"Oh! that's all off," he said huffily. "I wrote to the authorities about
raising the troop, asked what State recognition I should get, and
enclosed a drawing of the hat I meant to wear as leader--a ripping
scheme, turned up at one side and with a bunch of feathers. All the
answer I got was a few brief words of acknowledgment and a request to
set about it at once and report myself somewhere or other. Not a word of
the State recognition I was to receive, and the drawing of the hat
returned with 'Not approved' scrawled across it. So I've chucked the
whole business. And now don't let us talk of _that_ any more!"
I gave him my freezing look (you've never seen my freezing look,
dearest--it's _terrible_!) and I said with a little calm deadly manner
that I very, _very_ seldom use, "I've no wish to talk to you of
_that_--or of anything else--ever again." And I left him.
The party at Blairbinkie that scattered almost as soon as it assembled
was by way of being a farewell to the old place, for the Clackmannans
had virtually sold it to a Mr. Spragg, of Pittsburg. He was going to
have the old castle taken across in bits and set up again in
Pennsylvania; and he was taking all the family portraits, the mausoleum,
the old trees in the park and the stags at a valuation, as well as the
village itself with all its cottages and people, in order that the
castle might have its proper _setting_ out there. There were two more
things he wanted included in the bargain--a village idiot and a family
ghost ("hereditary spectre," he called it).
Ah, my dear! all this belongs to the happy old days of a hundred years
ago, when we were all three or four weeks younger. The man from
Pittsburg, so far from being able to buy Blairbinkie, hardly knows where
to look for his next meal, and as for shipping castles and trees and
mausoleums and village idiots and family ghosts across the Atlantic he
only wishes he could get _himself_ across, even if he had to work his
passage!
Josiah is at the uttermost ends of the earth. He went in June, about
rubber-mines or oil-concessions, I'm not sure which. I had a cable from
him the other day from a place that began with "Boo" and ended with
"atty"--I forget what came between. He told me not to be anxious, that
he'd get back when and how he could. My answer was, "Not anxious.
Wherever you are you'd better stay there, or you may get taken prisoner
by those creatures, and then I'd never forgive you!"
Talking of prisoners reminds me of a rumour about the
Bullyon-Boundermeres. They were cruising somewhere in their new big
steam-yacht when war broke out, and now there's a report that the enemy
have taken the yacht and turned it into a cruiser; that the
Bullyon-Boundermere people are prisoners on board, and that they're
making _her_ wash dishes and forcing _him_ to work as a stoker or a
bulkhead or some fearful thing of that kind! This is not _official_, my
dear, but I give it you for what it's worth.
I called a little meeting here yesterday about a scheme of mine. Beryl
and Babs and your Blanche and several more of us are really _crack_
shots, and I want to form us into a band of rifle-women and ask the
Powers that be to let us guard some important place--a bridge or a bank
or a powder magazine. We should wear a distinctive uniform, and we
wouldn't let anyone come _near_! Babs said she hoped the uniform would
be smart and becoming, but I soon shut her up. "This is not a time to
think of cut or colour," I told her. "Myself, I shouldn't care _how_ my
uniform was cut--even if the _shoulder_ seams were at the _elbows_. And
as for colour I'd wear _grass-green_, though it's a colour in which I
look a mere _fiend_, if it would help my country!" And Beryl and Babs
cried and kissed me.
Ever thine,
BLANCHE.
* * * * *
Illustration: _The Lady of the House_, "JUST THE PERSON I WANTED TO
SEE. I'VE STARTED TEN COMMITTEES IN CONNECTION WITH THE WAR AND I WANT
YOUR HELP."
_Visitor._ "MY _DEAR_! I'VE JUST STARTED TWELVE AND I SIMPLY _COUNTED_
ON YOU!"
* * * * *
"The Suez Canal has brought St. Helena much closer than in
Napoleonic days."
_T.P.'s Weekly._
In the same way the opening of the Panama Canal has made Heligoland much
more adjacent than in Lord SALISBURY'S days.
* * * * *