Fiction > Serialisations > London, 1896-1897 - St. Ives > Volume 13

4 i6 THE PALL MALL MAGAZINE.
•' The good Lord behear ! " he exclaimed, stood stock still for a moment, and
waddled off at top speed towards the back door.
"We must tell Aunt at once! She will Why, Anne, where are you
going ? " She caught my sleeve.
" To the hen-house, to be sure," said I.
A moment later, with peals of happy laughter, we had taken hands and
were running along the garden alleys towards the house. And I remember, as we
ran, finding it somewhat singular that this should be the first time I had ever
invaded Swanston Cottage by way of the front door.
We came upon Mrs. Gilchrist in the breakfast-room. A pile of linen lay on
the horsehair sofa, and the good lady, with a measuring tape in one hand and a
pair of scissors in the other, was walking around Ronald, who stood on the
hearthrug in a very manly attitude. She regarded me over her gold-rimmed
spectacles, and shifting the scissors into her left hand, held out her right.
" H'm," said she, " I give ye good morning, Mosha. And what might you be
wanting of me this time ? "
" Madam," I answered, " that, I hope, is fairly evident."
Ronald came forward. " I congratulate you, Saint-Yves, with all my heart.
And you can congratulate me : I have my commission."
"Nay, then," said I, "let me rather congratulate France that the war is over
Seriously, my dear fellow, I wish you joy. What's the regiment ? "
"The 4-th."
" Chevenix's."
" Chevenix is a decent fellow. He has behaved very well — indeed he has."
" Very well indeed," said Flora, nodding her head.
" He has the knack. But if you expect me to like him any the better for
it "
" Major Chevenix," put in Mrs. Gilchrist in her most Rhadamantine voice,
" always sets me in mind of a pair of scissors." She opened and shut the pair
in her hand, and I had to confess that the stiff and sawing action was admirably
illustrative.
" But I wish to Heaven, madame," thought I, " you could have chosen another
simile ! "
In the evening of that beautiful day I walked back to Edinburgh by some
aerial and rose-clouded path not indicated on the maps. It led somehow to my
lodgings, and my feet touched earth when the door was opened to me by
Bethiah McRankine.
" But where is Rowley? " I asked, a moment later, looking around my sitting-room.
Mrs. McRankine smiled sardonically. " Him ? He came back rolling his eyes,
so that I guessed him to be troubled wi' the wind. And he's in bed this hour
past with a spoonful of peppermint in his little wame."
And here I may ring down the curtain upon the adventures of Anne de-
Saint Yves.
Flora and I were married early in June, and had been settled for a little over
six months amid the splendours of Amersham Place, when news came of the
Emperor's escape from Elba. Throughout the consequent alarums and excursions
of the Hundred Days (as M. de Chambord named them for us) I have to confess
that the Vicomte Anne sat still and warmed his hands at the domestic hearth.
To be sure, Napoleon had been my master, and I had no love for the cocarde
blanche. But here was I, an Englishman already, in legal but inaccurate phrase,