The Heather-Moon
Morgan Bennett in his biggest motor-car, "_much_ higher powered and
smarter than poor Ian's," she and Mrs. Bal and George Vanneck had sped
away from Edinburgh on Sunday morning early, had a look at their rooms
in Glasgow, and dashed on to Arrochar, where they all stopped till
Monday afternoon.
"Such an exquisite road!" [said Aline]. "You would have loved it.
High green bank on one side, with cataracts of bracken delicate as
maidenhair; dark rocks, wrapped in velvet moss. Trees holding up
screens of green lace between your eyes and the blue water of the
loch. Pebbles white and round as pearls, or silver coins dropped by
fairies in a big "flit." That's one of _your_ similes! Grass
running down to the edge of the water, and full of bluebells. Water
the colour of drowned wallflowers. I don't believe your Highland
lochs can be prettier or more idyllic, though this is so close to
Glasgow.
"We have had a day going through the Kyles of Bute, too--the same
party: and a marvellous run along the shores of the Clyde to
Skelmorlie. Such red rocks there, and even the sand red. There was
a pink haze over everything, like a perpetual sunset. I'm not sure
which was better, that, or a trip to Crinan. The dearest little
place at the end of the Crinan canal--just a flower-draped hotel,
and a sea-wall and a lighthouse, with a distant murmur of
'Corrievrechan's tortured roar,' mingled with the crying of gulls.
What a place for you and Barrie to spend your honeymoon! You see, I
speak as if it were certain. Anyhow, I'm sure it all depends on
yourself. _Courage, mon brave_!"
But that is exactly the quality which the villain of the piece lacks at
present.
BOOK IV
WHAT BECAME OF BARRIE
I
Letter From Barrie Macdonald To Ian Somerled Macdonald
DEAR SIR KNIGHT: I was glad the morning we saw Mrs. James off that
you said you'd like to hear from me, and if I needed help or
comfort in any trouble I must let you know. I haven't such an
excuse for writing to you now, but you did say that you wanted to
hear anyway, and that you'd find out where we were going, so you
could wire me your plans. Now I've had two telegrams from you, and
a letter; and if they hadn't come I should have been disappointed.
I thought we might have seen you and the Gray Dragon before this,
but the telegrams have made me understand. That is, I _don't_
understand, because what you tell me sounds very mysterious. Still,
as you went back to Carlisle and are now in London, it is no use
hoping to see the Gray Dragon's bonnet flash into sight round some
complicated Highland corner.
What _could_ have taken you to call on Grandma again? I am almost
dying of curiosity. You say 'perhaps you may be able to explain
when we meet': but everybody is saying that to me, just now--at
least, Barbara is, about not letting me go back to Glasgow till the
end of her week there--so it is rather aggravating. Still, it is
good to know that we may meet. I wonder when? You don't give me a
hint, and it stirs up my curiosity from deeper depths to be told,
as if you half expected me to guess what you mean, that 'you're in
London for reinforcements.' Shall I ever know? It seems a long time
since I said good-bye to you in front of the Caledonian Hotel. Not
that I'm having a dull trip. I should be very dull myself if that
were true, for everything is beautiful, and every one kind. It is
the most wonderful luck for a girl like me, who had never seen
anything in her life, suddenly to be seeing all Scotland. But I had
grown rather _used_ to seeing things with you and Mrs. James, after
I escaped from the 'glass retort,' and I can't accustom myself yet
to being with others, and you far away--Mrs. James too, of course.
I try to console myself if I feel a tiny bit homesick, thinking how
happy she is, and how wonderful everything is going to be for her
and her strange, unpractical doctor. It was splendid of you to give
him all that money. But wouldn't it have been fun if he could have
come over, instead of her going to him? Maybe, if it had turned out
so, you would be in the Highlands now.
Do you remember how I used to say that _my_ tour under the heather
moon would soon be over, but you would be going on just as if we
had never met? Well, it has turned out quite differently, hasn't
it, for both of us? Only the heather moon is the same. But I never
talk of her now that you are gone.
I don't want you to think I am ungrateful to _any one_, if I sign
myself, Your rather homesick little 'princess,'
BARRIE.
P.S.--It does not seem right to have crossed over the borderline
into our Highlands without you!
LETTER FROM BARRIE TO HER MOTHER
DEAREST,DARLING BARBARA: Can it really be that it won't
bother you to have me write to you often and tell you everything
interesting that happens? You see, I might think it interesting,
and you might think it a bore. I know you are easily bored, dear,
so I am not quite sure what I ought to write. I can only tell you
about seeing places, because that is all we do. But they are so
beautiful, perhaps you may like to hear. If I write about the wrong
things, do promise that you'll speak out and tell me to stop. I
won't let my feelings be hurt.
Basil is trying to show me as much of Scotland as he possibly can,
he says, before I 'get tired of him and Blunderbore.' That is a bad
way to put it, and so I have told him, because I should be horribly
ungrateful to tire of him. But he says he dislikes gratitude and
thinks it an overestimated virtue.
I suppose you have often been in Scotland before, and you are not
Scottish yourself, so perhaps you can't quite feel as I do about
it. Basil, who has travelled so much, says that Scotland has in
miniature almost all the picked bits of scenery of other countries;
but they do not _appear_ to be in miniature when you're motoring
through them. They seem on an enormous scale; and each beauty spot
is different from every other. You can't help remembering and
keeping them apart in your mind, though there are so many that they
are crowded together, all over the map. I think of the map of
Scotland being purple, like heather, don't you? And if I have to
live anywhere else, I shall always be homesick for this country
now. If we are not in some fairy-like, green glen, we are in a wild
and awesome mountain pass; or else in a blue labyrinth of lochs; or
we come out upon endless, billowing moorlands; or suddenly we find
ourselves on a long road like an avenue in some great private park,
with the singing of a river in our ears.
Poor Basil sometimes feels ashamed of Blunderbore, and certainly
it _is_ different from travelling in Mr. Somerled's Gray Dragon.
With the Dragon, spirits of the wind used to rush out of forests to
meet and dash ozone in our faces. With Blunderbore, if they come at
all, they merely spray us lazily.
Going from Stirling to Crieff we crossed the borderline of the
Highlands. There was a park-like world round the Bridge of Allan:
and at Ardoch, the greatest Roman station left in Britain, lots of
turfed banks showing still where 26,000 Romans tried to bridle the
Northern Caledonians, the red-haired people. I'm glad they never
quite succeeded!
Crieff was sweet, and all round it, half hidden in woods, the most
beautiful houses. But Basil had forgotten to wire, so we couldn't
get into one of the nice hotels, but stayed in a very funny one.
When Mrs. Vanneck asked for communicating rooms, the landlady said,
'Oh, _no_, Madam, we've no such things as _that_ in _our_ house!'
We went on to Perth early next morning, and every minute along the
road we seemed to be passing happy people who'd come to play in
Scotland: nice golfing girls and men, and men with guns over their
shoulders, or followed by gillies with fishing-tackle. I wish men
could amuse themselves, though, don't you, without killing
creatures more beautiful and happy than themselves?
It was such a pretty road, past Methven, where, alas! the English
beat Bruce; and if I hadn't been grieved to find that by John
Knox's advice all the nicest buildings had been pulled down, I
shouldn't have felt disappointed in Perth. It is a very fine town
anyhow, with glorious trees; and the two great bridges over the Tay
are splendid if they _are_ made of iron. They look as if people had
planned them especially to give all the view there could be of the
sunset.
Of course the 'Fair Maid's' house was the most interesting thing.
I hope it really was hers. I don't see why not. It _is_ in the old
glover's quarter. And the shrine with the crucifix and death's head
and cross-bones they found hidden in the wall of her room is too
fascinating. I could just see her praying there, so beautiful that
all the young men of Perth were in love with her. And talking of
the young men of Perth, Basil says the ball in the Games Week is
supposed to be the best show of the year--such splendid men come. I
should love to see them in the kilt, with their brown knees, like
the pipers in Edinburgh.
St. Andrews was our next place, and we arrived the same day, for
we didn't stop in Perth after we had seen the sights there. I
wonder if you have been to St. Andrews? I know so little about you
yet, dearest. I fell in love with the place--not so much with the
links (though they must be the most beautiful as well as the most
famous in the world) as with that old ruined castle built on the
dark rocks rising out of the sea. I know I shall dream of the
awful, bottle-necked dungeon! Basil said it was the worst thing he
had ever seen except at Loches. I hope it isn't wicked to be
pleased that Cardinal Beaton, after he sat in his window to watch
Wishart burn, was soon killed, and salted, and preserved in the
same dungeon where he used to keep martyrs. The 'undergrads' of the
University looked so attractive in their red gowns, and the girl
students in their mortar boards! They were like scarlet birds,
against the gray walls and gray arches of the town. But I suppose
people in St. Andrews think even more about golf than about
learning, don't they? There were hundreds of all ages on the
links--so grave and eager: and at the hotels they _never_ know when
anybody will come in to meals. There's the cemetery, too; that
shows the importance of golf. All the 'smartest' monuments are of
famous golfers, knitted caps and clubs and everything, neatly done
in marble. But I wonder anybody ever contrives to die at St.
Andrews. I never felt such delicious air!
Crossing the ferry for Dundee was fun. It was a very big boat, and
several other motors on it as well as ours. We sat in Blunderbore
all the way across the wide sheet of silver that was the Tay,
gazing up at the marvellous giant bridge, and then we spent several
hours in Dundee, seeing the Steeple, and Queen Mary's Orchard, and
lots of things. This was so near the Round House that I suppose the
Vannecks would have gone if it hadn't been for me. But I am the
stumbling block in everybody's way.