CHAPTER NINE.

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE.

Nearly three years! What a long, lonesome time it had been for Annie! Yet she still had somewhat of hope--at times, that is.

Her cousin, Mr Beale, from the city, had spent his holiday very delightfully at Bilberry Hall; he had gone shooting, and fishing also, with Annie; yet, much though he admired her, and could have loved her, he treated her with the greatest respect, condoled with her in her sorrow, and behaved just like a brother to her.

Her somewhat elderly lover was different. Lover he was yet, though now fifty and three years of age, but fatherly and kind to a degree.

"We all have griefs to bear in this world, Annie dear," he said once. "They are burdens God sends us to try our patience. But your sorrow must soon be over. Do you know, dear, that it is almost sinful to grieve so long for the dead?"

"Dead!" cried Annie. "Who knows, or can tell?"

"Oh, darling, I can no longer conceal it from you. Perhaps I should have told you a year ago. Here is the newspaper. Here is the very paragraph. The figurehead of the unfortunate _Wolverine_ and one of her boats have been picked up in the midst of the Pacific Ocean, and there can remain no doubt in the mind of anyone that she foundered with all hands. The insurance has been paid."

Annie sat dumb for a time--dumb and dry-eyed. She could not weep much, though tears would have relieved her. She found voice at last.

"The Lord's will be done," she said, simply but earnestly.

Laird Fletcher said no more _then_. But he certainly was very far from giving up hope of eventually leading Annie to the altar.

And now the poor sorrowing lassie had given up all hope. She was, like most Scotch girls of her standing in society, pious. She had learnt to pray at her mother's knee, and, when mother and father were taken away, at her uncle's. And now she consoled herself thus.

"Dear uncle," she said, "poor Reginald is dead; but I shall meet him in a better world than this."

"I trust so, darling."

"And do you know, uncle, that now, as it is all over, I am almost relieved. A terrible charge hung over him, and oh! although my very soul cries out aloud that he was not guilty, the evidence might have led him to a death of shame. And I too should have died."

"You must keep up your heart. Come, I am going to Paris for a few weeks with friend Fletcher, and you too must come. Needn't take more than your travelling and evening dresses," he added. "We'll see plenty of pretty things in the gay city."

So it was arranged. So it was carried out. They went by steamer, this mode of travelling being easier for the old Highlander.

Fletcher and McLeod combined their forces in order to give poor Annie "a real good time," as brother Jonathan would say. And it must be confessed at the end of the time, when they had seen everything and gone everywhere, Annie was calmer and happier than she ever remembered being for years and years, and on their return from Paris she settled down once more to her old work and her old ways.

But the doctor advised more company, so she either visited some friends, or had friends to visit her, almost every night.

Old Laird McLeod delighted in music, and if he did sit in his easy-chair with eyes shut and hands clasped in front of him, he was not asleep, but listening.

How little do we know when evil is about to befall us!

It was one lovely day in spring. Annie had kissed her uncle on his bald, shining head, and gone off to gather wildflowers, chaperoned by Jeannie, her maid, and accompanied by Laird Fletcher. This man was a naturalist--not a mere classifier. He did not fill cases with beetles or moths, give them Latin names, and imagine that was all. He knew the life story and habits of almost every flower and tree, and every creature that crept, crawled, or flew.

So he made just the kind of companion for Annie that she delighted in. When he found himself thus giving her pleasure he felt hopeful--nay, sure--that in the end his suit would be successful.

It was indeed a beautiful morning. Soft and balmy winds sighing through the dark pine tree tops, a sky of moving clouds, with many a rift of darkest blue between, birds singing on the bonnie silver birches, their wild, glad notes sounding from every copse, the linnet on the yellow patches of whins or gorse that hugged the ground and perfumed the air for many a yard around, and the wild pigeon murmuring his notes of love in every thicket of spruce. Rare and beautiful wildflowers everywhere, such as never grow in England, for every country has its own sweet flora.

The little party returned a few minutes before one o'clock, not only happy, but hungry too. To her great alarm Annie found her uncle still sitting on his chair, but seemingly in a stupor of grief. Near his chair lay a foolscap letter.

"Oh, uncle dear, are you ill?"

"No, no, child. Don't be alarmed; it has pleased God to change our fortunes, that is all, and I have been praying and trying hard to say `Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,'--I cannot yet. I may ere long."

But Annie was truly alarmed. She picked up the lawyer's letter and read it twice over ere she spoke. And her bonnie face grew ghastly pale now.

"Oh, uncle dear," she said at last, "what does this mean? Tell me, tell me."

"It means, my child, that we are paupers in comparison to the state in which we have lived for many years. That this mansion and grounds are no longer our own, that I must sell horses and hounds and retire to some small cottage on the outskirts of the city--that is all."

"Cheer up, uncle," said Annie, sitting down on his knee with an arm round his neck, as she used to do when a child. "You still have me, and I have you. If we can but keep Jeannie we may be happy yet, despite all that fate can do."

"God bless you, my child! You have indeed been a comfort to me. But for you, I'd care nothing for poverty. I may live for ten years and more yet, to the age of my people and clansmen, but as contentedly in a cottage as in a castle. God has seen fit to afflict us, but in His mercy He will temper the wind to the shorn lamb."

Luncheon was brought in, but neither McLeod nor his niece did much justice to it. The weather, however, remained bright and clear, and as the two went out to the beautiful arbour and seated themselves, they could hear the birds--mavis, chaffinch, and blackie--singing their wild, ringing lilts, as if there was no such thing as sorrow in all this wide and beautiful world.

"Uncle," said Annie at last, "tell me the sad story. I can bear it now."

"Then, dear, I shall, but must be very brief. I love not to linger over sorrow and tribulation. The young fellow Francis Robertson, then, who now lays claim to the estate, is, to tell the honest truth, a _roue_ and a blackguard from the Australian diggings. He is but twenty-two. Even when a boy he was rough and wild, and at fifteen he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment for shooting a man at the gold diggings. He has but recently come out of gaol and found solicitors in Australia and here to take up the cudgels for him. His father disappeared long, long ago, and I, not knowing that, before his death, he had married, and had one son, succeeded to this estate. But, ah me! the crash has come."

"But may this young fellow not be an impostor?"

"Nay, child, nay. You see what the letter says: that if I go to law I can only lose; but that if I trouble and tire Robertson with a lawsuit he will insist upon back rents being paid up. No," he added, after a pause, "he is fair enough. He may be good enough, too, though passionate. Many a wild and bloody scene is enacted at the diggings, but in this case the police seem to have been wonderfully sharp. Ah, well; he will be here to-morrow, and we will see."

That was an anxious and sleepless night for poor Annie. In vain did her maid try to sing her off into dreamland. She tossed and dozed all night long.

Then came the eventful day. And at twelve o'clock came young Francis Robertson, with a party of witnesses from Australia.

McLeod could tell him at once to be the heir. He was the express image of his dead father.

The Laird and his solicitor, hastily summoned from Aberdeen, saw them alone in the drawing-room, only Annie being there. Robertson was tall, handsome, and even gentlemanly. The witnesses were examined. Their testimony under oath was calm, clear, and to the point. Not a question they did not answer correctly. The certificate of birth, too, was clear, and succinct. There were no longer any doubts about anything.

Then Laird McLeod--laird now, alas! only by courtesy--retired with his advocate to another room to consult.

Said the advocate: "My dear Laird, this is a sad affair; but are you convinced that this young fellow is the rightful owner?"

"He is, as sure as yonder sun is shining."

"And so am I convinced," said the advocate. "Then there must be no lawsuit?"

"No, none."

"That is right. At your age a long and troublesome lawsuit would kill you."

"Then, my dear Duncan," said Laird McLeod, "look out for a pretty cottage for me at once."

"I will do everything for you, and I know of the very place you want--a charming small villa on the beautiful Rubislaw Road. Choose the things you want. Have a sale and get rid of the others. Keep up your heart, and all will yet be well. But we must act expeditiously."

And so they did. And in a fortnight's time all was settled, and the little villa furnished.

Till the day of the sale Francis Robertson was a guest at the Hall.

Now I must state a somewhat curious, but not altogether rare, occurrence. The young man, who really might be rash, but was not bad-hearted, sought audience of the Laird on the very day before the sale.

"My dear uncle," he said, "I would rather you did not leave. Be as you were before. I will occupy but a small portion of the house. Stay with me."

"Francis Robertson," replied McLeod, "we _go_. I'll be no man's guest in a house that once was mine."

"Be it so, sir. But I have something further to add."

"Speak on."

"From the first moment I saw her I fell in love with Miss Annie Lane. Will you give me her hand?"

"Have you spoken to herself?"

"I have not dared to." McLeod at once rang the bell and summoned Annie, his niece.

"Annie, dear, this gentleman, your relation, says he loves you, and asks for your hand. Think you that you could love him?"

Annie drew herself haughtily up. She said but one word, a decisive and emphatic one: "_No_."

"You have had your answer," said McLeod. Francis bowed and went somewhat mournfully away.