CHAPTER II.

FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW.

A year had passed, and the situation in Thracia remained unchanged. The search for a king initiated by M. Drakovics had not yet proved successful, but the Provisional Government was still in office, and the Thracians lived and throve under a regimen of what their enemies called autocracy washed down by draughts of rhetoric. M. Drakovics alone, against whose life two further attempts had been made, looked out ahead with troubled eyes, and yearned for the tall Englishman who had seemed likely to prove such an efficient coadjutor in his task of governing.

In England, however, the year had not been barren of changes. General Lord Caerleon slept with his fathers in the family burying-place in Llandiarmid Abbey, and Viscount Usk’s place in the House of Commons knew him no more. Misfortune seemed to dog this young man’s footsteps. Once again he had obtained leave to bring in his Bill, but it had been deliberately talked out by the Labour members in revenge for his voting against them on one of their pet questions. There was thus no help for him, and on his father’s death he was compelled to vacate his seat, and seek the serene retirement of the Upper House. Moreover, the constituents whom he was so sorry to leave did not display on this occasion the fixity of purpose with which he had always credited them, for they rejected with ignominy the candidate who inherited his principles, and chose as their representative an agitator who promised to bring in a Bill to divide the Llandiarmid domain among them in the shape of allotments.

Nor was this all, for before very long he found that even the possession of a historic house and innumerable heirlooms was not an unmixed privilege. The marquisate was by no means a rich one, for its inheritors had all indulged a reprehensible taste for investing their spare cash in works of art instead of more easily convertible securities, and the succession duty on these bade fair to ruin their unfortunate possessor. The owner of land which would not let, and of pictures which he could not sell, he found himself forced to raise the necessary money by means of mortgages on his unmanageable property, when all other means had failed. The interest on these mortgages was another important consideration, and when, after settling matters as far as possible, the new Marquis and his brother met one evening in the great hall at Llandiarmid to talk things over, the outlook was far from cheerful.

“It’s quite evident that we can’t keep up this place, Cyril,” said Caerleon. “If I could let it for a year or so, and get the house in town off my hands, I think we might just tide over the present difficulty.”

“Surely it would be enough to sell Caerleon House,” said Cyril, lazily, but with some surprise in his tone, as he sat with his arms behind his head and looked at his brother. “No one will expect you to entertain much here while you are in mourning, so you can lie low for a year or two and keep down expenses.”

“It’s not only of the actual expenses of the place this year that I am thinking,” said Caerleon, “but of the future. I want to put things right for you, Cyril, and to do that I must save.”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself about me,” said Cyril, lightly. “I have always fallen on my feet hitherto, and I suppose you’ll find me a crust and a shake-down in your diggings, wherever they are.”

It had been a shock to Caerleon to discover, from some words his father had let fall on his deathbed, that he had made no special provision for Cyril, leaving him almost entirely dependent on his elder brother, and that this omission was due to design, and not to forgetfulness.

“I want you two to stick together,” said the old Marquis to his elder son, “and therefore I have not left Cyril anything of his own. He has your mother’s money, which will keep him from starvation, but for anything more he must come to you. He may have some consideration for your money, but he would be sure to speculate with anything that was in his own power.”

Caerleon found this utterance hard to reconcile with the high opinion his father had once expressed of Cyril’s shrewdness and worldly wisdom, and he also resented the arrangement as unfair to Cyril. What if he should desire to marry? Hence his eagerness to put matters on a more satisfactory footing.

“I am afraid that things will have to remain as they are just now,” he said; “but you may be sure that as soon as possible I shall do what I can for you.”

“Thanks, awfully,” yawned Cyril. “But what about the present? When you have succeeded in leaving yourself without any rest for the sole of your foot except your London lodgings, what do you mean to do?”

“What is there to do?” asked Caerleon. “I can do no good in the Lords, and I can’t stay in the Commons. They even take away from me the means of living on my own place----”

“And cultivating the higher faculties of your tenants, and making Llandiarmid a social centre for all the art and learning and enlightenment of the county,” said Cyril. “Well, granted all this, what then?”

“Let us go abroad,” said Caerleon, suddenly. “We haven’t had a prowl together for years, and we can sink our titles and live on the cheap.”

“By all means,” said Cyril. “Let us leave our ungrateful country, which presents our ancestors with dinner-services and swords of honour and statues and plate, which we don’t want and mustn’t sell, and makes us pay duty on them. The wide world is before us. Where shall we turn? I say, let us go to Kashmir and shoot mountain sheep, or Polar bears, or my lord the elephant, or anything we may come across.”

“Won’t do,” said Caerleon. “I should have you knocking up again, right away from all medical help. It must be somewhere nearer home.”

“Oh, let’s go to Bournemouth or Torquay, then. So cheerful, and so novel, and plenty of doctors.”

“No, I know. We will go to Hungary and look up Gyula Temeszy. He promised us some wolf-hunting if ever we came to see him.”

“Very well. I haven’t met him since he came down to Eton to see his old tutor again, and tipped me a sov. because I was your brother; but I suppose he’ll know you all right, and accept your references for my respectability. Going to write to him now?”

“Rather not. We will drop in on him and take him by surprise, and then we can loiter on the way if we like, and not rush across Europe by express. We will go quietly, and look out for adventures.”

“All right; then you intend to walk, I suppose? That means no servants, of course.”

“We won’t make any cut-and-dried plan, but go as we choose, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t tramp it occasionally, when you feel up to it. I won’t take Jameson, certainly, and I don’t think you’ll want your man. Let us take Harry Wright between us. He can turn his hand to most things, and he’ll be useful if we are obliged to get horses. We may have to ride to Temeszy’s place. I fancy there’s no railway near it.”

“I’m agreeable,” said Cyril; “and we’ll stay away until we yearn for home again, and feel able to say, ‘England, with all thy faults (and you’ve a beastly lot of them), I love thee still.’ We don’t at present.”

In this way the matter was settled, and a few days later the two brothers left Llandiarmid for London, where Caerleon did his best to make a satisfactory disposition of his rather complicated affairs, and Cyril went round to say good-bye to his lady friends. Cyril was a very popular young man in London society, where he had found a footing as soon as he left Eton. He had slipped out of sight for a short time as unpaid attaché in the British Embassy at Pavelsburg, but the Scythian winter proved too severe for him, and he was invalided home, to take up a pleasant existence about town, while assuring every one that he was only waiting until a suitable post should offer itself for his acceptance in some more genial clime. As a poverty-stricken younger son, he was free from the pursuit of the match-making mothers and daughters who had made Caerleon’s life such a burden to him. No one wanted to marry him, and, fortunately for himself, he felt no particular desire to marry any one. The part he had chosen in the Human Comedy was that of the Laughing Philosopher, and he played it with complete satisfaction to himself and to his world. He was a universal favourite among the ladies, helping the elder ones to arrange their cotillons and organise their charity bazaars, while for the younger he designed costumes for fancy balls, and was always ready to suggest new ideas for any scheme of pleasure. With men he was not quite so popular. Those who did not know him well regarded him as entirely a ladies’ man, while some few who had penetrated more deeply into his character were a little afraid of him, and half suspected him of hiding deep designs under a mask of frivolity. This was not the case, however. Cyril was fully conscious of his own powers of mind, but he had no scruple as to using them to smooth his path in society until some more important object should come in his way.

Among the many houses at which he felt compelled to declare his plans was Mrs Sadleir’s, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he found himself approaching it at the end of an afternoon of polite lamentation and playful scolding on the subject of his madness in burying his social talents among unappreciative foreigners. Mrs Sadleir was too much at home with him to waste time in unnecessary _badinage_. If she had anything to say, she was wont to come to the point at once, and this particular occasion proved to be no exception to the rule.

“And so you are going to Hungary, Cyril?” she said, as he came into the room, without offering him any conventional greeting. “Oh, don’t accuse me of witchcraft. I have had Caerleon here already. He dropped in between visits to his lawyer and his tailor, I believe, and he struck me as not looking at all well, poor fellow! Now, I have only one remark to make. Has it occurred to you that Hungary and Thracia are not at all far apart?”

“No, indeed,” said Cyril, with a start. “I never thought of it. And I’m certain it hasn’t struck Caerleon either--that is, unless you have put it into his head.”

“My dear Cyril,” said Mrs Sadleir, severely, “I was not born yesterday. Your poor dear father called and gave me such a scolding last year for tempting Caerleon to throw his life away in Thracia that I vowed I would never speak to either of you on the subject again, and I haven’t mentioned it to Caerleon. I merely wish to know whether you think there is any possibility that M. Drakovics’s scheme may be carried out after all?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Cyril, reflectively. “Caerleon is in rather an ugly temper just now, for him, and I shouldn’t much wonder if he did anything foolish. The Governor is gone, you see, and it was only his expressed wish that kept him at home before.”

“Yes, I see,” returned Mrs Sadleir. “And what do you think of the matter, Cyril? On which side would your influence be thrown?”

“Well,” said Cyril, “it seems to me that it wouldn’t be bad fun to try the thing. I’m not up to larks much generally, but there’s a good deal that’s new in this one. I wouldn’t go in for it myself on any account, but I shouldn’t so much mind seeing Caerleon through. It would certainly be a new sensation, one of the few still possible for most ordinary mortals in this worn-out old world, to find oneself a king’s brother--a royalty, in fact. One hears of a few fellows who have been made kings in the Cannibal Islands, or Central Africa; but it’s not often that one gets the chance of a properly organised European kingdom. It’s not half a bad idea.”

“Then I am to understand,” said Mrs Sadleir, “that in case M. Drakovics should under any circumstances renew his offer of the crown (mind, I don’t in the least say he will, for his patriotic feelings were very much wounded by Caerleon’s refusal), your valuable advice and assistance would be cast on the side of the angels--that is, of the luckless Thracians?”

“Well,” said Cyril again, “I think the angels would get it that time. I should never think of letting Caerleon go into a job of the kind by himself; but really and truly I don’t believe he would come to such awful smash if I was there to back him up. I should make it my business to play him off against Drakovics. It isn’t healthy for that old man to get his own way to the extent he does. I am morally certain that he would very soon begin to presume if he had only Caerleon to deal with.”

“M. Drakovics ought to be very much obliged to you. I almost think it is my duty to warn him of your intentions. You know that I correspond with him occasionally? But really, Cyril, I scarcely think that it would be possible for you and Caerleon to reign together in the affectionate way you suggest, like the two kings of Barataria.”

“Or the Heavenly Twins,” said Cyril. “No, of course I mean the Siamese Twins. I’m afraid the kingdom would hardly support the double honour. No, Mrs Sadleir, my ambition is a much higher one. I mean to be the power behind the throne.”

“But that is M. Drakovics’s destined place,” objected Mrs Sadleir.

“Then I shall be the man behind Drakovics,” said Cyril, calmly.

“I don’t know that I am justified in letting a firebrand like you loose upon Thracia,” said Mrs Sadleir; “but M. Drakovics knows something about your family, and if he chooses to take Caerleon with such an encumbrance, it will be his own doing. You don’t know M. Drakovics, do you, Cyril? Well, I will give you a letter of introduction to him if you like--only to be delivered if you visit Thracia, of course. When you have had a little time in Hungary, you will be able to judge better of Caerleon’s state of mind, and to see whether he is inclined to give the kingdom a trial. If so, extend your travels into Thracia, and deliver the letter. Here it is. I have been writing it this afternoon.”

“Rather previous, surely?” asked Cyril, with uplifted eyebrows; but he took the letter readily enough, putting it into his safest pocket, and it was packed carefully among his most treasured possessions when he and his brother started on their journey, an event which was announced to the world in the stereotyped terms by the ‘Morning Post’:--

“The Marquis of Caerleon and Lord Cyril Mortimer left England yesterday afternoon for the Continent, with the intention of undertaking an extended tour in Eastern Europe.”

Thanks to Caerleon’s foresight in not sending word to his friend of their intended visit to Hungary, the tour was carried on in a very leisurely fashion indeed, and the brothers lounged through Europe, to use Cyril’s phrase, by unfrequented routes, spending now a day and now a week in old half-deserted towns, left high and dry by the stream of modern progress. There was nothing very inspiriting in such travelling to men who were neither antiquarians nor photographic maniacs; but Caerleon had a vague idea that he was improving his mind by visiting the scenes made famous by old German history, while Cyril was as well content to put in his time on the Continent in this way as in another. The person who suffered most was Wright, the groom, who found himself debarred in most places from communion with his kind owing to his ignorance of the language, and he rejoiced unfeignedly when the course of his masters’ wanderings brought them at last to Janoszwar, the town that lay nearest to Count Gyula Temeszy’s castle.

Janoszwar was reached late one evening, and the travellers looked about them in some dismay as they drove to the hotel which had been recommended to them by some tourists they had met at Szegedin as the only one at which it was possible for English people to stay. The town was very small, and almost incredibly dirty, while, to put the finishing touch to their discomfiture, they found on arriving that they could not be received at the hotel. Its accommodation was extremely limited at the best of times, and at present all the rooms were in the occupation of the family of a Scythian officer of high rank, who was visiting the town for the sake of the mineral springs in its neighbourhood. This the landlord, a Hungarian who had spent several years in America, explained volubly and sorrowfully, and invited his intending guests to depart at once. But Cyril was very tired, and Caerleon, fearing that he might be going to fall ill again, tried to parley, pointing out that it was impossible for them to drive on eighteen miles farther to the Château Temeszy that night, and offering double the usual prices for the necessary accommodation. Still the landlord remained firm (though with deepening regret, as recognising that he had to deal with wealthy English _milords_), declaring that the Herr Oberst had assured him he would leave instantly if any other guests were admitted into the hotel. There seemed to be nothing to do but to seek some other resting-place, and Caerleon was just returning to the carriage in despair, when a white-haired man came slowly down the outer staircase of the inn, leaning heavily on a stick.

“Here is the gracious Herr Oberst himself!” said the landlord; and Cyril, who had been acting as his brother’s interpreter for the worthy man’s Hungarian German and even less intelligible English, prepared to address the new-comer in Scythian, but this proved unnecessary.

“Sure I thought I heard English voices,” said the Herr Oberst, “and it struck me that the landlord might be following too rigorously the orders I gave um. The fact is, gentlemen, that most of the people rich enough to travel in these parts are Austrian Jews, and me wife has a great objection to Jews, so that the only way I could get her here was by engaging to keep out of their reach. But I can assure you that I had no desire to inconvenience English travellers---- You are English, gentlemen?”

“We are,” said Caerleon. “I am Lord Caerleon, and this is my brother.”

“I am much honoured, me lord,” said the Herr Oberst, bowing deeply. “Allow me to introjuce meself. Me name is O’Malachy--The O’Malachy, at your servus, the representatuv of the ancient kings of Leitrum,--and I will be much displeased if you go a step farther to-night. Sure me son has not yet arrived, and what does me daughter want with two rooms? We’ll just tell some of the landlord’s fellers to bundle our traps out of the rooms, and you will have them.”

“Pray don’t disturb Miss O’Malachy,” entreated Caerleon in consternation. “I could not think of turning a lady out of her room. If you would be so kind as to allow my brother to occupy the room your son is not using, my servant and I will find quarters elsewhere.”

“Not a bit of ut!” cried the O’Malachy. “Would I turn you away when there are empty rooms waiting for you? Come, young gentleman,” turning to Cyril, “just make your brother understand that if he won’t stay he’ll oblige us all to turn out and leave the place free for um. Is not a whole hotel big enough for two families?”

“You are very kind,” began Caerleon. But the O’Malachy was in full retreat up the stairs again. At the top he turned and paused for a moment, the lamplight shining on his bronzed face and white moustache and imperial.

“A good night to you!” he called out. “I’ll be pleased to resoom your acquaintance in the morning, me lord. Now, you don’t leave this hotel--at least, it’ll be the worse for ut if you do!”

After this hospitable intimation, the travellers held back no longer, and speedily found themselves established in most comfortable quarters, for the landlord was delighted not to be compelled to turn away such promising guests from his door. Nothing was too good for them, and they went to bed well content, after commissioning the host to procure horses in the morning for their intended ride to Château Temeszy.

In the morning, then, they started on this last stage of their journey, leaving Wright at the hotel with the luggage until it could be sent for, and bidding a grateful farewell to the O’Malachy, who was smoking a wonderful cigar on the balcony over the door. The ride was a long one, and the roads very bad, but Caerleon had brought a map of the district in his pocket, and with its aid they succeeded in finding their way. But when they reached the castle disappointment awaited them. Everything was shut up, and the only person in authority was an aged steward, who informed them that Count Temeszy Gyula (putting the surname first in true Hungarian fashion) was in Paris, and the rest of the family at Vienna. The English gentlemen might inspect the castle and the stables while a meal was being prepared for them, the best possible at such short notice, but the old man could not venture to invite them to take up their quarters in the house without instructions from his master. It was also possible that the Count’s foresters might organise a wolf-hunt one day for the strangers’ benefit, but it would still be best for them to return to Janoszwar until Count Gyula could be communicated with.

“I didn’t know that we were such suspicious-looking characters,” grumbled Cyril after lunch, as they mounted their horses to retrace their weary way.

“And we shall have to quarter ourselves upon the O’Malachy again,” responded Caerleon. “That’s what I hate. It looks such a shabby thing to do.”

But when they reached the hotel they found their rooms ready, and the landlord and Wright expecting them.

“The old gentleman up-stairs tell us to look out for you, my lord,” said the latter to his master. “’E said as you’d most likely be comin’ back about this time.”

“Did the O’Malachy know that Temeszy was away when we started?” asked Caerleon of Cyril as they sat at dinner.

“Don’t know,” said Cyril. “Perhaps he thought you looked as though a ride would do you good. He seems a decent enough old chap, anyhow. His wife is a Scythian lady, Wright tells me.”

“Oh, by the bye, that reminds me,” said Caerleon; “we must call to-morrow. I’ll tell Wright to hunt up our visiting-cards, and we’ll do the thing in style.”

But Caerleon and his brother were not destined to make the acquaintance of the O’Malachy’s family in the orthodox fashion they had contemplated, for in the morning, as they breakfasted, they heard excited voices outside their door. They had just decided that it would not do to pay their call until the afternoon, and that the morning might profitably be spent in climbing one of the mountains which surrounded the little town, and Cyril, who was not devoid of curiosity, thought that the present would be a good opportunity of consulting the landlord as to the best way to take. Opening the door, therefore, he stepped out casually, to find the landlord, his wife, and the servants engaged in an animated colloquy with a very handsome lady in an elaborate dressing-gown, who was standing on the outer stair and talking French and German alternately.

“You tell me that she is gone?” she was saying. “But no! I say it is impossible. She would be terrified.”

“There is no danger, madame,” suggested the landlord, soothingly; “and no doubt the gracious young lady knows this.”

“No danger!” cried madame, vivaciously. “When there may at this very moment be wolves, brigands, avalanches, menacing my child? What though she does think she is safe? Her very confidence may be her greatest danger. She must be followed--rescued--immediately.”

“I assure you, madame, that mademoiselle is perfectly safe,” repeated the landlord. Madame wrung her hands.

“My excellent man, how can you understand a mother’s feelings? I tell you my daughter must be rescued. If there is no one else, I will go myself, although I have never walked a mile in my life, and the Herr Oberst is quite helpless with his gout.”

“It is unnecessary for madame to incommode herself,” said the landlord, sulkily. “If she insists upon it, two of the men shall go, although it is absolutely impossible to spare them from the farm.”

“Naturally I insist upon it,” returned madame. “What is your farm to me? The men shall be paid. Send them off at once. If only there was some friend near who might help us!”

“Pardon me, madame,” said Caerleon, coming forward. He had been listening in bewilderment to the colloquy over Cyril’s shoulder, and picking up snatches of what was said. “I think I have the honour of addressing Madame O’Malachy? Can my brother and I be of any assistance to you?”

“My dear sir,” said madame, with a charming smile, “I am ashamed to trouble you, but you would confer the greatest possible favour on my husband and myself if you would be so good as to help us. My daughter is a headstrong child, and she has started off early this morning to visit the sick daughter of a huntsman in the mountains. To ask you to give up your own concerns on account of the whim of a foolish girl is too bad, and yet I have no one else to send.”

“We shall be delighted if we can be of any use,” said Caerleon. “Do I understand that you would like us to meet Mademoiselle O’Malachy and bring her home? We were intending to spend the morning in the mountains, so that we shall not even need to change our plans.”

“Monsieur is too good,” returned Madame O’Malachy. “I am desolated to be obliged to incommode him in this way, but my daughter has always lived in the country with her godmother, and knows nothing of the dangers which beset a young girl alone.”

“Still, madame,” put in Cyril, “one can have nothing but admiration for the philanthropic instinct which has prompted mademoiselle to set out by herself to relieve a sick girl.”

“You are too amiable, monsieur,” said madame. “My daughter is _dévote_, what you call ‘religious,’ and this characteristic makes a great deal of trouble for herself and for other people. But behold me only half-dressed!” and madame became suddenly aware that her abundant dark hair, scarcely yet tinged with grey, was coiled negligently in a loose knot on her neck; “pardon me, gentlemen, and remember my anxiety. Pray scold my daughter well when you find her. _Au revoir_!” and she retreated up-stairs.

“Pleasant woman, Madame O’Malachy,” Caerleon remarked to Cyril when they had obtained directions from the landlord as to the exact situation of the huntsman’s cottage, and had started on their walk, “but I can’t quite make her out.”

“Can’t you?” said Cyril. “I can. I’ve met too many of her before.”

“She seemed so very anxious and excited,” went on Caerleon, pursuing his own train of thought, “and yet she doesn’t appear to care much for her daughter.”

“Not a scrap!” said Cyril, emphatically. “Rather hates her than otherwise, I should say, from her tone. Fact is, either she particularly wants the hotel to herself to-day, or she wishes to throw one of us, presumably you, into the society of the young lady. Well, forewarned is forearmed.”

“But it couldn’t have been all humbug. She wouldn’t have shown up in that costume if she hadn’t been really anxious.”

“That costume!” said Cyril. “I’m as sure as that I’m here that every hair of that coil was arranged with an eye to its effect on us.”

“But she came down in a dressing-gown.”

“Yes, but what kind of dressing-gown? When a Scythian lady, and still more a Sarmatian,--and there’s a good deal more of the Sarmatian than the Scythian about our fair friend,--shows up in a dressing-gown, you may be pretty sure that it’s a court-dress rather differently made. Madame knows how to dress her part to the letter.”

Caerleon only grunted in answer to this, and they went on in silence for some time. The path was steep, and Cyril found that climbing took all the breath he had to spare.

“How much farther now to the top?” he asked at last, when they reached a sheltered nook in the hillside where a few pine-trees nestled.

“A good two miles yet,” said Caerleon, looking back on the way they had come.

“Then I give in,” said Cyril, resolutely, sitting down on a rock. “I’m about done, and I shall leave the further chase of this young person to you. Ten to one but she’ll come down some other way when you are gone on to the hut, and I shall get hold of her first and give her a good lecture.”

“Lecture a strange girl?”

“Rather! I shall say, ‘My young friend, to try and thrust your schoolmistress’s views on papa and mamma is not religion, but self-will, and to emphasise them by running off like this is not heroic, but bad-tempered.’”

“All right; I wish you luck. If mademoiselle has a tongue anything like her mamma’s, you will be pretty well pulverised by the time I come back. Well, I’m off. See you again in an hour.”