Part 5

She went over to the littered dresser and began to turn things over, until she discovered the purse lurking under a bag of buns and a paper containing half a pound of ham. Elizabeth stood up as a hint that the shilling might be forthcoming, but Mrs. Martin liked an audience, so she sat down on a chair and put a hand on each knee. "Mr. Seton said on Sunday we were to give as the Lord had prospered us. Weel, I canna say much aboot that, we're juist aye in the same bit, but as A often tell ma man, Miss Seton, we must a' help each other, for we're a' gaun the same road--mebbe the heathen tae, puir things!"

Mr. Martin grunted over his newspaper, and his wife continued: "There's John there--Mr. Martin, A'm meanin'--gits fair riled whiles aboot poalitics. He canna stand Tories by naething, they fair scunner him, but I juist say to him, 'John, ma man,' I says, 'let the Tories alane, for we're a' Homeward Bound.'"

Elizabeth stifled a desire to laugh, while Mr. Martin said with great conviction and some irrelevance, "Lyd George is the man."

"So he is," said his wife soothingly, "though A whiles think if he wud tak' a bit rest to hissel' it wud be a guid job for us a'."

"Well," said Elizabeth, opening her purse in an expectant way, "I must go, or I shall be late for tea."

"Here's yer shillun," said Mrs. Martin, rather with the air of presenting a not quite deserved tip.

"An' how's wee David? Yon's a rale wee favourite o' mine. Are ye gaun to mak' a minister o' him?"

"Buff? Oh, I don't think we quite know what to make of him."

Mrs. Martin leaned forward. "Hev ye tried a phrenologist?" she asked earnestly.

"No," said Elizabeth, rather startled.

"A sister o' mine hed a boy an' she couldna think what to mak' o' him. He had no--no--whit d'ye ca' it?"

Elizabeth nodded her comprehension.

"Bent?" she suggested.

"Aweel, she tuk him to yin o' thae phrenologists, an' he said he wud be either an auctioneer or a chimist, and," she finished triumphantly, "a chimist he wus!"

_CHAPTER V_

"Truly I would the gods had made thee poetical." _As You Like It._

In the Seton's drawing-room a company was gathered for tea.

Ellen had remembered Elizabeth's instructions, and a large fire of logs and coal burned in the white-tiled grate. A low round table was drawn up before the fire, and on it tea was laid--a real tea, with jam and scones and cookies, cake and shortbread. On the brass muffin-stool a pile of buttered toast was keeping warm.

James Seton, who dearly loved his tea, was already seated at the table and was playing with the little green-handled knife which lay on his plate as he talked to Elizabeth's friend, Christina Christie. Thomas and Billy sat on the rug listening large-eyed to Buff, who was telling them an entirely apocryphal tale of how he had found an elephant's nest in the garden.

Launcelot lay on a cushion fast asleep.

"Elizabeth is late," said Mr. Seton.

"I think I hear her now," said Miss Christie; and a moment later the drawing-room door opened and Elizabeth put her head in.

"Have I kept you all waiting for tea? Ah! Kirsty bless you, my dear. No, I can't come in as I am. Just give me one minute to remove these odious garments--positively one minute, Father. Yes, Ellen, bring tea, please."

The door closed again.

"And the egg was as big as a roc's egg," went on Buff.

"You never saw a roc's egg," Thomas reminded him, "so how can you know how big they are?"

"I just know," said Buff, with dignity. "Father, how big is a roc's egg?"

"A roc's egg," said Mr. Seton thoughtfully. "A great white thing, Sindbad called it, 'fifty good paces round.' As large as this room, Buff, anyway. Ah! here's your sister."

"Now for tea," said Elizabeth, seating herself behind the teacups. "Sit on this side, Kirsty; you'll be too hot there. What a splendid fire Ellen has given us. Well, Thomas, my son, what do you want first? Bread-and-butter? That's right! Pass Billy some butter, Buff. I wouldn't begin with a cookie if I were you. No, not jam with the first bit, extravagant youth. Now, Kirsty, do put out your hand, as Marget would say, because, as you know, we have no manners in this house."

"I am having an excellent tea," said Miss Christie. "Ellen said you were collecting this afternoon, Elizabeth."

"Oh, Kirsty, my dear, I was. In the Gorbals, in the rain, begging for shillings for Women's Foreign Missions. And I didn't get them all in either, and I shall have to go back. Father, I'm frightfully intrigued to know what Mr. Martin does. What is his walk in life? Go any time you like, he's always in the house. Can he be a night-watchman?"

Mr. Seton helped himself to a scone.

"I had an idea," he said, "that Martin was a cabinet-maker, but he may have retired."

"Perhaps," said Buff, "he's a Robber. Robbers don't go out through the day, only at night with dark lanterns, and come in with sacks of booty."

Elizabeth laughed.

"No, Buff. I don't think that Mr. Martin has the look of a robber exactly. Perhaps he's only lazy. But I'm quite sure Mrs. Martin's efforts don't keep the house. Of all the dirty little creatures! And so full of religion! I've no use for people's religion if it doesn't make them keep a clean house. 'We're all Homeward Bound,' she said to me. 'So we are, Mrs. Martin,' said I, 'but you might give your fireside a brush-up in passing!'"

"Now, now, Elizabeth," said her father, "you didn't say that!"

"Well, perhaps I didn't say it exactly, but I certainly thought it," said Elizabeth.

At this moment Buff, who had been gobbling his bread-and-butter with unseemly haste and keeping an anxious eye on a plate of cakes, saw Thomas take the very cake he had set his heart on, and he broke into a howl of rage. "He's taken my cake!" he shouted.

"Buff, I'm ashamed of you," said his sister. "Remember, Thomas is your guest."

"He's not a _guest_," said Buff, watching Thomas stuff the cake into his mouth as if he feared that it might even now be wrested from him, "he's a pig."

"One may be both," said Elizabeth. "Never mind him, Thomas. Have another cake."

"Thanks," said Thomas, carefully choosing the largest remaining one.

"If Thomas eats so much," said Billy pleasantly, "he'll have to be put in a show. Mamma says so."

"Billy," said Miss Christie, "how is it that you have such a fine accent?"

"I don't know," said Billy modestly.

"It's because," Thomas hastened to explain--"it's because we had an English nurse when Billy was little. I've a Glasgow accent myself," he added.

"My accent's Peebleshire," said Buff, forgetting his wrongs in the interest of the conversation.

"Mamma says that's worse," said Thomas gloomily.

Mr. Seton chuckled. "You're a funny laddie, Thomas," he said.

"Kirsty," said Elizabeth, "this is no place for serious conversation; I haven't had a word with you. Oh! Father, how is Mrs. Morrison?"

"Very far through."

"Ah! Poor body. Is there nothing we can do for her?"

"No, my dear, I think not. She never liked taking help and now she is past the need of it. I'm thankful for her sake her race is nearly run."

Thomas stopped eating. "Will she get a prize, Mr. Seton?" he asked.

James Seton looked down into the solemn china-blue eyes raised to his own and said, seriously and as if to an equal:

"I think she will, Thomas--the prize of her high calling in Jesus Christ."

Thomas went on with his bread-and-butter, and a silence fell on the company. It was broken by a startled cry from Elizabeth.

"Have you hurt yourself, girl?" asked her father.

"No, no. It's Mrs. Veitch's scones. To think I've forgotten them! She sent them to you, Father, for your tea. Buff, run--no, I'll go myself;" and Elizabeth left the room, to return in a moment with the paper-bagful of scones.

"I had finished," said Mr. Seton meekly.

"We'll all have to begin again," said his daughter. "Thomas, you could eat a bit of treacle scone, I know."

"The scones will keep till to-morrow," Miss Christie reminded her.

"Yes," said Elizabeth, "but Mrs. Veitch will perhaps be thinking we are having them to-night, and I would feel mean to neglect her present. You needn't smile in that superior way, Kirsty Christie."

"They are excellent scones," said Mr. Seton, "and I'm greatly obliged to Mrs. Veitch. She is a fine woman--comes of good Border stock."

"She's a dear," said Elizabeth; "though she scares me sometimes, she is so utterly sincere. That's grievous, isn't it, Father?--to think I live with such double-dealers that sincerity scares me."

Mr. Seton shook his head at her.

"You talk a great deal of nonsense, Elizabeth," he said, a fact which Elizabeth felt to be so palpably true that she made no attempt to deny it.

Later, when the tea-things had been cleared away and the three boys lay stretched on the carpet looking for a picture of the roc's egg in a copy of _The Arabian Nights_, James Seton sat down rather weariedly in one of the big chintz-covered chairs by the fire.

"You're tired, Father," said Elizabeth.

James Seton smiled at his daughter. "Lazy, Lizbeth, that's all--lazy and growing old!"

"Old?" said Elizabeth. "Why, Father, you're the youngest person I have ever known. You're only about half the age of this weary worldling your daughter. You can never say you're old, wicked one, when you enjoy fairy tales just as much as Buff. I do believe that you would rather read a fairy tale than a theological book. He can't deny it, Kirsty. Oh, Father, Father, it's a sad thing to have to say about a U.F. minister, and it's sad for poor Kirsty, who has been so well brought up, to have all her clerical illusions shattered."

"Oh, girl," said her father, "do you never tire talking?"

"Never," said Elizabeth cheerfully, "but I'm going to read to you now for a change. Don't look so scared, Kirsty; it's only a very little poem."

"I'm sure I've no objection to hearing it," said Miss Christie, sitting up in her chair.

Elizabeth lifted a blue-covered book from a table, sat down on the rug at her father's feet, and began to read. It was only a very little poem, as she had said--a few exquisite strange lines. When she finished she looked eagerly up at her father and--"Isn't it magical?" she asked.

"Let me see the book," said Mr. Seton, and at once became engrossed.

"It's very nice," said Miss Christie; "but your voice, Elizabeth, makes anything sound beautiful."

"Kirsty, my dear, how pretty of you!"

Elizabeth's hands were clasped round her knees, and she sat staring into the red heart of the fire as she repeated:

"Who said 'All Time's delight Hath she for narrow bed: Life's troubled bubble broken'? That's what I said."

Kirsty, I love that--'Life's troubled bubble broken'."

"Say it to me Lizbeth," said Buff, who had left his book when his sister began to read aloud.

"You wouldn't understand it, sonny."

"But I like the sound of the words," Buff protested. So Elizabeth said it again.

"Who said Peacock Pie? The old King to the Sparrow...."

"I like it," said Buff, when she had finished. "Say me another."

"Not now, son. I want to talk to Kirsty now. When you go to bed I shall read you a lovely one about a Zebra called Abracadeebra. Have you done your lessons for to-morrow? No? Well, do them now. Thomas and Billy will do them with you--and in half an hour I'll play 'Yellow Dog Dingo.'"

Having mapped out the evening for her young brother, Elizabeth rose from her lowly position on the hearth-rug, drew forward a chair, and said, "Now, Kirsty, we'll have a talk."

That Elizabeth Seton and Christina Christie should be friends seemed a most improbable thing. They were both ministers' daughters, but there any likeness ended. It seemed as if there could be nothing in common between this tall golden Elizabeth with her impulsive ways, her rapid heedless speech, her passion for poetry, her faculty for making new friends at every turn, and Christina, short, dark, and neat, with a mind as well-ordered as her raiment, suspicious of strangers and chilling with her nearest--and yet a very true friendship did exist.

"How is your mother?" asked Elizabeth.

"Mother's wonderful. Father has been in the house three days with lumbago. Jeanie has a cold too. I think it's the damp weather. This is my month of housekeeping. I wish, Elizabeth, you would tell me some new puddings. Archie says ours are so dull."

Elizabeth immediately threw herself into the subject of puddings.

"I know one new pudding, but it takes two days to make and it's very expensive. We only have it for special people. You know 'Aunt Mag,' of course? and 'Uncle Tom'? That's only 'Aunt Mag' with treacle. Semolina, sago, big rice--we call those milk things, we don't dignify them by the name of pudding. What else is there? Tarts, oh! and bread puddings, and there's that greasy kind you eat with syrup, suet dumplings. A man in the church was very ill, and the doctor said he hadn't any coating or lining or something inside him, because his wife hadn't given him any suet dumplings."

"Oh, Elizabeth!"

"A fact, I assure you," said Elizabeth. "We always have a suet dumpling once a week because of that. I'm afraid I'm not being very helpful, Kirsty. Do let's think of something quite new, only it's almost sure not to be good. That is so discouraging about the dishes one invents.... Apart from puddings, how is Archie?"

"Oh, he's quite well, and doing very well in business. He has Father's good business head."

"Yes," said Elizabeth. She did not admire anything about the Rev. Johnston Christie, least of all his business head. He was a large pompous man, with a booming voice and a hearty manner, and he had what is known in clerical circles as a "suburban charge." Every Sunday the well-dressed, well-fed congregation culled from villadom to which he ministered filled the handsome new church, and Mr. Christie's heart grew large within him as he looked at it. He was a poor preacher but an excellent organiser: he ran a church as he would have run a grocery establishment. His son Archie was exactly like him, but Christina had something of her mother, a deprecating little woman with feeble health and a sense of humour whom Elizabeth called Chuchundra after the musk-rat in the _Jungle Book_ that could never summon up courage to run into the middle of the room.

"Yes," said Elizabeth, "I foresee a brilliant future for Archie, full of money and motor-cars and knighthoods."

"Oh! I don't know," said Christina, "but I think he has the knack of making money. How are your brothers?"

"Both well, I'm glad to say. Walter has got a new job--in the Secretariat--and finds it vastly entertaining. Alan seems keener about polo than anything else, but he's only a boy after all."

"You talk as if you were fifty at least."

"I'm getting on," said Elizabeth. "Twenty-eight is a fairly ripe age, don't you think?"

"No, I don't," said Christina somewhat shortly. Christina was thirty-five.

"Buff asked me yesterday if I remembered Mary Queen of Scots," went on Elizabeth, "and he alluded to me in conversation with Thomas as 'my elderly nasty sister.'"

"Cheeky little thing!" said Christina. "You spoil that child."

Elizabeth laughed, and by way of turning the conversation asked Christina's advice as to what would sell best at coming bazaars. At all bazaar work Christina was an expert, and she had so many valuable hints to give that long before she had come to an end of them Elizabeth was hauled away to play "Yellow Dog Dingo."

Christina had little liking for children, and it was with unconcealed horror that she watched her friend bounding from _Little God Nqu_ (Billy) to _Middle God Nquing_ (Buff), then to _Big God Nquong_ (Thomas), begging to be made different from all other animals, and wonderfully popular by five o'clock in the afternoon.

It was rather an exhausting game and necessitated much shouting and rushing up and down stairs, and after everyone had had a chance of playing in the title role, Elizabeth sank breathless, flushed and dishevelled, into a chair.

"Well, I _must_ say----" said Christina.

"Come on again," shouted Billy, while Thomas and Buff loped up and down the room.

"No--no," panted Elizabeth, "you're far too hot as it is. What will 'Mamma' say if you go home looking like Red Indians?"

Mr. Seton, quite undisturbed by the noise, had been engrossed in the poetry book, but now he laid it down and looked at his watch.

"I must be going," he said.

But the three boys threw themselves on him--"A bit of Willy Wud; just a little bit of Willy Wud," they pleaded.

James Seton was an inspired teller of tales, and Willy Wud was one of his creations. His adventures--and surely no one ever had stranger and more varied adventures--made a sort of serial story for "after tea" on winter evenings.

"Where did we leave him?" he asked, sitting down obediently.

"Don't you remember, Father?" said Buff. "In the Robbers' Cave."

"He was just untying that girl," said Thomas.

"She wasn't a girl," corrected Billy, "she was a princess."

"It's the same thing," said Thomas. "He was untying her when he found the Robber Chief looking at him with a knife in his mouth."

So the story began and ended all too soon for the eager listeners, and Mr. Seton hurried away to his work.

"Say good-night, Thomas and Billy," said Elizabeth, "and run home. It's very nearly bed-time."

"To-morrow's Saturday," said Thomas suggestively.

"So it is. Ask 'Mamma' if you may come to tea, and come over directly you have had dinner."

Thomas looked dissatisfied.

"Couldn't I say to Mamma you would like us to come to dinner? Then we could come just after breakfast. You see, there's that house we're building----"

"I'm going to buy nails with my Saturday penny," said Billy.

"By all means come to dinner," said Elizabeth, "if Mamma doesn't mind. Good-night, sonnies--now run."

She opened the front-door for them, and watched them scud across the road to their own gate--then she went back to the drawing-room.

"I must be going too," said Miss Christie, sitting back more comfortably in her chair.

"It's Band of Hope night," said Elizabeth.

Buff had been marching up and down the room, with Launcelot in his arms, telling himself a story, but he now came and leant against his sister. She stroked his hair as she asked, "What's the matter, Buffy boy?"

"I wish," said Buff, "that I lived in a house where people didn't go to meetings."

"But I'm not going out till you're in bed. We shall have time for reading and everything. Say good-night to Christina, and see if Ellen has got your bath ready. And, Buff," she said, as he went out of the door, "pay particular attention to your knees--scrub them with a brush; and don't forget your fair large ears, my gentle joy."

"Those boys are curiosities," said Miss Christie. "What house is this they're building?"

"It's a Shelter for Homeless Cats," said Elizabeth, "made of orange boxes begged from the grocer. I think it was Buff's idea to start with, but Thomas has the clever hands. Must you go?"

"These chairs are too comfortable," said Miss Christie, as she rose; "they make one lazy. If I were you, Elizabeth, I wouldn't let Buff talk to himself and tell himself stories. He'll grow up queer.... You needn't laugh."

"I'm very sorry, Christina. I'm afraid we're a frightfully eccentric family, but you'll come and see us all the same, won't you?"

Miss Christie looked at her tall friend, and a quizzical smile lurked at the corner of her rather dour mouth. "Ay, Elizabeth," she said, "you sound very humble, but I wouldn't like to buy you at your own valuation, my dear."

Elizabeth put her hands on Christina's shoulders as she kissed her good-night. "You're a rude old Kirsty," she said, "but I dare say you're right."

_CHAPTER VI_

"How now, sir? What are you reasoning with yourself? Nay, I was rhyming; 'tis you that have the reason." _Two Gentlemen of Verona_.

About a fortnight later--it was Saturday afternoon--an April day strayed into November, and James Seton walked in his garden and was grateful.

He had his next day's sermon in his hand and as he walked he studied it, but now and again he would lift his head to look at the blue sky, or he would stoop and touch gently the petals of a Christmas-rose, flowering bravely if sootily in the border. Behind the hedge, on the drying green, Thomas and Billy and Buff disported themselves. They had been unusually quiet, but now the sound of raised voices drew Mr. Seton to the scene of action. Looking over the hedge, he saw an odd sight. Thomas lay grovelling on the ground; Billy, with a fierce black moustache sketched on his cherubic face, sat on the roof of the ash-pit; while Buff, a bulky sack strapped on his back, struggled in the arms of Marget the cook.

"Gie me that bag, ye ill laddie," she was saying.

"What's the matter, Marget?" Mr. Seton asked mildly.

Buff was butting Marget wildly with his head, but hearing his father's voice, he stopped to explain.

"It's my sins, Father," he gasped.

"It's naething o' the kind, sir; it's ma bag o' claes-pins. Stan' up, David, this meenit. D'ye no' see ye're fair scrapin' it i' the mud?"

Thomas raised his head.

"We're pilgrims, Mr. Seton," he explained. "I'm Hopeful, and Buff's Christian. This is me in Giant Despair's dungeon;" and he rolled on his face and realistically chewed the grass to show the extent of his despair.

"But you've got your facts wrong," said Mr. Seton. "Christian has lost his load long before he got to Doubting Castle."

"Then," said Buff, picking himself up and wriggling out of the straps which tied the bag to his person--"then, Marget, you can have your old clothes-pins."

"Gently, my boy," said his father. "Hand the bag to Marget and say you're sorry."

"Sorry, Marget," said Buff in a very casual tone, as he heaved the bag at her.

Marget received it gloomily, prophesied the probable end of Buff, and went indoors.

Buff joined Thomas in the dungeon of Doubting Castle.

"Why is Billy sitting up there?" asked Mr. Seton.

"He's Apollyon," said Thomas, "and he's coming down in a minute to straddle across the way. By rights, I should have been Apollyon----"

Mr. Seton's delighted survey of the guileless fiend on the ash-pit roof was interrupted by Ellen, who came with a message that Mr. Stevenson had called and would Mr. Seton please go in.

In the drawing-room he found Elizabeth conversing with a tall young man, and from the fervour with which she welcomed his appearance he inferred that it was not altogether easy work.

"Father," said Elizabeth, "you remember I told you about meeting Mr. Stevenson at the Thomsons' party? He has brought us such a treasure of a ballad book to look over. Do let my father see it, Mr. Stevenson."

James Seton greeted the visitor in his kind, absent-minded way, and sat down to discuss ballads with him, while Elizabeth, having, so to speak, laboured in rowing, lay back and studied Mr. Stevenson. That he was an artist she knew. She also knew his work quite well and that it was highly thought of by people who mattered. He had a nice face, she thought; probably not much sense of humour, but tremendously decent. She wondered what his people were like. Poor, she imagined--perhaps a widowed mother, and he had educated himself and made every inch of his own way. She felt a vicarious stir of pride in the thought.

As a matter of fact she was quite wrong, and Stewart Stevenson's parents would have been much hurt if they had known her thoughts.

His father was a short, fat little man with a bald head, who had dealt so successfully in butter and ham that he now occupied one of the largest and reddest villas in Maxwell Park (Lochnagar was its name) and every morning was whirled in to business in a Rolls-Royce car.