Rothsay

“ The people in Rothsay will undoubtedly believe you the injured party, and I shall let them do so. I shall say nothing to your detriment except that it is impossible for us to live together. I shall support you just as I have done, but I greatly prefer that it should be in Holburton, rather than in Rothsay. It is the only favor I ask, that you do not remain here.”
“And one I shall not grant,” was Josephine’s quick reply. “I like Rothsay, so far as I have seen it, and here I shall stay. Do you think that I will go back to Holburton, and bear all the malicious gossip of that gossipy hole? Never! ”

“ Rothsay, I do believe you to be a true, honest, straightforward man; I believe you are attracted to Cora by a sincere preference for herself, irrespective of her prospects; and you are a rising man. Wait a year or two, or three. Take a few steps higher on the ladder of rank and fame, and then come and ask me for my granddaughter's hand, and if you are both of the same mind, I will give it to you. There!"
"Mr. Rockharrt—" began Rule.
"There, there, there! I will not even hear of an engagement until that time shall arrive. ”

“ I was sitting alone, after my legal adviser had taken his leave, looking absently at the newly-engrossed will, when I heard a sharp knock at the house door which I thought I recognised. In another minute Rothsay's bright face enlivened my dull room. He had returned from the Mediterranean that morning.
"Am I interrupting you?" he asked, pointing to the leaves of manuscript before me. "Are you writing a book?" ”

“ I thank you," said Rothsay, somewhat wearily.
"You're not looking well, Governor. I suppose all this 'fuss and feathers' is about as harassing as a stormy sea voyage. Well, I will not keep you up long. I should have been here earlier, only I went first to the hotel to inquire for you, and there I learned that you were here in old Rockharrt's house, and had married his granddaughter. Congratulate you again, Governor. Not many men have had such a double triumph as you. She is a splendidly beautiful woman. I saw her once in Washington City, at the President's reception. ”

“ And think you that, if Rothsay's heart could dictate so mean a match, he could achieve such a purpose without endangering both his succession and his life, assailed by the Douglas and March at the same time, for what they must receive as an act of injury and insult to both their houses? ”

“ Rothsay. And he followed the servant up stairs to a large and handsomely furnished bed chamber, having a dressing room attached.
Jason lighted the wax candles on the dressing table and on the mantel piece, and then inquired:
"Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?"
"No," replied Mr. Rothsay.
And the servant retired.
Rothsay was alone in the room. He had never set up a valet; he had always waited on himself. Now, however, he was again at a loss. He was covered with railway dust and smoke, yet he saw no conveniences for ablution. ”

“ The one useful conclusion at which I could arrive was to induce Rothsay to try what absence and change might do to compose his mind. To advise him to travel alone was out of the question. I wrote to his one other old friend besides myself—the friend who had taken him on a cruise in the Mediterranean.
The owner of the yacht had that very day given directions to have his vessel laid up for the winter season. He at once countermanded the order by telegraph. "I am an idle man," he said, "and I am as fond of Rothsay as you are. I will take him wherever he likes to go." ”

“ Rothsay shall make amends for what he has idly spoken. Alas! let us take counsel in friendly fashion, rather than resemble a mutinous crew of mariners in a sinking vessel, when each is more intent on quarrelling with his neighbours than in assisting the exertions of the forlorn master for the safety of the ship. My Lord of Douglas, your house has been seldom to lack when the crown of Scotland desired either wise counsel or manly achievement ”

“ There were in all a dozen invitations sent to as many families in Rothsay, and Beatrice had a letter from Josephine, in which she tried to make everything seem fair and right with regard to the divorce and marriage, and hoped Miss Belknap would be friendly with her when she came back to Rothsay.
“For myself,” she added, “I would rather not go where Everard is, and where his friends can hardly wish to see me. But the doctor is inexorable, and insists upon living at Rothsay a portion of the year at least. He likes the Forrest House, he says, and would not sell it for the world. ”

“ Bee Belknap always did sick people good, and there was not a sick bed in all Rothsay, from the loftiest dwelling to the lowest tenant house, which she did not visit, making the rich ones more hopeful and cheerful from the effect of her strong, sympathetic nature, and dazzling, and bewildering, and gratifying the poor, with whom she often left some tangible proof of her presence. ”

“ Some weeks later Rothsay again pressed his suit on the attention of Mr. Rockharrt.
But the old man was adamant.
"No, sir, no! You must have a firmer foundation to build upon than the fickle favor of the public. Wait a year or two longer. Let us see whether your success is to be permanent."
"But," urged Rule, "my chosen bride is twenty-three years of age, and I am twenty-seven. Time is flying."
"What has that got to do with the question? If you were to marry this morning, would that stop the flight of time? Would not time fly just as fast as ever? Suppose you should not marry for two years? ”

“ But I repeat, sir, that they did not know that I was that latest visitor. I did not think of telling any one that I was going to see Rothsay before I went, or of telling them that I had been to see him after I went. They had no more reason to identify me with that late caller than any other guest at the hotel, or, in fact, any other man in the world. Come, Mr. Rockharrt, you have complimented me with one of the blackest suspicions that could wrong an honest man, but I will not quarrel with you. I know very well that the last person seen with a missing man is often suspected of his taking off. ”

“ When will that be, Everard? Must we wait forever? Sometimes I get desperate, and am tempted to start at once for Rothsay, and, facing your father, tell him the truth, and brave the storm which I suppose would follow. But then I know you would be angry at such a proceeding, and so I give it up, and go on waiting patiently, for I do wish to please you, and am glad this Miss Belknap is here, as I am sure of her friendship when the time of trial comes. ”

“ Tell me what you wish, dear," said Rothsay.
Corona looked at her watch, and then replied:
"Courtesy would have required me to go down and take leave of Captain and Mrs. Neville before leaving them, but it is too late now. Their caravan is on the march by this time. They were to have resumed their route at two o'clock. It is after three now."
"We can go to Farthermost later, dear. It is but half a day's ride from here. Shall we go down the mountain and join Clarence? Is it your wish, Cora?"
"No, not yet. He is very well as he is. He can wait for us. Let us sit down here together. ”

“ Three days later, another proof reached me of Rothsay’s anxiety for my welfare.
The owner of the yacht wrote to beg that I would send him a report of my health, addressed to a port on the south coast of England, to which they were then bound. “If we don’t hear good news,” he added, “I have reason to fear that Rothsay will overthrow our plans for the recovery of his peace of mind by leaving the vessel, and making his own inquiries at your bedside.” ”

“ I replied, “is not much in my way. I left the engagement of the new man to Mrs. Mozeen.”
Rothsay walked gravely up to my bedside.
“Lepel,” he said, “your respectable housekeeper is in love with the fat young footman.”
It is not easy to amuse a man suffering from bronchitis. But this new outbreak of absurdity was more than I could resist, even with a mustard-plaster on my chest.
“I thought I should raise your spirits,” Rothsay proceeded. “When I came to your house this morning, the valet opened the door to me. ”

“ The address was in the handwriting of the good friend with whom Rothsay was sailing.
Just as I had been speaking of Rothsay, here was the news of him for which I had been waiting.
I opened the letter and read these words:
“There is, I fear, but little hope for our friend—unless this girl on whom he has set his heart can (by some lucky change of circumstances) become his wife. He has tried to master his weakness; but his own infatuation is too much for him. He is really and truly in a state of despair. ”

“ All this was communicated to Rothsay by Ramorgny in a whisper, and with an appearance, tone, and manner suited to the awful nature of the intelligence. The duke believed the story, and, bursting forth into an extravagant sally of indignation, cried—
"It is time that princes of the blood-royal should exert the power in defence of themselves, which is intrusted to them for the defence of others, when villains, in broad day, lay schemes for their lives. I can plainly see, and have long seen, that this man and I cannot live in the same age. Scotland is too narrow for us ”

“ Poor Rothsay himself passed out upon the sidewalk, unrecognized in the obscurity.
An empty hack was standing at the corner of the square, a few hundred feet from the house.
To this he went, and spoke to the man on the box:
"Is this hack engaged?"
"Yes, sah, it is—took by four gents as can't get no lodgings at none of the hotels, nor yet boarding houses—no, sah. Dere dey is ober yonder in dat dere s'loon cross de street—yes, sah. But it don't keep open, dat s'loon don't, longer'n twelve o'clock—no, sah. It's mos' dat now, so dey'll soon call for dis hack—yes, sah!" ”

“ I shall insist on your accepting him now, because poor Rothsay is in his grave, and this will be the best thing to do for you to help you out of harm's way from redskins and rattlesnakes and other reptiles. I don't think much of the fellow; but he seems to be a harmless idiot, and is good enough for you."
Cora answered never a word, but she felt quite sure that not even the iron will of the Iron King could ever coerce her into marriage with any man, least of all with the man whose memory was identified with her heart's tragedy. The old man continued his monologue. ”

“ Thou hast said that thou lovest softness in woman; but I have heard thee say, in thy mad freaks—wherein, doubtless, reason had no part—that thou wouldst rejoice in an opportunity of taming a shrew. Truly, thy wish, at least to the extent of making an attempt, may be gratified by marrying Bess Douglas; but I would rede thee to consider, that she might tame thee. Dost thou observe the difference there? Ha! the noble and high-spirited Rothsay pinned, like a silken nose-cloth, to the skirt of the linsey-woolsey tunic of a modern Xantippe!"
"Never fear, Ramorgny," cried the duke, impatiently ”

“ She only felt that he was no longer a boy, but a man, old even as his years, and that he was very glad to see her, and looked his gladness to the full. Bee Belknap was a born coquette, and would have flirted in her coffin had the thing been possible, and now, during the moment she stood in the hall with her hand in Everard’s, she managed to make him understand how greatly improved she found him, how delighted she was to see him, and how inexpressibly dull and poky Rothsay was without him. ”

“ Rothsay stared.
"Come, Rule! You have tested woman's love to-day, and found it fail you; even as I tested man's faith in the long ago, and found it wrong me! Come, Rule! You and I have had enough of falsehood and treachery! Let us shake the dust of civilization off our shoes! Come, Rule!"
CHAPTER VI. THE WIDOWED BRIDE.
The amazement and confusion that followed the discovery of the mysterious disappearance of Governor-elect Regulas Rothsay, on the morning of the day of his intended inauguration, has been already described in an earlier chapter of this story. ”

“ Cora now, on the Irishman's principle of pulling the pig backward if you want him to go forward, ventured on the assurance of counseling her grandfather by saying:
"I would not approach Mr. Rothsay on the subject of this bill, if I were you, sir."
"But you are not I, miss!" exclaimed the old man, opening his eyes wide to stare her down. "And the new man is the very one to whom I shall first speak. He is the most proper person to present the bill. He represents my own district. ”

“ After this Regulas Rothsay came often and more often, until at length he passed every evening with the Rockharrts when they were at home. Old Aaron Rockharrt esteemed him as he esteemed very, very few of his fellow creatures. Mrs. Rockharrt really loved him. Mr. Fabian and Mr. Clarence liked him. Cora admired and honored him. He was made so welcome in the family circle that he felt himself quite at home among them.
On the second of January the first business taken up was that of the bill to charter the projected railroad. It was presented by Mr. Rothsay, and referred to the proper committee. ”

“ The whole population has risen; the soldiers have refused to fire on the people; the terrified Prince has dismissed his ministers, and promises a constitution. The Marquis, returning from the ceremony which has just made Celia his wife, is presented with a free pardon, and with the offer of a high place in the re-formed ministry. A new life is opening before him—and he has innocently ruined his friend’s prospects! On this striking situation the drop-curtain falls.
While we were still applauding the first act, Rothsay alarmed me: he dropped from his seat at my side, like a man struck dead. ”