J W-
 
 A 
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 is not often tbat I have asked one." 
 
 •' You may be very sure I will, Donald, if it be 
 in my power," answered bis master, though more 
 than suspecting what was coming, for the moun nt 
 was indifferently chosen for asking ordinary 
 favours 
 
 •' Well, Glenconan, it is just this, You and 
 your father before you have done even thing for 
 me and mine ; and if I bare the snug bit ahealing 
 down the glen, and the bic money in the bauk at 
 Dingwall, it all comes of the kindness cf the 
 family. And if it was money you were n reding— 
 or Miss Grace either, "—here he sank his voice to a 
 barely audible whisper, — ,: youwill take what I have, 
 whatever— will you not, now ? " And to Donald 
 the sum in the Dingwall bank seem: d no incon- 
 j siderable fortunp, 
 
 " The laird almost laughed,'thougb he was much 
 , more inclined to weep. He was as much of a 
 gentleman as Donald, and nothing would have 
 indued him to refuse outright. At tbe same time 
 ,he promised and vowed to himself, tha 1 ; if ever the 
 sunbeams should shine again on his side of the 
 brae, Donald and the old mother should bask in 
 their warmth. Now, neither the presenoe of the 
 gillia nor the apprehension of hs secret getting, 
 wind, prevented him from grasping Donald's horny 
 nalm in bis own. 
 
 " We ean talk about all that later, Donald, if 
 you please. I must wait for the present till 1 see 
 my way a bit. But be euro that there is not one of 
 all my* friends to wbom I would apply for assist- 
 ance sooner ; meanwhile, and for the last time, not 
 a word of all this to my daughter." 
 
 "Donald nodded intelligence ; and withdrew in a 
 state of intense glorification, which for tbe moment 
 made him almost forgetful of his master's troubles. 
 Glenconan had squeezed his hand, and turned 
 towards him in adversity. Glenconan had a? good 
 as promised to take bis money if he needed it. 
 Glenconan, in short, had treated him more than 
 ever as a friend ; and Donald would have liked, as 
 the assassin >n tbe Border ballad, to be ' hackit in 
 pieces sraa',' by way of showing bis gratitude. 
 Indeed, all through, the brave Highlander is 
 drawn to the hfe. It sbou'd be added that the 
 novel, wbiob. is very hand omely issued — paper, 
 type, and binding being exc lh-ni — was published 
 previously in Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
 jo > weomo pnipem eq, J0 euo 'Auue 2 %K qoir an ' 
 pno* ,uamaa9A0 O eq , w ^ x U« ?q Pino* 
 
 SZ™./ 00 ]™ /a0A « ™* WI, -aoi^indod eq\ 
 
 -iJT 
 
 
 TpSfcp£ 

 
 3/ 
 
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 * 
 

 
 FOKTUNE'S WHEEL
 
 Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown, 
 With that wild wheel we go not up or down ; 
 
 For man is man, and master of his fate." 
 
 — JEneid.
 
 FORTUNE'S WHEEL 
 
 A NO VEL 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEX. INNES SHAND 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 AGAINST TIME,' 'LETTERS FROM WEST IRELAND,' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCOCLXXXVT
 
 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 'BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE 1
 
 5 k 
 
 CONTENTS OF THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING, 
 
 II. A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 
 
 III. " YOURS FOR LIFE OR DEATH," 
 
 IV. A PLEASANT SURPRISE, 
 
 V. COUSINLY AFFECTIONS, 
 
 VI. AN EMBARRASSING INTERVIEW, 
 
 VII. STIRRING UP OF STRIFE, 
 
 VIII. A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS, 
 
 IX. THE SHIPWRECK, 
 
 X. A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY, 
 
 XI. THE HON. WILFRED WINSTANLEY, 
 
 XII. MR VENABLEs's FIRST COUP, 
 
 XIII. MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL, 
 
 XIV. MR AND MISS MORAY " COME OUT," 
 % 
 
 «\ XV. VENABLES AND LESLIE TALK THINGS OVER, 
 
 1 
 
 23 
 
 52 
 
 71 
 
 93 
 
 107 
 
 122 
 
 143 
 
 166 
 
 180 
 
 210 
 
 224 
 
 242 
 
 259 
 
 266 
 
 4
 
 FOETUNE'S WHEEL, 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 
 
 Fiest-class travellers are rare in the month 
 of June on the western and wilder section of 
 the Great West of Scotland Eailway. The 
 season of tourists is not yet ; and sportsmen 
 seldom begin to straggle northwards before 
 the second week of August. Through three- 
 fourths of the year the Company must rely for 
 dividends or debenture interest on its goods 
 traffic — carrying cattle and sheep, herring- 
 barrels, and wire-fencing, with miscellaneous 
 trifles of the kind. As for Auchnadarroch 
 station, which is situated at the head of 
 vol. i. . a
 
 fortune's wheel. 
 
 Strathoran, the station-master, metaphorically 
 as well as physically, is one of the biggest 
 men in the north country. Dressed in a deal 
 of brief authority, he has the satisfaction of 
 patronising the country-folks who travel by 
 the trains ; he is toadied in the summer by 
 innocent Cockneys, helplessly eager for direc- 
 tion and advice ; and he may simultaneously 
 indulge his indolence and fussiness by 
 managing to make an infinite ado about 
 nothing. Save a lonely shooting - lodge or 
 two, a couple of manses, and the residence 
 of Glenconan, there is nothing in the shape 
 of a gentleman's house within a radius of 
 some score of miles ; and although the 
 "MacTavish Arms and Posting Establish- 
 ment" stands within a short gunshot of the 
 station, in those opening days of June it has 
 barely taken down its shutters. 
 
 So it was all the stranger that, one bright 
 afternoon in June, the station should be the 
 scene of unwonted excitement. The platform, 
 usually left to be cleansed by the rains and 
 winds, was swept and garnished; the porter 
 had taken his hands out of the pockets of his 
 corduroys ; the station-master was standing at
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 6 
 
 attention, and in close conversation with an 
 elderly Highlander in homespuns ; while the 
 smoke of the train was visible in the middle- 
 distance, as it came sobbing and puffing up 
 the stiff incline. The cause of the excitement 
 might be explained by a carriage that had 
 pulled up on the shingle sweep before the 
 pine-built porch of the little booking-office. 
 It was a waggonette of teak, with a pair of 
 smart chestnut cobs — one and the other 
 strong, low, and serviceable ; while the well- 
 set-up driver had a certain style about him 
 that savoured rather of the Parks and Picca- 
 dilly than of Eoss-shire. 
 
 "And as I was saying to you, Mr Fergu- 
 son," drawled the Highlander in homespun, 
 "this will be a great day for Glenconan." 
 
 "I do not doubt it, Mr Boss — I do not 
 doubt it," replied the other, motioning away 
 with an affable wave of the arm the tender of 
 the Highlander's snuff-mull. He was excited, 
 and could not help showing it, though he 
 prided himself on the serenity of his deportment. 
 " We do what we can ; but man's powers are 
 limited, and we must have resident proprietors 
 if we are to develop the local traffic."
 
 4 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 Donald Ross rumpled up his shaggy eye- 
 brows. He was a fine specimen of the elderly 
 hillman — as tall as the station-master, and far 
 more muscular. Hard -looking and weather- 
 beaten, he seemed to have worked away, in 
 a long life among the hills, all superabundant 
 flesh from his bone and sinew. Though his 
 Saxon was serviceable, like the cobs, he was 
 not strong in it ; he failed to catch the mean- 
 ing of the station-master, and he struck back 
 into his own line of thought. 
 
 "Ay, more resident gentlemen, as you were 
 saying, will be a great thing ; and it will be 
 a great thing for Glenconan when we have 
 one of the ' Glenconans ' among us again. 
 I'm thinking he will be turning Corryvreckan 
 and Glengoy into deer ; and 'deed these shep- 
 herd-men are just one of the plagues of Egypt 
 that the minister would be speaking about the 
 former Sabbath-day." 
 
 Meanwhile the train was approaching, and 
 at last it drew up at the platform. Three 
 gentlemen got out of a first -class carriage. 
 The station-master received them cap in hand, 
 with an obsequiousness significant of the 
 solemnity of the occasion. As for Donald,
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 5 
 
 he slightly lifted his deer-stalker bonnet, and 
 pulled shyly at a grizzled forelock ; but his 
 grey eyes gleamed with such a soft satisfac- 
 tion as you may see in a friendly collie grati- 
 fied by the home-coming of his master. 
 
 The foremost of the three, who naturally 
 took the lead, was a hale veteran of about 
 sixty or somewhat more, cast very much in 
 the manly mould of the keeper. His dress 
 was almost as rough, though carefully put 
 on ; but there was no possibility of mistaking 
 him for anything but a gentleman : and if his 
 face was beaming with excitement and good- 
 humour, he was nevertheless the sort of man 
 you would have been sorry to quarrel with. 
 There was energy of purpose in the features, 
 that were high and even harsh, as in the flash 
 of the keen grey eyes ; with a touch of sar- 
 castic resolution about the corners of the firm 
 mouth. His companions, who kept them- 
 selves modestly in the background, were boys 
 in comparison. One of them might have 
 come of age a year or two before ; the other 
 was some half-dozen years his senior. 
 
 The elderly gentleman acknowledged the 
 salutation of the station-master with a nod.
 
 6 fortune's wheel. 
 
 and a quick look that seemed to read the man 
 through and dispose of him. But his greeting 
 to Donald was cordiality itself as he held out 
 the muscular hand, which the other evidently 
 had expected. 
 
 "And so you're here, are you, Mr Eoss, in- 
 stead of upon Funachan ; and this is the way 
 you've been looking after the deer in my ab- 
 sence." 
 
 Donald grinned a width of welcome like the 
 breaking of a blaze of sunshine after a thunder- 
 storm over the waters of the neighbouring 
 Lochconan. 
 
 "And 'deed it was very little of the deer 
 that I was thinking of to-day, Glenconan, — 
 though I might possibly have been speaking 
 of them to the station-master here," he added, 
 conscientiously. "And it's a pity but there 
 was your piper to give you your welcome ; but 
 Peter has been palsied since the Martinmas 
 before last — and short in the wind, moreover. 
 And how have you been keeping, sir ; and how 
 was Miss Grace ? " 
 
 " Exceedingly well, and all the better for 
 the thought of coming home. I can answer 
 for myself, and I can answer for her too. As
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 7 
 
 for Miss Grace, you will see her here in a few 
 clays, and then she can speak for herself, 
 which she is very well able to do. And 
 now, Donald, lend a hand with the lug- 
 gage, will you ? I long to be off, and up 
 the glen." 
 
 As for the luggage, it was light enough. 
 The heavy baggage had been forwarded a few 
 days before. In the twinkling of an eye the 
 waggonette was packed ; the porter, exulting 
 over a generous tip, was looking forward to 
 a pleasant evening in the bar of the "Mac- 
 Tavish Arms "; and Donald sat perched beside 
 the stylish coachman, watching the start of the 
 impatient cobs. 
 
 There are few finer drives in the pictur- 
 esque Western Highlands than that down the 
 broad strath of the Bran and up the romantic 
 valley of the tributary Conan. The compara- 
 tively open character of the pastoral scenery 
 in the former valley is a fitting approach to 
 the more gloomy grandeur of the other. Dip- 
 ping into Strathoran, after some of the more 
 savage landscapes through which you have 
 passed in the train, you might pronounce the 
 country almost tame. The river meanders
 
 8 fortune's wheel. 
 
 among gently sloping green hills, strewed 
 here and there with stones, and crested with 
 heather. From the level of the carriage-road 
 you seldom catch a glimpse of the towering 
 summits of any of the noble giants in the 
 background ; but at the " meeting of the 
 waters," where the Conan joins the Bran, 
 the scenery changes its character altogether. 
 Entering the side-gorge, where the shadows 
 gather even at noon, we leave softness and 
 light for sternness and desolation. The swift 
 black rush of the Conan, which has been pent 
 for a space between beetling cliffs, pitches 
 itself in the exuberance of sudden release over 
 a brawling and foaming waterfall. The eddies 
 of the deep dark pool below confound them- 
 selves with the reflected blackness of inter- 
 lacing fir-boughs. As for the road, it has 
 been roughly yet shrewdly engineered along 
 the sloping ledges of the cliffs that hang 
 between the hills and the river. It is a safe 
 enough ascent, for the gradients are broad 
 though steep, but a dangerous place to drive 
 down under any circumstances ; for it is only 
 fenced on the river-side by an occasional up- 
 right stone in the Alpine fashion, and its
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 9 
 
 gravel is apt to be washed and mined by the 
 side-rills flowing across it from a succession of 
 trickling cascades. 
 
 The elder of the two young men had never 
 visited the glen before. In silent admiration, 
 with a rapt look in his soft hazel eyes, he 
 hung over the side of the waggonette as it 
 swayed slightly towards the Conan, and gazed 
 down into the depths of the abyss. The 
 elderly gentleman, who sat by him on the 
 front seat, drew long breaths of profound 
 satisfaction ; and yet the very next moment 
 you would have said that his face had slightly 
 clouded. At least so it seemed to strike the 
 youngest of the three, whose quick eyes, that 
 caught everything above and below, were 
 suddenly attracted by the other, and watched 
 him curiously. Not for long, however. If he 
 thought his host had an abiding care, that 
 must only have been a foolish fancy ; and 
 what, indeed, could be more improbable ? 
 
 David Moray, the lord of those barren gran- 
 deurs of Grlenconan, was at last realising the 
 cherished dream of his life. He was returning 
 a rich man to the paternal property, which he 
 had only visited at rare intervals since he
 
 10 fortune's wheel. 
 
 inherited it ; and to the shootings, which had 
 been leased till last year to a Southern banker. 
 Now he might hope to end his days there in 
 peace, if the dregs of life would only run 
 kindly. He was a sportsman born : he had 
 come back to a paradise of sport ; and though 
 his life had been passed in tropical climates, 
 he was as hale and sound of constitution as 
 any man of his years could hope to be. 
 
 He could be a boy still, in the light exuber- 
 ance of his spirits ; and nothing keeps a man 
 so fresh as perennial boyhood. If he had been 
 coming home to Grlenconan, as he used to 
 come, for the holidays, he could hardly have 
 thrown himself more heartily into the happy 
 excitement of the hour. As the road extri- 
 cated itself from the bosky entanglements of 
 the shaggy gorges, and swept down into a 
 smiling stretch of mountain-meadows, he stood 
 up in the carriage, though sorely puzzled to 
 keep his feet ; for the waggonette, as it dashed 
 downwards with locked wheels, was rocking 
 about like a boat among the lake billows in a 
 fresh north-easter. But it was not for nothing 
 that Moray had so often taken the Overland 
 route, to say nothing of weathering the Cape.
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 11 
 
 And now that he was fairly and finally home- 
 ward-bound, in the " kent face " of each peak 
 and ridge he saw the features of some familiar 
 friend of his childhood. 
 
 " Fine weather to-morrow, Donald, though 
 of course that old glass of yours is at ' stormy' 
 as usual ; for there is the cloud-belt on the 
 sides of Funachan : had the hill been wearing 
 his night-cap, it would have been another 
 matter altogether. I say, Jack, do you see 
 that purple patch on the shoulder — there, 
 away to the right of the gap, and just over 
 the birch-stump ? — you should have been with 
 me the last evening I shot there with my 
 tenant, when we found the coveys lying like 
 stones, though they had been wild as hawks 
 elsewhere all through the day. Please the 
 Fates, we'll have bloodshed there in August. 
 And when you go out for sketches, what do 
 you think of that for a subject? — the pool, I 
 mean, with the grey rock, like a chapel-gable 
 rising out of the water. And if Leslie . is 
 looking for a spot where he may indulge 
 himself in dreaming and poetry, that bank of 
 bracken under the birches there ought to suit 
 him down to the ground — if we dare to talk
 
 12 fortune's wheel. 
 
 of ground, indeed, in connection with any 
 scene so ethereal." 
 
 In the further miles of unmeasured High- 
 land road that led on to the old house of 
 G-lenconan, the face and spirits of its lord 
 and master seemed to answer to the changes 
 of the weather and the scenery. It was a fine 
 day — a very fine day ; but there were a few 
 fleecy and drifting clouds flitting occasionally 
 across the heavens, and now and again some 
 jutting angle of rock would cast a streak of 
 blackness across the brightness of the road. 
 So Moray's face would from time to time be 
 shadowed by some darker or sadder thought, 
 which seemed barely to touch it in passing. 
 But when the waggonette pulled up before 
 the door of the mansion, he was the kindly 
 Highland host, overflowing with hospitality 
 and natural pride in an ancestral seat, stand- 
 ing on a site which had been the home of his 
 family for generations. 
 
 The house of Glenconan was plain and 
 unpretending enough, and yet its surround- 
 ings gave it infinite charm. The feudal, or 
 rather the patriarchal keep, had been blown 
 up in the "'45" with certain spare powder-
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 13 
 
 casks that were embarrassing the march of the 
 "red soldiers," although its foundations were 
 still to be seen on an adjacent knoll, over- 
 grown with the ground-ivy struggling through 
 the thick beds of bracken. As for the mod- 
 ern mansion, as we said, it was neither impos- 
 ing nor very commodious ; although it ran to 
 a considerable number of small bedrooms and 
 garrets, which seemed to have been elbowed 
 aside by the rambling passages. It was built 
 in the modern medieval Scottish fashion, with 
 a couple of receding wings, connected with the 
 main body or corps de logis by semicircular 
 corridors. It was whitewashed, or "harled," 
 as they say in the North ; and its staring and 
 sadly expressionless face was toned down by 
 neither creepers nor climbers. But then the 
 situation was simply enchanting. It stood 
 on a gentle slope, facing towards the sunny 
 quarter of the south-west. Before it, lawns of 
 the richest and softest green, watered by the 
 rain-storms and the perpetual flying showers, 
 ran down to Lochconan. And the lake lay 
 sparkling like a gem in its mountain - setting, 
 changing colours with the changing hues of 
 the sky, from sapphire to emerald, and from
 
 14 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 emerald to black onyx. Around three-fourths 
 of its broken circumference the little loch was 
 girdled by swelling knolls — winding bays re- 
 ceded till they were lost to sight among oaks, 
 and pines, and the copses of weeping birches. 
 On the opposite shore was a wall of sheer 
 precipice, where a pair of peregrine falcons 
 had nested from time immemorial, in an 
 inaccessible rift far above among the rocks. 
 When letting the shootings, there had always 
 been an understanding that these old friends 
 of the family were to be sacred from the gun. 
 But the great feature of Lochconan was its 
 heronry, on the haunted isle of St Gilzean. 
 The sainted missionary, who was said to have 
 dipped hundreds of pagan Celts in the waters 
 of his blessed spring, had subsequently re- 
 ceived the crown of martyrdom at the hands 
 of his ungrateful proselytes. Since then he 
 had been in the habit of " walking " to a sur- 
 prising extent — considering that his life dur- 
 ing his latter years had been sedentary. Not 
 a man in Glenconan or the adjoining parishes 
 would have set foot upon the island for all the 
 world after dusk. It may be that the silvery 
 forms of the birds, floating ghost-like in the
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 15 
 
 gloaming through the stems of the larches, had 
 something to do with the perpetuation of the 
 legend. And a pretty kind of poetry they 
 added to the loch, in the presence of their si- 
 lent, shadowy shapes, standing motionless but 
 wide-awake in the shallows through the day, 
 on the look-out for unwary trout or minnows. 
 Behind the house and the kennels the 
 ground rose rapidly. The steep home-pad- 
 docks, where the shaggy shooting-ponies ran 
 loose, were skirted by shrubberies of ever- 
 greens, backed up by thickets of pine ; and as 
 the heather shot up through the rough herbage, 
 so the green of the enclosures and the lower 
 hills was studded with rich masses of purple. 
 Eoughly traced paths, softly carpeted here 
 and there by the thick fall of the fir-needles, 
 wound through the columns of the firs, or lost 
 themselves among the birch clumps and the 
 alder thickets. Thence they emerged on the 
 barer steeps above, where they zigzagged up- 
 wards from side to side across the rocky beds 
 of a couple of mountain brooks — streamlets or 
 torrents according to the weather. And each 
 of the light rustic bridges — each tiny bit of 
 jutting cliff projecting through the trailing
 
 16 fortune's wheel. 
 
 and gnarled fir-roots — seemed to open some 
 new and enchanting point of view up to 
 the cloudland that capped the confusion of 
 mountains. 
 
 But more than enough of description for 
 the time, though, if I have bored my readers, 
 the memories of Glenconan are my best ex- 
 cuse. Strolling about before dinner, Moray 
 did the honours of the place to his young 
 friends ; and if eloquent admiration be the 
 sincerest flattery, he had no reason to be 
 dissatisfied. Though the Highland air had 
 sharpened their appetites, he had to remind 
 them, more than once, that it was high time 
 to dress. Leslie, who was naturally rather 
 taciturn, said little ; but he lingered as if 
 loath to tear himself away from the scenes 
 where each changing impression seemed in- 
 variably a change for the better. As for Jack 
 Venables, he jumped about like a young 
 chamois, in the sheer exuberance of his ani- 
 mal spirits, at the risk of a broken neck, or, at 
 all events, of a sprained ankle. And his gay 
 exhilaration gratified the older man far more 
 than the self-contained appreciation of the 
 other. Moray had a fellow-feeling for the
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 17 
 
 headlong nature which would be doing or 
 even suffering rather than be still. 
 
 It was to Venables that he turned more 
 naturally during the dinner, if he showed 
 himself more ceremoniously hospitable to 
 Leslie. But after all, they got on very well 
 together ; and when the cloth was removed 
 in the good old fashion, and the decanters 
 placed on the polished mahogany, it would 
 have been hard to find three happier gen- 
 tlemen anywhere between the Solway Firth 
 and the Shetland Isles. 
 
 " I like your dining-room, sir, almost as 
 much as your hills," remarked Mr Venables, 
 surveying the former serenely over a bumper 
 of claret ; " and you'll agree with me, that is 
 saying a good deal in its favour." 
 
 Mr Moray did agree, and smiled compla- 
 cently. Indeed Jack Venables could hardly 
 have been suspected of flattery, and connois- 
 seurs in very various styles of art might 
 have expressed unmitigated approval. The 
 room was unpretentious like the house — long, 
 out of proportion to its breadth, and by no 
 means lofty. But it had been turned into 
 such a sylvan hall as might have suited the 
 
 VOL. I. b
 
 fortune's wheel. 
 
 retreat of a Lord of the Isles or a Lady of the 
 Lake. The trophies of the chase that pro- 
 fusely adorned the vestibule had overflowed 
 into the dining-room. The walls were adorn- 
 ed with noble stags' heads, interspersed with 
 those of roe-deer and grinning wild-cats. To 
 each was attached a brief obituary notice, 
 and the inscriptions dated back for a couple 
 of generations and more. Even tenants of 
 the Glenconan shootings had taken a pride in 
 leaving some of the choicest of their spoils 
 near the scenes where they had won them — 
 the more so that each of the sportsmen left his 
 name as well as a memory behind him. The 
 golden eagle was setting in aerial dance to the 
 osprey, which spread her wings in act to soar 
 above the sideboard ; and beneath these, a 
 grizzled badger was snarling at an otter about 
 to take a header off a moss - grown ledge. 
 There were trout and salmon rods, and racks 
 for guns and rifles in the corners, and a fair 
 show of somewhat grim family portraits to 
 boot. So far, the decorations, though you 
 certainly could not call them commonplace, 
 were what might have been seen in any 
 Highland gentleman's halls. But then, by
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 19 
 
 way of contrast, there glittered on the side- 
 board a mixed service of massive and curious 
 plate — wine - coolers, tankards, salvers, and 
 epergnes, of many dates and countries, and of 
 the most artistic workmanship ; for Moray 
 had a fancy that way, and his fancies had 
 generally been gratified. A century and a 
 half before, the mere rumour of so much port- 
 able wealth would have set all the clansmen 
 and caterans by the ears between Lome and 
 Lochaber. 
 
 Jack Venables looked about him and went 
 on : "I like the silver, I must say, even more 
 than the stags' heads. There now ! I was sure 
 I should startle you both ; but you need not 
 look so scandalised, my dear Leslie. I'm not 
 altogether so covetous as you might suppose, 
 and a man may admire those magnificently 
 chased salt-cellars, for example, without having 
 the soul either of a pawnbroker or of a Ben- 
 venuto Cellini. But I like them chiefly for 
 all they mean. Had Glenconan lived his life 
 in his native glen, we should have seen nothing 
 on his walls save the antlers and his ancestors. 
 Moreover, I may venture to remark, parenthet- 
 ically, that I doubt whether we should have
 
 20 fortune's wheel. 
 
 had Lafitte like this on the table. Now stalk- 
 ing deer in Glenconan is grand sport in its 
 way ; but to be content with that, we should 
 be born to the ambition, like Donald the 
 keeper. The tankards, &c, are the veritable 
 trophies that are worth the winning ; for they 
 mean energy and adventure, and the excite- 
 ment of success — the only things that make 
 life worth the living. If I know myself, I'm 
 nothing of a visionary : I believe in the bless- 
 ings of riches, and realise their anxieties too, 
 as much as anybody ; but I should be sorry all 
 the same to have been born to a fortune — to 
 a great fortune, that is to say. Of course 1 
 should go steadier as well as quicker if I had 
 a certain amount of bullion to ballast me. 
 Now all that silver means to me the romance 
 of an extremely agreeable existence. Our 
 Uncle Moray there has had far more than his 
 fair share of success and fun ; and if he died 
 to-morrow, he has every reason to be con- 
 tented. There are not many men who have 
 had the luck to find their way to wealth 
 through jungles and spice-gardens — through 
 cordons of Chinese junks and fleets of Malay 
 proas. Why, even in the way of recreation
 
 A HIGHLAND HOME-COMING. 21 
 
 and sport, tiger-shooting must be decidedly 
 preferable to deer-stalking, though it is for- 
 tunate that Donald does not hear me blas- 
 pheming. But hit or miss, lose or win, you 
 may depend upon it, Master Leslie, that ex- 
 citement is everything, or pretty nearly so. 
 Whether we are to carry off the stakes or no, 
 at least we are sure of the pleasures of the 
 game." 
 
 Leslie smiled good - humouredly at his 
 companion's long-winded rhapsody. As for 
 Moray, though the young man had merely 
 spoken in the light exhilaration of a restless 
 and generous spirit, had he laid himself out 
 to flatter and please his senior, he could hard- 
 ly have succeeded more thoroughly. Moray 
 had himself been ardent and enthusiastic, 
 though with an eminently practical bent of 
 mind and a resolute determination of purpose. 
 He, too, had delighted in adventure in his 
 time, and the ancient fires were still glowing 
 in their ashes. He had loved bold specula- 
 tions for their own sake — and the better that 
 there was a spice of danger in them. And 
 besides that, there was something in Ven- 
 ables's careless talk, in the readiness to
 
 22 fortune's wheel. 
 
 welcome trials which might turn to tempta- 
 tions, that helped to reconcile himself to his 
 past, and to soothe certain doubts and regrets 
 which had been casting their shadows across 
 his happiness. It pleased him, too, to remem- 
 ber that money meant power — that he could 
 give his sprightly young nephew the helping 
 hand he wanted ; and, moreover, other vague 
 ideas regarding him began to take form and 
 consistency. The faculty of reading the 
 minds of other men is a gift that might be 
 fatal or helpful, according to circumstances or 
 temperaments. It is certain, at least, that it 
 would work a social revolution, and upset all 
 the existing arrangements of Providence. As 
 it was, Mr Venables had been rattling on in 
 utter heedlessness, and he never guessed how 
 far his chatter might have a grave influence, 
 on his fortunes. And so the three, after a 
 pleasant evening, went to bed, unconscious of 
 all that was meant to them by that merry 
 meeting at Glenconan.
 
 23 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 
 
 We say emphatically that June is the most 
 enjoyable month in the Highlands, always 
 supposing the weather to be conformable. 
 And Highland weather is so capricious, that 
 we may be lucky when we least expect it. 
 There is no shooting in June — there is no 
 deer - stalking. But then the fishing of all 
 kinds should be in its very prime, which gives 
 you a pretext for enjoying the glories of the 
 scenery. The trees are in the freshest rich- 
 ness of their foliage ; the grass is enamelled 
 by the early wild-flowers ; the bilberries, the 
 crowberries, the cranberries, and many other 
 berries, are putting out their brightest shoots ; 
 the bracken is bursting forth among the first 
 bells of the foxgloves, — and as both of Glen- 
 conan's guests, in their different ways, were
 
 24 fortune's wheel. 
 
 keen and even passionate admirers of nature, 
 they never found the time hang heavy on 
 their hands. Moray was vexed at the arrival 
 of his daughter being delayed, owing to the 
 indisposition of the lady who was to be her 
 chaperon as far as Perth. But the young men 
 were comparatively indifferent to the advent 
 of the heiress, and only expressed a decent 
 amount of sympathy. To tell the truth, being 
 very happy as they were, they philosophically 
 dreaded any change in the habits of the estab- 
 lishment. They did as they pleased ; they 
 went abroad when they liked ; and though the 
 dinner was a movable feast, depending on the 
 hour of their return, the cook might be relied 
 upon to come satisfactorily to time, indepen- 
 dently of the hands of the clock. What with 
 his fishing - rod and his sketch - book, Jack 
 Venables could always make himself thorough- 
 ly contented. When the trout were rising 
 freely, his basket filled rapidly : he could cast 
 a fly to the approval of Donald himself, and 
 under the tuition of that skilful veteran he 
 was rapidly being initiated in the special mys- 
 teries of mountain sport. When the trout 
 were in no mood to take, whether in the loch,
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 25 
 
 in the lakelets, or in the streams, he seldom 
 cared to persevere, and fell back on his brushes 
 and colour-box. Excitement in one shape or 
 another was everything to him. He had a 
 rare facility of touch, a wonderful instinct for 
 colour ; and the excitement he found in the 
 ever-changing lights and scenes was unfailing. 
 He was as happy in transferring a landscape 
 bathed in sunshine and flecked with shadows 
 to his block, as in switching the small brown 
 trout over his shoulder ; and his pulses beat 
 nearly as quick to the lurid glories of a thun- 
 dery sunset, as when running a Salmo ferox on 
 his trolling-rod where the lake broke away 
 into the rapids. 
 
 As for Leslie, he took his pleasures more 
 contemplatively, though not more sadly. In 
 rallying him about his love for poetry, Moray 
 had touched his strength or his weakness. He 
 was a born poet, in perpetual sympathy with 
 the poetical sides of things, though, so far as 
 the world knew, his poetry had hitherto found 
 no expression. He might be born for great 
 things, or he might have been born to dream 
 away remarkable talents. In the meantime, 
 he could make himself placidly happy among
 
 26 fortune's wheel. 
 
 the scenes which brought the exhilaration of 
 enjoyment to his companion. No one could 
 deny that there was a great deal in him. 
 Not only had he had a distinguished career 
 at the university, but he could generally say 
 the right thing at the right moment, though 
 his remark might be somewhat slow of 
 coming : if he would hang over a repartee, 
 it seldom missed fire, and there was pretty 
 sure to be a playful snap in it when it did 
 come. Nevertheless, superficial observers of 
 natures antipathetical to his own might have 
 set him down for a muff or a prig, especially if 
 they had made his acquaintance in Highland 
 shooting-quarters. He rarely handled a gun 
 himself, though he liked to follow a shooting- 
 party. Made very much after the fashion of 
 a young Henry VIII. , his somewhat bulky 
 and cumbrous person would have adapted 
 itself with difficulty to the inequalities of 
 difficult ground in following out an awkward 
 stalk ; and when he did essay to throw a fly, 
 his line was apt to fall in coils upon the water. 
 Conscious of his own shortcomings, he neither 
 cared to correct them nor to court failure. 
 But he would lie on the bank for hours, watch-
 
 A BEEAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 27 
 
 ing Venables at work, his handsome features 
 flushing over a struggle and a success ; while 
 in the intervals the thoughts that were wan- 
 dering far away found ample occupation for 
 his fertile fancy. 
 
 But a day came, in the second week of their 
 sojourn, when the mercurial Venables felt 
 bored, and he did not scruple to confess it. 
 The fine weather had broken ; leaden clouds 
 lay heavy on the bosom of Lochconan, veiling 
 the view of the opposite cliffs. The rapid fall 
 of the barometer gave warning of a violent 
 storm, though, as the fall had been sudden, 
 the storm might be a passing one. As the 
 little party were seated at breakfast, a peal of 
 thunder seemed to burst among the chimney- 
 pots and shake the room. Then discharge 
 followed discharge in swift succession. The 
 clouds were rent by the vivid flashes of the 
 forked lightning ; the rain came down in tor- 
 rents, the big drops plumping in the sullen 
 waters of the lake like showers of lead sent 
 from the summit of a shot-tower. Then gusts 
 of wind, sweeping in circles down from the 
 mountains, succeeded to the preternatural 
 calm ; in places the lower half of the black
 
 28 fortune's wheel. 
 
 cloud-curtain was lifted and blown aside, while 
 it hung motionless as before in the shelter of 
 the cliffs; and through gaps and rifts you 
 caught glimpses of the hills, lighted luridly 
 for some seconds by the fires of the lightning ; 
 while all the time the echoes were being 
 awakened far and near, and ere one roar had 
 died away in remote rumblings, another had 
 come to swallow the distant mutterings. It 
 was Byron's thunderstorm, and not much, in 
 miniature ; and it was Yenables, and not 
 Leslie, who made the obvious quotation — 
 
 " And Jura answers from her misty cloud," &c. 
 
 It was a grand spectacle while the thunder- 
 storm lasted, and Jack had every reason to be 
 pleased with it. He strode up and down the 
 room, returning perpetually to the windows. 
 He rubbed his hands, and expressed unqualified 
 admiration of the effects, till the solemnity of 
 the disturbance oppressed even him, and he 
 relapsed into silence in sympathy with his 
 companions. But the thunderstorm passed 
 away, though the rain continued to come 
 down in torrents ; and if he still paced the 
 morning-room at intervals, he was chafing at 
 the enforced confinement.
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 29 
 
 " You certainly are the most restless and 
 impatient of mortals, Jack," remarked Moray, 
 good-naturedly. "Why, young man, if you 
 cannot bear a single day's rain, most assuredly 
 you were never made for the Highlands." 
 
 "Not at all, sir — not at all," answered the 
 other, laughing ; " and you mistake my char- 
 acter altogether. I've a deal more of practical 
 philosophy than you suppose, as I hope you 
 may have many opportunities of remarking. 
 If I knew we were in for a week of wet 
 weather, Leslie himself could not take it with 
 more serene acquiescence. But as the pigs are 
 said to smell a gale, so I scent fine weather 
 again, and I'm only surprised that it is so long 
 of appearing." 
 
 Whether Venables had the weather instincts 
 to which he pretended or not, as it happened, 
 he was right on this occasion. The clouds did 
 break towards evening; and moreover, there 
 was every promise of a fine day on the morrow. 
 He observed in the smoking-room, after dinner, 
 and apropos to nothing in particular — 
 
 " I mean to go on an exploring expedition 
 to-morrow, to Lochrosque and the Braes of 
 Balgarroch."
 
 30 fortune's wheel. 
 
 "And I must say that you choose your time 
 well," returned Moray, with a smile that was 
 half kindly and half sarcastic. " Why, every 
 one of the burns will be coming down in spate, 
 and the peat-bogs will be holding the rain like 
 so many sponges." 
 
 "And that, my dear uncle, is the very 
 reason, or partly the reason. There will be 
 no fishing till the rain runs off a bit; and I 
 want exercise and excitement after the day's 
 imprisonment. The streams will be flooded, it 
 is true ; but surely one can ' walk ' or wade them 
 somehow : and if the bogs be like sponges, as 
 you say, why, my muscles want stretching." 
 
 " Stretched they will be, or strained or 
 sprained : we should have to fetch you home 
 ignominiously on the back of a shooting-pony, 
 and then you might have a chance of prac- 
 tising patience through a protracted term of 
 confinement. No, my good boy, be guided 
 by me. Go in for a walk to-morrow, by 
 all means, but don't attempt the innermost 
 recesses of our Dark Continent." 
 
 But if there was one thing on which Ven- 
 ables prided himself, it was in sticking to a 
 pet scheme he had originated.
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 31 
 
 " Of course, if you put your veto on it, 
 sir, I have nothing more to say ; but even 
 if there were a clash of risk in the expe- 
 dition, as there is none, I know you would 
 be the last man to grudge me the fun 
 of it." 
 
 "Well, well, my good boy, you must go 
 your own way. I suppose the worst that 
 can happen, after all, is your being knocked 
 up after a mud-bath in a moss-pit. Only, if 
 you do go, you must be content to take one 
 of the gillies. I send Donald to-morrow to 
 Dingwall after some dogs." 
 
 "And the absence of Donald is half the 
 battle. Not that I do not appreciate his 
 society. I never met a fellow who was better 
 company. But Donald is as much at home 
 among his hills as a policeman on his beat in 
 Pall Mall ; and no exploration can be possible 
 when one is in charge of a dry-nurse. But I 
 shall take Peter, if you will allow me. I want 
 a man to carry a rifle." 
 
 " Take Peter, and carry a rifle ? Is the boy 
 mad? Why, Peter knows nothing of the 
 country, and is the dullest lout on the ground. 
 And for the rifle, it would only be so much
 
 32 fortune's wheel. 
 
 dead-weight, for I fancy you do not propose 
 to kill one of my deer in June." 
 
 " Not exactly. But I have a notion that I 
 may have a shot all the same, — always sup- 
 posing I arrive at the end of my pilgrimage. 
 And as for Peter, he is a fool, and as strong 
 as a horse ; and these are the qualities that 
 recommend him to me as a follower. He will 
 never feel the weight of the rifle, and will cer- 
 tainly not volunteer advice." 
 
 " Go your own way, as I said before," re- 
 turned Moray, "and amuse yourself as you 
 like. I have too much of the Highland hos- 
 pitality to put restraint on a guest, even if he 
 do happen to be crack-brained and a nephew 
 of my own. Only remember, I wash my 
 hands of all responsibility, and we refuse to 
 wait dinner." 
 
 Leslie laughed, and chimed in — 
 
 " Don't say ' we,' sir, when you talk of 
 dinner. I cast in my lot with Jack Venables, 
 always supposing he has no objection." 
 
 "Not in the least, my dear fellow — not in 
 the least ! I should have asked you, on the 
 contrary, to accompany me, but I did not care 
 to put the screw on. With you for a com-
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 33 
 
 panion, and the worthy Peter for a beast of 
 burden, I consider the expedition to be per- 
 fectly equipped. And whatever be the case 
 with me, your exertions ought to reward you. 
 There must be matter for a baker's dozen of 
 lyrics among the mists and braes of Bal- 
 garroch." 
 
 The pair had made an early start. Five 
 miles of the flat had been covered on ponies, 
 which had subsequently been hobbled and 
 turned loose to graze. It was in a delightful 
 sense of freedom that the young men stretched 
 their legs, and set their faces to breast the 
 first slopes of the hills. As for Peter, he 
 plodded along behind, bearing the rifle, and 
 with a game-bag slung across his shoulders, 
 containing whisky and sherry flasks, with the 
 materials for luncheon. Peter's ordinary call- 
 ing was that of a sea -fisherman : he usually 
 listed with a shooting-staff for the short shoot- 
 ing season ; though this year the wages that 
 were offered by Moray had tempted him to 
 engage at the beginning of the summer. 
 
 Venables had got himself up in a kilt, which 
 draped his lithe figure picturesquely enough ; 
 
 vol. I. c
 
 34 FOETUNES WHEEL. 
 
 and as he strode forward, although there was 
 a long day before them, he sprang from tussock 
 to tussock on the damp ground like a roebuck. 
 As for Leslie, a loose shooting-coat and baggy 
 knickerbockers half served to conceal any 
 superfluity of flesh. But if his companion cut 
 out the running, Leslie seemed likely to stay 
 tolerably well ; and indeed he was no novice in 
 peclestrianism. Both one and the other had 
 done good work in the Alps ; and Leslie, 
 weight and size notwithstanding, which some- 
 what unfitted him for crawling after deer, had 
 been one of the first to scale the Aiguille de 
 Talefre. 
 
 "You can't possibly reproach me with pre- 
 mature curiosity, Master Jack ; but may I 
 ask now, without indiscretion, what is the 
 meaning of the rifle with which Peter is 
 encumbered ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; and I owe you many apologies 
 for not having anticipated your question. But 
 there was something dramatically sensational 
 in the blind confidence with which Sense was 
 following the lead of Folly into the wilderness ; 
 and besides, the betting is a hundred to ten 
 that the rifle may never be brought into re-
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 35 
 
 quisition. You remember how Donald in his 
 ' cracks ' the other night turned the conversa- 
 tion on the goats of Balgarroch." 
 
 " Oh, that's what we're after ! That's what 
 sent us on this wild-goose — I beg pardon — 
 on this wild-goat chase ! For Donald, if I re- 
 member aright, remarked by way of postscript, 
 that the goats were unapproachable ; and the 
 proof is, that the patriarch, if rumour is to 
 be credited, may have been born anywhere 
 between now and the rising of the '45." 
 
 " ' Must have been born,' you mean to say. 
 The older he is, the greater the certainty that 
 he must be falling back by this time into his 
 second childhood. And of course, so long as 
 there was a deer on the hills, no one of the 
 deer-stalkers has dreamed of going after him. 
 Long impunity must have bred the confidence 
 I hope to abuse." 
 
 " Say it is so. But going after a family- 
 party of wild goats over the Braes of Balgar- 
 roch must be like looking for a lot of needles in 
 a bundle of hay." 
 
 " I don't know that. Donald said that at 
 this season, when the hill-grazing is fresh, they 
 stick pretty much to the precipices to the west
 
 36 fortune's wheel. 
 
 of Lochrosque ; and somehow, and in spite of 
 the Laird, I have a presentiment that we shall 
 have a shot before the day is over. Anyhow, 
 if I miss the mark, there is nobody to laugh ; 
 for I breathed nothing of any possible inten- 
 tions to Grlenconan, and Peter is much too 
 idiotic to see anything. The secret is safe 
 with you, I am sure, for I know that ' Brutus 
 is an honourable man.' " 
 
 Brutus laughed, and silently assented. The 
 walking each moment was becoming more 
 severe, and both the men were inclined to 
 husband their breath. 
 
 It was lucky indeed that they were in fair 
 condition. Venables had scarcely turned a 
 hair, though he began to go more like a human 
 being than a chamois ; and as for Leslie, if he 
 showed greater signs of exertion, strength and 
 pluck pulled him steadily through. They 
 plunged through yielding peat-bogs up to the 
 ankles, threading with many turns and pre- 
 cautions an intricate network of trenches and 
 moss-pits. They climbed hills where every- 
 thing was slippery after the rain, from the 
 roots of the heather plants to the surfaces of 
 the flat stones. And shoulder to shoulder they
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 61 
 
 stemmed the strength of streams, where the 
 rush of the waters rose nearly to mid-thigh, 
 and the shifting stones in the bottom gave 
 treacherous foothold. The very sounds of 
 animated nature were either wild or melan- 
 choly, in sad harmony with the solitude of 
 those desolate wastes. The grouse brood 
 fluttered up almost under their feet as they 
 plunged their way through some patch of 
 heather. The mountain-hare started up among 
 the shingle and boulders, where she had been 
 crouching in faith in the similarity of her col- 
 our. There was the piping of the lonely little 
 moor-birds, and the shrill whistle of the shy 
 curlew ; and everywhere was the plaintive 
 bleating of the sheep, gathered for the most 
 part out of sight in the sheltered corries — for 
 the ground they were then traversing lay be- 
 yond the limits of the deer-forest. 
 
 Both Yenables and Leslie were glad enough 
 
 o o 
 
 to see the game-bag unslung and unpacked on 
 the shore of Lochrosque. Bread and beef, 
 cheese and oatcakes, were spread on the green- 
 sward, and Peter played an admirable clasp- 
 knife, by way of symphony to the creditable 
 performance of his masters. The day was
 
 38 fortune's wheel. 
 
 still young, and there was time before them. 
 Pipes and repose were veritable wisdom. 
 
 " Besides," as Venables remarked, " the 
 worst of the work is over. I never was strong 
 in figures, but we must have climbed 2000, or 
 3000, or 6000 feet, as the case may be." 
 
 Mr Venables's estimates might have been 
 more exact, but it was evident, nevertheless, 
 that they had attained a considerable altitude. 
 Lochrosque was very much a counterpart of 
 Lochconan, infinitely more gloomy, but de- 
 cidedly less grand. There was not a sign of 
 a tree about its banks ; and the heather had 
 given place to coarse grass and granite debris. 
 Here and there the low flat banks were broken 
 by weather-beaten rocks, that seemed to have 
 been hurled by some concussion from the 
 heights above, and to have come bounding 
 and rolling down the slopes, till they checked 
 themselves at the bottom of the basin ; while 
 on the opposite side to where our friends were 
 sitting, hill rose behind hill. There was no 
 such tremendous precipice-wall as that which 
 frowned upon the south of Lochconan ; but 
 the hills were of granite, scantily clothed, and 
 their garments were weather-stained and ter-
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 39 
 
 ribly tattered. Kough terraces of turf hung 
 over clefts and abysses, and torrents had torn 
 their way here and there from summits that 
 were invisible from the banks of the lake. 
 Altogether it was as break-neck a piece of 
 Highland scenery as ever tested the head or 
 tried the lungs and legs of an amateur. 
 
 " So these are the famous Braes of Balgar- 
 roch," remarked Leslie ; " and now, I imagine, 
 you begin to comprehend how the years of 
 the father of the goat family should be patri- 
 archal. If he can manage to pick up a living 
 among these cliffs, immortality must be chief- 
 ly a question of sure-footedness." 
 
 " It looks very like it," Venables was forced 
 to admit, as his eye ranged from height to 
 height rather disconsolately. " I begin to 
 have a presentiment that previous presenti- 
 ments may have played me false. It is a 
 tough bit of work, and may be a long one, on 
 the off-chance of our getting a glimpse of the 
 goats. Happily I took the precaution of leav- 
 ing a line for ' Glenconan ' in case of accidents, 
 to say that it was just on the cards we might 
 camp out." 
 
 "You did, did you ? Happily there go two
 
 40 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 words to that bargain, and I keep my further 
 movements under my own control. In any 
 case, though the days be long, we had better 
 proceed to a survey of the country. We must 
 cross the loch and turn that shoulder." 
 
 Peter unmoored a boat fastened under a shed, 
 and the passage was speedily accomplished. 
 Then the game-bag, with its reserves of food, 
 was " cached," as they say in Western Amer- 
 ica ; and hampered by nothing but the rifle, a 
 deer-stalker's glass, and a spirit-flask, the trio 
 commenced the climb. 
 
 Neither of the gentlemen, as has been said, 
 were novices in the mountains, and they were 
 by no means surprised at the piece of work 
 cut out for them. The heights that had shut 
 in the view from the loch-margin were merely 
 the spurs and the shoulders of higher hills be- 
 hind. Wilder and grander became the scenery 
 as they mounted upwards — more difficult and 
 more circuitous the walking. Sometimes the 
 turn of a ledge brought them face to face with 
 an insurmountable obstacle; frequently they 
 had to descend into a ravine, that they might 
 scramble up the opposite face, at a consider- 
 able expenditure of homespun and knee-
 
 A BKEAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 41 
 
 leather. Many a time did Venables execrate 
 the costume of the Celt in which he had 
 draped the delicate limbs of a Saxon. 
 
 But as hunting-men will risk their necks 
 for a bag-fox, or even a red herring, so the 
 ostensible object of the walk was nothing to 
 them. One was a poet, the other an artist, 
 and artist and poet were ravished alike. The 
 burning sun had drawn the damp from the 
 soil, and the hills were wreathed in fantastic 
 vapours. The very rocks were smoking and 
 steaming, as if there were smouldering volcanic 
 fires underneath. And now and again, when 
 they looked down into unknown depths, they 
 might well have been poising themselves, like 
 Milton's Satan, on the borders of old Chaos 
 and Eternal Night ; for the billowy seas of 
 grey shifting mists marked invisible possibil- 
 ities of intensest desolation. 
 
 They had found breath enough to indulge 
 in duets of sympathetic raptures, when Leslie, 
 as the more practically-minded and thought- 
 ful of the two, characteristically came back to 
 the prose of the situation. 
 
 " I tell you what it is, my friend — should 
 these mists begin to thicken, it may be more
 
 42 fortune's wheel. 
 
 difficult to find our way back than you seem 
 to fancy." 
 
 " Not a bit of it : it is only a fine- weather 
 haze ; and the vapours will vanish with the 
 afternoon sunshine. There is a fine-weather 
 feeling in the air : just you ask Peter." 
 
 Peter, proud of being appealed to, when 
 the question was translated into more intel- 
 ligible language, answered unhesitatingly in 
 the affirmative. Indeed circumstances proved 
 afterwards that he and Venables were right ; 
 and when they stood at last on the Pisgah- 
 like summit of Ben-a-Gleish, the highest hill 
 for a dozen of leagues around, everything was 
 nearly as clear below as above, and the vault 
 of heaven was of transparent azure. 
 
 It was high enough and bleak enough in 
 all conscience. They had scared more than 
 one pair of parent ptarmigan — the young 
 broods had probably scuttled for refuge be- 
 neath the stones. A pile of Cyclopean blocks, 
 pitched carelessly together, rose from a small 
 square plateau of slate and shingle. There 
 was a bird's-eye view of a confused panorama 
 of hill and valley, of black peat-moss and 
 bright green corrie, interspersed with rills
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 43 
 
 and streams winding their way towards lochs 
 and rivers. But in due time the " prospect- 
 glass " was supported against a walking-stick 
 driven into the ground, and Venables having 
 focussed his eye, was devoting himself to his 
 immediate object. Leslie had lighted a pipe, 
 and was looking on listlessly. He did not 
 believe much in the chase, but he felt amply 
 rewarded for the expedition 
 
 When Venables in a stifled whisper, as if he 
 had been breathing the words into a telephone 
 of preternatural sensibility, summoned Peter 
 to put an eye to the glass. 
 
 " Ay, it will be them, sure enough, sir," was 
 the deliberate answer ; " and it will not be 
 that difficult to make the stalk upon the 
 beasts, whatever." 
 
 Leslie motioned Peter aside, and took his 
 turn of observation. Yes, there were the 
 goats — the family-party ; four of them were 
 visible, and possibly there might be more. 
 
 " And the wind is favourable," whispered 
 Venables, "as if the day had been arranged 
 for us ; and nothing worse than a long cir- 
 cuit to make — that's to say, if they don't 
 shift. Once upon the top of that ridge of
 
 44 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 rock, and they ought to be within easy 
 range." 
 
 It is an anxious moment when, after a 
 lengthened stalk, you reach the spot you have 
 been steering for by predetermined bearings. 
 With Leslie and Peter following at a distance 
 in his wake, Venables had dragged himself 
 forward to the edge of the cliffs, and with a 
 heart beating as if it would have burst his 
 waistcoat - buttons, had he worn a waistcoat, 
 he drew a hand across his eyes to brush away 
 the streaming perspiration, — then he turned 
 his head in the direction where the goats 
 might be. There they were, on a bit of 
 grassy slope, within some seventy yards of 
 him, and the shaggy - bearded ancient, with 
 a pair of antediluvian - looking horns, was 
 fully exposed. A conscious sense of certainty 
 calmed his nerves. He pulled himself to- 
 gether, waited to regain breath, and sent his 
 bullet in scientifically beneath the shoulder. 
 Leslie and Peter ran forward — too late to see 
 the goat take a header into vacancy, while his 
 bereaved family made a bolt round the nearest 
 convenient corner.
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 45 
 
 "There he is — there he lies!" exclaimed 
 the excited sportsman, having changed his 
 place, and craned over so recklessly that his 
 friend was fain to hold on to him by his boots. 
 " There he is ! you can just get a sight of his 
 hoofs, kicking away still under that shelf of 
 granite." 
 
 "I see him," said Leslie quietly, after a 
 moment or two. " And it's only a pity you 
 did not leave the poor beggar in peace, since 
 there is no possibility of recovering the 
 body." 
 
 " Perhaps not. He weighs heavy, I dare to 
 say. I'll have the head and horns at any rate, 
 you bet, as the Yankees say." And before 
 Leslie could well interpose, Jack, who, with 
 the intuition of genius, had surveyed the 
 track, had swung himself over the edge, and 
 was steadily though slowly descending. 
 
 Facilis descensus, &c, has passed into a 
 proverb ; and we have it on immemorial French 
 authority, that the first step is everything, or 
 pretty nearly so. Venables proved the truth 
 of the former maxim, but he had reason to 
 question the wisdom of the second. He was 
 a youth much given over to impulses. Like
 
 46 fortune's wheel. 
 
 Leslie, as we have said, he was used to moun- 
 tain - climbing. He had the promptitude of 
 pluck almost in excess — a spurt would carry 
 him at any time through critical danger ; and 
 he had the confidence that came of his Alpine 
 experiences. He picked his way steadily 
 along an aerial and almost imperceptible path, 
 though the blood of the more phlegmatic Leslie 
 ran cool in watching him, and the usually im- 
 perturbable Peter tossed his arms in the air. 
 But his impetuosity had not counted with 
 contingencies, as when, after zigzagging back- 
 wards and forwards, all within the space of the 
 seventy yards, taking his final spring to the 
 broad shelf where the goat lay, the gravel 
 yielded under his feet. The rainfall of yes- 
 terday had sapped the bank ; and the path he 
 had so deftly cleared was breached effectually. 
 Exaltation is invariably followed by reaction. 
 Had it all been comparatively smooth navi- 
 gation, Jack's pluck and spirit would have 
 carried him through. Now he must have felt 
 something like Icarus, when the wax was melt- 
 ing on the aeronaut's pinions ; and a paralysing 
 horror settled down upon him as he knew his 
 retreat to be cut off. His eyes swam ; his
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 47 
 
 brain turned dizzy; and he did what was 
 probably the wisest thing in the circumstances, 
 and subsided on the ground with his back to 
 the abyss. 
 
 Venables's brain was in a swimming turmoil 
 of confusion, and had he been left to him- 
 self or to Peter, his bolt would certainly have 
 been shot. While, as for Leslie, who had been 
 looking on in speechless horror, his thoughts 
 were never more clear or definite. He had 
 weighed the circumstances in a moment, and 
 he felt hopelessly depressed. The life and 
 death of his companion were hanging in the 
 balance, and his interposition would probably 
 in no degree avail. As for the dull and 
 respectable Peter, he was paralysed. He was 
 more at home, at the best of times, on the deck 
 of a herring-boat than on the hills, and was 
 made of any stuff rather than that of a hero. 
 All in that supreme crisis depended upon 
 Leslie — and the thoughts that were ordinarily 
 somewhat sluggish had answered to the spur, 
 and were working with the velocity of light- 
 ning. It was hopeless, or almost so, to save 
 Venables ; but it was absolutely impossible to 
 go home without him. Fancy living on to tell
 
 48 fortune's wheel. 
 
 the tale — or conceal it, — how he had left his 
 comrade to perish within a stone-throw of 
 him ! Leslie was a gentleman and a Christian, 
 but scarcely a saint. He was loath to leave 
 life at a moment's notice, with all his misdeeds 
 and mistakes unrepented of. But his feelings 
 of chivalry were strong, and the sense of duty 
 was imperious. He breathed from his heart 
 the most earnest prayer for help and mercy he 
 had ever in his life sent up to heaven, as he 
 stepped in his turn over the cliff and followed 
 in the track of Venables. 
 
 He made the leap over the breach compara- 
 tively easily. It tended only too decidedly 
 down-hill, and his ponderous initial momentum 
 aided him. The grave question was as to 
 getting back ; but that was a question to be 
 solved in the future. 
 
 Seldom have severed friends been reunited 
 under more serious circumstances ; and the 
 clasp of Venables's feverish hand repaid Leslie 
 for the risk he had run. The presence and 
 touch of his chivalrous friend were already 
 restoring the courage of the other. There was 
 this difference between the two — in Venables 
 the spirit had to fight the flesh ; and he could
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 49 
 
 only preserve a semblance of composure by 
 manfully diverting bis tbougbts and turning 
 bis eyes away from tbe abyss. As for Leslie, 
 without prying into his innermost secrets, it 
 may be said that he could look dangers of all 
 kinds calmly in the face. At least he gazed with 
 less of apprehension than curiosity into the 
 depths of the yawning chasm beneath ; and be- 
 fore he had well exchanged a hand-shake with 
 Venables, he was planning how they might re- 
 trace their steps. He knew he had never been 
 so near to death, for he saw that the little 
 gravel - platform on which they stood was 
 already crumbling and yielding beneath their 
 united weight. He knew there was no time to 
 send the slow and stupid Peter to fetch help. 
 They must save themselves, and that promptly, 
 if they were to be saved at all. Venables was 
 looking to him for support, encouragement, 
 and guidance. So he proved himself true to 
 his practical good sense — drew the whisky-flask 
 from his pocket, and passed it to his friend. 
 
 " That's right, old fellow ; take another 
 little pull," as he watched the light come 
 back to the eye and the colour to the cheek. 
 " There, that will do. Wait till we are on the 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 fortune's wheel. 
 
 firm ground again before you mend your 
 draught." 
 
 The cool promise of immediate safety did as 
 much to restore Jack Venables's confidence as 
 the inspiriting influences of the flask. For a 
 few moments, at all events, he was himself 
 again, and Leslie saw it was neck or nothing. 
 Stooping, with infinite presence of mind and a 
 swift sweep of his pocket-knife, he cut the 
 beard from the shaggy billy-goat. 
 
 " We won't bother about the horns," he 
 observed, " but we must not go back without 
 your trophy." And that very simple remark 
 screwed the courage of Yenables to the stick- 
 ing-point. It was he who gave the lead over 
 the gap, lightly bounding up upon the ground 
 that gave way beneath him, and so with half- 
 a-dozen successive springs placing himself in 
 relative safety. And then he forgot all the 
 danger that remained, in the moments of 
 agony that the danger of his saviour caused 
 him. There seemed a more formidable leap 
 than ever to be made, and Leslie had little of 
 the lightness and elan which had landed 
 Venables in comparative security. For a 
 second or so, it appeared that he had given
 
 A BREAK-NECK SHOOTING EXPEDITION. 51 
 
 himself up. He stood as his friend had left 
 him, and covered his eyes with his hand. 
 Then he essayed to cross, but in a very 
 different fashion. If he had been setting his 
 feet on the flags of a London pavement, he 
 could not have trod more firmly, though the 
 foothold in each instance was some scarcely 
 perceptible niche in the hill-face. Will the 
 feet support his fourteen stone, or will they 
 not ? Venables's heart almost ceased to beat, 
 though Leslie appeared to be as composed as 
 ever ; and in another moment, in an un- 
 affected burst of emotional gratitude, he had 
 clasped his recovered friend in his arms. Had 
 Leslie literally come back from the dead, he 
 could hardly have been more warmly wel- 
 comed. 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 52 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 "yours for life or death." 
 
 Our young friends bivouacked that night 
 among the hills on the banks of Lochrosque. 
 With the morning's toil and the afternoon's 
 excitement, they felt they had done at least 
 as much as was good for them, and prudently 
 determined to " camp out." The " shelter 
 stone," shaped something like a Breton dol- 
 man, with its Cyclopean blocks of rugged 
 granite, offered them very tolerable quarters. 
 They supped lightly ; they slept prosaically ; 
 they rose refreshed : so, hurrying them across 
 the intervening bogs, we land them in sight of 
 the house of Glenconan. 
 
 A great event had occurred in their absence. 
 It is seldom that the master of a remote High- 
 land residence has the chance of two thrilling 
 sensations simultaneously; but that piece of
 
 53 
 
 fortune had happened to David Moray. While 
 he was looking forward to a solitary dinner 
 and a dull evening, his dearly loved daughter 
 had turned up unexpectedly. Grace Moray 
 had a dash of the romantic in her nature, and 
 it pleased her to arrange a surprise for her 
 father. The thought of the surprise that was 
 in store for him beguiled the tediousness of a 
 slow railway journey ; and as she paralysed 
 the self-important station-master by her un- 
 expected arrival, so she was enchanted to be 
 thrown back on her own resources. It was 
 a dramatically appropriate stage -introduction 
 to her Highland home. The station-master 
 offered her the hospitality of his cottage while 
 a messenger was despatched for the paternal 
 waggonette. The impetuous young woman 
 would hear nothing of the kind. She pressed 
 a "machine" from the neighbouring posting- 
 house into her service, the horse having been 
 captured with some difficulty in the unenclosed 
 meadows where he was running loose. She 
 mounted the machine with her maid, leaving 
 the boxes to follow ; and what between her 
 excitement over the beauties of the drive, and 
 her anticipations of the reception awaiting her,
 
 54 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 her rising spirits fairly ran away with her, over- 
 flowing in rapturous ejaculations and bright 
 snatches of song. 
 
 She had hoped to delight her father, and 
 she was amply satisfied. Moray, having made 
 some changes in his toilet, had strolled out 
 upon the gravel before sitting down to dinner : 
 he cast an eye on the cart-track that led up- 
 wards toward Lochrosque, and turned away in 
 slight disappointment. Although he had lived 
 much alone in his time, he was naturally of 
 a social disposition, and would have liked to 
 have had dinner enlivened by a narrative of 
 incident. When swinging round on his heel, 
 before entering the hall, his eye was arrested 
 by a vision on the lower road — a heavy dog- 
 cart was pulling up the steep, the driver walk- 
 ing by the horse's head ; and in the carriage 
 were fluttering female garments, while a white 
 pocket-handkerchief was being flown by way 
 of signal. He realised in a moment what had 
 occurred, for the road the vehicle was follow- 
 ing led nowhere except to Glenconan. An- 
 other moment, and he was striding hatless 
 down the hill, as if he had started on a toe- 
 and-heel match against time.
 
 "YOURS FOR LIFE OR DEATH." 55 
 
 Grace Moray had arranged a semi-theatrical 
 surprise, and the meeting made a very pretty 
 tableau. On seeing an elderly gentleman come 
 down at the double, the intelligent horse came 
 promptly to a standstill, and betook himself to 
 cropping the grass by the wayside. So the 
 young lady, in all security, could set one neatly 
 booted foot on the wheel and take a flying 
 leap into her father's arms. It was as well, 
 perhaps, that her cousins did not witness the 
 fervent embrace in which she was clasped before 
 she was landed on the gravel. They could 
 hardly have helped feeling envy and jealousy. 
 As for the trim lady's-maid on the back seat 
 and the shaggy-coated Highland driver, they 
 looked on complacently and indifferently from 
 their very opposite points of view. 
 
 Grace Moray had really been harmoniously 
 as she was simply named ; for there was grace 
 in her shape and her every gesture. So it 
 struck her father, and not for the first time, as 
 he saw her posing on the carriage-wheel like 
 a domestic Venus. The slight irregularity of 
 her features only added to the piquancy of 
 their expression ; there was a laughing sweet- 
 ness in her soft grey eyes, which seemed to
 
 56 fortune's wheel. 
 
 speak of boundless capacities of affectionate 
 companionship, with all the sympathetic ver- 
 satility that can brighten a life. With the 
 masses of her rich brown hair slightly ruffled 
 under her Spanish hat by her father's hearty 
 embrace, with her clear complexion heightened 
 by the keen mountain-air, and with her eyes 
 glowing with the light of health and beaming 
 at once with excitement and tenderness, she 
 was as desirable a young helpmate and mis- 
 tress of an establishment as any fond father 
 might wish to welcome. 
 
 Circumstances change cases, and there is no 
 reckoning with the unexpected. A few min- 
 utes before, Moray had been longing for his 
 male companions ; now, he saw in their pro- 
 longed absence a special interposition of Provi- 
 dence. His daughter, too, was very well con- 
 tent when she heard of the expedition that left 
 her to a tete-a-tete. The early evening passed 
 quickly enough : they had so much to say as 
 to the present and the future. But when the 
 shadows of the loitering Highland night began 
 to fall, the girl began to feel uneasy. To her 
 there were vague horrors and dangers in the 
 solitudes of those trackless hills, which she had
 
 "yours for life or death. 57 
 
 admired and nevertheless half shuddered at in 
 the fading glories of the sunset. Sitting in 
 the snug room, watching through the open 
 window the shadows thickening and widening 
 in the clear gloaming without, her fancy began 
 to work uneasily. And though she knew 
 nothing of the real risks, with which her father 
 was familiar, her growing uneasiness began to 
 communicate itself to him. Left to himself, 
 he might scarcely have given a second thought 
 to the absence of his young friends. Jack 
 Venables's note had told him it was possible. 
 For himself, he had run the gauntlet of serious 
 dangers in his time, and, with innumerable 
 hairbreadth escapes, had always fallen safely 
 on his feet. A night on the hills of Glenconan 
 had seemed nothing to him. Now, however, 
 he found himself, to his own surprise, conjur- 
 ing up visions of the rugged precipices above 
 Lochrosque, with their precarious foothold and 
 almost invisible goat-tracks ; and he remem- 
 bered Jack Venables's headstrong pluck and 
 impetuous temperament. But he remembered 
 at the same time that Jack was in good com- 
 pany ; that Leslie was cool and prudent ; that 
 Peter, though stupid, was strong-bodied and
 
 58 fortune's wheel. 
 
 trustworthy; and he tried to dismiss his 
 doubts by saying to his daughter — 
 
 "Believe me, my dear, there is nothing 
 whatever to be alarmed about. Nothing worse 
 can possibly happen to the boys than a cool 
 bed among the heather, with colds in the head 
 to follow. In any case, we can do nothing till 
 the morning, for there are half-a-dozen ways 
 home from Lochrosque. Go quietly to bed, 
 and if they do not turn up for breakfast, we 
 shall send off a party of the gillies to meet 
 them, with materials to break their fast. Jack 
 has always an undeniable appetite ; and Leslie, 
 though he takes it more leisurely, runs him 
 hard with the knife and fork." 
 
 Grace professed herself so far satisfied, and 
 bade her father good-night. But when he 
 had left her in the pretty bedroom he had 
 carefully seen arranged for her, her anxieties 
 returned, and she sent her maid away. She 
 threw the window open and gazed out upon 
 the soft Highland night. She looked at her 
 snow-white sheets, and contrasted them with 
 a couch in the heather. A bed in the heather 
 was all very well ; on the whole, she would 
 have much enjoyed it herself. Couches of
 
 <: YOURS FOR LIFE OR DEATH." 59 
 
 fragrant heather-shoots and verdant bracken 
 associated themselves with all the witchery of 
 Scottish poetry; and what could the soul wish 
 better for a canopy than the star-studded 
 vault of the northern heavens ? But then 
 there was another side to that picture. Those 
 little-known cousins of hers — one or both — 
 might be, and very possibly were, lying crip- 
 pled or shattered at the bottom of the craigs, 
 with the carrion-crows and ravens for their sole 
 attendants. In short, when Miss Moray did 
 make up her mind to go to bed, it was to 
 anything rather than untroubled slumbers. 
 Youth, fatigue, and the Highland air were 
 lulling her into dreams, which were chang- 
 ing perpetually to grim phantasmagoria and 
 nightmares. When she rose in the early 
 morning, the cold bath never was more 
 welcome ; and as it was, when she had kissed 
 her father's cheek, he noticed the fading of 
 the red Lancastrian roses that had been bloom- 
 ing the evening before in her face. 
 
 Meanwhile Leslie and Venables had been 
 still earlier risers, though for very different 
 reasons. Moray's shrewd knowledge of man- 
 kind had not deceived him, when he sug-
 
 60 fortune's wheel. 
 
 gested that Jack, under stress of privation, 
 would make a vigorous push for breakfast at 
 G-lenconan. Jack might not be sentimental — 
 he was certainly shy as to expressing sen- 
 timents ; nevertheless he had made an effort 
 and a clutch at Leslie's hand, and said, " You 
 may forget, my good fellow ; but you may be 
 sure that I never shall. Henceforward I am 
 yours, for life or death." 
 
 Nor did he say much more in the course of 
 the long morning's walk, though possibly, like 
 the parrot of story, he may have thought the 
 more. Till at last, from one of the lower 
 ridges he lifted up his eyes, and saw certain 
 moving figures in the middle-distance of the 
 landscape. 
 
 " Look there, Leslie ! A relief expedition 
 sent out in search of us. If my note was duly 
 delivered, for the life of me I can't understand 
 the Laird. I should have said he was the 
 very last man in the world to bother about 
 the off-chance of a mishap." 
 
 " It's not very likely," Leslie admitted. 
 " But time will show, so it's no use troubling." 
 
 " So here you are at last," shouted Moray 
 when they came within hail ; and both the
 
 "YOURS for life or death." 61 
 
 young men were astonished to observe that 
 their good-natured host and uncle was decid- 
 edly flushed and choleric. " Here you are, 
 after keeping the household in hot water 
 through half the night, and rousing some of 
 us from our beds in the middle of our beauty- 
 sleep." 
 
 Yenables, although ordinarily imperturb- 
 able, was slightly taken aback for once. It 
 was quite a new experience of his uncle, whom, 
 as he flattered himself, he already knew pretty, 
 well. However, the next words of Mr Moray 
 enlightened him. 
 
 "Your cousin Grace arrived yesterday even- 
 ing, and I do believe she was up and about 
 with daybreak." 
 
 Venables whistled in silent soliloquy. Here 
 was the solution of the riddle, and a wonder- 
 ful instance of the power of paternal affection. 
 " The revolution in our ways of life is begin- 
 ning with a vengeance, and in this domestic 
 breeze." And he added to himself with philo- 
 sophical resignation, " I knew that girl would 
 be a nuisance ; and if I'm sorry, I can't say 
 I'm surprised." Then recollecting himself, 
 after congratulating her father with an em-
 
 62 fortune's wheel. 
 
 presseme?it rather at variance with his real 
 feelings, he hastened to speak of yesterday's 
 escape, and was eloquent in his expressions of 
 gratitude. He warmed as he spoke with deep 
 feeling, and at another time he might have 
 made sure of an attentive listener. But now 
 Moray was almost as impatient as Leslie, 
 who tried repeatedly to cut the story short. 
 Moray was eager to hasten back and relieve 
 his daughter's anxieties ; and by common con- 
 sent the pair of craigsmen slackened their 
 pace, leaving their uncle to go forward and 
 announce their arrival. 
 
 The immediate upshot of the affair was to 
 place the meeting of the cousins on an easier 
 and more cordial footing than a longer ac- 
 quaintance might have done. Grace had a 
 placid nature, or at least a naturally sweet 
 temperament, which went far towards keep- 
 ing her quiet and calm under any circum- 
 stances. But she had a lively imagination as 
 well. She may have been fatigued by the 
 journey, and instead of sleeping soundly as 
 usual, she had passed a restless and anxious 
 night. Her feelings had been overstrung 
 in picturing all manner of distressing casual-
 
 "YOURS FOR LIFE OR DEATH." 63 
 
 ties — follies, as she tried to assure herself, 
 which she had been ashamed to acknow- 
 ledge to her father. But when she saw him 
 hurrying home unaccompanied, she had made 
 up her mind for the worst ; and the reaction 
 was as great as the relief, when she knew that 
 her fears were unfounded. Profound thank- 
 fulness made her suddenly light-hearted again; 
 and when the younger gentlemen were passing 
 the gate of the short approach, her high spirits 
 of the day before were more buoyant for their 
 temporary depression. 
 
 It would have been difficult to imagine a 
 prettier picture than that of the bright grace- 
 ful figure in the doorway of the grim old 
 house. And closer observation only brought 
 out new beauties, as both Venables and Leslie 
 were fain to admit. Their recollections, as 
 they had seen her last, were of a tall, un- 
 gainly, and rather forward school-girl ; while 
 Moray, in answer to requests that had been 
 by no means over-urgent, had refused to show 
 his young friends her photograph, on the 
 ground that no photographer had done her 
 justice. 
 
 There the fond father was right. • Jack
 
 64 fortune's wheel. 
 
 Venables's first impression was one of un- 
 qualified admiration ; and then and there he 
 abjured the abominable heresy that the pres- 
 ence of his cousin could be anything but a 
 gain. His second thoughts were as natural, 
 if less romantic ; and he remembered that he 
 had passed the night upon the hills without 
 the means of paying attention to his toilet. 
 To tell the truth, though without the more 
 regular beauty of his friend's features, he was 
 really a very good-looking young fellow, and 
 need not have greatly troubled himself on 
 that score. There are lanky-haired men who 
 can never show to advantage unless they 
 carry a pocket-comb and a stick of cosmetic 
 about with them. As for Venables, he curled 
 slightly like a well-bred spaniel, and could 
 dispense with brush and comb upon occasion ; 
 the open collar of his flannel shirt set off a 
 well-shaped neck to advantage, and the folds 
 of a well-hung kilt did justice to his active 
 figure ; while a morning plunge in the cold 
 depths of Lochrosque had effaced every sign 
 of fatigue and over -excitement. And the 
 more portly Leslie, who, moreover, had never 
 a trace of self-consciousness about him, carried
 
 65 
 
 himself naturally with an easy and high-bred 
 air, that rose superior and indifferent to ex- 
 ternal circumstances. He would have looked 
 the gentleman all the same, either in the 
 solemn dignity of a Court suit and ruffles, 
 or unpacked from the miscellaneous contents 
 of a third - class carriage after a through- 
 journey by oriental express from Calais to 
 Constantinople. 
 
 First impressions go for a great deal after 
 all, and in this case the first impressions were 
 mutually agreeable. Of course I do not mean 
 to hint for a moment that Miss Moray fell in 
 love at first sight with either of her cousins, 
 and far less with both of them. All I say is, 
 that she saw no just cause or impediment why 
 she should not feel for both, or either, the 
 warmest cousinly regard. As for the young 
 men, I should be sorry to speak so con- 
 fidently. Jack Yenables was impressionable, 
 and he knew it ; and falling in love at first 
 sight, on smaller provocation, was no very 
 novel sensation with him. "While Leslie, who 
 had no experiences of the kind, and whose 
 processes of thought were rather sure than 
 swift, would have been incapable, in his in- 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 66 fortune's wheel. 
 
 nocent ignorance, of analysing any similar 
 impulse. 
 
 " Now make haste and shift yourselves, my 
 good boys, as we say in these parts," ex- 
 claimed Moray, entirely himself again, and 
 beaming all over with cordiality. " Grace 
 ought never to have such a chance again 
 of knowing what is meant by Highland 
 appetites." 
 
 The good boys responded nobly to the 
 appeal. The broiled trout and the kippered 
 salmon vanished as by enchantment. Bacon 
 followed, crisp from the fender, arranged 
 before the glowing fire of peat that corrected 
 the freshness of the air from the open win- 
 dows. Justice was done to a certain savoury 
 grill ; and some eggs were thrown in casually 
 to fill the chinks, before the party proceeded 
 to trifle with oatcakes, barley scones, and pre- 
 serves. Glenconan himself gave his nephews 
 a lead across the table, making occasional 
 casts by the sideboard and fireplace ; while 
 Grace, who was a maiden of mortal mould, 
 kept the three gentlemen modestly in coun- 
 tenance. She was blessed with a healthy 
 appetite, and felt no false scruples as to
 
 "yours for life or death. 5 ' 67 
 
 satisfying it. But when the meal was draw- 
 ing to a close, and the men were inlaying with 
 their teacups, Moray lay back in his chair and 
 begged Venables to resume his story. 
 
 " The fact is," he remarked in brief apology, 
 "that, being bothered over Grace, who was 
 worrying herself very foolishly, I fear I cut 
 you uncivilly short. You see, I saw you were 
 both sound in wind and limb ; and had it not 
 been for her, I don't think I should have 
 troubled about you. If Jack had gone alone 
 upon his madcap expedition, I don't say. But 
 I thought that Ralph there had him in lead- 
 ing-strings, and would be sure to bring him 
 back safe." 
 
 " I don't know about his holding me in 
 leading-strings," broke in Mr Venables, im- 
 petuously. " I fear you overrate his influence 
 on my foolhardiness. But I can tell you this, 
 that had it not been for his pluck and pres- 
 ence of mind — for his deliberately exposing 
 himself to almost inevitable destruction — I 
 should never have come back except upon 
 a stretcher, and I doubt greatly whether even 
 Donald would have dared to go down and pick 
 up the pieces. It was an ugly place " — as he
 
 68 fortune's wheel. 
 
 spoke, he shuddered — " and it will be long 
 before I forgive myself for risking such a life 
 as Ralph's by my own absurd and pig-headed 
 folly." 
 
 Leslie, embarrassed for once, was blushing 
 like a girl, as Moray got up to slap him on 
 the shoulder, with a blow that expressed the 
 strength of his feelings. Grace sat behind 
 the tea-urn with flushed face and swimming 
 eyes, looking from one to the other of the 
 young men with infinite kindness and admir- 
 ation. Venables for one moment would have 
 given a good deal if the exciting story could 
 have been told the other way, and if he had 
 been figuring there in the role of saviour. 
 But he hastened to dismiss the unworthy 
 thought ; if it did flit across his mind, the 
 story gained in the telling thereby. He had 
 the gifts of a raconteur : he put the situations 
 dramatically ; he painted his own feelings of 
 self-abandonment and despair; he did not 
 even spare himself the imputations of cow- 
 ardice as the earth was swimming before his 
 eyes and his thoughts went whirling wildly 
 towards eternity. Then he imagined Leslie's 
 chivalrous resolution of se]f-sacrifice with the
 
 69 
 
 quick intuition that belonged to him, and 
 described the courage he had himself drawn 
 in his extremity from contact with the 
 stronger and more heroic temperament. 
 
 "Coming over the cliff was comparatively 
 nothing," he concluded. " It was the sort of 
 thing any fellow was bound to do, rather 
 than go back alone and admit that he had not 
 tried it ; but having clone so much, I believe 
 ninety - nine out of a hundred would have 
 only thought of how they were to get back 
 again, and they, with the hundredth, would 
 have been puzzled to manage it. I daresay 
 Leslie loves his life as much as another, and 
 }^et he never gave a thought to it while mine 
 was in peril. He was cooler when making a 
 balustrade of himself between me and the 
 abyss, and trying to scrape a foothold for 
 the pair of us with his nailed shooting-boots, 
 than he is as he sits behind his teacup, wish- 
 ing himself anywhere else." 
 
 A peroration which gave Leslie the longed- 
 for pretext for proposing an adjournment for 
 a pipe at the kennels. Nor was Miss Moray 
 very sorry to be left alone, in a state between 
 smiling and crying. Seriously inclining her
 
 70 fortune's wheel. 
 
 pretty ear, like Desclemona, she had been 
 strongly moved by Jack's animated tale, sym- 
 pathising almost less with his hairbreadth 
 escape than with his generous manner of 
 narrating it. And on the other hand, like 
 Eebecca in ' Ivanhoe,' Venables had been 
 " painting a hero," and the hero had been 
 sitting modestly beside her. She could 
 hardly say which of her cousins had inter- 
 ested her most ; she only knew that she felt 
 herself strongly attracted towards both of 
 them.
 
 71 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A PLEASANT SURPRISE. 
 
 It seems a pity that the novelist cannot intro- 
 duce something like the chorus of the Greek 
 play, or refer the reader to explanations in an 
 appendix, for the succinct narration of those 
 preliminary details which are indispensable to 
 the understanding of his story. But sooner 
 or later the reader must be troubled with 
 them, and it is as well to trouble him soon 
 and get it over. Born to a long pedigree and 
 a broad inheritance of barren acres seriously 
 embarrassed, David Moray, as a very young 
 man, had been offered a chance of pushing his 
 fortunes in the Tropics. It was a time when 
 the oriental pagoda - trees bore richer fruit 
 than now, or at least when there were far 
 fewer Europeans to shake them. If there 
 were grander prizes to be gained, there were
 
 72 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 greater clangers and hardships to be faced 
 when the adventurer turned aside from the 
 beaten tracks. Kesolute, persevering, and 
 prematurely self-reliant, young Moray was 
 as much tempted by the hazards as by the 
 prizes. His father, with the proverbial cau- 
 tion of the Scot, waited till his son had a 
 certain experience. Then an additional mort- 
 gage on the Grlenconan estates furnished him 
 with a moderate capital. Perhaps the old 
 gentleman might have been less freehanded 
 had he known more of his son's disposition. 
 David's daring speculations would have made 
 his father shudder. The young adventurer 
 had taken good introductions with him, and 
 his pleasant ways made him powerful friends 
 among members of the great English firms in 
 the ports of China and the Malay Peninsula, 
 He was always a welcome guest at their 
 tables ; he might apparently have lived in 
 luxurious free quarters for the duration of 
 his natural life. Those of the merchants who 
 were sportsmen had him in special affection ; 
 and nowhere are friendships more quickly 
 cemented than in sporting-parties in the soli- 
 tudes of the rice-swamps or the jungles. But
 
 A PLEASANT SURPEISE. 73 
 
 Moray was the last man in the world to " sorn," 
 as they say in Scotland — that is, to sponge 
 upon friends. He was too full of energy, too 
 set upon arriving at his ends, too home-sick, 
 we may add — though the word scarcely ex- 
 presses our meaning — to linger on the cir- 
 cuitous road that was to lead him back to 
 Glenconan and a competency. Eecreation in 
 the way of wild sports came to him naturally ; 
 for the rest, he never relaxed when he could 
 help it, save when there was nothing profit- 
 able to be done, or else to serve some definite 
 purpose. Those pleasant evenings over the 
 social board formed business as well as friendly 
 connections. The chats at the bivouac by the 
 forest -fire suggested many a topic of com- 
 mercial interest. A partner of no firm in 
 particular, Moray became the ally and agent 
 of many besides the one that had trained him. 
 The custom regulations of China were severe ; 
 the contraband trade was immensely lucrative ; 
 European opinion was sufficiently lax on the 
 subject : and yet there were many gainful 
 affairs that were too compromising to be 
 lightly undertaken by the old established 
 houses. Not a few of these transactions were
 
 74 fortune's wheel. 
 
 put in Moray's way, when he had once given 
 guarantees of his discretion and enterprise. 
 No one cared to inquire how far he was 
 agent or principal. What was certain was, 
 that Fortune stood his friend ; and he be- 
 came notorious as much for good-luck as for 
 ability. Having repeatedly steered his frail 
 skiff in safety through the breakers, he 
 launched a vessel on his own account, and 
 mustered a crew. In other words, he finally 
 came out as a full-fledged merchant, with 
 agents at the Formosa Islands, and Singa- 
 pore, and sundry of the Malay towns. For 
 himself, he was here, there, and everywhere : 
 the servants — whom he well knew how to 
 choose, besides — could scarcely play him false, 
 since his visits of supervision came off when 
 they were least expected. So far he had the 
 special gift of a M. de Lesseps, that he had 
 the knack of establishing a friendly ascend- 
 ancy over native potentates. He was under- 
 stood to be hand in glove with not a few of 
 the rajahs and sultans, and more than once 
 his good offices and shrewd diplomacy had 
 been of considerable service to the British 
 authorities.
 
 A PLEASANT SURPRISE. 75 
 
 He was known to be rich ; and it was said 
 that he might have been richer, had it not 
 been for his occasional flying trips to Scot- 
 land. And in the days when sailing-vessels 
 and steamers made the circuit of the Cape, 
 those visits were more serious affairs than 
 they would be nowadays. But Moray, like 
 Walter Scott, was wont to say that he must 
 have died had he not occasionally breathed 
 the air off the heather ; while as it was, he 
 had kept himself in admirable health, with an 
 appetite that was as sound as his heart and his 
 liver. During one of his furloughs, he had 
 buried his father in Glenconan kirkyard, 
 after having; brightened the old man's cle- 
 clining years by relieving the estates of the 
 last of their encumbrances. During another 
 trip, and nearly twenty years before our 
 story opens, he had married a wife, the 
 daughter of a Sussex squire, and persuaded 
 her to share his wandering fortunes — a step 
 to which her family were the more willing 
 to assent, that the young lady had but little 
 fortune of her own. The marriage was only 
 too happy while it lasted. To his intense 
 grief, poor Moray lost his wife by an epi-
 
 76 fortune's wheel. 
 
 demic, just as, being reclaimed and thor- 
 oughly domesticated, he had resolved to 
 realise his property and come home. He 
 never ceased to regret that he had not acted 
 on the determination a year before. As it 
 was, he threw himself into trade pursuits 
 more energetically than ever, sending the 
 little daughter his wife had left him to be 
 nursed under the wing of a grand-aunt. He 
 was relieved to be rid of the child, yet very 
 loath to part with it — for already it had the 
 smile and the eyes of its mother. 
 
 With the separation, his more tender feel- 
 ings had it all their own way, and thence- 
 forward he had another attraction to England. 
 Latterly those flying home-trips of his, if they 
 were more brief, became more frequent, especi- 
 ally after the opening of the Suez Canal. He 
 had fixed the period of his final return at the age 
 when his daughter ought to be " coming out "; 
 and in the meantime he knew that she was in 
 good hands. Old Miss Venables was a soft- 
 hearted but sensible spinster, who had missed 
 her vocation in not marrying. Her bright 
 little grandniece was even more of a godsend 
 than the very handsome annuity her brother-
 
 A PLEASANT SUKPPJSE. 77 
 
 in-law settled on her. She devoted herself to 
 her young charge. As Grace grew up, she 
 engaged her an excellent governess : and the 
 three females saw a good deal of the world in 
 a quiet way, changing their residences from 
 Bath to Brighton, from Clifton to Scarborough; 
 and varying the pleasant life with an occa- 
 sional excursion to the Continent. 
 
 "Grace is petted, of course," the old lady 
 used to say ; " and perhaps I spoil her a little. 
 I'm sure I don't know ; and I don't think she 
 generally abuses her influence. But it strikes 
 me that, though she is kind enough to talk 
 matters over fairly, she always contrives to 
 have her way in the end." 
 
 Which proposition Grace, if she were pres- 
 ent, would pleasantly dispose of with smiles 
 and kisses. Possibly being too honest to deny 
 it, she preferred to waive the point. As for her 
 father, he was quite satisfied with the manner 
 of her education. 
 
 " I don't fancy you will find it very easy to 
 spoil her ; and at all events, I give you liberty 
 to try." 
 
 And as he stroked her fair hair, and looked 
 in her frank eyes with proud confidence, the
 
 78 fortune's wheel. 
 
 girl probably felt that she was put upon her 
 honour. At all events, any spoiling was only 
 skin-deep ; and she grew up the most indul- 
 gent of domestic tyrants. 
 
 The sudden death of her aunt, which took 
 place about eighteen months before her ap- 
 pearance at Glenconan, was a sad shock. It 
 was somewhat softened by her finding a tem- 
 porary refuge under the roof of another old 
 friend ; for her governess had just married a 
 Protestant pasteur at Pau, where she offered 
 all the advantages of a home to half-a-dozen 
 young English ladies. There she was to await 
 her father's return. 
 
 The death of Miss Venables, on whom he 
 had devolved his paternal responsibilities, ne- 
 cessarily precipitated Moray's arrangements. 
 He set to work to wind up with characteristic 
 energy. As he explained to his daughter 
 afterwards — "The thing had to be done, and 
 there was little time to stand on the manner 
 of doing it. So I snapped a thread here, and 
 cut a tangle there ; and if there were knots, I 
 untied them with my teeth or my fingers." 
 
 And when Grace remarked that she feared 
 he must have sacrificed something considerable
 
 A PLEASANT SURPRISE. 79 
 
 to his precipitation, he only answered, with a 
 laugh, that if he came home with a trifle less 
 money than he might have done, nevertheless 
 she would be very satisfactorily tochered ! 
 " Which isn't at all, papa, what I meant, as 
 you know." 
 
 Not even the most intimate of his mercan- 
 tile connections knew anything of the exact 
 amount of his wealth, for Moray never made 
 unnecessary confidences. But it was certain 
 that his only daughter, by her fortune, as by 
 her looks and her birth, ought to be free to 
 pick and choose among all manner of eligible 
 suitors. 
 
 Miss Moray was generally good - humour 
 itself — she had the happy gift of looking on 
 the bright side of things ; and indeed, with 
 the sad exception of her recent bereavement, 
 life had hitherto almost invariably smiled on 
 her. But for once Miss Moray was irritable 
 and out of sorts ; and the consciousness of that 
 unchristian phenomenon fretted her, so that 
 her last state was far worse than the first, — so 
 much so, that her good friend Madame Eob- 
 ineau had proposed a consultation with the
 
 80 fortune's wheel. 
 
 doctor. The bare suggestion of such an ab- 
 surdity did Miss Moray good, and for the first 
 time for several days she actually burst out 
 laughing. 
 
 " I don't believe I've seen a doctor since I 
 had the whooping-cough ; and I am sure, in 
 my present state of health, I am quite unfit for 
 the interview. To face a doctor, one should 
 be thoroughly robust. If you had spoken of 
 a change of scene now, there might be some- 
 thing in that ; and in any case, it would save 
 your carpets. I feel as if there were quick- 
 silver in my veins, and as if the chair-cushions 
 were catapults. Perhaps you may have re- 
 marked my restlessness," she added, innocently. 
 
 " I have indeed, my dear ; and so has 
 Adolphe," answered Madame Eobineau, so 
 plaintively that Grace again rippled over in 
 laughter. " And I do believe that a few days 
 at the Eaux-Chaudes will do you all the good 
 in the world. I don't mind giving myself 
 a little holiday ; and I daresay Adolphe can 
 manage to join us on Monday, and offer us 
 his escort back. But I must say, my dear, 
 it is excessively foolish to make yourself so 
 unnecessarily uneasy about your father. You
 
 A PLEASANT SUKPFJSE. 81 
 
 know as well as I, that he troubles the doctors 
 as little as yourself; though, to tell the truth," 
 she added, incautiously, "I think Mr Moray 
 has been somewhat neglectful." 
 
 For her father's most unusual silence was 
 the grief from which Grace was suffering. As 
 a rule, and under all circumstances, he had 
 invariably written once a- week, although some- 
 times his letters might be delayed, and two or 
 three of them delivered together. But since 
 the latest arrival, full five weeks had elapsed ; 
 and so Miss Moray was uneasy, irritable, and 
 indignant. She had blamed his neglect, that 
 she might calm her anxiety ; but she never 
 endured the slightest imputation on him from 
 another, as Madame might well have known 
 had she reflected. 
 
 " You may be quite sure, Madame Kobineau, 
 that Mr Moray has good reasons for w^hat he 
 does ; and for all we know to the contrary, he 
 may be any distance away in the jungles. 
 You speak as if he were living in Pau or Paris, 
 where there are always letter-boxes round the 
 corner, and telegraph stations over the way." 
 
 Madame was quick to read the unwonted 
 storm-signals. It was rarely Grace spoke of 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 her father as "Mr Moray"; and, moreover, 
 they had been perpetually discussing during 
 the last fortnight all conceivable contingencies 
 that might have caused the delay. So she 
 wisely waived the question and changed the 
 subject, and the expedition to the Eaux- 
 Chaudes was duly carried out. It did not 
 prove much of a specific. Grace continued to 
 be restless and preoccupied. It was the more 
 disquieting in one whose natural temperament 
 was placid ; and Madame Eobineau, becoming 
 seriously uneasy, watched for letters almost as 
 eagerly as her charge. 
 
 The reverend pastor had given himself leave 
 from his flock on the Monday morning, arriv- 
 ing at the Eaux-Chaudes in time to accompany 
 the ladies on a drive to Gabas. They had 
 come back to a substantial tea ; and it was 
 one of the consequences of Grace's feminine 
 upbringing that she had rather a liking for 
 that most objectionable meal, and usually did 
 it ample justice. But on this particular even- 
 ing the mountain air had affected her as little 
 as the mountain scenery. She showed herself 
 as indifferent to the cutlets and the trout as 
 to the snow-covered summits, and the black
 
 A PLEASANT SURPRISE. 83 
 
 pine-woods, and to the green waters rushing 
 under the rocks and through the thickets of 
 natural box-shrubberies. And yet, as if she 
 had not had enough of communing with 
 nature, when she rose from the table she left 
 her friends to a conjugal tete-a-tete, and went 
 off for a solitary ramble down the valley. 
 Though she tripped lightly away, she did not 
 walk very far. At the first sharp turn, she 
 stepped aside from the precipitous road, and 
 seated herself upon a moss -cushioned stone 
 hanging over the bed of the torrent. 
 
 I have given a very false idea of my heroine 
 if I have represented her as in any way lacka- 
 daisical. Few young ladies were less given to 
 melancholy moods ; though, as with all finely 
 strung and somewhat romantic natures, many 
 of her most enjoyable moments were tinctured 
 with sadness. But now the dimpled chin 
 went down into the slender hand, memory 
 and imagination were away together upon a 
 roving commission ; and to any artist survey- 
 ing the meditative maiden from above and 
 behind, she might have sat for a Niobe or an 
 image of La Pensevosa. 
 
 I do not profess to follow her thoughts —
 
 84 fortune's wheel. 
 
 and indeed they were so fantastically absurd 
 as to be hardly worth the following. All that 
 can be said in extenuation is, that she had 
 been growing less and less like her sensible 
 self for a fortnight past. She had lunched 
 indifferently, she had starved herself at tea ; 
 and so, like some of the solitary hermits of 
 the Thebaic! after their severe and prolonged 
 fasts, she saw strange visions and she dreamed 
 wild dreams. Considering that Mr Moray 
 was " hard as nails," that the manifold ex- 
 periences of many adventurous years had 
 proved him to bear something like a charmed 
 life, the tremendous situations in which she 
 figured him did infinite credit to the vivacity 
 of her imagination. Could she have counted 
 upon such fancies coming to her call, she 
 might have composed a new series of the 
 ' Arabian Nights.' But her father's own 
 stories and letters from the East had sup- 
 plied the materials and the colouring. He 
 was being caught in the coils of a gigantic 
 anaconda, and being drawn out in ribbons 
 like the metal that is meant for an Armstrong 
 gun. He was being held to ransom by a 
 truculent Malay chief, who had confined him
 
 A PLEASANT SURPRISE. 85 
 
 in a cage of split bamboo, with a view to 
 ordering him off to execution after a course 
 of preparatory torture. His vessel was be- 
 calmed, and he was beset by pirates, with 
 the tints of a native crew turning unnaturally 
 yellow behind the boarding-nettings, while the 
 fleet of sweep-impelled proas was ajDproaching 
 hand over hand. Struck down by the jungle- 
 fever or the cholera — she did not pretend to 
 give the precise diagnosis of the disease — he 
 was tossing in a grass hammock, clutching 
 vainly at a water -jar, while his negligent 
 attendant had gone sound asleep. That is 
 scarcely a fair outline of the commonplaces 
 which her fancy richly embroidered ; but 
 something like the last of these pictures had 
 struck her so pathetically, that her agitation 
 relieved itself in stifled sobs. 
 
 And then — the mania for devising surprises 
 must have run in the family — and then she 
 was startled from her melting dream by a 
 hand being gently laid upon her shoulder. 
 While her spirit had gone fluttering from the 
 Pyrenees to the Tropics, it had missed the 
 very individual it went in search of. A 
 hale elderly gentleman, apparently in perfect
 
 86 fortune's wheel. 
 
 health and excellent spirits, having rounded 
 the sharp corner of the road, had paused to 
 take breath and admire the landscape. What 
 struck him most and at once, was the grace- 
 ful figure in the foreground. The pose was 
 sad, no doubt ; but when he had wiped his 
 forehead and rubbed his eyes, he showed 
 anything rather than the appropriate sym- 
 pathy. On the contrary, his pleasant though 
 rugged features were lighted up by a sudden 
 illumination, as if they had caught the last 
 glowing reflection of the setting sun. Then 
 the radiance gave place to a grin of self-sat- 
 isfaction, as of a boy who saw his way to a 
 capital joke. The dignified pedestrian cast a 
 conscious look about him, as if to make quite 
 certain that he was not observed. Next bal- 
 ancing himself on tiptoe like an elderly faun 
 who had latterly fallen back upon looking 
 on at the forest-dances, he stepped softly 
 forward, as if treading among sword -blades, 
 and his hand had come down on the dreamer's 
 shoulder. 
 
 When a gentleman long past middle life 
 indulges in something like a practical joke, he 
 deserves to pay the penalty. Moray cursed
 
 A PLEASANT SURPRISE. 87 
 
 his burst of boyishness from the bottom of 
 his heart when he saw his daughter spring up 
 with streaming eyes, start back, and turn 
 paler if possible than before. In her state of 
 exaltation, and with the dash of superstition 
 in her Highland blood, she may have fancied 
 for the moment that she saw the Doppelganger 
 of the parent whose death or sufferings she had 
 just been bemoaning. Grace had never fainted 
 in her life ; but now she might have yielded 
 to the weakness and sunk down, had she not 
 been caught in a pair of strong arms. The 
 firm grasp did more to bring her to herself 
 than the strongest smelling-salts or sal-volatile. 
 Like a sensible girl as she was, she called her 
 courage to her aid, and dismissed her terrors 
 with her idle dreams. Five minutes more, 
 and she was the Grace who had been more or 
 less present to him, sleeping and waking, in 
 restless nights on the Indian Ocean and the 
 Reel Sea, as in Pullman cars between Brindisi 
 and Paris. 
 
 "After all," he exclaimed, as they stopped 
 for about the twentieth time in their slow 
 saunter towards the hotel, after exchanging 
 the fullest explanations for mutual affectionate
 
 88 fortune's wheel. 
 
 reproaches — " after all, my penitence is already 
 almost a thing of the past, and I hardly regret 
 the boyish trick I played you." 
 
 "Then I am sure you ought to repent it, 
 sir," she answered, lightly ; " and you must 
 not begin by taking advantage of my forgiv- 
 ing disposition." 
 
 " No, I don't think I regret it," he went on 
 reflectively, speaking rather to himself than 
 to her, as he returned the warm pressure of 
 her fingers. "You see I hoped, indeed I 
 knew, that you cared about me ; but we had 
 been so far apart and for so long. It would 
 have been only natural had you felt nothing 
 much warmer than friendship for a prodigal 
 father who must have seemed strangely ne- 
 glectful. Now I know better, and for the 
 future we understand each other." 
 
 "I should think so, indeed; as if any 
 understanding had been necessary ! A pro- 
 digal father ! and neglectful ! What of the 
 many letters I missed so much, that, in miss- 
 ing them, for the first time you made me 
 miserable ? not to speak of the presents that 
 fell in showers on me as on Madame Eobineau 
 and dear aunt Venables. Why, sir, do you
 
 A PLEASANT SURPRISE. 89 
 
 know, we always regarded you as something 
 between the Good Genius who keeps the 
 keys of enchanted treasure-chambers, and the 
 mighty men of the East who never travelled 
 without spices and apes and peacocks." 
 
 Miss Moray's quotations had got rather 
 mixed, between the Magi and King Solomon 
 and the Queen of Sheba. But then she was 
 talking volubly for talking's sake, in case her 
 feelings should again get the better of her; 
 and they were standing full in sight of the 
 hotel windows — for which reason she did not 
 answer her father with an embrace, which was 
 the kind of coin in which he best liked to be 
 paid for those gifts of his. But as he had 
 said, they had already come to an under- 
 standing ; so it did not so much matter. He 
 quite understood what was passing in her 
 mind, and changed the subject accordingly. 
 
 " Talking of scents and spices and apes, there 
 are no end of sandal- wood things coming round 
 by Gibraltar for you, and I left a monkey in 
 charge of my servant at the Louvre in Paris. 
 I picked him up from a lascar on board the 
 Jumna, when I struck a boat-hook into his 
 hide, and saved him from a watery grave.
 
 90 fortune's wheel. 
 
 There was something in his eyes that reminded 
 me of you, and so I bought him for the family 
 likeness. I don't know how the resemblance 
 may strike you ; it is rather in the expres- 
 sion, perhaps, than in any regularity of 
 features." 
 
 " Merci pour le compliment, mon pere" said 
 the young lady, curtseying gracefully ; and 
 when she ushered him into the sitting-room, 
 all traces of emotion had disappeared, except 
 perhaps for a slightly heightened complexion. 
 
 " Ah ! mademoiselle then has found the phy- 
 sician my wife prayed her to see," remarked M. 
 Eobineau gallantly, after compliments of cere- 
 mony had been exchanged with the distin- 
 guished arrival. " And found her appetite 
 again," he might have added ; for at the in- 
 viting little supper which was quickly impro- 
 vised, Grace kept her father very creditably 
 in countenance. It was a pleasant meal, both 
 to performers and lookers-on ; nor did the 
 party separate very early. Madame and her 
 husband would have discreetly withdrawn, 
 leaving the newly united relatives to their 
 caresses and their confidences. But Moray 
 would not hear of it. He thought his daughter
 
 A PLEASANT SURPRISE, 91 
 
 had gone through enough in the way of emo- 
 tion for the time, and fancied that the best 
 preparation for sending her soundly to sleep 
 would be to amuse and distract her in the 
 meantime. M. Kobineau, who was blessed with 
 an inquiring mind, was ready enough to listen 
 and ask leading questions. And Moray, when 
 fairly warmed to the work, astounded the 
 stay-at-home pastor with his stores of pictur- 
 esque information. Grace had never seen her 
 father figure to such advantage ; and as she 
 had a considerable opinion of M. Kobineau 's 
 intellect, she revelled in that gentleman's re- 
 spectful admiration. 
 
 " It was as if he had conjured up the spectacle 
 or the farce, which our principles can never 
 permit us," he observed to his wife in the re- 
 tirement of their sleeping-chamber. " It was 
 as a melange of the travels of Marco Polo with 
 the extravagances of M. Jules Verne. And 
 what an air grand seigneur with it all, though 
 his manners are as simple as his dress was 
 slightly soigne. Ah, how cette chere Mees 
 Grace ought to be happy!" 
 
 To which Madame, who had been scarcely 
 less enthusiastic, sleepily but cordially assent-
 
 92 fortune's wheel. 
 
 ed. For Moray's frank face, and the dignified 
 ease of his manner, as well as the modesty with 
 which he touched on any personal adventures, 
 were admirably fitted to ingratiate him with 
 the ladies.
 
 93 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 COUSINLY AFFECTIONS. 
 
 When M. Robineau had bid adieu to the nabob 
 and grand seigneur, he expressed even more 
 unqualified admiration than on their first ac- 
 quaintance. And with good reason, for, as he 
 gratefully remarked, " On ne pourrait pas etre 
 plus genereux." The mighty man of the East 
 had been lavish of his gifts to the " temple " 
 in which the worthy pastor ministered, and 
 he had made Madame Robineau magnificent 
 offers to induce her to devote herself for a 
 month to his daughter. The weather was be- 
 coming too hot to make Pau a desirable place 
 of residence ; and it was arranged that Grace 
 was to pass a month under Madame's wing 
 between the Baths in the mountains and 
 Biarritz. 
 
 " Why don't you take me with you ? " she
 
 94 fortune's wheel. 
 
 demanded, not unnaturally. " I thought it 
 was agreed that we were to be inseparable for 
 the future." 
 
 " So I hope we shall be, my dear — till " 
 
 " Till when ? " 
 
 ' ' Well, till it pleases you to change your 
 name, Miss Moray, which seems a contingency 
 we are both bound to contemplate." 
 
 Miss Moray laughed, and vowed eternal 
 constancy or celibacy with a semi-comic seri- 
 ousness that by no means carried conviction. 
 With all her filial love, it was quite in her 
 mind to give her father a rival sooner or later. 
 Then she returned to the point in dispute, and 
 pressed her company with a pleading eloquence 
 that, as she said, should have touched a heart 
 of stone. But her father was obdurate, for 
 reasons best known to himself, and defended 
 his resolution with flattering sophistries. 
 
 " Were it not that we were to be so soon 
 reunited, my dear, nothing would induce me 
 to leave you. But you will know some time, 
 that few things are so enjoyable in life as 
 dallying in anticipation with pleasures that 
 seem certainties. Not that I have not carried 
 that too far occasionally. I have sat looking
 
 COUSINLY AFFECTIONS. 95 
 
 at a basket of mangosteens in sultry weather, 
 till the moment had gone by when they could 
 be eaten in perfection. I have watched the 
 tigress playing with her cubs in the jungle, 
 till something suddenly scared her, and I 
 missed the shot." 
 
 "Your instances tell against your argument, 
 and your honesty is too much for you," his 
 daughter rejoined, very pertinently. But there 
 was no shaking his fixed determination, so she 
 could only sigh and resign herself. 
 
 After all, what had much influenced his de- 
 cision was his impatience to have done with 
 the past and begin afresh with the future. 
 Grace in England would have fettered his 
 movements ; he would always have been dis- 
 sipating with her or dangling after her. As it 
 was, he went to work indefatigably to finish 
 the winding up of his Eastern affairs and put 
 everything in train. He sought satisfactory 
 investments for his capital ; he made a variety 
 of indispensable purchases, buying horses and 
 hill-carriages, and new batteries of guns ; he 
 sent upholsterers to set Glenconan in order, 
 and engaged a suitable staff of servants. When 
 the princess came down to her hereditary do-
 
 96 fortune's wheel. 
 
 mains, she should find everything in tolerable 
 order. He had thought of buying a house in 
 town, and of having Glenconan entirely fur- 
 nished and decorated. But the latter feat was 
 almost impossible in the time, even had he 
 given carte hlanche a la Monte Christo ; and 
 he knew, besides, that if he wished to pay 
 Grace a compliment and give her pleasure, he 
 must leave everything to her taste, and throw 
 the troubles of shopping on her shoulders. 
 " What is fun to her would be misery to me," 
 remarked this excellent parent, and the reflec- 
 tion brought him infinite relief. 
 
 Had Mrs Moray been still in the body, the 
 small family-party that was to greet Grace 
 at Glenconan might have been differently 
 arranged. Here was a great heiress, inex- 
 perienced and unsophisticated, about to be 
 launched on English society. " She might 
 marry a duke," her proud father often said to 
 himself; and indeed there seemed no just 
 cause or impediment why she should not. 
 Besides the money which might come in 
 conveniently were she to marry a peer with a 
 nominally ample rent-roll, she was well-born, 
 well - bred, singularlv winning, and accom-
 
 COUSINLY AFFECTIONS. 97 
 
 plished to boot. For her accomplishments 
 came to her by intuition instead of education. 
 Like her cousin Jack, she drew and coloured 
 with a facility that marvellously resembled 
 genius. She would sit down to the piano and 
 rattle you off a fantasia of her own very 
 original conception. Brilliancy was brought 
 in in aid of feeling ; and in her intense though 
 unconscious strength of sympathetic abstrac- 
 tion, she threw her whole soul into the melo- 
 dious intonations. Though she had seldom 
 crossed the Border, she would warble some 
 plaintive Scotch air so as to bring tears to 
 the eyes of impressionable listeners ; and per- 
 haps nothing leads on to serious love -mak- 
 ing like mutual abandon in such emotional 
 moments. 
 
 Moray knew all that as well as anybody : 
 he was very much a man of the world, 
 although his days had been passed in the far 
 East ; and it certainly was not his way to 
 uncler-estimate the fascinations of his daugh- 
 ter. Yet he had deliberately chosen to throw 
 her into the company of a couple of cousins 
 who could scarcely be called eligible, although 
 well aware that at any moment an accident 
 
 vol. I. G
 
 98 fortune's wheel. 
 
 might happen, the consequences of which it 
 would be impossible to remedy. 
 
 For the two young gentlemen to whom the 
 reader has already been introduced were his 
 nephews — the one by marriage, the other by 
 blood. Leslie, whom he liked rather than 
 loved, was his sister's son, and proprietor of 
 a small estate in East -Lothian. Roodholm, 
 when the moderate jointure of the dowager 
 Mrs Leslie was deducted, might be worth 
 some £1200 per annum — certainly not more. 
 But Leslie, with his many estimable qualities, 
 was a man in whom Moray scarcely believed. 
 As he had been heard to remark once, when 
 touched in the liver, " That boy is doomed to 
 die in the fulness of years and reverence, after 
 wasting his days and frittering away his 
 opportunities. And the best reward for his 
 life of thoughtful benevolence would be living 
 to attend his own funeral, and listening to 
 the eulogies pronounced over his coffin. Yes, 
 Master Ralph is a thoroughly good fellow, and 
 a trustworthy; but " 
 
 In that somewhat depreciatory estimate, 
 perhaps Moray was mistaken, for the natures 
 of the uncle and nephew had little in common.
 
 COUSINLY AFFECTIONS. 9 9 
 
 Moray scarcely believed in the existence of 
 those qualities he admired, unless their pos- 
 sessor was perpetually showing certificates to 
 character in the shape of palpable evidences 
 of visible success. 
 
 As for Jack Venables, in all essential cir- 
 cumstances he was infinitely less eligible than 
 Leslie. The nephew of Moray's wife, he was 
 the eldest son of a highly respectable Sussex 
 rector, who was, besides, a canon of Chichester 
 Cathedral. But the Church dignitary lived 
 nearly up to his means, and there would be 
 little to distribute among his numerous chil- 
 dren. Jack might be said to have no expec- 
 tations ; nor had he any of those specially 
 influential connections that almost hustle a 
 clever young fellow uphill. If the world was 
 his oyster, as he believed, it was for him to 
 find the knife to open it ; and he had been 
 sorely exercised over the choice of a profession. 
 He was in haste to arrive, and yet he longed 
 to linger — or at least to improve each shin- 
 ing hour, in the way of pleasure as well as 
 business. A life of aimless pleasure would 
 have been intolerable to him ; a life of richly 
 repaid monotony, or of dull isolation in some
 
 100 fortune's wheel. 
 
 back-of-the-world colony, would have been 
 even worse. He would have scouted a con- 
 sulship and an income of £3000, had such 
 gifts of Providence been on the cards, since 
 they would have involved exile and possessing 
 his soul in patience through a long course of 
 saving. Such a career as Moray's had been, 
 seemed altogether different. There was per- 
 petual excitement in it to make privations 
 almost pleasurable, with the chances of the 
 coups that carried you forward to wealth. 
 He honestly admired his uncle and his suc- 
 cess ; and had it occurred to the elder man to 
 place Yenables in his shoes when he retired, 
 the youth would have asked nothing better of 
 fortune. That, however, had not occurred to 
 Mr Moray ; and Jack, with his vague fancies 
 and indefinite future, seemed a singularly 
 impracticable subject. He might turn out 
 well or ill : he was the very man, according 
 to the Scotch saying, " to make a spoon or to 
 spoil a horn." For that very reason, perhaps, 
 Moray liked him ; and, what meant more in a 
 man of his shrewdness, he believed in him. 
 He thought Jack would be well worth a help- 
 ing hand, and that hand he was quite ready
 
 COUSINLY AFFECTIONS. 101 
 
 to extend. So it could hot have been without 
 due consideration that he threw the impe- 
 cunious but agreeable youth into familiar 
 relations with his pretty daughter. And 
 yet Grace's prospects caused him ceaseless 
 anxiety ; and he seldom thought of the for- 
 tune she was to inherit, without his usually 
 equable temper being ruffled. 
 
 But whatever the future might have in 
 store for the party at Glenconan, it was cer- 
 tain that they were thoroughly enjoying the 
 present. Grace had brought delightful weather 
 with her : balmy evenings and glorious sunsets 
 succeeded the bright and genial days. The 
 monkey that had been sent down from town 
 with the heavy baggage, having shaken off the 
 agues and shivering-fits that had oppressed 
 him during the rains, roamed verandah and 
 roofs like a chartered libertine, doing infinite 
 damage to the crockery and the flower-beds 
 when people's backs were turned. Grace had 
 taken him in warm affection ; and conse- 
 quently both her cousins courted him assidu- 
 ously, to the great development of the virtue 
 of self-control. There was little affectation 
 in that with Leslie, who was placid and long-
 
 102 fortune's wheel. 
 
 suffering, and whom all animals at once re- 
 cognised as a friend. But it was as good as a 
 bit of comedy to see Jack Venables instinc- 
 tively raise his hand for a cuff, or his foot for 
 a kick, smooth his ruffled eyebrows on second 
 thoughts, and fondly stroke the objectionable 
 animal, who probably repaid the caress with a 
 snarl or a snap. 
 
 And to Moray, who said nothing, though 
 little escaped him, "the monkey in the 
 family" meant a great deal. He saw that 
 both the cousins were, metaphorically, falling 
 at the feet of the heiress, though neither 
 might have acknowledged to himself how 
 much he had come to care for her. Yet he 
 looked on quietly, and let matters take their 
 course, as if the girl had been one of a dozen 
 daughters. 
 
 There was another individual who looked 
 on quietly too, seeing more than the young 
 lady, or his master, or anybody else suspected. 
 Donald Ross had vowed eternal devotion, and 
 had already made decided inroads on her 
 heart. She was frequently with him in the 
 outhouse, where he employed his leisure in 
 busking flies for the streams and lochs, or
 
 COUSINLY AFFECTIONS. 103 
 
 knocking up grouse-boxes for the forthcoming 
 shooting season. It was Donald who led her 
 pony on expeditions into the hills, and found 
 endless subjects of conversation with which 
 to entertain her. He dwelt particularly on 
 the reminiscences of those tenants of the Glen 
 who had been shipped to the antipodes in the 
 days of her grandfather. He revelled in the 
 legend of the witch of Funachan, who had 
 been notoriously in the habit of night-riding 
 the evil-minded hill-folks in their nightmares. 
 But she listened to him most needfully when 
 he would change the subject to the pair of 
 cousins who were her constant companions. 
 Both the old keeper and his young mistress 
 were inclined to hero-worship ; but it was 
 hard to say which of the young men had the 
 best of it with them. On the whole, perhaps, 
 the stars fought in their courses for Venables. 
 Donald would go back again and again to the 
 adventure on the hills above Lochrosque, 
 giving, as was only fair, the precedence in the 
 story to Leslie. 
 
 " It's surely a sad peety, Miss Grace, that 
 both of them were born in the South ; but 
 there's not very many of us Highland people
 
 104 fortune's wheel. 
 
 would have done what Mr Leslie did. I would 
 have thought myself twice — ay, or perhaps 
 more times — before I would have gone down 
 over that rock, even for Grlenconan himself. 
 I would have gone, I hope ; though to me it 
 would have been certain destruction, for I'm 
 neither so young nor yet so light as I used to 
 be — and Mr Leslie is not that light, either. 
 But Peter, he will be telling me that Mr Leslie 
 just stepped over as if he had been setting his 
 foot in the ferry-boat below there. Many a 
 man might do that, and yet lose his head ; 
 but Mr Leslie was as cool — ay, as cool as a 
 shepherd in the drifts, or an otter in Decem- 
 ber. Maybe Peter is a bit of a fool ; but his 
 eyes are as good as another's." 
 
 So far, so well. Donald would honestly 
 pay the tribute of admiration demanded by 
 Leslie's coolness and courage. But when his 
 conversation turned from the saviour to the 
 saved, it was then that he gave way to heart- 
 felt eloquence. 
 
 " But after all, Miss Grace, it was worth 
 while chancing something for Mr Venables. 
 He's a fine young lad that ; ay, he's a very 
 fine young lad. If he did lose his head a bit
 
 COUSINLY AFFECTIONS. 105 
 
 on the cliff, as Peter says, it was no wonder. 
 If it was not that he likit the sport so well, he 
 would never have chanced his neck for that 
 ill-smelling beast of a goat. I would not have 
 gone up among the rocks there myself for 
 anything less than a hart ; but the Southern 
 gentlemen have strange fancies. Mr Leslie is 
 a fine gentleman too, as G-lenconan's nephew 
 and your cousin ought to be, Miss Grace. 
 But he'll sit down in the heather when we 
 would be after a stalk ; and I've known him 
 drop off and go asleep, and never waken again, 
 till the deer was stalked and shot and to be 
 gralloched. But as for Mr Venables, when 
 once he has set eyes on his stag, he'll bristle 
 up and settle down to the stalk like a sleuth- 
 hound. It's little he'll think then of the rocks 
 or of the burns. I've seen him when the blood 
 was running down off his hands, when the 
 water would be draining out of the pockets of 
 his ' knickerbogles ' ; and though he may have 
 the sense to hearken to a whisper from me, I 
 would be sorry to make a sound or do any- 
 thing unchancy. He's as good-humoured a 
 gentleman as G-lenconan himself; but then he 
 looks as ready to get up his back as Glenconan
 
 106 fortune's wheel. 
 
 or a wild cat : and 'deed, were he once to set 
 his teeth, I wadna trust him." 
 
 Which might not be an amiable trait in Mr 
 Venables's character, but which nevertheless 
 recommended him to his cousin rather than 
 otherwise. Like most women with anything 
 in them, perhaps she inclined by preference 
 to a man with a spice of the devil ; and in 
 that respect Venables resembled her father, 
 who was her ideal of chivalrous manhood. All 
 the more so that, as she often told herself, 
 there was something so winningly kind in 
 those sparkling eyes of his, when involuntarily 
 they seemed to soften as they met the glance 
 of her own.
 
 107 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 AN EMBARRASSING INTERVIEW. 
 
 Had the young men been cross-examined, 
 they must have frankly confessed that seldom 
 before had they been so happy as at Glen- 
 conan. The days seemed to go gliding by 
 like the swift and silent night-flight of the 
 owl — though that is hardly an appropriate 
 metaphor, since the merriment was sometimes 
 noisy enough, and they chanced to be excep- 
 tionally fortunate in sunshine. We should 
 rather say that the joyous Sun-god had greased 
 the wheels of his chariot, and was getting 
 over the ground at his best pace. But their 
 temperaments were very opposite, and thence 
 came a strange inconsistency. Leslie, though 
 earnest and thoughtful, was somewhat indo- 
 lent, and inclined to take life lazily. So long 
 as he was happy in the day, he left the mor-
 
 108 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 row to look after itself. Doubtless he might 
 have great latent reserves of power, but it 
 needed some strong stimulus to make him 
 draw upon them ; whi]e Venables, who be- 
 longed apparently to the butterfly order of 
 beings* was nevertheless profoundly interested 
 in his own future. He was bound to make 
 his own way in the world ; he was determined 
 to " arrive " sooner or later : so the most 
 agreeable halts in the pilgrimage were simply 
 sheer waste of time. He could never lie down 
 upon a couch of rose-leaves, without the prick 
 of a thorn making him inclined to spring up 
 again. Conscience played the part of the 
 metropolitan policeman, and was perpetually 
 bidding him get up and move on. 
 
 How far he really cared for his cousin — how 
 far, at least, he had fallen in love with her — 
 was a point that he had not carefully con- 
 sidered. Had he been born to a handsome 
 independence he would have probably paid 
 his court to her and proposed. But he shrank 
 from the nuisance of thoughts that worried ; 
 and it was a standing trouble to him that he 
 must spend labour and time to attain the 
 easy position where he might indulge his love
 
 AN EMBARRASSING INTERVIEW. 109 
 
 and his ambition. Even if he hurried uphill 
 by the shortest conceivable cuts, how many 
 inestimable opportunities might be missed in 
 the meantime ! That, however, was the more 
 reason for hastening his start, and making up 
 his mind as to the choice of a profession. His 
 father did not count for much in the way of 
 an adviser ; and self-reliant as he was, he felt he 
 should be all the better for the sage counsels 
 of experience. He had an infinite respect for 
 the successful lord of Glenconan, and he knew 
 that he was a favourite with his genial uncle. 
 If he had vague fancies of some day making 
 love to Miss Grace, it might be well that her 
 father should be taken into his preliminary 
 counsels, sharing the credit of his success or 
 lightening the responsibility of failure. For 
 Mr Venables, though thoroughly honest at 
 heart, plumed himself on the shrewdness of 
 his social diplomacy, and believed that you 
 could hardly pay a more delicate compliment 
 than in discreetly appealing for advice to a 
 veteran's experience. 
 
 To do him justice, he had never for a mo- 
 ment dreamed of Moray offering him pecuniary 
 help ; and even with his ill-defined feelings as
 
 110 fortune's wheel. 
 
 to that gentleman's heiress, his pride would 
 have shrunk sensitively from accepting it. 
 But Moray, as we know, viewed the matter 
 differently, and was pleased, and at the same 
 time somewhat curious, when Jack with un- 
 wonted solemnity requested half an hour's 
 quiet conversation. He was anxious too, for 
 his daughter was always in his thoughts. 
 
 "Does the young dog mean to make a pro- 
 posal in form ? " he asked himself. " Nothing 
 is more natural than that he should have 
 fallen in love ; so with his coolness, I can 
 almost fancy him capable of that. And yet 
 I do him wrong : he is too much of a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 Jack's opening speech relieved his uncle's 
 anxiety. The youth began abruptly, almost 
 bluntly. 
 
 "You see, sir, it is high time I was doing 
 something for myself; and I know nobody 
 more capable of advising me." 
 
 " And I know nobody more willing to advise 
 you ; so go ahead, my good boy, and let me 
 hear you state the case." 
 
 Which Jack did lucidly and succinctly. He 
 had no money, or next to none ; he saw no
 
 AN EMBARRASSING INTERVIEW. Ill 
 
 opening in any special direction ; he might 
 possibly get a place in some Government 
 office ; but he strongly objected to monotonous 
 routine, and would never live contented on a 
 moderate income — unless indeed he had failed 
 again and again, and felt that the luck had 
 gone fairly against him. 
 
 As he spoke, the feelings of Moray's own 
 youth came back to his memory, and he 
 heartily sympathised with the young fellow, 
 who had a spirit so much like his own. 
 Master Jack's seasonable frankness had done 
 him more good than he fancied. But Moray 
 was a prudent Scotchman, and did not care to 
 commit himself hastily. 
 
 " What does your father say to it all ? Of 
 course you have spoken to him." 
 
 " My father is the best man in the world ; 
 and if he happened to be an archbishop with 
 plenty of patronage, my father, if I assented 
 to his wishes, would make things smooth 
 enough. As it is, he would like me to go into 
 the Church, and trust to treacling quietly in 
 his footsteps. But he has no livings to give 
 away, and he never asked a favour in his life ; 
 and besides, too, I can't think it honest to
 
 112 fortune's wheel. 
 
 mount the surplice when you don't feel the 
 slightest vocation for the altar." 
 
 " Quite right, my boy ! " Moray ejaculated. 
 
 " Then, again, seeing that the Church is too 
 respectable for me, I might be an artist. No 
 objection to that, I should say, on the score of 
 hypocrisy, for the most brilliant of artists may 
 be as Bohemian as he likes. But though I 
 have a decided fancy that way, I misdoubt my 
 talent ; and unless a gentleman be a genius, he 
 should not take to painting." 
 
 " No doubt of it," returned Moray, who, 
 though in theory he admired artists, and 
 would have consecrated chapels to a Titian or 
 a Velasquez, by no means fancied the idea of 
 a kinsman of his own failing, as he believed 
 that Mr Venables was bound to fail. 
 
 " Well then, sir," said Jack, rather ruefully, 
 " I come back to my starting-point, — that I 
 have the world before me, and the question 
 is as to the direction to steer. To think 
 that at this very instant I may be hesitating 
 at the embrancliement of a dozen of paths — 
 that it is eleven to one that I strike a wrong 
 one, and miss the way that leads straight up 
 to fortune ! Oh for a glimmering of your
 
 AN EMBARRASSING INTERVIEW. 113 
 
 Celtic second-sight ! Possibly Mr Boss would 
 be the person to advise with." 
 
 Moray laughed. " If you really are stand- 
 ing where a dozen paths branch off, you can- 
 not be blamed for not seeing the invisible. 
 But so far as I can gather, you are in the 
 middle of a mist, and are inclined to trust 
 to your luck to group your way out of it. 
 And there, perhaps, I, who am a Highlander, 
 can help you, as Donald has helped you in 
 similar difficulties ere now." 
 
 Then Mr Moray spoke out in a manner that 
 took his nephew altogether aback. When 
 Moray placed himself or his means at another's 
 disposal, he was not a man to do things by 
 halves. 
 
 " I like you, Jack, as you may have partly 
 remarked ; and I'm an old fellow without any 
 son of my own. Oh yes, I know I have a 
 daughter, and I am never likely to forget it ; 
 but so far as present appearances go, Grace 
 will be richer than may be altogether good 
 for her. In any case. I have enough and 
 to spare. I don't mean to adopt you. I 
 don't propose to treat you as my son and 
 heir. I would not do any such injury to a 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 114 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 spirited young man as to deprive him of all 
 incentives to exertion. But setting you 
 straight in some direction, and giving you a 
 lift along, is a different affair altogether. I 
 loved my wife well — I lost her only too soon ; 
 and I should be very happy to do something 
 for her kinsman. The question is, What ? 
 I am sorry now that I should have disposed 
 of my interests in the East ; but I was in 
 haste to come back and give Grace a home 
 here. I have good friends there still, however. 
 But, like me, you would have to begin the 
 climb at the beginning ; and money is more 
 slowly made than it used to be." 
 
 He paused a moment, expecting very pos- 
 sibly that Jack would nevertheless jump at 
 the suggestion, remembering his after-dinner 
 speech some days before, when apostrophising 
 the show of plate on the buffet. And had 
 he made such an offer then, Jack would most 
 certainly have eagerly accepted. Now the 
 young man would have been more surprised 
 at his own hesitation, had not his mind 
 been illuminated by a sudden self-revelation. 
 Brought to the point and spurred to the leap, 
 he could not decide at once to leave his cousin
 
 AN EMBARRASSING INTERVIEW. 115 
 
 behind him. Indefinite exile meant absolute 
 separation. He hummed and hawed, and was 
 sensible of a confusion which brought un- 
 wonted blushes to his comely countenance. 
 
 Nor was his embarrassment diminished by 
 Moray's demeanour. That gentleman had 
 liked his nephew for his adventurous dash, and 
 was loath to think he had been mistaken 
 in him. But putting himself in Jack's place, 
 and carrying himself back to Jack's age, he 
 knew how the launch into Eastern life would 
 have tempted him, with the hazards that 
 would make patience seem more than toler- 
 able ; and pluck without perseverance seemed 
 to him a poor quality. Jack felt that he was 
 being misunderstood by the man with whom, 
 above all others, he desired to stand well. 
 His face grew redder ; he lost all his usual 
 composure, and he felt the fool he knew he 
 looked. Moray saw that some concealment, 
 "like a worm i' the bud," was flushing his 
 young favourite's damask cheek, and good- 
 naturedly made an effort to come to the 
 rescue. 
 
 " You spoke of missing chances, my boy ; 
 and you may miss a good one now, if you do
 
 116 fortune's wheel. 
 
 not give me your absolute confidence. What- 
 ever you may have in your mind, speak it out. 
 I pledge myself that I shall not think any the 
 worse of you." 
 
 A reckless " tu la voulu, George Dandin" 
 feeling took possession of Venables, and car- 
 ried him away. His uncle ordered him to be 
 frank ; and frank he would be, with a vengeance, 
 come of it what might. It was like taking a 
 header from the rocks into the rapids ; and 
 how he might come out again, who should 
 say? He had no time to reflect, and could 
 only act upon impulse. " In five minutes I 
 may get my dismissal, and be told to pack my 
 traps. Never mind : here goes — nothing ven- 
 ture, nothing win." And although he stam- 
 mered when [he began, he was astonished to 
 find that his very vague ideas found persuasive 
 expression. 
 
 To his inexpressible delight and relief, 
 Moray seemed less taken aback than might 
 have been expected. At all events, he listened 
 silently and calmly, while Jack, premising that 
 he intended an immediate departure from 
 Glenconan, went on to speak of an attach- 
 ment to his cousin.
 
 AN EMBARRASSING INTERVIEW. 117 
 
 " I scarcely knew my own mind, sir, till you 
 brought me to book ; but what would yester- 
 day have been the fulfilment of my fondest 
 dreams, means nothing to-day but a sentence 
 of transportation : and if I dare to say as 
 much, it is only because I may at once be 
 put out of my misery. I think I can never 
 be happy without Grace ; I know that I am 
 never likely to be made happy with her : so 
 give me a word of forgiveness, and let me go 
 in peace." 
 
 Moray stroked his moustache and bent his 
 head in silence. Jack, who had suppressed 
 himself after his effort of audacity, began to 
 gain heart again and rise slowly, like a name- 
 sake-of-his-in-the-box whose springs have been 
 temporarily flattened. Visions of an Eden 
 with an Eve in it were opening before him. 
 Was it possible that his uncle meant to fold 
 him in his arms, ring for Grace, and send 
 down the curtain with a melodramatic " Bless 
 you, my children, and be happy " ? The idea 
 was dismissed as soon as entertained, though 
 there was ample room left for encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 " Most men in my place might have been
 
 118 fortune's wheel. 
 
 angry, Master Jack ; and I don't know what 
 her mother might have said to you. But I 
 admire your candour ; and, after all, there is 
 nothing criminal nor very surprising in your 
 feelings. Quite the contrary. , Perhaps it 
 was my fault that you and Grace have been 
 thrown so constantly together. For reasons 
 of my own, I have never set my heart on my 
 girl making what they call a great marriage. 
 She is sure to be well off, though she may be 
 less rich than you suppose. No, you needn't 
 protest ; I don't suspect you of loving my 
 daughter for her ' tocher.' And in any case — 
 be it said without offence — she will be far more 
 than a match for a penniless young adventurer. 
 But if she did chance to take a fancy to you 
 — or to Leslie " — there Jack winced — " and if 
 you could contribute a fair share towards the 
 housekeeping, so that you might marry with- 
 out loss of self-respect, why, I should not 
 stand in the way of your wishes. Not that 
 that advances you very far, you will say," 
 seeing that Jack remained silent and non- 
 plussed, " since you have no means at all, and 
 we are merely considering ways. You don't 
 expect my daughter to wait for you, I pre-
 
 AN EMBARRASSING INTERVIEW. 119 
 
 sume ; but if she should happen to be disen- 
 gaged when you are in a position to apply, I 
 may make no serious objections. Mark me, 
 young man, though I talk lightly, I mean 
 seriously. I am sure I may trust to your 
 honour not to compromise Grace in any 
 way." 
 
 " I have not the slightest reason to believe 
 that my cousin cares for me. And besides," 
 he added, after a moment's pause, "with 
 your permission I shall leave Glenconan to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Softly, softly ! You are always ice or 
 fire. Were you to beat a retreat without 
 sound of drum, it might make talk — or 
 mischief — that had better be avoided. Give 
 me your word, and stay with us for another 
 week ; longer delay might be dangerous — for 
 you. I take that as settled ; and I may have 
 something to say both to you and Leslie, ere 
 you leave — for be it understood that I am not 
 bound to you in any way, so far as those 
 aspirations of yours are concerned. And now 
 to come back to your immediate concerns, — 
 for as to these, you have more reason than 
 before to command me,"
 
 120 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 "Believe me, I heartily appreciate your 
 generosity, but help from you has become 
 out of the question." 
 
 " How now, young man ? " said Moray, 
 sternly — and Venables saw how his uncle 
 could look when he was angry, — "how now? 
 Do you dare to tell me you are offended by 
 language that most people would call foolish 
 and weak ? " 
 
 " God forbid, sir ! How can you misunder- 
 stand me ? I should have thought your own 
 high spirit would have been more in sympathy 
 with mine. From my uncle and very kind 
 friend I might gratefully have accepted any- 
 thing. By my frank avowal I have aban- 
 doned all hope of your help, for I can take 
 nothing from the father of the heiress on 
 whom I have rashly set some hopes. I said 
 I stood at the cross-roads ; and it appears I 
 have struck into a wrong one — that is all." 
 
 " Nonsense, man ! " exclaimed Moray, with 
 extreme cordiality. "Confound the fellow!" 
 he muttered to himself; "if he were to make 
 love to Grace as he does to me, he would win 
 her heart in a hand-gallop. Nonsense, man ! 
 let the night and the next day or two bring
 
 AN EMBARRASSING INTERVIEW. 121 
 
 counsel. You shall stay here on your parole 
 for another week ; and before you leave for 
 the South, we may see our way somewhat 
 more clearly as to your future arrangements," 
 — a prediction which proved to be true, though 
 not precisely as Mr Moray had expected.
 
 122 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 
 
 It must be owned, that after an interview of 
 the kind, the position of any young man in 
 Venables's place would have been somewhat 
 distressing. He prided himself on his savoir 
 vivre : he could carry off a sense of awkward- 
 ness as well as most people ; and his cousin's 
 innocent unconsciousness helped him. Yet 
 his manner towards her had changed, and he 
 knew it ; and he was in perpetual terror that 
 she might ask for an explanation. Alone with 
 her, he was comparatively at his ease ; but he 
 was embarrassed — very unnecessarily — when 
 her father's eye was upon them. Where Moray 
 trusted, he trusted implicity : if he had not 
 trusted his nephew, he would never have 
 spoken as he had spoken ; and although, doubt- 
 less, he may have meditated over the matter a
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 123 
 
 good deal, it was not with reference to any- 
 thing passing before him. And Jack might 
 perhaps have felt more at his ease in one 
 respect, had he known that Leslie occupied his 
 uncle's thoughts nearly as much as himself. 
 But it was in his sanguine nature to jump to 
 conclusions ; and when certain trifling pre- 
 liminary obstacles should have been smoothed 
 away, including the choice of a profession and 
 lucrative success in it, he pictured a happy 
 couple launched on a pleasant wedding-trip, 
 with wind and tide and everything in their 
 favour. 
 
 Yet, characteristically enough, it was not 
 only the thought, " Were Grace to catechise 
 me, what in the world should I answer ? " that 
 gave him a vast deal of needless anxiety. 
 Musing over a possible engagement, and the 
 minor questions that would arise out of it, 
 the speculations of the ridiculous young man 
 ran somewhat in this wise — 
 
 " I suppose if I were to marry the heiress 
 of Glenconan, my uncle would insist on my 
 taking the family name. Well, there need be 
 no objection to that. Venables-Moray would 
 sound well enough, and I might even make
 
 124 fortune's wheel. 
 
 such a sacrifice to love as to sink my pat- 
 ronymic, and style myself Moray alone. But 
 then he might wish us to spend the best part 
 of the year in Glenconan ; and Grace is already 
 falling passionately in love with the place. I 
 like it myself, but I don't like the climate. 
 Scotland, except in the picturesqueness of the 
 Highlands, is only a colder and a bleaker Eng- 
 land ; and England, for that matter, is bleak 
 enough. After all, however, climate and 
 scenery are secondary points ; and Grace, if 
 she were persuaded to love me, is just the sort 
 of girl to be amenable. It would be a case of 
 ' my people shall be thy people,' &c, — not that 
 I would ask her to make unreasonable sacri- 
 fices. And then my profession, whatever it 
 may be, would be reason sufficient for our 
 living elsewhere. Glenconan would never give 
 me Grace if he thought I meant to live upon 
 her money." 
 
 Then waking out of his Alnaschar - like 
 dreams, he might glance across at Leslie half 
 guiltily, and think how that sensible individual 
 would laugh at him did he guess at all that 
 was passing in his mind. And perhaps, on the 
 whole, it had hitherto been as well for Leslie
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 125 
 
 that lie was profoundly ignorant of what was 
 going on. 
 
 Then, being diverted from one train of 
 thought, Jack's lively brain would take an- 
 other turn, and towards a point that perhaps 
 ought to have been settled in the first place. 
 He would ask himself how far he was really in 
 love, and whether the passion was likely to 
 last. He knew he was extremely fond of 
 Grace, and each day he grew fonder and more 
 fond. But then she was a girl who deserved 
 a husband who would worship her, and past 
 experiences had led him to doubt his own 
 capacity for permanent adoration. He was 
 shrewd enough to see, that with all her spirits 
 and brightness, if she gave herself to a man, 
 she would give herself unreservedly, and take 
 love so thoroughly in earnest that disappoint- 
 ment might wreck her life. 
 
 But, " Bah ! that morbid conscientiousness 
 of mine is the best guarantee I can offer of my 
 constancy. I know I am tremendously fond 
 of her now ; she is just the sort of girl to gain 
 on one, day by day ; and looking at our joint 
 future in that light, our happiness will be an 
 incalculable quantity. In any case, there is
 
 126 fortune's wheel. 
 
 nothing pressing, since honour ties my tongue 
 in the meantime." 
 
 As for his uncle's offers, on more mature 
 consideration he had pretty nearly made up 
 his mind to accept them. " Pride is all very 
 well up to a certain point ; but pride pushed 
 to extremes would in this case be an insult, or 
 at all events my uncle would be apt to take it 
 as one. I shall never forget how he flared up 
 the other day, with a blaze in his eye like a 
 stag breaking bay, or one of his ancestors 
 ordering a malefactor to pit and gallows. So 
 I suppose I may as well make up my mind to 
 be helped ; though all the same, I wish I could 
 have managed otherwise." 
 
 Possibly that sweet spirit of resignation, 
 that generous resolution to suffer himself to 
 be enriched, may have brought their reward. 
 The day before that of his intended departure, 
 Mr Venables received a business letter. No 
 presentiment warned him of the nature of the 
 contents ; on the contrary, he by no means 
 liked the look of it. Though not very seri- 
 ously indebted, he had run sundry " ticks " 
 at the university and in town ; and when he 
 saw the sinister blue envelope and the stiff
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 127 
 
 handwriting, — " A dun, for a thousand ! " was 
 his natural ejaculation. On tearing it open, 
 evil omens seemed to thicken. The communi- 
 cation was dated from Lincoln's -Inn -Fields, 
 and signed by an unknown firm of lawyers. 
 With a very wry face he began to run his 
 eye over it, and this is what Mr Venables 
 read : — 
 
 "Dear Sir, — We have the honour of in- 
 forming you that, under the testamentary 
 dispositions of the late Mr Isaac Philpotts, 
 of 790 Wimpole Street, and of Brick Court, 
 Temple, you become entitled to the amount 
 of £10,000, free of legacy duty. As the per- 
 sonality of our deceased client is chiefly in- 
 vested in consols, there need be no delay in 
 realising it. 
 
 "We shall either transfer the sum as in- 
 vested at the current prices of the clay, or 
 expect your instructions as to manner of 
 payment. 
 
 " Annexed receive an extract from the will 
 of our late client. — And we have the honour 
 to remain your obedient servants, 
 
 "COX, GRINDLEY, & GrROPER."
 
 128 fortune's wheel. 
 
 Extract from Will of the late Isaac 
 Philpotts, Esq., Q.C. 
 
 "Also I leave and bequeath to John Ven- 
 ables, eldest son of the Bev. Cyril Venables, 
 of Oakholm Kectory, Sussex, the sum of ten 
 thousand pounds, free of legacy duty. And I 
 desire it to be understood that I bequeath the 
 said sum in memory of early and affectionate 
 intimacy with an old school and college com- 
 panion, believing that I shall best gratify my 
 friend by assuring a moderate provision to his 
 eldest son." 
 
 Jack read, and rubbed his eyes. His first 
 idea was, that he was the victim of a heartless 
 and aggravating hoax. On second thoughts, 
 that seemed even more improbable than the 
 marvellous piece of good-luck that had befallen 
 him at a most critical moment. Though he 
 had never seen Mr Philpotts in the flesh, he 
 had often heard his father speak of him as an 
 able and eccentric old man, who had made 
 a figure and a fortune as a parliamentary 
 counsel, and who, in the bustle of his busy 
 professional life, had altogether ignored early 
 associations.
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 129 
 
 " Anyhow," as Jack remarked, gratefully 
 and philosophically, " his eccentricity, were it 
 madness, had a pleasant method about it ; and 
 if any disappointed relatives should dispute 
 the will, this judicious legacy should be proof 
 of sanity." 
 
 He was a free-handed young fellow as ever 
 lived ; and of all the vices that grow upon us 
 with age, least of all was he contaminated by 
 that of avarice. Yet it was a strange proof of 
 the dangerous power of gold, that, on calmly 
 realising the news, he found they almost 
 intoxicated him. He had read his letter on 
 the gravel-sweep in front of the house, and he 
 started- off for a walk, or rather a run, through 
 the shrubberies. His lungs expanded with a 
 sense of his good fortune — with a feeling that 
 the legacy was the sign of a prosperous future. 
 He left the shrubberies and climbed the hill, 
 jumping from rock to rock and on to slippery 
 stones, while his feet seemed to be winged like 
 those of the feather-footed Mercury, who, by 
 the way, was the Mammon of pagan myth- 
 ology. He confounded the piece of good for- 
 tune with his personal deserts, and respected 
 Providence for having so seasonably smiled on 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 fortune's wheel. 
 
 him. In the new-born feeling of independence, 
 he might cordially accept the offer he had 
 hitherto hesitated over. He would decline 
 his uncle's money, but gratefully accept his 
 uncle's help. He might trade upon his energy 
 and talents, in the assurance of speedy returns; 
 and, with a modest competency but magnifi- 
 cent reversions, might mate with any gentle- 
 woman of average position, even were she his 
 pretty and well-dowered cousin of Glenconan. 
 And the thought brought him back to the 
 prosaic fact, that it would be but kind and 
 civil promptly to communicate the contents of 
 the despatch to the relatives who were to be 
 still nearer and dearer. 
 
 He was a good fellow, though rather feather- 
 brained as yet ; and want of liberality, as we 
 have said, was not his failing, though he seemed 
 as keenly set upon the quest of gold as any of 
 the Argonauts. As it happened, he had the 
 purse in his pocket that was fairly well-filled 
 for his journey. Peter, the stupid gillie, had 
 the good-luck to cross his path as he came 
 bounding housewards from the hill like a 
 roebuck. 
 
 " Ah, Peter, my man, you know I am going
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 131 
 
 South in a day or two ; here's a trifle in re- 
 membrance of that bit of work of ours on 
 Lochrosque." 
 
 Indeed his prodigality needed some excuse, 
 and tears came to Peter's eye and his voice 
 trembled as he thanked the generous young 
 Saxon gentleman for a sum which meant the 
 ease and happiness of next winter to the wife 
 and bairns on Loch Hourn. As for Jack him- 
 self, he was richly rewarded : it was a new 
 sensation to know that money- giving could 
 bring so much pleasure. He vowed that he 
 would lay the lesson to heart, and soon he 
 found another occasion of practising it. It was 
 only turning aside for a dozen of paces or so, 
 and he came upon Donald Ross hammering 
 away industriously at grouse -boxes. Forth 
 came the portemonnaie again, and the head- 
 keeper was gratified with a proportionally 
 liberal donation. Now Donald was a Scot 
 who appreciated hard cash ; for though he 
 might probably die a pensioner of Glenconan, 
 he meant to leave as little as possible to 
 chance, and hoped to guarantee himself against 
 old age and the rheumatism. 
 
 At the same time, he had a heart and a
 
 132 fortune's wheel. 
 
 conscience ; and the young kinsmen of his 
 master were charges of his own. He shook 
 his head as he weighed the glittering coins in 
 his palm, and then he tendered three or four 
 of them back again. 
 
 "No, no, Mr Venables. I know, as the 
 minister well remarked the other Sabbath, 
 when he was giving us a discourse for the 
 maintaining of foreign missions, that the 
 liberal soul will be made fat — not that put- 
 ting on fat is any good thing to a gentleman 
 who cares greatly about the shooting and the 
 stalking. But if you would forgive my say- 
 ing it, when ye offered me all that gold, it 
 brought to my mind another saying, though 
 I am not just sure that ye will find it in the 
 Scriptures." 
 
 " I believe T can guess, Donald," rejoined 
 Jack, quick as a gun-flash, with a laugh and 
 a blush. "Fools and their money — hey? — 
 was that about it, Mr Donald?" 
 
 " It's not for the like of me to contra- 
 dict your honour," said Donald, demurely. 
 " Though, mind you, Mr Venables, I would 
 sooner have bitten out my tongue than spoken 
 it. But you're but a young man, sir, and I'm
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 133 
 
 an old one that likes you ; and — Glenconan 
 himself, for all his open hand, would never 
 have given half as much." 
 
 Jack, though slightly offended, stood em- 
 barrassed and self - condemned. " The old 
 keeper is a gentleman, and I'm a snob. Well, 
 well, Donald," he went on, "I daresay you 
 may be right. Keep the sovereigns you did 
 keep, and leave the rest with the minister for 
 those missions you were speaking of. Do 
 what you will with them, in short. At any 
 rate, you won't refuse me a shake of the 
 hand ; " and suiting the action to the word, 
 he grasped the hand of the keeper. Then 
 turning on his heel, he sought Glenconan in 
 his " study." 
 
 The "study" was of course the most un- 
 comfortable den in the house ; and the sur- 
 roundings, in the shape of rods and landing- 
 nets, account - books, &c, seemed singularly 
 unfavourable to literary pursuits — which was 
 of the less consequence, that the occupier was 
 essentially a man of action, and very little of 
 a bookworm. He listened to his nephew's 
 piece of news with extreme satisfaction. He 
 sympathised with the unexpressed feelings of
 
 134 fortune's wheel. 
 
 the young man, in that Jack was relieved from 
 the anxiety of laying himself under pecuniary 
 obligations. Like Jack, perhaps he saw omens 
 of good-luck in the windfall that had come in 
 so very opportunely. And after a short and 
 business - like talk, the couple came to an 
 identical conclusion. 
 
 " There, there ! that's agreed," said Moray. 
 " You understand that you may count on me 
 to forward your views in any reasonable direc- 
 tion ; and in the meantime, you go to Sussex 
 and discuss matters with your father. You 
 are bound to consult him before deciding; on 
 anything." 
 
 " I could not have a more affectionate ad- 
 viser, at all events," rejoined the young man, 
 warmly. " And with you to consult upon 
 practical points, I would not take a quarter 
 of a million for my chances. Indeed, if Mr 
 Philpotts had left me a quarter of a million 
 instead of this legacy of £10,000, all the salt 
 and fun would have been taken out of the 
 future." 
 
 All things considered, it might well have 
 been supposed that Jack's immediate plans 
 were pretty well settled, as, until he had
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 135 
 
 talked them over with his father, he was 
 pledged to take no decided steps. But being 
 a far-sighted youth, with a craving for sym- 
 pathy, he thought that it might be well to 
 take his cousin into his confidence. As she 
 might probably be profoundly interested in 
 that future of his, it was only fair that he 
 should have her views about it. 
 
 And a less impressionable heart than Jack's 
 might have been touched by the unfeigned 
 delight with which she heard of his good for- 
 tune. Indeed natural vanity was nearly per- 
 suading him that she must feel a persona] 
 interest in the matter. 
 
 " What a dear, thoughtful old gentleman 
 Mr Philpotts must have been ! What a pity 
 he lived and died a bachelor ? " she added, 
 sympathetically. 
 
 " I don't know about that," laughed Jack. 
 "You see, if he had left half-a-dozen of chil 
 dren, I should certainly have never come in for 
 my legacy. And," he went on, more seriously, 
 " it may be a matter of the last importance to 
 me." 
 
 For Jack was already half forgetting him- 
 self in indulging his new sense of freedom.
 
 136 fortune's wheel. 
 
 Penniless, he had undertaken to do nothing in 
 the way of love-making ; but now he felt that 
 he was hardly breaking faith in feeling his 
 way for his own satisfaction. 
 
 Grace evidently did not understand him in 
 any way. She raised her arched eyebrows 
 with a certain subdued scorn, and her delicate 
 nostril curled with something like contempt. 
 Having always had the command of money, 
 she thought very little of it ; and though a 
 handsome legacy might doubtless be a subject 
 for congratulation, anything like excessive ap- 
 preciation of it struck her as sordid. 
 
 Jack saw the unfortunate impression he had 
 made, and regretted a false step. If he did 
 not explain and apologise, he might do him- 
 self irreparable injury with the woman with 
 whom he most desired to stand well. On the 
 other hand, he remembered the promise to her 
 father. His usual presence of mind forsook 
 him, and he stammered, hesitated, and turned 
 painfully red. His confusion served him bet- 
 ter than the plainest speech. Grace, with 
 ready feminine intuition, more than half sus- 
 pected the truth. She rapidly followed Jack's 
 mental struggles, and coloured up like him as
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 137 
 
 she reproached herself for having misconceived 
 him. She fancied she understood the deli- 
 cacy that had dictated his reserve ; she knew 
 that she had nothing to fear in the shape of a 
 precipitate proposal : the blush died away as 
 she recovered self-command, and her com- 
 posure contrasted with her cousin's confusion. 
 Confused as he was, Jack was quick-sighted 
 as usual. He had seen the blush, and it con- 
 siderably cheered him, though he did not 
 attach undue importance to it. 
 
 " What a deal of luck there is in this 
 world ! " he reflected. " If my face had not 
 played me false for once, I must have gone 
 away leaving Grace in utter ignorance ; and 
 then, who knows what might have happened ? 
 She might have come to like Leslie as well as 
 I do — or better." 
 
 Then, with something of the wisdom of the 
 serpent, he made an excuse to bring the inter- 
 view to a conclusion, and left his pretty cousin 
 to her meditations. But being a right-minded 
 youth in the mam, and honourable to boot, 
 the idea that he had betrayed himself troubled 
 his conscience. " If my uncle knew what has 
 passed, he might have good reason to be in-
 
 138 fortune's wheel. 
 
 clignant. It was no fault of mine, to be sure ; 
 but appearances would be decidedly against 
 me. I believe that the straightest course is 
 the safest, and that I ought to go to him and 
 make a clean breast of it." 
 
 And as he feared to go back on that bold 
 resolution, he struck while the iron was hot, 
 and went straight to his uncle. Do what he 
 would, or blunder as he might, it seemed that 
 his conduct was to commend him to that gen- 
 tleman. Moray shook his head as he listened 
 to the confession, but at the same time ad- 
 mired his nephew's candour. 
 
 " Well, as you say, perhaps you were hardly 
 to blame ; and as yet, at least, there can be 
 no great harm done. Grace's heart is free, 
 and you are going to leave us to-morrow." 
 At which double-barrelled delivery of small- 
 shot Jack winced perceptibly. And he flinched 
 still more unmistakably when this eccentric 
 father went on — 
 
 " You have been frank enough with me — 
 too frank, perhaps, with Grace ; and so, for 
 her sake, and to countercheck that uncontrol- 
 lable move of yours, I am decided to be as 
 frank with Leslie as with you, and more frank
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 139 
 
 than I had intended. You agree with me — 
 and it strikes me that Leslie is of our opinion 
 — that Grace is a girl in a thousand. Hitherto 
 she has seen next to nothing of society. She 
 will marry, of course, sooner or later ; but 
 there is no need to press her upon any man." 
 Jack half interrupted with a gesture of indig- 
 nant protest, but Moray went on imperturba- 
 bly. " There is no need, I say, to throw her 
 at any man ; and, as I told you before, I shall 
 not attempt to influence her choice, so long as 
 she sets her affections on a gentleman of birth, 
 with a spotless character and decent means. 
 I mentioned, too, that she may not be so rich 
 as you suppose. Be that as it may, she must 
 not be hurried to commit herself, by her feel- 
 ings, or her fancy, or anything else. I don't 
 know much about young ladies or their fan- 
 cies, more's the pity; but it strikes me that 
 this secret of yours which she has surprised, 
 may fill her thoughts to her harm, and she 
 may possibly build up a romance on it before 
 we know where we are. I promised you fair- 
 play, but nothing more ; and my daughter is 
 nearer and dearer to me than you can be, so I 
 shall speak to Leslie as I have spoken to you,
 
 140 fortune's wheel. 
 
 and leave him to regulate his conduct accord- 
 ingly. From the first, Grace shall have the 
 chance of selection, so far as her limited oppor- 
 tunities go. Moreover, when Leslie has left us, 
 and before the beginning of the grouse-shoot- 
 ing, I shall carry her off, by way of distrac- 
 tion, to pay some visits. There are old family 
 friendships that ought to be renewed, and it is 
 high time she saw something more of her fel- 
 low-creatures." 
 
 And Moray's keen grey eyes, that neverthe- 
 less had much of the kindness of his daugh- 
 ter's, looked straight into those of his young 
 favourite. Original or eccentric as his conduct 
 might be, Mr Venables was persuaded that he 
 knew his own mind, and was acting on some 
 principle, however peculiar — and to a certain 
 extent he did understand, being anything but 
 dull of perception. So far, in all honour 
 and good-nature, they were exchanging passes 
 with the foils. Jack had been more than 
 indiscreet in giving Grace a glimpse at the 
 state of his feelings. Moray parried and re- 
 turned the thrust by putting Leslie forward 
 as a probable rival, besides opening up a vista 
 of possibilities in the shape of eligible young
 
 STIRRING UP OF STRIFE. 141 
 
 men in pleasant country-houses. Mr Venables 
 was to have fair-play, but no particular favour; 
 and in the reaction from sanguine expectation 
 to sad despondency, he felt that, in spite of 
 his legacy and his hopes, he was still a mere 
 outsider in the betting. So that Moray's 
 quickly delivered thrust had touched just as 
 he might have intended. At the same time, 
 mortified and disappointed as he was, Jack 
 could not help exercising his active mind on 
 the metaphysical problem presented to it. 
 
 " I've heard and seen something of match- 
 making mothers, but hang me if I understand 
 this match-making father ! He's devoted to 
 his daughter, as well he may be ; he starts 
 from the incontrovertible truth that he need 
 not throw her at anybody's head ; he's a man 
 of the world, if ever there was one, — and yet 
 he practically offers Grace to me or to Leslie, 
 and apparently proposes, moreover, to hawk her 
 about in half the houses of the Highlands, as 
 if he were bound to match her against time 
 under heavy penalties. What I see most 
 clearly in the business is, that he credits Leslie 
 and me with the tempers of angels, or he 
 would never cast such an apple of discord
 
 142 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 between us. But if I do have Kalph for a 
 rival, it shall be all fair and above - board 
 between us. I don't forget that I owe him 
 my life, though the time may come when it 
 will cost me something to remember it." 
 
 And indeed Moray, who meant excellently 
 well by both his young kinsmen, being chiefly 
 preoccupied with the future of his child, had 
 altogether ignored the awkward complications 
 that might come of the stirring up of angry 
 passions. Undoubtedly the fond father, un- 
 consciously to himself, seemed to be playing 
 the mischief-maker as well as the match- 
 maker.
 
 143 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 
 
 When Jack Venables spoke of standing in 
 hesitation at cross-ways on the road of life, he 
 did not carry the metaphor quite so far as he 
 might have done. "Were we favoured by the 
 sight of a sketch-map of our track through the 
 world, we should see that there were side-paths 
 perpetually branching off, which to all ajDpear- 
 ance we might just as probably have followed 
 to our misfortune or our signal advantage. 
 While in any general biograjDhical chart, illus- 
 trating the career of sundry individuals, we 
 should see the paths of others striking into our 
 own by the most unexpected turns at the least 
 likely places ; so that two men thrown together 
 by accident or Providence shall thereafter walk 
 on together side by side, or possibly even arm 
 in arm.
 
 144 fortune's wheel. 
 
 As he fancied, it was nothing more than a 
 caprice which decided Mr Venables to go south 
 by sea, instead of establishing communications 
 with the Southern Express at Perth. As he 
 remarked to his uncle, whom he still politically 
 took into his confidence, " I may as well think 
 matters quietly over, before having a serious 
 talk with my father : it will be better that I 
 have something cut and dry to suggest." 
 
 Moray, of course, made no objection : the 
 route by which his young friend might travel 
 was a matter of perfect indifference to him. 
 As for Jack, he knew himself too well to 
 imagine that he could ever think when he 
 wished to think. With his mercurial disposi- 
 tion and nervous temperament, he put far more 
 faith in quick inspirations, influenced by con- 
 sideration of circumstances on the spur of the 
 moment, or possibly by the chapter of acci- 
 dents. But he had resolved to embark on one 
 of the Highland coasting - steamers at Port 
 Sligachan, simply because he liked the idea 
 of a sea-voyage. 
 
 The very day he settled that impromptu 
 plan, a gentleman of sympathetic nature, 
 though, as the Americans say, an entire
 
 A MEETING AT THE CKOSS-TRACKS. 145 
 
 stranger to him, came to a similar decision in 
 the Isle of Skye. The Honourable Wilfred 
 Winstanley had all his life been addicted to 
 impulses, though he nevertheless had made his 
 way in the world very successfully. One night 
 he had gone to bed in the state-chamber of 
 Castle Somerled in a less serene frame of mind 
 than was usual with him. For the most part 
 he was good-nature itself, as a man ought to 
 be on whom fortune had smiled very steadily. 
 His host's Lafitte had tasted sour ; there had 
 been no savour in the entrees; he had been 
 vexed to find himself " doggish and snappish," 
 as a worthy Quaker used to remark in his diary. 
 Altogether, when he took his bedroom candle 
 to go up-stairs he felt strangely out of sorts, 
 and he went to bed to toss and tumble under 
 the blankets. Towards the small hours his 
 sensations gave shape to his suspicions, and 
 he turned out of bed into the dawn to con- 
 firm these. 
 
 " Gout, by Jove ! I thought as much," was 
 his rueful verdict, as he gazed on a swelling 
 toe that blushed under his anxious examination. 
 " Gout, by Jove ! and I'll be bound Willis has 
 brought no colchicum. It's true that I have 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 146 fortune's wheel. 
 
 not had an attack for a couple of years. Just 
 like my luck," he added, with the fractious in- 
 justice of a spoiled child ; " it's choosing to lay 
 hold of me in this heaven-forsaken Patmos, 
 where the doctors are sure to smell of spirits 
 and peat-smoke, and their drugs can't be worth 
 the bottles they put them in. Well, if I am to 
 be ill, I'll be ill in Berkeley Square, — always 
 supposing I don't break down in making a bolt 
 for it." 
 
 And when Willis appeared with his master's 
 hot water, he received orders to make in- 
 quiries as to steamers, but to pack immedi- 
 ately in any case. 
 
 " Should no steamer be expected to-day, 
 you will go and bargain for a tug, or some- 
 thing of that kind." 
 
 And Willis, who had been broken to passive 
 obedience, and who had long before ceased to 
 be surprised at anything, if he shrugged his 
 shoulders metaphorically, simply answered 
 with a "Yes, sir." 
 
 As it happened, a cargo-steamer, carrying- 
 passengers when it could pick them up, had 
 come the day before into the adjacent har- 
 bour, and having received prompt despatch
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 147 
 
 from the company's agents, was prepared to 
 weigh anchor in the forenoon. Lord Somer- 
 led, Mr Winstanley's noble host, protested 
 vehemently against his friend's departure. 
 Mr Winstanley was profuse of apologies, but 
 inflexible. It was altogether for Lord Somer- 
 led's sake that he left. He had made a rule 
 of never being laid up in a friend's house 
 when he could help it, and it was a rule he 
 had never hitherto departed from. 
 
 " Nothing would tempt me to victimise you, 
 my dear fellow. It would be flying in the 
 face of all my principles. I hope I'm unselfish 
 before everything, and I know my duty to my 
 neighbour better than that." 
 
 So his lordship did what the valet did not 
 venture on. He presumed on a long acquaint- 
 ance so far as to shrug his shoulders openly, 
 and ordered the carriage to drive Mr Win- 
 stanley to the harbour. 
 
 To do Mr Winstanley bare justice, however 
 precipitate his impulses, he acted upon them 
 with rare determination. Even to himself he 
 would have been loath to acknowledge that, 
 " not to put too fine a point on it," he had 
 made a fool of himself. Yet we will not
 
 148 fortune's wheel. 
 
 undertake to say that he had not some search- 
 ings of heart, when he hobbled on his sounder 
 foot across the greasy decks of the Cuchullin. 
 We could almost aver that when he was as- 
 sisted down the battered brass-bound steps of 
 the dark companion, and had stumbled into 
 the gloom of his strong-smelling little cabin, 
 he wafted a sigh of soft regret towards the 
 comfortable quarters he had precipitately 
 quitted. If he suffered, however, like the 
 impenitent cardinal, he "made no sign"; and 
 suffer he certainly did, in body if not in spirit. 
 The shaking of a carriage is far from being a 
 sovereign specific for a sharp attack of gout 
 that has quickly developed itself. If we were 
 to give a non - professional diagnosis of his 
 symptoms, we should say that he felt as if 
 the roomy slipper he was wearing had sud- 
 denly become several sizes too small for him ; 
 as if a cook had been scientifically scoring the 
 ailing foot in the fashion in which you prepare 
 a spatch-cocked chicken, subsequently rubbing 
 in the mustard and Worcester sauce, not by 
 any means forgetting the cayenne ; and as if 
 a spark or two from the glowing kitchen-fire 
 had flown and lodged themselves under the
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 149 
 
 toe - nail. In such circumstances the Stoic 
 may make no sign, but his temper will not 
 be of the sweetest. 
 
 "When his blinking eyes had accustomed 
 themselves to the dimness, Winstanley cast a 
 disconsolate glance around him. The low- 
 roofed cabin showed wear and tear, and the 
 panels stood sorely in need of repainting. 
 The table and the seats in the centre were 
 fixtures, and it needed dexterous navigation 
 to thread the narrow passage between them 
 and the surrounding lockers and horse-hair 
 sofas ; while a man over the middle height, 
 unless he stooped his head, must infallibly 
 bump it against the blackened beams above. 
 But Mr Winstanley, though he loved his lux- 
 uries, was an old traveller : he had been in 
 queer places and seen strange things ; nor did 
 he expect in a Hebridean cattle-boat to find 
 the comforts of a Cunard Liner. Had it not 
 been for that abominable gout, he would have 
 enjoyed the novel experience rather than 
 otherwise. And, the gout notwithstanding, 
 he merely made a grimace when the shock- 
 headed and courteous individual who offici- 
 ated as steward, in answer to his inquiry as
 
 150 fortune's wheel. 
 
 to an available berth, pointed to one of the 
 tattered sofas. 
 
 "Ye see, sir, we're no just that weel pro- 
 vided with state-cabins," said the man apolo- 
 getically, as if some half-dozen were already- 
 engaged, and they would have arranged to 
 have one or two more had they expected his 
 honour's arrival. 
 
 " If only I have no companions in my 
 misery," murmured Winstanley, resignedly ; 
 and supporting himself on his valet's shoulder, 
 he painfully regained the deck. But even 
 that very natural wish was not to be gratified. 
 
 " I guess, stranger, I must have done you 
 a mischief, and seems, judging from your limp 
 when you came aboard, that you had been 
 sorter crippled already." 
 
 The apology, such as it was, came from a 
 lank, wiry figure, in a tall stove-pipe hat, and 
 a suit of go-to-meeting garments ; and Win- 
 stanley, although he had been repeatedly in 
 America, detested Americans of a certain class. 
 And assuredly an apology of some sort was 
 due, since this particular citizen of the States 
 had brought down his foot upon Mr Winstan- 
 ley's afflicted member, making that dignified
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 151 
 
 gentleman pirouette on one leg, with his hand 
 on his servant's shoulder as the pivot of the 
 movement. Hobbling off in rage and pain, 
 he did not care to prolong the conversation ; 
 but the ejaculation he uttered, when beyond 
 ear-shot of his assailant, made a Scotch minis- 
 ter, similarly attired in black, turn up his eyes 
 in silent protestation. It was seldom that 
 Mr Winstanley so far forgot himself. He 
 hated the clergyman for that silent reproof, 
 but he was still more annoyed with himself 
 for having given cause for it. 
 
 Ere he had forgiven himself or regained his 
 composure, the vessel was under way. She 
 was a narrow, deep-waisted screw, indifferently 
 manned, and apparently much overloaded. 
 At least it struck our friend, who had been at 
 sea in all manner of craft, that she was down 
 by the head and thoroughly out of trim. She 
 carried a load of sheep and black cattle for- 
 ward, besides a score or two of Celts, who 
 might be bound for the herring-fishing ; and 
 the deck abaft the funnel was hampered with 
 a miscellaneous pile of mixed goods, so that 
 her few hands had little room to move about. 
 " I hope we may have fair weather," was his
 
 152 fortune's wheel. 
 
 passing prayer ; but his mind was chiefly pre- 
 occupied with his malady, as was only natural. 
 The stamp of the American's heavy boot was 
 still throbbing and thrilling through all his 
 fevered pulses ; and as the green shores of the 
 land-locked bay seemed to slip past the sta 
 tionary steamer, he paid no sort of attention 
 to the scenery. But as a sense of soothing 
 succeeded to acute torments, a change came 
 over the spirit of his dreams. The American's 
 violent remedy had brought temporary relief : 
 instead of being worse, he felt decidedly bet- 
 ter. And in that he saw a direct interposition 
 of the Providence which had consistently be- 
 friended him through his many wanderings. 
 He had prided himself on always making the 
 best of mankind as he found them, and here 
 was an opportunity of rising to the occasion — 
 of coming out strong, like Mr Tapley under 
 adverse circumstances. He would make the 
 best of the circumstances, unpromising as 
 they were, and show himself more than civil 
 to the uncongenial companions of his solitude. 
 An almost miraculous lull in his pains con- 
 firmed him in his manly resolutions. And 
 when the tinkling of a cracked bell announced
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 153 
 
 the serving of an early dinner, he almost felt 
 equal to the occasion. In fact, having merely 
 broken his fast upon tea and toast, and being 
 a man of active habits, and by no means, 
 generally speaking, a gouty subject, the crav- 
 ings of nature began to assert themselves. 
 
 He was pleased to find the cabin compara- 
 tively well ventilated. The active Mr Willis 
 had persuaded the steward to open one or two 
 of the bull's-eyes and admit a current of air. 
 Four gentlemen had already taken their 
 places at a table seated for a dozen : there 
 was his American acquaintance opposite to 
 the minister ; while the skipper, who occupied 
 the place of honour at the top, was faced by a 
 sheep-farmer from " misty Skye," bound on a 
 pleasure-jaunt to the western metropolis of 
 Scotland. 
 
 There is no nobler sight for gods or men 
 than " a great man struggling with the storms 
 of fate." Cato-like, the Honourable Mr Win- 
 stanley had screwed himself up to a pitch 
 of philosophy, where he was not to be lightly 
 shaken. He scarcely flinched, so far as could 
 be seen in the dusky twilight of the cabin, 
 when the American welcomed him with the
 
 154 fortune's wheel. 
 
 cordiality of an old acquaintance, whose 
 friendly offices had given a claim on his 
 goodwill. 
 
 "Wal, stranger," exclaimed that really 
 good fellow, with a warmth that meant a 
 hearty introduction to the company, — " wal, 
 stranger, here you are, all slicked up and 
 smoothed down. Guess, when you limped aft 
 with the broken balance of you, after I had 
 most crushed off that gouty foot of yourn, the 
 bristles were up along the back like a cata- 
 mount. That was human natur', and I apolo- 
 gise. You remembered me of old Jeb Peabody 
 and Judge Mason's bull. You want to hear 
 about it, you say. Wal, Jeb was ferryman at 
 Salem Flats on the Chickabody river, and he 
 kept a liquor -bar, and a store for general 
 rations to the back of that. All-fired deaf he 
 was, ever since he had been hoisted by mis- 
 take, when the boys forgot him, over a blastin' 
 charge in a quartz-mine down to Denver. He 
 could take a power of drink could Jeb, but he 
 was apt to get drowsy over it in a general 
 way. Wal, one night he was sitting nodding 
 behind his pipe in his shanty, when he hears 
 somebody a-tapping at the door. ' Come in,'
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 155 
 
 says Jeb, still sleepy-like. The party on the 
 wrong side of the shingles raps again. ' Come 
 in,' says Jeb again, ' or else, I guess, though 
 it's well on in the fall, you'll find it kinder 
 warm when you do come.' The stranger outside 
 seemed deaf like Jeb ; 'peared he was gettin' 
 riled with being kept a-waitin', for soon Jeb 
 could hear him stampin' and cussin'. * Wal,' 
 remarks Jeb, with a sigh, ' if I must get up to 
 open, I must ; but I guess, my friend, I'll 
 make you see stars — some,' and he reaches out 
 his hand to his slip of hickory, — when all of 
 a suddint the shingles cave in, and Judge 
 Mason's bull is in Jeb Peabody's weskit. Jeb 
 was a candid man, and as he said arterwards 
 in mentioning the fact — ' the way I shouted 
 and slipped out o' the winder like a greased 
 streak o' lightnin', afore the crittur was done 
 prancin' around, was a caution to iled snakes.' 
 And that was you, stranger, as you hollered 
 and made tracks ; and as for me, like the 
 judge's bull, I guess I was too fur taken aback 
 to apologise." 
 
 No one seemed greatly to appreciate the 
 American's apologue or apology, which, con- 
 sidering there was but an ounce or two of the
 
 156 fortune's wheel. 
 
 pure metal to some tons of quartz, was not 
 much to be wondered at. But Winstanley 
 felt more in charity towards him than before, 
 since he saw that the transatlantic gentleman 
 was well disposed to monopolise the talk, and 
 that for himself he might play the part of 
 listener. During dinner and afterwards, the 
 voluble American sought to beguile the time 
 with a fund of anecdote, of aphorism, and sage 
 and moral reflection. Nevertheless, he did not 
 have it all his own way by any means. The 
 minister and the sheep-farmer had many sub- 
 jects more or less in common — mammon, home- 
 missions, markets, the clip of wool, the outre- 
 Guidance of the crofters, and the oppression of 
 the landowners. As for the skipper, he seldom 
 opened his mouth, except to stow away the 
 very solid victuals, or swallow whisky-and- 
 water. On the whole, Winstanley, not fore- 
 seeing what was to befall on the morrow, 
 deemed him the most agreeable member of 
 the party. 
 
 The supper, which came off at nine, was 
 more successful than the dinner. After de- 
 vouring everything indigestible, from cold 
 corned -beef to crabs and Welsh rabbit, the
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 157 
 
 society settled down to steady drinking. The 
 American, to do him justice, having taken a 
 " cocktail or two " by way of digestive, stuck 
 thenceforward to aerated water. But he talked 
 nine to the dozen, as he chewed plugs of gol- 
 den Virginia indefatigably, in deference to the 
 scruples of his new English friend, who had 
 strongly protested against smoking. Not that 
 Mr Winstanley disliked a cigar, but he object- 
 ed to suffocation by rancid nicotine. 
 
 The minister, the sheep - farmer, and the 
 skipper met on common ground, or rather 
 on common spirits-and-water, over a bowl of 
 punch that was brewed by the reverend gentle- 
 man, after the soundest traditions of the fathers 
 of the Church. 
 
 " The stuff you brew at the preachings," ob- 
 served the hillman, with a solemn wink, " or 
 when you're seeking to come over the heritors 
 for an augmentation, or an ' eke ' to the manse." 
 And worthy Dr M'Tavish, knowing well what 
 his friend meant, fully met his expecta- 
 tions. Winstanley, who sat sipping some weak 
 brandy-and-water, soon sought a refuge on the 
 deck. But a mist that was very much of a 
 drizzle was settling down thickly, and Willis
 
 158 fortune's wheel. 
 
 was almost immediately at his elbow, like a 
 warning conscience. For Willis was attached 
 to his master, and detested the duty of acting 
 as sick-nurse to an aggravating patient. 
 
 "Excuse me, sir, but this mist is the worst 
 thing in the world for you. We should say it 
 had set in for settled wet in the south. Believe 
 me, you had much better go below." 
 
 " But I am half-sufTocated already, Willis, 
 and those good gentlemen seem to have no 
 notion of going to bed." 
 
 " Better be half smothered or half stunned, 
 sir, than suffer pain for weeks to come," an- 
 swered Willis, sententiously. " The one will 
 be soon over ; but who can tell the end of the 
 other ? " 
 
 So his master yielded to reason, and de- 
 scended again to the Inferno, where his worst 
 anticipations were fully realised. If the prac- 
 tice of patience be the discipline of life, Win- 
 stanley should have passed a profitable night. 
 
 When he crept on to the deck in the 
 morning, he felt a doubly injured man. In 
 his sense of intense feverishness it seemed 
 as if he were suffering vicariously for the 
 indulgences of his shipmates — as if he had
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 159 
 
 swallowed the contents of the punch-bowls, 
 while they had been simply looking on. But 
 he revived in the freshness of the morning air, 
 as he feasted his eyes on a magnificent High- 
 land panorama. The Cuchullin was lying at 
 anchor in the land-locked roadstead of Loch 
 Eon a. A thick undergrowth of dwarf oaks 
 and alders, interlacing their bows in great beds 
 of bracken, came literally down to the beach 
 of shingle ; half-a-dozen streams were descend- 
 ing so many picturesque glens, breaking here 
 and there over tiny waterfalls ; while huge 
 hills, with slopes of the softest green, and 
 great shoulders draped in purple heather, were 
 backed up by the splintered and weather-worn 
 peaks that were partially veiled in the swirl of 
 a drifting cloudland. In the foreground, near 
 a little " change-house " (A?iglice, public-house) 
 and a cluster of hovels, was a snug shooting- 
 box, with its garden washed by the sea-waves, 
 where the luxuriance of the shrubs and the 
 flower-beds glorified the warmth of the Gulf- 
 stream. 
 
 "The boat will be going ashore, sir, after 
 breakfast, should you think well of that," said 
 the shock-headed steward very civilly ; and
 
 160 fortune's wheel. 
 
 Winstanley thanked him as civilly and de- 
 clined, although, to a man in his situation, 
 the proposal sounded seductively. He would 
 have liked nothing better than a temporary 
 escape from his floating purgatory ; but he was 
 reconciled to his fate in remaining on board, 
 when the sprightly American came up with 
 his greeting. 
 
 " I 'calculate, Colonel, by the way you're 
 sniffing the mountain air, you feel as fresh 
 this morning as a four-year-old mustang. And 
 if you're good for a run ashore, I'll come along 
 and kinder take care o' you. No ? You won't? 
 Wal, then, if you like a hobble better, you're 
 welcome to try one. Them rocks up there 
 may be almighty grand, but I'd sooner 
 spekilate on their tallness any day than climb 
 them." 
 
 The morning passed slowly enough while 
 the Cuchullin was leisurely landing cargo. 
 The captain smoked and sipped his whisky- 
 and - water, leaving the superintendence of 
 operations to his mate. Winstanley, after 
 sundry unsuccessful attempts to kill time, 
 gave himself over to reflections that were 
 exceedingly unpleasant. He was condemned
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 161 
 
 to two other days and nights of confinement 
 in his present society before being landed at 
 a Christian port in the Clyde. He made up 
 his mind to the inevitable, in the spirit of an 
 early martyr. 
 
 And the inevitable promised to be worse 
 than he imagined. As the day went on, in 
 the bay, sheltered on three sides, scarcely a 
 breath of air was stirring. But nevertheless 
 a growing ground -swell came rolling round 
 the bold headland to the westward. The sky 
 had clouded over; there was oppression in 
 the air ; the leaden - coloured rollers seemed 
 sullenly smoothed down by oil ; and the 
 mate made the remark that the glass was 
 tumbling. 
 
 " There has been wild weather in the At- 
 lantic — there can be no doubt of that ; and 
 the question is, whether we will not have a 
 storm on the coast here." 
 
 As for the captain, casting all his cares upon 
 Providence, he smoked and drank on imper- 
 turbably. 
 
 The passengers had come on board : the 
 Cuchullin had got up her steam, and was slew- 
 ing her head round to the sea-channel, when 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 162 fortune's wheel. 
 
 the mate sang out to slacken speed. A boat 
 was seen putting out from the shore, and a 
 signal-flag was being waved in front of the 
 public-house. 
 
 " Now who may that be ? " muttered Win- 
 Stanley to himself. " It never rains but it 
 pours, and here comes another ruffian to prove 
 the possible aggravation of the least tolerable 
 calamities." 
 
 For a man was seated in the stern-sheets as 
 the boatmen strained to the oars. 
 
 Winstanley prided himself on his quick 
 perceptions, and it struck him at once that 
 the new-comer was a gentleman. Then [the 
 strangers luggage was presumptive evidence 
 in that direction, since it consisted of a couple 
 of neat portmanteaus, a gun-case, and a hand- 
 bag in Eussian leather. The handbag bore 
 the golden initial letters " J. V." ; and the 
 gun-case, as the shrewd reader may have sup- 
 posed, was superscribed at length as belonging 
 to John Venables, Esq. 
 
 Jack was not gouty — far from it. On the 
 contrary, he was in the highest health and 
 spirits ; and he swung himself up the side 
 ladder with the grace of a young Antinous.
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 163 
 
 His first words were a polite apology to the 
 captain for delaying him, which the captain 
 acknowledged by inarticulate mutterings, and 
 a stare from his whisky- sodden eyes. 
 
 As for Winstanley, he was from the first 
 attracted to the stranger. Here, according to 
 outward appearances, was a man with whom 
 he might possibly have common ideas and 
 sympathies. So the pair made friends over 
 the dinner - table, and, had it not been for 
 the interruptions of the irrepressible Yankee, 
 would practically have monojDolised the con- 
 versation. For the minister was overawed 
 by consciousness of ignorance of the sub- 
 jects the others discussed in a kind of easy 
 freemasonry ; and the sheep-farmer, like natu- 
 rally modest men, was always in extremes, 
 and either painfully shy or brilliantly auda- 
 cious. 
 
 It was just as well for Mr Winstanley that 
 he had found a companion he fancied, for it 
 seemed likely that the voyage might be indefi- 
 nitely prolonged. The night had settled down 
 in a fog, denser and damper than that of the 
 previous one ; and ten hours after they started 
 the steamer was going half-speed over a heavy
 
 164 fortune's wheel. 
 
 ground-swell in impenetrable darkness. Slow- 
 ing the engines had been the result of a com- 
 promise, when the skipper in a moment of 
 drunken depression had lent an ear to the 
 warnings of his inexperienced mate. But 
 when the youth, in increasing uneasiness, 
 urged lying off altogether till day should 
 dawn, his superior had lost temper and de- 
 cided to go boldly ahead. 
 
 " It's but kittle steering here," the mate 
 had objected ; " and with all that corrugated 
 iron in the hold we can hardly trust alto- 
 gether to the compasses. If we were among 
 the rocks and reefs off the Point of Achnahul- 
 lichan now " 
 
 " And what if we were, my man ? " returned 
 his commander, with drunken dignity. " Man 
 and boy, I've been afloat for thirty years, and 
 I ought to know every one of the reefs between 
 Cape Wrath and the Moil of Cantyre." 
 
 They w T ere bending over a chart spread on 
 the cabin-table, and the little company of 
 passengers was grouped around them. 
 
 " There's one of the reefs, then, I calculate," 
 ejaculated the American, dryly, and with in- 
 finite promptitude.
 
 A MEETING AT THE CROSS-TRACKS. 165 
 
 For as the captain spoke there was a shock 
 and a long shivering, a rending of timber, and 
 a tremulous rasping that had run along the 
 ship's keel like electricity, communicating with 
 the passengers through their shaking limbs, 
 and shooting a thrill to each nerve and fibre ; 
 while simultaneously rose shrill cries and wild 
 shouts from the decks. Then came another 
 shock, like the despairing struggle of a stranded 
 whale, and a duller sound of the splintering of 
 timbers.
 
 166 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 
 
 Winstanley forgot his gout as the captain 
 was suddenly sobered. There was a rush for 
 the deck in that first alarm, as of men who 
 preferred to perish in the open, rather than 
 to be drowned below decks like rats and 
 cockroaches. Once on the deck there was 
 little to be seen, but a great deal to be heard. 
 The lantern gave but a fitful light, throwing 
 faint reflections on the grey wreaths of watery 
 vapour. But out of the darkness, that was 
 to be felt rather than seen, came appalling 
 evidences of a general panic. The Highland 
 forecastle passengers, more accustomed to their 
 hills than to the sea, had lost their heads, and 
 were bellowing and " routing " like the cattle. 
 And the cattle, where they had not broken 
 from the fastenings, had been jumbled together
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 167 
 
 in prostrate heaps, and were plunging madly 
 in the efforts to regain their legs. The more 
 placidly minded sheep were bleating piteously; 
 the ship was groaning, though it could not 
 roll, in response to the surf that was dashing 
 against its sides ; and the funnel was belching 
 forth volumes of steam and flaming showers of 
 sparks, for something had gone wrong with 
 the fires or the machinery. 
 
 In the darkness and the turmoil, so far as 
 could be judged, there were only four men 
 who had kept their heads. These were the 
 young mate, the shock-headed steward, the 
 cool American, and Mr Jack Venables. As 
 for Mr Winstanley, he was in mortal alarm, 
 though he had too much self-respect to show 
 it ; and, rather to give himself time to calm 
 down than for any better reason, he addressed 
 a remark to Mr Venables, who happened to be 
 close by his side, and was busy stripping off 
 coat and boots. 
 
 " It's all over with us, I suppose." 
 
 But Jack's courage was of the kind that is 
 highest in emergencies, and his spirits rose 
 buoyantly to the excitement of danger. 
 
 " Not if I know it, sir. We may all get
 
 168 foetune's wheel. 
 
 away in the boats ; and if not, I mean to try- 
 to save myself by swimming. The steamer 
 is upon rocks, and one may find a footing 
 on them, till some passing vessel comes to take 
 us off." 
 
 Thus having spoken on the spur of the 
 moment, the selfishness of his speech struck 
 him. " I wish this crippled old gentleman 
 had not been here," — so, we may suppose, ran 
 the current of his thoughts. " But as he is 
 here, I am bound to see him through it, worse 
 luck." And then he added, " If you keep by 
 me, or rather, stay by the companion here, I 
 shall come back before I leave, and will gladly 
 give you a helping hand." 
 
 Hardly even when talking to Mr Moray, 
 had Jack ever invested words to better pur- 
 pose. And indeed in this case, Winstanley 
 had reason to be doubly grateful. Not only 
 did the calmness of the young stranger help 
 him to regain his self-possession, but it was a 
 promise of self-sacrifice which he felt assured 
 would be redeemed. So whether his feelings 
 were too much for him or not, he merely 
 squeezed the young gentleman's hand by way 
 of answer.
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 169 
 
 While we have been lingering over this 
 conversation apart between the only two 
 people in whom we are greatly interested, in- 
 cidents were being fast crowded into seconds. 
 Had it been daylight, one might have looked 
 on at a veritable panic. The Celts in the 
 steerage had sufficiently recovered from their 
 stupor to be seriously alarmed. They had 
 animal courage enough, but it was ill adapted 
 to unfamiliar circumstances. They made a 
 rush at the boats, and carried them by storm. 
 Their frenzied impetuosity knocked a hole in 
 the bottom of one, which happened to be 
 loaded with coils of wire fencing. As for the 
 other, by the aid of the seamen it was lowered 
 into the water tant bien que mat. But that 
 boat was to the windward side of the ship, and 
 the surf was strong, and the gear slightly fouled 
 at one end. Naturally the boat upset under a 
 cascade of human beings, most of them weigh- 
 ing considerably over fourteen stone ; and then 
 it became a case of " save who can," for no one 
 had a thought to bestow upon his neigh- 
 bours. Two or three who fell struggling; in 
 the deeper water, were swept to sea or under 
 the ship's counter, and were seen no more.
 
 170 fortune's wheel. 
 
 The rest, to their surprise and pleasure, re- 
 gained their legs, and were either washed up 
 against the swamped boat and the swinging 
 tackle, or, clutching wildly at each other, 
 their feet struck on the rocks, up which they 
 scrambled through the shoaling water, till, 
 clinging to the slippery sea- weed like limpets, 
 they had time for recollection and a long 
 breath. Then one or two, with more presence 
 of mind than the others, shouted out that 
 there was firm footing under the ship's bows ; 
 and when the good news had slowly circulated 
 on board, relief from the apprehension of im- 
 mediate clanger brought about a wonderful re- 
 action. Their safety need only be a question 
 of time, and the indolent side of the excitable 
 Highlanders turned upwards again. 
 
 And with a falling ground-swell and calm 
 weather they might have been well contented 
 to wait indefinitely. But as the first breaking 
 of the dawn began to streak the eastern sky, 
 there came an ominous sighing and whistling 
 through the shrouds and the funnel-stays, 
 which caused the mate and the shock-headed 
 steward to prick their ears and exchange 
 significant glances. The wind was getting
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 171 
 
 up, as the glass had prognosticated a gale ; 
 and when the waves rose with the wind, the 
 Cuchullin would probably go to pieces. Nor, 
 as the breaking of the day made objects 
 visible, was the sight of the reef on. which 
 they were hard and fast by any means reassur- 
 ing. Low and rugged, and covered with slimy 
 brown and green sea-weed, it looked very like 
 the slippery back of the fabulous kraken, and 
 nearly as likely to be submerged at any 
 moment. Assuredly it was sunk far out of 
 sight in spring-tides ; probably the seas wash- 
 ed over it in such a gale as was coming on. 
 
 The captain, although comparatively sob- 
 ered by the catastrophe, was dazed, and dis- 
 posed to take gloomy views, as he well might 
 be, considering that under the most favourable 
 circumstances his certificate was sure to be 
 suspended by the Board of Trade. So he 
 declared that as the vessel might break up at 
 any moment, the passengers had better take 
 refuge on the reef, which might be trusted not 
 to go to pieces, though it was quite on the 
 cards that it might be swamped. 
 
 Had an unimaginative artist sought mate- 
 rials for the illustration of ' Eobinson Crusoe,'
 
 172 fortune's wheel. 
 
 assuredly he might have found them in the 
 scene on the reef, which was locally known as 
 the " Kitti wake's neb." The steerage passen- 
 gers began by saving their personal property, 
 and piled bags and blankets and wooden 
 " kists " about them. Then, for sheer want 
 of occupation, and by the offer of free rations 
 of " Tallisker," they were persuaded by the 
 mate and the steward to unload the live cargo. 
 We can't say that humanity had much to do 
 with it. So half -wild cattle that had the 
 strength and suppleness of the famous Chil- 
 lingham herd, were persuaded to leap from the 
 deck into the water. The sheep followed their 
 leaders, when one or two had been caught up 
 and pitched over bodily. And then there was 
 a scene, such as might have been witnessed 
 when the ark brought up, after its seven 
 months' cruise, on Mount Ararat. The cattle 
 crowded together, as is their custom, with 
 stooping heads and staring coats, playfulty 
 goring each other in the ribs with their tre- 
 mendous horns, till the melancholy ocean re- 
 sounded with their bellowing. The sheep, that 
 jostled up against the oxen, although confining 
 themselves to plaintive protests against their
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 173 
 
 bad luck, were scarcely in the sum total less 
 vociferous. We daresay the rats left the 
 stranded ship, though, had they foreseen the 
 fate that must befall them, they would have 
 stuck by her so long as she floated. But the 
 old cabin cat, which had slipped over the side 
 when his betters set him the example, was 
 perhaps more to be felt for than any person. 
 He lowered himself over the side, from a 
 natural instinct of self-preservation ; but really 
 he cared very little what became of him. He 
 was too miserable, as he picked his way among 
 pools of sea-water, and set down his feet gin- 
 gerly on rocks that were slimy with trailing 
 sea-weed. His principles and his instincts 
 denied him the resource of suicide — for we 
 believe that, among all the memorabilia of 
 remarkable cats, no one instance has been 
 recorded of an animal that drowned itself. 
 But he strolled recklessly under the very 
 noses of collies who, in ordinary circumstances, 
 would have made but a couple of mouthfuls of 
 him. As it was, in the presence of a common 
 danger, they saw him pass with an indifference 
 as appalling as his own, to any one who had 
 leisure to remark the phenomenon. And so
 
 174 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 the desponding Thomas went on, till he ran 
 up against a gentleman seated in a chair, 
 when the domestic instincts asserted them- 
 selves, the more decidedly for the delightful 
 surprise. He rubbed his sides against an up- 
 turned pair of trousers ; he made the wearer 
 wince by smoothing his whiskers against a 
 muffled foot ; and then he gave a flying leap 
 out of the damp, arching his back and purring 
 pleasantly against a woollen waistcoat. 
 
 In fact it had been a pretty though a 
 pathetic sight to see Mr Venables piloting 
 Mr Winstanley to the highest point of the 
 reef, and there depositing him on one of the 
 two or three cane-bottomed chairs to be found 
 on board the Cuchullin. Willis, who was still 
 amenable to orders, though he had lost all 
 power of initiation, followed, carrying the 
 dressing-case that was placed under his mas- 
 ter's feet. And there sat the Honourable 
 Wilfred Winstanley, gathering the skirts of a 
 trailing ulster round his legs, more painfully 
 sensible than ever of his signal folly in flying 
 so hastily from his comfortable quarters at 
 Somerled. But if he had a feeling stronger 
 than that of self-reproach, it was of gratitude
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 175 
 
 to the cheery young fellow who had done 
 so much for him. Already Winstanley 
 had asked his name, and had been duly in- 
 formed. To say nothing of Jack's sanguine 
 spirit being contagious, it was difficult to 
 seem depressed when the youth was near. 
 He would have sat self-rebuked while Mr 
 Venables was quietly conversing, as if they 
 had come together in a club smoking-room in 
 Pall Mall. We will not undertake to say that 
 there was not some swagger about Mr Ven- 
 ables, but are content merely to record how 
 he behaved. 
 
 " I should prefer a cigarette, as I have gone 
 without breakfast. But 'needs must be,' — 
 you know the proverb, sir ; so, by your leave, 
 though I think I heard them say you objected 
 to smoking, I shall light a pipe. If I keep 
 well to leeward, perhaps you won't mind." 
 
 But after a few whiffs of the pipe, a fresh 
 idea seemed to strike him. 
 
 " What a picturesque sight it is, and what 
 comical groups of figures these are in the 
 foreground ! Gray's odes come back to the 
 memory. Confusion, fright, ay, and famine 
 too, and ever so many more realistic concep-
 
 176 fortune's wheel. 
 
 tions of the passions. And what a bit that is, 
 a la M. Gudin at the Luxembourg, for ex- 
 ample, where the waves are breaking against 
 the sides of the old ship, with the sea-weed 
 streaming on the curl of the surf, and boxes 
 and trunks bobbing about among the breakers." 
 
 And from another of the numerous pockets 
 in his shooting-jacket he produced something 
 between a memorandum-book and a sketch- 
 book, and, smiling, proceeded to draw. Win- 
 stanley looked at him curiously. His hand 
 was steady and his eye was clear, and he 
 handled the pencil for all the world as if he 
 had been sitting on a camp-stool in some 
 sequestered glen, with an immediate prospect 
 of muffins and coffee. Jack marked the 
 glance, and answered it in about five minutes, 
 by carelessly passing his sketch-book to Win- 
 stanley. 
 
 " Admirable, sir, admirable ! " was that 
 gentleman's verdict ; for in fact his young 
 companion, by some sharp and bold touches, 
 had given a very fair idea of water in motion ; 
 while the rendering of the more prominent 
 figures in the foreground was a clever blend- 
 ing of the grotesque with the veracious. And
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 177 
 
 though he immediately dismissed the matter 
 from his mind, the memory of it afterwards 
 did Jack good service. 
 
 Indeed more serious considerations were 
 soon to preoccupy him. A business of the 
 kind must be slow at best, whether to those 
 who figure in it or to those who read about it ; 
 so we spare our readers many of the details. 
 But with the rising tide, driven over the reef 
 by the winds, the water at every seventh 
 wave or so actually washed over Winstanley's 
 boot and slipper ; and although it became 
 pretty plain that no one need be actually 
 drowned, it seemed probable that his constitu- 
 tion might be shattered for life. He was so 
 lost in a labyrinth of gloomy thoughts, that 
 he was indifferent even to the presence of the 
 irrepressible American, who opined that he 
 would rather run the chances of being sky- 
 rocketed from high-pressure " ingines " among 
 the snags of the Mississippi, than be cast 
 adrift on an empty stomach in that herring- 
 pool, when a man should be turning his atten- 
 tion to mutton-chops and ham-and-eggs. 
 
 Nothing could be more welcome, then, than 
 the sight of the Clansman, steaming southward 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 178 fortune's wheel. 
 
 on the way to Oban. She answered the 
 signals of distress, and bore down to the 
 assistance of the wreck. The embarkation was 
 a matter of time, and of some little incon- 
 venience as well ; but the reef acted as a kind 
 of breakwater against the freshening gale, and 
 the castaways were hospitably welcomed into 
 snug quarters, where they had an opportunity 
 of changing their damp garments. 
 
 " I seem to have known you from your boy- 
 hood," said Winstanley very warmly to his 
 young acquaintance. " You have stood by me 
 in a way I shall never forget ; and as you were 
 ready to do me one inestimable service in the 
 way of risking your life, I mean to ask you to 
 do me another. It's the way of the world, 
 you know, so you need not be surprised." 
 
 "Very willingly," answered Jack, with grace- 
 ful readiness — not the less readily, no doubt, 
 that he felt instinctively that the favour to be 
 asked was to pave the way to some return for 
 his generous devotion. 
 
 " Well, I fancy I may take it for granted 
 that your time is at your disposal, otherwise 
 you would hardly have shipped for a cruise in 
 that miserable old tub. I mean to land at
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 179 
 
 Oban, where I fear I may have to lay up and 
 take medical advice. If you could bestow a 
 day or two on a fretful invalid, I should feel, 
 if possible, more grateful than I do at present." 
 And he threw as much significance into his 
 words as was compatible with consideration for 
 a gentleman's feelings. 
 
 And as we know something of Mr Venables's 
 views and nature — and as he made it a golden 
 rule never to miss a chance — we need hardly 
 add that he jumped at the invitation with a 
 cordiality which greatly flattered his senior.
 
 180 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 
 
 A man must be a bore, or a social wet blanket, 
 if he be not missed from the society of a High- 
 land hall. Venables was missed by his uncle ; 
 he was missed by his cousin Grace ; he was 
 missed and mourned by Donald Ross and the 
 gillies. And, no doubt, he might have been 
 more missed than he was. by Leslie, had it 
 not been for certain significant intimations, 
 dropped in the course of the conversation 
 which Glenconan had with his elder nephew 
 according to arrangement. It is true that Mr 
 Moray said very little, being almost inclined 
 to repent his frankness with Jack Venables ; 
 and as he had already nearly burned his 
 fingers, he was apprehensive of further indis- 
 cretions. Yet he did give the young laird of 
 Roodholm to understand that Grace might
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 181 
 
 possibly take it into her head to marry, and 
 that for himself he had every confidence that 
 his daughter would choose wisely. He hinted, 
 moreover, that he had said much the same 
 thing to Venables, which was quite enough to 
 send Leslie to a scrutiny of his own feelings. 
 And now that the scrutiny was forced upon 
 the young man, he was surprised at the dul- 
 ness of his own perceptions. But once entered 
 on so fascinating a course of study, he made 
 astonishing progress; and self -communings, 
 illustrated by more assiduous perusals of his 
 cousin's pretty face, taught him a thousand 
 things he had scarcely suspected. Strong and 
 sluggish natures like his sometimes, neverthe- 
 less, answer promptly to the spur ; and when 
 a spark is set to a slumbering passion, it burns 
 like the subterraneous volcanic fires in Java 
 or Japan, where the peaceful landscapes smile 
 over the fragile crust that may explode at 
 any moment in a violent conflagration. 
 
 As for Grace, she had rather felt towards 
 Leslie as her father felt. He was a man she 
 would have turned to in any trouble. She 
 believed in his honour as she did in his Chris- 
 tianity. She was sometimes almost startled
 
 182 fortune's wheel. 
 
 by the eloquent expression he gave to those 
 deeper emotions that were silently at work 
 within her. She felt that the active sympathy 
 of one so stanch and so earnest might be 
 everything in certain circumstances. Never- 
 theless, like her father, she rather admired 
 than loved him, cousins as they were, and 
 thrown continually into the most familiar 
 intercourse. But hitherto she had seen life 
 almost entirely on its sunny side, and so she 
 found herself more at home in the society of 
 the more voluble Mr Venables. 
 
 And hitherto, and so far, the stars in their 
 courses had been unquestionably fighting for 
 Jack. But now, as it chanced, Mr Leslie was 
 to have his innings at a moment when it 
 seemed to come to him as an interposition of 
 Providence. 
 
 Moray appeared one morning at the break- 
 fast-table with care upon his brow. 
 
 " I have got a batch of bothersome business 
 letters to answer, and I think that nowadays I 
 hate business as much as I once used to enjoy 
 it. And this is such a beautiful day, that it 
 seems all the more pity to waste it. Needs 
 must, however, when — you know the rest —
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 183 
 
 and there is no help for it. Suppose you 
 and Grace arrange to do something, Leslie. 
 I shall be all the more resigned if I know 
 you are enjoying yourselves." 
 
 Leslie brightened up. Good-hearted as he 
 was, and fond of his uncle, he scarcely sym- 
 pathised with him in his present trial. And 
 although generally truthfulness itself, he was 
 guilty of a compliment de circonstance. 
 
 " I am sure we are very sorry, sir ; but you 
 know the motto of the Eussells, ' What must 
 be, must be.' Perhaps if you can knock off 
 your work, you may join us later in the day." 
 Then turning to his cousin, " What do you 
 say, Grace ? Shall we take the waggonette 
 and the chestnuts, and drive over to Tomna- 
 hurich ? " 
 
 Now the lively Grace, with all her regard 
 for him, rather shrank from a day's tete-a-tete 
 with her somewhat solemn cousin. If she 
 had told the truth, she would have confessed 
 that he almost frightened her ; and she seldom, 
 unless when his animated conversation made 
 her forget herself, felt altogether at ease in his 
 company. But on this occasion, as her father 
 had said of his correspondence, there seemed
 
 184 fortune's wheel. 
 
 to be no help for it, so she resigned herself 
 with alacrity and a charming grace. 
 
 In fact, Tomnahurich had a mystical attrac- 
 tion for her — all the more so, that on the only 
 occasion when she had visited it, she had for 
 once been out of tune with her favourite com- 
 panion. Jack Venables had been at her elbow 
 through a brilliant afternoon, and his lively 
 rattle had jarred upon her sensibilities, as the 
 blaze of the sunshine had seemed unsuitable 
 to the scenery. 
 
 The waggonette with the chestnut cobs came 
 round, and Grace stepped up on the box-seat 
 by the side of her cousin. The taciturnity of 
 the driver surpassed her apprehensions — one 
 may easily have too much of peace and calm. 
 Leslie seemed embarrassed and lost in thought, 
 although he handled the reins carefully over 
 the somewhat break -neck roads. He would 
 talk with almost feverish fluency for a minute 
 or two, and then relapse into long silence. Had 
 Grace been more self-conscious, she might have 
 feared he was on the brink of a proposal, 
 although assuredly nothing was further from 
 his thoughts ; and he was one of the last men 
 to throw away a game by precipitation. She
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 185 
 
 was immensely relieved when the carriage 
 pulled up, and the groom was left in charge 
 to await their return, the horses being picketed 
 on a patch of turf. Now she was no longer 
 hand - locked to a spasmodically galvanised 
 corpse, and could break away to gather wild 
 flowers or on any other excuse. Her pet terrier 
 ran yelping on ahead. Leslie loaded himself 
 with the luncheon-basket, with a rug, and his 
 cousin's sketch-book, and strode along by her 
 side. The scenery was picturesque enough 
 and wild enough. What had once been a 
 tolerable driving-track ended where the wag- 
 gonette had drawn up, and was only continued 
 by a rough footpath, winding up a steep green 
 hill. There were solemn associations with it 
 too, inconsistent with picnics and luncheon 
 hampers ; for many a century before Tomna- 
 hurich had been consecrated by the Catholic 
 Church, and it was still sacred to the feelings 
 and the superstitions of the neighbourhood. 
 
 If we are not abroad in our Celtic philology, 
 Tomnahurich may be translated " the hill of 
 the fairies " ; at all events, that is the name 
 by which the Celts call it in the Saxon. It is 
 a little churchyard on a bold knoll or bluff, in
 
 186 fortune's wheel. 
 
 the midst of which might be traced the found- 
 ations of a Komish chapel. Many generations 
 had died and gone to dust since the sacred 
 edifice was abandoned for the distant kirk of 
 the Reformed religion. The surrounding glens 
 had been depopulated by emigration, and de- 
 scendants of the dead folks might be flourish- 
 ing beyond the Atlantic, owning forest farms, 
 or running lumbering concerns in Canada, 
 speculating in shares in Wall Street, or in 
 grain and pork in Chicago. But still the 
 gillies and shepherds of the neighbourhood 
 would bring their dead to repose on the mound 
 of Tomnahurich. 
 
 " Can you not fancy," observed Leslie, as 
 they climbed the hill — and it must be confessed 
 that he might have chosen a more inspiriting 
 subject, — " can you not fancy the melancholy 
 little processions that have followed the path 
 we are treading ? It seems to me that those 
 who live in loneliness like this must miss the 
 departed who were dear to them more than we, 
 who are thrown into the whirl of life and may 
 forget now and again, if we cannot altogether 
 console ourselves. We bury our dead out of 
 our sight, and so far we are done with them ;
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 187 
 
 but in these Highland solitudes, after the 
 funeral as before it, do what they will, the 
 dead must always be with them. Look at 
 the peasants of the Breton coast, with their 
 sombre fancies, wdiich nevertheless are sad 
 realities to the survivors." 
 
 Grace, although sufficiently impressionable, 
 was taken aback, for she happened to be think- 
 ing of the cold chicken in the basket. But 
 tant bien que mal, she caught the ball on the 
 rebound, and dropped sympathetically into her 
 companion's gloomy train of thought. 
 
 "And can you conceive anything more sadly 
 depressing than a child's funeral here in the 
 winter? There is no putting it off, because 
 the few mourners have gathered together from 
 great distances, perhaps hazarded their lives 
 in the blinding snowstorm and the snowdrifts. 
 And the mother, broken down by watching 
 and grief, is toiling up the hill behind the 
 little coffin ; and even the father's strength 
 has been overtasked in digging through the 
 frozen ground; and the light of the cottage 
 has been laid to rest in a spot that is the very 
 abomination of bleak desolation." 
 
 With such cheerful talk they beguiled the
 
 fortune's wheel. 
 
 way, till, having reached the summit of the 
 grassy steep, the lonely churchyard lay full in 
 front of them. Whatever it might be in the 
 depth of winter, the spot seemed enchanting 
 now. It was on the grassy crest of a rocky 
 headland, surrounded on three sides by a 
 brawling stream. A clump or two of venerable 
 yews had been dwarfed and warped by expo- 
 sure to the weather ; and beneath and around 
 them, and within the dilapidated wall, were 
 the mounds, not a few of which were almost 
 level with the greensward, with a sjmnkling of 
 grey and moss-grown headstones. The lustre 
 of the noonday sun was gilding the scene he 
 could hardly brighten; but by way of com- 
 pensation, the mountains to the westward were 
 bathed in all the glories of his golden light. 
 Both Leslie and his cousin involuntarily paused, 
 simultaneously struck by the pathos and the 
 splendour of the spectacle. A still more touch- 
 ing surprise was awaiting them. As Leslie 
 was about to move on, Grace laid a finger on 
 his arm. But it hardly needed her whispered 
 " Hush ! " to make him stoop forward and 
 listen with all his ears. There was a murmur 
 of childish voices, which would have sounded
 
 A HIGHLAND TKAGEDY. 189 
 
 strangely spirit-like had it been midnight in- 
 stead of brilliant no'on. 
 
 Grace stole softly forward, her cousin fol- 
 lowing. Another moment, and the chicken 
 and her hunger were altogether forgotten. 
 
 What they saw was such a scene of un- 
 affected grief as might have inspired the pen 
 of a Hogg or the brush of a Wilkie. There 
 was a newly cast mound beneath the boughs 
 of a yew, and near the brink of the precipice. 
 And by it a comely young woman was kneel- 
 ing, her chin in her hands, her elbows on 
 the grass, and her swimming grey eyes gazing 
 wildly into vacancy. Though their feelings 
 were stirred in sympathy with her grief, the 
 onlookers nevertheless were struck by the 
 details of the picture. Setting the refining 
 influences of a profound sorrow aside, the 
 mourner was graceful beyond the generality 
 of women of her station. If her complexion 
 was freckled and her cheek-bones were some- 
 what high, there was beauty with great sweet- 
 ness of expression in her features. The dress 
 was of simple black, neatly fitted to the strong 
 yet well-shaped figure ; and in the rich tresses 
 of her hair, as they hung knitted over her
 
 190 fortune's wheel. 
 
 neck, the auburn and the red changed to gold 
 in the sunbeams. That the mother had been 
 forgotten in the sense of her widowhood, was 
 shown by the boy who was clinging to her 
 skirts, and scared at his mother's unwonted for- 
 getfulness of him. And a yet younger child, 
 a bright little girl, was laughing and crowing, 
 as she plucked at the gowans. 
 
 Leslie drew back instinctively, though the 
 mourning widow was both blind and deaf. 
 And Grace had accompanied him in a sym- 
 pathetic movement, though in another mo- 
 ment she had retraced her steps. She could 
 not leave the mourner without trying to com- 
 fort her, though feeling in her heart that con- 
 solations must be cast away. Indeed the poor 
 woman scarcely acknowledged the light hand 
 laid upon her shoulder. She cared as little for 
 what was passing near her as for her children ; 
 and the touch and the presence of the stranger 
 were neither profanation nor intrusion : so that 
 Grace, with all her earnest desire to bring help, 
 stood silent and abashed before that speech- 
 less sorrow. She said nothing : she stooped 
 and kissed the children, and then she with- 
 drew as quietly as her cousin had withdrawn.
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 191 
 
 But if her feelings had been moved to their 
 depths, she was full of feminine curiosity, as 
 she vowed to herself that those feelings should 
 find practical relief. Strange that she should 
 have lived for weeks in those mountain soli- 
 tudes, and know nothing of some cottage 
 tragedy that must have been enacted almost 
 under her eyes. That a tragedy there was, 
 there could be no doubt in the world : the wo- 
 man's face was eloquent with a story of sorrow 
 which she must find an interpreter to explain. 
 
 The interpreter was there, of course, all ready 
 to her hand. She spoke very little to Leslie, 
 who did not say much himself; and for once 
 his cousin understood and admired his reti- 
 cence. But she flew at Donald Koss, as he 
 said afterwards, though with all due respect, 
 "just as if one of the terriers had been flying 
 at the throat of a badger." 
 
 Donald, as a rule, was ready enough to talk, 
 especially to the young mistress he adored. 
 But on this occasion he was reserved and em- 
 barrassed, which naturally whetted her keen 
 curiosity. And for once Miss Grace spoke 
 peremptorily, like her father, and went very 
 roundly to the wished-for point.
 
 192 fortune's wheel. 
 
 "You understand me, Donald," she exclaim- 
 ed, stamping her foot on the heather, and turn- 
 ing her back ostentatiously on the contents of 
 the luncheon-basket — "you understand me, and 
 you know what I mean to say; and so you 
 will please to tell me everything about her." 
 
 Donald raised his stalker's hat, and scratched 
 his grey locks in profound perplexity. He 
 looked for help towards Mr Leslie, but Mr 
 Leslie refused to understand him, being almost 
 as curious on the subject as Miss Grace. Then 
 he burst out in dire perplexity — 
 
 " Deil be in me, if there is anything I would 
 refuse to tell you, Miss Grace, but it was Glen- 
 conan himsel' — and " 
 
 " Oh, if you mean that my father has for- 
 bidden you," began the young lady, with a 
 calculated sternness which nearly drove the 
 unfortunate retainer beside himself. 
 
 " It's not precisely that, neither, Miss Grace : 
 if it were, you might have tied me to a hart's 
 horns before I would have told. But you 
 know yourself that the laird may mean much 
 when he says little ; and though you may be 
 sure that his hand is always as open as his heart, 
 and that the widow you were speaking of has
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 193 
 
 wanted for nothing, it's my belief he would 
 wish to keep anything from you that would 
 be troubling you." 
 
 "Well, I see how it is," responded the 
 young lady, softening down her tones into 
 witching seductiveness, and breaking into a 
 smile which went straight to Donald's heart. 
 "My father meant for the best, but chance 
 has been too much for him. I mean to get to 
 the bottom of this melancholy story, and may 
 you not just as well tell it as he ? He knows 
 even better than you that I never care to be 
 kept waiting." 
 
 Donald looked inquiringly at Leslie. Like 
 every one else, he had an instinctive con- 
 fidence in the honour and good sense of the 
 Laird of Eoodholm. Leslie simply nodded. 
 He knew that Grace would have her will, and 
 she might as well have it sooner than later. 
 If he were called upon to interfere, he could 
 always defend her with her father. And 
 Donald, who was full of the tale he had to 
 tell, and who rather prided himself on his 
 gifts as a raconteur, broke away in full cry at 
 the sign, like a hound after a wounded deer. 
 
 "It's three - and - thirty years past next 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 194 fortune's wheel. 
 
 Martinmas since I came first into the Strath, 
 and I've never known a finer lad in it than 
 Angus M'Intyre. No day was too long for 
 him, and no hill too stiff ; and I have known 
 him bring the deer home upon his shoulders, 
 when the pony would have broken down in 
 the bogs. It was seven years ago, or it may 
 be six, that he was married upon John Kuther- 
 ford's daughter, and brought her here. Her 
 father was a shepherd from the South country, 
 and they say that he was sore against the 
 match — for Eutherford was as obstinate as 
 one of his own tups, and would always be 
 set against the Highlandmen ; but between 
 Angus and the lassie, they had their way. 
 That Rutherford would miss her, you may 
 believe ; and as for Angus, many a time he 
 has said to me that his heart was sore and 
 sorry for the old man. And they had the two 
 bonnie children you have seen with her up at 
 the burying-place there. I have never mar- 
 ried myself, Miss Grace, and I never mean to, 
 begging your pardon ; yet I will not say but 
 what I have sometimes wished I was Angus. 
 
 " I may have wished it one Saturday at 
 even, just two months agone, if I had little
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 195 
 
 thought at the time that I would never forget 
 that night. We had been giving a look round 
 the braes at the back of Benavourd, for we 
 knew that Glenconan would be down in a 
 week or two. And Angus, he would be insist- 
 ing that I was to stop with him for supper, 
 and he would be stirring the toddy, and the 
 glass was going round, but yet the bit wife 
 was the cheeriest thing in the cottage. And 
 he had told me that there was a litter of foxes 
 in the cairn on Funachan : 'deed, and the 
 shepherd had been complaining that very day, 
 and he said he would need to be getting out 
 some of the terriers and seeing after them. 
 And so I said to him, after the last glass, 
 that we would be seeing about them ; and if 
 it was a Providence, as the minister might say, 
 it was a Providence of the wrong kind, but 
 that very night I found the fox-hunter from 
 Lochloy at the kennels. 
 
 " He's an old man is Peter — as keen after 
 the foxes as his dogs, but as stiff as Jock 
 Rutherford ; and he would by no means stay 
 with us over the morrow, that was the Sab- 
 bath. He was bid to be on the Monday with 
 the tacksman in Coulin ; but if we thought
 
 196 fortune's wheel. 
 
 well of it, he would take the cairn on Funachan 
 on his road. So at last I said, and always will 
 I rue it, that he was a wilful man, and must 
 have his way. 
 
 " Had it not been for Peter again, I would 
 have turned back upon the Sunday when we 
 met the minister. He said but little, but he 
 looked the more, and many's the time that 
 I have minded on it since. And there was 
 a beast of a raven that would follow us, croak- 
 ing, all the way up Glenclocharty ; and Mary 
 — that's the woman ye saw, Miss Grace — she 
 would have keepit back Angus from going 
 with us, for both of them were dressed and 
 bound for the kirk. And Angus himself, for 
 once, was not that willing, but he said that if 
 we were set upon it, he was to show us the 
 place ; so he whistled upon Smourach, his bit 
 terrier, and gave a kiss and a smile to the 
 wife. 
 
 " The bitch fox had gone to her earth but 
 little before us, and the dogs had opened on 
 the scent or ever we got near to the cairn. 
 And Peter likes ill that any should interfere 
 with his pack, so Angus had picked up Smour- 
 ach, and was holding her in his arms. Well,
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 197 
 
 the big fox-hounds they stood whining and 
 scraping outside ; and terrier after terrier 
 would be sent in among the rocks, and when 
 we laid our ears to the ground we could 
 hear the fighting and the scratching. But the 
 vixen, she had the best of them ; and dog 
 after dog came back, blown and bleeding, and 
 the day was getting on, and Peter growing 
 desperate. It was then that Smourach made 
 a spang out of Angus's arms, though I well 
 believe he could have held her had it pleased 
 him ; but he was proud of the bit thing, and 
 would always say that when once she put in 
 her teeth, the worse she was worried the 
 deeper they went. 
 
 " But you are wearying, and I am coming 
 to an end, and a doleful end it was for Angus. 
 The battle had begun worse than before, and 
 we all of us were lying and listening, when 
 some of the stones slippit from beneath us. 
 Angus was like a man distracted, for the way 
 was closed, and unless we could open it out 
 again, he had looked his last upon poor 
 Smourach. So he said it behoved him to 
 go in, and when I looked in his eyes I saw 
 there was no holding him back. So he strips
 
 198 fortune's wheel. 
 
 his coat and in he crawls, and we could hear 
 to him scraping aw T ay among the stones, when 
 the biggest of the blocks above him settled 
 down. He must have moved some of the 
 small stones inside that upheld it. And then 
 there came a groan through the cracks that 
 sent a grue to our hearts, and we knew that 
 the great rock was upon him. We were down 
 upon our knees and tearing aw r ay, till our 
 hands were bloody and our nails were rent ; 
 and we got down till we saw the hair on the 
 head of him, and the big bells of the sweat 
 that were standing on his forehead. 
 
 " ' Can you shift it, Donald ? ' he could just 
 groan out ; and I would have given ten years 
 of my life to say c ay ' to him. But unless w^e 
 had brought half-a-dozen men with bars of 
 iron, we could never have lifted it one inch. 
 But when we could say nothing, and he maybe 
 heard Peter sob — for the fell old hunter was 
 crying like a woman — all he breathed out was, 
 ' Then the Lord be good to me ! ' and these 
 were the last words that he ever spoke." 
 
 Donald, absorbed in his story, had been 
 stimulated by Grace's attention. But when 
 he looked at her on finishing, her pale face
 
 A HIGHLAND TKAGEDY. 199 
 
 frightened him. It was not for nothing that 
 Moray, knowing her impressionable tempera- 
 ment, had been afraid of shocking her by so 
 tragic a tale. But with her sensitive nerves 
 she had her father's courage ; and it was to the 
 fate of the unfortunate widow that she turned 
 her practical mind. She forced Donald to tell 
 how the news had been "broken" by strong 
 men who could not control their emotion, and 
 startled the bereaved widow by the very in- 
 tensity of their sympathy ; and though she 
 could not go to the cottage in her present agi- 
 tation, thenceforth her thoughts were full of 
 its occupant. 
 
 Moray was both shocked and angry when 
 he met the excursionists on their return. His 
 daughter's nerves had been sadly shaken by 
 listening to such a narrative so near its scene. 
 On consideration, it was not difficult to obtain 
 his forgiveness for Donald, who indeed, in the 
 circumstances, could hardly have helped speak- 
 ing. But time after time he cursed his own 
 folly in letting his daughter go near the church- 
 yard and the cottage. So far as material help 
 to the widow went, he had nothing with which 
 to reproach himself. His liberality had fed
 
 200 fortune's wheel. 
 
 and clothed the little family, and was ready to 
 assure its future into the bargain. But what 
 haunted Grace, with that slow death-agony 
 under the boulder, was the look in the widow's 
 face. There was a touch of the insanity that 
 brings no oblivion — that distorts the horrors 
 which memory will revive. Judging by the 
 effects on herself, a comparatively unconcerned 
 listener, she could guess how the tragedy must 
 have told on the woman it so deeply affected. 
 And with her actively sympathetic nature, in- 
 action was out of the question. Even her 
 father, now that the mischief had been done, 
 felt that she must be left free to follow 
 her warm impulses. Yet she shrank herself 
 from approaching so sacred a grief, distrusting 
 her power of bringing either consolation or 
 alleviation. 
 
 It was then that Leslie had his opportunity 
 — though, to do him justice, he never thought 
 of it as an opportunity at the time ; nor did 
 he know till long afterwards how well he had 
 improved it. In which he differed altogether 
 from Mr Venables, who, although perhaps to 
 the full as warm-hearted as the other, could 
 never for the life of him help thinking how he
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 201 
 
 could turn everything to some personal ac- 
 count. There is nothing which a sensible girl 
 who is vaguely contemplating marriage craves 
 so much in a lifelong companion as intuitive 
 sympathy and intelligent affection. They are 
 the supports on which she hopes to lean — the 
 shelter that may shield her from the storms of 
 life. And now Leslie's sympathy, although it 
 was silent, was as clear to her as the intelli- 
 gence, the perspicuity of which almost alarmed 
 her. He said very little, as was his custom, 
 but she felt that his loving penetration was 
 searching out her innermost thoughts. And 
 she knew, besides, and she had good reason 
 to know, that he was employing himself very 
 energetically in her service. 
 
 When she came down to breakfast, after a 
 restless night, she had missed her cousin, and 
 asked about him. 
 
 "He called for a glass of rum-and-milk in 
 his room, and was away by seven o'clock, they 
 tell me," said her father. " He did not vouch- 
 safe any message for us, but I fancy we both 
 guess his business." 
 
 So in the early forenoon Grace was saunter- 
 ing on the path that led over the hills towards
 
 202 fortune's wheel. 
 
 Mrs M'Intyre's shieling. Nor was it long 
 before she saw Leslie approaching. He was 
 coming on leisurely, as if lost in thought, but 
 at sight of her he quickened his pace. 
 
 " Well, Ealph ! " was all the greeting she 
 gave him, and yet there was that in her look 
 and in her tone which amply rewarded him 
 for his early expedition. 
 
 "Yes," he said, answering her unspoken 
 inquiries — " yes, I have been to see her, and I 
 think I see, too, how we can help her." 
 
 Grace was of course all anxiety ; but she 
 repressed the questions that came crowding to 
 her lips, leaving her silent cousin to do the 
 talking. And he spoke with so much good 
 sense and with such sincere feeling, that she 
 had never listened to him with greater 
 pleasure. 
 
 "You of all girls will understand me, Grace, 
 when I tell you that I never was so nervous 
 in my life as when I walked up to the door of 
 that poor woman's cottage. There is some- 
 thing so sacred in a calamity like his, that it 
 seems sacrilege for a man and a stranger to 
 approach it. And when sorrow has almost 
 turned the brain, in our ignorance and our
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 203 
 
 reverence we are almost hopeless to cope with 
 it. In fact, had it not been for one thing, I 
 should have gone on hesitating " — he did not 
 add, " as you have been doing." 
 
 But Grace finished the sentence for him in 
 her mind, and, full of her gratitude, was ready- 
 to reward him. 
 
 " And I know what that one thing was, and 
 that you wished to spare my weakness an 
 effort. Nor shall I forget it, Kalph — of that 
 you may be sure ; and now tell me every- 
 thing;." 
 
 " Eeally, I don't know that there is much 
 to tell, except that I have prepared the way 
 for you, and left her hoping for your visit. 
 Though that is something, for I am sure you 
 will do her good, and indeed may probably 
 prove her salvation. The fact is that the 
 poor woman has been neglected, though not 
 intentionally ; and mismanaged — with the best 
 intentions. Your father, as of course he would, 
 gave his people carte blanche, and in the way 
 of meal, and milk, and mutton, she has every- 
 thing heart can desire. I believe that the 
 neighbours, from Donald Koss downwards, 
 would each one of them cut off a hand to
 
 204 fortune's wheel. 
 
 spare her a finger-ache. But they scarcely 
 understand her case, — as how should they ? 
 And living in the shadows of that brooding 
 solitude — you remember our talk of yesterday, 
 just before we saw her ? — her dead is always 
 with her ; the horrors of that death-scene are 
 always present with her ; and I believe, from 
 what she let slip, that the husband she loved 
 haunts her in her visions of the night like the 
 vampires of the Hungarian legends. Unhap- 
 pily, perhaps, she seems to be a remarkable 
 woman for her station : what you might have 
 been," he added, with a serious smile, " had 
 you been born a shepherd's daughter and 
 similarly bereaved." 
 
 " But the minister ? " said Grace. " He is a 
 good man — is he not? Has he not gone to 
 visit her?" 
 
 " The minister is an excellent man, and his 
 visits have been only too frequent. From 
 what I have gathered, and it was a good deal, 
 his views are as strong and as sincere as they 
 are narrow. He pities her ; he feels for her, 
 according to his lights ; but he is persuaded 
 that the terrible death was a judgment. And 
 even in consoling the widow, in his heart and
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 205 
 
 conscience he feels that he must vindicate the 
 ways of God to man, and says as much. So 
 Mrs M'Intyre, believing in her pastor's spir- 
 itual infallibility, is tormented by the notion 
 of her husband's doom. If he was made a 
 flagrant example of the sin of Sabbath-break- 
 ing — if he was doomed here, he may be 
 condemned hereafter." 
 
 "How terrible!" 
 
 "Is it not ? But that is just where you 
 may do unspeakable good, since you can talk 
 religion as well as common-sense, and speak 
 to her of mercy instead of judgment. But it 
 is not for me to tell you, Grace, how you may 
 best comfort the widow. I should as soon 
 think of giving a hint to one of the angels : if 
 you cannot bring consolation to the cottage, 
 then I throw up my hands. And even the 
 minister is a candid man, and may listen to 
 reason and the views of Glenconan's daugh- 
 ter. You go to work with him and with Mrs 
 M'Intyre, and come to me and report progress. 
 In the meantime, I wash my hands of the 
 whole matter — unless, indeed, you should 
 want money." 
 
 " That you assuredly shall not do, or I take
 
 206 fortune's wheel. 
 
 no further step ; and I cannot use a stronger 
 threat, for I believe that we shall succeed 
 in our errand if we only go hand in hand. 
 But you must still be my guide, and, you may 
 be sure, I shall be very docile. Only tell me 
 what I am to do, and you shall have no cause 
 to complain." 
 
 Leslie never in his life felt half so happy, and 
 he would have very much liked to have told 
 her so. A community of interests had been 
 established on the highest and holiest grounds ; 
 and now he had proved and realised the vir- 
 tues and the qualities with which he had 
 always desired to credit his cousin. She was 
 worth the loving, and she was worth the liv- 
 ing and the working for, so from thenceforth 
 he made up his mind to do both the one and 
 the other ; and when Leslie's mind was made 
 up on a subject so all-important, it was by no 
 means easy to move it. That happy moment 
 seriously altered the odds against hopes and 
 ambitions on the part of Mr Venables. And 
 it is more than probable that Grace made a 
 guess at what was passing in his mind ; for 
 her colour rose, to her confusion, as her cousin's 
 eyes were riveted on her.
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 207 
 
 But the confusion passed away, and the 
 community of interest remained. The cousins 
 went like angel-visitors to the cottage, some- 
 times together, more often separately. They 
 found that the widow could be won to confi- 
 dences in a tete-a-tete, though she would shrink 
 into herself when the two came together. But 
 their sympathy began to teach her acquies- 
 cence, which might gradually grow to contented 
 resignation. And although it was not often 
 she spoke the thanks she looked, she could 
 occasionally be eloquent in her gratitude to 
 either when the other was away. She had 
 warm feelings, or she could never have suffered 
 so intensely; and she had been educated above 
 her present station. But let her enlarge on 
 the praises of the absent as she might, she 
 could never tire the patience of either of the 
 listeners. Grace would hear how her manly 
 cousin — who had saved the life of another at 
 the risk of his own, to the admiration of the 
 daring hillmen — could be tender and impas- 
 sioned as any woman. She heard involuntary 
 comparisons drawn, much to his advantage, 
 between him and the very worthy minister, 
 in whom, nevertheless, as we have said, Mrs
 
 208 fortune's wheel. 
 
 M'Intyre profoundly believed. She admired 
 the tact, though it seemed profanity to call it 
 tact, which he had shown in these delicate 
 circumstances ; and reproaching herself for her 
 blindness hitherto, she rather ran into the op- 
 posite extreme. In short, she admired him 
 and loved him more and more, and clay by 
 day — as a cousin; so it must be confessed that 
 Mr Leslie's chances were looking up. 
 
 While as for him, in the true spirit of poe- 
 try, he took to idealising the maiden he had 
 longed to adore. Before he thought seriously 
 of loving her, he had been hampered by his 
 distrustful good-sense. He had admired the 
 natural grace of her movements; he had medi- 
 tated sonnets to her beauties when the fancy 
 seized him ; he had liked the liveliness that 
 sparkled in her badinage with Venables. But 
 whether it were from a dash of jealousy or 
 doubts as to her depth, he had feared that she 
 and Venables would be fitly matched. For 
 Leslie, with no touch of personal vanity, cher- 
 ished a good deal of quiet intellectual pride. 
 But with him, as with her, there had come a 
 reaction, and now he was the more ready to 
 worship that he had rashly criticised. Now
 
 A HIGHLAND TRAGEDY. 209 
 
 he figured her to himself as the ministering 
 angel, bringing messages from heaven to deso- 
 late hearth ; and then, in a natural sequence 
 of ideas, he thought what her presence would 
 be in her husband's home. Altogether, if Mr 
 Venables had really left his heart in the High- 
 lands, when he went southward full of self- 
 confidence, to study the advancement of his 
 fortunes, he might have had good grounds 
 for uneasiness, had he known all that was 
 going on. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 210 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE HON. WILFRED WINSTANLEY. 
 
 But, come what might of his affair with his 
 cousin, Jack Venables had been doing well for 
 himself. In Winstanley he seemed to have 
 met what the spiritualists would have called 
 his affinity, allowances being made for the 
 difference in their ages. He had succeeded as 
 the other hoped to succeed, by social gifts, by 
 tact, and by enterprise. To be sure, as Jack 
 learned by degrees, Winstanley had had cer- 
 tain advantages in starting. He heard the 
 story bit by bit, and, as it were, incidentally ; 
 yet Winstanley was really frank, and willing 
 to be so, for he loved to find an admiring lis- 
 tener. And Jack sat at his feet with unfeigned 
 and flattering interest, storing up the treasures 
 of wisdom which he hoped to turn to practical 
 account.
 
 THE HON. WILFKED WINSTANLEY. 211 
 
 Mr Winstanley had been the second son of 
 the Viscount Wreckin ; and through his mother 
 he had inherited a handsome independent for- 
 tune. Had he been more humbly born and 
 poor, he would probably have done what Jack 
 had dreamed of doing, and turned artist, launch- 
 ing out as an adventurer in full Bohemia. He 
 was fond of art, and had fair talents that way, 
 which possibly he might have cultivated to 
 profitable purpose. He was fond of pleasure 
 too, and it might well have been a question 
 whether art or pleasure would have got the 
 upper hand, had he given himself over to 
 leading the life of a Mtirger. As it was, the 
 family traditions kept him straight, and fair 
 play was given to his talents and his ambition. 
 For two or three generations the Winstanleys 
 had been distinguished in public affairs, and 
 they had the habit of intermarrying with the 
 governing Whig families. Taking to politics 
 or diplomacy like ducks to the water, it was 
 only a question with the Hon. Wilfred as to 
 the direction in which he should steer. 
 
 He might have sat for a borough which was 
 in reality a close one, though the Winstanley 
 influence was decently ignored. Or he might
 
 212 fortune's wheel. 
 
 try his fortunes in diplomacy, with the abso- 
 lute certainty that he would be taken care of. 
 The young aristocrat hardly hesitated. He 
 had gauged himself and knew that he was 
 clever, but he was not very sure that he was 
 profound. He did know that he detested drud- 
 gery, and he was doubtful whether he might 
 shine as a speaker. He would as soon have 
 committed suicide offhand, as condemned 
 himself to committees and the study of blue- 
 books ; and making a slow reputation as a 
 hard-working official, seemed a game that was 
 far from being worth the candle. On the other 
 hand, diplomacy attracted him. He liked the 
 idea of looking forward in the future to twist- 
 ing sultans and kaisers and kings round his 
 fingers. While in the meantime, with the 
 strong interest he could command, he might 
 serve his apprenticeship in pleasant places. 
 
 On the whole, he had had little reason to 
 complain ; and if he went through a good deal 
 of disillusioning, he had the grace to acknow- 
 ledge that the faults were his own. He was 
 quick, but not industrious ; he was adroit, but 
 scarcely reliable. He began at Florence as 
 attache at the Court of the Grand Duke in
 
 THE HON. WILFRED WINSTANLEY. 213 
 
 the good old clays, and there he made his 
 reputation as a man who could shine in so- 
 ciety, and who was an artistic connoisseur. 
 He went in for society as matter of business, 
 and for the fine arts in the way both of busi- 
 ness and pleasure. He ran up bills, but he 
 could afford to pay them ; he entertained, 
 because he liked entertaining, while other 
 attaches ate at their master's tables, going out 
 to dinners, and giving none in exchange. So 
 he early made his mark as a brilliant young 
 man, who might do the State good service were 
 he promoted. And even then, his pleasures, 
 and what apparently were his extravagances, 
 proved profitable. He flirted freely with maids 
 and matrons, saying little of importance, and 
 picking up a good deal. He was the very man 
 to be set to match some feminine diplomatist, 
 who, being sent out to shear her dupes, never 
 dreamed of going home shorn. The ingenuous 
 youth had a way of looking into women's 
 eyes, which at once disarmed them and drew 
 them on. It could hardly be called deceit, it 
 came so naturally to him. Then his art pur- 
 chases were even more immediately lucrative 
 than his social talents. He had grand passions
 
 214 fortune's wheel. 
 
 for particular pictures. There was one Ma- 
 donna by Correggio, which he bought at what 
 appeared a fancy price, and fitted up in a 
 fancy case, carrying it with him wherever he 
 went. The passion being sated, he sold Our 
 Lady afterwards for cent per cent on the ori- 
 ginal purchase-money. In fact, although he 
 might be taken in now and then, as must be 
 the fate of the very shrewdest in experience, 
 he generally put out good money at usury, 
 and could realise his investments in the aggre. 
 gate at a handsome profit. 
 
 He married young and for love, which might 
 appear to be inconsistent with his practical 
 character ; but, as it chanced, the lady had a 
 considerable fortune, which was subsequently 
 increased by an unexpected inheritance. The 
 lady had likewise a will of her own, as she had 
 a right to have, and we daresay there may 
 have been domestic tussles before she was 
 permitted to indulge it. At any rate, the 
 pair ultimately signed terms of peace, and 
 agreed to go each their own way as they 
 liked, coming together on a footing of friend- 
 ship when they pleased. Winstanley had gone 
 through all the successive grades, from unpaid
 
 THE HON. WILFRED WLNSTANLEY. 215 
 
 attache to first secretary of legation ; and then 
 he became a promising Minister, although he 
 had never risen to the rank of ambassador. 
 That, as I said, was very much his own fault. 
 He was able, but only too versatile, for he 
 wanted ballast. He loved change of scene, 
 and was willing to be shifted anywhere, from 
 the Hague or Frankfort to Quito or Pekin. 
 And all that could certainly be predicated of 
 him at the Foreign Office was, that he would 
 scarcely be settled ere he would wish to change 
 again. And a change he invariably succeeded 
 in effecting, which may have gone far to ac- 
 count for his complacent submission, though 
 he went revolving in secondary spheres in 
 place of rising to the primary. 
 
 So that even in the discharge of his strictly 
 official duties, the proverb of the rolling stone 
 could hardly be said to apply to him, for he 
 rolled out of one good berth into another, and 
 had always respectable pay and appointments. 
 But he was a man who had many irons in the 
 fire, and had a marvellous instinct for never 
 burning his fingers. As to that, we may let 
 him speak for himself, as it was a subject on 
 which he was especially fond of speaking when
 
 216 fortune's wheel. 
 
 he could make sure of his audience. Win- 
 stanley detested the semblance of boasting, 
 but he loved sympathetic appreciation. Per- 
 haps it was the unfeigned and only half- 
 conscious flattery of Jack Venables in that 
 respect, which had drawn the elder adventurer 
 most strongly towards the younger one. 
 
 Jack had expressed his admiration and as- 
 tonishment at the number and variety of those 
 irons of Mr Winstanley, though he had merely 
 heard of a few of them in course of conver- 
 sation. 
 
 " Well, you see," said Winstanley, com- 
 placently, " I have lived in many places in 
 my time, and have always made it a golden 
 rule to turn my opportunities to the best 
 advantage." 
 
 " And such opportunities ! " sighingly ejacu- 
 lated Jack. 
 
 " Such opportunities, you may well say. No 
 man can do more in the speculative way than 
 one of her Majesty's diplomatic representatives 
 in foreign parts. The misfortune is, with men 
 sent to Peru or Patagonia, or those sort of 
 places, that very few of them have money. 
 They try to live on their incomes, or to save
 
 THE HON. WILFRED WINSTANLEY. 217 
 
 upon them, and they fail ignominiously. Now 
 I had money, as it happened. Trade is for- 
 bidden even to consuls now, very properly, 
 though the poor devils have often to starve 
 upon a pittance, in obedience to peremptory 
 though righteous rules. But a free Briton 
 may always invest his money in whatever 
 quarter of the globe he happens to find him- 
 self. A diplomatist has always access to the 
 best information, and should be able to count 
 on his position for guaranteeing his being 
 honestly dealt with." 
 
 " So, sir ? " again ejaculated Jack, hanging 
 on the lips of the speaker, in the confident 
 hope of successfully imitating him. 
 
 Winstanley was pleased, and went on ; per- 
 haps he had his reasons besides. 
 
 " Look here, Venables ; I have taken a liking 
 to you, and I don't mind telling you some- 
 thing of my financial story for your guidance. 
 I owe you a debt, and I hope to do more than 
 this to pay it ; meantime I am sure I may 
 count on your discretion, for you conceive it 
 is not to every one that I should give a cata- 
 logue raisonne of my investments." 
 
 Jack merely bowed and smiled, — he was too
 
 218 fortune's wheel. 
 
 deeply interested to interrupt ; and Winstanley 
 proceeded : — 
 
 " I don't pretend for a moment that the list 
 is exhaustive ; indeed I have been perpetually 
 selling out and buying again elsewhere, for 
 even a steady run of gains would pall intoler- 
 ably. I merely give you some illustrative 
 cases, and mention what I consider the turn- 
 ing-points in my career. 
 
 " I flatter myself my first hit was an inspir- 
 ation, and the boldest of all. "When in the 
 Foreign Office as a mere boy, I had made 
 friends with Isaacs, the great Jew financier ; 
 or rather, Isaacs had condescended to take 
 notice of me. By way of extraordinary fav- 
 our, he had allotted me a few shares in the 
 Universal Bank. The shares had gone up like 
 balloons, and they came down again as if the 
 gas was escaping through rents, in the panic 
 
 of 1 don't precisely remember the year. 
 
 I was in mortal terror, for the liability was 
 unlimited ; and I was in blessed ignorance of 
 the bank's transactions and resources. I rushed 
 off to my friend Isaacs. I think I must have 
 taken his fancy, as you have taken mine. It 
 was after dusk, in his private sitting-room,
 
 THE HON. WILFRED WINSTANLEY. 219 
 
 and before answering he went to see if the 
 door was shut, and if the shutters were safe. 
 Then he came back to me with an air of mys- 
 tery, and told me that the concern was abso- 
 lutely safe. ' Schwartzchild ' was the only 
 word he dropped besides, and I could see 
 that he would shut up like an oyster if I 
 cross - examined him. I thanked him, and 
 shook hands, and chewed the cud of medita- 
 tion through a sleepless night. If I sold, I 
 should lose seriously, and might possibly be 
 let in after all. But if the bank was safe, 
 it must be the time to buy, for the falling 
 shares were to be had for a song. It was 
 all a question of Isaacs' good faith, for he 
 was assuredly in the bank's innermost secrets, 
 and as to that I exercised my diplomatic per- 
 ceptions. I was persuaded that the man meant 
 kindly by me, so I gave commission to sundry 
 brokers to buy Universal shares. The bank 
 was smashed up long ago, but I sold all I had 
 bought afterwards, contenting myself with a 
 modest gain of £8000. Had I chosen to hold 
 on, I might have made half as much again ; 
 and had I stuck to the investment, I should 
 have been a ruined man.
 
 220 fortune's wheel. 
 
 " Those were pleasant times in Paris, when 
 I was second secretary in the Faubourg St 
 Honore, during the golden days of the Empire. 
 As a member of our Legation, I knew nothing 
 and wished to know nothing of such things as 
 that luckless ' Mexican Question,' which came 
 on later, and was handed over to De Morny 
 for the payment of his debts. But I culti- 
 vated M. Haussman and the MM. Fould. I 
 used to dine with those magnificent gentlemen 
 pretty frequently, smoking cigarettes over 
 sweet champagne at dessert, and by putting 
 two and two together, I exercised my presci- 
 ence, and picked up sundry lots of house j)ro- 
 perty on the lines of the Prefect's projected 
 demolitions. 
 
 " I had got rid of most of them before I was 
 sent on to Vienna, to profit by my Parisian 
 experiences in the Kaiserstadt. I had my 
 knife and fork at Schwartzchild's mansion in 
 the Leopoldplatz, and I had my little interest 
 in the house speculations, in the Danube Val- 
 ley Reclamation schemes and the Hungarian 
 Land-banks. Well, well, perhaps it was lucky 
 for me that the Viennese society and blank 
 days of bear-shooting in the Carpathians bored
 
 THE HON. WILFRED WINSTANLEY. 221 
 
 me. At all events I was in Pekin, having 
 cleared out everything Austrian at handsome 
 profits before the krach came in the great 
 exhibition year. By the way, I remember 
 that relative of yours, Mr Moray, in China, 
 but we will talk about him another time. I 
 soon tired of China, and touched nothing there. 
 No doubt there was money to be made by out- 
 siders in silks and opium. But the fact was, 
 it was the kind of money-making which is 
 likely to leave pitch on the fingers. And as 
 I caught an ague besides, I went to sun my- 
 self and get rid of the shivers in the dry up- 
 lands of the Columbian Eepublic. There I 
 dipped into coffee-plantations, and dyed my 
 hands in indigo-growing, — always in the way 
 of legitimate investments, remember ; and I 
 should have done a good deal better than I 
 did, had it not been for the moral tone of the 
 country. I give you my word of honour, that 
 when you get mixed up with a syndicate there, 
 the rascals would leave even a British Minister 
 in the lurch ; and more than once I had to 
 come down handsomely, to save the credit of 
 those whom malevolent scandal might have 
 called my confederates. But I pray you to
 
 222 fortune's wheel. 
 
 observe, my young friend, that though I have 
 made many hits in my time, I never in my 
 life did one dishonourable action, and so I saw 
 my properties in Columbia seriously depreci- 
 ated. The more was the pity. Had others 
 only run as straight, I might have left the 
 Legation there with a handsome fortune. And 
 I don't know, after all, but what I should have 
 regretted it, for satisfactory speculation is the 
 salt of life. 
 
 " But I am getting prosaic, and I fear I 
 begin to twaddle. Oh yes, it is no use your 
 protesting — I take your civility for what it is 
 worth. And at any rate, I should say little 
 about my squabbles with the Foreign Office. 
 
 " As for successive Foreign Secretaries, I 
 always found them the most impracticable 
 of men." And here Mr Winstanley smiled. 
 " They said — and you may imagine how ab- 
 surd the accusation was — that I was never to 
 be counted upon from month to month ; that 
 the health and digestion which seemed perfect 
 in London were always breaking down in 
 foreign climates ; that I was perpetually giv- 
 ing myself leave of absence ; and that if they 
 sent a specially important despatch, I was
 
 THE HON. WILFKED WINSTANLEY. 223 
 
 always crossing it en route. You conceive, 
 that to a gentleman of comfortable means, 
 there was no dealing with officials of that 
 stamp. So I intimated courteously that, leav- 
 ing my services at her Majesty's disposal, I 
 was quite content to be shelved in the mean- 
 time. To do them justice, they took me 
 readily at my word, offering me the ribbon of 
 St Michael and St George, which I declined 
 respectfully with thanks." 
 
 " Did you not find it a little dull, sir, that 
 change to a private life ? " 
 
 " Dull, my good friend ! dull ! Why, I am 
 never dull. I have always been too full of 
 occupations. As for being bored sometimes, 
 I don't say : that is a different thing alto- 
 gether, and the common lot of well-to-do 
 humanity. At this moment I have no end of 
 promising schemes on hand, as you will learn 
 when we improve our acquaintance. But 
 apropos to being bored, having a conscience 
 and some consideration for you, I shall ring 
 for my candle, and wish you good night."
 
 224 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MR VENABLES's FIRST COUP. 
 
 When Mr Winstanley walked up-stairs, Mr 
 Venables strolled off to the smoking-room. 
 And as he sauntered along the passage, al- 
 ready he was meditating much over his good 
 friend's autobiographical sketches, and the 
 useful lessons that had been read to him. He 
 thought quickly, and already had made up his 
 mind that much was depending on some 
 prompt course of action, and that he might 
 make a great opportunity or miss it. " The 
 old gentleman likes me ; that is very clear," — 
 so ran his reflections ; " and while his grati- 
 tude is warm, and we are living almost en 
 tete-a-tete, he would very willingly do any- 
 thing to help me. Once in London again, 
 among his many distractions, to say the least 
 of it, it is quite upon the cards that gratitude
 
 MR VENABLES's FIRST COUP. 225 
 
 may cool into civility. But if I could only 
 show him that I lay his teaching to heart, if 
 I could make a coup on the spot and prove 
 that I might possibly help him, then he would 
 be likely to help me to some purpose, and I 
 might be partner for life in the money-mak- 
 ing firm of Winstanley & Venables. Thank 
 heaven, I have that £10,000 to start with ! 
 But I am at Oban, and at the back of the 
 world, worse luck, where I have every sort of 
 facility for dreaming, but no chance of do- 
 ing anything to the purpose." So the san- 
 guine flashes of his ambition died down in 
 momentary despondency, as his fingers were 
 on the handle of the smoking-room door. 
 
 Now, as it chanced, the Dunolly Arms 
 Hotel was a rather peculiarly conducted estab- 
 lishment. The season at Oban is brief at the 
 best, so that all the landlords are more or less 
 autocratic. When families of tourists are 
 scrambling for beds, in the fading sunsets of 
 the long summer evenings, they will stoop to 
 any servility to secure them. And necessarily 
 the landlords, who are arbiters of their fates, 
 abuse the advantages of their right of selec- 
 tion. But Mr M'Alpine of the Dunolly Arms 
 
 vol. i. p
 
 226 fortune's wheel. 
 
 was a despot among despots. A benevolent 
 despot, it is true, with a kindly nature at 
 bottom ; but rough of manner and blunt in 
 speech. Like Winstanley, he was an enthusi- 
 astic patron of the Fine Arts, and his public 
 rooms and passages were hung with paintings 
 and sketches, many of them of no inconsider- 
 able merit, executed by artists he had enter- 
 tained and befriended. He paid fair prices, 
 when he did not take paintings in exchange for 
 board and lodgings in the dead season ; he sold 
 these paintings again when he had the chance, 
 and generally got back his money. He could 
 afford to wait for it, as he could afford to lose 
 it. Mr M 'Alpine was a small wiry Celt, with 
 a snarl at the corners of the lips, contradicted 
 by a pair of kindly grey eyes, which seemed 
 to say that his bark was worse than his bite. 
 His domestic laws were like those of the 
 Medes and Persians — especially that which 
 forbade tobacco anywhere except in the reg- 
 ular smoking-room. No doubt he knew very 
 well on which side his bread was buttered 
 and, being pecuniarily independent, could af- 
 ford to persist in a system which remunerated 
 him handsomely in the long-run. And if he
 
 MR VENABLES's FIRST COUP. 227 
 
 showed the wealthy Mr Winstanley a certain 
 consideration, it was more from sympathy 
 with him as a well-known connoisseur in the 
 Arts, than from the idea that he might pos- 
 sibly become a purchaser of some of the 
 masterpieces on the walls. Winstanley's valet 
 had been blowing his master's trumpet : Jack 
 Venables was always ready to talk with any 
 one who either amused or instructed him ; and 
 M 'Alpine was a well-informed man, with the 
 local knowledge at his finger-ends. Jack had 
 made great way in his good graces by showing 
 him the pocket-book with the clever scratch- 
 ings of the shipwreck. Old M'Alpine chuckled 
 and criticised ; he laughed especially at a por- 
 trait of Mr Winstanley in his ulster, sitting 
 with turned-up trousers in the chair, amid the 
 sea-wrack, the salt water, and the limpets, — 
 a clever study, which, by the way, the sketcher 
 had never submitted to its subject : so that 
 had not Jack been seemingly a gentleman of 
 good estate, M'Alpine would assuredly have 
 given him a commission. 
 
 And now Jack had passed the threshold of 
 the door, and was peering through the haze 
 of tobacco-smoke, fragrantly flavoured from
 
 228 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 beakers of steaming toddy, when the well- 
 known accents of the host welcomed him out 
 of the mist. 
 
 " Step this way, Mr Venables ; here's a chair 
 for you, sir." And with unheard-of conde- 
 scension, at which a knot of cronies opened 
 their eyes, M' Alpine rose from the depths of 
 an American rocking-chair and pushed it 
 towards the new-comer. Jack thanked him, 
 protested and accepted, with an easy grace, 
 which brought M'Alpine's allies metaphori- 
 cally to his feet, and perhaps, in a measure, 
 impressed the great man himself. For though 
 nothing could be pleasanter than Mr Venables's 
 manner, somehow he had the knack of keep- 
 ing his inferiors at arm's length, while treat- 
 ing them with encouraging familiarity ; and 
 while swearing he was the best fellow in the 
 world, they would hardly have cared to take 
 a liberty with him. 
 
 Jack called for refreshment, and handed 
 round his cigar-case. " Don't let me interrupt 
 you," he said, lying back easily in his chair ; 
 and one of the party, who had been primed 
 with sundry tumblers, took him at his word, 
 and continued the conversation.
 
 ME VENABLES's FIRST COUP. 229 
 
 Jack sat listening abstractedly, when sud- 
 denly he pricked his ears. A burly townsman 
 was discoursing about sundry land lots, which 
 he asserted to be going for a song, in the 
 outskirts of the thriving watering-place. 
 
 " I wonder now that you don't make a bid 
 for them yourself, Mister M' Alpine. The 
 town is bound to grow ; and ye ken well that 
 before now, Dunclaverty has been getting £40 
 — ay, £50 — for his feus to the wast. I believe 
 that these would fetch as much, were you to 
 bide your time : anyway, if ye got but half 
 the money, ye'd turn a pretty penny on them. 
 It's the truth ; and, Mr Baxter, I appeal to 
 you now, sir ? " addressing himself to the 
 gentleman next him. 
 
 Mr Baxter muttered something that might 
 pass for an assent ; and even M 'Alpine, who 
 was often contradictory from sheer " cussed- 
 ness," as the Americans say, did not seriously 
 dispute the proposition. He contented him- 
 self with grumbling that he had more ground 
 already than he well knew what to do with ; 
 and that when a man meant to add a wing, 
 and maybe a stable-yard, to his hotel, it be- 
 hoved him to see to the balance at his bankers.
 
 230 fortune's wheel. 
 
 And so it chanced that the conversation was 
 changed when Mr Venables had asked some 
 casual questions, apparently more out of polite- 
 ness than for any better reason. 
 
 As a rule, he took things easily in the morn- 
 ings ; but next day he was up and about be- 
 times. Finding M 'Alpine admiring his flower- 
 beds, Jack praised the carnations and picotees, 
 and offered him some rare cuttings from 
 Sussex. Then, easily passing from flowers to 
 shrubs and scenery and land lots, he resumed 
 the talk of the night before to more practical 
 purpose. Subsequently he extended his stroll 
 along the beach, and surveyed certain sunny 
 stretches of the shore, with an eye to house 
 sites and ornamental gardening. He came 
 back with an appetite, and fortified himself 
 with an excellent breakfast. Still indefatig- 
 able, he went out again ; and was closeted for 
 a couple of hours with a lawyer and bank- 
 agent, who, although he set a very sufficient 
 value on his time, after dragging out title- 
 deeds and plans from sundry tin boxes, in- 
 sisted on escorting his visitor to the outer door 
 of his office. And a little later, Mr Venables, 
 with the degage air that sat so naturally on
 
 MR VENABLES'S FIBST COUP. 231 
 
 him, strolled into the private sitting-room, 
 in which the companion of his travels was 
 dawdling over a late French breakfast. After 
 a few observations, of course, he went straight 
 to his point. 
 
 "And now, sir, if it won't interfere with 
 your digestion, I have come to you for a piece 
 of advice. The fact is, I am thinking of trans- 
 acting a bit of business, and no one can counsel 
 me better than you." 
 
 " Spoil my digestion ! Quite the contrary. 
 There is something refreshing in the sound of 
 business, when weeks of idleness are ending in 
 ennui — or would have ended in ennui, at least, 
 had it not been for your charity and good 
 company. Keally, you excite my curiosity be- 
 sides. What business can you possibly have 
 to transact in this place ? For when you were 
 kind enough to tell me all about your affairs 
 the other day, I thought we agreed that the 
 investment of that money of yours was to 
 stand over for our future consideration." 
 
 Jack liked the sound of the " our " ; it was 
 pleasantly suggestive of the speculative part- 
 nership he was contemplating. 
 
 " So we did, sir, and so I had intended.
 
 232 fortune's wheel. 
 
 But chances will turn up, as you know, in 
 strange places ; and something suggested itself 
 last night, which I have been inquiring into 
 this morning." 
 
 Then he told his tale, and produced the 
 memorable pocket-book. There were some 
 figures in pencil on one of the pages, which 
 Winstanley examined with considerable inter- 
 est, and which were the summing-up of the 
 case that Jack submitted. 
 
 " It looks well on paper, I must confess," 
 said Winstanley. "But of course all depends 
 on prospective value ; and you are locking up 
 your money, remember that. But 'always 
 distrust a vendor ' is a golden rule. Why does 
 this Mr Campbell, your lawyer's principal, 
 wish to sell ? He should know the worth of 
 his prospects as well as anybody." 
 
 "It is not he, it is his creditors. They are 
 getting impatient for their money, and decline 
 to wait any longer. And M' Alpine and the 
 other men last night, who never dreamed of 
 me as a possible purchaser, agreed that there 
 was no one on the spot with cash ready to pay 
 down. If things are as straightforward as they 
 seem, it appears to me that I can lose nothing,
 
 MR VENABLES's FIRST COUP. 233 
 
 and may make a good deal. I should borrow 
 a part of the purchase-money on mortgage, 
 and merely pay down the difference. My 
 lawyer friend undertook to have all that ar- 
 ranged for me. And then I see no sort of 
 reason why I should not develop the property 
 at once on a considerable scale. They are 
 shrewd enough here, but scarcely speculative. 
 Why not launch an Esplanade and Hydro- 
 pathic Company ? — with a palace crowning 
 that promontory there, and standing in its 
 terraced gardens. You know something of the 
 views from the windows, and how one might 
 make them tell in the prospectus. The land- 
 locked bay, with the shipping riding at anchor ; 
 the rugged cliffs of Kerrera ; the emerald ver- 
 dure of Lismore ; the giant mountains of Glen 
 Etive and the Land of Lome looking down on 
 the lochs that lie sleeping in their shadows, — 
 I see it all, sir ; don't you ? " 
 
 " Hum ! perhaps ! " ejaculated Winstanley, 
 doubtfully. But it struck Mr Jack that he 
 objected for form's sake, and that he was 
 inclined to listen to the voice of the charmer. 
 
 " Getting out a good Company, and arrang- 
 ing the preliminary terms so as to make certain
 
 234 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 of a fair profit on the launch, is confoundedly 
 delicate work, my young friend. You may 
 believe a man who has had some experience 
 of Company-making." 
 
 "No doubt, sir. But that is just where a 
 few hints from your experience would be in- 
 valuable, and I don't think you will grudge 
 me them." 
 
 " But, my good friend, you don't think of 
 doing all that sort of thing yourself, — with 
 your £10,000, and — excuse me — with your 
 inexperience ? " 
 
 " I have hardly had time to think about it 
 as yet ; and if I decide that I am hardly likely 
 to be out of pocket in any case, the first thing 
 to be done is to secure the property. I have 
 my reasons for risking something. After all, 
 if I lose, I am no worse off than I was a few 
 weeks ago ; if I win, why — not but what I 
 shall count the chances carefully. I believe, 
 for example, that if I saw my way, my uncle 
 Moray, who is rich, would be ready and will- 
 ing to stand by me. I was loath to apply to 
 him in forma pauperis, but I should be glad 
 to ask his support in a promising speculation. 
 Nor do I despair of enlisting our worthy land-
 
 ME, VENABLES's FIRST COUP. 235 
 
 lord ; and let me tell you, that M' Alpine 
 would be a veritable tower of strength in 
 Oban here, where his foot is on his native 
 heath. As for you, sir, you have already 
 promised me your advice ; so you see that the 
 betting may possibly be in my favour." 
 
 Winstanley drummed reflectively on the 
 table with his fingers ; then he got up and 
 walked to the window, which commanded a 
 view of those picturesque slopes in which Jack 
 Y enables proposed to sink his capital. 
 
 "It is certainly a magnificent landscape," 
 he observed, reflectively; "and the air and 
 the ozone, and all that, ought to be of prime 
 quality." 
 
 Jack, for his part, was musing aloud. " I 
 can't conceive why that angle of the estate to 
 the back of the railway station has not been 
 bought long before now by the Company. 
 They must want it sooner or later. It is the 
 very place for a wharf over the deep water, 
 with rails laid down for landing sheep and 
 cattle. I should never sell it outright for a 
 penny under £4000." 
 
 In a moment or two Winstanley turned 
 round abruptly.
 
 236 fortune's wheel. 
 
 " Do you think that lawyer acquaintance of 
 yours will be at home ? " 
 
 " Sure to be, sir, I should say. He dines at 
 two — so he informed me ; and now it is barely 
 one. 
 
 " Then, if you don't mind, and as you have 
 done me the honour of consulting me, we will 
 walk along and have another interview. There 
 are one or two points which, for your sake, I 
 should be glad to have cleared up." 
 
 The lawyer never dined at two that day. 
 He was persuaded to join the English gentle- 
 men in their private sitting-room at 7.30, at 
 the Dunolly Arms. When he had gone, his 
 gracious host seemed somewhat embarrassed 
 and preoccupied. So much so, that Mr Ven- 
 ables, feeling puzzled and ill at ease, proposed 
 to say good night, and go down to the smok- 
 ing-room. But when he rose and held out his 
 hand, Winstanley motioned him back to his 
 seat. He was graver than was his wont, yet 
 there was no mistaking -the kindness of his 
 manner. As for Jack, his heart beat quicker 
 than usual : he felt there was something seri- 
 ous to be mooted. 
 
 Winstanley hummed and hesitated ; then
 
 MR VENABLES's FIRST COUP. 237 
 
 he spoke abruptly, like a man ashamed of his 
 hesitation, and resolved, at some risk of mis- 
 construction, to put matters on a straight- 
 forward footing. 
 
 " You know I like you, Venables ; you know 
 I am indebted to you for a great service ; and 
 you know that I fully intended to help you. 
 And I believe you like me quite well enough 
 to be willing to accept any service I could 
 offer you. But, to own the truth, you have 
 been rather too quick for me. You've forced 
 my hand in a manner. As for this scheme 
 of yours — to be candid — I think it both a 
 wise and a foolish one. There's money to be 
 made, almost to a certainty — by a man who 
 had money to spare and could afford to watch 
 his opportunities. Indeed I am so far con- 
 vinced of that, that I mean to make you a 
 proposal. But on the other hand, speculation 
 is speculation ; and those pretty ideas of yours 
 are intensely speculative, for a fellow with a 
 mere trifle of capital. No man in your posi- 
 tion can promote companies profitably — to his 
 own advantage, that is to say — for the pikes 
 will swallow the minnows. And at best, it 
 would be absolute folly in the circumstances
 
 238 fortune's wheel. 
 
 putting all your eggs into this one basket. 
 Now I daresay that, in the brilliancy of your 
 speculative genius, you think you are carrying 
 your eggs to a golden market, and might dis- 
 trust any one who volunteered to share the 
 venture." 
 
 Jack made a gesture of eloquent negation. 
 
 " Oh yes — you may protest ; but whatever 
 may be your opinion now, be sure that your 
 second thoughts would be suspicious. I have 
 more than hinted my fears of misconstruction, 
 and now I shall speak out what is in my mind. 
 You have had a happy thought about those 
 Oban land lots, and I should be sorry to see 
 them slip through your fingers. I am far from 
 saying that with money sufficient and w T ith 
 patience, those dreams of yours may not be 
 realised. But believe me, that I think I am 
 doing you a real service, instead of robbing 
 you of legitimate gains, when I frankly offer 
 to share the venture. Take what proportion 
 you will, and leave me the remainder. I may 
 add," and here Winstanley threw significance 
 into the words, " that you shall be no loser by 
 accepting my offer." 
 
 Knowing, as we do know, Jack's sanguine
 
 MR VENABLES's FIRST COUP. 239 
 
 temperament and secret mind, I need scarcely 
 say that when his elderly friend had finished 
 the formal speech, he scarcely knew whether 
 he was sitting in a chair or balancing himself 
 on the back. In the course of twenty-four 
 hours his suddenly inspired coup had succeeded 
 beyond his utmost hopes. Come what might 
 of this Oban affair — and he firmly believed in 
 it — the solidarity of Winstanley & Venables 
 had become a reality. He fancied he might 
 carry those sprats of his to a good market in 
 Oban ; but in any case, with ordinary good- 
 fortune, his future was assured. He saw a 
 career of successful speculation before him : 
 he might propose to his cousin Grace when 
 next he met her ; and if it were arranged that 
 they must wait for a year or two, why, he was 
 content to be patient. Now that marriage 
 seemed well within his reach, he was per- 
 suaded that he was deeply in love with his 
 cousin ; but then, when doubts and fears are 
 changing into certainties, there is delight in 
 dallying with coming felicity. As for Leslie's 
 rivalry, time might have worked in favour of 
 that gentleman ; but promptitude on his own 
 part would nip any of the hopes that Leslie
 
 240 fortune's wheel. 
 
 could scarcely have begun to cherish. So 
 thinking, he gradually composed himself ; and 
 then, by a natural association of ideas, he 
 remembered Moray's offers of introductions 
 in China. 
 
 Naturally, in his mood of confidence, he 
 reminded Winstanley of them. Now Win- 
 stanley, like Jack, was essentially a man of 
 impulse, and of single ideas on which he would 
 concentrate for the time the full flashes of his 
 intelligence. He was thinking of indulging 
 the luxury of gratitude, and forwarding the 
 views of this young man, who would be a 
 creditable and profitable protege. He dreamed 
 of playing the game of ambition at second- 
 hand in his decline, and using both political 
 and financial influence in Venables's favour. 
 So, as was sometimes a habit of his, he thought 
 aloud, and said — 
 
 " My dear boy, your going out to the East 
 would be a mistake. You will do a great deal 
 better at home, to say nothing of living in 
 place of existing." 
 
 Before the words were well out of his lips, 
 Jack Venables had thanked him with un- 
 feigned gratitude ; and grasping his hand with
 
 MR VENABLES'S FIRST COUP. 241 
 
 a pressure that clenched the alliance, had 
 effected his escape into the open air. And 
 although Jack had acted for once without the 
 slightest arriere-pensee, he could scarcely have 
 played his cards better. He wanted to be 
 alone and to think ; to revel in the prospects 
 brightening before him ; to walk himself off 
 his legs in the sea-air, and relieve the lungs 
 that seemed to be overcharged. While Win- 
 stanley, left to his solitary reflections, realised 
 the responsibility he had accepted. In step- 
 ping between this lad and his wealthy uncle — 
 in setting down his foot on a scheme which 
 promised ultimate wealth — he had virtually 
 charged himself with the care of his future. 
 So that, after all, it was well he could say to 
 himself in sincerity that he by no means re- 
 gretted what he had done, although somewhat 
 ashamed of having so hastily committed him- 
 self beyond honourable retractation. 
 
 VOL. i.
 
 242 
 
 CHAPTEK XIII. 
 
 MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL. 
 
 Leaving Winstanley and his young com- 
 panion to continue their journey to the south, 
 where we shall meet them again ere many 
 months are over, we return to the inmates of 
 Glenconan. Moray had made all the arrange- 
 ments for the round of visits of which he had 
 spoken to his nephew ; and it must be con- 
 fessed that Grace was looking forward to 
 them with pleasure. She might be " a perfect 
 woman nobly planned," as Leslie thought, and 
 had once ventured to tell her. But she was 
 not a bit " too good for human nature's daily 
 food," and he was very glad to think so. She 
 knew very well she was attractive, and she 
 loved to make herself agreeable. Though no 
 coquette, she did not disdain conquests — what 
 girl who is worth her salt ever did ? As yet
 
 MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL. 243 
 
 she had really seen nothing of society, and she 
 was willing enough to make preparations for 
 the coming campaign. Her cousin Jack, 
 though no ascetic in a general way, would 
 probably have disapproved her correspondence 
 with Madame Antoinette of Bond Street, and 
 cut down the orders for costumes. The 
 dazzling visions his artistic imagination would 
 have conjured up, of virgin beauty in billowy 
 white, like a purer Cytherean Venus rising 
 from the sea-foam, were not to be for him. 
 As for Leslie, who never gave his confidence 
 by halves, characteristically he trusted the 
 sweet refinement of her taste, and was jDleased 
 with anything that gave her pleasure. Were 
 she ever to be his wife — and perhaps Grace 
 felt that in such trifles more than in graver 
 things — he would assuredly be at once the 
 most trustful and generous of husbands. Not 
 that as yet there was anything in the least 
 serious between them : but a girl like Grace, 
 of course, will have her dreams — especially in 
 such solitudes as those of Glenconan ; and 
 when her fancy peopled some future home, 
 now she might occasionally think of Leslie as 
 its master.
 
 244 fortune's wheel. 
 
 Grace's interest in her toilets was very 
 natural, and Leslie looked on and listened 
 benevolently when she was reading notes 
 written to London aloud to her father ; nay, 
 he even volunteered suggestions as to garni- 
 tures and trimmings, which were generally 
 more poetical than practical. But Moray's 
 behaviour puzzled him : it seemed so strangely 
 inconsistent. He knew his uncle to be one of 
 the most liberal of men ; it was certain that 
 he doated on his only daughter. He had 
 given her carte blanche to send for what she 
 pleased — for, like Leslie, he had confidence in 
 her taste and discretion ; and yet it appeared 
 to the young man that he sometimes actually 
 grudged her things. It was a metaphysical 
 problem that Leslie was curious to solve, for 
 he did not like to feel anything but respect 
 for his uncle ; and had Venables been there to 
 talk with, he might have enlisted his shrewd- 
 ness in attempting to come to a satisfactory 
 conclusion. 
 
 " My uncle," he said to himself, " is a man 
 of sense and firmness ; and if he wished his 
 daughter to be extremely simply dressed, he 
 would say so frankly. But I am sure there is
 
 MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL. 245 
 
 nothing of that in his mind ; and indeed, if it 
 were left, to him, with his gorgeous oriental 
 reminiscences, I believe he would be inclined 
 to over-dress her. I remember how, much 
 against her will, he made her come down one 
 evening in cashmeres, and sparkling in his 
 mother's diamonds. He is proud of her looks, 
 as he well may be, and proud of her position 
 as the heiress of Glenconan. That he is will- 
 ing, with it all, to let her marry modestly, I 
 can understand, for he seeks to assure her 
 happiness before all things. And as he likes 
 to see her happy, he tries hard to seem pleased 
 when she is laughingly making much ado 
 over one of those letters to the dressmakers. 
 Could she see the cloud that overcasts his 
 face the next moment, my word for it, that 
 letter would never be sent. For once in their 
 lives the two misunderstood each other ; and 
 I should be glad to get at the bottom of the 
 mystery." 
 
 Had it been Jack Venables, he would have 
 marked and inwardly observed, without letting 
 his uncle suspect anything. But Leslie was 
 more deeply absorbed where he was interested : 
 he gave far less thought to appearances ; and
 
 246 fortune's wheel. 
 
 more than once his uncle caught his steady 
 and inquisitive gaze, while Leslie's obvious 
 embarrassment, with an awkward habit of col- 
 ouring up, emphasised the scrutiny somewhat 
 unpleasantly. Moray, as we know, was frank 
 to a fault, and, moreover, on the most friendly 
 terms with his nephew, and he justly appreci- 
 ated his judgment and character. Besides, he 
 longed for a confidant ; and being eager to 
 relieve his mind, was screwed up to the ex- 
 planatory point by his nephew's approaching 
 departure. So it came about that one evening 
 when Grace had gone to bed, he broached his 
 subject and dashed into the middle of things. 
 He laid his hand on the young man's shoulder, 
 and looked wistfully into his kindly eyes as 
 if seeking for the sympathy he was sure to 
 find. 
 
 " I have been occupying you a good deal 
 lately, Master Ralph, and you are beginning 
 to think you may have been mistaken in me." 
 
 "Not that, sir, believe me. But since you 
 ask me, I may own that I see there is a mys- 
 tery ; and I should be very glad to have it 
 cleared away, for many reasons, and as much 
 for my cousin's sake as my own. '
 
 MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL. 247 
 
 " That is the very reason why I have spoken. 
 Cleared away the mystery shall be, and I have 
 been longing to make a clean breast of it. 
 Grace is more deeply concerned than myself ; 
 and I have sometimes thought she would be 
 my safest counsellor. But then, as yet she 
 knows nothing of the world ; and the more 
 innocent a woman is, the more certainly she 
 will be swayed by the spirit of self-sacrifice 
 and an over-sensitive generosity. Now you, 
 although you are young, are enough of a man 
 of the world to understand me ; and you have 
 been living long enough under my roof to make 
 me recognise you for the soul of honour." 
 
 Leslie merely bowed. He was too much in- 
 terested to interrupt ; and after all, his con- 
 science told him that his uncle only did him 
 justice. 
 
 " To say the honest truth, if I have hesitated 
 so long, it is because I feared you would pro- 
 nounce in favour of my scruples ; and then 
 there would be a change in our circumstances 
 — in Grace's future." 
 
 He paused, as if expecting Leslie to speak. 
 But Leslie, all in the dark, did not know what 
 to think. What he did say was, " I presume
 
 248 fortune's wheel. 
 
 you mean that your fortune is somehow com- 
 promised ; but I fancied it had all been satis- 
 factorily invested." 
 
 " So far as I know, my fortune is safe 
 enough ; certainly it is large enough. The 
 most speculative of the investments are in 
 sound bank-stocks. No ; I may call myself 
 a wealthy man, and that is precisely the cause 
 of my trouble. You stare, as well you may ; 
 and yet I assure you I am to be pitied. There 
 has been a cloud cast over my cheerfulness 
 ever since I came back from the East, with 
 money enough to clear Glenconan and leave 
 my girl a wealthy heiress. Do you remember 
 that drive of ours from the railway station to 
 the house, when you and Yenables came north 
 with me ? I don't know whether you chanced 
 to remark anything, but he was quick enough 
 to suspect. I have seldom looked forward to 
 anything more than to that return to my 
 family home, with the feeling that I had re- 
 trieved the family fortunes. It was like leav- 
 ing the fevers of the jungles for the fresh air 
 of the Highland hills; it was the beginning 
 of a new life among the grouse and the deer, 
 in the wild picturesqueness of my native glens.
 
 MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL. 249 
 
 Yet a skeleton was sitting in the carriage, by 
 way of bodkin between you and me : in the 
 very moment of triumphant exhilaration, I 
 seemed to hear the rattle of the bones. Talk 
 of skeletons in cupboards : I suppose you may 
 lock them away and forget them for a time. 
 But as for mine, it has always been with me, 
 more or less, of late ; and as the hope that 
 it would cease to haunt me dies away, I begin 
 to think that something must be done to get 
 rid of it." 
 
 Leslie was fairly taken aback : he sat in his 
 chair, silent and expectant. He had made 
 sure that his uncle had a trouble, but he had 
 suspected nothing so serious as this. In the 
 man who seemed moved from all his habitual 
 self-restraint, and nerving himself to lay bare 
 his innermost secrets, he scarcely recognised 
 the cheery and well-preserved old Highlander, 
 whose spirits should have been as equable as 
 his digestion was sound. Surely his uncle 
 must be the prey to some mad hallucination ; 
 for it was impossible to believe he had reason 
 to be the victim of remorse. But whether it 
 were really remorse or a hallucination was the 
 question he was presently to be asked to decide.
 
 250 fortune's wheel. 
 
 There is no need to go into all the details 
 of Moray's disclosures. Infinite worry as his 
 mental anxieties had caused him, it was but a 
 question of conscience or of casuistry, after all, 
 and it lay in a nutshell. The first of the 
 revelations that surprised Leslie was, that the 
 imperturbable composure of manner, which 
 seemed to match so well with a constitution 
 of iron, masked a temperament almost mor- 
 bidly sensitive. Making a plunge into the 
 confessional, Moray had opened the conversa- 
 tion abruptly. 
 
 " I said, a moment ago, that I considered 
 you the soul of honour : frankly, and without 
 compliments, what should you have said of 
 me ? " 
 
 " Why, surely, sir, the question is strangely 
 unnecessary. I would stake my life and my 
 own honour upon yours." 
 
 " I thought as much ; and I do not say you 
 are wrong. For many a long year I have 
 never knowingly been guilty of an act with 
 which I can reproach myself; and if I knew 
 I had unwittingly injured any man, I would 
 willingly make him restitution fourfold." 
 
 " I am persuaded of it, sir, — and so much
 
 MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL. 251 
 
 so, that if you will forgive my impatience, 
 I entreat of you to come to the point." 
 
 For Leslie, thinking of Grace, knew not 
 what to imagine, and was inclined to fear the 
 worst. He might be a fool, but was it pos- 
 sible that the life of his placid uncle could 
 hide one of those terrible secrets or scandalous 
 hypocrisies which one reads of in sensational 
 novels, or in more sensational criminal trials ? 
 He must be a fool, and such a supposition 
 was out of the question ; but in that case his 
 uncle was the victim of morbid insanity — and 
 if so, it was scarcely better for Grace. 
 
 But Moray, speaking faster than was his 
 habit, proceeded speedily to set his nephew's 
 mind at ease. 
 
 The long and the short of the story was, 
 that his conscience pricked him as to the be- 
 ginnings of his fortune. And as the constant 
 dropping of water will wear away a stone, so 
 with that perpetual pricking his conscience 
 had become ulcerated. 
 
 " I was young and poor when I went out to 
 the East, — young and poor, adventurous and 
 thoughtless. That is to say, I thought enough, 
 when it was a question of devising and carry-
 
 252 fortune's wheel. 
 
 ing out some hazardous but lucrative combin- 
 ation. But I thought of the end and of the 
 means to it, and not of their manner or 
 their morality. There is much to be said in 
 extenuation, I know ; but extenuation at best 
 infers culpability. The tone of mercantile 
 society was free and easy in the Chinese sea- 
 ports ; in the Straits Settlements, and in the 
 Malay territories, the morality of the Euro- 
 pean traders was still more lax. I did nothing 
 that was not heartily approved by the repre- 
 sentatives of our leading houses in China ; my 
 best strokes of business were suggested by 
 men whose names have always stood above 
 reproach. One success led on to another, and 
 I was flattered by the praise bestowed on my 
 lucky ventures. Gradually I shook myself 
 loose from more questionable schemes, and 
 launched out in strictly legitimate trade. But 
 I can- never forget that the best of my early 
 hits were flagrant breaches of the Chinese 
 revenue laws, — that I followed them up by 
 certain trading transactions with Malay rajahs, 
 which I scarcely think now would bear close 
 investigation. I was no worse than anybody 
 else ; indeed I may say I was much better than
 
 MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL. 253 
 
 many, for I had always my code of honour — 
 and although it might be elastic, I strictly 
 obeyed it. No, I can never reproach myself 
 with knowingly acting dishonourably. But all 
 the same, as I see things now, I doubt if I 
 ought to have made the coups which began to 
 enrich me. And now, Kalph, what do you 
 say of it all ? " 
 
 I have condensed a prolix explanation into 
 a few brief sentences. Leslie could not help 
 admiring the frankness with which his uncle 
 made what was evidently a most trying con- 
 fession. Yet it pained him to see the resolute 
 man, who was in the habit of expressing 
 opinions briefly and decidedly, as if they 
 scarcely admitted a rejoinder, pleading hard 
 for the lenient judgment which might salve 
 his conscience and reconcile him to himself. 
 He was touched when Moray added, very un- 
 necessarily, " Of course you will not breathe 
 a whisper of this to Grace." He would have 
 given much to have been able to speak offhand 
 with such obvious conviction that his answer 
 must have carried immediate comfort ; but he 
 could not collect himself sufficiently for that, 
 and indeed he hardly knew what to say. The
 
 254 fortune's wheel. 
 
 soul of honour, as his uncle had said, he had 
 not lived in the Anglo-Chinese colonies five- 
 and-twenty years before, nor could he put 
 himself in so unfamiliar a position at a mo- 
 ment's notice. For himself, he would have 
 been sorry to have made his money by running 
 opium, or by stretching points with semi- 
 barbarians, even though these enterprises had 
 left him with a fortune which would have en- 
 titled him to ask for his cousin straightway. 
 Yet, on the other hand, he was so anxious 
 to soothe his uncle's susceptibilities, that in 
 giving an answer he rather compromised with 
 his conscience. As happens generally when 
 we weakly steer a middle course, the trimming 
 was unsatisfactory to both. Kalph said, some- 
 what hesitatingly, that as Moray had always 
 acted for the best, he ought not to reproach 
 himself with any peccadilloes he had com- 
 mitted ; that the invariable and unimpeach- 
 able purity of his subsequent conduct should 
 be a guarantee for his having acted with hon- 
 ourable intentions. Moray listened sadly, and 
 shook his head. The answer did not give him 
 the comfort he had hoped, and his excessive 
 sensitiveness read between the lines, imagining
 
 MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL. 255 
 
 more than was passing in his nephew's mind, 
 and ignoring the difficulties that beset this 
 young Daniel, called so suddenly to judgment. 
 Naturally they talked on, going over and over 
 the same ground, — till Leslie was really con- 
 verted or persuaded into saying much that 
 Moray would have had him say at the first. At 
 least he warmed up so far as to declare that he 
 thought his senior's scruples were rather fan- 
 tastic ; that, at all events, he could hardly 
 make restitution to the Government or the 
 rajahs he fancied he might have wronged ; and 
 that he might set his mind at ease if he made 
 a good use of his money. 
 
 "Ay, there it is!" said Moray. "It has 
 often occurred to me that I might anticipate 
 my death, and give away the bulk of my 
 wealth in charity, or for philanthropical ob- 
 jects ; though, having worked hard and cleared 
 Glenconan, I confess I should like Grace to 
 have that — and I think she honestly might in 
 any case. But what merit would there be in 
 so far impoverishing myself ? If ; anybody 
 were to suffer, it would be Grace, who would 
 suffer vicariously. As for me, give me a quiet 
 life here in the Highlands, and I should ask
 
 256 fortune's wheel. 
 
 nothing better. But this is where the shoe 
 pinches. If the money were fairly made, it is 
 Grace's as much as mine ; and if I part with 
 it, I am easing my conscience at her expense, 
 — which, as you must admit, would be both 
 unmanly and dishonest. On the other hand, 
 if I have really enriched myself by faults — 
 not to say frauds — I ought to make restitution 
 somehow and coiite que cafite." 
 
 " Precisely so," said Leslie ; "but you have 
 repeatedly used the word ' restitution,' and it 
 appears to me to help us out of the dilemma. 
 Supposing — I say, that supposing you are 
 right in reproaching yourself, nevertheless 
 you cannot restore your gains to the rightful 
 claimants. I cannot imagine any conceivable 
 way in which you could rationally set about 
 it. It follows, then, that you must keep your 
 money, turn it to useful purposes while you 
 live, and leave it behind you with a clear 
 conscience to a child who is sure to follow in 
 your footsteps." 
 
 " And that piece of advice," he thought, as 
 he gave it, "is thoroughly disinterested; for 
 it leaves obstacles in my way that might 
 otherwise be removed. If Grace were to be
 
 MORAY GOES INTO THE CONFESSIONAL. 257 
 
 poor, or only moderately rich, I think I should 
 venture to try my fortunes with her on the 
 moment." 
 
 Nor did Moray appear to be much better 
 satisfied. 
 
 " I have a foreboding all the same," he re- 
 marked, dejectedly, "that if I do as you 
 suggest, or, in other words, do nothing, the 
 matter will be taken out of my hands, and 
 the difficulty before long will settle itself. 
 And for myself, I cannot say I should be 
 sorry. I think that all my investments are 
 safe and solid ; yet, mark my words, you will 
 see that money slip through my fingers." 
 Then, as if ashamed of himself and his super- 
 stition, he tried to give the conversation a 
 brighter turn — not very successfully. " You 
 know, my foster-mother came of a family that 
 had the second-sight ; and possibly she may 
 have communicated the gift to her nursling." 
 
 Then, after a few moments' silence, he spoke 
 abruptly and like his ordinary self, as if he 
 had taken a resolution and was determined to 
 act upon it. 
 
 " I shall rent a house in London for a year, 
 from the end of the autumn. Grace must be 
 
 vol. I. R
 
 258 fortune's wheel. 
 
 introduced, and should go to a Drawing-room 
 next spring ; and .she may as well pass the 
 winter in town. I trust we shall see you 
 there : there are sure to be plenty of spare 
 bedrooms." 
 
 Whereupon, without waiting for a reply, he 
 shook hands, and walked out of the room, 
 leaving his nephew to very grave reflections. 

 
 259 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Nine months are supposed to have elapsed, as 
 they say in the play -bills. It is early spring 
 in London, and drawing on towards the be- 
 ginning of the season. The Morays are very 
 comfortably established in a moderate-sized 
 mansion in Eaton Place. Glenconan had 
 thought of renting a house, but subsequently 
 he had changed his views. He had listened 
 to the words of worldly wisdom as they fell 
 from the lips of Lady Fortrose, — a far-away 
 Highland cousin, and a very grande dame. 
 The Morays, having gone to Fortrose Castle 
 on a visit of a few days the year before, had 
 passed nearly a month under that hospitable 
 roof. Her ladyship had taken a fancy to 
 Grace ; his lordship and Moray had much 
 in common. Lady Fortrose having married a
 
 260 fortune's wheel. 
 
 pair of pretty daughters, had her time much 
 at her own disposal, and welcomed a new 
 interest. She admired Grace as much as she 
 liked her, and felt she would be a very desir- 
 able protegee. And if it pleased her to take a 
 young lady by the hand, it was everything to 
 the girl from a social point of view. She had 
 more than the entree to the best society ; ad- 
 mission to her house was coveted by every- 
 body save the few who came there as a matter 
 of course. It opened the gates of possible 
 paradises to marriageable young women, for 
 she only welcomed those who were attractive, 
 and she always managed to have the best 
 men. Lord Fortrose was an English baron 
 as well as a Scottish earl ; and though he 
 spoke but seldom and shortly in the House, 
 he had always carried a certain weight in 
 politics. He had collieries in Durham and 
 coverts in Kent, as well as his famous forest 
 in Perthshire ; his French cook had taken 
 honours in the imperial kitchens at Berlin, 
 as the most promising eleve of Urbain Dubois ; 
 and his cellars, both in the country and in 
 town, w T ere celebrated for their well -selected 
 contents. So my lord's little dinners in Bel-
 
 261 
 
 grave Square launched wealthy young viveurs 
 into her ladyship's small receptions, in the 
 mood to be soothed by soft music and won 
 by the witcheries of beauty to wise indiscre- 
 tions. And Lady Fortrose, with all her in- 
 clinations to worldliness, was really a worthy 
 woman and a reliable chaperon. No wonder, 
 then, that Moray had met her advances more 
 than half-way, and was willing to listen to 
 her advice. His motherless daughter could 
 have no better friend. 
 
 He had written to London agents about 
 houses, and one of them chanced to mention 
 the mansion in Eaton Place. Mr Moray, he 
 knew, had not intended to purchase ; but pos- 
 sibly, under the circumstances, he might be 
 tempted. The proprietor had suddenly died, 
 and his heir had given instructions to dispose 
 of it. It was newly and handsomely furnished 
 and fitted up : decorations by Trollope, fur- 
 nishing by Grillow ; and all in good and simple 
 style. A moderate price would be accepted 
 for money down ; and the agent could recom- 
 mend it as a safe investment. 
 
 Moray mentioned the matter to Lady For- 
 trose. She exerted herself about it in the
 
 262 FORTUNES WHEEL. 
 
 most flattering manner! " Beally, my dear 
 Mr Moray, it seems a special interposition of 
 Providence. Your house and ours will be 
 within easy distance of each other : Grace can 
 run across at any time, with the footman or 
 even with her maid ; and I can always pick 
 her up of an evening, without going any dis- 
 tance out of my way. If it were only for my 
 sake, you must not hesitate. You must write 
 — or better, telegraph at once." 
 
 Moray did not telegraph, but he bought the 
 house ; and hitherto he had no cause to regret 
 the purchase. Lady Fortrose grew more affec- 
 tionate and more motherly every day ; her 
 husband was almost as fond of Grace as she 
 was : and so the girl had a couple of homes, 
 and perhaps more gaiety than was good for 
 her. She went out shopping with her lady- 
 ship in the brougham of a morning ; she went 
 visiting with her, or into the Park, in the 
 barouche of an afternoon. On fine days she 
 rode out under his lordship's escort when her 
 father was not inclined to get on horseback ; 
 and she might have had any number of en- 
 gagements in the evenings, but that she often 
 insisted on staying at home and keeping him
 
 ME, AND MISS MORAY "COME OUT." 263 
 
 company. As for Moray, he enjoyed the town 
 life but moderately. He had his clubs, to 
 which he had been elected years before, on his 
 occasional visits to England. He had his 
 cronies, chiefly from the Highlands or the 
 East — though, being essentially a man of the 
 world, he made acquaintances in many circles. 
 There was society enough at the house in 
 Eaton Place, where the dinners were very 
 sufficiently well served, if less recherche than 
 Lord Fortrose's. He often rode out with his 
 daughter; he sometimes went in for a day's 
 golfing at Wimbledon. But all the same, the 
 existence dragged, and would have been still 
 more wearisome had it not been for two un- 
 selfish sources of pleasure. The one was see- 
 ing his daughter happy; the other, his indulg- 
 ing himself — for indulgence it was — in many 
 an action of generous philanthropy. The 
 memorable conversation with Leslie had borne 
 fruit in one way if not in another. He had 
 not made public expiation by sacrificing his 
 fortune, but he practised liberality on an 
 almost prodigal scale. He not only drew 
 handsome cheques for estimable charities, but 
 he never spared himself; and he mortified the
 
 264 fortune's wheel. 
 
 flesh as much as he indulged it. He had a 
 vigorous constitution and an excellent appe- 
 tite ; he was much more inclined to be a bon 
 vivant than an ascetic ; and when he gave 
 dinner-parties at home or dined with other 
 people, he always set his friends a good exam- 
 ple. But after the coffee and cigars, he would 
 slip away ; or he would charter a cab after 
 breakfast next morning, and drive off to the 
 Surrey side or the Borough, or to the poverty- 
 stricken purlieus of eastern London. He had 
 struck up an intimacy with sundry hard-work- 
 ing and self-sacrificing clergymen, who knew 
 they might always draw on his purse. He 
 had munificently subsidised certain police in- 
 spectors, who were ever ready to give him 
 their company or an escort at the shortest 
 notice. But indeed he had come to be tolera- 
 bly well known himself in some of the worst 
 of the warrens and most squalid of the rook- 
 eries ; and he was known for a man who could 
 take his own part, as he was far from being 
 pharisaical as to publicans and sinners. More 
 than once he had been hustled on a dark stair- 
 case, when the assailants had felt the iron 
 muscles of a man who was more than a match
 
 MR AND MISS MORAY "COME OUT." 265 
 
 for half-a-dozen of them. But then he would 
 distribute shillings in place of soup-tickets, 
 and seldom asked for a voucher from the 
 charity organisation society before putting his 
 hand in his pocket. " Probably," he would 
 tell himself, " the poor wretch is lying. Cer- 
 tainly ninepence out of my shilling will be 
 spent in the gin-palace at the corner — and 
 what then ? If he gets himself a loaf, I shall 
 have done a good action; and as for the liquor, 
 that is his look-out. It is something to forget 
 one's misery for five minutes ; and if I had as 
 reasonable an excuse for my own mistakes or 
 misconduct — why, perhaps I might be justified 
 in throwing stones at him." 
 
 So, while his friends agreed that Moray was 
 odd, upon the whole they liked and admired 
 him for his " eccentricities." The more so, 
 that he left rumour to blow his trumpet, never 
 letting his left hand know what his right hand 
 was doing, and only making a confidant of 
 his daughter — for from her he could keep no 
 secrets.
 
 266 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 VENABLES AND LESLIE TALK THINGS OVER. 
 
 Leslie and Venables were both in town, and 
 Grace saw a great deal of her cousins. Moray's 
 house was always open to them ; and they 
 " drew him," as Jack phrased it, very freely 
 for luncheon, and not unfrequently for dinner. 
 Leslie, who loved to be independent, had 
 declined his uncle's offer of a bedroom, and 
 established himself in apartments in Jermyn 
 Street, where he was said to have become a 
 slave of the lamp. Though he rose early and 
 took a constitutional before breakfast, after 
 coming home from dining out or at his club, 
 he was in the habit of sitting up to most 
 unchristian hours ; and his friendly landlady 
 took Miss Moray into her confidence, express- 
 ing heartfelt anxiety as to his health. The 
 young man looked pale, though perhaps his
 
 VENABLES AND LESLIE TALK THINGS OVER. 267 
 
 handsome face was all the more interesting 
 for that. But his friends, and Grace in 
 particular, found him changed otherwise, and 
 considerably to his advantage. Quiet and 
 rather prematurely dignified in manner as he 
 always was, he was more easily moved now 
 from his constitutional apathy. There was a 
 sparkle in his hazel eyes which would break 
 out in flashes of flame on any subject that 
 interested him ; and more frequently than 
 before, as he warmed, he would forget himself 
 and become winningly eloquent. He had 
 good introductions and connections, and 
 already he began to make his mark. He 
 was a welcome guest at many a dinner-table. 
 Men of station and high reputation listened 
 to him respectfully — for when he spoke he 
 always spoke to the purpose ; and there was 
 a certain poetical originality in his talk, with 
 a quaint and fanciful humour. Grace watched 
 him curiously and with cousinly regard. 
 Womanlike, she admired him more, that 
 others evidently admired him. Now there 
 was apparently some purpose in his life. He 
 seemed to see his way, and to have hopes 
 rather than aspirations. And from what she
 
 268 fortune's wheel. 
 
 knew of him, * she was persuaded that he 
 would go forward with determination toward 
 his determined point, whatever that might be. 
 As for Jack Venables, there was less doubt 
 as to his prospects. Unlike Leslie, he made 
 no secret of his aims, which indeed were 
 sufficiently obvious. Jack had lighted on his 
 legs, and was making the most of his chances ; 
 and it was well for him that it was so. 
 Steady disappointments or a run of ill-luck 
 might have crippled him, as cold paralyses 
 the constitution of a Creole. But with the 
 feeling that Fortune was patting him on the 
 back, he played card after card with cool 
 audacity, and brightened in the smiles in 
 which he basked. Fortune might pet but she 
 did not spoil him, and he bore his honours, 
 such as they were, so modestly that nobody 
 envied him his luck. It was Winstanley who 
 had dealt him his trumps, taking a fatherly 
 pride in him, and standing sponsor to him 
 in society. Winstanley had done for him 
 more than Lady Fortrose for Grace. He 
 could hardly have happened on a more 
 efficient patron, for Winstanley was welcome 
 wherever he went, knew everybody who was
 
 VENABLES AND LESLIE TALK THINGS OVER. 269 
 
 worth the knowing, and had opportunities of 
 doing good turns to so many men, that many 
 men were ready to fawn upon his friend. And 
 Jack was more than a friend : he was the son 
 of the house ; he was become a connecting- 
 link between its master and its mistress, for 
 he had carried the heart of Mrs Winstanley 
 on a first introduction. Jack, who ought to 
 have known best, and whose worst enemies 
 could not have taxed him with any want of 
 candour when it was a question of talking 
 confidentially to friends, had explained the 
 situation to Leslie, shortly after Leslie's arrival 
 in town. Possibly he may have spoken a 
 little boastfully, but for that we may make 
 due deduction. 
 
 " Well, Jack, I presume your career is fixed 
 now, and you mean to blossom out a full- 
 blown financier ? " 
 
 " Financier — financier, — that depends how 
 you understand the word. If you mean a 
 professional money-maker who thinks of 
 nothing else, you never were much wider of 
 the mark. If you mean that I hope to be 
 like one of the financiers of the old French 
 regime, who ground the helpless in their hard-
 
 270 fortune's wheel. 
 
 ness, that in their ostentation they might be 
 ecrase by the noblesse, you never were more 
 mistaken in your life. A man who goes in 
 for mere money-making is contemptible. Be- 
 sides, I have no fancy for being a cockshy for 
 the curses of the widow and the orphan. I 
 don't care about them. But if you mean that 
 I am likely to have many opportunities of 
 turning legitimate speculations to lucrative 
 account, and if you add that I don't intend 
 to neglect them — there, my boy, you are 
 right." 
 
 " Why, Jack, you have turned strangely 
 fiery ; but you need not be so sensitive on 
 the point of honour. Wait till anybody im- 
 pugns it. I only want to hear how you get 
 on." 
 
 " And so you shall, my dear Ealph : I see 
 no reason for being silent ; and you have a 
 right to know everything, even if you were 
 not the very fellow I should naturally come 
 to in a scrape. You helped me out of one 
 already, you may remember. Though I 
 seldom speak of it, I never forget." 
 
 " It was you and your affairs we were talk- 
 ing about," rejoined Leslie, hastily. " And
 
 VENABLES AND LESLIE TALK THINGS OVER. 271 
 
 you really like the Winstanleys, and get on 
 with them ?" 
 
 " Like them — yes, I like them all ; and as 
 for the old gentleman himself, he is a trump. 
 I owe pretty nearly everything to him and 
 to that shipwreck which I mentioned to you. 
 My legacy was all very well, and I am most 
 grateful to the worthy testator ; but it is Win- 
 stanley who has made it fructify in the mean- 
 time, with the hopes of bearing fortyfold fruits 
 in the future. He has let me in for half-a- 
 dozen good things already ; and each of them 
 may be a stepping-stone to something better. 
 It is all a question of getting the preliminary 
 capital together ; then it must go on rolling 
 up of itself." 
 
 " Ce nest que le premier pas que coute ; and 
 I imagine that initial difficulty has puzzled 
 many people. However, with your legacy and 
 your friend, you have so far solved it ; so we 
 may hope the best. And this discriminating 
 old gentleman has taken a veritable fancy 
 to you ?" 
 
 " To tell the truth, old fellow,— I know it 
 will go no further, but I love to make a clean 
 breast when I can, — to tell the truth, it is
 
 2*72 fortune's wheel. 
 
 something more than a fancy. He overrates 
 me, I know, but somehow I suit him ; and he 
 appears to take a sort of fatherly pride in me. 
 In short, he has made me one of his pet spec- 
 ulations, and he is determined the speculation 
 shall succeed. He has employed me already 
 in all manner of business, and insists on pay- 
 ing or promising me handsome commissions. 
 Nor does he ever neglect an opportunity of 
 pushing me in society ; and he has helped me 
 to any number of useful acquaintances." 
 
 "Well, I congratulate you with all my heart 
 upon your good fortune ; " and to do him 
 justice, Leslie probably meant it, though the 
 unwelcome thought would flash through his 
 mind, that this gay, gallant, prosperous young 
 fellow would surely be a formidable rival with 
 Grace. And perhaps it was by a natural se- 
 quence of ideas that he asked, " And the ladies 
 of the Winstanley household, how do you 
 stand with them ? " 
 
 " Oh, the ladies !" said Jack, laughing ; "I 
 was an mieux from the first with both mother 
 and daughter. Mrs "Winstanley wants man- 
 aging — perhaps her husband, clever diplomatist 
 as he is, hardly has the knack of it ; but she
 
 VENABLES AND LESLIE TALK THINGS OVER. 273 
 
 and I hit it off admirably. The day may come 
 when I may have to choose between the two ; 
 and then, of course, gratitude must decide my 
 choice. But in the meantime, Mrs Winstan- 
 ley and I are the best friends in the world." 
 
 " And how is it with the fair Miss Julia, 
 if it be not an indiscreet question ? " 
 
 "Indiscreet! By no manner of means. Julia 
 is very good-looking, — classical features, pearly 
 complexion, faultless figure, and all the rest 
 of it ; she is highly accomplished as well : and 
 of course I admire her, as everybody else does. 
 But she knows, too, that she can never touch 
 my heart ; so we are on the easiest possible 
 footing. Then we are allies, though we have 
 never acknowledged it to each other, with com- 
 mon interests and a common object." 
 
 "As how, if it please you? You certainly 
 seem to have made the most of your time." 
 
 u Why, simply because hitherto it has been 
 Julia's mission to keep the peace between her 
 father and her mother. Perhaps talking of 
 keeping the peace is going too far, because 
 they are too well-bred and too sensible to 
 quarrel. And indeed, I believe Mrs Win Stan- 
 ley to be still in love with her husband, other- 
 
 vol. I. s
 
 274 fortune's wheel. 
 
 wise she would never bear him a grudge. But 
 he gave her Art and those speculations of his 
 for rivals, and she has never forgiven it ; nor 
 was it flattering that ' duty ' was always send- 
 ing him on foreign missions, where the clim- 
 ates did not suit her constitution. She likes 
 pictures herself, but she will not sympathise 
 with his buying them. She likes money, and 
 she spends a deal of it ; but she has nothing 
 to say in favour of his happiest speculations ; 
 and to this day she resents his habit of roving 
 about the world en gargon. Julia assures me 
 that her mother was in a terrible taking when 
 she heard of that shipwreck of ours. Yet 
 when she received the prodigal on his safe 
 return, she does not seem to have sinned on 
 the side of tenderness, and she intimated a 
 verdict of ' serve you right.' No w r onder that 
 a good-tempered but gouty gentleman was 
 apt to ride rusty in the circumstances. Then 
 Julia throws oil on the troubled waters ; and 
 the girl has even more than her father's tact." 
 "That is all very well, so far as the young- 
 lady is concerned, and much to her credit. 
 But I don't quite understand how Mrs Win- 
 stanley should make you welcome in the
 
 VENABLES AND LESLIE TALK THINGS OVER. 275 
 
 house, seeing you go heart and soul into all 
 her husband's schemes." 
 
 Jack blushed a little. Perhaps with all his 
 frankness he did not care to declare how 
 "diplomatic" he had been in domestic talks 
 with the lady. But it was not easy to take 
 him aback, and he had a plausible answer. 
 
 " Oh, that is easily explained. Mrs "Win- 
 stanley is a woman of sense, and understands 
 her husband by this time. She knows that 
 he cannot live without his speculations ; that 
 to the last day of his life, bar gout in the foot, 
 he would go half across Europe for an ' old 
 master' that tempted him. But if he is not 
 to be weaned from his passion, he may do 
 much of his work by deputy ; and she is will- 
 ing he should adopt me as a sort of roving 
 partner in the concern, as a better kind of 
 commercial traveller in whose discretion he 
 may confide. In that case, she might do- 
 mesticate and reclaim him, even at the 
 eleventh hour. For, love apart, she feels it 
 anything but gratifying that her husband 
 should show himself almost ostentatiously in- 
 dependent of her. That at least is my theory 
 of her motives, though she has never told me
 
 276 fortune's wheel. 
 
 as much in so many words ; and you must 
 own the theory is plausible." 
 
 "Perhaps so," rejoined Leslie, somewhat 
 dubiously. "Now one other question, and 
 the examination is at an end." But having 
 said so much, he hesitated. For the life of 
 him he could not help the hesitation, though 
 he would have given much to have spoken 
 easily as before. 
 
 " Out with it ! " said Jack, unsuspiciously. 
 
 "How comes it, then, that this man and 
 this woman of the world, with a daughter and 
 heiress both beautiful and rich, throw her into 
 the company of Mr Jack Venables, who is not 
 without his ambitions and his fascinations ? 
 It must surely have struck them, if it has not 
 struck you, that Mr Venables might take a 
 short cut to becoming more a member of the 
 family than he has been." 
 
 If Leslie hoped that, notwithstanding what 
 he had said before as to his easy footing with 
 Miss Winstanley, Jack would have added 
 something now towards relieving him from 
 the apprehension of any rivalry, he was 
 doomed to disappointment. Jack, in his 
 turn, felt embarrassed — but only for a mo-
 
 VENABLES AND LESLIE TALK THINGS OVEK. 277 
 
 ment. After all, he had only to say what 
 Leslie knew, or ought to have known ; and 
 if he had any doubts, he should have avoided 
 the subject. So he answered lightly but 
 decidedly — 
 
 " I repaid confidence with confidence. I 
 was frank with old Winstanley from the first, 
 and told him of my hopes and my affections. 
 He knows that I have set my heart on Grace. 
 Whether she will ever have me, who can say ? 
 In any case, Miss Winstanley is safe, so far 
 as I am concerned ; and her parents are per- 
 suaded she may die an old maid, for anything 
 I should suggest to the contrary." 
 
 Whereupon he got up and took his leave ; 
 nor did Leslie make any attempt to detain 
 him. Jack held that, if anything, he had the 
 prior claims ; and Leslie could only feel that 
 it was a fair match between them. Down at 
 Glenconan, Leslie would have said that the 
 chances were all in his favour. Here, in Lon- 
 don, he was by no means so sure. Like most 
 men of real merit, he set a very modest value 
 on himself; and in the whirl of society, Grace 
 seemed to be swept away from him into 
 spheres whither he scarcely cared to follow
 
 278 fortune's wheel. 
 
 her. Should she be demoralised by fashion- 
 able company, she would be no mate for him ; 
 and though he was sure he could never get 
 over his disappointment, he was not the man 
 to go chasing a Will-o'-the-wisp. All the 
 same, he hoped better things : he could not 
 forget the communion of their spirits over the 
 case of the forlorn widow in the Highland 
 glen. And so, with an effort of the will, he 
 tried to dismiss the subject in the meantime, 
 turning for doubtful comfort to his books and 
 the papers that littered the writing-table. 
 
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