Chapter V

"HULLO, JOHNNIE GREYBREEKS! I'M YOUR UNCLE."

"Hullo, Johnnie Greybreeks! Why, my little man, I've been looking for you for the last six months."

It was Tom Morgan himself the two friends had run up against at the corner of Jamaica Street--big Tom Morgan, brown waving beard and all.

"Why did you never come and see me?"

"Please, sir, mother wouldn't let me. You see, sir, you were very good to me that Christmas eve, and mother said if I went back it would look just like--begging, you know, sir."

"Fiddlesticks, Johnnie Greybreeks! But talking about fiddlesticks, who _is_ your little friend here carrying the fiddle?"

Johnnie told him.

"Now, come along, both of you," said Tom. "I know an eating-house near here where they have such capital beef."

And a splendid feed Tom ordered them; and it seemed to do the honest fellow's heart good to see them eat.

"Now," said Tom, "will you play me a tune, Peter? and then I'll be off, for time is precious."

Peter gladly did as suggested; but I am sure that big Tom Morgan merely asked him to play that he might have an excuse for giving the poor lad that half-crown.

"Now, Peter, you can run home; but I want to take Johnnie Greybreeks with me for an hour or so. Good-bye, Peter. See you again.--Come on, Johnnie."

* * * * *

In about a quarter of an hour's time Tom Morgan reached a tall, handsome building in a quiet street; and upstairs the two went together, and entered a room without knocking. It was a well-furnished office, and at a table, littered with papers and bundles of documents tied up with red tape, sat a white-haired, elderly gentleman, with a very pleasant face of his own.

When he looked up with a smile, Johnnie could see it was Mr. Dawson, whom he had met on that Christmas eve at the house of the Morgans.

"Come along, Tom, and take a seat. Ha! so you've found little Johnnie Greybreeks at last, have you?--How do you do, my little man?--I say, Tom, how is business?"

"Fairly good."

"Well, lad, let me tell you this: it will soon be better, or it will get a send back that will astonish us all."

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Dawson. There must always be ships on the sea, and it is father's business to float them."

"True, true, Tom; but being a lawyer, you know, I perhaps can see farther off than you. Now, believe me, Tom Morgan, when I tell you we are drifting into war with Russia, and our country isn't prepared for it."

Tom Morgan laughed.

"We've got the money and the ships, the sailors and the soldiers. Why, Mr. Dawson, let war come, and we'll flog the Russians on shore, and whip them off the seas."

"Well, I'm not so sure; but then I'm getting old, you know. But you'll see. The Russian privateers and legalized pirates will cover the ocean, and British commerce won't have a show."

"Did you see that noble Highland regiment march past, Mr. Dawson? Man, that's the stuff!--Did you see them, Johnnie?"

"O yes, sir; me and Peter marched all the way with them. O sir, I want to be a soldier or a sailor, and help to whip the Russians. Dear father was a soldier, you know," he added sadly.

Mr. Dawson and Tom Morgan exchanged glances.

"Tell us more about your father, Johnnie."

"Oh, I don't know much. I hardly remember father; but poor mother has his picture, and, O sir, he looks so noble, with his kilt and his sword and his feather bonnet. He only had one arm, you know, and--and he was drowned in the Clyde."

"Now tell us about your mother and sister. Where are they, and what do they do?"

Then Johnnie told all the sad story of sickness, of struggle, and of poverty that the reader already knows. More than once the tears stole into his eyes as he spoke, and very patiently indeed did the two gentlemen listen to all he said.

"Tom," said Mr. Dawson, when Johnnie had finished, "I think we're on the right lay."

"I think so too; indeed, I'm sure of it."

"How pleased the old lady will be:'

"If there is any 'please' in her."

"Well, she has some strange ways with her; but I think that she really means well."

"She is extremely orthodox, Mr. Dawson."

"True; and conservative to a degree."

All this was Greek to little Johnnie Greybreeks, who sat there on a high stool waggling his legs, and looking from one to the other, uncertain whether he ought to smile or not. Ever feel in that position, reader? I have.

"Weren't you struck with the remarkable resemblance between Johnnie here and your brother's wee lassie, on the night you brought the boy home?"

"That, indeed, I was," said Tom Morgan; "and so was every one else, especially my father. So, you see," continued Tom, figuring the sentence out on his fingers, "if my oldest brother married Johnnie's father's eldest and only sister--

"That sounds rather Irish, Tom," interrupted Mr. Dawson; "but go on, my boy. Johnnie's father's eldest and only sister--"

"Well, I never was good at counting kin, as it is called, but my brother Fred did marry Johnnie's father's sister--all the world knows that: so little Tottie--Violet, you know--is Johnnie's cousin--no wonder she is like him; and my brother Fred's wife would be Johnnie's aunt; and--and--why, Dawson, I myself am Johnnie's uncle.--Hullo, Johnnie Greybreeks! I'm your uncle. I'm your uncle Tom; shake hands, old man."

At this moment Johnnie really could not have affirmed whether his head or his heels were uppermost, or whether this big, jolly gentleman with the big brown beard wasn't having a joke at his expense. However, he shook hands almost mechanically.

"Hush!" cried Tom; "there are little footsteps on the stairs, and the sound of childish laughter. I believe it is Violet and her governess. Talk of angels, and they appear."

Next moment in rushed Violet, screaming with delight. She kissed Uncle Tom somewhere about the beard.

"Oh," she cried, "doverness has been so dood, and buyed me such a lot of pletty fings."

Then she noticed Johnnie.

She stuck one finger in her mouth thoughtfully, but recovering her self-possession almost immediately, she advanced and held out her wee chubby hand.

"I fink," she said, "you is Dohnnie Dleybleeks? How d'ye do, little boy? You and me has met before."

Johnnie jumped off the stool and shook hands as politely as a nobleman would have done.

"Aren't they like now!" said Tom.

"Miss Gibb," he continued, addressing the governess, "we--that is, Mr. Dawson chiefly--have made a wonderful discovery. This boy you see before you, and who is called Jack Mackenzie, is my niece--no, I mean nephew--by the brother's side, as it were, and consequently first cousin-german to--I say, Mr. Dawson, bother it all, I'm getting a bit mixed again."

Miss Gibb laughed.

"So you's my fist tousin, 'ittle boy, is you?--Miss Dibb, tiss my fist tousin for me; I can't be boddled tissing 'ittle boys."

Miss Gibb dutifully did as she was told; at which condescension Johnnie was more puzzled than ever. He would have given three of his best marbles at that moment to any one who could have told him where he was in particular, and what day of the week it was.

But the interview was soon brought to an end; and when Johnnie went back to his home in Summer Loaning, a very droll story indeed he had to tell Mrs. Malony.

"Och, sure," she cried, "I always tould Malony that poor dear Mrs. Mackenzie wasn't the same as us at all, at all; that she was a lady under a cloud, sure enough. And troth and I'm roight. And it's a foine gintleman you'll be, Johnnie, some day entoirely."

* * * * *

Old Mrs. Mackenzie of Drumglen in Perthshire was certainly all that Tom and Mr. Dawson had said. She was nothing if not orthodox and conservative to a degree.

She belonged to a very old and aristocratic family in the north of Inverness-shire. The family, however, had the misfortune to be somewhat poor, and ill-natured people did say that when Miss Stuart married Mr. Mackenzie, a Jamaica merchant, it was more from love of money and what it could bring than from love of Mac himself. But, of course, ill-natured people will say anything, and charity is a flower that is not half so well cultivated as it ought to be.

Never mind. Miss Stuart was at the time of her wedding stately, tall, and handsome, and--a stanch Jacobite. Mr. Mackenzie, on the other hand, was on the weather-side of forty, and though wiry enough, he was about the same colour as a cake of gingerbread. That is what Jamaica and the West Indies had done for him.

He took his bride out with him at first to the beautiful islands of the West. She admitted they were very beautiful, but she didn't like life there, and she went in a constant state of fear and horror of the creepie-creepies. The flowers were gorgeous, but often from the very centre of a lovely bouquet brought by her black maid a centiped as long as a penholder would wriggle. In the centre of huge bunches of luscious fruit little wicked snakes would be asleep, and even as she stood admiring the fruit, one would protrude a tiny triangle of a head and venomously hiss in her face. Oh, it wasn't nice.

Fire-flies were pretty flitting about among the bushes at night, like stars that had lost their way; but she found creatures indoors even in her bedroom that were not fire-flies, and whose perfume was not like that of attar of roses. She even found things in the soup that the _chef_ couldn't account for, and cockroaches' legs are not the thing in a cup of coffee.

So she told Mackenzie, gently but firmly, that she was going home; that she would not give one glimpse of the purple heather for all the beauty and wealth of the Indian Isles.

Mac was very fond of his aristocratic bride. If she had asked him to live in Kamschatka or build her a mansion in lonely Spitzbergen, he would have done so. Therefore, like a dutiful husband, he came home.

He brought with him a black servant-man, or boy who eventually became a man, just to remind him of those sunny isles in the beautiful West; and soon after his return he bought the mansion-house and broad lands of bonnie Drumglen.

Not long after Johnnie's father was born, Mr. Mackenzie died one wild, stormy winter's morning. After being so long in the tropics, I suppose, the climate of the Scottish Highlands hardly suited him. He was found asleep in his library chair, with his hands folded, his toes on the fender, and a red bandana laid as usual over the bald patch on his crown.

His black servant shook him--once, twice, thrice. It was the laird's last sleep, and shaking was unavailing.

So Snowball went and reported the circumstance to his mistress.

"Pore massa done gone dead, I fink, milady. I shakee he, one, two, tree time, but he not sware at me. I fink, milady, he nebber wake no mo' in dis world."

* * * * *

It was somewhat strange that Mrs. Mackenzie never seemed to take to her daughter, who was about five years older than Donald her boy--Johnnie's father. Her whole life and love seemed bound up in her son.

Under the plea of giving her the best education it was possible to obtain, the girl was sent to a school in Edinburgh. There she lived and grew up, only coming home at holiday-time.

It was at Edinburgh, too, that Flora met Fred Morgan, the son of the wealthy ship-broker. Flora, of course, asked her mother's consent to marry Fred--meaning to marry him, anyhow, for the Mackenzies had always been a self-willed race.

The letter bearing the mother's reply came in due course.

"Oh, certainly, my dear."

That was the gist of it when shorn of its studied and stately verbiage.

At the same time that Sambo, _alias_ Snowball, posted this letter, he dropped one into the box for Mr. Dawson, the family solicitor.

Mr. Dawson went through at once to Drumglen. He arrived early in the afternoon.

But "milady" was as politely reticent as a Mohawk Indian. She said nothing about business that day.

He dined in state--with Snowball behind his high-backed chair, arrayed in a crimson waistcoat and immaculate coat and neckerchief.

Next morning Mrs. Mackenzie accorded her solicitor an interview within the gloomy precincts of the library. The lady came to the point at once, and with as much force and precision as Malony made use of when beating a red-hot horse-shoe.

"My daughter is going to be married, Mr. Dawson," she said.

Dawson bowed and smiled.

But Mrs. Mackenzie brought him up with a round turn.

"No palaver, Mr. Dawson, please," she jerked out. "My daughter is going to be married. She did me the courtesy of asking my leave--a mere matter of friendly formality, of course. She is going to marry a Morgan. The Morgans are Welsh. I don't like the Welsh; they are mere business people. I don't like that. I believe a daughter of mine might have married a lord. _N'importe_; it is no fault of mine. But, Mr. Dawson, these Morgans are said to be wealthy Welsh. Well, my estate is my own, is it not?"

"To have and to hold, my dear lady; to do absolutely what you please with."

"Well, Mr. Dawson, I can leave all to my dear boy if he continues to love and obey his mother as he does now; but I come of a very independent family, and, if I choose, I can leave my riches to build an hospital, or, what is even more needed, a new ship of war. Now, sir, make out a cheque for £5,000 to my daughter, and I will sign it. Write also a letter, couched in friendly but not too friendly terms, to accompany this cheque. I want my daughter, or rather the Morgans, to understand that there is a gulf fixed between the mansion-house of Drumglen and their shop in Glasgow."

And Mr. Dawson had obeyed her orders to the very letter.

He had, however, always since then managed to keep on the very best terms with the Morgans, as well as with Mrs. Mackenzie herself.

* * * * *

Long, long years, as we know, had gone by since that day when Mrs. Mackenzie turned her soldier son out to face the wide world and poverty, and the stern old dame had somewhat softened as she grew older.

Perhaps if Donald had gone to Drumglen and begged her forgiveness, she would have relented and received him into favour once more. But the same proud blood ran in the veins of both mother and son.

Mr. Dawson went very often to Drumglen, and sometimes spent weeks fishing or shooting on the estate. He enjoyed this, although the house itself and the company were hardly free and easy enough to suit the jolly solicitor.

Dawson was summoned rather hastily once. This was after the body of poor Lieutenant Donald Mackenzie, her son, had been found in the river.

The solicitor found her looking older than ever he had seen her. She seemed broken, not as to physique, but mentally.

She talked a deal about her younger days and her married life, and Dawson guessed rightly that she was working the subject round to her late son.

"O Mr. Dawson," she said at last, "I don't mind confessing to you that I have been just a little too hasty, and that if poor Donald were alive again I--I might consider the whole subject. But there, Mr. Dawson, my regrets are vain; and now I wish you to make my will, for I feel I must soon follow my husband to the grave."

"Why, Mrs. Mackenzie, you are not at all old yet, However," he added, "it is as well we should all be prepared."

"Yes, and that was just what good Mr. M'Thump, our minister, said in the pulpit yesterday. His text was, 'For ye know not the day nor the hour.' A good man and a learned is Mr. M'Thump, and he'll dine with you to-night, Mr. Dawson."

I fear the solicitor did not look overmuch pleased at the information. However, he proceeded to take pencil notes of the lady's will, and that very evening he drew it up.

It was brief in the extreme. She left all she possessed to build a new ship of war, to assist in protecting the freedom of her beloved country.*

* It would be a good thing if wealthy millionaires who have no family would follow the old lady's example. Britain stands sadly in need of more ships of war.--AUTHOR.

* * * * *

Years flew by. The old dame appeared to have renewed her age, as she certainly had her sternness and aristocratic composure. She never mentioned her son now; but Dawson took good care to tell her all about the discovery of little Johnnie Greybreeks, and how strangely he had turned up at the Christmas party. He told the story so feelingly that more than once during the recital he fancied he saw a tear in the stately lady's eyes.

Half a year after this Dawson was once more summoned to Drumglen.

"I had a strange dream last night," she told him. "I thought I saw Donald my boy. He held his little son by the hand, and looked at me, oh, so pleadingly. Heigh-ho! I suppose I am old and soft and silly; but, Mr. Dawson, I am not sure I should not like to see that boy Jack you spoke about--just for once, if you can find him."

"I will do my best, madam," said Dawson.

Dawson, however, was not much of a detective, else he might have found Johnnie before that day on which Tom Morgan met him accidentally near the bridge.

And now we shall see what this accidental meeting led to as far as Johnnie was concerned.