– births and marriages, engagements and tea-parties, new patterns at Miss Minto’s, two coaches in the day, and sometimes somebody doing something silly that will keep you laughing half the week.”
“But it’s not quite so lively as Chicago,” said Mr Dyce. “There has not been a man shot in this neighbourhood since the tinker kind of killed his wife (as the fiscal says) with the pistol. You’ll have heard of him? When the man was being brought on the scaffold for it, and the minister asked if he had anything to say before he suffered the extreme penalty of the law, ‘All I have got to say,’ he answered, starting to greet, ‘is that this’ll be an awful lesson to me.’”
“That’s one of your old ones,” said Bell; but even an old one was welcome in Dyce’s house on New Year’s day, and the three of them laughed at the story as if it had newly come from London in Ailie’s precious ‘Punch.’ The dog fell into a convulsion of merriment, as if inward chuckles tormented him – as queer a dog as ever was, neither Scotch terrier nor Skye, Dandy Dinmont nor Dachshund, but just dog, – dark wire-haired behind, short ruddy-haired in front, a stump tail, a face so fringed you could only see its eyes when the wind blew. Mr Dyce put down his hand and scratched it behind the ear. “Don’t laugh, Footles,” he said. “I would not laugh if I were you, Footles, – it’s just an old one. Many a time you’ve heard it before, sly rogue. One would think you wanted to borrow money.” If you could hear Dan Dyce speak to his dog, you would know at once he was a bachelor: only bachelors and bairnless men know dogs.
“I hope and trust he’ll have decent clothes to wear, and none of their American rubbish,” broke in Bell, back to her nephew again. “It’s all nonsense about the bashed hat; but you can never tell what way an American play-actor will dress a bairn: there’s sure to be something daft-like about him – a starry waistcoat or a pair of spats, – and we must make him respectable like other boys in the place.”
“I would say Norfolk suits, the same as the banker’s boys,” suggested Ailie. “I think the banker’s boys always look so smart and neat.”
“Anything with plenty of pockets in it,” said Mr Dyce. “At the age of ten a boy would prefer his clothes to be all pockets. By George! an entire suit of pockets, with a new penny in every pocket for luck, would be a great treat,” – and he chuckled at the idea, making a mental note of it for a future occasion.
“Stuff and nonsense!” cried Bell emphatically, for here she was in her own department. “The boy is going to be a Scotch boy. I’ll have the kilt on him, or nothing.”
“The kilt!” said Mr Dyce.
“The kilt!” cried Ailie.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
It was a loud knocking at the front door. They stopped the talk to listen, and they heard the maid go along the lobby from the kitchen. When she opened the door, there came in the cheerful discord of the street, the sound of a pounding drum, the fifes still busy, the orange-hawker’s cry, but over all they heard her put her usual interrogation to visitors, no matter what their state or elegance.
“Well, what is’t?” she asked, and though they could not see her, they knew she would have the door just a trifle open, with her shoulder against it, as if she was there to repel some chieftain of a wild invading clan. Then they heard her cry, “Mercy on me!” and her footsteps hurrying to the parlour door. She threw it open, and stood with some one behind her.
“What do you think? Here’s brother William’s wean!” she exclaimed in a gasp.
“My God! Where is he?” cried Bell, the first to find her tongue. “He’s no hurt, is he?”
“It’s no’ a him at all – it’s a her!” shrieked Kate, throwing up her arms in consternation, and stepping aside she gave admission to a little girl.
CHAPTER IV
The orphan child of William and Mary Dyce, dead, the pair of them, in the far-off city of Chicago, stepped quite serenely into an astounded company. There were three Dyces in a row in front of her, and the droll dog Footles at her feet, and behind her, Kate, the servant, wringing her apron as if it had newly come from the washing-boyne, her bosom heaving. Ten eyes (if you could count the dog’s, hidden by his tousy fringe) stared at the child a moment, and any ordinary child would have been much put out; but this was no common child, or else she felt at once the fond kind air of home. I will give you her picture in a sentence or two. She was black-haired, dark and quick in the eye, not quite pale but olive in complexion, with a chin she held well up, and a countenance neither shy nor bold, but self-possessed. Fur on her neck and hood (Jim Molyneux’s last gift), and a muff that held her arms up to the elbows, gave her an aspect of picture-book cosiness that put the maid in mind at once of the butcher’s Christmas calendar.
It was the dog that first got over the astonishment: he made a dive at her with little friendly growls, and rolled on his back at her feet, to paddle with his four paws in the air, which was his way of showing he was in the key for fun.
With a cry of glee she threw the muff on the floor and plumped beside him, put her arms about his body and buried her face in his fringe. His tail went waving, joyous, like a banner. “Doggie, doggie, you love me,” said she in an accent that was anything but American. “Let us pause and consider, – you will not leave this house till I boil you an egg.”
“God bless me, what child’s this?” cried Bell, coming to herself with a start, and, pouncing on her, she lifted her to her feet. Ailie sank on her hands and knees and stared in the visitor’s face. “The kilt, indeed!” said Mr Dyce to himself. “This must be a warlock wean, for if it has not got the voice and sentiment of Wanton Wully Oliver I’m losing my wits.”
“Tell me this, quick, are you Lennox Dyce?” said Bell all trembling, devouring the little one with her eyes.
“Well, I just guess I am,” replied the child calmly, with the dog licking her chin. “Say, are you Auntie Bell?” and this time there was no doubt about the American accent. Up went her mouth to them to be kissed, composedly: they lost no time, but fell upon her, Ailie half in tears because at once she saw below the childish hood so much of brother William.
“Lennox, dear, you should not speak like that; who in all the world taught you to speak like that?” said Bell, unwrapping her.
“Why, I thought that was all right here,” said the stranger. “That’s the way the bell-man speaks.”
“Bless me! Do you know the bell-man?” cried Miss Dyce.
“I rang his old bell for him this morning – didn’t you hear me?” was the surprising answer. “He’s a nice man; he liked me. I’d like him too if he wasn’t so tired. He was too tired to speak sense; all he would say was, ‘I’ve lost the place; let us pause and consider,’ and ‘Try another egg.’ I said I would give him a quarter if he’d let me ring his bell, and he said he’d let me do it for nothing, and my breakfast besides. ‘You’ll not leave this house till I boil an egg for you’ – that’s what he said, and the poor man was so tired and his legs were dreff’le poorly!” Again her voice was the voice of Wully Oliver; the sentiment, as the Dyces knew, was the slogan of his convivial hospitality.
“The kilt, indeed!” said Mr Dyce, feeling extraordinarily foolish, and, walking past them, he went upstairs and hurriedly put the pea-sling in his pocket.
When he came down, Young America was indifferently pecking at her second breakfast with Footles on her knee, an aunt on either side of her, and the maid Kate with a tray in her hand for excuse, open-mouthed, half in at the door.
“Well, as I was saying, Jim – that’s my dear Mr Molyneux, you know – got busy with a lot of the boys once he landed off that old ship, and so he said, ‘Bud, this is the – the – justly cel’brated Great Britain; I know by the boys; they’re so lonely when they’re by themselves; I was ’prehensive we might have missed it in the dark, but it’s all right.’ And next day he bought me this muff and things and put me on the cars – say, what funny cars you have! – and said ‘Good-bye, Bud; just go right up to Maryfield, and change there. If you’re lost