done under any other circumstances. As her breathing grew easier, and
her wonderful constitution--result of a life temperate and self-denying
in all things--reasserted itself, they would have long and intimate
talks, and the little boy learned a great deal about "the family" of
which Miss Esperance was very proud. It had been settled that at Mr.
Wycherly's death Montagu was to take his name. "He has no son, my dear,
and he has done so much for us that we could not refuse him this; but I
would have you remember always that you are a Bethune. There have been
some bad men among them and many good--but bad and good alike, they have
all been Scottish gentlemen. You will be educated in England, Montagu,
you will go to the English church, and you will learn English ways--good
and pleasant ways they are which go to the making of such men as our
dear friend--so wise and kind and unselfish. But never forget that you
yourself are a Bethune, for it is a proud name to bear."
And then the dear old lady would show him the family's coat-of-arms in a
little, fat, square calf-bound "Scots _Compendium_ of Rudiments of
Honour. Containing the succession of _Scots Kings_ from Fergus, who
founded the Monarchy. ALSO the Nobility of Scotland Present and
Extinct--The Fifth edition improved and brought down to the year 1752."
From this work Montagu would read aloud to his aunt almost as often as
from the Bible itself, and would shudder as he read how one Archibald
Bethune was "famish'd at Falkland in the year 1592 so that he nearly
dy'd," but escaping to France "did afterward marry one Esperance de
Lanois, daughter of a Marshal of France--" "and since then," Miss
Esperance would interrupt eagerly, "there was never another Esperance
Bethune till I was born."
"I think she must have been like you," Montagu said, "kind to him
because he was so thin from being famish'd."
Miss Esperance laughed softly. "She was a girl of sixteen, my dear,
when he married her."
"I'd rather marry you than any girl of sixteen that I've ever seen,"
Montagu said stoutly. "You're much prettier than any of them--except
perhaps Margaret," he added, for he was very faithful in his
enthusiasms.
Indeed, there were many who would have agreed with him, if they could
have seen Miss Esperance at that moment, sitting up in bed propped up
with pillows, with a pink bed jacket, not half such a dainty colour as
her flushed cheeks, and the adorable white "mutch" framing the
shimmering silver of her hair.
And here it must be confessed that it is just possible that Miss
Esperance knew perfectly well what a pretty old lady she was; for all
the other old ladies of her time wore "fronts"--dreadful, aggressive,
black, brown or yellow fronts--whether they had any hair or not. To
wear one's own white hair was unusual even to boldness; and yet, Miss
Esperance, most decorous and delicately feminine of womankind, quietly
ignored this unpleasing fashion, and was beautiful even as nature had
intended her to be.
Many and exciting were the Jacobite stories she told to Montagu, till
his enthusiasm for the house of Stuart knew no bounds. He read aloud
gracefully and with understanding, and his reading of the Bible was a
never-failing source of delight to Miss Esperance. She would lie with
shining eyes and overflowing heart while the boy's voice, gravely
emphatic and justly modulated, proclaimed to her the divine message to
which she had ever lent so willing an ear. She even grew accustomed to
the enunciation of Montagu's "extraordinary views"; as, when one day he
had read to her the story of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, he said
dreamily: "It's curious, isn't it, how disagreeable nearly all the women
in the Bible are?"
"Oh, Montagu!" Miss Esperance exclaimed distressedly. "Think of the
mother of our Lord, and Mary, and Martha, and Dorcas----"
"Well, aunt," he interrupted, "you know in the Old Testament there's
very few of them at all kind and nice. The Greek women were far better:
look at Alcestis, and Penelope, and Polyxena! I don't like those Hebrew
women at all; they were so vindictive and dishonourable. Fancy you
behaving like Sara or Rachel or Jael!--why even Helen was far nicer than
most of them, and she wasn't considered particularly good though she was
so beautiful."
"Tell me about Alcestis," said Miss Esperance, lying back on her pillows
and feeling unequal just then to a discussion regarding the relative
merits of Hebrew and Greek women.
"I'll fetch you Mr. Wycherly's 'Euripides,'" Montagu cried eagerly, "and
read it to you in English as he used to read it to me. I really think,
Aunt Esperance, if you'll only listen carefully you'll like it almost as
well as the Bible!"
And Montagu fled from the room before his aunt's horrified
expostulations reached him.
Then began a series of readings from Euripides, followed by arguments
between Miss Esperance and Montagu which would have convulsed Mr.
Wycherly had he been there to hear them.
Their extreme earnestness bridged over the gulf of years between them,
and it must be confessed that Miss Esperance took the greatest delight
in picking holes in the characters of some of Montagu's heroes.
It was quite useless for Montagu, in imitation of Mr. Wycherly's
methods, to point out that such and such ideas were so deeply rooted in
the national character as to be a part of it. Miss Esperance would only
shake her pretty white head, exclaiming: "Na! na! my dear laddie--right
is right, and wrong wrong, and that man Admetus was just no better than
a coward: grumbling at his parents, forsooth, because they wouldn't die
in his place; accepting his wife's sacrifice and then blaming those poor
old people. Oh, I've no patience with him, a poor-spirited creature--no
man he!"
In spite, however, of the shortcomings in the character of Admetus, the
most human of the Greek dramatists certainly attracted Miss Esperance.
She inquired in a detached and impersonal manner whether there was not a
printed translation of "Ion" in the house, and looked distinctly
disappointed when Montagu informed her that there was no such thing. She
had perforce to leave the characters in no matter what impasse whenever
Montagu stopped reading, as he would occasionally for very mischief, at
the most exciting place, just for the pleasure of being asked to "go on
a little longer, dear laddie, I shall not sleep if I don't know for
certain whether that poor body Kreusa knew that fine young man Ion for
her son or no'."
But directly afterward her conscience smote her, and she herself stopped
Montagu; fearing that, entertaining as these plays undoubtedly were,
they were apt perhaps to distract her mind from higher things; and she
bade him take Euripides back to Mr. Wycherly's room, and bring her
Jeremy Taylor instead. When Montagu would read "The Remedies Against
Wandering Thoughts," "The Remedies of Temptations Proper to Sickness,"
or "General Exercises Preparatory to Death."
*CHAPTER XIX*
*THE FOND ADVENTURE*
But warily tent, when ye come to court me,
And come na unless the back--yett be ajee.
_Old Song._
Miss Esperance was decidedly better, and she had at last allowed Montagu
to tell Mr. Wycherly of old Elsa's sudden death, and also of her own
illness. The letter, according to her instructions, put it, that she
had been "rather ailing," and this guarded statement produced a telegram
from Mr. Wycherly announcing his return next day.
Therefore the little household was commanded to retire especially early,
and by half-past eight that night every light in Remote, save that of
the fires, was extinguished; and the whole family were, as Robina would
have put it, "safely bedded."
Miss Esperance had that evening insisted that Montagu should return to
the bedroom he shared with Edmund; declaring that she was perfectly
capable of getting anything that she wanted for herself. No one guessed
how terribly Miss Esperance missed old Elsa's ministrations at every
turn, for the old woman, though frail and incapable of any hard work for
some time past, was yet most jealous of all personal service to her
mistress, and Robina had never been permitted to do anything that
brought her into direct contact with that lady.
Robina, bustling, buxom, industrious, and far handsomer at three and
twenty than she had been at seventeen, had for a long time now entirely
managed the housework; but as a personal attendant she left much to be
desired. When she brought her mistress a cup of excellent beef-tea, she
invariably slopped it over into the saucer, often on to the tray-cloth.
She was economically minded, too, as regards laundry work (most people
are when they have to do it themselves), and looked upon stains as a
very minor matter in setting out a tray. It was Montagu who noticed the
intense disfavour with which Miss Esperance regarded such small
untidinesses: how often the nourishing dishes prepared by Robina with
the utmost care were sent away untasted because they were not daintily
served; and he took the matter and the trays into his own hands, with
the result that things were served even as Elsa had served them, and
Miss Esperance drank her beef-tea without remark.
Not that she was unobservant; she noted everything that Montagu did for
her; and even when she was at her weakest and worst, she was filled with
a tender, admiring sort of amusement at the boy's deft, dainty ways of
waiting upon her--ways undoubtedly acquired during his long and close
association with Mr. Wycherly.
At first Robina exclaimed in horror at the enormous number of
tray-cloths and dinner napkins discarded by Montagu if they had the
smallest spot or stain; but Montagu pointed out that it was better to
have mountains of washing than that his aunt should be starved; and the
girl gave in gracefully, for she was very eager to fill Elsa's place as
far as she possibly could.
There is no doubt that she thoroughly enjoyed her new dignity and
independence, and she wrote to the still faithful Sandie that he might,
if he was in the mind, look in and see her one evening--"the mistress
had said she was perfectly willing, though still confined to her bed."
Sandie was now in partnership with a butcher on the other side of
Edinburgh, ten long miles from Burnhead, and the bicycle was not within
everybody's reach in those days. Still he managed every fortnight or so
to get over to see Robina, for they were now formally betrothed, and
their engagement was smiled upon by the authorities.
Sandie wanted to get married at once, but Robina had declared long
before Elsa's death that she could not bring herself to leave Miss
Esperance, and now she felt that such a course was quite out of the
question. Besides, she was in no hurry to get married. That she could
get married, and well married, whenever she liked was a matter for
complacent reflection, but otherwise she was very contented with things
as they were.
Sandie was hardly so satisfied. If not exactly an ardent lover, he had
assuredly proved himself a very faithful one, and he ruled his life
largely by the somewhat strict conceptions of Robina.
Montagu was very tired. He had had a hard fortnight, with many broken,
anxious nights. The responsibility had lain heavily on his young,
slender shoulders. He was supremely thankful that Mr. Wycherly would be
home on the morrow. It was pleasant to lie once more in his big
four-post bed instead of in the somewhat cramped and stuffy cupboard
where he had spent his nights lately. He stretched himself luxuriously,
and turned and turned that he might find the absolutely comfortable
position in which to fall asleep. But somehow sleep would not come.
Every smallest sound disturbed him. Whenever a little piece of cinder
fell into the grate from the fire in his aunt's bedroom, he started up
to listen, thinking she had moved and might want him. But all was
perfectly quiet.
Edmund, who preserved his infantile capacity for falling asleep directly
he lay down, slumbered peacefully in the little bed beside the big one.
Miss Esperance slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of old age and
exhaustion. Mause, old now and very deaf, slept soundly in her kennel
outside the little house, and Robina already slept the healthy sleep of
hard-working youth. Only the little boy in the big bed with carved
oaken posts and brocade canopy lay wide-eyed and wakeful with that
dreadful, useless wakefulness that comes sometimes to the overtired.
There was no moon to shine companionably through the blind, the room was
in absolute, black darkness, and when Montagu had been in bed about half
an hour it seemed to him that it must be the middle of the night. The
casement window was wide open, but the night was so still that the blind
never stirred. Again and again he sat up to listen for some sound from
his aunt's room; it would have been a relief had she wanted him, but
there was no sound of any kind.
Still he could not sleep, and at last his listening was rewarded, for he
heard a step outside--a stealthy step that paused hesitating, then crept
fumblingly forward.
There was no doubt whatever that it was a step; and Montagu, convinced
that it must at least be midnight, immediately jumped to the conclusion
that whoever was there could be there for no lawful purpose.
If it was a burglar, he must be got away without noise. That was
Montagu's first thought. On no account must Miss Esperance be wakened
or alarmed.
He flew out of bed, and, squeezing in behind the dressing-table, leant
out of the window. Soft, impenetrable, wet darkness met him and
enveloped him. A fine rain was falling, and he could see nothing, but
he distinctly heard the hesitating footsteps turn and go round the house
toward the front.
Softly, on naked feet, he made his way to Edmund's side and shook him.
But Edmund was difficult to wake, for Montagu did not dare to speak
above a whisper, and it was not until he had reiterated several times:
"There's someone creeping round the house; it's a thief, probably," in
the eeriest of stage whispers, that Edmund was roused.
When he did grasp the situation, however, he arose instantly, exclaiming
in a joyful whisper, "Come on, and let's bash his head for him; then he
can make no noise, nor break in neither."
"That's all very well," said the more cautious Montagu, whose teeth were
chattering, partly from cold and partly from fear for his aunt. "We've
got to catch him first. Let's come to Guardie's room and see if we can
get a glimpse of the fellow from the window. The night's as black as
pitch though."
Very quietly Montagu lit a candle, and the two little boys sped across
the landing to Mr. Wycherly's room.
"Close the door behind you and that'll stifle his groans," the valiant
Edmund whispered as they reached their goal. "I just wish we had the
villain here."
"I don't," Montagu responded gloomily, "he might jump about and make no
end of a row before we got him under."
They had no sort of doubt as to their ultimate triumph over the
nefarious designs of this prowling stranger, but they were,
unfortunately, handicapped by the necessity for extreme quietude.
"I expect it's the parlour he'll be wanting to break into," Edmund
suggested. "All those silver cups and things on the sideboard, you
know. The basket with the forks and spoons is in aunt's room. We must
take care he doesn't go there. Don't let him see a light!" and Edmund
promptly blew out the candle that Montagu held.
Together they softly opened the window and leant out. Neither could, of
course, see anything, nor at the moment was anything to be heard.
"We'll wait a wee while," Edmund whispered. And wait they did in
breathless silence, shoulder pressed to shoulder, the only sound the
quick beating of their hearts.
Their patience was rewarded. The hesitating steps came slowly round to
the front of the house and paused under their very window. Then somebody
gave a low whistle.
Montagu dragged Edmund back from the window. "That's to summon his
confederates. What'll we do? If there's more than one, they're sure to
wake Aunt Esperance and frighten her dreadfully. We must do
something--quick!"
"Will I fling out the poker on the chance of hitting him?" inquired
Edmund, who had already provided himself with that weapon.
"No, that won't do, for if you don't hit him, it would warn him we'd
seen him----"
"Perhaps it would make him run away."
"Not it. I've got it! Let's empty the ewer of water over him first. I
think he's just under the window, and that's sure to startle him, and
he'll jump out. Then you must say in an awful voice, 'Throw up your
hands without a sound (you mustn't say it loud, mind) or you're a dead
man.' And you'll light the candle and show me holding one of the big
pistols hanging at the stair-head. I brought one in with me."
"I don't think he'd better see you," Edmund objected; "he mightn't be a
bit terrified."
"Perhaps we'd better keep the room dark, then, and mebbe he'll think
it's Guardie."
"Guardie's voice isn't a bit awful. I'll be a lot more frightening than
him, I can tell you. Have you got that jug? Steady, now; mind you don't
let the ewer go, too, else we'd catch it from Robina. Listen a minute!"
Again the low whistle immediately under their window.
Very carefully they balanced the heavy bedroom jug on the window-sill.
"It must go all at once in one big splash!" Montagu whispered, "_Now!_"
A very big splash undoubtedly followed.
A series of gasps, and the sound of a voice raised in lamentation
exclaiming: "Lord hae mercy! What like a way's that to greet a body?
An' it that dark I couldna' find the back door. Hoo was I tae ken ye'd
a' be gane tae yer beds at nine o'clock? Ye didna' use to be sae awfu'
airly. But I'll just tell you this, Robina lass, it's the last time
you'll catch me trailin' awa' over here to speer after ye--to get sic a
like cauld welcome, as though it wasna' wet eneugh onny wye. I'm din, I
can tell ye."
Montagu clutched Edmund by the arm, exclaiming in horrified tones, "I do
believe it's Sandie Croall." Then leaning as far out of the window as
he could, "Is it you, Sandie? Because, if so, we're most awfully sorry;
only please don't speak so loud, for Aunt Esperance is asleep, and she's
been so ill. We thought you must be somebody trying to break in. What
made you come in the middle of the night?"
"It's no' the middle o' the night," Sandie grunted indignantly, "the
church clock has only just chappit nine. It happened I could get over,
an' I thocht I'd just look in an' see Robiny--little thinkin' I'd get
sic a like reception. I'm jest drooket through an' through. What for
did ye no' speer wha it was, young gentleman, and no' go droonin' honest
folk?"
"Would you like to come in and get dry?" Edmund suggested hospitably;
"there's sure to be some fire in the kitchen."
"No, thank ye," Sandie replied, still somewhat huffy, "I'll get awa'
hame to my mither, an' she'll dry my claes to me whiles I'm in my bed."
"Shall I tell Robina you called?" Montagu asked politely.
Sandie paused. "I'm thinkin', young gentleman," he remarked severely,
"that the less you say about to-night's wark the better it will be for
you. If I am content to pass the matter over with obleevion, it's the
least you can dae to dae the same."
"We're most awfully sorry," the boys said once more in subdued chorus.
"Just gang awa' back tae yer beds," said Sandie, and with these parting
words he felt his way out to the green gate, and they heard his
footsteps going plop-plop on the wet road till they died away in the
distance.
Edmund sighed. "It was a pity we couldn't bash his head or anything,"
he murmured regretfully. "I hope a real one'll come some day when Aunt
Esperance is well, and we don't need to be so hushified. Then we could
have a jolly good mill."
Rather dispirited and extremely cold they crept back to bed.
"I wonder," Montagu murmured thoughtfully, "why he didn't want Robina to
know he'd been here."
Edmund gave a smothered laugh. "My word, but he did catch his breath
when we douched him, an' wasn't he cross when he thought it was Robina?
I wonder if she's ever done it before?"
*CHAPTER XX*
*A QUESTION OF THEOLOGY*
Nae shauchlin' testimony here--
We were a' damned, an' that was clear,
I owned, wi' gratitude an' wonder,
He was a pleisure to sit under.
R.L.S.
The while that Mr. Wycherly looked after Montagu's secular education,
Miss Esperance undertook the religious, and long, weary Sunday evenings
did he spend in wrestling with the polemics of the "Shorter Catechism."
"Why shorter?" he would ask bitterly. "It's as long as ever it can be."
"There's a longer one than that, my dear son," Miss Esperance would
answer cheerfully; "but you won't need to learn it unless you become a
minister."
"I shall never be a minister," said Montagu firmly, one day when he had
made four mistakes in the answer which defines "Effectual Calling"--an
answer, by the way, which he could have learned in two minutes had he
been in the slightest degree interested. "I shall never be a minister.
I shall be an Epicurean when I'm grown up. Mr. Wycherly was telling me
about them yesterday, and I liked them."
Miss Esperance gave a positive gasp of dismayed astonishment. "Oh, my
dear!" she exclaimed. "I hope that you will always be too sincere a
Christian ever to dream of being anything else. I must indeed have
taught you badly that any such idea should be possible."
"Oh, no, dear aunt," said Montagu reassuringly, rubbing his head against
her shoulder. "It's not that at all; but people do sometimes change
their religion, you know, when they're grown up--like Calvin and Luther
you told me about--and you know I really think I like the old gods best;
they were very pleasant on the whole."
"Montagu, Montagu, you don't know what you are saying! Those heathen
gods that you speak of never existed. There were no such beings."
"Are you sure, auntie?" Montagu asked earnestly. "They sound very real,
quite as real, and much cheerfuller than--the Shorter Catechism," he
concluded lamely, checked by the unfeigned horror he saw in his aunt's
face.
Miss Esperance took off her spectacles and wiped them, then she put them
on again and laid her frail old hand over the square, brown little hand
lying on her knee, saying gently: "Montagu, dear, you are talking of
what you do not understand. It will in no wise be counted against you
_because_ you do not understand, but you must not say such things;
really, my dear boy, you _must_ not, and it grieves me the more in that
I somehow must be in fault. My teaching has in no way been blest if you
are so filled with doubts already."
Poor Miss Esperance looked terribly distressed, and the little boy at
her knee, who, child as he was, had realised her sweetness and her truth
every day of the years he had been with her, wondered, with a sorrowful
vagueness, what he could have said to vex her so. And inasmuch as he
could find no words to express the thoughts that were in him he flung
his arms round his aunt's neck, exclaiming: "I love you so, I won't be
an Epicurean if you don't want me to; but you know, dear Auntie, it must
have been so happy in those days--there were never any Sabbaths."
Miss Esperance held him close and prayed silently; she even forbore to
dilate upon the blessed privileges of that Sabbath which, as she had
just been instructing Montagu, "is to be sanctified by a holy resting
all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are
lawful on other days; and spending the whole time in the public and
private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up
in the works of necessity and mercy."
"Is dinner a necessity or a mercy?" Montagu had asked one day, he
himself being distinctly inclined to look upon it as a mercy, for it
followed morning church, and after the children came, in deference to a
suggestion of Mr. Wycherly's, founded upon certain youthful
reminiscences of his own, there was always dessert on Sundays.
Now it happened that on the Sunday previous to Montagu's announcement of
his approaching conversion to Epicureanism, the Reverend Peter Gloag had
given a lengthy and vigorous discourse on Eternal Punishment. He was a
true disciple of Calvin in that he believed that the majority of mankind
needed herding into the right path by the sheep-dog of sheer terror as
to what would most certainly befall them should they stray from it; and
he succeeded in striking dire dismay to the very soul of one small
member of his congregation. The minister had also touched upon
predestination and election, and Montagu, who was tender-hearted and
imaginative, was suddenly panic-stricken by the idea that perhaps he and
Edmund, and even Mr. Wycherly, who never came to church, might be
already numbered among those whom the Reverend Peter Gloag had denounced
as being "rejected, left to sin, to unbelief, and to perdition."