"You and I and your friend Mr. Dass are now all the company," Ireplied. "My lord, my lady, and the children, are gone upon a voyage.""Upon my word!" said he. "Can this be possible? I have indeed fluttered your Volscians in Corioli! But this is no reason why our breakfast should go cold. Sit down, Mr. Mackellar, if you please"- taking, as he spoke, the head of the table, which I had designed to occupy myself - "and as we eat, you can give me the details of this evasion."I could see he was more affected than his language carried, and Idetermined to equal him in coolness. "I was about to ask you to take the head of the table," said I; "for though I am now thrust into the position of your host, I could never forget that you were, after all, a member of the family."For a while he played the part of entertainer, giving directions to Macconochie, who received them with an evil grace, and attending specially upon Secundra. "And where has my good family withdrawn to?" he asked carelessly.
"Ah! Mr. Bally, that is another point," said I. "I have no orders to communicate their destination.""To me," he corrected.
"To any one," said I.
"It is the less pointed," said the master; "C'EST DE BON TON: my brother improves as he continues. And I, dear Mr. Mackellar?""You will have bed and board, Mr. Bally," said I. "I am permitted to give you the run of the cellar, which is pretty reasonably stocked. You have only to keep well with me, which is no very difficult matter, and you shall want neither for wine nor a saddle-horse."
He made an excuse to send Macconochie from the room.
"And for money?" he inquired. "Have I to keep well with my good friend Mackellar for my pocket-money also? This is a pleasing return to the principles of boyhood.""There was no allowance made," said I; "but I will take it on myself to see you are supplied in moderation.""In moderation?" he repeated. "And you will take it on yourself?"He drew himself up, and looked about the hall at the dark rows of portraits. "In the name of my ancestors, I thank you," says he;and then, with a return to irony, "But there must certainly be an allowance for Secundra Dass?" he said. "It in not possible they have omitted that?""I will make a note of it, and ask instructions when I write," said I.
And he, with a sudden change of manner, and leaning forward with an elbow on the table - "Do you think this entirely wise?""I execute my orders, Mr. Bally," said I.
"Profoundly modest," said the Master; "perhaps not equally ingenuous. You told me yesterday my power was fallen with my father's death. How comes it, then, that a peer of the realm flees under cloud of night out of a house in which his fathers have stood several sieges? that he conceals his address, which must be a matter of concern to his Gracious Majesty and to the whole republic? and that he should leave me in possession, and under the paternal charge of his invaluable Mackellar? This smacks to me of a very considerable and genuine apprehension."I sought to interrupt him with some not very truthful denegation;but he waved me down, and pursued his speech.
"I say, it smacks of it," he said; "but I will go beyond that, for I think the apprehension grounded. I came to this house with some reluctancy. In view of the manner of my last departure, nothing but necessity could have induced me to return. Money, however, is that which I must have. You will not give with a good grace; well, I have the power to force it from you. Inside of a week, without leaving Durrisdeer, I will find out where these fools are fled to.
I will follow; and when I have run my quarry down, I will drive a wedge into that family that shall once more burst it into shivers.
I shall see then whether my Lord Durrisdeer" (said with indescribable scorn and rage) "will choose to buy my absence; and you will all see whether, by that time, I decide for profit or revenge."I was amazed to hear the man so open. The truth is, he was consumed with anger at my lord's successful flight, felt himself to figure as a dupe, and was in no humour to weigh language.
"Do you consider THIS entirely wise?" said I, copying his words.
"These twenty years I have lived by my poor wisdom," he answered with a smile that seemed almost foolish in its vanity.
"And come out a beggar in the end," said I, "if beggar be a strong enough word for it.""I would have you to observe, Mr. Mackellar," cried he, with a sudden imperious heat, in which I could not but admire him, "that Iam scrupulously civil: copy me in that, and we shall be the better friends."Throughout this dialogue I had been incommoded by the observation of Secundra Dass. Not one of us, since the first word, had made a feint of eating: our eyes were in each other's faces - you might say, in each other's bosoms; and those of the Indian troubled me with a certain changing brightness, as of comprehension. But Ibrushed the fancy aside, telling myself once more he understood no English; only, from the gravity of both voices, and the occasional scorn and anger in the Master's, smelled out there was something of import in the wind.
For the matter of three weeks we continued to live together in the house of Durrisdeer: the beginning of that most singular chapter of my life - what I must call my intimacy with the Master. At first he was somewhat changeable in his behaviour: now civil, now returning to his old manner of flouting me to my face; and in both I met him half-way. Thanks be to Providence, I had now no measure to keep with the man; and I was never afraid of black brows, only of naked swords. So that I found a certain entertainment in these bouts of incivility, and was not always ill-inspired in my rejoinders. At last (it was at supper) I had a droll expression that entirely vanquished him. He laughed again and again; and "Who would have guessed," he cried, "that this old wife had any wit under his petticoats?""It is no wit, Mr. Bally," said I: "a dry Scot's humour, and something of the driest." And, indeed, I never had the least pretension to be thought a wit.
