Prince Fortunatus by William Black (ebook reader with highlighter TXT) 📖

/> "I hear you are going after the deer to-morrow," said the pretty Miss Georgie Lestrange to him, in the drawing-room after dinner, while Lady Sybil was performing her famous fantasia "The Voices of the Moonlight," to which nobody listened but her own admiring self. "And I was told all about that custom of making the stalker a little present on his setting out, for good-luck. It was Honnor Cunyngham who did that for you last time, and I think it should be my turn to-morrow morning."

"Oh, thank you!" said he; but "Thank you for nothing!" he said in his heart; for why should any frivolous trinket--even when presented by this very charming and complaisant young damsel--be allowed to interfere with the prerogative of Miss Cunyngham's sacred talisman?

"I say," continued the bright-eyed, ruddy-haired lass, "what do you and Honnor Cunyngham talk about all day long, when you are away on those fishing excursions? Don't you bore each other to death? Oh, I know she's rather learned, though she doesn't bestow much of her knowledge upon us. Well, I'm not going to say anything against Honnor, for she's so awfully good-natured, you know; she allows her sisters-in-law to experiment on her as an audience, and she has always something friendly and nice to say, though I can guess what she thinks of it all. Now, what do you two talk about all day long?"

"Well, there's the fishing," said he, "for one thing."

"Oh, don't tell me!" exclaimed this impertinent young hussy (while "The Voices of the Moonlight" moaned and mourned their mysterious regrets and despairs at the far end of the drawing-room). "Don't tell me! Honnor Cunyngham is far too good-looking for you to go talking salmon to her all day long. Very handsome I call her; don't you? She's so distinguished, somehow--so different from any one else. Of course you don't notice it up here so much, where she prides herself on roughing it--you never met her in London?--in London you should see her come into a drawing-room--her walk and manner are simply splendid. She'll never marry," continued this garrulous little person, with the coquettish pince-nez perched on her not too Grecian nose. "I'm sure she won't. She despises men--all of them except her brother, Sir Hugh. Lord Rockminster admires her tremendously, but he's too lazy to say so, I suppose. How has she taken such a fancy to you?"

"I was not aware she had," Lionel discreetly made answer, though the question had startled him, and not with pain.

"Oh, yes, she has. Did she think you were lone and unprotected, being persecuted by the rest of us? I am quite certain she wouldn't allow my brother Percy to go fishing a whole day with her; most likely Lord Rockminster wouldn't care to take the trouble. I wonder if she hasn't a bit of a temper? Lady Rosamund is awful sometimes; but she doesn't show that to you--catch her! But Honnor Cunyngham--well, the only time I ever went with her on one of her storking expeditions, the water was low, and she thrashed away for hours, and saw nothing. At last a stot happened to come wandering along; and she said, quite savagely, 'I'm going to hook something!' You don't know what a stot is?--it's a young bullock. So she deliberately walked to within twenty yards or so of the animal, threw the line so that it just dropped across its neck, and the fly caught in the thick hair. You should have seen the gay performance that followed! The beast shook its head and shook its head--for it could feel the line, if it couldn't feel the fly; and then, getting alarmed, it started off up the hill, with the reel squealing just as if a salmon were on, and Honnor running after him as hard as she could over the bracken and heather. If it were rage made her hook the stot, she was laughing now--laughing so that when the beast stopped she could hardly reel in the line. And old Robert--I thought he would have had a fit. 'Will I gaff him now, Miss Honnor?' he cried, as he came running along. But the stot didn't mean to be gaffed. Off it set again; and Honnor after it, until at last it caught the line in a birch-bush and broke it; then, just as if nothing had happened, it began to graze, as usual. You should have seen the game that began then--old Robert and Honnor trying to get hold of the stot, so as to take the casting-line and the fly from its mane--it isn't a mane, but you know--and the stot trying to butt them whenever they came near. The end of it was that the beast shook off the fly for itself, and old Robert found it; but I wonder whether it were real rage that made Honnor Cunyngham hook the stot--"

"Of course not!" he said. "It was a mere piece of fun."

"It isn't fun when Lady Rosamund comes down-stairs in a bad temper--after you gentlemen have left," remarked Miss Georgie, significantly; and then she prattled away in this careful undertone. "What horrid stuff that fantasia is; don't you think so? A mixture of Wagner, and Chopin, and 'Home, Sweet Home.' Lady Adela has put you in her novel. Oh, yes, she has; she showed me the last pages this morning. You remember the young married English lady who is a great poetess?--well, she is rescued from drowning in the Bay of Syracuse by a young Greek sailor, and you are the Greek sailor. You'll be flattered by her description of you. You are entirely Greek and godlike--what is that bust?--Alcibiades?--no, no, he was a general, wasn't he?--Alcinous, is it?--or Antinous?--never mind, the bust you see so often in Florence and Rome--well, you're described as being like that; and the young English lady becomes your patron, and you're to be educated, and brought to London. But whether her husband is to be killed off, to make way for you, or whether she is going to hand you over to one of her sisters, I don't know yet. It must be rather nice to look at yourself in a novel, and see what other people think of you and what fate they ordain for you. Lady Adela has got all the criticisms of her last novel--all the nice ones, I mean--cut out and pasted on pages and bound in scarlet morocco. I told her she should have all the unpleasant ones cut out and bound in green--envy and jealousy, don't you see?--but she pretends not to have seen any besides those she has kept. The book is in her own room; I suppose she reads it over every night, before going to bed. And really, after so much praise, it is extraordinary that she is to have no money for the book--no, quite the reverse, I believe. She was looking forward to making Sir Hugh a very handsome present--all out of her own earnings, don't you know--and she wrote to the publishers; but, instead of Sir Hugh getting a present, he will have to give her a check to cover the deficit, poor man! Disappointing, isn't it?--quite horrid, I call it; and every one thought the novel such a success--your friend, Mr. Quirk, was most enthusiastic--and we made sure that the public would be equally impressed. It isn't the loss of the money that Lady Adela frets about; it is the publishers telling her that so few copies have been sold; and we made sure, from all that was said in the papers--especially those that Mr. Quirk was kind enough to send--that the book was going to be read everywhere. Mind you don't say anything of the young Greek sailor until Lady Adela herself shows you the MS.; and of course you mustn't recognize your own portrait, for that is merely a guess of mine. Oh, thank you, thank you!"

The last words were a murmur of gratitude to Lady Sybil Bourne for her kindness in playing this piece of her own composition; and thereafter Miss Georgie's engaging and instructive monologue was not resumed, for the evening was now about to be wound up by a round or two of poker, and at poker Miss Georgie was an eager adept.

All that night it poured a deluge, and the morning beheld the Aivron in roaring spate, the familiar landmarks of the banks having mostly disappeared and also many of the mid-channel rocks; while the blue-black current that came whirling down the strath seemed to bring with it the dull, constant thunder of the distant falls. The western hills looked wild and stormy; there was half a gale of wind tearing along the valley; and, if the torrents of the night had mitigated, there were still flying showers of rain that promised to make of the expedition anything but a pleasure excursion.

"Tell me if it is any use at all!" Lionel insisted, for it must be confessed that the keepers looked very doubtful.

"Well, sir," said the bushy-bearded Roderick, "the deer will be down from the hills--oh, yes--but they'll be restless and moving about--"

"Do you expect I shall have a chance at one--that's all I want to know," was the next demand.

"Oh, yes, there may be that; but you'll get ahfu wet, sir--"

"I'm going," said he, definitely; whereupon the pony was straightway brought up to the door.

And here was Miss Georgie Lestrange, in a charming morning costume, which the male pen may not adequately describe, and she held a small packet in her hands.

"I told Honnor Cunyngham it was my turn," she said, with a kind of bashful smile, as she handed the little present to him, "and she only laughed--I wonder if she thinks she can command all the luck in Ross-shire; has she got a monopoly of it? Well, Mr. Moore, they all say you'll get fearfully wet; and that is a silk handkerchief you must put round your neck; what would the English public say if you went back from the Highlands with a hoarse throat!"

"I'm not thinking of the English public just at present," said he, cheerfully. "I'm thinking of the stag that is wandering about somewhere up in the hills; and I am certain your good wishes will get me a shot at him. How kind of you to get up so early!--good-bye!"

This, it must be admitted, was a most hypocritical speech; for although, as he rode away, he made a pretence of tying the pale pink neckerchief round his throat, it was on the influence of Miss Cunyngham's lucky sixpence--the pierced coin was secretly attached to his watch-chain--that he relied. In fact, before he had gone far from the lodge, he removed that babyish protection against the rain and stuck it in his pocket; he was not going to throw out a red flag to warn the deer.

After all, the morning was not quite so dismal as had been threatened; for now and again, as they went away up the strath, there was a break in the heavy skies; and then the river shone a deep and brilliant purple-blue--save where it came hurling in ale-hued masses over the rocks, or rushed in surging white foam through the stony channels. Sometimes a swift glimmer of sunlight smote down on the swinging current; but these flashes were brief, for the louring clouds were still being driven over from the west, and no one could tell what the day would bring forth.

"What will Miss Honnor do in a spate like that?" Lionel inquired of the head keeper. "Will she go out at all?"

"Oh, ay, Miss Honnor will go out," Roderick made answer; "but she will only be able to fish the tail-ends o' the pools--ay,