wine, and he smiled as he looked at the pretty old lady opposite with
the soft lamplight shining on her white hair: the old lady who laid
claim to such violent characteristics with such calm assurance. He did
not point out to her that it was her beautiful serenity that set so wide
a gulf between her and more easily ruffled ordinary mortals: he said
nothing, but he smiled, and Miss Esperance saw the smile.
"You must not think," she continued, "that I in any way regret Montagu's
dissimilarity. He is a most kind and unselfish boy; a dear, dear boy.
And I wouldn't have him different if I could. But he is not like my
people. He has the scholar's temperament. He weighs and considers. He
would never act upon impulse, and sometimes I wonder whether he is not
lacking in the dash and courage that have always marked our race: those
qualities that Edmund possesses in so marked a degree--together with so
many others that are quite undesirable."
Mr. Wycherly ceased to smile. "Do you know," he said, "it is a most
curious thing, and, I suppose, the result of association, but sometimes
Montagu reminds me a little of myself when I was a boy. Of course it is
extremely unlikely that he should resemble me in any way: yet our minds
do tend to run in the same groove. But it's only our minds. Montagu
has far more strength and tenacity of purpose than I ever had, and I
believe that, should the necessity arise, he would show both dash and
courage. The Bethune temperament is there, Miss Esperance, but in his
case it is not roused to activity by little things."
Mr. Wycherly remembered this conversation next day when he was out
walking with Montagu. Their way lay through the village, past some of
the poorer cottages, and from one of these came Jamie Brown, a
barefooted laddie, about Montagu's own age, but rather bigger.
As usual Montagu had hold of Mr. Wycherly's hand, and there was
something in the sight of the two figures walking along so primly
together that annoyed Jamie excessively.
Neither Edmund nor Montagu were allowed to play with the village boys:
about this Miss Esperance was most firm and particular. But all the
same Edmund knew and was hail-fellow-well-met with them all, and
contrived many a sly game of "tippenny-nippenny" or "papes," and many a
secret confab on his way to and from the Manse. They all liked Edmund,
and Edmund liked them. He could talk broad Scotch, and did whenever he
got the chance, although if his aunt heard him she severely discouraged
his efforts, even going so far as to forbid the use of certain somewhat
lurid, if expressive, adjectives. But Montagu, who spent so much of his
time with Mr. Wycherly, was not drawn toward the village boys. Their
loud voices and rough manners repelled him: he was naturally shy and
held himself aloof. Hence he was despised and disliked as "Englishey"
and stuck up.
Jamie Brown danced out into the middle of the road on his noiseless bare
feet, and walked mincingly in front of Mr. Wycherly and Montagu, looking
back over his shoulder from time to time to remark tauntingly: "This is
you, mim's milk, like a puggie, a wee Englishey puggie in a red coatie
jimp an' sma'--whaur's yer organ? Wull yon auld gentleman no gies a
chune? Puggie! Puggie! wha's a wee puggie!"
Montagu turned very red, but said nothing. Mr. Wycherly had never in the
smallest degree mastered the dialect of Burnhead, and was quite
unconscious that Jamie's remarks were other than of the most friendly
description. He regarded his gyrations with some surprise, but did not
realise any offensive intention. Presently, however, Jamie began to
stagger about the road like a drunken man, at the same time chanting
raucously:
"Oxfordy, Oxfordy, Oxfordy, Sumph!
What'll ye get from a soo but a grumph?"
Then it was that Montagu felt a little tremor in his guardian's hand,
and looking up, saw that his face was lined and drawn as with pain.
Now Mr. Wycherly was well aware that Jamie Brown could not by any
possibility know of his past weakness through personal knowledge; for
his "foible" had ceased to be a foible long before Jamie was born. Yet
it was pain inexpressible that his old frailty could be made an
instrument of persecution for Montagu. The love and admiration of the
two little boys, who had come so unexpectedly and beneficently into his
life, were very precious to him, and that anything could be done or said
to lower him in their estimation or hurt them through his past
infirmity, was little short of torture.
Montagu, who couldn't imagine why Jamie was reeling about the road in
that idiotic fashion, understood well enough the insulting couplet, and
saw that Mr. Wycherly was pained.
"I can't stand this any more," he said, dragging his hand from his
guardian's; "he's got to stop it."
He ran forward, and with a bound leapt upon Jamie from behind, who,
taken by surprise, went down with Montagu on the top of him. Over and
over in the mud the boys rolled, kicking, scratching, thumping, doing
everything, in fact, of a combative nature except bite.
Mr. Wycherly remained where he was, watching them. Mause would fain
have hurled herself into the press, too, but he caught the old dog by
the collar just in time, and had hard work to hold her, as she bounced
and barked and choked in her efforts to get free. He did not feel
called upon to interfere between the boys, for they were not
ill-matched, and Jamie had assuredly been the aggressor. Presently,
however, he saw that Montagu was uppermost, that he had got his
adversary by the throat, and was deliberately bumping the boy's head on
the ground, while he never relaxed his hold for an instant, and that
Jamie was rapidly getting black in the face.
Still holding Mause, Mr. Wycherly ran forward, shouting, "Loose him,
Montagu; let him go, I say. Don't you see you're throttling the boy?
You'll choke him; let go, I say."
"I want to choke him," Montagu gasped, as Mr. Wycherly, still holding
the struggling Mause with one hand, attempted to drag his ward off the
prostrate Jamie with the other. "I want to kill him. I'd have done it,
too, if you hadn't interfered."
"Nonsense," Mr. Wycherly said sharply. "Don't you know yet that you
mustn't keep on hitting a man when he's down? Here, catch hold of Mause
for me. Get up, boy!"
And he half lifted the recumbent Jamie, who, though somewhat limp, was
beginning to assume a normal complexion.
Montagu glared at his foe like an angry terrier. "We haven't finished,"
he cried. "Let me get at him to box him some more. You hold Mause
again. Come on!"
And Montagu, whose nose was bleeding, while one eye was rapidly
disappearing in a tremendous bruise, danced up and down impatiently, in
concert with the excited Mause.
But Jamie was holding his neck and gasping.
"I'll no' fecht nae mair wi' yon wee teeger," he said slowly. "He's gey
an' spunkie," he added, "for all he's sae genty and mim. Ma certie! his
hauns can tak a grup although they're sae wee."
"There, you see," said Mr. Wycherly. "He says that he has had enough,
so, of course, you can't go on any more. Now you must shake hands with
each other, for it's all over."
Frankly, and with no sort of grudge, Jamie held out his square, brown
fist. "I'll no' ca' ye a puggie onny mair," he said handsomely.
Montagu was still eyeing his late foe with some hostility: but as his
guardian had bidden him to shake hands he felt it must be the proper
thing to do, so he held out his hand. "Perhaps," he said hopefully,
"you'll fight with me again some day."
"Ah'm no' sae shure," Jamie replied cautiously, and in another minute
was speeding on his swift, bare feet toward his mother's cottage.
Montagu, still standing in the middle of the road, was indeed a
deplorable figure: covered from head to foot with mud and blood, with a
singing in his ears, and an extremely sore eye, he looked about as
disreputable an object as could be imagined. Mr. Wycherly stood back
and regarded him curiously. "We must go home," he said, "and it is to
be hoped that we shall not meet many people on the way. Here's a
handkerchief; just try and mop that unfortunate nose of yours. What
Miss Esperance will say, my dear Montagu, I really cannot imagine."
They turned homeward, and had not gone many yards when they met the
Misses Moffat, who stopped, holding up their hands in horror at
Montagu's appearance.
Mr. Wycherly had never yet spoken to them and would fain have passed
them now with a courteous salutation. But it was not to be. They closed
in upon him and Montagu, both asking at once what dreadful mishap had
occurred.
Mr. Wycherly again lifted his hat. "The fact is," he said, "Montagu has
been engaged in the rough and tumble. There has been a great deal of
tumble and a fair amount of rough. But no serious damage has been done.
I think, however, that the sooner he gets home and changes the better."
And yet again lifting his hat and holding out his hand to Montagu, he
prepared to go on his way.
But the Misses Moffat were not satisfied. "And you let him fight?" Miss
Maggie exclaimed reproachfully. "Oh, sir! do you think it was right?"
"Yes, madam," Mr. Wycherly answered boldly. "I think it would have been
wrong to interfere."
"But you did interfere," Montagu exclaimed in injured tones. "I'd have
killed him if you hadn't."
"Killed who?" shrieked Miss Jeanie. "But this is dreadful----"
"I really think," Mr. Wycherly interposed, "that we must get back at
once. Good-day to you--good-day."
And seizing Montagu's hand, he fairly ran from the Misses Moffat in the
direction of Remote.
Miss Esperance met them at the gate. When she caught sight of Montagu,
she, too, gazed in wonder and consternation, and ran out to them,
crying, "What has happened? Has he been run over? Is he badly hurt?"
"This," said Mr. Wycherly, pointing to Montagu, "is the result, my dear
Miss Esperance, of a sudden manifestation of--the Bethune temperament."
Miss Esperance flushed a most beautiful pink. She stooped and kissed her
great-nephew's most uninviting-looking countenance.
"He has been fighting," she said quietly, "and I fear he has had the
worst of it."
"That I didn't," the belligerent one exclaimed joyously. "I'd have
killed him quite dead if Guardie hadn't stopped me. He wouldn't let
me."
"Who was it?" Miss Esperance asked with breathless interest.
"Jamie Broun; he was rude. His father makes wheels and things, you
know."
"Come and get cleaned, my dear, dear boy. It's very wrong to fight, but
sometimes--in a good cause, it maybe necessary. Come away in."
And Miss Esperance walked up the garden path with her arm round
Montagu's neck.
Presently she tapped at Mr. Wycherly's door. When she came in her gentle
face was wreathed with smiles.
"I've just come to confess to you," she said, "that I feel you were
right and I was wrong last night. There is no doubt whatever that
Montagu is a real Bethune. In 1657 Archibald Bethune did with his own
hands choke to death an Irish wrestler who had set upon him in a lonely
inn in Forfarshire. The man was seven feet high, so the old chronicle
says. I've just been looking."
"Won't you sit down, Miss Esperance?"
"No, I thank you, not now. I have several things to see to; but, dear
friend, I felt that I must tell you that I recognise that your insight
is deeper than mine. Montagu is a true Bethune: he will be a man of his
hands even as the rest of our house."
"For my part," Mr. Wycherly said dryly, "I would rather fall into the
hands of Edmund than those of Montagu when he is roused. Especially as
it would appear to be an agreeable characteristic of the Bethunes to
throttle their adversaries."
"We have always been a fighting race," Miss Esperance remarked
complacently, and departed with pride in her port and satisfaction writ
large upon her face.
Mr. Wycherly looked thoughtful. "And she the gentlest and tenderest of
women!" he murmured. "How strange they are!"
That afternoon the Misses Moffat called to ask after Montagu.
They found him resting, with a bandaged eye, upon the sofa in his aunt's
parlour, with Flaxman's "Theogony" open on his knees for his amusement.
His head ached badly, but he was quite happy. He knew that in some way
this exploit, although it entailed much destruction to garments and was
altogether of an unlawful and unusual order, had not really grieved his
aunt. She had lectured him gently, it is true, but she had been very
kind as well, and had given him a whole bunch of raisins to console him
when he was left at home--his appearance being unsuited just then to
polite society--and she and Edmund drove over to see Lady Alicia.
Miss Maggie came and sat down beside his sofa, and after sundry
searching inquiries after his various wounds, she divulged the real
reason of her visit.
"I felt, my dear," said kind Miss Maggie, "that I must come and tell you
a story, a wee story, I read just the other day in 'Wise Words.'"
"Thank you very much," Montagu said politely.
"It was told by a Quaker gentleman----"
"What's a Quaker, please?" Montagu interrupted.
"A very good man----"
"Are there many of them or only one?"
"I think there must be a good many, but that doesn't matter," Miss
Maggie said hastily, rather flurried by these interruptions.
"I like to understand things as I go along. Guardie says you must never
pass a word you don't understand. Yes, a Quaker gentleman, a very good
man--what next?"
"Well, this Quaker gentleman had a class for boys, a Sunday class----"
"Was he a minister as well as a Quaker?" asked the incorrigible Montagu.
"No, no, he just taught them for kindness, and he was much pleased,
because one day he asked his class whether they would rather kill a man
or be killed themselves, and all of them, with one accord, every single
boy, said he'd rather be killed himself than take the life of a
fellow-creature."
Miss Maggie paused and looked at Montagu for admiration of these noble
sentiments.
He shook his head vigorously. "I'm not like that," he said decidedly.
"Why, I'd rather kill ten men than be killed myself--and I'd try to do
it too, first."
*CHAPTER XVI*
*THE COMING OF THE COLONEL*
Soldier, soldier, home from the wars.
At Remote a box hedge separated the path leading to the back door from
the trim front garden sacred to visitors. Edmund often played behind
that hedge. It made good cover for tiger shooting and suchlike
thrilling sport; and on this particular day he was in pursuit of a bear,
a brown bear of terrific size and grizzliness.
It was a very still morning: Elsa and Robina were busy at the back
hanging out clothes to dry. Mr. Wycherly and Montagu were, as usual,
engaged in the study of Greek or Latin in the room upstairs. Miss
Esperance had gone to see a sick woman in the village, and Mr. Gloag was
away on a holiday. Therefore was Edmund free to amuse himself as best
he could, provided he did not stir beyond the garden.
He was getting a little tired of his solitary pursuit of big game when
he heard a horse's hoofs ringing sharply on the road, accompanied by a
quite unfamiliar jingling. Both hoofs and jingling stopped at the green
gate, and Edmund, peering through a hole in the hedge, saw a soldier, a
most resplendent soldier, in dark blue uniform and a brass helmet with a
white plume, dismount from a big black horse and push open the green
gate, where he paused and whistled.
He was a tall man, with a brown, good-humoured face, and he waited
evidently in the hope that some one would hear his whistle and come.
But no one came. Mr. Wycherly generally shut the window that looked out
to the front as a preventive of interruptions.
The soldier whistled again loud and clear, then he began to sing a
little song. He was evidently a patient man and didn't mind waiting.
Edmund, his round face glued to the hole in the hedge, watched him with
absorbed interest; noting carefully both words and tune of the song.
The soldier sang, not at all loudly, but quite distinctly and with a
certain rollicking joviality that the child found most fascinating.
Finally he opened the green gate and led his horse up the garden path to
the front door, where he rang the bell.
Still no one came, and Edmund, greatly excited, darted out into the road
and in at the gate till he, too, stood beside the waiting soldier.
"Good morning, sir," said the soldier. "I've got a note here for Miss
Bethune from the Colonel. This 'ere 'ouse is Remote, ain't it?"
"Yes, sir," Edmund answered with solemn politeness, "but who's the
Colonel?"
"Colonel Dundas, sir. Can you take the note, sir? I was to wait for an
answer, but I can't seem to make anybody hear," and the soldier held out
a square, white envelope to Edmund.
"I'll put it on the table inside," Edmund said. "My aunt is out, but
please don't go away yet; I'd like to talk to you. Have you had a
battle lately, and did you kill many enemies? And what are you? Are
you a general or a major?"
The soldier laughed. "Well, sir, no, I ain't got that rank yet--I'm an
orderly, sir."
"What's that?" asked Edmund.
"A private soldier, sir. Would you like a ride, little gentleman? I'll
lift you up, and you can sit on the 'orse's back and I'll lead 'im down
to the gate and a little way down the road, it you like, sir."
"You are a kind man," said Edmund gratefully. "I should like that so
much."
And in what the soldier would have called a "brace of shakes" Edmund was
seated on the back of the tall black charger and was riding down the
path to the green gate.
Out into the road did he go and down the village street till they
reached the corner where the highway leads to Edinburgh; there the
soldier lifted him off, swung himself up into the saddle, and they
parted with mutual expressions of esteem.
Edmund trotted back to the house. No one had missed him. Miss
Esperance had not yet returned, and the square, white envelope still lay
on the hall table unopened.
That day at dinner the little boys learned from their aunt that the
Colonel of the cavalry regiment just come to Jock's Lodge was an old
friend of hers, and was coming out to tea with them on the following
day. They talked and thought of nothing else till bedtime. Next
morning Edmund, still at a loose end, got tired of play in the garden by
himself and invaded his aunt in her parlour, where she was busy mending
Montagu's stockings.
He fidgeted round about Miss Esperance, dropping balls of wool and
pricking his fingers with darning needles, finally upsetting a large box
of pins: which his aunt commanded him to pick up and replace. This he
did, and lightened his labours by suddenly bursting into song:
O there's not a king is so gay as me--
With my glass in my hand and my wench on my knee,
When I gets back to the old countrie
And the regiment's home again.
Edmund had a clear, loud voice, and could sing any tune on earth after
he had heard it once.
Miss Esperance dropped the stocking she was darning, and exclaimed in
horrified tones: "Edmund! My dear boy! Where in the world did you
learn that song? _Never_ let me hear it again!"
"The soldier gentleman what brought the Colonel's letter was singing it
that morning he came, and nobody answered the door to him. He waited
ever so long. What's wrong with it, Aunt Esperance? D'you not like
it?"
"Like it!" Miss Esperance repeated. "It's a shocking, low song, and
quite unsuitable for the lips of a little boy."
"What's unshootable?" demanded the volatile Edmund, quite unabashed.
Miss Esperance was busy re-threading the darning-needle Edmund's
surprising ditty had caused her to drop, and she did not reply at once.
"What's unshootable?" Edmund demanded again.
"Unsuitable," Miss Esperance corrected.
"Well, 'shootable' or 'sootable,' whichever it is; what does it mean,
Aunt Esperance?"
"It means not fitting."
"Like my top-coat that's got too wee?"
"No, Edmund, I did not in this case refer to bodily things."
"Like boots, then?" Edmund persisted, his head on one side like an
inquisitive sparrow's.
Miss Esperance detached her mind from her darning. "What I meant was,"
she said seriously, "that a vulgar and ugly song is distressing enough
upon anybody's lips, but above all upon the lips of a child."
"I don't sing with my lips," Edmund objected. "What's a wench, Aunt
Esperance?"
"A wench is a young woman," Miss Esperance reluctantly explained.
"Hooo!" Edmund cried scornfully. "I thought it was armour of some sort.
I don't think I'd be very gay with a young woman on my knee--if she was
as heavy as Robina, anyway."
"Hush, Edmund! I will not have you discuss that odious song any more.
Forget it as quickly as you can; and I shall have to speak to Colonel
Dundas about allowing his men to sing such songs before you!"
"He didn't know I was there," Edmund said loyally. "He was the very
nicest man, and Elsa never answered the door. It's such a nice tune,
too," he added regretfully.
Miss Esperance made no answer. Her busy needle flew in and out of the
stocking, and she appeared absorbed in her beautiful darning.
Edmund had picked up all the pins, and he fidgeted about in silence for
a minute more till he observed thoughtfully:
"So shootable's a vulgar song?"
"Child! You do nothing but misunderstand me to-day. I never said the
song was suitable, I said it was unsuitable, which means inappropriate,
and, in this case--improper."
"Were you ever a wench, Aunt Esperance?"
"Certainly not," Miss Esperance answered, with considerable heat.
"But you was a young woman once, Aunt Esperance?"
"That word, Edmund, is never applied to well-bred women at any time of
life. It is not in itself a term of reproach, but it refers generally
to--" Miss Esperance paused.
"What's it refer to?"
"Well--to women of the less refined classes. It is a South of England
word--somewhat equivalent to our 'lassie."
"Which is the less refined classes, Aunt Esperance? Is they in a
school?"
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! You do nothing but ask questions to-day," Miss
Esperance sighed. "Still, it is right you should understand. The less
refined classes, Edmund, are such as have not had many advantages in the
way of education or upbringing. Excellent persons often----"
"Perhaps yon wench was an excellent person," Edmund suggested hopefully.
Miss Esperance showed no inclination to discuss the possible merits of
this young woman, and Edmund continued, "Had you many advantages, Aunt
Esperance?"
"Certainly I had."
"Then you was never a wench?"
"Never!"
"Why should he like a wench to sit on his knee, Aunt Esperance? She'd
be very hot and heavy."
"I really must refuse to discuss that song any more. Forget it as soon
as you can, and never, never sing it again."
"He was such a nice man," Edmund persisted. "He had such a beautiful
helmet."
"Perhaps," said Miss Esperance, "if you are both good boys I'll take you
over one day to Pier's Hill to see the soldiers being drilled." And in
this entrancing prospect Edmund forgot all about the "unsuitable" song.
"Aunt Esperance would like you should come to tea with us this
afternoon, Guardie, dear."
It was Montagu who spoke. Lessons were over, but he had sought Mr.
Wycherly again to deliver this message.
"It is most kind of Miss Esperance," said Mr. Wycherly. "I shall of
course be delighted and highly honoured, but why am I to have this treat
to-day, is it a birthday?--No--I know it isn't a birthday----"
"Colonel Dundas is coming. He knew my daddie, and he knew my
grandfather, and Aunt Esperance is very anxious he should see you. She
said so."
"Don't you think," Mr. Wycherly said nervously, "that I might be a
little in the way? If Colonel Dundas is such an old friend, they will
have many things to talk over. Wouldn't it be better for me to come
some other time?"
"No, it wouldn't; I'm sure it wouldn't. Aunt Esperance said that she
most pertikler wants Colonel Dundas to see you. Do you think he'll be
able to sing, Guardie, dear?"
"To sing," Mr. Wycherly repeated. "Why should he sing at tea-time?"
"Well, the soldier Edmund saw (that gave him the ride--I wish I'd been
there, I did hear something, but I thought it was just a butcher,
perhaps), he could sing beautifully. Edmund said so. I thought perhaps
all soldiers can sing."
"Perhaps they can," said Mr. Wycherly. "I really don't know. You can
ask him when he comes. But not at tea-time, mind--that wouldn't be
polite. It seems to me, Montagu, that, as Colonel Dundas is coming, we
might ask him if there is any sergeant in his regiment who would teach
you to box--properly. No choking, you know, or anything of that
sort--you must learn to keep your temper when you fight."
"But, Guardie, dear, I should never want to fight at all if I kept my
temper. It's when I'm angry I want to fight. What's the good of
fighting with someone you're perfectly pleased with?"