Macleod of Dare Part 2

"And how do you like the rooms I got for you?"

"There is not much fresh air about them, nor in this narrow street,"

Macleod said, frankly; "but that is no matter for I have been out all day--all over London."

"I thought the price was as high as you would care to go," Ogilvie said; "but I forgot you had come fresh up, with your pocket full of money. If you would like something a trifle more princely, I'll put you up to it."

"And where have I got the money? There are no gold mines in the west of Mull. It is you who are Fortunatus."

"By Jove, if you knew how hard a fellow is run at Aldershot," Mr.

Ogilvie remarked, confidentially, "you would scarcely believe it. Every new batch of fellows who come in have to be dined all round; and the mess bills are simply awful. It's getting worse and worse; and then these big drinks put one off one's work so."

"You are studying hard, I suppose," Macleod said, quite gravely.

"Pretty well," said he, stretching out his legs, and petting his pretty mustache with his beautiful white hand. Then he added, suddenly, surveying the brown-faced and stalwart young fellow before him, "By Jove, Macleod, I'm glad to see you in London. It's like a breath of mountain air. Don't I remember the awful mornings we've had together--the rain and the mist and the creeping through the bogs? I believe you did your best to kill me. If I hadn't had the const.i.tution of a horse, I should have been killed."

"I should say your big drinks at Aldershot were more likely to kill you than going after the deer," said Macleod, "And will you come up with me this autumn, Ogilvie? The mother will be glad to see you, and Janet, too; though we haven't got any fine young ladies for you to make love to, unless you go up to Fort William, or Fort George, or Inverness. And I was all over the moors before I came away; and if there is anything like good weather, we shall have plenty of birds this year, for I never saw before such a big average of eggs in the nests."

"I wonder you don't let part of that shooting," said young Ogilvie, who knew well of the straitened circ.u.mstances of the Macleods of Dare.

"The mother won't have it done," said Macleod, quite simply, "for she thinks it keeps me at home. But a young man cannot always stay at home.

It is very good for you, Ogilvie, that you have brothers."

"Yes, if I had been the eldest of them," said Mr. Ogilvie. "It is a capital thing to have younger brothers; it isn't half so pleasant when you are the younger brother."

"And will you come up, then, and bury yourself alive at Dare?"

"It is awfully good of you to ask me, Macleod; and if I can manage it, I will; but I am afraid there isn't much chance this year. In the meantime, let me give you a hint. In London we talk of going _down_ to the Highlands."

"Oh, do you? I did not think you were so stupid," Macleod remarked.

"Why, of course we do. You speak of going up to the capital of a country, and of going down to the provinces."

"Perhaps you are right--no doubt you are right; but it sounds stupid,"

the unconvinced Highlander observed again. "It sounds stupid to say going up to the south, and going down to the north. And how can you go down to the Highlands? You might go down to the Lowlands. But no doubt you are right; and I will be more particular. And will you have another cigarette? And then we will go out for a walk, and Oscar will get drier in the street than indoors."

"Don't imagine I am going out to have that dog plunging about among my feet," said Ogilvie. "But I have something else for you to do. You know Colonel Ross of Duntorme."

"I have heard of him."

"His wife is an awfully nice woman, and would like to meet you, I fancy they think of buying some property--I am not sure it isn't an island--in your part of the country; and she has never been to the Highlands at all. I was to take you down with me to lunch with her at two, if you care to go. There is her card."

Macleod looked at the card.

"How far is Prince's Gate from here?" he asked.

"A mile and a half, I should say."

"And it is now twenty minutes to two," said he, rising. "It will be a nice smart walk."

"Thank you," said Mr. Ogilvie; "if it is all the same to you, we will perform the journey in a hansom. I am not in training just at present for your tramps to Ben-an-Sloich."

"Ah! Your boots are rather tight," said Macleod, with grave sympathy.

They got into a hansom, and went spinning along through the crowd of carriages on this brilliant morning. The busy streets, the handsome women, the fine buildings, the bright and beautiful foliage of the parks--all these were a perpetual wonder and delight to the new-comer, who was as eager in the enjoyment of this gay world of pleasure and activity as any girl come up for her first season. Perhaps this notion occurred to the astute and experienced Lieutenant Ogilvie, who considered it his duty to warn his youthful and ingenuous friend.

"Mrs. Ross is a very handsome woman," he remarked.

"Indeed."

"And uncommonly fascinating, too, when she likes."

"Really."

"You had better look out, if she tries to fascinate you."

"She is a married woman," said Macleod.

"They are always the worst," said this wise person; "for they are jealous of the younger women."

"Oh, that is all nonsense," said Macleod, bluntly. "I am not such a greenhorn. I have read all that kind of talk in books and magazines: it is ridiculous. Do you think I will believe that married women have so little self-respect as to make themselves the laughing stock of men?"

"My dear fellow, they have cart-loads of self-respect. What I mean is, that Mrs. Ross is a bit of a lion-hunter, and she may take a fancy to make a lion of you--"

"That is better than to make an a.s.s of me, as you suggested."

"--And naturally she will try to attach you to her set. I don't think you are quite _outre_ enough for her; perhaps I made a mistake in putting you into decent clothes. You wouldn't have time to get into your kilts now? But you must be prepared to meet all sorts of queer folks at her house, especially if you stay on a bit and have some tea--mysterious poets that n.o.body ever heard of, and artists who won't exhibit, and awful swells from the German universities, and I don't know what besides--everybody who isn't the least like anybody else."

"And what is your claim, then, to go there?" Macleod asked.

"Oh," said the young lieutenant, laughing at the home-thrust, "I am only admitted on sufferance, as a friend of Colonel Ross. She never asked _me_ to put my name in her autograph-book. But I have done a bit of the jackal for her once or twice, when I happened to be on leave; and she has sent me with people to her box at Covent Garden when she couldn't go herself."

"And how am I to propitiate her? What am I to do?"

"She will soon let you know how you strike her. Either she will pet you, or she will snuff you out like winking. I don't know a woman who has a blanker stare, when she likes."

This idle conversation was suddenly interrupted. At the same moment both young men experienced a sinking sensation, as if the earth had been cut away from beneath their feet; then there was a crash, and they were violently thrown against each other; then they vaguely knew that the cab, heeling over, was being jolted along the street by a runaway horse.

Fortunately, the horse could not run very fast, for the axle-tree, deprived of its wheel, was tearing at the road; but, all the same, the occupants of the cab thought they might as well get out, and so they tried to force open the two small panels of the door in front of them.

But the concussion had so jammed these together that, shove at them as they might, they would not yield. At this juncture, Macleod, who was not accustomed to hansom cabs, and did not at all like this first experience of them, determined to get out somehow; and so he raised himself a bit, so as to get his back firm against the back of the vehicle; he pulled up his leg until his knee almost touched his mouth; he got the heel of his boot firmly fixed on the top edge of the door: and then with one forward drive he tore the panel right away from its hinges. The other was of course flung open at once. Then he grasped the bra.s.s rail outside, steadied himself for a moment, and jumped clear from the cab, lighting on the pavement. Strange to say, Ogilvie did not follow, though Macleod, as he rushed along to try to get hold of the horse, momentarily expected to see him jump out. His anxiety was of short duration. The axle-tree caught on the curb; there was a sudden lurch; and then, with a crash of gla.s.s, the cab went right over, throwing down the horse, and pitching the driver into the street. It was all the work of a few seconds; and another second seemed to suffice to collect a crowd, even in this quiet part of Kensington Gore. But, after all, very little damage was done, except to the horse, which had cut one of its hocks. When young Mr.

Ogilvie scrambled out and got on to the pavement, instead of being grateful that his life had been spared, he was in a towering pa.s.sion--with whom or what he knew not.

"Why didn't you jump out?" said Macleod to him, after seeing that the cabman was all right.

Ogilvie did not answer; he was looking at his besmeared hands and dishevelled clothes.

"Confound it!" said he; "what's to be done now? The house is just round the corner."

"Let us go in, and they will lend you a clothesbrush."

"As if I had been fighting a bargee? No, thank you. I will go along till I find some tavern, and get myself put to rights."