Part 35 (1/2)

”That sounds rather well, Macleod,” said he, ruefully.

”Oh, if you must remain in London--though I hope not--I will stay with you,” Macleod said. It was a great sacrifice, his remaining in London, instead of going at once back to Castle Dare; but what will not one do for one's friend?

CHAPTER XXVI.

AN INTERVIEW.

On the eventful morning on which Major Stuart was to be presented to the chosen bride of Macleod of Dare, the simple-hearted soldier--notwithstanding that he had a shade over one eye, made himself exceedingly smart. He would show the young lady that Macleod's friends in the North were not barbarians. The major sent back his boots to be brushed a second time. A more smoothly fitting pair of gloves Bond Street never saw.

”But you have not the air,” said he to Macleod, ”of a young fellow going to see his sweetheart. What is the matter, man?”

Macleod hesitated for a moment.

”Well, I am anxious she should impress you favorably,” said he, frankly; ”and it is an awkward position for her--and she will be embarra.s.sed, no doubt--and I have some pity for her, and almost wish some other way had been taken--”

”Oh, nonsense?” the major said, cheerfully. ”You need not be nervous on her account. Why, man, the silliest girl in the world could impose on an old fool like me. Once upon a time, perhaps, I may have considered myself a connoisseur--well, you know, Macleod, I once had a waist like the rest of you; but now, bless you, if a tolerably pretty girl only says a civil word or two to me, I begin to regard her as if I were her guardian angel--_in loco parentis_, and that kind of thing--and I would sooner hang myself than scan her dress or say a word about her figure.

Do you think she will be afraid of a critic with one eye? Have courage, man. I dare bet a sovereign she is quite capable of taking care of herself. It's her business.”

Macleod flushed quickly, and the one eye of the major caught that sudden confession of shame or resentment.

”What I meant was,” he said, instantly, ”that nature had taught the simplest of virgins a certain trick of fence--oh yes, don't you be afraid. Embarra.s.sment! If there is any one embarra.s.sed, it will not be me, and it will not be she. Why, she'll begin to wonder whether you are really one of the Macleods, if you show yourself nervous, apprehensive, frightened like this.”

”And indeed, Stuart,” said he, rising as if to shake off some weight of gloomy feeling, ”I scarcely know what is the matter with me. I ought to be the happiest man in the world; and sometimes this very happiness seems so great that it is like to suffocate me--I cannot breathe fast enough; and then, again, I get into such unreasoning fears and troubles--Well, let us get out into the fresh air.”

The major carefully smoothed his hat once more, and took up his cane. He followed Macleod down stairs--like Sancho Panza waiting on Don Quixote, as he himself expressed it; and then the two friends slowly sauntered away northward on this fairly clear and pleasant December morning.

”Your nerves are not in a healthy state, that's the fact, Macleod,” said the major, as they walked along. ”The climate of London is too exciting for you; a good, long, dull winter in Mull will restore your tone. But in the meantime don't cut my throat, or your own, or anybody else's.”

”Am I likely to do that?” Macleod said, laughing.

”There was young Bouverie,” the major continued, not heeding the question--”what a handsome young fellow he was when he joined us at Gawulpoor!--and he hadn't been in the place a week but he must needs go regular head over heels about our colonel's sister-in-law. An uncommon pretty woman she was, too--an Irish girl, and fond of riding; and dash me if that fellow didn't fairly try to break his neck again and again just that she should admire his pluck! He was as mad as a hatter about her. Well, one day two or three of us had been riding for two or three hours on a blazing hot morning, and we came to one of the irrigation reservoirs--big wells, you know--and what does he do but offer to bet twenty pounds he would dive into the well and swim about for ten minutes, till we hoisted him out at the end of the rope. I forget who took the bet, for none of us thought he would do it: but I believe he would have done anything so that the story of his pluck would be carried to the girl, don't you know. Well, off went his clothes, and in he jumped into the ice-cold water. Nothing would stop him. But at the end of the ten minutes, when we hoisted up the rope, there was no Bouverie there. It appeared that on clinging on to the rope he had twisted it somehow, and suddenly found himself about to have his neck broken, so he had to shake himself free and plunge into the water again.

When at last we got him out, he had had a longer bath than he had bargained for; but there was apparently nothing the matter with him--and he had won the money, and there would be a talk about him. However, two days afterward, when he was at dinner, he suddenly felt as though he had got a blow on the back of his head--so he told us afterward--and fell back insensible. That was the beginning of it. It took him five or six years to shake off the effects of that dip--”

”And did she marry him, after all?” Macleod said, eagerly.

”Oh dear, no! I think he had been invalided home not more than two or three months when she married Connolly, of the Seventy-first Madras Infantry. Then she ran away from him with some civilian fellow, and Connolly blew his brains out. That,” said the major, honestly, ”is always a puzzle to me. How a fellow can be such an a.s.s as to blow his brains out when his wife runs away from him beats my comprehension altogether. Now what I would do would be this: I would thank goodness I was rid of such a piece of baggage; I would get all the good-fellows I know, and give them a rattling fine dinner; and I would drink a b.u.mper to her health and another b.u.mper to her never coming back.”

”And I would send you our Donald, and he would play, 'Cha till mi tuilich' for you,” Macleod said.

”But as for blowing my brains out! Well,” the major added, with a philosophic air, ”when a man is mad he cares neither for his own life nor for anybody else's. Look at those cases you continually see in the papers: a young man is in love with a young woman; they quarrel, or she prefers some one else; what does he do but lay hold of her some evening and cut her throat--to show his great love for her--and then he coolly gives himself up to the police, and says he is quite content to be hanged.”

”Stuart,” said Macleod, laughing, ”I don't like this talk about hanging.

You said a minute or two ago that I was mad.”

”More or less,” observed the major, with absolute gravity; ”as the lawyer said when he mentioned the Fifteen-acres park at Dublin.”

”Well, let us get into a hansom,” Macleod said. ”When I am hanged you will ask them to write over my tombstone that I never kept anybody waiting for either luncheon or dinner.”

The trim maid-servant who opened the door greeted Macleod with a pleasant smile; she was a sharp wench, and had discovered that lovers have lavish hands. She showed the two visitors into the drawing-room; Macleod silent, and listening intently; the one-eyed major observing everything, and perhaps curious to know whether the house of an actress differed from that of anybody else. He very speedily came to the conclusion that, in his small experience, he had never seen any house of its size so tastefully decorated and accurately managed as this simple home.