Part 24 (1/2)

”Well, to tell you the truth,” said she, quite frankly, ”I hardly intended going. But if I thought there was a chance of hearing you sing some such song as 'The Bonnie Earl o' Moray,' I would go.”

”'The Bonnie Earl o' Moray?'” he said, eagerly. ”The song that Miss Lestrange sang the other night?”

”The song that Miss Lestrange made a fool of the other night,” she said, contemptuously. ”But if _you_ were to sing it, you would make it very fine and impressive. I should like to hear you sing that in a large hall.”

”Oh, but certainly I will sing it!” he said, quickly, for he was only too rejoiced that she should prefer this small request, as showing that she did take some little interest in him and what he could do. ”I will make a stipulation that I sing it, if I sing anything. Miss Lestrange won't mind, I know.”

”I almost think you should go under an a.s.sumed name,” Miss Honnor said, presently, with a bit of a laugh. ”I dare say the people wouldn't recognise you in ordinary dress. And then, when the amateur vocalists had been going on with their Pretty-Janes and Meet-Me-by-Moonlights, when you gave them 'The Bonnie Earl o' Moray,' as you would sing it, I should think amazement would be on most faces. But I dare say Lady Adela has had it announced in the _Inverness Courier_ that you are to sing, for they want to make a grand success of the concert, to help to clear off the debt; and of course all the people from the shooting-lodges will be coming, for it isn't every autumn they have a chance of hearing Mr.

Lionel Moore in Ross-s.h.i.+re.”

Really, she was becoming quite complaisant!--this proud, unapproachable fisher-maiden, who seemed to live, remote and isolated, in a world all of her own. And so she was coming to this amateur concert, merely to hear him sing? Be sure the first thing he did that evening, on entering the drawing-room after dinner, was to go up to Miss Georgie Lestrange with a humble little speech, asking her whether she would object to his borrowing that particular ballad from her repertory. The smiling and gracious young damsel instantly replied that, on the contrary, she would be delighted to play the accompaniment for him. Would he look at the music now? He did look at it; found it simple enough; imagined that the refrain verse might be made rather effective. Would he try it over now?

Yes, if she would be so kind. She forthwith went to the piano, he following; and at once there was silence in the long, low-ceilinged drawing-room. Of course this was but a trial, and the room had not been constructed with a view to any acoustic requirements; nevertheless, the fine and penetrating _timbre_ of his trained voice told all the same; indeed, it is probable there was a lump in the throat of more than one of those young ladies when he sang the pathetic refrain, with its proud and sonorous finish--

”O lang may his lady-love Look frae the Castle Doune, Ere she see the Earl o' Moray Come sounding through the toun.”

Simple as the air was, it haunted the ear even of this professional vocalist all the evening; but perhaps that was because he was looking forward to a coming occasion on which he would have to sing the ballad; and well he knew that however numerous his audience might be--though he might be standing before all the Rosses and Frasers, the Gordons and Munroes, the Mackays and Mackenzies of the county--well he knew that he would be singing--that he intended to sing--to an audience of one only.

And which would she like to have emphasized the more--the pathetic and hopeless outlook of the lady in the tower, or the proud state and ceremony of the earl himself as he used to ”come sounding through the toun”? Well, he would practise a little, and ascertain what he could do with it--on some occasion when he found himself alone away up in the hills, with a silence around him unbroken save for the hushed whisper of the birch-leaves and the distant, low murmur of the Geinig falls.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PHANTOM STAG.

But if he were so anxious about how he should sing (for his audience of one only) that old Scotch ballad, he was not acting very wisely, or else he had a sublime confidence in the soundness of his chest; for on his host's offering him another day's stalking, he cheerfully accepted the same; and that notwithstanding they had now fallen upon a period of extremely rough, cold, and wet weather. Was this another piece of bravado, then--undertaken to produce a favorable impression in a certain quarter--or had the hunter's hunger really got hold of him? On the evening before the appointed raid, even the foresters looked glum; the western hills were ominous and angry, and the wind that came howling down the strath seemed to foretell a storm. But he was not to be daunted; he said he would give up only when Roderick a.s.sured him that the expedition was quite impracticable and useless.

”I hear you are going after the deer to-morrow,” said the pretty Miss Georgie Lestrange to him, in the drawing-room after dinner, while Lady Sybil was performing her famous fantasia ”The Voices of the Moonlight,”

to which n.o.body listened but her own admiring self. ”And I was told all about that custom of making the stalker a little present on his setting out, for good-luck. It was Honnor Cunyngham who did that for you last time, and I think it should be my turn to-morrow morning.”

”Oh, thank you!” said he; but ”Thank you for nothing!” he said in his heart; for why should any frivolous trinket--even when presented by this very charming and complaisant young damsel--be allowed to interfere with the prerogative of Miss Cunyngham's sacred talisman?

”I say,” continued the bright-eyed, ruddy-haired la.s.s, ”what do you and Honnor Cunyngham talk about all day long, when you are away on those fis.h.i.+ng excursions? Don't you bore each other to death? Oh, I know she's rather learned, though she doesn't bestow much of her knowledge upon us.

Well, I'm not going to say anything against Honnor, for she's so awfully good-natured, you know; she allows her sisters-in-law to experiment on her as an audience, and she has always something friendly and nice to say, though I can guess what she thinks of it all. Now, what _do_ you two talk about all day long?”

”Well, there's the fis.h.i.+ng,” said he, ”for one thing.”

”Oh, don't tell me!” exclaimed this impertinent young hussy (while ”The Voices of the Moonlight” moaned and mourned their mysterious regrets and despairs at the far end of the drawing-room). ”Don't tell _me_! Honnor Cunyngham is far too good-looking for you to go talking salmon to her all day long. Very handsome I call her; don't you? She's so distinguished, somehow--so different from any one else. Of course you don't notice it up here so much, where she prides herself on roughing it--you never met her in London?--in London you should see her come into a drawing-room--her walk and manner are simply splendid. She'll never marry,” continued this garrulous little person, with the coquettish _pince-nez_ perched on her not too Grecian nose. ”I'm sure she won't. She despises men--all of them except her brother, Sir Hugh.

Lord Rockminster admires her tremendously, but he's too lazy to say so, I suppose. How has she taken such a fancy to you?”

”I was not aware she had,” Lionel discreetly made answer, though the question had startled him, and not with pain.

”Oh, yes, she has. Did she think you were lone and unprotected, being persecuted by the rest of us? I am quite certain she wouldn't allow my brother Percy to go fis.h.i.+ng a whole day with her; most likely Lord Rockminster wouldn't care to take the trouble. I wonder if she hasn't a bit of a temper? Lady Rosamund is awful sometimes; but she doesn't show that to _you_--catch her! But Honnor Cunyngham--well, the only time I ever went with her on one of her storking expeditions, the water was low, and she thrashed away for hours, and saw nothing. At last a stot happened to come wandering along; and she said, quite savagely, 'I'm going to hook something!' You don't know what a stot is?--it's a young bullock. So she deliberately walked to within twenty yards or so of the animal, threw the line so that it just dropped across its neck, and the fly caught in the thick hair. You should have seen the gay performance that followed! The beast shook its head and shook its head--for it could feel the line, if it couldn't feel the fly; and then, getting alarmed, it started off up the hill, with the reel squealing just as if a salmon were on, and Honnor running after him as hard as she could over the bracken and heather. If it were rage made her hook the stot, she was laughing now--laughing so that when the beast stopped she could hardly reel in the line. And old Robert--I thought he would have had a fit.

'Will I gaff him now, Miss Honnor?' he cried, as he came running along.

But the stot didn't mean to be gaffed. Off it set again; and Honnor after it, until at last it caught the line in a birch-bush and broke it; then, just as if nothing had happened, it began to graze, as usual. You should have seen the game that began then--old Robert and Honnor trying to get hold of the stot, so as to take the casting-line and the fly from its mane--it isn't a mane, but you know--and the stot trying to b.u.t.t them whenever they came near. The end of it was that the beast shook off the fly for itself, and old Robert found it; but I wonder whether it were real rage that made Honnor Cunyngham hook the stot--”

”Of course not!” he said. ”It was a mere piece of fun.”

”It isn't fun when Lady Rosamund comes down-stairs in a bad temper--after you gentlemen have left,” remarked Miss Georgie, significantly; and then she prattled away in this careful undertone.