XIII
God made the Highlander—then rested.His finest work was never bested.
God made the Highlander—then rested.His finest work was never bested.
God made the Highlander—then rested.His finest work was never bested.
God made the Highlander—then rested.
His finest work was never bested.
Isthere any waking up in this world to be compared with the waking up in Scotland after a night spent in the train?
Is there any air so thin and clear as the air one breathes on stepping out to the station platform? Would a man be anywhere else on God’s earth? No, not if he be a sportsman and something of a Scotsman. It is not necessary to be more than that to make one eager to claim kinship with every one as one stands for the first time after many months on Scottish ground. Marcus bethought himself of the portrait of an ancestress of his wearing a tartan sash and blessed her for having worn it and for having passed on to him something of her love for the Highlands that had lain in her heart beneath the tartan band.
As Marcus stood on the platform he pointed out to Diana its many beauties. God had willed that there should be no mist that morning—and no veil hung between them and the moor—purpling with promise of deeper things to come. Diana said that, and Marcus enthused in his turn over theconvolvulus that scrambled over the white wooden paling as it scrambles nowhere else: nowhere else, perhaps, is it so worth while scrambling to get over the paling.
“It’s good to be alive!” he exclaimed.
“Delicious!” said Diana, sniffing; “isn’t it good? How much longer shall we be before we get there?”
Marcus said some hours, but Diana didn’t mind how many. The people at the stations interested her; the barefooted, sandy-haired, freckled boys, the barefooted, shy, proud little girls; fisherwomen, old and young, pretty and pretty once upon a time—long ago. She loved the shivering pointers and setters—shivering with excitement only—she knew that—waiting while their masters and men disinterred deeply buried luggage. Stalwart keepers meeting parties interested her and she knew she witnessed the meeting of old friends. She loved the keepers and wondered if Marcus and she would have a nice one of their own? What a thing it is to own for even two months a Scotch keeper! Marcus assured her all keepers in Scotland were nice. They were a race apart—a race of fine gentlemen.
“Darlings,” said Diana; “it’s a heavenly place.” Then she wondered what Glenbossie would be like? And Marcus knew exactly. It would be a smallish house—stucco, whitewashed; it might have a tropæolum growing over the porch. The woodworkof the house would be painted a clarety brown; there might be strings of convolvulus up the walls, and there would be pegs on which to lay the fishing-rods under the sloping roof.
“It will be a lodge,” said Diana with some anxiety; “not a proper house?”
“A lodge, of course; certainly not a proper house.”
“It would be horrible if it were a proper house.”
“Uncanny, positively,” agreed Marcus.
“You will love being uncomfortable, won’t you?” asked Diana.
Marcus looked anxious, but smiled as he said, “Yes, of course”; for he knew his Oven and his Pillar.
Pillar came along the train at most stations to tell Mr. Maitland it looked like fine weather and that the luggage was in at the front.
Mrs. Oven never moved. Her heart was sick for her London kitchen and all it contained—its electrical contrivances. She didn’t look forward except with dismay to a lodge that was not a proper house. But going to Scotland was an act of madness committed by the best families and it was very expensive. She knew, of course, that people who live in Scotland, whose homes are there, live in the greatest comfort, that the best cooks come from Scotland; it is only of those people who gofrom England for two months and live in places they would never think of living in in England, and paying enormous sums to do so, she was thinking.
The scullery-maid refused to look out of the window. She preferred to read. She knew what the country looked like. She had been to Epping Forest twice. Books for her, please! The kitchen-maid was from Skye. She hung out of the window drinking it all in. The housemaid tried to sleep. She was a bad traveller. She had nothing to say against Skye, but as they weren’t going there there was no need to think about it. It was beds she was thinking of. The mattresses wouldn’t be “box,” she was despondingly certain of that. “Not even spring, I should say,” Mrs. Oven said. At one of the stations—a small private station—the train stopped to take up a party of fishermen—a man, a girl, and a boy. The gillies got into the next compartment with the rods and landing-nets. Marcus glanced quickly at Diana. She looked perfectly fresh, tidy, and delightful. Her eyes sparkled. She was hoping Uncle Marcus would speak. She remembered a horrible story he was wont to tell of two men who had lived for twenty years in the same house in Jermyn Street, who had never spoken to each other, although they met constantly on the stairs. He had seemed proud of the story asillustrating something rather fine in the English character, but now, throwing all Jermyn Street restraint to the winds, he spoke. He asked them what luck they had had. The boy started off to tell him. He took ten minutes to tell how he had lost a fish. The girl, in one, told how she had seen one. The man had got two. Moreover, he prophesied that by tea-time Diana would have got one—if not more—to her own rod. “You are for Glenbossie?” he said to Marcus. And Marcus said he was and that Diana was his niece.
“Nice people,” said Diana when they had gone, and Marcus beamed. Where was Aunt Elsie now? Scotland was the place to bring a girl to, of course. What was the good of picnics and dances? English picnics! English dances!
At last they arrived at the station that for two months was to be their own. Marcus had never seemed to care for a station before—had never before patted one on the back, as it were. Diana was amused to see him greet the station-master as his best friend in the world. He looked as though he were longing to tell him how glad he was he had elected to be a station-master. It was delightful to Diana. She had never seen Marcus purring to this extent. She had known him very polite, but this was something far pleasanter, and much funnier. The station-master was his long-lost brother,that was all. So was the keeper: Macpherson by name: and more of a brother than any—an elder brother—was John. John with a wrinkled face and a twinkle in his eyes. Nature is a wonderful needle-woman when she takes the time and trouble to “gather” an old face. She had made thousands of “gathers” on John’s face without in any way spoiling the material, and Diana loved every wrinkle. Most of them stood for smiles and many of them for sunshine. “I shall love John,” she confided to Marcus.
“Dear old man,” said Marcus, and Diana was further amused. If Scotland could do this for one man—then Scotland forever, for all men. There was a lorry for the luggage—a car for Marcus and Diana, and for the household a kind of achar-à-banc, Pillar presiding over all and preventing Marcus from interfering. He showed no excitement. He knew his Scotland; if not one part, then another. They were all the same. In one, less grouse than in another—seldom more: in another, more fishing: scenery more or less the same in all parts. Mountains higher in one part than another—nothing much to choose between them—and midges everywhere. He himself had a weakness for sea-fishing, but would quite understand if Mr. Maitland had forgotten to remember it. In the back of his head he had a shrewd suspicion thatthey had come to Scotland for a set purpose—that Scotland was to be the means of marrying Miss Diana—and of defeating Miss Carston. It was always easy to get the right kind of gentlemen to come to Scotland, not that there had been any great difficulty in London, but gentlemen would recklessly face a recognized danger for the chance of a “royal”—whereas for a dinner—well, in London they were cautious. Pillar had an idea, unexpressed, that Miss Diana would prove highly dangerous in Scotland. He had faith—the utmost faith—in her tweeds and boots. She would make no sartorial mistakes—moreover, the more like a boy she looked the better she looked. They arrived at Glenbossie. It was exactly as Marcus had described it: a low, white house set on a hillside; surrounded by moor. On one side was a birch wood; a short distance below the lodge ran the river, getting, of course, lower and lower every minute as rivers will. Where were the rods? Marcus asked, all eagerness to begin fishing. Therodshad arrived! Pillar said it with such emphasis that Marcus asked what had not arrived?
“The stores, sir.” A happy gloom here expressed itself on every feature of Pillar’s face.
“The stores? Oh, that doesn’t matter.”
“Very good, sir,” said Pillar.
“What sort of stores?” asked Marcus, this resignation,beautiful in its selflessness, on the part of Pillar looked bad.
“Oh, just ordinary stores, sir, tea and coffee and sugar, jam, marmalade, bacon, vermicelli, rice, oil, vinegar, sultanas, raisins, every kind of cereal, tapioca—macaroni—pickles.”
Now many of these things Marcus hated, but he wanted them all the same. He didn’t see why the railway company should have them. There was Mrs. Oven to keep happy, but it would take more than stores, it appeared, to make Mrs. Oven happy. The fire wouldn’t burn.
“Dog, dog won’t bite,” quoted Diana, and Marcus told her not to be irrelevant.
The oven wouldn’t heat itself, let alone water.
“Piggy won’t get over the stile—don’t worry,” said Diana; “it’s all too delicious. The station-master is still your brother, and Macpherson your keeper—”
Macpherson! Good idea! What about Mrs. Macpherson? Pillar would enquire. He enquired and came back to say she was a most respectable woman and had flour and tea and washing soda—
“If she would be so kind—” Marcus was beginning when Pillar respectfully broke in to say she would be kinder than that—moreover, she understood the stove. It could heat water and it could bake—the oven could. “It was just thepuir gals from London who didna understand the ways of it.”
Pillar prided himself on his Scotch. He spoke it as well as many actors on the London stage speak it and with less effort.
When dinner-time came, into her own came Mrs. Oven. Whatever disappointment she had expressed, annoyance she had shown, she now proved that her cunning had not left her. There was a dinner and an excellent dinner. Women are wonderful creatures, and with the help of cows and hens there is no limit to what they can do if they set their minds to it.
Before Marcus and Diana went to bed that first night, when their fates as regarded beds and mattresses were still hid from them, Marcus called to Diana to come out. They stood in front of the lodge, Diana like a wraith in the moonlight—an exquisite visitant from another world.
“Listen!” said Marcus, and they heard the call of the cock grouse on the hillside, the weird cry of the plover, the soft rushing of the river, and it was all very, very good. And it would have been better still if that haunting question had not come back to torment the poor uncle. “Is she in love?” Did Elsie know of whom Diana was thinking as she stood there looking so horribly, so bound to be, in love?
“What are you thinking of?” he asked.
The moment was fraught with possibilities. At such a moment as this she might say what was in her heart, and if she did, and he found she was thinking of a suitable young man, he might say something of what he meant to do for her when she married. It was dangerous, he knew, to commit one’s self, but still—
“Would you mind frightfully if I wore a kilt, because I think I must—darling, youdon’tmind—”
“Is that what you were thinking of?”
“No—darling—shall I tell you? I am a little shy about it. I—”
“Don’t be shy.”
“Well—you look most awfully—what shall I say?—handsome is not the word, is it?—alluring—no, not that—distractingly elusive—yes, that’s it—at the same time you look as if you might be—are you—in love? Tell me—don’t be shy—is it—Elsie?”
Marcus was far from being in love with Elsie, but she was always at his elbow as it were. Whenever Diana seemed particularly happy, he thought of Elsie and wondered what she would do to get Diana back? What attractions she would dare to offer? There was nothing he wouldn’t do to showDiana how infinitely to be preferred was Scotland above any other country, how much nicer than aunts were uncles. And Diana responded by walking like a gazelle and climbing like a goat; that was as far as Marcus could go in describing her particular grace and amazing activity. The first salmon he hooked he handed to Diana to play. She played and lost it, and he swore he would have done likewise—and the gillie agreed with him. But he had seen “wurrrse fishermen cert’nly,” he would no be denying it. “Mister Maitland was a fair fisherman, but not so good a fisherman as he thought himself to be.” When Marcus realized how Sandy ached for the feel of the rod, he let him feel it now and then, and he went up by leaps and bounds, as a fisherman and a God-fearing man in the eyes of Sandy.
Marcus was at his best when Diana was with him: he shot better and fished better under the spur of her generous admiration and encouragement; and of Elsie and her picnics and her croquet parties, and even her dances, he could think with a pity that was almost tender. He had plenty of opportunities in which to win Diana’s confidence, and he imagined she gave it to him with a fine honesty that he found particularly gratifying. Mr. Watkins he dismissed with a gesture—it was impossible Diana could think seriously for one moment of a minor poet. Mr. Pease? Another gestureand he was as nothing—he no longer existed. He was not for Diana. The young man in London troubled him. St. Jermyn was his name. He had nothing against him except that he had shown symptoms of possessing that power of attracting the whole attention and sympathy of a woman that Eustace Carston had shown. Had Diana the same power of devotion her mother had? The thought was disquieting. Diana would not say anything about the man except that he had danced better than any other—that was all. She vowed that Uncle Marcus alone held her heart: could hold her heart among the heather and the burns and the lochs: that he fitted in with the surroundings as no other man could. No man could be so interesting, no man so Scotch! If only he would wear a kilt! She would so love it!
Although Diana wanted no one but Uncle Marcus, a great many men found their way to Glenbossie. Men from up the river and down the river came with offerings of beats and butts. Men from the neighbouring moors brought offerings in the way of days—a day’s driving later on; a day’s stalking. Marcus had these things of his own, but he found he would have to share them and sharing them would mean sharing Diana.
“I wish,” said Marcus one evening, “that I could see some of these men you talk about, sothat I might judge of them for myself. I should like to guide you in your choice.”
“Do, darling,” said Diana.
“But I can’t without seeing them.”
“Well, ask them here.”
But that was more than he could do. There was nothing Diana couldn’t do when she tried. In the village (village?—Mrs. Oven couldn’t see where the village came in, but for all that it existed) there was an inn, a kirk, a general merchant, and that, with a few old people, and a few young men and women, and a few barelegged children, constituted Loch Bossie. The inn stood at the side of the road, and with the inn went fishing—bad fishing, perhaps, but fishing: and the people who had taken it this season could not come because their children had developed scarlet fever, which dispensation of Providence Mrs. MacFie—innkeeper—accepted as one to be borne with unwavering faith, and thankfulness that it was not worse. It meant for her the rent in her pocket and something more in the shape of compensation, and no one to feed or to fash about. So she was well content, though sorry for the poor things, of course. But it was a sorrow she could very well bear and she was bearing it very well, when into the inn walked an apparition. Mrs. MacFie didn’t call Diana by that name, although Mr. Watkins mighthave done so; and so might Mrs. MacFie if she had thought of it.
The apparition wore a tweed that went with her eyes, and the whole of Scotland went with her hair: and there was that in her voice that softened the heart of Mrs. MacFie, and in ten minutes Mrs. MacFie had promised the rooms, and the fishing at a moderate cost; and as many scones, dropped and griddled, as they could eat, to two young men who had been since the days they were born the solaces of their respective mothers.
According to Diana they neither drank nor did they eat to any appreciable extent. They liked whatever was set before them; and they were prepared to love Mrs. MacFie. That Diana implied rather than said: and she walked away, swinging as she walked as lightly as a silver birch dances blown by the breeze. Mrs. MacFie watched her, and that was how it struck her, and she went back into the house glad that the tenant at Glenbossie liked Scotland so well. It showed good sense and a good heart and the young leddy was no doubt in love with one of the young gentlemen, perhaps with both, and would be having them up so that she might choose between them; which was not exactly as matters stood, but near enough.
Diana wrote to Mr. Pease and to Mr. Watkins and they wrote back to say they would come. Mr.Watkins had never fished, but was willing to try, and Mr. Pease had fished all his life, but had caught little. The prospect of good fishing filled him with delight. There was no sport in the world like it. Had Miss Diana ever considered how full the New Testament was of fishing? It was very encouraging—particularly to all bishops and curates.
Diana walked softly the day she got the letters. It was not only that Uncle Marcus should know him that she had asked Mr. Pease to come; not only that he should know Mr. Watkins that she had asked Mr. Watkins to come, but that they should enjoy themselves and that Mr. Pease should catch much fish.
She was of so delightful a nature that what she enjoyed she wanted others to enjoy. The thought of Mr. Pease riding up and down Bestways hills on his bicycle, ministering to the souls and bodies of old men and women, seemed, viewed from the moors of Scotland, where souls had such a chance, rather a sad lot. Uncle Marcus could well afford to give both Mr. Pease and Mr. Watkins a holiday. They would never question the smallness of the rent asked for the fishing, so Marcus could hide his light under a bushel and could easily escape the thanks he dreaded.