People called on me, but I’m sure they were merely curious to hear my history from my own lips, and partly afraid of me at the same time. They invited me out to tea! Ha! ha! ha! I really cannot help laughing about it now as I write; but fancy a savage sitting down to tea, of all treats in the world, with a company of gossiping ladies of both sexes.
Now my neighbours made me out to be a bigger savage than I really was, because, to do myself justice, I did know a little of the courtesies of civilised life. There was one lady who expressed a wish to have the “dreadful creature” to tea with her. I found out before I went that she had styled me so, though her note of invitation was most politely worded.
The “dreadful creature” did go to tea, intent on a kind of quiet revenge. They could not get a word out of me—neither my hostess nor the three old ladies she had asked to meet me by way of protection. I did nothing but drink cup after cup of tea, handing in my cup to be replenished, and drinking it at once. The bread and butter disappeared in a way that seemed to them little short of miraculous. I saw that they were getting frightened, so I thought I would make them a little soothing speech.
“Ahem!” I began, standing up. I never got any further.
One old lady fainted; another “missed stays,” as a sailor would say, when making for the doorway, and tumbled on the floor; a third fell over the piano-stool. All screamed—all thought I was about to do something very dreadful.
All I did do was to step gingerly out into the hall, pick up my hat, and go off.
I lived in Dunryan for a year. The scenery all around was charming in the extreme. The very name will tell you that Dunryan is in Scotland; the very word Scotland conjures up before the eye visions both of beauty and romance.
But one year even of Scotland, the “land of green heath and shaggy wood,” was enough for me then.