A Lame Dog's Diary

by S. Macnaughtan

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  When Mrs. Fielden came to stay at the Melfords we saw a good deal ofher. Their yacht used to steam up in the early morning, and they wouldtake us off for a day's cruise on the loch or for a trip round to Oban.Mrs. Fielden used to sit on deck with a big red umbrella over her headand a white yachting gown on, and seemed serenely unconscious that shewas looking very pretty and very smart. My sister tells me she neverfeels badly dressed till she meets Mrs. Fielden.

  The Melfords have very pleasant people stopping with them always, andthere are very jolly little parties on board their yacht. Mrs.Fielden, however, is in her most provoking and wilful mood. Every dayit is the same thing--laughter and smiles for every one. But she hasabsolutely no heart. All the beautiful, kindly things she does areonly the whim of the moment. They bespeak a generous nature, as easilymoved to tears as to laughter; but she loves every one a little, andprobably has no depth of affection or constancy in her. Lately, shehas added another provoking habit to the many she already possesses.She exaggerates her pretence of having no memory, and indeed it may beshe has not any.

  When I left home, rather a wreck as regards health, and drove to thestation in Mrs. Fielden's luxurious carriage, it was her hand thatpiled the cushions, as no one else can, behind me. And the last thingI saw was her smile as she waved her hand to me from my own door.

  Last week, when we met again at the Melfords', she nodded to me in alittle indifferent sort of way. She sat under a big cedar-tree on oneof the lawns, and laughed, and talked a sort of brilliant nonsense thewhole afternoon.

  By-and-by I said to her--probably clumsily, certainly at the wrongtime--"I never half thanked you for being so good to me when I wasill;" for she had come in like some radiant vision, day after day, inher beautiful summer gowns and rose-garlanded hats, and had sat by mycouch, reading to me sometimes, talking to me at others in a voice asgentle as a dove's. Why will she not allow one to admire her? Oneonly wants to do so humbly and at a distance. It was so pleasant uphere in the Highlands, with the dear memory of those long days to lookback upon. But Mrs. Fielden ruthlessly robbed me and sent me awayempty the very first day of our meeting.

  "Was I kind to you? I don't believe I was, really. If I was, I'm sureI forget all about it. Let me see, how long were you ill? It can'thave been a bit amusing for you," and so on, laughing at my dull faceand serious ways.

  And this has gone on for a whole week. At the Melfords' parties sheselects, quite indiscriminately, and in a royal way which she has, thisman or that to be her escort or her companion. Now it is a mere boywhom she bewilders with a few of her radiant smiles, and now one of herelderly colonels whom she reduces to a state of abject admiration in afew hours. One man goes fishing with her, and another rows her on theloch. A third, hearing that Mrs. Fielden's life will be a blank if shedoes not possess a certain rare fern which may be found sometimes onthe hillsides of Scotland, spends a whole day scrambling about lookingfor it, and returns triumphant in the evening. Mrs. Fielden hasforgotten that she ever wanted it. When we sulk she does not noticeit. When her colonels offer her their fatuous admiration she goes tosleep, and then, waking up, is so very, very sorry. "But you can'thave amused me properly," she says, "or I should have stayed awake."When any one tries by avoiding her to show displeasure, Mrs. Fielden isoblivious of the fact. And when the penitence and boredom whichimmediately ensue when one has deprived Mrs. Fielden of one's companyhave led to ending the one-sided quarrel with an apology, it is only tofind that Mrs. Fielden has been blissfully unconscious of one'sabsence. Summer and the air of the Highlands seem to be in her veins.Her happiness, like the quality of mercy, is twice blessed, making her,through her talent for enjoyment, diffuse something beautiful and gayabout her.

  After all, why should she care? Life was evidently made to give herpleasure. Why should a woman always be blamed for being loved? Mrs.Fielden's charm is of the irresponsible sort. To live and to be lovelyare all one ought to demand of her, and at least she is without vanity.She seems to be entirely unconscious of the admiration she receives, orperhaps she is simply indifferent to it.

  The Melfords adore her, and allow her to see it. They say no one knowsher as they do. Probably we all feel that. This is one of Mrs.Fielden's most maddening charms. We have all found something in herthat seems to belong to ourselves alone.

  Lately I have discovered that she loves to wander up the hillside byherself, and listen to the plover's solitary cry, and sit in thesunshine with no companion near her. And one wonders why so frivolousa woman should care for this, and why when she comes back amongst usagain her eyes should wear the wistful look which covers them like aveil sometimes.

  When she left the Melfords' Palestrina asked her to come and stay withus; and rather to my surprise, Mrs. Fielden came. It seems to me shemust find us a very dull lot after the Melfords' cheery house-parties.She arrived late one afternoon in the yacht, and the whole party cameup to dine with us before returning to the castle. The little housewas taxed to its utmost capacity, even to provide teacups for ourguests. But the Melfords have a happy knack of seeming to findpleasure in everything. Mrs. Fielden's gaiety was infectious, and herlightheartedness knocked all one's serious world to pieces, while herbeauty seemed almost extravagant in the plain setting of the littlehouse.

  She began to give us some of her experiences in Scotland. "Do youknow," she said, putting on a charming gravity and lifting her eyebrowsin a provoking, childish way, "that every single person in Scotlandgets up at five o'clock in the morning? and all the coaches andexcursions start at daybreak, and when you want to hit off what theycall a 'connection' anywhere, you have to get up in the middle of thenight?"

  "I am afraid you had a horribly early start to join the yacht the otherday," said Lord Melford, "but it was the only way we could manage toget to the Oban Gathering in time."

  "I was there before you," said Mrs. Fielden; "and I had to rouse up thepeople at the inn to take me in and give me breakfast. Even they werenot up at that hour! But after ringing twice, such a nice boots cameand opened the door to me, and brought me some breakfast."

  "The gathering was very good this year," said Lord Melford. "Whydidn't some of you come? By-the-bye, your friend Mrs. Macdonald wasthere. Indeed, it was she who insisted on taking Mrs. Fielden to theGaelic concert."

  "Gaelic is rather an alarming language," said Mrs. Fielden. "I alwaysfeel as if I were being sworn at when I hear it."

  One of Mrs. Fielden's admirers who had reached the savage and sarcasticstage here interposed, and said: "Poor Mrs. Fielden! I saw you at theconcert. How did you manage to sit throughout a whole evening betweenMrs. Macdonald and a wall?"

  "Mrs. Macdonald is quite a dear!" said Mrs. Fielden. (Whom, in thename of Fortune, would Mrs. Fielden not find charming?)

  "I don't know what you and Mrs. Macdonald can have found to talkabout," said Palestrina, laughing.

  "We discussed the training of servants most of the time," said Mrs.Fielden simply.

  Every one laughed; and my sister, with a recollection of our visit toMrs. Macdonald, said at once, "Did she give you any useful householdrecipes?"

  "It is very odd that you should have asked me that," said Mrs. Fielden."Do you know, that the whole of to-day I have been puzzling over aletter which I received this morning? I did not know the handwriting,and it was merely headed, 'Two recipes for boiling a ham, asrequested.' Now, I cannot really have asked Mrs. Macdonald for recipesfor boiling a ham, can I?"

  We thought it highly probable that she had done so, and had done it,too, with an air of profound interest; and I think we said this, whichMrs. Fielden did not mind in the least.

  "There is something rather horrible, don't you think so," she said, "inknowing how a thing is cooked?"

  The minister, who is assiduous in calling, walked up after tea with hisfriend Evan Sinclair; and as we were already far too large a party fordinner, we asked them to stay too.

  Mr. Macorquodale has freq
uently described himself to us as a grandpreacher. He and Evan Sinclair live quite close to each other, andthey are friends whose affection is rooted and maintained in warfare.For the minister and Sinclair to meet is one strenuous contest as towho shall have the last word. Politeness is not a strong motive witheither of them--indeed, one would imagine that from the first it hasbeen ruled out of place. The friendship and the warfare began at theEdinburgh High School years ago, and both the friendship and thewarfare have lasted without intermission ever since. They meet everyday, and often twice a day; they fish together, and in the winter theyspend every evening with each other. Scottish people seem to have asneaking liking for those who dislike them, and a certain pity mingledwith contempt for those who show them favour and affection. Thefriendship of Evan and the minister is based upon feelings of the mostrespectful admiration for their mutual antipathy.

  To keep alive this laudable and self-respecting warfare is the highesteffort of genius of both Mr. Sinclair and the Reverend Alexander. Tofoster it they apply themselves to what they call "plain speaking"whenever they meet, and they conceal as much as possible from eachother every single good quality that they possess.

  The minister, who is a big man, always talks of Evan as "Wee Sinkler,"and sneers at "heritors;" and Evan invariably addresses Macorquodale as"Taurbarrels," a name which he considers appropriate to the minister'sblack clothes and portly figure.

  "The minister," said Evan, when he had walked up the hill to see us,"has been reading Josephus. We shall have some erudite learning fromthe pulpit for the next Sunday or two."

  The minister was announced a moment later, and, before taking thetrouble to shake hands with us, he looked Evan Sinclair over from topto toe, and remarked, "Ye're very attentive in calling upon ladies."

  "I was just talking about your fine preaching," said Evan.

  "I admit my gift," said the minister; "but I fear that I very oftenpreach to a deaf adder which stops its ears." He nodded triumphantlyat us, and it then occurred to him to shake hands.

  Evan said at once that he got a better sleep in kirk on Sundays than hegot during the whole of the week.

  "Evan Sinclair," said the minister, "if I find you sleeping under meI'll denounce you from my pulpit, as a minister has the right to do."

  "And we'll settle it in the graveyard afterwards," said Evan dryly."And ye're not in very good training, my man."

  Palestrina broke in gently to discuss a theological point which hadpuzzled us for several Sundays. On each Lord's Day as it came round wehad prayed that we might become "a little beatle to the Lord."Doubtless the simile is a beautiful one, but its immediate bearing uponour needs was not too grossly evident. And it seemed almost dangerousto those who believe in the efficacy of prayer to put up this petitionin its literal sense. We had decided for some time past that we shouldask Mr. Macorquodale what it was exactly for which we made petition,when we prayed that we might become "a little beatle to the Lord."

  "Similes," said Palestrina in her serious way, "are beautifulsometimes, but we can't quite understand one of the references that youmake in your prayers on Sundays."

  "We have prayed so fervently," said Mrs. Fielden, "without perhapsentirely understanding the portent of the petition, that we mightbecome 'a little beatle to the Lord.'"

  The thing was out now, and our curiosity, we hoped, would be gratified.There was a pause which suggested that our hearers were puzzled, andthen Mr. Sinclair put a large pocket-handkerchief into his mouth androared with laughter, and Mr. Macorquodale turned to my sister, who wastrembling now, and remarked in an awful voice that he wondered that wedidn't understand plain English.

  Of course she apologized, and an explanation came afterwards from EvanSinclair, who told us that the minister's prayer was that we--thechurch--might become a little Bethel, and that Beethel was his Doricpronunciation of the word.

  It began to rain on Sunday, as it often does in Scotland--Nature itselfseems to put on a more serious expression on the Sabbath--and itcontinued raining for four whole days. The rain came down steadily andmercilessly, shutting out the view of the hills, and turning the wholelandscape into a big damp gray blanket. "I suppose," said Mrs.Fielden, who is never affected by bad weather, "that we shall all getvery cross and quarrel with each other if the rain continues muchlonger."

  "I think I shall write a number of unnecessary letters to absentfriends," said Palestrina. "And Mr. Ellicomb and Sir Anthony Crawshaywill arrive to-morrow, and we must tell them to amuse us."

  It was a disappointment to find that Mr. Ellicomb's nerves and temperwere seriously affected by the weather, and in moments of extremedepression his low spirits vented themselves in a rabid abuse of thePresbyterian Kirk. I cannot understand why Ellicomb should elect towear a brown velvet shooting-jacket, and a pale-green tie, and neatboots laced half-way up his legs, in Scotland. He went to the villagechurch in the rain on Sunday, and he has not been the same man since.

  "Don't call it a church!" he cried as we went homewards up the hill,where the road was a watercourse and each tree poured down moisture.He seemed to think that he had done his soul an irreparable injury byentering a Presbyterian kirk.

  Anthony said, "Oh! don't be an ass, Ellicomb." But even on Mondaymorning poor Ellicomb was still suffering from the weather and theeffects of his churchgoing.

  "Can he be in love?" said Palestrina; "and if so, as the Jamiesonswould say, which is it?"

  Palestrina is prettier than ever since her marriage. She still says,"Oh, that will be delightful!" to whatever Thomas and I suggest, andshe never seems to have any occupation except to be with us when wewant her, and to accede to everything we say, which of course, from aman's point of view, is a very delightful trait in a woman.

  "I rather wonder," said Palestrina, "that I have not heard from any ofthe Jamiesons lately. They are usually such good writers."

  "Depend upon it, there is a great bit of news coming," said Thomas."The Jamiesons always maintain a dramatic silence just beforeannouncing some tremendous piece of intelligence."

  Thomas had hardly spoken the words before a telegram was handed toPalestrina, containing the following enigmatical words:---

  "Engaged Cuthbertson. Greatly surprised. Deeply thankful.--ELIZA."

  This rather mysterious message was followed, later in the day, by aletter four pages in length, and marked on the outside, for some reasonbest known to Eliza, "Immediate." The letter explained more fully thecause of Eliza's thankfulness, and who it was that was greatlysurprised.

  "If you had told me," wrote Eliza, "six weeks ago that I should now beengaged to Mr. Cuthbertson, I should hardly have believed it. I reallyhad not a notion that he cared for me until he actually said the words.Is it not too strange to think that perhaps, after all, Maud may be oneof the last of us to get married?"

  Here followed the usual descriptive catalogue, so characteristic of theJamiesons' letters. "Mr. Cuthbertson looks like a widower, though heis not one." Strangely enough, I could never think of any other words,when I came to know Mr. Cuthbertson, that described him so well asthese, and I can only account for it by saying that the man's deepmelancholy and the crape band that he habitually wore round his hatmust have given one the feeling that at some time Mr. Cuthbertson hadsuffered a heavy bereavement. "I have only known him," Eliza's letterwent on, "for six weeks, but even that time has shown me his worth. Hehas a very straight nose and a black beard, and his forehead isdistinctly intellectual. I met him first at Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs',where, as you know, I had gone to stay to catalogue their library, andto do a little typewriting for her. You know, of course, that she hasbecome a member of the S.R.S., and their library is a _mine ofinformation_.

  "At first I was afraid to say, or even to allow myself to think, heshowed me any preference, but Maud thought from the first that he wasstruck, and I asked her not to appear at all until everything wassettled, for you know how attractive she is. But I really don't thinkthat even then I thought that there was anything ser
ious in it." (Foran intelligent woman Eliza's letter strikes one as being strangelylacking in concentration.) "I have just been to the meeting of theBrowning Society--our first appearance in public together--and I readmy paper on "The Real Strafford," but I could hardly keep my voicesteady all the time. I wear his own signet-ring for the present, butwe are going up to London next week, when he will buy me a hoop ofpearls. I am sure that you will be glad to hear that he is comfortablyoff. When the right man comes preconceived objections to matrimonyvanish, _but it must be the right man_."

  Palestrina said that she was "thrilled" to hear of Eliza's engagement,because an engagement was always thrilling, and she instantly went totell the news to Mr. Ellicomb. She told me afterwards that when shehad said that one of the Jamiesons was engaged Mr. Ellicomb becamesuddenly very pale in his complexion, and exclaimed, in a most anxioustone of voice, "Which?"

  The cold weather has set in very suddenly, and already there is asprinkling of snow on some of the distant hills. The robins still singcheerily, but the gulls on the shore, flying over the yellow seaweed,call to each other plaintively in the gray of the early twilight. Theheavy-winged herons stand in an attitude of serious thought for hourson the cold rocks; then, as if suddenly making up their minds tosomething, they stretch out their red legs behind them, and flop withlarge wings over the waters of the loch. The red Virginian creeper hasbegun to drop its leaves regretfully, after a night or two of whitefrost, and the dahlias hang their heads, heavy with the moisture whichtheir cups contain. The sun wakes late in the mornings now, but shinesstrong and warm when it does get up. Cottage lights and fires burncheerily o' nights, and within the cottages the old folks and the youngones draw round the fires and speak eerily of wraiths and whaurlochs,and some will tell of death-lights which they have seen on the lonelyshore road. The herring fishers who sail away in the early twilightwear good stout jerseys now, and red woollen "crauvats" which the"wumman at hame" has knitted. The _Lord_ has sailed away to Dunoon tolay up for the winter, and the shepherds have gone away down South "towinter the hogs." The shepherds' wives sit alone in the littlehillside cottages away up on the face of the brae, and "mak dae" withtheir slender money till their men come home again.

  The old women in the village have begun their winter spinning, and thetap, tap, tap of the treadle on the floor gives a pleasant sound as onepasses outside on the dark road. Old men tell tales of snow in thepasses in winter-time, and of death on the bleak hillsides, and somewife, shuddering, will say, "Ay, I mind I saw his corp-licht the veryevening he was lost." And then they tell tales of fantasy and signsand premonitions of death.

  The Finlaysons are going to wind up their very successful autumn in theHighlands by giving what they insist upon calling a gillies' dance,though probably the revels will mostly be indulged in by their largeretinue of English servants. Good-natured old Finlayson has more thanonce said that he hopes we shall all come to the gillies' dance, andthat it will give ourselves and our guests a chance of seeing someHighland customs. A good many of us come to Scotland most years, andhave seen gillies and pipers before, but our good-natured neighbourscertainly out-distance any one I know in their Highland sympathies.

  They invited us to dine with them before the dance should begin, andsix of us went, feeling very like the Jamiesons, and resolved that whenwe got home we should never put a limit to their numbers when we sendthem an invitation again.

  We talk of returning home at the end of next week, and Mrs. Fielden andour other two guests are leaving on Monday, I believe.

  Mrs. Fielden looks much prettier in the Highlands, I think, thananywhere else. Young Finlayson is in love with her, and I believe hasoffered her his heart and the ironmongery business with it; but I thinkof all her lovers Anthony Crawshay is the one she likes best. He isthe only one for whom her moods never alter, and to whom she is alwaysgracious and charming and sweet. Perhaps it is in a quiet, lessradiant way than that in which she treats others, but it is with anunvarying loving-kindness which I have not seen her bestow elsewhere.And Anthony Crawshay is a good fellow--one of the best.

  Old Mr. Finlayson actually donned a kilt for the gillies' dance; youngFinlayson also wore the national dress, and Thomas tells me that theyhave sported the Macdonald tartan, and wants to know why. OldFinlayson met us at the door of his baronial hall in a clannish, feudalsort of way, and seizing his glengarry bonnet from his head he flung itdown upon the oak settle in the hall, and exclaimed in hearty accents,"Welcome to the Glen." The Misses Finlayson wore sashes of royalStuart tartan put plaid-wise across their shoulders. Mrs. Finlaysonwas dressed in a very regal manner which I cannot attempt to describe,and her platform voice was in use throughout the entire evening.

  Ellicomb said the dance was barbaric, but Thomas enjoyed the eveningimmensely, and so did Crawshay, who said in his hearty way, "TheFinlaysons did us uncommonly well," and shouted out, "Not at all badpeople, not at all bad."

  After dinner old Finlayson showed us all the pictures in the hall bythe light of a long wax taper which he held above his head, and hepointed out the beauties of the house in a proprietary way, even toEvan himself, to whom the place belongs. Evan Sinclair, in a shabbygreen doublet, accepted all Mr. Finlayson's wildest statements abouthis own house with a queer, humorous grin on his face, and submitted tobeing patronized by the Miss Finlaysons, whose commercial instincts, nodoubt, caused them to despise a young man who was obliged to let hisplace.

  One of the Highland axioms which the Finlaysons have accepted is that"a man's a man for a' that," and they shook hands with every one in aneffusive way, and condescended to a queer sort of familiarity with theboatmen and keepers about the place. The daughters of the house, withflying tartan ribbons, swung the young gillies about in the intricatefigures of the hoolichan, and talked to them with a heartiness whichone would hardly have thought possible of the Clarkham young ladies.The Finlaysons had a large number of English guests staying in thehouse for the dance. These all made the same joke when the pipes beganto play. "Is the pig being killed?" they asked, and looked verypleased with their own ready wit.

  Red-headed Evan Sinclair carried his old green doublet and batteredsilver ornaments very well, and his neat dancing was in pleasantcontrast to the curious bounds and leaps of the Finlaysons. Old Mr.Finlayson spent his evening strutting about in a kindly, importantfashion, and in making Athole Brose after a recipe supplied by TyneDrum, who superintended the brewing of it himself.

  I hope I am not fanciful when I say that the pipes when I hear themhave to me something irresistibly sad about them, and that they conjureup many fantasies in my head which I am half ashamed to put down onpaper. They seem to me to gather up in their bitter sobbings all thesorrows of a people who have suffered much and have said very littleabout it. There is the cry in them of children dying in the lonelyglens in winter-time, when the wind howls round the clachan and thesnow fills the passes. One almost sees the little procession ofblack-coated men bearing away a tiny burden from the cottage door intothe whiteness beyond, with its one heaped-up patch of brown earth oneither side of the little grave. They wail, too, of the Killing Time,when the Covenanters were crushed but never broken under persecution;and one seems to see the defiant gray-haired old men, with theirsplendid obstinacy, unmoved by threats--not defiant, but simplyunbreakable. Thinking of the Covenanters as they pass slowly beforeone to the sighing of the pipes, one wonders if it is possible topunish by death the man who is content to die.

  The tuneful reeds sob out, too, the story of the Prince for whom somany brave men bled, and they tell again of the days of song, and ofnoble legends and deeds of daring when the nation spent its passionatelove on its King. "Come back! come back!" The desolate cry of thetimes. Almost one hears it sounding across the hills, and it seems tome that all that it is so hard to speak, so hard even to look, mayperhaps be told in music. And I think loyalty and love speak verybeautifully in the old Jacobite airs.

  Again, as Evan's piper marches up and down in t
he moonlight playing alament, the romance of life seems lost in the hardness of it, itsstress and its loss. "Hame, hame, hame!" the pipes sob forth, cryingfor the homes that are sold to strangers, and for the hills and theglens which pass away from the old hands. It is "Good-bye, good-bye,"an eternity of farewells. And still, wherever life is most difficult,wherever comforts are fewest and work is most hard, in the distantparts of the world are the Scottish exiles. But I know that all theworld over the sons of the heather and the mist, in however distant oralien lands they may be, feel always, as they steer their way throughlife, that there is a pole-star by which they set their compass; andthat some day, perhaps, they or their children may steer the boat to ahaven on some rocky shore, where the whaup calls shrilly on the moorsabove the loch, and the heather grows strong and tough on the hillside,and the peat reek rises almost like the incense of an evening prayer,against a gray, soft sky in the land of the North.

  I suppose that even in a diary I have no business to mix this up withan account of the Finlaysons' dance.

  Palestrina came up to me after conscientiously dancing reels withThomas, looking very pink and pretty, and thoughtful of me, as usual.

  "Don't stay longer than you feel inclined," she said. "I told them tocome for you in the dog-cart, and to wait about for you between twelveand one."

  "I will take a turn down on the shore," I said, "and have a cigar, andthen I will come back and see how you are getting on."

  Palestrina gave me my crutch, and I went down towards the loch, whichlooked like a sheet of silver in the moonlight, and I found Anthony andMrs. Fielden sitting on a garden bench beneath some wind-torn beechesby the shore. To-night there was not a breath of air stirring, andMrs. Fielden had only thrown a light wrap round her.

  "Have you come to tell me that I am to go in and dance reels with oldMr. Finlayson?" she said. "It is really so much pleasanter out here.Do sit down and talk to Sir Anthony and me."

  She would never have allowed one to know that one was in the way, evenif one had interrupted a proposal of marriage.

  Anthony made room for me on the bench, and said heartily, "I am awfullyglad to see you able to sit up like this, Hugo. Why, man, you'regetting as strong as a horse!"

  "Oh. I'm all right again," I said. "I'll begin to grow a new legsoon. And the first thing I mean to do when that happens is to dancereels like the Finlaysons."

  "I believe I ought to be going in to supper now with Mr. Finlayson,"said Mrs. Fielden. "Does any one know what time it is? He said hewould 'conduct me to the dining-hall' at twelve o'clock."

  "It is a quarter past now," said Anthony, looking at his watch in themoonlight. "Don't go in, Mrs. Fielden. Wait out here, and talk toHugo and me."

  But old Finlayson in his kilt had tracked us to our seat underneath thebeech-trees, and he took instant possession of our fair neighbour, andtold us to follow presently. He thought all the supper-tables werefull just now.

  "We shan't eat everything before you come," said hospitable oldFinlayson, walking away with his beautiful partner on his arm.

  Mrs. Fielden was dressed in white satin, with some pretty soft stuffabout her, and she wore some white heather in her hair.

  "What a good sort she is!" said Anthony in a loud voice, almost beforeMrs. Fielden was out of hearing.

  It wasn't, perhaps, the most poetical way in which he could have putit, but one didn't want or expect Anthony to express himself poetically.

  "Utterly spoilt!" I replied, because at that moment I happened to befeeling supremely miserable, and I did not want Anthony to know it.

  "Not a bit," he replied; "and you know that as well as I do, old chap."

  "Allow me, Anthony," I said, "to be as savage as I like; it is one ofthe privileges of a cripple."

  "Oh, blow cripples!" said Anthony. "You will be shooting next autumn,man."

  "And what will you be doing?" I said. After all, we have been pals allour lives, and I think Anthony might tell me about it if there isanything to tell.

  "Oh, I'll be shooting too, I suppose," said Anthony.

  We smoked for some time in silence.

  And then Anthony began, and said that he had enjoyed himself amazinglyup here in the North, and he went on to say a good word for every one.Old Finlayson had been a brick about his shooting and deer-stalking,and it was beastly hard luck that I hadn't been able to come too. Theminister wasn't a bad fellow, even when he was jocose; and EvanSinclair was one of the best; and so on.

  "What shall you be doing when you go back, Anthony?" I said, harkingback to my old question, and hoping for more information than Iactually asked for. "Are you going straight home?"

  "I'll be at the first shoot at Stanby. Shall you be there?"

  "I'm afraid not," I said. "I haven't learned to do cross-stitch yet,and I'm sure all the women would think me a great bore, sitting aboutin their morning-rooms all day. Except Mrs. Fielden, of course! Mrs.Fielden would probably persuade me into thinking that the only thingthat made her house-party successful, or saved herself from boredom,was the presence of a lame man in the house."

  "I don't think you are quite just about Mrs. Fielden, Hugo," saidAnthony, moving rather resentfully on the garden bench.

  "That doesn't matter much," I replied. "One voice will not be missedfrom the general chorus of praise that follows Mrs. Fielden wherevershe goes."

  "No; but still----" began Anthony; and then he stopped, and we smokedon for some time without speaking. "You see," he began at last, "sheis the best friend I ever had." He did not lower his voice, because Isuppose Anthony finds it impossible to do so, but went on steadily:"You see, I once cared for a little cousin of hers, and she died whenshe was eighteen. I don't think anybody ever knew about it, exceptMrs. Fielden. But she knows how much cut up I was, and I suppose thatis why she is so nice to me always."

  "I'm awfully sorry!" I said.

  "I never meant to speak about it," said Anthony in a brisk, cheerfulvoice. "Oh, don't you bother about it, Hugo! I mean I'm awfully keenabout hunting, and I have an excellent time, only I don't suppose Ishall ever care for any one else."

  "Thanks for telling me, Tony."

  "I wouldn't have said anything about it," said Anthony, "if it hadn'tbeen for what you said about Mrs. Fielden. Y'see, she has been soawfully good to me, and I don't think you quite understand all she isreally."

  "Why, man," I cried, "I love her with every bit of my heart! And Iworship her--how does one say one worships a woman?--as if she were thesun!"

  And I think that was the very first moment that I told myself that Iloved Mrs. Fielden.