The Spread Eagle and Other Stories Part 30

"Why not?" she asked, with a guileless face.

"Why," said he, "it's wonderful. Does she look like you?"

"Exactly," said Mrs. Nevis. "Same red hair, same eyes, nose, and faint spells--only," and there was a certain arch quality in her clear voice, "_she's_ single."

"And she looks exactly like you--and she's single! I don't believe it."

Mrs. Nevis withdrew her hand from his arm. When they had reached the door of the Great Tower she stopped.

"If you care for a line to my sister," she said, "I'll write it. You can wait here."

"I wish it of all things, and if there are any stairs to climb, mind you take your time. Remember you're not very good at hills."

When she had gone, he smiled his enigmatic smile and began to walk slowly up and down in front of the door, his hands clasped behind his back. Once he made a remark. "Scotland," he said, "is the place for me."

But when at length she returned with the letter, he did not offer her money; instead he offered his hand. "You've been very kind," he said, "and when I meet your mistress I will tell her how very courteous you have been. Thank you."

He placed the letter in the breast-pocket of his shooting-coat. "Any messages for your sister?" he asked.

"You may tell her I hope she is putting by something for a rainy day.

You may tell her The McTavish is verra hard up the noo"--she smiled very charmingly in his face--"and will na' brook an extravagant table."

"Do you think," said McTavish, "that your sister will get me a chance to see _The_ McTavish?"

"If any one can, she can."

"Good-by," he said, and once more they shook hands.

A few minutes later she heard the distant purring of his car, and a thought struck her with dismay. "What if he goes straight to Beem-Tay and presents the letter before I get there!"

She flowered into swift action, flashed up the turret stairs, and, having violently rung a bell, flew into her dressing-room, and began to drag various automobiling coats, hats, and goggles out of their hiding places. When the bell was answered: "The car," she cried, "at once!"

A few moments later, veiled, goggled, and coated, she was das.h.i.+ng from the castle to the stables. Halfway she met the car. "McDonald," she cried, "can you make Beem-Tay in the hour?"

"It's fifty miles," said the driver, doubtfully.

"Can you make it?"

"The road--" he began.

"I know the road," she said impatiently; "it's all twisty-wisty. Can you make it?"

"I'm a married man," said he.

"Ten pounds sterling if you make it."

"And if we smash and are kilt?"

"Why, there'll be a more generous master than I in Beem-Tay and in Brig O'Dread--that's all."

She leaped into the car, and a minute later they were flying along the narrow, tortuous North Road like a nightmare. Once she leaned over the driver's seat and spoke in his ear: "I hav'na the ten pounds noo," she said, "but I'll beg them, McDonald, or borrow them--" The car began to slow down, the driver's face grew gloomy. "Or steal them!" she cried.

McDonald's face brightened, for The McTavish's money difficulties were no better known than the fact that she was a woman of her word. He opened the throttle and the car once more shot dizzily forward.

Twenty miles out of Brig O'Dread they came upon another car, bound in the same direction and also running desperately fast. They pa.s.sed it in a roaring smother of dust.

"McDonald," said The McTavish, "you needna run sae fast noo. Keep the lead o' yon car to Beem-Tay gate--that is all."

She sank back luxuriously, sighed, and began to wonder how she should find McDonald his ten pounds sterling.

III

She need not have hurried, nor thrown to the wind those ten pounds that she had somehow to raise. On arriving at Beem-Tay she had given orders that any note addressed to Miss MacNish, and presented at the gate, should be brought at once to her. McTavish did not come that day, but she learned indirectly that he had taken rooms at the McTavish Arms in Beem-Tay village, and from Mr. Traquair, manager of the local branch of the Bank of Scotland, that he was taking steps to hire for the season the forest of Clackmanness, a splendid sporting estate that marched with her own lands. Mr. Traquair, a gentleman as thin as a pipe stem, and as kind as tobacco, had called upon her the second day, in answer to an impetuous summons. He found her looking very anxious and very beautiful, and told her so.

"May the looks stand me in good stead, Mr. Traquair," said she, "for I'm like to become Wandering Willie of the song--Wandering Wilhelmina, rather. There's a man yont, named McTavish, will oost me frae hoose and name."

"That would be the young gentleman stopping at the McTavish Arms."

"Ah," said The McTavish, "he might stop here if he but knew."

"He's no intending it, then," said Mr. Traquair, "for he called upon me this morning to hire the Duke's forest of Clackmanness."

"Ah!" said The McTavish.

"And now," said Mr. Traquair, stroking his white mustache, "tell me what it all means."

"It means that Colland McTavish, who was my great-grandfather's elder brother, has returned in the person of the young gentleman at the Arms."

"A fine hornpipe he'll have to prove it," said Mr. Traquair.

"Fine fiddlesticks!" said The McTavish. "Man," she continued earnestly, "you have looked in his face and you tell me it will be a dance to prove him The McTavish?"

"He is a McTavish," admitted Mr. Traquair; "so much I knew before he told me his name."

"He has in his pocket the bit s.h.i.+rt that wee Colland wore when the gypsies snitched him and carried him over seas; it's all of a piece with many another garment of wee Colland's. I've had out the trunk in which his little duds have been stored these many years. The man is Colland's great-grandson. I look at him, and I admit it without proof."

"My dear," said Mr. Traquair, "you have no comprehension of the law. I will fight this claim through every court of the land, or I'm ready to meet him on Bannockburn field, my ancestral claymore against his. A rare laugh we'll have when the pretender produces his bit s.h.i.+rtie in the court, and says, 'Look, your honor, upon my patent o' n.o.bilitee.'"

"Mind this," said The McTavish, "I'll make no contests, nor have none made. Only," she smiled faintly, "I hay'na told him who he rightly is.

He claims cousins.h.i.+p. But it has not dawned on him that Colland was to have been The McTavish, that he _is_ The McTavish, that I am merely Miss Ellen Alice Douglas Cameron Dundee Campbell McGregor Breadalbane Blair McTavish, houseless, homeless spinster, wi' but a drap o' gude blood to her heritage. I have not told him, Mr. Traquair. He does not know.

What's to be done? What would you do--_if you knew_ that he was he, and that you were only you?"

"It's your meeserable conscience of a Church-going Scot," commiserated Traquair, not without indignation. "What would a Campbell have done?

He'd have had himself made a judge in the land, and he'd have condemned the pretender to the gallows--out of hand, my dear--out of hand!"

She shook her head at him as at a naughty child. "Where is your own meeserable conscience, Traquair?"