"She is a good girl, Cora," said I, thoughtfully
"If you have any fancy for Louisa Loftus, I will back you to any amount," said my blunt uncle, stoutly; "but I don't think my lady mother would relish such a suitor as a lieutenant of cavalry. I have already heard her hint that Lord Slubber has made proposals, with offers of a brilliant settlement; but the man is older than I, and could no more hunt a country or march up a snow-covered brae, as we do now, than fly through the air. At all events, don't throw your heart away farther than is necessary, and what is more, in the meantime, look sharp, I say."
"Sharp!" I exclaimed, bewildered by this odd jumble of advice. "How--why?"
"Don't you perceive what is going on?"
"What, uncle?"
"That yaw-hawing donkey, Berkeley, is doing all he can to take the wind out of your sails."
"Uncle, I have indeed felt a dread of this. He has, you know, a handsome fortune."
"I would not let a fellow like that go neck and neck with me," said Sir Nigel. "I'd cut in and win at a hand gallop. It is your talking, pushing, forward men--seeming always confident of what they say, never acknowledging an error or confessing a defeat, that are too often allowed to take the lead in life. With average ability, and ten times the average amount of assurance, they often reach the goal that bashful merit never gets a sight of. So cut in, I say, and win, if you want her."
While he was running on thus, I could not but admire, at his years, the hale, sturdy figure, and bluff, hearty bearing of Sir Nigel, in his old shooting toggery. He was always a crack shot, and in youth and middle life had been one of the keenest curlers and golfers between the West and East Neuks of Fife.
It was his great boast that he could yet, if he chose, strike a golf ball from the street over each of the tallest spires of St. Andrew's. A fair hand, too, with the pistol, he had, as I have stated, winged more than one political antagonist, in squabbles about the old Reform Bill, in the days of Brougham, Grey, and Russell. Throw your glove in the air, and he would shoot any finger off it you named; and he would hit a cricket ball, were it cast ever so high, with a single rifle bullet. Thus in his hands I was sent to join the lancers somewhat of a master-of-arms, and certainly a complete horseman.
Sir Nigel, withal, had much the air of a Scotch man-about-town; in Edinburgh a different style of man from he of the same genus in London--he of the glazed boots and carefully-trimmed whiskers, exquisitely solemn and unimpressionable, as if he had seen all the world, and found there was nothing in it.
The "dandy" who hovers about the New Club in Princes-street is usually a six-foot man, bronzed and sunburnt (he has served somewhere--in India generally), and heavily moustached. He carries a huge stick; he wears rough Tweed suits, and double-soled brogues, with toe-pieces and rows of hobnails, as if ever ready for facing the hills and the frozen heather. He may be a snob, like his English brother Dundreary; but he has something rough and service-like in his bearing that is suggestive of climbing rocks, fishing, hunting, and shooting.
But now Sir Nigel's warning, Cora's sharp discovery of my secret, and the knowledge that Berkeley remained behind in full possession of the field, filled me with anxiety and annoyance. The shooting excursion bored me, and I looked for the end before we had well begun.
What might those hours of absence from her cost me?
We reached the gamekeeper's cottage, which was situated amid a dense copsewood, beside a wimpling burn, and near King James's Well. Moss of emerald hue covered all the thatched roof, and in summer green trailers and scarlet-runners made all the white-washed walls and little windows gay.
Now the former were ornamented by ghastly rows of half-decayed hawks, wild cats, fiumarts, and weasels, while the white, bare skull of a stag, with its gallant antlers outspread, was fixed above the door. Along the garden paling the dead hawks hung in dozens, as a regular war was waged between them and old Pitblado, who spent half his days in baiting traps; thus the breeze that passed his cottage was laden with odours, but not those of "a bank of violets."
He was a fine, hale old man, with a weather-beaten aspect, short, grizzled hair, and keen grey eyes, that glistened and grew moist as he warmly shook my hand, and welcomed me to the glen again.
Though respectful and kind, his bearing was not without a native dignity, for he was proud of considering himself the last representative of an old line of Fifeshire lairds, the Pitblados of Pitblado and that ilk, who had lost their land and position long ago; but in his old velveteen coat of no particular colour, his blue bonnet, network game-bag, and long, greasy overalls, Pitblado looked just as I had seen him last. Though "as soldiers in the march of life, we may never learn to mark time, time never fails to mark us."
"It was kind ond thochtfu' o' you, Maister Newton, to bring my laddie, Willie, hame to see me ere ye baith gaed to the wars; and when there, I hope you ond he will tak' a' the care o' ilk ither ye can, for I could as ill spare him as Sir Nigel could spare you; and gang where ye may, Maister Newton, ye'll ne'er ha'e a truer or a sibber friend than Willie Pitblado."
While the old man ran on thus, the dogs came bounding forth.
"Here," said my uncle, "is your old favourite pointer, the white and tan, alive yet."
"But he's a _dis_-appointer noo, Maister Newton, being blind, or bleared a bit; yet I ha'e na the heart, or rather want o' heart, to put the puir beast awa'."
"And here is Keeper, too--brave old Keeper, that I played with when a boy," I exclaimed, as a grand old mastiff, which knew my voice, sprang upon me with joy, whining and barking the while--a dog that was always gentle with children; that wagged his aristocratic tail at all ladies and gentlemen, but howled and growled fearfully at all beggars and poorly-clad folks.
There in that cottage old Willie now lived alone with his dogs and a tame otter. This was a somewhat remarkable animal. He had found it as a cub in a pond near Calderwood Glen, and gradually made it so domesticated that it responded to his voice, followed him about, and employed its talents in fishing for him, bringing each fish regularly to his feet, and at a signal diving in for more; and, strange enough, the terriers that hunted other otters never molested this one.
A pair of brisk young pointers were selected. We loaded, capped, shouldered our guns, and set forth. This was but the beginning of the day's sport, and I sighed with impatience for the end.
"Shall we try the belt of pines on the Standing Stane Rig?" said I.
"It used to be a braw cover for patricks (partridges), and in my father's day for grouse," said Pitblado; "but those Roosians, the weasels, the piots, the hawks, and the shepherd's collies, ha'e played the de'il wi' it. At yon belt o' neeps, where ye see the shaws aboon the snaw, the deer often come out o' the pine wood to ha'e a feed, so that we may chance to get a pot shot at one to-day."
"Come on, then," said Sir Nigel, impatiently. "Blaze away while you can, Newton. In the first week of next month partridge and pheasant shooting ends."
"By that time, uncle, in these swift days of steam, I may be sabreing or potting the Russians."
"Then sabre and pot with a will, boy."
It was from old Pitblado I had received all my early lessons in shooting and fishing, in the art of casting bullets and making flies; and I remember one special piece of advice he always gave me concerning salmon.
"Aye _droon_ your salmon before ye land it, Maister Newton, for the dunt on the heid spyles the quality o' the fish; ond if ye hook a grilse, keep its tail up and well in the water till it's clean deid."
We saw no deer that day, and I shot so wildly and queerly, and generally bang into the centre of every covey, without selecting or covering the outside birds, that Sir Nigel was bewildered, and old Pitblado lost all patience with me.
I traversed the snow-covered fields with them as one might do in a dream. I heard an occasional shot from my uncle's gun, the birds rose whirring in the air, and then one or two came tumbling down, to beat the snow with their wings, and stain it with their blood, ere Pitblado thrust them into his ample bag.
I heard his deep impressive voice saying from time to time, "Mark!" when the coveys rose, and to watch where they alighted; then "Seek dead" to the pointers usually followed the bang! bang! of Sir Nigel's barrels; but my mind was completely absorbed in reverie. I saw only the face of Louisa Loftus, with Berkeley hovering about her.
I imagined him having achieved the tete-a-tete I had failed to procure. I imagined him opening the trenches by apologies, in set phraseology, for the offence he had perpetrated in the conservatory; and if he succeeded with such a basis for his operations, where might the matter end? Heavens! for all I knew to the contrary, in a solemn engagement, pending mamma Chillingham's consent, for his lordship, the earl, was somewhat of a cypher in these matters, and in his own house generally. How ingeniously one can torment oneself when afflicted by jealousy! and thus much real misery was mine during that day's weary shooting, and right glad was I when the sun of January, declining beyond the western Lomond, warned my indefatigable uncle that it was time for us to return homeward, after having traversed in our peregrinations some fifteen miles of country.