Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl Part 35

"What you advise, Reginald. For this reason I sent for you."

"Then listen. I knew a crisis of some kind must soon come between you and that--creature, and this is what I say--you must leave him. Every day you stay with him insults your humanity, and your womanhood. He says he will be four or five days away, we will have plenty of time for my plan. Before noon I will have here wagons and men in sufficient number to empty this house into Menzie's granite storage in two days.

Send the silver to the bank. I will put it in a cab, and take it myself. Pack things you value highly in one trunk, which can be specially insured. Our pictures we will place in the Ludin Picture Gallery. We can clear the house in three days, and on the morning of the fourth day, young Bruce Kinlock will move into it. If Neil can face Kinlock, it will be the worse for him, for Kinlock's temper blazes if he but hear Neil's name, and his hand goes to his side, for the dirk with which his fathers always answered an enemy."

"Then, Reginald, when I have turned myself out of house and home, what follows?"

"We will take a pa.s.sage to New Orleans."

"New Orleans! Why there? Such an out-of-the-way place."

"Exactly. That creature will argue thus--they have gone to some place on the Continent--very likely France. And he will probably try to make you a deal of trouble. I have never named New Orleans to anyone. Even our friends will never suspect our destination, for we shall go first to France, and take a steamer from some French port, for New Orleans.

When we arrive there, we have a new world before us, and can please ourselves where we go, and where we stay. Now, Roberta, decide at once. We have time, but none too much, and I will work night and day to get you out of the power of such a husband."

"He may repent."

"We will give him time and reason to do so. He has been too comfortable. You have given him constant temptation to wrong you. He will not repent until he feels the pinch of poverty and the want of a home. Then he may seek you in earnest, and I suppose you will forgive him."

"What else could I do? Would not G.o.d forgive him?"

"That is a subject for later consideration. If you will take my advice you must do it with all your heart, and be as busy as I will be. We want no altercation with him just yet."

"I give you my word, Reggie, that for two years I will do as you advise. Then we will reconsider the question."

Then Reginald clasped her hand, and drew her to his side. "It is for your salvation, dear, every way, and loneliness and deprivation may be for his good. We will hope so."

"You once liked him, Reggie."

"Yes, I did. He betrayed me in every way he could. He purposely quarreled with me. He wanted a free hand to follow out his own business ideas--which were not mine. But this is now idle talk. Neil will never be saved by people helping him. He must be left to help himself."

"That is hope enough to work on. Tell me now, exactly what to do."

Reginald's plans had long been perfected, and by the noon of the third day the beautiful home was nothing but bare walls and bare floors.

That same night, Reginald Rath and his sister left Glasgow by the midnight train, and the following morning, Bruce Kinlock, with his wife and five children, moved into the dismantled house, and in two days it was in a fairly habitable condition. There was, of course, confusion and a mult.i.tude of bustling servants and helpers, and a pretty, frail-looking little lady, sitting helplessly in a large chair, and Bruce ordering round, and five children in every place they ought not be, but there was universal good temper, and pleasurable excitement, and a brilliantly lighted house, when on the following Sat.u.r.day night, Neil drove up to his residence.

He thought, at first, that Mrs. Ruleson had a dinner party, then he remembered Roberta's reverence for the Sabbath, and knew she would not permit any dancing and feasting so near its daybreaking. The Sabbath observance was also his own strong religious tenet, he was an ardent supporter of Doctor Agnew and his extremist views, and therefore this illumination in the Ruleson mansion, so near to the Sabbath-day, offended him.

"Roberta knows that I am particular about my good name, and that I am jealously careful of the honor of the Sabbath, and yet--yet! Look at my house! It is lit up as if for a carnival of witches!" Then he hurried the cab man, and his keys being in his hand, he applied the latch-key to the lock. It would not move it, and the noise in the house amazed him. He rang the bell violently, and no one answered it.

He raged, and rang it again. There was plenty of movement in the house, and he could plainly hear a man's voice, and a guffaw of laughter. He kept the bell ringing, and kicked the door with his foot.

Then a pa.s.sionate voice asked what he wanted.

"I want to get in. This is my house."

"It is not your house. It never was your house."

"What number is this?"

"Twenty-three, Western Crescent. What Tomfool asks?"

"This is my house. Open the door, or I will call the police." He did call the policeman on the beat, and the man said, "A new family moved in yesterday, Sir, and I was taken from Hillside Crescent, only two days ago. I am on the night watch. I havena seen any o' them yet, but there seems to be a big lot o' them."

"Do you know where the family went, who lived in twenty-three previous to this new tenant?"

"I heard they went abroad--left in a great hurry, as it were."

Then Neil went back to the house, and rang the door bell with polite consideration. "The new-comers will certainly know more than the policeman," he thought, "and I can get no letter till Monday morning.

It will be very annoying to be in this doubt until then."

He had plenty of time for these reflections, for the bell was not noticed, and he rang again with a little more impetuosity. This time it was answered by a huge Highlander, with a dog by a leash, and a dogwhip in his hand; and Neil trembled with fear. He knew the man. He had once been his lawyer, and lost his case, and the man had accused him of selling his case. There was no proof of the wrong, none at all, and it was not believed by anyone except Reginald Rath, and even Roberta allowed he was too prejudiced to be fair. These circ.u.mstances pa.s.sed like a flash through Neil's heart, as Bruce Kinlock glared at him.

"How dare you show your face at my door?" he asked. "Be off, you whippersnapper, or I'll set the dog on you."

"I have always believed, until the present moment, that this was my house. Can you tell me where my family has removed to?"

"You never had any right in this house but the right of sufferance.

Honest Reginald Rath has taken your wife away--he's done right. Ye know well you are not fit company for the lady Roberta. As for your family, they have the pity of everyone. What kind of a brute is it that has not a s.h.i.+lling for a dying mother, though he's owing his family ninety pounds, and far more love than he deserves. Go, or it will be worse for you! You sneaking ne'er-do-well."

Kinlock had spoken with inconceivable pa.s.sion, and the very sight of the red-headed, gigantic Highlander, sputtering out words that cannot be written, and of the growling brute, that only required a relaxed hand to fly at his throat, made him faint with terror.

"I am sure, Mr. Kinlock----"

"How daur you 'mister' me? I am Kinlock, of Kinlock! You had better take yourself off. I'm at the end of my patience, and I cannot hold this kind of a brute much longer. And if he grabs any kind of a human being, he never lets go while there's life in him. I can't say how he would treat you--one dog does not eat another dog, as a rule." Then he clashed-to the door, and Neil was grateful. He did not ask again for it to be opened.

He went to his office. Perhaps there was a letter for him there. It was locked, and the man who kept the keys lived over the river.

Thoroughly weary and distressed, and full of anxious forebodings, he went to a hotel, and ordered supper in his own room. He did not feel as if he could look anyone in the face, with this dreadful uncertainty hanging over his life. What was the matter?

Thinking over things he came to no conclusion. It could not be his few words with Roberta on the night of his return from London. A few words of contradiction with Roberta were almost a daily occurrence, and she had always accepted such offers of conciliation as he made. And he was so morally obtuse that his treatment of his mother and sister, as influencing his wife, never entered his mind. What had Roberta to do with his mother and Christine? Suppose he had treated them cruelly, what right, or reason, had she to complain of that? Everything was personal to Neil, even moralities; he was too small to comprehend the great natural feelings which make all men kin. He thought Kinlock's reference to his dying mother a piece of far-fetched impertinence, but he understood very well the justice of Kinlock's personal hatred, and he laughed scornfully as he reflected on the Highlander's longing to strike him with the whip, and then set the dog to finish his quarrel.

"The Law! The gude Common Law o' Scotland has the like o' sic villains as Kinlock by the throat!" he said triumphantly. "He wad hae set the brute at my throat, if he hadna kent it wad put a rope round his ain red neck. I hae got to my Scotch," he remarked, "and that isna a good sign. I'll be getting a headache next thing. I'll awa' to bed, and to sleep. Monday will be a new day. I'll mebbe get some light then, on this iniquitous, unprecedented circ.u.mstance."

CHAPTER XI

CHRISTINE MISTRESS OF RULESON COTTAGE

Now, therefore, keep thy sorrow to thyself and bear with a good courage that which hath befallen thee.--Esdras ii, ch. 10, v. 15.

Be not afraid, neither doubt, for G.o.d is your guide.--Esdras i, ch. 16, v. 75.

It was a cold winter day at the end of January, and a streak of white rain was flying across the black sea. Christine stood at the window, gazing at her brother's old boat edging away to windward, under very small canvas. There was a wild carry overhead, out of the northeast, and she was hoping that Norman had noticed the tokens of the sky.

Margot saw her look of anxiety, and said: "You needna worry yoursel', Christine. Norman's boat is an auld-warld Buckie skiff. They're the auldest model on a' our coasts, and they can fend in a sea that would founder a whole fis.h.i.+ng fleet."

"I noticed Norman had lowered his mainsail and hoisted the mizzen in its place, and that he was edging away to windward."

"Ay, Norman kens what he must do, and he does it. That's his way. Ye needna fash anent Norman, he'll tak' his old Buckie skiff into a gale that yachts wi' their lockers fu' o' prizes wouldna daur to venture."