DOOM CASTLE

By NEIL MUNRO

Copyright, 1900, 1901, by Doubleday, Page & Co. 

CONTENTS:

 CHAPTER I — COUNT VICTOR COMES TO A STRANGE COUNTRY

 CHAPTER II — THE PURSUIT

 CHAPTER III — BARON OF DOOM

 CHAPTER IV — WANTED, A SPY

 CHAPTER V — THE FLAGEOLET

 CHAPTER VI — MUNGO BOYD

 CHAPTER VII — THE BAY OF THE BOAR'S HEAD

 CHAPTER VIII — AN APPARITION

 CHAPTER IX — TRAPPED

 CHAPTER X — SIM MACTAGGART, CHAMBERLAIN

 CHAPTER XI — THE WOMAN AT THE WINDOW

 CHAPTER XII — OMENS AND ALARMS

 CHAPTER XIII — A LAWYER'S GOOD LADY

 CHAPTER XIV — CLAMOUR

 CHAPTER XV — A RAY OF LIGHT

 CHAPTER XVI — OLIVIA

 CHAPTER XVII — A SENTIMENTAL SECRET

 CHAPTER XVIII — "Loch Sloy!"

 CHAPTER XIX — REVELATION

 CHAPTER XX — AN EVENING'S MELODY IN THE BOAR'S HEAD INN

 CHAPTER XXI — COUNT VICTOR CHANGES HIS QUARTERS

 CHAPTER XXII — THE LONELY LADY

 CHAPTER XXIII — A MAN OF NOBLE SENTIMENT

 CHAPTER XXIV — A BROKEN TRYST

 CHAPTER XXV — RECONCILIATION

 CHAPTER XXVI — THE DUKE'S BALL

 CHAPTER XXVII — THE DUEL ON THE SANDS

 CHAPTER XXVIII — THE DUEL ON THE SANDS—Continued. 

 CHAPTER XXIX — THE CELL IN THE FOSSE

 CHAPTER XXX — A DUCAL DISPUTATION

 CHAPTER XXXI — FLIGHT

 CHAPTER XXXII — THE INDISCRETION OF THE DUCHESS

 CHAPTER XXXIII — BACK IN DOOM

 CHAPTER XXXIV — IN DAYS OF STORM

 CHAPTER XXXV — A DAMNATORY DOCUMENT

 CHAPTER XXXVI — LOVE

 CHAPTER XXXVII — THE FUTILE FLAGEOLET

 CHAPTER XXXVIII — A WARNING

 CHAPTER XXXIX — BETRAYED BY A BALLAD

 CHAPTER XL — THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

 CHAPTER XLI — CONCLUSION

DOOM CASTLE

CHAPTER I -- COUNT VICTOR COMES TO A STRANGE COUNTRY

It was an afternoon in autumn, with a sound of wintry breakers on theshore, the tall woods copper-colour, the thickets dishevelled, and thenuts, in the corries of Ardkinglas, the braes of Ardno, dropping uponbracken burned to gold. Until he was out of the glen and into the openland, the traveller could scarcely conceive that what by his chart wasno more than an arm of the ocean could make so much ado; but when hefound the incoming tide fretted here and there by black rocks, andelsewhere, in little bays, the beaches strewn with massive boulders, the high rumour of the sea-breakers in that breezy weather seemed moreexplicable. And still, for him, it was above all a country of appallingsilence in spite of the tide thundering. Fresh from the pleasantrabble of Paris, the tumult of the streets, the unending gossip of thefaubourgs that were at once his vexation and his joy, and from the eagerride that had brought him through Normandy when its orchards were busyfrom morning till night with cheerful peasants plucking fruit, his earhad not grown accustomed to the still of the valleys, the terrific hushof the mountains, in whose mist or sunshine he had ridden for two days. The woods, with leaves that fell continually about him, seemed in someswoon of nature, with no birds carolling on the boughs; the cloisterswere monastic in their silence. A season of most dolorous influences, aland of sombre shadows and ravines, a day of sinister solitude; the sunslid through scudding clouds, high over a world blown upon by salt airsbrisk and tonic, but man was wanting in those weary valleys, and theheart of Victor Jean, Comte de Montaiglon, was almost sick for veryloneliness. 

Thus it came as a relief to his ear, the removal of an oppression littlelonger to be endured, when he heard behind him what were apparently thevoices of the odd-looking uncouth natives he had seen a quarter of anhour ago lurking, silent but alert and peering, phantoms of old storyrather than humans, in the fir-wood near a defile made by a brawlingcataract. They had wakened no suspicions in his mind. It was true theywere savage-looking rogues in a ragged plaid-cloth of a dull device, andthey carried arms he had thought forbidden there by law. To a foreignerfresh from gentle lands there might well be a menace in their ambuscade, but he had known men of their race, if not of so savage an aspect, inthe retinues of the Scots exiles who hung about the side-doors of SaintGermains, passed mysterious days between that domicile of tragic comedyand Avignon or Rome, or ruffled it on empty pockets at the gamingtables, so he had no apprehension. Besides, he was in the country of the Argyll, at least on the verge of it, a territory accounted law-abiding even todul-ness by every Scot he had known since he was a child at Cammercy, and snuff-strewn conspirators, come to meet his uncles, took him ontheir knees when a lull in the cards or wine permitted, and recountedtheir adventures for his entertainment in a villainous French: he couldnot guess that the gentry in the wood behind him had taken a fancy tohis horse, that they were broken men (as the phrase of the countryput it), and that when he had passed them at the cataract--a haughty, well-setup _duine uasail_ all alone with a fortune of silk and silverlace on his apparel and the fob of a watch dangling at his groin mosttemptingly--they had promptly put a valuation upon himself and hispossessions, and decided that the same were sent by Providence for theirenrichment. 

Ten of them ran after him clamouring loudly to give the impression oflarger numbers; he heard them with relief when oppressed by the inhumansolemnity of the scenery that was too deep in its swoon to give backeven an echo to the breaker on the shore, and he drew up his horse, turned his head a little and listened, flushing with annoyance when therude calls of his pursuers became, even in their unknown jargon, tooplainly peremptory and meant for him. 

"Dogs!" said he, "I wish I had a chance to open school here and teachmanners, " and without more deliberation he set his horse to an amble, designed to betray neither complacency nor a poltroon's terrors. 

"_Stad! stad!_" cried a voice closer than any of the rest behind him;he knew what was ordered by its accent, but no Montaiglon stopped to aninsolent summons. He put the short rowels to the flanks of the sturdylowland pony he bestrode, and conceded not so little as a look behind. 

There was the explosion of a bell-mouthed musket, and something smotethe horse spatteringly behind the rider's left boot. The beast swerved, gave a scream of pain, fell lumberingly on its side. With an effort, Count Victor saved himself from the falling body and clutched hispistols. For a moment he stood bewildered at the head of the sufferinganimal. The pursuing shouts had ceased. Behind him, short hazel-treesclustering thick with nuts, reddening bramble, and rusty bracken, tangled together in a coarse rank curtain of vegetation, quite still andmotionless (but for the breeze among the upper leaves), and the sombredistance, dark with pine, had the mystery of a vault. It was difficultto believe his pursuers harboured there, perhaps reloading the weaponthat had put so doleful a conclusion to his travels with the gallantlittle horse he had bought on the coast of Fife. That silence, thatprevailing mystery, seemed to be the essence and the mood of this land, so different from his own, where laughter was ringing in the orchardsand a myriad towns and clamant cities brimmed with life. 

CHAPTER II -- THE PURSUIT

Nobody who had acquaintance with Victor de Montaiglon would callhim coward. He had fought with De Grammont, and brought a wound fromDettingen under circumstances to set him up for life in a repute forvalour, and half a score of duels were at his credit or discredit in thechronicles of Paris society. 

And yet, somehow, standing there in an unknown country beside a brutecompanion wantonly struck down by a robber's shot, and the wood sostill around, and the thundering sea so unfamiliar, he felt vastlyuncomfortable, with a touch of more than physical apprehension. If theenemy would only manifest themselves to the eye and ear as well as tothe unclassed senses that inform the instinct, it would be much morecomfortable. Why did they not appear? Why did they not follow up theirassault upon his horse? Why were they lurking in the silence of thethicket, so many of them, and he alone and so obviously at their mercy?The pistols he held provided the answer. 

"What a rare delicacy!" said Count Victor, applying himself to therelease of his mail from the saddle whereto it was strapped. "They wouldnot interrupt my regretful tears. But for the true élan of the trade ofrobbery, give me old Cartouche picking pockets on the Pont Neuf. "

While he loosened the bag with one hand, with the other he directed atthe thicket one of the pistols that seemed of such wholesome influence. Then he slung the bag upon his shoulder and encouraged the animal to getupon its legs, but vainly, for the shot was fatal. 

"Ah!" said he regretfully, "I must sacrifice my bridge and my goodcomrade. This is an affair!"

Twice--three times, he placed the pistol at the horse's head and asoften withdrew it, reluctant, a man, as all who knew him wondered at, gentle to womanliness with a brute, though in a cause against men themost bitter and sometimes cruel of opponents. 

A rustle in the brake at last compelled him. "Allons!" said heimpatiently with himself, "I do no more than I should have done with mein the like case, " and he pulled the trigger. 

Then having deliberately charged the weapon anew, he moved off in thedirection he had been taking when the attack was made. 

It was still, he knew, some distance to the castle. Half an hour beforehis rencontre with those broken gentry, now stealing in his rear withthe cunning and the bloodthirstiness of their once native wolves (andalways, remember, with the possibility of the blunderbuss for aught thathe could tell), he had, for the twentieth time since he left the port ofDysart, taken out the rude itinerary, written in ludicrous Scoto-Englishby Hugh Bethune, one time secretary to the Lord Marischal in exile, andread:--

. . . And so on to the Water of Leven (the brewster-wife at the howff nearLoch Lomond mouth keeps a good glass of _aqua_) then by Luss (with aneye on the Gregarach), there after a bittock to Glencroe and down uponthe House of Ardkinglas, a Hanoverian rat whom 'ware. Round the lochhead and three miles further the Castle o' the Baron. Give him mydevoirs and hopes to challenge him to a Bowl when Yon comes off whichGod kens there seems no hurry. 

By that showing the castle of Baron Lamond must be within half an hour'swalk of where he now moved without show of eagerness, yet quickly nonethe less, from a danger the more alarming because the extent of it couldnot be computed. 

In a little the rough path he followed bent parallel with the sea. Atide at the making licked ardently upon sand-spits strewn with ware, and at the forelands, overhung by harsh and stunted seaside shrubs, thebreakers rose tumultuous. On the sea there was utter vacancy; only afew screaming birds slanted above the wave, and the coast, curving farbefore him, gave his eye no sign at first of the castle to which he hadgot the route from M. Hugh Bethune. 

Then his vision, that had been set for something more imposing, for thetowers and embrasures of a stately domicile, if not for a Chantilly, atleast for the equal of the paternal château in the Meuse valley, withmultitudinous chimneys and the incense of kind luxuriant hearths, suave parks, gardens, and gravelled walks, contracted with dubiety andamazement upon a dismal tower perched upon a promontory. 

Revealed against the brown hills and the sombre woods of the farthercoast, it was scarcely a wonder that his eye had failed at first to findit. Here were no pomps of lord or baron; little luxuriance could prevailbehind those eyeless gables; there could be no suave pleasance aboutthose walls hanging over the noisy and inhospitable wave. No pomp, nopleasant amenities; the place seemed to jut into the sea, defying man'soldest and most bitter enemy, its gable ends and one crenelated bastionor turret betraying its sinister relation to its age, its whole aspectarrogant and unfriendly, essential of war. Caught suddenly by thevision that swept the fretted curve of the coast, it seemed blacklyto perpetuate the spirit of the land, its silence, its solitude andterrors. 

These reflections darted through the mind of Count Victor as he sped, monstrously uncomfortable with the burden of the bag that bobbed on hisback, not to speak of the indignity of the office. It was not the kindof castle he had looked for, but a castle, in the narrow and squalidmeaning of a penniless refugee like Bethune, it doubtless was, the onlyone apparent on the landscape, and therefore too obviously the one hesought. 

"Very well, God is good!" said Count Victor, who, to tell all andleave no shred of misunderstanding, was in some regards the frankest ofpagans, and he must be jogging on for its security. 

But as he hurried, the ten broken men who had been fascinated by his tooostentatious fob and the extravagance of his embroidery, and inspiredfurthermore by a natural detestation of any foreign _duine uasail_apparently bound for the seat of MacCailen Mor, gathered boldness, andsoon he heard the thicket break again behind him. 

He paused, turned sharply with the pistols in his hands. Instantlythe wood enveloped his phantom foes; a bracken or two nodded, a hazelsapling swung back and forward more freely than the wind accounted for. And at the same time there rose on the afternoon the wail of a wild fowlhigh up on the hill, answered in a sharp and querulous too-responsivenote of the same character in the wood before. 

The gentleman who had twice fought _à la barrière_ felt a nameless newthrill, a shudder of the being, born of antique terrors generationsbefore his arms were quartered with those of Rochefoucauld and Modene. 

It was becoming all too awkward, this affair. He broke into a more rapidwalk, then into a run, with his eyes intent upon the rude dark keep thatheld the promontory, now the one object in all the landscape that had tohis senses some aspect of human fellowship and sympathy. 

The caterans were assured; _Dieu du ciel_, how they ran too! Those inadvance broke into an appalling halloo, the shout of hunters on theheels of quarry. High above the voice of the breakers it sounded savageand alarming in the ears of Count Victor, and he fairly took to flight, the valise bobbing more ludicrously than ever on his back. 

It was like the man that, in spite of dreads not to be concealed fromhimself, he should be seized as he sped with a notion of the grotesquefigure he must present, carrying that improper burden. He must evenlaugh when he thought of his, austere punctilious maternal aunt, theBaronne de Chenier, and fancied her horror and disgust could she beholdher nephew disgracing the De Chenier blood by carrying his ownbaggage and outraging several centuries of devilishly fine history byrunning--positively running--from ill-armed footpads who had never wornbreeches. She would frown, her bosom would swell till her bodice wouldappear to crackle at the armpits, the seven hairs on her upper lip wouldbristle all the worse against her purpling face as she cried it wasthe little Lyons shopkeeper in his mother's grandfather that was inhis craven legs. Doubt it who will, an imminent danger will not whollydispel the sense of humour, and Montàiglon, as he ran before thefootpads, laughed softly at the Baronne. 

But a short knife with a black hilt hissed past his right ear and buriedthree-fourths of its length in the grass, and so abruptly spoiled thecomedy. This was ridiculous. He stopped suddenly, turned him round aboutin a passion, and fired one of the pistols at an unfortunate robber toolate to duck among the bracken. And the marvel was that the bullet foundits home, for the aim was uncertain, and the shot meant more for anemphatic protest than for attack. 

The gled's cry rose once more, rose higher on the hill, echoed far off, and was twice repeated nearer head with a drooping melancholy cadence. Gaunt forms grew up straight among the undergrowth of trees, indifferentto the other pistol, and ran back or over to where the wounded comradelay. 

"Heaven's thunder!" cried Count Victor, "I wish I had aimed morecarefully. " He was appalled at the apparent tragedy of his act. Asuicidal regret and curiosity kept him standing where he fired, with thepistol still smoking in his hand, till there came from the men clusteredround the body in the brake a loud simultaneous wail unfamiliar to hisear, but unmistakable in its import. He turned and ran wildly for thetower that had no aspect of sanctuary in it; his heart drummed noisilyat his breast; his mouth parched and gaped. Upon his lips in a littledropped water; he tasted the salt of his sweating body. And then he knewweariness, great weariness, that plucked at the sinews behind his knees, and felt sore along the hips and back, the result of his days of hardriding come suddenly to the surface. Truly he was not happy. 

But if he ran wearily he ran well, better at least than his pursuers, who had their own reasons for taking it more leisurely, and in a whilethere was neither sight nor sound of the enemy. 

He was beginning to get some satisfaction from this, when, turninga bend of the path within two hundred yards of the castle, behold anunmistakable enemy barred his way!--an ugly, hoggish, obese man, withbare legs most grotesquely like pillars of granite, and a protuberantpaunch; but the devil must have been in his legs to carry him moreswiftly than thoroughbred limbs had borne Count Victor. He stoodsneering in the path, turning up the right sleeve of a soiled and raggedsaffron shirt with his left hand, the right being engaged most ominouslywith a sword of a fashion that might well convince the Frenchman he hadsome new methods of fence to encounter in a few minutes. 

High and low looked Count Victor as he slacked his pace, seeking forsome way out of this sack, releasing as he did so the small sword fromthe tanglement of his skirts, feeling the Mechlin deucedly in his way. As he approached closer to the man barring his path he relapsed intoa walk and opened a parley in English that except for the slightest ofaccents had nothing in it of France, where he had long been the comradeof compatriots to this preposterous savage with the manners of medievalProvence when footpads lived upon Damoiselle Picoree. 

"My good fellow, " said he airily, as one might open with a lackey, "I protest I am in a hurry, for my presence makes itself much desiredelsewhere. I cannot comprehend why in Heaven's name so large a regimentof you should turn out to one unfortunate traveller. "

The fat man fondled the brawn of his sword-arm and seemed to gloat uponthe situation. 

"Come, come!" said Count Victor, affecting a cheerfulness, "my waistcoatwould scarcely adorn a man of your inches, and as for my pantaloons"--helooked at the ragged kilt--"as for my pantaloons, now on one's honour, would you care for them? They are so essentially a matter of custom. "

He would have bantered on in this strain up to the very nose of theenemy, but the man in his path was utterly unresponsive to his humour. In truth he did not understand a word of the nobleman's pleasantry. Heuttered something like a war-cry, threw his bonnet off a head as bald asan egg, and smote out vigorously with his broadsword. 

Count Victor fired the pistol _à bout portant_ with deliberation; theflint, in the familiar irony of fate, missed fire, and there was nothingmore to do with the treacherous weapon but to throw it in the face ofthe Highlander. It struck full; the trigger-guard gashed the jaw and themetalled butt spoiled the sight of an eye. 

"This accounts for the mace in the De Chenier quartering, " thought theCount whimsically. "It is obviously the weapon of the family. " And hedrew the rapier forth. 

A favourite, a familiar arm, as the carriage of his head made clear atany time, he knew to use it with the instinct of the eyelash, butit seemed absurdly inadequate against the broad long weapon of hisopponent, who had augmented his attack with a dirk drawn in the lefthand, and sought lustily to bring death to his opponent by point as wellas edge. A light dress rapier obviously must do its business quicklyif it was not to suffer from the flailing blow of the claymore, and yetCount Victor did not wish to increase the evil impression of his firstvisit to this country by a second homicide, even in self-defence. Hemeasured the paunched rascal with a rapid eye, and with a flick at theleft wrist disarmed him of his poignard. Furiously the Gael thrashedwith the sword, closing up too far on his opponent. Count Victor brokeground, beat an appeal that confused his adversary, lunged, and skeweredhim through the thick of the active arm. 

The Highlander dropped his weapon and bawled lamentably as he tried tostaunch the copious blood; and safe from his further interference, CountVictor took to his heels again. 

Where the encounter with the obese and now discomfited Gael took placewas within a hundred yards of the castle, whose basement and approachwere concealed by a growth of stunted whin. Towards the castle CountVictor rushed, still hearing the shouts in the wood behind, and as heseemed, in spite of his burden, to be gaining ground upon his pursuers, he was elate at the prospect of escape. In his gladness he threw ataunting cry behind, a hunter's greenwood challenge. 

And then he came upon the edge of the sea. The sea! _Peste!_ That heshould never have thought of that! There was the castle, truly, beetling against the breakers, very cold, very arrogant upon its barrenpromontory. He was not twenty paces from its walls, and yet it might aswell have been a league away, for he was cut off from it by a naturalmoat of sea-water that swept about it in yeasty little waves. It rodelike a ship, oddly independent of aspect, self-contained, inviolable, eternally apart, for ever by nature indifferent to the mainland, where aMontaiglon was vulgarly quarrelling with _sans culottes_. 

For a moment or two he stood bewildered. There was no drawbridge to thiseccentric moat; there was, on this side of the rock at least, not solittle as a boat; if Lamond ever held intercourse with the adjacent isleof Scotland he must seemingly swim. Very well; the Count de Montaiglon, guilty of many outrages against his ancestry to-day, must swim tooif that were called for. And it looked as if that were the onlyalternative. Vainly he called and whistled; no answer came from thecastle, that he might have thought a deserted ruin if a column of smokedid not rise from some of its chimneys. 

It was his one stroke of good fortune that for some reason the pursuitwas no longer apparent. The dim woods behind seemed to have swallowedup sight and sound of the broken men, who, at fault, were following uptheir quarry to the castle of Mac-Cailen Mor instead of to that of BaronLamond. He had therefore time to prepare himself for his next step. Hesat on the shore and took off his elegant long boots, the quite charmingsilk stockings so unlike travel in the wilds; then looked dubiously athis limbs and at the castle. No! manifestly, an approach so frank wasnot to be thought of, and he compromised by unbuttoning the foot of hispantaloons and turning them over his knees. In any case, if one had toswim over that yeasty and alarming barrier, his clothing must get wet. _À porte basse, passant courbé_. He would wade as far as he could, andif he must, swim the rest. 

With the boots and the valise and the stockings and the skirts ofhis coat tucked high in his arms, the Count waded into the tide, thatchilled deliciously after the heat of his flight. 

But it was ridiculous! It was the most condemnable folly! His faceburned with shame as he found himself half-way over the channel and thewaves no higher than his ankles. It was to walk through a few inches ofwater that he had nearly stripped to nature!

And a woman was laughing at him, _morbleu!_ Decidedly a woman waslaughing--a young woman, he could wager, with a monstrously musicallaugh, by St. Denys! and witnessing (though he could not see her evenhad he wished) this farce from an upper window of the tower. He stoodfor a moment irresolute, half inclined to retreat from the ridicule thatnever failed to affect him more unpleasantly than danger the most dire;his face and neck flamed; he forgot all about the full-bosomed Baronneor remembered her only to agree that nobility demanded some dignity evenin fleeing from an enemy. But the shouts of the pursuers that had diedaway in the distance grew again in the neighbourhood, and he pocketedhis diffidence and resumed his boots, then sought the entrance to adwelling that had no hospitable portal to the shore. 

Close at hand the edifice gained in austerity and dignity while it lostthe last of its scanty air of hospitality. Its walls were of a roughrubble of granite and whinstone, grown upon at the upper storeyswith grasses and weeds wafted upon the ledges by the winds that blowindifferent, bringing the green messages of peace from God. A fortalicedark and square-built, flanked to the southern corner by a round turret, lit by few windows, and these but tiny and suspicious, it was as Scotsand arrogant as the thistle that had pricked Count Victor's feet whenfirst he set foot upon the islet. 

A low wall surrounded a patch of garden-ground to the rear, one cornerof it grotesquely adorned with a bower all bedraggled with rains, yetwith the red berry of the dog-rose gleaming in the rusty leafage likegrapes of fire. He passed through the little garden and up to the door. Its arch, ponderous, deep-moulded, hung a scowling eyebrow over theblack and studded oak, and over all was an escutcheon with a blazon ofhands fess-wise and castles embattled and the legend--

 "Doom

 Man behauld the end of All. Be nocht Wiser than the Priest. Hope in God"

He stood on tiptoe to read the more easily the time-blurred characters, his baggage at his feet, his fingers pressed against the door. Some ofthe words he could not decipher nor comprehend, but the first was plainto his understanding. 

"Doom!" said he airily and half aloud. "Doom! _Quelle félicité!_ It isan omen. "

Then he rapped lightly on the oak with the pommel of his sword. 

CHAPTER III -- BARON OF DOOM

Deep in some echoing corridor of the stronghold a man's voice rose inthe Gaelic language, ringing in a cry for service, but no one came. 

Count Victor stepped back and looked again upon the storm-batteredfront, the neglected garden, the pathetic bower. He saw smoke but ata single chimney, and broken glass in the little windows, and otherevidences that suggested meagre soup was common fare in Doom. 

"M. Bethune's bowl, " he said to himself, "is not likely to be brimmingover if he is to drink it here. M. Le Baron shouting there is too muchof the gentleman to know the way to the back of his own door; Glengarryagain for a louis!--Glengarry _sans feu ni lieu_, but always the mostpunctilious when most nearly penniless. "

Impatiently he switched with the sword at the weeds about his feet; thenreddened at the apprehension that had made him all unconsciously barethe weapon at a door whose hospitality he was seeking, rapped again, andsheathed the steel. 

A shuffling step sounded on the stones within, stopped apparentlyjust inside the door, and there fell silence. No bolt moved, no chainclanked. But something informed the Count Victor that he was beingobserved, and he looked all over the door till he saw that one bolt-bosswas missing about the height of his head and that through the hole aneye was watching him. It was the most absurd thing, and experiment witha hole in the door will not make plain the reason of it, but in that eyeapparently little discomfited by the stranger having observed it, CountVictor saw its owner fully revealed. 

A grey eye inquiring, an eye of middle age that had caution as wellas humour. A domestic--a menial eye too, but for the life of him CountVictor could not resist smiling back to it. 

And then it disappeared and the door opened, showing on the threshold, with a stool in his hand, a very little bow-legged man of fifty years orthereby, having a face all lined, like a chart, with wrinkles, ruddy atthe cheeks as a winter apple, and attired in a mulberry-brown. Heput his heels together with a mechanical precision and gravely gave amilitary salute. 

"Doom?" inquired Count Victor formally, with a foot inside the door. 

"Jist that, " answered the servitor a little dryly, and yet with a smilepuckering his face as he put an opposing toe of a coarse unbuckledbrogue under the instep of the stranger. The accent of the reply smackedof Fife; when he heard it, Count Victor at a leap was back in the portof Dysart, where it shrank beneath tall rocks, and he was hearing againfor the first time with an amused wonder the native mariners crying toeach other on the quays. 

"Is your master at home?" he asked. 

"At hame, quo' he! It wad depend a'thegether on wha wants to ken, " saidthe servant cautiously. Then in a manner ludicrously composed of naturalgeniality and burlesque importance, "It's the auld styles aboot Doom, sir, though there's few o' us left to keep them up, and whether theBaron's oot or in is a thing that has to be studied maist scrupulouslybefore the like o' me could say. "

"My name is De Montaiglon; I am newly from France; I--"

"Step your ways in, Monsher de Montaiglon, " cried the little man with asalute more profound than before. "We're prood to see you, and hoo arethey a' in France?"

"Tolerably well, I thank you, " said Count Victor, amused at thisgrotesque combination of military form and familiarity. 

Mungo Boyd set down the stool on which he had apparently been standingto look through the spy-hole in the door, and seized the stranger's bag. With three rapid movements of the feet, executed in the mechanical timeof a soldier, he turned to the right about, paused a second, squared hisshoulders, and led the way into a most barren and chilly interior. 

"This way, your honour, " said he. "Ye'll paurdon my discretion, forit's a pernikity hoose this for a' the auld bauld, gallant forms andceremonies. I jalouse ye came roond in a wherry frae the toon, and it'sdroll I never saw ye land. There was never mony got into Doom withootthe kennin' o' the garrison. It happened aince in Black Hugh's time wi'a corps o' Campbells frae Ardkinglas, and they found themselves in awasp's byke. "

The Count stumbled in the dusk of the interior, for the door had shutof itself behind them, and the corridor was unlit except by what itborrowed from an open door at the far end, leading into a room. An odourof burning peats filled the place; the sound of the sea-breakers was tobe heard in a murmur as one hears far-off and magic seas in a shellthat is held to the ear. And Count Victor, finding all his pleasantanticipations of the character of this baronial dwelling utterlyerroneous, mentally condemned Bethune to perdition as he stumbled behindthe little grotesque aping the soldier's pompous manner. 

The door that lent what illumination there was to his entrance washeld half open by a man who cast at the visitor a glance wherein weresurprise and curiosity. 

"The Monsher de Montaiglon frae France, " announced Mungo, stepping asidestill with the soldier's mechanical precision, and standing by the doorto give dignity to the introduction and the entrance. 

The Baron may have flushed for the overdone formality of his servantwhen he saw the style of his visitor, standing with a Kevenhuller cockedhat in one hand and fondling the upturned moustache with the other;something of annoyance at least was in his tone as he curtly dismissedthe man and gave admission to the stranger, on whom he turned aquestioning and slightly embarrassed countenance, handing him one of thefew chairs in the most sparsely furnished of rooms. 

"You are welcome, sir, " he said simply in a literal rendering of hisnative Gaelic phrase; "take your breath. And you will have refreshment?"

Count Victor protested no, but his host paid no heed. "It is the customof the country, " said he, making for a cupboard and fumbling amongglasses, giving, as by a good host's design, the stranger an opportunityof settling down to his new surroundings--a room ill-furnished as amonk's cell, lit by narrow windows, two of them looking to the sea andone along the coast, though not directly on it, windows sunk deep inmassive walls built for a more bickering age than this. Count Victortook all in at a glance and found revealed to him in a flash thecolossal mendacity of all the Camerons, Macgregors, and Macdonalds whohad implied, if they had not deliberately stated, over many gamesof piquet or lansquenet at Cammercy, the magnificence of the typicalHighland stronghold. 

The Baron had been reading; at least beside the chair drawn up to a fireof peat that perfumed the apartment lay a book upon a table, and itwas characteristic of the Count, who loved books as he loved sport, andVillon above all, that he should strain his eyes a little and tilt hishead slightly to see what manner of literature prevailed in these wilds. And the book gave him great cheer, for it was an old French folioof arms, "_Les Arts de l'Homme d'Epée; ou, Le Dictionnaire duGentilhomme_, " by one Sieur de Guille. Doom Castle was a curious place, but apparently Hugh Bethune was in the right when he described itsmaster as "ane o' the auld gentry, wi' a tattie and herrin' to hisdéjeune, but a scholar's book open against the ale-jug. " A poor Baron(of a vastly different state from the Baron of France), English spokentoo, with not much of the tang of the heather in his utterance thoughdroll of his idiom, hospitable (to judge from the proffered glass stillbeing fumbled for in the cupboard), a man who had been in France on theright side, a reader of the _beau langage_, and a student of the lore of_arme blanche_--come, here was luck!

And the man himself? He brought forward his spirits in a bottle ofquaint Dutch cut, with hollow pillars at each of its four corners andtwo glasses extravagantly tall of stem, and he filled out the drams uponthe table, removing with some embarrassment before he did so the bookof arms. It surprised Count Victor that he should not be in the nativetartan of the Scots Highlander. Instead he wore a demure coat andbreeches of some dark fabric, and a wig conferred on him all the more ofthe look of a lowland merchant than of a chief of clan. He was a manat least twenty years the senior of his visitor--a handsome man of hiskind, dark, deliberate of his movements, bred in the courtesies, butseemingly, to the acuter intuitions of Montaiglon, possessed of oneunpardonable weakness in a gentleman--a shame of his obvious penury. 

"I have permitted myself, M. Le Baron, to interrupt you on the counselof a common friend, " said Count Victor, anxious to put an end to asituation somewhat droll. 

"After the goblet, after the goblet, " said Lamond softly, himself butsipping at the rim of his glass. "It is the custom of the country--oneof the few that's like to be left to us before long. "

"_À la santé de la bonne cause!_" said the Count politely, choking uponthe fiery liquor and putting down the glass with an apology. 

"I am come from France--from Saint Germains, " he said. "You may haveheard of my uncle; I am the Count de Montaiglon. "

The Baron betrayed a moment's confusion. 

"Do you tell me, now?" said he. "Then you are the more welcome. I wishI could say so in your own language--that is, so far as ease goes, knownto me only in letters. From Saint Germains--" making a step or two upand down the room, with a shrewd glance upon his visitor in the bygoing. "H'm, I've been there on a short turn myself; there are several of theHighland gentry about the place. "

"There is one Bethune--Hugh Bethune of Ballimeanach, Baron, " repliedCount Victor meaningly. "Knowing that I was coming to this part of theworld, and that a person of my tongue and politics might be awkwardlycircumstanced in the province of Argyll, he took the liberty to give meyour direction as one in whose fidelity I might repose myself. I cameacross the sleeve to Albion and skirted your noisy eastern coastwith but one name of a friend, _pardieu_, to make the strange cliffscheerful. "

"You are very good, " said the Baron simply, with half a bow. "And HughBethune, now--well, well! I am proud that he should mind of his oldfriend in the tame Highlands. Good Hugh!"--a strange wistfulness cameto the Baron's utterance--"Good Hugh! he'll wear tartan when he hasthe notion, I'm supposing, though, after all, he was no Gael, or a veryfar-out one, for all that he was in the Marischal's tail. "

"I have never seen him in the tartan, beyond perhaps a waistcoat of itat a _bal masque. _"

"So? And yet he was a man generally full of Highland spirit. "

Count Victor smiled. 

"It is perhaps his only weakness that nowadays he carries it with lessdignity than he used to do. A good deal too much of the Highland spirit, M. Le Baron, wears hoops, and comes into France in Leith frigates. "

"Ay, man!" said the Baron, heedless of the irony, "and Hugh wears thetartan?"

"Only in the waistcoat, " repeated Count Victor, complacently looking athis own scallops. 

"Even that!" said the Baron, with the odd wistfulness in his voice. Andthen he added hurriedly, "Not that the tartan's anything wonderful. It cost the people of this country a bonny penny one way or another. There's nothing honest men will take to more readily than the breeks, says I--the douce, honest breeks----"

"Unless it be the petticoats, " murmured the Count, smiling, and hisfingers went to the pointing of his moustache. 

"Nothing like the breeks. The philabeg was aye telling your parentage inevery line, so that you could not go over the moor to Lennox there butany drover by the roadside kent you for a small clan or a family ofcaterans. Some people will be grumbling that the old dress should beproscribed, but what does it matter?"

"The tartan is forbidden?" guessed Count Victor, somewhat puzzled. 

Doom flushed; a curious gleam came into his eyes. He turned to fumblenoisily with the glasses as he replaced them in the cupboard. 

"I thought that was widely enough known, " said he. "Put down by the law, and perhaps a good business too. _Diaouil!_" He came back to the tablewith this muttered objurgation, sat and stared into the grey film ofthe peat-fire. "There was a story in every line, " said he, "a history inevery check, and we are odd creatures in the glens, Count, that we couldnever see the rags without minding what they told. Now the tartan'sin the dye-pot, and you'll see about here but _crotal_-colour--the oldstuff stained with lichen from the rock. "

"Ah, what damage!" said Count Victor with sympathetic tone. "But thereare some who wear it yet?"

The Baron started slightly. "Sir?" he questioned, without taking hiseyes from the embers. 

"The precipitancy of my demands upon your gate and your hospitality musthave something of an air of impertinence, " said Count Victor briskly, unbuckling his sword and laying it before him on the table; "but thecause of it lay with several zealous gentlemen, who were apparentlynot affected by any law against tartan, for tartan they wore, and _sansculottes_ too, though the dirt of them made it difficult to be certainof either fact. In the East it is customary, I believe, for the infidelto take off his boots when he intrudes on sacred ground; nothing is saidabout stockings, but I had to divest myself of both boots and stockings. I waded into Doom a few minutes ago, for all the world like anoyster-man with my bag on my back. "

"Good God!" cried the Baron. "I forgot the tide. Could you not havewhistled?"

"Whole operas, my dear M. Le Baron, but the audience behind mewould have made the performance so necessarily allegretto as to beineffective. It was wade at once or pipe and perish. _Mon Dieu!_ butI believe you are right; as an honest man I cannot approve of my firstintroduction to your tartan among its own mountains. "

"It must have been one of the corps of watches; it must have been someof the king's soldiers, " suggested the Baron. 

Count Victor shrugged his shoulders. "I think I know a red-coat when Isee one, " said he. "These were quite unlicensed hawks, with the hawk'scall for signal too. "

"Are you sure?" cried the Baron, standing up, and still with anunbelieving tone. 

"My dear M. Le Baron, I killed one of the birds to look at thefeathers. That is the confounded thing too! So unceremonious a mannerof introducing myself to a country where I desire me above all to becircumspect; is it not so?"

As he spoke he revealed the agitation that his flippant words had triedto cloak--by a scarcely perceptible tremour of the hand that drummed thetable, a harder note in his voice, and the biting of his moustache. Hesaw that Doom guessed his perturbation, and he compelled himself to acareless laugh, got lazily to his feet, twisted his moustache points, drew forth his rapier with a flourish, and somewhat theatrically salutedand lunged in space as if the action gave his tension ease. 

The Baron for a moment forgot the importance of what he had been toldas he watched the graceful beauty of the movement that revealed not onlysome eccentricity but personal vanity of a harmless kind and wholesometastes and talents. 

"Still I'm a little in the dark, " he said when the point dropped andCount Victor recovered. 

"Pardon, " said his guest. "I am vexed at what you may perhaps look on asa trifle. The ruffians attacked me a mile or two farther up the coast, shot my horse below me, and chased me to the very edge of your moat. Imade a feint to shoot one with my pistol, and came closer on the goldthan I had intended. "

"The Macfarlanes!" cried Doom, with every sign of uneasiness. "It's apity, it's a pity; not that a man more or less of that crew makes anydifference, but the affair might call for more attention to this placeand your presence here than might be altogether wholesome for you orme. "

He heard the story in more detail, and when Count Victor had finished, ran into an adjoining room to survey the coast from a window there. Hecame back with a less troubled vision. 

"At least they're gone now, " said he in a voice that still had someperplexity. "I wish I knew who it was you struck. Would it be Black Andyof Arroquhar now? If it's Andy, the gang will be crying 'Loch Sloy!'about the house in a couple of nights; if it was a common man of thetribe, there might be no more about it, for we're too close on theDuke's gallows to be meddled with noisily; that's the first advantage Iever found in my neighbourhood. "

"He was a man of a long habit of body, " said Count Victor, "and he fellwith a grunt. "

"Then it was not Andy. Andy is like a hogshead--a blob of creesh with aturnip on the top--and he would fall with a curse. "

"Name of a pipe! I know him; he debated the last few yards of the waywith me, and I gave him De Chenier's mace in the jaw. "

"Sir?"

"I put him slightly out of countenance with the butt and trigger-guardof my pistol. Again I must apologise, dear Baron, for so unceremoniousand ill-tempered an approach to your hospitality. You will confess it isa sort of country the foibles of whose people one has to grow accustomedto, and Bethune gave me no guidance for such an emergency as banditti onthe fringe of Argyll's notoriously humdrum Court. "

"Odd!" repeated Doom. "Will you step this way?" He led Count Victor tothe window that commanded the coast, and their heads together filled thenarrow space as they looked out. It was a wondrous afternoon. The sunswung low in a majestic sky, whose clouds of gold and purple seemed tothe gaze of Montaiglon a continuation of the actual hills of wood andheather whereof they were, the culmination. He saw, it seemed to him, the myriad peaks, the vast cavernous mountain clefts of a magic land, the abode of seraphim and the sun's eternal smile. 

"God is good!" said he again, no way reverently, but with some emotion. "I thought I had left for ever the place of hope, and here's Paradisewith open doors. " Then he looked upon the nearer country, upon thewooded hills, the strenuous shoulders of the bens upholding all thatglory of sinking sunshine, and on one he saw upstanding, a vulgar blotchupon the landscape, a gaunt long spar with an overhanging arm. 

"Ah!" he said airily, "there is civilisation in the land after all. "

"Plenty of law at least, " said the Baron. "Law of its kind--MacCailenlaw. His Grace, till the other day, as it might be, was Justice-Generalof the shire, Sheriff of the same, Regality Lord, with rights of pitand gallows. My place goes up to the knowe beside his gallows; but hisGrace's regality comes beyond this, and what does he do but put up hisdule-tree there that I may see it from my window and mind the fact. It'sa fine country this; man, I love it! I'm bound to be loving it, as thesaying goes, waking and sleeping, and it brought me back from France, that I had no illwill to, and kept me indoors in the 'Forty-five, 'though my heart was in the rising, as Be-thune would tell you. A grandcountry out and in, wet and dry, winter and summer, and only that treethere and what it meant to mar the look and comfort of it. But here I'mat my sentiments and you starving, I am sure, for something to eat. "

He moved from the window out of which he had been gazing with a fondnessthat surprised and amused his visitor, and called loudly for Mungo. 

In a moment the little retainer was at the door jauntily saluting in hismilitary manner. 

"Hae ye been foraging the day, Mungo?" asked the master indulgently. 

"Na, na, there was nae need wi' a commissariat weel provided forvoluntary. Auld Dugald brought in his twa kain hens yesterday; ane'son the bank and the cauld corp o' the ither o' them's in the pantry. There's the end o' a hench o' venison frae Strathlachlan, and twa oorssyne, when the tide was oot, there was beef padovies and stoved how-towdies, but I gied them to twa gaun-aboot bodies. "

They both looked inquiringly at Count Victor. 

"I regret the what-do-you-call-it?--the stoved howtowdy, " said he, laughing, "more for the sound of it than for any sense its name conveysto me. "

"There's meat as weel as music in it, as the fox said when he ate thebagpipes, " said Mungo. 

"There's waur nor howtowdy. And oh! I forgot the het victual, there'sjugged hare. "

"Is the hare ready?" asked the Baron suspiciously. 

"It's no jist a'thegether what ye micht ca' ready, " answered Mungowithout hesitation; "but it can be here het in nae time, and micht agreewi' the Count better nor the cauld fowl. "

"Tell Annapla to do the best she can, " broke in the Baron on hisservant's cheerful garrulity; and Mungo with another salute disappeared. 

"How do your women-folk like the seclusion of Doom?" asked Count Victor, to make conversation while the refection was in preparation. "With thesea about you so, and the gang of my marauding obese friend in the woodbehind, I should think you had little difficulty in keeping them underyour eye. "

The Baron was obviously confused. "Mungo's quite enough to keep his eyeon Annapla, " said he. "He has the heart and fancy to command a garrison;there's a drum forever beating in his head, a whistle aye fifing in hislug, and he will amuse you with his conceits of soldiering ancient andmodern, a trade he thinks the more of because Heaven made him so unfitto become 'prentice to it. Good Mungo! There have been worse men; indeedwhat need I grudge admitting there have been few better? He has seenthis place more bien than it is to-day in my father's time, and inmy own too before the law-pleas ate us up; you will excuse his Scotsfreedom of speech, Count, he--"

A shot rang outside in some shrubbery upon the mainland, suddenlyputting an end to Doom's conversation. Count Victor, sure that theMacfarlanes were there again, ran to the window and looked out, whilehis host in the rear bit his lip with every sign of annoyance. AsMontaiglon looked he saw Mungo emerge from the shrubbery with a rabbitin his hand and push off hurriedly in a little boat, which apparentlywas in use for communication with the shore under such circumstances. 

"And now, " said the Count, without comment upon what he had seen, "Ithink, with your kind permission, I shall change my boots before eating. 

"There's plenty of time for that, I jalouse, " said Doom, smilingsomewhat guiltily, and he showed his guest to a room in the turret. Itwas up a flight of corkscrew stairs, and lit with singular poverty by anorifice more of the nature of a porthole for a piece than a window, andthis port or window, well out in the angle of the turret, commanded aview of the southward wall or curtain of the castle. 

Montaiglon, left to himself, opened the bag that Mungo had placed inreadiness for him in what was evidently the guest-room of the castle, transformed the travelling half of himself into something that was morein conformity with the gay nature of his upper costume, complacentlysurveyed the result when finished, and hummed a _chanson_ of PierreGringoire's, altogether unremembering the encounter in the wood, thedead robber, and the stern nature of his embassy here so far fromFrance. 

He bent to close the valise, and with a start abruptly concluded hissong at the sight of a miniature with the portrait of a woman looking athim from the bottom of the bag. 

"_Mort de ma vie!_ what a fool I am; what a forgetful _vengeur_, to bechanting Gringoire in the house of Doom and my quarry still to hunt!"His voice had of a sudden gained a sterner accent; the pleasantnessof his aspect became clouded by a frown. Looking round the constrictedroom, and realising how like a prison-cell it was compared with whathe had expected, he felt oppressed as with the want of air. He soughtvainly about the window for latch or hinge to open it, and as he did soglanced along the castle wall painted yellow by the declining sun. Henoticed idly that some one was putting out upon the sill of a window ona lower stage what might have been a green kerchief had not the richnessof its fabric and design suggested more a pennon or banneret. It wascarefully placed by a woman's hands--the woman herself unseen. Theincident recalled an old exploit of his own in Marney, and a flood ofhumorous memories of amorous intrigue. 

"Mademoiselle Annapla, " said he whimsically, "has a lover, and here'shis signal. The Baron's daughter? The Baron's niece? The Baron's ward?Or merely the Baron's domestic? M. Bethune's document suffers infernallyfrom the fault of being too curt. He might at least have indicated thefair recluse. "

CHAPTER IV -- WANTED, A SPY

The wail of a mountain pipe, poorly played, as any one accustomed to itsstrains would have admitted, even if the instrument was one he loved, and altogether execrable in the ears of Montaiglon, called him to the_salle_, where Doom joined him in a meal whereof good Mungo's juggedhare formed no part. Mungo, who had upheld ancient ceremony by his crudeperformance on the _piob mhor_, was the attendant upon the table, --anoffice he undertook with his bonnet on his head, "in token, " as hismaster whisperingty explained to Count Victor, "of his sometimesill-informed pnrpose of conducting every formal task in Doom upon thestrict letter of military codes as pertained in camps, garrisons, and strongholds. " It was amusing to witness the poor fellow's pompousprecision of movement as he stood behind his master's chair or helpedthe guest to his humble meal; the rigidity of his inactive moments, orthe ridiculous jerkiness with which he passed a platter as 'twere to thetime of a drill-sergeant's baton. More amusing still to one able, likeCount Victor, to enter into the humour of the experience, was it to havehis garrulity get the better of him in spite of the military punctilio. 

"The Baron was telling me aboot your exploit wi' the Loch Sloy pairty. Man! did I no' think ye had come by boat, " he whispered over a tenderedale-glass. "It was jist my luck to miss sic a grand ploy. I wad haebacked ye to haud the water against Black Andy and all his clan, andthey're no' slack at a tulzie. "

"Ye may be grand in a fight, Mungo, but only a middling man at forage, "interrupted his master. "I think ye said jugged hare?"

"It wasna my faut, " explained the domestic, "that ye havena what wassteepulated; the Baron wadna bide till the beast was cooked. "

Doom laughed. "Come, come, Mungo, " said he, "the Count could scarcelybe expected to wait for the cooking of an animal running wild in thebracken twenty minutes ago. "

"Oh, it disna tak' sae terrible lang to cook a hare, " said the unabashedretainer. 

"But was it a hare after a', Mungo?" asked his master. "Are ye sure itwasna a rabbit?"

"A rabbit!" cried he in astonishment; then more cautiously, "Weel, if itwas a rabbit, it was a gey big ane, that's a' I can say, " and he coveredhis perturbation by a retreat from the room to resume his office ofmusician, which, it appeared, demanded a tune after dinner as well asbefore it. 

What had seemed to Montaiglon a harsh, discordant torturing of reedswhen heard on the stair outside his chamber, seemed somehow moremellowed and appropriate--pleasing even--when it came from the gardenoutside the castle, on whose grass-grown walk the little lowlanderstrutted as he played the evening melody of the house of Doom--a pibrochall imbued with passion and with melancholy. This distance lulled itinto something more than human music, into a harmony with the monotoneof the wave that thundered against the rock; it seemed the voice ofchoiring mermen; it had the bitterness, the agonised remembrance, of thesea's profound; it was full of hints of stormy nights and old wars. Fora little Doom and his visitor sat silent listening to it, the former, with a strain upon his countenance, tapping nervously with his fingersupon the arm of his chair. 

"An old custom in the Highlands, " he explained. "I set, perhaps, toolittle store by it myself, but Mungo likes to maintain it, though heplays the pipe but indifferently, and at this distance you might thinkthe performance not altogether without merit. 

"I love all music, " replied Count Victor with polite ambiguity, and hemarvelled at the signs of some deep feeling in his host. 

Till a late hour they sat together while Count Victor explained hismission to the Highlands. He told much, but, to be sure, he did notat first tell all. He recounted the evidences of the spy's guilt asa correspondent with the British Government, whose pay he drew whilesharing the poor fortunes and the secrets of the exiled Jacobites. "Iscariot, my dear Baron, " he protested, "was a Bayard compared withthis wretch. His presence in your locality should pollute the air; haveyou not felt a malaise?"

"It's dooms hard, " admitted the Baron, throwing up distressed hands, "but, man, I'm feared he's not the only one. Do you know, I couldmention well-kent names far ben in the Cause--men not of hereabouts atall, but of Lochaber no less, though you may perhaps not guess all thatmeans--and they're in Paris up to the elbow now in the same trade. It'swell known to some of yourselves, or should be, and it puzzles me thatyou should come to the shire of Argyll on account of one, as I take it, no worse than three or four you might have found by stepping across theroad to Roisin's coffee-house in the Rue Vaugirard. The commoners inthe late troubles have been leal enough, I'll give them that credit, butsome of the gentry wag their tongues for Prince Tearlach and ply theirpens for Geordie's pay. "

The servant came in with two candles, placed them on the table, andrenewed the fire. He had on a great woollen night-cowl of gaudy hue witha superb tassel that bobbed grotesquely over his beady eyes. 

"I'll awa' to my bed, if it's your will, Baron, " said he with thecustomary salute. "I was thinkin' it might be needful for me to bide upa while later in case ony o' the Coont's freends cam' the way; but thetide'll keep them aff till mornin' anyway, and I'm sure we'll meetthem a' the baulder then if we hae a guid sleep. " He got permission toretire, and passed into the inky darkness of the corridor, and crept tothat part of the vacant dwelling in which he had his bed. 

"There might be another reason for my coming here, " said Montaiglon, resuming the conversation where Mungo's entrance had broken it off. "Inthis affair there was a lady. I knew her once. " He paused with a mannershowing discomposure. 

"And there was liking; I can comprehend, " said Doom with sympathy. 

"Liking is but love without wings, " said Montaiglon. "My regard soaredabove the clay; I loved her, and I think she was not indifferent to metill this man came in her way. He had, they say, the devil's tongue;at least he had the devil's heart, and she died six months ago with herhead on my arm. I could tell you the story, M. Le Baron, but it isin all the books, and you can fancy it easily. She died forgiving herbetrayer, and sending a message to that effect by me. I come to deliverit, and, by God! to push it to his heart. "

"It is a dangerous errand in this country and at this time, " said Doom, looking into the fire. 

"Ah! but you did not know Cecile, " replied Montaiglon, simply. 

"But I know the human heart. I know it in any man under the sober age ofthirty. Better to let it rest thus. Excuse my interference. It doesnot matter much to me that it should be out of my house you should goseeking for your vengeance, but I'm an older man than you, and havelearned how quickly the worst misfortunes and wrongs may be forgotten. In your place I would leave this man to the punishment of his ownconscience. "

Montaiglon laughed bitterly. "That, " said he, "is to assume a mechanismthat in his case never existed. Pardon me, I pray you, but I preferthe old reckoning, which will be all the fairer because he has thereputation of being a good swordsman, and I am not without somepractice. "

"And the man's name? you have not mentioned it. "

"But there you puzzle me. He was eight months in France, six of these ina lodging beside the Baigneurs on the Estrapade, Rue Dauphine. He camewith no credentials but from Glengarry, and now Glengarry can give noaccount of him except that he had spoken familiarly to him of commonfriends in the Highlands. "

"Oh, Glengarry--Alasdair Rhuadh!" exclaimed the Baron, dryly. 

"And presumed to be burdened with a dangerous name, he passed with thename of Drimdarroch. "

"Drimdarroch!" repeated the Baron with some apparent astonishment. 

"I have never seen the man, so far as I know, for I was at Cammercy whenhe hung about the lady. "

"Drimdarroch!" repeated Doom reflectively, "a mere land title. "

"And some words he dropped in the ear of the lady made me fancy he mightbe found about the Court of Argyll. "

"Drimdarroch! Drimdarroch! I ken no one of the name, though the nameitself, for very good reasons, is well known to me. Have you anydescription of the man?"

"Not much. A man older than myself, dark, well-bred. I should say a mansomething like yourself, if you will pardon the comparison, with a lesseasy mind, if he remembers his friends and his past. "

Doom pushed back his chair a little from the fire, but without takinghis eyes from the peats, and made a curious suggestion. 

"You would not take it to be me, would you?" he asked. 

Count Victor laughed, with a gesture of his hands that made denial allunnecessary. 

"Oh, but you do not know, " went on the Baron. "Some months of caballingwith our friends--even our Hielan' friends--in the France, left me withan unwholesome heart that would almost doubt my father in his grave. Youmentioned the name Drimdarroch--is it not the odd thing that you shouldspeak it to the only man in the shire that ever had the right to use it?Do you see this?" and rising he stepped to a recess in the wall, onlyhalf curtained, so that its contents overflowed into the chamber, and bya jerk of the hand revealed a strange accumulation of dusty documents inpaper and in parchment. He looked at them with an aspect of disgust, andstirred them with a contemptuous toe as if he meddled with the litter ofa stye. 

"That's Drimdarroch!" said he, intensely bitter; "that's Drimdarroch, and Duntorvil, that's the Isles, the bonny Isles of Lochow; that's damnlike to be Doom too! That and this ruckle of stones we sit in are allthat's left of what was my father's and my grandfather's and theirforebears back till the dark of time. And how is it, ye may ask? Let uspretermit the question till another occasion; anyway here's Drimdarrochwi' the lave, at any rate the weight of it in processes, records, caveats, multiple poindings, actions of suspension and declator, interimdecrees, fugie warrants, compts, and reckonings--God! I have the cackleof the law in my head like a ballant, and what's the wonder at that wi'all my practice?"

He stooped and picked up from the confused heap of legal scrivenings byfinger-tips that seemed to fear infection a parchment fouled with itspassage through the courts and law offices. "You're in luck indeed, "said he; "for there's Drimdarroch--all that's left of it to me: the landitself is in the hands of my own doer, Petullo the writer down-by, andscab seize his bestial!"

Back he threw the relic of his patrimony; he dropped the curtain; heturned on his guest a face that tried to smile. "Come, let us sit downagain, " he said, "and never heed my havers. Am I not thankful to haveDoom itself left me, and the company of the hills and sea? After all, there are more Drimdarrochs than one in the Highlands, for the namemeans just 'the place at the back of the oak-wood or the oaken shaw, 'and oaks are as plentiful hereabout as the lawyers are in the burghdown-by. I but mentioned it to show you the delicacy of your search, foryou do not know but what I'm the very man you want, though I'm sittinghere looking as if acting trusty for the Hanoverian cause did not fillmy pouches. "

"_Tenez!_ M. Bethune was scarcely like to send me to Doom in that case, "said the Count laughing. 

"But Bethune, like yourself, may never have seen the man. "

"But yes, it is true, he did not see him any more than I did. Drimdarroch, by all accounts, was a spendthrift, a player, a _bavard_, his great friends, Glengarry and another Scot, Balhaldie--"

"Oh, Balhaldie! blethering Balhaldie!" cried Doom, contempt upon hiscountenance. "And Balhaldie would sell him, I'll warrant. He seems, thisDrimdarroch, to have been dooms unlucky in his friends. I say all I'vesaid to you, Count, because you're bound to find it out for yourselfsome day if you prosecute your search here, and you might be cominground to me at last with your ower-ready pistol when I was ill-preparedto argue out my identity. Furthermore, I do not know the man you want. About the castle down-by his Grace has a corps of all kinds that youmight pick from nine times out of ten without striking an honest man. Some of them are cadets of his own family, always blunt opponents ofmine and of our cause here and elsewhere; some are incomers, as we callthem; a few of them from clans apparently friendly to us when in otherquarters, but traitors and renegades at the heart; some are spies byhabit and repute. There's not a friend of mine among them, not in allthe fat and prosperous rabble of them; but I wish you were here onanother errand, though to Doom, my poor place, you are welcome. I am awidower, a lonely man, with my own flesh and blood rebel against me"--hechecked his untimeous confidence--"and yet I have been chastened byyears and some unco experiences from a truculent man to one preferringpeace except at the last ditch. "

"_Eh bien!_ Monsieur; _this_ is the last ditch!" said Montaiglon. "Spyand murderer, M. Le Baron, and remember I propose to give him more thanthe murderer's chance when I agree to meet him on a fair field with asword in his hand. "

"I have seen you lunge, sir, " said Doom meaningly; "I ken the carriageof a fencer's head; your eye's fast, your step's light; with the swordI take it Drimdarroch is condemned, and your practice with the pistol, judging from the affair with the Macfarlanes, seems pretty enough. Youpropose, or I'm mistaken, to make yourself the executioner. It is a stepfor great deliberation, and for the sake of a wanton woman--"

"Sir!" cried Montaiglon, half rising in his chair. 

Doom's eyes gleamed, a quiver ran over his brow, and a furrow came tothe jaw; his hand went to his side, where in other days there mighthave been a dagger. It was the flash of a moment, and died again almostbefore Montaiglon had seen and understood. 

"_Mille pardons!_" said Doom with uncouth French. "I used the word inits most innocent sense, with its kindliest meaning; but I was a fool touse it at all, and I withdraw it. "

Count Victor bowed his head. "So, " said he. "Perhaps I am too muchQuixote, for I saw her but a few times, and that briefly. She was likea--like a fine air once heard, not all to be remembered, never wholly tobe forgot. She had a failing, perhaps--the error of undue affection toqualify her for a sinful world. As it was, she seemed among other womensome rarity out of place--Venus at a lantern feast. "

"And ye would send this man to hell that he may find his punishment inremembering her? If I thought so much of vengeance I would leave him onthe earth forgetting. "

"M. Le Baron, I make you my compliments of your complacence, " said CountVictor, rising to his feet and desirous to end the discussion. "Iam only Victor de Montaiglon, poorly educated in the forgiveness oftreachery, and lamentably incapable of the nobihty _de cour_ that youprofess. But I can be grateful; and if you give me the hospitality ofyour house for a day or two, I shall take care that neither it nor itsowner will be implicated in my little affair. Touching retirement "--hewent on with a smile--"I regret exceedingly an overpowering weariness. I have travelled since long before dawn, and burning the candle _parles deux bouts_ is not, as Master Mungo hints, conducive to a vigorousreception of the Macfarlanes if they feel like retaliating to-morrow, and making your domicile the victim of my impetuosity and poormarksmanship. "

Doom sighed, took up a candle, and led the way into the passage. A chillair was in the corridor, that smelled like a cellar underground, andas their footsteps sounded reverberant upon the flags uncar-peted, DoomCastle gave the stranger the impression of a vault. Fantastic shadowsdanced macabre in the light of the candles; they were the only furnitureof that part of the rough dwelling that the owner shuffled throughas quickly as he could to save his guest from spying too closely thebarrenness of the land. He went first to the outer door with the candlebefore he said good night, drew back great bars, and opened the oak. Thesky was studded with pale golden stars; the open air was dense with theperfume of the wood, the saline indication of the sea-ware. On the rockyedge of the islet at one part showed the white fringe of the waves nowmore peaceful; to the north brooded enormous hills, seen dimly by thestars, couchant terrors, vague, vast shapes of dolours and alarms. Doomstood long looking at them with the flame of the candle blowinginward and held above his head--a mysterious man beyond Montaiglon'scomprehension. He stood behind him a pace or two, shivering in theevening air. 

"You'll be seeing little there, I'll warrant, Count, but a cold nightand inhospitable vacancy, hard hills and the robber haunting them. Forme, that prospect is my evening prayer. I cannot go to sleep withoutit, for fear I wake in Paradise and find it's all by with Doom and thenative hills for me. "

And by that he seemed to Montaiglon more explicable: it was the loverhe was; the sentimentalist, the poet, knowing the ancient secret of theanimate earth, taking his hills and valleys passionately to his heart. The Frenchman bowed his sympathy and understanding. 

"It's a wonder Mungo kept his word and went to bed, " said the Baron, recovering his ordinary manner, "for it would just suit his whim to bideup and act sentry here, very well pleased at the chance your coming gavehim of play-acting the man of war. "

He bolted the door again with its great bars, then gravely preceded hisguest to the foot of the turret stair, where he handed him the candle. 

"You're in a dreary airt of the house, " he said apologetically, "but Ihope you may find it not uncomfortable. Doom is more than two-thirdsbut empty shell, and the bats have the old chapel above you. _Oidhchemhath!_ Good night!" He turned upon his heel and was gone into thefarther end of the passage. 

As Montaiglon went up to his room, the guttering candle flame, puffedat by hidden and mischievous enemies from broken ports and gun-slits, showed upon the landing lower than his own a long corridor he had notobserved upon his first ascent. With the candle held high above his headhe glanced into the passage, that seemed to have several doors on eitherhand. In a castle so sparsely occupied the very knowledge of thislong and empty corridor in the neighbourhood of his sleeping apartmentconferred a sense of chill and mystery. He thought he could perceive theodour of damp, decayed wood, crumbled lime, hanging rotten in stagnantairs and covered with the dust of years. "_Dieu!_" he exclaimedinvoluntarily, "this is no Cammercy. " He longed for some relief from theair of mystery and dread that hung about the place. A laugh would havebeen a revelation, a strain of song a miracle of healing. And all atonce he reflected upon the Annapla as yet unseen. 

"These might be her quarters, " he reflected, finding a solace inthe thought. The chill was at once less apparent, a pleasant glow ofcompanionship came over him. Higher up he held the light to see thefarther into the long passage, and as he did so the flame was puffedout. It seemed so human a caprice that he drew himself sharply againstthe wall, ready by instinct to evade any rush or thrust that was tofollow. And then he smiled at his own alarm at a trick of the windthrough some of La-mond's ill-patched walls, and found his consolationin the sense of companionship confirmed by sight of a thin line of lightbelow a door mid-way up the curious passage. 

"Annapla, for a louis!" he thought cheerfully. "Thank heaven for onepetticoat in Doom--though that, in truth, is to concede the lady but ascanty wardrobe. " And he hummed softly as he entered his own room. 

Wearied exceedingly by the toils of the day, he had no sooner thrownhimself upon the bed than he slept with no need for the lullaby aid ofthe sea that rumoured light and soothingly round the rock of Doom. 

CHAPTER V -- THE FLAGEOLET

He woke from a dream of pressing danger and impotent flight to marvelwhere he was in darkness; fancied himself at first in some waysideinn mid-way over Scotland, and sat up suddenly with an exclamation ofassurance that he was awake to the suppositious landlord who had called, for the sense of some sound but stilled on the second of his wakingwas strong within him. He fastened upon the vague starlit space of thelittle window to give him a clew to his situation. Then he rememberedDoom, and, with the window for his key, built up the puzzle of his room, wondering at the cause of his alarm. 

The wind had risen and sent a loud murmur through the trees along thecoast; the sea, in breakers again, beat on the rock till Doom throbbed. But there was nothing in that to waken a man who had ridden two days oncoarse roads and encountered and fought with banditti. Decidedly therewas some menace in the night; danger on hard fields had given him bloodalert and unsleeping; the alarum was drumming at his breast. Stealthilyhe put out his hand, and it fell as by a fiddler's instinct upon thespot desired--the hilt of his sword. There he kept it with his breathsubdued, and the alarum severely quelled. 

An owl's call sounded on the shore, extremely pensive in its note, andnatural, but unusual in the rhythm of its repetition. It might havepassed for the veritable call of the woods to an unsuspicious ear, butMontaiglon knew it for a human signal. As if to prove it so, it wasfollowed by the grating of the outer door upon its hinge, and the soundof a foot stumbling among stones. 

He reflected that the tide was out in all probability, and at once thenotion followed that here were his searchers, the Macfarlanes, back inforce to revenge his impetuous injury to their comrades. But then--asecond thought almost as promptly told him in that case there should beno door opened. 

A sound of subdued voices came from the foot of the tower and died inthe garden behind or was swept elsewhere by the wind; then, through thevoice of the wave, the moan of the wind, and its whistle in vent andcranny, came a strain of music--not the harsh uncultured pipe of Mungothe servitor, but a more dulcet air of flute or flageolet. In thosedark savage surroundings it seemed a sound inhuman, something unreal, something of remembrance in delirium or dream, charged for this Parisianwith a thousand recollections of fond times, gay times, passionate timeselsewhere. Doom throbbed to the waves, but the flageolet stirred in himnot so much surprise at this incongruous experience as a wave of emotionwhere all his past of gaillard was crystalled in a second--many nightsof dance and song anew experienced in a mellow note or two; an old lovereincarnated in a phrase (and the woman in the dust); the evenings ofProvence lived again, and Louis's darling flute piping from the chateauover the field and river; moons of harvest vocal with some peasantcheer; in the south the nightingale searching to express his kinshipwith the mind of man and the creatures of the copse, his rapture at thestar. 

Somehow the elusive nature of the music gave it more than half itsmagic. It would die away as the wind declined, or come in passionatecrescendo. For long it seemed to Montaiglon--and yet it was tooshort--the night was rich with these incongruous but delightful strains. Now the player breathed some soft, slow, melancholy measure of themanner Count Victor had often heard the Scottish exiles croon withtears at his father's house, or sing with too much boisterousness at thedinners of the St. Andrew's Club, for which the Leith frigates had madespecial provision of the Scottish wine. Anon the fingers strayed upon anItalian symphony full of languors and of sun, and once at least a dancegave quickness to the execution. 

But more haunting than all was one simple strain and brief, indeed neverwholly accomplished, as if the player sought to recollect a song forgot, that was repeated over and over again, as though it were the motiveof the others or refrain. Sometimes Montaiglon thought the player haddespaired of concluding this bewitching melody when he changed suddenlyto another, and he had a very sorrow at his loss; again, when itsprogress to him was checked by a veering current of the wind and theflageolet rose once more with a different tune upon it, he dreaded thatthe conclusion had been found in the lacuna. 

He rose at last and went to the window, and tried in the wanillumination of the heavens to detect the mysterious musician in thegarden, but that was quite impossible: too dark the night, too huge andprofound the shadows over Doom. He went to his door and opened it andlooked down the yawning stairway; only the sigh of the wind in thegun-slits occupied the stairway, and the dark was the dark of Genesis. And so again to bed, to lie with his weariness for long forgotten. Hefound that tantalising fragment return again and again, but fated neverto be complete. It seemed, he fancied, something like a symbol of alife--with all the qualities there, the sweetness, the affection, thepassion, the divine despair, the longing, even the valours and thefaiths to make a great accomplishment, but yet lacking the roundaccomplishment. And as he waited once again for its recurrence he fellasleep. 

CHAPTER VI -- MUNGO BOYD

It was difficult for Count Victor, when he went abroad in the morning, to revive in memory the dreary and mysterious impressions of hisarrival; and the melody he had heard so often half-completed in the darkwaste and hollow of the night was completely gone from his recollection, leaving him only the annoying sense of something on the tongue's-tip, aswe say, but as unattainable as if it had never been heard. As he walkedupon a little knoll that lay between the seaside of the castle and thewave itself, he found an air of the utmost benignity charged with theodours of wet autumn woodlands in a sunshine. And the sea stretchedserene; the mists that had gathered in the night about the hills wererising like the smoke of calm hearths into a sky without a cloud. Thecastle itself, for all its natural arrogance and menace, had somethingpleasant in its aspect looked at from this small eminence, where thegarden did not display its dishevelment and even the bedraggled bowerseen from the rear had a look of trim' composure. 

To add to the morning's cheerfulness Mungo was afoot whistling a balladair of the low country, with a regard for neither time nor tune in hispuckered lips as he sat on a firkin-head at an outhouse door and guttedsome fish he had caught with his own hands in a trammel net at theriver-mouth before Montaiglon was awake and the bird, as the Gaelicgoes, had drunk the water. 

"Gude mornin' to your honour, " he cried with an elaborately flourishedsalute as Montaiglon sauntered up to him. "Ye're early on the move, Monsher; a fine caller mornin'. I hope ye sleepit weel; it was a gowstynicht. "

In spite of his assumed indifference and the purely casual nature ofhis comment upon the night, there was a good deal of cunning, thoughtMontaiglon, in the beady eyes of him, but the stranger only smiled atthe ease of those Scots domestic manners. 

"I did very well, I thank you, " said he. "My riding and all the restof it yesterday would have made me sleep soundly inside the drum of amarching régiment. "

"That's richt, that's richt, " said Mungo, ostentatiously handlingthe fish with the awkward repugnance of one unaccustomed to a task somenial, to prove perhaps that cleansing them was none of his accustomedoffice. "That's richt. When we were campaignin' wi' Marlborough oor ladshad many a time to sleep wi' the cannon dirlin' aboot them. Ye get us'dto't, ye get us'd to't, as Annapla says aboot bein' a weedow woman. And if ye hae noticed it, Coont, there's nae people mair adapted forfechtin' under diffeeculties than oor ain; that's what maks the Scotsthe finest sogers in the warld. It's the build o' them, 'Lowlan' or'Hielan', the breed o' them; the dour hard character o' their countryand their mainner o' leevin'. We gied the English a fleg at the'Forty-five, ' didnae we? That was where the tartan cam' in: man, there'snaethin' like us!"

"You do not speak like a Highlander, " said Montaiglon, finding some ofthis gasconade unintelligible. 

"No, I'm no' exactly a'thegether a Hielan'man, " Mungo admitted, "thoughI hae freends con-nekit wi' the auldest clans, and though I'm, in amainner o' speakin', i' the tail o' Doom, as I was i' the tail o' hisfaither afore him--peace wi' him, he was the grand soger!--but Hielan'or Lowland, we gied them their scuds at the 'Forty-five. ' Scotsregiments, sir, a' the warld ower, hae had the best o't for fechtin', marchin', or glory. See them at the auld grand wars o' Sweden wi'Gus-tavus, was there ever the like o' them? Or in your ain country, whaure's the bate o' the Gairde Ecossay, as they ca't?"

He spoke with such a zest, he seemed to fire with such a martial glow, that Montaiglon began to fancy that this amusing grotesque, who instature came no higher than his waist, might have seen some service assutler or groom in a campaigning regiment. 

"_Ma foi!_" he exclaimed, with his surprise restrained from the mostdelicate considerations for the little man's feelings; "have you been inthe wars?"

It was manifestly a home-thrust to Mungo. He had risen, in his momentof braggadocio, and was standing over the fish with a horn-hiltedgutting-knife in his hands, that were sanguine with his occupation, andhe had, in the excess of his feeling, made a flourish of the knife, as if it were a dagger, when Montaiglon's query checked him. He wasa bubble burst, his backbone--that braced him to the tension of acuirassier of guards--melted into air, into thin air, and a ludicrouslimpness came on him, while his eye fell, and confusion showed about hismouth. 

"In the wars!" he repeated. "Weel--no jist a'thegether what ye michtcall i' the wars--though in a mainner o' speakin', gey near't. I had anuncle oot wi' Balmerina; ye may hae heard tell o'm, a man o' tremendousvalour, as was generally al-ooed--Dugald Boyd, by my faither's side. There's been naethin' but sogers in oor family since the be-ginnin'o' time, and mony ane o' them's deid and dusty in foreign lands. It ithadnae been for the want o' a half inch or thereby in the height o'my heels "--here he stood upon his toes--"I wad hae been in the airmymysel'. It's the only employ for a man o' spunk, and there's spunk inMungo Boyd, mind I'm tellin' ye!"

"It is the most obvious thing in the world, good Mungo, " saidMontaiglon, smiling. "You eviscerate fish with the gusto of agladiator. "

And then an odd thing happened to relieve Mungo's embarrassment and endincontinent his garrulity. Floating on the air round the bulge of theturret came a strain of song in a woman's voice, not powerful, butrich and sweet, young in its accent, the words inaudible but the airstartling to Count Victor, who heard no more than half a bar beforehe had realised that it was the unfinished melody of the nocturnalflageolet. Before he could comment upon so unexpected and surprising aphenomenon, Mungo had dropped his gutting-knife and made with suspiciousrapidity for the entrance of the castle, without a word of explanationor leave-taking. 

"I become decidedly interested in Annapla, " said Montaiglon to himself, witnessing this odd retreat, "and my host gives me no opportunityof paying my homages. Malediction! It cannot be a wife; Bethune saidnothing of a wife, and then M. Le Baron spoke of himself as a widower. A domestic, doubtless; that will more naturally account for the ancientfishmonger's fleet retirement. He goes to chide the erring Abigail. Or--or--or the cunning wretch!" continued Montaiglon with new meaning inhis eyes, "he is perhaps the essential lover. Let the Baron at breakfastelucidate the mystery. "

But the Baron at breakfast said never a word of the domestic economyof his fortalice. As they sat over a frugal meal of oat porridge, thepoached fish, and a smoky, high-flavoured mutton ham, whose history theCount was happy not to know, his host's conversation was either uponParis, where he had spent some months of sad expatriation, yawning atits gaiety (it seemed) and longing for the woods of Doom; or upon theplan of the search for the spy and double traitor. 

Montaiglon's plans were simple to crudeness. He had, though he did notsay so, anticipated some assistance from Doom in identifying the objectof his search; but now that this was out of the question, he meant, itappeared, to seek the earliest and most plausible excuse for removalinto the immediate vicinity of Argyll's castle, and on some pretext tomake the acquaintance of as many of the people there as he could, thento select his man from among them, and push his affair to a conclusion. 

"A plausible scheme, " said Doom when he heard it, "but contrived withoutany knowledge of the situation. It's not Doom, M. Le Count---oh no, it'snot Doom down by there; it's a far more kittle place to learn the outsand ins of. The army and the law are about it, the one about as numerousas the other, and if your Drimdarroch, as I take it, is a traitor oneither hand--to Duke Archie as well as to the king across the water, taking the money of both as has happened before now, he'll be noDrimdarroch you may wager, and not kent as such down there. Indeed, howcould he? for Petullo the writer body is the only Drimdarroch thereis to the fore, and he has a grieve in the place. Do you think thisby-named Drimdarroch will be going about cocking his bonnet over hisFrench amours and his treasons? Have you any notion that he will be themore or the less likely to do so when he learns that there's a Frenchgentleman of your make in the country-side, and a friend of Doom's, too, which means a Jacobite? A daft errand, if I may say it; seeking a needlein a haystack was bairn's play compared to it. "

"If you sit down on the haystack you speedily find the needle, M. LeBaron, " said Montaiglon playfully. "In other words, trust my sensibilityto feel the prick of his presence whenever I get into his society. Thefact that he may suspect my object here will make him prick all thequicker and all the harder. "

"Even yet you don't comprehend Argyll's court. It's not Doom, mind you, but a place hotching with folk--half a hundred perhaps of whom havetravelled as this Drimdarroch has travelled, and in Paris too, andjust of his visage perhaps. Unless you challenged them all seriatim, asPetullo would say, I see no great prospect. "

"I wish we could coax the fly here! That or something like it was what Ihalf expected to be able to do when Bethune gave me your address as thatof a landlord in the neighbourhood. "

Doom reddened, perhaps with shame at the altered condition of his statein the house of his fathers. "I've seen the day, " said he--"I've seenthe day they were throng enough buzzing about Doom, but that was onlyso long as honey was to rob with a fair face and a nice humming at therobbery. Now that I'm a rooked bird and Doom a herried nest, they neverlook the road I'm on. "

Mungo, standing behind his master's chair, gave a little crackling laughand checked it suddenly at the angry flare in his master's face. 

"You're mighty joco!" said the Baron; "perhaps you'll take my friend andme into your confidence;" and he frowned with more than one meaning atthe little-abashed retainer. 

"Paurdon! paurdon!" said Mungo, every part of the chart-like facethrilled with some uncontrollable sense of drollery, and he exploded inlaughter more violent than ever. 

"Mungo!" cried his master in the accent of authority. 

The domestic drew himself swiftly to attention. 

"Mungo!" said his master, "you're a damned fool! In the army ye wouldhave got the triangle for a good deal less. Right about face. "

Mungo saluted and made the required retreat with a great deal less thanhis usual formality. 

"There's a bit crack in the creature after all, " said the Baron, displaying embarrassment and annoyance, and he quickly changed theconversation, but with a wandering mind, as Count Victor could not failto notice. The little man, to tell the truth, had somehow laughed atthe wrong moment for Count Victor's peace of mind. For why should hebe amused at the paucity of the visitors from Argyll's court to theresidence of Doom? Across the table at a man unable to conceal hisconfusion Montaiglon stole an occasional glance with suspicion growingon him irresistibly. 

An inscrutable face was there, as many Highland faces were to him, evenamong old friends in France, where Balhaldie, with the best possiblehand at a game of cards, kept better than any gambler he had ever knownbefore a mask of dull and hopeless resignation. The tongue was soft andfair-spoken, the hand seemed generous enough, but this by all accountshad been so even with Drimdarroch himself, and Drimdarroch was rotten tothe core. 

"Very curious, " thought Montaiglon, making poor play with his braxy ham. "Could Bethune be mistaken in this extraordinary Baron?" And he patchedtogether in his mind Mungo's laughter with the Baron's history asbriefly known to him, and the inexplicable signal and alarm of thenight. 

"Your Mademoiselle Annapla seems to be an entrancing vocalist, " said heairily, feeling his way to a revelation. 

The Baron, in his abstraction, scarcely half comprehended. 

"The maid, " he said, "just the maid!" and never a word more, but into anew topic. 

"I trust so, " thought the Count; "but the fair songster who signalsfrom her window and has clandestine meetings at midnight with masculinevoices must expect some incredulity on that point. Can it be possiblethat here I have Bluebeard or Lothario? The laughter of the womanseems to indicate that if here is not Lothario, here at all events issomething more than seems upon the surface. _Tonnerre de dieu!_ I becomesuspicious of the whole breed of mountaineers. And not a word about lastnight's alarm--that surely, in common courtesy, demands some explanationto the guest whose sleep is marred. "

They went out together upon the mainland in the forenoon to makeinquiries as to the encounter with the Macfarlanes, of whose presencenot a sign remained. They had gone as they had come, without theknowledge of the little community on the south of Doom, and the veryplace among the bracken where the Count had dropped his bird revealed nofeather; the rain of the morning had obliterated every other trace. Hestood upon the very spot whence he had fired at the luckless robber, andrestored, with the same thrill of apprehension, the sense of mysteryand of dread that had hung round him as he stole the day before throughvoiceless woods to the sound of noisy breakers on a foreign shore. He saw again the brake nod in a little air of wind as if a form washarboured, and the pagan rose in him--not the sceptic but the childof nature, early and remote, lost in lands of silence and of omen indim-peopled and fantastic woods upon the verge of clamorous seas. 

"_Dieu!_" said he with a shiver, turning to his host. "This is decidedlynot Verrays in the Rue Conde. I would give a couple of louis d'or for amoment of the bustle of Paris. 

"A sad place yon!" said Doom. 

And back they went to the castle to play a solemn game of lansquenet. 

CHAPTER VII -- THE BAY OF THE BOAR'S HEAD

A solemn game indeed, for the Baron was a man of a sobrietyunaccountable to Montaiglon, who, from what he knew of Macdonnel ofBarisdel, Mac-leod, Balhaldie, and the others of the Gaelic gang inParis, had looked for a roysterer in Doom. It was a man with strangemelancholies he found there, with a ludicrous decorum for a person ofhis condition, rising regularly on the hour, it seemed, and retiringearly to his chamber like a peasant, keeping no company with theneighbouring lairds because he could not even pretend to emulate theirstate, passing his days among a score of books in English, some (as theSieur de Guille) in French, and a Bedel Bible in the Irish letter, and as often walking aimlessly about the shore looking ardently at thehills, and rehearsing to himself native rhymes that ever accountnative women the dearest and the same hills the most beautiful in God'screation. He was the last man to look to for aid in an enterprise likeMontaiglon's: if he had an interest in the exploit it seemed it was onlyto discourage the same, and an hour or two of his company taught theCount he must hunt his spy unaided. 

But the hunting of the spy, in the odd irrelevance or inconsistency ofnature, was that day at least an enterprise altogether absent fromhis thoughts. He had been diverted from the object of his journey toScotland by just such a hint at romance as never failed to fascinate aMontaiglon, and he must be puzzling himself about the dulcet singer andher share in the clandestine midnight meeting. When he had finished hisgame with his host, and the latter had pleaded business in the burgh asan excuse for his absence in the afternoon, Count Victor went round Doomon every side trying to read its mystery. While it was a house whosevery mortar must be drenched with tradition, whose every window hadlooked upon histories innumerable worth retelling, nothing was revealedof the matter in hand. 

Many rooms of it were obviously unoccupied, for in the domestic routineof the Baron and of Mungo and the lady of song there were two storeysutterly unoccupied, and even in the flats habited there were seeminglychambers vacant, at least ever unopened and forlorn. Count Victorrealised, as he looked at the frowning and taciturn walls, that hemight be in Doom a twelvemonth and have no chance to learn from thatabstracted scholar, its owner, one-half of its interior economy. 

From the ground he could get no clear view of the woman's window: thathe discovered early, for it was in the woman he sought the key to allDoom's little mystery. He must, to command the window, climb to his ownchamber in the tower, and even then it was not a full front view he had, but a foreshortened glance at the side of it and the signal, if any moresignalling there might be. He never entered that room without a glancealong the sun-lit walls; he never passed the mouth of that corridor onthe half landing where his candle had blown out without as curious ascrutiny as good-breeding might permit. And nothing was disclosed. 

Mungo pervaded the place--Mungo toiling in the outhouses at tasks themost menial, feeding the half-dozen moulting poultry, digging potatoesin the patch of garden or plucking colewort there, climbing the stairswith backets of peat or wood, shaking a table-cloth to the breeze; andin the _salle_ the dark and ruminating master indulging his melancholyby rebuilding the past in the red ash of the fire, or looking withpensive satisfaction from his window upon the coast, a book upon hisknee--that was Doom as Count Victor was permitted to know it. 

He began at last to doubt his senses, and half believe that what he hadheard on the night of his arrival had been some chimera, a dream of awearied and imperilled man in unaccustomed surroundings. 

Mungo saw him walk with poorly concealed curiosity about the outside ofthe stronghold, and smiled to himself as one who knows the reason fora gentleman's prying. Montaiglon caught that smile once: his chagrin atits irony was blended with a pleasing delusion that the frank and genialdomestic might proffer a solution without indelicate questioning. But hewas soon undeceived: the discreet retainer knew but three things in thisworld--the grandeur of war, the ancient splendour of the house of Doom, and the excellent art of absent-mindedness. When it came to the contentsof Doom, Mungo Boyd was an oyster. 

"It must have been a place of some importance in its day, " said CountVictor, gazing up at the towering walls and the broken embrasures. 

"And what is't yet?" demanded Mungo, jealously, with no recollectionthat a moment ago he had been mourning its decline. 

"_Eh bien!_ It is quite charming, such of it as I have had the honour tosee; still, when the upper stages were habitable------" and CountVictor mentally cursed his luck that he must fence with a blunt-wittedscullion. 

"Oh, ay! I'll alio' I've seen it no' sae empty, if that's what ye mean;but if it's no' jist Dumbarton or Dunedin, it's still auld bauld Doom, and an ill deevil to crack, as the laddie said that found the nutmeg. "

"But surely, " conceded Montaiglon, "and yet, and yet--have you everheard of Jericho, M. Boyd? Its capitulation was due to so simple a thingas the playing of a trumpet or two. "

"I ken naething aboot trumpets, " said Mungo curtly, distinguishing some_arrière pensée_ in the interrogator. 

"_Fi donc!_ and you so much the old _sabreur!_ Perhaps your peoplemarched to the flageolet--a seductive instrument, I assure you. "

The little man betrayed confusion. "Annapla thrieps there's a ghaistlyflageolet aboot Doom, " said he, "but it'll hae to toil away lang or thewa's o' oor Jericho fa', --they're seeven feet thick. "

"He plays divinely, this ghostly flageoleteer, and knows his Handel to ademi-semi-quaver, " said Count Victor coolly. 

"O Lord! lugs! I told them that!" muttered Mungo. 

"Pardon!"

"Naething; we're a' idiots noo and then, and--and I maun awa' in. "

So incontinently he parted from Count Victor, who, to pass theafternoon, went walking on the mainland highway. He walked to the souththrough the little hamlet he and Doom had visited earlier in the day;and as the beauty of the scenery allured him increasingly the fartherhe went, he found himself at last on a horn of the great bay where theDuke's seat lay sheltered below its hilly ramparts. As he had walked tothis place he had noticed that where yesterday had been an empty sea wasnow a fleet of fishing-boats scurrying in a breeze off land, setting outupon their evening travail--a heartening spectacle; and that on eitherside of him--once the squalid huts of Doom were behind--was a moredainty country with cultivated fields well-fenced, and so he was notwholly unprepared for the noble view revealed when he turned the pointof land that hid the policies of MacCailen Mor. 

But yet the sight somewhat stunned. In all his notions of Drimdarroch'shabitation, since he had seen the poverty of Doom, he had taken his ideafrom the baron's faded splendour, and had ludicrously underestimatedthe importance of Argyll's court and the difficulty of finding his man. Instead of a bleak bare country-side, with the ducal seat a meantower in the midst of it, he saw a wide expanse of thickly-wooded andinhabitable country speckled for miles with comfortable dwellings, thecastle itself a high embattled structure, clustered round by a town ofsome dimensions, and at its foot a harbour, where masts were numerousand smoke rose up in clouds. 

Here was, plainly, a different society from Doom; here was somethingof what the exiled chiefs had bragged of in their cups. The Baron hadsuggested no more than a dozen of cadets about the place. _Grand Dieu!_there must be a regiment in and about this haughty palace, with itsblack and yellow banner streaming in the wind, and to seek Drimdarrochthere and round that busy neighbourhood seemed a task quite hopeless. 

For long he stood on the nose of land, gazing with a thousandspeculations at where probably lay his prey; and when he returned tothe castle of Doom it looked all the more savage and inhospitable incontrast with the lordly domicile he had seen. What befell him there onhis return was so odd and unexpected that it clean swept his mind againof every interest in the spy. 

CHAPTER VIII -- AN APPARITION

The tide in his absence had come in around the rock of Doom, and he mustsignal for Mungo's ferry. Long and loud he piped, but there was at firstno answer; and when at last the little servitor appeared, it was tolook who called, and then run back with a haste no way restrained by anysense of garrison punctilio. He was not long gone, but when he camedown again to the boat his preparations for crossing took up anunconscionable time. First the boat must be baled, it seemed, and thena thole-pin was to find; when launched the craft must tangle her bowunaccountably and awkwardly in the weeds. And a curt man was Mungo, though his salute for Count Victor had lost none of its formality. Heseemed to be the family's friend resenting, as far as politeness might, some inconvenience to which it was being subjected without having thepower to prevent the same. 

Before they had gained the rock, dusk was on the country, brought thesooner for a frost-fog that had been falling all afternoon. It wrappedthe woods upon the shore, made dim the yeasty waterway, and gave Doomitself the look of a phantom edifice. It would be ill to find a placeless hospitable and cheerful in its outer aspect; not for domestic peaceit seemed, but for dark exploits. The gloomy silhouette against the drabsky rose inconceivably tall, a flat plane like a cardboard castle givinglittle of an impression of actuality, but as a picture dimly seen, flooding an impressionable mind like Count Victor's with a myriadsensations, tragic and unaccustomed. From the shore side no lightillumined the sombre masonry; but to the south there was a glow in whathe fancied now must be the woman's window, and higher up, doubtless inthe chapel above the flat he occupied himself, there was a radiance onwhich Mungo at the oars turned round now and then to look. 

Whistling a careless melody, and with no particularly acute observationof anything beyond the woman's window, which now monopolised his keenestinterest in Doom, Count Victor leaped out of the boat as soon as itreached the rock, and entered the castle by the door which Mungo hadleft open. 

What had been a crêpe-like fog outside was utter gloom within. Thecorridor was pitch-black, the stair, as he climbed to his room, was likea wolf's throat, as the saying goes; but as he felt his way up, a doorsomewhere above him suddenly opened and shut, lending for a moment agleam of reflected light to his progress. It was followed immediately bya hurried step coming down the stair. 

At first he thought he was at length to see the mysterious Annapla, butthe masculine nature of the footfall told him he was in error. 

"M. Le Baron, " he concluded, "and home before me by another route, " andhe stepped closely into the right side of the wall to give passage. Butthe darkness made identity impossible, and he waited the recognitionof himself. It never came. He was brushed past as by a somnambulist, without greeting or question, though to accomplish it the other inthe narrow stairway had to rub clothes with him. Something utterlyunexpected in the apparition smote him with surprise andapprehension. It was as if he had encountered something groping in amausoleum--something startling to the superstitious instinct, though notterrific in a material way. When it passed he stood speechless on thestair, looking down into the profound black, troubled with amazement, full of speculation. All the suspicions that he had felt last night, when the signal-calls rose below the turret and the door had openedand the flageolet had disturbed his slumbers, came back to him moresinister, more compelling than before. He listened to the decliningfootfall of that silent mystery; a whisper floated upwards, a doorcreaked, no more than that, and yet the effect was wildly disturbing, even to a person of the _sang froid_ of Montaiglon. 

At a bound he went up to his chamber and lit a candle, and stood aspace on the floor, lost in thought. When he looked at his face, halfunconscious that he did so, in a little mirror on a table, he sawrevealed there no coward terrors, but assuredly alarm. He smiled at hispallid image, tugged in Gascon manner at his moustache, and threw outhis chest; then his sense of humour came to him, and he laughed at thefolly of his perturbation. But he did not keep the mood long. 

"My _sans culottes_ surely do not share the hospitality of Doom withme in its owner's absence, " he reflected. "And yet, and yet--! I oweBethune something for the thrill of the experiences he has introduced meto. Now I comprehend the affection of those weeping exiles for thevery plain and commonplace life of France they profess to think soindifferent a country compared with this they have left behind. A weekof these ghosts would drive me to despair. To-morrow--to-morrow--M. DeMontaiglon--to-morrow you make your reluctant adieux to Doom and itsinexplicable owner, whose surprise and innuendo are altogether tooexciting for your good health. "

So he promised himself as he walked up and down the floor of hischamber, feeling himself in a cage, yet unable to think how he wasto better his condition without the aid of the host whose mysteriesdisturbed so much by the suspicions they aroused. Bethune had told himLamond, in spite of his politics and his comparative poverty, was onneighbourly terms with Argyll, and would thus be in a position to puthim in touch with the castle of the Duke and the retinue there withoutcreating any suspicion as to the nature of his mission. It was that hehad depended on, and to no other quarter could he turn with a hope ofbeing put into communication with the person he sought. But Doom wasapparently quite unqualified to be an aid to him. He was, it seemed, atvariance with his Grace on account of one of those interminable lawsuitswith which the Gaelic chiefs, debarred from fighting in the wholesomeold manner with the sword, indulged their contestful passions, andhe presented first of all a difficulty that Count Victor in his mosthopeless moments had never allowed for--he did not know the identity ofthe man sought for, and he questioned if it could easily be established. All these considerations determined Count Victor upon an immediateremoval from this starven castle and this suspicious host. But whenhe joined Doom in the _salle_ he constrained his features to a calmreserve, showing none of his emotions. 

He found the Baron seated by the fire, and ready to take a suspiciouslyloud but abstracted interest in his ramble. 

"Well, Count, " said he, "ye've seen the castle of the King o' theHielan's, as we call him, have you? And what think ye of MacCailen'squarters?"

Montaiglon lounged to a chair, threw a careless glance at hisinterrogator, pulled the ever upright moustache, and calmly confessedthem charming. 

A bitter smile came on the face of his host. "They might well be that, "said he. "There's many a picking there. " And then he became garrulousupon the tale of his house and family, that seemed to have been doggedby misfortune for a century and a half; that had owned once many ofthese lush glens, the shoulders of these steep bens, the shores of thatcurving coast. Bit by bit that ancient patrimony had sloughed offin successive generations, lost to lust, to the gambler's folly, thespendthrift's weakness. 

"Hard, is it not?" questioned his host. "I'm the man that should haveDoom at its very best, for I could bide among my people here, and likethem, and make them like me, without a thought of rambling about theworld. 'Mildewing with a ditch between you and life' my grandfather usedto call it, when old age took him back from his gaieties abroad. Faith!I wish I had the chance to do it better than I may. All's here I everwanted of life, and I have tasted it elsewhere, too. Give me my ownacres and my own people about me, and it would be a short day indeedfrom the rise of the sun till bedtime--a short day and a happy. Myfather used, after a week or two at home, to walk round the point ofStrome where you were to-day and look at the skiffs and gabberts in theport down-by, and the sight never failed to put frolic in the blood ofhim. If he saw a light out there at sea--the lamp of a ship outbound--hewould stand for hours in his night-sark at the window gloating on it. Asfor me, no ship-light gave me half the satisfaction of the evening starcoming up above the hill Ardno. "

"To-morrow, " said Montaiglon--"to-morrow is another day; that's myconsolation in every trial. "

"At something on the happy side of thirty it may be that, " admittedDoom; "at forty-five there's not so muckle satisfaction in it. "

Through all this Count Victor, in spite of the sympathy that sometimesswept him away into his host's narrative, felt his doubts come Hack andback at intervals. With an eye intent upon the marvel before him, he asked often what this gentleman was concealing. Was he plottingsomething? And with whom? What was the secret of that wind-blown castle, its unseen occupants, its midnight music, the ironic laughter of thedomestic Mungo, the annoyance of its master at his mirth? Could hepossibly be unaware of the strange happenings in his house, of whatsignalled by day and crept on stairs at night? To look at him yearningthere, he was the last man in the world to associate with the thrillingmoment of an hour ago when Montaiglon met the marvel on the stairway;but recollections of Drimdarroch's treachery, and the admission of Doomhimself that it was not uncommon among the chiefs, made him hopeless ofreading that inscrutable face, and he turned to look about the room forsome clue to what he found nowhere else. 

A chamber plain to meanness--there seemed nothing here to help him toa solution. The few antlered stag-heads upon the walls were mangey anddusty; the strip of arras that swayed softly in the draught of a windowonly sufficed to accentuate the sordid nature of that once pretentiousinterior. And the half-curtained recess, with the soiled and dog-eareddocuments of the law, was the evidence of how all this tragedy of adownfallen house had come about. 

Doom's eyes saw his fall upon the squalid pile. 

"Ay!" he said, "that's the ashes of Doom, all that's left of what weburned in fiery living and hot law-pleas. We have the ash and the othershave warm hands. "

Count Victor, who had been warming his chilled fingers at the fire, moved to the curtain and drew it back, the better again to see thatdoleful cinerary urn. 

His host rose hurriedly from his chair. 

"Trash! trash! Only trash, and dear bought at that, " said he, seeing hisguest's boot-toe push the papers in with a dainty man's fastidiousness. 

But the deed was done before the implied protest was attended. TheCount's movements revealed a Highland dagger concealed beneath oneof the parchments! It was a discovery of no importance in a Highlandcastle, where, in spite of the proscription of weapons, there mightinnocently be something so common as a dagger left; but a half-checkedcry from the Baron stirred up again all Count Victor's worst suspicions. 

He looked at Doom, and saw his face was hot with some confusion, andthat his tongue stammered upon an excuse his wits were not alert enoughto make. 

He stooped and picked up the weapon--an elegant instrument well adornedwith silver on the hilt and sheath; caught it at the point, and, leaningthe hilt upon his left wrist in the manner of the courtier slightlyexaggerated, and true to the delicacies of the _salle-d'armes_, proffered it to the owner. 

Doom laughed in some confusion. "Ah!" said he, lamely, "Mungo's beenat his dusting again, " and he tried to restore the easiness of theconversation that the incident had so strangely marred. 

But Montaiglon could not so speedily restore his equanimity. For theunknown who had so unceremoniously brushed against him on the dark stairhad been attired in tartan clothes. It had been a bare knee that hadtouched him on the leg; it had been a plaid-fringe that had brushedacross his face; and his knuckles had been rapped lightly by theprotuberances upon the sheath and hilt of a mountain dagger. M. LeBaron's proscription of arms seemed to have some strange exceptions, he told himself. They were not only treated with contempt by theMacfarlanes, but even in Doom Castle, whose owner affected to look uponthe garb of his ancestors as something well got rid of. For the life ofhim, Count Victor could not disassociate the thought of that mysteriousfigure on the stair, full clad in all Highland panoply against thelaw, and the men--the broken men--who had shot his pony in the wood andattempted to rob him. All the eccentricities of his host mustered beforehim--his narrow state here with but one servant apparent, a mysteriousroom tenanted by an invisible woman, and his coldness--surely farfrom the Highland temper--to the Count's scheme of revenge upon thefictitious Drimdarroch. 

There was an awkward pause even the diplomacy of the Frenchman could notrender less uncomfortable, and the Baron fumbled with the weapon ere helaid it down again on the table. 

"By the way, " said Count Victor, now with his mind made up, "I see noprospect of pushing my discoveries from here, and it is also unfair thatI should involve you in my adventure, that had much better be conductedfrom the plain base of an inn, if such there happens to be in the towndown there. "

A look of unmistakable relief, quelled as soon as it breathed across hisface, came to the Baron. "Your will is my pleasure, " he said quickly;"but there is at this moment no man in the world who could be morewelcome to share my humble domicile. ". 

"Yet I think I could work with more certainty of a quick success froma common lodging in the town than from here. I have heard that now andthen French fish dealers and merchants sometimes come for barter to thiscoast and----"

The ghost of a smile came over Doom's face. "They could scarcely takeyou for a fish merchant, M. Le Count, " said he. 

"At all events common fairness demands that I should adopt any meansthat will obviate getting your name into the thing, and I think I shalltry the inn. Is there one?"

"There is the best in all the West Country there, " said Doom, "kept bya gentleman of family and attainments. But it will not do for you togo down there without some introduction. I shall have to speak of yourcoming to some folk and see if it is a good time. "

"_Eh bien!_ Remember at all events that I am in affairs, " saidMontaiglon, and the thing was settled. 

CHAPTER IX -- TRAPPED

It was only at the dawn, or the gloaming, or in night itself--and aboveall in the night--that the castle of Doom had its tragic aspect. Inthe sun of midday, as Count Victor convinced himself on the morrow of anight with no alarms, it could be almost cheerful, and from the gardenthere was sometimes something to be seen with interest of a human kindupon the highway on the shore. 

A solitary land, but in the happy hours people were passing to and frobetween the entrances to the ducal seat and the north. Now and thenbands of vagrants from the heights of Glencroe and the high Rest whereWade's road bent among the clouds would pass with little or no appeal tothe hospitality of Doom, whose poverty they knew; now and then rusticsin red hoods, their feet bare upon the gravel, made for the town market, sometimes singing as they went till their womanly voices, even in airsunfamiliar and a language strange and guttural, gave to Count Victoran echo of old mirth in another and a warmer land. Men passed on roughshort ponies; once a chariot with a great caleche roof swung on therutless road, once a company of red-coat soldiery shot like a gleam ofglory across the afternoon, moving to the melody of a fife and drum. 

For the latter Mungo had a sour explanation. They were come, it seemed, to attend a trial for murder. A clansman of the Duke's and a far-outcousin (in the Highland manner of speaking) had been shot dead in thecountry of Appin; the suspected assassin, a Stewart of course, was ontrial; the blood of families and factions was hot over the business, andthe Government was sending its soldiery to convoy James Stewart of theGlen, after his conviction, back to the place of execution. 

"But, _mon Dieu!_ he is yet to try, is he not?" cried Count Victor. 

"Oh ay!" Mungo acquiesced, "but that doesna' maitter; the puir craturis as guid as scragged. The tow's aboot his thrapple and kittlin' himalready, I'll warrant, for his name's Stewart, and in this place I wouldsooner be ca'd Beelzebub; I'd hae a better chance o' my life if I foundmysel' in trouble wi' a Campbell jury to try me. "

Montaiglon watched this little cavalcade of military march along theroad, with longing in his heart for the brave and busy outside worldthey represented. He watched them wistfully till they had disappearedround the horn of land he had stood on yesterday, and their fife anddrum had altogether died upon the air of the afternoon. And turning, hefound the Baron of Doom silent at his elbow, looking under his hat-brimat the road. 

"More trouble for the fesse checkey, Baron, " said he, indicating thepoint whereto the troops had gone. 

"The unluckiest blazon on a coat, " replied the castellan of Doom;"trouble seems to be the part of every one who wears it. It's in a veryunwholesome quarter when it comes into the boar's den--"

"Boar's den?" repeated Montaiglon interrogatively. 

"The head of the pig is his Grace's cognisance. Clan Diarmaid must havegot it first by raiding in some Appin stye, as Petullo my doer down-bysays. He is like most men of his trade, Petullo; he is ready to make histreasonable joke even against the people who pay him wages, and I knowhe gets the wages of the Duke as well as my fees. I'm going down totransact some of the weary old business with him just now, and I'll hintat your coming. A Bordeaux wine merchant--it will seem more like thething than the fish dealer. "

"And I know a good deal more about wine than about fish, " laughed CountVictor, "so it will be safer. "

"I think you would be best to have been coming to the town when theMacfarlanes attacked you, killed your horse, and chased you into myplace. That's the most plausible story we can tell, and it has thevirtue of being true in every particular, without betraying that Bethuneor friendship for myself was in any part of it. "

"I can leave it all to your astuteness, " said Montaiglon. 

The Baron was absent, as he had suggested was possible, all day. Theafternoon was spent by Count Victor in a dull enough fashion, for evenMungo seemed morose in his master's absence, perhaps overweighted by themysteries now left to his charge, disinclined to talk of anything exceptthe vast wars in which his ancestors had shone with blinding splendour, and of the world beyond the confines of Doom. But even his store ofreminiscence became exhausted, and Count Victor was left to his ownresources. Back again to his seat on the rock he went, and again to thesurvey of the mainland that seemed so strangely different a clime fromthis where nothing dwelt but secrecy and decay. 

In the afternoon the traffic on the highway had ceased, for the burghnow held all of that wide neighbourhood that had leisure, or any excuseof business to transact in the place where a great event was happening. The few that moved in the sun of the day were, with but one exception, bound for the streets; the exception naturally created some wonder onthe part of Count Victor. 

For it was a man in the dress (to judge at a distance) of a gentleman, and his action was singular. He was riding a jet-black horse of largerstature than any that the rustics and farmers who had passed earlierin the day bestrode, and he stood for a time half-hidden among treesopposite the place where Count Victor reclined on a patch of grass amongwhin-bushes. Obviously he did not see Montaiglon, to judge from thecalmness of his scrutiny, and assuredly it was not to the Frenchmanthat, after a little, he waved a hand. Count Victor turned suddenlyand saw a responsive hand withdrawn from the window that had so farmonopolised all his interest in Doom's exterior. 

Annapla had decidedly an industrious wooer, more constant than the sunitself, for he seemed to shine in her heavens night and day. 

There was, in a sense, but little in the incident, which was open to ascore of innocent or prosaic explanations, and the cavalier was spurringback a few minutes later to the south, but it confirmed Count Victor'sdetermination to have done with Doom at the earliest, and off to wherethe happenings of the day were more lucid. 

At supper-time the Baron had not returned. Mungo came up to discoverCount Victor dozing over a stupid English book and wakened him to tellhim so, and that supper was on the table. He toyed with the food, havingno appetite, turned to his book again, and fell asleep in his chair. Mungo again came in and removed the dishes silently, and lookedcuriously at him--so much the foreigner in that place, so perjink inhis attire, so incongruous in his lace with this solitary keep of themountains. It was a strange face the servant turned upon him there atthe door as he retired to his kitchen quarters. And he was not gone longwhen he came back with a woman who walked tiptoe into the doorway. 

"That's the puir cratur, " said he; "seekin' for whit he'll never find, like the man with the lantern playin' ki-hoi wi' honesty. "

She looked with interest at the stranger, said no word, but disappeared. 

The peats sunk upon the hearth, crumbling in hearts of fire: on theouter edges the ashes grew grey. The candles of coarse mould, stuck in arude sconce upon the wall above the mantelshelf, guttered to their end, set aslant by wafts of errant wind that came in through the half-opendoor and crevices of the window. It grew cold, and Montaiglon shookhimself into wakefulness. He sat up in his chair and looked about himwith some sense of apprehension, with the undescribable instinct of aman who feels himself observed by eyes unseen, who has slept through animminently dangerous moment. 

He heard a voice outside. 

"M. Le Baron, " he concluded. "Late, but still in time to say good-nightto the guest he rather cavalierly treats. " And he rose and wentdownstairs to meet his host. The great door was ajar. He went into theopen air. The garden was utterly dark, for clouds obscured thestars, and the air was laden with the saline odour of the wrack belowhigh-water mark. The tide was out. What he had expected was to see Mungoand his master, but behind the castle where they should have been therewas no one, and the voices he heard had come from the side next theshore. He listened a little and took alarm, for it was not one voice butthe voices of several people he heard, and in the muffled whispers ofmen upon some dishonest adventure. At once he recalled the Macfarlanesand the surmise of Baron Doom that in two nights they might be cryingtheir slogan round the walls that harboured their enemy. He ran hastilyback to the house, quickly resumed the sword that had proved little useto him before, took up the more businesslike pistol that had spoiled thefeatures of the robber with the bladder-like head, and rushed downstairsagain. 

"_Qui est la?_" he demanded as he passed round the end of the house andsaw dimly on the rock a group of men who had crossed upon the ebb. Hisappearance was apparently unexpected, for he seemed to cause surpriseand a momentary confusion. Then a voice cried "Loch Sloy!" and thecompany made a rush to bear him down. 

He withdrew hastily behind the wall of the garden where he had them atadvantage. As he faced round, the assailants, by common consent, leftone man to do his business. He was a large, well-built man, so faras might be judged in the gloom of the night, and he was attired inHighland clothes. The first of his acts was to throw off a plaid thatmuffled his shoulders; then he snapped a futile pistol, and fell backupon his sword, with which he laid out lustily. 

In the dark it was impossible to make pretty fighting of the encounter. The Frenchman saw the odds too much against him, and realised theweakness of his flank; he lunged hurriedly through a poor guard of hisopponent's, and pierced the fleshiness of the sword-arm. The man growledan oath, and Count Victor retreated. 

Mungo, with a blanched face, was trembling in the entrance, and a womanwas shrieking upstairs. The hall, lit by a flambeau that Mungo heldin one hand, while the other held a huge horse-pistol, looked like theentrance to a dungeon, --something altogether sinister and ugly to theforeigner, who had the uneasy notion that he fought for his life ina prison. And the shrieks aloft rang wildly through the night likesomething in a story he had once read, with a mad woman incarcerated, and only to manifest herself when danger and mystery threatened. 

"In ye come! in ye come!" cried the servant, trembling excessively tillthe flambeau shook in his hand and his teeth rattled together. "In yecome, and I'll bar the door. "

It was time, indeed, to be in; for the enemy leaped at the oak as CountVictor threw it back upon its hinges, rather dubious of the bars thatwere to withstand the weight without. 

The sight of them reassured, however: they were no light bars Mungodrew forth from their channels in the masonry, but huge black iron-boundblocks a foot thick that ran in no staples, but could themselves securethe ponderous portals against anything less than an assault with cannon. 

It was obvious that the gentry outside knew the nature of thisobstruction, for, finding the bars out, they made no attempt to forcethe door. 

Within, the Count and servant looked at each other's faces--the latterwith astonishment and fear, the former with dumb questioning, and hisear to the stair whence came the woman's alarms. 

"The Baron tell't us there would be trouble, " stammered the retainer, fumbling with the pistol so awkwardly that he endangered the body of hisfellow in distress. "Black Andy was never kent to forget an injury, andI aye feared that the low tides would bring him and his gang aboot thecastle. Good God! do you hear them? It's a gey wanchancy thing this!" hecried in terror, as the shout "Loch Sloy!" arose again outside, and thesound of voices was all about the castle. 

The woman within heard it too, for her cries became more hysterical thanever. 

"D--n ye, ye skirlin' auld bitch!" said the retainer, turning inexasperation, "can ye no steeck your jaw, and let them dae the howlin'outside?" But it was in a tone of more respect he shouted up the stairsome words of assurance. 

Yet there was no abatement of the cries, and Montaiglon, less--to dohim justice--to serve his curiosity as to Annapla than from a naturalinstinct to help a distressed woman, put a foot on the stair to mount. 

"Na, na! ye mauna leave me here!" cried Mungo, plucking at his sleeve. 

There was something besides fear in the appeal, there was alarm ofanother sort that made Montaiglon pause and look the servitor in theeyes. He found confusion there as well as alarm at the furore outsideand the imminent danger of the castle. 

"I wish to God he was here himser, " said Mungo helplessly, but still hedid not relinquish his hold of Count Victor's sleeve. 

"That need not prevent us comforting the lady, " said Count Victor, releasing himself from the grasp. 

"Let her alane, let her alane!" cried the servant distractedly, following the Frenchman upstairs. 

Count Victor paid no heed: he was now determined to unveil a mysterythat for all he knew might menace himself in this household of strangemidnight happenings. The cries of the woman came from the corridor hehad guessed her chamber to occupy, and to this he hastened. But he hadscarcely reached the corridor when the flambeau Mungo held was suddenlyblown out, and this effectively checked his progress. He turned for anexplanation. 

"D--n that draught!" said Mungo testily, "it's blawn oot my licht. "

"We'll have to do without it, then, " said the Count, "but you must showme the way to this shrieking woman. "

"A' richt, " said Mungo, "mind yer feet!" He passed before the Count andcautiously led him up to the passage where the woman's cries, a littleless vehement, were still to be heard. 

"There ye are! and muckle gude may it dae ye, " he said, stopping at adoor and pushing it open. 

Count Victor stepped into darkness, thrust lightly as he went by theservant's hand, and the door closed with a click behind him. He was aprisoner! He had the humour to laugh softly at the conventionality ofthe deception as he vainly felt in an empty room for a non-existingdoorhandle, and realised that Mungo had had his own way after all. Theservant's steps declined along the corridor and down the stair, with awoman's to keep them company and a woman's sobs, all of which convincedthe Count that his acquaintance with Annapla was not desired by theresidents of Doom. 

CHAPTER X -- SIM MACTAGGART, CHAMBERLAIN

On the roof of a high old church with as little architectural eleganceas a dry-stone barn, a bell jerked by a rope from the church-yardindicated the close association of law and the kirk by ringing a sortof triumphal peal to the procession of the judges between the court-roomand the inn. Contesting with its not too dulcet music blared forth thefanfare of two gorgeous trumpeters in scarlet and gold lace, tie wigs, silk stockings, and huge cocked hats, who filled the street with abrassy melody that suggested Gabriel's stern and awful judgment-summonsrather than gave lightness and rhythm to the feet of those who madeup the procession. The procession itself had some dreadful aspects andelements as well as others incongruous and comical. The humorous fancymight see something to smile at in the two grey-wigged bent old menin long scarlet coats who went in front of the trumpeters, preparedto clear the way if necessary (though a gust of shrewd wind would haveblown them off their feet), by means of the long-poled halberts theycarried; but this impression of the farcical was modified by the natureof the body whereof they were the pioneers or advance guard. Sleek magistrates and councillors in unaccustomed black suits andsilver-buckled shoes, the provost ermined at their head, showed the wayto the more actual, the more dignified embodiment of stern Scots law. Atleast a score of wigs were there from the Parliament House of Edinburgh, a score of dusty gowns, accustomed to sweep the lobbies of the Courtsof Session, gathered the sand of the burgh street, and in theirmidst walked the representatives of that old feudal law at long-lastostensibly abandoned, and of the common law of the land. Argyll was ina demure equivalent for some Court costume, with a dark velvet coat, aribbon of the Thistle upon his shoulder, a sword upon his haunch, andfor all his sixty-six years he carried himself less like the lawyer madeat Utrecht--like Justice-General and Extraordinary Lord of Session--thanlike the old soldier who had served with Marlborough and took the fieldfor the House of Hanover in 1715. My Lords Elchies and Kilkerranwalked on either side of him--Kilkerran with the lack-lustre eye of thepassionate mathematician, the studious moralist devoted to midnight oil, a ruddy, tall, sturdy man, well filling the crimson and white silk gown;Elchies, a shrivelled atomy with a hirpling walk, leaning heavily upon arattan, both with the sinister black tri-corne hats in their hands, andflanked by a company of musketeers. 

A great band of children lent the ludicrous element again to the companyby following close upon its heels, chanting a doggerel song to the tuneof the trumpets; the populace stood at the close-mouths or leaned overtheir windows looking at the spectacle, wondering at the pomp given tothe punishment of a Stewart who a few years ago would have been sent tothe gallows by his Grace with no more formality than might have attendedthe sentence of a kipper salmon-poacher to whipping at the hands of LongDavie the dempster. 

His Grace was entertaining the Lords, the Counsel (all but the convict'slawyers--a lot of disaffected Jacobites, who took their food bythemselves at the inn, and brusquely refused his Grace's hospitality), the magistracy, and some county friends, to a late dinner at the castlethat night, and an hour after saw them round the ducal board. 

If Count Victor was astonished at the squalid condition of things in thecastle of the poor Baron of Doom, he would have been surprised to findhere, within an hour or two's walk of it, so imposing and luxuriant adomesticity. Many lands, many hands, great wealth won by law, battle, and the shrewdness of generations, enabled Argyll to give his castlegrandeur and his table the opulence of any southern palace. And it was abright company that sat about his board, with several ladies in it, forhis duchess loved to have her sojourn in her Highland home made gay bythe company of young women who might by their beauty and light heartsrecall her own lost youth. 

A bagpipe stilled in the hall, a lute breathed a melody from aneighbouring room, the servants in claret and yellow livery noiselesslyserved wine. 

Elchies sourly pursed his lips over his liquor, to the mingled amusementand vexation of his Grace, who knew his lordship's cellar, or even theJusticiary Vault in the town (for the first act of the Court had beento send down bins from Edinburgh for their use on circuit), containedno vintage half so good, and "Your Grace made reference on the way up tosome one killed in the neighbourhood, " he said, as one resuming a topicbegun elsewhere. 

"Not six miles from where we sit, " replied the Duke, his cultivatedEnglish accent in a strong contrast with the broad burr of the Edinburghjusticiar, "and scarcely a day before you drove past. The man shot, sofar as we have yet learned, was a Macfarlane, one of a small but ancientand extremely dishonest clan whose country used to be near the head ofLoch Lomond. Scarcely more than half a hundred of them survive, butthey give us considerable trouble, for they survive at the cost of theirneighbour's gear and cattle. They are robbers and footpads, and it looksas if the fatality to one of their number near Doom has been incurredduring a raid. We still have our raids, Lord Elchies, in spite of whatyou were saying on the bench as to the good example this part of thecountry sets the rest of the Highlands--not the raids of old fashion, perhaps, but more prosaic, simply thefts indeed. That is why I have hadthese troops brought here. It is reported to me pretty circumstantiallythat some of the Appin people are in the key to attempt a rescue ofJames Stewart on his way to the place of execution at Lettermore. Theywould think nothing of attempting it once he was brought the length ofBenderloch, if only a law officer or two had him in charge. "

"I would have thought the duty of keeping down a ploy of that kindwould have been congenial to your own folk, " said Elchies, drenching hisnostrils vulgarly with macabaw. 

Argyll smiled. "You may give us credit for willingness to take our shareof the responsibility of keeping Appin in order, " said he. "I shouldnot wonder if there are half a hundred claymores with hands in themsomewhere about our old barracks in Maltland. Eh! Simon?" and he smileddown the table to his Chamberlain. 

"Five-and-forty, to be strict, " said the gentleman appealed to, andnever a word more but a sudden stop, for his half-eaten plum hadmiraculously gone from his plate in the moment he had looked up at theDuke. 

"Was't in your lands?" asked Elchies, indifferent, but willing tohelp on a good topic in a company where a variety of classes made theconversation anything but brisk. 

"No, " said Argyll, "it was in Doom, the place of a small landowner, Lamond, whose castle--it is but a ramshackle old bigging now--you mayhave noticed on your left as you rode round. Lamond himself is a man Ihave a sort of softness for, though, to tell the truth, he has forced meinto more litigation than he had money to pay for and I had patience totake any lasting interest in. "

"The Baron of Doom, is that the man?" cried Elchies, dryly. "Faith, I ken him well. Some years syne he was living months at a time in theCourt of Session, and eating and sleeping in John's Coffee-house, andhis tale--it's a gey old one--was that the litigation was always fromthe other side. I mind the man weel; Baron he called himself, though, ifI mind right, his title had never been confirmed by the king _n liberambaroniam_ He had no civil nor criminal jurisdiction. A black-avised man;the last time he came before me--Mr. Petullo, ye were there--it was in along-standing case o' multiple poinding, and if I'm no'mistaken, a placeca'd Drimadry or Drimdarry, or something like that, changed hands owerthe head o't. "

Petullo the writer, shrinking near the foot of the table in an adequatesense of his insignificance, almost choked himself by gulping thewhole glass of wine at his lips in his confusion, and broke into aperspiration at the attention of the company thus drawn to him. Hesqueaked back an unintelligible acquiescence; and completed his owntorture by upsetting a compote of fruit upon his black knee-breeches. 

Opposite the unhappy lawyer sat a lady of extraordinary beauty--ahaughty, cold, supercilious sort of beauty, remarkable mainly fromthe consciousness of its display. Her profile might have been cut frommarble by a Greek; her neck and bust were perfect, but her shoulders, more angular than was common in that time of bottle-shape, were carriedsomewhat too grandly for a gentle nature. The cruelty of hercharacter betrayed itself in a faint irrestrainable smile at Petullo'sdiscomfiture, all the more cruel because his eyes were entreatingly onhers as he mopped up awkwardly the consequences of his gaucherie. Shesmiled, but that was not the strangest part of her conduct, for at thesame time she nudged with her knee the Chamberlain who sat next to her, and who had brought her into the room. To cap the marvel, he showed nosurprise, but took her hint with a conspirator's enforced composure. He looked at the little, dried-up, squeaking creature opposite, and--refused the lady the gratification of a single sign of theamusement she had apparently expected. She reddened, bit her netherlip, and "Your poor man of business is in a sore plight, " she whispered, using the name Sim with significant freedom. 

"My dear Kate, " said he quietly, "as God's my judge, I can find nothingto laugh at in the misery of a poor wretch like yon. "

"That's the second time!" she whispered with well-concealed ill-humour, a smile compelled upon her face but a serpent in her voice. 

"The second time?" he repeated, lifting his eyebrows questioning, andalways keeping a shoulder to her--a most chilly exterior. "Your ladyshipis in the humour to give guesses. "

She gave a swift reply to some only half-heard remark by her next-handneighbour, then whispered to him, "It's the second time you have beencruel to me to-day. You seem bent on making me unhappy, and it is notwhat you promised. Am I not looking nice?"

"My dear girl, " said he calmly, "do you know I am not in the mood formaking sport of an old fool to prove my Kindness of heart to you. "

"To me, Sim!" she whispered, the serpent all gone from her voice, and awarm, dulcet, caressing accent in it, while her eyes were melting withdiscreetly veiled love. "And I plotted so much to get beside you. "

"That is the damned thing, " he replied between his teeth, and smilingthe while to some comment of his other neighbour, "you plot too much, my dear. I do not want to be unkind, but a little less plotting wouldbecome you more. I have no great liking for your husband, as you mayguess; but there he's covered with compote and confusion, and for thelook of the thing, if for no more, it would suit his wife to pretendsome sympathy. In any case, for God's sake do not look at me as if Ishared your amusement at his trouble. And I'm sure that Elchies by hisglowering saw you eat my plum. "

Mrs. Petullo cast a glance of disdain at the poor object she was boundto by a marriage for position and money, and for a moment or two gaveno attention to the society of his Grace's Chamberlain, who was sosuspiciously in her confidence. 

Simon MacTaggart played idly with the stem of his glass. He was oddin that bibulous age, inasmuch as he never permitted wine to tempt hispalate to the detriment of his brains, and he listened gravely to theconversation that was being monopolised at the head of the table roundthe Duke. 

Women liked him. Indeed women loved this Chamberlain of Argyll readily, more for his eyes and for his voice and for some odd air of mystery andromance in his presence than for what generally pass for good looks. He had just the history and the career and reputation that to menand women, except the very wisest and the somewhat elderly, have anattraction all unreasonable; for his youth had been stormy; he hadknown great dangers, tremendous misfortunes, overcoming both by anatural--sometimes spendthrift--courage; he was credited with more thanone amorous intrigue, that being in high quarters was considered ratherin his favour than otherwise; he was high in the esteem of families inthe social scale considerably above his own (that had greatly declinedsince his people could first boast a coat impaled with the galleyof Lome); he was alert, mind and body, polite to punctilio, a fartraveller, a good talker, and above all a lover of his kind, so that hewent about with a smile (just touched a little by a poetic melancholy)for all. To the women at Argyll's table he was the most interesting manthere, and though materially among the least eminent and successful, had it been his humour to start a topic of his own in opposition tohis patron's, he could have captured the interest of the gathering in asentence. 

But Simon MacTaggart was for once not in the mood for the small changeof conversation. Some weighty thought possessed him that gave his eye aremote quality even when he seemed to be sharing the general attentionin the conversation, and it was as much resentment at the summons fromhis abstraction and his mood as a general disinclination to laugh at awretch's misery on the bidding of the wretch's wife, that made him socurt to Mrs. Petullo's advances. To him the dinner seemed preposterouslyunending. More than once his hand went to his fob with an unconsciousresponse to his interest in the passage of the time; with difficulty heclenched his teeth upon the yawns that followed his forced smiles at themurmured pleasantries of the humble bailies and town councillors inhis midst, who dared only venture on a joke of their own, and thatdiscreetly muffled, when there was a pause in the conversation of theDuke and the Judges. And to the woman at his shoulder (the one on hisleft--the wife of the Provost, a little fair-haired doll with a gigglingappreciation of the importance of her situation in such grand company, and a half-frightened gladness at being so near MacTaggart) he seemedmore mysterious and wonderful than ever. Mrs. Petullo, without lookingat his half-averted face, knew by the mere magnetic current from hiscold shoulder that of her he was just now weary, that with his companyas a whole he was bored, and that some interest beyond that noisy hallengaged his abstracted thought. 

"No, " the Duke was saying; "the murderer has not been discovered, norindeed have we the most important evidence that there was a murder atall--for the body itself is as yet a mere matter of rumour, though ofits existence there is no reasonable ground for doubt. It was carriedoff, as I am informed, by the Macfarlanes, whose anxiety to hush theaffair is our main proof that they were on no honest expedition whenthis happened. But an affair like that gets bruited abroad: it came tous from Cairndhu that the corpse of a Macfarlane was carried past inthe gloaming by some of his friends, anxious to get it smuggled throughArd-kinglas with as little public notice as possible. "

"_Acta exteriora indicant interiora seceta_, to somewhat misapply awell-kent maxim. The _res gesto_ show, I think, that it was a murder onthe part of the robbers themselves. " It was Elchies who spoke, crackingfilberts the while with his great yellow teeth that gave him so cruel alook upon the bench. 

"As a matter of fact, " said the Chamberlain suddenly, "the man was shotby a French pistol, " and a hush fell on the table in expectation offurther details, but they were not forthcoming. 

"Well, I'm astonished to hear it, and I hope you know where to lay handson the homicide, " said the Duke. 

"It's none of our affair--nowadays, " said the Chamberlain. "And, forbye, I'm only telling a carried tale after all. There may be no more in itthan the fancy of the Glen Fyne folk who told me of it. "

The Duke looked at his Chamberlain, saw that the topic, so far as hewas concerned, was ended, and signalled to the Duchess. It was not thecustom of the time, but her Grace had introduced into her Highland courtthe practice of withdrawing the ladies for some time after dinner, andleaving the men to their birling of the wine, as they phrased it. Outshe swept at her husband's signal with her company--Lady Strachur, LadyCharlotte, Mrs. Petullo, the Provost's wife, and three or four of nogreater importance to our story--and of all that were left behind, perhaps there was none but her husband, who, oddly' enough (as peoplethought) for a duke, loved her as if he were a boy courting still, toreflect that the room was colder and less human wanting the presenceof her and her bright company. His Grace, who cared for the bottleeven less than did his Chamberlain, slid round the wine sun-wise for aHighlander's notion of luck; the young advocates, who bleared somewhatat the eyes when they forgot themselves, felt the menacing sleepinessand glowing content of potations carried to the verge of indiscretion;Kilkerran hummed, Petullo hawed, the Provost humbly ventured asculduddery tale, the Duke politely listening the while to some argumentof Elchies upon the right of any one who had been attacked by theMacfarlanes to use arms against them. 

"It's a well-allowed principle, your Grace, " he maintained. "_Arma inarmatos sumere jura sinunt_--the possessor may use violence to maintainhis possession, but not to recover that of which he has been deprived. "He looked like a Barbary ape as his shrunk jaws masticated the kernelshe fed to his mouth with shaking claws: something deep and foxishlycunning peered forth below his bristling red eyebrows. The Duke couldnot but look at his protruding ears and experience an old sensation ofhis in the company of the more animal of his fellows, that, after all, man with a little practice might easily swing among trees or burrow inthe earth. 

An ill-trained servant removing empty bottles left the door open behindhis Grace's chair, and through it came the strains of a duet in women'svoices, accompanied by the strumming of a harp. They sang an English airtouching upon groves and moonlit waterfalls, Lady Charlotte lending adulcet second to the air of the Duchess, who accompanied them upon herinstrument in sweeping chords and witching faint arpeggios. Into theroom that fumed with tobacco and wine (and the Provost at the secondof his tales in the ear of the advocate) the harmony floated like thepraise of cherubim, and stilled at once the noisy disquisition round theboard. 

"Leave the door open, " said the Duke to his servants, and they did so. When the song was done he felt his Jean was calling to him irresistible, and he suggested that they had better join the ladies. They rose--someof them reluctantly--from the bottles, Elchies strewing his front againwith snuff to check his hiccoughs. MacTaggart, in an aside to theDuke, pleaded to be excused for his withdrawal immediately, as he feltindisposed. 

"I noticed that you were gey glum to-night, " said Argyll with a kind andeven fraternal tone, for they were cousins and confidants as well asin a purely business relation to each-other. "I'm thinking we both wantsome of the stimulant Elchies and the Provost and the advocate lads takeso copiously. "

"Bah!" said the Chamberlain; "but Sassenachs, Argyll, but Sassenachs, and they need it all. As for us, we're born with a flagon of heatherale within us, and we may be doing without the drug they must have, poorbodies, to make them sparkle. "

Argyll laughed. "Good-night, then, " said he, "and a riddance to yourvapours before the morning's morning. "

Mrs. Petullo had begun a song before the Duke entered, a melody ofthe Scots mode, wedded to words that at that period hummed round thecountry. It was the one triumphant moment of her life--her musicallyvocal--when she seemed, even to the discriminating who dive forcharacter below the mere skin, to be a perfect angel. Pathos, regret, faith, hope, and love, she could simulate marvellously: the last wasall that was really hers, and even that was lawless. She had nothalf-finished the air when the Duke came into the room softly on histiptoes, humming her refrain. A keen ear might have perceived theslightest of alterations in the tone of her next stanza; a quick eyemight have noticed a shade of disappointment come to her face whenher intent but momentary glance at the door revealed that some one shesought was not entering. The only ear that heard, the only eye thatsaw, was Kilkerran's. He was a moralist by repute, and he would havesuspected without reasons. When Mrs. Petullo broke down miserably--inher third verse, he smiled to himself pawkily, went up to her with acompliment, and confirmed his suspicions by her first question, whichwas as to the Chamberlain's absence. 

As for the Chamberlain, he was by now hurrying with great speed throughthe castle garden. Only once he slacked his pace, and that was when thegarden path joined the more open policies of the Duke, and another stepor two would place a thicket of laburnums and hawthorns between him andthe sight of the litten windows. He hung on his heel and looked back fora minute or two at the castle, looming blackly in the darkness againstthe background of Dunchuach; he could hear the broken stanza of Mrs. Petullo's ballad. 

"Amn't I the damned fool?" said he half-aloud to himself with bittercertainty in the utterance. "There's my punishment: by somethingsham--and I ken it's sham too--I must go through life beguiled fromright and content. Here's what was to be the close of my folly, and SimMacTaggart eager to be a good man if he got anything like a chance, butnever the chance for poor Sim MacTaggart!"

He plunged into the darkness of the road that led to the Maltlandbarracks where the fifty claymores were quartered. 

CHAPTER XI -- THE WOMAN AT THE WINDOW

Count Victor heard the woman's lamentation die away in the pit of thestair before he ceased to wonder at the sound and had fully realised theunpleasantness of his own incarceration. It was the cries of the outerassault that roused him from mere amazement to a comprehension of thedangers involved in his being thus penned in a cell and his enemies keptat bay by some wooden bars and a wooden-head. He felt with questioningfingers along the walls, finding no crevice to suggest outer air tillhe reached the window, and, alas! an escape from a window at that heightseemed out of the question without some machinery at hand. 

"I suspected the little clown's laughter, " said he to himself. "The keyof the mystery lies between him and this absurd Baron, and I beginto guess at something of complicity on the part of M. Bethune. Amalediction on the whole tribe of mountaineers! The thing's like a play;I've seen far more improbable circumstances in a book. I am shot at ina country reputed to be well-governed even to monotony; a sombre hostpuzzles, a far too frank domestic perplexes; magic flutes and midnightvoices haunt this infernal hold; the conventional lady of the drama iskept in the background with great care, and just when I am on the pointof meeting her, the perplexing servitor becomes my jailer. But yes, it is a play; surely it is a play; or else I am in bed in Cammercysuffering from one of old Jeanne's heavy late suppers. It is then that Imust waken myself into the little room with the pink hangings. "

He raised the point of the sword to prick his finger, more in a humorousmood than with any real belief that it was all a dream, and dropped itfast as he felt a gummy liquor clotting on the blade. 

"_Grand Dieu!_" said he softly, "I have perhaps pricked some one elseto-night into his eternal nightmare, and I cannot prick myself out ofone. "

The noise of the men outside rose louder; a gleam of light waved uponthe wall of the chamber, something wan and elusive, bewildering fora moment as if it were a ghost; from the clamour he could distinguishsentences in a guttural tongue. He turned to the window--the counterpartof the one in his own bedroom, but without a pane of glass in its narrowspace. Again the wan flag waved across the wall, more plainly the criesof the robbers came up to him. They had set a torch flaring on thescene. It revealed the gloomy gable-end of Doom with a wild, a menacingillumination, deepening the blackness of the night beyond its influence, giving life to shadows that danced upon rock and grass. The light, heldhigh by the man Count Victor had wounded, now wrapped to his eyes ina plaid, rose and fell, touched sometimes on the mainland showing thebracken and the tree, sometimes upon the sea to show the wave, frothyfrom its quarrel with the fissured rock, making it plain that Doom was aship indeed, cast upon troubled waters, cut off from the gentle world. 

But little for the sea or for the shore had Count Victor any interest;his eyes were all for the wild band who clamoured about the flambeau. They wore such a costume as he had quarrelled with on his arrival; theycried "Loch Sloy!" with something of theatrical effect, and "Outwith the gentleman! out with Black Andy's murderer!" they demanded inEnglish. 

He craned his head out at the Window and watched the scene. The tall manwho had personally assailed him seemed to lead the band in all excepttheir clamour, working eagerly, directing in undertones. They hadbrought a ladder from the shore, apparently provided for such anemergency, and placed it against the wall, with a view to an escalade. Astream of steaming water shot down upon the first who ventured upon therounds, and he fell back with ludicrous whimperings. Compelled by theleader, another ventured on the ladder, and the better to watch hisperformance Count Victor leaned farther out at his window, secure fromobservation in the darkness. As he did so, he saw for the first timethat on his right there was a lighted window he could almost touchwith his hand as he leaned over. It flashed upon him that here wasthe woman's room, and that on the deep moulding running underneath thewindows he could at some little risk gain it, probably to find its dooropen, and thus gain the freedom Mungo had so unexpectedly taken fromhim. He crept out upon the ledge, only then to realise the hazards ofsuch a narrow footing. It seemed as he stood with his hands yet graspingthe sides of the window he sought to escape by, that he could neverretain his balance sufficiently to reach the other in safety. Thegreatest of his physical fears--greater even than that of drowning whichsometimes whelmed him in dreams and on ships--was the dread of emptyspace; a touch of vertigo seized him; the enemy gathered round the torchbeneath suddenly seemed elves, puny impossible things far off, and healmost slipped into their midst. But he dragged back his senses. "Wemust all die, " he gasped, "but we need not be precipitate about thebusiness, " and shut his eyes as he stood up, and with feet upon themoulding stretched to gain grip of the other window. Something fell awaybelow his right foot and almost plunged him into space. With a terrificeffort he saved himself from that fate, and his senses, grown of asudden to miraculous acuteness, heard the crumbled masonry he hadreleased thud upon the patch of grass at the foot of the tower, apprising the enemy of his attempt. A wild commingling of commandsand threats came up to him; the night seemed something vast beyond allformer estimates, a swinging and giddy horror; the single star thatpeered through the cloud took to airy dancing, a phantom of the eveningheavens; again he might have fallen, but the material, more deadly, world he was accustomed to manifested itself for his relief and hissalvation. Through the night rang a pistol shot, and the ball struckagainst the wall but an inch or two from his head. 

"Merci beaucoup!" he said aloud. "There is nothing like a pill, " andhis grasp upon the sides of the illuminated window was quite strong andconfident as he drew himself towards it. He threw himself in uponthe floor just in time to escape death from half a dozen bullets thatrattled behind him. 

Safe within, he looked around in wonder. What he had come upon was notwhat he had expected, --was, indeed, so incongruous with the cell nextdoor and the general poverty of the castle as a whole that it seemedunreal; for here was a trim and tasteful boudoir lit by a silverlamp, warmed by a charcoal fire, and giving some suggestion of daintywomanhood by a palpable though delicate odour of rose-leaves conservedin pot-pourri. Tapestry covered more than three-fourths of the wall, swinging gently in the draught from the open window, a harpischord stoodin a corner, a couch that had apparently been occupied stood between thefireplace and the door, and a score of evidences indicated gentility andtaste. 

"Annapla becomes more interesting, " he reflected, but he spent no timein her boudoir; he made to try the door. It was locked; nor did hewonder at it, though in a cooler moment he might have done so. Hurriedlyhe glanced about the room for something to aid him to open the door, butthere was nothing to suit his purpose. In his search his eye fell upona miniature upon the mantelshelf--the work, as he could tell by itstechnique and its frame, of a French artist. It was the presentment ofa gentleman in the Highland dress, adorned, as was the manner of someyears back before the costume itself had become discredited, withfripperies of the mode elsewhere--a long scalloped waistcoat, a deepruffled collar, the shoes buckled, and the hair _en queue_, --theportrait of a man of dark complexion, distinguished and somewayspleasant. 

"The essential lover of the story, " said Count Victor, putting it down. "Now I know my Annapla is young and lovely. We shall see--we shall see!"

He turned to the door to try its fastenings with his sword, found thetask of no great difficulty, for the woodwork round the lock shared thecommon decay of Doom, and with the silver lamp to light his steps, hemade his way along the corridor and down the stair. It was a strange andromantic spectacle he made moving thus through the darkness, the lampswaying his shadow on the stairway as he descended, and he could haveasked for no more astonishment in the face of his jailer than he foundin Mungo's when that domestic met him at the stair-foot. 

Mungo was carrying hot water in a huge kettle. He put down the vesselwith a startled jolt that betrayed his fright. 

"God be aboot us! Coont, ye near gied me a stroke there. "

"Oh, I demand pardon!" said Count Victor ironically. "I forgot that aman of your age should not be taken by surprise. "

"My age!" repeated Mungo, with a tone of annoyance. "No' sae awfu'auld either. At my age my grandfaither was a sergeant i' the airmy, andmarried for the fourth time. "

"Only half his valour seems to run in the blood, " said Count Victor. Then, more sternly, "What did you mean by locking me up there?"

Mungo took up the kettle and placed it to the front of him, with someintuition that a shield must be extemporised against the sword that theFrenchman had menacing in his hand. The action was so droll and futilethat, in spite of his indignation, Count Victor had to smile; and thisassured the little domestic, though he felt chagrin at the ridiculeimplied. 

"Jist a bit plan o' my ain, Coont, to keep ye oot o' trouble, and I'mshair ye'll excuse the leeberty. A bonny-like thing it wad be if themaister cam' hame and foun' the Macfarlanes wer oot on the ran-dan andhad picked ye oot o' Doom like a wulk oot o' its shell. It wisna like asif ye were ane o' the ordinar garrison, ye ken; ye were jist a kin' o'veesitor--"

"And it was I they were after, " said Count Victor, "which surely gave mesome natural interest in the defence. "

"Ye were safer to bide whaur ye were; and hoo ye got oot o't 's mairthan I can jalouse. We hae scalded aff the rogues wi' het water, and ifthey're to be keepit aff, I'll hae to be unco gleg wi' the kettle. "

As he said these words he saw, apparently for the first time, witha full understanding of its significance, the lamp in Count Victor'shands. His jaw fell; he put down the kettle again helplessly, and, intrembling tones, "Whaur did ye get the lamp?" said he. 

"_Ah, mon vieux!_" cried Count Victor, enjoying his bewilderment. "Youshould have locked the lady's door as well as mine. 'Art a poor wardernot to think of the possibilities in two cells so close to each other. "

"Cells!" cried Mungo, very much disturbed. "Cells! quo' he, " lookingchapfallen up the stairway, as if for something there behind his escapedprisoner. 

"And now you will give me the opportunity of paying my respects to yourno doubt adorable lady. "

"Eh!" cried Mungo, incredulous. A glow came to his face. He showed theghost of a mischievous smile. "Is't that way the lan' lies? Man, ye'rea dour birkie!" said he; "but a wilf u' man maun hae his way, and, ifnaething less'll dae ye, jist gang up to yer ain chaumer, and ye'll findher giein' the Macfarlanes het punch wi' nae sugar till't. "

The statement was largely an enigma to Count Victor, but he understoodenough to send him up the stairs with an alacrity that drove Mungo, inhis rear, into silent laughter. Yet the nearer he came to his door theslower grew his ascent. At first he had thought but of the charminglady, the vocalist, and the recluse. The Baron's share in the dangerousmystery of Doom made him less scrupulous than he might otherwise havebeen as to the punctilio of a domestic's introduction to one apparentlykept out of his way for reasons best known to his host; and he advancedto the encounter in the mood of the adventurer, Mungo in his rearbeholding it in his jaunty step, in the fingers that pulled and peakedthe moustachio, and drew forth a somewhat pleasing curl that looked wellacross a temple. But a more sober mood overcame him before he had gotto the top of the stair. The shouts of the besieging party outsidehad declined and finally died away; the immediate excitement of theadventure, which with Mungo and the unknown lady he was prepared toshare, was gone. He began to realise that there was something ludicrousin the incident that had kept him from making her acquaintance halfan hour ago, and reflected that she might well have some doubt ofhis courage and his chivalry. Even more perturbing was the suddenrecollection of the amused laughter that had greeted his barefootedapproach to Doom through two or three inches of water, and at the opendoor he hung back dubious. 

"Step in; it's your ain room, " cried Mungo, struggling with hiskettle; "and for the Lord's sake mind your mainners and gie her a guidimpression. "

It was the very counsel to make a Montaiglon bold. 

He entered; a woman was busy at the open window; he stared in amazementand chagrin. 

CHAPTER XII -- OMENS AND ALARMS

Beaten back by Annapla's punch-bowl from their escalade, the assailantsrallied to a call from their commander, and abandoned, for the time atleast, their lawless enterprise. They tossed high their arms, stampedout their torch to blackness, shouted a ribald threat, and wereswallowed up by the black mainland. A gentle rain began to fall, andthe sea lapsed from a long roll to an oily calm. With no heed for thewarnings and protests of Mungo, whose intrepidity was too obviously amerely mental attitude and incapable of facing unknown dangers, CountVictor lit a lantern and went out again into the night that now heldno rumour of the band who had so noisily menaced. There was profoundsilence on the shore and all along the coast--a silence the moresinister because peopled by his enemies. He went round the castle, his lantern making a beam of yellow light before him, showing the rainfalling in silvery threads, gathering in silver beads upon his coat andtrickling down the channels of his weapon. A wonderful fondness forthat shaft of steel possessed him at the moment: it seemed a comradefaithful, his only familiar in that country of marvels and dreads;it was a comfort to have it hand in hand; he spoke to it once inaffectionate accents as if it had been a thing of life. The point of itsuggested the dark commander, and Count Victor scrutinised the groundbeside the dyke-side where he had made the thrust: to his comfort only asingle gout of blood revealed itself, for he had begun to fear somethingtoo close on a second homicide, which would make his presence in thecountry the more notorious. A pool of water still smoking showed whereAnnapla's punch-bowl had done its work; but for the blood and that, thealarms of the night might have seemed to him a dream. Far off to thesouth a dog barked; nearer, a mountain torrent brawled husky in itschasm. Perfumes of the wet woodland mingled with the odours of theshore. And the light he carried made Doom Castle more dark, moresinister and mysterious than ever, rising strong and silent from hisfeet to the impenetrable blackness overhead. 

He went into the garden, he stood in the bower. There more than anywhereelse the desolation was pitiful--the hips glowing crimson on theirstems, the eglantine in withering strands, the rustic woodwork greenwith damp and the base growths of old and mouldering situations, theseat decayed and broken, but propped at its feet as if for recent use. All seemed to express some poignant anguish for lost summers, happydays, for love and laughter ravished and gone for ever. Above all, therain and sea saddened the moment--the rain dripping through the raggedfoliage and oozing on the wood, the cavernous sea lapping monstrous onthe rock that some day yet must crumble to its hungry maw. 

He held high the lantern, and to a woman at her darkened window herbower seemed to glow like a shell lit in the depths of troubled ocean. He swung the light; a footstep, that he did not hear, was checked inwonder. He came out, and instinct told him some one watched him in thedark beyond the radiance of his lantern. 

"_Qui est la?_" he cried, forgetting again the foreign country, thinkinghimself sentinel in homely camps, and when he spoke a footstep soundedin the darkness. 

Some one had crossed from the mainland while he ruminated within. Helistened, with the lantern high above his head but to the right of himfor fear of a pistol-shot. 

One footstep. 

He advanced slowly to meet it, his fingers tremulous on his sword, and the Baron came out of the darkness, his hands behind his back, hisshoulders bent, his visage a mingling of sadness and wonder. 

"M. Le Baron?" said Count Victor, questioning, but he got no answer. Doom came up to him and peered at him as if he had been a ghost, a tearupon his cheek, something tense and troubled in his countenance, thatshowed him for the moment incapable of calm utterance. 

"You--you--are late, " stammered Count Victor, putting the sword behindhim and feeling his words grotesque. 

"I took--I took you for a wraith--I took you for a vision, " said theBaron plaintively. He put his hand upon his guest's arm. "Oh, man!" saidhe, "if you were Gaelic, if you were Gaelic, if you could understand! Icame through the dark from a place of pomp, from a crowded street, fromthings new and thriving, and above all the castle of his Grace flaringfrom foundation to finial like a torch, though murder was done this dayin the guise of justice: I came through the rain and the wet full ofbitterness to my poor black home, and find no light there where once myfather and my father's father and all the race of us knew pleasant hoursin the wildest weather. Not a light, not a lowe--" he went on, gazingupward to the frowning walls dark glistening in the rain--"and thenthe bower must out and shine to mind me--to mind me--ah, Mont-aiglon, mypardons, my regrets! you must be finding me a melancholy host. "

"Do not mention it, " said Count Victor carelessly, though the conductof this marvel fairly bewildered him, and his distress seemed poorlyaccounted for by his explanation. "_Ah, vieux blagueur!_" he thought, "can it be Balhaldie again--a humbug with no heart in his breast butan onion in his handkerchief?" And then he was ashamed of suspicions ofwhich a day or two ago he would have been incapable. 

"My dear friends of Monday did me the honour to call in your absence, "he said. "They have not gone more than twenty minutes. "

"What! the Macfarlanes, " cried Doom, every trace of his softer emotiongone, but more disturbed than ever as he saw the sword for the firsttime. "Well--well--well?" he inquired eagerly. 

"Well, well, well?" and he gripped Count Victor by the arm and lookedhim in the eyes. 

"Nothing serious happened, " replied Count Victor, "except that yourdomestics suffered some natural alarms. "

Doom seemed wonderously relieved. "The did not force an entrance?" saidhe. 

"They did their best, but failed. I pricked one slightly before I fellback on Mungo's barricades; that and some discomfiture from MistressAnnapla's punch-bowl completed the casualties. "

"Well? well? well?" cried Lamond, still waking something. Count Victoronly looked at him in wonder, and led the way to the door where Mungodrew back the bars and met his master with a trembling front. A glanceof mute inquiry and intelligence passed between the servant and hismaster: the Frenchman saw it and came to his own conclusions, butnothing was said till the Baron had made a tour of investigation throughthe house and come at last to join his guest in the _salle_, where theembers of the fire were raked together on the hearth and fed with newpeat. The Count and his host sat down together, and when Mungo had goneto prepare some food for his master, Count Victor narrated the night'sadventure. He had an excited listener--one more excited, perhaps, thanthe narrative of itself might account for. 

"And there is much that is beyond my poor comprehension, " continuedCount Victor, looking at him as steadfastly as good breeding wouldpermit. 

"Eh?" said Doom, stretching fingers that trembled to the peat-flame thatstained his face like wine. 

"Your servant Mungo was quite unnecessarily solicitous for my safety, and took the trouble to put me under lock and key. "

Doom fingered the bristles of his chin in a manifest perturbation. "He--he did that, did he?" said he, like one seeking to gain time forfurther reflection. And when Count Victor waited some more sympatheticcomment, "It was--it was very stupid, very stupid of Mungo, " said he. 

"Stupid!" echoed Count Victor ironically. "Ah! so it was. I should nothave said stupid myself, but it so hard, is it not, for a foreignerto find the just word in his poor vocabulary? For a _bêtise_ much lessunpleasant I have scored a lackey's back with a scabbard. Master Mungohad an explanation, however, though I doubted the truth of it. "

"And what was that?"

"That you would be angry if he permitted me to get into danger while Iwas your guest, --an excuse more courteous than convincing. "

"He was right, " said Doom, "though I can scarcely defend the manner ofexecuting his trust: I was not to see that he would make a trepanningaffair of it. I'm--I'm very much grieved, Count, much grieved, I assureyou: I shall have a word or two on the matter the morn's morning withMungo. A stupid action! a stupid action! but you know the man by thistime--an oddity out and out. "

"A little too much so, if I may take the liberty, M. Le Baron, --a littletoo much so for a foreigner's peace of mind, " said Count Victor softly. "Are you sure, M. Le Baron, there are no traitors in Doom?" and heleaned forward with his gaze on the Baron's face. 

The Baron started, flushed more crimson than before, and turned analarmed countenance to his interrogator. "Good God!" he cried, "are youbringing your doubts of the breed of us to my hearthstone?"

"It is absurd, perhaps, " said Count Victor, still very softly, andwatching his host as closely as he might, "but Mungo--"

"Pshaw! a good lowland heart! For all his clowning, Count, you mighttrust him with your life. "

"The other servant then--the woman?"

Doom looked a trifle uneasy. "Hush!" said he, with half a glance behindhim to the door. "Not so loud. If she should hear!" he stammered: hestopped, then smiled awkwardly. "Have ye any dread of an Evil Eye?" saidhe. 

"I have no dread of the devil himself, who is something more tangible, "replied Count Victor. "You do not suggest that malevolent influence inMistress Annapla, do you?"

"We are very civil to her in these parts, " said Doom, "and I'm not keento put her powers to the test. I have seen and heard some droll thingsof her. "

"That has been my own experience, " said Count Victor. "Are you sureher honesty is on more substantial grounds than her reputation forwitchcraft? I demand your pardon for expressing these suspicions, butI have reasons. I cannot imagine that the attack of the Macfarlanes wasconnived at by your servants, though that was my notion for a littlewhen Mungo locked me up, for they suffered more alarm at the attack thanI did, and the reason for the attack seems obvious enough. But are youaware that this woman who commands your confidence is in the practiceof signalling to the shore when she wishes to communicate with some onethere?"

"I think you must be mistaken, " said Doom, uneasily. 

"I could swear I saw something of the kind, " said Count Victor. Hedescribed the signal he had seen twice at her window. "Not having mether at the time, I laid it down to some gay gillian's affair witha lover on the mainland, but since I have seen her that ideaseem--seems--"

"Just so, I should think it did, " said the Baron: but though his wordswere light, his aspect was disturbed. He paced once or twice up and downthe floor, muttered something to himself in Gaelic, and finally went tothe door, which he opened. "Mungo, Mungo!" he cried into the darkness, and the servant appeared with the gaudy nightcap of his slumber alreadyon. 

"Tell Annapla to come here, " said the Baron. 

The servant hesitated, his lip trembled upon some objection that he didnot, however, express, and he went on his errand. 

In a little the woman entered. It was not surprising that when CountVictor, prepared by all that had gone before to meet a bright youngcreature when he had gone into his chamber where she was repelling theescalade of the enemy, had been astounded to find what he found there, for Mistress Annapla was in truth not the stuff for amorous intrigues. She had doubtless been handsome enough in her day, but that was longdistant; now there were but the relics of her good looks, with only hereyes, dark, lambent, piercing, to tell of passions unconsumed. She hadeyes only for her master; Count Victor had no existence for her, and hewas all the freer to watch how she received the Baron's examination. 

"Do you dry your clothes at the windows in Doom?" asked her masterquietly, with none of a master's bluntness, asking the question inEnglish from politeness to his guest. 

She replied rapidly in Gaelic. 

"For luck, " said the Baron dubiously when he had listened to a longguttural explanation that was of course unintelligible to the Frenchman. "That's a new freit. To keep away the witches. Now, who gave ye a notionlike that?" he went on, maintaining his English. 

Another rapid explanation followed, one that seemed to satisfy theBaron, for when it was finished he gave her permission to go. 

"It's as I thought, " he explained to Count Victor. "The old body hasbeen troubled with moths and birds beating themselves against her windowat night when the light was in it: what must she be doing but taking itfor some more sinister visitation, and the green kerchief is supposed tokeep them away. "

"I should have fancied it might have been a permanency in that case, "suggested Count Victor, "unless, indeed, your Highland ghosts have aspecial preference for Mondays and Wednesdays. "

"Permanency!" repeated the Baron, thoughtfully. "H'm!" The suggestionhad obviously struck him as reasonable, but he baulked at any debate onit. 

"There was also the matter of the horseman, " went on Count Victorblandly, pointing his moustache. 

"Horseman?" queried the Baron. 

"A horseman _sans doute_. I noticed most of your people here ride witha preposterously short stirrup; this one rode like a gentleman cavalier. He stopped opposite the castle this forenoon and waved his complimentsto the responsive maid. "

The effect upon the Baron was amazing. He grew livid with some feelingrepressed. It was only for a moment; the next he was for changing theconversation, but Count Victor had still his quiver to empty. 

"Touching flageolets?" said he, but there his arrow missed. 

Doom only laughed. 

"For that, " said he, "you must trouble Annapla or Mungo. They have astory that the same's to be heard every night of storm, but my bed's atthe other side of the house and I never heard it;" and he broughtthe conversation back to the Macfarlanes, so that Count Victor had torelinquish his inquisition. 

"The doings of to-night, " said he, "make it clear I must rid you ofmy presence _tout à l'heure_. I think I shall transfer me to the townto-morrow. "

"You can't, man, " protested Doom, though, it almost seemed, with somereluctance. "There could be no worse time for venturing there. In thefirst place, the Macfarlanes' affair is causing a stir; then I've hadno chance of speaking to Petullo about you. He was to meet me after thecourt was over, but his wife dragged him up with her to dinner in thecastle. Lord! yon's a wife who would be nane the waur o' a leatherin', as they say in the south. Well, she took the goodman to the castle, though a dumb dog he is among gentrice, and the trip must have beenlittle to his taste. I waited and better waited, and I might have beenwaiting for his home-coming yet, for it's candle-light to the top flatof MacCailen's tower and the harp in the hall. Your going, Count, willhave to be put off a day or two longer. "

CHAPTER XIII -- A LAWYER'S GOOD LADY

The remainder of the night passed without further alarm, but CountVictor lay only on the frontiers of forgetfulness till morning, hissenses all on sentry, and the salt, wind-blown dawn found him abroadbefore the rest of Doom was well awake. He met the calesh of the Lordsgoing back the way it had come with an outrider in a red jacket fromthe stable of Argyll: it passed him on the highway so close that he sawElchies and Kilker-ran half sleeping within as they drove away from thescene of their dreadful duties. In a cloak of rough watchet blue he hadborrowed from his host and a hat less conspicuous than that he had comein from Stirling, he passed, to such strangers in the locality, for sometacksman of the countryside, or a traveller like themselves. To haveventured into the town, however, where every one would see he was astranger and speedily inquire into his business there, was, as he hadbeen carefully apprised by Doom the night before, a risk too great tobe run without good reason. Stewart's trial had created in the countrya state of mind that made a stranger's presence there somewhat hazardousfor himself, and all the more so in the case of a foreigner, for, rightly or wrongly, there was associated with the name of the condemnedman as art and part in the murder that of a Highland officer in theservice of the French. There had been rumours, too, of an attemptedrescue on the part of the Stewarts of Ardshiel, Achnacoin, andFasnacloich--all that lusty breed of the ancient train: the very numbersof them said to be on the drove-roads with weapons from the thatch weregiven in the town, and so fervently believed in that the appearance ofa stranger without any plausible account to give of himself would havestirred up tumult. 

Count Victor eluded the more obvious danger of the town, but in hisforenoon ramble stumbled into one almost as great as that he had beeninstructed to avoid. He had gone through the wood of Strongara and comesuddenly upon the cavalcade that bore the doomed man to the scene of hisexecution thirty or forty miles away. 

The wretch had been bound upon a horse--a tall, middle-aged man incoarse home-spun clothing, his eye defiant, but his countenance whitewith the anxieties of his situation. He was surrounded by a troop ofsabres; the horses' hoofs made a great clatter upon the hard road, andCount Victor, walking abstractedly along the river-bank, came on thembefore he was aware of their proximity. As he stood to let them pass hewas touched inexpressibly by the glance the convict gave him, so chargedwas it with question, hope, dread, and the appetite for some humansympathy. He had seen that look before in men condemned--once in frontof his own rapier, --and with the utmost feeling for the unhappy wretchhe stood, when the cavalcade had gone, looking after it and conjuringin his fancy the last terrible scene whereof that creature would be thecentral figure. Thus was he standing when another horseman came uponhim suddenly, following wide in the rear of the troops--a civilian whoshared the surprise of the unexpected meeting. He had no sooner gazedupon Count Victor than he drew up his horse confusedly and seemed tohesitate between proceeding or retreat. Count Victor passed with acourteous salute no less formally returned. He was struck singularly bysome sense of familiarity. He did not know the horseman who so strangelyscrutinised him as he passed, but yet the face was one not altogethernew to him. It was a face scarce friendly, too, and for his life theFrenchman could not think of any reason for aversion. 

He could no more readily have accounted for the action of the horsemanhad he known that he had ridden behind the soldiers but a few hundredyards after meeting with Count Victor when he turned off at one ofthe hunting-roads with which the ducal grounds abounded, and gallopedfuriously back towards the castle of Argyll. Nothing checked him till hereached the entrance, where he flung the reins to a servant and dashedinto the turret-room where the Duke sat writing. 

"Ah, Sim!" said his Grace, airily, yet with an accent of apprehension, "you have come back sooner than I looked for: nothing wrong with thelittle excursion, I hope?"

MacTaggart leaned with both hands upon the table where his master wrote. "They're all right, so far as I went with them, " said he; "but if yourGrace in my position came upon a foreigner in the wood of Strongara--agentleman by the looks of him and a Frenchman by his moustachio, allalone and looking after Sergeant Donald's company, what would yourGrace's inference be?"

Argyll, obviously, did not share much of his Chamberlain's excitement. "There was no more than one there?" he asked, sprinkling sand upon hisfinished letter. "No! Then there seems no great excuse for your extremeperturbation, my good Sim. I'm lord of Argyll, but I'm not lord of theking's highway, and if an honest stranger cares to take a freeman'sprivilege and stand between the wind and Simon MacTaggart'sdignity--Simon MacTaggart's very touchy dignity, it would appear--whoam I that I should blame the liberty? You did not ride _ventre à terre_from Strongara (I see a foam-fleck on your breeches) to tell me we hada traveller come to admire our scenery? Come, come, Sim! I'll begin tothink these late eccentricities of yours, these glooms, abstractions, errors, and anxieties and indispositions, and above all that pallidface of yours, are due to some affair of the heart. " As he spoke Argyllpinched his kinsman playfully on the ear, quite the good companion, with none of the condescension that a duke might naturally display in sodoing. 

MacTaggart reddened and Argyll laughed, "Ah!" he cried. "Can I have hitit?" he went on, quizzing the Chamberlain. "See that you give me fairwarning, and I'll practise the accustomed and essential reel. Upon mysoul, I haven't danced since Lady Mary left, unless you call it sothat foolish minuet. You should have seen her Grace at St. James's lastmonth. Gad! she footed it like an angel; there's not a better dancer inLondon town. See that your wife's a dancer, whoever she may be, Sim; lether dance and sing and play the harpsichord or the clarsach--they arecharms that will last longer than her good looks, and will not weary youso soon as that intellect that's so much in fashion nowadays, when everywoman listens to every clever thing you say, that she may say somethingcleverer, or perhaps retail it later as her own. "

MacTaggart turned about impatiently, poked with his riding crop at thefire, and plainly indicated that he was not in the mood for badinage. 

"All that has nothing to do with my Frenchman, your Grace, " said hebluntly. 

"Oh, confound your Frenchman!" retorted the Duke, coming over, turningup the skirts of his coat, and warming himself at the fire. "Don'tsay Frenchman to me, and don't suggest any more abominable crime andintrigue till the memory of that miserable Appin affair is off my mind. I know what they'll say about that: I have a good notion what they'resaying already--as if I personally had a scrap of animosity to this poorcreature sent to the gibbet on Leven-side. "

"I think you should have this Frenchman arrested for inquiry: I do notlike the look of him. "

Argyll laughed. "Heavens!" he cried, "is the man gane wud? Have youany charge against this unfortunate foreigner who has dared to shelterhimself in my woods? And if you have, do you fancy it is the old feudaltimes with us still, and that I can clap him in my dungeon--if I hadsuch a thing--without any consultation with the common law-officersof the land? Wake up, Sim! wake up! this is '55, and there are sundrywritten laws of the State that unfortunately prevent even the Mac-CailenMor snatching a man from the footpath and hanging him because he hasnot the Gaelic accent and wears his hair in a different fashion from therest of us. Don't be a fool, cousin, don't be a fool!"

"It's as your Grace likes, " said MacTaggart. "But if this man's not inany way concerned in the Appin affair, he may very well be one of theFrench agents who are bargaining for men for the French service, and theone thing's as unlawful as the other by the act of 'thirty-six. "

"H'm!" said Argyll, turning more grave, and shrewdly eyeing hisChamberlain--"H'm! have you any particularly good reason to think that?"He waited for no answer, but went on. "I give it up, MacTaggart, " saidhe, with a gesture of impatience. "Gad! I cannot pretend to know halfthe plots you are either in yourself or listening on the outside of, though I get credit, I know, for planning them. All I want to know is, have you any reason to think this part of Scotland--and incidentallythe government of this and every well-governed realm, as the libelssay--would be bettered by the examination of this man? Eh?"

MacTaggart protested the need was clamant. "On the look of the man Iwould give him the jougs, " said he. "It's spy--"

"H'm!" said Argyll, then coughed discreetly over a pinch of snuff. 

"Spy or agent, " said the Chamberlain, little abashed at theinterjection. 

"And yet a gentleman by the look of him, said Sim MacTaggart, fiveminutes syne. "

"And what's to prevent that?" asked the Chamberlain almost sharply. "Your Grace will admit it's nothing to the point, " said he, boldly, andsmilingly, standing up, a fine figure of a man, with his head high andhis chest out. "It was the toss of a bawbee whether or not I shouldapprehend him myself when I saw him, and if I had him here your Gracewould be the first to admit my discretion. "

"My Grace is a little more judicious than to treat the casual pedestrianlike a notour thief, " said Argyll; "and yet, after all, I dare say thematter may be left to your good judgment--that is, after you have hada word or two on the matter with Petullo, who will better be able toadvise upon the rights to the persons of suspicious characters in ourneighbourhood. "

With never a word more said MacTaggart clapped on his hat, withdrew inan elation studiously concealed from his master, and fared at a canterto Petullo's office in the town. He fastened the reins to the ring atthe door and entered. 

The lawyer sat in a den that smelt most wickedly of mildewed vellum, sealing-wax, tape, and all that trash that smothers the soul of man--theappurtenances of his craft. He sat like a sallow mummy among them, like a half-man made of tailor's patches, flanked by piles of docketedletters and Records closed, bastioned by deed-boxes blazoned withthe indication of their offices--MacGibbon's Mortification, DunderaveEstate, Coil's Trust, and so on; he sat with a shrieking quill amongthese things, and MacTaggart entering to him felt like thanking God thathe had never been compelled to a life like this in a stinking mortuary, with the sun outside on the windows and the clean sea and the singingwood calling in vain. Perhaps some sense of contrast seized the writer, too, as he looked up to see the Chamberlain entering with a pleasant, lively air of wind behind him, and health and vigour in his step, despite the unwonted wanness of his face. At least, in the glancePetullo gave below his shaggy eyebrows, there was a little envy as wellas much cunning. He made a ludicrous attempt at smiling. 

"Ha!" he cried, "Mr. MacTaggart! Glad to see you, Mr. MacTaggart. Sit yedown, Mr. MacTaggart. I was just thinking about you. "

"No ill, I hope, " said the Chamberlain, refusing a seat proffered;for anything of the law to him seemed gritty in the touch, and athree-legged stool would, he always felt, be as unpleasant to sit uponas a red-hot griddle. 

"Te-he!" squeaked Petullo with an irritating falsetto. "You must haveyour bit joke, Mr. MacTaggart. Did his Grace--did his Grace--I wasjust wondering if his Grace said anything to-day about my unfortunateaccident with the compote yestreen. " He looked more cunningly than everat the Chamberlain. 

"In his Grace's class, Mr. Petullo, and incidentally in my own, nothing's said of a guest's gawkiness, though you might hardly believeit for a reason that I never could make plain to you, though I know itby instinct. "

"Oh! as to gawkiness, an accident of the like might happen to any one, "said Petullo, irritably. 

"And that's true, " confessed the Chamberlain. "But, tut! tut! Mr. Petullo, a compote's neither here nor there to the Duke. If you hadspilt two of them it would have made no difference; there was plentyleft. Never mind the dinner, Mr. Petullo, just now, I'm in a haste. There's a Frenchman--"

"There's a wheen of Frenchmen, seemingly, " said the writer, oracularly, taking to the trimming of his nails with a piece of pumice-stone he keptfor the purpose, and used so constantly that they looked like talons. 

"Now, what the devil do you mean?" cried Mac-Taggart. 

"Go on, go on with your business, " squeaked Petullo, with an eye upon aninner door that led to his household. 

"I have his Grace's instructions to ask you about the advisabilityof arresting a stranger, seemingly a Frenchman, who is at this momentsuspiciously prowling about the policies. "

"On whatna charge, Mr. MacTaggart, on whatna charge?" asked the writer, taking a confident, even an insolent, tone, now that he was on his ownfamiliar ground. "Rape, arson, forgery, robbery, thigging, sorning, pickery, murder, or high treason?"

"Clap them all together, Mr. Petullo, and just call it localinconduciveness, " cried MacTaggart. "Simply the Duke may not care forhis society. That should be enough for the Fiscal and Long Davie thedempster, shouldn't it?"

"H'm!" said Petullo. "It's a bit vague, Mr. MacTaggart, and I don'tthink it's mentioned in Forbes's 'Institutes. ' Fifteen Campbellassessors and the baron bailie might have sent a man to the Plantationson that dittay ten years ago, but we live in different times, Mr. MacTaggart--different times, Mr. MacTaggart, " repeated the writer, tee-heeing till his bent shoulders heaved under his seedy, ink-stainedsurtout coat. 

"Do we?" cried the Chamberlain, with a laugh. "I'm thinking ye forgeta small case we had no further gone than yesterday, when a man withthe unlucky name of Stewart--" He stopped, meaningly smiled, and made agesture with his fingers across his neck, at the same time giving an oddsound with his throat. 

"Oh! You're an awfu' man, " cried Petullo, with the accent of a lout. "Iwonder if you're on the same track as myself, for I'm like the Hielan'soldier--I have a Frenchman of my own. There's one, I mean, up by therein Doom, and coming down here to-morrow or the day after, or as soon asI can order a lodging for him in the town. "

"Oh, hell!" cried the secretary, amazingly dumfoundered. 

"There's nothing underhand about him, so far as I know, to give even hisGrace an excuse for confining him, for it seems he's a wine merchant outof Bordeaux, one Montaiglon, come here on business, and stopped atDoom through an attack on his horse by the same Macfarlanes who are ofinterest to us for another reason, as was spoken of at his Grace's tablelast night. "

"And he's coming here?" asked MacTaggart, incredulous. 

"I had a call from the Baron himself to-day to tell me that. "

"Ah, well, there's no more to be said of our suspicions, " saidMacTaggart. "Not in this form, at least. " And he was preparing to go. 

A skirt rustled within the inner door, and Mrs. Petullo, flushed alittle to her great becoming in spite of a curl-paper or two, and cladin a lilac-coloured negligee of the charmingest, came into the officewith a well-acted start of surprise to find a client there. 

"Oh, good morning! Mr. MacTaggart, " she exclaimed, radiantly, while herhusband scowled to himself, as he relapsed into the chair at hisdesk and fumbled with his papers. "Good morning; I hope I have notinterrupted business?"

"Mr. MacTaggart was just going, my dear, " said Mr. Petullo. 

A cracked bell rang within, and the Chamberlain perceived an odour ofcooking celery. Inwardly he cursed his forgetfulness, because it wasplain that the hour for his call upon the writer was ill-chosen. 

"My twelve-hours is unusual sharp to-day, " said Petullo, consulting adumpy horologe out of his fob. "Would ye--would ye do me the honourof joining me?" with a tone that left, but not too rudely, immediatedeparture as the Chamberlain's only alternative. 

"Thank you, thank you, " said MacTaggart. "I rose late to-day, and mybreakfast's little more than done with. " He made for the door, Mrs. Petullo close in his cry and holding his eye, defying so hurried adeparture, while she kept up a chattering about the last night's party. Her husband hesitated, but his hunger (he had the voracious appetiteof such shrivelled atomies) and a wholesome fear of being accused ofjealousy made him withdraw, leaving the office to the pair. 

All MacTaggart's anger rose against madame for her machination. "You sawme from the window, " said he; "it's a half-cooked dinner for the goodmanto-day, I'll warrant!"

She laughed a most intoxicating laugh, all charged with some sweetvelvety charm, put out her hands, and caught his. "Oh, Lord! I wish itwould choke him, Sim, " said she, fervently, then lifted up her mouth anddropped a swooning eyelash over her passionate orbs. 

"Adorable creature, " he thought: "she'll have rat-bane in his broth someday. " He kissed her with no more fervour than if she had been a woodenfigurehead, but she was not thus to be accepted: she put an arm quicklyround his neck and pressed her passionate lips to his. Back he drewwincing. "Oh, damnation!" he cried. 

"What's the matter?" she exclaimed in wonder, and turned to assureherself that it was not that some one spied from the inner door, forMac-Taggart's face had become exceeding pale. 

"Nothing, nothing, " he replied; "you are--you are so ferocious. "

"Am I, Sim?" said she. "Who taught me? Oh, Sim, " she went on, pleadingly, "be good to me. I'm sick, I'm _sick_ of life, and you don'tshow you care for me a little bit. Do you love me, Sim?"

"Heavens!" he cried, "you would ask the question fifty times a-day ifyou had the opportunity. "

"It would need a hundred times a-day to keep up with your changingmoods. Do you love me, Sim?" She was smiling, with the most patheticappeal in her face. 

"You look beautiful in that gown, Kate, " said he, irrelevantly, notlooking at it at all, but out at the window, where showed the gabbartstossing in the bay, and the sides of the hill of Dunchuach all splashedwith gold and crimson leafage. 

"Never mind my gown, Sim, " said she, stamping her foot, and pulling atthe buttons of his coat. "Once--oh, Sim, do you love me? Tell me, tell me, tell me! Whether you do or not, say it, you used to be such asplendid liar. "

"It was no lie, " said he curtly; then to himself: "Oh, Lord, give mepatience with this! and I have brought it on myself. "

"It _was_ no lie. Oh, Sim!" (And still she was turning wary eyes uponthe door that led to her husband's retirement. ) "It _was_ no lie; you'releft neither love nor courtesy. Oh, never mind! say you love me, Sim, whether it's true or not: that's what it's come to with me. "

"Of course I do, " said he. 

"Of course what?"

"Of course I love you. " He smiled, but at heart he grimaced. 

"I don't believe you, " said she, from custom waiting his protestation. But the Duke's Chamberlain was in no mood for protestations. He lookedat her high temples, made bald by the twisted papilottes, and wonderedhow he could have thought that bold shoulder beautiful. 

"I'm in a great hurry, Kate, " said he. "Sorry to go, but there's myhorse at the ring to prove the hurry I'm in!"

"I know, I know; you're always in a hurry now with me: it wasn't alwaysso. Do you hear the brute?" Her husband's squeaky voice querulouslyshouting on a servant came to them from behind. 

The servant immediately after came to the door with an intimation thatMr. Petullo desired to know where the spirit-bottle was. 

"He knows very well, " said Mrs. Petullo. "Here is the key--no, I'll takeit to him myself. "

"It's not the drink he wants, but me, the pig, " said she as the servantwithdrew. "Kiss me good afternoon, Sim. "

"I wish to God it was good-bye!" thought he, as he smacked her vulgarly, like a clown at a country fair. 

She drew her hand across her mouth, and her eyes flashed indignation. 

"There's something between us, Simon, " said she, in an altered tone; "itused not to be like that. "

"Indeed it did not, " he thought bitterly, and not for the first timehe missed something in her--some spirit of simplicity, freshness, flower-bloom, and purity that he had sought for, seen in many women, andfound elusive, as the frost finds the bloom of flowers he would begem. 

Her husband shrieked again, and with mute gestures they parted. 

The Chamberlain threw himself upon his horse as 'twere a mortal enemy, dug rowel-deep in the shuddering flesh, and the hoof-beats thundered onthe causey-stones. The beast whinnied in its pain, reared, and backed tothe breast wall of the bay. He lashed it wildly over the eyes with hiswhip, and they galloped up the roadway. A storm of fury possessed him;he saw nothing, heard nothing. 

CHAPTER XIV -- CLAMOUR

Count Victor came through the woods from Strongara singularly disturbedby the inexplicable sense of familiarity which rose from his meetingwith the horseman. It was a dry day and genial, yet with hints of rainon the horizon and white caps to the waves, betokening perhaps a stormnot far distant. Children were in the wood of Dunderave--ruddy, shychildren, gathering nuts and blackberries, with merriment haunting thelandscape as it were in a picture by Watteau or a tale of the classics, where such figures happily move for ever and for ever in the rightgolden glamour. Little elves they seemed to Count Victor as he came uponthem over an eminence, and saw them for the first time through the treesunder tall oaks and pines, among whose pillars they moved as if in fairycloisters, the sea behind them shining with a vivid and stinging blue. 

He had come upon them frowning, his mind full of doubts as to thehazards of his adventure in Argyll, convinced almost that the Baron ofDoom was right, and that the needle in the haystack was no morehopeless a quest than that he had set out on, and the spectacle of theirinnocence in the woodland soothed him like a psalm in a cathedral ashe stood to watch. Unknowing of his presence there, they ran andplayed upon the grass, their lips stained with the berry-juice, theirpillow-slips of nuts gathered beneath a bush of whin. They laughed, andchanted merry rhymes: a gaiety their humble clothing lent them touchedthe thickets with romance. 

In other circumstances than fate had set about his life, Count Victormight have been a good man--a good man not in the common sense thatmeans paying the way, telling the truth, showing the open hand, respecting the law, going to Mass, loyalty to the woman and to a friend, but in the rare, wide manner that comprehends all these, and has itsgrowth in human affection and religious faith. He loved birds; animalsever found him soft-handed; as for children--the _petites_--God blessthem! was he not used to stand at his window at home and glow to seethem playing in the street? And as he watched the urchins in the wood ofDunderave, far from the scenes he knew, children babbling in an uncouthlanguage whose smallest word he could not comprehend, he felt anelevation of his spirit that he indulged by sitting on the grass abovethem, looking at their play and listening to their laughter as if itwere an opera. 

He forgot his fears, his apprehensions, his ignoble little emprise ofrevenge; he felt a better man, and he had his reward as one shall everhave who sits a space with childish merriment and woodland innocence. Inhis case it was something more direct and tangible than the immaterialefflux of the soul, though that too was not wanting: he saw the signalkerchief being placed outside the window, that otherwise, reaching hometoo early, he had missed. 

"It is my last chance, if I leave to-morrow, " he thought. "I shallsatisfy myself as to the nocturnal visitor, the magic flautist, and thebewildering Annapla--and probably find the mystery as simple as the eggin the conjurer's bottle when all's ended!"

That night he yawned behind his hand at supper in the midst of hishost's account of his interview with Petullo the Writer, who hadpromised to secure lodging for Count Victor in a day or two, and theBaron showed no disinclination to conclude their somewhat dull sederuntand consent to an early retirement. 

"I have something pressing to do before I go to bed myself, " he said, restoring by that simple confession some of Count Victor's firstsuspicions. They were to be confirmed before an hour was past. 

He went up to his room and weighed his duty to himself and to someunshaped rules of courtesy and conduct that he had inherited from ahouse more renowned for its sense of ceremonial honour, perhaps, thanfor commoner virtues. His instinct as a stranger in a most remarkabledwelling, creeping with mystery and with numberless evidences ofthings sinister and perhaps malevolent, told him it was fair to make areconnaissance, even if no more was to be discovered than a servant'ssordid amours. On the other hand, he could not deny to himself thatthere was what the Baronne de Chenier would have called the little Lyonsshopkeeper in the suspicions he had against his host, and in the stepshe proposed to take to satisfy his curiosity. He might have debatedthe situation with himself till midnight, or as long as Mungo's candleslasted him, had not a shuffling and cautious step upon the stairsuggested that some one was climbing to the unused chambers above. Putting punctilio in his pocket, he threw open his door, and had beforehim a much-perplexed Baron of Doom, wrapped from neck to heel in a greatplaid of sombre tartan and carrying a candle!

Doom stammered an inaudible excuse. 

"Pardon!" said Count Victor, ironically in spite of himself, as he sawhis host's abashed countenance. "I fear I intrude on a masquerade. Pray, do not mind me. It was that I thought the upper flat uninhabited, and noone awake but myself. "

"You have me somewhat at a disadvantage, " said Doom coldly, resentingthe irony. "I'll explain afterwards. "

"Positively, there is no necessity, " replied Count Victor, with aprofound bow, and he re-entered and shut the door. 

There was no longer any debate between punctilio and precaution. He hadseen the bulge of the dagger below Macnaughton's plaid, and the plaiditself had not been drawn too closely round the wearer to conceal whollythe unaccountable fact that he had a Highland dress beneath it. A scoreof reasons for this eccentric affair came to Mont-aiglon, but allof them were disquieting, not the least so the notion that his hostconspired perhaps with the Macfarlanes, who sought their revenge fortheir injured clansman. He armed himself with his sword, blew out hiscandles, and, throwing himself upon his bed, lay waiting for the signalhe expected. In spite of himself, sleep stole on him twice, and heawakened each time to find an hour was gone. 

It was a night of pouring rain. Great drops beat on the little window, a gargoyle poured a noisy stream of water, and a loud sea cried off theland and broke upon the outer edge of the rock of Doom. A loud sea andominous, and it was hard for Count Victor, in that welter of midnightvoices, to hear the call of an owl, yet it came to him by and by, as heexpected, with its repetition. And then the flageolet, with its familiarand baffling melody, floating on a current of the wind that piped aboutthe castle vents and sobbed upon the stairs. He opened his door, lookedinto the depths that fell with mouldering steps into the basement andupwards to the flight where the Baron had been going. Whether he shouldcarry his inquiry further or retire and shut his door again with aforced indifference to these perplexing events was but the toss of acoin. As he listened a slight sound at the foot of the stair--the soundof a door softly closed and a bar run in deep channels--decided him, andhe waited to confound the master of Doom. 

In the darkness the stern walls about him seemed to weigh upon hisheart, and so imbued with vague terrors that he unsheathed his sword. A light revealed itself upon the stair; he drew back into his room, butleft the door open, and when the bearer of the light came in front ofhis door he could have cried out loudly in astonishment, for it was notthe Baron but a woman, and no woman that he had seen before, or had anyreason to suspect the presence of in Doom Castle. They discovered eachother simultaneously, --she, a handsome foreigner, fumbling to put arapier behind him in discreet concealment, much astounded; he, a womanno more than twenty, in her dress and manner all incongruous with thissavage domicile. 

In his after years it was Count Victor's most vivid impression that hereyes had first given him the embarrassment that kept him dumb inher presence for a minute after she had come upon him thus strangelyensconced in the dark corridor. It was those eyes--the eyes of the womanborn and bred by seas unchanging yet never the same; unfathomable, yetalways inviting to the guess, the passionate surmise--that told himfirst here was a maiden made for love. A figure tremulous with a warmgrace, a countenance perfect in its form, full of a natural gravity, yetquick to each emotion, turning from the pallor of sudden alarm to theflush of shyness or vexation. The mountains had stood around to shelterher, and she was like the harebell of the hills. Had she been theaverage of her sex he would have met her with a front of brass; insteadthere was confusion in his utterance and his mien. He bowed extremelylow. 

"Madame; pardon! I--I--was awakened by music, and--"

Her silence, unaccompanied even by a smile at the ridiculous nature ofthe recontre, and the proud sobriety of her visage, quickened him to abolder sentiment than he had at first meditated. 

"I was awakened by music, and it seems appropriate. With madame'spermission, I shall return to earth. "

His foolish words perhaps did not quite reach her: the wind eddiednoisily in the stair, that seemed, in the light from his open door, togulp the blackness. Perhaps she did not hear, perhaps she did not fullyunderstand, for she hesitated more than a moment, as if pondering, nota whit astonished or abashed, with her eyes upon his countenance. CountVictor wished to God that he had lived a cleaner life: somehow he feltthat there were lines upon his face betraying him. 

"I am sorry to have been the cause of your disturbance, " she said atlast, calmly, in a voice with the music of lulled little waves runningon fairy isles in summer weather, almost without a trace that Englishwas not her natural tongue, and that faint innuendo of the mountainmelody but adding to the charm of her accent. 

Count Victor ridiculously pulled at his moustache, troubled by this_sang froid_ where he might naturally have looked for perturbation. 

"Pardon! I demand your pardon!" was all that he could say, looking atthe curl upon her shoulder that seemed uncommon white against thesilk of her Indian shawl that veiled her form. She saw his gaze, instinctively drew closer her screen, then reddened at her error in sodoing. 

He had the woman there!

"Pardon!" he repeated. "It is ridiculous of me, but I have heard thesignals and the music more than once and wondered. I did not know"--hesmiled the smile of the _flâneur_--"I did not know it was, let me say, Orpheus and Eurydice, Orpheus with his lyre restored from among theconstellations, and forgetting something of its old wonder. Madame, Ihope Orpheus will not en-rheum himself by his serenading. "

Her lips parted slightly, her eyes chilled--an indescribable thing, buta plain lesson for a man who knew her sex, and Count Victor, in thathaughty instinct of her flesh and eye, saw that here was not theplace for the approach and opening of flippant parlours in the RueBeautreillis. 

"I fear I have not intruded for the first time, " he went on, ina different tone. "It must have been your chamber I somewhatunceremoniously broke into last night. Till this moment the presenceof a lady in Doom Castle had not occurred to me--at least I had come toconsider the domestic was the only one of her sex we had here. "

"It is easily explained, " said the lady, losing some of her hauteur, andshowing a touch of eagerness to be set right in the stranger's eye. 

"There is positively not the necessity, " protested Count Victor, realising a move gained, and delaying his withdrawal a moment longer. 

"But you must understand that--" she went on. 

Again he interrupted as courteously as he might. "The explanation is duefrom me, madame: I protest, " said he, and she pouted. It gave her a lookso bewitching, so much the aspect of a tempest bound in a cobweb, thathe was compelled to smile, and for the life of her she could not butrespond with a similar display. It seemed, when he saw her smile throughher clouds, that he had wandered blindly through the world till now. France, far off in sunshine, brimming with laughter and song, itsthousand interests, its innumerable happy associations, were of littleaccount to the fact that now he was in the castle of Doom, under thesame roof with a woman who charmed magic flutes, who endowed thedusks with mystery and surprise. The night piped from the vaults, thecrumbling walls hummed with the incessant wind and the vibration of thetempestuous sea; upon the outer stones the gargoyles poured their noisywaters--but this--but this was Paradise!

"The explanation must be mine, " said he. "I was prying upon no amour, but seeking to confirm some vague alarms and suspicions. "

"They were, perhaps, connected with my father, " she said, with adivination that Count Victor had occasion to remember again. 

"Your father!" he exclaimed, astonished that one more of hismisconceptions should be thus dispelled. "Then I have been guilty of theunpardonable liberty of spying upon my hostess. "

"A droll hostess, I must say, and I am the black-affronted woman, " saidshe, "but through no fault of mine. I am in my own good father's house, and still, in a way, a stranger in it, and that is a hard thing. But youmust not distrust my father: you will find, I think, before very long, that all the odd affairs in this house have less to do with him thanwith his daughter Olivia. "

She blushed again as she introduced her name, but with a sensitivenessthat Count Victor found perfectly entrancing. 

"My dear mademoiselle, " he said, wishing the while he had had a_friseur_ at the making of his toilet that morning, as he ran hisfingers over his beard and the thick brown hair that slightly curledabove his brow, --"my dear mademoiselle, I feel pestilently like a fooland a knave to have placed myself in this position in any way to yourannoyance. I hope I may have the opportunity before I leave Doom ofproffering an adequate apology. "

He expected her to leave him then, and he had a foot retired, preparingto re-enter his room, but there was a hesitancy in her manner that toldhim she had something more to say. She bit her nether lip--the orchardsof Cammercy, he told himself, never bred a cherry a thousandth part sorich and so inviting, even to look at in candle-light; a shy dubietyhovered round her eyes. He waited her pleasure to speak. 

"Perhaps, " said she softly, relinquishing her brave demeanour--"perhapsit might be well that--that my father knew nothing of this meeting, or--or--or of what led to it. "

"Mademoiselle Olivia, " said Count Victor, "I am--what do you call it?--asomnambulist. In that condition it has sometimes been my so good fortuneto wander into the most odd and ravishing situations. But as it happens, _helas!_ I can never recall a single incident of them when I waken inthe morning. _Ma foi!_" (he remembered that even yet his suspicionsof the Baron were unsatisfied), "I would with some pleasure becomea nocturnal conspirator myself, and I have all the necessaryqualities--romance, enterprise, and sympathy. "

"Mungo knows all, " said the lady; "Mungo will explain. "

"With infinite deference, mademoiselle, Mungo shall not be invited to doanything of the kind. "

"But he must, " said she firmly. "It is due to myself, as well as to you, and I shall tell him to do so. "

"Your good taste and judgment, mademoiselle, are your instructors. Permit me. "

He took the candlestick from her hands, gravely led the way to herchamber door, and at the threshold restored the light with an excessof polite posturing not without its whimsicality. As she took thecandlestick she looked in his face with a twinkle of amusement in hereyes, giving her a vivacity not hitherto betrayed. 

Guessing but half the occasion of her smiles, he cried abruptly, andnot without confusion: "Ah! you were the amused observer of my farce inwading across from the shore. _Peste!_"

"Indeed and I was!" said she, smiling all the more brightly at the scenerecalled. "Good night!"

And, more of a rogue than Count Victor had thought her, she disappearedinto her chamber, leaving him to find his way back to his own. 

CHAPTER XV -- A RAY OF LIGHT

For the remainder of the night Count Victor's sleep was delicious ordisturbed by dreams in which the gloomy habitation of that strangeHighland country was lit with lamps--the brightest a woman's eyes. Sometimes she was Cecile, dancing--all abandoned, a child of dalliance, a nymph irresolute--to the music of a flageolet; sometimes another whoseradiance fascinated, whose presence yet had terror, for (in the mannerof dreams that at their maddest have some far-compassing and tremendousphilosophy such as in the waking world is found in poems) she was morethan herself, she was the other also, at least sharing the secrets ofthat great sisterhood of immaculate and despoiled, and, looking in hisface, compelled to see his utter unworthiness. 

He rose early and walked in the narrow garden, still sodden with rain, though a bold, warm sun shone high to the east. For ordinary he was notchangeable, but an Olivia in Doom made a difference: those moulderingwalls contained her; she looked out on the sea from those high peeringwindows; that bower would sometimes shelter her; those alien breezesflowing continually round Doom were privileged to kiss her hair. Positively there seems no great reason, after all, why he should be soprecipitate in his removal to the town! Indeed (he told himself with thesmile of his subconscious self at the subterfuge) there was a risk ofmiscarriage for his mission among tattling _aubergistes_, lawyers, andmerchants. He was positively vexed when he encountered Mungo, and thatfunctionary informed him that, though he was early afoot, the Baron wasearlier still, and off to the burgh to arrange for his new lodgings. This precipitancy seemed unpleasantly like haste to be rid of him. 

"Ah, " said he to the little servant, "your master is so good, so kind, so attentive. Yet I do not wonder, for your Highland hospitality isrenowned. I have heard much of it from the dear exiles--Glengarry _parexemple_, when he desired to borrow the cost of a litre or the priceof the diligence to Dun-querque in the season when new-come Scots werereaching there in a humour to be fleeced by a compatriot with threelanguages at command and the boast of connections with Versailles. "

Mungo quite comprehended. 

"Sir, " said he, with some feeling, "there was never bed nor boardgrudged at Doom. It's like father like son a' through them. The Baron'sgreat-gutcher, auld Alan, ance thought the place no' braw enough for theeye o' a grand pairty o' Irish nobeelity that had bidden themsel's tosee him, and the day they were to come he burned the place hauf doon. Itwas grand summer weather, and he camped them i' the park behin' there, sparing time nor money nor device in their entertainment. Ye see whatmight hae been a kin' o' penury in a castle was the very extravagance o'luxury in a camp. A hole in the hose is an accident nae gentlemanneed be ashamed o', but the same darned is a disgrace, bein' povertyconfessed, as Annapla says. "

It was a touchy servant this, Montaiglon told himself--somewhat sharper, too, than he had thought: he must hazard no unkind ironies upon themaster. 

"Charming, charming! good Mungo, " said he. "The expedient might havebeen devised by my own great-grandfather--a gentleman of--of--ofcommercial pursuits in Lyons city. I am less fastidious, perhaps, thanthe Irish, being very glad to take Doom Castle as I have the honour tofind it. "

"But ye're thinkin' the Baron is in a hurry to billet ye elsewhere, "said the servant bluntly. 

In an ordinary lackey this boldness would have been too much forCount Victor; in this grotesque, so much in love, it seemed, with hisemployer, and so much his familiar and friend in a ridiculous Scotsfashion, the impertinence appeared pardonable. Besides, he blamedhimself for the ill-breeding of his own irony. 

"That, if I may be permitted to point it out, is not for us to consider, Monsieur Mungo, " said he. "I have placed myself unreservedly in theBaron's hands, and if he considers it good for my indifferent healththat I should change the air and take up my residence a little fartheralong your delightful coast while my business as a wine merchant fromBordeaux is marching, I have no doubt he has reason. "

A smile he made no effort to conceal stole over Mungo's visage. 

"Wine merchant frae Bordeaux!" he cried. "I've seen a hantle o' themhereaboots at the fish-curin' season, but they cam' in gabbarts toFrench Foreland, and it wasnae usual for them to hae Coont to theirnames nor whingers to their hips. It was mair ordinar the ink-horn attheir belts and the sporran at their groins. "

"A malediction on the creature's shrewdness!" said Count Victorinwardly, while outwardly he simply smiled back. 

"The red wine is my specialty, " said he, patting his side where the hiltof his sword should be. "My whinger, as you call it, is an auger: whothe devil ever broached a pipe of Scots spirits with a penknife? But Isee you are too much in the confidence of the Baron for there to be anynecessity of concealment between us. "

"H'm!" exclaimed Mungo dryly, as one who has a sense of being flatteredtoo obviously. "The Baron's a bairn, like a' true gentlemen I've seen, and he kens me lang enough and likes me weel enough to mak' nae secreto' what it were to a'body's advantage should be nae secret to MungoByde. In this place I'm sentinel, spy, and garrison; it wad ill becomethe officer in command to let me be doin' my wark withoot some clewto the maist important pairt o't. Ye're here on a search for aneDrimdarroch. "

"You are a wizard, Monsieur Mungo!" cried Montaiglon, not withoutchagrin at Doom's handing over so vast and vital a secret to a menial. 

"Ay, and ye might think it droll that I should ken that; But I be't token it, for there's mony a plot against my maister, and nae foreigneercomes inside thae wa's whase pedigree I canna' hae an inklin' o'. Ye'rehere aifter Drimdarroch, and ye're no' very sure aboot your host, andthat's the last thing I wad haggle wi' ye aboot, for your error'll cometo ye by-and-by. "

Count Victor waved a deprecating hand. 

"Oh, I ken a' aboot what mak's ye sae suspicious, " went on Mungo, undisturbed, "and it's a thing I could mak' clear to ye in aquarter-hour's crack if I had his leave. Tak' my word for't, there's no'a better man wi' his feet in brogues this day than the Baron o' Doom. He should be searchin' the warld wi' the sword o' his faithers (and thesame he can use), but the damned thing is the warld for him doesna gangby the snout o' Cowal and the pass o' Glencroe. He had a wife ance;she's dead and buried in Kilmorich; noo he's doited on his hame and hisdochter--"

"The charming Olivia!" cried Count Victor, thinking in one detail at allevents to surprise this little custodian of all the secrets. 

"Ye met her last night, " said Mungo, calmly, seeming to enjoy therapidity with which his proofs of omniscience could be put forth. "That's half the secret. Ye were daunderin' aboot the lobby wi' thaefine French manners I hae heard o'--frae the French theirsels--and wha'wad blame ye in a hoose like this? And ye're early up the day, but thelass was up earlier to tell me o' your meeting. She had to come to mebefore Annapla was aboot, for Annapla's no' in this part o' the ploy atall. "

"I protest I have no head for charades, " said Count Victor, with agesture of bewilderment. "I do not know what you mean. "

Mungo chuckled with huge satisfaction. 

"Man, it's as plain's parridge! There's a gentleman in the toon down bythat's a hot wooer, and daddy's for nane o' his kind roon' Doom; d'yetak' me?"

"But still--but still--"

"But still the trystin' gaes on, ye were aboot to say. That's very true, Coont, but it's only the like o' you and me that has nae dochters toplague oorsel's wi' that can guess the like o' that. Ay, it gaes on asye say, and that's where me and Miss Olivia maun put oor trust in you. In this affair I'll admit I'm a traitor in the camp--at least, to thecamp commander, but I think it's in a guid cause. The lassie's fair affher heid, and nae wonder, for he's a fine mak' o' a man. "

"And a good one, I hope?" interjected Count Victor. 

"Humph!" said Mungo. "I thocht that wasna laid muckle stress on inFrance. He's a takin' deevil, and the kind's but middlin' morally, sae far as I had ony experience o' them. Guid or bad, Miss Olivia, naefurther gane nor last Friday, refused to promise she wad gie up meetin'him--though she's the gem o' dochters, God bless her bonny een! Hislordship got up in a tirravee and ordered her to her room, wi' Annaplafor warder, till he should mak' arrangements for sending her to hisguid-sister's in the low country. Your comin' found us in a kin' o'confusion, but ye might hac spared yersel' my trepannin' in the tolboothupstairs, and met her in a mair becomin' way at her faither's table ifit hadna been for Annapla. "

"For Annapla?" repeated Montaiglon. 

"Oh, ah! Annapla has the Gift, ye ken. Dae ye think I wad hae been saeceevil the ither nicht to her when she was yelping on the stair-heidif it hadna been her repute for the Evil E'e? Ye may lauch, but I couldtell tales o' Annapla's capacity. The night afore ye cam' she yokedhimsel' on his jyling the lassie, though she's the last that wad thrawhim. 'Oh. ' said he, 'ye're a' tarred wi' the ae stick: if ye conniveat his comin' here without my kennin', I'll gie him death wi' his bootson!' It was in the Gaelic this, ye maun ken; Annapla gied me't efter. 'Boots here, boots there, ' quo' she, 'love's the fine adventurer, and Isee by the _griosach_' (that's the fire-embers, ye ken; between the asho' a peat and the creesh o' a candle thae kin' o' witches can tell yethings frae noo to Hogmanay)--' I see by the _griosach_, ' says she, 'that this ane'll come wi' his bare feet. ' It staggered him; oh, ay! itstaggered him a bit. 'Barefit or brogues, ' said he, 'she'll see no manfrom this till the day she gaes!' And he's the man to keep his word; butit looks as though we might shuffle the pack noo and start a new game, for the plans o' flittin' her to Dunbarton hae fallen through, I hear, and he'll hae to produce her before ye leave. "

"I'm in no hurry, " said Count Victor, coolly twisting his moustache. 

"What! To hae her produced?" said the little man, slyly. 

"_Farceur!_ No, to leave. "

"Indeed is that sae?" asked Mungo, in a quite new tone, and reddening. "H'm! Ye may hae come barefit, but the ither ane has the preference. "

"He has my sincere felicitations, I assure you, " said Count Victor, "andI can only hope he is worthy of the honour of Master Mungo's connivanceand the lady's devotion. "

"Oh! _he's_ a' richt! It's only a whim o' Doom's that mak's himdiscoontenance the fellow. I'll allow the gentleman has a name forgallantry and debt, and a wheen mair genteel vices that's neither herenor there, but he's a pretty lad. He's the man for my fancy--six feettall, a back like a board, and an e'e like lightning. And he's nane thewaur o' ha'in' a great interest in Mungo Byde's storie. "

"Decidedly a diplomatist!" said Count Victor, laughing. "I always lovedan enthusiast; go on--go on, good Mungo. And so he is my nocturnal owl, my flautist of the bower, my Orpheus of the mountains. Does the giftedAnnapla also connive, and are hers the window signals?"

"Annapla kens naething o' that--"

"The--what do you call it?--the Second Sight appears to have itslimitations. "

"At least if it does she's nane the less willin' to be an unconsciousaid, and put a flag at the window at the biddin' o' Olivia to keep thewitches awa'. The same flag that keeps aff a witch may easily fetch abogle. There's but ae time noo and then when it's safe for the lad toventure frae the mainland, and for that there maun be a signal o' somekind, otherwise, if I ken his spirit, he wad never be aff this rock. I'mtellin' ye a' that by Mistress Olivia's command, and noo ye're in theplot like the lave of us. "

Mungo heaved a deep breath as if relieved of a burden. 

"Still--still, " said Count Victor, "one hesitates to mention it to soexcellent a custodian of the family reputation--still there are otherthings to me somewhat--somewhat crepuscular. "

His deprecatory smile and the gesture of his hands and shouldersconveyed his meaning. 

"Ye're thinkin' o' the Baron in tartan, " said Mungo, bluntly. He smiledoddly. "That's the funniest bit of all. If ye're here a while langerthat'll be plain to ye too. Between the darkest secrets and oorunderstanding o' them there's whiles but a rag, and that minds me thatMistress Olivia was behin' the arras tapestry chitterin' wi' fright whenye broke in by her window. Sirs! sirs! what times we're ha'in; there'sploy in the warld yet, and me unable--tuts! I'm no' that auld either. And faith here's himsel'. "

Mungo punctiliously saluted his master as that gentleman emerged beneaththe frowning doorway and joined Count Victor in the dejected garden, lifted the faggot of firewood he had laid at his feet during his talkwith the visitor, and sought his kitchen. 

In Doom's aspect there was restraint: Count Victor shared the feeling, for now he realised that, in some respects, at all events, he had beendoing an injustice to his host. 

"I find, M. Le Count, " said Doom, after some trivial introductories, "that you cannot be accommodated in the inn down by for some daysyet--possibly another week. The Circuit Court has left a pack of thelegal gentlemen and jurymen there, who will not be persuaded to returnto Edinburgh so long as the cellar at the inn holds out, and my doer, Mr. Petullo, expresses a difficulty in getting any other lodging. "

"I regret exceedingly--"

"No regret at all, M. Le Count, " said Doom, "no regret at all, unless itbe that you must put up with a while longer of a house that must be verydull to you. It is my privilege and pleasure to have you here--withoutprejudice to your mission--and the only difficulty there might be aboutit has been removed through--through--through your meeting with mydaughter Olivia. I learn you met her on the stair last night. Well--itwould look droll, I dare say, to have encountered that way, and noword of her existence from me, but--but--but there has been a littledisagreement between us. I hope I am a decently indulgent father, M. LeCount, but--"

"You see before you one with great shame of his awkwardness, Baron, "said Montaiglon. "Ordinarily, I should respect a host's privacy to theextent that I should walk a hundred miles round rather than stumble uponit, but this time I do not know whether to blame myself for my gaucherieor feel pleased that for once it brought me into good company. Mungo hasjust hinted with his customary discretion at the cause of the mystery. I sympathise with the father; I am, with the daughter, _très charmé_and--"

This hint of the gallant slightly ruffled Doom. 

"Chut!" he cried. "The man with an only daughter had need be a man ofpatience. I have done my best with this Olivia of mine. She lost hermother when a child"--an accent of infinite tenderness here came to hisvoice. "These woods and this shore and this lonely barn of ours, allrobbed of what once made it a palace to me and mine, were, I fancied, uncongenial to her spirit, and I sent her to the Lowlands. She cameback, educated, as they call it--I think she brought back as good aheart as she took away, but singularly little tolerance sometimes forthe life in the castle of Doom. It has been always the town for herthese six months, always the town, for there she fell in with a fellowwho is no fancy of mine. "

Count Victor listened sympathetically, somewhat envying the lover, reviving in his mental vision the figure he had seen first twelve hoursago or less. He was brought to a more vivid interest in the story bythe altered tone of Doom, who seemed to sour at the very mention of theunwelcome cavalier. 

"Count, " said he, "it's the failing of the sex--the very best of them, because the simplest and the sweetest--that they will prefer a fool to awise man and a rogue to a gentleman. They're blind, because the rogueis for ever showing off his sham good qualities till they shinebetter than an ordinary decent man's may. To my eyes, if not quite tomy knowledge, this man is as great a scoundrel as was ever left unhung. It's in his look--well, scarcely so, to tell the truth, but somethingof it is in his mouth as well as in his history, and sooner than see mydaughter take up for life with a creature of his stamp I would haveher in her grave beside her mother. Unluckily, as I say, the man's aplausible rogue: that's the most dangerous rogue of all, and the girl'sblind to all but the virtues and graces he makes a display of. I'llforgive Petullo his cheatry in the common way of his craft sooner thanhis introduction of such a man to my girl. "

To all this Count Victor could no more than murmur his sympathy, but hehad enough of the young gallant in him to make some mental reservationsin favour of the persistent wooer. It was an alluring type, this haunterof the midnight bower, and melancholy sweet breather in the classicreed. All the wooers of only daughters, he reminded himself, as well asall the sweethearts of only sons, were unworthy in the eyes of parents, and probably Mungo's unprejudiced attitude towards the conspiring loverswas quite justified by the wooer's real character in spite of the illrepute of his history. He reflected that this confidence of Doom's leftunexplained his own masquerade of the previous night, but he gave nowhisper to the thought, and had, indeed, forgotten it by evening, whenfor the first time Olivia joined them at her father's table. 

CHAPTER XVI -- OLIVIA

It was a trying position in which Olivia found herself when first shesat at the same table with the stranger whose sense of humour, as shemust always think, was bound to be vastly entertained by her ridiculousstory. Yet she carried off the situation with that triumph that everawaits on a frank eye, a good honest heart, and an unfailing trust inthe ultimate sympathy of one's fellow-creatures. There was no _mauvaisehonte_ there, Count Victor saw, and more than ever he admired, if thatwere possible. It was the cruel father of the piece who was uneasy. Heit was who must busy himself with the feeding of an appetite whose likehe had not manifested before, either silent altogether or joining in theconversation with the briefest sentences. 

There was never a Montaiglon who would lose such a good occasion, andCount Victor made the most of it. He was gentle, but not too gentle--forthis was a lady to resent the easy self-effacement with which so manyof her sex are deceived and flattered; he was not unmindful of themore honest compliments, yet he had the shrewdness to eschew the meremeaningless _blague_ that no one could better employ with the creaturesof Versailles, who liked their olives well oiled, or the Jeannetonsand Mimis of the Italian comedy and the playhouse. Under his genial andshining influence Olivia soon forgot the ignominy of these recent days, and it was something gained in that direction that already she lookedupon him as a confederate. 

"I am so glad you like our country, Count Victor, " she said, no waydubious about his praise of her home hills, those loud impetuouscataracts, and that alluring coast. "It rains--oh! it rains--"

"_Parfaitement_, mademoiselle, but when it shines!" and up went hishands in an admiration wherefor words were too little eloquent: at thatmoment he was convinced truly that the sun shone nowhere else than inthe Scottish hills. 

"Yes, yes, when it shines, as you say, it is the dear land! Then thewoods--the woods gleam and tremble, I always think, like a girl who hastears in her eyes, the tears of gladness. The hills--let my father tellyou of the hills, Count Victor; I think he must love them more than heloves his own Olivia--is that not cruel of a man with an only child? Hewould die, I am sure, if he could not be seeing them when he liked. ButI cannot be considering the hills so beautiful as my own glens, my ownlittle glens, that no one, I'll be fancying, is acquainted with to theheart but me and the red deer, and maybe a hunter or two. Of course, wehave the big glens, too, and I would like it if I could show you ShiraGlen--"

"The best of it was once our own, " said Doom, black at brow. 

"--That once was ours, as father says, and is mine yet so long as I canwalk there and be thinking my own thoughts in it when the wood is green, and the wild ducks are plashing in the lake. "

Doom gave a significant exclamation: he was recalling that rumour hadShira Glen for his daughter's favourite trysting-place. 

"Rain or shine, " said Count Victor, delighting in such whole-souledrapture, delighting in that bright, unwearied eye, that curious turn ofphrase that made her in English half a foreigner like himself--"Rain orshine, it is a country of many charms. "

"But now you are too large in your praise, " she said, not quite sowarmly. "I do not expect you to think it is a perfect country-side atany time and all times; and it is but natural that you should lovethe country of France, that I have been told is a brave and beautifulcountry, and a country I am sometimes loving myself because of itshospitality to folk that we know. I know it is a country of brave men, and sometimes I am wondering if it is the same for beautiful women. Tellme!" and she leaned on an arm that shone warm, soft, and thrilling fromthe short sleeve of her gown, and put the sweetest of chins upon a handfor the wringing of hearts. 

Montaiglon looked into those eyes, so frank and yet profound, andstraight became a rebel. "Mademoiselle Olivia, " said he, indifferently(oh, Cecile! oh, Cecile!), "they are considered not unpleasing; but formyself, perhaps acquaintance has spoiled the illusion. "

She did not like that at all; her eyes grew proud and unbelieving. 

"When I was speaking of the brave men of France, " said she, "I fanciedperhaps they would tell what they really thought--even to a woman. " Andhe felt very much ashamed of himself. 

"Ah! well, to tell the truth, mademoiselle, " he confessed, "I have knownvery beautiful ones among them, and many that I liked, and still mustthink of with affection. _Mort de ma vie!_ am I not the very slave ofyour sex, that for all the charms, the goodness, the kindnesses andpurities, is a continual reproach to mine? In the least perfect of themI have never failed to find something to remind me of my little mother. "

"And now I think that is much better, " said Olivia, heartily, her eyessparkling at that concluding filial note. "I would not care at all for aman to come from his own land and pretend to me that he had no mind forthe beautiful women and the good women he had seen there. No; it wouldnot deceive me, that; it would not give me any pleasure. We have aproverb in the Highlands, that Annapla will often be saying, that therook thinks the pigeon hen would be bonny if her wings were black; andthat is a _seanfhacal_--that is an old-word that is true. "

"If I seemed to forget France and what I have seen there of Youth andBeauty, " said Count Victor, "it is, I swear it is--it is--"

"It is because you would be pleasant to a simple Highland girl, " saidOlivia, with just a hint of laughter in her eyes. 

"No, no, _par ma foi!_ not wholly that. But yes, I love my country--ah!the happy days I have known there, the sunny weather, the friends sogood, the comradeship so true. Your land is beautiful--it is even morebeautiful than the exiles in Paris told me; but I was not born here, andthere are times when your mountains seem to crush my heart. "

"Is it so, indeed?" said Doom. "As for me, I would not change thebleakest of them for the province of Champagne. " And he beat animpulsive hand upon the table. 

"Yes, yes, I understand that, " cried Olivia. "I understand it very well. It is the sorrow of the hills and woods you mean; ah! do I not know it, too? It is only in my own little wee glens among the rowans that I canfeel careless like the birds, and sing; when I walk the woods or standupon the shore and see the hills without a tree or tenant, when the landis white with the snow and the mist is trailing, Olivia Lamond is notvery cheery. What it is I do not know--that influence of my country; itis sad, but it is good and wholesome, I can tell you; it is then Ithink that the bards make songs, and those who are not bards, like poormyself, must just be feeling the songs there are no words for. "

At this did Doom sit mighty pleased and humming to himself a bar ofminstrelsy. 

"Look at my father there!" said Olivia; "he would like you to bethinking that he does not care a great deal for the Highlands ofScotland. "

"Indeed, and that is not fair, Olivia; I never made pretence of that, "said Doom. "Never to such as understand; Montaiglon knows the Highlandsare at my heart, and that the look of the hills is my evening prayer. "

"Isn't that a father, Count Victor?" cried Olivia, quite proud of theconfession. "But he is the strange father, too, that will be pretendingthat he has forgotten the old times and the old customs of our dearpeople. We are the children of the hills and of the mists; the hillsmake no change, the mists are always coming back, and the deer is in thecorrie yet, and when you will hear one that is of the Highland blood sayhe does not care any more for the old times, and preferring theEnglish tongue to his own, and making a boast of his patience when theGovernment of England robs him of his plaid, you must be watchful ofthat man, Count Victor. For there is something wrong. Is it not true, that I am saying, father?" She turned a questioning gaze to Doom, whohad no answer but a sigh. 

"You will have perhaps heard my father miscall the _breacan_, miscallthe tartan, and--"

"Not at all, " cried the Baron. "There is a great difference betweencondemning and showing an indifference. "

"I think, father, " said Olivia, "we are among friends. Count Victor, asyou say, could understand about our fancies for the hills, and it wouldbe droll indeed if he smiled at us for making a treasure of the tartan. Whatever my father, the stupid man, the darling, may be telling you ofthe tartan and the sword, Count Victor, do not believe that we are suchpoor souls as to forget them. Though we must be wearing the Saxon in ourclothes and in our speech, there are many like me--and my dear fatherthere--who will not forget. "

It was a curious speech all that, not without a problem, as well as thecharm of the unexpected and the novel, to Count Victor. For, somehowor other, there seemed to be an under meaning in the words; Olivia wasengaged upon the womanly task--he thought--of lecturing some one. If hehad any doubt about that, there was Mungo behind the Baron's chair, hisface just showing over his shoulder, seamed with smiles that spoke ofsome common understanding between him and the daughter of his master;and once, when she thrust more directly at her father, the littleservitor deliberately winked to the back of his master's head--a verygnome of slyness. 

"But you have not told me about the ladies of France, " said she. "Stay!you will be telling me that again; it is not likely my father would becaring to hear about them so much as about the folk we know that havegone there from Scotland. They are telling me that many good, brave menare there wearing their hearts out, and that is the sore enough trial. "

Count Victor thought of Barisdale and his cousin-german, youngGlengarry, gambling in that frowsiest boozing-ken in the Rue Tarane--theCafé de la Paix--without credit for a _louis d'or_; he thought of JamesMor Drummond and the day he came to him behind the Tuileries stableclad in rags of tartan to beg a loan; none of these was the picturesquefigure of loyalty in exile that he should care to paint for this youngwoman. 

But he remembered also Cameron, Macleod, Traquair, a score of gallanthearts, of handsome gentlemen, and Lochiel, true chevalier--perhaps abetter than his king!

It was of these Count Victor spoke--of their faith, their valiancies, their shifts of penury and pride. He had used often to consort with themat Cammercy, and later on in Paris. If the truth were to be told, theyhad made a man of him, and now he was generous enough to confess it. 

"I owe them much, your exiles, Mademoiselle Olivia, " said he. "Whenfirst I met with them I was a man without an ideal or a name, without ascrap of faith or a cause to quarrel for. It is not good for the young, that, Baron, is it? To be passing the days in an _ennui_ and the nightsbelow the lamps? Well, I met your Scots after Dettingen, renewed the oldacquaintance I had made at Cam-mercy, and found the later exiles betterthan the first--than the Balhaldies, the Glengarries, Mur-rays, and Sullivans. They were different, _ces gens-là_. Ordinarily theyrendezvoused in the Taverne Tourtel of St. Germains, and that gloomypalace shared their devotions with Scotland, whence they came and ofwhich they were eternally talking, like men in a nostalgia. James andhis Jacquette were within these walls, often indifferent enough, I fear, about the cause our friends were exiled there for; and Charles, betweenLuneville and Liege or Poland and London, was not at the time aninspiring object of veneration, if you will permit me to says so, M. LeBaron. But what does it matter? the cause was there, an image to keepthe good hearts strong, unselfish, and expectant. Ah! the songs theysang, so full of that hopeful melancholy of the glens you speak of, mademoiselle; the stories they told of Tearlach's Year; the hopes thatbound them in a brotherhood--and binds them yet, praise _le bon Dieu!_That was good for me. Yes; I like your exiled compatriots very much, Mademoiselle Olivia. And yet there was a _maraud_ or two among them; nofate could be too hard for the spies who would betray them. "

For the first time in many hours Count Victor remembered that he had anobject in Scotland, but with it somehow Cecile was not associated. 

"Mungo has been telling me about the spy, Count Victor. Oh, thewickedness of it! I feel black, burning shame that one with a Highlandname and a Highland mother would take a part like yon. I would not thinkthere could be men in the world so bad. They must have wicked mothers tomake such sons; the ghost of a good mother would cry from her grave tocheck her child in such a villany. " Olivia spoke with intense feeling, her eyes lambent and her lips quivering. 

"Drimdarroch's mother must have been a rock, " said Count Victor. 

"And to take what was my father's name!" cried Olivia; "Mungo has beentelling me that. Though I am a woman, I could be killing him myself. "

"And here we're in our flights, sure enough!" broke in the father, as heleft them with a humorousous pretence at terror. 

"Now you must tell me about the women of France, " said Olivia. "I havea friend who was there once, and tells me, like you, he was indifferent;but I am doubting that he must have seen some there that were worth hisfancy. "

"Is it there sits the wind?" thought Montaiglon. "Our serene angel isnot immune against the customary passions. " An unreasonable envy ofthe diplomatist who had been indifferent to the ladies of France tookpossession of him; still, he might have gratified her curiosity abouthis fair compatriots had not Doom returned, and then Olivia's interestin the subject oddly ceased. 

CHAPTER XVII -- A SENTIMENTAL SECRET

"Good night, " said Olivia, at last, and straightway Count Victor feltthe glory of the evening eclipse. He opened the door to let her passthrough. 

"I go back to my cell quiet enough, " she said, in low tones, and with asmiling frown upon her countenance. 

"Happy prisoner!" said he, "to be condemned to no worse than your owncompany. "

"Ah! it is often a very dull and pitiful company that, Count Victor, "said Olivia, with a sigh. 

It was not long till he, too, sought his couch, and the Baron of Doomwas left alone. 

Doom sat long looking at his crumbling walls, and the flaming fortunes, the blush, the heat-white and the dead grey ash of the peat-fire. Hesighed now and then with infinite despondency. Once or twice he pshawedhis melancholy vapours, gave a pace back and forward on the oaken floor, with a bent head, a bereaved countenance, and sat down again, indulgingin the passionate void that comes to a bosom reft of its joys, its hopesand loves, and only mournful recollection left. A done man! Not an oldman; not even an elderly, but a done man none the less, with the heartout of him, and all the inspiration clean gone!

Count Victor's advent in the castle had brought its own bitterness, forit was not often now that Doom had the chance to see anything of thebig, brave outer world of heat and enterprise. This gallant revivedungovernably the remembrances he for ever sought to stifle--all he hadbeen and all he had seen, now past and gone for ever, as Annapla didnot scruple to tell him when the demands of her Gift or a short tempercompelled her. His boyhood in the dear woods, by the weedy river-banks, in the hill-clefts where stags harboured, on a shore for ever soundingwith the enchanting sea--oh, sorrow! how these things came beforehim. The gentle mother, with the wan, beautiful face; the eager fatherlooking ardent out to sea--they were plain to view. And then St. Andrews, when he was a bejant of St. Leonard's, roystering with hisfellows, living the life of youth with gusto, but failing lamentably atthe end; then the despondency of those scanty acres and decayed walls;his marriage with the dearest woman in the world, Death at the fireside, the bairn crying at night in the arms of her fosterer; his journeysabroad, the short hour of glory and forgetfulness with Saxe at Fontenoyand Laffeldt, to be followed only by these weary years of spoliation bylaw, of oppression by the usurping Hanoverian. 

A done man! Only a poor done man of middle age, and the fact made allthe plainer to himself by contrast with his guest, alert and even gayupon a fiery embassy of retribution. 

It was exactly the hour of midnight by a clock upon the mantel; a singlecandle, by which he had made a show of reading, was guttering all to aside and an ungracious end in a draught that came from some cranny inthe ill-seamed ingle-walls, for all that the night seemed windless. Aprofound stillness wrapped all; the night was huge outside, with the seadead-flat to moon and pulsing star. 

He shook off his vapours vexatiously, and, as he had done on the firstnight of Count Victor's coming, he went to his curious orisons at thedoor--the orisons of the sentimentalist, the home-lover. Back he drewthe bars softly, and looked at the world that ever filled him withyearning and apprehension, at the draggled garden, at the sea, with itsroadway strewn with golden sand all shimmering, at the mounts--Ben Ime, Ardno, and Ben Artair, haughty in the night. 

Then he shut the doors reluctantly, stood hesitating--more the done manthan ever--in the darkness of the entrance, finally hurried to save theguttering candle. He lit a new one at its expiring flame and left the_salle_. He went, not to his bedchamber, but to the foot of the stairthat led to the upper flats, to his daughter's room, to the room of hisguest, and to the ancient chapel. With infinite caution, he crept roundand round on the narrow corkscrew stair; at any step it might have beena catacomb cell. 

He listened at the narrow corridor leading to Olivia's room and thatadjoining of her umquhile warder, Annapla; he paused, too, for a second, at Montaiglon's door. None gave sign of life. He went up higher. 

A storey over the stage on which Count Victor slumbered the stair endedabruptly at an oaken door, which he opened with a key. As he entered, a wild flurry of wings disturbed the interior, and by the light of thecandle and some venturesome rays of the moon a flock of bats or birdswere to be seen in precipitous flight through unglazed windows and abroken roof. 

Doom placed his candle in a niche of the wall and went over to anancient _armoire_, or chest, which seemed to be the only furniture ofwhat had apparently once been the chapel of the castle, to judge fromits size and the situation of an altar-like structure at the east end-. 

He unlocked the heavy lid, threw it open, looked down with a sigh at itscontents, which seemed, in the light of he candle, nothing wonderful. But a suit of Highland clothes, and some of the more martialappurtenances of the lost Highland state, including the dirk that hadroused Montaiglon's suspicion!

He drew them out hurriedly upon the floor, but yet with an affectionatetenderness, as if they were the relics of a sacristy, and with eagernesssubstituted the gay tartan for his dull mulberry Saxon habiliments. It was like the creation of a man from a lay figure. The jerk at thekilt-belt buckle somehow seemed to brace the sluggish spirit; hisshoulders found their old square set above a well-curved back; hisfeet--his knees--by an instinct took a graceful poise they had neverlearned in the mean immersement of breeches and Linlithgow boots. Ashe fastened his buckled brogues, he hummed the words of MacMhaisterAllister's songs:

 "Oh! the black-cloth of the Saxon, Dearer far's the Gaelic tartan!"

"Hugh Bethune's content with the waistcoat, is he?" he said to himself. "He's no Gael to be so easily pleased, and him with a freeman's liberty!And yet--and yet--I would be content myself to have the old stuff onlyabout my heart. "

He assumed the doublet and plaid, drew down upon his brow a bonnet withan eagle plume; turned him to the weapons. The knife--the pistols--thedirk, went to their places, and last he put his hand upon the hilt of asword--not a claymore, but the weapon he had worn in the foreign field. As foolish a piece of masquerade as ever a child had found entertainmentin, and yet, if one could see it, with some great element of pathos andof dignity. For with every item of the discarded and degraded costumeof his race he seemed to put on a grace not there before, a manliness, a spirit that had lain in abeyance with the clothes in that mothy chest. It was no done man who eagerly trod the floor of that ruined chapel, nolack-lustre failure of life, but one complete, commingling action withhis sentiment. He felt the world spacious about him again; a summons toample fields beyond the rotting woods and the sonorous shore of Doom. The blood of his folk, that had somehow seemed to stay about his heartin indolent clots, began to course to every extremity, and gave hisbrain a tingling clarity, a wholesome intoxication of the perfect man. 

He drew the sword from its scabbard, joying hugely in the lisp of thesteel, at its gleam in the candle-light, and he felt anew the wonder ofone who had drunk the wine of life and venture to its lees. 

He made with the weapon an airy academic salute _à la Gerard_ and thenew school of fence, thrust swift in tierce like a sun-flash in forestafter rain, followed with a parade, and felt an expert's ecstasy. Theblood tingled to his veins; his eyes grew large and flashing; a flushcame to that cheek, for ordinary so wan. Over and over again he sheathedthe sword, and as often withdrew it from its scabbard. Then he handledthe dirk with the pleasure of a child. But always back to the sword, handled with beauty and aplomb, always back to the sword, and he had itbefore him, a beam of fatal light, when something startled him, as onestruck unexpectedly by a whip. 

There was a furious rapping at the outer door!

CHAPTER XVIII -- "Loch Sloy!"

The rap that startled Doom in the midst of his masquerade in the chapelof his house, came like the morning beat of drums to his guest a storeylower. Count Victor sprang up with a certainty that trouble brew, dressed with all speed, and yet with the coolness of one who hasheard alarums on menaced frontiers; took his sword in hand, hesitated, remembered Olivia, and laid it down again; then descended the dark stairthat seemed the very pit of hazards. 

A perturbing silence had succeeded the noisy summons on the oak, andMungo, with a bold aspect well essayed, but in no accord with thetremour of his knees and the pallor of his countenance, stood, indragging pantaloons and the gaudy Kilmarnock cap cocked upon his baldhead, at the stair-foot with a flambeau in his hand. He seemed hugelyrelieved to have the company of Count Victor. 

"Noo, wha the deevil can we hae here at sic an unearthly oor o' nicht?"said he, trying a querulous tone befitting an irate sentinel; butthe sentence trailed off unconvincingly, because his answer came toopromptly in another peremptory summons from without. 

"Lord keep 's!" whispered the little man, no longer studying to sustainhis martial _rôle_. He looked nervously at Count Victor standingsilently by, with some amusement at the perturbation of the garrison anda natural curiosity as to what so untimely a visit might portend. It wasapparent that Mungo was for once willing to delegate his duty as keeperof the bartizan to the first substitute who offered, but here was nomove to help him out of his quandary. 

"It's gey gash this!" whispered the little man. "And the tide in, too!And the oor sae late!"

These sinister circumstances seemed to pile upon his brain till hisknees bent below the weight of accumulated terror, and Montaiglon mustsmile at fears not all unreasonable, as he felt himself. 

"Oh! better late than never--is not that the proverb, Master Mungo?"said he. "Though, indeed, it is not particularly consoling to a widow'shusband. "

"I'd gie a pound Scots to ken wha chaps, " said Mungo, deaf to everyhumour. 

"Might I suggest your asking? It is, I have heard, the customaryproceeding, " said Count Victor. 

"Wha's there?" cried Mungo, with an ear to the wood, that appeared tohave nothing human outside, for now for a little there was absolutestillness. Then an answer as from a wraith--the humble request of someone for admission. 

"Noo, that's michty droll, " said Mungo, his face losing its alarm andtaking on a look of some astonishment. "Haud that, " and he thrust thetorch in the Frenchman's hand. Without another word he drew back thebars, opened the door, and put out his head. He was caught by the throatand plucked forth into the darkness. 

Count Victor could not have drawn a weapon had he had one ere thedoor fell in thundering on the walls. He got one glimpse of the _sansculottes_, appealed again to the De Chenier macer in his ancestry, andflung the flambeau at the first who entered. 

The light went out; he dropped at a boy's intuition upon a knee andlowered his head. Over him in the darkness poured his assailants, tooclose upon each other in their eagerness, and while they struggledat the stair-foot he drew softly back. Out in the night Mungo wailedlugubrious in the hands of some of his captors; within there wasa wonderful silence for a little, the baffled visitors recoveringthemselves with no waste of words, and mounting the stair in pursuit ofthe gentleman they presumed to have preceded them. When they were wellup, he went to the door and made it fast again, leaving Mungo to thefate his stupidity deserved. 

Doom's sleeping-chamber lay behind; he passed along the corridorquickly, knocked at the door, got no answer, and entered. 

It was as he had fancied--his host was gone, his couch had not beenoccupied. A storm of passion swept through him; he felt himself thatcontemptible thing, a man of the world betrayed by a wickedness thatought to be transparent. They were in the plot then, master and man, perhaps even--but no, that was a thought to quell on the moment ofits waking; she at least was innocent of all these machinations, andupstairs now, she shared, without a doubt, the alarms of Annapla. Thatfamiliar of shades and witches, that student of the fates, was anoisy poltroon when it was the material world that threatened; she wasshrieking again. 

"Loch Sloy! Loch Sloy!" now rose the voices overhead, surely themaddest place in the world for a Gaelic slogan: it gave him a sense ofunspeakable savagery and antique, for it was two hundred years since hisown family had cried "Cammercy!" on stricken fields. 

He paused a moment, irresolute. 

A veritable farce! he thought. It would have been so much easier for hishost to hand him over without these play-house preliminaries. 

But Olivia! but Olivia!

He felt the good impulse of love and anger, the old ichor of hisfolk surged through his veins, and without a weapon he went upstairs, trusting to his wits to deal best with whatever he would thereencounter. 

It seemed an hour since they had entered; in truth it was but a minuteor two, and they were still in the bewildering blackness of the stair, one behind another in its narrow coils, and seemingly wisely dubious oftoo precipitate an advance. He estimated that they numbered less thanhalf a dozen when he came upon the rear-most of the _queue_. 

"Loch Sloy!" cried the leader, somewhat too theatrically for illusion. 

"Cammercy for me!" thought Montaiglon: he was upon the tail, andclutched to drag the last man down. Fate was kind, she gave the bareknees of the enemy to his hand, and behold! here was his instrument--inthe customary knife stuck in the man's stocking. It was Count Victor'sat a flash: he stood a step higher, threw his arm over the shoulder ofthe man, pulled him backward into the pit of the stair and stabbed athim as he fell. 

"_Un!_" said he as the wretch collapsed upon himself, and the knifeseemed now unnecessary. He clutched the second man, who could not guessthe tragedy behind, for the night's business was all in front, andsurely only friends were in the rear--he clutched the second lower, andthrew him backward over his head. 

"_Deux!_" said Count Victor, as the man fell limp behind him upon hisunconscious confederate. 

The third in front turned like a viper when Count Victor's clutch cameon his waist, and drove out with his feet. The act was his own undoing. It met with no resistance, and the impetus of his kick carried him offthe balance and threw him on the top of his confederates below. 

"_Trois!_" said Montaiglon. "Pulling corks is the most excellenttraining for such a warfare, " and he set himself almost cheerfully tonumber four. 

But number four was not in the neck of the bottle: this ferment behindhim propelled him out upon the stairhead, and Montaiglon, who had thrownhimself upon him, fell with him on the floor. Both men recovered theirfeet at a spring. A moment's pause was noisy with the cries of thedomestic in her room, then the Frenchman felt a hand pass rapidlyover his habiliments and seek hurriedly for his throat, as on a suddeninspiration. What that precluded was too obvious: he fancied he couldfeel the poignard already plunging in his ribs, and he swiftly tried afall with his opponent. 

It was a wrestler's grip he sought, but a wrestler he found, for armsof a gigantic strength went round him, clasping his own to his side andrendering his knife futile; a Gaelic malediction hissed in his ear; hefelt breath hot and panting; his own failed miserably, and his bloodsang in his head with the pressure of those tremendous arms that caughthim to a chest like a cuirass of steel. But if his hands were bound hisfeet were free: he placed one behind his enemy and flung his weight uponhim, so that they fell together. This time Count Victor was uppermost. His hands were free of a sudden; he raised the knife to stab at thebreast heaving under him, but he heard as from another world--as from aworld of calm and angels--the voice of Olivia in her room crying forher father, and a revulsion seized him, so that he hesitated at his uglytask. It was less than a second's slackness, yet it was enough, for hisenemy rolled free and plunged for the stair. Montaiglon seized him as hefled; the skirt of his coat dragged through his hands, and left him witha button. He dropped it with a cry, and turned in the darkness to findhimself more frightfully menaced than before. 

This time the plunge of the dirk was actual; he felt it sear his sidelike a hot iron, and caught the wrist that held it only in time to checka second blow. His fingers slipped, his head swam; a moment more, anda Montaiglon was dead very far from his pleasant land of France, in aphantom castle upon a shadowy sea among savage ghosts. 

"Father! father!"

It was Olivia's voice; a light was thrown upon the scene, for she stoodbeside the combatants with a candle in her hand. 

They drew back at a mutual spasm, and Montaiglon saw that his antagonistwas the Baron of Doom!

CHAPTER XIX -- REVELATION

Doom, astounded, threw the dagger from him with an exclamation. Hiseyes, large and burning yet with passion, were wholly for Count Victor, though his daughter Olivia stood there at his side holding the lightthat had revealed the furies to each other, her hair in dark browncataracts on her shoulders, and eddying in bewitching curls upon herears and temples, that gleamed below like the foam of mountain pools. 

"Father! father! what does this mean?" she cried. "There is some fearfulmistake here. "

"That is not to exaggerate the position, at all events, " thought CountVictor, breathing hard, putting the knife unobserved behind him. He smiled to this vision and shrugged his shoulders. He left theelucidation of the mystery to the other gentleman, this counsellor offorgiveness and peace, clad head to foot in the garb he contemned, andcapable of some excellent practice with daggers in the darkness. 

"I'll never be able to say how much I regret this, Count Victor, " saidDoom. "Good God! your hands were going, and in a second or two more--"

"For so hurried a farce, " said Count Victor, "the lowered light wassomething of a mistake, _n'est ce pas?_ I--I--I just missed the pointof the joke, " and he glanced at the dagger glittering sinister in thecorner of the stair. 

"I have known your mistake all along, " cried Olivia. "Oh! it is astupid thing this. I will tell you! It is my father should have told youbefore. "

The clangour of the outer door closing recalled that there was dangerstill below. Olivia put a frightened hand on her father's arm. "Athousand pardons, Montaiglon, " cried he; "but here's a task to finish. "And without a word more of excuse or explanation he plunged downstairs. 

Count Victor looked dubiously after him, and made no move to follow. 

"Surely you will not be leaving him alone there, " said Olivia. "Oh! youhave not your sword. I will get your sword. " And before he could replyshe had flown to his room. She returned with the weapon. Her hand wasall trembling as she held it out to him. He took it slowly; there seemedno need for haste below now, for all was silent except the voices ofDoom and Mungo. 

"It is very good of you, Mademoiselle Olivia, " said he. "I thank you, but--but--you find me in a quandary. Am I to consider M. Le Baron asally or--or--or--" He hesitated to put the brutal alternative to thedaughter. 

Olivia stamped her foot impetuously, her visage disturbed by emotions ofanxiety, vexation, and shame. 

"Oh, go! go!" she cried. "You will not, surely, be taking my father fora traitor to his own house--for a murderer. "

"I desire to make the least of a pleasantry I am incapable ofcomprehending, yet his dagger was uncomfortably close to my ribs aminute or two ago, " sard Count Victor reflectively. 

"Oh!" she cried. "Is not this a coil? I must even go myself, " and shemade to descend. 

"Nay, nay, " said Count Victor softly, holding her back. "Nay, nay; Iwill go if your whole ancestry were ranked at the foot. "

"It is the most stupid thing, " she cried, as he left her; "I willexplain when you come up. My father is a Highland gentleman. "

"So, by the way, was Drimdarroch, " said Montaiglon, but that was tohimself. He smiled back into the illumination of the lady's candle, then descended into the darkness with a brow tense and frowning, and hisweapon prepared for anything. 

The stair was vacant, so was the corridor. The outer door was open; thesound of the sea came in faint murmurs, the mingled odours of pine andwrack borne with it. Out in the heavens a moon swung among her starsmost queenly and sedate, careless altogether of this mortal world ofstrife and terrors; the sea had a golden roadway. A lantern light bobbedon the outer edge of the rock, shining through Olivia's bower like awill-o'-the-wisp, and he could hear in low tones the voices of Doom andhis servant. Out at sea, but invisible, for beyond the moon's influence, a boat was being rowed fast: the beat of the oars on the thole-pins camedistinctly. And in the wood behind, now cut off from them by the ridingwaves, owls called incessantly. 

It was like a night in a dream, like some vast wheeling chimera offever--that plangent sea before, those terrors fleeing, and behind, amaiden left with her duenna in a castle demoniac. 

Doom and Mungo came back from the rock edge, silently almost, broodingover a mystery, and the three looked at each other. 

"Well, they are gone, " said the Baron at last, showing the way to hisguest. 

"What, gone!" said Montaiglon, incapable of restraining his irony. "Notall of them?"

"O Lord! but this is the nicht!" cried the little servant who carriedthe lantern. "I micht hae bided a' my days in Fife and never kent whatwar was. The only thing that daunts me is that I should hae missed mychance o' a whup at them, for they had me trussed like a cock before Iput my feet below me when they pu'd me oot. "

He drew the bars with nervous fingers, and seemed to dread his masteras much as he had done the enemy. Olivia had come down to the corridor;aloft Annapla had renewed her lamentations; the four of them stoodclustered in the narrow passage at the stair-foot. 

"What for did ye open the door, Mungo?" asked Doom, --not the Doom ofdoleful days, of melancholy evenings of study and of sour memories, notthe done man, but one alert and eager, a soldier, in the poise of hisbody, the set of his limbs, the spirit of his eye. 

"Here's a new man!" thought Montaiglon, silently regarding him. "Devilryappears to have a marvellous power of stimulation. "

"I opened the door, " said Mungo, much perturbed. 

"For what?" said Doom shortly. 

"There was a knock. "

"I heard it. The knock was obvious; it dirled the very roof of thehouse. But it was not necessary to open at a knock at this timeof morning; ye must have had a reason. Hospitality like that tohalf-a-dozen rogues from Arroquhar, who had already made a warm nightfor ye, was surely stretched a little too far. What did ye open for?"

Mungo seemed to range his mind for a reply. He looked to Montaiglon, but got no answer in the Frenchman's face; he looked over Montaiglon'sshoulder at Olivia, standing yet in the tremour of her fears, and hiseye lingered. It was no wonder, thought Count Victor, that it lingeredthere. 

"Come, come, I'm waiting my answer!" cried Doom, in a voice that mighthave stirred a corps in the battlefield. 

"I thought there wasna mair than ane, " said Mungo. 

"But even one! At this time of morning! And is it your custom to open toa summons of that kind without finding out who calls?"

"I thought I kent the voice, " said Mungo, furtively looking again atOlivia. 

"And whose was it, this voice that could command so ready and foolish anacquiescence on the part of my honest sentinel Mungo Boyd?" asked Doomincredulously. 

"Ye can ask that!" replied the servant desperately; "it's mair than Ican tell. All I ken is that I thought the voice fair-spoken, and I allooit was a daft-like thing to do, but I pu'ed the bar, I had nae soonerdune't nor I was gripped by the thrapple and kep' doon by a couple o'the blackguards that held me a' the time the ither three or four were--"

Doom caught him by the collar and shook him angrily. 

"Ye lie, ye Fife cat; I see't in your face!"

"I can speak as to the single voice and its humility, and to the suddenplucking forth of this gentleman, " said Count Victor quietly, at seaover this examination. But for the presence of the woman he would havecried out at the mockery of the thing. 

"You must hear my explanation, Montaiglon, " said Doom. "If you will cometo the hall, I will give it. Olivia, you will come too. I should havetaken your hints of yesterday morning, and the explanation of this mighthave been unnecessary. "

Doom and his guest went to the _salle_; Olivia lingered a moment behind. 

"Who was it, Mungo?" said she, whisperingly to the servant. "I know bythe face of you that you are keeping something from my father. "

"Am I?" said he. "Humph! It's Fife very soon for Mungo Boyd, I'm tellin'ye. "

"But who was it?" she persisted. 

"The Arroquhar men, " said he curtly; "and that's all I ken aboot it, "and he turned to leave her. 

"And that is not the truth, Mungo, " said Olivia, with great dignity. "Ithink with my father that you are telling what is not the true word, "and she said no more, but followed to the _salle_. 

On the stairway Count Victor had trod upon the button he had drawn fromthe skirts of his assailant; he picked it up without a word, to keepit as a souvenir. Doom preceded him into the room, lit some candleshurriedly at the smouldering fire, and turned to offer him a chair. 

"Our--our friends are gone, " said he. "You seem to have badly woundedone of them, for the others carried him bleeding to the water-side, aswe have seen from his blood-marks on the rock: they have gone, as theyapparently must have come, by boat. Sit down, Olivia. "

His daughter had entered. She had hurriedly coiled her hair up, and thehappy carelessness of it pleased Montaiglon's eye like a picture. 

Still he said nothing; he could not trust himself to speak, facing, ashe fancied yet he did, a traitor. 

"I see from your face you must still be dubious of me, " said Doom. He waited for no reply, but paced up and down the room excitedly, the pleats of his kilt and the thongs of his purse swinging to hismovements: a handsome figure, as Mont-aiglon could not but confess. "Iam still shattered at the nerve to think that I had almost taken yourlife there in a fool's blunder. You must wonder to see me in this--inthis costume. "

He could not even yet come to his explanation, and Olivia must help him. 

"What my father would tell you, if he was not in such a trouble, CountVictor, is what I did my best to let you know last night. It is justthat he breaks the laws of George the king in this small affair of ourHighland tartan. It is a fancy of his to be wearing it in an evening, and the bats in the chapel upstairs are too blind to know what a rebelit is that must be play-acting old days and old styles among them. "

A faint light came suddenly to Count Victor. 

"Ah!" said he, "it is not, mademoiselle, that the bats alone are blind;here is a very blind Montaiglon. I implore your pardon, M. Le Baron. Itis good to be frank, though it is sometimes unpleasant, and I must pleadguilty to an imbecile misapprehension. "

Doom flushed, and took the proffered hand. 

"My good Montaiglon, " said he, "I'm the most shamefaced man this dayin the shire of Argyll. Need I be telling you that I have all Olivia'ssentiment and none of her honest courage?"

"My dear father!" cried Olivia fondly, looking with melting eyes ather parent; and Count Victor, too, thought this mummer no inadmirablefigure. 

"It is nothing more than my indulgence in the tartan that makes yourhost look sometimes scarcely trustworthy; and my secret got its rightpunishment this night. I will not be able to wear a kilt with an easyconscience for some time to come. "

"My faith! Baron, that were a penance out of all proportion!" said CountVictor, laughing. "If you nearly gave me the key of the Olympian meadowsthere, 'tis I that have brought these outlaws about your ears. "

"What beats me is that they should make so much ado about a trifle. "

"A trifle!" said Count Victor. "True, in a sense. The wretch but died. We must all die; we all know it, though none of us believe it. "

"I am glad to say that after all you only wounded yon Macfarlane; soPetullo learned but yesterday, and I clean forgot to tell you sooner. "

Montaiglon looked mightily relieved. 

"So!" said he; "I shall give a score of the best candles to St. Denys--ifI remember when I get home again. You could not have told me such goodtidings a moment too soon, dear M. Le Baron, though of course a smallaffair like that would naturally escape one's memory. "

"He was as good as dead, by all rumour; but being a thief and anArroquhar man, he naturally recovered: and now it's the oddest thingin the world that an accident of the nature, that is all, as Black Andywell must know, in the ordinary way of business, should bring about somuch _fracas_. "

"It was part of my delusion, " said Count Victor, "to fancy Mungo notentirely innocent. As you observed, he opened the door with an excess ofhospitality. "

"Yes, that was droll, " confessed Doom, reflectively. "That was droll, indeed; but Mungo hates the very name of Arroquhar, and all that comesfrom it. "

"Except our Annapla, " suggested Olivia, smiling. 

"Oh, except Annapla, of course!" said her father. "He's to marry her toavert her Evil Eye. "

"And is she a Macfarlane?" asked Montaiglon, surprised. 

"No less, " replied Doom. "She's a cousin of Andy's; but there's littlelove lost between them. "

"Speaking of bats!" thought Count Victor, but he did not hint at his newconclusions. "Well, I am glad, " said he; "they left me but remorse lasttime; this time here's a souvenir, " and he showed the button. 

It was a silver chamfered lozenge, conspicuous and unforgettable. 

"Stolen gear, doubtless, " guessed the Baron, looking at it withindifference. "Silver buttons are not rife between here and the pass ofBalmaha. "

"Let me see it, please?" said Olivia. 

She took it in her hand but for a moment, turned slightly aside to lookmore closely at it in the sconce-light, paled with some emotion, andgave it back with slightly trembling fingers. 

"I have a headache, " she said suddenly. "I am not so brave as I thoughtI was; you will let me say good night?"

She smiled to Count Victor with a face most wan. 

"My dear, you are like a ghost, " said her father, and as she left theroom he looked after her affectionately. 

CHAPTER XX -- AN EVENING'S MELODY IN THE BOAR'S HEAD INN

The Boar's Head Inn, for all its fine cognomen, was little better thanany of the numerous taverns that kept discreet half-open doors to thewynds and closes of the Duke's burgh town, but custom made it a preserveof the upper class in the community. There it was the writers met theirclients and cozened them into costly law pleas over the genial jugor chopine; the through-going stranger took his pack there and dweltcheaply in the attics that looked upon the bay and upon the littleharbour where traffic dozed upon the swinging tide, waiting the goodwillof mariners in no hurry to leave a port so alluring; in its smoke-grimedpublic-room skippers frequented, full of loud tales of roving, and eventhe retinue of MacCailen was not averse from an evening's merriment in acompany where no restraint of the castle was expected, and his Grace wasmentioned but vaguely as a personal pronoun. 

There was in the inn a _sanctum sanctorum_ where only were allowed thebailies of the burgh, a tacksman of position, perhaps, from the landwardpart, or the like of the Duke's Chamberlain, who was no bacchanal, butloved the company of honest men in their hours of manumission. Here thebottle was of the best, and the conversation most genteel--otherwisethere had been no Sim MacTaggart in the company where he reigned theking. It was a state that called for shrewd deportment. One must not betoo free, for an excess of freedom cheapened the affability, and yetone must be hail fellow with magistrate--and even an odd mastermariner--with no touch of condescension for the Highland among them whocould scent the same like _aqua vito_ and resent it like a push of thehand. 

He came not often, but ever was he welcome, those nights the moreglorious for his qualities of humour and generosity, his tales thatstirred like the brassy cry of trumpets, his tolerance of the fool andhis folly, his fatalist excuse for any sin except the scurviest. Andthere was the flageolet! You will hear the echo of it yet in that burghtown where he performed; its charm lingers in melodies hummed or pipedby old folks of winter nights, its magic has been made the stuff ofmyth, so that as children we have heard the sound of Simon's instrumentin the spring woods when we went there white-hay-gathering, or forfagots for the schoolhouse fire. 

A few nights after that thundering canter from the spider's den whereKate Petullo sat amid her coils, the Chamberlain went to wander careamong easy hearts. It was a season of mild weather though on the eveof winter; even yet the perfume of the stubble-field and of fruitage inforest and plantation breathed all about the country of Mac-CailenMor. Before the windows of the inn the bay lay warm and placid, andDunchuach, wood-mantled, and the hills beyond it vague, remote, andhaunted all by story, seemed to swim in a benign air, and theouter world drew the souls of these men in a tavern into a briefacquaintanceship. The window of the large room they sat in lookedout upon this world new lit by the tender moon that hung on Strome. A magistrate made to shutter it and bring the hour of Bacchus all thefaster. 

"Hold there, Bailie!" cried the Chamberlain. "Good God! let us have solong as we can of a night so clean and wholesome. "

It needed but a hint of that nature from this creature of romance andcurious destiny to silence their unprofitable discourse over herdsand session discipline, and for a space they sat about the window, surrendered to the beauty of the night. So still that outer world, sovacant of living creature, that it might have been a picture! In themidst of their half circle the Chamberlain lay back in his chair anddrank the vision in by gloating eyes. 

"Upon my word, " said he at last in a voice that had the rich profound ofpassion--"upon my word, we are the undeserving dogs!" and at an impulsehe took his flageolet and played a Highland air. It had the properspirit of the hour--the rapturous evening pipe of birds in dewythickets, serene yet someway touched by melancholy; there was no manthere among them who did not in his breast repeat its words that havebeen heard for generations in hillside milking-folds where women puttheir ruddy cheeks against the kine and look along the valleys, singingsoftly to the accompaniment of the gushing pail. 

He held his audience by a chain of gold: perhaps he knew it, perhaps hejoyed in it, but his half-shut eyes revealed no more than that he stillsaw the beauty and peace of the night and thus rendered an oblation. 

His melody ceased as abruptly as it began. Up he got hastily and stampedhis foot and turned to the table where the bottle lay and cried loud outfor lights, as one might do ashamed of a womanly weakness, and it is theHighland heart that his friends should like him all the more for thatdisplay of sentiment and shyness to confess it. 

"By the Lord, Factor, and it's you have the skill of it!" said theProvost, in tones of lofty admiration. 

"Is't the bit reed?" said the Chamberlain, indifferently. "Your boyDavie could learn to play better than I in a month's lessons. "

"It's no' altogether the playing though, " said the Provost slowly, ruminating as on a problem; "it's that too, but it's more than that;it's the seizing of the time and tune to play. I'm no great musicianermyself, though I have tried the trump; but there the now--with thenight like that, and us like this, and all the rest of it--that lilt ofyours--oh, damn! pass the bottle; what for should a man be melancholy?"He poured some wine and gulped it hurriedly. 

"Never heard the beat of it!" said the others. "Give us a rant, Factor, "and round the table they gathered: the candles were being lit, theambrosial night was to begin. 

Simon MacTaggart looked round his company--at some with the maudlin tearof sentiment still on their cheeks, at others eager to escape this softmoment and make the beaker clink. 

"My sorrow!" thought he, "what a corps to entertain! Is it the samestuff as myself? Is this the best that Sim MacTaggart that knows andfeels things can be doing? And still they're worthy fellows, still Imust be liking them. "

"Rants!" he cried, and stood among them tall and straight and handsome, with lowering dark brows, and his face more pale than they had known itcustomarily, --"a little less rant would be the better for us. Take myword for it, the canty quiet lilt in the evening, and the lights low, and calm and honest thoughts with us, is better than all the rant andchorus, and I've tried them both. But heaven forbid that Sim MacTaggartshould turn to preaching in his middle age. "

"Faith! and it's very true what you say, Factor, " acquiesced somesycophant. 

The Chamberlain looked at him half in pity, half in amusement. "How do_you_ ken, Bailie?" said he; "what are yearlings at Fa'kirk Tryst?" Andthen, waiting no answer to what demanded none, he put the flageolet tohis lips again and began to play a strathspey to which the company inthe true bucolic style beat time with feet below the table. He changedto the tune of a minuet, then essayed at a melody more sweet andhaunting than them all, but broken ere its finish. 

"A hole in the ballant, " commented the Provost. "Have another skelp atit, Factor. "

"Later on perhaps, " said Sim MacTaggart. "The end of it aye escapes mymemory. Rather a taking tune, I think--don't you? Just a little--just alittle too much of the psalm in it for common everyday use, but man!it grips me curiously;" and then on a hint from one at his shoulder heplayed "The Devil in the Kitchen, " a dance that might have charmed theimps of Hallowe'en. 

He was in the midst of it when the door of the room opened and a beggarlooked in--a starven character of the neighbourhood parish, all bedeckedwith cheap brooches and babs of ribbon, leading by the hand the littlechild of his daughter wronged and dead. He said never a word but stoodjust within the door expectant--a reproach to cleanliness, content, goodclothes, the well fed, and all who make believe to love their fellows. 

"Go away, Baldy!" cried the Bailies sharply, vexed by this intrusion ontheir moments of carouse; no one of them had a friendly eye for the oldwanderer, in his blue coat, and dumb but for his beggar's badge and thechild that clung to his hand. 

It was the child that Sim MacTaggart saw. He thought of many things ashe looked at the little one, white-haired, bare-footed, and large-eyed. 

"Come here, my dear!" said he, quite tenderly, smiling upon her. 

She would have been afraid but for the manifest kindness of that darkcommanding stranger; it was only shyness that kept her from obeying. 

The Chamberlain rose and went over to the door and cried upon thelandlord. "You will have a chopine of ale, Baldy, " said he to the oldwreck; "sometimes it's all the difference between hell-fire and content, and--for God's sake buy the bairn a pair of boots!" As he spoke heslipped, by a motion studiously concealed from the company, some silverinto the beggar's poke. 

The ale came in, the beggar drank for a moment, the Chamberlain took thechild upon his knee, his face made fine and noble by some sweet humansentiment, and he kissed her, ere she went, upon the brow. 

For a space the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the Boar's Head Inn was ill atease. This sort of thing--so common in Sim MacTaggart, who made friendswith every gangrel he met--was like a week-day sermon, and theyconsidered the Sunday homilies of Dr. Macivor quite enough. They muchpreferred their Simon in his more common mood of wild devilry, andnobody knew it better than the gentleman himself. 

"Oh, damn the lousy tribe of them!" cried he, beating his palm upon thetable; "what's Long Davie the dempster thinking of to be letting suchfolk come scorning here?"

"I'll warrant they get more encouragement here than they do in Lorn, "said the Provost, shrewdly, for he had seen the glint of coin and knewhis man. "You beat all, Factor! If I lived a hundred years, you would bemore than I could fathom. Well, well, pass the bottle, and ye might haveanother skelp at yon tune if it's your pleasure. "

The Chamberlain most willingly complied: it was the easiest retort tothe Provost's vague allusion. 

He played the tune again; once more its conclusion baffled him, and ashe tried a futile repetition Count Victor stood listening in the lobbyof the Boar's Head Inn. 

CHAPTER XXI -- COUNT VICTOR CHANGES HIS QUARTERS

Count Victor said _Au revoir_ to Doom Castle that afternoon. 

Mungo had rowed him down by boat to the harbour and left him with hisvalise at the inn, pleased mightily that his cares as garrison were tobe relieved by the departure of one who so much attracted the unpleasantattention of nocturnal foes, and returned home with the easiest mind hehad enjoyed since the fateful day the Frenchman waded to the rock. Asfor Count Victor, his feelings were mingled. He had left Doom from adouble sense of duty, and yet had he been another man he would havebided for love. After last evening's uproar, plain decency demanded thatJonah should obviate a repetition by removing himself elsewhere. Therewas also another consideration as pregnant, yet more delicate: thetraditions of his class and family as well as his natural sense ofhonour compelled his separation from the fascinating influence of theingenuous woman whose affections were pledged in another quarter. Ina couple of days he had fallen desperately in love with Olivia--aprecipitation that might seem ridiculous in any man of the world whowas not a Montaiglon satiated by acquaintance with scores of DameStratagems, fair _intrigueuses_ and puppets without hearts belowtheir modish bodices. Olivia charmed by her freshness, and the simplefrankness of her nature, with its deep emotions, gave him infinitelymore surprise and thrill than any woman he had met before. "Wisdomwanting absolute honesty, " he told himself, "is only craft: I discoverthat a monstrous deal of cleverness I have seen in her sex is onlyanother kind of cosmetic daubed on with a sponge. "

And then, too, Olivia that morning seemed to have become all of a suddenvery cold to him. He was piqued at her silence, he was more than piquedto discover that she too, like Mungo, obviously considered his removal arelief. 

Behold him, then, with his quarters taken in the Boar's Head Inn, whenceby good luck the legal gang of Edinburgh had some hours before departed, standing in the entrance feeling himself more the foreigner than ever, with the vexing reflection that he had not made any progress in theobject of his embassy, but, on the contrary, had lost no little degreeof his zest therein. 

The sound of the flageolet was at once a blow and a salute. Thatunaccomplished air had helped to woo Olivia in her bower, but yet itgave a link with her, the solace of the thought that here was one sheknew. Was it not something of good fortune that it should lead him toidentify and meet one whose very name was still unknown to him, but withwhom he was, in a faint measure, on slight terms of confederacy throughthe confession of Olivia and the confidence of Mungo Boyd?

"_Toujours l'audace!_" thought he, and he asked for the innkeeper'sintroduction to the performer. "If it may be permitted, and thegentleman is not too pressingly engaged. "

"Indeed, " said the innkeeper--a jovial rosy gentleman, typical of hiskind--"indeed, and it may very well be permitted, and it would not bealtogether to my disadvantage that his lordship should be out of there, for the Bailies cannot very well be drinking deep and listening to Mr. Simon MacTag-gart's songs, as I have experienced afore. The name?"

"He never heard it, " said Count Victor, "but it happens to beMontaiglon, and I was till this moment in the odd position of notknowing his, though we have a common friend. "

A few minutes later the Chamberlain stood before him with the end of theflageolet protruding from the breast of his coat. 

As they met in the narrow confine of the lobby--on either hand of themclosed rooms noisy with clink of drinking-ware, with laugh and jest andall that rumour of carouse--Montaiglon's first impression was exceedingfavourable. This Chamberlain pleased his eye to start with; his mannerwas fine-bred in spite of a second's confusion; his accent was cordial, and the flageolet displayed with no attempt at concealment, captured theheart of the Frenchman, who had been long enough in these isles toweary of a national character that dare not surrender itself to anyunbusiness-like frisking in the meadows. And one thing more there wasrevealed--here was the kilted gallant of the miniature in Olivia'schamber, and here was the unfriendly horseman of the wood, here in finewas the lover of the story, and the jealousy (if it was a jealousy) hehad felt in the wood, forgotten, for he smiled. 

But now he was face to face with Olivia's lover, Count Victor discoveredthat he had not the slightest excuse for referring to her who was theonly association between them! The lady herself and Mungo Boyd hadconveyed a sense of very close conspiracy between all four, but fromneither the lady nor any one else in Doom had he any passport to thefriendship of this gentleman. It was only for a moment the difficultiesof the situation mastered him. 

"I have permitted myself, monsieur, to intrude upon you upon anexcuse that must seem scandalously inadequate, " said he. "My name isMontaiglon--"

"With the particle, I think?" said Sim MacTaggart. 

Count Victor started slightly. 

"But yes, " said he, "it is so, though I never march with much baggage, and a De to a traveller is like a second hat. It is, then, that it isperhaps unnecessary to say more of myself?"

The Chamberlain with much _bonhomie_ grasped his hand. 

"M. Montaiglon, " said he, "I am very proud to meet you. I fancy acertain lady and I owe something to your consideration, and SimonMacTaggart stands upon no ceremony. "

Count Victor winced slightly at the conjunction, but otherwise he wasdelighted. 

"I am ravished, monsieur!" said he. "Ceremony is like some people'sassumption of dignity--the false bottoms they put in their boots toconceal the fact that they are under the average height, is it not?"

Arm in arm they went out in front of the inn and walked along the bay, and the Provost and the Bailies were left mourning for their king. 

"You must not fancy the name and the reputation of the gentlemen ofCammercy unknown in these parts, " said the Chamberlain. "When thelady--who need not be more specifically mentioned--told me you had cometo Doom, it was like the over-come of a song at first that I had heardof you before. And now that I see you, I mind the story went, when I wasat Dunkerque some years ago, that Count Victor Jean, if all his othernatural gifts had failed him, might have made a noble fortune as a_maître d'escrime_. Sir, I am an indifferent hand with the rapiermyself, but I aye liked to see a man that was its master. "

"You are very good, " said Montaiglon, "and yet such a reputation, exaggerated as I fear it may be, is not, by my faith! the one I shoulddesire under the circumstances that, as you have doubtless furtherheard, bring me here. "

"About that, M. Montaiglon, it is perhaps as well that the Duke ofArgyll's Chamberlain should know nothing at all. You are a wild lot, mygallant Jacobites"--he laughed softly as he spoke. "Between ourselvesI have been more than bottle friends with some lovable persons onyour side of the house, and you will be good enough to consider SimonMacTaggart no politician, though the Duke's Chamberlain _ex officio_ isbound to be enemy to every man who will not swear King George the bestof monarchs. "

"From what I know of affairs in Europe now, and for all our heroicsof invasion, " said Count Victor, "his Majesty is like to remain inundisputed possession, and you may take my word for it, no affair ofhigh politics is responsible for my being here. Monsieur himself hasdoubtless had affairs. I am seeking but for one man--"

"Drimdarroch, " said the Chamberlain. "So the lady told me. OurDrimdarroch will not provide very much interest for a _maîtred'escrime_, " and he laughed as he pictured Petullo the writer shiveringbefore a flash of steel. 

"Ah! you speak of the lawyer: Doom told me of him, and as he was goodenough to interest himself in my lodging in this place, I must makehim my compliments at the earliest and tell him I have settled down formyself in the _auberge_. "

"To that much at least I can help you, though in the other affairI'm neutral in spite of my interest in any ploy of the kind. There'sPetullo's house across the way; I'm on certain terms with him; if youcare, we could see him now. "

"_Le plus tôt sera le mieux!_" said Count Victor. 

The Chamberlain led the way. 

CHAPTER XXII -- THE LONELY LADY

When Petullo's work was done of an evening it was his practice to sitwith his wife in their huge and draughty parlour, practising the goodhusband and the domestic virtues in an upright zealous manner, such asone may read of in the books. A noble thing to do, but what's the goodof it when hearts are miles apart and the practitioner is a man of rags?Yet there he sat, strewing himself with snuff to keep himself awake, blinking with dim eyes at her, wondering for ever at her inscrutablenature, conversing improvingly upon his cases in the courts, or uponhis growing fortune that he computed nightly like a miser. Sometimes, inspite of his drenchings of macabaw, sleep compelled him, and, humped inhis lug-chair, he would forget his duty, yet waken at her every yawn. And she--she just looked at him as he slept! She looked--and loathedherself, that she--so clean, so graceful, so sweet in spite of all hersin--should be allied with a dead man. The evenings passed for her onfettered hours; but for the window she had died from her incubus, or atleast stood up and shrieked and ran into the street. 

But for the window! From there she saw the hill Dunchuach, so tranquil, and the bosky deeps of Shira Glen that she knew so well in duskyevenings and in moonlight, and must ever tenant, in her fancy, withthe man she used to meet there. Often she would turn her back upon thatwizened atomy of quirks and false ideals, and let her bosom pant tothink to-night!--to-night!--to-night!

When the Chamberlain and Montaiglon were announced she could havecried aloud with joy. It was not hard in that moment of her elation tounderstand why once the Chamberlain had loved her; beside the man towhom her own mad young ambition manacled her she seemed a vision ofbeauty none the worse for being just a little ripened. 

"Come awa' in!" cried the lawyer with effusion. "You'll find themistress and me our lones, and nearly tiring o' each other's company. "

The Chamberlain was disappointed. It was one of those evenings when Mrs. Petullo was used to seek him in the woods, and he had thought to findher husband by himself. 

"A perfect picture of a happy hearth, eh?" said he. "I'm sweared tospoil it, but I'm bound to lose no time in bringing to you my goodfriend M. Montaiglon, who has taken up his quarters at the Boar's Head. Madam, may I have the pleasure of introducing to you M. Montaiglon?" andSim Mac-Taggart looked in her eyes with some impatience, for she hungjust a second too long upon his fingers, and pinched ere she releasedthem. 

She was delighted to make monsieur's acquaintance. Her husband had toldher that monsieur was staying farther up the coast and intended to cometo town. . Monsieur was in business; she feared times were not what theywere for business in Argyll, but the air was bracing--and much to thesame effect, which sent the pseudo wine merchant gladly into the handsof her less ceremonious husband. 

As for Petullo, he was lukewarm. He saw no prospects of profit from thisdubious foreigner thrust upon his attention by his well-squeezed clientthe Baron of Doom. Yet something of style, some sign of race in thestranger, thawed him out of his suspicious reserve, and he was kindenough to be condescending to his visitor while cursing the man who senthim there and the man who guided him. They sat together at the window, and meanwhile in the inner end of the room a lonely lady made shamefullove. 

"Oh, Sim!" she whispered, sitting beside him on the couch and placingthe candlestick on a table behind them; "this is just like oldtimes--the dear darling old times, isn't it?"

She referred to the first of their _liaison_, when they made their lovein that same room under the very nose of a purblind husband. 

The Chamberlain toyed with his silver box and found it easiest to getout of a response by a sigh that might mean anything. 

"You have the loveliest hand, " she went on, looking at his fingers, that certainly were shapely enough, as no one knew better than SimonMac-Taggart. "I don't say you are in any way handsome, "--her eyesbetrayed her real thought, --"but I'll admit to the hands, --they're dearpets, Sim. "

He thrust them in his pockets. 

"Heavens! Kate!" he protested in a low tone, and assuming a quiteunnecessary look of vacuity for the benefit of the husband, who gazedacross the dim-lit room at them, "don't behave like an idiot; faithfulwives never let their husbands see them looking like that at anotherman's fingers. What do you think of our monsher? He's a pretty enoughfellow, if you'll not give me the credit. "

"Oh, he's good enough, I daresay, " she answered without looking aside amoment. "I would think him much better if he was an inch or two taller, a shade blacker, and Hielan' to boot. But tell me this, and tell meno more, Sim; where has your lordship been for three whole days? Threewhole days, Simon MacTaggart, and not a word of explanation. Are younot ashamed of yourself, sir? Do you know that I was along the riversideevery night this week? Can you fancy what I felt to hear your flageoletplaying for tipsy fools in Ludovic's room? Very well, I said: let him!I have pride of my own, and I was so angry to-night that I said I wouldnever go again to meet you. You cannot blame me if I was not thereto-night, Sim. But there!--seeing you have rued your cruelty to me andmade an excuse to see me even before him, there, I'll forgive you. "

"Oh! well!" drawled the Chamberlain, ambiguously. 

"But I can't make another excuse this week. He sits in here every night, and has a new daft notion for late suppers. Blame yourself for it, Sim, but there can be no trysts this week. "

"I'm a most singularly unlucky person, " said the Chamberlain, in a tonethat deaf love alone could fail to take alarm at. 

"I heard a story to-day that frightened me, Sim, " she went on, taking upsome fine knitting and bending over it while she spoke rapidly, alwaysin tones too low to carry across the room. "It was that you have beenhanging about that girl of Doom's you met here. "

The Chamberlain damned internally. 

"Don't believe all you hear, Kate, " said he. "And even if it was thecase, "--he broke off in a faint laugh. 

"Even if what?" she repeated, looking up. 

"Even if--even if there was anything in the story, who's to blame? Yourgoodman's not the ass he sometimes looks. "

"You mean that he was the first to put her in your way, and that he hadhis own reasons?"

The Chamberlain nodded. 

Mrs. Petullo's fingers rushed the life out of her knitting. "If Ithought--if I thought!" she said, leaving the sentence unfinished. No more was necessary; Sim MacTaggart thanked heaven he was not matedirrevocably. 

"Is it true?" she asked. "Is it true of you, Sim, who did your best tomake me push Petullo to Doom's ruin?"

"Now, my dear, you talk the damnedest nonsense!" said Simon MacTaggartfirmly. "I pushed in no way; the fool dropped into your husband's handslike a ripe plum. I have plenty of shortcomings of my own to answer forwithout getting the blame of others. "

"Don't lie like that, Sim, dear, " said Mrs. Petullo, decidedly. "Mymemory is not gone yet, though you seem to think me getting old. Oh yes!I have all my faculties about me still. "

"I wish to the Lord you had prudence; old Vellum's cocking his lugs. "

"Oh, I don't care if he is; you make me desperate, Sim. " Her needlesthrust like poignards, her bosom heaved. "You may deny it if you like, but who pressed me to urge him on to take Drim-darroch? Who said itmight be so happy a home for us when--when--my goodman there--when I wasfree?"

"Heavens! what a hangman's notion!" thought the Chamberlain to himself, with a swift side glance at this termagant, and a single thought of calmOlivia. 

"You have nothing to say to that, Sim, I see. It's just too late in theday for you to be virtuous, laddie; your Kate knows you and she likesyou better as you are than as you think you would like to be. We were sohappy, Sim, we were so happy!" A tear dropped on her lap. 

"Now heaven forgive me for my infernal folly!" cried out the soul of SimMacTaggart; but never a word did he say aloud. 

Count Victor, at the other end of the room, listening to Petullo uponwines he was supposed to sell and whereof Petullo was supposed to bea connoisseur, though as a fact his honest taste was buttermilk--CountVictor became interested in the other pair. He saw what it took youngereyes, and a different experience from those of the husband, to observe. 

"Cognac, "--this to M. Le Connoisseur with the rheumy eye--"but yes, itis good; your taste in that must be a national affair, is it not? Ourbest, the La Rochelle, has the name of a Scot--I think of Fife--upon thecask;" but to himself, with a glance again at the tragic comedy in thecorner of the couch, "_Fi donc!_ Mungo had reason; my gentleman of thedark eye is suspiciously like _cavalière servante_. "

The Chamberlain began to speak fast upon topics of no moment, dreadingthe consequence of this surrender on the woman's part: she heard nothingas she thrust furiously and blindly with her needles, her eyes suffusedwith tears courageously restrained. At last she checked him. 

"All that means, Sim, that it's true about the girl, " said she. "I triedto think it was a lie when I heard it, but now you compel me to believeyou are a brute. You are a brute, Sim, do you hear that? Oh God! oh God!that ever I saw you! That ever I believed you! What is wrong with me, Sim? tell me, Sim! What is wrong with me? Am I different in any way fromwhat I was last spring? Surely I'm not so old as all that; not a greyhair in my head, not a wrinkle on my face. I could keep like that fortwenty years yet, just for love of Sim MacTaggart. Sim, say something, for the love of Heaven! Say it's a lie. Laugh at the story, Sim! Oh, Sim! Sim!"

The knitting needles clicked upon each other in her trembling hands, like fairy castanets. 

"Who will say that man's fate is in his own fingers?" the Chamberlainasked himself, at the very end of patience. "From the day I breathed Igot no chance. A clean and decent road's before me and a comrade for it, and I'm in the mood to take it, and here's the glaur about my feet! Iwonder what monsieur there would do in a plight like mine. Lord! I envyhim to be sitting there, and never a skeleton tugging at his sleeve. "

Mrs. Petullo gulped a sob, and gave a single glance into his face as hestared across the room. 

"Why do you hate that man?" she asked, suddenly. 

"Who?" said he smiling, and glad that the wild rush of reproach waschecked. "Is it monsher? I hate nobody, my dear Kate, except sometimesmyself for sin and folly. "

"And still and on you hate that man, " said she convinced. "Oh no! notwith that face, with the face you had a second ago. I think--oh! I canguess the reason; he has been up in Doom Castle; has he been gettinground Miss Milk-and-Water? If he has, he's far more like her than youare. You made me pauperise her father, Sim; I'm sorry it was not worse. I'll see that Petullo has them rouped from the door. "

"Adorable Kate!" said the Chamberlain, ironically. 

Her face flamed, she pressed her hand on her side. 

"I'll not forget that, Sim, " said she with a voice of marvellous calm, bracing herself to look indifferently across the room at her husband. "I'll not forget many things, Sim. I thought the man I was to raise fromthe lackey that you were ten years ago would have some gratitude. No, no, no, Sim; I do not mean that, forgive me. Don't look at me likethat! Where are you to be to-morrow night, Sim? I could meet you at thebridge; I'll make some excuse, and I want you to see my new gown--such agown, Sim! I know what you're thinking, it would be too dark to see it;but you could strike a light, sweetheart, and look. Do you mind whenyou did that over and over again the first time, to see my eyes? I'm notgoing to say another word about--about Miss Milk-and-Water, if that'swhat angers you. She could never understand my Sim, or love the veryworm he tramps on as I do. Now look at me smiling; ain't I brave? Wouldany one know to see me that my heart was sore? Be kind to me, Sim, oh!be kind to me; you should be kind to me, with all you promised!"

"Madame is smiling into a mist; alas! poor M. Petullo!" thought CountVictor, seeing the lady standing up and looking across the room. 

"Kate, " said the Chamberlain in a whisper, pulling unobserved at hergown, "I have something to say to you. "

She sat down again in a transport, her cheeks reddening, her eyesdancing; poor soul! she was glad nowadays of the very crumbs ofaffection from Sim MacTaggart's table. 

"I know you are going to say 'Yes' for to-morrow night, Sim, " saidshe triumphant. "Oh, you are my own darling! For that I'll forgive youeverything. "

"There's to be no more nonsense of this kind, Kate, " said theChamberlain. "We have been fools--I see that quite plainly--and I'm notgoing to carry it on any longer. "

"That is very kind of you, " said Mrs. Petullo, with the ring of metalin her accent and her eyes on fire. "Do you feel a great deal of remorseabout it?"

"I do, " said he, wondering what she was to be at next. 

"Poor man! I was aye sure your conscience would be the death of you someday. And it's to be the pretext for throwing over unhappy Kate Cameron, is it?"

"Not Kate Cameron--her I loved--but Mrs. Petullo. "

"Whom you only made-believe to? That is spoken like a true Highlandgentleman, Sim. I'm to be dismissed with just that amount of politenessthat will save my feelings. I thought you knew me better, Sim. Ithought you could make a more plausible excuse than that for the dirtytransaction when it had to be done, as they say it must be done sometime with all who are in our position. As sure as death I prefer the oldcountry style that's in the songs, where he laughs and rides away. ButI'm no fool, Sim; what about Miss Milk-and-Water? Has she been hearingabout me, I wonder, and finding fault with her new jo? The Lord help herif she trusts him as I did!"

"I want you to give me a chance, Kate, " said the Chamberlaindesperately. Petullo and the Count were still intently talking; thetragedy was in the poor light of a guttering candle. 

"A chance?" she repeated vaguely, her eyes in vacancy, a broken heartshown in the corners of her mouth, the sudden aging of her countenance. 

"That's it, Kate; you understand, don't you? A chance. I'm a boy nolonger. I want to be a better man--" The sentence trailed off, forthe Chamberlain could not but see himself in the most contemptible oflights. 

"A better man!" said she, her knitting and her hands drowned in her lap, her countenance hollow and wan. "Lord keep me, a better man! And am I tobe any the better woman when my old lover is turned righteous? Have youno' a thought at all for me when I'm to be left with him that's not myactual husband, left without love, hope, or self-respect? God help poorwomen! It's Milk-and-Water then; that's settled, and I'm to see you atthe kirk with her for a lifetime of Sundays after this, an honest woman, and me what I am for you that have forgotten me--forgotten me! I was asgood as she when you knew me first, Sim; I was not bad, and oh, my God!but I loved you, Sim Mac-Taggart!"

"Of all that's damnable, " said the Chamberlain to himself, "there'snothing beats a whining woman!" He was in a mortal terror that hertransports could be heard across the room, and that would be to spoilall with a vengeance. 

"God pity women!" she went on. "It's a lesson. I was so happy sometimesthat it frightened me, and now I know I was right. "

"What do you say, my dear?" cried out Petullo across the room, suspiciously. He fancied he had heard an over-eager accent in herlast words, that were louder spoken than all that had gone before. Fortunately he could not make out her face as he looked, otherwisehe would have seen, as Montaiglon did with some surprise, a mask ofTragedy. 

"I'm giving Mr. MacTaggart my congratulations on his coming marriage, "said she quickly, with a miraculous effort at a little laugh, and theChamberlain cursed internally. 

"Oh! it's that length, is it?" said Petullo with a tone ofgratification. "Did I no' tell you, Kate? You would deny't, and now youhave the best authority. Well, well, it's the way we a' maun gang, asthe auld blin' woman said, and here's wishing you the best o' luck!"

He came across to shake hands, but the Chamberlain checked himhurriedly. 

"Psha!" said he. "Madame's just a little premature, Mr. Petullo; theremust be no word o' this just now. "

"Is it that way?" said Petullo. "Likely the Baron's thrawn. Man, hehasna a roost, and he should be glad--" He stopped on reflection thatthe Frenchman was an intimate of the family he spoke of, and hastilyreturned to his side without seeing the pallor of his wife. 

"And so it was old Vellum who clyped to you, " said the Chamberlain tothe lady. 

"I see it all plainly now, " said she. "He brought her here just to puther in your way and punish me. Oh, heavens, I'll make him rue for that!And do you fancy I'm going to let you go so easily as all that, Sim?Will Miss Mim-mou' not be shocked if I tell her the truth about hersweetheart?"

"You would not dare!" said the Chamberlain. 

"Oh! would I not?" Mrs. Petullo smiled in a fashion that showed sheappreciated the triumph of her argument. "What would I not do for mySim?"

"Well, it's all by, anyway, " said he shortly. 

"What, with her?" said Mrs. Petullo, but with no note of hope. 

"No, with you, " said he brutally. "Let us be friends, good friends, Kate, " he went on, fearing this should too seriously arouse her. "I'llbe the best friend you have in the world, my dear, if you'll let me, only--"

"Only you will never kiss me again, " said she with a sob. "There can beno friendship after you, Sim, and you know it. You are but lying again. Oh, God! oh, God! I wish I were dead! You have done your worst, SimonMacTaggart; and if all tales be true--"

"I'm not saying a word of what I might say in my own defence, " heprotested. 

"What _could_ you say in your own defence? There is not the ghost of anexcuse for you. What _could_ you say?"

"Oh, I could be pushed to an obvious enough retort, " he said, losingpatience, for now it was plain that they were outraging every etiquetteby so long talking together while others were in the room. "I was toblame, Heaven knows! I'm not denying that, but you--but you--" And hisfingers nervously sought in his coat for the flageolet. 

Mrs. Petullo's face flamed. "Oh, you hound!" she hissed, "you hound!"and then she laughed softly, hysterically. "That is the gentlemanfor you! The seed of kings, no less! What a brag it was! That is thegentleman for you!--to put the blame on me. No, Sim; no, Sim; I will notbetray you to Miss Mim-mou', you need not be feared of that; I'll lether find you out for herself and then it will be too late. And, oh! Ihate her! hate her! hate her!"

"Thank God for that!" said the Chamberlain with a sudden memory of thepurity she envied, and at these words Mrs. Petullo fell in a swoon uponthe floor. 

"Lord, what's the matter?" cried her husband, running to her side, thencrying for the maid. 

"I haven't the slightest idea, " said Sim MacTag-gart. "But she lookedill from the first, " and once more he inwardly cursed his fate thatconstantly embroiled him in such affairs. 

Ten minutes later he and the Count were told the lady had come round, and with expressions of deep sympathy they left Petullo's dwelling. 

CHAPTER XXIII -- A MAN OF NOBLE SENTIMENT

There was a silence between the two for a little after they came outfrom Petullo's distracted household. With a chilling sentiment towardshis new acquaintance, whom he judged the cause of the unhappy woman'sstate, Count Victor waited for the excuse he knew inevitable. He couldnot see the Chamberlain's face, for the night was dark now; the tide, unseen, was running up on the beach of the bay, lights were burning inthe dwellings of the little town. 

"M. Montaiglon, " at last said the Chamberlain in a curious voice wherefeelings the most deep appeared to strive together, "yon's a tragedy, ifyou like. "

"_Comment?_" said the Count. He was not prepared for an opening quitelike this. 

"Well, " said the Chamberlain, "you saw it for yourself; you are not amole like Petullo the husband. By God! I would be that brute's death ifhe were thirty years younger, and made of anything else than sawdust. It's a tragedy in there, and look at this burgh!--like the grave but forthe lights of it; rural, plodding, unambitious, ignorant--and the lastplace on earth you might seek in for a story so peetiful as that inthere. My heart's wae, wae for that woman; I saw her face was like acorp when we went in first, though she put a fair front on to us. Awoman in a hundred; a brave woman, few like her, let me tell you, M. Montaiglon, and heartbroken by that rat she's married on. I could greetto think on all her trials. You saw she was raised somewhat; you saw Ihave some influence in that quarter?"

For his life Count Victor could make no reply, so troubled was his mindwith warring thoughts of Olivia betrayed, perhaps, to a debauchee _sans_heart and common pot-house decency; of whether in truth this was thedebauchee to such depths as he suggested, or a man in a false positionthrough the stress of things around him. 

The Chamberlain went on as in a meditation. "Poor Kate! poor Kate! Wewere bairns together, M. Montaiglon, innocent bairns, and happy, twentyyears syne, and I will not say but what in her maidenhood there was somewarmth between us, so that I know her well. She was compelled by herrelatives to marriage with our parchment friend yonder, and there youhave the start of what has been hell on earth for her. The man has notthe soul of a louse, and as for her, she's the finest gold! You wouldsee that I was the cause of her swoon?"

"Unhappy creature!" said Montaiglon, beginning to fear he had wrongedthis good gentleman. 

"You may well say it, M. Montaiglon. It is improper, perhaps, that Ishould expose to a stranger the skeleton of that house, but I'm feelingwhat happened just now too much to heed a convention. " He sighedprofoundly. "I have had influence with the good woman, as you would see;for years I've had it, because I was her only link with the gay worldshe was born to be an ornament in, and the only one free to be trustedwith the tale of her misery. Well, you know--you are a man of the world, M. Montaiglon--you know the dangers of such a correspondence between aperson of my reputation, that is none of the best, because I have beenless a hypocrite than most, and a lady in her position. It's a gossipingcommunity this, long-lugged and scandal-loving like all communitiesof its size; it is not the Faubourg St. Honoré, where intrigues go onbehind fans and never an eye cocked or a word said about it; and I'llnot deny but there have been scandalous and cruel things said about thelady and myself. Now, as God's my judge--"

"Pardon, monsieur, " said the Count, eager to save this protestinggentleman another _bêtise_; "I quite understand, I think, --the ladyfinds you a discreet friend. Naturally her illness has unmanned you. Thescandal of the world need never trouble a good man. "

"But a merely middling-good man, M. Montaiglon, " cried the Chamberlain;"you'll allow that's a difference. Lord knows I lay no claim to acrystal virtue! In this matter I have no regard for my own reputation, but just for that very reason I'm anxious about the lady's. Whathappened in that room there was that I've had to do an ill thing andmake an end of an auld sang. I'm rarely discreet in my own interest, M. Montaiglon, but it had to be shown this time, and as sure as death Ifeel like a murderer at the havoc I have wrought with that good woman'smind!"

He stopped suddenly; a lump was in his throat. In the beam of light thatcame through the hole in a shutter of a house they passed, Montaiglonsaw that his companion's face was all wrought with wretchedness, and atear was on his cheek. 

The discovery took him aback. He had ungenerously deemed the strainedvoice in the darkness beside him a mere piece of play-acting, buthere was proof of genuine feeling, all the more convincing because theChamberlain suddenly brisked up and coughed and assumed a new tone, asif ashamed of his surrender to a sentiment. 

"I have been compelled to be cruel to-night to a woman, M. Montaiglon, "said he, "and that is not my nature. And--to come to anotherconsideration that weighed as much with me as any--this unpleasant dutyof mine that still sticks in my throat like funeral-cake was partlyforced by consideration for another lady--the sweetest and the best--whowould be the last I should care to have hear any ill of me, even in alibel. "

A protest rose to Montaiglon's throat; a fury stirred him at thegaucherie that should bring Olivia's name upon the top of such asubject. He could not trust himself to speak with calmness, and it wasto his great relief the Chamberlain changed the topic--broadened it, atleast, and spoke of women in the general, almost cheerfully, as ifhe delighted to put an unpleasant topic behind him. It was done soadroitly, too, that Count Victor was compelled to believe it promptedby a courteous desire on the part of the Chamberlain not too vividly toilluminate his happiness in the affection of Olivia. 

"I'm an older man than you, M. Montaiglon, " said the Chamberlain, "and Imay be allowed to give some of my own conclusions upon the fair. I haveknown good, ill, and merely middling among them, the cunning and thesimple, the learned and the utterly ignorant, and by the Holy Iron!honesty and faith are the best virtues in the lot of them. They all likeflattery, I know--"

"A dead man and a stupid woman are the only ones who do not. _Jamaisbeau parler riecorcha le langue!_" said Montaiglon. 

"Faith, and that's very true, " consented the Chamberlain, laughingsoftly. "I take it not amiss myself if it's proffered in the rightway--which is to say, for the qualities I know I have, and not for theimaginary ones. As I was saying, give me the simple heart and honesty;they're not very rife in our own sex, and--"

"Even there, monsieur, I can be generous enough, " said Montaiglon. "Ican always retain my regard for human nature, because I have learnednever to expect too much from it. "

"Well said!" cried the Chamberlain. "Do you know that in your manner ofrejoinder you recall one Dumont I met once at the Jesuits' College whenI was in France years ago?"

"Ah, you have passed some time in my country, then?" said the Count withawakened interest, a little glad of a topic scarce so abstruse as sex. 

"I have been in every part of Europe, " said the Chamberlain; "and itmust have been by the oddest of mischances I have not been at Cammercyitself, for well I knew your uncle's friends, though, as it happened, wewere of a different complexion of politics. I lived for months onetime in the Hôtel de Transylvania, Rue Condé, and kept my _carosse deremise_, and gambled like every other ass of my kind in Paris till I hadnot a louis to my credit. Lord! the old days, the old days! I should bepenitent, I daresay, M. Montaiglon, but I'm putting that off till I findthat a sober life has compensations for the entertainment of a life ofliberty. "

"Did you know Balhaldie?"

"Do I know the inside of my own pocket! I've played piquet wi' theold rogue a score of times in the Sun tavern of Rotterdam. Pardon mespeaking that way of one that may be an intimate of your own, but to bequite honest, the Scots gentlemen living on the Scots Fund in France inthese days were what I call the scourings of the Hielan's. There weregood and bad among them, of course, but I was there in the _entourage_of one who was no politician, which was just my own case, and I sawbut the convivial of my exiled countrymen in their convivial hours. Politics! In these days I would scunner at the very word, if you knowwhat that means, M. Montaiglon. I was too throng with gaiety to troublemy head about such trifles; my time was too much taken up with bucklingmy hair, in admiring the cut of my laced _jabot_, and the Mechlin of mywrist-bands. "

They were walking close upon the sea-wall with leisurely steps, preoccupied, the head of the little town, it seemed, wholly surrenderedto themselves alone. Into the Chamberlain's voice had come an accentof the utmost friendliness and flattering ir-restraint; he seemed to beleaving his heart bare to the Frenchman. Count Victor was by theselast words transported to his native city, and his own far-off days ofgalliard. Why, in the name of Heaven! was he here listening to hackneyedtales of domestic tragedy and a stranger's reminiscences? Why didhis mind continually linger round the rock of Doom, so noisy on itspromontory, so sad, so stern, so like an ancient saga in its spirit?Cecile--he was amazed at it, but Cecile, and the Jacobite cause he hadcome here to avenge with a youth's ardour, had both fallen, as it were, into a dusk of memory!

"By the way, monsieur, you did not happen to have come upon any oneremotely suggesting my Drimdarroch in the course of your travels?"

"Oh, come!" cried Sim MacTaggart; "if I did, was I like to mentionit here and now?" He laughed at the idea. "You have not grasped theclannishness of us yet if you fancy--"

"But in an affair of strict honour, monsieur, " broke in Count Victoreagerly. "Figure you a woman basely betrayed; your admirable sentimentsregarding the sex must compel you to admit there is here somethingmore than clannishness can condone. It is true there is the politicalelement--but not much of it--in my quest, still--"

"Not a word of that, M. Montaiglon!" cried the Chamberlain: "thereyou address yourself to his Grace's faithful servant; but I cannot bedenying some sympathy with the other half of your object. If I hadknown this by-named Drimdarroch you look for, I might have swithered toconfess it, but as it is, I have never had the honour. I've seen scoresof dubious cattle round the walls of Ludo-vico Rex, but which might beDrimdarroch and which might be decent honest men, I could not at thistime guess. We have here among us others who had a closer touch withaffairs in France than I. "

"So?" said Count Victor. "Our friend the Baron of Doom suggested thatfor that very reason my search was for the proverbial needle in thehaystack. I find myself in pressing need of a judicious friend at court, I see. Have you ever found your resolution quit you--not an oozingcourage, I mean, but an indifference that comes purely by the lapse oftime and the distractions on the way to its execution? It is my caseat the moment. My thirst for the blood of this _inconnu_ has modifiedconsiderably in the past few days. I begin to wish myself home again, and might set out incontinent if the object of my coming here at allhad not been so well known to those I left behind. You would be doinga brilliant service--and perhaps but little harm to Drimdarroch afterall--if you could arrange a meeting at the earliest. "

He laughed as he said so. 

"Man! I'm touched by the issue, " said the Chamberlain; "I must castan eye about. Drimdarroch, of course, is Doom, or was, if a lawyer'ssheep-skins had not been more powerful nowadays than the sword;but"--he paused a moment as if reluctant to give words to theinnuendo--"though Doom himself has been in France to some good purposein nis time, and though, for God knows what, he is no friend of mine, Iwould be the first to proclaim him free of any suspicion. "

"That, monsieur, goes without saying! I was stupid enough tomisunderstand some of his eccentricities myself, but have learned in ourbrief acquaintanceship to respect in him the man of genuine heart. "

"Just so, just so!" cried the Chamberlain, and cleared his throat. "Ibut mentioned his name to make it plain that his claim to the old titlein no way implicated him. A man of great heart, as you say, though witha reputation for oddity. If I were not the well-wisher of his house, I could make some trouble about his devotion to the dress and armsforbidden here to all but those in the king's service, as I am myself, being major of the local Fencibles. And--by the Lord! here's MacCailen!"

They had by this time entered the policies of the Duke. A figure walkedalone in the obscurity, with arms in a characteristic fashion behind itsback, going in the direction they themselves were taking. For a secondor two the Chamberlain hesitated, then formed his resolution. 

"I shall introduce you, " he said to Count Victor. "It may be of someservice afterwards. "

The Duke turned his face in the darkness, and, as they came alongside, recognised his Chamberlain. 

"Good evening, good evening!" he cried cheerfully. "'Art a late bird, asusual, and I am at that pestilent task the rehearsal of a speech. "

"Your Grace's industry is a reproach to your Grace's Chamberlain, " saidthe latter. "I have been at the speech-making myself, partly to a lady. "

"Ah, Mr. MacTaggart!" cried the Duke in a comical expostulation. 

"And partly to this unfortunate friend of mine, who must fancy us asingularly garrulous race this side of the German Ocean. May I introduceM. Montaiglon, who is at the inn below, and whom it has been my goodfortune to meet for the first time to-night?"

Argyll was most cordial to the stranger, who, however, took the earliestopportunity to plead fatigue and return to his inn. He had no soonerretired than the Duke expressed some natural curiosity. 

"It cannot be the person you desired for the furnishing of our tolbooththe other day, Sim?" said he. 

"No less, " frankly responded the Chamberlain. "Your Grace saved me a_faux pas_ there, for Montaiglon is not what I fancied at all. "

"You were ever the dubious gentleman, Sim, " laughed his Grace. "Andwhat--if I may take the liberty--seeks our excellent and impeccable Gaulso far west?"

"He's a wine merchant, " said the Chamberlain, and at that the Dukelaughed. 

"What, man!" he cried at last, shaking with his merriment, "is ourancient Jules from Oporto to be ousted with the aid of Sim MacTaggartfrom the ducal cellars in favour of one Montaiglon?" He stopped, caughthis Chamberlain by the arm, and stood close in an endeavour to perceivehis countenance. "Sim, " said he, "I wonder what Modene would say to findhis cousin hawking vile claret round Argyll. Your friend's incognito isscarcely complete enough even in the dark. Why, the man's Born! Icould tell it in his first sentence, and it's a swordsman's hand, nota cellarer's fingers, he gave me a moment ago. That itself would betrayhim even if I did not happen to know that the Montaiglons have the_particule_. "

"It is quite as you say, " confessed the Chamberlain with some chagrinat his position, "but I'm giving the man's tale as he desires to haveit known here. He's no less than the Count de Montaiglon, and a ratherdecent specimen of the kind, so far as I can judge. "

"But why the _alias_, good Sim?" asked the Duke. "I like not your_aliases_, though they have been, now and then--ahem!--useful. "

"Your Grace has travelled before now as Baron Hay, " said theChamberlain. 

"True! true! and saved very little either in inn charges or in thepother of State by the device. And if I remember correctly, I made nopretence at wine-selling on these occasions. Honestly now, what thedevil does the Comte de Montaiglon do here--and with Sim MacTaggart?"

"The matter is capable of the easiest explanation. He's here on what heis pleased to call an affair of honour, in which there is implicated theusual girl and another gentleman, who, it appears, is some ope, stillunknown, about your Grace's castle. " And the story in its entirety wasspeedily his Grace's. 

"H'm, " ejaculated Argyll at last when he had heard all. "And you fancythe quest as hopeless as it is quixotic? Now mark me! Simon; I read ourFrench friend, even in the dark, quite differently. He had little to saythere, but little as it was 'twas enough to show by its manner that he'sjust the one who will find his man even in my crowded corridors. "

CHAPTER XXIV -- A BROKEN TRYST

The Chamberlain's quarters were in the eastern turret, and there he wentso soon as he could leave his Grace, who quickly forgot the Frenchmanand his story, practising upon Simon the speech he had prepared in hisevening walk, alternated with praise extravagant--youthfully rapturousalmost--of his duchess, who might, from all his chafing at her absence, have been that night at the other end of the world, instead of merely inthe next county on a few days' visit. 

"Ah! you are smiling, Sim!" said he. "Old whinstone! You fancy Argyllan imbecile of uxoriousness. Well, well, my friend, you are at liberty;Lord knows, it's not a common disease among dukes! Eh, Sim? Butthen women like my Jean are not common either or marriages were lessfashions. Upon my word, I could saddle Jock and ride this very nightto Luss, just to have the fun of throwing pebbles at her window in themorning, and see her wonder and pleasure at finding me there. Do youknow what, cousin? I am going to give a ball when she comes home. We'llhave just the neighbours, and I'll ask M. Soi-disant, who'll give usthe very latest step. I like the fellow's voice, it rings thesterling metal. . . . And now, my lords, this action on the part of theGovernment. . . . Oh, the devil fly away with politics! I must go to alonely bed!" And off set Mac-Cailen Mor, the noble, the august, the manof silk and steel, whom 'twas Simon MacTaggart's one steadfast ambitionin life to resemble even in a remote degree. 

And then we have the Chamberlain in his turret room, envious of thatblissful married man, and warmed to a sympathetic glow with Oliviafloating through the images that rose before him. 

He drew the curtains of his window and looked in that direction whereDoom, of course, was not for material eyes, finding a vague pleasure inbuilding up the picture of the recluse tower, dark upon its promontory. It was ten o'clock. It had been arranged at their last meeting thatwithout the usual signal he should go to her to-night before twelve. Already his heart beat quickly; his face was warm and tingling withpleasant excitation, he felt a good man. 

"By God!" he cried. "If it was not for the old glaur! What for doesheaven--or hell--send the worst of its temptations to the young andignorant? If I had met her twenty years ago! Twenty years ago! H'm!'Clack!' goes the weaver's shuttle! Twenty years ago it was her mother, and Sim MacTaggart without a hair on his face trying to kiss the goodlady of Doom, and her, perhaps na' half unwilling. I'm glad--I'm glad. "

He put on a pair of spurs, his fingers trembling as those of a laddressing for his first ball, and the girl a fairy in white, with herneck pink and soft and her eyes shy like little fawns in the wood. 

"And how near I was to missing it!" he thought. "But for the schemingof a fool I would never have seen her. It's not too late, thank the Lordfor that! No more of yon for Sim MacTaggart. I've cut with the last ofit, and now my face is to the stars. "

His hands were spotless white, but he poured some water in a basinand washed them carefully, shrugging his shoulders with a momentarycomprehension of how laughable must that sacrament be in the eyes ofthe worldly Sim MacTaggart. He splashed the water on his lips, drew on acloak, blew out the light, and went softly downstairs and out at a sidedoor for which he had a pass-key. The night was still, except for themelancholy sound of the river running over its cascades and echoingunder the two bridges; odours of decaying leaves surrounded him, and theair of the night touched him on his hot face like a benediction. A heavydew clogged the grass of Cairnbaan as he made for the stables, where aman stood out in the yard waiting with a black horse saddled. Without aword he mounted and rode, the hoofs thudding dull on the grass. He leftbehind him the castle, quite dark and looming in its nest below thesentinel hill; he turned the bay; the town revealed a light or two;a bird screamed on the ebb shore. Something of all he saw and heardtouched a fine man in his cloak, touched a decent love in him; his heartwas full with wholesome joyous ichor; and he sang softly to the creakingsaddle, sang an air of good and clean old Gaelic sentiment that hauntedhis lips until he came opposite the very walls of Doom. 

He fastened his horse to a young hazel and crossed the sandy intervalbetween the mainland and the rock, sea-wrack bladders bursting under hisfeet, and the smells of seaweed dominant over the odours of the winterwood. The tower was pitch dark. He went into the bower, sat on therotten seat among the damp bedraggled strands of climbing flowers, andtook his flageolet from his pocket. 

He played softly, breathing in the instrument the very pang of love. It might have been a psalm and this forsaken dew-drenched bower a greatcathedral, so rapt, so devoted, his spirit as he sought to utter thevery deepest ecstasy. Into the reed he poured remembrance and regret;the gathered nights of riot and folly lived and sorrowed for; the idealscherished and surrendered; the remorseful sinner, the awakened soul. 

No one paid any heed in Castle Doom. 

That struck him suddenly with wonder, as he ceased his playing for amoment and looked through the broken trellis to see the building blackbelow the starry sky. There ought, at least, to be a light in the windowof Olivia's room. She had made the tryst herself, and never before hadshe failed to keep it. Perhaps she had not heard him. And so to hisflageolet again, finding a consolation in the sweetness of his ownperformance. 

"Ah!" said he to himself, pausing to admire--"Ah! there's no doubt Ifinger it decently well--better than most--better than any I've heard, and what's the wonder at that? for it's all in what you feel, and themost of people are made of green wood. There's no green timber here; I'mcursed if I'm not the very ancient stuff of fiddles!"

He had never felt happier in all his life. The past?--he wiped that offhis recollection as with a sponge; now he was a new man with his feetout of the mire and a clean road all the rest of the way, with a cleansweet soul for his companion. He loved her to his very heart of hearts;he had, honestly, for her but the rendered passion of passion--why! whatkept her?

He rammed the flageolet impatiently into his waistcoat, threw back hiscloak, and stepped out into the garden. Doom Castle rose over him black, high and low, without a glimmer. A terrific apprehension took possessionof him. He raised his head and gave the signal call, so natural that itdrew an answer almost like an echo from an actual bird far off in somethicket at Achnatra. And oh! felicity; here she was at last!

The bolts of the door slid back softly; the door opened; a little figurecame out. Forward swept the lover, all impatient fires--to find himselfbefore Mungo Boyd!

He caught him by the collar of his coat as if he would shake him. 

"What game is this? what game is this?" he furiously demanded. "Where isshe?"

"Canny, man, canny!" said the little servitor, releasing himself withdifficulty from the grasp of this impetuous lover. "Faith! it's anitherwarnin' this no' to parley at nicht wi' onything less than twa or threeinch o' oak dale atween ye and herm. "

"Cut clavers and tell me what ails your mistress!"

"Oh, weel; she hisna come oot the nicht, " said Mungo, waving his arms tobring the whole neighbourhood as witness of the obvious fact. 

The Chamberlain thrust at his chest and nearly threw him over. 

"Ye dull-witted Lowland brock!" said he; "have I no' the use of my owneyes? Give me another word but what I want and I'll slash ye smallerthan ye are already with my Ferrara. "

"Oh, I'm no' that wee!" said Mungo. "If ye wad jist bide cool--"

"'Cool' quo' he! Man! I'm up to the neck in fire. Where is she?"

"Whaur ony decent lass should be at this 'oor o' the nicht--in her nakedbed. "

"Say that again, you foul-mouthed dog o' Fife, and I'll gralloch youlike a deer!" cried the Chamberlain, his face tingling. 

"Losh! the body's cracked, " said Mungo Boyd, astounded at this nicety. 

"I was to meet her to-night; does she know I'm here?"

"I rapped at her door mysel' to mak' sure she did. "

"And what said she?"

"She tauld me to gae awa'. I said it was you, and she said it didnamaitter. "

"Didna maitter!" repeated the Chamberlain, viciously, mimicking theeastland accent. "What ails her?"

"Ye ought to ken that best yoursel'. It was the last thing I daur askher, " said Mungo Boyd, preparing to retreat, but his precaution was notcalled for, he had stunned his man. 

The Chamberlain drew his cloak about him, cold with a contemptuousrebuff. His mouth parched; violent emotions wrought in him, but herecovered in a moment, and did his best to hide his sense of ignominy. 

"Oh, well!" said he, "it's a woman's way, Mungo. "

"You'll likely ken, " said Mungo; "I've had sma' troke wi' them mysel'. "

"Lucky man! And now that I mind right, I think it was not to-night I wasto come, after all; I must have made a mistake. If you have a chancein the morn's morning you can tell her I wasted a tune or two o' theflageolet on a wheen stars. It is a pleasant thing in stars, Mungo, thatye aye ken where to find them when ye want them!"

He left the rock, and took to horse again, and home. All throughthe dark ride he fervently cursed Count Victor, a prey of an idioticjealousy. 

CHAPTER XXV -- RECONCILIATION

Mungo stood in the dark till the last beat of the horse-hoofs could beheard, and then went in disconsolate and perplexed. He drew the bars asit were upon a dear friend out in the night, and felt as there had gonethe final hope for Doom and its inhabitants. 

"An auld done rickle o' a place!" he soliloquised, lifting a candle highthat it might show the shame of the denuded and crumbling walls. "Anauld done rickle: I've seen a better barn i' the Lothians, and fancy metryin' to let on that it's a kind o' Edinbro'! Sirs! sirs! 'If ye cannahae the puddin' be contented wi' the bree, ' Annapla's aye sayin', buthere there's neither bree nor puddin'. To think that a' my traisonagainst the master i' the interest o' his dochter and himsel' shouldcome to naethin', and that Sim MacTaggart should be sent awa' wi' a fleain his lug, a' for the tirravee o' a lassie that canna' value aguid chance when it offers! I wonder what ails her, if it's no' thatmon-sher's ta'en her fancy! Women are a' like weans; they never see thecrack in an auld toy till some ane shows them a new ane. Weel! as sureas death I wash my haun's o' the hale affair. She's daft; clean daft, puir dear! If she kent whit I ken, she micht hae some excuse, but I tookguid care o' that. I doot yon's the end o' a very promisin' match, andthe man, though he mayna' think it, has his merchin' orders. "

The brief bow-legged figure rolled along the lobby, pshawing withvexation, and in a little, Doom, to all appearance, was a castle darkand desolate. 

Yet not wholly asleep, however dark and silent; for Olivia, too, hadheard the last of the thundering hoofs, had suffered the agony thatcomes from the wrench of a false ideal from the place of its longcherishing. 

She came down in the morning a mere wraith of beauty, as it seemed tothe little servitor, shutting her lips hard, but ready to burst into ashower. 

"Guid Lord!" thought Mungo, setting the scanty table. "It's clear shehasna steeked an e'e a' nicht, and me sleepin' like a peerie. That's aneo' the advantages o' being ower the uneasy age o' love--and still I'mno' that auld. I wonder if she's rued it the day already. "

She smiled upon him bravely, but woe-begone, and could not checka quivering lip, and then she essayed at a song hummed with no badpretence as she cast from the window a glance along the wintry coast, that never changed its aspect though hearts broke. But, as ill-luck hadit, the air was the unfinished melody of Sim's bewitching flageolet. She stopped it ere she had gone farther than a bar or two, and turned tofind Mungo irresolute and disturbed. 

"He ga'ed awa'--" began the little man, with the whisper of theconspirator. 

"Mungo!" she cried, "you will not say a word of it. It is all bye withme, and what for not with you? I command you to say no more about it, doyou hear?" And her foot beat with an imperiousness almost comical fromone with such a broken countenance. 

"It's a gey droll thing--"

"It's a gey hard thing, that is what it is, " she interrupted him, "thatyou will not do what I tell you, and say nothing of what I have norelish to hear, and must have black shame to think of. Must I go overall that I have said to you already? It is finished, Mungo; are youlistening? Did he--did he--looked vexed? But it does not matter, it isfinished, and I have been a very foolish girl. "

"But that needna' prevent me tellin' ye that the puir man's awa' cleangyte. "

She smiled just the ghost of a smile at that, then put her hands uponher ears. 

"Oh!" she cried despairingly, "have I not a friend left?"

Mungo sighed and said no more then, but went to Annapla and soughtrelief for his feelings in bilingual wrangling with that dark abigail. At low tide beggars from Glen Croe came to his door with yawning pokesand all their old effrontery: he astounded them by the fiercest ofreceptions, condemned them all eternally for limmers and sorners, lustyrogues and vagabonds. 

"Awa'! awa'!" he cried, an implacable face against their whiningprotestations--"Awa', or I'll gie ye the gairde! If I was my uncleErchie, I wad pit an end to your argy-bargying wi' hail frae a gun!" Butto Annapla it was, "Puir deevils, it's gey hard to gie them the back o'the haun' and them sae used to rougher times in Doom. What'll they thinko' us? It's sic a doon-come, but we maun be hainin' seein' Leevie's losther jo, and no ither way clear oot o' the bit. I'm seein' a toom girneland done beef here lang afore next Martinmas. "

These plaints were to a woman blissfully beyond comprehending the fullimport of them, for so much was Annapla taken up with her Gift, so mistyand remote the realms of Gaelic dream wherein she moved, that the littleLowland oddity's perturbation was beneath her serious attention. 

Olivia had that day perhaps the bitterest of her life. With loveoutside--calling in the evening and fluting in the bower, and ever (asshe thought) occupied with her image even when farther apart--she hadlittle fault to find with the shabby interior of her home. Now that lovewas lost, she sat with her father, oppressed and cold as it had been avault. Even in his preoccupation he could not fail to see how ill sheseemed that morning: it appeared to him that she had the look of amountain birch stricken by the first of wintry weather. 

"My dear, " he said, with a tenderness that had been some time absentfrom their relations, "you must be taking a change of air. I'm a poorparent not to have seen before how much you need it. " He hastened tocorrect what he fancied from her face was a misapprehension. "I amspeaking for your red cheeks, my dear, believe me; I'm wae to see youlike that. "

"I will do whatever you wish, father, " said Olivia in much agitation. Coerced she was iron, coaxed she was clay. "I have not been a very gooddaughter to you, father; after this I will be trying to be better. "

His face reddened; his heart beat at this capitulation of his rebel: herose from his chair and took her into his arms--an odd display for a manso long stone-cold but to his dreams. 

"My dear, my dear!" said he, "but in one detail that need never again benamed between us two, you have been the best of girls, and, God knows, Iam not the pattern parent!"

Her arm went round his neck, and she wept on his breast. 

"Sour and dour--" said he. 

"No, no!" she cried. 

"And poor to penury. "

"All the more need for a loving child. There are only the two of us. "

He held her at arm's-length and looked at her wistfully in the wet wanface and saw his wife Christina there. "By heaven!" he thought, "it isno wonder that this man should hunt her. "

"You have made me happy this day, Olivia, " said he; "at least halfhappy. I dare not mention what more was needed to make me quitecontent. "

"You need not, " said she. "I know, and that--and that--is over too. I amjust your own Olivia. "

"What!" he cried elate; "no more?"

"No more at all. "

"Now praise God!" said he. "I have been robbed of Credit and estate, andeven of my name; I have seen king and country foully done by, and blackaffront brought on our people, and still there's something left to livefor. "

CHAPTER XXVI -- THE DUKE'S BALL

For some days Count Victor chafed at the dull and somewhat squalidlife of the inn. He found himself regarded coldly among strangers; theflageolet sounded no longer in the private parlour; the Chamberlainstayed away. And if Drimdarroch had seemed ill to find from Doom, he wasabsolutely indiscoverable here. Perhaps there was less eagerness in thesearch because other affairs would for ever intrude--not the Cause (thatnow, to tell the truth, he somehow regarded moribund; little wonderafter eight years' inaction!) nor the poignant home-thoughts that madehis ride through Scotland melancholy, but affairs more recent, andOlivia's eyes possessed him. 

A morning had come of terrific snow, and made all the colder, too, hissojourn in the country of MacCailen Mor. Now he looked upon mountainswhite and far, phantom valleys gulping chilly winds, the sea alone withsome of its familiar aspect, yet it, too, leaden to eye and heart as itlay in a perpetual haze between the headlands and lazily rose and fellin the bays. 

The night of the ball was to him like a reprieve. From the darkness ofthose woody deeps below Dunchuach the castle gleamed with fires, and aHighland welcome illumined the greater part of the avenue from the townwith flambeaux, in whose radiance the black pines, the huge beeches, the waxen shrubbery round the lawns all shrouded, seemed to creep closerround the edifice to hear the sounds of revelry and learn what charmsthe human world when the melodious winds are still and the weather iscold, and out of doors poor thickets must shiver in appalling darkness. 

A gush of music met Count Victor at the threshold; dresses wererustling, a caressing warmth sighed round him, and his host was verygenial. 

"M. Montaiglon, " said his Grace in French, "you will pardon ourshort notice; my good friend, M. Montaiglon, my dear; my wife, M. Montaiglon--"

"But M. Montaiglon merely in the inns, my lord, " corrected theFrenchman, smiling. "I should be the last to accept the honour of yourhospitality under a _nom de guerre_. "

The Duke bowed. "M. Le Comte, " he said, "to be quite as candid asyourself, I pierced your incognito even in the dark. My dear sir, aScots traveller named for the time being the Baron Hay once had theprivilege of sharing a glass coach with your uncle between Parisand Dunkerque; 'tis a story that will keep. Meanwhile, as I say, M. Montaiglon will pardon the shortness of our notice; in these wildsone's dancing shoes are presumed to be ever airing at the fire. You mustconsider these doors as open as the woods so long as your are in thisneighbourhood. I have some things I should like to show you thatyou might not find wholly uninteresting--a Raphael, a Rembrandt (soreputed), and several Venetians--not much, in faith, but regarding whichI should value your criticism--"

Some other guests arrived, his Grace's speech was broken, and CountVictor passed on, skirting the dancers, who to his unaccustomed eyespresented features strange yet picturesque as they moved in the puzzlinginvolutions of a country dance. It was a noble hall hung round withtapestry and bossed with Highland targets, trophies of arms and themountain chase; from the gallery round it drooped little banners withthe devices of all those generations of great families that mingled inthe blood of MacCailen Mor. 

The Frenchman looked round him for a familiar face, and saw theChamberlain in Highland dress in the midst of a little group of dames. 

Mrs. Petullo was not one of them. She was dancing with her husband--apitiful spectacle, for the lawyer must be pushed through the dance as hewere a doll, with monstrous ungracefulness, and no sense of the time ofthe music, his thin legs quarrelling with each other, his neighboursall confused by his inexpert gyrations, and yet himself with a smirk ofsatisfaction on his sweating countenance. 

"Madame is not happy, " thought Count Victor, watching the lady who wascompelled to be a partner in these ungainly gambols. 

And indeed Mrs. Petullo was far from happy, if her face betrayed herreal feelings, as she shared the ignominy of the false position intowhich Petullo had compelled her. When the dance was ended she did nottake her husband's proffered arm, but walked before him to her seat, utterly ignoring his pathetic courtesies. 

This little domestic comedy only engaged Count Victor for a moment; hefelt vexed for a woman in a position for which there seemed no remedy, and he sought distraction from his uneasy feeling by passing every manin the room under review, and guessing which of them, if any, couldbe the Drim-darroch who had brought him there from France. It was abaffling task. For many were there with faces wholly inscrutable whomight very well have among them the secret he cherished, and yet nothingabout them to advertise the scamp who had figured so effectivelyin other scenes than these. The Duke, their chief, moved now amongthem--suave, graceful, affectionate, his lady on his arm, sometimessqueezing her hand, a very boy in love!

"That's a grand picture of matrimonial felicity, Count, " said a voice atCount Victor's ear, and he turned to find the Chamberlain beside him. 

"Positively it makes me half envious, monsieur, " said Count Victor. "A following influenced by the old feudal affections and wellnighworshipping; health and wealth, ambitions gratified, a name that hassounded in camp and Court, yet a heart that has stayed at home; thefever of youth abated, and wedded to a beautiful woman who does notweary one, _pardieu!_ his Grace has nothing more in this world to wishfor. "

"Ay! he has most that's needed to make it a very comfortable world. Providence is good--"

"But sometimes grudging--"

"But sometimes grudging, as you say; yet MacCailen has got everything. When I see him and her there so content I'm wondering at my own wastedyears of bachelordom. As sure as you're there, I think the sooner I drawin at a fire and play my flageolet to the guidwife the better for me. "

"It is a gift, this domesticity, " said Count Victor, not without aninward twinge at the picture. "Some of us have it, some of us have not, and no trying hard for content with one's own wife and early supperswill avail unless one is born to it like the trick of the Sonnet. Ihave been watching our good friend, your lawyer's wife, distracted overthe--over the--_balourdise_ of her husband as a dancer: he dances like abootmaker's sign, if you can imagine that, and I dare not approach themtill her very natural indignation has simmered down. "

The Chamberlain looked across, the hall distastefully and found Mrs. Petullo's eyes on him. She shrugged, for his perception alone, a whiteshoulder in a manner that was eloquent of many things. 

"To the devil!" he muttered, yet essayed at the smile of good friendshipwhich was now to be their currency, and a poor exchange for the oldgold. 

"Surely Monsieur MacTaggart dances?" said the Count; "I see a score ofladies here who would give their garters for the privilege. "

"My dancing days are over, " said Sim MacTaggart, but merely as onewho repeats a formula; his eyes were roving among the women. The darkgreen-and-blue tartan of the house well became him: he wore diced hoseof silk and a knife on the calf of his leg; his plaid swung from a studat the shoulder, and fell in voluminous and graceful folds behind him. His eyes roved among the women, and now and then he lifted the whitestof hands and rubbed his shaven chin. 

Count Victor was a little amused at the vanity of this village hero. Andthen there happened what more deeply impressed him with wonder at thecontrarieties of character here represented, for the hero brimmed withsentimental tears!

They were caused by so simple a thing as a savage strain of music fromthe Duke's piper, who strutted in the gallery fingering a melody in aninterval of the dance--a melody full of wearisome iterations in the earsof the foreigner, who could gain nothing of fancy from the same savethat the low notes sobbed. When the piece was calling in the hall, ringing stormily to the roof, shaking the banners, silencing the guests, the Duke's Chamberlain laughed with some confusion in a pretence that hewas undisturbed. 

"An air with a story, perhaps?" asked Count Victor. 

"They are all stories, " answered this odd person, so responsive to theyell of guttural reeds. "In that they are like our old friend Balhaldie, whose tales, as you may remember--the old rogue!--would fill manypages. "

"Many leaves, indeed, " said Count Victor--"preferably fig-leaves. "

"The bagpipe moves me like a weeping woman, and here, for all that, isthe most indifferent of musicians. "

"_Tenez!_ monsieur; I present my homages to the best offlageolet-players, " said Count Victor, smiling. 

"The flageolet! a poor instrument, and still--and still not withoutits qualities. Here's one at least who finds it the very salve forweariness. Playing it, I often feel in the trance of rapture. I wish toGod I could live my life upon the flute, for there I'm on the best andcleanest terms with myself, and no backwash of penitence. Eh! listen tome preaching!"

"There is one air I have heard of yours--so!--that somehow haunts me, "said Count Victor; "its conclusion seemed to baffle you. "

"So it does, man, so it does! If I found the end of that, I fancy Iwould find a new MacTaggart. It's--it's--it's not a run of notes Iwant--indeed the air's my own, and I might make it what I chose--butan experience or something of that sort outside my opportunities, or myrecollection. "

Count Victor's glance fell on Mrs. Petullo, but hers was not on him; shesought the eyes of the Chamberlain. 

"Madame looks your way, " he indicated, and at once the Chamberlain'svisage changed. 

"She'd be better to look to her man, " he said, so roughly that the Countonce more had all his misgivings revived. 

"We may not guess how bitter a prospect that may be, " said he with pityfor the creature, and he moved towards her, with the Chamberlain, ofnecessity, but with some reluctance, at his heel. 

Mrs. Petullo saw the lagging nature of her old love's advance; it wasall that was needed now to make her evening horrible. 

"Oh!" said she, smiling, but still with other emotions than amusement orgoodwill struggling in her countenance, "I was just fancying you wouldbe none the waur o' a wife to look to your buttons. "

"Buttons!" repeated the Chamberlain. 

"See, " she said, and lightly turned him round so that his back wasshown, with his plaid no longer concealing the absence of a button froma skirt of his Highland jacket. 

Count Victor looked, and a rush of emotions fairly overwhelmed him, forhe knew he had the missing button in his pocket. 

Here was the nocturnal marauder of Doom, or the very devil was in it!

The Chamberlain laughed, but still betrayed a little confusion: Mrs. Petullo wondered at the anger of his eyes, and a moment later launchedupon an abstracted minuet with Montaiglon. 

CHAPTER XXVII -- THE DUEL ON THE SANDS

The Chamberlain stood near the door with his hand in the bosom of hiscoat, fingering the flageolet that was his constant companion even inthe oddest circumstances, and Count Victor went up to him, the buttonconcealed in his palm. 

"Well, you are for going?" said Simon, more like one who puts a questionthan states a position, for some hours of Count Victor's studiedcontempt created misgivings. 

"_Il y a terme à tout!_ And possibly monsieur will do me the honour toaccompany me so far as the avenue?"

"Sir!" said the Chamberlain. 

"I have known men whose reputations were mainly a matter of clothes. Monsieur is the first I have met whose character hung upon a singlebutton. Permit me to return your button with a million regards. "

He held the silver lozenge out upon his open hand. 

"There are many buttons alike, " said the Chamberlain. Then he checkedhimself abruptly and--"Well, damn it! I'll allow it's mine, " said he. 

"I should expect just this charming degree of manly frankness frommonsieur. A button is a button, too, and a devilish serious thing when, say, off a foil. "

He still held out the accusation on his open hand, and bowed with hiseyes on those of the other man. 

At that MacTaggart lightly struck up the hand, and the button rolledtwinkling along the floor. 

Count Victor glanced quickly round him to see that no one noticed. Thehall, but for some domestics, was left wholly to themselves. The ballwas over, the company had long gone, and he had managed to stay his owndeparture by an interest feigned in the old armour that hung, with allits gallant use accomplished, on the walls, followed by a game at cardswith three of the ducal _entourage_, two of whom had just departed. Themelancholy of early morning in a banquet-room had settled down, and allthe candles guttered in the draught of doors. 

"I fancy monsieur will agree that this is a business calling for theopen air, " said Count Victor, no way disturbed by the rudeness. "I abhorthe stench of hot grease. "

"To-morrow--" began the Chamberlain, and Count Victor interrupted. 

"To-morrow, " said he, "is for reflection; to-day is for deeds. Look! itwill be totally clear in a little. "

"I'm the last man who would spoil the prospect of a ploy, " said theChamberlain, changing his Highland sword for one of the rapiers on thewall that was more in conformity with the Frenchman's weapon; "and yetthis is scarcely the way to find your Drimdarroch. "

"_Mais oui!_ Our Drimdarroch can afford to wait his turn. Drimdarrochis wholly my affair; this is partly Doom's, though I, it seems, was madethe poor excuse for your inexplicable insolence. "

The Chamberlain slightly started, turned away, and smiled. "I wasright, " thought he. "Here's a fellow credits himself with being thecause of jealousy. "

"Very well!" he said aloud at last, "this way, " and with the swordtucked under his arm he led, by a side-door in the turret-angle, intothe garden. 

Count Victor followed, stepping gingerly, for the snow was ankle-deepupon the lawn, and his red-heeled dancing-shoes were thin. 

"We know we must all die, " said he in a little, pausing with a shiverof cold, and a glance about that bleak grey garden--"We know we mustall die, but I have a preference for dying in dry hose, if die I must. Cannot monsieur suggest a more comfortable quarter for our littleaffair?"

"Monsieur is not so dirty particular, " said the Chamberlain. "If I sinkmy own rheumatism, it is not too much for you to risk your hose. "

"The main avenue--" suggested Count Victor. 

"Is seen from every window of the ball-room, and the servants are stillthere. Here is a great to-do about nothing!"

"But still, monsieur, I must protest on behalf of my poor hose, " saidCount Victor, always smiling. 

"By God! I could fight on my bare feet, " cried the Chamberlain. 

"Doubtless, monsieur; but there is so much in custom, _n'est ce pas?_and my ancestors have always been used with boots. "

The Chamberlain overlooked the irony and glanced perplexed about him. There was, obviously, no place near that was not open to the objectionurged. Everywhere the snow lay deep on grass and pathway; the trees weresheeted ghosts, the chill struck through his own Highland brogues. 

"Come!" said he at last, with a sudden thought; "the sand's the place, though it's a bit to go, " and he led the way hurriedly towards theriverside. 

"One of us may go farther to-day and possibly fare worse, " saidMontaiglon with unwearied good-humour, stepping in his rear. 

It was the beginning of the dawn. Already there was enough of it to showthe world of hill and wood in vast, vague, silent masses, to renderwan the flaming windows of the castle towers behind them. In the east asullen sky was all blotched with crimson, some pine-trees on the heightswere struck against it, intensely black, intensely melancholy, perhapsbecause they led the mind to dwell on wild, remote, and solitary places, the savagery of old forests, the cruel destiny of man, who has comeafter and must go before the dead things of the wood. There was no wind;the landscape swooned in frost. 

"My faith! 'tis an odd and dolorous world at six o'clock in themorning, " thought Count Victor; "I wish I were asleep in Cammercy andall well. "

A young fallow-deer stood under an oak-tree, lifting its head to gazewithout dismay, almost a phantom; every moment the dawn spread wider; atlast the sea showed, leaden in the bay, mists revealed themselves uponBen Ime. Of sound there was only the wearying plunge of the cascades andthe roll of the shallows like tumbril-wheels on causeway as the riverran below the arches. 

"Far yet, monsieur?" cried Count Victor to the figure striding ahead, and his answer came in curt accents. 

"We'll be there in ten minutes. You want a little patience. "

"We shall be there, _par dieu!_ in time enough, " cried out Count Victor. "'Tis all one to me, but the march is pestilent dull. "

"What! would ye have fiddlin' at a funeral?" asked the Chamberlain, still without turning or slowing his step; and then, as though he hadbeen inspired, he drew out the flageolet that was ever his bosom friend, and the astounded Frenchman heard the strains of a bagpipe march. It wasso incongruous in the circumstances that he must laugh. 

"It were a thousand pities to kill so rare a personage, " thought he, "and yet--and yet--'tis a villainous early morning. "

They passed along the river-bank; they came upon the sea-beach; theChamberlain put his instrument into his pocket and still led the wayupon the sand that lay exposed far out by the low tide. He stopped at aspot clear of weed, flat and dry and firm almost as a table. It wasthe ideal floor for an engagement, but from the uncomfortable senseof espionage from the neighbourhood of a town that looked with all itswindows upon the place as it were upon a scene in a play-house. Thewhole front of the town was not two hundred yards away. 

"We shall be disturbed here, monsieur, " said Count Victor, hesitating asthe other put off his plaid and coat. 

"No!" said Sim MacTaggart shortly, tugging at a belt, and yet CountVictor had his doubts. He made his preparations, it is true, but alwayswith an apprehensive look at that long line of sleeping houses, whoseshutters--with a hole in the centre of each--seemed to stare down uponthe sand. No smoke, no flames, no sign of human occupance was there:the sea-gull and the pigeon pecked together upon the door-steps or thewindow-sills, or perched upon the ridges of the high-pitched roofs, anda heron stalked at the outlet of a gutter that ran down the street. Thesea, quiet and dull, the east turned from crimson to grey; the mountainsstreaming with mist----

"Cammercy after all!" said Count Victor to himself; "I shall wake in amoment, but yet for a nightmare 'tis the most extraordinary I have everexperienced. "

"I hope you are a good Christian, " said the Chamberlain, ready first andwaiting, bending his borrowed weapon in malignant arcs above his head. 

"Three-fourths of one at least, " said Montaiglon; "for I try my best tobe a decent man, " and he daintily and deliberately turned up his sleeveupon an arm as white as milk. 

"I'm waiting, " said the Chamberlain. 

"So! _en garde!_" said his antagonist, throwing off his hat and puttingup his weapon. 

There was a tinkle of steel like the sound of ice afloat in a glass. 

The town but seemed to sleep wholly; as it happened, there was one awakein it who had, of all its inhabitants, the most vital interest in thisstern business out upon the sands. She had gone home from the ball rentwith vexation and disappointment; her husband snored, a mannikin ofparchment, jaundice-cheeked, scorched at the nose with snuff; and, shuddering with distaste of her cage and her companion, she sat longat the window, all her finery on, chasing dream with dream, and everydream, as she knew, alas! with the inevitable poignancy of waking to thetruth. For her the flaming east was hell's own vestibule, for her thegreying dawn was a pallor of the heart, the death of hope. She satturning and turning the marriage-ring upon her finger, sometimes allunconsciously essaying to slip it off, and tugging viciously at theknuckle-joint that prevented its removal, and her eyes, heavy for sleepand moist with sorrow, still could pierce the woods of Shira Glento their deep-most recesses and see her lover there. They roamed soeagerly, so hungrily into that far distance, that for a while she failedto see the figures on the nearer sand. They swam into her recognitionlike wraiths upsprung, as it were, from the sand itself or exhaled upona breath from the sea: at first she could not credit her vision. 

It was not with her eyes--those tear-blurred eyes--she knew him; it wasby the inner sense, the nameless one that lovers know; she felt thetale in a thud of the heart and ran out with "Sim!" shrieked on her dumblips. Her gown trailed in the pools and flicked up the ooze of weed andsand; a shoulder bared itself; some of her hair took shame and coveredit with a veil of dull gold. 

CHAPTER XXVIII -- THE DUEL ON THE SANDS--Continued. 

And now it was clear day. The lime-washed walls of the town gleamed insunshine, and the shadows of the men at war upon the sand stretched farback from their feet toward the white land. Birds twittered, and shookthe snow from the shrubbery of the Duke's garden; the river cried belowthe arches, but not loud enough to drown the sound of stumbling steps, and Montaiglon threw a glance in the direction whence they came, even atthe risk of being spitted on his opponent's weapon. 

He parried a thrust in quarte and cried, "Stop! stop! _Remettez-vous, monsieur!_ Here comes a woman. "

The Chamberlain looked at the dishevelled figure running awkwardly overthe rough stones and slimy weeds, muttered an oath, and put his point upagain. 

"Come on, " said he; "we'll have the whole town about our lugs in tenminutes. "

"But the lady?" said Count Victor, guarding under protest. 

"It's only Kate, " said the Chamberlain, and aimed a furious thrustin tierce. Montaiglon parried by a beat of the edge of his forte, andforced the blade upwards. He could have disarmed by the simplest trickof Girard, but missed the opportunity from an insane desire to save hisopponent's feelings in the presence of a spectator. Yet the leniencycost them dear. 

"Sim! Sim!" cried out the woman in a voice full of horror and entreaty, panting towards the combatants. Her call confused her lover: in amingling of anger and impatience he lunged wildly, and Count Victor'sweapon took him in the chest. 

"Zut!" cried the Frenchman, withdrawing the sword and flicking the bloodfrom the point with a ludicrous movement. 

The Chamberlain writhed at his feet, muttered something fierce inGaelic, and a great repugnance took possession of the other. He lookedat his work; he quite forgot the hurrying woman until she ran past himand threw herself beside the wounded man. 

"Oh, Sim! Sim!" she wailed, in an utterance the most distressing. Herlover turned upon his back and smiled sardonically at her out of a faceof paper. "I wish ye had been a little later, Kate, " he said, "or that Ihad begun with a hale arm. Good God! I've swallowed a hot cinder. I loveyou, my dear; I love you, my dear. Oh, where the de'il's my flageolet?"And then his head fell back. 

With frantic hands she unloosed his cravat, sought and staunched thewound with her handkerchief, and wept the while with no sound, thoughher bosom, white like the spray of seas, seemed bound to burst above hercorsage. 

Count Victor sheathed his weapon, and "Madame, " said he withpreposterous inadequacy, "this--this--is distressing; this--this--" hedesired to offer some assistance, but baulked at the fury of the eyesshe turned on him. 

"Oh, you!--you!--you!" she gasped, choking to say even so little. "It isenough, is it not, that you have murdered him, without staying to see metortured?"

To this he could, of course, make no reply. His quandary was immense. Two hundred yards away was that white phantom town shining in themorning sun that rose enormous over the eastern hills beyond the littlelapping silver waves. A phantom town, with phantom citizens doubtlessprying through the staring eyes of those closed shutters. A phantomtown--town of fairy tale, with grotesque roofs, odd _corbeau_-steppedgables, smokeless chimneys, all white with snow, and wild birds on itsterrace, preening in the blessed light of the sun. He stood with hisback to the pair upon the sand. "My God! 'tis a dream, " said he. "Ishall laugh in a moment. " He seemed to himself to stand thus an age, andyet in truth it was only a pause of minutes when the Chamberlain spokewith the tone of sleep and insensibility as from another world. 

"I love you, my dear; I love you, my dear--Olivia. "

Mrs. Petullo gave a cry of pain and staggered to her feet. She turnedupon Count Victor a face distraught and eyes that were wild with thewretchedness of the disillusioned. Her fingers were playing nervously ather lips; her shoulders were roughened and discoloured by the cold; herhair falling round her neck gave her the aspect of a slattern. She, too, looked at the façade of the town and saw her husband's windows shutteredand indifferent to her grief. 

"I do not know whether you have killed him or not, " she said at last. "It does not matter--oh! it matters all--no, no, it does not matter--Oh!could you not--could you not kill me too?"

For his life he could not have answered: he but looked at her in mortalpity, and at that she ground her teeth and struck him on the lips. 

"Awake, decidedly awake!" he said, and shrugged his shoulders; and thenfor the first time he saw that she was shivering. 

"Madame, " he said, "you will die of cold: permit me, " and he stooped andpicked up his coat from the sand and placed it without resistance on hershoulders, like a cloak. She drew it, indeed, about her with tremblingfingers as if her senses craved the comfort though her detestationof the man who gave it was great. But in truth she was demented now, forgetting even the bleeding lover. She gave little paces on the sand, with one of her shoes gone from her feet, and wrung her hands and sobbedmiserably. 

Count Victor bent to the wounded man and found him regainingconsciousness. He did what he could, though that of necessity waslittle, to hasten his restoration, and relinquished the office only whenapproaching footsteps on the shore made him look up to see a group ofworkmen hastening to the spot where the Chamberlain lay on the edge ofthe tide and the lady and the foreigner beside him. 

"This man killed him, " cried Mrs. Petullo, pointing an accusing finger. 

"I hope I have not killed him, " said he, "and in any case it was anhonourable engagement; but that matters little at this moment when thefirst thing to do is to have him removed home. So far as I am concerned, I promise you I shall be quite ready to go with you and see him safelylodged. "

As the wounded man was borne through the lodge gate with Count Victor, coatless, in attendance, the latter looked back and saw Mrs. Petullo, again bare-shouldered, standing before her husband's door and gazingafter them. 

Her temper had come back; she had thrown his laced coat into theapproaching sea!

CHAPTER XXIX -- THE CELL IN THE FOSSE

By this time the morning was well gone; the town had wakened to theday's affairs--a pleasant light grey reek with the acrid odour ofburning wood soaring from chimneys into a sky intensely blue; and theroads that lay interlaced and spacious around the castle of Argyllwere--not thronged, but busy at least with labouring folk setting outupon their duties. To them, meeting the wounded form of the Chamberlain, the hour was tragic, and figured long at fireside stories after, acutelymemorable for years. They passed astounded or turned to follow him, making their own affairs secondary to their interest in the state of onewho, it was obvious even to Montaiglon, was deep in their affections. He realised that a few leagues farther away from the seat of aJusticiary-General it might have gone ill with the man who had broughtSimon MacTaggart to this condition, for menacing looks were thrown athim, and more than once there was a significant gesture that made plainthe animosity with which he was regarded. An attempt to escape--if suchhad occurred to him--would doubtless have been attended by the mostserious consequences. 

Argyll met his Chamberlain with the signs of genuine distress: it wastouching, indeed, to see his surrender to the most fraternal feeling, and though for a while the Duke's interest in his Chamberlain left himindifferent to him who was the cause of it, Count Victor could notbut perceive that he was himself in a position of exceeding peril. Heremembered the sinister comments of the Baron of Doom upon the hazardsof an outsider's entrance to the boar's cave, and realised for the firsttime what that might mean in this country, where the unhappy wretchfrom Appin, whose case had some resemblance to his own, had beenremorselessly made the victim (as the tale went) to world-old tribaljealousies whose existence was incredible to all outside the Highlandline. In the chill morning air he stood, coatless and shivering, thehigh embrasured walls lifting above him, the jabbering menials of thecastle grouped a little apart, much of the language heard savage andincomprehensible in his ears, himself, as it were, of no significance toany one except the law that was to manifest itself at any moment. Last night it had been very gay in this castle, the Duke was the mostgracious of hosts; here, faith! was a vast difference. 

"May I have a coat?" he asked a bystander, taking advantage of a bustlein the midst of which the wounded man was taken into the castle. He gotthe answer of a scullion. 

"A coat!" exclaimed the man he addressed. "A rope's more like it. " Andso, Count Victor, shrugging his shoulders at this impertinence, was leftto suffer the air that bit him to the marrow. 

The Chamberlain disposed of, and in the leech's hands, Argyll had theFrenchman brought to his rooms, still in his shirt-sleeves. The weaponof his offence was yet in his hand for evidence, had that been wanting, of an act he was prepared to admit with frankness. 

"Well, Monsieur Montaiglon, " said his Grace, pacing nervously up anddown the room before him, "this is a pretty matter. You have returnedto see my pictures somewhat sooner than I had looked for, and in no veryceremonious circumstances. "

"Truly, " said the Count, with a difficult essay at meeting the manin his own humour--"Truly, but your Grace's invitation was sopressing--_ah! c'est grand dommage! mais--mais_--I am not, with everyconsideration, in the key for badinage. M. Le Duc, you behold meexceedingly distressed at the discommoding of your household. At yourage this--"

He pulled himself up, confused a little, aware that his customarypoliteness had somehow for once shamefully deserted him with nointention on his part. 

"That is to put the case with exceeding delicacy, " said the Duke. "At myage, as you have said, my personal inconvenience is of little importancein face of the fact that a dear friend of mine may be at death's door. At all events there is a man, if signs mislead me not, monstrously neardeath under this roof, a man well liked by all that know him, a strongman and a brave man, and a man, in his way, of genius. He goes out, as Isay, hale and hearty, and comes back bloody in your company. You cameto this part of the world, monsieur, with the deliberate intention ofkilling my Chamberlain!"

"That's as Heaven, which arranges these things without consulting us, may have decided, my lord; on my honour, I had much preferred never tohave set eyes on your Chamberlain. "

"Come, come!" said the Duke with a high head and slapping with open handthe table beside him--"Come, come! I am not a fool, Montaiglon--even atmy age. You deliberately sought this unfortunate man. "

"Monsieur the Duke of Argyll has my word that it was not so, " said theCount softly. 

"I fancy in that case, then, you had found him easy to avoid, " said theDuke, who was in an ir-restrainable heat. "From the first--oh, come!sir, let us not be beating about the bush, and let us sink all theseevasions--from the first you have designed a meeting with MacTaggart, and your every act since you came to this country has led up to thisdamned business that is likely to rob me of the bravest of servants. Itwas not the winds of heaven that blew you against your will into thispart of Scotland, and brought you in contact with my friend on the veryfirst night of your coming here. "

"And still, M. Le Duc, with infinite deference, and a coolness that ispartly due to the unpleasant fact (as you may perceive) that I have nocoat on, 'twas quite the other way, and your bravest of servants thrusthimself upon my attention that had otherwise been directed to the realobject of my being in Scotland at all. "

The Duke gave a gesture of impatience. "I am not at the heart of thesemysteries, " said he, "but--even at my age--I know a great deal moreabout this than you give me credit for. If it is your whim to affectthat this wretched business was no more than a passage betweengentlemen, the result of a quarrel over cards or the like in my house--"

"Ah!" cried the Count, "there I am all to blame. Our affair ought moreproperly to have opened elsewhere. In that detail your Grace has everyground for complaint. "

"That is a mere side affair, " said the Duke, "and something else moreclosely affects me. I am expected to accept it, then, that the Comtede Mont-aiglon, travelling incognito in the unassuming _rôle_ of awine merchant, came here at this season simply from a passion for ourHighland scenery. I had not thought the taste for dreary mountains andblack glens had extended to the Continent. "

"At least 'twas not to quarrel with a servant I came here, " retortedCount Victor. 

"That is ill said, sir, " said his Grace. "My kinsman has ten generationsof ancestry of the best blood of Scotland and the Isles underground. "

"To that, M. Le Duc, there is an obvious and ancient retort--thattherein he is like a potato plant; the best of him is buried. "

Argyll stood before the Frenchman dubious and embarrassed; vexed at thetone of the encounter, and convinced, for reasons of his own, that inone particular at least the foreigner prevaricated, yet impressed bythe manly front of the gentleman whose affair had brought a morning'stragedy so close upon the heels of an evening's mirth. Here was the sortof quandary in which he would naturally have consulted with his Duchess, but it was no matter to wake a woman to, and she was still in herbed-chamber. 

"I assume you look for this unhappy business to be treated as an affairof honour?" he asked at last. 

"So to call it, " replied Count Victor, "though in truth, the honour, onmy word, was all on one side. "

"You are in doubtful taste to put it quite in these terms, " said theDuke more sternly, "particularly as you are the one to come out of it sofar scathless. "

"Would M. Le Duc know how his servant compelled my--my attentions?"

"Compelled your attentions! I do not like the tone of your speeches, monsieur. Dignity--"

"_Pardieu!_ M. Le Duc, would you expect a surfeit of dignity from a manwithout a jacket?" said the Count, looking pathetically at his arms. 

"Dignity--I mean the sense of it--would dictate a more sober carriage inface of the terrible act you have committed. I am doing my best to findthe slightest excuse for you, because you are a stranger here, a man ofgood family though engaged upon a stupendous folly, and I have beforenow been in the reverence of your people. You ask me if I know whatcompelled your attention (as you say) to my Chamberlain, and I willanswer you frankly that I know all that is necessary. "

At that the Count was visibly amazed. This was, indeed, to put a newface on matters and make more regrettable his complacent surrender afterhis affair on the sands. 

"In that case, M. Le Duc, " said he, "there is no more to be said. Iprotest I am unable to comprehend your Grace's complacence towards arogue--even of your own household. "

Argyll rang a bell and concluded the interview. 

"There has been enough of this, " he said. "I fear you do not clearlyrealise all the perils of your situation. You came here--you will pardona man at my age insisting upon it, for I know the facts--with the setdesign of challenging one who properly or improperly has aroused yourpassion; you have accomplished your task, and must not consider yourselfharshly treated if you have to pay the possible penalty. "

"Pardon, M. Le Duc, it is not so, always with infinite deference, andwithout a coat as I have had the boldness to remark before: my task hadgone on gaily enough had your Monsieur MacTaggart not been the victimof some inexplicable fever--unless as I sometimes suspect it were apreposterous jealousy that made me the victim of his somewhat stupidfolly play. "

"You have accomplished your task, as I say, " proceeded Argyll, heedlessof the interruption, "and to tell the truth, the thing has beendone with an unpardonably primitive absence of form. I am perhaps anindifferent judge of such ceremonies; at my age--as you did me thehonour to put it--that is only to be expected, but we used, when I wasyounger, to follow a certain formula in inviting our friend the enemyout to be killed. What is this hasty and clandestine encounter beforethe law of the land but a deliberate attempt at murder? It would be soeven in your own country under the circumstances. M. Le Comte, wherewere your seconds? Your wine-selling has opened in villainously badcircumstances, and you are in error to assume that the details of thecode may be waived even among the Highland hills. "

A servant entered. 

"Take this gentleman to the fosse, " said the Duke, with the ring ofsteel in his voice and his eyes snapping. 

"At least there is as little form about my incarceration as about mypoor duel, " said Count Victor. 

"My father would have been somewhat more summary in circumstances likethese, ", said the Duke, "and, by Heaven! the old style had its meritstoo; but these are different days, though, if I were you, I fancy I'dprefer the short shrift of Long David the dempster to the felon's cell. Be good enough to leave your sword. "

Count Victor said never a word, but placed the weapon in a corner of theroom, made a deep _congé_, and went forth a prisoner. 

In the last few minutes of the interview he had forgotten the cold, but now when he was led into the open air he felt it in his coatlesscondition more poignant than his apprehension at his position otherwise. He shivered as he walked along the fosse, through which blew a shrewdnorth wind, driving the first flakes of an approaching snowstorm. Thefosse was wide and deep, girding the four-square castle, mantled onits outer walls by dense ivy, where a few birds twittered. The wall wasbroken at intervals by the doors of what might very well serve as cellsif cells were wanted, and it was to one of these that Count Victor foundhimself consigned. 

"My faith, Victor, thou art a fool of the first water!" he said tohimself as he realised the ignominy of his situation. For he was in themost dismal of dungeons, furnished as scantily as a cellar, fireless, damp, and almost in sepulchral darkness, for what light might haveentered by a little window over the door was obscured by drifted snow. 

By-and-by his eyes became accustomed to the obscurity, and he concludedthat he was in what had at one time been a wine-cellar, as bottleswere racked against the back wall of his arched apartment. They wereempty--he confirmed his instinct on that point quickly enough, forthe events of the morning left him in the mood for refreshment. It wasuncomfortable all this; there was always the possibility of justicemiscarried; but at no time had he any fear of savage reprisals such ashad alarmed him when Mungo Boyd locked him up in Doom and the fictitiousbroken clan cried "Loch Sloy!" in darkness. For this was not wholly thewilds, and Argyll's manner, though stern, was that of one who desired inall circumstances to be just. 

So Count Victor sat on a box and shivered in his shirt-sleeves andfervently wished for breakfast. The snow fell heavily now, and driftedin the fosse and whitened the world; outside, therefore, all was silent;there must be bustle and footsteps, but here they were unheard: itseemed in a while that he was buried in catacombs, an illusion sovexatious that he felt he must dispel it at all hazards. 

There was but one way to do so. He stood on his box and tried to reachthe window over his door. To break the glass was easy, but when that wasdone and the snow was cleared away by his hand, he could see out onlyby pulling himself up with an awkward and exhausting grasp on the narrowledge. Thus he secured but the briefest of visions of what was outside, and that was not a reassuring one. 

Had he meditated escape from the window, he must now abandon it; foron the other side of the ditch, cowering in the shelter of one of thecastle doors, was standing one of the two men who had placed him in thecell, there apparently for no other purpose than to keep an eye on theonly possible means of exit from the discarded wine-cellar. 

The breaking glass was unheard by the watcher; at all events he made nomovement to suggest that he had observed it, and he said nothing aboutit when some time later in the forenoon he came with Count Victor'sbreakfast, which was generous enough to confirm his belief that inArgyll's hands he was at least assured of the forms of justice, thoughthat, in truth, was not the most consoling of prospects. 

His warder was a dumb dog, a squint-eyed Cerberus with what Count Victorfor once condemned as a tribal gibberish for his language, so that hewas incapable of understanding what was said to him even if he had beenwilling to converse. 

"It is little good to play the guitar to an ass, " said the Frenchman, and fell to his viands. 

CHAPTER XXX -- A DUCAL DISPUTATION

If Count Victor, buried among cobwebs in the fosse, stung by cold tillhe shivered as in a quartan ague, suffering alternately the chagrin ofthe bungler self-discovered and the apprehension of a looming fatewhose nature could only be guessed at, was in a state unenviable, Argyll himself was scarcely less unhappy. It was not only that hisChamberlain's condition grieved him, but that the whole affair put himin a quandary where the good citizen quarrelled in him with another oldHighland gentleman whose code of morals was not in strict accord withwritten statutes. He had studied the Pandects at Utrecht, but also hehad been young there, and there was a place (if all tales be true) onthe banks of the Yssel River where among silent polders a young Scot hadtwice at least fought with the sword upon some trivial matter of debatewith Netherlanders of his college. And then he knew his Chamberlain. About Simon MacTaggart Argyll had few illusions, though they perhapsmade all the difference in his conduct to the gentleman in question. That MacTaggart should have brought upon himself a tardy retributionfor acts more bold than scrupulous was not to be wondered at; that themeeting with Count Victor was honourably conducted, although defectivein its form, was almost certain; but here the assailant was in hiscustody, and whether he liked it or not he must hand him over to thelaw. 

His first impulse had been to wash his hands of all complicity in theFrenchman's fate by sending him straightway to the common town tolbooth, pending his trial in the ordinary course; but he hesitated from anintuition that the step would find no favour in the eyes of his Duchess, who had her own odd prejudices regarding Sim MacTaggart, and an interestin Count Victor none the less ardent because it was but a day or twoold. 

"A man! Archie, every bit of him!" she had said at the conclusionof last evening's entertainment; and though without depreciating hisvisitor he had attempted to convince her that her estimate ran therisk of being prejudiced by her knowledge of the quixotic mission theforeigner was embarked on, she had refused to see in Count Victor'saccent, face, and carriage anything but the most adorable character. She ever claimed a child's attribute of attraction or repulsion on mereinstinct to and from men's mere exteriors, and her husband knew it wasuseless to expect any approval from her for any action that might savourof the slightest harshness to the foreigner. 

But above all he feared--he dreaded--something else. Simon MacTaggartwas to him more than a servant; he knew many of his failings, but seemedto tolerate them because he also, like Count Victor, had learned notto expect too much from human nature. But it was ever his fear thathis lenience for the sins and follies of his Chamberlain would some daysuffer too hard a strain, and lead to that severance that in the case ofold friends and familiars was his Grace's singular terror in life. 

The day passed heavily for Argyll. Many a time he looked out of hiswindow into the fosse slow drifting full of snow; and though he couldnot from that point see the cell-door of his prisoner, his fancy didenough to feed his unhappiness. Vainly he paced his library, vainlysought the old anodyne--the blessed anodyne of books; he was consumedwith impatience to consult with his wife, and she, fragile always, andfatigued by last evening's gaieties, was still asleep. 

He went for the twentieth time into the room where the Chamberlain waslying. The doctor, a lank, pock-pitted embodiment of mad chirurgy frombooks and antique herbal delusions inherited from generations of simplehealers, mixed noxious stuff in a gallipot and plumed himself uponsome ounces of gore drawn from his victim. Clysters he prated on;electuaries; troches; the weed that the Gael of him called _slanlus_ or"heal-all;" of unguents loathsomely compounded, but at greatest lengthand with fullest rapture of his vile phlebotomy. 

"Six ounces, your Grace!" he cried gleefully, in a laughable highfalsetto, holding up the bowl with trembling fingers as if he profferedfor the ducal cheer the very flagon of Hebe. 

Argyll shuddered. 

"I wish to God, Dr. Madver, " said he, "your practice in this matter ofblood-letting may not be so much infernal folly. Why! the man lost allhe could spare before he reached you. "

And there, unconscious, Simon MacTaggart slept, pale as parchment, fallen in at the jaw, twitching a little now and then at the corners ofthe mouth, otherwise inert and dead. Never before had his master seenhim off his guard--never, that is to say, without the knowledge that hewas being looked at--and if his Grace had expected that he should findany grosser man than he knew revealed, he was mistaken. 'Twas a childthat slept--a child not unhappy, at most only indifferent toeverything with that tremendous naïveté of the dead and of the soundlysleeping--that great carelessness that comes upon the carcass whenthe soul's from home. If he had sinned a million times, --let thephysiognomists say what they will!--not a line upon his face betrayedhim, for there the ideals only leave their mark, and his were foreverimpeccable. 

His coat hung upon the back of a chair, and his darling flageolet hadfallen out of the pocket and lay upon the floor. Argyll picked it up andheld it in his hand a while, looking upon it with a little Contempt, andyet with some kindness. 

"Fancy that!" he said more to himself than to the apothecary; "the poorfellow must have his flageloet with him even upon an affair ofthis kind. It beats all! My dear man of moods! my good vagabond!my windlestraw of circumstance! constant only to one ideal--theunattainable perfection in a kind of roguish art. To play a perfecttune in the right spirit he would sacrifice everything, and yet driftcarelessly into innumerable disgraces for mere lack of will to lift ahand. I daresay sometimes Jean is in the rights of it after all--hisgifts have been his curse; wanting his skill of this simple instrumentthat was for ever to himself and others an intoxication, and wanting hisoutward pleasing form, he had been a good man to the very marrow. A goodman! H'm! Ay! and doubtless an uninteresting one. Doctor! doctor! haveyou any herb for the eyesight?"

"Does your Grace have a dimness? I know a lotion--"

"Dimness! faith! it is the common disease, and I suffer it with therest. Sometimes I cannot see the length of my nose. "

"The stomach, your Grace; just the stomach, " cried the poor leech. "Myown secret preparation--"

"Your own secret preparation, doctor, will not, I am sure, touch theroot of this complaint or the devil himself is in it. I can stillsee--even at my age--the deer on Tom-a-chrochair, and read the scurviestletters my enemies send me, but my trouble is that I cannot understandthe flageolet. "

"The flageolet, your Grace, " said MacIver bewildered. "I thought youspoke of your eyesight. "

"And so I did. I cannot see through the mysteries of things; I cannotunderstand why man should come into the world with fingers so apt tofankle that he cannot play the finest tunes all the time and in the bestof manners. These, however, are but idle speculations, beyond the noblejurisdiction of the chymist. And so you think our patient will make agood recovery?"

"With care, your Grace; and the constant use of my styptic, a mostelegant nostrum, your Grace, that has done wonders in the case of awidow up the glen. "

"This folly of a thing they call one's honour, " said the Duke, "has madea great deal of profitable trade for your profession?"

"I have no cause of complaint, your Grace, " said the doctorcomplacently, "except that nowadays honour nor nothing else rarely sendsso nice a case of hemorrhage my way. An inch or two to the left and Mr. MacTaggart would have lifted his last rents. "

Argyll grimaced with distaste at the idea. 

"Poor Sim!" said he. "And my tenants would have lost a tolerable agent, though I might easily find one to get more money out of them. Condemnthat Frenchman! I wish the whole race of them were at the devil. "

"It could never have been a fair fight this, " said the doctor, spreadinga plaster. 

"There never _was_ a fair fight, " said Argyll, "or but rarely, andthen neither of the men was left to tell the tale. The man with mostadvantages must ever win. "

"The other had them all here, " said the doctor, "for the Chamberlain wasfighting with an unhealed wound in his right arm. "

"A wounded arm!" cried Argyll. "I never heard of that. "

It was a wound so recent, the doctor pointed out, that it made the duelmadness. He turned over the neck of his patient's shirt and showed thecicatrice, angry and ugly. "A stab, too!" said he. 

"A stab?" said the Duke. 

"A stab with a knife or a thrust with a sword, " said the doctor. "It hasgone clean through the arm and come out at the back. "

"Gad! this is news indeed! What does it mean? It's the reason for thepallour and the abstraction of some days back, for which I put the blameupon some love-affair of his. He never breathed a word of it to me, norI suppose to you?"

"It has had no attention from me or any one else, " said the doctor; "butthe wound seems to have healed of itself so far without anything beingdone for it. "

"So that a styptic--even the famous styptic--can do no more wonders thana good constitution after all. Poor Sim, I wonder what folly this cameof. And yet--to look at him there--his face so gentle, his brow so calm, his mouth--ah, poor Sim!"

From a distant part of the house a woman's voice arose, crying, "Archie, Archi-e-e!" in a lingering crescendo: it was the Duchess, and as yet shehad not heard of the day's untoward happenings. He went out and told hergently. "And now, " he went on when her agitation had abated, "what ofour Chevalier?"

"Well!" said she, "what of him? I hope he is not to suffer for this, seeing MacTaggart is going to get better, for I should dearly like tohave him get some return for his quest. "

"Would you, indeed?" said the Duke. "H'm, " and stared at her. "The Countis at this moment cooling his heels in the fosse cell. "

"That is hard!" said she, reddening. 

"But what would you, my dear? I am still as much the representativeof the law as ever, and am I to connive at such outrages under my ownwindows because the chief offender is something of a handsome younggentleman who has the tact to apologise for a disturbance in my domesticaffairs that must, as he puts it, be disconcerting to a man at my age? Aman of my age--there's France!--_toujours la politesse_, if you please!At my age! Confound his impudence!"

The Duchess could not suppress a smile. 

"At his age, my dear, " said she, "you had the tact to put so obvious athing differently or leave it alone. "

"Not that I heed his impudence, " said the Duke hastily; "that a man isno longer young at sixty is the most transparent of facts. "

"Only he does not care to have it mentioned too unexpectedly. Oh, you goose!" And she laughed outright, then checked herself at therecollection of the ailing Chamberlain. 

"If I would believe myself as young as ever I was, my dear lass, "said he, "credit me it is that it is more to seem so in the eyes ofyourself, " and he put his arm around her waist. 

"But still, " said she after a little--"still the unlucky Frenchman is inthe fosse more for his want of tact, I fear, than for his crime againstthe law of the land. Who pinked--if that's the nasty word--who pinkedthe Dutchman in Utrecht?--that's what I should like to know, my dearJustice Shallow. "

"This is different, though; he came here for the express purpose--"

"Of quarrelling with the Chamberlain!"

"Well, of quarrelling with somebody, as you know, " said the noblemanhesitatingly. 

"I am sorry for MacTaggart, " said the Duchess, "really sorry, but Icannot pretend to believe he has been very ill done by--I mean unjustlydone by. I am sure my Frenchman must have had some provocation, and isreally the victim. "

"You--that is we--know nothing about that, my dear, " said Argyll. 

"I cannot be mistaken; you would be the first at any other time toadmit that I could tell whether a man was good or evil on a very briefacquaintance. With every regard for your favour to the Chamberlain, Icannot stand the man. If my instinct did not tell me he was vicious, myears would, for I hear many stories little to his credit. "

"And yet a brave man, goodwife, a faithful servant and an interestingfellow. Come now! Jean, is it not so?"

She merely smiled, patting his ruffles with delicate fondling fingers. It was never her habit to argue with her Duke. 

"What!" he cried smilingly, "none of that, but contradict me if youdare. "

"I never contradict his Grace the Duke of Argyll, " said she, steppingback and sweeping the floor with her gown in a stately courtesy; "it isnot right, and it is not good for him--at his age. "

"Ah, you rogue!" he cried, laughing. "But soberly now, you are too hardon poor Sim. It is the worst--the only vice of good women that they haveno charity left for the imperfect either of their own sex or of mine. Let us think what an atom of wind-blown dust is every human being at thebest, bad or good in his blood as his ancestry may have been, kind orcruel, straight or crooked, pious or pagan, admirable or evil, as theaccidents of his training or experience shall determine. As I grow olderI grow more tolerant, for I have learned that my own scanty virtues andgraces are no more my own creation than the dukedom I came into from myfather--or my red hair. "

"Not red, Archie, " said the Duchess, "not red, but reddish fair; infact, a golden;" and she gently pulled a curl upon his temple. "Whatabout our Frenchman? Is he to lie in the fosse till the Sheriff sendsfor him or till the great MacCailen Mor has forgiven him for telling himhe was a little over the age of thirty?"

"For once, my dear, you cannot have your way, " said the Duke firmly. "Bereasonable! We could not tolerate so scandalous an affair without someshow of law and--"

"Tolerate!" said the Duchess. "You are very hard on poor Montaiglon, Archie, and all because he fought a duel with a doubtful gentleman whowill be little the worse for it in a week or two. Let us think, " shewent on banteringly--"let us think what an atom of wind-blown dust isevery human being at the best, admirable or evil as his training--"

Her husband stopped her with a kiss. 

"No more of that, Jean; the man must thole his trial, for I have gonetoo far to draw back even if I had the will to humour you. "

There was one tone of her husband's his wife knew too decisive for hercontending with, and now she heard it. Like a wise woman, she made upher mind to say no more, and she was saved an awkward pause by an uproarin the fosse. Up to the window where those two elderly lovers had theirkindly disputation came the sound of cries. Out into the dusk of theevening Argyll thrust his head and asked an explanation. 

"The Frenchman's gone!" cried somebody. 

He drew in his head, with a smile struggling on his countenance. 

"You witch!" said he, "you must have your own way with me, even if ittakes a spell!"

CHAPTER XXXI -- FLIGHT

Long after, when Count Victor Jean de Montaiglon was come into greatgood fortune, and sat snug by charcoal-fires in the chateau that bearshis name, and stands, an edifice even the Du Barry had the taste toenvy, upon the gusset of the roads which break apart a league to thesouth of the forest of Saint Germain-en-Laye, he would recount, withoddly inconsistent humours of mirth and tense dramatics, the manner ofhis escape from the cell in the fosse of the great MacCailen. And alwayshis acutest memory was of the whipping rigour of the evening air, histemporary sense of swooning helplessness upon the verge of the fantasticwood. "Figure you! Charles, " would he say, "the thin-blooded wand offorty years ago in a brocaded waistcoat and a pair of dancing-shoesseeking his way through a labyrinth of demoniac trees, shivering halfwith cold and half with terror like a _forcat_ from the _bagne_ ofToulouse, only that he knew not particularly from what he fled norwhereto his unlucky footsteps should be turned. I have seen it oftensince--the same place--have we not, _mignonne?_--and I avow 'tis assweet and friendly a spot as any in our own neighbourhood; but then inthat pestilent night of black and grey I was like a child, tenantingevery tiny thicket with the were-wolf and the sheeted spectre. There isa stupid feeling comes to people sometimes in the like circumstances, that they are dead, that they have turned the key in the lock of life, as we say, and gone in some abstraction into the territory of shades. 'Twas so I felt, messieurs, and if in truth the ultimate place ofspirits is so mortal chilly, I shall ask Père Antoine to let me have agreatcoat as well as the viaticum ere setting out upon the journey. "

It had been an insufferably cruel day, indeed, for Count Victor in hiscell had he not one solace, so purely self-wrought, so utterly fanciful, that it may seem laughable. It was that the face of Olivia came beforehim at his most doleful moments--sometimes unsought by his imagination, though always welcome; with its general aspect of vague sweet sadnessplayed upon by fleeting smiles, her lips desirable to that degree hecould die upon them in one wild ecstasy, her eyes for depth and puritythe very mountain wells. She lived, breathed, moved, smiled, sighedin this same austere atmosphere under the same grey sky that hung lowoutside his cell; the same snowfall that he could catch a glimpse ofthrough the tiny space above his door was seen by her that moment inDoom; she must be taking the flavour of the sea as he could sometimes doin blessed moments even in this musty _oubliette_. 

The day passed, a short day with the dusk coming on as suddenly as ifsome one had drawn a curtain hurriedly over the tiny aperture above thedoor. And all the world outside seemed wrapped in silence. Twice againhis warder came dumbly serving a meal, otherwise the prisoner might havebeen immeasurably remote from any life and wholly forgotten. There was, besides his visions of Olivia, one other thing to comfort him; it waswhen he heard briefly from some distant part of the castle the ululationof a bagpipe playing an air so jocund that it assured him at all eventsthe Chamberlain was not dead, and was more probably out of danger. Andthen the cold grew intense beyond his bearance, and he reflected uponsome method of escape if it were to secure him no more than exercise forwarmth. 

The window was out of the question, for in all probability the watch wasstill on the other side of the fosse--a tombstone for steadfastness andconstancy. Count Victor could not see him now even by standing on hisbox and looking through the aperture, yet he gained something, hegained all, indeed, so pregnant a thing is accident--even the cosycharcoal-fires and the friends about him in the chateau near SaintGermain-en-Laye--by his effort to pierce the dusk and see across theditch. 

For as he was standing on the box, widening softly the aperture in thedrifted snow upon the little window-ledge, he became conscious of coldair in a current beating upon the back of his head. The draught, thatshould surely be entering, was blowing out!

At once he thought of a chimney, but there was no fireplace in his cell. Yet the air must be finding entrance elsewhere more freely than from thewindow. Perplexity mastered him for a little, and then he concludedthat the current could come from nowhere else than behind the array ofmarshalled empty bottles. 

"_Tonnerre!_" said he to himself, "I have begun my career as winemerchant rather late in life or I had taken more interest in these deadgentlemen. _Avancez, donc, mes princes!_ your ancient spirit once madeplain the vacancies in the heads of his Grace's guests; let us seeif now you do not conceal some holes that were for poor Montaiglon'sprofit. "

One by one he pulled them out of their positions until he could intrudea sensitive hand behind the shelves where they had been racked. 

There was an airy space. 

"_Très bon! merci, messieurs les cadavres_, perhaps I may forgive youeven yet for being empty. "

Hope surged, he wrought eagerly; before long he had cleared away apassage--that ended in a dead wall!

It was perhaps the most poignant moment of his experience. He had, then, been the fool of an illusion! Only a blank wall! His fingers searchedevery inch of it within reach, but came upon nothing but masonry, cold, clammy, substantial. 

"A delusion after all!" he said, bitterly disappointed. "A delusion, andnot the first that has been at the bottom of a bottle of wine. " Hehad almost resigned himself again to his imprisonment when the puffingcurrent of colder air than that stagnant within the cell struck him forthe second time, more keenly felt than before, because he was warm withhis exertions. This time he felt that it had come from somewhere overthe level of his head. Back he dragged his box and stood upon it behindthe bottle-bin, and felt higher upon the wall than he could do standing, to discover that it stopped short about nine feet from the floor, andwas apparently an incompleted curtain partitioning his cell from somespace farther in. 

Not with any vaulting hopes, for an egress from this inner space seemedless unlikely than from the one he occupied, he pulled himself on thetop of the intervening wall and lowered himself over the other side. Atthe full stretch of his arms he failed to touch anything with his feet;an alarming thought came to him; he would have pulled himself back, but the top of the wall was crumbling to his fingers, a mass of rottenmortar threatening each moment to break below his grasp, and he realisedwith a spasm of the diaphragm that now there was no retreat. What--thiswas his thought--what if this was the mouth of a well? Or a mediaevaltrap for fools? He had seen such things in French castles. In the pitchdarkness he could not guess whether he hung above an abyss or had theground within an inch of his straining toes. 

To die in a pit!

To die in a pit! good God!--was this the appropriate conclusion to alife with so much of open-air adventure, sunshine, gaiety, and charm init? The sweat streamed upon his face as he strove vainly to hang by oneof his arms and search the cope of the crumbling wall for a surer holdwith the other; he stretched his toes till his muscles cramped, his eyesin the darkness filled with a red cloud, his breath choked him, a visionof his body thrashing through space overcame him, and his slippingfingers would be loose from the mortar in another minute!

To one last struggle for a decent mastery his natural manhood rose, andcleared his brain and made him loose his grip. 

He fell less than a yard!

For a moment he stopped to laugh at his foolish terror, and then setbusily to explore this new place in which he found himself. The air wasfresher; the walls on either hand contracted into the space of a lobby;he felt his way along for twenty paces before he could be convincedthat he was in a sort of tunnel. But figure a so-convenient tunnel inconnection with a prison cell! It was too good to be true. 

With no great surrender to hope even yet, he boldly plunged into thedarkness, reason assuring him that the _cul-de-sac_ would come sooneror later. But for once reason was wrong; the passage opened ever beforehim, more airy than ever, always dank and odorous, but with never abarrier--a passage the builders of the castle had executed for an ageof sudden sieges and alarms, but now archaic and useless, and finallyforgotten altogether. 

He had walked, he knew not how long, when he was brought up by a curioussound--a prolonged, continuous, hollow roar as of wind in a wood or asea that rolled on a distant beach. Vainly he sought to identify it, butfinally shook aside his wonder and pushed on again till he came to theapparent end of the passage, where a wooden door barred his progressfarther. He stopped as much in amazement as in dubiety about the door, for the noise that had baffled him farther back in the tunnel was nowclose at hand, and he might have been in a ship's hold and the shipall blown about by tempest, to judge from the inexplicable thunderthat shook the darkness. A score of surmises came quickly, only to bedismissed as quickly as they came; that extraordinary tumult was beyondhis understanding, and so he applied himself to his release. Still hislucky fortune remained with him; the door was merely on a latch. Heplucked it open eagerly, keen to solve the puzzle of the noise, emergingon a night now glittering with stars, and clamant with the roar oftumbling waters. 

A simple explanation!--he had come out beside the river. The passagecame to its conclusion under the dumb arch of a bridge whose concavesechoed back in infinite exaggeration every sound of the river as itgulped in rocky pools below. 

The landscape round about him in the starshine had a most bewitchinginfluence. Steep banks rose from the riverside and lost themselves ina haze of frost, through which, more eminent, stood the boles and giantmembers of vast gaunt trees, their upper branches fretting the starrysky. No snow was on the spot where he emerged, for the wind, blowinghuge wreaths against the buttresses of the bridge a little higher onthe bank, had left some vacant spaces, but the rest of the world wasblanched well-nigh to the complexion of linen. Where he was to turn tofirst puzzled Count Victor. He was free in a whimsical fashion, indeed, for he was scarcely more than half-clad, and he wore a pair ofdancing-shoes, ludicrously inappropriate for walking in such weatherthrough the country. He was free, but he could not be very far yet fromhis cell; the discovery of his escape might be made known at any moment;and even now while he lingered here he might have followers in thetunnel. 

Taking advantage of the uncovered grass he climbed the bank and soughtthe shelter of a thicket where the young trees grew too dense to permitthe snow to enter. From here another hazard of flight was manifest, forhe could see now that the face of the country outside on the level wasspread as with a tablecloth, its white surface undisturbed, ready forthe impress of so light an object as a hopping wren. To make his wayacross it would be to drag his bonds behind him, plainly asking theworld to pull him back. Obviously there must be a more tactical retreat, and without more ado he followed the river's course, keeping ever, as hecould, in the shelter of the younger woods, where the snow did not lieor was gathered by the wind in alleys and walls. Forgotten was the coldin his hurried flight through the trees; but by-and-by it compelledhis attention, and he fell to beating his arms in the shelter of aplantation of yews. 

"_Mort de ma vie!_" he thought while in this occupation, "why should Inot have a roquelaire? If his very ungracious Grace refuses to seewhen a man is dying of cold for want of a coat, shall the man not helphimself to a loan? M. Le Duc owes Cammercy something for that ride ina glass coach, and for a night of a greatcoat I shall be pleased todischarge the family obligation. "

Count Victor there and then came to a bold decision. He would, perhaps, not only borrow a coat and cover his nakedness, but furthermore coverhis flight by the same strategy. The only place in the neighbourhoodwhere he could obscure his footsteps in that white night of stars wasin the castle itself--perhaps in the very fosse whence he had made hisescape. There the traffic of the day was bound to have left a myriadtracks, amongst which the imprint of a red-heeled Rouen shoe would neveradvertise itself. But it was too soon yet to risk so bold a venture, forhis absence might be at this moment the cause of search round all thecastle, and ordinary prudence suggested that he should permit some timeto pass before venturing near the dwelling that now was in his view, itslights blurred by haze, no sign apparent that they missed or searchedfor him. 

For an hour or more, therefore, he kept his blood from congelation bywalking back and forward in the thicket into which the softly breathingbut shrewish night wind penetrated less cruelly than elsewhere, andat last judged the interval enough to warrant his advance upon theenterprise. 

Behold then Count Victor running hard across the white level waste ofthe park into the very boar's den--a comic spectacle, had there been anyone to see it, in a dancer's shoes and hose, coatless and excited. He looked over the railing of the fosse to find the old silenceundisturbed. 

Was his flight discovered yet? If not it was something of a madness, after all, to come back to the jaws of the trap. 

"Here's a pretty problem!" he told himself, hesitating upon the brink ofthe ditch into which dipped a massive stair--"Here's a pretty problem!to have the roquelaire or to fly without it and perish of cold, becausethere is one chance in twenty that monsieur the warder opposite mychamber may not be wholly a fool and may have looked into his mousetrap. I do not think he has; at all events here are the alternatives, and thewiser is invariably the more unpleasant. _Allons!_ Victor, _advienne quepourra_, and Heaven help us!"

He ran quickly down the stair into the fosse, crept along in the shelterof the ivy for a little, saw that no one was visible, and darted acrossand up to a postern in the eastern turret. The door creaked noisilyas he entered, and a flight of stairs, dimly lit by candles, presenteditself, up which he ventured with his heart in his mouth. On thefirst landing were two doors, one of them ajar; for a second or twohe hesitated with every nerve in his flesh pulsating and his hearttumultuous in his breast; then hearing nothing, took his courage in hishands and blandly entered, with his feet at a fencer's balance for thesecurity of his retreat if that were necessary. There was a fire glowingin the apartment--a tempting spectacle for the shivering refugee, a dimlight burned within a glass shade upon the mantel, and a table ladenwith drug-vials was drawn up to the side of a heavily-curtained bed. 

Count Victor compassed the whole at a glance, and not the least pleasantpart of the spectacle was the sight of a coat--not a greatcoat, butstill a coat--upon the back of a chair that stood between the bed andthe fire. 

"With a thousand apologies to his Grace, " he whispered to himself, andtiptoed in his soaking shoes across the floor without reflecting for asecond that the bed might have an occupant. He examined the coat; it hada familiar look that might have indicated its owner even if there hadnot been the flageolet lying beside it. Instinctively Count Victorturned about and went up to the bed, where, silently peeping between thecurtains, he saw his enemy of the morning so much in a natural slumberas it seemed that he was heartened exceedingly. Only for a moment helooked; there was the certainty of some one returning soon to the room, and accordingly he rapidly thrust himself into the coat and stepped backupon the stair. 

There was but one thing wanting--a sword! Why should he not have his ownback again? As he remembered the interview of the morning, the chamberin which he had left his weapon at the bidding of the Duke was closeat hand, and probably it was still there. Each successive hazardaudaciously faced emboldened him the more; and so he ventured along, searching amid a multitude of doors in dim rushlight till he came uponone that was different from its neighbours only inasmuch as it hada French motto painted across the panels. The motto read "_Revenezbientôt_, " and smiling at the omen, Count Victor once more took hisvalour in his fingers and turned the handle. "_Revenez bientôt_" he waswhispering softly to himself as he noiselessly pushed in the door. Thesentence froze on his lips when he saw the Duchess seated in a chair, and turned half round to look at him. 

CHAPTER XXXII -- THE INDISCRETION OF THE DUCHESS

There was no drawing back; the circumstances positively forbade it, evenif a certain smile following fast upon the momentary embarrassment ofthe Duchess had not prompted him to put himself at her mercy. 

"A thousand pardons, Madame la Duchesse, " he said, standing in thedoorway. "_Je vous dérange_. "

She rose from her chair composedly, a figure of matured grace andpractised courtliness, and above all with an air of what he flatteredhimself was friendliness. She directed him to a seat. 

"The pleasure is unexpected, monsieur, " she said; "but it is a momentfor quick decision, I suppose. What is the cue? To be desperate?" hereshe laughed softly, "or to take a chair? Monsieur has called to seehis Grace. I regret exceedingly that a pressing business has called myhusband to the town, and he is unlikely to be back for another hour atleast. If monsieur--assuming desperation is not the cue--will please tobe seated--"

Count Victor was puzzled for a second or two, but came farther into theroom, and, seeing the lady resume her seat, he availed himself of herinvitation and took the chair she offered. 

"Madame la Duchesse, " he went on to say with some evidence of confusionthat prejudiced her the more in his favour, "I am, as you see, in thedrollest circumstances, and--pardon the _bêtise_--time is at the momentthe most valuable of my assets. "

"Oh!" she cried with a low laugh that gave evidence of the sunniestdisposition in the world--"Oh! that is not a pretty speech, monsieur!But there! you cannot, of course, know my powers of entertainment. Positively there need be no hurry. On my honour, as the true friend ofa gentleman who looked very like monsieur, and was, by the way, acompatriot, I repeat there is no occasion for haste. I presume monsieurfound no servants--those stupid servants!--to let him into the house, and wisely found an entrance for himself? How droll! It is our way inthese barbaric places; people just come and go as they please; we waiveceremony. By the way, monsieur has not done me the honour to confide tome his name. "

"Upon my word, Madame la Duchesse, I--I forget it myself at the moment, "said Count Victor, divining her strategy, but too much embarrassed toplay up to her lead. "Perhaps madame may remember. "

She drew down her brows in a comical frown, and then rippled into lowlaughter. "Now, how in the world should I know if monsieur does not? I, that have never"--here she stared in his face with a solemnity in whichher amusement struggled--"never, to my knowledge, seen him before. Ihave heard the Duke speak of a certain M. Soi-disant! perhaps monsieuris Monsieur Soi-disant?"

"_Sans doute_, Madame la Duchesse, and madame's very humble servant, "acquiesced Count Victor, relieved to have his first impression ofstrategy confirmed, and inclining his head. 

She looked at him archly and laughed again. "I have a great admirationfor your sex, M. Soi-disant, " she said; "my dear Duke compels it, butnow and then--now and then--I think it a little stupid. Not to know yourown name! I hope monsieur does not hope to go through life dependingupon women all the time to set him at ease in his chair. You areobviously not at ease in your chair, Monsieur Soi-disant. "

"It is this coat, Madame la Duchesse, " Count Victor replied, lookingdown at the somewhat too ample sleeves and skirt; "I fell into it--"

"That is very obvious, " she interrupted, with no effort to conceal heramusement. 

"I fell into it by sheer accident, and it fits me like an evil habit, and under the circumstances is as inconvenient to get rid of. "

"And still an excellent coat, monsieur. Let me see; has it not afamiliar look? Oh! I remember; it is very like one I have seen with theDuke's Chamberlain--poor fellow! Monsieur has doubtless heard of hisaccident, and will be glad to learn that he is out of danger, and liketo be abroad in a very short time. "

This was a humour touching him too closely; he replied in amonosyllable. 

"Perhaps it was the coat gave me the impression that I had seen monsieursomewhere before. He reminds me, as I have said, of a compatriot who wasthe cause of the Chamberlain's injury. "

"And is now, doubtless, in prison, " added the Count, bent on givingevidence of some inventiveness of his own. 

"Nay! by no means, " cried the Duchess. "He was in a cell, but escapedtwo or three hours ago, as our watchman discovered, and is now probablyfar away from here. "

"Ah, then, " said Count Victor with nonchalance, "I daresay they willspeedily recapture him. If they only knew the way with any of mycompatriots it is to put a woman in his path, only she must be a womanof _esprit_ and charm, and she shall engage him, I'll warrant, till thepursuit come up, even if it takes a century and the axe is at the end ofit. "

The Duchess coughed. 

The Count hemmed. 

They both broke into laughter. 

"Luckily, then, " said she, "he need have no anxiety on that score, should he meet the lady, for the pursuit is neither hot nor hearty. Between ourselves, monsieur, it is non-existent. If I were to meet thisperson we speak of I should--but for the terror I know I should feel inhis society--tell him that so long as he did not venture within a coupleof miles of this castle he was perfectly safe from interference. "

"And yet a dangerous man, Madame la Duchesse, " said Count Victor; "and Ihave heard the Duke is determined on his punishment, which is of courseproper--from his Grace's point of view. "

"Yes, yes! I am told he is a dangerous man, a very monster. The Dukeassured me of that, though if I were to tell the truth, MonsieurSoi-disant, I saw no evidence of it in the young gentleman when I methim last night. A most harmless fellow, I assure you. Are monsieur'sfeet not cold?"

She was staring at his red-heeled dancing-shoes. 

"_Pas du tout!_" he replied promptly, tucking them under his chair. "These experiments in costume are a foible with me. "

There was a step along the corridor outside, which made him snap offhis sentence hurriedly and turn listening and apprehensive. Again theDuchess was amused. 

"No, monsieur, it is not his Grace yet; you are all impatience to meethim, I see, and my poor company makes little amends for his absence;but it is as I say, he will not be back for another hour. You areinterested, doubtless, in the oddities of human nature; for me I amcontinually laughing at the transparency of the stratagems whereby menlike my husband try to lock their hearts up like a garden and throw awaythe key before they come into the company of their wives. I'm _sure_your poor feet must be cold. You did not drive? Such a night of snowtoo! I cannot approve of your foible for dancing-shoes to wade throughsnow in such weather. As I was saying, you are not only the stupid sexsometimes, but a most transparent one. I will let you into alittle secret that may convince you that what I say of our CountWhat's-his-name not being hunted is true. I see quite clearly thatthe Duke is delighted to have this scandal of a duel--oh! the shockingthings, duels, Monsieur Soi-disant!--shut up. In the forenoon he wasmightily vexed with that poor Count What-do-you-call-him for a purelypersonal reason that I may tell you of later, but mainly becausehis duty compelled him to secure the other party to the--let us say, outrage. You follow, Monsieur Soi-disant?"

"_Parfaitement_, Madame la Duchesse, " said Count Victor, wondering whereall this led to. 

"I am a foolish sentimentalist, I daresay you may think--for a person ofmy age (are you quite comfortable, monsieur? I fear that chair does notsuit you)--I am a foolish sentimentalist, as I have said, and I may tellyou I pleaded very hard for the release of this luckless compatriot ofyours who was then in the fosse. But, oh dear! his Grace was adamant, asis the way with dukes, at least in this country, and I pleaded in vain. "

"Naturally, madame; his Grace had his duty as a good subject. "

"Doubtless, " said the Duchess; "but there have been occasions inhistory, they assure me, when good subjects have been none the less nicehusbands. Monsieur can still follow me?"

Count Victor smiled and bowed again, and wished to heaven her Grace theDuchess had a little more of the gift of expedition. He had come lookingfor a sword and found a sermon. 

"I know I weary you, " she went on complacently. "I was about to say thatwhile the Duke desires to do his duty, even at the risk of breaking hiswife's heart, it was obvious to me he was all the time sorry to have todo it, and when we heard that our Frenchman had escaped I, take my wordfor it, was not the only one relieved. "

"I do not wonder, madame, " said Montaiglon, "that the subject in thiscase should capitulate to--to--to the--"

"To the loving husband, you were about to say. La! you are too gallant, monsieur, I declare. And as a matter of fact the true explanation isless to my husband's credit and less flattering to me, for he had hisown reasons. "

"One generally has, " reflected the Count aloud. 

"Quite! and in his case they are very often mine. Dear Archie! Though hedid not think I knew it, I saw clearly that he had his own reasons, as Isay, to wish the Frenchman well out of the country. Now could you guesswhat these reasons were?"

Count Victor confessed with shame that it was beyond him. 

"I will tell you. They were not his own interests, and they were notmine, that influenced him; I had not to think very hard to discover thatthey were the interests of the Chamberlain. I fancy his Grace knowsthat the less inquiry there is into this encounter the better for allconcerned. "

"I daresay, Madame la Duchesse, " agreed Count Victor, "and yet the worldspeaks well of the Chamberlain, one hears. "

"Woe unto you when all men speak well of you!" quoted the Duchesssententiously. 

"It only happens when the turf is in our teeth, " said the Count, "andthen _De mortuis_ is a motto our dear friends use more as an excuse thanas a moral. "

"I do not like our Chamberlain, monsieur; I may frankly tell you so. I should not be surprised to learn that my husband knows a little moreabout him than I do, and I give you my word I know enough to considerhim hateful. "

"These are most delicate considerations, Madame la Duchesse, " said theCount, vastly charmed by her manner but naturally desirous of the openair. Every step he heard in neighbouring lobbies, every slammed door, spoiled his attention to the lady's confidences, and he had an uneasysense that she was not wholly unamused at his predicament, however muchhis friend. 

"Delicate considerations, true, but I fear they do not interest MonsieurSoi-disant. How should they indeed? Gossip, monsieur, gossip! Atour age, as you might say, we must be chattering. I _know_ you areuncomfortable on that chair. Do, monsieur, please take another. "

This time he was convinced of his first suspicion that she was havingher revenge for his tactless remark to her husband, for he had notstirred at all in his chair, but had only reddened, and she had a smileat the corners of her mouth. 

"At my age, Madame la Duchesse, we are quite often impertinent fools. There is, however, but one age--the truly golden. We reach it whenwe fall first in love, and there love keeps us. His Grace, Madame laDuchesse, is, I am sure, the happiest of men. "

She was seated opposite him. Leaning forward a little, she put forth herhand in a motherly, unembarrassed way, and placed it for a moment on hisknee, looking into his face, smiling. 

"Good boy! good boy!" she said. 

And then she rose as if to hint that it was time for him to go. 

"I see you are impatient; perhaps you may meet the Duke on his wayback. "

"Charmed, Madame la Duchesse, I assure you, " said the Count with agrimace, and they both fell into laughing. 

She recovered herself first to scan the shoes and coat again. "Howdroll!" said she. "Ah, monsieur, you are delightful in your foibles, but I wish it had looked like any other coat than Simon Mac-Taggart's. I have never seen his without wondering how many dark secrets wereunderneath the velvet. Had this coat of yours been a perfect fit, believe me I had not expected much from you of honour or of decency. Oh! there I go on chattering again, and you have said scarcely twentywords. "

"Believe me, Madame la Duchesse, it is because I can find none goodenough to express my gratitude, " said Count Victor, making for the door. 

"Pooh! Monsieur Soi-disant, a fig for your gratitude! Would you have meinhospitable to a guest who would save me even the trouble of opening mydoor? And that, by the way, reminds me, monsieur, that you have not evenhinted at what you might be seeking his Grace for? Could it be--could itbe for a better fit in coats?"

"For a mere trifle, madame, no more than my sword. "

"Your sword, monsieur? I know nothing of Monsieur Soi-disant's sword, but I think I know where is one might serve his purpose. "

With these words she went out of the room, hurried along the corridor, and returned in a moment or two with Count Victor's weapon, which shedragged back by its belt as if she loathed an actual contact with thething itself. 

"There!" she said, affecting a shudder. "A mouse and a rapier, they aremy bitterest horrors. If you could only guess what a coward I am! Goodnight, monsieur, and I hope--I hope"--she laughed as she hung on thewish a moment--"I hope you will meet his Grace on the way. If so, youmay tell him 'tis rather inclement weather for the night air--athis age, " and she laughed again. "If you do not see him--as ispossible--come back soon; look! my door bids you in your ownlanguage--_Revenez bientôt_. I am sure he will be charmed to see you, and to make his delight the more I shall never mention you were heretonight. "

She went along the lobby and looked down the stair to see that the waywas clear; came back and offered her hand. 

"Madame la Duchesse, you are very magnanimous, " he said, exceedinglygrateful. 

"Imprudent, rather, " she corrected him. 

"Magnanimity and Prudence are cousins who, praise _le bon Dieu!_ neverspeak to each other, and the world is very much better for it. " Hepointed to the motto on the panel. "I may never come back, madame, " saidhe, "but at least I shall never forget. "

"_Au plaisir de vous revoir_, Monsieur Soi-disant, " she said inconclusion, and went into her room and closed the door. 

"Now there's a darling!" said the Duchess as she heard his footstepssoftly departing. "Archie was just such another--at his age. "

CHAPTER XXXIII -- BACK IN DOOM

The night brooded on the Highlands when Count Victor reached theshore. Snow and darkness clotted in the clefts of the valleys openinginnumerably on the sea, but the hills held up their heads and thoughtamong the stars--unbending and august and pure, knowing nothing at allof the glens and shadows. It was like a convocation of spirits. Thepeaks rose everywhere white to the brows and vastly ruminating. Anebbing tide too, so that the strand was bare. Upon the sands where therehad been that folly of the morning the waves rolled in an ascendinglisp, spilled upon at times with gold when the decaying moon--ahalbert-head thrown angrily among Ossian's flying ghosts, the warriorclouds--cut through them sometimes and was so reflected in the sea. Thesea was good; good to hear and smell; the flying clouds were grateful tothe eye; the stars--he praised God for the delicious stars not in wordsbut in an exultation of gratitude and affection, yet the mountain-peakswere most of all his comforters. 

He had run from the castle as if the devil had been at his red heels, with that ridiculous coat flapping its heavily braided skirts abouthis calves; passed through snow-smothered gardens, bordered bodingdark plantations of firs, leaped opposing fell-dykes whence shelteringanimals ran terrified at the apparition, and he came out upon theseaside at the bay as one who has overcome a nightmare and wakens to seethe familiar friendly glimmer of the bedroom fire. 

A miracle! and mainly worked by a glimpse of these blanched hills. Forhe knew now they were an inseparable part of his memory of Olivia, _her_hills, _her_ sheltering sentinels, the mere sight of them Doom's orison. Though he had thought of her so much when he shivered in the fosse, ithad too often been as something unattainable, never to be seen againperhaps, a part of his life past and done with. An incubus rode hischest, though he never knew till now, when it fled at the sight ofOlivia's constant friends the mountains. Why, the girl lived! her homewas round the corner there dark-jutting in the sea! He could, with someactivity, be rapping at her father's door in a couple of hours!

"_Grace de Dieu!_" said he, "let us leave trifles and go home. "

It was a curious sign of his preoccupation, ever since he had escapedfrom his imprisonment, that he should not once have thought on wherehe was to fly to till this moment when the hills inspired. "Silence, thought, calm, and purity, here they are!" they seemed to tell him, andby no means unattainable. Where (now that he had time to think of it)could he possibly go to-night but to the shelter of Doom? Let the morrowdecide for itself. _À demain les affaires sérieuses!_ Doom and--Olivia. What eyes she had, that girl! They might look upon the assailant of herwretched lover with anything but favour; yet even in anger they weremore to him than those of all the world else in love. 

Be sure Count Victor was not standing all the time of these reflectionsshivering in the snow. He had not indulged a moment's hesitation sinceever he had come out upon the bay, and he walked through the night asfast as his miserable shoes would let him. 

The miles passed, he crossed the rivers that mourned through hollowarches and spread out in brackish pools along the shore. Curlews pipeddolorously the very psalm of solitude, and when he passed amongthe hazel-woods of Strone and Achnatra, their dark recesses belledcontinually with owls. It was the very pick of a lover's road: nooutward vision but the sombre masses of the night, the valleys of snow, and the serene majestic hills to accompany that inner sight of thewoman; no sounds but that of solemn waters and the forest creatures tomake the memory of her words the sweeter. A road for lovers, and hewas the second of the week, though he did not know it. Only, SimonMacTaggart had come up hot-foot on his horse, a trampling conqueror (ashe fancied), the Count trudged shamefully undignified through snowthat came high upon the silken stockings, and long ago had made hisdancing-shoes shapeless and sodden. But he did not mind that; he had agoal to make for, an ideal to cherish timidly; once or twice he foundhimself with some surprise humming Gringoire's song, that surely shouldnever go but with a light heart. 

And in the fulness of time he approached the point of land from which heknew he could first see Doom's dark promontory if it were day. There hissteps slowed. Somehow it seemed as if all his future fortune dependedupon whether or not a light shone through the dark to greet him. Betweenhim and the sea rolling in upon a spit of the land there was--of allthings!--a herd of deer dimly to be witnessed running back and forwardon the sand as in some confusion at his approach; at another time thething should have struck him with amazement, but now he was too busywith his speculation whether Doom should gleam on him or not to studythis phenomenon of the frosty winds. He made a bargain with himself: ifthe isle was black, that must mean his future fortune; if a light wasthere, however tiny, it was the star of happy omen, it was--it was--itwas several things he dared not let himself think upon for fear ofimmediate disappointment. 

For a minute he paused as if to gather his courage and then make a dashround the point. 

_Ventre Dieu!_ Blackness! His heart ached. 

And then, as most men do in similar circumstances, he decided that thetest was a preposterous one. Why, faith! should he relinquish hope ofeverything because--

What! the light was there. Like a fool he had misjudged the distance inthe darkness and had been searching for it in the wrong place. It wasso bright that it might be a star estrayed, a tiny star and venturesome, gone from the keeping of the maternal moon and wandered into the woodbehind Doom to tangle in the hazel-boughs. A dear star! a very gem ofstars! a star more precious than all the others in that clustered sky, because it was the light of Olivia's window. A plague on all the otherswith their twinkling search among the clouds for the little one lost!he wished it had been a darker night that he might have only this onevisible. 

By rights he should be weary and cold, and the day's events shouldtrouble him; but to tell the truth, he was in a happy exaltation all therest of the way. Sometimes the star of hope evaded him as he followedthe bending path, trees interposing; he only ran the faster to get itinto his vision again, and it was his beacon up to the very walls ofDoom. 

The castle took possession of the night. 

How odd that he should have fancied that brave tower arrogant; it wastranced in the very air of friendliness and love--the fairy residence, the moated keep of all the sweet old tales his nurse was used to tellhim when he was a child in Cam-mercy. 

And there he had a grateful memory of the ringleted middle-aged ladywho had alternately whipped and kissed him, and in his night's terrorssoothed him with tales. "My faith!" said he, "thou didst not think thyPerrault's 'Contes des Fées' might, twenty years after, have so close anapplication to a woman and a tower in misty Albion. "

He walked deliberately across to the rock, went round the tower, stooda moment in the draggled arbour--the poor arbour of dead ideals. Doom, that once was child of the noisy wars, was dead as the Château d'Arquessave for the light in its mistress's window. Poor old shell! and yetsomehow he would not have had it otherwise. 

He advanced and rapped at the door. The sound rang in the interior, andpresently Mungo's shuffling steps were heard and his voice behind thedoor inquiring who was there. 

"A friend, " answered Count Victor, humouring the little old man's fancyfor affairs of arms. 

"A friend!" repeated Mungo with contempt. "A man on a horse has ayehunders o' frien's in the gutter, as Annapla says, and it wad need to besomethin' rarer to get into Doom i' the mirk o' nicht. I opened thedoor to a frien' the ither nicht and he gripped me by the craig and fairchoked me afore I could cry a barley. "

"_Peste!_ Do not flatter my English so much as to tell me you do notrecognise Count Victor's accent through a door. "

"Lord keep 's!" cried Mungo, hastily drawing his bolts. "Hae ye changedye'r mind already and left the inns? It's a guid thing for your wifeye're no marrit, or she wad be the sorry woman wi' sic a shiftin' man. "

His astonishment was even greater when Count Victor stood before him aludicrous figure with his too ample coat. 

"Dinna tell me ye hae come through the snaw this nicht like that!"he cried incredulous, holding up his candle the better to examine thefigure. 

Count Victor laughed, and for an answer simply thrust forth a soppingfoot to his examination. 

"Man, ye must hae been hot on't!" said the servant, shaking his cowledhead till the tassel danced above his temple. "Ye'r shoon's fair steepedwi' water. Water's an awfu' thing to rot ye'r boots; I aye said if itrotted ane's boots that way, whit wad it no' dae to ane's stamach? Oh, sirs! sirs! this is becomin' the throng hoose, wi' comin's and goin'sand raps and roars and collie-shangies o' a' kin's. If it wasna me wasthe canny gaird o't it's Himsel' wad hae to flit for the sake o' hisnicht's sleep. "

"You behold, Mungo, the daw in borrowed plumes, " said Count Victor asthe door was being barred again. "I hope the daw felt more comfortablethan I do in mine, " and he ruefully surveyed his apparel. "Does MasterMungo recognise these peacock feathers?"

Mungo scanned the garment curiously. 

"It's gey like ane I've seen on a bigger man, " he answered. 

"And a better, perhaps, thought my worthy Mungo. I remember me thatour peacock was a diplomatist and had huge interest in your delightfulstories. "

A movement of Mungo's made him turn to see the Baron standing behind hima little bewildered at this apparition. 

"_Failte!_" said the Baron, "and I fancy you would be none the waur, aswe say, of the fireside. "

He went before him into the _salle_, taking Mungo's candle. Mungo wasdespatched for Annapla, and speedily the silent abigail of visions wasengaged upon that truly Gaelic courtesy, the bathing of the traveller'sfeet. The Baron considerately made no inquiries; if it was a caprice ofCount Victor's to venture in dancing shoes and a borrowed jacket throughdark snow-swept roads, it was his own affair. And the Count was so muchinterested in the new cheerfulness of his host (once so saturnine andmelancholy) that he left his own affairs unmentioned for a while as thewoman worked. It was quite a light-hearted recluse this, compared withthat he had left a week ago. 

"I am not surprised you found yon place dull, " at the last hazarded theBaron. 

"_Comment?_"

"Down-by, I mean. I'm glad myself always to get home out of it at thisseason. When the fishers are there it's all my fancy, but when it doesnot smell of herring, the stench of lawyers' sheepskins gets on the topand is mighty offensive to any man that has had muckle to do with them. "

"Dull!" repeated Count Victor, now comprehending; "I have crowded moreexperience into the past four-and-twenty hours than I might meet in amonth anywhere east of Calais. I have danced with a duchess, fought astupid duel, with a town looking on for all the world as if it were aperformance in a circus with lathen weapons, moped in a dungeon, brokenthrough the same, stolen a coat, tramped through miles of snow in a pairof pantoufles, forgotten to pay the bill at the inn, and lost my baggageand my reputation--which latter I swear no one in these parts will beglad to pick up for his own use. Baron, I'll be shot if your country isnot bewitched. My faith! what happenings since I came here expecting tobe killed with _ennui!_ I protest I shall buy a Scots estate and askall my friends over here to see real life. Only they must have goodconstitutions; I shall insist on them having good constitutions. Andthere's another thing--it necessitates that they must have so kind afriend as Monsieur le Baron and so hospitable a house as Doom to fallback on when their sport comes to a laughable termination, as mine hasdone to-night. "

"Ah! then you have found your needle in the haystack after all?" criedDoom, vastly interested. 

"Found the devil!" cried Montaiglon, a shade of vexation in hiscountenance, for he had not once that day had a thought of all that hadbrought, him into Scotland. "The haystack must be stuck full of needleslike the bran of a pin-cushion. "

"And this one, who is not the particular needle named Drimdarroch?"

"I shall give you three guesses, M. Le Baron. "

Doom reflected, pulled out his nether lip with his fingers, looking hardat his guest. 

"It is not the Chamberlain?"

"_Peste!_" thought the Count, "can the stern unbending parent haverelented? You are quite right, " he said; "no other. But it is not amatter of the most serious importance. I lost my coat and the gentlemanlost a little blood. I have the best assurances that he will be on footagain in a week or two, by which time I hope--at all events I expect--tobe out of all danger of being invited to resume the entertainment. "

"In the meantime here's Doom, yours--so long as it is mine--whileit's your pleasure to bide in it if you fancy yourself safe frommolestation, " said the Baron. 

"As to that I think I may be tranquil. I have, there too, the bestassurances that the business will be hushed up. "

"So much the better, though in any case this seems to have marred yourreal engagements here in the matter of Drimdarroch. "

Count Victor's turn it was to feel vexation now. He pulled his moustacheand reddened. "As to that, Baron, " said he, "I pray you not to despiseme, for I have to confess that my warmth in the mission that brought mehere has abated sadly. You need not ask me why. I cannot tell you. Asfor me and my affair, I have not forgotten, nor am I likely wholly toforget; but your haystack is as _difficile_ as you promised it shouldbe, and--there are divers other considerations. It necessitates that Igo home. There shall be some raillery at my expense doubtless--_Ciel!_how Louis my cousin will laugh!--but no matter. "

He spoke a little abstractedly, for he saw a delicate situationapproaching. He was sure to be asked--once Annapla's service wasover--what led to the encounter, and to give the whole story franklyinvolved Olivia's name unpleasantly in a vulgar squabble. He saw for thefirst time that he had been wholly unwarranted in taking the defence ofthe Baron's interests into his own hands. Could he boldly intimatethat in his opinion jealousy of himself had been the spring of theChamberlain's midnight attacks on the castle of Doom? That werepreposterous! And yet that seemed the only grounds that would justifyhis challenging the Chamberlain. 

When Annapla was gone then Doom got the baldest of histories. He wasencouraged to believe that all this busy day of adventure had been dueto a simple quarrel after a game of cards, and where he should havepreferred a little more detail he had to content himself with a humorousnarrative of the escape, the borrowing of the coat, and the interviewwith the Duchess. 

"And now with your permission, Baron, I shall go to bed, " at last saidCount Victor. "I shall sleep to-night, like a _sabot_. I am, I know, theboldest of beggars for your grace and kindness. It seems I am fated inthis country to make free, not only with my enemy's coat, but with mydear friend's domicile as if it were an inn. To-morrow, Baron, I shallmake my dispositions. The coat can be returned to its owner none theworse for my use of it, but I shall not so easily be able to squareaccounts with you. "

CHAPTER XXXIV -- IN DAYS OF STORM

In a rigorous privacy of storm that lasted many days after his return, and cut Doom wholly off from the world at large, Count Victor spentwhat but for several considerations would have been--perhaps indeed theyreally were--among the happiest moments of his life. It was good inthat tumultuous weather, when tempests snarled and frosts fettered thecountryside, and the sea continually wrangled round the rock of Doom, tolook out on the inclemency from windows where Olivia looked out too. She used to come and stand beside him, timidly perhaps at first, butby-and-by with no self-consciousness. Her sleeve would touch his, sometimes, indeed, her shoulder must press against his arm and littlestrands of her hair almost blow against his lips as in the narrowapertures of the tower they watched the wheeling birds from the outerocean. For these birds she had what was little less than a passion. Toher they represented the unlimited world of liberty and endeavour; atsight of them something stirred in her that was the gift of all thewandering years of that old Ulysses, her grandfather, to whom thebeckoning lights of ships at sea were irresistible, and though she dotedon the glens of her nativity, she had the spirit that invests every hintof distant places and far-off happenings with magic parts. 

She seemed content, and yet not wholly happy: he could hear hersometimes sigh, as he thought, from a mere wistfulness that had theillimitable spaces of the sea, the peopled isles and all their mysteryfor background. To many of the birds that beat and cried about the placeshe gave names, investing them with histories, recounting humorouslytheir careers. And it was odd that however far she sent them in herfancy--to the distant Ind, to the vexed Pole itself--with joy in theirtravelling, she assumed that their greatest joy was when they foundthemselves at Doom. The world was a place to fare forth in as far as youcould, only to give you the better zest for Doom on your return. 

This pleased her father hugely, but it scarcely tallied with the viewsof one who had fond memories of a land where sang the nightingale in itsseason, and roads were traversable in the wildest winter weather; stillCount Victor was in no mood to question it. 

He was, save in rare moments of unpleasant reflection, supremely happy, thrilling to that accidental contact, paling at the narrow marginswhereby her hair escaped conferring on him a delirium. He could stand ata window all day pretending interest in the monotonous hills and emptysea, only that he might keep her there too and indulge himself uponher eyes. They--so eager, deep, or busied with the matters of herthoughts--were enough for a common happiness; a debauch of it was in thecontact of her arm. 

And yet something in this complacence of hers bewildered him. Here, ifyou please, was a woman who but the other night (as it were) was holdingclandestine meetings with Simon MacTaggart, and loving him to thatextent that she defied her father. She could not but know that thisforeigner had done his worst to injure her in the inner place of heraffections, and yet she was to him more friendly than she had beenbefore. Several times he was on the point of speaking on the subject. Once, indeed, he made a playful allusion to the flautist of the bowerthat was provocative of no more than a reddened cheek and an interludeof silence. But tacitly the lover was a theme for strict avoidance. Noteven the Baron had a word to say on that, and they were numberless thetopics they discussed in this enforced sweet domesticity. 

A curious household! How it found provisions in these days Mungo alonecould tell. The little man had his fishing-lines out continually, hisgun was to be heard in neighbouring thickets that seemed from the islandinaccessible, and when gun and line failed him it was perhaps not whollywanting his persuasion that kain fowls came from the hamlet expresslyfor "her ladyship" Olivia. In pauses of the wind he and Annaplawere to be heard in other quarters of the house in clamantconversation--otherwise it had seemed to Count Victor that Doom wasleft, an enchanted castle, to him and Olivia alone. For the fatherrelapsed anew into his old strange melancholies, dozing over his books, indulging feint and riposte in the chapel overhead, or gazing moodilyalong the imprisoned coast. 

That he was free to dress now as he chose in his beloved tartanentertained him only briefly; obviously half the joy of his formerrecreations in the chapel had been due to the fact that they wereclandestine; now that he could wear what he chose indoors, he pined thathe could not go into the deer-haunted woods and the snowy highwaysin the _breacan_ as of old. But that was not his only distress, CountVictor was sure. 

"What accounts for your father's melancholy?" he had the boldness oneday to ask Olivia. 

They were at the window together, amused at the figure Mungo presentedas with an odd travesty of the soldier's strategy, and all unseen as hefancied, he chased a fowl round the narrow confines of the garden, bentupon its slaughter. 

"And do you not know the reason for that?" she asked, with her humourpromptly clouded, and a loving and pathetic glance over her shoulder atthe figure bent beside the fire. "What is the dearest thing to you?"

She could have put no more embarrassing question to Count Victor, and itwas no wonder he stammered in his reply. 

"The dearest, " he repeated. "Ah! well--well--the dearest, MademoiselleOlivia; _ma foi!_ there are so many things. "

"Yes, yes, " she said impatiently, "but only one or two are at theheart's core. " She saw him smile at this, and reddened. "Oh, how stupidI am to ask that of a stranger! I did not mean a lady--if there is alady. "

"There _is_ a lady, " said Count Victor, twisting the fringe of her shawlthat had come of itself into his fingers as she turned. 

A silence followed; not even he, so versed in all the evidence of loveor coquetry, could have seen a quiver to betray her even if he hadthought to look for it. 

"I am the one, " said she at length, "who will wish you well in that; butafter her--after this--this lady--what is it that comes closest?"

"What but my country!" cried he, with a surging sudden memory of France. 

"To be sure!" she acquiesced, "your country! I am not wondering at that. And ours is the closest to the core of cores in us that have not perhapsso kind a country as yours, but still must love it when it is mostcruel. We are like the folks I have read of--they were the Greeks whotravelled so far among other clans upon the trade of war, and bound toburst in tears when they came after strange hills and glens to thesight of the same sea that washed the country of their infancy. 'Tha-latta!'--was it not that they cried? When I read the story first inschool in Edinburgh, I cried, myself, 'Lochfinne!' and thought I heardthe tide rumbling upon this same rock. It is for that; it is because wemust be leaving here my father is sad. "

Here indeed was news

"Leaving!" said Count Victor in astonishment. 

"It is so. My father has been robbed; his people have been foolish; itis not a new thing in the Highlands of Scotland, Count Victor. You mustnot be thinking him a churl to be moping and leaving you to my poorentertainment, for it is ill to keep the pipes in tune when one isdrying tears. "

"Where will you go?" asked Count Victor, disturbed at the tidings andthe distress she so bravely struggled to conceal. 

"Where? indeed!" said Olivia. "That I cannot tell you yet. But the worldis wide, and it is strange if there is any spot of it where we cannotfind some of our own Gaelic people who have been flitting for ageneration, taking the world for their pillow. What is it that shallnot come to an end? My sorrow! the story on our door down there hasbeen preparing me for this since ever I was a bairn. Mygreat-great-grandfather was the wise man and the far-seeing when hecarved it there--'Man, Behauld the End of All, Be nocht Wiser than theHiest. Hope in God!'" She struggled courageously with her tears thatcould not wholly be restrained, and there and then he could havegathered her into his arms. But he must keep himself in bounds and twistthe fringes of her shawl. 

"Ah, Olivia, " said he, "you will die for the sight of home. "

At that she dashed her hand across her eyes and boldly faced him, smiling. 

"That would be a shameful thing in a Baron's daughter, " said she. "No, indeed! when we must rise and go away, here is the woman who will gobravely! We live not in glens, in this house nor in that, but in thehearts that love us, and where my father is and friends are to be made, I think I can be happy yet. Look at the waves there, and the snow andthe sea-birds! All these are in other places as well as here. "

"But not the same, but not the same! Here I swear I could live contentmyself. "

"What!" said she, smiling, and the rogue a moment dancing in her eyes. "No, no, Count Victor, to this you must be born like the stag in thecorrie and the seal on the rock. We are a simple people, and a poorpeople--worse fortune!--poor and proud. Your world is different fromours, and there you will have friends that think of you. "

"And you, " said he, all aglow in passion but with a face of flint, "youare leaving those behind that love you too. "

This time he watched her narrowly; she gave no sign. 

"There are the poor people in the clachan there, " said she; "some ofthem will not forget me I am hoping, but that is all. We go. It is goodfor us, perhaps. Something has been long troubling my father more thanthe degradation of the clans and all these law pleas that Petullo hasnow brought to the bitter end. He is proud, and he is what is common inthe Highlands when the heart is sore--he is silent. You must not thinkit is for myself I am vexing to leave Doom Castle; it is for him. Look!do you see the dark spot on the side of the hill yonder up at Ardno?That is the yew-tree in the churchyard where my mother, his wife, lies;it is no wonder that at night sometimes he goes out to look at thehills, for the hills are over her there and over the generations of hispeople in the same place. I never knew my mother, _mothruaigh!_ but heremembers, and it is the hundred dolours (as we say) for him to part. For me I have something of the grandfather in me, and would take theseven bens for it, and the seven glens, and the seven mountain moors, ifit was only for the sake of the adventure, though I should always liketo think that I would come again to these places of hered-ity. "

And through all this never a hint of Simon Mac-Taggart! Could there beany other conclusion than the joyous one--it made his heart bound!--thatthat affair was at an end? And yet how should he ascertain the truthabout a matter so close upon his heart? He put his pride in his pocketand went down that afternoon with the Chamberlain's coat in his hands. There was a lull in the wind, and the servitor was out of doors caulkingthe little boat, the argosy of poor fortunes, which had been drawn upfrom the menacing tides so that its prow obtruded on the half-heartedprivacy of the lady's bower. Deer were on the shore, one sail was on theblue of the sea, a long way off, a triumphant flash of sun lit up theinnumerable glens. A pleasant interlude of weather, and yet Mungo was inwhat he called, himself, a tirravee. He was honestly becoming impatientwith this undeparting foreigner, mainly because Annapla was day by daythe more insistent that he had not come wading into Doom without bootsentirely in vain, and that her prediction was to be fulfilled. 

"See! Mungo, " said the Count, "the daw, if my memory fails me not, had his plumes pecked off him, but I seem fated to retain my borrowedfeathers until I pluck myself. Is it that you can have them at the firstopportunity restored to our connoisseur in _contes_--your friend theChamberlain? It comes to occur to me that the gentleman's wardrobe maybe as scanty as my own, and the absence of his coat may be the reason, more than my unfortunate pricking with a bodkin, for his inexplicableabsence from--from--the lady's side. "

Mungo had heard of the duel, of course; it was the understanding in Doomthat all news was common property inasmuch as it was sometimes almostthe only thing to pass round. 

"Humph!" said he. "It wasna' sae ill to jag a man that had a woundalready. "

"Expiscate, good Master Mungo, " said Count Victor, wondering. "Whatwound already? You speak of the gentleman's susceptible heart perhaps?"

"I speak o' naethin' o' the kind, but o' the man's airm. Ye ken fine yegied him a push wi' your whinger that first night he cam' here wi'his fenci-ble gang frae the Maltland and play-acted Black Andy o'Arroquhar. "

"The devil!" cried Count Victor. "I wounded somebody, certainly, buttill now I had no notion it might be the gentleman himself. Well, let medo him the justice to say he made rather pretty play with his weaponon the sands, considering he was wounded. And so, honest Mungo, thegarrison was not really taken by surprise that night you found yourselfplucked out like a periwinkle from your wicket? As frankness is infashion, I may say that for a while I gave you credit for treason to thehouse, and treason now it seems to have been, though not so black as Ithought. It was MacTaggart who asked you to open the door?"

"Wha else? A bonny like cantrip! Nae doot it was because I tauld himAnnapla's prophecy aboot a man with the bare feet. The deil's buckie! Yekent yersel' brawly wha it was. "

"I, Master Mungo! Faith, not I!"

Mungo looked incredulous. 

"And what ails the ladyship, for she kent? I'll swear she kent the nextday, though I took guid care no' to say cheep. "

"I daresay you are mistaken there, my good Mungo. "

"Mistaken! No me! It wasna a' thegither in a tantrum o' an ordinar' kindshe broke her tryst wi' him the very nicht efter ye left for the innsdoon by. At onyrate, if she didna' ken then she kens noo, I'll warrant. "

"Not so far as I am concerned, certainly. "

Mungo looked incredulous. That any one should let go the chance ofconveying so rare a piece of gossip to persons so immediately concernedwas impossible of belief. "Na, na, " said he, shaking his head; "she hasevery word o't, or her faither at least, and that's the same thing. Butshoon or nae shoon, yon's the man for my money!"

"Again he has my felicitations, " said Count Victor, with a good humourunfailing. Indeed he could afford to be good-humoured if this were true. So here was the explanation of Olivia's condescension, her indifferenceto her lover's injury, of which her father could not fail to haveapprised her even if Mungo had been capable of a miracle and held histongue. The Chamberlain, then, was no longer in favour! Here was joy!Count Victor could scarce contain himself. How many women would havebeen flattered at the fierceness of devotion implied in a lover'sreadiness to commit assassination out of sheer jealousy of asupposititious rival in her affections? But Olivia--praise _le bonDieu!_--was not like that. 

He thrust the coat into Mungo's hands and went hurriedly up to his roomto be alone with his thoughts, that he feared might show themselvesplainly in his face if he met either the lady or her father, and therefor the first time had a memory of Cecile--some odd irrelevance of amemory--in which she figured in a masque in a Paris garden. Good God!that he should have failed to see it before; this Cecile had been anactress, as, he told himself, were most of her sex he had hithertoencountered, and 'twas doubtful if he once had touched her soul. Oliviahad shown him now, in silences, in sighs, in some unusual _aura_ ofsincerity that was round her like the innocence of infancy, that whathe thought was love a year ago was but its drossy elements. Seeking thefirst woman in the eyes of the second, he had found the perfect loverthere!

CHAPTER XXXV -- A DAMNATORY DOCUMENT

Mungo took the coat into the castle kitchen, the true arcanum of Doom, where he and Annapla solved the domestic problems that in lateryears had not been permitted to disturb the mind of the master or hisdaughter. An enormous fireplace, arched like a bridge, and poorly enoughfed nowadays compared with its gluttony in those happier years of hiscontinual bemoaning, when plenty kept the spit perpetually at work, ifit were only for the good of the beggars who blackened the road fromthe Lowlands, had a handful of peat in its centre to make the yawningorifice the more pathetic to eyes that had seen the flames leap there. Everywhere the evidence of the old abundant days--the rusting spititself, the idle battery of cuisine, long rows of shining covers. Annapla, who was assumed to be true tutelary genius of these things, butin fact was beholden to the martial mannikin of Fife for inspiration andaid with the simplest of ragouts, though he would have died sooner thanbe suspected of the unsoldierly art of cookery, --Annapla was in one ofher trances. Her head was swathed mountainously in shawls; her wild, black, lambent eyes had the look of distant contemplation. 

"Lord keep 's!" said Mungo, entering, "what are ye doverin' on noo?Wauken up, ye auld bitch, and gie this coat a dight. D'ye ken wha's ochtit? It belangs to a gentleman that's no' like noo to get but this same, and the back-o'-my-haun'-to-ye oot o' Doom Castle. "

She took the coat and brushed it in a lethargy, with odd, unintelligiblechanting. 

"Nane o' your warlock canticles!" cried Mungo. "Ye gied the lassie tothe man that cam' withouten boots--sorrow be on the bargain! And if it'scast-in' a spell on the coat ye are, I'll raither clean't mysel'. "

With that he seized the garment from her and lustily applied himself. 

"A bonny-like hostler-wife ye'll mak', " said he. "And few'll come toMungo Byde's hostelry if his wife's to be eternally in a deevilishdwaam, concocting Hielan' spells when she should be stirring at thebroth. No' that I can blame ye muckle for a want o' the up-tak in whatpertains to culinairy airts; for what hae ye seen here since ye cam' awafrae the rest o' the drove in Arroquhar but lang kail, and oaten brose, and mashlum bannocks? Oh! sirs, sirs!--I've seen the day!"

Annapla emerged from her trance, and ogled him with an amusingadmiration. 

"And noo it's a' by wi't; it's the end o' the auld ballant, " went on thelittle man. "I've kept auld Doom in times o' rowth and splendour, and noo I'm spared to see't rouped, the laird a dyvour and a namelesswanderer ower the face o' the earth. He's gaun abroad, he tells me, andsettles to sit doon aboot Dunkerque in France. It's but fair, maybe, thatwhaur his forbears squandered he should gang wi' the little that's tothe fore. I mind o' his faither gaun awa at the last hoved up, a fairJeshurun, his een like to loup oot o' his heid wi' fat, and comin'back a pooked craw frae the dicing and the drink, nae doot amoung thescatter-brained white cockades. Whatna shilpit man's this that Leevie'sgotten for her new jo? As if I dinna see through them! The tawpie's taenthe gee at the Factor because he played yon ploy wi' his lads frae theMaltland barracks, and this Frenchy's ower the lugs in love wi' her, Ican see as plain as Cowal, though it's a shameless thing to say't. He'sgotten gey far ben in a michty short time. Ye're aye saying them thatcome unsent for should sit unserved; but wha sent for this billy oot o'France? and wha has been sae coothered up as he has since he cam' here?The Baron doesnae ken the shifts that you and me's been put to for tosave his repitation. Mony a lee I tauld doon there i' the clachan tosoother them oot o' butter and milk and eggs, and a bit hen at times;mony a time I hae gie'n my ain dinner to thae gangrel bodies fraeGlencro sooner nor hae them think there was nae rowth o' vivers whaurthey never wer sent awa empty-haunded afore. I aye keepit my he'rt upwi' the notion that him doon-bye the coat belangs to wad hae made amatch o't, and saved us a' frae beggary. But there's an end o' that, sorry am I. And sorry may you be; ye auld runt, to hear't, for he'sbeen the guid enough friend to me; and there wad never hae been the RedSodger Tavern for us if it wasnae for his interest in a man that has ayekep' up the airmy. "

Annapla seemed to find the dialect of Fife most pleasing and melodious. She listened to his monologue with approving smiles, and sitting on astool, cowered within the arch, warming her hands at the apology for aflame. 

"Wha the deevil could hae tauld her it was the lad himsel' was here thatnicht wi' his desperate chiels frae the barracks? It couldna' be you, for I didna' tell ye mysel' for fear ye wad bluitter it oot and spoilhis chances. She kent onyway, and it was for no ither reason she gie'dhim the route, unless--unless she had a notion o' the Frenchman frae thefirst glisk o' him. There's no accoontin' for tastes; clap a bunnet on atawtie-bogle, wi' a cock to the ae side that's kin' o' knowin', and onywoman'll jump at his neck, though ye micht pap peas through the placewhaur his wame should be. The Frenchy's no' my taste onyway; and noo, there's Sim! Just think o' Sim gettin' the dirty gae-bye frae a glaikitlassie hauf his age; and no' his equal in the three parishes, wi' a legto tak' the ee o' a hal dancin'-school, and auld Knapdale's moneycomin' till him whenever Knapdale's gane, and I'm hearin' he's in thedeid-thraws already. Ill fa' the day fotch the Frenchy! The race o'them never brocht ocht in my generation to puir Scotland worth a bodle, unless it micht be a new fricassee to fyle a stamach wi'. I'm fair bateto ken what this Coont wants here. 'Drimdarroch, ' says he, but that'sfair rideeculous, unless it was the real auld bauld Drimdarroch, andthat's nae ither than Doom. I winna wonder if he heard o' Leevie ereever he left the France. "

Annapla began to drowse at the fire. He saw her head nod, and came roundwith the coat in his hand to confirm his suspicion that she was about tofall asleep. Her eyes were shut. 

"Wauken up, Luckie!" he cried, disgusted at this absence ofappreciation. "What ails the body? Ye're into your damnable dwaam again. There's them that's gowks enough to think ye're seein' Sichts, when it'sneither mair nor less than he'rt-sick laziness, and I was ance ane o'them mysel'. Ye hinnae as muckle o' the Sicht as wad let ye see whenLeevie was makin' a gowk o' ye to gar ye hang oot signals for her auldjo. A bonny-like brewster-wife ye'll mak', I warrant!" He tapped her, not unkindly, on the head with the back of his brush, and brought her toearth again. 

"Are ye listenin', ye auld runt?" said he. "I'm goin' doon to thetoon i' the aifternoon wi' this braw coat and money for Monsher's innaccoont, and if ye're no' mair wide-awake by that time, there's deil thecries'll gae in wi' auld MacNair. "

The woman laughed, not at all displeased with herself nor with her roughadmirer, and set to some trivial office. Mungo was finished with thecoat; he held it out at arm's length, admiring its plenitude of lace, and finally put off his own hodden garment that he might try on theChamberlain's. 

"God!" said he, "it fits me like an empty ale-cask. I thocht the Coontlooked gey like a galo-shan in't, but I maun be the bonny doo mysel'. And I'm no that wee neither, for it's ticht aboot the back. "

Annapla thought her diminutive admirer adorable; she stood raptly gazingon him, with her dish-clout dripping on the floor. 

"I wonder if there's no' a note or twa o' the New Bank i' the pouches, "said Mungo, and began to search. Something in one of the pockets rustledto the touch, and with a face of great expectancy he drew forth whatproved to be a letter. The seal was broken, there was neither an addressnor the superscription of the writer; the handwriting was a faintItalian, betokening a lady--there was no delicate scrupulosity about thedomestic, and the good Mungo unhesitatingly indulged himself. 

"It's no' exactly a note, " said he, contracting his brows above thedocument. Not for the first time Annapla regretted her inability toread, as she craned over his shoulder to see what evidently created muchastonishment in her future lord. 

"Weel, that bates a'!" he cried when he had finished, and he turned, visibly flushing, even through his apple-red complexion, to see Annaplaat his shoulder. 

"It's a guid thing the Sicht's nae use for English write, " said he, replacing the letter carefully in the pocket whence it had come. "This'll gae back to himsel', and naebody be nane the wiser o't forMungo Byde. "

For half an hour he busied himself with aiding Annapla at thepreparation of dinner, suddenly become silent as a consequence of whatthe letter had revealed to him, and then he went out to prepare his boatfor his trip to town. 

Annapla did not hesitate a moment; she fished out the letter and hurriedwith it to her master, less, it must be owned, from a desire to informhim, than from a womanly wish to share a secret that had apparently beenof the greatest interest to Mungo. 

Doom took it from her hands in an abstraction, for he was whelmed withthe bitter prospect of imminent farewells; he carelessly scanned thesheet with half-closed eyes, and was well through perusing it beforehe realised that it had any interest. He began at the beginning again, caught the meaning of a sentence, sat bolt upright in the chairwhere Annapla had found him lolling, and finished with eagerness andastonishment. 

Where had she got this? She hesitated to tell him that it had beenpilfered from the owner's pocket, and intimated that she had picked itup outside. 

"Good woman, " said he in Gaelic, "you have picked up a fortune. It wouldhave saved me much tribulation, and yourself some extra work, if you hadhappened to pick it up a month ago!"

He hurried to Olivia. 

"My dear, " he said, "I have come upon the oddest secret. "

His daughter reddened to the roots of her hair, and fell to tremblingwith inexplicable shame. He did not observe it. 

"It is that you have got out of the grip of the gled. Yon person was aneven blacker villain than I guessed. "

"Oh!" she said, apparently much relieved, "and is that your secret? Ihave no wonder left in me for any new display of wickedness from SimonMacTaggart. "

"Listen, " he said, and read her the damnatory document. She flushed, shetrembled, she well-nigh wept with shame; but "Oh!" she cried at the end, "is he not the noble man?"

"The noble man!" cried Doom at such an irrelevant conclusion. "Are youout of your wits, Olivia?"

She stammered an explanation. "I do not mean--I do notmean--this--wretch that is exposed here, but Count Victor. He has knownit all along. "

"H'm, " said Doom. "I fancy he has. That was, like enough, the cause ofthe duel. But I do not think it was noble at all that he should keepsilent upon a matter so closely affecting the happiness of your wholelife. "

Olivia saw this too, when helped to it, and bit her lip. It was, assuredly, not right that Count Victor, in the possession of suchsecrets as this letter revealed, should allow her to throw herself awayon the villain there portrayed. 

"He may have some reason we cannot guess, " she said, and thought of onethat made her heart beat wildly. 

"No reason but a Frenchman's would let me lose my daughter to a scampout of a pure punctilio. I can scarcely believe that he knew all that isin this letter. And you, my dear, you never guessed any more than I thatthese attacks under cover of night were the work of Simon MacTaggart. "

"I must tell you the truth, father, " said Olivia. "I have known it sincethe second, and that it was that turned me. I learned from the buttonthat Count Victor picked up on the stair, for I recognised it as his. Iknew--I knew--and yet I wished to keep a doubt of it, I felt it so, andstill would not confess it to myself that the man I loved--the manI thought I loved--was no better than a robber. " "A robber indeed! Ithought the man bad; I never liked his eye and less his tongue, that wasever too plausible. Praise God, my dear, that he's found out!"

CHAPTER XXXVI -- LOVE

It was hours before Count Victor could trust himself and his tell-talecountenance before Olivia, and as he remained in an unaccustomedseclusion for the remainder of the day, she naturally believed him cold, though a woman with a fuller experience of his sex might have come toa different conclusion. Her misconception, so far from being dispelledwhen he joined her and her father in the evening, was confirmed, for hisnatural gaiety was gone, and an emotional constraint, made up of love, dubiety, and hope, kept him silent even in the precious moments whenDoom retired to his reflections and his book, leaving them at the otherend of the room alone. Nothing had been said about the letter; the Baronkept his counsel on it for a more fitting occasion, and though Olivia, who had taken its possession, turned it over many times in her pocket, its presentation involved too much boldness on her part to be undertakenin an impulse. The evening passed with inconceivable dulness; thegentleman was taciturn to clownishness; Mungo, who had come in once ortwice to replenish fires and snuff candles, could not but look atthem with wonder, for he plainly saw two foolish folks in a commonmisunderstanding. 

He went back to the kitchen crying out his contempt for them. 

"If yon's coortin', " he said, "it's the drollest I ever clapt een on!The man micht be a carven image, and Leevie no better nor a shifty inthe pook. I hope she disnae rue her change o' mind alreadys, for I'llwarrant there was nane o' yon blateness aboot Sim MacTaggart, and it'sno' what the puir lassie's been used to. "

But these were speculations beyond the sibyl of his odd adoration;Annapla was too intent upon her own elderly love-affairs to beinterested in those upstairs. 

And upstairs, by now, a topic had at last come on between the silentpair that did not make for love or cheerfulness. The Baron had retiredto his own room in the rear of the castle, and they had begun to talkof the departure that was now fixed for a date made imminent throughthe pressure of Petullo. Where were they bound for but France? Doomhad decided upon Dunkerque because he had a half-brother there in aretirement compelled partly for political reasons Count Victor couldappreciate. 

"France!" he cried, delighted. "This is ravishing news indeed, Mademoiselle Olivia!"

"Yes?" she answered dubiously, reddening a little, and wondering why heshould particularly think it so. 

"Ma foi! it is, " he insisted heartily. "I had the most disturbingvisions of your wandering elsewhere. I declare I saw my dear Baronand his daughter immured in some pestilent Lowland burgh town, mopingmountain creatures among narrow streets, in dreary tenements, withglimpse of neither sea nor tree to compensate them for pleasures lost. But France!--Mademoiselle has given me an exquisite delight. For, figureyou! France is not so vast that friends may not meet there often--ifone were so greatly privileged--and every roadway in it leads toDunkerque--and--I should dearly love to think of you as, so to speak, in my neighbourhood, among the people I esteem. It is not your devotedHighlands, this France, Mademoiselle Olivia, but believe me, it hasits charms. You shall not have the mountains--there I am distressed foryou--nor yet the rivulets; and you must dispense with the mists; butthere is ever the consolation of an air that is like wine in the head, and a frequent sun. France, indeed! _Je suis ravi!_ I little thoughtwhen I heard of this end to the old home of you that you were to makethe new one in my country; how could I guess when anticipating myfarewell to the Highlands of Scotland that I should have such goodcompany to the shore of France?"

"Then you are returning now?" asked Olivia, her affectation ofindifference just a little overdone. 

In very truth he had not, as yet, so determined; but he boldly lied likea lover. 

"'Twas my intention to return at once. I cannot forgive myself for beingso long away from my friends there. "

Olivia had a bodice of paduasoy that came low upon her shoulders andshowed a spray of jasmine in the cleft of her rounded breasts, whichheaved with what Count Victor could not but perceive was some emotion. Her eyes were like a stag's, and they evaded him; she trifled with thepocket of her gown. 

"Ah, " she said, "it is natural that you should weary here in this sorryplace and wish to get back to the people you know. There will be manythat have missed you. "

He laughed at that. 

"A few--a few, perhaps, " he said. "Clancarty has doubtless often soughtme vainly for the trivial coin: some butterflies in the _coulisse_ ofthe playhouse will have missed my pouncet-box; but I swear there arefew in Paris who would be inconsolable if Victor de Montaiglon never setfoot on the _trottoir_ again. It is my misfortune, mademoiselle, to havea multitude of friends so busy with content and pleasure--who will blamethem?--that an absentee makes little difference, and as for relatives, not a single one except the Baroness de Chenier, who is large enough tocount as double. "

"And there will be--there will be the lady, " said Olivia, with a poorattempt at raillery. 

For a moment he failed to grasp her allusion. 

"Of course, of course, " said he hastily; "I hope, indeed, to see _her_there. " He felt an exaltation simply at the prospect. To see her there!To have a host's right to bid welcome to his land this fair wild-flowerthat had blossomed on rocks of the sea, unspoiled and unsophisticated!

The jasmine stirred more obviously: it was fastened with a topaz broochthat had been her mother's, and had known of old a similar commotion;she became diligent with a book. 

It was then there happened the thing that momentarily seemed a blow offate to both of them. But for Mungo's voice at intervals in the kitchen, the house was wholly still, and through the calm winter night there camethe opening bars of a melody, played very softly by Sim MacTaggart'sflageolet. At first it seemed incredible--a caprice of imagination, andthey listened for some moments speechless. Count Victor was naturallythe least disturbed; this unlooked-for entertainment meant the pleasantfact that the Duchess had been nowise over-sanguine in her estimate ofthe Chamberlain's condition. Here was another possible homicide offhis mind; the Gaelic frame was capable, obviously, of miraculousrecuperation. That was but his first and momentary thought; the nextwas less pleasing, for it seemed not wholly unlikely now that afterall Olivia and this man were still on an unchanged footing, and Mungo'ssowing of false hopes was like to bring a bitter reaping of regretfuldisillusions. As for Olivia, she was first a flame and then an icicle. Her face scorched; her whole being seemed to take a sudden wild alarm. Count Victor dared scarcely look at her, fearing to learn his doom orspy on her embarrassment until her first alarm was over, when she drewher lips together tightly and assumed a frigid resolution. She made noother movement. 

A most bewitching flageolet! It languished on the night with ano'ermastering appeal, sweet inexpressibly and melting, the air unknownto one listener at least, but by him enviously confessed a very sirenspell. He looked at Olivia, and saw that she intended to ignore it. 

"Orpheus has recovered, " he ventured with a smile. 

She stared in front of her with no response; but the jasmine rose andfell, and her nostrils were abnormally dilated. Her face had turned fromthe red of her first surprise to the white of suppressed indignation. The situation was inconceivably embarrassing for both; now his bolt wasshot, and unless she cared to express herself, he could not venture toallude to it again, though a whole orchestra augmented the efforts ofthe artist in the bower. 

By-and-by there came a pause in the music, and she spoke. 

"It is the blackest of affronts this, " was her comment, that seemed atonce singular and sweet to her hearer. 

"_D'accord_, " said Count Victor, but that was to himself. He was quiteagreed that the Chamberlain's attentions, though well meant, were notfor a good woman to plume herself on. 

The flageolet spoke again--that curious unfinished air. Never beforehad it seemed so haunting and mysterious; a mingling of reproaches andcommand. It barely reached them where they sat together listening, afairy thing and fascinating, yet it left the woman cold. And soon theserenade entirely ceased. Olivia recovered herself; Count Victor wasgreatly pleased. 

"I hope that is the end of it, " she said, with a sigh of relief. 

"Alas, poor Orpheus! he returns to Thrace, where perhaps Madame Petullomay lead the ladies in tearing him to pieces!"

"Once that hollow reed bewitched me, I fancy, " said she with a shy airof confession; "now I cannot but wonder and think shame at my blindness, for yon Orpheus has little beyond his music that is in any wayadmirable. "

"And that the gift of nature, a thing without his own deserving, like his--like his regard for you, which was inevitable, MademoiselleOlivia. "

"And that the hollowest of all, " she said, turning the evidence of it inher pocket again. "He will as readily get over that as over his injuryfrom you. "

"Perhaps 'tis so. The most sensitive man, they say, does not place allhis existence on love; 'tis woman alone who can live and die in theheart. "

"There I daresay you speak from experience, " said Olivia, smiling, butimpatient that he should find a single plea in favour of a wretch hemust know so well. 

"Consider me the exception, " he hurried to explain. "I never loved butonce, and then would die for it. " The jasmine trembled in its chastewhite nunnery, and her lips were temptingly apart. He bent forwardboldly, searching her provoking eyes. 

"She is the lucky lady!" said Olivia in a low voice, and then a pause. She trifled with her book. 

"What I wonder is that you could have a word to say of plea for thisthat surely is the blackest of his kind. "

"Not admirable, by my faith! no; not admirable, " he confessed, "but Iwould be the last to blame him for intemperately loving you. There, I think his honesty was beyond dispute; there he might have foundsalvation. That he should have done me the honour to desire my removalfrom your presence was flattering to my vanity, and a savage tribute toyour power, Mademoiselle Olivia. "

"Oh!" cried Olivia, "you cannot deceive me, Count Victor. It is odd thatall your sex must stick up for each other in the greatest villanies. "

"Not the greatest, Mademoiselle Olivia, " said Count Victor with aninclination; "he might have been indifferent to your charms, and thatwere the one thing unforgivable. But soberly, I consider his follyscarce bad enough for the punishment of your eternal condemnation. "

"This man thinks lightly indeed of me, " thought Olivia. "Drimdarroch hasa good advocate, " said she shortly, "and the last I would have lookedfor in his defence was just yourself. "

"Drimdarroch?" he repeated, in a puzzled tone. 

"Will you be telling me that you do not know?" she said. "For what didSimon MacTaggart harass our household?"

"I have been bold enough to flatter myself; I had dared to think--"

She stopped him quickly, blushing. "You know he was Drimdarroch, CountVictor, " said she, with some conviction. 

He jumped to his feet and bent to stare at her, his face all wroughtwith astonishment. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ Mademoiselle, you do not say the two were one? Andyet--and yet--yes, _par dieu!_ how blind I have been; there is everypossibility. "

"I thought you knew it, " said Olivia, much relieved, "and felt anythingbut pleased at your seeming readiness in the circumstances to let me bethe victim of my ignorance. I had too much trust in the wretch. "

"Women distrust men too much in the general and too little inparticular. And you knew?" asked Count Victor. . 

"I learned to-day, " said Olivia, "and this was my bitter schooling. "

She passed him the letter. He took it and read aloud:

"I have learned now, " said the writer, "the reason for your blacklooks at Monsher the wine merchant that has a Nobleman's Crest upon hisbelongings. It is because he has come to look for Drimdarroch. And thestupid body cannot find him! _We_ know who Drimdarroch is, do we not, Sim? Monsher may have sharp eyes, but they do not see much furtherthan a woman's face if the same comes in his way. And Simon MacTaggart(they're telling me) has been paying late visits to Doom Castle thatwere not for the love of Miss Milk-and-Water. Sim! Sim! I gave youcredit for being less o' a Gomeral. To fetch the Frenchman to myhouse of all places! You might be sure he would not be long among ourIndwellers here without his true business being discovered. Drimdarroch, indeed! Now I will hate the name, though I looked with a differenceon it when I wrote it scores of times to your direction in the RueDauphine of Paris, and loved to dwell upon a picture of the place therethat I had never seen, because my Sim (just fancy it!) was there. Youwere just a Wee Soon with the title, my dear Traitour, my bonny Spy. Itmight have been yours indeed, and more if you had patience, yes perhapsand Doom forby, as that is like to be my good-man's very speedily. Whatif I make trouble, Sim, and open the eyes of Monsher and the mim-mou'edMadame at the same moment by telling them who is really Drimdarroch?Will it no' gar them Grue, think ye?"

Count Victor stood amazed when he had read this. A confusion of feelingswere in his breast. He had blundered blindly into his long-studiedreprisals whose inadequate execution he was now scarce willing toregret, and Olivia had thought him capable of throwing her to thiscolossal rogue! The document shook in his hand. 

"Well?" said Olivia at last. "Is it a much blacker man that is therethan the one you thought? I can tell you I will count it a disgrace tomy father's daughter that she ever looked twice the road he was on. "

"And yet I can find it in me to forgive him the balance of hispunishment, " cried the Count. 

"And what for might that be?" said she. 

"Because, Mademoiselle Olivia, he led me to Scotland and to yourfather's door. "

She saw a rapture in his manner, a kindling in his eye, and drew herselftogether with some pride. 

"You were welcome to my father's door; I am sure of that of it, whatever, " said she, "but it was a poor reward for so long a travelling. And now, my grief! We must steep the withies and go ourselves to thestart of fortune like any beggars. "

"No! no!" said he, and caught her hand that trembled in his like a bird. "Olivia!--oh, God, the name is like a song--_je t'aime! je t'aime!_Olivia, I love you!"

She plucked her hand away and threw her shoulders back, haughty, yettrembling and on the brink of tears. 

"It is not kind--it is not kind, " she stammered, almost sobbing. "Thelady that is in France. "

"_Petite imbecile!_" he cried, "there is no lady in France worthy tohold thy scarf; 'twas thyself, _mignonne_, I spoke of all the time; onlythe more I love the less I can express. "

He drew her to him, crushing the jasmine till it breathed in a fragrantdissolution, bruising her breast with the topaz. 

CHAPTER XXXVII -- THE FUTILE FLAGEOLET

But Simon MacTaggart did not pipe wholly in vain. If Oliviawas unresponsive, there was one at least in Doom who was his, whole-heartedly, and Mungo, when the flageolet made its vain appeal, felt a personal injury that the girl should subject his esteemedimpersonation of all the manly graces and virtues--so to call them--tothe insult of indifference. 

As the melodies succeeded each other without a sign of response fromoverhead, he groaned, and swore with vexation and anger. 

"Ye can be bummin' awa' wi' your chanter, " he said as he stood listeningin the kitchen. "Her leddyship wodnae hae ye playin' there lang yourlane a saison syne, but thae days is done wi'; there's nae lugs for atirlin' at the winnock whaur there's nae love--at least wi' MistressLeevie. "

Annapla heard the music with a superstitious terror; her eyes threatenedto leap out of her head, and she clutched the arm of her adorer. 

"Gae 'wa!" he told her, shaking her off with a contempt for her fears. "Are ye still i' the daft Hielan' notion that it's a ghaist that'splayin' there? That was a story he made up himsel', and the need for't's done. There's naethin' waur nor Sim MacTaggart oot there i' thegairden, wastin' his wund on a wumman that's owre muckle ta'en up i' thenoo wi' the whillywhaes o' a French sneckdrawer that haesnae the smeddumto gi'e her a toozlin' at the 'oor she needs it maist. Ay, ay! caw awa'wi' yer chanter, Sim, ye'll play hooly and fairly ere ever ye play 't i'the lug o' Leevie Lamond, and her heid against your shoulder again. "

When it seemed at last the player's patience was at an end, the littleservitor took a lamp and went to the door. He drew the bolts softly, prepared to make a cautious emergence, with a recollection of his warmreception before. He was to have a great surprise, for there stood SimonMac-Taggart leaning against the jamb--a figure of dejection!

"Dod!" cried Mungo, "ye fair started me there, wi' your chafts like clayand yer ee'n luntin'. If I hadnae been tauld when I was doon wi' yercoat the day that ye was oot and aboot again, I wad hae taen 't for yourwraith. "

The Chamberlain said nothing. There was something inexpressibly solemnin his aspect as he leaned wearily against the side of the door, hisface like clay, as Mungo had truly said, and his eyes flaming in thelight of the lantern. The flageolet was in his hand; he was shiveringwith cold. And he was silent. The silence of him was the most staggeringfact for the little domestic, who would have been relieved to hear anoath or even have given his coat-collar to a vigorous shaking ratherthan be compelled to look on misery inarticulate. Simon looked past himinto the shadows of the hall as a beggar looks into a garden where isno admission for him or his kind. A fancy seized Mungo that perhaps thisdumb man had been drinking. "He's gey like a man on the randan, " he saidto himself, peering cautiously, "but he never had a name for the glassthough namely for the lass. "

"Is she in?" said the Chamberlain, suddenly, without changing hisattitude, and with scanty interest in his eyes. 

"Oh ay! She's in, sure enough, " said Mungo. "Whaur else wad she be butin?"

"And she'll have heard me?" continued the Chamberlain. 

"I'll warrant ye!" said Mungo. 

"What's wrong?"

Mungo pursed out his lips and shook his lantern. "Ye can be askin'that, " said he. "Gude kens!"

The Chamberlain still leaned wearily against the door jamb, mentallywhelmed by dejection, bodily weak as water. His ride on a horse alongthe coast had manifestly not been the most fitting exercise for a mannew out of bed and the hands of his physician. 

"What about the foreigner?" said he at length, and glowered the moreinto the interior as if he might espy him. 

Mungo was cautious. This was the sort of person who on an impulse wouldrush the guard and create a commotion in the garrison; he temporised. 

"The foreigner?" said he, as if there were so many in his experiencethat some discrimination was called for. "Oh ay, the Coont. A gey queerbirkie yon! He's no' awa yet. He's sittin' on his dowp yet, waitin' adispensation o' Providence that'll gie him a heeze somewhere else. "

"Is--he--is he with her?" said Simon. 

"Oh, thereaboots, thereaboots, " admitted Mungo, cautiously. "There's naedoot they're gey and chief got sin! he cam' back, and she foun' oot whacreated the collieshangie. "

"Ay, man, and she kens that?" said the Chamberlain with unnatural calm. 

"'Deed does she, brawly! though hoo she kens is mair nor I can guess. Monsher thrieps it wasnae him, and I'll gie my oath it wasnae me. "

"Women are kittle cattle, Mungo. There's whiles I think it a peety theold law against witchcraft was not still to the fore. And so she kent, did she? and nobody tell't her. Well, well!" He laughed softly, withgreat bitterness. 

Mungo turned the lantern about in his hand and had nothing to say. 

"What's this I'm hearing about the Baron--the Baron and her--and her, leaving?" said the Chamberlain. 

"It's the glide's truth that, " said the little man; "and for the ootsand ins o't ye'll hae to ask Petullo doon-by, for he's at the root o't. Doom's done wi'; it's his decreet, and I'm no' a day ower soon wi' thepromise o' the Red Sodger--for the which I'm muckle obleeged to you, Factor. Doom's done; they're gaun awa' in a week or twa, and me andAnnapla's to be left ahint to steek the yetts. "

"So they tell me, Mungo; so they tell me, " said the Chamberlain, neitherup nor down at this corroboration. "In a week or twa! ay! ay! It'll bethe bowrer nae langer then, " he went on, unconsciously mimicking theLowland Scots of the domestic. "Do ye ken the auld song?--

 'O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray, They were twa bonnie lassies! They bigged a bower on yon burn-brae, And theekit it o'er wi' rashes. '"

He lilted the air with indiscreet indifference to being heard within;and "Wheesh! man, wheesh!" expostulated Mungo. "If himsel' was to ken o'me colloguing wi' ye at the door at this 'oor o' the nicht, there wad beAuld Hornie to pay. "

"Oh! there's like to be that the ways it is, " said the Chamberlain, never lifting his shoulder from the door-post, beating his leg with theflageolet, and in all with the appearance of a casual gossip reluctantto be going. "Indeed, and by my troth! there's like to be that!" herepeated. "Do ye think, by the look of me, Mungo, I'm in a pleasantcondition of mind?"

"Faith and ye look gey gash, sir, " said Mungo; "there's no denyin' thatof it. "

The Chamberlain gave a little crackling laugh, and held the flageoletlike a dirk, flat along the inside of his arm and his fingers straininground the thick of it. 

"Gash!" said he. "That's the way I feel. By God! Ye fetched down my coatto-day. It was the first hint I had that this damned dancing master washere, for he broke jyle; who would have guessed he was fool enough tocome here, where--if we were in the key for it--we could easily sethands on him? He must have stolen the coat out of my own room; butthat's no' all of it, for there was a letter in the pocket of it whenit disappeared. What was in the letter I am fair beat to remember, but Iknow that it was of some importance to myself, and of a solemn secrecy, and it has not come back with the coat. "

Mungo was taken aback at this, but to acknowledge he had seen the letterat all would be to blunder. 

"A letter!" said he; "there was nae letter that I saw;" and he concludedthat he must have let it slip out of the pocket. 

The Chamberlain for the first time relinquished the support of thedoorway, and stood upon his legs, but his face was more dejected thanever. 

"That settles it, " said he, filling his chest with air. "I had a smallhope that maybe it might have come into your hands without the othersseeing it, but that was expecting too much of a Frenchman. And theletter's away with it! My God! Away with it!

 '. . . Bigged a bower on yon burn-brae, And theekit it o'er wi' rashes!'"

"For gude sake!" said Mungo, terrified again at this mad lilting from aman who had anything but song upon his countenance. 

"You're sure ye didnae see the letter?" asked the Chamberlain again. 

"Amn't I tellin' ye?" said Mungo. 

"It's a pity, " said the Chamberlain, staring at the lantern, with eyesthat saw nothing. "In that case ye need not wonder that her ladyshipinby should ken all, for I'm thinking it was a very informing bitletter, though the exact wording of it has slipped my recollection. Itwould be expecting over much of human nature to think that the foreignerwould keep his hands out of the pouch of a coat he stole, and keep anysecret he found there to himself. I'm saying, Mungo!"

"Yes, sir?"

"Somebody's got to sweat for this!"

There was so much venom in the utterance and such a frenzy in the eye, that Mungo started; before he could find a comment the Chamberlain wasgone. 

His horse was tethered to a thorn; he climbed wearily into the saddleand swept along the coast. At the hour of midnight his horse wasstabled, and he himself was whistling in the rear of Petullo's house, asignal the woman there had thought never to hear again. 

She responded in a joyful whisper from a window, and came down a fewminutes later with her head in a capuchin hood. 

"Oh, Sim! dear, is it you indeed? I could hardly believe my ears. "

He put down the arms she would throw about his neck and held her wrists, squeezing them till she almost screamed with pain. He bent his face downto stare into her hood; even in the darkness she saw a plain fury in hiseyes; if there was a doubt about his state of mind, the oath he utteredremoved it. 

"What do you want with me?" she gasped, struggling to free her hands. 

"You sent me a letter on the morning of the ball?" said he, a littlerelaxing his grasp, yet not altogether releasing her prisoned hands. 

"Well, if I did!" said she. 

"What was in it?" he asked. 

"Was it not delivered Jo you? I did not address it nor did I sign it, but I was assured you got it. "

"That I got it has nothing to do with the matter, woman. What I want toknow is what was in it?"

"Surely you read it?" said she. 

"I read it a score of times--"

"My dear Sim!"

"--And cursed two score of times as far as I remember; but what I amasking now is what was in it?"

Mrs. Petullo began to weep softly, partly from the pain of the man'sunconsciously cruel grasp, partly frotn disillusion, partly from a fearthat she had to do with a mind deranged. 

"Oh, Sim, have you forgotten already? It did not use to be that with aletter of mine!"

He flung away her hands and swore again. 

"Oh, Kate Cameron, " he cried, "damned black was the day I first clapteyes on you! Tell me this, did your letter, that was through all mydreams when I was in the fever of my wound, and yet that I cannot recalla sentence of, say you knew I was Drimdarroch? It is in my mind that itdid so. "

"Black the day you saw me, Sim!" said she. "I'm thinking it is justthe other way about, my honest man. Drimdarroch! And spy, it seems, andsomething worse! And are you feared that I have clyped it all to MadameMilk-and-Water? No, Simon, I have not done that; I have gone about thething another way. "

"Another way, " said he. "I think I mind you threatened it before myself, and Doom is to be rouped at last to pleasure a wanton woman. "

"A wanton woman! Oh, my excellent tutor! My best respects to my olddominie! I'll see day about with you for this!"

"Day about!" said he, "ftly good sweet-tempered Kate! You need not fash;your hand is played; your letter trumped the trick, and I am done. Ifthat does not please your ladyship, you are ill to serve. And I wouldnot just be saying that the game is finished altogether even yet, solong as I know where to lay my fingers on the Frenchman. "

She plucked her hands free, and ran from him without another word, gladfor once of the sanctuary of a husband's door. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII -- A WARNING

Petullo was from home. It was in such circumstances she found thebondage least intolerable. Now she was to find his absence more than apleasant respite; it gave her an opportunity of warning Doom. She hadscarce made up her mind how he should be informed of the jeopardies thatmenaced his guest, whose skaithless departure with Olivia was even, fromher point of view, a thing wholly desirable, when the Baron appearedhimself. It was not on the happiest of errands he came down on the firstday of favouring weather; it was to surrender the last remnant of hisright to the home of his ancestors. With the flourish of a quill hebrought three centuries of notable history to a close. 

"Here's a lesson in humility, Mr. Campbell, " said he to Petullo's clerk. "We builded with the sword, and fell upon the sheep-skin. Who wouldthink that so foolish a bird as the grey goose would have Doom and itsgenerations in its wing?"

He had about his shoulders a plaid that had once been of his tartan, but had undergone the degradation of the dye-pot for a foolish andtyrannical law; he threw it round him with a dignity that was halfdefiance, and cast his last glance round the scene of his sorriestexperiences--the dusty writing-desks, the confusion of old letters; thetaped and dog-eared, fouled, and forgotten records of pithy causes;and, finally, at the rampart of deed-chests, one of which had the name"Drimdarroch" blazoned on it for remembrance if he had been in danger offorgetting. 

"And is it yourself, Baron?" cried a woman's voice as he turned to go. "I am so sorry my husband is from home. "

He turned again with his hat off for the lady who had an influence onhis fate that he could never guess of. 

"It is what is left of me, ma'am, " said he. "And it is more than is liketo be seen of me in these parts for many a day to come, " but with nocomplaint in his expression. 

"Ah, " said she, "I know; I know! and I am so sorry. You cannot leaveto-day of any day without a glass of wine for _deoch-an-doruis_. "

"I thank you, ma'am, " said Doom, "but my boat is at the quay, and Mungowaits for me. "

"But, indeed, you must come in, Baron, " she insisted. "There issomething of the greatest importance I have to say to you, and it neednot detain you ten minutes. "

He followed her upstairs to her parlour. It was still early in the dayand there was something of the slattern in her dragging gown. As hewalked behind her, the remembrance would intrude of that betrayingletter, and he had the notion that perhaps she somehow knew he sharedher shameful secret. Nor was the idea dispelled when she stoppedand faced him in the privacy of her room with her eyes swollen and atrembling under-lip. 

"And it has come to this of it, Baron?" said she. 

"It has come to this, " said Doom simply. 

"I cannot tell you how vexed I am. But you know my husband--"

"I have the honour, ma'am, " said he, bowing with an old-fashionedinclination. 

"--You know my husband, a hard man, Baron, though I perhaps should bethe last to say it, and I have no say in his business affairs. "

"Which is doubtless proper enough, " said Doom, and thought of an ironybreeding forbade him to give utterance to. 

"But I must tell you I think it is a scandal you should have to go fromthe place of your inheritance; and your sweet girl too! I hope and trustshe is in good health and spirits?"

"My good girl is very well, " said he, "and with some reason forcheerfulness in spite of our misfortunes. As for them, ma'am, I am oldenough to have seen and known a sufficiency of ups and downs, of fluxand change, to wonder at none of them. I am not going to say that whathas come to me is the most joco of happenings for a person like myselfthat has more than ordinary of the sentimentalist in me, and is bound tobe wrapped up in the country-side hereabouts. But the tail may go withthe hide, as the saying runs. Doom, that's no more than a heart-breakof memories and an' empty shell, may very well join Duntorvil andDrimdarroch and the Islands of Lochow, that have dribbled through thecourts of what they call the law and left me scarcely enough to burymyself in another country than my own. "

Mrs. Petullo was not, in truth, wholly unmoved, but it was the actressin her wrung her hands. 

"I hear you are going abroad, " she cried. "That must be the hardestthing of all. "

"I am not complaining, ma'am, " said Doom. 

"No, no; but oh! it is so sad, Baron--and your dear girl too, so sweetand nice--"

The Baron grew impatient; the "something of importance" was rather longof finding an expression, and he took the liberty of interrupting. 

"Quite so, ma'am, " said he, "but there was something in particular youhad to tell me. Mungo, as I mentioned, is waiting me at the quay, andtime presses, for we have much to do before we leave next week. "

A look of relief came to Mrs. Petullo's face. 

"Next week!" she cried. "Oh, then, that goes far to set my mind atease. " Some colour came to her cheeks; she trifled with a handkerchief. "What I wished to say, Baron, was that your daughter and--and--and theFrench gentleman, with whom we are glad to hear she is like to make amatch of it, could not be away from this part of the country a daytoo soon. I overheard a curious thing the other day, it is only fair Ishould tell you, for it concerns your friend the French gentleman, andit was that Simon MacTaggart knew the Frenchman was back in your houseand threatened trouble. There may be nothing in it, but I would not putit past the same person, who is capable of any wickedness. "

"It is not the general belief, ma'am, " said the Baron, "but I'll takeyour word for it, and, indeed, I have long had my own suspicions. Still, I think the same gentleman has had his wings so recently clipped that weneed not be much put about at his threats. "

"I have it on the best authority that he broods mischief, " said she. 

"The best authority, " repeated Doom, with never a doubt as to what thatwas. "Well, it may be, but I have no fear of him. Once, I'll confess, hetroubled me, but the man is now no more than a rotten kail-stock so faras my household is concerned. I thank God Olivia is happy!"

"And so do I, I'm sure, with all my heart, " chimed in the lady. "And that is all the more reason why the Count--you see we know hisstation--should be speedily out of the way of molestation, either fromthe law or Simon MacTaggart. "

Doom made to bring the interview to a conclusion. "As to the Count, "said he, "you can take my word for it, he is very well able to lookafter himself, as Drimdarroch, or MacTaggart, or whatever is theChamberlain's whim to call himself, knows very well by now. Drimdarroch, indeed! I could be kicking him myself for his fouling of an honest oldname. "

"Kicking!" said she; "I wonder at your leniency. I cannot but think youare far from knowing the worst of Simon MacTaggart. "

"The worst!" said Doom. "That's between himself and Hell, but I know asmuch as most, and it's enough to make me sure the man's as boss as anempty barrel. He was once a sort of friend of mine, till twenty yearsago my wife grew to hate the very mention of his name. Since then I'veseen enough of him at a distance to read the plausible rogue in hisvery step. The man wears every bawbee virtue he has like a brooch inhis bonnet; and now when I think of it, I would not dirty my boots withhim. "

Mrs. Petullo's lips parted. She hovered a second or two on a disclosurethat explained the wife's antipathy of twenty years ago, but itinvolved confession of too intimate a footing on her own part with theChamberlain, and she said no more. 

CHAPTER XXXIX -- BETRAYED BY A BALLAD

Some days passed and a rumour went about the town, in its origin asindiscoverable as the birthplace of the winds. It engaged the seamenon the tiny trading vessels at the quay, and excited the eagerestspeculation in Ludovic's inn. Women put down their water-stoups at thewells and shook mysterious heads over hints of Sim MacTaggart's history. No one for a while had a definite story, but in all the innuendoes theChamberlain figured vaguely as an evil influence. That he had slain aman in some parts abroad was the first and the least astonishing of thecrimes laid to his charge, though the fact that he had never made abrag of it was counted sinister; but, by-and-by, surmise and sheerimagination gave place to a commonly accepted tale that Simon hadfigured in divers escapades in France with the name Drimdarroch; thathe had betrayed men and women there, and that the Frenchman hadcome purposely to Scotland seeking for him. It is the most common ofexperiences that the world will look for years upon a man admiringlyand still be able to recall a million things to his discredit when heis impeached with some authority. It was so in this case. The very folkswho had loved best to hear the engaging flageolet, feeling the springsof some nobility bubble up in them at the bidding of its player, and drunk with him and laughed with him and ever esteemed his freegentility, were the readiest to recall features of his character andincidents of his life that--as they put it--ought to have set honest menupon their guard. The tale went seaward on the gabbards, and landward, even to Lorn itself, upon carriers' carts and as the richest part of thepackman's budget. Furthermore, a song or two was made upon the thing, that even yet old women can recall in broken stanzas, and of one ofthese, by far the best informed, Petullo's clerk was the reputed author. 

As usual, the object of the scandal was for a while unconscious. He wentabout experiencing a new aloofness in his umquhile friends, and finallyconcluded that it was due to his poor performance in front of theforeigner on the morning of the ball, and that but made him the morevenomously ruminant upon revenge. In these days he haunted the avenueslike a spirit, brooding on his injuries, pondering the means of aretaliation; there were no hours of manumission in the inn; the reedwas still. And yet, to do him justice, there was even then the frank andsuave exterior; no boorish awkward silence in his ancient gossips madehim lose his jocularity; he continued to embellish his conversation withmorals based on universal kindness and goodwill. 

At last the thunder broke, for the scandal reached the castle, and wasthere overheard by the Duchess in a verse of the ballad sung under herwindow by a gardener's boy. She made some inquiries, and thereafter wentstraight to her husband. 

"What is this I hear about your Chamberlain?" she asked. 

Argyll drew down his brows and sighed. "My Chamberlain?" said he. "Itmust be something dreadful by the look of her grace the Duchess. What isit this time? High treason, or marriage, or the need of it? Or has oldKnapdale died by a blessed disposition and left him a fortune? Thatwould save me the performance of a very unpleasant duty. "

"It has gone the length of scurrilous songs about our worthy gentleman. The town has been ringing with scandals about him for a week, and Inever heard a word about it till half-an-hour ago. "

"And so you feel defrauded, my dear, which is natural enough, being awoman as well as a duchess. I am glad to know that so squalid a storyshould be so long of reaching your ears; had it been anything toanybody's credit you would have been the first to learn of it. To tellthe truth, I've heard the song myself, and if I have seemed unnaturallyengaged for a day or two it is because I have been in a quandary as towhat I should do. Now that you know the story, what do you advise, mydear?"

"A mere woman must leave that to the Lord Justice-General, " she replied. "And now that your Chamberlain turns out a greater scamp than I thoughthim, I'm foolish enough to be sorry for him. "

"And so am I, " said the Duke, and looked about the shelves of bookslining the room. "Here's a multitude of counsellors, a great deal of theworld's wisdom so far as it has been reduced to print, and I'll swear Icould go through it from end to end without learning how I should judgea problem like Sim MacTaggart. "

She would have left him then, but he stopped her with a smilinginterrogation. "Well?" he said. 

She waited. 

"What about the customary privilege?" he went on. 

"What is that?"

"Why, you have not said 'I told you so. '"

She smiled at that. "How stupid of me!" said she. "Oh! but you forgavemy Frenchman, and for that I owe you some consideration. "

"Did I, faith?" said he. "'Twas mighty near the compounding of a felony, a shocking lapse in a Justice-General. To tell the truth, I was onlytoo glad, in MacTaggart's interest, while he was ill, to postponedisclosures so unpleasant as are now the talk of the country; and likeyou, I find him infinitely worse in these disclosures than I guessed. "

The Duchess went away, the Duke grew grave, reflecting on his duty. Whatit clearly was he had not decided until it was late in the evening, andthen he sent for his Chamberlain. 

CHAPTER XL -- THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

Simon went to the library and saw plainly that the storm was come. 

"Sit down, Simon, sit down, " said his Grace and carefully sharped a pen. 

The Chamberlain subsided in a chair; crossed his legs; made a mouth asif to whistle. There was a vexatious silence in the room till the Dukegot up and stood against the chimney-piece and spoke. 

"Well, " said he, "I could be taking a liberty with the old song andsinging 'Roguery Parts Good Company' if I were not, so far as musicgoes, as timber as the table there and in anything but a key for musiceven if I had the faculty. Talking about music, you have doubtless notheard the ingenious ballant connected with your name and your exploits. It has been the means of informing her Grace upon matters I hadpreferred she knew nothing about, because I liked to have the women Iregard believe the world much better than it is. And it follows thatyou and I must bring our long connection to an end. When will it be mostconvenient for my Chamberlain to send me his resignation after 'twelveyears of painstaking and intelligent service to the Estate, ' as we mightbe saying, on the customary silver salver?"

Simon cursed within but outwardly never quailed. 

"I know nothing about a ballant, " said he coolly, "but as for the restof it, I thank God I can be taking a hint as ready as the quickest. YourGrace no doubt has reasons. And I'll make bold to say the inscriptionit is your humour to suggest would not be anyway extravagant, forthe twelve years have been painstaking enough, whatever about theirintelligence, of which I must not be the judge myself. "

"So far as that goes, sir, " said the Duke, "you have been a pattern. Andit is your gifts that make your sins the more heinous; a man of a moresluggish intelligence might have had the ghost of an excuse for failingto appreciate the utmost loathsomeness of his sins. "

"Oh! by the Lord Harry, if it is to be a sermon--!" cried Simon, jumpingto his feet. 

"Keep your chair, sir! keep your chair like a man!" said the Duke. "I amthinking you know me well enough to believe there is none of the commonmoralist about me. I leave the preaching to those with a better conceitof themselves than I could afford to have of my indifferent self. Nopreaching, cousin, no preaching, but just a word among friends, even ifit were only to explain the reason for our separation. "

The Chamberlain resumed his chair defiantly and folded his arms. 

"I'll be cursed if I see the need for all this preamble, " said he; "butyour Grace can fire away. It need never be said that Simon MacTaggartwas feared to account for himself when the need happened. "

"Within certain limitations, I daresay that is true, " said the Duke. 

"I aye liked a tale to come to a brisk conclusion, " said theChamberlain, with no effort to conceal his impatience. 

"This one will be as brisk as I can make it, " said his Grace. "Up tillthe other day I gave you credit for the virtue you claim--the readinessto answer for yourself when the need happened. I was under the delusionthat your duel with the Frenchman was the proof of it. "

"Oh, damn the Frenchman!" cried the Chamberlain with contempt andirritation. "I am ready to meet the man again with any arm he chooses. "

"With any arm!" said the Duke dryly. "'Tis always well to have a wholeone, and not one with a festering sore, as on the last occasion. Ohyes, " he went on, seeing Simon change colour, "you observe I havelearned about the old wound, and what is more, I know exactly where yougot it. "

"Your Grace seems to have trustworthy informants, " said the Chamberlainless boldly, but in no measure abashed. "I got that wound through yourown hand as surely as if you had held the foil that gave it, for thewhole of this has risen, as you ought to know, from your sending me toFrance. "

"And that is true, in a sense, my good sophist. But I was, in that, theunconscious and blameless link in your accursed destiny. I had you sentto France on a plain mission. It was not, I make bold to say, a missionon which the Government would have sent any man but a shrewd one anda gentleman, and I was mad enough to think Simon Mac-Taggart was both. When you were in Paris as our agent--"

"Fah!" cried Simon, snapping his fingers and drawing his face in agrimace. "Agent, quo' he! for God's sake take your share of it and sayspy and be done with it!"

The Duke shrugged his shoulders, listening patiently to theinterruption. "As you like, " said he. "Let us say spy, then. You were tolearn what you could of the Pretender's movements, and incidentallyyou were to intromit with certain of our settled agents at Versailles. Doubtless a sort of espionage was necessary to the same. But I makebold to say the duty was no ignoble one so long as it was done withsome sincerity and courage, for I count the spy in an enemy's country isengaged upon the gallantest enterprise of war, using the shrewdness thatalone differs the quarrel of the man from the fury of the beast, andhimself the more admirable, because his task is a thousand times moredangerous than if he fought with the claymore in the field. "

"Doubtless! doubtless!" said the Chamberlain. "That's an old talebetween the two of us, but you should hear the other side upon it. "

"No matter; we gave you the credit and the reward of doing your duty asyou engaged, and yet you mixed the business up with some extremely dirtywork no sophistry of yours or mine will dare defend. You took our money, MacTaggart--and you sold us! Sit down, sit down and listen like a man!You sold us; there's the long and the short of it, and you sold ourfriends at Versailles to the very people you were sent yourself to actagainst. Countersap with a vengeance! We know now where Bertin got hisinformation. You betrayed us and the woman Cecile Favart in the onefilthy transaction. "

The Chamberlain showed in his face that the blow was home. His mouthbroke and he grew as grey as a rag. 

"And that's the way of it?" he said, after a moment's silence. 

"That's the way of it, " said the Duke. "She was as much the agent--letus say the spy, then--as you were yourself, and seems to have broughtmore cunning to the trade than did our simple Simon himself. If herfriend Montaiglon had not come here to look for you, and thereby put uson an old trail we had abandoned, we would never have guessed the sourceof her information. "

"I'll be cursed if I have a dog's luck!" cried Simon. 

Argyll looked pityingly at him. "So!" said he. "You mind our old countrysaying, _Ni droch dhuine dàn da féin_--a bad man makes his own fate?"

"Do you say so?" cried MacTaggart, with his first sign of actualinsolence, and the Duke sighed. 

"My good Simon, " said he, "I do not require to tell you so, for you knowit very well. What I would add is that all I have said is, so far asI am concerned, between ourselves; that's my only tribute to our oldacquaintanceship. Only I can afford to have no more night escapades atDoom or anywhere else with my fencibles, and so, Simon, the resignationcannot be a day too soon. "

"Heaven forbid that I should delay it a second longer than is desirable, and your Grace has it here and now! A fine _fracas_ all this about apuddock-eating Frenchman! I do not value him nor his race to the extentof a pin. And as for your Grace's Chamberlain--well, Simon MacTaggarthas done very well hitherto on his own works and merits. "

"You may find, for all that, " says his Grace, "that they were all summedup in a few words--'he was a far-out cousin to the Duke. ' _Sic itur adastra_. "

At that Simon put on his hat and laughed with an eerie and unpleasantstridency. He never said another word, but left the room. The sound ofhis unnatural merriment rang on the stair as he descended. 

"The man is fey, " said the Duke to himself, listening with a startledgravity. 

CHAPTER XLI -- CONCLUSION

Simon MacTaggart went out possessed by the devils of hatred and chagrin. He saw himself plainly for what he was in truth--a pricked bladder, hiscareer come to an ignoble conclusion, the single honest scheme he hadever set his heart on brought to nought, and his vanity already woundedsorely at the prospect of a contemptuous world to be faced for theremainder of his days. All this from the romantics of a Frenchman whowalked through life in the step of a polonaise, and a short season agowas utterly unaware that such a man as Simon MacTaggart existed, orthat a woman named Olivia bloomed, a very flower, among the wilds!At whatever angle he viewed the congregated disasters of the past fewweeks, he saw Count Victor in their background--a sardonic, smiling, light-hearted Nemesis; and if he detested him previously as a merelypossible danger, he hated him now with every fibre of his being as thecause of his upheaval. 

And then, in this way that is not uncommon with the sinner, he must pityhimself because circumstances had so consistently conspired against him. 

He had come into the garden after the interview with Argyll had made itplain that the darkest passages in his servant's history were known tohim, and had taken off his hat to get the night breeze on his brow whichwas wet with perspiration. The snow was still on the ground; among theladen bushes, the silent soaring trees of fir and ash, it seemed as ifthis was no other than the land of outer darkness whereto the lost aredriven at the end. It maddened him to think of what he had been broughtto; he shook his fist in a childish and impotent petulance at thespacious unregarding east where Doom lay--the scene of all his passions. 

"God's curse on the breed of meddlers!" he said. "Another month and Iwas out of these gutters and hell no more to tempt me. To be the doucegood-man, and all the tales of storm forgotten by the neighboursthat may have kent them; to sit perhaps with bairns--her bairnsand mine--about my knee, and never a twinge of the old damnableinclinations, and the flageolet going to the honestest tunes. All lost!All lost for a rat that takes to the hold of an infernal ship, and comeshere to chew at the ropes that dragged me to salvation. This is where itends! It's the judgment come a day ower soon for Sim MacTaggart. But SimMacTaggart will make the rat rue his meddling. "

He had come out with no fixed idea of what he next should do, but onestep seemed now imperative--he must go to Doom, otherwise his bloodwould burst every vein in his body. He set forth with the stimulus offury for the barracks where his men lay, of whom half-a-dozen at leastwere his to the gate of the Pit itself, less scrupulous even thanhimself because more ignorant, possessed of but one or two impulses--afoolish affection for him and an inherited regard for rapine too rarelyto be indulged in these tame latter days. To call them out, to find themarmed and ready for any enterprise of his was a matter of brief time. They set out knowing nothing at all of his object, and indifferent solong as this adorable gentleman was to lead them. 

When they came to Doom the tide was full and round about it, so theyretired upon the hillside, sheltering in a little plantation of firthrough which they could see the stars, and Doom dense black againstthem without a sign of habitation. 

And yet Doom, upon the side that faced the sea, was not asleep. Mungowas busy upon the preparations for departure, performing them in afunereal spirit, whimpering about the vacant rooms with a grief that wastrivial compared with that of Doom itself, who waited for the dawn asif it were to bring him to the block, or of Olivia, whose pillow waswet with unavailing tears. It was their last night in Doom. At daybreakMungo was to convey them to the harbour, where they should embark uponthe vessel that was to bear them to the lowlands. It seemed as if thesea-gulls came earlier than usual to wheel and cry about the rock, half-guessing that it was so soon to be untenanted, and finally, as itis to-day, the grass-grown mound of memories. Olivia rose and wentto her window to look out at them, and saw them as yet but vague greyfloating shapes slanting against the paling stars. 

And then the household rose; the boat nodded to the leeward of the rock, with its mast stepped, its sail billowing with a rustle in the faintair, and Mungo at the sheet. The dawn came slowly, but fast enough forthe departing, and the landward portion of the rock was still in shadowwhen Olivia stepped forth with a tear-stained face and a trembling handon Victor's arm. He shared her sorrow, but was proud and happy too thather trials, as he hoped, were over. They took their seat in the boat andwaited for the Baron. Now the tide was down, the last of it running intiny rivulets upon the sand between the mainland and the rock, and Simonand his gang came over silently. Simon led, and turned the corner of thetower hastily with his sword in his hand to find the Baron emerging. He had not seen the boat and its occupants, but the situation seemed toflash upon him, and he uttered a cry of rage. 

Doom drew back under the frowning eyebrow of what had been his home, tugged the weapon from his scabbard, and threw himself on guard. 

"This is kind, indeed, " he said in a pause of his assailant's confusionat finding this was not the man he sought. "You have come to say'Goodbye. ' On guard, black dog, on guard!"

"_So dhuit maat!_--here then is for you, " cried Sim, and waving back hisfollowers, engaged with a rasp of steel. It lasted but a moment: Doomcrouched a little upon bending knees, with a straight arm, parrying theassault of a point that flew in wild disorder. He broke ground for afew yards with feints in quarte. He followed on a riposte with alunge--short, sharp, conclusive, for it took his victim in the chestand passed through at the other side with a thud of the hilt againsthis body. Sim fell with a groan, his company clustering round him, notwholly forgetful of retaliation, but influenced by his hand that forbadetheir interference with his enemy. 

"Clean up your filth!" said Doom in the Gaelic, sheathing his sword andturning to join his daughter. "He took Drimdarroch from me, and now, byGod! he's welcome to Doom. "

"Not our old friends, surely?" said Count Victor, looking backward atthe cluster of men. 

"The same, " said Doom, and kept his counsel further. 

Count Victor put his arm round Olivia's waist. The boat's prow fell off;the sail filled; she ran with a pleasant ripple through the waves, andthere followed her a cry that only Doom of all the company knew was acoronach, followed by the music of Sim MacTaggart's flageolet. 

It rose above the ripple of the waves, above the screaming of the birds, finally stilling the coronach, and the air it gave an utterance to wasthe same that had often charmed the midnight bower, failing at the lastabruptly as it had always done before. 

"By heavens! it is my Mary's favourite air, and that was all she knew ofit, " said Doom, and his face grew white with memory and a speculation. 

"Had he found the end of that air, " said Count Victor, "he had found, ashe said himself, another man. But I, perhaps, had never found Olivia!"