our little circle. I suppose it was playing "Sir Patrick Spens" that
set us thinking about it, for one warm, idle day when we were all in
the Glen we began a series of ballad-revels, in which each of us
assumed a favorite character. The choice induced so much argument and
disagreement that Mr. Beresford was at last appointed head of the
clan; and having announced himself formally as the Mackintosh, he was
placed on the summit of a hastily arranged pyramidal cairn. He was
given an ash wand and a rowan-tree sword; and then, according to
ancient custom, his pedigree and the exploits of his ancestors were
recounted, and he was exhorted to emulate their example. Now it seems
that a Highland chief of the olden time, being as absolute in his
patriarchal authority as any prince, had a corresponding number of
officers attached to his person. He had a bodyguard, who fought around
him in battle, and independent of this he had a staff of officers who
accompanied him wherever he went. These our chief proceeded to appoint
as follows:--
Henchman, Ronald Macdonald; bard, Penelope Hamilton; spokesman or
fool, Robin Anstruther; sword-bearer, Francesca Monroe; piper,
Salemina; piper's attendant, Elizabeth Ardmore; baggage gillie, Jean
Dalziel; running footman, Ralph; bridle gillie, Jamie; ford gillie,
Miss Grieve. The ford gillie carries the chief across fords only, and
there are no fords in the vicinity; so Mr. Beresford, not liking to
leave a member of our household out of office, thought this the best
post for Calamity Jane.
With the Mackintosh on his pyramidal cairn matters went very much
better, and at Jamie's instigation we began to hold rehearsals for
certain festivities at Rowardennan; for as Jamie's birthday fell on
the eve of the Queen's Jubilee, there was to be a gay party at the
castle.
All this occurred days ago, and yesterday evening the ballad-revels
came off, and Rowardennan was a scene of great pageant and splendor.
Lady Ardmore, dressed as the Lady of Inverleith, received the guests,
and there were all manner of tableaux, and ballads in costume, and
pantomimes, and a grand march by the clan, in which we appeared in our
chosen roles.
Salemina was Lady Maisry,--she whom all the lords of the north
countrie came wooing.
"But a' that they could say to her,
Her answer still was 'Na.'"
And again:--
"O haud your tongues, young men,' she said,
'And think nae mair on me!'"
Mr. Beresford was Lord Beichan, and I was Shusy Pye.
"Lord Beichan was a Christian born,
And such resolved to live and dee,
So he was ta'en by a savage Moor,
Who treated him right cruellie.
"The Moor he had an only daughter,
The damsel's name was Shusy Pye;
And ilka day as she took the air
Lord Beichan's prison she pass'd by."
Elizabeth Ardmore was Leezie Lindsay, who kilted her coats o' green
satin to the knee and was aff to the Hielands so expeditiously when
her lover declared himself to be "Lord Ronald Macdonald, a chieftain
of high degree."
Francesca was Mary Ambree.
"When captaines couragious, whom death cold not daunte,
Did march to the siege of the citty of Gaunt,
They mustred their souldiers by two and by three,
And the foremost in battle was Mary Ambree.
"When the brave sergeant-major was slaine in her sight
Who was her true lover, her joy and delight,
Because he was slaine most treacherouslie,
Then vow'd to avenge him Mary Ambree."
Brenda Macrae from Pettybaw House was Fairly Fair; Jamie, Sir Patrick
Spens; Ralph, King Alexander of Dunfermline; Mr. Anstruther, Bonnie
Glenlogie, "the flower of them a';" Mr. Macdonald and Miss Dalziel,
Young Hynde Horn and the king's daughter Jean respectively.
"'Oh, it's Hynde Horn fair, and it's Hynde Horn free;
Oh, where were you born, and in what countrie?'
'In a far distant countrie I was born;
But of home and friends I am quite forlorn.'
"Oh, it's seven long years he served the king,
But wages from him he ne'er got a thing;
Oh, it's seven long years he served, I ween,
And all for love of the king's daughter Jean."
It is not to be supposed that all this went off without any of the
difficulties and heart-burnings that are incident to things dramatic.
When Elizabeth Ardmore chose to be Leezie Lindsay, she asked me to
sing the ballad behind the scenes. Mr. Beresford naturally thought
that Mr. Macdonald would take the opposite part in the tableau,
inasmuch as the hero bears his name; but he positively declined to
play Lord Ronald Macdonald, and said it was altogether too personal.
Mr. Anstruther was rather disagreeable at the beginning, and upbraided
Miss Dalziel for offering to be the king's daughter Jean to Mr.
Macdonald's Hynde Horn, when she knew very well he wanted her for
Ladye Jeanie in Glenlogie. (She had meantime confided to me that
nothing could induce her to appear in Glenlogie; it was far too
personal.)
Mr. Macdonald offended Francesca by sending her his cast-off gown and
begging her to be Sir Patrick Spens; and she was still more gloomy (so
I imagined) because he had not proffered his six feet of manly beauty
for the part of the captain in Mary Ambree, when the only other person
to take it was Jamie's tutor. He is an Oxford man and a delightful
person, but very bow-legged; added to that, by the time the rehearsals
had ended she had been obliged to beg him to love some one more worthy
than herself, and did not wish to appear in the same tableau with him,
feeling that it was much too personal.
When the eventful hour came, yesterday, Willie and I were the only
actors really willing to take lovers' parts, save Jamie and Ralph, who
were but too anxious to play all the characters, whatever their age,
sex, color, or relations. But the guests knew nothing of these trivial
disagreements, and at ten o'clock last night it would have been
difficult to match Rowardennan Castle for a scene of beauty and
revelry. Everything went merrily till we came to Hynde Horn, the
concluding tableau, and the most effective and elaborate one on the
programme. At the very last moment, when the opening scene was nearly
ready, Jean Dalziel fell down a secret staircase that led from the
tapestry chamber into Lady Ardmore's boudoir, where the rest of us
were dressing. It was a short flight of steps, but, as she held a
candle and was carrying her costume, she fell awkwardly, spraining her
wrist and ankle. Finding that she was not maimed for life, Lady
Ardmore turned with comical and unsympathetic haste to Francesca, so
completely do amateur theatricals dry the milk of kindness in the
human breast.
"Put on these clothes at once," she said imperiously, knowing nothing
of the volcanoes beneath the surface. "Hynde Horn is already on the
stage, and somebody must be Jean. Take care of Miss Dalziel, girls,
and ring for more maids. Helene, help me dress Miss Monroe: put on her
slippers while I lace her gown; run and fetch more jewels,--more
still,--she can carry off any number; not any rouge, Helene,--she has
too much color now; pull the frock more off the shoulders,--it's a
pity to cover an inch of them; pile her hair higher,--here, take my
diamond tiara, child; hurry, Helene, fetch the silver cup and the
cake--no, they are on the stage; take her train, Helene. Miss
Hamilton, run and open the doors ahead of them, please. I won't go
down for this tableau. I'll put Miss Dalziel right, and then I'll slip
into the drawing-room, to be ready for the guests when they come in."
We hurried breathlessly through an interminable series of rooms and
corridors. I gave the signal to Mr. Beresford, who was nervously
waiting for it in the wings, and the curtain went up on Hynde Horn
disguised as the auld beggar man at the king's gate. Mr. Beresford was
reading the ballad, and we took up the tableaux at the point where
Hynde Horn has come from a far countrie to see why the diamonds in the
ring given him by his own true love have grown pale and wan. He hears
that the king's daughter Jean has been married to a knight these nine
days past.
"But unto him a wife the bride winna be,
For love of Hynde Horn, far over the sea."
He therefore borrows the old beggar's garments and hobbles to the
king's palace, where he petitions the porter for a cup of wine and a
bit of cake to be handed him by the fair bride herself.
"'Good porter, I pray, for Saints Peter and Paul,
And for sake of the Saviour who died for us all,
For one cup of wine, and one bit of bread,
To an auld man with travel and hunger bestead.
"'And ask the fair bride, for the sake of Hynde Horn,
To hand them to me so sadly forlorn.'
Then the porter for pity the message convey'd,
And told the fair bride all the beggar man said."
The curtain went up again. The porter, moved to pity, has gone to give
the message to his lady. Hynde Horn is watching the staircase at the
rear of the stage, his heart in his eyes. The tapestries that hide it
are drawn, and there stands the king's daughter, who tripped down the
stair,
"And in her fair hands did lovingly bear
A cup of red wine, and a farle of cake,
To give the old man for loved Hynde Horn's sake."
The hero of the ballad, who had not seen his true love for seven long
years, could not have been more amazed at the change in her than was
Ronald Macdonald at the sight of the flushed, excited, almost tearful
king's daughter on the staircase; Lady Ardmore's diamonds flashing
from her crimson satin gown, Lady Ardmore's rubies glowing on her
white arms and throat; not Miss Dalziel, as had been arranged, but
Francesca, rebellious, reluctant, embarrassed, angrily beautiful and
beautifully angry!
In the next scene Hynde Horn has drained the cup and dropped the ring
into it.
"'Oh, found you that ring by sea or on land,
Or got you that ring off a dead man's hand?'
'Oh, I found not that ring by sea or on land,
But I got that ring from a fair lady's hand.
"'As a pledge of true love she gave it to me,
Full seven years ago as I sail'd o'er the sea;
But now that the diamonds are chang'd in their hue,
I know that my love has to me proved untrue.'"
I never saw a prettier picture of sweet, tremulous womanhood, a more
enchanting breathing image of fidelity, than Francesca looked as Mr.
Beresford read:--
"'Oh, I will cast off my gay costly gown,
And follow thee on from town unto town,
And I will take the gold kaims from my hair
And follow my true love for ever mair.'"
Whereupon Hynde Horn lets his beggar weeds fall, and shines there the
foremost and noblest of all the king's companie as he says:--
"'You need not cast off your gay costly gown,
To follow me on from town unto town;
You need not take the gold kaims from your hair,
For Hynde Horn has gold enough and to spare.'
"Then the bridegrooms were chang'd, and the lady re-wed
To Hynde Horn thus come back, like one from the dead."
There is no doubt that this tableau gained the success of the evening,
and the participants in it should have modestly and gratefully
received the choruses of congratulation that were ready to be offered
during the supper and dance that followed. Instead of that, what
happened? Francesca drove home with Miss Dalziel before the quadrille
d'honneur, and when Willie bade me good-night at the gate in the
loaning he said, "I shall not be early to-morrow, dear. I am going to
see Macdonald off."
"Off!" I exclaimed. "Where is he going?"
"Only to Edinburgh and London, to stay till the last of next week."
"But we may have left Pettybaw by that time."
"Of course; that is probably what he has in mind. But let me tell you
this, Penelope: Macdonald is fathoms deep in love with Francesca, and
if she trifles with him she shall know what I think of her!"
"And let me tell you this, sir: Francesca is fathoms deep in love with
Ronald Macdonald, little as you suspect it, and if he trifles with her
he shall know what I think of him!"
XXIV
"He set her on a coal-black steed,
Himsel lap on behind her,
An' he's awa' to the Hieland hills
Whare her frien's they canna find her."
_Rob Roy_.
The occupants of Bide-a-Wee Cottage awoke in anything but a Jubilee
humor, next day. Willie had intended to come at nine, but of course
did not appear. Francesca took her breakfast in bed, and came
listlessly into the sitting-room at ten o'clock, looking like a ghost.
Jean's ankle was much better,--the sprain proved to be not even a
strain,--but her wrist was painful. It was drizzling, too, and we had
promised Miss Ardmore and Miss Macrae to aid with the last Jubilee
decorations, the distribution of medals at the church, and the
children's games and tea on the links in the afternoon.
We had determined not to desert our beloved Pettybaw for the
metropolis on this great day, but to celebrate it with the dear fowk
o' Fife who had grown to be a part of our lives.
Bide-a-Wee Cottage does not occupy an imposing position in the
landscape, and the choice of art fabrics at the Pettybaw draper's is
small, but the moment it should stop raining we were intending to
carry out a dazzling scheme of decoration that would proclaim our
affectionate respect for the "little lady in black" on her Diamond
Jubilee. But would it stop raining?--that was the question. The draper
wasna certain that so licht a shoo'r could richtly be called rain. The
village weans were yearning for the hour to arrive when they might sit
on the wet golf-course and have tea; manifestly, therefore, it could
not be a bad day for Scotland; but if it should grow worse, what would
become of our mammoth subscription bonfire on Pettybaw Law,--the
bonfire that Brenda Macrae was to light, as the lady of the manor?
There were no deputations to request the honor of Miss Macrae's
distinguished services on this occasion; that is not the way the
self-respecting villager comports himself in Fifeshire. The chairman
of the local committee, a respectable gardener, called upon Miss
Macrae at Pettybaw House, and said, "I'm sent to tell ye ye're to have
the pleesure an' the honor of lightin' the bonfire the nicht! Ay, it's
a grand chance ye're havin', miss; ye'll remember it as long as ye
live, I'm thinkin'!"
When I complimented this rugged soul on his decoration of the
triumphal arch under which the schoolchildren were to pass, I said, "I
think if her Majesty could see it, she would be pleased with our
village to-day, James."
"Ay, ye're richt, miss," he replied complacently. "She'd see that
Inchcawdy canna compeer wi' us; we've patronized her weel in
Pettybaw!"
Truly, as Stevenson says, "he who goes fishing among the Scots
peasantry with condescension for a bait will have an empty basket by
evening."
At eleven o'clock a boy arrived at Bide-a-Wee with an interesting-looking
package, which I promptly opened. That dear foolish lover of mine
(whose foolishness is one of the most adorable things about him) makes
me only two visits a day, and is therefore constrained to send me some
reminder of himself in the intervening hours, or minutes,--a book, a
flower, or a note. Uncovering the pretty box, I found a long,
slender--something--of sparkling silver.
"What is it?" I exclaimed, holding it up. "It is too long and not wide
enough for a paper-knife, although it would be famous for cutting
magazines. Is it a _baton_? Where did Willie find it, and what can it
be? There is something engraved on one side, something that looks like
birds on a twig,--yes, three little birds; and see the lovely
cairngorm set in the end! Oh, it has words cut in it: '_To Jean: From
Hynde Horn_'--Goodness me! I've opened Miss Dalziel's package!"
Francesca made a sudden swooping motion, and caught box, cover, and
contents in her arms.
"It is mine! I know it is mine!" she cried. "You really ought not to
claim everything that is sent to the house, Penelope,--as if nobody
had any friends or presents but you!" and she rushed upstairs like a
whirlwind.
I examined the outside wrapper, lying on the floor, and found, to my
chagrin, that it did bear Miss Monroe's name, somewhat blotted by the
rain; but if the box were addressed to her, why was the silver thing
inscribed to Miss Dalziel? Well, Francesca would explain the mystery
within the hour, unless she had become a changed being.
Fifteen minutes passed. Salemina was making Jubilee sandwiches at
Pettybaw House, Miss Dalziel was asleep in her room, I was being
devoured slowly by curiosity, when Francesca came down without a word,
walked out of the front door, went up to the main street, and entered
the village post-office without so much as a backward glance. She was
a changed being, then! I might as well be living in a Gaboriau novel,
I thought, and went up into my little painting and writing room to
address a programme of the Pettybaw celebration to Lady Baird, watch
for the first glimpse of Willie coming down the loaning, and see if I
could discover where Francesca went from the post-office.
Sitting down by my desk, I could find neither my wax nor my silver
candlestick, my scissors nor my ball of twine. Plainly, Francesca had
been on one of her borrowing tours; and she had left an additional
trace of herself--if one were needed--in a book of old Scottish
ballads, open at Hynde Horn. I glanced at it idly while I was waiting
for her to return. I was not familiar with the opening verses, and
these were the first lines that met my eye:--
"Oh, he gave to his love a silver wand,
Her sceptre of rule over fair Scotland;
With three singing laverocks set thereon
For to mind her of him when he was gone.
"And his love gave to him a gay gold ring
With three shining diamonds set therein;
Oh, his love gave to him this gay gold ring,
Of virtue and value above all thing."
A light dawned upon me! The silver mystery, then, was intended for a
wand,--and a very pretty way of making love to an American girl, too,
to call it a "sceptre of rule over fair Scotland;" and the three birds
were three singing laverocks "to mind her of him when he was gone!"
But the real Hynde Horn in the dear old ballad had a true love who was
not captious and capricious and cold like Francesca. His love gave him
a gay gold ring,--
"Of virtue and value above all thing."
Yet stay: behind the ballad book flung heedlessly on my desk was--what
should it be but the little morocco case, empty now, in which our
Francesca keeps her dead mother's engagement ring,--the mother who
died when she was a wee child. Truly a very pretty modern ballad to be
sung in these unromantic, degenerate days!
Francesca came in at the door behind me, saw her secret reflected in
my telltale face, saw the sympathetic moisture in my eyes, and,
flinging herself into my willing arms, burst into tears.
"Oh, Pen, dear, dear Pen, I am so miserable and so happy; so afraid
that he won't come back, so frightened for fear that he will! I sent
him away because there were so many lions in the path, and I didn't
know how to slay them. I thought of my f-father; I thought of my
c-c-country. I didn't want to live with him in Scotland, I knew that I
couldn't live without him in America, and there I was! I didn't think
I was s-suited to a minister, and I am not; but oh! this p-particular
minister is so s-suited to me!" and she threw herself on the sofa and
buried her head in the cushions.
She was so absurd even in her grief that I had hard work to keep from
smiling.
"Let us talk about the lions," I said soothingly. "But when did the
trouble begin? When did he speak to you?"
"After the tableaux last night; but of course there had been
other--other--times--and things."
"Of course. Well?"
"He had told me a week before that he should go away for a while, that
it made him too wretched to stay here just now; and I suppose that was
when he got the silver wand ready for me. It was meant for the Jean of
the poem, you know. Of course he would not put my own name on a gift
like that."
"You don't think he had it made for Jean Dalziel in the first place?"
I asked this, thinking she needed some sort of tonic in her relaxed
condition.
"You know him better than that, Penelope! I am ashamed of you! We had
read Hynde Horn together ages before Jean Dalziel came; but I imagine,
when we came to acting the lines, he thought it would be better to
have some other king's daughter; that is, that it would be less
personal. And I never, never would have been in the tableau, if I had
dared refuse Lady Ardmore, or could have explained; but I had no time
to think. And then, naturally, he thought by my being there as the
king's daughter that--that--the lions were slain, you know; instead of
which they were roaring so that I could hardly hear the orchestra."
"Francesca, look me in the eye! Do--you--love him?"
"Love him? I adore him!" she exclaimed in good clear decisive English,
as she rose impetuously and paced up and down in front of the sofa.
"But in the first place there is the difference in nationality."
"I have no patience with you. One would think he was a Turk, an
Esquimau, or a cannibal. He is white, he speaks English, and he
believes in the Christian religion. The idea of calling such a man a
foreigner!"
"Oh, it didn't prevent me from loving him," she confessed, "but I
thought at first it would be unpatriotic to marry him."
"Did you think Columbia could not spare you even as a rare specimen to
be used for exhibition purposes?" I asked wickedly.
"You know I am not so conceited as that! No," she continued
ingenuously, "I feared that if I accepted him it would look, over
here, as if the home supply of husbands were of inferior quality; and
then we had such disagreeable discussions at the beginning, I simply
could not bear to leave my nice new free country, and ally myself with
his aeons of tiresome history. But it came to me in the night, a week
ago, that after all I should hate a man who didn't love his
fatherland; and in the illumination of that new idea Ronald's
character assumed a different outline in my mind. How could he love
America when he had never seen it? How could I convince him that
American women are the most charming in the world in any better way
than by letting him live under the same roof with a good example? How
could I expect him to let me love my country best unless I permitted
him to love his best?"
"You needn't offer so many apologies for your infatuation, my dear," I
answered dryly.
"I am not apologizing for it!" she exclaimed impulsively. "Oh, if you
could only keep it to yourself, I should like to tell you how I trust
and admire and reverence Ronald Macdonald, but of course you will
repeat everything to Willie Beresford within the hour! You think he
has gone on and on loving me against his better judgment. You believe
he has fought against it because of my unfitness, but that I, poor,
weak, trivial thing, am not capable of deep feeling and that I shall
never appreciate the sacrifices he makes in choosing me! Very well,
then, I tell you plainly that if I had to live in a damp manse the
rest of my life, drink tea and eat scones for breakfast, and--and buy
my hats of the Inchcaldy milliner, I should still glory in the
possibility of being Ronald Macdonald's wife,--a possibility hourly
growing more uncertain, I am sorry to say!"
"And the extreme aversion with which you began," I asked,--"what has
become of that, and when did it begin to turn in the opposite
direction?"