Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=RWkpAQAAIAAJ
(University of California)

Marmaduke

Marmaduke

By

Flora Annie Steel

Author of
"On the Face of the Waters," "A Sovereign Remedy,"
"King-Errant," etc.

New York
Frederick A. Stokes Company
Publishers
1917

Printed in Great Britain

"Hello, Davie! Is that you, Davie Sim?" cried a joyous young voice; then it changed suddenly, with a verve which showed pure delight in the unfamiliar yet familiar dialect, from correct English to the broadest Aberdeenshire accent. "Eh, mon, ye're joost the same ow'd tod o' a pease-bogle wi' yer bonnet ajee, an' a crookit mou'; yen hauf given tae psaulm singin' and tither tae pipe-blawing!" The voice paused a bit breathlessly as if it had exhausted itself over the unwonted exercise, then went on in slightly less aggressive Doric. "Well, I'm blythe to see you lookin' sae weel. An' is that tall lass Marrion?"

An easy gallantry came to his tones as the speaker, a fine young fellow of obviously military bearing, turned to a girl who stood very still by the window.

"By gad," the young man went on with the same easy condescension, "you have grown into a pretty girl! Give us a kiss, my dear; you know you used to be fond of 'Mr. Duke' in the----"

Then suddenly silence fell between the two young people. Something in the tall still figure by the window seemed to abash the tall figure making its way easily towards it, and left them looking at each other critically.

They were as fine a couple physically as God ever made to come together as man and woman. They were almost alike in stature and strength--she slightly the smaller--and both seemed equal in abounding health, though he was florid and she somewhat pale with the pallor of the thick creamy skin that goes with red-bronze hair.

She spoke at last, the thin curves of her mouth clipping her words sharply.

"There's mony to tell me yon and crave kisses since you an' me was hafflins together, Mr. Duke," she said coolly. "I beg yer pardon, Captain Marmaduke!"

The Honourable Captain Marmaduke Muir, second son of the sixteenth Baron Drummuir of Drummuir, home on leave after an absence of ten years on foreign service, looked at the grand-daughter of his father's head piper and general majordomo as if considering anger. He was too good looking to be accustomed to such rebuffs from pretty girls, especially when they were manifestly beneath him in station. Then suddenly he laughed. The years had fled, and he was a boy again in fast fellowship with a small hoyden of a girl; a girl four years his junior, but infinitely his superior in common sense; a girl who had kept him out of many a scrape and who hadn't scrupled on occasion to box his ears, young master though he was. With a sudden flash of memory the occasion came back to him, and he saw himself, a strong lad of fourteen, wading a swollen stream with the ten-year-old girlie on his back, a string of handsome trouties he had been catching hanging like a tail from his hands clasped behind his burden. He heard the agonised cry in mid-stream, "They're slippin', Maister Duke, they're slippin'! Let me down till I hoosen them up!" He heard the stiff reply: "Let 'em slip; I'll no let ye down tae soak ye through!" And then the woeful battle of wills that ensued, while the trouties slipped from the string one by one. A battle which ended in a sobbing girlie ankle deep in water, an empty string, and a defiant lad with young crimson ears. He felt his mature ones tingle with amusement at the recollection, and at the recognition that the girlie was as ready of resentment as ever.

"Ods bobs, Marmie!" he cried, his face full of mischief. "It seems you've no forgotten the whaur-aboots of my lugs," and his hands went up to his face as if to protect them.

The girl crimsoned.

"I begged your pardon then, Captain Marmaduke, and I beg it again if I've offended----" she began defiantly.

He interrupted her with an absolutely charming smile, a deference that was unanswerable.

"And I beg yours for remembering what I should have forgotten. So we are quits and can surely shake hands on it like the good friends we always were, and"--here his voice took on additional charm--"always will be. Of that I am sure."

His bold blue eyes were on hers frankly, and she gave him back his look steadily. So they stood, shapely hand in shapely hand, for a second. Then his left fingers caught at hers and felt the first one inquisitively.

"Hullo, seamstress, that's new?" he queried, evidently pleased with his own cleverness in detection.

Marrion Paul drew her hand away sharply.

"I've been at the dressmaking in Edinbro' these six years since grandfather married," she replied coldly.

Marmaduke looked at Davie Sim incredulously.

"What, Davie! You old reprobate, who the deuce did you get to marry you?"

There was no answer. Possibly Davie did not hear, for he was rootling round the kitchen fire with the poker--a most unnecessary task that sweltering June day. Perhaps, also, it was flame-reflection which made his face show red under the wide Tam o' Shanter bonnet he invariably wore in his own house; why it would be difficult to say, except that outside the precincts of home he was for ever doffing it before somebody or another. For Davie Sims had been born hereditary servitor to the Drummuir family, and had every intention of dying in the same position.

"He married Penelope from the castle," came Marrion's voice relentlessly, "and his lordship gave her away."

"The devil he did," remarked the young man helplessly to both pieces of information, after a moment's pause due evidently to mingled outrage and amusement. "Well," he added, in male defiance of the woman's point of view, "I expect she makes him an excellent wife."

"Most excellent!" assented Marrion, with a curl of her lip. "So, as she happens to be gone on a visit, I have come back to stay a while--a little while--with grandfather."

Her diction, bar the one slight slip, was as free from provincialism as his own, and Marmaduke Muir looked at her appreciatively. She was different from the hoyden he had left. Perhaps in Edinburgh she had gone in for classes. And she was better looking too, though much too tall for a woman. Then her mouth, though passable in its thin decided curves, was far too wide for beauty.

Still, she was altogether sufficiently pleasant to look upon for Marmaduke to feel it necessary for him to charm. Not that either by nature or art he was a lady-killer. To do him justice, he would have felt just the same had the attraction been male or neuter. Simply he always desired to please what was pleasant to himself, and his tastes were catholic.

So he said almost sentimentally:

"Well, I am very glad you're here. We shall be able to spend our birthdays together as we used to in the old times. Eighteenth of June! Waterloo day! Good heavens, I can scarcely believe that I shall be thirty tomorrow, and you?" He positively blushed, for in the year 1848 it was almost indecent for an unmarried woman to be six-and-twenty. Marrion, however, had no such qualms.

"Twenty-six," she said calmly; perhaps she knew she did not look it.

"Anyhow," he went on hastily, as if to escape from an unwelcome fact, "I have brought you a present from foreign parts." He had not even thought of one; in fact, he had only given his old playmate a passing remembrance, wondering whom she had married; but he knew his boxes contained enough trifles for the home folk to enable him to spare one, and he could no more help trying to charm than he could help breathing. "And now," he added, "I must be off. Tell me, Davie, like a good soul, where I am likely to find his lordship this time of day. I'm cursed early," he continued a bit ruefully, "but that's the worst of me. I'm always in such a devil of a hurry."

"You came across the ferry?" asked Marrion sympathetically.

He turned to her at once.

"Yes. It was the first coach. I wouldn't wait for the later one. And then when I got to the Cross Keys and saw the old place over the water, I wouldn't wait to go round by the bridges. So Andrew--you remember Andrew Fraser, of course?--'pon my soul, he's been a first-class orderly ever since he joined, and I don't know what I should have done without him; nursed me like a mother when I'd fever and all that sort of thing--a real honest good chap. Well, he got out the valise and carried it down the ferry road. I didn't know, you see, that the ferry was disused; but we luckily found someone's boat--and here I am--too soon!"

"I'm thinkin'," said Davie Sim, with caution, "that his lordship at this hour will, mayhap, be inspec'in' the pigstyes."

"Pigstyes!" echoed Marmaduke theatrically. "Say not so! Dash it all, I can't do prodigal in a pigstye! I demand a byre and a fatted calf. Well, I suppose I had better ring at the front door and ask the butler if my Lord Drummuir is at home like any orra' stranger. So--ta, ta, for the present!"

He waved an easy hand to Marrion as he passed out. She hesitated a second, then followed him into the sunlit courtyard and called--

"Captain Duke!"

He turned, looking so handsome and débonnaire that her purpose almost wavered. Why should she pour gall and wormwood into his cup of life before circumstances made the bitter inevitable? Still, since it had to come, and that shortly, it was as well he should be prepared for it. So much depended on the relations between him and his father that it was better he should not be taken unawares.

"If you are wanting to see his lordship the now," she said, her phrasing astray once more under pressure of other thoughts, "you wad find him in the south avenue. He was there when I came frae the town the now, cutting away at yen of the big beech trees."

"Cutting at a big beech tree! What the deuce do you mean?" queried Marmaduke incredulously.

She replied calmly, conclusively.

"Just that he must hae gotten a letter from your brother the Master. It aye angers him so that he orders out the men with the hatchets. It's as well you should know."

He stood staring at her. It was no news to him, of course, even though mails had been infrequent during those ten years, that there was an open breach between his father and the heir, nor was he unaware of his father's savage temper; that, and the impossibility of getting a decent allowance to enable him to live in England being responsible for those same ten years of foreign service. But distance softens shadows; besides, the very idea that a man could go and cut down historical trees just to spite another man was foreign to Marmaduke's nature.

"Oh, curse the whole lot!" he broke out at last. "Upon my soul I'll go back to the East--it isn't half a bad place--or wouldn't be if one only had a little tin--besides, I must get the money for my majority."

His words, following his impulsive thoughts, made Marrion smile indulgently.

"I wouldn't if I was you, Mr.--I mean Captain Duke," she remarked, with a twinkle in her eye. "Mayhap, my lord will bury the hatchet now you're home, if ye don't anger him." She looked pretty with that half-mischievous smile, and the sight cheered Marmaduke instantly.

"What a wise lassie you always were, Marmie," he said, with wilful charm, "and what a lot of scrapes you've gotten me out of, and what a lot you'd get me out of, if you were only bound up with me like the Shorter Catechism was by mistake with Tristram Shandy--d'you remember? Good lord, I've forgotten my duty to my neighbour! However, here goes, and I'll do my best not to anger the baron! You see, I must get the money for my majority," he added, half to himself, as he spun round on his heel rather dramatically.

In fact, there was no denying it, the Honourable Marmaduke Muir was a trifle flamboyant as he swaggered across the courtyard which led from the old keep of Drummuir Castle to the southern and modern portion of the building. Marrion Paul watched the figure with a certain distaste. Perhaps, she thought, it was only the ultrafashionable dress, the all too palpable fit-out of a smart military tailor, eager for a bill, that clashed with the grim old walls. Inside he had seemed much the same as she remembered him. Kindly, affectionate, not over wise, but charming, absolutely charming. And, after all, who was she to judge a gentleman born? That question was a hard one to answer. Her mother had undoubtedly been Maggie Sim, old Sim's daughter, who had been maid to the first Lady Drummuir. But her father had been Paul, the foreign valet, whom Lord Drummuir's younger brother had brought over with him when he was invalided from the diplomatic service. A very decent, respectable sort of chap, as old Sim admitted even while he objected strongly to his daughter's marriage. Not without reason it turned out, since Paul, after tending his sick master with unremitting care and resource until his death, disappeared the day of the funeral, leaving his young wife expecting her first child. And he had never been heard of since. That Mrs. Paul should pine away and die early was, the folk about said, only to be expected, for Paul, despite his foreign birth, had been a man to be regretted--a man who had a way with him which his daughter had inherited. She, however, would never hear a word in his favour, and nothing made her more angry than to find in herself little traits of character unaccountable to her sturdy Scots upbringing.

So she told herself that she was no judge of what a gentleman's dress or deportment should be, and turned at the sound of a footstep coming through the archway of the keep behind her to greet the newcomer with a more effusive welcome than she would otherwise have given the young man who came towards her carrying a valise on his shoulder. He set down his burden and grasped her outstretched hand in a sort of transport.

"Ah, Marrion--Marrion, my lass!" he cried. "God, but it's gude to see you once mair!"

The words summed him up from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. You might have spent long hours in analysing Andrew Fraser's mind and body at that particular moment, and you would have got no nearer the mark, since for the time being existence was sheer gladness because of the sight of a woman.

"And I've brocht him safe home as ye bade me when I joined. Ye'll have seen him yerself. He's fine, isn't he?"

There was a world of pride in his tone; the pride of the soldier-servant who is responsible for the smartness of his master's outturn.

"Aye!" assented Marrion, grimly recognising that the figure before her was more to her mind in some ways than the other which had gone swaggering through the quadrangle. This one was broader in the chest, simpler in its ugly angular face and small pathetic-looking blue eyes, and simple--oh, so irritatingly simple!--in the devotion writ large in its every look, its every intonation.

"Well, I'm glad you're both home safe," she said, putting the barrier of refined speech between them. Then a resentment, of which she was innately ashamed even while she yielded to it, made her add: "And I suppose you've brought home a wife on the strength of the regiment?"

Andrew Fraser stared for a second, then shouldered his valise again deftly--

"Ye ken fine, Marrion Paul," he said sternly, as he went on, "that there never was but ae woman in the wurrld for me, an' never will be."

And so he left her feeling small and mean.

She watched him across the courtyard following on his master's steps. A fine figure of a man. No swagger there, nothing to clash with the grey old walls.

But that made no difference, no difference at all. That was the worst of it.

[CHAPTER II]

Marmaduke Muir had meanwhile found his familiar way through the low arch which, piercing the extreme corner of the eastern side of the quadrangle, formed the connecting link between the older part of Drummuir Castle and the new. For the rest, this eastern wall showed blank save for a loophole or two. It was, in effect, simply the back wall of what in Scotland is called the square; that is, the continuation of stables, cow-houses and woodsheds which appertain to a country mansion in the north. It had evidently been built as a wind-screen to the western wing, which, overlooking the river, had been the residential portion of the house before the southern wing had been added to close in the quadrangle. Altogether it was a fine old place, magnificently situated in the slight hollow which dipped between the high old red sandstone cliffs of the Aberdeenshire coast, and the lower yet still high old red sandstone cliffs which for a mile or two formed the eastward bank of the river Drum. Standing still on the grass-plot in the centre of the courtyard a quick ear could detect two water sounds--the rhythmic roll of the waves of the North Sea on the one hand, and the incessant rush of the running river on the other.

Marmaduke did not pause to listen. He only felt a thrill of pride in the beauty of the stern old place before he passed through the arch into totally different surroundings. Here were wide well-kept lawns, beds of rhododendrons, then somewhat of a novelty, and in those northern climes ablaze with blossom this middle June. Further afield lay a typical East Aberdeenshire landscape of rolling arable land set with square plantations of wood and dotted at sparse intervals with solid grey granite farm-houses. Behind him, despite its wide portico and Grecian balustrade, the new wing of the old castle looked stern and stubborn as the rest.

He stood for a moment on the curving flight of massive steps and drew in a long breath of satisfaction; for right in front of him stretched something that once seen could never be forgotten. People came from far for a sight of the great beech avenue of Drummuir. And what they went out for to see was worth the seeing.

A cathedral aisle, not made by hand, solemn, serene. Soft sunlight filtering through a vaulted roof of leaves, wide spandrils of brown branches sweeping to wide arch from the pillars of the mighty tree trunks--a tessellated pavement of shade and shine.

He had seen the sight a thousand times, yet it brought now, as it had always brought, a vague wonder as to the long years since those giant beeches had sent their first feeler into Mother Earth's bosom. But, as ever, after the manner of such idle human wonders when confronted with the permanence of what men class as lower life, it passed, contentedly unsatisfied, to a flood of remembrance. How frightened he had been as a little chap when his nurse had dragged him home to bed--dark, lonely bed!--through those solemn shadows in the gloaming. He had changed, but the avenue had not. It was just the same. No, hardly! There was more shafted sunlight in the distance surely? And that rasping sound in the air--what was it?

Surely a cross-cut saw at work! Then Marmie had as usual told the truth. His father must be cutting down one of the historic beech trees, and there was no need to ring and ask for Lord Drummuir--no need at all! He was to be found as usual ungovernable, insensate, intolerant. A whole youth of rebellion stormed through Marmaduke Muir's mind as, at quick march, he fumed down to where the shameful deed was being done.

From far he could see it was in full swing. The team of horses ready to give the final pull, the stays to other trees, the whole paraphernalia of destruction including the cluster of workmen busy round the doomed tree. And see! Safe to windward--aye, you bet, safe, jolly safe!--the knot of spectators gathered round a bath-chair. That held his father, of course. And the others? They would not be the old sycophants possibly, but they would be of the same kidney. A woman, too! Not his half-sisters--they, poor souls, would be weeping in the dower house over the injury to their brother the heir and to the heirloom beech! And it would not be Penelope--she had been handed over to Davie Sim. By Jupiter, it was too bad! He quickened his pace, fretted by the rush of bitter resentment; then paused suddenly--

Hist! The melodious whistle of a blackbird overhead ceased, and a little rustling sound asserted itself above the constant burring of the saw. The squirrels were leaping from branch to branch.

"Look to yersels--look to yersels! She's yieldin'! Stan' clear for your life. Stan' clear! She yieldin'!"

The cry rose none too soon. There was an instant's hurry, then an instant's intense silence, on which came a sharp crack like a pistol-shot, as the fine old tree, less tough than men had reckoned it, tilted slowly as if uncertain which way to seek its grave. So while men held their breath it stood arrested, defiant; then with a roar and a rush, a swish of sweeping branches, a surging of green leaves, it sank like the tumultuous onrush of some mighty wave, to fall a confused tumbling heap of shade and shine upon the kindly earth exactly where the wit of man had destined it to lie.

A noisy clapping of hands and a high-pitched feminine laugh rose from about the bath-chair; but, ere the applause ceased, a young accusing figure positively flaming with wrath had sprung forward, leaped upon the sawn root of the fallen tree, and so framed as with a halo by the new-cut bole--which measured over seven feet in diameter--bawled out in a voice quivering with sheer passion:

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir! Go home to bed, you miserable old gouty cripple; you've done enough mischief for one day!"

Marmaduke was given to being dramatic, but he had never been more effective than at that moment. He stood his ground like a young avenging angel, secretly elated at having done the business thoroughly well and defied his father, despite Marrion Paul's advice. He almost smiled at the thought of her dismay. Meanwhile, the face of the old man in the bath-chair had grown positively purple with anger, and the colour did not improve the heavy contours of chin, double chin, treble chin, which melted over the high white stock. Yet, barring this exuberant fleshiness, the face was not a bad face. It had indeed its measure of good looks, being not unlike Marmaduke's own. The bald head, if a trifle small, was well shaped, the blue eyes clear, if a trifle cold, and the lips, cruel enough in their heavy curves, had evidently done a deal of laughing in their day to judge by the lines about them. Altogether a strong, sensible face; but arrogant, intolerant to a degree, especially now when its owner was listening to the defiance of his son--a son dependent on him for every farthing beyond his miserable pay as a captain in His Majesty's forces--a son who----

For a moment Baron Drummuir looked as if he must have a fit; then he laughed--a great rude, rough guffaw.

"'Pon my soul," he chuckled, "it's as good as a play! So it's you, is it, you young fool? How the deuce did you get here at this time of day? We didn't expect you for another two hours, so I decided business first"--he waved carelessly to the fallen tree--"and pleasure--that's you, jackanapes--afterwards. Eh, what! Hey!"

This calm reception of his insults completely took the starch out of them and poor Marmaduke, who, standing on his pedestal, could think of nothing further to say save to mumble something about the short cut by the old ferry road.

The baron, as he loved to be called, chuckled again.

"Good boy--anxious as all that to see his poor old dad. And came in the nick of time to see me kill my fatted calf"--he waved to the fallen tree again. "I've killed it nicely, haven't I? And"--here a flicker of pure hatred passed across the fleshy face--"the devil take the man who made me do it!"

His father's expression re-aroused Marmaduke's anger.

"You curse yourself by saying that, sir," he burst out; "for God knows you always do what you want--nobody makes you."

Once again the old man took the starch out of the young one.

"Smart!" he said coolly. "Demned smart, my dear boy! I wonder you don't get on better in life than you do, judging by your constant but fruitless appeals to my cash-box. But get down off your high horse, there's a good lad--you look like some damned play-acting fool up there--and give your old dad a paw; the left one, young ass, the left! Can't you see my right is all bandaged up with the most infernal fit of my old enemy I've had since last Christmas? All that Périgord-pie old Hare sent me. I'll baste his fat liver for him when he comes to-morrow. Lordy lord! Puts me in mind, Marmaduke, of the old days when your mother--she was the best of the three--used to say to you, a little lad, 'The right hand, my dearie. The right hand, my lovie.' And you never could remember. You were a bit of a dullard, but fine and strong and handsome. Not like that cursed skunk, Master Pitt--but there, don't let's mar the harmony of the occasion, eh, Jack?" He turned to a small man with somewhat of a weasel face who stood beside him listening devoutly, as were all the group. "You remember Jack Jardine, don't you, Duke?"

"Slightly," smiled the young man, grasping the other's hand and shaking it violently. "One of the few pleasant reminiscences, sir, I have of Drummuir Castle." He echoed his father's reckless disregard of other folks' feelings with superb indifference and gave back the old man's critical look coolly.

The latter laughed.

"Just what I was at his age--eh, what? Lordy lord, Jack, how we smashed all the lamp-posts in Dodston and told the provost to send the policeman with the bill! Ha, ha! and old cat Carnegie sitting in the hearse with her skirts up to her knees going to the Hunt ball when we'd commandeered every other conveyance in the town. Ha, ha! how the pretty little lassies showed their sandalled ankles, bless 'em, trying to keep their dresses clear of coffins. But I am forgetting. Sandalled ankles reminds me--eh, Fantine? Come here, my dear. I must present you to my second son, Captain--he wants to be a major, I'm told--Marmaduke Muir. Marmaduke, make your due respects to Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand, your future stepmother!"

The dainty little figure, which till then had been standing with one tiny, much-beringed hand resting on the back of the bath-chair, its inquisitive, almost colourless grey eyes taking in the minutest detail of the scene, took a step forward and prepared to make a full-flounced curtsey. But Marmaduke was too quick, too prompt in his perceptions. He grasped the situation and the little lady in a second. The general pinkness of complexion and furbelows, the jimpness of the long trim waist, the uncompromising bands of black velvet, the showers of fair ringlets. His hat was off with a flourish, he also took a step forward to meet the curtsey, but, bending with a "grand air" that did him infinite credit, gave the powdered face a resounding kiss.

The recipient let loose a decorous shriek outwardly; within it was easy to see amused acquiescence. Once again old Lord Drummuir looked as though he would have a fit.

"You dashed young scoundrel," he spluttered.

Marmaduke held his head very high.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, "if I've done wrong; but you said she--I beg pardon, Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand"--his eyes flashed into hers boldly and met a smile--"was to be my stepmamma, so I thought----"

"Oh, the devil take your thoughts," growled his father, but his lips twitched suspiciously. Then suddenly he burst out once again into one of his rude, rough guffaws. "Regular chip of the old block, hey, Jack? Well, Fan, I dare say you don't mind. Haven't too long, you know, of such gay young sparks, for as soon as I'm about again he shall dance at your wedding. Now, for heaven's sake, don't let's stop chattering here! I've got to see my daughters and I want to talk to my son. No, no, you jackanapes, keep away just now! My gout's cursed, the road is cursed, and my temper will be cursed too; so I should likely disinherit you before we got on to the lawn. Fan shall stop by me. I won't have you gallivanting with my son, d'ye hear? He's a good-looking chap, confound him, but you've got to pay for the title, my lady! Have a care, blockhead! Didn't you see that stone? Don't let it hurt your pretty little feet, Fan."

Marmaduke, dropping behind with Jack Jardine, gave a fierce sigh as he watched the little cavalcade move off amid this running fire of curses and kindliness.

"Is it all just as it used to be, Jack?" he asked helplessly.

The little man cleared his throat.

"A little worse perhaps. Your father is a very remarkable man, Marmaduke--a very remarkable man!"

[CHAPTER III]

Anyone who had seen Lord Drummuir ten minutes after Jack Jardine's remark must have echoed it, for a more complete volte face of manner, speech, and apparently temperament than that which overtook the baron in the dower house could not be imagined. Still in his bath-chair, which Marmaduke had dutifully pushed in through the French windows on to the green-grounded, cabbage-rosed drawing-room carpet, he beamed round on his daughters and their chaperon with a paternal affection which was almost pathetic. The Honourable Miss Muirs were three in number and they had all greeted their younger half-brother with reserved kisses. But then everything they did was reserved. Miss Mary, the eldest, was reserved even about her tendency to grow stout, which, all things considered, was the strongest interest in her life. Miss Elizabeth, the second, a very elegant looking woman, was equally reserved about her undoubted intellect, while Miss Margaret, a great tall, strapping figure with all her father's force of character and all his soundness of constitution, held both in check, except when she managed a lonely walk with her dogs in the woods. Then her voice would ring out deep and true, and at the crack of her whip every puppy within miles would come in contentedly to heel.

Her father liked her the least, probably because of the contrast between her and his ricketty male heir, so in the shabby Victorian drawing-room she generally sat mumchance, showing up badly against her sisters' exquisite manners. For no one knew better than Lord Drummuir what a gentlewoman should be, and therefore he had been extremely particular about his daughters' education. To what end, heaven alone knew, since they lived on, year after year, in the dower house, occasionally visiting in stately fashion the late minister's wife (though this distraction was no longer theirs owing to the State appointment of a bachelor to the living), and, very occasionally, seeing some of their father's older and more respectable friends. In regard to this, however, and to kindred matters no grand Turk could have been more autocratic than was Lord Drummuir. So he sat and discoursed on Shakespeare and the musical glasses, on his delight at seeing his dearest boy again, leading the latter on to detail some of the more instructive portions of his foreign life, until the full half-hour which he daily bestowed on his daughters was up. Then with the utmost punctuality he took out his watch, said he feared he must be off, and congratulated himself and the three young ladies on a charming conversation.

"You are too good, papa," replied the young ladies, as they deposited a decorous kiss on his bald head. So they stood and watched the bath-chair roll along the lawn till it reached the turn by the rhododendrons which hid it from view, and then they waved their handkerchiefs. And the baron waved his in return, thereinafter using it to mop his forehead relievedly, while he ejaculated, "Thank God, that's over!"

Whereat Marmaduke smiling, the old man went on serenely.

"Never forget, my boy, how to treat women of good character. The other comes naturally, but I'm damned if I ever forgot my manners with a really good woman. And you will find it pays, Duke, it pays. So now have not you got some bit of spice, or an on dit to amuse the old man with? Curse me, but I lead a miserable life here, tied down by this infernal complaint; but I am paying now for the follies and indiscretions of youth. Confound you, Marmaduke, you might think of your poor old father's joints and not rush your fences in that way!"

"I beg your pardon, sir," replied Marmaduke, meekly glad of the turn he had given the conversation by deploying the bath-chair into the gravel walk; for, in good truth, he had no great relish for spicy stories. Not that he was a prig, but that he had been born a sportsman, to whom indoor life was dull and irksome. So he welcomed another interruption in the shape of a young man who came hastily down the path to meet them.

"Why, I believe it's Peter!" he cried joyously, and the next minute was shaking hands with his young half-brother, the fruit of Lord Drummuir's third but not last marriage; for his wives never lived long, except the first, who had lingered for years, only giving him useless daughters. "Why, Peter, how you've grown!" remarked Marmaduke unnecessarily, seeing he had been away ten years.

"So've you--you're a giant beside the rest of us, except Meg! Pitt and I----" The lad pulled himself up sharp. "Well, I say, sir, we must have a rousin' night to celebrate Duke's return!"

Marmaduke, looking at the slender, fair-haired youth with a weak mouth and an excited manner, thought he had probably roused too much. Instinctively, therefore, since he had often been drunk himself--it was the fashion of the time--he changed the subject again to one that had come uppermost in the old familiar surroundings.

"I say, how about the grouse? Is it to be a good year?"

His eyes as he spoke almost yearned over a swelling purpled horizon curve which told where the best moors in that part of Aberdeenshire were to be found.

Five minutes after the old lord, still in his bath-chair, was discoursing in the most animated and amiable fashion about sport past and present and to come, while his two sons, one of them sprawling on the lawn, joined in amicably.

So amicably that Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand, watching them from her boudoir windows, turned to a man who was lounging in a chair reading the papers, and said--

"This sort of thing won't do, Compton. That young man is too charming."

The man to whom she spoke did not look up. He went on reading, as he said--

"You don't often find them too charming, Fan!"

"Don't be a fool, Tom," she replied curtly, coming to sit beside him. "You know quite well what I mean. Young men of that sort always are in debt; besides, I've heard the old man say something about money for a majority. Now the estate's entailed, so payments of that sort must come out of what I mean to be mine--and I won't have it!"

"Sound common sense, Fan," said her companion, yawning; "but you are always in such a hurry to begin. Wait a few days and see how the land lies first. You've always the best of weapons in your hand."

"What's that?"

"Jealousy. The old man is as jealous as old boots. Once make him fancy young Marmaduke is sweet on you, and he goes to the right-about."

Fantine sat back and laughed.

"You are always so comforting, Tom."

He rose and put down his paper.

"Always ready to help, my dear; but you remember our compact--half shares when the old man dies."

"He'll be good for another ten years if I marry him," she called after her late companion, as he strolled out of the room.

Then she sat down and faced facts. In truth she was getting tired of her rôle of première danseuse at a London theatre. Perhaps, she even admitted, she was a trifle too old for the agile cutting of capers. She felt vaguely that she would like to draw in her horns and let her waist out, and she was quite ready to take Lord Drummuir as a means of satisfying both ambitions. In her way she was neither bad nor unkind, simply egotistic to a degree. In this last episode of an eventful career which seldom outlasts the age of forty, she had deliberately played for semi-respectability, and had only come down to stay at Drummuir Castle under the wing of an impeccable duenna. Not that the fact had in the least imposed on the old lord. He was shrewd enough to know Miss Fanny Biggs, or, as she chose to style herself, Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand, down to the ground. But it was something to have someone to dance for him (as she did to distraction), when he had a fit of the gout and look quite deucedly pretty at all times. So the bargain was made. A title in exchange for amusements. But Fantine Le Grand looked beyond the old man's life; she looked for comfortable widowhood. So she wandered again to the window and watched the family trio on the lawn. It was far too filial for her tastes. Tom Compton, so-called Colonel of Irregulars, one of her oldest friends, had been right. Jealousy would be a good card to play. And then she laughed suddenly at the recollection of Marmaduke's filial salute. He was better-looking than his father must have been at his age, but, according to the latter, he was "a chip of the old block." So he would be easy prey.

Meanwhile, Colonel Compton having joined the group on the lawn, the conversation had drifted round to politics, and the old lord, being an ardent Whig, had waxed fast and furious on the enormities of the Tories. A perfectly innocent subject, but one which did not interest Marmaduke, who thereupon drifted away to find Jack Jardine, from whom he hoped to hear the truth as to his father's present relations with the heir, the Master, and also--though this interested him less, since it was to a certain degree patent--with Mdlle. Le Grand. So, as they sat smoking Fubaurg's tobacco out of long clay pipes after the fashion of the times, they discussed the situation.

"You ask how the breach has widened," said Jack Jardine. "Well, I don't think it has done so abnormally. It has been going on ever since poor Pitt turned out such a weakling. You know the family history. After he married Lady Helen, whom he shouldn't have married because she too, poor soul, was, as it were, doomed to disease, though she was a duke's daughter and so, satisfied his lordship's pride--a miserable story, Duke, a miserable story. Well, there was one disappointment about an heir after another, as you know, Duke, and it hit home into the peer--for he is no fool. Put it briefly, though he is quite ready to tell you he is suffering from the indiscretions of youth while he is in torments with the gout, and at the same time supping every night on broiled foxes' tongues and mulled claret, he can't bear to see the results in Pitt. He hates him because he hasn't the physique to carry on the name. He is a very remarkable man, Duke, is your father."

"Very," assented the young man grimly. "I wish the devil he wasn't."

"That's why I, and all the rest of us who have Drummuir interests at heart, are so glad you've come home. You're presumptive heir now, and to all intents and purposes you're 'apparent.' And you're straight and strong, thanks to your poor mother. So we look to you to keep up the honour of the name. I believe if you play your cards well, you might easily oust Miss Fanny Biggs, or Mdlle. Fantine----"

Marmaduke burst into a laugh.

"Thank you," he said; "that is most succinct! I needn't ask any more. But does the old man really mean to marry her?"

Jack Jardine nodded.

"Would have done it three months ago but for the gout. And she isn't really so bad, but devilish sly; and that man Compton, whom the peer has taken up with over the railway business, is in with her." He gave a sigh and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I've my work cut out for me, Duke, I can tell you."

There was a slight pause, and then Marmaduke said curiously--

"I've often wondered, Jack, why you, who by your brains could have made your own way, have been contented to stick on in this cursed old place among us cursed people, letting us youngsters call you Jack and borrow money from you. By the way, I shouldn't have been able to come home if you hadn't sent me that last hundred pounds."

Jack Jardine said nothing; then he walked to the window.

"You may as well know, Duke, it may help you to steer your way. It is because I, a poor lawyer, loved your mother--not before, but after she became Lady Drummuir! Of course she never guessed; but I helped her to try and keep your father straight. She led an awful life----"

"You needn't tell me that!" broke in Marmaduke, fiercely.

"Yet your father didn't mean ill to her. Anyhow, I tried to help her, and so I suppose it became a habit. Love is a queer thing, Duke!"

"I believe it is," said Marmaduke, magisterially, "but it has not come my way yet," and he added joyously, "I hope it won't for some years to come, for I like enjoying myself."

Apparently he did; for as the summer evening began to close in on Drummuir Castle and the menkind, with only Mdlle. Fantine and her duenna to represent the opposite sex, gathered in the huge dining-room to attack a heavy dinner which would have sufficed for a regiment, he was the life and soul of the party, and ate through the menu with a relish which aroused regret and admiration in the old lord.

"Dash it all," he bawled, "why can't I eat soup, fish, top and bottom and four sides through five courses like that dashed youngster of mine, who puts it on to his shoulders instead of his waist like I do?"

And when the claret began to circle round faster and faster Marmaduke never let it pass; so that when, with sweet decorum, Mdlle. Fantine and her duenna prepared to withdraw, he nearly killed the Skye terrier in his flamboyant haste to open the door. Nay, more! He followed them into the corridor for an instant. What passed there none saw, but he returned to his seat with flushed cheeks and throbbing veins, feeling vaguely that the battle of wits had begun.

Of what followed his memory was confused. He remembered that outside the windows the summer twilight was still flooding the green lawns, while humanity inside, after guzzling itself stupid with rich food, was trying to grow witty over the boozing of mulled claret and whisky-toddy. They began, of course, with the young queen's health, and went on methodically till they came to the good old Scotch toast: "Here's to oorsels. Wha' better? Damn few!" After this, which seemed to afford general satisfaction, they proceeded to particularise, and Marmaduke had a dim recollection of someone proposing "The future Commander-in-Chief, coupled with the name of Captain Marmaduke Muir."

But whether he replied, or whether the effort to rise and do so was too much for him and he rolled under the table, he could not say.

Certain it is that on that first night of his return to the home of his fathers Marmaduke Muir was hopelessly drunk.

Certain also that he erred in company, the only sober man being Jack Jardine, who invariably sought the shelter of the table at an early period and lay there comfortably, his head on a buffet, listening to the commiserations on his weak head until he fell asleep, to wake when the carouse was over, and see that the gentlemen's gentlemen sorted their respective masters to their respective beds.

[CHAPTER IV]

Marrion Paul sat in the semi-darkness of the summer night waiting for her grandfather to return from his duties at the Castle. She did not generally do so, for he was apt to be late; but on this, the first day of Captain Duke's return, sleep would have been out of the question until she heard something of the evening. For she did not mince matters with herself; those six years of independent life in Edinburgh had opened her eyes to the world, and the first sight of Marmaduke Muir had told her that the long ten years had not changed her at all; that he was as much the sun in her heaven as he had been in the old childish days. The sun in her heaven, and something more superadded to those olden times.

Then the day had been disturbing. Everyone had come to her praising the Captain's looks and ways and general charm; to all of which she had replied coolly, feeling the while in a perfect quiver of gladness. Miss Margaret had been the hardest to damp when she had appeared in the afternoon with the sporting dogs and a stout crop in her hand on her way to take them a scramble over the rocks and round by the lower bay.

"Oh, Marrion!" she cried enthusiastically. "Saw you ever the like? Elizabeth says he's like the Apollo Belvidere!"

"I am not knowing the gentleman," protested Marrion distantly. "But Captain Duke has grown to a fine figure. But has Miss Muir seen Andrew Fraser? He's twice the man he was when he went away."

It was a false move on Marrion's part, for it brought on her instantly the hearty reply--

"I'm glad to hear it, Marmie; so I suppose we will be having you cried in the kirk before long. Duke says he has been most faithful."

Whereupon the speaker called to her dogs in a stentorian voice worthy her father's, cracked her whip scientifically, and strode away for an hour or two's freedom. For the atmosphere of the dower house was stifling, and there was always a chance of meeting the Rev. Patrick Bryce on the sands below the rocks, where he went always to compose his sermons, with which the reverend gentleman had no little difficulty. Not because he was stupid, but because he found it laborious to reconcile his own views with those of his flock; they, however, being inclined to be lenient with one who had earned for himself the nickname of "the bonny parson," and who was known to be the best shot and fisherman in the district. For this reason he would have been welcome at the Castle, but for his unswerving outspoken protest against its general behaviour.

Marrion, meanwhile, finding more peace as the day died down, took to wandering at the far side of the quadrangle listening to the distant sounds of revelry; her hands, as she walked, busy with her knitting-pins--after the fashion of Scotchwomen in those days--going faster and faster as her thoughts grew hotter over what she knew was happening at the other side of the blank wall. Guzzling and boozing! First the masters, then the men-servants, while away in the back premises the scullerymaids and kitchenmaids were working hard. It was a shame, a burning shame; but if ever she had a son she would see to it that he was different.

But she never would have a son; anyhow, not Andrew Fraser's, be he ever so sober, so upright. That was the worst of it. With an impatient sigh she hurried outside the keep door to stand and watch the last faintly flushed clouds of sunset in the nor'-west fade over the darkling stretches of moorland.

It must be nigh twelve of the clock, for eastwards, over the darkling stretches of the sea, a faint lightening of the horizon, which held such a hint of restlessness even in its shadow, told where the sun would soon rise again. For in those high northern latitudes there is a bare two hours' darkness in a summer night.

Twelve o' the clock, and after that would be their birthday. Well, good luck to him wherever he went! Some day he must be the laird--Baron Drummuir. Nothing to hinder that must come into his life--nothing!

The faithfulness of inherited service was in her blood. She recognised this and sometimes wondered if her own devotion to the honour and welfare of the House of Drummuir was not stronger even than her grandfather's; possibly because her father, by all repute, had been a faithful servant, too; such things are not to be escaped.

She was aroused from her thoughts by a wavering step in the quadrangle, and returned to meet her grandfather in the expansive stage of intoxication.

"Aye, my lass," he went on, when he had wept a few easy tears over her goodness in sitting up for him, "it was just a gran' nicht. The pipes seemed fey and I blawed at them till we was baith like to burst. An' my lord, he was for havin' oot the biggest bottle o' pickled foxes' tongues, an' he devilled them himsel' in a chaffin' dish afore them all, an' they a' drunk wi' mirth an' guid claret. Jock, the butler, was tellin' me--there was twal o' them--that they were drinkin' thirty bottles o' the best, forbye sixteen tum'lers of hot whisky-toddy, the Sheriff and the Lord Provost had, honest gentlemen, to their lane--an' there wud be no 'hoot-toots' where the Shirra was concerned! Then the laird o' Balbuggo--he has a weak head, yon man, was for ridin' hame and was no to be hindered frae it; sae Captain Duke an' anither young spark jest perched his saddle to the loupin'-on-stane and pit the guid man to it. An' there he sat tittuping away his lane for an hour or sae quite blythe, till they tell't him he was at Balbuggo, and he just aff an' awa tae his bed like a lammie."

"And Captain Duke?" asked the girl, with scorn in her voice, pity in her heart, despite the irrepressible smile in her eyes. "Was he drunk, too?"

Old Davie winked solemnly.

"Aye, that was he--he was fair fou--but," he added carefully; "he took his cups real well! Not like Mr. Peter, that syne gets tae sickness and----"

"Gran'father," cried the girl passionately, interrupting him, "it's gettin' late! You must away to your bed, or you'll no be up the morn to pipe 'Hey! Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin' yet?' I'll see to the doors."

"No be up?" contended the old man. "I tell ye if the arkaungel Gabbriel was tae soun' his trump any day at half-after seven, he'd find Davie Sims--aye, and his forbears an' descendants--skirling awa' at that same tune up an' dune a' the passages in Drummuir Castle tae wake the gentlefolk! Aye, that wad he"--here he began stumbling up the stair with his candle held at an angle of forty-five--"though it's hard on a body that's had tae pipe to the deil ower nicht to think o' his duty tae the sluggard."

Here his maunderings became unintelligible, and the girl he left turned to the closing of the house, her heart hot as fire with indignation, chill as ice with scorn.

What else was there to expect? Like father, like son! When she had drawn the bolts she went up to her own room and flung its little window wide. The full moon shone round like a shield, and by its light she could see the whole wild coast stretching northwards from Drumkirk Point to Rattray Head. And after that? The North Pole, of course! Dear inaccessible region to all but the strong, the single of heart, the men who could command others--and themselves.

She scarcely knew what it was that she raged against as slowly, methodically, she began to undress. The little brilliant or paste brooch, she knew not which, formed of two crossed p's which was the only relic she possessed of her dead father, arrested her for a second. What sort of a man had he been really, she wondered, and what sort of a son would hers be when she had one?

She flung the tiny bauble from her impatiently, so stood for a second drawn up to her full height, her bare arms crossed, her shapely hands clasping their smooth roundness; then, with a sudden sob, she realised what had come to her, and, throwing herself face downwards on her bed, lay for a minute or two still as the dead. Then as suddenly she sat up again with a world of puzzled wonder in her strained eyes.

"I canna think," she murmured, "what gars' me love him so, but I do, and there's an end o' it."

Possibly; but such knowledge as that which had just burst over her like a storm does not make for quiet sleep. She told herself a thousand and one wise things, but the hours slipped by, bringing at last a conviction of hopelessness. She would be better up than pretending to rest, so she went to stand at the window once more.

The flush of coming day was clear now in the northeast, the flood-tide of the full moon lay mysterious in the embrace of the rocks. Ere long the rising sun would send battalions on battalions of shining golden ripples to storm the estuary and climb the shadowy cliff on which the castle stood--where he lay drunk!

Ah, well! That would not spoil the beauty of it all, which she had so often seen, and the nip of the salt North Sea might check her silly desire for him. The room felt stifling; she would be better outside.

So, slipping on her swimming-dress of coarse white flannel blanketing (for ever since those childish days when she and Duke had done everything in common she had been an expert swimmer), she threw a plaid round her, and made her way through the keep gateway to the rocks below. There was no breeze, the tide must be at its height almost, and there was the spent moon, pale with its long night-watch, hanging on the grey sky of dawn. Ah, these were the things worth having--the others could be set aside with joy!

Ere five minutes were over, breathless from her fierce driving strokes through the water, she had turned over on her back, and, face to the skies, was trying to imagine she was floating thitherwards. The gulls, wakened by the coming light, skimmed over her in their quest for food. The little pointed wavelets that rose and fell, marking the course of the river stream, made a fine, sobbing, tinkling noise in her ears.

Full flood-tide!

She laughed aloud in the joy of it; then, rolling over again, struck out for the opposite shore. Higher up the estuary there was a little sheltered bay whence she could watch the panorama of dawn. When she drew herself out of the water on to a convenient rock the air struck warm, and the stone beneath her had scarce lost yester-sun's heat. It would be a perfect day--if anything over hot, for a faint opalescence already lay on sea and sky.

As she sat waiting for the first rays of the sun to "skim the sea with flying feet of gold," she unplaited her russet hair, which had become loosened, and, combing out its long length with her fingers, prepared to plait it up again.

Suddenly a voice startled her.

"A beauteous mermaid, by Jove! Fair lady----"

The theatrical intonation did not deceive her. She slipped like any seal into the water, and so protected looked back to see Marmaduke Muir. He was still in his over-night's dress-clothes, but their utter disarray made them more consonant with his occupation, for he held a salmon-rod in his hand, a creel had unfastened his ruffled shirt at the neck, and he had evidently torn off his stiff stock for more ease, and kicked away his pumps for firmer foothold on the rocks. His face showed no sign of last night's carouse, and Marrion, looking at it, could not but confess that some sins leave no mark on a man. Ere she could utter a word, his surprise found speech.

"Why, Marmie!" Then in a half-awed tone he added: "What beautiful hair you've got, my dear!"

"Aye," she replied imperturbably, feigning perfect calm, "it's fine! Folk is aye tellin' me o' 't. The hairdresser in Edinbro' was offering me a lot for it."

He sat down on the rocks above where she lay swaying with the long roll of the distant waves outside the bar, her hands holding to the seaweed.

"Goth and Vandal! But you didn't let him have it. Wise Marmie, but then you always were wisdom itself! I remember----"

He was becoming vaguely sentimental, so she brought him back to earth with a round turn.

"You'll no have been gettin' any fish the morn?" she queried.

"No fish!" he echoed loftily. "What do you call that?"

He pulled out of his creel a seven-inch burnie and laid it with pomp on the rocks. Then their young laughter echoed out into the dawn.

"But I got a hold on another," he went on, keen as a boy. "A real good one--as big as any I ever got in the castle pool--perhaps bigger. You see they were talking of the fishing yesterday and they all said it was no good. Not enough water. So I didn't intend to try; but--well, you see, my dear, I got drunk last night--I did--and I woke up about half an hour ago with a beastly headache. So then I thought I'd go out and see if the fish weren't moving, and as they'd put me to bed in my clothes--I must have been horrid drunk, and Andrew, you see, was away with his people--I just took one of Peter's rods and ferried myself over in the boat. It's up yonder. I'll take you back in it, if you like."

The idea was preposterous. Marrion imagined herself arriving at the castle, where the servants were ever early astir, in her bathing dress with the Captain! So she hastily drew a red herring across the trail.

"And was the fish real big, Captain Duke?" she asked.

"Big! I tell you it was the biggest I, or, for the matter of that, anyone else ever caught in the castle pool."

"Fish are aye big when they are in the water, I'm thinking," she cast back at him, as, loosing her seaweed hold, she struck out.

He sprang up.

"You're not going to try and cross now!" he cried, pointing to where in mid-stream a wide oily streak told that tide and river were flowing out fast. "The ebb is at its strongest. Marmie, don't be a fool!"

She gave a quick glance forward, then looked back to smile farewell.

"Aye, it's strong, but I've done it before now. There's no fear for me, Captain Duke."

So saying she turned her head upstream, seeing indeed that she would have to be careful not to be swept past her bearings when she got to mid-channel; so she did not see Marmaduke tear off his creel, his coat, and waistcoat, and, in thin ruffled shirt and kersey breeches, launch himself into the water. But his tremendous underwater strokes soon brought him up almost beside her to shake his curly head like a retriever. She looked at him startled and quickened her strokes, whereupon he changed to overhand and ranged up beside her without effort.

"Where did you learn yon?" she asked, more for something to break a silence which made her heart beat than from curiosity. "You usen't to swim that way."

"In the Indies," he replied, laughing. "I must teach it to you; but it isn't much good in currents. By Jove, how jolly this is. Why the deuce did I take the boat? I say--look out! I feel the trend of the stream."

Small doubt of that. They were through the backwater and in another minute would be in the full of outgoing river and outgoing tide. The opposite bank seemed slipping past them rapidly. Duke changed his stroke instantly and ranged up beside Marrion.

"It will be easier together," he said, passing his hand over her shoulder, and obediently she passed hers over his.

"Now then, together!" he cried. "And if you tire you know what to do; and keep time, there's a good girl."

So they struck off, the forward lunge of his long legs aiding hers, that were so far behind in strength. Thus they battled the stream shoulder to shoulder, almost cheek to cheek, her long loose hair sweeping across him, until the worst of it was over and the girl would fain have loosed her grip and turned shorewards definitely.

"Not yet!" he laughed. "Let's swim out to sea a bit! Look--isn't it worth it?"

Aye, worth everything else in the world. Far out in the east over that restless horizon the first ray of the sun had tipped, sending a widening, radiant path of pure gold to meet them. It shone on her red-brown hair, turning it to bronze; it shone in their blue eyes, turning them to sapphires; and it shone on their wholesome, happy faces, transfiguring them out of all semblance to beings of dingy earth and purifying them from all mortal taint. They were freed souls swimming in the vasty ether, all around them the dawn of a new day.

So they went on and on, till suddenly Duke veered their course shorewards with one guiding stroke.

"I shall tire you out," he said softly, and his freed hand, as he disentangled her hair from his neck, lifted the shiny strands to his lips for a second. "You have got such jolly hair, Marmie! I wonder you don't wear it down your back. None of the fellows could resist you then."

Their faces were away from the dawn now and hers already had a cloud on it.

"I'm going to the big rock. I left my shawl there," she said, directing her course towards it.

Duke followed suit in silence. Suddenly he said--

"I can't think how I was such a fool as to get drunk last night. It shan't occur again; but, you know, I shouldn't have had this perfectly stunning time if I hadn't, should I? We must repeat it every morning, Marmie, mustn't we?"

"Weather permitting," she replied, almost bitterly. "But it's no often sae comfortable to be in the water as it is this morning, Mr. Duke."

"Ah, you should have been with me in the Indies! You could stop in all day. You're not feeling cold, I hope?"

Cold! With every pulse in her body clamouring for sheer joy in his presence.

"I'll no be cold when I get my shawl," she said calmly; then, seeing him turn, called quickly--

"You're no going across again, Mr. Duke, it isn't safe!"

"Didn't I tell you so from the beginning, eh? No; of course I'm not. I'm going to swim up the side to the steps and send the ghillie for the boat."

She watched the rhythmic spluttering of his overhand stroke past the point. He would be home before her, she thought, as somewhat wearily she climbed the rocks to the keep. It had been a real joy. In all her life, long or short, she would never forget it.

That was the pity of it, for the memory might become a pain.

[CHAPTER V]

Marmaduke Muir's repentances, like many of his virtues and vices, were apt to be evanescent. So the next week, it is to be feared, saw many a lapse from his intention that drunkenness should not occur again. In truth it needed a strong will to be sober in Drummuir Castle. The old lord himself had a head which nothing could upset, and though he went to his bed groaning with gout, no one could have said his wits were in the least astray. Now Marmaduke had to a certain extent inherited this toleration of alcohol, a fact which at once gratified his father and set the old sinner to the graceless task of inciting his son to more and more glasses of good claret, champagne, and port in order to see how far the inheritance went. And Marmaduke, partly because he was anxious to ingratiate himself with his irascible parent and partly from sheer joie de vivre, fell in with the old man's whim. In reality it meant much to him that he should get to the right side of his father. He had a chance of his majority if only fifteen hundred pounds odd could be found over and above the regulation purchase money. It was a big price; but the vacancy was in a crack Highland regiment and the majority would give him almost the certainty of commanding in the future.

"The peer has never done anything for me in his life," he said angrily to Jack Jardine. "I've gone into a West India regiment. I've lived on my pay--and your allowance, old chap. By the way, I do wish you'd make up accounts between us. We three brothers must owe you a lot already, and though we've all given our post obits on the property when the old man dies, I myself don't like it. Worries me when I have a headache, you know!"

Jack Jardine smiled. The proposition for a clear account had been made many times in the past ten years, sometimes by one brother, sometimes by another--but generally by Marmaduke--without in any way altering the relative positions of creditor and debtor. So he set the point aside.

"Why should you have a headache, Duke?" he began as a prelude to a sermon on sobriety he had been meditating for some days; but Marmaduke's candour took the words out of his mouth.

"Not the least reason in life, Jack, except that I want and will have my majority, and I must keep straight with the peer till I get the money. Look here, I'll tackle the old man to-morrow, and if I succeed I'll cut and run. I don't drink anywhere else, Jack, I don't indeed--not, I mean to say, drink."

Looking at the speaker's clear, almost boyish, face his hearer could well believe it.

"Your father is suffering a lot from the gout just now," he said, dubiously.

"And he'll go on suffering as long as I'm here, and he wants to make me drunk," retorted Marmaduke, whose perceptions were by no means dense, "so the sooner it's over the better for both of us!"

Accordingly the very next day when, in accordance with his usual custom, he wheeled his parent to the paternal visit to the dower house, Marmaduke broached the subject of finance on the way back. It was not a very auspicious moment, for the old gentleman had been made at once irritable and pious by an unwary allusion on the part of his youngest daughter, Margaret, to the new minister of the parish, the Reverend Patrick Bryce. Now the reverend gentleman in question was at the time Lord Drummuir's bête noire. To begin with, he had been presented to the living by the Crown, and the Barons of Drummuir had for generations claimed the right themselves. Evil thinking people, indeed, said that it was this fact which made the old man so wholehearted an advocate of that disruption in the Church of Scotland which was then rending the country in twain. People talked of little else, except railways, and on that point Lord Drummuir held the most conservative of views. They would, he said, not without truth, play the devil with country society and make it impossible for a nobleman to travel in comfort. But no one who knew his lordship ever asked for consistency in his opinions. He simply held them with a tenacity that was perfectly appalling. So the mere mention of the Reverend Patrick Bryce's name, with the addition of a fine blush on his daughter's face when she discovered her slip of the tongue, had put him into a white heat of politeness and piety.

"I am surprised at you, Margaret," he said. "I should prefer your having nothing to do even with the school feasts of a man who, denying the headship of the church to the Almighty, continues to batten on the loaves and fishes of--of--and has the cursed impudence to find fault with other people's meat and drink, too," he added, fiercely.

Despite this, Marmaduke, who had inherited no little of his father's obstinacy, took the opportunity of the bath-chair reaching the finest point of the view to say with a great show of courage--

"By the way, sir, don't you think it's about time to send that money for my majority? Pringle is rather in a hurry to retire, and the price may run up if we don't act soon."

His lordship rather admired this home thrust without warning, but he was on his guard at once and cleared his throat for a speech.

"It's a positive disgrace to our army, and so I told poor Brougham the last time I saw him, that promotion should not only go by purchase but that private individuals should have power to fill their pockets with the proceeds of further extortion. It is a kind of simony; it is the sale of valour, of one's country's good!"

Lord Drummuir was a noted orator when he chose, even in those days when everyone could string words together into high-sounding phrases, and when Edmund Burke's foaming fulminations were held up to the young as models of eloquence; but Marmaduke was obdurate.

"Possibly, sir," he interrupted, "but I want to do it. You see, sir," he warmed with his subject, "I'll be dashed if I've troubled you much in the last ten years--now have I? You've made me an allowance on which I couldn't live in a gentlemanly way at home. So I've exchanged again and again for foreign service, going down and down till I've landed in the West Indies. And now I have this chance of getting back to my old regiment, to a soldier's life that is worth having----"

"No soldier's life is worth having. If you will be kind enough to remember, I objected from the first to the army," interrupted the old man, with icy politeness.

Marmaduke groaned aloud.

"Oh, don't let us go back so far as that, sir. The thing's done, and practically you have to decide now whether you're going to wreck my fortune or make it."

Lord Drummuir took out his pocket-handkerchief solemnly.

"And this is what I am asked to do, when my physicians insist on absolute rest of body and mind. I am asked to consider, to take all the responsibility. No, Marmaduke, you are old enough to decide for yourself!"

"Then you wish me to go back to that miserable hole?" began the young man vehemently.

"I am informed on the best authority that the climate of the West Indies has sensibly improved of late years," remarked his lordship, imperturbably. "The discovery of the cinchona plant----"

"Damn the cinchona plant!" burst out Marmaduke. But at that instant a silvery artificial little laugh rose behind them and Mdlle. Fantine Le Grand appeared tripping over the grass with the daintiest of sandalled feet.

She had again been watching father and son from her window, and after a week's hesitation she had suddenly decided that something must be done to stop what seemed to be growing confidence. She had hitherto played with the plan of arousing the old man's jealousy, confining herself to half-hearted flirtations with Marmaduke, who, also on the watch, had fallen in with the amusement quite pleasantly. But that morning Colonel Compton had spoken out his fears.

"You'll have to look to your p's and q's, Fan, or that youngster will be running away with some of the peer's loose cash. And as the estate is strictly entailed that won't suit us. I overheard that weasel, Jack Jardine, talking to the captain about the purchase of his majority, so you had better look sharp."

The words echoed in her brain as she had stood watching father and son in an apparently amicable conversation which clinched her decision. The result being her appearance before the two conspirators, provocative to the very tilt of her carefully held pink parasol.

"Oh, pardon," she began, in the stage French accent she affected in society, "but I mean not to disturb! Only the filial picture of milor and his too charming son was irresistible to poor me--so sans famille."

She did not look in the least forlorn, and Lord Drummuir's clear, wicked old eyes, that had seen to the bottom of so many evil things, took her in from head to foot, and his clear wicked old brain considered what she would be at. Then he chuckled softly, thinking he had found out.

"No apologies needed, dear little Fan," he said affectionately; "you are almost one of the family already, so we've no secrets. Marmaduke and I were just discussing the purchase of his majority. It will take more than two thousand five hundred pounds, I'm afraid, won't it, dear boy?--what with the regulation and non-regulation figures. A big sum, my dear, a big sum. It will make a hole in what's available for wedding presents, eh, little woman?"

He looked at her with amused malevolence, thinking he had settled her hash; for little Fan was not the woman to flirt with a man who was to do her out of a farthing. And Fantine's eyes were steel as she made a little curtsey.

"Who, my lord," she warbled tenderly, "could regret money spent in such a good cause? Pardon," she added, remembering her accent, "was that not right said? I mean that Marmaduke"--her voice cooed the name--"is welcome to all zat I could give to him."

The baron burst into a huge rough guffaw.

"Come, that is a real good 'un!" he cried, highly amused. "I declare you're as good as a play. But it's not settled yet." Here he glanced at his son, keen to tantalise him too, and with reckless devilry sowing the seeds of evil broadcast. "I shall have to choose between diamonds for my wife and promotion for my son. Meanwhile, my lady, don't get your pretty little feet damp on the grass. Remember you have to dance to us to-night. Ogilvie and all the good fellows for miles round are coming to see you, and you mustn't be a failure."

When the bath-chair and its wheezy occupant had been handed over to the valet, Fantine Le Grand and Marmaduke lingered on the steps together in silence.

"You have not yet seen me dance?" she said, suddenly. "Well, you shall see me this evening! I will dance for you alone, monsieur."

His eyes laughed into hers boldly.

"It is a bargain, mademoiselle; but I shall ask for more, I warn you."

"Dieu merci," she said, with a tiny shrug of her shoulders, "you must not ask too much!"

So with provocative laughter she fled up the steps with the prettiest of little glissades and disappeared, leaving Marmaduke gratified at the impression he had evidently made, and with a certain new admiration for the demure daintiness of Mademoiselle Fantine. His father, devil take him, hadn't a bad taste.

Marmaduke

By

Flora Annie Steel

Author of"On the Face of the Waters," "A Sovereign Remedy,""King-Errant," etc.

New YorkFrederick A. Stokes CompanyPublishers1917

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

Author of
"On the Face of the Waters," "A Sovereign Remedy,"
"King-Errant," etc.

New York
Frederick A. Stokes Company
Publishers
1917