Ralph Wilton's weird Part 3

The question was opportune, for it launched the station-master upon quite a flood of memories into which he rushed and talked for good ten minutes without intermission. How long he would have continued it is impossible to say, but one of the porters came to call him, as there was a telegraph from ----.

Wilton followed to hear the news, and returned, after a short absence, with the intelligence that the expected train would not arrive for another hour.

"That is long," replied the young lady, scarce lifting her head; then, as Wilton, a little mortified by her tone, turned to leave the room, she exclaimed, still looking down, "Stay one moment, if not inconvenient."

"Certainly," and Wilton stood still for another minute or two.

"There," she said, holding out the book, "is that like him?"

Wilton took it and uttered an exclamation of surprise. On the page before him was a bold, rapid, admirable sketch of the station-master; all the characteristic lines and puckers were there, but slightly idealized.

"This is first-rate! You are quite an artist."

"I wish I was! Let me touch it a little more. What a capital face it is--so rugged, so humorous--yet so English; not the least bit picturesque. I shall work this into something some day."

"Then I am right in supposing you an artist? May I look again?" said Wilton, sitting down beside her.

"Oh, yes; you may look at my scratchings. This is my note-book. I like to draw everything--but, you see, most imperfectly."

"I do not, indeed. I know very little of art, though I can sketch roughly--merely professional work--but you seem to me to have both genius and skill."

"Some taste, scarce any skill."

There was something quite genuine in her tone--not the least tinge of mock-modesty--as she turned over the pages, and touched them here and there, while her manner was singularly devoid of coquetry. Wilton might have been her grandfather for all of embarra.s.sment or excitement his attentions caused.

"And you can draw; perhaps you know these trees; they are not far from Monkscleugh."

She showed him a group of beeches most delicately yet clearly drawn.

"I do not know the neighborhood. I am going there for the first time.

May I ask if you reside there?"

"Yes, at present. Oh, you will find a great deal to sketch all about--especially by the river--and there is beauty, too, in the gray skies and rich brown moors; but how unlike the beauty of the sunny south!"

"It is not necessary to ask which you like; your voice tells that," said Wilton.

"And are you not fond of drawing?" she resumed, as if the subject had an irresistible attraction.

"You would not look at such school-boy productions as mine," returned Wilton, smiling. "As I said before, they are mere rough professional drawings."

"Professional! What is your profession?"

This rather leading question was put with the most straightforward simplicity.

"I am a soldier."

"A soldier!"--looking very earnestly at him--"what a pity!"

"Why?" asked Wilton, surprised, and a little nettled. "Soldiers are necessary evils."

"But what evils! what symbols of deeper evils than themselves! I do not mean to say," interrupting herself with a sudden consciousness that her words were rude, while a delicate tinge of color came and went in her cheek, "that _you_ are bad or wicked; but it is so sad to think that such things, or people rather, should be necessary still."

"No doubt it would be better for the world to be in an Arcadian or paradisiacal condition; but, as it is, I am afraid it will be a long time before we can dispense with fighting or fighting-men. However, you are right--war is a horrible thing, and I hope we shall have no more for a long time."

"Alas! how dare we hope that, so long as it is in the power of three or four men to plunge three or four nations into such horrors?"

"Ah, I see I have encountered a dangerous democrat," said Wilton, laughing; and, vaguely pleased to see her drawn out of her cool composure, he watched the varying color in her cheek while she was turning over the leaves of her sketch-book, seeming to seek for something. "Pardon me," said Wilton, after waiting for a reply, and determined to speak again, "but I imagine you are not English."

"I scarcely know--yes, I believe I am." She spoke in her former quiet tone again.

"In England all young ladies are conservative, at least all I have ever known," continued Wilton.

"Conservative!--I have read that word often in the journals. Is it legitimacy, Church and state, and all that?"

"Exactly."

"Well, the young ladies I know--and they are but few--are very charming, very accomplished; but they know nothing, absolutely nothing. Is it not strange?"

There was not the slightest approach to cynicism in her tone, but she looked at Wilton as if fully expecting him to share her wonder.

"Is this the character of the young ladies of the unknown land into which I am about to plunge? I fancied Scotchwomen were educated within an inch of their lives."

"I know English girls best. Some are very learned; have been taught quant.i.ties; they can tell the very year when printing was tried, and when Queen Elizabeth first wore silk stockings, and when every great pope was born; and they read French and German; and oh, I cannot tell all they can do and say. And yet--yet, they know nothing--they care for nothing--they lead such strange lives."

"I suppose the lives of all girls are much alike," observed Wilton, more and more curious to find out some leading acts concerning his rather original companion. "But, as we are both bound for the same place, perhaps I may have some opportunity of communicating my observations on the intellectual status of the Monkscleugh young ladies?"

"There is very little probability of such an event," said she, with an amused smile.

"Then you do not reside at Monkscleugh?"

"Within three miles of it."

"I am going down to a shooting-lodge called Glenraven," hoping she would respond by naming her own abode.

"Indeed! I know it; there are some lovely bits about there."

"We shall be neighbors, then?"

"Yes, in a certain sense. Here," she continued, turning over a fresh page of her book, "this is the outline of a very lovely brae and burn close to your abode."

It was only a bit of broken bank; a stream, dotted with stones, lay below, with some mountain ash trees spreading their feathery foliage against the sky; but there were wonderful grace and beauty in the sketch. "This gives you a very faint idea of the reality," she resumed, in a low, soft tone, as if inwardly contemplating it. "The water is clear brown; it foams and chafes round these large black stones, and all sorts of delicious mosses and leaves lurk below the edge; and then ferns wave about the rocks on the brae, and there are gleams of purple heather and tufts of green, green gra.s.s, and behind here a great, wild, free hill-side. Oh, it is so quiet and dreamy there--delicious!"

"And this delightful brae is near the lodge?" said Wilton, when she paused, after listening an instant in hopes she would speak on, there was such caressing sweetness in her voice.

"No, not very near; almost a mile away, I think." She evidently knew the place well.

"I hope you will continue to transfer the beauties of Glenraven after I become a dweller there."