"Break his neck over a scaur," said Lord Lindores, almost with a sneer. He felt his son shrink from him with an inarticulate cry, and with instant perception remedied his error in taste, as he thought it. "I ought not to speak so after such a tragedy; you are right, Rintoul. No: Millefleurs is a very different person; but of course it is always a consolation to know that whatever happens, one's child will be abundantly and honourably provided for. My boy, let us look at the other matter. It is time you thought of marrying, as I say."
Rintoul flung himself against the side of the carriage with a muttered curse. "Marrying!—hanging is more what I feel like!" he cried.
"Rintoul!"
"Don't torture me, father. There is not a more wretched fellow on the face of the earth. Link an innocent woman's name with mine? Ask a girl to?——For heaven's sake let me alone—let me be!"
"What is the meaning of this?" Lord Lindores cried. "Are you mad, Rintoul? I am altogether unprepared for heroics in you."
The young man made no reply. He put his head out to the rushing of the night air and the soft darkness, through which the trees and distant hills and rare passengers were all like shadows. He had looked stolidly enough upon all the shows of the external world all his life, and thought no more of them than as he saw them.
"A primrose by the river's brim,
A yellow primrose was to him."
There had been no images or similitudes in light or darkness; but now another world had opened around him. He had a secret with the silence—the speechless, inanimate things about knew something of him which nobody else knew: and who could tell when they might find a voice and proclaim it to the world? He uncovered his head to the air which blew upon him and cooled his fever. The touch of that cool fresh wind seemed the only thing in earth or heaven in which there was any consolation. As for Lord Lindores, he sat back in his corner, more angry than concerned, and more contemptuous than either. A woman has perhaps some excuse for nerves; but that his son, upon whose plain understanding he could always rely, and whose common-sense was always alive to the importance of substantial arguments, should thus relapse into tragedy like his sisters, was more than he could tolerate. He would not even contemplate the idea that there was any cause for it. Rintoul had always been well behaved. He was in no fear of any secrets that his son might have to reveal.
"Rintoul," he said, after a pause, "if you have got into any scrape, you should know well enough that I am not the sort of man to take it tragically. I have no faith in making molehills into mountains. I don't suppose you have done anything disgraceful. You must be off your head, I think. What is it? You have been out of sorts for some time past."
These words came like beatings of a drum to Rintoul's ears, as he leant out into the rushing and sweep of the night air. There was a composure in them which brought him to himself. Anything disgraceful meant cheating at cards, or shirking debts of honour, or cowardice. Practically, these were about the only things disgraceful that a young man could do. An "entanglement," a heavy loss at cards or on the turf, any other minor vice, could be compounded for. Lord Lindores was not alarmed by the prospect of an explanation with his son. But that Rintoul should become melodramatic, and appeal to earth and heaven, was contemptible to his father. This cool and common-sense tone had its natural effect, Lord Lindores thought. Rintoul drew in his head, sat back in his corner, and was restored to himself.