Part 40 (2/2)
laughed Reay--”Besides, he lives in America, thank G.o.d! He's one of the few who have spared the old country his patronage!”
Here a diversion was created by the necessity of serving the tiny but autocratic Charlie with his usual ”dish of cream,” of which he partook on Mary's knee, while listening (as was evident from the attentive c.o.c.king of his silky ears) to the various compliments he was accustomed to receive on his beauty. This business over, they rose from the tea-table. The afternoon had darkened into twilight, and the autumnal wind was sighing through the crannies of the door. Mary stirred the fire into a brighter blaze, and drawing Helmsley's armchair close to its warm glow, stood by him till he was comfortably seated--then she placed another chair opposite for Reay, and sat down herself on a low oaken settle between the two.
”This is the pleasantest time of the day just now,”--she said--”And the best time for talking! I love the gloaming. My father loved it too.”
”So did _my_ father!” and Reay's eyes softened as he bent them on the sparkling fire--”In winter evenings when the darkness fell down upon our wild Highland hills, he would come home to our s.h.i.+eling on the edge of the moor, shaking all the freshness of the wind and the scent of the dying heather out of his plaid as he threw it from his shoulders,--and he would toss fresh peat on the fire till it blazed red and golden, and he would lay his hand on my head and say to me: 'Come awa' bairnie! Now for a bogle story in the gloamin'!' Ah, those bogle stories! They are answerable for a good deal in my life! They made me want to write bogle stories myself!”
”And _do_ you write them?” asked Mary.
”Not exactly. Though perhaps all human life is only a bogle tale!
Invented to amuse the angels!”
She smiled, and taking up a delicate piece of crochet lace, which she called her ”spare time work,” began to ply the glittering needle in and out fine intricacies of thread, her shapely hands gleaming like alabaster in the fire-light reflections.
”Well, now tell us your own bogle tale!” she said--”And David and I will play the angels!”
CHAPTER XV
He watched her working for a few minutes before he spoke again. And shading his eyes with one hand from the red glow of the fire, David Helmsley watched them both.
”Well, it's rather cool of me to take up your time talking about my own affairs,”--began Reay, at last--”But I've been pretty much by myself for a good while, and it's pleasant to have a chat with friendly people--man wasn't made to live alone, you know! In fact, neither man nor beast nor bird can stand it. Even a sea cormorant croaks to the wind!”
Mary laughed.
”But not for company's sake,”--she said--”It croaks when it's hungry.”
”Oh, I've often croaked for that reason!” and Reay pushed from his forehead a wayward tuft of hair which threatened to drop over his eye in a thick silvery brown curl--”But it's wonderful how little a fellow can live upon in the way of what is called food. I know all sorts of dodges wherewith to satisfy the greedy cravings of the vulgar part of me.”
Helmsley took his hand from his eyes, and fixed a keenly observant look upon the speaker. Mary said nothing, but her crochet needle moved more slowly.
”You see,” went on Reay, ”I've always been rather fortunate in having had very little to eat.”
”You call it 'fortunate'?” queried Helmsley, abruptly.
”Why, of course! I've never had what the doctors call an 'overloaded system'--therefore I've no lading bill to pay. The million or so of cells of which I am composed are not at all anxious to throw any extra nourishment off,--sometimes they intimate a strong desire to take some extra nourishment in--but that is an uneducated tendency in them which I sternly repress. I tell all those small grovelling cells that extra nourishment would not be good for them. And they shrink back from my moral reproof ashamed of themselves--and become wiry instead of fatty.
Which is as it should be.”
”You're a queer chap!” said Helmsley, with a laugh.
”Think so? Well, I daresay I am--all Scotsmen are. There's always the buzzing of the bee in our bonnets. I come of an ancient Highland stock who were certainly 'queer' as modern ways go,--for they were famous for their pride, and still more famous for their poverty all the way through. As far back as I can go in the history of my family, and that's a pretty long way, we were always at our wit's end to live. From the days of the founder of our house, a glorious old chieftain who used to pillage his neighbour chieftain in the usual style of those glorious old times, we never had more than just enough for the bare necessities of life. My father, as I told you, was a shepherd--a strong, fine-looking man over six feet in height, and as broad-chested as a Hercules--he herded sheep on the mountains for a Glasgow dealer, as low-down a rascal as ever lived, a man who, so far as race and lineage went, wasn't fit to sc.r.a.pe mud off my father's boots. But we often see gentlemen of birth obliged to work for knaves of cash. That was the way it was with my father. As soon as I was old enough--about ten,--I helped him in his work--I used to tramp backwards and forwards to school in the nearest village, but after school hours I got an evening job of a s.h.i.+lling a week for bringing home eight Highland bull-heifers from pasture. The man who owned them valued them highly, but was afraid of them--wouldn't go near them for his life--and before I'd been with them a fortnight they all knew me. I was only a wee laddie, but they answered to my call like friendly dogs rather than the great powerful splendid beasts they were, with their rough coats s.h.i.+ning like floss silk in the sunset, when I went to drive them home, singing as I came. And my father said to me one night--'Laddie, tell me the truth--are ye ever scared at the bulls!'
'No, father!' said I--'It's a bonnie boy I am to the bulls!' And he laughed--by Jove!--how he laughed! 'Ye're a wee raskell!' he said--'An'
as full o' conceit as an egg's full o' meat!' I expect that was true too, for I always thought well of myself. You see, if I hadn't thought well of myself, no one would ever have thought well of _me_!”
”There's something in that!” said Helmsley, the smile still lingering in his eyes--”Courage and self-reliance have often conquered more than eight bulls!”
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