“Who is he? Where is he going?” asked one, calling him aside.
“He’s Mr. M’Kinlay, from London, the family law-agent, going over to the cottage.”
He had but finished this speech, when a middle-aged man, with a high complexion, and short grey hair, without whiskers, appeared, conning over his bill as he came forward.
“You can scarce call it supper, Mr. Pugh,” said he, in an accent unmistakably Scotch—“the bit of fish, and the leg of a cold turkey—except that it was eaten at eleven at night. It was just a snack.”
“It’s only two-and-six, Sir,” said the other, humbly.
“Only! I’d like to know what you’d make it, man. That’s the price of a right good meal up in town, and not served on a coarse tablecloth, nor over a sanded floor; and what’s this 1s. 10d.? What’s that?”
“Ale, Sir. Your servant drank it very freely.”
“If it only disagreed with him as it did with me, I’ll make no objection to his excess. Are these gentlemen waiting to speak to me, for I don’t think I have the honour—”
“Yes, Sir,” said a short, apoplectic-looking man, with a bald head; “we are strangers—strangers casually thrown into acquaintance at this hotel. We have come here from motives of pleasure, or health, or indolence—one common object having its attraction for us all—the far-famed cottage of Dinasllyn. We have learned, however, to our infinite disappointment, that, by a whim, a mere caprice—for it is impossible it could be more—of the persons’ who are the present occupants, the travellers, the tourists I will call them, ate to be excluded in future, and all access refused to a spot which has its claims on the sympathies not alone of the Englishman, for I see at my side a learned professor from Jena, and a distinguished citizen of New York——”
“Kansas, stranger, Little Rock,” said the Yankee, interrupting, and then advancing to the front. “Here’s how it is, Sir. Your friends up yonder ain’t content to have God’s gifts all their own, but they won’t even let a man look at them. That ain’t nature, and it ain’t sense. We have drawn up our notions in a brief message. Are you a mindin’ of me, stranger?”
This question was not completely uncalled for, since for some few seconds Mr. M’Kinlay had turned to the landlord, and was occupied in the payment of his bill.
“Seventeen shillings and fourpence, leaving eightpence for Thomas, Mr. Pugh; and remember that your driver is now fully paid, unless I should stay, to dinner.”
“Are you a mindin’ of me, Sir?” said the Yankee, with an energy that actually made the other start, and sent a deeper crimson to his cheeks.
“I must say, Sir—I will say, that, having no acquaintance with you, having never seen you till now——
“All your loss, stranger, that’s a fact! You’re not the first man that regretted he did not know the length of my boot before he put his foot on my corns. You’ll have to take them papers—do you mind?—you’ll have to take them papers, and give them to your friends up yonder!”
“I’m neither a postman nor your messenger, Sir,” said M’Kinlay, getting into the chaise.
“You’ll have to take them papers,” and he laid them on the seat of the carriage as he spoke, “that’s how it is! And, as sure as my name is Dodge!—Herodotus Manning Dodge!—you’d better give an account of ’em when you drive out of that gate up there, for I’ll wait for you, if it was till next fall!”
“That’s mighty plain talking, anyhow,” broke in a voice with a very distinctive accent, “and a man needn’t be much of a gentleman to understand it.”
“Even a brief visit,” cried out the first speaker.
“Just to see the cedars, or Clorinda’s grotto,” lisped out a female voice.
But Mr. M’Kinlay did not wait for more, but by an admonitory poke of his umbrella set his driver off at full speed, and was soon well out of both eye and earshot.
To say that Mr. M’Kinlay drove away in a towering passion—that he was excessively angry and indignant, would be the truth, but still not the whole truth, for he was also terribly frightened. There was in the tall Yankee’s look, language, and gesture, a something that smacked of the bush and the hickory-tree—a vague foreshadowing of Lynch law, or no law—that overpowered him. Such a man, within a reasonable distance of Scotland Yard, for instance, might not have proved so terrible; but here he was in the heart of the Welsh mountains, in the very spot of all others where there was every facility for a deed of violence. “He might throw me over that cliff, or pitch me into that quarry hole,” muttered he; and the landscape at the moment offered both the illustrations to aid his fancy.
It was, then, in a tremor of mingled anger and terror that he drove up to the gate, and in no patient mood was it that he sat outside the padlocked portal till a messenger went up to the house with his card to obtain leave for his admission. The order was speedily given, and he passed in.
The brief interval of traversing the space between the gate-lodge and the cottage was passed by Mr. M’Kinlay in arranging his cravat, brushing the dust from his coat, and, so far as might be, smoothing down any asperities that should have betrayed themselves in his features; for, though neither a young man nor a man of the world of fashion, he had his pretensions, the most cherished one of all which was a design upon the hand of Miss Georgina Courtenay. Had Miss Courtenay been in the full blaze of her beauty, as she was some eight or nine years before, Mr. M’Kinlay would never have dared to lift his eyes to her; had she even continued to live in town and mingle in that society where she had always lived and moved, he would not have dreamed of such a presumption. But Mr. M’Kinlay knew the world. He had seen an exiled Grand-Duke in a Hansom cab, and had actually met a deposed Prince on a Margate steamer. In the changeful fortunes of life the “price current” was the only test of anything. Railroads, and mines, and telegraphic companies rose and fell with the fluctuations of the market, and marriageable ladies might come one day to figure in the share list! Miss Georgina, however ungallant the confession, represented a security at a discount. She had gone down year by year, and at last ceased to be quoted. And yet “it was a good thing.” She had, none knew it better—very few so well—she had eighteen thousand pounds, besides expectations, the latter very reasonable and promising in their way. Her connexions were admirable—high enough to give him a very considerable lift socially, and yet not so elevated as to make his rise that of a mere “parvenu.” Professionally, the advantage would be great, and lead to much parliamentary business, the carrying of local bills, and a deal of very profitable employment. He flattered himself that in most other respects there was much the world would deem suitable. He was twelve—well, if you like, fourteen—years her senior, but then neither were very young, and when a woman had reached we shall not say what of the thirties, her marrying was not subjected to the criticisms applied to the blushing bride of eighteen or twenty. Lastly, he was well off, had a capital business, a good house in a good street, was “well placed” amongst men of his class, and altogether favourably regarded by his betters. “She might do worse,” muttered he, at the end of his rumination, as he descended from the chaise with an amount of activity in his movements that showed he had detected the flounce of a muslin dress at the drawing-room window.
“All well, I hope, Rickards?” said he to the stout butler, who bowed his welcome in most gracious guise.
“Quite well, Mr. M’Kinlay—and, indeed, you look the same, Sir.”
“Nothing the matter with me, Rickards, that a little rest won’t remedy. Over-work, over-work is my malady!”
Mr.