And say, what is his name?'
'Ronald, sir.'
'Ronald?'
'That is his first name,' she explained.
'His "first name"? I thought that was one of our Americanisms.'
She did not seem to understand this.
'Ronald Strang is his name, sir; but we jist call him Ronald.'
'Very well, Nelly; you go and tell him I want to see him.'
'Ferry well, sir,' she said; and away she went.
But little indeed did this indefatigable student of nature and human nature – who had been but half interested by his observations and experiences through that long day's travel – know what was yet in store for him. The door opened; a slim-built and yet muscular young man of eight-and-twenty or so appeared there, clad in a smart deer-stalking costume of brownish green; he held his cap in his hand; and round his shoulder was the strap from which hung behind the brown leather case of his telescope. This Mr. Hodson saw at a glance; and also something more. He prided himself on his judgment of character. And when his quick look had taken in the keen, sun-tanned face of this young fellow, the square, intellectual forehead, the firm eyebrows, the finely cut and intelligent mouth, and a certain proud set of the head, he said to himself, 'This is a man: there's something here worth knowing.'
'Good evening, sir,' the keeper said, to break the momentary silence.
'Good evening,' said Mr. Hodson (who had been rather startled out of his manners). 'Come and sit down by the fire; and let's have a talk now about the shooting and the salmon-fishing. I have brought the letters from the Duke's agent with me.'
'Yes, sir,' said Strang; and he moved a bit farther into the room; but remained standing, cap in hand.
'Pull in a chair,' said Mr. Hodson, who was searching for the letters.
'Thank ye, sir; thank ye,' said the keeper; but he remained standing nevertheless.
Mr. Hodson returned to the table.
'Sit down, man, sit down,' said he, and he himself pulled in a chair. 'I don't know what your customs are over here, but anyhow I'm an American citizen; I'm not a lord.'
Somewhat reluctantly the keeper obeyed this injunction, and for a minute or two seemed to be rather uncomfortable; but when he began to answer the questions concisely put to him with regard to the business before them, his shyness wholly wore away, for he was the master of this subject, not the stranger who was seeking for information. Into the details of these matters it is needless to enter here; and, indeed, so struck was the American with the talk and bearing of this new acquaintance that the conversation went far afield. And the farther afield it went, the more and more was he impressed with the extraordinary information and intelligence of the man, the independence of his views, the shrewdness and sometimes sarcasm of his judgments. Always he was very respectful; but in his eyes – which seemed singularly dark and lustrous here indoors, but which, out of doors and when he was after the wary stag, or the still more wary hinds, on the far slopes of Clebrig, contracted and became of a keen brownish gray – there was a kind of veiled fire of humour which, as the stranger guessed, might in other circumstances blaze forth wildly enough. Mr. Hodson, of Chicago, was entirely puzzled. A gamekeeper? He had thought (from his reading of English books) that a gamekeeper was a velveteen-coated person whose ideas ranged from the ale-house to the pheasant-coverts, and thence and quickly back again. But this man seemed to have a wide and competent knowledge of public affairs; and, when it came to a matter of argument (they had a keen little squabble about the protection tariffs of America) he could reason hard, and was not over-compliant.
'God bless me,' Mr. Hodson was driven to exclaim at last, 'what is a man of your ability doing in a place like this? Why don't you go away to one of the big cities – or over to America – where a young fellow with his wits about him can push himself forward?'
'I would rather be "where the dun deer lie,"' said he, with a kind of bashful laugh.
'You read Kingsley?' the other said, still more astonished.
'My brother lends me his books from time to time,' Ronald said modestly. 'He's a Free Church minister in Glasgow.'
'A Free Church minister? He went through college, then?'
'Yes, sir; he took his degree at Aberdeen.'
'But – but – ' said the newcomer, who had come upon a state of affairs he could not understand at all – 'who was your father, then? He sent your brother to college, I presume?'
'Oh no, sir. My father is a small farmer down the Lammermuir way; and he just gave my brother Andrew his wages like the rest, and Andrew saved up for the classes.'
'You are not a Highlander, then?'
'But half-and-half, like my name, sir,' he said (and all the shyness was gone now: he spoke to this stranger frankly and simply as he would have spoken to a shepherd on the hillside). 'My mother was Highland. She was a Macdonald; and so she would have me called Ronald; it's a common name wi' them.'
Mr. Hodson stared at him for a second or two in silence.
'Well,' said he, slowly, 'I don't know. Different men have different ways of looking at things. I think if I were of your age, and had your intelligence, I would try for something better than being a gamekeeper.'
'I am very well content, sir,' said the other placidly; 'and I couldna be more than that anywhere else. It's a healthy life; and a healthy life is the best of anything – at least that is my way of thinking. I wadna like to try the toun; I doubt it wouldn't agree wi' me.' And then he rose to his feet. 'I beg your pardon, sir; I've been keeping ye late.'
Well, Mr. Hodson was nothing loth to let him go; for although he had arrived at the conviction that here was a valuable human life, of exceptional quality and distinction, being absolutely thrown away and wasted, still he had not formed the arguments by which he might try to save it for the general good, and for the particular good of the young man himself. He wanted time to think over this matter – and in cool blood; for there is no doubt that he had been surprised and fascinated by the intellectual boldness and incisiveness of the younger man's opinions and by the chance sarcasms that had escaped him.
'I could get him a good opening in Chicago soon enough,' he was thinking to himself, when the keeper had left, 'but upon my soul I don't know the man who is fit to become that man's master. Why, I'd start a newspaper for him myself, and make him editor – and if he can't write, he has got mother-wit enough to guide them who can – but he and I would be quarrelling in a week. That fellow is not to be driven by anybody.'
He now rang the bell for a candle; and the slim and yellow-haired Nelly showed him upstairs to his room, which he found to be comfortably warm, for there was a blazing peat fire in the grate, scenting all the air with its delicious odour. He bade her good-night, and turned to open his dressing-bag; but at the same moment he heard voices without, and, being of an inquiring turn of mind, he went to the window. The first thing he saw was that outside a beautiful clear moon was now shining; the leafless elm-trees and the heavy-foliaged pines throwing sharp black shadows across the white road. And this laughing and jesting at the door of the inn? – surely he heard Ronald's voice there – the gayest of any – among the jibes that seemed to form their farewells for the night? Then there was the shutting of a door; and in the silence that ensued he saw the solitary, straight-limbed, clean-made figure of a man stride up the white road, a little dog trotting behind him.
'Come along, Harry, my lad,' the man said to his small companion – and that, sure enough, was the keeper's voice.
And then, in the stillness of the moonlight night, this watcher and listener was startled to hear a clear and powerful tenor voice suddenly begin to sing – in a careless fashion, it is true, as if it were but to cheer the homeward going —
'Come all ye jolly shepherds,
That whistle through the glen,
I'll tell ye of a secret
That courtiers dinna ken.
What is the greatest bliss
That the tongue o' man can name?