Part 16

Thomas and Billy, feeling the solemnity of the occasion needed some expression, did not open the door and run in as was their custom, but reached up and rang a peal at the bell, a peal that clanged like a challenge through the empty house and brought Ellen hurrying up the kitchen stairs, expecting a telegram at the very least. Finding only the familiar figures of Thomas and Billy, she murmured to herself, "What next, I wonder?" and leading the way to the drawing-room, announced the illustrious couple.

Buff greeted them with a joyous shout.

"Come on. I helped to fry the potatoes."

The supper had been chosen by the boys themselves, and consisted of sausages and fried potatoes, jam tartlets and tinned pineapple, with home-made toffee to follow; also two syphons of lemonade.

It was spread on a small table, the tablecloth was a kitchen towel, and there was only one tumbler and the barest allowance of knives and forks; but Buff was charmed with his feast, and hospitably eager that his guests should enjoy it.

"Come on," he said again.

But Thomas, gripping Billy's hand, hung back, and it was seen that he carried a parcel.

"I've brought Buff a present," he announced.

"Oh, Thomas!" said Elizabeth, "not another! After that lovely box of tools."

"Yes," said Thomas firmly. "It's a book--a wee religious book." He handed it to Elizabeth. "It's about angels."

Elizabeth did not look at her young brother, but undid the paper, opened the book and read:

"It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth To touch their harps of gold: 'Peace on the earth, good-will to men, From heaven's all-gracious King!' The world in solemn stillness lay To hear the angels sing."

"How nice! and the pictures are beautiful, Thomas. It's a lovely present. Look at it, Buff!"

Buff looked at it and then he looked at Thomas. "What made you think I wanted a book about angels?" he demanded.

"Nothing in your behaviour, old man," his sister hastened to assure him. "D'you know you've never said Thank you!"

Buff said it, but there was a marked lack of enthusiasm in his tone.

"I didn't buy it," Thomas said, feeling the present needed some explanation. "Aunt Jeanie sent it at Christmas to Papa, and Papa wasn't caring much about angels, and Mamma said I could give it to Buff; she said it might improve him."

"I _knew_ he didn't buy it!" shouted Buff, passing over the aspersion on his character. "I knew it all the time. Nobody would _buy_ a book like that: it's the kind that get given you."

"Aunt Jeanie sent me the _Prodigal Son_," broke in Billy in his gentle little voice (he often acted as oil to the troubled waters of Buff and Thomas). "I like the picture of the Prodigal eating the swine's husks. There's a big swine looking at him as if it would bite him."

"Should think so," Thomas said. "If you were a swine you wouldn't like prodigals coming eating your husks."

"I don't think, Billy," said Elizabeth, looking meditatively at him, "that you will ever be a prodigal, but I can quite see Thomas as the elder brother----Ah! here comes Ellen with the sausages!"

It was a very successful party, noisy and appreciative, and after they had eaten everything there was to eat, including the toffee, and licked their sticky fingers, they had a concert.

Billy sang in a most genteel manner a ribald song about a "cuddy" at Kilmarnock Fair; Buff recited with great vigour what he and Elizabeth between them could remember of "The Ballad of the Revenge"; and Thomas, not to be outdone, thrust Macaulay's Lays into Elizabeth's hands, crying, "Here, hold that, and I'll do How Horatius kept the bridge."

At last Elizabeth declared that the entertainment had come to an end, and the guests reluctantly prepared to depart.

"You're quite sure you'll invite us to Etterick?" was Thomas's parting remark. "You won't forget when you're away?"

"Oh, Thomas!" Elizabeth asked him reproachfully, "have I proved myself such a broken reed? I promise you faithfully that at the end of June I shall write to Mamma and suggest the day and the train and everything. I'll go further. I'll borrow a car and meet you at the junction. Will that do?"

Thomas nodded, satisfied, and she patted each small head. "Good-bye, my funnies. We shall miss you very much."

When Elizabeth had seen Buff in bed she came downstairs to the dismantled drawing-room.

Ellen had tidied away the supper-table and made up the fire, and pulled forward the only decent chair, and had done her best to make the room look habitable.

It was still daylight, but just too dark to read with comfort, and Elizabeth folded her tired hands and gave herself up to idleness. She had been getting gradually more depressed each day, as the familiar things were carried out of the house, and to-night her heart felt like a physical weight and her eyes smarted with unshed tears. The ending of an old song hurts.

Sitting alone in the empty, silent room, a room once so well peopled and full of happy sound, she had a curious unsubstantial feeling, as if she were but part of the baseless fabric of a vision and might dissolve and "leave not a rack behind." ... The usually cheerful room was haunted to-night, memories thronged round her, plucking at her to recall themselves. It was in this room that her mother had sung to them and played with them--and never minded when things were knocked down and broken. Over there, in the corner of the ceiling near the window, there was still an ugly mark made by Walter and a cricket-ball, and she remembered how her father had said, so regretfully, "And it was such a handsome cornice!" and her mother had laughed--peals of laughter like a happy schoolgirl, and taken her husband's arm and said, "You dear innocent!" It was a funny thing to call one's father, she remembered thinking at the time, and did not seem to have any connection with the cornice. All sorts of little things, long forgotten, came stealing back; the boys' funny sayings--Sandy, standing a determined little figure, assuring his mother, "_I shall always stay with you, Mums, and if anyone comes to marry me I shall hide in the dirty clothes basket._"

And now Sandy and his mother were together for always.

Elizabeth slipped on to the floor, and kneeling by the chair as she had knelt as a child--"O God," she prayed, "don't take anybody else. Leave me Father and Buffy and the boys in India. Please leave them to me--if it be Thy will. Amen."

She was still kneeling with her head on her folded arms when Marget came into the room carrying a tray. She made no comment on seeing the attitude of her mistress, but, putting the tray on the table, she went over to the window, and, remarking that if they had to flit it was a blessing Providence had arranged that they should flit when the days were long, she proceeded to pull down the blinds and light the gas.

Then she leaned over her mistress and addressed her as if she were a small child.

"I've brocht ye a cup o' tea an' a wee bit buttered toast. Ye wud get nae supper wi' thae wild laddies. Drink it while it's hot, and get awa' to your bed, like a guid lassie."

Elizabeth uncoiled herself (to use her own phrase) and rose to her feet. She blinked in the gas-light with her tear-swollen eyes, then she made a face at Marget and laughed:

"I'm an idiot, Marget, but somehow to-night it all seemed to come back. You and I have seen--changes.... You're a kind old dear, anyway; it's a good thing we always have you."

"It is that," Marget agreed. "What aboot the men's breakfasts the morn's morning? I doot we hevna left dishes to gang roond." She stood and talked until she had seen Elizabeth drink the tea and eat the toast, and then herded her upstairs to bed.

* * * * *

One day in the end of June, Elizabeth fulfilled her promise to Thomas, and wrote to Mrs. Kirke asking if her two sons could be dispatched on a certain date by a certain train, and arrangements would be made for meeting them at the junction.

It was a hot shining afternoon, and the Setons were having tea by the burnside.

Mr. Jamieson (the lame Sunday-school teacher from the church in Glasgow) was staying with them for a fortnight, and he sat in a comfortable deck-chair with a book in his lap; but he read little, the book of Nature was more fascinating than even Sir Walter. His delight in his surroundings touched Elizabeth. "To think," she said to her father, "that we never thought of asking Mr. Jamieson to Etterick before! Lumps of selfishness, that's what we are."

Mr. Seton suggested that it was more want of thought.

"It amounts to the same thing," said his daughter. "I wonder if it would be possible to have Bob Scott out here? You know, my little waif with the drunken father? Of course he would corrupt the whole neighbourhood in about two days and be a horribly bad influence with Buff--but I don't believe the poor little chap has ever been in the real country. We must try to plan."

Mr. Seton sat reading _The Times_. He was greatly worried about Ulster, and frequently said "_Tut-tut_" as he read.

Buff had helped Ellen to carry everything out for tea, and was now in the burn, splashing about, building stones into a dam. Buff was very happy. Presently, Mr. Hamilton, the new minister at Langhope, was going to take him in hand and prepare him for school, but in the meantime he attended the village school--a haunt that his soul loved. He modelled his appearances and manners on the friends he made there, acquired a rich Border accent, and was in no way to be distinguished from the other scholars. At luncheon that day, he had informed his family that Wullie Veitch (the ploughman's son) had said, after a scuffle in the playground, "Seton's trampit ma piece fair useless"; and the same youth had summed up the new-comer in a sentence: "Everything Seton says is aither rideeclous or confounded," a judgment which, instead of annoying, amused and delighted both the new-comer and his family.

Things had worked out amazingly well, Elizabeth thought, as she sat with her writing-pad on her knee and looking at her family. Her father seemed better, and was most contented with his life. Buff was growing every day browner and stronger. The house was all in order after the improvements they had made, and was even more charming than she had hoped it would be. The garden was a riot of colour and scent, and a never-ending delight. To her great relief, Marget and Ellen had settled down with Watty Laidlaw and his wife in peace and quiet accord, and had even been heard to say that they _preferred_ the country.

After getting Etterick into order, Elizabeth had worked hard at Langhope Manse.

The wedding had taken place a week before, and tomorrow Andrew Hamilton would bring home his bride.

Elizabeth, with her gift of throwing her whole self into her friends' interests, was as eager and excited as if she were the bride and hers the new home. True, much of it was not to her liking. She hated a dining-room "suite" covered in Utrecht velvet, and she thought Kirsty's friends had been singularly ill-advised in their choice of wedding presents.

Kirsty had refused to think of looking for old things for her drawing-room. She said in her sensible way that things got old soon enough without starting with them old; and she just hated old faded rugs, there was nothing to beat a good Axminster.

She was very pleased, however, to accept the Seton's spare furniture. It was solid mid-Victorian, polished and cared-for, and as good as the day it was made. The drawers in the wardrobes and dressing-tables moved with a fluency foreign to the showy present-day "Sheraton" and "Chippendale" suites, and Kirsty appreciated this.

Elizabeth had done her best to make the rooms pretty, and only that morning she had put the finishing touches, and looked round the rooms brave in their fresh chintzes and curtains, sniffed the mingled odours of new paint and sweet-peas, and thought how Kirsty would love it all. The store-room she had taken especial pains with, and had even wrested treasures in the way of pots and jars from the store-room at Etterick (to Marget's wrath and disgust), and carried them in the pony-cart to help to fill the rather empty shelves at Langhope.

So this sunny afternoon, as Elizabeth rose from her writing and began to pour out the tea, she felt at peace with all mankind.

She arranged Mr. Jamieson's teacup on a little table by his side, and made it all comfortable for him. "Put away the paper, Father," she cried, "and come and have your tea, and help me to count our blessings. Let's forget Ulster for half an hour."

Mr. Seton obediently laid down the paper and came to the table.

"Dear me," he said, "this is very pleasant."

The bees drowsed among the heather, white butterflies fluttered over the wild thyme and the little yellow and white violas that starred the turf, and the sound of the burn and the gentle crying of sheep made a wonderful peace in the afternoon air. Marget's scones and new-made butter and jam seemed more than usually delicious, and--"Aren't we well off?" asked Elizabeth.

Mr. Jamieson looked round him with a sigh of utter content, and Mr. Seton said, "I wish I thought that the rest of the world was as peaceful as this little glen." He helped himself to jam. "The situation in Ireland seems to grow more hopeless every day; and by the way, Jamieson, did you see that the Emperor of Austria's heir has been assassinated along with his wife?"

"I saw that," said Mr. Jamieson. "I hope it won't mean trouble."

"It seems a pointless crime," said Elizabeth.

"Buff, come out of the burn, you water-kelpie, and take your tea."

Buff was trying to drag a large stone from the bed of the stream, and was addressing it as he had heard the stable-boy address the pony--"Stan' up, ye brit! Wud ye, though?"--but at his sister's command he ceased his efforts and crawled up the bank to have his hands dried in his father's handkerchief.

It never took Buff long to eat a meal, and in a very few minutes he had eaten three scones and drunk two cups of milk, and laid himself face down-wards in the heather to ruminate.

"Mr. Jamieson," he said suddenly, "if a robber stole your money and went in a ship to South Africa, how would you get at him?"

Mr. Jamieson, unversed in the ways of criminals, was at a loss.

"I doubt I would just need to lose it," he said.

This was feeble. Buff turned to his father and asked what course he would follow.

"I think," said Mr. Seton, "that I would cable to the police to board the ship at the first port."

Buff rejected this method as tame and unspectacular.

"What would you do, Lizbeth?"

"It depends," said Elizabeth, "on how much money I had. If it was a lot, I would send a detective to recover it. But sending a detective would cost a lot."

Buff thought deeply for a few seconds.

"I know what I would do," he said. "I would send a _bloodhound_--_steerage_."

_CHAPTER XIX_

"How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?"

"As dying, and behold we live."

You know, of course, Gentle Reader, that there can be no end to this little chronicle?

You know that when a story begins in 1913, 1914 will follow, and that in that year certainty came to an end, plans ceased to come to fruition--that, in fact, the lives of all of us cracked across.

Personally, I detest tales that end in the air. I like all the strings gathered up tidily in the last chapter and tied neatly into nuptial knots; so I should have liked to be able to tell you that Elizabeth became a "grateful" wife, and that she and Arthur Townshend lived happily and, in fairy-tale parlance, never drank out of an empty cup; and that Stewart Stevenson ceased to think of Elizabeth (whom he never really approved of) and fell in love with Jessie Thomson, and married her one fine day in "Seton's kirk," and that all Jessie's aspirations after refinement and late dinner were amply fulfilled.

But, alas! as I write (May 1917) the guns still boom continuously out there in France, and there is scarce a rift to be seen in the war-clouds that obscure the day.

Jessie Thomson is a V.A.D. now and a very efficient worker, as befits the daughter of Mrs. Thomson. She has not time to worry about her mother's homely ways, nor is she so hag-ridden by the Simpsons. Gertrude Simpson, by the way, is, according to her mother, "marrying into the Navy--a Lieutenant-Commander, no less," and, according to Mrs. Thomson, is "neither to haud nor bind" in consequence.

Stewart Stevenson went on with his work for three months after war began, but he was thinking deeply all the time, and one day in November he put all his painting things away--very tidily--locked up the studio and went home to tell his parents he had decided to go. His was no martial spirit, he hated the very name of war and loathed the thought of the training, but he went because he felt it would be a pitiful thing if anyone had to take his place.

His mother sits among the time-pieces in Lochnagar and knits socks, and packs parcels, and cries a good deal. Both she and her husband have grown much greyer, and they somehow appear smaller. Stewart, you see, is their only son.

It is useless to tell over the days of August 1914. They are branded on the memory. The stupefaction, the reading of newspapers until we were dazed and half-blind, the endless talking, the frenzy of knitting into which the women threw themselves, thankful to find something that would at least occupy their hands. We talked so glibly about what we did not understand. We repeated parrot-like to each other, "It will take all our men and all our treasure," and had no notion how truly we spoke or how hard a saying we were to find it. And all the time the sun shone.

It was particularly hard to believe in the war at Etterick. No khaki-clad men disturbed the peace of the glen, no trains rushed past crowded with troops, no aeroplanes circled in the heavens. The hills and the burn and the peeweets remained the same, the high hollyhocks flaunted themselves against the grey garden wall; nothing was changed--and yet everything was different.

Buff and Thomas and Billy, as pleased and excited as if it were some gigantic show got up for their benefit, equipped themselves with weapons and spent laborious days tracking spies in the heather and charging down the hillside; performing many deeds of valour for which, in the evening, they solemnly presented each other with suitable decorations.

Towards the end of August, when they were at breakfast one morning, Arthur Townshend suddenly appeared, having come up by the night train and motored from the junction.

His arrival created great excitement, Buff throwing himself upon him and demanding to know why he had come.

"Well, you know, you did invite me in August," Arthur reminded him.

"And when are you going away?" (This was Buff's favourite formula with guests, and he could never be made to see that it would be prettier if he said, "How long can you stay?")

Arthur shook hands with Elizabeth and her father, and replied:

"I'm going away this evening as ever was. It sounds absurd," in answer to Elizabeth's exclamation, "but I must be back in London to-morrow morning. I had no notion when I might have a chance of seeing you all again, so I just came off when I had a free day."

"Dear me!" said Mr. Seton. "You young people are like Ariel or Puck, the way you fly about."

"Oh! _is_ it to be the Flying Corps?" asked Elizabeth.

"No--worse luck! Pilled for my eyesight. But I'm passed for the infantry, and to-morrow I enter the Artists' Rifles. I may get a commission and go to France quite soon."

Ellen came in with a fresh supply of food, and breakfast was a prolonged meal; for the Setons had many questions to ask and Arthur had much to tell them.

"You're a godsend to us," Elizabeth told him, "for you remain normal. People here are all unstrung. The neighbours arrive in excited motorfuls, children and dogs and all, and we sit and knit, and drink tea and tell each other the most absurd tales. And rumours leap from end to end of the county, and we imagine we hear guns on the Forth--which isn't humanly possible--and people who have boys in the Navy are tortured with silly lies about sea-battles and the sinking of warships."

Before luncheon, Arthur was dragged out by the boys to admire their pets; but though they looked at such peaceful objects as rabbits, a jackdaw with a wooden leg, and the giant trout that lived in Prince Charlie's Well, all their talk was of battles. They wore sacking round their legs to look like putties, their belts were stuck full of weapons, and they yearned to shed blood. No one would have thought, to hear their bloodthirsty talk, that only that morning they had, all three, wept bitter tears because the sandy cat from the stables had killed a swallow.

Billy, who had got mixed in his small mind between friend and foe, announced that he had, a few minutes ago, killed seven Russians whom he had found lurking among the gooseberry bushes in the kitchen garden, and was instantly suppressed by Thomas, who hissed at him, "You don't kill _allies_, silly. You inter them."

In the afternoon, while Mr. Seton took his reluctant daily rest, and the boys were busy with some plot of their own in the stockyard, Elizabeth and Arthur wandered out together.

They went first to see the walled garden, now ablaze with autumn flowers; but beautiful though it was it did not keep them long, for something in the day and something in themselves seemed to demand the uplands, and they turned their steps to the hills.

It was an easy climb, and they walked quickly, and soon stood at the cairn of stones that marked the top of the hill behind the house, stood breathless and glad of a rest, looking at the countryside spread out beneath them.

In most of the fields the corn stood in "stooks"; the last field was being cut this golden afternoon, and the hum of the reaping-machine was loud in the still air.

Far away a wisp of white smoke told that the little branch-line train was making its leisurely journey from one small flower-scented station to another. Soon the workers would gather up their things and go home, the day's work finished.

All was peace.

And there was no peace.

The tears came into Elizabeth's eyes as she looked, and Arthur answered the thought that brought the tears. "It's worth dying for," he said.

Elizabeth nodded, not trusting her voice.

They turned away and talked on trivial matters, and laughed, and presently fell silent again.

"Elizabeth," said Arthur suddenly, "I wish you didn't scare me so."

"_Do_ I? I'm very much gratified to hear it. I had no idea I inspired awe in any mortal."

"Well--that isn't at all a suitable reply to my remark. I wanted you to assure me that there was no need to be scared."

"There isn't. What can I do for you? Ask and I shall grant it, even to the half of my kingdom."

"When we get this job over may I come straight to you?"

Elizabeth had no coyness in her nature, and she now turned her grey eyes--not mocking now but soft and shining--on the anxious face of her companion and said:

"Indeed, my dear, you may. Just as straight as you can come, and I shall be waiting for you on the doorstep. It has taken a European war to make me realize it, but you are the only man in the world so far as I am concerned."

Some time later Arthur said, "I'm going away extraordinarily happy. By Jove, I ought to be some use at fighting now"; and he laughed boyishly.

"Oh, don't," said Elizabeth. "You've reminded me, and I was trying to make believe you weren't going away. I'm afraid--oh! Arthur, I'm horribly afraid, that you won't be allowed to come back, that you will be snatched from me----"

"I may not come back," said Arthur soberly, "but I won't be snatched. You give me, and I give myself, willingly. But, Lizbeth, beloved, it isn't like you to be afraid."