The Spread Eagle and Other Stories Part 29

"Say--three," said McTavish.

Mrs. Nevis sighed. "And where did you gather it all?" she asked.

"Oh, from my father," said McTavish. "And it was given to him by the government."

"Why?" she asked.

"Not why," said he, "so much as how. You see, our government is pa.s.sionately fond of certain people and makes them very rich. But it's perfectly fair, because at the same time it makes other people, of whom it is not fond, desperately poor. We call it protection," he said. "For instance, my government lets a man buy a Shetland wool sweater in Scotland for two dollars, and lets him sell it on Broadway for twenty dollars. The process makes that man rich in time, but it's perfectly fair, because it makes the man who has to buy the sweater poor."

"But the fool doesn't have to buy it," said Mrs. Nevis.

"Oh yes, he does," said McTavish; "in America--if he likes the look of it and the feel of it--he has to buy. It's the climate, I suppose."

"Did your father make his money in Shetland sweaters?" she asked.

"Nothing so nice," said McTavish; "rails."

A covey of birds rose in the woods at their right with a loud whir of wings.

"Whew!" exclaimed McTavish.

"Baby pheasants," explained Mrs. Nevis. "They shoot three thousand at Brig O'Dread in the season."

After certain difficulties, during which their hands touched, the greatest key in Mrs. Nevis's bunch was made to open the chapel door, and they went in.

The place had no roof; the flagged floor had disappeared, and it had been replaced by velvety turf, level between the graves and headstones.

Supporting columns reared themselves here and there, supporting nothing.

A st.u.r.dy thorn tree grew against the left-hand wall; but the sun shone brightly into the ruin, and sparrows twittered pleasantly among the in-growths of ivy.

"Will you wish to read all the inscriptions?" asked Mrs. Nevis, doubtfully, for there were hundreds of tombstones crowding the turf or pegged to the walls.

"No, no," said McTavish "I see what I came to see--already."

For the first time the enigmatic smile left his face, and she watched him with a kind of excited interest as he crossed the narrow houses of the dead and halted before a small tablet of white marble. She followed him, more slowly, and stood presently at his side as he read aloud:

"SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF COLLAND McTAVISH, WHO DISAPPEARED, AGED FIVE YEARS, JUNE 15TH, 1801."

Immediately below the inscription a bar of music was engraved in the marble. "I can't read that," said McTavish.

Mrs. Nevis hummed a pathetic air very sweetly, almost under her breath.

He listened until she had finished and then: "What tune is that?" he asked, excitedly.

"'Wandering Willie,'" she answered.

"Of course," said he, "it would be that."

"Was this the stone you came to see?" she asked presently.

"Yes," he said. "Colland McTavish, who disappeared, was my great-grandfather. The old gentleman--I never saw him myself--used to say that he remembered a long, long driveway, and a great iron gate, and riding for ever and ever in a wagon with a tent over it, and sleeping at night on the bare hills or in forests beside streams. And that was all he remembered, except being on a s.h.i.+p on the sea for years and years.

But he had this--"

McTavish extracted from a pocket into which it had been b.u.t.toned for safety what appeared, at first sight, to be a linen handkerchief yellow with age. But, on unfolding, it proved to be a child's s.h.i.+rt, cracked and broken in places, and lacking all but one of its bone b.u.t.tons.

Embroidered on the tiny s.h.i.+rt tail, in faint and faded blue, was the name Colland McTavish.

"He always thought," said McTavish, "that the gypsies stole him. It looks as if they had, doesn't it? And, just think, he used to live in this beautiful place, and play in it, and belong to it! Wasn't it curious, my seeing that tablet the first thing when we came in? It looked as big as a house and seemed to beckon me."

"It looks more like the ghost of a little child," said Mrs. Nevis quietly. "Perhaps that is why it drew you so."

"Why," said he, "has this chapel been allowed to fall to pieces?"

"Because," said Mrs. Nevis, "there's never been the money to mend it."

"I wonder," he mused, "if The McTavish would let me do it? After all, I'm not an utter stranger; I'm a distant cousin--after all."

"Not so distant, sir," said Mrs. Nevis, "as may appear, if what you say is true. Colland McTavish, your great-grandfather, and The McTavish's great-grandfather, were brothers--and the poor bereft mother that put up this tablet was your great-great-grandmother, and hers."

"Surely then," said he, "The McTavish would let me put a roof on the chapel. I'd _like_ to," he said, and the red came strongly into his cheeks. "I'll ask her. Surely she wouldn't refuse to see me on such a matter."

"You can never tell," Mrs. Nevis said. "She's a woman that won't bear forcing."

He looked at her for the first time in some minutes. "Why," said he, "you're ill; you're white as a sheet!"

"It's the long walk uphill. It takes me in the heart, somehow."

"I'm sorry," said McTavish simply. "I'm mighty sorry. It's all my fault."

"Why, so it is," said she, with the flicker of a smile.

"You must take my arm going back. I _am_ sorry."

When they had left the chapel and locked the door, she took his arm without any further invitation.

"I will, if you don't mind," she said. "I am shaken, and that's the truth.... But what," and again the smile flickered--"what would The McTavish say if she saw us--her cousin and her housekeeper--dawdling along arm in arm?"

McTavish laughed. "I don't mind, if you don't."

They returned slowly by the long turf walk to the statue of Atlas.

"Now," said he, "how should I go about getting an interview with The McTavish?"

"Well," said Mrs. Nevis, "it will not be for to-day. She is leaving within the hour for Beem-Tay in her motor-car."

"Oh, then I shall follow her to Beem-Tay."

"If you can do that," said Mrs. Nevis, "I will give you a line to my sister. Maybe she could help you. She's the housekeeper at Beem-Tay--Miss MacNish is her name." And she added as if by an after-thought. "We are twins."

"Are there two of you?" exclaimed McTavish.