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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Disentanglers, by Andrew Lang
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Disentanglers
+
+
+Author: Andrew Lang
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 8, 2005  [eBook #17031]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DISENTANGLERS***
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1903 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
+Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DISENTANGLERS
+by Andrew Lang
+
+
+with illustrations by H. J. Ford
+
+_Second Impression_
+
+Longmans, Green, and Co.
+39 Paternoster Row, London
+New York and Bombay
+1903
+
+TO HERBERT HILLS, ESQ.
+These Studies
+OF LIFE AND CHARACTER
+_ARE DEDICATED_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+It has been suggested to the Author that the incident of the Berbalangs,
+in The Adventure of the Fair American, is rather improbable.  He can only
+refer the sceptical to the perfectly genuine authorities cited in his
+footnotes.
+
+
+
+
+I.  THE GREAT IDEA
+
+
+The scene was a dusky shabby little room in Ryder Street.  To such caves
+many repair whose days are passed, and whose food is consumed, in the
+clubs of the adjacent thoroughfare of cooperative palaces, Pall Mall.  The
+furniture was battered and dingy; the sofa on which Logan sprawled had a
+certain historic interest: it was covered with cloth of horsehair, now
+seldom found by the amateur.  A bookcase with glass doors held a crowd of
+books to which the amateur would at once have flown.  They were in
+'boards' of faded blue, and the paper labels bore alluring names: they
+were all First Editions of the most desirable kind.  The bottles in the
+liqueur case were antique; a coat of arms, not undistinguished, was in
+relief on the silver stoppers.  But the liquors in the flasks were humble
+and conventional.  Merton, the tenant of the rooms, was in a Zingari
+cricketing coat; he occupied the arm-chair, while Logan, in evening
+dress, maintained a difficult equilibrium on the slippery sofa.  Both men
+were of an age between twenty-five and twenty-nine, both were pleasant to
+the eye.  Merton was, if anything, under the middle height: fair, slim,
+and active.  As a freshman he had coxed his College Eight, later he rowed
+Bow in that vessel.  He had won the Hurdles, but been beaten by his
+Cambridge opponent; he had taken a fair second in Greats, was believed to
+have been 'runner up' for the Newdigate prize poem, and might have won
+other laurels, but that he was found to do the female parts very fairly
+in the dramatic performances of the University, a thing irreconcilable
+with study.  His father was a rural dean.  Merton's most obvious vice was
+a thirst for general information.  'I know it is awfully bad form to know
+anything,' he had been heard to say, 'but everyone has his failings, and
+mine is occasionally useful.'
+
+Logan was tall, dark, athletic and indolent.  He was, in a way, the last
+of an historic Scottish family, and rather fond of discoursing on the
+ancestral traditions.  But any satisfaction that he derived from them
+was, so far, all that his birth had won for him.  His little patrimony
+had taken to itself wings.  Merton was in no better case.  Both, as they
+sat together, were gloomily discussing their prospects.
+
+In the penumbra of smoke, and the malignant light of an ill trimmed lamp,
+the Great Idea was to be evolved.  What consequences hung on the Great
+Idea!  The peace of families insured, at a trifling premium.  Innocence
+rescued.  The defeat of the subtlest criminal designers: undreamed of
+benefits to natural science!  But I anticipate.  We return to the
+conversation in the Ryder Street den.
+
+'It is a case of emigration or the workhouse,' said Logan.
+
+'Emigration!  What can you or I do in the Colonies?  They provide even
+their own ushers.  My only available assets, a little Greek and less
+Latin, are drugs in the Melbourne market,' answered Merton; 'they breed
+their own dominies.  Protection!'
+
+'In America they might pay for lessons in the English accent . . . ' said
+Logan.
+
+'But not,' said Merton, 'in the Scotch, which is yours; oh distant cousin
+of a marquis!  Consequently by rich American lady pupils "you are not one
+to be desired."'
+
+'Tommy, you are impertinent,' said Logan.  'Oh, hang it, where is there
+an opening, a demand, for the broken, the stoney broke?  A man cannot
+live by casual paragraphs alone.'
+
+'And these generally reckoned "too high-toned for our readers,"' said
+Merton.
+
+'If I could get the secretaryship of a golf club!' Logan sighed.
+
+'If you could get the Chancellorship of the Exchequer!  I reckon that
+there are two million applicants for secretaryships of golf clubs.'
+
+'Or a land agency,' Logan murmured.
+
+'Oh, be practical!' cried Merton.  'Be inventive!  Be modern!  Be up to
+date!  Think of something _new_!  Think of a felt want, as the
+Covenanting divine calls it: a real public need, hitherto but dimly
+present, and quite a demand without a supply.'
+
+'But that means thousands in advertisements,' said Logan, 'even if we ran
+a hair-restorer.  The ground bait is too expensive.  I say, I once knew a
+fellow who ground-baited for salmon with potted shrimps.'
+
+'Make a paragraph on him then,' said Merton.
+
+'But results proved that there was no felt want of potted shrimps--or not
+of a fly to follow.'
+
+'Your collaboration in the search, the hunt for money, the quest,
+consists merely in irrelevancies and objections,' growled Merton,
+lighting a cigarette.
+
+'Lucky devil, Peter Nevison.  Meets an heiress on a Channel boat, with
+4,000_l_. a year; and there he is.'  Logan basked in the reflected
+sunshine.
+
+'Cut by her people, though--and other people.  I could not have faced the
+row with her people,' said Merton musingly.
+
+'I don't wonder they moved heaven and earth, and her uncle, the bishop,
+to stop it.  Not eligible, Peter was not, however you took him,' Logan
+reflected.  'Took too much of this,' he pointed to the heraldic flask.
+
+'Well, _she_ took him.  It is not much that parents, still less
+guardians, can do now, when a girl's mind is made up.'
+
+'The emancipation of woman is the opportunity of the indigent male
+struggler.  Women have their way,' Logan reflected.
+
+'And the youth of the modern aged is the opportunity of our sisters, the
+girls "on the make,"' said Merton.  'What a lot of old men of title are
+marrying young women as hard up as we are!'
+
+'And then,' said Logan, 'the offspring of the deceased marchionesses make
+a fuss.  In fact marriage is always the signal for a family row.'
+
+'It is the infernal family row that I never could face.  I had a chance--'
+
+Merton seemed likely to drop into autobiography.
+
+'I know,' said Logan admonishingly.
+
+'Well, hanged if I could take it, and she--she could not stand it either,
+and both of us--'
+
+'Do not be elegiac,' interrupted Logan.  'I know.  Still, I am rather
+sorry for people's people.  The unruly affections simply poison the lives
+of parents and guardians, aye, and of the children too.  The aged are now
+so hasty and imprudent.  What would not Tala have given to prevent his
+Grace from marrying Mrs. Tankerville?'
+
+Merton leapt to his feet and smote his brow.
+
+'Wait, don't speak to me--a great thought flushes all my brain.  Hush!  I
+have it,' and he sat down again, pouring seltzer water into a half empty
+glass.
+
+'Have what?' asked Logan.
+
+'The Felt Want.  But the accomplices?'
+
+'But the advertisements!' suggested Logan.
+
+'A few pounds will cover _them_.  I can sell my books,' Merton sighed.
+
+'A lot of advertising your first editions will pay for.  Why, even to
+launch a hair-restorer takes--'
+
+'Oh, but,' Merton broke in, '_this_ want is so widely felt, acutely felt
+too: hair is not in it.  But where are the accomplices?'
+
+'If it is gentleman burglars I am not concerned.  No Raffles for me!  If
+it is venal physicians to kill off rich relations, the lives of the
+Logans are sacred to me.'
+
+'Bosh!' said Merton, 'I want "lady friends," as Tennyson says: nice
+girls, well born, well bred, trying to support themselves.'
+
+'What do you want _them_ for?  To support them?'
+
+'I want them as accomplices,' said Merton.  'As collaborators.'
+
+'Blackmail?' asked Logan.  'Has it come to this?  I draw the line at
+blackmail.  Besides, they would starve first, good girls would; or marry
+Lord Methusalem, or a beastly South African _richard_.'
+
+'Robert Logan of Restalrig, that should be'--Merton spoke
+impressively--'you know me to be incapable of practices, however
+lucrative, which involve taint of crime.  I do not prey upon the society
+which I propose to benefit.  But where are the girls?'
+
+'Where are they not?' Logan asked.  'Dawdling, as jesters, from country
+house to country house.  In the British Museum, verifying references for
+literary gents, if they can get references to verify.  Asking leave to
+describe their friends' parties in _The Leidy's News_.  Trying for places
+as golfing governesses, or bridge governesses, or gymnastic mistresses at
+girls' schools, or lady laundresses, or typewriters, or lady teachers of
+cookery, or pegs to hang costumes on at dress-makers'.  The most
+beautiful girl I ever saw was doing that once; I met her when I was
+shopping with my aunt who left her money to the Armenians.'
+
+'You kept up her acquaintance?  The girl's, I mean,' Merton asked.
+
+'We have occasionally met.  In fact--'
+
+'Yes, I know, as you said lately,' Merton remarked.  'That's one, anyhow,
+and there is Mary Willoughby, who got a second in history when I was up.
+_She_ would do.  Better business for her than the British Museum.  I know
+three or four.'
+
+'I know five or six.  But what for?' Logan insisted.
+
+'To help us in supplying the widely felt want, which is my discovery,'
+said Merton.
+
+'And that is?'
+
+'Disentanglers--of both sexes.  A large and varied staff, calculated to
+meet every requirement and cope with every circumstance.'  Merton quoted
+an unwritten prospectus.
+
+'I don't follow.  What the deuce is your felt want?'
+
+'What we were talking about.'
+
+'Ground bait for salmon?' Logan reverted to his idea.
+
+'No.  Family rows about marriages.  Nasty letters.  Refusals to recognise
+the choice of a son, a daughter, or a widowed but youthful old parent,
+among the upper classes.  Harsh words.  Refusals to allow meetings or
+correspondence.  Broken hearts.  Improvident marriages.  Preaching down a
+daughter's heart, or an aged parent's heart, or a nephew's, or a niece's,
+or a ward's, or anybody's heart.  Peace restored to the household.
+Intended marriage off, and nobody a penny the worse, unless--'
+
+'Unless what?' said Logan.
+
+'Practical difficulties,' said Merton, 'will occur in every enterprise.
+But they won't be to our disadvantage, the reverse--if they don't happen
+too often.  And we can guard against _that_ by a scientific process.'
+
+'Now will you explain,' Logan asked, 'or shall I pour this whisky and
+water down the back of your neck?'
+
+He rose to his feet, menace in his eye.
+
+'Bear fighting barred!  We are no longer boys.  We are men--broken men.
+Sit down, don't play the bear,' said Merton.
+
+'Well, explain, or I fire!'
+
+'Don't you see?  The problem for the family, for hundreds of families, is
+to get the undesirable marriage off without the usual row.  Very few
+people really like a row.  Daughter becomes anaemic; foreign cures are
+expensive and no good.  Son goes to the Devil or the Cape.  Aged and
+opulent, but amorous, parent leaves everything he can scrape together to
+disapproved of new wife.  Relations cut each other all round.  Not many
+people really enjoy that kind of thing.  They want a pacific
+solution--marriage off, no remonstrances.'
+
+'And how are you going to do it?'
+
+'Why,' said Merton, 'by a scientific and thoroughly organised system of
+disengaging or disentangling.  We enlist a lot of girls and fellows like
+ourselves, beautiful, attractive, young, or not so young, well connected,
+intellectual, athletic, and of all sorts of types, but all _broke_, all
+without visible means of subsistence.  They are people welcome in country
+houses, but travelling third class, and devilishly perplexed about how to
+tip the servants, how to pay if they lose at bridge, and so forth.  We
+enlist them, we send them out on demand, carefully selecting our agents
+to meet the circumstances in each case.  They go down and disentangle the
+amorous by--well, by entangling them.  The lovers are off with the old
+love, the love which causes all the worry, without being on with the new
+love--our agent.  The thing quietly fizzles out.'
+
+'Quietly!' Logan snorted.  'I like "quietly."  They would be on with the
+new love.  Don't you see, you born gomeral, that the person, man or
+woman, who deserts the inconvenient A.--I put an A. B. case--falls in
+love with your agent B., and your B. is, by the nature of the thing, more
+ineligible than A.--too poor.  A babe could see that.  You disappoint me,
+Merton.'
+
+'You state,' said Merton, 'one of the practical difficulties which I
+foresaw.  Not that it does not suit _us_ very well.  Our comrade and
+friend, man or woman, gets a chance of a good marriage, and, Logan, there
+is no better thing.  But parents and guardians would not stand much of
+that: of people marrying our agents.'
+
+'Of course they wouldn't.  Your idea is crazy.'
+
+'Wait a moment,' said Merton.  'The resources of science are not yet
+exhausted.  You have heard of the epoch-making discovery of Jenner, and
+its beneficent results in checking the ravages of smallpox, that scourge
+of the human race?'
+
+'Oh don't talk like a printed book,' Logan remonstrated.  'Everybody has
+heard of vaccination.'
+
+'And you are aware that similar prophylactic measures have been adopted,
+with more or less of success, in the case of other diseases?'
+
+'I am aware,' said Logan, 'that you are in danger of personal suffering
+at my hands, as I already warned you.'
+
+'What is love but a disease?' Merton asked dreamily.  'A French _savant_,
+Monsieur Janet, says that nobody ever falls in love except when he is a
+little bit off colour: I forget the French equivalent.'
+
+'I am coming for you,' Logan arose in wrath.
+
+'Sit down.  Well, your objection (which it did not need the eyes of an
+Argus to discover) is that the patients, the lovers young, whose loves
+are disapproved of by the family, will fall in love with our agents,
+insist on marrying _them_, and so the last state of these afflicted
+parents--or children--will be worse than the first.  Is that your
+objection?'
+
+'Of course it is; and crushing at that,' Logan replied.
+
+'Then science suggests prophylactic measures: something akin to
+vaccination,' Merton explained.  'The agents must be warranted "immune."
+Nice new word!'
+
+'How?'
+
+'The object,' Merton answered, 'is to make it impossible, or highly
+improbable, that our agents, after disentangling the affections of the
+patients, curing them of one attack, will accept their addresses, offered
+in a second fit of the fever.  In brief, the agents must not marry the
+patients, or not often.'
+
+'But how can you prevent them if they want to do it?'
+
+'By a process akin, in the emotional region of our strangely blended
+nature, to inoculation.'
+
+'Hanged if I understand you.  You keep on repeating yourself.  You
+dodder!'
+
+'Our agents must have got the disease already, the pretty fever; and be
+safe against infection.  There must be on the side of the agent a prior
+attachment.  Now, don't interrupt, there always _is_ a prior attachment.
+You are in love, I am in love, he, she, and they, all of the broken
+brigade, are in love; all the more because they have not a chance.
+"Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth."  So,
+you see, our agents will be quite safe not to crown the flame of the
+patients, not to accept them, if they do propose, or expect a proposal.
+"Every security from infection guaranteed."  There is the felt want.  Here
+is the remedy; not warranted absolutely painless, but salutary, and
+tending to the amelioration of the species.  So we have only to enlist
+the agents, and send a few advertisements to the papers.  My first
+editions must go.  Farewell Shelley, Tennyson, Keats, uncut Waverleys,
+Byron, _The Waltz_, early Kiplings (at a vast reduction on account of the
+overflooded state of the market).  Farewell Kilmarnock edition of Burns,
+and Colonel Lovelace, his _Lucasta_, and _Tamerlane_ by Mr. Poe, and the
+rest.  The money must be raised.'  Merton looked resigned.
+
+'I have nothing to sell,' said Logan, 'but an entire set of clubs by
+Philp.  Guaranteed unique, and in exquisite condition.'
+
+'You must part with them,' said Merton.  'We are like Palissy the potter,
+feeding his furnace with the drawing-room furniture.'
+
+'But how about the recruiting?' Logan asked.  'It's like one of these
+novels where you begin by collecting desperados from all quarters, and
+then the shooting commences.'
+
+'Well, we need not ransack the Colonies,' Merton replied.  'Patronise
+British industries.  We know some fellows already and some young women.'
+
+'I say,' Logan interrupted, 'what a dab at disentangling Lumley would
+have been if he had not got that Professorship of Toxicology at
+Edinburgh, and been able to marry Miss Wingan at last!'
+
+'Yes, and Miss Wingan would have been useful.  What a lively girl, ready
+for everything,' Merton replied.
+
+'But these we can still get at,' Logan asked: 'how are you to be sure
+that they are--vaccinated?'
+
+'The inquiry is delicate,' Merton admitted, 'but the fact may be almost
+taken for granted.  We must give a dinner (a preliminary expense) to
+promising collaborators, and champagne is a great promoter of success in
+delicate inquiries.  _In vino veritas_.'
+
+'I don't know if there is money in it, but there is a kind of larkiness,'
+Logan admitted.
+
+'Yes, I think there will be larks.'
+
+'About the dinner?  We are not to have Johnnies disguised as hansom
+cabbies driving about, and picking up men and women that look the right
+sort, in the streets, and compelling them to come in?'
+
+'Oh no, _that_ expense we can cut.  It would not do with the women,
+obviously: heavens, what queer fishes that net would catch!  The flag of
+the Disentanglers shall never be stained by--anything.  You know some
+likely agents: I know some likely agents.  They will suggest others, as
+our field of usefulness widens.  Of course there is the oath of secrecy:
+we shall administer that after dinner to each guest apart.'
+
+'Jolly difficult for those that are mixed up with the press to keep an
+oath of secrecy!'  Logan spoke as a press man.
+
+'We shall only have to do with gentlemen and ladies.  The oath is not
+going to sanction itself with religious terrors.  Good form--we shall
+appeal to a "sense of form"--now so widely diffused by University
+Extension Lectures on the Beautiful, the Fitting, the--'
+
+'Oh shut up!' cried Logan.  'You always haver after midnight.  For, look
+here, here is an objection; this precious plan of yours, parents and
+others could work it for themselves.  I dare say they do.  When they see
+the affections of a son, or a daughter, or a bereaved father beginning to
+stray towards A., they probably invite B. to come and stay and act as a
+lightning conductor.  They don't need us.'
+
+'Oh, don't they?  They seldom have an eligible and satisfactory lightning
+conductor at hand, somebody to whom they can trust their dear one.  Or,
+if they have, the dear one has already been bored with the intended
+lightning conductor (who is old, or plain, or stupid, or familiar, at
+best), and they won't look at him or her.  Now our Disentanglers are not
+going to be plain, or dull, or old, or stale, or commonplace--we'll take
+care of that.  My dear fellow, don't you know how dismal the _parti_
+selected for a man or girl invariably is?  Now _we_ provide a different
+and superior article, a _fresh_ article too, not a familiar bore or a
+neighbour.'
+
+'Well, there is a good deal in that, as you say,' Logan admitted.  'But
+decent people will think the whole speculation shady.  How are you to get
+round that?  There is something you have forgotten.'
+
+'What?' Merton asked.
+
+'Why it stares you in the face.  References.  Unexceptionable references;
+people will expect them all round.'
+
+'Please don't say "unexceptionable"; say "references beyond the reach of
+cavil."'  Merton was a purist.  'It costs more in advertisements, but my
+phrase at once enlists the sympathy of every liberal and elegant mind.
+But as to references (and I am glad that you have some common sense,
+Logan), there is, let me see, there is the Dowager.'
+
+'The divine Althaea--Marchioness of Bowton?'
+
+'The same,' said Merton.  'The oldest woman, and the most recklessly up-
+to-date in London.  She has seen _bien d'autres_, and wants to see more.'
+
+'She will do; and my aunt,' Logan said.
+
+'Not, oh, of course not, the one who left her money to the Armenians?'
+Merton asked.
+
+'No, another.  And there's old Lochmaben's young wife, my cousin, widely
+removed, by marriage.  She is American, you know, and perhaps you know
+her book, _Social Experiments_?'
+
+'Yes, it is not half bad,' Merton conceded, 'and her heart will be in
+what I fear she will call "the new departure."  And she is pretty, and
+highly respected in the parish.'
+
+'And there's my aunt I spoke of, or great aunt, Miss Nicky Maxwell.  The
+best old thing: a beautiful monument of old gentility, and she would give
+her left hand to help any one of the clan.'
+
+'She will do.  And there's Mrs. Brown-Smith, Lord Yarrow's daughter, who
+married the patent soap man.  _Elle est capable de tout_.  A real good
+woman, but full of her fun.'
+
+'That will do for the lady patronesses.  We must secure them at once.'
+
+'But won't the clients blab?' Logan suggested.
+
+'They can't,' Merton said.  'They would be laughed at consumedly.  It
+will be their interest to hold their tongues.'
+
+'Well, let us hope that they will see it in that light.'  Logan was not
+too sanguine.
+
+Merton had a better opinion of his enterprise.
+
+'People, if they come to us at all for assistance in these very delicate
+and intimate affairs, will have too much to lose by talking about them.
+They may not come, we can only try, but if they come they will be silent
+as the grave usually is.'
+
+'Well, it is late, and the whisky is low,' said Logan in mournful tones.
+'May the morrow's reflections justify the inspiration of--the whisky.
+Good night!'
+
+'Good night,' said Merton absently.
+
+He sat down when Logan had gone, and wrote a few notes on large sheets of
+paper.  He was elaborating the scheme.  'If collaboration consists in
+making objections, as the French novelist said, Logan is a rare
+collaborator,' Merton muttered as he turned out the pallid lamp and went
+to bed.
+
+Next morning, before dressing, he revolved the scheme.  It bore the
+change of light and survived the inspiration of alcohol.  Logan looked in
+after breakfast.  He had no new objections.  They proceeded to action.
+
+
+
+
+II.  FROM THE HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES
+
+
+The first step towards Merton's scheme was taken at once.  The lady
+patronesses were approached.  The divine Althaea instantly came in.  She
+had enjoyed few things more since the Duchess of Richmond's ball on the
+eve of Waterloo.  Miss Nicky Maxwell at first professed a desire to open
+her coffers, 'only anticipating,' she said, 'an event'--which Logan
+declined in any sense to anticipate.  Lady Lochmaben said that they would
+have a lovely time as experimental students of society.  Mrs. Brown-Smith
+instantly offered her own services as a Disentangler, her lord being then
+absent in America studying the negro market for detergents.
+
+'I think,' she said, 'he expects Brown-Smith's brand to make an Ethiopian
+change his skin, and then means to exhibit him as an advertisement.'
+
+'And settle the negro question by making them all white men,' said Logan,
+as he gracefully declined the generous but compromising proposal of the
+lady.  'Yet, after all,' thought he, 'is she not right?  The prophylactic
+precautions would certainly be increased, morally speaking, if the
+Disentanglers were married.'  But while he pigeon-holed this idea for
+future reference, at the moment he could not see his way to accepting
+Mrs. Brown-Smith's spirited idea.  She reluctantly acquiesced in his view
+of the case, but, like the other dames, promised to guarantee, if applied
+to, the absolute respectability of the enterprise.  The usual vows of
+secrecy were made, and (what borders on the supernatural) they were kept.
+
+Merton's first editions went to Sotheby's, 'Property of a gentleman who
+is changing his objects of collection.'  A Russian archduke bought
+Logan's unique set of golf clubs by Philp.  Funds accrued from other
+sources.  Logan had a friend, dearer friend had no man, one Trevor, a
+pleasant bachelor whose sister kept house for him.  His purse, or rather
+his cheque book, gaped with desire to be at Logan's service, but had
+gaped in vain.  Finding Logan grinning one day over the advertisement
+columns of a paper at the club, his prophetic soul discerned a good
+thing, and he wormed it out 'in dern privacy.'  He slapped his manly
+thigh and insisted on being in it--as a capitalist.  The other stoutly
+resisted, but was overcome.
+
+'You need an office, you need retaining fees, you need outfits for the
+accomplices, and it is a legitimate investment.  I'll take interest and
+risks,' said Trevor.
+
+So the money was found.
+
+The inaugural dinner, for the engaging of accomplices, was given in a
+private room of a restaurant in Pall Mall.
+
+The dinner was gay, but a little pathetic.  Neatness, rather than the
+gloss of novelty (though other gloss there was), characterised the
+garments of the men.  The toilettes of the women were modest; that amount
+of praise (and it is a good deal) they deserved.  A young lady, Miss
+Maskelyne, an amber-hued beauty, who practically lived as a female jester
+at the houses of the great, shone resplendent, indeed, but magnificence
+of apparel was demanded by her profession.
+
+'I am _so_ tired of it,' she said to Merton.  'Fancy being more and more
+anxious for country house invitations.  Fancy an artist's feelings, when
+she knows she has not been a success.  And then when the woman of the
+house detests you!  She often does.  And when they ask you to give your
+imitation of So-and-so, and forget that his niece is in the room!  Do you
+know what they would have called people like me a hundred years ago?  Toad-
+eaters!  There is one of us in an old novel I read a bit of once.  She
+goes about, an old maid, to houses.  Once she arrived in a snow storm and
+a hearse.  Am I to come to that?  I keep learning new drawing-room
+tricks.  And when you fall ill, as I did at Eckford, and you can't leave,
+and you think they are tired to death of you!  Oh, it is I who am tired,
+and time passes, and one grows old.  I am a hag!'
+
+Merton said 'what he ought to have said,' and what, indeed, was true.  He
+was afraid she would tell him what she owed her dress-makers.  Therefore
+he steered the talk round to sport, then to the Highlands, then to
+Knoydart, then to Alastair Macdonald of Craigiecorrichan, and then Merton
+knew, by a tone in the voice, a drop of the eyelashes, that Miss
+Maskelyne was--vaccinated.  Prophylactic measures had been taken: this
+agent ran no risk of infection.  There was Alastair.
+
+Merton turned to Miss Willoughby, on his left.  She was tall, dark,
+handsome, but a little faded, and not plump: few of the faces round the
+table were plump and well liking.  Miss Willoughby, in fact, dwelt in one
+room, in Bloomsbury, and dined on cocoa and bread and butter.  These were
+for her the rewards of the Higher Education.  She lived by copying
+crabbed manuscripts.
+
+'Do you ever go up to Oxford now?' said Merton.
+
+'Not often.  Sometimes a St. Ursula girl gets a room in the town for me.
+I have coached two or three of them at little reading parties.  It gets
+one out of town in autumn: Bloomsbury in August is not very fresh.  And
+at Oxford one can "tout," or "cadge," for a little work.  But there are
+so many of us.'
+
+'What are you busy with just now?'
+
+'Vatican transcripts at the Record Office.'
+
+'Any exciting secrets?'
+
+'Oh no, only how much the priests here paid to Rome for their promotions.
+Secrets then perhaps: not thrilling now.'
+
+'No schemes to poison people?'
+
+'Not yet: no plots for novels, and oh, such long-winded pontifical Latin,
+and such awful crabbed hands.'
+
+'It does not seem to lead to much?'
+
+'To nothing, in no way.  But one is glad to get anything.'
+
+'Jephson, of Lincoln, whom I used to know, is doing a book on the Knights
+of St. John in their Relations to the Empire,' said Merton.
+
+'Is he?' said Miss Willoughby, after a scarcely distinguishable but
+embarrassed pause, and she turned from Merton to exhibit an interest in
+the very original scheme of mural decoration behind her.
+
+'It is quite a new subject to most people,' said Merton, and he mentally
+ticked off Miss Willoughby as safe, for Jephson, whom he had heard that
+she liked, was a very poor man, living on his fellowship and coaching.  He
+was sorry: he had never liked or trusted Jephson.
+
+'It is a subject sure to create a sensation, isn't it?' asked Miss
+Willoughby, a little paler than before.
+
+'It might get a man a professorship,' said Merton.
+
+'There are so many of us, of them, I mean,' said Miss Willoughby, and
+Merton gave a small sigh.  'Not much larkiness here,' he thought, and
+asked a transient waiter for champagne.
+
+Miss Willoughby drank a little of the wine: the colour came into her
+face.
+
+'By Jove, she's awfully handsome,' thought Merton.
+
+'It was very kind of you to ask me to this festival,' said the girl.  'Why
+have you asked us, me at least?'
+
+'Perhaps for many besides the obvious reason,' said Merton.  'You may be
+told later.'
+
+'Then there is a reason in addition to that which most people don't find
+obvious?  Have you come into a fortune?'
+
+'No, but I am coming.  My ship is on the sea and my boat is on the
+shore.'
+
+'I see faces that I know.  There is that tall handsome girl, Miss
+Markham, with real gold hair, next Mr. Logan.  We used to call her the
+Venus of Milo, or Milo for short, at St. Ursula's.  She has mantles and
+things tried on her at Madame Claudine's, and stumpy purchasers argue
+from the effect (neglecting the cause) that the things will suit _them_.
+Her people were ruined by Australian gold mines.  And there is Miss
+Martin, who does stories for the penny story papers at a shilling the
+thousand words.  The fathers have backed horses, and the children's teeth
+are set on edge.  Is it a Neo-Christian dinner?  We are all so poor.  You
+have sought us in the highways and hedges.'
+
+'Where the wild roses grow,' said Merton.
+
+'I don't know many of the men, though I see faces that one used to see in
+the High.  There is Mr. Yorker, the athletic man.  What is he doing now?'
+
+'He is sub-vice-secretary of a cricket club.  His income depends on his
+bat and his curl from leg.  But he has a rich aunt.'
+
+'Cricket does not lead to much, any more than my ability to read the
+worst handwritings of the darkest ages.  Who is the man that the
+beautiful lady opposite is making laugh so?' asked Miss Willoughby,
+without moving her lips.
+
+Merton wrote 'Bulstrode of Trinity' on the back of the menu.
+
+'What does _he_ do?'
+
+'Nothing,' said Merton in a low voice.  'Been alligator farming, or
+ostrich farming, or ranching, and come back shorn; they all come back.  He
+wants to be an ecclesiastical "chucker out," and cope with Mr. Kensitt
+and Co.  New profession.'
+
+'He ought not to be here.  He can ride and shoot.'
+
+'He is the only son of his mother and she is a widow.'
+
+'He ought to go out.  My only brother is out.  I wish I were a man.  I
+hate dawdlers.'  She looked at him: her eyes were large and grey under
+black lashes, they were dark and louring.
+
+'Have you, by any chance, a spark of the devil in you?' asked Merton,
+taking a social header.
+
+'I have been told so, and sometimes thought so,' said Miss Willoughby.
+'Perhaps this one will go out by fasting if not by prayer.  Yes, I _have_
+a spark of the Accuser of the Brethren.'
+
+'_Tant mieux_,' thought Merton.
+
+All the people were talking and laughing now.  Miss Maskelyne told a
+story to the table.  She did a trick with a wine glass, forks, and a
+cork.  Logan interviewed Miss Martin, who wrote tales for the penny
+fiction people, on her methods.  Had she a moral aim, a purpose?  Did she
+create her characters first, and let them evolve their fortunes, or did
+she invent a plot, and make her characters fit in?
+
+Miss Martin said she began with a situation: 'I wish I could get one
+somewhere as secretary to a man of letters.'
+
+'They can't afford secretaries,' said Logan.  'Besides they are family
+men, married men, and so--'
+
+'And so what?'
+
+'Go look in any glass, and say,' said Logan, laughing.  'But how do you
+begin with a situation?'
+
+'Oh, anyhow.  A lot of men in a darkened room.  Pitch dark.'
+
+'A seance?'
+
+'No, a conspiracy.  They are in the dark that when arrested they may
+swear they never saw each other.'
+
+'They could swear that anyhow.'
+
+'Conspirators have consciences.  Then there comes a red light shining
+between the door and the floor.  Then the door breaks down under a
+hammer, the light floods the room.  There is a man in it whom the others
+never saw enter.'
+
+'How did he get in?'
+
+'He was there before they came.  Then the fighting begins.  At the end of
+it where is the man?'
+
+'Well, where is he?  What was he up to?'
+
+'I don't know yet,' said Miss Martin, 'it just comes as I go on.  It has
+just got to come.  It is a fourteen hours a day business.  All writing.  I
+crib things from the French.  Not whole stories.  I take the opening
+situation; say the two men in a boat on the river who hook up a sack.  I
+don't read the rest of the Frenchman, I work on from the sack, and guess
+what was in it.'
+
+'What was in the sack?'
+
+'_In the Sack_!  A name for a story!  Anything, from the corpse of a
+freak (good idea, corpse of a freak with no arms and legs, or with too
+many) to a model of a submarine ship, or political papers.  But I am
+tired of corpses.  They pervade my works.  They give "a _bouquet_, a
+fragrance," as Mr. Talbot Twysden said about his cheap claret.'
+
+'You read the old Masters?'
+
+'The obsolete Thackeray?  Yes, I know him pretty well.'
+
+'What are you publishing just now?'
+
+'This to an author?  Don't you know?'
+
+'I blush,' said Logan.
+
+'Unseen,' said Miss Martin, scrutinising him closely.
+
+'Well, you do not read the serials to which I contribute,' she went on.
+'I have two or three things running.  There is _The Judge's Secret_.'
+
+'What was that?'
+
+'He did it himself.'
+
+'Did what?'
+
+'Killed the bishop.  He is not a very plausible judge in English: in
+French he would be all right, a _juge d'instruction_, the man who cross-
+examines the prisoners in private, you know.'
+
+'Judges don't do that in England,' said Logan.
+
+'No, but this case is an exception.  The judge was such a very old
+friend, a college friend, of the murdered bishop.  So he takes advantage
+of his official position, and steals into the cell of the accused.  My
+public does not know any better, and, of course, I have no reviewers.  I
+never come out in a book.'
+
+'And why did the judge assassinate the prelate?'
+
+'The prelate knew too much about the judge, who sat in the Court of
+Probate and Divorce.'
+
+'Satan reproving sin?' asked Logan.
+
+'Yes, exactly; and the bishop being interested in the case--'
+
+'No scandal about Mrs. Proudie?'
+
+'No, not that exactly, still, you see the motive?'
+
+'I do,' said Logan.  'And the conclusion?'
+
+'The bishop was not really dead at all.  It takes some time to explain.
+The _corpus delicti_--you see I know my subject--was somebody else.  And
+the bishop was alive, and secretly watching the judge, disguised as Mr.
+Sherlock Holmes.  Oh, I know it is too much in Dickens's manner.  But my
+public has not read Dickens.'
+
+'You interest me keenly' said Logan.
+
+'I am glad to hear it.  And the penny public take freely.  Our
+circulation goes up.  I asked for a rise of three pence on the thousand
+words.'
+
+'Now this _is_ what I call literary conversation,' said Logan.  'It is
+like reading _The British Weekly Bookman_.  Did you get the threepence?
+if the inquiry is not indelicate.'
+
+'I got twopence.  But, you see, there are so many of us.'
+
+'Tell me more.  Are you serialising anything else?'
+
+'Serialising is the right word.  I see you know a great deal about
+literature.  Yes, I am serialising a featured tale.'
+
+'A featured tale?'
+
+'You don't know what that is?  You do not know everything yet!  It is
+called _Myself_.'
+
+'Why _Myself_?'
+
+'Oh, because the narrator did it--the murder.  A stranger is found in a
+wood, hung to a tree.  Nobody knows who he is.  But he and the narrator
+had met in Paraguay.  He, the murdered man, came home, visited the
+narrator, and fell in love with the beautiful being to whom the narrator
+was engaged.  So the narrator lassoed him in a wood.'
+
+'Why?'
+
+'Oh, the old stock reason.  He knew too much.'
+
+'What did he know?'
+
+'Why, that the narrator was living on a treasure originally robbed from a
+church in South America.'
+
+'But, if it _was_ a treasure, who would care?'
+
+'The girl was a Catholic.  And the murdered man knew more.'
+
+'How much more?'
+
+'This: to find out about the treasure, the narrator had taken priest's
+orders, and, of course, could not marry.  And the other man, being in
+love with the girl, threatened to tell, and so the lasso came in handy.
+It is a Protestant story and instructive.'
+
+'Jolly instructive!  But, Miss Martin, you are the Guy Boothby of your
+sex!'
+
+At this supreme tribute the girl blushed like dawn upon the hills.
+
+'My word, she is pretty!' thought Logan; but what he said was, 'You know
+Mr. Tierney, your neighbour?  Out of a job as a composition master.
+Almost reduced to University Extension Lectures on the didactic Drama.'
+
+Tierney was talking eagerly to his neighbour, a fascinating lady
+laundress, _la belle blanchisseuse_, about starch.
+
+Further off a lady instructress in cookery, Miss Frere, was conversing
+with a tutor of bridge.
+
+'Tierney,' said Logan, in a pause, 'may I present you to Miss Martin?'
+Then he turned to Miss Markham, formerly known at St. Ursula's as Milo.
+She had been a teacher of golf, hockey, cricket, fencing, and gymnastics,
+at a very large school for girls, in a very small town.  Here she became
+society to such an alarming extent (no party being complete without her,
+while the colonels and majors never left her in peace), that her
+connection with education was abruptly terminated.  At present raiment
+was draped on her magnificent shoulders at Madame Claudine's.  Logan, as
+he had told Merton, 'occasionally met her,' and Logan had the strongest
+reasons for personal conviction that she was absolutely proof against
+infection, in the trying circumstances to which a Disentangler is
+professionally exposed.  Indeed she alone of the women present knew from
+Logan the purpose of the gathering.
+
+Cigarettes had replaced the desire of eating and drinking.  Merton had
+engaged a withdrawing room, where he meant to be closeted with his
+guests, one by one, administer the oath, and prosecute delicate inquiries
+on the important question of immunity from infection.  But, after a
+private word or two with Logan, he deemed these conspicuous formalities
+needless.  'We have material enough to begin with,' said Logan.  'We knew
+beforehand that some of the men were safe, and certain of the women.'
+
+There was a balcony.  The providence of nature had provided a full moon,
+and a night of balm.  The imaginative maintained that the scent of hay
+was breathed, among other odours, over Pall Mall the Blest.  Merton kept
+straying with one guest or another into a corner of the balcony.  He
+hinted that there was a thing in prospect.  Would the guest hold himself,
+or herself, ready at need?  Next morning, if the promise was given, the
+guest might awake to peace of conscience.  The scheme was beneficent,
+and, incidentally, cheerful.
+
+To some he mentioned retainers; money down, to speak grossly.  Most
+accepted on the strength of Merton's assurances that their services must
+always be ready.  There were difficulties with Miss Willoughby and Miss
+Markham.  The former lady (who needed it most) flatly refused the
+arrangement.  Merton pleaded in vain.  Miss Markham, the girl known to
+her contemporaries as Milo, could not hazard her present engagement at
+Madame Claudine's.  If she was needed by the scheme in the dead season
+she thought that she could be ready for whatever it was.
+
+Nobody was told exactly what the scheme was.  It was only made clear that
+nobody was to be employed without the full and exhaustive knowledge of
+the employers, for whom Merton and Logan were merely agents.  If in
+doubt, the agents might apply for counsel to the lady patronesses, whose
+very names tranquilised the most anxious inquirers.  The oath was
+commuted for a promise, on honour, of secrecy.  And, indeed, little if
+anything was told that could be revealed.  The thing was not political:
+spies on Russia or France were not being recruited.  That was made
+perfectly clear.  Anybody might withdraw, if the prospect, when beheld
+nearer, seemed undesirable.  A mystified but rather merry gathering
+walked away to remote lodgings, Miss Maskelyne alone patronising a
+hansom.
+
+On the day after the dinner Logan and Merton reviewed the event and its
+promise, taking Trevor into their counsels.  They were not ill satisfied
+with the potential recruits.
+
+'There was one jolly little thing in white,' said Trevor.  'So pretty and
+flowering!  "Cherries ripe themselves do cry," a line in an old song,
+that's what her face reminded me of.  Who was she?'
+
+'She came with Miss Martin, the penny novelist,' said Logan.  'She is
+stopping with her.  A country parson's daughter, come up to town to try
+to live by typewriting.'
+
+'She will be of no use to us,' said Merton.  'If ever a young woman
+looked fancy-free it is that girl.  What did you say her name is, Logan?'
+
+'I did not say, but, though you won't believe it, her name is Miss
+Blossom, Miss Florry Blossom.  Her godfathers and godmothers must bear
+the burden of her appropriate Christian name; the other, the surname, is
+a coincidence--designed or not.'
+
+'Well, she is not suitable,' said Merton sternly.  'Misplaced affections
+she might distract, but then, after she had distracted them, she might
+reciprocate them.  As a conscientious manager I cannot recommend her to
+clients.'
+
+'But,' said Trevor, 'she may be useful for all that, as well as decidedly
+ornamental.  Merton, you'll want a typewriter for your business
+correspondence, and Miss Blossom typewrites: it is her profession.'
+
+'Well,' said Merton, 'I am not afraid.  I do not care too much for "that
+garden in her face," for your cherry-ripe sort of young person.  If a
+typewriter is necessary I can bear with her as well as another.'
+
+'I admire your courage and resignation,' said Trevor, 'so now let us go
+and take rooms for the Society.'
+
+They found rooms, lordly rooms, which Trevor furnished in a stately
+manner, hanging a selection of his mezzotints on the walls--ladies of old
+years, after Romney, Reynolds, Hoppner, and the rest.  A sober opulence
+and comfort characterised the chambers; a well-selected set of books in a
+Sheraton bookcase was intended to beguile the tedium of waiting clients.
+The typewriter (Miss Blossom accepted the situation) occupied an inner
+chamber, opening out of that which was to be sacred to consultations.
+
+The firm traded under the title of Messrs. Gray and Graham.  Their
+advertisement--in all the newspapers--addressed itself 'To Parents,
+Guardians, Children and others.'  It set forth the sorrows and anxieties
+which beset families in the matter of undesirable matrimonial engagements
+and entanglements.  The advertisers proposed, by a new method, to restore
+domestic peace and confidence.  'No private inquiries will, in any case,
+be made into the past of the parties concerned.  The highest references
+will in every instance be given and demanded.  Intending clients must in
+the first instance apply by letter to Messrs. Gray and Graham.  No charge
+will be made for a first interview, which can only be granted after
+satisfactory references have been exchanged by letter.'
+
+'If _that_ does not inspire confidence,' said Merton, 'I don't know what
+will.'
+
+'Nothing short of it will do,' said Logan.
+
+'But the mezzotints will carry weight,' said Trevor, 'and a few good
+cloisonnes and enamelled snuff-boxes and bronzes will do no harm.'
+
+So he sent in some weedings of his famous collection.
+
+
+
+
+III.  ADVENTURE OF THE FIRST CLIENTS
+
+
+Merton was reading the newspaper in the office, expecting a client.  Miss
+Blossom was typewriting in the inner chamber; the door between was open.
+The office boy knocked at Merton's outer door, and the sound of that
+boy's strangled chuckling was distinctly audible to his employer.  There
+is something irritating in the foolish merriment of a youthful menial.  No
+conduct could be more likely than that of the office boy to irritate the
+first client, arriving on business of which it were hard to exaggerate
+the delicate and anxious nature.
+
+These reflections flitted through Merton's mind as he exclaimed 'Come
+in,' with a tone of admonishing austerity.
+
+The office boy entered.  His face was scarlet, his eyes goggled and ran
+water.  Hastily and loudly exclaiming 'Mr. and Miss Apsley' (which ended
+with a crow) he stuffed his red pocket handkerchief into his mouth and
+escaped.  At the sound of the names, Merton had turned towards the inner
+door, open behind him, whence came a clear and piercing trill of feminine
+laughter from Miss Blossom.  Merton angrily marched to the inner door,
+and shut his typewriter in with a bang.  His heart burned within him.
+Nothing could be so insulting to clients; nothing so ruinous to a nascent
+business.  He wheeled round to greet his visitors with a face of apology;
+his eyes on the average level of the human countenance divine.  There was
+no human countenance divine.  There was no human countenance at that
+altitude.  His eyes encountered the opposite wall, and a print of 'Mrs.
+Pelham Feeding Chickens.'
+
+In a moment his eyes adjusted themselves to a lower elevation.  In front
+of him were standing, hand in hand, a pair of small children, a boy of
+nine in sailor costume, but with bare knees not usually affected by naval
+officers, and a girl of seven with her finger in her mouth.
+
+The boy bowed gravely.  He was a pretty little fellow with a pale oval
+face, arched eyebrows, promise of an aquiline nose, and two large black
+eyes.  'I think, sir,' said the child, 'I have the pleasure of redressing
+myself to Mr. Gray or Mr. Graham?'
+
+'Graham, at your service,' said Merton, gravely; 'may I ask you and Miss
+Apsley to be seated?'
+
+There was a large and imposing arm-chair in green leather; the client's
+chair.  Mr. Apsley lifted his little sister into it, and sat down beside
+her himself.  She threw her arms round his neck, and laid her flaxen
+curls on his shoulder.  Her blue eyes looked shyly at Merton out of her
+fleece of gold.  The four shoes of the clients dangled at some distance
+above the carpet.
+
+'You are the author of this article, I think, Mr. Graham?' said Mr.
+Apsley, showing his hand, which was warm, and holding out a little
+crumpled ball of paper, not precisely fresh.
+
+Merton solemnly unrolled it; it contained the advertisement of his firm.
+
+'Yes,' he said, 'I wrote that.'
+
+'You got our letters, for you answered them,' said Mr. Apsley, with equal
+solemnity.  'Why do you want Bats and me?'
+
+'The lady's name is Bats?' said Merton, wondering why he was supposed to
+'want' either of the pair.
+
+'My name is Batsy.  I like you: you are pretty,' said Miss Apsley.
+
+Merton positively blushed: he was unaccustomed to compliments so frank
+from a member of the sex at an early stage of a business interview.  He
+therefore kissed his fair client, who put up a pair of innocent damp
+lips, and then allowed her attention to be engrossed by a coin on his
+watch-chain.
+
+'I don't quite remember your case, sir, or what you mean by saying I
+wanted you, though I am delighted to see you,' he said to Mr. Apsley.  'We
+have so many letters!  With your permission I shall consult the letter
+book.'
+
+'The article says "To Parents, Guardians, Children, and others."  It was
+in print,' remarked Mr. Apsley, with a heavy stress on "children," 'and
+she said you wanted _us_.'
+
+The mystified Merton, wondering who 'she' was, turned the pages of the
+letter book, mumbling, 'Abernethy, Applecombe, Ap. Davis, Apsley.  Here
+we are,' he began to read the letter aloud.  It was typewritten, which,
+when he saw his clients, not a little surprised him.
+
+'Gentlemen,' the letter ran, 'having seen your advertisement in the
+_Daily Diatribe_ of to-day, May 17, I desire to express my wish to enter
+into communication with you on a matter of pressing importance.--I am, in
+the name of my sister, Miss Josephine Apsley, and myself,
+
+'Faithfully yours,
+'THOMAS LLOYD APSLEY.'
+
+'That's the letter,' said Mr. Apsley, 'and you wrote to us.'
+
+'And what did I say?' asked Merton.
+
+'Something about preferences, which we did not understand.'
+
+'References, perhaps,' said Merton.  'Mr. Apsley, may I ask whether you
+wrote this letter yourself?'
+
+'No; None-so-pretty printed it on a kind of sewing machine.  _She_ told
+us to come and see you, so we came.  I called her None-so-pretty, out of
+a fairy story.  She does not mind.  Gran says she thinks she rather likes
+it.'
+
+'I shouldn't wonder if she did,' said Merton.  'But what is her real
+name?'
+
+'She made me promise not to tell.  She was staying at the Home Farm when
+we were staying at Gran's.'
+
+'Is Gran your grandmother?'
+
+'Yes,' replied Mr. Apsley.
+
+Hereon Bats remarked that she was 'velly hungalee.'
+
+'To be sure,' said Merton.  'Luncheon shall be brought at once.'  He rang
+the bell, and, going out, interpellated the office boy.
+
+'Why did you laugh when my friends came to luncheon?  You must learn
+manners.'
+
+'Please, sir, the kid, the young gentleman I mean, said he came on
+business,' answered the boy, showing apoplectic symptoms.
+
+'So he did; luncheon is his business.  Go and bring luncheon for--five,
+and see that there are chicken, cutlets, tartlets, apricots, and ginger-
+beer.'
+
+The boy departed and Merton reflected.  'A hoax, somebody's practical
+joke,' he said to himself.  'I wonder who Miss None-so-pretty is.'  Then
+he returned, assured Batsy that luncheon was even at the doors, and
+leaving her to look at _Punch_, led Mr. Apsley aside.  'Tommy,' he said
+(having seen his signature), 'where do you live?'
+
+The boy named a street on the frontiers of St. John's Wood.
+
+'And who is your father?'
+
+'Major Apsley, D.S.O.'
+
+'And how did you come here?'
+
+'In a hansom.  I told the man to wait.'
+
+'How did you get away?'
+
+'Father took us to Lord's, with Miss Limmer, and there was a crowd, and
+Bats and I slipped out; for None-so-pretty said we ought to call on you.'
+
+'Who is Miss Limmer?'
+
+'Our governess.'
+
+'Have you a mother?'
+
+The child's brown eyes filled with tears, and his cheeks flushed.  'It
+was in India that she--'
+
+'Yes, be a man, Tommy.  I am looking the other way,' which Merton did for
+some seconds.  'Now, Tommy, is Miss Limmer kind to you?'
+
+The child's face became strangely set and blank; his eyes looking vacant.
+'Miss Limmer is very kind to us.  She loves us and we love her dearly.
+Ask Batsy,' he said in a monotonous voice, as if he were repeating a
+lesson.  'Batsy, come here,' he said in the same voice.  'Is Miss Limmer
+kind to us?'
+
+Batsy threw up her eyes--it was like a stage effect, 'We love Miss Limmer
+dearly, and she loves us.  She is very, very kind to us, like our dear
+mamma.'  Her voice was monotonous too.  'I never can say the last part,'
+said Tommy.  'Batsy knows it; about dear mamma.'
+
+'Indeed!' said Merton.  'Tommy, _why_ did you come here?'
+
+'I don't know.  I told you that None-so-pretty told us to.  She did it
+after she saw _that_ when we were bathing.'  Tommy raised one of his
+little loose breeks that did not cover the knee.
+
+_That_ was not pleasant to look on: it was on the inside of the right
+thigh.
+
+'How did you get hurt _there_?' asked Merton.
+
+The boy's monotonous chant began again: his eyes were fixed and blank as
+before.  'I fell off a tree, and my leg hit a branch on the way down.'
+
+'Curious accident,' said Merton; 'and None-so-pretty saw the mark?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And asked you how you got it?'
+
+'Yes, and she saw blue marks on Batsy, all over her arms.'
+
+'And you told None-so-pretty that you fell off a tree?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And she told you to come here?'
+
+'Yes, she had read your printed article.'
+
+'Well, here is luncheon,' said Merton, and bade the office boy call Miss
+Blossom from the inner chamber to share the meal.  Batsy had as low a
+chair as possible, and was disposing her napkin to do the duty of a
+pinafore.
+
+Miss Blossom entered from within with downcast eyes.
+
+'None-so-pretty!'
+
+'None-so-pretty!' shouted the children, while Tommy rushed to throw his
+arms round her neck, to meet which she stooped down, concealing a face of
+blushes.  Batsy descended from her chair, waddled up, climbed another
+chair, and attacked the girl from the rear.  The office boy was arranging
+luncheon.  Merton called him to the writing-table, scribbled a note, and
+said, 'Take that to Dr. Maitland, with my compliments.'
+
+Maitland had been one of the guests at the inaugural dinner.  He was
+entirely devoid of patients, and was living on the anticipated gains of a
+great work on Clinical Psychology.
+
+'Tell Dr. Maitland he will find me at luncheon if he comes instantly,'
+said Merton as the boy fled on his errand.  'I see that I need not
+introduce you to my young friends, Miss Blossom,' said Merton.  'May I
+beg you to help Miss Apsley to arrange her tucker?'
+
+Miss Blossom, almost unbecomingly brilliant in her complexion, did as she
+was asked.  Batsy had cold chicken, new potatoes, green peas, and two
+helpings of apricot tart.  Tommy devoted himself to cutlets.  A very mild
+shandygaff was compounded for him in an old Oriel pewter.  Both children
+made love to Miss Blossom with their eyes.  It was not at all what Merton
+felt inclined to do; the lady had entangled him in a labyrinth of
+puzzledom.
+
+'None-so-pretty,' exclaimed Tommy, 'I am glad you told us to come here.
+Your friends are nice.'
+
+Merton bowed to Tommy, 'I am glad too,' he said.  'Miss Blossom knew that
+we were kindred souls, same kind of chaps, I mean, you and me, you know,
+Tommy!'
+
+Miss Blossom became more and more like the fabled peony, the crimson
+variety.  Luckily the office boy ushered in Dr. Maitland, who, exchanging
+glances of surprise with Merton, over the children's heads, began to make
+himself agreeable.  He had nearly as many tricks as Miss Maskelyne.  He
+was doing the short-sighted man eating celery, and unable to find the
+salt because he is unable to find his eyeglass.
+
+Merton, seeing his clients absorbed in mirth, murmured something vague
+about 'business,' and spirited Miss Blossom away to the inner chamber.
+
+'Sit down, pray, Miss Blossom.  There is no time to waste.  What do you
+know about these children?  Why did you send them here?'
+
+The girl, who was pale enough now, said, 'I never thought they would
+come.'
+
+'They are here, however.  What do you know about them?'
+
+'I went to stay, lately, at the Home Farm on their grandmother's place.
+We became great friends.  I found out that they were motherless, and that
+they were being cruelly ill-treated by their governess.'
+
+'Miss Limmer?'
+
+'Yes.  But they both said they loved her dearly.  They always said that
+when asked.  I gathered from their grandmother, old Mrs. Apsley, that
+their father would listen to nothing against the governess.  The old lady
+cried in a helpless way, and said he was capable of marrying the woman,
+out of obstinacy, if anybody interfered.  I had your advertisement, and I
+thought you might disentangle him.  It was a kind of joke.  I only told
+them that you were a kind gentleman.  I never dreamed of their really
+coming.'
+
+'Well, you must take them back again presently, there is the address.  You
+must see their father; you must wait till you see him.  And how are you
+to explain this escapade?  I can't have the children taught to lie.'
+
+'They have been taught _that_ lesson already.'
+
+'I don't think they are aware of it,' said Merton.
+
+Miss Blossom stared.
+
+'I can't explain, but you must find a way of keeping them out of a
+scrape.'
+
+'I think I can manage it,' said Miss Blossom demurely.
+
+'I hope so.  And manage, if you please, to see this Miss Limmer and
+observe what kind of person she is,' said Merton, with his hand on the
+door handle, adding, 'Please ask Dr. Maitland to come here, and do you
+keep the children amused for a moment.'
+
+Miss Blossom nodded and left the room; there was laughter in the other
+chamber.  Presently Maitland joined Merton.
+
+'Look here,' said Merton, 'we must be rapid.  These children are being
+cruelly ill-treated and deny it.  Will you get into talk with the boy,
+and ask him if he is fond of his governess, say "Miss Limmer," and notice
+what he says and how he says it?  Then we must pack them away.'
+
+'All right,' said Maitland.
+
+They returned to the children.  Miss Blossom retreated to the inner room.
+Bats simplified matters by falling asleep in the client's chair.  Maitland
+began by talking about schools.  Was Tommy going to Eton?
+
+Tommy did not know.  He had a governess at home.
+
+'Not at a preparatory school yet?  A big fellow like you?'
+
+Tommy said that he would like to go to school, but they would not send
+him.
+
+'Why not?'
+
+Tommy hesitated, blushed, and ended by saying that they didn't think it
+safe, as he walked in his sleep.
+
+'You will soon grow out of that,' said Maitland, 'but it is not very safe
+at school.  A boy I knew was found sound asleep on the roof at school.'
+
+'He might have fallen off,' said Tommy.
+
+'Yes.  That's why your people keep you at home.  But in a year or two you
+will be all right.  Know any Latin yet?'
+
+Tommy said that Miss Limmer taught him Latin.
+
+'Are you and she great friends?'
+
+Tommy's face and voice altered as before, while he mechanically repeated
+the tale of the mutual affection which linked him with Miss Limmer.
+
+'_That's_ all very jolly,' said Maitland.
+
+'Now, Tommy,' said Merton, 'we must waken Batsy, and Miss Blossom is
+going to take you both home.  Hope we shall often meet.'
+
+He called Miss Blossom; Batsy kissed both of her new friends.  Merton
+conducted the party to the cab, and settled, in spite of Tommy's
+remonstrances, with the cabman, who made a good thing of it, and nodded
+when told to drive away as soon as he had deposited his charges at their
+door.  Then Merton led Maitland upstairs and offered him a cigar.
+
+'What do you think of it?' he asked.
+
+'Common post-hypnotic suggestion by the governess,' said Maitland.
+
+'I guessed as much, but can it really be worked like that?  You are not
+chaffing?'
+
+'Simplest thing to work in the world,' said Maitland.  'A lot of
+nonsense, however, that the public believes in can't be done.  The woman
+could not sit down in St. John's Wood, and "will" Tommy to come to her if
+he was in the next room.  At least she might "will" till she was black in
+the face, and he would know nothing about it.  But she can put him to
+sleep, and make him say what he does not want to say, in answer to
+questions, afterwards, when he is awake.'
+
+'You're sure of it?'
+
+'It is as certain as anything in the world up to a certain point.'
+
+'The girl said something that the boy did not say, more gushing, about
+his dead mother.'
+
+'The hypnotised subject often draws a line somewhere.'
+
+'The woman must be a fiend,' said Merton.
+
+'Some of them are, now and then,' said the author of _Clinical
+Psychology_.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Miss Blossom's cab, the driver much encouraged by Tommy, who conversed
+with him through the trap in the roof, dashed up to the door of a house
+close to Lord's.  The horse was going fast, and nearly cannoned into
+another cab-horse, also going fast, which was almost thrown on its
+haunches by the driver.  Inside the other hansom was a tall man with a
+pale face under the tan, who was nervously gnawing his moustache.  Miss
+Blossom saw him, Tommy saw him, and cried 'Father!'  Half-hidden behind a
+blind of the house Miss Blossom beheld a woman's face, expectant.  Clearly
+she was Miss Limmer.  All the while that they were driving Miss Blossom's
+wits had been at work to construct a story to account for the absence and
+return of the children.  Now, by a flash of invention, she called to her
+cabman, 'Drive on--fast!'  Major Apsley saw his lost children with their
+arms round the neck of a wonderfully pretty girl; the pretty girl waved
+her parasol to him with a smile, beckoning forwards; the children waved
+their arms, calling out 'A race! a race!'
+
+What could a puzzled parent do but bid his cabman follow like the wind?
+Miss Blossom's cab flew past Lord's, dived into Regent's Park, leading by
+two lengths; reached the Zoological Gardens, and there its crew alighted,
+demurely waiting for the Major.  He leaped from his hansom, and taking
+off his hat, strode up to Miss Blossom, as if he were leading a charge.
+The children captured him by the legs.  'What does this mean, Madam?  What
+are you doing with my children?  Who are you?'
+
+'She's None-so-pretty,' said Tommy, by way of introduction.
+
+Miss Blossom bowed with grace, and raising her head, shot two violet rays
+into the eyes of the Major, which were of a bistre hue.  But they
+accepted the message, like a receiver in wireless telegraphy.  No man,
+let be a Major, could have resisted None-so-pretty at that moment.  'Come
+into the gardens,' she said, and led the way.  'You would like a ride on
+the elephant, Tommy?' she asked Master Apsley.  'And you, Batsy?'
+
+The children shouted assent.
+
+'How in the world does she know them?' thought the bewildered officer.
+
+The children mounted the elephant.
+
+'Now, Major Apsley,' said Miss Blossom, 'I have found your children.'
+
+'I owe you thanks, Madam; I have been very anxious, but--'
+
+'It is more than your thanks I want.  I want you to do something for me,
+a very little thing,' said Miss Blossom, with the air of a supplicating
+angel, the violet eyes dewy with tears.
+
+'I am sure I shall be delighted to do anything you ask, but--'
+
+'Will you _promise_?  It is a very little thing indeed!' and her hands
+were clasped in entreaty.  'Please promise!'
+
+'Well, I promise.'
+
+'Then keep your word: it is a little thing!  Take Tommy home this
+instant, let nobody speak to him or touch him--and--make him take a bath,
+and see him take it.'
+
+'Take a bath!'
+
+'Yes, at once, in your presence.  Then ask him . . . any questions you
+please, but pay extreme attention to his answers and his face, and the
+sound of his voice.  If that is not enough do the same with Batsy.  And
+after that I think you had better not let the children out of your sight
+for a short time.'
+
+'These are very strange requests.'
+
+'And it was by a strange piece of luck that I met you driving home to see
+if the lost children were found, and secured your attention before it
+could be pre-engaged.'
+
+'But where did you find them and why?'
+
+Miss Blossom interrupted him, 'Here is the address of Dr. Maitland, I
+have written it on my own card; he can answer some questions you may want
+to ask.  Later I will answer anything.  And now in the name of God,' said
+the girl reverently, with sudden emotion, 'you will keep your promise to
+the letter?'
+
+'I will,' said the Major, and Miss Blossom waved her parasol to the
+children.  'You must give the poor elephant a rest, he is tired,' she
+cried, and the tender-hearted Batsy needed no more to make her descend
+from the great earth-shaking beast.  The children attacked her with
+kisses, and then walked off, looking back, each holding one of the
+paternal hands, and treading, after the manner of childhood, on the
+paternal toes.
+
+Miss Blossom walked till she met an opportune omnibus.
+
+About an hour later a four-wheeler bore a woman with blazing eyes, and a
+pile of trunks gaping untidily, from the Major's house in St. John's Wood
+Road.
+
+The Honourable Company had won its first victory: Major Apsley, having
+fulfilled Miss Blossom's commands, had seen what she expected him to see,
+and was disentangled from Miss Limmer.
+
+The children still call their new stepmother None-so-pretty.
+
+
+
+
+IV.  ADVENTURE OF THE RICH UNCLE
+
+
+'His God is his belly, Mr. Graham,' said the client, 'and if the text
+strikes you as disagreeably unrefined, think how it must pain me to speak
+thus of an uncle, if only by marriage.'
+
+The client was a meagre matron of forty-five, or thereabouts.  Her dark
+scant hair was smooth, and divided down the middle.  Acerbity spoke in
+every line of her face, which was of a dusky yellow, where it did not
+rather verge on the faint hues of a violet past its prime.  She wore
+thread gloves, and she carried a battered reticule of early Victorian
+days, in which Merton suspected that tracts were lurking.  She had an
+anxious peevish mouth; in truth she was not the kind of client in whom
+Merton's heart delighted.
+
+And yet he was sorry for her, especially as her rich uncle's cook was the
+goddess of the gentleman whose god had just been denounced in scriptural
+terms by the client, a Mrs. Gisborne.  She was sad, as well she might be,
+for she was a struggler, with a large family, and great expectations from
+the polytheistic uncle who adored his cook and one of his nobler organs.
+
+'What has his history been, this gentleman's--Mr. Fulton, I think you
+called him?'
+
+'He was a drysalter in the City, sir,' and across Merton's mind flitted a
+vision of a dark shop with Finnan haddocks, bacon, and tongues in the
+window, and smelling terribly of cheese.
+
+'Oh, a drysalter?' he said, not daring to display ignorance by asking
+questions to corroborate his theory of the drysalting business.
+
+'A drysalter, sir, and isinglass importer.'
+
+Merton was conscious of vagueness as to isinglass, and was distantly
+reminded of a celebrated racehorse.  However, it was clear that Mr.
+Fulton was a retired tradesman of some kind.  'He went out of
+isinglass--before the cheap scientific substitute was invented (it is
+made out of old quill pens)--with seventy-five thousand pounds.  And it
+_ought_ to come to my children.  He has not another relation living but
+ourselves; he married my aunt.  But we never see him: he said that he
+could not stand our Sunday dinners at Hampstead.'
+
+A feeling not remote from sympathy with Mr. Fulton stole over Merton's
+mind as he pictured these festivals.  'Is his god very--voluminous?'
+
+Mrs. Gisborne stared.
+
+'Is he a very portly gentleman?'
+
+'No, Mr. Graham, he is next door to a skeleton, though you would not
+expect it, considering.'
+
+'Considering his devotion to the pleasures of the table?'
+
+'Gluttony, shameful waste _I_ call it.  And he is a stumbling block and a
+cause of offence to others.  He is a patron of the City and Suburban
+College of Cookery, and founded two scholarships there, for scholars
+learning how to pamper the--'
+
+'The epicure,' said Merton.  He knew the City and Suburban College of
+Cookery.  One of his band, a Miss Frere, was a Fellow and Tutor of that
+academy.
+
+'And about what age is your uncle?' he asked.
+
+'About sixty, and not a white hair on his head.'
+
+'Then he may marry his cook?'
+
+'He will, sir.'
+
+'And is very likely to have a family.'
+
+Mrs. Gisborne sniffed, and produced a pocket handkerchief from the early
+Victorian reticule.  She applied the handkerchief to her eyes in silence.
+Merton observed her with pity.  'We need the money so; there are so many
+of us,' said the lady.
+
+'Do you think that Mr. Fulton is--passionately in love, with his
+domestic?'
+
+'He only loves his meals,' said Mrs. Gisborne; '_he_ does not want to
+marry her, but she has a hold over him through--his--'
+
+'Passions, not of the heart,' said Merton hastily.  He dreaded an
+anatomical reference.
+
+'He is afraid of losing her.  He and his cronies give each other dinners,
+jealous of each other they are; and he actually pays the woman two
+hundred a year.'
+
+'And beer money?' said Merton.  He had somewhere read or heard of beer
+money as an item in domestic finance.
+
+'I don't know about that.  The cruel thing is that she is a woman of
+strict temperance principles.  So am I.  I am sure it is an awful thing
+to say, Mr. Graham, but Satan has sometimes put it into my heart to wish
+that the woman, like too, too many of her sort, was the victim of
+alcoholic temptations.  He has a fearful temper, and if once she was not
+fit for duty at one of his dinners, this awful gnawing anxiety would
+cease to ride my bosom.  He would pack her off.'
+
+'Very natural.  She is free from the besetting sin of the artistic
+temperament?'
+
+'If you mean drink, she is; and that is one reason why he values her.  His
+last cook, and his last but one--'  Here Mrs. Gisborne narrated at some
+length the tragic histories of these artists.
+
+'Providential, I thought it, but now,' she said despairingly.
+
+'She certainly seems a difficult woman to dislodge,' said Merton.  'A
+dangerous entanglement.  Any followers allowed?  Could anything be done
+through the softer emotions?  Would a guardsman, for instance--?'
+
+'She hates the men.  Never one of them darkens her kitchen fire.  Offers
+she has had by the score, but they come by post, and she laughs and burns
+them.  Old Mr. Potter, one of his cronies, tried to get her away _that_
+way, but he is over seventy, and old at that, and she thought she had
+another chance to better herself.  And she'll take it, Mr. Graham, if you
+can't do something: she'll take it.'
+
+'Will you permit me to say that you seem to know a good deal about her!
+Perhaps you have some sort of means of intelligence in the enemy's camp?'
+
+'The kitchen maid,' said Mrs. Gisborne, purpling a little, 'is the sister
+of our servant, and tells her things.'
+
+'I see,' said Merton.  'Now can you remember any little weakness of this,
+I must frankly admit, admirable artist and exemplary woman?'
+
+'You are not going to take her side, a scheming red-faced hussy, Mr.
+Graham?'
+
+'I never betrayed a client, Madam, and if you mean that I am likely to
+help this person into your uncle's arms, you greatly misconceive me, and
+the nature of my profession.'
+
+'I beg your pardon, sir, but I will say that your heart does not seem to
+be in the case.'
+
+'It is not quite the kind of case with which we are accustomed to deal,'
+said Merton.  'But you have not answered my question.  Are there any weak
+points in the defence?  To Venus she is cold, of Bacchus she is
+disdainful.'
+
+'I never heard of the gentlemen I am sure, sir, but as to her weaknesses,
+she has the temper of a--'  Here Mrs. Gisborne paused for a comparison.
+Her knowledge of natural history and of mythology, the usual sources of
+parallels, failed to provide a satisfactory resemblance to the cook's
+temper.
+
+'The temper of a Megaera,' said Merton, admitting to himself that the
+word was not, though mythological, what he could wish.
+
+'Of a Megaera as you know that creature, sir, and impetuous!  If
+everything is not handy, if that poor girl is not like clockwork with the
+sauces, and herbs, and things, if a saucepan boils over, or a ham falls
+into the fire, if the girl treads on the tail of one of the cats--and the
+woman keeps a dozen--then she flies at her with anything that comes
+handy.'
+
+'She is fond of cats?' said Merton; 'really this lady has sympathetic
+points:' and he patted the grey Russian puss, Kutuzoff, which was a
+witness to these interviews.
+
+'She dotes on the nasty things: and you may well say "lady!"  Her Siamese
+cat, a wild beast he is, took the first prize at the Crystal Palace Show.
+The papers said "Miss Blowser's _Rangoon_, bred by the exhibitor."  Miss
+Blowser!  I don't know what the world is coming to.  He stands on the
+doorsteps, the cat, like a lynx, and as fierce as a lion.  Why he got her
+into the police-court: flew at a dog, and nearly tore his owner, a
+clergyman, to pieces.  There were articles about it in the papers.'
+
+'I seem to remember it,' said Merton.  '_Christianos ad Leones_'.  In
+fact he had written this humorous article himself.  'But is there nothing
+else?' he asked.  'Only a temper, so natural to genius disturbed or
+diverted in the process of composition, and a passion for the _felidae_,
+such as has often been remarked in the great.  There was Charles
+Baudelaire, Mahomet--'
+
+'I don't know what you mean, sir, and,' said Mrs. Gisborne, rising, and
+snapping her reticule, 'I think I was a fool for answering your
+advertisement.  I did not come here to be laughed at, and I think common
+politeness--'
+
+'I beg a thousand pardons,' said Merton.  'I am most distressed at my
+apparent discourtesy.  My mind was preoccupied by the circumstances of
+this very difficult case, and involuntarily glided into literary anecdote
+on the subject of cats and their owners.  They are my passion--cats--and
+I regret that they inspire you with antipathy.'  Here he picked up
+Kutuzoff and carried him into the inner room.
+
+'It is not that I object to any of Heaven's creatures kept in their
+place,' said Mrs. Gisborne somewhat mollified, 'but you must make
+allowances, sir, for my anxiety.  It sours a mother of nine.  Friday is
+one of his gorging dinner-parties, and who knows what may happen if she
+pleases him?  The kitchen maid says, I mean I hear, that she wears an
+engaged ring already.'
+
+'That is very bad,' said Merton, with sympathy.  'The dinner is on
+Friday, you say?' and he made a note of the date.
+
+'Yes, 15 Albany Grove, on the Regent's Canal.'
+
+'You can think of nothing else--no weakness to work on?'
+
+'No, sir, just her awful temper; I would save him from it, for _he_ has
+another as bad.  And besides hopes from him have kept me up so long, his
+only relation, and times are so hard, and schooling and boots, and
+everything so dear, and we so many in family.'  Tears came into the poor
+lady's eyes.
+
+'I'll give the case my very best attention,' he said, shaking hands with
+the client.  To Merton's horror she tried, Heaven help her, to pass a
+circular packet, wrapped in paper, into his hand.  He evaded it.  It was
+a first interview, for which no charge was made.  'What can be done shall
+be done, though I confess that I do not see my way,' and he accompanied
+her downstairs to the street.
+
+'I behaved like a cad with my chaff,' he said to himself, 'but hang me if
+I see how to help her.  And I rather admire that cook.'
+
+He went into the inner room, wakened the sleeping partner, Logan, on the
+sofa, and unfolded the case with every detail.  'What can we do, _que
+faire_!'
+
+'There's an exhibition of modern, mediaeval, ancient, and savage cookery
+at Earl's Court, the Cookeries,' said Logan.  'Couldn't we seduce an
+artist like Miss Blowser there, I mean _thither_ of course, the night
+before the dinner, and get her up into the Great Wheel and somehow stop
+the Wheel--and make her too late for her duties?'
+
+'And how are you going to stop the Wheel?'
+
+'Speak to the Man at the Wheel.  Bribe the beggar.'
+
+'Dangerous, and awfully expensive.  Then think of all the other people on
+the Wheel!  Logan, _vous chassez de race_.  The old Restalrig blood is in
+your veins.'
+
+'My ancestors nearly nipped off with a king, and why can't I carry off a
+cook?  Hustle her into a hansom--'
+
+'Oh, bah! these are not modern methods.'
+
+'_Il n'y a rien tel que d'enlever_,' said Logan.
+
+'I never shall stain the cause with police-courts,' said Merton.  'It
+would be fatal.'
+
+'I've heard of a cook who fell on his sword when the fish did not come up
+to time.  Now a raid on the fish?  She might fall on her carving knife
+when they did not arrive, or leap into the flames of the kitchen fire,
+like OEnone, don't you know.'
+
+'Bosh.  Vatel was far from the sea, and he had not a fish-monger's shop
+round the corner.  Be modern.'
+
+Logan rumpled his hair, 'Can't I get her to lunch at a restaurant and ply
+her with the wines of Eastern France?  No, she is Temperance personified.
+Can't we send her a forged telegram to say that her mother is dying?
+Servants seem to have such lots of mothers, always inconveniently, or
+conveniently, moribund.'
+
+'I won't have forgery.  Great heavens, how obsolete you are!  Besides,
+that would not put her employer in a rage.'
+
+'Could I go and consult ---?' he mentioned a specialist.  'He is a man of
+ideas.'
+
+'He is a man of the purest principles--and an uncommonly hard hitter.'
+
+'It is his purity I want.  My own mind is hereditarily lawless.  I want
+something not immoral, yet efficacious.  There was that parson, whom you
+say the woman's cat nearly devoured.  Like Paul with beasts he fought the
+cat.  Now, I wonder if that injured man is not meditating some priestly
+revenge that would do our turn and get rid of Miss Blowser?'
+
+Merton shook his head impatiently.  His own invention was busy, but to no
+avail.  Miss Blowser seemed impregnable.  Kutuzoff Hedzoff, the puss,
+stalked up to Logan and leaped on his knees.  Logan stroked him, Kutuzoff
+purred and blinked, Logan sought inspiration in his topaz eyes.  At last
+he spoke: 'Will you leave this affair to me, Merton?  I think I have
+found out a way.'
+
+'What way?'
+
+'That's my secret.  You are so beastly moral, you might object.  One
+thing I may tell you--it does not compromise the Honourable Company of
+Disentanglers.'
+
+'You are not going to try any detective work; to find out if she is a
+woman with a past, with a husband living?  You are not going to put a
+live adder among the eels?  I daresay drysalters eat eels.  It is the
+reading of sensational novels that ruins our youth.'
+
+'What a suspicious beggar you are.  Certainly I am neither a detective
+nor a murderer _a la Montepin_!
+
+'No practical jokes with the victuals?'
+
+'Of course not.'
+
+'No kidnapping Miss Blowser?'
+
+'Certainly no kidnapping--Miss Blowser.'
+
+'Now, honour bright, is your plan within the law?  No police-court
+publicity?'
+
+'No, the police will have no say or show in the matter; at least,' said
+Logan, 'as far as my legal studies inform me, they won't.  But I can take
+counsel's opinion if you insist on it.'
+
+'Then you are sailing near the wind?'
+
+'Really I don't think so: not really what you call near.'
+
+'I am sorry for that unlucky Mrs. Gisborne,' said Merton, musingly.  'And
+with two such tempers as the cook's and Mr. Fulton's the match could not
+be a happy one.  Well, Logan, I suppose you won't tell me what your game
+is?'
+
+'Better not, I think, but, I assure you, honour is safe.  I am certain
+that nobody can say anything.  I rather expect to earn public gratitude,
+on the whole.  _You_ can't appear in any way, nor the rest of us.  By-the-
+bye do you remember the address of the parson whose dog was hurt?'
+
+'I think I kept a cutting of the police case; it was amusing,' said
+Merton, looking through a kind of album, and finding presently the record
+of the incident.
+
+'It may come in handy, or it may not,' said Logan.  He then went off, and
+had Merton followed him he might not have been reassured.  For Logan
+first walked to a chemist's shop, where he purchased a quantity of a
+certain drug.  Next he went to the fencing rooms which he frequented,
+took his fencing mask and glove, borrowed a fencing glove from a left-
+handed swordsman whom he knew, and drove to his rooms with this odd
+assortment of articles.  Having deposited them, he paid a call at the
+dwelling of a fair member of the Disentanglers, Miss Frere, the lady
+instructress in the culinary art, at the City and Suburban College of
+Cookery, whereof, as we have heard, Mr. Fulton, the eminent drysalter,
+was a patron and visitor.  Logan unfolded the case and his plan of
+campaign to Miss Frere, who listened with intelligent sympathy.
+
+'Do you know the man by sight?' he asked.
+
+'Oh yes, and he knows me perfectly well.  Last year he distributed the
+prizes at the City and Suburban School of Cookery, and paid me the most
+extraordinary compliments.'
+
+'Well deserved, I am confident,' said Logan; 'and now you are sure that
+you know exactly what you have to do, as I have explained?'
+
+'Yes, I am to be walking through Albany Grove at a quarter to four on
+Friday.'
+
+'Be punctual.'
+
+'You may rely on me,' said Miss Frere.
+
+Logan next day went to Trevor's rooms in the Albany; he was the
+capitalist who had insisted on helping to finance the Disentanglers.  To
+Trevor he explained the situation, unfolded his plan, and asked leave to
+borrow his private hansom.
+
+'Delighted,' said Trevor.  'I'll put on an old suit of tweeds, and a
+seedy bowler, and drive you myself.  It will be fun.  Or should we take
+my motor car?'
+
+'No, it attracts too much attention.'
+
+'Suppose we put a number on my cab, and paint the wheels yellow, like
+pirates, you know, when they are disguising a captured ship.  It won't do
+to look like a private cab.'
+
+'These strike me as judicious precautions, Trevor, and worthy of your
+genius.  That is, if we are not caught.'
+
+'Oh, we won't be caught,' said Trevor.  'But, in the meantime, let us
+find that place you mean to go to on a map of London, and I'll drive you
+there now in a dog-cart.  It is better to know the lie of the land.'
+
+Logan agreed and they drove to his objective in the afternoon; it was
+beyond the border of known West Hammersmith.  Trevor reconnoitred and
+made judicious notes of short cuts.
+
+On the following day, which was Thursday, Logan had a difficult piece of
+diplomacy to execute.  He called at the rooms of the clergyman, a
+bachelor and a curate, whose dog and person had suffered from the
+assaults of Miss Blowser's Siamese favourite.  He expected difficulties,
+for a good deal of ridicule, including Merton's article, _Christianos ad
+Leones_, had been heaped on this martyr.  Logan looked forward to finding
+him crusty, but, after seeming a little puzzled, the holy man exclaimed,
+'Why, you must be Logan of Trinity?'
+
+'The same,' said Logan, who did not remember the face or name (which was
+Wilkinson) of his host.
+
+'Why, I shall never forget your running catch under the scoring-box at
+Lord's,' exclaimed Mr. Wilkinson, 'I can see it now.  It saved the match.
+I owe you more than I can say,' he added with deep emotion.
+
+'Then be grateful, and do me a little favour.  I want--just for an hour
+or two--to borrow your dog,' and he stooped to pat the animal, a
+fox-terrier bearing recent and glorious scars.
+
+'Borrow Scout!  Why, what can you want with him?'
+
+'I have suffered myself through an infernal wild beast of a cat in Albany
+Grove,' said Logan, 'and I have a scheme--it is unchristian I own--of
+revenge.'
+
+The curate's eyes glittered vindictively: 'Scout is no match for the
+brute,' he said in a tone of manly regret.
+
+'Oh, Scout will be all right.  There is not going to be a fight.  He is
+only needed to--give tone to the affair.  You will be able to walk him
+safely through Albany Grove after to-morrow.'
+
+'Won't there be a row if you kill the cat?  He is what they think a
+valuable animal.  I never could stand cats myself.'
+
+'The higher vermin,' said Logan.  'But not a hair of his whiskers shall
+be hurt.  He will seek other haunts, that's all.'
+
+'But you don't mean to steal him?' asked the curate anxiously.  'You see,
+suspicion might fall on me, as I am known to bear a grudge to the brute.'
+
+'I steal him!  Not I,' said Logan.  'He shall sleep in his owner's arms,
+if she likes.  But Albany Grove shall know him no more.'
+
+'Then you may take Scout,' said Mr. Wilkinson.  'You have a cab there,
+shall I drive to your rooms with you and him?'
+
+'Do,' said Logan, 'and then dine at the club.'  Which they did, and
+talked much cricket, Mr. Wilkinson being an enthusiast.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Next day, about 3.40 P.M., a hansom drew up at the corner of Albany
+Grove.  The fare alighted, and sauntered past Mr. Fulton's house.
+Rangoon, the Siamese puss, was sitting in a scornful and leonine
+attitude, in a tree of the garden above the railings, outside the open
+kitchen windows, whence came penetrating and hospitable smells of good
+fare.  The stranger passed, and as he returned, dropped something here
+and there on the pavement.  It was valerian, which no cat can resist.
+
+Miss Blowser was in a culinary crisis, and could not leave the kitchen
+range.  Her face was of a fiery complexion; her locks were in a fine
+disorder.  'Is Rangoon in his place, Mary?' she inquired of the kitchen
+maid.
+
+'Yes, ma'am, in his tree,' said the maid.
+
+In this tree Rangoon used to sit like a Thug, dropping down on dogs who
+passed by.
+
+Presently the maid said, 'Ma'am, Rangoon has jumped down, and is walking
+off to the right, after a gentleman.'
+
+'After a sparrow, I dare say, bless him,' said Miss Blowser.  Two minutes
+later she asked, 'Has Rangy come back?'
+
+'No, ma'am.'
+
+'Just look out and see what he is doing, the dear.'
+
+'He's walking along the pavement, ma'am, sniffing at something.  And oh!
+there's that curate's dog.'
+
+'Yelping little brute!  I hope Rangy will give him snuff,' said Miss
+Blowser.
+
+'He's flown at him,' cried the maid ambiguously, in much excitement.  'Oh,
+ma'am, the gentleman has caught hold of Rangoon.  He's got a wire mask on
+his face, and great thick gloves, not to be scratched.  He's got Rangoon:
+he's putting him in a bag,' but by this time Miss Blowser, brandishing a
+saucepan with a long handle, had rushed out of the kitchen, through the
+little garden, cannoned against Mr. Fulton, who happened to be coming in
+with flowers to decorate his table, knocked him against a lamp-post,
+opened the garden gate, and, armed and bareheaded as she was, had rushed
+forth.  You might have deemed that you beheld Bellona speeding to the
+fray.
+
+What Miss Blowser saw was a man disappearing into a hansom, whence came
+the yapping of a dog.  Another cab was loitering by, empty; and this
+cabman had his orders.  Logan had seen to _that_.  To hail that cab, to
+leap in, to cry, 'Follow the scoundrel in front: a sovereign if you catch
+him,' was to the active Miss Blowser the work of a moment.  The man
+whipped up his horse, the pursuit began, 'there was racing and chasing on
+Cannobie Lee,' Marylebone rang with the screams of female rage and
+distress.  Mr. Fulton, he also, leaped up and rushed in pursuit, wringing
+his hands.  He had no turn of speed, and stopped panting.  He only saw
+Miss Blowser whisk into her cab, he only heard her yells that died in the
+distance.  Mr. Fulton sped back into his house.  He shouted for Mary:
+'What's the matter with your mistress, with my cook?' he raved.
+
+'Somebody's taken her cat, sir, and is off, in a cab, and her after him.'
+
+'After her cat!  D--- her cat,' cried Mr. Fulton.  'My dinner will be
+ruined!  It is the last she shall touch in _this_ house.  Out she
+packs--pack her things, Mary; no, don't--do what you can in the kitchen.
+I _must_ find a cook.  Her cat!' and with language unworthy of a
+drysalter Mr. Fulton clapped on his hat, and sped into the street, with a
+vague idea of hurrying to Fortnum and Mason's, or some restaurant, or a
+friend's house, indeed to any conceivable place where a cook might be
+recruited _impromptu_.  'She leaves this very day,' he said aloud, as he
+all but collided with a lady, a quiet, cool-looking lady, who stopped and
+stared at him.
+
+'Oh, Miss Frere!' said Mr. Fulton, raising his hat, with a wild gleam of
+hope in the trouble of his eyes, 'I have had such a misfortune!'
+
+'What has happened, Mr. Fulton?'
+
+'Oh, ma'am, I've lost my cook, and me with a dinner-party on to-day.'
+
+'Lost your cook?  Not by death, I hope?'
+
+'No, ma'am, she has run away, in the very crisis, as I may call it.'
+
+'With whom?'
+
+'With nobody.  After her cat.  In a cab.  I am undone.  Where can I find
+a cook?  You may know of some one disengaged, though it is late in the
+day, and dinner at seven.  Can't you help me?'
+
+'Can you trust me, Mr. Fulton?'
+
+'Trust you; how, ma'am?'
+
+'Let me cook your dinner, at least till your cook catches her cat,' said
+Miss Frere, smiling.
+
+'You, don't mean it, a lady!'
+
+'But a professed cook, Mr. Fulton, and anxious to help so nobly generous
+a patron of the art . . . if you can trust me.'
+
+'Trust you, ma'am!' said Mr. Fulton, raising to heaven his obsecrating
+hands.  'Why, you're a genius.  It is a miracle, a mere miracle of good
+luck.'
+
+By this time, of course, a small crowd of little boys and girls, amateurs
+of dramatic scenes, was gathering.
+
+'We have no time to waste, Mr. Fulton.  Let us go in, and let me get to
+work.  I dare say the cook will be back before I have taken off my
+gloves.'
+
+'Not her, nor does she cook again in my house.  The shock might have
+killed a man of my age,' said Mr. Fulton, breathing heavily, and leading
+the way up the steps to his own door.  'Her cat, the hussy!' he grumbled.
+
+Mr. Fulton kept his word.  When Miss Blowser returned, with her saucepan
+and Rangoon, she found her trunks in the passage, corded by Mr. Fulton's
+own trembling hands, and she departed for ever.
+
+Her chase had been a stern chase, a long chase, the cab driven by Trevor
+had never been out of sight.  It led her, in the western wilds, to a Home
+for Decayed and Destitute Cats, and it had driven away before she entered
+the lane leading to the Home.  But there she found Rangoon.  He had just
+been deposited there, in a seedy old traveller's fur-lined sleeping bag,
+the matron of the Home averred, by a very pleasant gentleman, who said he
+had found the cat astray, lost, and thinking him a rare and valuable
+animal had deemed it best to deposit him at the Home.  He had left money
+to pay for advertisements.  He had even left the advertisement,
+typewritten (by Miss Blossom).
+
+'FOUND.  A magnificent Siamese Cat.  Apply to the Home for Destitute and
+Decayed Cats, Water Lane, West Hammersmith.'
+
+'Very thoughtful of the gentleman,' said the matron of the Home.  'No; he
+did not leave any address.  Said something about doing good by stealth.'
+
+'Stealth, why he stole my cat!' exclaimed Miss Blowser.  'He must have
+had the advertisement printed like that ready beforehand.  It's a
+conspiracy,' and she brandished her saucepan.
+
+The matron, who was prejudiced in favour of Logan, and his two
+sovereigns, which now need not be expended in advertisements, was alarmed
+by the hostile attitude of Miss Blowser.  'There's your cat,' she said
+drily; 'it ain't stealing a cat to leave it, with money for its board,
+and to pay for advertisements, in a well-conducted charitable
+institution, with a duchess for president.  And he even left five
+shillings to pay for the cab of anybody as might call for the cat.  There
+is your money.'
+
+Miss Blowser threw the silver away.
+
+'Take your old cat in the bag,' said the matron, slamming the door in the
+face of Miss Blowser.
+
+* * * * *
+
+After the trial for breach of promise of marriage, and after paying the
+very considerable damages which Miss Blowser demanded and received, old
+Mr. Fulton hardened his heart, and engaged a male _chef_.
+
+The gratitude of Mrs. Gisborne, now free from all anxiety, was touching.
+But Merton assured her that he knew nothing whatever of the stratagem,
+scarcely a worthy one, he thought, as she reported it, by which her uncle
+was disentangled.
+
+It was Logan's opinion, and it is mine, that he had not been guilty of
+theft, but perhaps of the wrongous detention or imprisonment of Rangoon.
+'But,' he said, 'the Habeas Corpus Act has no clause about cats, and in
+Scottish law, which is good enough for _me_, there is no property in
+cats.  You can't, legally, _steal_ them.'
+
+'How do you know?' asked Merton.
+
+'I took the opinion of an eminent sheriff substitute.'
+
+'What is that?'
+
+'Oh, a fearfully swagger legal official: _you_ have nothing like it.'
+
+'Rum country, Scotland,' said Merton.
+
+'Rum country, England,' said Logan, indignantly.  '_You_ have no property
+in corpses.'
+
+Merton was silenced.
+
+Neither could foresee how momentous, to each of them, the question of
+property in corpses was to prove.  _O pectora caeca_!
+
+* * * * *
+
+Miss Blowser is now Mrs. Potter.  She married her aged wooer, and Rangoon
+still wins prizes at the Crystal Palace.
+
+
+
+
+V.  THE ADVENTURE OF THE OFFICE SCREEN
+
+
+It is not to be supposed that all the enterprises of the Company of
+Disentanglers were fortunate.  Nobody can command success, though, on the
+other hand, a number of persons, civil and military, are able to keep her
+at a distance with surprising uniformity.  There was one class of
+business which Merton soon learned to renounce in despair, just as some
+sorts of maladies defy our medical science.
+
+'It is curious, and not very creditable to our chemists,' Merton said,
+'that love philtres were once as common as seidlitz powders, while now we
+have lost that secret.  The wrong persons might drink love philtres, as
+in the case of Tristram and Iseult.  Or an unskilled rural practitioner
+might send out the wrong drug, as in the instance of Lucretius, who went
+mad in consequence.'
+
+'Perhaps,' remarked Logan, 'the chemist was voting at the Comitia, and it
+was his boy who made a mistake about the mixture.'
+
+'Very probably, but as a rule, the love philtres _worked_.  Now, with all
+our boasted progress, the secret is totally lost.  Nothing but a love
+philtre would be of any use in some cases.  There is Lord Methusalem,
+eighty if he is a day.'
+
+'Methusalem has been unco "wastefu' in wives"!' said Logan.
+
+'His family have been consulting me--the women in tears.  He _will_ marry
+his grandchildren's German governess, and there is nothing to be done.  In
+such cases nothing is ever to be done.  You can easily distract an aged
+man's volatile affections, and attach them to a new charmer.  But she is
+just as ineligible as the first; marry he _will_, always a young woman.
+Now if a respectable virgin or widow of, say, fifty, could hand him a
+love philtre, and gain his heart, appearances would, more or less, be
+saved.  But, short of philtres, there is nothing to be done.  We turn
+away a great deal of business of that sort.'
+
+The Society of Disentanglers, then, reluctantly abandoned dealings in
+this class of affairs.
+
+In another distressing business, Merton, as a patriot, was obliged to
+abandon an attractive enterprise.  The Marquis of Seakail was serving his
+country as a volunteer, and had been mentioned in despatches.  But, to
+the misery of his family, he had entangled himself, before his departure,
+with a young lady who taught in a high school for girls.  Her character
+was unimpeachable, her person graceful; still, as her father was a
+butcher, the duke and duchess were reluctant to assent to the union.  They
+consulted Merton, and assured him that they would not flinch from
+expense.  A great idea flashed across Merton's mind.  He might send out a
+stalwart band of Disentanglers, who, disguised as the enemy, might
+capture Seakail, and carry him off prisoner to some retreat where the
+fairest of his female staff (of course with a suitable chaperon), would
+await him in the character of a daughter of the hostile race.  The result
+would probably be to detach Seakail's heart from his love in England.  But
+on reflection, Merton felt that the scheme was unworthy of a patriot.
+
+Other painful cases occurred.  One lady, a mother, of resolute character,
+consulted Merton on the case of her son.  He was betrothed to an
+excitable girl, a neighbour in the country, who wrote long literary
+letters about Mr. George Meredith's novels, and (when abroad) was a
+perfect Baedeker, or Murray, or Mr. Augustus Hare: instructing through
+correspondence.  So the matron complained, but this was not the worst of
+it.  There was an unhappy family history, of a kind infinitely more
+common in fiction than in real life.  To be explicit, even according to
+the ideas of the most abject barbarians, the young people, unwittingly,
+were too near akin for matrimony.
+
+'There is nothing for it but to tell both of them the truth,' said
+Merton.  'This is not a case in which we can be concerned.'
+
+The resolute matron did not take his counsel.  The man was told, not the
+girl, who died in painful circumstances, still writing.  Her letters were
+later given to the world, though obviously not intended for publication,
+and only calculated to waken unavailing grief among the sentimental, and
+to make the judicious tired.  There was, however, a case in which Merton
+may be said to have succeeded by a happy accident.  Two visitors, ladies,
+were ushered into his consulting room; they were announced as Miss
+Baddeley and Miss Crofton.
+
+Miss Baddeley was attired in black, wore a thick veil, and trembled a
+good deal.  Miss Crofton, whose dress was a combination of untoward but
+decisive hues, and whose hat was enormous and flamboyant, appeared to be
+the other young lady's _confidante_, and conducted the business of the
+interview.
+
+'My dear friend, Miss Baddeley,' she began, when Miss Baddeley took her
+hand, and held it, as if for protection and sympathy.  'My dear friend,'
+repeated Miss Crofton, 'has asked me to accompany her, and state her
+case.  She is too highly strung to speak for herself.'
+
+Miss Baddeley wrung Miss Crofton's hand, and visibly quivered.
+
+Merton assumed an air of sympathy.  'The situation is grave?' he asked.
+
+'My friend,' said Miss Crofton, thoroughly enjoying herself, 'is the
+victim of passionate and unavailing remorse, are you not, Julia?'  Julia
+nodded.
+
+'Deeply as I sympathise,' said Merton, 'it appears to me that I am
+scarcely the person to consult.  A mother now--'
+
+'Julia has none.'
+
+'Or a father or sister?'
+
+'But for me, Julia is alone in the world.'
+
+'Then,' said Merton, 'there are many periodicals especially intended for
+ladies.  There is _The Woman of the World_, _The Girl's Guardian Angel_,
+_Fashion and Passion_, and so on.  The Editors, in their columns, reply
+to questions in cases of conscience.  I have myself read the replies to
+_Correspondents_, and would especially recommend those published in a
+serial conducted by Miss Annie Swan.'
+
+Miss Crofton shook her head.
+
+'Miss Baddeley's social position is not that of the people who are
+answered in periodicals.'
+
+'Then why does she not consult some discreet and learned person, her
+spiritual director?  Remorse (entirely due, no doubt, to a conscience too
+delicately sensitive) is not in our line of affairs.  We only advise in
+cases of undesirable matrimonial engagements.'
+
+'So we are aware,' said Miss Crofton.  'Dear Julia _is_ engaged, or
+rather entangled, in--how many cases, dear?'
+
+Julia shook her head and sobbed behind her veil.
+
+'Is it one, Julia--nod when I come to the exact number--two? three?
+four?'
+
+At the word 'four' Julia nodded assent.
+
+Merton very much wished that Julia would raise her veil.  Her figure was
+excellent, and with so many sins of this kind on her remorseful head, her
+face, Merton thought, must be worth seeing.  The case was new.  As a
+rule, clients wanted to disentangle their friends and relations.  _This_
+client wanted to disentangle herself.
+
+'This case,' said Merton, 'will be difficult to conduct, and the expenses
+would be considerable.  I can hardly advise you to incur them.  Our
+ordinary method is to throw in the way of one or other of the engaged, or
+entangled persons, some one who is likely to distract their affections;
+of course,' he added, 'to a more eligible object.  How can I hope to find
+an object more eligible, Miss Crofton, than I must conceive your
+interesting friend to be?'
+
+Miss Crofton caressingly raised Julia's veil.  Before the victim of
+remorse could bury her face in her hands, Merton had time to see that it
+was a very pretty one.  Julia was dark, pale, with 'eyes like billiard
+balls' (as a celebrated amateur once remarked), with a beautiful mouth,
+but with a somewhat wildly enthusiastic expression.
+
+'How can I hope?' Merton went on, 'to find a worthier and more attractive
+object?  Nay, how can I expect to secure the services not of one, but of
+_four_--'
+
+'Three would do, Mr. Merton,' explained Miss Crofton.  'Is it not so,
+Julia dearest?'
+
+Julia again nodded assent, and a sob came from behind the veil, which she
+had resumed.
+
+'Even three,' said Merton, gallantly struggling with a strong inclination
+to laugh, 'present difficulties.  I do not speak the idle language of
+compliment, Miss Crofton, when I say that our staff would be overtaxed by
+the exigencies of this case.  The expense also, even of three--'
+
+'Expense is no object,' said Miss Crofton.
+
+'But would it not, though I seem to speak against my own interests, be
+the wisest, most honourable, and infinitely the least costly course, for
+Miss Baddeley openly to inform her suitors, three out of the four at
+least, of the actual posture of affairs?  I have already suggested that,
+as the lady takes the matter so seriously to heart, she should consult
+her director, or, if of the Anglican or other Protestant denomination,
+her clergyman, who I am sure will agree with me.'
+
+Miss Crofton shook her head.  'Julia is unattached,' she said.
+
+'I had gathered that to one of the four Miss Baddeley was--not
+indifferent,' said Merton.
+
+'I meant,' said Miss Crofton severely, 'that Miss Baddeley is a Christian
+unattached.  My friend is sensitive, passionate, and deeply religious,
+but not a member of any recognised denomination.  The clergy--'
+
+'They never leave one alone,' said Julia in a musical voice.  It was the
+first time that she had spoken.  'Besides--' she added, and paused.
+
+'Besides, dear Julia _is_--entangled with a young clergyman whom, almost
+in despair, she consulted on her case--at a picnic,' said Miss Crofton,
+adding, 'he is prepared to seek a martyr's fate, but he insists that she
+must accompany him.'
+
+'How unreasonable!' murmured Merton, who felt that this recalcitrant
+clergyman was probably not the favourite out of the field of four.
+
+'That is what _I_ say,' remarked Miss Crofton.  'It is unreasonable to
+expect Julia to accompany him when she has so much work to overtake in
+the home field.  But that is the way with all of them.'
+
+'All of them!' exclaimed Merton.  'Are all the devoted young men under
+vows to seek the crown of martyrdom?  Does your friend act as recruiting
+sergeant, if you will pardon the phrase, for the noble army of martyrs?'
+
+'_Three_ of them have made the most solemn promises.'
+
+'And the fourth?'
+
+'_He_ is not in holy orders.'
+
+'Am I to understand that all the three admirers about whom Miss Baddeley
+suffers remorse are clerics?'
+
+'Yes.  Julia has a wonderful attraction for the Church,' said Miss
+Crofton, 'and that is what causes her difficulties.  She _can't_ write to
+_them_, or communicate to _them_ in personal interviews (as you advised),
+that her heart is no longer--'
+
+'Theirs,' said Merton.  'But why are the clergy more privileged than the
+laity?  I have heard of such things being broken to laymen.  Indeed it
+has occurred to many of us, and we yet live.'
+
+'I have urged the same facts on Julia myself,' said Miss Crofton.  'Indeed
+I _know_, by personal experience, that what you say of the laity is true.
+They do not break their hearts when disappointed.  But Julia replies that
+for her to act as you and I would advise might be to shatter the young
+clergymen's ideals.'
+
+'To shatter the ideals of three young men in holy orders!' said Merton.
+
+'Yes, for Julia _is_ their ideal--Julia and Duty,' said Miss Crofton, as
+if she were naming a firm.  'She lives only,' here Julia twisted the hand
+of Miss Crofton, 'she lives only to do good.  Her fortune, entirely under
+her own control, enables her to do a great deal of good.'
+
+Merton began to understand that the charms of Julia were not entirely
+confined to her _beaux yeux_.
+
+'She is a true philanthropist.  Why, she rescued _me_ from the snares and
+temptations of the stage,' said Miss Crofton.
+
+'Oh, _now_ I understand,' said Merton; 'I knew that your face and voice
+were familiar to me.  Did you not act in a revival of _The Country
+Wife_?'
+
+'Hush,' said Miss Crofton.
+
+'And Lady Teazle at an amateur performance in the Canterbury week?'
+
+'These are days of which I do not desire to be reminded,' said Miss
+Crofton.  'I was trying to explain to you that Julia lives to do good,
+and has a heart of gold.  No, my dear, Mr. Merton will much misconceive
+you unless you let me explain everything.'  This remark was in reply to
+the agitated gestures of Julia.  'Thrown much among the younger clergy in
+the exercise of her benevolence, Julia naturally awakens in them emotions
+not wholly brotherly.  Her sympathetic nature carries her off her feet,
+and she sometimes says "Yes," out of mere goodness of heart, when it
+would be wiser for her to say "No"; don't you, Julia?'
+
+Merton was reminded of one of M. Paul Bourget's amiable married heroines,
+who erred out of sheer goodness of heart, but he only signified his
+intelligence and sympathy.
+
+'Then poor Julia,' Miss Crofton went on hurriedly, 'finds that she has
+misunderstood her heart.  Recently, ever since she met Captain
+Lestrange--of the Guards--'
+
+'The fourth?' asked Merton.
+
+Miss Crofton nodded.  'She has felt more and more certain that she _had_
+misread her heart.  But on each occasion she _has_ felt this--after
+meeting the--well, the next one.'
+
+'I see the awkwardness,' murmured Merton.
+
+'And then Remorse has set in, with all her horrors.  Julia has wept, oh!
+for nights, on my shoulder.'
+
+'Happy shoulder,' murmured Merton.
+
+'And so, as she _dare_ not shatter their ideals, and perhaps cause them
+to plunge into excesses, moral or doctrinal, this is what she has done.
+She has said to each, that what the Church, any Church, needs is martyrs,
+and that if they will go to benighted lands, where the crown of martyrdom
+may still be won, _then_, if they return safe in five years, then
+she--will think of naming a day.  You will easily see the attractions of
+this plan for Julia, Mr. Merton.  No ideals were shattered, the young men
+being unaware of the circumstances.  They _might_ forget her--'
+
+'Impossible,' cried Merton.
+
+'They might forget her, or, perhaps they--'
+
+Miss Crofton hesitated.
+
+'Perhaps they might never--?' asked Merton.
+
+'Yes,' said Miss Crofton; 'perhaps they might _not_.  That would be all
+to the good for the Church; no ideals would be shattered--the reverse--and
+dear Julia would--'
+
+'Cherish their pious memories,' said Merton.
+
+'I see that you understand me,' said Miss Crofton.
+
+Merton did understand, and he was reminded of the wicked lady, who, when
+tired of her lovers, had them put into a sack, and dropped into the
+Seine.
+
+'But,' he asked, 'has this ingenious system failed to work?  I should
+suppose that each young man, on distant and on deadly shores, was far
+from causing inconvenience.'
+
+'The defect of the system,' said Miss Crofton, 'is that none of them has
+gone, or seems in a hurry to go.  The first--that was Mr. Bathe, Julia?'
+
+Julia nodded.
+
+'Mr. Bathe was to have gone to Turkey during the Armenian atrocities, and
+to have _forced_ England to intervene by taking the Armenian side and
+getting massacred.  Julia was intensely interested in the Armenians.  But
+Mr. Bathe first said that he must lead Julia to the altar before he went;
+and then the massacres fell off, and he remains at Cheltenham, and is
+very tiresome.  And then there is Mr. Clancy, _he_ was to go out to
+China, and denounce the gods of the heathen Chinese in the public
+streets.  But _he_ insisted that Julia should first be his, and he is at
+Leamington, and not a step has he taken to convert the Boxers.'
+
+Merton knew the name of Clancy.  Clancy had been his fag at school, and
+Merton thought it extremely improbable that the Martyr's crown would ever
+adorn his brow.
+
+'Then--and this is the last of them, of the clergy, at least--Mr. Brooke:
+he was to visit the New Hebrides, where the natives are cannibals, and
+utterly unawakened.  He is as bad as the others.  He won't go alone.  Now,
+Julia is obliged to correspond with all of them in affectionate terms
+(she keeps well out of their way), and this course of what she feels to
+be duplicity is preying terribly on her conscience.'
+
+Here Julia sobbed hysterically.
+
+'She is afraid, too, that by some accident, though none of them know each
+other, they may become aware of the state of affairs, or Captain
+Lestrange, to whom she is passionately attached, may find it out, and
+then, not only may their ideals be wrecked, but--'
+
+'Yes, I see,' said Merton; 'it is awkward, very.'
+
+The interview, an early one, had lasted for some time.  Merton felt that
+the hour of luncheon had arrived, and, after luncheon, it had been his
+intention to go up to the University match.  He also knew, from various
+sounds, that clients were waiting in the ante-chamber.  At this moment
+the door opened, and the office boy, entering, laid three cards before
+him.
+
+'The gentlemen asked when you could see them, sir.  They have been
+waiting some time.  They say that their appointment was at one o'clock,
+and they wish to go back to Lord's.'
+
+'So do I,' thought Merton sadly.  He looked at the cards, repressed a
+whistle, and handed them silently to Miss Crofton, bidding the boy go,
+and return in three minutes.
+
+Miss Crofton uttered a little shriek, and pressed the cards on Julia's
+attention.  Raising her veil, Julia scanned them, wrung her hands, and
+displayed symptoms of a tendency to faint.  The cards bore the names of
+the Rev. Mr. Bathe, the Rev. Mr. Brooke, and the Rev. Mr. Clancy.
+
+'What is to be done?' asked Miss Crofton in a whisper.  'Can't you send
+them away?'
+
+'Impossible,' said Merton firmly.
+
+'If we go out they will know me, and suspect Julia.'
+
+Miss Crofton looked round the room with eyes of desperate scrutiny.  They
+at once fell on a large old-fashioned screen, covered with engravings,
+which Merton had picked up for the sake of two or three old mezzotints,
+barbarously pasted on to this article of furniture by some ignorant
+owner.
+
+'Saved! we are saved!  Hist, Julia, hither!' said Miss Crofton in a stage
+whisper.  And while Merton murmured 'Highly unprofessional,' the skirts
+of the two ladies vanished behind the screen.
+
+Miss Crofton had not played Lady Teazle for nothing.
+
+'Ask the gentlemen to come in,' said Merton, when the boy returned.
+
+They entered: three fair young curates, nervous and inclined to giggle.
+Shades of difference of ecclesiastical opinion declared themselves in
+their hats, costume, and jewellery.
+
+'Be seated, gentlemen,' said Merton, and they sat down on three chairs,
+in identical attitudes.
+
+'We hope,' said the man on the left, 'that we are not here
+inconveniently.  We would have waited, but, you see, we have all come up
+for the match.'
+
+'How is it going?' asked Merton anxiously.
+
+'Cambridge four wickets down for 115, but--' and the young man stared,
+'it must be, it is Pussy Merton!'
+
+'And you, Clancy Minor, why are you not converting the Heathen Chinee?
+You deserve a death of torture.'
+
+'Goodness!  How do you know that?' asked Clancy.
+
+'I know many things,' answered Merton.  'I am not sure which of you is
+Mr. Bathe.'
+
+Clancy presented Mr. Bathe, a florid young evangelist, who blushed.
+
+'Armenia is still suffering, Mr. Bathe; and Mr. Brooke,' said Merton,
+detecting him by the Method of Residues, 'the oven is still hot in the
+New Hebrides.  What have you got to say for yourselves?'
+
+The curates shifted nervously on their chairs.
+
+'We see, Merton,' said Clancy, 'that you know a good deal which we did
+not know ourselves till lately.  In fact, we did not know each other till
+the Church Congress at Leamington.  Then the other men came to tea at my
+rooms, and saw--'
+
+'A portrait of a lady; each of you possessed a similar portrait,' said
+Merton.
+
+'How the dev--I mean, how do you know _that_?'
+
+'By a simple deductive process,' said Merton.  'There were also letters,'
+he said.  Here a gurgle from behind the screen was audible to Merton.
+
+'We did not read each others' letters,' said Clancy, blushing.
+
+'Of course not,' said Merton.
+
+'But the handwriting on the envelopes was identical,' Clancy went on.
+
+'Well, and what can our Society do for you?'
+
+'Why, we saw your advertisements, never guessed they were _yours_, of
+course, Pussy, and--none of us is a man of the world--'
+
+'I congratulate you,' said Merton.
+
+'So we thought we had better take advice: it seemed rather a lark, too,
+don't you know?  The fact is--you appear to have divined it somehow--we
+find that we are all engaged to the same lady.  We can't fight, and we
+can't all marry her.'
+
+'In Thibet it might be practicable: martyrdom might also be secured
+there,' said Merton.
+
+'Martyrdom is not good enough,' said Clancy.
+
+'Not half,' said Bathe.
+
+'A man has his duties in his own country,' said Brooke.
+
+'May I ask whether in fact your sorrows at this discovery have been
+intense?' asked Merton.
+
+'I was a good deal cut up at first,' said Clancy, 'I being the latest
+recruit.  Bathe had practically given up hope, and had seen some one
+else.'  Mr. Bathe drooped his head, and blushed.  'Brooke laughed.  Indeed
+we _all_ laughed, though we felt rather foolish.  But what are we to do?
+Should we write her a Round Robin?  Bathe says he ought to be the man,
+because he was first man in, and I say _I_ ought to be the man, because I
+am not out.'
+
+'I would not build much on _that_,' said Merton, and he was sure that he
+heard a rustle behind the screen, and a slight struggle.  Julia was
+trying to emerge, restrained by Miss Crofton.
+
+'I knew,' said Clancy, 'that there was _something_--that there were other
+fellows.  But that I learned, more or less, under the seal of confession,
+so to speak.'
+
+'At a picnic,' said Merton.
+
+At this moment the screen fell with a crash, and Julia emerged, her eyes
+blazing, while Miss Crofton followed, her hat somewhat crushed by the
+falling screen.  The three young men in Holy Orders, all of them
+desirable young men, arose to their feet, trembling visibly.
+
+'Apostates!' cried Julia, who had by far the best of the dramatic
+situation and pressed her advantage.  'Recreants! was it for such as
+_you_ that I pointed to the crown of martyrdom?  Was it for _your_
+shattered ideals that I have wept many a night on Serena's faithful
+breast?'  She pointed to Miss Crofton, who enfolded her in an embrace.
+'You!' Julia went on, aiming at them the finger of conviction.  'I am but
+a woman, weak I may have been, wavering I may have been, but I took you
+for men!  I chose you to dare, perhaps to perish, for a Cause.  But now,
+triflers that you are, boys, mere boys, back with you to your silly
+games, back to the thoughtless throng.  I have done.'
+
+Julia, attended by Miss Crofton, swept from the chamber, under her
+indignation (which was quite as real as any of her other emotions) the
+happiest woman in London.  She had no more occasion for remorse, no
+ideals had she sensibly injured.  Her entanglements were disentangled.
+She inhaled the fragrance of orange blossoms from afar, and heard the
+marriage music in the chapel of the Guards.  Meanwhile the three curates
+and Merton felt as if they had been whipped.
+
+'Trust a woman to have the best of it,' muttered Merton admiringly.  'And
+now, Clancy, may I offer a hasty luncheon to you and your friends before
+we go to Lord's?  Your business has been rather rapidly despatched.'
+
+The conversation at luncheon turned exclusively on cricket.
+
+
+
+
+VI.  A LOVER IN COCKY
+
+
+It cannot be said that the bearers of the noblest names in the land
+flocked at first to the offices of Messrs. Gray and Graham.  In fact the
+reverse, in the beginning, was the case.  Members even of the more
+learned professions held aloof: indeed barristers and physicians never
+became eager clients.  On the other hand, Messrs. Gray and Graham
+received many letters in such handwritings, such grammar, and such
+orthography, that they burned them without replying.  A common sort of
+case was that of the young farmer whose widowed mother had set her heart
+on marriage with 'a bonny labouring boy,' a ploughman.
+
+'We can do nothing with these people,' Merton remarked.  'We can't send
+down a young and elegant friend of ours to distract the affections of an
+elderly female agriculturist.  The bonny labouring boy would punch the
+fashionable head; or, at all events, would prove much more attractive to
+the widow than our agent.
+
+'Then there are the members of the Hebrew community.  They hate mixed
+marriages, and quite right too.  I deeply sympathise.  But if Leah has
+let her affections loose on young Timmins, an Anglo-Saxon and a
+Christian, what can we do?  How stop the mesalliance?  We have not, in
+our little regiment, one fair Hebrew boy to smile away her maiden blame
+among the Hebrew mothers of Maida Vale, and to cut out Timmins.  And of
+course it is as bad with the men.  If young Isaacs wants to marry Miss
+Julia Timmins, I have no Rebecca to slip at him.  The Semitic demand,
+though large and perhaps lucrative, cannot be met out of a purely Aryan
+supply.'
+
+Business was pretty slack, and so Merton rather rejoiced over the
+application of a Mrs. Nicholson, from The Laburnums, Walton-on-Dove,
+Derbyshire.  Mrs. Nicholson's name was not in Burke's 'Landed Gentry,'
+and The Laburnums could hardly be estimated as one of the stately homes
+of England.  Still, the lady was granted an interview.  She was what the
+Scots call 'a buddy;' that is, she was large, round, attired in black,
+between two ages, and not easily to be distinguished, by an unobservant
+eye, from buddies as a class.  After greetings, and when enthroned in the
+client's chair, Mrs. Nicholson stated her case with simplicity and
+directness.
+
+'It is my ward,' she said, 'Barbara Monypenny.  I must tell you that she
+was left in my charge till she is twenty-six.  I and her lawyers make her
+an allowance out of her property, which she is to get when she marries
+with my consent, at whatever age.'
+
+'May I ask how old the lady is at present?' said Merton.
+
+'She is twenty-two.'
+
+'Your kindness in taking charge of her is not not wholly uncompensated?'
+
+'No, an allowance is made to me out of the estate.'
+
+'An allowance which ends on her marriage, if she marries with your
+consent?'
+
+'Yes, it ends then.  Her uncle trusted me a deal more than he trusted
+Barbara.  She was strange from a child.  Fond of the men,' as if that
+were an unusual and unbecoming form of philanthropy.
+
+'I see, and she being an heiress, the testator was anxious to protect her
+youth and innocence?'
+
+Mrs. Nicholson merely sniffed, but the sniff was affirmative, though
+sarcastic.
+
+'Her property, I suppose, is considerable?  I do not ask from impertinent
+curiosity, nor for exact figures.  But, as a question of business, may we
+call the fortune considerable?'
+
+'Most people do.  It runs into six figures.'
+
+Merton, who had no mathematical head, scribbled on a piece of paper.  The
+result of his calculations (which I, not without some fever of the brow,
+have personally verified) proved that 'six figures' might be anything
+between 100,000_l_. and 999,000_l_. 19_s_. 11.75_d_.
+
+'Certainly it is very considerable,' Merton said, after a few minutes
+passed in arithmetical calculation.  'Am I too curious if I ask what is
+the source of this opulence?'
+
+'"Wilton's Panmedicon, or Heal All," a patent medicine.  He sold the
+patent and retired.'
+
+Merton shuddered.
+
+'It would be Pammedicum if it could be anything,' he thought, 'but it
+can't, linguistically speaking.'
+
+'Invaluable as a subterfuge,' said Mrs. Nicholson, obviously with an
+indistinct recollection of the advertisement and of the properties of the
+drug.
+
+Merton construed the word as 'febrifuge,' silently, and asked: 'Have you
+taken the young lady much into society: has she had many opportunities of
+making a choice?  You are dissatisfied with the choice, I understand,
+which she has made?'
+
+'I don't let her see anybody if I can help it.  Fire and powder are
+better kept apart, and she is powder, a minx!  Only a fisher or two comes
+to the Perch, that's the inn at Walton-on-Dove, and _they_ are mostly old
+gentlemen, pottering with their rods and things.  If a young man comes to
+the inn, I take care to trapes after her through the nasty damp meadows.'
+
+'Is the young lady an angler?'
+
+'She is--most unwomanly I call it.'
+
+Merton's idea of the young lady rose many degrees.  'You said the young
+lady was "strange from a child, very strange.  Fond of the men."  Happily
+for our sex, and for the world, it is not so very strange or unusual to
+take pity on us.'
+
+'She has always been queer.'
+
+'You do not hint at any cerebral disequilibrium?' asked Merton.
+
+'Would you mind saying that again?' asked Mrs. Nicholson.
+
+'I meant nothing wrong _here_?' Merton said, laying his finger on his
+brow.
+
+'No, not so bad as that,' said Mrs. Nicholson; 'but just queer.  Uncommon.
+Tells odd stories about--nonsense.  She is wearing with her dreams.  She
+reads books on, I don't know how to call it--Tipsy-cake, Tipsicakical
+Search.  Histories, _I_ call it.'
+
+'Yes, I understand,' said Merton; 'Psychical Research.'
+
+'That's it, and Hyptonism,' said Mrs. Nicholson, as many ladies do.
+
+'Ah, Hyptonism, so called from its founder, Hypton, the eminent Anglo-
+French chemist; he was burned at Rome, one of the latest victims of the
+Inquisition,' said Merton.
+
+'I don't hold with Popery, sir, but it served _him_ right.'
+
+'That is all the queerness then!'
+
+'That and general discontentedness.'
+
+'Girls will be girls,' said Merton; 'she wants society.'
+
+'Want must be her master then,' said Mrs. Nicholson stolidly.
+
+'But about the man of her choice, have you anything against him?'
+
+'No, but nothing _for_ him: I never even saw him.'
+
+'Then where did Miss Monypenny make his acquaintance?'
+
+'Well, like a fool, I let her go to pass Christmas with some distant
+cousins of my own, who should have known better.  They stupidly took her
+to a dance, at Tutbury, and there she met him: just that once.'
+
+'And they became engaged on so short an acquaintance?'
+
+'Not exactly that.  She was not engaged when she came home, and did not
+seem to mean to be.  She did talk of him a lot.  He had got round her
+finely: told her that he was going out to the war, and that they were
+sister spirits.  He had dreamed of meeting her, he said, and that was why
+he came to the ball, for he did not dance.  He said he believed they had
+met in a state of pre--something; meaning, if you understand me, before
+they were born, which could not be the case: she not being a twin, still
+less _his_ twin.'
+
+'That would be the only way of accounting for it, certainly,' said
+Merton.  'But what followed?  Did they correspond?'
+
+'He wrote to her, but she showed me the letter, and put it in the fire
+unopened.  He had written his name, Marmaduke Ingles, on a corner of the
+envelope.'
+
+'So far her conduct seems correct, even austere,' said Merton.
+
+'It was at first, but then he wrote from South Africa, where he
+volunteered as a doctor.  He was a doctor at Tutbury.'
+
+'She opened that letter?'
+
+'Yes, and showed it to me.  He kept on with his nonsense, asking her
+never to forget him, and sending his photograph in cocky.'
+
+'Pardon!' said Merton.
+
+'In uniform.  And if he fell, she would see his ghost, in cocky, crossing
+her room, he said.  In fact he knew how to get round the foolish girl.  I
+believe he went out there just to make himself interesting.'
+
+'Did you try to find out what sort of character he had at home?'
+
+'Yes, there was no harm in it, only he had no business to speak of,
+everybody goes to Dr. Younghusband.'
+
+'Then, really, if he is an honest young man, as he seems to be a
+patriotic fellow, are you certain that you are wise in objecting?'
+
+'I _do_ object,' said Mrs. Nicholson, and indeed her motives for refusing
+her consent were only too obvious.
+
+'Are they quite definitely engaged?' asked Merton.
+
+'Yes they are now, by letter, and she says she will wait for him till I
+die, or she is twenty-six, if I don't give my consent.  He writes every
+mail, from places with outlandish names, in Africa.  And she keeps
+looking in a glass ball, like the labourers' women, some of them; she's
+sunk as low as _that_; so superstitious; and sometimes she tells me that
+she sees what he is doing, and where he is; and now and then, when his
+letters come, she shows me bits of them, to prove she was right.  But
+just as often she's wrong; only she won't listen to _me_.  She says it's
+Telly, Tellyopathy.  I say it's flat nonsense.'
+
+'I quite agree with you,' said Merton, with conviction.  'After all,
+though, honest, as far as you hear. . . .'
+
+'Oh yes, honest enough, but that's all,' interrupted Mrs. Nicholson, with
+a hearty sneer.
+
+'Though he bears a good character, from what you tell me he seems to be a
+very silly young man.'
+
+'Silly Johnny to silly Jenny,' put in Mrs. Nicholson.
+
+'A pair with ideas so absurd could not possibly be happy.'  Merton
+reasoned.  'Why don't you take her into the world, and show her life?
+With her fortune and with _you_ to take her about, she would soon forget
+this egregiously foolish romance.'
+
+'And me to have her snapped up by some whipper-snapper that calls himself
+a lord?  Not me, Mr. Graham,' said Mrs. Nicholson.  'The money that her
+uncle made by the Panmedicon is not going to be spent on horses, and
+worse, if I can help it.'
+
+'Then,' said Merton, 'all I can do for you is by our ordinary method--to
+throw some young man of worth and education in the way of your ward, and
+attempt to--divert her affections.'
+
+'And have _him_ carry her off under my very nose?  Not much, Mr. Graham.
+Why where do _I_ come in, in this pretty plan?'
+
+'Do not suppose me to suggest anything so--detrimental to your interests,
+Mrs. Nicholson.  Is your ward beautiful?'
+
+'A toad!' said Mrs. Nicholson with emphasis.
+
+'Very well.  There is no danger.  The gentleman of whom I speak is
+betrothed to one of the most beautiful girls in England.  They are deeply
+attached, and their marriage is only deferred for prudential reasons.'
+
+'I don't trust one of them,' said Mrs. Nicholson.
+
+'Very well, madam,' answered Merton severely; 'I have done all that
+experience can suggest.  The gentleman of whom I speak has paid especial
+attention to the mental delusions under which your ward is labouring, and
+has been successful in removing them in some cases.  But as you reject my
+suggestion'--he rose, so did Mrs. Nicholson--'I have the honour of
+wishing you a pleasant journey back to Derbyshire.'
+
+'A bullet may hit him,' said Mrs. Nicholson with much acerbity.  'That's
+my best hope.'
+
+Then Merton bowed her out.
+
+'The old woman will never let the girl marry anybody, except some
+adventurer, who squares her by giving her the full value of her allowance
+out of the estate,' thought Merton, adding 'I wonder how much it is!  Six
+figures is anything between a hundred thousand and a million!'
+
+The man he had thought of sending down to divert Miss Monypenny's
+affections from the young doctor was Jephson, the History coach, at that
+hour waiting for a professorship to enable him to marry Miss Willoughby.
+
+However, he dismissed Mrs. Nicholson and her ward from his mind.  About a
+fortnight later Merton received a letter directed in an uneducated hand.
+'Another of the agricultural classes,' he thought, but, looking at the
+close of the epistle, he saw the name of Eliza Nicholson.  She wrote:
+
+   'Sir,--Barbara has been at her glass ball, and seen him being carried
+   on board a ship.  If she is right, and she is not always wrong, he is
+   on his way home.  Though I will never give my consent, this spells
+   botheration for me.  You can send down your young man that cures by
+   teleopathy, a thing that has come up since my time.  He can stay at
+   the Perch, and take a fishing rod, then they are safe to meet.  I
+   trust him no more than the rest, but she may fall between two stools,
+   if the doctor does come home.
+
+   'Your obedient servant,
+
+   'Eliza Nicholson.'
+
+'Merely to keep one's hand in,' thought Merton, 'in the present
+disappointing slackness of business, I'll try to see Jephson.  I don't
+like or trust him.  I don't think he is the man for Miss Willoughby.  So,
+if he ousts the doctor, and catches the heiress, why "there was more lost
+at Shirramuir," as Logan says.'
+
+Merton managed to go up to Oxford, and called on Jephson.  He found him
+anxious about a good, quiet, cheap place for study.
+
+'Do you fish?' asked Merton.
+
+'When I get the chance,' said Jephson.
+
+He was a dark, rather clumsy, but not unprepossessing young don, with a
+very slight squint.
+
+'If you fish did you ever try the Perch--I mean an inn, not the fish of
+the same name--at Walton-on-Dove?  A pretty quiet place, two miles of
+water, local history perhaps interesting.  It is not very far from
+Tutbury, where Queen Mary was kept, I think.'
+
+'It sounds well,' said Jephson; 'I'll write to the landlord and ask about
+terms.'
+
+'You could not do better,' said Merton, and he took his leave.
+
+'Now, am I,' thought Merton as he walked down the Broad, 'to put Jephson
+up to it?  If I don't, of course I can't "reap the benefit of one single
+pin" for the Society: Jephson not being a member.  But the money, anyhow,
+would come from that old harpy out of the girl's estate.  _Olet_!  I
+don't like the fragrance of that kind of cash.  But if the girl really is
+plain, "a toad," nothing may happen.  On the other hand, Jephson is sure
+to hear about her position from local gossip--that she is rich, and so
+on.  Perhaps she is not so very plain.  They are sure to meet, or Mrs.
+Nicholson will bring them together in her tactful way.  She has not much
+time to lose if the girl's glass ball yarn is true, and it _may_ be true
+by a fluke.  Jephson is rather bitten by a taste for all that
+"teleopathy" business, as the old Malaprop calls it.  On the whole, I
+shall say no more to him, but let him play the game, if he goes to
+Walton, off his own bat.'
+
+Presently Merton received a note from Jephson dated 'The Perch, Walton-on-
+Dove.'  Jephson expressed his gratitude; the place suited his purpose
+very well.  He had taken a brace and a half of trout, 'bordering on two
+pounds' ('one and a quarter,' thought Merton).  'And, what won't interest
+_you_,' his letter said, 'I have run across a curiously interesting
+subject, what _you_ would call _hysterical_.  But what, after all, is
+hysteria?' &c., &c.
+
+'_L'affaire est dans le sac_!' said Merton to himself.  'Jephson and Miss
+Monypenny have met!'
+
+Weeks passed, and one day, on arriving at the office, Merton found Miss
+Willoughby there awaiting his arrival.  She was the handsome Miss
+Willoughby, Jephson's betrothed, a learned young lady who lived but
+poorly by verifying references and making researches at the Record
+Office.
+
+Merton at once had a surmise, nor was it mistaken.  The usual greetings
+had scarcely passed, when the girl, with cheeks on fire and eyes aflame,
+said:
+
+'Mr. Merton, do you remember a question, rather unconventional, which you
+put to me at the dinner party you and Mr. Logan gave at the restaurant?'
+
+'I ought not to have said it,' said Merton, 'but then it was an
+unconventional gathering.  I asked if you--'
+
+'Your words were "Had I a spark of the devil in me?"  Well, I have!  Can
+I--'
+
+'Turn it to any purpose?  You can, Miss Willoughby, and I shall have the
+honour to lay the method before you, of course only for your
+consideration, and under seal of secrecy.  Indeed I was just about to
+write to you asking for an interview.'
+
+Merton then laid the circumstances in which he wanted Miss Willoughby's
+aid before her, but these must be reserved for the present.  She
+listened, was surprised, was clearly ready for more desperate adventures;
+she came into his views, and departed.
+
+'Jephson _has_ played the game off his own bat--and won it,' thought
+Merton to himself.  'What a very abject the fellow is!  But, after all, I
+have disentangled Miss Willoughby; she was infinitely too good for the
+man, with his squint.'
+
+As Merton indulged in these rather Pharisaical reflections, Mrs.
+Nicholson was announced.  Merton greeted her, and gave orders that no
+other client was to be admitted.  He was himself rather nervous.  Was
+Mrs. Nicholson in a rage?  No, her eyes beamed friendly; geniality
+clothed her brow.
+
+'He has squared her,' thought Merton.
+
+Indeed, the lady had warmly grasped his hand with both of her own, which
+were imprisoned in tight new gloves, while her bonnet spoke of
+regardlessness of expense and recent prodigality.  She fell back into the
+client's chair.
+
+'Oh, sir,' she said, 'when first we met we did not part, or _I_ did
+not--_you_ were quite the gentleman--on the best of terms.  But now, how
+can I speak of your wise advice, and how much don't I owe you?'
+
+Merton answered very gravely: 'You do not owe me anything, Madam.  Please
+understand that I took absolutely no professional steps in your affair.'
+
+'What?' cried Mrs. Nicholson.  'You did not send down that blessed young
+man to the Perch?'
+
+'I merely suggested that the inn might suit a person whom I knew, who was
+looking for country quarters.  Your name never crossed my lips, nor a
+word about the business on which you did me the honour to consult me.'
+
+'Then I owe you nothing?'
+
+'Nothing at all.'
+
+'Well, I do call this providential,' said Mrs. Nicholson, with devout
+enthusiasm.
+
+'You are not in my debt to the extent of a farthing, but if you think I
+have accidentally been--'
+
+'An instrument?' said Mrs. Nicholson.
+
+'Well, an unconscious instrument, perhaps you can at least tell me why
+you think so.  What has happened?'
+
+'You really don't know?'
+
+'I only know that you are pleased, and that your anxieties seem to be
+relieved.'
+
+'Why, he saved her from being burned, and the brave,' said Mrs.
+Nicholson, 'deserve the fair, not that _she_ is a beauty.'
+
+'Do tell me all that happened.'
+
+'And tell you I can, for that precious young man took me into his
+confidence.  First, when I heard that he had come to the Perch, I
+trampled about the damp riverside with Barbara, and sure enough they met,
+he being on the Perch's side of the fence, and Barbara's line being
+caught high up in a tree on ours, as often happens.  Well, I asked him to
+come over the fence and help her to get her line clear, which he did very
+civilly, and then he showed her how to fish, and then I asked him to tea
+and left them alone a bit, and when I came back they were talking about
+teleopathy, and her glass ball, and all that nonsense.  And he seemed
+interested, but not to believe in it quite.  I could not understand half
+their tipsycakical lingo.  So of course they often met again at the
+river, and he often came to tea, and she seemed to take to him--she was
+always one for the men.  And at last a very queer thing happened, and
+gave him his chance.
+
+'It was a very hot day in July, and she fell asleep on a seat under a
+tree with her glass ball in her lap; she had been staring at it, I
+suppose.  Any way she slept on, till the sun went round and shone full on
+the ball; and just as he, Mr. Jephson, that is, came into the gate, the
+glass ball began to act like a burning glass and her skirt began to
+smoke.  Well, he waited a bit, I think, till the skirt blazed a little,
+and then he rushed up and threw his coat over her skirt, and put the fire
+out.  And so he saved her from being a Molochaust, like you read about in
+the bible.'
+
+Merton mentally disengaged the word 'Molochaust' into 'Moloch' and
+'holocaust.'
+
+'And there she was, when I happened to come by, a-crying and carrying on,
+with her head on his shoulder.'
+
+'A pleasing group, and so they were engaged on the spot?' asked Merton.
+
+'Not she!  She held off, and thanked her preserver; but she would be
+true, she said, to her lover in cocky.  But before that Mr. Jephson had
+taken me into his confidence.'
+
+'And you made no objection to his winning your ward, if he could?'
+
+'No, sir, I could trust that young man: I could trust him with Barbara.'
+
+'His arguments,' said Merton, 'must have been very cogent?'
+
+'He understood my situation if she married, and what I deserved,' said
+Mrs. Nicholson, growing rather uncomfortable, and fidgeting in the
+client's chair.
+
+Merton, too, understood, and knew what the sympathetic arguments of
+Jephson must have been.
+
+'And, after all,' Merton asked, 'the lover has prospered in his suit?'
+
+'This is how he got round her.  He said to me that night, in private:
+"Mrs. Nicholson," said he, "your niece is a very interesting historical
+subject.  I am deeply anxious, apart from my own passion for her, to
+relieve her from a singular but not very uncommon delusion."
+
+'"Meaning her lover in cocky," I said.
+
+'"There is no lover in cocky," says he.
+
+'"No Dr. Ingles!" said I.
+
+'"Yes, there _is_ a Dr. Ingles, but he is not her lover, and your niece
+never met him.  I bicycled to Tutbury lately, and, after examining the
+scene of Queen Mary's captivity, I made a few inquiries.  What I had
+always suspected proved to be true.  Dr. Ingles was not present at that
+ball at the Bear at Tutbury."
+
+'Well,' Mrs. Nicholson went on, 'you might have knocked me down with a
+feather!  I had never asked my second cousins the question, not wanting
+them to guess about my affairs.  But down I sat, and wrote to Maria, and
+got her answer.  Barbara never saw Dr. Ingles! only heard the girls
+mention him, and his going to the war.  And then, after that, by Mr.
+Jephson's advice, I went and gave Barbara my mind.  She should marry Mr.
+Jephson, who saved her life, or be the laughing stock of the country.  I
+showed her up to herself, with her glass ball, and her teleopathy, and
+her sham love-letters, that she wrote herself, and all her humbug.  She
+cried, and she fainted, and she carried on, but I went at her whenever
+she could listen to reason.  So she said "Yes," and I am the happy
+woman.'
+
+'And Mr. Jephson is to be congratulated on so sensible and veracious a
+bride,' said Merton.
+
+'Oh, he says it is by no means an uncommon case, and that he has effected
+a complete cure, and they will be as happy as idiots,' said Mrs.
+Nicholson, as she rose to depart.
+
+She left Merton pensive, and not disposed to overrate human nature.  'But
+there can't be many fellows like Jephson,' he said.  'I wonder how much
+the six figures run to?'  But that question was never answered to his
+satisfaction.
+
+
+
+
+VII.  THE ADVENTURE OF THE EXEMPLARY EARL
+
+
+I.  The Earl's Long-Lost Cousin
+
+
+'A jilt in time saves nine,' says the proverbial wisdom of our
+forefathers, adding, 'One jilt makes many.'  In the last chapter of the
+book of this chronicle, we told how the mercenary Mr. Jephson proved
+false to the beautiful Miss Willoughby, who supported existence by her
+skill in deciphering and transcribing the manuscript records of the past.
+We described the consequent visit of Miss Willoughby to the office of the
+Disentanglers, and how she reminded Merton that he had asked her once 'if
+she had a spark of the devil in her.'  She had that morning received, in
+fact, a letter, crawling but explicit, from the unworthy Jephson, her
+lover.  Retired, he said, to the rural loneliness of Derbyshire, he had
+read in his own heart, and what he there deciphered convinced him that,
+as a man of honour, he had but one course before him: he must free Miss
+Willoughby from her engagement.  The lady was one of those who suffer in
+silence.  She made no moan, and no reply to Jephson's letter; but she did
+visit Merton, and, practically, gave him to understand that she was ready
+to start as a Corsair on the seas of amorous adventure.  She had nailed
+the black flag to the mast: unhappy herself, she was apt to have no mercy
+on the sentiments and affections of others.
+
+Merton, as it chanced, had occasion for the services of a lady in this
+mood; a lady at once attractive, and steely-hearted; resolute to revenge,
+on the whole of the opposite sex, the baseness of a Fellow of his
+College.  Such is the frenzy of an injured love--illogical indeed (for we
+are not responsible for the errors of isolated members of our sex), but
+primitive, natural to women, and even to some men, in Miss Willoughby's
+position.
+
+The occasion for such services as she would perform was provided by a
+noble client who, on visiting the office, had found Merton out and Logan
+in attendance.  The visitor was the Earl of Embleton, of the North.
+Entering the rooms, he fumbled with the string of his eyeglass, and,
+after capturing it, looked at Logan with an air of some bewilderment.  He
+was a tall, erect, slim, and well-preserved patrician, with a manner
+really shy, though hasty critics interpreted it as arrogant.  He was
+'between two ages,' a very susceptible period in the history of the
+individual.
+
+'I think we have met before,' said the Earl to Logan.  'Your face is not
+unfamiliar to me.'
+
+'Yes,' said Logan, 'I have seen you at several places;' and he mumbled a
+number of names.
+
+'Ah, I remember now--at Lady Lochmaben's,' said Lord Embleton.  'You are,
+I think, a relation of hers. . . .'
+
+'A distant relation: my name is Logan.'
+
+'What, of the Restalrig family?' said the Earl, with excitement.
+
+'A far-off kinsman of the Marquis,' said Logan, adding, 'May I ask you to
+be seated?'
+
+'This is really very interesting to me--surprisingly interesting,' said
+the Earl.  'What a strange coincidence!  How small the world is, how
+brief are the ages!  Our ancestors, Mr. Logan, were very intimate long
+ago.'
+
+'Indeed?' said Logan.
+
+'Yes.  I would not speak of it to everybody; in fact, I have spoken of it
+to no one; but recently, examining some documents in my muniment-room, I
+made a discovery as interesting to me as it must be to you.  Our
+ancestors three hundred years ago--in 1600, to be exact--were fellow
+conspirators.'
+
+'Ah, the old Gowrie game, to capture the King?' asked Logan, who had once
+kidnapped a cat.
+
+His knowledge of history was mainly confined to that obscure and
+unexplained affair, in which his wicked old ancestor is thought to have
+had a hand.
+
+'That is it,' said the visitor--'the Gowrie mystery!  You may remember
+that an unknown person, a friend of your ancestor, was engaged?'
+
+'Yes,' said Logan; 'he was never identified.  Was his name Harris?'
+
+The peer half rose to his feet, flushed a fine purple, twiddled the
+obsolete little grey tuft on his chin, and sat down again.
+
+'I think I said, Mr. Logan, that the hitherto unidentified associate of
+your ancestor was _a member of my own family_.  Our name is _not_
+Harris--a name very honourably borne--our family name is Guevara.  My
+ancestor was a cousin of the brave Lord Willoughby.'
+
+'Most interesting!  You must pardon me, but as nobody ever knew what you
+have just found out, you will excuse my ignorance,' said Logan, who, to
+be sure, had never heard of the brave Lord Willoughby.
+
+'It is I who ought to apologise,' said the visitor.  'Your mention of the
+name of Harris appeared to me to indicate a frivolity as to matters of
+the past which, I must confess, is apt to make me occasionally forget
+myself.  _Noblesse oblige_, you know: we respect ourselves--in our
+progenitors.'
+
+'Unless he wants to prevent someone from marrying his great-grandmother,
+I wonder what he is doing with his Tales of a Grandfather _here_,'
+thought Logan, but he only smiled, and said, 'Assuredly--my own opinion.
+I wish I could respect _my_ ancestor!'
+
+'The gentleman of whom I speak, the associate of your own distant
+progenitor, was the founder of our house, as far as mere titles are
+concerned.  We were but squires of Northumbria, of ancient Celtic
+descent, before the time of Queen Elizabeth.  My ancestor at that time--'
+
+'Oh bother his pedigree!' thought Logan.
+
+'--was a young officer in the English garrison of Berwick, and _he_, I
+find, was _your_ ancestor's unknown correspondent.  I am not skilled in
+reading old hands, and I am anxious to secure a trustworthy person--really
+trustworthy--to transcribe the manuscripts which contain these exciting
+details.'
+
+Logan thought that the office of the Disentanglers was hardly the place
+to come to in search of an historical copyist.  However, he remembered
+Miss Willoughby, and said that he knew a lady of great skill and
+industry, of good family too, upon whom his client might entirely depend.
+'She is a Miss Willoughby,' he added.
+
+'Not one of the Willoughbys of the Wicket, a most worthy, though
+unfortunate house, nearly allied, as I told you, to my own, about three
+hundred years ago?' said the Earl.
+
+'Yes, she is a daughter of the last squire.'
+
+'Ruined in the modern race for wealth, like so many!' exclaimed the peer,
+and he sat in silence, deeply moved; his lips formed a name familiar to
+Law Courts.
+
+'Excuse my emotion, Mr. Logan,' he went on.  'I shall be happy to see and
+arrange with this lady, who, I trust will, as my cousin, accept my
+hospitality at Rookchester.  I shall be deeply interested, as you, no
+doubt, will also be, in the result of her researches into an affair which
+so closely concerns both you and me.'
+
+He was silent again, musing deeply, while Logan marvelled more and more
+what his real original business might be.  All this affair of the
+documents and the muniment-room had arisen by the merest accident, and
+would not have arisen if the Earl had found Merton at home.  The Earl
+obviously had a difficulty in coming to the point: many clients had.  To
+approach a total stranger on the most intimate domestic affairs (even if
+his ancestor and yours were in a big thing together three hundred years
+ago) is, to a sensitive patrician, no easy task.  In fact, even members
+of the middle class were, as clients, occasionally affected by shyness.
+
+'Mr. Logan,' said the Earl, 'I am not a man of to-day.  The cupidity of
+our age, the eagerness with which wealthy aliens are welcomed into our
+best houses and families, is to me, I may say, distasteful.  Better that
+our coronets were dimmed than that they should be gilded with the gold
+eagles of Chicago or blazing with the diamonds of Kimberley.  My feelings
+on this point are unusually--I do not think that they are unduly--acute.'
+
+Logan murmured assent.
+
+'I am poor,' said the Earl, with all the expansiveness of the shy; 'but I
+never held what is called a share in my life.'
+
+'It is long,' said Logan, with perfect truth, 'since anything of that
+sort was in my own possession.  In that respect my 'scutcheon, so to
+speak, is without a stain.'
+
+'How fortunate I am to have fallen in with one of sentiments akin to my
+own, unusual as they are!' said the Earl.  'I am a widower,' he went on,
+'and have but one son and one daughter.'
+
+'He is coming to business _now_,' thought Logan.
+
+'The former, I fear, is as good almost as affianced--is certainly in
+peril of betrothal--to a lady against whom I have not a word to say,
+except that she is inordinately wealthy, the sole heiress of--'  Here the
+Earl gasped, and was visibly affected.  'You may have heard, sir,' the
+patrician went on, 'of a commercial transaction of nature unfathomable to
+myself--I have not sought for information,' he waved his hand
+impatiently, 'a transaction called a Straddle?'
+
+Logan murmured that he was aware of the existence of the phrase, though
+unconscious of its precise meaning.
+
+'The lady's wealth is based on a successful Straddle, operated by her
+only known male ancestor, in--Bristles--Hogs' Bristles and Lard,' said
+the Earl.
+
+'Miss Bangs!' exclaimed Logan, knowing the name, wealth, and the source
+of the wealth of the ruling Chicago heiress of the day.
+
+'I am to be understood to speak of Miss Bangs--as her name has been
+pronounced between us--with all the respect due to youth, beauty, and an
+amiable disposition,' said the peer; 'but Bristles, Mr. Logan, Hogs'
+Bristles and Lard.  And a Straddle!'
+
+'Lucky devil, Scremerston,' thought Logan, for Scremerston was the only
+son of Lord Embleton, and he, as it seemed, had secured that coveted
+prize of the youth of England, the heart of the opulent Miss Bangs.  But
+Logan only sighed and stared at the wall as one who hears of an
+irremediable disaster.
+
+'If they really were betrothed,' said Lord Embleton, 'I would have
+nothing to say or do in the way of terminating the connection, however
+unwelcome.  A man's word is his word.  It is in these circumstances of
+doubt (when the fortunes of a house ancient, though titularly of mere
+Tudor _noblesse_, hang in the balance) that, despairing of other help, I
+have come to you.'
+
+'But,' asked Logan, 'have things gone so very far?  Is the disaster
+irremediable?  I am acquainted with your son, Lord Scremerston; in fact,
+he was my fag at school.  May I speak quite freely?'
+
+'Certainly; you will oblige me.'
+
+'Well, by the candour of early friendship, Scremerston was called the
+Arcadian, an allusion to a certain tenderness of heart allied with--h'm--a
+rather confident and sanguine disposition.  I think it may console you to
+reflect that perhaps he rather overestimates his success with the
+admirable young lady of whom we spoke.  You are not certain that she has
+accepted him?'
+
+'No,' said the Earl, obviously relieved.  'I am sure that he has not
+positively proposed to her.  He knows my opinion: he is a dutiful son,
+but he did seem very confident--seemed to think that his honour was
+engaged.'
+
+'I think we may discount that a little,' said Logan, 'and hope for the
+best.'
+
+'I shall try to take that view,' said the Earl.  'You console me
+infinitely, Mr. Logan.'
+
+Logan was about to speak again, when his client held up a gently
+deprecating hand.
+
+'That is not all, Mr. Logan.  I have a daughter--'
+
+Logan chanced to be slightly acquainted with the daughter, Lady Alice
+Guevara, a very nice girl.
+
+'Is she attached to a South African Jew?' Logan thought.
+
+'In this case,' said the client, 'there is no want of blood; Royal in
+origin, if it comes to that.  To the House of Bourbon I have no
+objection, in itself, that would be idle affectation.'
+
+Logan gasped.
+
+Was this extraordinary man anxious to reject a lady 'multimillionaire'
+for his son, and a crown of some sort or other for his daughter?
+
+'But the stain of ill-gotten gold--silver too--is ineffaceable.'
+
+'It really cannot be Bristles this time,' thought Logan.
+
+'And a dynasty based on the roulette-table, . . . '
+
+'Oh, the Prince of Scalastro!' cried Logan.
+
+'I see that you know the worst,' said the Earl.
+
+Logan knew the worst fairly well.  The Prince of Scalastro owned a
+percentage of two or three thousand which Logan had dropped at the tables
+licensed in his principality.
+
+'To the Prince, personally, I bear no ill-will,' said the Earl.  'He is
+young, brave, scientific, accomplished, and this unfortunate attachment
+began before he inherited his--h'm--dominions.  I fear it is, on both
+sides, a deep and passionate sentiment.  And now, Mr. Logan, you know the
+full extent of my misfortunes: what course does your experience
+recommend?  I am not a harsh father.  Could I disinherit Scremerston,
+which I cannot, the loss would not be felt by him in the circumstances.
+As to my daughter--'
+
+The peer rose and walked to the window.  When he came back and resumed
+his seat, Logan turned on him a countenance of mournful sympathy.  The
+Earl silently extended his hand, which Logan took.  On few occasions had
+a strain more severe been placed on his gravity, but, unlike a celebrated
+diplomatist, he 'could command his smile.'
+
+'Your case,' he said, 'is one of the most singular, delicate, and
+distressing which I have met in the course of my experience.  There is no
+objection to character, and poverty is not the impediment: the reverse.
+You will permit me, no doubt, to consult my partner, Mr. Merton; we have
+naturally no secrets between us, and he possesses a delicacy of touch and
+a power of insight which I can only regard with admiring envy.  It was he
+who carried to a successful issue that difficult case in the family of
+the Sultan of Mingrelia (you will observe that I use a fictitious name).
+I can assure you, Lord Embleton, that polygamy presents problems almost
+insoluble; problems of extreme delicacy--or indelicacy.'
+
+'I had not heard of that affair,' said the Earl.  'Like Eumaeus in Homer
+and in Mr. Stephen Phillips, I dwell among the swine, and come rarely to
+the city.'
+
+'The matter never went beyond the inmost diplomatic circles,' said Logan.
+'The Sultan's favourite son, the Jam, or Crown Prince, of Mingrelia
+(_Jamreal_, they called him), loved four beautiful Bollachians,
+sisters--again I disguise the nationality.'
+
+'Sisters!' exclaimed the peer; 'I have always given my vote against the
+Deceased Wife's Sister Bill; but _four_, and all alive!'
+
+'The law of the Prophet, as you are aware, is not monogamous,' said
+Logan; 'and the Eastern races are not averse to connections which are
+reprobated by our Western ideas.  The real difficulty was that of
+religion.
+
+   'Oh, why from the heretic girl of my soul
+   Should I fly, to seek elsewhere an orthodox kiss?'
+
+hummed Logan, rather to the surprise of Lord Embleton.  He went on: 'It
+is not so much that the Mingrelians object to mixed marriages in the
+matter of religion, but the Bollachians, being Christians, do object, and
+have a horror of polygamy.  It was a cruel affair.  All four girls, and
+the Jamreal himself, were passionately attached to each other.  It was
+known, too, that, for political reasons, the maidens had received a
+dispensation from the leading Archimandrite, their metropolitan, to marry
+the proud Paynim.  The Mingrelian Sultan is suzerain of Bollachia; his
+native subjects are addicted to massacring the Bollachians from religious
+motives, and the Bollachian Church (Nestorians, as you know) hoped that
+the four brides would convert the Jamreal to their creed, and so solve
+the Bollachian question.  The end, they said, justified the means.'
+
+'Jesuitical,' said the Earl, shaking his head sadly.
+
+'That is what my friend and partner, Mr. Merton, thought,' said Logan,
+'when we were applied to by the Sultan.  Merton displayed extraordinary
+tact and address.  All was happily settled, the Sultan and the Jamreal
+were reconciled, the young ladies met other admirers, and learned that
+what they had taken for love was but a momentary infatuation.'
+
+The Earl sighed, '_Renovare dolorem_!  My family,' said he, 'is, and has
+long been--ever since the Gunpowder Plot--firmly, if not passionately,
+attached to the Church of England.  The Prince of Scalastro is a
+Catholic.'
+
+'Had we a closer acquaintance with the parties concerned!' murmured
+Logan.
+
+'You must come and visit us at Rookchester,' said the Earl.  'In any case
+I am most anxious to know better one whose ancestor was so closely
+connected with my own.  We shall examine my documents under the tuition
+of the lady you mentioned, Miss Willoughby, if she will accept the
+hospitality of a kinsman.'
+
+Logan murmured acquiescence, and again asked permission to consult
+Merton, which was granted.  The Earl then shook hands and departed,
+obviously somewhat easier in his mind.
+
+This remarkable conversation was duly reported by Logan to Merton.
+
+'What are we to do next?' asked Logan.
+
+'Why you can do nothing but reconnoitre.  Go down to Rookchester.  It is
+in Northumberland, on the Coquet--a pretty place, but there is no fishing
+just now.  Then we must ask Lord Embleton to meet Miss Willoughby.  The
+interview can be here: Miss Willoughby will arrive, chaperoned by Miss
+Blossom, after the Earl makes his appearance.'
+
+'That will do, as far as his bothering old manuscripts are concerned; but
+how about the real business--the two undesirable marriages?'
+
+'We must first see how the land lies.  I do not know any of the lovers.
+What sort of fellow is Scremerston?'
+
+'Nothing remarkable about him--good, plucky, vain little fellow.  I
+suppose he wants money, like the rest of the world: but his father won't
+let him be a director of anything, though he is in the House and his name
+would look well on a list.'
+
+'So he wants to marry dollars?'
+
+'I suppose he has no objection to them; but have you seen Miss Bangs?'
+
+'I don't remember her,' said Merton.
+
+'Then you have not seen her.  She is beautiful, by Jove; and, I fancy,
+clever and nice, and gives herself no airs.'
+
+'And she has all that money, and yet the old gentleman objects!'
+
+'He can not stand the bristles and lard,' said Logan.
+
+'Then the Prince of Scalastro--him I have come across.  You would never
+take him for a foreigner,' said Merton, bestowing on the Royal youth the
+highest compliment which an Englishman can pay, but adding, 'only he is
+too intelligent and knows too much.'
+
+'No; there is nothing the matter with _him_,' Logan admitted--'nothing
+but happening to inherit a gambling establishment and the garden it
+stands in.  He is a scientific character--a scientific soldier.  I wish
+we had a few like him.'
+
+'Well, it is a hard case,' said Merton.  'They all seem to be very good
+sort of people.  And Lady Alice Guevara?  I hardly know her at all; but
+she is pretty enough--tall, yellow hair, brown eyes.'
+
+'And as good a girl as lives,' added Logan.  'Very religious, too.'
+
+'She won't change her creed?' asked Merton.
+
+'She would go to the stake for it,' said Logan.  'She is more likely to
+convert the Prince.'
+
+'That would be one difficulty out of the way,' said Merton.  'But the
+gambling establishment?  There is the rub!  And the usual plan won't
+work.  You are a captivating person, Logan, but I do not think that you
+could attract Lady Alice's affections and disentangle her in that way.
+Besides, the Prince would have you out.  Then Miss Bangs' dollars, not to
+mention herself, must have too strong a hold on Scremerston.  It really
+looks too hard a case for us on paper.  You must go down and
+reconnoitre.'
+
+Logan agreed, and wrote asking Lord Embleton to come to the office, where
+he could see Miss Willoughby and arrange about her visit to him and his
+manuscripts.  The young lady was invited to arrive rather later, bringing
+Miss Blossom as her companion.
+
+On the appointed day Logan and Merton awaited Lord Embleton.  He entered
+with an air unwontedly buoyant, and was introduced to Merton.  The first
+result was an access of shyness.  The Earl hummed, began sentences,
+dropped them, and looked pathetically at Logan.  Merton understood.  The
+Earl had taken to Logan (on account of their hereditary partnership in an
+ancient iniquity), and it was obvious that he would say to him what he
+would not say to his partner.  Merton therefore withdrew to the outer
+room (they had met in the inner), and the Earl delivered himself to Logan
+in a little speech.
+
+'Since we met, Mr. Logan,' said he, 'a very fortunate event has occurred.
+The Prince of Scalastro, in a private interview, has done me the honour
+to take me into his confidence.  He asked my permission to pay his
+addresses to my daughter, and informed me that, finding his ownership of
+the gambling establishment distasteful to her, he had determined not to
+renew the lease to the company.  He added that since his boyhood, having
+been educated in Germany, he had entertained scruples about the position
+which he would one day occupy, that he had never entered the rooms (that
+haunt of vice), and that his acquaintance with my daughter had greatly
+increased his objections to gambling, though his scruples were not
+approved of by his confessor, a very learned priest.'
+
+'That is curious,' said Logan.
+
+'Very,' said the Earl.  'But as I expect the Prince and his confessor at
+Rookchester, where I hope you will join us, we may perhaps find out the
+reasons which actuate that no doubt respectable person.  In the meantime,
+as I would constrain nobody in matters of religion, I informed the Prince
+that he had my permission to--well, to plead his cause for himself with
+Lady Alice.'
+
+Logan warmly congratulated the Earl on the gratifying resolve of the
+Prince, and privately wondered how the young people would support life,
+when deprived of the profits from the tables.
+
+It was manifest, however, from the buoyant air of the Earl, that this
+important question had never crossed his mind.  He looked quite young in
+the gladness of his heart, 'he smelled April and May,' he was clad
+becomingly in summer raiment, and to Logan it was quite a pleasure to see
+such a happy man.  Some fifteen years seemed to have been taken from the
+age of this buxom and simple-hearted patrician.
+
+He began to discuss with Logan all conceivable reasons why the Prince's
+director had rather discouraged his idea of closing the gambling-rooms
+for ever.
+
+'The Father, Father Riccoboni, is a Jesuit, Mr. Logan,' said the Earl
+gravely.  'I would not be uncharitable, I hope I am not prejudiced, but
+members of that community, I fear, often prefer what they think the
+interests of their Church to those of our common Christianity.  A portion
+of the great wealth of the Scalastros was annually devoted to masses for
+the souls of the players--about fifteen per cent. I believe--who yearly
+shoot themselves in the gardens of the establishment.'
+
+'No more suicides, no more subscriptions, I suppose,' said Logan; 'but
+the practice proved that the reigning Princes of Scalastro had feeling
+hearts.'
+
+While the Earl developed this theme, Miss Willoughby, accompanied by Miss
+Blossom, had joined Merton in the outer room.  Miss Blossom, being clad
+in white, with her blue eyes and apple-blossom complexion, looked like
+the month of May.  But Merton could not but be struck by Miss Willoughby.
+She was tall and dark, with large grey eyes, a Greek profile, and a brow
+which could, on occasion, be thunderous and lowering, so that Miss
+Willoughby seemed to all a remarkably fine young woman; while the
+educated spectator was involuntarily reminded of the beautiful sister of
+the beautiful Helen, the celebrated Clytemnestra.  The young lady was
+clad in very dark blue, with orange points, so to speak, and compared
+with her transcendent beauty, Miss Blossom, as Logan afterwards remarked,
+seemed a
+
+   'Wee modest crimson-tippit beastie,'
+
+he intending to quote the poet Burns.
+
+After salutations, Merton remarked to Miss Blossom that her well-known
+discretion might prompt her to take a seat near the window while he
+discussed private business with Miss Willoughby.  The good-humoured girl
+retired to contemplate life from the casement, while Merton rapidly laid
+the nature of Lord Embleton's affairs before the other lady.
+
+'You go down to Rookchester as a kinswoman and a guest, you understand,
+and to do the business of the manuscripts.'
+
+'Oh, I shall rather like that than otherwise,' said Miss Willoughby,
+smiling.
+
+'Then, as to the regular business of the Society, there is a Prince who
+seems to be thought unworthy of the daughter of the house; and the son of
+the house needs disentangling from an American heiress of great charm and
+wealth.'
+
+'The tasks might satisfy any ambition,' said Miss Willoughby.  'Is the
+idea that the Prince and the Viscount should _both_ neglect their former
+flames?'
+
+'And burn incense at the altar of Venus Verticordia,' said Merton, with a
+bow.
+
+'It is a large order,' replied Miss Willoughby, in the simple phrase of a
+commercial age: but as Merton looked at her, and remembered the
+vindictive feeling with which she now regarded his sex, he thought that
+she, if anyone, was capable of executing the commission.  He was not, of
+course, as yet aware of the moral resolution lately arrived at by the
+young potentate of Scalastro.
+
+'The manuscripts are the first thing, of course,' he said, and, as he
+spoke, Logan and Lord Embleton re-entered the room.
+
+Merton presented the Earl to the ladies, and Miss Blossom soon retired to
+her own apartment, and wrestled with the correspondence of the Society
+and with her typewriting-machine.
+
+The Earl proved not to be nearly so shy where ladies were concerned.  He
+had not expected to find in his remote and long-lost cousin, Miss
+Willoughby, a magnificent being like Persephone on a coin of Syracuse,
+but it was plain that he was prepossessed in her favour, and there was a
+touch of the affectionate in his courtesy.  After congratulating himself
+on recovering a kinswoman of a long-separated branch of his family, and
+after a good deal of genealogical disquisition, he explained the nature
+of the lady's historical tasks, and engaged her to visit him in the
+country at an early date.  Miss Willoughby then said farewell, having an
+engagement at the Record Office, where, as the Earl gallantly observed,
+she would 'make a sunshine in a shady place.'
+
+When she had gone, the Earl observed, '_Bon sang ne peut pas mentir_!  To
+think of that beautiful creature condemned to waste her lovely eyes on
+faded ink and yellow papers!  Why, she is, as the modern poet says, "a
+sight to make an old man young."'
+
+He then asked Logan to acquaint Merton with the new and favourable aspect
+of his affairs, and, after fixing Logan's visit to Rookchester for the
+same date as Miss Willoughby's, he went off with a juvenile alertness.
+
+'I say,' said Logan, 'I don't know what will come of this, but
+_something_ will come of it.  I had no idea that girl was such a
+paragon.'
+
+'Take care, Logan,' said Merton.  'You ought only to have eyes for Miss
+Markham.'
+
+Miss Markham, the precise student may remember, was the lady once known
+as the Venus of Milo to her young companions at St. Ursula's.  Now
+mantles were draped on her stately shoulders at Madame Claudine's, and
+Logan and she were somewhat hopelessly attached to each other.
+
+'Take care of yourself at Rookchester,' Merton went on, 'or the
+Disentangler may be entangled.'
+
+'I am not a viscount and I am not an earl,' said Logan, with a
+reminiscence of an old popular song, 'nor I am not a prince, but a shade
+or two _wuss_; and I think that Miss Willoughby will find other marks for
+the artillery of her eyes.'
+
+'We shall have news of it,' said Merton.
+
+
+
+II.  The Affair of the Jesuit
+
+
+Trains do not stop at the little Rookchester station except when the high
+and puissant prince the Earl of Embleton or his visitors, or his
+ministers, servants, solicitors, and agents of all kinds, are bound for
+that haven.  When Logan arrived at the station, a bowery, flowery,
+amateur-looking depot, like one of the 'model villages' that we sometimes
+see off the stage, he was met by the Earl, his son Lord Scremerston, and
+Miss Willoughby.  Logan's baggage was spirited away by menials, who
+doubtless bore it to the house in some ordinary conveyance, and by the
+vulgar road.  But Lord Embleton explained that as the evening was warm,
+and the woodland path by the river was cool, they had walked down to
+welcome the coming guest.
+
+The walk was beautiful indeed along the top of the precipitous red
+sandstone cliffs, with the deep, dark pools of the Coquet sleeping far
+below.  Now and then a heron poised, or a rock pigeon flew by, between
+the river and the cliff-top.  The opposite bank was embowered in deep
+green wood, and the place was very refreshing after the torrid bricks and
+distressing odours of the July streets of London.
+
+The path was narrow: there was room for only two abreast.  Miss
+Willoughby and Scremerston led the way, and were soon lost to sight by a
+turn in the path.  As for Lord Embleton, he certainly seemed to have
+drunk of that fountain of youth about which the old French poet Pontus de
+Tyard reports to us, and to be going back, not forward, in age.  He
+looked very neat, slim, and cool, but that could not be the only cause of
+the miracle of rejuvenescence.  Closely regarding his host in profile,
+Logan remarked that he had shaved off his moustache and the little,
+obsolete, iron-grey chin-tuft which, in moments of perplexity, he had
+been wont to twiddle.  Its loss was certainly a very great improvement to
+the clean-cut features of this patrician.
+
+'We are a very small party,' said Lord Embleton, 'only the Prince, my
+daughter, Father Riccoboni, Miss Willoughby, my sister, Scremerston, and
+you and I.  Miss Willoughby came last week.  In the mornings she and I
+are busy with the manuscripts.  We have found most interesting things.
+When their plot failed, your ancestor and mine prepared a ship to start
+for the Western seas and attack the treasure-ships of Spain.  But peace
+broke out, and they never achieved that adventure.  Miss Willoughby is a
+cousin well worth discovering, so intelligent, and so wonderfully
+attractive.'
+
+'So Scremerston seems to think,' was Logan's idea, for the further he and
+the Earl advanced, the less, if possible, they saw of the pair in front
+of them; indeed, neither was visible again till the party met before
+dinner.
+
+However, Logan only said that he had a great esteem for Miss Willoughby's
+courage and industry through the trying years of poverty since she left
+St. Ursula's.
+
+'The Prince we have not seen very much of,' said the Earl, 'as is
+natural; for you will be glad to know that everything seems most happily
+arranged, except so far as the religious difficulty goes.  As for Father
+Riccoboni, he is a quiet intelligent man, who passes most of his time in
+the library, but makes himself very agreeable at meals.  And now here we
+are arrived.'
+
+They had reached the south side of the house--an eighteenth-century
+building in the red sandstone of the district, giving on a grassy
+terrace.  There the host's maiden sister, Lady Mary Guevara, was seated
+by a tea-table, surrounded by dogs--two collies and an Aberdeenshire
+terrier.  Beside her were Father Riccoboni, with a newspaper in his hand,
+Lady Alice, with whom Logan had already some acquaintance, and the Prince
+of Scalastro.  Logan was presented, and took quiet notes of the assembly,
+while the usual chatter about the weather and his journey got itself
+transacted, and the view of the valley of the Coquet had justice done to
+its charms.
+
+Lady Mary was very like a feminine edition of the Earl, refined, shy, and
+with silvery hair.  Lady Alice was a pretty, quiet type of the English
+girl who is not up to date, with a particularly happy and winning
+expression.  The Prince was of a Teutonic fairness; for the Royal caste,
+whatever the nationality, is to a great extent made in Germany, and
+retains the physical characteristics of that ancient forest people whom
+the Roman historian (never having met them) so lovingly idealised.  The
+Prince was tall, well-proportioned, and looked 'every inch a soldier.'
+There were a great many inches.
+
+As for Father Riccoboni, the learned have remarked that there are two
+chief clerical types: the dark, ascetic type, to be found equally among
+Unitarians, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Catholics, and the
+burly, well-fed, genial type, which 'cometh eating and drinking.'  The
+Father was of this second kind; a lusty man--not that you could call him
+a sensual-looking man, still less was he a noisy humourist; but he had a
+considerable jowl, a strong jaw, a wide, firm mouth, and large teeth,
+very white and square.  Logan thought that he, too, had the makings of a
+soldier, and also felt almost certain that he had seen him before.  But
+where?--for Logan's acquaintance with the clergy, especially the foreign
+clergy, was not extensive.  The Father spoke English very well, with a
+slight German accent and a little hoarseness; his voice, too, did not
+sound unfamiliar to Logan.  But he delved in his subconscious memory in
+vain; there was the Father, a man with whom he certainly had some
+associations, yet he could not place the man.
+
+A bell jangled somewhere without as they took tea and tattled; and,
+looking towards the place whence the sound came, Logan saw a little group
+of Italian musicians walking down the avenue which led through the park
+to the east side of the house and the main entrance.  They entered, with
+many obeisances, through the old gate of floreated wrought iron, and
+stopping there, about forty yards away, they piped, while a girl, in the
+usual _contadina_ dress, clashed her cymbals and danced not ungracefully.
+The Father, who either did not like music or did not like it of that
+sort, sighed, rose from his seat, and went into the house by an open
+French window.  The Prince also rose, but he went forward to the group of
+Italians, and spoke to them for a few minutes.  If he did not like that
+sort of music, he took the more excellent way, for the action of his
+elbow indicated a movement of his hand towards his waistcoat-pocket.  He
+returned to the party on the terrace, and the itinerant artists, after
+more obeisances, walked slowly back by the way they had come.
+
+'They are Genoese,' said the Prince, 'tramping north to Scotland for the
+holiday season.'
+
+'They will meet strong competition from the pipers,' said Logan, while
+the Earl rose, and walked rapidly after the musicians.
+
+'I do not like the pipes myself,' Logan went on, 'but when I hear them in
+a London street my heart does warm to the skirl and the shabby tartans.'
+
+'I feel with you,' said the Prince, 'when I see the smiling faces of
+these poor sons of the South among--well, your English faces are not
+usually joyous--if one may venture to be critical.'
+
+He looked up, and, his eyes meeting those of Lady Alice, he had occasion
+to learn that every rule has its exceptions.  The young people rose and
+wandered off on the lawn, while the Earl came back and said that he had
+invited the foreigners to refresh themselves.
+
+'I saw Father Riccoboni in the hall, and asked him to speak to them a
+little in their own lingo,' he added, 'though he does not appear to be
+partial to the music of his native land.'
+
+'He seems to be of the Romansch districts,' Logan said; 'his accent is
+almost German.'
+
+'I daresay he will make himself understood,' said the Earl.  'Do you
+understand this house, Mr. Logan?  It looks very modern, does it not?'
+
+'Early Georgian, surely?' said Logan.
+
+'The shell, at least on this side, is early Georgian--I rather regret it;
+but the interior, northward, except for the rooms in front here, is of
+the good old times.  We have secret stairs--not that there is any secret
+about them--and odd cubicles, in the old Border keep, which was re-faced
+about 1750; and we have a priest's hole or two, in which Father Riccoboni
+might have been safe, but would have been very uncomfortable, three
+hundred years ago.  I can show you the places to-morrow; indeed, we have
+very little in the way of amusement to offer you.  Do you fish?'
+
+'I always take a trout rod about with me, in case of the best,' said
+Logan, 'but this is "soolky July," you know, and the trout usually seem
+sound asleep.'
+
+'Their habits are dissipated here,' said Lord Embleton.  'They begin to
+feed about ten o'clock at night.  Did you ever try night fishing with the
+bustard?'
+
+'The bustard?' asked Logan.
+
+'It is a big fluffy fly, like a draggled mayfly, fished wet, in the dark.
+I used to be fond of it, but age,' sighed the Earl, 'and fear of
+rheumatism have separated the bustard and me.'
+
+'I should like to try it very much,' said Logan.  'I often fished Tweed
+and Whitadder, at night, when I was a boy, but we used a small dark fly.'
+
+'You must be very careful if you fish at night here,' said Lady Mary.  'It
+is so dark in the valley under the woods, and the Coquet is so dangerous.
+The flat sandstone ledges are like the floor of a room, and then a step
+may land you in water ten feet deep, flowing in a narrow channel.  I am
+always anxious when anyone fishes here at night.  You can swim?'
+
+Logan confessed that he was not destitute of that accomplishment, and
+that he liked, of all things, to be by a darkling river, where you came
+across the night side of nature in the way of birds, beasts, and fishes.
+
+'Mr. Logan can take very good care of himself, I am sure,' said Lord
+Embleton, 'and Fenwick knows every inch of the water, and will go with
+him.  Fenwick is the water-keeper, Mr. Logan, and represents man in the
+fishing and shooting stage.  His one thought is the destruction of animal
+life.  He is a very happy man.'
+
+'I never knew but one keeper who was not,' said Logan.  'That was in
+Galloway.  He hated shooting, he hated fishing.  My impression is that he
+was what we call a "Stickit Minister."'
+
+'Nothing of that about Fenwick,' said the Earl.  'I daresay you would
+like to see your room?'
+
+Thither Logan was conducted, through a hall hung with pikes, and guns,
+and bows, and clubs from the South Seas, and Zulu shields and assegais,
+while a few empty figures in tilting armour, lance in hand, stood on
+pedestals.  Thence up a broad staircase, along a little gallery, up a few
+steps of an old 'turnpike' staircase, Logan reached his room, which
+looked down through the trees of the cliff to the Coquet.
+
+Dinner passed in the silver light of the long northern day, that threw
+strange blue reflections, softer than sapphire, on the ancient plate--the
+ambassadorial plate of a Jacobean ancestor.
+
+'It should all have gone to the melting-pot for King Charles's service,'
+said the Earl, with a sigh, 'but my ancestor of that day stood for the
+Parliament.'
+
+Logan's position at dinner was better for observation than for
+entertainment.  He sat on the right hand of Lady Mary, where the Prince
+ought to have been seated, but Lady Alice sat on her father's left, and
+next her, of course, the Prince.  'Love rules the camp, the court, the
+grove,' and Love deranged the accustomed order, for the Prince sat
+between Lady Alice and Logan.  Opposite Logan, and at Lady Mary's left,
+was the Jesuit, and next him, Scremerston, beside whom was Miss
+Willoughby, on the Earl's right.  Inevitably the conversation of the
+Prince and Lady Alice was mainly directed to each other--so much so that
+Logan did not once perceive the princely eyes attracted to Miss
+Willoughby opposite to him, though it was not easy for another to look at
+anyone else.  Logan, in the pauses of his rather conventional
+entertainment by Lady Mary, _did_ look, and he was amazed no less by the
+beauty than by the spirits and gaiety of the young lady so recently left
+forlorn by the recreant Jephson.  This flower of the Record Office and of
+the British Museum was obviously not destined to blush unseen any longer.
+She manifestly dazzled Scremerston, who seemed to remember Miss Bangs,
+her charms, and her dollars no more than Miss Willoughby appeared to
+remember the treacherous Don.
+
+Scremerston was very unlike his father: he was a small, rather fair man,
+with a slight moustache, a close-clipped beard, and little grey eyes with
+pink lids.  His health was not good: he had been invalided home from the
+Imperial Yeomanry, after a slight wound and a dangerous attack of enteric
+fever, and he had secured a pair for the rest of the Session.  He was not
+very clever, but he certainly laughed sufficiently at what Miss
+Willoughby said, who also managed to entertain the Earl with great
+dexterity and _aplomb_.  Meanwhile Logan and the Jesuit amused the
+excellent Lady Mary as best they might, which was not saying much.  Lady
+Mary, though extremely amiable, was far from brilliant, and never having
+met a Jesuit before, she regarded Father Riccoboni with a certain
+hereditary horror, as an animal of a rare species, and, of habits perhaps
+startling and certainly perfidious.  However, the lady was philanthropic
+in a rural way, and Father Riccoboni enlightened her as to the reasons
+why his enterprising countrymen leave their smiling land, and open small
+ice-shops in little English towns, or, less ambitious, invest their
+slender capital in a monkey and a barrel-organ.
+
+'I don't so very much mind barrel-organs myself,' said Logan; 'I don't
+know anything prettier than to see the little girls dancing to the music
+in a London side street.'
+
+'But do not the musicians all belong to that dreadful Camorra?' asked the
+lady.
+
+'Not if they come from the North, madam,' said the Jesuit.  'And do not
+all your Irish reapers belong to that dreadful Land League, or whatever
+it is called?'
+
+'They are all Pap---' said Lady Mary, who then stopped, blushed, and
+said, with some presence of mind, 'paupers, I fear, but they are quite
+safe and well-behaved on this side of the Irish Channel.'
+
+'And so are our poor people,' said the Jesuit.  'If they occasionally use
+the knife a little--_naturam expellas furca_, Mr. Logan, but the knife is
+a different thing--it is only in a homely war among themselves that they
+handle it in the East-end of London.'
+
+'_Coelum non animum_,' said Logan, determined not to be outdone in
+classical felicities; and, indeed, he thought his own quotation the more
+appropriate.
+
+At this moment a great silvery-grey Persian cat, which had sat hitherto
+in a stereotyped Egyptian attitude on the arm of the Earl's chair, leaped
+down and sprang affectionately on the shoulder of the Jesuit.  He
+shuddered strongly and obviously repressed an exclamation with
+difficulty, as he gently removed the cat.
+
+'Fie, Meriamoun!' said the Earl, as the puss resumed her Egyptian pose
+beside him.  'Shall I send the animal out of the room?  I know some
+people cannot endure a cat,' and he mentioned the gallant Field Marshal
+who is commonly supposed to share this infirmity.
+
+'By no means, my lord,' said the Jesuit, who looked strangely pale.  'Cats
+have an extraordinary instinct for caressing people who happen to be born
+with exactly the opposite instinct.  I am like the man in Aristotle who
+was afraid of the cat.'
+
+'I wish we knew more about that man,' said Miss Willoughby, who was
+stroking Meriamoun.  'Are _you_ afraid of cats, Lord Scremerston?--but
+you, I suppose, are afraid of nothing.'
+
+'I am terribly afraid of all manner of flying things that buzz and bite,'
+said Scremerston.
+
+'Except bullets,' said Miss Willoughby--Beauty rewarding Valour with a
+smile and a glance so dazzling that the good little Yeoman blushed with
+pleasure.
+
+'It is a shame!' thought Logan.  'I don't like it now I see it.'
+
+'As to horror of cats,' said the Earl, 'I suppose evolution can explain
+it.  I wonder how they would work it out in _Science Jottings_.  There is
+a great deal of electricity in a cat.'
+
+'Evolution can explain everything,' said the Jesuit demurely, 'but who
+can explain evolution?'
+
+'As to electricity in the cat,' said Logan, 'I daresay there is as much
+in the dog, only everybody has tried stroking a cat in the dark to see
+the sparks fly, and who ever tried stroking a dog in the dark, for
+experimental purposes?--did you, Lady Mary?'
+
+Lady Mary never had tried, but the idea was new to her, and she would
+make the experiment in winter.
+
+'Deer skins, stroked, do sparkle,' said Logan, 'I read that in a book.  I
+daresay horses do, only nobody tries.  I don't think electricity is the
+explanation of why some people can't bear cats.'
+
+'Electricity is the modern explanation of everything--love, faith,
+everything,' remarked the Jesuit; 'but, as I said, who shall explain
+electricity?'
+
+Lady Mary, recognising the orthodoxy of these sentiments, felt more
+friendly towards Father Riccoboni.  He might be a Jesuit, but he was
+_bien pensant_.
+
+'What I am afraid of is not a cat, but a mouse,' said Miss Willoughby,
+and the two other ladies admitted that their own terrors were of the same
+kind.
+
+'What I am afraid of,' said the Prince, 'is a banging door, by day or
+night.  I am not, otherwise, of a nervous constitution, but if I hear a
+door bang, I _must_ go and hunt for it, and stop the noise, either by
+shutting the door, or leaving it wide open.  I am a sound sleeper, but,
+if a door bangs, it wakens me at once.  I try not to notice it.  I hope
+it will leave off.  Then it does leave off--that is the artfulness of
+it--and, just as you are falling asleep, _knock_ it goes!  A double
+knock, sometimes.  Then I simply _must_ get up, and hunt for that door,
+upstairs or downstairs--'
+
+'Or in my--' interrupted Miss Willoughby, and stopped, thinking better of
+it, and not finishing the quotation, which passed unheard.
+
+'That research has taken me into some odd places,' the Prince ended; and
+Logan reminded the Society of the Bravest of the Brave.  What _he_ was
+afraid of was a pair of tight boots.
+
+These innocent conversations ended, and, after dinner, the company walked
+about or sat beneath the stars in the fragrant evening air, the Earl
+seated by Miss Willoughby, Scremerston smoking with Logan; while the
+white dress of Lady Alice flitted ghost-like on the lawn, and the tip of
+the Prince's cigar burned red in the neighbourhood.  In the drawing-room
+Lady Mary was tentatively conversing with the Jesuit, that mild but
+probably dangerous animal.  She had the curiosity which pious maiden
+ladies feel about the member of a community which they only know through
+novels.  Certainly this Jesuit was very unlike Aramis.
+
+'And who _is_ he like?'  Logan happened to be asking Scremerston at that
+moment.  'I know the face--I know the voice; hang it!--where have I seen
+the man?'
+
+'Now you mention it,' said Scremerston, '_I_ seem to remember him too.
+But I can't place him.  What do you think of a game of billiards,
+father?' he asked, rising and addressing Lord Embleton.  'Rosamond--Miss
+Willoughby, I mean--'
+
+'Oh, we are cousins, Lord Embleton says, and you may call me Rosamond.  I
+have never had any cousins before,' interrupted the young lady.
+
+'Rosamond,' said Scremerston, with a gulp, 'is getting on wonderfully
+well for a beginner.'
+
+'Then let us proceed with her education: it is growing chilly, too,' said
+the Earl; and they all went to billiards, the Jesuit marking with much
+attention and precision.  Later he took a cue, and was easily the master
+of every man there, though better acquainted, he said, with the foreign
+game.  The late Pope used to play, he said, nearly as well as Mr. Herbert
+Spencer.  Even for a beginner, Miss Willoughby was not a brilliant
+player; but she did not cut the cloth, and her arms were remarkably
+beautiful--an excellent but an extremely rare thing in woman.  She was
+rewarded, finally, by a choice between bedroom candles lit and offered by
+her younger and her elder cousins, and, after a momentary hesitation,
+accepted that of the Earl.
+
+'How is this going to end?' thought Logan, when he was alone.  'Miss
+Bangs is out of the running, that is certain: millions of dollars cannot
+bring her near Miss Willoughby with Scremerston.  The old gentleman ought
+to like that--it relieves him from the bacon and lard, and the dollars,
+and the associations with a Straddle; and then Miss Willoughby's family
+is all right, but the girl is reckless.  A demon has entered into her:
+she used to be so quiet.  I'd rather marry Miss Bangs without the
+dollars.  Then it is all very well for Scremerston to yield to Venus
+Verticordia, and transfer his heart to this new enchantress.  But, if I
+am not mistaken, the Earl himself is much more kind than kin.  The heart
+has no age, and he is a very well-preserved peer.  You might take him for
+little more than forty, though he quite looked his years when I saw him
+first.  Well, _I_ am safe enough, in spite of Merton's warning: this new
+Helen has no eyes for me, and the Prince has no eyes for her, I think.
+But who is the Jesuit?'
+
+Logan fought with his memory till he fell asleep, but he recovered no
+gleam of recollection about the holy man.
+
+It did not seem to Logan, next day, that he was in for a very lively
+holiday.  His host carried off Miss Willoughby to the muniment-room after
+breakfast; that was an advantage he had over Scremerston, who was
+decidedly restless and ill at ease.  He took Logan to see the keeper, and
+they talked about fish and examined local flies, and Logan arranged to go
+and try the trout with the bustard some night; and then they pottered
+about, and ate cherries in the garden, and finally the Earl found them
+half asleep in the smoking-room.  He routed the Jesuit out of the
+library, where he was absorbed in a folio containing the works of the
+sainted Father Parsons, and then the Earl showed Logan and Father
+Riccoboni over the house.  From a window of the gallery Scremerston could
+be descried playing croquet with Miss Willoughby, an apparition radiant
+in white.
+
+The house was chiefly remarkable for queer passages, which, beginning
+from the roof of the old tower, above the Father's chamber, radiated
+about, emerging in unexpected places.  The priests' holes had offered to
+the persecuted clergy of old times the choice between being grilled erect
+behind a chimney, or of lying flat in a chamber about the size of a
+coffin near the roof, where the martyr Jesuits lived on suction, like the
+snipe, absorbing soup from a long straw passed through a wall into a
+neighbouring garret.
+
+'Those were cruel times,' said Father Riccoboni, who presently, at
+luncheon, showed that he could thoroughly appreciate the tender mercies
+of the present or Christian era.  Logan watched him, and once when,
+something that interested him being said, the Father swept the table with
+his glance without raising his head, a memory for a fraction of a moment
+seemed to float towards the surface of Logan's consciousness.  Even as
+when an angler, having hooked a salmon, a monster of the stream, long the
+fish bores down impetuous, seeking the sunken rocks, disdainful of the
+steel, and the dark wave conceals him; then anon is beheld a gleam of
+silver, and again is lost to view, and the heart of the man rejoices--even
+so fugitive a glimpse had Logan of what he sought in the depths of
+memory.  But it fled, and still he was puzzled.
+
+Logan loafed out after luncheon to a seat on the lawn in the shade of a
+tree.  They were all to be driven over to an Abbey not very far away,
+for, indeed, in July, there is little for a man to do in the country.
+Logan sat and mused.  Looking up he saw Miss Willoughby approaching,
+twirling an open parasol on her shoulder.  Her face was radiant; of old
+it had often looked as if it might be stormy, as if there were thunder
+behind those dark eyebrows.  Logan rose, but the lady sat down on the
+garden seat, and he followed her example.
+
+'This is better than Bloomsbury, Mr. Logan, and cocoa _pour tout potage_:
+singed cocoa usually.'
+
+'The _potage_ here is certainly all that heart can wish,' said Logan.
+
+'The chrysalis,' said Miss Willoughby, 'in its wildest moments never
+dreamed of being a butterfly, as the man said in the sermon; and I feel
+like a butterfly that remembers being a chrysalis.  Look at me now!'
+
+'I could look for ever,' said Logan, 'like the sportsman in Keats's
+_Grecian Urn_: "For ever let me look, and thou be fair!"'
+
+'I am so sorry for people in town,' said Miss Willoughby.  'Don't you
+wish dear old Milo was here?'
+
+Milo was the affectionate nickname--a tribute to her charms--borne by
+Miss Markham at St. Ursula's.
+
+'How can I wish that anyone was here but you?' asked Logan.  'But,
+indeed, as to her being here, I should like to know in what capacity she
+was a guest.'
+
+The Clytemnestra glance came into Miss Willoughby's grey eyes for a
+moment, but she was not to be put out of humour.
+
+'To be here as a kinswoman, and an historian, with a maid--fancy me with
+a maid!--and everything handsome about me, is sufficiently excellent for
+me, Mr. Logan; and if it were otherwise, do you disapprove of the
+proceedings of your own Society?  But there is Lord Scremerston calling
+to us, and a four-in-hand waiting at the door.  And I am to sit on the
+box-seat.  Oh, this is better than the dingy old Record Office all day.'
+
+With these words Miss Willoughby tripped over the sod as lightly as the
+Fairy Queen, and Logan slowly followed.  No; he did _not_ approve of the
+proceedings of his Society as exemplified by Miss Willoughby, and he was
+nearly guilty of falling asleep during the drive to Winderby Abbey.
+Scremerston was not much more genial, for his father was driving and
+conversing very gaily with his fair kinswoman.
+
+'Talk about a distant cousin!' thought Logan, who in fact felt
+ill-treated.  However deep in love a man may be, he does not like to see
+a fair lady conspicuously much more interested in other members of his
+sex than in himself.
+
+The Abbey was a beautiful ruin, and Father Riccoboni did not conceal from
+Lady Mary the melancholy emotions with which it inspired him.
+
+'When shall our prayers be heard?' he murmured.  'When shall England
+return to her Mother's bosom?'
+
+Lady Mary said nothing, but privately trusted that the winds would
+disperse the orisons of which the Father spoke.  Perhaps nuns had been
+bricked up in these innocent-looking mossy walls, thought Lady Mary,
+whose ideas on this matter were derived from a scene in the poem of
+_Marmion_.  And deep in Lady Mary's heart was a half-formed wish that, if
+there was to be any bricking up, Miss Willoughby might be the interesting
+victim.  Unlike her brother the Earl, she was all for the Bangs alliance.
+
+Scremerston took the reins on the homeward way, the Earl being rather
+fatigued; and, after dinner, _two_ white robes flitted ghost-like on the
+lawn, and the light which burned red beside one of them was the cigar-tip
+of Scremerston.  The Earl had fallen asleep in the drawing-room, and
+Logan took a lonely stroll, much regretting that he had come to a house
+where he felt decidedly 'out of it.'  He wandered down to the river, and
+stood watching.  He was beside the dark-brown water in the latest
+twilight, beside a long pool with a boat moored on the near bank.  He sat
+down in the boat pensively, and then--what was that?  It was the sound of
+a heavy trout rising.  '_Plop_, _plop_!'  They were feeding all round
+him.
+
+'By Jove!  I'll try the bustard to-morrow night, and then I'll go back to
+town next day,' thought Logan.  'I am doing no good here, and I don't
+like it.  I shall tell Merton that I have moral objections to the whole
+affair.  Miserable, mercenary fraud!'  Thus, feeling very moral and
+discontented, Logan walked back to the house, carefully avoiding the
+ghostly robes that still glimmered on the lawn, and did not re-enter the
+house till bedtime.
+
+The following day began as the last had done; Lord Embleton and Miss
+Willoughby retiring to the muniment-room, the lovers vanishing among the
+walks.  Scremerston later took Logan to consult Fenwick, who visibly
+brightened at the idea of night-fishing.
+
+'You must take one of those long landing-nets, Logan,' said Scremerston.
+'They are about as tall as yourself, and as stout as lance-shafts.  They
+are for steadying you when you wade, and feeling the depth of the water
+in front of you.'
+
+Scremerston seemed very pensive.  The day was hot; they wandered to the
+smoking-room.  Scremerston took up a novel, which he did not read; Logan
+began a letter to Merton--a gloomy epistle.
+
+'I say, Logan,' suddenly said Scremerston, 'if your letter is not very
+important, I wish you would listen to me for a moment.'
+
+Logan turned round.  'Fire away,' he said; 'my letter can wait.'
+
+Scremerston was in an attitude of deep dejection.  Logan lit a cigarette
+and waited.
+
+'Logan, I am the most miserable beggar alive.'
+
+'What is the matter?  You seem rather in-and-out in your moods,' said
+Logan.
+
+'Why, you know, I am in a regular tight place.  I don't know how to put
+it.  You see, I can't help thinking that--that--I have rather committed
+myself--it seems a beastly conceited thing to say--that there's a girl
+who likes me, I'm afraid.'
+
+'I don't want to be inquisitive, but is she in this country?' asked
+Logan.
+
+'No; she's at Homburg.'
+
+'Has it gone very far?  Have you _said_ anything?' asked Logan.
+
+'No; my father did not like it.  I hoped to bring him round.'
+
+'Have you _written_ anything?  Do you correspond?'
+
+'No, but I'm afraid I have _looked_ a lot.'
+
+As the Viscount Scremerston's eyes were by no means fitted to express
+with magnetic force the language of the affections, Logan had to command
+his smile.
+
+'But why have you changed your mind, if you liked her?' he asked.
+
+'Oh, _you_ know very well!  Can anybody see her and not love her?' said
+Scremerston, with a vagueness in his pronouns, but referring to Miss
+Willoughby.
+
+Logan was inclined to reply that he could furnish, at first hand, an
+exception to the rule, but this appeared tactless.
+
+'No one, I daresay, whose affections were not already engaged, could see
+her without loving her; but I thought yours had been engaged to a lady
+now at Homburg?'
+
+'So did I,' said the wretched Scremerston, 'but I was mistaken.  Oh,
+Logan, you don't know the difference!  _This_ is genuine biz,' remarked
+the afflicted nobleman with much simplicity.  He went on: 'Then there's
+my father--you know him.  He was against the other affair, but, if he
+thinks I have committed myself and then want to back out, why, with his
+ideas, he'd rather see me dead.  But I can't go on with the other thing
+now: I simply can _not_.  I've a good mind to go out after rabbits, and
+pot myself crawling through a hedge.'
+
+'Oh, nonsense!' said Logan; 'that is stale and superfluous.  For all that
+I can see, there is no harm done.  The young lady, depend upon it, won't
+break her heart.  As a matter of fact, they don't--_we_ do.  You have
+only to sit tight.  You are no more committed than I am.  You would only
+make both of you wretched if you went and committed yourself now, when
+you don't want to do it.  In your position I would certainly sit tight:
+don't commit yourself--either here or there, so to speak; or, if you
+can't sit tight, make a bolt for it.  Go to Norway.  I am very strongly
+of opinion that the second plan is the best.  But, anyhow, keep up your
+pecker.  You are all right--I give you my word that I think you are all
+right.'
+
+'Thanks, old cock,' said Scremerston.  'Sorry to have bored you, but I
+_had_ to speak to somebody.'
+
+* * * * * *
+
+'Best thing you could do,' said Logan.  'You'll feel ever so much better.
+That kind of worry comes of keeping things to oneself, till molehills
+look mountains.  If you like I'll go with you to Norway myself.'
+
+'Thanks, awfully,' said Scremerston, but he did not seem very keen.  Poor
+little Scremerston!
+
+Logan 'breasted the brae' from the riverside to the house.  His wading-
+boots were heavy, for he had twice got in over the tops thereof; heavy
+was his basket that Fenwick carried behind him, but light was Logan's
+heart, for the bustard had slain its dozens of good trout.  He and the
+keeper emerged from the wood on the level of the lawn.  All the great
+mass of the house lay dark before them.  Logan was to let himself in by
+the locked French window; for it was very late--about two in the morning.
+He had the key of the window-door in his pocket.  A light moved through
+the long gallery: he saw it pass each window and vanish.  There was dead
+silence: not a leaf stirred.  Then there rang out a pistol-shot, or was
+it two pistol-shots?  Logan ran for the window, his rod, which he had
+taken down after fishing, in his hand.
+
+'Hurry to the back door, Fenwick!' he said; and Fenwick, throwing down
+the creel, but grasping the long landing-net, flew to the back way.  Logan
+opened the drawing-room window, took out his matchbox, with trembling
+ringers lit a candle, and, with the candle in one hand, the rod in the
+other, sped through the hall, and along a back passage leading to the
+gunroom.  He had caught a glimpse of the Earl running down the main
+staircase, and had guessed that the trouble was on the ground floor.  As
+he reached the end of the long dark passage, Fenwick leaped in by the
+back entrance, of which the door was open.  What Logan saw was a writhing
+group--the Prince of Scalastro struggling in the arms of three men: a
+long white heap lay crumpled in a corner.  Fenwick, at this moment, threw
+the landing-net over the head of one of the Prince's assailants, and with
+a twist, held the man half choked and powerless.  Fenwick went on
+twisting, and, with the leverage of the long shaft of the net, dragged
+the wretch off the Prince, and threw him down.  Another of the men turned
+on Logan with a loud guttural oath, and was raising a pistol.  Logan knew
+the voice at last--knew the Jesuit now.  '_Rien ne va plus_!' he cried,
+and lunged, with all the force and speed of an expert fencer, at the
+fellow's face with the point of the rod.  The metal joints clicked and
+crashed through the man's mouth, his pistol dropped, and he staggered,
+cursing through his blood, against the wall.  Logan picked up the
+revolver as the Prince, whose hands were now free, floored the third of
+his assailants with an upper cut.  Logan thrust the revolver into the
+Prince's hand.  'Keep them quiet with that,' he said, and ran to where
+the Earl, who had entered unseen in the struggle, was kneeling above the
+long, white, crumpled heap.
+
+It was Scremerston, dead, in his night dress: poor plucky little
+Scremerston.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+Afterwards, before the trial, the Prince told Logan how matters had
+befallen.  'I was wakened,' he said--'you were very late, you know, and
+we had all gone to bed--I was wakened by a banging door.  If you
+remember, I told you all, on the night of your arrival at Rookchester,
+how I hated that sound.  I tried not to think of it, and was falling
+asleep when it banged again--a double knock.  I was nearly asleep, when
+it clashed again.  There was no wind, my window was open and I looked
+out: I only heard the river murmuring and the whistle of a passing train.
+The stillness made the abominable recurrent noise more extraordinary.  I
+dressed in a moment in my smoking-clothes, lit a candle, and went out of
+my room, listening.  I walked along the gallery--'
+
+'It was your candle that I saw as I crossed the lawn,' said Logan.
+
+'When a door opened,' the Prince went on--'the door of one of the rooms
+on the landing--and a figure, all in white,--it was Scremerston,--emerged
+and disappeared down the stairs.  I followed at the top of my speed.  I
+heard a shot, or rather two pistols that rang out together like one.  I
+ran through the hall into the long back passage at right-angles to it,
+down the passage to the glimmer of light through the partly glazed door
+at the end of it.  Then my candle was blown out and three men set on me.
+They had nearly pinioned me when you and Fenwick took them on both
+flanks.  You know the rest.  They had the boat unmoored, a light cart
+ready on the other side, and a steam-yacht lying off Warkworth.  The
+object, of course, was to kidnap me, and coerce or torture me into
+renewing the lease of the tables at Scalastro.  Poor Scremerston, who was
+a few seconds ahead of me, not carrying a candle, had fired in the dark,
+and missed.  The answering fire, which was simultaneous, killed him.  The
+shots saved me, for they brought you and Fenwick to the rescue.  Two of
+the fellows whom we damaged were--'
+
+'The Genoese pipers, of course,' said Logan.
+
+'And you guessed, from the cry you gave, who my confessor (_he_ banged
+the door, of course to draw me) turned out to be?'
+
+'Yes, the head croupier at Scalastro years ago; but he wore a beard and
+blue spectacles in the old time, when he raked in a good deal of my
+patrimony,' said Logan.  'But how was he planted on _you_?'
+
+'My old friend, Father Costa, had died, and it is too long a tale of
+forgery and fraud to tell you how this wretch was forced on me.  He _had_
+been a Jesuit, but was unfrocked and expelled from Society for all sorts
+of namable and unnamable offences.  His community believed that he was
+dead.  So he fell to the profession in which you saw him, and, when the
+gambling company saw that I was disinclined to let that hell burn any
+longer on my rock, ingenious treachery did the rest.'
+
+'By Jove!' said Logan.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The Prince of Scalastro, impoverished by his own generous impulse, now
+holds high rank in the Japanese service.  His beautiful wife is much
+admired in Yokohama.
+
+The Earl was nursed through the long and dangerous illness which followed
+the shock of that dreadful July night, by the unwearying assiduity of his
+kinswoman, Miss Willoughby.  On his recovery, the bride (for the Earl won
+her heart and hand) who stood by him at the altar looked fainter and more
+ghostly than the bridegroom.  But her dark hour of levity was passed and
+over.  There is no more affectionate pair than the Earl and Countess of
+Embleton.  Lady Mary, who lives with them, is once more an aunt, and
+spoils, it is to be feared, the young Viscount Scremerston, a fine but
+mischievous little boy.  On the fate of the ex-Jesuit we do not dwell:
+enough to say that his punishment was decreed by the laws of our country,
+not of that which he had disgraced.
+
+The manuscripts of the Earl have been edited by him and the Countess for
+the Roxburghe Club.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.  THE ADVENTURE OF THE LADY PATRONESS
+
+
+'I cannot bring myself to refuse my assent.  It would break the dear
+child's heart.  She has never cared for anyone else, and, oh, she is
+quite wrapped up in him.  I have heard of your wonderful cures, Mr.
+Merton, I mean successes, in cases which everyone has given up, and
+though it seems a very strange step to me, I thought that I ought to
+shrink from no remedy'--
+
+'However unconventional,' said Merton, smiling.  He felt rather as if he
+were being treated like a quack doctor, to whom people (if foolish
+enough) appeal only as the last desperate resource.
+
+The lady who filled, and amply filled, the client's chair, Mrs. Malory,
+of Upwold in Yorkshire, was a widow, obviously, a widow indeed.  'In
+weed' was an unworthy _calembour_ which flashed through Merton's mind,
+since Mrs. Malory's undying regret for her lord (a most estimable man for
+a coal owner) was explicitly declared, or rather was blazoned abroad, in
+her costume.  Mrs. Mallory, in fact, was what is derisively styled 'Early
+Victorian'--'Middle' would have been, historically, more accurate.  Her
+religion was mildly Evangelical; she had been brought up on the Memoirs
+of the Fairchild Family, by Mrs. Sherwood, tempered by Miss Yonge and the
+Waverley Novels.  On these principles she had trained her family.  The
+result was that her sons had not yet brought the family library, and the
+family Romneys and Hoppners, to Christie's.  Not one of them was a
+director of any company, and the name of Malory had not yet been
+distinguished by decorating the annals of the Courts of Bankruptcy or of
+Divorce.  In short, a family more deplorably not 'up to date,' and more
+'out of the swim' could scarcely be found in England.
+
+Such, and of such connections, was the lady, fair, faded, with mildly
+aquiline features, and an aspect at once distinguished and dowdy, who
+appealed to Merton.  She sought him in what she, at least, regarded as
+the interests of her eldest daughter, an heiress under the will of a
+maternal uncle.  Merton had met the young lady, who looked like a
+portrait of her mother in youth.  He knew that Miss Malory, now 'wrapped
+up in' her betrothed lover, would, in a few years, be equally absorbed in
+'her boys.'  She was pretty, blonde, dull, good, and cast by Providence
+for the part of one of the best of mothers, and the despair of what man
+soever happened to sit next her at a dinner party.  Such women are the
+safeguards of society--though sneered at by the frivolous as 'British
+Matrons.'
+
+'I have laid the case before the--where I always take my troubles,' said
+Mrs. Malory, 'and I have not felt restrained from coming to consult you.
+When I permitted my daughter's engagement (of course after carefully
+examining the young man's worldly position) I was not aware of what I
+know now.  Matilda met him at a visit to some neighbours--he really is
+very attractive, and very attentive--and it was not till we came to
+London for the season that I heard the stories about him.  Some of them
+have been pointed out to me, in print, in the dreadful French newspapers,
+others came to me in anonymous letters.  As far as a mother may, I tried
+to warn Matilda, but there are subjects on which one can hardly speak to
+a girl.  The Vidame, in fact,' said Mrs. Malory, blushing, 'is
+celebrated--I should say infamous--both in France and Italy, Poland too,
+as what they call _un homme aux bonnes fortunes_.  He has caused the
+break-up of several families.  Mr. Merton, he is a rake,' whispered the
+lady, in some confusion.
+
+'He is still young; he may reform,' said Merton, 'and no doubt a pure
+affection will be the saving of him.'
+
+'So Matilda believes, but, though a Protestant--his ancestors having left
+France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nancy--Nantes I mean--I am
+certain that he is _not_ under conviction.'
+
+'Why does he call himself Vidame, "the Vidame de la Lain"?' asked Merton.
+
+'It is an affectation,' said Mrs. Malory.  'None of his family used the
+title in England, but he has been much on the Continent, and has lands in
+France; and, I suppose, has romantic ideas.  He is as much French as
+English, more I am afraid.  The wickedness of that country!  And I fear
+it has affected ours.  Even now--I am not a scandal-monger, and I hope
+for the best--but even last winter he was talked about,' Mrs. Malory
+dropped her voice, 'with a lady whose husband is in America, Mrs. Brown-
+Smith.'
+
+'A lady for whom I have the very highest esteem,' said Merton, for,
+indeed, Mrs. Brown-Smith was one of his references or Lady Patronesses;
+he knew her well, and had a respect for her character, _au fond_, as well
+as an admiration for her charms.
+
+'You console me indeed,' said Mrs. Malory.  'I had heard--'
+
+'People talk a great deal of ill-natured nonsense,' said Merton warmly.
+'Do you know Mrs. Brown-Smith?'
+
+'We have met, but we are not in the same set; we have exchanged visits,
+but that is all.'
+
+'Ah!' said Merton thoughtfully.  He remembered that when his enterprise
+was founded Mrs. Brown-Smith had kindly offered her practical services,
+and that he had declined them for the moment.  'Mrs. Malory,' he went on,
+after thinking awhile, 'may I take your case into my consideration--the
+marriage is not till October, you say, we are in June--and I may ask for
+a later interview?  Of course you shall be made fully aware of every
+detail, and nothing shall be done without your approval.  In fact all
+will depend on your own co-operation.  I don't deny that there may be
+distasteful things, but if you are quite sure about this gentleman's--'
+
+'Character?' said Mrs. Malory.  'I am _so_ sure that it has cost me many
+a wakeful hour.  You will earn my warmest gratitude if you can do
+anything.'
+
+'Almost everything will depend on your own energy, and tolerance of our
+measures.'
+
+'But we must not do evil that good may come,' said Mrs. Malory nervously.
+
+'No evil is contemplated,' said Merton.  But Mrs. Malory, while
+consenting, so far, did not seem quite certain that her estimate of
+'evil' and Merton's would be identical.
+
+She had suffered poignantly, as may be supposed, before she set the
+training of a lifetime aside, and consulted a professional expert.  But
+the urbanity and patience of Merton, with the high and unblemished
+reputation of his Association, consoled her.  'We must yield where we
+innocently may,' she assured herself, 'to the changes of the times.  Lest
+one good order' (and ah, how good the Early Victorian order had been!)
+'should corrupt the world.'  Mrs. Malory knew that line of poetry.  Then
+she remembered that Mrs. Brown-Smith was on the list of Merton's
+references, and that reassured her, more or less.
+
+As for Merton, he evolved a plan in his mind, and consulted Bradshaw's
+invaluable Railway Guide.
+
+On the following night Merton was fortunate or adroit enough to find
+himself seated beside Mrs. Brown-Smith in a conservatory at a party given
+by the Montenegrin Ambassador.  Other occupants of the fairy-like bower
+of blossoms, musical with all the singing of the innumerable fountains,
+could not but know (however preoccupied) that Mrs. Brown-Smith was being
+amused.  Her laughter 'rang merry and loud,' as the poet says, though not
+a word of her whispered conversation was audible.  Conservatories (in
+novels) are dangerous places for confidences, but the pale and angry face
+of Miss Malory did _not_ suddenly emerge from behind a grove of
+gardenias, and startle the conspirators.  Indeed, Miss Malory was not
+present; she and her sister had no great share in the elegant frivolities
+of the metropolis.
+
+'It all fits in beautifully,' said Mrs. Brown-Smith.  'Just let me look
+at the page of Bradshaw again.'  Merton handed to her a page of closely
+printed matter.  '9.17 P.M., 9.50 P.M.' read Mrs. Brown-Smith aloud; 'it
+gives plenty of time in case of delays.  Oh, this is too delicious!  You
+are sure that these trains won't be altered.  It might be awkward.'
+
+'I consulted Anson,' said Merton.  Anson was famous for his mastery of
+time-tables, and his prescience as to railway arrangements.
+
+'Of course it depends on the widow,' said Mrs. Brown-Smith, 'I shall see
+that Johnnie is up to time.  He hopes to undersell the opposition soap'
+(Mr. Brown-Smith was absent in America, in the interests of that soap of
+his which is familiar to all), 'and he is in the best of humours.  Then
+their grouse!  We have disease on our moors in Perthshire; I was in
+despair.  But the widow needs delicate handling.'
+
+'You won't forget--I know how busy you are--her cards for your party?'
+
+'They shall be posted before I sleep the sleep of conscious innocence.'
+
+'And real benevolence,' said Merton.
+
+'And revenge,' added Mrs. Brown-Smith.  'I have heard of his bragging,
+the monster.  He has talked about _me_.  And I remember how he treated
+Violet Lebas.'
+
+At this moment the Vidame de la Lain, a tall, fair young man, vastly too
+elegant, appeared, and claimed Mrs. Brown-Smith for a dance.  With a look
+at Merton, and a sound which, from less perfect lips, might have been
+described as a suppressed giggle, Mrs. Brown-Smith rose, then turning,
+'Post the page to me, Mr. Merton,' she said.  Merton bowed, and, folding
+up the page of the time-table, he consigned it to his cigarette case.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+Mrs. Malory received, with a blending of emotions, the invitation to the
+party of Mrs. Brown-Smith.  The social popularity and the wealth of the
+hostess made such invitations acceptable.  But the wealth arose from
+trade, in soap, not in coal, and coal (like the colza bean) is 'a product
+of the soil,' the result of creative forces which, in the geological
+past, have worked together for the good of landed families.  Soap, on the
+other hand, is the result of human artifice, and is certainly advertised
+with more of emphasis and of ingenuity than of delicacy.  But, by her own
+line of descent, Mrs. Brown-Smith came from a Scottish house of ancient
+standing, historically renowned for its assassins, traitors, and time-
+servers.  This partly washed out the stain of soap.  Again, Mrs. Malory
+had heard the name of Mrs. Brown-Smith taken in vain, and that in a
+matter nearly affecting her Matilda's happiness.  On the other side,
+Merton had given the lady a valuable testimonial to character.  Moreover,
+the Vidame would be at her party, and Mrs. Malory told herself that she
+could study the ground.  Above all, the girls were so anxious to go: they
+seldom had such a chance.  Therefore, while the Early Victorian moralist
+hesitated, the mother accepted.
+
+They were all glad that they went.  Susan, the younger Miss Malory,
+enjoyed herself extremely.  Matilda danced with the Vidame as often as
+her mother approved.  The conduct of Mrs. Brown-Smith was correctness
+itself.  She endeared herself to the girls: invited them to her place in
+Perthshire, and warmly congratulated Mrs. Malory on the event approaching
+in her family.  The eye of maternal suspicion could detect nothing amiss.
+Thanks mainly to Mrs. Brown-Smith, the girls found the season an earthly
+Paradise: and Mrs. Malory saw much more of the world than she had ever
+done before.  But she remained vigilant, and on the alert.  Before the
+end of July she had even conceived the idea of inviting Mrs. Brown-Smith,
+fatigued by her toils, to inhale the bracing air of Upwold in the moors.
+But she first consulted Merton, who expressed his warm approval.
+
+'It is dangerous, though she has been so kind,' sighed Mrs. Malory.  'I
+have observed nothing to justify the talk which I have heard, but I am in
+doubt.'
+
+'Dangerous! it is safety,' said Merton.
+
+'How?'
+
+Merton braced himself for the most delicate and perilous part of his
+enterprise.
+
+'The Vidame de la Lain will be staying with you?'
+
+'Naturally,' said Mrs. Malory.  'And if there _is_ any truth in what was
+whispered--'
+
+'He will be subject to temptation,' said Merton.
+
+'Mrs. Brown-Smith is so pretty and so amusing, and dear Matilda; she
+takes after my dear husband's family, though the best of girls, Matilda
+has not that flashing manner.'
+
+'But surely no such thing as temptation should exist for a man so
+fortunate as de la Lain!  And if it did, would his conduct not confirm
+what you have heard, and open the eyes of Miss Malory?'
+
+'It seems so odd to be discussing such things with--so young a man as
+you--not even a relation,' sighed Mrs. Malory.
+
+'I can withdraw at once,' said Merton.
+
+'Oh no, please don't speak of that!  I am not really at all happy yet
+about my daughter's future.'
+
+'Well, suppose the worst by way of argument; suppose that you saw, that
+Miss Malory saw--'
+
+'Matilda has always refused to see or to listen, and has spoken of the
+reforming effects of a pure affection.  She would be hard, indeed, to
+convince that anything was wrong, but, once certain--I know Matilda's
+character--she would never forgive the insult, never.'
+
+'And you would rather that she suffered some present distress?'
+
+'Than that she was tied for life to a man who could cause it?  Certainly
+I would.'
+
+'Then, Mrs. Malory, as it _is_ awkward to discuss these intimate matters
+with me, might I suggest that you should have an interview with Mrs.
+Brown-Smith herself?  I assure you that you can trust her, and I happen
+to know that her view of the man about whom we are talking is exactly
+your own.  More I could say as to her reasons and motives, but we
+entirely decline to touch on the past or to offer any opinion about the
+characters of our patients--the persons about whose engagements we are
+consulted.  He might have murdered his grandmother or robbed a church,
+but my lips would be sealed.'
+
+'Do you not think that Mrs. Brown-Smith would be very much surprised if I
+consulted her?'
+
+'I know that she takes a sincere interest in Miss Malory, and that her
+advice would be excellent--though perhaps rather startling,' said Merton.
+
+'I dislike it very much.  The world has altered terribly since I was
+Matilda's age,' said Mrs. Malory; 'but I should never forgive myself if I
+neglected any precaution, and I shall take your advice.  I shall consult
+Mrs. Brown-Smith.'
+
+Merton thus retreated from what even he regarded as a difficult and
+delicate affair.  He fell back on his reserves; and Mrs. Brown-Smith
+later gave an account of what passed between herself and the
+representative of an earlier age:
+
+'She first, when she had invited me to her dreary place, explained that
+we ought not, she feared, to lead others into temptation.  "If you think
+that man, de la Lain's temptation is to drag my father's name, and my
+husband's, in the dust," I answered, "let me tell you that _I_ have a
+temptation also."
+
+'"Dear Mrs. Brown-Smith," she answered, "this is indeed honourable
+candour.  Not for the world would I be the occasion--"
+
+'I interrupted her, "_My_ temptation is to make him the laughing stock of
+his acquaintance, and, if he has the impudence to give me the
+opportunity, I _will_!"  And then I told her, without names, of course,
+that story about this Vidame Potter and Violet Lebas.'
+
+'I did _not_,' said Merton.  'But why Vidame Potter?'
+
+'His father was a Mr. Potter; his grandfather married a Miss Lalain--I
+know all about it--and this creature has wormed out, or invented, some
+story of a Vidameship, or whatever it is, hereditary in the female line,
+and has taken the title.  And this is the man who has had the
+impertinence to talk about _me_, a Ker of Graden.'
+
+'But did not the story you speak of make her see that she must break off
+her daughter's engagement?'
+
+'No.  She was very much distressed, but said that her daughter Matilda
+would never believe it.'
+
+'And so you are to go to Upwold?'
+
+'Yes, it is a mournful place; I never did anything so good-natured.  And,
+with the widow's knowledge, I am to do as I please till the girl's eyes
+are opened.  I think it will need that stratagem we spoke of to open
+them.'
+
+'You are sure that you will be in no danger from evil tongues?'
+
+'They say, What say they?  Let them say,' answered Mrs. Brown-Smith,
+quoting the motto of the Keiths.
+
+The end of July found Mrs. Brown-Smith at Upwold, where it is to be hoped
+that the bracing qualities of the atmosphere made up for the want of
+congenial society.  Susan Malory had been discreetly sent away on a
+visit.  None of the men of the family had arrived.  There was a party of
+local neighbours, who did not feel the want of anything to do, but lived
+in dread of flushing the Vidame and Matilda out of a window seat whenever
+they entered a room.
+
+As for the Vidame, being destitute of all other entertainment, he made
+love in a devoted manner.
+
+But at dinner, after Mrs. Brown-Smith's arrival, though he sat next
+Matilda, Mrs. Malory saw that his eyes were mainly bent on the lady
+opposite.  The ping-pong of conversation, even, was played between him
+and Mrs. Brown-Smith across the table: the county neighbours were quite
+lost in their endeavours to follow the flight of the ball.  Though the
+drawing-room window, after dinner, was open on the fragrant lawn, though
+Matilda sat close by it, in her wonted place, the Vidame was hanging over
+the chair of the visitor, and later, played billiards with her, a game at
+which Matilda did not excel.  At family prayers next morning (the service
+was conducted by Mrs. Malory) the Vidame appeared with a white rosebud in
+his buttonhole, Mrs. Brown-Smith wearing its twin sister.  He took her to
+the stream in the park where she fished, Matilda following in a drooping
+manner.  The Vidame was much occupied in extracting the flies from the
+hair of Mrs. Brown-Smith, in which they were frequently entangled.  After
+luncheon he drove with the two ladies and Mrs. Malory to the country
+town, the usual resource of ladies in the country, and though he sat next
+Matilda, Mrs. Brown-Smith was beaming opposite, and the pair did most of
+the talking.  While Mrs. Malory and her daughter shopped, it was the
+Vidame who took Mrs. Brown-Smith to inspect the ruins of the Abbey.  The
+county neighbours had left in the morning, a new set arrived, and while
+Matilda had to entertain them, it was Mrs Brown-Smith whom the Vidame
+entertained.
+
+This kind of thing went on; when Matilda was visiting her cottagers it
+was the Vidame and Mrs. Brown-Smith whom visitors flushed in window
+seats.  They wondered that Mrs. Malory had asked so dangerous a woman to
+the house: they marvelled that she seemed quite radiant and devoted to
+her lively visitor.  There was a school feast: it was the Vidame who
+arranged hurdle-races for children of both sexes (so improper!), and who
+started the competitors.
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Malory, so unusually genial in public, held frequent
+conventicles with Matilda in private.  But Matilda declined to be
+jealous; they were only old friends, she said, these flagitious two; Dear
+Anne (that was the Vidame's Christian name) was all that she could wish.
+
+'You know the place is _so_ dull, mother,' the brave girl said.  'Even
+grandmamma, who was a saint, says so in her _Domestic Outpourings_'
+(religious memoirs privately printed in 1838).  'We cannot amuse Mrs.
+Brown-Smith, and it is so kind and chivalrous of Anne.'
+
+'To neglect you?'
+
+'No, to do duty for Tom and Dick,' who were her brothers, and who would
+not greatly have entertained the fair visitor had they been present.
+
+Matilda was the kind of woman whom we all adore as represented in the
+characters of Fielding's Amelia and Sophia.  Such she was, so gracious
+and yielding, in her overt demeanour, but, alas, poor Matilda's pillow
+was often wet with her tears.  She was loyal; she would not believe evil:
+she crushed her natural jealousy 'as a vice of blood, upon the threshold
+of the mind.'
+
+Mrs. Brown-Smith was nearly as unhappy as the girl.  The more she hated
+the Vidame--and she detested him more deeply every day--the more her
+heart bled for Matilda.  Mrs. Brown-Smith also had her secret conferences
+with Mrs. Malory.
+
+'Nothing will shake her belief in that man,' said Mrs. Malory.
+
+'Your daughter is the best girl I ever met,' said Mrs. Brown-Smith.  'The
+best tempered, the least suspicious, the most loyal.  And I am doing my
+worst to make her hate me.  Oh, I can't go on!'  Here Mrs. Brown-Smith
+very greatly surprised her hostess by bursting into tears.
+
+'You must not desert us now,' said the elder lady.  'The better you think
+of poor Matilda--and she _is_ a good girl--the more you ought to help
+her.'
+
+It was the 8th of August, no other visitors were at the house, a shooting
+party was expected to arrive on the 11th.  Mrs. Brown-Smith dried her
+tears.  'It must be done,' she said, 'though it makes me sick to think of
+it.'
+
+Next day she met the Vidame in the park, and afterwards held a long
+conversation with Mrs. Malory.  As for the Vidame, he was in feverish
+high spirits, he devoted himself to Matilda, in fact Mrs. Brown-Smith had
+insisted on such dissimulation, as absolutely necessary at this juncture
+of affairs.  So Matilda bloomed again, like a rose that had been 'washed,
+just washed, in a shower.'  The Vidame went about humming the airs of the
+country which he had honoured by adopting it as the cradle of his
+ancestry.
+
+On the morning of the following day, while the Vidame strayed with
+Matilda in the park, Mrs. Brown-Smith was closeted with Mrs. Malory in
+her boudoir.
+
+'Everything is arranged,' said Mrs. Brown-Smith.  'I, guilty and reckless
+that I am, have only to sacrifice my character, and all my things.  But I
+am to retain Methven, my maid.  That concession I have won from his
+chivalry.'
+
+'How do you mean?' asked Mrs. Malory.
+
+'At seven he will get a telegram summoning him to Paris on urgent
+business.  He will leave in your station brougham in time to catch the
+9.50 up train at Wilkington.  Or, rather, so impatient is he, he will
+leave half an hour too early, for fear of accidental delays.  I and my
+maid will accompany him.  I have thought honesty the best policy, and
+told the truth, like Bismarck, "and the same,"' said Mrs. Brown-Smith
+hysterically, '"with intent to deceive."  I have pointed out to him that
+my best plan is to pretend to you that I am going to meet my husband, who
+really arrives at Wilkington from Liverpool by the 9.17, though the
+Vidame thinks that is an invention of mine.  So, you see, I leave without
+any secrecy, or fuss, or luggage, and, when my husband comes here, he
+will find me flown, and will have to console himself with my luggage and
+jewels.  He--this Frenchified beast, I mean--has written a note for your
+daughter, which he will give to her maid, and, of course, the maid will
+hand it to _you_.  So he will have burned his boats.  And then you can
+show it to Matilda, and so,' said Mrs. Brown-Smith, 'the miracle of
+opening her eyes will be worked.  Johnnie, my husband, and I will be
+hungry when we return about half-past ten.  And I think you had better
+telegraph that there is whooping cough, or bubonic plague, or something
+in the house, and put off your shooting party.'
+
+'But that would be an untruth,' said Mrs. Malory.
+
+'And what have I been acting for the last ten days?' asked Mrs. Brown-
+Smith, rather tartly.  'You must settle your excuse with your
+conscience.'
+
+'The cook's mother really is ill,' said Mrs. Malory, 'and she wants
+dreadfully to go and see her.  That would do.'
+
+'All things work together for good.  The cook must have a telegram also,'
+said Mrs. Brown-Smith.
+
+The day, which had been extremely hot, clouded over.  By five it was
+raining: by six there was a deluge.  At seven, Matilda and the Vidame
+were evicted from their dusky window seat by the butler with a damp
+telegraph envelope.  The Vidame opened it, and handed it to Matilda.  His
+presence at Paris was instantly demanded.  The Vidame was desolated, but
+his absence could not be for more than five days.  Bradshaw was hunted
+for, and found: the 9.50 train was opportune.  The Vidame's man packed
+his clothes.  Mrs. Brown-Smith was apprised of these occurrences in the
+drawing-room before dinner.
+
+'I am very sorry for dear Matilda,' she cried.  'But it is an ill wind
+that blows nobody good.  I will drive over with the Vidame and astonish
+my Johnnie by greeting him at the station.  I must run and change my
+dress.'
+
+She ran, she returned in morning costume, she heard from Mrs. Malory of
+the summons by telegram calling the cook to her moribund mother.  'I must
+send her over to the station in a dog-cart,' said Mrs. Malory.
+
+'Oh no,' cried Mrs. Brown-Smith, with impetuous kindness, 'not on a night
+like this; it is a cataclysm.  There will be plenty of room for the cook
+as well as for Methven and me, and the Vidame, in the brougham.  Or _he_
+can sit on the box.'
+
+The Vidame really behaved very well.  The introduction of the cook, to
+quote an old novelist, 'had formed no part of his profligate scheme of
+pleasure.'  To elope from a hospitable roof, with a married lady,
+accompanied by her maid, might be an act not without precedent.  But that
+a cook should come to form _une partie carree_, on such an occasion, that
+a lover should be squeezed with three women in a brougham, was a trying
+novelty.
+
+The Vidame smiled, 'An artist so excellent,' he said, 'deserves a far
+greater sacrifice.'
+
+So it was arranged.  After a tender and solitary five minutes with
+Matilda, the Vidame stepped, last, into the brougham.  The coachman
+whipped up the horses, Matilda waved her kerchief from the porch, the
+guilty lovers drove away.  Presently Mrs. Malory received, from her
+daughter's maid, the letter destined by the Vidame for Matilda.  Mrs.
+Malory locked it up in her despatch box.
+
+The runaways, after a warm and uncomfortable drive of three-quarters of
+an hour, during which the cook wept bitterly and was very unwell, reached
+the station.  Contrary to the Vidame's wish, Mrs. Brown-Smith, in an
+ulster and a veil, insisted on perambulating the platform, buying the
+whole of Mr. Hall Caine's works as far as they exist in sixpenny
+editions.  Bells rang, porters stationed themselves in a line, like
+fielders, a train arrived, the 9.17 from Liverpool, twenty minutes late.
+A short stout gentleman emerged from a smoking carriage, Mrs.
+Brown-Smith, starting from the Vidame's side, raised her veil, and threw
+her arms round the neck of the traveller.
+
+'You didn't expect _me_ to meet you on such a night, did you, Johnnie?'
+she cried with a break in her voice.
+
+'Awfully glad to see you, Tiny,' said the short gentleman.  'On such a
+night!'
+
+After thus unconsciously quoting the _Merchant of Venice_, Mr.
+Brown-Smith turned to his valet.  'Don't forget the fishing-rods,' he
+said.
+
+'I took the opportunity of driving over with a gentleman from Upwold,'
+said Mrs. Brown-Smith.  'Let me introduce him.  Methven,' to her maid,
+'where is the Vidame de la Lain?'
+
+'I heard him say that he must help Mrs. Andrews, the cook, to find a
+seat, Ma'am,' said the maid.
+
+'He really _is_ kind,' said Mrs. Brown-Smith, 'but I fear we can't wait
+to say good-bye to him.'
+
+Three-quarters of an hour later, Mr. Brown-Smith and his wife were at
+supper at Upwold.
+
+Next day, as the cook's departure had postponed the shooting party, they
+took leave of their hostess, and returned to their moors in Perthshire.
+
+Weeks passed, with no message from the Vidame.  He did not answer a
+letter which Mrs. Malory allowed Matilda to write.  The mother never
+showed to the girl the note which he had left with her maid.  The absence
+and the silence of the lover were enough.  Matilda never knew that among
+the four packed in the brougham on that night of rain, one had been
+eloping with a married lady--who returned to supper.
+
+The papers were 'requested to state that the marriage announced between
+the Vidame de la Lain and Miss Malory will not take place.'  Why it did
+not take place was known only to Mrs. Malory, Mrs. Brown-Smith, and
+Merton.
+
+Matilda thought that her lover had been kidnapped and arrested, by the
+Secret Police of France, for his part in a scheme to restore the Royal
+House, the White Flag, the Lilies, the children of St. Louis.  At Mrs.
+Brown-Smith's place in Perthshire, in the following autumn, Matilda met
+Sir Aylmer Jardine.  Then she knew that what she had taken for love (in
+the previous year) had been,
+
+   'Not love, but love's first flush in youth.'
+
+They always do make that discovery, bless them!  Lady Jardine is now
+wrapped up in her baby boy.  The mother of the cook recovered her health.
+
+
+
+
+IX.  ADVENTURE OF THE LADY NOVELIST AND THE VACCINATIONIST
+
+
+'Mr. Frederick Warren'--so Merton read the card presented to him on a
+salver of Limoges enamel by the office-boy.
+
+'Show the gentleman in.'
+
+Mr. Warren entered.  He was a tall and portly person, with a red face,
+red whiskers, and a tightly buttoned frock-coat, which more expressed
+than hid his goodly and prominent proportions.  He bowed, and Merton
+invited him to be seated.  It struck Merton as a singular circumstance
+that his visitor wore on each arm the crimson badge of the newly
+vaccinated.
+
+Mr. Warren sat down, and, taking a red silk handkerchief out of the crown
+of his hat, he wiped his countenance.  The day was torrid, and Mr. Merton
+hospitably offered an effervescent draught.
+
+'Without the whisky, if you please, sir,' said Mr. Warren, in a
+provincial accent.  He pointed to a blue ribbon in the buttonhole of his
+coat, indicating that he was conscientiously opposed to the use of
+alcoholic refreshment in all its forms.
+
+'Two glasses of Apollinaris water,' said Merton to the office-boy; and
+the innocent fluid was brought, while Merton silently admired his
+client's arrangement in blue and crimson.  When the thirst of that
+gentleman had been assuaged, he entered upon business thus:
+
+'Sir, I am a man of principle!'
+
+Merton congratulated him; the age was lax, he said, and principle was
+needed.  He wondered internally what he was going to be asked to
+subscribe to, or whether his vote only was required.
+
+'Sir, have you been vaccinated?' asked the client earnestly.
+
+'Really,' said Merton, 'I do not quite understand your interest in a
+matter so purely personal.'
+
+'Personal, sir?  Not at all.  It is the first of public duties--the debt
+that every man, woman, and child owes to his or her country.  Have you
+been vaccinated, sir?'
+
+'Why, if you insist on knowing,' said Merton, 'I have, though I do not
+see--'
+
+'Recently?' asked the visitor.
+
+'Yes, last month; but I cannot conjecture why--'
+
+'Enough, sir,' said Mr. Warren.  'I am a man of principle.  Had you not
+done your duty in this matter by your country, I should have been
+compelled to seek some other practitioner in your line.'
+
+'I was not aware that my firm had any competitors in our line of
+business,' said Merton.  'But perhaps you have come here under some
+misapprehension.  There is a firm of family solicitors on the floor
+above, and next them are the offices of a company interested in a patent
+explosive.  If your affairs, or your political ideas, demand a legal
+opinion, or an outlet in an explosive which is widely recommended by the
+Continental Press--'
+
+'For what do you take me, sir?' asked Mr. Warren.
+
+'For a Temperance Anarchist,' Merton would have liked to reply, 'judging
+by your colours'; but he repressed this retort, and mildly answered,
+'Perhaps it would be as much to the purpose to ask, for what do you take
+_me_?'
+
+'For the representative of Messrs. Gray & Graham, the specialists in
+matrimonial affairs,' answered the client; and Merton said that he would
+be happy if Mr. Warren would enter into the details of his business.
+
+'I am the ex-Mayor of Bulcester,' said Mr. Warren, 'and, as I told you, a
+man of principle.  My attachment to the Temperance cause'--and he
+fingered his blue ribbon--'procured for me the honour of a defeat at the
+last general election, but endeared me to the consciences of the
+Nonconformist element in the constituency.  Yet, sir, I am at this moment
+the most unpopular man in Bulcester; but I shall fight it out--I shall
+fight it to my latest breath.'
+
+'Is Bulcester, then, such an intemperate constituency?  I had understood
+that the Nonconformist interest was strong there,' said Merton.
+
+'So it is, sir, so it is; but the interest is now bound to the chariot
+wheels of the truckling Toryism of our time--to the sycophants who basely
+made vaccination permissive, and paltered with the Conscientious
+Objector.  These badges, sir'--the client pointed to his own crimson
+decorations--'proclaim that I have been vaccinated on _both_ arms, as a
+testimony to the immortal though, in Bulcester, maligned discovery of the
+great Jenner.  Sir, I am hooted in the public streets of my native town,
+where Anti-vaccinationism is a frenzy.  Mr. Rider Haggard, the author of
+_Dr. Therne_, has been burned in effigy for his thrilling and manly
+protest to which I owe my own conversion.'
+
+'Then the conversion is relatively recent?' asked Merton.
+
+'It dates since my reading of that powerful argument, sir; that appeal to
+reason which overcame my prejudice, for I was a prominent A. V.'
+
+'_Ave_?' asked Merton.
+
+'A. V., sir--Anti-Vaccinationist.  A. C. D. A. too, and always,' he added
+proudly; but Merton did not think it prudent to ask for further
+explanations.
+
+'An A. V.  I was, an A. V.  I am no longer; and I defy popular clamour,
+accompanied by brickbats, to shake my principles.'
+
+'_Justum et tinacem propositi virum_,' murmured Merton, adding, 'All that
+is very interesting, but, my dear sir, while I admire the tenacity of
+your principles, will you permit me to ask, what has vaccination to do
+with the special business of our firm?'
+
+'Why, sir, I have a family, and my eldest son--'
+
+'Does he decline to be vaccinated?' asked Merton, in a sympathetic voice.
+
+'No, sir, or he would never darken my doorway,' exclaimed this more than
+Roman father.  'But he is engaged, and I can never give my consent; and
+if he marries that girl, the firm ceases to be "Warren & Son, wax-cloth
+manufacturers."  That's all, sir--that's all.'
+
+Mr. Warren again applied his red handkerchief to his glowing features.
+
+'And what, may I ask, are the grounds of your objection to this
+engagement?  Social inequality?' asked Merton.
+
+'No, the young lady is the daughter of one of our leading ministers, Mr.
+Truman--author of _The Bishops to the Block_--but principles are
+concerned.'
+
+'You cannot mean that the young lady is excessively addicted to the--wine
+cup?' asked Merton gravely.  'In melancholy cases of that kind Mr. Hall
+Caine, in a romance, has recommended hypnotic treatment, but we do not
+venture to interfere.'
+
+'You misunderstand me, sir,' replied Mr. Warren, frowning.  'The young
+woman, on principle, as they call it, has never been vaccinated.  Like
+most of our prominent citizens, her father (otherwise an excellent man)
+objects to what he calls "The Worship of the Calf" on grounds of
+conscience.'
+
+'Conscience!  It is a hard thing to constrain the conscience,' murmured
+Merton, quoting a remark of Queen Mary to John Knox.
+
+'What is conscience without knowledge, sir?' asked the client,
+using--without knowing it--the very argument of Mr. Knox to the Queen.
+
+'You have no other objections to the alliance?' asked Merton.
+
+'None whatever, sir.  She is a good and good-looking girl.  On most
+important points we are thoroughly agreed.  She won a prize essay on
+Bacon's authorship of Shakespeare's plays.  Of course Shakespeare could
+not have written them--a thoroughly uneducated man, who never could have
+passed the fourth standard.  But look at the plays!  There are things in
+them that, with all our modern advantages, are beyond me.  I admit they
+are beyond me.  "To be, and to do, and to suffer,"' declaimed Mr. Warren,
+apparently under the impression that this is part of Hamlet's
+soliloquy--'Shakespeare could never have written _that_.  Where did _he_
+learn grammar?'
+
+'Where, indeed?' replied Merton.  'But as the lady is in all other
+respects so suitable a match, cannot this one difficulty be got over?'
+
+'Impossible, sir; my son could not slice the sleeve in her dress and
+inflict this priceless boon on her with affectionate violence.  Even the
+hero of _Dr. Therne_ failed there--'
+
+'And rather irritated his pretty Jane,' added Merton, who remembered this
+heroic adventure.  'It is a very hard case,' he went on, 'but I fear that
+our methods are powerless.  The only chance would be to divert young Mr.
+Warren's affections into some other more enlightened channel.  That
+expedient has often been found efficacious.  Is he very deeply enamoured?
+Would not the society of another pretty and intelligent girl perhaps work
+wonders?'
+
+'Perhaps it might, sir, but I don't know where to find any one that would
+attract my James.  Except for political meetings, and a literary lecture
+or two, with a magic-lantern and a piano, we have not much social
+relaxation at Bulcester.  We object to promiscuous dancing, on grounds of
+conscience.  Also, of course, to the stage.'
+
+'Ah, so you _do_ allow for the claims of conscience, do you?'
+
+'For what do you take me, sir?  Only, of course the conscience must be
+enlightened,' said Mr. Warren, as other earnest people usually do.
+
+'Certainly, certainly,' said Merton; 'nothing so dangerous as the
+unenlightened conscience.  Why, in this very matter of marriage the
+conscience of the Mormons leads them to singular aberrations, while that
+of the Arunta tribe--but I should only pain you if I pursued the subject.
+You said that your Society indulged in literary lectures: is your
+programme for the season filled up?'
+
+'I am President of the Bulcester Literary Society,' said Mr. Warren, 'and
+I ought to know.  We have a vacancy for Friday week; but why do you
+inquire?  In fact I want a lecturer on "The Use and Abuse of Novels," now
+you ask.  Our people, somehow, always want their literary lectures to be
+about novels.  I try to make the lecturers take a lofty moral tone, and
+usually entertain them at my house, where I probe their ideas, and warn
+them that we must have nothing loose.  Once, sir, we had a lecturer on
+"The Oldest Novel in the World."  He gave us a terrible shock, sir!  I
+never saw so many red cheeks in a Bulcester audience.  And the man seemed
+quite unaware of the effect he was producing.'
+
+'Short-sighted, perhaps?' said Merton.
+
+'Ever since we have been very careful.  But, sir, we seem to have got
+away from the subject.'
+
+'It is only seeming,' said Merton.  'I have an idea which may be of
+service to you.'
+
+'Thank you, most kindly,' said Mr. Warren.  'But as how?'
+
+'Does your Society ever employ lady lecturers?'
+
+'We prefer them; we are all for enlarging the sphere of woman's
+activity--virtuous activity, I mean.'
+
+'That is fortunate,' remarked Merton.  'You said just now that to try the
+plan of a counter-attraction was difficult, because there was little of
+social relaxation in your Society, and you knew no lady who had the
+opportunities necessary for presenting an agreeable alternative to the
+charms of Miss Truman.  A young man's fancy is often caught merely by the
+juxtaposition of a single member of the opposite sex, with whom he
+contracts a custom of walking home from chapel.'
+
+'That's mostly the way at Bulcester,' said Mr. Warren.
+
+'Well,' Merton went on, 'you are in the habit of entertaining the
+lecturers at your house.  Now, I know a young lady--one of our staff, in
+fact--who is very well qualified to lecture on "The Use and Abuse of
+Novels."  She is a novelist herself; one of the most serious and
+improving of our younger writers.  In her works virtue (after struggles)
+is always rewarded, and vice (especially if gilded) is held up to
+execration, though never allowed to display itself in colours which would
+bring a blush to the cheek of--a white rabbit.  Here is her portrait,'
+said Merton, taking up a family periodical, _The Young Girl_.  This
+blameless journal was publishing a serial story by Miss Martin, one of
+the ladies who had been enlisted at the dinner given by Logan and Merton
+when they founded their Society.  A photograph of Miss Martin, in white
+and in a large shadowy hat, was published in _The Young Girl_, and
+certainly no one could have recognised in this conscientiously innocent
+and domestic portrait the fair author of romances of social adventure and
+unimagined crime.  'There you see our young friend,' said Merton; 'and
+the magazine, to which she is a regular contributor, is a voucher for her
+character as an author.'
+
+Mr. Warren closely scrutinised the portrait, which displayed loveliness
+and candour in a very agreeable way, and arranged in the extreme of
+modest simplicity.
+
+'That is a young woman who bears her testimonials in her face,' said Mr.
+Warren.  'She is one whom a father can trust--but has she been
+vaccinated?'
+
+'Early and often,' answered Merton reassuringly.  'Girls with faces like
+hers do not care to run any risks.'
+
+'Jane Truman does, though my son has put it to her, I know, on the ground
+of her looks.  "_Nothing_," she said, "will ever induce me to submit to
+that filthy, that revolting operation."'
+
+'"Conscience doth make cowards of us all," as Bacon says,' replied
+Merton, 'or at least of such of us as are unenlightened.  But to come to
+business.  What do you think of asking our young friend down to
+lecture--on Friday week, I think you said--on the Use and Abuse of
+Novels?  You could easily persuade her, I dare say, to stay over
+Sunday--longer if necessary--and then young Mr. Warren would at least
+find out that there is more than one young woman in the world.'
+
+'I shall be delighted to see your friend,' answered Mr. Warren.  'At
+Bulcester we welcome intellect, and a real novelist of moral tendencies
+would make quite a sensation in our midst.'
+
+'They are but too scarce at present,' Merton answered--'novelists of high
+moral tone.'
+
+'She is not a Christian Scientist?' asked Mr. Warren anxiously.  'They
+reject vaccination, like all other means appointed, and rely on miracles,
+which ceased with the Apostolic age, being no longer necessary.'
+
+'The lady, I can assure you, is not a Christian Scientist,' said Merton
+'but comes of an Evangelical family.  Shall I give you her address?  In
+my opinion it would be best to write to her from Bulcester, on the
+official paper of the Literary Society.'  For Merton wished to acquaint
+Miss Martin with the nature of her mission, lecturing being an art which
+she had never cultivated.
+
+'There is just one thing,' remarked Mr. Warren hesitatingly.  'This young
+lady, if our James lets his affections loose on her--how would _that_ be,
+sir?'
+
+Merton smiled.
+
+'Why, no great harm would be done, Mr. Warren.  You need not fear any
+complication: any new matrimonial difficulty.  The affection would be all
+on one side, and that side would not be the lady lecturer's.  I happen to
+know that she has a prior attachment.'
+
+'Vaccinated!' cried Mr. Warren, letting a laugh out of him.
+
+'Exactly,' said Merton.
+
+Mr. Warren now gladly concurred in the plan of his adviser, after which
+the interview was concerned with financial details.  Merton usually left
+these vague, but in Mr. Warren he saw a client who would feel more
+confidence if everything was put on a strictly business footing.  The
+client retired in a hopeful frame of mind, and Merton went to look for
+Miss Martin at her club, where she was usually to be found at the hour of
+tea.
+
+He was fortunate enough to find her, dressed by no means after the style
+of her portrait in _The Young Girl_, but still very well dressed.  She
+offered him the refreshment of tea and toast--very good toast, Merton
+thought--and he asked how her craft as a novelist was prospering.  Friends
+of Miss Martin were obliged to ask, for they did not read _The Young
+Girl_, or the other and less domestic serials in which her works
+appeared.
+
+'I am doing very well, thank you,' said Miss Martin.  'My tale _The
+Curate's Family_ has raised the circulation of _The Young Girl_; and,
+mind you, it is no easy thing for a novelist to raise the circulation of
+any periodical.  For example, if _The Quarterly Review_ published a new
+romance, even by Mr. Thomas Hardy, I doubt if the end would justify the
+proceedings.'
+
+'It would take about four years to get finished in a quarterly,' said
+Merton.
+
+'And the nonagenarians who read quarterlies,' said Miss Martin, with the
+flippancy of youth, 'would go to their graves without knowing whether the
+heroine found a lenient jury or not.  I have six heroines in _The
+Curate's Family_, and I own their love affairs tend to get a little
+mixed.  I have rigged up a small stage, with puppets in costume to
+represent the characters, and keep them straight in my mind; but
+Ethelinda, who is engaged to the photographer, as nearly as possible
+eloped with the baronet last week.'
+
+'Anything else on?' asked Merton.
+
+'An up-to-date story, all heredity and evolution,' said Miss Martin.  'The
+father has his legs bitten off by a shark, and it gets on the nerves of
+his wife, the Marchioness, and two of the girls are born like mermaids.
+They have immense popularity at bathing-places on the French coast, but
+it is not easy for them to go into general society.'
+
+'What nonsense!' exclaimed Merton.
+
+'Not worse than other stuff that is highly recommended by eminent
+reviewers,' said Miss Martin.
+
+'Anything else?'
+
+'Oh, yes; there is "The Pope's Poisoner, a Tale of the Borgias."  That is
+a historical romance, I got it up out of Histories of the Renaissance.
+The hero (Lionardo da Vinci) is the Pope's bravo, and in love with
+Lucrezia Borgia.'
+
+'Are the dates all right?' asked Merton.
+
+'Oh, bother the dates!  Of course he is a bravo _pour le bon motif_, and
+frustrates the pontifical designs.'
+
+'I want you,' said Merton, 'you have such a fertile imagination, to take
+part in a little plot of our own.  Beneficent, of course, but I admit
+that my fancy is baffled.  Could we find a room less crowded?  This is
+rather private business.'
+
+'There is never anybody in the smoking-room at the top of the house,'
+said Miss Martin, 'because--to let out a secret--none of us ever smoke,
+except at public dinners to give tone.  But _you_ may.'
+
+She led Merton to a sepulchral little chamber upstairs, and he told her
+all the story of Mr. Warren, his son, and the daughter of the minister.
+
+'Why don't they elope?' asked Miss Martin.
+
+'The Nonconformist conscience is unfriendly to elopements, and the young
+man has no accomplishment by which he could support his bride except the
+art of making oilcloth.'
+
+'Well, what do you want me to do?'
+
+Merton unfolded the scheme of the lady lecturer, and prepared Miss Martin
+to receive an invitation from Mr. Warren.
+
+'Can you write a lecture on "The Use and Abuse of Novels" before Friday
+week?' he asked.
+
+'Say seven thousand words?  I could do it by to-morrow morning,' said
+Miss Martin.
+
+'You know you must be very careful?'
+
+'Style of answers to correspondents in _The Young Girl_,' said Miss
+Martin.  'I know my way about.'
+
+'Then you really will essay the adventure?'
+
+'Like a bird,' answered the lady.  'It will be great fun.  I shall pick
+up copy about the habits of the middle classes in the Midlands.'
+
+'They won't recognise you as the author of your more criminal romances?'
+
+'How can they?  I sign them "Passion Flower" and "Nightshade," and "La
+Tofana," and so on.'
+
+'You will dress as in your photograph in _The Young Girl_?'
+
+'I will, and take a _fichu_ to wear in the evening.  They always wear
+_fichus_ in evening dress.  But, look here, do you want a happy ending to
+this romance?'
+
+'How can it be happy if you are to be successful?  Miss Jane Truman will
+be miserable, and Mr. James Warren will die of remorse and a broken
+heart, when you--'
+
+'Fail to crown his flame, and Jane has too much pride to welcome back the
+wanderer?'
+
+'I'm afraid that, or something like that, will be the end of it,' said
+Merton, 'and, perhaps, on reflection, we had better drop the affair.'
+
+'But suppose I could manage a happy ending?  Suppose I reconcile Mr.
+Warren to the union?  I am all for happy endings myself.  I drink to King
+Charles II., who declared that while _he_ was king all tragedies should
+end happily.'
+
+'You don't mean that you can persuade Jane to be vaccinated?'
+
+'One never knows till one tries.  You'll find that I shall make a happy
+conclusion to my Borgia novel, and _that_ is not so easy.  You see
+Lionardo goes to the Pope's jeweller and exchanges the--'
+
+Miss Martin paused and remained absorbed in thought.
+
+Suddenly she danced round the room with much grace and _abandon_, while
+Merton, smoking in an arm-chair that had lost a castor, gently applauded
+the performance.
+
+'You have your idea?' he asked.
+
+'I have it.  Happy ending!  Hurrah!'
+
+Miss Martin spun round like a dancing Dervish, and finally fell into
+another arm-chair, overcome by the heat and the intoxication of genius.
+
+'We owe a candle to Saint Alexander Borgia!' she said, when she recovered
+her breath.
+
+'Miss Martin,' said Merton gravely, 'this is a serious matter.  You are
+not going, I trust, to poison the lemons for the elder Mr. Warren's lemon
+squash?  He is strictly Temperance, you know.'
+
+'Poison the lemons?  With a hypodermic syringe?' asked Miss Martin.  'No;
+that is good business.  I have made one of my villains do _that_, but
+that is not my idea.  Perfectly harmless, my idea.'
+
+'But sensational, I fear?' asked Merton.
+
+'Some very cultured critics might think so,' the lady admitted.  'But I
+am sure to succeed, and I hear the merry, merry wedding bells of the
+Bulcester tabernacle ringing a peal for the happy pair.'
+
+'Well, what is the plan?'
+
+'That is my secret.'
+
+'But I _must_ know.  I am responsible.  Tell me, or I telegraph to Mr.
+Warren: "Lecturer never vaccinated; sorry for my mistake."'
+
+'That would not be true,' said Miss Martin.
+
+'A noble falsehood,' said Merton.
+
+'But I assure you that if my plan fails no harm can possibly be caused or
+suspected.  And if it succeeds then the thing is done: either Mr. Warren
+is reconciled to the marriage, or--the marriage is broken off, as he
+desires.'
+
+'By whom?'
+
+'By the Conscientious Objectrix, if that is the feminine of Objector--by
+Miss Jane Truman.'
+
+'Why should Jane break it off if the old gentleman agrees?'
+
+'Because Jane would be a silly girl.  Mr. Merton, I will promise you one
+thing.  The plan shall not be tried without the approval of the lover
+himself.  None but he shall be concerned in the affair.'
+
+'You won't hypnotise the girl and let him vaccinate her when she is in
+the hypnotic sleep?'
+
+'No, nor even will I give her a post-hypnotic suggestion to vaccinate
+herself, or go to the doctor's and have it done when she is awake;
+though,' said Miss Martin, 'that is not bad business either.  I must make
+a note of that.  But I can't hypnotise anybody.  I tried lots of girls
+when I was at St. Ursula's and nothing ever came of it.  Thank you for
+the idea all the same.  By the way, I first must sterilise the
+pontifical--'  She paused.
+
+'The what?'
+
+'That is my secret!  Don't you see how safe it is?  None but the lover
+shall have his and her fate in his hands.  _C'est a prendre ou a
+laisser_.'
+
+Merton was young and adventurous.
+
+'You give me your word that your idea is absolutely safe and harmless?  It
+involves no crime?'
+
+'None; and if you like,' said Miss Martin, 'I will bring you the highest
+professional opinion,' and she mentioned an eminent name in the craft of
+healing.  'He was our doctor when we were children,' said the lady, 'and
+we have always been friends.'
+
+'Well,' Merton said, 'what is good enough for Sir Josiah Wilkinson is
+good enough for me.  But you will bring me the document?'
+
+'The day after to-morrow,' said Miss Martin, and with that assurance
+Merton had to be content.
+
+Sir Josiah was almost equally famous in the world as a physician and, in
+a smaller but equally refined circle, as a virtuoso and collector of
+objects of art.  His opinions about the beneficent effects of vaccination
+were known to be at the opposite pole from those of the intelligent
+population of Bulcester.
+
+On the next day but one Miss Martin again entertained Merton at her club,
+and demurely presented him with three documents.  These were Mr. Warren's
+invitation, her reply in acceptance, and a formal signed statement by Sir
+Josiah that her scheme was perfectly harmless, and commanded his admiring
+approval.
+
+'Now!' said Miss Martin.
+
+'I own that I don't like it,' said Merton.  'Logan thinks that it is all
+right, but Logan is a born conspirator.  However, as you are set on it,
+and as Sir Josiah's opinion carries great weight, you may go.  But be
+very careful.  Have you written your lecture?'
+
+'Here is the scenario,' said Miss Martin, handing a typewritten synopsis
+to Merton.
+
+   'USE AND ABUSE OF NOVELS.
+
+   'All good things capable of being abused.  Alcohol not one of these;
+   alcohol _always_ pernicious.  Fiction, on the other hand, a good
+   thing.  Antiquity of fiction.  In early days couched in verse.
+   Civilisation prefers prose.  Fiction, from the earlier ages, intended
+   to convey Moral Instruction.  Opinion of Aristotle defended against
+   that of Plato.  Morality in mediaeval Romance.  Criticism of Mr.
+   Frederic Harrison.  Opinion of Moliere.  Yet French novels usually
+   immoral, and why.  Remarks on Popery.  To be avoided.  Morality of
+   Richardson and of Sir Walter Scott.  Impropriety re-introduced by
+   Charlotte Bronte.  Unwillingness of Lecturer to dwell on this Topic.
+   The Novel is now the whole of Literature.  The people have no time to
+   read anything else.  Responsibilities of the Novelist as a Teacher.
+   The Novel the proper vehicle of Theological, Scientific, Social, and
+   Political Instruction.  Mr. Hall Caine, Miss Corelli.  Fallacy of
+   thinking that the Novel should Amuse.  Abuse of the Novel as a source
+   of mischievous and false Opinions.  Case of _The Woman Who Did_.
+   Sacredness of Marriage.  Study of the Novel becomes an abuse if it
+   leads to the Neglect of the Morning and Evening Newspapers.  Sir
+   Walter Besant on the Novel.  None but the newest Novels ought to be
+   read.  Mr. W. D. Howells on this subject.  Experience of the Lecturer
+   as a Novelist.  Gratifying letters from persons happily influenced by
+   the Lecturer.  Anecdotes.  Case of Miss A--- C---.  Case of Mr. J---
+   R---.  Unhappy Endings demoralising.  Marriage the true End of the
+   Novel, but the beginning of the happy life.  Lecturer wishes her
+   audience happy Endings and true Beginnings.  Conclusion.'
+
+'Will _that_ do?' asked Miss Martin anxiously.
+
+'Yes, if you don't exceed your plan, or run into chaff.'
+
+'I won't,' said Miss Martin.  'It is all chaff, but they won't see it.'
+
+'I think I would drop that about Popery,' said Merton--'it may lead to
+letters in the newspapers; and _do_ be awfully careful about impropriety
+in novels.'
+
+'I'll put in "Vice to be Condemned, not Described,"' said Miss Martin,
+pencilling a note on the margin of her paper.
+
+'That seems safe,' said Merton.  'But it cuts out some of our most
+powerful teachers.'
+
+'Serve them right!' said Miss Martin.  'Teachers! the arrant humbugs.'
+
+'You will report at once on your return?' said Merton.  'I shall be on
+tenter-hooks till I see you again.  If I knew what you are really about,
+I'd take counsel's opinion.  Medical opinion does not satisfy me: I want
+legal.'
+
+'How nervous you are!' said Miss Martin.  'Counsel would be rather stuck
+up, I think; it is a new kind of case,' and the lady laughed in an
+irritating way.  'I'll tell you what I'll do,' she said.  'I'll telegraph
+to you on the Monday morning after the lecture.  If everything goes well,
+I'll telegraph, "Happy ending."  If anything goes wrong--but it
+can't--I'll telegraph, "Unhappy ending."'
+
+'If you do, I shall be off to Callao.
+
+   '_On no condition_
+   _Is Extradition_
+   _Allowed in Callao_!'
+
+said Merton.
+
+'But if there is any uncertainty--and there _may_ be,' said Miss Martin,
+'I'll telegraph, "Will report."'
+
+* * * * *
+
+Merton passed a miserable week of suspense and perplexity of mind.  Never
+had he been so imprudent; he felt sure of that, and it was the only thing
+of which he did feel sure.  The newspapers contained bulletins of an
+epidemic of smallpox at Bulcester.  How would that work into the plot?
+Then the high animal spirits and daring fancy of Miss Martin might carry
+her into undreamed-of adventures.
+
+'But they won't let her have even a glass of champagne,' reflected
+Merton.  'One glass makes her reckless.'
+
+It was with a trembling hand that Merton, about ten on the Monday
+morning, took the telegraphic envelope of Fate.
+
+'I can't face it,' he said to Logan.  'Read the message to me.'  Merton
+was unmanned!
+
+Logan carelessly opened the envelope and read:
+
+'_Happy ending_, _but awfully disappointed.  Will call at one o'clock_.'
+
+'Oh, thanks to all gracious Powers,' said Merton falling limply on to a
+sofa.  'Ring, Logan, and order a small whisky-and-soda.'
+
+'I won't,' said Logan.  'Horrid bad habit.  Would you like me to send out
+for smelling-salts?  Be a man, Merton!  Pull yourself together!'
+
+'You don't know that awful girl,' said Merton, slowly recovering self-
+control.  'However, as she is disappointed though the ending is happy,
+her infernal plan must have been miscarried, whatever it was.  It _must_
+be all right, though I sha'n't be quite happy till I see her.  I am no
+coward, Logan' (and Merton was later to prove that he possessed coolness
+and audacity in no common measure), 'but it is the awful sense of
+responsibility.  She is quite capable of getting us into the newspapers.'
+
+'You funk being laughed at,' said Logan.
+
+Merton lay on the sofa, smoking too many cigarettes, till, punctually at
+one o'clock, a peal at the bell announced the arrival of Miss Martin.  She
+entered, radiant, smiling, and in her costume of innocence she looked
+like a sylph.
+
+'It is all right--they are engaged, with Mr. Warren's full approval,' she
+exclaimed.
+
+'Were we on the stage, I should embrace you!' exclaimed Merton
+rapturously.
+
+'We are not on the stage,' replied Miss Martin demurely.  'And _I_ have
+no occasion to congratulate myself.  My plot did not come off; never had
+a look in.  Do you want to be vaccinated?  If so, shake hands,' and Miss
+Martin extended her own hands ungloved.
+
+'I do not want to be vaccinated,' said Merton.
+
+'Then don't shake hands,' said Miss Martin.
+
+'What on earth do you mean?' asked Merton.
+
+'Look there!' said the lady, lifting her hand to his eyes.  Merton kissed
+it.
+
+'Oh, _take care_!' shrieked Miss Martin.  'It would be awkward--on the
+lips.  Do you see my ring?'
+
+Merton and Logan examined her ring.  It was a beautiful _cinque cento_
+jewel in white and blue enamel, with a high gold top containing a pointed
+ruby.
+
+'It's very pretty,' said Merton--'quite of the best period.  But what is
+the mystery?'
+
+'It is a poison ring of the Borgias,' said Miss Martin.  'I borrowed it
+from Sir Josiah Wilkinson.  If it scratched you' (here she exhibited the
+mechanism of the jewel), 'why, there you are!'
+
+'Where?  Poisoned?'
+
+'No!  Vaccinated!' said Miss Martin.  'It is full of the stuff they
+vaccinate you with, but it is quite safe as far as the old poison goes.
+Sir Josiah sterilised it, in case of accidents, before he put in the
+glycerinated lymph.  My own idea!  He was delighted.  Shall I shake hands
+with the office-boy?--it might do him good--or would Kutuzoff give a
+paw?'
+
+Kutuzoff was the Russian cat.
+
+'By no means--not for worlds,' said Merton.  'Kutuzoff is a Conscientious
+Objector.  But were you going to shake hands with Miss Truman with that
+horrible ring?  Sacred emblems enamelled on it,' said Merton, gingerly
+examining the jewel.
+
+'No; I was not going to do that,' replied Miss Martin.  'My idea was to
+acquire the confidence of the lover--the younger Mr. Warren--explain to
+him how the thing works, lend it to him, and then let him press his
+Jane's wrist with it in some shady arbour.  Then his Jane would have been
+all that the heart of Mr. Warren _pere_ could desire.  But it did not
+come off.'
+
+'Thank goodness!' ejaculated Merton.  'There might have been an awful
+row.  I don't know what the offence would have been in the eye of the
+law.  Vaccinating a Conscientious Objector, without consent, yet without
+violence,--what would the law say to _that_?'
+
+'We might make it _hamesucken under trust_ in Scotland,' said Logan, 'if
+it was done on the premises of the young lady's domicile.'
+
+'We have not that elegant phrase in England,' said Merton.  'Perhaps it
+would have been a common assault; but, anyhow, it would have got into the
+newspapers.  Never again be officer of mine, Miss Martin.'
+
+'But how did all end happily?' asked Logan.
+
+'Why, _you_ may call it happily and so may the lovers, but _I_ call it
+very disappointing,' said Miss Martin.
+
+'Tell us all about it!' cried Logan.
+
+'Well, I went down, simple as you see me.'
+
+'_Simplex munditiis_!' said Merton.
+
+'And was met at the station by young Mr. Warren.  His father, with the
+wisdom of a Nonconformist serpent, had sent him alone to make my
+acquaintance and be fascinated.  My things were put on a four-wheeler.  I
+was all young enthusiasm in the manner of _The Young Girl_.  He was a
+good-looking boy enough, though in a bowler hat, with turn-down collar.
+But he was gloomy.  I was curious about the public buildings, ecstatic
+about the town hall, and a kind of Moeso-Gothic tabernacle (if it was not
+Moeso-Gothic in style I don't know what it was) where the Rev. Mr. Truman
+holds forth.  But I could not waken him up, he seemed miserable.  I soon
+found out the reason.  The placards of the local newspapers shrieked in
+big type with
+
+   SPREAD OF SMALLPOX.
+   135 CASES.
+
+When I saw that I took young Mr. Warren's hand.'
+
+'Were you wearing the ring?' asked Merton.
+
+'No; it was in my dressing-bag.  I said, "Mr. Warren, I know what care
+clouds your brow.  You are brooding over the fate of the young, the fair,
+the beloved--the unvaccinated.  I know the story of your heart."
+
+'"How the D--- I mean, how do you know, Miss Martin, about my private
+affairs?"
+
+'"A little bird has told me," I said (style of _The Young Girl_, you
+know).  "I have friends in Bulcester who esteem you.  No, I must not
+mention names, but I come, not too late, I hope, to bring you security.
+She shall be preserved from this awful scourge, and you shall be her
+preserver."  He wanted to know how it was to be done, of course, and
+after taking his word of honour for secrecy, I told him that the remedy
+would lie in his own hands, showed him the ring, and taught him how to
+work it.  Mr. Squeers,' went on Miss Martin, 'had never wopped a boy in a
+cab before, and I had never beheld a scene of passionate emotion
+before--in a four-wheeler.  He called me his preserver, he said that I
+was an angel, he knelt at my feet, and, if we had been on the stage--as
+Mr. Merton said--'
+
+'And were you on the stage?' asked Merton.
+
+'That is neither here nor there.  It was an instructive experience, and
+you little know the treasures of passion that may lie concealed in the
+heart of a young oilcloth manufacturer.'
+
+'Happy young oilcloth manufacturer!' murmured Merton.
+
+'They are both happy, but I did not manage my fortunate conclusion in my
+own way.  When young Mr. Warren had moderated the transports of his
+gratitude we were in the suburbs of Bulcester, where the mill-owners live
+in houses of the most promiscuous architecture: Tudor, Jacobean, Queen
+Anne, Bedford Park Queen Anne, _chalets_, Chineseries, "all standing
+naked in the open air," for the trees have not grown up round them yet.
+Then we came to a gate without a lodge, the cabman got down and opened
+it, and we were in the visible presence of Mr. Warren's villa.  The style
+is the Scottish Baronial; all pepper-pots, gables and crowsteps.
+
+'"What a lovely old place!" I said to my companion.  "Have you secret
+passages and sliding panels and dark turnpike stairs?  What a house for
+conspiracies!  There is a real turret window; can't you fancy it suddenly
+shot up and the king's face popped out, very red, and bellowing,
+'Treason!'"
+
+'At that moment, when my imagination was in full career, the turret
+window _was_ shot up, and a face, very red, with red whiskers, was popped
+out.
+
+'"That is my father," said young Mr. Warren; and we alighted, and a very
+small maidservant opened the portals of the baronial hall, while the
+cabman carried up my trunk, and Mr. Warren, senior, greeted me in the
+hall.
+
+'"Welcome to Bulcester!" he said, with a florid air, and "hoped James and
+I had made friends on the way," and then he actually winked!  He is a
+widower, and I was dying for tea, but there we sat, and when the little
+maid came in, it was to say that a gentleman wanted to see Mr. Warren in
+the study.  So he went out, and then, James being the victim of
+gratitude, I took my courage in both hands and asked if I might have tea.
+James said that they usually had it after the lecture was over, which
+would not be till nine, and that some people had been asked to meet me.
+Then I knew that I was got among a strange, outlandish race who eat
+strange meats and keep High Teas, and my spirit fainted within me.
+
+'"Oh, Mr. James!" I said, "if you love me have a cup of tea and some
+bread-and-butter sent up to my room, and tell the maid to show me the way
+to it."
+
+'So he sent for her, and she showed me to the best spare room, with
+oleographs of Highland scenery on the walls, and coloured Landseer
+prints, and tartan curtains, and everything made of ormolu that can be
+made of ormolu.  In about twenty minutes the girl returned with tea and
+poached eggs and toast, and jam and marmalade.  So I dressed for the
+lecture, which was to begin at eight--just when people ought to be
+dining--and came down into the drawing-room.  The elder Mr. Warren was
+sitting alone, reading the _Daily News_, and he rose with an air of happy
+solemnity and shook hands again.
+
+'"You can let James alone now, Miss Martin," he said, and he winked
+again, rubbed his hands, and grinned all over his expansive face.
+
+'"Let James alone!" I said.
+
+'"Yes; don't go upsetting the lad--he's not used to young ladies like
+you.  You leave James to himself.  James will do very well.  I have a
+little surprise for James."
+
+'He certainly had a considerable surprise for me, but I merely asked if
+it was James's birthday, which it was not.
+
+'Luckily James entered.  All his gloom was gone, thanks to me, and he was
+remarkably smiling and particularly attentive to myself.  Mr. Warren
+seemed perplexed.
+
+'"James, have you heard any good news?" he asked.  "You seem very gay all
+of a sudden."
+
+'James caught my eye.
+
+'"No, father," he said.  "What news do you mean?  Anything in business?  A
+large order from Sarawak?"
+
+'Mr. Warren was silent, but presently took me into a corner on the
+pretence of showing me some horrible _objet d'art_--a treacly bronze.
+
+'"I say," he said, "you must have made great play in the cab coming from
+the station.  James looks a new man.  I never would have guessed him to
+be so fickle.  But, mind you, no more of it!  Let James be--he will do
+very well."
+
+'How was James to do very well?  Why were my fascinations not to be
+exercised, as per contract?  I began to suspect the worst, and I was
+thinking of nothing else while we drove to the premises of the Bulcester
+Literary Society.  Could Jane have drowned herself out of the way, or
+taken smallpox, which might ruin her charms?  Well, I had not a large
+audience, on account of fear of infection, I suppose, and all the people
+present wore the red badge, like Mr. Warren, only he wore one on each
+arm.  This somewhat amazed me, but as I had never spoken in public before
+I was rather in a flutter.  However, I conquered my girlish shyness, and
+if the audience was not large it was enthusiastic.  When I came to the
+peroration about wishing them all happy endings and real beginnings of
+true life, don't you know, the audience actually rose at me, and cheered
+like anything.  Then someone proposed, "Three cheers for young Warren,"
+and they gave them like mad; I did not know why, nor did he: he looked
+quite pale.  Then his father, with tears in his voice, proposed a vote of
+thanks to me, and said that he and the brave hearts of old Bulcester, his
+old friends and brothers in arms, were once more united; and the people
+stormed the platform and shook his hand and slapped him on the back.  At
+last we got out by a back way, where our cab was waiting.  Young Mr.
+Warren was as puzzled as myself, and his father was greatly overcome and
+sobbing in a corner.  We got into the house, where people kept arriving,
+and at last a fine old clerical-looking bird entered with a red badge on
+one arm and a very pretty girl in white on the other.  She had a red
+badge too.
+
+'Young Mr. Warren, who was near me when they came in, gave a queer sort
+of cry, and then _I_ understood!  The girl was his Jane, and she _had_
+been vaccinated, also her father, that afternoon, owing to the awful
+panic the old man got into after reading the evening papers about the
+smallpox.  The gentleman whom Mr. Warren went to see in the study, just
+after my arrival, had brought him this gratifying intelligence, and he
+had sent the gentleman back to ask the Trumans to a High Tea of
+reconciliation.  The people at the lecture had heard of this, and that
+was why they cheered so for young Warren, because his affair was as
+commonly known to all Bulcester as that of Romeo and Juliet at Verona.
+They are hearty people at Bulcester, and not without elements of old
+English romance.
+
+'Old Mr. Warren publicly embraced Jane Truman, and then brought her and
+presented her to me as James's bride.  We both cried a little, I think,
+and then we all sat down to High Tea, and I am scarcely yet the woman I
+used to be.  It was a height!  And a weight!  And a length!  After tea
+Mr. Warren made a speech, and said that Bulcester had come back to him,
+and I was afraid that he would brag dreadfully, but he did not; he was
+too happy, I think.  And then Mr. Truman made a speech and said that
+though they felt obliged to own that they had come to the conclusion that
+though Anti-vaccination was a holy thing, still (in the circumstances)
+vaccination was good enough.  But they yet clung to principles for which
+Hampden died on the field, and Russell on the scaffold, and many of their
+own citizens in bed!  There must be no Coercion.  Everyone who liked must
+be allowed to have smallpox as much as he pleased.  All other issues were
+unimportant except that of freedom!
+
+'Here I rose--I was rather excited--and said that I hoped the reverend
+speaker was not deserting the sacred principle of compulsory temperance?
+Would the speaker allow people freedom to drink?  All other issues were
+unimportant compared with that of freedom, _except_ the interest of
+depriving a poor man of his beer.  To catch smallpox was a Briton's
+birthright, but not to take a modest quencher.  No freedom to drink!
+"Down with the drink!" I cried, and drained my tea-cup, and waved it,
+amidst ringing cheers.  Mr. Truman admitted that there were
+exceptions--one exception, at least.  Disease must be free to all, not
+alcohol nor Ritualism.  He thanked his young friend the gifted lecturer
+for recalling him to his principles.
+
+'The principles of the good old cause, the Puritan cause, were as pure as
+glycerinated lymph, and he proposed to found a Liberal Vaccinationist
+League.  They are great people for leagues at Bulcester, and they like
+the initials L. V. L.  There was no drinking of toasts, for there was
+nothing to drink them in, and--do you know, Mr. Merton?--I think it must
+be nearly luncheon time.'
+
+'Champagne appears to me to be indicated,' said Merton, who rang the bell
+and then summoned Miss Blossom from her typewriting.
+
+'We have done nothing,' Merton said, 'but heaven only knows what we have
+escaped in the adventure of the Lady Novelist and the Vaccinationist.'
+
+On taking counsel's opinion, Merton learned, with a shudder, that if
+young Warren had used the Borgia ring, and if Jane had resented it, he
+might have been indicted for a common assault, under 24 and 25 Victoria,
+cap. 100, sec. 24, for 'unlawfully and maliciously administering a
+noxious thing with intent to annoy.'
+
+'I don't think she could have proved the intent to annoy,' said the
+learned counsel.
+
+'You don't know a Bulcester jury as it was before the epidemic,' said
+Merton.  'And I might have been an accessory before the fact, and,
+anyhow, we should all have got into the newspapers.'
+
+Miss Martin was the most admired of the bridesmaids at the Warren-Truman
+marriage.
+
+
+
+
+X.  ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR AMERICAN
+
+
+I.  The Prize of a Lady's Hand
+
+
+'Yes, I guess that Pappa _was_ reckoned considerable of a crank.  A great
+educational reformer, and a progressive Democratic stalwart, _that_ is
+the kind of hair-pin Pappa was!  But it is awkward for me, some.'
+
+These remarks, though of an obsolete and exaggerated transatlantic idiom,
+were murmured in the softest of tones, in the most English of silken
+accents, by the most beautiful of young ladies.  She occupied the
+client's chair in Merton's office, and, as she sat there and smiled,
+Merton acknowledged to himself that he had never met a client so charming
+and so perplexing.
+
+Miss McCabe had been educated, as Merton knew, at an aristocratic Irish
+convent in Paris, a sanctuary of old names and old creeds.  This was the
+plan of her late father (spoken of by her as Pappa), an educational
+reformer of eccentric ideas, who, though of ancient (indeed royal) Irish
+descent, was of American birth.  The young lady had thus acquired abroad,
+much against her will, that kind of English accent which some of her
+countrywomen reckon 'affected.'  But her intense patriotism had induced
+her to study, in the works of American humourists, and to reproduce in
+her discourse, the flowers of speech of which a specimen has been
+presented.  The national accent was beyond her, but at least she could be
+true to what she (erroneously) believed to be the national idiom.
+
+'Your case is peculiar,' said Merton thoughtfully, 'and scarcely within
+our province.  As a rule our clients are the parents, guardians, or
+children of persons entangled in undesirable engagements.  But you, I
+understand, are dissatisfied with the matrimonial conditions imposed by
+the will of the late Mr. McCabe?'
+
+'I want to take my own pick out of the crowd--' said Miss McCabe.
+
+'I can readily understand,' said Merton, bowing, 'that the throng of
+wooers is enormous,' and he vaguely thought of Penelope.
+
+'The scheme will be popular.  It will hit our people right where they
+live,' said Miss McCabe, not appropriating the compliment.  'You see
+Pappa struck ile early, and struck it often.  He was what our Howells
+calls a "multimillionaire," and I'm his only daughter.  Pappa loved _me_,
+but he loved the people better.  Guess Pappa was not mean, not worth a
+cent.  He was a white man!'
+
+Miss McCabe, with a glow of lovely enthusiasm, contemplated the
+unprecedented whiteness of the paternal character.
+
+'"What the people want," Pappa used to say, "is education.  They want it
+short, and they want it striking."  That was why he laid out five
+millions on his celebrated Museum of Freaks, with a staff of competent
+professors and lecturers.  "The McCabe Museum of Natural Varieties,
+lectures and all, is open gratuitously to the citizens of our Republic,
+and to intelligent foreigners."  That was how Pappa put it.  _I_ say that
+he dead-headed creation!'
+
+'Truly Republican munificence,' said Merton, 'worthy of your great
+country.'
+
+'Well, I should smile,' said Miss McCabe.
+
+'But--excuse my insular ignorance--I do not exactly understand how a
+museum of freaks, admirably organised as no doubt it is, contributes to
+the cause of popular education.'
+
+'You have museums even in London?' asked Miss McCabe.
+
+Merton assented.
+
+'Are they not educational?'
+
+'The British Museum is mainly used by the children of the poor, as a
+place where they play a kind of subdued hide-and-seek,' said Merton.
+
+'That's because they are not interested in tinned Egyptian corpses and
+broken Greek statuary ware,' answered the fair Republican.  'Now, Mr.
+Merton, did you ever see or hear of a _popular_ museum, a museum that the
+People would give its cents to see?'
+
+'I have heard of Mr. Barnum's museum,' said Merton.
+
+'That's the idea: it is right there,' said Miss McCabe.  'But old man
+Barnum was not scientific.  He saw what our people wanted, but he did not
+see, Pappa said, how to educate them through their natural instincts.
+Barnum's mermaid was not genuine business.  It confused the popular mind,
+and fostered superstition--and got found out.  The result was scepticism,
+both religious and scientific.  Now, Pappa used to argue, the lives of
+our citizens are monotonous.  They see yellow dogs, say, but each yellow
+dog has only one tail.  They see men and women, but almost all of them
+have only one head: and even a hand with six fingers is not common.  This
+is why the popular mind runs into grooves.  This causes what they call
+"the dead level of democracy."  Even our men of genius, Pappa allowed
+(for he was a very fair-minded man), do not go ahead of the European
+ticket, but rather the reverse.  Your Tennyson has the inner tracks of
+our Longfellow: your Thackeray gives our Bertha Runkle his dust.  The
+papers called Pappa unpatriotic, and a bad American.  But he was _not_:
+he was a white man.  When he saw his country's faults he put his finger
+on them, right there, and tried to cure them.'
+
+'A noble policy,' murmured Merton.
+
+Miss McCabe was really so pretty and unusual, that he did not care how
+long she was in coming to the point.
+
+'Well, Pappa argued that there was more genius, or had been since the
+Declaration of Independence, even in England, than in the States.  "And
+why?" he asked.  "Why, because they have more _variety_ in England.
+Things are not all on one level there--"'
+
+'Our dogs have only one tail apiece,' said Merton, 'in spite of the
+proverb "_as proud as a dog with two_ _tails_," and a plurality of heads
+is unusual even among British subjects.'
+
+'Yes,' answered Miss McCabe, 'but you have varieties among yourselves.
+You have a King and a Queen; and your peerage is rich in differentiated
+species.  A Baronet is not a Marquis, nor is a Duke an Earl.'
+
+'He may be both,' said Merton, but Miss McCabe continued to expose the
+parental philosophy.
+
+'Now Pappa would not hear of aristocratic distinctions in our country.  He
+was a Hail Columbia man, on the Democratic ticket.  But _something_ is
+wanted, he said, to get us out of grooves, and break the monotony.  That
+something, said Pappa, Nature has mercifully provided in Freaks.  The
+citizens feel this, unconsciously: that's why they spend their money at
+Barnum's.  But Barnum was not scientific, and Barnum was not straight
+about his mermaid.  So Pappa founded his Museum of Natural Varieties, all
+of them honest Injun.  Here the lecturers show off the freaks, and
+explain how Nature works them, and how she can always see them and go one
+better.  We have the biggest gold nugget and the weeniest cunning least
+gold nugget; the biggest diamond and the smallest diamond; the tallest
+man and the smallest man; the whitest negro and the yellowest red man in
+the world.  We have the most eccentric beasts, and the queerest fishes,
+and everything is explained by lecturers of world-wide reputation, on the
+principles of evolution, as copyrighted by our Asa Gray and our Agassiz.
+_That_ is what Pappa called popular education, and it hits our citizens
+right where they live.'
+
+Miss McCabe paused, in a flush of filial and patriotic enthusiasm.  Merton
+inwardly thought that among the queerest fishes the late Mr. McCabe must
+have been pre-eminent.  But what he said was, 'The scheme is most
+original.  Our educationists (to employ a term which they do not
+disdain), such as Mr. Herbert Spencer, Sir Joshua Fitch, and others, have
+I thought out nothing like this.  Our capitalists never endow education
+on this more than imperial scale.'
+
+'Guess they are scaly varmints!' interposed Miss McCabe.
+
+Merton bowed his acquiescence in the sentiment.
+
+'But,' he went on, 'I still do not quite understand how your own
+prospects in life are affected by Mr. McCabe's most original and, I hope,
+promising experiment?'
+
+'Pappa loved me, but he loved his country better, and taught me to adore
+her, and be ready for any sacrifice.'  Miss McCabe looked straight at
+Merton, like an Iphigenia blended with a Joan of Arc.
+
+'I do sincerely trust that no sacrifice is necessary,' said Merton.  'The
+circumstances do not call for so--unexampled a victim.'
+
+'I am to be Lady Principal of the museum when I come to the age of twenty-
+five: that is, in six years,' said Miss McCabe proudly.  'You don't call
+_that_ a sacrifice?'
+
+Merton wanted to say that the most magnificent of natural varieties would
+only be in its proper place.  But the _man of business_ and the manager
+of a great and beneficent association overcame the mere amateur of
+beauty, and he only said that the position of Lady Principal was worthy
+of the ambition of a patriot, and a friend of the species.
+
+'Well, I reckon!  But a clause in Pappa's will is awkward for me, some.
+It is about my marriage,' said Miss McCabe bravely.
+
+Merton assumed an air of grave interest.
+
+'Pappa left it in his will that I was to marry the man (under the age of
+five-and-thirty, and of unimpeachable character and education) who should
+discover, and add to the museum, the most original and unheard-of natural
+variety, whether found in the Old or the New World.'
+
+Merton could scarcely credit the report of his ears.
+
+'Would you oblige me by repeating that statement?' he said, and Miss
+McCabe repeated it in identical terms, obviously quoting textually from
+the will.
+
+'Now I understand your unhappy position,' said Merton, thoroughly
+agreeing with the transatlantic critics who had pronounced the late Mr.
+McCabe 'considerable of a crank.'  'But this is far too serious a matter
+for me--for our Association.  I am no legist, but I am convinced that, at
+least British, and I doubt not American, law would promptly annul a
+testatory clause so utterly unreasonable and unprecedented.'
+
+'Unreasonable!' exclaimed Miss McCabe, rising to her feet with eyes of
+flame, 'I am my father's daughter, and his wish is my law, whatever the
+laws that men make may say.'
+
+Her affectation of slang had fallen off; she was absolutely natural now,
+and entirely in earnest.
+
+Merton rose also.
+
+'One moment,' he said.  'It would be impertinence in me to express my
+admiration of you--of what you say.  As the question is not a legal one
+(in such I am no fit adviser) I shall think myself honoured if you will
+permit me to be of any service in the circumstances.  They are less
+unprecedented than I hastily supposed.  History records many examples of
+fathers, even of royal rank, who have attached similar conditions to the
+disposal of their daughters' hands.'
+
+Merton was thinking of the kings in the treatises of Monsieur Charles
+Perrault, Madame d'Aulnoy, and other historians of Fairyland; of monarchs
+who give their daughters to the bold adventurers that bring the smallest
+dog, or the singing rose, or the horse magical.
+
+'What you really want, I think,' he went on, as Miss McCabe resumed her
+seat, 'is to have your choice, as you said, among the competitors?'
+
+'Yes,' replied the fair American, 'that is only natural.'
+
+'But then,' said Merton, 'much depends on who decides as to the merits of
+the competitors.  With whom does the decision rest?'
+
+'With the people.'
+
+'With the people?'
+
+'Yes, with the popular vote, as expressed through the newspaper that my
+father founded--_The Yellow Flag_.  The public is to see the exhibits,
+the new varieties of nature, and the majority of votes is to carry the
+day.  "Trust the people!" that was Pappa's word.'
+
+'Then anyone who chooses, of the age, character, and education stipulated
+under the clause in the will, may go and bring in whatever variety of
+nature he pleases and take his chance?'
+
+'That is it all the time,' said the client.  'There is a trust, and the
+trustees, friends of Pappa's, decide on the qualifications of the young
+men who enter for the competition.  If the trustees are satisfied they
+allot money for expenses out of the exploration fund, so that nobody may
+be stopped because he is poor.'
+
+'There will be an enormous throng of competitors in these conditions--and
+with such a prize,' Merton could not help adding.
+
+'I reckon the trustees are middling particular.  They'll weed them out.'
+
+'Is there any restriction on the nationality of the competitors?' asked
+Merton, on whom an idea was dawning.
+
+'Only members of the English speaking races need apply,' said Miss
+McCabe.  'Pappa took no stock in Spaniards or Turks.'
+
+'The voters will be prejudiced in favour of their own fellow citizens?'
+asked Merton.  'That is only natural.'
+
+'Trust the people,' said Miss McCabe.  'The whole thing is to be kept as
+dark as a blind coloured person hunting in a dark cellar for a black cat
+that is not there.'
+
+'A truly Miltonic illustration,' said Merton.
+
+'The advertisement for competitors will be carefully worded, so as to
+attract only young men of science.  The young men are not to be told
+about _me_: the prize is in dollars, "with other advantages to be later
+specified."  The varieties found are to be conveyed to a port abroad, not
+yet named, and shipped for New York in a steamer belonging to the McCabe
+Trust.'
+
+'Then am I to understand that the conditions affecting your marriage are
+still an entire secret?'
+
+'That is so,' said Miss McCabe, 'and I guess from what the marchioness
+told me, your reference, that you can keep a secret.'
+
+'To keep secrets is the very essential of my vocation,' said Merton.
+
+But _this_ secret, as will be seen, he did not absolutely keep.
+
+'The arrangements,' he added, 'are most judicious.'
+
+'Guess Pappa was 'cute,' said Miss McCabe, relapsing into her adopted
+mannerisms.
+
+'I think I now understand the case in all its bearings,' Merton went on.
+'I shall give it my serious consideration.  Perhaps I had better say no
+more at present, but think over the matter.  You remain in town for the
+season?'
+
+'Guess we've staked out a claim in Berkeley Square,' said Miss McCabe,
+'an agreeable location.'  She mentioned the number of the house.
+
+'Then we are likely to meet now and then,' said Merton, 'and I trust that
+I may be permitted to wait on you occasionally.'
+
+Miss McCabe graciously assented; her chaperon, Lady Rathcoffey, was
+summoned by her from the inner chamber and the society of Miss Blossom,
+the typewriter; the pair drove away, and Merton was left to his own
+reflections.
+
+'I do not know what can be done for her,' he thought, 'except to see that
+there is at least one eligible man, a gentleman, among the crowd of
+competitors, and that he is a likely man to win the beautiful prize.  And
+that man is Bude, by Jove, if he wants to win it.'
+
+The Earl of Bude, whose name at once occurred to Merton, was a remarkable
+personage.  The world knew him as rich, handsome, happy, and a mighty
+hunter of big game.  They knew not the mysterious grief that for years
+had gnawed at his heart.  Why did not Bude marry?  No woman could say.
+The world, moreover, knew not, but Merton did, that Lord Bude was the
+mysterious Mr. Jones Harvey, who contributed the most original papers to
+the Proceedings of the Geographical and Zoological Societies, and who had
+conferred many strange beasts on the Gardens of the latter learned
+institution.  The erudite papers were read, the eccentric animals were
+conferred, in the name of Mr. Jones Harvey.  They came from outlandish
+addresses in the ends of the earth, but, in the flesh, Jones Harvey had
+been seen by no man, and his secret had been confided to Merton only, to
+Logan, and two other school friends.  He did good to science by stealth,
+and blushed at the idea of being a F.R.S.  There was no show of science
+about Bude, and nothing exotic, except the singular circumstance that,
+however he happened to be dressed, he always wore a ring, or pin, or
+sleeve links set with very ugly and muddy looking pearls.  From these
+ornaments Lord Bude was inseparable; to chaff about presents from dusky
+princesses on undiscovered shores he was impervious.  Even Merton did not
+know the cause of his attachment to these ungainly jewels, or the dark
+memory of mysterious loss with which they were associated.
+
+Merton's first care was to visit the divine Althaea, Mrs. Brown-Smith,
+and other ladies of his acquaintance.  Their cards were deposited at the
+claim staked out by Miss McCabe in Berkeley Square, and that young lady
+soon 'went everywhere,' and publicly confessed that she 'was having a
+real lovely time.'  By a little diplomacy Lord Bude was brought
+acquainted with Miss McCabe.  She consented to overlook his possession of
+a coronet; titles were, to this heroine, not marvels (as to some of her
+countrywomen and ours), but rather matters of indifference, scarcely even
+suggesting hostile prejudice.  The observers in society, mothers and
+maids, and the chroniclers of fashion, soon perceived that there was at
+least a marked _camaraderie_ between _the elegant aristocrat_, hitherto
+indifferent to woman, untouched, as was deemed, by love, and the lovely
+Child of Freedom.  Miss McCabe sat by him while he drove his coach; on
+the roof of his drag at Lord's; and of his houseboat at Henley, where she
+fainted when the crew of Johns Hopkins University, U. S., was defeated by
+a length by Balliol (where Lord Bude had been the favourite pupil of the
+great Master).  Merton remarked these tokens of friendship with approval.
+If Bude could be induced to enter for the great competition, and if he
+proved successful, there seemed no reason to suppose that Miss McCabe
+would be dissatisfied with the People's choice.
+
+Towards the end of the season, and in Bude's smoking-room, about five in
+the July morning after a ball at Eglintoun House, Merton opened his
+approaches.  He began, cautiously, from talk of moors and forests; he
+touched on lochs, he mentioned the Highland traditions of water bulls
+(which haunt these meres); he spoke of the _Beathach mor Loch Odha_, a
+legendary animal of immeasurable length.  The _Beathach_ has twelve feet;
+he has often been heard crashing through the ice in the nights of winter.
+These tales the narrator has gleaned from the lips of the Celtic
+peasantry of Letter Awe.
+
+'I daresay he does break the ice,' said Bude.  'In the matter of cryptic
+survivals of extinct species I can believe a good deal.'
+
+'The sea serpent?' asked Merton.
+
+'Seen him thrice,' said Bude.
+
+'Then why did not Jones Harvey weigh in with a letter to _Nature_?'
+
+'Jones Harvey has a scientific reputation to look after, and knows he
+would be laughed at.  That's the kind of hair-pin _he_ is,' said Bude,
+quoting Miss McCabe.  'By Jove, Merton, that girl--' and he paused.
+
+'Yes, she is pretty,' said Merton.
+
+'Pretty!  I have seen the women of the round world--before I went
+to--well, never mind where, I used to think the Poles the most
+magnificent, but _she_--'
+
+'Whips creation,' said Merton.  'But I,' he went on, 'am rather more
+interested in these other extraordinary animals.  Do you seriously
+believe, with your experience, that some extinct species are--not
+extinct?'
+
+'To be sure I do.  The world is wide.  But they are very shy.  I once
+stalked a Bunyip, in Central Australia, in a lagoon.  The natives said he
+was there: I watched for a week, squatting in the reeds, and in the grey
+of the seventh dawn I saw him.'
+
+'Did you shoot?'
+
+'No, I observed him through a field glass first.'
+
+'What is the beggar like?'
+
+'Much like some of the Highland water cattle, as described, but it is his
+ears they take for horns.  Australia has no indigenous horned animal.  He
+is, I should say, about nine feet long, marsupial (he rose breast high),
+and web-footed.  I saw that when he dived.  Other white men have seen
+him--Buckley, the convict, for one, when he lived among the blacks.'
+
+'Buckley was not an accurate observer.'
+
+'Jones Harvey is.'
+
+'Any other queer beasts?'
+
+'Of course, plenty.  You have heard of the Mylodon, the gigantic Sloth?
+His bones, skin, and hair were lately found in a cave in Patagonia, with
+a lot of his fodder.  You can see them at the British Museum in South
+Kensington.  Primitive Patagonian man used the female of the species as a
+milch-cow.  He was a genial friendly kind of brute, accessible to charm
+of manner and chopped hay.  They fed him on that, in a domesticated
+state.'
+
+'But he is extinct.  Hesketh Pritchard went to look for a live Mylodon,
+and did not find him.'
+
+'Did not know where to look,' said Bude.
+
+'But you do?' asked Merton.
+
+'Yes, I think so.'
+
+'Then why don't you bring one over to the Zoo?'
+
+'I may some day.'
+
+'Are there any more survivors of extinct species?'
+
+'Merton, is this an interview?  Are you doing Mr. Jones Harvey at home
+for a picture paper?'
+
+'No, I've dropped the Press,' said Merton, 'I ask in a spirit of
+scientific curiosity.'
+
+'Well, there is the Dinornis, the Moa of New Zealand.  A bird as big as
+the Roc in the "Arabian Nights."'
+
+'Have you seen _him_?'
+
+'No, but I have seen _her_, the hen bird.  She was sitting on eggs.  No
+man knows her nest but myself, and old Te-iki-pa, the chief medicine-man,
+or Tohunga, of the Maori King.  The Moa's eyrie is in the King's country.
+It is a difficult country, and a dangerous business, if the cock Moa
+chances to come home.'
+
+'Bude, is this worthy of an old friend, this _blague_?'
+
+'Do you doubt my word?'
+
+'If you give me your word I must believe--that you dreamed it.'
+
+_Then a strange thing happened_.
+
+Bude walked to a small case of instruments that stood on a table in the
+smoking-room.  He unlocked it, took out a lancet, brought a Rhodian bowl
+from a shelf, and bared his arm.
+
+'Do you want proof?'
+
+'Proof that you saw a hen Moa sitting?' asked Merton in amazement.
+
+'Not exactly, but proof that Te-iki-pa knew a thing or two, quite as out
+of the way as the habitat of the Moa.'
+
+'What do you want me to do?'
+
+'Bare your arm, and hold it over the bowl.'
+
+The room was full of the yellow dusky light of an early summer morning in
+London.  Outside the heavy carts were rolling by: in full civilisation
+the scene was strange.
+
+'The Blood Covenant?' asked Merton.
+
+Bude nodded.
+
+Merton turned up his cuff, Bude let a little blood drop into the bowl,
+then performed the same operation on his own arm.
+
+'This is all rot,' he said, 'but without this I cannot show you, by
+virtue of my oath to Te-iki-pa, what I mean to show you.  Now repeat
+after me what I am going to say.'
+
+He spoke a string of words, among which Merton, as he repeated them,
+could only recognise _mana_ and _atua_.  The vowel sounds were as in
+Italian.
+
+'Now these words you must never report to any one, without my
+permission.'
+
+'Not likely,' said Merton, 'I only remember two of them, and these I knew
+before.'
+
+'All right,' said Bude.
+
+He then veiled his face in a piece of silk that lay on a sofa, and
+rapidly, in a low voice, chanted a kind of hymn in a tongue unknown to
+Merton.  All this he did with a bored air, as if he thought the
+performance a superfluous mummery.
+
+'Now what shall I show you?  Something simple.  Look at the bookcase, and
+think of any book you may want to consult.'
+
+Merton thought of the volume in M. of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.  The
+volume slowly slid from the shelf, glided through the air to Merton, and
+gently subsided on the table near him, open at the word _Moa_.
+
+Merton walked across to the bookcase, took all the volumes from the
+shelf, and carefully examined the backs and sides for springs and
+mechanical advantages.  There were none.
+
+'Not half bad!' he said, when he had completed his investigation.
+
+'You are satisfied that Te-iki-pa knew something?  If you had seen what I
+have seen, if you had seen the three days dead--' and Bude shivered
+slightly.
+
+'I have seen enough.  Do you know how it is done?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Well, a miracle is not what you call logical proof, but I believe that
+you did see the Moa, and a still more extraordinary bird, Te-iki-pa.'
+
+'Yes, they talk of strange beasts, but "nothing is stranger than man."
+Did you ever hear of the Berbalangs of Cagayan Sulu?'
+
+'Never in my life,' said Merton.
+
+'Heaven preserve me from _them_,' said Bude, and he gently stroked the
+strange muddy pearls in the sleeve-links on his loose shirt-cuff.  'Angels
+and ministers of grace defend us,' he exclaimed, crossing himself (he was
+of the old faith), and he fell silent.
+
+It was a moment of emotion.  Six silvery strokes were sounded from a
+little clock on the chimney-piece.  The hour of confidences had struck.
+
+'Bude, you are serious about Miss McCabe?' asked Merton.
+
+'I mean to put it to the touch at Goodwood.'
+
+'No use!' said Merton.
+
+Bude changed colour.
+
+'Are _you_?'
+
+'No,' interrupted Merton.  'But she is not free.'
+
+'There is somebody in America?  Nobody here, I think.'
+
+'It is hardly that,' said Merton.  'Can you listen to rather a long
+story?  I'll cut it as much as possible.  You must remember that I am
+practically breaking my word of honour in telling you this.  My honour is
+in your hands.'
+
+'Fire away,' said Bude, pouring a bottle of Apollinaris water into a long
+tumbler, and drinking deep.
+
+Merton told the tale of Miss McCabe's extraordinary involvement, and of
+the wild conditions on which her hand was to be won.  'And as to her
+heart, I think,' he added, 'if you pull off the prize--
+
+   If my heart by signs can tell,
+   Lordling, I have marked her daily,
+   And I think she loves thee well.'
+
+'Thank you for that, old cock,' replied the peer, shaking Merton's hand.
+He had recovered from his emotion.
+
+'I'm on,' he added, after a moment's silence, 'but I shall enter as Jones
+Harvey.'
+
+'His name and his celebrated papers will impress the trustees,' said
+Merton.  'Now what variety of nature shall you go for?  Wild _men_ count.
+Shall you fetch a Berbalang of what do you call it?'
+
+Bude shuddered.  'Not much,' he said.  'I think I shall fetch a Moa.'
+
+'But no steamer could hold that gigantic denizen of the forests.'
+
+'You leave that to Jones Harvey.  Jones is 'cute, some,' he said,
+reminiscent of the adored one, and he fell into a lover's reverie.
+
+He was aroused by Merton's departure: he finished the Apollinaris water,
+took a bath, and went to bed.
+
+
+
+II.  The Adventure of the Muddy Pearls
+
+
+The Earl of Bude had meant to lay his heart, coronet, and other
+possessions, real and personal, before the tiny feet of the fair American
+at Goodwood.  But when he learned from Merton the involvements of this
+heiress and paragon, that her hand depended on the choice of the people,
+that the choice of the people was to settle on the adventurer who brought
+to New York the rarest of nature's varieties, the earl honourably held
+his peace.  Yet he and the object of his love were constantly meeting, on
+the yachts and in the country houses of their friends, the aristocracy,
+and, finally, at shooting lodges in the Highlands.  Their position, as
+the Latin Delectus says concerning the passion of love in general, was 'a
+strange thing, and full of anxious fears.'  Bude could not declare
+himself, and Miss McCabe, not knowing that he knew her situation, was
+constantly wondering why he did not speak.  Between fear of letting her
+secret show itself in a glance or a blush and hope of listening to the
+words which she desired to hear, even though she could not answer them as
+her heart prompted, she was unhappy.  Bude could not resist the
+temptation to be with her--indeed he argued to himself that, as her
+suitor and an adventurer about to risk himself in her cause, he had a
+right to be near her.  Meanwhile Merton was the confidant of both of the
+perplexed lovers; at least Miss McCabe (who, of course, told him nothing
+about Bude) kept him apprised as to the conduct of her trustees.
+
+They had acted with honourable caution and circumspection.  Their
+advertisements guardedly appealed to men of daring and of scientific
+distinction under the age of thirty-five.  A professorship might have
+been in view for all that the world could see, if the world read the
+advertisements.  Perhaps it was something connected with the manufacture
+of original explosives, for daring is not usually required in the
+learned.  The testimonials and printed works of applicants were jealously
+scrutinised.  At personal interviews with competitors similar caution was
+observed.  During three weeks in August the papers announced that Lord
+Bude was visiting the States; arrangements about a yachting match in the
+future were his pretence.  He returned, he came to Scotland, and it was
+in a woodland path beside the Lochy that his resolution failed, and that
+he spoke to Miss McCabe.  They were walking home together from the river
+in the melancholy and beautiful close of a Highland day in September.
+Behind them the gillies, at a respectful distance, were carrying the rods
+and the fish.  The wet woods were fragrant, the voice of the stream was
+deepening, strange lights came and went on moor and hills and the distant
+loch.  It was then that Bude opened his heart.  He first candidly
+explained that his heart, he had supposed, was dead--buried on a distant
+and a deadly shore.
+
+'I reckon there's a lost Lenore most times,' Miss McCabe had replied to
+this confession.
+
+But, though never to be forgotten, the memory of the lost one, Bude
+averred, was now merged in the light of a living love; his heart was no
+longer tenanted only by a shadow.
+
+The heart of Miss McCabe stood still for a moment, her cheek paled, but
+the gallant girl was true to herself, to her father's wish, to her native
+land, to the flag.  She understood her adorer.
+
+'Guess _I_'m bespoke,' said Miss McCabe abruptly.
+
+'You are another's!  Oh, despair!' exclaimed the impassioned earl.
+
+'Yes, I reckon I'm the Bride of Seven, like the girl in the poem.'
+
+'The Bride of Seven?' said Bude.
+
+'One out of _that_ crowd will call me his,' said Miss McCabe, handing to
+her adorer the list, which she had received by mail a day or two earlier,
+of the accepted competitors.  He glanced over the names.
+
+1.  Dr. Hiram P. Dodge, of the Smithsonian Institute.
+
+2.  Alfred Jenkins, F.R.S., All Souls College, Oxford.
+
+3.  Dr. James Rustler, Columbia University.
+
+4.  Howard Fry, M.A., Ph.D., Trinity College, Cambridge.
+
+5.  Professor Potter, F.R.S., University of St. Andrews.
+
+6.  Professor Wilkinson, University of Harvard.
+
+7.  Jones Harvey, F.G.S., London, England.
+
+'In Heaven's name,' asked the earl, 'what means this mystification?  Miss
+McCabe, Melissa, do not trifle with me.  Is this part of the great
+American Joke?  You are playing it pretty low down on me, Melissa!' he
+ended, the phrase being one of those with which she had made him
+familiar.
+
+She laughed hysterically: 'It's honest Injun,' she said, and in the
+briefest terms she told him (what he knew very well) the conditions on
+which her future depended.
+
+'They are a respectable crowd, I don't deny it,' she went on, 'but, oh,
+how dull!  That Mr. Jenkins, I saw him at your Commemoration.  He gave us
+luncheon, and showed us dry old bones of beasts and savage notions at the
+Museum.  I _druther_ have been on the creek,' by which name she intended
+the classical river Isis.
+
+'Dr. Hiram P. Dodge is one of our rising scientists, a boss of the
+Smithsonian Institute.  Well, Washington is a finer location than Oxford!
+Dr. Rustler is a crank; he thinks he can find a tall talk mummy that
+speaks an unknown tongue.'
+
+'A Toltec mummy?  Ah,' said Bude, 'I know where to find one of _them_.'
+
+'Find it then, Alured!' exclaimed Miss McCabe, blushing scarlet and
+turning aside.  'But you are not on the list.  You are an idler, and not
+scientific, not worth a red cent.  There, I've given myself away!'  She
+wept.
+
+They were alone, beneath the walls of a crumbling fortalice of Lochiel.
+The new risen moon saw Bude embrace her and dry her tears.  A nameless
+blissful hope awakened in the fair American; help there _must_ be, she
+thought, with these strong arms around her.
+
+She rapidly disposed of the remaining names: of Howard Fry, who had a red
+beard; of Professor Potter of St. Andrews, whose accent was Caledonian;
+of Wilkinson, an ardent but unalluring scientist.  'As for Jones Harvey,'
+she said, 'I've canvassed everywhere, and I can't find anybody that ever
+saw him.  I am more afraid of him than of all the other galoots; I don't
+know why.'
+
+'He is reckoned very learned,' said Bude, 'and has not been thought ill-
+looking.'
+
+'Do tell!' said Miss McCabe.
+
+'Oh, Melissa, can you even _dream_ of another in an hour like this?'
+
+'Did you ever see Jones Harvey?'
+
+'Yes, I have met him.'
+
+'Do you know him well?'
+
+'No man knows him better.'
+
+'Can't you get him to stand out, and, Alured, can't you--fetch along that
+old tall talk mummy?  He would hit our people, being American himself.'
+
+'It is impossible.  Jones Harvey will never stand out,' and Bude smiled.
+
+By the telepathy of the affections Miss McCabe was slowly informed,
+especially as Bude's smile widened almost unbecomingly, while he gazed
+into the deeps of her golden eyes.
+
+'Alured,' she exclaimed, '_that's_ why you went to the States.
+_You_--are--Jones Harvey!'
+
+'Secret for secret,' whispered the earl.  'We have both given ourselves
+away.  Unknown to the world I _am_ Jones Harvey; to live for you: to love
+you: to dare; if need be, to die for you.'
+
+'Well, you surprise me!' said Miss McCabe.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The narrator is unwilling to dilate on the delights of a privileged
+affection.  In this love affair neither of the lovers could feel
+absolutely certain that their affection _was_ privileged.  The fair
+American had her own secret scheme if her hopes were blighted.  She
+_could_ not then obey the paternal will: she would retire into the life
+religious, and, as Sister Anna, would strive to forget the sorrows of
+Melissa McCabe.  Bude had his own hours of gloom.
+
+'It is a six-to-one chance,' he said to Merton when they met.
+
+'Better than that, I think,' said Merton.  'First, you know exactly what
+you are entered for.  Do the others?  When you saw the trustees in the
+States, did they tell you about the prize?'
+
+'Not they.  They spoke of a pecuniary reward which would be eminently
+satisfactory, and of the opportunity for research and distinction, and
+all expenses found.  I said that I preferred to pay my own way, which
+surprised and pleased them a good deal.'
+
+'Well, then, knowing the facts, and the lady, you have a far stronger
+motive than the other six.'
+
+'That's true,' said Bude.
+
+'Again, though the others are good men (not that I like Jenkins of All
+Souls), none of them has your experience and knowledge.  Jones Harvey's
+testimonials would carry it if it were a question of election to a
+professorship.'
+
+'You flatter me,' answered Bude.
+
+'_Lastly, did the trustees ask you if you were a married man_?'
+
+'No, by Jove, they didn't.'
+
+'Well, nothing about the competitors being unmarried men occurs in the
+clause of McCabe's last will and testament.  He took it for granted, the
+prize being what it is, that only bachelors were eligible.  But he forgot
+to say so, in so many words, and the trustees did not go beyond the deed.
+Now, Dodge is married; Fry of Trinity is a married don; Rustler (I happen
+to know) is an engaged man, who can't afford to marry a charming girl in
+Detroit, Michigan; and Professor Potter has buried one wife, and wedded
+another.  If Rustler is loyal to his plighted word, you have nobody
+against you but Wilkinson and old Jenkins of All Souls--a tough customer,
+I admit, though what a Stinks man like him has to do at All Souls I don't
+know.'
+
+'I say, this is hard on the other sportsmen!  What ought I to do?  Should
+I tell them?'
+
+'You can't: you have no official knowledge of their existence.  You only
+know through Miss McCabe.  You have just to sit tight.'
+
+'It seems beastly unsportsmanlike,' said Bude.
+
+'Wills are often most carelessly drafted,' answered Merton, 'and the
+usual consequences follow.'
+
+'It is not cricket,' said Bude, and really he seemed much more depressed
+than elated by the reduction of the odds against him from 6 to 1 to 2 to
+1.
+
+This is the magnificent type of character produced by our British system
+of athletic sports, though it is not to be doubted that the spirit of
+Science, in the American gentlemen, would have been equally productive of
+the sense of fair play.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+A year, by the terms of McCabe's will, was allotted to the quest.
+Candidates were to keep the trustees informed as to their whereabouts.
+Six weeks before the end of the period the competitors would be
+instructed as to the port of rendezvous, where an ocean liner, chartered
+by the trustees, was to await them.  Bude, as Jones Harvey, had obtained
+leave to sail his own steam yacht of 800 tons.
+
+The earl's preparations were simple.  He carried his usual stock of
+scientific implements, his usual armament, including two Maxim guns, and
+a package of considerable size and weight, which was stored in the hold.
+As to the preparations of the others he knew nothing, but Miss McCabe
+became aware that Rustler had not left the American continent.  Concerning
+Jenkins, and the probable aim of his enterprise, the object of his quest,
+she gleaned information from a junior Fellow of All Souls, who was her
+slave, was indiscreet, and did not know how deeply concerned she was in
+the expeditions.  But she never whispered a word of what she knew to her
+lover, not even in the hour of parting.
+
+It was in an unnamed creek of the New Zealand coast, six weeks before the
+end of the appointed year, that Bude received a telegram in cipher from
+the trustees.  Bearded, and in blue spectacles, clad rudely as a mariner,
+Bude was to all, except Logan, who had accompanied him, plain Jones
+Harvey.  None could have recognised in his rugged aspect the elegant
+aristocrat of Mayfair.
+
+Bude took the message from the hands of the Maori bearer.  As he
+deciphered it his fingers trembled with eagerness.  'Oh, Heaven!  Here is
+the Hand of Destiny!' he exclaimed, when he had read the message; and
+with pallid face he dropped into a deck-chair.
+
+'No bad news?' asked Logan with anxiety.
+
+'The port of rendezvous,' said Bude, much agitated.  'Come down to my
+cabin.'
+
+Entering the sumptuous cabin, Bude opened the locked door of a
+state-room, and uttered some words in an unknown tongue.  A tall and very
+ancient Maori, tatooed with the native 'Moka' on every inch of his body,
+emerged.  The snows of some eighty winters covered his broad breast and
+majestic head.  His eyes were full of the secrets of primitive races.  For
+clothing he wore two navy revolvers stuck in a waist-cloth.
+
+'Te-iki-pa,' said Bude, in the Maori language, 'watch by the door, we
+must have no listeners, and your ears are keen as those of the youngest
+Rangatira' (warrior).
+
+The august savage nodded, and, lying down on the floor, applied his ear
+to the chink at its foot.
+
+'The port of tryst,' whispered Bude to Logan, as they seated themselves
+at the remotest extremity of the cabin, 'is in Cagayan Sulu.'
+
+'And where may that be?' asked Logan, lighting a cigarette.
+
+'It is a small volcanic island, the most southerly of the Philippines.'
+
+'American territory now,' said Logan.  'But what about it?  If it was
+anybody but you, Bude, I should say he was in a funk.'
+
+'I _am_ in a funk,' answered Bude simply.
+
+'Why?'
+
+'I have been there before and left--a blood-feud.'
+
+'What of it?  We have one here, with the Maori King, about you know what.
+Have we not the Maxims, and any quantity of Lee-Metfords?  Besides, you
+need not go ashore at Cagayan Sulu.'
+
+'But they can come aboard.  Bullets won't stop _them_.'
+
+'Stop whom?  The natives?'
+
+'The Berbalangs: you might as well try to stop mosquitoes with Maxims.'
+
+'Who are the Berbalangs then?'
+
+Bude paced the cabin in haggard anxiety.  'Least said, soonest mended,'
+he muttered.
+
+'Well, I don't want your confidence,' said Logan, hurt.
+
+'My dear fellow,' said Bude affectionately, 'you are likely to know soon
+enough.  In the meantime, please accept this.'
+
+He opened a strong box, which appeared to contain jewellery, and offered
+Logan a ring.  Between two diamonds of the finest water it contained a
+bizarre muddy coloured pearl.  'Never let that leave your finger,' said
+Bude.  'Your life may hang on it.'
+
+'It is a pretty talisman,' said Logan, placing the jewel on the little
+finger of his right hand.  'A token of some friendly chief, I suppose, at
+Cagayan--what do you call it?'
+
+'Let us put it at that,' answered Bude; 'I must take other precautions.'
+
+It seemed to Logan that these consisted in making similar presents to the
+officers and crew, all of whom were Englishmen.  Te-iki-pa displaced his
+nose-ring and inserted his pearl in the orifice previously occupied by
+that ornament.  A little chain of the pearls was hung on the padlock of
+the huge packing-case, which was the special care of Te-iki-pa.
+
+'Luckily I had the yacht's painting altered before leaving England,' said
+Bude.  'I'll sail her under Spanish colours, and perhaps they won't spot
+her.  Any way, with the pearls--lucky I bought a lot--we ought to be safe
+enough.  But if any one of the competitors has gone for specimens of the
+Berbalangs, I fear, I sadly fear, the consequences.'  His face clouded;
+he fell into a reverie.
+
+Logan made no reply, but puffed rings of cigarette smoke into the still
+blue air.  There was method in Bude's apparent madness, but Logan
+suspected that there was madness in his method.
+
+A certain coolness had not ceased to exist between the friends when,
+after their long voyage, they sighted the volcanic craters of the lonely
+isle of Cagayan Sulu and beheld the Stars and Stripes waving from the
+masthead of the _George Washington_ (Captain Noah P. Funkal).
+
+Logan landed, and noted the harmless but well-armed half-Mahometan
+natives of the village.  He saw the other competitors, whose 'exhibits,'
+as Miss McCabe called them, were securely stored in the _George
+Washington_--strange spoils of far-off mysterious forests, and unplumbed
+waters of the remotest isles.  Occasionally a barbaric yap, or a weird
+yell or hoot, was wafted on the air at feeding time.  Jenkins of All
+Souls (whom he knew a little) Logan did not meet on the beach; he, like
+Bude, tarried aboard ship.  The other adventurers were civil but remote,
+and there was a jealous air of suspicion on every face save that of
+Professor Potter.  He, during the day of waiting on the island, played
+golf with Logan over links which he had hastily improvised.  Beyond
+admitting, as they played, that _his_ treasure was in a tank, 'and as
+well as could be expected, poor brute, but awful noisy,' Professor Potter
+offered no information.
+
+'Our find is quiet enough,' said Logan.
+
+'Does he give you trouble about food?' asked Mr. Potter.
+
+'Takes nothing,' said Logan, adding, as he holed out, 'that makes me
+dormy two.'
+
+From the rest of the competitors not even this amount of information
+could be extracted, and as for Captain Noah Funkal, he was taciturn,
+authoritative, and, Logan thought, not in a very good temper.
+
+The _George Washington_ and the _Pendragon_ (so Jones Harvey had
+christened the yacht which under Bude's colours sailed as _The Sabrina_)
+weighed anchor simultaneously.  If possible they were not to lose sight
+of each other, and they corresponded by signals and through the
+megalophone.
+
+The hours of daylight on the first day of the return voyage passed
+peacefully at deck-cricket, as far as Logan, Bude, and such of the
+officers and men as could be spared were concerned.  At last night came
+'at one stride,' and the vast ocean plain was only illuminated by the
+pale claritude that falls from the stars.  Logan and Bude (they had not
+dressed for dinner, but wore yachting suits) were smoking on deck, when,
+quite suddenly, a loud, almost musical, roar or hum was heard from the
+direction of the distant island.
+
+'What's that?' asked Logan, leaping up and looking towards Cagayan Sulu.
+
+'The Berbalangs,' said Bude coolly.  'You are wearing the ring I gave
+you?'
+
+'Yes, always do,' said Logan, looking at his hand.
+
+'All the men have their pearls; I saw to that,' said Bude.
+
+'Why, the noise is dwindling,' said Logan.  'That is odd; it seemed to be
+coming this way.'
+
+'So it is,' said Bude; 'the nearer they approach the less you hear them.
+When they have come on board you won't hear them at all.'
+
+Logan stared, but asked no more questions.
+
+The musical boom as it approached had died to a whisper, and then had
+fallen into perfect silence.  At the very moment when the mysterious
+sound ceased, a swarm of things like red fire-flies, a host of floating
+specks of ruby light, invaded the deck in a cluster.  The red points then
+scattered, approached each man on board, and paused when within a yard of
+his head or breast.  Then they vanished.  A queer kind of chill ran down
+Logan's spine; then the faint whispered musical moan tingled in each
+man's ears, and the sounds as they departed eastwards gathered volume and
+force till, in a moment, there fell perfect stillness.
+
+Stillness, broken only by a sudden and mysterious chorus of animal cries
+from the _George Washington_.  A kind of wail, high, shrieking,
+strenuous, ending in a noise as of air escaping from a pipe; a torrent of
+barks such as no known beast could utter, subsiding into moans that
+chilled the blood; a guttural scream, broken by heavy sounds as if of
+water lapping on a rock at uncertain intervals; a human cry, human words,
+with unfamiliar vowel sounds, soon slipping into quiet--these were among
+the horrors that assailed the ears of the voyagers in the _Pendragon_.
+Such a discord of laments has not tingled to the indifferent stars since
+the ice-wave swept into their last retreats, and crushed among the rocks
+that bear their fossil forms, the fauna of the preglacial period, the
+Ichthyosaurus, the Brontosaurus, the Guyas Cutis (or Ring-tailed Roarer),
+the Mastodon, and the Mammoth.
+
+'What a row in the menagerie!' said Logan.
+
+He was not answered.
+
+Bude had fallen into a deck-chair, his face buried in his hands, his arms
+rocking convulsively.
+
+'I say, old cock, pull yourself together,' said Logan, and rushing down
+the companion stairs, he reappeared with a bottle of champagne.  To
+extract the cork (how familiar, how reassuring, sounded the _cloop_!),
+and to pour the foaming beverage into two long tumblers, was, to the
+active Logan, the work of a moment.  Shaking Bude, he offered him the
+beaker; the earl drained it at a draught.  He shuddered, but rose to his
+feet.
+
+'Not a man alive on that doomed vessel,' he was saying, when anew the
+still air was rent by the raucous notes of a megalophone:
+
+'Is _your_ exhibit all right?'
+
+'Fit as a fiddle,' answered Logan through a similar instrument.
+
+'Our exhibits are gone bust,' answered Captain Noah Funkal.  'Our
+professors are in fits.  Our darkeys are all dead.  Can your skipper come
+aboard?'
+
+'Just launching a boat,' cried Logan.
+
+Bude gave the necessary orders.  His captain stepped up to him and
+saluted.
+
+'Do you know what these red fire-flies were that come aboard, sir?' he
+asked.
+
+'Fire-flies?  Oh, _musae volitantes sonorae_, a common phenomenon in
+these latitudes,' answered Bude.
+
+Logan rejoiced to see that the earl was himself again.
+
+'The other gentlemen's scientific beasts don't seem to like them, sir?'
+
+'So Captain Funkal seems to imply,' said Bude, and, taking the ropes,
+with Logan beside him, while the _Pendragon_ lay to, he steered the boat
+towards the _George Washington_.
+
+The captain welcomed them on deck in a scene of unusual character.  He
+himself had a revolver in one hand, and a belaying pin in the other; he
+had been quelling, by the tranquillising methods of Captain Kettle, a
+mutiny caused by the terror of the crew.  The sailors had attempted to
+leap overboard in the alarm caused by the invasion of the Berbalangs.
+
+'You will excuse my friend and myself for not being in evening dress,
+during a visit at this hour,' said Bude in the silkiest of tones.
+
+'Glad to see you shipshape, gentlemen,' answered the American mariner.
+'My dudes of professors were prancing round in Tuxedos and Prince Alberts
+when the darned fire-flies came aboard.'
+
+Bude bowed.  Study of Miss McCabe had taught him that Tuxedos and Prince
+Alberts mean evening dress and frock-coats.
+
+'Did _your_ men have fits?' asked the captain.
+
+'My captain, Captain Hardy, made a scientific inquiry about the--insects,'
+said Bude.  'The crew showed no emotion.'
+
+'I guess our fire-bugs were more on business than yours,' said Captain
+Funkal; 'they've wrecked the exhibits, and killed the darkeys with
+fright: except two, and _they_ were exhibits themselves.  Will you honour
+me by stepping into my cabin, gentlemen.  I am glad to see sane white men
+to-night.'
+
+Bude and Logan followed him through a scene of melancholy interest.
+Beside the mast, within a shattered palisade, lay huddled the vast corpse
+of the Mylodon of Patagonia, couchant amidst his fodder of chopped hay.
+The expression of the huge animal was placid and urbane in death.  He was
+the victim of the ceaseless curiosity of science.  Two of the five-horned
+antelope giraffes of Central Africa lay in a confused heap of horns and
+hoofs.  Beside an immense tank couched a figure in evening dress,
+swearing in a subdued tone.  Logan recognised Professor Potter.  He
+gently laid his hand on the Professor's shoulder.  The Scottish savant
+looked up:
+
+'It is a dommed mismanaged affair,' he said.  'I could have brought the
+poor beast safe enough from the Clyde to New York, but the Americans made
+me harl him round by yon island of camstairy deevils,' and he shook his
+fist in the direction of Cagayan Sulu.
+
+'What had you got?' asked Logan.
+
+'The _Beathach na Loch na bheiste_,' said Potter.  'I drained the Loch to
+get him.  Fortunately,' he added, 'it was at the expense of the Trust.'
+
+After a few words of commonplace but heartfelt condolence, Logan
+descended the companion, and followed Bude and Captain Funkal into the
+cabin of that officer.  The captain placed refreshments on the table.
+
+'Now, gentlemen,' he said, 'you have seen the least riled of my
+professors, and you can guess what the rest are like.  Professor Rustler
+is weeping in his cabin over a shrivelled old mummy.  "Never will he
+speak again," says he, and I am bound to say that I _hev_ heard the
+critter discourse once.  The mummy let some awful yells out of him when
+the fire-bugs came aboard.'
+
+'Yes, we heard a human cry,' said Bude.
+
+'I had thought the talk was managed with a concealed gramophone,' said
+the captain, 'but it wasn't.  The Bunyip from Central Australia has gone
+to his long home.  That was Professor Wilkinson's pet.  There is nothing
+left alive out of the lot but the natives that Professor Jenkins of
+England brought in irons from Cagayan Sulu.  I reckon them two niggers
+are somehow at the bottom of the whole ruction.'
+
+'Indeed, and why?' asked Bude.
+
+'Why, sir--I am addressing Professor Jones Harvey?'
+
+Bude bowed.  'Harvey, captain, but not professor--simple amateur seaman
+and explorer.'
+
+'Sir, your hand,' said the captain.  'Your friend is not a professor?'
+
+'Not I,' said Logan, smiling.
+
+The captain solemnly shook hands.  'Gentlemen, you have sand,' he said, a
+supreme tribute of respect.  'Well, about these two natives.  I never
+liked taking them aboard.  They are, in consequence of the triumph of our
+arms, American subjects, natives of the conquered Philippines.  I am no
+lawyer, and they may be citizens, they may have votes.  They are
+entitled, anyway, to the protection of the Flag, and I would have entered
+them as steerage passengers.  But that Professor Jenkins (and the other
+professors agreed) would have it that they came under the head of
+scientific exhibits.  And they did allow that the critters were highly
+dangerous.  I guess they were right.'
+
+'Why, what could they do?'
+
+'Well, gentlemen, I heard stories on shore that I took no stock in.  I am
+not a superstitious man, but they allowed that these darkeys are not of a
+common tribe, but what the papers call "highly developed mediums."  And I
+guess they are at the bottom of the stramash.'
+
+'Captain Funkal, may I be frank with you?' asked Bude.
+
+'I am hearing you,' said the captain.
+
+'Then, to put it shortly, I have been at Cagayan Sulu before, on an
+exploring cruise.  That was in 1897.  I never wanted to go back to it.
+Logan, did I not regret the choice of that port when the news reached us
+in New Zealand?'
+
+Logan nodded.  'You funked it,' he said.
+
+'When I was at Cagayan Sulu in 1897 I heard from the natives of a
+singular tribe in the centre of the island.  This tribe is the
+Berbalangs.'
+
+'That's what Professor Jenkins called them,' said the captain.
+
+'The Berbalangs are subject to neither of the chiefs in the island.  No
+native will approach their village.  They are cannibals.  The story is
+that they can throw themselves into a kind of trance.  They then project
+a something or other--spirit, astral body, influence of some kind--which
+flies forth, making a loud noise when distant.'
+
+'That's what we heard,' said the captain.
+
+'But is silent when they are close at hand.'
+
+'Silent they were,' said the captain.
+
+'They then appear as points of red flame.'
+
+'That's so,' interrupted the captain.
+
+'And cause death to man and beast, apparently by terror.  I have seen,'
+said Bude, shuddering, 'the face of a dead native of high respectability,
+into whose house, before my own eyes, these points of flame had entered.
+I had to force the door, it was strongly barred within.  I never
+mentioned the fact before, knowing that I could not expect belief.'
+
+'Well, sir, I believe you.  You are a white man.'
+
+Bude bowed, and went on.  'The circumstances, though not generally known,
+have been published, captain, by a gentleman of reputation, Mr. Edward
+Forbes Skertchley, of Hong Kong.  His paper indeed, in the _Journal_ of a
+learned association, the Asiatic Society of Bengal, {232}induced me, most
+unfortunately, to visit Cagayan Sulu, when it was still nominally in the
+possession of the Spaniards.  My experience was similar to that of Mr.
+Skertchley, but, for personal reasons, was much more awful and
+distressing.  One of the most beautiful of the island girls, a person of
+most amiable and winning character, not, alas! of my own faith'--Bude's
+voice broke--'was one of the victims of the Berbalangs. . . . I loved
+her.'
+
+He paused, and covered his face with his hands.  The others respected and
+shared his emotion.  The captain, like all sailors, sympathetic, dashed
+away a tear.
+
+'One thing I ought to add,' said Bude, recovering himself, 'I am no more
+superstitious than you are, Captain Funkal, and doubtless science will
+find a simple, satisfactory, and normal explanation of the facts, the
+existence of which we are both compelled to admit.  I have heard of no
+well authenticated instance in which the force, whatever it is, has been
+fatal to Europeans.  The superstitious natives, much as they dread the
+Berbalangs, believe that they will not attack a person who wears a cocoa-
+nut pearl.  Why this should be so, if so it is, I cannot guess.  But, as
+it is always well to be on the safe side, I provided myself five years
+ago with a collection of these objects, and when I heard that we were
+ordered to Cagayan Sulu I distributed them among my crew.  My friend, you
+may observe, wears one of the pearls.  I have several about my person.'
+He disengaged a pin from his necktie, a muddy pearl set with burning
+rubies.  'Perhaps, Captain Funkal, you will honour me by accepting this
+specimen, and wearing it while we are in these latitudes?  If it does no
+good, it can do no harm.  We, at least, have not been molested, though we
+witnessed the phenomena.'
+
+'Sir,' said the captain, 'I appreciate your kindness, and I value your
+gift as a memorial of one of the most singular experiences in a seafaring
+life.  I drink your health and your friend's.  Mr. Logan, to _you_.'  The
+captain pledged his guests.
+
+'And now, gentlemen, what am I to do?'
+
+'That, captain, is for your own consideration.'
+
+'I'll carpet that lubber, Jenkins,' said the captain, and leaving the
+cabin, he returned with the Fellow of All Souls.  His shirt front was
+ruffled, his white neckcloth awry, his pallid countenance betrayed a
+sensitive second-rate mind, not at unity with itself.  He nodded sullenly
+to Logan: Bude he did not know.
+
+'Professor Jenkins, Mr. Jones Harvey,' said the captain.  'Sit down, sir.
+Take a drink; you seem to need one.'  Jenkins drained the tumbler, and
+sat with downcast eyes, his finger drumming nervously on the table.
+
+'Professor Jenkins, sir, I reckon you are the cause of the unparalleled
+disaster to this exploring expedition.  Why did you bring these two
+natives of our territory on board, you well and duly knowing that the end
+would not justify the proceedings?'  A furtive glance from Jenkins
+lighted on the diamonds that sparkled in Logan's ring.  He caught Logan's
+hand.
+
+'Traitor!' he cried.  'What will not scientific jealousy dare, that
+meanest of the passions!'
+
+'What the devil do you mean?' said Logan angrily, wrenching his hand
+away.
+
+'You leave Mr. Logan alone, sir,' said the captain.  'I have two minds to
+put you in irons, Mr. Professor Jenkins.  If you please, explain
+yourself.'
+
+'I denounce this man and his companion,' said Jenkins, noticing a pearl
+ring on Bude's finger; 'I denounce them of conspiracy, mean conspiracy,
+against this expedition, and against the American flag.'
+
+'As how?' inquired the captain, lighting a cigar with irritating
+calmness.
+
+'They wear these pearls, in which I had trusted for absolute security
+against the Berbalangs.'
+
+'Well, I wear one too,' said the captain, pointing to the pin in his
+necktie.  'Are you going to tell me that _I_ am a traitor to the flag,
+sir?  I warn you Professor, to be careful.'
+
+'What am I to think?' asked Jenkins.
+
+'It is rather more important what you _say_,' replied the captain.  'What
+is this fine conspiracy?'
+
+'I had read in England about the Berbalangs.'
+
+'Probably in Mr. Skertchley's curious paper in the Journal of the Asiatic
+Society of Bengal?' asked Bude with suavity.
+
+Jenkins merely stared at him.
+
+'I deemed that specimens of these American subjects, dowered with their
+strange and baneful gift, were well worthy of the study of American
+savants; and I knew that the pearls were a certain prophylactic.'
+
+'What's that?' asked the captain.
+
+'A kind of Universal Pain-Killer,' said Jenkins.
+
+'Well, you surprise me,' said the captain, 'a man of your education.  Pain-
+Killer!' and he expectorated dexterously.
+
+'I mean that the pearls keep off the Berbalangs,' said Jenkins.
+
+'Then why didn't you lay in a stock of the pearls?' asked the captain.
+
+'Because these conspirators had been before me.  These men, or their
+agents, had bought up, just before our arrival, every pearl in the
+island.  They had wormed out my secret, knew the object of my adventure,
+knew how to ruin us all, and I denounce them.'
+
+'A corner in pearls.  Well, it was darned 'cute,' said the captain
+impartially.  'Now, Mr. Jones Harvey, and Mr. Logan, sir, what have _you_
+to say?'
+
+'Did Mr. Jenkins--I think you said that this gentleman's name is
+Jenkins?--see the agent engaged in making this corner in pearls, or learn
+his name?' asked Bude.
+
+'He was an Irish American, one McCarthy,' answered Jenkins sullenly.
+
+'I am unacquainted with the gentleman,' said Bude, 'and I never employed
+any one for any such purpose.  My visit to Cagayan Sulu was some years
+ago, just after that of Mr. Skertchley.  Captain Funkal, I have already
+acquainted you with the facts, and you were kind enough to say that you
+accepted my statement.'
+
+'I did, sir, and I do,' answered the captain.  'As for _you_,' he went
+on, 'Mr. Professor Jenkins, when you found that your game was dangerous,
+indeed likely to be ruinous, to this scientific expedition, and to the
+crew of the _George Washington_--damn you, sir--you should have dropped
+it.  I don't know that I ever swore at a passenger before, and I beg your
+pardon, you two English gentlemen, for so far forgetting myself.  I don't
+know, and these gentlemen don't know, who made the corner, but I don't
+think our citizens want either you or your exhibits.  The whole
+population of the States, sir, not to mention the live stock, cannot
+afford to go about wearing cocoa-nut pearls, a precaution which would be
+necessary if I landed these venomous Berbalangs of yours on our shores:
+man and wife too, likely to have a family of young Berbalangs.  Snakes
+are not a patch on these darkeys, and our coloured population, at least,
+would be busted up.'
+
+The captain paused, perhaps attracted by the chance of thus solving the
+negro problem.
+
+'So, I'll tell you what it is, gentlemen; and, Professor Jenkins, I'll
+turn back and land these two native exhibits, and I'll put _you_ on
+shore, Professor Jenkins, at Cagayan Sulu.  Perhaps before a steamer
+touches there--which is not once in a blue moon--you'll have had time to
+write an exhaustive monograph on the Berbalangs, their manners and
+customs.'
+
+Jenkins (who knew what awaited him) threw himself on the floor at the
+feet of Captain Funkal.  Horrified by the abject distress of one who,
+after all, was their countryman, Bude and Logan induced the captain to
+seclude Jenkins in his cabin.  They then, by their combined entreaties,
+prevailed on the officer to land the Berbalangs on their own island,
+indeed, but to drop Jenkins later on civilised shores.  Dawn saw the
+_George Washington_ and the _Pendragon_ in the port of Cagayan Sulu,
+where the fetters of the two natives, ill looking people enough, were
+knocked off, and they themselves deposited on the quay, where, not being
+popular, they were received by a hostile demonstration.  The two vessels
+then resumed their eastward course.  The taxidermic appliances without
+which Jones Harvey never sailed, and the services of his staff of
+taxidermists, were placed at the disposal of his brother savants.  By
+this means a stuffed Mylodon, a stuffed Beathach, stuffed five-horned
+antelopes and a stuffed Bunyip, with a common gorilla and the Toltec
+mummy, now forever silent, were passed through the New York Custom House,
+and consigned to the McCabe Museum of Natural Varieties.
+
+The immense case that contained the discovery of Jones Harvey was also
+carefully conveyed to an apartment prepared for it in the same
+repository.  The competitors sought their hotels, Te-iki-pa marching
+beside Logan and Jones Harvey.  But, by special arrangement, either Jones
+Harvey or his Maori ally always slept beside their mysterious case, which
+they watched with passionate attention.  Two or three days were spent in
+setting up the stuffed exhibits.  Then the trustees, through _The Yellow
+Flag_ (the paper founded by the late Mr. McCabe), announced to the
+startled citizens the nature of the competition.  On successive days the
+vast theatre of the McCabe Museum would be open, and each competitor, in
+turn, would display to the public his contribution, and lecture on his
+adventures and on the variety of nature which he had secured.
+
+While the death of the animals was deplored, nothing was said, for
+obvious reasons, about the causes of the catastrophe.
+
+The general excitement was intense.  Interviewers scoured the city, and
+flocked, to little purpose, around the officials of the McCabe Museum.
+Special trains were run from all quarters.  The hotels were thronged.
+'America,' it was announced, 'had taken hold of science, and was just
+going to make science hum.'
+
+On the first day of the exhibition, Dr. Hiram Dodge displayed the stuffed
+Mylodon.  The agitation was unprecedented.  America had bred, in ancient
+days, and an American citizen had discovered, the monstrous yet amiable
+animal whence prehistoric Patagonia drew her milk supplies and cheese
+stuffs.  Mr. Dodge's adventures, he modestly said, could only be
+adequately narrated by Mr. Rider Haggard.  Unluckily the Mylodon had not
+survived the conditions of the voyage, the change of climates.  The
+applause was thunderous.  Mr. Dodge gracefully expressed his obligations
+to his fair and friendly rival, Mr. Jones Harvey, who had loaned his
+taxidermic appliances.  It did not appear to the public that the Mylodon
+could be excelled in interest.  The Toltec mummy, as he could no longer
+talk, was flat on a falling market, nor was Mr. Rustler's narrative of
+its conversational powers accepted by the scepticism of the populace,
+though it was corroborated by Captain Funkal, Professor Dodge, and
+Professor Wilkinson, who swore affidavits before a notary, within the
+hearing of the multitude.  The Beathach, exhibited by Professor Potter,
+was reckoned of high anatomical interest by scientific characters, but it
+was not of American habitat, and left the people relatively cold.  On the
+other hand, all the Macleans and Macdonnells of Canada and Nova Scotia
+wept tears of joy at the corroboration of their tribal legends, and the
+popularity of Professor Potter rivalled even that of Mr. Ian Maclaren.  He
+was at once engaged by Major Pond for a series of lectures.  The
+adventures of Howard Fry, in the taking of his gorilla, were reckoned
+interesting, as were those of the captor of the Bunyip, but both animals
+were now undeniably dead.  The people could not feed them with waffles
+and hominy cakes in the gardens of the institute.  The savants wrangled
+on the anatomical differences and resemblances of the Bunyip and the
+Beathach; still the critters were, to the general mind, only stuffed
+specimens, though unique.  The African five-horned brutes (though in
+quieter times they would have scored a triumph) did not now appeal to the
+heart of the people.
+
+At last came the day when, in the huge crowded amphitheatre, with Te-iki-
+pa by his side, Jones Harvey addressed the congregation.  First he
+exhibited a skeleton of a dinornis, a bird of about twenty-five feet in
+height.
+
+'Now,' he went on, 'thanks to the assistance of a Maori gentleman, my
+friend the Tohunga Te-iki-pa'--(cheers, Te-iki bows his
+acknowledgments)--'I propose to exhibit to you _this_.'
+
+With a touch on the mechanism he unrolled the valves of a gigantic
+incubator.  Within, recumbent on cotton wool, the almost frenzied
+spectators perceived two monstrous eggs, like those of the Roc of Arabian
+fable.  Te-iki-pa now chanted a brief psalm in his own language.  One of
+the eggs rolled gently in its place; then the other.  A faint crackling
+noise was heard, first from one, then from the other egg.  From each
+emerged the featherless head of a fowl--the species hitherto unknown to
+the American continent.  The necks pushed forth, then the shoulders, then
+both shells rolled away in fragments, and the spectators gazed on two
+fledgling Moas.  Te-iki-pa, on inspection, pronounced them to be cock and
+hen, and in healthy condition.  The breed, he said, could doubtless be
+acclimatised.
+
+The professors of the museum, by Jones Harvey's request, then closely
+examined the chickens.  There could be no doubt of it, they unanimously
+asserted: these specimens were living deinornithe (which for scientific
+men, is not a bad shot at the dual of deinornis).  The American continent
+was now endowed, through the enterprise of Mr. Jones Harvey, not only
+with living specimens, but with a probable breed of a species hitherto
+thought extinct.
+
+The cheering was led by Captain Funkal, who waved the Stars and Stripes
+and the Union Jack.  Words cannot do justice to the scene.  Women
+fainted, strong men wept, enemies embraced each other.  For details we
+must refer to the files of _The Yellow Flag_.  A _plebiscite_ to select
+the winner of the McCabe Prize was organised by that Journal.  The Moas
+(bred and exhibited by Mr. Jones Harvey) simply romped in, by 1,732,901
+votes, the Mylodon being a bad second, thanks to the Irish vote.
+
+Bude telegraphed 'Victory,' and Miss McCabe by cable answered 'Bully for
+us.'
+
+The secret of these lovers was well kept.  None who watches the
+fascinating Countess of Bude as she moves through the gilded saloons of
+Mayfair guesses that her hand was once the prize of success in a
+scientific exploration.  The identity of Jones Harvey remains a puzzle to
+the learned.  For the rest, a letter in which Jenkins told the story of
+the Berbalangs was rejected by the Editor of _Nature_, and has not yet
+passed even the Literary Committee of the Society for Psychical Research.
+The classical authority on the Berbalangs is still the paper by Mr.
+Skertchley in the _Journal_ of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.  {242}The
+scientific gentlemen who witnessed the onslaught of the Berbalangs have
+convinced themselves (except Jenkins) that nothing of the sort occurred
+in their experience.  The evidence of Captain Funkal is rejected as
+'marine.'
+
+Te-iki-pa decided to remain in New York as custodian of the Moas.  He
+occasionally obliges by exhibiting a few feats of native conjuring, when
+his performances are attended by the _elite_ of the city.  He knows that
+his countrymen hold him in feud, but he is aware that they fear even more
+than they hate the ex-medicine man of his Maori Majesty.
+
+The generosity of Bude and his Countess heaped rewards on Merton, who
+vainly protested that his services had not been professional.
+
+The frequent appearance of new American novelists, whose works sell
+250,000 copies in their first month, demonstrate that Mr. McCabe's scheme
+for raising the level of genius has been as satisfactory as it was
+original.  Genius is riz.
+
+But who 'cornered' the muddy pearls in Cagayan Sulu?
+
+That secret is only known to Lady Bude, her confessor, and the
+Irish-American agent whom she employed.  For she, as we saw, had got at
+the nature of poor Jenkins's project and had acquainted herself with the
+wonderful properties of the pearls, which she cornered.
+
+As a patriot, she consoles herself for the loss of the other exhibits to
+her country, by the reflection that Berbalangs would have been the most
+mischievous of pauper immigrants.  But of all this Bude knows nothing.
+
+
+
+
+XI.  ADVENTURE OF THE MISERLY MARQUIS
+
+
+I.  The Marquis consults Gray and Graham
+
+
+Few men were, and perhaps no marquis was so unpopular as the Marquis of
+Restalrig, Logan's maternal Scotch cousin, widely removed.  He was the
+last of his family, in the direct line, and on his death almost all his
+vast wealth would go to nobody knew where.  To be sure Logan himself
+would succeed to the title of Fastcastle, which descends to heirs
+general, but nothing worth having went with the title.  Logan had only
+the most distant memory of seeing the marquis when he himself was a
+little boy, and the marquis gave him two sixpences.  His relationship to
+his opulent though remote kinsman had been of no service to him in the
+struggle for social existence.  It carried no 'expectations,' and did not
+afford the most shadowy basis for a post obit.  There was no entail, the
+marquis could do as he liked with his own.
+
+'The Jews _may_ have been credulous in the time of Horace,' Logan said,
+'but now they insist on the most drastic evidence of prospective wealth.
+No, they won't lend me a shekel.'
+
+Events were to prove that other financial operators were better informed
+than the chosen people, though to be sure their belief was displayed in a
+manner at once grotesque and painfully embarrassing.
+
+Why the marquis was generally disliked we might explain, historically, if
+we were acquainted with the tale of his infancy, early youth, and
+adolescence.  Perhaps he had been betrayed in his affections, and was
+'taking it out' of mankind in general.  But this notion implies that the
+marquis once had some affections, a point not hitherto substantiated by
+any evidence.  Perhaps heredity was to blame, some unhappy blend of
+parentage.  An ancestor at an unknown period may have bequeathed to the
+marquis the elements of his unalluring character.  But the only ancestor
+of marked temperament was the festive Logan of Restalrig, who conspired
+over his cups to kidnap a king, laid out his plot on the lines of an
+Italian novel, and died without being detected.  This heroic ancestor
+admitted that he hated 'arguments derived from religion,' and, so far,
+the Marquis of Restalrig was quite with him, if the arguments bore on
+giving to the poor, or, indeed, to any one.
+
+In fact the marquis was that unpopular character, a miser.  Your miser
+may be looked up to, in a way, as an ideal votary of Mammon, but he is
+never loved.  On his vast possessions, mainly in coal-fields, he was even
+more detested than the ordinary run of capitalists.  The cottages and
+farmhouses on his estates were dilapidated and insanitary beyond what is
+endurable.  Of his many mansions, some were kept in decent repair,
+because he drew many shillings from tourists admitted to view them.  But
+his favourite abode was almost as ruinous as his cottages, and an artist
+in search of a model for the domestic interior of the Master of
+Ravenswood might have found what he wanted at Kirkburn, the usual lair of
+this avaricious nobleman.  It was a keep of the sixteenth century, and
+looked as if it had never been papered or painted since Queen Mary's
+time.  But it was near the collieries; and within its blackened walls,
+and among its bleak fields and grimy trees, Lord Restalrig chose to live
+alone, with an old man and an old woman for his attendants.  The woman
+had been his nurse; it was whispered in the district that she was also
+his illegal-aunt, or perhaps even, so to speak, his illegal stepmother.
+At all events, she endured more than anybody but a Scotch woman who had
+been his nurse in childhood would have tolerated.  To keep her in his
+service saved him the cost of a pension, which even the marquis, people
+thought, could hardly refuse to allow her.  The other old servitor was
+her husband, and entirely under her domination.  Both might be reckoned
+staunch, in the old fashion, 'to the name,' which Logan only bore by
+accident, his grandmother having wedded a kinless Logan who had no
+demonstrable connection with the house of Restalrig.  Any mortal but the
+marquis would probably have brought Logan up as his heir, for the
+churlish peer had no nearer connection.  But the marquis did more than
+sympathise with the Roman emperor who quoted 'after me the Last Day.'  The
+emperor only meant that, after his time, he did not care how soon earth
+and fire were mingled.  The marquis, on the other hand, gave the
+impression that, he once out of the way, he ardently desired the
+destruction of the whole human race.  He was not known ever to have
+consciously benefited man or woman.  He screwed out what he might from
+everybody in his power, and made no returns which the law did not exact;
+even these, as far as the income tax went, he kept at the lowest figure
+possible.
+
+Such was the distinguished personage whose card was handed to Merton one
+morning at the office.  There had been no previous exchange of letters,
+according to the rules of the Society, and yet Merton could not suppose
+that the marquis wished to see him on any but business matters.  'He
+wants to put a spoke in somebody's wheel,' thought Merton, 'but whose?'
+
+He hastily scrawled a note for Logan, who, as usual, was late, put it in
+an envelope, and sealed it.  He wrote: '_On no account come in_.
+_Explanation later_!  Then he gave the note to the office boy, impressed
+on him the necessity of placing it in Logan's hands when he arrived, and
+told the boy to admit the visitor.
+
+The marquis entered, clad in rusty black not unlike a Scotch peasant's
+best raiment as worn at funerals.  He held a dripping umbrella; his boots
+were muddy, his trousers had their frayed ends turned up.  He wore a
+hard, cruel red face, with keen grey eyes beneath penthouses where age
+had touched the original tawny red with snow.  Merton, bowing, took the
+umbrella and placed it in a stand.
+
+'You'll not have any snuff?' asked the marquis.
+
+Trevor had placed a few enamelled snuff-boxes of the eighteenth century
+among the other costly _bibelots_ in the rooms, and, by an unusual
+chance, one of them actually did contain what the marquis wanted.  Merton
+opened it and handed it to the peer, who, after trying a pinch on his
+nostrils, poured a quantity into his hand and thence into a little black
+mull made of horn, which he took from his breast pocket.  'It's good,' he
+said.  'Better than I get at Kirkburn.  You'll know who I am?'  His
+accent was nearly as broad as that of one of his own hinds, and he
+sometimes used Scottish words, to Merton's perplexity.
+
+'Every one has heard of the Marquis of Restalrig,' said Merton.
+
+'Ay, and little to his good, I'll be bound?'
+
+'I do not listen to gossip,' said Merton.  'I presume, though you have
+not addressed me by letter, that your visit is not unconnected with
+business?'
+
+'No, no, no letters!  I never was wasteful in postage stamps.  But as I
+was in London, to see the doctor, for the Edinburgh ones can make nothing
+of the case--a kind of dwawming--I looked in at auld Nicky Maxwell's.  She
+gave me a good character of you, and she is one to lippen to.  And you
+make no charge for a first interview.'
+
+Merton vaguely conjectured that to 'lippen' implied some sort of caress;
+however, he only said that he was obliged to Miss Maxwell for her kind
+estimate of his firm.
+
+'Gray and Graham, good Scots names.  You'll not be one of the Grahams of
+Netherby, though?'
+
+'The name of the firm is merely conventional, a trading title,' said
+Merton; 'if you want to know my name, there it is,' and he handed his
+card to the marquis, who stared at it, and (apparently from motiveless
+acquisitiveness) put it into his pocket.
+
+'I don't like an alias,' he said.  'But it seems you are to lippen to.'
+
+From the context Merton now understood that the marquis probably wished
+to signify that he was to be trusted.  So he bowed, and expressed a hope
+that he was 'all that could be desired in the lippening way.'
+
+'You're laughing at my Doric?' asked the nobleman.  'Well, in the only
+important way, it's not at my _expense_.  Ha!  Ha!'  He shook a lumbering
+laugh out of himself.
+
+Merton smiled--and was bored.
+
+'I'm come about stopping a marriage,' said the marquis, at last arriving
+at business.
+
+'My experience is at your service,' said Merton.
+
+'Well,' went on the marquis, 'ours is an old name.'
+
+Merton remarked that, in the course of historical study, he had made
+himself acquainted with the achievements of the house.
+
+'Auld warld tales!  But I wish I could tell where the treasure is that
+wily auld Logan quarrelled over with the wizard Laird of Merchistoun.
+Logan would not implement the contract--half profits.  But my wits are
+wool gathering.'
+
+He began to wander round the room, looking at the mezzotints.  He stopped
+in front of one portrait, and said 'My Aunt!'  Merton took this for an
+exclamation of astonishment, but later found that the lady (after
+Lawrence) really had been the great aunt of the marquis.
+
+Merton conceived that the wits of his visitor were worse than 'wool
+gathering,' that he had 'softening of the brain.'  But circumstances
+presently indicated that Lord Restalrig was actually suffering from a
+much less common disorder--softening of the heart.
+
+He returned to his seat, and helped himself to snuff out of the enamelled
+gold box, on which Merton deemed it politic to keep a watchful eye.
+
+'Man, I'm sweir' (reluctant) 'to come to the point,' said Lord Restalrig.
+
+Merton erroneously understood him to mean that he was under oath or vow
+to come to the point, and showed a face of attention.
+
+'I'm not the man I was.  The doctors don't understand my case--they take
+awful fees--but I see they think ill of it.  And that sets a body
+thinking.  Have you a taste of brandy in the house?'
+
+As the visitor's weather-beaten ruddiness had changed to a ghastly ashen
+hue, rather bordering on the azure, Merton set forth the liqueur case,
+and drew a bottle of soda water.
+
+'No water,' said the peer; 'it's just ma twal' ours, an auld Scotch
+fashion,' and he took without winking an orthodox dram of brandy.  Then
+he looked at the silver tops of the flasks.
+
+'A good coat!' he said.  'Yours?'
+
+Merton nodded.
+
+'Ye quarter the Douglas Heart.  A good coat.  Dod, I'll speak plain.  The
+name, Mr. Merton, when ye come to the end o' the furrow, the name is all
+ye have left.  We brought nothing into the world but the name, we take
+out nothing else.  A sore dispensation.  I'm not the man I was, not this
+two years.  I must dispone, I know it well.  Now the name, that I thought
+that I cared not an empty whistle for, is worn to a rag, but I cannot
+leave it in the mire.  There's just one that bears it, one Logan by name,
+and true Logan by the mother's blood.  The mother's mother, my cousin,
+was a bonny lass.'
+
+He paused; his enfeebled memory was wandering, no doubt, in scenes more
+vivid to him than those of yesterday.
+
+Merton was now attentive indeed.  The miserly marquis had become, to him,
+something other than a curious survival of times past.  There was a
+chance for Logan, his friend, the last of the name, but Logan was firmly
+affianced to Miss Markham, of the cloak department at Madame Claudine's.
+And the marquis, as he said, 'had come about stopping a marriage,' and
+Merton was to help him in stopping it, in disentangling Logan!
+
+The old man aroused himself.  'I have never seen the lad but once, when
+he was a bairn.  But I've kept eyes on him.  He _has_ nothing, and since
+I came to London I hear that he has gone gyte, I mean--ye'll not
+understand me--he is plighted to a long-legged shop-lass, the daughter of
+a ne'er-do-well Australian land-louper, a doctor.  This must not be.  Now
+I'll speak plain to you, plainer than to Tod and Brock, my doers--ye call
+them lawyers.  _They_ did not make my will.'
+
+Merton prevented himself, by an effort, from gasping.  He kept a
+countenance of cold attention.  But the marquis was coming to the point.
+
+'I have left all to the name, lands and rents, and mines, and money.  But,
+unless the lad marries in his own rank, I'll change my will.  It's in the
+hidie hole at Kirkburn, that Logan built to keep King Jamie in, when he
+caught him.  But the fool Ruthvens marred that job, and got their kail
+through the reek.  I'm wandering.'  He helped himself to another dram,
+and went on, 'Ye see what I want, ye must stop that marriage.'
+
+'But,' said Merton, 'as you are so kindly disposed towards your kinsman,
+this Mr. Logan, may I ask whether it would not be wise to address him
+yourself, as the head of his house?  He may, surely he will, listen to
+your objections.'
+
+'Ye do not know the Logans.'
+
+Merton concealed his smile.
+
+'Camstairy deevils!  It's in the blood.  Never once has he asked me for a
+pound, never noticed me by word or letter.  Faith, I wish all the world
+had been as considerate to auld Restalrig!  For me to say a word, let be
+to make an offer, would just tie him faster to the lass.  "Tyne troth,
+tyne a'," that is the old bye-word.'
+
+Merton recognised his friend in this description, but he merely shook a
+sympathetic head.  'Very unusual,' he remarked.  'You really have no hope
+by this method?'
+
+'None at all, or I would not be here on this daft ploy.  There's no fool
+like an auld fool, and, faith, I hardly know the man I was.  But they
+cannot dispute the will.  I drew doctors to witness that I was of sound
+and disponing mind, and I've since been thrice to kirk and market.  Lord,
+how they stared to see auld Restalrig in his pew, that had not smelt
+appleringie these forty years.'
+
+Merton noted these words, which he thought curious and obscure.  'Your
+case interests me deeply,' he said, 'and shall receive my very best
+attention.  You perceive, of course, that it is a difficult case, Mr.
+Logan's character and tenacity being what you describe.  I must make
+careful inquiries, and shall inform you of progress.  You wish to see
+this engagement ended?'
+
+'And the lad on with a lass of his rank,' said the marquis.
+
+'Probably that will follow quickly on the close of his present affection.
+It usually does in our experience,' said Merton, adding, 'Am I to write
+to you at your London address?'
+
+'No, sir; these London hotels would ruin the cunzie' (the Mint).
+
+Merton wondered whether the Cunzie was the title of some wealthy Scotch
+peer.
+
+'And I'm off for Kirkburn by the night express.  Here's wishing luck,'
+and the old sinner finished the brandy.
+
+'May I call a cab for you--it still rains?'
+
+'No, no, I'll travel,' by which the economical peer meant that he would
+walk.
+
+He then shook Merton by the hand, and hobbled downstairs attended by his
+adviser.
+
+'Did Mr. Logan call?' Merton asked the office boy when the marquis had
+trotted off.
+
+'Yes, sir; he said you would find him at the club.'
+
+'Call a hansom,' said Merton, 'and put up the notice, "out."'  He drove
+to the club, where he found Logan ordering luncheon.
+
+'Hullo, shall we lunch together?' Logan asked.
+
+'Not yet: I want to speak to you.'
+
+'Nothing gone wrong?  Why did you shut me out of the office?'
+
+'Where can we talk without being disturbed?'
+
+'Try the smoking-room on the top storey,' said Logan, 'Nobody will have
+climbed so high so early.'
+
+They made the ascent, and found the room vacant: the windows looked out
+over swirling smoke and trees tossing in a wind of early spring.
+
+'Quiet enough,' said Logan, taking an arm-chair.  'Now out with it!  You
+make me quite nervous.'
+
+'A client has come with what looks a promising piece of business.  We are
+to disentangle--'
+
+'A royal duke?'
+
+'No.  _You_!'
+
+'A practical joke,' said Logan.  'Somebody pulling your leg, as people
+say, a most idiotic way of speaking.  What sort of client was he, or she?
+We'll be even with them.'
+
+'The client's card is here,' said Merton, and he handed to Logan that of
+the Marquis of Restalrig.
+
+'You never saw him before; are you sure it was the man?' asked Logan,
+staggered in his scepticism.
+
+'A very good imitation.  Dressed like a farmer at a funeral.  Talked like
+all the kailyards.  Snuffed, and asked for brandy, and went and came,
+walking, in this weather.'
+
+'By Jove, it is my venerated cousin.  And he had heard about me and Miss ---'
+
+'He was quite well informed.'
+
+Logan looked very grave.  He rose and stared out of the window into the
+mist.  Then he came back, and stood beside Merton's chair.  He spoke in a
+low voice:
+
+'This can only mean one thing.'
+
+'Only that one thing,' said Merton, dropping his own voice.
+
+'What did you say to him?'
+
+'I told him that his best plan, as the head of the house, was to approach
+you himself.'
+
+'And he said?'
+
+'That it was of no use, and that I do not know the Logans.'
+
+'But you do?'
+
+'I think so.'
+
+'You think right.  No, not for all his lands and mines I won't.'
+
+'Not for the name?'
+
+'Not for the kingdoms of the earth,' said Logan.
+
+'It is a great refusal.'
+
+'I have really no temptation to accept,' said Logan.  'I am not built
+that way.  So what next?  If the old boy could only see her--'
+
+'I doubt if that would do any good, though, of course, if I were you I
+should think so.  He goes north to-night.  You can't take the lady to
+Kirkburn.  And you can't write to him.'
+
+'Of course not,' said Logan; 'of course it would be all up if he knew
+that I know.'
+
+'There is this to be said--it is not a very pleasant view to take--he
+can't live long.  He came to see some London specialist--it is his heart,
+I think--'
+
+'_His_ heart!
+
+   How Fortune aristophanises
+   And how severe the fun of Fate!'
+
+quoted Logan.
+
+'The odd thing is,' said Merton, 'that I do believe he has a heart.  I
+rather like him.  At all events, I think, from what I saw, that a sudden
+start might set him off at any moment, or an unusual exertion.  And he
+may go off before I tell him that I can do nothing with you--'
+
+'Oh, hang that,' said Logan, 'you make me feel like a beastly assassin!'
+
+'I only want you to understand how the land lies.'  Merton dropped his
+voice again, 'He has made a will leaving you everything.'
+
+'Poor old cock!  Look here, I believe I had better write, and say that
+I'm awfully touched and obliged, but that I can't come into his views, or
+break my word, and then, you know, he can just make another will.  It
+would be a swindle to let him die, and come into his property, and then
+go dead against his wishes.'
+
+'But it would be all right to give me away, I suppose, and let him
+understand that I had violated professional confidence?'
+
+'Only with a member of the firm.  That is no violation.'
+
+'But then I should have told him that you _were_ a member of the firm.'
+
+'I'm afraid you should.'
+
+'Logan, you have the ideas of a schoolboy.  I _had_ to be certain as to
+how you would take it, though, of course, I had a very good guess.  And
+as to what you say about the chances of his dying and leaving everything
+where he would not have left it if he had been sure you would act against
+his wishes--I believe you are wrong.  What he really cares about is "the
+name."  His ghost will put up with your disobedience if the name keeps
+its old place.  Do you see?'
+
+'Perhaps you are right,' said Logan.
+
+'Anyhow, there is no such pressing hurry.  One _may_ bring him round with
+time.  A curious old survival!  I did not understand all that he said.
+There was something about having been thrice at kirk and market since he
+made his will; and something about not having smelled appleringie for
+forty years.  What is appleringie?'
+
+Logan laughed.
+
+'It is a sacred Presbyterian herb.  The people keep it in their Bibles
+and it perfumes the churches.  But look here--'
+
+He was interrupted by the entrance of a page, who handed to him a letter.
+Logan read it and laughed.  'I knew it; they are sharp!' he said, and
+handed the letter to Merton.  It was from a famous, or infamous, money-
+lender, offering princely accommodation on terms which Mr. Logan would
+find easy and reasonable.
+
+'They have nosed the appleringie, you see,' he said.
+
+'But I don't see,' said Merton.
+
+'Why the hounds have heard that the old nobleman has been thrice to kirk
+lately.  And as he had not been there for forty years, they have guessed
+that he has been making his will.  Scots law has, or used to have,
+something in it about going thrice to kirk and market after making a
+will--disponing they call it--as a proof of bodily and mental soundness.
+So they have spotted the marquis's pious motives for kirk-going, and
+guessed that I am his heir.  I say--'  Logan began to laugh wildly.
+
+'What do you say?' asked Merton, but Logan went on hooting.
+
+'I say,' he repeated, 'it must never be known that the old lord came to
+consult us,' and here he was again convulsed.
+
+'Of course not,' said Merton.  'But where is the joke?'
+
+'Why, don't you see--oh, it is too good--he has taken every kind of
+precaution to establish his sanity when he made his will.'
+
+'He told me that he had got expert evidence,' said Merton.
+
+'And then he comes and consults US!' said Logan, with a crow of laughter.
+'If any fellow wants to break the will on the score of insanity, and
+knows, knows he came to us, a jury, when they find he consulted us, will
+jolly well upset the cart.'  Merton was hurt.
+
+'Logan,' he said, 'it is you who ought to be in an asylum, an Asylum for
+Incurable Children.  Don't you see that he made the will long _before_ he
+took the very natural and proper step of consulting Messrs. Gray and
+Graham?'
+
+'Let us pray that, if there is a suit, it won't come before a Scotch
+jury,' said Logan.  'Anyhow, nobody knows that he came except you and
+me.'
+
+'And the office boy,' said Merton.
+
+'Oh, we'll square the office boy,' said Logan.  'Let's lunch!'
+
+They lunched, and Logan, as was natural, though Merton urged him to
+abstain, hung about the doors of Madame Claudine's emporium at the hour
+when the young ladies returned to their homes.  He walked home with Miss
+Markham.  He told her about his chances, and his views, and no doubt she
+did not think him a person of schoolboy ideas, but a Bayard.
+
+Two days passed, and in the afternoon of the third a telegram arrived for
+Logan from Kirkburn.
+
+'_Come at once_, _Marquis very ill.  Dr. Douglas_, _Kirkburn_.'
+
+There was no express train North till 8.45 in the evening.  Merton dined
+with Logan at King's Cross, and saw him off.  He would reach his cousin's
+house at about six in the morning if the train kept time.
+
+About nine o'clock on the morning following Logan's arrival at Kirkburn
+Merton was awakened: the servant handed to him a telegram.
+
+'_Come instantly.  Highly important.  Logan_, _Kirkburn_.'
+
+Merton dressed himself more rapidly than he had ever done, and caught the
+train leaving King's Cross at 10 a.m.
+
+
+
+II.  The Emu's Feathers
+
+
+The landscape through which Merton passed on his northward way to
+Kirkburn, whither Logan had summoned him, was blank with snow.  The snow
+was not more than a couple of inches deep where it had not drifted, and,
+as frost had set in, it was not likely to deepen.  There was no fear of
+being snowed up.
+
+Merton naturally passed a good deal of his time in wondering what had
+occurred at Kirkburn, and why Logan needed his presence.  'The poor old
+gentleman has passed away suddenly, I suppose,' he reflected, 'and Logan
+may think that I know where he has deposited his will.  It is in some
+place that the marquis called "the hidie hole," and that, from his
+vagrant remarks, appears to be a secret chamber, as his ancestor meant to
+keep James VI. there.  I wish he had cut the throat of that prince, a bad
+fellow.  But, of course, I don't know where the chamber is: probably some
+of the people about the place know, or the lawyer who made the will.'
+
+However freely Merton's consciousness might play round the problem, he
+could get no nearer to its solution.  At Berwick he had to leave the
+express, and take a local train.  In the station, not a nice station, he
+was accosted by a stranger, who asked if he was Mr. Merton?  The
+stranger, a wholesome, red-faced, black-haired man, on being answered in
+the affirmative, introduced himself as Dr. Douglas, of Kirkburn.  'You
+telegraphed to my friend Logan the news of the marquis's illness,' said
+Merton.  'I fear you have no better news to give me.'
+
+Dr. Douglas shook his head.
+
+A curious little crowd was watching the pair from a short distance.  There
+was an air of solemnity about the people, which was not wholly due to the
+chill grey late afternoon, and the melancholy sea.
+
+'We have an hour to wait, Mr. Merton, before the local train starts, and
+afterwards there is a bit of a drive.  It is cold, we would be as well in
+the inn as here.'
+
+The doctor beat his gloved hands together to restore the circulation.
+
+Merton saw that the doctor wished to be with him in private, and the two
+walked down into the town, where they got a comfortable room, the doctor
+ordering boiling water and the other elements of what he called 'a
+cheerer.'  When the cups which cheer had been brought, and the men were
+alone, the doctor said:
+
+'It is as you suppose, Mr. Merton, but worse.'
+
+'Great heaven, no accident has happened to Logan?' asked Merton.
+
+'No, sir, and he would have met you himself at Berwick, but he is engaged
+in making inquiries and taking precautions at Kirkburn.'
+
+'You do not mean that there is any reason to suspect foul play?  The
+marquis, I know, was in bad health.  You do not suspect--murder?'
+
+'No, sir, but--the marquis is gone.'
+
+'I _know_ he is gone, your telegram and what I observed of his health led
+me to fear the worst.'
+
+'But his body is gone--vanished.'
+
+'You suppose that it has been stolen (you know the American and other
+cases of the same kind) for the purpose of extracting money from the
+heir?'
+
+'That is the obvious view, whoever the heir may be.  So far, no will has
+been found,' the doctor added some sugar to his cheerer, and some whisky
+to correct the sugar.  'The neighbourhood is very much excited.  Mr.
+Logan has telegraphed to London for detectives.'
+
+Merton reflected in silence.
+
+'The obvious view is not always the correct one,' he said.  'The marquis
+was, at least I thought that he was, a very eccentric person.'
+
+'No doubt about _that_,' said the doctor.
+
+'Very well.  He had reasons, such reasons as might occur to a mind like
+his, for wanting to test the character and conduct of Mr. Logan, his only
+living kinsman.  What I am going to say will seem absurd to you, but--the
+marquis spoke to me of his malady as a kind of "dwawming," I did not know
+what he meant, at the time, but yesterday I consulted the glossary of a
+Scotch novel: to _dwawm_, I think, is to lose consciousness?'
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+'Now you have read,' said Merton, 'the case published by Dr. Cheyne, of a
+gentleman, Colonel Townsend, who could voluntarily produce a state of
+"dwawm" which was not then to be distinguished from death?'
+
+'I have read it in the notes to Aytoun's _Scottish Cavaliers_,' said the
+doctor.
+
+'Now, then, suppose that the marquis, waking out of such a state, whether
+voluntarily induced (which is very improbable) or not, thought fit to
+withdraw himself, for the purpose of secretly watching, from some
+retreat, the behaviour of his heir, if he has made Mr. Logan his heir?  Is
+that hypothesis absolutely out of keeping with his curious character?'
+
+'No.  It's crazy enough, if you will excuse me, but, for these last few
+weeks, at any rate, I would have swithered about signing a fresh
+certificate to the marquis's sanity.'
+
+'You did, perhaps, sign one when he made his will, as he told me?'
+
+'I, and Dr. Gourlay, and Professor Grant,' the doctor named two
+celebrated Edinburgh specialists.  'But just of late I would not be so
+certain.'
+
+'Then my theory need not necessarily be wrong?'
+
+'It can't but be wrong.  First, I saw the man dead.'
+
+'Absolute tests of death are hardly to be procured, of course you know
+that better than I do,' said Merton.
+
+'Yes, but I am positive, or as positive as one can be, in the
+circumstances.  However, that is not what I stand on.  _There was a
+witness who saw the marquis go_.'
+
+'Go--how did he go?'
+
+'He disappeared.'
+
+'The body disappeared?'
+
+'It did, but you had better hear the witness's own account; I don't think
+a second-hand story will convince you, especially as you have a theory.'
+
+'Was the witness a man or a woman?'
+
+'A woman,' said the doctor.
+
+'Oh!' said Merton.
+
+'I know what you mean,' said the doctor.  'You think, it suits your
+theory, that the marquis came to himself and--'
+
+'And squared the female watcher,' interrupted Merton; 'she would assist
+him in his crazy stratagem.'
+
+'Mr. Merton, you've read ower many novels,' said the doctor, lapsing into
+the vernacular.  'Well, your notion is not unthinkable, nor pheesically
+impossible.  She's a queer one, Jean Bower, that waked the corpse, sure
+enough.  However, you'll soon be on the spot, and can examine the case
+for yourself.  Mr. Logan has no idea but that the body was stolen for
+purposes of blackmail.'  He looked at his watch.  'We must be going to
+catch the train, if she's anything like punctual.'
+
+The pair walked in silence to the station, were again watched curiously
+by the public (who appeared to treat the station as a club), and after
+three-quarters of an hour of slow motion and stoppages, arrived at their
+destination, Drem.
+
+The doctor's own man with a dog-cart was in waiting.
+
+'The marquis had neither machine nor horse,' the doctor explained.
+
+Through the bleak late twilight they were driven, past two or three
+squalid mining villages, along a road where the ruts showed black as coal
+through the freezing snow.  Out of one village, the lights twinkling in
+the windows, they turned up a steep road, which, after a couple of
+hundred yards, brought them to the old stone gate posts, surmounted by
+heraldic animals.
+
+'The late marquis sold the worked-iron gates to a dealer,' said the
+doctor.
+
+At the avenue gates, so steep was the ascent, both men got out and
+walked.
+
+'You see the pits come up close to the house,' said the doctor, as they
+reached the crest.  He pointed to some tall chimneys on the eastern
+slope, which sank quite gradually to the neighbouring German Ocean, but
+ended in an abrupt rocky cliff.
+
+'Is that a fishing village in the cleft of the cliffs?  I think I see a
+red roof,' said Merton.
+
+'Ay, that's Strutherwick, a fishing village,' replied the doctor.
+
+'A very easy place, on your theory, for an escape with the body by boat,'
+said Merton.
+
+'Ay, that is just it,' acquiesced the doctor.
+
+'But,' asked Merton, as they reached the level, and saw the old keep
+black in front of them, 'what is that rope stretched about the lawn for?
+It seems to go all round the house, and there are watchers.'  Dark
+figures with lanterns were visible at intervals, as Merton peered into
+the gathering gloom.  The watchers paced to and fro like sentinels.
+
+The door of the house opened, and a man's figure stood out against the
+lamp light within.
+
+'Is that you, Merton?' came Logan's voice from the doorway.
+
+Merton answered; and the doctor remarked, 'Mr. Logan will tell you what
+the rope's for.'
+
+The friends shook hands; the doctor, having deposited Merton's baggage,
+pleaded an engagement, and said 'Good-bye,' among the thanks of Logan.  An
+old man, a kind of silent Caleb Balderstone, carried Merton's light
+luggage up a black turnpike stair.
+
+'I've put you in the turret; it is the least dilapidated room,' said
+Logan.  'Now, come in here.'
+
+He led the way into a hall on the ground-floor.  A great fire in the
+ancient hearth, with its heavy heraldically carved stone chimney-piece,
+lit up the desolation of the chamber.
+
+'Sit down and warm yourself,' said Logan, pushing forward a ponderous
+oaken chair, with a high back and short arms.
+
+'I know a good deal,' said Merton, his curiosity hurrying him to the
+point; 'but first, Logan, what is the rope on the stakes driven in round
+the house for?'
+
+'That was my first precaution,' said Logan.  'I heard of the--of what has
+happened--about four in the morning, and I instantly knocked in the
+stakes--hard work with the frozen ground--and drew the rope along, to
+isolate the snow about the house.  When I had done that, I searched the
+snow for footmarks.'
+
+'When had the snow begun to fall?'
+
+'About midnight.  I turned out then to look at the night before going to
+bed.'
+
+'And there was nothing wrong then?'
+
+'He lay on his bed in the laird's chamber.  I had just left it.  I left
+him with the watcher of the dead.  There was a plate of salt on his
+breast.  The housekeeper, Mrs. Bower, keeps up the old ways.  Candles
+were burning all round the bed.  A fearful waste he would have thought
+it, poor old man.  The devils!  If I could get on their track!' said
+Logan, clenching his fist.
+
+'You have found no tracks, then?'
+
+'None.  When I examined the snow there was not a footmark on the roads to
+the back door or the front--not a footmark on the whole area.'
+
+'Then the removal of the body from the bedroom was done from within.
+Probably the body is still in the house.'
+
+'Certainly it has been taken out by no known exit, if it _has_ been taken
+out, as I believe.  I at once arranged relays of sentinels--men from the
+coal-pits.  But the body is gone; I am certain of it.  A fishing-boat
+went out from the village, Strutherwick, before the dawn.  It came into
+the little harbour after midnight--some night-wandering lover saw it
+enter--and it must have sailed again before dawn.'
+
+'Did you examine the snow near the harbour?'
+
+'I could not be everywhere at once, and I was single-handed; but I sent
+down the old serving-man, John Bower.  He is stupid enough, but I gave
+him a note to any fisherman he might meet.  Of course these people are
+not detectives.'
+
+'And was there any result?'
+
+'Yes; an odd one.  But it confirms the obvious theory of body-snatching.
+Of course, fishers are early risers, and they went trampling about
+confusedly.  But they did find curious tracks.  We have isolated some of
+them, and even managed to carry off a couple.  We dug round them, and
+lifted them.  A neighbouring laird, Mr. Maitland, lent his ice-house for
+storing these, and I had one laid down on the north side of this house to
+show you, if the frost held.  No ice-house or refrigerator _here_, of
+course.'
+
+'Let me see it now.'
+
+Logan took a lighted candle--the night was frosty, without a wind--and
+led Merton out under the black, ivy-clad walls.  Merton threw his
+greatcoat on the snow and knelt on it, peering at the object.  He saw a
+large flat clod of snow and earth.  On its surface was the faint impress
+of a long oval, longer than the human foot; feathery marks running in
+both directions from the centre could be descried.  Looking closer,
+Merton detected here and there a tiny feather and a flock or two of down
+adhering to the frozen mass.
+
+'May I remove some of these feathery things?' Merton asked.
+
+'Certainly.  But why?'
+
+'We can't carry the clod indoors, it would melt; and it _may_ melt if the
+weather changes; and by bad luck there may be no feathers or down
+adhering to the other clods--those in the laird's ice-house.'
+
+'You think you have a clue?'
+
+'I think,' said Merton, 'that these are emu's feathers; but, whether they
+are or not, they look like a clue.  Still, I _think_ they are emu's
+feathers.'
+
+'Why?  The emu is not an indigenous bird.'
+
+As he spoke, an idea--several ideas--flashed on Merton.  He wished that
+he had held his peace.  He put the little shreds into his pocket-book,
+rose, and donned his greatcoat.  'How cold it is!' he said.  'Logan,
+would you mind very much if I said no more just now about the feathers?  I
+really have a notion--which may be a good one, or may be a silly one--and,
+absurd as it appears, you will seriously oblige me by letting me keep my
+own counsel.'
+
+'It is damned awkward,' said Logan testily.
+
+'Ah, old boy, but remember that "damned awkward" is a damned awkward
+expression.'
+
+'You are right,' said Logan heartily; 'but I rose very early, I'm very
+tired, I'm rather savage.  Let's go in and dine.'
+
+'All right,' said Merton.
+
+'I don't think,' said Logan, as they were entering the house, 'that I
+need keep these miners on sentry go any longer.  The bird--the body, I
+mean--has flown.  Whoever the fellows were that made these tracks, and
+however they got into and out of the house, they have carried the body
+away.  I'll pay the watchers and dismiss them.'
+
+'All right,' said Merton.  'I won't dress.  I must return to town by the
+night train.  No time to be lost.'
+
+'No train to be caught,' said Logan, 'unless you drive or walk to Berwick
+from here--which you can't.  You can't walk to Dunbar, to catch the
+10.20, and I have nothing that you can drive.'
+
+'Can I send a telegram to town?'
+
+'It is four miles to the nearest telegraph station, but I dare say one of
+the sentinels would walk there for a consideration.'
+
+'No use,' said Merton.  'I should need to wire in a cipher, when I come
+to think of it, and cipher I have none.  I must go as early as I can to-
+morrow.  Let us consult Bradshaw.'
+
+They entered the house.  Merton had a Bradshaw in his dressing-bag.  They
+found that he could catch a train at 10.49 A.M., and be in London about 9
+P.M.
+
+'How are you to get to the station?' asked Logan.  'I'll tell you how,'
+he went on.  'I'll send a note to the inn at the place, and order a trap
+to be here at ten.  That will give you lots of time.  It is about four
+miles.'
+
+'Thank you,' said Merton; 'I see no better way.'  And while Logan went to
+pay and dismiss the sentries and send a messenger, a grandson of the old
+butler with the note to the innkeeper, Merton toiled up the narrow
+turnpike stair to the turret chamber.  A fire had been burning all day,
+and in firelight almost any room looks tolerable.  There was a small four-
+poster bed, with slender columns, a black old wardrobe, and a couple of
+chairs, one of the queer antiquated little dressing-tables, with many
+drawers, and boxes, and a tiny basin, and there was a perfectly new tub,
+which Logan had probably managed to obtain in the course of the day.
+Merton's evening clothes were neatly laid out, the shutters were closed,
+curtains there were none; in fact, he had been in much worse quarters.
+
+As he dressed he mused.  'Cursed spite,' thought he, 'that ever I was
+born to be an amateur detective!  And cursed be my confounded thirst for
+general information!  Why did I ever know what _Kurdaitcha_ and
+_Interlinia_ mean?  If I turn out to be right, oh, shade of Sherlock
+Holmes, what a pretty kettle of fish there will be!  Suppose I drop the
+whole affair!  But I've been ass enough to let Logan know that I have an
+idea.  Well, we shall see how matters shape themselves.  Sufficient for
+the day is the evil thereof.'
+
+Merton descended the turnpike stair, holding on to the rope provided for
+that purpose in old Scotch houses.  He found Logan standing by the fire
+in the hall.  They were waited on by the old man, Bower.  By tacit
+consent they spoke, while he was present, of anything but the subject
+that occupied their minds.  They had quite an edible
+dinner--cock-a-leekie, brandered haddocks, and a pair of roasted fowls,
+with a mysterious sweet which was called a 'Hattit Kit.'
+
+'It is an historical dish in this house,' said Logan.  'A favourite with
+our ancestor, the conspirator.'
+
+The wine was old and good, having been laid down before the time of the
+late marquis.
+
+'In the circumstances, Logan,' said Merton, when the old serving man was
+gone, 'you have done me very well.'
+
+'Thanks to Mrs. Bower, our butler's wife,' said Logan.  'She is a truly
+remarkable woman.  She and her husband, they are cousins, are members of
+an ancient family, our hereditary retainers.  One of them, Laird Bower,
+was our old conspirator's go-between in the plot to kidnap the king, of
+which you have heard so much.  Though he was an aged and ignorant man, he
+kept the secret so well that our ancestor was never even suspected, till
+his letters came to light after his death, and after Laird Bower's death
+too, luckily for both of them.  So you see we can depend on it that this
+pair of domestics, and their family, were not concerned in this new
+abomination; so far, the robbery was not from within.'
+
+'I am glad to hear that,' said Merton.  'I had invented a theory, too
+stupid to repeat, and entirely demolished by the footmarks in the snow, a
+theory which hypothetically implicated your old housekeeper.  To be sure
+it did not throw any doubt on her loyalty to the house, quite the
+reverse.'
+
+'What was your theory?'
+
+'Oh, too silly for words; that the marquis had been only in a trance, had
+come to himself when alone with the old lady, who, the doctor said, was
+watching in the room, and had stolen away, to see how you would conduct
+yourself.  Childish hypothesis!  The obvious one, body-snatching, is
+correct.  This is very good port.'
+
+'If things had been as you thought possible, Jean Bower was not the woman
+to balk the marquis,' said Logan.  'But you must see her and hear her
+tell her own story.'
+
+'Gladly,' said Merton, 'but first tell me yours.'
+
+'When I arrived I found the poor old gentleman unconscious.  Dr. Douglas
+was in attendance.  About noon he pronounced life extinct.  Mrs. Bower
+watched, or "waked" the corpse.  I left her with it about midnight, as I
+told you; about four in the morning she aroused me with the news that the
+body had vanished.  What I did after that you know.  Now you had better
+hear the story from herself.'
+
+Logan rang a handbell, there were no other bells in the keep, and asked
+the old serving-man, when he came, to send in Mrs. Bower.
+
+She entered, a very aged woman, dressed in deep mourning.  She was tall,
+her hair of an absolutely pure white, her aquiline face was drawn, her
+cheeks hollow, her mouth almost toothless.  She made a deep courtesy,
+repeating it when Logan introduced 'my friend, Mr. Merton.'
+
+'Mrs. Bower,' Logan said, 'Mr. Merton is my oldest friend, and the
+marquis saw him in London, and consulted him on private business a few
+days ago.  He wishes to hear you tell what you saw the night before
+last.'
+
+'Maybe, as the gentleman is English, he'll hardly understand me, my lord.
+I have a landward tongue,' said Mrs. Bower.
+
+'I can interpret if Mr. Merton is puzzled, Mrs. Bower, but I think he
+will understand better if we go to the laird's chamber.'
+
+Logan took two lighted candles, handing two to Merton, and the old woman
+led them upstairs to a room which occupied the whole front of the ancient
+'peel,' or square tower, round which the rest of the house was built.  The
+room was nearly bare of furniture, except for an old chair or two, a
+bureau, and a great old bed of state, facing the narrow deep window, and
+standing on a kind of dais, or platform of three steps.  The heavy old
+green curtains were drawn all round it.  Mrs. Bower opened them at the
+front and sides.  At the back against the wall the curtains, embroidered
+with the arms of Restalrig, remained closed.
+
+'I sat here all the night,' said Mrs. Bower, 'watching the corp that my
+hands had streikit.  The candles were burning a' about him, the saut lay
+on his breast, only aefold o' linen covered him.  My back was to the
+window, my face to his feet.  I was crooning the auld dirgie; if it does
+nae guid, it does nae harm.'  She recited in a monotone:
+
+   'When thou frae here away art past--
+      Every nicht and all--
+   To Whinny-muir thou comest at last,
+      And Christ receive thy saul.
+
+   'If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon--
+      Every nicht and all--
+   Sit thee down and put them on,
+      And Christ receive thy saul
+
+'Alas, he never gave nane, puir man,' said the woman with a sob.
+
+At this moment the door of the chamber slowly opened.  The woman turned
+and gazed at it, frowning, her lips wide apart.
+
+Logan went to the door, looked into the passage, closed the door and
+locked it; the key had to be turned twice, in the old fashion, and worked
+with a creaking jar.
+
+'I had crooned thae last words,
+
+   And Christ receive thy saul,
+
+when the door opened, as ye saw it did the now.  It is weel kenned that a
+corp canna lie still in a room with the door hafflins open.  I rose to
+lock it, the catch is crazy.  I was backing to the door, with my face to
+the feet o' the corp.  I saw them move backwards, slow they moved, and my
+heart stood still in my breist.  Then I saw'--here she stepped to the
+head of the bed and drew apart the curtains, which opened in the
+middle--'I saw the curtain was open, and naething but blackness ahint it.
+Ye see, my Lord, ahint the bed-heid is the entrance o' the auld secret
+passage.  The stanes hae lang syne fallen in, and closed it, but my Lord
+never would have the hole wa'ed up.  "There's nae draught, Jean, or nane
+to mention, and I never was wastefu' in needless repairs," he aye said.
+Weel, when I looked that way, his face, down to the chafts, was within
+the blackness, and aye draw, drawing further ben.  Then, I shame to say
+it, a sair dwawm cam ower me, I gae a bit chokit cry, and I kenned nae
+mair till I cam to mysel, a' the candles were out, and the chamber was
+mirk and lown.  I heard the skirl o' a passing train, and I crap to the
+bed, and the skirl kind o' reminded me o' living folk, and I felt a' ower
+the bed wi' my hands.  There was nae corp.  Ye ken that the Enemy has
+power, when a corp lies in a room, and the door is hafflins closed.
+Whiles they sit up, and grin and yammer.  I hae kenned that.  Weel, how
+long I had lain in the dwawm I canna say.  The train that skirled maun
+hae been a coal train that rins by about half-past three in the morning.
+There was a styme o' licht that streeled in at the open door, frae a
+candle your lordship set on a table in the lobby; the auld lord would hae
+nae lichts in the house after the ten hours.  Sae I got to the door, and
+grippit to the candle, and flew off to your lordship's room, and the rest
+ye ken.'
+
+'Thank you, very much, Mrs. Bower,' said Logan.  'You quite understand,
+Merton, don't you?'
+
+'I thoroughly understand your story, Mrs. Bower,' said Merton.
+
+'We need not keep you any longer, Mrs. Bower,' said Logan.  'Nobody need
+sit up for us; you must be terribly fatigued.'
+
+'You wunna forget to rake out the ha' fire, my lord?' said the old lady,
+'I wush your Lordship a sound sleep, and you, sir,' so she curtsied and
+went, Logan unlocking the door.
+
+'And I was in London this morning!' said Merton, drawing a long breath.
+
+'You're over Tweed, now, old man,' answered Logan, with patriotic
+satisfaction.
+
+'Don't go yet,' said Merton.  'You examined the carpet of the room; no
+traces there of these odd muffled foot-coverings you found in the snow?'
+
+'Not a trace of any kind.  The salt was spilt, some of it lay on the
+floor.  The plate was not broken.'
+
+'If they came in, it would be barefoot,' said Merton.
+
+'Of course the police left traces of official boots,' said Logan.  'Where
+are they now--the policemen, I mean?'
+
+'Two are to sleep in the kitchen.'
+
+'They found out nothing?'
+
+'Of course not.'
+
+'Let me look at the hole in the wall.'  Merton climbed on to the bed and
+entered the hole.  It was about six feet long by four wide.  Stones had
+fallen in, at the back, and had closed the passage in a rough way, indeed
+what extent of the floor of the passage existed was huddled with stones.
+Merton examined the sides of the passage, which were mere rubble.
+
+'Have you looked at the floor beneath those fallen stones?' Merton asked.
+
+'No, by Jove, I never thought of that,' said Logan.
+
+'How could they have been stirred without the old woman hearing the
+noise?'
+
+'How do you know they were there before the marquis's death?' asked
+Merton, adding, 'this hole was not swept and dusted regularly.  Either
+the entrance is beneath me, or--"the Enemy had power"--as Mrs. Bower
+says.'
+
+'You must be right,' said Logan.  'I'll have the stones removed
+to-morrow.  The thing is clear.  The passage leads to somewhere outside
+of the house.  There's an abandoned coal mine hard by, on the east.
+Nothing can be simpler.'
+
+'When once you see it,' said Merton.
+
+'Come and have a whisky and soda,' said Logan.
+
+
+
+III.  A Romance of Bradshaw
+
+
+Merton slept very well in the turret room.  He was aroused early by
+noises which he interpreted as caused by the arrival of the London
+detectives.  But he only turned round, like the sluggard, and slumbered
+till Logan aroused him at eight o'clock.  He descended about a quarter to
+nine, breakfast was at nine, and he found Logan looking much disturbed.
+
+'They don't waste time,' said Logan, handing to Merton a letter in an
+opened envelope.  Logan's hand trembled.
+
+'Typewritten address, London postmark,' said Merton.  'To Robert Logan,
+Esq., at Kirkburn Keep, Drem, Scotland.'
+
+Merton read the letter aloud; there was no date of place, but there were
+the words:
+
+   'March 6, 2.45 P.M.
+   'SIR,--Perhaps I ought to say my Lord--'
+
+'What a fool the fellow is,' said Merton.
+
+'Why?'
+
+'Shows he is an educated man.'
+
+   'You may obtain news as to the mortal remains of your kinsman, the
+   late Marquis of Restalrig, and as to his Will, by walking in the
+   Burlington Arcade on March 11, between the hours of three and half-
+   past three p.m.  You must be attired in full mourning costume,
+   carrying a glove in your left hand, and a black cane, with a silver
+   top, in your right.  A lady will drop her purse beside you.  You will
+   accost her.'
+
+Here the letter, which was typewritten, ended.
+
+'You won't?' said Merton.  'Never meet a black-mailer halfway.'
+
+'I wouldn't,' said Logan.  'But look here!'
+
+He gave Merton another letter, in outward respect exactly similar to the
+first, except that the figure 2 was typewritten in the left corner.  The
+letter ran thus:
+
+   'March 6, 4.25 p.m.
+
+   'SIR,--I regret to have to trouble you with a second communication,
+   but my former letter was posted before a change occurred in the
+   circumstances.  You will be pleased to hear that I have no longer the
+   affliction of speaking of your noble kinsman as "_the late_ Marquis of
+   Restalrig."'
+
+'Oh my prophetic soul!' said Merton, 'I guessed at first that he was not
+dead after all!  Only catalepsy.'  He went on reading: 'His Lordship
+recovered consciousness in circumstances which I shall not pain you by
+describing.  He is now doing as well as can be expected, and may have
+several years of useful life before him.  I need not point out to you
+that the conditions of the negotiation are now greatly altered.  On the
+one hand, my partners and myself may seem to occupy the position of
+players who work a double ruff at whist.  We are open to the marquis's
+offers for release, and to yours for his eternal absence from the scene
+of life and enjoyment.  But it is by no means impossible that you may
+have scruples about outbidding your kinsman, especially as, if you did,
+you would, by the very fact, become subject to perpetual "black-mailing"
+at our hands.  I speak plainly, as one man of the world to another.  It
+is also a drawback to our position that you could attain your ends
+without blame or scandal (your ends being, of course, if the law so
+determines, immediate succession to the property of the marquis), by
+merely pushing us, with the aid of the police, to a fatal extreme.  We
+are, therefore reluctantly obliged to conclude that we cannot put the
+marquis's life up to auction between you and him, as my partners, in the
+first flush of triumph, had conceived.  But any movement on your side
+against us will be met in such a way that the consequences, both to
+yourself and your kinsman, will prove to the last degree prejudicial.  For
+the rest, the arrangements specified in my earlier note of this instant
+(dated 2.45 P. M.) remain in force.'
+
+Merton returned the letter to Logan.  Their faces were almost equally
+blank.
+
+'Let me think!' said Merton.  He turned, and walked to the window.  Logan
+re-read the letters and waited.  Presently Merton came back to the
+fireside.  'You see, after all, this resolves itself into the ordinary
+dilemma of brigandage.  We do not want to pay ransom, enormous ransom
+probably, if we can rescue the marquis, and destroy the gang.  But the
+marquis himself--'
+
+'Oh, _he_ would never offer terms that they would accept,' said Logan,
+with conviction.  'But I would stick at no ransom, of course.'
+
+'But suppose that I see a way of defeating the scoundrels, would you let
+me risk it?'
+
+'If you neither imperil yourself nor him too much.'
+
+'Never mind me, I like it.  And, as for him, they will be very loth to
+destroy their winning card.'
+
+'You'll be cautious?'
+
+'Naturally, but, as this place and the stations are sure to be watched,
+as the trains are slow, local, and inconvenient, and as, thanks to the
+economy of the marquis, you have no horses, it will be horribly difficult
+for me to leave the house and get to London and to work without their
+spotting me.  It is absolutely essential to my scheme that I should not
+be known to be in town, and that I should be supposed to be here.  I'll
+think it out.  In the meantime we must do what we can to throw dust in
+the eyes of the enemy.  Wire an identical advertisement to all the London
+papers; I'll write it.'
+
+Merton went to a table on which lay some writing materials, and wrote:--
+
+   'BURLINGTON ARCADE.  SILVER-TOPPED EBONY STICK.  Any offer made by the
+   other party will be doubled on receipt of that consignment uninjured.
+   Will meet the lady.  Traps shall be kept here till after the date you
+   mention.  CHURCH BROOK.'
+
+'Now,' said Merton, 'he will see that Church Brook is Kirkburn, and that
+you will be liberal.  And he will understand that the detectives are not
+to return to London.  You did not show them the letters?'
+
+'Of course not till you saw them, and I won't.'
+
+'And, if nothing can be done before the eleventh, why you must promenade
+in the Burlington Arcade.'
+
+'You see one weak point in your offers, don't you?'
+
+'Which?'
+
+'Why, suppose they do release the marquis, how am I to get the money to
+pay double his offer?  He won't stump up and recoup me.'
+
+Merton laughed.  'We must risk it,' he said.  'And, in the changed
+circumstances, the tin might be raised on a post-obit.  But _he_ won't
+bid high; you may double safely enough.'
+
+On considering these ideas Logan looked relieved.  'Now,' he asked,
+'about your plan; is it following the emu's feather?'
+
+Merton nodded.  'But I must do it alone.  The detectives must stay here.
+Now if I leave, dressed as I am, by the 10.49, I'll be tracked all the
+way.  Is there anybody in the country whom you can absolutely trust?'
+
+'Yes, there's Bower, the gardener, the son of these two feudal survivals,
+and there is _his_ son.'
+
+'What is young Bower?'
+
+'A miner in the collieries; the mine is near the house.'
+
+'Is he about my size?  Have you seen him?'
+
+'I saw him last night; he was one of the watchers.'
+
+'Is he near my size?'
+
+'A trifle broader, otherwise near enough.'
+
+'What luck!' said Merton, adding, 'well, I can't start by the 10.49.  I'm
+ill.  I'm in bed.  Order my breakfast in bed, send Mrs. Bower, and come
+up with her yourself.'
+
+Merton rushed up the turnpike stair; in two minutes he was undressed, and
+between the sheets.  There he lay, reading Bradshaw, pages 670, 671.
+
+Presently there was a knock at the door, and Logan entered, followed by
+Mrs. Bower with the breakfast tray.
+
+Merton addressed her at once.
+
+'Mrs. Bower, we know that we can trust you absolutely.'
+
+'To the death, sir--me and mine.'
+
+'Well, I am not ill, but people must think I am ill.  Is your grandson on
+the night shift or the day shift?'
+
+'Laird is on the day shift, sir.'
+
+'When does he leave his work?'
+
+'About six, sir.'
+
+'That is good.  As soon as he appears--'
+
+'I'll wait for him at the pit's mouth, sir.'
+
+'Thank you.  You will take him to his house; he lives with your son?'
+
+'Yes, sir, with his father.'
+
+'Make him change his working clothes--but he need not wash his face
+much--and bring him here.  Mr. Logan, I mean Lord Fastcastle, will want
+him.  Now, Mrs. Bower--you see I trust you absolutely--what he is wanted
+for is _this_.  I shall dress in your grandson's clothes, I shall blacken
+my hands and face slightly, and I must get to Drem.  Have I time to reach
+the station by ten minutes past seven?'
+
+'By fast walking, sir.'
+
+'Mr. Logan and your grandson--your grandson in my clothes--will walk
+later to your son's house, as they find a chance, unobserved, say about
+eleven at night.  They will stay there for some time.  Then they will be
+joined by some of the police, who will accompany Mr. Logan home again.
+Your grandson will go to his work as usual in the morning.  That is all.
+You quite understand?  You have nothing to do but to bring your grandson
+here, dressed as I said, as soon as he leaves his work.  Oh, wait a
+moment!  Is your grandson a teetotaller?'
+
+'He's like the other lads, sir.'
+
+'All the better.  Does he smoke?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Then pray bring me a pipe of his and some of his tobacco.  And, ah yes,
+does he possess such a thing as an old greatcoat?'
+
+'His auld ane's sair worn, sir.'
+
+'Never mind, he had better walk up in it.  He has a better one?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'I think that is all,' said Merton.  'You understand, Mrs. Bower, that I
+am going away dressed as your grandson, while your grandson, dressed as
+myself, returns to his house to-night, and to work to-morrow.  But it is
+not to be known that I _have_ gone away.  I am to be supposed ill in bed
+here for a day or two.  You will bring my meals into the room at the
+usual hours, and Logan--of course you can trust Dr. Douglas?'
+
+'I do.'
+
+'Then he had better be summoned to my sick bed here to-morrow.  I may be
+so ill that he will have to call twice.  That will keep up the belief
+that I am here.'
+
+'Good idea,' said Logan, as the old woman left the room.  'What had I
+better do now?'
+
+'Oh, send your telegrams--the advertisements--to the London papers.  They
+can go by the trap you ordered for me, that I am too ill to go in.  Then
+you will have to interview the detectives, take them into the laird's
+chamber, and, if they start my theory about the secret entrance being
+under the fallen stones, let them work away at removing them.  If they
+don't start it, put them up to it; anything to keep them employed and
+prevent them from asking questions in the villages.'
+
+'But, Merton, I understand your leaving in disguise; still, why go first
+to Edinburgh?'
+
+'The trains from your station to town do not fit.  You can look.'  And
+Merton threw Bradshaw to Logan, who caught it neatly.
+
+When he had satisfied himself, Logan said, 'The shops will be closed in
+Edinburgh, it will be after eight when you arrive.  How will you manage
+about getting into decent clothes?'
+
+'I have my idea; but, as soon as you can get rid of the detectives, come
+back here; I want you to coach me in broad Scots words and pronunciation.
+I shall concoct imaginary dialogues.  I say, this is great fun.'
+
+'Dod, man, aw 'm the lad that'll lairn ye the pronoonciation,' said
+Logan, and he was going.
+
+'Wait,' said Merton, 'sign me a paper giving me leave to treat about the
+ransom.  And promise that, if I don't reappear by the eleventh, you won't
+negotiate at all.'
+
+'Not likely I will,' said Logan.
+
+Merton lay in bed inventing imaginary dialogues to be rendered into Scots
+as occasion served.  Presently Logan brought him a little book named
+_Mansie Waugh_.
+
+'That is our lingo here,' he said; and Merton studied the work carefully,
+marking some phrases with a pencil.
+
+In about an hour Logan reported that the detectives were at work in the
+secret passage.  The lesson in the Scots of the Lothians began,
+accompanied by sounds of muffled laughter.  Not for two or three
+centuries can the turret chamber at Kirkburn have heard so much
+merriment.
+
+The afternoon passed in this course of instruction.  Merton was a fairly
+good mimic, and Logan felt at last that he could not readily be detected
+for an Englishman.  Six o'clock had scarcely struck when Mrs. Bower's
+grandson was ushered into the bedroom.  The exchange of clothes took
+place, Merton dressing as the young Bower undressed.  The detectives, who
+had found nothing, were being entertained by Mrs. Bower at dinner.
+
+'I know how the trap in the secret passage is worked,' said Merton, 'but
+you keep them hunting for it.'
+
+Had the worthy detectives been within earshot the yells of laughter
+echoing in the turret as the men dressed must have suggested strange
+theories to their imaginations.
+
+'Larks!' said Merton, as he blackened his face with coal dust.
+
+Dismissing young Bower, who was told to wait in the hall, Merton made his
+final arrangements.  'You will communicate with me under cover to
+Trevor,' he said.  He took a curious mediaeval ring that he always wore
+from his ringer, and tied it to a piece of string, which he hung round
+his neck, tucking all under his shirt.  Then he arranged his thick
+comforter so as to hide the back of his head and neck (he had bitten his
+nails and blackened them with coal).
+
+'Logan, I only want a bottle of whisky, the cork drawn and loose in the
+bottle, and a few dirty Scotch one pound notes; and, oh! has Mrs. Bower a
+pack of cards?'
+
+Having been supplied with these properties, and said farewell to Logan,
+Merton stole downstairs, walked round the house, entered the kitchen by
+the back door, and said to Mrs. Bower, 'Grannie, I maun be ganging.'
+
+'My grandson, gentlemen,' said Mrs. Bower to the detectives.  Then to her
+grandson, she remarked, 'Hae, there's a jeely piece for you'; and Merton,
+munching a round of bread covered with jam, walked down the steep avenue.
+He knew the house he was to enter, the gardener's lodge, and also that he
+was to approach it by the back way, and go in at the back door.  The
+inmates expected him and understood the scheme; presently he went out by
+the door into the village street, still munching at his round of bread.
+
+To such lads and lassies as hailed him in the waning light he replied
+gruffly, explaining that he had 'a sair hoast,' that is, a bad cough,
+from which he had observed that young Bower was suffering.  He was soon
+outside of the village, and walking at top speed towards the station.
+Several times he paused, in shadowy corners of the hedges, and listened.
+There was no sound of pursuing feet.  He was not being followed, but, of
+course, he might be dogged at the station.  The enemy would have their
+spies there: if they had them in the village his disguise had deceived
+them.  He ran, whenever no passer-by was in sight; through the villages
+he walked, whistling 'Wull ye no come back again!'  He reached the
+station with three minutes to spare, took a third-class ticket, and went
+on to the platform.  Several people were waiting, among them four or five
+rough-looking miners, probably spies.  He strolled towards the end of the
+platform, and when the train entered, leaped into a third-class carriage
+which was nearly full.  Turning at the door, he saw the rough customers
+making for the same carriage.  'Come on,' cried Merton, with a slight
+touch of intoxication in his voice; 'come on billies, a' freens here!'
+and he cast a glance of affection behind him at the other occupants of
+the carriage.  The roughs pressed in.
+
+'I won't have it,' cried a testy old gentleman, who was economically
+travelling by third-class, 'there are only three seats vacant.  The rest
+of the train is nearly empty.  Hi, guard! station-master, hi!'
+
+'A' _freens_ here,' repeated Merton stolidly, taking his whisky bottle
+from his greatcoat pocket.  Two of the roughs had entered, but the guard
+persuaded the other two that they must bestow themselves elsewhere.  The
+old gentleman glared at Merton, who was standing up, the cork of the
+bottle between his teeth, as the train began to move.  He staggered and
+fell back into his seat.
+
+   'We are na fou, we're no _that_ fou,'
+
+Merton chanted, directing his speech to the old gentleman,
+
+   'But just a wee drap in oor 'ee!'
+
+'The curse of Scotland,' muttered the old gentleman, whether with
+reference to alcohol or to Robert Burns, is uncertain.
+
+'The Curse o' Scotland,' said Merton, 'that's the nine o' diamonds.  I
+hae the cairts on me, maybe ye'd take a hand, sir, at Beggar ma Neebour,
+or Catch the Ten?  Ye needna be feared, a can pay gin I lose.'  He
+dragged out his cards, and a handful of silver.
+
+The rough customers between whom Merton was sitting began to laugh
+hoarsely.  The old gentleman frowned.
+
+'I shall change my carriage at the next station,' he said, 'and I shall
+report you for gambling.'
+
+'A' freens!' said Merton, as if horrified by the austere reception of his
+cordial advances.  'Wha's gaumlin'?  We mauna play, billies, till he's
+gane.  An unco pernicketty auld carl, thon ane,' he remarked, _sotto
+voce_.  'But there's naething in the Company's by-laws again
+refraishments,' Merton added.  He uncorked his bottle, made a pretence of
+sucking at it, and passed it to his neighbours, the rough customers.  They
+imbibed with freedom.
+
+The carriage was very dark, the lamp 'moved like a moon in a wane,' as
+Merton might have quoted in happier circumstances.  The rough customers
+glared at him, but his cap had a peak, and he wore his comforter high.
+
+'Man, ye're the kind o' lad I like,' said one of the rough customers.
+
+'A' freens!' said Merton, again applying himself to the bottle, and
+passing it.  'Ony ither gentleman tak' a sook?' asked Merton, including
+all the passengers in his hospitable glance.  'Nane o' ye dry?
+
+         'Oh! fill yer ain glass,
+         And let the jug pass,
+   Hoo d'ye ken but yer neighbour's dry?'
+
+Merton carolled.
+
+'Thon's no a Scotch lilt,' remarked one of the roughs.
+
+'A ken it's Irish,' said Merton.  'But, billie, the whusky's Scotch!'
+
+The train slowed and the old gentleman got out.  From the platform he
+stormed at Merton.
+
+'Ye're no an awakened character, ma freend,' answered Merton.  'Gude
+nicht to ye!  Gie ma love to the gude wife and the weans!'
+
+The train pursued her course.
+
+'Aw 'm saying, billie, aw 'm saying,' remarked one of the roughs,
+thrusting his dirty beard into Merton's face.
+
+'Weel, _be_ saying,' said Merton.
+
+'You're no Lairdie Bower, ye ken, ye haena the neb o' him.'
+
+'And wha the deil said a _was_ Lairdie Bower?  Aw 'm a Lanerick man.
+Lairdie's at hame wi' a sair hoast,' answered Merton.
+
+'But ye're wearing Lairdie Bower's auld big coat.'
+
+'And what for no?  Lairdie has anither coat, a brawer yin, and he lent me
+the auld yin because the nichts is cauld, and I hae a hoast ma'sel!  Div
+_ye_ ken Lairdie Bower?  I've been wi' his auld faither and the lasses
+half the day, but speakin's awfu' dry work.'
+
+Here Merton repeated the bottle trick, and showed symptoms of going to
+sleep, his head rolling on to the shoulder of the rough.
+
+'Haud up, man!' said the rough, withdrawing the support.
+
+'A' freens here,' remarked Merton, drawing a dirty clay pipe from his
+pocket.  'Hae ye a spunk?'
+
+The rough provided him with a match, and he killed some time, while
+Preston Pans was passed, in filling and lighting his pipe.
+
+'Ye're a Lanerick man?' asked the inquiring rough.
+
+'Ay, a Hamilton frae Moss End.  But I'm taking the play.  Ma auld tittie
+has dee'd and left me some siller,' Merton dragged a handful of dirty
+notes out of his trousers pocket.  'I've been to see the auld Bowers, but
+Lairdie was on the shift.'
+
+'And ye're ganging to Embro?'
+
+   'When we cam' into Embro Toon
+      We were a seemly sicht to see;
+   Ma luve was in the--
+
+I dinna mind what ma luve was in--
+
+   'And I ma'sel in cramoisie,'
+
+sang Merton, who had the greatest fear of being asked local questions
+about Moss End and Motherwell.  'I dinna ken what cramoisie is, ma'sel','
+he added.  'Hae a drink!'
+
+'Man, ye're a bonny singer,' said the rough, who, hitherto, had taken no
+hand in the conversation.
+
+'Ma faither was a precentor,' said Merton, and so, in fact, Mr. Merton
+_pere_ had, for a short time, been--of Salisbury Cathedral.
+
+They were approaching Portobello, where Merton rushed to the window,
+thrust half of his body out and indulged in the raucous and meaningless
+yells of the festive artisan.  Thus he tided over a rather prolonged
+wait, but, when the train moved on, the inquiring rough returned to the
+charge.  He was suspicious, and also was drunk, and obstinate with all
+the brainless obstinacy of intoxication.
+
+'Aw 'm sayin',' he remarked to Merton, 'you're no Lairdie Bower.'
+
+'Hear till the man!  Aw 'm Tammy Hamilton, o' Moss End in Lanerick.  Aw
+'m ganging to see ma Jean.
+
+         'For day or night
+         Ma fancy's flight
+      Is ever wi' ma Jean--
+   Ma bonny, bonny, flat-footed Jean,'
+
+sang Merton, gliding from the strains of Robert Burns into those of Mr.
+Boothby.  'Jean's a Lanerick wumman,' he added, 'she's in service in the
+Pleasance.  Aw 'm ganging to my Jo.  Ye'll a' hae Jos, billies?'
+
+'Aw 'm sayin',' the intoxicated rough persisted, 'ye're no a Lanerick
+man.  Ye're the English gentleman birkie that cam' to Kirkburn yestreen.
+Or else ye're ane o' the polis' (police).
+
+'_Me_ ane o' the polis!  Aw 'm askin' the company, _div_ a look like a
+polisman?  _Div_ a look like an English birkie, or ane o' the gentry?'
+
+The other passengers, decent people, thus appealed to, murmured
+negatives, and shook their heads.  Merton certainly did not resemble a
+policeman, an Englishman, or a gentleman.
+
+'Ye see naebody lippens to ye,' Merton went on.  'Man, if we were na a'
+freens, a wad gie ye a jaud atween yer twa een!  But ye've been drinking.
+Tak anither sook!'
+
+The rough did not reject the conciliatory offer.
+
+'The whiskey's low,' said Merton, holding up the bottle to the light,
+'but there's mair at Embro' station.'
+
+They were now drawing up at the station.  Merton floundered out, threw
+his arms round the necks of each of the roughs, yelled to their
+companions in the next carriage to follow, and staggered into the third-
+class refreshment room.  Here he leaned against the counter and feebly
+ogled the attendant nymph.
+
+'Ma lonny bassie, a mean ma bonny lassie,' he said, 'gie's five gills,
+five o' the Auld Kirk' (whisky).
+
+'Hoots man!' he heard one of the roughs remark to another.  'This falla's
+no the English birkie.  English he canna be.'
+
+'But aiblins he's ane o' oor ain polis,' said the man of suspicions.
+
+'Nane o' oor polis has the gumption; and him as fou as a fiddler.'
+
+Merton, waving his glass, swallowed its contents at three gulps.  He then
+fell on the floor, scrambled to his feet, tumbled out, and dashed his own
+whisky bottle through the window of the refreshment room.
+
+'Me ane o' the polis!' he yelled, and was staggering towards the exit,
+when he was collared by two policemen, attracted by the noise.  He
+embraced one of them, murmuring 'ma bonny Jean!' and then doubled up, his
+head lolling on his shoulder.  His legs and arms jerked convulsively, and
+he had at last to be carried off, in the manner known as 'The Frog's
+March,' by four members of the force.  The roughs followed, like chief
+mourners, Merton thought, at the head of the attendant crowd.
+
+'There's an end o' your clash about the English gentleman,' Merton heard
+the quieter of his late companions observe to the obstinate inquirer.
+'But he's a bonny singer.  And noo, wull ye tell me hoo we're to win back
+to Drem the nicht?'
+
+'Dod, we'll make a nicht o't,' said the other, as Merton was carried into
+the police-station.
+
+He permitted himself to be lifted into one of the cells, and then
+remarked, in the most silvery tones:
+
+'Very many thanks, my good men.  I need not give you any more trouble,
+except by asking you, if possible, to get me some hot water and soap, and
+to invite the inspector to favour me with his company.'
+
+The men nearly dropped Merton, but, finding his feet, he stood up and
+smiled blandly.
+
+'Pray make no apologies,' he said.  'It is rather I who ought to
+apologise.'
+
+'He's no drucken, and he's no Scotch,' remarked one of the policemen.
+
+'But he'll pass the nicht here, and maybe apologise to the Baillie in the
+morning,' said another.
+
+'Oh, pardon me, you mistake me,' said Merton.  'This is not a stupid
+practical joke.'
+
+'It's no a very gude ane,' said the policeman.
+
+Merton took out a handful of gold.  'I wish to pay for the broken window
+at once,' he said.  'It was a necessary part of the _mise en scene_, of
+the stage effect, you know.  To call your attention.'
+
+'Ye'll settle wi' the Baillie in the morning,' said the policeman.
+
+Things were looking untoward.
+
+'Look here,' said Merton, 'I quite understand your point of view, it does
+credit to your intelligence.  You take me for an English tourist,
+behaving as I have done by way of a joke, or for a bet?'
+
+'That's it, sir,' said the spokesman.
+
+'Well, it does look like that.  But which of you is the senior officer
+here?'
+
+'Me, sir,' said the last speaker.
+
+'Very well, if you can be so kind as to call the officer in charge of the
+station, or even one of senior standing--the higher the better--I can
+satisfy him as to my identity, and as to my reasons for behaving as I
+have done.  I assure you that it is a matter of the very gravest
+importance.  If the inspector, when he has seen me, permits, I have no
+objections to you, or to all of you hearing what I have to say.  But you
+will understand that this is a matter for his own discretion.  If I were
+merely playing the fool, you must see that I have nothing to gain by
+giving additional annoyance and offence.'
+
+'Very well, sir, I will bring the officer in charge,' said the policeman.
+
+'Just tell him about my arrest and so on,' said Merton.
+
+In a few minutes he returned with his superior.
+
+'Well, my man, what's a' this aboot?' said that officer sternly.
+
+'If you can give me an interview, alone, for five minutes, I shall
+enlighten you,' said Merton.
+
+The officer was a huge and stalwart man.  He threw his eye over Merton.
+'Wait in the yaird,' he said to his minions, who retreated rather
+reluctantly.  'Weel, speak up,' said the officer.
+
+'It is the body snatching case at Kirkburn,' said Merton.
+
+'Do ye mean that ye're an English detective?'
+
+'No, merely a friend of Mr. Logan's who left Kirkburn this evening.  I
+have business to do for him in London in connection with the
+case--business that nobody can do but myself--and the house was watched.
+I escaped in the disguise which you see me wearing, and had to throw off
+a gang of ruffians that accompanied me in the train by pretending to be
+drunk.  I could only shake them off and destroy the suspicions which they
+expressed by getting arrested.'
+
+'It's a queer story,' said the policeman.
+
+'It _is_ a queer story, but, speaking without knowledge, I think your
+best plan is to summon the chief of your detective department, I need his
+assistance.  And I can prove my identity to him--to _you_, if you like,
+but you know best what is official etiquette.'
+
+'I'll telephone for him, sir.'
+
+'You are very obliging.  All this is confidential, you know.  Expense is
+no object to Mr. Logan, and he will not be ungrateful if strict secrecy
+is preserved.  But, of all things, I want a wash.'
+
+'All right, sir,' said the policeman, and in a few minutes Merton's head,
+hands, and neck, were restored to their pristine propriety.
+
+'No more kailyard talk for me,' he thought, with satisfaction.
+
+The head of the detective department arrived in no long time.  He was in
+evening dress.  Merton rose and bowed.
+
+'What's your story, sir?' the chief asked; 'it has brought me from a
+dinner party at my own house.'
+
+'I deeply regret it,' said Merton, 'though, for my purpose, it is the
+merest providence.'
+
+'What do you mean, sir?'
+
+'Your subordinate has doubtless told you all that I told him?'
+
+The chief nodded.
+
+'Do you--I mean as an official--believe me?'
+
+'I would be glad of proof of your personal identity.'
+
+'That is easily given.  You may know Mr. Lumley, the Professor of
+Toxicology in the University here?'
+
+'I have met him often on matters of our business.'
+
+'He is an old college friend of mine, and can remove any doubts you may
+entertain.  His wife is a tall woman luckily,' added Merton to himself,
+much to the chief's bewilderment.
+
+'Mr. Lumley's word would quite satisfy me,' said the chief.
+
+'Very well, pray lend me your attention.  This affair--'
+
+'The body snatching at Kirkburn?' asked the chief.
+
+'Exactly,' said Merton.  'This affair is very well organised.  Your house
+is probably being observed.  Now what I propose is _this_.  I can go
+nowhere dressed as I am.  You will, if you please, first send a
+constable, in uniform, to your house with orders to wait till you return.
+Next, I shall dress, by your permission, in any spare uniform you may
+have here and in that costume I shall leave this office and accompany you
+to your house in a closed cab.  You will enter it, bring out a hat and
+cloak, come into the cab, and I shall put them on, leaving my policeman's
+helmet in the cab, which will wait.  Then, minutes later, the constable
+will come out, take the cab, and drive to any police office you please.
+Once within your house, I shall exchange my uniform for any old evening
+suit you may be able to lend me, and, when your guests have departed, you
+and I will drive together to Professor Lumley's, where he will identify
+me.  After that, my course is perfectly clear, and I need give you no
+further trouble.'
+
+'It is too complicated, sir,' said the chief, smiling.  'I don't know
+your name?'
+
+'Merton,' said our hero, 'and yours?'
+
+'Macnab.  I can lend you a plain suit of morning clothes from here, and
+we don't want the stratagem of the constable.  You don't even need the
+extra trouble of putting on evening dress in my house.'
+
+'How very fortunate,' said Merton, and in a quarter of an hour he was
+attired as a simple citizen, and was driving to the house of Mr. Macnab.
+Here he was merely introduced to the guests--it was a men's party--as a
+gentleman from England on business.  The guests had too much tact to
+tarry long, and by eleven o'clock the chief and Merton were ringing at
+the door bell of Professor Lumley.  The servant knew both of them, and
+ushered them into the professor's study.  He was reading examination
+papers.  Mrs. Lumley had not returned from a party.  Lumley greeted
+Merton warmly.
+
+'I am passing through Edinburgh, and thought I might find you at home,'
+Merton said.
+
+'Mr. Macnab,' said Lumley, shaking hands with the chief, 'you have not
+taken my friend into custody?'
+
+'No, professor; Mr. Merton will tell you that he is released, and I'll be
+going home.'
+
+'You won't stop and smoke?'
+
+'No, I should be _de trop_,' answered the chief; 'good night, professor;
+good night, Mr. Merton.'
+
+'But the broken window?'
+
+'Oh, we'll settle that, and let you have the bill.'
+
+Merton gave his club address, and the chief shook hands and departed.
+
+'Now, what _have_ you been doing, Merton?' asked Lumley.
+
+Merton briefly explained the whole set of circumstances, and added, 'Now,
+Lumley, you are my sole hope.  You can give me a bed to-night?'
+
+'With all the pleasure in the world.'
+
+'And lend me a set of Mrs. Lumley's raiment and a lady's portmanteau?'
+
+'Are you quite mad?'
+
+'No, but I must get to London undiscovered, and, for certain reasons,
+with which I need not trouble you, that is absolutely the only possible
+way.  You remember, at Oxford, I made up fairly well for female parts.'
+
+'Is there absolutely no other way?'
+
+'None, I have tried every conceivable plan, mentally.  Mourning is best,
+and a veil.'
+
+At this moment Mrs. Lumley's cab was heard, returning from her party.
+
+'Run down and break it to Mrs. Lumley,' said Merton.  'Luckily we have
+often acted together.'
+
+'Luckily you are a favourite of hers,' said Lumley.
+
+In ten minutes the pair entered the study.  Mrs. Lumley, a tall lady, as
+Merton had said, came in, laughing and blushing.
+
+'I shall drive with you myself to the train.  My maid must be in the
+secret,' she said.
+
+'She is an old acquaintance of mine,' said Merton.  'But I think you had
+better not come with me to the station.  Nobody is likely to see me,
+leaving your house about nine, with my veil down.  But, if any one _does_
+see me, he must take me for you.'
+
+'Oh, it is I who am running up to town incognita?'
+
+'For a day or two--you will lend me a portmanteau to give local colour?'
+
+'With pleasure,' said Mrs. Lumley.
+
+'And Lumley will telegraph to Trevor to meet you at King's Cross, with
+his brougham, at 6.15 P. M.?'
+
+This also was agreed to, and so ended this romance of Bradshaw.
+
+
+
+IV.  Greek meets Greek
+
+
+At about twenty-five minutes to seven, on March 7, the express entered
+King's Cross.  A lady of fashionable appearance, with her veil down,
+gazed anxiously out of the window of a reserved carriage.  She presently
+detected the person for whom she was looking, and waved her parasol.
+Trevor, lifting his hat, approached; the lady had withdrawn into the
+carriage, and he entered.
+
+'Mum's the word!' said the lady.
+
+'Why, it's--hang it all, it's Merton!'
+
+'Your sister is staying with you?' asked Merton eagerly.
+
+'Yes; but what on earth--'
+
+'I'll tell you in the brougham.  But you take a weight off my bosom!  I
+am going to stay with you for a day or two; and now my reputation (or
+Mrs. Lumley's) is safe.  Your servants never saw Mrs. Lumley?'
+
+'Never,' said Trevor.
+
+'All right!  My portmanteau has her initials, S. M. L., and a crimson
+ticket; send a porter for it.  Now take me to the brougham.'
+
+Trevor offered his arm and carried the dressing-bag; the lady was led to
+his carriage.  The portmanteau was recovered, and they drove away.
+
+'Give me a cigarette,' said Merton, 'and I'll tell you all about it.'
+
+He told Trevor all about it--except about the emu's feathers.
+
+'But a male disguise would have done as well,' said Trevor
+
+'Not a bit.  It would not have suited what I have to do in town.  I
+cannot tell you why.  The affair is complex.  I have to settle it, if I
+can, so that neither Logan nor any one else--except the body-snatcher and
+polite letter-writer--shall ever know how I managed it.'
+
+Trevor had to be content with this reply.  He took Merton, when they
+arrived, into the smoking-room, rang for tea, and 'squared his sister,'
+as he said, in the drawing-room.  The pair were dining out, and after a
+solitary dinner, Merton (in a tea-gown) occupied himself with literary
+composition.  He put his work in a large envelope, sealed it, marked it
+with a St. Andrew's cross, and, when Trevor returned, asked him to put it
+in his safe.  'Two days after to-morrow, if I do not appear, you must
+open the envelope and read the contents,' he said.
+
+After luncheon on the following day--a wet day--Miss Trevor and Merton
+(who was still arrayed as Mrs. Lumley) went out shopping.  Miss Trevor
+then drove off to pay a visit (Merton could not let her know his next
+move), and he himself, his veil down, took a four-wheeled cab, and drove
+to Madame Claudine's.  He made one or two purchases, and then asked for
+the head of the establishment, an Irish lady.  To her he confided that he
+had to break a piece of distressing family news to Miss Markham, of the
+cloak department; that young lady was summoned; Madame Claudine, with a
+face of sympathy, ushered them into her private room, and went off to see
+a customer.  Miss Markham was pale and trembling; Merton himself felt
+agitated.
+
+'Is it about my father, or--' the girl asked.
+
+'Pray be calm,' said Merton.  'Sit down.  Both are well.'
+
+The girl started.  'Your voice--' she said.
+
+'Exactly,' said Merton; 'you know me.'  And taking off his glove, he
+showed a curious mediaeval ring, familiar to his friends.  'I could get
+at you in no other way than this,' he said, 'and it was absolutely
+necessary to see you.'
+
+'What is it?  I know it is about my father,' said the girl.
+
+'He has done us a great service,' said Merton soothingly.  He had guessed
+what the 'distressing circumstances' were in which the marquis had been
+restored to life.  Perhaps the reader guesses?  A discreet person, who
+has secretly to take charge of a corpse of pecuniary value, adopts
+certain measures (discovered by the genius of ancient Egypt), for its
+preservation.  These measures, doubtless, had revived the marquis, who
+thus owed his life to his kidnapper.
+
+'He has, I think, done us a great service,' Merton repeated; and the
+girl's colour returned to her beautiful face, that had been of marble.
+
+'Yet there are untoward circumstances,' Merton admitted.  'I wish to ask
+you two or three questions.  I must give you my word of honour that I
+have no intention of injuring your father.  The reverse; I am really
+acting in his interests.  Now, first, he has practised in Australia.  May
+I ask if he was interested in the Aborigines?'
+
+'Yes, very much,' said the girl, entirely puzzled.  'But,' she added, 'he
+was never in the Labour trade.'
+
+'Blackbird catching?' said Merton.  'No.  But he had, perhaps, a
+collection of native arms and implements?'
+
+'Yes; a very fine one.'
+
+'Among them were, perhaps, some curious native shoes, made of emu's
+feathers--they are called _Interlinia_ or, by white men, _Kurdaitcha_
+shoes?'
+
+'I don't remember the name,' said Miss Markham, 'but he had quite a
+number of them.  The natives wear them to conceal their tracks when they
+go on a revenge party.'
+
+Merton's guess was now a certainty.  The marquis had spoken of Miss
+Markham's father as a 'landlouping' Australian doctor.  The footmarks of
+the feathered shoes in the snow at Kirkburn proved that an article which
+only an Australian (or an anthropologist) was likely to know of had been
+used by the body-snatchers.
+
+Merton reflected.  Should he ask the girl whether she had told her father
+what, on the night of the marquis's appearance at the office, Logan had
+told her?  He decided that this was superfluous; of course she had told
+her father, and the doctor had taken his measures (and the body of the
+marquis) accordingly.  To ask a question would only be to enlighten the
+girl.
+
+'That is very interesting,' said Merton.  'Now, I won't pretend that I
+disguised myself in this way merely to ask you about Australian
+curiosities.  The truth is that, in your father's interests, I must have
+an interview with him.'
+
+'You don't mean to do him any harm?' asked the girl anxiously.
+
+'I have given you my word of honour.  As things stand, I do not conceal
+from you that I am the only person who can save him from a situation
+which might be disagreeable, and that is what I want to do.'
+
+'He will be quite safe if he sees you?' asked the girl, wringing her
+hands.
+
+'That is the only way in which he can be safe, I am afraid.'
+
+'You would not use a girl against her own father?'
+
+'I would sooner die where I sit,' said Merton earnestly.  'Surely you can
+trust a friend of Mr. Logan's--who, by the bye, is very well.'
+
+'Oh, oh,' cried the girl, 'I read that story of the stolen corpse in the
+papers.  I understand!'
+
+'It was almost inevitable that you should understand,' said Merton.
+
+'But then,' said the girl, 'what did you mean by saying that my father
+has done you a great service.  You are deceiving me.  I have said too
+much.  This is base!' Miss Markham rose, her eyes and cheeks burning.
+
+'What I told you is the absolute and entire truth,' said Merton, nearly
+as red as she was.
+
+'Then,' exclaimed Miss Markham, 'this is baser yet!  You must mean that
+by doing what you think he has done my father has somehow enabled
+Robert--Mr. Logan--to come into the marquis's property.  Perhaps the
+marquis left no will, or the will--is gone!  And do you believe that Mr.
+Logan will thank you for acting in this way?'  She stood erect, her hand
+resting on the back of a chair, indignant and defiant.
+
+'In the first place, I have a written power from Mr. Logan to act as I
+think best.  Next, I have not even informed myself as to how the law of
+Scotland stands in regard to the estate of a man who dies leaving no
+will.  Lastly, Miss Markham, I am extremely hampered by the fact that Mr.
+Logan has not the remotest suspicion of what I suspected--and now know--to
+be the truth as to the disappearance of his cousin's body.  I
+successfully concealed my idea from Mr. Logan, so as to avoid giving pain
+to him and you.  I did my best to conceal it from you, though I never
+expected to succeed.  And now, if you wish to know how your father has
+conferred a benefit on Mr. Logan, I must tell you, though I would rather
+be silent.  Mr. Logan is aware of the benefit, but will never, if you can
+trust yourself, suspect his benefactor.'
+
+'I can never, never see him again,' the girl sobbed.
+
+'Time is flying,' said Merton, who was familiar, in works of fiction,
+with the situation indicated by the girl.  'Can you trust me, or not?' he
+asked, 'My single object is secrecy and your father's safety.  I owe that
+to my friend, to you, and even, as it happens, to your father.  Can you
+enable me, dressed as I am, to have an interview with him?'
+
+'You will not hurt him?  You will not give him up?  You will not bring
+the police on him?'
+
+'I am acting as I do precisely for the purpose of keeping the police off
+him.  They have discovered nothing.'
+
+The girl gave a sigh of relief.
+
+'Your father's only danger would lie in my--failure to return from my
+interview with him.  Against _that_ I cannot safeguard him; it is fair to
+tell you so.  But my success in persuading him to adopt a certain course
+would be equally satisfactory to Mr. Logan and to himself.'
+
+'Mr. Logan knows nothing?'
+
+'Absolutely nothing.  I alone, and now you, know anything.'
+
+The girl walked up and down in agony.
+
+'Nobody will ever know if I do not tell you how to find him,' she said.
+
+'Unhappily that is not the case.  I only ask _you_, so that it may not be
+necessary to take other steps, tardy, but certain, and highly
+undesirable.'
+
+'You will not go to him armed?'
+
+'I give you my word of honour,' said Merton.  'I have risked myself
+unarmed already.'
+
+The girl paused with fixed eyes that saw nothing.  Merton watched her.
+Then she took her resolve.
+
+'I do not know where he is living.  I know that on Wednesdays, that is,
+the day after to-morrow, he is to be found at Dr. Fogarty's, a private
+asylum, a house with a garden, in Water Lane, Hammersmith.'
+
+It was the lane in which stood the Home for Destitute and Decayed Cats,
+whither Logan had once abducted Rangoon, the Siamese puss.
+
+'Thank you,' said Merton simply.  'And I am to ask for?'
+
+'Ask first for Dr. Fogarty.  You will tell him that you wish to see the
+_Ertwa Oknurcha_.'
+
+'Ah, Australian for "The Big Man,"' said Merton.
+
+'I don't know what it means,' said Miss Markham.  'Dr. Fogarty will then
+ask, "Have you the _churinga_?"'
+
+The girl drew out a slim gold chain which hung round her neck and under
+her dress.  At the end of it was a dark piece of wood, shaped much like a
+large cigar, and decorated with incised concentric circles, stained red.
+
+'Take that and show it to Dr. Fogarty,' said Miss Markham, detaching the
+object from the chain.
+
+Merton returned it to her.  'I know where to get a similar _churinga_,'
+he said.  'Keep your own.  Its absence, if asked for, might lead to
+awkward questions.'
+
+'Thank you, I can trust you,' said Miss Markham, adding, 'You will
+address my father as Dr. Melville.'
+
+'Again thanks, and good-bye,' said Merton.  He bowed and withdrew.
+
+'She is a good deal upset, poor girl,' Merton remarked to Madame
+Claudine, who, on going to comfort Miss Markham with tea, found her
+weeping.  Merton took another cab, and drove to Trevor's house.
+
+After dinner (at which there were no guests), and in the smoking-room,
+Trevor asked whether he had made any progress.
+
+'Everything succeeded to a wish,' said Merton.  'You remember Water
+Lane?'
+
+'Where Logan carried the Siamese cat in my cab,' said Trevor, grinning at
+the reminiscence.  'Rather!  I reconnoitred the place with Logan.'
+
+'Well, on the day after to-morrow I have business there.'
+
+'Not at the Cats' Home?'
+
+'No, but perhaps you might reconnoitre again.  Do you remember a house
+with high walls and spikes on them?'
+
+'I do,' said Trevor; 'but how do you know?  You never were there.  You
+disapproved of Logan's method in the case of the cat.'
+
+'I never was there; I only made a guess, because the house I am
+interested in is a private asylum.'
+
+'Well, you guessed right.  What then?'
+
+'You might reconnoitre the ground to-morrow--the exits, there are sure to
+be some towards waste land or market gardens.'
+
+'Jolly!' said Trevor.  'I'll make up as a wanderer from Suffolk, looking
+for a friend in the slums; semi-bargee kind of costume.'
+
+'That would do,' said Merton.  'But you had better go in the early
+morning.'
+
+'A nuisance.  Why?'
+
+'Because, later, you will have to get a gang of fellows to be about the
+house the day after, when I pay my visit.'
+
+'Fellows of our own sort, or the police?'
+
+'Neither.  I thought of fellows of our own sort.  They would talk and
+guess.'
+
+'Better get some of Ned Mahony's gang?' asked Trevor.
+
+Mr. Mahony was an ex-pugilist, and a distinguished instructor in the art
+of self-defence.  He also was captain of a gang of 'chuckers out.'
+
+'Yes,' said Merton, 'that is my idea.  _They_ will guess, too; but when
+they know the place is a private lunatic asylum their hypothesis is
+obvious.'
+
+'They'll think that a patient is to be rescued?'
+
+'That will be their idea.  And the old trick is a good trick.  Cart of
+coals blocked in the gateway, or with another cart--the bigger the
+better--in the lane.  The men will dress accordingly.  Others will have
+stolen to the back and sides of the house; you will, in short, stop the
+earths after I enter.  Your brougham, after setting me down, will wait in
+Hammersmith Road, or whatever the road outside is.'
+
+'I may come?' asked Trevor.
+
+'In command, as a coal carter.'
+
+'Hooray!' said Trevor, 'and I'll tell you what, I won't reconnoitre as a
+bargee, but as a servant out of livery sent to look for a cat at the
+Home.  And I'll mistake the asylum for the Home for Cats, and try to
+scout a little inside the gates.'
+
+'Capital,' said Merton.  'Then, later, I want you to go to a curiosity
+shop near the Museum' (he mentioned the street), 'and look into the
+window.  You'll see a little brown piece of wood like _this_.'  Merton
+sketched rapidly the piece of wood which Miss Markham wore under her
+dress.  'The man has several.  Buy one about the size of a big cigar for
+me, and buy one or two other trifles first.'
+
+'The man knows me,' said Trevor, 'I have bought things from him.'
+
+'Very good, but don't buy it when any other customer is in the shop.  And,
+by the way, take Mrs. Lumley's portmanteau--the lock needs mending--to
+Jones's in Sloane Street to be repaired.  One thing more, I should like
+to add a few lines to that manuscript I gave you to keep in your safe.'
+
+Trevor brought the sealed envelope.  Merton added a paragraph and
+resealed it.  Trevor locked it up again.
+
+On the following day Trevor started early, did his scouting in Water
+Lane, and settled with Mr. Mahony about his gang of muscular young prize-
+fighters.  He also brought the native Australian curiosity, and sent Mrs.
+Lumley's portmanteau to have the lock repaired.
+
+Merton determined to call at Dr. Fogarty's asylum at four in the
+afternoon.  The gang, under Trevor, was to arrive half an hour later, and
+to surround and enter the premises if Merton did not emerge within half
+an hour.
+
+At four o'clock exactly Trevor's brougham was at the gates of the asylum.
+The footman rang the bell, a porter opened a wicket, and admitted a lady
+of fashionable aspect, who asked for Dr. Fogarty.  She was ushered into
+his study, her card ('Louise, 13 --- Street') was taken by the servant,
+and Dr. Fogarty appeared.  He was a fair, undecided looking man, with
+blue wandering eyes, and long untidy, reddish whiskers.  He bowed and
+looked uncomfortable, as well he might.
+
+'I have called to see the _Ertwa Oknurcha_, Dr. Fogarty,' said Merton.
+
+'Oh Lord,' said Dr. Fogarty, and murmured, 'Another of his lady friends!'
+adding, 'I must ask, Miss, have you the _churinga_?'
+
+Merton produced, out of his muff, the Australian specimen which Trevor
+had bought.
+
+The doctor inspected it.  'I shall take it to the _Ertwa Oknurcha_,' he
+said, and shambled out.  Presently he returned.  'He will see you, Miss.'
+
+Merton found the redoubtable Dr. Markham, an elderly man, clean shaven,
+prompt-looking, with very keen dark eyes, sitting at a writing table,
+with a few instruments of his profession lying about.  The table stood on
+an oblong space of uncarpeted and polished flooring of some extent.  Dr.
+Fogarty withdrew, the other doctor motioned Merton to a chair on the
+opposite side of the table.  This chair was also on the uncarpeted space,
+and Merton observed four small brass plates in the parquet.  Arranging
+his draperies, and laying aside his muff, Merton sat down, slightly
+shifting the position of the chair.
+
+'Perhaps, Dr. Melville,' he said, 'it will be more reassuring to you if I
+at once hold my hands up,' and he sat there and smiled, holding up his
+neatly gloved hands.
+
+The doctor stared, and _his_ hand stole towards an instrument like an
+unusually long stethoscope, which lay on his table.
+
+Merton sat there 'hands up,' still smiling.  'Ah, the blow-tube?' he
+said.  'Very good and quiet!  Do you use _urali_?  Infinitely better, at
+close quarters, than the noisy old revolver.'
+
+'I see I have to do with a cool hand, sir,' said the doctor.
+
+'Ah,' said Merton.  'Then let us talk as between man and man.'  He tilted
+his chair backwards, and crossed his legs.  'By the way, as I have no
+Aaron and Hur to help me to hold up my hands, may I drop them?  The
+attitude, though reassuring, is fatiguing.'
+
+'If you won't mind first allowing me to remove your muff,' said the
+doctor.  It lay on the table in front of Merton.
+
+'By all means, no gun in my muff,' said Merton.  'In fact I think the
+whole pistol business is overdone, and second rate.'
+
+'I presume that I have the honour to speak to Mr. Merton?' asked the
+doctor.  'You slipped through the cordon?'
+
+'Yes, I was the intoxicated miner,' said Merton.  'No doubt you have
+received a report from your agents?'
+
+'Stupid fellows,' said the doctor.
+
+'You are not flattering to me, but let us come to business.  How much?'
+
+'I need hardly ask,' said the doctor, 'it would be an insult to your
+intelligence, whether you have taken the usual precautions?'
+
+Merton, whose chair was tilted, threw himself violently backwards,
+upsetting his chair, and then scrambled nimbly to his feet.  Between him
+and the table yawned a square black hole of unknown depth.
+
+'Hardly fair, Dr. Melville,' said he, picking up the chair, and placing
+it on the carpet, 'besides, I _have_ taken the ordinary precautions.  The
+house is surrounded--Ned Mahony's lambs--the usual statement is in the
+safe of a friend.  We must really come to the point.  Time is flying,'
+and he looked at his watch.  'I can give you twenty minutes.'
+
+'Have you anything in the way of terms to propose?' asked the doctor,
+filling his pipe.
+
+'Well, first, absolute secrecy.  I alone know the state of the case.'
+
+'Has Mr. Logan no guess?'
+
+'Not the faintest suspicion.  The detectives, when I left Kirkburn, had
+not even found the trap door, you understand.  You hit on its discovery
+through knowing the priest's hole at Oxburgh Hall, I suppose?'
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+'You can guarantee absolute secrecy?' he asked.
+
+'Naturally, the knowledge is confined to me, you, and your partners.  I
+want the secrecy in Mr. Logan's interests, and you know why.'
+
+'Well,' said the doctor, 'that is point one.  So far I am with you.'
+
+'Then, to enter on odious details,' said Merton, 'had you thought of any
+terms?'
+
+'The old man was stiff,' said the doctor, 'and your side only offered to
+double him in your advertisement, you know.'
+
+'That was merely a way of speaking,' said Merton.  'What did the marquis
+propose?'
+
+'Well, as his offer is not a basis of negotiation?'
+
+'Certainly not,' said Merton.
+
+'Five hundred he offered, out of which we were to pay his fare back to
+Scotland.'
+
+Both men laughed.
+
+'But you have your own ideas?' said Merton.
+
+'I had thought of 15,000_l_. and leaving England.  He is a
+multimillionaire, the marquis.'
+
+'It is rather a pull,' said Merton.  'Now speaking as a professional man,
+and on honour, how _is_ his lordship?' Merton asked.
+
+'Speaking as a professional man, he _may_ live a year; he cannot live
+eighteen months, I stake my reputation on that.'
+
+Merton mused.
+
+'I'll tell you what we can do,' he said.  'We can guarantee the interest,
+at a fancy rate, say five per cent, during the marquis's life, which you
+reckon as good for a year and a half, at most.  The lump sum we can pay
+on his decease.'
+
+The doctor mused in his turn.
+
+'I don't like it.  He may alter his will, and then--where do I come in?'
+
+'Of course that is an objection,' said Merton.  'But where do you come in
+if you refuse?  Logan, I can assure you (I have read up the Scots law
+since I came to town), is the heir if the marquis dies intestate.  Suppose
+that I do not leave this house in a few minutes, Logan won't bargain with
+you; we settled _that_; and really you will have taken a great deal of
+trouble to your own considerable risk.  You see the usual document, my
+statement, is lodged with a friend.'
+
+'There is certainly a good deal in what you say,' remarked the doctor.
+
+'Then, to take a more cheerful view,' said Merton, 'I have medical
+authority for stating that any will made now, or later, by the marquis,
+would probably be upset, on the ground of mental unsoundness, you know.
+So Logan would succeed, in spite of a later will.'
+
+The doctor smiled.  'That point I grant.  Well, one must chance
+something.  I accept your proposals.  You will give me a written
+agreement, signed by Mr. Logan, for the arrangement.'
+
+'Yes, I have power to act.'
+
+'Then, Mr. Merton, why in the world did you not let your friend walk in
+Burlington Arcade, and see the lady?  He would have been met with the
+same terms, and could have proposed the same modifications.'
+
+'Well, Dr. Melville, first, I was afraid that he might accidentally
+discover the real state of the case, as I surmised that it existed--that
+might have led to family inconveniences, you know.'
+
+'Yes,' the doctor admitted, 'I have felt that.  My poor daughter, a good
+girl, sir!  It wrung my heartstrings, I assure you.'
+
+'I have the warmest sympathy with you,' said Merton, going on.  'Well, in
+the second place, I was not sure that I could trust Mr. Logan, who has
+rather a warm temper, to conduct the negotiations.  Thirdly, I fear I
+must confess that I did what I have done--well, "for human pleasure."'
+
+'Ah, you are young,' said the doctor, sighing.
+
+'Now,' said Merton, 'shall I sign a promise?  We can call Dr. Fogarty up
+to witness it.  By the bye, what about "value received"?  Shall we say
+that we purchase your ethnological collection?'
+
+The doctor grinned, and assented, the deed was written, signed, and
+witnessed by Dr. Fogarty, who hastily retreated.
+
+'Now about restoring the marquis,' said Merton.  'He's here, of course;
+it was easy enough to get him into an asylum.  Might I suggest a gag, if
+by chance you have such a thing about you?  To be removed, of course,
+when once I get him into the house of a friend.  And the usual bandage
+over his eyes: he must never know where he has been.'
+
+'You think of everything, Mr. Merton,' said the doctor.  'But, how are
+you to account for the marquis's reappearance alive?' he asked.
+
+'Oh _that_--easily!  My first theory, which I fortunately mentioned to
+his medical attendant, Dr. Douglas, in the train, before I reached
+Kirkburn, was that he had recovered from catalepsy, and had secretly
+absconded, for the purpose of watching Mr. Logan's conduct.  We shall
+make him believe that this is the fact, and the old woman who watched
+him--'
+
+'Plucky old woman,' said the doctor.
+
+'Will swear to anything that he chooses to say.'
+
+'Well, that is your affair,' said the doctor.
+
+'Now,' said Merton, 'give me a receipt for 750_l_.; we shall tell the
+marquis that we had to spring 250_l_. on his original offer.'
+
+The doctor wrote out, stamped, and signed the receipt.  'Perhaps I had
+better walk in front of you down stairs?' he asked Merton.
+
+'Perhaps it really would be more hospitable,' Merton acquiesced.
+
+Merton was ushered again into Dr. Fogarty's room on the ground floor.
+Presently the other doctor reappeared, leading a bent and much muffled up
+figure, who preserved total silence--for excellent reasons.  The doctor
+handed to Merton a sealed envelope, obviously the marquis's will.  Merton
+looked closely into the face of the old marquis, whose eyes, dropping
+senile tears, showed no sign of recognition.
+
+Dr. Fogarty next adjusted a silken bandage, over a wad of cotton wool,
+which he placed on the eyes of the prisoner.
+
+Merton then took farewell of Dr. Melville (_alias_ Markham); he and Dr.
+Fogarty supported the tottering steps of Lord Restalrig, and they led him
+to the gate.
+
+'Tell the porter to call my brougham,' said Merton to Dr. Fogarty.
+
+The brougham was called and came to the gate, evading a coal-cart which
+was about to enter the lane.  Merton aided the marquis to enter, and said
+'Home.'  A few rough fellows, who were loitering in the lane, looked
+curiously on.  In half an hour the marquis, his gag and the bandage round
+his eyes removed, was sitting in Trevor's smoking-room, attended to by
+Miss Trevor.
+
+It is probably needless to describe the simple and obvious process
+(rather like that of the Man, the Goose, and the Fox) by which Mrs.
+Lumley, with her portmanteau, left Trevor's house that evening to pay
+another visit, while Merton himself arrived, in evening dress, to dinner
+at a quarter past eight.  He had telegraphed to Logan: 'Entirely
+successful.  Come up by the 11.30 to-night, and bring Mrs. Bower.'
+
+The marquis did not appear at dinner.  He was in bed, and, thanks to a
+sleeping potion, slumbered soundly.  He awoke about nine in the morning
+to find Mrs. Bower by his bedside.
+
+'Eh, marquis, finely we have jinked them,' said Mrs. Bower; and she went
+on to recount the ingenious measures by which the marquis, recovering
+from his 'dwawm,' had secretly withdrawn himself.
+
+'I mind nothing of it, Jeanie, my woman,' said the marquis.  'I thought I
+wakened with some deevil running a knife into me; he might have gone
+further, and I might have fared worse.  He asked for money, but, faith,
+we niffered long and came to no bargain.  And a woman brought me away.
+Who was the woman?'
+
+'Oh, dreams,' said Mrs. Bower.  'Ye had another sair fit o' the dwawming,
+and we brought you here to see the London doctors.  Hoo could ony mortal
+speerit ye away, let be it was the fairies, and me watching you a' the
+time!  A fine gliff ye gie'd me when ye sat up and askit for sma' yill'
+(small beer).
+
+'I mind nothing of it,' replied the marquis.  However, Mrs. Bower stuck
+to her guns, and the marquis was, or appeared to be, resigned to accept
+her explanation.  He dozed throughout the day, but next day he asked for
+Merton.  Their interview was satisfactory; Merton begged leave to
+introduce Logan, and the marquis, quite broken down, received his kinsman
+with tears, and said nothing about his marriage.
+
+'I'm a dying man,' he remarked finally, 'but I'll live long enough to
+chouse the taxes.'
+
+His sole idea was to hand over (in the old Scottish fashion) the main
+part of his property to Logan, _inter vivos_, and then to live long
+enough to evade the death-duties.  Merton and Logan knew well enough the
+unsoundness of any such proceedings, especially considering the mental
+debility of the old gentleman.  However, the papers were made out.  The
+marquis retired to one of his English seats, after which event his
+reappearance was made known to the world.  In his English home Logan
+sedulously nursed him.  A more generous diet than he had ever known
+before did wonders for the marquis, though he peevishly remonstrated
+against every bottle of wine that was uncorked.  He did live for the span
+which he deemed necessary for his patriotic purpose, and peacefully
+expired, his last words being 'Nae grand funeral.'
+
+Public curiosity, of course, was keenly excited about the mysterious
+reappearance of the marquis in life.  But the interviewers could extract
+nothing from Mrs. Bower, and Logan declined to be interviewed.  To
+paragraphists the mystery of the marquis was 'a two months' feast,' like
+the case of Elizabeth Canning, long ago.
+
+Logan inherited under the marquis's original will, and, of course, the
+Exchequer benefitted in the way which Lord Restalrig had tried to
+frustrate.
+
+Miss Markham (whose father is now the distinguished head of the
+ethnological department in an American museum) did not persist in her
+determination never to see Logan again.  The beautiful Lady Fastcastle
+never allows her photograph to appear in the illustrated weekly papers.
+Logan, or rather Fastcastle, does not unto this day, know the secret of
+the Emu's feathers, though, later, he sorely tried the secretiveness of
+Merton, as shall be shown in the following narrative.
+
+
+
+
+XII.  ADVENTURE OF THE CANADIAN HEIRESS
+
+
+I.  At Castle Skrae
+
+
+'How vain a thing is wealth,' said Merton.  'How little it can give of
+what we really desire, while of all that is lost and longed for it can
+restore nothing--except churches--and to do _that_ ought to be made a
+capital offence.'
+
+'Why do you contemplate life as a whole, Mr. Merton?  Why are you so
+moral?  If you think it is amusing you are very much mistaken!  Isn't the
+scenery, isn't the weather, beautiful enough for you?  _I_ could gaze for
+ever at the "unquiet bright Atlantic plain," the rocky isles, those
+cliffs of basalt on either hand, while I listened to the crystal stream
+that slips into the sea, and waves the yellow fringes of the seaweed.
+Don't be melancholy, or I go back to the castle.  Try another line!'
+
+'Ah, I doubt that I shall never wet one here,' said Merton.
+
+'As to the crystal stream, what business has it to be crystal?  That is
+just what I complain of.  Salmon and sea-trout are waiting out there in
+the bay and they can't come up!  Not a drop of rain to call rain for the
+last three weeks.  That is what I meant by moralising about wealth.  You
+can buy half a county, if you have the money; you can take half a dozen
+rivers, but all the millions of our host cannot purchase us a spate, and
+without a spate you might as well break the law by fishing in the Round
+Pond as in the river.'
+
+'Luckily for me Alured does not much care for fishing,' said Lady Bude,
+who was Merton's companion.  The Countess had abandoned, much to her
+lord's regret, the coloured and figurative language of her maiden days,
+the American slang.  Now (as may have been observed) her style was of
+that polished character which can only be heard to perfection in circles
+socially elevated and intellectually cultured--'in that Garden of the
+Souls'--to quote Tennyson.
+
+The spot where Merton and Lady Bude were seated was beautiful indeed.
+They reclined on the short sea grass above a shore where long tresses of
+saffron-hued seaweed clothed the boulders, and the bright sea pinks
+blossomed.  On their right the Skrae, now clearer than amber, mingled its
+waters with the sea loch.  On their left was a steep bank clad with
+bracken, climbing up to perpendicular cliffs of basalt.  These ended
+abruptly above the valley and the cove, and permitted a view of the
+Atlantic, in which, far away, the isle of the Lewis lay like a golden
+shield in the faint haze of the early sunset.  On the other side of the
+sea loch, whose restless waters ever rushed in or out like a rapid river,
+with the change of tides, was a small village of white thatched cottages,
+the homes of fishermen and crofters.  The neat crofts lay behind, in
+oblong strips, on the side of the hill.  Such was the scene of a
+character common on the remote west coast of Sutherland.
+
+'Alured is no maniac for fishing, luckily,' Lady Bude was saying.  'To-day
+he is cat-hunting.'
+
+'I regret it,' said Merton; 'I profess myself the friend of cats.'
+
+'He is only trying to photograph a wild cat at home in the hills; they
+are very scarce.'
+
+'In fact he is Jones Harvey, the naturalist again, for the nonce, not the
+sportsman,' said Merton.
+
+'It was as Jones Harvey that he--' said Lady Bude, and, blushing,
+stopped.
+
+'That he grasped the skirts of happy chance,' said Merton.
+
+'Why don't _you_ grasp the skirts, Mr. Merton?' asked Lady Bude.  'Chance,
+or rather Lady Fortune, who wears the skirts, would, I think, be happy to
+have them grasped.'
+
+'Whose skirts do you allude to?'
+
+'The skirts, short enough in the Highlands, of Miss Macrae,' said Lady
+Bude; 'she is a nice girl, and a pretty girl, and a clever girl, and,
+after all, there are worse things than millions.'
+
+Miss Emmeline Macrae was the daughter of the host with whom the Budes and
+Merton were staying at Skrae Castle, on Loch Skrae, only an easy mile and
+a half from the sea and the cove beside which Merton and Lady Bude were
+sitting.
+
+'There is a seal crawling out on to the shore of the little island!' said
+Merton.  'What a brute a man must be who shoots a seal!  I could watch
+them all day--on a day like this.'
+
+'That is not answering my question,' said Lady Bude.  'What do you think
+of Miss Macrae?  I _know_ what you think!'
+
+'Can a humble person like myself aspire to the daughter of the greatest
+living millionaire?  Our host can do almost anything but bring a spate,
+and even _that_ he could do by putting a dam with a sluice at the foot of
+Loch Skrae: a matter of a few thousands only.  As for the lady, her heart
+it is another's, it never can be mine.'
+
+'Whose it is?' asked Lady Bude.
+
+'Is it not, or do my trained instincts deceive me, that of young Blake,
+the new poet?  Is she not "the girl who gives to song what gold could
+never buy"?  He is as handsome as a man has no business to be.'
+
+'He uses belladonna for his eyes,' said Lady Bude.  'I am sure of it.'
+
+'Well, she does not know, or does not mind, and they are pretty
+inseparable the last day or two.'
+
+'That is your own fault,' said Lady Bude; 'you banter the poet so
+cruelly.  She pities him.'
+
+'I wonder that our host lets the fellow keep staying here,' said Merton.
+'If Mr. Macrae has a foible, except that of the pedigree of the Macraes
+(who were here before the Macdonalds or Mackenzies, and have come back in
+his person), it is scientific inventions, electric lighting, and his new
+toy, the wireless telegraph box in the observatory.  You can see the
+tower from here, and the pole with box on top.  I don't care for that
+kind of thing myself, but Macrae thinks it Paradise to get messages from
+the Central News and the Stock Exchange up here, fifty miles from a
+telegraph post.  Well, yesterday Blake was sneering at the whole affair.'
+
+'What is this wireless machine?  Explain it to me,' said Lady Bude.
+
+'How can you be so cruel?' asked Merton.
+
+'Why cruel?'
+
+'Oh, you know very well how your sex receives explanations.  You have
+three ways of doing it.'
+
+'Explain _them_!'
+
+'Well, the first way is, if a man tries to explain what "per cent" means,
+or the difference of "odds on," or "odds against," that is, if they don't
+gamble, they cast their hands desperately abroad, and cry, "Oh, don't, I
+never _can_ understand!"  The second way is to sit and smile, and look
+intelligent, and think of their dressmaker, or their children, or their
+young man, and then to say, "Thank you, you have made it all so clear!"'
+
+'And the third way?'
+
+'The third way is for you to make it plain to the explainer that he does
+not understand what he is explaining.'
+
+'Well, try me; how does the wireless machine work?'
+
+'Then, to begin with a simple example in ordinary life, you know what
+telepathy is?'
+
+'Of course, but tell me.'
+
+'Suppose Jones is thinking of Smith, or rather of Smith's sister.  Jones
+is dying, or in a row, in India.  Miss Smith is in Bayswater.  She sees
+Jones in her drawing-room.  The thought of Jones has struck a receiver of
+some sort in the brain, say, of Miss Smith.  _But_ Miss Smith may not see
+him, somebody else may, say her aunt, or the footman.  That is because
+the aunt or the footman has the properly tuned receiver in her or his
+brain, and Miss Smith has not.'
+
+'I see, so far--but the machine?'
+
+'That is an electric apparatus charged with a message.  The message is
+not conducted by wires, but is merely carried along on a new sort of
+waves, "Hertz waves," I think, but that does not matter.  They roam
+through space, these waves, and wherever they meet another machine of the
+same kind, a receiver, they communicate it.'
+
+'Then everybody who has such a machine as Mr. Macrae's gets all Mr.
+Macrae's messages for nothing?' asked Lady Bude.
+
+'They would get them,' said Merton.  'But that is where the artfulness
+comes in.  Two Italian magicians, or electricians, Messrs. Gianesi and
+Giambresi, have invented an improvement suggested by a dodge of the
+Indians on the Amazon River.  They make machines which are only in tune
+with each other.  Their machine fires off a message which no other
+machine can receive or tap except that of their customer, say Mr. Macrae.
+The other receivers all over the world don't get it, they are not in
+tune.  It is as if Jones could only appear as a wraith to Miss Smith, and
+_vice versa_.'
+
+'How is it done?'
+
+'Oh, don't ask me!  Besides, I fancy it is a trade secret, the tuning.
+There's one good thing about it, you know how Highland landscape is
+spoiled by telegraph posts?'
+
+'Yes, everywhere there is always a telegraph post in the foreground.'
+
+'Well, Mr. Macrae had them when he was here first, but he has had them
+all cut down, bless him, since he got the new dodge.  He was explaining
+it all to Blake and me, and Blake only scoffed, would not understand,
+showed he was bored.'
+
+'I think it delightful!  What did Mr. Blake say?'
+
+'Oh, his usual stuff.  Science is an expensive and inadequate substitute
+for poetry and the poetic gifts of the natural man, who is still extant
+in Ireland.  _He_ can flash his thoughts, and any trifles of news he may
+pick up, across oceans and continents, with no machinery at all.  What is
+done in Khartoum is known the same day in Cairo.'
+
+'What did Mr. Macrae say?'
+
+'He asked why the Cairo people did not make fortunes on the Stock
+Exchange.'
+
+'And Mr. Blake?'
+
+'He looked a great deal, but he said nothing.  Then, as I said, he showed
+that he was bored when Macrae exhibited to us the machine and tried to
+teach us how it worked, and the philosophy of it.  Blake did not
+understand it, nor do I, really, but of course I displayed an intelligent
+interest.  He didn't display any.  He said that the telegraph thing only
+brought us nearer to all that a child of nature--'
+
+'_He_ a child of nature, with his belladonna!'
+
+'To all that a child of nature wanted to forget.  The machine emitted a
+serpent of tape, news of Surrey _v_. Yorkshire, and something about
+Kaffirs, and Macrae was enormously pleased, for such are the simple joys
+of the millionaire, really a child of nature.  Some of them keep
+automatic hydraulic organs and beastly machines that sing.  Now Macrae is
+not a man of that sort, and he has only one motor up here, and only uses
+_that_ for practical purposes to bring luggage and supplies, but the
+wireless thing is the apple of his eye.  And Blake sneered.'
+
+'He is usually very civil indeed, almost grovelling, to the father,' said
+Lady Bude.  'But I tell you for your benefit, Mr. Merton, that he has no
+chance with the daughter.  I know it for certain.  He only amuses her.
+Now here, you are clever.'
+
+Merton bowed.
+
+'Clever, or you would not have diverted me from my question with all that
+science.  You are not ill looking.'
+
+'Spare my blushes,' said Merton; adding, 'Lady Bude, if you must be
+answered, _you_ are clever enough to have found me out.'
+
+'That needed less acuteness than you suppose,' said the lady.
+
+'I am very sorry to hear it,' said Merton.  'You know how utterly
+hopeless it is.'
+
+'There I don't agree with you,' said Lady Bude.
+
+Merton blushed.  'If you are right,' he said, 'then I have no business to
+be here.  What am I in the eyes of a man like Mr. Macrae?  An adventurer,
+that is what he would think me.  I did think that I had done nothing,
+said nothing, looked nothing, but having the chance--well, I could not
+keep away from her.  It is not honourable.  I must go. . . .  I love
+her.'
+
+Merton turned away and gazed at the sunset without seeing it.
+
+Lady Bude put forth her hand and laid it on his.  'Has this gone on
+long?' she asked.
+
+'Rather an old story,' said Merton.  'I am a fool.  That is the chief
+reason why I was praying for rain.  She fishes, very keen on it.  I would
+have been on the loch or the river with her.  Blake does not fish, and
+hates getting wet.'
+
+'You might have more of her company, if you would not torment the poet
+so.  The green-eyed monster, jealousy, is on your back.'
+
+Merton groaned.  'I bar the fellow, anyhow,' he said.  'But, in any case,
+now that I know _you_ have found me out, I must be going.  If only she
+were as poor as I am!'
+
+'You can't go to-morrow, to-morrow is Sunday,' said Lady Bude.  'Oh, I am
+sorry for you.  Can't we think of something?  Cannot you find an opening?
+Do something great!  Get her upset on the loch, and save her from
+drowning!  Mr. Macrae dotes on her; he would be grateful.'
+
+'Yes, I might take the pin out of the bottom of the boat,' said Merton.
+'It is an idea!  But she swims at least as well as I do.  Besides--hardly
+sportsmanlike.'
+
+Lady Bude tried to comfort him; it is the mission of young matrons.  He
+must not be in such a hurry to go away.  As to Mr. Blake, she could
+entirely reassure him.  It was a beautiful evening, the lady was fair and
+friendly; Nature, fragrant of heather and of the sea, was hushed in a
+golden repose.  The two talked long, and the glow of sunset was fading;
+the eyes of Lady Bude were a little moist, and Merton was feeling rather
+consoled when they rose and walked back towards Skrae Castle.  It had
+been an ancient seat of the Macraes, a clan in relatively modern times,
+say 1745, rather wild, impoverished, and dirty; but Mr. Macrae, the great
+Canadian millionaire, had bought the old place, with many thousands of
+acres 'where victual never grew.'
+
+Though a landlord in the Highlands he was beloved, for he was the friend
+of crofters, as rent was no object to him, and he did not particularly
+care for sport.  He accepted the argument, dear to the Celt, that salmon
+are ground game, and free to all, while the natives were allowed to use
+ancient flint-locked fusils on his black cocks.  Mr. Macrae was a
+thoroughly generous man, and a tall, clean-shaved, graceful personage.
+His public gifts were large.  He had just given 500,000_l_. to Oxford to
+endow chairs and students of Psychical Research, while the rest of the
+million was bestowed on Cambridge, to supply teaching in Elementary
+Logic.  His way of life was comfortable, but simple, except where the
+comforts of science and modern improvements were concerned.  There were
+lifts, or elevators, now in the castle of Skrae, though Blake always went
+by the old black corkscrew staircases, holding on by the guiding rope,
+after the poetical manner of our ancestors.
+
+On a knowe which commanded the castle, in a manner that would have pained
+Sir Dugald Dalgetty, Mr. Macrae had erected, not a 'sconce,' but an
+observatory, with a telescope that 'licked the Lick thing,' as he said.
+Indeed it was his foible 'to see the Americans and go one better,' and he
+spoke without tolerance of the late boss American millionaire, the
+celebrated J. P. van Huytens, recently deceased.
+
+   Duke Humphrey greater wealth computes,
+   And sticks, they say, at nothing,
+
+sings the poet.  Mr. Macrae computed greater wealth than Mr. van Huytens,
+though avoiding ostentation; he did not
+
+   Wear a pair of golden boots,
+   And silver underclothing.
+
+The late J. P. van Huytens he regarded with moral scorn.  This rival
+millionaire had made his wealth by the process (apparently peaceful and
+horticultural) of 'watering stocks,' and by the seemingly misplaced
+generosity of overcapitalising enterprises, and 'grabbing side shows.'
+The nature of these and other financial misdemeanours Merton did not
+understand.  But he learned from Mr. Macrae that thereby J. P. van
+Huytens had scooped in the widow, the orphan, the clergyman, and the
+colonel.  The two men had met in the most exclusive circles of American
+society; with the young van Huytenses the daughter of the millionaire had
+even been on friendly terms, but Mr. Macrae retired to Europe, and put a
+stop to all that.  To do so, indeed, was one of his motives for returning
+to the home of his ancestors, the remote and inaccessible Castle Skrae.
+_The Sportsman's Guide to Scotland_ says, as to Loch Skrae: 'Railway to
+Lairg, then walk or hire forty-five miles.'  The young van Huytenses were
+not invited to walk or hire.
+
+Van Huytens had been ostentatious, Mr. Macrae was the reverse.  His
+costume was of the simplest, his favourite drink (of which he took
+little) was what humorists call 'the light wine of the country,' drowned
+in Apollinaris water.  His establishment was refined, but not gaudy or
+luxurious, and the chief sign of wealth at Skrae was the great
+observatory with the laboratory, and the surmounting 'pole with box on
+top,' as Merton described the apparatus for the new kind of telegraphy.
+In the basement of the observatory was lodged the hugest balloon known to
+history, and a skilled expert was busied with novel experiments in aerial
+navigation.  Happily he could swim, and his repeated descents into Loch
+Skrae did not daunt his soaring genius.
+
+Above the basement of the observatory were rooms for bachelors, a smoking-
+room, a billiard-room, and a scientific library.  The wireless telegraphy
+machine (looking like two boxes, one on the top of the other, to the eye
+of ignorance) was installed in the smoking-room, and a wire to Mr.
+Macrae's own rooms informed him, by ringing a bell (it also rang in the
+smoking-room), when the machine began to spread itself out in tape
+conveying the latest news.  The machine communicated with another in the
+establishment of its vendors, Messrs. Gianesi, Giambresi & Co., in Oxford
+Street.  Thus the millionaire, though residing nearly fifty miles from
+the nearest station at Lairg, was as well and promptly informed as if he
+dwelt in Fleet Street, and he could issue, without a moment's
+procrastination, his commands to sell and buy, and to do such other
+things as pertain to the nature of millionaires.  When we add that a
+steam yacht of great size and comfort, doing an incredible number of
+knots an hour on the turbine system, lay at anchor in the sea loch, we
+have indicated the main peculiarities of Mr. Macrae's rural
+establishment.  Wealth, though Merton thought so poorly of it, had
+supplied these potentialities of enjoyment; but, alas! disease had
+'decimated' the grouse on the moors (of course to decimate now means
+almost to extirpate), and the crofters had increased the pleasures of
+stalking by making the stags excessively shy, thus adding to the arduous
+enjoyment of the true sportsman.
+
+To Castle Skrae, being such as we have described, Lady Bude and Merton
+returned from their sentimental prowl.  They found Miss Macrae, in a very
+short skirt of the Macrae tartan, trying to teach Mr. Blake to play ping-
+pong in the great hall.
+
+We must describe the young lady, though her charms outdo the powers of
+the vehicle of prose.  She was tall, slim, and graceful, light of foot as
+a deer on the corrie.  Her hair was black, save when the sun shone on it
+and revealed strands of golden brown; it was simply arrayed, and knotted
+on the whitest and shapeliest neck in Christendom.  Her eyebrows were
+dark, her eyes large and lucid,
+
+   The greyest of things blue,
+   The bluest of things grey.
+
+Her complexion was of a clear pallor, like the white rose beloved by her
+ancestors; her features were all but classic, with the charm of romance;
+but what made her unique was her mouth.  It was faintly upturned at the
+corners, as in archaic Greek art; she had, in the slightest and most
+gracious degree, what Logan, describing her once, called 'the AEginetan
+grin.'  This gave her an air peculiarly gay and winsome, brilliant,
+joyous, and alert.  In brief, to use Chaucer's phrase,
+
+   She was as wincy as a wanton colt,
+   Sweet as a flower, and upright as a bolt.
+
+She was the girl who was teaching the poet the elements of ping-pong.  The
+poet usually missed the ball, for he was averse to and unapt for anything
+requiring quickness of eye and dexterity of hand.  On a seat lay open a
+volume of the _Poetry of the Celtic Renascence_, which Blake had been
+reading to Miss Macrae till she used the vulgar phrase 'footle,' and
+invited him to be educated in ping-pong.  Of these circumstances she
+cheerfully informed the new-comers, adding that Lord Bude had returned
+happy, having photographed a wild cat in its lair.
+
+'Did he shoot it?' asked Blake.
+
+'No.  He's a sportsman!' said Miss Macrae.
+
+'That is why I supposed he must have shot the cat,' answered Blake.
+
+'What is Gaelic for a wild cat, Blake?' asked Merton unkindly.
+
+Like other modern Celtic poets Mr. Blake was entirely ignorant of the
+melodious language of his ancestors, though it had often been stated in
+the literary papers that he was 'going to begin' to take lessons.
+
+'_Sans purr_,' answered Blake; 'the Celtic wild cat has not the servile
+accomplishment of purring.  The words, a little altered, are the motto of
+the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders.  This is the country of the wild
+cat.'
+
+'I thought the "wild cat" was a peculiarly American financial animal,'
+said Merton.
+
+Miss Macrae laughed, and, the gong sounding (by electricity, the wire
+being connected with the Greenwich Observatory), she ran lightly up the
+central staircase.  Lady Bude had hurried to rejoin her lord; Merton and
+Blake sauntered out to their rooms in the observatory, Blake with an air
+of fatigue and languor.
+
+'Learning ping-pong easily?' asked Merton.
+
+'I have more hopes of teaching Miss Macrae the essential and intimate
+elements of Celtic poetry,' said Blake.  'One box of books I brought with
+me, another arrived to-day.  I am about to begin on my Celtic drama of
+"Con of the Hundred Battles."'
+
+'Have you the works of the ancient Sennachie, Macfootle?' asked Merton.
+He was jealous, and his usual urbanity was sorely tried by the Irish
+bard.  In short, he was rude; stupid, too.
+
+However, Blake had his revenge after dinner, on the roof of the
+observatory, where the ladies gathered round him in the faint silver
+light, looking over the sleeping sea.  'Far away to the west,' he said,
+'lies the Celtic paradise, the Isle of Apples!'
+
+'American apples are excellent,' said Merton, but the beauty of the scene
+and natural courtesy caused Miss Macrae to whisper 'Hush!'
+
+The poet went on, 'May I speak to you the words of the emissary from the
+lovely land?'
+
+'The mysterious female?' said Merton brutally.  'Dr. Hyde calls her "a
+mysterious female."  It is in his _Literary History of Ireland_.'
+
+'Pray let us hear the poem, Mr. Merton,' said Miss Macrae, attuned to the
+charm of the hour and the scene.
+
+'She came to Bran's Court,' said Blake, 'from the Isle of Apples, and no
+man knew whence she came, and she chanted to them.'
+
+'Twenty-eight quatrains, no less, a hundred and twelve lines,' said the
+insufferable Merton.  'Could you give us them in Gaelic?'
+
+The bard went on, not noticing the interruption, 'I shall translate
+
+   'There is a distant isle
+   Around which sea horses glisten,
+   A fair course against the white swelling surge,
+   Four feet uphold it.'
+
+   'Feet of white bronze under it.'
+
+'White bronze, what's that, eh?' asked the practical Mr. Macrae.
+
+   'Glittering through beautiful ages!
+   Lovely land through the world's age,
+   On which the white blossoms drop.'
+
+'Beautiful!' said Miss Macrae.
+
+'There are twenty-six more quatrains,' said Merton.
+
+The bard went on,
+
+   'A beautiful game, most delightful
+   They play--'
+
+'Ping-pong?' murmured Merton.
+
+'Hush!' said Lady Bude.
+
+Miss Macrae turned to the poet.
+
+   'They play, sitting at the luxurious wine,
+   Men and gentle women under a bush,
+   Without sin, without crime.'
+
+'They are playing still,' Blake added.  'Unbeheld, undisturbed!  I verily
+believe there is no Gael even now who would not in his heart of hearts
+let drift by him the Elysiums of Virgil, Dante, and Milton, to grasp at
+the Moy Mell, the Apple Isle, of the unknown Irish pagan!  And then to
+play sitting at the luxurious wine,
+
+   'Men and gentle women under a bush!'
+
+'It really cannot have been ping-pong that they played at, _sitting_.
+Bridge, more likely,' said Merton.  'And "good wine needs no bush!"'
+
+The bard moved away, accompanied by his young hostess, who resented
+Merton's cynicism
+
+'Tell me more of that lovely poem, Mr. Blake,' she said.
+
+'I am jangled and out of tune,' said Blake wildly.  'The Sassenach is my
+torture!  Let me take your hand, it is cool as the hands of the
+foam-footed maidens of--of--what's the name of the place?'
+
+'Was it Clonmell?' asked Miss Macrae, letting him take her hand.
+
+He pressed it against his burning brow.
+
+'Though you laugh at me,' said Blake, 'sometimes you are kind!  I am
+upset--I hardly know myself.  What is yonder shape skirting the lawn?  Is
+it the Daoine Sidh?'
+
+'Why do you call her "the downy she"?  She is no more artful than other
+people.  She is my maid, Elspeth Mackay,' answered Miss Macrae, puzzled.
+They were alone, separated from the others by the breadth of the roof.
+
+'I said the _Daoine Sidh_,' replied the poet, spelling the words.  'It
+means the People of Peace.'
+
+'Quakers?'
+
+'No, the fairies,' groaned the misunderstood bard.  'Do you know nothing
+of your ancestral tongue?  Do you call yourself a Gael?'
+
+'Of course I call myself a girl,' answered Miss Macrae.  'Do you want me
+to call myself a young lady?'
+
+The poet sighed.  'I thought _you_ understood me,' he said.  'Ah, how to
+escape, how to reach the undiscovered West!'
+
+'But Columbus discovered it,' said Miss Macrae.
+
+'The undiscovered West of the Celtic heart's desire,' explained the bard;
+'the West below the waters!  Thither could we twain sail in the magic
+boat of Bran!  Ah see, the sky opens like a flower!'
+
+Indeed, there was a sudden glow of summer lightning.
+
+'That looks more like rain,' said Merton, who was standing with the Budes
+at an opposite corner of the roof.
+
+'I say, Merton,' asked Bude, 'how can you be so uncivil to that man?  He
+took it very well.'
+
+'A rotter,' said Merton.  'He has just got that stuff by heart, the verse
+and a lot of the prose, out of a book that I brought down myself, and
+left in the smoking-room.  I can show you the place if you like.'
+
+'Do, Mr. Merton.  But how foolish you are! _do_ be civil to the man,'
+whispered Lady Bude, who shared his disbelief in Blake; and at that
+moment the tinkle of an electric bell in the smoking-room below reached
+the expectant ears of Mr. Macrae.
+
+'Come down, all of you,' he said.  'The wireless telegraphy is at work.'
+
+He waited till they were all in the smoking-room, and feverishly examined
+the tape.
+
+'Escape of De Wet,' he read.  'Disasters to the Imperial Yeomanry.  Strike
+of Cigarette Makers.  Great Fire at Hackney.'
+
+'There!' he exclaimed triumphantly.  'We might have gone to bed in
+London, and not known all that till we got the morning papers to-morrow.
+And here we are fifty miles from a railway station or a telegraph
+office--no, we're nearer Inchnadampf.'
+
+'Would that I were in the Isle of Apples, Mell Moy, far, far from
+civilisation!' said Blake.
+
+"There shall be no grief there or sorrow," so sings the minstrel of _The
+Wooing of Etain_.
+
+"Fresh flesh of swine, banquets of new milk and ale shalt thou have with
+me then, fair lady," Merton read out from the book he had been speaking
+of to the Budes.
+
+'Jolly place, the Celtic Paradise!  Fresh flesh of swine, banquets of ale
+and new milk.  _Quel luxe_!'
+
+'Is that the kind of entertainment you were offering me, Mr. Blake?'
+asked Miss Macrae gaily.  'Mr. Blake,' she went on, 'has been inviting me
+to fly to the undiscovered West beneath the waters, in the magic boat of
+Bran.'
+
+'Did Bran invent the submarine?' asked Mr. Macrae, and then the company
+saw what they had never seen before, the bard blushing.  He seemed so
+discomposed that Miss Macrae took compassion on him.
+
+'Never mind my father, Mr. Blake,' she said, 'he is a very good
+Highlander, and believes in Eachain of the Hairy Arm as much as the
+crofters do.  Have you heard of Eachain, Mr. Blake?  He is a spectre in
+full Highland costume, attached to our clan.  When we came here first, to
+look round, we had only horses hired from Edinburgh, and a Lowlander--mark
+you, a _Lowlander_--to drive.  He was in the stable one afternoon--the
+old stable, we have pulled it down--when suddenly the horses began to
+kick and rear.  He looked round to the open door, and there stood a huge
+Highlander in our tartans, with musket, pistols, claymore, dirk, skian,
+and all, and soft brogues of untanned leather on his feet.  The coachman,
+in a panic, made a blind rush at the figure, but behold, there was
+nobody, and a boy outside had seen no man.  The horses were trembling and
+foaming.  Now it was a Lowlander from Teviotdale that saw the man, and
+the crofters were delighted.  They said the figure was the chief that
+fell at Culloden, come to welcome us back.  So you must not despair of
+us, Mr. Blake, and you, that have "the sight," may see Eachain yourself,
+who knows?'
+
+This happy turn of the conversation exactly suited Blake.  He began to be
+very amusing about magic, and brownies, and 'the downy she,' as Miss
+Macrae called the People of Peace.  The ladies presently declared that
+they were afraid to go to bed; so they went, Miss Macrae indicating her
+displeasure to Merton by the coldness of her demeanour.
+
+The men, who were rather dashed by the pleasant intelligence which the
+telegraph had communicated, sat up smoking for a while, and then retired
+in a subdued state of mind.
+
+Next morning, which was Sunday, Merton appeared rather late at breakfast,
+late and pallid.  After a snatch of disturbed slumber, he had wakened, or
+seemed to waken, fretting a good deal over the rusticity of his bearing
+towards Blake, and over his hopeless affair of the heart.  He had vexed
+his lady.  'If he is good enough for his hosts, he ought to be good
+enough for their guests,' thought Merton.  'What a brute, what a fool I
+am; I ought to go.  I will go!  I ought not to take coffee after dinner,
+I know I ought not, and I smoke too much,' he added, and finally he went
+to breathe the air on the roof.
+
+The night was deadly soft and still, a slight mist hid the furthest
+verges of the sea's horizon.  Behind it, the summer lightning seemed like
+portals that opened and shut in the heavens, revealing a glory without
+form, and closing again.
+
+'I don't wonder that these Irish poets dreamed of Isles of Paradise out
+there:
+
+   'Lands undiscoverable in the unheard-of West,
+   Round which the strong stream of a sacred sea
+   Runs without wind for ever.'
+
+thought Merton.  'Chicago is the realisation of their dream.  Hullo,
+there are the lights of a big steamer, and a very low one behind it!
+Queer craft!'
+
+Merton watched the lights that crossed the sea, when either the haze
+deepened or the fainter light on the smaller vessel vanished, and the
+larger ship steamed on in a southerly direction.  'Magic boat of Bran!'
+thought Merton.  He turned and entered the staircase to go back to his
+room.  There was a lift, of course, but, equally of course, there was
+nobody to manage it.  Merton, who had a lighted bedroom-candle in his
+hand, descended the spiral staircase; at a turning he thought he saw,
+'with the tail of his eye,' a plaid, draping a tall figure of a
+Highlander, disappear round the corner.  Nobody in the castle wore the
+kilt except the piper, and he had not rooms in the observatory.  Merton
+ran down as fast as he could, but he did not catch another view of the
+plaid and its wearer, or hear any footsteps.  He went to the bottom of
+the staircase, opened the outer door, and looked forth.  Nobody!  The
+electric light from the open door of his own room blazed across the
+landing on his return.  All was perfectly still, and Merton remembered
+that he had not heard the footsteps of the appearance.  'Was it Eachain?'
+he asked himself.  'Do I sleep, do I dream?'
+
+He went back to bed and slumbered uneasily.  He seemed to be awake in his
+room, in broad light, and to hear a slow drip, drip, on the floor.  He
+looked up; the roof was stained with a great dark splash of a crimson
+hue.  He got out of bed, and touched the wet spot on the floor under the
+blotch on the ceiling.
+
+His fingers were reddened with blood!  He woke at the horror of it: found
+himself in bed in the dark, pressed an electric knob, and looked at the
+ceiling.  It was dry and white.  'I certainly have been smoking too much
+lately,' thought Merton, and, switching off the light, he slumbered
+again, so soundly that he did not hear the piper playing round the house,
+or the man who brought his clothes and hot water, or the gong for
+breakfast.
+
+When he did wake, he was surprised at the lateness of the hour, and
+dressed as rapidly as possible.  'I wonder if I was dreaming when I
+thought that I went out on the roof, and saw mountains and marvels,' said
+Merton to himself.  'A queer thing, the human mind,' he reflected sagely.
+It occurred to him to enter the smoking-room on his way downstairs.  He
+routed two maids who perhaps had slept too late, and were hurriedly
+making the room tidy.  The sun was beating in at the window, and Merton
+noticed some tiny glittering points of white metallic light on the carpet
+near the new telegraphic apparatus.  'I don't believe these lazy Highland
+Maries have swept the room properly since the electric machine was put
+up,' Merton thought.  He hastily seized, and took to his chamber, his
+book on old Irish literature, which was too clearly part of Blake's
+Celtic inspiration.  Merton wanted no more quatrains, but he did mean to
+try to be civil.  He then joined the party at breakfast; he admitted that
+he had slept ill, but, when asked by Blake, disclaimed having seen
+Eachain of the Hairy Arm, and did not bore or bewilder the company with
+his dreams.
+
+Miss Macrae, in sabbatical raiment, was fresher than a rose and gay as a
+lark.  Merton tried not to look at her; he failed in this endeavour.
+
+
+
+II.  Lost
+
+
+The day was Sunday, and Merton, who had a holy horror of news, rejoiced
+to think that the telegraphic machine would probably not tinkle its bell
+for twenty-four hours.  This was not the ideal of the millionaire.  Things
+happen, intelligence arrives from the limits of our vast and desirable
+empire, even on the Day of Rest.  But the electric bell was silent.  Mr.
+Macrae, from patriotic motives, employed a Highland engineer and
+mechanician, so there was nothing to be got out of him in the way of work
+on the sabbath day.  The millionaire himself did not quite understand how
+to work the thing.  He went to the smoking-room where it dwelt and looked
+wistfully at it, but was afraid to try to call up his correspondents in
+London.  As for the usual manipulator, Donald McDonald, he had started
+early for the distant Free Kirk.  An 'Unionist' minister intended to try
+to preach himself in, and the majority of the congregation, being of the
+old Free Kirk rock, and averse to union with the United Presbyterians,
+intended to try to keep him out.  They 'had a lad with the gift who would
+do the preaching fine,' and as there was no police-station within forty
+miles it seemed fairly long odds on the Free Kirk recalcitrants.  However,
+there was a resolute minority of crofters on the side of the minister,
+and every chance of an ecclesiastical battle royal.  Accompanied by the
+stalker, two keepers, and all the gardeners, armed with staves, the
+engineer had early set out for the scene of brotherly amity, and Mr.
+Macrae had reluctantly to admit that he was cut off from his
+communications.
+
+Merton, who was with him in the smoking-room, mentally absolved the
+Highland housemaids.  If they had not swept up the tiny glittering
+metallic points on the carpet before, they had done so now.  Only two or
+three caught his eye.
+
+Mr. Macrae, avid of news, accommodated himself in an arm-chair with
+newspapers of two or three days old, from which he had already sucked the
+heart by aid of his infernal machine.  The Budes and Blake, with Miss
+Macrae (an Anglican), had set off to walk to the Catholic chapel, some
+four miles away, for crofting opinion was resolute against driving on the
+Lord's Day.  Merton, self-denying and resolved, did not accompany his
+lady; he read a novel, wrote letters, and felt desolate.  All was peace,
+all breathed of the Sabbath calm.
+
+'Very odd there's no call from the machine,' said Mr. Macrae anxiously.
+
+'It is Sunday,' said Merton.
+
+'Still, they might send us something.'
+
+'They scarcely favoured us last Sunday,' said Merton.
+
+'No, and now I think of it, not at all on the Sunday before,' said Mr.
+Macrae.  'I dare say it is all right.'
+
+'Would a thunder-storm further south derange it?' asked Merton, adding,
+'There was a lot of summer lightning last night.'
+
+'That might be it; these things have their tempers.  But they are a great
+comfort.  I can't think how we ever did without them,' said Mr. Macrae,
+as if these things were common in every cottage.  'Wonderful thing,
+science!' he added, in an original way, and Merton, who privately
+detested science, admitted that it was so.
+
+'Shall we go to see the horses?' suggested Mr. Macrae, and they did go
+and stare, as is usual on Sunday in the country, at the hind-quarters of
+these noble animals.  Merton strove to be as much interested as possible
+in Mr. Macrae's stories of his fleet American trotters.  But his heart
+was otherwhere.  'They will soon be an extinct species,' said Mr. Macrae.
+'The motor has come to stay.'
+
+Merton was not feeling very well, he was afraid of a cigarette, Mr.
+Macrae's conversation was not brilliant, and Merton still felt as if he
+were under the wrath, so well deserved, of his hostess.  She did not
+usually go to the Catholic chapel; to be sure, in the conditions
+prevailing at the Free Kirk place of worship, she had no alternative if
+she would not abstain wholly from religious privileges.  But Merton felt
+sure that she had really gone to comfort and console the injured feelings
+of Blake.  Probably she would have had a little court of lordlings,
+Merton reflected (not that Mr. Macrae had any taste for them), but
+everybody knew that, what with the weather, and the crofters, and the
+grouse disease, the sport at Castle Skrae was remarkably bad.  So the
+party was tiny, though a number of people were expected later, and Merton
+and the heiress had been on what, as he ruefully reflected, were very
+kind terms--rather more than kind, he had hoped, or feared, now and then.
+Merton saw that he had annoyed her, and thrown her, metaphorically
+speaking, into the arms of the Irish minstrel.  All the better, perhaps,
+he thought, ruefully.  The poet was handsome enough to be one that
+'limners loved to paint, and ladies to look upon.'  He generally took
+chaff well, and could give it, as well as take it, and there were hours
+when his sentiment and witchery had a chance with most women.  'But Lady
+Bude says there is nothing in it, and women usually know,' he reflected.
+Well, he must leave the girl, and save his self-respect.
+
+When nothing more in the way of pottering could be done at the stables,
+when its proprietor had exhausted the pleasure of staring at the balloon
+in its hall, and had fed the fowls, he walked with Merton down the
+avenue, above the shrunken burn that whispered among its ferns and
+alders, to meet the returning church-goers.  The Budes came first,
+together; they were still, they were always, honeymooning.  Mr. Macrae
+turned back with Lady Bude; Merton walked with Bude, Blake and Miss
+Macrae were not yet in sight.  He thought of walking on to meet them--but
+no, it must not be.
+
+'Blake owes you a rare candle, Merton,' said Bude, adding, 'A great deal
+may be done, or said, in a long walk by a young man with his advantages.
+And if you had not had your knife in him last night I do not think she
+would have accompanied us this morning to attend the ministrations of
+Father McColl.  He preached in Gaelic.'
+
+'That must have been edifying,' said Merton, wincing.
+
+'The effect, when one does not know the language, and is within six feet
+of an energetic Celt in the pulpit, is rather odd,' said Bude.  'But you
+have put your foot in it, not a doubt of that.'
+
+This appeared only too probable.  The laggards arrived late for luncheon,
+and after luncheon Miss Macrae allowed Blake to read his manuscript poems
+to her in the hall, and to discuss the prospects of the Celtic drama.
+Afterwards, fearing to hurt the religious sentiments of the Highland
+servants by playing ping-pong on Sunday in the hall, she instructed him
+elsewhere, and clandestinely, in that pastime till the hour of tea
+arrived.
+
+Merton did not appear at the tea-table.  Tired of this Castle of
+Indolence, loathing Blake, afraid of more talk with Lady Bude, eating his
+own heart, he had started alone after luncheon for a long walk round the
+loch.  The day had darkened, and was deadly still; the water was like a
+mirror of leaden hue; the air heavy and sulphurous.
+
+These atmospheric phenomena did not gladden the heart of Merton.  He knew
+that rain was coming, but he would not be with _her_ by the foaming
+stream, or on the black waves of the loch.  Climbing to the top of the
+hill, he felt sure that a storm was at hand.  On the east, far away,
+Clibrig, and Suilvean of the double peak, and the round top of Ben More,
+stood shadowy above the plain against the lurid light.  Over the sea hung
+'the ragged rims of thunder' far away, veiling in thin shadow the
+outermost isles, whose mountain crests looked dark as indigo.  A few hot
+heavy drops of rain were falling as Merton began to descend.  He was
+soaked to the skin when he reached the door of the observatory, and
+rushed up stairs to dress for dinner.  A covered way led from the
+observatory to the Castle, so that he did not get drenched again on his
+return, which he accomplished punctually as the gong for dinner sounded.
+
+In the drawing-room were the Budes, and Mr. Macrae was nervously pacing
+the length and breadth of the room.
+
+'They must have taken refuge from the rain somewhere,' Lady Bude was
+saying, and 'they' were obviously Blake and the daughter of the house.
+Where were they?  Merton's heart sank with a foolish foreboding.
+
+'I know,' the lady went on, 'that they were only going down to the
+cove--where you and I were yesterday evening, Mr. Merton.  It is no
+distance.'
+
+'A mile and a half is a good deal in this weather, said Merton, 'and
+there is no cottage on this side of the sea loch.  But they must have
+taken shelter,' he added; he must not seem anxious.
+
+At this moment came a flash of lightning, followed by a crack like that
+of a cosmic whip-lash, and a long reverberating roar of thunder.
+
+'It is most foolish to have stayed out so late,' said Mr. Macrae.  'Any
+one could see that a storm was coming.  I told them so, I am really
+annoyed.'
+
+Every one was silent, the rain fell straight and steady, the gravel in
+front of the window was a series of little lakes, pale and chill in the
+wan twilight.
+
+'I really think I must send a couple of men down with cloaks and
+umbrellas,' said the nervous father, pressing an electric knob.
+
+The butler appeared.
+
+'Are Donald and Sandy and Murdoch about?' asked Mr. Macrae.
+
+'Not returned from church, sir;' said the butler.
+
+'There was likely to be a row at the Free Kirk,' said Mr. Macrae,
+absently.
+
+'You must go yourself, Benson, with Archibald and James.  Take cloaks and
+umbrellas, and hurry down towards the cove.  Mr. Blake and Miss Macrae
+have probably found shelter on the way somewhere.'
+
+The butler answered, 'Yes, sir;' but he cannot have been very well
+pleased with his errand.  Merton wanted to offer to go, anything to be
+occupied; but Bude said nothing, and so Merton did not speak.
+
+The four in the drawing-room sat chatting nervously: 'There was nothing
+of course to be anxious about,' they told each other.  The bolt of heaven
+never strikes the daughters of millionaires; Miss Macrae was indifferent
+to a wetting, and nobody cared tremulously about Blake.  Indeed the words
+'confound the fellow' were in the minds of the three men.
+
+The evening darkened rapidly, the minutes lagged by, the clock chimed the
+half-hour, three-quarters, nine o'clock.
+
+Mr. Macrae was manifestly growing more and more nervous, Merton forgot to
+grow more and more hungry.  His tongue felt dry and hard; he was afraid
+of he knew not what, but he bravely tried to make talk with Lady Bude.
+
+The door opened, letting the blaze of electric light from the hall into
+the darkling room.  They all turned eagerly towards the door.  It was
+only one of the servants.  Merton's heart felt like lead.  'Mr. Benson
+has returned, sir; he would be glad if he might speak to you for a
+moment.'
+
+'Where is he?' asked Mr. Macrae.
+
+'At the outer door, sir, in the porch.  He is very wet.'
+
+Mr. Macrae went out; the others found little to say to each other.
+
+'Very awkward,' muttered Bude.  'They cannot have been climbing the
+cliffs, surely.'
+
+'The bridge is far above the highest water-mark of the burn, in case they
+crossed the water,' said Merton.
+
+Lady Bude was silent.
+
+Mr. Macrae returned.  'Benson has come back,' he said, 'to say that he
+can find no trace of them.  The other men are still searching.'
+
+'Can they have had themselves ferried across the sea loch to the village
+opposite?' asked Merton.
+
+'Emmiline had not the key of our boat,' said Mr. Macrae, 'I have made
+sure of that; and not a man in the village would launch a boat on
+Sunday.'
+
+'We must go and help to search for them,' said Merton; he only wished to
+be doing something, anything.
+
+'I shall not be a minute in changing my dress.'
+
+Bude also volunteered, and in a few minutes, having drunk a glass of wine
+and eaten a crust of bread, they and Mr. Macrae were hurrying towards the
+cove.  The storm was passing; by the time when they reached the sea-side
+there were rifts of clear light in the sky above them.  They had walked
+rapidly and silently, the swollen stream roaring beneath them.  It had
+rained torrents in the hills.  There was nothing to be said, but the mind
+of each man was busy with the gloomiest conjectures.  These had to be far-
+fetched, for in a country so thinly peopled, and so honest and friendly,
+within a couple of miles at most from home, on a Sunday evening, what
+conceivable harm could befall a man and a maid?
+
+'Can we trust the man?' was in Merton's mind.  'If they have been ferried
+across to the village, they would have set out to return before now,' he
+said aloud; but there was no boat on the faint silver of the sea loch.
+'The cliffs are the likeliest place for an accident, if there _was_ an
+accident,' he considered, with a pang.  The cliffs might have tempted the
+light-footed girl.  In fancy he saw her huddled, a ghastly heap, the
+faint wind fluttering the folds of her dress, at the bottom of the rocks.
+She had been wearing a long skirt, not her wont in the Highlands; it
+would be dangerous to climb in that; she might have forgotten, climbed,
+and caught her foot, and fallen.
+
+'Blake may have snatched at her, and been dragged down with her,' Merton
+thought.  All the horrid fancies of keen anxiety flitted across his
+mind's eye.  He paused, and made an effort over himself.  There _must_ be
+some other harmless explanation, an adventure to laugh at--for Blake and
+the girl.  Poor comfort, that!
+
+The men who had been searching were scattered about the sides of the
+cove, and, distinguishing the new-comers, gathered towards them.
+
+'No,' they said, 'they had found nothing except a little book that seemed
+to belong to Mr. Blake.'
+
+It had been discovered near the place where Merton and Lady Bude were
+sitting on the previous evening.  When found it was lying open, face
+downwards.  In the faint light Merton could see that the book was full of
+manuscript poems, the lines all blotted and run together by the tropical
+rain.  He thrust it into the pocket of his ulster.
+
+Merton took the most intelligent of the gillies aside.  'Show me where
+you have searched,' he said.  The man pointed to the shores of the cove;
+they had also examined the banks of the burn, and under all the trees,
+clearly fearing that the lost pair might have been lightning-struck, like
+the nymph and swain in Pope's poem.  'You have not searched the cliffs?'
+asked Merton.
+
+'No, sir,' said the man.
+
+Merton then went to Mr. Macrae, and suggested that the boat should be
+sent across the sea ferry, to try if anything could be learned in the
+village.  Mr. Macrae agreed, and himself went in the boat, which was
+presently unmoored, and pulled by two gillies across the loch, that ran
+like a river with the outgoing tide.
+
+Merton and Bude began to search the cliffs; Merton could hear the hoarse
+pumping of his own heart.  The cliff's base was deep in flags and
+bracken, then the rocks began climbing to the foot of the perpendicular
+basaltic crag.  The sky, fortunately, was now clear in the west, and lent
+a wan light to the seekers.  Merton had almost reached the base of the
+cliff, when, in the deep bracken, he stumbled over something soft.  He
+stooped and held back the tall fronds of bracken.
+
+It was the body of a man; the body did not stir.  Merton glanced to see
+the face, but the face was bent round, leaning half on the earth.  It was
+Blake.  Merton's guess seemed true.  They had fallen from the cliffs!  But
+where was that other body?  Merton yelled to Bude.  Blake seemed dead or
+insensible.
+
+Merton (he was ashamed of it presently) left the body of Blake alone; he
+plunged wildly in and out of the bracken, still shouting to Bude, and
+looking for that which he feared to find.  She could not be far off.  He
+stumbled over rocks, into rabbit holes, he dived among the soaked
+bracken.  Below and around he hunted, feverishly panting, then he set his
+face to the sheer cliff, to climb; she might be lying on some higher
+ledge, the shadow on the rocks was dark.  At this moment Bude hailed him.
+
+'Come down!' he cried, 'she cannot be there!'
+
+'Why not?' he gasped, arriving at the side of Bude, who was stooping,
+with a lantern in his hand, over the body of Blake, which faintly
+stirred.
+
+'Look!' said Bude, lowering the lantern.
+
+Then Merton saw that Blake's hands were bound down beside his body, and
+that the cords were fastened by pegs to the ground.  His feet were
+fastened in the same way, and his mouth was stuffed full of wet seaweed.
+Bude pulled out the improvised gag, cut the ropes, turned the face
+upwards, and carefully dropped a little whisky from his flask into the
+mouth.  Blake opened his eyes.
+
+'Where are my poems?' he asked.
+
+'Where is Miss Macrae?' shrieked Merton in agony.
+
+'Damn the midges,' said Blake (his face was hardly recognisable from
+their bites).  'Oh, damn them all!'  He had fainted again.
+
+'She has been carried off,' groaned Merton.  Bude and he did all that
+they knew for poor Blake.  They rubbed his ankles and wrists, they
+administered more whisky, and finally got him to sit up.  He scratched
+his hands over his face and moaned, but at last he recovered full
+consciousness.  No sense could be extracted from him, and, as the boat
+was now visible on its homeward track, Bude and Merton carried him down
+to the cove, anxiously waiting Mr. Macrae.
+
+He leaped ashore.
+
+'Have you heard anything?' asked Bude.
+
+'They saw a boat on the loch about seven o'clock,' said Mr. Macrae,
+'coming from the head of it, touching here, and then pulling west, round
+the cliff.  They thought the crew Sabbath-breakers from the lodge at Alt
+Garbh.  What's that,' he cried, at last seeing Blake, who lay supported
+against a rock, his eyes shut.
+
+Merton rapidly explained.
+
+'It is as I thought,' said Mr. Macrae resolutely.  'I knew it from the
+first.  They have kidnapped her for a ransom.  Let us go home.'
+
+Merton and Bude were silent; they, too, had guessed, as soon as they
+discovered Blake.  The girl was her father's very life, and they admired
+his resolution, his silence.  A gate was taken from its hinges, cloaks
+were strewn on it, and Blake was laid on this ambulance.
+
+Merton ventured to speak.
+
+'May I take your boat, sir, across to the ferry, and send the fishermen
+from the village to search each end of the loch on their side?  It is
+after midnight,' he added grimly.  'They will not refuse to go; it is
+Monday.'
+
+'I will accompany them,' said Bude, 'with your leave, Mr. Macrae, Merton
+can search our side of the loch, he can borrow another boat at the
+village in addition to yours.  You, at the Castle, can organise the
+measures for to-morrow.'
+
+'Thank you both,' said Mr. Macrae.  'I should have thought of that.  Thank
+you, Mr. Merton, for the idea.  I am a little dazed.  There is the key of
+the boat.'
+
+Merton snatched it, and ran, followed by Bude and four gillies, to the
+little pier where the boat was moored.  He must be doing something for
+her, or go mad.  The six men crowded into the boat, and pulled swiftly
+away, Merton taking the stroke oar.  Meanwhile Blake was carried by four
+gillies towards the Castle, the men talking low to each other in Gaelic.
+Mr. Macrae walked silently in front.
+
+Such was the mournful procession that Lady Bude ran out to meet.  She
+passed Mr. Macrae, whose face was set with an expression of deadly rage,
+and looked for Bude.  He was not there, a gillie told her what they knew,
+and, with a convulsive sob, she followed Mr. Macrae into the Castle.
+
+'Mr. Blake must be taken to his room,' said Mr. Macrae.  'Benson, bring
+something to eat and drink.  Lady Bude, I deeply regret that this thing
+should have troubled your stay with me.  She has been carried off, Mr.
+Blake has been rendered unconscious; your husband and Mr. Merton are
+trying nobly to find the track of the miscreants.  You will excuse me, I
+must see to Mr. Blake.'
+
+Mr. Macrae rose, bowed, and went out.  He saw Blake carried to a bathroom
+in the observatory; they undressed him and put him in the hot water.  Then
+they put him to bed, and brought him wine and food.  He drank the wine
+eagerly.
+
+'We were set on suddenly from behind by fellows from a boat,' he said.
+'We saw them land and go up from the cove; they took us in the rear: they
+felled me and pegged me out.  Have you my poems?'
+
+'Mr. Merton has the poems,' said Mr. Macrae.  'What became of my
+daughter?'
+
+'I don't know, I was unconscious.'
+
+'What kind of boat was it?'
+
+'An ordinary coble, a country boat.'
+
+'What kind of looking men were they?'
+
+'Rough fellows with beards.  I only saw them when they first passed us at
+some distance.  Oh, my head!  Oh damn, how these bites do sting!  Get me
+some ammonia; you'll find it in a bottle on the dressing-table.'
+
+Mr. Macrae brought him the bottle and a handkerchief.  'That is all you
+know?' he asked.
+
+But Blake was babbling some confusion of verse and prose: his wits were
+wandering.
+
+Mr. Macrae turned from him, and bade one of the men watch him.  He
+himself passed downstairs and into the hall, where Lady Bude was standing
+at the window, gazing to the north.
+
+'Indeed you must not watch, Lady Bude,' said the millionaire.  'Let me
+persuade you to take something and go to bed.  I forget myself; I do not
+believe that you have dined.'  He himself sat down at the table, he ate
+and drank, and induced Lady Bude to join him.  'Now, do let me persuade
+you to go back and to try to sleep,' said Mr. Macrae gently.  'Your
+husband is well accompanied.'
+
+'It is not for him that I am afraid,' said the lady, who was in tears.
+
+'I must arrange for the day's work,' said the millionaire, and Lady Bude
+sighed and left him.
+
+'First,' he said aloud, 'we must get the doctor from Lairg to see Blake.
+Over forty miles.'  He rang.  'Benson,' he said to the butler, 'order the
+tandem for seven.  The yacht to have steam up at the same hour.  Breakfast
+at half-past six.'
+
+The millionaire then went to his own study, where he sat lost in thought.
+Morning had come before the sound of voices below informed him that Bude
+and Merton had returned.  He hurried down; their faces told him all.
+'Nothing?' he asked calmly.
+
+Nothing!  They had rowed along the loch sides, touching at every cottage
+and landing-place.  They had learned nothing.  He explained his ideas for
+the day.
+
+'If you will allow me to go in the yacht, I can telegraph from Lochinver
+in all directions to the police,' said Bude.
+
+'We can use the wireless thing,' said Mr. Macrae.  'But if you would be
+so good, you could at least see the local police, and if anything
+occurred to you, telegraph in the ordinary way.'
+
+'Right,' said Bude, 'I shall now take a bath.'
+
+'You will stay with me, Mr. Merton,' said Mr. Macrae.
+
+'It is a dreadful country for men in our position,' said Merton, for the
+sake of saying something.  'Police and everything so remote.'
+
+'It gave them their chance; they have waited for it long enough, I dare
+say.  Have you any ideas?'
+
+'They must have a steamer somewhere.'
+
+'That is why I have ordered the balloon, to reconnoitre the sea from,'
+said Mr. Macrae.  'But they have had all the night to escape in.  I think
+they will take her to America, to some rascally southern republic,
+probably.'
+
+'I have thought of the outer islands,' said Merton, 'out behind the Lewis
+and the Long Island.'
+
+'We shall have them searched,' said Mr. Macrae.  'I can think of no more
+at present, and you are tired.'
+
+Merton had slept ill and strangely on the night of Saturday; on Sunday
+night, of course, he had never lain down.  Unshaven, dirty, with haggard
+eyes, he looked as wretched as he felt.
+
+'I shall have a bath, and then please employ me, it does not matter on
+what, as long as I am at work for--you,' said Merton.  He had nearly said
+'for her.'
+
+Mr. Macrae looked at him rather curiously.  'You are dying of fatigue,'
+he said.  'All your ideas have been excellent, but I cannot let you kill
+yourself.  Ideas are what I want.  You must stay with me to-day: I shall
+be communicating with London and other centres by the Giambresi machine;
+I shall need your advice, your suggestions.  Now, do go to bed: you shall
+be called if you are needed.'
+
+He wrung Merton's hand, and Merton crept up to his bedroom.  He took a
+bath, turned in, and was wrapped in all the blessedness of sleep.
+
+Before five o'clock the house was astir.  Bude, in the yacht, steamed
+down the coast, touching at Lochinver, and wherever there seemed a faint
+hope of finding intelligence.  But he learned nothing.  Yachts and other
+vessels came and went (on Sundays, of course, more seldom), and if the
+heiress had been taken straight to sea, northwards or west, round the
+Butt of Lewis, by night, there could be no chance of news of her.
+Returning, Bude learned that the local search parties had found nothing
+but the black ashes of a burned boat in a creek on the south side of the
+cliffs.  There the captors of Miss Macrae must have touched, burned their
+coble, and taken to some larger and fleeter vessel.  But no such vessel
+had been seen by shepherd, fisher, keeper, or gillie.  The grooms arrived
+from Lairg, in the tandem, with the doctor and a rural policeman.  Bude
+had telegraphed to Scotland Yard from Lochinver for detectives, and to
+Glasgow, Oban, Tobermory, Salen, in fact to every place he thought
+likely, with minute particulars of Miss Macrae's appearance and dress.
+All this Merton learned from Bude, when, long after luncheon time, our
+hero awoke suddenly, refreshed in body, but with the ghastly blank of
+misery and doubt before the eyes of his mind.
+
+'I wired,' said Bude, 'on the off chance that yesterday's storm might
+have deranged the wireless machine, and, by Jove, it is lucky I did.  The
+wireless machine won't work, not a word of message has come through; it
+is jammed or something.  I met Donald Macdonald, who told me.'
+
+'Have you seen our host yet?'
+
+'No,' said Bude, 'I was just going to him.'
+
+They found the millionaire seated at a table, his head in his hands.  On
+their approach he roused himself.
+
+'Any news?' he asked Bude, who shook his head.  He explained how he had
+himself sent various telegrams, and Mr. Macrae thanked him.
+
+'You did well,' he said.  'Some electric disturbance has cut us off from
+our London correspondent.  We sent messages in the usual way, but there
+has been no reply.  You sent to Scotland Yard for detectives, I think you
+said?'
+
+'I did.'
+
+'But, unluckily, what can London detectives do in a country like this?'
+said Mr. Macrae.
+
+'I told them to send one who had the Gaelic,' said Bude.
+
+'It was well thought of,' said Mr. Macrae, 'but this was no local job.
+Every man for miles round has been examined, and accounted for.'
+
+'I hope you have slept well, Mr. Merton?' he asked.
+
+'Excellently.  Can you not put me on some work if it is only to copy
+telegraphic despatches?  But, by the way, how is Blake?'
+
+'The doctor is still with him,' said Mr. Macrae; 'a case of concussion of
+the brain, he says it is.  But you go out and take the air, you must be
+careful of yourself.'
+
+Bude remained with the millionaire, Merton sauntered out to look at the
+river: running water drew him like a magnet.  By the side of the stream,
+on a woodland path, he met Lady Bude.  She took his hand silently in her
+right, and patted it with her left.  Merton turned his head away.
+
+'What can I say to you?' she asked.  'Oh, this is too horrible, too
+cruel.'
+
+'If I had listened to you and not irritated her I might have been with
+her, not Blake,' said Merton, with keen self-respect.
+
+'I don't quite see that you would be any the better for concussion of the
+brain,' said Lady Bude, smiling.  'Oh, Mr. Merton, you _must_ find her, I
+know how you have worked already.  You must rescue her.  Consider, this
+is your chance, this is your opportunity to do something great.  Take
+courage!'
+
+Merton answered, with a rather watery smile, 'If I had Logan with me.'
+
+'With or without Lord Fastcastle, you _must do it_!' said Lady Bude.
+
+They saw Mr. Macrae approaching them deep in thought and advanced to meet
+him.
+
+'Mr. Macrae,' asked Lady Bude suddenly, 'have you had Donald with you
+long?'
+
+'Ever since he was a lad in Canada,' answered the millionaire.  'I have
+every confidence in Donald's ability, and he was for half a year with
+Gianesi and Giambresi, learning to work their system.'
+
+Donald's honesty, it was clear, he never dreamed of suspecting.  Merton
+blushed, as he remembered that a doubt as to whether the engineer had
+been 'got at' had occurred to his own mind.  For a heavy bribe (Merton
+had fancied) Donald might have been induced, perhaps by some Stock
+Exchange operator, to tamper with the wireless centre of communication.
+But, from Mr. Macrae's perfect confidence, he felt obliged to drop this
+attractive hypothesis.
+
+They dined at the usual hour, and not long after dinner Lady Bude said
+good-night, while her lord, who was very tired, soon followed her
+example.  Merton and the millionaire paid a visit to Blake, whom they
+found asleep, and the doctor, having taken supper and accepted an
+invitation to stay all night, joined the two other men in the smoking-
+room.  In answer to inquiries about the patient, Dr. MacTavish said,
+'It's jist concussion, slight concussion, and nervous shoke.  No that
+muckle the maiter wi' him but a clour on the hairnspan, and midge bites,
+forbye the disagreeableness o' being clamped doon for a wheen hours in a
+wat tussock o' bracken.'
+
+This diagnosis, though not perfectly intelligible to Merton, seemed to
+reassure Mr. Macrae.
+
+'He's a bit concetty, the chiel,' added the worthy physician, 'and it may
+be a day or twa or he judges he can leave his bed.  Jist nervous
+collapse.  But, bless my soul, what's thon?'
+
+'Thon' had brought Mr. Macrae to his feet with a bound.  It was the
+thrill of the electric bell which preluded to communications from the
+wireless communicator!  The instrument began to tick, and to emit its
+inscribed tape.
+
+'Thank heaven,' cried the millionaire, 'now we shall have light on this
+mystery.'  He read the message, stamped his foot with an awful
+execration, and then, recovering himself, handed the document to Merton.
+'The message is a disgusting practical joke,' he said.  'Some one at the
+central agency is playing tricks with the instrument.'
+
+'Am I to read the message aloud?' asked Merton.
+
+It was rather a difficult question, for the doctor was a perfect stranger
+to all present, and the matters involved were of an intimate delicacy,
+affecting the most sacred domestic relations.
+
+'Dr. MacTavish,' said Mr. Macrae, 'speaking as Highlander to Highlander,
+these are circumstances, are they not, under the seal of professional
+confidence?'
+
+The big doctor rose to his feet.
+
+'They are, sir, but, Mr. Macrae, I am a married man.  This sad business
+of yours, I say it with sorrow, will be the talk of the world to-morrow,
+as it is of the country side to-day.  If you will excuse me, I would
+rather know nothing, and be able to tell nothing, so I'll take my pipe
+outside with me.'
+
+'Not alone, don't go alone, Dr. MacTavish,' said Merton; 'Mr. Macrae will
+need his telegraphic operator probably.  Let me play you a hundred up at
+billiards.'
+
+The doctor liked nothing better; soon the balls were rattling, while the
+millionaire was closeted alone with Donald Macdonald and the wireless
+thing.
+
+After one game, of which he was the winner, the doctor, with much
+delicacy, asked leave to go to bed.  Merton conducted him to his room,
+and, returning, was hailed by Mr. Macrae.
+
+'Here is the pleasant result of our communications,' he said, reading
+aloud the message which he had first received.
+
+   'The Seven Hunters.  August 9, 7.47 p.m.
+
+   'Do not be anxious about Miss Macrae.  She is in perfect health, and
+   accompanied by three chaperons accustomed to move in the first
+   circles.  The one question is How Much?  Sorry to be abrupt, but the
+   sooner the affair is satisfactorily concluded the better.  A reply
+   through your Gianesi machine will reach us, and will meet with prompt
+   attention.'
+
+'A practical joke,' said Merton.  'The melancholy news has reached town
+through Bude's telegrams, and somebody at the depot is playing tricks
+with the instrument.'
+
+'I have used the instrument to communicate that opinion to the
+manufacturers,' said Mr. Macrae, 'but I have had no reply.'
+
+'What does the jester mean by heading his communication "The Seven
+Hunters"?' asked Merton.
+
+'The name of a real or imaginary public-house, I suppose,' said Mr.
+Macrae.
+
+At this moment the electric bell gave its signal, and the tape began to
+exude.  Mr. Macrae read the message aloud; it ran thus:
+
+'No good wiring to Gianesi and Giambresi at headquarters.  You are
+hitched on to us, and to nobody else.  Better climb down.  What are your
+terms?'
+
+'This is infuriating,' said Mr. Macrae.  'It _must_ be a practical joke,
+but how to reach the operators?'
+
+'Let me wire to-morrow by the old-fashioned way,' said Merton; 'I hear
+that one need not go to Lairg to wire.  One can do that from Inchnadampf,
+much nearer.  That is quicker than steaming to Loch Inver.'
+
+'Thank you very much, Mr. Merton; I must be here myself.  You had better
+take the motor--trouble dazes a man--I forgot the motor when I ordered
+the tandem this morning.'
+
+'Very good,' said Merton.  'At what hour shall I start?'
+
+'We all need rest; let us say at ten o'clock.'
+
+'All right,' replied Merton.  'Now do, pray, try to get a good night of
+sleep.'
+
+Mr. Macrae smiled wanly: 'I mean to force myself to read _Emma_, by Miss
+Austen, till the desired effect is produced.'
+
+Merton went to bed, marvelling at the self-command of the millionaire.  He
+himself slept ill, absorbed in regret and darkling conjecture.
+
+After writing out several telegrams for Merton to carry, the smitten
+victim of enormous opulence sought repose.  But how vainly!  Between him
+and the pages which report the prosings of Miss Bates and Mr. Woodhouse
+intruded visions of his daughter, a captive, perhaps crossing the
+Atlantic, perhaps hidden, who knew, in a shieling or a cavern in the
+untrodden wastes of Assynt or of Lord Reay's country.  At last these
+appearances were merged in sleep.
+
+
+
+III.  Logan to the Rescue!
+
+
+As Merton sped on the motor next day to the nearest telegraph station,
+with Mr. Macrae's sheaf of despatches, Dr. MacTavish found him a very
+dull companion.  He named the lochs and hills, Quinag, Suilvean, Ben Mor,
+he dwelt on the merits of the trout in the lochs; he showed the
+melancholy improvements of the old Duke; he spoke of duchesses and of
+crofters, of anglers and tourists; he pointed to the ruined castle of the
+man who sold the great Montrose--or did not sell him.  Merton was
+irresponsive, trying to think.  What was this mystery?  Why did the
+wireless machine bring no response from its headquarters; or how could
+practical jokers have intruded into the secret chambers of Messrs.
+Gianesi and Giambresi?  These dreams or visions of his own on the night
+before Miss Macrae was taken--were they wholly due to tobacco and the
+liver?
+
+'I thought I was awake,' said Merton to himself, 'when I was only
+dreaming about the crimson blot on the ceiling.  Was I asleep when I saw
+the tartans go down the stairs?  I used to walk in my sleep as a boy.  It
+is very queer!'
+
+'Frae the top o' Ben Mor,' the doctor was saying, 'on a fine day, they
+tell me, with a glass you can pick up "The Seven Hunters."'
+
+'Eh, what?  I beg your pardon, I am so confused by this wretched affair.
+What did you say you can pick up?'
+
+'Just "The Seven Hunters,"' said the doctor rather sulkily.
+
+'And what are "The Seven Hunters"?'
+
+'Just seven wee sma' islandies ahint the Butt of Lewis.  The maps ca'
+them the Flanan Islands.'
+
+Merton's heart gave a thump.  The first message from the Gianesi
+invention was dated 'The Seven Hunters.'  Here was a clue.
+
+'Are the islands inhabited?' asked Merton.
+
+'Just wi' wild goats, and, maybe, fishers drying their fish.  And three
+men in a lighthouse on one of them,' said the doctor.
+
+They now rushed up to the hotel and telegraph office of Inchnadampf.  The
+doctor, after visiting the bar, went on in the motor to Lairg; it was to
+return for Merton, who had business enough on hand in sending the
+despatches.  He was thinking over 'The Seven Hunters.'  It might be,
+probably was, a blind, or the kidnappers, having touched there, might
+have departed in any direction--to Iceland, for what he knew.  But the
+name, 'the Seven Hunters,' was not likely to have been invented by a
+practical joker in London.  If not, the conspirators had really captured
+and kept to themselves Mr. Macrae's line of wireless communications.  How
+could that have been done?  Merton bitterly regretted that his general
+information did not include electrical science.
+
+However, he had first to send the despatches.  In one Mr. Macrae informed
+Gianesi and Giambresi of the condition of their instrument, and bade them
+send another at once with a skilled operator, and to look out for
+probable tamperers in their own establishment.  This despatch was in a
+cypher which before he got the new invention, and while he used the old
+wires, Mr. Macrae had arranged with the electricians.  The words of the
+despatch were, therefore, peculiar, and the Highland lass who operated, a
+girl of great beauty and modesty, at first declined to transmit the
+message.
+
+'It's maybe no proper, for a' that I ken,' she urged, and only by
+invoking a local person of authority, and using the name of Mr. Macrae
+very freely, could Merton obtain the transmission of the despatch.
+
+In another document Mr. Macrae ordered 'more motors' and a dozen
+bicycles, as the Nabob of old ordered 'more curricles.'  He also
+telegraphed to the Home Office, the Admiralty, the Hereditary Lord High
+Admiral of the West Coast, to Messrs. McBrain, of the steamers, and to
+every one who might have any access to the control of marine police or
+information.  He wired to the police at New York, bidding them warn all
+American stations, and to the leading New York newspapers, knowing the
+energy and inquiring, if imaginative, character of their reporters.  Bude
+ought to have done all this on the previous day, but Bude's ideas were
+limited.  Nothing, however, was lost, as America is not reached in forty-
+eight hours.  The millionaire instructed Scotland Yard to warn all
+foreign ports, and left them _carte-blanche_ as to the offer of a reward
+for the discovery of his missing daughter.  He also put off all the
+guests whom he had been expecting at Castle Skrae.
+
+Merton was amazed at the energy and intelligence of a paternal mind
+smitten by sudden grief.  Mr. Macrae had even telegraphed to every London
+newspaper, and to the leading Scottish and provincial journals, 'No
+Interviewers need Apply.'  Several hours were spent, as may be imagined,
+in getting off these despatches from a Highland rural office, and Merton
+tried to reward the fair operator.  But she declined to accept a present
+for doing her duty, and expressed lively sympathy for the poor young lady
+who was lost.  In a few days a diamond-studded watch and chain arrived
+for Miss MacTurk.
+
+Merton himself wired to Logan, imploring him, in the name of friendship,
+to abandon all engagements, and come to Inchnadampf.  Where kidnapping
+was concerned he knew that Logan must be interested, and might be useful;
+but, of course, he could not invite him to Castle Skrae.  Meanwhile he
+secured rooms for Logan at the excellent inn.  Lady Fastcastle, he knew,
+was in England, brooding over her first-born, the Master of Fastcastle.
+
+Before these duties were performed the motor returned from Lairg, bearing
+the two London detectives, one disguised as a gillie (he was the
+detective who had the Gaelic), the other as a clergyman of the Church of
+England.  To Merton he whispered that he was to be an early friend of Mr.
+Macrae, come to comfort him on the first news of his disaster.  As to the
+other, the gillie, Mr. Macrae was known to have been in want of an
+assistant to the stalker, and Duncan Mackay (of Scotland Yard) had
+accepted the situation.  Merton approved of these arrangements; they were
+such as he would himself have suggested.
+
+'But I don't see what we can do, sir,' said the clerical detective (the
+Rev. Mr. Williams), 'except perhaps find out if it was a put up thing
+from within.'
+
+Merton gave him a succinct sketch of the events, and he could see that
+Mr. Williams already suspected Donald Macdonald, the engineer.  Merton,
+Mr. Williams, and the driver now got into the motor, and were followed by
+the gillie-detective and a man to drive in a dog-cart hired from the inn.
+Merton ordered all answers to telegrams to be sent by boys on bicycles.
+
+It was late ere he returned to Castle Skrae.  There nothing of importance
+had occurred, except the arrival of more messages from the wireless
+machine.  They insisted that Miss Macrae was in perfect health, but
+implored the millionaire to settle instantly, lest anxiety for a father's
+grief should undermine her constitution.
+
+Mr. Williams had a long interview with Mr. Macrae.  It was arranged that
+he should read family prayers in the morning and evening.  He left _The
+Church Quarterly Review_ and numbers of _The Expositor_, _The Guardian_,
+and _The Pilot_ in the hall with his great coat, and on the whole his
+entry was very well staged.  Duncan Mackay occupied a room at the
+keeper's, who had only eight children.
+
+Mr. Williams asked if he might see Mr. Blake; he could impart religious
+consolation.  Merton carried this message, in answer to which Blake, who
+was in bed very sulky and sleepy, merely replied, 'Kick out the
+hell-hound.'
+
+Merton was obliged to soften this rude message, saying that unfortunately
+Mr. Blake was of the older faith, though he had expressed no wish for the
+ministrations of Father McColl.
+
+On hearing this Mr. Williams merely sighed, as the Budes were present.  He
+had been informed as to their tenets, and had even expressed a desire to
+labour for their enlightenment, by way of giving local colour.  He had,
+he said, some stirring Protestant tracts among his clerical properties.
+Mr. Macrae, however, had gently curbed this zeal, so on hearing of
+Blake's religious beliefs the sigh of Mr. Williams was delicately
+subdued.
+
+Dinner-time arrived.  Blake did not appear; the butler said that he
+supported existence solely on dried toast and milk and soda-water.  He
+was one of the people who keep a private clinical thermometer, and he
+sent the bulletin that his temperature was 103.  He hoped to come
+downstairs to-morrow.  Mr. Williams gave the party some news of the outer
+world.  He had brought the _Scotsman_, and Mr. Macrae had the gloomy
+satisfaction of reading a wildly inaccurate report of his misfortune.
+Correct news had not reached the press, but deep sympathy was expressed.
+The melancholy party soon broke up, Mr. Williams conducting family
+prayers with much unction, after the Budes had withdrawn.
+
+In a private interview with the millionaire Merton told him how he had
+discovered the real meaning of 'The Seven Hunters,' whence the first
+telegram of the kidnappers was dated.  Neither man thought the
+circumstance very important.
+
+'They would hardly have ventured to name the islands if they had any idea
+of staying there,' the millionaire said, 'besides any heartless jester
+could find the name on a map.'
+
+This was obvious, but as Lady Bude was much to be pitied, alone, in the
+circumstances, Mr. Macrae determined to send her and Bude on the yacht,
+the _Flora Macdonald_, to cruise round the Butt of Lewis and examine the
+islets.  Both Bude and his wife were devoted to yachting, and the isles
+might yield something in the way of natural history.
+
+Next day (Wednesday) the Budes steamed away, and there came many answers
+to the telegrams of Mr. Macrae, and one from Logan to Merton.  Logan was
+hard by, cruising with his cousin, Admiral Chirnside, at the naval
+manoeuvres on the northeast coast.  He would come to Inchnadampf at once.
+Mr. Macrae heard from Gianesi and Giambresi.  Gianesi himself was coming
+with a fresh machine.  Mr. Macrae wished it had been Giambresi, whom he
+knew; Gianesi he had never met.  Condolences, of course, poured in from
+all quarters, even the most exalted.  The Emperor of Germany was most
+sympathetic.  But there was no news of importance.  Several yachting
+parties had been suspected and examined; three young ladies at Oban,
+Applecross, and Tobermory, had established their identity and proved that
+they were not Miss Macrae.
+
+All day the wireless machine was silent.  Mr. Williams was shown all the
+rooms in the castle, and met Blake, who appeared at luncheon.  Blake was
+most civil.  He asked for a private interview with Mr. Macrae, who
+inquired whether his school friend, Mr. Williams, might share it?  Blake
+was pleased to give them both all the information he had, though his
+head, he admitted, still rang with the cowardly blow that had stunned
+him.  He was told of the discovery of the burned boat, and was asked
+whether it had approached from east or west, from the side of the
+Atlantic, or from the head of the sea loch.
+
+'From Kinlocharty,' he said, 'from the head of the loch, the landward
+side.'  This agreed with the evidence of the villagers on the other side
+of the sea loch.
+
+Would he recognise the crew?  He had only seen them at a certain
+distance, when they landed, but in spite of the blow on his head he
+remembered the black beard of one man, and the red beard of another.  To
+be sure they might shave off their beards, yet these two he thought he
+could identify.  Speaking to Miss Macrae as the men passed them, he had
+called one Donald Dubh, or 'black,' and the other Donald Ban, or 'fair.'
+They carried heavy shepherds' crooks in their hands.  Their dress was
+Lowland, but they wore unusually broad bonnets of the old sort, drooping
+over the eyes.  Blake knew no more, except his anguish from the midges.
+
+He expressed his hope to be well enough to go away on Friday; he would
+retire to the inn at Scourie, and try to persevere with his literary
+work.  Mr. Macrae would not hear of this; as, if the miscreants were
+captured, Blake alone could have a chance of identifying them.  To this
+Blake replied that, as long as Mr. Macrae thought that he might be
+useful, he was at his service.
+
+To Merton, Blake displayed himself in a new light.  He said that he
+remembered little of what occurred after he was found at the foot of the
+cliff.  Probably he was snappish and selfish; he was suffering very much.
+His head, indeed, was still bound up, and his face showed how he had
+suffered.  Merton shook hands with him, and said that he hoped Blake
+would forget his own behaviour, for which he was sincerely sorry.
+
+'Oh, the chaff?' said Blake.  'Never mind, I dare say I played the fool.
+I have been thinking, when my brain would give me leave, as I lay in bed.
+Merton, you are a trifle my senior, and you know the world much better.  I
+have lived in a writing and painting set, where we talked nonsense till
+it went to our heads, and we half believed it.  And, to tell you the
+truth, the presence of women always sets me off.  I am a humbug; I do
+_not_ know Gaelic, but I mean to work away at my drama for all that.  This
+kind of shock against the realities of life sobers a fellow.'
+
+Blake spoke simply, in an unaffected, manly way.
+
+'_Semel in saninivimus omnes_!' said Merton.
+
+'_Nec lusisse pudet_!' said Blake, 'and the rest of it.  I know there's a
+parallel in the _Greek Anthology_, somewhere.  I'll go and get my copy.'
+
+He went into the observatory (they had been sitting on a garden seat
+outside), and Merton thought to himself:
+
+'He is not such a bad fellow.  Not many of your young poets know anything
+but French.'
+
+Blake seemed to have some difficulty in finding his Anthology.  At last
+he came out with rather a 'carried' look, as the Scots say, rather
+excited.
+
+'Here it is,' he said, and handed Merton the little volume, of a
+Tauchnitz edition, open at the right page.  Merton read the epigram.
+'Very neat and good,' he said.
+
+'Now, Merton,' said Blake, 'it is not usual, is it, for ministers of the
+Anglican sect to play the spy?'
+
+'What in the world do you mean?' asked Merton.  'Oh, I guess, the Rev.
+Mr. Williams!  Were you not told that his cure of souls is in Scotland
+Yard?  I ought to have told you, I thought our host would have done so.
+What was the holy man doing?'
+
+'I was not told,' said Blake, 'I suppose Mr. Macrae was too busy.  So I
+was rather surprised, when I went into my room for my book, to find the
+clergyman examining my things and taking books out of one of my book
+boxes.'
+
+'Good heavens!' exclaimed Merton.  'What did you do?'
+
+'I locked the door of the room, and handed Mr. Williams the key of my
+despatch box.  "I have a few private trifles there," I said, "the key may
+save you trouble."  Then I sat down and wrote a note to Mr. Macrae, and
+rang the bell and asked the servant to carry the note to his master.  Mr.
+Macrae came, and I explained the situation and asked him to be kind
+enough to order the motor, if he could spare it, or anything to carry me
+to the nearest inn.'
+
+'I shall order it, Mr. Blake,' said Mr. Macrae, 'but it will be to remove
+this person, whom I especially forbade to molest any of my guests.  I
+don't know how I forgot to tell you who he is, a detective; the others
+were told.'
+
+'He confounded himself in excuses; it was horribly awkward.'
+
+'Horribly!' said Merton.
+
+'He rated the man for visiting his guests' rooms without his knowledge.  I
+dare say the parson has turned over all _your_ things.'
+
+Merton blenched.  He had some of the correspondence of the Disentanglers
+with him, rather private matter, naturally.
+
+'He had not the key of my despatch box,' said Merton.
+
+'He could open it with a quill, I believe,' said Blake.  'They do--in
+novels.'
+
+Merton felt very uneasy.  'What was the end of it?' he asked.
+
+'Oh, I said that if the man was within his duty the accident was only one
+of those which so singular a misfortune brings with it.  I would stay
+while Mr. Macrae wanted me.  I handed over my keys, and insisted that all
+my luggage and drawers and things should be examined.  But Mr. Macrae
+would not listen to me, and forbade the fellow to enter any of--the
+bedrooms.'
+
+'Begad, I'll go and look at my own despatch box,' said Merton.
+
+'I shall sit in the shade,' said Blake.
+
+Merton did examine his box, but could not see that any of the papers had
+been disarranged.  Still, as the receptacle was full of family secrets he
+did not feel precisely comfortable.  Going out on the lawn he met Mr.
+Macrae, who took him into a retired place and told him what had occurred.
+
+'I had given the man the strictest orders not to invade the rooms of any
+of my guests,' he said; 'it is too odious.'
+
+The Rev. Mr. Williams being indisposed, dined alone in his room that
+night; so did Blake, who was still far from well.
+
+The only other incident was that Donald Macdonald and the new gillie,
+Duncan Mackay, were reported to be 'lying around in a frightfully
+dissolute state.'  Donald was a sober man, but Mackay, he explained next
+morning, proved to be his long lost cousin, hence the revel.  Mackay,
+separately, stated that he had made Donald intoxicated for the purpose of
+eliciting any guilty secret which he might possess.  But whisky had
+elicited nothing.
+
+On the whole the London detectives had not been entirely a success.  Mr.
+Macrae therefore arranged to send both of them back to Lairg, where they
+would strike the line, and return to the metropolis.
+
+Merton had casually talked of Logan (Lord Fastcastle) to Mr. Macrae on
+the previous evening, and mentioned that he was now likely to be at
+Inchnadampf.  Mr. Macrae knew something of Logan, and before he sped the
+parting detectives, asked Merton whether he thought that he might send a
+note to Inchnadampf inviting his friend to come and bear him company?
+Merton gravely said that in such a crisis as theirs he thought that Logan
+would be extremely helpful, and that he was a friend of the Budes.
+Perhaps he himself had better go and pick up Logan and inform him fully
+as to the mysterious events?  As Mr. Gianesi was also expected from
+London on that day (Thursday) to examine the wireless machine, which had
+been silent, Mr. Macrae sent off several vehicles, as well as the motor
+that carried the detectives.  Merton drove the tandem himself.
+
+Merton found Logan, with his Spanish bull-dog, Bouncer, loafing outside
+the hotel door at Inchnadampf.  He greeted Merton in a state of
+suppressed glee; the whole adventure was much to the taste of the scion
+of Rostalrig.  Merton handed him Mr. Macrae's letter of invitation.
+
+'Come, won't I come, rather!' said Logan.
+
+'Of course we must wait to rest the horses,' said Merton.  'The motor has
+gone on to Lairg, carrying two detectives who have made a pretty foozle
+of it, and it will bring back an electrician.'
+
+'What for?' asked Logan.
+
+'I must tell you the whole story,' said Merton.  'Let us walk a little
+way--too many gillies and people loafing about here.'
+
+They walked up the road and sat down by little Loch Awe, the lochan on
+the way to Alt-na-gealgach.  Merton told all the tale, beginning with his
+curious experiences on the night before the disappearance of Miss Macrae,
+and ending with the dismissal of the detectives.  He also confided to
+Logan the importance of the matter to himself, and entreated him to be
+serious.
+
+Logan listened very attentively.
+
+When Merton had ended, Logan said, 'Old boy, you were the making of me:
+you may trust me.  Serious it is.  A great deal of capital must have been
+put into this business.'
+
+'A sprat to catch a whale,' said Merton.  'You mean about nobbling the
+electric machine?  How could _that_ be done?'
+
+'That--and other things.  I don't know _how_ the machine was nobbled, but
+it could not be done cheap.  Would you mind telling me your dreams
+again?'
+
+Merton repeated the story.
+
+Logan was silent.
+
+'Do you see your way?' asked Merton.
+
+'I must have time to think it out,' said Logan.  'It is rather mixed.
+When was Bude to return from his cruise to "The Seven Hunters"?'
+
+'Perhaps to-night,' said Merton.  'We cannot be sure.  She is a very
+swift yacht, the _Flora Macdonald_.'
+
+'I'll think it all over, Bude may give us a tip.'
+
+No more would Logan say, beyond asking questions, which Merton could not
+answer, about the transatlantic past of the vanished heiress.
+
+They loitered back towards the hotel and lunched.  The room was almost
+empty, all the guests of the place were out fishing.  Presently the motor
+returned from Lairg, bringing Mr. Gianesi and a large box of his
+electrical appliances.  Merton rapidly told him all that he did not
+already know through Mr. Macrae's telegrams.  He was a reserved man,
+rather young, and beyond thanking Merton, said little, but pushed on
+towards Castle Skrae in the motor.  'Some other motors,' he said, 'had
+arrived, and were being detained at Lairg.'  They came later.
+
+Merton and Logan followed in the tandem, Logan driving; they had handed
+to Gianesi a sheaf of telegrams for the millionaire.  As to the objects
+of interest on the now familiar road, Merton enlightened Logan, who
+seemed as absent-minded as Merton had been, when instructed by Dr.
+MacTavish.  As they approached the Castle, Merton observed, from a
+height, the _Flora Macdonald_ steaming into the sea loch.
+
+'Let us drive straight down to the cove and meet them,' he said.
+
+They arrived at the cove just as the boat from the yacht touched the
+shore.  The Budes were astonished and delighted to see their old friend,
+Logan, and his dog, Bouncer, a tawny black muzzled, bow-legged hero, was
+admired by Lady Bude.
+
+Merton rapidly explained.  'Now, what tidings?' he asked.
+
+The party walked aside on the shore, and Bude swiftly narrated what he
+had discovered.
+
+'They _have_ been there,' he said.  'We drew six of the islets blank,
+including the islet of the lighthouse.  The men there had seen a large
+yacht, two ladies and a gentleman from it had visited them.  They knew no
+more.  Desert places, the other isles are, full of birds.  On the seventh
+isle we found some Highland fishermen from the Lewis in a great state of
+excitement.  They had only landed an hour before to pick up some fish
+they had left to dry on the rocks.  They had no English, but one of our
+crew had the Gaelic, and interpreted in Scots.  Regular Gaels, they did
+not want to speak, but I offered money, gold, let them see it.  Then they
+took us to a cave.  Do you know Mackinnon's cave in Mull, opposite Iona?'
+
+'Yes, drive on!' said Merton, much interested.
+
+'Well, inside it was pitched an empty corrugated iron house, quite new,
+and another, on the further side, outside the cave.'
+
+'I picked up this in the interior of the cave,' said Lady Bude.
+
+'This' was a golden hair-pin of peculiar make.
+
+'That's the kind of hair-pin she wears,' said Lady Bude.
+
+'By Jove!' said Merton and Logan in one voice.
+
+'But that was all,' said Bude.  'There was no other trace, except that
+plainly people had been coming and going, and living there.  They had
+left some empty bottles, and two intact champagne bottles.  We tasted it,
+it was excellent!  The Lewis men, who had not heard of the affair, could
+tell nothing more, except, what is absurd, that they had lately seen a
+dragon flying far off over the sea.  A _dragon volant_, did you ever hear
+such nonsense?  The interpreter pronounced it "draigon."  He had not too
+much English himself.'
+
+'The Highlanders are so delightfully superstitious,' said Lady Bude.
+
+Logan opened his lips to speak, but said nothing.
+
+'I don't think we should keep Mr. Macrae waiting,' said Lady Bude.
+
+'If Bude will take the reins,' said Merton, 'you and he can be at the
+Castle in no time.  We shall walk.'
+
+'Excuse me a moment,' said Logan.  'A word with you, Bude.'
+
+He took Bude aside, uttered a few rapid sentences, and then helped Lady
+Bude into the tandem.  Bude followed, and drove away.
+
+'Is your secret to be kept from me?' asked Merton.
+
+'Well, old boy, you never told _me_ the mystery of the Emu's feathers!
+Secret for secret, out with it; how did the feathers help you, if they
+_did_ help you, to find out my uncle, the Marquis?  _Gifgaff_, as we say
+in Berwickshire.  Out with your feathers! and I'll produce my _dragon
+volant_, tail and all.'
+
+Merton was horrified.  The secret of the Emu's feathers involved the
+father of Lady Fastcastle, of his old friend's wife, in a very
+distasteful way.  Logan, since his marriage, had never shown any
+curiosity in the matter.  His was a joyous nature; no one was less of a
+self-tormentor.
+
+'Well, old fellow,' said Merton, 'keep your dragon, and I'll keep my
+Emu.'
+
+'I won't keep him long, I assure you,' said Logan.  'Only for a day or
+two, I dare say; then you'll know; sooner perhaps.  But, for excellent
+reasons, I asked Bude and Lady Bude to say nothing about the
+hallucination of these second-sighted Highland fishers.  I have a plan.  I
+think we shall run in the kidnappers; keep your pecker up.  You shall be
+in it!'
+
+With this promise, and with Logan's jovial confidence (he kept breaking
+into laughter as he went) Merton had to be satisfied, though in no humour
+for laughing.
+
+'I'm working up to my _denouement_.'  Logan said.  'Tremendously
+dramatic!  You shall be on all through; I am keeping the fat for you,
+Merton.  It is no bad thing for a young man to render the highest
+possible services to a generous millionaire, especially in the
+circumstances.'
+
+'You're rather patronising,' said Merton, a little hurt.
+
+'No, no,' said Logan.  'I have played second fiddle to you often, do let
+me take command this time--or, at all events, wait till you see my plot
+unfolded.  Then you can take your part, or leave it alone, or modify to
+taste.  Nothing can be fairer.'
+
+Merton admitted that these proposals were loyal, and worthy of their old
+and tried friendship.
+
+'_Un dragon volant_, flying over the empty sea!' said Logan.  'The
+Highlanders beat the world for fantastic visions, and the Islanders beat
+the Highlanders.  But, look here, am I too inquisitive?  The night when
+we first thought of the Disentanglers you said there was--somebody.  But
+I understood that she and you were of one mind, and that only parents and
+poverty were in the way.  And now, from what you told me this morning at
+Inchnadampf, it seems that there is no understanding between you and
+_this_ lady, Miss Macrae.'
+
+'There is none,' said Merton.  'I tried to keep my feelings to myself--I'm
+ashamed to say that I doubt if I succeeded.'
+
+'Any chance?' asked Logan, putting his arm in Merton's in the old
+schoolboy way.
+
+'I would rather not speak about it,' said Merton.  'I had meant to go
+myself on the Monday.  Then came the affair of Sunday night,' and he
+sighed.
+
+'Then the somebody before was another somebody?'
+
+'Yes,' said Merton, turning rather red.
+
+'Men have died and the worms have eaten them, but not for love,' muttered
+Logan.
+
+
+
+IV.  The Adventure of Eachain of the Hairy Arm
+
+
+On arriving at the Castle Logan and Merton found poor Mr. Macrae
+comparatively cheerful.  Bude and Lady Bude had told what they had
+gleaned, and the millionaire, recognising his daughter's hair-pin, had
+all but broken down.  Lady Bude herself had wept as he thanked her for
+this first trace, this endearing relic, of the missing girl, and he
+warmly welcomed Merton, who had detected the probable meaning of the
+enigmatic 'Seven Hunters.'
+
+'It is to _you_,' he said, 'Mr. Merton, that I owe the intelligence of my
+daughter's life and probable comfort.'
+
+Lady Bude caught Merton's eye; one of hers was slightly veiled by her
+long lashes.
+
+The telegrams of the day had only brought the usual stories of the
+fruitless examination of yachts, and of hopes unfulfilled and clues that
+led to nothing.  The outermost islets were being searched, and a steamer
+had been sent to St. Kilda.  At home Mr. Gianesi had explained to Mr.
+Macrae that he and his partner were forced, reluctantly, by the nature of
+the case, to suspect treason within their own establishment in London, a
+thing hitherto unprecedented.  They had therefore installed a new machine
+in a carefully locked chamber at their place, and Mr. Gianesi was ready
+at once to set up a corresponding recipient engine at Castle Skrae.  Mr.
+Macrae wished first to remove the machine in the smoking-room, but Blake
+ventured to suggest that it had better be left where it was.
+
+'The conspirators,' he said, 'have made one blunder already, by
+mentioning "The Seven Hunters," unless, indeed, that was intentional;
+they _may_ have meant to lighten our anxiety, without leaving any useful
+clue.  They may make another mistake: in any case it is as well to be in
+touch with them.'
+
+At this moment the smoking-room machine began to tick and emitted a
+message.  It ran, 'Glad you visited the Hunters.  You see we do ourselves
+very well.  Hope you drank our health, we left some bottles of champagne
+on purpose.  No nasty feeling, only a matter of business.  Do hurry up
+and come to terms.'
+
+'Impudent dogs!' said Mr. Macrae.  'But I think you are right, Mr. Blake;
+we had better leave these communications open.'
+
+Mr. Gianesi agreed that Blake had spoken words of wisdom.  Merton felt
+surprised at his practical common sense.  It was necessary to get another
+pole to erect on the roof of the observatory, with another box at top for
+the new machine, but a flagstaff from the Castle leads was found to serve
+the purpose, and the rest of the day was passed in arranging the
+installation, the new machine being placed in Mr. Merton's own study.
+Before dinner was over, Mr. Gianesi, who worked like a horse, was able to
+announce that all was complete, and that a brief message, 'Yours
+received, all right,' had passed through from his firm in London.
+
+Soon after dinner Blake retired to his room; his head was still
+suffering, and he could not bear smoke.  Gianesi and Mr. Macrae were in
+the Castle, Mr. Macrae feverishly reading the newspaper speculations on
+the melancholy affair: leading articles on Science and Crime, the
+potentialities of both, the perils of wealth, and such other thoughts as
+occurred to active minds in Fleet Street.  Gianesi's room was in the
+observatory, but he remained with Mr. Macrae in case he might be needed.
+Merton and Logan were alone in the smoking-room, where Bude left them
+early.
+
+'Now, Merton,' said Logan, 'you are going to come on in the next scene.
+Have you a revolver?'
+
+'Heaven forbid!' said Merton.
+
+'Well, I have!  Now this is what you are to do.  We shall both turn in
+about twelve, and make a good deal of clatter and talk as we do so.  You
+will come with me into my room.  I'll hand you the revolver, loaded,
+silently, while we talk fishing shop with the door open.  Then you will
+go rather noisily to your room, bang the door, take off your shoes, and
+slip out again--absolutely noiselessly--back into the smoking-room.  You
+see that window in the embrasure here, next the door, looking out towards
+the loch?  The curtain is drawn already, you will go on the window-seat
+and sit tight!  Don't fall asleep!  I shall give you my portable electric
+lamp for reading in the train.  You may find it useful.  Only don't fall
+asleep.  When the row begins I shall come on.'
+
+'I see,' said Merton.  'But look here!  Suppose you slip out of your own
+room, locking the door quietly, and into mine, where you can snore, you
+know--I snore myself--in case anybody takes a fancy to see whether I am
+asleep?  Leave your dog in your own room, _he_ snores, all Spanish bull-
+dogs do.'
+
+'Yes, that will serve,' said Logan.  'Merton, your mind is not wholly
+inactive.'
+
+They had some whisky and soda-water, and carried out the manoeuvres on
+which they had decided.
+
+Merton, unshod, silently re-entered the smoking-room, his shoes in his
+hand; Logan as tactfully occupied Merton's room, and then they waited.
+Presently, the smoking-room door being slightly ajar, Merton heard Logan
+snoring very naturally; the Spanish bull-dog was yet more sonorous.
+Gianesi came in, walked upstairs to his bedroom, and shut his door; in
+half an hour he also was snoring; it was a nasal trio.
+
+Merton 'drove the night along,' like Dr. Johnson, by repeating Latin and
+other verses.  He dared not turn on the light of his portable electric
+lamp and read; he was afraid to smoke; he heard the owls towhitting and
+towhooing from the woods, and the clock on the Castle tower striking the
+quarters and the hours.
+
+One o'clock passed, two o'clock passed, a quarter after two, then the
+bell of the wireless machine rang, the machine began to tick; Merton sat
+tight, listening.  All the curtains of the windows were drawn, the room
+was almost perfectly dark; the snorings had sometimes lulled, sometimes
+revived.  Merton lay behind the curtains on the window-seat, facing the
+door.  He knew, almost without the help of his ears, that the door was
+slowly, slowly opening.  Something entered, something paused, something
+stole silently towards the wireless machine, and paused again.  Then a
+glow suffused the further end of the room, a disc of electric light,
+clearly from a portable lamp.  A draped form, in deep shadow, was exposed
+to Merton's view.  He stole forward on tiptoe with noiseless feet; he
+leaped on the back of the figure, threw his left arm round its neck,
+caught its right wrist in a grip of steel, and yelled:
+
+'Mr. Eachain of the Hairy Arm, if I am not mistaken!'
+
+At the same moment there came a click, the electric light was switched
+on, Logan bounced on to the figure, tore away a revolver from the right
+hand of which Merton held the wrist, and the two fell on the floor above
+a struggling Highland warrior in the tartans of the Macraes.  The figure
+was thrown on its face.
+
+'Got you now, Mr. Blake!' said Logan, turning the head to the light.  'D---
+n!' he added; 'it is Gianesi!  I thought we had the Irish minstrel.'
+
+The figure only snarled, and swore in Italian.
+
+'First thing, anyhow, to tie him up,' said Logan, producing a serviceable
+cord.
+
+Both Logan and Merton were muscular men, and presently had the intruder
+tightly swathed in inextricable knots and gagged in a homely but
+sufficient fashion.
+
+'Now, Merton,' said Logan, 'this is a bitter disappointment!  From your
+dream, or vision, of Eachain of the Hairy Arm, it was clear to me that
+somebody, the poet for choice, had heard the yarn of the Highland ghost,
+and was masquerading in the kilt for the purpose of tampering with the
+electric dodge and communicating with the kidnappers.  Apparently I owe
+the bard an apology.  You'll sit on this fellow's chest while I go and
+bring Mr. Macrae.'
+
+'A message has come in on the machine,' said Merton.
+
+'Well, he can read it; it is not our affair.'
+
+Logan went off; Merton poured out a glass of Apollinaris water, added a
+little whisky, and lit a cigarette.  The figure on the floor wriggled;
+Merton put the revolver which the man had dropped and Logan's pistol into
+a drawer of the writing-table, which he locked.
+
+'I do detest all that cheap revolver business,' said Merton.
+
+The row had awakened Logan's dog, which was howling dolefully in the
+neighbouring room.
+
+'Queer situation, eh?' said Merton to the prostrate figure.
+
+Hurrying footsteps climbed the stairs; Mr. Macrae (with a shot-gun) and
+Logan entered.
+
+Mr. Macrae all but embraced Merton.  'Had I a son, I could have wished
+him to be like you,' he said; 'but my poor boy--' his voice broke.  Merton
+had not known before that the millionaire had lost a son.  He did
+understand, however, that the judicious Logan had given _him_ the whole
+credit of the exploit, for reasons too obvious to Merton.
+
+'Don't thank _me_,' he was saying, when Logan interrupted:
+
+'Don't you think, Mr. Macrae, you had better examine the message that has
+just come in?'
+
+Mr. Macrae read, 'Glad they found the hair-pin, it will console the old
+boy.  Do not quite see how to communicate, if Gianesi, who, you say, has
+arrived, removes the machine.'
+
+'Look here,' cried Merton, 'excuse my offering advice, but we ought, I
+think, to send for Donald Macdonald _at once_.  We must flash back a
+message to those brutes, so they may think they are still in
+communication with the traitor in our camp.  That beast on the floor
+could work it, of course, but he would only warn _them_; we can't check
+him.  We must use Donald, and keep them thinking that they are sending
+news to the traitor.'
+
+'But, by Jove,' said Logan, 'they have heard from _him_, whoever he is,
+since Bude came back, for they know about the finding of the hair-pin.
+You,' he said to the wretched captive, 'have you been at this machine?'
+
+The man, being gagged, only gasped.
+
+'There's this, too,' said Merton, 'the senders of the last message
+clearly think that Gianesi is against them.  If Gianesi removes the
+machine, they say--'
+
+Merton did not finish his sentence, he rushed out of the room.  Presently
+he hurried back.  'Mr. Macrae,' he said, 'Blake's door is locked.  I
+can't waken him, and, if he were in his room, the noise we have made must
+have wakened him already.  Logan, ungag that creature!'
+
+Logan removed the gag.
+
+'Who are _you_?' he asked.
+
+The captive was silent.
+
+'Mr. Macrae,' said Merton, 'may I run and bring Donald and the other
+servants here?  Donald must work the machine at once, and we must break
+in Blake's door, and, if he is off, we must rouse the country after him.'
+
+Mr. Macrae seemed almost dazed, the rapid sequence of unusual
+circumstances being remote from his experience.  In spite of the blaze of
+electric light, the morning was beginning to steal into the room; the
+refreshments on the table looked oddly dissipated, there was a heavy
+stale smell of tobacco, and of whisky from a bottle that had been upset
+in the struggle.  Mr. Macrae opened a window and inhaled the fresh air
+from the Atlantic.
+
+This revived him.  'I'll ring the alarm bell,' he said, and, putting a
+small key to an unnoticed keyhole in a panel, he opened a tiny door,
+thrust in his hand, and pressed a knob.  Instantly from the Castle tower
+came the thunderous knell of the alarm.  'I had it put in in case of fire
+or burglars,' explained the millionaire, adding automatically, 'every
+modern improvement.'
+
+In a few minutes the servants and gillies had gathered, hastily clad;
+they were met by Logan, who briefly bade some bring hammers, and the
+caber, or pine-tree trunk that is tossed in Highland sports.  It would
+make a good battering-ram.  Donald Macdonald he sent at once to Mr.
+Macrae.  He met Bude and Lady Bude, and rapidly explained that there was
+no danger of fire.  The Countess went back to her rooms, Bude returned
+with Logan into the observatory.  Here they found Donald telegraphing to
+the conspirators, by the wireless engine, a message dictated by Merton:
+
+'Don't be alarmed about communications.  I have got them to leave our
+machine in its place on the chance that you might say something that
+would give you away.  Gianesi suspects nothing.  Wire as usual, at about
+half-past two in the morning, when you mean it for me.'
+
+'That ought to be good enough,' said Logan approvingly, while the hammers
+and the caber, under Mr. Macrae's directions, were thundering on the door
+of Blake's room.  The door, which was very strong, gave way at last with
+a crash; in they burst.  The room was empty, a rope fastened to the
+ironwork of the bedstead showed the poet's means of escape, for a long
+rope-ladder swung from the window.  On the table lay a letter directed to
+
+   _Thomas Merton, Esq_.,
+   _care of Ronald Macrae, Esq_.,
+   _Castle Skrae_.
+
+Mr. Macrae took the letter, bidding Benson, the butler, search the room,
+and conveyed the epistle to Merton, who opened it.  It ran thus:--
+
+   'DEAR MERTON,--As a man of the world, and slightly my senior, you must
+   have expected to meet me in the smoking-room to-night, or at least
+   Lord Fastcastle probably entertained that hope.  I saw that things
+   were getting a little too warm, and made other arrangements.  It is a
+   little hard on the poor fellow whom you have probably mauled, if you
+   have not shot each other.  As he has probably informed you, he is not
+   Mr. Gianesi, but a dismissed _employe_, whom we enlisted, and whom I
+   found it desirable to leave behind me.  These discomforts will occur;
+   I myself did not look for so severe an assault as I suffered down at
+   the cove on Sunday evening.  The others carried out their parts only
+   too conscientiously in my case.  You will not easily find an
+   opportunity of renewing our acquaintance, as I slit and cut the tyres
+   of all the motors, except that on which I am now retiring from
+   hospitable Castle Skrae, having also slit largely the tyres of the
+   bicycles.  Mr. Macrae's new wireless machine has been rendered useless
+   by my unfortunate associate, and, as I have rather spiked all the
+   wheeled conveyances (I could not manage to scuttle the yacht), you
+   will be put to some inconvenience to re-establish communications.  By
+   that time my trail will be lost.  I enclose a banknote for 10_l_.,
+   which pray, if you would oblige me, distribute among the servants at
+   the Castle.  Please thank Mr. Macrae for all his hospitality.  Among
+   my books you may find something to interest you.  You may keep my
+   manuscript poems.
+
+   Very faithfully yours,
+   GERALD BLAKE.'
+
+   'P. S.--The genuine Gianesi will probably arrive at Lairg to-morrow.
+   My unfortunate associate (whom I cannot sufficiently pity), relieved
+   him of his ingenious machine _en_ _route_, and left him, heavily
+   drugged, in a train bound for Fort William.  Or perhaps Gianesi may
+   come by sea to Loch Inver.  G.B.'
+
+When Merton had read this elegant epistle aloud, Benson entered, bearing
+electrical apparatus which had been found in the book boxes abandoned by
+Blake.  What he had done was obvious enough.  He had merely smuggled in,
+in his book boxes, a machine which corresponded with that of the
+kidnappers, and had substituted its mechanism for that supplied to Mr.
+Macrae by Gianesi and Giambresi.  This he must have arranged on the
+Saturday night, when Merton saw the kilted appearance of Eachain of the
+Hairy Arm.  A few metallic atoms from the coherer on the floor of the
+smoking-room had caught Merton's eye before breakfast on Sunday morning.
+Now it was Friday morning!  And still no means of detecting and capturing
+the kidnappers had been discovered.
+
+Out of the captive nothing could be extracted.  The room had been
+cleared, save for Mr. Macrae, Logan, and Bude, and the man had been
+interrogated.  He refused to answer any questions, and demanded to be
+taken before a magistrate.  Now, where was there a magistrate?
+
+Logan lighted the smoking-room fire, thrust the poker into it, and began
+tying hard knots in a length of cord, all this silently.  His brows were
+knit, his lips were set, in his eye shone the wild light of the blood of
+Restalrig.  Bude and Mr. Macrae looked on aghast.
+
+'What _are_ you about?' asked Merton.
+
+'There are methods of extracting information from reluctant witnesses,'
+snarled Logan.
+
+'Oh, bosh!' said Merton.  'Mr. Macrae cannot permit you to revive your
+ancestral proceedings.'
+
+Logan threw down his knotted cord.  'I beg your pardon, Mr. Macrae,' he
+said, 'but if I had that dog in my house of Kirkburn--' he then went out.
+
+'Lord Fastcastle is a little moved,' said Merton.  'He comes of a wild
+stock, but I never saw him like this.'
+
+Mr. Macrae allowed that the circumstances were unusual.
+
+A horrible thought occurred to Merton.  'Mr. Macrae,' he exclaimed, 'may
+I speak to you privately?  Bude, I dare say, will be kind enough to
+remain with that person.'
+
+Mr. Macrae followed Merton into the billiard-room.
+
+'My dear sir,' said the pallid Merton, 'Logan and I have made a terrible
+blunder!  We never doubted that, if we caught any one, our captive would
+be Blake.  I do not deny that this man is his accomplice, but we have
+literally no proof.  He may persist, if taken before a magistrate, that
+he is Gianesi.  He may say that, being in your employment as an
+electrician, he naturally entered the smoking-room when the electric bell
+rang.  He can easily account for his possession of a revolver, in a place
+where a mysterious crime has just been committed.  As to the Highland
+costume, he may urge that, like many Southrons, he had bought it to wear
+on a Highland tour, and was trying it on.  How can you keep him?  You
+have no longer the right of Pit and Gallows.  Before what magistrate can
+you take him, and where?  The sheriff-substitute may be at Golspie, or
+Tongue, or Dingwall, or I don't know where.  What can we do?  What have
+we against the man?  "Loitering with intent"?  And here Logan and I have
+knocked him down, and tied him up, and Logan wanted to torture him.'
+
+'Dear Mr. Merton,' replied Mr. Macrae, with paternal tenderness, 'you are
+overwrought.  You have not slept all night.  I must insist that you go to
+bed, and do not rise till you are called.  The man is certainly guilty of
+conspiracy, that will be proved when the real Gianesi comes to hand.  If
+not, I do not doubt that I can secure his silence.  You forget the power
+of money.  Make yourself easy, go to sleep; meanwhile I must re-establish
+communications.  Good-night, golden slumbers!'
+
+He wrung Merton's hand, and left him admiring the calm resolution of one
+whose conversation, 'in the mad pride of intellectuality,' he had
+recently despised.  The millionaire, Merton felt, was worthy to be his
+daughter's father.
+
+'The power of money!' mused Mr. Macrae; 'what is it in circumstances like
+mine?  Surrounded by all the resources of science, I am baffled by a
+clever rogue and in a civilised country the aid of the law and the police
+is as remote and inaccessible as in the Great Sahara!  But to business!'
+
+He sent for Benson, bade him, with some gillies, carry the prisoner into
+the dungeon of the old castle, loose his bonds, place food before him,
+and leave him in charge of the stalker.  He informed Bude that breakfast
+would be ready at eight, and then retired to his study, where he matured
+his plans.
+
+The yacht he would send to Lochinver to await the real Gianesi there, and
+to send telegrams descriptive of Blake in all directions.  Giambresi must
+be telegraphed to again, and entreated to come in person, with yet
+another electric machine, for that brought by the false Gianesi had been,
+by the same envoy, rendered useless.  A mounted man must be despatched to
+Lairg to collect vehicles and transport there, and to meet the real
+Gianesi if he came that way.  Thus Mr. Macrae, with cool patience and
+forethought, endeavoured to recover his position, happy in the reflection
+that treachery had at last been eliminated.  He did not forget to write
+telegrams to remote sheriff-substitutes and procurators fiscal.
+
+As to the kidnappers, he determined to amuse them with protracted
+negotiations on the subject of his daughter's ransom.  These would be
+despatched, of course, by the wireless engine which was in tune and touch
+with their own.  During the parleyings the wretches might make some
+blunder, and Mr. Macrae could perhaps think out some plan for their
+detection and capture, without risk to his daughter.  If not, he must pay
+ransom.
+
+Having written out his orders and telegrams, Mr. Macrae went downstairs
+to visit the stables.  He gave his commands to his servants, and, as he
+returned, he met Logan, who had been on the watch for him.
+
+'I am myself again, Mr. Macrae,' said Logan, smiling.  'After all, we are
+living in the twentieth century, not the sixteenth, worse luck!  And now
+can you give me your attention for a few minutes?'
+
+'Willingly,' said Mr. Macrae, and they walked together to a point in the
+garden where they were secure from being overheard.
+
+'I must ask you to lend me a horse to ride to Lairg and the railway at
+once,' said Logan.
+
+'Must you leave us?  You cannot, I fear, catch the 12.50 train south.'
+
+'I shall take a special train if I cannot catch the one I want,' said
+Logan, adding, 'I have a scheme for baffling these miscreants and
+rescuing Miss Macrae, while disappointing them of the monstrous ransom
+which they are certain to claim.  If you can trust me, you will enter
+into protracted negotiations with them on the matter through the wireless
+machine.'
+
+'That I had already determined to do,' said the millionaire.  'But may I
+inquire what is your scheme?'
+
+'Would it be asking too much to request you to let me keep it concealed,
+even from you?  Everything depends on the most absolute secrecy.  It must
+not appear that you are concerned--must not be suspected.  My plan has
+been suggested to me by trifling indications which no one else has
+remarked.  It is a plan which, I confess, appears wild, but what is _not_
+wild in this unhappy affair?  Science, as a rule beneficent, has given
+birth to potentialities of crime which exceed the dreams of oriental
+romance.  But science, like the spear of Achilles, can cure the wounds
+which herself inflicts.'
+
+Logan spoke calmly, but eloquently, as every reader must observe.  He was
+no longer the fierce Border baron of an hour agone, but the polished
+modern gentleman.  The millionaire marked the change.
+
+'Any further mystery cannot but be distasteful, Lord Fastcastle,' said
+Mr. Macrae.
+
+'The truth is,' said Logan, 'that if my plan takes shape important
+persons and interests will be involved.  I myself will be involved, and,
+for reasons both public and private, it seems to me to the last degree
+essential that you should in no way appear; that you should be able,
+honestly, to profess entire ignorance.  If I fail, I give you my word of
+honour that your position will be in no respect modified by my action.  If
+I succeed--'
+
+'Then you will, indeed, be my preserver,' said the millionaire.
+
+'Not I, but my friend, Mr. Merton,' said Logan, 'who, by the way, ought
+to accompany me.  In Mr. Merton's genius for success in adventures
+entailing a mystery more dark, and personal dangers far greater, than
+those involved by my scheme (which is really quite safe), I have
+confidence based on large experience.  To Merton alone I owe it that I am
+a married, a happy, and, speaking to any one but yourself, I might say an
+affluent man.  This adventure must be achieved, if at all, _auspice
+Merton_.'
+
+'I also have much confidence in him, and I sincerely love him,' said Mr.
+Macrae, to the delight of Logan.  He then paced silently up and down in
+deep thought.  'You say that your scheme involves you in no personal
+danger?' he asked.
+
+'In none, or only in such as men encounter daily in several professions.
+Merton and I like it.'
+
+'And you will not suffer in character if you fail?'
+
+'Certainly not in character; no gentleman of my coat ever entered on
+enterprise so free from moral blame,' said Logan, 'since my ancestor and
+namesake, Sir Robert, fell at the side of the good Lord James of Douglas,
+above the Heart of Bruce.'
+
+He thrilled and changed colour as he spoke.
+
+'Yet it would not do for _me_ to be known to be connected with the
+enterprise?' asked Mr. Macrae.
+
+'Indeed it would not!  Your notorious opulence would arouse ideas in the
+public mind, ideas false, indeed, but fatally compromising.'
+
+'I may not even subsidise the affair--put a million to Mr. Merton's
+account?'
+
+'In no sort!  Afterwards, _after_ he succeeds, then I don't say, if
+Merton will consent; but that is highly improbable.  I know my friend.'
+
+Mr. Macrae sighed deeply and remained pensive.  'Well,' he answered at
+last, 'I accept your very gallant and generous proposal.'
+
+'I am overjoyed!' said Logan.  He had never been in such a big thing
+before.
+
+'I shall order my two best horses to be saddled after breakfast,' said
+Mr. Macrae.  'You will bait at Inchnadampf.'
+
+'Here is my address; this will always find me,' said Logan, writing
+rapidly on a leaf of his note-book.
+
+'You will wire all news of your negotiations with the pirates to me, by
+the new wireless machine, when Giambresi brings it, and his firm in town
+will telegraph it on to me, at the address I gave you, _in cypher_.  To
+save time, we must use a book cypher, we can settle it in the house in
+ten minutes,' said Logan, now entirely in his element.
+
+They chose _The Bonnie Brier Bush_, by Mr. Ian Maclaren--a work too
+popular to excite suspicion; and arranged the method of secret
+correspondence with great rapidity.  Logan then rushed up to Merton's
+room, hastily communicated the scheme to him, and overcame his
+objections, nay, awoke in him, by his report of Mr. Macrae's words, the
+hopes of a lover.  They came down to breakfast, and arranged that their
+baggage should be sent after them as soon as communications were
+restored.
+
+Merton contrived to have a brief interview with Lady Bude.  Her joyous
+spirit shone in her eyes.
+
+'I do not know what Lord Fastcastle's plan is,' she said, 'but I wish you
+good fortune.  You have won the _father's_ heart, and now I am about to
+be false to my sex'--she whispered--'the daughter's is all but your own!
+I can help you a little,' she added, and, after warmly clasping both her
+hands in his, Merton hurried to the front of the house, where the horses
+stood, and sprang into the saddle.  No motors, no bicycles, no scientific
+vehicles to-day; the clean wind piped to him from the mountains; a good
+steed was between his thighs!  Logan mounted, after entrusting Bouncer to
+Lady Bude, and they galloped eastwards.
+
+
+
+V.  The Adventure of the Flora Macdonald
+
+
+'This is the point indicated, latitude so and so, longitude so and so,'
+said Mr Macrae.  'But I do not see a sail or a funnel on the western
+horizon.  Nothing since we left the Fleet behind us, far to the East.  Yet
+it is the hour.  It is strange!'
+
+Mr. Macrae was addressing Bude.  They stood together on the deck of the
+_Flora Macdonald_, the vast yacht of the millionaire.  She was lying to
+on a sea as glassy and radiant, under a blazing August sun, as the
+Atlantic can show in her mildest moods.  On the quarter-deck of the yacht
+were piled great iron boxes containing the millions in gold with which
+the millionaire had at last consented to ransom his daughter.  He had
+been negotiating with her captors through the wireless machine, and, as
+Logan could not promise any certain release, Mr. Macrae had finally
+surrendered, while informing Logan of the circumstances and details of
+his rendezvous with the kidnappers.  The amassing of the gold had shaken
+the exchanges of two worlds.  Banks trembled, rates were enormous, but
+the precious metal had been accumulated.  The pirates would not take Mr.
+Macrae's cheque; bank notes they laughed at, the millions must be paid in
+gold.  Now at last the gold was on the spot of ocean indicated by the
+kidnappers, but there was no sign of sail or ship, no promise of their
+coming.  Men with telescopes in the rigging of the _Flora_ were on the
+outlook in vain.  They could pick up one of the floating giants of our
+fleet, far off to the East, but North, West and South were empty wastes
+of water.
+
+'Three o'clock has come and gone.  I hope there has been no accident,'
+said Mr. Macrae nervously.  'But where are those thieves?'  He absently
+pressed his repeater, it tingled out the half-hour.
+
+'It _is_ odd,' said Bude.  'Hullo, look there, what's _that_?'
+
+_That_ was a slim spar, which suddenly shot from the plain of ocean, at a
+distance of a hundred yards.  On its apex a small black hood twisted
+itself this way and that like a living thing; so tranquil was the hour
+that the spar with its dull hood was distinctly reflected in the mirror-
+like waters of the ocean.
+
+'By gad, it is the periscope of a submarine!' said Bude.
+
+There could not be a doubt of it.  The invention of Napier of Merchistoun
+and of M. Jules Verne, now at last an actual engine of human warfare, had
+been employed by the kidnappers of the daughter of the millionaire!
+
+A light flashed on the mind, steady and serviceable, but not brilliantly
+ingenious, of Mr. Macrae.  'This,' he exclaimed rather superfluously,
+'accounts for the fiendish skill with which these miscreants took cover
+when pursued by the Marine Police.  _This_ explains the subtle art with
+which they dodged observation.  Doubtless they had always, somewhere, a
+well-found normal yacht containing their supplies.  Do you not agree with
+me, my lord?'
+
+'In my opinion,' said Bude, 'you have satisfactorily explained what has
+so long puzzled us.  But look!  The periscope, having reconnoitred us, is
+sinking again!'
+
+It was true.  The slim spar gracefully descended to the abyss.  Again
+ocean smiled with innumerable laughters (as the Athenian sings), smiled,
+empty, azure, effulgent!  The _Flora Macdonald_ was once more alone on a
+wide, wide sea!
+
+Two slight jars were now just felt by the owner, skipper, and crew of the
+_Flora Macdonald_.  'What's that?' asked Mr. Macrae sharply.  'A reef?'
+
+'In my opinion,' said the captain, 'the beggars in the submarine have
+torpedoed us.  Attached torpedoes to our keel, sir,' he explained,
+respectfully touching his cap and shifting the quid in his cheek.  He was
+a bluff tar of the good old school.
+
+'Merciful heavens!' exclaimed Mr. Macrae, his face paling.  'What can
+this new outrage mean?  Here on our deck is the gold; if they explode
+their torpedoes the bullion sinks to join the exhaustless treasures of
+the main!'
+
+'A bit of bluff and blackmail on their part I fancy,' said Bude, lighting
+a cigarette.
+
+'No doubt!  No doubt!' said Mr. Macrae, rather unsteadily.  'They would
+never be such fools as to blow up the millions.  Still, an accident might
+have awful results.'
+
+'Look there, sir, if you please,' said the captain of the _Flora
+Macdonald_, 'there's that spar of theirs up again.'
+
+It was so.  The spar, the periscope, shot up on the larboard side of the
+yacht.  After it had reconnoitred, the mirror of ocean was stirred into
+dazzling circling waves, and the deck of a submarine slowly emerged.  The
+deck was long and flat, and of a much larger area than submarines in
+general have.  It would seem to indicate the presence below the water of
+a body or hull of noble proportions.  A voice hailed the yacht from the
+submarine, though no speaker was visible.
+
+'You have no consort?' the voice yelled.
+
+'For ten years I have been a widower,' replied Mr. Macrae, his voice
+trembling with emotion.
+
+'Most sorry to have unintentionally awakened unavailing regrets,' came
+the voice.  'But I mean, honour bright, you have no attendant armed
+vessel?'
+
+'None, I promised you so,' said Mr. Macrae; 'I am a man of my word.  Come
+on deck if you doubt me and look for yourself.'
+
+'Not me, and get shot by a rifleman,' said the voice.
+
+'It is very distressing to be distrusted in this manner,' replied Mr.
+Macrae.  'Captain McClosky,' he said to the skipper, 'pray request all
+hands to oblige me by going below.'
+
+The captain issued this order, which the yacht's crew rather reluctantly
+obeyed.  Their interest and curiosity were strongly excited by a scene
+without precedent in the experience of the oldest mariner.
+
+When they had disappeared Mr. Macrae again addressed the invisible owner
+of the voice.  'All my crew are below.  Nobody is on deck but Captain
+McClosky, the Earl of Bude, and myself.  We are entirely unarmed.  You
+can see for yourself.' {406}
+
+The owner of the voice replied: 'You have no torpedoes?'
+
+'We have only the armament agreed upon by you to protect this immense
+mass of bullion from the attacks of the unscrupulous,' said Mr. Macrae.
+'I take heaven to witness that I am honourably observing every article of
+our agreement, as _per_ yours of August 21.'
+
+'All right,' answered the voice.  'I dare say you are honest.  But I may
+as well tell you _this_, that while passing under your yacht we attached
+two slabs of gun-cotton to her keel.  The knob connected with them is
+under my hand.  We placed them where they are, not necessarily for
+publication--explosion, I mean--but merely as a guarantee of good faith.
+You understand?'
+
+'Perfectly,' said Mr. Macrae, 'though I regard your proceeding as a fresh
+and unmerited insult.'
+
+'Merely a precaution usual in business,' said the voice.  'And now,' it
+went on, 'for the main transaction.  You will lower your gold into boats,
+row it across, and land it here on my deck.  When it is all there, _and_
+has been inspected by me, you will send one boat rowed by _two men only_,
+into which Miss Macrae shall be placed and sent back to you.  When that
+has been done we shall part, I hope, on friendly terms and with mutual
+respect.'
+
+'Captain McClosky,' said Mr. Macrae, 'will you kindly pipe all hands on
+board to discharge cargo?'  The captain obeyed.
+
+Mr. Macrae turned to Bude.  'This is a moment,' he said, 'which tries a
+father's heart!  Presently I must see Emmeline, hear her voice, clasp her
+to my breast.'  Bude mutely wrung the hand of the millionaire, and turned
+away to conceal his emotion.  Seldom, perhaps never, has a father
+purchased back an only and beloved child at such a cost as Mr. Macrae was
+now paying without a murmur.
+
+The boats of the _Flora Macdonald_ were lowered and manned, the winches
+slowly swung each huge box of the precious metal aboard the boats.  Mr.
+Macrae entrusted the keys of the gold-chests to his officers.
+
+'Remember,' cried the voice from the submarine, 'we must have the gold on
+board, inspected, and weighed, before we return Miss Macrae.'
+
+'Mean to the last,' whispered the millionaire to the earl; but aloud he
+only said, 'Very well; I regret, for your own sake, your suspicious
+character, but, in the circumstances, I have no choice.'
+
+To Bude he added: 'This is terrible!  When he has secured the bullion he
+may submerge his submarine and go off without returning my daughter.'
+
+This was so manifestly true that Bude could only shake his head and
+mutter something about 'honour among thieves.'
+
+The crew got the gold on board the boats, and, after several journeys,
+had the boxes piled on the deck of the submarine.
+
+When they had placed the boxes on board they again retired, and one of
+the men of the submarine, who seemed to be in command, and wore a mask,
+coolly weighed the glittering metal on the deck, returning each package,
+after weighing and inspection, to its coffer.  The process was long and
+tedious; at length it was completed.
+
+Then at last the form of Miss Macrae, in an elegant and tasteful yachting
+costume, appeared on the deck of the submarine.  The boat's crew of the
+_Flora Macdonald_ (to whom she was endeared) lifted their oars and
+cheered.  The masked pirate in command handed her into a boat of the
+_Flora's_ with stately courtesy, placing in her hand a bouquet of the
+rarest orchids.  He then placed his hand on his heart, and bowed with a
+grace remarkable in one of his trade.  This man was no common desperado.
+
+The crew pulled off, and at that moment, to the horror of all who were on
+the _Flora's_ deck, two slight jars again thrilled through her from stem
+to stern.
+
+Mr. Macrae and Bude gazed on each other with ashen faces.  What had
+occurred?  But still the boat's crew pulled gallantly towards the
+_Flora_, and, in a few moments, Miss Macrae stepped on deck, and was in
+her father's arms.  It was a scene over which art cannot linger.  Self-
+restraint was thrown to the winds; the father and child acted as if no
+eyes were regarding them.  Miss Macrae sobbed convulsively, her sire was
+shaken by long-pent emotion.  Bude had averted his gaze, he looked
+towards the submarine, on the deck of which the crew were busy, beginning
+to lower the bullion into the interior.
+
+To Bude's extreme and speechless amazement, another periscope arose from
+ocean at about fifty yards from the further side of the submarine!  Bude
+spoke no word; the father and daughter were absorbed in each other; the
+crew had no eyes but for them.
+
+Presently, unmarked by the busy seamen of the hostile submarine, the
+platform and look-out hood of _another_ submarine appeared.  The new boat
+seemed to be pointing directly for the middle of the hostile submarine
+and at right angles to it.
+
+'_Hands up_!' pealed a voice from the second submarine.
+
+It was the voice of Merton!
+
+At the well-known sound Miss Macrae tore herself from her father's
+embrace and hurried below.  She deemed that a fond illusion of the senses
+had beguiled her.
+
+Mr. Macrae looked wildly towards the two submarines.
+
+The masked captain of the hostile vessel, leaping up, shook his fist at
+the _Flora Macdonald_ and yelled, 'Damn your foolish treachery, you money-
+grubbing hunks!  You _have_ a consort.'
+
+'I assure you that nobody is more surprised than myself,' cried Mr.
+Macrae.
+
+'One minute more and you, your ship, and your crew will be sent to your
+own place!' yelled the masked captain.
+
+He vanished below, doubtless to explode the mines under the _Flora_.
+
+Bude crossed himself; Mr. Macrae, folding his arms, stood calm and
+defiant on his deck.  One sailor (the cook) leaped overboard in terror,
+the others hastily drew themselves up in a double line, to die like
+Britons.
+
+A minute passed, a minute charged with terror.  Mr. Macrae took out his
+watch to mark the time.  Another minute passed, and no explosion.
+
+The captain of the pirate vessel reappeared on her deck.  He cast his
+hands desperately abroad; his curses, happily, were unheard by Miss
+Macrae, who was below.
+
+'Hands up!' again rang out the voice of Merton, adding, 'if you begin to
+submerge your craft, if she stirs an inch, I send you skyward at least as
+a preliminary measure.  My diver has detached your mines from the keel of
+the _Flora Macdonald_ and has cut the wires leading to them; my bow-tube
+is pointing directly for you, if I press the switch the torpedo must go
+home, and then heaven have mercy on your souls!'
+
+A crow of laughter arose from the yachtsmen of the _Flora Macdonald_, who
+freely launched terms of maritime contempt at the crew of the pirate
+submarine, with comments on the probable future of the souls to which
+Merton had alluded.
+
+On his desk the masked captain stood silent.  'We have women on board!'
+he answered Merton at last.
+
+'You may lower them in a collapsible boat, if you have one,' answered
+Merton.  'But, on the faintest suspicion of treachery--the faintest
+surmise, mark you, I switch on my torpedo.'
+
+'What are your terms?' asked the pirate captain.
+
+'The return of the bullion, that is all,' replied the voice of Merton.  'I
+give you two minutes to decide.'
+
+Before a minute and a half had passed the masked captain had capitulated.
+'I climb down,' he said.
+
+'The boats of the _Flora_ will come for it,' said Merton; 'your men will
+help load it in the boats.  Look sharp, and be civil, or I blow you out
+of the water!'
+
+The pirates had no choice; rapidly, if sullenly, they effected the
+transfer.
+
+When all was done, when the coffers had been hoisted aboard the _Flora
+Macdonald_, Merton, for the first time, hailed the yacht.
+
+'Will you kindly send a boat round here for me, Mr. Macrae, if you do not
+object to my joining you on the return voyage?'
+
+Mr. Macrae shouted a welcome, the yacht's crew cheered as only Britons
+can.  Mr. Macrae's piper struck up the march of the clan, '_A' the wild
+McCraws are coming_!'
+
+'If any of you scoundrels shoot,' cried Merton to his enemies, 'up you
+will all go.  You shall stay here, after we depart, in front of that
+torpedo, just as long as the skipper of my vessel pleases.'
+
+Meanwhile the boat of the _Flora_ approached the friendly submarine;
+Merton stepped aboard, and soon was on the deck of the _Flora Macdonald_.
+
+Mr. Macrae welcomed him with all the joy of a father re-united to his
+daughter, of a capitalist restored to his millions.
+
+Bude shook Merton's hand warmly, exclaiming, 'Well played, old boy!'
+
+Merton's eyes eagerly searched the deck for one beloved form.  Mr. Macrae
+drew him aside.  'Emmeline is below,' he whispered; 'you will find her in
+the saloon.'  Merton looked steadfastly at the millionaire, who smiled
+with unmistakable meaning.  The lover hurried down the companion, while
+the _Flora_, which had rapidly got up steam, sped eastward.
+
+Merton entered the saloon, his heart beating as hard as when he had
+sought his beloved among the bracken beneath the cliffs at Castle Skrae.
+She rose at his entrance; their eyes met, Merton's dim with a supreme
+doubt, Emmeline's frank and clear.  A blush rose divinely over the white
+rose of her face, her lips curved in the resistless AEginetan smile, and,
+without a word spoken, the twain were in each other's arms.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+Half an hour later Mr. Macrae, heralding his arrival with a sonorous hem!
+entered the saloon.  Smiling, he embraced his daughter, who hid her head
+on his ample shoulder, while with his right hand the father grasped that
+of Merton.
+
+'My daughter is restored to me--and my son,' said the millionaire softly.
+
+There was silence.  Mr. Macrae was the first to recover his
+self-possession.  'Sit down, dear,' he said, gently disengaging Emmeline,
+'and tell me all about it.  Who were the wretches?  I can forgive them
+now.'
+
+Miss Macrae's eyes were bent on the carpet; she seemed reluctant to
+speak.  At last, in timid and faltering accents, she whispered, 'It was
+the Van Huytens boy.'
+
+'Rudolph Van Huytens!  I might have guessed it,' cried the millionaire.
+'His motive is too plain!  His wealth did not equal mine by several
+millions.  The ransom which he demanded, and but for Tom here' (he
+indicated Merton) 'would now possess, exactly reversed our relative
+positions.  Carrying on his father's ambition, he would, but for Tom,
+have held the world's record for opulence.  The villain!'
+
+'You do not flatter _me_, father,' said Miss Macrae, 'and you are unjust
+to Mr. Van Huytens.  He had another, _he_ said a stronger, motive.  Me!'
+she murmured, blushing like a red rose, and adding, 'he really was rather
+nice.  The submarine was comfy; the yacht delightful.  His sisters and
+his aunt were very kind.  But--' and the beautiful girl looked up archly
+and shyly at Merton.
+
+'In fact if it had not been for Tom,' Mr. Macrae was exclaiming, when
+Emmeline laid her lily hand on his lips, and again hid her burning
+blushes on his shoulder.
+
+'So Rudolph had no chance?' asked Mr. Macrae gaily.
+
+'I used rather to like him, long ago--before--' murmured Emmeline.
+
+A thrill of happy pride passed through Merton.  He also, he remembered of
+old, had thought that he loved.  But now he privately registered an oath
+that he would never make any confessions as to the buried past (a course
+which the chronicler earnestly recommends to young readers).
+
+'Now tell us all about your adventures, Emmie,' said Mr. Macrae, sitting
+down and taking his daughter's hand in his own.
+
+The narrative may have been anticipated.  After Blake was felled, Miss
+Macrae, screaming and struggling, had been carried to the boat.  The crew
+had rapidly pulled round the cliff, the submarine had risen, to the
+captive's horrified amazement, from the deep, she had been taken on
+board, and, yet more to her surprise, had been welcomed by the Misses Van
+Huytens and their aunt.  The brother had always behaved with respect,
+till, finding that his suit was hopeless, he had avoided her presence as
+much as possible, and--
+
+'Had gone for the dollars,' said Macrae.
+
+They had wandered from rocky desert isle to desert isle, in the
+archipelago of the Hebrides, meeting at night with a swift attendant
+yacht.  Usually they had slept on shore under canvas; the corrugated iron
+houses had been left behind at 'The Seven Hunters,' with the champagne,
+to alleviate the anxiety of Mr. Macrae.  Ample supplies of costume and
+other necessaries for Miss Macrae had always been at hand.
+
+'They really did me very well,' she said, smiling, 'but I was miserable
+about _you_,' and she embraced her father.
+
+'Only about _me_?' asked Mr. Macrae.
+
+'I did not know, I was not sure,' said Emmeline, crying a little, and
+laughing rather hysterically.
+
+'You go and lie down, my dear,' said Mr. Macrae.  'Your maid is in your
+cabin,' and thither he conducted the overwrought girl, Merton anxiously
+following her with his eyes.
+
+'We are neglecting Lord Bude,' said Mr. Macrae.  'Come on deck, Tom, and
+tell us how you managed that delightful surprise.'
+
+'Oh, pardon me, sir,' said Merton, 'I am under oath, I am solemnly bound
+to Logan and others never to reveal the circumstances.  It was necessary
+to keep you uninformed, that you might honourably make your arrangement
+to meet Mr. Van Huytens without being aware that you had a submarine
+consort.  Logan takes any dishonour on himself, and he wished to offer
+Mr. Van Huytens--as that is his name--every satisfaction, but I dissuaded
+him.  His connection with the affair cannot be kept too secret.  Though
+Logan put me forward, you really owe all to _him_.'
+
+'But without _you_, I should never have had his aid,' said Mr. Macrae:
+'Where _is_ Lord Fastcastle?' he asked.
+
+'In the friendly submarine,' said Merton.
+
+'Oh, I think I can guess!' said Mr. Macrae, smiling.  'I shall ask no
+more questions.  Let us join Lord Bude.'
+
+If the reader is curious as to how the rescue was managed, it is enough
+to say that Logan was the cousin and intimate friend of Admiral
+Chirnside, that the Admiral was commanding a fleet engaged in naval
+manoeuvres around the North coast, that he had a flotilla of submarines,
+and that the point of ocean where the pirates met the _Flora Macdonald_
+was not far west of the Orkneys.
+
+On deck Bude asked Merton how Logan (for he knew that Logan was the
+guiding spirit) had guessed the secret of the submarine.
+
+'Do you remember,' said Merton, 'that when you came back from "The Seven
+Hunters," you reported that the fishermen had a silly story of seeing a
+dragon flying above the empty sea?'
+
+'I remember, _un dragon volant_,' said Bude.
+
+'And Logan asked you not to tell Mr. Macrae?'
+
+'Yes, but I don't understand.'
+
+'A dragon is the Scotch word for a kite--not the bird--a boy's kite.  You
+did not know; _I_ did not know, but Mr. Macrae would have known, being a
+Scot, and Logan wanted to keep his plan dark, and the kite had let him
+into the secret of the submarine.'
+
+'I still don't see how.'
+
+'Why the submarine must have been flying a kite, with a pendent wire, to
+catch messages from Blake and the wireless machine at Castle Skrae.  How
+else could a kite--"a dragon," the sailor said--have been flying above
+the empty sea?'
+
+'Logan is rather sharp,' said Bude.
+
+'But, Mr. Macrae,' asked Merton, 'how about the false Gianesi?'
+
+'Oh, when Gianesi came of course we settled _his_ business.  We had him
+tight, as a conspirator.  He had been met, when expelled for misdeeds
+from Gianesi's and Giambresi's, by a beautiful young man, to whom he sold
+himself.  He believed the beautiful young man to be the devil, but, of
+course, it was our friend Blake.  _He_, in turn, must have been purchased
+by Van Huytens while he was lecturing in America as a poet-Fenian.  In
+fact, he really had a singular genius for electric engineering; he had
+done very well at some German university.  But he was a fellow of no
+principle!  We are well quit of a rogue.  I turned his unlucky victim,
+the false Gianesi, loose, with money enough for life to keep him honest
+if he chooses.  His pension stops if ever a word of the method of rescue
+comes out.  The same with my crew.  They shall all be rich men, for their
+station, _till_ the tale is whispered and reaches my ears.  In that
+case--all pensions stop.  I think we can trust the crew of the friendly
+submarine to keep their own counsel.'
+
+'Certainly!' said Merton.  'Wealth has its uses after all,' he thought in
+his heart.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+Merton and Logan gave a farewell dinner in autumn to the Disentanglers--to
+such of them as were still unmarried.  In her napkin each lady of the
+Society found a cheque on Coutts for 25,000_l_. signed with the magic
+name Ronald Macrae.
+
+The millionaire had insisted on being allowed to perform this act of
+munificence, the salvage for the recovered millions, he said.
+
+Miss Martin, after dinner, carried Mr. Macrae's health in a toast.  In a
+humorous speech she announced her own approaching nuptials, and intimated
+that she had the permission of the other ladies present to make the same
+general confession for all of them.
+
+'Like every novel of my own,' said Miss Martin, smiling, 'this enterprise
+of the Disentanglers has a HAPPY ENDING.'
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+
+{232}  Part III. No. I, 1896.  Baptist Mission Press.  Calcutta, 1897.
+
+{242}  See also Monsieur Henri Junod, in _Les Ba-Ronga_.  Attinger,
+Neuchatel, 1898.  Unlike Mr. Skertchley, M. Junod has not himself seen
+the creature.
+
+{406}  Periscope not necessary with conning tower out of water.  Man
+could see out of port.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DISENTANGLERS***
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