All afternoon we talked. Brown had come all the way from Ramsey (some twenty-four miles, four of which had to be walked) to spend a few hours with his friend, and, as he was a man greedy of enjoyment, not a single moment was wasted. It soon appeared that Brown was a great admirer of Hall Caine’s—it should be mentioned that Mr Caine had not then written The Prodigal Son or The Eternal City—and the novelist basked in the tactful praise that was bestowed upon him.
As we were talking, a servant came with the news that eleven Americans had arrived and had been shown into the library. Hall Caine left the room to give them tea. An hour later, he came back, exhausted but not displeased.
“One of the penalties of fame,” he said, with a sigh.
“But you are not the only one who suffers from your own fame,” observed Brown. “I am constantly besieged by American journalists, who come to me for private information about yourself. A very persistent lady from New York came only the other day and wished to know if you were educated.”
Hall Caine laughed.
“What did you say?” he asked.
[130]
]“Well, I asked her what she meant by ‘education,’ and she replied: ‘Is he at all like Matthew Arnold?’”
Towards evening, Brown departed.
Next morning, a note arrived from him, evidently written immediately on his return home the previous evening. The note expressed the writer’s regret that he had been unable to visit Greeba Castle that day; he had fully intended coming, but had been prevented at the last moment. This letter disturbed Hall Caine enormously.
“His mind is going,” he said; “I have noticed several other signs of vanishing memory, if not of something worse, during the last few months.”