The Half-Hearted. Buchan John
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face had infinite attractiveness, and she trusted Lady Manorwater’s acuteness and goodness of heart.
Lord Manorwater had gone off on some matter of business and taken the younger Miss Afflint with him. As Alice looked round the little assembly on the lawn, she felt for the first time the insignificance of the men. The large Mr. Stocks was not at his best in such surroundings. He was the typical townsman, and bore with him wherever he went an atmosphere of urban dust and worry. He hungered for ostentation, he could only talk well when he felt that he impressed his hearers; Bertha, who was not easily impressed, he shunned like a plague. The man, reflected the censorious Alice, had no shades or half-tones in his character; he was all bald, strong, and crude. Now he was talking to his hostess with the grace of the wise man unbending.
“I shall be pleased indeed to meet your nephew,” he said. “I feel sure that we have many interests in common. Do you say he lives near?”
Lady Manorwater, ever garrulous on family matters, readily enlightened him. “Etterick is his, and really all the land round here. We simply live on a patch in the middle of it. The shooting is splendid, and Lewie is a very keen sportsman. His mother was my husband’s sister, and died when he was born. He is wonderfully unspoiled to have had such a lonely boyhood.”
“How did the family get the land?” he asked. It was a matter which interested him, for democratic politician though he was, he looked always forward to the day when he should own a pleasant country property, and forget the troubles of life in the Nirvana of the respectable.
“Oh, they’ve had it for ages. They are a very old family, you know, and look down upon us as parvenus. They have been everything in their day—soldiers, statesmen, lawyers; and when we were decent merchants in Abbeykirk three centuries ago, they were busy making history. When you go to Etterick you must see the pictures. There is a fine one by Jameson of the Haystoun who fought with Montrose, and Raeburn painted most of the Haystouns of his time. They were a very handsome race, at least the men; the women were too florid and buxom for my taste.”
“And this Lewis—is he the only one of the family?”
“The very last, and of course he does his best to make away with himself by risking his precious life in Hindu Kush or Tibet or somewhere.” Her ladyship was geographically vague.
“What a pity he does not realize his responsibilities!” said the politician. “He might do so much.”
But at the moment it dawned upon the speaker that the shirker of responsibilities was appearing in person. There strode towards them, across the lawn, a young man and two dogs.
“How do you do, Aunt Egeria?” he cried, and he caught her small woman’s hand in a hard brown one and smiled on the little lady.
Bertha Afflint had flung her magazine to the winds and caught his available left hand. “Oh, Lewie, you wretch! how glad we are to see you again.” Meantime the dogs performed a solemn minuet around her ladyship’s knees.
The young man, when he had escaped from the embraces of his friends, turned to the others. He seemed to recognize two of them, for he shook hands cordially with the two spectacled people. “Hullo, Hoddam, how are you? And Imrie! Who would have thought of finding you here?” And he poured forth a string of kind questions till the two beamed with pleasure.
Then Alice heard dimly words of introduction: “Miss Wishart, Mr. Haystoun,” and felt herself bowing automatically. She actually felt nervous. The disreputable fisher of the day before was in ordinary riding garments of fair respectability. He recognized her at once, but he, too, seemed to lose for a moment his flow of greetings. His tone insensibly changed to a conventional politeness, and he asked her some of the stereotyped questions with which one greets a stranger. She felt sharply that she was a stranger to whom the courteous young man assumed more elaborate manners. The freedom of the day before seemed gone. She consoled herself with the thought that whereas then she had been warm, flushed, and untidy, she was now very cool and elegant in her prettiest frock.
Then Mr. Stocks arose and explained that he was delighted to meet Mr. Lewis Haystoun, that he knew of his reputation, and hoped to have some pleasant talk on matters dear to the heart of both. At which Lewis shunned the vacant seat between Bertha and that gentleman, and stretched himself on the lawn beside Alice’s chair. A thrill of pleasure entered the girl’s heart, to her own genuine surprise.
“Are Tam and Jock at peace now?” she asked.
“Tam and Jock are never at peace. Jock is sedate and grave and old for his years, while Tam is simply a human collie. He has the same endearing manners and irresponsible mind. I had to fish him out of several rock-pools after you left.”
Alice laughed, and Lady Manorwater said in wonder, “I didn’t know you had met Lewie before, Alice.”
“Miss Wishart and I forgathered accidentally at the Midburn yesterday,” said the man.
“Oh, you went there,” cried the aggrieved Arthur, “and you never told me! Why, it is the best water about here, and yesterday was a first-rate day. What did you catch, Lewie?”
“Twelve pounds—about four dozen trout.”
“Listen to that! And to think that that great hulking chap got all the sport!” And the boy intercepted his cousin’s tea by way of retaliation.
Then Mr. Stocks had his innings, with Lady Manorwater for company, and Lewis was put through a strict examination on his doings for the past years.
“What made you choose that outlandish place, my dear?” asked his aunt.
“Oh, partly the chance of a shot at big game, partly a restless interest in frontier politics which now and then seizes me. But really it was Wratislaw’s choice.”
“Do you know Wratislaw?” asked Mr. Stocks abruptly.
“Tommy?—why, surely! My best of friends. He had got his fellowship some years before I went up, but I often saw him at Oxford, and he has helped me innumerable times.” The young man spoke eagerly, prepared to extend warm friendship to any acquaintance of his friend’s.
“He and I have sometimes crossed swords,” said Mr. Stocks pompously.
Lewis nodded, and forbore to ask which had come off the better.
“He is, of course, very able,” said Mr. Stocks, making a generous admission.
His hearer wondered why he should be told of a man’s ability when he had spoken of him as his friend.
“Have you heard much of him lately?” he asked. “We corresponded regularly when I was abroad, but of course he never would speak about himself, and I only saw him for a short time last week in London.”
The gentleman addressed waved a deprecating hand.
“He has had no popular recognition. Such merits as he has are too aloof to touch the great popular heart. But we who believe in the people and work for them have found him a bitter enemy. The idle, academic, superior person, whatever his gifts, is a serious hindrance to honest work,” said the popular idol.
“I shouldn’t call him idle or superior,” said Lewis quietly. “I have seen hard workers, but I have never seen anything like Tommy. He is a perfect mill-horse, wasting his fine talent on a dreary routine, merely because he is conscientious and nobody can do it so well.”
He always respected honesty, so he forbore to be irritated with this assured speaker.
But Alice interfered to prevent jarring.
“I read your book, Mr. Haystoun. What a time you must have had! You say that north of Bardur or some place like that there are two hundred miles of utterly unknown land till you come to Russian territory. I should have thought that land important. Why doesn’t some one penetrate it?
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