Lowlands

“ When they come forth into the world, they become as diligent and alert as any people upon earth. They are undoubtedly a very distinct species from their fellow subjects of the Lowlands, against whom they indulge an ancient spirit of animosity; and this difference is very discernible even among persons of family and education. The Lowlanders are generally cool and circumspect, the Highlanders fiery and ferocious:’ but this violence of their passions serves only to inflame the zeal of their devotion to strangers, which is truly enthusiastic. ”

“ And, lastly, they have an adherence to one another as Highlanders in opposition to the people of the low country, whom they despise as inferior to them in courage, and believe they have a right to plunder them whenever it is in their power. This last arises from a tradition that the Lowlands, in old times, were the possessions of their ancestors. ”

“ The Highlanders were continually at war with the Lowlanders. They did not regard their plundering raids upon the richer grounds of the Lowlands as robbery, but as rightful recovery of possessions which had been wrongfully wrested from their ancestors. The Lowlanders, equal in courage and superior in discipline, could not be easily overcome, and thus there was almost constant war or discord between them.
Some of the more powerful Highland chiefs set themselves up as independent sovereigns, and even made alliances with the English in their own name. ”

“ Nay, in what were emphatically termed "the dear years" of the beginning of the present and latter half of the past century, the humble people of the Lowlands, especially our Lowland mechanics and labourers, suffered more than the crofters and small farmers of the Highlands, and this mainly from the circumstance, that as the failure of the crops which induced the scarcity was a corn failure, not a failure of grass and pasture, the humbler Highlanders had sheep and cattle, which continued to supply them with food and raiment ”

“ The line that separates the Central Lowlands from the Southern Uplands is hardly so prominently marked throughout its entire course, but it follows precisely the same north-east and south-west trend, and may be traced from Dunbar along the base of the Lammermoor and Moorfoot Hills, the Lowthers, and the hills of Galloway and Carrick, to Girvan. In each of the two mountain-tracts—the Highlands and the Southern Uplands—areas of low-lying land occur, while in the intermediate Central Lowlands isolated prominences and certain well-defined belts of hilly ground make their appearance. ”

“ Sleuth. She wondered what had happened during her absence—whether the lodger had rung his bell, and, if so, how he had got on with Bunting, and Bunting with him?
She walked up the little flagged path wearily, and yet with a pleasant feeling of home-coming. And then she saw that Bunting must have been watching for her behind the now closely drawn curtains, for before she could either knock or ring he had opened the door.
"I was getting quite anxious about you," he exclaimed. "Come in, Ellen, quick! You must be fair perished a day like now—and you out so little as you are. Well? ”

“ Sleuth was dressed for going out. He was wearing his long Inverness cloak, and his queer old high hat lay on the table, ready for him to put on.
“You’re never going out this afternoon, sir?” she asked falteringly. “Why, the fog’s awful; you can’t see a yard ahead of you!”
Unknown to herself, Mrs. Bunting’s voice had risen almost to a scream. She moved back, still holding the tray, and stood between the door and her lodger, as if she meant to bar his way—to erect between Mr. Sleuth and the dark, foggy world outside a living barrier. ”

“ Sleuth's own business out could be on this cold, bitter night.
"Cold?" the lodger repeated. "I can't say that I find it cold, Mr. Bunting. When the snow falls the air always becomes milder."
"Yes, sir; but to-night there's such a sharp east wind. Why, it freezes the very marrow in one's bones!"
Bunting noticed that Mr. Sleuth kept his distance in a rather strange way: he walked at the edge of the pavement, leaving the rest of it, on the wall side, to his landlord.
"I lost my way," he said abruptly. "I've been over Primrose Hill to see a friend of mine, and then, coming back, I lost my way." ”

“ A short distance beyond Holmen, the new road terminated, and we took the old track over steep spurs of the mountain, rising merely to descend and rise again. The Lougen River here forms a broad, tranquil lake, a mile in width, in which the opposite mountains were splendidly reflected. The water is pale, milky-green colour, which, under certain effects of light, has a wonderful aerial transparency. As we approached Lösnäs, after this long and tedious stage, I was startled by the appearance of a steamer on the river. It is utterly impossible for any to ascend the rapids below Moshûûs ”

“ She was listening—listening for the sounds which would betoken that the lodger was coming downstairs.
At last she heard the cautious, stuffless tread of his rubber-soled shoes shuffling along the hall. But Bunting only woke to the fact when the front door shut to.
"That’s never Mr. Sleuth going out?" He turned on his wife, startled. "Why, the poor gentleman’ll come to harm—that he will! One has to be wide awake on an evening like this. I hope he hasn’t taken any of his money out with him."
"’Tisn’t the first time Mr. Sleuth’s been out in a fog," said Mrs. Bunting sombrely. ”

“ I’ve been walking about all day, Mrs. Bunting, and I could find nothing to sit down upon. They do not put benches for tired men in the London streets. They do so on the Continent. In some ways they are far more humane on the Continent than they are in England, Mrs. Bunting."
"Indeed, sir," she said civilly; and then, after a nervous glance, she asked the question of which the answer would mean so much to her, "Then you mean to take my rooms, sir?" ”

“ Bunting started violently. She was nervous, that’s what was the matter with her,—so she told herself angrily. No doubt this was a letter for Mr. Sleuth; the lodger must have relations and acquaintances somewhere in the world. All gentlefolk have. But when she picked the small envelope off the hall floor, she saw it was a letter from Daisy, her husband’s daughter.
"Bunting!" she called out sharply. "Here’s a letter for you."
She opened the door of their sitting-room and looked in. ”

“ Bunting went downstairs, and as she opened the door of her sitting-room Daisy came towards her stepmother.
"I’ll go down and start getting the lodger’s supper ready for you," said the girl good-naturedly. "He’s certain to come in when he gets hungry. But he did look upset, didn’t he, Ellen? Right down bad—that he did!"
Mrs. Bunting made no answer; she simply stepped aside to allow Daisy to go down.
"Mr. Sleuth won’t never come back no more," she said sombrely, and then she felt both glad and angry at the extraordinary change which came over her husband’s face. ”

“ Sleuth’s lips.
His landlady took a doubtful step towards him.
“A last word with you, Mrs. Bunting.” The lodger’s face was still distorted with fear and passion. “Do not think to escape the consequences of your hideous treachery. I trusted you, Mrs. Bunting, and you betrayed me! But I am protected by a higher power, for I still have much to do.” Then, his voice sinking to a whisper, he hissed out “Your end will be bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword. Your feet shall go down to death, and your steps take hold on hell.” ”

“ Mr. Bunting jumped nervously to her feet. She stood for a moment listening in the darkness, a darkness made the blacker by the line of light under the door behind which sat Bunting reading his paper.
And then it came again, that loud, tremulous, uncertain double knock; not a knock, so the listener told herself, that boded any good. Would-be lodgers gave sharp, quick, bold, confident raps. No; this must be some kind of beggar. The queerest people came at all hours, and asked—whining or threatening—for money. ”

“ Sleuth hastily. "I prefer looking after my own clothes. I am used to waiting on myself. But, Mrs. Bunting, I have a great dislike to sharing lodgings——"
She interrupted eagerly, "I could let you have the use of the two floors for the same price—that is, until we get another lodger. I shouldn’t like you to sleep in the back room up here, sir. It’s such a poor little room. You could do as you say, sir—do your work and your experiments up here, and then have your meals in the drawing-room." ”

“ Sleuth’s landlady realised that the fact that she had moved the chiffonnier must become known to her lodger, for a thin trickle of some dark-coloured liquid was oozing out though the bottom of the little cupboard door.
She stooped down and touched the stuff. It showed red, bright red, on her finger.
Mrs. Bunting grew chalky white, then recovered herself quickly. In fact the colour rushed into her face, and she grew hot all over.
It was only a bottle of red ink she had upset—that was all! How could she have thought it was anything else? ”

“ Bunting had got up from her chair. "What nonsense you do talk!" she said angrily. "Not but what it’s a good thing if these murders have emptied the public-houses of women for a bit. England’s drink is England’s shame—I’ll never depart from that! Now, Daisy, child, get up, do! Put down that paper. We’ve heard quite enough. You can be laying the cloth while I goes down the kitchen."
"Yes, you mustn’t be forgetting the lodger’s supper," called out Bunting. "Mr. Sleuth don’t always ring——" he turned to Chandler. "For one thing, he’s often out about this time." ”

“ But before getting ready their own supper, Mr. Sleuth’s landlady went upstairs to clear away, and when on the staircase she heard the sound of—was it talking, in the drawing-room? Startled, she waited a moment on the landing outside the drawing-room door, then she realised that it was only the lodger reading aloud to himself. There was something very awful in the words which rose and fell on her listening ears:
“A strange woman is a narrow gate. She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.” ”

“ She made no answer to her lodger’s remark, for the good reason that she did not know what to say.
Her silence seemed to distress Mr. Sleuth. After what seemed a long pause, he spoke again.
“I prefer bare walls, Mrs. Bunting,” he spoke with some agitation. “As a matter of fact, I have been used to seeing bare walls about me for a long time.” And then, at last his landlady answered him, in a composed, soothing voice, which somehow did him good to hear. “I quite understand, sir. And when Bunting comes in he shall take the pictures all down. We have plenty of space in our own rooms for them.” ”

“ Sleuth as assiduously as ever, Mrs. Bunting never mentioned the lodger.
Mr. Sleuth, meanwhile, kept upstairs; he had given up going out altogether. He still felt, so he assured his landlady, far from well.
Daisy was another complication, the more so that the girl, whom her father longed to send away and whom he would hardly let out of his sight, showed herself inconveniently inquisitive concerning the lodger.
"Whatever does he do with himself all day?" she asked her stepmother. ”

“ But as his landlady came in, Mr. Sleuth hastily closed the Bible, and began staring dreamily out of the window, down at the sordid, hurrying crowd of men and women which now swept along the Marylebone Road.
“There seem a great many people out today,” he observed, without looking round.
“Yes, sir, there do.”
Mrs. Bunting began busying herself with laying the cloth and putting out the breakfast-lunch, and as she did so she was seized with a mortal, instinctive terror of the man sitting there.
At last Mr. Sleuth got up and turned round. She forced herself to look at him. ”

“ And then, having laid the cloth, and put the lodger’s one hot dish upon it, she went towards the door. “Wouldn’t you like me to bring up another scuttleful of coals, sir? it’s bitterly cold—getting colder every minute. A fearful night to have to go out in—” she looked at him deprecatingly.
And then Mr. Sleuth did something which startled her very much. Pushing his chair back, he jumped up and drew himself to his full height.
“What d’you mean?” he stammered. “Why did you say that, Mrs. Bunting?” ”

“ Then he fell into one of his long silences.
“Have you not forgotten, Uncle Angelo, the message to the Marchese?” asked Lily at last. “I mean about Mr. Vissering and the Club.”
“I have thought the matter over,” said the Count gravely, “and I do not feel I can propose such a plan to the Marchese. Mr. Vissering would be out of place in the Club.
“You also said something about a car for to-night,” said Lily.
“I have changed my mind about that too. I do not care to ask favours of people. I shall take one of those nice taxis that look like a private car, from one of the hotels.” ”

“ She waited a moment—try as she would, she could not allude to what those unwonted shouts and noises had betokened. “I expect you’ve got a chill, sir,” she said suddenly. “If I was you, I shouldn’t go out this afternoon; I’d just stay quietly indoors. There’s a lot of rough people about—” Perhaps there was an undercurrent of warning, of painful pleading, in her toneless voice which penetrated in some way to the brain of the lodger, for Mr. Sleuth looked up, and an uneasy, watchful look came into his luminous grey eyes.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Bunting. But I think I’ll take your advice. ”