He had certainly been lavish with his colours, and the result was amazing in the extreme.
Mr. Townshend expressed himself delighted, and discussed the points of the picture with much insight.
"We shall miss you," Mr. Seton said, looking very kindly at him. "It has been almost like having one of our own boys back. You must come again, and to Etterick next time."
"Aw yes," cried Buff, "come to Etterick and see my jackdaw with the wooden leg." He had drawn his chair so close to Arthur's that to both of them the business of eating was gravely impeded.
"Come for the shooting," said Mr. Seton.
"Yes," said Elizabeth, as she filled out a third cup of tea for her father, "and the fourth footman will bring out your lunch while the fifth footman is putting on his livery. Don't be so buck-ish, Mr. Father. Our shooting, Arthur, consists of a heathery hillside inhabited by many rabbits, a few grouse—very wild, and an ancient blackcock called Algernon. No one can shoot Algernon; indeed, he is such an old family friend that it would be very ill manners to try. When he dies a natural death we mean to stuff him."
"But may I really come? Is this a pukka invitation?"
"It is," Elizabeth assured him. "As the Glasgow girl said to the Edinburgh girl, 'What's a slice of ham and egg in a house like ours?' We shall all be frightfully glad to see you, except perhaps old Watty Laidlaw—I told you about him? He is very anxious when we have guests, he is so afraid we are living beyond our means. One day last summer I had some children from the village to tea, and he stood on the hillside and watched them cross the moor, then went in to Marget and said in despairing accents, 'Pit oot eighty mair cups. They're comin' ower the muir like a locust drift.' The description of the half-dozen poor little stragglers as a 'locust drift' was almost what Robert Browning calls 'too wildly dear.'"
"This egg's bad," Buff suddenly announced.
"Is it, Arthur?" Elizabeth asked.
Mr. Townshend regarded the egg through his monocle.
"It looks all right," he said; "but Buff evidently requires his eggs to be like Cæsar's wife."
"Don't waste good food, boy," his father told him. "There is nothing wrong with the egg."
"It's been a nest-egg," said Buff in a final manner, and began to write in a small book.
Elizabeth remarked that Buff was a tiresome little boy about his food, and that there might come a time when he would think regretfully of the good food he had wasted. "And what are you writing?" she finished.
"It's my diary," said Buff, putting it behind his back. "Father gave it me. No, you can't read it, but Arthur can if he likes, 'cos he's going away"; and he poked the little book into his friend's hand.
Arthur thanked him gravely, and turned to the first entry:
New Year's Day.
Good Rissolution. Not to be crool to gerls.
The other entries were not up to the high level of the first, but were chiefly the rough jottings of nefarious plans which, one could gather, generally seemed to miscarry. On 12th August was printed and emphatically underlined the announcement that on that date Arthur Townshend would arrive at Etterick.
That the diary was for 1911 and that this was the year of grace 1913 troubled Buff not at all: years made little difference to him.
Arthur pointed this out as he handed back the book, and rubbing Buff's mouse-coloured hair affectionately, quoted:
"Poor Jim Jay got stuck fast in yesterday."
"But I haven't," Buff protested; "I'll know it's 1914 though it says 1911."
He put his diary into his safest pocket and asked if he might go to the station.
"Oh, I think not," his father said. "Why go into town this foggy morning?"
"He wants the 'hurl,'" said Elizabeth. "Arthur that's a new word for you. Father, we should make Arthur pass an examination and see what knowledge he has gathered. Let's draw up a paper:
I. What is—
(a) A Wee Free? (b) A U.P.?
II. Show in what way the Kelvinside accent
differs from that of Pollokshields.
III. What is a 'hurl'?
I can't think of anything else. Anyway, I don't believe you could answer one of my questions, and I am only talking for talking's sake, because we are all so sad. By the way, when you say Good-bye to Marget and Ellen shake hands, will you? They expect it."
"Of course," said Arthur.
The servants came in for prayers.
Mr. Seton prayed for "travelling mercies" for the friend who was about to leave them to return to the great city.
"Here's the cab!" cried Buff, and rushed for his coat. His father followed him, and Arthur turned to Elizabeth.
"Will you write to me sometimes?"
Elizabeth stooped to pick up Launcelot, the cat.
"Yes," she said, "if you don't mind prattle. I so rarely have any thoughts."
He assured her that he would be grateful for anything she cared to send him.
"Tell me what you are doing; about the church people you visit, if the Peggy-child gets better, if Mr. Taylor makes a joke, and of course about your father and Buff. Everything you say or do interests me. You know that, don't you—Lizbeth?"
But Elizabeth kept her eyes on the purring cat, and—"Isn't he a polite young man, puss-cat?" was all she said.
Buff's voice was raised in warning from the hall.
"Coming," cried Arthur; but he still tarried.
Elizabeth put the cat on her shoulder and led the way.
"Launcelot and I shall see you off from the doorstep. You mustn't miss your train. As Marget says, 'Haste ye back.'"
"You've promised to write.... There's loads of time, Buff." He was on the lowest step now. "Till April—you are sure to come in April?"
"Reasonably sure, but it's an uncertain world.... My love to Aunt Alice."
CHAPTER XVI
"Then said he, I wish you a fair day when you set out for Mount Zion, and shall be glad to see that you go over the river dry-shod. But she answered, Come wet, come dry, I long to be gone; for however the weather is on my journey, I shall have time to sit down and rest me and dry me."
The Pilgrim's Progress.
"Pure religion and undefiled," we are told, "before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and keep ourselves unspotted from the world." If this be a working definition of Christianity, then James Seton translated its letter as but few men do, into a spirit and life of continuous and practical obedience. No weary, sick, or grieved creature had to wait for his minister's coming. The congregation was widely scattered, but from Dennistoun to Pollokshields, from Govanhill to Govan, in all weathers he trudged—cars were a weariness to him, walking a pleasure—carrying with him comfort to the comfortless, courage to the faint-hearted, and a strong hope to the dying.
On the day that Arthur Townshend left them he said to his daughter:
"I wonder, Elizabeth, if you would go and see Mrs. Veitch this afternoon? She is very ill, and I have a meeting that will keep me till about seven o'clock. If you bring a good report I shan't go to see her till to-morrow."