Part 41 (1/2)
”Oh, I don't call it either courage or self-reliance--it was just that I thought myself of too much importance to be hurt by bulls or anything else,”--and Angus laughed,--then with a sudden knitting of his brows as though his thoughts were making hard knots in his brain, he added--”Even as a laddie I had an idea--and I have it now--that there was something in me which G.o.d had put there for a purpose of His own,--something that he would not and _could_ not destroy till His purpose had been fulfilled!”
Mary stopped working and looked at him earnestly. Her breath came and went quickly--her eyes shone dewily like stars in a summer haze,--she was deeply interested.
”That was--and _is_--a conceited notion, of course,”--went on Angus, reflectively--”And I don't excuse it. But I'm not one of the 'meek who shall inherit the earth.' I'm a robustious combustious sort of chap--if a fellow knocks me down, I jump up and give it him back with as jolly good interest as I can--and if anyone plays me a dirty trick I'll move all the mental and elemental forces of the universe to expose him.
That's my way--unfortunately----”
”Why 'unfortunately'?” asked Helmsley.
Reay threw back his head and indulged in one of his mellow peals of laughter.
”Can you ask why? Oh David, good old David!--it's easy to see you don't know much of the world! If you did, you'd realise that the best way to 'get on' in the usual way of worldly progress, is to make up to all sorts of social villains and double-dyed millionaire-scoundrels, find out all their tricks and their miserable little vices and pamper them, David!--pamper them and flatter them up to the top of their bent till you've got them in your power--and then--then _use_ them--use them for everything you want. For once you know what blackguards they are, they'll give you anything not to tell!”
”I should be sorry to think that's true,”--murmured Mary.
”Don't think it, then,”--said Angus--”You needn't,--because millionaires are not likely to come in your way. Nor in mine--now. I've cut myself adrift from all chance of ever meeting them. But only a year ago I was on the road to making a good thing out of one or two of the so-called 'kings of finance'--then I suddenly took a 'scunner' as we Scots say, at the whole lot, and hated and despised myself for ever so much as thinking that it might serve my own ends to become their tool. So I just cast off ropes like a s.h.i.+p, and steamed out of harbour.”
”Into the wide sea!” said Mary, looking at him with a smile that was lovely in its radiance and sympathy.
”Into the wide sea--yes!” he answered--”And sea that was pretty rough at first. But one can get accustomed to anything--even to the high rock-a-bye tossing of great billows that really don't want to put you to sleep so much as to knock you to pieces. But I'm galloping along too fast. From the time I made friends with young bulls to the time I began to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance with newspaper editors is a far cry--and in the interim my father died. I should have told you that I lost my mother when I was born--and I don't think that the great wound her death left in my father's heart ever really healed. He never seemed quite at one with the things of life--and his 'bogle tales' of which I was so fond, all turned on the spirits of the dead coming again to visit those whom they had loved, and from whom they had been taken--and he used to tell them with such pa.s.sionate conviction that sometimes I trembled and wondered if any spirit were standing near us in the light of the peat fire, or if the shriek of the wind over our sheiling were the cry of some unhappy soul in torment. Well! When his time came, he was not allowed to suffer--one day in a great storm he was struck by lightning on the side of the mountain where he was herding in his flocks--and there he was found lying as though he were peacefully asleep. Death must have been swift and painless--and I always thank G.o.d for that!” He paused a moment--then went on--”When I found myself quite alone in the world, I hired myself out to a farmer for five years--and worked faithfully for him--worked so well that he raised my wages and would willingly have kept me on--but I had the 'bogle tales' in my head and could not rest. It was in the days before Andrew Carnegie started trying to rub out the memory of his 'Homestead' cruelty by planting 'free'
libraries, (for which taxpayers are rated) all over the country--and pauperising Scottish University education by grants of money--I suppose he is a sort of little Pontiff unto himself, and thinks that money can pacify Heaven, and silence the cry of brothers' blood rising from the Homestead ground. In my boyhood a Scottish University education had to be earned by the would-be student himself--earned by hard work, hard living, patience, perseverance and _grit_. That's the one quality I had--grit--and it served me well in all I wanted. I entered at St.
Andrews--graduated, and came out an M.A. That helped to give me my first chance with the press. But I'm sure I'm boring you by all this chatter about myself! David, _you_ stop me when you think Miss Deane has had enough!”
Helmsley looked at Mary's figure in its pale lilac gown touched here and there by the red sparkle of the fire, and noted the attentive poise of her head, and the pa.s.sive quietude of her generally busy hands which now lay in her lap loosely folded over her lace work.
”Have we had enough, Mary, do you think?” he asked, with the glimmering of a tender little smile under his white moustache.
She glanced at him quickly in a startled way, as though she had been suddenly wakened from a reverie.
”Oh no!” she answered--”I love to hear of a brave man's fight with the world--it's the finest story anyone can listen to.”
Reay coloured like a boy.
”I'm not a brave man,”--he said--”I hope I haven't given you that idea.
I'm an awful funk at times.”
”When are those times?” and Mary smiled demurely, as she put the question.
Again the warm blood rushed up to his brows.
”Well,--please don't laugh! I'm afraid--horribly afraid--of women!”
Helmsley's old eyes sparkled.
”Upon my word!” he exclaimed--”That's a funny thing for you to say!”
”It is, rather,”--and Angus looked meditatively into the fire--”It's not that I'm bashful, at all--no--I'm quite the other way, really,--only--only--ever since I was a lad I've made such an ideal of woman that I'm afraid of her when I meet her,--afraid lest she shouldn't come up to my ideal, and equally afraid lest I shouldn't come up to hers! It's all conceit again! Fear of anything or anybody is always born of self-consciousness. But I've been disappointed once----”
”In your ideal?” questioned Mary, raising her eyes and letting them rest observantly upon his face.
”Yes. I'll come to that presently. I was telling you how I graduated at St. Andrews, and came out with M.A. tacked to my name, but with no other fortune than those two letters. I had made a few friends, however, and one of them, a worthy old professor, gave me a letter of recommendation to a man in Glasgow, who was the proprietor of one of the newspapers there. He was a warm-hearted, kindly fellow, and gave me a berth at once. It was hard work for little pay, but I got into thorough harness, and learnt all the ins and outs of journalism. I can't say that I ever admired the general mechanism set up for gulling the public, but I had to learn how it was done, and I set myself to master the whole business.