CHAPTER I
Archibald Berstoun of that ilk ("of y' ilk" was the form that most delicately tickled his palate) still dwelt in the fortalice built by his ancestors at a time when to the average Scot the national tartan suggested but an alien barbarian who stole his cattle; and the national bagpipe, the national heather, and the national whisky were merely the noise the brute made, the cover that preserved him from the gallows, and the stuff that gave you your one chance of catching him asleep.
(A few reflections on the whirligig of time were here inserted, but have since been omitted, as they were found to occur in a modified form elsewhere.)
The castle stood in the lowland part of Perthshire, and was erected by the second of that ilk as a tribute to the dexterity with which his highland neighbors had removed the effects and cut the throat of the first. It was a sober and simple building, steep-roofed and battlemented at the top, turreted at the angles, and pierced with a few narrow windows so irregularly scattered about its gray harled walls as to suggest that no two rooms could possibly be on the same level. Naturally, the architectural genius who illumines the quiet annals of every landed family had knocked out a number of French windows into the lawn and constructed the first story of a Chinese pagoda, in which he proposed to store Etruscan curios with an aviary above; but his descendants had fortunately lacked the funds to complete these improvements. In fact, the stump of the pagoda was now so entirely overgrown with ivy that it had become the traditional fortress of Agricola.
This ancient habitation of a hard-fighting race was framed on two sides by a garden that looked as old as the walls which towered above it, and was well-nigh as simple and sober. Dark clipped yews, and smooth green grass, and graceful old-world flowers were its chief and sufficient ingredients. The genius who designed the pagoda had not yet turned his attention to the garden when Providence checked his career.
A wood of black Scotch firs stretched for a long way beyond this pleasant garden, and struck a stern northern note befitting the gnarled battlements; while, nearer the house, gray beech stems towered out of the brown dead leaves below up to the brown live buds a hundred feet nearer the clouds.
On the remaining two sides of the castle you were not supposed to bestow attention, since after the old custom the home farm approached more closely than is fashionable nowadays; though to the curious they were the sides best worth attention, owing to the cultured pagoda-builder having deemed it beneath his dignity to molest them.
One afternoon in early spring Ellen Berstoun walked slowly down a sheltered garden path. She had been singularly moody of late—so distressed, indeed, and so little like a lucky girl whose wedding might be fixed for any day she chose to name, that her five unmarried sisters held many private debates on the causes of her conduct. The three next to her in years expressed grave apprehensions lest the very fairly creditable marriage arranged for her should after all fall through. Ellen was not treating Andrew well, they complained; while on the other hand, the two youngest, being as yet irresponsibly romantic, declared vigorously that they had sooner dear Ellen remained single to the end of her days than introduced such a long-lipped, fat-cheeked brother-in-law into the family.
It was a part of poor Ellen's burden that she was acutely conscious of the duty which her parents and all her aunts assured her she owed these sisters. But, on the other hand, to share the remainder of her existence with Andrew Walkingshaw—There rose vividly a picture of that most respectable of partners, and the emotion attendant on this vision drew from her a sigh that ought to have convinced the most skeptical she was very hard hit indeed.
It was at this moment that she spied a lad approaching from the house.
"Well, Jimmy?" she inquired.
With an appearance of some caution, he handed her a note.
"It was to be gi'en to yoursel' privately, miss," he said mysteriously, and turned to go.
"Is there no answer?" she asked.
"He said I wasna to bide for an answer."
He hurried off as though his directions had been peremptory, and Ellen opened the letter. It was written upon the notepaper of a local inn, and if she was surprised to discover the writer, she was still more astonished by the contents.
"My Dear Ellen," it ran, "I should take it as a very great favor indeed if you would come immediately on receiving this and meet me at the farther end of the wood below your garden. Follow the path, and you will find me waiting for you. The matter is of such importance that I make no apologies for suggesting this romantic proceeding!—With love, yours affectionately,
"J. Heriot Walkingshaw.
"P.S.—Don't say a word to one of your family. Secrecy is absolutely essential."
Ellen stood lost in perplexity. Rumors had reached her of Mr. Walkingshaw's recent eccentricity. The request was entirely out of keeping with all her previous acquaintance with him; that point of exclamation after "romantic proceeding" struck her as uncomfortably dissimilar to his usual methods of composition. Ought she not to consult one of her parents, or at least a sister? And yet the postscript was too explicit to be neglected.
For a few minutes she hesitated. Then she made up her mind; her warm heart could not bear to disappoint anybody; and besides, Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw, however odd his conduct might have been lately was such a pompously respectable—indeed venerable—old gentleman that a maiden might surely trust herself with him alone, even in a grove of trees. And so, in a furtive and backward-glancing manner, she stole into the wood. It was an unusual way of approaching one's father's man of business and one's financé's parent, but Ellen consoled herself by the reflection that an experienced Writer to the Signet should best know how these things were done.
She hurried down a narrow, winding glade, lined by countless slender columns supporting far overhead a roof of millions of dark green needles swaying and murmuring in the breeze. Suddenly sunshine and green fields filled the opening of the glade, and as suddenly a tall gentleman stepped from behind a tree and politely raised a fashionable felt hat. In all essential features he was the image of Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw, only that he was so very much younger.
"Well, my dear Ellen!" he exclaimed heartily.
She stared at him, too amazed for speech.
"Am I really so changed already?" he inquired with a smile. "That shows the beneficial effect of seeing you."
Even though his manner had altered as much as his appearance, she found the change so agreeable that she overlooked its strangeness. She smiled back at him.
"I am glad to see you looking so well," she said.
He beamed upon her in what he sincerely meant for a paternal manner.
"You, my dear child, look ripping! My hat, you are pretty! Ellen dear, my only wish is to make you as happy as you are bonny."
She looked at him searchingly, and her voice had a note of guarded alarm.
"What do you mean?"
His air became sympathy itself.
"My dear girl, I have been greatly distressed to hear that all has not been going smoothly with you and Andrew."
She gave him a quick glance and then looked away.
"Indeed!" she answered a little coldly. "Who told you that?"
"I can read it in my son's altered health."
She looked at him in surprise, but without anxiety.
"I didn't know there was anything the matter with him."
"He had to hasten up to London for a change of air."
"I hope it did him good," she said indifferently.
"My dear girl, have you no wish to hurry to his bedside?"
"I'm afraid I shouldn't be any good if I did."
"And you wouldn't find him in bed, either," smiled Mr. Walkingshaw, with a change of manner. "No, no, Ellen; you needn't pretend you're in love with Andrew if that's all the concern you feel. And I may tell you at once that he's as tough as ever, and as great a fool. The fellow is totally unworthy of you, so don't you worry your head about him any longer."
He bent over her confidentially.
"Supposing some one were to cut him out, eh?"
"Some one—" she stammered. "Who?"
"Guess!" he smiled.
She did guess; and it was a shocking surmise.
"I—I have no idea," she fibbed.
"Oh, come now, hang it, look me in the eye and repeat that!"
For an instant, she looked into that roguish eye, and her worst suspicions were confirmed.
"Mr. Walkingshaw," she answered, with trembling candor, "I feel very much honored, but really I must ask you not to—not to say anything more. Our ages—oh, everything—I couldn't! I had better go back now."
The philanthropic father gasped.
"Ellen! stop! My dear child, I don't mean myself! Good heavens, I am far too old for a young girl like you!"
Yet it was at that moment that he suddenly realized he wasn't.
"Then—then what—" she began, and stopped, overwhelmed with confusion.
Hurriedly he endeavored to put things once more upon a paternal footing.
"My fault, my dear Ellen, my fault entirely. Naturally you thought—er—yes, yes, it was quite natural. I—I put it badly. I didn't think what I was saying. The fact is, I've been"—a brilliant inspiration suddenly illumined the chaos of his mind—"I've been so troubled about poor Frank!"
Her expression altogether changed.
"What's the matter?" she exclaimed.
His mind calmed down. Composing his countenance, he shook his head sadly.
"I don't think he'll get over it."
She laid her hand upon his arm with a quick, involuntary gesture.
"But what has happened? Tell me!"
The wisdom of age and the shrewdness of youth twinkled together in Mr. Walkingshaw's eye, but he managed to retain a decorously solemn air.
"You are really concerned this time?"
"Of course! I—I mean, naturally."
He drew her hand through his arm and led her along the fringe of the pine woods.
"Come and see," he said gently. "Poor boy he's had a bad fall."
"What! Is he here—with you?"
"Yes—yes," he answered, with an absent and melancholy air.
He led her a few paces into the trees, and there, seated on a fallen trunk, they saw the victim of fate smoking a cigarette with a meditative air. He sprang to his feet with a light in his eye that might have been the result of some acute disaster, but scarcely looked like it.
"Frank, my boy," said his father, "I have just been explaining to Ellen that you have fallen"—he turned to the girl with a merry air—"in love!" he chuckled, and the next moment they were listening to his flying footsteps and looking at one another.