We had reached the lych-gate, and there, under the solemn little roof that had sheltered so many a coffin on its way to the grave, Virginia turned and gave me a kiss.
'You dear!' she said. That was all.
VI
VIRGINIA POMEROY
Grey Tor Inn
Here beginneth the chronicle of the dreadfullest drive that ever was driven. I pitied Sir Archibald with my whole heart to be left behind with Greytoria and me, but what else could be done? There was a mist when we started which degenerated after a bit into an intermittent drizzle, and at intervals the wind blew a young tornado. The road was dreary, but fascinating in its broad stretches of loneliness. We passed green field and brown moor in turn, with all the trees looking grey in the mist, and here and there the brawling of a stream to break the silence. Sometimes there was a woodman working in a roadside copse, sometimes a goggled stone-breaker pursuing his monotonoustask, sometimes a carrier bending beneath his weight of faggots. If it had not been for the flaming gorse and the groups of red cattle, there would have been no colour in the landscape. My spirits kept their normal height for the first six or eight miles, but they sank little by little as the hills grew in number and increased in height. Sir Archibald refused to let me walk, and it made me wretched to see him stalking beside the pony chaise, appealing to Greytoria's pride, courage, conscience, ambition, and sense of decency, in turn, and mostly without avail. We kept the best-travelled road, but it seemed to lead us farther and farther from Grey Tor, which had quite disappeared from the horizon and could not be used as a landmark. There could be no conversation either going up or down hill, as Sir Archibald was too breathless and busy. I, sitting in state, punctuated the ascents and descents, as long as I had strength, with agreeable persiflage something in this wise:—
'The guide-book says, "Pedestrianism is doubtless the ideal manner of touring in Devonshire. Only on foot is it possible to view the more romantic scenery. Motors are not advised and bicycles discouraged."'
Sir Archibald would smile, say something under his breath, and whack Greytoria.
'Sir Archibald, there is a place in these parts where the devil is said to have died of cold; it must be just here.'
'Sir Archibald, do 'e knaw I think we'm pixy-led? When Devonshire folk miss the path home at night and go astray, they'm "pixy-led."'
If we two poor wayfarers could have sat quietly beside each other and chatted in 'e dimpsey light, it would not have been a bit bad, but there was something eternally doing. When the drag wasn't being put on or off, the whip was being agitated, or Sir Archibald was looking for a house to ask the way. Never was there such a route from one spot to another as the one we took fromWiddington-in-the-Wolds to the Grey Tor Inn. If it was seven miles as the swallow flies, it was twenty-seven as Greytoria flew. The dinner-hour passed, and the luncheon baskets, with all other luggage, were in the motor. Sir Archibald's last information, obtained from an unintelligible boy driving a cow, was to the effect that we were only two miles from home.
'She may manage it and she may not,' said my squire, looking savagely at Greytoria. 'If I only knew whether she can't or she won't, I should deal with her differently.'
The rain now came down in earnest. Part of my mind was for ever toiling up or creeping down a hill with the pony, and another part was spent in keeping my umbrella away from Sir Archibald's hat, on those rare occasions when he was by my side. A woman may have the charms of Cleopatra or Helen of Troy, but if she cannot keep her parasol or umbrella away from a man's hat, her doom is sealed.
How I hate this British climate! How I hate to wear always and always stout shoes, sensible clothes, serviceable hats, short skirts, looking like a frump in the intervals of sunshine, that I may be properly attired when it rains! I shed a few secret tears now and then for sheer down-heartedness and discouragement. I was desperately cold, and my wetting had given me a feverish, teeth-chattering sort of feeling. Hungry I was, too, and in such a rage with the beastly pony that I wished she had been eaten in the French Revolution; she was too old to be tender, even then.
Now ensued a brief, all too brief, season of content on a fairly level bit of road. It was not over an eighth of a mile in length, and must have been an accident on the part of Nature. I was so numb and so sleepy that I just heard Sir Archibald's sigh of gratitude as he took his seat for a moment beside me, and then I subsided into a semi-comatose state, too tired to make even one moreexpiring effort to be agreeable. I am not clear as to the next few moments, in which I felt a sudden sense of warmth and well-being and companionship. I must have dropped off into a sort of dream, and in the dream I felt the merest touch, just the brush of something on my cheek, or I thought I did. Slight as it was, there was something unaccustomed about it that made me come hastily into the conscious world, and my waking was made the more speedy by a sudden stir and noise and ejaculation. We had come to another hill, and Sir Archibald had evidently wished for once to omit the walking-up process. Greytoria, outraged in her deepest sensibilities by the unwonted addition of Sir Archibald's weight to her burdens, braced her hind legs firmly and proceeded to achieve the impossible by slithering backward down the hill. Sir Archibald leaped out on the one side; I put the drag on, or off, whichever is wrong, and leaped out on the other.
He adjusted the drag and gave Greytoriaa clip that she will describe to her grandchildren on future winter evenings. I, with matchless presence of mind, got behind the pony chaise and put my shoulder under the back to break its descent. And so we wound wearily up the hill, and on reaching the top saw the lighted hotel just ahead of us.
In silence we traversed the few remaining yards, each busy with his own thought. Silently we entered the gate and gave Greytoria to the waiting groom. Silently and stiffly I alighted from the chaise, helped by Sir Archibald's supporting arm. He held my hand a second longer than was necessary; held it, half dropped it, and held it again; or did something unusual with it that was widely separated from an ordinary good-night 'shake.'
There was no harm in that, for the most unsentimental man feels a sort of brotherly sympathy for a damp, cold, hungry, tired, nice girl.
But about that other—episode?... Ofcourse if he did, I should resent it bitterly; but if it were only a dream I must not blame him even in thought.... There is always the risk that a man might misunderstand the frank good-fellowship in which we American girls are brought up, and fail to realise that with all our nonsense we draw the line just as heavily, and in precisely the same place as our British cousins.... But why do I think about it any more?... It wouldn't be a bit like him, so probably he didn't.... In fact it is so entirely out of character that he simply couldn't.... And yet I suppose the number of men who actually couldn't is comparatively small.
MRS. MACGILL
Well, we spent the day till five o'clock in that dreary spot, cold and wretched. Then Sir Archibald proposed that I should go home with Mrs. Pomeroy in the motor; they said we should get there quicker that way! He meant to drive Miss Pomeroy in the pony chaise, not being at all afraid, he said, of any pony, however spirited. Of course nothing would induce me to enter a pony carriage drawn by that animal again. A motor is more dangerous in some ways, but at any rate it cannot sit down like that pony, and they all assured us that it was both safe and speedy. Mrs. Pomeroy had been quite at ease in it, she said, so at last I consented to go. Cecilia tied on my bonnet with my grey wool shawl, and we set out. It surprises me that motoring should have become a favourite pastime withso-called fashionable people, for certainly one does not appear to advantage in motoring garments. The cold was intense, and at first everything whizzed past me at such a rate that I could remember nothing except two lines that Cecilia read to me last evening, about 'the void car hurled abroad by reinless steeds.'
There were no steeds, of course, nor reins, and the car was not void, but that was quite the motion. My bonnet, in spite of the shawl and string, was instantly torn from my head. I begged Johnson, a very civil Scotchman who could understand what I said, to stop the machine for a few moments and let me breathe. Cecilia advised me to remove the bonnet and trust wholly to the shawl. My hair is not thick, especially on the top, and I soon had all the sensation of the head being padded in ice, which we read of as a treatment for brain fever.
It was now beginning to get dark. Johnson drew up suddenly, and declared that hemust have taken the wrong road. There were no sign-posts anywhere, and it had begun to rain heavily. We were standing just at the foot of a steep hill where the road lay through a thick wood. Above us was a tower of rock,—another 'tor,' I suppose, if not a 'monolith.'
Johnson proposed to drive the machine on into the wood, and leave us under shelter whilst he went to a cottage that we saw farther up, to inquire about the road. This I decidedly objected to. Mrs. Pomeroy and Cecilia seemed to think me foolish, and could not understand my being afraid.
'But,' I said, 'I have good reason to refuse to enter that wood. Indeed it will not be safe for Johnson to leave us there alone: I recognise the place perfectly. In one of the books by that Mr. Phillpotts, who, you have all told me, is most accurate in his descriptions, I read about this place, and he said, 'The Wolf suckled her young there yesterday.' Yes, Cecilia, laugh if youlike; those were the very words, and I examined the date of the publication, which was not a year ago.Yesterdaywas the word used.'
'Then the cubs will still be too small to attack us,' observed Cecilia, who has no tact and is constantly trying to be facetious when she should be endeavouring to allay my nervous terrors.
'He would be meaning foxes, ma'am,' said Johnson, who had been listening whilst fright compelled me to quote the exact expression I had read.
'It is possible that he meant foxes, Johnson,' allowed I, 'but three ladies alone in a motor, in the dark, attacked even by wild foxes, would be in some danger; so I hope that you will drive on directly, and get us out of this horrid place as soon as possible.'
They tried to smooth over the situation, but I would listen to none of them, and Johnson at last drove on. Half-way up the hillthe motor stuck. Something had gone wrong with it inside, and I felt that we might stay there in the wilderness all night, which would have been impossible, as I had taken very few remedies of any kind with me, and cannot sleep sitting up. These stoppages occurred several times. How we at length got home I scarcely remember. My velvet mantle was like a sponge, my feet so cold that it was all I could do to dismount from the motor when it ground up to the hotel door. There was Sir Archibald standing smoking as if nothing extraordinary had occurred.
'Why, Mrs. MacGill,' he cried, 'you are even later than we were, and I thought that blessed pony was going to her own funeral.'
I thought that in spite of his tone he looked rather pale and agitated; he was of course anxious, and rightly so, about my safety.
'Sir Archibald,' I said, as soon as I could speak,'I trust that I never again may haveto enter one of those motors. Human life, especially mine, is too precious to be thrown away in such a fashion. Another half-hour of it would have killed me outright. Had Mr. MacGill been alive he would never have consented to my going into it for a moment. As it is, I can scarcely hear or see owing to the frightful noises and the rain lashing on my face; every hair on my head feels pulled the wrong way, and I'm sure I shall have another bad relapse of influenza by to-morrow morning. Your uncle was a friend of my poor brother-in-law who died at Agra in a moment, and unless you take a warning you will have an end quite as sudden and much more frightful, for his was heart complaint, and you will be smashed to pieces by the wheels of that hideous machine.'
I left them downstairs and went to bed. Cecilia tried to make me believe there was nothing wrong with me, as she always does when she has neuralgia, orsaysshe hasneuralgia, herself, but I know that there is. What is the matter I can't exactly say, only I am certain that I am going to suffer in some way from this horrible expedition.
SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
There is something soothing even in hotel tobacco, I suppose, so I was better, though still feeling decidedly blue, later in the day at Widdington, when I came up to the inn door and began overhauling the motor as it stood in the yard. There was nothing particularly cheering in finding several long cuts in the tires, and I was probing them to get the grit out, when I heard a little cough behind me. I turned to see Miss Virginia standing in the doorway, looking at me rather doubtfully. Now of course I had been rather short, not to say nasty, but somehow it's a fact that you cannot be sharp with a woman without at once being put in the wrong, though she may really have been the sinner all the time. It was Miss Virginia who had brought me out on this show, who had cost me about forty pounds in tires, and Heaven knows how much in other ways, but it wasI who felt a beast now. Yet she looked at me in a way which seemed to say she was sorry I was vexed. She was rubbing her hands together and shivering a little. Of course she was cold in that ridiculous dress.
'A nice day it has turned out, hasn't it!' I said rather spitefully.
'Oh, I'll never, never ask for a picnic again!' cried she, with a comical look. She came and began to look at the cuts in the tires herself.
'Oh, theyarebad,' she exclaimed, 'and I suppose you love that old motor better than anything on earth, don't you?' she inquired.
'I get a good deal more pleasure out of it,' I truthfully replied, 'than I do out of the society of most human beings.' She gave a little laugh.
'I expect I had better go inside after that!' she said, and of course I felt rather a brute. I hadn't really meant to be rude or send her away. I hunted under thetarpaulin that covered the motor for my fur-lined coat, and then I followed her into the inn.
'Look here,' I said, 'better put this on; you're horribly cold.' She seemed half inclined to refuse, but finally let me put the coat over her shoulders and run her arms into the sleeves.
'You're pretty damp,' I observed.
''Deed I am!' she shivered. 'Miss Evesham and I went for a walk and got caught in the rain as usual. My hair's all wet too!'
'Better dry it,' I suggested.
She ran off to some room or other, and when she reappeared she had two plaits of dark hair, as thick as bellropes, hanging down her back. With that and my motor coat, Miss Virginia cut a pretty queer figure. I cannot say she looked plain, however; her spirits had come back, and so had mine, strange to say, for the day was far from finished.
There was a parlour in the inn, so low inthe ceiling that I could not stand up straight in it, and was for ever knocking my head against the rafters. When we went in, this place was as full of women as it could hold, all fighting like cats,—Mrs. MacGill, Mrs. Pomeroy, Miss Evesham,—and all wondering how they were to get home. The place was simply steaming with tea.
Mrs. MacGill, it appeared, utterly refused to go home in the pony trap unless it were driven by me. Needless to say I declined this honour with a firmness equal to hers. Finally it was arranged, chiefly by Miss Evesham's management, that the two old ladies and herself were to go home in the motor with Johnson, while Miss Virginia and I negotiated the pony and trap. This was pretty thick, considering I had refused point-blank to drive Mrs. MacGill, but Miss Evesham seemed to make it sound all right,—clever sort of young woman in her way. As the weather threatened to get worse immediately, the motor party was packed offwithout loss of time, and Miss Virginia and I had a comfortable tea by ourselves before starting for home.
It was not late in the afternoon, but the little inn parlour was almost dark, chiefly because the church tower overshadowed the house, and the window was so small. Presently the bells began ringing (it was a saint's day, Miss Virginia said), and my word, what a din they made! The whole house shook and the very teacups rattled. Miss Virginia seemed to like it, however, and sat listening with her chin on her hand. She had been strumming on an old spinet sort of thing that stood in the corner of the room, and I asked her if she would sing a little before we set off.
'I will,' said she, 'if you'll smoke a little,' an invitation I accepted with alacrity.
'You deserve something,' she remarked, 'to make up for the wretched time you've been having to-day. It was partly my fault. I am sorry.'
'Oh, don't mention it!' was all I could say, of course, and Miss Virginia began to sing before I could speak another word.
There is a tremendous charm in her singing: her style is so simple; her voice is so fresh; you can hear every word she says, and she always sings the right songs. How this sort of singing makes a man think! I can't describe the effect it had upon me. As Miss Virginia touched the tinny, stringy old notes and went from song to song,—now an Irish melody, now a nigger one, now an English ballad,—I forgot all about the day's worries; I forgot the motor and the cut tires and the bad weather and the beastly picnic—it was a kind of heaven. If I marry, it must be some one who can sing like this. I have been changing my preferences for blonde women lately. No doubt they look very nice when young, but they don't wear well, I feel sure, and get purple and chilblainy in cold weather. Of course the dark ones are apt to turn drab andmottled, but not when they have as much colour as Miss Virginia. All sorts of scraps of thoughts and ideas chased each other through my mind as she sang. She had got on to a thing she had sung in the hotel several times,—a plantation Christmas carol she called it, the sort of thing you cannot forget once you have heard it, either the words or the music.
'Oh, dat star's still shinin' dis Chrismus Day,Rise, O sinner, and foller!Wid an eye o' faith you c'n see its ray,Rise, O sinner, and foller!Leave yo' fader,Leave yo' mudder,Leave yo' sister,Leave yo' brudder,An' rise, O sinner, and foller!'
'Oh, dat star's still shinin' dis Chrismus Day,
Rise, O sinner, and foller!
Wid an eye o' faith you c'n see its ray,
Rise, O sinner, and foller!
Leave yo' fader,
Leave yo' mudder,
Leave yo' sister,
Leave yo' brudder,
An' rise, O sinner, and foller!'
And there was a bit about a shepherd too:—
'Leave yo' sheep, an'Leave yo' lamb, an'Leave yo' ewe, an'Leave yo' ram, an'Rise up, shepherd, and foller!'
'Leave yo' sheep, an'
Leave yo' lamb, an'
Leave yo' ewe, an'
Leave yo' ram, an'
Rise up, shepherd, and foller!'
I asked her to sing it over again. I had forgotten all about the time and the drivehome and the beastly weather. Luckily I happened to look at my watch. It was nearly six o'clock!
'We've got to look sharp,' I said, 'if we want any dinner at the hotel.'
Look sharp, indeed! The woman at the inn must have been mad or drunk when she told us that the low road home was only two miles longer than the way we came. We may have missed the right turning, for Miss Virginia was talking and laughing at such a rate when we began the drive, that I confess I hadn't much attention to spare. We gradually emerged from the valley where the village lay, and were soon on the open moor and fairly lost on it before you could say Jack Robinson.
I never saw such a dismal, howling, God-forsaken country, without a house or a hut or so much as a heap of stones to mark the way,—a wilderness of stubby heath and endless, endless roads, crossing and recrossing in a way that is simply maddening and perfectlysenseless, for they lead to nowhere. We were three mortal hours crawling along on those confounded roads. It rained, of course, and a wind got up, and at the end of that time we were apparently no nearer Grey Tor than when we left Widdington.
Miss Virginia kept up very pluckily for a long time, but she was dead tired and very cold and became more and more silent. It was about the most uncomfortable predicament I ever was in,—and with a girl on my hands, too, a thing I have hitherto always managed to avoid.
And then a thing happened that really I can't account for, and yet I suppose it has changed the whole affair, as far as I am concerned. I feel a perfect beast whenever I think of it, and I hope to goodness Miss Virginia knows nothing about it. We had come to an interminable hill, and I had been walking for about half an hour. Miss Virginia was totally silent now, and suddenly I saw that the reins had slipped from herhands. She was actually asleep, huddled up in my coat against the back of the chaise. It was beginning to rain again, and the incline being very gentle at that point, I felt I had to get in and hold an umbrella over the girl. I did, and a sudden jerk of the wheels sent her almost into my arms without waking her. Her head was on my shoulder, her cheek so close to mine. Of course I have heard fellows talk about kissing: I have always thought it a disgusting habit myself, and discouraged it, even in near relations. But now—now it seemed suddenly different—she seemed meant to be kissed—and by me—and well, I kissed her—that's the naked truth, and the moment I had done it I would have given worlds not to have done it, or else to have the right to do it again. A man is a man firstly, I suppose; but secondly, at least, he ought to be a gentleman. That's the thought that has been spinning in my head all night. Does Virginia suspect? I hope not—and yet I don't know.
We got home, of course, all right in the end, for the hotel turned up quite unexpectedly round a corner, with all the lights shining out across the moor.
N.B.—There has been the devil to pay with the motor and the old women.
CECILIA EVESHAM
I have always had an idea that events need a propelling hand every now and then. Somehow it seemed to me that afternoon at Widdington that Virginia and Sir Archibald were in need of my assistance, and I took a desperate resolution and helped them to the best of my power. This is what I did: I undertook to look after Mrs. MacGill and Mrs. Pomeroy in the motor if Sir Archibald drove Virginia home in the pony chaise; but not content with this, I deliberately sent them round by a road some five miles longer than the one we had come by. I happened to be speaking with the landlady about the roads, and she told me that there was another way back to Grey Tor, only that it was longer. The idea struck me, as the saying goes, 'all of a heap.'
'Sir Archibald,' I said, returning to the parlour, where they all sat, 'if you hadseen the business I had to get Greytoriadownthat hill, you would hesitate more about getting her up it. But the landlady here tells us that if you go round by the lower road you avoid the hill, and it is only a little longer.'
'I don't believe in country people's distances,' he said, 'but I'll inquire.'
I turned back, as if by accident, into the bar, and leaned across the counter towards the landlady. She was a genial-looking old woman with a rollicking eye.
'The young people wish to go round by the low road,' I said, 'but I'm afraid there may be some difficulties made about it.' I hesitated and smiled at her, adding, 'It's notmuchfarther, is it?'
'Happen four mile or so, ma'am,' she said, looking hard at me.
'Four? As much as that?' I asked.
'Happen three mile, maybe,' she corrected; 'no, two and a half.'
Here Sir Archibald came out to inquireabout the distance. He looked up at the grey skies first, and seemed uncertain.
'How much farther do you call it by the low road to Grey Tor?' he asked.
'Close on two mile, sir,' she mumbled shamelessly, and Sir Archibald hesitated no longer.
'Two miles of level are better than half a mile of precipice. I vote for the longer road, Miss Pomeroy,' he said, on going back into the parlour.
Virginia nodded and smiled. She was sitting at the old, tinny-sounding spinet, singing the most beautiful little wandering airs that might have been learned in fairyland.
Suddenly she drifted into a plaintive melody we had not heard before, and when we had succumbed to its spell she began singing some words I had found in my dear mother's diary. I had given the verses to Virginia, and she had set them to an air of her own. It is a part of her charm that shesings sad songs as if she had never felt joy, and gay ones as if she had never known care or sorrow.
''Tis I am a lady, now that I'm old;I'm sheltered from hunger and want and cold,In a wonderful country that's rich in gold,(And life to the last is sweet).Now in the doorway I sit at my ease,And my son's son he plays at my kneesOn little stumbling feet.But my heart goes back to the days of old,To a barren country where gorse is gold,For oh! it was there that my love was told,'Twas there we used to meet!'They may think I've forgotten the land forlorn,In the happy valleys covered with corn;They may lay me down with my face to the morn,A stone at my head and feet;But I know that before the break o' the dayMy soul will arise and be far away(The spirits travel fleet),—Away from the valleys covered with corn,Back again to the land forlorn,For oh! it was there that my Love was born,'Twas there we used to meet!'[1]
''Tis I am a lady, now that I'm old;I'm sheltered from hunger and want and cold,In a wonderful country that's rich in gold,(And life to the last is sweet).Now in the doorway I sit at my ease,And my son's son he plays at my kneesOn little stumbling feet.But my heart goes back to the days of old,To a barren country where gorse is gold,For oh! it was there that my love was told,'Twas there we used to meet!
''Tis I am a lady, now that I'm old;
I'm sheltered from hunger and want and cold,
In a wonderful country that's rich in gold,
(And life to the last is sweet).
Now in the doorway I sit at my ease,
And my son's son he plays at my knees
On little stumbling feet.
But my heart goes back to the days of old,
To a barren country where gorse is gold,
For oh! it was there that my love was told,
'Twas there we used to meet!
'They may think I've forgotten the land forlorn,In the happy valleys covered with corn;They may lay me down with my face to the morn,A stone at my head and feet;But I know that before the break o' the dayMy soul will arise and be far away(The spirits travel fleet),—Away from the valleys covered with corn,Back again to the land forlorn,For oh! it was there that my Love was born,'Twas there we used to meet!'[1]
'They may think I've forgotten the land forlorn,
In the happy valleys covered with corn;
They may lay me down with my face to the morn,
A stone at my head and feet;
But I know that before the break o' the day
My soul will arise and be far away
(The spirits travel fleet),—
Away from the valleys covered with corn,
Back again to the land forlorn,
For oh! it was there that my Love was born,
'Twas there we used to meet!'[1]
Sir Archibald, Mr. Willoughby, and I could have listened for an hour, but I felt that it was time to hurry off the elders of the party, so made dark allusions to the weather. These were sufficient to rouse Mrs. MacGill and Mrs. Pomeroy, who were in a semi-comatose condition induced by copious draughts of tea.
We all went to the door of the inn, and Mr. Willoughby came and helped me to my seat in the motor.
'I am coming across to Grey Tor on Saturday,' he said. 'I have some sketches to take over that way. Shall you still be at the inn?'
'Probably,' I answered evasively.
'I hope so,' said he; 'perhaps we may have another talk such as we have had this afternoon.'
'Who knows? Talk is a fugitive pleasure,' I replied. 'Some days it will be good, and others it can't be captured at any price.'
'I'll come in the chance of catchingsome,' he whispered. And at this moment Mrs. MacGill interrupted us and insisted that I should tie on her shawl. The homeward drive was begun, but it would be too long a story to describe its miseries. Imagination must do its work here.
VII
VIRGINIA POMEROY
I woke this morning neither rested nor refreshed. I was determined not to stay in bed, for I wanted to show Sir Archibald by my calm and natural demeanour that I was unconscious of anything embarrassing in our relations. For that matter I am not sure that there is. I wore my pink linen, and looked paler instead of gayer, as I intended. Breakfast was quiet, though mamma had borne the picnic wonderfully and Miss Evesham was brighter than usual. Sir Archibald was baffling. He met my eye as seldom as possible, but I am glad to say, though he was absent-minded, he was not grumpy. Why do I care whether he is grumpy or not? Why do I like to see him come out sunny and warm and genial, and relax his severe face into an unexpectedlaugh? And why do I feel pleased when he melts under my particular coaxing? I have deliberately tried to disparage him to myself and compare him with other men, especially with Breck Calhoun, always to his disadvantage. He is not a bit handsomer than Breck, though mere beauty after all counts for almost nothing in a man. He hasn't, on the whole, as good manners as Breck, and doesn't begin to understand me as well. He is an ordinary, straight, simple, intelligent but not intellectual Anglo-Saxon. I have assured myself of this dozens of times, and having treated him as a kind of snow image, merely for the satisfaction of throwing disparaging epithets at him, and demolishing his outline, I look at him next morning only to find that he has put himself together again and made himself, somehow, into the semblance of the man I love.
There are plenty of men who can manage their own moods, without a woman's kind offices, so why should I bother about his?If it were Breck Calhoun, now, he would be bothering about mine! It is just the time of year when dear old Breck makes the annual offer of his heart and hand—more, as he says, as a matter of habit than anything else, and simply to remind me that there is an excellent husband waiting for me at home when I cease running after strange hearts. That is his expression.
I think some of the marriages between persons of different nationality must come off because of the fascination and mystery that each has for the other,—the same sort of fascination, but a still stronger one, that is exerted by an opposite temperament. In the friendship of a man of Sir Archibald's type I feel a sense of being steadied and strengthened, simplified and balanced. And there ought to be something in the vivacity of the American girl—the result of climate and circumstances and condition, I suppose—which should enliven and stimulate these grave 'children of the mist.' The feelingI have lately had for Archibald Mackenzie (he would frown if he could hear me leave out the Maxwell and the Kindarroch) is just the basis I need for love, but my liking would never go so far as that, unless it were compelled by a still stronger feeling on the man's part. I am not going to do any of the wooing, that is certain. If a man chose to give me his very best I would try to deserve it and keep it and cherish it, but I have no desire to fan his inward fires beforehand. After he is once kindled, if he hasn't heat enough to burn of his own free will, then let him go out! Sir Archibald is afraid of himself and afraid of love. Well, he need not worry about me! I might like to see the delightfully incongruous spectacle of a man of his type honestly and heartily in love, and (in passing) it would be of inestimable benefit to his character; but I want no panic-stricken lovers in my company. Haven't I enough fears of my own, about wet climates and cold houses and monarchicalgovernments and tin bath-tubs and porridge and my mother's preference for American husbands? But I should despise myself if I didn't feel capable of throwing all these, and more, overboard if the right time ever comes.
I haven't been downstairs either to luncheon or tea, but I looked from mamma's window and chanced to see Johnson putting Sir Archibald's portmanteau into the motor. I thought this morning that he intended to run away. And that is the stuff they make soldiers of in Scotland! Afraid of love! Fie! Sir Archibald!
I cannot succeed in feeling like the 'maiden all forlorn.' It impresses me somehow that he has gone away to think it over. Well, that is reasonable; I don't suppose to a man of Sir Archibald's temperament two weeks seems an extreme length of time in which to choose a wife; and as I need considerable reflection on my part I'llgo away too, presently, and take mamma to Torquay, as was our original intention. Torquay is relaxing, and I think I have been a trifle too much stimulated by this bracing moorland air. I hope for his own comfort that Sir Archibald will do his thinking in a warmer clime; and when (or if) he returns to acquaint Virginia with the result of his meditations, he will learn that she also is thinking—but in a place unknown!
MRS. MACGILL
It is just as I feared. The trouble is in my right knee, so stiff that I can scarcely bend it, and exceedingly painful. Cecilia calls it 'a touch of rheumatism.'
'Indeed,' I said, 'it's a pretty secure grasp, not a touch; were I what is called adanseuse, my livelihood would be gone, but mercifully I don't need to dance.'
Cecilia laughed; she thinks nothing of any illness but neuralgia.
'We must leave this place very soon,' said I, 'and return to Tunbridge Wells; life here is fit only for cannibals.'
In the morning it was impossible for me to come down to breakfast, but with great difficulty I dragged myself downstairs about eleven. I felt it my duty to the son of an old friend to seek an opportunity for quietly speaking my mind to Sir Archibald aboutMiss Pomeroy, so decided to do it at once. I found them together, as usual, in the coffee-room. The girl was looking pale; she is beginning to be afraid that her arts are in vain.
Sir Archibald was standing beside her, looking very much bored. She made some excuse, and left the room soon after I had come in.
'I hope you are not the worse of your adventure in the motor, Mrs. MacGill,' Sir Archibald began.
'Thank you,' said I, sitting down close to him. 'I am, a good deal. My right knee is excessively painful, and I have a very strange buzzing in the head.'
'Ah, you are not accustomed to the motor; it's all habit.'
'I amnotaccustomed to a motor, Sir Archibald,' said I, 'nor am I accustomed to the ways of young women nowadays,—young ladieswe used to be called when I was a girl, but I feel that the phrase is quiteinapplicable to a person like Miss Pomeroy.'
'"Young woman" is better, perhaps,' he said, I thought with a smile.
'No lady,' I continued, 'whenIwas young, would talk like that or act like that.' 'A sweet face shrinking under a cottage bonnet' (as Mr. MacGill used to say) 'is better than any tulip.'
Sir Archibald smiled again, and seemed about to leave the room, but I asked him to be so good as to hold a skein of wool for me. I had brought down my knitting, so he sat down to hold it, looking rather annoyed.
I continued firmly, 'There is a freedom—I should almost say a licence—about American women and their ways—'
'You have dropped your ball,' he said; and when he had returned it to me, he began to try to change the subject by remarking about the weather.
'It is,' I said, 'extremely cold, as it has always been ever since I came here, but, asI was saying, there is something about Miss Pomeroy's singing—'
Here he bent his head so low that I was unable to see his face, and stretched my wool so tight that I fear my next socks will be spoiled; it was three-ply merino, and very soft.
'She sings,' I went on without taking any notice of the wool, 'in a way that I feel sure poor Mr. MacGill would have considered indecorous. I was a musician myself as a girl, and used to sing with much expression. "She Wore a Wreath of Roses" was a great favourite. I always expected to be asked to repeat it. I remember on one occasion when I came to—
"A sombre widow's cap adornsHer once luxuriant hair,"
"A sombre widow's cap adorns
Her once luxuriant hair,"
a gentleman who stood by the piano—he was a widower—was obliged to turn away. But that was quite a different matter from the kind of expression that Miss Pomeroy puts into things. It's not proper. I mustspeak plainly to you, and say it is almost passionate, though I dislike to use the word.
"When I am dead, my dearest—"
Are these words for the drawing-room? You are pulling my skein rather tight, Sir Archibald. It stretches so easily, and these light wools require such care.
"And dreaming through the twilightHaply I may remember, and haply may forget."
"And dreaming through the twilight
Haply I may remember, and haply may forget."
Rememberwhat? forgetwhat? The inquiry rises unbidden. Just ask yourself if these are words for the lips of any young woman—far less a younglady.'
Here Sir Archibald coughed so violently that he had to let go my wool (which got all tangled) and stand up.
'Excuse me,' he interrupted, 'but I have promised to speak with Johnson about something—'
'I won't detain you more than a minute,' I interrupted, 'only just to say a word of warning to the son of an old friend.Foreigners who speak our own language are the worst of all. O Sir Archibald, your grandmother was Scotch, your mother was Scotch before you were born, and all your good aunts too. I must warn you that if you let this American girl, this Miss Pomeroy, succeed in her attempt—'
'Mrs. MacGill,' he exclaimed, 'I cannot allow you to use Miss Pomeroy's name to me in this way.'
'Very well,' said I, 'but if you do not take my advice and beware, Miss Pomeroy will have no name to mention, for she will be Lady Maxwell Mackenzie, and you will be a miserable man with an American wife.'
He muttered something, I couldn't say what; the word 'Jove' was mentioned, and there was some allusion to 'an old cat.' I failed to see the connection, for no one could call Miss Pomeroy 'old,' whatever she is; then without a word of apology he left the room. Young men, even baronets, have no manners nowadays. Mr. MacGill's werecourtly; he never used one word where two would do, and bowed frequently to every lady, often apologising most profusely when there was no occasion for it.
SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
Carleton Hotel, London
I came down late, the morning after that drive, having spent a bad night. In spite of the fact that Johnson had been out with the motor and the old ladies till nearly midnight, I never thought of going down to look at the car. It had lost interest in a way I didn't like. To tell the truth, I was thinking of nothing at all except of that girl. I had made up my mind that this was not to be endured. Since I kissed her—it is awful to confess it—I have wished for nothing so much as to kiss her again, and before I become the sort of blithering idiot that a man is when in love, I must and shall be off. It is not the girl I funk; she is a nice girl; I never wish to see a nicer, and I know I never shall. It is the feeling I am beginning to have about her. When she is not there Ifeel as if something necessary to my existence were wanting,—as if I had come off without a pocket-handkerchief or gone out in a top-hat and frock-coat without an umbrella on a showery day in town. When a man gets to feel this about another human being it is time he was off. I have sent orders to Johnson to be ready to start at any moment.
I wish I had not seen Miss Virginia, though, before going. She looked so pale and done up. Mrs. MacGill came into the room before I had time to speak to her, even to tell her I was going away, though I somehow think she guessed it. As to that old frump, that harpy in black velvet and beads, Mrs. MacGill, I will not write down the things she elected to say to me about Virginia, when she had got me tied to her apron-string with her confounded skein of wool. I wish I had chucked it in her face and told her to go to the devil. If I'd had the spirit of half a man, I would have done it, and gone straight to Virginia.Virginia! This gave me a feeling about her that I can't describe,—much, much worse than the handkerchief-and-umbrella feeling,—a feeling that seemed to tweak and pull at something inside me that I had never been conscious of before. But I had an obstinate fit on, that I'm subject to, like other men, I suppose. I had said I would go, and I have gone, leaving a card of good-bye for the Pomeroys, and making straight for town.
It is no use; for after a few days of struggle and doubt and misery, I have got to go back to that girl—if I can find her. What a wretched time I have had! If this is being in love I hope it won't last. I'm told it doesn't usually, after marriage. Perhaps it settles down into something more comfortable, that does not interfere with a man's meals or destroy his sleep. It is awful to think that your whole life may or may not be changed, according to the fancy of agirl whose existence you weren't aware of a fortnight ago! I have told Johnson we are going straight back to Dartmoor, and he grinned—the wretch! Of course he knows why.
CECILIA EVESHAM
Grey Tor InnThursday morning
Ended the Dartmoor drama! Gone Sir Archibald! Vanished the motor! Gone too, dear Virginia and Mrs. Pomeroy! only Mrs. MacGill and I are left! He went on Wednesday, the Pomeroys on Thursday, and I now await events. Virginia tells me she has taken her mother to Torquay, but that is a wide word!
Saturday
I thought it would be so: a week without her was enough. Yesterday Sir Archibald, or what used to be Sir Archibald, appeared at the inn again.
But what a change was here! Shall I put down our conversation without comment?
Cecilia.So you have come back, Sir Archibald?
Sir A.Yes.
Cecilia.I hope you had a pleasant run to town, or wherever you went.
Sir A.Beastly.
Cecilia.What? Did the motor break down, or the weather?
Sir A.Neither.
Cecilia.What was wrong, then?
Sir A.Everything. (Then suddenly) Where have the Pomeroys gone to, Miss Evesham?
Cecilia.To Torquay, I understand.
Sir A.Do you know their address?
Cecilia.I do not. I suppose they will be at one of the hotels.
Sir A.You are making fun of me. Tell me where they are. I am in earnest.
Cecilia.So am I. I do not know their address.
He started up, wrung my hand without a word, and hurried out of the room. I looked after him in the hall, but he was so intent on the Torquay Guide that he never noticed me.
He steamed off Torquay-wards half an hour later.
I have had a pleasant chat with Mr. Willoughby, who appeared this afternoon. He looks at life and all things much as I do. He is a distinct relief from Mrs. MacGill, a distinct relief; and though he has made no special reputation as yet, he is bound to succeed, for he has decided talent.
VIII
MRS. MACGILL
My words have taken effect; it is often disagreeable to have to give unasked advice, but one should always do it. Sir Archibald has gone. It is a pleasant thought that any simple words of mine may have been the means of saving the young man from that designing person.
She conceals her disappointment as well as she can, and is doing her best to look as if nothing had happened in one way or another; but I can see below the surface of that new hat. She has taken her mother off to Torquay for a few days. It is a large town seemingly, though I have heard that there are no men there; but as the guide-book says the population is twenty-five thousand, that is probably an exaggeration. However, Miss Pomeroy won't stay long inTorquay in that case, but will return to New York, where she would fain make us believe they are as plentiful as in a harem. They cannot all be millionaires at least, for she says that many American writers live on what they make by their books.
Cecilia would like to stay on here, I think. She has been up to the top of a quarry looking at gorse along with that so-called artist, Mr. Willoughby.
Miss Pomeroy has infected her, I am afraid, and the bad example is telling, even at that age.
We have had several nice quiet days here alone since the Pomeroys left. There has scarcely been a sound in the hotel, except when the wind pounces upon the window-frames in the sudden, annoying way that it has here. Twice I have got up, to endeavour to fasten the window, and each time have lost a toothbrush. It shakes my nerves completely when the windows clatter suddenlythrough the night. Yesterday as we sat in the dining-room I heard a crunching noise.
'Can that be another motor?' I exclaimed. 'I hope not. It is a class of people I do not wish to associate with any further.'
'It is a motor,' called Cecilia, who sat next the window. 'A scarlet motor, too.'
In another moment the door opened, and Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie came in.
'Dear me, Sir Archibald,' said I, 'what has brought you back again so soon? You will have a nice quiet time here now, for we are the only people in the hotel.'
He seemed strangely put out and unlike himself, and passed my chair without even replying to my speech. I could see that he was thoroughly unnerved, very much in the same state that I was when we came back from that terrible drive. It is no wonder; motoring must tell on the strongest nerves in time.
Later in the day Cecilia came in smiling. 'Sir Archibald has gone away again,' she said. 'He has not made a long stay this time!'
'No,' I observed, 'that sort of nervous excitement grows on people. I know myself that if I once begin to get excited over a bazaar, for instance, I get off my sleep, and worn out in no time. I suppose he has rushed off farther into the moor.'
'He has gone to Torquay,' remarked Cecilia, 'quite an easy run from here.'
I was much annoyed. It seemed probable that he would meet Miss Pomeroy again there, though possible that among twenty-five thousand women he might fail to recognise her. I think Cecilia and I must take a day or two at Torquay on our way home. It would soothe me after this mountain air and the desolation of Grey Tor, and I could get some fresh bead trimming for my velvet mantle, which has been much destroyed by all that I have come through in this place.Our packing will be very easily done. Poor Mr. MacGill used always to say, in his playful manner, that he could stand anything except a woman's luggage, which is the reason that I always try to travel with as little as possible. So there will be only our two large boxes and the holdall and my black bag and the split cane basket and the Holland umbrella-case, with two straps of rugs and the small brown box, and the two hat-boxes, and a basket with some food. Miss Pomeroy's boxes were like arks. I'm sure if she succeeds in her design, I pity the man that has to take them back to Scotland; they would never go in the motor. I think Greytoria and the pony chaise will manage all our little things quite nicely. She seems the quietest animal in the stables, so I must just trust myself in it once more.
There goes Cecilia again, walking on the gravel at the door with that Mr. Willoughby. We must certainly leave to-morrow morning.
One affair such as that of Miss Pomeroyand Sir Archibald is enough for me to endure without being witness of another.
One would suppose common modesty would prevent a young gentleman and lady from indulging in a love-affair whilst inhabiting an ordinary country inn; but there is no limit to the boldness of these Americans. I sometimes think it is a pity that they were discovered, for they have been a bad example to more retiring and respectable nations.
SIR ARCHIBALD MAXWELL MACKENZIE
Torquay
That dreary week of uncertainty in London seemed more foolish than ever, when Johnson and I struck the familiar road from Stoke Babbage to the moor. What a silly ass I was, I thought, to kick my heels at the Carleton all those tiresome days when I might have been with Virginia!
It all looked exactly the same as we came up the hill from the little town,—the bare walls of the hotel, Grey Tor with a row of tourists on the top, moor ponies feeding all over the place, with their tiny foals running after them. It was a lovely, cloudless day, with 'blue distances' enough to please all the artists in creation, and the hot air quivered over the heath as I've seen it do at home on an August afternoon. I seemed to hear Virginia's voice already, to see herstanding on the step in one of her pretty new frocks, and my spirits went up with a bound. But when I got to the door there was no one there. I went into the dining-room; the tables were changed; the one at which we all used to sit together in the window was pushed into the middle of the room. At a small table on the side were seated Mrs. MacGill and Miss Evesham, while the Exeter artist was at another one not far off. Miss Evesham and he seemed to be having a pretty lively conversation, while Mrs. MacGill looked thoroughly out of it and decidedly sulky.
'What!' cried Miss Evesham, seeing me, 'you are back, Sir Archibald! Had London no attractions?'
'I hate town in the heat,' I replied.
Of course I wanted to ask where the Pomeroys were, but couldn't bring myself to do it,—especially before Mrs. MacGill. I had pointedly ignored her, and had every intention of continuing to do so. After lunch, atthe bureau, I found that the Pomeroys had left some days ago. I couldn't bring myself to ask for their address, with about a dozen people listening, so I had to hang about and wait for a chance of seeing Miss Evesham alone. It was after dinner before I got it. I could see that she was laughing at me, under the rose—confound her impudence!—and that she seemed to take a kind of pleasure in keeping me waiting. She and the artist chap appeared to be as thick as thieves, but at last she sent him off and began teasing me in her quiet way.
'Are you a good sailor, Sir Archibald?' she asked irrelevantly.
'Not particularly. Why?' was my reply.
'The Atlantic is a wide ocean, and generally very rough, I have heard,' said she, with a queer look at my face.
'Oh!' cried I involuntarily. 'Have they crossed?'
She burst out laughing.
'You're fairly caught!' she said. 'Am I supposed to know who "they" are?'
Then of course I had to let on. I could see Miss Evesham knew all about it, though she did not say much, being more inclined to laugh; I'm sure I don't know why. The Pomeroys had gone to Torquay, but she either could not or would not tell me their address, or how long they were going to stay, or where they were going next.
'Torquay is a big place,' I said, discouraged, 'all hotels and lodgings. How the deuce shall I find them?'
'Oh,' she replied coolly, 'people generally find what they want very much—if they are really in earnest.'
With that she nodded me good night, still laughing. I did not see her again, for of course I made an early morning start for Torquay next day.
And the devil of a hunt I had, when I got there! What silly idiots women are! (Of course I mean Miss Evesham.) Thereare about one hundred hotels, three hundred boarding-houses, and one thousand furnished apartments in Torquay, and search as I might, I could not find the Pomeroys' name on any of their lists, or discover a trace of them anywhere. It was a broiling hot day, the sun beat down without mercy, and the glare beat up from the beastly white roads and pavements till I was nearly blind. I was never so nearly used up in my life as at the end of that day, and it was not only with bodily fatigue, but with utter and most cruel disappointment; for I was convinced that the Pomeroys had left Torquay, and that, like an utter fool, I had missed my only chance of being happy with a woman.
At last between six and seven of the evening, I found myself sitting on the edge of a little sort of wood, below a garden overhanging the sea. The trees were cut away, here and there, to show the view, and to the right you looked along the coast and saw some red rocks and a green headlandjutting out into the water. It was sunset; I was watching a little yawl in fall sail slipping round the headland, and when it was out of sight, I looked at the headland itself. There was one figure on the piece of green downs at the top,—a tall, slight figure, a woman's, all in white, with a red parasol.
My heart jumped into my throat. I knew it was Virginia. There was a piece of white scarf or veil floating out behind her as she walked, and there is no woman in the world but Virginia who stands like that or wears a scarf like that!—O Virginia, so dear and so distant, how, how could I reach her, not having the wings of a bird? Long before I could get there she would be gone,—lost again in that howling wilderness of hotels and lodging-houses.
A man came along the path where I was standing.
'How do you get to that place?' I inquired, pointing to the headland, 'and what is it called?'
'It's called Daddy Hole Plain,' said the man, 'and you get there by the road. I can't direct you from here; you must inquire as you go along.'
'Is there no short cut?' I inquired impatiently.
'Not unless you can swim or fly!' said the man, with a grin.
I never wished before to be a bird or a fish; mere feet seemed a most inadequate means of getting me to Virginia. But I set off, very nearly at a run. The wrong turns that I took, the hills that I went up, the hills that I went down, the people that I asked, the wrong directions they gave me,—they seemed quite innumerable. Daddy Hole Plain was about as difficult to get to as heaven, and when I got there the angel would be flown!
But she wasn't.... For when at last I saw before me the bit of green downs with the seats facing the bay, the white figure was there. Virginia was sitting looking outto sea where the sun was setting, making a red path on the water, and the white-sailed yawl was drifting to the west!... I was so hot and tired, so travel-stained and dusty! Virginia looked so cool and sweet!... To see her there after all my wandering and disappointment was too much.... I could not speak. She heard my step, looked up and saw me coming—looked glad, I think.... Her little feet were crossed in front of her upon the turf, and I just flung myself beside them, and something—so like a lump of ice, that I had always carried in my breast until I saw Virginia—melted entirely at that moment, and began to beat.
VIRGINIA POMEROY
Torquay, South DevonBella Vista HotelJune 19—
If he had come the next day, or even the same week, he would have had a cold welcome, for on the whole I did not understand, nor did I fancy, his methods.
But I had had time to think, time to talk it over with mamma, time to write Breck Calhoun that there was no use in our discussing the old subject, for I feared, though I was not absolutely sure, that there was 'some one else.' Always dear old Breck has finished by saying, 'Jinny, there is no one else?' And there never was till now.
Now there is not only some one else, but there is also in very truth 'no one else' who counts! All is absolutely different from, and yet precisely like, everything that I have imagined ever since the foundation of theearth. In love, he is, what all good men and good women ought to be, something quite unlike his former self, or the outer self he shows to the world. He has lost himself and found himself again in me, and I have gone through the same mysterious operation. He has place for no troublesome uncertainty of mind now, although mamma and I have decreed a year of waiting, in which we shall have ample time to change if we choose. But we shall not choose; we were made for each other, as we have both known ever since the day we had luncheon together at the Mug o' Cider in Little Widger.
What chapters, what books, we talked sitting in the gorse bushes on Daddy Hole Plain! In the evening of my days I shall doubtless be glad that I climbed those heights, remembering that Archibald had to exert himself somewhat arduously in order to ask me to marry him. I wanted to be alone and feast my eyes on the dazzling blue of the sea, one broad expanse ofsapphire, stretching off, off, into eternity; a blue all be-diamonded with sunlit sparkles; a blue touched with foam-flecks wherever it broke on the rocks or the islets. Granted that any view has charms when one is young and in love, the view from Daddy Hole Plain would inspire an octogenarian, or even a misogynist.
'It was in Exeter we really met, you remember,' I reminded Archibald.
'I am not likely to forget it.'
'Do you chance to know the motto that your virgin queen, Elizabeth, bestowed upon Exeter? It wasSemper fidelis.'
'That's a good omen, isn't it,' he said. 'You always do find out the cleverest things, Virginia! How am I ever to keep up with you?'
'Don't try!' I answered, quite too happy to be anything but vainglorious. 'Gaze at me on my superior intellectual height, and when I meet your admiring eyes you can trust me to remember that though you arevoluntarily standing on a step below, your head is higher than mine after all! Archibald, do you know what I am to give you for a wedding present?'
'No,' he answered gravely; 'is it your mother?'
'No, I am going to lend mamma to Miss Evesham for a little, until her turn comes,—dear old Cecilia!'
'Do you think it will ever come?'
'It's only just round the corner; Cupid is even now sharpening his arrows and painting little pictures on the shafts.'
'Oh, I see! Well, is it Greytoria? for I don't mind saying that I'm quite ready to give her a stall in my stables at Kindarroch; though of all the ill-conducted and lazy little brutes—'
'Be careful, Archibald,' I exclaimed warningly; 'you owe some few hours of martyrdom, but many a debt of gratitude, to that same Greytoria.'
'I remember only one,' he said, lookingat me in a very embarrassing way, 'and by George, she cut that one short! But I give it up—the wedding present; I can't guess, and I don't care specially, so long as you come along with it.'
'I shall come with it, and in it, if the faithful Johnson will steer me,—it's going to be a new motor!'
'Well, you owe it to me, Virginia,' he cried with enthusiasm, 'for mine isn't worth a brass farthing at this moment. I knew before I had been at Grey Tor twenty-four hours that it was going to be knocked into smithereens, but I hadn't the pluck to take it or myself out of harm's way. Now we are both done for!'
'Which do you prefer?' I asked,'your old motor or me?'
'You, with a new one,' he answered unblushingly. 'We'll take our wedding journey in it, shall we? Early this autumn would be a good time.'
'And mamma and Cecilia and Mrs.MacGill can follow behind with Greytoria.'
'I don't mind their trying to follow,' Archibald responded genially, as he lighted his pipe, 'so long as they never catch up; and they never will—not with that little brute!'
Printed by T. and A.Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press