(VOLUME III) ***




Produced by Al Haines.


                       STAND FAST, CRAIG-ROYSTON!

                                A Novel


                                   BY

                             WILLIAM BLACK,

                               AUTHOR OF
             "A DAUGHTER OF HETH," "MACLEOD OF DARE," ETC.



                          _IN THREE VOLUMES._
                               VOL. III.



                                LONDON:
           SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, LIMITED
                          St. Dunstan's House
                    FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
                                 1891.

                        [_All rights reserved._]




                                LONDON:
              PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
                   STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.




                         CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

CHAPTER

      I. In Vain--in Vain
     II. Beyond Seas
    III. West and East
     IV. Enlightenment
      V. Marriage not a la Mode
     VI. A Split at Last
    VII. New Ways of Life
   VIII. In a Northern Village
     IX. A Babble o' Green Fields: the End




                       STAND FAST, CRAIG-ROYSTON!



                               CHAPTER I.

                           IN VAIN--IN VAIN.


One evening Mr. Courtnay Fox, the London correspondent of the Edinburgh
_Chronicle_, was as usual in his own room in the office in Fleet-street,
when a card was brought to him.

"Show the gentleman up," said he to the boy.

A couple of seconds thereafter Vincent Harris made his appearance.

"Mr. Fox?" said he, inquiringly.

The heavy-built journalist did not rise to receive his visitor; he
merely said--

"Take a chair.  What can I do for you?"

"No, thanks," said Vincent, "I don't wish to detain you more than a
moment.  I only wanted to see if you could give me any information about
Mr. George Bethune."

"Well, that would be only fair," said the big, ungainly man, with the
small, keen blue eyes glinting behind spectacles; "that would be only a
fair exchange, considering I remember how Mr. Bethune came down here one
night and asked for information about you."

Vincent looked astonished.

"And I was able," continued Mr. Fox, "to give him all the information he
cared for--namely, that you were the son of a very rich man.  I presume
that was all he wanted to know."

There was something in the tone of this speech--a familiarity bordering
on insolence--that Vincent angrily resented; but he was wise enough to
show nothing: his sole anxiety was to have news of Maisrie and her
grandfather; this man's manner did not concern him much.

"I do not ask for information about Mr. Bethune himself; I dare say I
know him as well as most do," said he with perfect calmness.  "I only
wish to know where he is."

"I don't know where he is," said the burly correspondent, examining the
stranger with his small shrewd eyes, "but I guarantee that, wherever he
is, he is living on the best.  Shooting stags in Scotland most likely--"

"They don't shoot stags in December," said Vincent, briefly.

"Or careering down the Mediterranean in a yacht--gad, an auxiliary screw
would come in handy for the old man," continued Mr. Fox, grinning at his
own gay facetiousness; "anyhow, wherever he is, I'll bet he's enjoying
himself and living on the fat of the land.  Merry as a cricket--bawling
away at his Scotch songs: I suppose that was how he amused himself when
he was in Sing Sing--perhaps he learnt it there--"

"I thought you would probably know where he is," said Vincent, not
paying much heed to these little jocosities, "if he happened to be
sending in to you those articles on the Scotch ballads--"

"Articles on Scotch ballads!" said Mr. Fox, with a bit of a derisive
laugh.  "Yes, I know.  A collation of the various versions: a cold
collation, I should say, by the time he has got done with them. Why, my
dear sir, have you never heard of Professor Childs, of Harvard College?"

"I have heard of Professor Child," said Vincent.

"Well, well, well, well, what is the difference?" said the ponderous
correspondent, who rolled from side to side in his easy-chair as if he
were in a bath, and peered with his minute, twinkling eyes.  "And indeed
it matters little to me what kind of rubbish is pitchforked into the
_Weekly_.  If my boss cares to do that kind of thing, for the sake of a
'brother Scot,' that's his own look-out.  All I know is that not a scrap
of the cold collation has come here, or has appeared in the _Weekly_ as
yet; so there is no clue that way to the whereabouts of old Father
Christmas, old Santa Claus, the Wandering Scotch Jew--if that is what
you want."

"I am sorry to have troubled you," said Vincent, with his hand on the
door.

"Stop a bit," said Mr. Fox, in his blunt and rather impertinent fashion.
"You and I might chance to be of use to each other some day.  I like to
know the young men in politics.  If I can do you a good turn, you'll
remember it; or rather you won't remember it, but I can recall it to
you, when I want you to do me one.  Take a seat.  Let's make a compact.
When you are in the House, you'll want the judicious little paragraph
sent through the provinces now and again: I can manage all that for you.
Then you can give me an occasional tip: you're in ----'s confidence,
people say--as much as any one can expect to be, that is. Won't you take
a seat?--thanks, that will be better. I want to know you.  I've already
made one important acquaintanceship through your friend Mr. Bethune: it
was quite an event when the great George Morris condescended to visit
this humble office----"

"George Morris!" said Vincent.

"Perhaps you know him personally?" Mr. Fox said, and he went on in the
most easy and affable fashion: "I may say without boasting that I am
acquainted with most people--most people of any consequence: it is part
of my business.  But George Morris, somehow, I had never met.  You may
imagine, then, that when he came down here, to ask a few questions, I
was precious glad to be of such service as I could; for I said to myself
that here was just the man for me.  Take a great scandal, for
example--they do happen sometimes, don't they?--even in this virtuous
land of England: very well--I go to George Morris--a hint from him--and
there I am first in the field: before the old mummies of the London
press have had time to open their eyes and stare."

Vincent had brought a chair from the side of the room, and was now
seated: there was only the table, littered with telegrams and proofs,
between those two.

"Did I understand you to say," he asked, with his eyes fixed on this
man, "that George Morris had come to you to make inquiries about Mr.
Bethune?"

"You understood aright."

"Who sent him?" demanded Vincent, abruptly--for there were strange
fancies and still darker suspicions flying through his head.

But Courtnay Fox smiled.

"George Morris, you may have heard, was not born yesterday.  His
business is to get out of you what he can, and to take care you get
nothing out of him.  It was not likely he would tell me why he came
making these inquiries--even if I had cared to ask, which I did not."

"You told him all you knew, of course, about Mr. Bethune?" Vincent went
on, with a certain cold austerity.

"I did."

"And how much more?"

"Ah, very good--very neat," the spacious-waisted journalist exclaimed
with a noisy laugh.  "Very good indeed.  But look here, Mr. Harris, if
the great solicitor was not born yesterday, you were--in a way; and so I
venture to ask you why you should take such an interest in Mr. Bethune's
affairs?"

Vincent answered him without flinching.

"Because, amongst other things, certain lies have been put in
circulation about Mr. Bethune, and I wished to know where they arose.
Now I am beginning to guess."

For an instant Mr. Courtnay Fox seemed somewhat disconcerted; but he
betrayed no anger.

"Come, come," said he, with an affectation of good humour, "that is a
strong word.  Morris heard no lies from me, I can assure you.  Why,
don't we all of us know who and what old George Bethune is!  He may
flourish and vapour successfully enough elsewhere; but he doesn't impose
on Fleet-street; we know him too well.  And don't imagine I have any
dislike towards your venerable friend; not the slightest; in fact, I
rather admire the jovial old mountebank.  You see, he doesn't treat me
to too much of his Scotch _blague_; I'm not to the manner born; and he
knows it.  Oh, he's skilful enough in adapting himself to his
surroundings--like a trout, that takes the colour of the pool he finds
himself in; and when he gets hold of a Scotchman, I am told his acting
of the rugged and manly independence of the Scot--of the Drury Lane
Scot, I mean--is splendid.  I wonder he doesn't go and live in
Edinburgh.  They take things seriously there.  They might elevate him
into a great position--make a great writer of him--they're in sore need
of one or two; and then every now and again he could step out of his
cloud of metaphysics, and fall on something.  That's the way the
Scotchmen get hold of a subject; they don't take it up as an ordinary
Christian would; they fall on it.  We once had an English poet called
Milton; but Masson fell on him, and crushed him, and didn't even leave
us an index by which to identify the remains.  Old Bethune should go
back to Scotland, and become the Grand Lama of Edinburgh letters: it
would be a more dignified position than cadging about for a precarious
living among us poor southrons."

Vincent paid but small heed to all this farrago: he was busily thinking
how certain undoubted features and circumstances of old George Bethune's
life might appear when viewed through the belittling and sardonic
scepticism of this man's mind; and then again, having had that hue and
shape conferred upon them, how would they look when presented to the
professional judgment of such a person as Mr. George Morris?

"The Scotch are the very oddest people in all the world," Mr. Fox
continued, for he seemed to enjoy his own merry tirade.  "They'll clasp
a stranger to their bosom, and share their last bawbee with him, if only
he can prove to them that he, too, was born within sight of
MacGillicuddy's Reeks----"

"MacGillicuddy's Reeks are in Ireland," said Vincent.

"Well, MacGillicuddy's Breeks--no, that won't do; they don't wear such
things in the north.  Any unpronounceable place--any kind of puddle or
barren rock: to be born within sight of that means that you own
everything of honesty, and manliness, and worth that's going--yes,
worth--worth is a sweet word--manly worth--it is the prerogative of
persons who have secured the greatest blessing on earth, that of being
born north of the Tweed.  Now, why doesn't old George Bethune go away
back there; and wave his tartan plaid, and stamp, and howl balderdash,
and have monuments put up to him as the White-haired Bard of Glen-Toddy?
That surely would be better than hawking bogus books about London and
getting subscriptions for things that never appear; though he manages to
do pretty well.  Oh, yes, he does pretty well, one way and another.  The
cunning old cockroach--to take that girl around with him, and get her to
make eyes at tradesmen, so as to swindle them out of pounds of tea!"

But at this a sudden flame seemed to go through the young man's
brain--and unhappily he had his stick quite close by.  In an instant he
was on his feet, his right hand grasping the cane, his left fixed in the
coat-collar of the luckless journalist, whose inert bulk he was
attempting to drag from the chair.

"You vile hound!" Vincent said with set teeth--and his nostrils were
dilated and his eyes afire, "I have allowed you to insult an old
man--but now--now you have gone too far.  Come out of that--and I will
break every bone in your body----!"

Down came the stick; but by a fortunate accident it caught on the back
of the chair, and the force of the blow sent it flying in two.

"For God's sake--stop!" the other cried--but in a terrified whisper--and
his face was as white as death.  "What are you doing!--are you mad!--I
beg your pardon--can I do more?  I beg your pardon--for God's sake, have
a little common sense!"

Vincent looked at the man: more abject cowardice he had never beheld
than was displayed in every trembling limb of his huge carcase, in every
feature of the blanched face.  He flung him from him--in disdain.

"Yes," said Mr. Fox, with a desperate effort at composure, and he even
tried to put his coat collar to rights, though his fingers were all
shaking, and himself panting and breathless.  "You--you may thank
me--for--for having saved you.  If--I had touched that bell--if I had
called out--you would have been ruined--ruined for life--a pretty story
for ---- to hear--about his favourite protege--increase your chances of
getting into Parliament, wouldn't it?  Can't you take a bit of a
joke?--you're not a Scotchman!"

Vincent was still standing there, with louring brow.

"When you are busy with your jokes," said he, "I would advise you to
keep any friends of mine out of them--especially a girl who has no one
to defend her.  But I am glad I came here to-night. I begin to
understand in whose foul mind arose those distortions, and
misrepresentations, and lies. So it was to you George Morris came when
he wanted to know about Mr. Bethune and his granddaughter?  An excellent
authority!  And it was straight from you, I suppose, that George Morris
went to my father with his wonderful tale----"

"One moment," said Courtnay Fox--and he appeared to speak with a little
difficulty: perhaps he still felt the pressure of knuckles at his neck.
"Sit down.  I wish to explain.  Mind you, I could make this a bad
night's work for you, if I chose. But I don't, for reasons that you
would understand if you were a little older and had to earn your own
living, as I have.  It is my interest to make friends----"

"And an elegant way you have of making them," said Vincent, scornfully.

"----and I want to assure you that I never said anything to George
Morris about Mr. Bethune that was not quite well-known.  Nor had I the
least idea that Morris was going to your father; or that you had the
least interest or concern in the matter. As for a bit of chaff about
Scotland: who would mind that?  Many a time I've had it out with Mr.
Bethune himself in this very room; and do you suppose he cared?--his
grandiloquent patriotism soared far away above my little Cockney jests.
So I wish you to perceive that there was no enmity in the affair, no
intention to do harm, and no misrepresentation; and when you see that,
you will see also that you have put yourself in the wrong, and I hope
you will have the grace to apologise."

It was a most creditable effort to escape from a humiliating position
with some semblance of dignity.

"Apologise for what?" said Vincent, staring.

"Why, for your monstrous and outrageous conduct of this evening!"

--"I am to apologise?" said Vincent, with his brows growing dark again.
"You introduce into your scurrilous talk the name of a young lady who is
known to me--you speak of her in the most insulting and gratuitous
fashion--and--and I am to apologise!  Yes, I do apologise: I apologise
for having brought such a fool of a stick with me: I hope it will be a
heavier one if I hear you make use of such language again."

"Come, come, threats will not serve," said Mr. Fox--but he was clearly
nervous and apprehensive. "Wouldn't it be better for you, now, to be a
little civil--and--and I could promise to send you Mr. Bethune's address
if I hear of it?  Wouldn't that be better--and more reasonable?  Yes, I
will--I promise to send you his address if it comes in any way to this
office--isn't that more reasonable?"

"I thank you," said Vincent, with formal politeness; and with an equally
formal 'Good night' the young man took his leave.  Mr. Courtnay Fox
instantly hid the broken portions of the cane (until he should have a
chance of burning them), and, ringing the bell, called in a loud and
manly voice for the latest telegrams.

So Vincent was once more thrown back on himself and his own resources.
During these past few days he had sought everywhere for the two lost
ones; and sought in vain.  First of all he had made sure they had left
Brighton; then he had come to London;