The Star-Gazers Part 51

Crying in the woods, eh--after a signal that the old lady heard. Gipsy lad, eh? Bad sign--bad sign. Ah, well," he added, with a sigh, "I'm getting too old a man to think of love affairs; but, somehow, I often wonder now that I did not marry."

That thought came to him several times as he walked homeward over the boggy common, and rose again more strongly as he came in sight of The Firs and the grim, black mansion on the hillock. Fort Science, as he had jestingly called it, looked at times bright and sunny, and then dull, repulsive and cold.

The major reached home after his very long walk rather out of spirits; and his valet, unasked, fetched him a cup of tea.

Volume 2, Chapter X.

LUCY EXAMINES THE EXAMINER.

"I wish you would be more open with me, Moray," said Lucy to her brother.

He was gazing through one of his gla.s.ses intently upon some celestial object, for the night was falling fast, and first one and then another star came twinkling out in the cold grey of the north-east.

Alleyne raised his head slowly and looked at his sister's pretty enquiring face for a few moments, and then resumed his task.

"Don't understand you," he said quietly.

"Now, Moray, you must," cried Lucy, pettishly; "you have only one sister, and you ought to tell her everything."

As she spoke, in a playful, childish way, she began tying knots in her brother's long beard, and made an attempt to join a couple of threads behind his head, but without result, the crisp curly hairs being about half-an-inch too short.

Alleyne paid no heed to her playful tricks for a time, and she went on,--

"If I were a man--which, thank goodness, I am not--I'd try to be learned, and wise, and clever, but I'd be manly as well, and strong and active, and able to follow all out-door pursuits."

"Like Captain Rolph," said Alleyne, with a smile, half reproach, half satire.

"No," cried Lucy, emphatically; "he is all animalism. He has all the strength that I like to see, and nothing more. No, the man I should like to be, would combine all that energy with the wisdom of one who thinks, and uses his brains. Captain Rolph, indeed!"

What was meant for a withering, burning look of scorn appeared on Lucy's lips; but it was only pretty and provocative; it would not have scorched a child.

"No, dear, the man I should like to be would be something very different from him. There, I don't care what you say to the contrary, you love Glynne, and I shall tell her so."

"You love your brother too well ever to degrade him in the eyes of your friend, Lucy," said Alleyne, drawing her to him, and stroking her hair.

"Even if--if--"

"There, do say it out, Moray. If you did or do love her. I do wish you wouldn't be so girlish and weak."

"Am I girlish and weak?" he said thoughtfully.

"Yes, and dreamy and strange, when you, who are such a big fine-looking fellow, might be all that a woman could love."

"All that a woman could love?" he said thoughtfully.

"Yes; instead of which you neglect yourself and go shabby and rough, and let your hair grow long. Oh, if I only could make you do what I liked.

Come now, confess; you are very fond of Glynne?"

He looked at her dreamily for a while, but did not reply. It was as though his thoughts were busy upon something she had said before, and it was not until Lucy was about to speak that he checked her.

"Yes," he said, "you are right; I have given up everything to my studies. I have neglected myself, my mother, you, Lucy. What would you say if I were to change?"

"Oh, Moray!" she cried, catching his hands; "and will you?--for Glynne's sake."

"Hus.h.!.+" he cried sternly; and his brows knit, as he looked down angrily in her face. "Lucy, you wish me to be strong; if I am to be, you must never speak like that again. I have been weak, and in my weakness I have listened to your girlish prattle about your friend. Have you forgotten that she is to be--Captain Rolph's wife?"

"No," cried Lucy impetuously, "I have not forgotten; I never can forget it; but if she ever is his wife, she will bitterly repent it to the end."

"Hus.h.!.+" he exclaimed again, and his eyes grew more stern, and there was a quiver of his lip. "Let there be an end of this."

"But do you not see that he is unworthy of her--that his tastes are low and contemptible; that he cannot appreciate her in the least, and--and besides, dear, he--he--is not honest and faithful."

"How do you know this?" cried Alleyne sternly.

Lucy flushed crimson.

"I know it by his ways--by his words," she said, recovering herself, and speaking with spirit, "I like Glynne; I love her, dear, and it pains me more than I can say, to see her drifting towards such a fate. Why, Moray, see how she has changed of late--see how she has taken to your studies, how she hangs upon every word you say, how--oh, Moray!"

She stopped in affright, for he clutched her arm with a violence that caused her intense pain. His brow was rugged, and an angry glare shot from his eyes, while when he spoke, it was in a low husky voice.

"Lucy," he said, "once for all, never use such words as these to me again. There, there, little bird, I'm not very angry; but listen to me," and he drew her to his side in a tender caressing way. "Is this just--is this right? You ask me to be more manly and less of the dreaming student that I have been so long, and you ask me to start upon my new career with a dishonourable act--to try and presume upon the interest your friend has taken in my pursuit to tempt her from her duties to the man who is to be her husband. There, let this be forgotten; but I will do what you wish."

"You will, Moray?" cried Lucy, who was now sobbing.

"Yes," he cried, as he hid from himself the motive power that was energising his life. "Yes, I will now be a man. I will show you--the world--that one can be a great student and thinker, and at the same time a man of that world--a gentleman of this present day. The man who calculates the distance of one of the glorious...o...b.. I have made my study, rarely is as others are in manners and discourse--educated in the ordinary pursuits of life--without making himself ridiculous if he mounts a horse--absurd if he has to stand in compet.i.tion with his peers.

Yes, you are right, Lucy, I have been a dreaming recluse; now the dreams shall be put away, and I will awaken into this new life."

Lucy clapped her hands, and, flinging her arms round her brother kissed him affectionately, and then drew her face back to gaze in his.

"Why, Moray," she cried proudly, "there isn't such a man for miles as you would be, if you did as others do."

He laughed as he kissed her, and then gently put her away.

"There," he said, "go now. I have something here--a calculation I must finish."

"And now you are going back to your figures again?" she cried pettishly.

"Yes, for a time," he replied; "but I will not forget my promise."

"You will not?" she cried.

"I give you my word," he said, and kissing him affectionately once again, Lucy left the observatory.

"He has forbidden me to speak," she said to herself, with a glow of triumph in her eyes, "but it will come about all the same. He loves Glynne with all his heart, and the love of such a man as he is cannot change. Glynne is beginning, too; and when she quite finds it out, she will never go and swear faith to that miserable Rolph. I am going to wait and let things arrange themselves, as I'm sure they will."

The object of her thoughts was not going on with the astronomical calculation, but pacing the observatory to and fro, with his brow knit, and a feverish energy burning in his brain.

Volume 2, Chapter XI.

THE DOCTOR BRINGS ALLEYNE DOWN.