“All these anxieties will be good for you. They all go to the making of a man—calling out that God-dependence in him which is the only true self-dependence, the only true strength.”—Letters of Charles Kingsley.

During the first month Theophilus Skoot’s Company prospered as well as could be expected. A week at Glasgow and a week at Edinburgh, with full houses, cheered every one; but after that, as they went northward, the days of dearth began. It was now past the middle of March, and the old proverb,

“As the light lengthens

The cold strengthens,”

was fulfilling itself in very bitter fashion. Perhaps people were disinclined to turn out of their comfortable homes on such bleak evenings; at any rate, the week at Stirling proved a dead failure, and Perth was wrestling with the influenza demon, and had little leisure to bestow on strolling players.

It was here that one evening Ralph, for the first time, learnt what it is to work without a salary.

He was sitting on a basket, waiting for his cue, with “Pendennis” to cheer him into forgetfulness of fatigue and cold, when Dudley returned to the dressing-room, with an odd look lurking about the corners of his mouth.

“The ghost walks,” he said, in sepulchral tones.

“What do you mean?” said Ralph, laughing.

“It’s all very well to laugh. You won’t be able to do that long. There’s no treasury to-morrow, my boy. ‘The manager regrets,’ etc., etc.”

“No treasury!” echoed Ralph, blankly.

“I’m not surprised,” said Dudley; “I was always doubtful whether Skoot would hold out long. But we may have better luck at Dundee.”

“And if not, how are we to live?” asked Ralph, recollecting how small a sum he had to fall back upon.

“Why, my dear boy, we must live like the birds of the air, who eat other folk’s property, and then fly away.” Ralph looked gloomy.

“Well, after all,” he said, “the debts will virtually be Skoot’s, not ours. And, as you say, other places may not be so bad as Perth has been.”

This was exactly what the manager observed as they journeyed on from town to town. He was always apologetic, always bland and pleasant; but not another penny was ever forthcoming. In other respects, however, the tour was less unpleasant than at first. The rehearsals were shorter, and Mrs. Skoot did not venture to irritate them quite so much, but solaced herself instead with whisky. Moreover, their common trouble formed a sort of bond of union between the members of the Company; they grumbled together, and cheered each other up; they were extraordinarily kind in helping one another; all the little jealousies and quarrels were forgotten in the general anxiety and distress. As to Myra Kay, she was like another being altogether; she nursed Ivy through a long and tedious cold, she forgave Ralph for his friendship with Dudley, and she discussed ways and means in the most helpful fashion. Her experience and good advice were of considerable use to Ralph, while, when their prospects were at the darkest, Ivy managed to extract comfort from dreams about the future, and would listen by the hour to Myra’s plans for the summer, and to discussions about her wedding and her trousseau.

And so the weary weeks dragged on, until at last, towards the end of April, they found themselves at Inverness. By this time they were all beginning to grow desperate for want of money, and Ralph, after a hard struggle with himself, conquered his pride and wrote to old Mr. Marriott, telling him of the plight he was in. It was not until the last day of their engagement at Inverness that the reply, bearing the name of the firm on the envelope, was placed in his hands. He tore it open eagerly and turned pale as he read the contents:

“Basinghall Street, E. C.

“21th April.

“Dear Sir,

“With reference to your letter of the 25th inst., I beg to inform you that Mr. Marriott has been very dangerously ill with influenza, and to recruit his health he has been ordered to take a voyage to Australia. I regret that in his absence I do not feel myself at liberty to make you any advance. I am, dear sir, yours truly,

“W. G. Maunder.”

The next day they moved on to Elgin. The manager looked miserable and depressed; Mrs. Skoot, though not quite sober, read novels more assiduously than ever, and among the actors there were loud complaints, and angry threatenings of a strike. At Elgin the audiences were better than might have been expected, and the Skoots seemed to revive a little as they moved on to the neighbouring town of Forres. But the luckless Company still toiled unpaid.

Ralph’s patience was now almost exhausted. Ivy had received piteous letters telling of her grandfather’s difficulties, and every day it seemed less and less probable that they would ever again receive their salaries from the manager.

Forres certainly did not look like a place where they would attract large audiences, and an indescribable feeling of hopelessness stole over him as he gazed at the old gabled houses and at the one long, irregular street which formed the chief part of the town. How much longer could he possibly endure the weary, distasteful life? The halls with their miserable accommodation behind the scenes—for in few towns had they found a proper theatre;—the cheap lodgings with their dirty rooms; the daily marketing under difficulties; and the revolting spectacle of Mrs. Skoot drowning her discomfiture in drink—all these had become intolerable.

“Let us go for a walk,” said Ivy, despairingly. “At any rate out of doors we can have air and sunshine—we shall have enough of our wretched rooms later on.”

“Come and see the river,” said Myra Kay. “They say there are lovely views by the Findhorn.”

Ralph consented, and the three walked out together into the country, and did their best to forget the troubles that hemmed them in, as they wandered among the flowery fields, where Ivy gathered violets and primroses to her heart’s content. Presently by the river, among the soft early green of the bushes, they came to a fallen tree, and here they established themselves while Ralph read to them. They had indulged in two or three of Dickens’ novels at an old bookstall in Edinburgh in their days of plenty, and when fortune frowned upon them these shabby volumes had proved a perfect godsend. They had solaced many a cold journey and brightened many a dreary lodging-house, and they helped now to distract them from the thought of their daily increasing troubles.

It seemed to Ivy when she looked back afterwards, that this afternoon by the Findhorn was the last really happy day she was ever to know. She sat cosily ensconced on the tree trunk with her lap full of flowers which she delighted in arranging; and Ralph lay on the grass at her feet with his head propped against the smooth surface of the fallen beech tree. She noticed how the short waves of his crisp, brown hair contrasted with the silver-grey of the bark, and how the careworn look which had grown upon him during the tour was entirely banished now as flashes of mirth passed over his face, caused by the sayings of Grip the Raven.

Myra Kay sat just beyond him; she was knitting socks for her fiancÉ, listening at times to the reading, but more often dreaming of her own future. Everywhere there was that sense of hope and joyous expectation that seems to belong to the spring-time: the birds sang as Ivy had never heard them sing before; the lambs frisked delightfully in the soft, green meadows near their somewhat uninteresting mothers; and into her half-taught, eager mind there somehow floated new ideas of the meaning of “green pastures and still waters,” and a firmer confidence in a Shepherd who would not forget even the members of a travelling company in grievous straits up in the north of Scotland.

“Oh don’t let us go just yet!” she exclaimed, as Ralph closed the book. “It can’t be time to go back to those stuffy rooms.”

“I’m in no hurry,” said Ralph, stretching himself, and falling back into a more comfortable attitude.

He could not see Ivy’s face, but he could see her little, slender fingers as they pulled the petals off a daisy. The result seemed to displease her; she threw away the remains of the flower, and gathering another diligently pulled off each pink-tipped petal, but again threw the stalk from her with a little impatient gesture. Then she began upon a third, and had become absorbed in her counting, when suddenly she felt Ralph’s hand lay hold of hers.

“Caught in the act,” he said, laughing. “Don’t you know that fortune-telling is illegal?”

“Not if you tell your own,” said Ivy.

Something in her voice made him look at her, and for the first time in her little childish face he detected an expression which made him clearly understand that he was not dealing with a mere girl but with a woman. Long ago he had realised that her hard experience of life had robbed Ivy of the innocent ignorance which had kept Evereld so young; but he had naturally fallen into the habit of treating her as he would have treated any other girl of fifteen with whom he was brought into constant companionship. Thinking it over now it suddenly occurred to him that during the Scotch tour Ivy had lost her brisk, managing way, that she was very different from the independent little being who ordered the Professor’s affairs for him, that she had become unnaturally fond of being helped and protected. An uncomfortable fear crossed his mind, but he thought it best to laugh and try to change the subject.

“Are you doing the old thing that Evereld and I used to be fond of!—‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor?’ And have you always been fated to wed the thief that you throw away one daisy after another?”

“That’s a silly old rhyme,” said Ivy. “Of course I should never think of marrying any one who wasn’t in the profession.”

“Oh, that’s quite a mistake,” said Ralph, lightly, determined that he must be cruel only to be kind. “Two of a trade seldom agree, you know. You should marry a dreamy philosopher who needed waking up, and being looked after.”

Ivy blushed, and was silent, and Ralph was not sorry to be taken to task by Myra Kay for his rash assertion that two of a trade never agreed. They fell into a merry bantering discussion during which Ivy recovered herself.

After all, she reflected, why should she be unhappy because he had teased her a little? His words no doubt meant nothing at all; she would not spoil this happy afternoon by tormenting herself.

“To-morrow’s my birthday,” she said, gaily, as they walked back to Forres. “I’m going to be sixteen. There’s no rehearsal, and I vote that we three have a real picnic.”

“Carried unanimously,” said Ralph. “We might go as far as this Heronry they speak of. The longer we are out of our dismal diggings the better.”

The play that night was “Macbeth,” and anything more unlike the arrangements at Washington’s theatre it would be impossible to conceive. Mr. Skoot was apologetic, Mrs. Skoot endeavoured to be very affable, and the Company with that readiness to perceive fun, and the real good-nature which never failed them in an emergency, made the best of the many discomforts. They dressed behind screens, they laughed and joked, they had wild hunts for lost belongings, and they chattered incessantly between the acts under cover of the noisiest piano-playing which could be produced by one of the ladies, who, with a waterproof cloak over her costume, did duty as the entire orchestra.

A choice selection of Scotch airs was being hammered out at the close of the Fourth Act, when Ralph, who was groping in a heap of miscellaneous garments in hopes of rescuing the wig he had worn as first murderer, and had hastily thrown off during a desperately hurried change into Malcolm’s attire, found himself close to Dudley.

“The manager is positively enjoying himself,” said the comedian. “Skoot is after all a wonderful man. I shouldn’t wonder if he was persuading himself that this confounded tour will prove a success. That fellow lives on dreams. His wife is the one for business.”

At that moment Mrs. Skoot, in the most elegant of stage nightdresses, and with her taper all ready to be lighted at the right moment, appeared for the sleep-walking scene. Ralph often wondered what effect she had at a distance; the near view of her was appalling.

“I am afraid you have a great deal to put up with,” she said, in unusually gracious tones, smiling in a ghastly way beneath her paint. “But we must all learn to take the fortune of war. Our next place will be comfortable enough.”

They were joined just then by Myra Kay in the costume of the Gentlewoman-in-Waiting.

Mrs. Skoot, who, as a rule, was at daggers drawn with her, accosted her now pleasantly enough.

“I hear that you and Ivy have planned an excursion for to-morrow?” she said. “Come and breakfast with us at nine o’clock before the start. And you, too, Mr. Denmead.”

They accepted the invitation in some surprise, and as the curtain was rung up Mrs. Skoot requested Dudley to light her taper, and presently sailed on to the stage for her great scene, leaving them in astonishment at her unwonted good-humour.

The next day Ralph went, as he had promised, to the manager’s rooms in time for breakfast. He was within a few yards of the door when he came upon the heavy man, and his son, a young and very indifferent actor who usually played four or five small parts.

“Have you heard the news?” they exclaimed. “The Company’s dried up.”

“What?” said Ralph, in dismay.

“The manager has absconded,” said the heavy man, pompously. “Went off by the first train this morning. It seems that last night when we were all safely out of the way the baggage man took everything to the station. Then Skoot and his wife stole out of their lodgings early this morning without rousing a soul, and here we are landed high and dry in the north-east of Scotland. Pleasant prospect, isn’t it?”

Ralph felt indeed that they were in a desperate plight. He moved on mechanically to the open door of the manager’s rooms, and caught sight of a little group in the entrance passage.

The landlady, shrill-voiced and indignant, was telling the whole story to Myra Kay; and Ivy, with an open letter in her hand, and traces of tears on her little, piquant face stood close by.

She was the first to catch sight of him, and hastened forward to greet him.

“Oh, Ralph, I’m so glad you have come!” she exclaimed, piteously. “What am I to do? What can I do?”