"It was indeed," said Francesca, appearing suddenly at an upper window overhanging the garden. "Pardon this intrusion, but the Castle people are here," she continued in what is known as a stage whisper,--that is, one that can be easily heard by a thousand persons,--"the Castle people and the ladies from Pettybaw House; and Mr. Macdonald is coming down the loaning; but Calamity Jane is making her toilet in the kitchen, and you cannot take Mr. Beresford through into the sitting-room at present. She says this hoose has so few conveniences that it's `fair sickenin'.'"
"How long will she be?" queried Mr. Beresford anxiously, putting The Lady of the Lake in his pocket, and pacing up and down between the rows of cabbages.
"She has just begun. Whatever you do, don't unsettle her temper, for she will have to prepare for eight to-day. I will send Mr. Macdonald and Miss Macrae to the bakery for gingerbread, to gain time, and possibly I can think of a way to rescue you. If I can't, are you tolerably comfortable? Perhaps Miss Grieve won't mind Penelope, and she can come through the kitchen any time and join us; but naturally you don't want to be separated, that's the worst of being engaged. Of course I can lower your tea in a tin bucket, and if it should rain I can throw out umbrellas. Would you like your golf-caps, Pen? `Won'erful blest in weather ye are, mam!' The situation is not so bad as it might be," she added consolingly, "because in case Miss Grieve's toilet should last longer than usual, your wedding need not be indefinitely postponed, for Mr. Macdonald can marry you from this window."
Here she disappeared, and we had scarcely time to take in the full humour of the affair before Robin Anstruther's laughing eyes appeared over the top of the high brick wall that protects our garden on three sides.
"Do not shoot," said he. "I am not come to steal the fruit, but to succour humanity in distress. Miss Monroe insisted that I should borrow the inn ladder. She thought a rescue would be much more romantic than waiting for Miss Grieve. Everybody is coming out to witness it, at least all your guests,--there are no strangers present,--and Miss Monroe is already collecting sixpence a head for the entertainment, to be given, she says, for your dear Friar's sustenation fund."
He was now astride of the wall, and speedily lifted the ladder to our side, where it leaned comfortably against the stout branches of the draper's peach vine. Willie ran nimbly up the ladder and bestrode the wall. I followed, first standing, and then decorously sitting down on the top of it. Mr. Anstruther pulled up the ladder, and replaced it on the side of liberty; then he descended, then Willie, and I last of all, amidst the acclamations of the onlookers, a select company of six or eight persons.
When Miss Grieve formally entered the sitting-room bearing the tea- tray, she was buskit braw in black stuff gown, clean apron, and fresh cap trimmed with purple ribbons, under which her white locks were neatly dressed.
She deplored the coolness of the tea, but accounted for it to me in an aside by the sickening quality of Mrs. Sinkler's coals and Mr. Macbrose's kindling-wood, to say nothing of the insulting draft in the draper's range. When she left the room, I suppose she was unable to explain the peals of laughter that rang through our circumscribed halls.
Lady Ardmore insists that the rescue was the most unique episode she ever witnessed, and says that she never understood America until she made our acquaintance. I persuaded her that this was fallacious reasoning; that while she might understand us by knowing America, she could not possibly reverse this mental operation and be sure of the result. The ladies of Pettybaw House said that the occurrence was as Fifish as anything that ever happened in Fife. The kingdom of Fife is noted, it seems, for its `doocots [dovecots] and its daft lairds,' and to be eccentric and Fifish are one and the same thing.
Thereupon Francesca told Mr. Macdonald a story she heard in Edinburgh, to the effect that when a certain committee or council was quarrelling as to which of certain Fifeshire towns should be the seat of a projected lunatic asylum, a new resident arose and suggested that the building of a wall round the kingdom of Fife would solve the difficulty, settle all disputes, and give sufficient room for the lunatics to exercise properly.
This is the sort of tale that a native can tell with a genial chuckle, but it comes with poor grace from an American lady sojourning in Fife. Francesca does not mind this, however, as she is at present avenging fresh insults to her own beloved country.
