Part 28 (2/2)
A man with his back to us turned as we appeared, and I interrupted the custodian's learned discourse by crying out the name most sacred in the Abbey. ”Mr. Douglas!” I exclaimed; for it was he--the Douglas soldier-man who was so kind, taking us all round the castle at Carlisle.
He said we might meet at Edinburgh, as he was soon to have leave, and intended to visit relatives there, but it was a surprise coming on him in the shrine of his ancestors.
I thought, of course, his arriving at that minute was an extraordinary coincidence; but when Sir S. shook hands, and asked in a matter-of-fact tone, ”How is it we meet here?” he confessed, as if half ashamed, that it wasn't exactly an accident. ”You see, I often come to Melrose for a look round if I'm in Scotland on leave,” he said, ”and I saw in the paper yesterday that you were motoring in this neighbourhood, expecting to call at Dryburgh and Melrose before Edinburgh.”
”Ah, yes--that interview Aline gave a journalist acquaintance of mine at Dumfries,” I heard George Vanneck murmur to Basil, who looked rather cross.
”I arrived at the hotel just after you'd been there to leave your luggage and sign names in the visitors' book,” Donald Douglas went on.
”They said you were motoring over to Abbotsford, and would come back to see the Abbey later; so it occurred to me, if I strolled over about this time, we might run across each other.”
”Quite so,” remarked Sir S.; an expression I detest, it sounds so like filing iron, especially as he said it then. However, the soldier-man didn't appear to mind in the least that the Great Somerled was stiff and unsympathetic. He attached himself to me, as I was his only other real acquaintance, except Mrs. James, in the party; and of course, as he reminded me, we were very old friends--as old as the day we first saw each other in the street at Carlisle, years and years ago.
He seemed to know as much as the custodian about Melrose and the Douglas Heart--which was natural, as he so values everything connected with his family name. He told me all about the good Sir James Douglas: how King Robert Bruce when dying begged his friend to take his heart to the Holy Land, and bury it where he had wished to go and fight for Christendom as an expiation for killing the Red Comyn. It was as good as a chapter out of a novel to hear how the Douglas got permission from the new king to be gone seven years on his great adventure; how he heard on his way to Jerusalem that King Alfonso of Spain was fighting the Saracens at Granada, and couldn't resist offering his help, being sure that Robert Bruce would have done the same; how in battle against Osmyn, the Saracen king, he was hard pressed, and taking the casket with Brace's heart in it from over his own heart, he threw it far ahead of him in the enemy's ranks, shouting, ”Pa.s.s first in fight, as thou wert ever wont. Douglas will follow thee or die!” And how he did both follow and die, but falling only when he had killed many Moslems and hewed his way through their bodies to where the heart lay.
”That's the old story of the Douglas Heart,” said the soldier-man, ”and there's a new story of the Douglas Heart I hope you'll let me tell you some day before long, because it's even more interesting--to me.”
”Why, then, I expect it will be to me too,” said I politely, ”so why not tell it me now, in Melrose Abbey, the place of all places?”
He looked at me in an odd way, and said, ”Yes, it _is_ the place of all places; but I'm afraid it's a little too early in the day----”
Just then Basil came up to announce that Mrs. James had sent him to fetch me, as we must return to the hotel and dress.
”Too bad!” I exclaimed. But as Sir S. was not far off I called to him, ”Don't you think we may come back here again after dinner?”
”Certainly, if you like,” he answered. ”Although the moon will have gone.”
”That doesn't matter,” said I; ”there will be stars. Mr. Douglas has a _new_ story of the Douglas Heart to tell me, which he thinks is even more interesting than the old, and it ought to be told in the Abbey.”
When I explained this, Donald Douglas turned bright scarlet, and all three of the Vannecks burst out laughing, which I thought extremely rude and uncalled for. But Sir S. looked as solemn as a judge.
”No doubt he's right about it's being more interesting, and quite as credible,” said he.
I don't know whether Mr. Douglas would have asked Mrs. James and me to walk over to the Abbey with him after dinner or not, if the weather had kept fine, but a thunder shower came up and it poured. So, although I teased him again to tell me the new story, when everybody but Mrs. James and he and I were playing bridge in our private sitting-room, he refused. ”I'll wait till Edinburgh,” he said, ”if you'll let me see you there.”
I had to explain that I didn't know where I should stay in Edinburgh, as that would depend upon my mother, to whom Mr. Somerled MacDonald was taking me.
”And Somerled himself, and the others?” he asked.
”Oh, they're going on,” said I, ”leaving me behind.”
He looked delighted; so perhaps he had not forgiven the Vannecks for laughing.
BOOK III
BASIL'S PLOT AND ”MRS. BAL”
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