The Heather-Moon
"Did you say the round wall the Britons built is under the keep?" she
asked Mr. Douglas, who is, I feel, the kind of young man you would be
calling "Donald" before you knew what you were doing. "Are there only
three fortresses like this in all England? Do tell me what makes this
unique?" And she looked at him so prettily that if I'd been in his place
I'd have run to her like a dog and fawned at her feet. But he never
stirred, and simply answered across the other people, though she is so
much more intelligent than I--I, who couldn't describe properly what is
a bastion.
Our guide lit a candle for the dark dungeons, awful places with grooves
worn in the stone floors by the dragging feet of the prisoners, who
paced rhythmically up and down in the tether of their chains. On the
walls, covered with a cold sweat, as of deathless agony, we could see
the staples; and there was one spot of a dreadful fascination, where
Donald Douglas held his candle to show a trail of slimy moisture. Always
this weeping stone had been there, he said, no one knew why; and in old
days, when these dungeons bore the name of the "black hell," prisoners
tortured with thirst used, animal-like, to lick the oozing patch, making
many hollows round it like miniature glacier mills. After Culloden one
hundred and eighty men were thrown in during one night, and only fifty
were alive in the morning.
It made me feel very loyal to Scotland hearing stories like this--though
I was proud of the Castle too. And I loved the tale of Willie Armstrong,
Kinmont Willie, treacherously given up to Lord Scrope, for the worst
dungeon of all, by troopers who in taking him violated a border truce.
His escape was a real romance; and I am glad Lord Buccleugh, who saved
him, was an ancestor of Sir Walter Scott.
It was no use appealing to Lord Scrope, the Warden of the West Marches,
for justice, so Lord Buccleugh resolved to make a dash, and rescue the
raider, whom he loved. He got forty men (the English said two hundred,
but I know better), attacked the Castle, took it by assault, and carried
Willie, with fetters still dangling from his wrists, clear away across
the Eden and the roaring Esk, where none dared follow. When Queen
Elizabeth asked him afterward how he had dared, he said, "What is there
a brave man will not dare to do?"
It was not in the first dungeons that we heard the story of Willie
Armstrong, but later, in the part of the Castle which the public is not
allowed to see. We got there by climbing steep stairs into what are now
the soldiers' storerooms: and it's because they are storerooms that
they're kept so private. Once these rooms too were prisons; and behind
an immense door of oak, almost in darkness, are perfectly wonderful
wall-carvings cut into the reddish sandstone by prisoners: figures of
men and devils; scenes of history; initials woven into ingenious
monograms, Prince Charlie's among them, and hearts interlaced. I wish I
had lived in those days, and I wondered aloud if there were any girls
named Barribel then. Donald Douglas said yes; it was a very ancient and
well-loved Scottish name.
Stupid people in 1835 tore down most of the tower where Queen Mary was
imprisoned; but they were stopped before it was all gone, so luckily
there is a corner left, with a few graceful carvings on the outer wall.
And only three years ago a wonderful old table was found hidden away in
a dungeon which, it is thought, must have been used as her dining-table,
before she was whisked away from Carlisle to Bolton Castle in 1568. We
saw the table--very dark, very rough, looking like a prehistoric animal
turned to wood; and Donald Douglas said it was perhaps the oldest table
alive in England to-day--as old as King Edward's, and of the shape which
gave an idea later for Tudor tables. As he talked, I could almost see
Queen Mary sitting by this queer piece of furniture eating a poor meal,
and reading some book which might help her forget--perhaps idly
fingering the splendid black pearls which Mrs. James said were bought
last year in a tiny shop in Scotland, kept by descendants of a faithful
maid who went with her to the scaffold. And the shopkeeper, who thought
they were wax beads, lying in an old forgotten box, sold them for ten
shillings!
They found in another dungeon of the Castle, hidden in a crack of the
wall, a silver snuff-box with a withered finger in it, which must have
been a prisoner's "fetich." But it couldn't have brought him luck;
otherwise, if he'd been released, he would have taken it away with him.
Probably he swung on the hanging beam that sticks out over the window of
the old "condemned cell."
Next to Queen Mary's table, and perhaps the roof of the keep whence we
could see away over the border into mystery-land, I liked best of all
the Castle things a little deserted house in a courtyard, where Richard
III lived for a while, when he was young. Few people know about it, or
are taken to see it. But it alone would be enough to make the Castle
interesting if there were nothing else. Only a few empty, echoing,
half-ruinous rooms there are, with a queer chimney or two to give
comfort; but Richard's enemies made it a charge against him that he
lived in Carlisle Castle, splendidly housed in sinful luxury. What a
pity all the tales against him were not so little true as that!
III
We're in Scotland!
Caesar could not have revelled in crossing the Rubicon as I revelled in
crossing the border. The very word rings out like the sudden sound of
bells, or the mysterious music that thrills one's blood in dreams.
Poor Caesar was obliged to burn his nice boats, and think disagreeable
thoughts about the great responsibility he had taken, whereas we made
our crossing in a beautiful motor-car, and I had no responsibility
whatever. As for disagreeable thoughts, I had a few in England, but the
air of Scotland has chased them away. I see that they were silly as well
as selfish thoughts. I was so wicked that I hoped Mr. Somerled would not
make up his quarrel with Mrs. West. I was afraid that if he did the poor
princess he had rescued would be in his way, and that he would wish her
safely back in her glass retort. Now they _have_ made up, yet somehow I
don't feel in the way. He is so kind, and--yes, I must admit it--Mrs.
West is so tactful.
It seems that while Mr. Douglas and I were walking and talking together
in Carlisle Castle she apologized to Mr. Somerled. And outside the
entrance gates, when Mr. Douglas had shaken hands, hoping to "run across
us" when he gets leave for Edinburgh, Mrs. West walked up to me. "I've
begged Mr. Somerled's pardon," she said, with her pretty smile which
never changes, "and he has forgiven me, so you mustn't go on thinking me
an ill-natured, bad-tempered person, please; I'm not really. Only we
writing people have 'temperaments,' just as artists have--Mr. Somerled
himself, for instance. My brother scolded me, and I deserved it. He is
_so_ interested in you and your talent for writing, and wants to be your
friend. You won't blame him for my fault, will you?"
Of course I said no, and she held out her hand. When I'd put mine into
it, she pressed it gently, and before letting it go asked in a lower
voice if Mr. Somerled had told me why they quarrelled.
I shook my head emphatically as I answered that he hadn't said a word,
and she looked suddenly much happier. "That is _like_ him!" she
exclaimed--if one can exclaim in a whisper. "Well, we must forget what's
passed, and think of the future. Basil and I have hired a car now, and
will travel in it; but that will be all the better for our novel, as
I've just been telling Mr. Somerled, for we shan't have anything to
distract our minds from the scenery and our notebooks. I've begged him
to feel _no_ regrets: for now we're friends again, and we shall meet
constantly, no doubt, without any embarrassment, but a great deal of
pleasure. As for you, dear little girl, you mustn't feel that the cloud
we've passed through need shadow you. It had to do only with us
grown-ups. You have but to 'play dolls' and be happy, until you're
safely tied up in your mother's apron-strings. Not that she's likely to
have any!" And Mrs. West laughed, showing her white teeth that are
almost like a child's.
"Thank you," I said. "I mean to be happy--_very_ happy!"
She looked over her shoulder at Mr. Norman, as if giving him a signal,
and he came and talked to me. He said that he had hardly slept all
night, because he was so miserable over what had happened, for every
one's sake, but especially for his own, as he felt that a beautiful hope
had been snatched away from him. "It was the hope of a friendship with
you," he added. "But now we'll take it up just where it fell down, won't
we, finding that it isn't broken after all?"
While we were shaking hands I heard Mrs. West tell Mr. Douglas that I
was the daughter of Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald, and he seemed immensely
astonished, just as Mr. Somerled had, and Mrs. West and Mr. Norman.
I wonder why every one is so surprised? Can it be that actresses do not
often have children?
We bade each other good-bye, all of us, for Mrs. West and Mr. Norman are
going to see some places that apparently Mr. Somerled doesn't care
about; and it isn't quite certain when we shall meet again. "We shall be
like bad pennies, always turning up," Mr. Norman said; and Mrs. West
added quickly to Mr. Somerled, "But if we do, you mustn't feel that
we're tracking you down. The exigencies of authorship force us to be
conscientious sight-seers."
As she spoke, she gave her brother a look. I don't know what it meant,
but his face had a sad, tired expression, as if there had been some
dispute or argument between him and his sister, and he was sick of it. I
don't feel, somehow, that he's in a good mood for their story-writing
together just now, and I'm sorry for him. I believe he would rather be
motoring with us than with her. Perhaps they have had a difference of
opinion about the plot of their book, for he told me in the summer-house
that he'd suddenly got a new idea for a motor romance, and had lost
interest in the old one.
When we were ready to start away from Carlisle Castle, Mr. Somerled
condemned Vedder to sit at his feet; but the man seemed to take this
quite for granted, and not to mind in the least. "Would one of you care
to sit beside me?" he asked with so wooden an expression that it was
impossible to guess whether he would prefer Mrs. James or me to say yes.
Selfishly, I wanted him to prefer me, and because he didn't seem to
mind, I pretended not to hear, but went on talking to Mr. Douglas as if
he were the most important person in the world. Suddenly I felt a kind
of power over him, as if I were a grown-up woman in a book, and could
make men take an interest in me. Still, I could quite well hear Mrs.
James answer that she was too great a coward for the front seat, but she
was sure I would love it. Mr. Somerled turned to me then, without
speaking, as if to wait for me to answer, and I couldn't help thinking,
by the look in his eyes, that he _had_ wanted me, in spite of the wooden
expression. So I stopped in the midst of a word to Mr. Douglas, and
said, as meekly as a trained dove, that I should like to sit in front.
"What a pity you haven't got a congenial, romantic companion in the car,
like that lad," said the Knight, rather sharply, "instead of a war-worn
veteran of over thirty."
"Oh, I'd rather have you, because I feel already as if I'd known you
always," I explained. "And do you know, it didn't seem to me there was
anything romantic about Mr. Douglas, except his name."
"In that case, you are a little flirt," said he, driving fast. But when
I looked at him in the greatest surprise, he seemed sorry. "I take that