WHITE HEATHER (VOL. II) (continued 3)

'It's lending to the Lord,' said the minister's wife sadly, as she passed the marmalade to the children.

The conversation now took the form of a discussion as to which of the members might reasonably be expected to come forward at such a juncture; and as Ronald had no part or interest in this matter he made bold to turn to Mr. Weems, who sate beside him, and engage him in talk on their own account. Indeed, he had rather taken a liking for this timorous little man, and wished to know more about him and his belongings and occupations; and when Mr. Weems revealed to him the great trouble of his life—the existence of a shrill-voiced chanticleer in the backyard of the cottage adjoining his own, out somewhere in the Pollokshaws direction—Ronald was glad to come to his help at once.

'Oh, that's all right,' said he. 'I'll shoot him for you.'

But this calm proposal was like to drive the poor little man daft with terror. His nervous system suffered cruelly from the skirling of the abominable fowl; but even that was to be dreaded less than a summons and a prosecution and a deadly feud with his neighbour, who was a drunken, quarrelsome, cantankerous shoemaker.

'But, God bless me,' Ronald said, 'it's not to be thought of that any human being should be tortured like that by a brute beast. Well, there's another way o' settling the hash o' that screeching thing. You just go and buy a pea-shooter—or if one of the laddies will lend you a tin whistle, that will do; then go and buy twopence-worth of antibilious pills—indeed, I suppose any kind would serve; and then fire half a dozen over into the back-yard; my word, when the bantam gentleman has picked up these bonny looking peas, and swallowed them, he'll no be for flapping his wings and crowing, I'm thinking; he'll rather be for singing the tune of "Annie Laurie." But maybe you're not a good shot with a pea-shooter? Well, I'll come over and do it for you early some morning, when the beast's hungry.'

But it was difficult for any one to talk, even in the most subdued and modest way, with that harsh and strident voice laying down the law at the head of the table. And now the large-waistcoated elder was on the subject of the temperance movement; arraigning the government for not suppressing the liquor-traffic altogether; denouncing the callous selfishness of those who were inclined to temporise with the devil, and laying at their door all the misery caused by the drunkenness of their fellow-creatures; and proudly putting in evidence his own position in the city of Glasgow—his authority in the church—the regard paid to his advice—and the solid, substantial slice of the world's gear that he possessed—as entirely due to the fact that he had never, not even as a young man, imbibed one drop of alcohol. Now Ronald Strang was ordinarily a most abstemious person—and no credit to him, nor to any one in the like case; for his firm physique and his way of living hitherto had equally rendered him independent of any such artificial aid (though a glass of whisky on a wet day on the hillside did not come amiss to him, and his hard head could steer him safely through a fair amount of jollification when those wild lads came down from Tongue). But he was irritated by that loud and raucous voice; he resented the man's arrogance and his domineering over the placid and phlegmatic Andrew, who scarcely opened his mouth; and here and there he began to put in a sharp saying or two that betokened discontent and also a coming storm. 'They used to say that cleanliness was next to godliness; but nowadays ye would put total abstinence half a mile ahead of it,' he would say, or something of the kind; and in due course these two were engaged in a battle-royal of discussion. It shall not be put down here; for who was ever convinced—in morals, or art, or literature, or anything else—by an argument? it needs only be said that the elder, being rather hard pressed, took refuge in Scriptural authority. But alas! this was not of much avail; for the whole family of the East Lothian farmer (not merely the student one of them) had been brought up with exceeding care, and taught to give chapter and verse for everything; so that when Mr. M'Lachlan sought to crush his antagonist with the bludgeon of quotation he found it was only a battledore he had got hold of.

'"Wine is a mocker; strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise,"' he would say severely.

'"Wine which cheereth God and man,"' the other would retort. '"Wine that maketh glad the heart of man." What make ye of these?'

'"Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath babbling?—they that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine." What better authority can we have?'

'Ay, man, the wise king said that; but it wasna his last word. "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."'

'The devil quoting Scripture for his own ends,' the Reverend Andrew interposed, with a mild facetiousness.

'It's a dreadful thing to hear in a minister's house,' said the minister's wife, appealing to her neighbour, Mrs. M'Lachlan.

'What is? A verse from the Proverbs of Solomon?' Ronald said, turning to her quite good-naturedly.

But instantly he saw that she was distressed, and even more lachrymose than ever; and he knew that nothing would convince her that he was not a child of wrath and of the devil; and he reproached himself for having entered into any discussion of any kind whatever in this house, where Maggie was to live—he hoped in perfect accord and amity. As for himself, he wished only to be out of it. He was not in his right element. The vulgar complacency of the rich elder irritated him; the melancholy unreason of his sister-in-law depressed him. He foresaw that not here was any abiding-place for him while he sojourned in the great city.

But how was he to get away? They lingered and dawdled over their tea-drinking in a most astonishing fashion; his brother being the most intemperate of all of them, and obviously accounting thereby for his pallid and bilious cheeks. Moreover, they had returned to that fruitful topic of talk—the capability of this or the other member of the congregation to subscribe to the fund for paying off the debt on the church; and as this involved a discussion of everybody's ways and means, and of his expenditure, and the manner of living of himself, his wife, his sons, and daughters and servants, the very air seemed thick with trivial and envious tittle-tattle, the women-folk, of course, being more loquacious than any.

'Lord help us,' said Ronald to himself, as he sate there in silence, 'this house would be a perfect paradise for an Income-tax Commissioner.'

However, the fourth or fifth tea-pot was exhausted at last; the minister offered up a prolonged thanksgiving; and Ronald thought that now he might get away—and out into the freer air. But that was not to be as yet. His brother observed that it was getting late; that all the members of the household were gathered together; and they might appropriately have family worship now. So the two servant-girls were summoned in to clear the table, and that done, they remained; the minister brought the family Bible over from the sideboard; and all sate still and attentive, their books in their hand, while he sought out the chapter he wanted. It was the Eighth of the Epistle to the Romans; and he read it slowly and elaborately, but without any word of comment or expounding. Then he said that they would sing to the praise of the Lord the XCIII. Psalm—himself leading off with the fine old tune of Martyrdom; and this the young people sang very well indeed, though they were a little interfered with by the uncertain treble of the married women and the bovine baritone of the elder. Thereafter the minister offered up a prayer, in which very pointed reference was made to the brother and sister who had come from the far mountains to dwell within the gates of the city; and then all of them rose, and the maidservants withdrew, and those remaining who had to go began to get ready for their departure.

'Come over and see us soon again,' the minister said to him, as they followed him into the lobby; but the minister's wife did not repeat that friendly invitation.

'Ronald,' the little Maggie whispered—and her lips were rather tremulous, 'if you hear from Meenie, will you let me know?'

'But I am not likely to hear from her, lass,' said he, with his hand upon her shoulder. 'You must write to her yourself, and she will answer, and send ye the news.'

'Mind ye pass the public-houses on the way gaun hame,' said the elder, by way of finishing up the evening with a joke: Ronald took no notice, but bade the others good-bye, and opened the door and went out.

When he got into the street his first startled impression was that the world was on fire—all the heavens, but especially the southern heavens, were one blaze of soft and smoky blood-red, into which the roofs and chimney-stacks of the dusky buildings rose solemn and dark. A pulsating crimson it was, now dying away slightly, again gleaming up with a sudden fervour; and always it looked the more strange and bewildering because of the heavy gloom of the buildings and the ineffectual lemon-yellow points of the gas-lamps. Of course he remembered instantly what this must be—the glow of the ironworks over there in the south; and presently he had turned his back on that sullen radiance, and was making away for the north side of the city.

But when he emerged from the comparative quiet of the southern thoroughfares into the glare and roar of Jamaica Street and Argyll Street, all around him there seemed even more of bewilderment than in the daytime. The unceasing din of tramway-cars and vans and carts still filled the air; but now there was everywhere a fierce yellow blaze of gaslight—glowing in the great stocked windows, streaming out across the crowded pavements, and shining on the huge gilded letters and sprawling advertisements of the shops. Then the people—a continuous surge, as of a river; the men begrimed for the most part, here and there two or three drunk and bawling, the women with cleaner faces, but most of them bareheaded, with Highland shawls wrapped round their shoulders. The suffused crimson glow of the skies was scarcely visible now; this horizontal blaze of gas-light killed it; and through the yellow glare passed the dusky phantasmagoria of a city's life—the cars and horses, the grimy crowds. Buchanan Street, it is true, was less noisy; and he walked quickly, glad to get out of that terrible din; and by and by, when he got away up to Port Dundas Road, where his lodging was, he found the world grown quite quiet again, and gloomy and dark, save for the solitary gas-lamps and the faint dull crimson glow sent across from the southern skies.

He went up the stone stair, was admitted to the house, and shown into the apartment that his brother had secured for him. It had formerly been used as a sitting-room, with a bedroom attached; but now these were separated, and a bed was placed at one end of the little parlour, which was plainly and not untidily furnished. When his landlady left he proceeded to unpack his things, getting out first his books, which he placed on the mantel-shelf to be ready for use in the morning; then he made some further disposition of his belongings; and then—then somehow he fell away from this industrious mood, and became more and more absent, and at last went idly to the window, and stood looking out there. There was not much to be seen—a few lights about the Caledonian Railway Station, some dusky sheds, and that faint red glow in the sky.

But—Inver-Mudal? Well, if only he had reflected, Inver-Mudal must at this moment have been just about as dark as was this railway station and the neighbourhood surrounding it—unless, indeed, it happened to be a clear starlit night away up there in the north, with the heavens shining beautiful and benignant over Clebrig, and the loch, and the little hamlet among the trees. However, that was not the Inver-Mudal he was thinking of; it was the Inver-Mudal of a clear spring day, with sweet winds blowing across the moors, and the sunlight yellow on Clebrig's slopes, and Loch Naver's waters all a rippling and dazzling blue. And Mr. Murray standing at the door of the inn, and smoking his pipe, and joking with any one that passed; the saucy Nelly casting glances among the lads; Harry with dark suspicions of rats wherever he could find a hole in the wall of the barn; Maggie, under instruction of Duncan the ploughman, driving the two horses hauling a harrow over the rough red land; everywhere the birds singing; the young corn showing green; and then—just as the chance might be—Meenie coming along the road, her golden-brown hair blown by the wind, her eyes about as blue as Loch Naver's shining waters, and herself calling, with laughter and scolding, to Maggie to desist from that tomboy work. And where was it all gone now? He seemed to have shut his eyes upon that beautiful clear, joyous world; and to have plunged into a hideous and ghastly dream. The roar and yellow glare—the black houses—the lurid crimson in the sky—the terrible loneliness and silence of this very room—well, he could not quite understand it yet. But perhaps it would not always seem so bewildering; perhaps one might grow accustomed in time?—and teach one's self to forget? And then again he had resolved that he would not read over any more the verses he had written in the olden days about Meenie, and the hills and the streams and the straths that knew her and loved her—for these idle rhymes made him dream dreams; that is to say, he had almost resolved—he had very nearly resolved—that he would not read over any more the verses he had written about Meenie.

CHAPTER X.

GRAY DAYS.

But, after all, that first plunge into city-life had had something of the excitement of novelty; it was the settling down thereafter to the dull monotonous round of labour, in this lonely lodging, with the melancholy gray world of mist surrounding him and shutting him in, that was to test the strength of his resolve. The first day was not so bad; for now and again he would relieve the slow tedium of the hours by doing a little carpentering about the room; and the sharp sound of hammer and nail served to break in upon that hushed, slumberous murmur of the great city without that seemed a mournful, distant, oppressive thing. But the next day of this solitary life (for it was not until the end of the week he was to see Mr. Weems) was dreadful. The dull, silent gray hours would not go by. Wrestling with Ewart's Agricultural Assistant, or Balfour's Elements of Botany, or with distressing problems in land-surveying or timber-measuring, he would think the time had passed; and then, going to the window for a moment's relief to eye and brain, he would see by the clock of the railway station that barely half an hour had elapsed since last he had looked at the obdurate hands. How he envied the porters, the cab-drivers, the men who were loading and unloading the waggons; they seemed all so busy and contented; they were getting through with their work; they had something to show for their labour; they had companions to talk to and joke with; sometimes he thought he could hear them laughing. And ah, how much more he envied the traveller who drove up and got leisurely out of the cab, and had his luggage carried into the station, himself following and disappearing from view! Whither was he going, then, away from this great, melancholy city, with its slow hours, and wan skies, and dull, continuous, stupefying murmur? Whither, indeed!—away by the silver links of Forth, perhaps, with the castled rock of Stirling rising into the windy blue and white; away by the wooded banks of Allan Water and the bonny Braes of Doune; by Strathyre, and Glenogle, and Glenorchy; and past the towering peaks of Ben Cruachan, and out to the far-glancing waters of the western seas. Indeed it is a sore pity that Miss Carry Hodson, in a fit of temper, had crushed together and thrust into the bottom of the boat the newspaper containing an estimate of Ronald's little Highland poem; if only she had handed it on to him, he would have learned that the sentiment of nostalgia is too slender and fallacious a thing for any sensible person to bother his head about; and, instead of wasting his time in gazing at the front of a railway station, he would have gone resolutely back to Strachan's Agricultural Tables and the measuring and mapping of surface areas.

On the third day he grew desperate.

'In God's name let us see if there's not a bit of blue sky anywhere!' he said to himself; and he flung his books aside, and put on his Glengarry cap, and took a stick in his hand, and went out.

Alas! that there were no light pattering steps following him down the stone stair; the faithful Harry had had to be left behind, under charge of Mr. Murray of the inn. And indeed Ronald found it so strange to be going out without some companion of the kind that when he passed into the wide, dull thoroughfare, he looked up and down everywhere to see if he could not find some homeless wandering cur that he could induce to go with him. But there was no sign of dog-life visible; for the matter of that there was little sign of any other kind of life; there was nothing before him but the wide, empty, dull-hued street, apparently terminating in a great wilderness of india-rubber works and oil-works and the like, all of them busily engaged in pouring volumes of smoke through tall chimneys into the already sufficiently murky sky.

But when he got farther north, he found that there were lanes and alleys permeating this mass of public works; and eventually he reached a canal, and crossed that, deeming that if he kept straight on he must reach the open country somewhere. As yet he could make out no distance; blocks of melancholy soot-begrimed houses, timber-yards, and blank stone walls shut in the view on every hand; moreover there was a brisk north wind blowing that was sharply pungent with chemical fumes and also gritty with dust; so that he pushed on quickly, anxious to get some clean air into his lungs, and anxious, if that were possible, to get a glimpse of green fields and blue skies. For, of course, he could not always be at his books; and this, as he judged, must be the nearest way out into the country; and he could not do better than gain some knowledge of his surroundings, and perchance discover some more or less secluded sylvan retreat, where, in idle time, he might pass an hour or so with his pencil and his verses and his memories of the moors and hills.

But the farther out he got the more desolate and desolating became the scene around him. Here was neither town nor country; or rather, both were there; and both were dead. He came upon a bit of hawthorn-hedge; the stems were coal-black, the leaves begrimed out of all semblance to natural foliage. There were long straight roads, sometimes fronted by a stone wall and sometimes by a block of buildings—dwelling-houses, apparently, but of the most squalid and dingy description; the windows opaque with dirt; the 'closes' foul; the pavements in front unspeakable. But the most curious thing was the lifeless aspect of this dreary neighbourhood. Where were the people? Here or there two or three ragged children would be playing in the gutter; or perhaps, in a dismal little shop, an old woman might be seen, with some half-withered apples and potatoes on the counter. But where were the people who at one time or other must have inhabited these great, gaunt, gloomy tenements? He came to a dreadful place called Saracen Cross—a very picture of desolation and misery; the tall blue-black buildings showing hardly any sign of life in their upper flats; the shops below being for the most part tenantless, the windows rudely boarded over. It seemed as if some blight had fallen over the land, first obliterating the fields, and then laying its withering hand on the houses that had been built on them. And yet these melancholy-looking buildings were not wholly uninhabited; here or there a face was visible—but always of women or children; and perhaps the men-folk were away at work somewhere in a factory. Anyhow, under this dull gray sky, with a dull gray mist in the air, and with a strange silence everywhere around, the place seemed a City of the Dead; he could not understand how human beings could live in it at all.

At last, however, he came to some open spaces that still bore some half-decipherable marks of the country, and his spirits rose a little. He even tried to sing 'O say, will you marry me, Nelly Munro?'—to force himself into a kind of liveliness, as it were, and to prove to himself that things were not quite so bad after all. But the words stuck in his throat. His voice sounded strangely in this silent and sickly solitude. And at last he stood stock-still, to have a look round about him, and to make out what kind of a place this was that he had entered into.

Well, it was a very strange kind of place. It seemed to have been forgotten by somebody, when all the other land near was being ploughed through by railway-lines and heaped up into embankments. Undoubtedly there were traces of the country still remaining—and even of agriculture; here and there a line of trees, stunted and nipped by the poisonous air; a straggling hedge or two, withered and black; a patch of corn, of a pallid and hopeless colour; and a meadow with cattle feeding in it. But the road that led through these bucolic solitudes was quite new and made of cinders; in the distance it seemed to lose itself in a network of railway embankments; while the background of this strange simulacrum of a landscape—so far as that could be seen through the pall of mist and smoke—seemed to consist of further houses, ironworks, and tall chimney-stacks. Anything more depressing and disconsolate he had never witnessed; nay, he had had no idea that any such God-forsaken neighbourhood existed anywhere in the world; and he thought he would much rather be back at his books than wandering through this dead and spectral land. Moreover it was beginning to rain—a thin, pertinacious drizzle that seemed to hang in the thick and clammy air; and so he struck away to the right, in the direction of some houses, guessing that there he would find some way of getting back to the city other than that ghastly one he had come by.

By the time he had reached these houses—a suburb or village this seemed to be that led in a straggling fashion up to the crest of a small hill—it was raining heavily. Now ordinarily a gamekeeper in the Highlands is not only indifferent to rain, but apparently incapable of perceiving the existence of it. When was wet weather at Inver-Mudal ever known to interfere with the pursuits or occupations of anybody? Why, the lads there would as soon have thought of taking shelter from the rain as a terrier would. But it is one thing to be walking over wet heather in knickerbocker-stockings and shoes, the water quite clean, and the exercise keeping legs and feet warm enough, and it is entirely another thing to be walking through mud made of black cinders, with clammy trousers flapping coldly round one's ankles. Nay, so miserable was all this business that he took refuge in an entry leading into one of those 'lands' of houses; and there he stood, in the cold stone passage, with a chill wind blowing through it, looking out on the swimming pavements, and the black and muddy road, and the dull stone walls, and the mournful skies.

At length, the rain moderating somewhat, he issued out from this shelter, and set forth for the town. A tramway-car passed him, but he had no mind to be jammed in amongst a lot of elderly women, all damp and with dripping umbrellas. Nay, he was trying to convince himself that the very discomfort of this dreary march homeward—through mud and drizzle and fog—was a wholesome thing. After that glimpse of the kind of country that lay outside the town—in this direction at least—there would be less temptation for him to throw down his books and go off for idle strolls. He assured himself that he ought to be glad that he found no verdant meadows and purling brooks; that, on the contrary, the aspect of this suburban territory was sufficiently appalling to drive him back to his lodgings. All the same, when he did arrive there, he was somewhat disheartened and depressed; and he went up the stone staircase slowly; and when he entered that solitary, dull little room, and sate down, he felt limp and damp and tired—tired, after a few miles' walk! And then he took to his books again, with his mouth set hard.

Late that night he was sitting as usual alone, and rather absently turning over his papers; and already it had come to this that now, when he chanced to read any of these writings of his of former days, they seemed to have been written by some one else. Who was this man, then, that seemed to go through the world with a laugh and a song, as it were; rating this one, praising that; having it all his own way; and with never a thought of the morrow? But there was one piece in particular that struck home. It was a description of the little terrier; he had pencilled it on the back of an envelope one warm summer day when he was lying at full length on the heather, with Harry not half a dozen yards off, his nose between his paws. Harry did not know that his picture was being taken.

Auld, gray, and grizzled; yellow een;

A nose as brown's a berry;

A wit as sharp as ony preen—

That's my wee chieftain Harry.

Lord sakes!—the courage of the man!

The biggest barn-yard ratten,

He'll snip him by the neck, o'er-han',

As he the deil had gatten.

And when his master's work on hand,

There's none maun come anear him;

The biggest Duke in all Scotland,

My Harry's teeth would fear him.

But ordinar' wise like fowl or freen,

He's harmless as a kitten;

As soon he'd think o' worryin'

A hennie when she's sittin'.

But Harry, lad, ye're growin' auld;

Your days are gettin' fewer;

And maybe Heaven has made a fauld

For such wee things as you are.

And what strange kintra will that be?

And will they fill your coggies?

And whatna strange folk there will see

There's water for the doggies?

Ae thing I brawly ken; it's this—

Ye may hae work or play there;

But if your master once ye miss,

I'm bound ye winna stay there.

It was the last verse that struck home. It was through no failure of devotion on the part of the faithful Harry that he was now at Inver-Mudal; it was his master that had played him false, and severed the old companionship. And he kept thinking about the little terrier; and wondering whether he missed his master as much as his master missed him; and wondering whether Meenie had ever a word for him as she went by—for she and Harry had always been great friends. Nay, perhaps Meenie might not take it ill if Maggie wrote to her for news of the little dog; and then Meenie would answer; and might not her letter take a wider scope, and say something about the people there, and about herself? Surely she would do that; and some fine morning the answer—in Meenie's handwriting—would be delivered in Abbotsford Place; and he knew that Maggie would not be long in apprising him of the same. Perhaps, indeed, he might himself become possessed of that precious missive; and bring it away with him; and from time to time have a glance at this or that sentence of it—in Meenie's own actual handwriting—when the long dull work of the day was over, and his fancy free to fly away to the north again, to Strath-Terry and Clebrig and Loch Naver, and the neat small cottage with the red blinds in the windows. It seemed to him a long time now since he had left all of these; he felt as though Glasgow had engulfed him: while the day of his rescue—the day of the fulfilment of his ambitious designs—was now growing more and more distant and vague and uncertain, leaving him only the slow drudgery of these weary hours. But Meenie's letter would be a kind of talisman; to see her handwriting would be like hearing her speak; and surely this dull little lodging was quiet enough, so that in the hushed silence of the evening, he, reading those cheerful phrases, might persuade himself that it was Meenie's voice he was listening to, with the quiet, clear, soft laugh that so well he remembered.

And so these first days went by; and he hoped in time to get more accustomed to this melancholy life; and doggedly he stuck to the task he had set before him. As for the outcome of it all—well, that did not seem quite so facile nor so fine a thing as it had appeared before he came away from the north; but he left that for the future to decide; and in the meantime he was above all anxious not to perplex himself by the dreaming of idle dreams. He had come to Glasgow to work; not to build impossible castles in the air.

CHAPTER XI.

KATE.

And yet it was a desperately hard ordeal; for this man was by nature essentially joyous, and sociable, and fitted to be the king of all good company; and the whole of his life had been spent in the open, in brisk and active exercise; and sunlight and fresh air were to him as the very breath of his nostrils. But here he was, day after day, week after week, chained to these dismal tasks; in solitude; with the far white dream of ambition becoming more and more distant and obscured; and with a terrible consciousness ever growing upon him that in coming away from even the mere neighbourhood of Meenie, from the briefest companionship with her, he had sacrificed the one beautiful thing, the one precious possession, that his life had ever held for him or would hold. What though the impalpable barrier of Glengask and Orosay rose between him and her? He was no sentimental Claude Melnotte; he had common sense; he accepted facts. Of course Meenie would go away in due time. Of course she was destined for higher things. But what then? What of the meanwhile? Could anything happen to him quite so wonderful, or worth the striving for, as Meenie's smile to him as she met him in the road? What for the time being made the skies full of brightness, and made the pulses of the blood flow gladly, and the day become charged with a kind of buoyancy of life? And as for these vague ambitions for the sake of which he had bartered away his freedom and sold himself into slavery—towards what did they tend? For whom? The excited atmosphere the Americans had brought with them had departed now: alas! this other atmosphere into which he had plunged was dull and sad enough, in all conscience; and the leaden days weighed down upon him; and the slow and solitary hours would not go by.

One evening he was coming in to the town by way of the Pollokshaws road; he had spent the afternoon hard at work with Mr. Weems, and was making home again to the silent little lodging in the north. He had now been a month and more in Glasgow; and had formed no kind of society or companionship whatever. Once or twice he had looked in at his brother's; but that was chiefly to see how the little Maggie was going on; his sister-in-law gave him no over-friendly welcome; and, indeed, the social atmosphere of the Reverend Andrew's house was far from being congenial to him. As for the letter of introduction that Meenie had given him to her married sister, of course he had not had the presumption to deliver that; he had accepted the letter, and thanked Meenie for it—for it was but another act of her always thoughtful kindness; but Mrs. Gemmill was the wife of a partner in a large warehouse; and they lived in Queen's Crescent; and altogether Ronald had no thought of calling on them—although to be sure he had heard that Mrs. Gemmill had been making sufficiently minute and even curious inquiries with regard to him of a member of his brother's congregation whom she happened to know. No; he lived his life alone; wrestling with the weariness of it as best he might; and not quite knowing, perhaps, how deeply it was eating into his heart.

Well, he was walking absently home on this dull gray evening, watching the lamp-lighter adding point after point to the long string of golden stars, when there went by a smartly appointed dog-cart. He did not particularly remark the occupants of the vehicle, though he knew they were two women, and that one of them was driving; his glance fell rather on the well-groomed cob, and he thought the varnished oak dog-cart looked neat and business-like. The next second it was pulled up; there was a pause, during which time he was of course drawing nearer; and then a woman's voice called to him—

'Bless me, is that you, Ronald?'

He looked up in amazement. And who was this, then, who had turned her head round and was now regarding him with her laughing, handsome, bold black eyes? She was a woman apparently of five-and-thirty or so, but exceedingly well preserved and comely; of pleasant features and fresh complexion; and of rather a manly build and carriage—an appearance that was not lessened by her wearing a narrow-brimmed little billycock hat. And then, even in this gathering dusk, he recognised her; and unconsciously he repeated her own words—

'Bless me, is that you, Mrs.—Mrs.—Menzies—' for in truth he had almost forgotten her name.

'Mrs. This or Mrs. That!' the other cried. 'I thought my name was Kate—it used to be anyway. Well, I declare! Come, give us a shake of your hand—auntie, this is my cousin Ronald!—and who would hae thought of meeting you in Glasgow, now!'

'I have been here a month and more,' Ronald said, taking the proffered hand.

'And never to look near me once—there's friendliness! Eh, and what a man you've grown to—ye were just a bit laddie when I saw ye last—but aye after the lasses, though—oh aye—bless me, what changes there hae been since then!'

'Well, Katie, it's not you that have changed much anyway,' said he, for he was making out again the old familiar girlish expression in the firmer features of the mature woman.

'And what's brought ye to Glasgow?' said she—but then she corrected herself: 'No, no; I'll have no long story wi' you standing on the pavement like that. Jump up behind, Ronald, lad, and come home wi' us, and we'll have a crack thegither——'

'Katie, dear,' said her companion, who was a little, white-faced, cringing and fawning old woman, 'let me get down and get up behind. Your cousin must sit beside ye——'

But already Ronald had swung himself on to the after seat of the vehicle; and Mrs. Menzies had touched the cob with her whip; and soon they were rattling away into the town.

'I suppose ye heard that my man was dead?' said she presently, and partly turning round.

'I think I did,' he answered rather vaguely.

'He was a good man to me, like Auld Robin Gray,' said this strapping widow, who certainly had a very matter-of-fact way in talking about her deceased husband. 'But he was never the best of managers, poor man. I've been doing better ever since. We've a better business, and not a penny of mortgage left on the tavern.'

'Weel ye may say that, Katie,' whined the old woman. 'There never was such a manager as you—never. Ay, and the splendid furniture—it was never thought o' in his time—bless 'm! A good man he was, and a kind man; but no the manager you are, Katie; there's no such another tavern in a' Glesca.'

Now although the cousinship with Ronald claimed by Mrs. Menzies did not exist in actual fact,—there was some kind of remote relationship, however,—still, it must be confessed that it was very ungrateful and inconstant of him to have let the fate and fortunes of the pretty Kate Burnside (as she was in former days) so entirely vanish from his mind and memory. Kate Burnside was the daughter of a small farmer in the Lammermuir district; and the Strangs and Burnsides were neighbours as well as remotely related by blood. But that was not the only reason why Ronald ought to have remembered a little more about the stalwart, black-eyed, fresh-cheeked country wench who, though she was some seven or eight years or more his senior, he had boldly chosen for his sweetheart in his juvenile days. Nay, had she not been the first inspirer of his muse; and had he not sung this ox-eyed goddess in many a laboured verse, carefully constructed after the manner of Tannahill or Motherwell or Allan Cunningham? The 'lass of Lammer Law' he called her in these artless strains; and Kate was far from resenting this frank devotion; nay, she even treasured up the verses in which her radiant beauties were enumerated; for why should not a comely East Lothian wench take pleasure in being told that her cheeks outshone the rose, and that the 'darts o' her bonnie black een' had slain their thousands, and that her faithful lover would come to see her, ay, though the Himalayas barred his way? But then, alas!—as happens in the world—the faithful lover was sent off into far neighbourhoods to learn the art and mystery of training pointers and setters; and Kate's father died, and the family dispersed from the farm; Kate went into service in Glasgow, and there she managed to capture the affections of an obese and elderly publican whom—she being a prudent and sensible kind of a creature—she forthwith married; by and by, through partaking too freely of his own wares, he considerately died, leaving her in sole possession of the tavern (he had called it a public-house, but she soon changed all that, and the place too, when she was established as its mistress); and now she was a handsome, buxom, firm-nerved woman, who could and did look well after her own affairs; who had a flourishing business, a comfortable bank account, and a sufficiency of friends of her own way of thinking; and whose raven-black hair did not as yet show a single streak of gray. It was all this latter part of Kate Burnside's—or rather, Mrs. Menzies's—career of which Ronald was so shamefully ignorant; but she speedily gave him enough information about herself as they drove through the gas-lit streets, for she was a voluble, high-spirited woman, who could make herself heard when she chose.

'Ay,' said she, at length, 'and where have ye left the good wife, Ronald?'

'What goodwife?' said he.

'Ye dinna tell me that you're no married yet?'

'Not that I know of,' said he.

'What have ye been about, man? Ye were aye daft about the lasses; and ye no married yet? What have ye been about, man, to let them a' escape ye?'

'Some folk have other things to think of,' said he evasively.

'Dinna tell me,' she retorted. 'I ken weel what's upper-most in the mind o' a handsome lad like you. Weel, if ye're no married, ye're the next door to it, I'll be bound. What's she like?'

'I'll tell ye when I find her,' said he drily.

'Ye're a dark one; but I'll find ye out, my man.'

She could not continue the conversation, for they were about to cross the bridge over the Clyde, and the congested traffic made her careful. And then again Jamaica Street was crowded and difficult to steer through; but presently she left that for a quieter thoroughfare leading off to the right; and in a few moments she had pulled up in front of a large tavern, close by a spacious archway.

'Auntie, gang you and fetch Alec to take the cob round, will ye?' said she; and then Ronald, surmising that she had now reached home, leapt to the ground, and went to the horse's head. Presently the groom appeared, and Kate Menzies descended from her chariot.

Now in Glasgow, for an establishment of this kind to be popular, it must have a side entrance—the more the merrier, indeed—by which people can get into the tavern without being seen; but besides this it soon appeared that Mrs. Menzies had a private right of way of her own. She bade Ronald follow her; she went through the archway; produced a key and opened a door; and then, passing along a short lobby, he found himself in what might be regarded as the back parlour of the public-house, but was in reality a private room reserved by Mrs. Menzies for herself and her intimate friends. And a very brilliant little apartment it was; handsomely furnished and shining with stained wood, plate glass, and velvet; the gas-jets all aglow in the clear globes; the table in the middle laid with a white cloth for supper, all sparkling with crystal and polished electro-plate. Moreover (for business is business) this luxurious little den commanded at will complete views of the front premises; and there was also a door leading thither; but the door was shut, and the red blinds were drawn over the two windows, so that the room looked quite like one in a private dwelling.

'And now, my good woman,' said Mrs. Menzies, as she threw her hat and cloak and dog-skin gloves into a corner, 'just you mak' them hurry up wi' supper; for we're just home in time; and we'll want another place at the table. And tell Jeannie there's a great friend o' mine come in, if she can get anything special—Lord's sake, Ronald, if I had kent I was going to fall in with you I would have looked after it mysel'.'

'Ye need not bother about me,' said he, 'for supper is not much in my way—not since I came to the town. Without the country air, I think one would as lief not sit down to a table at all.'

'Oh, I can cure ye o' that complaint,' she said confidently; and she rang the bell.

Instantly the door was opened, and he caught a glimpse of a vast palatial-looking place, with more stained wood and plate glass and velvet, and with several smartly-dressed young ladies standing or moving behind the long mahogany counters; moreover, one of these—a tall and serious-eyed maiden—now stood at the partly opened door.

'Gin and bitters, Mary,' said Mrs. Menzies briskly—she was at this moment standing in front of one of the mirrors, complacently smoothing her hair with her hands, and setting to rights her mannish little necktie.

The serious-eyed handmaiden presently reappeared, bringing a small salver, on which was a glass filled with some kind of a fluid, which she presented to him.

'What's this?' said he, appealing to his hostess.

'Drink it and find out,' said she; 'it'll make ye jump wi' hunger, as the Hielanman said.'

He did as he was bid; and loudly she laughed at the wry face that he made.

'What's the matter?'

'It's a devil of a kind of thing, that,' said he; for it was a first experience.

'Ay, but wait till ye find how hungry it will make ye,' she answered; and then she returned from the mirror. 'And I'm sure ye'll no mind my hair being a wee thing camstrairy, Ronald; there's no need for ceremony between auld freens, as the saying is——'

'But, look here, Katie, my lass,' said he—for perhaps he was a little emboldened by that fiery fluid, 'I'm thinking that maybe I'm making myself just a little too much at home. Now, some other time, when ye've no company, I'll come in and see ye——'

But she cut him short at once, and with some pride.

'Indeed, I'll tell ye this, that the day that Ronald Strang comes into my house—and into my own house too—that's no the day that he's gaun out o't without eating and drinking. Ma certes, no! And as for company, why there's none but auld mother Paterson—I ca' her auntie; but she's no more my auntie than you are—ye see, my man, Ronald, a poor, unprotected helpless widow woman maun look after appearances—for the world's unco given to leein', as Shakespeare says. There, Ronald, that's another thing,' she added suddenly—'ye'll take me to the theatre!—my word, we'll have a box!'

But these gay visions were interrupted by the reappearance of Mrs. Paterson, who was followed by a maidservant bearing a dish on which was a large sole, smoking hot. Indeed, it soon became apparent that this was to be a very elaborate banquet, such as Ronald was not at all familiar with; and all the care and flattering attention his hostess could pay him she paid him, laughing and joking with him, and insisting on his having the very best of everything, and eager to hand things to him—even if she rather ostentatiously displayed her abundant rings in doing so. And when mother Paterson said—

'What will ye drink, Katie dear? Some ale—or some porter?'

The other stormily answered—

'Get out, ye daft auld wife! Ale or porter the first day that my cousin Ronald comes into my own house? Champagne's the word, woman; and the best! What will ye have, Ronald—what brand do ye like?—Moett and Shandon?'

Ronald laughed.

'What do I know about such things?' said he. 'And besides, there's no reason for such extravagance. There's been no stag killed the day.'

'There's been no stag killed the day,' she retorted, 'but Ronald Strang's come into my house, and he'll have the best that's in it, or my name's no Kate Burnside—or Kate Menzies, I should say, God forgie me! Ring the bell, auntie.'

This time the grave-eyed barmaid appeared.

'A bottle of Moett and Shandon, Mary.'

'A pint bottle, m'm?'

'A pint bottle—ye stupid idiot?' she said (but quite good-naturedly). 'A quart bottle, of course!'

And then when the bottle was brought and the glasses filled, she said—

'Here's your health, Ronald; and right glad am I to see you looking so weel—ye were aye a bonnie laddie, and ye've kept the promise o't—ay, indeed, the whole o' you Strangs were a handsome family—except your brother Andrew, maybe——'

'Do ye ever see Andrew?' Ronald said; for a modest man does not like to have his looks discussed, even in the most flattering way.

Then loudly laughed Kate Menzies.

'Me? Me gang and see the Reverend Andrew Strang? No fears! He's no one o' my kind. He'd drive me out o' the house wi' bell, book, and candle. I hae my ain friends, thank ye—and I'm going to number you amongst them so long as ye stop in this town. Auntie, pass the bottle to Ronald!'

And so the banquet proceeded—a roast fowl and bacon, an apple-tart, cheese and biscuits and what not following in due succession; and all the time she was learning more and more of the life that Ronald had led since he had left the Lothians, and freely she gave him of her confidences in return. On one point she was curiously inquisitive, and that was as to whether he had not been in some entanglement with one or other of the Highland lasses up there in Sutherlandshire; and there was a considerable amount of joking on that subject, which Ronald bore good-naturedly enough; finding it on the whole the easier way to let her surmises have free course.

'But ye're a dark one!' she said at length. 'And ye would hae me believe that a strapping fellow like you hasna had the lasses rinnin' after him? I'm no sae daft.'

'I'll tell ye what it is, Katie,' he retorted, 'the lasses in the Highlands have their work to look after; they dinna live a' in clover, like the Glasgow dames.'

'Dinna tell me—dinna tell me,' she said.

And now, as supper was over and the table cleared, she went to a small mahogany cabinet and opened it.

'I keep some cigars here for my particular friends,' said Mrs. Menzies, 'but I'm sure I dinna ken which is the best. Come and pick for yourself, Ronald lad; if you're no certain the best plan is to take the biggest.'

'This is surely living on the fat of the land, Katie,' he protested.

'And what for no?' said she boldly. 'Let them enjoy themselves that's earned the right to it.'

'But that's not me,' he said.

'Well, it's me,' she answered. 'And when my cousin Ronald comes into my house, it's the best that's in it that's at his service—and no great wonder either!'

Well, her hospitality was certainly a little stormy; but the handsome widow meant kindly and well; and it is scarcely to be marvelled at if—under the soothing influences of the fragrant tobacco—he was rather inclined to substitute for this brisk and business-like Kate Menzies of these present days the gentler figure of the Kate Burnside of earlier years, more especially as she had taken to talking of those times, and of all the escapades the young lads and lasses used to enjoy on Hallowe'en night or during the first-footing at Hogmanay.

'And now I mind me, Ronald,' she said, 'ye used to be a fine singer when ye were a lad. Do ye keep it up still?'

'I sometimes try,' he answered. 'But there's no been much occasion since I came to this town. It's a lonely kind o' place, for a' the number o' folk in it.'

'Well, now ye're among friends, give us something!'

'Oh, that I will, if ye like,' said he readily; and he laid aside his cigar.

And then he sang—moderating his voice somewhat, so that he should not be heard in the front premises—a verse or two of an old favourite—

'The sun rase sae rosy, the gray hills adorning,

Light sprang the laverock, and mounted sae high,'

and if his voice was quiet, still the clear, penetrating quality of it was there; and when he had finished Kate Menzies said to him—after a second of irresolution—

'Ye couldna sing like that when ye were a lad, Ronald. It's maist like to gar a body greet.'

But he would not sing any more that night; he guessed that she must have her business affairs to attend to; and he was resolved upon going, in spite of all her importunacy. However, as a condition, she got him to promise to come and see her on the following evening. It was Saturday night; several of her friends were in the habit of dropping in on that night; finally, she pressed her entreaty so that he could not well refuse; and, having promised, he left.

And no doubt as he went home through the great, noisy, lonely city, he felt warmed and cheered by this measure of human companionship that had befallen him. As for Kate Menzies, it would have been a poor return for her excessive kindness if he had stopped to ask himself whether her robust camaraderie did not annoy him a little. He had had plenty of opportunities of becoming acquainted with the manners and speech and ways of refined and educated women; indeed, there are few gamekeepers in the Highlands who have not at one time or another enjoyed that privilege. Noble and gracious ladies who, in the south, would as soon think of talking to a door-mat as of entering into any kind of general conversation with their butler or coachman, will fall quite naturally into the habit—when they are living away in the seclusion of a Highland glen with the shooting-party at the lodge—of stopping to have a chat with Duncan or Hector the gamekeeper when they chance to meet, him coming along the road with his dogs; and, what is more, they find him worth the talking to. Then, again, had not Ronald been an almost daily spectator of Miss Douglas's sweet and winning manners—and that continued through years; and had not the young American lady, during the briefer period she was in the north, made quite a companion of him in her frank and brave fashion? He had almost to confess to himself that there was just a little too much of Mrs. Menzies's tempestuous good nature; and then again he refused to confess anything of the kind; and quarrelled with himself for being so ungrateful. Why, the first bit of real, heartfelt friendliness that had been shown him since he came to this great city; and he was to examine it; and be doubtful; and wish that the keeper of a tavern should be a little more refined!

'Ronald lad,' he was saying to himself when he reached his lodging in the dusky Port Dundas Road, 'it's over-fed stomachs that wax proud. You'll be better minded if you keep to your books and plainer living.'

CHAPTER XII.

A SOCIAL EVENING.

Looking forward to this further festivity he worked hard at his studies all day, and it was not until nearly nine o'clock in the evening that he went away down through the roaring streets to keep his engagement with Kate Menzies. And very snug and comfortable indeed did the little parlour look, with its clear glass globes and warmly-cushioned seats and brilliant mirrors and polished wood. Kate herself (who was quite resplendent in purple velvet and silver necklace and bangles) was reading a sporting newspaper; old mother Paterson was sewing; there were cigar-boxes on the table.

'And what d'ye mean,' cried the handsome widow gaily, when he made his appearance, 'by coming at this hour? Did not I tell ye we would expect ye to supper?'

'Would ye have me eat you out o' house and home, woman?' he said. 'Besides, I had some work to get through.'

'Well, sit down and make yerself happy; better late than never; there's the cigars—

'I would as lief smoke a pipe, Katie, if ye don't object—only that I'm shamed to smoke in a fine place like this——'

'What is't for, man? Do ye think I got it up for an exhibition—to be put in a glass case! And what'll ye drink now, Ronald—some Moett and Shandon?'

'Indeed no,' said he. 'If I may light my pipe I want nothing else.'

'But I canna bear an empty table,' said she. 'Here, auntie, get your flounces and falderals out o' the road—bless us, woman, ye make the place look like a milliner's shop! And bring out the punch-bowl frae the chiffonnier—I want ye to see it, Ronald, for it was gien to my gudeman by an auld freend o' his in Ayr, that got it from the last of the lairds o' Garthlie. And if ane or twa o' them happen to come in to-night we'll try a brew—for there's naething so wholesome, after a', as the wine o' the country, and I can gie ye some o' the real stuff. Will ye no try a drop the noo?'

'No thank ye, no thank ye,' said he, for he had lit his pipe, and was well content.

'Well, well, we'll have one o' the lasses in to set the tumblers and the glasses, for I canna thole to see a bare table; and in the meantime, Ronald, you and me can hae a crack be oursels, and ye can tell me what ye mean to do when ye get your certificate——'

'If I get it, ye mean, lass.'

'No fears,' she said confidently; 'ye were aye one o' the clever ones; I'll warrant ye there's na skim-milk in your head where the brains should be. But I want to ken what ye're ettling at after you've got the certificate, and what's your plans, and the like; for I've been thinking about it; and if there was any kind o' a starting needed—the loan of a bit something in the way of a nest-egg, ye see—weel, I ken a place where ye might get that, and ye wouldna have to whistle long at the yett either.'

Now there was no mistaking the generosity of this offer, however darkly it might be veiled by Kate Menzies's figurative manner of speech; and it was with none the less gratitude that he answered her and explained that a head-forester traded with the capital of his employer, though, to be sure, he might on entering a new situation have to find sureties for him.

'Is it caution-money ye mean, Ronald?' she said frankly.

'Well, if a man had no one to speak for him—no one whose word they would take,' he said to her (though all this was guess-work on his part), 'they might ask him for security. There would be no payment of money, of course, unless he robbed his employer; and then the sureties would have to make that good as far as they had undertaken. But it's a long way off yet, Katie, and hardly worth speaking about. I daresay Lord Ailine would say a word for me.'

'And is that a'?' she said, with a laugh. 'Is that a' the money's wanted for—to guarantee the honesty o' one o' the Strangs o' Whittermains? Weel, I'm no a rich woman, Ronald—for my money's maistly sunk in the tavern—and doing weel enough there too—but if it's a surety ye want, for three hunder pounds, ay, or five hunder pounds, just you come to me, and the deil's in't if we canna manage it somehow.'

'I thank ye for the offer anyway; I'm sure you mean it,' said he.

'That lawyer o' mine,' she continued, 'is a dour chiel; he'll no let me do this; and he's grumbling at that; and a poor widow woman is supposed to hae nae soul o' her ain. I'm sure the fuss that he makes about that cob, and only fifty-five guineas, and come o' the best Clydesdale stock——'

'But it was no the expense, it was no the expense, Katie dear,' whined the old woman, 'it was the risk to your life frae sae high-mettled a beast. Just think o't, at your time o' life, wi' a grand business, and yoursel' the manager o' it, and wi' sae mony freends, think what it would be if ye broke your neck——'

'Broke your grandmother's fiddlestrings!' said she. 'The beast's as quiet's a lamb. But that auld man, Peter Gunn. I suppose he's a good lawyer—indeed, every one says that—but he's as pernickety as an auld woman; and he'd mak' ye think the world was made o' silk paper, and ye daurna stir a step for fear o' fa'in through. But you just give me the word, Ronald, when the security's wanted; and we'll see if auld Peter can hinder me frae doing what I ought to do for one o' my own kith and kin.'

They were thus talking when there came a knock at the outer door; then there was a clamour of voices in the little lobby; and presently there were ushered into the room three visitors, who were forthwith introduced to Ronald, with a few words of facetious playfulness from the widow. There was first a Mr. Jaap, a little old man with Jewish features, bald on the top of his head, but with long, flowing gray hair behind; a mild-looking old man, but with merry eyes nevertheless—and indeed all of them seemed to have been joking as they came in. Then there was a Mr. Laidlaw, a younger man, of middle height, and of a horsey type; stupid-looking, rather, but not ill-natured. The third was Captain M'Taggart, a large heavy man, with a vast, radiant, Bardolphian face, whose small, shrewd, twinkling blue eyes had the expression rather of a Clyde skipper given to rough jesting and steady rum-drinking (and he was all that) than of the high-souled, child-hearted sailor of romance.

'Sit ye down, sit ye down,' their hostess said gaily. 'Here, captain, is a job for ye; here's the punch-bowl that we only have on great days, ye ken; and your brew is famous—whether wi' old Jamaica or Long John. Set to work now—here's the sugar and the lemons ready for ye—for ye maun a' drink the health o' my cousin here that's come frae Sutherland.'

'Frae Sutherland, say ye, Mistress?' the big skipper said, as he reached over for the lemons. 'Ye should ca' him your kissin frae the Hielans then. Do ye ken that story, Laidlaw? D'ye ken that yin about the Hielan kissins, Jaap? Man, that's a gude yin! have ye no heard it? Have ye no heard it, Mistress?'

'Tell us what it is first, and we'll tell you afterwards,' said she saucily.

'Weel, then,' said he—and he desisted from his preparations for the punch-making, for he was famous along the Broomielaw as a story-teller, and liked to keep up his reputation, 'it was twa young lasses, twa cousins they were, frae the west side o' Skye—and if there's ony place mair Hielan than that, it's no me that ever heard o't—and they were ta'en into service in an inn up about the Gairloch or Loch Inver, or one o' they lochs. Both o' them were good-looking lasses, mind ye; but one o' them just unusual handsome. Well, then, there happened to come to the inn an English tourist—a most respectable old gentleman he was; and it was one o' they two lasses—and no the brawest o' them either—that had to wait on him: but he was a freendly auld man; and on the mornin' o' his gaun awa he had to ring for something or other, and when she brought it to him, he said to her, jist by way o' compliment, ye ken, "You are a very good-looking girl, do you know, Flora?" And of course the lass was very well pleased; but she was a modest lassie too; and she said, "Oh no, sir; but I hef heard them say my kissin was peautiful!" "Your what?" said he. "My kissin, sir—" "Get away, you bold hussy! Off with you at once, or I'll ring for your master—you brazen baggage!"—and to this very day, they tell me, the poor lass do'esna ken what on earth it was that made the auld man into a madman; for what harm had she done in telling him that her cousin was better-looking than herself?'

This recondite joke was received with much laughter by the company; and even Ronald had to admit that the Clyde skipper's imitation of the Highland accent was very fairly well done. But joke-making is dull work with empty glasses; and so Captain M'Taggart set himself seriously to the business of brewing that bowl of punch, while Kate Menzies polished the silver ladle to an even higher extreme of brilliancy.

Now these three old cronies of the widow's had betrayed a little surprise on finding a stranger installed in their favourite howf; and perhaps they might have been inclined to resent the intrusion had not Kate Menzies very speedily intimated her views upon the subject in unmistakable language. Her 'cousin Ronald' was all her cry; it was Ronald this and Ronald that; and whatever Ronald said, that was enough, and decisive. For, of course, after a glass or so of punch, the newcomers had got to talking politics—or what they took to be politics; and Ronald, when he was invited to express his opinion, proved to be on the unpopular side; nor did he improve his position by talking with open scorn of a great public agitation then going on—indeed, he so far forgot himself as to define stump-oratory as only another form of foot-and-mouth disease. But at least he had one strenuous backer, and neither Mr. Laidlaw nor Mr. Jaap nor the big skipper was anxious to quarrel with a controversialist who had such abundant stores of hospitality at her command. Moreover, Kate Menzies was in the habit of speaking her mind; was it not better, for the sake of peace and quietness, to yield a little? This cousin of hers from the Highlands could parade some book-learning it is true; and he had plenty of cut-and-dried theories that sounded plausible enough; and his apparent knowledge of the working of American institutions was sufficiently good for an argument—so long as one could not get at the real facts; but they knew, of course, that, with time to get at these facts and to furnish forth replies to his specious reasonings, they could easily prove their own case. In the meantime they would be magnanimous. For the sake of good fellowship—and to oblige a lady—they shifted the subject.

Or rather she did.

'I suppose you'll be going to the Harmony Club to-night?' she said.

'For a while, at least,' replied the captain. 'Mr. Jaap's new song is to be sung the nicht; and we maun get him an encore for't. Not that it needs us; "Caledonia's hills and dales" will be a' ower Glasgow before a fortnight's out; and it's young Tam Dalswinton that's to sing it. Tam'll do his best, no fear.'

'It's little ye think,' observed Mrs. Menzies, with a kind of superior air, 'that there's somebody not a hundred miles frae here that can sing better than a' your members and a' your professionals put thegither. The Harmony Club! If the Harmony Club heard him, they might tak tent and learn a lesson.'

'Ay, and wha's he when he's at hame, Mistress?' Captain M'Taggart said.

'He's not fifty miles away frae here anyway,' she said. 'And if I was to tell ye that he's sitting not three yards away frae ye at this meenit?'

'Katie, woman, are ye daft?' Ronald said, and he laughed, but his forehead grew red all the same.

'No, I'm no,' she answered confidently. 'I ken what I'm saying as weel as most folk. Oh, I've heard some o' the best o' them—no at the Harmony Club, for they're too high and mighty to let women bodies in—but at the City Hall concerts and in the theatres; and I've got a good enough ear, too; I ken what's what; and I ken if my cousin Ronald were to stand up at the Saturday Evening Concerts, and sing the song he sung in this very room last night, I tell ye he would take the shine out o' some o' them!'

'He micht gie us a screed now,' Mr. Laidlaw suggested—his somewhat lack-lustre eyes going from his hostess to Ronald.

'Faith, no!' Ronald said, laughing, 'there's been ower great a flourish beforehand. The fact is, Mrs. Menzies here——'

'I thought I telled ye my name was Kate?' she said sharply.

'Kate, Cat, or Kitten, then, as ye like, woman, what I mean to say is that ower long a grace makes the porridge cold. Some other time—some other time, lass.'

'Ay, and look here, Mr. Jaap,' continued the widow, who was determined that her cousin's superior qualifications should not be hidden, 'ye are aye complaining that ye canna get anything but trash to set your tunes to. Well, here's my cousin; I dinna ken if he still keeps at the trade, but as a laddie he could just write ye anything ye liked right aff the reel, and as good as Burns, or better. There's your chance now. Everybody says your music's jist splendid—and the choruses taken up in a meenit—but you just ask Ronald there to gie ye something worth while making a song o'.'

Now not only did the old man express his curiosity to see some of Ronald's work in this way, and also the gratification it would give him to set one of his songs to music, but Ronald was likewise well pleased with the proposal. His own efforts in adapting tunes to his verses he knew were very amateurish; and would it not be a new sensation—a little pride commingled with the satisfaction perhaps—to have one of his songs presented with an original air all to itself, and perhaps put to the test of being sung before some more or less skilled audience? He knew he had dozens to choose from; some of them patriotic, others convivial, others humorous in a kind of way: from any of these the musician was welcome to select as he liked. The love songs about Meenie were a class apart.

And now that they had got away from the thrashed-out straw of politics to more congenial themes, these three curiously assorted boon-companions proved to be extremely pleasant and good-natured fellows; and when, at length, they said it was time for them to be off to the musical club, they cordially invited Ronald to accompany them. He was nothing loth, for he was curious to see the place; and if Mrs. Menzies grumbled a little at being left alone she consoled herself by hinting that her protégé could teach them a lesson if he chose to do so.

'When ye've listened for a while to their squalling, Ronald, my man, jist you get up and show them how an East Lothian lad can do the trick.'

'What's that, Mistress? I thought ye said your cousin was frae the Hielans,' the skipper broke in.

'Frae the Hielans? Frae East Lothian, I tell ye; where I come frae mysel'; and where ye'll find the brawest lads and lasses in the breadth o' Scotland,' she added saucily.

'And they dinna stay a' at hame either,' remarked the big skipper, with much gallantry, as the visitors prepared to leave.

They went away through the noisy, crowded, glaring streets, and at length entered a spacious dark courtyard, at the head of which was a small and narrow entrance. The skipper led the way; but as they passed up the staircase they became aware of a noise of music overhead; and when they reached the landing, they had to pause there, so as not to interrupt the proceedings within. It was abundantly clear what these were. A man's voice was singing 'Green grow the rashes, O' to a smart and lively accompaniment on the piano; while at the end of each verse joined in a sufficiently enthusiastic chorus:

'Green grow the rashes, O,

Green grow the rashes, O,

The sweetest hours that e'er I spent,

Were spent among the lasses, O.'

and that was repeated:

'Green grow the rashes, O,

Green grow the rashes, O,

The sweetest hours that e'er I spen',

Were spent among the lasses, O.'

Then there was silence. The skipper now opened the door; and, as they entered, Ronald found himself near the head of a long and loftily-ceilinged apartment, the atmosphere of which was of a pale blue cast, through the presence of much tobacco smoke. All down this long room were twin rows of small tables, at which little groups of friends or acquaintances sate—respectable looking men they seemed, many of them young fellows, more of them of middle age, and nearly all of them furnished with drinks and pipes or cigars. At the head of the room was a platform, not raised more than a foot from the floor, with a piano at one end of it; and in front of the platform was a special semicircular table, presided over by a bland rubicund gentleman, to whom Ronald was forthwith introduced. Indeed, the newcomers were fortunate enough to find seats at this semicircular table; and when beverages were called for and pipes lit, they waited for the further continuance of the proceedings.

These were of an entirely simple and ingenuous character, and had no taint whatsoever of the ghastly make-believe of wit, the mean swagger, and facetious innuendo of the London music hall. Now a member of the Club, when loudly called upon by the general voice, would step up to the platform and sing some familiar Scotch ballad; and again one of the professional singers in attendance (they did not appear in swallow-tail and white tie, by the way, but in soberer attire) would 'oblige' with something more ambitious; but throughout there was a prevailing tendency towards compositions with a chorus; and the chorus grew more universal and more enthusiastic as the evening proceeded. Then occasionally between the performances there occurred a considerable interval, during which the members of the Club would make brief visits to the other tables; and in this way Ronald made the acquaintance of a good number of those moderately convivial souls. For, if there was a tolerable amount of treating and its corresponding challenges, there was no drunkenness apparent anywhere; there was some loud talking; and Captain M'Taggart was unduly anxious that everybody should come and sit at the President's table; but the greatest hilarity did not exceed bounds. It was to be observed, however, that, as the evening drew on, it was the extremely sentimental songs that were the chief favourites—those that mourned the bygone days of boyhood and youth, or told of the premature decease of some beloved Annie or Mary.

Ronald was once or twice pressed to sing; but he good-naturedly refused.

'Some other time, if I may have the chance, I will try to screw up my courage,' he said. 'And by that time ye'll have forgotten what Mrs. Menzies said: the East Lothian folk are wonderful for praising their own kith and kin.'

As to letting old Mr. Jaap have a song or two to set to music, that was another and simpler matter; and he promised to hunt out one or two of them. In truth, it would not be difficult, as he himself perceived, to find something a little better than the 'Caledonia's hills and dales' which was sung that night, and which was of a very familiar pattern indeed. And Ronald looked forward with not a little natural satisfaction to the possibility of one of his songs being sung in that resounding hall; a poet must have his audience somewhere; and this, at least, was more extensive than a handful of farm lads and lasses collected together in the barn at Inver-Mudal.

At about half-past eleven the entire company broke up and dispersed; and Ronald, after thanking his three companions very heartily for their hospitality during the evening, set off for his lodgings in the north of the city. He was quite enlivened and inspirited by this unusual whirl of gaiety; it had come into his sombre and lonely life as a startling surprise. The rattle of the piano—the resounding choruses—the eager talk of these boon-companions—all this was of an exciting nature; and as he walked away through the now darkened thoroughfares, he began to wonder whether he could not write some lilting verses in the old haphazard way. He had not even tried such a thing since he came to Glasgow; the measurement of surface areas and the classification of Dicotyledons did not lead him in that direction. But on such a gala-night as this, surely he might string some lines together—about Glasgow lads and lasses, and good-fellowship, and the delights of a roaring town? It would be an experiment, in any case.

Well, when he had got home and lit the gas, and sate down to the jingling task, it was not so difficult, after all. But there was an undernote running through these verses that he had not contemplated when he set out. When the first glow of getting them together was over, he looked down the page, and then he put it away; in no circumstances could this kind of song find its way into the Harmony Club; and yet he was not altogether disappointed that it was so.

O Glasgow lasses are fair enough,

And Glasgow lads are merry;

But I would be with my own dear maid,

A-wandering down Strath-Terry.

And she would be singing her morning song,

The song that the larks have taught her;

A song of the northern seas and hills,

And a song of Mudal-Water.

The bands go thundering through the streets,

The fifes and drums together;

Far rather I'd hear the grouse-cock crow

Among the purple heather;

And I would be on Ben Clebrig's brow,

To watch the red-deer stealing

In single file adown the glen

And past the summer sheiling.

O Glasgow lasses are fair enough,

And Glasgow lads are merry;

But ah, for the voice of my own dear maid,

A-singing adown Strath-Terry!

CHAPTER XIII.

INDUCEMENTS.

Ronald's friendship with the hospitable widow and his acquaintanceship with those three boon-companions of hers grew apace; and many a merry evening they all of them had together in the brilliant little parlour, Ronald singing his own or any other songs without stint, the big skipper telling elaborately facetious Highland stories, the widow bountiful with her cigars and her whisky-toddy. And yet he was ill, ill at ease. He would not admit to himself, of course, that he rather despised these new acquaintances—for were they not most generous and kind towards him?—nor yet that the loud hilarity he joined in was on his part at times a trifle forced. Indeed, he could not very well have defined the cause of this disquietude and restlessness and almost despair that was present to his consciousness even when the laugh was at its loudest and the glasses going round most merrily. But the truth was he had begun to lose heart in his work. The first glow of determination that had enabled him to withstand the depression of the dull days and the monotonous labour had subsided now. The brilliant future the Americans had painted for him did not seem so attractive. Meenie was away; perhaps never to be met with more; and the old glad days that were filled with the light of her presence were all gone now and growing ever more and more distant. And in the solitude of the little room up there in the Port Dundas Road—with the gray atmosphere ever present at the windows, and the dull rumble of the carts and waggons without—he was now getting into a habit of pushing aside his books for a while, and letting his fancies go far afield; insomuch that his heart seemed to grow more and more sick within him, and more and more he grew to think that somehow life had gone all wrong with him.

There is in Glasgow a thoroughfare familiarly known as Balmanno Brae. It is in one of the poorer neighbourhoods of the town; and is in truth rather a squalid and uninteresting place; but it has the one striking peculiarity of being extraordinarily steep, having been built on the side of a considerable hill. Now one must have a powerful imagination to see in this long, abrupt, blue-gray thoroughfare—with its grimy pavements and house-fronts, and its gutters running with dirty water—any resemblance to the wide slopes of Ben Clebrig and the carolling rills that flow down to Loch Naver; but all the same Ronald had a curious fancy for mounting this long incline, and that at the hardest pace he could go. For sometimes, in that little room, he felt almost like a caged animal dying for a wider air, a more active work; and here at least was a height that enabled him to feel the power of his knees; while the mere upward progress was a kind of inspiriting thing, one always having a vague fancy that one is going to see farther in getting higher. Alas! there was but the one inevitable termination to these repeated climbings; and that not the wide panorama embracing Loch Loyal and Ben Hope and the far Kyle of Tongue, but a wretched little lane called Rotten Row—a double line of gloomy houses, with here and there an older-fashioned cottage with a thatched roof, and with everywhere pervading the close atmosphere an odour of boiled herrings. And then again, looking back, there was no yellow and wide-shining Strath-Terry, with its knolls of purple heather and its devious rippling burns, but only the great, dark, grim, mysterious city, weltering in its smoke, and dully groaning, as it were, under the grinding burden of its monotonous toil.

As the Twelfth of August drew near he became more and more restless. He had written to Lord Ailine to say that, if he could be of any use, he would take a run up to Inver-Mudal for a week or so, just to see things started for the season; but Lord Ailine had considerately refused the offer, saying that everything seemed going on well enough, except, indeed, that Lugar the Gordon setter was in a fair way of being spoilt, for that, owing to Ronald's parting injunctions, there was not a man or boy about the place would subject the dog to any kind of chastisement or discipline whatever. And it sounded strange to Ronald to hear that he was still remembered away up there in the remote little hamlet.

On the morning of the day before the Twelfth his books did not get much attention. He kept going to the window to watch the arrivals at the railway station opposite, wondering whether this one or that was off and away to the wide moors and the hills. Then, about mid-day, he saw a young lad bring up four dogs—a brace of setters, a small spaniel, and a big brown retriever—and give them over in charge to a porter. Well, human nature could not stand this any longer. His books were no longer thought of; on went his Glengarry cap; and in a couple of minutes he was across the road and into the station, where the porter was hauling the dogs along the platform.

'Here, my man, I'll manage the doggies for ye,' he said, getting hold of the chains and straps; and of course the dogs at once recognised in him a natural ally and were less alarmed. A shambling, bow-legged porter hauling at them they could not understand at all; but in the straight figure and sun-tanned cheek and clear eye of the newcomer they recognised features familiar to them; and then he spoke to them as if he knew them.

'Ay, and what's your name, then?—Bruce, or Wallace, or Soldier?—but there'll no be much work for you for a while yet. It's you, you two bonnie lassies, that'll be amongst the heather the morn; and well I can see ye'll work together, and back each other, and just set an example to human folk. And if ye show yourselves just a wee bit eager at the beginning o' the day—well, well, well, we all have our faults, and that one soon wears off. And what's your names, then?—Lufra, or Nell, or Bess, or Fan? And you, you wise auld chiel—I'm thinking ye could get a grip o' a mallard that would make him imagine he had got back into his mother's nest—you're a wise one—the Free Kirk elder o' the lot'—for, indeed, the rest of them were all pawing at him, and licking his hands, and whimpering their friendship. The porter had to point out to him that he, the porter, could not stand there the whole day with 'a wheen dogs;' whereupon Ronald led these new companions of his along to the dog-box that had been provided for them, and there, when they had been properly secured, the porter left him. Ronald could still talk to them however, and ask them questions; and they seemed to understand well enough: indeed, he had not spent so pleasant a half-hour for many and many a day.

There chanced to come along the platform a little, wiry, elderly man, with a wholesome-looking weather-tanned face, who was carrying a bundle of fishing-rods over his shoulder; and seeing how Ronald was engaged he spoke to him in passing and began to talk about the dogs.

'Perhaps they're your dogs?' Ronald said.

'No, no, our folk are a' fishing folk,' said the little old man, who was probably a gardener or something of the kind, and who seemed to take readily to this new acquaintance. 'I've just been in to Glasgow to get a rod mended, and to bring out a new one that the laird has bought for himself.'

He grinned in a curious sarcastic way.

'He's rather a wee man; and this rod—Lord sakes, ye never saw such a thing! it would break the back o' a Samson—bless ye, the butt o't's like a weaver's beam; and for our gudeman to buy a thing like that—well, rich folk hae queer ways o' spending their money.'

He was a friendly old man; and this joke of his master having bought so tremendous an engine seemed to afford him so much enjoyment that when Ronald asked to be allowed to see this formidable weapon he said at once—

'Just you come along outside there, and we'll put it thegither, and ye'll see what kind o' salmon-rod an old man o' five foot five thinks he can cast wi'——'

'If it's no taking up too much of your time,' Ronald suggested, but eager enough he was to get a salmon-rod into his fingers again.

'I've three quarters of an hour to wait,' was the reply, 'for I canna make out they train books ava.'

They went out beyond the platform to an open space, and very speedily the big rod was put together. It was indeed an enormous thing; but a very fine rod, for all that; and so beautifully balanced and so beautifully pliant that Ronald, after having made one or two passes through the air with it, could not help saying to the old man, and rather wistfully too—

'I suppose ye dinna happen to have a reel about ye?'

'That I have,' was the instant answer, 'and a brand new hundred-yard line on it too. Would ye like to try a cast? I'm thinking ye ken something about it.'

It was an odd kind of place to try the casting-power of a salmon-rod, this dismal no-man's-land of empty trucks and rusted railway-points and black ashes; but no sooner had Ronald begun to send out a good line—taking care to recover it so that it should not fray itself along the gritty ground—than the old man perceived he had to deal with no amateur.

'Man, ye're a dab, and no mistake! As clean a line as ever I saw cast! It's no the first time you've handled a salmon-rod, I'll be bound!'

'It's the best rod I've ever had in my hand,' Ronald said, as he began to reel in the line again. 'I'm much obliged to ye for letting me try a cast—it's many a day now since I threw a line.'

They took the rod down and put it in its case.

'I'm much obliged to ye,' Ronald repeated (for the mere handling of this rod had fired his veins with a strange kind of excitement). 'Will ye come and take a dram?'

'No, thank ye, I'm a teetotaller,' said the other; and then he glanced at Ronald curiously. 'But ye seem to ken plenty about dogs and about fishing and so on—what are ye doing in Glasgow and the morn the Twelfth? Ye are not a town lad?'

'No, I'm not; but I have to live in the town at present,' was the answer. 'Well, good-day to ye; and many thanks for the trial o' the rod.'

'Good-day, my lad; I wish I had your years and the strength o' your shouthers.'

In passing Ronald said good-bye again to the handsome setters and the spaniel and the old retriever; and then he went on and out of the station, but it was not to return to his books. The seeing of so many people going away to the north, the talking with the dogs, the trial of the big salmon-rod, had set his brain a little wild. What if he were to go back and beg of the withered old man to take him with him—ay, even as the humblest of gillies, to watch, gaff in hand, by the side of the broad silver-rippling stream, or to work in a boat on a blue-ruffled loch! To jump into a third-class carriage and know that the firm inevitable grip of the engine was dragging him away into the clearer light, the wider skies, the glad free air! No wonder they said that fisher folk were merry folk; the very jolting of the engine would in such a case have a kind of music in it; how easily could one make a song that would match with the swing of the train! It was in his head now, as he rapidly and blindly walked away along the Cowcaddens, and along the New City Road, and along the Western Road—random rhymes, random verses, that the jolly company could sing together as the engine thundered along—

Out of the station we rattle away,

Wi' a clangour of axle and wheel;

There's a merrier sound that we knew in the north—

The merry, merry shriek of the reel!

O you that shouther the heavy iron gun,

And have steep, steep braes to speel—

We envy you not; enough is for us

The merry, merry shriek of the reel!

When the twenty-four pounder leaps in the air,

And the line flies out with a squeal—

O that is the blessedest sound upon earth,

The merry, merry shriek of the reel!

So here's to good fellows!—for them that are not,

Let them gang and sup kail wi' the deil!

We've other work here—so look out, my lads,

For the first, sharp shriek of the reel!

He did not care to put the rough-jolting verses down on paper, for the farther and the more rapidly he walked away out of the town the more was his brain busy with pictures and visions of all that they would be doing at this very moment at Inver-Mudal.

'God bless me,' he said to himself, 'I could almost swear I hear the dogs whimpering in the kennels.'

There would be the young lads looking after the panniers and the ponies; and the head-keeper up at the lodge discussing with Lord Ailine the best way of taking the hill in the morning, supposing the wind to remain in the same direction; and Mr. Murray at the door of the inn, smoking his pipe as usual; and the pretty Nelly indoors waiting upon the shooting party just arrived from the south and listening to all their wants. And Harry would be wondering, amid all this new bustle and turmoil, why his master did not put in an appearance; perhaps scanning each succeeding dog-cart or waggonette that came along the road; and then, not so blithe-spirited, making his way to the Doctor's house. Comfort awaited him there, at all events; for Ronald had heard that Meenie had taken pity on the little terrier, and that it was a good deal oftener with her than at the inn. Only all this seemed now so strange; the great dusk city lay behind him like a nightmare from which he had but partially escaped, and that with tightened breath; and he seemed to be straining his ears to catch those soft and friendly voices so far away. And then later on, as the darkness fell, what would be happening there? The lads would be coming along to the inn; lamps lit, and chairs drawn in to the table; Mr. Murray looking in at times with his jokes, and perhaps with a bit of a treat on so great an occasion. And surely—surely—as they begin to talk of this year and of last year and of the changes—surely some one will say—perhaps Nelly, as she brings in the ale—but surely some one will say—as a mere word of friendly remembrance—'Well, I wish Ronald was here now with his pipes, to play us The Barren Rocks of Aden? Only a single friendly word of remembrance—it was all that he craved.

He struck away south through Dowanhill and Partick, and crossed the Clyde at Govan Ferry; then he made his way back to the town and Jamaica Street bridge; and finally, it being now dusk, looked in to see whether Mrs. Menzies was at leisure for the evening.

'What's the matter, Ronald?' she said instantly, as he entered, for she noticed that his look was careworn and strange.

'Well, Katie, lass, I don't quite know what's the matter wi' me, but I feel as if I just couldna go back to that room of mine and sit there by myself—at least not yet; I think I've been put a bit daft wi' seeing the people going away for the Twelfth; and if ye wouldna mind my sitting here for a while with ye, for the sake o' company——'

'Mind!' she said. 'Mind! What I do mind is that you should be ganging to that lodging-house at a', when there's a room—and a comfortable room, though I say it that shouldn't—in this very house at your disposal, whenever ye like to bring your trunk till it. There it is—an empty room, used by nobody—and who more welcome to it than my ain cousin? I'll tell ye what, Ronald, my lad, ye're wearing yoursel' away on a gowk's errand. Your certificate! How do ye ken ye'll get your certificate? How do ye ken ye will do such great things with it when ye get it? You're a young man; you'll no be a young man twice; what I say is, take your fling when ye can get it! Look at Jimmy Laidlaw—he's off the first thing in the morning to the Mearns—£15 for his share of the shooting—do ye think he can shoot like you?—and why should ye no have had your share too?'

'Well, it was very kind of you, Katie, woman, to make the offer; but—but—there's a time for everything.'