The Setons Part 35

Arthur shook his head at her.

"In your father's words, you are an absurd creature. Sing to me, won't you? seeing it's my last night."

"Yes." She went to the piano. "What shall I sing? 'A love-song or a song of good life'?"

"A love-song," said Arthur, and finished the quotation. "'I care not for good life.'"

Elizabeth giggled.

"Our language is incorrigibly n.o.ble. You know how it is when you go to the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford? I come away so filled with majestic words that I can hardly resist greeting our homely chemist with 'Ho! apothecary!' But I'm not going to sing of love. 'I'm no'

heedin' for't,' as Marget says.... This is a little song out of a fairy tale--a sort of good-bye song:

'If fairy songs and fairy gold Were tunes to sell and gold to spend, Then, hearts so gay and hearts so bold, We'd find the joy that has no end.

But fairy songs and fairy gold Are but red leaves in Autumn's play.

The pipes are dumb, the tale is told, Go back to realms of working day.

The working day is dark and long, And very full of dismal things; It has no tunes like fairy song, No hearts so brave as fairy kings.

Its princes are the dull and old, Its birds are mute, its skies are grey; And quicker far than fairy gold Its dreary treasures fleet away.

But all the gallant, kind and true May haply hear the fairy drum, Which still must beat the wide world through, Till Arthur wake and Charlie come.

And those who hear and know the call Will take the road with staff in hand, And after many a fight and fall, Come home at last to fairy-land.'"

They were half-way through breakfast next morning before Buff appeared.

He stood at the door with a sheet of paper in his hand, looking rather distraught. His hair had certainly not been brushed, and a smear of paint disfigured one side of his face. He was not, as Mr. Taylor would have put it, looking his "brightest and bonniest."

"I've been in Father's study," he said in answer to his sister's question, and handed Arthur Townshend the paper he carried.

"It's for you," he said, "a sea-fight. It's the best I can do. I've used up nearly all the paints in my box."

He had certainly been lavish with his colours, and the result was amazing in the extreme.

Mr. Townshend expressed himself delighted, and discussed the points of the picture with much insight.

"We shall miss you," Mr. Seton said, looking very kindly at him. "It has been almost like having one of our own boys back. You must come again, and to Etterick next time."

"Aw yes," cried Buff, "come to Etterick and see my jackdaw with the wooden leg." He had drawn his chair so close to Arthur's that to both of them the business of eating was gravely impeded.

"Come for the shooting," said Mr. Seton.

"Yes," said Elizabeth, as she filled out a third cup of tea for her father, "and the fourth footman will bring out your lunch while the fifth footman is putting on his livery. Don't be so buck-ish, Mr.

Father. Our shooting, Arthur, consists of a heathery hillside inhabited by many rabbits, a few grouse--very wild, and an ancient blackc.o.c.k called Algernon. No one can shoot Algernon; indeed, he is such an old family friend that it would be very ill manners to try. When he dies a natural death we mean to stuff him."

"But may I really come? Is this a _pukka_ invitation?"

"It is," Elizabeth a.s.sured him. "As the Glasgow girl said to the Edinburgh girl, 'What's a slice of ham and egg in a house like ours?'

We shall all be frightfully glad to see you, except perhaps old Watty Laidlaw--I told you about him? He is very anxious when we have guests, he is so afraid we are living beyond our means. One day last summer I had some children from the village to tea, and he stood on the hillside and watched them cross the moor, then went in to Marget and said in despairing accents, 'Pit oot eighty mair cups. They're comin' ower the muir like a locust drift.' The description of the half-dozen poor little stragglers as a 'locust drift' was almost what Robert Browning calls 'too wildly dear.'"

"This egg's bad," Buff suddenly announced.

"Is it, Arthur?" Elizabeth asked.

Mr. Townshend regarded the egg through his monocle.

"It looks all right," he said; "but Buff evidently requires his eggs to be like Caesar's wife."

"Don't waste good food, boy," his father told him. "There is nothing wrong with the egg."

"It's been a nest-egg," said Buff in a final manner, and began to write in a small book.

Elizabeth remarked that Buff was a tiresome little boy about his food, and that there might come a time when he would think regretfully of the good food he had wasted. "And what are you writing?" she finished.

"It's my diary," said Buff, putting it behind his back. "Father gave it me. No, you can't read it, but Arthur can if he likes, 'cos he's going away"; and he poked the little book into his friend's hand.

Arthur thanked him gravely, and turned to the first entry:

_New Year's Day._

_Good Rissolution. Not to be crool to gerls._

The other entries were not up to the high level of the first, but were chiefly the rough jottings of nefarious plans which, one could gather, generally seemed to miscarry. On 12th August was printed and emphatically underlined the announcement that on that date Arthur Townshend would arrive at Etterick.

That the diary was for 1911 and that this was the year of grace 1913 troubled Buff not at all: years made little difference to him.

Arthur pointed this out as he handed back the book, and rubbing Buff's mouse-coloured hair affectionately, quoted:

"Poor Jim Jay got stuck fast in yesterday."

"But I haven't," Buff protested; "I'll know it's 1914 though it says 1911."

He put his diary into his safest pocket and asked if he might go to the station.

"Oh, I think not," his father said. "Why go into town this foggy morning?"

"He wants the 'hurl,'" said Elizabeth. "Arthur that's a new word for you. Father, we should make Arthur pa.s.s an examination and see what knowledge he has gathered. Let's draw up a paper:

I. What is-- (_a_) A Wee Free?

(_b_) A U.P.?

II. Show in what way the Kelvinside accent differs from that of Polloks.h.i.+elds.

III. What is a 'hurl'?

I can't think of anything else. Anyway, I don't believe you could answer one of my questions, and I am only talking for talking's sake, because we are all so sad. By the way, when you say Good-bye to Marget and Ellen shake hands, will you? They expect it."

"Of course," said Arthur.

The servants came in for prayers.