CHAPTER XX

From the gargoyled keep which the cultured enthusiasm of Eleanor and the

purse of her father had recently erected at Lincoln Lodge, the brother

and sister looked over a bend of the river, half a mile of valley road,

a wave of forest country, and the greater billows of the bare hillsides

towering beyond. But out of all this prospect it was only upon the

stretch of road that their eyes were bent.

“Surely one should see their carriage soon!” exclaimed Eleanor.

“Seems to me,” said her brother, “that you're sitting something like a

cat on the pounce for this Tulliwuddle fellow. Why, Eleanor, I never

saw you so excited since the first duke came along. I thought that had

passed right off.”

“Oh, Ri, I was reading 'Waverley' again last night, and somehow I felt

the top of the keep was the only place to watch for a chief!”

“Why, you don't expect him to be different from other people?”

“Ri! I tell you I'll cry if he looks like any one I've ever seen before!

Don't you remember the Count said he moved like a pine in his native

forests?”

“He won't make much headway like that,” said Ri incisively. “I'd sooner

he moved like something more spry than a tree. I guess that Count was

talking through his hat.”

But his sister was not to be argued out of her exalted mood by such

prosaic reasoning. She exclaimed at his sluggish imagination, reiterated

her faith in the insinuating count's assurances, and was only withheld

from sending her brother down for a spy-glass by the reflection that she

could not remember reading of its employment by any maiden in analogous

circumstances.

It was at this auspicious moment, when the heart of the expectant

heiress was inflamed with romantic fancies and excited with the suspense

of waiting, and before it had time to cool through any undue delay, that

a little cloud of dust first caught her straining eyes.

“He comes at last!” she cried.

At the same instant the faint strains of the pibroch were gently wafted

to her embattled tower.

“He is bringing his piper! Oh, what a duck he is!”

“Seems to me he is bringing a dozen of them,” observed Ri.

“And look, Ri! The sun is glinting upon steel! Claymores, Ri! oh, how

heavenly! There must be fifty men! And they are still coming! I do

believe he has brought the whole clan!”

Too petrified with delight to utter another exclamation, she watched in

breathless silence the approach of a procession more formidable than

had ever escorted a Tulliwuddle since the year of Culloden. As they drew

nearer, her ardent gaze easily distinguished a stalwart figure in plaid

and kilt, armed to the teeth with target and claymore, marching with a

stately stride fully ten paces before his retinue.

“The chief!” she murmured.

Now indeed she saw there was no cause to mourn, for any one at all

resembling the Baron von Blitzenberg as he appeared at that moment she

had certainly never met before. Intoxicated with his finery and with the

terrific peals of melody behind him, he pranced rather than walked up to

the portals of Lincoln Lodge, and there, to the amazement and admiration

alike of his clansmen and his expectant host, he burst forth into the

following Celtic fragment, translated into English for the occasion by

his assiduous friend from a hitherto undiscovered manuscript of Ossian:

“I am ze chieftain,

Nursed in ze mountains,

Behold me, Mac--ig--ig--ig ish!

(Yet the Count had written this word very distinctly.)

“Oich for ze claymore!

Hoch for ze philabeg!

Sons of ze red deers,

Children of eagles,

I will supply you

Mit Sassenach carcases!”

At this point came a momentary lull, the chieftain's eyes rolling

bloodthirstily, but the rhapsody having apparently become congested

within his fiery heart. His audience, however, were not given time to

recover their senses, before a striking-looking individual, adorned with

tartan trews and a feathered hat, in whom all were pleased to recognize

Count Bunker, whispered briefly in his lordship's ear, and like a river

in spate he foamed on:

“Donald and Ronald

Avake from your slumbers!

Maiden so lovely,

Smile mit your bright eyes!

Ze heather is blooming!

Ze vild cat is growling!

Hech Dummeldirroch!

Behold Tollyvoddle,

Ze Lord of ze Mountains!”

Hardly had the reverberations of the chieftain's voice died away, when

the Count, uttering a series of presumably Gaelic cries, advanced with

the most dramatic air, and threw his broad-sword upon the ground. The

Baron laid his across it, the pipes struck up a less formidable, but

if anything more exciting air, and the two noblemen, springing

simultaneously from the ground, began what the Count confidently trusted

their American hosts would accept as the national sworddance.

This lasted for some considerable time, and gave the Count an

opportunity of testifying his remarkable agility and the Baron of

displaying the greater part of his generously proportioned limbs, while

the lung power of both became from that moment proverbial in the glen.

At the conclusion of this ceremony the chieftain, crimson, breathless,

and radiant, a sight for gods and ladies, advanced to greet his host.

“Very happy to see you, Lord Tulliwuddle,” said Mr. Maddison. “Allow

me to offer you my very sincere congratulations on your exceedingly

interesting exhibition. Welcome to Lincoln Lodge, your lordship! My

daughter--my son.”

Eleanor, almost as flushed as the Baron by her headlong rush from the

keep at the conclusion of the sword-dance, threw him such a smile as

none of her admirers had ever enjoyed before; while he, incapable of

speech beyond a gasped “Ach!” bowed so low that the Count had gently

to adjust his kilt. Then followed the approach of the Gallosh family,

attired in costumes of Harris tweed and tartan selected and arranged

under the artistic eye of Count Bunker, and escorted, to their huge

delight, by six picked clansmen. Their formal presentation having been

completed by a last skirl on the bagpipes, the whole party moved in

procession to the banqueting-hall.

“A complete success, I flatter myself,” thought Count Bunker, with

excusable complacency.

To the banquet itself it is scarcely possible for a mere mortal

historian to pay a fitting tribute. Every rarity known to the gourmet

that telegraph could summon to the table in time was served in course

upon course. Even the sweetmeats in the little gold dishes cost on an

average a dollar a bon-bon, while the wine was hardly less valuable than

liquid radium. Or at least such was the sworn information subsequently

supplied by Count Bunker to the reporter of “The Torrydhulish Herald.”

Eleanor was in her highest spirits. She sat between the Baron and

Mr. Gallosh, delighted with the honest pleasure and admiration of the

merchant, and all the time becoming more satisfied with the demeanor and

conversation of the chief. In fact, the only disappointment she felt was

connected with the appearance of Miss Gallosh. Much as she had desired a

confidante, she had never demanded one so remarkably beautiful, and she

could not but feel that a very much plainer friend would have served her

purpose quite as well--and indeed better. Once or twice she intercepted

a glance passing between this superfluously handsome lady and the

principal guest, until at last it occurred to her as a strange and

unseemly thing that Lord Tulliwuddle should be paying so long a visit

to his shooting tenants. Eva, on her part, felt a curiously similar

sensation. These American gentlemen were as pleasant as report had

painted them, but she now discovered an odd antipathy to American women,

or at least to their unabashed method of making themselves agreeable

to noblemen. It confirmed, indeed, the worst reports she had heard

concerning the way in which they raided the British marriage market.

Being placed beside one of these lovely girls and opposite the

other, the Baron, one would think, would be in the highest state of

contentment; but though still flushed with his triumphant caperings over

the broadswords, and exhibiting a graciousness that charmed his hosts,

he struck his observant friend as looking a trifle disturbed at soul.

He would furtively glance across the table and then as furtively throw

a sidelong look at his neighbor, and each time he appeared to grow more

thoughtful. And yet he did not look precisely unhappy either. In

fact, there was a gleam in his eye during each of these glances which

suggested that both fell upon something he approved of.

The after-luncheon procedure had been carefully arranged between the

two adventurers. The Count was to keep by the Baron's side, and, thus

supported, negotiations were to be delicately opened. Accordingly, when

the party rose, the Count whispered a word in Mr. Maddison's ear. The

millionaire answered with a grave, shrewd look, and his daughter, as if

perfectly grasping the situation, led the Galloshes out to inspect the

new fir forest. And then the two noblemen and the two Dariuses faced one

another over their cigars.