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 éclair 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

desperately want to find out what everything means? I do. But I suppose

you know everything by now. Well, I began to read without being so very

much interested. Then, suddenly, my mind seemed to wake up. It was a

wonderful feeling, just as if I stood near to a man who was playing

marvellous and startling music on the grandest organ ever made. And the

man who played could sing too. He sang in a voice sometimes harsh and

sometimes sweet. It seemed to me as I read the book that it was humorous

and sad, tender and stern at the same time. And till the very end I was

carried along on the wave of that organ music, which had in it always a

thrill of the divine. I never found any other book in the library that

made me feel exactly like that, except Shakespeare--and Grandma had all

the Shakespeare volumes carted off to the garret after she came in one

day when I was eleven, and found me reading 'Macbeth.' As for the

picture of Carlyle, it shows him, sitting in a chair, with a look on his

face of a sad man alone in a gray world."

"Whistler's portrait! You shall have all Carlyle's works and

Shakespeare's for your own. I'll give them to you," said Sir Somerled,

looking at me with an interested look, as if suddenly he liked me better

than he had before.

"Oh, you _are_ good, and I should love to have them," I said. "But now

there'll be my mother I shall have to ask permission of for everything.

I must do just what she wants me to do, for I shall die if she doesn't

love me."

"Yes. I'd forgotten," said he.

"I hadn't, for a minute," I answered. "But I suppose, as mother is a

great actress, she loves Shakespeare and has all his works; and perhaps

she has Carlyle, too, in her library."

"Perhaps," he echoed.

"Don't you like her?" I asked. "You always look odd, and speak in a

short, snappy way when I talk of my mother."

"I like and admire her immensely," he answered, in that remote tone

which tries to frighten me, and does almost--but not quite. "All the

same, I don't think you'll find Carlyle in her library, so you'll have

to let me give him to you. But meanwhile, you shall learn to understand

him better by seeing the little village where he was born, and the house

his father the stonemason built."

So we started off in the car, going back to the highway and along a road

which perhaps would not have seemed extraordinary if it hadn't been made

surpassingly beautiful by men who lit the path of history with a shining

light. I had a gay, irresponsible feeling, sitting beside Sir S. on the

springy front seat of the luxurious motor-car, as if I were a neat

little parcel clearly addressed to my destination, and going there

safely by registered post. By this time even Mrs. James had ceased to

"bite her heart" when she saw another motor dashing toward us, or a man

sauntering across the road and filling the whole horizon. The car is so

singularly intelligent that you feel it is a friend, too kind-hearted

and chivalrous a creature to let anything bad happen. Of course, about

every ten minutes something _almost_ happens, but that is invariably the

fault of other people's cars. You dash up to the mouth of a cross-road

which you couldn't possibly have seen, because it is subtly disguised as

a clump of trees or a flowery knoll; and you discover its true identity

only because another motor--a blundering brute of a motor--bursts out at

fifty miles an hour in front of your nose. If you'd reached that point

an instant later, your own virtuous automobile and the wretch that isn't

yours would certainly have telescoped, and you'd have been sitting in

the nearest tree with your head in your lap. But already I begin to

notice that you may pretty well count on reaching the danger point

(produced by alien autos) at precisely the right instant, never the

wrong one, and this gives you a beautiful confidence in your luck and

your driver: although the real secret must lie in the acuteness of your

guardian angel or patron saint. Vedder, who when young was a champion

boxer, is very superstitious, and Mr. Somerled allows him a large gold

medal of St. Christopher on the dashboard. St. Christopher, it seems,

has undertaken the spiritual care of motor-cars, and as by this time he

has millions under his guidance, his plans for keeping them out of each

other's way must be as complicated as the traffic arrangements of a

railway superintendent. When I contrasted the angelic behaviour of our

car with the appalling perversity of other people's, Sir S. burst out

laughing, and said that evidently I was born with the motor instinct:

that he'd seen women who took days or weeks learning these great truths,

whereas I came by them naturally. "It's remarkable what a lot of

valuable knowledge can be picked up by an enterprising princess in a

glass retort, when the dragon isn't looking!" said he.

"Princesses in glass retorts are perhaps forced to learn lessons tabooed

by dragons," I replied to this; "so if I know things or have thought

things that every other girl doesn't think or know, it's because they

were forbidden fruit. They were my only fun."

"They've made you a splendid little 'pal,' if you know what that means,"

said he. "I'm not sure the glass-retort system hasn't some advantages

for the bringing up of women. The proverb is that truth lies at the

bottom of a well. I begin to think it may be looked for in glass retorts

in the land of dragons."

"You mean that I'm truthful?" I asked.

"Yes. I'm inclined to believe, up to date, that you've remained as

transparent as the glass of your late prison."

"What makes you think so?" I wanted to know.

"Observation--partly. And the way you talk to me."

"What way?"

"Well--that's a knotty question. I can hardly explain, but----"

"I wonder," I began to think out aloud, "whether you mean that I say

what comes into my mind without being afraid you mayn't like it?"

"Er--um--perhaps that covers a good deal of the ground. But what put the

idea into your head? Why should you be afraid of me?"

"I'm not. Only--I've thought that it would be more respectful if I were.

You are so celebrated, you see. That's the first thing I heard about

you--I mean, about your being such a famous artist. I heard you were

rich too, but of course that didn't interest me so much."

"No? That proves the benefit of the glass-retort system."

"Why--how, please?"

"Because princesses who haven't been bottled up in them, but have lived

in the lap of luxury--and in the laps of luxurious mothers--understand

the value of money, and consider men famed for their millions worth a

dozen who've wrapped themselves up in a few rags of some lesser kind of

fame."

"You call being a great artist a lesser kind of fame?"

"I didn't once. But since I've got into the money-making habit, I've

accepted the world's opinion."

"Pooh!" said I rudely. "I don't believe you have, because the first

minute I saw you, I felt sure you were a _real_ man. That's why I just

had to speak to you in the station, instead of one of the others. I

knew--by instinct, I suppose, as you say I know about motors. Think of

the glory of being able to _create_ beautiful things!"

"Think of being able to buy them! Jewels and castles and yachts, and all

sorts of things that women love. Motor-cars for instance."

"You could buy motor-cars with money you earned by painting pictures,

couldn't you?"

"Yes; but not castles or yachts: and not enough jewels to please

princesses who haven't spent eighteen years in a glass retort."

"Well," I said, "I may be no judge, but I think jewels and castles would

be a bother, and I should be seasick in yachts. Give me a man who brings

beautiful things out of his soul, not out of his pockets. You're very

nice now; but you must have been much nicer before you buried your

talents under the shields and bracelets you told me about. Even I know

what you mean by them--and what happened to Tarpeia."

"_Even_ you! I begin to think you were born knowing about a good many

things besides motor-cars. And you are entirely right. I was much nicer

before I began to collect the shields and bracelets."

"Can't you give a lot of them away, and do what I said--go back to the

time before you bargained for them?"

"You don't understand how difficult it is to go back."

"But you are back--in Scotland."

"You're right. Now's my one chance to return to my youth and ideals.

Bright little Princess, thank you for polishing up the dulled surface of

my soul."

"It's only the surface that needs polishing," said I. "The inside part

is shining, even when the outside looks dim. But I'm afraid you're

making fun of me?"

"I was never more in earnest. I'm crossing more than one border with you

to-day."

"Borders you like crossing?"

"Great heavens, yes!"

"I'm glad of that," said I, in a self-satisfied way, "for then you won't

miss Mrs. West so much."

"Miss Mrs. West? Good Lord, I'd forgotten her!"

"That's very ungrateful and horrid of you, then," I scolded him,

"because you and she were friends, and she knows how to be perfectly

charming."

"Yes. She knows how."

"She knows just what to do and say."

"Yes. She's an agreeable--and experienced--woman."

"And if it hadn't been for me, she'd be sitting by you now."

"I have little doubt of that."

"And you would have been happy."

"I should have been contented. There's a big difference between

contentment and happiness. You can't have learned it, yet."

"Oh, can't I! It's all the difference between--between--well, the

difference between this borderland seen on a dark day and seen on a day

of sunshine. It's the same landscape, but it doesn't look the same to

the eyes or give the same feelings to the heart. The dark-day feelings

would be calm and quietly pleasant; the sunshine feelings would be full

of thrills and heartbeats--as to-day."

"By Jove, you've hit it!" he exclaimed as if to please me by agreeing.

"Full of thrills and heartbeats--as to-day."

"Then you _do_ feel the romance of everything in this sunshine?" I

asked, quick to drag a "yes" from him while he was in the mood.

"I should say I did. And I'm not ashamed, with you to back me up. But

I've a sneaking idea I should have been ashamed of it with Mrs. West.

And I shouldn't have felt the thrills, only a calm, peaceful pleasure,

as in the gray days--contentment. I shouldn't have known what I was

missing, perhaps. I should have respected myself for outgrowing my

enthusiasms. But--in my best moments, Princess, I've pitied people more

for not knowing what they miss in life than for missing the things."

"Yes," I answered, "because it's better to know there are beautiful

things, and to want them in vain, than grub along without knowing of

their existence. But all that's got nothing to do with Mrs. West."

"Perhaps not. Yet it has something to do with me. No need to bother

about the connection."

"I won't bother about anything!" I laughed in my joy of life and of

motoring, which seemed one and indivisible just then. "I'm wrapped up in

the magic golden web that Sir Walter Scott and Burns have woven round

every mile of this land across the border--_our_ land, yours and mine."

"So am I, caught in the web, lost in it--to my own surprise." He laughed

as he drove, his eyes alert and young. "Burns, by the way, came to

Ecclefechan, where we're arriving now. He had an uproarious time, and

wrote verses to the Lass of Ecclefechan, which shows the place must have

been a good deal livelier then than now. Or else, which is as likely, he

had a faculty of squeezing the juice out of the driest, most unpromising

fruit--the same faculty you have."

"Perhaps the fruit dried up later," I suggested. "Burns died soon after

Carlyle was born, didn't he? And maybe people began to be primmer when

they were forgetting his influence."

"No. Those of us Scots who were meant to be dour were always dour," Sir.

S argued, "since the days of John Knox, and long before. It was partly

climate--partly persecution. Both agreed with our constitutions. But

look, here's the little house where one of the greatest geniuses who

ever saw the light in Scotland first opened his eyes. I dare say he

didn't get much light--but he spent most of his life in giving it to

other people, out of his own gloom. Wouldn't Burns have been interested,

passing that house (as he must have, in the 'uproarious time' at

Ecclefechan), if his prophetic soul had said, 'Here, in this little

dwelling as humble as your own birthplace, will be born a man as great

as you--and one of your keenest critics?'"

I didn't answer, because no answer was needed, and because we were both

gazing hard at a small, whitewashed, double house made into one by an

archway joining the two parts together. Coming from Gretna Green it was

on our left in the midst of a gray and white village which would have

looked commonplace if it had not been framed by an immense sky. It was

as if this vast blue crystal case had been set down over Carlyle's

birthplace to protect and mark it out from other places. There was the

narrow, high-banked brook--"the gentle Kuhbach kindly gushing by" (as

Sir S. quoted)--which had made music in Carlyle's childish ears, to echo

through them all his life. Perhaps he paddled in the brook on hot summer

days, just as little boys were paddling when our Gray Dragon suddenly

broke the respectable silence of Ecclefechan; and I know that he must

have seen stormy sun-rises and fiery sunsets reflected in it as in a

mirror, just as the Lady of Shalott saw all the things that really

mattered passing in her looking-glass.

It is the kind of village, and the gray or whitewashed houses with their

red door-sills are the kind of houses, where you would say, rushing

through in a motor, "Nothing can possibly happen." Yet Carlyle happened;

and he was an event for the whole world, which now makes pilgrimages to

his birthplace. And I think that when his memory travelled back to

Ecclefechan, he would not have changed it for a garden of palaces and

flowers and fountains. Even the wee bairns playing in the road where

Carlyle played, knew why we stopped our car. They pointed out the

Carlyle house, gazing at us in solemn pity because we were poor

tourist-bodies, who couldna bide the rest of our lives in the best

village in a' the wurlld.

For my part, I pitied them, because their feet were bare, whereas the

poorest children in my native Carlisle have wonderfully nice shoes,

bound in brass. But all the Scot--and perhaps the crofter--rose in Sir

S. when I mourned over the little dusty feet. "Do you think they go

barefoot because they've no shoes?" he asked. "You're wrong. You don't

know your own country-folk yet. They've as good shoes as those Carlisle

kids, and better, maybe. It's because they don't like the feel of the

shoes when they play, and they're saving them for Sundays. I did the

same myself. Not a pair of shoes did I have on my feet, except on the

Sabbath day, till I was turned eleven."

It seemed to me that suddenly he had quite a Scotch burr in his voice,

and I did like him for it!

An apple-cheeked old body opened the door. On it was a brass plate which

would have told us, if we hadn't known already, that in this house

Thomas Carlyle was born. Remembering what he grew to be and to mean in

the big world, the three tiny rooms and the few simple relics were a

thousand times more pathetic than if we'd been led through apartment

after apartment of a palace, seeing christening cups and things under

glass cases. They did not seem sad to me, only a little dour in a

wholesome way, as porridge is dour compared to plum-cake. But the

cemetery which we went to after we had seen the house made me want to

cry. I didn't like to think that, coming back here to sleep after all

those many years, Carlyle had not his wife to rest beside him. Lying

with his ain folk behind grim iron railings couldn't have consoled him

for her absence. This is the only graveyard I ever saw except the one

where my father is buried; and somehow, it doesn't seem respectful to

the dead to go and criticise their graves, unless you are their friends,

bringing them flowers--pansies for thoughts and rosemary for

remembrance. It's like walking into people's houses and opening their

doors to look at them in bed when they're asleep, and can't resent your

intrusion, though they would hate it if they knew. I said this to Sir

S., and he partly agreed with me on principle; but he warned me that

there are cemeteries I must visit in Scotland unless I want to miss the

last volumes of several interesting human documents. I don't know

exactly what a human document is; still, I suppose I shall go to the

graveyards for the sake of finding out what he means.

He spoke as if I were likely to go to these places with him, and said

that he would enjoy showing me Carlyle's house in Chelsea, which is

"more full of the man's heart and soul than Ecclefechan is." But, of

course, he said this without stopping to think. He will go back to

America and forget the forlorn little princess he happened to rescue

from a neighbouring dragon. Yet never mind, I shan't be forlorn after

this! I shall have my mother, and mothers are more important to

princesses than the most glittering knights. I shall, of course, travel

about with her wherever she goes, so I can never be lonely or sad. I

ought to be even more impatient than I am for the day to come when she

is due in Edinburgh, and I can surprise her there: but I suppose, having

lived without her so long, it is difficult to realize that I'm actually

to see her at last. However, I think of her every minute--or perhaps

every other minute; and I haven't fully realized until to-day how much

there is for which I have to thank her: the gayety and hopefulness she

must have kept in her heart, and handed down to me. Without gayety and

hopefulness neither of us would have dared or cared to run away from

Hillard House.

I think, far-fetched as it seems, it was seeing Carlyle's birthplace,

and feeling the influence of his parents upon him, which made me

understand. Great genius as he was, I wonder if he might not have been

even greater if his mother or father had taught him that it was right to

be happy and wrong to be sad? Sir S. says that Jenny his wife could have

taught him all that, if he had chosen to learn; but he was grown up

then, and so it was too late. The sunshine must be in your blood when

you are a child, and then no shadows can ever quite darken the gold--or

at least, that is the thought which has come into my mind to-day.

It was the right thing to turn southward off the Glasgow highway after

Ecclefechan, to go to Annan and see the place where Carlyle got his

schooling. The Gray Dragon, travelling slowly (for it, or "her," as Sir

S. and Vedder always say), came to the end of the journey in a few

minutes; but when Carlyle walked along that pleasant shadowy road,

carrying his school books, he must have had plenty of time for

day-dreams. Now and then he could have seen the Solway gleaming, and I

can imagine how the beautiful, winding river must have given that grave,

wise boy thoughts of the great river of life, running to and from

eternity. We passed close to Hoddam Hill, where--Sir S. and Mrs. James

told me--the Carlyle family lived for a while when Thomas was grown up,

he translating German romances, and his brother working on the farm.

At Annan, looking at the statue of Carlyle's friend, Edward Irving, in

the broad High Street, we came back to the subject of Doctor James, and

I heard for the first time the real truth at the bottom of the bad

gossip.

We had got down from the car to look at the statue, and read what it

said on the pedestal. We were not thinking at first about the doctor,

but only of Edward Irving, and Sir S. was saying to Mrs. James how Annan

was only one of many towns where statues are put up to the memory of men

once misunderstood and cruelly persecuted in the very place where they

are afterward honoured. It seems that Edward Irving (who loved Mrs.

Carlyle when she was Jenny Welsh) had to come back to his native town to

be tried for heresy by the presbytery, after a brilliant career in

London as a fashionable preacher and founder of a new faith. All the

theologians of Scotland and crowds of other people (Sir S. says all true

Scots are theologians at heart) came pouring into Annan by coach and

chaise on the great day of the trial; and in spite of Irving's

passionate appeal, he was found guilty by a unanimous vote.

Talking of the trial, and of the preacher's death the next year, took

Mrs. James's mind to the subject which is never farther away than at the

back of her head. She found a likeness between Edward Irving's fate and

her husband's. "Richard was born in Carlisle and loved the place, but

they believed evil of him and persecuted him," she said. "Some day he

will come back and make Carlisle proud of her son. That's what I expect.

That's what I live for." And she gazed up at the statue of Irving the

preacher with quite the look of a prophetess in her eyes.

I was afraid that Sir S. would think her mad; but he seemed interested,

as before, and asked if she had in her mind any particular kind of

success her husband might be working to obtain. Was there something,

apart from his profession, and the unfinished volume of history, which

had occupied the thoughts of Doctor James in old days?

The little woman answered this question almost reluctantly, and I soon

guessed why. There was a serum which the doctor had been trying to

perfect. It was to be used instead of chloroform or ether, for people

with weak hearts, or when for other reasons anaesthetics were dangerous.

A patient in peril of death had begged Doctor James to try it upon him.

The doctor had consented. The patient had died, and though it was not

really because of the serum, but because the man couldn't possibly have

lived in any case, the doctor's enemies had blamed him. "That was what

broke his heart," Mrs. James explained, still staring at the statue with

wide-open eyes, to keep the tears from falling. "That is why he died to

the world which misjudged him."

"And do you think, if he can perfect this serum, he will come back?"

asked Sir Somerled.

"_When_, not 'if.' But I always knew it would take a long time, because

unless some rich person or people had faith and helped him, he would

have to get together a good deal of money for a laboratory before he

could make a great success or a great name. And he went away almost

without a penny."

"I see," said Sir S., thoughtfully. "Well, such faith as yours is enough

to inspire a man with courage to push the stone of Sisyphus to the top

of the hill. And it deserves a high reward. I hope the reward may come,

and that I may see the day. Now, we must go on, for this afternoon won't

last as long as I could wish."

He helped Mrs. James to her place with extra kindness, almost

tenderness, tucking behind her back the gray silk-covered air-cushion

which she says makes her feel she is leaning against a nice pudding.

Neither of us had asked Sir S. what we were to see next, for we trusted

him to choose; but when we were ready to leave Annan and go back to the

high road, he said that the thought of Galloway was haunting him. "We

can spin on to Glasgow by way of Moffat and see a lot of interesting

places; or we can turn west from Carlyle country, for a run through

Crockett country," he explained. "Which, shall it be?"

I was ashamed to confess that I didn't know why he called Galloway

"Crockett country"; but Mrs. James saw my sheepish look, and excused me.

"The child has had no novels to read later than Scott."

"Crockett has done for Galloway what Scott did for Tweedside," said Sir

S. "It's his country. He has made it live. When I give this girl the

promised present of Carlyle and Shakespeare, I must add Crockett. That

is, as she reminded me"--and he smiled--"if Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald

allows Ian of that ilk to lay gifts at her daughter's feet."

"Oh, she'll permit Barrie to accept books," said Mrs. James, with her

pretty primness. "How the child will love the 'Raiders,' and the 'Men of

the Moss Hags.' Yes, certainly she ought to see 'gray Galloway.'"

"Galloway be it, then," said Sir S., looking pleased. "But it won't be

gray at this time of year. It will be purple and gold and emerald, and

silvered with rivers running between flowery banks. And it will smell

sweet as a Scotsman's paradise, with bog myrtle and peat."

"I too have often wanted to see Galloway," said Mrs. James, "even before

I read the Crockett books; for the doctor devoted a particularly

interesting chapter to its history. I remember well, the ancient name

was most romantic: Gallgaidhel, for the country of the stranger Gaels.

That was the heading he gave his chapter, and I fear I did not know what

'stranger Gaels' meant until I read it. The Celtic Gaels who lived there

used to be called Atecott Picts; and though they were very independent

and wild, and the Romans didn't govern them long, they accepted the

Northumbrians as their overlords--oh, it must have been in the seventh

century, I think. And two hundred years later they made common cause

with the Vikings: so the other Gaels, who would have nothing to do with

the foreigners, scornfully named the men of Galloway 'stranger Gaels.'"

"It was just jealousy, then!" said I. "Because the people of Galloway

were so broad-minded and hospitable, and ahead of their times. It's the

right country for strangers to visit first----"

"But we're not strangers," Sir S. cut me short. "You and I, Barrie, are

coming into our own. To-night for the first time you'll sleep in your

ain countree, under the 'heather moon.'"

"It ought to be a wonderful place, for our first night of the heather

moon," I said, half shutting my eyes--"a mysterious, beautiful, _lucky_

place, to remember always. What shall it be? Have you decided on what is

appropriate?"

"I'd thought of Dumfries," he said. "But it doesn't answer that

description, and though it's in Galloway, it concerns Burns and is out

of Crockett land. Still----"

"Sweetheart Abbey!" Mrs. James exclaimed rapturously. "It should be at

Sweetheart Abbey that Barrie dreams her first Scottish dreams."

The knight laughed rather bitterly for some reason. "Are Scottish dreams

different from other dreams?"

"Perhaps," said Mrs. James, "they are the dreams that come true."

VI

It is days later, it seems a long time ago that I wrote of our plan to

spend the first night in Scotland at Sweetheart Abbey--a long time since

the night itself; for I have lived more in these few days than in all my

life before.

Soon we are to reach Edinburgh. Monday is the day when my mother will

begin acting there in her new play. I shall see her. It is to be the

Great Day of all, the day to which all the others have been leading up,

and I ought to be perfectly happy. So I am! Still, there's one little

heavy spot in my heart. All the yeast of happiness won't make it light.

The beginning of the new means the end of the old. The trip will be

over--for me; though the Knight and the Gray Dragon will go on and have

hundreds of adventures without me. They will be my knight and my dragon

no longer. Perhaps I shall never see them again.

Before our days together slip away into the background of my mind (it

seems as if they never could!) I want to write down things about them to

keep and read when I am _old_.

First of all, there was Ruthwell Cross.

We went there from Annan; and as we flew along in the car over a good

white road, we could see across widening waters the mountains of the

English Lake country floating like a mirage along the southern sky,

Skiddaw with its twin peaks higher and bluer than the rest. How I love

the names of the Cumberland places and mountains! I made Sir S. say

Helvellyn and Blencathra and Glaramara over very slowly, just for the

music in my ears. And when his voice says a thing it sounds particularly

well. I like to hear it roll out such a word as Northumberland, for

instance. The way he says it makes you think of thunder on great

moorlands, or a rush of wild Scotsmen over the border. But the Celtic

names he speaks most lovingly, most softly, so that they ring on your

ear for a long time after they are spoken, like an echo of fairy bells.

I did not mean to write all this about him and his voice when I began.

There is so much else to say. Yet, somehow, I keep running back to him

in my thoughts, especially now the trip is nearly over. And while I

still cling to the subject, I have found out that he can sing as well as

paint. But the singing belongs to Sweetheart Abbey; and Ruthwell Cross

came before.

Mrs. James and Sir S. excited my interest in Galloway by telling me bits

from the "Raiders," then stopping in exciting places to talk of

something else. And somehow Galloway does seem a country where almost

anything might happen--big, sensational, historic things. There was

nothing gray to see except glimpses of the Solway, where the sea poured

in its resistless tide; and that was the gray of polished silver. I had

an impression of high hills, blunt in shape yet strangely dignified, and

wide-spreading moors which sent out exquisite smells like lovely unseen

messengers to meet us, as the car seemed to break through crystal walls

of wind. Here and there were piles of pansy-brown peat, ready for

burning. Children with heads wrapped in scarlet flame ran out of

cottages to stare at us. Sir S. actually admired their red hair. He

exclaimed suddenly, "By Jove, it's worth crossing the ocean to see that

glorious stuff again! It's the hair of Circe." I don't know when

anything has made me feel so much like a kitten that purrs over a dish

of cream. For you know the hair he loved was _just_ my colour, not a bit

less scarlet. What would Grandma say?

It rained once--sharp rain like thin daggers of glass stabbing our faces

as the car dashed through--and the wet road looked like a shining silver

ribbon flung down anyhow on purple velvet. The purple velvet was

heather, and I never saw any before we started on our trip, except a

little sad, tame heather in the garden of Hillard House--heather

moulting like a bird in a cage, with all the spirit of the moors gone

out of it. But this Galloway heather was real heather, the heather of

poetry; and I knew that by and by I was going to see the heather moon

rise over it. The very thought brought a thrill--and I was glad, as I

had it, that Mrs. West was somewhere else in her own car. She does so

damp you, somehow, in your high moments, and make you feel too young for

anybody to care for your crude little thrills or take them seriously.

When the rain stopped, it left a thin white mist floating over the

heather, until the sun broke out and the deep purple was lit to crimson,

like a running fire.

I'm not quite sure if all this happened before Ruthwell Church (called

Rivvel by the people near), but in my memory it is part of the same

picture, of that first day in Galloway.

I know we skimmed through a little place called Cummer-trees, and then

Sir S. slowed down to show us, he said, one of the "sights of the

world." He had never seen it himself, but he knew all about it, and even

Mrs. James knew a little. It is a great advantage to a simple woman to

have had a clever husband, and feel obliged, to live up to him.

We had come not so much for the church as for a wonderful stone cross

which it contains, as a jewel-box contains treasure of pearls and

diamonds. This cross is worth countless numbers of both; and it has a

history as intricate as its own strange carvings.

In the manse they gave Sir S. the key of the small old church behind a

high wall with steps up and down: and once inside he led us straight to

the north end, where, in a side aisle, we saw a great shape rise. We

must have known it to be a marvel, even if we had heard nothing

beforehand.

The cross used to stand, not in the church, but out in the open long

before the church was built, and it towered eighteen feet tall against

the sky. There it lived year after year, generation after generation,

and nobody knew what its carved birds and beasts and hieroglyphic

inscriptions meant. Nobody cared much, until a gloomy set of men in a

General Assembly, when Charles I was King of England, threw it down and

broke it up, because it was an idolatrous emblem. Luckily, some wise

person hid all the pieces in the church; but after a while another

person not so wise threw them out into the backyard. There they stayed

until a Doctor Duncan thought he would have the cross put up in his

manse garden: and some great Norwegian scholars, to whom he sent copies

of the writings, grew very excited, and contradicted each other about

them in 1802. But no one knew what the letters really meant till the

eldest son of the famous actor John Kemble came to the neighbourhood for

a holiday. He was a learned authority on Anglo-Saxon times, and he

discovered that the writing was really Early English, the very earliest

of all, the rudiments of the language which--as Sir S. expressed

it--"Chaucer helped to form and Shakespeare perfected"; because they had

to _make_ their words, as well as group them together--which is all that

lazy authors have to do nowadays. The quaint carvings relate to the life

of Christ and saints, and they are described in Latin from the Vulgate;

but it was the runic inscriptions which John Mitchell Kemble puzzled

out--a kind of rhymed soliloquy the cross itself was supposed to speak;

and afterward he found the whole thing in an Anglo-Saxon MS. of the

seventh or eighth century, far away from Scotland, in a library at

Vercelli, near Milan. But it was written by the Northumbrian bard

Caedmon, in a poem called "The Dream of the Holy Rood."

No wonder Sir S. wished to see Ruthwell Cross. There's nothing else of

the kind, he thinks, so splendid anywhere.

Even then my first wonderful day in Scotland wasn't over, for we had

time to see Caerlaverock Castle, which, according to Sir S., is another

of the best things on earth. I suppose, in old days, when the world was

small because it was difficult to travel great distances, it didn't seem

odd to find magnificent runic crosses, and castles, and historic

blacksmiths' shops, and houses of geniuses all standing cheek by jowl

within a step of each other. They had to be like that, or nobody from

the next county would ever have seen them: but now, especially to a

person who has seen nothing except in dreams, it is startling, almost

incredible.

Caerlaverock, Mrs. James said, was probably Scott's Ellangowan in "Guy

Mannering"; so I shall read "Guy Mannering" as soon as I settle down to

live with my mother. We couldn't help getting a little mixed up with

Scott even here, at the gate of the Crockett country; and there were

traces of Burns too, because of our being near already to Dumfries,

where he lived for years and finally died. But the idea Sir S. had set

his heart upon was for us to come back to Dumfries after we had seen

Galloway and had run up to Burns's birthplace at Ayr. It would make each

part of the trip more "concrete," he said.

Whether or no the stronghold of the Maxwells was Ellangowan, it was in

any case the key to southwest Scotland, and in looking at the place it

is easy to understand why. A great red-gold Key it was when we saw it,

red-gold in the western sunlight in a hollow near the river; such red

and gold colour as the old sandstone had, in contrast with the green of

lichen and green of waving grass, I wouldn't have believed in, if I'd

seen it in a picture. I should have said, "The artist who painted that

ruined castle put on the colours he would like to see, not those he did

see." But I should have misjudged him, because the colours were real.

Once there was a double moat all round the vast, triangular castle, and

still there's water in one of them. You would have thought the Maxwell

ladies had thrown their rubies and diamonds into it one wild day when

they were escaping from enemies, and that the jewels had lain ever since

at the bottom of the moat unnoticed, though the sunlight found out and

treacherously tried to tell the secret. Think of Ptolemy writing about

Caerlaverock, and calling it Carbantorigun! I'm glad we haven't to call

it that now, or I should always have to say _it_--as one goes on saying

"you" to a person whose name one hasn't caught.

Even if Caerlaverock were in hideous surroundings, it would be

magnificent: but the river Solway is its silver foreground, and Lochar

Moss is its mysterious background; so it is perfect in beauty as in

strength, and if only no such hateful things as cannons had been

invented, it would not now be a ruin. Although it lies so low, it was

built to resist everything but gunpowder: for how could the Maxwells

dream that all their beautiful arrangements for pouring down molten lead

and boiling oil would be useless against a new foe?

Edward I took the castle in 1300, but Bruce got it back thirteen years

later; and there was much fighting and tossing back of the Key from one

hand to the other even before the great siege when the Earl of Essex

punished Lord Herries for defending Queen Mary. Still, the walls stood

bravely, and after the Essex affair they were made stronger than

ever--so strong and so splendid it must have seemed as if Caerlaverock

need never capitulate again to any enemy. But no sooner had the Maxwells

finished a lovely new façade, the best they'd ever had, with carved

window and door caps of the latest fashion, than Colonel Home came along

with his grim Covenanters and blew up everything with his horrid

cannons. I can't help disliking him, for the Maxwells seem to have been

the most fascinating people. One Lord Maxwell of the seventeenth

century, who was Roman Catholic when it wasn't safe to be Roman

Catholic, used to disguise himself as a beggar, and play the fiddle in

the market-place of Dumfries as a signal to tell the faithful of his own

religion where and when they might come to Mass. They understood

according to certain tunes agreed upon, which was easy, as they had only

three meeting-places. A nice old man in the castle told us these stories

and showed us the exquisite courtyard where Burns came one day when he

was seventeen and cut on a stone in the wall the initials R. B. in a

triangle, like a masonic sign, which suggests the wedge shape of the

castle.

Sir S. knew all about this carving, and said that Americans had offered

two thousand pounds for the stone. But the Duchess of Norfolk, who is

mistress of Caerlaverock in her own right, turned up her nose,

metaphorically speaking, at the offer. "I bid ye fair:" is the motto

that goes with the crest over the huge gateway between two towers, and

the rumour is that the Americans, in bidding for the stone of the

initials, quoted this motto; but their aptness did them no good. In one

of those towers Murdoch, the blind Duke of Albany, was imprisoned for

seven years by James I before he was executed at Stirling; and they say

that in the green hollow where the great red ruin glows he can be seen

walking in the moonlight on the anniversary of his beheading.

One of my favourite stories in history is about Lord Nithsdale and his

brave, clever wife who saved him on the eve of his execution by dressing

him in her clothes and letting him walk calmly out of the Tower of

London in her place. Think of being able to do such a thing for a man

you loved! He was one of the Lords Nithsdale who came from Caerlaverock;

and not far away, at Terregles House, is a portrait of that Countess of

Nithsdale, with the cloak which her husband wore when he escaped. They

have a Prayer Book, too, of Queen Mary's in that house, for she gave it

to Lord Herries, who sheltered her in her flight after the battle at

Langside, eighty miles away. But we didn't see these things. It was the

old man at the castle who told us of them, because they are still in the

keeping of the Maxwell family, of which he is very proud.

We hurried quickly through Dumfries, not to see or think of the Burns

associations there until we should come back; but at Lincluden Abbey,

close by, we were forced to think of him--although, as far as our trip

was concerned, he wasn't born. At Lincluden, where he loved to come,

walking out from Dumfries (as he must have walked to Caerlaverock to cut

his initials) he saw the Vision. And Lincluden is so sweet a place that

my thoughts of it, mingling very humbly with the great poet's thoughts,

will lie together in my memory as pressed flowers lie between the pages

of a book.

The road which leads from Dumfries to Lincluden seems like a quiet

prelude to a lovely burst of music, so gentle and pretty it is. Then

suddenly you come to the promontory stitched on to the mainland with

great silver stitches of rivers, the Cluden and the Nith; and there are

old earthworks, fallen into ruin, which guard the Abbey as the skeletons

of watch-dogs might lie guarding a dead master. There's a mound, too, by

the side of the ruined church, and it is called a Mote, which means

something desperately interesting and historic, and there's a Peel-tower

in ruin. Indeed, all is in ruin at Lincluden Abbey; but that makes it

the sweeter and sadder. And as we came, the red of the crumbling

sandstone burned in the fire of sunset like a funeral pyre heaped with

roses. The melancholy, crowding trees and the delicate groups of little

bushes were like mourners coming with their children to look on at the

great burning.

We went into the church to see the tomb of Margaret Countess of Douglas,

who was a daughter of King Robert the Third; and somehow the mutilations

of the effigy made it more beautiful, causing you to see as in a blurred

picture the thousand events of troublous times which had passed over the

figure, leaving it through all peacefully asleep. A daughter of a king,

with the Douglas Heart to guard her, she would be too noble in her stony

slumber to show that she minded losing her features and a few other

trifling accessories which might spoil the looks of less important

women.

When we came out, high in the sunset glory gleamed a silver sickle,

reaping roses. It was the heather moon, and I cried out to Sir S. as I

saw it, "Wish--wish! Your first sight of the heather moon, and over our

right shoulders for luck! Whatever we wish _must_ come true!"

I was so excited that I seized his hand; and he was too polite to give

it back to me like a thing he didn't want. So he held it firmly in his

while we both looked up to the sky, silently making our wishes. My wish

was to be that my mother might love me; but I stopped and thought, "What

is the good of making such a wish, when I've only one, and I'm sure to

get that one without the heather moon, as mothers all love their

children." This caution was very "canny" and proved my Scottish blood, I

couldn't help thinking, as I paused in order to select the most

appropriate wish for the heather moon to grant.

Several ideas presented themselves with a bow: a wish to be happy: but

that wasn't "concrete" enough, as Sir S. would say. A wish to be very

rich and able to do anything in the world I might like to do; but being

rich sounds so fat and uninteresting--or else bald-headed; for nearly

all the photographs in picture papers of desperately rich people are one

or the other, or both. At last I began to be nervous, for if Sir S. or

Mrs. James (who was close by) should speak before I'd given my wish to

the new moon, she'd be unable to grant it, even with the best

intentions. That is a well-known fact in connection with wishing by the

moon. I have it on the authority of both Mrs. Muir and Heppie. Being in

a hurry, I grew confused, and so could think of nothing more important

than to wish for my knight never to forget me in future, wherever he may

be. And just as I'd finished, he said, "Well? What did you wish?"

Of course I couldn't tell him such a wish as that; but, luckily, you

must never let anybody know what you've wished by a moon or a star, if

you want the wish to come true.

I explained this to Sir S., and he said, as far as he was concerned, it

didn't matter, for he hadn't wished after all. "Oh, what a waste of the

heather moon!" I cried, for it really seemed too bad. But he answered

that the only thing he particularly wished for just then was a thing

which wasn't fair to wish, on account of the 'other party concerned.' I

laughed, and said if he had _wished_ to wish, he had wished, in spite of

himself, and the heather moon had heard; because that's the business of

any well-trained new moon, and the heather moon is the best-trained of

the year. "'The other party concerned' must just take the risk," I said.

"And very likely 'twill be the best thing for him, her, or it in the

end."

"I daren't hope that," said he, looking up at the silver sickle as

earnestly as if we weren't talking nonsense.

"Don't you think the heather moon knows best?" I reproached him. But he

did not answer, and only hummed under his breath, as we walked to the

waiting car:

"How far, how far to Gretna?

It's years and years away--

And coach-and-four shall nevermore

Fling dust across the day."

All the way along the shadowy, switchback road from Dumfries going to

Sweetheart Abbey (I like to write the name, it is so pretty and

old-fashioned) we had glimpses of the moon scattering silver through the

tree branches as she fell down the west. I thought the soft white curve

like a baby's arm, rounded at the elbow; and it waved us good-night over

the heather-clad mound of Criffel, as a baby might wave over the fat

shoulder of a big nurse dressed in purple. It is _cheek_ of Criffel to

call itself a mountain, and of course it wouldn't dare to if there were

other real mountains within twenty-five miles.

When I made this remark Mrs. James asked me where, in my sequestered

life, I had got hold of such an unladylike word as "cheek," but I told

her I must have been born knowing it, as there was never a time in my

memory when I didn't. Also Mr. Douglas had used it several times in

Carlisle Castle.

"Haven't you forgotten him yet?" asked Sir S.

"It would be silly to forget, and have to make his acquaintance over

again at Edinburgh," I said. "He asked me particularly to think of him

during our trip whenever I should see the Douglas Heart. Now I have just

seen it at Lincluden."

"Douglas Heart indeed! Douglas cheek!" I heard Sir S. mutter.

There is one part of that road between Dumfries and Sweetheart Abbey I

shall never forget: the view from Whinny Hill--a sudden view springing

from behind trees, as if a green curtain had been pulled back from a

picture. In this picture there were the silver Nith, and purple Criffel

of course (which always tries to get itself noticed wherever you turn),

a great forty-foot monument put up to commemorate Waterloo; and again

the red triangle of Caerlaverock glowing on the green shore of the

Solway Firth.

I suppose the people who were shy of seeming sentimental insisted on

calling Sweetheart Abbey New Abbey. I can imagine Sir S. voting for the

change, because I fancy that he would endure torture rather than be

thought sentimental. He describes a place or a thing or a person

glowingly, then hurries to cap his description with a few joking or even

ironical words, lest he should be suspected of romance or enthusiasm.

The village is called New Abbey too, so it is safe to mention that to

the driest person. It was just beginning to be evening, an evening

softly gray as doves' wings folding down, when our Dragon sidled toward

an inn it saw, quite a nice little inn, where Sir S. announced that we

would stop the night. Before going in, however, he took us to look at a

queer bas-relief built into the wall of a whitewashed cottage on the

left side of the road. It showed three ladies industriously rowing a

boat across the ferry--pious dames who brought all the stones from

Caerlaverock, on the other side of the Solway, to build the Abbey.

"Rock of the Lark" is a delightful name, but Sweetheart Abbey is

prettier, and the reason of the name is the prettiest part. Only I wish

that the devoted Devorgilla who built the Abbey of Dolce Cor to be a big

sacred box for the heart of her husband had had a worthier object of

worship than the king, John Balliol. All the history I have ever read

makes him out to be a weak and cowardly and rather treacherous person;

but, as Sir S. said, "Mirabeau judged by the people and Mirabeau judged

by his friends were two men"; and I suppose John must have put himself

out to be charming to Devorgilla, or she wouldn't have wandered about

with his heart in an ebony box inlaid with silver, and insisted on

having it on the table in front of her when she ate her dinner. That was

one way of keeping her husband's heart during her whole lifetime--and

even after death, for of course she had it buried with her. It must have

been glad of a little rest by that time, the poor heart, for it had so

much travelling to do. I suppose it even went as far as Oxford when

Devorgilla founded Balliol College.

The last shaft of the sun was turned off the rose-coloured ruin and the

secluded valley where the cross-shaped Abbey hides from the world; and

the moon was gone, too, swept away like a tiny boat on a wave of sunset.

Still, it was full daylight, and Sir S. announced that he had a plan.

This plan was for us to go (as soon as we'd seen our rooms, which he had

engaged by telegram) and get permission to enter the Abbey by twilight,

when no one else was there.

The little gray inn of the town looked no bigger than a good-sized

private house, but it was the very first hotel of my life, and I

regarded it as an Epoch, with a capital E. That point of view was upheld

later by the heavenly scones and honey they gave us--heather honey, gold

as the heather moon. And we had cool, clean rooms, suitable for the

dreaming of sweet dreams. _My_ dreams there seemed very important.

The great Somerled can of course get anything he wants to ask for if he

chooses to reveal himself--anyhow, in Scotland; because already I am

beginning to learn that even the smallest or humblest Scottish peasant

knows all that's worth knowing, not only of the past but of the present,

and has heard of all the celebrities. Maybe there might be miniature

places in England, America, Germany, or France where the poor and

uneducated would know nothing of Somerled the painter and millionaire.

But in Scotland, apparently, though there are many poor, there are no

uneducated persons. Those to whom his being a painter would mean nothing

would be interested in his money. Those who didn't care for his millions

of dollars would have read about his painting: and all would value him

because he belongs to Scotland.

As soon as our luggage was in our rooms and dinner ordered, Sir Somerled

inquired if we were ready for the Abbey; but Mrs. James mildly asked if

we would mind going without her. She had begun to realize that she was

tired, and would like to rest. She could go by herself to the Abbey

early in the morning before starting time. I felt that I ought to mind

more than I did, but I couldn't help liking to be with Sir S. alone. It

seemed like the night of our first meeting; for some one had always been

with us, more or less, ever since. It was only a short stroll through

the village, not enough to call a walk. A dear little lady who lives in

a nice cottage close to the ruin opened the iron gate, but she did not

go in with us, because it was time for her supper. She had a photograph

done from one of the great Somerled's most famous pictures, and if he

had been a long she could not have been more polite.

At first, the inside of the shell-like Abbey with the beautiful name was

a disappointment. The green grass was encumbered with tasteless graves

and flat modern stones which looked as if they had lain down there

without permission.

We wandered about rather forlornly for a while, until we found

Devorgilla's thirteenth-century tomb. Sir S. told me her history, and

waked the sad old place to living interest. I seemed to see the

ever-loving lady, followed by her chosen maidens carrying the heart in

its ebony and silver box. And together we made up a theory, that of

every event _something_ reminiscent lingers on the spot where it

happened. If only our eyes were different, we should be able, wherever

we went, to see filmy, mysterious pictures painted on air--fadeless,

moving photographs of all the people and all the deeds which have made

up the world's history.

This set us talking of our own pictures, which we are leaving behind us

as we go through life; and I couldn't help thinking how he and I, in

accordance with this idea, will for ever and ever go on being "married"

at Gretna Green. I laughed at the thought, and he asked me why, so I

told him.

"When you're marrying your real wife, years from now maybe, and have

forgotten my existence, that scene will still be enacting itself," I

said, "not only on the films the photograph men took, but on air films.

Doesn't it frighten you?" I asked.

"Doesn't it frighten you?" he echoed. "Because you will marry. I never

shall."

"How do you know?" I catechized him.

"If I can't have the wife I want, I'll have none."

"Perhaps you can have the one you want if you ask her nicely."

"I don't intend to ask. I'm not the right one for her."

"You might let her decide that!" I nobly said, for Mrs. West may be the

woman. "I do hope, if men ever love me, they'll tell me so."

"No fear! They will." He laughed more loudly than I have heard him

laugh.

"But the right one mayn't, if he thinks as you do."

"He won't. He'll be thinking only of himself. But look here, my girl, be

sure you _do_ take the right one when you marry; for if in my opinion

you're likely to make a big mistake when the time comes, I may be

tempted to put a spoke in the fellow's wheel."

"Please do!" I laughed.

"You think I'm joking," he said, watching me in a way he has, between

narrowed lids, his eyes almost black in the twilight. "And so I am to a

certain extent. Yet I might forbid the banns, perhaps--if I chose."

"But how?"

"Haven't you any idea?"

"Not half a one."

"Then I won't tell. It would only worry you--for nothing. Marry in

peace, when your Prince comes, and I'll send you my blessing--from far

away."

"I don't like to think of your being far away," I said. "Let's not talk

of it. For you are my only friend--except Mrs. James. And you're so

different."

"I thank Heaven!" he said. "And I thank her for wanting a rest. Good as

she is, three would be a crowd in Sweetheart Abbey."

Speaking of her made me think of the time. We had promised Mrs. James to

go back in half an hour for dinner! Already more than half an hour had

slipped away as we made our air-film photographs to haunt Sweetheart

Abbey with all its other ghosts.

The twilight was changing to a light more mysterious, and as we looked

at each other through the opal haze I felt strangely that we were

changing too. It was as if our realities were less real than the shadow

pictures which were to live on here together forever--as if our bodies,

which would go away and separate, to live different lives far away from

one another, would not be _us_ any more.

I could not have imagined so wonderful a light as that which illuminated

the great rose-window and filled the vast broken shell of the Abbey. It

was as if the day had been poured out of a cup, and night was being

slowly poured in--the dove-gray night of dreams. It was pale, yet not

bright like the light of dawn. It was more like a light glimmering over

a sheet of water, a light made of the water itself. Almost I expected to

see the Heart rise up in the ebony and silver box, and the box opening.

"You look like a young seeress," my Knight said. "What is it that you

see with your great eyes gazing through the dusk?"

"I see--a heart," I answered. "I think I see a heart."

"That is very intelligent of you," he said, in a changed tone. "Come,

child, it's time I took you home."

"Is there the ghost of a heart floating here?" I asked, wishing to

linger. But he took my hand and drew me toward the gate.

"To me," he said dryly, "it appears to be a real heart--almost too real

for comfort."

We walked back to the inn, and he was uninterestingly commonplace all

the way. He talked about dinner, and buying petrol for the car, and told

me dull facts about tiresome things called carburettors. It would have

been a horrid anticlimax, spoiling all the romance of Sweetheart Abbey,

if he had not changed later on. But he did change. There was a little

piano in the sitting-room they gave us, and Mrs. James began drumming

out a few Scotch airs, warbling the words in a high, thin voice rather

like that of an intelligent insect. There was one tune I knew, and I

couldn't resist joining in. At the end Sir S. applauded.

"What a pity her grandmamma wouldn't let her take lessons, as I once

ventured to suggest!" said Mrs. James. "She has a true ear, and a sweet

voice wonderfully like her mother's, which I quite well remember. But

Mrs. MacDonald had the idea that music lessons would lead to vanity.

Don't you think, sir" (she often slips in a respectful "sir"), "that her

voice would repay instruction?"

"I do," pronounced the great Somerled.

"I'm sure _you_ sing," went on Mrs. James. "I flatter myself I can

always tell by people's faces."

"Like Barrie, I never had lessons," he said. "But I suppose we

Highlanders are born with music in our blood."

"Then you do sing?" she persisted.

"Only to please myself. Not that it does!"

"Will you sing to please us?"

"It wouldn't please you."

"Barrie, _you_ ask."

"The Princess commands!" I said, not expecting him to humour my

impudence, but he did, by going at once to the piano. It had lisped and

stammered awkwardly for Mrs. James, but it obeyed him as if the keys

were mesmerized. He played a prelude, and then sang "Annie Laurie," in a

soft, mellow voice, so low that people outside the room could hardly

have heard. It seemed as if there must really be an "Annie Laurie" in

his life. Surely a man could not sing like that, and look like that in

singing, unless he called up the face of some woman he loved. I wondered

if he thought of Mrs. West, who is so very pretty, and rather like the

description of "Annie Laurie." His eyes looked far away as he sang,

through the wall--oh, yes, I'm sure they could see through the wall at

that moment--perhaps as far as "Maxwellton Braes"; perhaps still

farther, searching for Mrs. West wherever she might be.

I don't know how it would make one feel if such a man with such a voice

looked into one's eyes and sang a song of love. I'm afraid it might make

one rather foolish. But it was only at the wall that Sir S. stared until

he began a very different song--the lament of a Highlander who would

nevermore see his island home nor the love of his youth. It was a

heart-breaking song; and though his voice was pitched so low it was

almost like singing in a whisper, there was a strange, vibrating power

in it, as there is in the strings of a violin touched but lightly by the

bow. Sir S. transferred his attention from the wall to me as he sang

this sad old ballad, and I could not look away, because there was the

same compelling power in his eyes as in his voice. No doubt it was only

of the song he thought, not of me at all, really; yet I could not shake

off the haunting impression of the look, and it made me dream of him all

night. I saw him standing beside me in the strange, pale twilight of

Sweetheart Abbey. And in his hand was a box of ebony, inlaid with

silver, which he held out. But when I took the box it was locked, and he

had no key. "Only the key of the rainbow will open this box," he said.

And then I woke up, feeling somehow as if the dream were of importance,

and I must try to find out why.

VII

Next morning when I saw Sir S. I felt confused and vaguely ashamed, as

if something had happened. But, of course, nothing had happened, nothing

at all. I kept on reminding myself of that until I was at ease again.

And his manner helped me to realize how silly I was, for almost he

seemed to go out of his way to put on the commonplace air I had

disliked. It was as if he wrapped himself up in a big, rough coat,

smelling of tobacco smoke, and rather old and shabby, with the collar

well turned up.

We started early, long before eight, and Mrs. James remarked, while we

were dressing--calling out from her room to mine through the open

door--that there was more credit for Sir S. than for us in liking an

early start. Many men as successful and flattered and rich as he, she

said, would have grown luxurious in their tastes, and lazy. They would

loathe getting up at six, and staying in tiny hotels, and fussing about

to help their chauffeurs when anything went wrong with their cars. They

would hate so much having to pack bags and look after themselves that

they would find it impossible to enjoy travelling without a valet; but

here was this man, used to every luxury, and able to command it, putting

himself to trouble of all sorts and even enduring hardships as

cheerfully as a "little bank clerk out for a holiday with his sister and

aunt."

I agreed with her, and I suppose bank clerks are as interesting a class

as any; but I'm glad Sir S. is not one. And it is more fun being his

princess than his sister. Mrs. James may be his aunt if she likes. I

wouldn't be it for all his millions.

He asked her again if she would like to try the front seat, but she

politely refused, and then, with his rough-coat, turned-up-collar-air,

he invited me to take it. Something deep down in me, like a little live

creature whispering, told me to make him turn down that collar and throw

off that rough coat. It did seem such a _waste_, to have him wearing his

commonplace airs while we travelled through the most adorable country we

had seen yet. I wanted him and me and the scenery all to be romantic

together, and so I told him at last. "But if I'm determined to keep on

the safe side of romance?" he said.

"If you've decided to be dull and disagreeable," I threatened, "I shan't

give you the 'rainbow key' when I find it. I'll hand it over to somebody

else."

"Will you?" he said. "Be sure the somebody else deserves it, then."

This annoyed me. Because I'm looking for the rainbow key for _him_, not

somebody else. "At present I don't happen to know anybody else I'd care

to give it to," I remarked.

"Ay," said he, "there's the rub. You know so few. But it will be

different when the princess has a dozen knights all in the competition."

"Perhaps other knights won't notice that I'm a princess."

"Judging from what I've observed, I think they'll be quick to notice

that."

"Well, it remains to be seen."

"Just so. It remains to be seen." His voice sounded sad or bored, so I

tried to be tactful for once, like Mrs. West, and changed the subject.

This was the road which Carlyle thought the most beautiful in the

kingdom. Going to Mainsriddle and Dalbeattie we skimmed through dark,

haunted-looking woods, to sudden glimpses of far-down yellow sands and

floating forms of mountains. The tide was running out or running in,

veining the floor of gold with misty blue traceries, and making bright

pools like bits of broken glass. The trees along our way were a

procession of benevolent giants holding green umbrellas over our heads,

because they mistook us for expected royalties; and on the smooth white

surface of the road they had scattered shadows like torn black Spanish

lace. Criffel followed us everywhere, trying jealously to keep us from

noticing that the noble mountains of Cumberland were still watching us

out of sight, across the Solway Firth. And indeed, Criffel, with some

small brother hills he had to-day collected, like the hasty gathering of

a clan, did manage to destroy the effect of distance so far as he and

his brethren were concerned. He and all the rest, no matter how far off,

pushed themselves into the foreground by means of their colour, so

violent a purple that it struck at the eyes, and vibrated in the ears

like rich wild notes of an organ rolling over the uplands of Scotland.

Only the sands and the sea looked distant, though really they were near;

and I worried about the groups of cattle gossiping so pleasantly

together about their cuds and calves. They had a placid air of ignoring

such large facts of life as incoming tides, and could never have read

what happened to Mary and her cows on the sands of Dee, a resort only

less fashionable in the cattle world than their own.

Lights on sky and sands, seen through the netting of tree branches, were

like sweet bursts of laughter in the forests; and the glory of the

heather was a wordless song in praise of Scotland. Yet in these flying

Galloway landscapes there was an impression of the mystic and

melancholy, which reminded Sir S. of "The Twilight of the Gods": strange

purple rocks jutting out into water coldly bright as a sheet of mercury,

and desolate islands remote and haunted as the place where Gunter and

his sister lived in the opera. We seemed to be travelling through vast,

lonely places, though it was but a part of Galloway, and all Scotland is

but small--just large enough to give an eyeful of beauty always.

When we came to the sparkling granite town of Dalbeattie (a miniature

Aberdeen, Sir S. called it) instead of going straight on toward

Kirkcudbright we turned westward to see the great stronghold of the

Black Douglases. It was no more than seven easy miles to Castle Douglas,

a little modern town all laid out in rectangles. Sailing straight

through, we came out on the edge of Carlingwark Loch, which rings a few

green islets with silver; and taking a side road we were close to the

river Dee. There, on a cushion of an island, only big enough to hold it,

rose the great ruin of Thrieve Castle, the home of the proud and

magnificent Douglases. Once boats must have carried the knights and

ladies back and forth between the mainland and the fourteenth-century

fastness of old Archibald the Grim. But now I saw a line of

half-submerged stepping-stones, the only way of crossing in these days

when there is no fighting or feasting at Thrieve, and no "tassel"

dangling from the knoblike "hanging stone" over the great gate.

"Workers of high-handed outrage!

Making King and people grieve,

O the lawless Lords of Galloway!

O the bloody towers of Thrieve!"

Sir S. quoted as we stared up at the giant keep, seventy feet high, with

its tremendous walls. "They were a terrible power in the land, that

family, at their greatest, when they lorded it over Galloway and

Annandale, and owned Touraine and Longueville in France, and used to

ride out with a retinue of a thousand picked horsemen."

"That nice soldier yesterday--Mr. Douglas at Carlisle--thinks they were

a _charming_ family," said I. "He has an old proverb something like

this:

"So many, so good as of Douglases have been

Of one surname in Scotland never yet was seen."

and he told me a great deal about the Douglas Heart."

"He would!" mumbled Sir S. "There were good hearts and bad hearts among

them, but all were great hearts in the old days; anyhow, I'm not

surprised that Crockett got inspiration from this place when he used to

play here, coming over from Castle Douglas, where he was at school. He

must have had his head buzzing with story plots when he'd climbed up

inside the walls and crawled out to sit astride of the hanging stone.

I'll warrant he saw Maclellan beheaded in the courtyard while Sir

Patrick Gray, the King's messenger, supped with Douglas; and heard Mons

Meg fire off the first granite cannon-ball, that shot away the hand of

the Countess as she held a wine-glass up, drinking confusion to her

enemies. No wonder little boy Crockett got absent-minded one day, when

he dropped his watch instead of a pebble in wanting to test the time the

stone would take to fall."

The next bit of Crockett-lore I heard was at Auchencairn in the deep,

indented bay we'd reached by turning south for the coast again. There,

it seemed, we were in the heart of Crockettland, for Hestan Island is

the Rathan Island of the "Raiders." All round was sweet, welcoming

country, low mountains and rippling meadows, where it seemed that the

Douglas soldiers had laid their glittering helmets down in long straight

ranks on a carpet of cloth o' gold. Over these fields of garnered wheat

came a breeze from the sea, with a tang of salt like a tonic mixture,

and there was a murmurous sound on the air, a message from the tide.

There were hundreds of historic things to see, in every direction, if we

had had time for all: traces of the Attecott Picts; Pict forts and

tombs, castles of the Middle Ages; robber caves; Convenanters'

monuments; and at Balcarry, near Auchencairn, the landing-place of the

smuggler Yawkins, who was Scott's "Dirk Hatteraick." But we had only

five days for everything before the Great Day--which will be coming so

soon now. From Auchencairn we turned inland to a rolling country where

the Gray Dragon would be down one hill and halfway up another before he

knew what had happened. At Dundrennan--"Hill of the Thorn Bushes"--he

had his first mishap; but after the surprise of thinking a bomb had

exploded, I was glad he'd seized just that opportunity of bursting a

tire, because it gave us more time for the Abbey than we should have

given ourselves.

While the chauffeur made the dragon's toilet, patching up a fat white

foot as he might have doctored the pad of an elephant, we wandered

about, and finally decided to lunch in a secluded corner of the

twelfth-century ruins.

Mrs. James and I set out our picnic-table, a folding thing that Sir S.

carries in the car, and we counted on having the place to ourselves.

Tourists though we are, we scorn other tourists. But it seems incredible

that such as they can scorn us. We talked about Queen Mary and of her

last meal within those walls, and it felt sacrilegious to laugh and joke

where she had been so sad. We pictured her, young and beautiful, taking

leave of the loyal men who had begged her in vain not to trust

Elizabeth; and we could fancy the town turning out to see her vessel set

sail--a very different town it would have been then from the charming

little place it is to-day, with its low white cottages half covered with

flowers, the spotless walls as clean as damask tablecloths, and all so

gay and bright to the eye that grim Dundrennan Abbey in its midst is

like a skull fallen in a rose-garden.

"Ah," sighed Mrs. James, shaking her head, with a jam puff in her hand,

"if the Queen had listened to Maxwell she might have lived in safety to

be an old woman!"

"True, she might have kept her head," Sir S. agreed, comfortably cutting

himself a piece of plum cake; "but if she'd taken Maxwell's advice,

instead of sailing from Port Mary, never to see Scotland again, wouldn't

the whole civilized world miss its best-loved heroine of romance? No

other woman since history began has so captured the hearts of men, and

made herself so adored through the centuries, in spite of all her

faults, or because of them. Mary Stuart and Napoleon Bonaparte are the

two figures in history of whom no one ever tires of talking or reading."

"Still, we must be sad at Dundrennan, where her last night in Scotland

was spent," Mrs. James mildly persisted, having eaten her puff while Sir

S. argued. "I wonder if Michael Scott the magician, who lived here (he

comes into the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," you know), had prophetic

visions of Queen Mary and her fate? I should think so, for he had the

secret of all sorts of spells. The people of the neighbourhood believed

that he'd locked up the plague in an underground room of the Abbey, and

for years they dared not excavate for fear the demon should leap out and

ravage the country. They used to think they could hear a rustling----"

At that instant we heard one ourselves; a distinct rustling fell upon

our ears, and made us turn round with a start. The plague we feared was

tourists; but if it had been Michael Scott's demon, with a scarlet body

and a green head, I should have liked it better than Mrs. West's pale

purple coat and motoring bonnet. I don't know how Sir S. felt about the

surprise, but that was _my_ feeling, though I was glad to see her

brother. I find him the nicest thing about Mrs. West.

"Who would have thought of running against you?" she exclaimed, as Sir

S. jumped up from the table and shook hands as cordially as if there had

never been that mysterious row. "We've come from Port Mary, where Basil

sentimentalized over the stone Queen Mary stood on to get into her ship.

We haven't the patience to make our notes before luncheon! We're _so_

hungry, and there's such a lot to write about King David--_do_ you think

he built the Abbey, or was it Fergus, Lord of Galloway?--and all this

architecture which interests Basil even when he's starving! We've

brought our own sandwiches--we won't bother you----"

Of course Sir S. and Mrs. James both protested that having them was a

pleasure, not a bother. As for me, I remembered that little girls should

be seen and not heard, so I said nothing, and ate the nicest cake for

fear Mrs. West might get it. Sir S. gave his place at the table and his

folding-chair to Mrs. West, and finished his luncheon, standing up, with

Mr. Norman. After all, Mrs. West didn't seem to be hungry. She ate

scarcely anything, and when Sir S. asked her to have some ice-cold white

wine from the refrigerator basket, she said with a soft, sad smile, "'I

drink to thee only with mine eyes.'" Then, suddenly, hers filled with

tears, so they were liquid enough for a good long drink! She looked down

again quickly, with a blush which gave her complexion a peach-like

bloom; and Sir S. made haste to question Mr. Norman about the hired car.

But I could see that he was embarrassed and distressed, and wondered

more than ever what their quarrel was about. Sir S. wouldn't listen to

me the first day, when I said it was my fault, and I oughtn't to go in

his car. I'd almost forgotten that, it seemed so long ago; but I

remembered when I saw the tears in her eyes, and heard the strained

sound in his voice. Even Mr. Norman didn't look happy. Mrs. James was

the only one not affected. She ate her luncheon with a good appetite,

which the sorrows of neither Mrs. West nor Queen Mary could take away

from her.

When we had finished, Mrs. West asked Sir S. in a gentle hesitating way

if he would mind explaining to her the beautiful Gothic doorway at the

south side of the church. It was such a chance to find a great authority

on architecture, like him, upon the very spot, for she and Basil were so

ignorant, they always feared to make mistakes in their notes. Sir S.

went like a lamb led by a chain of roses, but apparently Mr. Norman

didn't feel the same need of expert advice. He stopped with Mrs. James

and me, and helped us clear the table. When we'd packed everything up,

he offered to take the basket to the car; and, as the others hadn't come

back, I went with him, carrying the folding-chairs, which were not much

heavier than three feathers.

"Have you remembered my advice?" he inquired. "Have you begun to write?"

"Yes, a little," I said. "What about your book?"

He shrugged his shoulders, looking melancholy.

"Won't the plot come right?" I asked.

"No. Nothing comes right."

"What a pity!"

"Yes, it's a pity. But I can't help it."

"Can't Mrs. West help?"

"She's not in the mood. Not that it's all her fault. Probably it's just

as much mine. We're getting on each other's nerves--and that's new to

us. There won't be a book. There can't be a book as things are."

"Yet you're going on with your trip?"

"Oh, yes, we're going on with our trip. Aline wouldn't give that up."

"If it hadn't been for me," I said, "it would have been all right for

you both. I feel a _beast_! I've spoiled everything."

"You're a witch, and you've bewitched us. Yes! That's what you have

done."

"Thanks for your polite way of putting it," said I. "'Witch' is a nicer

epithet than 'beast.' I wish--I almost wish--I'd never seen any of you!"

"I don't," said he. "And I don't believe Somerled does. To go back to

the time when we didn't know that the witch-child existed would be going

back from electricity to candles."

"You have a pretty way of poking fun at me," I laughed. "But I suppose

you mean I've given you all a shock. Well, you'll soon be rid of me.

Three days more, and the end! But I do wish I knew how to mend matters

and make you and your sister happy again, at once."

"I could tell you how," he said quickly.

"Do, then! You've just time, if you hurry up before the others come."

He looked round, and there were Mrs. James and Mrs. West walking toward

us with Sir S. They were very near.

He hesitated, and his face grew red. "Will you promise not to be angry?"

he almost whispered.

"I promise! Tell me."

"If you want to make everything come right for everybody in a minute,

you must turn your attention entirely to me."

"What good would that do?" I asked stupidly.

"It would do me all the good in the world, because, as I told you,

you've bewitched me. It would do my sister good because--well, because

she's particularly anxious for you to like me. And it would do Somerled

good because--it might teach him his own mind--bring him to his senses."

"I don't understand one word you're talking about!" I broke out.

"It doesn't so much matter what you understand as what you do. Dear

little Miss MacDonald, will you try and be very, very kind to me,

for--everybody's sake?"