“There is another claim upon your good nature,” she said. “Doubtless you were awoke last night by Oliphant’s playing upon the pipes. I rebuked the landlord for his insolence in protesting, but to you, a gentleman and a friend, an explanation is due. My father sleeps ill, and your conversation seems to have cast him into a train of sad memories. It has been his habit on such occasions to have the pipes played to him, since they remind him of friends and happier days. It is a small privilege for an old man, and he does not claim it often.”
I declared that the music had only pleased, and that I would welcome its repetition. Where upon she left me with a little bow and an invitation to join them that day at dinner, while I departed into the town on my own errands. I returned before midday, and was seated at an arbour in the garden, busy with letters, when there hove in sight the gaunt figure of Oliphant. He hovered around me, if such a figure can be said to hover, with the obvious intention of addressing me. The fellow had caught my fancy, and I was willing to see more of him. His face might have been hacked out of grey granite, his clothes hung loosely on his spare bones, and his stockined shanks would have done no discredit to Don Quixote. There was no dignity in his air, only a steady and enduring sadness. Here, thought I, is the one of the establishment who most commonly meets the shock of the world’s buffets. I called him by name and asked him his desires.
It appeared that he took me for a Jacobite, for he began a rigmarole about loyalty and hard fortune. I hastened to correct him, and he took the correction with the same patient despair with which he took all things. ’Twas but another of the blows of Fate.
“At any rate,” he said in a broad Scotch accent, “ye come of kin that has helpit my maister afore this. I’ve many times heard tell o’ Herveys and Townshends in England, and a’ folk said they were on the richt side. Ye’re maybe no a freend, but ye’re a freend’s freend, or I wadna be speirin’ at ye.”
I was amused at the prologue, and waited on the tale. It soon came. Oliphant, it appeared, was the purse-bearer of the household, and woeful straits that poor purse-bearer must have been often put to. I questioned him as to his master’s revenues, but could get no clear answer. There were payments due next month in Florence which would solve the difficulties for the winter, but in the meantime expenditure had beaten income. Travelling had cost much, and the Count must have his small comforts. The result in plain words was that Oliphant had not the wherewithal to frank the company to Florence; indeed, I doubted if he could have paid the reckoning in Santa Chiara. A loan was therefore sought from a friend’s friend, meaning myself.
I was very really embarrassed. Not that I would not have given willingly, for I had ample resources at the moment and was mightily concerned about the sad household. But I knew that the little Duchess would take Oliphant’s ears from his head if she guessed that he had dared to borrow from me, and that, if I lent, her back would forever be turned against me. And yet, what would follow on my refusal? In a day of two there would be a pitiful scene with mine host, and as like as not some of their baggage detained as security for payment. I did not love the task of conspiring behind the lady’s back, but if it could be contrived ’twas indubitably the kindest course. I glared sternly at Oliphant, who met me with his pathetic, doglike eyes.
“You know that your mistress would never consent to the request you have made of me?”
“I ken,” he said humbly. “But payin’ is my job, and I simply havena the siller. It’s no the first time it has happened, and it’s a sair trial for them both to be flung out o’ doors by a foreign hostler because they canna meet his charges. But, sir, if ye can lend to me, ye may be certain that her leddyship will never, hear a word o’t. Puir thing, she takes nae thocht o’ where the siller comes frae, ony mair than the lilies o’ the field.”
I became a conspirator. “You swear, Oliphant, by all you hold sacred, to breathe nothing of this to your mistress, and if she should suspect, to lie like a Privy Councillor?”
A flicker of a smile crossed his face. “I’ll lee like a Scotch packman, and the Father o’ lees could do nae mair. You need have no fear for your siller, sir. I’ve aye repaid when I borrowed, though you may have to wait a bittock.” And the strange fellow strolled off.
At dinner no Duchess appeared till long after the appointed hour, nor was there any sign of Oliphant. When she came at last with Cristine, her eyes looked as if she had been crying, and she greeted me with remote courtesy. My first thought was that Oliphant had revealed the matter of the loan, but presently I found that the lady’s trouble was far different. Her father, it seemed, was ill again with his old complaint. What that was I did not ask, nor did the Duchess reveal it.
We spoke in French, for I had discovered that this was her favourite speech. There was no Oliphant to wait on us, and the inn servants
