"It was high spring, and, all the way
Primrosed and hung with shade...."
HENRY VAUGHAN.
"There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so
well as at a capital tavern.... No, Sir, there is nothing which has
yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as
by a good tavern or inn."--DR. JOHNSON.
Pamela and David between them carried the day, and a motor-car was
bought. It was not the small useful car talked about at first, but one
which had greatly taken the fancy of the Jardine family in the
showroom--a large landaulette of a well-known make, upholstered in
palest fawn, fitted with every newest device, very sumptuous and very
shiny.
They described it minutely to Pamela before she went with them to see it
and fix definitely.
"It runs beautifully," said David.
"It's about fifty horse-power," said Jock.
"And, Honourable," said Mhor, "it's got electric light inside, just like
a little house, and all sorts of lovely things--a clock and--"
"And, I suppose, hot and cold water laid on," said Pamela.
"The worst thing about it," Jean said, "is that it looks _horribly_
rich--big and fat and purring--just as if it were saying, 'Out of the
way, groundlings' You know what an insolent look big cars have."
"Your small deprecating face inside will take away from the effect,"
Pamela assured her; "and you need a comfortable car to tour about in.
When do you go exactly?"
"On the twentieth," Jean told her. "We take David first to Oxford, or
rather he takes us, for he understands maps and can find the road; then
we go on to Stratford. I wrote for rooms as you told me, and for seats
for the plays, and I have heard from the people that we can have both. I
do wish you were coming, Pamela--won't you think better of it?"
"My dear, I would love it--but it can't be done. I must go to London
this week. If we are to be married on first June there are simply
multitudes of things to arrange. But I'll tell you what, Jean. I shall
come to Stratford for a day or two when you are there. I shouldn't be a
bit surprised if Biddy were there too. If he happened to be in England
in April he always made a pilgrimage to the Shakespeare Festival.
Mintern Abbas isn't very far from Stratford, and Mintern Abbas in spring
is heavenly. _That's_ what we must arrange--a party at Mintern Abbas.
You would like that, wouldn't you, Jock?"
"Would Richard Plantagenet be there? I would like awfully to see him
again. It's been so dull without him."
Mhor asked if there were any railways near Mintern Abbas, and was
rather cast down when told that the nearest railway station was seven
miles distant. It amazed him that anyone should, of choice, live away
from railways. The skirl of an engine was sweeter to his ears than horns
of elf-land faintly blowing, and the dream of his life was to be allowed
to live in a small whitewashed shanty which he knew of, on the
railway-side, where he could spend ecstatic days watching every
"passenger" and every "goods" that rushed shrieking, or dawdled
shunting, along the permanent way. To him each different train had its
own features. "I think," he told Jean, "that the nine train is the most
good-natured of the trains; he doesn't care how many carriages and
horse-boxes they stick on to him. The twelve train has always a cross,
snorty look, but the five train"--his voice took the fondling note that
it held for Peter and Barrie, the cat--"that little five train goes much
the fastest; he's the hero of the day!"
Pamela's engagement to Lewis Elliot had made, what Mrs. M'Cosh called,
"a great speak" in Priorsford. On the whole, it was felt that she had
done well for herself. The Elliots were an old and honoured family, and
the present laird, though shy and retiring, was much liked by his
tenants, and respected by everyone. Pamela had made herself very popular
in Priorsford, and people were pleased that she should remain as lady of
Laverlaw.
"Ay," said Mrs. M'Cosh, "he's waited lang, but he's waled weel in the
end. He's gotten a braw leddy, and she'll no' be as flighty as a young
yin, for Mr. Elliot likes quiet ways. An' then she has plenty siller,
an' that's a help. A rale sensible marriage!"
Bella Bathgate agreed. "It'll mak' a big differ at Laverlaw," she said,
"for she's the kind o' body that makes hersel' felt in a hoose. I didna
want her at Hillview wi' a' her trunks and her maid and her fal-lals an'
her fykey ways, but, d'ye ken, I'll miss her something horrid. She was
an awfu' miss in the hoose when she was awa' at Christmas-time; I was
fair kinna lost wi'out her. It'll be rale nice for Maister Elliot havin'
her aye there. It's mebbe a wakeness on ma pairt, but I whiles mak'
messages into the room juist to see her sittin' pittin' stitches into
that embroidery, as they ca' it, an' hear her gie that little lauch o'
hers! She has me fair bewitched. There's a kinna _glawmour_ aboot her.
An' I tell ye I culdna stand her by onything at the first.... I even
think her bonnie noo--an' she's no' that auld. I saw a pictur in a paper
the ither day of a new-mairit couple, an' _baith o' them had the
auld-age pension._"
Jean looked on rather wistfully at her friend's happiness. She was most
sincerely glad that the wooing--so long delayed--should end like an old
play and Jack have his Jill, but it seemed to add to the empty feeling
in her own heart. Pamela's casual remark about her brother perhaps being
at Stratford had filled her for the moment with wild joy, but hearts
after leaps ache, and she had quickly reminded herself that Richard
Plantagenet had most evidently accepted the refusal as final and would
never be anything more to her than Pamela's brother. It was quite as it
should be, but life in spite of April and a motor-car was, what Mhor
called a minister's life, "a dullsome job."
That year spring came, not reluctantly, as it often does in the uplands,
but generously, lavishly, scattering buds and leaves and flowers and
lambs, and putting a spirit of youth into everything. The days were as
warm as June, and fresh as only April days can be. The Jardines
anxiously watched the sun-filled days pass, wishing they had arranged to
go earlier, fearful lest they should miss all the good weather. It
seemed impossible that it could go on being so wonderful, but day
followed day in golden succession and there was no sign of a break.
David spent most of his days at the depôt that held the car, there being
no garage at The Rigs, and Jock and Mhor worshipped with him. A
chauffeur had been engaged, one Stark, a Priorsford youth, a steady
young man and an excellent driver. He had never been farther than
Edinburgh.
The 20th came at last. Jock and Mhor were up at an unearthly hour,
parading the house, banging at Mrs. M'Cosh's door, and imploring her to
rise in case breakfast was late, and thumping the barometer to see if it
showed any inclination to fall. The car was ordered for nine o'clock,
but they were down the road looking for it at least half an hour before
it was due, feverishly anxious in case something had happened either to
it or to Stark.
The road before The Rigs was quite crowded that April morning. Mrs.
M'Cosh stood at the gate beside the dancing daffodils and the tulips and
the opening wallflowers in the border, her hands folded on her spotless
white apron, her face beaming with its accustomed kind smile, and
watched her family depart.
"Keep a haud o' Peter, Mhor," she cautioned. "Ye needna come back here
if ye lose him." The safety of the rest of the party did not seem to
concern her.
Mr. and Mrs. Jowett were there, having breakfasted an hour earlier than
usual, thus risking the wrath of their cherished domestics. Mrs. Jowett
was carrying a large box of chocolates as a parting gift to the boys,
while Mr. Jowett had a bottle of lavender water for Jean.
Augusta Hope had walked up from Hopetoun with her mother's love to the
travellers, a basket of fruit for the boys, and a book for Jean.
The little Miss Watsons hopped forth from their dwelling with an
offering of a home-baked cake, "just in case you get hungry on the road,
you know."
Bella Bathgate was there, looking very saturnine, and counselling Mhor
as to his behaviour. "Dinna lean oot o' the caur. Mony a body has lost
their heid stickin' it oot of a caur. Here's some tea-biscuits for
Peter. You'll be ower prood for onything but curranty-cake, I suppose."
Mhor assured her he was not, and gratefully accepted the biscuits.
"Isn't it fun Peter's going? I couldn't have gone either if he hadn't
been allowed, but I expect I'll have to hold him in my arms a lot.
He'll want to jump out at dogs."
And Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald were there--Mrs. Macdonald absolutely weighed
down with gifts. "It's just a trifle for each of you," she explained.
"No, no, don't thank me; it's nothing."
"I've brought you nothing but my blessing, Jean," the minister said.
"You'll never be better than I wish you."
"Don't talk as if I were going away for good," said Jean, with a lump in
her throat. "It's only a little holiday."
"Who can tell?" sighed Mrs. Macdonald. "It's an uncertain world. But
we'll hope that you'll come back to us, Jean. Are you sure you are
warmly clad? Remember it's only April, and the evenings are cold."
David packed Jean, Jock, and Mhor into the car. Peter was poised on one
of the seats that let down, a cushion under him to protect the pale fawn
cloth from his paws. All the presents found places, the luggage was put
on the top, Stark took his seat, David, his coat pocket bulging with
maps, got in beside him; and amid a chorus of good-byes they were off.
Jean, looking back rather wistfully at The Rigs, got a last sight of
Mrs. M'Cosh shaking her head dubiously at the departing car.
One of the best things in life is to start on a spring morning for a
holiday. To Jock and Mhor at least life seemed a very perfect thing as
the car slid down the hill, over Tweed Bridge, over Cuddy Bridge, and
turned sharp to the left up the Old Town. Soon they were out of the
little grey town that looked so clean and fresh with its shining morning
face, and running through the deep woods above Peel Tower. Small
children creeping unwillingly to school stopped to watch them, and Mhor
looked at them pityingly. School seemed a thing so far removed from his
present happy state as not to be worth remembering. Somewhere,
doubtless, unhappy little people were learning the multiplication table,
and struggling with the spelling of uncouth words, but Mhor, sitting in
state in "Wilfred the Gazelle" (for so David had christened the new
car), could only spare them a passing thought.
He looked at Peter sitting self-consciously virtuous on the seat
opposite, he leaned across Jean to send a glance of profound
satisfaction to Jock, then he raked from his pocket a cake of
butter-scotch and sank back in his seat to crunch in comfort.
They followed Tweed as it ran by wood and field and hamlet, and as they
reached the moorlands of the upper reaches Jean began to notice that
Wilfred the Gazelle was not running as smoothly as usual. Perhaps it was
imagination, Jean thought, or perhaps it was the effect of having
luggage on the top, but in her inmost heart she knew it was more than
that, and she was not surprised.
Jean was filled with a deep-seated distrust of motors. She felt that
every motor was just waiting its chance to do its owner harm. She had
started with no real hope of reaching any destination, and expected
nothing less than to spend the night camping inside the car in some
lonely spot. She had all provisions made for such an occurrence.
Jock said suddenly, "We're not going more than ten miles an hour," and
then the car stopped altogether and David and Stark got down. Jean
leaned out and asked what was wrong, and David said shortly that there
was nothing wrong.
Presently he and Stark got back into their places and the car was
started again. But it went slowly, haltingly, like a bird with a broken
wing. They made up on a man driving a brown horse in a wagonette--a man
with a brown beard and a cheerful eye--and passed him.
The car stopped again.
Again David and Stark got out and stared and poked and consulted
together. Again Jean's head went out, and again she received the same
short and unsatisfactory answer.
The brown-bearded man and his wagonette made up on them, looked at the
car in an interested way, and passed on.
Again the car started, passed the wagonette, and went on for about a
mile and stopped.
Again Jean's head went out.
"David," she said, "what _is_ the matter?" and it goes far to show how
harassed that polished Oxonian was when he replied, "If you don't take
your face out of that I'll slap it."
Jean withdrew at once, feeling that she had been tactless and David had
been unnecessarily rude--David who had never been rude to her since they
were children, and had told each other home-truths without heat and
without ill-feeling on either side. If this was to be the effect of
owning a car--
"Wilfred the Gazelle's dead," said Mhor, and got out, followed by Jock,
and in a minute or two by Jean.
They all sat down in the heather by the road-side.
Dead car nowithstanding, it was delicious sitting there in the spring
sunshine. Tweed was nearing its source and was now only a trickling
burn. A lark was singing high up in the blue. The air was like new wine.
The lambs were very young, for spring comes slowly up that way, and one
tottering little fellow was found by Mhor, and carried rapturously to
Jean.
"Take it; it's just born," he said. "Jock, hold Peter tight in case he
bites them."
"Did you ever see anything quite so new?" Jean said as she stroked the
little head, "and yet so independent? Sheep are far before mortals. Its
eyes look so perplexed, Mhor. It's quite strange to the world and
doesn't know what to make of it. That's its mother over there. Take it
to her; she's crying for it."
David came up and stood looking gloomily at the lamb. Perhaps he envied
it being so young and careless and motor-less.
"Stark's busy with the car," he announced, rather needlessly, as the
fact was apparent to all. "I'm dashed if I know what's the matter with
the old bus.... Here's that man again...."
Jean burst into helpless laughter as the wagonette again overtook them.
The driver flourished his whip and the horse broke into a canter--it
looked like derision.
There was a long silence--then Jean said:
"If it won't go, it's too big to move. We shall have to train ivy on it
and make it a feature of the landscape."
"Or else," said David, savagely and irreverently--"or else hew it in
pieces before the Lord."
Stark got up and straightened himself, wiped his hands and his forehead,
and came up to David.
"I've found out what's wrong," he said. "She'll manage to Moffat, but
we'll have to get her put right there. It's...." He went into technical
details incomprehensible to Jean.
They got back into the car and it sprang away as if suddenly endowed
with new life. In a trice they had passed the wagonette, leaving it in a
whirl of scornful dust. They ate the miles as a giant devours sheep.
They passed the Devil's Beef Tub--Jock would have liked to tarry there
and investigate, but Jean dared not ask Stark to stop in case they could
not start again--and soon went sliding down the hill to Moffat. Hot
puffs of scented air rose from the valley, they had left the moorlands
and the winds, and the town was holding out arms to welcome them. They
drove along the sunny, sleepy, midday High Street and stopped at a
hotel.
Except David, no member of the Jardine family had ever been inside a
hotel, and it was quite an adventure for them to go up the steps from
the street, enter the swinging doors, and ask a polite woman with
elaborately done hair if they might have luncheon. Yes, they might, and
Peter, at present held tightly in Mhor's arms, could be fed in the
kitchen if that would suit.
Stark had meantime taken the car to a motor-repairing place.
It was half-past three before the car came swooping up to the hotel
doors. Jean gazed at it with a sort of fearful pride. It looked very
well if only it didn't play them false. Stark, too, looked well--a fine,
impassive figure.
"Will it be all right, Stark?" she ventured to inquire, but Stark, who
rarely committed himself, merely said, "Mebbe."
Stark had no manners, Jean reflected, but he had a nice face and was a
teetotaller, and one can't have everything.
To Mhor's joy the road now ran for a bit by the side of the railway line
where thundered great express trains such as there never were in
Priorsford. They were spinning along the fine level road, making up for
lost time, when a sharp report startled them and made Mhor, who was
watching a train, lose his balance and fall forward on to Peter, who was
taking a sleep on the rug at their feet.
It was a tyre gone, and there was no time to mend it if they were to be
at Carlisle in time for tea. Stark put on the spare wheel and they
started again.
Fortune seemed to have got tired of persecuting them, and there were no
further mishaps. They ran without a pause through village after village,
snatching glimpses of lovely places where they would fain have
lingered, forgetting them as each place offered new beauties.
The great excitement to Jock and Mhor was the crossing of the Border.
"I did it once," said Mhor, "when I came from India, but I didn't notice
it."
"Rather not," said Jock; "you were only two. I was four, wasn't I, Jean?
when I came from India, and I didn't notice it."
"Is there a line across the road?" Mhor asked. "And do the people speak
Scots on one side and English on the other? I suppose we'll go over with
a bump."
"There's nothing to show," Jock told him, "but there's a difference in
the air. It's warmer in England."
"It's very uninterested of Peter to go on sleeping," Mhor said in a
disgusted tone. "You would think he would feel there was something
happening. And he's a Scots dog, too."
The Border was safely crossed, and Jock professed to notice at once a
striking difference in air and landscape.
"There's an English feel about things now," he insisted, sniffing and
looking all round him; "and I hear the English voices.... Mhor, this is
how the Scots came over to fight the English, only at night and on
horseback--into Carlisle Castle."
"And I was English," said Mhor dreamily, "and I had a big black horse
and I pranced on the Castle wall and killed everyone that came."
"You needn't boast about being English," Jock said, looking at Mhor
coldly. "I don't blame you, for you can't help it, but it's a pity."
Mhor's face got very pink and there was a tremble in his voice, though
he said in a bragging tone, "I'm glad I'm English. The English are as
brave as--as--"
"Of course they are," said Jean, holding Mhor's hand tight under the
rug. She knew how it hurt him to be, even for a moment, at variance with
Jock, his idol. "Mhor has every right to be proud of being English,
Jock. His father was a soldier and he has ancestors who were great
fighting men. And you know very well that it doesn't matter what side
you belong to so long as you are loyal to that side. You two would have
had some great fights if you had lived a few hundred years ago."
"Yes," said Mhor. "I'd have killed a great many Scots--but not Jock."
"Ho," said Jock, "a great many Scots would have killed you first."
"Well, it's all past," said Jean; "and England and Scotland are one and
fight together now. This is Carlisle. Not much romance about it now, is
there? We're going to the Station Hotel for tea, so you will see the
train, Mhor, old man."
"Mhor," said Jock, "that's one thing you would have missed if you'd
lived long ago--trains."
The car had to have a tyre repaired and that took some time, so after
tea the Jardines stood in the station and watched trains for what was,
to Mhor at least, a blissful hour. It was thrilling to stand in the
half-light of the big station and see great trains come in, and the
passengers jump out and tramp about the platform and buy books and
papers from the bookstall, or fruit, or chocolate, or tea and buns from
the boys in uniform, who went about crying their wares. And then the
wild scurrying of the passengers--like hens before a motor, Jock
said--when the flag was waved and the train about to start. Mhor hoped
fervently, and a little unkindly, that at least one might be left
behind, but they all got in, though with some it was the last second of
the eleventh hour. There seemed to be hundreds of porters wheeling
luggage on trolleys, guards walked about looking splendid fellows, and
Mhor's eyes as he beheld them were the eyes of a lover on his mistress.
He could hardly be torn away when David came to say that Stark was
waiting with the car and that they could not hope to get farther than
Penrith that night.
The dusk was falling and the vesper-bell ringing as they drove into the
town and stopped before a very comfortable-looking inn.
It was past Mhor's bedtime, and it seemed to that youth a fit ending for
the most exciting day of his whole seven years of life, to sit up and
partake of mutton chops and apple-tart at an hour when he should have
been sound asleep.
He saw Peter safely away in charge of a sympathetic "boots" before he
and Jock ascended to a bedroom with three small windows in the most
unexpected places, a bright, cheery paper, and two small white beds.
Next morning the sun peeped in at all the odd-shaped windows on the two
boys sprawled over their beds in the attitudes in which they said they
best enjoyed slumber.
It was another crystal-clear morning, with mist in the hollows and the
hilltops sharp against the sky. When Stark, taciturn as ever, came to
the door at nine o'clock, he found his party impatiently awaiting him on
the doorstep, eager for another day of new roads and fresh scenes.
Jean asked him laughingly if Wilfred the Gazelle would live up to its
name this run, but Stark received the pleasantry coldly, having no use
for archness in any form.
It was wonderful to rush through the morning air still sharp from a
touch of frost in the night, ascending higher and higher into the hills.
Mhor sang to himself in sheer joy of heart, and though no one knew what
were the words he sang, and Jock thought poorly of the tune, Peter
snuggled up to him and seemed to understand and like it.
The day grew hot and dusty as they ran down from the Lake district, and
they were glad to have their lunch beside a noisy little burn in a green
meadow, from the well-stocked luncheon-basket provided by the Penrith
inn. Then they dipped into the black country, where tall chimneys
belched out smoke, and car-lines ran along the streets, and pale-faced,
hurrying people looked enviously at the big car with its load of youth
and good looks. Everything was grim and dirty and spoiled. Mhor looked
at the grimy place and said solemnly:
"It reminds me of hell."
"Haw, haw!" laughed Jock. "When did you see hell last?"
"In the _Pilgrim's Progress_," said Mhor.
One of the black towns provided tea in a café which purported to be
Japanese, but the only things about it that recalled that sunny island
overseas were the paper napkins, the china, and two fans nailed on the
wall; the linoleum-covered floor, the hard wooden chairs, the fly-blown
buns being peculiarly and bleakly British.
Before evening the grim country was left behind. In the soft April
twilight they crossed wide moorlands (which Jock was inclined to resent
as being "too Scots to be English") until, as it was beginning to get
dark, they slid softly into Shrewsbury.
The next day was as fine as ever. "Really," said Jean, as they strolled
before breakfast, watching the shops being opened and studying the old
timbered houses, "it's getting almost absurd: like Father's story of the
soldier who greeted his master every morning in India with 'Another hot
day, sirr.' We thought if we got one good day out of the three we were
to be on the road we wouldn't grumble, and here it goes on and on.... We
must come back to Shrewsbury, Davie. It deserves more than just to be
slept in...."
"Aren't English breakfasts the best you ever tasted?" David asked as
they sat down to rashers of home-cured ham, corpulent brown sausages,
and eggs poached to a nicety.
So far David had made an excellent guide. They had never once diverged
from the road they meant to take, but this third day of the run turned
out to be somewhat confused. They started off almost at once on the
wrong road and found themselves riding up a deep green lane into a
farmyard. Out again on the highway David found the number of cross-roads
terribly perplexing. Once he urged Stark to ask directions from a
cottage. Stark did so and leapt back into his seat.
"Which road do we take?" David asked, as five offered themselves.
"Didna catch what they said," Stark remarked as he chose a road at
random.
"Didna catch it," was Stark's favourite response to everything. Later on
they came to the top of a steep hill ornamented by an enormous
warning-post with this alarming notice--"Cyclists dismount. Many
accidents. Some fatal." Stark went on unconcernedly, and Jean shouted at
him, holding desperately to the side of the car, as if her feeble
strength would help the brakes. "Stark! Stark! Didn't you see that
placard?"
"Didna catch it," said Stark, as he swung light-heartedly down an almost
perpendicular hill into the valley of the Severn.
"I do think Stark's a fool," said Jean bitterly, wrathful in the
reaction from her fright. "He does no damage on the road, and of course
I'm glad of that. I've seen him stop dead for a hen, and the wayfaring
man, though a fool, is safe from him; but he cares nothing for what
happens to the poor wretched people _inside_ the car. As nearly as
possible he had us over the parapet of that bridge."
And later, when they found from the bill at lunch-time that Stark's
luncheon had consisted of "one mineral," she thought that the way he had
risked all their lives must have taken away his appetite.
The car ran splendidly that day--David said it was getting into its
stride--and they got to Oxford for tea and had time to go and see
David's rooms before they left for Stratford. But David would let them
see nothing else. "No," he said; "it would be a shame to hurry over your
first sight. You must come here after Stratford. I'll take rooms for you
at the Mitre. I want to show you Oxford on a May morning."
It was quite dark when they reached Stratford. To Jean it seemed strange
and delicious thus to enter Shakespeare's own town, the Avon a-glimmer
under the moon, the kingcups and the daisies asleep in the meadows.
The lights of the Shakespeare Hotel shone cheerily as they came forward.
A "boots" with a wrinkled, whimsical face came out to help them in.
Shaded lights and fires (for the evenings were chilly) made a bright
welcome, and they were led across the stone-paved hall with its oaken
rafters, gate-legged tables, and bowls of spring flowers, up a steep
little staircase hung with old prints of the plays, down winding
passages to the rooms allotted to them. Jean looked eagerly at the name
on her door.
"Hurrah! I've got 'Rosalind.' I wanted her most of all."
Jock and Mhor had a room with two beds, rather incongruously called
"Anthony and Cleopatra." Jock was inclined to be affronted, and said it
was a silly-looking thing to put him in a room called after such an
amorous couple. If it had been Touchstone or Mercutio, or even Shylock,
he would not have minded, but the pilgrims of love got scant sympathy
from that sturdy misogynist.