Doom Castle Part 18

Doom and Mungo came back from the rock edge, silently almost, brooding over a mystery, and the three looked at each other.

"Well, they are gone," said the Baron at last, showing the way to his guest.

"What, gone!" said Montaiglon, incapable of restraining his irony. "Not all of them?"

"O Lord! but this is the nicht!" cried the little servant who carried the lantern. "I micht hae bided a' my days in Fife and never kent what war was. The only thing that daunts me is that I should hae missed my chance o' a whup at them, for they had me trussed like a c.o.c.k before I put my feet below me when they pu'd me oot."

He drew the bars with nervous fingers, and seemed to dread his master as much as he had done the enemy. Olivia had come down to the corridor; aloft Annapla had renewed her lamentations; the four of them stood cl.u.s.tered in the narrow pa.s.sage at the stair-foot.

"What for did ye open the door, Mungo?" asked Doom,--not the Doom of doleful days, of melancholy evenings of study and of sour memories, not the done man, but one alert and eager, a soldier, in the poise of his body, the set of his limbs, the spirit of his eye.

"Here's a new man!" thought Montaiglon, silently regarding him. "Devilry appears to have a marvellous power of stimulation."

"I opened the door," said Mungo, much perturbed.

"For what?" said Doom shortly.

"There was a knock."

"I heard it. The knock was obvious; it dirled the very roof of the house. But it was not necessary to open at a knock at this time of morning; ye must have had a reason. Hospitality like that to half-a-dozen rogues from Arroquhar, who had already made a warm night for ye, was surely stretched a little too far. What did ye open for?"

Mungo seemed to range his mind for a reply. He looked to Montaiglon, but got no answer in the Frenchman's face; he looked over Montaiglon's shoulder at Olivia, standing yet in the tremour of her fears, and his eye lingered. It was no wonder, thought Count Victor, that it lingered there.

"Come, come, I'm waiting my answer!" cried Doom, in a voice that might have stirred a corps in the battlefield.

"I thought there wasna mair than ane," said Mungo.

"But even one! At this time of morning! And is it your custom to open to a summons of that kind without finding out who calls?"

"I thought I kent the voice," said Mungo, furtively looking again at Olivia.

"And whose was it, this voice that could command so ready and foolish an acquiescence on the part of my honest sentinel Mungo Boyd?" asked Doom incredulously.

"Ye can ask that!" replied the servant desperately; "it's mair than I can tell. All I ken is that I thought the voice fair-spoken, and I alloo it was a daft-like thing to do, but I pu'ed the bar, I had nae sooner dune't nor I was gripped by the thrapple and kep' doon by a couple o'

the blackguards that held me a' the time the ither three or four were--"

Doom caught him by the collar and shook him angrily.

"Ye lie, ye Fife cat; I see't in your face!"

"I can speak as to the single voice and its humility, and to the sudden plucking forth of this gentleman," said Count Victor quietly, at sea over this examination. But for the presence of the woman he would have cried out at the mockery of the thing.

"You must hear my explanation, Montaiglon," said Doom. "If you will come to the hall, I will give it. Olivia, you will come too. I should have taken your hints of yesterday morning, and the explanation of this might have been unnecessary."

Doom and his guest went to the _salle_; Olivia lingered a moment behind.

"Who was it, Mungo?" said she, whisperingly to the servant. "I know by the face of you that you are keeping something from my father."

"Am I?" said he. "Humph! It's Fife very soon for Mungo Boyd, I'm tellin'

ye."

"But who was it?" she persisted.

"The Arroquhar men," said he curtly; "and that's all I ken aboot it,"

and he turned to leave her.

"And that is not the truth, Mungo," said Olivia, with great dignity. "I think with my father that you are telling what is not the true word,"

and she said no more, but followed to the _salle_.

On the stairway Count Victor had trod upon the b.u.t.ton he had drawn from the skirts of his a.s.sailant; he picked it up without a word, to keep it as a souvenir. Doom preceded him into the room, lit some candles hurriedly at the smouldering fire, and turned to offer him a chair.

"Our--our friends are gone," said he. "You seem to have badly wounded one of them, for the others carried him bleeding to the water-side, as we have seen from his blood-marks on the rock: they have gone, as they apparently must have come, by boat. Sit down, Olivia."

His daughter had entered. She had hurriedly coiled her hair up, and the happy carelessness of it pleased Montaiglon's eye like a picture.

Still he said nothing; he could not trust himself to speak, facing, as he fancied yet he did, a traitor.

"I see from your face you must still be dubious of me," said Doom.

He waited for no reply, but paced up and down the room excitedly, the pleats of his kilt and the thongs of his purse swinging to his movements: a handsome figure, as Mont-aiglon could not but confess. "I am still shattered at the nerve to think that I had almost taken your life there in a fool's blunder. You must wonder to see me in this--in this costume."

He could not even yet come to his explanation, and Olivia must help him.

"What my father would tell you, if he was not in such a trouble, Count Victor, is what I did my best to let you know last night. It is just that he breaks the laws of George the king in this small affair of our Highland tartan. It is a fancy of his to be wearing it in an evening, and the bats in the chapel upstairs are too blind to know what a rebel it is that must be play-acting old days and old styles among them."

A faint light came suddenly to Count Victor.

"Ah!" said he, "it is not, mademoiselle, that the bats alone are blind; here is a very blind Montaiglon. I implore your pardon, M. le Baron. It is good to be frank, though it is sometimes unpleasant, and I must plead guilty to an imbecile misapprehension."

Doom flushed, and took the proffered hand.

"My good Montaiglon," said he, "I'm the most shamefaced man this day in the s.h.i.+re of Argyll. Need I be telling you that I have all Olivia's sentiment and none of her honest courage?"

"My dear father!" cried Olivia fondly, looking with melting eyes at her parent; and Count Victor, too, thought this mummer no inadmirable figure.

"It is nothing more than my indulgence in the tartan that makes your host look sometimes scarcely trustworthy; and my secret got its right punishment this night. I will not be able to wear a kilt with an easy conscience for some time to come."

"My faith! Baron, that were a penance out of all proportion!" said Count Victor, laughing. "If you nearly gave me the key of the Olympian meadows there, 'tis I that have brought these outlaws about your ears."

"What beats me is that they should make so much ado about a trifle."

"A trifle!" said Count Victor. "True, in a sense. The wretch but died.

We must all die; we all know it, though none of us believe it."

"I am glad to say that after all you only wounded yon Macfarlane; so Petullo learned but yesterday, and I clean forgot to tell you sooner."

Montaiglon looked mightily relieved.

"So!" said he; "I shall give a score of the best candles to St. Denys--if I remember when I get home again. You could not have told me such good tidings a moment too soon, dear M. le Baron, though of course a small affair like that would naturally escape one's memory."