THE CURE
I
Mr. McRobbie, comfortably disposed in a deep leather armchair in the smoking-room of Invermutchkin House, was cleaning a gun and contentedly emitting through his nose what sounded like a bag pipe lament. He was a patriarchal old gentleman with a long white beard, wearing the plain kilt, homespun stockings, and tweed jacket of the Highland game-keeper.
Incidentally it may be noted that Mr. McRobbie had no right to be cleaning guns in the smoking-room at all. But Invermutchkin House had recently changed hands, and its new proprietor had not yet arrived to take possession. McRobbie and his daughter Elspeth, supported by the firm of Cook and Tweeny, were in sole charge of the premises.
It was a perfect morning in late August. Invermutchkin House was a genuine shooting-box, set right on the moor; and waves of heathery turf, rolling down from the jagged skyline, lapped against the very foot of the veranda outside the smoking-room windows. On the other side of the house a pair of parallel wheel tracks, with the courtesy title of carriage drive, connected the front door with the main road half a mile away.
The smoking-room door opened, and Miss Elspeth McRobbie appeared. She was a demure young woman of about twenty-five, distinguished in the presence of her superiors by the stately and insincere politeness of the Celt engaged in exploiting the Saxon.
“Father,” she announced, in a pretty Highland accent, “you had best be getting out of this. The young lady has taken her breakfast and is coming in here. Take you the guns and go away down the kitchen stair.”
Mr. McRobbie swung himself from the deep seated armchair with an ease which many a city man of forty-five would have envied.
“When is ta shentleman arriving from ta south?” he demanded.
“This morning.”
McRobbie received this intelligence without enthusiasm.
“And what like,” he continued, collecting numerous oily rags from the surrounding furniture, “is ta young leddy herself?”
“She is very peautiful, and she takes a good breakfast, and”—Miss McRobbie shuddered delicately—“a cold bath in the morning.”
“Pless me!” exclaimed her father. “Is she daft?”
“I could not rightly say,” replied Elspeth: “I did not get speaking with her yet. It was late last night when she arrived; and she said she would take a cold bath in the morning at eight, and two eggs to her breakfast at nine, with a piece of ham and scones and jeely.”
At this moment the lady under discussion entered from the veranda. She was an extremely pretty girl of twenty-one, attired in a short tweed skirt and a knitted silk jumper, which formed an effective background for an armful of fuchsias, newly gathered from the southern wall of the house. Her name was Hilda Smithson; and besides being pretty she was healthy, vigorous, and practical—such a type, happily, as this generation, for all its lamentations over its own offspring, still produces in attractive and reassuring quantities.
Like most pretty girls, Hilda was in the habit of asking for what she wanted and seeing that she got it.
“Elspeth,” she demanded, setting down the flowers upon the table, “how do you sweep out bedrooms in this house?”
“With a broom, mem,” replied Elspeth, with an indulgent smile. “Yes, mem. This is my father, mem.”
Hilda shook hands with the venerable McRobbie in a friendly fashion.
“How do you do, Mr. McRobbie?” she said. “Have you a gunroom in the house?”
McRobbie admitted that such was the case, and added that it was “a peautiful gunroom.”
“Then I think,” said Hilda, “that you had better clear up that mess behind you and take it there. And keep it there,” she added.
Mr. McRobbie, considerably flustered by such unexpectedly firm handling, gathered up his belongings and sidled towards the door.
“I will send for you when I want you,” added Hilda. “Don’t forget that oily rag you have left on the clock. And Elspeth”—frustrating Miss McRobbie in an attempt to retreat under the lee of her parent–“wait a minute.”
The door closed, and Hilda sat down upon the arm of the chair recently vacated by her retainer.
“The cook, mem,” announced Elspeth rapidly, “was asking me just now what would you and the shentleman like to your dinners.”
“Thank you,” said Hilda: “I have just seen the cook. I fancy she will be too busy to-day cleaning up the kitchen to have much time for cooking. Now, to get back to the bedrooms; when you sweep a bedroom floor, where do you sweep the dust? Into a corner?”
“Oh, no, mem,” protested Elspeth in a shocked voice. “It would be so untidy. Under the bed.”
“Well,” replied Miss Smithson, “I want you and the other maid to set to work at once and sweep out every room in this house, beginning under the beds. By the way, how is it that none of the bells will ring?”
“McMutchkin was not using them a great deal, mem,” explained Miss McRobbie. (McMutchkin had been the name of the aristocratic but somewhat primitive old gentleman who had spent the last forty years of his life as proprietor of Invermutchkin House.) “If he would be wanting anything he would just let a roar down the kitchen stair.”
At this moment a faint “ting-ting” was audible from the direction of the veranda.
“There seems to be one bell in the house in order, after all,” said Hilda.
“That is a bicycle, mem,” replied Elspeth. “It will be the postman, or Mr. Angus.” She walked to the window and looked out. “Yes, indeed, it is Mr. Angus.
“Mr. Angus?”
“Yes, mem. Captain Farquhar, the factor.”
“Captain Angus Farquhar?” inquired Hilda quickly.
“Yes, mem—a nice shentleman. Will I give him a cry?”
“Certainly not. If he comes to the front door, show him in here, properly.”
Miss McRobbie, foreseeing much unnecessary labour ahead if such a precedent as this were established, hastened to point out:
“McMutchkin would never be doing that, mem. He would just cry out to any pairson that was passing, to come away in and have a dram.”
“At once, please, Elspeth!” said Hilda—and Elspeth was not.
As the door closed upon her, Angus Farquhar appeared in the veranda, wheeling a bicycle, which he propped against the rail. He was a tall young man in a much-worn shooting-jacket.
Angus turned to the doorway leading into the smoking-room. Framed within it he beheld a vision in a canary-coloured jumper—a vision with parted lips and surprised eyes. Next moment two obviously pleased and faintly embarrassed young people were shaking hands vigorously.
“I’d no idea it was you who had taken this place,” said Angus, breaking the silence which usually follows sudden greetings.
“And I had no idea we should find you here. Sit down and have a cigarette. No, I forgot: I don’t think they’re unpacked yet: I only arrived here last night. Light a pipe, or something—anything!” Hilda was speaking with a shade less than her usual composure. There was a vivacious, almost nervous, note in her voice which Miss Elspeth McRobbie, for instance, would have entirely failed to recognize.
“Sit down,” she continued, “while I put these flowers into a vase. Aren't they lovely? Fancy fuchsias growing in the open air so far north.”
“They grow all over the West Highlands,” said Angus. “There's a vase on the mantelpiece. Let me get it for you.”
“Don’t bother,” said Hilda. “Sit still and go on answering questions. I presume you have some official connection with this place? Are you the agent, or whatever they call it in this country?”
“The factor—yes.”
“And are you responsible for the upkeep and good order of the establishment?”
“The correct expression,” said Angus, “is ‘the house and policies.’”
“Anyhow, you’re responsible?”
“To a certain extent,” admitted the young man cautiously.
“Then,” inquired Miss Smithson, wheeling round on him, “perhaps you can inform me why not a bell in the house will ring, and why I found twenty-seven whiskey-bottles on the top of my wardrobe.”
“Possibly McMutchkin had finished with them,” suggested Angus. “And the next article?”
“Not one of the bedroom windows in the house will open,” said Hilda.
Angus Farguhar's slightly sardonic features relaxed into a cheerful grin.
“The McMutchkins of Invermutchkin,” he explained, “trace back their ancestry to an era considerably antecedent to the birth of the lunatic who invented draughts. The clan was founded then, and has not changed its habits since.”
“Men,” commented Miss Smithson, “are all alike where ventilation is concerned. And why is there no bathroom in the house?”
“The McMutchkins,” replied Angus, “did not approve of total immersion.”
“Well,” announced Hilda, setting the bunch of fuchsias in the middle of the table with an emphatic bump, “the McMutchkins are out of this place for good and all, and the Smithsons reign in their stead—plain, dull, and nouveau riche; but clean! At present the roof of this house leaks, the chimneys smoke, the taps won’t run, the windows won't open, and the bells won’t ring. I look to you to put all that right, and I intend to make your life a burden until you do.”
“We might collaborate,” suggested Angus Farquhar.
“I shan’t have much time to collaborate with you,” replied Miss Smithson. “We are all busy here. The cook and kitchen maid are engaged in scrubbing the kitchen floor; the housemaid is sweeping under the beds. I personally—Angus Farquhar, are you attending?”
“Oh, yes,” protested Angus, detaching his gaze from Hilda's flushed and pretty face with some difficulty. “End of Part One. Part Two will follow directly.”
Miss Smithson gazed at him indignantly.
“You have n’t changed much,” she observed.
Angus bowed. “Thanks for the compliment,” he said.
“It was n’t a compliment. It was an insult!”
“That's a matter of opinion. Now, to turn to brighter topics, when do you expect your father?”
“Any moment. He's coming up by the night train from London, and the car has gone to meet him.”
“I wonder if he will want to shoot to-day,” said Angus.
Hilda looked up sharply. “Why?” she asked.
“That is why I came over this morning,” Angus explained. “We have been corresponding a good deal on the subject. Mr. Smithson appears to be a keen sportsman.”
“Sportsman? Nonsense!” Miss Smithson smiled affectionately. “He’s a dear old thing, and my dad, and I love him; but after all he's Frederick Smithson, of Finsbury Pavement, E.C., and a city man to the soles of his boots. His proper place on a holiday is Brighton Pier.”
“But he tells me he's going to shoot every day.”
“Well, that is just what you and I are going to prevent.”
“I shall be most happy,” said Angus, “to be associated with you in any enterprise, however difficult.”
It is probable that this piece of impertinence would not have gone unrebuked, but at this moment a motor-horn boomed outside.
“There he is!” cried Hilda. “Come and meet him.”
Two minutes later the new proprietor of Invermutchkin House was received at his newly acquired front door by the full strength of his establishment. His daughter and factor stood upon the steps; the McRobbies, père et fille, were visible in the doorway behind them. Through a hermetically closed scullery window, level with the ground, surrounded by a halo of steam and soapsuds, could be discerned the crimson faces of Cook and Tweeny, who had temporarily abandoned the cleansing of the Augean stable to welcome the incoming chieftain.
Frederick Smithson, of Finsbury Pavement, E.C., and Laburnum Lodge, Surbiton, was of the type that you may see travelling up to town any weekday morning (except Saturday) from any suburban station, by any train that runs between half-past nine and half-past ten, after the early tide of clerks and typists has rolled forward out of the way; or contending profanely with a niblick on one of the more expensive suburban golf courses upon a Saturday or Sunday. He was a substantial, kind-hearted, rather boisterous creature of about fifty. He wore a knickerbocker tweed suit which, as his daughter had once remarked, spoke for itself, while a tartan travelling rug, thrown carelessly over one shoulder, furnished the necessary suggestion of deference to local tradition.
“Well, well, well!” exclaimed Mr. Smithson to nobody in particular. “Here we are at last—right in the middle of bonny Scotland! Grouse, and haggis, and porridge, and everything! Who is this gentleman, my dear?”
Hilda introduced Angus Farquhar, and then drew her parent's attention to the McRobbies, who, needless to say, were quite equal to the occasion. Elspeth curtsied reverently, and wished her overlord good day.
“Good day to you, my dear!” replied Mr. Smithson. “You’re a braw wee Scottie, ain't you?” Mr. Smithson was a kind-hearted and well-meaning man. He had been a good husband, and was an indulgent father, but he was insular to the bone. Like nine tenths of his class, he was incapable of grasping the point of view or habit of mind of people outside his own immediate walk of life. For instance, he regarded the inhabitants of Scotland, in common with those of the other non-English countries of this globe, as a primitive and mentally retarded community, to be treated with humorous condescension, and addressed, as far as possible, in its own idiom and dialect. That is why he informed Miss Elspeth McRobbie that she was a braw wee Scottie.
“This is McRobbie,” said Hilda, turning her father in the direction of his retainer. “He looks after the shooting and the garden.”
Mr. Smithson nodded affably.
“What ho, McRobbie!” he said.
“Good day to you, Invermutchkin,” replied Mr. McRobbie politely.
“Have some whiskey,” said Mr. Smithson. "Whuskey, you know!” He produced a silver flask.
“There iss no occasion,” said McRobbie, politely shaking his head and putting out his hand.
“Oh, well, I won’t press you,” said Mr. Smithson, returning the flask to his pocket. “Let’s go into our humble home. What was that he called me?” he inquired, as the party proceeded to the Smoking-room.
“Invermutchkin,” said Hilda.
“But my name, to the staff,” objected her father, “is Mr. Smithson, J.P.!”
“It’s the custom of the country, sir,” said Angus. “You must get used to being called by the name of your estate, up here.”
Mr. Smithson's face cleared. “Oh, well,” he said, “if it's usual, I'm agreeable. But that old Santa Claus must learn to call me Mr. Invermutchkin. Or do the gentry receive no titles of respect in this country?”
“In the Highlands,” Angus explained, “plain Invermutchkin is a much greater title of respect than Mr. Invermutchkin.”
“Very well,” said Smithson, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Put it down to my ignorance of foreign customs. I suppose when I get back to Surbiton my friends will have to call me Laburnum Lodge—eh?” He chuckled. “And is all this my estate?”
By this time the trio were out on the veranda, inspecting the vista of crag and heather.
“Yes. The Invermutchkin property runs right away to the skyline,” said Angus.
“It’s a heavenly place,” said Hilda, with a contented sigh.
“It would give me the hump to sit and look at it for long,” said her parent frankly. “What is there to do here, exactly?”
“One can do almost anything,” said Farquhar, with a reassuring glance towards Hilda. “You are only two miles from the sea, which means that you can go bathing, or fishing, or boat sailing. The Strathmore Golf Course is only five miles away by road. You’ve heard of it, I expect: it is almost up to championship standard. You can catch sea trout in two lochs close by here, and there is quite a good sized burn running through your own estate. There are two tennis courts on the north side of the house—”
“What about the shooting?” inquired Mr. Smithson a little impatiently. “What do you raise on this moor—parrots?”
Angus Farquhar hesitated. Here was the question put to him point-blank. He was an unprincipled young man, and if he could have carried out Hilda's wishes by telling a falsehood to her father he would have done so. Unfortunately, he did not know what sort of falsehood to tell. In other words, he had been retained but not briefed. He glanced towards his accomplice for aid.
That resourceful maiden responded at once.
“It’s a pity the moor has turned out such a disappointment,” she said.
“Disappointment?” Mr. Smithson, who had been proudly gazing over his sporting property, whirled round to face its two detractors. As he turned his back, a large covey of grouse rose from the heather not two hundred yards from the house, and skimmed away towards the horizon.
“Disappointment?” repeated Mr. Smithson. “Do you mean to say there are no birds?”
“Very few,” replied Hilda.
“Practically none,” corroborated Angus, as the last bird dropped from sight.
“But why was n’t I told?” demanded Mr. Smithson. “What's happened to them all?”
Angus shook his head mournfully.
“Grouse disease,” he said. “It came on very suddenly. The birds were all right when you bought the place in the spring, but there has been an epidemic this summer. I hardly think it would be worth your while to go out this season.”
This opinion was promptly backed, with no uncertain sound, by an old cock-grouse communicating with his family in the heather close by. Fortunately Mr. Smithson was too agitated to notice.
“Something will have to be done about this,” he announced. “I have got half the Stock Exchange coming down here to shoot—one big party after another—and I have arranged for a photographer to come and take groups for the society papers, “Reading from left to right’—and all that sort of thing. How can we—”
“What time, mem,” inquired a high-pitched and stately voice behind them, “will the shentleman be shooting over the moor to-day?” Mr. McRobbie had returned.
“The beans,” murmured Angus Farquhar to himself, “are now comfortably spilled!”
He was right.
“Shoot over the moor?” exclaimed Smithson. “Why, I’ve just been told there's nothing to shoot.”
“There iss more birds than for twenty-seven years,” announced the old gentleman simply.
“That's not saying much, is it?” inquired Hilda, hurriedly, of Angus.
“No, not at all!” said Angus loyally, but desperately.
“Iss it not?” retorted McRobbie, with warmth. “Iss there not more than five hundred brace on the moor this day?”
Here the voice of that plain business man, Mr. Smithson, intervened.
“What's all the mystery?” he demanded. “Are there birds on this moor, or are there not? That's what I want to know.”
“None worth shooting,” replied Angus. McRobbie rolled up his eyes and gave a deep groan. But Frederick Smithson's mind was now made up.
“I’m a practical man,” he announced, “and seeing is believing. I’m going upstairs to get my shooting boots on; and then I'm going to get my gun and go out on that moor and investigate. McRobbie, my man, be ready for me in five minutes, and we’ll go together, and see whether your name's Ananias or George Washington.”
II
The two conspirators were left alone.
“Well, that’s that!” remarked Angus Farquhar philosophically. “But why must n’t papa shoot? You were just going to tell me. Is he unsafe?”
“He is the most dangerous shot in Europe,” replied papa's daughter. “In Surbiton they call him ‘The Rabbits' Friend.’”
“Why?”
“Because he has never been known to miss a ferret.”
“Oh!” said Angus thoughtfully; “so that's it? Did he ever hit anything really big—his host, or the gamekeeper?”
“Mercifully, no,” said Hilda. “He never hits anything at all now.”
“What—never?”
“No. The only place where he shoots is the Richardsons', near Weybridge. Whenever he goes there Tom Richardson takes him to the dining-room sideboard for five minutes, while his brother Reggie picks the shot out of dad's cartridges and ballasts them with a little sand.”
Angus Farquhar's face cleared. “What is sauce for Weybridge,” he said, “can be sauce for Invermutchkin. I will prepare some cartridges forthwith.” He slipped off the veranda rail and took a step towards the smoking-room. But a small hand detained him.
“Angus, I don’t like the idea.”
“Why not?”
“He would find out, sooner or later,” she said. “After all, you can’t keep things from a man in his own house, and it would hurt his feelings dreadfully. Can't you think of a way of curing him altogether?”
“Let's both think!” suggested Captain Farquhar.
Silence reigned for a moment. Then Angus looked up.
“A shock-cure,” he said: “that’s what he wants! Father must be blooded.”
“Blooded? What do you mean?”
“He must draw blood. He must shoot somebody.”
“Who?”
“Who? McRobbie, of course.”
“Pless me!” exclaimed an indignant voice behind them. McRobbie had returned from the kitchen just in time to hear his own sentence pronounced.
Angus turned to Hilda.
“Miss Smithson,” he said, “I think you had better keep out of this.”
Recognizing the wisdom of this suggestion, Hilda remained in the sunlit veranda while the two conspirators retired to the shady seclusion of the smoking-room. She had no desire to be regarded by Mr. McRobbie as a confederate. …
The conclave appeared to consist of a steady monologue from Angus Farquhar, punctuated by comments and (occasionally) protests from his audience. Presently the protests died away; then the comments. Finally McRobbie asked a question, evidently of a delicate and confidential nature.
“A five-pound note, I should think,” Angus was heard to reply. “Will that satisfy you?” Apparently it would, for the meeting broke up forthwith, and the general public, in the form of Miss Smithson, was readmitted to the smoking-room.
“At first I would walk right behind him,” McRobbie was saying as she entered, “and fire whenever he fired until we had a few birds shot.”
“Yes, and then get in front of him—right in front! That’ll do the business, I fancy,” said Angus, who was picking the cardboard wads out of the end of a pegamoid cartridge. “Come and sit down, Hilda.”
“What are you two doing?” asked Miss Smithson suspiciously.
“This is a Peace Conference. We are making the world safe for Democracy—reducing armaments, in fact.” Angus emptied a little stream of No. 5 shot out of the cartridge, filled up the cavity with emery powder, and carefully replaced the cardboard disc at the mouth.
“Do about a dozen like that, McRobbie, and all will be well. Finish them in the gunroom and then bring them up here. We don’t want to be discovered.”
McRobbie removed himself and his apparatus, chuckling softly. He had hardly departed when the new shooting-boots of Hilda's parent were heard descending the stairs, and Mr. Smithson entered the room, carrying gun and cartridge-bag.
“Now,” he announced joyfully, “daddy's ready to go a-hunting! All I want is ammunition. I see some one has left the cartridge magazine out for me: that’s very thoughtful. I’ll slip a couple into my gun, and fill up this bag.” He opened the magazine and pulled out a handful of gleaming brass cartridges.
“Don’t use those good ones,” said Angus hastily.
“Why not? Aren't they my property?”
“Yes; but they are not suitable for walking up birds. They’re for driven grouse, you know.”
“I should like to use them,” said Mr. Smithson wistfully. “They look smart.”
“But you will never be able to save the empty cases, walking all over the moor,” said Angus; “and they are valuable. If you were going to stand in a butt, it would be different.”
“Oh, very well,” grumbled Smithson. “I suppose we must all economize these days. I’ll take some of the other kind.” He plunged his hand into the compartment containing the ordinary pegamoid cartridges.
“I think I saw McRobbie take some of that sort out of the magazine for you, dear,” announced Miss Smithson, glad of an opportunity to speak the truth amid somewhat sparse opportunities. “He has them with him; you won’t need any more.”
“This is the Château Anti-Waste, and no mistake!” commented Mr. Smithson humorously. “Ah, here is his Nibs—with hound! Have you got some cartridges for me, McRobbie?” he inquired, as the old gentleman appeared once more in the doorway, accompanied by an elderly red setter.
“Yes, sir. Put you these in your pocket; I will carry the rest in your bag.” McRobbie—looking, as Angus afterwards described it, “like the cat helping mother to hunt for the missing canary”—handed half-a-dozen cartridges to his employer, who put them in his pocket.
“Now I’m ready,” said Smithson. “Come along, McRobbie!”
“Ferry good, sir. Come, Frolic!”
“You may be bothered a bit by the echo at first, Mr. Smithson,” said Angus.
“Echo? What echo?”
“It’s a curious local phenomenon. Every time you loose off your gun you will hear a sound as if some one had fired just behind you. It quite worries some people.”
“Nothing is going to worry me to-day,” replied Mr. Smithson confidently. “Are you coming to walk round with us, Mr. Farquhar?”
“Not this morning,” replied Angus. “I expect to have some business to attend to.”
“Quite right! Business before pleasure! I will be back for lunch, my dear. Just going for a potter round.”
The proprietor of Invermutchkin House walked with elastic tread down his veranda steps, passed through the gate in the fence which separated his so-called garden from the rest of the moor, and stepped out proudly across his heather.
“When are we liable to come across the birds?” he inquired over his shoulder to his venerable shadow.
“You will be seeing them any time now, sir,” replied McRobbie, peering ahead and shading his eyes with his hand.
“Right-o! may as well load.”
Mr. Smithson produced two cartridges, and snapped open the breech of his gun. He closed it again immediately, and returned the cartridges to his pocket.
“I forgot I had loaded already,” he said to himself.
III
“What do you think of the scheme?” inquired Angus, not without a certain pride, as he sat down beside Miss Smithson on a wicker couch in the veranda.
“I shall wait for results,” replied Hilda. “And now, Captain Angus Farquhar, D.S.O.,” she continued, rounding suddenly upon him, “I have a bone to pick with you!”
For a moment they eyed one another intently. They were a strong-willed young couple, not given to evading issues. Hilda realized without difficulty that her challenge had been accepted.
“Dish up your bone!” said Angus.
Hilda began at once.
“When did we last meet?”
“Two summers ago, just after I was demobbed.”
“Where?”
“At Hindridge, for the cricket week.”
“You remember that much, anyhow. When was the last time we spoke to one another?”
“In a corner of the Hindridge conservatory, between the last two dances of the evening.”
“You remember that too, do you?”
“Yes; I do remember that too!”
There was a short pause. Angus began to fidget with his feet. He looked more than a little guilty. Then Hilda continued.
“Do you remember anything else?”
“Yes. I—I asked you for something.”
“What?
“A flower.”
“Did I give it to you?”
“You did. And then—I asked for something else.”
“We need not discuss that,” said Miss Smithson hurriedly.
“And got it too!” added Angus, with satisfaction.
“Then why,” blazed Hilda, coming tempestuously and prematurely to the point—“why did you bolt off next morning by the six o'clock train?”
“I felt,” replied Angus, evidently choosing his words carefully, “that I could not afford to—to—”
“To what?” inquired Miss Smithson softly.
“To tip the butler.”
Miss Smithson, deeply and justly incensed, rose to her feet and stood threateningly over her refractory examinee.
“That, Captain Farquhar,” she announced, “was not the reason!”
“What was, then?”
“I don't know. But do you think it was quite considerate to leave without saying good-bye, after—after—”
“After the second thing?” inquired Angus, reaching for her hand.
“Yes,” said Miss Smithson, in a low voice. Obeying gentle pressure, she sat down again.
“It may not have been considerate,” continued Angus, “but it was honest.”
“Why?”
“Has a man who cannot afford to tip the butler any right to sit in a conservatory with an heiress—asking for things?”
“It depends,” was the judicial reply.
“On what?”
“On whether he really wants what he asks for.”
“I wanted it all right,” said Farquhar quickly.
“Also, on whether she wants to listen.”
“So far as I remember,” said Angus, stroking Hilda's hand, “you signified that you did.”
The hand was withdrawn, and a cold voice inquired:
“Then why did you run away?”
“Because it seemed the decent thing to do.”
“It was a cowardly thing to do!”
“Believe me,” replied Farquhar earnestly, “it required more courage than any other action in my life. It seemed to me that I ought to run away. I didn't want to; but I did.” He took Hilda's hand again.
“You appear to have returned,” said the young lady. But this time she made no attempt to remove the hand. “Why?”
“Circumstances have changed—my circumstances.”
Hilda looked up.
“You mean you can now afford to—tip the butler?”
“Oh, bless you, no! But I can afford to marry! The deceased McMutchkin was my relative. On his demise this property descended to me. Not having the wherewithal to keep it up, I sold it, remaining on the estate as factor to the incoming proprietor—just to keep myself occupied. Voilà tout!” There was another pause.
“Quite a coincidence,” observed Miss Smithson at length—chiefly for the sake of saying something. “Yes, was n’t it? I had no idea what Smithson I was selling the place to. There are so many Smithsons.”
“Alas, yes!” agreed Miss Smithson.
Then Angus Farquhar, tightening his grip on the hand to give himself courage, said:
“Why not reduce the number—by one?”
Hilda slowly raised her eyes to meet his. Her answer was plain to read therein. But even as her lips parted to utter it, there came from the moor the sound of a shot, followed by a piercing howl, mingled with the frantic barking of a dog. The pair started to their feet.
“It’s McRobbie!” exclaimed Hilda.
“Yes. His celebrated entertainment has begun. An untimely moment, but no matter! Where are they?”
The answer to this question was soon forthcoming. Presently, round a heather-clad knoll not a hundred yards away appeared the burly figure of Frederick Smithson, J.P.—protesting, explaining, expostulating, apologizing. Beside him, leaning on his shoulder and roaring his sorrows to heaven, hobbled Mr. McRobbie. Round the two, in a series of ecstatic circles, with ear-splitting barks, danced the sedate Frolic.
“He’s doing it very well,” said Angus.
Suddenly the air was rent by further discords. Miss Elspeth McRobbie stood before them—weeping, moaning, and declaiming.
“Your father has shot my father!” she wailed. “What will my father no do to him? Woe iss me!”
“Don’t be alarmed, Elspeth,” said Hilda soothingly. “It can’t be serious.”
But you cannot cheat a Celt of an emotional opportunity.
Turning abruptly and still moaning, Elspeth proceeded at the double across the heather to the succour of her sire.
IV
Five minutes later McRobbie lay prostrate in a long chair in the veranda, the not unwilling recipient of neat whiskey. His left knee was roughly bandaged with a handkerchief, the property of his daughter. The agitated Smithson was delivering a monologue to Angus Farquhar in the corner of the veranda.
“I assure you, my dear fellow, it was the merest accident. If only he had kept out of the line of fire, he’d have been all right.” He turned feverishly upon the groaning McRobbie. “What did you want to go rushing forward for, like an old sheep-dog—eh? Were you trying to catch a bird in your mouth, or what?”
Angus Farquhar interposed. It was time, he felt, to begin to rub things in.
“This is a grave business, Mr. Smithson,” he announced, leading the culprit apart.
“We may have to leave the country,” added Smithson's unprincipled daughter, attaching herself to the party in her allotted rôle of Job's comforter.
“But the silly old fool got in my way!” urged the unhappy man.
Angus shook his head.
“They will make little allowance for that,” he said.
“They?” replied Smithson in fresh apprehension. “What do you mean—they?”
“The McRobbies,” said Hilda simply.
“You little know the storm that this will rouse,” continued Angus—not without a certain artistic joy in his own performance. “The clan may rise. The fiery cross will go round. The last man who drew blood from a McRobbie was found lying stark upon the heather three days later.” Here a sharp twitch administered to his sleeve by the hand of his accomplice intimated to the rhapsodist that it is possible to spoil a good case by overstatement. “I will leave you to consult your daughter, sir, as to your best course of action,” he concluded.
Leaving Hilda to deal with her now thoroughly demoralized parent, Angus approached McRobbie.
“Well, old man,” he inquired, leaning over the sufferer with a frank grin, “how goes it?” He slapped the old gentleman covertly upon his bandaged knee.
McRobbie's reply was to leap out of his seat with a roar like that of a wounded bull, and hop madly round the veranda, holding the damaged limb in both hands.
“I say,” urged Angus in a low voice, “don’t overdo it, old fellow.”
“Then what the duffle for,” roared McRobbie, “did you wish to hit a wounded man?”
“Can you not see my father's leg is filled with small shot?” chanted Elspeth, who had just returned with hot water, and was now engaged in restoring her outraged progenitor to his seat.
“Yes, yes,” replied Angus soothingly. He was a little concerned over the course of events. McRobbie was taking his rôle too seriously. He decided to bring matters to a head at once.
“You will be compensated, of course,” he said.
“Indeed and I will!” replied the old gentleman ferociously.
“I will speak to Mr. Smithson at once,” said Angus.
He crossed the veranda to where Smithson, now a complete prey to nervous shock, was in his turn imbibing restoratives, filially administered. “I am afraid you will have to put your hand in your pocket over this, Mr. Smithson,” he announced. Here was a solution which Mr. Smithson had no difficulty in appreciating.
“Certainly!” he said, eagerly fumbling for his cheque-book. “How much?”
“I will inquire,” said Angus; and returned to the other end of the veranda.
“How much will you take, McRobbie?” he asked loudly; and sought to signify, by contortions of the eyebrows, that this was what actors call a “cue.”
“One hundert pound!” replied the sufferer promptly.
Angus, keeping his back to Smithson, shook his head and frowned.
“Come, come,” he said; “don’t be ridiculous! You have n’t really been shot, you know,” he added in a low voice.
“What's that you’re saying?” screamed McRobbie. “I have not really been shot?”
“Not very seriously, anyhow,” replied Angus, working his eyebrows furiously.
“Cot pless me! Not seriously? Look you at that!”
With a dramatic gesture McRobbie tore off the bandage from his knee. Blood-stains were visible. “And look you here!” he continued. “My hose top iss full of shot; and there iss holes in my kilt whatever. Do you say that is not serious?”
He leaned back in his chair again, complete master of the situation, and cautiously submitted his damaged limb to ablutionary treatment.
Angus thoughtfully picked up Mr. Smithson's gun, which was leaning against the rail. He opened the breech, and the key to the mystery was duly ejected from the right barrel—a cartridge-case of gleaming brass.
“The old boy will have to have a tenner at least,” he said to himself.
But already Mr. Smithson had torn a cheque from its book, and was at his victim's side.
“I regret very much having caused you this inconvenience, McRobbie,” he announced, with apprehensive formality, “and I hope you will accept this small sum in slight compensation for any injury you may have suffered.”
McRobbie took the cheque, with an air which implied that he was doing so without prejudice, and examined it. But when he read the three figures inscribed upon it his features relaxed.
“Thank you, sir!” he said.
“Thank you, sir!” echoed his daughter, reading the cheque over his shoulder.
“Are you in great pain, McRobbie?” inquired Hilda, to whom the actual course of events had just been disclosed by Angus.
McRobbie broke into a beaming smile.
“Pain? Oh, no, mem! It is nothing at all. I have been shot four times before—always by English shentlemen; and none of them ever gave me more than”—obedient to an obvious nudge from his daughter he pulled himself up–“so much as this shentleman here.” (In sober truth no previous solatium had exceeded five pounds.) “Thank you again, sir.” He rose majestically, and followed his daughter in the direction of the kitchen. Suddenly he looked back.
“Shall you be shooting again this afternoon?” he inquired.
“No,” replied Smithson, with great emphasis, “I shall not.”
“Ferry good, sir,” said McRobbie, and disappeared, obviously disappointed.
Mr. Smithson dropped into the long chair.
“My nerve's gone—absolutely,” he announced. “It will take me months to get over this, and all my life to get used to this place. Me for Brighton to-morrow!”
“What are you going to do with Invermutchkin House, dad?” inquired Hilda, striking while the iron was hot.
“I don't know. I don't care. Sell it! Burn it! Cut it up into allotments! Build a picture palace on it!”
Miss Smithson waited until her parent had concluded. Then she proffered the timid suggestion:
“Dad, would you like to give it to me?”
Mr. Smithson looked up in a dazed fashion.
“You?” he inquired. “Whatever for?”
“For a wedding present,” replied Miss Smithson demurely, slipping her arm into that of Captain Angus Farquhar.