Here was a dismal disposition for a lover.  'Was ever lady in this
humour wooed?' I asked myself, and came near turning back.  It is
never wise to risk a critical interview when your spirits are
depressed, your clothes muddy, and your hands wet!  But the
boisterous night was in itself favourable to my enterprise:  now,
or perhaps never, I might find some way to have an interview with
Flora; and if I had one interview (wet clothes, low spirits and
all), I told myself there would certainly be another.

Arrived in the cottage-garden I found the circumstances mighty
inclement.  From the round holes in the shutters of the parlour,
shafts of candle-light streamed forth; elsewhere the darkness was
complete.  The trees, the thickets, were saturated; the lower parts
of the garden turned into a morass.  At intervals, when the wind
broke forth again, there passed overhead a wild coil of clashing
branches; and between whiles the whole enclosure continuously and
stridently resounded with the rain.  I advanced close to the window
and contrived to read the face of my watch.  It was half-past
seven; they would not retire before ten, they might not before
midnight, and the prospect was unpleasant.  In a lull of the wind I
could hear from the inside the voice of Flora reading aloud; the
words of course inaudible--only a flow of undecipherable speech,
quiet, cordial, colourless, more intimate and winning, more
eloquent of her personality, but not less beautiful than song.  And
the next moment the clamour of a fresh squall broke out about the
cottage; the voice was drowned in its bellowing, and I was glad to
retreat from my dangerous post.

For three egregious hours I must now suffer the elements to do
their worst upon me, and continue to hold my ground in patience.  I
recalled the least fortunate of my services in the field:  being
out-sentry of the pickets in weather no less vile, sometimes
unsuppered and with nothing to look forward to by way of breakfast
but musket-balls; and they seemed light in comparison.  So
strangely are we built:  so much more strong is the love of woman
than the mere love of life.

At last my patience was rewarded.  The light disappeared from the
parlour and reappeared a moment after in the room above.  I was
pretty well informed for the enterprise that lay before me.  I knew
the lair of the dragon--that which was just illuminated.  I knew
the bower of my Rosamond, and how excellently it was placed on the
ground-level, round the flank of the cottage and out of earshot of
her formidable aunt.  Nothing was left but to apply my knowledge.
I was then at the bottom of the garden, whether I had gone (Heaven
save the mark!) for warmth, that I might walk to and fro unheard
and keep myself from perishing.  The night had fallen still, the
wind ceased; the noise of the rain had much lightened, if it had
not stopped, and was succeeded by the dripping of the garden trees.
In the midst of this lull, and as I was already drawing near to the
cottage, I was startled by the sound of a window-sash screaming in
its channels; and a step or two beyond I became aware of a gush of
light upon the darkness.  It fell from Flora's window, which she
had flung open on the night, and where she now sat, roseate and
pensive, in the shine of two candles falling from behind, her
tresses deeply embowering and shading her; the suspended comb still
in one hand, the other idly clinging to the iron stanchions with
which the window was barred.

Keeping to the turf, and favoured by the darkness of the night and
the patter of the rain which was now returning, though without
wind, I approached until I could almost have touched her.  It
seemed a grossness of which I was incapable to break up her reverie
by speech.  I stood and drank her in with my eyes; how the light
made a glory in her hair, and (what I have always thought the most
ravishing thing in nature) how the planes ran into each other, and
were distinguished, and how the hues blended and varied, and were
shaded off, between the cheek and neck.  At first I was abashed:
she wore her beauty like an immediate halo of refinement; she
discouraged me like an angel, or what I suspect to be the next most
discouraging, a modern lady.  But as I continued to gaze, hope and
life returned to me; I forgot my timidity, I forgot the sickening
pack of wet clothes with which I stood burdened, I tingled with new
blood.

Still unconscious of my presence, still gazing before her upon the
illuminated image of the window, the straight shadows of the bars,
the glinting of pebbles on the path, and the impenetrable night on
the garden and the hills beyond it, she heaved a deep breath that
struck upon my heart like an appeal.

'Why does Miss Gilchrist sigh?' I whispered.  'Does she recall
absent friends?'

She turned her head swiftly in my direction; it was the only sign
of surprise she deigned to make.  At the same time I stepped into
the light and bowed profoundly.

'You!' she said.  'Here?'

'Yes, I am here,' I replied.  'I have come very far, it may be a
hundred and fifty leagues, to see you.  I have waited all this
night in your garden.  Will Miss Gilchrist not offer her hand--to a
friend in trouble?'

She extended it between the bars, and I dropped upon one knee on
the wet path and kissed it twice.  At the second it was withdrawn
suddenly, methought with more of a start than she had hitherto
displayed.  I regained my former attitude, and we were both silent
awhile.  My timidity returned on me tenfold.  I looked in her face
for any signals of anger, and seeing her eyes to waver and fall
aside from mine, augured that all was well.

'You must have been mad to come here!' she broke out.  'Of all
places under heaven this is no place for you to come.  And I was
just thinking you were safe in France!'

'You were thinking of me!' I cried.

'Mr. St. Ives, you cannot understand your danger,' she replied.  'I
am sure of it, and yet I cannot find it in my heart to tell you.
O, be persuaded, and go!'

'I believe I know the worst.  But I was never one to set an undue
value on life, the life that we share with beasts.  My university
has been in the wars, not a famous place of education, but one
where a man learns to carry his life in his hand as lightly as a
glove, and for his lady or his honour to lay it as lightly down.
You appeal to my fears, and you do wrong.  I have come to Scotland
with my eyes quite open to see you and to speak with you--it may be
for the last time.  With my eyes quite open, I say; and if I did
not hesitate at the beginning do you think that I would draw back
now?'

'You do not know!' she cried, with rising agitation.  'This
country, even this garden, is death to you.  They all believe it; I
am the only one that does not.  If they hear you now, if they heard
a whisper--I dread to think of it.  O, go, go this instant.  It is
my prayer.'

'Dear lady, do not refuse me what I have come so far to seek; and
remember that out of all the millions in England there is no other
but yourself in whom I can dare confide.  I have all the world
against me; you are my only ally; and as I have to speak, you have
to listen.  All is true that they say of me, and all of it false at
the same time.  I did kill this man Goguelat--it was that you
meant?'

She mutely signed to me that it was; she had become deadly pale.

'But I killed him in fair fight.  Till then, I had never taken a
life unless in battle, which is my trade.  But I was grateful, I
was on fire with gratitude, to one who had been good to me, who had
been better to me than I could have dreamed of an angel, who had
come into the darkness of my prison like sunrise.  The man Goguelat
insulted her.  O, he had insulted me often, it was his favourite
pastime, and he might insult me as he pleased--for who was I?  But
with that lady it was different.  I could never forgive myself if I
had let it pass.  And we fought, and he fell, and I have no
remorse.'

I waited anxiously for some reply.  The worst was now out, and I
knew that she had heard of it before; but it was impossible for me
to go on with my narrative without some shadow of encouragement.

'You blame me?'

'No, not at all.  It is a point I cannot speak on--I am only a
girl.  I am sure you were in the right:  I have always said so--to
Ronald.  Not, of course, to my aunt.  I am afraid I let her speak
as she will.  You must not think me a disloyal friend; and even
with the Major--I did not tell you he had become quite a friend of
ours--Major Chevenix, I mean--he has taken such a fancy to Ronald!
It was he that brought the news to us of that hateful Clausel being
captured, and all that he was saying.  I was indignant with him.  I
said--I dare say I said too much--and I must say he was very good-
natured.  He said, "You and I, who are his friends, KNOW that
Champdivers is innocent.  But what is the use of saying it?"  All
this was in the corner of the room in what they call an aside.  And
then he said, "Give me a chance to speak to you in private, I have
much to tell you."  And he did.  And told me just what you did--
that it was an affair of honour, and no blame attached to you.  O,
I must say I like that Major Chevenix!'

At this I was seized with a great pang of jealousy.  I remembered
the first time that he had seen her, the interest that he seemed
immediately to conceive; and I could not but admire the dog for the
use he had been ingenious enough to make of our acquaintance in
order to supplant me.  All is fair in love and war.  For all that,
I was now no less anxious to do the speaking myself than I had been
before to hear Flora.  At least, I could keep clear of the hateful
image of Major Chevenix.  Accordingly I burst at once on the
narrative of my adventures.  It was the same as you have read, but
briefer, and told with a very different purpose.  Now every
incident had a particular bearing, every by-way branched off to
Rome--and that was Flora.

When I had begun to speak I had kneeled upon the gravel withoutside
the low window, rested my arms upon the sill, and lowered my voice
to the most confidential whisper.  Flora herself must kneel upon
the other side, and this brought our heads upon a level with only
the bars between us.  So placed, so separated, it seemed that our
proximity, and the continuous and low sounds of my pleading voice,
worked progressively and powerfully on her heart, and perhaps not
less so on my own.  For these spells are double-edged.  The silly
birds may be charmed with the pipe of the fowler, which is but a
tube of reeds.  Not so with a bird of our own feather!  As I went
on, and my resolve strengthened, and my voice found new
modulations, and our faces were drawn closer to the bars and to
each other, not only she, but I, succumbed to the fascination, and
were kindled by the charm.  We make love, and thereby ourselves
fall the deeper in it.  It is with the heart only that one captures
a heart.

'And now,' I continued, 'I will tell you what you can still do for
me.  I run a little risk just now, and you see for yourself how
unavoidable it is for any man of honour.  But if--but in case of
the worst I do not choose to enrich either my enemies or the Prince
Regent.  I have here the bulk of what my uncle gave me.  Eight
thousand odd pounds.  Will you take care of it for me?  Do not
think of it merely as money; take and keep it as a relic of your
friend or some precious piece of him.  I may have bitter need of it
ere long.  Do you know the old country story of the giant who gave
his heart to his wife to keep for him, thinking it safer to repose
on her loyalty than his own strength?  Flora, I am the giant--a
very little one:  will you be the keeper of my life?  It is my
heart I offer you in this symbol.  In the sight of God, if you will
have it, I give you my name, I endow you with my money.  If the
worst come, if I may never hope to call you wife, let me at least
think that you will use my uncle's legacy as my widow.'

'No, not that,' she said.  'Never that.'

'What then?' I said.  'What else, my angel?  What are words to me?
There is but one name that I care to know you by.  Flora, my love!'

'Anne!' she said.

What sound is so full of music as one's own name uttered for the
first time in the voice of her we love!

'My darling!' said I.

The jealous bars, set at the top and bottom in stone and lime,
obstructed the rapture of the moment; but I took her to myself as
wholly as they allowed.  She did not shun my lips.  My arms were
wound round her body, which yielded itself generously to my
embrace.  As we so remained, entwined and yet severed, bruising our
faces unconsciously on the cold bars, the irony of the universe--or
as I prefer to say, envy of some of the gods--again stirred up the
elements of that stormy night.  The wind blew again in the tree-
tops; a volley of cold sea-rain deluged the garden, and, as the
deuce would have it, a gutter which had been hitherto choked up
began suddenly to play upon my head and shoulders with the vivacity
of a fountain.  We parted with a shock; I sprang to my feet, and
she to hers, as though we had been discovered.  A moment after, but
now both standing, we had again approached the window on either
side.

'Flora,' I said, 'this is but a poor offer I can make you.'

She took my hand in hers and clasped it to her bosom.

'Rich enough for a queen!' she said, with a lift in her breathing
that was more eloquent than words.  'Anne, my brave Anne!  I would
be glad to be your maidservant; I could envy that boy Rowley.  But,
no!' she broke off, 'I envy no one--I need not--I am yours.'

'Mine,' said I, 'for ever!  By this and this, mine!'

'All of me,' she repeated.  'Altogether and forever!'

And if the god were envious, he must have seen with mortification
how little he could do to mar the happiness of mortals.  I stood in
a mere waterspout; she herself was wet, not from my embrace only,
but from the splashing of the storm.  The candles had guttered out;
we were in darkness.  I could scarce see anything but the shining
of her eyes in the dark room.  To her I must have appeared as a
silhouette, haloed by rain and the spouting of the ancient Gothic
gutter above my head.

Presently we became more calm and confidential; and when that
squall, which proved to be the last of the storm, had blown by,
fell into a talk of ways and means.  It seemed she knew Mr. Robbie,
to whom I had been so slenderly accredited by Romaine--was even
invited to his house for the evening of Monday, and gave me a
sketch of the old gentleman's character which implied a great deal
of penetration in herself, and proved of great use to me in the
immediate sequel.  It seemed he was an enthusiastic antiquary, and
in particular a fanatic of heraldry.  I heard it with delight, for
I was myself, thanks to M. de Culemberg, fairly grounded in that
science, and acquainted with the blazons of most families of note
in Europe.  And I had made up my mind--even as she spoke, it was my
fixed determination, though I was a hundred miles from saying it--
to meet Flora on Monday night as a fellow-guest in Mr. Robbie's
house.

I gave her my money--it was, of course, only paper I had brought.
I gave it her, to be her marriage-portion, I declared.

'Not so bad a marriage-portion for a private soldier,' I told her,
laughing, as I passed it through the bars.

'O, Anne, and where am I to keep it?' she cried.  'If my aunt
should find it!  What would I say!'

'Next your heart,' I suggested.

'Then you will always be near your treasure,' she cried, 'for you
are always there!'

We were interrupted by a sudden clearness that fell upon the night.
The clouds dispersed; the stars shone in every part of the heavens;
and, consulting my watch, I was startled to find it already hard on
five in the morning.



CHAPTER XXVII--THE SABBATH DAY



It was indeed high time I should be gone from Swanston; but what I
was to do in the meanwhile was another question.  Rowley had
received his orders last night:  he was to say that I had met a
friend, and Mrs. McRankine was not to expect me before morning.  A
good enough tale in itself; but the dreadful pickle I was in made
it out of the question.  I could not go home till I had found
harbourage, a fire to dry my clothes at, and a bed where I might
lie till they were ready.

Fortune favoured me again.  I had scarce got to the top of the
first hill when I spied a light on my left, about a furlong away.
It might be a case of sickness; what else it was likely to be--in
so rustic a neighbourhood, and at such an ungodly time of the
morning--was beyond my fancy.  A faint sound of singing became
audible, and gradually swelled as I drew near, until at last I
could make out the words, which were singularly appropriate both to
the hour and to the condition of the singers.  'The cock may craw,
the day may daw,' they sang; and sang it with such laxity both in
time and tune, and such sentimental complaisance in the expression,
as assured me they had got far into the third bottle at least.

I found a plain rustic cottage by the wayside, of the sort called
double, with a signboard over the door; and, the lights within
streaming forth and somewhat mitigating the darkness of the
morning, I was enabled to decipher the inscription:  'The Hunters'
Tryst, by Alexander Hendry.  Porter Ales, and British Spirits.
Beds.'

My first knock put a period to the music, and a voice challenged
tipsily from within.

'Who goes there?' it said; and I replied, 'A lawful traveller.'

Immediately after, the door was unbarred by a company of the
tallest lads my eyes had ever rested on, all astonishingly drunk
and very decently dressed, and one (who was perhaps the drunkest of
the lot) carrying a tallow candle, from which he impartially
bedewed the clothes of the whole company.  As soon as I saw them I
could not help smiling to myself to remember the anxiety with which
I had approached.  They received me and my hastily-concocted story,
that I had been walking from Peebles and had lost my way, with
incoherent benignity; jostled me among them into the room where
they had been sitting, a plain hedgerow alehouse parlour, with a
roaring fire in the chimney and a prodigious number of empty
bottles on the floor; and informed me that I was made, by this
reception, a temporary member of the Six-Feet-High Club, an
athletic society of young men in a good station, who made of the
Hunters' Tryst a frequent resort.  They told me I had intruded on
an 'all-night sitting,' following upon an 'all-day Saturday tramp'
of forty miles; and that the members would all be up and 'as right
as ninepence' for the noonday service at some neighbouring church--
Collingwood, if memory serves me right.  At this I could have
laughed, but the moment seemed ill-chosen.  For, though six feet
was their standard, they all exceeded that measurement
considerably; and I tasted again some of the sensations of
childhood, as I looked up to all these lads from a lower plane, and
wondered what they would do next.  But the Six-Footers, if they
were very drunk, proved no less kind.  The landlord and servants of
the Hunters' Tryst were in bed and asleep long ago.  Whether by
natural gift or acquired habit they could suffer pandemonium to
reign all over the house, and yet lie ranked in the kitchen like
Egyptian mummies, only that the sound of their snoring rose and
fell ceaselessly like the drone of a bagpipe.  Here the Six-Footers
invaded them--in their citadel, so to speak; counted the bunks and
the sleepers; proposed to put me in bed to one of the lasses,
proposed to have one of the lasses out to make room for me, fell
over chairs, and made noise enough to waken the dead:  the whole
illuminated by the same young torch-bearer, but now with two
candles, and rapidly beginning to look like a man in a snowstorm.
At last a bed was found for me, my clothes were hung out to dry
before the parlour fire, and I was mercifully left to my repose.

I awoke about nine with the sun shining in my eyes.  The landlord
came at my summons, brought me my clothes dried and decently
brushed, and gave me the good news that the Six-Feet-High Club were
all abed and sleeping off their excesses.  Where they were bestowed
was a puzzle to me until (as I was strolling about the garden patch
waiting for breakfast) I came on a barn door, and, looking in, saw
all the red face mixed in the straw like plums in a cake.  Quoth
the stalwart maid who brought me my porridge and bade me 'eat them
while they were hot,' 'Ay, they were a' on the ran-dan last nicht!
Hout! they're fine lads, and they'll be nane the waur of it.  Forby
Farbes's coat.  I dinna see wha's to get the creish off that!' she
added, with a sigh; in which, identifying Forbes as the torch-
bearer, I mentally joined.

It was a brave morning when I took the road; the sun shone, spring
seemed in the air, it smelt like April or May, and some over-
venturous birds sang in the coppices as I went by.  I had plenty to
think of, plenty to be grateful for, that gallant morning; and yet
I had a twitter at my heart.  To enter the city by daylight might
be compared to marching on a battery; every face that I confronted
would threaten me like the muzzle of a gun; and it came into my
head suddenly with how much better a countenance I should be able
to do it if I could but improvise a companion.  Hard by Merchiston
I was so fortunate as to observe a bulky gentleman in broadcloth
and gaiters, stooping with his head almost between his knees,
before a stone wall.  Seizing occasion by the forelock, I drew up
as I came alongside and inquired what he had found to interest him.

He turned upon me a countenance not much less broad than his back.

'Why, sir,' he replied, 'I was even marvelling at my own
indefeasible stupeedity:  that I should walk this way every week of
my life, weather permitting, and should never before have NOTTICED
that stone,' touching it at the same time with a goodly oak staff.

I followed the indication.  The stone, which had been built
sideways into the wall, offered traces of heraldic sculpture.  At
once there came a wild idea into my mind:  his appearance tallied
with Flora's description of Mr. Robbie; a knowledge of heraldry
would go far to clinch the proof; and what could be more desirable
than to scrape an informal acquaintance with the man whom I must
approach next day with my tale of the drovers, and whom I yet
wished to please?  I stooped in turn.

'A chevron,' I said; 'on a chief three mullets?  Looks like
Douglas, does it not?'

'Yes, sir, it does; you are right,' said he:  'it DOES look like
Douglas; though, without the tinctures, and the whole thing being
so battered and broken up, who shall venture an opinion?  But allow
me to be more personal, sir.  In these degenerate days I am
astonished you should display so much proficiency.'

'O, I was well grounded in my youth by an old gentleman, a friend
of my family, and I may say my guardian,' said I; 'but I have
forgotten it since.  God forbid I should delude you into thinking
me a herald, sir!  I am only an ungrammatical amateur.'

'And a little modesty does no harm even in a herald,' says my new
acquaintance graciously.

In short, we fell together on our onward way, and maintained very
amicable discourse along what remained of the country road, past
the suburbs, and on into the streets of the New Town, which was as
deserted and silent as a city of the dead.  The shops were closed,
no vehicle ran, cats sported in the midst of the sunny causeway;
and our steps and voices re-echoed from the quiet houses.  It was
the high-water, full and strange, of that weekly trance to which
the city of Edinburgh is subjected:  the apotheosis of the Sawbath;
and I confess the spectacle wanted not grandeur, however much it
may have lacked cheerfulness.  There are few religious ceremonies
more imposing.  As we thus walked and talked in a public seclusion
the bells broke out ringing through all the bounds of the city, and
the streets began immediately to be thronged with decent church-
goers.

'Ah!' said my companion, 'there are the bells!  Now, sir, as you
are a stranger I must offer you the hospitality of my pew.  I do
not know whether you are at all used with our Scottish form; but in
case you are not I will find your places for you; and Dr. Henry
Gray, of St. Mary's (under whom I sit), is as good a preacher as we
have to show you.'

This put me in a quandary.  It was a degree of risk I was scarce
prepared for.  Dozens of people, who might pass me by in the street
with no more than a second look, would go on from the second to the
third, and from that to a final recognition, if I were set before
them, immobilised in a pew, during the whole time of service.  An
unlucky turn of the head would suffice to arrest their attention.
'Who is that?' they would think:  'surely I should know him!' and,
a church being the place in all the world where one has least to
think of, it was ten to one they would end by remembering me before
the benediction.  However, my mind was made up:  I thanked my
obliging friend, and placed myself at his disposal.

Our way now led us into the north-east quarter of the town, among
pleasant new faubourgs, to a decent new church of a good size,
where I was soon seated by the side of my good Samaritan, and
looked upon by a whole congregation of menacing faces.  At first
the possibility of danger kept me awake; but by the time I had
assured myself there was none to be apprehended, and the service
was not in the least likely to be enlivened by the arrest of a
French spy, I had to resign myself to the task of listening to Dr.
Henry Gray.

As we moved out, after this ordeal was over, my friend was at once
surrounded and claimed by his acquaintances of the congregation;
and I was rejoiced to hear him addressed by the expected name of
Robbie.

So soon as we were clear of the crowd--'Mr. Robbie?' said I,
bowing.

'The very same, sir,' said he.

'If I mistake not, a lawyer?'

'A writer to His Majesty's Signet, at your service.'

'It seems we were predestined to be acquaintances!' I exclaimed.
'I have here a card in my pocket intended for you.  It is from my
family lawyer.  It was his last word, as I was leaving, to ask to
be remembered kindly, and to trust you would pass over so informal
an introduction.'

And I offered him the card.

'Ay, ay, my old friend Daniel!' says he, looking on the card.  'And
how does my old friend Daniel?'

I gave a favourable view of Mr. Romaine's health.

'Well, this is certainly a whimsical incident,' he continued.  'And
since we are thus met already--and so much to my advantage!--the
simplest thing will be to prosecute the acquaintance instantly.
Let me propose a snack between sermons, a bottle of my particular
green seal--and when nobody is looking we can talk blazons, Mr.
Ducie!'--which was the name I then used and had already
incidentally mentioned, in the vain hope of provoking a return in
kind.

'I beg your pardon, sir:  do I understand you to invite me to your
house?' said I.

'That was the idea I was trying to convey,' said he.  'We have the
name of hospitable people up here, and I would like you to try
mine.'

'Mr. Robbie, I shall hope to try it some day, but not yet,' I
replied.  'I hope you will not misunderstand me.  My business,
which brings me to your city, is of a peculiar kind.  Till you
shall have heard it, and, indeed, till its issue is known, I should
feel as if I had stolen your invitation.'

'Well, well,' said he, a little sobered, 'it must be as you wish,
though you would hardly speak otherwise if you had committed
homicide!  Mine is the loss.  I must eat alone; a very pernicious
thing for a person of my habit of body, content myself with a pint
of skinking claret, and meditate the discourse.  But about this
business of yours:  if it is so particular as all that, it will
doubtless admit of no delay.'

'I must confess, sir, it presses,' I acknowledged.

'Then, let us say to-morrow at half-past eight in the morning,'
said he; 'and I hope, when your mind is at rest (and it does you
much honour to take it as you do), that you will sit down with me
to the postponed meal, not forgetting the bottle.  You have my
address?' he added, and gave it me--which was the only thing I
wanted.

At last, at the level of York Place, we parted with mutual
civilities, and I was free to pursue my way, through the mobs of
people returning from church, to my lodgings in St. James' Square.

Almost at the house door whom should I overtake but my landlady in
a dress of gorgeous severity, and dragging a prize in her wake:  no
less than Rowley, with the cockade in his hat, and a smart pair of
tops to his boots!  When I said he was in the lady's wake I spoke
but in metaphor.  As a matter of fact he was squiring her, with the
utmost dignity, on his arm; and I followed them up the stairs,
smiling to myself.

Both were quick to salute me as soon as I was perceived, and Mrs.
McRankine inquired where I had been.  I told her boastfully, giving
her the name of the church and the divine, and ignorantly supposing
I should have gained caste.  But she soon opened my eyes.  In the
roots of the Scottish character there are knots and contortions
that not only no stranger can understand, but no stranger can
follow; he walks among explosives; and his best course is to throw
himself upon their mercy--'Just as I am, without one plea,' a
citation from one of the lady's favourite hymns.

The sound she made was unmistakable in meaning, though it was
impossible to be written down; and I at once executed the manoeuvre
I have recommended.

'You must remember I am a perfect stranger in your city,' said I.
'If I have done wrong, it was in mere ignorance, my dear lady; and
this afternoon, if you will be so good as to take me, I shall
accompany YOU.'

But she was not to be pacified at the moment, and departed to her
own quarters murmuring.

'Well, Rowley,' said I; 'and have you been to church?'

'If you please, sir,' he said.

'Well, you have not been any less unlucky than I have,' I returned.
'And how did you get on with the Scottish form?'

'Well, sir, it was pretty 'ard, the form was, and reether narrow,'
he replied.  'I don't know w'y it is, but it seems to me like as if
things were a good bit changed since William Wallace!  That was a
main queer church she took me to, Mr. Anne!  I don't know as I
could have sat it out, if she 'adn't 'a' give me peppermints.  She
ain't a bad one at bottom, the old girl; she do pounce a bit, and
she do worry, but, law bless you, Mr. Anne, it ain't nothink
really--she don't MEAN it.  W'y, she was down on me like a
'undredweight of bricks this morning.  You see, last night she 'ad
me in to supper, and, I beg your pardon, sir, but I took the
freedom of playing her a chune or two.  She didn't mind a bit; so
this morning I began to play to myself, and she flounced in, and
flew up, and carried on no end about Sunday!'

'You see, Rowley,' said I, 'they're all mad up here, and you have
to humour them.  See and don't quarrel with Mrs. McRankine; and,
above all, don't argue with her, or you'll get the worst of it.
Whatever she says, touch your forelock and say, "If you please!" or
"I beg pardon, ma'am."  And let me tell you one thing:  I am sorry,
but you have to go to church with her again this afternoon.  That's
duty, my boy!'

As I had foreseen, the bells had scarce begun before Mrs. McRankine
presented herself to be our escort, upon which I sprang up with
readiness and offered her my arm.  Rowley followed behind.  I was
beginning to grow accustomed to the risks of my stay in Edinburgh,
and it even amused me to confront a new churchful.  I confess the
amusement did not last until the end; for if Dr. Gray were long,
Mr. McCraw was not only longer, but more incoherent, and the matter
of his sermon (which was a direct attack, apparently, on all the
Churches of the world, my own among the number), where it had not
the tonic quality of personal insult, rather inclined me to
slumber.  But I braced myself for my life, kept up Rowley with the
end of a pin, and came through it awake, but no more.

Bethiah was quite conquered by this 'mark of grace,' though, I am
afraid, she was also moved by more worldly considerations.  The
first is, the lady had not the least objection to go to church on
the arm of an elegantly dressed young gentleman, and be followed by
a spruce servant with a cockade in his hat.  I could see it by the
way she took possession of us, found us the places in the Bible,
whispered to me the name of the minister, passed us lozenges, which
I (for my part) handed on to Rowley, and at each fresh attention
stole a little glance about the church to make sure she was
observed.  Rowley was a pretty boy; you will pardon me if I also
remembered that I was a favourable-looking young man.  When we grow
elderly, how the room brightens, and begins to look as it ought to
look, on the entrance of youth, grace, health, and comeliness!  You
do not want them for yourself, perhaps not even for your son, but
you look on smiling; and when you recall their images--again, it is
with a smile.  I defy you to see or think of them and not smile
with an infinite and intimate, but quite impersonal, pleasure.
Well, either I know nothing of women, or that was the case with
Bethiah McRankine.  She had been to church with a cockade behind
her, on the one hand; on the other, her house was brightened by the
presence of a pair of good-looking young fellows of the other sex,
who were always pleased and deferential in her society and accepted
her views as final.

These were sentiments to be encouraged; and, on the way home from
church--if church it could be called--I adopted a most insidious
device to magnify her interest.  I took her into the confidence,
that is, of my love affair, and I had no sooner mentioned a young
lady with whom my affections were engaged than she turned upon me a
face of awful gravity.

'Is she bonny?' she inquired.

I gave her full assurances upon that.

'To what denoamination does she beloang?' came next, and was so
unexpected as almost to deprive me of breath.

'Upon my word, ma'am, I have never inquired,' cried I; 'I only know
that she is a heartfelt Christian, and that is enough.'

'Ay!' she sighed, 'if she has the root of the maitter!  There's a
remnant practically in most of the denoaminations.  There's some in
the McGlashanites, and some in the Glassites, and mony in the
McMillanites, and there's a leeven even in the Estayblishment.'

'I have known some very good Papists even, if you go to that,' said
I.

'Mr. Ducie, think shame to yoursel'!' she cried.

'Why, my dear madam!  I only--' I began.

'You shouldnae jest in sairious maitters,' she interrupted.

On the whole, she entered into what I chose to tell her of our
idyll with avidity, like a cat licking her whiskers over a dish of
cream; and, strange to say--and so expansive a passion is that of
love!--that I derived a perhaps equal satisfaction from confiding
in that breast of iron.  It made an immediate bond:  from that hour
we seemed to be welded into a family-party; and I had little
difficulty in persuading her to join us and to preside over our
tea-table.  Surely there was never so ill-matched a trio as Rowley,
Mrs. McRankine, and the Viscount Anne!  But I am of the Apostle's
way, with a difference:  all things to all women!  When I cannot
please a woman, hang me in my cravat!



CHAPTER XXVIII--EVENTS OF MONDAY:  THE LAWYER'S PARTY



By half-past eight o'clock on the next morning, I was ringing the
bell of the lawyer's office in Castle Street, where I found him
ensconced at a business table, in a room surrounded by several
tiers of green tin cases.  He greeted me like an old friend.

'Come away, sir, come away!' said he.  'Here is the dentist ready
for you, and I think I can promise you that the operation will be
practically painless.'

'I am not so sure of that, Mr. Robbie,' I replied, as I shook hands
with him.  'But at least there shall be no time lost with me.'

I had to confess to having gone a-roving with a pair of drovers and
their cattle, to having used a false name, to having murdered or
half-murdered a fellow-creature in a scuffle on the moors, and to
having suffered a couple of quite innocent men to lie some time in
prison on a charge from which I could have immediately freed them.
All this I gave him first of all, to be done with the worst of it;
and all this he took with gravity, but without the least appearance
of surprise.

'Now, sir,' I continued, 'I expect to have to pay for my unhappy
frolic, but I would like very well if it could be managed without
my personal appearance or even the mention of my real name.  I had
so much wisdom as to sail under false colours in this foolish jaunt
of mine; my family would be extremely concerned if they had wind of
it; but at the same time, if the case of this Faa has terminated
fatally, and there are proceedings against Todd and Candlish, I am
not going to stand by and see them vexed, far less punished; and I
authorise you to give me up for trial if you think that best--or,
if you think it unnecessary, in the meanwhile to make preparations
for their defence.  I hope, sir, that I am as little anxious to be
Quixotic, as I am determined to be just.'

'Very fairly spoken,' said Mr. Robbie.  'It is not much in my line,
as doubtless your friend, Mr. Romaine, will have told you.  I
rarely mix myself up with anything on the criminal side, or
approaching it.  However, for a young gentleman like you, I may
stretch a point, and I dare say I may be able to accomplish more
than perhaps another.  I will go at once to the Procurator Fiscal's
office and inquire.'

'Wait a moment, Mr. Robbie,' said I.  'You forget the chapter of
expenses.  I had thought, for a beginning, of placing a thousand
pounds in your hands.'

'My dear sir, you will kindly wait until I render you my bill,'
said Mr. Robbie severely.'

'It seemed to me,' I protested, 'that coming to you almost as a
stranger, and placing in your hands a piece of business so contrary
to your habits, some substantial guarantee of my good faith--'

'Not the way that we do business in Scotland, sir,' he interrupted,
with an air of closing the dispute.

'And yet, Mr. Robbie,' I continued, 'I must ask you to allow me to
proceed.  I do not merely refer to the expenses of the case.  I
have my eye besides on Todd and Candlish.  They are thoroughly
deserving fellows; they have been subjected through me to a
considerable term of imprisonment; and I suggest, sir, that you
should not spare money for their indemnification.  This will
explain,' I added smiling, 'my offer of the thousand pounds.  It
was in the nature of a measure by which you should judge the scale
on which I can afford to have this business carried through.'

'I take you perfectly, Mr. Ducie,' said he.  'But the sooner I am
off, the better this affair is like to be guided.  My clerk will
show you into the waiting-room and give you the day's Caledonian
Mercury and the last Register to amuse yourself with in the
interval.'

I believe Mr. Robbie was at least three hours gone.  I saw him
descend from a cab at the door, and almost immediately after I was
shown again into his study, where the solemnity of his manner led
me to augur the worst.  For some time he had the inhumanity to read
me a lecture as to the incredible silliness, 'not to say
immorality,' of my behaviour.  'I have the satisfaction in telling
you my opinion, because it appears that you are going to get off
scot free,' he continued, where, indeed, I thought he might have
begun.

'The man, Faa, has been discharged cured; and the two men, Todd and
Candlish, would have been leeberated lone ago if it had not been
for their extraordinary loyalty to yourself, Mr. Ducie--or Mr. St.
Ivey, as I believe I should now call you.  Never a word would
either of the two old fools volunteer that in any manner pointed at
the existence of such a person; and when they were confronted with
Faa's version of the affair, they gave accounts so entirely
discrepant with their own former declarations, as well as with each
other, that the Fiscal was quite nonplussed, and imaigined there
was something behind it.  You may believe I soon laughed him out of
that!  And I had the satisfaction of seeing your two friends set
free, and very glad to be on the causeway again.'

'Oh, sir,' I cried, 'you should have brought them here.'

'No instructions, Mr. Ducie!' said he.  'How did I know you wished
to renew an acquaintance which you had just terminated so
fortunately?  And, indeed, to be frank with you, I should have set
my face against it, if you had!  Let them go!  They are paid and
contented, and have the highest possible opinion of Mr. St. Ivey!
When I gave them fifty pounds apiece--which was rather more than
enough, Mr. Ducie, whatever you may think--the man Todd, who has
the only tongue of the party, struck his staff on the ground.
"Weel," says he, "I aye said he was a gentleman!"  "Man, Todd,"
said I, "that was just what Mr St. Ivey said of yourself!"'

'So it was a case of "Compliments fly when gentlefolk meet."'

'No, no, Mr. Ducie, man Todd and man Candlish are gone out of your
life, and a good riddance!  They are fine fellows in their way, but
no proper associates for the like of yourself; and do you finally
agree to be done with all eccentricity--take up with no more
drovers, or tinkers, but enjoy the naitural pleesures for which
your age, your wealth, your intelligence, and (if I may be allowed
to say it) your appearance so completely fit you.  And the first of
these,' quoth he, looking at his watch, 'will be to step through to
my dining-room and share a bachelor's luncheon.'

Over the meal, which was good, Mr. Robbie continued to develop the
same theme.  'You're, no doubt, what they call a dancing-man?' said
he.  'Well, on Thursday night there is the Assembly Ball.  You must
certainly go there, and you must permit me besides to do the
honours of the ceety and send you a ticket.  I am a thorough
believer in a young man being a young man--but no more drovers or
rovers, if you love me!  Talking of which puts me in mind that you
may be short of partners at the Assembly--oh, I have been young
myself!--and if ye care to come to anything so portentiously
tedious as a tea-party at the house of a bachelor lawyer,
consisting mainly of his nieces and nephews, and his grand-nieces
and grand-nephews, and his wards, and generally the whole clan of
the descendants of his clients, you might drop in to-night towards
seven o'clock.  I think I can show you one or two that are worth
looking at, and you can dance with them later on at the Assembly.'

He proceeded to give me a sketch of one or two eligible young
ladies' whom I might expect to meet.  'And then there's my
parteecular friend, Miss Flora,' said he.  'But I'll make no
attempt of a description.  You shall see her for yourself.'

It will be readily supposed that I accepted his invitation; and
returned home to make a toilette worthy of her I was to meet and
the good news of which I was the bearer.  The toilette, I have
reason to believe, was a success.  Mr. Rowley dismissed me with a
farewell:  'Crikey!  Mr. Anne, but you do look prime!'  Even the
stony Bethiah was--how shall I say?--dazzled, but scandalised, by
my appearance; and while, of course, she deplored the vanity that
led to it, she could not wholly prevent herself from admiring the
result.

'Ay, Mr. Ducie, this is a poor employment for a wayfaring Christian
man!' she said.  'Wi' Christ despised and rejectit in all pairts of
the world and the flag of the Covenant flung doon, you will be
muckle better on your knees!  However, I'll have to confess that it
sets you weel.  And if it's the lassie ye're gaun to see the nicht,
I suppose I'll just have to excuse ye!  Bairns maun be bairns!' she
said, with a sigh.  'I mind when Mr. McRankine came courtin', and
that's lang by-gane--I mind I had a green gown, passementit, that
was thocht to become me to admiration.  I was nae just exactly what
ye would ca' bonny; but I was pale, penetratin', and interestin'.'
And she leaned over the stair-rail with a candle to watch my
descent as long as it should be possible.

It was but a little party at Mr. Robbie's--by which, I do not so
much mean that there were few people, for the rooms were crowded,
as that there was very little attempted to entertain them.  In one
apartment there were tables set out, where the elders were solemnly
engaged upon whist; in the other and larger one, a great number of
youth of both sexes entertained themselves languidly, the ladies
sitting upon chairs to be courted, the gentlemen standing about in
various attitudes of insinuation or indifference.  Conversation
appeared the sole resource, except in so far as it was modified by
a number of keepsakes and annuals which lay dispersed upon the
tables, and of which the young beaux displayed the illustrations to
the ladies.  Mr. Robbie himself was customarily in the card-room;
only now and again, when he cut out, he made an incursion among the
young folks, and rolled about jovially from one to another, the
very picture of the general uncle.

It chanced that Flora had met Mr. Robbie in the course of the
afternoon.  'Now, Miss Flora,' he had said, 'come early, for I have
a Phoenix to show you--one Mr. Ducie, a new client of mine that, I
vow, I have fallen in love with'; and he was so good as to add a
word or two on my appearance, from which Flora conceived a
suspicion of the truth.  She had come to the party, in consequence,
on the knife-edge of anticipation and alarm; had chosen a place by
the door, where I found her, on my arrival, surrounded by a posse
of vapid youths; and, when I drew near, sprang up to meet me in the
most natural manner in the world, and, obviously, with a prepared
form of words.

'How do you do, Mr. Ducie?' she said.  'It is quite an age since I
have seen you!'

'I have much to tell you, Miss Gilchrist,' I replied.  'May I sit
down?'

For the artful girl, by sitting near the door, and the judicious
use of her shawl, had contrived to keep a chair empty by her side.

She made room for me, as a matter of course, and the youths had the
discretion to melt before us.  As soon as I was once seated her fan
flew out, and she whispered behind it:

'Are you mad?'

'Madly in love,' I replied; 'but in no other sense.'

'I have no patience!  You cannot understand what I am suffering!'
she said.  'What are you to say to Ronald, to Major Chevenix, to my
aunt?'

Your aunt?' I cried, with a start.  'Peccavi! is she here?'

'She is in the card-room at whist,' said Flora.

'Where she will probably stay all the evening?' I suggested.

'She may,' she admitted; 'she generally does!'

'Well, then, I must avoid the card-room,' said I, 'which is very
much what I had counted upon doing.  I did not come here to play
cards, but to contemplate a certain young lady to my heart's
content--if it can ever be contented!--and to tell her some good
news.'

'But there are still Ronald and the Major!' she persisted.  'They
are not card-room fixtures!  Ronald will be coming and going.  And
as for Mr. Chevenix, he--'

'Always sits with Miss Flora?' I interrupted.  'And they talk of
poor St. Ives?  I had gathered as much, my dear; and Mr. Ducie has
come to prevent it!  But pray dismiss these fears!  I mind no one
but your aunt.'

'Why my aunt?'

'Because your aunt is a lady, my dear, and a very clever lady, and,
like all clever ladies, a very rash lady,' said I.  'You can never
count upon them, unless you are sure of getting them in a corner,
as I have got you, and talking them over rationally, as I am just
engaged on with yourself!  It would be quite the same to your aunt
to make the worst kind of a scandal, with an equal indifference to
my danger and to the feelings of our good host!'

'Well,' she said, 'and what of Ronald, then?  Do you think HE is
above making a scandal?  You must know him very little!'

'On the other hand, it is my pretension that I know him very well!'
I replied.  'I must speak to Ronald first--not Ronald to me--that
is all!'

'Then, please, go and speak to him at once!' she pleaded.  He is
there--do you see?--at the upper end of the room, talking to that
girl in pink.'

'And so lose this seat before I have told you my good news?' I
exclaimed.  'Catch me!  And, besides, my dear one, think a little
of me and my good news!  I thought the bearer of good news was
always welcome!  I hoped he might be a little welcome for himself!
Consider!  I have but one friend; and let me stay by her!  And
there is only one thing I care to hear; and let me hear it!'

'Oh, Anne,' she sighed, 'if I did not love you, why should I be so
uneasy?  I am turned into a coward, dear!  Think, if it were the
other way round--if you were quite safe and I was in, oh, such
danger!'

She had no sooner said it than I was convicted of being a dullard.
'God forgive me, dear!'  I made haste to reply.  'I never saw
before that there were two sides to this!'  And I told her my tale
as briefly as I could, and rose to seek Ronald.  'You see, my dear,
you are obeyed,' I said.

She gave me a look that was a reward in itself; and as I turned
away from her, with a strong sense of turning away from the sun, I
carried that look in my bosom like a caress.  The girl in pink was
an arch, ogling person, with a good deal of eyes and teeth, and a
great play of shoulders and rattle of conversation.  There could be
no doubt, from Mr. Ronald's attitude, that he worshipped the very
chair she sat on.  But I was quite ruthless.  I laid my hand on his
shoulder, as he was stooping over her like a hen over a chicken.

'Excuse me for one moment, Mr. Gilchrist!' said I.

He started and span about in answer to my touch, and exhibited a
face of inarticulate wonder.

 'Yes!' I continued, 'it is even myself!  Pardon me for
interrupting so agreeable a tete-a-tete, but you know, my good
fellow, we owe a first duty to Mr. Robbie.  It would never do to
risk making a scene in the man's drawing-room; so the first thing I
had to attend to was to have you warned.  The name I go by is
Ducie, too, in case of accidents.'