CHAPTER XII.

THE STRANGER.

Bruce had scarcely quitted the breakfast-room before it was entered by Vibert.

"Quick, Emmie, a cup of your delicious hot coffee! I've been out these two hours, and have come in with a hunter's appetite!" exclaimed the youth, who was looking even handsomer than usual, with his clear complexion brightened by the invigorating effects of the fresh morning air. Vibert applied himself with energy to the work of cutting slices from the cold ham which had been placed on the side-board.

Emmie poured out the warm beverage for her brother, who turned round to bid her add plenty of cream. "Cream is the one country luxury to balance against country cookery," he laughingly observed. "If that virago-looking Hannah continue to reign in the kitchen, I shall be driven to live upon cream, or be famished!"

Vibert did not appear likely to be famished as he sat at the well-spread table, doing ample justice to his slices of ham. Emmie had finished her own breakfast, but remained to keep her brother company.

"Since you were such an early riser to-day," she observed, "why were you absent from prayers?"

"Because I can't stand hearing the prayers read by Bruce!" exclaimed Vibert with some indignation. "It's a mockery for him to call his own brother a selfish idiot, to treat him as if he were a slave or a dog, and then to kneel down and pray like a saint, asking for meekness and mercy, and all kinds of graces which he never had, and never wishes to have. If that be not downright hypocrisy, I know not what is deserving of the name."

"Bruce is the very last person in the world who would play the hypocrite," cried Emmie. "As for the harsh name which he gave you, I believe that in his heart he is sorry for what he said in a moment of ill-humour."

"Then why does he not own frankly that he is sorry?" cried Vibert. "If Bruce would but confess that he regrets his hasty words, I'd hold out my hand at once and say, 'Let by-gones be by-gones, old boy; I'm not the fellow to harbour a grudge.' But Bruce would not own a fault were it to save his life or mine. Pride--that pride that repels advice, resents reproof, and refuses to acknowledge an error (how well the captain described it!)--that is Bruce's pet sin, and he'll carry it with him to his grave."

"God forbid!" faintly murmured Emmie.

"Bruce and I are to begin daily studies at S---- next Monday," continued Vibert, who was making good progress with his breakfast whilst he kept up the conversation. "I know that papa imagines that the way to keep me safe and out of mischief, is to yoke me to one whom he considers the impersonification of sense and sobriety. He'd couple a greyhound with a surly mastiff; but the greyhound, at least, will strain hard against the connecting strap. If Bruce start early, I will start late; if he walk fast, I will walk slowly; I'll keep as wide apart from him as the tether will let me get;--in plain words, I'll have as little to do with Bruce as I possibly can."

"Vibert, dear Vibert, it so grieves me that you should feel thus towards him," cried Emmie. "Bruce is not without his faults, but he is a noble-minded, unselfish--"

"Unselfish! I deny it!" exclaimed Vibert, while he kept the morsel which he was just about to convey to his lips suspended on his fork. "Unselfish indeed! when he has taken advantage of being sent on in front to make arrangements to secure the very best room in the house for himself!"

"He never did," cried Emmie eagerly. "The west room was prepared for me, but I could not endure it, and, as a matter of kindness, Bruce exchanged our respective apartments."

"Why could you not endure that capital room?" asked Vibert in surprise.

Emmie, who had been wishing, praying that she might be enabled to act the part of a faithful counsellor and friend to her younger brother, felt painfully that she had to step down from her position of vantage, as she owned, with a blush, that she had not liked to sleep next door to the bricked-up room.

Vibert burst out laughing. "So the chivalrous Bruce took the dangerous post!" he exclaimed. "Would I not just like to give him a fright!"

"Don't, oh! don't play any foolish practical joke!" exclaimed Emmie.

"I'm afraid that it would not answer," said Vibert, still laughing. "Bruce is a hard-headed chap, who sifts everything to the bottom. He'd be as likely as not to cleave a ghost's skull with a poker, and I've no fancy to try whether he hits as hard with his hand as he yesterday did with his tongue. But let's talk no more about Bruce. As soon as I've finished my breakfast, you and I shall go into the grounds and have a ramble together. You've not yet seen the outside of our mansion, for when we arrived here last night you had not enough light to distinguish Aladdin's palace from a Hottentot kraal."

The brother and sister soon sauntered out on the terrace on the east side of the house, which was bathed in glowing sunshine. The air was so mild that Emmie had merely thrown a light blue scarf over her head and shoulders as a protection from the breeze; winter wraps would have been oppressive, and she enjoyed the luxury of being able to go out without donning bonnet or gloves. The terrace overlooked the lawn and the garden: the latter had once been fine, and had still a prim grace of its own.

"I rather like this old family mansion," cried Vibert, glancing up at the building, which had been constructed of dark red brick, with handsome facings of stone. "There is something stately about it, as if it had seen better days, and remembered them still. Myst Court looks something like William and Mary's part of Hampton Court Palace."

"Oh, a mere miniature of that grand old building," said Emmie.

"I can just fancy the kind of people who walked on this terrace when first it was laid out," continued Vibert. "There were gentlemen in huge, full-bottomed wigs, long coats, embroidered waistcoats and ruffles of old point-lace, with rapiers hanging at their sides. There were ladies like those whom Sir Godfrey Kneller painted, stiff and stately, each smelling a rose which she held in her hand; ladies in hoops, who looked as if they could never dance anything more lively than a _minuet de la cour_. We seem too modern, Emmie, to match our mansion. Let's return to the olden times, forget that Queen Anne is dead, and fancy her yet with the sharp-tongued Duchess Sarah playing the game of romantic friendship. Let's imagine ourselves as we would have appeared some hundred and fifty years ago. I'm a young Tory gallant (of course, I'm a Jacobite at heart, and drink to 'the king over the water'); Bruce is a decided Whig,--I'm not sure that he is not a Dutchman, and has come over from Holland in the train of the Prince of Orange."

Emmie laughed at Vibert's playful fancies, and wondered how her handsome young brother would have looked in a full-bottomed wig.

"Whig and Tory must unite," she observed, "to get that garden into order. The walks are overrun with shepherd's purse and chickweed, and the beds seem to grow little but nettles."

"But these beds were clearly laid out at the time when Dutch taste prevailed," said Vibert; "it reminds one of the poet's description,--

'Grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother, One half the garden just reflects the other.'"

"Rather a mournful reflection now," observed Emmie with a smile.

"But easily changed to a bright one!" cried Vibert; "we'll set plenty of hands to work, and get everything right before spring. These old straggling bushes must come up; we'll have new plants from a nursery-garden, and fill those beds with geraniums, fuchsias, and calceolaria. An orangery, as at Hampton Court, shall be at one end of the house; and we must fix on a site for a conservatory, in which some huge vine shall spread out its branches, heavy with delicious bunches of grapes."

"My dear boy, you speak as if papa had the purse of Fortunatus," said Emmie. "You know that he will have all kinds of expense in getting the property into tolerable order,--draining, and that sort of thing. The garden must wait for new plants, and we for conservatory and orangery, till more important matters are settled. Think of the cottages out of repair--"

"Hang the cottages!" cried Vibert. "Leave them alone, and they'll tumble down of their own accord. Why should we trouble ourselves about them?"

"We must care for the tenants that live in them," observed Emmie.

"They've never done anything for us, why should we do anything for them?" said Vibert. "I don't believe that half of them ever think of paying their rents. If I were master here," continued Vibert, "I'd make a law that no dirty, ragged creature should come within a mile of the house. If these folk are miserable, I'm sorry for it; but that's no reason why I should be miserable too. Charity begins at home, and the first thing to be done at Myst Court is to put house and garden into tip-top order,--buy new carpets and a good billiard-table, set up a fountain yonder on the lawn (we'll consider about statues and vases), and then invite Alice and a merry party of young people down to the place. We'd drive out ghosts to the sound of fiddle and dancing, and depend upon it, you dear little coward, we should never again hear a word about Myst Court being haunted."

"Ah, Vibert, we must remember our uncle's warnings," said Emmie, gently laying her hand on her brother's arm.

"_Beware of selfishness!_--eh? well, I'll think about that when I see you _conquer mistrust_. But to be gay is my nature, as it is yours to be timid, and Bruce's to be proud. One cannot alter nature."

"Can it not be improved?" asked Emmie. "Look at your garden,--it has been left for years to nature, so bears but a crop of weeds."

"Oh, if you are going to moralize, I'll be off!" cried Vibert. "I have not tried my new gun yet, and I expect capital sport. I warrant you that I will bring home a brace of pheasants to mend our fare!"

Mr. Trevor came down to Wiltshire by an early train, and was gladly welcomed at Myst Court. His presence greatly added to the harmony of the family circle; for his sons seldom exchanged bitter words when their father's eye was upon them. Emmie's spirits rose. When the family were gathered together at the luncheon-table, the young lady playfully rallied Vibert on his "capital sport," for she had seen him return with an empty bag from his shooting.

Vibert laughed good-humouredly at his own want of success. "I thought that pheasants and partridges would be plentiful as blackberries in the brushwood," said he; "but I lighted on no bird more aristocratic than a crow. I think that there must be poachers abroad, or perhaps four-footed poachers, in the shape of those starved, disreputable-looking cats which come prowling about the place."

"I suppose some of those left by my aunt as a legacy to her maid," observed Mr. Trevor.

"The legatee does not value the keepsakes," said Vibert, "to judge by the looks of the cats that crossed my path to-day, sneaking back to their old quarters as if in search for scraps."

"Does Mrs. Jessel live far from here?" inquired Emmie.

"About a mile from Myst Court by the road, but not half that distance by the path through the wood," answered Bruce. "The house left to her by Mrs. Myers is a two-storied, shallow building, standing very near the high-road, and looking like a Cockney villa that had somehow strayed into the country, and could not find its way back."

"So the cats have the good taste to prefer the antique beauties of Myst Court embowered in woods," said Vibert; "and their new mistress has no objection to their living here at free quarters. I fired at one of the miserable creatures, out of pure benevolence, but unhappily missed my mark."

"Your shooting is on a par with your driving," remarked Bruce satirically; "but Emmie's pony came off worse than the cat."

"That was not my fault!" exclaimed Vibert. "I managed the pony famously, in the dark too, and over a road expressly contrived to break the springs of a carriage. I was turning a sharp corner with consummate skill, when Emmie took it into her head to scream and catch hold of my arm. Of course, chaise and all went into the ditch, and how long they might have stayed there I know not, had not those two men come to our help."

"Do you know who they were?" asked Mr. Trevor, who had already heard something of the yesterday's adventure from Emmie.

"The one is called Harper, a strange, weird-looking old man, with long grizzled hair, and croaking voice," replied Vibert. "I don't care if I never set eyes on him again,--but he lives just outside our gate. The other was a very different sort of person, evidently quite a gentleman."

"Did you think so?" said Emmie, in a tone suggestive of a doubt on the subject.

"Why, he is a colonel," cried Vibert; "you heard him say so himself,--a colonel belonging to the American army."

"It is easy enough for a man to call himself an American colonel," said Bruce.

"I don't think it fair to disbelieve a gentleman's account of himself until one has cause to doubt his truthfulness," remarked Vibert. "Certainly," he added, glancing at Emmie, "Colonel Standish did tell us rather wonderful stories. You remember that one of the murdered Red Indian's ghost keeping watch over buried treasure?"

"It was a horrible story," said Emmie.

"And so graphically told!" exclaimed Vibert. "I'll let you hear the tale, papa; but I shall tell it to great disadvantage. A ghost story must lose all its thrilling effect when heard at a luncheon-table. Fancy being interrupted at the crisis by a request for 'a little more mutton!'"

After the tale had been told, and the meal concluded, Vibert went out again with his gun, to seek better success in the woods which surrounded Myst Court. The youth was wont to enter eagerly into any new kind of amusement, but three days were usually sufficient to make him tired of any pursuit.

Mr. Trevor, Emmie, and Bruce went into the drawing-room together, to talk over future plans. They had scarcely seated themselves by the table, on which Bruce had placed some papers of estimates, when the old-fashioned knocker on the front door gave a loud announcement that a visitor had come to the house.

"Who can have found us out already?" said Mr. Trevor. "We are scarcely prepared yet to receive calls from strangers."

Joe flung open the drawing-room door, and announced Colonel Standish.

Emmie's glimpses of the stranger on the preceding evening had been by such uncertain light, and she had been so unfitted by nervous fear to exercise her powers of observation, that she would scarcely have recognized her new acquaintance had not his name been announced. Colonel Standish was a tall and rather good-looking man, apparently about thirty years of age, with large bushy black whiskers, connected with each other by a well-trimmed beard, which, like a dark ruff, surrounded the chin. He was dressed in the height of modern fashion, with no small amount of jewellery displayed in brilliant studs, coins and other ornaments dangling from a handsome gold chain, and rings sparkling on more than one finger of his large gloveless hand. The colonel had a martial step, and an air of assurance which might be mistaken for that of ease. He advanced at once towards Miss Trevor, shook hands with her, and in a tone of gallantry inquired whether she had perfectly recovered from the effects of her late adventure. Emmie only replied by an inclination of her head, and at once introduced Colonel Standish to her father and brother. The stranger shook them both by the hand, with a familiar heartiness to which neither of the English gentlemen felt inclined to respond. Mr. Trevor, however, with grave courtesy, expressed his obligations to the colonel for the help which he had afforded on the preceding night.

"I am only too happy to rush to the rescue whenever so fair a lady is in peril," cried the colonel, turning and bowing to Emmie. "As for your son,--I don't think that it was this son--"

"Certainly not," interrupted Bruce.

"I must congratulate his father on the uncommon spirit and pluck shown by the young gentleman whom I met last night, under circumstances calculated to try the mettle of the boldest."

Emmie and Bruce exchanged glances; the faintest approach to a smile rose on the lips of each on hearing such exaggerated praise.

"As for this fair lady, she played the heroine," continued the colonel, again turning gallantly towards Emmie, whose smile was exchanged for a blush.

"Who is this vulgar flatterer?" thought Mr. Trevor and Bruce. Emmie took an early opportunity of gliding out of the room, to which she did not return till the colonel's visit was ended.

Standish was sufficiently a man of the world to see that he had overacted his part, and had not made a favourable impression. Mr. Trevor and his son became more and more coldly civil. The visitor took the chief share of the conversation, gave his anecdotes, and cracked his jokes. The Englishmen thought his jokes coarse, and his anecdotes of questionable authenticity. Conversation slackened, and in about half an hour the colonel rose to take his departure.

"I put up at the White Hart at S----," said he, as he threw down on the table a card for Vibert. "I find the accommodation fair, very fair, but my stay in the town is uncertain. I hope that we shall soon meet again," and the colonel shook the hand of Mr. Trevor, but a good deal less cordially than he had done on his first introduction to the father of Emmie.

"We do not echo his hope," observed Bruce, as soon as the visitor had tramped out of the house.

"Who can this low-bred talkative fellow be?" said Mr. Trevor. "It is not difficult for an impostor to pass himself off as a colonel, when those who would have proofs of his being so must seek for them at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean."

"I doubt this man's being American at all," observed Bruce. "I did not detect in his speech the peculiar Yankee accent, though it was interlarded with Yankee phrases."

"I shall not encourage this colonel's coming about the house," said Mr. Trevor, walking up to the window. "Why, there's Vibert accompanying him down the drive!"

"And they look hand and glove," added Bruce. "How they are laughing and talking together!"

"Vibert is young and unsuspicious," observed Mr. Trevor, as he turned from the window; "his generous, frank disposition lays him peculiarly open to deception. We must make some inquiries at S---- regarding this Colonel Standish. Your tutor, Mr. Blair, may know something of the man, and the character which he bears."

"I will not forget to gain what information I can," said Bruce Trevor.