Chapter 6 ROBIN OFF DUTY.

I have yet to introduce to the indulgent reader two more members of the family into which I have married.

The first of these is my daughter Phillis, of whom I have already made passing mention. She is six years old, and appears to be compounded of about equal parts of angelic innocence and original sin. In her dealings with her fellow-creatures she exhibits all the sangfroid and self-possession that mark the modern child. She will be a "handful" some day, the Twins tell me, and they ought to know. However, pending the arrival of the time when she will begin to rend the hearts of young men, she contents herself for the present with practising that accomplishment with complete and lamentable success upon her own garments.

She is the possessor of a vivid imagination, which she certainly does not inherit from me, and is fond of impersonating other people, either characters of her own creation or interesting figures from story-books. Consequently it is never safe to address her too suddenly. She may be a fairy, or a bear, or a locomotive at the moment, and will resent having to return to her proper self, even for a brief space, merely to listen to some stupid and irrelevant remark-usually something about bed-time or an open door-from an unintelligent adult.

Kitty says that I spoil her, but that is only because Kitty is quicker at saying a thing than I am. She is our only child; and I sometimes wonder, at moments of acute mental introspection (say, in the night watches after an indigestible supper), what we should do without her.

The other character waiting for introduction is my brother-in-law, Master Gerald Rubislaw. He is the solitary male member of the family of which my wife and the Twins form the female side. He is, I think, fourteen years of age, and he is at present a member of what he considers-very rightly, I think; and I should know, for I was there myself-the finest public school in the world. Having no parents, he resides at my house during his holidays, and refreshes me exceedingly.

He is a sturdy but rather diminutive youth, with a loud voice. (He always addresses me as if I were standing on a distant hill-top.) He bears a resemblance to his sisters of which he is heartily and frankly ashamed, and which he endeavours at times to nullify as far as possible by a degree of personal uncleanliness which would be alarming to me, were it not that the traditions of my own extreme youth have not yet been entirely obliterated from my memory.

His health is excellent, and his intellect is in that condition euphemistically described in house-master's reports as "unformed." He is always noisy, constitutionally lazy, and hopelessly casual. But he possesses the supreme merit of being absolutely and transparently honest. I have never known him tell a lie or do a mean thing. To such much is forgiven.

At present he appears to possess only two ambitions in life; one, to gain a place in his Junior House Fifteen, and the other, to score some signal and lasting victory over his form-master, a Mr Sydney Mellar, with whom he appears to wage a sort of perpetual guerilla warfare. Every vacation brings him home with a fresh tale of base subterfuges, petty tyrannies, and childish exhibitions of spite on the part of the infamous Mellar, all duly frustrated, crushed, and made ridiculous by the ingenuity, resource, and audacity of the intrepid Rubislaw. I have never met Mr Mellar in the flesh, but I am conscious, as time goes on and my young relative's reminiscences on the subject accumulate, of an increasing feeling of admiration and respect for him.

"He's a rotten brute," observed Gerald one day. "Do you know what he had the cheek to do last term?"

"What?"

"Well, there was a clinking new desk put into our form-room, at the back. I sit there," he added rather na?vely. "As soon as I saw it, of course I got out my knife and started to carve my name. I made good big letters, as I wanted to do the thing properly on a fine new desk like that."

"Was this during school hours?" I ventured to inquire.

"Of course it was. Do you think a chap would be such a silly ass as to want to come in specially to carve his name during play-hours, when he's got the whole of his school-time to do it in?"

"I had not thought of that," I said apologetically.

"And don't go putting on side of that sort, Adrian, old man," roared Gerald, in what a stranger would have regarded as a most threatening voice, though I knew it was merely the one he keeps for moments of playful badinage. "I saw your name carved in letters about four inches high in the Fifth Form room only the other day. I don't see how you can jaw a man for doing a thing you used to do yourself thirty or forty years ago."

I allowed this reflection on my appearance to pass without protest, and Gerald resumed his story.

"Well, I did a first-class G to begin with, and was well on with the Rubislaw-all in capitals: I thought it would look best that way-when suddenly a great hand reached over my shoulder and grabbed my knife. It was Stinker, of course."

"St--"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that. We call him 'Stinker' now. You see, his name is S. Mellar, and if you say it quickly it sounds like 'Smeller.' So we call him 'Stinker.' It was a kid called Lane thought of it. Pretty smart-eh? Oh, he's a clever chap, I can tell you," yelled Gerald, with sincere enthusiasm.

"He must be a youth of gigantic intellect," I said.

"Oh, come off the roof! Well, Stinker grabbed my knife, and said, 'Hallo, young man, what's all this? Handing down your name to posterity-eh?' with a silly grin on his face.

"I said I was just carving my name.

"'I see you have just finished it,' he said.

"I didn't quite tumble to his meaning at first, because I had only got as far as G. RUB,-and then I saw that the whole thing as it stood spelled 'GRUB.' Lord, how the swine laughed! He told the form all about it, and of course they all laughed too, the sniggering, grovelling sweeps!

"Then Stinker said: 'A happy thought has just occurred to me. I shall not have your name obliterated in the usual manner'-they cut it out and put in a fresh bit of wood, and charge you a bob-' this time. I have thought of a more excellent way.' (He always talks like that, in a sort of slow drawl.) 'We will leave your name exactly as you have carved it. But remember, young man, not another letter do you add to that name so long as you are a member of this school. A Grub you are,-a nasty little destructive Grub,-and a Grub you shall remain, so far as that desk is concerned, for all time. And if ever in future years you come down here as a distinguished Old Boy-say a K.C.B. or an Alderman,-remember to bring your numerous progeny'-oh, he's a sarcastic devil!-'to this room, and show them what their papa once was!'

"Of course all the chaps roared again, at the idea of me with a lot of kids. But that wasn't all. He switched off that tap quite suddenly, and said-

"'Seriously, though, I am not pleased about this. Carving your name on a desk is not one of the seven deadly sins, but doing so when I have told you not to is. This silly street-boy business has been getting too prevalent lately: we shall have you chalking things up on the walls next. I particularly gave out last week, when this new desk was put in, that no one was to touch it. Come to me at twelve, and I will cane you.' And he did," concluded Gerald, with feeling.

"What a shame!" said Dilly, who was sitting by. "All for carving a silly old desk."

"He was perfectly right," said Gerald, his innate sense of justice rising to the surface at once. "I wasn't lammed for cutting the desk at all: it was for doing it after I had been told not to."

"It's the same thing," said Dilly, with feminine disregard for legal niceties.

"Same thing? Rot! Fat lot you know about it, Dilly. It's a rum thing," he added to me in a reflective bawl, "but women never can understand the rules of any game. Stinker is a bargee, but he was quite right to lam me. It was for disobedience; and disobedience is cheek; and no master worth his salt will stand cheek. So Stinker says, and he is right for once."

Gerald is the possessor of a bosom friend, an excessively silent and rather saturnine youth of about his own age. His name is Donkin, and he regards Gerald, so far as I can see, with a grim mixture of amusement and compassion. He pays frequent visits to my house, as his father is a soldier in India; and he is much employed by the Twins for corroborating or refuting the more improbable of their brother's reminiscences.

Robin soon made friends with the boys. Like most of their kind, their tests of human probity were few and simple: and having discovered that Robin not only played Rugby football, but had on several occasions represented Edinburgh University thereat, they straightway wrote him down a "decent chap" and took the rest of his virtues for granted.

It came upon them-and me too, as a matter of fact-as rather a shock one evening, when Robin, during the course of a desultory conversation on education in general, suddenly launched forth more suo into a diatribe against the English Public School system.

English boys, he pointed out, were passed through a great machine, which ground up the individual at one end and disgorged a mere type at the other-("Pretty good type too, Robin," from me),-they were taught to worship bodily strength-("Quite right too!" said my herculean brother-in-law),-they were herded together under a monastic system; they were removed from the refining influence of female society-(even the imperturable Donkin snorted at this),-and worst of all, little or nothing was done to eradicate from their minds the youthful idea that it is unmanly to read seriously or think deeply.

I might have said a good deal in reply. I might have dwelt upon the fact that the English Public School system is not so hard upon the stupid boy-which means the average boy-as that of more strenuous forcing-houses of intellect abroad. I might have spoken of one or two moral agents which prevent our schools from being altogether despicable: unquestioning obedience to authority, for instance, or loyalty to tradition. I might have told of characters moulded and fibres stiffened by responsibility-our race bears more responsibility on its shoulders than all the rest of the world put together-or of minds trained to interpret laws and balance justice in the small but exacting world of the prefects' meeting and the games' committee. But it was Gerald, who is no moralist, but a youth of sound common-sense, who closed the argument.

"Mr Fordyce," he said, "it's no use my jawing to you, because you can knock me flat at that game; and of course old Moke there"-this was Master Donkin's unhappy but inevitable designation among his friends-"is too thick to argue with a stuffed rabbit; but you had better come down some time and see the place-that's all."

Robin promised to suspend judgment pending a personal investigation, and the incident closed.

Gerald's verdict on Robin's views, communicated to me privately afterwards, was characteristic but not unfavourable.

"He seems to have perfectly putrid notions about some things, but he's a pretty sound chap on the whole-the best secretary you have had, anyhow, old man. Have you seen him do a straight-arm balance on the billiard-table?"

But I did not fully realise how completely Robin had settled down as an accepted member of my household until one afternoon towards the end of the Christmas holidays.

There is a small but snug apartment opening out of my library, through an arched and curtained doorway. The library is regarded as my workroom-impregnable, inviolable; not to be rudely attempted by devastating housemaids. There is a sort of tacit agreement between Kitty and myself as regards this apartment. Fatima-like, she may do what she pleases with the rest of the house. She may indulge her passion for drawing-room meetings to its fullest extent. She may intertain missionaries in the attics and hold meetings of the Dorcas Society in the basement. She may give reformed burglars the run of the silver-closet, and allow curates and chorus-girls to mingle in sweet companionship on the staircase. But she must leave the library alone, and neither she nor her following must overflow through its double doors during what I call business hours.

On this particular afternoon I had been engaged upon the draft of a small bill with which I had been entrusted-we will call it the "Importation of Mad Dogs Bill,"-and about four o'clock I handed it to Robin with instructions to write out a fair copy. Robin retired into his inner chamber, and I sat down in an arm-chair with Punch. (It was a Wednesday, the Parliamentary half-holiday of those days, and still, happily, the Punch-day of these.)

Kitty was holding a Drawing-room Meeting upstairs. I forget what description of body she was entertaining: it was either a Society for the Propagation of something which could never, in the nature of things, come to birth; or else an Association for the Prevention of something that was bound to go on so long as the world endured. I had been mercifully absolved from attending, and my tea had been sent in to me. I was enjoying an excellent caricature of my Chief in the minor cartoon of Punch, when I heard the door of the inner room open and the voice of my daughter inquire-

"Are you drefful busy, Uncle Robin?" (My secretary had been elevated to avuncular rank after a probation of just three hours.)

There was a sound as of a chair being pushed back, and a rustle which suggested the hasty laying aside of a manuscript, and Robin's voice said-

"Come away, Philly!" (This is a favourite Scoticism of Robin's, and appears to be a term denoting hearty welcome.)

There was a delighted squeal and the sound of pattering feet. Next ensued a period of rather audible osculation, and then there was silence. Presently Phillis said-

"What shall we do? Shall I sing you a hymn?"

Evidently the revels were about to commence.

"I have just learned a new one," she continued. "I heared it in Church yesterday afternoon, so I brought it home and changed it a bit. It's called 'Onward, Chwistian Sailors!'"

"'Soldiers,' isn't it?"

"No-'Sailors.' It was 'Soldiers,' but I like sailors much better than soldiers, so I changed it. I'll sing it now."

"Wait till Sunday," said Robin, with much presence of mind. "Will you not tell me a story?"

This idea appeared so good that Phillis began forthwith.

"Once there were three horses what lived in a stable. Two was wise and one was just a foolish young horse. There was some wolves what lived quite near the stable--"

"Wolves?" said my secretary, in tones of mild surprise.

"The stable," explained Phillis, "stood in the midst of the snowy plains of Muscovy. I should have telled you that before."

"Just so," said Robin gravely. "Go on."

"Well, one day," continued the narratress's voice through the curtains-I knew the story by heart, so I was able to fill up the gaps for myself when she dropped to a confidential whisper-"one cold, windy, berleak day, the old wolves said to the young ones, 'How about a meal of meat?' and all the young one's said, 'Oh, let's!'

"That very morning," continued Phillis in the impressive bass which she reserves for the most exciting parts of her narrative, "that very morning the foolish young horse said to the old horses, 'Who is for a scamper to-day?' Then he began to wiggle and wiggle at his halter. The old horses said, 'There is wolves outside, and our master says that they eat all sheep an' cattle an' horses,' But the young horse just wiggled and wiggled,"-I could hear my daughter suiting the action to the word upon her audience's knee,-"and pwesently his halter was off! Then out he rushed, kicking up the nimble snow with his feathery heels, and-what?"

Robin, who was automatically murmuring something about transferred epithets, apologised for this pedantic lapse, and the tale proceeded.

"Well, just as he was goin' to have one more scamper, he felt a growl-a awful, fearful, deep growl,"-Phillis's voice sank to a bloodcurdling and continuous gurgle-"and he terrembled, like this! I'll show you--"

She slipped off Robin's knee, and I knew that she was now on the hearth-rug, simulating acute palsy for his benefit.

"Then he felt somefing on his back, then somefing further up his back, then a bite at his neck; and then he felt his head bitten off, and he died. Now you tell me one."

"Which?"

Phillis considered.

"The one about the Kelpie and the Wee Bit Lassie."

Robin obliged. At first he stumbled a little, and had to be prompted in hoarse whispers by Phillis (who apparently had heard the story several times before); but as the narrative progressed and the adventures of the wee bit lassie grew more enthralling and the Kelpie more terrifying, he became almost as immersed as his audience. When I peeped through the curtain they were both sitting on the hearth-rug pressed close together, Phillis gripping one of Robin's enormous hands in a pleasurable condition of terrified interest. The fair copy of the "Importation of Mad Dogs Bill," I regret to say, lay on the floor under the table. I retired to my arm-chair.

"The Kelpie," Robin continued, "came closer and closer behind her. Already she could feel a hot breath on her neck." (So could Robin on his, for that matter.) "But she did not give in. She ran faster and faster until--"

"You've forgotten to say she could hear its webbed feet going pad pad over the slippery stanes," interpolated Phillis anxiously.

"So I did. I'm sorry. She could hear its webbed feet going pad pad over the slippery stanes. Presently though, she came to a wee bit housie on the moor. It was empty, but she slippit through the yard-gate and flew along the path and in at the door. The Kelpie came flying through the gate--"

"No, no-it loupit ower the dyke!" screamed Phillis, who would countenance no tamperings with the original text.

"Oh, yes. It loupit ower the dyke, but the wee lassie just slammed the door in its face, and turned the key. Then she felt round in the dark and keeked about, wondering what kind of place she was in. And at that very moment, through a bit window in the wall--"

"She went ben first."

"Oh, yes. She went ben; and at that very moment, through the bit window in the back-end of the house, there came a ray of light. The sun--"

"The sun had risen," declaimed Phillis, triumphantly taking up the tale; "and with one wild sheriek of disappointed rage the Kelpie vanished away, and the wee lassie was saved!"

There was a rapt pause after this exciting anecdote. Then Phillis remarked-

"Uncle Robin, let's write that story down, and then I can get people to read it to me."

"Why not write it down for yourself?"

"I can't write-much; and it ought to be writed in ink, and I-I am only allowed to use pencil," explained my daughter, not without a certain bitterness. "But I put the lead in my mouf," she added defiantly.

At this moment the door of my apartment was hurled open, and Gerald projected himself into the room. It was the evening before his return to school, and there was a predatory look in his eye. He was accompanied by his speechless friend.

"Adrian, old son," he began, in such tones as an orator might address to a refractory mob, "Moke and I are going to have a study next term, and we want some furniture."

I mildly remarked that in my day furniture was supplied by the school authorities.

"Yes, but I mean pictures and things. Can you give us one? We shall want something to go on that wall opposite the window, shan't we, Moke? The place where young Lee missed your head with the red-ink bottle. Have you got a picture handy, Adrian?"

I replied in the negative.

Gerald took not the slightest notice.

"It will have to be a pretty big one," he continued. "There is a good lot of red ink to cover. I have been taking a look round the house, and I must say the pictures you've got are a fairly mangy lot-aren't they, Moke?"

The gentleman addressed coughed deprecatingly, and looked at me as much as to say that, whatever he thought of my taste in art, he had eaten my salt and would refrain from criticism.

"There's one that might do, though," continued Gerald. "It's hanging in the billiard-room-a big steamer in a storm."

By this time Phillis and Robin had joined the conclave.

"I know," said Phillis, nodding her head; "a great beautiful boat in some waves. I should fink it was a friend of the Great Eastern's," she added, referring to an antiquated print of the early Victorian leviathan which hung in the nursery.

"We could take it for a term or two, anyhow," continued Gerald, "until we get something better. I'm expecting some really decent ones after summer. Ainslie major is leaving then, and he has promised to let me have some of his cheap. Then you can have yours back, Adrian. That's the scheme! Come on, Moke, we'll go and take it down now. Thanks very much, old chap" (to me). "I'll tell Kitty that you've let us. We can jab it off its hook with a billiard-cue, I should think, Moke. Come too, will you, Mr Fordyce? You can stand underneath and catch it, in case it comes down with a run. So long, Adrian!"

The whole pack of them swept from the room, leaving the door open.

When I looked in at the billiard-room on my way up to dress for dinner an hour later, nothing remained to mark the spot hitherto occupied by a signed and numbered proof of An Ocean Greyhound, by Michael Angelo Mahlstaff, A.R.A. (a wedding gift to my wife and myself from the artist), but the imprints of several hot hands on the wall, together with a series of parallel perpendicular scars, apparently inflicted by a full-sized harrow.

From which two chapters it will be gathered that Robert Chalmers Fordyce was a man capable, in his ordinary working-day, of playing many parts.

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