"Of course," said I. "But you must call me Barrie."

"Thank you! That's one step. Will you call me Basil?"

"If you like," I answered. "Basil and Barrie! Don't they sound nice

together?"

Just then the others came up and heard what I said, which made me feel

foolish, as they'd missed the first part. But Mrs. West beamed at me. I

had been thinking that Basil Norman was the sort of man I should love to

have for a brother, but Mrs. West as a sister I could _not_ stand!

"Basil and Barrie _look_ nice together too, don't they, Mr. Somerled?"

she remarked.

"Very," said he dryly. And the next thing I knew was that she was

sitting beside him on the front seat, and I was tucked in beside Mrs.

James, with Basil Norman opposite. Their motor, it seemed, was not

behaving well, and Aline was nervous, so Sir S. had suggested, as we

were all going on to Ayr, that they should come with us for the rest of

the day.

I felt rather dazed about everything, and I'm afraid made a hash of the

scenery in my mind, until I had calmed down. I remember that we swept

through Kirkcudbright, which was named for St. Cuthbert because his

bones were once in the church. They were taking them on somewhere else,

but I don't know why. Basil told us all about it; but it sounded so odd

to hear him talking instructively of saints and Covenanters and martyrs,

and "the torch of religion being first lighted in Galloway," after he

had been begging me in a very different voice to "be nice to him," that

it muddled up my intelligence. I liked the town because it was pretty,

with graceful spires and lovely, ivied ruins; but I didn't care much

about the saints, or even about the last Lord Selkirk, for whom they put

up a Celtic cross in the Kirkcudbright market place; and I couldn't be

bothered pronouncing Kirkcudbright correctly. Of course it's done in the

last way you think it possibly could be, like all other Scottish names!

I brightened up a little at the story of Paul Jones at St. Mary's Isle,

because pirates are always nice, and he was classic. Besides, it was

amusing of him to fail to kidnap Lord Selkirk and steal a silver teapot

instead. To please Benjamin Franklin he gave the teapot back, so he

didn't get much out of that adventure!

I remember too that there were hills on the way to Gatehouse of Fleet,

hills which turned their backs and reared on their hind legs as we saw

them in the distance; but always they knelt meekly in front of the Gray

Dragon, as if he beat them to their knees. They were not so

accommodating to the hired car which followed. Something was the matter

with its internal economy. It grunted and groaned and emitted

evil-smelling fumes because it couldn't digest its petrol. Basil named

the creature Old Blunderbore, but said he would not dare to call it so

before its chauffeur-owner, who glared behind his goggles when it was

blamed for anything.

Gatehouse of Fleet looked, according to Basil, like places in Holland,

because sailing ships were apparently moving through fields, and masts

mixing themselves up with tree branches. Suddenly we had plunged into

Scott country, sandwiched in with Crockett, for Gatehouse is the

"Kippletingan" of "Guy Mannering." There was a sweet, sad smell of the

sea; and I heard Mrs. West ask Sir S. if it didn't remind him of "that

last night on the ship, when we told each other things?"

About this time, I think it must have been, we began to see so many old

castles dotted about the landscape that at last we almost ceased to

notice them. It must have been nice living in one of those box-like

fortress castles in old days, when all your friends had them too; so

jolly and self-contained. And, as a matter of course, when you built one

you had a few dungeons put in, just as one has plenty of bathrooms now

in a big house. If you were of a dramatic turn of mind, you placed your

dungeons mostly under your dining-hall, so you could hear the starving

prisoners groan while you feasted comfortably. We passed several dear

little towns, too, which I should like to have for toys, to keep in

boxes when not playing with them. On most of the houses were charming

chimney-pots of different colours, exactly like immense chessmen, set

out ready for a game. All the men in these towns looked almost ill with

intelligence. Most of the girls were very pretty, with little coquettish

features contradicted by saintly expressions, and even the dogs appeared

well educated and intellectual.

At Newton-Stewart a change came over the houses, but not the people or

animals. I felt that the smallest child would know more about books than

I did; and there was hardly a nondescript face to be seen. All could be

classified in historic Scottish types. But the whitewashed, thatched

cottages in the suburbs would have looked Irish if they had not been too

preternaturally clean. In the streets of Newton-Stewart there was not so

much as a stray stick or bit of paper. It looked to me a deeply

religious place, and Basil said perhaps it was trying to be worthy of

St. Ninian, who first brought Christianity to Scotland. He was a native

of the Solway shore, but went to Rome, where they liked him very much

and made him a bishop. Then he felt impelled to convert his own people,

so he sailed from France and landed at the island of Whithorn, which is

now an excursion place from Newton-Stewart. That sounds irreverent, but,

after all, an excursion is only a kind of pilgrimage; and even if people

are catching fish or eating them, they can be pleased to be at the one

place in Scotland where Christianity has gone on without interruption by

Vikings or others for fifteen hundred years.

Then, besides, Newton-Stewart has a monument of Samuel Rutherford to

live up to. And they ought to have one of his namesake, Samuel

Rutherford Crockett, who has done so much for Galloway.

It was in honour of his "Raiders" that we took the longest way to Ayr.

Some of the best things in that book happened near Loch Trool, so we

wanted to see Loch Trool. Bruce was there too; but this was a Crockett

tour. We should have gone perhaps, even if the run had been dull, for

it's only thirteen miles from Newton-Stewart, paradise of fishermen, to

the hidden lake; but the thirteen miles turned out to be a panorama of

beauty. Sir S. was surprised by its loveliness, though he knew by heart

Burns's poem, "The Banks of the Cree." We did not come at once to the

river; but from House o' Hill (delicious name!) we plunged into a wild,

forgotten paradise. The road lay under an arbour of trees like an

emerald tunnel, with a break here and there in the green wall to show a

blue shimmer of mountains and hills in the distance. We seemed to have

slipped into the hole leading to fairyland and pulled the hole in after

us; but I knew I was not going to enjoy getting there as much as if my

gray bonnet and coat had been on the front seat instead of Mrs. West's

purple beauties. It was suddenly that we came into sight and sound of

the river, and so deep was the stillness that we might have strayed into

the haunt of a sleeping nymph. Nothing moved but the rushing brown

water, and there was no sound, when we stopped to listen, but its joyous

song and the humming of bees in bracken and heather.

Basil can "make believe" more easily and less stiffly than Sir S.,

because he is an author, and used to stringing whimsies together. He and

I "pretended" that the bees were a fairy band, playing to a hidden

audience in a theatre roofed with the silver sheen of arching ferns.

Wafts of perfume came to us, cooled in woodsy dells, or warmed on

sunshiny banks of flowers; but not a soul could be seen anywhere, nor a

house. We knew that this was an inhabited world only by the wires

stretched across the river for the sending of letters and parcels.

Sunset-time had not nearly come yet, but already a silver slit was torn

in the blue of the sky; and for the second time the heather moon was

smiling its bright semicircular smile, as if to say, "Make the most of

me, Barrie, _your_ time is short!" Yet how could I make the most of her

when I could see only my knight's back, with a purple shoulder as close

to his as possible, and the heather moon was _ours_?

Suddenly Basil said, "Oh, there's your heather moon! I thought of you

yesterday after it rose until it set, and wondered what you were doing.

I do believe this _is_ different from other moons. Don't you see, young

as it is, how it has power to change the yellow of the sunlight, seeming

to alloy it with silver?"

I did see, but thought I must have fancied the effect, until he saw it

too. (We often think and see and say the same things, which is nice, but

not so exciting as the society of a man who thinks different things and

makes you argue.) The silver pouring down from that small crescent

seemed to sift through the strong golden light in a separate and

distinct radiance. It shimmered on the sea of waving hills and billowing

mountains that opened out before us, as if sprinkling a glitter of

sequins over the vivid green and amber and purple. Wherever there was

shadow this pale glimmer painted it with ethereal colours, like the

backs of rainbow fish moving under water. I might have jumped out of the

car and found the rainbow key, but nobody wanted it now!

"Just as that young, young moon has power to shine through the strong

afternoon sunlight, so a girl may all in a moment throw her influence

over a group of people older and more experienced than herself," said

Basil, smiling at me, and then at Mrs. James, as if he didn't mind her

hearing the flowery compliment.

"I don't know any such girl in real life," said I; "but you might work

her up for your book."

"I shall have to put her in, if the book's to be written," said he.

By and by we came to the lake, or, rather, far above it; and Sir S.

stopped the car to let us get out and look down. The water was a clear

green with glints of purple, as if beds of heather grew underneath.

There were jagged, bare rocks, and rocks whose shoulders were half

covered as if with torn coats of faded brocade, dim silver of lichen,

and pale pink of wild flowers. I hoped that Sir S. might join me for a

look at the heather moon lying deep in the lake like a broken bracelet,

but he didn't come. He looked at me very kindly from a distance, not

coldly, yet not warmly, and he stayed with Mrs. West.

It was Basil who told me about Robert Bruce and his men hiding here, and

rolling huge stones on the heads of the English soldiers who marched

along the bank of the lake in search of the "outlaws." It seemed as if

nothing terrible could have happened in so sweet a wilderness; but that

was not the only horror. There were other wild deeds in history, and in

the story of the "Raiders," memories of hunts for Covenanters, and great

killings. But now all is peace, and I should have thought Loch Trool

forgotten by the world if, in a dell of birch, rowan, hazel trees, and

great pines like green umbrellas, I had not spied a roof.

Sir S. said it was the roof of Lord Galloway's shooting-lodge, loved by

its owner because it was "out of tourist zone." So much the worse for

tourists! So much the better for Lord Galloway!

I should hate to think of the road to Loch Trool smoking with motor

dust. Of course our own Gray Dragon's pure dust is a different matter!

As we ran out of Crockett land into Ayrshire we came into Wallace land;

for every foot of Scotland is taken up twice over by something or

somebody wonderful. There isn't an inch left for new history-makers. If

we could see those "emanations" Sir S. talks of--those ghost

pictures--as far as the eye could reach we should see men marching,

splendid men and women, too, who have made the world shine with their

deeds, processions coming from every direction, out of the dim beginning

of things up to the present day.

After the wildness of Loch Trool we had a country of plenteousness and

peace. Basil said it was like a Surrey set down by the sea, so I suppose

Surrey has big trees and flowery hedges and rolling downs, purple with

heather. But surely no heather can be as purple as Scottish heather?

The sands of Girvan seemed to float like a golden scarf on the blue sea,

and the town looked a romantic, mediæval place till we shot into it.

Then we were disillusioned as to its age; but Ailsa Craig was noble in

the distance, and a few members of the gull colony had flapped over to

give town dwellers and visitors a sad serenade. "Gulls, golfers, and

geologists all love Girvan," Basil said.

"Have you put that down in your notebook?" I inquired.

"Not in those words. But I jotted down something about this town in

advance from authorities I've looked up. I generally keep two books

going: one in which I put the things I want to see, and ideas for plots

sometimes tangled up with a sort of diary; and another book of thoughts

about places I have already seen--thoughts I can weave into a story in

one way or another."

"You haven't once written in either of your books to-day!" I accused

him.

"No. I told you I'd given up note-taking for the present. I'm all at

sea. But just now it's a beautiful if not very calm sea."

"When it quiets down you'll begin again," I consoled him. "How I should

love to see a real, live author's notebook! It would be so _useful_ to

know how you manage to--to----"

"Record impressions," Mrs. James helped me out.

Smiling, Basil took from a breast-pocket a small green morocco volume

with a pencil slipped into a loop. Compared to Mrs. West's pretty book,

his was a shabby thing; but it smelt of good cigarettes.

"I'm afraid this will disillusion you," he said, "if you expect

something interesting. I simply make notes of things I want to see, or

jot down thoughts to recall pictures to my mind. Reading over one's

notebook is like glancing over a lot of kodak films. Sometimes one

sticks in a lot of nonsense."

I opened the little volume, and ran my eyes down the short pages.

"Carlisle, Saturday, August Something or Other. Notes for Scotch Tour,"

I read aloud. "Story of honeymoon. English hero--American girl. Aline

wants her Canadian. I see her American. Dispute. Must decide soon.

Reading up Galloway makes me want to go there. Aline says rush straight

on to Ayr, and save time. Hate saving time! Worst economy. More time you

spend, more you have. Must go along coast of Ayr, anyhow. Once lined

with strongholds of great families. See Dunure, Crossaguel, and deuced

lot of others.

"Keats visited Burns's birthplace. Wrote sonnet there. Look this up.

"Burns sought out, along banks of Ayr, places where Wallace was supposed

to have hidden. Good stuff this. Wallace fought all over the place here.

At Irvine, one of his earliest exploits. Kindled big fire, neighbouring

village. When English soldiers marched forth to put fire out, jumped on

them and killed the lot. Stuffed bodies into dungeon of castle at

Irvine. Called 'Wallace Larder' after that. Nasty larders people had in

those days. Read up account Douglas Larder. Compare the two. See which

worse. Why not call Barns of Ayr Wallace Oven? Read up Blind Harry for

picturesque story Barns of Ayr. Far as I remember, English enticed all

neighbouring Scots to powwow of some sort. Wallace expected; delay on

way. Scots executed on some pretext. When Wallace turned up, niece

warned him. He routed up few followers, set fire to barns and burnt

English, who were celebrating triumph over Wallace and his men. When get

to Ayr look this up further.... Word 'Whig' comes first from Ayr. Wonder

why? Look up. Also get Burns glossary. Dialect difficult. Aline won't

read Burns. Fear she's going to fail in this book. Thinks only of one

thing. But no matter. Courage, mon brave!

"Sunday. Had batch bad notices of last book from America. Aline gone to

bed with headache as usual after bad reviews. Says we must economize.

She'll forget when we start and want best suites of rooms with baths

everywhere. I _know_ that book was good. Hang notices! Understand so

well what Job meant when said, 'Oh, that mine enemy would write a book!'

He wanted to criticise it. Each new boil would suggest scathing epithet.

"Monday. Everything changed. Old plot exploded in thousand pieces.

Mustn't be honeymoon couple. Heroine radiant young girl, eighteen, hair

red as Circe's, eyes of new-born angel, comes like bombshell into hero's

life. Not good simile, bombshell. Query, hero. Would she fall in love

with man of B. N.'s type? I see another type more probable, but don't

want that.

"August 4th. Fearful row. General upset. Don't see any book unless I

write it alone. Aline says I can save situation for her. Would like only

too well do what she wants, but difficult bring it off as things are.

Chances in favour of other man. Temptation consent be cat's-paw. Is that

fair to the lovely chestnut in the fire? Extra-ordinary that child like

this can so upset us all. What is the electric attraction we can't

resist? More than normal amount of radium, perhaps!"

"Well, why don't you laugh at the rattle of the dry bones?" asked Basil,

as I read on, more and more puzzled.

"I haven't come to many funny things yet," said I, "except about Job.

That was rather good, though I don't see how you weave such things into

your books."

"Job--Job?" he repeated vaguely. Then a rush of blood went over his

whole face, up to his forehead. His dreamy dark eyes looked suddenly

anything but dreamy. "Good Heavens!" he gasped. "What have you got

there?" and began to ransack all the pockets of his waistcoat and coat

until he found the twin of the book he'd given me. "This is what I meant

you to see," he said in a queer, ashamed voice.

I handed the first book back to him. He seized it and glanced from page

to page, looking almost ill. By and by he came to something which seemed

to scare him. As far as I could tell, it was farther toward the end than

I had read.

"Would you mind showing me where you left off," he asked.

"It was where you were wondering whether your new heroine had swallowed

radium or something," said I.

"Oh!" He looked relieved. "Well--I wouldn't have had you see that

idiotic stuff for a good deal. But I told you, didn't I, that if the

book went on I'd have to put you into it? There's a lot of silly rot

there. Poetical license!"

"The thing that made the most impression on me was the part about the

red hair," I said. "The description sounded so nice. Who was Circe,

please? Was she Scottish? It's a name a Pictish princess might have

had."

"The first Circe lived even before the Pictish princesses," Basil

answered, quieting down, though he was still very flushed. "But she's

had a good many descendants--one or two at least in each generation of

women born in every country. Not that you--I mean the new heroine--will

be one of them really."

"What did Circe do?" I hurried on.

"Do? She was an exceptionally attractive woman. She had a special kind

of magnetism that nobody could resist. She amused herself by turning all

the men she knew--there were quite a lot of them--into animals of

different sorts."

"I think it would have been cleverer and more attractive of her if she

had turned animals into men," said I.

"That's what _my_ heroine can do," Basil explained. "She's a kind of

miniature baby Circe, for her red hair and general get up, and her

curious power of upsetting people and their plans from the first minute

they see her. But--my heroine wouldn't and couldn't turn her victims

into beasts. She makes them want to transform themselves into something

very extra special in the way of manliness."

"Why do you call her _your_ heroine with an emphasis?" I wanted to know.

"Isn't she your sister's heroine, too?"

"No. My sister doesn't see her as a heroine for a novel. And that's why

I say the book we started out to write won't materialize. No author can

write a story he or she doesn't take a strong interest in."

"That's where my writing is easier," I said. "I just put down all the

things exactly as they happen, and as I see and think about them. So

there's no heroine--and no hero--and no story."

"Yes, that is simpler," he agreed. "That's the way the Great Author

writes His book. Only all His characters are heroes and heroines in the

stories of their own lives."

As we talked, the moon went down in the west. The sky was a pale lilac,

like a great concave mirror reflecting the heather. Then it darkened to

a deeper purple, and made my thoughts feel like pansies, as they

blossomed in my mind. We fell into silence. But Mrs. James said

afterward that was because we were hungry and didn't realize what was

the matter with us. Perhaps she was right, but it didn't seem so prosaic

at the time.

As the car brought us near the town of Ayr (which, with its lights

coming out, reddened the purple mirror) it was too dark to see details

clearly. But, driving slowly, we were aware of a thing that loomed out

of the quiet landscape and seemed strangely foreign to it, as if we were

motoring in Greece or Italy, not Scotland. It was a great classic

temple, rising on the banks of a stream that laughed and called to us

through the twilight.

"Can it be somebody's tomb?" I asked. But there was no cemetery, only a

garden, and close by a camel-backed bridge that crossed the surging

river.

"It must be the Burns monument," said Basil. "I've never been here, but

I've studied up the place and looked at maps till I can see them with my

eyes shut. This is the right place for the monument, with a museum, and

some garden statues of Tam o'Shanter and Souter Johnnie, which we'll

have to visit by daylight to-morrow. I hope you're going to invite me to

sight-see with you?"

"It's not for me to invite any one."

"Look as if you want to, and it's done."

"Oh, I'll do that!" I promised.

VIII

We stopped at a big railway-hotel when we came into Ayr. Basil and Mrs.

West took rooms there too, because it was the best in town, and Mrs.

West always wants the very best--except when she's depressed by bad

notices of her books!

It was late, and she was so faint with hunger that she begged us not to

dress, but to go to dinner in ten minutes. We agreed; but when we'd

hurriedly washed our hands and faces and assembled at the rendezvous,

there was no Mrs. West. Basil was the only one who didn't look

surprised. Ten more minutes passed, perhaps, giving us time to think how

hungry we were too, and then the lady appeared. She hadn't exactly

dressed, but she had done something to herself which made her look fresh

and lovely and elaborate, in contrast to Mrs. James and me.

"Dear people!" she exclaimed, "I'm so sorry if I've kept you waiting,

but I simply couldn't find a _thing_; and the more haste, the less

speed, you know. Mr. Somerled, you've been here before in your

pre-American days. Do, like an angel-man, show me the way to the

dining-room. I can never get used to going in late, with a lot of people

staring. Basil will take care of Barrie and Mrs. James."

I felt as if I should go mad and bite something if she were to cultivate

the habit of calling me "Barrie"; but as I'd invited both her brother

and Sir S. to do so, and Mrs. James had never called me anything else, I

couldn't very well make Mrs. West the one exception.

A good many of the hotel guests had finished dinner by that time, but

twenty or thirty were still at their tables in the big dining-room,

which seemed to me absolutely palatial after my "glass retort."

Evidently we were well in the thick of "tourist zone" again, judging by

the look of the people, for most of them had the air of having travelled

half round the world in powerful and luxurious motor-cars. You could see

they weren't "local"--with four exceptions, our nearest neighbours. I

thought they were pets; but Mrs. West stared in that pale-eyed way I

noticed women have when they wish to express superiority or contempt.

All four of the pets were old--two very old, two elderly. The first pair

wore bonnets which they must have had for years, things that perched

irrelevantly on the tops of their heads, and looked entirely extraneous.

The second two had something more or less of the hat tribe, and Sir S.

said this was because their elders considered them girls, and granted

them the right to be frivolous in order to attract the opposite sex.

Mrs. West was sure that such headgear couldn't be got for love or money

except in small remote Scottish towns. "Might come from Thrums," said

Sir S. I'd never heard of Thrums, and Basil explained that it was a

famous place in a novel, written by a man of my name, Barrie. "The real

place is Kerrimuir," he went on, and promised to give me the book.

At this Sir S. glanced our way for an instant, looked as if he

wanted to speak, changed his mind, and turned again to Mrs. West, next

whom he sat, with Mrs. James on his other side. No wonder, I thought,

he liked better to look at her than me, as she was so fresh and

elaborate and charming. All through dinner he talked to Mrs. West

and a little to Mrs. James, leaving Basil to entertain me, which he

did very kindly. Still, Sir S. seemed annoyed because a party of

young American men at a table near ours stared at me a good deal,

though he didn't care to pay me any attention himself. He drew his

eyebrows together and glared at them once, whereupon the nicest

looking of the four (and they were all good-looking) bowed. Sir S.

returned the nod stiffly, with an "I-wonder-if-I-really-_do_

know-you,-or-if-this-is-a-trick-to-claim-acquaintance?" sort of

expression.

Perhaps I ought to have been annoyed too, but I wasn't a bit. They were

_such_ nice boys, so young, and having such a glorious time! I was glad

they looked at me and not at Mrs. West, and I was sure they didn't mean

to be rude. Probably they'd seen mother, or her photographs, and were

puzzling over the resemblance which Sir S. and Basil both say is very

strong, in spite of "marked differences." Whenever we speak of her, I

feel as if I could hardly wait till Monday, though at other times the

present seems so enchanting I can't bear to have it turn into the past.

The American boys (I thought that none of them could be over twenty-one)

lingered at their table a long time after they seemed to have finished

their dinner. They played some kind of game with bent matches which made

them laugh a good deal; but the minute we got up, I heard them push back

their chairs, though I didn't turn my head.

Basil and I walked out of the dining-room after the rest of the party,

and the boys came close behind us. I heard one say in a low voice, "Did

you ever see such hair?" and I felt a sort of creep run all the way down

my plait and up again into my brain, because I've been brought up to

think red hair ugly, and it's hard to believe every one isn't making fun

of it. However, I remembered what Sir S. said about the flame-coloured

heads of the children in the road, and that stuff Basil wrote in his

notebook about Circe. Then I felt better, and hoped that the boys were

not laughing.

Outside the dining-room door the handsomest one got near enough to speak

to Sir S. "How do you do, Mr. Somerled?" he said. "Don't you remember

me? I'm Jack Morrison, Marguerite's cousin. I met you twice at Newport

while you were painting her portrait."

"Marguerite Morrison. 'M. M.,' the grateful model who gave him the

refrigerator basket!" thought I. And Sir S. proceeded to give the cousin

a refrigerator glance; but it didn't discourage him. He went on as

cordially as ever. "My three chums want to be presented: Dick Farquhar,

Charlie Grant, Sam Menzies. We're all Harvard men, seeing Europe in

general and Scotland in particular, in our vacation. We've every one of

us got Scottish blood in our veins, so we sort of feel we've earned the

right to make your acquaintance. And we've been wondering if you'd

introduce us to your friends, if you don't think it's cheek of us to

ask!"

Sir S. looked as if he did think it great "cheek"; but if he hesitated,

Mrs. West quickly decided for him. She gave the nice American boy one of

her sweet, soft smiles, and said, "Of course Mr. Somerled will introduce

you all to us; or you may consider yourselves introduced, and save him

the trouble. My name is Aline West, and this is my brother, Basil

Norman."

She went through this little ceremony in a charming way, yet as if she

expected the young men to be delighted; and I too thought they would

burst into exclamations of joy at meeting celebrities. But not a word

did any of the four say about the books, or their great luck in meeting

the authors. Perhaps they were too shy, though they didn't seem shy in

other ways. They just mumbled in a kind of chorus. "Very pleased to know

you both" (which Mr. Norman told me afterward is an American formula, on

being introduced); and when they'd bowed to the brother and sister and

Mrs. James (though she hadn't been mentioned) all four grouped round me.

This was natural, I suppose, because we were more or less of an age.

"Is this your daughter, Mrs. West?" asked Jack Morrison. "And may we

children talk to her?"

For a minute that pretty, sweet-faced woman looked exactly like a cat.

She did, really. It almost gave me a shock! I thought, "She must have

_been_ a cat in another state of existence, and hasn't quite got over

it." Not that cats aren't nice in their way; but when ladies in

fascinating frocks, with hair beautifully dressed, suddenly develop a

striking family likeness to Persian pussies robbed of milk, it does have

a quaint effect on the nerves.

"Miss MacDonald is _not_ my daughter," said Mrs. West, laughing wildly.

"I'm not _quite_ old enough yet to have a daughter of her age, and she's

not such a child as she looks. But _do_ talk to her, by all means. I'm

sure she'll be very pleased."

"Then your name _is_ MacDonald?" Jack Morrison exclaimed. "We were

saying at dinner how much you look like Mrs. Bal MacDonald, the

beautiful actress. Is she any relation?"

"Yes, she is," I answered. And I would have gone on to tell him and his

friends that she was my mother, but I saw Sir S. and Mrs. West and Basil

looking as if they wanted to get away, so I dared not go into

particulars.

"Do tell us about it," said all the American boys together, when I

paused to take breath and think. I should have loved to stop and talk

about mother, but magnetic thrills of disapproval from my guardians

crackled through me. "If you're in Edinburgh next week maybe you'll find

out," I said consolingly. "But now I must go."

I bowed nicely, and they bowed still more nicely, trying to look

wistful, as if they didn't want me to hurry away.

We went to a private sitting-room Sir S. had taken, so I suppose he had

invited Basil and Mrs. West; and I thought they would speak of the

American boys, but nobody even referred to their existence. This made me

feel somehow as if I were being snubbed. I don't know why, for nobody

was unkind.

Afterward, when Mrs. James and I went to our adjoining bedrooms, I asked

her if I had done anything I ought not to have done.

"No, my dear child," said she, smoothing my hair, which I'd begun to

unplait. "Nothing except----" and she hesitated.

"Except what? Tell me the worst."

"There isn't any worst. You did nothing that Mrs. West and I wouldn't

like to do, if we could. I won't go into particulars, if you don't mind,

because it wouldn't be good for you if I did, and might make you

self-conscious--a great misfortune that would spoil what some of us like

best in you. But you needn't worry."

"Mrs. West looked as if she longed to scratch my eyes out. She needn't

have been so _very_ vexed at my being taken for her daughter. I'm not a

scarecrow, or a village idiot."

Mrs. James laughed, a well-trained little laugh she has, which seems

taught to go on so far and no farther--like the tune I once heard a

bullfinch sing in a shop.

"My dear, you're too young and unworldly to understand these things,"

she said. "A pretty woman, a celebrity like Mrs. West, isn't pleased

when she expects all the attention of young gentlemen for herself, to

find that she goes for nothing, and all they want is to talk to some one

else. And then, at her age, to be taken for a grown-up girl's mother! I

couldn't help being sorry for her myself. I know what it is to want to

keep young."

"But you're thinking of Doctor James," said I. "And she's a _widow_.

Besides, she's always calling me a child, and telling me to play dolls."

"Well, that isn't to say that she wants all the men there are to play

dolls with you," chuckled Mrs. James.

"These were boys, compared to her. She must be _thirty_."

"Maybe she's more, if the truth were known. But why should it be known?

Even when we're thirty and--er--a little over--we like to be admired by

boys as well as others. It makes us feel we haven't got _beyond_ things.

Still, she needn't grudge you those lads. She's got the great Somerled."

"Yes, I suppose she has," I admitted grudgingly.

I went to bed feeling as if elephants had walked over me for years.

* * * * *

Next morning Sir S. seemed to take it for granted that Basil would look

after Mrs. James and me. He certainly put on rather a "kind uncle" air

with me, but the more he did so, the less and less I felt as if he were

my uncle, and the more and more I wanted to have him for my knight--mine

all alone, without so much as a link of his chain armour for any one

else.

It is strange, as I've thought often before already, how one can get to

feel in such a way about a person one has known only a few days. But you

see, _I've known Sir S. in a motor-car_. I do believe that makes a

difference. Motor-cars vibrate, and you vibrate in them faster than you

do when not in motor-cars; so your feelings travel much faster than they

would in any other way. _That_ must be the scientific explanation of

what I feel for Sir S.

Here we were in Ayr, whither we'd come to think about Burns and nobody

else (unless, perhaps, Wallace) and this was to be the beginning of a

special little tour, following all along the line of Burns's pathway in

life, from his birth in the town of Ayr, to his death in the town of

Dumfries. We'd hurried through Dumfries almost with our eyes shut, on

purpose not to see where he died, before he was born, so to speak; and I

had thought all this inspiration on the part of Sir S. I fancied that he

had planned it partly for my sake, because of my being just out of the

glass retort. But now he abandoned me to another; and seeing him

entirely absorbed in Mrs. West kept me from dwelling on Burns as much as

I ought. If you are to concentrate your mind on historical characters or

poets, you must clear your brain out to make room for them, whereas mine

was stuffed full of fancies about myself and other people, none of whom

are historical at all yet--except, perhaps, the great Somerled.

Neither could Basil think exclusively of Burns, as we walked together

through the pleasant town of Ayr, after our early breakfast. He was

absent-minded once or twice, and when I said, "A penny for your

thoughts!" he answered that they were of the book he would like to write

but couldn't.

"The men I want to write about are boiling with primitive passions,"

said he, laughing, "and that won't do for a 'motor-novel.' Not that

people who travel in motor-cars aren't mostly boiling with primitive

passions for one cause or another, every minute. But the critics won't

have it. According to them, characters can experience grand emotions

only when they are keeping still, not when they're being hurled about

the country. The proper place for primitive emotions is in small fishing

villages, or, better still, on Devonshire moors, or, best of all, in the

illimitable desert. So you see the men I have in my mind wouldn't go

down with the critics, because unfortunately they happen to be in a

motor-car."

Talking of men in motor-cars, at that moment an enormous red car, going

very fast, changed its mind suddenly, stopped short in twice its own

length, and out jumped four men. They were the Americans of last night,

and by this time I had mixed up their names (except Jack Morrison's,

because he was so good-looking, with square blue eyes), but they

labelled themselves over again very neatly for me. The freckled one was

Dick Farquhar; the one with a moustache like the shadow of a coming

event, Charlie Grant; the one with the scar on his forehead, Sam

Menzies; but they had funny nicknames for each other. Afterward Basil

said they made him feel as if his name ought to be Methuselah.

The boys had been going to Burns's birthplace in their motor-car, but

they asked if they might walk round the town with us, and take to their

auto later. I looked appealingly at Basil, for they were such fun, so he

said, "Yes, of course"; and they were very polite, and called him "sir,"

as they had Mr. Somerled the night before. But each time they used the

word, Basil looked as if he were swallowing bad medicine, and yet as

though he were inclined to laugh. Presently, however, he went ahead with

Mrs. James, following his sister and Sir S., and left me to the four

boys. We laughed at everything. I'm afraid it wasn't at all the spirit

to go hero-worshipping; and none of them knew anything about "The Twa

Brigs" of Burns's poem. I should have liked to call Basil and ask him,

but they said they should feel it would be money in their pockets never

to have been born if I "shunted" them like that, so we laughed a great

deal more and went on wallowing in ignorance. They seemed to take it for

granted that I would rather be with them than with the others, and they

paid me all sorts of funny compliments. They vowed that they had

resolved to change their whole trip because of me, and wherever I was

going they would go too; so, just for fun, I would tell them nothing

except that it was to be Edinburgh on Monday. Cross-question as they

might, I would say no more than that they must find out my hotel, and

how I was related to "Mrs. Bal" (as they all called her) for themselves,

if they were to find out at all.

They knew little more about Wallace than Burns. When we stopped in front

of the monument in the High Street, coming back from the Auld Brig, Jack

Morrison began grandly with "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," but he

could get no farther, and stopped to ask helplessly, "Where _did_ he

bleed, anyhow? Was it here, and if not, why did they put up the

monument?"

Even I knew that Wallace was born in Ayr; and when I impudently inquired

what they came to Europe to see, if they cared more about football than

history, they all answered that they came to see pretty girls. "And, by

Jove, we're doing it!" added Charlie Grant.

"Can't you find pretty girls at home?" I sneered.

"We have found 'em. We're looking for new types now," said Jack. "So's

the great Somerled, isn't he? He told my Cousin Marguerite that he was

going a long journey in search of a model with the right shade of hair,

which was hard on her, poor girl, as she's spent a pot o' money on hers.

But Somerled's a sardonic sort of chap, don't you think? They say his

money's spoilt him. He hardly ever paints nowadays. Too busy grubbing

for millions. I've heard that you have to go on your knees to get him to

do a portrait--and if he graciously consents, you can't tell but he'll

bring out all that's most evil in your soul on to your face, like a

rash. You never know what'll happen with him--except his fee. Nothing

less than ten thousand dollars, if you get off cheap."

"I don't think he's that kind of a man at _all_," said I, "Why, just to

prove to you that he isn't, he's offered to paint me for nothing!"

They all roared at this, and wouldn't explain why. I didn't like them

much, for five minutes; but after that I couldn't help forgiving them

again.

We took the Gray Dragon for Alloway and for Burns's birthplace, but the

boys jumped into their car and kept close behind us. Hardly had we got

into the tiny thatched house--once a mere "clay biggin"--where Burns was

born, than the four appeared on the scene. Mrs. West was scarcely civil

to them at first, until Basil whispered (only in fun, of course, but she

took it seriously, as she often does when people think they're being

humorous), "If you're nasty to those boys, it will be a bad

advertisement. They won't read your books or tell their friends they're

the best books going!" She was quite kind and elderly-sisterly to them

after that. But nice boys as they are, it did grate on me having them

make jokes every minute, even about that wonderful, pathetic little room

with the railed-off furniture and curtained wall-bed.

Luckily I had been reading about the cottage and everything else

concerning the Burns family while I dressed. I knew already how Burns's

father built the tiny house with his own hands; how the night that

Robert was born, a fearful storm came up which threatened to sweep away

the whole biggin; and how the poor young mother had to be hustled off to

a neighbour's cottage. How little the poor couple guessed that the baby

born "in thunder, lightning and in rain" would make of the clay biggin a

world's shrine, to be bought by the nation for four thousand pounds.

Maybe it cost five pounds to build. How I did want to believe that from

one of the bowls kept on a shelf in that room of the wall-bed Burns had

eaten his porridge as a child. Of course that would be almost too good

to be true; but he did eat his porridge in that room, anyhow--and often

wanted more than he could get. What brains of genius have been nourished

on porridge and oaten cake in this country of ours! I felt more than

ever proud of my Scottish blood as I stood in that low-ceilinged

cottage; and I wondered if Sir S. had the same glorious thrill. I didn't

know if he had ever before come to Ayr; but I did know that his first

home on our own island of Dhrum must have been much like this--just a

clay biggin with a but and a ben. He, too, was born a genius. He, like

Burns, knew grinding poverty. He, too, was taken up by great ones and

dropped again, for he has told me so.

Once Sir S. was near me for a minute--without his Aline--and I did want

some word to prove that I was still his princess, he my knight. But all

I got from him on the subject was: "Well, do you think the knights

'notice' that you're a princess?"

I stared, bewildered. Then I remembered our conversation in the car,

before Mrs. West came and annexed the front seat. Of course I knew he

meant the American boys.

"They notice that I'm like my mother," said I.

"Oh, is that all?" And he laughed. Then Mrs. West flitted over to ask if

we oughtn't to go to the museum.

It is a pathetic little museum, with intimate relics and countless

pictures of Burns, each one making him look entirely different from all

the others. By and by we went on to the monument, the strange classic

temple that had loomed out of the twilight as we came to Ayr. The road

from town to the monument was the way of Tam o' Shanter's wild ride, or

almost the same; only there's a tram-line now to spoil the romance, if

one chooses to let it be spoiled. As for me, I'd scorn to let romance be

broken by an object so dull as a tram-car. When things are ugly I simply

make them transparent for my eyes, and see through them as if they

didn't exist.

I had to do a good deal of this juggling in the neighbourhood of the

monument; for the booths bristling with Burns souvenirs, and the tea

gardens where crowds drink to Burns's memory in ginger pop and fizzy

lemonade, would be rather dreadful if they were not funny. I'm sure,

though, Burns's sense of humour would make him laugh a mellow, ringing

laugh: if he could see those thousands of bottles of temperance drinks

being emptied in his honour.

It was good to escape from the gay, meretricious gardens to the

graveyard of Alloway Auld Kirk, where Tam o' Shanter's witches danced,

and where Burns's father lies buried. There was peace, too, where the

Brig o' Doon arched its camel-back over a clear brown, rippling stream.

There, through the singing of the water, through the playing of an old

blind fiddler scraping the tune of "Annie Laurie," I could hear the true

Burns song, the music of his thoughts sweetly ringing on, to keep the

world young, as the bright water leaps on forever to give its jewels to

the sea.

We went back from Alloway to Ayr, and lunched early in our own hotel.

The boys lunched early too, and when we started out on the next stage of

our Burns pilgrimage, we saw their red car panting in front of the

hotel. I had heard no talk of new plans for Basil and Mrs. West, but

they must have talked things over with each other or Sir S., for

Blunderbore was vibrating healthily between the Gray Dragon and the Red

Prince. I could have jumped for joy when I saw Blunderbore, and kissed

him on his bonnet. Already in imagination I was in my old place on the

front seat of our car, beside my knight; but the first words of Sir S.

snatched me off again and left me dangling in mid-air.

"Sure your motor's all right again?" he inquired of Basil.

I held my breath for the answer.

"Yes, thanks, quite all right."

"You know"--and Sir S. turned to Mrs. West--"we're delighted to keep you

as our guests."

"You _are_ good," she answered, "but--we mustn't wear out our welcome."

"Don't be afraid of that." (I did so wish I could have been sure whether

his tone was eager or only cordial! Probably Mrs. West was wishing the

same.)

"Thanks a thousand times, but we'll sample our own car for a while. We

shall meet and exchange impressions. And perhaps--after Edinburgh----"

She broke off, leaving the rest to our imagination. Mine was so lively

that it gave my heart a pinch. I could see what she meant as clearly as

if she had held a photograph before my eyes: me, with mother, waving

good-byes from a hotel door; she and her brother transferred permanently

to the Gray Dragon, the Row forgotten; Blunderbore's nose turned meekly

back toward Carlisle; Mrs. James out of the picture. Just for an instant

I could have cried. Then I reminded myself for the twentieth time that

in a few days _nothing_ can matter, because I shall have my own dear,

beautiful mother, who will make up to me for everybody and everything

else.

I don't know how I should have borne it if Mrs. James had wanted to sit

in front, but the angel didn't. And presently there was I in my old

place, feeling as if weeks instead of hours had elapsed (yes "elapsed"

is the most distance-expressing word) since I last sat shoulder to

shoulder with Sir S.

That feeling of long-ago-ness made me a little shy, and to save my life

I couldn't think of a word to say except about the weather; so I said

nothing at all, and he said the same. By and by I began to count. When I

had got up to five hundred, and still he hadn't spoken, I knew I should

certainly burst if nothing happened before a thousand.

"Well?" he murmured at last in an isolated way.

"Five hundred and eighty-six," I counted aloud inadvertently.

"Eh?" said he.

"I was just seeing how many I should have to count before you spoke."

"H'm! I'm afraid you do find me a dull companion after all your latest

acquisitions. But what can I do? In a way I'm your guardian temporarily.

I can't let you run about the country alone with hordes of young men. I

may seem selfish; but I have done my best for you since other and

younger knights came upon the field."

"That _is_ hypocritical!" I flung at him. "You shed me on others because

you like the society of a grown-up woman better than mine; and then you

pretend you're doing it for my sake. I _like_ that!"

"I thought you would like it. That's why I did it."

"Not because you wanted to talk to Mrs. West?"

"Oh, of course I like talking to her. Don't you like talking to her

brother, and all that drove of boys?"

"Why--yes, I like talking to them well enough, but----"

"But what?"

"You ought to _know_, without telling."

"I don't know. Are we playing at cross purposes?"

"How can I tell, if you can't?"

"How can I, if you _won't_?"

"Oh, don't let's argue about nothing! Let's be happy--perfectly happy."

"In other words, if milk has been spilt, don't water it with salt tears,

but leave it to collect cream."

"Yes. Why doesn't everybody treat spilt milk like that?"

"It doesn't occur to poor worried humanity. It wouldn't occur to me in

other society--Princess."

"Thank you, Sir Knight." I couldn't resist nestling my shoulder closer

to his in joy and gratitude: and then an odd thing happened. A tiny

shock of electricity seemed to flash through his shoulder to mine. I

never felt anything like it before. It made my heart stop and afterward

beat fast. I had to talk of something irrelevant in a hurry, so I

grabbed at Burns: and indeed we ought not even for a minute to have

talked of any other subject on this road, which we were exploring only

because of Burns. Not that the high road between Kilmarnock and Dumfries

wouldn't be worth seeing if Burns had never set foot on it, and if no

other great ones had passed that way. It would be worth travelling for

itself alone, for every mile has its own special beauty. And the more I

think of Scotland the more I tell myself she is like a wise connoisseur

(I hope that's the word!) who goes ahead of others to a sale of splendid

pictures, and secures the finest for herself at a bargain. Several of

the prettiest pictures hang on the blue-and-gold walls of the Burns

country.

We came suddenly into view of Arran when the car had spun us along an up

and down road to Ochiltree and Cumnock. It was I who, looking back,

first caught sight of the jagged pinnacles boldly painted in purple on a

far, pale sky. I didn't know what they were, but Sir S. put on the

brakes quickly, and let us stop to look. He remembered the cliffs, and

gazed at them with a light in his eyes which would have told me, if I

hadn't known before, that he had been homesick for Scotland all these

rich, successful years, whether consciously or not.

By and by we came to the Nith, which afterward we did not leave; and

through a green glen wound the "sweet Afton" Burns wrote of and loved

almost as dearly as he loved its elder brother. Here in this valley,

companioned with his own starry thoughts, he walked and rode, happy in

his fellowship with Nature, even though poverty made him an exciseman at

fifty pounds a year. He had to put down smuggling with one hand and

write his glorious poetry with the other, as Mrs. James expressed it. At

New Cumnock he would spend a night sometimes on his way to Ellisland,

his "farm that would not pay," near Dumfries.

Always following in the track of Burns, the Gray Dragon dashed up and

down short, steep, switchbacked hills (which must have tried any steed

of ancient days except a witch's broomstick) and whisked us into

Sanquhar, the "sean cathair" or "old fortress" of earliest Gaelic times,

now snappily called "Sanker." There Queen Mary rested, going to

Dundrennan after the terrible battle of Langside; there Prince Charlie

marched; and there was a monument of granite to the Covenanters Cameron

and Renwick. Burns must have dreamed of Queen Mary when duty brought him

to Sanquhar; and Renwick would have been a person to appeal to him,

because of his youth and good looks, and because the "pretty lad" was

the last martyr to the Covenant. But perhaps he thought most of all of

that Admirable Crichton who was born at Sanquhar, not in the castle of

his wild and brilliant family, but at Eliock House. Burns would maybe

have liked him not so much for taking his degree at St. Andrews when he

was twelve, or for knowing ten languages and many sciences, as for

wandering adventurously over the world, winning tilting matches at the

Louvre, and the love of ladies at Padua and Venice.

Mrs. James had bought a book with quotations from a diary of Burns, and

she read out to us while the car stopped at Sanquhar what he had written

about one specimen day:

"Left Thornhill at five in the morning. Rode four miles to Enterkinfoot

and made a call: thence three miles to Slunkerford with another call:

thence six miles to Sanquhar, where there were twenty official visits to

be made: thence two miles to Whitehall, with two more calls: and a

return journey to Sanquhar, finishing the day's work at seven in the

evening."

Poor poet. But he had always his glowing fancies to keep his heart warm.

We felt almost guilty because we had no horrid calls to make, as he had;

nothing to do but enjoy the scene made magical by his love of it: the

valley with its near green hills and distant peaks of Galloway and

Lowther; the river girdling wooded reaches with a belt of silver, or

burrowing through deep rocky channels, purple as heather petrified. It

was all as different from yesterday's Crockettland as if we had crossed

the ocean from one to the other.

At Carronbridge we saw the woods of Drumlanrig on our right hand; and

Sir S. told me about the Duke of Queensberry who spent all his money in

building the splendid castle, slept in it one night, saw the bills for

it, cursed himself and it, and went away with nothing left but a broken

heart. "Deil pyk out the een of him who sees this," he wrote on the back

of the biggest bill.

There's a Burns museum at lime-tree-shaded Thornhill, but I refused to

go in and stare at an original cast of his skull. I do think a man,

especially a great genius, ought to be allowed the privacy of his own

skull!

Closeburn is the place where the Kirkpatricks, the Empress Eugénie's

family, used to live before they went to Spain. At Auldgirth we went

over a bridge built by Carlyle's father. At Mauchline Burns grew from a

boy into a man and fell in love. At Ellisland, Burns lived for a long

time with his handsome wife, Jean Armour. At Dalswinton the first

steamboat made its first trip, and Burns was on it. All round us now was

Scott's "Red-gauntlet" country; and the bridge crossing the Nith at

Dumfries was built by Devorgilla. There was something to see and think

of every minute; and in fifty-nine miles we had followed Burns's whole

life-story on its slow way from Ayr to Dumfries. Only--we couldn't

follow his thoughts to the stars!

We had stopped many times; still it wasn't yet five o'clock, and we had

time to see all that's sacred to Burns at Dumfries, the "Fair Queen of

the South," as Sir S. called it, quoting I don't know what.

First we went to the house in Bank Street where Burns came when he left

Ellisland, and had seventy pounds a year to live on instead of fifty--a

sad and grim little house, where in the wee closet that was his study we

could hear the music of the Nith, but catch no sparkle of its water. He

had hardly air enough to fan the fire of genius, yet it went on turning

brightly because nothing could put it out. If it was a sad house to live

in, it must have been even sadder to die in. He'd have liked his last

look to be on sky and meadow, or he would not have said in his "Song of

Death":

"Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth and ye skies,

Now gay with the broad setting sun.

Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties!

Our race of existence is run."

I found those words in the Poems bound in tartan which Basil had bought

for me in a fascinating bookshop at Ayr and I read them in the room

where the poet died. Afterward I was glad to see in St. Michael's

churchyard a great many of the "loves and friendships" resting near him

in his long sleep. Their presence consoled me for the mausoleum which

nobody can admire nowadays, or think worthy of him. Almost, I would

rather have had him lie under one of those strange, enormous tombstones

like stone cupboards or tables which clutter the graveyard.

While we were trying to find the burial-place of Napoleon's doctor, and

some martyrs and cholera victims Mrs. James was interested in, Mrs. West

and Basil appeared, and then the Americans. Sir S. looked horribly

bored, when he saw the four tall, brown, nice-looking boys, and asked me

quite fiercely if I'd given them permission to follow us every step of

the way. I snapped back, "No, of course not!" And immediately he said,

"Forgive me. If you had, after all where would be the harm?"

There was no time for more. We had to say, "How do you do?" to Basil and

Aline; and then the boys surged round us, in their high spirits rather

like big Newfoundland puppies sacrilegiously racing each other among the

graves. They had been reading up history on purpose to please me, they

announced, and were ready to bet five pounds against a glove that they

knew more than I did. Was I aware that Dumfries meant "fort in the thorn

bushes?" Had I learned that the British Christian chief, who was the

real King Arthur, fought with pagan Saxons all along the Nith. Did I

know it was in Grayfriars, or the Minories Church, that Bruce killed the

Red Comyn, Devorgilla's grandson?

They won the glove; and then there was a scene when they took a penknife

and cut it up in four pieces, one for each man. I tried to keep them

from being so foolish, but might as well have tried to stop the wind

from blowing; and it was no wonder that Mrs. West turned her back on us

rather than see those dreadful boys ostentatiously stowing away the bits

of gray kid in what Jack Morrison called their "heart-pockets."

I was afraid Sir S. might think it was my fault, their coming to stay at

the pretty hotel he'd chosen for us because it overlooked the river; but

it wasn't a bit. It was just as much a coincidence as Mrs. West and

Basil finding three Canadian friends already there--perhaps even _more_

of a coincidence; for it didn't seem to me that Mrs. West was really

astonished at finding these people at a Dumfries hotel, or they at

finding her and Basil. I was there when they met in the hall: two rather

handsome dark men, brothers, named Vanneck, and the fair, thin little

wife of the younger one. All they said at first was, "Well, this _is_

nice! How do you do?" And it struck me afterward, when I thought it

over, that if it had been a great surprise, they would have mentioned

it. I wondered if they hadn't corresponded and arranged it somehow, for

they appeared to know each other very well, and to be the best of

friends, especially the elder Mr. Vanneck and Mrs. West, who called each

other "Aline" and "George." After dinner it turned out that she had been

inviting the Vannecks to go on to Melrose and Edinburgh in Old

Blunderbore, without consulting the chauffeur-owner of the car. He

thought the load, with extra luggage, too heavy for Blunderbore's

powers; consequently Mrs. West threw herself on the mercy of Sir S. She

asked if the Gray Dragon could take Basil, and the Gray Dragon's master

quietly said yes.

After Mrs. West had walked with Sir S. in the churchyard of St.

Michael's, he seemed very thoughtful and a little gloomy, even stiff in

his manner with me. At first I felt it must be that she had said

something to change him toward me, but again I told myself that that was

a silly and far-fetched suspicion. It was more likely that he

disapproved of my "larking" with the American boys and giving them a

glove to divide in bits. Afterward, too, when they turned up at our

hotel, he might easily have thought I'd encouraged them to follow us

again.

I hoped for a chance to put that idea out of his mind, but next morning,

starting for Melrose, Vedder had the place next Sir S., and Basil, Mrs.

James, and I were all three together behind.

We started before Aline West and her friends the Vannecks (her special

one is a widower, very rich, who has proposed several times, she told

Mrs. James); but the four boys waited for us to get off again, so they

might know where we were going; and I began to be almost angry, because

of the wrong impression their nonsense was making on Sir S. It had been

so good to get him back yesterday that it was worse than ever so see him

slipping quietly away once more.

If it hadn't been for these worries, it would have been a wonderful day.

From Dumfries we ran up and down nice scallopy hills, crossing the Annan

at a place named Beattock, for Moffat, where there are sulphur wells a

girl discovered two hundred years ago, and made the fortune of the town.

Then there was a lovely road along Moffat Water, with a succession of

wild green dells and hillsides cleft with fern-choked ravines. Still we

were in Burns's country, for by Craigie Burn lived Jean Lorimer, to whom

he wrote love-songs; and a little farther on was the scene where "Willie

brewed a peck o' maut." The next bit of beauty was associated with the

Ettrick Shepherd (I can't bear to think of his name being Hogg), for he

wrote a Covenanter story, "Brownie of Bodesbeck," about a mountain we

could see hovering in the distance.

All Moffatdale looked a haunt for fairies, so no wonder it is cram full

of legends; and if I had been sitting with Sir S. I should have begged

him to stop and let us scramble up a rocky path to the haunt of a pale

spirit disguised as a waterfall. The Gray Mare's Tail is a disguising

name, too, for there is nothing gray about it, but all white as

streaming moonlight; and Sir S. and I together might have stood a good

chance of finding the rainbow key, sparkling on some cushion of

irridescent spray. We missed the chance, however; and who knows if it

will ever come again?

Basil had bought a volume of Scott's poems for me, to match the Burns's

and he found in "Marmion"--where he knew it existed--a verse about the

torrent:

Issuing forth one foamy wave,

And wheeling round the Giant's Grave,

White as a snowy charger's tail

Drives down the pass of Moffatdale.

So already we were coming into Scott's country. I remember Birkhill,

because it's the watershed between the Moffat and the Yarrow, and the

word "watershed" goes through my mind with a musical white rush, like a

cataract. It suggests beautiful faraway things. Besides, there's another

reason for remembering. Close by, at Dobbs Linn, the Covenanters used to

hide in the time of the great persecution.

We swept through some bare, bleak country before coming to the Yarrow,

but the rover brought us back to gentle, cultivated land, with thoughts

of her favourite Wordsworth for Mrs. James; and soon we came to a very

famous place, Tibbie Shiels's Inn. I had never heard of it, but that

doesn't take from its fame! Basil and Mrs. James could both tell me how

Scott, and Christopher North, and De Quincey, and a long list of other

great men, used to meet at the house kept by Mrs. Richardson, "Tibbie,"

who outlived all the noble company, and was buried at last in the same

churchyard with the Ettrick Shepherd.

By and by our road dropped down and down to the shores of lonely St.

Mary's Loch (Scott wrote of it in "Marmion"), and at the end of the

still lake to Dryhope Tower, where brave Mary Scott, his ancestress,

"The Flower of Yarrow," had her birthplace.

So we went on to Selkirk on its hill overlooking Ettrick Water, and

stopped just long enough to buy some of the celebrated "bannocks" for

our picnic luncheon later on, and to have a glance at the statues of Sir

Walter Scott and Mungo Park, the African traveller. Basil pretended to

be shocked because I had never heard of him! "And you had never heard of

Aline and me till you met us," he sighed, shaking his head. "I suppose

you never heard of the sutors of Selkirk, either? The burly sutors who

'firmly stood' at Flodden when other 'pow'rful clans gave way'? Well,

I'm glad, anyhow, that we aren't the _only_ people you'd never heard

of!"

Basil seemed very happy, and kind, and _understanding_, somehow, as if

he saw that something was not quite right with me, and he wanted to

console me as well as he could.

Sir S. had managed very clearly about not letting us stop to look at the

town of Burns's death until we'd seen the place of his birth and traced

out the path of his life-story; but he couldn't contrive the same kind

of trip for Sir Walter Scott's country without going over the whole road

twice. Besides, he wanted us to see Melrose by moonlight, and said it

would be "incomparably better than Sweetheart Abbey." But I knew it

wouldn't be better for me, and I didn't quite forgive him for thinking

it possible, now that we had got so mixed up with irrelevant people.

We had to go to Jedburgh first, the place farthest south; then to

Dryburgh; then flashing through Melrose to Abbotsford, where Scott died

as well as lived; and then back to Melrose for the night. That was his

plan; and I still supposed that we were to go on somewhere else next

day--Sunday--not arriving in Edinburgh till Monday. But it seems that

Sir S. had made up his mind to a different programme, though he said

nothing about it then.

Things happened to the boys' car on the way to Jedburgh, though the road

was good, and only undulating. Basil said that, as a matter of fact, he

had "ill-wished" them and their auto, and as "thoughts are things," he

had created the nail on which their tire came to grief. "Somerled and I

want to be the only ones," he added mysteriously. "We'll have no

interlopers." Which would have made me think him rather a frivolous

person, after all, if he hadn't been so well up in the lore of the road,

and known so many interesting things about Jedburgh, the county town of

Roxburghshire.

"If we curse a mere nail on a white velvet road-surface nowadays," said

he, "think what the roads must have been like when Jedburgh had a royal

castle, and kings and queens were travelling about from one of their

houses to another! Think what Queen Mary must have had to endure, even

bringing things down to modern times, comparatively. She stayed in

Jedburgh town, in an old house in Queen Street--came for assizes, I

think. Then, while she was there, bored to death, she heard that

Bothwell was 'sick of a wound' at Hermitage Castle, over twenty miles

distant. In an hour she was on her palfrey and off to see him, falling

into a morass on the way. But she got back again that night, rather than

her good subjects should say she neglected their affairs. She fell ill

with fever after her exertions. What wouldn't she have given for a

motor-car? But how she would have been bumped and bruised if she'd had

one, though the roads were grand then compared to the state they'd

fallen into after the Romans marched out of Scotland. Imagine the early

kings and queens with their processions passing where we pass now; and

armies returning from battle with their prisoners; and bands of pilgrims

going to some sacred shrine; and robber hordes moving at night; and

wild-beast shows on the way from one fair to another. Can't you see the

panorama?"

I could, easily, picture after picture. But when you come to think of

it, he'd mentioned nothing as curious as motors, which we take quietly

for granted, just as our forefathers took the wild beasts and the

robbers.

We had a glimpse of Burns's "Eden scenes on crystal Jed," though only

enough to be aggravating, for Basil said there were prehistoric caves,

and scenery enough to make a journey to Scotland worth while, if one

came for nothing else. But people in motor-cars never seem to turn aside

for anything. They go toward their destination like creatures possessed.

So, although Jedburgh is supposed to be the most historic town of the

Lowlands, we hardly looked at it in our haste to see the Abbey, and to

rush on to other Abbeys--a dayful of Abbeys! Not that Jedburgh put

itself out to attract us. It had rather a grim air as a town, as if it

hadn't quite forgotten the fierce slogan of the Jedburgh men, who

shouted "Jethart's here!" as they wielded the terrible Jethart axes

invented by themselves. And one isn't allowed to go inside Queen Mary's

house to see the tapestry her ladies worked.

I wished to think no abbey so beautiful as Sweetheart Abbey, which was

my first, and seen on the first night of the heather moon; but I had to

tell myself that Jedburgh was lovelier, in its garden on the river-bank.

Dreaming of its own reflection, its hollow, window-eyes could see, deep

down under a glass, all its own history and legends preserved forever as

in a crystal casket; the story of saintly King David who built it, and

of the French friars who left their own Abbey at Beauvais to people it;

better still, of the wedding with the spectre guest--the marriage of

little French Jolette to Alexander, the last of the Celtic kings.

Perhaps, too, the window-eyes peering into the crystal could see the

figure of Sir Walter Scott, seeking and finding inspiration in the

Abbey's old tales.

Basil, who told me the stories, read in a book that "Jedburgh is

completer than Kelso or Dryburgh, and simpler and more harmonious than

Melrose," so when the four boys appeared at last in Dryburgh Abbey,

having calmly missed out Jedburgh and Kelso to save time, I used the

criticism as if it were original, with great effect; for by that time

_we_ had made a side dash to see lovely Kelso, where Sir Walter went to

the Grammar School, and met Ballantyne, who long afterward published his

novels and brought about his bankruptcy. I heard also, read out from the

same book, that the stone of Dryburgh was taken from the quarry that

built Melrose, and that the name Dryburgh meant "Druid." Even the boys,

I think, could hardly help feeling the mysterious, haunting charm of the

place, which was as strange and secret as if the dark yew trees and

Lebanon cedars guarding the ruins were enchanted Druid priests. There

was a Druid urn, too, which looked as if it knew all the secrets of the

ages, and had held sacrificial blood.

I could imagine Sir Walter Scott coming to Dryburgh again and again, and

loving the hidden spot so well that he wanted to sleep his last sleep

there. Such a peaceful sleep it must be with the Tweed singing out of

sight, and yews old as legend to play lullabies upon their own

harp-strings when the wind touches their dark, rustling sleeves.

The song of the Tweed at Abbotsford was the song of Inspiration,

changing to the song of Fulfilment in the master's passing hour. Now, at

Dryburgh, the river veils itself like a mourner, and its song is the

Sleep Music which has in it the secret of death and of life beyond. I

stood for a minute alone in front of the tomb where Sir Walter's body

lies with those he loved best, in the place he loved best, and

transparent green shadows like the spirits of shadow hid me from the

sunlight. While I shut my eyes, I could understand the message of the

song. And I knew that if my knight had been with me it would have come

to him in the same way, because we are both of the land where the old,

old secrets of wind and waves and rock are in the blood of the people,

and sung by their bards. It is perhaps the mysterious kinship of far-off

ancestry which draws me to him, and tells me that we two belong

together--that others stand outside as strangers.

Just then I felt that it would have been worth the bother of being born

only for the sake of that minute, if I had no other minutes worth

living; and it seemed that some knowledge was coming back to me which

souls forget as bodies grow up to manhood or womanhood. But suddenly

Basil's voice broke the Music. "You look as if you were conjuring up the

White Lady of Avenel, who will come to any one who knows how to call

her, here at Dryburgh," he said. And I opened my eyes as if he had

jerked me back by the arm from the days of the Druids to the era of

motor-cars. And so he had--by the ear, not the arm. If Sir S. had spoken

to me then it would have been different. I begin to think he is going to

be the only Real Man in my world. But if I find that out, and he doesn't

think me the only Real Girl, what will become of me?

After we had done what Mrs. West, in her pretty little tinkling voice,

called "exhausting Dryburgh" (as if one could!) we went to Melrose, only

four miles away, to leave our luggage at a nice hotel and take rooms for

the night, before going on another mile and a half to Abbotsford. I

little thought what a surprise I should have by and by, owing to this

plan of action mapped out by Sir S.

The next thing that happened to us was seeing the many turreted house

built by the "Wizard of the North," when his wish was to found a great

Border family. He didn't realize then that he was founding a great

school of romance and that all the world would be his family in mind and

heart.

A book Basil had, said that the house was "ill-placed," but to me that

seemed a dull and unimaginative criticism. Nowadays people may think a

great deal about wide views from their windows; and if I ever build a

house with a fairy wand, that's what I shall choose to have myself. But

perhaps in Sir Walter's day the thing most sought for was a peaceful,

sheltered outlook all to yourself and your family, like a secret garden

of which only you had the key. Just such an outlook the Wizard had from

his windows; and of course what he most wished for was to bring the

singing Tweed into his secret garden, just as you coax a lovely wild

bird, if you can whistle its own notes, under the trees it loves.

Perhaps if Sir Walter had not been able to look out over his flowers and

hay-scented meadows to the friendly river, inspiration might have failed

him in his troubles. But, you see, he had that secret garden of his

soul; and when he was there it must have walled him into a region of

peace where worries could do no more than knock at the door.

Wandering over the big house with Mrs. James and Basil (the boys in the

background), I was glad, glad that Sir Walter had owned so many

treasures, and collected so many curiosities; yet I felt an undertone of

sadness even in the library (where the twenty thousand books are, given

back by those decent bodies, his creditors), a sadness like that which

must have pressed on his spirit, thinking of all the money he had paid

for his home, and the beautiful things in it--all the money he would

have to make out of his brain to clear away the debt. "When I do build

my house, I shall have a gallery like this in the library," I said,

thinking Basil was close behind me, as he had been; but instead, there

was Sir S. standing silently by. Basil had gone into the study, or

perhaps into the tiny "Speak a bit," to look at the wall-panelling taken

from Queen Mary's bed at Jedburgh.

"That's just what I was thinking about my library," Sir S. answered, as

if I had spoken to him.

"Haven't you got one yet?" I asked.

"Only an embryo library in a flat in New York--a rather nice flat. But a

flat isn't home. And you know--you ought to know--the house of my heart

is on a faraway island."

"The island of Dhrum?"

"Yes. I've just begun to realize that I never have had and never can

have a real home out of the Highlands. Would you think me an

interloper--you and the other grand MacDonalds--if I, the crofter's boy,

should develop an ambition like Sir Walter's--oh, not so worthy or

splendid, because _I'm_ neither worthy nor splendid--if I should wish to

have the great house of the MacDonalds of Dhrum, not let to me for a

term of years as it is now, but bought and paid for as my own?"

"Can the MacDonalds sell?"

"Yes, and will, if I'll pay his price. You see, he has no son, only a

daughter; and she, having failed to bring off a match or two----"

(I didn't let my eyes twinkle, or my face do that weird thing, "break

into a smile"; but Jack Morrison told me that Miss MacDonald had "set

her cap at the great Somerled," and torn it off and stamped on it in

rage because--this is Jack's slang--Sir S. "wasn't taking any.")

--"Having failed to bring off a match or two, has settled down into

old-maidhood. She's an enthusiastic suffragette, and hates living out of

London. The Mac of D. considers his club his castle, or a good deal

better; and as he's the last of the line--not a male heir, no matter how

distant--he can do as he likes with his ancestral stronghold. You know,

I suppose, your father was born at Dunelin Castle?'

"Yes," I said. "I wish I'd been born there, instead of at Hillard

House."

"So do I wish it. If you had been, I should have no hesitation

in--er--in building the gallery round the library wall."

"You think you really will decide to buy the castle?" I asked

breathlessly.

"Sometimes I think so. At other times I think, _Qui bono?_ I say to

myself that I shall never have a home, or an incentive for settling

down. But come along and look at Sir Walter's treasures before any one

else appears."

"Where's Mrs. West?" I asked involuntarily.

"She's annexed your bodyguard for the moment--do you mind?--appealed to

their innate love of horrors by showing them the picture of Queen Mary's

head, painted an hour after her death by a brother of Margaret Cawood,

her attendant. Suddenly I felt that, if Basil could spare you to me for

ten minutes, I should like to be the one to show you a few things--the

things I loved best when I came from Edinburgh to Abbotsford with a bit

of the first money I ever earned by my brush."

I turned on him, opening my eyes wide. "Basil spare me!" I echoed

scornfully. "I'm not his princess, even if you don't want me for yours."

"I do want you. But----"

"Oh, here he comes!" I whispered, shrill as a cricket. "Take me to see

_your_ things, quickly."

So we ran away from Basil, and I had one of the happiest hours I have

ever lived through; although the sight of Sir Walter's neat clothes in

the glass case--the thick-soled boots, the broad-brimmed hat that

covered his thoughts, the coat that covered his heart--brought tears to

my eyes.

Next best, I liked the bit of Queen Mary's dress, the pocket-book worked

by Flora MacDonald, Prince Charlie's "Quaich"--the cup with the glass

bottom to guard the drinker against surprises--the ivory miniatures Sir

Walter and his French bride exchanged, and the Rob Roy relics. Perhaps

it is odd, but they were the very things Sir S. had remembered most

affectionately. Last of all he showed me a toadstone amulet set in

silver, a charm to prevent and ward off the spells of fairies. "If I

could have had a thing like this to carry about with me in my

motor-car," he said, "I should perhaps have been safe. But it's too late

now."

He smiled at me with that whimsical yet kind smile which is the only

sort he ever gives me since Mrs. West and Basil and the boys came.

Before their day, there was a different look in his eyes. I can't tell

what that difference was, but I liked the old look a thousand times

better than the new, which makes me feel I may as well go into a

convent. Not that I intend to do so!

Just then Basil came to say that his sister and the Vannecks were going,

as Aline was tired; and would Sir S. tell her what time we were to see

the Abbey. Basil and I were left together--quite as usual, lately. He

made some rather nice poetical remarks about the house at Abbotsford:

how marvellously it expressed the personality and tendency of Sir

Walter's mind; and how it seemed to him that here was the true heart of

Scotland embalmed in spices and laid in a shrine, just as Robert Bruce's

heart lies at Melrose. I hardly listened, though, for I was wondering so

much what Sir S. would have gone on to say about the amulet if Basil had

let us alone a minute longer. But fairy fancies were in the air, in one

form or other. As we walked up the narrow path which would bring us to

the motor, Basil told me a dream he'd had the night before. "I thought,"

he said, "that I was a humble reincarnation of Thomas Ecildoune--Thomas

the Rhymer--and that I was walking in the Rhymer's Glen--it isn't far

out of this neighbourhood, you know--when a Vision in a magic motor-car

came sprinting down the steep curve of a rainbow. In front of my feet,

the Vision contrived to stop the car, or in another second it would have

run over me. Out she stepped and announced that she was the Queen of the

Fays, whom I would remember meeting before in my last incarnation, in

the same place. Strange to say, she looked exactly like you--and I must

add, she acted exactly as you do."

"Why, what was it she did?" I couldn't help wanting to know.

"She heartlessly vanished, just as I began to hope she might remain and

become my muse. You always vanish--and generally with another man."

We both laughed, and were laughing still when we came up with Mrs. James

and Mrs. Vanneck, Mrs. West and Sir S., who were ahead of us with the

others.

It had to be sunset and moonlight together for Melrose Abbey, for the

heather moon was still too young to be allowed by Mother Earth to sit up

late, all alone in the sky. This was not the "pale moonlight" Sir Walter

wrote of, and looked to for inspiration in his "Lay of the Last

Minstrel," but a light of silvered rose which seemed made for love and

joy. I thought, if an alchemist or magician should pour melted gold and

silver together in a rose-coloured glass, and hold it up to the sun, it

would give out a light like this. It might have been an elixir of life,

for it gave back the Abbey's youth, and more than its youthful beauty.

The bullet-shattered stone turned to blocks of pink and golden topaz,

and each carving stood out clear, rimmed with sapphire shadow, as we

wandered round the cruciform Gothic ruin, our feet noiseless on the

faded velvet of the grass. Even in the darkest shadow there lay a ruby

flush, like a glow of fire under a thick film of ash; but inside the

Abbey was a soft, gray gloom, as if evening hid in the ruins waiting its

time to come out. The Trinity window, the Calvary window, the window

with the Crown of Thorns, and the east window in the chancel, which Sir

Walter loved best, were all sketched against the sky in tracery of sepia

and burnt amber, as I heard Sir S. saying to Mrs. West. And though I

shouldn't have known what colours to use, because I'm not an artist, I

could see that the tall stone shafts were like slender-trunked trees

crowned with high clusters of branches, as in pictures of desert palms.

I wondered if the men who carved the stone had travelled in the East and

had seen palm trees rising from pale sand, black against a paler sky.

And I wondered, too, if queer knots and fantastic holes in the gray

trunks of oak had not put into men's minds the first idea of gargoyles.

Sir S. and Basil, who have been almost everywhere, agreed that they had

seldom seen such marvellous detail of carving, so many whimsically

planned and exquisitely carried out irregularities, or such lovely,

well-preserved sandstone. That quarry which gave the material for

Melrose and Dryburgh was a treasure-mine, and even the Romans knew and

valued it. I was quite glad to find those two-agreeing about something,

because ever since Basil joined us they have differed politely over

nearly every subject that came up.

We had been deeply occupied with Michael Scott's supposed grave, and the

story of the "dark magic" by which he divided into three, Eildon Hill,

in whose caverns Arthur and his warriors still sleep their enchanted

sleep; and so, when some strangers approached us, we didn't even look

up. A very intelligent custodian, who has written a book about the

Abbey, was showing us round at that moment, and telling things about Sir

Ralph Evers, whom the Douglases killed for revenge, on Ancrum Moor, and

all about the pillar with the "curly green capital." He had saved the

Douglas Heart for the last, as the crowning glory in the history of

Melrose; but when we'd done some sort of justice to everything else, he

marched us into the presbytery where the Heart is buried, and where,

according to his theory, it is commemorated in the carved stone tracery

of the window.

A man with his back to us turned as we appeared, and I interrupted the

custodian's learned discourse by crying out the name most sacred in the

Abbey. "Mr. Douglas!" I exclaimed; for it was he--the Douglas

soldier-man who was so kind, taking us all round the castle at Carlisle.

He said we might meet at Edinburgh, as he was soon to have leave, and

intended to visit relatives there, but it was a surprise coming on him

in the shrine of his ancestors.

I thought, of course, his arriving at that minute was an extraordinary

coincidence; but when Sir S. shook hands, and asked in a matter-of-fact

tone, "How is it we meet here?" he confessed, as if half ashamed, that

it wasn't exactly an accident. "You see, I often come to Melrose for a

look round if I'm in Scotland on leave," he said, "and I saw in the

paper yesterday that you were motoring in this neighbourhood, expecting

to call at Dryburgh and Melrose before Edinburgh."

"Ah, yes--that interview Aline gave a journalist acquaintance of mine at

Dumfries," I heard George Vanneck murmur to Basil, who looked rather

cross.

"I arrived at the hotel just after you'd been there to leave your

luggage and sign names in the visitors' book," Donald Douglas went on.

"They said you were motoring over to Abbotsford, and would come back to

see the Abbey later; so it occurred to me, if I strolled over about this

time, we might run across each other."

"Quite so," remarked Sir S.; an expression I detest, it sounds so like

filing iron, especially as he said it then. However, the soldier-man

didn't appear to mind in the least that the Great Somerled was stiff and

unsympathetic. He attached himself to me, as I was his only other real

acquaintance, except Mrs. James, in the party; and of course, as he

reminded me, we were very old friends--as old as the day we first saw

each other in the street at Carlisle, years and years ago.

He seemed to know as much as the custodian about Melrose and the Douglas

Heart--which was natural, as he so values everything connected with his

family name. He told me all about the good Sir James Douglas: how King

Robert Bruce when dying begged his friend to take his heart to the Holy

Land, and bury it where he had wished to go and fight for Christendom as

an expiation for killing the Red Comyn. It was as good as a chapter out

of a novel to hear how the Douglas got permission from the new king to

be gone seven years on his great adventure; how he heard on his way to

Jerusalem that King Alfonso of Spain was fighting the Saracens at

Granada, and couldn't resist offering his help, being sure that Robert

Bruce would have done the same; how in battle against Osmyn, the Saracen

king, he was hard pressed, and taking the casket with Brace's heart in

it from over his own heart, he threw it far ahead of him in the enemy's

ranks, shouting, "Pass first in fight, as thou wert ever wont. Douglas

will follow thee or die!" And how he did both follow and die, but

falling only when he had killed many Moslems and hewed his way through

their bodies to where the heart lay.

"That's the old story of the Douglas Heart," said the soldier-man, "and

there's a new story of the Douglas Heart I hope you'll let me tell you

some day before long, because it's even more interesting--to me."

"Why, then, I expect it will be to me too," said I politely, "so why not

tell it me now, in Melrose Abbey, the place of all places?"

He looked at me in an odd way, and said, "Yes, it _is_ the place of all

places; but I'm afraid it's a little too early in the day----"

Just then Basil came up to announce that Mrs. James had sent him to

fetch me, as we must return to the hotel and dress.

"Too bad!" I exclaimed. But as Sir S. was not far off I called to him,

"Don't you think we may come back here again after dinner?"

"Certainly, if you like," he answered. "Although the moon will have

gone."

"That doesn't matter," said I; "there will be stars. Mr. Douglas has a

_new_ story of the Douglas Heart to tell me, which he thinks is even

more interesting than the old, and it ought to be told in the Abbey."

When I explained this, Donald Douglas turned bright scarlet, and all

three of the Vannecks burst out laughing, which I thought extremely rude

and uncalled for. But Sir S. looked as solemn as a judge.

"No doubt he's right about it's being more interesting, and quite as

credible," said he.

I don't know whether Mr. Douglas would have asked Mrs. James and me to

walk over to the Abbey with him after dinner or not, if the weather had

kept fine, but a thunder shower came up and it poured. So, although I

teased him again to tell me the new story, when everybody but Mrs. James

and he and I were playing bridge in our private sitting-room, he

refused. "I'll wait till Edinburgh," he said, "if you'll let me see you

there."

I had to explain that I didn't know where I should stay in Edinburgh, as

that would depend upon my mother, to whom Mr. Somerled MacDonald was

taking me.

"And Somerled himself, and the others?" he asked.

"Oh, they're going on," said I, "leaving me behind."

He looked delighted; so perhaps he had not forgiven the Vannecks for

laughing.