William Black - Stand Fast, Craig-Royston! (Volume III)

One evening Mr. Courtnay Fox, the London correspondent of the Edinburgh Chronicle , was as usual in his own room in the office in Fleet-street, when a card was brought to him.

"Show the gentleman up," said he to the boy.

A couple of seconds thereafter Vincent Harris made his appearance.

"Mr. Fox?" said he, inquiringly.

The heavy-built journalist did not rise to receive his visitor; he merely said —

"Take a chair. What can I do for you?"

"No, thanks," said Vincent, "I don't wish to detain you more than a moment. I only wanted to see if you could give me any information about Mr. George Bethune."

"Well, that would be only fair," said the big, ungainly man, with the small, keen blue eyes glinting behind spectacles; "that would be only a fair exchange, considering I remember how Mr. Bethune came down here one night and asked for information about you."

Vincent looked astonished.

"And I was able," continued Mr. Fox, "to give him all the information he cared for – namely, that you were the son of a very rich man. I presume that was all he wanted to know."

There was something in the tone of this speech – a familiarity bordering on insolence – that Vincent angrily resented; but he was wise enough to show nothing: his sole anxiety was to have news of Maisrie and her grandfather; this man's manner did not concern him much.

"I do not ask for information about Mr. Bethune himself; I dare say I know him as well as most do," said he with perfect calmness. "I only wish to know where he is."

"I don't know where he is," said the burly correspondent, examining the stranger with his small shrewd eyes, "but I guarantee that, wherever he is, he is living on the best. Shooting stags in Scotland most likely – "

"They don't shoot stags in December," said Vincent, briefly.

"Or careering down the Mediterranean in a yacht – gad, an auxiliary screw would come in handy for the old man," continued Mr. Fox, grinning at his own gay facetiousness; "anyhow, wherever he is, I'll bet he's enjoying himself and living on the fat of the land. Merry as a cricket – bawling away at his Scotch songs: I suppose that was how he amused himself when he was in Sing Sing – perhaps he learnt it there – "

"I thought you would probably know where he is," said Vincent, not paying much heed to these little jocosities, "if he happened to be sending in to you those articles on the Scotch ballads – "

"Articles on Scotch ballads!" said Mr. Fox, with a bit of a derisive laugh. "Yes, I know. A collation of the various versions: a cold collation, I should say, by the time he has got done with them. Why, my dear sir, have you never heard of Professor Childs, of Harvard College?"

"I have heard of Professor Child," said Vincent.

"Well, well, well, well, what is the difference?" said the ponderous correspondent, who rolled from side to side in his easy-chair as if he were in a bath, and peered with his minute, twinkling eyes. "And indeed it matters little to me what kind of rubbish is pitchforked into the Weekly . If my boss cares to do that kind of thing, for the sake of a 'brother Scot,' that's his own look-out. All I know is that not a scrap of the cold collation has come here, or has appeared in the Weekly as yet; so there is no clue that way to the whereabouts of old Father Christmas, old Santa Claus, the Wandering Scotch Jew – if that is what you want."

"I am sorry to have troubled you," said Vincent, with his hand on the door.

"Stop a bit," said Mr. Fox, in his blunt and rather impertinent fashion. "You and I might chance to be of use to each other some day. I like to know the young men in politics. If I can do you a good turn, you'll remember it; or rather you won't remember it, but I can recall it to you, when I want you to do me one. Take a seat. Let's make a compact. When you are in the House, you'll want the judicious little paragraph sent through the provinces now and again: I can manage all that for you. Then you can give me an occasional tip: you're in – 's confidence, people say – as much as any one can expect to be, that is. Won't you take a seat? – thanks, that will be better. I want to know you. I've already made one important acquaintanceship through your friend Mr. Bethune: it was quite an event when the great George Morris condescended to visit this humble office – "

"George Morris!" said Vincent.

"Perhaps you know him personally?" Mr. Fox said, and he went on in the most easy and affable fashion: "I may say without boasting that I am acquainted with most people – most people of any consequence: it is part of my business. But George Morris, somehow, I had never met. You may imagine, then, that when he came down here, to ask a few questions, I was precious glad to be of such service as I could; for I said to myself that here was just the man for me. Take a great scandal, for example – they do happen sometimes, don't they? – even in this virtuous land of England: very well – I go to George Morris – a hint from him – and there I am first in the field: before the old mummies of the London press have had time to open their eyes and stare."

Vincent had brought a chair from the side of the room, and was now seated: there was only the table, littered with telegrams and proofs, between those two.

"Did I understand you to say," he asked, with his eyes fixed on this man, "that George Morris had come to you to make inquiries about Mr. Bethune?"

"You understood aright."

"Who sent him?" demanded Vincent, abruptly – for there were strange fancies and still darker suspicions flying through his head.

But Courtnay Fox smiled.

"George Morris, you may have heard, was not born yesterday. His business is to get out of you what he can, and to take care you get nothing out of him. It was not likely he would tell me why he came making these inquiries – even if I had cared to ask, which I did not."

"You told him all you knew, of course, about Mr. Bethune?" Vincent went on, with a certain cold austerity.

"I did."

"And how much more?"

"Ah, very good – very neat," the spacious-waisted journalist exclaimed with a noisy laugh. "Very good indeed. But look here, Mr. Harris, if the great solicitor was not born yesterday, you were – in a way; and so I venture to ask you why you should take such an interest in Mr. Bethune's affairs?"

Vincent answered him without flinching.

"Because, amongst other things, certain lies have been put in circulation about Mr. Bethune, and I wished to know where they arose. Now I am beginning to guess."

For an instant Mr. Courtnay Fox seemed somewhat disconcerted; but he betrayed no anger.

"Come, come," said he, with an affectation of good humour, "that is a strong word. Morris heard no lies from me, I can assure you. Why, don't we all of us know who and what old George Bethune is! He may flourish and vapour successfully enough elsewhere; but he doesn't impose on Fleet-street; we know him too well. And don't imagine I have any dislike towards your venerable friend; not the slightest; in fact, I rather admire the jovial old mountebank. You see, he doesn't treat me to too much of his Scotch blague ; I'm not to the manner born; and he knows it. Oh, he's skilful enough in adapting himself to his surroundings – like a trout, that takes the colour of the pool he finds himself in; and when he gets hold of a Scotchman, I am told his acting of the rugged and manly independence of the Scot – of the Drury Lane Scot, I mean – is splendid. I wonder he doesn't go and live in Edinburgh. They take things seriously there. They might elevate him into a great position – make a great writer of him – they're in sore need of one or two; and then every now and again he could step out of his cloud of metaphysics, and fall on something. That's the way the Scotchmen get hold of a subject; they don't take it up as an ordinary Christian would; they fall on it. We once had an English poet called Milton; but Masson fell on him, and crushed him, and didn't even leave us an index by which to identify the remains. Old Bethune should go back to Scotland, and become the Grand Lama of Edinburgh letters: it would be a more dignified position than cadging about for a precarious living among us poor southrons."