standing well behind the
door Mr. Wycherly opened it gingerly and
handed out the can.  It was brought back full
in no time, and again he heard Elsa's voice
thus adjuring him, "Ye'd better mak a steer or
yer breakfast will be ruined—sir."

Poor Mr. Wycherly did his best to "mak a
steer," but his towels were a sodden mass, and
it is not easy to dry one's self, even with a
selection of the very largest handkerchiefs.  His
toilet was assuredly less careful than usual, for
he was very anxious about little Edmund,
although the sounds of woe had ceased in a very
short time after the catastrophe of the
hot-water can.  Mr. Wycherly's sitting-room was
across the landing from his bedroom, but
before he went to breakfast he hastened
downstairs to ask after Edmund's welfare.

He knocked at the parlour door, and on being
bidden to enter discovered that lusty infant
jumping up and down on the horse-hair sofa,
while Miss Esperance sat on its very edge to
make sure that he should not take a sudden
dive on to the floor.

"I do hope he was not hurt—" Mr. Wycherly
began.

"Man, man, me go to man!" Edmund cried
before his aunt could answer; and scrambling
off the sofa he raced across the room to
Mr. Wycherly; he held up his arms exclaiming,
"Uppee, uppee!" and of course was lifted up.
"Ta, ta," he remarked, smiling benignly upon
Miss Esperance from this eminence, "Me go
wiv man."

He waved a fat hand to his aunt, and kicked
Mr. Wycherly in the waistcoat to hasten their
departure.  Mr. Wycherly wavered.

"No, Edmund," said Miss Esperance, "you
cannot go with Mr. Wycherly now, he is going
to his breakfast."

"Bretfus," echoed Edmund in joyful tones,
"me go bretfus too, wiv man."  "I would like
to come, too," Montagu interpolated, hastily
clutching at Mr. Wycherly's coat.

"May I take them?" that gentleman pleaded.
"It would be very agreeable to have their
society at breakfast."

"I doubt it," said Miss Esperance, "but
since you are so very kind—for this once—and
if you find them too much, just ring."

The joyful procession was already mounting
the steep, curly staircase, and "Bretfus—man"
resounded cheerily in the distance till
Mr. Wycherly's door was shut.

Miss Esperance sat where she was on the
edge of the sofa.  She was very tired, for she
had been up since five o'clock; moreover, her
own breakfast had been of the slightest, so
busy was she superintending that of the
children.  Her head felt swimmy and the familiar
room seemed unreal and strange.  The sudden
silence after the ceaseless and noisy activity of
Baby Edmund was restful and consoling.  Elsa
and Robina were upstairs busy making beds
and emptying baths.

Miss Esperance felt so exhausted that she
even folded her hands in her lap and closed her
eyes; a thing she never did in the day except
sometimes on a Sabbath afternoon.  She did
not lean back, for she belonged to that vanished
school of old ladies who considered that to loll
was akin to something positively disreputable:
bed was the only place where it was proper to
repose.  Sofas were for the invalid or the
indolent, and easy-chairs for men folk and such-like
feeble spirits as were indulgent to the frailties
of the flesh.

"As thy days so shall thy strength be,"
whispered Miss Esperance.  The precepts and
promises by which she had ruled her gentle life
did not fail her now in her need: "They that
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they
shall run and not be weary; and they shall
walk and not faint."

She opened her eyes.  Once more the room
looked homely and familiar; the pictures on
the walls had ceased to chase each other in a
giddy round.  She unclasped her hands and
rose.  "I'd better go and see what those
bairns are doing," she thought to herself,
"it's not fair to leave them with him for long."

She mounted the steep stairs and paused on
the landing to listen.  The only sound to be
heard was a sort of munching.  Then, in
Edmund's decisive voice, "Maw toas'."

Another pause.  "Bacon all dawn," in tones
of sorrowful conviction.  Silence again for a
minute, then, "Maw mink."

A gurgle, and a hasty movement, evidently
on the part of Mr. Wycherly.  "He always
pours it down his chin if he holds it himself,"
said Montagu, in a slightly reproving voice.

A sound of rubbing.

"Toas' all dawn," mournfully, from Edmund.

Miss Esperance opened the door.  The two
children were sitting on either side of
Mr. Wycherly at his round table.  Edmund's chubby
face was liberally besmeared with bacon fat,
and the board had been cleared of every sort of
eatable except a small "heel" of loaf and a pot
of marmalade, which neither of the children
liked.  It was Oxford marmalade and very bitter.

"Have they been good?" Miss Esperance
inquired anxiously.

Mr. Wycherly looked somewhat flushed and
perturbed, but he hastened to reply, "They
have been model children—but—" here he
hesitated, "do you think they had enough to
eat downstairs?  They seemed so exceedingly
hungry, and it would be so dreadful——"

"Hungry?" Miss Esperance repeated
incredulously.  "Hungry?  They had each a
large bowl of porridge and milk, and bread and
jam after that."

"Maw dam," Edmund immediately struck
in; "'at nasty dam," and he pointed a scornful
fat finger at the pot of marmalade.

Here Robina appeared opportunely to take
them for a walk.  Edmund roared at the top
of his voice at being reft from his beloved man.
But Miss Esperance was firm.

When Elsa had cleared away Mr. Wycherly's
breakfast, he found it unusually difficult to
concentrate his mind upon his great work
dealing with Aristotle's Nikomachean Ethics.  Like
Miss Esperance, he had had very little breakfast.
Two rashers of bacon had Elsa provided,
and the usual four pieces of toast.  Each little
boy had had a rasher.  Edmund had eaten
three pieces of toast and Montagu the fourth.
Edmund also drank all the milk that he did
not spill.  Mr. Wycherly was fain to content
himself with a cup of exceedingly black tea, and
one small piece of bread.  But he was quite
unconscious that he had eaten less than usual.
So shaken was he out of his customary dreamy
calm that he decided to go for a walk.  He did
not confess to himself that he hoped he might
meet the children while he was out.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE EDUCATION OF MR. WYCHERLY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE EDUCATION OF MR. WYCHERLY

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  For what are all our contrivings,
   |    And the wisdom of our books,
   |  When compared with your caresses,
   |    And the gladness of your looks?
   |                          LONGFELLOW.

.. vspace:: 2

For several days Mr. Wycherly's privacy
was not again invaded before breakfast,
though he heard through the wall continual
and loudly expressed demands to visit "man"
from his friend of the curly pate and strap
shoes.  One morning, however, Robina's
suspicions as to Edmund's propensity for roving
were lulled into security by particularly
exemplary conduct on his part during the time
of dressing; and she slipped downstairs to give
a hand with the breakfast, leaving the children
safety shut in their nursery.

No sooner had she departed than Montagu,
of whom people expected better things,
suggested that they should go and visit
Mr. Wycherly next door.  The morning hours had been
so unusually quiet that that gentleman was
still dozing, although Elsa had already brought
his hot water.  When he heard the now
unmistakable fumbling with the door handle,
which always proclaimed the advent of the
children, he called out—"Come in, but for
heaven's sake mind the hot-water can."

In they came without accident of any kind,
as Elsa had taken the precaution of placing
the can well on the hinge side of the door.  Very
fresh and spick and span did the two little boys
look in clean, blue pinafores, and shining
morning faces.  Edmund made a dash for Mr. Wycherly,
with his usual joyful cry of "Uppee!
Uppee!"  Montagu hastily banged the door after
him to keep Robina out, and he, too, climbed
up on Mr. Wycherly's bed.  The soft,
indescribable fragrance of clean children was
supremely pleasurable to Mr. Wycherly, and
excited strange, unfamiliar stirrings of recollections,
long buried but by no means dead, of his
own nursery days in the old house in Shropshire
where he and his brothers were brought up.

But there was no time to indulge in
retrospect, for Edmund had already settled the
programme.  "Sing!" he commanded.  "Sing, man!"

"I fear," Mr. Wycherly said, somewhat
breathlessly, for Edmund was sitting upon that
portion of his body known in sporting circles as
"the wind," "that I cannot sing, for I don't
know any songs."

"Say, zen, say, man," Edmund cried, jumping
up and down upon poor Mr. Wycherly's
yielding frame.

"He means you to say him a poem," Montagu
explained.

Now of poetry Mr. Wycherly knew plenty,
both in Greek and Latin and English, but none
of it seemed particularly suitable to the present
circumstances.  The only lines that came
willingly to his call were—

   |  Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
   |  Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste,

which he felt would meet with but scant
approval from his present audience.

"Say 'ime, say 'ime, man!" cried Edmund,
with an ominous droop of the corners of his
mouth.

"Say 'Hickory, dickory, dock," Montagu
suggested kindly, "he likes that—and you tickle
him where it runs up, and where it runs down,
and at the end, you know."

"But I don't know any poem called 'Hickory,
dickory, dock," Mr. Wycherly protested despairingly.

"Say 'ime, man!  Say dock!" Edmund persisted,
punching Mr. Wycherly in the chest to
emphasise his wishes.  "Say dock.  Quit."

"I'll whisper it to you," murmured the helpful
Montagu, "it goes like this—'Hickory, dickory, dock."

"Hickory, dickory, dock," Mr. Wycherly
repeated dutifully and distinctly.

"The mouse ran up the clock," Montagu continued.

"The mouse ran up the clock——"

"But you didn't tickle him," Montagu interrupted.

Mr. Wycherly looked at Edmund, and Edmund
looked with eager expectation at Mr. Wycherly.

Now to tickle any one appeared to Mr. Wycherly
a most unwarrantable liberty.  Such a
mode of procedure had never entered into his
scheme of life at all.  He was not even sure
how he ought to set about it.  He decided that
tickling was altogether out of his province, and
he would not experiment, even upon Edmund.

He cleared his throat nervously.  "Ahem,"
said Mr. Wycherly, "Hickory, dickory, dock,
the mouse ran up the clock——"

"No!  No!" shouted Edmund.  "'E mouse
'an down."

"The mouse ran down the clock," echoed
the obedient Mr. Wycherly.

"No, No," cried both the little boys.  "The
clock struck one."  Here Edmund gave a most
tremendous bounce that really hurt Mr. Wycherly.

"Ve mouse 'an down," he continued, scrabbling
with his fingers all over Mr. Wycherly's
face, and seizing him by the collar of his night
shirt to burrow in his neck.

"Hickory, dickory, dock," Montagu concluded
in a joyful chant.  "Now you know it, only
you must run up and down, you know."

"Oh, I really cannot do that," Mr. Wycherly
expostulated, "not before I am dressed."

Montagu looked puzzled.  "You ought to
tickle us, you know, like Edmund did, and with
your fingers; it's quite easy, really."

"Adain!" Edmund commanded, squirming
and jumping all over the very softest portions
of Mr. Wycherly's person, and causing that
patient gentleman acute agony.  "Adain!"

"Let us all say it together," Mr. Wycherly
gasped, painfully drawing himself a little
higher up in the bed, "and do you think
you could sit a little more to one side, or a
little further forward, or a little lower down, or
anywhere except just where you are at present?"

"Edmund heavy boy," that youth remarked proudly.

"He is," Mr. Wycherly fervently agreed, "a
very heavy boy—ah, that's better now."

"Hickory, dickory, dock" was now performed
in chorus, and if one of the trio made any
mistakes, his companions were making such a row
that they did not detect him.  At the conclusion
of the verse the little boys gave Mr. Wycherly
a practical demonstration as to what
they meant by tickling.

It was only when the racket had somewhat
subsided that they heard Robina's timid voice
outside the door bidding the children come at
once to their breakfast.

"Det up, man," Edmund directed, "and take
me to 'Obina."

"You are perfectly able to trot across to the
door," said Mr. Wycherly, mildly remonstrant
and much exhausted.

"Come in," shouted Edmund, "come and fesh me."

"No, don't do anything of the kind," cried
Mr. Wycherly, horror-stricken; "he can quite
well come to you."

"I'll surely no come in," said Robina in a
slightly offended voice.  "They're to come oot
at once, the mistress is waitin' breakfast."

"Me tiahed," Edmund announced, languidly
lying down beside Mr. Wycherly.  "Me tay
heah."

Robina knocked sharply.  "Come at once,"
she cried.  "Please, sir, make them come, or
the mistress will be rale vexed."

"Go, Montagu," said Mr. Wycherly firmly.
"I suppose I must carry this—myself."

Robina, outside, heard much gurgling and
giggling on the part of Edmund, as Mr. Wycherly
arose and hastily donned his dressing-gown.
He carried the struggling baby across
to the door, which he had to open widely in
order to give his charge into his nurse's arms.
Montagu departed with his little brother, but
not one moment sooner.

Mr. Wycherly shut and locked his door, only
to remember that he had left his hot water
outside.  When he had secured it and again
made the door fast, he sank upon his bed: "I
must certainly lock my door overnight," he
reflected; "to be tickled is a truly dreadful
experience."

He dressed to the rhythm of "Hickory,
dickory, dock," and although the two things had
no sort of connection he found himself thinking
of the forget-me-nots on the banks of the
Cherwell; they were exactly the colour of Baby
Edmund's eyes.

It had already become a matter of course
that the children should spend half an hour in
Mr. Wycherly's study before they went to bed.

They were left in his charge while Robina
got things ready for the night, and he strove to
make the time pass pleasantly for them by
every means in his power.  Edmund's requests
were occasionally a little difficult to understand,
as although his speech was fluent and his vocabulary
singularly large for his age, he had a habit
of omitting any consonant that was troublesome
to pronounce.  Both "l" and "r" were
of this number.  He did not attempt to provide
a substitute but simply left the letter out, and
nothing delighted old Elsa more than to hear
him repeat after her—"'ound the 'ugged 'ock
the 'adical 'ascals 'an."

Mr. Wycherly did his best to correct this
defect in Edmund's speech, and on this particular
evening was showing him a picture book of coloured animals.

"Poor little Edmund can't say lion," he said
sadly, apropos of a picture of the king of beasts.

"He can say tigah," that infant rejoined
cheerfully; "no maw pitchers.  Man, make a
'abbit," and Edmund scrambled off
Mr. Wycherly's knee the better to behold the feat in
question.

Mr. Wycherly shook his head hopelessly
while Montagu shyly explained: "He means a
rabbit out of a handkerchief, you know.  Daddie
always did it, and it ran up his arm and jumped
so.  *Do* make one!"

Mr. Wycherly almost groaned.  He hadn't
the faintest notion how to make a rabbit, and
felt that he had lived in vain.  He proposed
building a tower with some bricks that the
children had brought with them, but Edmund
would have none of such well-worn devices.  He
persisted in his demands for "a 'abbit," growing
more and more vociferous, till his wishes
culminated in a roar that brought Robina to
the rescue and to Mr. Wycherly's door, whence
she bore Edmund away, wailing dismally.

Mr. Wycherly, helpless and distressed, looked
appealingly at Montagu, who only said rather
reproachfully, "You might learn to make a
rabbit, you know," and followed Robina.

Almost unconsciously the student's eyes
sought the book-shelves where generally was to
be found any information that he wanted; but
among the familiar calf-bound backs there was
not one that seemed to promise any information
about the manufacture of rabbits, and for
the first time Mr. Wycherly felt dissatisfied
with a scholarship that seemed to ignore so
many possible contingencies in a man's life.
Of what use was the utmost familiarity with
Aristotle's Politics if an indignant baby could
put one so wholly out of countenance?  For a
few minutes he moved restlessly about the
room, then he took his hat and went out.

He had a vaguely formulated plan in his head
that he would knock at the door of every house
in the village till he found somebody capable
of instructing him in the art of making rabbits;
for learn he would, even if he had to advertise
in the "Scottish Press" for a teacher.

As he walked down the road leading to the
village he met the minister, who immediately
remarked that something or other was amiss.
Whether Edmund had ruffled Mr. Wycherly's
hair and neck-cloth as well as his equanimity
we are not told, but it is certain that the
Reverend Peter Gloag thought him looking less
"Oxfordish" than usual, and stopped him to
ask kindly, "Nothing wrong up at the house I
hope?"

"No, I thank you," said Mr. Wycherly,
stopping in his turn.  "At least—I wonder now
if you happen to know of any one who can make
rabbits out of handkerchiefs?"

The minister stared at Mr. Wycherly as
though for a moment he feared for his reason,
then he looked as though he were about to
laugh, when quite suddenly his face changed,
and the eyes under his bushy eyebrows were
wonderfully kind and gentle as he said, "You'll
hardly believe it, but I can do something in
that sort myself.  I used often to make them
when the bairns were wee."

"My dear friend," Mr. Wycherly exclaimed
delightedly, "can you really?  But of course
you can, you have children of your own.  Why
didn't I think of you at the very first?  Are you
pressed for time at present?  Could you return
with me now, at once?"

For answer the minister turned and walked
with Mr. Wycherly toward Remote, and not
only did he teach him how to make the most
lively and enchanting of rabbits, but he also
instructed him how to originate one "Sandy,"
who sat on the manipulator's hand, whose arms
were worked by his fingers, a creature of
infinite jest and dexterity.  Mr. Wycherly was
not half so elated when he got the Newdigate
as when he achieved this latter feat.

But Oh, dear me, Mr. Wycherly had a
tremendous deal to learn!  Every day was he
confronted with new deficiencies in his education.
The constant demand for songs was most
embarrassing: even Miss Esperance seemed to fail
the children here, for although she knew
innumerable psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, and endless and delightful Scottish
ballads, yet her repertoire of purely nursery ditties
was but small.  It was heartrending to
Mr. Wycherly, when, during their first days at
Remote, Edmund would remark reproachfully
anent his inability to sing some hitherto
unheard-of nursery song, "Mamma singed it."  And
the eyes of Miss Esperance would fill with
tears at the thought of these two little ones
bereft of their young parents, who seemed to
have been so light-hearted, so ready to sing
upon every possible occasion.  No books of
nursery rhymes had come with the children
from Portsmouth.  Perhaps they were forgotten
in the hurry of their departure.  Perhaps
they did not exist: where was the need,
with a girl-mother whose store of such ditties
seemed inexhaustible?  It did not occur either
to Miss Esperance or Mr. Wycherly that such
books could be purchased.  It is true that the
latter received many catalogues, but they
mostly concerned learned works dealing with
the more obscure of the Latin authors.

Miss Esperance possessed a whole shelf of
little "Gilt-Books," which had belonged to her
mother and herself, and Mr. Wycherly feverishly
rummaged among these to find some
childish lore suitable for the little boys: with
the result that he became exceedingly interested
in the books from an antiquarian point of view,
and forgot his original quest.  They were most
of them published by John Newbery, the
philanthropic bookseller in Saint Paul's Churchyard,
who bought the MS. of the "Vicar of Wakefield"
for sixty pounds and kept it two years
before he published it.  One find, however, he
did make, a tiny two-inch "Cries of London,
as they are Exhibited in the Streets, With an
Epigram in verse adapted to Each, embellished
with sixty-two elegant Cuts."  Some of these
epigrams found much favour with the children,
as, "My old Soul, will you buy a Bowl?"
"Who Buys my Pig and Plumb Sauce," or—

   |  Who liveth so merry in all this land,
   |  As doth the poor Widow that selleth the Sand?
   |  And ever she singeth, as I can guess,
   |  "Will you buy any Sand, any Sand, Mistress?"
   |

He also discovered among the verses of that
most genial and child-like of poets, Robert
Herrick, many rhymes that delighted the
children, a special favourite being the old watch
rhyme—

   |  From noise of scare fires rest ye free,
   |  From murders, Benedicite.
   |  From all mischances that may fright
   |  Your pleasing slumbers in the night,
   |  Mercy secure ye all and keep
   |  The Goblin from ye while ye sleep.
   |  Past one o'clock and almost two,
   |  My masters all, Good day to you.
   |

Mr. Wycherly was a little put to it to
explain the "Goblin," as he would not for the
world have told the children anything that
might frighten them.  He passed it over
lightly as "a bad dream," and when Montagu
further demanded what that was, Mr. Wycherly
felt inexpressibly comforted at the child's
ignorance; he had dreamed so many evil dreams
himself.

Summer had passed, the late September days
were drawing in, but it was still almost hot,
as it often is in autumn in the north.  Even
Mr. Wycherly, who was always cold, admitted
that the weather had remained agreeably mild.
And when Lady Alicia came, and partly by
means of bluster and partly by reason of
prolonged petitioning, succeeded in carrying off
Miss Esperance to dine at the Big House,
Mr. Wycherly seconded her efforts nobly.  She had
asked Mr. Wycherly, too, but he never went
anywhere, and on this occasion he had pointed
out that his presence made it perfectly safe for
Miss Esperance to leave the children.  He
would sit with his door open, so that he would
hear the faintest sound in the children's room,
he would go and see them last thing—"and
hear them their prayers," Miss Esperance
anxiously interpolated—he would do everything
that Miss Esperance usually did.

"Now there's nothing whatever can happen
to those children," said Lady Alicia, as they
drove away.  "They're both looking as brown
and bonny as they can well look, and once
they're in their beds, they'll just sleep the
round of the clock.  As for you, my dear,
you've hardly been out of the house since they
came, and it's very bad for you."

As a rule the children did sleep the round of
the clock, but on this particular evening,
although they went to sleep directly they were
"bedded," as Robina put it, and she had gone
home for the night, while Elsa had retired to
the back door for a gossip with the minister's
maid, Edmund took it into his head to wake up.

Mr. Wycherly was sitting in his arm-chair
reading "Marius the Epicurean."  It was one
of his many imperfections, in the eyes of the
inhabitants of Burnhead, that he was known
to revel in the works of "yon man, Pater."  The
very name seemed redolent of papistry,
even if the man himself did not happen to be a
papist, and it was known that the Reverend
Peter Gloag did not approve of his writings.
In an English village nobody would have
concerned himself as to what anybody read—the
amount of reading done at all being quite a
negligible quantity—but in a Scottish village,
where the cobbler probably reads the "Saturday
Review" and the works of Carlyle are as household
words, people regard the reading of their
neighbours.

The light from the lamp fell full on
Mr. Wycherly's white hair and regular, scholarly
profile; and the figure in the chair made a
pleasant picture of erudite repose.  There was
something clear-cut and delicately finished
about everything connected with Mr. Wycherly's
appearance.  One long, slim hand with
exquisitely tended nails held his book; the
other kept up a noiseless rhythmic beat upon
the arm of his chair.

Suddenly he heard a little sound, an
indescribable small sound as of some soft body
moving.  He laid down his book and leant
forward to listen.  Again he heard it, and with it
a request for "'Obina."  It was not a cry; it
was rather a curious, tentative flinging of the
word into space to see what would happen.

The children's door was closed but not
fastened, Mr. Wycherly's was wide open, and he
immediately hurried across the landing to the
children's room.  The light from his lamp
exactly opposite to their door, shone in as he
pushed it open, showing a fair, curly head and
a pair of bright eyes appearing above the side of
the cot.  Montagu was still fast asleep.

"Lie down, my child," Mr. Wycherly whispered,
"it is night time, you must go to sleep again."

"No," said Edmund firmly but kindly, "you
must take me."

Mr. Wycherly looked at the wide-awake
mutinous person in the cot, then he looked at
the peacefully sleeping Montagu in the big
four-post bed.  To engage in argument with Edmund
meant the inevitable waking of his brother.
For there would be tears; perhaps loud
outcries which would bring Elsa, scornful and
capable, to his assistance.

It is to be feared that in some respects
Mr. Wycherly was a weak man.  He would do
anything to avoid a disturbance, almost anything
to avoid an argument.  Small wonder, then,
that he was despised in Burnhead, where
argument flourished as the green bay tree and was
the chief object of social intercourse.

He wrapped Edmund in his quilt, carried him
across to the study, and sat down in his big
chair with the deliciously warm, naughty
bundle on his knee.  Edmund blinked at the
bright light, wriggled his arms out of the
enwrapping counterpane, and remarked "Bikky"
in a tone whose subtly seductive combination
of command and supplication Mr. Wycherly
never could resist.  The children had not been
three months in the house without teaching him
to keep a store of biscuits in his cupboard.
When Edmund was duly supplied, he leant his
head luxuriously against Mr. Wycherly's shoulder,
saying sleepily, "Say, deah man—say anysing."

This was gracious of Edmund, and Mr. Wycherly
had already discovered that when the
baby was sleepy he did not cavil even at Latin
verse.  Mr. Wycherly had a singularly musical
voice; and as he "said," the biscuit dropped
from Edmund's hand and his head lay heavy
on the kind shoulder that supported it.  As the
reciter reached the lines: "Dulce ridentem
Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem," he discovered,
to his joy, that Edmund was asleep.  Softly
he repeated the musical last two lines again,
smiling down at the little figure in his arms.
But it was not of Lalage that Mr. Wycherly was
thinking.

He succeeded in putting Edmund into bed
without waking him, and just as he had got
back to his study he heard Miss Esperance come in.

Softly he closed the door so that it only stood
open a little way, and seated himself once more
in his favourite chair.  If all was quiet it was
quite unlikely Miss Esperance would come to
speak to him that night.  She would go straight
to her little bedroom next that of the children.
He heard her door shut.  Mr. Wycherly rubbed
his hands together quite gleefully.  "I really
am learning how to manage those children,"
he said.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SECRETIVENESS OF MAUSE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE SECRETIVENESS OF MAUSE

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  A boy and a dog together will go,
   |  You may jail them, or chain them: They will have it so.
   |                                                  Anon.

.. vspace:: 2

Mause was the bobtailed sheep-dog that
lived in a kennel at the side of the house
nearest the back door, to keep guard.  Like
Miss Esperance and Mr. Wycherly and Elsa,
she was not in her first youth; and when the
children came Miss Esperance was nervously
apprehensive as to the old dog's conduct.
Would she be jealous and growl at them, or
perhaps even fly out at them from her kennel
as she did at the village boys if they ventured
into the garden for any illegitimate purpose?
A good watch-dog was Mause, with more
discrimination in her vigilance than is displayed
by most dogs.  She never barked at poor old
Mistress Dobie, who would come humbly to the
back door for her bi-weekly handful of meal
and a screw of snuff, who looked a very
scarecrow of shabbiness, and tapped with her staff
as she walked: but Mause did bark, and bark
loudly, only pausing every now and then to
growl thunderously, at the very grand
gentleman who tried to sell Elsa an inferior
sewing-machine on the hire system.  And when he
returned a few weeks later with Bibles, Mause
nearly broke her chain in her frantic attempts
to reach him.  The poor dog was kept chained
up for the greater part of the day, which is
never improving to the canine temper even
when, as in this case, the chain is a long one.
Miss Esperance let her run by the pony trap
whenever she drove into Edinburgh, but this
was by no means every day, and Elsa rather
grudged poor Mause even these occasional
absences, and generally put the chains on both
doors when she had gone.

"A watch-dog sud be there to guard the
hoose," said Elsa, "and no gang stravaigin aff
for hoors at a stretch."

Mr. Wycherly took Mause for a walk whenever
he went for one himself, and she greatly
enjoyed these excursions, which were, however,
but fleeting joys; for Mr. Wycherly's walks
were by no means prolonged.  That he should
go for walks at all was, in the eyes of the
villagers of Burnhead, but another sign of his
general futility and "genty ways," like his
bath and the wooden feet in three pieces that
he liked kept in his boots, "just as if he was
feart some ither body sud wear them."  Besides,
what could a man who hardly ever
stirred abroad want with six pairs of boots?
The folk in the village pitied Elsa that she had
to give in to such havers.

On rare occasions Mause managed to sneak
into the house with Mr. Wycherly and secrete
herself in his room: but he did not encourage
these clandestine visits, for when Elsa
discovered her—as she invariably did—she drove
the poor beast forth with much contumely; and
Mr. Wycherly was haunted for hours afterward
by the reproach in the eyes of Mause that he
had not the courage to take her part.

Yet Mause was fond of Elsa, and in her heart
of hearts Elsa loved Mause.  She would far
sooner have gone without her own meals than
have omitted the plate of broken biscuit and
bones that she carried twice daily to the
kennel.  Every day she filled the dog's tin with
fresh water, and she brushed the thick, shaggy
coat as religiously and even more vigorously
than she brushed Mr. Wycherly's clothes.  It
grieved her rather that the latter, like Mause,
wore the same coat week-days and Sundays.

Mause was meekness and gentleness itself
with the dwellers at Remote, but outsiders gave
her a very different character, and the
Reverend Peter Gloag even went so far as to
remonstrate with Miss Esperance for keeping such
a savage brute about the place.  Not that
Mause had ever actually bitten even a man
selling sewing-machines, but she had a way of
barking and bouncing, of growling and gyrating
at the full length of her chain, that was decidedly
alarming; and if she happened to be loose, her
swift rush to the gate at the sound of a strange
foot-step was disconcerting in the extreme.
What would she say to the children?

"If she's ill-natured with them, she'll have
to go, poor beastie," Miss Esperance had said,
as they drove from the station with the two
tired, cross, little boys on that first day.  "She's
a dear, faithful animal, but I could not let such
wee things be frightened."

However, the fears of Miss Esperance were
groundless.  From the first moment that she
beheld the little boys, Mause took them under
her protection.  Perhaps it was that neither
of the children showed the slightest fear of the
great, clumsy, shaggy beast, but greeted her
with joyful outcries, instantly demanding her
release from that harassing chain.  The right
kind of dog and the right kind of child are
friends always, by some immutable, inscrutable
law of attraction.  It seemed almost as if
Mause mistook Montagu and Edmund for the
puppies which had been her pride some five
years before.  And the baby certainly did his
very best to confirm her in her mistake.  Like
a puppy, he had a fondness for carrying off
numerous and inconceivably incongruous
articles from places where they ought to be to
distant parts of the garden, where he would be
found surrounded by a selection of improvised
playthings, while Mause sat by regarding the
work of destruction with her tongue hanging
out, and an expression of maternal pride upon
her broad and blurry countenance.

When the children played in the garden their
first thought was that Mause must play too.
"She must be very lonely in that little wooden
house," Montagu said pleadingly.  "She would
be so happy with us, and we do want her so."  And
Edmund roared and refused to be comforted
unless his "big bow-wow" might go with
him whenever Robina took him out in his
perambulator.

There was a little plot of shaven grass in the
garden at Remote, and on this Edmund and
Mause and Montagu spent many an hour at
play, while Robina sat by demurely knitting
at a stocking.  It was Edmund's habit when
he fell down (a somewhat frequent occurrence
that did not disturb him in the least unless he
happened to fall on "something scratchful") to
grasp firmly in each little hand a handful of
the dog's thick hair, and by this means pull
himself up to his feet again.  Mause bore it
stoically, and generally turned her patient face
that she might lick the small, fat hands that
hurt her.  And by the time the children had
been a month at Remote Manse was only
chained up at night.

One hot afternoon in late September
Mr. Wycherly had taken Montagu for a walk to a
wood, near where there was a tiny tributary
of the bigger burn from which the village took
its name.  So narrow was this stream that
Montagu could jump over it: and it was one of
his greatest joys to be taken there and to leap
solemnly from one side to the other during a
whole afternoon, provided that at each effort
his audience made some suitably admirative
remark.

Robina's patience failed her after about
three demonstrations of Montagu's saltatory
prowess, but Mr. Wycherly would take his seat
at the foot of a big tree, and with tireless
interest notice every jump, finding something new
and congratulatory to say after each fresh effort.

Robina, Edmund and Mause remained at
home: baby and dog disporting themselves
upon the little square of turf, while Robina sat
in the shade doing the mending.  Elsa was
busy in the house and Miss Esperance had gone
to a sewing meeting at the manse.

At the foot of the garden was a low stone
wall, and beyond that wall a lane.  From that
lane presently there came a sound of
light-hearted whistling as Sandie, the flesher, his
empty butcher's tray borne lightly on his
shoulder, returned from the delivery of meat
at the "Big Hoose."

Sandie, the flesher, could see over the wall,
and he beheld Robina sitting under the alder
tree.  He thought her fair to look upon, and
his whistling ceased.  Robina gave one hasty
glance back at the house.  Elsa was making
scones and would be far too busy to look out
of the window just then: besides, one could see
very little from the kitchen window save the
raspberry canes, as Robina was sadly aware.
Edmund and Mause were engaged in an intricate
game of ball.  They alone knew the rules, but
they appeared to find it of absorbing interest.
Once more Robina looked back at the house,
and then flew down to the bottom of the garden
to speak to Sandie.

We all know that there are minutes that
seem as hours, and hours that slip by as a
single moment of time.  Robina's conversation
with Sandie was somewhat prolonged, but
doubtless for them it passed even as the
twinkling of an eye.

When at last she tore herself away from
Sandie's blandishments and returned hot-footed
to her charge, baby and dog were gone.  The
worsted ball and the mending lay on the grass,
and perfect quiet reigned in the garden of
Remote.

"He'll be in mischief somewhere," she said
to herself.  "The wee Turk!"

For it was only when he was in mischief that
the continual flow of Edmund's conversation
ceased, and he was traced by his silences rather
than by his sounds.

Warily did Robina search through every
nook and corner of that garden: behind
raspberry canes, between gooseberry bushes, even
among the cabbages, but nowhere was there
any sign of either child or dog.  The girl's heart
sank.  Edmund had probably gone back to the
house and Elsa had just kept him that she might
the better come down on his young nurse for
her carelessness.  Robina well knew the awful
"radgin" that awaited her if this were the case.
It was just possible that the baby had toddled
round to the front and was playing among the
flower beds, doing damage in exactly inverse
ratio to his size and weight.  As she passed the
open kitchen window Robina looked in: a
great gust of hot air laden with the clean, good
smell of newly made scones met her.  Elsa was
over at the fire giving the scones, still on the
griddle, an occasional poke with her gnarled old
finger.  Edmund most certainly was not there.
Robina's spirits rose.  She might escape the
"radgin" after all.  She ran round to the front,
but there was no baby here either; the tidy
little garden with its gay flower beds on either
side of the broad central path lay peaceful and
deserted in the cool shadow thrown by the
house itself.  She noticed that the green gate
was unlatched and she began to feel anxious,
and not wholly on her own account.  Where
could that baby have got to, and where in all
the world was Mause?

Robina hurried to the back garden again and
went over every inch of ground, with no more
success than the first time.

She was now very frightened indeed.  She
hunted in the stable, she looked in the loft, she
even took all the tools out of the tool-house
lest Edmund might be secreted behind them;
but it was all useless, baby and dog had
completely vanished.

All this searching had taken some time.  The
afternoon began to wane, it would soon be tea
time.  Miss Esperance would return from her
sewing meeting, and even as it was, Robina
heard Mr. Wycherly and Montagu come into
the house.

She rushed to Elsa in the kitchen, where that
worthy woman was arranging her last batch of
scones round the top of the wire seive to cool.

"The wee boy's lost!" cried Robina desperately.
"I can find him nowhere and no place,
and the dug's awa' too."

Mr. Wycherly and Montagu heard the loud
excited voices in the kitchen, and for the first
time in all the years he had spent with Miss
Esperance Mr. Wycherly entered the domain
sacred to Elsa.  He questioned Robina very
gently and quietly, but could obtain no
information that threw any light upon Edmund's
mysterious disappearance.

They searched the house thoroughly, but
with no success, and all four had gone out to
look once more in the garden when Montagu
exclaimed, "Why Mause is here, in her kennel,
and she's not chained up."

The kennel was a large one, but Mause also
was large and effectually blocked the doorway.

"We'd better take her with us," said
Mr. Wycherly, who was preparing to scour the
village.  "She'll find him sooner than any of us."

But to their astonishment Mause did not
come to call.  She refused to budge, and if
any one came near her except Montagu she
growled ominously and showed her teeth, a
thing she had never done to members of her
own household in the whole of her existence.

By this time Miss Esperance had returned
and was gravely disquieted by the news that
met her, most of all by the fact that Mause
should have deserted Edmund and that she
should be so surly in her temper.

"I can't think what can have come over the
dog," cried poor Miss Esperance.  "Don't go
near her, Montagu, my son.  I just wish she
was on the chain."

"I'll put the chain on her, auntie; I'm not
afraid," cried Montagu, breaking from his
aunt's detaining hand; and sure enough, Mause
made not the smallest objection, but licked
Montagu's hand, and gazed with speaking,
pathetic eyes at the group around the kennel,
although she would allow no one to approach
her except the little boy.

"The gate was unlatched when we came in,"
said Mr. Wycherly.  "I noticed that.  I think
he must have strayed into the village, and
we'll probably find him in one of the cottages.
What I cannot understand is that Mause
should have left him."

"Mebbe some gaun-aboot-body's ta'en him,"
wailed Robina, "and drove the dug awa'."

"Hoot fie!" cried Elsa, indignantly.  "They
gaun-aboot-bodies has plenty bairns o' their
ain wi'oot nain o' oor's."

"The burn's gey and deep up the rod,"
sobbed Robina, who was determined to take
the gloomiest view of things.

Miss Esperance looked at Mr. Wycherly, and
both were very pale.  "Elsa and I will go into
the village," she said tremulously.  "Will you,
dear friend, go—the other way?  You would
be of more use if—anything——"

Miss Esperance paused, unable to voice the
dreadful fear that possessed her.

Montagu had sat down on the ground beside
Mause, facing the kennel, with his arm round
her shaggy neck; he leant his head against her,
for he felt that she was in some sort of disgrace,
and needed comforting.  A sudden shaft of
sunlight shone full on the pretty group.  "Why,
he's in there all the time," Montagu cried
excitedly.  "I can see him; he's fast asleep in
Mause's kennel, and that's why she wouldn't
come out."

The shrill voice woke the baby, who stirred,
rolled over, and finally crawled out from his
hiding-place, flushed and tumbled with little
beads of perspiration all over his nose.  Mause
politely making way for him the instant he
showed a desire to come out.

As he scrambled to his feet he beheld
Mr. Wycherly, and gave his usual cry of "Man!
Uppie, uppie!" and was somewhat bewildered
by the effusion with which that same man
caught him up in his arms.  Miss Esperance
grasped his fat legs and wept over them;
Robina and Elsa caught at any possible portion
of his clothing and wept over that.  In fact,
they all more or less hung on to Mr. Wycherly
in their excitement, while the cause of all this
enthusiasm blinked his sleepy eyes and
wondered what it was all about.  Mause ran round
and round in a circle, hanging out her tongue
and giving occasional short, sharp barks,
expressive of approval.

Presently, when the women let go of him,
Edmund bent down to scratch one of his fat
pink legs.  "I fink," he said majestically, "vat
a fee has bited me."

Mause looked apologetic, and licked the spot.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ROBINA`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   ROBINA

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  Jenny rade tae Cowtstan, tae Cowtstan, tae Cowtstan,
   |  Jenny rade tae Cowtstan upon a barra'pin O!
   |  An' aye as she wallopit, she wallopit, she wallopit,
   |  An' aye as she wallopit, she aye fell ahin' O!
   |                                      *Old Song*.

.. vspace:: 2

For Robina, it was a distinct rise in the
social scale to have taken service with
Miss Esperance.  Any lass could get a place at
the term in Edinburgh, but only one lass in the
whole village could have been chosen to look
after the little newcomers at Remote.

In the village Miss Esperance was familiarly
known as "the wee leddy": and in the eyes of
Burnhead the fact that she lived in an
extremely small house with one old servant, and
did a large portion of the household work herself,
in no way detracted from her dignity.  In
Burnhead, too, there were people who remembered
her father, the Admiral—"a gran' man
yon!  A radgy man whiles, mind ye, but a rale
man.  When he gave ye a glass he aye looket
the ither way and left ye to help yersen—eh,
but he was a gran' man yon!"

Lady Alicia had described Robina as "douce,"
and that young woman fully acted up to this
reputation during her first weeks at Remote.
She trembled and cringed before Elsa.  She
dropped whatever she happened to be holding
if suddenly addressed by Miss Esperance, while
in the presence of Mr. Wycherly extreme
shyness lent to her appearance an expression of
such abject imbecility as caused that gentleman
to demand anxiously of her mistress whether
she thought it was safe to allow Robina to take
the children for walks.

Once outside the walls of Remote, however,
Robina's whole attitude changed.  She bridled:
she minced: she was positively swollen with
pride in the importance of her position; and
when she condescended to exchange remarks
with such neighbours as she met, her demeanour
was distant and haughty.  No sooner had she
set forth with Edmund in the perambulator
and Montagu trotting by her side, than she at
once radiated an atmosphere of "say nothing
to nobody" so forbidding as to discourage all
attempts at sociability except on the part of
the boldest.  Everybody wanted to see the
little boys, who were, themselves, most friendly
and approachable and always ready to respond
to the overtures of kindly neighbours.

A comely lass was Robina, sturdy and thickset,
but with the exquisite colouring often to
be found among the Lowland Scottish peasantry;
and of late her rosy cheeks had bloomed to a
deeper rose, while her forehead and chin and
neck were white as the elder flower growing
against the wall at the bottom of the garden.
Very blue eyes had Robina, and thick, wavy
hair—red hair that would escape from its tight
braids in frivolous little curls at the nape of
her neck and round her ears.  From far away,
Sandie, the flesher, would espy that brilliant
hair burning like a lamp, and wheresoever that
beacon shone there would Sandie be fain to
follow.  He escorted her from her home to
Remote in the early morning, and was generally
waiting at a safe distance from Remote
to walk home with her in the evening.  So
devoted was he, that Robina had as yet made
an exception in his favour, and in spite of her
exalted position treated him with moderate
friendliness.

The day that Edmund was lost she had got
off comparatively lightly.  The household at
Remote was so excited over finding the baby
in Mause's kennel that they all forgot to inquire
till some time afterwards, how in the world he
had got there without the knowledge of his
nurse.  Robina did not consider it necessary
to mention her conversation with Sandie, and
beyond a moderate amount of cavilling on the
part of Elsa, very little had been said.

One afternoon, during the same week, she
took the small boys for a walk along the
highroad leading to Edinburgh; and as she, with
stately mien, was pushing the perambulator on
the pathway, a young man, driving a light
spring cart, overtook her and pulled up and
hailed her with the inquiry, "Well, Robiny,
hoo's a' wi' ye the day?"

Robina stopped and pretended to be absorbed
in settling Edmund in his perambulator; for
the moment the baby spied the trap, he began
to wriggle out of the strap that bound him in
his seat, waving his arms and shouting, "Me
go 'ide in caht."

"I would like a ride, too," Montagu remarked
in his usual deliberate fashion, and he smiled
up at Sandie engagingly.

Sandie saw the little boy and smiled back
broadly, but he was mostly looking at Robina.

"Is they wee things Piskeys tae?" Sandie
asked, nodding his head toward the children.

"Na, na," Robina replied, shaking her head
emphatically, "there's noan o' the wee leddy's
flesh and blood's Piskeys, I'se warrant.  They'll
gang tae the kirk wi' their auntie like ither
Christian folk."

"What's a Piskey?" asked Montagu of the
inquiring mind.

"I'm no very sure," the girl said slowly.
"It's a new-fangled kin' o' kirk—is't no?" she
added, looking up at Sandie.

Sandie grinned broadly and drew himself up.
"I once went into one o' they kirks in
Edinbory—" he said with the air of one who has
passed through many strange adventures, "on
a Sabbath evening," he continued hastily, as
Robina looked disapproving.  "I gang no
place else than oor ain kirk in the mornin'."

"And what like was it?" asked Robina,
somewhat reassured by this assertion of orthodoxy.

"Dod' an' it's more than I can say.  Ye was
aye hoppin' up an' sittin' doon, wi' a wee thing
singin' here an' a wee bit prayin' there, an' a
wee sma' readin'.  Ma certy! there was sae
monny preeleeminaries 'at I never thocht we'd
reach the sairmon.  An' when we did it was
just as scampit as a' the rest.  An' what wi'
human hymns an men i' their sarks jumpin' up
here an' there, it was mair like play-actin' than
a kirk.  Nae mair Piskeys for me, I can tell ye!"

"But what is a Piskey?" Montagu again demanded.

"The auld gentleman wha' lives wi' us is a
Piskey, so I've heard," Robina said in a low
voice.

"I can well believe that," Sandie remarked
meaningly, and tapped his forehead.

"Me go jive in caht!" Edmund exclaimed for
about the thirtieth time, this time with an
ominous warning of tears in his voice.

Sandie looked up the road and down the road.
There was not a soul in sight.

"Wull I gie them a wee bit hurrl?" he asked
Robina.

"The wee stoot yen couldna' sit wi'oot some
person to hold him," Robina said irresolutely,
"an' I daurna' let them oot o' my sight.  Mine's
is a poseetion o' great responsibeelity."  And
once more she lifted the struggling Edmund
back into his seat, from which he instantly
wriggled so that he was hung up under the arms
by the strap.

"Pit the pram inside yon gate," suggested
the ready Sandie, "and come tae.  No harm'll
happen it, an' I'll gie ye a bit hurrl doon the
rod."

"Me go jive in caht!" Edmund shouted
joyfully, and held out his arms to Sandie.
Edmund looked upon mankind in general as a
means specially provided for his quick transit
from place to place.  "Uppie!  Uppie!" the
baby cried impatiently.

"Let the bairn have his hurrl," pleaded Sandie.

Montagu as yet found it somewhat difficult to
follow the Scots tongue, but he realised that
Sandie was inviting them to go for a drive, and
forthwith declared his own intention of
accepting the invitation without Robina if she
declined to avail herself of it.

Finally the perambulator was put inside a
field, well out of sight.  The two small boys
were lifted into the cart, where Robina, with
much display of white-stockinged substantial
ankles, followed them.  Away went the butcher's
cart with four "precious souls and all agog"
seated abreast upon the wooden seat.  Robina
firmly clutched the "wee stoot yen" who chattered
incessantly, giving the loudest expression
to his satisfaction.

They had gone about half a mile along the
Edinburgh road when a gray bobtailed sheepdog
was seen trotting along towards them,
followed by a small pony tub driven by an old
lady.

"Megsty me!" Robina exclaimed in great
consternation, "if yon's no the wee leddy
hersel', and I thocht she was up at the hoose.  Turn
man, turn! and get back afore she comes."

Sandie tried to turn, but "Moggie," the
butcher's mare, knew that she was on the
homeward way and had no wish to defer her
arrival.  Moggie was fresh and frisky and very
obstinate, and the more Sandie tried to turn
her the more did she back into the side of the
road, finally starting to rear and plunge, with
an occasional rattle of hoofs on the splash-board.

Robina screamed with terror, and had it not
been that the four on the seat were a pretty
tight fit, the little boys would undoubtedly have
been thrown out.

Miss Esperance was jogging slowly homeward
in her little pony tub with only a village
boy in attendance.  She generally picked up
some stray urchin as she drove through Burnhead
to hold the pony while she paid visits or
did her shopping.  As she drew nearer she
perceived Moggie's antics, and pulled up.

"That seems a very restive horse," she
remarked anxiously.  "I hope the young man is
able to manage it, for I see he has children in the
cart.  It would be terrible to have a collision.
I think, Davie, you had better get out and hold
Jock's head—and I," added the intrepid little
lady, "will go and speak to that horse and see
if I can catch hold of its head."

Davie looked at her admiringly.  "It's the
flesher's mare, Moggie," he murmured shyly,
"an' she's awfu' flechty.  Tak heed, mem, that
she does na fell ye."

Miss Esperance carefully descended from her
little trap and walked towards the mare who
was getting a little tired of fighting with Sandie,
although she had no intention of giving in.
Sandie had a firm hand, but he did not dare to
beat his steed while Robina and the children
were in the cart.  He sawed at Moggie's mouth
and roared directions at her, and was so busily
engaged in trying to get her round that he did
not see the little old lady till she was close upon
him, then he nearly dropped his reins in his
consternation, and was stricken absolutely dumb.

This was just what Miss Esperance wanted.
All her life she had been used to horses, and she
stepped up to the sweating, trembling, plunging
mare, laid a small, firm hand fearlessly upon her
bridle, and spoke so soothingly and gently that
Moggie ceased to plunge and in a few minutes
was standing quiet, though trembling, with the
cart still blocking the road.

"Which way do you want her to go and I'll
turn her for you," she called to Sandie.

"*He* wants to go home, Aunt Espa'nce, but
we don't.  We'd much rather go on.  D'you
mind if we go on for a little more drive?"

And the amazed Miss Esperance looked up
to perceive her great-nephews and Robina
perched up in Sandie's cart.

Sandie was crimson and confused: Robina,
pale and tearful: the little boys bright-eyed
and rosy with excitement.

"Robina!" Miss Esperance ejaculated, in
deepest displeasure.  "What are you doing
there with the children?  Come down at once
while the horse is quiet."

Hastily and ungracefully Robina scrambled
out of the cart and the little boys were handed
down by Sandie, both deeply disappointed that
their "hurrl" had come to this untimely end.
Edmund was not one to conceal his feelings at
any time, and he forthwith began to roar so
lustily that further discussion was impossible,
especially as Mause considered it incumbent
upon her to bark loudly in joy at this
unexpected reunion.

Miss Esperance packed all three into her pony
tub, dismissing Davie to walk home and bring
the perambulator.

Moggie was the only one who scored, for she
was driven off without delay in the direction
she had all along wanted to go, and she went
like the wind.

.. vspace:: 2

"What," asked Montagu of his aunt some
days later, "is a Piskey?"

Miss Esperance drew her delicate eyebrows
together.  "Where have you heard the word?"
she inquired in her turn.

"Robina said Mr. Wycherly's a Piskey, and
I want to know what it is."

"Robina," said Miss Esperance, "is rather apt
to talk about things she does not understand.
'Piskey,' my dear Montagu, is a vulgar way of
saying Episcopalian, and the English form of
worship is called by that name in Scotland.  I
beg that you will not let me hear the word,
'Piskey,' again."

"I think it's rather a nice little word,"
Montagu retorted; "short and cheerful-sounding.
I suppose we're Presbeys?"

"Abbreviations," said Miss Esperance, "are
nearly always foolish and often in bad taste.
I have never heard of a Presbey in my life."

"Piskey and Presbey were two pretty men,"
Montagu murmured dreamily, with a hazy
recollection of some nursery rhyme, "though
I think Piskey's far prettier than Presbey, just
like Mr. Wycherly's prettier than Mr. Gloag."

"That will do, Montagu."

"D'you love Sandie, Aunt Esp'ance?" Montagu
asked with an abrupt change of subject.

"Certainly not," Miss Esperance answered
hastily, "though I believe him to be a
well-doing young man on the whole."

"I love him," said Montagu, "but we don't
see him very often now.  Robina's taken the
huff at him—he told me so.  It's a pity isn't it?"

"The less Robina sees of Sandie, the more
likely is she to attend to her duties," Miss
Esperance remarked austerely.  Then suddenly,
her whole face beaming, she added softly, as
though to herself, "The lassie's full young for
that sort of thing yet awhile."

.. vspace:: 2

If Robina had escaped lightly when Edmund
was lost, Nemesis was by no means leaden-footed
as regarded her latest escapade.  She
very nearly lost her situation, and only by the
combined and reiterated entreaties of herself
and her mother was Miss Esperance prevailed
upon to give the girl another trial.  Therefore
did Robina, with the unreason of her sex, lay
the whole blame upon Sandie; and considered
that he, and he alone, was responsible for the
mistrustful attitude of the authorities with
regard to her.  She declined to speak to him
or even to look at him for a whole fortnight.
Morning and evening she passed him by, till
at last he threatened that if she remained so
obdurate he would forsake the church of his
fathers and become a Piskey.  Then, and only
then, did Robina relent.  "I couldna hae that
on my conscience," she reflected.  But all the
same, although she condescended to speak to
Sandie "whiles," he found that he had to do
most of his wooing all over again; and Robina
would smile to herself from time to time as she
reflected that "it's an ill wind blows nobody
good."

Robina was one of those who believed that
what a man wants he will ask for over and over
again; and that the harder a thing is to obtain
the more it is valued.  So she was very niggardly
in the matter of her favours to Sandie,
and her work prospered in consequence.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE AWAKENING OF MR. WYCHERLY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE AWAKENING OF MR. WYCHERLY

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree
   |  By the hour, nor count time lost.
   |                              PARACELSUS.

.. vspace:: 2

Montagu's education was taken in hand
at once, and a very curious course of
instruction it proved to be.  Mr. Wycherly
taught him to read, and to read Latin at the
same time that he learned to read English.
He also, which Montagu very much preferred,
told him endless stories, historical and
mythological, and in illustration thereof gave him
for himself his own two precious oblong folios
of Flaxman's "Compositions," on the very
first birthday the little boy spent with Miss
Esperance.  These books were for Montagu the
only nursery picture books he knew, and Ulysses
and Hector were as real and familiar to him as
"Jack the Giant Killer" or "Bluebeard" to the
ordinary child.  He treasured them and treated
them always with the greatest care and
tenderness.  They were the one possession he
declined to share with Edmund, who was
careless, and tore things, to whom wide margins
and spacious pages made no appeal.  He pored
over the pictures for hours at a time, arriving
at a very clear conception of the beauty of pure
line.

When the children first came Mr. Wycherly
might have been seen, during all such time as
those energetic young people left to him,
immersed in the study of a serviceable sheepskin
volume, the Wrexham edition of Roger
Ascham's "Schoolmaster," making notes on the
margins of the same, and marking such passages
as seemed to him especially applicable to the
matter under consideration.

Years after the owner's death Montagu found
and read the wise old book, and realised how
humbly and patiently Mr. Wycherly had set
himself to follow out whatever he considered
most valuable in the teaching of one whose
mental attitude toward youth was certainly
centuries in advance of his age.  On the flyleaf
he had written in his small, delicate
handwriting: "In all my life, if I have done but
little harm, I have done no good or useful thing.
God help me that I may do this thing well,"
and Montagu, with an almost rapturous remembrance
of his teaching, could testify that the
prayer had not been made in vain.

It was no doubt a good thing for Montagu that
his tutor had such a common-sense standard
of teaching always before him, for Mr. Wycherly's
own inclination was apt to draw him
away from the grind of grammar to discourse
with enthusiasm on the beauties and
solemnities of the authors he so loved.  Montagu
was quick and receptive, with considerable
power of concentration, and because he loved
his teacher, he speedily grew to love the subjects
that he taught, so that he might truly have
said with Lady Jane Grey: "My book hath
been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily
to me more pleasure and more, that in respect
of it all other pleasures, in very deed, be but
trifles and troubles unto me."

Mr. Wycherly's sitting-room was much the
largest in the little house.  It was on the first
floor and of a cheerful aspect, having two
windows facing east and south, respectively.  Here,
for Montagu's own special use, were placed a
little square oak table with stout, stumpy legs,
of a solid steadiness that even the most fidgety
of little boys could not shake, and a
three-legged stool that had once served Elsa as a
milking-stool.  These were set sideways in the
window looking on to the kitchen garden, as
being a view less likely to distract the learner
than that of the other, from which one beheld
the front garden with the green railings, and
the village street with all its possible
excitements.  The little table possessed a drawer
with bright handles, and in this drawer
Montagu kept his own exercise books, his pen with
the pebble handle that Elsa had given him, his
box of pencils, and every scrap of paper suitable
for drawing on, that he could collect—generally
half sheets torn off letters by the careful hand
of Miss Esperance.  The table itself, in
imitation of Mr. Wycherly's, was piled with books,
but they were in orderly piles, and never set
open, one on the top of the other, as was the
older scholar's habit.

There was another reason why Mr. Wycherly
chose that window for Montagu: the morning
sun shone straight through it, and the scholar,
always something of a stranger in this chill
north, craved all the sunshine he could get for
the child.  He liked to lean back in his own
deep-seated revolving chair, set by the big
knee-hole table in the centre of the room, and
watch the little stooping figure in the patch of
sunshine in the window, laboriously tracing the
Greek characters so neatly and carefully.  A
large-eyed thin-faced boy was Montagu,
somewhat sallow, with the round shoulders got
during those early studies which he never lost in
later life.

It was not only during lessons that Montagu
sat at his little table: long hours did he spend
there on wet days while the wind howled round
the little house like a hungry wolf, and the rain
battered on the panes like shot—making drawings
for himself of the battle in the "great
harbour of Syracuse," which he had read about in
Thomas Hobbes's translation.  For Mr. Wycherly's
shelves abounded in translations as
well as in the "original texts," and although,
like most translators, he disagreed with all
accepted renderings, yet he encouraged
Montagu's use of them, perhaps that he, himself,
might the better, by-and-by, point out where
he considered that they failed.

These drawings were afterwards bestowed
upon Edmund, who would listen to Montagu's
classic stories when they dealt with battles or
ships, but who otherwise infinitely preferred
Elsa's more homely legends regarding the doings
of "Cockie Lockie and Henny Penny."

But there was more than the garden to be
seen from Montagu's window: far away, sharp
against the sky line, lay the lion back of
Arthur's Seat, and whenever Montagu raised his
eyes from his work to look out, it was there that
they rested.  And inasmuch as at that time
the Odyssey and its hero filled all his thoughts,
the great gaunt hill became for him actually
that Ithaca long sought and longed for by the
many-counselled one: till every sight of it
would thrill him with a sense of personal
possession and delighted recognition.

Sometimes Montagu, looking back into the
room, would find his old friend watching him,
and the little boy would nod gaily without
speaking, smiling the while the confident,
comrade smile of childhood, and thinking that,
failing Achilles, he would like to look like
Mr. Wycherly when he was old.

There is always something pleasantly
surprising in the conjunction of white hair and
very dark eyes and eyebrows, and in Mr. Wycherly's
case the expression of the dark eyes
was extremely gentle, the features sharply cut
and refined, the whole face of that clean-shaven,
regular, aristocratic type, which the Reverend
Peter Gloag—half in admiration, half in
derision—described as so "intensely Oxfordish."

"He has got such a tidy face," Montagu said
to his aunt one day.

"My dear, Mr. Wycherly is always considered
a man of great personal attractions," she
replied, rather shocked at his choice of an
adjective.

"Yes, aunt, dear, I know, but it's a tidy
sort of handsomeness; not a bit like Noah and
Jacob and those hairy prophets in the parlour."

The walls of his aunt's sitting-room were
adorned by many engravings illustrative of the
Scriptures, and Montagu, fresh from the study
of his beloved Flaxman, would compare these
bearded Hebrew prophets, so hampered by
heavy draperies, with his airily attired and
clean-limbed Greeks, always to the advantage
of the latter.  Yet he was forced to acknowledge
to himself that his adored Mr. Wycherly
resembled them equally little both in appearance
and manner of life: for nothing could
savour less of the adventurous than his
existence.  So Montagu "put the question by" as
one to be answered in that wonderful, grown-up
time that children think will solve so many
riddles.  Mr. Wycherly was immensely happy
in this new work and approached his task with
a certain tender reverence, rare among teachers,
for he agreed with wise old Roger Ascham in
thinking that "the pure, clean wit of a sweet,
young babe is like the newest wax, most able
to receive the best and fairest printing, and like
a new bright silver dish never occupied to
receive and keep clean any good thing that is
put in it."

.. vspace:: 2

One morning in early October, Montagu was
sitting, as usual, at his little table copying the
Greek alphabet, while Mr. Wycherly sat
watching him with pleased, dreamy eyes.  As the
little boy completed his task he raised his head
with a sigh of satisfaction and happened to look
down into the garden.

"Do you think?" he suddenly asked
Mr. Wycherly, "I might go out and help Aunt
Esperance dig the potatoes?  The ground seems
so heavy this morning."

Mr. Wycherly rose hastily, crossed over to
Montagu's window and looked out.

"Good God!" he exclaimed, and fled from
the room.

Much astonished at this outburst from his
usually serene tutor, Montagu tore downstairs
after him.

What Mr. Wycherly had seen to cause him
such consternation was what he might have
seen any time during the last fifteen years—namely,
the tiny, stooping figure of Miss Esperance
digging the potatoes for the day's dinner.
But if it ever happened that he did look out he
had never chanced to look down into the
homely garden below, or if he had his eyes were
holden, and he was wrapped in his dreams.  So
that he beheld only the things of the spirit, nor
did he know how often the palms of those
little hands, so ready to help others, were hard
and blistered by their labours.

Since the days when he ran shouting along
the towing path at Oxford Mr. Wycherly had
never run as he ran that morning to the potato
patch at Remote.  Montagu was hard put to it
to catch him, but just managed it, and they
arrived together before the astonished eyes of
Miss Esperance, who saw them coming in such
hot haste, and rested on her spade in fear and
trembling as to what could have happened.

When Mr. Wycherly did reach her he could
not speak, so breathless was he: but he looked
beseechingly at her and gently took the spade
out of her hands.

"Why?" he gasped, "Why?"  His face
worked strangely and he could say nothing
more.  Montagu stood watching him with
solemn, puzzled eyes.

But Miss Esperance understood.  "You have
come to help me," she said gently, "that is very
kind of you.  Montagu! away and get your wee
spade and dig too."

The little boy needed no second bidding, and
flew to the tool-house.  Mr. Wycherly hadn't
the faintest notion how to dig potatoes.  He
had never held a spade in his hands before, and
held this much as a nervous person unaccustomed
to firearms might hold a loaded gun.
He looked helplessly at Miss Esperance, and
still the lines were deep about his mouth and
his eyes full of that new, dumb pain.

"Watch Montagu!" she whispered reassuringly,
"he's a famous digger."

Between them they dug quite a lot of potatoes,
and Mr. Wycherly, himself, carried the
heavy basket to Elsa at the back door.  She
took it from him without comment of any
kind, but when he had gone round through the
garden to get into the house by the front, she
looked into the basket, exclaiming, "Now what
put sic' a whigmalerie as this in his head?"  And
it seemed as if the potatoes must have
thrown some light upon the question, for in
another minute she said softly, "Yon's no a bad
buddy."

When Montagu went back to his lessons he
found his tutor, with earthy hands clasped
behind him, restlessly pacing up and down his
room.

"I think you've done enough this morning,"
said Mr. Wycherly.  "You'd better go out and
play while it is so fine and nice."

"It's not twelve o'clock yet," Montagu objected,
"and I generally do lessons till twelve."

"We shall have plenty of wet days by-and-by,"
Mr. Wycherly answered.  "Go out now,
and make the most of it while it is fine."

"But Robina and Edmund's gone, and Aunt
Esperance is busy—won't you come?"

"Yes, I'll come."  But yet Mr. Wycherly
made no move to get ready.

"I've washed my hands," Montagu remarked
virtuously.

Mr. Wycherly started, unclasped his hands
and held them out in front of him.  "I fear,"
he said sadly, "that nothing will wash mine."  A
remark which puzzled Montagu extremely,
for in a few minutes Mr. Wycherly returned
from his bedroom with perfectly clean hands.

It was a very silent walk at first, and what
conversation there was Montagu made.  At
last he grew rather tired of this one-sided
intercourse and gave his companion's hand a tug
as he demanded: "Are you asleep, that you
don't never answer?"

Mr. Wycherly started.  "No, my dear son,"
he said very gently; "I think that I am just
beginning to be awake."

"Will you talk to me then, like you generally
do, and tell me things?  Shall we go on about
Jason?  I do love stories where people do
things."

Mr. Wycherly stood still in the middle of the
road, and looked down into the little eager face
uplifted to his.  "You are right, Montagu,"
he said very gravely; "it is of little use to think
things if you don't do them."  And then it
seemed as though Mr. Wycherly gave himself
a mental shake, for he devoted his whole
attention to Montagu for the rest of their walk.

Mr. Wycherly's early dinner was served in
his own room, but he always supped downstairs
with Miss Esperance at seven o'clock.
He was the most unpunctual of mortals, and
when he first came, infuriated Elsa by sometimes
forgetting to eat any lunch at all.  But
when he discovered that these lapses really
distressed Miss Esperance, he schooled himself to
keep as nearly as possible to the appointed
hours.  He was never late for supper, for that
would have been discourteous to Miss Esperance,
and he was incapable of discourtesy; but
he did allow himself a certain amount of laxity
with regard to lunch.  As for breakfast—ever
since the coming of the children he had been a
model of punctuality, for they woke him up so
uncommonly early.

When he entered his room after the walk
with Montagu, he found his lunch all ready set
on the round table in the middle of the room.
This table was sacred to meals, and he was not
permitted to pile it with books and papers.
Hence, he was wont to regard its oaken
emptiness between whiles with a wistful envy.  It
was so much good space wasted.  His lunch
was always very nicely laid, and to-day there
was cold beef, thin dainty slices adorned with
parsley by Elsa's careful hand, and beside the
beef stood a covered vegetable dish.  Mr. Wycherly
sat down at the table, poured out a
glass of ale from the little Toby jug set at his
right hand and mechanically lifted the cover of
the dish.  Potatoes were in that dish, and at
the sight of them he rose hastily from the table.
He went over to his big, knee-hole desk, and
sitting down in front of it said aloud: "And
all these years she has been digging potatoes for me!"

Like a tired schoolboy he leaned forward, his
arms upon his desk, laid his head down on
them, and the room was very still.

When Elsa went in to take away the dishes,
he had gone out: but his lunch was untouched.
She shook her head ominously, and went and
turned down his bed, though it was only early
afternoon.

Mr. Wycherly walked and walked till he was
quite worn out.  He got back to the house
about four o'clock, crawled up to his room, and
sank quite exhausted into his big chair by the
window.  All afternoon Elsa had been watching
for him, and three minutes after his return
she followed him upstairs bearing a little tray
on which were set a cup of tea and a plate of
most tempting-looking scones.  She didn't even
knock at his door, but went straight in, pushed
the round table up to his elbow and laid the
little tray upon it.  She took up her stand at
the window with her back to Mr. Wycherly,
remarking fiercely: "From this place I'll not
stir till you've taken that tea."

She did not even add the usual tardy "sir,"
and Mr. Wycherly was so startled that he never
noticed the omission.  He drank the tea, and
ate two scones, and all the time Elsa stood with
her back to him looking out of the window.

Presently he touched her on the arm.  "I
am very much obliged to you, Elsa," he said.
"I think I must have forgotten to eat as much
lunch as usual, I was so extremely tired, but I
feel much refreshed now."

Elsa grunted something quite inaudible, took
the tray off the table, and, still with averted
head, stumped out of the room.

But the fates had not done with Mr. Wycherly
that day.  As he and Miss Esperance
sat down to supper, Montagu, who for some
reason was rather later than usual in going to
bed, came in to say good night to them.  He
first kissed his aunt, who sat at one end of the
table, then went to kiss Mr. Wycherly who sat
at the other.  Having said good night, of course
he lingered, leant confidingly against his tutor,
and in the universal fashion of children who
would fain put off the evil hour of bed, remarked
detachedly: "You've got chops.  Aunt Esperance
has only got an egg.  Don't you like chops,
Aunt Esperance?  I do, much better than eggs."

Mr. Wycherly dropped back in his chair,
looking painfully distressed.  For a moment
there was a dreadful pause, but the beautiful
breeding of Miss Esperance stood her in good
stead even then.

"Do you know," she exclaimed, as though a
sudden thought had struck her, "I feel
unusually hungry to-night.  I think I will defy
my doctor for once, and take a chop after all,
Mr. Wycherly."

And Miss Esperance handed up her little
plate for the chop which Mr. Wycherly
joyfully placed upon it.  But now came another
difficulty.  Miss Esperance, who had eaten a
boiled egg at this hour nearly every night for
some twenty years, had no fork.

"Montagu, my son," she said cheerfully,
"run and ask Elsa for a fork for me."

No man ever existed who cared less about
eating than Mr. Wycherly.  Whatsoever was
set before him, that he ate meekly and without
comment—if he remembered.  He always
offered to help Miss Esperance from whatever
dish was set before him at supper, and she as
invariably refused it.  It would have seemed to
him an unwarrantable piece of interference even
so indirectly to criticise her housekeeping as to
suggest what she should eat.  But to-day there
had occurred something which had entirely
shaken him out of his usual patient acquiescence
in existing conditions: so that, when Montagu
pointed out that his fare was so much better
than that of Miss Esperance, he was seized by
a new anguish of self-reproach.  Had he, all
these years, been living luxuriously?—that is
how poor Mr. Wycherly put it to himself—while
she, who with her frail little hands had
pulled him forcibly back from the abyss into
which he was so surely slipping, had she been
living sparely, and he never even noticed
whether she had enough to eat?  In his misery
he was ready to accuse himself of having starved
Miss Esperance that he might go full-fed himself.

It was rather a silent meal.  Miss Esperance
did her best to start topics of interest, but his
response, though never lacking in urbane
attention, was somewhat half-hearted and depressed.

When he had gone upstairs to his own room,
Miss Esperance waited with the little bell, which
summoned Elsa, still in her hand till that good
woman appeared, when she asked anxiously:
"Elsa, do you know if anything has occurred
to upset Mr. Wycherly?  He is not looking at
all well to-night."

Elsa shook her head.  "I dinna ken, mem,
what it'll be, but he never touched his denner,
and when he came back this afternoon he looked
like he'd been greetin' and greetin' sair."

Elsa paused; Miss Esperance made no answer,
but stood still, looking at the lamp on
the table, lost in thought.

"It's no the old thing," Elsa added suddenly,
lowering her voice.

Miss Esperance put out her hand as if
warding off a blow.  "Of course not," she
exclaimed.  "I am surprised, Elsa, that you
should so far forget yourself as to refer,
to—that time—so long ago, so entirely passed."

The little lady seemed in some subtle fashion
to withdraw herself to an immense distance
from the homely serving-woman who stood
fingering her apron and saying nothing.  She
knew that she had offended her mistress, and
when Miss Esperance was offended, she, usually
the gentlest and friendliest of women, became
quite unapproachable.  She left the room with
her usual noiseless tread, and for a good five
minutes after she had gone Elsa stood where
she was, still fingering her apron and wondering
what she could do to make amends.

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Wycherly sat at his knee-hole table far
into the night.  From the recesses of a drawer
that had been locked for years he brought forth
papers; long, legal-looking papers, and set
himself, for the first time since he came to live with
Miss Esperance, to look into his financial
position.  He made many notes and his brow was
furrowed by care and thought, for his brain
lent itself with difficulty to the understanding
of figures.  Still he persevered, and gradually
his expression became less pained and perplexed.
For once he did not leave his papers
scattered all over the table.  He arranged
them neatly in bundles and put them back
again into the drawer and locked it.

When he had finished these unusually orderly
arrangements, he pulled up the blind of
Montagu's window and looked out toward Arthur's
Seat.  It was a moonlight night, and something
of the large peace of that majestic hill
seemed to pass into his soul, for his gentle,
scholarly face was no longer troubled, and he
whispered as if in prayer: "Thank God, I can
at least do that for her.  Thank God!"

The tender moonbeams touched Mr. Wycherly's
hair, white since he was seven and
twenty, to purest silver, and there seemed a
benediction in that quiet hour for the little
house that held so much of innocence and
sorrow and repentance.





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.. _`ELSA DRIVES THE NAIL HOME`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   ELSA DRIVES THE NAIL HOME

.. vspace:: 1

And toward such a full or complete life, a life of various
yet select sensation, the most direct and effective auxiliary
must be, in a word, Insight.—MARIUS THE EPICUREAN.

.. vspace:: 2

When Elsa came to clear away Mr. Wycherly's
breakfast next morning she
shut the door carefully behind her and
stumped—never had woman a heavier foot than
Elsa—across to his writing-table, where she stood
facing him in silence.

Mr. Wycherly was, as usual, bent over a book,
and the book was Roger Ascham's "Schoolmaster."  It
was his habit ever since he had
begun to teach Montagu to read therein for a
few minutes every morning that he might start
the lessons for the day in a frame of mind
"fresh and serenely disposed."

When Elsa planted herself full in his view
he had just reached the sentence describing
the sixth virtue in a scholar: "He that is
naturally bold to ask any question," and was
smiling to himself in the thought that both his
pupil and the small Edmund fulfilled this
condition to the very letter, when he looked up
and saw Elsa.

"Sir," said Elsa, "do ye not want an account
of your money?"

"No, Elsa," Mr. Wycherly answered, smiling
still, although a little startled by the interruption,
"not in the least.  I probably should not
understand it if you gave it to me.  Do you
want any more?  Because, if so, I have some
for you."  And Mr. Wycherly made as if to
open one of the drawers of his table.

"Stop!" Elsa exclaimed, "I've five pound
yet, but I'm fear'd.  I'd rather you had it
back."

"But why?" Mr. Wycherly asked.  "There
must be many expenses, many extra expenses
since the children came——"

"When the bairnies came," said Elsa,
looking severely at Mr. Wycherly, "you gave me
three ten-pound notes, and ever since I've been
deceiving the mistress.  Twenty-five pounds
have I spent in groceries and odds and ends,
and she so surprised—like that the bairns
didna' mak' so great a difference—and I just
daurna gae on.  I'm fear'd.  If she was ever
to ken—and she's that gleg in the uptak,
she'll ken somehow, an' it's me she'll blame,
and no you."

Elsa's voice broke.  The favour of her
mistress was very precious to her, and as yet she
could not feel that Miss Esperance had quite
forgiven her for her indiscretion of the night
before.  Mr. Wycherly had obtained quite a
large sum of money for the valuable books he
sold when he and Miss Esperance went to fetch
the children, and on their return he had given
thirty pounds to Elsa, bidding her get any
extras that might be necessary, without troubling
her mistress.  At the time Elsa had taken
the money willingly enough, for she felt that it
would be more usefully expended in her hands
than if Mr. Wycherly kept it.  "He'll just
waste it on some haver of a bit book," she said
to herself, and salved her conscience with this
reflection; and it had, undoubtedly, tided the
little household over a difficult time.  But now,
she felt, this cooking of the household books
could not go on.  It must come to an end with
the money, and her mistress would wonder why,
all at once, the weekly expenses had increased
so mightily.  Searching inquiries would be
made.  Elsa knew that she could not lie to
Miss Esperance, and she came to the conclusion
that as the money was his, it would be better
that Mr. Wycherly should make the necessary
explanation and bear the blame.  She would
be his accomplice in this innocent deception no
longer.

Therefore did she take from her pocket a
screw of paper which she unfolded, displaying
the five sovereigns wrapped in it, and laid
them down on Mr. Wycherly's desk in a row.

"I can give an account for every penny of
the twenty-five pound," said Elsa, turning away
from the table, "and you maun just tell her the
truth—sir.  The tradesman's books'll be gey
and big this week," she added, significantly.

Mr. Wycherly leant back in his chair and
gazed helplessly at Elsa, who was now removing
his breakfast things with her customary clatter.
She would not meet his eye, for an uneasy
feeling that she had "gone back on him" to a
certain extent, disturbed her, and she was more
than usually unapproachable in consequence.

She had finished clearing the table and was
about to depart with the tray when Mr. Wycherly
spoke: "Elsa," he said, "you had better
take this money and use it as you did the other.
You are quite right that Miss Esperance must
know.  It is an impertinence on our part to
do anything without her knowledge: but I
hope—I sincerely hope that in the future Miss
Esperance will permit me to act as guardian to
her great-nephews in more than name; that
she will give me the *right* to take my share—in
whatever may be necessary.  But be reassured
as to this, Elsa, I will not allow you to be
blamed for what, after all, was wholly my
fault: a grievous fault in taste, I confess: but
it was done hastily, and, to be quite candid, I
had wholly forgotten the circumstance until you
very properly reminded me of it."

Mr. Wycherly spoke earnestly, and while he
was talking Elsa had laid down the tray again
on the centre table.  She made no answer to
this unusually long speech from him, but stood
with her hard old face set like a flint, wholly
expressionless, till she remarked suddenly and
irrelevantly: "Could you tak' your breakfast
at eight o'clock instead o' nine, sir?"

"Certainly," Mr. Wycherly replied, rather
astonished at this abrupt, change of subject,
"if you will be kind enough to call me rather
earlier.  Those little people wake me in
excellent time."

"Would you let the mistress come here to
her breakfast wi' you?"

Mr. Wycherly rose to his feet.  "Do you think
Miss Esperance would so far honour me, Elsa?"

Elsa and Mr. Wycherly stood looking at one
another across the room.  Suddenly she bent
her eyes upon the carpet and spoke in a low,
monotonous voice.

"Sir," she said, "it's like this.  The mistress
never gets a proper breakfast for those wee
bairns——"

"I can well believe that," Mr. Wycherly interrupted.

"Now if you, sir" (it was surprising how
fluently the 'sir' came to Elsa just then),
"would just say that you'd like your breakfast
a wee thing sooner in the morning and would
ask the mistress, would she no have hers wi'
you for the company.  Then me an' Robina'll
see that the wee boys has theirs.  Don't you
think, sir, you'd eat more yersel', if ye was no
read—readin' a' the time?  If ye'd just tell the
mistress that?  It's dull-like, isn't it, to eat yer
lane?"

Elsa picked up her tray and hastened from
the room, feeling that do as she would, she and
Mr. Wycherly were doomed to be fellow-conspirators.

The sun came out and shone on the five
sovereigns lying on the writing-table, and
Montagu, at that moment coming in to his lessons,
spied them.

"What a lot of money!" he exclaimed.
"What are you going to do with it?"

"I hope," said Mr. Wycherly, quite gaily,
"that I am going to buy large pieces of
happiness with it."

"Can you buy happiness?" Montagu asked
wonderingly, ever desirous to search out any
doubt.

"No," Mr. Wycherly said decidedly, "not
the best kinds, but it sometimes happens that
one can buy useful things that help—to a
certain degree—in obtaining happiness: and it is
those useful things I hope to buy."

"Useful things," Montagu repeated in a
disappointed tone, "like pinafores?  Those sort of
things wouldn't make *me* happy."  Montagu
loathed the blue pinafores enforced by Miss
Esperance, and considered it a degradation to
wear one.

"I'm not sure that I shall buy pinafores,"
said Mr. Wycherly; "they are not the only
useful things in the world."

"Useful things are always dull," Montagu
persisted.

"On the contrary," Mr. Wycherly replied,
"useful things are sometimes full of the most
exquisite romance."

That day early after lunch he called upon
Lady Alicia Carruthers.  She was at home and
alone, and he stayed with her nearly all the
afternoon.  Lady Alicia would not let him go
till he had had a cup of tea, and this marked an
epoch in the life of Mr. Wycherly at Remote,
for it was the first time he had broken bread in
a neighbour's house.

Shortly after this he astonished his relatives
by suddenly demanding entire control of his
property.  He sent for the family lawyer, a
certain Mr. Woodhouse, and went into his affairs
with a thoroughness and an amount of legal
acumen that quite amazed that worthy man.

Mr. Wycherly's brothers were by no means
pleased.  For many years—ever since he had,
much against their will, and in direct opposition
to the advice and warnings showered upon him,
resigned his fellowship and withdrawn himself
finally from the scene of all his former interests—he
had been well content to spend about half
his little income while the remainder
accumulated under their careful stewardship,
presumably for their benefit and that of their
children.  He had asked no questions and
appeared, as indeed he was, quite contented with
the arrangement.  So entirely had he accepted
existing conditions, that when he wanted money
in a hurry, in order to see that Miss Esperance
and the children should make the journey in
decent comfort, he had sold his most precious
books instead of telegraphing to his solicitor.

But with the advent of Archie's children
Mr. Wycherly was completely shaken out of his
groove.  His humble desire to hide his shame
from the eyes of men (for to him, even in times
when occasional excess was regarded by the
majority less severely than it is now, it meant
disgrace and dishonour) gave way to the more
ardent desire that these boys might take their
place in the world he had left; see, and be seen,
and, if possible, seize all the opportunities that
he himself had thrown away.

Mr. Woodhouse had travelled all the way
from Shrewsbury to Edinburgh to confer with
Mr. Wycherly, and he stayed with Lady Alicia,
for the public house at Burnhead was of a very
humble order, having no bedroom to offer to
the wayfaring stranger.  Like many other
people, he had fallen under the charm of Miss
Esperance, and he not only acquiesced, but
positively encouraged Mr. Wycherly in all his
plans for the disposal of his property.  It is
quite possible that he was not sorry to see his
other clients of that name disappointed.
"They've kept him short all these years, when
they had no earthly right to, just because he
and the old lady are as unworldly as a pair of
babies—and now, after all their scheming and
saving, the whole of that money will go to
benefit her relations," said Mr. Woodhouse to
Lady Alicia, with a chuckle.  "It's poetic
justice, that's what I call it."

Mr. Woodhouse was standing on the hearthrug
warming his coat-tails.  He had returned
for the night from Remote, and was quite
prepared to enjoy a comfortable chat with
Lady Alicia and her pretty daughter, Margaret,
who were sitting by the fire knitting diligently.

"Do you happen to know?" asked Lady
Alicia, who had never dared ask the question
of Miss Esperance, "what caused the—er—mental
break-down, that made Mr. Wycherly
leave Oxford?"

The keen eyes under the bushy eyebrows
twinkled with amusement as Mr. Woodhouse
surveyed his hostess, who was, he very well
knew, devoured by curiosity.

"I've never really heard the rights of it," he
said cautiously, "but from what I have heard
I should gather that it was, as usual, saving
your presence, my dear young lady, a woman
who was at the bottom of the mischief."

"Oh!" exclaimed pretty Margaret, "how
very sad.  Did she die?"

"She was," said Mr. Woodhouse, gazing into
the gracious, pitiful young face uplifted to his,
"a hard, scheming woman, beautiful, of course,
not over young; in fact, I think she was older
than he was.  He, then, was considered the
handsomest man in Oxford, very distinguished,
you know, with his white hair and young face,
all the Wycherlys go gray very early.  At that
time there seemed no honour in the university
to which he might not aspire.  He was popular
in society——"

"He has the most beautiful manners," Lady
Alicia remarked, laying down her knitting and
preparing to enjoy herself.

"He had then.  In fact, in Oxford he was
looked upon as a very brilliant and rising young
man; and the fact that he had some private
means made it possible for him to go into
Society, with a big 'S,' rather more than is
usual in such cases."

"I always felt," said Lady Alicia, bridling,
"that he had at some time or another belonged
to the great world.  But what of the lady?"

"She came down for Commemoration Week;
stayed, I think, with the Dean of Christ Church,
and made a dead set at Wycherly.  He went
down before her like a ninepin, and they were
engaged, and there was 'a marriage arranged to
take place,' before the week was out."

"Why didn't it take place?" asked pretty
Margaret eagerly.

"Because, my dear young lady, the lady in
question happened to fascinate a richer man
just a week before the wedding day, and poor
Wycherly discovered the whole affair in some
fashion that was a very great shock to him.
The only thing he was ever heard to say about
it was that it hurt him rather to hear of her
marriage to the other man while he was still under
the impression that she was engaged to him."

"She wasn't worth grieving over," Lady
Alicia cried indignantly.

"Poor Mr. Wycherly!" pretty Margaret said
softly.  "And he is so kind and gentle always."

"I hope her marriage turned out badly,"
said Lady Alicia vindictively.

"Your ladyship's pious hope was amply
fulfilled," Mr. Woodhouse replied.

"Won't you tell us who she was?" Lady
Alicia demanded in honeyed tones.

"Alas, dear Lady Alicia, that I must not do.
She is dead—*de mortuis nil nisi bonum*, you
know—may she rest in peace!"

Lady Alicia folded up her knitting.  "In
that case," she said somewhat abruptly, "we
must not keep you out of your bed any longer,
you have had a tiring day."

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"Is he quite capable of managing his own
affairs?" Mr. Wycherly's brothers eagerly asked
Mr. Woodhouse on his return some three days later.

"Perfectly capable," answered that gentleman
decidedly.  "Indeed, he shows quite
remarkable business capacity, considering how
long it is since he has undertaken anything of
the kind.  It's a thousand pities he resigned
his fellowship.  I would not advise you to
attempt any sort of interference with him—for,
however reluctant I might be to give evidence
as to the impropriety of such a course, I should
be obliged in common honesty to do so.  It was
certainly Quixotic to resign his fellowship when
he did, but it could not be brought up as a
proof of mental incapacity at this time of day."

Mr. Wycherly's brothers did not fail to
remind him at this juncture that, had he listened
to them, he would still be enjoying the income
of his fellowship.  "No one," they had
reiterated, "could take it from him while he lived.
Once a fellow, always a fellow—a fellowship
was a freehold, and what did it matter to the
authorities in Oxford what he did north of the
Tweed?"

But Mr. Wycherly had loved his college too
dearly to bring shame upon her, and if he could
not serve, neither would he accept wage.  And
now that he had every reason to wish that his
income was larger, it was the one step in all the
inglorious past that he did not regret.

Through the family solicitor he demanded
an account of all monies belonging to himself:
explaining with the utmost clearness that he
intended to educate both Montagu and Edmund
"as befitted their position in life," that he
wished to adopt both of them, and that, with
their aunt's consent, the elder of the two was
to take his name, and inherit whatever he
could leave him.

"It won't be much," he said to Mr. Woodhouse,
when he was discussing ways and means
with him, "for I intend Montagu to go to
Winchester and New College, and of course
Edmund, should he go into the navy, will need a
considerable allowance for years to come.  But
whatever there is, that they are to have, and,
above all, I beg you to make it perfectly clear
to Miss Esperance that she need be under no
apprehension as to their future."

For the sake of "Archie's boys" Mr. Wycherly
even bethought him of old friends from
whose kindly questioning eyes he would fain
have hidden.  Insensibly, too, he accustomed
himself to dwell fondly upon the past, that
pleasant past once so full of success, of dignity,
and of the intellectual honours so dear to him;
that happy time preceding those dark years of
weakness and shame and mental degradation.

Thus he found himself telling Montagu all
about William of Wykeham of pious memory:
of the "Founder's Crozier" and the "Great
West Window," and of the Warden's library at
New College where they keep the Founder's
Jewel.  Day by day Montagu would revert to
these entrancing topics till Oxford rivalled even
Troy in his affections, and the knowledge that he
himself was destined one day to go and live in
this wonderful place gave an even greater zeal
to his studies than before.

Moreover, pictures of this same Oxford were
found in boxes stored away, and were brought
forth and, at Montagu's request, hung up, till
what with books and what with engravings
there was hardly an inch of drab-coloured wall
to be seen.

As to the matter of breakfast—Elsa was so
piteous in her account of how that meal was
neglected by Mr. Wycherly, and he proclaimed
his loneliness in such moving terms, that
Miss Esperance came to the conclusion that
he was really far more in need of her supervision
than the little boys, and it ended in their
breakfasting together in his room at eight
o'clock, and Mr. Wycherly, on the morning that
initiated this new arrangement, was as nervous
and excited as an undergraduate who expects
"ladies to lunch" in his rooms for the first time.





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.. _`EDMUND RECHRISTENS MR. WYCHERLY`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   EDMUND RECHRISTENS MR. WYCHERLY

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   |      "Time was," the golden head
   |      Irrevocably said;
   |      "But time which none can bind,
   |  While flowing fast away, leaves love behind."
   |                                    R.L.S.

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"It is just a year to-day since the children
came," said Miss Esperance, smiling across
the table at Mr. Wycherly, as they sat together
at breakfast in his room.

"In some ways," he replied thoughtfully, "it
seems as though they must always have been
here: it is impossible to conceive of life without
them—now.  In others, the time has gone so
fast that it might be but yesterday they came."

"When I was younger," Miss Esperance
went on in her gentle, old voice, "I used to look
forward with such dread to a lonely old age.  I
used to think 'what would life be if my father
and my brothers died?'; and one by one they
were all taken from me, and Archie was the
last of our family—and he is dead.  But the
Lord has been very merciful.  First he sent
you to me, and then the children to us both:
'Goodness and mercy all my life have surely
followed me.'"

Miss Esperance paused, still smiling in the
happy confidence of the peace that wrapped her
round.

If Mr. Wycherly did not answer it was not
because he did not agree with Miss Esperance
as to the wonderful workings of Providence.
But speech on such subjects was to him almost
impossible; and she, looking wistfully into his
face, partly realised this.  But she was not
quite satisfied.  Religion was, for her, so
entirely the mainspring of her every impulse, her
every action, that it was impossible for her in
any way to separate it from the most ordinary
daily doings; and to her it was as easy and as
natural to confess her faith and her deepest
feelings with regard to these matters as it was
impossible to him.  This inability on his part
formed to a certain extent a barrier between
them: a barrier which can only be broken down
by mutual consent; and while he would have
done, as in very truth he did, anything in the
world to give her pleasure and peace of mind:
this thing which she would have valued most,
he could not give her.  He could not talk about
his religious views.

In the silence that followed it is possible that
there recurred to the minds of both an incident
not wholly without bearing on their future
intercourse.  One Sabbath evening, shortly
after he had gone to live with Miss Esperance
at Remote, she asked him to "engage in prayer"
at family worship—the "family" consisting of
herself and Elsa.

Mr. Wycherly complied readily enough, for
he knew plenty of prayers: but when he prayed,
he prayed for "the bishops and curates and all
congregations committed to their charge"; he
prayed for the "good estate of the Catholic
Church here upon earth"; and, worst of all—it
being the collect for the day—he prayed
that "as thy Holy Angels always do thee
service in heaven, so by thy appointment they
may succour and defend us on earth."  Never
was such a scandal in a strictly Presbyterian
household.  Elsa proclaimed throughout the
village that Miss Esperance had been induced
to harbour an undoubted Puseyite, and it would
not have surprised her in the least if he had
prayed for the Pope himself.

And Miss Esperance, knowing the length and
strength of Elsa's tongue, felt herself constrained
to explain (she did it with considerable
humour) to the Reverend Peter Gloag what had
really happened.  Whereupon the minister
dismissed Mr. Wycherly and all his works as being
"fettered by formula?": and to the great relief
of this prisoner in the chains of ecclesiasticism
he was never again asked to conduct family
worship.  He innocently wondered why, for
he imagined with some complacency that he
had acquitted himself gracefully in what had
been rather a trying ordeal.

The tender smile of Miss Esperance, as she
reflected upon her many mercies, had changed
to a smile of no less tender amusement as she
recalled those by-gone days, and Mr. Wycherly,
ever quick to notice any change in the dear old
face he loved so well, felt that he might now
venture upon more familiar ground.

"You look amused," he remarked; "would
it be a safe conjecture to say that you are
probably thinking of Edmund?"

"That reminds me," Miss Esperance exclaimed,
without committing herself.  "I do
wish that we could induce that dear little boy
not to call you 'man.'  It is so disrespectful."

It had never struck Mr. Wycherly in that
light.  In fact he had found considerable secret
comfort in the fact that Edmund, at all events,
had from the very first considered him deserving
of that epithet.  Mr. Wycherly was sensitive,
and he knew perfectly well in what sort of
estimation most of the inhabitants of Burnhead
held him.

"Do you think it matters?" he asked mildly,
"what such a baby calls me?"

"Not to you, certainly," Miss Esperance
replied promptly; "but I do think it matters for
him.  He is three now, and it's time he knew
better."

"Surely three is not a very great age?"
Mr. Wycherly pleaded.

"It is old enough for Edmund to want his
own way, and generally to take it," Miss Esperance
rejoined as she rose from the table; "and
it is old enough for him to learn that he must
be dutiful and obedient."

As Mr. Wycherly held the door open for her
to go out, he remarked deferentially, "But,
don't you think, dear Miss Esperance, that
either 'Mr.' or 'Sir' is a somewhat formal mode
of address to exact from such a baby?"

"I called my honoured father 'Sir' from the
time I could speak at all, and when I was young
it would never for one moment have been
permitted to us to address any grown-up person
otherwise than with respect," Miss Esperance
continued, as she paused in the doorway.  "I
will see what I can do about it this very day.
I feel sure that if we reason with that dear
child, we can induce him to find some more
suitable way of addressing you."

When Miss Esperance had gone, and Mr. Wycherly
had shut his door, he shook his head
and laughed.  Two or three times lately he had
tried a fall with Edmund, and that lusty infant
invariably came off an easy victor.

It was the daily custom for both the little
boys to visit Mr. Wycherly for a few minutes
after breakfast, when biscuits were doled out
and there was much cheery good-fellowship.
Mr. Wycherly himself made periodical visits to
Edinburgh to purchase these biscuits, which
were adorned with pink and white sugar, and
were of a delectable flavour.  Once the biscuits
were consumed—they had three each—Montagu
settled down to his lessons, and Edmund, ever
unwillingly, departed with Robina.

Through the open window that morning there
floated an imperative baby voice.  "See man,"
it insisted, "me go and see man."

Mr. Wycherly looked out and Edmund looked
up.  He stretched out his fat arms, balancing
himself first on one foot and then on the other,
as though poised for flight, while in the thrush-like
tones that were always irresistible to Mr. Wycherly
he gave his usual cry of "Uppie!
Uppie! *deah* man."

When Edmund called him "deah man" there
was nothing on earth that Mr. Wycherly could
withhold.  "Bring Edmund up, Montagu," he
said, leaning out of the window.  "We'll have
a holiday to-day, it's a kind of birthday.  Just
a year since you came."

But the gentle voice of Miss Esperance interposed.
"Edmund must say 'Please, Mr. Wycherly,'
or 'please, sir,' then he can go up."

"See man, me go and see man," Edmund persisted,
absolutely ignoring his aunt's admonition
and jumping up and down as though he could
reach Mr. Wycherly that way.

"No, Edmund," Miss Esperance said firmly;
"you *must* say, 'Please, Mr. Wycherly."

Edmund looked at his aunt and his round
chubby face expressed the utmost defiance.
"I *sall* say man, and I will go to man," he
announced loudly and distinctly, "he's my man,
and I 'ove him—I don't 'ove *you*," he added
emphatically.

"Edmund, my son, come here."  There was
no resisting the resolution in that very gentle
voice.  Miss Esperance seated herself on the
garden seat under Mr. Wycherly's window, and
Edmund came at her bidding, to stand in front
of her, square and sturdy and rebellious.

Mr. Wycherly had withdrawn from the window
when Miss Esperance first began her
expostulation with Edmund.  Now it struck him
as rather shabby to leave her to wrestle with
that young sinner alone over a matter which
certainly referred to himself; so he hastened
downstairs and joined her in the garden.

On his appearance Edmund began his dance
again, and his petition of "Uppie!  Uppie!"

Mr. Wycherly went and sat on the seat beside
Miss Esperance, trying hard to look stern
and judicial, and failing signally, while the
chubby culprit made ineffectual attempts to
climb upon his knee.

"Edmund must say 'Please, Mr. Wycherly,'
or 'Please, sir,'" Miss Esperance repeated.

"Peese, Mittah Chahley," echoed Edmund in
tones that would have melted a heart of stone.

Now if "man" was a disrespectful and familiar
mode of address, "Chahlee" seemed a singularly
inappropriate pseudonym for Mr. Wycherly.

Even Montagu giggled.

The matutinal service of biscuits was long
overdue, Edmund grew impatient, and the
corners of his rosy mouth drooped.  "I've said
'Chahley,'" he announced reproachfully, "and
you don't take me."

Mr. Wycherly looked beseechingly at Miss
Esperance.  "I think he has done his best,"
he said in deprecating tones, "it is a difficult
name for a baby."

"Chahlee!  Chahlee!" chirped Edmund,
beginning to dance again.  "Uppie!  Uppie!"
then turning to his aunt—"I've said 'im."

"You haven't said it right—but perhaps—"
Miss Esperance wavered.

Edmund marched up to his aunt, placed both
his dimpled elbows on her knees, and gazing
earnestly into her face with bunches of unshed
tears still hanging on his lashes, remarked
vindictively: "I wis a gate bid ball would come
and bounce at you."

Miss Esperance burst out laughing and
stooped to kiss the red, indignant baby-face.
"All the same, my dear son, you must learn to
do what you are told."

"Me go wiv—Chahlee," Edmund announced
triumphantly, as Mr. Wycherly lifted him up.

"Am I to call you Charlie, too?" asked Montagu,
who was rather jealous where his tutor's
favour was concerned.

"Pray, don't!" exclaimed that gentleman hastily.

"Chahlee, Chahlee," crowed Edmund from
the safe vantage ground of Mr. Wycherly's
arms as he was carried upstairs.  "Deah man,
Chahlee."

Miss Esperance sat on where she was.  Her
interference had certainly not improved
matters, and she was really perturbed.  That she
should in any way, however inadvertently and
innocently, have rendered Mr. Wycherly in the
smallest degree ridiculous was most distressing
to her.

Had the baby done his best, or was it but
one more instance of his supreme subtlety in
the avoidance of doing what he was told?

Miss Esperance adored Edmund.  He was a
Bethune from the top curl of his fair hair to his
small, straight, pink toes.  Handsome, ruddy,
with very blue eyes; eyes that changed in
colour with his every emotion, even as the sea
so many of his forbears had served changes
with the passing hours; he was the image of
Archie Bethune, his father.  He was like her
brother, whose name he bore, and still stronger
was his likeness to the admiral, her father, that
generous and choleric sailor whose memory she
so revered.

Yet no one knew better than Miss Esperance
the faults of the Bethune temperament.  Had
she not suffered from them herself in the past?
And she was painfully anxious to keep in check
the wilful impulsiveness so strongly marked in
her great-nephew—that taking of their own
way, no matter at what cost in tribulation to
themselves or suffering to others.  How many
Bethunes had it ruined in the past!  And yet
if she rebuked him now it might confuse the
baby: and above all, Miss Esperance desired
to be just in her dealings with these small
creatures committed to her charge.

As she sat in the sunshine, with the children's
voices borne to her on the soft winds of early
summer, she prayed for guidance.

Suddenly the children's voices ceased, for
Mr. Wycherly was reading aloud.  It was his habit
to read to them odd scraps of anything that had
happened to please himself, while they munched
their biscuits.  Sometimes they, or at all events
Montagu, understood; as often they did not:
but both found some sort of pleasure in the fine
English gracefully read.  Miss Esperance
listened, and as if in answer to her prayer she
heard, in Mr. Wycherly's gentle, cultivated
tones, these words: "Love is fitter than fear,
gentleness better than beating, to bring up a
child rightly in learning."

So for a while Baby Edmund was allowed to
call Mr. Wycherly very much what he pleased.
He occasionally conceded something to
convention by addressing him as "Mittah man" or
"Mittah Chahlee"—but as a rule he took his
own way; finally adopting for Mr. Wycherly
Elsa's usual style of address toward himself,
namely, "Dearie."

It had never occurred to Mr. Wycherly as
possible that anyone should address him as
"Dearie," and this particular term of endearment
did sound somewhat of an anachronism.

But he liked it, he liked it amazingly: and
seeing this, Miss Esperance interfered no more.

In the end, however, it was Montagu who
found a pet name for Mr. Wycherly.  "What
are you to me?" the little boy asked one day.
"Are you an uncle?"

"No," said Mr. Wycherly, "I am your guardian."

"What's a guardian?"

"Someone who takes care of a child who has
lost his parents."

"May I call you guardian?"

"Certainly, if you wish it."

"May Edmund?"

"Assuredly."

"Then we will—it's more friendlier than
'Mr.,' don't you think?"

And it ended in Guardian being abbreviated
into 'Guardie,' so that Mr. Wycherly was, after
all, the only member of the household who was
permitted a diminutive.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CUPID ABROAD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   CUPID ABROAD

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  "Cupid abroad was lated in the night,
   |    His wings were wet with ranging in the rain;
   |  Harbour he sought, to me he took his flight,
   |    To dry his plumes," I heard the boy complain;
   |  "I ope'd the door, and granted his desire.
   |    I rose myself, and made the wag a fire."

.. vspace:: 2

Everyone in the neighbourhood of Burnhead
called Lady Alicia's youngest daughter
"Bonnie Margaret," so full of charm and
gaiety and gentleness was she.  Not all the
year was Lady Alicia at the "big hoose":
since the death of her husband—worthy David
Carruthers, late Advocate—she always
wintered in Edinburgh; but with May, Bonnie
Margaret came back to Burnhead, unless,
indeed, as had happened lately, she spent that
month in London with one of her married
sisters.  But at all events some part of the
summer saw her back at Burnhead, and the sun
seemed to shine the brighter for her coming.

Like everyone else, she was very fond of Miss
Esperance, and she often came to Remote to
play with the little boys who whole-heartedly
approved of her.  Mr. Wycherly, too, was fond
of Bonnie Margaret, and somehow, recently,
she had seemed to come across him very often
during his walks with Montagu.  She would
join them, and sometimes spend a whole long
afternoon in the little copse sitting beside
Mr. Wycherly at the foot of his favourite tree, while
Montagu played at the brook.

Very shyly and with many most becoming
blushes, Margaret confided to Mr. Wycherly
that she had met a nephew of his during her
visits to her sister.  Mr. Wycherly was not in
the least interested in his nephew, but he was
interested in anything Bonnie Margaret chose
to talk about, and the nephew acquired a
fictitious importance for this reason.

This nephew was, Margaret carefully explained,
an exceedingly clever young man, who
had taken a good degree—but he didn't want
to take orders, and he hated school-mastering—he
had tried it—and now he had gone
into a friend's business as a wine merchant,
and his people were very much annoyed.
What was Mr. Wycherly's opinion on the
subject?  And didn't he think it was very noble
of this young man to earn his bread in this
particular fashion?  It had taken many
meetings and much elaborate and roundabout
explanation upon Margaret's part before this final
statement of the situation was reached; and
Mr. Wycherly, having in the meantime heard
complaints that Bonnie Margaret was very ill
to please in the matter of a husband, began to
put two and two together.  Many swains had
sighed at Margaret's shrine, and she had
received what her mother called "several quite
good offers," but she would have nothing to say
to any of them.  She was in character fully as
decided as Lady Alicia herself.  But she was
demure and gentle in manner, and instead of
fighting for her own way, as is the custom of
the strenuous, simply took it quietly, and
without vehement declaration of any kind.

When appealed to as to his opinion of the
nobility of his nephew's conduct in thus plunging
into trade, Margaret and Mr. Wycherly were
sitting on a low wall, watching Edmund and
Mause and Montagu disport themselves in the
hay-field it bordered.

The summer sun was warm, and Margaret
wore a floppy leghorn hat which threw a most
becoming shade over her serious grey eyes;
eyes with long black lashes in somewhat startling
contrast to her very fair hair.  Mr. Wycherly
particularly admired her Greek profile,
her short upper lip, the lovely oval of her cheek
and chin.  Still more did he appreciate her
sweet consideration and gentleness; and for the
first time since he came to live in Scotland he
found himself wishing that he knew something
of this nephew who so plainly occupied a
prominent position in the thoughts of this kind and
beautiful girl.

"Of course," Mr. Wycherly remarked guardedly,
"he is perfectly right to earn his own
living in the way that seems best to him, though
whether it was absolutely necessary to run
counter to the prejudices of his relatives in
order to do so is not quite clear."

"But you would not, would you, look down
on anyone just because he happened to be in
trade?  If he is a cultured gentleman already,
his being in trade can't make him less of a
cultured gentleman, can it?"

"Of course not," Mr. Wycherly agreed, "but
I think I can understand, perhaps, some slight
reason for annoyance on the part of his people.
You see, had he announced earlier this extreme
desire to go into business, it is hardly likely
that they would have given him an expensive
education at the University.  He was, you tell
me, five years at Oxford?"

"He didn't waste his time there," Margaret
answered eagerly, "he took all sorts of honours:
but he loathes teaching—"  Margaret stopped,
for Mr. Wycherly was looking at her with a
curiously amused expression which seemed to
say, "How is it that you are so remarkably
conversant with the likes and dislikes of this
young man?"

She leant over the wall to gather some of the
big horse gowans that grew in the field, so that
her face was hidden from Mr. Wycherly.  She
fastened a little bunch of them into her
waistband; then she said in the detached tone of
one who seeks for information merely from curiosity:

"Don't you think that at some time or other
one has to settle what to do with one's life,
regardless of whether it is pleasing to other
people or not—I mean in very big and
important things?"

Mr. Wycherly, who thought she was still
referring to his nephew, cordially agreed that
for most of us such a course at some time or
other is a necessity.

As it happened, however, Bonnie Margaret
was not talking of his nephew, but of herself.
Mr. Wycherly remembered this in the following
October when, Lady Alicia having removed her
household to Edinburgh, a startling rumour
shook the village to its very foundations—a
rumour to the effect that Bonnie Margaret had
one night "taken the train" and was married
next morning to somebody in the south of
England.

Miss Esperance was much shocked and perturbed,
the more so that she felt it devolved
upon her, and her alone, to break this agitating
intelligence to Mr. Wycherly.  For was not a
relative of his own the chief culprit?  Miss
Esperance could never understand
Mr. Wycherly's indifference toward everything that
concerned his relations.

She had heard the news just before supper,
but she waited until that meal was finished lest
her communication might spoil his appetite.

It was their pleasant custom to sit and chat
for a while every evening while Mr. Wycherly
drank his single glass of port, and cracked some
nuts, which he generally bestowed next morning
upon the little boys.

He held up his glass of wine to the light, and
even in the midst of her uneasiness Miss
Esperance noted with pleasure how steady was the
long, slender hand that held the glass.

"I have heard," Miss Esperance began with
a deep sigh, "some most distressing news
to-day about certain good friends of yours."

"Is Mrs. Gloag worse?" Mr. Wycherly asked
anxiously, for the minister's wife was very
delicate, and was often quite seriously ill.

"No, no, nobody is ill; but I fear that our
good friend, Lady Alicia, is in very great
trouble.  Margaret——"

"Has married against her mother's wish?"
Mr. Wycherly interrupted quickly.

"That's just what she has done—but how
did you guess?"

"And she has married," Mr. Wycherly continued,
"a nephew of mine.  If I mistake not,
Margaret was twenty-one only the other day."

"It seems," Miss Esperance went on, much
astonished at the calmness with which
Mr. Wycherly received these grievous tidings, "that
this young man proposed to Margaret some
time ago; but that Lady Alicia wouldn't hear
of any engagement.  He asked for Margaret
again this summer, and was again refused:
though Margaret told her mother that she
intended to marry him and considered herself
engaged to him in spite of everything.  And, as you
say, directly she came of age she has done it."

Mr. Wycherly had laid down his glass of port
untasted, when Miss Esperance first began to
speak.  Now he lifted the decanter and poured
out another, offering it to Miss Esperance.
"My dear friend," he exclaimed eagerly, "they
are married.  Nothing can alter that.  Let us
drink pretty Margaret's health, and wish her
all prosperity and happiness, and may the man
she has chosen try to be worthy of her!"

Miss Esperance demurred: but Mr. Wycherly
continued to lean across the table with the glass
of wine held out toward her, and he looked so
pleading, and she so loved to gratify him, that
at last, though a little under protest, she
consented to drink this toast, and took one sip
from the proffered glass of port.

"I wish I could feel that it will turn out well,"
she said wistfully.

"She must love him right well," Mr. Wycherly
said thoughtfully, "and she is not a
foolish girl.  She has judgment and discretion."

"Where love is concerned," said Miss Esperance,
"judgment and discretion generally go
to the wall."

And Mr. Wycherly could find no arguments
in disproof of this statement.

Lady Alicia made a special journey to Remote
for the express purpose of reproaching
Mr. Wycherly with the conduct of a nephew he had
never seen.

Miss Esperance was out; Mr. Wycherly,
as usual, reading in his room.  There Lady
Alicia sought him and plunged at once
into a history of the "entanglement," as she
called it, concluding with these words: "I told
her never to mention that young man to me
again, and she never did, so of course I concluded
that, like a sensible girl, she had put the
whole thing out of her head: but the hussy
has married him, *married* him without ever a
wedding present or a single new gown, and
what can I do?  A girl, too, who might have
married anyone, by far the prettiest of the
four, and look how well the rest have married!"

"She must love him very much," Mr. Wycherly
said dreamily.  "Pretty Margaret, so
gentle always and so quiet.  What strength,
what tenacity of purpose under that docile
feminine exterior!  Dear Lady Alicia, she is
more like you than any of your other daughters."

"Like *me*!" Lady Alicia almost shouted.
"Do you mean to say *I* could have run away
with any bottle-nosed vintner that ever tasted
port—*I*, forsooth!"

"But you told me yourself that he is a
gentleman, young and good-looking," Mr. Wycherly
expostulated.  "If I remember rightly,
too, something of a scholar—and Margaret
loves him.  She has proved that beyond all
question.  God grant that he is worthy of her
love.  You can't unmarry them, my dear old
friend, and though you will be angry with me,
I must tell you that I think it is well you can't.
You must forgive them both."

"Never," said Lady Alicia with the greatest
determination.  "She has chosen her vintner;
let her stick to him."

"She will do that in any case," said
Mr. Wycherly; "but she will love her mother none
the less, and her mother will, presently, love
her all the more."

"She will do nothing of the kind," Lady
Alicia said with considerable asperity.  "You
don't seem to realise what a disgraceful thing
your nephew has done in abducting my daughter
in this fashion."

"I thought you said she went to him," Mr. Wycherly
suggested apologetically.

For answer Lady Alicia rose in her wrath and
strode out of the room.  Mr. Wycherly hastened
after her across the little landing and down the
curly staircase, but he was not in time to open
the front door for her, and she banged it in his
face.  Mr. Wycherly opened it, and stood on
the threshold just in time to hear the little gate
at the bottom of the garden give an angry click
as it fell behind Lady Alicia's retreating form.
He did not attempt to follow her, but stood
where he was, wrapped in a reverie so absorbing
that he started violently as the green gate
slammed again and Lady Alicia bustled up the
path holding out her hand, and saying:

"After all, it's not your fault, I don't know
why I should scold you; the only redeeming
feature in the whole horrible affair is that he's
your nephew and therefore cannot be an utter
scoundrel, but you must confess it is very hard
for me."

Mr. Wycherly took the extended hand and
shook it.  "You must forgive her," he said
gently, "she would never have done it if she
hadn't been your daughter; think of the
courage and determination——"

"The headstrong folly and foolhardiness,"
Lady Alicia interrupted.  "I cannot imagine
why you keep suggesting I could ever have
done such a disgraceful thing—I always had
far too much——"

"Given the same circumstances, you would
have behaved in exactly the same way,"
Mr. Wycherly interrupted.  "My dear Lady Alicia,
you know you would."

"You are a ridiculous and obstinate man,"
said Lady Alicia; "much learning hath made
you mad, and you know nothing whatever
about women."

All the same she smiled, and she left her hand
in Mr. Wycherly's.  It was not unpleasant to
her to be considered capable of romance; her
life had been so safe and seemly always, a little
monotonous and commonplace, perhaps, but
she had once been young.

"I don't know much," Mr. Wycherly answered
humbly; "but surely character is the
same in man or woman, and given a certain
character a certain line of conduct is inevitable."

"And you think it is inevitable that I should
forgive Margaret?"

"Assuredly," said Mr. Wycherly.

"As I said before"—here Lady Alicia thought
fit to withdraw her hand—"you are an ignorant
man: but we won't quarrel.  Time will show
whether you or I know most about me."

She turned to walk to the gate where her
carriage was waiting.  He helped her in and
shut the door upon her in absolute silence.
Then, just as the man was driving off, he asked:
"What do you think they would like for a
wedding present?"

"Man, you are incorrigible," exclaimed Lady
Alicia, but her brow was smooth and her eyes
smiling.

Mr. Wycherly stood at the green gate for
some time, lost hi thought.  As he turned
to walk up the path to the house he said
aloud: "I should like to know what that
young man has done that he should be
singled out by the gods for such supreme good
fortune."

When the days grew long once more Lady
Alicia came back to the "big house," but no
fair-haired Margaret came to play with the
little boys.

"Where is she?" asked Montagu of his tutor.
"Why doesn't she come?"

"She is married," said Mr. Wycherly; "she
has to stay with her husband."

"When I marry," said Montagu, "I shall
marry somebody like Margaret; then she'll stay
with me and I shall never be lonely."

"When you marry," Mr. Wycherly said very
seriously, "take care of just one thing.  Take
care that she is kind."

"I'd like her to be beautiful, too," Montagu
said eagerly, "beautiful and tall, like Margaret."

"I hope she will be beautiful, but kindness
comes first," and Mr. Wycherly spoke with
conviction, as one who knew.

"How can one tell if she is kind?" Montagu
asked.

"Compare her with your aunt, Montagu: if
she stands such comparison, she is all your best
desires need seek."

"I will remember," Montagu said solemnly,
"kind *and* beautiful—but the kindness must
come first.  I wish Margaret hadn't been in
such a hurry, she would have done beautifully."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SABBATH`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE SABBATH

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  He ordered a' things late and air';
   |    He ordered folk to stand at prayer
   |  (Although I cannae just mind where
   |    He gave the warnin').
   |  An' pit pomatum on their hair
   |    On Sabbath mornin'.
   |                            R.L.S.

.. vspace:: 2

The Sabbath day at Burnhead was a long,
long day.  A day wholly given up to
"the public and private exercises of God's
worship."

For Montagu, indeed, the shadow of the
Sabbath began to steal over the horizon as
early as Friday night: and it was only when
he woke on Monday morning secure in the
consciousness that the first day of the week was
safely passed, that life assumed again its
habitually cheerful aspect.

Miss Esperance was a staunch Presbyterian,
and belonged to the strictest sect of the
so-called Free Kirk.  Therefore did she consider
it her duty to take Montagu twice to church in
addition to superintending his instruction in
Bible history and the shorter catechism.

Montagu liked the scripture lessons well
enough and found it no hardship to read the
Bible aloud to his aunt for hours at a time;
but nearly four hours' church with only the
blessed interval of dinner in between was a
heavy discipline for even a naturally quiet
small boy, and sometimes Montagu was,
inwardly, very rebellious.

Mr. Wycherly begged him off the afternoon
service as often as he could as a companion for
Edmund, volunteering to look after both
children so that Robina, as well as Elsa, could
attend church.  Mr. Wycherly was an Episcopalian,
and as there was no "English" church
within walking distance, he said he read the
service to himself every Sunday morning.

When Edmund was four years old, Miss
Esperance decided that it was time he, too,
should share the benefit of the Reverend
Peter Gloag's ministrations.  Edmund appeared
pleased at the suggestion, for it was, like his
knickerbockers, to a certain extent an acknowledgment
that he had arrived at boy's estate.
Montagu went to church, and why not he?  It
was evidently the correct thing to do, and
although he could not remember to have seen
his brother particularly uplifted by his
privileges in that respect, nobody else seemed much
exhilarated either.  Hitherto, he had spent his
Sunday mornings largely in the society of
Mr. Wycherly, who, as all toys were locked up in
a tall cupboard on Saturday night, connived
at all sorts of queer games, invented on the
spur of the moment by the ingenious Edmund.

"I'm goin' to kirk!  I'm goin' to kirk!"
Edmund chanted gaily on the appointed day.

He wore a new white sailor suit with pockets,
and in one pocket was a penny to "pirle" in
the plate: in the other a wee packet of Wotherspoon's
peppermints for refreshment during
the sermon.  His curly hair was brushed till
it shone like the brass knocker on the front
door when Elsa had newly cleaned it, and his
round, rosy face was framed by a large new
sailor hat that looked like a substantial sort of
halo.  White socks and neat black shoes with
straps completed Edmund's toilet, and his aunt
thought that never yet had the Bethune family
possessed a worthier scion.

Mr. Wycherly assisted to direct Edmund's fat,
pink fingers into a tight, white cotton glove, and
stood at the green gate watching the departure
of Miss Esperance and her great-nephews,
till the small black figure, with a little white
sailor on either side, had vanished from his
view.

He marvelled greatly at the temerity of Miss
Esperance in taking Edmund to church at this
tender age, though it was not the age that
mattered so much as Edmund.  What Miss
Esperance called the "Bethune temperament" was
very marked in that sunny-haired small boy,
and it was apt to manifest itself unexpectedly,
wholly regardless of time or place.

The house seemed queerly quiet and deserted
as Mr. Wycherly returned to his room.  Mause
followed him and thrust a cold, wet nose into
his hand, looking up at him from under her
tangled hair with puzzled, pleading eyes.

"Poor old lady," said Mr. Wycherly, "you
are lonely, too, are you?  We'll go for a little
walk when the bell stops."

The church was a bare, white-washed, barn-like
edifice, where none of the windows were
ever opened, and the unchanged air was always
redolent of hair-oil and strong peppermint.

Edmund smiled and nodded at his friends as
he pattered up the aisle to his aunt's pew, and
when Andrew Mowat, the precentor, looking
unwontedly stern and unapproachable, took his
seat under the pulpit, the little boy wondered
what could have annoyed him that he looked
so cross.  On week-days Andrew, who kept the
little grocer's shop in the village, was the most
sociable and friendly of creatures, and always
bestowed "a twa-three acid-drops" on the little
boys when they went with Robina to his shop.

But to-day Andrew was far removed from
worldly cares or enjoyments, and Edmund
listened to him in awed astonishment as he
wailed out the tune of the first psalm, "My
heart not haughty is, O Lord," to be gradually
taken up more or less tunefully by the whole
congregation.

For the first half-hour of service Edmund
behaved beautifully.  He held a large Bible
open upside down, with white cotton fingers
spread well out over the back.  He hummed
the tune diligently and not too loud during the
first psalm, and stood quite moderately still
during the first long prayers.

It was not until the minister said: "Let us
read in God's word from the fifteenth chapter
of the Book of Kings, beginning at the fifth
verse," that the troubles of Miss Esperance
really began.

At the announcement of the chapter to be
read, there was an instantaneous fluttering and
turning over of leaves among the congregation
to find their places, and Edmund, zealous to be
no whit behind the rest in this pious exercise,
fluttered the leaves of his Bible violently to and
fro for some time after every one else had
settled into seemly silence to follow the reading.
Such a noisy rustling did he make that several
of the congregation raised their heads and
glanced disapprovingly in the direction of Miss
Bethune's pew.  That gentle lady laid a
detaining hand over Edmund's Bible to close it,
but he pulled it violently away from her with
both hands, opened it again, and held it
ostentatiously against his nose, leaning forward
to look over the top at Montagu, who sat on the
other side of his aunt.

Then to the horror of Miss Esperance, he
began to imitate the minister; joining in the
reading wherever the oft-repeated "And the
rest of the acts of," whoever it happened to
be, "are they not written," etc., in low but
perfectly audible tones.  Edmund evidently
looked upon the phrase as a sort of chorus,
waited for it, seized upon it, and joined in it
gleefully, holding his Bible at arm's length as
though he were singing at a concert.

Poor Miss Esperance turned crimson and
bent over the little boy, whispering, "You
must be *perfectly* quiet, my dear, you must not
say a single word."

Edmund, still holding his Bible stiffly out in
front of him, looked reproachfully at his aunt
and was quiet for a few minutes.  Then came
"and the rest of the acts of Pekah and all that
he did," which was too many for him.  The
name was attractive: "Pekah!  Pekah!  Pekah!"
he whispered, then faster: "Pekah, Pekah,
Pekah, Pekah, Pekah, Pekah," exactly as he
was wont to repeat "Peter Piper picked a peck
of pickled peppers," which the minister's wife
herself had taught him.

His aunt laid a firm hand over his mouth and
looked at him with all the severity her sweet
old face could achieve.  He realised that she
was not to be trifled with, and set down his
Bible on the book-board in front of him with an
angry thump, at the same time leaning forward
to frown reprovingly at Montagu.

"When will he stop?" he whispered to his
aunt, pointing a scornful finger at the minister,
"he's making far more noise nor me."

"Hush," murmured Miss Esperance again.
For three minutes he was comparatively quiet,
then it occurred to him to take off his gloves.
This he achieved by holding the end of each
cotton finger in his teeth and pulling violently.
Then he blew into each one, as he had seen his
aunt do with hers, finally squeezing them into
a tight ball and cramming them into the tiny
pocket of his blouse.

"Pocket" instantly suggested the pockets of
his trousers.  His penny had been disposed of on
entrance, 'twas but a fleeting joy.  But the
packet of Wotherspoon's sweeties remained.
The minister had now engaged in prayer, the
congregation was standing up; Edmund's
doings were comparatively inconspicuous, and
Miss Esperance permitted her thoughts to soar
heavenward once more.  Edmund arranged the
contents of his packet in a neat square on the
top of his Bible on the book-board in front of
him, and proceeded to taste several of the little
white comfits, putting each one back in its
place wet and sticky, when he had savoured its
sweetness for a minute or two.  By accident he
knocked one of the unsucked sweeties off the
Bible, and it rolled away gaily under the seat.
In a moment Edmund had dived after it.  He
squeezed behind his aunt and could not resist
giving one of Montagu's legs a sharp pinch as
he beheld those members and nothing more
from his somewhat lowly and darksome position.
Montagu leapt into the air with a scarcely
suppressed yelp, that startled more than Miss
Esperance, who, at the same moment, felt an
unwonted something shoving against her legs.
She feared that some dog had got into the pew,
and opened her eyes only to find that one
great-nephew had disappeared from her side and was
squirming under the seat.  She also beheld the
neatly arranged rows of sweeties on the top of
the Bible.

It took but a moment to sweep these into the
satin bag she always carried, but it took
considerably longer to restore Edmund to an
upright position, and when this was done, his face
was streaked with dust and his small, hot
hands were black.

Edmund lolled; Edmund fidgeted; Edmund
even infected Montagu so that he fidgeted too.
Every five minutes or so Edmund whispered,
"Can we go home now?" till at last peace
descended upon poor Miss Esperance, for in the
middle of the sermon Edmund fell fast asleep
with his head against her shoulder.

Miss Esperance looked quite pale and exhausted
as she took her place at early dinner
that day, but Edmund was rosy and cheerful,
and greeted Mr. Wycherly as "Dearie" with
rapturous affection when that gentleman took
his place at the bottom of the table.  He always
had dinner with the children on Sundays.

At first the small boys were so hungry that
very little was said, but presently when pudding
came Mr. Wycherly asked: "Well, Edmund,
how did you get on at church?"

Edmund laid down his spoon: "I'm never
going back," he said decidedly, "it is a
'bomnable place."

"Edmund!" exclaimed Miss Esperance, "how
can you say such a thing.  You, unfortunately,
did not behave particularly well, though I
forgive that, as it was the first time—but,
remember, you will go to the church every Sunday,
and you will learn to be a good boy when you're
there."

"It is," Edmund repeated, unconvinced, "a
'bomnable place, a 'bomnation of desolation
place."

The phrase had occurred several times in the
earlier part of the minister's sermon before
Edmund fell asleep, and commended itself to
his youthful imagination as being singularly
forceful and expressive.

Miss Esperance sighed.  She really felt
incapable of further wrestling with Edmund just
then, and looked appealingly at Mr. Wycherly.
But he dropped his eyes and refused to meet her
gaze.

"He," Edmund suddenly resumed, pointing
with his spoon at Mr. Wycherly, "never goes
there.  *He*"—with even more emphasis and
the greatest deliberation—"is a—very—wise—man."

Here the naughty boy wagged his curly head
and spoke with such barefaced and perfect
mimicry of his aunt, that again catching
Mr. Wycherly's eye, she burst into laughter, in
which that gentleman was thankful to join her.

"More puddin', please!" Edmund exclaimed,
seizing the propitious moment to hand up his
plate.

That afternoon neither of the little boys
accompanied Miss Esperance to church.





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.. _`LOAVES AND FISHES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   LOAVES AND FISHES

.. vspace:: 1

I am no quaker at my food.  I confess I am not indifferent
to the kinds of it.—CHARLES LAMB.

.. vspace:: 2

On the following Sabbath day Edmund was
a-missing directly it was time to get
ready for church.  He was to be found neither
in house nor garden, and Miss Esperance came
to the sorrowful conclusion that the Bethune
temperament had again asserted itself, and
that Edmund had, of deliberate purpose,
effaced himself so that he should not be made
to go to church.  She was not on this occasion
in the least perturbed by the fact that the
small boy was lost.  She had no fears as to his
safety, but she was most grievously upset by
this deliberate flying in the face of authority,
and set off for church, looking very grave and
almost stern, with only Montagu in attendance.

Mr. Wycherly had shut himself in his room
during the hunt for Edmund.  He had a
nervous dread of scenes of any kind, and when
either of the little boys was punished he
suffered horribly.  He fully recognised the
necessity for occasional correction, especially in the
case of a small boy so chock-full of original sin
as Edmund.  But none the less did he undergo
much mental anguish on the occasions when
such punishment took place.  He could not
altogether approve of certain of the methods
of Miss Esperance, although he reverenced her
far too much to indulge in any conscious
criticism.

Remote had always been marked out from
other houses by the immense tranquillity of its
chief inmates, to whom fret and fuss were
unknown.  People were never scolded at Remote,
unless by Elsa, when she was quite sure Miss
Esperance was out of hearing.

When Montagu and Edmund were naughty
they were punished by Miss Esperance, who
always, and manifestly, suffered much more
than the delinquents.

A favourite mode of correction in days when
Miss Esperance was young was the substitution
of bread and water for whatever meal happened
to come nearest the time of the offence: and
for the little boys poignancy was added to this
dismal diet by the knowledge that their aunt
tasted nothing else at her own meal during such
times of abstinence for them.  From such
punishment, all suspicion of revenge—which, in the
chastened one, so often nullifies the desired
result—was entirely eliminated; and the children
quite understood that they were being corrected
for the good of their souls, and not because
their aunt required a vent for her annoyance
at their misdeeds.

Sunday dinner, however—the day on which
by his own request Mr. Wycherly took his
mid-day meal with Miss Esperance and the
children—had hitherto been exempt from any such
punitive mortification of the carnal appetites.
Indeed, Mr. Wycherly had imbued it with a
certain Elizabethan flavour of festivity and
cheerfulness, and here, greatly to his surprise,
he was warmly seconded by Elsa, who grudged
no extra cooking to make the Sabbath-day
dinner particularly appetising.  From the time
that Mr. Wycherly had asserted his right to
throw his all into the common lot, things had
been easier at Remote, and old Elsa did not
forget his enthusiastic eagerness to further her
endeavours that her mistress should have a
peaceful and proper breakfast.

Therefore when it became the established
custom for Mr. Wycherly to carve the joint on
Sundays, she was ever ready to fall in with any
small plans he might make for the benefit of
the little boys.

And now Edmund had been naughty on the
Sabbath, and Mr. Wycherly knew what to expect.

Bread, watered by his tears, for Edmund.
Bread, seasoned only by sorrowful reflection,
for Miss Esperance.

Banishment for hungry Edmund if he cried
aloud, and there were ducks for dinner, large
fat ducks sent by Lady Alicia.  Mr. Wycherly
could smell the stuffing even now.  Who would
believe that the smell of sage and onions could
bear so mournful a message?

The Greek characters of the Philebus he held
in his hand danced before his eyes.  He could
not give his mind to the philosophy of beauty
or the theory of pleasure.  The doctrine of
æsthetical, moral, and intellectual harmonies,
pleasing as it was to him on ordinary occasions,
failed to hold him just then, when all his mental
vision was concentrated on a chubby, tearful
figure whose misdeeds would debar him from
duck for dinner.

Mr. Wycherly laid down his "Plato" and
began to pace the room restlessly, finally taking
up his stand at the window looking out on the
garden.  Where was that boy?  Where had the
monkey hidden himself?  He was not with
Mause, for Mr. Wycherly could see the old dog
lying in a patch of sunshine on the little plot of grass.

He went back to his bookshelf for comfort:
he wanted something human, something warm
and faulty and sympathetic, and his eye lighted
on "Tristram Shandy."  "Tristram Shandy"
was tight in the shelf—squeezed in between the
"Phædo" and Hooker's "Ecclesiastical
Polity"—Mr. Wycherly was nervous and agitated, and
he must have pulled it out clumsily, for it fell
to the ground with a thump.

As he stooped to recover it he caught sight
of a plump brown leg protruding from beneath
his sofa.  He went down on his knees to look
more closely, and there, cuddled up under the
sofa, his curly head pillowed on his arm, lay
Edmund, fast asleep.  Edmund possessed a
Wellingtonian capacity for falling asleep
whenever he kept still.  He had hidden under the
sofa in Mr. Wycherly's room just before that
gentleman took refuge there from the grieved
annoyance of Miss Esperance at her grand-nephew's
defection.  Mr. Wycherly had shut his
door, and no one dreamt of disturbing him to
look there for the missing one.

Here was a pretty kettle of fish!

Although Mr. Wycherly knew that Miss
Esperance would exonerate him from any
actual participation in Edmund's truancy, he
was assuredly accessory after the fact, and
what was to be done?

"I hope he won't hit his head when he wakes
up," Mr. Wycherly thought concernedly.
"What a beautiful child he is!" and he knelt on
where he was gazing admiringly at the
slumbering cupid.

Stronger and stronger grew the savour of sage
and onions throughout the little house.  It
penetrated even to Mause in the garden, and
she arose from her patch of sunshine and sniffed
inquisitively.

Mr. Wycherly grew stiff with kneeling, and
rose to his feet.  At the same moment Edmund
rolled over and hit his leg against the edge of the
sofa.  It woke him, and the instant Edmund
awoke he was wide awake.  "Dearie, are you
zere?" he demanded.  He could see Mr. Wycherly's
legs, and no more, from where he was
lying.  In another minute he was sitting on
Mr. Wycherly's knee while that elderly scholar
cudgelled his brains for some form of
remonstrance which would bring home to this very
youthful delinquent the impropriety of his
conduct.

"Dearie," Edmund exclaimed with disarming
sweetness, "aren't you glad I'm here wiv you?"  Here
he rubbed his soft face against Mr. Wycherly's.
"What a good smell!  isn't it?  I'm
so hungry: is there a bikkit about?"

Mr. Wycherly steeled his heart: "You know,
sonnie," he said very gravely, "that you ought
not to be here at all; you ought to be with your
dear aunt in church."

Edmund looked at Mr. Wycherly in reproachful
surprise.  "In church?" he echoed,
as though such a possibility had occurred to
him for the first time that morning.

"In church," Mr. Wycherly repeated.  "Your
dear aunt expected you to go there with her
and with Montagu, and she was very sad that
she had to go without you.  It was not right of
you to hide, sonnie.  It was neither kind nor
polite nor straightforward."

"You doesn't go," Edmund argued, staring
gloomily at Mr. Wycherly.  "Why mus' I?"

"You must go because your dear aunt wishes
it," Mr. Wycherly replied, ignoring the first
part of Edmund's remark.

"Would you go if see wissed it?"

"I would.  But you see, for me it is different.
I was brought up in a different kind of church,
and I am no longer a little boy.  Miss Esperance
has never asked me to go to church with her."

"Why hasn't see ast you?"

"Because, as I tell you, I was brought up in
a different church."

"Why can't I be brought up in your church?
Then we needn't neither of us never go,"
Edmund suggested, smiling radiantly, as though
he had solved the difficulty.

Mr. Wycherly sighed deeply.  "But I did
go," he exclaimed.  "I always went when I
was a little boy, every Sunday, and afterward
at Oxford I went nearly every day as well."

Edmund's face fell.  He desired to belong to
no church that required daily attendance.
Mr. Wycherly's looks were so serious that the little
boy began to be anxious.

"What will Aunt Esp'ance do, do you sink?"

"I fear she will feel compelled to punish you."

"Bed?" Edmund inquired uneasily.

"No, I fear, I very greatly fear it will be
dinner——"

Mr. Wycherly felt the little figure stiffen in
his arms, as without a word Edmund laid his
head down on his old friend's shoulder.  The
child lay quite still, and glancing down at him
Mr. Wycherly saw how the red mouth drooped
at the corners, and the blue eyes were screwed
up tight to keep back the tears.  No such dread
contingency had crossed Edmund's mind till
this moment, and it swept over him with
devastating force.  Not to share in the Sunday
dinner, that cheerful meal, when Mr. Wycherly
made jokes and Aunt Esperance sat beaming
in her Sunday silks; when hungry little boys
were never refused two, even three, helpings of
everything.  It was a dreadful dispensation.

Edmund gave a short, smothered sob and
buried his face in Mr. Wycherly's neck.

"Perhaps," the grave voice went on, and
Edmund opened one tearful eye, as though the
gloom of his outlook were pierced by some ray
of hope, "perhaps if you went to your aunt and
told her how sorry you are, and that you
promise on your honour as a gentleman you will
never try to get out of going to church
again—perhaps she might forgive you this once.  If
you can tell her this and mean it, my son, every
word, I think that she may be induced to
forgive you—just this once."

The green gate creaked, there was a rush of
feet on the staircase as Montagu made straight
for Mr. Wycherly's room.

"Here you are," he exclaimed.  "I thought
you'd be here somehow—what's the matter?"

Mr. Wycherly put Edmund gently from off
his knee, and rose from his chair.

"Wait here with Montagu, sonnie," he said.
"I will see Miss Esperance first," and he left
the room, carefully shutting the door behind
him.

"Is Aunt Esp'ance very sorry?" Edmund
asked anxiously.  He did not ask if she were
angry, for that she had never been with him.

"I don't think she's as sorry as she was at
first," Montagu said consolingly.  "We met
Mrs. Gloag as we were coming out and Aunt
Esperance told how you'd hidden, and Mrs. Gloag
laughed, and after that I don't think she
was so sorry."

The door was opened and Mr. Wycherly came
back.  "Go to your aunt in her room,
Edmund," he said, "and remember what I told
you."

Edmund trotted off obediently.

A few minutes later Robina rang the dinner
bell.  Edmund and his aunt descended the
curly staircase together, hand in hand.

"I told her I was sorry," he announced to
Mr. Wycherly, who was waiting at the
dining-room door that Miss Esperance might pass in
first.  "I'm going to church zis afternoon.
I'm going," he added gleefully, "becos' zere's
ducks for dinner."





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.. _`THE VILLAGE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE VILLAGE

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
   |  Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
   |                                      POPE.

.. vspace:: 2

"Our society may be small but it is
extremely select," Miss Maggie Moffat used
to say on such occasions as friends from the
South-side of Edinburgh used to visit her.

"It is what we have always sought after,"
Miss Jeanie, her sister, would chime in.
"Quality not quantity, and nowhere could we have
found superior quality if we had gone over the
whole of the British Isles to look for it."

None of the earlier inhabitants of Burnhead
ever quite fathomed how or why the Misses Moffat
had come to live there.  The fact remained,
however, that one term day they had taken a
small house in the middle of the village street:
a house that had been empty for many years.
Its original name was "Rowan Cottage," because
there was a rowan tree in the back garden,
but when the Misses Moffat took it they
persuaded the landlord to change the name to
"Rowan Lodge," the only lodge in the
neighbourhood save that which guarded the entrance
at Lady Alicia's drive gate.  The name was
painted on the front of the house in large, clear
characters, and it looked, the Misses Moffat
thought, extremely well on the pink note-paper
with scalloped edges which they affected in
their correspondence.

They were ladies of uncertain age; that is to
say, of the kind of age to which direct reference
is never made.

They were not serenely and beautifully old
like Miss Esperance, nor sturdily and frankly
middle-aged like Lady Alicia, and by no stretch
of imagination could they be considered young
like Bonnie Margaret.  They were, as they
themselves would have put it, "of a quite
suitable age for matrimony, not giddy girls,
you understand, but nice, sensible, douce
young women."

Miss Jeanie was probably not more than
forty-five, and Miss Maggie some six years
older.  They were both moderately tall,
moderately stout, and of a healthy, homely aspect
which did not challenge observation.  Miss
Jeanie, indeed, wore a curly fringe, and on
muddy days a serge golf-skirt that barely
reached her substantial ankles, but Miss Maggie's
mouse-coloured hair was brushed back over
a cushion and displayed every inch of her
intellectual forehead.  Miss Maggie took in "Wise
Words," and had literary leanings toward
everything of an improving character.

At one time they had kept a "fancy-work
emporium" on the South-side, but they had
not been dependent upon their sales of Berlin
wool or crochet cotton, and as the emporium
was by no means thronged with customers it
had seemed good to them to retire from business
and seek in the country that seclusion and
select society which their genteel souls
hungered after.

They were sincerely convinced that the
emporium of the past could not in any way
preclude their reception into such society.

"It could not exactly be called trade, me
dear," Miss Maggie argued, "for you see our
*clientèle* was so exceedingly select.  We were
never called upon to serve a man in all the
years——"

"Not so very many years, Maggie," Miss
Jeanie would interrupt.

"During the time our residence was above
the emporium," Miss Maggie continued calmly.
"That makes a very great difference.
Anybody can come into an ordinary shop.  A
stationer's now—a man might burst into a
stationer's at any minute to buy envelopes or
elastic bands, or a bit rubber: but no man
would dream of entering a—place where Berlin
wools and fingering and sewing silks are to be
had.  And you know, me dear, it always
seems to me that so long as no strange man has
had the opportunity to accost one, one's delicacy
cannot be said to have suffered in any way."

"I've heard," said Miss Jeanie, with a little
sigh, "that in London one may be accosted on
the public street.  It must be terrible to be
accosted by a strange man.  I think I should
faint away at his feet from sheer terror."

"Indeed," replied Miss Maggie, bridling.  "*I*
should do no such thing.  I would freeze him
with a glance."

So far, however, neither of these ladies had
been called upon either to faint or to freeze.
Mankind had passed them by in decorous silence.
Neither of them had ever been accosted by
anyone more alarming than a village urchin, and
their delicacy and their gentility remained
unimpaired.  For truly they were vastly genteel.

The real and chief attractions of Burnhead
had been that the rent of their modest residence
was very small, that the "big house" was
occupied by "a lady of title," and that there were
only two other houses in the village having any
claim to be the abodes of gentility, namely, the
Manse and Remote.

"Surely," argued the Misses Moffat, "in such
a small place the gentry will be friendly."

And so indeed it proved, for if the Misses
Moffat were genteel they were also the kindest
and most amiable of women, and had they but
known it, they might have searched Scotland
before they found a neighbourhood where such
qualities would have met with so swift a recognition
from the three chief ladies in the place.

There were many who pitied the minister
because his wife was so delicate.  There were
others, mostly outsiders, who pitied Mrs. Gloag
because her husband was so stern.  And because,
although she had done her best to take
root and bring forth the fruits of the spirit in
the humble vineyard where her husband worked,
there was always something alien about her
which most of that small community mistrusted.

For Mrs. Gloag was English.

It was even whispered that she was the
daughter of an Episcopalian clergyman.

She was slender and pretty and very frail in
health: and twenty-seven years of Burnhead
had not yet cured her of a tendency to laugh
when things amused her.  And things amused
Mrs. Gloag which ought to have shocked a
right-minded minister's wife.

In early days her chief offence had been that
she looked younger than any minister's wife
ought to have looked, that she played with her
little boys as though she were a child herself;
and that she had been known to yawn openly
and apparently unashamed during the minister's sermons.

Now that her pretty, wavy hair was grey and
her health so bad that she seldom came to
church more than once on a Sabbath, sometimes
not at all for weeks together, folks felt
that this, and what happened to their third boy,
was a judgment on the minister for having
married a person so Englishey and irresponsible
as Mrs. Gloag.

There was no question whatever that the
minister adored his wife.  Whenever his eyes
rested upon her, his whole face changed and
softened, and it was felt to be almost indecent
that a minister should openly manifest any
affection whatsoever.

Three tall sons had the minister.  Two of
them well-doing young men, who passed
examinations and won bursaries, and were as
economical, hard-working and clear-headed young
Scotsmen as even a minister could wish to see.
A little harsh, perhaps, and dictatorial, and
argumentative; a little fond of airing their
opinions unasked, a little apt to judge character
wholly by failure or success in practical things;
a little lacking in deference to older people.
Still they were fine, capable, upstanding young
men of the "get up and git" order which is so
admirable; and while Mr. Wycherly would go
miles out of his way to avoid either of them, he
was the very first to acknowledge their many
excellent qualities.

But Curly, the youngest, was different.  He
was even more brilliant intellectually than his
brothers; he was better looking, and he had
much of his mother's charm.  When he was
eighteen he won a scholarship at Balliol, a
regular blue-ribbon among scholarships, and
the minister was a proud man.

Curly did well at Oxford, he lived sparely,
and took tutorships in the vacations, and when
he came home the Manse was a merry place.
Mr. Wycherly was very fond of Curly, for he
came and talked about Oxford, and he would
ask the older scholar's opinion about many
things, and seemed to think it quite worth
having.  Now his brothers considered
Mr. Wycherly a failure, effete, played out,
*vieux-jeu*, and Mr. Wycherly knew it.

Curly took a good degree, and then the blow
fell.  He became an actor and "went on the stage."

Had he turned forger or robbed a church the
minister could hardly have been more upset.
Mr. Gloag hated the theatre and everything
connected with it.  He honestly believed it to
be morally degrading and soul-soiling to enter
the doors of any such place of amusement.
That there could ever, under any circumstances,
be found any common ground or bond of union,
or even mutual toleration, between the followers
of this degraded and degrading calling and
professing Christians, he could not conceive.  The
minister had no belief in toleration.  He was
fond of saying, "Those that are not for us are
against us"; and that "us" might by any
possibility include persons he designated as
"mountebanks" never for one moment entered
his head.

He forbade the mention of Curly's name, declaring
that now he had only two sons.  Curly's
brothers said very little.  They thought Curly
a fool, but, after all, he knew his own business
best.

Mrs. Gloag said nothing at all.  She grew
frailer and frailer, and her pretty eyes wore
always a strained expression as though they
were tired with watching for one who never came.

She did not attempt to soften the minister.
He was always gentle to her, but she knew him
too well not to discern when argument and
supplication were alike useless.  She laughed
less often now, and when no one was watching
her gentle face was very sad.

If anything, however, this sore trouble made
her kinder and more sympathetic than before,
so that when the Misses Moffat took sittings in
the church and she, in her capacity of minister's
wife, went to see them, she realised at once how
anxious and timid and kind and harmless they
were; and most of all how they hungered to
be admitted to the inner circle of the "select."

She asked Miss Esperance to go and see them,
and Miss Esperance went; and she asked Lady
Alicia to go and see them, and Lady Alicia went.

That was a great, a never-to-be-forgotten day
for the Misses Moffat when Lady Alicia walked
over from the "big house" to call.  They could
have wished she had come in the carriage; it
would have looked so fine in the street for all
the world to see.  But Lady Alicia was energetic
and inclined to grow stout, and she liked
to walk when she could.  There she sat in the
Misses Moffat's best room, talking affably in her
big voice.  Everything about Lady Alicia was
big and decided, and every simplest remark
she made was treasured by the Misses Moffat as
the sayings of a sibyl.  She didn't stay long,
but she praised the arrangements of Rowan
Lodge, from the window curtains to the
chocolate-coloured railings in front of the windows.

When she got up to go they watched her
anxiously.  She had her silver card-case in her
hand.  Would she leave a card or not?

Alas! in their eagerness to be polite they
both accompanied her into the narrow passage
and thence into the street.  And Lady Alicia,
being rather crowded, did not see the Benares
bowl on the little table in the lobby, wherein
reposed the visiting cards of Miss Esperance
and Mrs. Gloag, and completely forgot to leave
a similar memento of her visit.

This was a great blow to the Misses Moffat.
Without the outward and visible sign of a
visiting card was it a proper call or not?

Might they return it?  Or was it only an act
of condescension on Lady Alicia's part and not
an act of friendship?

Miss Jeanie sought vainly in the pages of a
bound volume of the "Lady's Home Companion"
for guidance on this intricate point of
etiquette.  But although there was a whole
long article on "calls" in that useful work, with
minute directions as to the most desirable
deportment at afternoon tea, there was no
guidance as to what course should be taken by
two genteel unmarried females when visited
by an earl's daughter, who called at three in
the afternoon and omitted to leave a card
at all.

"It's most annoying!" Miss Jeanie exclaimed,
tapping the "Lady's Home Companion" with
her finger.  "There's any amount about leaving
cards, but not one word about when they're
not left.  Listen to this: 'Should there be only
a lady, you would merely leave one of your
husband's.'  Perhaps Lady Alicia Carruthers
just didn't leave one of his because he's dead,
poor man.  Then further on it says: 'When
calling on a stranger on any business matter,
your card should be sent in by the servant,
who will ascertain if it is convenient for her
mistress to see you.'  Now she most certainly
did not call on business.  What are we to
think, Maggie?"

Miss Maggie puckered her intellectual forehead
in deep consideration of the weighty matter.
Apparently she reached no conclusion, for
after a minute she said: "I'm thinking, Jeanie,
that our best course would be to ask Miss
Esperance Bethune.  She seems very intimate
with Lady Alicia Carruthers, and may know
her ways, and I'm quite sure she'll think none
the worse of us for asking.  She left a card, if
you remember."

"You might just put on your bonnet and go
now, Maggie.  It would set our minds at rest.
I wish she had left a card, though; it would
have looked fine on the table in the lobby, and
you mind the Macdougals are coming out to
their tea on Saturday."

Miss Moffat sought Miss Esperance then and
there, and that gentle little lady gave it as her
opinion that the omission of the card was mere
forgetfulness on Lady Alicia's part and by no
means intentional.  Whereupon Miss Maggie
departed much comforted.

Miss Esperance happened to be dining with
Lady Alicia that very evening and told her
how much soul-searching her visit had
occasioned the Misses Moffat.

"Bless me!" good-natured Lady Alicia
exclaimed.  "The poor bodies!  I'd have left a
whole card-case of cards if I'd remembered.
But they fluttered round me so as I was leaving,
and were so civil and obliging and desperately
fussy, that I got myself out as quickly as ever
I could."

"You'd make them very happy if you'd
leave a card even yet, any time you are passing,"
Miss Esperance suggested.  "They are
such good, meek creatures."

So it came to pass that next day, when Lady
Alicia went out to drive, the carriage stopped
at Rowan Lodge, and she, in a voice that could
be heard all down the street, instructed her
footman to leave cards, explaining that she had
forgotten to leave them the day before.

The front door of Rowan Lodge was separated
from the footpath by about three feet of
gravel, and the Misses Moffat, seated behind
the curtains that Lady Alicia had admired,
heard her every word.

"One for each of us!" exclaimed Miss Jeanie
rapturously, gloating over the little white cards,
for them so packed with meaning.  "I hope
it's not wicked, but I can't help feeling rather
glad poor Mr. Carruthers is no more—though
it would have been pleasant enough to have
him calling, too—for then, if that book is right,
we should only have had his card, and he hadn't
a title or anything."

"He was an advocate, I'm told," Miss Maggie
said solemnly, "but whether they put that on
cards I'm not very sure, never having been
called upon by anyone connected with the legal
profession except yon wee auctioneer, who
came about the fittings at the South-side,
and I very much doubt if he had a card
at all."

"The Macdougals 'll rather open their eyes
when they see these," Miss Jeanie chuckled.
"I'll put one on each side the Benares bowl
in the lobby, lest they shouldn't look inside.
I hope it'll be a nice bright day, for it's a wee
thing dark there when the door's shut, and if
it's left open there's a terrible draught, and
they might blow away."

"If it's a mirk day," Miss Maggie said firmly,
"I'll stand them up against the parlour clock,
just careless-like.  You may depend the
Macdougal's will spy them out."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A MEETING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A MEETING

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  We two will stand beside that shrine,
   |    Occult, withheld, untrod,
   |  Whose lamps are stirred continually
   |    With prayer sent up to God;
   |  And see our old prayers, granted, melt
   |    Each like a little cloud.
   |                              D. G. ROSSETTI.

.. vspace:: 2

When Edmund was five years old
Mr. Wycherly expressed his readiness to
teach him all he was teaching Montagu.  He
took infinite pains to do so, but Edmund's
presence was found to be so provocative of
dispeace in the quiet study upstairs, and so
effectually hindered his brother's progress,
while his own was of the slowest, that Miss
Esperance took the matter into her own hands
and sent her younger nephew to be instructed
by the Reverend Peter Gloag, who seasoned his
instruction with the tawse, and was altogether
more fitted to cope with the average boy's
vagaries than the gentle, dreamy Mr. Wycherly.
Edmund was rather afraid of the minister.  His
hand was heavy, and he was singularly awake
to the devices by means of which small boys
seek to evade their scholastic duties.  Nevertheless,
the child liked him, for he could unbend
on occasion and was an excellent hand at marbles.
Moreover, he had a sense of humour, and
like so many of the Scottish Calvinists of that
time, managed to keep his denunciations of
abstract sins quite separate from his judgment
of the sinner.  In the pulpit he was a terror to
evil-doers.  When tackled upon questions of
doctrine, he laid down the law with a vigour
and determination that left his opponent with
the impression that never was there such a
hard and inflexible man: but when it came to
deeds, when it was a question of giving another
chance to a ne'er-do-weel, or the punishment
to be meted out to some young ragamuffin
caught stealing apples or breaking windows,
the sinner had far rather fall into the hands of
the minister than those of many a gentler spoken man.

In spite of the minister's endeavours, however,
Edmund was still laboriously writing sentences
to the effect that "'Tis education forms
the mind" at an age when Montagu had begun
to write Latin verses and to read Xenophon.

"I hate sitting on a chair and hearing things,"
Edmund would say.  "I want to be doing them.
I want more room than there is in Auntie's
house, or the Manse.  I *hate* things over my
head 'cept the sky."

One day Miss Esperance drove both boys to
Leith, and left them to play on the beach while
she went to see an old friend.  In a minute
Edmund had off his shoes and socks, and in
spite of the jagged pebbles, that hurt his
unaccustomed feet so cruelly, went down to the
water's edge and in up to his knees, then
turning to the more timid Montagu, who still stood
dubiously upon the brink, cried joyously, "*This*
is what I've always been wanting: there's
*plenty* of room out there."

The same evening he climbed on to Mr. Wycherly's
knee demanding, "How can I get
to be a sailor like my daddie was?"

"You go into the Navy."

"How do I go?  What way?  Where's the
Navy?  Is it a town?"

No, it's an institution, a service——"

"Like the poorhouse?" Edmund interrupted,
in less enthusiastic tones.

"Oh, dear, no."

"Tell me all about it," the little boy
commanded, whereupon Mr. Wycherly obediently
and at considerable length explained the
constitution of His Majesty's Navy, and Edmund
never once interrupted.

When Mr. Wycherly had finished, the little
boy was silent for a minute, then asked
earnestly, "How soon can I go?"

"Let me see, you're nearly eight now; it
might be managed in about three years.  You
will need to read well, and write well, and be
able to do many kinds of sums, and be very
obedient."

"I could do all that," Edmund said decidedly,
and in the end, to the surprise of every
one concerned, he did.

At first it grieved Mr. Wycherly that any one
should teach either of the little boys except
himself.  He grudged Edmund to the minister,
even while he knew that the minister was far
more fitted to teach him than he was himself.
His only consolation was that, as Edmund
disliked lessons so much, there would have been
some danger of his extending his dislike to the
giver of them, and that Mr. Wycherly could
not have borne.

It happened that soon after Edmund first
went for lessons to the Manse whooping-cough
broke out among the village children.  It was
a bad kind, and Miss Esperance was very
anxious that neither Montagu nor Edmund
should take it.  Thus it came about that one
Sunday, one particularly fine Sunday at the
beginning of June, she decided that she would
not take them to church with her for fear of
infection.  The doctor himself had suggested
this only the day before, and after a sleepless
night, in which she had prayed for guidance,
Miss Esperance decided that the doctor was
probably right and that she should run no risks
for them, whatever she might do for herself.
Mr. Wycherly offered to look after them both
during her absence, and it was characteristic of
Miss Esperance that, although she had her
misgivings, she made no suggestions as to how
their time should be spent in her absence.
That would have been to reflect upon Mr. Wycherly.

The little boys will always remember that
Sunday, not only because they did not go to
church, and did play in a field near the Manse,
but because of something that happened.

When the church bells had stopped and the
village street was deserted, Mr. Wycherly, the
two little boys and Mause went to play in a field
that adjoined the Manse.  To get to this field,
which was rich in buttercups and hedge parsley,
and was bordered by ash trees giving a pleasant
shade, you turned down a lane, which was also
a short cut to the station, lying a mile or so
south of the village.  The Manse was at one
end of the lane, the main street of the village
at the other: the gate leading into the field
about half-way down.  As the little boys
neared it they saw a stranger coming from the
opposite direction.

It was unusual to meet anybody in that lane,
especially at this time of day on the Sabbath,
and the children waited at the gate to see the
stranger pass.  Mr. Wycherly, whose long-distance
sight was failing a little, put up his
eye-glasses lest he might know the stranger and
pass him by without greeting, as he was rather
prone to do.  Hardly had he placed the glasses
on his nose than they dropped off again, and
with an exclamation of surprise he hurried
forward, holding out both his hands, which the
stranger grasped and warmly shook.

He was a tall young man, with very large
bright eyes and an abundance of curly black
hair, worn rather longer than was usual at that
time.

He seized Mr. Wycherly by the arm and
bore him up the lane again, talking eagerly the
while.

"I must see her," the little boys heard him
say.  "I must see her somehow, and I daren't
go into the house, for he has forbidden me.
Could you tell her?  Could you fetch her?  I'll
stay with the youngsters.  Oh, dear old friend,
for God's sake don't frighten her, but bring her
to me somehow.  She isn't in church, I know,
for I watched every one go in from behind the
hedge in the churchyard.  I was coming to you
in any case...."

Mr. Wycherly and the young man had passed
out of earshot.  Montagu and Edmund looked
at one another with large, round eyes, and
Mause looked after Mr. Wycherly and sniffed
the air inquiringly.

"Do you think he's a relation?" Edmund
asked.  "Do you think he's come to stay with us?"

"He can't stay with us," Montagu answered
decidedly; "there isn't any room.  I wish he
could, though," he added; "he looks rather nice."

A sound of quick footsteps in the lane, and
the stranger was back again, but without
Mr. Wycherly.

"Now," he said, "what shall we play at?"

He said it in a business-like way, and Edmund
did the stranger the honour to take him at his
word.

"Can you be a tiger?" he demanded excitedly,
"and we'll hunt you.  You must crawl
in the grass, and crouch in the ditch—it's quite
dry—and bounce out at us and growl, not too
loud, because it's the Sabbath."

Never was such a tiger; so fierce, so elusive,
so dashing, so unexpected.  This man threw
himself into his part at once and required no
tedious explanations.  The intrepid hunters
had a quarter of an hour's blissful excitement,
and the tiger had rolled over dead for the fifth
time when he suddenly rose to his feet, went to
the gate, and looked up the lane toward the
Manse.

Mr. Wycherly was coming slowly down the
lane, and a lady leant upon his arm.  The
quondam tiger brushed some grass from off his
clothes and turned to the little boys, who were
following him eagerly.  "Boys," he said, "we've
had a good play, we'll have another some
day, but now I must go and speak—to my
mother——"

He went down the lane very quickly toward
Mr. Wycherly and the lady.

"Come," said Montagu, catching Edmund by
the hand, "let's come away," and the two little
boys trotted off up the lane in the opposite
direction; and they never looked back.

Mrs. Gloag, tremulous and very pale, leant
heavily on Mr. Wycherly's arm as the tall
young man came out of the field toward her.
Then she steadied herself.  "Dear friend," she
said very softly, "I am quite strong.  Will you
leave me to wait for my boy?  I would like to
be with him alone—once more, together—he
and I."  She drew her hand from Mr. Wycherly's
arm, and he raised his hat and left her.
He passed the stranger and hurried after the
little boys.  They heard him coming and
slackened their pace: but they never looked
round.

They had turned the corner when Mr. Wycherly
joined them, and separated that he
might walk between them as was his custom.
He laid a hand on each soft little shoulder and
stopped.  "Boys," he said, and his voice
sounded husky and broken.  "You are
gentlemen—and good fellows—and I'm proud of
you."

The little boys were silent.  This that had
happened, coming so close upon the heels of
the uproarious tiger game, was very puzzling.

Presently, as though following some train of
thought, Edmund said: "She knew him, I
suppose.  Will our mothers know us, do you think,
when we get up there?  Because, you see, we
shall look rather different from when they saw
us last.  Now you, Guardie, dear, you hadn't
white hair when you saw your mother last, had
you?  You were quite a little boy."

"I think," said Mr. Wycherly, "in fact, I
may say I am sure, that our mothers will know
us, even if we all three should have white hair."

"I expect," Montagu said thoughtfully,
"that they're waiting just like we waited for you
round the corner; they've just gone on first."

"Just gone on," Edmund echoed.  "I wonder
if it seems long to them till we come?"

After morning service when the minister
turned down the lane, which was a short cut
to the Manse, he found Mr. Wycherly waiting
for him outside his own gate.

As a rule Mr. Wycherly was rather shy and
nervous in the presence of the minister, but
there was no sign of this usual mental
perturbation as he stopped him with a courteous
gesture.  "Mr. Gloag," said Mr. Wycherly, and
he looked the minister straight in the eyes,
"I have done something which you will probably
disapprove and condemn.  Curly has been
here, and I went to the Manse and told
Mrs. Gloag that he was here."

"Did he dare to enter my house?" asked the
minister, and he glowered at Mr. Wycherly
from under his heavy brows.

"I think," that gentleman replied, and he
met the minister's keen glance with one that
was quite equally combative, "that he would
have dared anything to see his mother.  As it
happened she came to him.  And I want to spare
her the exertion of telling you that she did so."

"Since when," asked the minister, looking as
though he would greatly like to annihilate
Mr. Wycherly; "since when has my wife needed a
go-between to spare her the necessity of telling
me anything?"

"Good heavens, sir!" Mr. Wycherly exclaimed,
"can't you see that what I want you
to realise is that Mrs. Gloag is very ill—that
whatever you may feel on the subject of Curly's
coming, it would have been inhuman to prevent
her seeing her son—once more, whatever
he had done."

Even as Mr. Wycherly spoke the eyes of the
two men that a moment before had been bright
with mutual antagonism changed.  The minister's
to a dumb agony, Mr. Wycherly's to an
awe-struck pity.  He turned and walked hastily
away.

Blindly the minister opened the gate and
went through the garden into his own house.

His wife met him in the hall, and her face, he
thought, was as the face of an angel, full of a
soft radiance not of earth.

"Peter," she said in her soft "Englishey"
voice, "God has been good to me.  I have seen
Curly, and he is not changed.  I know it; we
may not like what he has done, but he is not
changed.  He is good, Peter; he is our own
dear good boy all the same.  He didn't come
in because he thought you wouldn't like it, but
I had a long, beautiful talk with him in the
lane.  I felt somehow that I should see
him—once more."

Again the ominous phrase, "Once more."

"Felicity," said the minister, "you have
stood much longer than is good for you," and
he picked her up in his arms and carried her to
the sofa in the parlour.

She caught him round the neck and rubbed
her soft cheek against his hair.  "Why are you
not surprised—and angry?" she asked with a
little nervous laugh, and he felt how her whole
body was trembling in his arms.

"Because I knew already," said the minister;
and not one other word did he say on the
subject that day, but he noticed that her pretty
eyes had lost their look of strained expectancy
and watchfulness, and in its place there was
an expression of beautiful serenity and almost
joyous content.

Although Edmund went to the Manse for his
lessons, he was faithful always to the matutinal
service of biscuits in Mr. Wycherly's room.
He wouldn't have missed it on any account.
Two mornings after their encounter with the
"tiger-man," as they always called him, they
sought Mr. Wycherly after breakfast to find
him looking very grave and sad.  He gave
them their biscuits as usual, and turning to
Edmund said: "You must not go to the Manse
this morning, my dear boy.  There is great
trouble there.  We have all lost a very dear
friend—Mrs. Gloag."  Mr. Wycherly paused,
for he could not speak.  The little boys looked
very solemn, then Edmund said softly, "I
suppose she has gone on."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A PARTING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   A PARTING

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  O Royal and radiant soul,
   |  Thou dost return, thine influences return
   |  Upon thy children as in life, and death
   |  Turns stingless!
   |                              W. E. HENLEY.

.. vspace:: 2

Whooping-cough was still bad in the
village on the Sabbath following their
famous tiger-game, and again Miss Esperance
did not take her great-nephews to church.

Again, moreover, the Sunday was memorable,
not so much because they did not attend church,
as because Mr. Wycherly did.

The little boys knew there had been a funeral
the day before.  Mr. Wycherly had gone to it,
and their aunt had sewn a black band upon the
sleeve of each little white blouse.  They felt
solemn and important; and for once they would
even have been glad to go to church in order to
show this unusual adornment.  When they
discovered that not only were they to be left at
home, but left at home without Mr. Wycherly,
such immunity was shorn of all its more
pleasing attributes.

They were sorry about Mrs. Gloag, with the
curious, impersonal sorrow that children
experience in considering the troubles of others.
She was a kind lady, and they liked her.  She
knew many rhymes and funny stories, and was
almost as good a playmate as that unequalled
tiger-man.  But they had not seen her often
lately, and at present their chief concern was
with the unusual and uncomfortable sense of
depression that seemed in some subtle,
indefinable fashion to separate them from their
aunt and Mr. Wycherly.

And now, having gone to a funeral on
Saturday, Mr. Wycherly was going to church on
Sunday.  Why was Mr. Wycherly going to
church?

That was the question that grievously exercised
the little boys, and perhaps Mr. Wycherly
himself would have been hard put to it to
explain his reasons.

There was the protective instinct, the feeling
that he could not let Miss Esperance go alone,
so small and sad and solitary: the desire to do
something comforting: an equally strong desire
to show his affectionate respect for Mrs. Gloag,
and the hope that perhaps by this means he
might to some small extent show his sympathy
with the minister.  And at the back of all these
mixed motives and through every one of them
there sounded the voices of habit and tradition;
voices which every day of late had called more
and more imperatively to Mr. Wycherly.  In
the old days it had been a matter of course that
he should take part in any public ceremony;
now, in spite of his long aloofness from any
part or lot in the lives of his neighbours, he felt
it incumbent upon him to make some open and
public demonstration of his share in this common sorrow.

When he first came to live with Miss
Esperance, Mrs. Gloag had always been kind and
friendly, stopped him in the road when he
would fain have passed her by, and yet always
left him unconsciously cheered by her greeting.
Few others had been kind and friendly then,
and Mr. Wycherly did not forget.

It was surprising how many people
remembered such things of her now.  It seemed that
every man, woman, and child in the village
could and did tell of something kind Mrs. Gloag
had done, of something merry and heartening
she had said.  People forgot now that she had
sometimes laughed when it would have been
more fitting to look grave.  They only
remembered that she had cheered the despondent,
strengthened the weak-hearted, made peace
where there were quarrels, and brought gaiety
and good humour into homes where before
there were gloom and discontent.

Not for years had the church been so full as
on that Sabbath morning, that sunny Sabbath
morning when Mr. Wycherly went to church
with Miss Esperance.

The minister looked much as usual.  His
face was stern and set, though his eyes under
the bushy, overhanging gray eyebrows were
the eyes of a man who had slept but little.  Yet
his voice was strong and full, and he prayed and
read the Bible with his customary earnestness
and vigour.

The congregation were a little fluttered to
notice that in the Manse pew there were three
tall young men, and that the white-haired,
Oxfordy gentleman who lived with Miss Esperance
was in her seat, but otherwise the service
was much as usual.

It was not until the time came for the sermon
that there was throughout the congregation
that little thrill of excited expectation which
proclaims deep interest.

"What would be the minister's text?"

To most people it was a surprise: it was not
even a whole text.  The minister preached
upon the four words, "Be pitiful, be courteous."  His
sermon was the shortest he had ever given
in that church, lasting only half an hour.

Mr. Wycherly sat with his elbow on the desk
in front of him, his white, slender hand shading
his eyes.

Miss Esperance was visibly affected; and of
the three young men in the Manse seat, one
laid his head down on his crossed arms, but he
assuredly was not sleeping.

When the service was over and Mr. Wycherly
and Miss Esperance were walking home, she
said timidly: "It was a beautiful discourse,
don't you think?"

"I think," said Mr. Wycherly, "that he
preached that sermon for his wife; and that it
will be remembered when all his other sermons
are forgotten.  I am glad to have been there."

That afternoon the little boys took their
Sunday picture-books into the garden and sat
on the grass under the alder tree; Mr. Wycherly,
too, sat in a garden chair reading a
sober-looking calf-bound book.

Miss Esperance had returned from afternoon
church, but she was so tired and upset that
Elsa persuaded her for once to go and lie down
in her room, and the children were warned not
to disturb their aunt.

Edmund's book was a large Bible Alphabet
with gaily-coloured pictures, which Miss Maggie
Moffat had given him at the New Year.  Montagu
had brought out "Peep of Day," a work
he detested, but choice on the Sabbath was
limited in the house of Miss Esperance, so he
looked at the "Child's Bible Alphabet" with
Edmund, and so often had they pored over the
volume that they were familiar with all the
characters from Abraham to Zacchaeus.

Presently Edmund shut the book with a
bang.  "I shall know all these folks when I
meet 'em, anyway," he said decidedly.  "I've
looked at 'em and looked: I've had enough of
seeing them, Isaac and Noah and Jacob and
Mrs. Potiphar and that dancing woman,
Miriam—none of them very handsome, either,"
Edmund continued discontentedly.  "Oh, I
do wish the Sabbath was over, it's such a long,
long day."

"I wonder," said Montagu musingly, "why
the Bible people are always so ugly in pictures;
so red and blue: real people aren't as ugly as
that even if they are a bit plain.  Can you tell
how it is, Guardie, dear?  D'you suppose they're
really like the people in Edmund's book?"

"I expect," Mr. Wycherly said cautiously,
laying down his "Alcestis" and smiling at
Montagu's earnest upturned face, "that they
were very like the people we see every day,
some neither very handsome nor very plain.
Some beautiful and delightful."

"I shall be disappointed," Edmund remarked,
"if, after all, they turn out to be different from
what they are in my book, after I've taken so
much trouble to know them when Aunt
Esperance covers the little poem at the bottom and
the letter.  You do think they'll be like they
are here, don't you?" he asked anxiously.

"I fear not," Mr. Wycherly said, shaking his
head.  "We can't tell what they were like.
You see, the artists who made the pictures in
your book could only give their idea of the
people they wished to represent——"

"Then they aren't kind of fortygraphs!"
Edmund exclaimed aghast.  "I sha'n't really
know them when I meet them, after all—they
may be quite different!  What a shame!"

"I wish we might have the Theogony out on
Sunday," Montagu grumbled.  "The people
there are pretty enough.  Do you think we
could, Guardie, dear?"

"I fear not.  I don't think Miss Esperance
would like it."

"Is your book a Sunday book?" Edmund
asked severely.

"Well, no, perhaps not exactly; it is a very
beautiful play."

"What's a play?"

"Something that can be acted."

"Is it wicked to act?"

"No, I don't think so—but there are people——"

"Why, then, did Elsa say the tiger-man was
wicked?" Edmund interposed.  "He's an actor,
isn't he?"

Mr. Wycherly was spared an answer to this
question, as at that very moment some one
was seen coming through the garden toward
them—a tall young man in black, who proved
to be none other than the tiger-man himself.

The boys rushed at him, shouting joyfully.
"Oh, tiger-man, have you come to play with
us?  You promised you would, you know."

"I've come to say good-bye," he said, as each
child seized a hand and hung on to him.  "I
have to go to-night."

"But you'll have a little play with us first;
just one?  It's been such a long Sabbath, and
it isn't nearly tea-time yet."

Edmund's voice was very piteous.

"Poor mites," said the tiger-man.  "I'll tell
you what we'll do.  You go down to the bottom
of the garden under the trees and wait for
me for five minutes.  Then I'll come to you
and we'll do something—it mustn't be
noisy—but we'll make some sort of a play.  Just let
me have five minutes with Mr. Wycherly here—see,
there's my watch—when the five minutes
are up you give me a call."

As he spoke he took off his watch and chain
and gave it to Montagu.  The little boys ran to
the end of the garden and waited by the wall.

"He must have climbed over," Edmund
said.  "I suppose it isn't very high when your
legs are so long."

"Edmund," said Montagu very seriously, "I
don't think we ought to bother him to play.
He looks very sorry.  You see, his mother's
just dead—perhaps he doesn't feel at all like
playing.  You see, before, when we had that
lovely game, he was just going to see her—now——"

Edmund's face fell.  The tiger-man's advent
had seemed a direct interposition of Providence
on his behalf.  Now, it appeared that he was
not to avail himself of it after all.

"Sha'n't you call him when it's the five
minutes?" he asked.

"No," said Montagu, "it would be kinder
not, don't you think?"

Edmund's mouth went down at the corners.
"It's been so mizzable all day," he sighed.
"Aunt Esperance is sorry, and Guardie is sorry,
and now you're sorry, and say he mustn't play
wiv me.  How long must people keep on being
sorry?  He said he'd play his own self."

Montagu was puzzled.  He sympathised with
his small brother—it had been a long, dull day
for him, too—but yet he felt that the tiger-man
ought not to be bothered.  Montagu was
sensitive and sympathetic, and even as he had
caught sight of the tiger-man walking up the
path he realised that it was a different
tiger-man from the one of a week ago who had rolled
over and over in the grass so joyously.

He looked at the watch in his hand.  "It's
more'n five minutes now," he said.  "You can
call if you like, I sha'n't."

But Edmund did not call.  Montagu moved
nearer his little brother and put his arm round
him.  "We ought to be sorry for the tiger-man,
you know," he said softly.  "He's like Guardie
and us now."

Edmund leaned against Montagu and sighed.
It really was a very sad and puzzling day.

"Surely, it's more than five minutes," said a
voice behind them, and there was the tiger-man,
pale certainly, with red rims round his
eyes, but evidently ready to play.

"Do you mind?  Are you sure you don't
mind?" Edmund asked eagerly.  "If you'd
rather not—we'd rather not, too."

The tiger-man sat down on the rough grass
near the wall—it was one of his agreeable
qualities that he was ready to sit down anywhere
at any moment.  He held out his hand to each
of the little boys, and they sat down one on
each side and cuddled up against him.

"You're jolly, decent little chaps," he said,
"and I know just what you mean, but I'd like
to keep my promise because—well, most of all,
because she'd like me to.  So now I'll try and
be amusing."

And he was amusing.  Edmund forgot his
low spirits and rolled over and over on the
grass in paroxysms of stifled laughter at the
things the tiger-man did and said.

All too soon the game ended.  The tiger-man
put on his watch, and kissed both the little
boys in farewell.  "Good-bye," he said, "I'm
afraid it will be some time before we meet
again, but I sha'n't forget you."

"We sha'n't forget *you*.  Good-bye, good-bye,"
called the little boys, watching the tiger-man
as he vaulted lightly over the wall.  Montagu
ran after him.  "I'd like to whisper," he
said breathlessly.

The tiger-man leant over the wall, and
Montagu caught him round the neck:

"Although we laughed and enjoyed it so," he
whispered, "we *are* sorry, we really are."

The tiger-man kissed Montagu once more,
but this time he said nothing at all.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BETHUNE TEMPERAMENT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE BETHUNE TEMPERAMENT

.. vspace:: 1

For courage mounteth with occasion.—KING JOHN.

.. vspace:: 2

"It is curious, is it not," Miss Esperance said
to Mr. Wycherly, "how entirely those two
dear boys differ in character.  Sometimes I
think that Montagu must be like his mother's
family.  He is certainly not like ours."

"I am not sure that fundamentally Montagu
is so very unlike you, Miss Esperance.  In
some ways, too, he strikes me as resembling
Edmund, though not on the surface.  I don't
think that you need feel disturbed.  Montagu
is a Bethune *au fond*, although he may seem
milder and perhaps—er—less strenuous than
Edmund."

Miss Esperance shook her head, unconvinced.

"No," she said, "from all I remember of my
brothers and myself and from what I know of
my dear father, I don't think Montagu is one of
us.  Edmund is, absolutely, a Bethune for
good and ill—and there's a great deal of ill,
mind, in our characters.  But Montagu is too
reflective, too slow to act.  He is not impulsive,
like the rest of us, and look how serene he is!
He is hardly ever in a temper, and the Bethunes
have always been so hot-tempered and high-spirited."

They were sitting at table in the evening while
Mr. Wycherly drank his wine, and he smiled as
he looked at the pretty old lady opposite with
the soft lamplight shining on her white hair:
the old lady who laid claim to such violent
characteristics with such calm assurance.  He
did not point out to her that it was her beautiful
serenity that set so wide a gulf between her and
more easily ruffled ordinary mortals: he said
nothing, but he smiled, and Miss Esperance
saw the smile.

"You must not think," she continued, "that
I in any way regret Montagu's dissimilarity.
He is a most kind and unselfish boy; a dear,
dear boy.  And I wouldn't have him different
if I could.  But he is not like my people.  He
has the scholar's temperament.  He weighs and
considers.  He would never act upon impulse,
and sometimes I wonder whether he is not
lacking in the dash and courage that have
always marked our race: those qualities that
Edmund possesses in so marked a degree—together
with so many others that are quite
undesirable."

Mr. Wycherly ceased to smile.  "Do you
know," he said, "it is a most curious thing, and,
I suppose, the result of association, but
sometimes Montagu reminds me a little of myself
when I was a boy.  Of course it is extremely
unlikely that he should resemble me in any way:
yet our minds do tend to run in the same
groove.  But it's only our minds.  Montagu
has far more strength and tenacity of purpose
than I ever had, and I believe that, should the
necessity arise, he would show both dash and
courage.  The Bethune temperament is there,
Miss Esperance, but in his case it is not roused
to activity by little things."

Mr. Wycherly remembered this conversation
next day when he was out walking with Montagu.
Their way lay through the village, past
some of the poorer cottages, and from one
of these came Jamie Brown, a barefooted
laddie, about Montagu's own age, but rather
bigger.

As usual Montagu had hold of Mr. Wycherly's
hand, and there was something in the sight of
the two figures walking along so primly together
that annoyed Jamie excessively.

Neither Edmund nor Montagu were allowed
to play with the village boys: about this Miss
Esperance was most firm and particular.  But
all the same Edmund knew and was hail-fellow-well-met
with them all, and contrived many a
sly game of "tippenny-nippenny" or "papes,"
and many a secret confab on his way to and
from the Manse.  They all liked Edmund, and
Edmund liked them.  He could talk broad
Scotch, and did whenever he got the chance,
although if his aunt heard him she severely
discouraged his efforts, even going so far as to
forbid the use of certain somewhat lurid, if
expressive, adjectives.  But Montagu, who spent
so much of his time with Mr. Wycherly, was not
drawn toward the village boys.  Their loud
voices and rough manners repelled him: he was
naturally shy and held himself aloof.  Hence
he was despised and disliked as "Englishey"
and stuck up.

Jamie Brown danced out into the middle of
the road on his noiseless bare feet, and walked
mincingly in front of Mr. Wycherly and Montagu,
looking back over his shoulder from time
to time to remark tauntingly: "This is you,
mim's milk, like a puggie, a wee Englishey
puggie in a red coatie jimp an' sma'—whaur's
yer organ?  Wull yon auld gentleman no gies
a chune?  Puggie!  Puggie! wha's a wee puggie!"

Montagu turned very red, but said nothing.
Mr. Wycherly had never in the smallest degree
mastered the dialect of Burnhead, and was
quite unconscious that Jamie's remarks were
other than of the most friendly description.  He
regarded his gyrations with some surprise, but
did not realise any offensive intention.
Presently, however, Jamie began to stagger about
the road like a drunken man, at the same time
chanting raucously:

   |  "Oxfordy, Oxfordy, Oxfordy, Sumph!
   |  What'll ye get from a soo but a grumph?"

Then it was that Montagu felt a little tremor in
his guardian's hand, and looking up, saw that
his face was lined and drawn as with pain.

Now Mr. Wycherly was well aware that Jamie
Brown could not by any possibility know of his
past weakness through personal knowledge;
for his "foible" had ceased to be a foible long
before Jamie was born.  Yet it was pain
inexpressible that his old frailty could be made an
instrument of persecution for Montagu.  The
love and admiration of the two little boys, who
had come so unexpectedly and beneficently
into his life, were very precious to him, and that
anything could be done or said to lower him in
their estimation or hurt them through his past
infirmity, was little short of torture.

Montagu, who couldn't imagine why Jamie
was reeling about the road in that idiotic
fashion, understood well enough the insulting
couplet, and saw that Mr. Wycherly was pained.

"I can't stand this any more," he said, dragging
his hand from his guardian's; "he's got to
stop it."

He ran forward, and with a bound leapt upon
Jamie from behind, who, taken by surprise,
went down with Montagu on the top of him.
Over and over in the mud the boys rolled,
kicking, scratching, thumping, doing everything,
in fact, of a combative nature except bite.

Mr. Wycherly remained where he was, watching
them.  Mause would fain have hurled herself
into the press, too, but he caught the old
dog by the collar just in time, and had hard
work to hold her, as she bounced and barked
and choked in her efforts to get free.  He did
not feel called upon to interfere between the
boys, for they were not ill-matched, and Jamie
had assuredly been the aggressor.  Presently,
however, he saw that Montagu was uppermost,
that he had got his adversary by the throat, and
was deliberately bumping the boy's head on the
ground, while he never relaxed his hold for an
instant, and that Jamie was rapidly getting
black in the face.

Still holding Mause, Mr. Wycherly ran forward,
shouting, "Loose him, Montagu; let him
go, I say.  Don't you see you're throttling the
boy?  You'll choke him; let go, I say."

"I want to choke him," Montagu gasped, as
Mr. Wycherly, still holding the struggling
Mause with one hand, attempted to drag his
ward off the prostrate Jamie with the other.
"I want to kill him.  I'd have done it, too, if
you hadn't interfered."

"Nonsense," Mr. Wycherly said sharply.
"Don't you know yet that you mustn't keep on
hitting a man when he's down?  Here, catch
hold of Mause for me.  Get up, boy!"

And he half lifted the recumbent Jamie, who,
though somewhat limp, was beginning to
assume a normal complexion.

Montagu glared at his foe like an angry
terrier.  "We haven't finished," he cried.  "Let
me get at him to box him some more.  You
hold Mause again.  Come on!"

And Montagu, whose nose was bleeding,
while one eye was rapidly disappearing in a
tremendous bruise, danced up and down
impatiently, in concert with the excited Mause.

But Jamie was holding his neck and gasping.

"I'll no' fecht nae mair wi' yon wee teeger,"
he said slowly.  "He's gey an' spunkie," he
added, "for all he's sae genty and mim.  Ma
certie! his hauns can tak a grup although
they're sae wee."

"There, you see," said Mr. Wycherly.  "He
says that he has had enough, so, of course, you
can't go on any more.  Now you must shake
hands with each other, for it's all over."

Frankly, and with no sort of grudge, Jamie
held out his square, brown fist.  "I'll no' ca'
ye a puggie onny mair," he said handsomely.

Montagu was still eyeing his late foe with
some hostility: but as his guardian had bidden
him to shake hands he felt it must be the proper
thing to do, so he held out his hand.  "Perhaps,"
he said hopefully, "you'll fight with me
again some day."

"Ah'm no' sae shure," Jamie replied cautiously,
and in another minute was speeding on
his swift, bare feet toward his mother's cottage.

Montagu, still standing in the middle of the
road, was indeed a deplorable figure: covered
from head to foot with mud and blood, with a
singing in his ears, and an extremely sore eye,
he looked about as disreputable an object as
could be imagined.  Mr. Wycherly stood back
and regarded him curiously.  "We must go
home," he said, "and it is to be hoped that we
shall not meet many people on the way.  Here's
a handkerchief; just try and mop that
unfortunate nose of yours.  What Miss Esperance
will say, my dear Montagu, I really cannot
imagine."

They turned homeward, and had not gone
many yards when they met the Misses Moffat,
who stopped, holding up their hands in horror
at Montagu's appearance.

Mr. Wycherly had never yet spoken to them
and would fain have passed them now with a
courteous salutation.  But it was not to be.
They closed in upon him and Montagu, both
asking at once what dreadful mishap had
occurred.

Mr. Wycherly again lifted his hat.  "The
fact is," he said, "Montagu has been engaged
in the rough and tumble.  There has been a
great deal of tumble and a fair amount of rough.
But no serious damage has been done.  I
think, however, that the sooner he gets home
and changes the better."  And yet again lifting
his hat and holding out his hand to Montagu,
he prepared to go on his way.

But the Misses Moffat were not satisfied.
"And you let him fight?" Miss Maggie
exclaimed reproachfully.  "Oh, sir! do you think
it was right?"

"Yes, madam," Mr. Wycherly answered
boldly.  "I think it would have been wrong to
interfere."

"But you did interfere," Montagu exclaimed
in injured tones.  "I'd have killed him if you
hadn't."

"Killed who?" shrieked Miss Jeanie.  "But
this is dreadful——"

"I really think," Mr. Wycherly interposed,
"that we must get back at once.  Good-day to
you—good-day."

And seizing Montagu's hand, he fairly ran
from the Misses Moffat in the direction of Remote.

Miss Esperance met them at the gate.  When
she caught sight of Montagu, she, too, gazed in
wonder and consternation, and ran out to them,
crying, "What has happened?  Has he been
run over?  Is he badly hurt?"

"This," said Mr. Wycherly, pointing to
Montagu, "is the result, my dear Miss Esperance,
of a sudden manifestation of—the Bethune
temperament."

Miss Esperance flushed a most beautiful pink.
She stooped and kissed her great-nephew's most
uninviting-looking countenance.

"He has been fighting," she said quietly,
"and I fear he has had the worst of it."

"That I didn't," the belligerent one exclaimed
joyously.  "I'd have killed him quite
dead if Guardie hadn't stopped me.  He
wouldn't let me."

"Who was it?" Miss Esperance asked with
breathless interest.

"Jamie Broun; he was rude.  His father
makes wheels and things, you know."

"Come and get cleaned, my dear, dear boy.
It's very wrong to fight, but sometimes—in a
good cause, it maybe necessary.  Come away in."

And Miss Esperance walked up the garden
path with her arm round Montagu's neck.

Presently she tapped at Mr. Wycherly's door.
When she came in her gentle face was wreathed
with smiles.

"I've just come to confess to you," she said,
"that I feel you were right and I was wrong
last night.  There is no doubt whatever that
Montagu is a real Bethune.  In 1657 Archibald
Bethune did with his own hands choke to death
an Irish wrestler who had set upon him in a
lonely inn in Forfarshire.  The man was seven
feet high, so the old chronicle says.  I've just
been looking."

"Won't you sit down, Miss Esperance?"

"No, I thank you, not now.  I have several
things to see to; but, dear friend, I felt that I
must tell you that I recognise that your
insight is deeper than mine.  Montagu is a true
Bethune: he will be a man of his hands even
as the rest of our house."

"For my part," Mr. Wycherly said dryly,
"I would rather fall into the hands of Edmund
than those of Montagu when he is roused.
Especially as it would appear to be an agreeable
characteristic of the Bethunes to throttle their
adversaries."

"We have always been a fighting race," Miss
Esperance remarked complacently, and departed
with pride in her port and satisfaction
writ large upon her face.

Mr. Wycherly looked thoughtful.  "And she
the gentlest and tenderest of women!" he
murmured.  "How strange they are!"

That afternoon the Misses Moffat called to ask
after Montagu.

They found him resting, with a bandaged
eye, upon the sofa in his aunt's parlour, with
Flaxman's "Theogony" open on his knees for
his amusement.  His head ached badly, but
he was quite happy.  He knew that in some
way this exploit, although it entailed much
destruction to garments and was altogether of
an unlawful and unusual order, had not really
grieved his aunt.  She had lectured him gently,
it is true, but she had been very kind as well,
and had given him a whole bunch of raisins to
console him when he was left at home—his
appearance being unsuited just then to polite
society—and she and Edmund drove over to
see Lady Alicia.

Miss Maggie came and sat down beside his
sofa, and after sundry searching inquiries after
his various wounds, she divulged the real reason
of her visit.

"I felt, my dear," said kind Miss Maggie,
"that I must come and tell you a story, a
wee story, I read just the other day in 'Wise
Words.'"

"Thank you very much," Montagu said politely.

"It was told by a Quaker gentleman——"

"What's a Quaker, please?" Montagu interrupted.

"A very good man——"

"Are there many of them or only one?"

"I think there must be a good many, but
that doesn't matter," Miss Maggie said hastily,
rather flurried by these interruptions.

"I like to understand things as I go along.
Guardie says you must never pass a word you
don't understand.  Yes, a Quaker gentleman,
a very good man—what next?"

"Well, this Quaker gentleman had a class for
boys, a Sunday class——"

"Was he a minister as well as a Quaker?"
asked the incorrigible Montagu.

"No, no, he just taught them for kindness,
and he was much pleased, because one day he
asked his class whether they would rather kill
a man or be killed themselves, and all of them,
with one accord, every single boy, said he'd
rather be killed himself than take the life of a
fellow-creature."

Miss Maggie paused and looked at Montagu
for admiration of these noble sentiments.

He shook his head vigorously.  "I'm not
like that," he said decidedly.  "Why, I'd
rather kill ten men than be killed myself—and
I'd try to do it too, first."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE COMING OF THE COLONEL`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE COMING OF THE COLONEL

.. vspace:: 1

Soldier, soldier, home from the wars.

.. vspace:: 2

At Remote a box hedge separated the path
leading to the back door from the trim
front garden sacred to visitors.  Edmund often
played behind that hedge.  It made good cover
for tiger shooting and suchlike thrilling sport;
and on this particular day he was in pursuit of
a bear, a brown bear of terrific size and grizzliness.

It was a very still morning: Elsa and Robina
were busy at the back hanging out clothes to
dry.  Mr. Wycherly and Montagu were, as
usual, engaged in the study of Greek or Latin
in the room upstairs.  Miss Esperance had gone
to see a sick woman in the village, and
Mr. Gloag was away on a holiday.  Therefore was
Edmund free to amuse himself as best he could,
provided he did not stir beyond the garden.

He was getting a little tired of his solitary
pursuit of big game when he heard a horse's
hoofs ringing sharply on the road, accompanied
by a quite unfamiliar jingling.  Both hoofs and
jingling stopped at the green gate, and Edmund,
peering through a hole in the hedge, saw a
soldier, a most resplendent soldier, in dark blue
uniform and a brass helmet with a white plume,
dismount from a big black horse and push open
the green gate, where he paused and whistled.

He was a tall man, with a brown, good-humoured
face, and he waited evidently in the
hope that some one would hear his whistle and
come.

But no one came.  Mr. Wycherly generally
shut the window that looked out to the front
as a preventive of interruptions.

The soldier whistled again loud and clear,
then he began to sing a little song.  He was
evidently a patient man and didn't mind
waiting.  Edmund, his round face glued to the hole
in the hedge, watched him with absorbed interest;
noting carefully both words and tune of
the song.

The soldier sang, not at all loudly, but quite
distinctly and with a certain rollicking joviality
that the child found most fascinating.  Finally
he opened the green gate and led his horse up
the garden path to the front door, where he
rang the bell.

Still no one came, and Edmund, greatly
excited, darted out into the road and in at the
gate till he, too, stood beside the waiting
soldier.

"Good morning, sir," said the soldier.  "I've
got a note here for Miss Bethune from the
Colonel.  This 'ere 'ouse is Remote, ain't it?"

"Yes, sir," Edmund answered with solemn
politeness, "but who's the Colonel?"

"Colonel Dundas, sir.  Can you take the
note, sir?  I was to wait for an answer, but I
can't seem to make anybody hear," and the
soldier held out a square, white envelope to
Edmund.

"I'll put it on the table inside," Edmund said.
"My aunt is out, but please don't go away yet;
I'd like to talk to you.  Have you had a battle
lately, and did you kill many enemies?  And
what are you?  Are you a general or a major?"

The soldier laughed.  "Well, sir, no, I ain't
got that rank yet—I'm an orderly, sir."

"What's that?" asked Edmund.

"A private soldier, sir.  Would you like a
ride, little gentleman?  I'll lift you up, and you
can sit on the 'orse's back and I'll lead 'im
down to the gate and a little way down the
road, it you like, sir."

"You are a kind man," said Edmund gratefully.
"I should like that so much."

And in what the soldier would have called a
"brace of shakes" Edmund was seated on the
back of the tall black charger and was riding
down the path to the green gate.

Out into the road did he go and down the
village street till they reached the corner where
the highway leads to Edinburgh; there the
soldier lifted him off, swung himself up into the
saddle, and they parted with mutual expressions
of esteem.

Edmund trotted back to the house.  No one
had missed him.  Miss Esperance had not yet
returned, and the square, white envelope still
lay on the hall table unopened.

That day at dinner the little boys learned
from their aunt that the Colonel of the cavalry
regiment just come to Jock's Lodge was an
old friend of hers, and was coming out to tea
with them on the following day.  They talked
and thought of nothing else till bedtime.  Next
morning Edmund, still at a loose end, got
tired of play in the garden by himself and
invaded his aunt in her parlour, where she was
busy mending Montagu's stockings.

He fidgeted round about Miss Esperance,
dropping balls of wool and pricking his fingers
with darning needles, finally upsetting a large
box of pins: which his aunt commanded him
to pick up and replace.  This he did, and lightened
his labours by suddenly bursting into song:

   |  O there's not a king is so gay as me—
   |  With my glass in my hand and my wench on my knee,
   |  When I gets back to the old countrie
   |  And the regiment's home again.
   |

Edmund had a clear, loud voice, and could
sing any tune on earth after he had heard it once.

Miss Esperance dropped the stocking she was
darning, and exclaimed in horrified tones:
"Edmund!  My dear boy!  Where in the
world did you learn that song?  *Never* let me
hear it again!"

"The soldier gentleman what brought the
Colonel's letter was singing it that morning he
came, and nobody answered the door to him.
He waited ever so long.  What's wrong with
it, Aunt Esperance?  D'you not like it?"

"Like it!" Miss Esperance repeated.  "It's
a shocking, low song, and quite unsuitable for
the lips of a little boy."

"What's unshootable?" demanded the volatile
Edmund, quite unabashed.

Miss Esperance was busy re-threading the
darning-needle Edmund's surprising ditty had
caused her to drop, and she did not reply at
once.

"What's unshootable?" Edmund demanded again.

"Unsuitable," Miss Esperance corrected.

"Well, 'shootable' or 'sootable,' whichever
it is; what does it mean, Aunt Esperance?"

"It means not fitting."

"Like my top-coat that's got too wee?"

"No, Edmund, I did not in this case refer to
bodily things."

"Like boots, then?" Edmund persisted, his
head on one side like an inquisitive sparrow's.

Miss Esperance detached her mind from her
darning.  "What I meant was," she said
seriously, "that a vulgar and ugly song is
distressing enough upon anybody's lips, but above
all upon the lips of a child."

"I don't sing with my lips," Edmund objected.
"What's a wench, Aunt Esperance?"

"A wench is a young woman," Miss Esperance
reluctantly explained.

"Hooo!" Edmund cried scornfully.  "I
thought it was armour of some sort.  I don't
think I'd be very gay with a young woman on
my knee—if she was as heavy as Robina, anyway."

"Hush, Edmund!  I will not have you discuss
that odious song any more.  Forget it as
quickly as you can; and I shall have to speak
to Colonel Dundas about allowing his men to
sing such songs before you!"

"He didn't know I was there," Edmund said
loyally.  "He was the very nicest man, and
Elsa never answered the door.  It's such a
nice tune, too," he added regretfully.

Miss Esperance made no answer.  Her busy
needle flew in and out of the stocking, and
she appeared absorbed in her beautiful darning.

Edmund had picked up all the pins, and he
fidgeted about in silence for a minute more till
he observed thoughtfully:

"So shootable's a vulgar song?"

"Child!  You do nothing but misunderstand
me to-day.  I never said the song was suitable,
I said it was unsuitable, which means inappropriate,
and, in this case—improper."

"Were you ever a wench, Aunt Esperance?"

"Certainly not," Miss Esperance answered,
with considerable heat.

"But you was a young woman once, Aunt Esperance?"

"That word, Edmund, is never applied to
well-bred women at any time of life.  It is not
in itself a term of reproach, but it refers
generally to—"  Miss Esperance paused.

"What's it refer to?"

"Well—to women of the less refined classes.
It is a South of England word—somewhat
equivalent to our 'lassie."

"Which is the less refined classes, Aunt
Esperance?  Is they in a school?"

"Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!  You do nothing but
ask questions to-day," Miss Esperance sighed.
"Still, it is right you should understand.  The
less refined classes, Edmund, are such as
have not had many advantages in the way of
education or upbringing.  Excellent persons
often——"

"Perhaps yon wench was an excellent person,"
Edmund suggested hopefully.

Miss Esperance showed no inclination to
discuss the possible merits of this young woman,
and Edmund continued, "Had you many
advantages, Aunt Esperance?"

"Certainly I had."

"Then you was never a wench?"

"Never!"

"Why should he like a wench to sit on his
knee, Aunt Esperance?  She'd be very hot and
heavy."

"I really must refuse to discuss that song
any more.  Forget it as soon as you can, and
never, never sing it again."

"He was such a nice man," Edmund persisted.
"He had such a beautiful helmet."

"Perhaps," said Miss Esperance, "if you are
both good boys I'll take you over one day to
Pier's Hill to see the soldiers being drilled."  And
in this entrancing prospect Edmund forgot
all about the "unsuitable" song.

"Aunt Esperance would like you should come
to tea with us this afternoon, Guardie, dear."

It was Montagu who spoke.  Lessons were
over, but he had sought Mr. Wycherly again
to deliver this message.

"It is most kind of Miss Esperance," said
Mr. Wycherly.  "I shall of course be delighted and
highly honoured, but why am I to have this
treat to-day, is it a birthday?—No—I know it
isn't a birthday——"

"Colonel Dundas is coming.  He knew my
daddie, and he knew my grandfather, and Aunt
Esperance is very anxious he should see you.
She said so."

"Don't you think," Mr. Wycherly said nervously,
"that I might be a little in the way?
If Colonel Dundas is such an old friend, they will
have many things to talk over.  Wouldn't it
be better for me to come some other time?"

"No, it wouldn't; I'm sure it wouldn't.
Aunt Esperance said that she most pertikler
wants Colonel Dundas to see you.  Do you
think he'll be able to sing, Guardie, dear?"

"To sing," Mr. Wycherly repeated.  "Why
should he sing at tea-time?"

"Well, the soldier Edmund saw (that gave
him the ride—I wish I'd been there, I did hear
something, but I thought it was just a butcher,
perhaps), he could sing beautifully.  Edmund
said so.  I thought perhaps all soldiers can sing."

"Perhaps they can," said Mr. Wycherly.  "I
really don't know.  You can ask him when he
comes.  But not at tea-time, mind—that
wouldn't be polite.  It seems to me, Montagu,
that, as Colonel Dundas is coming, we might ask
him if there is any sergeant in his regiment who
would teach you to box—properly.  No choking,
you know, or anything of that sort—you
must learn to keep your temper when you fight."

"But, Guardie, dear, I should never want to
fight at all if I kept my temper.  It's when I'm
angry I want to fight.  What's the good of
fighting with someone you're perfectly pleased
with?"

"You won't feel perfectly pleased when
you've been cuffed about the head pretty hard,
but you must behave as if you were, and that's
where the good training comes in.  No one can
box properly who is in a rage.  It would be
good for you to learn."

"Will Edmund learn?"

"Certainly, if you do; but he needs it less
than you."

Montagu felt rather aggrieved.  His guardian's
approval was very dear to him, and
Mr. Wycherly had never even indirectly referred to
his encounter with Jamie Brown until this
moment.  The little boy did not enjoy the cold
water thus thrown upon his exploit.  He had
felt more or less of a hero ever since, and here
was Mr. Wycherly suggesting that he should be
taught to "fight properly," and that he needed
such tuition much more than Edmund, who
was not nearly so well-behaved in general as
he.  Montagu was puzzled; but he was
accustomed to take most things that his guardian
said wholly upon trust, and being really
humble-minded he came to the sorrowful conclusion
that in some way he had not acquitted
himself quite perfectly in his battle with Jamie
Brown.

He was, however, dreadfully puzzled why
anyone should care to fight for the mere
pleasure of fighting, and that his guardian,
most gentle and peace-loving of men, should
suggest such unpleasing occupation as being
both necessary and beneficial was quite
incomprehensible.  The coming of the Colonel was
shorn of some of its splendour of anticipation
in consequence.

At last tea-time arrived and with it the
Colonel.  He, too, rode over, but, to the great
disappointment of the little boys, he was not
in uniform as they had expected.  It is true he
wore beautiful breeches and gaiters: but he
hadn't a weapon of any kind except a crop,
nor did he wear a helmet, which grieved
Edmund unspeakably.

All the same he was a kind and jolly gentleman.
He had known Admiral Bethune and
Miss Esperance when he was young; and, like
the honest soldier he was, did not forget people
who had been kind to him; he had also been
friendly with poor Archie Bethune, and was
interested in seeing his little sons: and there was
also just a spice of curiosity in his visit.  He
had heard of Mr. Wycherly; of the curious
charge undertaken by Miss Esperance; of the
way that charge had, in his turn, undertaken
the joint guardianship of her great-nephews.

What did the Colonel expect to see?

It would be hard to define.  He had formed
a hazy conception of some weak-minded man:
amiable, incompetent, wholly lacking in those
manly attributes that the Colonel considered
essential.  He wondered greatly what sort of
training these little boys could have with such
strange protectors: an old lady—a delightful
old lady Colonel Dundas would have been the
first to grant—and this eccentric, ineffectual
recluse who was known to have made such a
hopeless fiasco of his own life.

As he rode over to Remote the Colonel shook
his head sorrowfully from time to time while he
murmured to himself, "Poor little chaps!"

Not until they were all seated at the tea-table
and Robina rang the bell outside did
Mr. Wycherly come down.

As he came into the room the Colonel looked
a little startled.  He rose and shook hands
cordially, and then proceeded to readjust his
ideas.  This was not at all what he had
expected.  A handsome man himself, he was
quite ready to recognise good looks and, above
all, distinction in another man; and
Mr. Wycherly's was, even by the Colonel's standard,
a striking personality.

It is impossible to dream perpetually when
your companions for many hours out of each
day are two exceedingly lively small boys with
inquiring minds.  Mr. Wycherly's expression
had lost much of its vagueness; and although
it was still a great effort for him to brace
himself to meet strangers, he did it for the sake of
the little boys and Miss Esperance.  He did
not want them to feel that he was in any way
singular.  What other people felt was a matter
of the greatest indifference to him, and this
gave his manner a certain poise and confidence
that had been wholly wanting during his first
years at Remote.

All the time during tea, while Colonel Dundas
was consuming quantities of Elsa's thrice-excellent
scones and conversing pleasantly with
his hosts, something in the back of his brain
kept reiterating, "I've been confoundedly
misinformed about this man."  And he found
himself mentally accusing vague rumour of a pack
of lies: "Making me think the fellow a sort of
village idiot, while all the time he's a scholar
and a gentleman—I'd like to know who was
responsible for it in the first place."

After tea the Colonel asked if he might smoke
a cigar in the garden, when it was found to be
raining.

No one had ever smoked at Remote, and
Mr. Wycherly felt rather nervous in offering his
room for that purpose.  But Miss Esperance
pressed the Colonel to go and have his smoke
there, and sent him up alone with Mr. Wycherly,
while she, greatly to their indignation, detained
the little boys with her.

"You'll come down and have a chat with us
when you've finished your smoke, Malcolm?"
she said cheerfully.  So it came about that
Mr. Wycherly actually entertained a man of about
his own age and social standing in his room at
Remote.

They seemed to have plenty to say, and the
Colonel's big, jolly laugh rang out from time to
time.

When he came down he took a small boy on
each knee and poked fun at them: till, finally,
out of a perfect farrago of nonsense, they
elucidated the fact that they were to go over to
Pier's Hill twice a week to be drilled and
instructed in the noble art of self-defence: and
that the Colonel would himself write to London
that very night for the two smallest pairs of
boxing-gloves made.

"Did Guardie ask you about it?" Montagu
inquired anxiously.

"Will my soldier teach us?" Edmund demanded
at the same instant.

"Who will take us?" both asked at once, and
before the Colonel could disentangle the
questions his horse was brought round by a lad
engaged for the purpose that very afternoon.
And the weather was discovered to be
perfectly fine.

The whole family turned out to see him
mount and ride off, for Montagu had rushed
upstairs to fetch Mr. Wycherly, that he might not
miss this entrancing spectacle.

The Colonel, as he reached the corner, looked
back at the little group standing by the green
gate and waved his hat to them: and for just
a minute after the landscape seemed a little
blurred.

"There are more ways than one of making
men," he said to a brother officer at mess that
night.  "It's the quaintest household, but upon
my soul, I'm not at all sure that those two
capital little chaps are not rather to be envied."

The Colonel was not familiar with the writings
of a certain monk of Flanders, or he might have
remembered that it is love alone that "maketh
light all that is burthensome and equally bears
all that is unequal."





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.. _`MR. WYCHERLY GOES INTO SOCIETY`:

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   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   MR. WYCHERLY GOES INTO SOCIETY

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  Where is the man who has the power and skill
   |  To stem the torrent of a woman's will?

.. vspace:: 2

While Mr. Gloag was away upon his
holiday a strange minister and his wife
came to look after the congregation at
Burnhead.  The inhabitants regarded them with
more or less suspicion, for they came from a big
town, and their ways were unaccustomed.

Mr. Dewar, the visiting minister, was mild
and inoffensive, with no strongly marked
characteristic of any sort; but Mrs. Dewar, a large,
bustling lady of resolute character and little
tact, succeeded during her first week in offending
the majority of the leading members of the
congregation.

Lady Alicia frankly avowed that "she couldn't
endure the woman"; Miss Esperance said
nothing; the Misses Moffat were encouraged by
Lady Alicia's plain-speaking to go so far as to
remark that Mrs. Dewar was very different
from "our late dear Mrs. Gloag," while the
village women in confabulation at their respective
doors pronounced the newcomer to be "a leddy-buddy,"
which to the initiated subtly conveyed
their opinion that she was not quite a lady.

Still, she was eager to do her duty in this
small, benighted backwater, and she "visited"
with zeal and frequency.

Her second visit to Remote was paid at a time
when Mr. Wycherly happened to have gone
downstairs to ask Miss Esperance a question;
and Mrs. Dewar was shown into the parlour
before he could escape.  And even had such
flight been possible, Miss Esperance held up a
small, imploring hand as Robina announced the
lady's name, which would have kept Mr. Wycherly
at her side to face the wives of
twenty ministers.

Mrs. Dewar was charmed.  She had wanted
all along to meet Mr. Wycherly, and she opened
the conversation at once by shaking a large
kid-gloved forefinger at him, remarking with
ponderous jocosity:

"I didn't see you in the church last
Sabbath—and how was that?"

Mr. Wycherly glanced despairingly at Miss
Esperance, and she came to the rescue by
remarking: "Mr. Wycherly is not a member of
our church, Mrs. Dewar; he is an Episcopalian."

"Ah, but nevertheless," Mrs. Dewar persisted,
"I think he should come and hear Mr. Dewar
preach while he has the opportunity.
It isn't often at a little place like this you get a
man from such an important charge."

"I am sure Burnhead is very fortunate,"
murmured the ever-courteous Mr. Wycherly.

"You may well say that," the lady replied,
highly satisfied, "and I must say that the place
seems to me to be in great need of a little moral
and intellectual quickening.  Of course, poor
Mr. Gloag has been much handicapped in his
work by that poor invalid wife of his."

Miss Esperance always sat up very straight in
her chair, but during Mrs. Dewar's speech her
little figure attained to a positively awe-inspiring
frigidity of displeasure, and Mr. Wycherly
looked anxiously at their visitor as though he
feared she might be turned into a pillar of salt
there and then.

"On the contrary," Miss Esperance remarked,
and her very voice seemed to have withdrawn
itself to some inaccessible altitude, "by the
death of his wife, dear Mr. Gloag has been
deprived of such a perfect helpmeet as is seldom
given to man.  You must certainly have been
strangely misinformed, Mrs. Dewar, to have
acquired such a very mistaken conception of
the true circumstances."

For a moment Mr. Wycherly felt almost sorry
for Mrs. Dewar, but although she could not fail
to be conscious that she had, in vulgar phrase,
"put her foot in it," she was too thick-skinned
and complacent to be crushed.

"I'm sure," she said, making an effort to
speak pleasantly, "I'm very glad to hear what
you say; but really there does seem to be a sad
lack of what my husband calls Spiritual
Freemasonry among the congregation here, and
naturally one judges more or less of the
Shepherd by his sheep."

"I fear," said Miss Esperance, "that it is
exceedingly unsafe to do so in the majority of
cases; including, surely, the fundamental
Example from which your analogy is drawn."

There was a dreadful pause.  Poor Mr. Wycherly
was hot all over.  "If they are going
to talk theology," he thought to himself
desperately, "I shall be compelled to escape by
the window."

"You must, Mrs. Dewar," he exclaimed
recklessly, and then coloured furiously for his
voice sounded so loud, "you must find it very
agreeable to pass a week or two in the country
at this time of year."

"We always go to the country every year,"
Mrs. Dewar rejoined rather huffily, "but
generally to the sea, it is so much better for the
children.  We came here this year solely to
oblige Mr. Gloag," and the many bugles on
Mrs. Dewar's stiff mantle chimed in concert,
as though in approbation of this amiability.

"That was very good of you," said Mr. Wycherly.
"I am sure he badly needed a holiday.
I don't think he has been out of the village
for more than a night or two for over ten
years."

"That's where he makes a great mistake.
My husband always says that a man grows
stagnant unless he gets frequent change of
scene and society.  What you tell me explains
much of the spiritual torpor we deplore in this
village."

"I don't know what you would say to me,
Mrs. Dewar; I should be afraid to confess to
you how many years it is since I have been
out of this village—a great many, I assure you."

"Doubtless you are engaged in various
intellectual pursuits which help to pass the time,"
Mrs. Dewar remarked graciously, and she
smiled upon Mr. Wycherly—all women did
when they got the chance—and during the rest
of her somewhat prolonged visit she addressed
her remarks almost exclusively to him: ignoring
Miss Esperance, who sat still and straight
in her high-backed chair with a look of
considerable amusement in her kind old eyes.

Mr. Wycherly accompanied Mrs. Dewar to
the gate and held it open for her to pass out.

"You must come and see us at the Manse,"
she remarked condescendingly—then confidentially:
"I fear you must find it sadly lonely and
uncongenial living here with only that old lady
for company."

"Pardon me," said Mr. Wycherly, "most
people are only too inclined to envy me the
great, the very great privileges that I enjoy."

And Mrs. Dewar had to learn that it was not
only Miss Esperance who could surround herself
with an atmosphere of almost unapproachable
aloofness.  She concluded her farewell
with some haste, and Mr. Wycherly walked
slowly back to the house.

Montagu met him in the doorway.  "Who
was that lady, Guardie?" he inquired eagerly.
"She stayed an awful time.  Who is she?"

"God made her, and therefore let her pass
for a woman," said Mr. Wycherly dreamily.

Montagu stared at him in astonishment, then
pursued him indoors to find out exactly what
he meant by this cryptic speech; but for once
Mr. Wycherly's explanations were both elusive
and unsatisfactory.

Next day Miss Esperance invaded Mr. Wycherly's
room right in the middle of lessons.
She held an open note in her hand; a note
written on pink paper, with scalloped edges.

"I am sorry to interrupt you," she said, "but
here is an invitation from Miss Maggie Moffat,
asking us both to take tea with them on Friday
at five.  May I accept for you?"

Mr. Wycherly, who had risen at her entrance,
was standing behind his loaded desk.

"Oh, dear Miss Esperance, pray don't!" he
exclaimed piteously.  "You know I never go
out anywhere—and to a tea-party—I shouldn't
know how to behave.  Pray, thank the Misses
Moffat and say that I never go anywhere—it is
most kind of them—but——!

"I'd go if I were you," Montagu suggested,
sprawling over his table and sucking the handle
of his pen; "they have awfully good sorts of
cakes, full of squashy stuff that runs out over
your fingers.  My! but it is good."

"If it required anything to confirm me in my
refusal," Mr. Wycherly said, smiling at Miss
Esperance, "such perilous cakes as those
Montagu describes would do it."

"It would please them very much if you
would go," Miss Esperance said persuasively;
"we shouldn't stay more than an hour."

Mr. Wycherly wrinkled up his forehead in
the greatest perplexity: "But I never go
anywhere," he said again.

"And why not?" Miss Esperance asked
boldly.  "If it were almost anybody else, I
would not press you, but they are so sensitive.
If you don't go they will think it is because
you are proud, and don't think them good
enough."

"Me!  Proud!" ejaculated poor Mr. Wycherly.
"But this is dreadful."

"They stopped us one day," remarked the
pen-sucking Montagu, "and asked if you were
not very stand-off, and Edmund said it was
bosh, and you were nothing of the sort, and
that if they just came and played handy-pandy
with you, they'd soon see."

"Well," said Miss Esperance, tapping the
letter, "what am I to say?"

"O, say Guardie's much obliged and he'll be
very pleased to come, and that we'll be very
pleased to come, too," suggested Montagu, who
appreciated tea at the Misses Moffat's.

"I did not ask you, Montagu," Miss Esperance
remarked with dignity.  "Well, dear friend,
may I say you will go with me?"

"Do you *wish* me to go, Miss Esperance?"
groaned Mr. Wycherly.

"I don't wish you to do anything intensely
disagreeable to yourself, but, if you did go, it
would assuredly give great pleasure to
them—and to me——"

"Then I will go," said Mr. Wycherly; and he
said it with all the resolution of a man
determined to do or die.

The Misses Moffat were greatly flustered, for
Mr. and Mrs. Dewar were also to be of the party,
and to entertain two gentlemen at once was
an unheard-of plunge into the wildest dissipation.

They paid innumerable visits of inspection
to their little dining-room, where the tea-table,
laid early in the afternoon, positively groaned
under its load of dainties.  No less than four
different kinds of jam gleamed jewel-like, each
in a cut-glass dish, at the four corners of the
table: while cookies, soda scones, dropped
scones, short bread, and the cream cakes, so
appreciated by Montagu, were piled up in
abundance on the various plates.  In the centre of
the table was a large *épergne* arranged with
flowers by Miss Jeanie's artistic hands.  These
preparations all completed, there yet remained
the arrangement of the guests at table.

"You see, me dear," said Miss Maggie,
anxiously, "we must ask Mr. Dewar to take
the foot of the table because he's the minister,
and will ask the blessing.  But the question is,
where'll we put Mr. Wycherly?  Because, you
see, whoever sits by Mr. Wycherly will get a
gentleman on either side, which doesn't seem
quite fair somehow.  If we put him on my right
hand and give him Mrs. Dewar for a partner,
then she'll be seated next her husband, and
that doesn't seem quite correct; and yet, if we
put Miss Esperance Bethune there, that's not
right, either, and her seeing him every day."

"Don't you think," Miss Jeanie suggested,
"that he'd better sit on your right hand and
Mrs. Dewar on your left, with Miss Bethune
between Mr. and Mrs. Dewar, and I'll separate
the gentlemen?"

"We mustn't think of ourselves on occasions
like these," Miss Maggie said, with just a tinge
of reproof in her voice; "it's not a matter to
be settled hastily."

"Well, there's not many ways we can sit
unless you give up having Mr. Dewar at the
bottom of the table," Miss Jeanie responded
sharply.

"That," Miss Maggie replied solemnly, "is a
necessity—because of the blessing."

So, after all, Miss Jeanie had it her way.

Mr. Wycherly had assuredly never been at a
similar tea-party.

At the very beginning of the meal his polite
commonplaces to Miss Maggie were drowned by
the minister's voice, as with uplifted hand he
asked a lengthy blessing.  Mr. Wycherly was
rather startled, but he bent his head decorously,
and when it was over continued his sentence
where he had broken off.

Mrs. Dewar was so odiously patronising to
the Misses Moffat that Mr. Wycherly unconsciously
ranged himself on their side, devoting
himself to the entertainment of Miss Maggie,
so that she became hopelessly flustered and
forgot to ask Mrs. Dewar if she would take
some more tea—an omission pointed out by
the neglected lady with some asperity.

Mr. Wycherly filled the soul of Miss Jeanie
with rapture by telling her how Montagu and
Edmund were consumed with envy because they
were not invited.  When tea was over and they
repaired to the front parlour he looked anxiously
at Miss Esperance.  Surely the stipulated hour
must be up.  The Misses Moffat were quite
endurable: kind and simple and almost pathetic
in their tremulous eagerness to please.  But
Mrs. Dewar was getting on his nerves, and she
insisted on addressing her conversation to him
as though she were on much more familiar
terms with him than the rest of the party, a
dreadful supposition not to be borne for an
instant.

"Perhaps," said Miss Maggie, beaming upon
her guests, "the gentlemen would like a game
of draughts."

Mr. Wycherly's heart went down into his
boots.  Some years ago he would truthfully
have said he didn't play draughts; since then,
however, Mr. Gloag had taught him that he, in
his turn, might teach the little boys; and
Mr. Wycherly was scrupulously accurate in all his
statements.

Miss Esperance came to the rescue.  "I
fear," said she, "that we must be going.  We
promised the children that we would be home
by about six."

Miss Esperance never made any plan that
she did not intend to carry out, and five minutes
later she and Mr. Wycherly were on their way
home.  The little boys were waiting for them
at the gate and volunteered to take Mr. Wycherly
for a walk.

Miss Esperance stood looking after them and
her eyes were fond and proud.  Old Elsa came
out to ask her mistress something about the
supper and joined her at the gate, and she, too,
looked after the trio marching down the road,
Mr. Wycherly, as usual, in the middle, with a
small boy hanging on to either hand.

"He's awfu' kind to they bairns," said Elsa.
"They've wauken'd him up extraordinar'.  He's
no' the same gentleman he was afore they came."

"*He* is exactly the same, Elsa," Miss Esperance
said gently.  "Circumstances have changed,
and God in His great mercy has seen fit to call
out the many beautiful qualities with which He
has endowed His servant.  But Mr. Wycherly
is not changed."

Elsa's face softened, as it always did when
she looked at her mistress.

"I'm thinkin', mem," she said, "that though
the Lord has seen fit to do much, He made you
His instrument."

Gradually by slow degrees, but daily more
and more, was Mr. Wycherly shaken out of his
groove.  It was he who took the little boys
twice a week to be drilled at Pier's Hill; when
Mr. Gloag came back, he even went occasionally
to the Manse to play chess with him because
Miss Esperance declared the minister to be so
lonely.  And, more wonderful still, that winter
he made two or three journeys to Shrewsbury
to confer with Mr. Woodhouse and see after his
affairs in person, leaving Montagu in charge of
Miss Esperance and the household.





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.. _`MONTAGU AND HIS AUNT`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   MONTAGU AND HIS AUNT

.. vspace:: 1

In a space of shining and fragrant clarity you have a vision
of marble columns and stately cities, of men august in
single-heartedness and strength, and women comely and simple and
superb as goddesses; and with a music of leaves and winds
and waters, of plunging ships and clanging armours, of girls
at song and kindly gods discoursing, the sunny-eyed heroic
age is revealed in all its nobleness, in all its majesty, its
candour, and its charm.—W. E. HENLEY.

.. vspace:: 2

It happened that Elsa died quite suddenly
while Mr. Wycherly was away upon one of
these journeys, and Miss Esperance would not
let him be told, lest he should—as he most
assuredly would—hasten home to her assistance.
It was a very cold spring, and Miss Esperance
drove into Edinburgh to make arrangements
for Elsa's funeral, in pouring rain and in the
teeth of a cutting east wind.  She caught a bad
cold, but being naturally very upset at the
time and having a great deal to see to, she
took but little care of herself, and was laid
aside with a sharp attack of bronchitis before
Robina had realised that there was anything
the matter.

Robina, with the best intentions in life, was
no nurse.  She worried Miss Esperance, and
yet that decided little lady would have no
stranger in the house.  So it ended in Montagu—who
was then nearly twelve years old—doing
everything for her, deftly, quietly, and with the
gentle skill so often developed by dreamy
people when they are roused to action.

During his aunt's illness the little boy slept
in a large cupboard off her bedroom; and that
he might the better be able to attend to her
wants through the night, and yet not entirely
lose his sleep (as he did during the first night he
was on duty), he tied one end of a long string
round his big toe and the other round his
patient's wrist, and if Miss Esperance wanted the
fire made up, or fresh poultices, or the "jelly
drink" she was too weak to reach for herself,
she would give the string a gentle pull, and
Montagu, who was a light sleeper, was by her
side in a moment, quick to hear her faintest
whisper.

During that time Montagu learned to know
his aunt as he never could have done under any
other circumstances.  As her breathing grew
easier, and her wonderful constitution—result
of a life temperate and self-denying in all
things—reasserted itself, they would have long and
intimate talks, and the little boy learned a
great deal about "the family" of which Miss
Esperance was very proud.  It had been settled
that at Mr. Wycherly's death Montagu was to
take his name.  "He has no son, my dear, and
he has done so much for us that we could not
refuse him this; but I would have you remember
always that you are a Bethune.  There have
been some bad men among them and many
good—but bad and good alike, they have all
been Scottish gentlemen.  You will be educated
in England, Montagu, you will go to the English
church, and you will learn English ways—good
and pleasant ways they are which go to the
making of such men as our dear friend—so
wise and kind and unselfish.  But never forget
that you yourself are a Bethune, for it is a proud
name to bear."

And then the dear old lady would show him
the family's coat-of-arms in a little, fat, square
calf-bound "Scots *Compendium* of Rudiments
of Honour.  Containing the succession of *Scots
Kings* from Fergus, who founded the Monarchy.
ALSO the Nobility of Scotland Present and
Extinct—The Fifth edition improved and
brought down to the year 1752."

From this work Montagu would read aloud
to his aunt almost as often as from the Bible
itself, and would shudder as he read how one
Archibald Bethune was "famish'd at Falkland
in the year 1592 so that he nearly dy'd," but
escaping to France "did afterward marry one
Esperance de Lanois, daughter of a Marshal of
France—" "and since then," Miss Esperance
would interrupt eagerly, "there was never
another Esperance Bethune till I was born."

"I think she must have been like you," Montagu
said, "kind to him because he was so thin
from being famish'd."

Miss Esperance laughed softly.  "She was a
girl of sixteen, my dear, when he married her."

"I'd rather marry you than any girl of sixteen
that I've ever seen," Montagu said stoutly.
"You're much prettier than any of them—except
perhaps Margaret," he added, for he was
very faithful in his enthusiasms.

Indeed, there were many who would have
agreed with him, if they could have seen Miss
Esperance at that moment, sitting up in bed
propped up with pillows, with a pink bed jacket,
not half such a dainty colour as her flushed
cheeks, and the adorable white "mutch"
framing the shimmering silver of her hair.

And here it must be confessed that it is just
possible that Miss Esperance knew perfectly
well what a pretty old lady she was; for all the
other old ladies of her time wore "fronts"—dreadful,
aggressive, black, brown or yellow
fronts—whether they had any hair or not.  To
wear one's own white hair was unusual even to
boldness; and yet, Miss Esperance, most
decorous and delicately feminine of womankind,
quietly ignored this unpleasing fashion, and was
beautiful even as nature had intended her to be.

Many and exciting were the Jacobite stories
she told to Montagu, till his enthusiasm for the
house of Stuart knew no bounds.  He read
aloud gracefully and with understanding, and
his reading of the Bible was a never-failing
source of delight to Miss Esperance.  She would
lie with shining eyes and overflowing heart
while the boy's voice, gravely emphatic and
justly modulated, proclaimed to her the divine
message to which she had ever lent so willing
an ear.  She even grew accustomed to the
enunciation of Montagu's "extraordinary
views"; as, when one day he had read to her
the story of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite,
he said dreamily: "It's curious, isn't it, how
disagreeable nearly all the women in the Bible are?"

"Oh, Montagu!" Miss Esperance exclaimed
distressedly.  "Think of the mother of our
Lord, and Mary, and Martha, and Dorcas——"

"Well, aunt," he interrupted, "you know in
the Old Testament there's very few of them at
all kind and nice.  The Greek women were far
better: look at Alcestis, and Penelope, and
Polyxena!  I don't like those Hebrew women
at all; they were so vindictive and dishonourable.
Fancy you behaving like Sara or Rachel
or Jael!—why even Helen was far nicer than
most of them, and she wasn't considered
particularly good though she was so beautiful."

"Tell me about Alcestis," said Miss Esperance,
lying back on her pillows and feeling unequal
just then to a discussion regarding the relative
merits of Hebrew and Greek women.

"I'll fetch you Mr. Wycherly's 'Euripides,'"
Montagu cried eagerly, "and read it to you in
English as he used to read it to me.  I really
think, Aunt Esperance, if you'll only listen
carefully you'll like it almost as well as the
Bible!"

And Montagu fled from the room before his
aunt's horrified expostulations reached him.

Then began a series of readings from
Euripides, followed by arguments between Miss
Esperance and Montagu which would have
convulsed Mr. Wycherly had he been there to
hear them.

Their extreme earnestness bridged over the
gulf of years between them, and it must be
confessed that Miss Esperance took the greatest
delight in picking holes in the characters of
some of Montagu's heroes.

It was quite useless for Montagu, in imitation
of Mr. Wycherly's methods, to point out that
such and such ideas were so deeply rooted in
the national character as to be a part of it.
Miss Esperance would only shake her pretty
white head, exclaiming: "Na! na! my dear
laddie—right is right, and wrong wrong, and
that man Admetus was just no better than a
coward: grumbling at his parents, forsooth,
because they wouldn't die in his place;
accepting his wife's sacrifice and then blaming
those poor old people.  Oh, I've no patience
with him, a poor-spirited creature—no man he!"

In spite, however, of the shortcomings in the
character of Admetus, the most human of the
Greek dramatists certainly attracted Miss
Esperance.  She inquired in a detached and
impersonal manner whether there was not a
printed translation of "Ion" in the house, and
looked distinctly disappointed when Montagu
informed her that there was no such thing.
She had perforce to leave the characters in no
matter what impasse whenever Montagu stopped
reading, as he would occasionally for very
mischief, at the most exciting place, just for the
pleasure of being asked to "go on a little longer,
dear laddie, I shall not sleep if I don't know for
certain whether that poor body Kreusa knew
that fine young man Ion for her son or no'."

But directly afterward her conscience smote
her, and she herself stopped Montagu; fearing
that, entertaining as these plays undoubtedly
were, they were apt perhaps to distract her
mind from higher things; and she bade him
take Euripides back to Mr. Wycherly's room,
and bring her Jeremy Taylor instead.  When
Montagu would read "The Remedies Against
Wandering Thoughts," "The Remedies of
Temptations Proper to Sickness," or "General
Exercises Preparatory to Death."





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.. _`THE FOND ADVENTURE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE FOND ADVENTURE

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..

   |  But warily tent, when ye come to court me,
   |  And come na unless the back—yett be ajee.
   |                                  *Old Song.*

.. vspace:: 2

Miss Esperance was decidedly better,
and she had at last allowed Montagu to
tell Mr. Wycherly of old Elsa's sudden death,
and also of her own illness.  The letter, according
to her instructions, put it, that she had been
"rather ailing," and this guarded statement
produced a telegram from Mr. Wycherly
announcing his return next day.

Therefore the little household was commanded
to retire especially early, and by half-past eight
that night every light in Remote, save that of
the fires, was extinguished; and the whole
family were, as Robina would have put it,
"safely bedded."

Miss Esperance had that evening insisted that
Montagu should return to the bedroom he
shared with Edmund; declaring that she was
perfectly capable of getting anything that she
wanted for herself.  No one guessed how terribly
Miss Esperance missed old Elsa's ministrations
at every turn, for the old woman, though
frail and incapable of any hard work for some
time past, was yet most jealous of all personal
service to her mistress, and Robina had never
been permitted to do anything that brought her
into direct contact with that lady.

Robina, bustling, buxom, industrious, and
far handsomer at three and twenty than she
had been at seventeen, had for a long time now
entirely managed the housework; but as a
personal attendant she left much to be desired.
When she brought her mistress a cup of excellent
beef-tea, she invariably slopped it over into the
saucer, often on to the tray-cloth.  She was
economically minded, too, as regards laundry
work (most people are when they have to do
it themselves), and looked upon stains as a
very minor matter in setting out a tray.  It
was Montagu who noticed the intense disfavour
with which Miss Esperance regarded such small
untidinesses: how often the nourishing dishes
prepared by Robina with the utmost care were
sent away untasted because they were not
daintily served; and he took the matter and
the trays into his own hands, with the result
that things were served even as Elsa had served
them, and Miss Esperance drank her beef-tea
without remark.

Not that she was unobservant; she noted
everything that Montagu did for her; and even
when she was at her weakest and worst, she was
filled with a tender, admiring sort of amusement
at the boy's deft, dainty ways of waiting upon
her—ways undoubtedly acquired during his
long and close association with Mr. Wycherly.

At first Robina exclaimed in horror at the
enormous number of tray-cloths and dinner
napkins discarded by Montagu if they had the
smallest spot or stain; but Montagu pointed
out that it was better to have mountains of
washing than that his aunt should be starved;
and the girl gave in gracefully, for she was very
eager to fill Elsa's place as far as she possibly
could.

There is no doubt that she thoroughly
enjoyed her new dignity and independence, and
she wrote to the still faithful Sandie that he
might, if he was in the mind, look in and see
her one evening—"the mistress had said she
was perfectly willing, though still confined to
her bed."

Sandie was now in partnership with a butcher
on the other side of Edinburgh, ten long miles
from Burnhead, and the bicycle was not within
everybody's reach in those days.  Still he
managed every fortnight or so to get over to see
Robina, for they were now formally betrothed,
and their engagement was smiled upon by the
authorities.

Sandie wanted to get married at once, but
Robina had declared long before Elsa's death
that she could not bring herself to leave Miss
Esperance, and now she felt that such a course
was quite out of the question.  Besides, she was
in no hurry to get married.  That she could get
married, and well married, whenever she liked
was a matter for complacent reflection, but
otherwise she was very contented with things
as they were.

Sandie was hardly so satisfied.  If not exactly
an ardent lover, he had assuredly proved
himself a very faithful one, and he ruled his life
largely by the somewhat strict conceptions of
Robina.

.. vspace:: 2

Montagu was very tired.  He had had a hard
fortnight, with many broken, anxious nights.
The responsibility had lain heavily on his young,
slender shoulders.  He was supremely thankful
that Mr. Wycherly would be home on the
morrow.  It was pleasant to lie once more in
his big four-post bed instead of in the somewhat
cramped and stuffy cupboard where he had
spent his nights lately.  He stretched himself
luxuriously, and turned and turned that he
might find the absolutely comfortable position
in which to fall asleep.  But somehow sleep
would not come.  Every smallest sound disturbed
him.  Whenever a little piece of cinder
fell into the grate from the fire in his aunt's
bedroom, he started up to listen, thinking she had
moved and might want him.  But all was
perfectly quiet.

Edmund, who preserved his infantile capacity
for falling asleep directly he lay down, slumbered
peacefully in the little bed beside the big
one.  Miss Esperance slept the heavy, dreamless
sleep of old age and exhaustion.  Mause,
old now and very deaf, slept soundly in her
kennel outside the little house, and Robina
already slept the healthy sleep of hard-working
youth.  Only the little boy in the big bed with
carved oaken posts and brocade canopy lay
wide-eyed and wakeful with that dreadful,
useless wakefulness that comes sometimes to the
overtired.  There was no moon to shine
companionably through the blind, the room was in
absolute, black darkness, and when Montagu
had been in bed about half an hour it seemed
to him that it must be the middle of the night.
The casement window was wide open, but the
night was so still that the blind never stirred.
Again and again he sat up to listen for some
sound from his aunt's room; it would have been
a relief had she wanted him, but there was no
sound of any kind.

Still he could not sleep, and at last his listening
was rewarded, for he heard a step outside—a
stealthy step that paused hesitating, then
crept fumblingly forward.

There was no doubt whatever that it was a
step; and Montagu, convinced that it must at
least be midnight, immediately jumped to the
conclusion that whoever was there could be
there for no lawful purpose.

If it was a burglar, he must be got away
without noise.  That was Montagu's first
thought.  On no account must Miss Esperance
be wakened or alarmed.

He flew out of bed, and, squeezing in behind
the dressing-table, leant out of the window.
Soft, impenetrable, wet darkness met him and
enveloped him.  A fine rain was falling, and he
could see nothing, but he distinctly heard the
hesitating footsteps turn and go round the
house toward the front.

Softly, on naked feet, he made his way to
Edmund's side and shook him.  But Edmund
was difficult to wake, for Montagu did not dare
to speak above a whisper, and it was not until
he had reiterated several times: "There's
someone creeping round the house; it's a thief,
probably," in the eeriest of stage whispers, that
Edmund was roused.

When he did grasp the situation, however,
he arose instantly, exclaiming in a joyful
whisper, "Come on, and let's bash his head for him;
then he can make no noise, nor break in
neither."

"That's all very well," said the more cautious
Montagu, whose teeth were chattering, partly
from cold and partly from fear for his aunt.
"We've got to catch him first.  Let's come to
Guardie's room and see if we can get a glimpse
of the fellow from the window.  The night's
as black as pitch though."

Very quietly Montagu lit a candle, and the
two little boys sped across the landing to
Mr. Wycherly's room.

"Close the door behind you and that'll stifle
his groans," the valiant Edmund whispered as
they reached their goal.  "I just wish we had
the villain here."

"I don't," Montagu responded gloomily, "he
might jump about and make no end of a row
before we got him under."

They had no sort of doubt as to their ultimate
triumph over the nefarious designs of this
prowling stranger, but they were, unfortunately,
handicapped by the necessity for extreme quietude.

"I expect it's the parlour he'll be wanting to
break into," Edmund suggested.  "All those
silver cups and things on the sideboard, you
know.  The basket with the forks and spoons is
in aunt's room.  We must take care he doesn't
go there.  Don't let him see a light!" and
Edmund promptly blew out the candle that Montagu held.

Together they softly opened the window and
leant out.  Neither could, of course, see anything,
nor at the moment was anything to be heard.

"We'll wait a wee while," Edmund whispered.
And wait they did in breathless silence,
shoulder pressed to shoulder, the only
sound the quick beating of their hearts.

Their patience was rewarded.  The hesitating
steps came slowly round to the front of the
house and paused under their very window.
Then somebody gave a low whistle.

Montagu dragged Edmund back from the
window.  "That's to summon his confederates.
What'll we do?  If there's more than one,
they're sure to wake Aunt Esperance and
frighten her dreadfully.  We must do
something—quick!"

"Will I fling out the poker on the chance of
hitting him?" inquired Edmund, who had
already provided himself with that weapon.

"No, that won't do, for if you don't hit him,
it would warn him we'd seen him——"

"Perhaps it would make him run away."

"Not it.  I've got it!  Let's empty the ewer
of water over him first.  I think he's just under
the window, and that's sure to startle him, and
he'll jump out.  Then you must say in an
awful voice, 'Throw up your hands without a
sound (you mustn't say it loud, mind) or you're
a dead man.'  And you'll light the candle and
show me holding one of the big pistols hanging
at the stair-head.  I brought one in with me."

"I don't think he'd better see you," Edmund
objected; "he mightn't be a bit terrified."

"Perhaps we'd better keep the room dark,
then, and mebbe he'll think it's Guardie."

"Guardie's voice isn't a bit awful.  I'll be a
lot more frightening than him, I can tell you.
Have you got that jug?  Steady, now; mind
you don't let the ewer go, too, else we'd catch
it from Robina.  Listen a minute!"

Again the low whistle immediately under
their window.

Very carefully they balanced the heavy bedroom
jug on the window-sill.  "It must go all
at once in one big splash!" Montagu whispered,
"*Now!*"

A very big splash undoubtedly followed.

A series of gasps, and the sound of a voice
raised in lamentation exclaiming: "Lord hae
mercy!  What like a way's that to greet a
body?  An' it that dark I couldna' find the
back door.  Hoo was I tae ken ye'd a' be gane
tae yer beds at nine o'clock?  Ye didna' use
to be sae awfu' airly.  But I'll just tell you this,
Robina lass, it's the last time you'll catch me
trailin' awa' over here to speer after ye—to get
sic a like cauld welcome, as though it wasna'
wet eneugh onny wye.  I'm din, I can tell ye."

Montagu clutched Edmund by the arm, exclaiming
in horrified tones, "I do believe it's
Sandie Croall."  Then leaning as far out of the
window as he could, "Is it you, Sandie?
Because, if so, we're most awfully sorry; only
please don't speak so loud, for Aunt Esperance
is asleep, and she's been so ill.  We thought you
must be somebody trying to break in.  What
made you come in the middle of the night?"

"It's no' the middle o' the night," Sandie
grunted indignantly, "the church clock has
only just chappit nine.  It happened I could
get over, an' I thocht I'd just look in an' see
Robiny—little thinkin' I'd get sic a like
reception.  I'm jest drooket through an' through.
What for did ye no' speer wha it was, young
gentleman, and no' go droonin' honest folk?"

"Would you like to come in and get dry?"
Edmund suggested hospitably; "there's sure
to be some fire in the kitchen."

"No, thank ye," Sandie replied, still somewhat
huffy, "I'll get awa' hame to my mither,
an' she'll dry my claes to me whiles I'm in my
bed."

"Shall I tell Robina you called?" Montagu
asked politely.

Sandie paused.  "I'm thinkin', young gentleman,"
he remarked severely, "that the less you
say about to-night's wark the better it will be
for you.  If I am content to pass the matter
over with obleevion, it's the least you can dae to
dae the same."

"We're most awfully sorry," the boys said
once more in subdued chorus.

"Just gang awa' back tae yer beds," said
Sandie, and with these parting words he felt
his way out to the green gate, and they heard
his footsteps going plop-plop on the wet road
till they died away in the distance.

Edmund sighed.  "It was a pity we couldn't
bash his head or anything," he murmured
regretfully.  "I hope a real one'll come some day
when Aunt Esperance is well, and we don't
need to be so hushified.  Then we could have
a jolly good mill."

Rather dispirited and extremely cold they
crept back to bed.

"I wonder," Montagu murmured thoughtfully,
"why he didn't want Robina to know
he'd been here."

Edmund gave a smothered laugh.  "My
word, but he did catch his breath when we
douched him, an' wasn't he cross when he
thought it was Robina?  I wonder if she's ever
done it before?"





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.. _`A QUESTION OF THEOLOGY`:

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   CHAPTER XX


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   A QUESTION OF THEOLOGY

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   |  Nae shauchlin' testimony here—
   |  We were a' damned, an' that was clear,
   |  I owned, wi' gratitude an' wonder,
   |  He was a pleisure to sit under.
   |                              R.L.S.

.. vspace:: 2

The while that Mr. Wycherly looked after
Montagu's secular education, Miss Esperance
undertook the religious, and long,
weary Sunday evenings did he spend in wrestling
with the polemics of the "Shorter Catechism."

"Why shorter?" he would ask bitterly.  "It's
as long as ever it can be."

"There's a longer one than that, my dear
son," Miss Esperance would answer cheerfully;
"but you won't need to learn it unless you
become a minister."

"I shall never be a minister," said Montagu
firmly, one day when he had made four
mistakes in the answer which defines "Effectual
Calling"—an answer, by the way, which he
could have learned in two minutes had he been
in the slightest degree interested.  "I shall
never be a minister.  I shall be an Epicurean
when I'm grown up.  Mr. Wycherly was telling
me about them yesterday, and I liked them."

Miss Esperance gave a positive gasp of
dismayed astonishment.  "Oh, my dear!" she
exclaimed.  "I hope that you will always be
too sincere a Christian ever to dream of being
anything else.  I must indeed have taught you
badly that any such idea should be possible."

"Oh, no, dear aunt," said Montagu reassuringly,
rubbing his head against her shoulder.
"It's not that at all; but people do sometimes
change their religion, you know, when they're
grown up—like Calvin and Luther you told me
about—and you know I really think I like the
old gods best; they were very pleasant on the
whole."

"Montagu, Montagu, you don't know what
you are saying!  Those heathen gods that you
speak of never existed.  There were no such
beings."

"Are you sure, auntie?" Montagu asked
earnestly.  "They sound very real, quite as
real, and much cheerfuller than—the Shorter
Catechism," he concluded lamely, checked by
the unfeigned horror he saw in his aunt's
face.

Miss Esperance took off her spectacles and
wiped them, then she put them on again and
laid her frail old hand over the square, brown
little hand lying on her knee, saying gently:
"Montagu, dear, you are talking of what you
do not understand.  It will in no wise be
counted against you *because* you do not
understand, but you must not say such things;
really, my dear boy, you *must* not, and it
grieves me the more in that I somehow must
be in fault.  My teaching has in no way been
blest if you are so filled with doubts already."

Poor Miss Esperance looked terribly
distressed, and the little boy at her knee, who,
child as he was, had realised her sweetness and
her truth every day of the years he had been
with her, wondered, with a sorrowful vagueness,
what he could have said to vex her so.  And
inasmuch as he could find no words to express
the thoughts that were in him he flung his arms
round his aunt's neck, exclaiming: "I love you
so, I won't be an Epicurean if you don't want
me to; but you know, dear Auntie, it must
have been so happy in those days—there were
never any Sabbaths."

Miss Esperance held him close and prayed
silently; she even forbore to dilate upon the
blessed privileges of that Sabbath which, as she
had just been instructing Montagu, "is to be
sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even
from such worldly employments and recreations
as are lawful on other days; and spending
the whole time in the public and private
exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to
be taken up in the works of necessity and
mercy."

"Is dinner a necessity or a mercy?" Montagu
had asked one day, he himself being distinctly
inclined to look upon it as a mercy, for it
followed morning church, and after the children
came, in deference to a suggestion of
Mr. Wycherly's, founded upon certain youthful
reminiscences of his own, there was always
dessert on Sundays.

Now it happened that on the Sunday previous
to Montagu's announcement of his approaching
conversion to Epicureanism, the Reverend
Peter Gloag had given a lengthy and vigorous
discourse on Eternal Punishment.  He was a
true disciple of Calvin in that he believed that
the majority of mankind needed herding into
the right path by the sheep-dog of sheer terror
as to what would most certainly befall them
should they stray from it; and he succeeded in
striking dire dismay to the very soul of one
small member of his congregation.  The
minister had also touched upon predestination and
election, and Montagu, who was tender-hearted
and imaginative, was suddenly panic-stricken
by the idea that perhaps he and Edmund, and
even Mr. Wycherly, who never came to church,
might be already numbered among those whom
the Reverend Peter Gloag had denounced as
being "rejected, left to sin, to unbelief, and to
perdition."

Long after he was put to bed in the big four-post
bed, while Edmund slept peacefully in the
little bed beside him, did Montagu lie awake
wondering whether he would die that night.
The very prayer that he said every evening at
his aunt's knee took on a new and terrible
significance:

   |  If I should die before I wake,
   |  I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
   |

Montagu repeated it over and over again
with dry lips, while he turned from side to side
in a vain endeavour to get away from the
constant beating as of a hammer upon an anvil
that sounded ceaselessly in his ears.

"If I should die"—the child whispered to
himself, then gradually he fell once more into
thinking of his beloved Greeks; they, too, if
they did not actually fear death, met it
sorrowfully, for it meant leaving the bright light of
the sun, and presently the reiterated "If I
should die" changed to the cry of Alcestis,
"Lay me down, I have no strength in my feet.
Hades is nigh at hand, and dark night steals
over mine eyes."  Then more familiar and less
terrible came the thought of that "old man,
the guide of the dead, who sitteth at the oar
and the helm"—who in Montagu's mind was
inextricably mixed up with a saturnine old
boatman he knew at Leith, till at last he drifted
into the blessed haven of sleep.

Next day in the Horace lesson Mr. Wycherly
happened to mention that in religion he was an
Epicurean, whereupon Montagu, as was his
wont, asked innumerable questions, which his
tutor set himself to answer as fully as possible;
dilating, in his pleasantly detached and
impersonal fashion, on the fact that Epicureanism
pure and undefiled did away with the fear of
death among its professors; and quoted the
philosopher himself to the effect that "When
we are, death is not; and when death is, we are
not."  How that in his time the great incubus
of human happiness was fear—fear of the gods
and fear of death—and that pleasure pursued
with prudence and tempered by justice and
self-control was the true end and aim of all wise
men.

That what he said could by any remote
possibility have any personal application to
Montagu never occurred to him for a moment.  He
described the doctrines of Epicurus with as
little expectation of their affecting the boy's
attitude toward life as that the use of the
prolative infinitive in his Latin prose should cause
him any searchings of the heart.  But he had
reckoned without the minister, for Montagu,
fresh from the terrors of the previous night,
suddenly determined to adopt as his own a
religion which seemed so singularly free from
any disquieting tenets.

Edmund's curly head was never perplexed or
troubled with vain imaginings or hankerings
after the old gods; but equally little did he
aspire to any considerable knowledge of the
Shorter Catechism.  Lessons of any kind he
frankly detested, and as he learned by heart
with difficulty, he "went through," in two
senses, an inordinate number of "Shorter
Catechisms" in the cinnamon paper bindings,
such as Miss Esperance was wont to provide
for the instruction of her grand-nephews.
Hardly ever did Edmund get any answer
absolutely without mistake, except the one which
replies to the question, "What is the misery
of that estate whereinto man fell?"  When he
would respond in a dismal sort of chant, "All
mankind by their fall lost communion with
God, are under His wrath and curse, and so
made liable to all miseries in this life, to death
itself, and to the pains of Hell for ever."  This
Edmund would repeat with positive relish till
sensitive Montagu shook in his shoes, and
wished harder than ever that he had been born
in an age when there seemed fewer possibilities
of wrong-doing, followed by such appalling
punishment; and youths and maidens, light-footed,
crowned with garlands, trooped gaily
to propitiate their easy-going gods by means of
gifts.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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On the evening of the day on which Montagu
had announced his preference for the doctrines
of Epicurus Miss Esperance knocked at the
door of Mr. Wycherly's study about nine o'clock.
This was a most unusual proceeding on her
part, for they rarely met after supper, as Miss
Esperance usually went to bed about a quarter
to nine.

When Mr. Wycherly saw her standing on the
threshold he rose hastily and led her in and set
her in his special chair by the fire, taking up his
own position on the hearth-rug.  The reading
lamp shone full on Miss Esperance, but his
face was in shadow.

"Mr. Wycherly, I am anxious about Montagu,"
Miss Esperance began somewhat tremulously.

"Is he ill?" that gentleman interpolated
hastily.  "He seemed quite well at dinner-time."

"Oh, he's well enough in health, I think, I
am thankful to think—but—" here Miss
Esperance paused as if she found it somewhat
difficult to broach the subject, "I am not
equally confident as to his spiritual condition."

"His spiritual condition!" Mr. Wycherly
repeated vaguely.  "Montagu's!  He is surely a
very young boy to have attained to a—spiritual
condition?"

"That's just it," said Miss Esperance,
despair in her voice, and grave disquietude writ
large upon her face.  "That's just it.  Would
you not say that he was far too young to be
assailed by doubts?  Would you not expect so
young a child to accept the teaching of our
religion without question or rebellion?  And
yet Montagu—"  Here poor Miss Esperance
again faltered, then by a mighty effort forcing
herself to voice the dreadful thing—"told me
to-day, when I was hearing him the Shorter
Catechism, that he intended to become an
Epicurean when he was grown up!  What are
we to do with him?"

It was well for Mr. Wycherly that his face was
in shadow, for although his mouth remained
quite grave, there were little puckers round the
corners of his eyes, not wholly to be accounted
for by the lines that time had drawn there.  He
coughed slightly, and cleared his throat.  "Am
I, dear Miss Esperance, to gather that you think
I am in some degree to blame for Montagu's
unregenerate frame of mind?" he asked gently.

"Not to blame!" she hastily ejaculated.
"Not to blame!  But perhaps he is learning
rather too much about those old days, those
unenlightened heathen times, and evidently
you render it all so entertaining that he gets
rather carried away, and is unable to distinguish
between what is mere fable and what is
historical, vital truth.  He is very little," she
continued pleadingly.  "Do you think it is
quite wholesome for him to learn so much
mythology?  Don't you think it is apt to
unsettle him?"

Mr. Wycherly was silent for a minute.  "Do
you know," he asked suddenly, "that with the
exception of the little 'gilt-books' you had as
a child, we haven't a single child's book in the
house?  Perhaps I was wrong to discuss any
school of philosophy with him—but as regards
mythology, I have only told Montagu such
stories as are in reality the foundation of most
of the child-stories that have ever been written.
I don't think they have really hurt him, and
such knowledge will be of use to him by and by."

"But why should he seem positively to
dislike proper religious instruction?" persisted
Miss Esperance.  "I am sure that when I was
a child it never occurred to me to do other than
learn what was set me with the greatest
reverence.  Montagu's critical and rebellious
attitude was undreamt of in my young days."

"Montagu has a curiously analytic mind,"
said Mr. Wycherly slowly, "and a passionate
longing for pleasantness and gaiety.  It is
probably inherited.  You remember dear Archie
loved cheerfulness, and perhaps that poor young
mother—a Cornish girl, if I remember
rightly—perhaps she, too, had the Southern love of
colour and brightness in life.  We are old people
to have to do with children, Miss Esperance,
and I—perhaps my aim has been too
exclusively to teach Montagu to love study by
making the approach to it as pleasant as
possible.  It is a great temptation, for I find him
so docile, so receptive, so eager to please.  But
perhaps I have been wrong—though Socrates
would bear me out.  It is pleasant to wander
in the Elysian fields with a young boy—but if
you think—"  Mr. Wycherly's voice had
dropped almost to a whisper, and here he
paused altogether.  He seemed to have been
talking to himself rather than to Miss Esperance,
and to be looking past her into that pleasaunce
of memory which is the priceless heritage of
the old.  Miss Esperance did not interrupt him,
and presently he went on again.  "Perhaps the
recollection of my own mother that is clearest
to me is that of seeing her come dancing down
a garden path toward me.  To me now she
seems so inexpressibly young, and gay, and
gracious; and I have remembered her more
distinctly lately, because the other day when
I was reading with Montagu that portion of
the Odyssey which describes Nausicaa at play
among her maidens, he interrupted me to
exclaim: '*My* mother was like that, so
beautiful!'  Now he has never spoken to me of his
mother before.  I did not even know that he
remembered her, and it has made me think of
how distinctly I remember my own.  She was
not five and twenty when she died."

Miss Esperance sat upright in Mr. Wycherly's
chair, the lamplight falling full on her troubled
face.  In spite of her ready sympathy, a
sympathy so spontaneous that it seemed to give
itself at all times independently of her volition,
she felt that her dear old friend was wandering
from the real question at issue.  It was all
very well to point out that Montagu loved
beauty.  She was perfectly aware of it herself,
and it was not without an agreeable thrill that
she recalled a little scene enacted that very
evening.  Montagu, according to custom, had
been reading aloud to her from one of the very
"Gilt-Books" Mr. Wycherly had mentioned,
when the child came upon the somewhat gratuitous
and ungrammatical assertion with regard
to the fleeting character of personal beauty:
"People's faces soon alter; when they grow old,
nobody looks handsome."

Then Montagu brought his fist down on the
page with a thump, declaring indignantly:
"That's nonsense!  You and Mr. Wycherly are
both old—and you are quite beautiful.  There's
a beautiful oldness as well, don't you think so,
Aunt Esperance?"

The delicate colour that came and went so
easily flushed her face as Miss Esperance met
the child's eager, admiring eyes.  "For none
more than children are concerned for beauty,
and, above all, for beauty in the old."  She not
only thought so, but knew so; but it was not
the custom for women of her stamp to acknowledge
that they took any sort of interest in
their personal appearance, and although she
was distinctly gratified, she merely shook her
head, saying gravely: "What the writer would
point out, Montagu, is this—that without
beauty of character mere personal beauty is of
but small account."

Montagu, unlike Miss Esperance, who never
allowed her back to "come in contact with
her chair," lolled comfortably in his,
disposed to argue the question.  "I think it
matters very much how people look," he
said decidedly.  "I hope I shall grow up to
look like Achilles in the book Mr. Wycherly gave me."

Miss Esperance looked down at the thin,
little, brown boy beside her, remarking dryly:
"Well, at present, Montagu, I see small
likelihood of any such transformation," and
returned to the perusal of "The History of More
Children than One."

But Montagu had not yet "threshed the subject
out."  In spite of his aunt's forefinger laid
entreatingly at the line where he had left off,
he continued in the tone of one who grants
something to a vanquished foe.  "Of course,
young people look nicer in Greek clothes—I
don't think, f'r instance (Montagu was very fond
of "for instance," a favourite phrase of
Mr. Wycherly's), that Mr. Gloag would look nice
with only a wee towel."

Miss Esperance chuckled, and was fain to
close the "History of More Children than One"
for that day.

All this time those two dear old people waited
in silence—Miss Esperance fondly remembering
Montagu's unconscious compliment of the
morning; Mr. Wycherly absorbed in his vision
of the girl who, clad in a high-waisted, skimpy,
muslin frock, with sandalled, twinkling feet,
came dancing down the broad central path of a
Shropshire garden nearly sixty years ago.

The sunlight was on the grass, the air charged
heavily with the scent of the tall lilies on either
hand, and she held out her arms toward him,
singing as she came.

Miss Esperance gave a faint little cough, and
Mr. Wycherly came back to the present with a
start, saying: "Doubtless I have been wrong
in the way I have taught Montagu.  For the
future we must have more grammar and less
romance.  I am sorry you should have been
worried.  It is my fault."

"No, no!" cried Miss Esperance.  "I am
sure that all you have done, all you are doing,
is right and wise, but I—what am I to do?
How can I make him see the beauty and
priceless value of that knowledge without which all
other knowledge is as dust and ashes?"

Mr. Wycherly turned to look at Miss Esperance,
and fresh as he was from his vision of a
woman in all the radiance of her first youth and
beauty, he agreed with Montagu that there is
a very beautiful oldness, and that such beauty
is to the understanding heart perhaps most fair of all.

She held out her hands in her eagerness, and
leant forward, straining her eyes to read his
face in the shadow.

"You are far more fit to deal with such subjects
than I," he said hesitatingly, "but since
you have done me the honour to consult me—if
I might venture, I would suggest that for a
boy of Montagu's temperament much dogmatic
teaching is a mistake.  In childhood we can
only realise the Infinite through the finite.
Some of us in that respect never get beyond
childhood; I, myself, somewhat resemble
Montagu, and therefore I think it might be better
to defer the—er—Shorter Catechism until he
is older and more able to grapple
with—"  Mr. Wycherly seemed to swallow something in
his throat, and the lines round his eyes deepened
"its—er—theology."

"No," said Miss Esperance firmly, "he must
learn his catechism whether he understands it
or not."

"Well, don't be disappointed if he doesn't
understand it, dear Miss Esperance.  I don't,
but then I never read it until the other day."

There was an ominous silence for a minute.
He and Miss Esperance had seldom before
touched upon any religious question.  Now she
sighed and said sadly: "I thought perhaps you
would be able to help me, but your advice has
been that, having put my hand to the plough,
I should turn back, and that I cannot do.  I
wish," she continued timidly, "that should a
suitable opportunity arise, you could see your
way to speak to Montagu.  You have such
great influence over him, anything that you
say would have so much weight.  Don't you
think that you could?"

"I cannot promise," he answered nervously;
"should a suitable opportunity arise, perhaps I
might, but I cannot promise.  I confess that I
should have the greatest difficulty in
approaching these subjects in cold blood, and I question
very much whether it would be wise on my
part.  I have always and purposely avoided
anything that bore upon religious instruction
in my dealings with Montagu because—well,
you know, my dear Miss Esperance, that your
good minister, Mr. Gloag, considers me lamentably
latitudinarian in these matters, my whole
training, my whole mental outlook, is so
opposed—"  Again Mr. Wycherly stopped,
helplessly clasping and unclasping his long, thin
hands.  Miss Esperance regarded him sadly,
then sighed, saying gently, "I can only leave
the issue in wiser hands than ours."

"And there," said Mr. Wycherly, reverently,
"it will be perfectly safe."

Miss Esperance rose, and as he opened the
door for her he held out his hand, saying
humbly: "You must try not to be angry with me:
it is pure incapacity, not wilfulness, that renders
me so useless as an adviser."

Miss Esperance took the proffered hand in
both her own.  "Are you sure that you really
care?" she asked gently.





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.. _`IN WHICH MR. WYCHERLY HANGS UP HIS COLLEGE ARMS`:

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   CHAPTER XXI


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   IN WHICH MR. WYCHERLY HANGS UP HIS COLLEGE ARMS

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   |    For who can always act? but he,
   |  To whom a thousand memories call,
   |  Not being less but more than all
   |    The gentleness he seemed to be.
   |                              *In Memoriam.*

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Mr. Wycherly, a look of great perplexity
upon his face, sat by the hearth
far into the night.  The lamp burned low, went
out, and he sat on staring into the darkness till
the dawn, cold and gray-mantled, came
creeping through the unshuttered windows to find
him still seated, clear-eyed and contemplative,
but with the puzzled lines smoothed out of his
forehead as by a kind hand.  Bewilderment
and self-reproach had given place to memory,
as the years since the children had come passed
before him in procession.

There was that strange, dreadful journey
homeward from Portsmouth, the long cramped
hours of sitting, he and Miss Esperance, each
with a child clasped in stiff, unfamiliar arms:
those first bewildering days when the children
made all sorts of incomprehensible demands
upon his inexperience.  As he sat alone in the
darkness Edmund's indignant lamentations
because he could not "make a 'abbit" sounded
in his ears, and his triumphant outcries when
once the manufacture of the creature was
accomplished.

The rabbit scenes came back to him, and a
thousand others—those pretty daily doings
full of quaint solemnity, that parents take for
granted, but that come with an ever-recurring
shock of almost reverential pleasure upon such
gentle-hearted maids and bachelors as have to
do with little children late in life.

It had never ceased to fill Mr. Wycherly
with amazement that baby Edmund managed
to put his spoon into his mouth and not into
his eye; and he never fastened those absurd
little strap shoes that were for ever coming
undone, without a slight trembling of the
hands.  It seemed so wonderful that he, of all
people, should be permitted to officiate at these
mysteries.  His memory was clamorous with
the children's endless demands for "stories."  Picture
after picture unrolled before him of
attentive, eager-eyed Montagu, listening with
breathless interest to the tales that are old and
new as life itself; of sturdy, fidgety Edmund
with the loud laugh and handsome, fearless
face....  And in all the pictures, the figure
of Miss Esperance, bent now, but quick as ever
to deeds of kindness, moved like the sound of
music, gracious and beneficent.

The clock on the mantel-piece struck four,
and the room was suddenly filled with the
clear, rosy light that proclaims the advent of
the day.  Mr. Wycherly raised himself stiffly
from his chair, and crossing the room to Montagu's
table, rearranged his already tidy pile of
books with gentle, tremulous hands.  As he
left the room to go to bed he stood still on the
threshold and looked back into it as though to
fix its image on his mind.

When Montagu came in to lessons that morning
his tutor was not as usual seated at his
writing-table, but in the big chair by the fire.
He was not reading, and was so evidently
waiting for the little boy that Montagu,
instead of going to his own seat in the window,
went straight to Mr. Wycherly, who stood him
between his knees, laid his hands on the child's
shoulders, and looked long and earnestly into
his face.  Montagu, although rather puzzled by
this unusual proceeding, was always patient,
and waited in silence, holding the lapels of his
old friend's coat the while, till he should choose
to speak.

At last he said, "Montagu, tell me exactly
what you meant when you told Miss Esperance
that you would like to be an Epicurean when
you are grown up?"

It seemed a sudden reversal of the accepted
order of things that Mr. Wycherly should ask
Montagu to explain anything, and as that
youth had entirely forgotten his enthusiasm for
the doctrines of Epicurus directly his own fear
of death had evaporated, he looked rather
foolish and mumbled:

"It seems a comfortable sort of religion."

"And do you consider our religion
uncomfortable?" asked Mr. Wycherly, putting one
finger under the little boy's chin and lifting the
downcast face to his.

"Yes, I do," he replied with great decision,
looking his teacher straight in the eyes, "most
uncomfortable, with so many ways you can go
to Hell, and people you like, too, and no
getting back when you're once there, either."  And
Montagu grew quite red in the face with
the vehemence of his objection to these doctrines.

Mr. Wycherly withdrew his hand from under
Montagu's chin and laid it on one of the little
brown hands holding his coat so firmly.

"Why do you bother your head about it?"
he said gently.  "You may take it from me
that no one, above all, no little boy who tries
his best to behave well and pleasantly, ever
goes to Hell—and as for the others—who
knows? you certainly don't.  Besides, do you
honestly think that any wise person would
choose a religion merely because it was
comfortable?  There is very little use in any
religion that does not at times make us most
uncomfortable, and spur us every day to try
to do better.  Dear me, Montagu! when I was
your age I believed what I was told, and never
troubled my head about such things.  I learned
my catechism without a murmur."

"The Shorter Catechism?" Montagu interrupted.

"No, not that one, but it's very much
the same thing," said Mr. Wycherly mendaciously.

"Well, *I* believe what I'm told," said
Montagu somewhat aggrieved by this unsympathetic
attitude on the part of his old friend.
"That's what makes me so uncomfortable.  If
I didn't believe it, sir, it wouldn't matter."

"I assure you, Montagu, if you ask Miss
Esperance, or Mr. Gloag, himself—he is a most
sensible man on the whole—they will both tell
you that it is absurd for you to worry yourself
about Hell.  You don't know anything about
your own religion yet, far less that of the
Epicureans.  But now I want you to listen to me
very attentively for I have something serious
to say to you.  You may take absolutely on
trust, either upon this or upon any other
subject, anything that Miss Esperance may tell you.
She is a far safer guide than I, or Mr. Gloag, or
indeed any one that you know.  And above all,
I beg you to try even harder with whatever
lessons she may set you, than you do with
mine.  You must try to please her, to make her
happy...."

Mr. Wycherly paused and cleared his throat,
the earnest, puzzled face looking up into his
grew suddenly dim, and the little boy felt his
tutor's hand tighten on his own, as he asked
suddenly, "Montagu, have you ever seen
anybody drunk?"

"Yes, lots of times: they look horrid, and
walk crookedly and have hoarse voices, the
people on the road to Leith are often drunk."

"There was once a man, Montagu, who got
into the habit of drinking more than was good
for him.  How and why he got into that habit
does not matter, it was at all events no excuse.

"He grew worse and worse—I don't think
he ever looked quite like the people you
mention, but I don't know.  His brain was going,
his friends were ashamed of him, there seemed
no place for him in this world, and how should
he dare face the next?  He was not altogether a
stupid man, he knew many things, and best of
all that the weakness he encouraged was a fatal
weakness, but he seemed to have no strength
of mind or body to pull himself together till an
angel from heaven took him into her house and
helped him, and protected him against himself—till
he was cured.  It was not done quickly,
and God, who gave her her great heart, alone
knows what she had to bear in the doing of it."

Mr. Wycherly paused, he felt Montagu's
body tremble between his knees, but the child
did not speak, and the broken voice went on,
"The angel was your aunt, Montagu, and I,
I was the man.  And the last time I was drunk,
your father, not much older than you are now,
brought me home."

The clock ticked loudly, and a thrush was
singing on the alder tree outside.  There was
no other sound in the room till Montagu,
moved to a sudden passion of tears, flung
himself forward into his old friend's arms, clasping
him round the neck and exclaiming between
his sobs, "What does it matter?  Why did you
tell me?  I didn't think I *could* love you any
more, but I do, I do, I do!"

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"And now," said Mr. Wycherly, some five
minutes later, wiping Montagu's tear-stained
face with a large, clean handkerchief, "we had
better begin work, and you may write out the
rules concerning the sequence of the tenses,
that you learned yesterday."

As Montagu settled himself at the stout,
stumpy table, the sun shone in on him with
a radiance that made him blink.  And
Mr. Wycherly looked round the room with the
relieved expression of one who, expecting
everything to be changed, found it still blessedly
the same.

He had played his great stake and won: and
never was winner more happily relieved.
When Montagu finished his morning's lessons
and went downstairs and Mr. Wycherly moved
about his room dusting his books and rearranging
the piles of papers on his desk, he
might have been heard to sing softly and with
subdued but joyful emphasis certain stanzas
that always concluded with a rollicking "fal
la la la la la la."

Presently he went to Montagu's window and
looked out toward Arthur's Seat.  But he did
not see it, for in dreams he walked in his college
garden beside the bastioned city wall.  "I
would like to see the chestnuts in bloom once
more," he said softly, "and the perfect grass."

.. vspace:: 2

Montagu met his aunt on the staircase as he
was going down and she at once noted that his
face looked tear-stained and his eyelids were
swollen with crying.  It was so unheard of a
thing that Montagu should cry during his
lessons, whatever else he might cry about,
that Miss Esperance stopped him to ask
anxiously what had happened.  The boy
crimsoned to the roots of his hair.  "It was
about the catechism, Aunt Esperance," he said
slowly.  "I am sorry; I won't be tiresome any more.

"Then he *did* speak to you?" she exclaimed
in surprise.

"Oh, yes!" said Montagu earnestly.  "He
made me *very* sorry," and he fled past his aunt
down the little crooked staircase and out into
the garden, for he feared what she might ask
him next, and like Elsa, when she discovered
the gaps made by the missing books six years
ago, the boy felt that here again was a sacrifice
that "she maun never ken."

The long-stilled voices of habit and tradition
called loudly to Mr. Wycherly, and moving as
if in a dream, he went and opened a drawer in
his desk and drew from it a framed picture of
his college arms.  The gules were faded but
the seeded Or on the tudor roses caught the
sunlight and gleamed gladly, as though it
rejoiced to see the brightness of the day once
more.  With trembling hands he took down
the portrait of John Knox above the mantel-piece,
and hung the arms of New College in its place.

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In looking forward for Montagu Mr. Wycherly
had learned to look back, no longer
wholly in pain and shame, but sometimes in
liveliest gratitude that there was so much to
remember that was lovely and of good report.
And the more he remembered, the more did
action of many sorts seem imperative, and in
the July, after he had confessed himself to
Montagu, he went back to see Oxford once
more.  Back to the city, of perhaps all others
in the civilised world, to fill the minds and
hearts of her sons with an adoring passion of
tenderness, of real filial affection.  The love,
that while it worships the virtues of a mother,
is only strengthened by a perfect understanding
of her weakness, her humanity, her beautiful
inconsistency.

The great quadrangles spread themselves
empty and silent in the sunlight: the fields,
untenanted of "young barbarians all at
play" stretched green and peaceful to the
river.

But the gray old buildings smiled their
gracious welcome as of old, with that wonderful
mediæval friendliness that neither time nor
absence can change or lessen.  And just as a
mother who gets her son home after long
absence in a far country will talk fondly of the
dear, by-gone, boyish days—remembering only
such things as made her glad and proud—so
Oxford whispered kind, friendly things to
Mr. Wycherly, and he was comforted.

The day after his arrival he went to Matins
in Christ Church choir, and there seemed
something peculiarly applicable in the psalms for
that, the twenty-seventh day.  For lo! had he
not returned to his Jerusalem, well content to
pray for her peace?

   |  Peace be within thy walls: and plenteousness
   |        within thy palaces.
   |  For my brethren and companions' sakes: I will
   |        wish thee prosperity.
   |  Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God:
   |        I will seek to do thee good.





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.. _`VALE`:

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   CHAPTER XXII


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   VALE

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   |  Twilight and evening bell
   |  And after that the dark!
   |  And may there be no sadness of farewell—
   |  When I embark.
   |                    LORD TENNYSON.

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When Montagu first went to Winchester
he was something of a puzzle both to
masters and boys, although his housemaster,
an old pupil of Mr. Wycherly, knew enough of
the boy's curious upbringing to explain matters
somewhat to his colleagues:

"He knows far more classics than the average
sixth-form boy, and practically nothing else.
Of the world he knows about as much as a child
of three, and of games and other boys, less than
any old maid in the kingdom—a most difficult
boy to place.  It's a very risky experiment."

And Montagu's housemaster shook his head,
for he felt worried about the child.

Contrary to every one's expectation, however,
he got on wonderfully well with his
school-fellows.  Boys are tolerant enough of
"queerness" if it is unaccompanied by surliness
or "side."  If Montagu was "green" he was
also singularly obliging and good-natured.
A readiness to render a good turn is a passport
to favour all the world over, and when his
housemaster declared Montagu to know less
of other boys than any old maid in the kingdom
he made a mistake.  Montagu had lived a good
many years with Edmund, and healthy boyhood
is very much the same all the world over.

He was always ready to give a construe or a
copy of verses and it never ceased to fill him
with wonder that the boys in his own form, so
much bigger and wiser and self-assertive than
he, apparently found such difficulty in applying
rules he could not remember to have learnt.

His accurate and old-fashioned way of expressing
himself in ordinary conversation was
looked upon by the boys as an especially subtle
form of "rotting" or witticism; and it was
quite a long time before Montagu understood
how it was that his simplest remarks, offered in
all good faith, were greeted with appreciative
grins by his companions, who generally took it
that he was parodying one of the masters.
Week by week he committed fewer solecisms,
and except that he seldom got into trouble over
his work, which he thoroughly enjoyed, his
school life was very like that of the rest and
entirely happy.

The same term that Montagu went to
Winchester Edmund was sent to a preparatory
school, also in England, and the little house at
Burnhead seemed very quiet and deserted.

They had all missed the old servant, Elsa,
unspeakably, at first: but youth is quick to
accustom itself to new conditions, and
Mr. Wycherly was roused to so many fresh interests
and activities that he hardly realised what
an important piece of the mechanism of Remote
had stopped working.  But Miss Esperance
mourned silently and deeply for the faithful
friend and servant who had ministered to her
so tirelessly, and, though neither she nor Elsa
knew it, ruled her so beneficently for fifty years.

After the departure of the boys, Miss Esperance
grew more and more fragile till the time
came when she was fain to follow Elsa, and
fare forth into the unknown with the same
dignified serenity that had characterised her
every act during her long life of upright dealing
and beautiful self-sacrifice.

The end came in the boys' second term at school.

"I am glad the boys have both entered upon
their careers," she said to Mr. Wycherly, in her
kind, weak voice, as he sat by her bed the
night she died, "I shall tell Archie what dear,
good lads they are—and that poor young
mother I never saw.  I can tell her how proud
she would have been, how proud she may
be—but perhaps she knows," and Miss Esperance
gave a little sigh as though she would have liked
to be the first to bear this pleasing intelligence.
Then putting the thought from her as savouring
of selfishness, she continued, "I'm sure she
knows, but she'll be glad to hear it again: just
as I am, when people praise them to me, who
know so well how dear they are."

Mr. Wycherly could not speak, but his hand
tightened on the weak little hand he held.
"I would like to have seen Montagu again,"
she said wistfully.  "He is such a kind boy.
But it is so far and he has only just gone back,
and my bonnie wee Edmund, too.  It is better
as it is.  I have you—and what is far more
important, they have you....  I have indeed
been wonderfully blest.  I used to look forward
with such dread to a lonely death-bed with no
kind hand to hold mine at the last, but the
Lord has been very merciful.  His merciful
kindness is great toward us...."

The faint, whispering voice died away into
silence.  The fluttering in the frail small hand
was stilled.  And Mr. Wycherly was left alone,
for Miss Esperance had gone on.

.. vspace:: 2

A month later Mr. Wycherly went back to
Oxford.  Miss Esperance left all she was possessed
of to him, in trust for the boys, with the
exception of a hundred pounds to Robina; and
to Montagu, her lace, her jewels—such humble,
old-fashioned trinkets they were—and her
miniatures, "in memory of his great kindness to
me when I was ill."

Mr. Wycherly took a tall, old house in Holywell
Street, close to his college, and there the
boys always came to spend their holidays.
The quaint three, so strangely linked together
by fate and affection, aroused benevolent
curiosity and interest in the minds of friendly
dons and their families.  In fact, the curious
household was largely managed by outsiders
when the boys were at home.  But they loved
each other greatly and it is that alone "which
maketh light all that is burthensome and
equally bears all that is unequal.  For it
carrieth a burthen without being burthened and
maketh all that which is bitter sweet and
savoury."

.. vspace:: 6

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