The Heather-Moon
kind a voice it was a pity the biograph couldn't snap it. I squeezed his
hand to thank him for playing up to me, and he squeezed mine to show
that he understood. I felt suddenly that we were the best and truest of
friends. Even meeting my mother can't make up for losing him out of my
life, though he has been in it such a short time, and strayed in only by
accident.
Whole we stood hand in hand, along came the red coach. Out leaped the
father, as the postilion drew his horses up, and the bride sought refuge
in the bridegroom's arms. It did seem real, and exciting!
"Too late! We're married," said I. But even that was not the end of the
play. The father had to threaten the bridegroom with his pistol, and the
bride had to throw herself between the two men. I can see now what fun
actresses have. I was quite sorry when it was all over and the biograph
men were packing up to go.
"We don't know how to thank you enough, miss," said the one who appeared
to be the leader, "for persuading the gentleman. If you'll give us your
address we'll send you reduced copies of the series of pictures."
An address! I didn't know what to answer, for at present I possess no
such thing, though I thought it would sound queer to say so. I looked
for Sir Somerled, but he had walked away down the road to our motor,
which was hiding from the camera. His back was turned to me, but I could
see that his suit-case had been taken down from its place, and he was
putting something in it.
"I don't know whether I ought to mention this, miss," said the biograph
man, "but you might be interested to know that the gentleman has bought
the costume you wore in the wedding-scene, and paid a good price for it.
That's what he's packing away now, I presume."
"Oh! And did he buy his own costume, too?" I asked.
"No, miss, only yours. I thought you might like to know."
I did like to know. And I supposed that Sir S. would tell me all about
it when he came back, explaining that he'd got the things for a model to
wear in some picture; but not a word did he say--which puzzled me so
much that all the sight-seeing inside the Blacksmith's Shop could not
take my mind off the mystery.
I sat in one of the marriage chairs, and looked at the pictures of the
old priests, and read about the many famous runaway couples since 1754,
beginning with Penelope Smith, the prettiest girl of Exeter, who married
Prince Charles of Bourbon, brother to the King of Naples. But all the
time I was thinking hard about myself and Mr. Somerled, and wondering
why he had secretly bought the wedding-dress.
The guardian of the house made us write our names in the visitors' book,
which Mrs. James thought exactly like signing the register at a proper
marrying. And I said, "If nobody ever asks me to be his real wife, I
shan't be as badly off as other old maids, because, whatever happens, I
have had my wedding--a wedding at Gretna Green!"
V
We had a bridal sort of luncheon in the car, which was shunted off the
highway into a green shadowed road abandoned to summer dreams. Mrs.
James and I were like the flowers of the field, and had given no thought
to food, or where or how we were to get it. We supposed vaguely that
when we grew hungry we should stop at some inn and eat; but Sir Somerled
had a surprise in the shape of an American invention called a
refrigerator basket, nickel-lined, with an ice compartment walled in
with asbestos or something scientific. He said that it had been a
present, and he'd promised to bring it with him on this Scottish trip,
which it appears he was ordered to take as a rest cure. On the lid of
the basket, in a conspicuous place, is a silver plate, saying, in
beautiful old English letters, "To Ian Somerled, from his grateful
model," and underneath a monogram "M. M." in the raised heart of an
elaborate marguerite. As we ate ice-cold chicken, salad, and chilled
wild strawberries of the north, Mrs. James began with a gay perkiness to
tease Sir S. about the "grateful model," whose name must surely be
Marguerite; but I put a stop to that. The hour after a wedding at Gretna
Green is no tune for talk of any woman-thing except the bride; and as I
may perhaps never be anybody's real bride, I insisted on my rights. This
carrying on of the Gretna Green game rather scandalized good Mrs. James,
but when she scolded me gently for my "childishness," Sir S. said, "Do
let her be a child as long as she can. It would be well for every one of
us if we kept something of our childhood all our lives. Just now I'm
finding childhood gloriously contagious. I don't know how many years
I've thrown off in two days' time, since this child princess commanded
me to play with her."
This nipped the scolding in its bud (not that I minded it), but I'm sure
dear Mrs. James still thought my bride-game had been played too long,
and she switched the conversation to the real romances of Gretna
Green--so breathlessly thrilling, some of them, that I was ashamed to
hark back to the subject of ourselves. Not that Sir S. wouldn't make a
hero for my romance. I feel that under his quiet, sometimes tired
manner, there's a hidden fire, and I want to find out what he is really
like, if I can. The study of such a man will be more interesting and
even more mysterious than peeping through the keyhole of the garret
door, into what I used to call "fairyland." Already that seems long ago.
No one would guess, who had only seen Mrs. James with Grandma, how much
the little woman knows, or how nicely she can talk, and I blurted this
thought out, before I stopped to reflect that it might sound rude. An
hour passed like five minutes in listening to her story of the Lord
Chancellor's wedding at Gretna, and Lord Westmorland's shooting of
Banker Child's horse, to save his young bride from capture by her
father; the tale of Robert Burns almost inveigled into marriage by a
pretty girl he met on the road; and best of all the exciting history of
the brave lass of Langholm, who ran through brooks and bushes to snatch
her lover at the last minute from a rival he was marrying in the
Blacksmith's Shop. This last anecdote had been "the doctor's" favourite.
One chapter of his history was devoted entirely to the Old Glasgow Road.
In it he gave three whole pages to the young man's bet and the two
lassies who were ready to help him win it. "The doctor was romantic at
heart," explained Mrs. James, sighing, and pausing with an ice-cold
chocolate eclair in her hand. "All romance appealed to his imagination,
and in his notes he gave much space to Gretna Green, from the day of
Paisley, the first priest, up to the present time, when couples marry in
the Blacksmith's Shop in fun and not in fear. But," she went on, anxious
to impress the great Somerled, "Doctor James gave space in plenty to the
serious history of the Road: the Raider episodes; the journey of Queen
Mary; the march of Prince Charlie's Highlanders in charge of
Cumberland's soldiers, on their way to prison at Carlisle; the tramping
of many penniless Scottish geniuses seeking their fortune in London
town; the visits of famous men like Scott and Dickens, and Edward Irving
the preacher, who made his bride get down from her carriage on the
bridge, and walk on foot into her adopted country, England."
Mrs. James always grows excited when she talks about the doctor and his
unfinished history of Scotland; and though she'd known Sir S. only a day
and a half, she was mesmerized into telling him secrets Grandma couldn't
have dragged from her with wild horses. She even showed him Doctor
James's photograph, which, in a shut-up velvet case, she had put into
the handbag Sir S. gave her. "Do _you_, an artist, with your great
knowledge of human faces and the souls behind them, believe a man with
those eyes and that forehead would take his own life to escape scandal?"
she appealed to him. "Wouldn't it be more natural to disappear, trusting
to his wife's faith, until he had made a new career somewhere and won
back the honour of his name?"
Very gravely Sir S. examined the photograph, which she had painted in
water colours, rather faded now; and I looked at it, though I've seen it
before. Apparently he was sincerely interested in her story, and in the
picture. But then he seems interested always, in a quiet way, in what
people tell him, never interrupting or talking of himself and his
affairs, as Grandma does if any one comes to see her. "You are right,
Mrs. James," he said. "That man is a dreamer, but not a coward. He might
do strange things, but never a contemptible one."
"Oh, what a judge of character!" she breathed ecstatically. "And how
sympathetic! It's wonderful, in the busy, flattered life you must have
led for many years, how you've kept your kind heart and generous thought
for others. But it's your artistic temperament!"
The great Somerled laughed and looked embarrassed. "My enemies say that
my 'artistic temperament' has been swamped long ago by my love of
money-making and getting difficult things to turn my way. I think the
enemies are probably right; but you and this princess would dig up any
decent qualities a man might have left, no matter how deep they were
buried under rubbish."
"How do we dig them up?" I wanted to know.
"By being children--both of you--in your different ways."
Then he gave Mrs. James back the faded photograph, with a few more
compliments on the doctor's eyes and the shape of his forehead. It was
time to be starting on, but the grateful dear would not accept his offer
of help in clearing up. She sent me away with him down the road to
gather a bunch of bluebells, azure as a handful of sky, to put into our
hanging vase--my first Scotch bluebells. And as soon as we were well
away, he began asking questions about Doctor James, which showed that he
really cared. What was his first name? How old was he when he
disappeared? And how long ago was that?
"His Christian name was Richard," said I. "It was seventeen years ago
that he disappeared--or died. And he must have been twenty-nine then,
because Heppie says he was too young for Mrs. James--only a year older
than she--which would make him forty-six now."
"You mustn't give her away like that," Sir Somerled reproached me. "I
should have guessed her seven or eight years younger."
"Ah, that's the massage and the skin food and neck exercises," said I,
wisely. "She _will_ be pleased when I tell her what a success you think
they are."
"She'll be much more pleased if you don't tell her you've mentioned
them, and I strongly advise you not to. Do you happen to know whether
Doctor James had a scar on the left temple?"
"Yes," I eagerly answered. "She's told me about it. That's why he turned
the right side of his face to be photographed. But why? Did you ever
come to Carlisle and see him before you sailed for America as a boy?"
"I came to Carlisle. I may have seen him," Sir S. replied. "But say
nothing to Mrs. James about this conversation of ours. Some time,
perhaps, I may tell you why. If not, it's not worth remembering. And
now, I see she's got everything ready, and is waiting for us. So is
Vedder. The car's had a good drink of petrol, and we can be off--for a
sight of Carlyle's country. Will that bore you?" He looked at me almost
anxiously, as if something depended on my answer.
"Bore me? Oh, no: I shall love to go there," I assured him.
"Why? What do you know of Carlyle?"
"Not much," I had to confess, "But there were three books of his my
father had, which I've read. And there's a picture of him still in the
library."
"Which books? What picture?"
"'The French Revolution,' and 'Hero Worship,' and 'Sartor Resartus,' It
was that last one I read first. I took it off the shelf because it had
such a queer name. I wanted to find out what it meant. Don't you always