“Oh yes,” replied Benson, between paroxysms, “but I think I’ll roll under the table and die if such a thing happens again.”
“I don’t despair o’ oor gettin’ wings, and even an occasional liver, although we don’t fish,” said Allister, after a contemplative pause.
“Leg, wing or liver, for mercy’s sake don’t look at me again as you did to-day. I hate putting myself in the wrong, and my performance was very discreditable.”
“An interestin’ fact I ascertained from Maclean was that Mactavish suffers from severe gout periodically, and that the malady only yields to treatment wi’ colchicum,” said Allister, with a suspiciously innocent expression.
Two
Next day Benson and Allister received a note apiece from Jeanie, asking them to come over to the Girls’ School in the afternoon and take tea.
On arrival they were ushered into a prim little parlour. This soon became filled to overflowing with guests. Here they met, for the first time, Mr Drew, the senior teacher of the theology section, and his wife. Mr Drew was short, stout, dark and wide-awake-looking. He appeared to be under the influence of his wife, who was evidently much older than he. She was a woman of large frame, with hollow cheeks and light-red hair. Her face and eyes were pale; her voice suggested pulmonary delicacy.
The three ladies having charge of the female department of the Institution acted jointly as hostesses. Miss Meiklejohn, the eldest, was a tall, angular Scotswoman with a strong, intellectual face. She spoke with measured deliberation and was evidently unaccustomed to having her authority questioned. Miss Struben was short and exceedingly stout. She had a depressed and disappointed look, and whenever she made a remark, glanced apprehensively at Miss Meiklejohn to see how it would be taken. These two had been for many years members of the Institution staff; they regarded Mr Mactavish with the utmost reverence. Apart from their work they had one object only in life, and that was to see a match between the boarding-master and Miss Mellish. They had noted and deplored the Great Man’s weakness for Jeanie. However, as they looked upon this untoward circumstance as due to her siren wiles, they regarded the aberration with pity rather than blame.
Miss Robertson, the junior teacher, had only recently been imported from Scotland. A comely girl with rosy cheeks, bright brown eyes and a generous figure, she gave one the idea that she longed for a different life and that she felt as irksome the perpetually revolving treadmill of ultra propriety that Fate compelled her to climb. In fact she struck Benson as having a healthy spice of the World, the Flesh and the Devil under her coil of abundant hair.