Part 3 (1/2)

But Moira stood dazed. ”But, Papa, you have not told me what is wrong with Allan.” Her voice was quiet, but with a certain insistence in it that at once irritated her father and compelled his attention.

”Tut, tut, Moira, I have just said I do not know.”

”Is he ill, Papa?” Again the girl's voice grew faint.

”No, no, not ill. I wish he were! I mean it is some business matter you cannot understand. But it must be serious if Mr. Rae asks my presence immediately. So you must hasten, child.”

In less than half an hour Donald and the cart were waiting at the door, and Moira stood in the hall with her father's bag ready packed. ”Oh, I am glad,” she said, as she helped her father with his coat, ”that Allan is not ill. There can't be much wrong.”

”Wrong! Read that, child!” cried the father impatiently.

She took the letter and read, her face reflecting her changing emotions, perplexity, surprise, finally indignation. ”'A matter for the police,'”

she quoted, scornfully, handing her father the letter. ”'A matter for the police' indeed! My but that Mr. Rae is the clever man! The police!

Does he think my brother Allan would cheat?--or steal, perhaps!” she panted, in her indignant scorn.

”Mr. Rae is a careful man and a very able lawyer,” replied her father.

”Able! Careful! He's an auld wife, and that's what he is! You can tell him so for me.” She was trembling and white with a wrath her father had never before seen in her. He stood gazing at her in silent surprise.

”Papa,” cried Moira pa.s.sionately, answering his look, ”do you think what he is saying? I know my brother Allan clean through to the heart. He is wild at times, and might rage perhaps and--and--break things, but he will not lie nor cheat. He will die first, and that I warrant you.”

Still her father stood gazing upon her as she stood proudly erect, her pale face alight with lofty faith in her brother and scorn of his traducer. ”My child, my child,” he said, huskily, ”how like you are to your mother! Thank G.o.d! Indeed it may be you're right! G.o.d grant it!” He drew her closely to him.

”Papa, Papa,” she whispered, clinging to him, while her voice broke in a sob, ”you know Allan will not lie. You know it, don't you, Papa?”

”I hope not, dear child, I hope not,” he replied, still holding her to him.

”Papa,” she cried wildly, ”say you believe me.”

”Yes, yes, I do believe you. Thank G.o.d, I do believe you. The boy is straight.”

At that word she let him go. That her father should not believe in Allan was to her loyal heart an intolerable pain. Now Allan would have someone to stand for him against ”that lawyer” and all others who might seek to do him harm. At the House door she stood watching her father drive down through the ragged firs to the highroad, and long after he had pa.s.sed out of sight she still stood gazing. Upon the church tower rising out of its birches and its firs her eyes were resting, but her heart was with the little mound at the tower's foot, and as she gazed, the tears gathered and fell.

”Oh, Mother!” she whispered. ”Mother, Mother! You know Allan would not lie!”

A sudden storm was gathering. In a brief moment the world and the Glen had changed. But half an hour ago and the Cuagh Oir was lying glorious with its flowing gold. Now, from the Cuagh as from her world, the flowing gold was gone.

CHAPTER III

THE FAMILY SOLICITOR

The senior member of the legal firm of Rae & Macpherson was perplexed and annoyed, indeed angry, and angry chiefly because he was perplexed.

He resented such a condition of mind as reflecting upon his legal and other ac.u.men. Angry, too, he was because he had been forced to accept, the previous day, a favour from a firm--Mr. Rae would not condescend to say a rival firm--with which he for thirty years had maintained only the most distant and formal relations, to wit, the firm of Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds. Messrs. Rae & Macpherson were family solicitors and for three generations had been such; hence there gathered about the firm a fine flavour of a.s.sured respectability which only the combination of solid integrity and undoubted antiquity can give. Messrs. Rae & Macpherson had not yielded in the slightest degree to that commercialising spirit which would transform a respectable and self-respecting firm of family solicitors into a mere financial agency; a transformation which Mr. Rae would consider a degradation of an ancient and honourable profession.

This uncompromising att.i.tude toward the commercialising spirit of the age had doubtless something to do with their losing the solicitors.h.i.+p for the Bank of Scotland, which went to the firm of Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds, to Mr. Rae's keen, though unacknowledged, disappointment; a disappointment that arose not so much from the loss of the very honourable and lucrative appointment, and more from the fact that the appointment should go to such a firm as that of Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds.

For the firm of Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds were of recent origin, without ancestry, boasting an existence of only some thirty-five years, and, as one might expect of a firm of such recent origin, characterised by the commercialising modern spirit in its most p.r.o.nounced and objectionable form. Mr. Rae, of course, would never condescend to hostile criticism, dismissing Messrs. Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds from the conversation with the single remark, ”Pus.h.i.+ng, Sir, very pus.h.i.+ng, indeed.”

It was, then, no small humiliation for Mr. Rae to be forced to accept a favour from Mr. Thomlinson. ”Had it been any other than Cameron,” he said to himself, as he sat in his somewhat dingy and dusty office, ”I would let him swither. But Cameron! I must see to it and at once.”