Dolly nodded to show her detached appreciation of the soundness of this point.

"I permitted myself one indulgence," Robin continued. "I dedicated a book to you."

"O-oh!" said Dolly, genuinely interested. "Was that me? Dilly and I thought it must be a girl in Scotland."

Then she realised that this was a step down from her pedestal of aloofness, and was silent again. Robin went on—

"Yes, it was you. It was a sentimental thing to do, but it afforded me immense pleasure. Love lives more on the homage it pays than that which it receives. Have you noticed that?"

"I have never thought about it," said Dolly distantly.

"I thought not," replied Robin; "because it shows, what I have always been tolerably certain of, that you have never been in love. However, to resume." ["Like a lecture on Greek Roots, or something equally fusty," observes Dolly at this point.] "The time came, as it was bound to come, when I realised that I must tell you I loved you"——

"I rather like the way he always said 'love' straight out," comments Dolly: "most men are so frightened of it. They say 'am fond of' or 'care for' or something feeble like that. All except the curate with pink eyes. (You remember him? Dora Claverton took him afterwards on the rebound.) He said 'esteem highly' I think."

——"or leave this house altogether. But before doing that I had to decide two things: firstly, whether I was good enough for you, and secondly, if not now, whether I ever should be."

Dolly's half-closed eyes opened a trifle wider. This was certainly a methodically-minded young man.

"It was difficult to decide the first question in practice," continued Robin. "In theory, of course, any man who is a man—honest, clean, and kind—is a fitting mate for any woman. Don't you think so?"

"No," said Dolly.

"I see," said Robin gently. "The theoretical is mainly the man's point of view: woman looks straight to practical results. She is rather inclined to take the virtues I have mentioned for granted, or do without them; and she founds her opinion of a man almost solely upon his capacity for boring her or stimulating her. In other words, she is guided by her instinct. Isn't she?"

"Is she?" said Dolly, determined this time to maintain her attitude of indifference.

"I think so," said Robin. "However, knowing how impossible it is for one sex to look at a matter from the point of view of another, I decided to stick to my own methods. So I made a summary of my points, good and bad. They are these: I am strong and healthy; I possess an appetite for hard work; I was born with brains; I have considerable capacity for organisation——"

"Some people have a good conceit of themselves!" said Dolly.

"Every one should have," replied Robin with conviction. "And," he added, "most of us have. I have—you have!"

"Oh!" said Dolly indignantly.

"But a man may have a good conceit of himself," Robin continued soothingly, "without being what the world calls conceited. Modesty consists not in taking a low estimate of one's own worth, but in refraining from the expectation that the world will take a high one."

Dolly nodded gravely.

"I see," she said. "I didn't know you meant that. Yes, there is something in what you say."

"I thank you," said Robin. "It is very helpful to me to get this courteous hearing from you; for to tell you the truth," he added rather explosively, "I find it a very, very great effort to speak to you like this at all. You see, I am talking of things that go right to the centre of the human heart—things that a man never speaks of to a man, and only once to a woman. It has to be done, but it is hard, hard!"

He drew a long breath, in a manner which made the sofa tremble; and Dolly suddenly realised the height and depth of the barrier of reserve and pride that this grave and undemonstrative man had had to break down before he could offer her the view of his inmost soul to which he considered that she was entitled. She felt a sudden pang of awe, mingled with compassionate sympathy. She was not given to wearing her heart on her sleeve herself.

"Well," continued Robin, evidently relieved by this little confession, "those are my assets. On the other hand, I have no money, no position—I will not say no birth, for I come of good, honest stock—and my prospects are at present in the clouds. But to one type of wife all that would not matter a scrap. There are two types, you know—two types of good wife, that is."

"I would have given worlds," says Dolly here, "just to have said 'Oh!' or something; but for the life of me I couldn't help asking what the two types were."

"The first," said Robin, "is the wife who loves her husband because she is proud of him, because he is successful and powerful, and people admire him; and not because she has any conception of or sympathy with the qualities which have made him what he is. To such a one the husband must come with his reputation ready made, and they will enjoy it together. The other type loves her husband because she sees through him, yet believes in him and sympathises with his aims, and intends to make a success of him. And she usually does."

"And which am I?" inquired Dolly.

"The latter, undoubtedly—the higher type. And therefore, if there had been nothing else in the way, I think I should have given myself the benefit of the doubt. But——"

"He turned and looked at me here," writes Dolly, and said—

"'But your feminine instinct is chafing against all this laborious weighing of pros and cons. In your own mind you summed up the situation ten minutes ago. I am—"impossible." Isn't that it?'

"My dear, I nearly screamed, for of course that is just what was in my mind. But I couldn't very well say so, so I just sat there and looked rather idiotic and he went on—

"'In other words, I am not quite a gentleman.'

"Then I said quite suddenly—

"'Robin, whatever else you may be, you are a gentleman.'

"He got quite pink. 'Thank you,' he said. 'But for all that, I am too rough a suitor for such a polished little aristocrat as yourself.' (Rather cheek, that! After all, Dilly, we're five feet seven.) 'We live in an artificial sort of world; and a man, in order not to jar on those around him, requires certain social accomplishments. I have few—at present. You have taught me a great deal, but I should still rather discredit you as a husband. My want of polish would 'affront' you, as we say in Scotland. I am a better beater than shot; I can break a horse better than I can ride it; and I dance a reel better than I waltz. I have strength, but no grace; ability, but no distinction. Of course, if you and I really loved each other—you being of Type Two—none of these things would matter. But for all that, it would hurt you to see people smiling at your husband's little gaucheries, wouldn't it?'

"I didn't answer, and he got up and went and leaned against the mantelpiece.

"'Listen,' he said, 'and I will tell you what I have decided to do. I have made up my mind not to have a try for you—badly though I want it—till I consider that I have reached your standard. I fixed that standard myself, so it is a very, very high one, I have been schooling myself and shaping myself to attain it ever since I met you. But I have not quite reached it yet, and therefore I have nothing to ask of you now.'"

"Then what on earth have you brought me here for?" inquired Dolly, feeling vaguely aggrieved.

Robin surveyed her rather wistfully, and then smiled in a disarming fashion.

"That was weakness," he said, "sheer weakness. But I think it was pardonable. I saw, now that your sister was married, that the days of your old irresponsible flirtations were over, and that you would henceforth regard proposals of marriage as much more serious things than hitherto. Consequently you might marry any day, without ever knowing that a little later on you would have received an offer from me. I have brought you here, then, to tell you that I am a prospective candidate, but that I do not feel qualified to put down my name at present. Ideally speaking, I ought to have kept silence until the moment when I considered that I was ready for you; but—well, there are limits to self-repression, and I have allowed myself this one little outbreak. All I ask, then, is that in considering other offers you will bear somewhere in the back of your mind the remembrance that you will, if you desire it, one day have the refusal of me. I admit that the possibility of your being influenced by the recollection is very remote, but I am going to leave nothing undone that can be done to get you."

"By this time," Dolly continues elegantly, "I was getting considerably flummoxed. The whole business was very absurd and uncomfortable, but I couldn't help feeling rather complimented at the way he evidently regarded me—as a sort of little tin goddess on a pedestal out of reach, being asked to be so good as to stand still a moment while Robin went to hunt for the steps—and I also felt a little bit afraid of him. He was so quiet and determined over it all. He seemed to have it all mapped out in a kind of time-table inside him. However, I pulled myself together and decided to contribute my share to the conversation. I hadn't had much of a look in, so far.

"So I settled down to talk to him like a mother. I began by saying that I was very much obliged and honoured, and all that, but that he had better put the idea out of his head once and for all. I liked him very much, and had always regarded him as a great friend, quite one of the family—you know the sort of stuff—but——

"It was no good. He held up his hand like a policeman at a crossing, and said—

"'Please say nothing. I have asked you no question of any kind, so no answer is required. All that I have said to-night has been in the nature of an intimation.' (O-h! how like church!)

"Then he sat down on the sofa beside me, very gently, and said—

"'The intimation in brief is this. I love you; and some day, please God, I shall ask you to marry me. But not until I feel that you would lose nothing by doing so.'

"We both sat very still for a few minutes after that. I fancy we were both doing a little thinking. My chief reflection was that Robin had had rather the better of the interview, because he had made me listen to him when I was determined not to. Suddenly Robin said—

"'Now that the business part of this conversation is over, I am going to allow myself a luxury. I have been talking most of the time about myself. For just five minutes I shall talk about you. I will tell you what I think of you.'

"He looked at his watch and began. Dilly, I had no idea I had so many good points! He put them better than any man has ever done before. But then the other men were always so jumbled up, and this creature was as cool and collected as if he were reading a Stores Catalogue.

"But he let himself go at last. It was my fault, though. I was in rather a twitter by this time, for although the whole thing was simply absurd—of course one couldn't marry a wild untamed creature like that, could one, Dilly?—I couldn't help seeing what a man he was, and feeling sorry that things couldn't have been a bit different, if only for his sake. So I gave him my hand" [I can see her do it] "and said: 'Poor old Robin!'

"He seized it—my child, it has waggled like a blanc-mange ever since!—and kissed it. Then, quite suddenly, he broke out into a sort of rhapsody-like 'The Song of Solomon,' only nicer—with his head bowed over my hands. (He had got hold of the other one too, by this time.) I felt perfectly helpless, so I let him run on. I shan't tell you what he said, dear, because it wouldn't be cricket. Anyhow, a perfectly idiotic tear suddenly rolled down my nose—after all, I had had a fearfully long day—and I tried to pull my hands away. Robin let them go at once.

"'You are right. The time for such things is not yet,' he said, in a queer Biblical sort of way. 'It was a sudden weakness on my part. I had not meant it, you may be sure.'

"The only thing I am sure about," I said, feeling thoroughly vexed about the tear, "is that we have been in this room nearly an hour. Please unlock the door.

"Then we went downstairs."

After that follow one or two postscripts of a reflective nature, the general trend of which seems to indicate that Robin is rather a dear, but quite impossible.

* * * * *

"A flippant and unfeeling letter," you say, sir? Perhaps. But there is often no reserve so deep or so delicate as that which is veiled by a frivolous exterior and a mocking attitude towards sentiment in general. Some sensitive people are so afraid of having their hearts dragged to light that, to escape inquisition, they pretend they do not possess any. Moreover, I know Dolly well enough to be certain that she was not quite so brutally unkind to Robin during this interview as she would have us believe.

"The blundering creature! He went about it in quite the wrong way," you say, madam? Very likely. But if a woman only took a man when he went about it in exactly the right way, how very few marriages there would be!



BOOK TWO.

THE FINISHED ARTICLE



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A MISFIRE.

I.

There is an undefinable character and distinctiveness about Sunday morning which is not possessed by any other day of the week.

Not that the remaining six are lacking in individuality. Monday is a depressed and reluctant individual; Tuesday is a full-blooded and energetic citizen; Wednesday a cheerful and contented gentleman who does not intend to overwork himself to-day,—this is probably due to the fact that we used to have a half-holiday on Wednesdays at school; and when I got into Parliament I found that the same rule held there; Thursday I regard as one who ploughs steadily on his way, lacking enthusiasm but comfortably conscious of a second wind; Friday is a debilitated but hopeful toiler, whose sole joy in his work lies in anticipating its speedy conclusion; and Saturday is a radiant fellow with a straw hat and a week-end bag.

Still, one week-day is very like another at waking time. My mental vision, never pellucid, is in its most opaque condition in the early grey of the morning; and at Oxford, I remember, I found it necessary to instruct my scout to rouse me from slumber in some such fashion as this: "Eight o'clock on Thursday mornin', sir!" (as if I had slept since Monday at least), or "'Alf-past nine, slight rain, and a Toosday, sir!"

However, no one was ever yet needed to inform me that it was Sunday morning. This is perhaps natural enough in town, where the silence of the streets and the sound of bells proclaim the day; but why the same phenomenon should occur in the middle of a Highland moor, where every day is one glorious open-air Sabbath, passes my comprehension.

I discussed the problem after breakfast as I sat and smoked my pipe in the heathery garden of Strathmyrtle, a shooting-lodge at which we were being hospitably entertained by Kitty's uncle, Sir John Rubislaw, a retired Admiral of the Fleet, whose forty years' official connection with Britannia's realm betrayed itself in a nautical roll, syncopated by gout, and what I may describe as a hurricane-deck voice. My three companions in the debate were my host, Master Gerald, and another guest in the house, one Dermott, an officer in a Highland regiment.

The Admiral ascribed my Sabbath intuition to the working of some inward and automatic monitor; while Dermott, among whose many sterling qualities delicate fancy was not included, put it down to the smell of some special dish indigenous to Sunday breakfast. My brother-in-law's contribution to the debate was an unseemly and irreverent parallel between Saturday night potations and Sunday morning "heads."

To us entered Dolly and Phillis.

Our hostess, together with Kitty and the other girl of the party—an American young lady of considerable personal attractions—had driven off to church in what is locally called a "machine." The duties of escort had been voluntarily undertaken by an undergraduate named Standish, who was the latest recruit to the American young lady's army of worshippers. The rest of us had stayed at home—the Admiral because he not infrequently did so; I because I was expecting Robin back by the "machine" (which was to pick him up at a wayside station, where he had been sitting on his portmanteau ever since six o'clock that morning, having been dropped there by the night mail from London), and was anticipating two or three hours' solid work with him; Gerald because he had succeeded in evading his eldest sister's eye during the search for church recruits; Dolly to look after Phillis; and Captain Dermott for reasons not unconnected with Dolly.

It was Phillis's birthday, but out of consideration for Scottish views on Sabbath observance the festivities in connection with that anniversary had been postponed until the morrow. However, this did not prevent my daughter from demanding (and obtaining) various special privileges of an unofficial character this hot Sunday morning. Consequently a spiritually willing but carnally incompetent band, consisting of one jovial but arthritic baronet, one docile but self-conscious warrior, one indulgent but overheated parent, and Dolly—Gerald stood scornfully aloof—were compelled to devote the next two hours to a series of games, stage-plays, and allegories of an innocuous but exhausting description.

We began by joining hands and walking in a circle, solemnly chanting a ditty of the "I-saw-a-ship-a-sailing" variety, which culminated in the following verse—

"Then three times round went that gallant ship, Then three times round went she; Then three times round went that gallant ship—

(Here we were commanded by the mistress of the revels, in a hoarse and hurried stage whisper, to be ready to fall down)

—And sank to the bottom—of—the—sea!"

"Now all fall down!" screamed Phillis.

We did so, and lay on the grass in serried heaps. The remark which the Admiral made when my left elbow descended upon his goutiest foot was fortunately obscured by the fact that his face was inside his hat at the moment.

After that we performed the "most lamentable comedy" of "The Three Bears." Phillis assigned the parts, reserving for herself the role of Curly Locks and Stage Manager. Dolly was cast for Mother Bear, Captain Dermott for Father Bear, and I for Baby Bear. The Admiral, at his own urgent request, was allotted the comparatively unimportant part of Baby Bear's bed, and sat nursing his foot and observing with keen relish the preparations of the Bear family for their morning walk. We set out at last, all three on our hands and knees, Dolly and Dermott crawling amicably side by side, heroically regardless of white skirt and Sunday sporran; I, as befitted my youth and station, bringing up the rear.

The Bears having vacated their domicile (the grass plot), Curly Locks, after much furtive peeping round bushes, entered and advanced to the rustic table, where she proceeded to test the contents of the various porridge-bowls (represented by two tobacco-pouches and an ash-tray respectively).

"Too hot!" she said, after sampling the first bowl.

"Too cold!" she continued, trying the next.

"A-a-ah!" she cried, coming to the third; and swallowed its contents (some heather-tops) with every appearance of enjoyment.

After that came the inspection of the beds (two sofa-cushions and the Admiral), and finally Curly Locks retired to rest on her grand-uncle's knee.

Then the Three Bears came painfully back from the shrubbery, and Curly Locks' acts of spoliation were revealed one by one. My assumption of grief on the discovery of my empty porridge-bowl was so realistic that the Stage Manager sat up in bed and commended me for it. Finally we went the round of the furniture; Curly Locks was duly discovered; and I was engaged in a life-and-death struggle for her shrieking person with the bed itself, when there was a crunching of gravel, and the "machine" drove up with Robin inside it.

After my secretary had greeted those of us whom he knew, and been interrupted in the middle of a rapturous embrace from Phillis to be introduced to those whom he did not, I took him off indoors for a meal, through the breakfast-room window, and opened the portfolio of correspondence which he had brought me from London.

"Hallo! Here is a letter for Dermott," I said. "I'll take it to him."

I stepped through the window and handed the letter to Dermott, who was falling into line for a fresh game just outside.

"That envelope looks terribly official," said Dolly. "What does it all mean?"

"I expect it means Aldershot," said Dermott ruefully. "However, I shan't open it till lunch-time." And he stuffed the offending epistle into his pocket, and returned to the game in hand with a zest and abandon that betrayed ulterior motives in every antic.

We had seen a good deal of Captain Dermott that summer. Somehow he had been in nearly every house we had visited; and his laborious expressions of pleased surprise at meeting us there had now given way to specious and transparent explanations of his own presence. The experts at countless tea-tables and shooting-lunches were practically unanimous in the opinion that Dolly could land her fish when she chose now; and as the fish was a good fellow, and could offer her three thousand a-year and the reflected glory of a D.S.O., it was generally conceded that my youngest sister-in-law—have I ever mentioned that Dolly was the junior Twin?—was about to do extremely well for herself.

I sat by Robin as he consumed his breakfast, and waded through my correspondence. There was a good deal to sign and a good deal to digest, and a good deal that was of no importance whatsoever. But the clou of the whole budget was contained in a private letter from my Chief. I read it.

"My word, Robin!" I said. "There's to be a Dissolution in January."

There was no answer, and I looked up.

Robin was not listening. His attention had wandered to the game in progress on the lawn. This was one of Phillis' most cherished pastimes, and was called "Beckoning." The players, except the person who for the time being filled the role of "It," stood patiently in a row, until "It," after mature consideration, beckoned invitingly to one of them to approach. This invitation might or might not be a genuine one, for sometimes the player on responding was received by the beckoner with hisses and other symptoms of distaste, and fell back ignominiously on the main body. But if you were the real object of the beckoner's affections, you were greeted with embraces and a cry of "I choose you!" and succeeded to the proud post of "It."

It was a simple but embarrassing game, calling for the exercise of considerable tact when played by adults. At the present moment Phillis was beckoner, while Dolly, Dermott, and the Admiral stood meekly in line awaiting selection. Dolly and the Admiral were each called without being chosen, and Phillis's final selection proved to be Dermott, who, having received an enthusiastic salute from the retiring president, now stood sheepishly on one leg surveying the expectant trio before him.

He began by beckoning to his host; and, having relieved that gentleman's apprehensions by sibilant noises, waggled a nervous finger at Dolly. Dolly advanced obediently.

"Choose her, if you like," said Phillis magnanimously.

Dermott's martial eye kindled, but he made no sign, and the game faltered in its stride for a moment.

"Say," interpolated the prompter, "'I choose you!' and then k——"

But Dermott, hastily emitting a hiss which must have cost him a heartrending effort, relegated the greatly relieved Dolly to the ranks, and smoothed over the situation by "choosing" my daughter, to that young person's undisguised gratification.

It was at this phase in the proceedings that Robin's attention began to wander from the affairs of State, and I had to repeat my news of the impending Dissolution to him twice before he grasped its full significance. Even then he displayed about one-tenth of the excitement I should have expected of him; and finally he admitted that he was somewhat derange after his night journey, and suggested a postponement of business in favour of a little recreation on the lawn.

We accordingly added ourselves to the party, just in time to join the cast of Phillis' next production. This was an ambitious but complicated drama of an allegorical type, in which Robin appeared—not for the first time, evidently—as a boy called Henry, and Phillis doubled the parts of Henry's mother and a fairy. These two roles absorbed practically the whole of what is professionally known as "the fat" of the piece, and the other members of the company were relegated—to their ill-disguised relief—to parts of purely nominal importance.

The curtain rose (if I may use the expression) upon Henry's humble home, where Henry was discovered partaking of breakfast (fir-cones). He complained bitterly to his mother of the hardship of (a) early rising, (b) going to school, and (c) enduring chastisement when he got there. The next scene revealed him in class, where the schoolmaster (Dolly, assiduously prompted by Phillis) asked him a series of questions, which he answered so incorrectly as to incur the extreme penalty of "the muckle tawse." (Here what textual critics term "internal evidence of a later hand" peeped out unmistakably.) The punishment having been duly inflicted by Dolly with a rug-strap, Henry retired, suffused with tears, to "a mountain-top," where he gave vent to a series of bitter reflections on the hardness of his lot and the hollowness of life in general.

He must have "gagged" unduly here, for presently he was cut short by a stern admonition to "wish for a fairy."

"I wish for a fairy," said Henry dutifully.

Phillis, given her cue at last, pirouetted before him with outstretched skirts.

"Go on!" she whispered excitedly. "Say, 'I wish that all Pain was Pleasure and all Pleasure Pain.'"

"Oh, sorry!" said Henry. "I wish that all Pain was Pleasure and Pleasure Pain."

"Have then thy wish!" announced the fairy solemnly, and fluttered away.

The drama thereafter pursued a remorselessly logical and improving course. Having got his wish, the luckless Henry found that his only moments of pleasure were those during which he was enduring the tawse, getting out of bed on a cold morning, or doing something equally unpleasant. On the other hand, his comfortable bed had become so painful that he could only obtain rest by filling it with stones; and his matutinal porridge was only made palatable by the addition of a handful of gravel.

After a fruitless interview with the family physician (Captain Dermott), in which the patient's mother set forth her offspring's symptoms with embarrassing frankness, Henry was compelled, as a last resort, to pay one more visit to the mountain-top. The indulgent fairy kindly agreed to put things right, but only under penalty of an improving homily on contentment with one's lot and the fatuity of asking for what you do not really want. This was only half finished when the party returned from church, and Phillis, realising that the absolute despotism of the last few hours would now be watered down by an unsentimental mother into a limited monarchy at the best, retired within her shell and declared the revels at an end.



II.

"What was the church like?" I inquired at lunch.

"I have witnessed more snappy entertainments," remarked Miss Buncle, the American girl, through her pretty nose. "Still, we smiled some. Mr Standish here got quite delirious when the minister prayed for 'the adjacent country of England, which, as Thou knowest, O Lord, lies some twa hundred miles to the sooth of us,'—I'm sorry I can't talk Scotch, Mr Fordyce,—as if he was afraid that Providence might mail the blessing to the wrong address and Iceland would get it."

Kitty broke in upon Miss Buncle's reminiscences.

"Who do you think we saw in church?" she said. "I nearly forgot to tell you. Your uncle, Robin—Sir James Fordyce!"

Robin nodded his head in a confirmatory way.

"He is often up here at this time of year," he said.

"He has friends here, perhaps?" said I.

"Oh yes; he has friends."

I could tell from Robin's voice that he was nursing some immense joke, but he betrayed no inclination to share it with us. Kitty went on.

"He was sitting in a pew with some farmery-looking people. There was a patriarchal old man, very stately and imposing, rather like—like——"

"Moses?" I suggested.

"No. I don't think Moses was like that."

I had got as far as 'Aar'—when Lady Rubislaw said—

"Elijah?"

"That's it," replied Kitty. "Just like Elijah." (All things considered, I cannot imagine why Moses would not have done as well.) "Then beside him was a perfectly dear old lady. Not so very old either; say sixty. Of course they may not have belonged to Sir James at all: he may just have been put in their pew. Still, they kept handing him Bibles, and looking up places for him at singing time."

"That means nothing," said I. "It's the merest courtesy here."

"True," said our hostess. "I was having a most lovely little doze during the Second Lesson, or whatever they call it, when a most officious young woman three or four pews away took up an enormous Bible, found the place, squeaked down the aisle, and thrust it under my nose. I had to hold it up for fifty-seven verses," she concluded pathetically.

"Did you go and speak to Sir James after the service?" I inquired.

"No. That was this child's fault," said Kitty, indicating Miss Buncle.

"How?"

"Well, there was a rather gorgeous-looking chieftain sort of person sitting in a front pew, and I saw Maimie twisting her head all during the service to look at him."

"Yes," admitted the culprit frankly. "Put me in the neighbourhood of a kilt, and I'm a common rubberneck straight away, Mr Inglethwaite. I'm just mad to know all those cunning tartans by heart."

"The moment the service was over," continued my wife severely, "I saw her edging through the crowd in the churchyard towards the chieftain. For a moment I thought she was going to ask him his name."

"I wasn't!" declared Miss Buncle indignantly.

"No, you did worse. She got close to the unfortunate man," continued my wife to us, "and suddenly I noticed that she had in her hand one of those little books you buy at railway book-stalls in the Highlands, with patterns of all the tartans in them and the name of the clan underneath. By the time I got up to her she had found the right tartan in the book, and was matching it up against the back of the poor unconscious creature's kilt. Then she turned to me in a triumphant sort of way and simply bellowed—'M'Farlane!'"

"We shall probably be hauled up before the Kirk-session," said the Admiral. "But I wonder who Sir James Fordyce's friends can be. I know most of the people who have shootings about here, but none of them are friends of his that I can think of. We must get him to come and shoot here one day. Rather late for to-morrow's drive, but there will be another on Thursday. I wonder who his host is, though?"

"I might help you," said Robin. "An old man, you said, with his wife?"

"Yes—oldish," said Kitty.

"Was there a son with them?"

"N-no."

"No? Well, he would be away at the lamb-sales, perhaps," said Robin reflectively. "Was there a daughter?"

"Now you mention it," said Kitty, "there was. A nice, bonny-looking girl. Twenty-four, I should say."

"Twenty-three," said Robin.

We all turned on him.

"Now then, what is all the mystery? Out with it! Who is the girl—eh?"

"She would be my sister," said Robin calmly. "And the others were my father and mother."

There was a little gasp of surprise all round the table. Robin went on—

"My home is just seven miles from here. This is the first time I have got near my folk for six years. To-morrow I mean to go and see them. And they would like fine, I know," he added a little shyly, "if some of you would come with me."

"I'll come," said Kitty promptly. "I should love to meet your mother, Robin."

"May I come, Uncle Robin?" piped Phillis. "For a birfday treat," she added, in extenuation.

Applications for an invitation rained in. Apart from a desire to please a man whom we all respected—and our ready offers undoubtedly did please him—I think we were all a little curious to view the mould which had turned Robin out.

"You can't all go," said the Admiral at last. "There's the grouse-drive to-morrow, and eight butts to fill; not to mention the need of female society at lunch."

Finally it was arranged that Robin should take Kitty and Phillis over on a sort of preliminary call, and they could arrange for the establishment of more substantial relations.

But that evening, as the ladies were having their candles lit at the foot of the staircase, I heard Robin say to Dolly—

"Will you come with us to-morrow?"

Dolly seemed to consider, and was about to reply, when Dermott, who never seemed very far away now, cut in.

"Too late, Fordyce! Miss Rubislaw has promised to come and load for me in my butt to-morrow afternoon."

"No, I'm afraid it can't be managed this time, Robin," said Dolly. "But I am coming with you later in the week, if you'll take me."

Robin said nothing.

Now Dolly, I knew, did not approve of the inclusion of females in the business part of a day's shooting; and she regarded Miss Buncle and her twenty-eight bore with pious horror. The fact that she had consented to come and hold Dermott's second gun to-morrow seemed to indicate that that gallant sportsman had accomplished a feat which had already proved too much for several highly deserving young men—I was not quite sure that Robin was not one of them; and there seemed to be every reason to anticipate (especially since he was due to start for Aldershot to-morrow night) that when the Captain returned from the chase to-morrow afternoon, his bag would include one head of game of an interesting and unusual variety.



III.

At ten o'clock next morning we met the keepers, dogs, and beaters not far from the first line of butts on the moor. There was a hot sun, and the bees were bumbling in the heather. Somehow Whitehall seemed a long way off.

The number of guns had been brought up to seven by the inclusion of a neighbouring laird—one Gilmerton of Nethercraigs—and his son.

"All the same, we are still a man short," complained the Admiral, to whom a house-party was a ship's company, and a day's shooting a sort of terrestrial naval manoeuvre. "However, we will cut out the end butt in each drive and put a stop there to turn the birds farther in. Now we'll draw for places. Each man to take the butt whose number he draws, counting from the right and moving up one place after each drive. And Heaven help the man who draws number four now, for it means number seven and a climb up The Pimple for him directly after lunch!"

There was a general laugh at this, which swelled to an unseemly roar when I drew the fatal number.

However, after lunch was a long way off, and I trotted contentedly to number four and settled down to a pipe, while the head-keeper led off his mixed multitude of assistants, dogs, boys, and red flags to make a detour and work the game up towards us.

The first drive was simple. We were in a long and rather shallow glen, across which ran a low ridge, dividing it into two almost equal sections. The butts were placed along this ridge; and after the birds had been sent over us the beaters would work round to the other end of the glen and drive them back again. The shooting would be easy, for the ground lay flat and open in either direction.

I found myself between Standish and Gerald; the former on my right, and the latter, together with the young keeper to whom his shooting education had been entrusted, in the butt on my left. Beyond Standish was Dermott, the crack shot of the party, and beyond Dermott, in number one butt, was the Admiral. The Gilmertons, pere et fils, occupied the butts on the extreme left.

The drive was moderately successful. At first the birds came along singly, mostly on the right, and fell an easy prey to Dermott and the Admiral. But presently a great pack got up comparatively near the butts, and fairly "rushed" us. I brought off an easy right and left straight in front of me, and then, snapping out my cartridges and slipping another in, I swung round and just managed to bring down a third bird with a "stern chaser"—a feat which I regretted to observe no one else noticed, for there was a perfect fusilade all along the line at the moment. Master Gerald, who had discharged his first barrel straight into the "brown," succeeded, in obedience to his mentor's admonitions, in covering an old cock-grouse with his second, and carefully following that flustered fowl's course with the point of his gun, pulled the trigger just as it skimmed, low down, with an agitated squawk, between his butt and mine. I heard the shot rattle through the heather, and two pellets hit on my left boot.

The congenial task of telling Gerald, in a low but penetrating voice, exactly what I thought of him, occupied my attention so fully for the next minute that I failed to observe a blackcock which suddenly swung up into view and whizzed straight past my head, to the audible annoyance of the distant Admiral and the undisguised joy of my unrepentant relative.

No more birds came after that, and presently, the line of beaters having advanced within range, we put down our guns and collected the slain. We had not done badly, considering the fact that the main body of the birds had swerved away to our left over the unoccupied butt, despite the valiant efforts of an urchin with a red flag to turn them. Dermott headed the list with four and a half brace, and Gerald brought up the rear with a mangled corpse which had received the contents of his first barrel point-blank at a distance of about six feet. The laird of Nethercraigs (a cautious and economical sportsman, who was reputed never to loose off his gun at anything which did not come and perch on his butt) had fired just three cartridges and killed just three birds, but his son had seven. The Admiral and Standish had also had average luck, and altogether we had fourteen and a half brace to show for our exertions.

Off went the beaters again, and we changed butts and waited. The second drive gave us fewer birds but better sport. There were no great packs, but we got plenty to do in the way of sharp-shooting, and Gerald's keeper—a singularly ambiguous title in this case—succeeded by increased vigilance in preserving me from being further sniped by my enterprising brother-in-law.

We totalled up twelve brace this time, and then made ready for a tramp to the next line of butts, away round the shoulder of a fairly distant hill.

"We may as well spread out and walk 'em up this bit," said our host. "We can't have the dogs, though, as the keepers and beaters are going a different way; and each man will have to carry what he shoots. In that case we'll leave rabbits alone. Gerald, you had better get to the extreme left of the line. That will limit the risk to one man!"

"I'll carry home your bag if you'll carry mine, Gerald," cried Standish facetiously, as my brother-in-law, a trifle offended at the Admiral's last pleasantry, proceeded with much dignity to his allotted place.

Gerald was almost out of earshot, but he waved a defiant acquiescence.

We tramped round the shoulder of the hill, keeping our distance as well as we could on the steep slope, and occasionally putting up something to shoot at. My bag this time made no great demands on my powers of porterage, consisting as it did of a solitary snipe. However, when nearly an hour later we gathered at the foot of the next line of butts—the last before lunch—most of us were carrying something. Standish gleefully displayed two hares and a brace of grouse.

"There is something for Master Gerald to carry back to the luncheon-cart," he said. "I wonder what he has got for me. Where is he?"

"I don't quite know," said Dermott, who had been Gerald's nearest neighbour. "He was so offended by our gibes about the danger of his society that he walked rather wide of me. He kept down at the very foot of the hill most of the time, almost out of sight."

"I hope he hasn't shot himself," said the Admiral rather anxiously.

"Never fear!" said I. "That will not be his end. Here he is."

Sure enough, Gerald appeared at this moment. He was empty-handed.

Simple and primitive jests greeted him.

"Hallo, old man, what have you shot—eh? Where is your little lot?"

Gerald smiled seraphically.

"You'll find it down there," he said—"in that patch of bracken, Standish. I left it for you to bring up. Rather heavy for me."

"What on earth have you shot?" we cried involuntarily.

"A sheep," said Gerald calmly.

Great heavens!

We rushed down the hill as one man—and came up again looking not a little hot and uncommonly foolish. The sheep was there, it is true, stiff and stark in the bracken; but more senses than one apprised us of the fact that it had been dead for considerably more than five minutes. Gerald had stumbled on to the corpse, and had turned his discovery, we afterwards admitted, to remarkably good advantage. It was "Mr Standish's turn," as Miss Buncle, in the picturesque but mysterious vernacular of her race, remarked at luncheon, "to hold the baby this time."

After the third drive we gladly put up our guns and tramped down the hillside to the road below, where the ladies were waiting and the feast was spread. After we had disposed of grouse sandwiches, whisky-and-water, and jammy scones, and were devoting our post-prandial leisure to repose or dalliance with the fair—according as we were married or single—Lady Rubislaw inquired—

"Where are you shooting this afternoon, John?"

"The Neb, first," replied the Admiral. "And that reminds me, the man who drew the top butt had better start now, or he'll be late."

With many groans, and followed by the mingled derision and sympathy of the company, I picked up my impedimenta and started, leaving the others to decide who, if any, of the shooters was to have the honour of entertaining a lady in his butt.

The Neb was a great mountain spur, whose base ran to within two or three hundred yards of our resting-place. In appearance it roughly resembled a mighty Napoleonic nose. The butts ran right up the ridge of that organ; and nine hundred feet above where we sat, just below an excrescence locally known as "The Pimple," lay mine.

I reached my eyrie at last, and having laid my flask, tobacco-pouch, and twelve loose cartridges where I could reach them most handily on projecting shelves of peat inside the butt—I love neatness and method: Kitty says that when (if ever) I get to heaven I will decline to enter until I have wiped my boots,—settled down to enjoy a superb view and take note of the not altogether uninteresting manner in which the other members of the party were disposing themselves for the drive.

Just below me were Standish and Miss Buncle, the lady a conspicuous mark for all men (and grouse) to behold by reason of a red tam o'shanter, the sight of which made me regret that its wearer was not employed as a beater. In the butt below were Dermott and Dolly—both very workmanlike and inconspicuous. Below them came the Admiral, with his wife (she always came and sat behind him, like a remarkably smart little powder-monkey, during the afternoon drive): below them, the Gilmertons; and last of all, thank Heaven! Gerald.

The shooting on this beat would not be easy, though birds were always plentiful. They came round the face of the hill at very short range and express speed. My particular butt was notoriously difficult to score from. There was an awkward hummock in front of it, and driven birds swinging into view round this were practically right over the butt before its occupant could get his gun up.

It was a rather sleepy afternoon. Far away I could hear the sound of the advancing beaters—the cries of the boys, the occasional barking of a dog, and the shrill piping of the headkeeper's whistle. Suddenly three birds swung into view round the face of the hill, and made straight for the line of butts. They were just below me, nearer to Standish's butt than mine, but I put up my gun and picked off the nearest. The other two, instead of keeping on their course over Standish's head, suddenly swerved round to the left, almost at right angles—I think they had seen Miss Buncle's tam o' shanter and simultaneously decided that there are worse things than death—and flew straight down the line, followed by an ineffectual volley from the twelve and twenty-eight bores respectively.

"Now, Dermott, my boy!" I ejaculated, as the birds skimmed past the third butt. "There's a chance for a really pretty right and left."

But no sound—no movement even—came from our crack's lair. The birds flew by unharmed, only to fall later on, one to the Admiral, and one to young Gilmerton.

"Dormitat Homerus," I murmured, gazing curiously towards Dermott's butt. "I wonder if—Jove, there they go! What a pack! Well done, Gerald! Oh, Gilmerton, you old sweep! Fire, man, fire! Good old Admiral! Dermott, man, what the devil—— Have at them!"

I fairly danced in the heather. A perfect cloud of birds was pouring over the lower part of the line. The Admiral, the Gilmertons, and Gerald were firing fast and furiously,—even the laird of Nethercraigs loosed off at birds that were neither running nor sitting,—and when the beaters appeared in sight five minutes later, and the drive came to an end, the four lower butts totalled twelve brace among them.

I humbly proffered my solitary contribution.

"Twelve and a half," said the Admiral. "Now, Standish?"

"N.E. this time," remarked that youth philosophically.

The Admiral said nothing, but I saw his choleric blue eyes slide round in the direction of Miss Buncle's headgear. He turned to Dermott.

"How many, old man?"

"Blob!"

That Dermott should return empty-handed from any kind of chase was so surprising that we all turned round for the explanation. Dermott was looking very dejected. This was evidently a blow to his professional pride.

"Didn't any of that great pack come near you?" asked the Admiral sympathetically.

"No—don't think so," said Dermott shortly.

I had counted eight birds flying straight over his butt myself, but I said nothing. I was beginning to comprehend. Et ego in Arcadia vixi.

But the obtuse master-mariner persisted.

"How about that brace that flew right down the line? You must have seen 'em coming all the way. You didn't even try a shot at them, man!"

Dermott, who was fastening up his gaiter, answered rather listlessly—

"Sorry! It was—a misfire, I think."

"What?" cried the outraged Admiral. "A misfire? Both barrels—of both guns?"

I did not hear the answer to this. I was looking at Dolly. Her face could not be seen, for she was kneeling down a little distance away, assiduously fondling the silky ears of a highly-gratified red setter. And I realised then that some expressions are capable of a metaphorical as well as a literal interpretation.



IV.

My wife and daughter returned home in the "machine" in time for dinner, without Robin.

"His mother kept him," Kitty explained. She was favouring me with a summary of her day's adventures, in the garden after dinner. "Such an old dear, Adrian! And his father is a grand old man. Very solemn and scriptural-looking and all that, but so courtly and simple when once he gets over his shyness. (He tried to come in to tea in his shirt-sleeves, but his wife hustled him out of the kitchen just in time.) Sir James Fordyce was a shock, though. When we arrived he was chopping turnips in a machine, dressed in clothes like any farm-labourer's. He said it was fine to get back to his own people again. To look at him you would never guess that he was one of the best known men in London, and a favourite at Court, and such an old dandy in Bond Street. The rest of the household didn't seem to set any particular store by him. They took him quite as a matter of course."

"What a pity English people can't do the same," I mused. "If they do possess a distinguished relative they brag about him, and he usually responds by avoiding them. If he does honour them with a visit, they try to live up to him, and put on unnecessary frills, and summon all the neighbourhood to come and inspect him."

"There's nothing of that kind about the Fordyces," said Kitty. "Sir James was just one of themselves; he even spoke like them. It was, 'Aye, Jeems!' and 'Aye, John!' all the time."

"How about the rest of the family?" I inquired.

"The mother was immensely pleased to have Robin with her again, I could see," said Kitty. "She made no particular fuss over him, but I'm sure she simply hugged him as soon as we were gone. She had a talk with me about him when we were alone. She seems to regard him as the least successful member of the family, although he has been a good son to them. (Do you know, Adrian, he has sent them something like two hundred pounds during the time he has been with us? And that must have left him little enough to go on with, goodness knows!) But I don't think they consider him a patch on the eldest son, who is a great silent man with a beard—a sort of Scotch John Ridd. He looks years older than Robin, though of course he isn't. He is a splendid farmer, his mother tells me, and greatly "respeckit" in the district. But the poor dear was so frightened of me that he simply bolted from the house the moment he had finished his tea. The sister is pretty, and nice too, but shy. I'm afraid she found my clothes rather overpowering, though I'd only a coat and skirt on. But we got on splendidly after that. She is going to be married next month, to the minister, which is considered an immense triumph for her by the whole community. We must send them a present. By the way, what's the matter with Dolly?"

"What's the matter with poor old Dermott?" I retorted.

At this moment the much-enduring "machine" jingled up to the door, and Captain Dermott's luggage, together with his gun-cases and a generous bundle of game for the mess-table at Aldershot, was piled in at the back. Their owner followed after, and seeing the glowing end of my cigar in the dark, advanced to say good-bye.

Kitty uttered some pretty expression of regret at his departure, and flitted into the house. Dermott and I surveyed each other silently through the darkness.

"Is it any use asking you to come and look us up in town?" I said at last rather lamely.

He laughed through set teeth—not a pretty sound.

"I think I'll—avoid your household for a bit, Adrian," he answered.

I nodded gravely.

"I see," I said. "I—I'm sorry, old man!"

"I'm going to India, if I can get away," he continued, after a pause.

"Good scheme!" I replied. "We shall think of you most kindly—er, all of us."

He said nothing, but shook hands in a grateful sort of fashion, and turned away.

I suppose there is a reason for everything in this world. Still, the spectacle of a good man fighting dumbly with a cruel disappointment—and disappointment is perhaps the bitterest pill in all the pharmacopeia of life—is certainly a severe test of one's convictions on the subject.

At this moment the rest of the party—minus Dolly—flowed out on to the doorstep to say farewell; and two minutes later Captain Dermott drove heavily away—back to his day's work.

Well, thank God there is always that!

* * * * *

"I thought she was going to take him," said Kitty in her subsequent summing-up. "It was far and away the best offer she has ever had. And he is such a dear, too! What does the child want, I wonder! A coronet?"

"'A dinner of herbs,' perhaps," said I.

Kitty eyed me thoughtfully, and gave a wise little nod.

"Yes—Dolly is just that sort," she agreed. "But what makes you think that?"

"Oh—nothing," I said.

There are certain matters upon which it is almost an impertinence for a man to offer an opinion to a woman, and I rather shrank from rushing in where my wife had evidently not thought it worth while to tread. Still, I could not help wondering in my heart whether the arrival of one gentleman on Sunday may not sometimes have something to do, however indirectly, with the abrupt departure of another gentleman on Monday.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE COMPLEAT ANGLER.

The Division of Stoneleigh, which had hitherto done me the honour of returning me as its Member of Parliament, is a triangular tract of country in the north of England.

At the apex of the triangle lies Stoneleigh itself, a township whose chief assets are an ancient cathedral at one end, and a flourishing industry, proclaiming to the heavens its dependence upon Hides and Tallow, at the other. The base of the triangle runs along the sea-coast, and is dotted with fishing villages. Most of the intervening area is under cultivation.

It will be seen, then, that the character of my constituency varied in a perplexing manner, and while I could usually depend upon what I may call the Turnip interest, I could not always count with absolute certainty on the whole-hearted support of the Fish or Hides-and-Tallow.

To this delectable microcosm my household and I migrated one bleak day in February, to commence what promised to be an arduous and thoroughly uncomfortable electoral campaign.

The Government had gone out at last, more from inanition than over any definite question of policy; and we were going to the country to face what is paradoxically termed "the music." It would be a General Election in every sense of the word, for there was no particular question of the hour—this was before the days of Passive Resistance and Tariff Reform—and our chief bar to success would undoubtedly be our old and inveterate enemy, "the pendulum." Of course we were distributing leaflets galore, and blazoning panegyrics on our own legislative achievements over every hoarding in the country—especially where our opponents had already posted up scathing denunciations of the same—and of course we declared that we were going to come again, like King Arthur; but I think most of us realised in our hearts that the great British Public, having decided in its ponderous but not altogether unreasonable way that any change of government must be for the better, was now going to pull us down from the eminence to which we had been precariously clinging for five years, and set up another row of legislative Aunt Sallies in our stead.

However, we were far from admitting this. We wore our favours, waved our hats, and celebrated our approaching triumph with as great an appearance of optimism as the loss of seven consecutive by-elections would permit.

Our party—Kitty, Phillis, Dolly, and myself: Dilly and Dicky were to follow, and Robin had preceded us by two days—was met at the station by an informal but influential little deputation, consisting of Mr Cash, my agent, a single-minded creature who would cheerfully have done his best to get Mephistopheles returned as member if he had been officially appointed to further that gentleman's interests; old Colonel Vincey, who would as cheerfully have voted for the same candidate provided he wore Conservative colours; Mr Bugsley, a leading linen-draper and ex-Mayor of the town, vice-chairman of our local organisation; Mr Winch—locally known as Beery Bill—the accredited mouthpiece of the Stoneleigh liquor interest; and the Dean, who came, I was uncharitable enough to suspect even as he wrung my hand, on business not unconnected with the unfortunate deficit in the fund for the restoration of the North Transept. There were also present one or two reporters, and a posse of the offscourings of Stoneleigh small-boydom.

We drove in state to the hotel. Previous to this I shook hands warmly with the Station-master, who scowled at me—he was a Home-Ruler and a Baptist—and gave four porters half-a-crown apiece for lifting our luggage on to the roof of a cab. I also handed a newsboy sixpence for a copy of the local bi-weekly organ which supported our cause, and tendered half-a-sovereign in payment for a bunch of violets and primroses—our party colours in this district were purple and gold—which were proffered me outside the station by an ancient flower-selling dame who, Cash hissed into my ear, happened to be the mother of four strapping and fully-enfranchised sons; and presented an unwashed stranger who was holding open the cab door for us with a token of affection and esteem which could readily be commuted into several hours' beer.

On arriving at the hotel I handed the cabman a fare roughly equivalent to the cash value of the cab, and then proceeded to distribute largesse to a crowd of menials who kindly undertook the task of lifting the luggage from the roof and conveying it to our rooms. The horse, having no vote, received no pecuniary return for its labours, but was rewarded for its devotion to Conservative principles by a lump of sugar, which Phillis had been tightly holding in a moist hand ever since Cash had handed it to her at the station—a pretty and thoughtful act of disinterested kindness which was duly noted in the Stoneleigh Herald next morning, and effectually secured the votes of several elusive but sentimental wobblers on polling day.

After this unostentatious entry into my constituency I duly established myself in my apartments, where I spent most of the afternoon writing cheques. The restoration of the North Transept proved to be in an even more deplorable state of backwardness than I had feared; but the Dean ultimately left me with the utmost expressions of goodwill, promising to reassure the most exacting spirits in Cathedral society as to my soundness on the questions of (1) Disestablishment and (2) Secular Education in Elementary Schools.

Thereafter I received the captain of the local football team, who begged to remind me that my subscription of five guineas, as Honorary Vice-President of the club, was now due, and further requested that I would do himself and colleagues the honour of kicking-off in the match against the Scrappington Hotstuffs on Saturday week. (Saturday next, I heard afterwards, had been reserved for my rival.) He finally departed with my cheque in his pocket, and, I expect, his tongue in his cheek.

Robin next let in upon me a sub-section of the General Purposes Committee of the Municipal Library, who begged that I would kindly consent to open the new wing thereof, jointly with the rival Candidate, at three o'clock next Wednesday; and intimated as an afterthought that the oak bookcase in the eastern alcove was still unpaid for. They departed calling down blessings upon my head. (Five pounds ten.)

Next, after a brief call from a gentleman in a blue ribbon, who came to solicit a guinea for the Band of Hope, and who left in exchange one hundred copies of a picture of the interior of a drunkard's stomach, executed in three colours, came Beery Bill, to whom the reader has already been introduced. He had not come to talk Politics, he said, but just to have a quiet chat with one whom he hoped he could regard as a personal friend. (I got out my fountain pen.) The chat materialised presently into an intimation that the Licensed Victuallers Benevolent Something-or-Other was short of cash; and my visitor suggested that a trifle in support of the charities of that most deserving institution would come gracefully from my pocket. On handing me the receipt he informed me that the brewing trade was in a bad way, and that he looked to me to do something for it if he used his influence on my behalf at the Election.

The next visitor was an eccentric but harmless old gentleman who eked out a precarious livelihood as a Herbalist—whatever that may be—in the most plebeian quarter of the town. He inhabited a small and stuffy shop up a discreet alley, suffered much from small boys, sold curious drugs and potions of his own composition, and prescribed for persons whose means or modesty precluded them from consulting an orthodox practitioner.

He was threatened, it appeared, with the penalties of the law. He had sold a "love-philtre" (pronounced infallible for recalling errant fiances to a sense of duty) to an amorous kitchen-maid who was seeking to rekindle the sacred flame in the bosom of an unresponsive policeman. The damozel had mingled the potion in a plate of beefsteak pudding, and had handed the same out of the scullery window to her peripatetic swain; with the sole result that that limb of the law had been immediately and violently sick, and, the moment he felt sufficiently recovered to do so, had declared the already debilitated match at an end. The kitchen-maid, rendered desperate, had told him the whole truth; and consequently my esteemed caller was now wanted by the police.

The catastrophe of the pie, he explained, was in no way to be attributed to the love-philtre (which was composed of sifted sugar and cinnamon), but was due to the fact that instead of the philtre he had inadvertently handed his fair client a packet out of the next drawer, which contained ready-made-up doses of tartaric acid for immediate use in the case of small boys who had swallowed sixpences. Hinc lacrymcoe. In spite of his complete consciousness of his own innocence, he now found himself compelled in a few days' time to defend his conduct in a court of law. The proceedings would cost money, of which he of course possessed little or none. He had called, he said, confident in the hope that I would assist him to defray the expense of vindicating his integrity as a high-class Herbalist by purchasing six bottles of his world-renowned specific for neuralgia, from which dread malady he had been informed—quite incorrectly, by the way—that I occasionally suffered. The thirty shillings thus subscribed, together with a few odd coins which he himself had contrived to scrape together during a long life of thrift, would secure the services of a skilled advocate, who would doubtless be able to prove to the satisfaction of justice that no high-class Herbalist would ever dream, save in the way of kindness, of putting tartaric acid into a policeman's beefsteak pudding.

He added, rather inconsequently, that he had voted Conservative at the last three elections, and had moreover persuaded all the other members of the Royal and Ancient Brotherhood of High-class Herbalists to do the same. (One pound ten.)

My last visitor was a seedy individual in corduroys, who asked for a private interview with the Candidate, and, on this favour being granted, informed me in a confidential and husky whisper that he knew of ten good men and true, fully qualified voters, who were prepared to go to the poll on my behalf for the trifling fee of two pound ten a-head and no questions asked. He was politely but firmly shown into the street. One has to be on the look-out against persons of this type.

I concluded the afternoon by a rather unsatisfactory interview with Mr Cash. He was by nature a boisterous and optimistic person, but on this occasion I found him inclined to be reticent and gloomy. He announced with a shake of the head that my rival was a very strong candidate; and finally, after a certain amount of pressing, admitted that I was not altogether as universally acceptable to my own side as I might have been.

"You are not violent enough, Mr Inglethwaite," he said. "You sympathise too much with the point of view of the opposite side. That's fatal."

I turned to Robin.

"You hear that?" I said. "Don't you ever call me a prejudiced old Tory again, Robin."

"Then," continued the dolorous Cash, "you are too squeamish. Those posters that you wouldn't allow to be put up—that was simply throwing away good votes. Politics in this part of the country can't be played with kid gloves. Then there are the meetings. You don't let the other side have it hot enough. Call 'em robbers and liars! That's what wins an election!"

"I suppose it is," I said mournfully. "Robin, we must put our opinions in our pockets and beat the party drum. Come on, let us go to the Committee Rooms!"

For the next fortnight we worked like galley-slaves. Each morning Kitty and I drove round the town in an open carriage-and-pair decorated with our colours, bowing to such of our constituents as would look at us, and punctiliously returning any salutes we received. Occasionally whole-hearted supporters would give us a cheer, and occasionally—rather more frequently, it seemed to me—disagreeable persons booed at us. Once we were held up outside a hide-and-tallow work by a gang of workmen who wished to address a few questions to the Candidate. We came well out of that ordeal, for both Kitty and Dolly happened to be in the carriage that day, and they so completely captivated the spokesman of the deputation—no wonder! a pretty woman never looks so attractive as in furs—that that gentleman concluded a catechism of unpremeditated brevity and incoherence by proposing a vote of confidence in, coupled with three cheers for, Mr Inglethwaite and his young ladies!

On another occasion a gnarled and fervent Radical of the bootmaking persuasion hobbled to the door of his establishment, and waving clenched and uplifted fists, called down upon us and our retreating equipage all the curses at the command of a rather extensive vocabulary until we were out of earshot.

Occasionally little girls threw posies into the carriage: little boys, not to be outdone in politeness, threw stones: and altogether I felt very much as the Honourable Samuel Slumkey must have done upon the historic occasion on which he solicited the votes of the electors of the borough of Eatanswill.

Talking of Eatanswill, I had already made the acquaintance of Mr Horatio Fizkin in the person of my opponent, Mr Alderman Stridge, Wholesale Provision Merchant and Italian Warehouseman. His selection as Liberal Candidate was a blow to us: we had hoped for nothing worse than a briefless carpet-bagger from the Temple, as on previous occasions. However, the Alderman on our introduction was extremely affable, and expressed a hope, with the air of one discovering the sentiment for the first time, that the best man might win; to which I, as in duty bound, replied that I hoped not; and we parted with mutual expressions of goodwill and esteem, to deride each other's politics and bespatter each other's characters on countless platforms and doorsteps until we should meet again, after the fray, at the counting of the votes.

On returning from our morning drive (which usually included an open-air meeting) we took luncheon, generally in the presence of various anaemic young men who represented local organs of public opinion, and who expected the long-suffering candidate to set forth his views between mouthfuls of chop and sips of sherry. I usually turned these over to Robin, who understood their ways; and he charmed them so wisely that even the relentless Cash was compelled to admit that our press notices might have been worse.

Robin was a tower of strength. Indeed he and Dolly were my two chief lieutenants; Dilly and Dicky, as became a pair who had only been married a few months, proving but broken reeds. A week's electioneering proved sufficient for their requirements; and, declining flatly to "grin like a dog and run about the city"—Dilly's pithy summary of the art of canvassing—any longer, they left us ten days before polling-day to pay a country-house visit. But Robin was everywhere. He answered my letters and he interviewed reporters. He could keep a meeting in hand (pending my arrival from another) with such success that when I finally appeared upon the platform to take up the wondrous tale of my party's perfections, the audience were loth to let Robin go. In six days he acquired a knowledge of the wants, peculiarities, weaknesses, and traditions of my constituents which had occupied all my powers of concentration and absorption for six arduous years. He used to drop into his speeches little topical allusions and local "gags" which, though Greek to the uninitiated, never failed to produce a roar: and a political speaker who can unfailingly make his audience laugh with him—not at him—has gone far on the road to success.

Once, at a meeting, when I was half-way through a speech to an unmistakably bored and rather hostile audience, Robin, who was sitting beside me, slipped a sheet of paper on to my table. The message on the paper, written large for me to read, said—Compare Stridge to the Old Lady of Dippleton. What the lady had done I did not know, neither had I time to inquire; but I took my secretary's advice, and, after pausing for a brief drink of water, concluded my sentence—

"—and I maintain, gentlemen, that my opponent, in advocating such a policy as that which he has had the—the—yes, the effrontery to lay before a clear-thinking and broad-minded Stoneleigh audience last night, has shown himself to be no wiser in his generation, no better or more statesmanlike in character, than—than—what shall we say? than"—I glanced at the paper on the table—"the Old Lady of Dippleton!"

There was a great roar of laughter, and I sat down. I was ultimately awarded a vote of thanks, which should by rights have been given to the heroine of my closing allusion. I may mention here that no subsequent inquiry of mine ever elicited from Robin or any one else what the Old Lady of Dippleton had done. Probably it was one of those things that no real lady ever ought to do, and I discreetly left it at that.

Dolly, too, proved a treasure. Her strong line was canvassing. She could ingratiate herself with short-tempered and over-driven wives apparently without effort; surly husbands melted before her smile; sheepish young men forgot the encumbering existence of their hands and feet in her presence; and she was absolutely infallible with babies. Her methods were entirely her own, and gratifyingly free from the superior and patronising airs usually adopted by fine ladies when they go to solicit the votes of that variegated and much-graded community which they cheerfully and indiscriminately sum up as "the lower classes."

Let us follow her as she flits on her way to pay a morning call upon Mr Noah Gulching of Jackson's Row.

Mr Gulching, she finds, is absent in search of a job, while Mrs Gulching, thoroughly cross and worried, is doing the housework with one hand and dangling a fractious teething baby from the other. The rest of the family are engaged in playing games of skill and chance (on the win, tie, or wrangle principle), in the middle of the street outside; and piercing screams testify to the fact that John William Gulching, aged two, had just been uprooted by Mary Kate Gulching, who wants to lay out a new Hop-Scotch court, from the flagstone upon which he has been seated for the last half hour and dumped down upon another, the warming of which, even his untutored sensations inform him, will be a matter of some time and trouble.

Dolly, not a whit dismayed by a thoroughly ungracious reception, tucks up her skirt, rolls up her sleeves, finishes washing-up, makes a bed, and peels some potatoes. Then she takes the baby and attends to its more conspicuous wants, what time Mrs Gulching, thoroughly mollified,—she had thought at first that Dolly was "a person with tracks,"—goes round the corner to the "Drop Inn," at which hostelry the work of which her spouse is habitually in pursuit invariably goes to ground, and brings that gentleman home with her, to find Dolly playing with a spotless infant whom she gradually recognises as her own offspring.

Dolly begins at once.

"Good morning, Mr Gulching! I expect you think I am one of those horrid canvassers."

Mr Gulching, a little taken aback, admits that such was his impression.

"Well, I'm not," says Dolly. (Oh, Dolly!) "I suppose there may be some excuse for canvassing among people who do not take much interest in politics,—though I shouldn't like to do it,—but it would be rather a waste of time for me or any one else to come and try on that sort of thing with you, wouldn't it, Mr Gulching?"

Mr Gulching, outwardly frigid but inwardly liquescent, agrees that this is so; and adds in a truculent growl that he would like to see 'em try it on.

"What I really want," continues Dolly, "is your advice. I am told that you are so respected here, and have such a knowledge of the requirements of the neighbourhood, that you might be inclined to give us a little help in a scheme which Mr Inglethwaite has in hand. Schemes for the improvement of some of the houses—not snug little cribs like this, but the homes of people who are not so clever and able to take care of themselves as you—and the supplying of more amusements in the evenings; entertainments, lectures——"

"Teetotal?" inquires Mr Gulching hoarsely.

"Oh dear, no. I am sure Mr Inglethwaite would not wish to deprive any one of his glass of beer. He quite agrees with your views about moderate drinking." (This, I may mention, is a slanderous libel on me, but it sounds all right as Dolly says it.) "But he knows that the success of his efforts will depend entirely upon whether he has the support of such men as yourself—men who know what they want and will see that they get it. We can't do without you, you see," she adds, with a bewitching little smile.

Visible swelling on the part of Mr Gulching. Dolly gets up.

"Well, I know you are a busy man, Mr Gulching, so I mustn't keep you listening to a woman's chatter any more. I'm afraid I haven't explained things very deeply, but then you men are such creatures for wanting to get to the root of the matter, aren't they, Mrs Gulching? However, Mr Inglethwaite will call shortly and discuss things with you. I know he wants your advice. Meanwhile, perhaps you will mention the matter to any friends of yours whom you think would be likely to help us, won't you? Good morning, and thank you so much for granting me this—er—interview. An Englishman's house is his castle, isn't it? That is why it was so good of you to let me come in. Good-bye, Mrs Gulching. He's a perfectly sweet little chap, and I must come and see him again, if I may." (The last remark is a little ambiguous, but probably refers to the baby.)

And Dolly, with a friendly nod to the rest of the family (who are by this time drawn up en echelon at the street door, under the personal direction of Violet Amelia Gulching), sails out, followed by a gratified leer from the greatly inflated Mr Gulching, having secured that free and independent elector's vote without even having asked for it. And yet some women are crying out for the right to control elections!

At the street corner, with a persuasive finger in the buttonhole of an unconvinced Socialist (and a vigilant eye straining down the long and unlovely vista of Jackson's Row), Dolly usually encounters Robert Chalmers Fordyce.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE.

Nomination day came, and I was duly entered by my proprietors for the Election Stakes, though I was painfully aware that my selection as Candidate was not universally popular.

However, as Cash remarked, "It is canvassing from door to door that does the trick, and there you have the bulge on Stridge. He's not a bad old buffer himself, but they hate his wife like poison. She drives up to their doors in a silver-plated brougham with a double-breasted coachman, and tells 'em to vote for Stridge, not because he used to live in a one-roomed house himself—which he did, and her too—but because he's a local god-on-wheels. Of course they won't stick that."

I also continued to address meetings, receive deputations, and generally solicit patronage in a way that would have made a cab-tout blush for shame. As a recreation I kicked off at football matches and laid foundation-stones. The most important function in which I took part was the opening of the new wing of the Municipal Library. The ceremony, which was by way of being a non-party affair, took place on a blustering February afternoon. The elite of Stoneleigh were picturesquely grouped upon the steps of the main entrance of the Library, from the topmost of which the Mayor, the Dean, and the Candidates addressed a shivering and apathetic audience below.

Fortunately, the company were too exclusively occupied in holding on their hats and blowing their blue noses to pay much attention to the improving harangues of Mr Stridge and myself; which was perhaps just as well, for men who have three or four highly critical and possibly hostile meetings to address later in the day are not likely to waste good things upon an assembly who probably cannot hear them, and will only say "Hear, hear!" in sepulchral tones if they do.

The actual opening of the wing was accomplished quite informally (and I may say unexpectedly) by Kitty and Mrs Stridge—a fearsome matron, who looked like a sort of Nonconformist Boadicea—who were huddling together for warmth in the recess of the doorway. On a pedestal before them lay two small gold keys, with which they were presently to unlock the door itself, what time I, in trumpet tones, declared the Library open. Whether through natural modesty or a desire to escape the assaults of the wind, the two ladies shrank back so closely into the door that that accommodating portal, evidently deeming it ungallant to wait even for a golden key under such circumstances, incontinently flew open, and Mesdames Inglethwaite and Stridge subsided gracefully into the arms of a spectacled and embarrassed Librarian, who was formally waiting inside to receive the company at the proper moment.

After that, the proceedings, which so far had been almost as bleak as the weather, went with a roar to the finish.

But events like these were mere oases in a desert of ceaseless drudgery. The fight grew sterner and stiffer, and, as always happens on these occasions, the neutral and the apathetic began to bestir themselves and take sides. A week before the election there was not an impartial or unbiassed person left in Stoneleigh. Collisions between supporters of either party became frequent and serious. On the first occasion, when a Conservative sought to punctuate an argument by discharging a small gin-and-ginger into the face of his Liberal opponent, and the Liberal retaliated by felling the Conservative to the earth with a pint-pot, Stridge and I wrote quite effusively to one another apologising for the exuberance of our friends. A week later, when certain upholders of my cause bombarded Stridge's emporium with an assortment of Stridge's own eggs, hitting one of Mr Stridge's white-jacketed assistants in the eye, and severely damaging the frontage of Mr Stridge's Italian warehouse—whereupon local and immediate supporters of the cause of Stridge squared matters by putting three bombardiers into a horse-trough—Mr Stridge and I expressed no sort of regret to one another whatsoever, but referred scathingly, amid rapturous cheers, at our next meetings to the blackguardly policy of intimidation and hooliganism by which the other side found it necessary to bolster up a barren cause and hopeless future; all of which shows that things were tuning up to concert pitch.

Results of other elections were coming in every day, and they were not by any means favourable to our side. Still, we kept on smiling, and talked largely about the swing of the pendulum—almost as useful a phrase as "Mesopotamia" of blessed memory—and other phenomena of reaction, and hoped for the best. Champion, who had been returned for his constituency by a thumping majority, had promised to come down and speak for me at a great meeting two nights before the election; and Dubberley, who had lost his seat, threatened to come and help me to lose mine.

With the exception of Robin, who appeared to be made of some material aere perennius, we were all getting the least bit "tucked up," from my humble self down to Phillis, who appeared at breakfast one morning looking flushed and rather too bright-eyed.

"Electioneering seems to be telling on you, old lady," I remarked. "Feeling quite well—eh?"

"Just a teeny headache, daddy. But"—hastily—"I can come with you to the meeting in the theatre to-morrow night, can't I? it will be such fun!"

"Meeting? My little girl, it does not begin till an hour after your bed-time."

"That's why I want to go," said my daughter frankly. "Besides, I do love pantomimes—especially the clowns!" She wriggled ecstatically.

Even the revelation of the plain truth—that the pantomime would be called by another name and the clowns would appear in mufti—failed to assuage Phillis's thirst for the dramatic sensation promised by a meeting in a theatre. I was, as usual, wax in her small hands; and, man-like, I threw the onus negandi upon Eve's shoulders.

"Ask your mother," I said; and flew to my day's work.

Thank goodness, it was almost the last. To-morrow would be the eve of the poll, and at night we were to hold our monster meeting. Three thousand people would be present; a local magnate, Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks), would occupy the chair; what one of our local reporters insisted on calling "the elite of the bon ton" would be ranged upon the platform; and the meeting would be addressed by John Champion, Robin,—they always wanted him now,—and the much-enduring Candidate. The audience would, further, be made the recipients of a few remarks from the Chair and (unless something providential happened) from Dubberley, who was to second a vote of thanks to somebody—a performance which might take anything up to fifty minutes. Altogether a feast of oratory, and a further proof, if any were needed, that the English are a hardy race.

Phillis was decidedly unwell next morning, and Kitty prescribed bed. I am inclined to be an anxious parent, but there was little time for the exercise of any natural instincts on this occasion. Hounded on by the relentless Cash, I spent the day in a final house-to-house canvass, being fortunate enough to find at home several gentlemen who had been out on previous occasions, and who now graciously permitted Kitty to present them with a resplendent portrait of what at first sight appeared to be a hairdresser's assistant in gala costume, but which an obtrusive inscription below proclaimed to be "Inglethwaite! The Man You Know, and Who Knows You!"