Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and SeaStables, Gordon
General
Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea
Stables, Gordon
Fiction
Miss Grant the elder was Kenneth's teacher, one of them, old Nancy
Dobbell was another, and Nature was a third.
"Did you come for a lesson to-day?" said Miss Grant, entering.
"No, thank you. Miss Grant."
"Well, I'm glad, because I was going out. Little Miss Redmond is here
with her governess. They have the pony trap, and I am going to their
glen with them to lunch. Come to the drawing-room; they are there."
Miss Redmond was the only daughter of an Englishman of wealth, who had
bought land in an adjoining glen. Mr Redmond himself was seldom at
home--if, indeed, Scotland could be called his home--and his wife was an
invalid.
But there was nothing of the invalid about little Jessie, the daughter.
Quite a child she was, hardly more than eight, but with all the quiet
dignity and easy affability that is only to be found among children of
the _bon ton_.
Archie was simply afraid of her. Kenneth got on better, however. He
answered all her innocent but pointed questions, as if he were talking
to his grandmother. But Jessie was really asking for information, and
Kenneth knew it, so the two had quite a serious old-fashioned
conversation.
Well, Kenneth seemed a gentleman born. He sat easily in his chair, he
held his cap easily, and behaved himself with polite _sang froid_. Miss
Grant was proud of Kenneth.
But poor Archie looked ill at ease.
Kenneth told Jessie the story of the little black rabbit, and Jessie was
much interested.
"What did it look like?" she asked.
Kenneth glanced towards Archie.
"He just looked," he answered, "as Archie is looking now, as if waiting
a chance to bolt."
This was a very mischievous speech, but Kenneth could not refrain from
saying what he thought.
"Poor boy?" said Jessie, as if she had been Archie's mother; "he appears
to be very frightened. What beautiful hair he has! It is just like
mine."
This was true, only Jesssie's was longer and not bleached. Kenneth sat
looking half wonderingly at Jessie, longer than politeness would
dictate.
"What are you thinking about?" said Jessie.
"I was thinking," said Kenneth, candidly, "I'd give all the world to be
able to talk English in the pretty way you do."
"Some day," Jessie said to her governess, "we will go and see the sheep,
Miss Gale. Remember that place. Put it down in your notes. We are to
see a fairy knoll and a smugglers' cave. It will be so delightful."
"We go to London soon for the winter," said Miss Gale, "but will come
and see you, Kenneth, in spring or summer."
"Miss Gale," insisted the imperious Jessie, "I haven't seen you use your
tablets."
So Miss Gale smilingly took her tablets out and noted the engagement to
visit the sheep and see the fairy knoll.
"He has a flute," said Archie, with sudden determination not to sit mute
all the time; "make him play."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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