CHAPTER XXVIII

"SEEKING REST AND FINDING NONE"

But great nations do not plunge recklessly into war, nor even do mountain tribes rise suddenly in rebellion because an elderly gentleman is suffering like some sentimental school-girl from a disappointment of the heart. General St. Josephs extorted, indeed, from a great personage the promise that if anything turned up he would not be forgotten, and was fain to content himself, for the time, with a pledge in which he knew he could place implicit trust. So the weary, hot months dragged on, and he remained in London, solitary, silent, preoccupied, wandering about the scenes of his former happiness, like a ghost. He went yachting, indeed, with one friend, and agreed on a pedestrian excursion through Switzerland with another; but the "sad sea waves" were too sad for him to endure, and the energy that should have taken him over a mountain, or up a glacier, seemed to fail with the purchase of a knapsack and the perusal of a foreign Bradshaw, so the walking tour was abandoned, and the friend rather congratulated himself on escaping such a mournful companion.

When autumn came round with its many temptations to Scotland, where the muir-fowl were crowing about their heathery knolls, and the red-deer sunning their fat backs on the leeward side of the corrie, he did indeed avail himself of certain invitations to the hospitable North; and the General, who could level rifle or fowling-piece, breast a hill, or plunge through a moss with his juniors by twenty years, strove hard in fatigue of body to earn repose for the mind. But he did not stay long; the grand, grave beauty of those silent hills oppressed and tortured him. He pitied the wild old cock, flapping its life out on its own purple heather, fifty yards off, mowed down by his deadly barrel, even as it rose. When he had stalked the "muckle red hart" with antlered front of royalty, and three inches of fat on those portly sides, up the burn, and under the waterfall, and through the huge grey boulders of eternal rock, to sight the noble beast fairly from a leeward ambush, and bring it down, pierced through the heart with a long and "kittle" shot, his triumph was all merged in sorrow for the dead monarch lying so calm and stately in the quiet glen, not perhaps without a something of envy, for a creature thus insensible, and at rest for evermore.

The foresters wondered to see him in no way triumphant, and when they heard next morning he was gone, shook their heads, opining that "It was a peety! She was a pratty shot, and a fery tight shentlemans on a hill."

It was _work_ the General required, not amusement; so he journeyed sadly back, to await in London the command he hoped would ere long recall him to a profession he had always loved, that seemed now to offer the sympathy and solace of a home.

Sometimes, but this only in moments of which he was ashamed, he would speculate on the possibility of meeting Miss Douglas by accident in the great city, and it soothed him to fancy the explanations that would ensue. He never dreamed of their resuming their old footing; for the General's forbearance hitherto had sprung from the strength, not the weakness of his character, and the same stubborn gallantry that held his position was available to cover his defeat; but it would be a keen pleasure, he thought, though a sad one, to look in her face just once more. After that he might turn contentedly Eastward, go back into harness, and never come to England again.

In the meantime, the days that dragged so wearily with St. Josephs, danced like waves in the sunshine through many of those other lives with which he had been associated in his late history. Amongst all gregarious animals, it is the custom for a sick or wounded beast to withdraw from the herd, who in no way concern themselves about its fate, but continue their browsings, baskings, croppings, waterings, and friskings, with a well-bred resignation to another's plight worthy of the human race. If the General's friends and acquaintance asked each other what had become of him, and waited for an answer, they were satisfied with the conventional surmise--

"Gone to Scotland, I fancy. They tell me it's a wonderful year for grouse!"

Mrs. Lushington, yachting at Cowes, and remaining a good deal at anchor, because it was "blowing fresh outside," thought of him perhaps more than anybody else. Not that she felt the least remorseful for the break-up she believed to have originated solely in her own manoeuvres. She was persuaded that her information conveyed through the anonymous letter had aroused suspicions which, becoming certainties on inquiry, detached him from Satanella, and, completely mistaking his character, considered it impossible, but that their dissolution of partnership originated with the gentleman. How the lady fared interested her but little, and in conversation with other dearest friends, she usually summed up the fate of this one by explaining--

"It was _impossible_ to keep poor Blanche straight. Always excitable, and unlike other people, you know. Latterly, I am afraid, _more_ than flighty, my dear, and _more_ than odd."

Besides, Mrs. Lushington, as usual, had a great deal of business on hand. For herself and her set Cowes was nothing in the world but London gone down to the sea. Shorter petticoats, and hats instead of bonnets, made the whole difference. There were the same attractions, the same interests, the same intrigues. Even the same bores went to and fro, and bored, as they breathed, more freely in the soft, Channel air. Altogether, it was fresher and quieter, but, if possible, stupider than Pall Mall.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Lushington, being in her natural element, exercised her natural functions. She was hard at work, trying to mate Bessie Gordon, nothing loth, with a crafty widower, who seemed as shy of the bait as an old gudgeon under Kew Bridge. She had undertaken, in conspiracy with other frisky matrons, to spoil poor Rosie Barton's game with young Wideacres, the catch of the season; and they liked each other so well that this job alone kept her in constant employment. She had picnics to organise, yachting parties to arrange, and Frank to keep in good humour; the latter no easy task, for Cowes bored him extremely, and, to use his own words, "he wished the whole place at the devil!" She felt also vexed and disappointed that the General had withdrawn himself so entirely from the sphere of her attractions, reflecting that she saw a great deal more of him before he was free. Added to her other troubles was the unpardonable defection of Soldier Bill. That volatile light dragoon had never been near her since Daisy's marriage--a ceremony in which he took the most lively interest, comporting himself as "best man" with an unparalleled audacity, and a joyous flow of spirits, that possessed, for a gathering composed of Hibernians, the greatest attractions. People said, indeed, that Bill had shown himself not entirely unaffected by the charms of a lovely bridesmaid, the eldest of Lady Mary's daughters; and it was impossible to over-estimate the danger of his position under such suggestive circumstances as must arise from a wedding in the house.

Then a grey hair or two had lately shown themselves in her abundant brown locks; while of the people she chose to flirt with, some neglected her society for a cruise, others afforded her more of the excitement produced by rivalry than she relished, none paid her the devoted attention she had learned to consider her due. Altogether, Mrs. Lushington began to find life less _couleur de rose_ than she could wish, and to suspect the career she had adopted was not conducive to happiness, or even comfort. Many people make the same discovery when it is too late to abandon the groove in which they have elected to run.

Daisy, in the meantime, true to his expressed intention of turning over a new leaf, found no reason to be dissatisfied with his lot. You might search Ireland through, and it is saying a good deal, without finding a more joyous couple than Captain and Mrs. Walters. The looked-for promotion arrived at last, and the bridegroom had the satisfaction of seeing himself gazetted to a troop on the very morning that provided him with a wife. Old Macormac was pleased, Lady Mary was pleased, everybody was pleased. The Castle blazed with light and revelry, the tenants drank, danced, and shouted. The "boys" burnt the mountain with a score of bonfires, consuming whisky, and breaking each other's heads to their own unbounded satisfaction. In short, to use the words of Peter Corrigan, the oldest solvent tenant on the estate, "The masther's wedding was a fool to't! May I never see glory av' it wasn't betther divarsion than a wake!"

But Norah's gentle heart, even in her own new-found happiness, had a thought for the beautiful and stately Englishwoman, whom, if she somewhat feared her as a rival, she yet loved dearly as a friend.

"What's gone with her, Daisy?" she asked her young husband, before they had been married a fortnight. "Sure she would never take up with the nice old gentleman, a general he was, that marked the race-cards for us at Punchestown. Oh, Daisy! how I cried that night, because you didn't win!"

They were walking by the river-side, where they landed the big fish at an early period of their acquaintance, and Norah brought the gaff to bear in more ways than she suspected; where they parted so hopelessly, when, because of his very desolation, the true and generous girl had consented to plight him her troth; and where they had hardly dared to hope they would meet again in such a glow of happiness as shone round them to-day. It was bright spring weather when they wished each other that sorrowful good-bye. Now, the dead leaves were falling thick and fast in the grey autumn gloom. Nevertheless, this was the real vernal season of joy and promise for both those loving hearts.

"What a goose you were to back me!" observed Daisy, with a pressure of the arm that clung so tight round his own. "It served you right, and I hope cured you of betting once for all!"

"That's no answer to my question," persisted Mrs. Walters. "I'm asking you to tell me about my beautiful Blanche Douglas, and why wouldn't the old General marry her if she'd have him."

"That's it, dear!" replied her husband. "She _wouldn't_ have him! She--she accepted him, I _know_, and then she threw him over."

"What a shame!" exclaimed Norah. "Though, to be sure, he might have been her father." Then a shadow passed over her fair young brow, and she added wistfully, "Ah, Daisy! I'm thinking I know who she wanted all the time."

"Meaning _me_?" said Daisy, with a frank, saucy smile, that brought the mirth back to her face, and the sunshine to her heart.

"Meaning _you_, sir!" she repeated playfully. "But it's very conceited of you to think it, and very wrong to let it out. It's not so wonderful, after all," she added, looking proudly in his handsome young face. "I suppose I'm not the only girl that's liked you, dear, by a many. I oughtn't to expect it!"

"The only one that's _landed_ the fish," laughed Daisy, stopping in the most effectual manner a little sigh with which she was about to conclude her peroration. "You're mistaken about Miss Douglas, though," he added, "I give you my word. She hadn't your good taste, my dear, and didn't _see_ it! Look, Norah, there's the very place I left Sullivan's fishing-rod. He'll never get it again, so it's lucky I bought his little brown horse. I wonder who found it? What a day that was! Norah, do you remember?"

"_Remember!_"

So the conversation turned on that most interesting of topics--themselves, and did not revert to Satanella nor her doings. If Norah was satisfied, Daisy felt no wish to pursue the subject. However indiscreet concerning his successes, I think when a man has been refused by another lady, he says nothing about it to his wife.