Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers Part 28

"May I have as fair hands to decorate my grave, Miss Catherine Carnegie," and the Doctor bowed gallantly; "but of one thing I am sure, I have done nothing to deserve it. Saunderson was a scholar of the ancient kind, and a very fine spirit."

"Don't you think," said Kate, "that he was . . . like a Kempis, I mean, and George Herbert, a kind of . . . saint?"

"Altogether one, I should say. I don't think he would have known port wine from sherry, or an _entree_ from a mutton chop; beside a man like that what worldly fellows you and I are, Jack, and mine is the greater shame."

"I'll have no comparisons, Padre"--Kate was a little puzzled by the tone in the Doctor's voice; "he was so good that I loved him; but there are some points in the General and you, quite nice points, and for the sake of them you shall have afternoon tea in my room," where the Doctor and the General fell on former days and were wonderful company.

"It's not really about the road I wish to talk to you," and the Doctor closed the door of the General's den, "but about . . . a terrible calamity that has befallen you and me, Jack, and I am to blame."

"What is it?" and Carnegie sat erect; "does it touch our name or . . .

Kate?"

"Neither, thank G.o.d," said Davidson.

"Then it cannot be so very bad. Let us have it at once," and the General lighted a cheroot.

"Our bank has failed, and we shall have to give up everything to pay the debt, and . . . Jack, it was I advised you to buy the shares." The Doctor rose and went to the window.

"For G.o.d's sake don't do that, Sandie. Why, man, you gave me the best advice you knew, and there 's an end of it. It's the fortune of war, and we must take it without whining. I know whom you are thinking about, and I am . . . a bit sorry for Kate, for she ought to have lots of things--more dresses and trinkets, you know. But Davidson, she 'll be the bravest of the three."

"You are right there, Jack. Kate is of the true grit, but . . . Tochty Lodge."

"Yes, it will hit us pretty hard to see the old place sold, if it comes to that, when I hoped to end my days here . . . but, man, it's our fate. Bit by bit we 've lost Drumtochty, till there were just the woods and the two farms left, and soon we 'll be out of the place--nothing left but our graves.

"Sandie, this is bad form, and . . . you 'll not hear this talk again; we 'll get a billet somewhere, and wherever it be, there 'll be a bed and a crust for you, old man;" and at the door the two held one another's hands for a second; that was all.

"So this was what you two conspirators were talking about downstairs, as if I could not be trusted. Did you think that I would faint, or perhaps weep? The padre deserves a good scolding, and as for you--"

Then Kate went over and cast an arm round her father's neck, whose face was quivering.

"It is rather a disappointment to leave the Lodge when we were getting it to our mind; but we 'll have a jolly little home somewhere, and I 'll get a chance of earning something. Dancing now--I think that I might be able to teach some girls how to waltz. Then my French is really intelligible, and most colloquial; besides revolver shooting.

Dad, we are on our way to a fortune, and at the worst you 'll have your curry and cheroots, and I 'll have a well-fitting dress. Voila, mon pere."

When the two Drumtochty men arrived next forenoon at the hall in Glasgow, where the shareholders had been summoned to receive particulars of their ruin, the dreary place was filled with a crowd representative of every cla.s.s in the community except the highest, whose wealth is in land, and the lowest, whose possessions are on their backs. There were city merchants, who could not conceal their chagrin that they had been befooled; countrymen, who seemed utterly dazed, as if the course of the seasons had been reversed; prosperous tradesmen, who were aggressive in appearance and wanted to take it out of somebody; widows, who could hardly restrain their tears, seeing before them nothing but starvation; clergymen, who were thinking of their boys taken from school and college. For a while the victims were silent, and watched with hungry eyes the platform door, and there was an eager rustle when some clerk came out and laid a bundle of papers on the table. This incident seemed to excite the meeting and set tongues loose. People began to talk to their neighbours explaining how they came to be connected with the bank, as if this were now a crime. One had inherited the shares and had never had resolution to sell them; another had been deceived by a friend and bought them; a third had taken over two shares for a bad debt. A minister thought that he must have been summoned by mistake, for he was simply a trustee on an estate which had shares, but he was plainly nervous about his position. An Ayrs.h.i.+re Bailie had only had his shares for six months, and he put it, to his circle, with munic.i.p.al eloquence, whether he could be held responsible for frauds of years' standing. No one argued with him, and indeed you might say anything you pleased, for each was so much taken up with his own case that he only listened to you that he might establish a claim in turn on your attention. Here and there a noisy and confident personage got a larger audience by professing to have private information. A second-rate stockbroker a.s.sured quite a congregation that the a.s.sets of the bank included an estate in Australia, which would more than pay the whole debt, and advised them to see that it was not flung away; and a Government pensioner mentioned casually in his neighbourhood, on the authority of one of the managers, that there was not that day a solvent bank in Scotland. The different conversations rise to a babel, various speakers enforce their views on the floor with umbrellas, one enthusiast exhorts his brother unfortunates from a chair, when suddenly there is a hush, and then in a painful silence the shareholders hang on the lips of the accountant, from whom they learn that things could not be worse, that the richest shareholder may be ruined, and that ordinary people will lose their last penny.

Speech again breaks forth, but now it is despairing, fierce, vindictive. One speaker storms against Government which allows public inst.i.tutions to defraud the public, and refers to himself as the widow and orphan, and another a.s.sails the directorate with bitter invective as liars and thieves, and insists on knowing whether they are to be punished. The game having now been unearthed, the pack follow in full cry. The tradesman tells with much gusto how one director asked the detectives for leave to have family prayers before he was removed, and then declares his conviction that when a man takes to praying you had better look after your watch. Ayrs.h.i.+re wished to inform the accountant and the authorities that the directors had conveyed to their wives and friends enormous sums which ought to be seized without delay. The air grew thick with upbraidings, complaints, cries for vengeance, till the place reeked with sordid pa.s.sions. Through all this ign.o.ble storm the Drumtochty men sat silent, amazed, disgusted, till at last the Doctor rose, and such authority was in his very appearance that with his first words he obtained a hearing.

"Mr. Accountant," he said, "and gentlemen, it appears to me as if under a natural provocation and suffering we are in danger of forgetting our due dignity and self-respect. We have been, as is supposed, the subjects of fraud on the part of those whom we trusted; that is a matter which the law will decide, and, if necessary, punish. If we have been betrayed, then the directors are in worse case than the shareholders, for we are not disgraced. The duty before us is plain, and must be discharged to our utmost ability. It is to go home and gather together our last penny for the payment of our debts, in order that at any rate those who have trusted us may not be disappointed.

Gentlemen, it is evident that we have lost our means; let us show to Scotland that there is something which cannot be taken from us by any fraud, and that we have retained our courage and our honour."

It was the General who led the applause so that the roof of the hall rang, but it is just to Ayrs.h.i.+re and the rest to say that they came to themselves--all men of the old Scottish breed--and followed close after with a mighty shout.

The sound of that speech went through Scotland and awoke the spirit of honest men in many places, so that the Doctor, travelling next day to Muirtown, third cla.s.s, with the General, and wedged in among a set of cattle dealers, was so abashed by their remarks as they read the _Caledonian_ that the General let out the secret.

"Yir hand, sir," said the chief among them, a mighty man at the Falkirk Tryst; "gin it bena a leeberty, ilka ane o's hes a sair fecht tae keep straicht in oor wy o' business, but ye 've gien 's a lift the day," and so they must needs all have a grip of the Doctor's hand, who took snuff with prodigality, while the General complained of the smoke from the engine.

Nor were their trials over, for on Muirtown platform--it being Friday--all kinds of Perths.h.i.+re men were gathered, and were so proud of our Doctor that before he got shelter in the Dunleith train his hand was sore, and the men that grasped it were of all kinds, from Lord Kilspindie--who, having missed him at the Manse, had come to catch him at the station--"Best sermon you ever preached, Davidson,"--to an Athole farmer--"I am an elder in the Free Kirk, but it iss this man that will be honouring you."

It was a fine instance of the unfailing tact of Peter Bruce that, seeing the carriage out of which the two came, and taking in the situation, he made no offer of the first cla.s.s, but straightway dusted out a third with his handkerchief, and escorted them to it cap in hand.

Drumtochty restrained itself with an effort in foreign parts--for Kildrummie was exceptionally strong at the Junction--but it waited at the terminus till the outer world had gone up the road. Then their own folk took the two in hand, and these were the guard of honour who escorted the Minister and the General to where our Kate was waiting with the dog-cart, each carrying some morsel of luggage--Drumsheugh, Burnbrae, Hillocks, Netherton, Jamie Soutar, and Archie Moncur. Kate drove gloriously through Kildrummie as if they had come from a triumph, and let it be said to the credit of that despised town, that, the news having come, every hat was lifted, but that which lasted till they got home, and till long afterwards, was the handshake of the Drumtochty men.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MARGET HOWE'S CONFESSIONAL.

When the General and Kate were loitering over breakfast the morning after the ovation, they heard the sound of a horse's feet on the gravel, and Donald came in with more his usual importance.

"It iss a messenger from Muirtown Castle, and he iss waiting to know whether there will be any answer." And Donald put one letter before the father and another before the daughter, both showing the Hay crest.

Kate's face whitened as she recognised the handwriting on her envelope, and she went over to the window seat of a turret in the corner of the room, while the General opened his letter, standing on a tiger-skin, with his back to the fireplace in the great hall. This is what he read:

MY DEAR CARNEGIE,--When men have fought together in the trenches before Sebastopol, as their ancestors have ridden side by side with Prince Charlie, I hope you will agree with me they need not stand on ceremony.

If I seem guilty of any indiscretion in what I am going to say, then you will pardon me for "Auld Lang Syne."

You have one daughter and I have one son, and so I do not need to tell you that he is very dear to me, and that I have often thought of his marriage, on which not only his own happiness so much depends, but also the future of our house and name. Very likely you have had some such thoughts about Kate, with this difference, that you would rather keep so winsome a girl with you, while I want even so good a son as Hay to be married whenever he can meet with one whom he loves, and who is worthy of him.

Hay never gave me an hour's anxiety, and has no entanglements of any kind, but on the subject of marriage I could make no impression. "Time enough," he would say, or "The other person has not turned up," and I was getting uneasy, for you and I are not so young as once we were.

You may fancy my satisfaction, therefore, when George came down from Drumtochty last August and told me he had found the "other person," and that she was my old friend Jack Carnegie's daughter. Of course I urged him to make sure of himself, but now he has had ample opportunities during your two visits, and he is quite determined that his wife is to be Kate or n.o.body.

It goes without saying that the Countess and I heartily approve Hay's choice and are charmed with Kate, who is as bonnie as she is high-spirited. She sustains the old traditions of her family, who were ever strong and true, and she has a clever tongue, which neither you nor I have, Jack, nor Hay either, good fellow though he be, and that is not a bad thing for a woman nowadays. They would make a handsome pair, as they ought, with such good-looking fathers, eh?

Well, I am coming to my point, for in those circ.u.mstances I want your help. What Miss Carnegie thinks of Hay we don't know, and unless I 'm much mistaken she will decide for herself, but is it too much to ask you--if you can--to say a word for him? You are quite right to think that no man is worthy of Kate, but she is bound to marry some day--I can't conceive how you have kept her so long--and I am certain Hay will make a good husband, and he is simply devoted to her. If she refuses him, I am afraid he will not marry, and then--well, grant I'm selfish, but it would be a calamity to us.

Don't you think that it looks like an arrangement of Providence to unite two families that have shared common dangers and common faith in the past, and to establish a Carnegie once more as lady of Drumtochty?

Now that is all, and it's a long screed, but the matter lies near my heart, and we shall wait the answers from you both with anxiety.

Yours faithfully,

KILSPINDIE.

Kate's letter was much shorter, and was written in big schoolboy hand with great care.

DEAR MISS CARNEGIE,--They say that a woman always knows when a man loves her, and if so you will not be astonished at this letter. From that day I saw you in Drumtochty Kirk I have loved you, and every week I love you more. My mother is the only other woman I have ever cared for, and that is different. Will you be my wife? I often wanted to ask you when you were with us in November and last month, but my heart failed me. Can you love me a little, enough to say yes? I am not clever, and I am afraid I shall never do anything to make you proud of me, but you will have all my heart, and I 'll do my best to make you happy.

I am, yours very sincerely,

HAY.

Carnegie could see Kate's face from his place, who was looking out of the window with a kindly expression, and her father, who was of a simple mind, and knew little of women, was encouraged by such visible friendliness. He was about to go over, when her face changed. She dropped the letter on the seat, and became very thoughtful, knitting her brows and resting her chin on her hand. In a little, something stung her--like a person recalling an injury--and she flushed with anger, drumming with her fingers on the sill of the window. Then anger gave place to sadness, as if she had resolved to do something that was inevitable, but less than the best. Kate glanced in her father's direction, and read Lord Hay's letter again; then she seemed to have made up her mind.

"Father," as she joined him on the skin beneath those loyal Carnegies on the wall, "there is Lord Hay's letter, and he is a . . . worthy gentleman. Perhaps I did not give him so much encouragement as he took, but that does not matter. This is a . . . serious decision, and ought not to be made on the spur of the moment. Will you let the messenger go with a note to say that an answer will be sent on Monday?

You might write to Lord Kilspindie."