Part 7

"Of course," Mr. Wycherly remarked guardedly, "he is perfectly right to earn his own living in the way that seems best to him, though whether it was absolutely necessary to run counter to the prejudices of his relatives in order to do so is not quite clear."

"But you would not, would you, look down on anyone just because he happened to be in trade? If he is a cultured gentleman already, his being in trade can't make him less of a cultured gentleman, can it?"

"Of course not," Mr. Wycherly agreed, "but I think I can understand, perhaps, some slight reason for annoyance on the part of his people. You see, had he announced earlier this extreme desire to go into business, it is hardly likely that they would have given him an expensive education at the University. He was, you tell me, five years at Oxford?"

"He didn't waste his time there," Margaret answered eagerly, "he took all sorts of honours: but he loathes teaching--" Margaret stopped, for Mr. Wycherly was looking at her with a curiously amused expression which seemed to say, "How is it that you are so remarkably conversant with the likes and dislikes of this young man?"

She leant over the wall to gather some of the big horse gowans that grew in the field, so that her face was hidden from Mr. Wycherly. She fastened a little bunch of them into her waistband; then she said in the detached tone of one who seeks for information merely from curiosity:

"Don't you think that at some time or other one has to settle what to do with one's life, regardless of whether it is pleasing to other people or not--I mean in very big and important things?"

Mr. Wycherly, who thought she was still referring to his nephew, cordially agreed that for most of us such a course at some time or other is a necessity.

As it happened, however, Bonnie Margaret was not talking of his nephew, but of herself. Mr. Wycherly remembered this in the following October when, Lady Alicia having removed her household to Edinburgh, a startling rumour shook the village to its very foundations--a rumour to the effect that Bonnie Margaret had one night "taken the train" and was married next morning to somebody in the south of England.

Miss Esperance was much shocked and perturbed, the more so that she felt it devolved upon her, and her alone, to break this agitating intelligence to Mr. Wycherly. For was not a relative of his own the chief culprit? Miss Esperance could never understand Mr. Wycherly's indifference toward everything that concerned his relations.

She had heard the news just before supper, but she waited until that meal was finished lest her communication might spoil his appetite.

It was their pleasant custom to sit and chat for a while every evening while Mr. Wycherly drank his single glass of port, and cracked some nuts, which he generally bestowed next morning upon the little boys.

He held up his glass of wine to the light, and even in the midst of her uneasiness Miss Esperance noted with pleasure how steady was the long, slender hand that held the glass.

"I have heard," Miss Esperance began with a deep sigh, "some most distressing news to-day about certain good friends of yours."

"Is Mrs. Gloag worse?" Mr. Wycherly asked anxiously, for the minister's wife was very delicate, and was often quite seriously ill.

"No, no, nobody is ill; but I fear that our good friend, Lady Alicia, is in very great trouble. Margaret----"

"Has married against her mother's wish?" Mr. Wycherly interrupted quickly.

"That's just what she has done--but how did you guess?"

"And she has married," Mr. Wycherly continued, "a nephew of mine. If I mistake not, Margaret was twenty-one only the other day."

"It seems," Miss Esperance went on, much astonished at the calmness with which Mr. Wycherly received these grievous tidings, "that this young man proposed to Margaret some time ago; but that Lady Alicia wouldn't hear of any engagement. He asked for Margaret again this summer, and was again refused: though Margaret told her mother that she intended to marry him and considered herself engaged to him in spite of everything. And, as you say, directly she came of age she has done it."

Mr. Wycherly had laid down his glass of port untasted, when Miss Esperance first began to speak. Now he lifted the decanter and poured out another, offering it to Miss Esperance. "My dear friend," he exclaimed eagerly, "they are married. Nothing can alter that. Let us drink pretty Margaret's health, and wish her all prosperity and happiness, and may the man she has chosen try to be worthy of her!"

Miss Esperance demurred: but Mr. Wycherly continued to lean across the table with the glass of wine held out toward her, and he looked so pleading, and she so loved to gratify him, that at last, though a little under protest, she consented to drink this toast, and took one sip from the proffered glass of port.

"I wish I could feel that it will turn out well," she said wistfully.

"She must love him right well," Mr. Wycherly said thoughtfully, "and she is not a foolish girl. She has judgment and discretion."

"Where love is concerned," said Miss Esperance, "judgment and discretion generally go to the wall."

And Mr. Wycherly could find no arguments in disproof of this statement.

Lady Alicia made a special journey to Remote for the express purpose of reproaching Mr. Wycherly with the conduct of a nephew he had never seen.

Miss Esperance was out; Mr. Wycherly, as usual, reading in his room. There Lady Alicia sought him and plunged at once into a history of the "entanglement," as she called it, concluding with these words: "I told her never to mention that young man to me again, and she never did, so of course I concluded that, like a sensible girl, she had put the whole thing out of her head: but the hussy has married him, _married_ him without ever a wedding present or a single new gown, and what can I do? A girl, too, who might have married anyone, by far the prettiest of the four, and look how well the rest have married!"

"She must love him very much," Mr. Wycherly said dreamily. "Pretty Margaret, so gentle always and so quiet. What strength, what tenacity of purpose under that docile feminine exterior! Dear Lady Alicia, she is more like you than any of your other daughters."

"Like _me_!" Lady Alicia almost shouted. "Do you mean to say _I_ could have run away with any bottle-nosed vintner that ever tasted port--_I_, forsooth!"

"But you told me yourself that he is a gentleman, young and good-looking," Mr. Wycherly expostulated. "If I remember rightly, too, something of a scholar--and Margaret loves him. She has proved that beyond all question. God grant that he is worthy of her love. You can't unmarry them, my dear old friend, and though you will be angry with me, I must tell you that I think it is well you can't. You must forgive them both."

"Never," said Lady Alicia with the greatest determination. "She has chosen her vintner; let her stick to him."

"She will do that in any case," said Mr. Wycherly; "but she will love her mother none the less, and her mother will, presently, love her all the more."

"She will do nothing of the kind," Lady Alicia said with considerable asperity. "You don't seem to realise what a disgraceful thing your nephew has done in abducting my daughter in this fashion."

"I thought you said she went to him," Mr. Wycherly suggested apologetically.

For answer Lady Alicia rose in her wrath and strode out of the room. Mr. Wycherly hastened after her across the little landing and down the curly staircase, but he was not in time to open the front door for her, and she banged it in his face. Mr. Wycherly opened it, and stood on the threshold just in time to hear the little gate at the bottom of the garden give an angry click as it fell behind Lady Alicia's retreating form. He did not attempt to follow her, but stood where he was, wrapped in a reverie so absorbing that he started violently as the green gate slammed again and Lady Alicia bustled up the path holding out her hand, and saying:

"After all, it's not your fault, I don't know why I should scold you; the only redeeming feature in the whole horrible affair is that he's your nephew and therefore cannot be an utter scoundrel, but you must confess it is very hard for me."

Mr. Wycherly took the extended hand and shook it. "You must forgive her," he said gently, "she would never have done it if she hadn't been your daughter; think of the courage and determination----"

"The headstrong folly and foolhardiness," Lady Alicia interrupted. "I cannot imagine why you keep suggesting I could ever have done such a disgraceful thing--I always had far too much----"

"Given the same circumstances, you would have behaved in exactly the same way," Mr. Wycherly interrupted. "My dear Lady Alicia, you know you would."

"You are a ridiculous and obstinate man," said Lady Alicia; "much learning hath made you mad, and you know nothing whatever about women."

All the same she smiled, and she left her hand in Mr. Wycherly's. It was not unpleasant to her to be considered capable of romance; her life had been so safe and seemly always, a little monotonous and commonplace, perhaps, but she had once been young.

"I don't know much," Mr. Wycherly answered humbly; "but surely character is the same in man or woman, and given a certain character a certain line of conduct is inevitable."

"And you think it is inevitable that I should forgive Margaret?"

"Assuredly," said Mr. Wycherly.

"As I said before"--here Lady Alicia thought fit to withdraw her hand--"you are an ignorant man: but we won't quarrel. Time will show whether you or I know most about me."

She turned to walk to the gate where her carriage was waiting. He helped her in and shut the door upon her in absolute silence. Then, just as the man was driving off, he asked: "What do you think they would like for a wedding present?"

"Man, you are incorrigible," exclaimed Lady Alicia, but her brow was smooth and her eyes smiling.

Mr. Wycherly stood at the green gate for some time, lost hi thought. As he turned to walk up the path to the house he said aloud: "I should like to know what that young man has done that he should be singled out by the gods for such supreme good fortune."

When the days grew long once more Lady Alicia came back to the "big house," but no fair-haired Margaret came to play with the little boys.

"Where is she?" asked Montagu of his tutor. "Why doesn't she come?"

"She is married," said Mr. Wycherly; "she has to stay with her husband."

"When I marry," said Montagu, "I shall marry somebody like Margaret; then she'll stay with me and I shall never be lonely."

"When you marry," Mr. Wycherly said very seriously, "take care of just one thing. Take care that she is kind."

"I'd like her to be beautiful, too," Montagu said eagerly, "beautiful and tall, like Margaret."

"I hope she will be beautiful, but kindness comes first," and Mr. Wycherly spoke with conviction, as one who knew.

"How can one tell if she is kind?" Montagu asked.

"Compare her with your aunt, Montagu: if she stands such comparison, she is all your best desires need seek."

"I will remember," Montagu said solemnly, "kind _and_ beautiful--but the kindness must come first. I wish Margaret hadn't been in such a hurry, she would have done beautifully."

*CHAPTER X*

*THE SABBATH*

He ordered a' things late and air'; He ordered folk to stand at prayer (Although I cannae just mind where He gave the warnin'). An' pit pomatum on their hair On Sabbath mornin'. R.L.S.

The Sabbath day at Burnhead was a long, long day. A day wholly given up to "the public and private exercises of God's worship."

For Montagu, indeed, the shadow of the Sabbath began to steal over the horizon as early as Friday night: and it was only when he woke on Monday morning secure in the consciousness that the first day of the week was safely passed, that life assumed again its habitually cheerful aspect.

Miss Esperance was a staunch Presbyterian, and belonged to the strictest sect of the so-called Free Kirk. Therefore did she consider it her duty to take Montagu twice to church in addition to superintending his instruction in Bible history and the shorter catechism.

Montagu liked the scripture lessons well enough and found it no hardship to read the Bible aloud to his aunt for hours at a time; but nearly four hours' church with only the blessed interval of dinner in between was a heavy discipline for even a naturally quiet small boy, and sometimes Montagu was, inwardly, very rebellious.

Mr. Wycherly begged him off the afternoon service as often as he could as a companion for Edmund, volunteering to look after both children so that Robina, as well as Elsa, could attend church. Mr. Wycherly was an Episcopalian, and as there was no "English" church within walking distance, he said he read the service to himself every Sunday morning.

When Edmund was four years old, Miss Esperance decided that it was time he, too, should share the benefit of the Reverend Peter Gloag's ministrations. Edmund appeared pleased at the suggestion, for it was, like his knickerbockers, to a certain extent an acknowledgment that he had arrived at boy's estate. Montagu went to church, and why not he? It was evidently the correct thing to do, and although he could not remember to have seen his brother particularly uplifted by his privileges in that respect, nobody else seemed much exhilarated either. Hitherto, he had spent his Sunday mornings largely in the society of Mr. Wycherly, who, as all toys were locked up in a tall cupboard on Saturday night, connived at all sorts of queer games, invented on the spur of the moment by the ingenious Edmund.

"I'm goin' to kirk! I'm goin' to kirk!" Edmund chanted gaily on the appointed day.

He wore a new white sailor suit with pockets, and in one pocket was a penny to "pirle" in the plate: in the other a wee packet of Wotherspoon's peppermints for refreshment during the sermon. His curly hair was brushed till it shone like the brass knocker on the front door when Elsa had newly cleaned it, and his round, rosy face was framed by a large new sailor hat that looked like a substantial sort of halo. White socks and neat black shoes with straps completed Edmund's toilet, and his aunt thought that never yet had the Bethune family possessed a worthier scion.

Mr. Wycherly assisted to direct Edmund's fat, pink fingers into a tight, white cotton glove, and stood at the green gate watching the departure of Miss Esperance and her great-nephews, till the small black figure, with a little white sailor on either side, had vanished from his view.

He marvelled greatly at the temerity of Miss Esperance in taking Edmund to church at this tender age, though it was not the age that mattered so much as Edmund. What Miss Esperance called the "Bethune temperament" was very marked in that sunny-haired small boy, and it was apt to manifest itself unexpectedly, wholly regardless of time or place.

The house seemed queerly quiet and deserted as Mr. Wycherly returned to his room. Mause followed him and thrust a cold, wet nose into his hand, looking up at him from under her tangled hair with puzzled, pleading eyes.

"Poor old lady," said Mr. Wycherly, "you are lonely, too, are you? We'll go for a little walk when the bell stops."

The church was a bare, white-washed, barn-like edifice, where none of the windows were ever opened, and the unchanged air was always redolent of hair-oil and strong peppermint.

Edmund smiled and nodded at his friends as he pattered up the aisle to his aunt's pew, and when Andrew Mowat, the precentor, looking unwontedly stern and unapproachable, took his seat under the pulpit, the little boy wondered what could have annoyed him that he looked so cross. On week-days Andrew, who kept the little grocer's shop in the village, was the most sociable and friendly of creatures, and always bestowed "a twa-three acid-drops" on the little boys when they went with Robina to his shop.

But to-day Andrew was far removed from worldly cares or enjoyments, and Edmund listened to him in awed astonishment as he wailed out the tune of the first psalm, "My heart not haughty is, O Lord," to be gradually taken up more or less tunefully by the whole congregation.

For the first half-hour of service Edmund behaved beautifully. He held a large Bible open upside down, with white cotton fingers spread well out over the back. He hummed the tune diligently and not too loud during the first psalm, and stood quite moderately still during the first long prayers.

It was not until the minister said: "Let us read in God's word from the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Kings, beginning at the fifth verse," that the troubles of Miss Esperance really began.

At the announcement of the chapter to be read, there was an instantaneous fluttering and turning over of leaves among the congregation to find their places, and Edmund, zealous to be no whit behind the rest in this pious exercise, fluttered the leaves of his Bible violently to and fro for some time after every one else had settled into seemly silence to follow the reading. Such a noisy rustling did he make that several of the congregation raised their heads and glanced disapprovingly in the direction of Miss Bethune's pew. That gentle lady laid a detaining hand over Edmund's Bible to close it, but he pulled it violently away from her with both hands, opened it again, and held it ostentatiously against his nose, leaning forward to look over the top at Montagu, who sat on the other side of his aunt.

Then to the horror of Miss Esperance, he began to imitate the minister; joining in the reading wherever the oft-repeated "And the rest of the acts of," whoever it happened to be, "are they not written," etc., in low but perfectly audible tones. Edmund evidently looked upon the phrase as a sort of chorus, waited for it, seized upon it, and joined in it gleefully, holding his Bible at arm's length as though he were singing at a concert.

Poor Miss Esperance turned crimson and bent over the little boy, whispering, "You must be _perfectly_ quiet, my dear, you must not say a single word."

Edmund, still holding his Bible stiffly out in front of him, looked reproachfully at his aunt and was quiet for a few minutes. Then came "and the rest of the acts of Pekah and all that he did," which was too many for him. The name was attractive: "Pekah! Pekah! Pekah!" he whispered, then faster: "Pekah, Pekah, Pekah, Pekah, Pekah, Pekah," exactly as he was wont to repeat "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," which the minister's wife herself had taught him.

His aunt laid a firm hand over his mouth and looked at him with all the severity her sweet old face could achieve. He realised that she was not to be trifled with, and set down his Bible on the book-board in front of him with an angry thump, at the same time leaning forward to frown reprovingly at Montagu.

"When will he stop?" he whispered to his aunt, pointing a scornful finger at the minister, "he's making far more noise nor me."

"Hush," murmured Miss Esperance again. For three minutes he was comparatively quiet, then it occurred to him to take off his gloves. This he achieved by holding the end of each cotton finger in his teeth and pulling violently. Then he blew into each one, as he had seen his aunt do with hers, finally squeezing them into a tight ball and cramming them into the tiny pocket of his blouse.

"Pocket" instantly suggested the pockets of his trousers. His penny had been disposed of on entrance, 'twas but a fleeting joy. But the packet of Wotherspoon's sweeties remained. The minister had now engaged in prayer, the congregation was standing up; Edmund's doings were comparatively inconspicuous, and Miss Esperance permitted her thoughts to soar heavenward once more. Edmund arranged the contents of his packet in a neat square on the top of his Bible on the book-board in front of him, and proceeded to taste several of the little white comfits, putting each one back in its place wet and sticky, when he had savoured its sweetness for a minute or two. By accident he knocked one of the unsucked sweeties off the Bible, and it rolled away gaily under the seat. In a moment Edmund had dived after it. He squeezed behind his aunt and could not resist giving one of Montagu's legs a sharp pinch as he beheld those members and nothing more from his somewhat lowly and darksome position. Montagu leapt into the air with a scarcely suppressed yelp, that startled more than Miss Esperance, who, at the same moment, felt an unwonted something shoving against her legs. She feared that some dog had got into the pew, and opened her eyes only to find that one great-nephew had disappeared from her side and was squirming under the seat. She also beheld the neatly arranged rows of sweeties on the top of the Bible.

It took but a moment to sweep these into the satin bag she always carried, but it took considerably longer to restore Edmund to an upright position, and when this was done, his face was streaked with dust and his small, hot hands were black.

Edmund lolled; Edmund fidgeted; Edmund even infected Montagu so that he fidgeted too. Every five minutes or so Edmund whispered, "Can we go home now?" till at last peace descended upon poor Miss Esperance, for in the middle of the sermon Edmund fell fast asleep with his head against her shoulder.

Miss Esperance looked quite pale and exhausted as she took her place at early dinner that day, but Edmund was rosy and cheerful, and greeted Mr. Wycherly as "Dearie" with rapturous affection when that gentleman took his place at the bottom of the table. He always had dinner with the children on Sundays.

At first the small boys were so hungry that very little was said, but presently when pudding came Mr. Wycherly asked: "Well, Edmund, how did you get on at church?"

Edmund laid down his spoon: "I'm never going back," he said decidedly, "it is a 'bomnable place."

"Edmund!" exclaimed Miss Esperance, "how can you say such a thing. You, unfortunately, did not behave particularly well, though I forgive that, as it was the first time--but, remember, you will go to the church every Sunday, and you will learn to be a good boy when you're there."

"It is," Edmund repeated, unconvinced, "a 'bomnable place, a 'bomnation of desolation place."

The phrase had occurred several times in the earlier part of the minister's sermon before Edmund fell asleep, and commended itself to his youthful imagination as being singularly forceful and expressive.

Miss Esperance sighed. She really felt incapable of further wrestling with Edmund just then, and looked appealingly at Mr. Wycherly. But he dropped his eyes and refused to meet her gaze.

"He," Edmund suddenly resumed, pointing with his spoon at Mr. Wycherly, "never goes there. _He_"--with even more emphasis and the greatest deliberation--"is a--very--wise--man."

Here the naughty boy wagged his curly head and spoke with such barefaced and perfect mimicry of his aunt, that again catching Mr. Wycherly's eye, she burst into laughter, in which that gentleman was thankful to join her.

"More puddin', please!" Edmund exclaimed, seizing the propitious moment to hand up his plate.

That afternoon neither of the little boys accompanied Miss Esperance to church.

*CHAPTER XI*

*LOAVES AND FISHES*

I am no quaker at my food. I confess I am not indifferent to the kinds of it.--CHARLES LAMB.