Part 26 (1/2)

”When we were at Salen yesterday I saw Major Stuart, and he has just came back from Dunrobin. And he was saying very great things about the machine for the drying of crops in wet weather, and he said he would like to go to England to see the newer ones and all the later improvements, if these was a chance of any one about here going shares with them. And it would not be very much. Keith, if you were to share with him; and the machine it can be moved about very well; and in the bad weather you could give the cotters some help, to say nothing about our own hay and corn. And that is what Major Stuart was saying yesterday, that if there was any place that you wanted a drying-machine for the crops it was in Mull.”

”I have been thinking of it myself,” he said, absently, ”but our farm is too small to make it pay--”

”But if Major Stuart will take half the expense? And even if you lost a little, Keith, you would save a great deal to the poorer people who are continually losing their little patches of crops. And will you go and be my agent, Keith, to go and see whether it is practicable?”

”They will not thank you, Janet, for letting them have this help for nothing.”

”They shall not have it for nothing,” said she--for she had plenty of experience in dealing with the poorer folk around--”they must pay for the fuel that is used. And now, Keith, if it is a holiday you want, will not that be a very good holiday, and one to be used for a very good purpose, too?”

She left him. Where was the eager joy with which he ought to have accepted this offer? Here was the very means placed within his reach of satisfying the craving desire of his heart; and yet, all the same, he seemed to shrink back with a vague and undefined dread. A thousand impalpable fears and doubts beset his mind. He had grown timid as a woman. The old happy audacity had been destroyed by sleepless nights and a torturing anxiety. It was a new thing for Keith Macleod to have become a prey to strange unintelligible forebodings.

But he went and saw Major Stuart--a round, red, jolly little man, with white hair and a cheerful smile, who had a sombre and melancholy wife.

Major Stuart received Macleod's offer with great gravity. It was a matter of business that demanded serious consideration. He had worked out the whole system of drying crops with hot air as it was shown him in pamphlets, reports, and agricultural journals, and he had come to the conclusion that--on paper at least--it could be made to pay. What was wanted was to give the thing a practical trial. If the system was sound, surely any one who helped to introduce it into the Western Highlands was doing a very good work indeed. And there was nothing but personal inspection could decide on the various merits of latest improvements.

This was what he said before his wife one night at dinner. But when the ladies had left the room, the little stout major suddenly put up both his hands, snapped his thumb and middle finger, and very cleverly executed one or two reel steps.

”By George! my boy,” said he, with a ferocious grin on his face, ”I think we will have a little frolic--a little frolic!--a little frolic!

You were never shut up in a house for six months with a woman like my wife, were you, Macleod? You were never reminded of your coffin every morning, were you? Macleod, my boy, I am just mad to get after those drying-machines!”

And indeed Macleod could not have had a merrier companion to go South with him than this rubicund major just escaped from the thraldom of his wife. But it was with no such high spirits that Macleod set out. Perhaps it was only the want of sleep that had rendered him nerveless and morbid; but he felt, as he left Castle Dare, that there was a lie in his actions, if not in his words. And as for the future that lay before him, it was a region only of doubt, and vague regrets, and unknown fears; and he was entering upon it without any glimpse of light, and without the guidance of any friendly hand.

CHAPTER XX.

OTTER-SKINS.

”AH, pappy,” said Miss Gertrude White to her father and she pretended to sigh as she spoke--”this is a change indeed!”

They were driving up to the gate of the small cottage in South Bank. It was the end of October. In the gardens they pa.s.sed the trees were almost bare; though such leaves as hung spa.r.s.ely on the branches of the chestnuts and maples were ablaze with russet and gold in the misty suns.h.i.+ne.

”In another week,” she continued, ”there will not be a leaf left. I dare say there is not a single geranium in the garden. All hands on deck to pipe a farewell:

'Ihr Matten, lebt wohl, Ihr sonnigen Weiden Der Senne muss scheiden, Der Sommer ist hin.'

Farewell to the blue mountains of Newcastle, and the sunlit valleys of Liverpool, and the silver waterfalls of Leeds; the summer is indeed over; and a very nice and pleasant summer we have had of it.”

The flavor of sarcasm running through this affected sadness vexed Mr.

White, and he answered, sharply,

”I think you have little reason to grumble over a tour which has so distinctly added to your reputation.”

”I was not aware,” said she, with a certain careless sauciness of manner, ”that an actress was allowed to have a reputation; at least, there are always plenty of people anxious enough to take it away.”

”Gertrude,” said he, sternly, ”what do you mean by this constant carping? Do you wish to cease to be an actress? Or what in all the world do you want?”

”To cease to be an actress?” she said, with a mild wonder, and with the sweetest of smiles, as she prepared to get out of the open door of the cab. ”Why, don't you know; pappy, that a leopard cannot change his spots, or an Etheopian his skin? Take care of the step, pappy! That's right. Come here, Marie, and give the cabman a hand with this portmanteau.”