“Every man’s task is his life-preserver. The conviction that his work is dear to God and cannot be spared, defends him.”—Emerson.

Can I do anything for you?” asked a mellow, penetrating voice.

Ralph shifted his position a little, and looking round, saw a man bending over him with a curiously attractive face, chestnut-brown hair fast turning white, large, well-shaped, blue-grey eyes, and that mobile type of mouth which specially belongs to the actor. He had a strange impression of having lived through this scene before, and in a moment there flashed back into his mind a recollection of his first day at Sir Matthew’s house, of his adventure in the park, and of how Macneillie had pulled him out of the water. “Oh, is it you?” he cried, with a relief that could hardly have been greater had he met an old friend.

Macneillie in vain racked his memory: he could not in the least recall the face. However, he was not going to betray this. “Glad I came across you,” he said. “I often come down here by the river to study a part, this path is little frequented till the tourist season begins. Let me see, where did we last meet?”

“You will hardly remember it,” said Ralph; “it was at Richmond. I was quite a small boy and ran up to thank you for having pulled me out of the water a few weeks before in St. James’ Park. You gave me your knife.”

A look of keen and sudden interest flashed over Macneillie’s face.

“Of course!” he exclaimed; “I remember it all perfectly. I’m very glad to have come across you again. What is the matter now? You look very ill. Are you taking a walking tour?”

Ralph smiled. “I set out from Forres last Wednesday morning with sixpence in my pocket,” he said. “It has been a roughish time.”

“I should think so, indeed,” said Macneillie, glancing from the slightly-built figure to the thin, finely-shaped hands, and realising in a moment how little fitted this lad was to endure hardships. “From Forres you say? What was it I was hearing a day or two ago about Forres? Oh, to be sure, Skoot’s Company came to grief there.”

“Yes, I was in the company,” said Ralph. “Skoot left us in the lurch, and it was a sort of sauve qui peut.”

“So you belong to the profession,” said Macneillie. “That gives you another claim upon me. Perhaps you are the very Mr. Denmead that Miss Kay mentioned in her letter.”

“Yes, I am Ralph Denmead. Miss Kay promised she would inquire if you had any opening for me.”

“We’ll see about that, but in the meantime, if I’m not much mistaken, the influenza fiend means to work his will on you. By the look of you I should say that you were in a high fever.”

“I don’t know what is the matter with me,” said Ralph, miserably. “I suppose I fainted just now in the road. I know that a priest and a levite looked at me, said I was drunk, and passed by on the other side.”

“Trust them to leap to the worst conclusions,” said Macneillie. “It’s the way of the world. But come, I must somehow contrive to get you to my house.”

Ill and exhausted, Ralph for the life of him could not keep the tears out of his eyes.

“You are very kind,” he said, brokenly; “but I didn’t mean to thrust the part of Good Samaritan on to you. I’m not fit to come to a decent house.”

He looked down at his travel-stained clothes, and at the holes in his boots.

“Did you mean to lie here all night?” said Macneillie.

“No, I meant to get on as far as Callander and to pawn this mackintosh. I am better. I’ll push on now. Perhaps there may be a hospital.”

“Well, there isn’t, as it happens,” said Macneillie, watching him attentively as he struggled to his feet; “and it’s two miles to Callander, and if you think I’m going to allow you to walk as far as that you’re much mistaken. I’m a very indifferent Good Samaritan, having no beast to set you on, but if you’ll try to come with me to the little village of Kilmahog which is not far off we can rest at a cottage I know of, have a cup of tea, and take the coach from the Trossachs which will pass there in about an hour. As for your scruples in coming home with me, you must just make away with them. My mother has often received me in quite as bad a plight years ago when I was struggling to get my foot on the ladder. We most of us have to go through it unless we happen to belong to an old professional family.”

As he talked he had slipped his arm within Ralph’s, and was guiding him up the narrow path, which, after a steep climb landed them once more in the road. Without waiting for much response he went on, telling story after story of his own early days as an actor, and at length the tiny village of Kilmahog came into sight, and they paused before a little, low white cottage with a picturesque porch and tiny garden. The mistress of the house seemed delighted to see her visitor, and responded most hospitably to his request for a cup of tea while they waited for the coach. She took them into a parlour hung round with sacred pictures, and possessing a most curious bed made on a sort of shelf in a curtained recess. Ralph looked longingly at it as he sank into a chair, but Macneillie shook his head.

“Yes, I see you want to be Mrs. Murdoch’s patient, but those ‘congealed beds,’ as I always call them, are not well-suited to a fever.”

“And when did ye come hame, sir,” inquired the landlady, returning with the tea tray; “and hoo are ye likin’ your braw new hoose?”

“I came home at the end of last week,” he replied; “and as for the house it’s to my mother’s liking and that’s all I care for. We hear the trains a trifle too plainly for my taste, but she likes that, says, you know, that they are a sort of link with me when I’m away.”

“Ah, but Mrs. Macneillie she’s main prood o’ her beautiful rooms, but I’m thinkin’ it’s mair because it’s her son that’s made them a’ for her. She was in Kilmahog last month settlin’ the account for the milk, and she said to me that if a’ mithers were blessed with such a son as hers there’d be a hantle less sorrow in the warld. Those were her verra words, sir.”

Macneillie laughed. “My mother was always prejudiced in my favour,” he said. “It’s the one subject you can’t trust her upon.”

The good woman bustled off to make the tea, and the actor turned again to Ralph.

“My mother is the best nurse in the world: she will soon have you well again.”

“Why not let me stay here?” said Ralph. “It would give you less trouble. I shall only spoil your holiday, and perhaps bring the infection into your house.”

“Oh, we have most of us been down with this plague already,” said Macneillie, cheerfully. “I know you covet that antique bed, but we must have you in a more airy room than this. Perhaps it will make you hesitate less if I tell you in strict confidence that the new house would never have been built at all if it had not been for you.” Then, seeing the bewilderment of his companion’s expression, “I’ll tell you just how it was some day, it’s too long a story now, for I hear the tea-things coming.”

Ralph, utterly at a loss to see how Macneillie could be under any sort of obligation to him, was obliged to leave the riddle unsolved for the present. The tea revived him, and when the coach came into sight he almost thought he could have walked that last mile. A dreamy sense of relief began to steal over him as they drove on beside the river between the wooded hills and through the pretty environs of Callander, until at last they reached the main street itself, and turning sharply to the left began to climb a steep road. Here, nestling cosily under Callander crag, with fresh green woods behind it, stood the comfortable, squarely built stone house that the actor had planned for his mother. The coach paused at the iron gate, for it was out of the question that they should drive up the steep approach to the front door; indeed, it was not without difficulty that Ralph dragged himself up the pebbly incline; he was panting for breath by the time they reached the house, and it was with some anxiety that he looked up at the white-capped old lady who stood to greet them in the porch.

“Mother,” said Macneillie, “this is my friend, Mr. Denmead. He has walked all the way from Forres, and is quite fagged out.” The keen, shrewd eyes of the Scotchwoman had perceived from a distance the sorry plight of the visitor, and she looked now not at his deplorable boots and shabby coat, but at the honest, dark eyes lifted to hers; she saw directly that they were full of dumb suffering.

“I am glad to see any friend of my son’s,” she said, and there was something curiously comforting in the homely sound of the Scottish accent, but when she had shaken hands with her guest an almost motherly tenderness stole into her voice. She begged him to come in and rest, made minute inquiries as to the hour when the fever attacked him, and having left him installed on a sofa in the dining-room, drew her son into the hall. “Hugh,” she said, “the poor laddie is very ill. I will go and make a room ready for him, and you had better be fetching the doctor.”

“I will by-and-bye, but first let us get him settled. Put him into my room, it’s the most airy. I’ll tell you who he is, mother.” The two had gone upstairs as they were speaking, and Macneillie closed the door of his room behind them, and began helping in a deft, sailorlike way to strip the sheets off his bed. “He is the boy I told you about years ago, who saved me from making an end of myself on Christine’s wedding day.” At the name, a sort of shudder of distaste passed through Mrs. Macneillie; it was a name very rarely mentioned by either of them, and the mother fondly hoped that at last her son had banished from his mind all memory of that romance of his youth. But, dearly as they loved each other, there was a good deal of reserve between them, and she could not tell how it was with him. After his absence in America, he had come back looking much older, but apparently in good health and spirits, and more than ever engrossed by his work. Little as she liked his profession, for she was full of old-fashioned prejudice and clung to all her old traditions, she nevertheless often blessed it in her heart for she saw that he lived for it, and, spite of herself, could not help taking some interest in his efforts to raise the drama, to give only such plays as were worth acting, and to manage his company in the best possible way. Still it was undoubtedly the grief of her life that her son had chosen the stage instead of the ministry, and he was quite aware of it, and was obliged to get on without her entire sympathy. She was unable to see that he was really doing quite as good work as any minister in the land, nor did she understand that an actor in refusing to follow his clear vocation, would be as blameworthy as a divine who put his hand to the plough, and then looked back. She did not speak a word now until they had the clean sheets spread and all things ready for the invalid. Then she drew her son’s face down and kissed it.

“I shall love to wait on him, Hugh, now that you have told me that.”

“You’ll like it for his own sake too,” said Macneillie. “It takes a fellow of good mettle to tramp more than a hundred miles on six-pennyworth of bread, and wear the look he wore when I found him. Oddly enough, too, I learnt something about him from Miss Kay’s letter on Saturday; he belonged to that company that failed, and she told me that she much feared he had spent almost all the money he had left, on sending back to London a forlorn little child-actress who had been deserted by the manager’s wife.”

“A child? Poor wee thing! There are many perils and dangers in your profession, Hugh, you can’t deny that.”

“Yes there are,” he said, “but I am not sure that life in society, or in other professions, or in shops and factories, isn’t even more risky. As for this little Ivy Grant, you may be quite happy about her; he had the good sense to send her to trustworthy friends.”

No more was said, for it was time to fetch the invalid and to send for the doctor. But later on, Mrs. Macneillie opened her heart to her son.

“It’s all very well, Hugh,” she said, “to think that everything is made right by the little girl being in good hands for the time; but you mark my words, it will be the same story over again as your own. This poor lad will be shielding and helping Ivy Grant, and when she has other admirers, why she’ll throw him off like an old glove. It will be your own story over again, Hugh.”

“I hope not,” said Macneillie. “Let us believe he would have done as much for any distressed damsel. He is a generous fellow, and every inch a gentleman; why must we assume that he has fallen in love with the lassie?”

“Didn’t I find him sobbing his heart out the moment he was left to himself?” said Mrs. Macneillie.

But at this her son would do nothing but laugh, “My dear mother,” he said, “That is just the sure and certain sign that he has the influenza, but as to that far worse malady no sign whatever.”