Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/176

902 good assurance. There was a bathroom contiguous; in an incredibly short space of time the hot water was ready; and soon after, arrayed in a shawl dressing-gown, and in a luxury of contentment and comfort, I was reclined in an easy-chair before the mirror, while Rowley, with a mixture of pride and anxiety which I could well understand, laid out his razors.

"Hey, Rowley?" I asked, not quite resigned to go under fire with such an inexperienced commander. "It's all right, is it? You feel pretty sure of your weapons?"

"Yes, my lord," he replied. "It's all right, I assure your lordship."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rowley, but for the sake of shortness, would you mind not belording me in private?" said I. "It will do very well if you call me Mr. Anne. It is the way of my country, as I daresay you know."

Mr. Rowley looked blank.

"But you're just as much a viscount as Mr. Powl's, are you not?" he said.

"As Mr. Powl's viscount?" said I, laughing. "Oh, keep your mind easy, Mr. Rowley's is every bit as good. Only, you see, as I am of the younger line, I bear my Christian name along with the title. Alain is the Viscount; I am the Viscount Anne. And in giving me the name of Mr. Anne, I assure you you will be quite regular."

"Yes, Mr. Anne," said the docile youth. "But about the shaving, sir, you need be under no alarm. Mr. Powl says I 'ave excellent dispositions."

"Mr. Powl?" said I. "That doesn't seem to me very like a French name."

"No, sir, indeed, my lord," said he, with a burst of confidence. "No, indeed, Mr. Anne, and it do not surely. I should say now it was more like Mr. Pole."

"And Mr. Powl is the viscount's man?"

"Yes, Mr. Anne," said he. "He 'ave a hard billet, he do. The viscount is a very particular gentleman. I don't think as you'll be, Mr. Anne?" he added, with a confidential smile in the mirror.

He was about sixteen, well set up, with a pleasant, merry, freckled face, and a pair of dancing eyes. There was an air at once deprecatory and insinuating about the rascal that I thought I recognized. There came to me from my own boyhood memories of certain passionate admirations long passed away and the objects of them long ago discredited or dead. I remembered how anxious I had been to serve those fleeting heroes, how readily I told myself I would have died for them, how much greater and handsomer than life they had appeared. And looking in the mirror, it seemed to me that I read the face of Rowley, like an echo or a ghost, by the light of my own youth. I have always contended (somewhat against the opinion of my friends) that I am first of all an economist; and the last thing that I would care to throw away is that very valuable piece of property—a boy's hero-worship.

"Why," said I, "you shave like an angel, Mr. Rowley!"

"Thank you, my lord," says he. "Mr. Powl had no fear of me. You may be sure, sir, I should never 'ave had this berth if I 'adn't 'ave been up to Dick. We been expecting of you this month back. My eye! I never see such preparations. Every day the fires has been kep' up, the bed made, and all! As soon as it was known you were coming, sir, I got the appointment; and I've been up and down since then like a Jack-in-the-box. A wheel couldn't sound in the avenue but what I was at the window! I've had a many disappointments; but to-night, as soon as you stepped out of the shay, I knew it was my—it was you. Oh, you had been expected! Why, when I go down to supper, I'll be the 'ero of the servants' 'all: the 'ole of the staff is that curious!"

"Well," said I, "I hope you may be able to give a fair account of me—sober, steady, industrious, good-tempered, and with a first-rate character from my last place?"

He laughed an embarrassed laugh. "Your hair curls beautiful," he said, by way of changing the subject. "The viscount's the boy for curls, though; and the richness of it is, Mr. Powl tells me his don't curl no more than that much twine—by nature. Gettin' old, the viscount is. He 'ave gone the pace, 'aven't 'e, sir?"

"The fact is," said I, "that I know very little about him. Our family has been much divided, and I have been a soldier from a child."

"A soldier, Mr. Anne, sir?" cried Rowley, with a sudden feverish animation. "Was you ever wounded?"

It is contrary to my principles to discourage admiration for myself; and, slipping back the shoulder of the dressing-gown, I silently exhibited the scar which I had received in Edinburgh Castle. He looked at it with awe.

"Mercy, now! Was that from a Frenchman?" he inquired, not very tactfully.