She need not have hurried, nor thrown to the wind those ten pounds that
she had somehow to raise. On arriving at Beem-Tay she had given orders
that any note addressed to Miss MacNish, and presented at the gate,
should be brought at once to her. McTavish did not come that day, but
she learned indirectly that he had taken rooms at the McTavish Arms in
Beem-Tay village, and from Mr. Traquair, manager of the local branch of
the Bank of Scotland, that he was taking steps to hire for the season
the forest of Clackmanness, a splendid sporting estate that marched with
her own lands. Mr. Traquair, a gentleman as thin as a pipe stem, and as
kind as tobacco, had called upon her the second day, in answer to an
impetuous summons. He found her looking very anxious and very beautiful,
and told her so.
"May the looks stand me in good stead, Mr. Traquair," said she, "for I'm
like to become Wandering Willie of the song--Wandering Wilhelmina,
rather. There's a man yont, named McTavish, will oost me frae hoose
and name."
"That would be the young gentleman stopping at the McTavish Arms."
"Ah," said The McTavish, "he might stop here if he but knew."
"He's no intending it, then," said Mr. Traquair, "for he called upon me
this morning to hire the Duke's forest of Clackmanness."
"Ah!" said The McTavish.
"And now," said Mr. Traquair, stroking his white mustache, "tell me what
it all means."
"It means that Colland McTavish, who was my great-grandfather's elder
brother, has returned in the person of the young gentleman at the Arms."
"A fine hornpipe he'll have to prove it," said Mr. Traquair.
"Fine fiddlesticks!" said The McTavish. "Man," she continued earnestly,
"you have looked in his face and you tell me it will be a dance to prove
him The McTavish?"
"He is a McTavish," admitted Mr. Traquair; "so much I knew before he
told me his name."
"He has in his pocket the bit shirt that wee Colland wore when the
gypsies snitched him and carried him over seas; it's all of a piece with
many another garment of wee Colland's. I've had out the trunk in which
his little duds have been stored these many years. The man is Colland's
great-grandson. I look at him, and I admit it without proof."
"My dear," said Mr. Traquair, "you have no comprehension of the law. I
will fight this claim through every court of the land, or I'm ready to
meet him on Bannockburn field, my ancestral claymore against his. A
rare laugh we'll have when the pretender produces his bit shirtie in the
court, and says, 'Look, your honor, upon my patent o' nobilitee.'"
"Mind this," said The McTavish, "I'll make no contests, nor have none
made. Only," she smiled faintly, "I hay'na told him who he rightly is.
He claims cousinship. But it has not dawned on him that Colland was to
have been The McTavish, that he _is_ The McTavish, that I am merely Miss
Ellen Alice Douglas Cameron Dundee Campbell McGregor Breadalbane Blair
McTavish, houseless, homeless spinster, wi' but a drap o' gude blood to
her heritage. I have not told him, Mr. Traquair. He does not know.
What's to be done? What would you do--_if you knew_ that he was he, and
that you were only you?"
"It's your meeserable conscience of a Church-going Scot," commiserated
Traquair, not without indignation. "What would a Campbell have done?
He'd have had himself made a judge in the land, and he'd have condemned
the pretender to the gallows--out of hand, my dear--out of hand!"
She shook her head at him as at a naughty child. "Where is your own
meeserable conscience, Traquair?"
"My dear," cried the little man, "it is storming my reason."
"There," said she, "I told you so. And now we are both of one mind, you
shall present these tidings to McTavish together with my compliments."
"First," said Traquair cautiously, "I'll bide a bit on the thought."
"I will leave the time to your meeserable conscience," said Miss
McTavish generously. "Meanwhile, my dear man, while the semblance of
prosperity abides over my head in the shape of a roof, there's a matter
o' ten pound--"
Mr. Traquair rose briskly to his feet. "Ten pound!" he exclaimed.
"Only ten pound," she wheedled.
"My dear," he said, "I don't see where you're to raise another matter o'
saxpence this month."
"But I've promised the ten pound on my honor," she said. "Would you have
me break my word to a servant?"
"Well--well," temporized Mr. Traquair, "I'll have another look at the
books. Mind, I'm not saying it can be done--unless you'll sell a bit
timber here and yont--"
"Dear man," she said, "full well ye know it's not mine to sell. Then
you're to let me have the ten pound?"
"If I were to employ a wheedler," said Mr. Traquair, "I'd have no choice
'twixt you and Satan. Mind, I make no promises. Ten pound is a
prodeegious sum o' money, when ye hay'na got it."
"Not later than to-morrow, then," said Miss McTavish, as though to cap a
promise that had been made to her. "I'm obliged to you, Traquair,
deeply obliged."