'Will you be quiet!'
'But it was really too bad, pappa!' she protested. 'There he was lounging around all the morning. And all I heard him say was when he was just going—when he was on the mail-car, "Ronald," he called out, "have you got a match about you?"—and he had a wooden pipe in his hand. And that's all I know about the manners and conversation of the British nobility; and what will they say of me at home?'
'When does Ronald go?' he would ask; and this, at least, was one sure way of bringing her back to the paths of sanity and soberness; for the nearer that this departure came, the more concerned she was about it, having some faint consciousness that she herself had a share of the responsibility.
And in another direction, moreover, she was becoming a little anxious. No message of any kind had arrived from the Chicago Citizen. Now she had written to Miss Kerfoot before she left for Paris; her stay in the French capital had extended to nearly three weeks; there was the space occupied in going and returning; so that if Jack Huysen meant to do anything with the verses it was about time that that should appear. And the more she thought of it the more she set her heart on it, and hoped that Ronald's introduction to the reading public would be a flattering one and one of which he could reasonably be proud. Her father had it in his power to secure his material advancement; and that was well enough; but what if it were reserved for her to confer a far greater service on him? For if this first modest effort were welcomed in a friendly way, might he not be induced to put forth a volume, and claim a wider recognition? It need not interfere with his more practical work; and then, supposing it were successful? Look at the status it would win for him—a thing of far more value in the old country, where society is gradated into ranks, than in her country, where every one (except hotel clerks, as she insisted) was on the same plane. He would then be the equal of anybody—even in this old England; she had at least acquired so far a knowledge of English society. And if he owed the first suggestion and impulse to her?—if she were to be the means, in however small and tentative a fashion, of his ultimately establishing his fame? That he could do so if he tried, she never thought of doubting. She saw him every day, and the longer she knew him the more she was certain that the obvious mental force that seemed to radiate from him in the ordinary conversation and discussion of everyday life only wanted to be put into a definite literary channel to make its mark. And was not the time ripe for a poet? And it was not Edinburgh, or Glasgow, or London that had nowadays to decide on his merits, but two great continents of English-speaking people.
At length came the answer to her urgent prayer—a letter from Miss Kerfoot and a copy of the Chicago Citizen. The newspaper she opened first; saw with delight that a long notice—a very long notice indeed—had been accorded to the verses she had sent; and with a proud heart she put the paper in her pocket, for careful reading when she should get down to the lake. Miss Kerfoot's letter she glanced over; but it did not say much; the writer observed that Mr. Jack Huysen had only seemed half pleased when informed of Carry's extraordinary interest in the phenomenal Scotch gamekeeper; and, referring to the article in the Citizen, she said Jack Huysen had entrusted the writing of it to Mr. G. Quincy Regan, who was, she understood, one of the most cultured young men in Chicago, and likely to make quite a reputation for himself ere long. There were some other matters mentioned in this letter; but they need not detain us here.
Miss Carry was in very high spirits as she set forth from the inn with her father to walk down to the boats. They met Ronald, too, on their way; he was accompanied by the man who was to take his place after his leaving; and Miss Carry could not help comparing the two of them as they came along the road. But, after all, it was not outward appearance that made the real difference between men; it was mental stature; she had that in her pocket which could show to everybody how Ronald was a head and shoulders over any of his peers. And she took but little interest in the setting up of the rods or the selection of the minnows; she wanted to be out on the lake, alone, in the silence, to read line by line and word by word this introduction of her hero to the public.
The following is the article:
'A REMARKABLE LITERARY DISCOVERY—OUR FELLOW-CITIZENS ABROAD—ANOTHER RUSTIC POET—CHICAGO CLAIMS HIM. It may be in the recollection of some of our readers that a few years ago a small party of American tourists, consisting of Curtis H. Mack, who was one of our most distinguished major-generals in the rebellion, and is now serving on the Indian frontier; his niece, Miss Hettie F. Doig, a very talented lady and contributor to several of our best periodicals; and John Grimsby Patterson, editor of the Baltimore Evening News, were travelling in Europe, when they had the good fortune to discover an Irish poet, Patrick Milligan, who had long languished in obscurity, no doubt the victim of British jealousy as well as of misrule. Major-General Mack interested himself in this poor man, and, in conjunction with William B. Stevens, of Cleveland, Ohio, had him brought over to this country, where they were eventually successful in obtaining for him a postmastership in New Petersburg, Conn., leaving him to devote such time as he pleased to the service of the tuneful nine. Mr. Milligan's Doric reed has not piped to us much of late years; but we must all remember the stirring verses which he wrote on the occasion of Colonel George W. Will's nomination for Governor of Connecticut. It has now been reserved for another party of American travellers, still better known to us than the above, for they are no other than our esteemed fellow-citizen, Mr. Josiah Hodson and his brilliant and accomplished daughter, Miss Caroline Hodson, to make a similar discovery in the Highlands of Scotland; and in view of such recurring instances, we may well ask whether there be not in the mental alertness of our newer civilisation a capacity for the detection and recognition of intellectual merit which exists not among the deadening influences of an older and exhausted civilisation. It has sometimes been charged against this country that we do not excel in arts and letters; that we are in a measure careless of them; that political problems and material interests occupy our mind. The present writer, at least, is in no hurry to repel that charge, odious as it may seem to some. We, as Americans, should remember that the Athenian Republic, with which our western Republic has nothing to fear in the way of comparison, when it boasted its most lavish display of artistic and literary culture, was no less conspicuous for its moral degeneracy and political corruption. It was in the age of Pericles and of Phidias, of Socrates and Sophocles, of Euripides and Aristophanes and Thucydides, that Athens showed herself most profligate; private licence was unbridled; justice was bought and sold; generals incited to war that they might fill their pockets out of the public purse; and all this spectacle in striking contrast with the manly virtues of the rude and unlettered kingdom of Sparta, whose envoys were laughed at because they had not the trick of Athenian oratory and casuistry. We say, then, that we are not anxious to repel this charge brought against our great western Republic, that we assign to arts and letters a secondary place; on the contrary, we are content that the over-cultivation of these should fatten on the decaying and effete nations of Europe, as phosphorus shines in rotten wood.'
Now she had determined to read every sentence of this article conscientiously, as something more than a mere intellectual treat; but, as she went on, joy did not seem to be the result. The reference to Patrick Milligan and the postmastership in Connecticut she considered to be distinctly impertinent; but perhaps Jack Huysen had not explained clearly to the young gentleman all that she had written to Emma Kerfoot? Anyhow, she thought, when he came to Ronald's little Highland poem, he would perhaps drop his Athenians, and talk more like a reasonable human being.
'That the first strain from the new singer's lyre should be placed at the services of the readers of the Citizen, we owe to the patriotism of the well-known and charming lady whose name we have given above; nor could the verses have fallen into better hands. In this case there is no need that Horace should cry to Tyndaris—