Part 6 (1/2)

”O father, I'm so delighted!”

”Yes, boy, and there is one thing I look forward to--ay, and pray for--and that is for you and me, Jack, to be in the same field of battle, and drubbing the French as only British sailors and soldiers can.”

”Father, you've made me happy.--Why, Tom, this all but reconciles me to the loss of the love--”

Jack stopped, looking a little confused.

”Love--love? Why, Jack, my lad, what is this? Love of whom, boy?”

”Oh, only a pet spaniel, father. No, not dead. Lost though; enticed away--with a bone, I suppose.”

”Just the way with spaniels, Jack. Glad it's no worse. But 'pon honour, Jack, though you're not old enough to know it, womankind are precious little better. I _know_ 'em well, Jack; I know 'em. A bone will entice them too, particularly a bone with a bit of meat on it.”

Jack Mackenzie was not a young man who cared for much nursing. Had Gerty been his nurse it would doubtless have been all so different. However, it was very pleasant for Jack to while away the next month or two down at Grantley Hall, and to be treated like an interesting invalid and made a hero of by old maids and young ones too. The curate of the parish had not a chance now.

Then the country was so lovely all around the Hall. Though lacking the grandeur and romance of our Scottish Highlands, the land of the broads, with its wealth of wild flowers, its dreamy, quiet lakes, its waving reeds, its moors, and its birds, throws a glamour over one in spring-time that no true lover of nature can resist.

Jack's arm was well in a month, and he was waiting for service. He did not mind waiting even a little longer, and most a.s.suredly Tom Fairlie did not, nor M'Hearty either, who was also a guest at the Hall. Richards also had come down to spend a week or two. He and M'Hearty became inseparables.

A great old tub of a boat belonged to Mackenzie, and this lay on an adjoining broad or lake. Tom and Jack fitted it out as a kind of gondola, and many a pleasant hour did the young folks spend together on the water, sometimes not returning till stars were reflected from the dark bosom of the lake or the moonbeams seemed to change it into molten gold.

A pleasant time indeed--a time that flew all too quickly for poor Tom Fairlie.

One evening, when hanging up his hat in the hall, Jack's father took him by the hand and led him silently into the library.

”Father, father,” cried Jack, ”what has happened?”

”A bolt from the blue, my boy; a bolt from the blue.”

CHAPTER VII.

”WENT GLIDING AWAY LIKE A BEAUTIFUL GHOST.”

”They bid me forget her--oh, how can it be?

In kindness or scorn she's ever wi' me; I feel her fell frown in the lift's frosty blue, An' I weel ken her smile in the lily's saft hue.

I try to forget her, but canna forget, I've liket her lang, an' I aye like her yet.”

THOM, _the Inverury Poet_.

Richards, the kindly old solicitor, with Jack and his sister Flora and the general--these formed the group in the solemn, dark-panelled library of Grantley Hall on that beautiful summer's evening. The light of the westering sun stole in through the high stained windows, and cast patches of light and colour on the furniture and on the floor. Mackenzie had already told his son all the story of his troubles, and while he had yet been talking, the curtains in the doorway were drawn back, and Flora appeared, leaning on the arm of her good friend Richards.

The general had lifted up a deprecating hand.

”No need, no need.” This from the family lawyer. ”Flora already knows all. And bravely has she borne the tidings. Ah, my good sir, Flora is a true Mackenzie.”

”But you might have told me long ago,” was all she had said as she seated herself on a low stool by her father's knee. ”O father, I could have borne it, and could have comforted you, now that poor mother has gone!”