“You do not speak like a Highlander,” said Montaiglon, finding some of this gasconade unintelligible.
“No, I'm no' exactly a'thegether a Hielan'man,” Mungo admitted, “though I hae freends con-nekit wi' the auldest clans, and though I'm, in a mainner o' speakin', i' the tail o' Doom, as I was i' the tail o' his faither afore him—peace wi' him, he was the grand soger!—but Hielan' or Lowland, we gied them their scuds at the 'Forty-five.' Scots regiments, sir, a' the warld ower, hae had the best o't for fechtin', marchin', or glory. See them at the auld grand wars o' Sweden wi' Gus-tavus, was there ever the like o' them? Or in your ain country, whaure's the bate o' the Gairde Ecossay, as they ca't?”
He spoke with such a zest, he seemed to fire with such a martial glow, that Montaiglon began to fancy that this amusing grotesque, who in stature came no higher than his waist, might have seen some service as sutler or groom in a campaigning regiment.
“Ma foi!” he exclaimed, with his surprise restrained from the most delicate considerations for the little man's feelings; “have you been in the wars?”
It was manifestly a home-thrust to Mungo. He had risen, in his moment of braggadocio, and was standing over the fish with a horn-hilted gutting-knife in his hands, that were sanguine with his occupation, and he had, in the excess of his feeling, made a flourish of the knife, as if it were a dagger, when Montaiglon's query checked him. He was a bubble burst, his backbone—that braced him to the tension of a cuirassier of guards—melted into air, into thin air, and a ludicrous limpness came on him, while his eye fell, and confusion showed about his mouth.
“In the wars!” he repeated. “Weel—no jist a'thegether what ye micht call i' the wars—though in a mainner o' speakin', gey near't. I had an uncle oot wi' Balmerina; ye may hae heard tell o'm, a man o' tremendous valour, as was generally al-ooed—Dugald Boyd, by my faither's side. There's been naethin' but sogers in oor family since the be-ginnin' o' time, and mony ane o' them's deid and dusty in foreign lands. It it hadnae been for the want o' a half inch or thereby in the height o' my heels “—here he stood upon his toes—“I wad hae been in the airmy mysel'. It's the only employ for a man o' spunk, and there's spunk in Mungo Boyd, mind I'm tellin' ye!”
“It is the most obvious thing in the world, good Mungo,” said Montaiglon, smiling. “You eviscerate fish with the gusto of a gladiator.”
And then an odd thing happened to relieve Mungo's embarrassment and end incontinent his garrulity. Floating on the air round the bulge of the turret came a strain of song in a woman's voice, not powerful, but rich and sweet, young in its accent, the words inaudible but the air startling to Count Victor, who heard no more than half a bar before he had realised that it was the unfinished melody of the nocturnal flageolet. Before he could comment upon so unexpected and surprising a phenomenon, Mungo had dropped his gutting-knife and made with suspicious rapidity for the entrance of the castle, without a word of explanation or leave-taking.
“I become decidedly interested in Annapla,” said Montaiglon to himself, witnessing this odd retreat, “and my host gives me no opportunity of paying my homages. Malediction! It cannot be a wife; Bethune said nothing of a wife, and then M. le Baron spoke of himself as a widower. A domestic, doubtless; that will more naturally account for the ancient fishmonger's fleet retirement. He goes to chide the erring Abigail. Or—or—or the cunning wretch!” continued Montaiglon with new meaning in his eyes, “he is perhaps the essential lover. Let the Baron at breakfast elucidate the mystery.”
But the Baron at breakfast said never a word of the domestic economy of his fortalice. As they sat over a frugal meal of oat porridge, the poached fish, and a smoky, high-flavoured mutton ham, whose history the Count was happy not to know, his host's conversation was either upon Paris, where he had spent some months of sad expatriation, yawning at its gaiety (it seemed) and longing for the woods of Doom; or upon the plan of the search for the spy and double traitor.
Montaiglon's plans were simple to crudeness. He had, though he did not say so, anticipated some assistance from Doom in identifying the object of his search; but now that this was out of the question, he meant, it appeared, to seek the earliest and most plausible excuse for removal into the immediate vicinity of Argyll's castle, and on some pretext to make the acquaintance of as many of the people there as he could, then to select his man from among them, and push his affair to a conclusion.
“A plausible scheme,” said Doom when he heard it, “but contrived without any knowledge of the situation. It's not Doom, M. le Count—oh no, it's not Doom down by there; it's a far more kittle place to learn the outs and ins of. The army and the law are about it, the one about as numerous as the other, and if your Drimdarroch, as I take it, is a traitor on either hand—to Duke Archie as well as to the king across the water, taking the money of both as has happened before now, he'll be no Drimdarroch you may wager, and not kent as such down there. Indeed, how could he? for Petullo the writer body is the only Drimdarroch there is to the fore, and he has a grieve in the place. Do you think this by-named Drimdarroch will be going about cocking his bonnet over his French amours and his treasons? Have you any notion that he will be the more or the less likely to do so when he learns that there's a French gentleman of your make in the country-side, and a friend of Doom's, too, which means a Jacobite? A daft errand, if I may say it; seeking a needle in a haystack was bairn's play compared to it.”
“If you sit down on the haystack you speedily find the needle, M. le Baron,” said Montaiglon playfully. “In other words, trust my sensibility to feel the prick of his presence whenever I get into his society. The fact that he may suspect my object here will make him prick all the quicker and all the harder.”
“Even yet you don't comprehend Argyll's court. It's not Doom, mind you, but a place hotching with folk—half a hundred perhaps of whom have travelled as this Drimdarroch has travelled, and in Paris too, and just of his visage perhaps. Unless you challenged them all seriatim, as Petullo would say, I see no great prospect.”
“I wish we could coax the fly here! That or something like it was what I half expected to be able to do when Bethune gave me your address as that of a landlord in the neighbourhood.”
Doom reddened, perhaps with shame at the altered condition of his state in the house of his fathers. “I've seen the day,” said he—“I've seen the day they were throng enough buzzing about Doom, but that was only so long as honey was to rob with a fair face and a nice humming at the robbery. Now that I'm a rooked bird and Doom a herried nest, they never look the road I'm on.”
Mungo, standing behind his master's chair, gave a little crackling laugh and checked it suddenly at the angry flare in his master's face.
“You're mighty joco!” said the Baron; “perhaps you'll take my friend and me into your confidence;” and he frowned with more than one meaning at the little-abashed retainer.
“Paurdon! paurdon!” said Mungo, every part of the chart-like face thrilled with some uncontrollable sense of drollery, and he exploded in laughter more violent than ever.
“Mungo!” cried his master in the accent of authority.
The domestic drew himself swiftly to attention.
“Mungo!” said his master, “you're a damned fool! In the army ye would have got the triangle for a good deal less. Right about face.”
Mungo saluted and made the required retreat with a great deal less than his usual formality.
“There's a bit crack in the creature after all,” said the Baron, displaying embarrassment and annoyance, and he quickly changed the conversation, but with a wandering mind, as Count Victor could not fail to notice. The little man, to tell the truth, had somehow laughed at the wrong moment for Count Victor's peace of mind. For why should he be amused at the paucity of the visitors from Argyll's court to the residence of Doom? Across the table at a man unable to conceal his confusion Montaiglon stole an occasional