Dickson

“ He lay long awake, torn between common sense and a desire to be loyal to some vague whimsical standard. Heritage a yard distant appeared also to be sleepless, for the bed creaked with his turning. Dickson found himself envying one whose troubles, whatever they might be, were not those of a divided mind. ”

“ Dickson's tone was subtly confidential. "My friend here wants to get into the House the morn with that red-haired laddie to satisfy himself about the facts. I say no. Let sleeping dogs lie, I say, and if you think the beasts are mad report to the authorities. What would you do yourself?"
"If I were you," came the emphatic reply, "I would tak' the first train hame the morn, and when I got hame I wad bide there. Ye're a dacent body, but ye're no' the kind to be traivellin' the roads."
"And if you were me?" Heritage asked with his queer crooked smile. ”

“ Dickson, stropping a concave razor on the palm of his hand, "it was just like dis. I jined de church in good fait'; I gave ten dollars toward the stated gospil de first year, and de church people call me 'Brudder Dickson'; de second year my business not so good, and I gib only five dollars. That year the people call me 'Mr. Dickson.' Dis razor hurt you, sah?"
"No, the razor goes tolerably well."
"Well, sah, de third year I feel berry poor; had sickness in my family; I didn't gib noffin' for preachin'. Well, sah, arter dat dey call me 'dat old nigger Dickson'—and I left 'em." ”

“ Yes, he had been right, it had a strange look of his Janet—the wide-open eyes, the solemn mouth. What was to become of that child if he failed her in her great need?
Now Dickson was a practical man and this view of the case brought him into a world which he understood. "It's fair ridiculous," he reflected. "Nobody there to take a grip of things. Just a wheen Gorbals keelies and the lad Heritage. Not a business man among the lot." ”

“ As the laugh that rose at his last sally died away, he turned to father Dickson, and said:—
"What do you think?"
"I don't think," said father Dickson, mildly, "that you would ever have found Paul leading a drove of negroes."
"Why not, as well as Abraham, the father of the faithful? Didn't he have three hundred trained servants?"
"Servants, perhaps; but not slaves!" said father Dickson, "for they all bore arms. For my part, I think that the buying, selling, and trading, of human beings, for purposes of gain, is a sin in the sight of God." ”

“ Sir Archibald looked upon the earnest flushed face of Dickson with admiration. "I'm blessed if you're not the most whole-hearted brigand I've ever struck."
"I'm not. I'm just a business man."
"Do you realise that you're levying a private war and breaking every law of the land?"
"Hoots!" said Dickson. "I don't care a docken about the law. I'm for seeing this job through. What force can you produce?"
"Only cripples, I'm afraid. There's Sime, my butler. ”

“ But what I did see of Dickson was rather encouraging. The little red veins were disappearing from his cheeks, a certain twitch of the right corner of his mouth was relaxing; an indefinable briskness was pervading his whole being, the manner of the man who works hard and likes his work.
Finally the Big Man came. There was a tremor of expectation in official and social circles—official, for obvious reasons; in social, because of the charming fact that the Professor came to Manila with a bride, romantically wooed and won in California, in passing, as it were. ”

“ He chose the way of the darkness, and avoided the path of the shine. To follow him Said must pass that blaze of light which streamed through the door. Naked and brown, Said leaped across it, like the flitting of a bat, and darkness swallowed him. Old Reliable hurried on, intent upon his affair, while Said slunk behind, close enough to hear him mumble, as a man of stricken conscience mutters in his sleep. Once the Black Effendi jostled against a palm, and again Said caught the pleasant jingle of metal, a clink that put his teeth on edge and set every nerve to quivering. ”

“ To be shot at from close quarters is always irritating, and the novelty of the experience increased Dickson's natural wrath. He fumed on the shore like a deerhound when the stag has taken to the sea. So hot was his blood that he would have cheerfully assaulted the whole crew had they been within his reach. Napoleon, who had been incapacitated for speed by having his stomach and bare shanks savagely trampled upon, joined him, and together they watched the bobbing black specks as they crawled out of the estuary into the grey spindrift which marked the harbour mouth. ”

“ Heritage?" was Dickson's anxious inquiry.
"When I last saw him he was up at a windy, shootin'. I think he's gotten on to the roof. I wouldna wonder but the place is on fire."
"Here, this is awful," Dickson groaned. "We can't let Mr. Heritage be killed that way. What strength is the enemy?"
"I counted twenty-seven, and there's stragglers comin' up from the boats."
"And there's me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others shut up in the House." He stopped in sheer despair. It was a fix from which the most enlightened business mind showed no escape. ”

“ This simple recital affected Dickson's honest soul with the liveliest indignation. "Sich doings!" he exclaimed, and he could not forbear from whispering to Heritage an extract from that gentleman's conversation the first night at Kirkmichael. "We needn't imitate all their methods, but they've got hold of the right end of the stick. They seek truth and reality." ”

“ Suddenly she changed to French, and talked rapidly to Heritage.
"She has told me about her family," he said, turning to Dickson. "It is among the greatest in Russia, the very greatest after the throne." Dickson could only stare.
"Our enemies soon discovered me," she went on. "Oh, but they are very clever, these enemies, and they have all the criminals of the world to aid them. Here you do not understand what they are. You good people in England think they are well-meaning dreamers who are forced into violence by the persecution of Western Europe. But you are wrong. ”

“ Then she looked at her husband with great wide-open eyes; she was now calm, and as quiet as he.
"Truly, Charles, I know nothing of this."
"It was always said, Madame, at Sceaux, you could take the stage and play the parts of distressed and virtuous damosels," he answered her, coldly curling his lip.
"Tell me, Madame, as you value your soul, what is this Captain de Mouret to you?"
"As I value my soul," my lady answered him direct and steadily, looking straight into his eye, her own hands folded across her heaving breast. "As I value my soul, Charles, I know nothing of him." ”

“ Father Dickson was a man extensively known through all that region. He was one of those men among the ministers of America, who keep alive our faith in Christianity, and renew on earth the portrait of the old apostle: "In journeyings often, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon them daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and they are not weak? who is offended, and they burn not?" ”

“ It's a big house for a plain man like me, and I haven't properly inspected it."
"Oh, I'll keep mum, never fear. But if ye've [Pg 157] that sort of notion, I can understand you not being able to keep away from the place."
"That's maybe the fact," Dickson admitted.
"Well! It's just on that point I want a word with you." The innkeeper seated himself unbidden on the chair which held Dickson's modest raiment. He leaned forward and with a coarse forefinger tapped Dickson's pyjama-clad knees. "I can't have ye wandering about the place. I'm very sorry, but I've got my orders from Mr. Loudon. ”

“ The Die-Hard saluted and continued on the turnip.
She took the Auchenlochan road across the Garple bridge, for that was the best road to the Mains, and by it Dickson and the others might be returning. Her equanimity at all seasons was like a Turk's, and she would not have admitted that anything mortal had power to upset or excite her: nevertheless it was a fast-beating heart that she now bore beneath her Sunday jacket. Great events, she felt, were on the eve of happening, and of them she was a part. Dickson's anxiety was hers, to bring things to a business-like conclusion. ”

“ Mr. Dickson stayed to luncheon, and was treated with great respect by Jock and Mhor. The latter had a notion that somewhere the lawyer had a cave in which he kept Jean's fortune, great casks of gold pieces and trunks of precious stones, and that any lack of manners on his part might lose Jean her inheritance. He was disappointed to find him dressed like any ordinary man. He had had a dim hope that he would look like Ali Baba and wear a turban.
After Mr. Dickson had finished saying all he had come to say, and had gone to catch his train, Jean started out to call on her minister. ”

“ We're a' hopin' ye'll accept."
"I accept," Dickson replies. "Proudly and gratefully I accept."
The last scene is some days later, in a certain southern suburb of Glasgow. Ulysses has come back to Ithaca, and is sitting by his fireside, waiting on the return of Penelope from the Neuk Hydropathic. There is a chill in the air, so a fire is burning in the grate, but the laden tea-table is bright with the first blooms of lilac. Dickson, in a new [Pg 315] suit with a flower in his buttonhole, looks none the worse for his travels, save that there is still sticking-plaster on his deeply sunburnt brow. ”

“ Half an hour later there was a furious dissension when Dickson attempted to pay for the night's entertainment. Mrs. Morran would have none of it. "Ye're no' awa' yet," she said tartly, and the matter was complicated by Heritage's refusal to take part in the debate. He stood aside and grinned, till Dickson in despair returned his notecase to his pocket, murmuring darkly the "he would send it from Glasgow."
The road to Auchenlochan left the main village street at right angles by the side of Mrs. Morran's cottage. ”

“ There's nothing else so lean and fine produced on the globe to-day. I was next door to them at Pozières and saw them fight. Lord! Such men! Now and then you had a freak, but most looked like Phœbus Apollo."
Dickson gazed with a new respect at his neighbour, for he had not associated him with battle-fields. During the war he had been a fervent patriot, but, though he had never heard a shot himself, so many of his friends' sons and nephews, not to mention cousins of his own, had seen service, that he had come to regard the experience as commonplace. ”

“ He calls himself a doctor, but I doubt whether he has a diploma. From Theobald's Row, Mr. Nisbet returned to the Métropole, and left instructions to be called early. If you went to the hotel now you would not find him there."
"He has fled!" I exclaimed.
"I do not know about that," said Mr. Dickson, with a smile. "We will call it a departure. He has taken his departure."
"Gone to another hotel?"
"Not in this country. He left for the Continent this morning by the early train."
I stamped my foot impatiently. "Then he has escaped us!" I cried.
"He has not gone alone," said Mr. Dickson calmly. ”

“ And now here's Dickson puts up the dibs for young Murray to get away; Dickson—a chap that wouldn't give away the bones of a dead sheep. It may be best for Tony in the end, mind you. Never was a married man myself, but I've seen those as was, and—well, you're an experienced hand yourself," Marmot said, waving his hand to Smart, whose domestic differences contributed many an item of discussion to the habitués of the verandah. ”

“ Dickson demanded
Madame smiled.
“I had scientific hobbies even in the old days,” she reminded him. “I had one of the first private wireless installations in my house in Paris, and I had it fitted here secretly directly I bought the villa.... With my compliments, Jimmy!”
She handed him the document. Mr. James B. Dickson took it into his hand and tore it slowly to pieces. Claire had wandered down to the gardens. Armand had disappeared to the other end of the piazza in search of another cocktail. Dickson was gazing down at the scraps of paper in his hand. ”

“ Heritage will have the whole pack on him in that old Tower, and him with such a sore clout on his head. I've left him my pistol. He's a terrible brave man!"
She smiled.
"Ay, and he's a poet too."
"So?" she said. "I did not know. He is very young."
"He's a man of very high ideels."
She puzzled at the word, and then smiled. "I know him. He is like many of our young men in Russia, the students—his mind is in a ferment and he does not know what he wants. But he is brave."
This seemed to Dickson's loyal soul but a chilly tribute. ”

“ The innkeeper nodded. "Something like that."
"Did you ever hear the like? I never did think much of the Irish."
"Then ye'll take my advice and go home? Tell ye what, I'll drive ye to the station."
Dickson got up from the bed, found his new safety-razor and began to strop it. "No, I think I'll bide. If you're right there'll be more to see than glaury roads."
"I'm warning ye, fair and honest. Ye ... can't ... be ... allowed... to ... stay ... here!"
"Well I never!" said Dickson. "Is there any law in Scotland, think you, that forbids a man to stop a day or two with his auntie?"
"Ye'll stay?" ”

“ Dickson, by his 1st wife, Jane, dau. of Alexander Collingwood, of Unthank, in Northumberland. The eminent war services of this distinguished soldier are too well known to need recapitulation. From 1798 to 1815 Sir A. Dickson was “on the war-path,” in Europe, North and South America. He commanded the allied artillery at Vittoria, San Sebastian, the passage of Bidassoa, Nivelle, Nive, and Toulouse. Recd. the gold cross and six clasps. K.T.S. The Portuguese medal, and Spanish gold cross for Albuera. Good service pens. of £365 per ann. M. Miss Briones, and had issue. ”

“ You are too used to a land that is free. Caution, oh sacred one!" and he ushered me down a stone-flagged passage, and up a stair at the end of it. "Sit for a few minutes in this room," he said, opening a door, "and a repast will be served for you;" and with that he left me to my own reflections.
"Well," thought I, "whatever Mr. Dimidoff's house may be like, his servants are undoubtedly well trained. 'Oh sacred one!' and 'revered master!' I wonder what he'd call old Dickson himself, if he is so polite to the clerk! ”