The Haute Noblesse. George Manville Fenn
bother me, there’s a shoal off the point now, and I shall get some fish.”
“Why you have all you want now, uncle.”
“Rubbish! Shall get a few shillings’ worth to sell Mother Perrow.”
“Poor Uncle Luke!” said the girl with mock solemnity; “obliged to fish for his living.”
“Better than idling and doing nothing. I like to do it, and—There he is again. Don’t talk.”
He hooked and landed another fine bass from the shoal which had come up with the tide that ran like a millstream off the point, when as he placed the fish in the basket he raised his eyes.
“Yah! Go back and look after your men. I thought that would be it. Maddy, look at her cheeks.”
“Oh, uncle, if I did not know you to be the best and dearest of—”
“Tchah! Carney!” he cried, screwing up his face. “Look here, I want to catch a few fish and make a little money, so if that long Scot is coming courting, take him somewhere else. Be off!”
“If Mr. Duncan Leslie is coming to say good-day, uncle, I see no reason why he should not say it here,” said Louise, calmly enough now, and with the slight flush which had suffused her cheeks fading out.
“Good-day. A great tall sheepish noodle who don’t know when he’s well off,” grumbled the fisher, throwing out once more as a tall gentlemanly-looking young fellow of about eight-and-twenty stepped actively from rock to rock till he had joined the group, raising his soft tweed hat to the ladies and shaking hands.
“What a lovely morning!” he said eagerly. “I saw you come down. Much sport, Mr. Vine?” he added, as he held out his hand.
“No,” said Uncle Luke, nodding and holding tightly on to his rod. “Hands full. Can’t you see?”
“Oh, yes, I see. One at you now.”
“Thankye. Think I couldn’t see?” said the old man, striking and missing his fish. “Very kind of you to come and see how I was getting on.”
“But I didn’t,” said the new-comer, smiling. “I knew you didn’t want me.”
“Here, Louie, make a note of that,” said Uncle Luke, sharply. “The Scotch are not so dense as they pretend they are.”
“Uncle!”
“Oh, pray, don’t interpose, Miss Vine. Your uncle and I often have a passage of arms together.”
“Well, say what you’ve got to say, and then go back to your men. Has the vein failed?”
“No, sir; it grows richer every day.”
“Sorry for it. I suppose you’ll be burrowing under my cottage and burying me one of these days before my time?”
“Don’t be alarmed, sir.”
“I’m not,” growled Uncle Luke.
“Uncle is cross, because he is catching more fish than he wants this morning,” said Louise quietly.
“Hear that, Maddy, my dear?” said the old man, sharply. “Here’s a problem for you:—If my niece’s tongue is as keen-edged as that before she is twenty, what will it be at forty?”
The girl addressed laughed and shook her head.
“Any one would think it would be a warning to any sensible man to keep his distance.”
“Uncle! Pray!” whispered the niece, looking troubled; but the old man only chuckled and hooked another fish.
“Going to make a fortune out of the old mine, Leslie?” he said.
“Fortune? No, sir. A fair income, I hope.”
“Which with prudence and economy—Scottish prudence and economy,” he added, meaningly, “would keep you when you got to be an old man like me. Bah!”
He snatched out his line and gave an impatient stamp with his foot.
“What is the matter, uncle?”
“What’s the matter? It was bad enough before. Look there?”
Chapter Two.
Elements of a Whole.
Madelaine Van Heldre had seen the object of Uncle Luke’s vexation before he called attention to it; and at the first glance her eyes had lit up with pleasure, but only to give place to an anxious, troubled look, and faint lines came across her brow.
“Why, it is only Harry with his friend,” said Louise quietly.
“Yes: flopping and splashing about in the boat. There will not be a fish left when they’ve done.”
“I’ll tell them to land at the lower stairs,” said Louise eagerly.
“No; let ’em come and do their worst,” said the old man, with quite a snarl. “Why doesn’t Harry row, instead of letting that miserable cockney fool about with an oar?”
“Miserable cockney!” said Duncan Leslie to himself; and his face, which had been overcast, brightened a little as he scanned the boat coming from the harbour.
“Mr. Pradelle likes exercise,” said Louise quietly.
Duncan’s face grew dull again.
“Then I wish he would take it in London,” said the old man, “jumping over his desk or using his pen, and not come here.”
The water glistened and sparkled with the vigorous strokes given by the two young men who propelled the boat, and quickly after there was a grating noise as the bows ground against the rocks of the point and a young man in white flannels leaped ashore, while his companion after awkwardly laying in his oar followed the example, balancing himself as he stepped on to the gunwale, and then after the fashion of a timid horse at a gutter, making a tremendous bound on to the rocks.
As he did this his companion made a quick leap back into the bows to seize the chain, when he had to put out an oar once more and paddle close up to the rock, the boat having been sent adrift by the force of the other’s leap.
“What a fellow you are, Pradelle!” he said, as he jumped on to a rock, and twisted the chain about a block.
“Very sorry, dear boy. Didn’t think of that.”
“No,” said the first sourly, “you didn’t.”
He was a well-knit manly fellow, singularly like his sister, while his companion, whom he had addressed as Pradelle, seemed to be his very opposite in every way, though on the whole better looking; in fact, his features were remarkably handsome, or would have been had they not been marred by his eyes, which were set close together, and gave him a shifty look.
“How are you, uncle? How do, Leslie?” said Harry, as he stood twirling a gold locket at the end of his chain, to receive a grunt from the fisherman, and a friendly nod from the young mine-owner. “So here you are then,” he continued; “we’ve been looking for you everywhere. You said you were going along the west walk.”
“Yes, but we saw uncle fishing, and came down to him.”
“Well, come along now.”
“Come? Where?”
“Come where? Why for a sail. Wind’s just right. Jump in.”
Duncan Leslie looked grave, but he brightened a little as he heard what followed.
“Oh no, Harry.”
As