when ronald kilsyth was little more than four years old his nurses said he was "so odd;" a phrase which stuck by him through life. as a child his oddity consisted in his curious gravity and preoccupation, his insensibility to amusement, his dislike of companionship, his love of solitude, his old-fashioned thoughts and manner and habits. he had a dogged honesty which prevented him from using the smallest deception in any way, which prevented him from ever prevaricating or telling those small fibs which are made so much of in the child, but to which he looks back as trivial sins indeed when compared with the duplicity of his after-life,--which rendered him obnoxious even to the children whom he met as playfellows in the square-garden, and who found it impossible to get on with young kilsyth on account of the rigidity of his morals, displeasing to them even at their tender years. when a delicious guetapens, made of string stretched from tree to tree, had been, with great consumption of time and trouble, prepared for the downfall of the old gardener; and when the youthful conspirators were all laid up in ambush behind the portugal laurels, waiting to see the old man, plodding round with rake and leaf-basket in the early dusk of the autumnal evening, fall headlong over the snare,--it was provoking to see little ronald kilsyth, in his gray kilt, step out and go up to the old man and show him the pitfall, and assist him in removing it. the conspirators were highly incensed at this treachery, as they called it, and would have sent ronald then and there to coventry,--not that that would have distressed him much,--had it not been for his magnanimity in refusing, even when under pressure, to give up the names of those in the plot. but as in this, so in everything else; and the little frequenters of the square soon found ronald kilsyth "too good" for them, and were by no means anxious to secure his companionship in their sports.

at eton, whither he was sent so soon as he arrived at the proper age, he very shortly obtained the same character. pursuing the strict path of duty,--industrious, punctual, and regular, with very fair abilities, and scrupulously making the most of them,--he never lost an opportunity and never made a friend. all that was good of him his masters always said; but they stopped there; they never said anything that was kind. in school they could not help respecting him; out of school they would as soon have thought of making ronald kilsyth their companion as of taking hind's algebra for pleasant reading. and it was the same with his schoolfellows. they talked of his steadiness and of his hard-working with pride, as reflecting on themselves and the whole school. they speculated as to what he would do in the future, and how he would show that the stories that had been told about eton were all lies, don't you know? and how kilsyth would go up to cambridge, and show them what the best public school--the only school for english gentlemen, you know--could do; and floreat etona, and all that kind of thing, old fellow. but ronald kilsyth, during the whole of his eton pupilage, never had a chum--never knew what it was to share a confidence, add to a pleasure, or lighten a grief. did he feel this? perhaps more acutely than could have been imagined; but being, as he was, proud, shy, sensitive, and above all queer, he took care that no one knew what his feelings were, or whether he had any at all on the subject.

queer! that was the word by which they called him at eton, and which, after all, expressed his disposition better than any other. strong-minded, clear-headed, generous, and brave, with an outer coating of pride, shyness, reserve, and a mixture of all which passed current for hauteur. with a strong contempt for nearly everything in which his contemporaries found pleasure,--save in the excess of exercise, as that he thoroughly understood and appreciated,--and with a wearying desire to find pleasure for himself; with an impulse to exertion and work, accountable to himself only on the score of duty, but having no definite end or aim; with a restless longing to make his escape from the thraldom of conventionality, and rush off and do something somewhere far away from the haunts of men. with all the morbidness of the hero of locksley hall, without the excuse of having been jilted, and without any of the experience of that sweetly modulated cynic, ronald kilsyth, obeying his father's wish, and thereby again following the paths of duty, was gazetted to the life-guards--the exact position for a young gentleman in his condition.

the donning of a scarlet tunic instead of a round jacket, and the substitution of a helmet for a pot-hat, made very little difference in ronald. several of his brother officers had known him personally at eton, so that the character he had obtained there preceded him, inspiring a wholesome awe of him before he appeared on the scene; and he had not been two days in barracks before he was voted a prig and a bore. there was no sympathy between the dry, pedantic, rough young scotsman and those jolly genial youths. his hard, dry, handsome clean-cut face, with its cold gray eyes, thin aquiline nose, and tight lips, cast a gloom over the cheery mess-table around which they sat; their jovial beaming smiles, and curling moustaches, and glittering shirt-studs reflected in the silver épergne, with its outposts of mounted sentries and its pleasant mingling of feasting and frays at the temple of mars and the london tavern. his grim presence robbed many a pleasant story of its point, which indeed, in deference to him, had to be softened down or given with bated breath. the young fellows--no younger than him in years, but with, o, such an enormous gulf between them as regards the real elasticity and charm of youth--were afraid of him, and from fear sprung dislike. they had not much fear of their elders, these youths of ingenuous countenance and ingenuous modesty. they had a wholesome awe, tempering their hearty love, of colonel jefferson; but less on account of the strictness of his discipline and of a certain noli-me-tangere expression towards those whom he did not specially favour, than on account of his age; and as for the jolly old major, who had been in the regiment for ever so many years,--for him they had neither fear nor respect; and when he was in command--which befell him during the cheerful interval between july and december--the lads did as they liked.

but they could not get on with ronald kilsyth; and though they tolerated him quietly for the sake of his people, they never could be induced to regard him with anything like the fraternal good fellowship which they entertained towards each other. as it had been at eton, so it was at knightsbridge, at windsor, in albany-street, in all those charming quarters where the household cavalry spend their time for their own and their country's advantage. ronald kilsyth was respected by all, loved by none. charley jefferson himself, fascinated as he was by ronald's devotion to the mysteries of drill and by all the young man's unswerving attention to his regimental duties--qualities which weighed immensely with the martinet colonel--had been heard to confess, with a prolonged twirl at his grizzled moustache, that "kilsyth was a d--d hard nut to crack,"--an enigmatic remark which, from so plain a speaker as the colonel, meant volumes. the major, whom ronald, under strong provocation, had once designated a "tipsy old atheist," had, in the absence of his enemy and under the influence of two-thirds of a bottle of brandy, retorted in terms which were held to justify both ronald's epithets; and the men had a very low opinion of him, who at the time of writing was senior lieutenant of the regiment. he had no sympathy with the men, no care for them; he would have liked to have made them more domestic, less inclined for the public-house and the music-hall; he would have subscribed to reading-rooms, to institutes, to anything for their mental improvement; but he never thought of giving them a kind word or an encouraging speech; and they much preferred cornet bosky--who cursed them roundly for their talking, for their silence, for their going too fast, for their going too slow, for their anything in fact, on those horrible mornings when he happened to be in charge of them exercising their horses, but who off duty always had a kindly word, an open purse at their service--to the senior lieutenant, who never used a bad expression, and who, as they confessed, was, after the colonel, the best soldier in the regiment.

it was like going into a different world to leave the smoky atmosphere, the wild disorder and reckless confusion of most of the other rooms in barracks, and go into ronald kilsyth's trim orderly apartment. instead of tables ringed with stains of long-since-emptied tumblers, and littered with yellow-paper-covered french novels, torn playbills, old gloves, letters, unpaid bills, opera-glasses, pipes, shreds of tobacco, heaps of cigar-ash, rolls of comic songs, trophies from knock'em-downs at race-courses, empty soda-water bottles, scattered packs of cards, and suchlike examples of free living--to find perfect order and decorum; the walls covered with movable bookcases filled with valuable books, raphael morghen prints, proofs before letters after the best modern artists, and charming bits of water-colour sketches, instead of coloured daubs of french écuyères and lionnes of the quartier breda, photographs of roman temple or pompeian excavation, and venetian glass and delicate eggshell china, and chinese carving, and indian beadwork. they used to look round at these things in wonder, the other young fellows of the regiment, when they penetrated into ronald's room, and point to the pictures and ask who "that queer old party was," and depreciate the furniture by inquiring "what was that old rubbish?" they could not understand his friends either; men asked to the mess by them or seen in their rooms were generally well known in the household brigade, other officers in the blues or the foot regiments, or idlers and dawdlers with nothing to do, men in the treasury or foreign office, people whom they were safe to meet in society at least every other night in the season. but ronald kilsyth's guests were of a different stamp. sometimes he brought wrencher the novelist or scumble the royal academician to dinner; and the fellows who knew the works of both made much of the guests and did them due honour; but when occasionally they had to receive jack flokes the journalist, who looked on washing as an original sin, or dick tinto the painter, who regarded a dirty brown velvet shooting-coat as the proper costume for the evening, or klavierspieler the pianist, a fat dirty german in spectacles, who made a perfect indian juggler of himself in trying to swallow his knife during dinner--they were scarcely so much gratified. innate gentlemanliness and entire good-breeding made them receive the gentlemen with every outward sign of hospitality; but afterwards, round the solemn council fire in the little mess-room and midst deep clouds of tobacco-smoke, they delivered a verdict anything but complimentary either to guest or host.

what possessed him? that was what they could not understand. nicest people in the world, sir! father, dear delightful jolly old fellow, give you his heart's blood if you wanted it--but you don't want it, so gives the best glass ofessed claret in london; and at home--at kilsyth--'gad, you can't conceive it; no country-house to be named in the same breath with it. perfect shooting and all that kind of thing, and thoroughly your own master, by jove! do just as you like, i mean to say, and have everything you want, don't you know! lady muriel quite charming; holding her own, don't you know, with all the younger women in point of attractiveness and that sort of thing, and yet respected and looked up to, and the best mistress of a house possible. and miss kilsyth, madeleine, deuced nice little girl; very pretty, and no nonsense about her; meant for some big fish! well, yes, suppose so; but meantime extremely pleasant and chatty, and sings nice little songs and valses splendidly, and all that kind of thing. that was what they said of the kilsyth ménage in the household brigade, in which pleasant joyous assemblage of gallant freethinkers it would have been difficult to point out one who would not have been delighted at an autumn visit to kilsyth. ah! what we believe and that we know! the humorous articles of the comic writers, the humorous sketches of the comic artists, lead us to think that the gentlemen officers of the regiments specially accredited for london service are, in the main, good-looking, handsome dolts, who pull their moustaches, eliminate the "r's" from their speech, and are but the nearest removes from the inmates of hanwell asylum. but a very small experience will serve to remove this impression, and will lead one to know that the reading and appreciation of character is nowhere more aptly read and more shrewdly hit upon than in the barrack-rooms of knightsbridge or the regent's park.

people who knew, or thought they knew, ronald kilsyth, declared that he was solitary and oysterlike, self-contained, and caring for no one but himself. they were wrong. ronald had strong home affections. he loved and reverenced his father more than any one in the world. he saw plainly enough the few shortcomings--the want of modern education, the excessive love of sport, the natural indolence of his disposition, and the intense desire to shirk all the responsibilities of his position, and to shift the discharge of them on to some one else. but equally he saw his father's warm-heartedness, honour, and chivalry; his unselfishness, his disposition to look upon the bright side of all that happened, his cheery bonhomie, and his unfailing good temper. lady muriel he regarded with feelings of the highest respect--respect which he had often tried to turn into affection, but had tried in vain. with a woman's quickness, lady muriel had seen at a glance, on her first entering the kilsyth family, thamotivst her hardest task would be to win over her stepson, and she had laid herself out for that victory with really far more care and pains than she had taken to captivate his father. with great natural shrewdness, quickened by worldly experience, lady muriel very shortly made herself mistress of ronald kilsyth's character, and laid her plans accordingly. never was shaft more truly shot, never was mine more ingeniously laid. ronald kilsyth, boy as he was at the time of his father's second marriage, had scarcely had three interviews with his stepmother before she found a corroboration of the fact which had so often whispered itself in his own bosom, that he, and he alone, was the guiding spirit of the family; that he had knowledge and experience beyond his years; and that if she, lady muriel, only got him, ronald, to cooperate with her, everything would be smooth, and between them the felicity and well-being of all would be assured. it was a deft compliment, and it succeeded. from that time forth ronald kilsyth was lady muriel's most pliant instrument and doughtiest champion. in the circles in which during the earlier phases of his succeeding life he found himself, there were plenty to carp at his stepmother's conduct, to impugn her motives,--worst of all, to drop side hints of her integrity; but to all of these ronald kilsyth gave instant and immediate battle, never allowing the smallest insinuation which reflected upon her to pass unrebuked. he thought he knew his stepmother thoroughly: whether he did or not time must show; but at all events he thought highly enough of her to permit himself to be guided by her in some of the most important steps in his career.

and what were his feelings with regard to madeleine? if you wanted to find the key to ronald kilsyth's character, it was there that you should have looked for it. ronald loved madeleine with all the love which such a heart as his was capable of feeling; but he watched over her with a strictness such as no duenna ever yet dreamed of years ago, when they were very little children, there occurred an episode which miss o'grady--who was then kilsyth's governess, and now happily married to herr ohm, a wine-merchant at heidelberg--to this day narrates with the greatest delight. it was in hamilton gardens, where the kilsyth children and a number of others were playing at les graces--a pleasing diversion then popular with youth--and little lord claud barrington, in picking up and restoring her hoop to madeleine, had taken advantage of the opportunity to kiss her hand. ronald noticed the gallantry, and at once resented it, asking the youthful libertine how he dared to take such a liberty. "well, but she liketh it!" said lord claud, ingenuously pointing to madeleine, who was sucking and biting the end of her hoop-stick, by no means ill-pleased. "very likely," said ronald; "but these girls know nothing of such matters. i am my sister's guardian, and call upon you to apologise." lord claud, humiliated, said he was "wewy thorry;" and the three,--he, ronald, and madeleine,--had some bath-pipe and some cough-lozenges as a banquet in honour of the reconciliation.

this odd watchfulness, never slumbering, always vigilant, perpetually unjust, and generally exigeant, characterised ronald's relations with his sister up to the time of our story. when she first came out, his mental torture was extraordinary; he, so long banished from ball-rooms, accepted every invitation, and though he never danced, would invariably remain in the dancing-room, ensconced behind a pillar, lounging in a doorway, always in some position whence he could command his sister's movements, and throughout the evening never taking his eyes from her. his friends, or rather his acquaintances, who at first watched his rapt attention without having the smallest idea of its object, used to chaff him upon his devotion, and interrogate him as to whether it was the tall person with the teeth, the stout virgin with the shells in her hair, or the interesting party with the shoulders, who had won his young affection. ronald stood this chaff well, confident in the fact that hitherto his sister had performed her part in that grand and ludicrous mystery termed "society," and had escaped heart-whole. he began to realise the truth of the axiom about the constant dropping of water. so long as madeleine had had sense to comprehend, he had instilled into her the absolute necessity of consulting him before she even permitted herself to have the smallest liking for any man. during the first two months of her first season she had confessed to him twice: once in the case of a middle-aged, well-preserved peer; and again when a thin, black-bearded attaché of the brazilian embassy was in question. ronald's immediate and unmistakable veto had been sufficient in both cases; and he was flattering himself that the rest of the season had passed without any further call on his self-assumed judicial functions.

imagine, then, his state of mind at the receipt of lady muriel's letter! the assault had been made, the mine had been sprung, the enemy was in the citadel, and, worst of all, the enemy was masked and disguised, and the guardian of the fortress did not know who was his assailant, or what measures he should take to repel him!.