Chapter II: The Old Home

Isla rose to her feet, and, suddenly, observing the baby clutching with his chubby hands at the side of his cage and smiling engagingly into her face, she stretched out her hands to him.

"Oh, you darling! Did Isla forget him, then? What a shame!"

She lifted him out, and his small chubby hands met tightly round her neck, and his cheek was laid against hers with a coo of delight. Elspeth stood smiling by, thinking of the wonder and gift of the child that can charm grief away.

"If only you had a good man of your own, Miss Isla, and a heap of little pairns, like me, things would pe easier," she said quaintly. "It's not for me to say, put I whiles think that if there had peen ither laddies in Achree, Maister Malcolm wouldna haf had it all his own wey, which would haf peen a good thing for him."

"Yes, Elspeth, what you say is true; but I shall never have a man or any little bairns," she said with a sigh. "My life-work is cut out plainly enough--and has been from the beginning. I have to save Achree somehow--and I will."

"That would be a fery good thing, no doubt, put the ither would pe petter, my lamb," said Elspeth with such yearning in her eyes that Isla, feeling her composure shaking again, hastily kissed the child and put him back in his little enclosure.

"Donald must positively patent this, Eppie--he would make money by it. It's the cleverest thing I've ever seen," she said lightly.

"It does the turn, and I'm not sayin' put that Donald is clever--clever with hiss hands. It makes up for the gift of the gab which he hass not got. I never saw a man speak less. I whiles ask him if his tongue pe not tired with too little wark."

"Ah, but his heart is of gold, Eppie. Don't you ever miscall Donald to me, for I won't listen."

"Wha's misca'in him, whatefer?" asked Elspeth with a small laugh which hid a tear. "Good-bye, Miss Isla, my ponnie dear, and may the good God go wi' ye and help ye ower this steep pit of the road."

Isla nodded and sped away, not daring to trust herself to further speech.

Left alone, Eppie Maclure sat down and incontinently began to cry. She came from one of the islands of the western seas, owned by kinsfolk of the Achree Mackinnons, and her heart was as soft as her speech, which had the roll of the western seas in its tone.

There were no tears in Isla's eyes as she breasted the hill bravely, brain and heart so busy that the good mile seemed but a stone's throw. It was half-past twelve when she stopped at the low doorway of the house, and with a wave of the hand dismissed the dogs, who went off with hanging heads, as if they were conscious of having missed something in their walk. They knew--for there are few people wiser than the dumb creatures that love us--that, though the body of their mistress had accompanied them down the familiar way, her heart was clean away from them and from all the little homely happenings that can make a country walk so pleasant.

She lifted the sneck softly and went in, closing the door behind her. It was rather a wide low hall, with a flagged stone floor washed as clean as hands and soft rain water could make it. A few deer-skins were scattered on it, some of them rather worn and bare, as it was a long time since a Mackinnon had stalked a deer in the forest of Achree. Some fine antlered heads stood out upon the wall between the stout wooden beams that supported it and were now black with age and shining with the peatreek. A fire of peat was burning now in the wide fireplace, in which there was no grate. On the oak mantelpiece there were queer, carved wooden pots, full of stag's moss and heather that had lost its bloom.

It was a bare, cold place, with very little beauty to arrest the eye, yet it had a dignity difficult to explain or to describe. The stair went up, wide and steep, from one end of the hall for a few steps, and then it became a winding one leading to all sorts of nooks and crannies having small and unexpected landings, with doors opening abruptly off them--a bewildering house, and very "ill-convenient" to quote once more the language of the glen. But Isla Mackinnon loved every stone and beam of it, and the heart of her was heavy, because she saw in the very near future the day approaching when the Mackinnons would be out of it, root and branch.

"But not before I've done my best to save it, please God," she said under her breath, as she cast her coat aside and went to look for her father.

An old serving-man in a shabby kilt emerged from the faded red-baize door that shut off the servants' quarters, bearing a tray with glasses in his hand.

"I suppose it is just on lunch time, Diarmid?" she said. "Where is the General?"

"I have just put him comfortable with the paper by the library fire, Miss Isla," said the man, as he scanned her face almost wistfully.

He, too, knew the day of the Indian mail. She motioned him to the dining-room, a long, narrow room furnished in what the irreverent called spindle-shanks, but what was in reality genuine and valuable furniture of the Chippendale period. Many old and very discoloured family portraits covered the walls, and the carpet, once a warm crimson but now almost threadbare, gave the only touch of colour to the place. The table was beautifully set, and the silver on it was fit for a king's table.

The Mackinnons were very poor, but there were certain dignities of life which they never ignored or made light of. Whatever the fare might be--and on most occasions it was simple enough--the table was always so laid that the best in the land could have been welcomed to it without shame. The damask was darned, but yet it had a sheen like satin on it such as they do not achieve on the looms of the present day.

Isla closed the door and, steadying herself against it, spoke to the old man who had served them as boy and man for five-and-forty years.

"There is a letter from Mr. Malcolm, Diarmid. He is on his way home."

Diarmid set down his tray rather suddenly, so that the glasses rang as they touched one another.

"Yes--Miss Isla?" he said almost feverishly. "But why will he come home? Is it leave he is having already so soon?"

"No, Diarmid. He is leaving the Army for good. I am telling you, because you love us all so much and understand everything. This news must be kept from the General."

"Yes, Miss Isla--but how? If Mr. Malcolm comes home he comes home, and the General will see him."

"Oh, yes, but he must think only that he is home on furlough. We must make up something that will satisfy him--for a time, at least."

"Yes, Miss Isla, and if Mr. Malcolm is to come home what will he do here in the glen, for sure he is a great big, strong gentleman--glory be to God--and it is not thinkable that he can be here doing nothing?"

"I haven't got so far as that, Diarmid," said Isla, wearily. "My head aches and aches with thinking. I sometimes wish I could fall asleep at night and never waken any more."

"Yes, Miss Isla, but then the sun would go down upon the glen for efer and efer," said the old man with twitching lips.

He had carried her as a baby in his arms, he had set her almost before she could toddle upon the back of the old sheltie that now lived, a fat pensioner, in the paddock behind the house; he had watched her grow from sweet girlhood to womanhood, and his heart had rebelled against the hardness of her destiny. She had never had her due. Other girls in her position had married well, had happy homes and devoted husbands, and little children about their knees, while she, the flower of them all, remained unplucked.

Diarmid, a religious man--as befitted one who had lived such an uneventful and happy life--was sometimes tempted to ask whether the God whom he worshipped had fallen asleep over the affairs of Achree. Of late, his rebellion had become acute. In the silence of his dingy pantry he had even been known to shake his fist over the silver he was polishing and to utter words not becoming on the lips of so circumspect a servant.

"Say nothing to the others, Diarmid. Let them think that Mr. Malcolm is only home on furlough," she pursued. "I must make it right with my father somehow. I'll go to him now and tell him about the letter."

"Yes, Miss Isla. And Mr. Malcolm, he is quite well, I hope?"

"Oh, yes, he is always well. Perhaps, if he were not--but there, I must guard my tongue. The days are very dark over Achree, Diarmid, and it may be that its sun will soon set for ever."

"God forbid! He will nefer let that happen--no, nor anypody else, forby," he said vaguely. "Keep up your brave heart, Miss Isla. I haf seen it fery dark over the loch of a morning, and again, by midday, it would clear and the sun come out. It will be like that now, nefer fear."

But though brave words were on the old man's tongue, black despair was in his heart. He was only a servingman, but he could read between the lines, and he knew that this sudden and unexpected home-coming of the ne'er-do-weel meant something dire for Achree. His hands trembled very much as he proceeded with his table duties, while his young mistress made her way across the hall again to the library, a queer little octagon room on the south side of the house, with no view to speak of from its high, narrow windows that looked out on the rising slope of a heather hill which made the beginning of the moor of Creagh. It was, however, the snuggest room in the whole house, for which reason it was used almost entirely by the General as a living place.

He was frail now, going to bed early and rising late, and seldom caring to ascend the winding stairs to his bedroom after he had once left it.

Isla entered softly, and his dull ear failed to apprise him of the opening of the door. She was thus able to look at him before he was aware of her presence. Once a very tall man, standing six feet two in his stockings in his prime, his fine figure was now sadly shrunk. He sat in a straight, high-backed chair--principally because there were very few of the other sort in the old Castle of Achree, and because there was no money to buy them with, but she could see the droop of the shoulders as they rested against the small cushion that she had filled with down to give him a little ease. He wore a velvet skullcap, from the edge of which there showed a fringe of beautiful silvery hair. His feet, in the big loose slippers of the old man, were raised on a hassock and he was holding the newspaper high before his eyes. Isla observed, from its continuous flutter, that his hands were a little more shaky than usual.

His face was very fine. In his youth Mackinnon of Achree had been the handsomest man in West Perthshire, and he was reported to have broken his full complement of hearts. Even now the classic outline of his face was plainly discernible, and he reminded one of some old war-horse that was past service, but that retained to the end all the noble characteristics that had distinguished him in the heyday of his glory.

"What news to-day, father?" asked Isla's fresh, clear voice.

When he heard it he rose to his feet with that fine courtesy towards women which had never failed him.

She laid a hand in gentle reprimand on his arm.

"Now, how often have I told you, old dear, that you are not to be so ceremonious with me? You can keep your fine manners for the great ladies who never, never now come to Achree. Your little Isla knows that they are there, and she doesn't need ocular demonstration of their presence."

He smiled and patted her cheek. He was an old man, now in his seventy-fifth year. He had been so long on foreign service that he had not married till late in life, and he had then made a marriage which had been the one mistake of his life, and into which he had been led by the softness of his own heart. Yet in battle, and in the affairs of men, he had been a terrific person, to be avoided by those who had offended him.

The fruits of that marriage, unfortunately, had come out in the son and heir in whose veins ran the wild blood of the woman who had broken Mackinnon's heart. There was no fight in the General now. He was a broken old man--very gentle, not altogether comprehending, a mere cypher in his own house, though his honour and his prestige were more jealously guarded by his household than they had ever been when he could guard them himself.

His health was frail, but he suffered apparently from no disease. The doctor from Comrie who paid a weekly visit often assured Isla that, with care, there was no reason why her father should not live for other ten years. Only he mustn't have any shock. He so often insisted upon this that Isla would ask herself after he had gone how, as circumstances were with them now, shock could be avoided. Apprehension was in the very air, and when Malcolm came home shock would most certainly be the order of the day.

"Where have you been, Isla?"

"Down to Lochearn, and I stopped at Darrach to speak to Eppie. You know how her tongue wags. Sit down, dear, and let me tell you something. Have you had any interesting letters?"

"I don't know," he said vaguely. "I looked at some of them. There is one from Cattanach, but I don't understand it. You'll explain it to me, Isla, and write what is necessary."

Cattanach was the family lawyer, the head of a big legal firm in Glasgow that had administered the affairs of Achree for many years.

Isla seized upon his letter jealously, and read it even with a feeling of foreboding. But as her eyes quickly covered the typewritten words, lo! a great relief was hers. The thing she had dreaded now manifested itself as a blessing--perhaps even as a way out.

"Father, have you read this letter?" she asked, drawing her chair to his side and still holding it in her hand.

"I read it--yes, but I don't think I understand. He says something about strange folks coming to Achree. You can write to him, Isla, and tell him that we are not in a position to entertain, as we used to be. We have not the folk about us to make guests comfortable--nor perhaps have we the heart."

"No, no; but that is not quite what he means, darling," said Isla eagerly. "Let me read it over to you quite slowly, then perhaps you will understand."

"ST. VINCENT PLACE,
"GLASGOW, March.

"DEAR GENERAL MACKINNON,--I hardly like to approach you on the subject of this letter, but a client of mine is so insistent that I don't seem to have any alternative.

"I write on behalf of Mr. Hylton Rosmead, an American gentleman who is looking for a place in your neighbourhood to rent for the season. He wants it for six months at least--from Easter to October, with the option of stopping on if agreeable to both parties.

"It seems odd that, with the whole of Scotland to choose from, he and his family should hit upon Achree which, as I told him, is not in the market. They saw it in course of a motor tour last autumn, and were so struck with it, it seems, that it is the only place they would have in the whole of Scotland.

"I may say two things that may help you to a decision. They are Americans of the best type, and he would pay a fancy price for the place.

"I have no alternative but to lay the offer before you and may I remind you that the letting of places to people of this type has become so common among the old families that it is the exception not to let them at some time or other.

"I shall be glad to hear from you at your very earliest convenience as Mr. Rosmead is anxious to get settled. Hoping you feel yourself better with the approach of spring, and that Miss Mackinnon is quite well,--I am, dear General, yours faithfully,

"ALEXANDER CATTANACH."

Long before Isla had reached the close of this letter the old man's attention had wandered and, though his eyes had not fixed themselves on the paper again, Isla saw that he was not in the smallest degree either interested or comprehending.

"You don't understand, dear, that some one wants to take Achree from us for a few months and to pay a high rent--a very high rent--for it. Why shouldn't we let it? Look how often Uncle Tom has let Barras. He has told us he couldn't get on without letting it."

"Oh, no, of course not. Read this account of affairs in Rhodesia, Isla. It's the aftermath of the war. Heavens, we'll never get to the end of that precious muddle! I said so at the time."

Isla laid down the letter quietly, intending to return to it later. It was part of the difficulty of her life, part of the hopelessness of the present acuter stage in it, that she could not get her father to comprehend facts and details which were of the utmost importance. Either he could not or he would not understand--there were times when she was at a loss to say which.

As she laid Cattanach's letter down she drew her brother's from the bosom of her blouse.

"Did you remember that this is mail-day, father? You know you can't read Malcolm's scrawl, which seems to grow more illegible with every letter. Shall I read it out to you?"

"No. Tell me what he says. His letters weary me. They are full of words I don't understand and have no use for," he said with a sudden touch of querulousness. "I can't understand why a boy that has been at Glenalmond and at Sandhurst wants to fill his letters with unintelligible jargon. How is he?"

"He's quite well. He is coming home, father. He will be here very shortly."

"Coming home! Leave again! Far too much leave in the service now. They have no time to lick them into shape. Seventeen years I served in Northern India without a break--and never a murmur; and I've known men who served thirty. Now it's leave every third or fourth year. It doesn't look like five since he was last here, but I suppose it is. Well, when is he coming?"

"In about a month."

"A bad time of year, too--nothing to kill but a stray rabbit. I think I'll write to them at the War Office and stir them up about this perpetual leave business. It's bad for the men, bad for the officers, bad for the service all through, and accounts for its unpopularity and inefficiency. In my day the Army was a man's business--the serious business of his life. Now it's his play. How can a country be kept together on these lines?"

Isla betrayed no weariness, though she knew that he had started on his interminable theme. It was the only one in which he retained any active interest, for Mackinnon had been born a soldier, and the medals he had won could not be pinned all at one time on his breast. But his failing powers prevented him from being able to adjust his mind to the new conditions of things. In his estimation, the old style of warfare was best, and all the new methods were fit only to be criticized and partly abolished.

"He doesn't say anything about the duration of his leave. I, too, am rather sorry he is coming home just now, father, for, as you say, there is nothing to kill and Malcolm isn't a man of resource. I think I'll go and see Cattanach and ask his advice."

"Cattanach? Oh, yes. What did he write about, did you say? Anything to sign? Or was he writing only for his own amusement to earn six-and-eightpence? Terrible fellows these lawyers--even the best of them are worth watching."

He laughed gently but quite mirthlessly, and his eyes glued themselves again to his paper, in which he at once became completely absorbed.

Isla, knitting her brows slightly, turned away to the table to glance through her father's letters, which he had not so much as touched.

Everything was in her hands. Something whispered that she, and she alone, must be the saviour of Achree.