A Witch of the Hills Volume I Part 9

'Oh, it's not a first attachment by any means,' said she, making merry over my surprise, as she swung her little watering-pot with one hand, and put her head on one side to admire a row of handsome gladioluses which she had reared with some care. 'Her first, what you may call serious pa.s.sion, was at seven years old, two whole years later than my earliest love. By the bye, Mr. Maude, I really must beg you to let me make some cuttings from your rose-trees; I have two excellent briars here, and I flatter myself I can graft as well as any gardener.'

'You can do everything, Mrs. Ellmer,' said I gravely, with honest grat.i.tude and admiration. 'You can make cuttings from every tree in the garden, if you please, and they will all hold their heads the higher for it.'

The poor lady liked a little bit of simple flattery, and indeed it by no means now seemed out of place. The Highland air had brought the pink colour back to her wan face, and brightened her eyes, so that one now noticed with admiration the extreme delicacy of her features; while the rest and the relief from worry had softened both her careworn expression and the haggard outline of her face. She now, with coquettish sprightliness, tapped my shoulder and shook her head to show me that she had no faith in my blandishments.

'Don't talk to me,' she said, but with a smile which contradicted the prohibition; 'I'm too old for compliments, a woman with a grown-up daughter!'

Now I was quite glad to go back to the subject suggested by her last words.

'Who is the happy object of the young lady's preference?' I asked, trying to speak in a tone of badinage, though indeed I thought Babiole much too young and too pretty to bestow even the most make-believe affection on any one north o' Tweed, or south of it either, for that matter.

'It's one of the young Duncans, at Fir Lodge; the pretty-looking lad with the curly fair hair.'

I gave a little 'hoch!' of disgust. A great freckle-faced lout of a boy--I knew him! I remembered, too, that the Duncans had joined heartily in a scandalised murmur, far-off sounds of which had reached my ears, at the enormity of my bringing play-acting folk to my Highland seraglio. With very few more words I left Mrs. Ellmer, more put out than I cared to show. However, after looking angrily at the rhododendrons in the drive for a little while, I happily remembered that the annual visit of my four oddly-a.s.sorted friends was due within a month, and that then I should have something more interesting to occupy my mind than the flirtations of a couple of children. 'And after that,' I said to myself, 'I think I shall set off on my wanderings again for a little while, and the Ellmers can remain here until they, too, are tired of it, and so we shall avoid any wrench over the break-up.' That the break-up must come I knew, and, on the whole, I felt that it had better come early than late--for me, at any rate.

I climbed up Craigendarroch next day, and every day for a week after; I never met any one, and every time I was alarmed by the steepness of those rocks to the south, where a poor young fellow who was out fern-hunting fell down the perpendicular cliff one summer's day, and was found a shapeless, lifeless heap four days after on the side of the hill. He was a stranger, and might have lain there till his bones whitened on the rocks and ferns among the young oak-trees, if a couple of Ballater lads had not stumbled upon his body in their Sunday walk, and called out all the village to see the sight. And these made the most of the excitement in a singular way, holding a highly decorous and Presbyterian wake, settling themselves in a business-like manner like a flock of crows on the broken ground around the stone on which the dead man, scarcely more silent and unconcerned than they, held his mournful levee. This incident had already given a tragic interest to the south side of the pretty hill; and although Babiole knew the place well, and was as sure-footed and nimble as one of its native squirrels, I felt anxious every day when there was no answer to my call of 'Ta-ta! Ta-ta!' and was not satisfied until I had made the circuit of the hill, pushed my way through the barriers of uprooted firs with which the gales of early spring had enc.u.mbered the hillside on the north, and going on in that direction, came to the bare and almost precipitous slope which forms the southern wall of the Pa.s.s of Ballater.

On my eighth visit I heard a faint bark from the ridge of hill to the north-west of the pa.s.s; considering this as a clue, I made my way down Craigendarroch, across the meadows round Mona House, a white building of simplest architecture, flanked by a garden where straight rows of bright flowers looked quaintly picturesque against a dark background of fir and hill. Crossing the road which ran at the foot of the ridge, I began to climb. A rough steep path had here been worn among the bracken, and was widened at every ascent by falls of loose soil and stones. I knew what a pretty little nook there was at the top, just the place where a lovelorn maid would delight to make a nest. The path grew steeper than ever towards the top, and led suddenly to a gra.s.sy hollow, one wall of which was a perpendicular gray cliff, broken by narrow and inaccessible ridges on which slender little birch-trees contrived to grow. On the opposite side the mossy ground sloped gently, and the wild rabbits scurried about among the stumps of fallen pines.

I had only gone a few steps along the soft ground when I caught the sound of a light girlish voice; it came from the miniature chasm at the foot of the cliff. I wondered who the child was talking to. But as I came nearer, hearing no voice but hers, I supposed she must be reading aloud.

'Oh no, Roderick,' at last I was close enough to hear, 'I love you pa.s.sionately, with the love one knows but once. But it is impossible for me to do as you wish. You speak to me of your father; you urge upon me that he would forgive my lowly birth, that he would welcome to his ancestral halls the woman of your choice, whoever she might be.

But do not forget that I too have pride, that I too have a duty to perform to my parents.' Then came a change of tone, and a sort of practical parenthesis, hurried through quickly like a stage direction: 'I don't mean my father of course, because he was so clever that he had to think of his art and wasn't like a father at all.' Then her tone became sentimental again: 'But my mother--mamma is worthy to have all the wealth of kings showered at her feet. She is beautiful, and clever, and good; Mr. Maude--indeed everybody, admires and loves her.

No, Roderick, I will not allow my mother to become a mere mother-in-law.'

The bathos of the conclusion upset my gravity; I came close to the edge of the pit and looked down. The little maid was not reading, but was sitting by herself on a tree-trunk among the stones, with the dog asleep on the edge of her frock, living in a world of her own, and holding converse with the people there. I crept away as quietly as I could and went back home in an amused but rather rapturous state: the next time I saw my G.o.ddess, though, she was devouring slice after slice of bread and jam with prosaic ravenousness at the kitchen door.

And I concluded that at fourteen, even with a face like a flower and a voice like a bird's, 'the love one knows but once' and perfect peace of mind are not incompatible things.

CHAPTER IX

It was Fabian Scott who, being by his profession less of a free agent than any other member of my little circle of friends, fixed the date of their yearly visit. As soon as he made known to me the first day when he would be free, I summoned the rest, and not one of them had ever yet failed me. Fabian wrote to me this year, giving the fifteenth of August as the day on which the closing of the theatre at which he was playing would leave him free.

The news of the expected arrivals quickly reached the ears of Mrs.

Ellmer, who came skipping along the garden towards me one morning about a week before the visit, and attacked me at once with much vivacity.

'Aha!' she began, 'and so we were to be left in ignorance of the gay doings, were we?'

'If you allude to the meeting of half a dozen old fogeys on the fifteenth, Mrs. Ellmer, I a.s.sure you I was coming to the cottage to tell you about it. But we shall be about as sportive as a gathering of the British Archaeological a.s.sociation, and as we shall be out on the moors all day, I am afraid you won't find the place much livelier than usual. I think,' I added, coming to the pith of the matter with some feeling of awkwardness, 'that you had better keep Miss Babiole more--more with you, while--while the gentlemen are here. Or--or if you would like a trip to the seaside we might see about a couple of weeks at Muchalls or Stonehaven, and that would give us an opportunity of--of having the cottage whitewashed, you know,' I finished up, with a sudden gleam of tardy inventive genius.

The fact was, I had begun to tingle at the thought of the merciless 'chaff'--as much worse to bear than slander as the stigma of fool is than that of rogue--which the importation of my fair tenants would bring down upon me. Besides, though my four visitors were all old friends, and very good fellows, yet a pretty face may work such Circe-like wonders, even in the best of us, that I thought it better that our bachelor loneliness should be, as before, untempered by the smiles of any woman lovelier than Janet. But Mrs. Ellmer, at my hesitating suggestion, grew rigid and haughty.

'Of course, Mr. Maude,' she said, 'if you wish now to make use of the cottage my daughter and I have done our best to keep in order for you, we shall be ready to pack up at any time. We can go to-morrow, if you like. I have no doubt that I shall be able to find an opening for the autumn season with some company.'

'No, no, no!' interrupted I emphatically and with some impatience, 'Pray do not think of such a thing. There is plenty of room in my own place for all my friends. My sole object in making the suggestion I did was to prevent your being pestered with the attentions of a lot of rough sportsmen, who, when they were tired of shooting, would find nothing better to do than to worry you and Miss Babiole to death. And you remember,' I ended, as a happy thought, 'how, when you came here, you insisted on privacy.'

'One may have too much even of such a good thing as one's own society,' said she, with an affected little laugh. 'I think I could bear a little attention now, with much equanimity, even from a sportsman who "could find nothing better to do." Of course, I could expect no more than that from gentlemen of such rank as your guests,'

she added, rather venomously. 'But for a change even that might be acceptable.'

Good heavens! The woman would not understand me.

'But Babiole!' I suggested quietly.

'Babiole is only a child; but even if she were not, a daughter of mine would be perfectly able to take care of herself, Mr. Maude.'

After this snub, I could only bow and take myself off, spending the interval before my guests' arrival in schooling myself for the approaching ordeal.

The first to arrive on the fifteenth were Lord Edgar Normanton and Mr.

Richard Fussell, the latter, anxious to make the most of his annual taste of rank and fas.h.i.+on, having lain in wait for the former at King's Cross, and insisted on bearing him company during the entire journey. I met them at Ballater station at 2.15 in the afternoon, and was sorry to hear from Edgar, who never looked otherwise than the picture of robust health, and who was, moreover, getting fat, that he was far from well.

'I tell his lords.h.i.+p that he should take rowing exercise. Nothing like a good pull every day on the river to keep a man in condition,' urged Mr. Fussell, who was fifty inches round what had once been his waist, and who seemed to radiate health and happiness.

They informed me that Fabian Scott had also travelled up by the night mail, but in another compartment; so I went to meet the train, which came into Ballater at 5.50, and found both Fabian and Mr. Maurice Browne disputing so violently that they had forgotten to get out.

Fabian had indeed taken advantage of the stopping of the train to stride up and down the confined area of the railway carriage, gesticulating violently with his hatbox, rug, gun, and various other unconsidered trifles. I guessed that they could only have travelled together from Aberdeen, for there had been no bloodshed. They had been having a little discussion on realism in art, of which Maurice Browne was an ardent disciple. They were still hard at it, in terms unfit for publication, when I mounted the step and put my head in at the window.

Excitable Fabian, with his keen eyes still flas.h.i.+ng indignation with 'exotic filth,' shook my hand till he brought on partial paralysis of that member, while he fired a last shot into his less erratic opponent.

'No, sir,' he protested vehemently, 'I deny neither your ability nor your good faith, nor those of your French master; but I have the same objection to the fictions of your school, as works of art, as I should have to the performance of a play written by cripples for cripples. It would be a curiosity, sir, and might attract crowds of morbid-minded people, besides cripples; but it would be none the less a disgusting and degraded exhibition, antagonistic to nature and truth, to which the feeblest "virtue victorious and vice vanquished"

melodrama would be as day unto night. With minds attuned to low thoughts, you seek for low things, and degrade them still further by your treatment. You have a philosophy, I admit, sir, but it is the philosophy of the hog.'

And, having poured out this persuasive little harangue with such volubility that not even an Irishman could get in a word edgeways, Fabian allowed himself to be enticed on to the platform, and began asking me questions about myself with childlike affection. Maurice Browne followed, somewhat refreshed by this torrent of abuse, since the aim of his literary ambition was rather to scandalise than to convince. He was tall, thin, and unhealthy-looking, with a pallid face and pink-rimmed eyes, and an appearance altogether unfortunate in the propagator of a new cult. I believe he was, on the whole, fonder of me than Fabian was. My disastrous ugliness appealed to his distaste for the beautiful, and having once, as a complete stranger, very generously come to my aid in a difficulty, he felt ever after the natural and kindly human liking for a fellow-creature who has given one an opportunity of posing as the deputy of G.o.d. These two gentlemen, with their strong and aggressive opinions, formed the disturbing element in our yearly meeting, and, each being always at deadly feud with somebody else, might be reckoned on to keep the fun alive. Both talked to me, and me alone, on our way to the house, with such sly hits at one another as their wit or their malice could suggest. Fabian raved about the effects of descending sun on heather and pine-covered hills, Maurice Browne bemoaned the stony poverty of the cottages, and opined that constant intermarriages between the inhabitants had reduced the scanty population to idiots. Then Fabian told me how many inquiries had been made about me by old acquaintances, who still hoped I would some day return from the wilds, and Maurice instantly tempered my satisfaction by asking me if I had heard that the Earl of Saxmundham was going to divorce his wife. The question gave me a great shock, not so much on account of the blow it dealt at an old idol still conventionally enthroned in my memory as the last love of my life, as because I knew how much distress such a report must cause to poor old Edgar.

I was quite relieved, on entering the drive, to meet my stalwart friend and his faithful companion, both very merry over some joke which had already made Mr. Fussell purple in the face. On seeing us they burst out laughing afresh. I guessed what the joke was.

'Deuced lonely up here, isn't it?' said Mr. Fussell to me. 'No society, nothing but books, books,--except for one short fortnight in the year. Eh, Maude?'

'Eh? eh? what's this?' said Fabian.

'His only books are woman's looks, and I wonder they didn't teach him the folly of bringing a band of gay and das.h.i.+ng cavaliers to read them too,' said Edgar.

Fabian turned slowly round to me, with a look of extreme pain, and shook his head mournfully.

'Oh, what a tangled web we weave,' he murmured sorrowfully, and then began to dance the Highland fling, with his rug tartanwise over his shoulder.

Maurice Browne gravely c.o.c.ked his hat, pulled down his cuffs, b.u.t.toned up his coat, and requesting Edgar to carry his bag, proceeded up the drive with his hands in his pockets, whistling.

In fact the whole quartett had given themselves up to ribald gaiety at my expense, and my explanation that I had merely given a poor lady and her daughter shelter for the winter in an unused cottage only provoked another explosion. It was understood that at these bachelor meetings all rules of social decorum should be scrupulously violated, so there was nothing for it but to join in the mirth with the best grace I could.

'You know who it is,' I said, half aside, to Fabian, hoping to turn him at least into an ally. 'It's poor little Mrs. Ellmer, the wife of that drunken painter.'

But Fabian was flinty. Turning towards the rest, with his expiring Romeo expression, he wailed: 'Oh, gentlemen, he is adding insult to injury; he is loading with abuse the bereaved husband of this lady to whom he has given shelter for the winter!'

'Which winter? How much winter?' asked the others.

The more they saw that I was getting really pained by their chaff the worse it became, until Fabian, stalking gravely up to Ferguson, who stood on the doorstep, pointed tragically in the direction of nowhere in particular, and said, in a sepulchral voice--