The Heather-Moon
museum. It was an antique chaise such as no one in the last five
generations can have seen except in an illustrated book, or an old
coloured print. Two handsome gray horses were harnessed to it, looking
quite embarrassed, as if they hated being made conspicuous, and hoped
that they might not be recognized by their smart acquaintances. As we
came gliding past, they turned away their faces, lest our
motor--christened by me Gray Dragon--should regard them with contempt.
By the horses' heads stood a gorgeous, grinning man, dressed in livery
such as postilions may have worn a hundred years ago. Talking to him was
a blacksmith of the same remote epoch, with knee-breeches showing under
a leather apron, a great hammer in his hand, and on his head a high,
broad-brimmed beaver hat balanced on a white wig. Not far off were two
men in modern clothes; and they were placing in position some kind of a
photographic camera.
When they saw that we meant to stop at the Blacksmith's Shop, they
brightened up, and seemed as much interested as if they had never before
seen an automobile.
"They're going to take photographs of a Gretna Green wedding of ancient
times, for a biograph show, evidently," said Sir Somerled MacDonald, and
quickly explained to the late prisoner of the glass retort the nature of
a biograph. "Rather a good idea that! Apparently they're waiting for
their chief characters, the bride and groom."
He was helping Mrs. James to get down from the car, and I had already
jumped out, for, of course, we wanted to visit the old house, and see
everything there was to see, in the place where Shelley (maybe!) and
hundreds of other famous people have been married. But before going in,
we lingered to stare at the chaise, which was rather like an immense
bathtub, the kind we used at Hillard House, where Grandma would have no
such new-fangled innovation as a bathroom. As we stood there, one of the
men with the camera came up, hovered undecidedly, and then said, with a
cough to draw attention to himself: "Excuse me, sir, but will you pardon
the liberty of my asking if you and the young lady will oblige us with a
great favour?"
Sir Somerled frowned slightly, with his millionaire manner, which is not
so nice as the other. "What is the favour?" he inquired.
"Why, sir," the man explained, "we're in a bit of a hole. You can see
we're here to reconstruct a runaway wedding for a cinema show. We
represent the North British Biograph Company, and we've been to a lot of
trouble and expense to get our props together. Pretty soon the father's
coach will be along, and we've got all we want except the two principal
figures. The bride and groom we engaged have failed to turn up. We can't
make out what's happened, but they ain't here, and we've searched the
neighbourhood without finding anything we can do with in their place.
The light's just right now, after the flurry o' rain, but by the look o'
the sky it won't last; and altogether it seems as if we'd have our
trouble for our pains unless you and the young lady'd consent to help us
out. If you'll allow me to say so, sir, in costume you'd be the Ideal
Thing."
For an instant Sir S. looked as haughty as a dethroned king. Then the
funny side struck him, and he laughed. "You flatter us," he said; "but
I'm sorry we can't do what you ask. Perhaps your people will turn up,
after all."
The poor man looked bitterly disappointed, almost as if he would cry,
and so did the other, who had been listening with enormously large red
ears like handles on a terra-cotta urn. Both men were wet with the rain,
which had fallen sharply and only just stopped as if to welcome us over
the border. The one who had spoken turned sadly away, without venturing
to urge his point (Sir S. isn't the sort of person strange men would
take liberties with), but in retreating he threw one agonized look at
me. I couldn't resist it.
"Oh, _do_ let's stand for the bride and groom!" I pleaded. And
foreseeing a battle the photographer hastily retired into the background
to let us fight it out. "It would be such fun. I should love it. You
know, I've always vowed to be married at Gretna Green, if at all. And
this would be next best to the real thing."
I gazed up at Sir S. as enticingly as I knew how, and there was a look
in his eyes that frightened me a little. I was afraid I had made him
angry; yet it wasn't a look of crossness. I could not tell what it
meant, but his voice in answering sounded kind. As usual, when he has
been particularly grave, he smiled that nice smile which begins in his
eyes and suddenly lights up his face.
"You'd better wait for the 'real thing' and the real man," said he. "Be
patient for a few years. You've plenty of time."
"I may _never_ get another such good chance," I mourned. "You _are_
unkind! It would amuse me so much, and it wouldn't hurt you."
"Do you think that's why I say no?" he asked. "You think I'm afraid?"
"Yes, I do," I insisted. "You're too proud to do what will make you look
silly--because you're the great Somerled."
"By Jove!" he said, and his face flushed up. "If you say much more I
will do it--and hang everything!"
"I _do_ say much more!" I cried. "_Much_ more--and hang everything."
"Very well, then," said he. "Your blood be on your own head."
"My head's red enough already!" I giggled. "Oh, what fun! You are good,
after all."
"_Am_ I good, Mrs. James, or am I bad?" he asked, turning for the first
time to her, as if he were half inclined to change his mind. But she
only smiled. "I can't see that there's any real harm," said she. "It
does seem a pity that these poor people should have come all this way
and spent all this money for nothing, don't you think so?"
"I wasn't thinking of them. I was thinking of Miss MacDonald."
"I'm thinking of her too," answered Mrs. James, as seriously as if she
were deciding something important. "If you don't mind on your _own_
account, why----"
He laughed. "Oh, as to _that_!----Well, come along, Miss MacDonald----"
"Barrie," I reminded him.
"Barrie! On with our wedding toggery, and let's be quick, if we don't
want an audience."
He called the photographer rather sharply, and put him out of his
suspense. "You must thank the ladies' kind hearts," he said. "They can't
bear to have your scheme end in smoke. Tell us what you want us to do,
and we'll do it--anything in reason. But you mustn't expect the bride to
show her face. She must keep it turned aside."
"That'll be all right," said the man, "though, of course, we should have
preferred----But after your great kindness we mustn't ask too much----"
"Certainly you must not," Sir S. caught him up. And then the other
photographer, who had darted across the road to the chaise on hearing
the good news, opened a bundle that lay on the seat, and hauled out the
contents.
Mrs. James began to be interested in the game, and the people who lived
in the houses were delighted that they were not to lose their hoped-for
excitement. Luckily, as it was lunching-time for most travellers, the
road was empty, and it seemed likely that we might finish our play
without spectators. The only moving things in sight at the moment,
except our own group, were one cat, two dogs, and a vehicle even more
quaint than the chaise in front of the Blacksmith's Shop. It was a coach
like Cinderella's, though not so pumpkiny. It was drawn by two nice
brown horses who might have begun life as rats. On one rode a postilion,
and out of a window leaned an old man in a tall hat and a brown coat
with brass buttons and a high velvet collar and ruffles at the wrist.
His hair was powdered, and he wore a white stock wound round his throat.
If we had met him on the road, without an explanation, we should have
thought that we had gone mad, or had seen a ghost; but now we knew him
for the bride's angry parent pursuing her relentlessly with a coach and
pair. It did sound odd to hear this fine old English aristocrat bawl out
in a common voice, "Ain't ye ready yet--what?"
One of the photographers ran along the road and explained and
gesticulated. The coach stopped at a distance. I flew into the
Blacksmith's Shop to put on my wedding things, and Sir S. disappeared
next door with clothes under one arm and a hat under the other. I should
think no bride and bridegroom ever dressed in such a scramble.
Mrs. James, dimpling and fussing, hustled me into a green brocade gown
which smelt of moth powder, and was so big that it went on easily over
my frock. Then came a purple silk cloak with wide flowing sleeves and a
romantic hood. One of the photograph men stood by to direct us; and when
Mrs. James was putting the hood over my head, he stopped her. "Madam, if
I might ask the young lady to take the pins out of her hair," he begged,
quite red with eagerness, "we shall get a great dramatic effect if it
tumbles down with the pulling back of the hood, just as her lover helps
her out of the chaise."
Her lover indeed! Sir S. would have glowered; but I laughed, and out
came the hairpins, for the good of the game. I have always had to "make
believe" all alone, so it was extra fun having such a grand playfellow
as Sir Somerled--whether he liked it or not. And I determined that I
would _make_ him like it! I wanted him to play properly, and not be
stiff and disagreeable and grown up. He was ready before I was, and
waiting; for it took a little while stuffing all my hair safely into the
hood, and practising how to let it fall at the right moment. I hadn't
quite realized that my playmate was really handsome, in his dark, proud
way, till I saw him in a wavy brown wig with a ribbon-tied queue, a
broad-brimmed hat that sat dashingly on one side, shadowing his face; a
blue overcoat with a cape, and high boots drawn up to his knees. He
looked so splendid, and so young that suddenly my heart beat as if I
were really and truly in love.
"If you should look at yourself in the glass," I said, feeling shy, yet,
wishing him to know that he was nice, "you'd never say again that you've
outgrown romance. No one would suspect you of being anything so dull as
a millionaire. You ought to paint your own portrait in that costume."
"Thanks," said he, "I'd rather do you in yours." But I think he was
pleased.
The photographer and the postilion both came forward to help, but Sir
Somerled wouldn't let his bride be touched by them. He handed me into
the chaise himself, and sat down by my side. Off trotted our horses to a
little distance, and turned round again. The show was ready to begin.
Meanwhile, the others had been busy. They'd placed an anvil, real or
imitation, on the green in front of the house, for the pictures were all
to be taken out of doors. The blacksmith had begun to hammer away at a
horse-shoe, and that was our signal to dash up to the door. He stopped
hammering, pushed back his hat, and greeted us in pantomime. Sir
Somerled, playing his part well since it must be played, swung me out of
the chaise with an arm round my waist. Down fell my hood and my hair,
blowing round his face and hiding mine. He kissed my hand as the
blacksmith ran off into the house to get his book; and by this time I
was almost as wildly excited as if we had eloped. The camera was
grinding out photographs of everything that happened, no doubt, but just
then I forgot all about it, or that any one was looking at us. We
clasped hands over the anvil, Sir Somerled and I. As the blacksmith made
the motions of marrying us in haste, I looked across at my playfellow,
and at the same instant my playfellow looked across at me. I wanted him
to smile, and he would not! "Please _pretend_ you're delighted to marry
me," I mumbled. "Can't you see by my face how glad I am to get _you_?"
"So should I be to get you, if I were the fairy prince," said he, in so