BOOK IV

WHAT BECAME OF BARRIE

I

Letter From Barrie Macdonald To Ian Somerled Macdonald

DEAR SIR KNIGHT: I was glad the morning we saw Mrs. James off that

you said you'd like to hear from me, and if I needed help or

comfort in any trouble I must let you know. I haven't such an

excuse for writing to you now, but you did say that you wanted to

hear anyway, and that you'd find out where we were going, so you

could wire me your plans. Now I've had two telegrams from you, and

a letter; and if they hadn't come I should have been disappointed.

I thought we might have seen you and the Gray Dragon before this,

but the telegrams have made me understand. That is, I _don't_

understand, because what you tell me sounds very mysterious. Still,

as you went back to Carlisle and are now in London, it is no use

hoping to see the Gray Dragon's bonnet flash into sight round some

complicated Highland corner.

What _could_ have taken you to call on Grandma again? I am almost

dying of curiosity. You say 'perhaps you may be able to explain

when we meet': but everybody is saying that to me, just now--at

least, Barbara is, about not letting me go back to Glasgow till the

end of her week there--so it is rather aggravating. Still, it is

good to know that we may meet. I wonder when? You don't give me a

hint, and it stirs up my curiosity from deeper depths to be told,

as if you half expected me to guess what you mean, that 'you're in

London for reinforcements.' Shall I ever know? It seems a long time

since I said good-bye to you in front of the Caledonian Hotel. Not

that I'm having a dull trip. I should be very dull myself if that

were true, for everything is beautiful, and every one kind. It is

the most wonderful luck for a girl like me, who had never seen

anything in her life, suddenly to be seeing all Scotland. But I had

grown rather _used_ to seeing things with you and Mrs. James, after

I escaped from the 'glass retort,' and I can't accustom myself yet

to being with others, and you far away--Mrs. James too, of course.

I try to console myself if I feel a tiny bit homesick, thinking how

happy she is, and how wonderful everything is going to be for her

and her strange, unpractical doctor. It was splendid of you to give

him all that money. But wouldn't it have been fun if he could have

come over, instead of her going to him? Maybe, if it had turned out

so, you would be in the Highlands now.

Do you remember how I used to say that _my_ tour under the heather

moon would soon be over, but you would be going on just as if we

had never met? Well, it has turned out quite differently, hasn't

it, for both of us? Only the heather moon is the same. But I never

talk of her now that you are gone.

I don't want you to think I am ungrateful to _any one_, if I sign

myself, Your rather homesick little 'princess,'

BARRIE.

P.S.--It does not seem right to have crossed over the borderline

into our Highlands without you!

LETTER FROM BARRIE TO HER MOTHER

DEAREST,DARLING BARBARA: Can it really be that it won't

bother you to have me write to you often and tell you everything

interesting that happens? You see, I might think it interesting,

and you might think it a bore. I know you are easily bored, dear,

so I am not quite sure what I ought to write. I can only tell you

about seeing places, because that is all we do. But they are so

beautiful, perhaps you may like to hear. If I write about the wrong

things, do promise that you'll speak out and tell me to stop. I

won't let my feelings be hurt.

Basil is trying to show me as much of Scotland as he possibly can,

he says, before I 'get tired of him and Blunderbore.' That is a bad

way to put it, and so I have told him, because I should be horribly

ungrateful to tire of him. But he says he dislikes gratitude and

thinks it an overestimated virtue.

I suppose you have often been in Scotland before, and you are not

Scottish yourself, so perhaps you can't quite feel as I do about

it. Basil, who has travelled so much, says that Scotland has in

miniature almost all the picked bits of scenery of other countries;

but they do not _appear_ to be in miniature when you're motoring

through them. They seem on an enormous scale; and each beauty spot

is different from every other. You can't help remembering and

keeping them apart in your mind, though there are so many that they

are crowded together, all over the map. I think of the map of

Scotland being purple, like heather, don't you? And if I have to

live anywhere else, I shall always be homesick for this country

now. If we are not in some fairy-like, green glen, we are in a wild

and awesome mountain pass; or else in a blue labyrinth of lochs; or

we come out upon endless, billowing moorlands; or suddenly we find

ourselves on a long road like an avenue in some great private park,

with the singing of a river in our ears.

Poor Basil sometimes feels ashamed of Blunderbore, and certainly

it _is_ different from travelling in Mr. Somerled's Gray Dragon.

With the Dragon, spirits of the wind used to rush out of forests to

meet and dash ozone in our faces. With Blunderbore, if they come at

all, they merely spray us lazily.

Going from Stirling to Crieff we crossed the borderline of the

Highlands. There was a park-like world round the Bridge of Allan:

and at Ardoch, the greatest Roman station left in Britain, lots of

turfed banks showing still where 26,000 Romans tried to bridle the

Northern Caledonians, the red-haired people. I'm glad they never

quite succeeded!

Crieff was sweet, and all round it, half hidden in woods, the most

beautiful houses. But Basil had forgotten to wire, so we couldn't

get into one of the nice hotels, but stayed in a very funny one.

When Mrs. Vanneck asked for communicating rooms, the landlady said,

'Oh, _no_, Madam, we've no such things as _that_ in _our_ house!'

We went on to Perth early next morning, and every minute along the

road we seemed to be passing happy people who'd come to play in

Scotland: nice golfing girls and men, and men with guns over their

shoulders, or followed by gillies with fishing-tackle. I wish men

could amuse themselves, though, don't you, without killing

creatures more beautiful and happy than themselves?

It was such a pretty road, past Methven, where, alas! the English

beat Bruce; and if I hadn't been grieved to find that by John

Knox's advice all the nicest buildings had been pulled down, I

shouldn't have felt disappointed in Perth. It is a very fine town

anyhow, with glorious trees; and the two great bridges over the Tay

are splendid if they _are_ made of iron. They look as if people had

planned them especially to give all the view there could be of the

sunset.

Of course the 'Fair Maid's' house was the most interesting thing.

I hope it really was hers. I don't see why not. It _is_ in the old

glover's quarter. And the shrine with the crucifix and death's head

and cross-bones they found hidden in the wall of her room is too

fascinating. I could just see her praying there, so beautiful that

all the young men of Perth were in love with her. And talking of

the young men of Perth, Basil says the ball in the Games Week is

supposed to be the best show of the year--such splendid men come. I

should love to see them in the kilt, with their brown knees, like

the pipers in Edinburgh.

St. Andrews was our next place, and we arrived the same day, for

we didn't stop in Perth after we had seen the sights there. I

wonder if you have been to St. Andrews? I know so little about you

yet, dearest. I fell in love with the place--not so much with the

links (though they must be the most beautiful as well as the most

famous in the world) as with that old ruined castle built on the

dark rocks rising out of the sea. I know I shall dream of the

awful, bottle-necked dungeon! Basil said it was the worst thing he

had ever seen except at Loches. I hope it isn't wicked to be

pleased that Cardinal Beaton, after he sat in his window to watch

Wishart burn, was soon killed, and salted, and preserved in the

same dungeon where he used to keep martyrs. The 'undergrads' of the

University looked so attractive in their red gowns, and the girl

students in their mortar boards! They were like scarlet birds,

against the gray walls and gray arches of the town. But I suppose

people in St. Andrews think even more about golf than about

learning, don't they? There were hundreds of all ages on the

links--so grave and eager: and at the hotels they _never_ know when

anybody will come in to meals. There's the cemetery, too; that

shows the importance of golf. All the 'smartest' monuments are of

famous golfers, knitted caps and clubs and everything, neatly done

in marble. But I wonder anybody ever contrives to die at St.

Andrews. I never felt such delicious air!

Crossing the ferry for Dundee was fun. It was a very big boat, and

several other motors on it as well as ours. We sat in Blunderbore

all the way across the wide sheet of silver that was the Tay,

gazing up at the marvellous giant bridge, and then we spent several

hours in Dundee, seeing the Steeple, and Queen Mary's Orchard, and

lots of things. This was so near the Round House that I suppose the

Vannecks would have gone if it hadn't been for me. But I am the

stumbling block in everybody's way.

Going on to Aberdeen, we ran along a fine coast dotted with ruined

castles--Dunottar for one, where the Regalia was hidden once.

We stopped at Arbroath, which Doctor Johnson admired, to see the

great shell of an Abbey, red as dried blood; and all the old town

is built out of it, so no wonder there isn't much left but an

immense nave. But just think, Arbroath is Sir Walter Scott's

'Fairport,' and I must read "The Antiquarian" again, all about the

caves and the secret treasure found in them. As for the treasure of

the Abbey, it is nothing less than the heart of William the Lion.

He had it nicely buried near the high altar, as long ago as the

twelfth century, wasn't it? But in 1810 they dug it up, found it

had ossified, and now they simply have it lying about in a glass

case, practically mixed up with the bones of a lady who left money

to the Abbey (she wouldn't, if she'd known what they'd do!) and the

singularly long thigh bones of a particularly wicked earl. It was

an earl who married a sister of the Lion's, and, because he was

jealous, threw her out of the window.

We had to go through Montrose, where the great Marquis was born,

and where Sir James Douglas set sail with the Bruce's heart (what a

lot of hearts there were travelling about then!) and where now the

most curiously exciting things are the Bridie Shops. I _had_ to

know what a 'bridie' meant, so we stopped to see; but it's only a

rolled meat pasty they love in Forfarshire; and brides are supposed

to batten on them at their weddings. To please me, Basil would have

made a detour to see 'Thrums,' which is really Kerriemuir, you

know. And we should have had to pass through Forfar--the 'Witches

Har'--and go on the road that leads to mysterious, wonderful

Glamis. I was longing to do it, but Mrs. Vanneck wanted to arrive

in Aberdeen in time to do some shopping! I gave up like a lamb,

almost hating her inwardly; but afterward I felt better about it,

for the Aberdeen shops are so nice. They sell pink pearls, out of

Scottish rivers--perfect beauties. I bought you a brooch, and I do

hope you'll like it. I don't know much about such things; and of

course you have gorgeous jewellery; but this pearl is such a

wonderful colour, like snow touched with sunrise.

My eyes and hair were full of granite by the time we got to

Aberdeen, because the road is made of it, and the dust sparkles

like diamonds.

So does Aberdeen sparkle like diamonds. I shouldn't have thought a

city all gray like that, could be so handsome. But it is a gray

bright and silky as the wings of doves, and in some lights pale as

moonbeams. Sunset was beginning when we arrived, and on the houses

and bridges and river, and even on the pavements of the broad

streets, there was the same gray-pink sheen as on the pearl I

bought for you.

In the morning we went to see the University, and the Cathedral

with its lovely rose-pink pillars, and old painted Scandinavian

ceiling. Everything would have passed off charmingly, if Basil had

not begun to be rather foolish and unlike himself, while he and I

were in the Cathedral together. Fortunately, an old friend of his

he hadn't seen for years, appeared unexpectedly at the critical

moment, and invited us to visit him near Aboyne. I hadn't quite

time to say 'no' to Basil definitely, and we haven't gone back to

the subject since, so I am hoping for the best. I used to think it

would be _heavenly_ to have a proposal, but now, I realize that it

is much overrated.

Your loving

BARRIE,

Who hopes she hasn't bored you.

LETTER FROM BARRIE TO SOMERLED

DEAR SIR KNIGHT: I must write to tell you what a surprise

I had in Aberdeen. Basil took us all to a biograph theatre--the

first one I ever saw--and one set of pictures was labelled, 'A

Gretna Green Wedding of the Olden Days.' How my heart beat!--and

not for nothing, because, oh, Sir Knight, it was _our_ wedding! My

face never showed once, but the hair looked like mine; and _your_

face was just like yours and nobody else's, in spite of the

old-fashioned costume. Basil said out loud, 'By Jove!' and the

Vannecks recognized you, and asked all sorts of questions. I had to

tell them the story, but I didn't mind a bit. In fact, I think I

was proud. The pictures were coloured, so perhaps that was one

reason they guessed, for my hair was so red. I told Basil I always

wanted to be married at Gretna Green, and now I _have_ been. But he

had the air of being rather _shocked_. I shouldn't have thought he

was that kind of person.

Afterward, he was afraid that he had offended me; but I hadn't

cared at all. However, he has been kinder than ever since, as if to

make up. Walking about in the Cathedral next day, we met a

delightful man, actually the _Head of a Clan_, who had been in

Canada and had known Basil there. He invited us to visit at his

place near Aboyne, on Deeside--just think, not far from where

Macbeth was killed!--and of course that enchanted Mrs. Vanneck, who

has an insatiable yearning to see the inside of Scottish houses.

His is a beautiful house. I must tell you about it. Maybe you

remember the road from Aberdeen to Aboyne, through lovely forests

and mountains, and how by and by you come to Deeside, and the

Grampians. The Chieftain we went to visit owns a whole mountain,

and many miles of land besides; and when you arrive at his estate

there are no gates to drive into. You wind on and on, along an

exquisite avenue through the woods, and you would not know you were

on any one's property if you hadn't been told beforehand, though it

is all beautifully kept--not too smart and trim, but just right to

be picturesque and romantic. There's no impression of 'This is

mine, not yours. _You_ are here only on sufferance!' Instead, the

trees and hills and heather seem to say gently, 'This is a part of

the world where our master lives, because it is lovely and he loves

it. He makes you welcome to come and go as you will, whoever you

are, as if it were your own.' Don't you think that is a charming

impression? And afterward we found out that the doors of this

Chieftain's house are never locked. Mostly in the summer they stand

wide open all night, although he has beautiful old silver, and

quantities of valuable pictures and things which have been in his

family more or less ever since there was a Scotland. It is a dear

old sixteenth-century house, with networks of black oak beams, and

lots of quaint bow-windows that look out on lovely lawns and

flower-gardens, and box or holly hedges, and yew trees cut in

fantastic shapes.

We stayed one whole day and two nights. Wasn't it good of him to

have us? In all the corridors there are carpets and curtains of the

Chieftain's hunting tartan. I loved it. I do hope you have dogs'

heads and antlers, and tartan curtains and carpets and things at

your castle at Dhrum? It is yours, you know! I wonder if I shall

ever see it?

I can't tell you how excited I was when the Chieftain and several

other Highland men he had staying in his house-party wore the kilt

to dinner. All their knees were baked to exactly the right brown;

but he was the smartest of the men (though some were very young and

handsome), because he, being the head of the Clan, had a green

velvet coat. Poor Basil and Mr. Vanneck in their ordinary evening

things looked like _nothing at all_. I was quite sorry for them,

but so glad I hadn't to sit by one at the table, as I wanted only

to talk to the kilted men. I wore that white frock you chose for

me--do you remember?--and a sash of the MacDonald of Dhrum dress

tartan, which I found in Aberdeen. All during dinner the pipers

piped, and I was so thrilled I could scarcely eat. Afterward there

was an impromptu dance in a bare, tartan-draped room, where it

seemed that Macbeth could quite well have been entertained. I

thought I should have to look on, of course, as I've never learned

to dance; but that dear Chieftain taught me the 'Petronella,' which

is very pretty and easy to pick up. It seems as if one could not

help dancing to the music of the pipes; don't you find it so? Queen

Mary is supposed to have introduced the Petronella to Scotland, the

tallest man with the brownest knees told me; and Francis I brought

it from Spain to France. It is quite a Spanish sort of dance,

though Scotland has adopted it. I learned a lovely Highland

schottische, too; and after I had seen others dancing the reels

(ought I to say foursomes or eightsomes?) I tried those too, and

got on well, everybody said. But the reel is a dance you can dance

_only_ with your own hair. Mine, which I had pinned up very neatly,

came down. And one of the girls had a curl come _off_. Luckily she

didn't seem to care. She said that accidents would happen on the

best regulated heads.

I do so wonder, by the way, what a Highlander would do if he

happened to be born with legs so crooked that he couldn't wear the

kilt? I suppose he would have to emigrate when very young, or else

stop in bed all his life.

In the morning a dignified piper named Donal played us awake,

walking round and round the house. It delayed my dressing

dreadfully, pausing to gaze him out of sight every time he passed

under my window. I could have cried when he stopped; but he played

more while we had breakfast. I sat next to an Englishman, and would

you believe it, the loveliest lament got on his horrid nerves, and

he said in a low voice, 'Shall I be able to _live_ through it?' If

I had been engaged to him I should have broken it off at once.

The Chieftain has a friend who is a Princess--not a little

'pretend' princess like me, but a real one with a capital 'P'--and

he introduced us to her at a big garden party he was having at his

place on our day there. 'They are going on to Braemar to-morrow,'

he said; and she being as kind and hospitable as he, promptly

invited us to lunch with her at Braemar Castle. Mrs. Vanneck was

pale with joy!

We left from the Chieftain's early in the morning, and Donal

played us away, on the best run Blunderbore has given us yet,

through what I am sure is true Highland scenery. There are castles

dotted about everywhere; and I saw my first Highland

cattle--adorable little shaggy beasts with forelocks like sporans,

and innocent short faces. Their eyes were so wide apart it seemed

that they might be able to see round all the corners. A cherubic

bull tried to charge Blunderbore, but changed his mind at the last

moment owing to the persuasions of his female friends. The rough,

dark brown forms somehow emphasized the beauty of the wild

background, the hills painted golden and purple with bracken and

heather, the mountains (for there seem always to be mountains in

the distance in Scotland) looking exactly the colour of violets

against the hyacinth blue of the sky. All sorts of Highland things

got in our way, counting deer; and I made up rules for creatures

which it would be very useful if they could be taught to obey.

'Bulls kindly requested not to charge motor-cars. No sitting down

or cud-chewing allowed in the middle of roads. Deer will please,

when darting across, start at least six yards ahead of motors.

Chickens will keep to their own side of the road when they have

chosen it three times. Rabbits not to run directly ahead of the car

for more than three miles at a stretch.'

As we lumbered along with Blunderbore, each heather-dyed hill that

rolled out of our way disclosed a new, or rather a very old,

castle. I should think there must be as many castles in this part

of the world as there are cottages. I know we saw more! except

perhaps those sweet little dwellings grouped together in the

charming villages of Ballater and Braemar. No wonder the King and

Queen love this part of the world. Basil thought everything here

quite foreign-looking: but there's always that French spirit in

Scotland, isn't there? I'm sure the coffee is so good just because

of that.

It was fun having luncheon at Braemar Castle, which has more

turrets than you can count without knowing it well. Each room

nearly has a turret, and some have two: and on the thick wooden

shutters names of soldiers quartered in the Castle after Prince

Charlie days are roughly carved. Of _course_ there's a dungeon, and

a secret way to the far-off village and river: and when you enter

you have to wind up and up a tower stairway with here and there a

little deep-set iron-barred window to give you light. I wish you

could see the Princess's Persian dog, Mirzan, of the oldest race of

dogs in the world: yellow-white as old ivory, tall and thin and

graceful as a blowing plume. He takes strange attitudes like dogs

in pictures by old masters; and you feel he can't be real. He must

have stepped stealthily out from a dim tapestry hanging on one of

the thick stone walls, and he will have to go back to his place

beside the sleeping tapestry knight, as soon as he has finished

running after the doves, who have left their dovecote and are

balancing with their coral feet on the battlements, or walking in

the courtyard. Seeing this castle of the Princess's makes me quite

envy you having Dunelin. I should like to live in a castle. _Do_

buy Dunelin, as you said you sometimes thought of doing, and invite

me to be a humble little member of one of your big house-parties.

Your deserted princess, BARRIE.

LETTER FROM BARRIE TO HER MOTHER

DEAREST BARBARA: Every prospect pleases and only man is

vile. At least, I don't mean vile, but upsetting. It is too bad

about Basil. I don't know what to do. I hope _you_ aren't hoping

that I may fall in love with him? Something he said makes me think

_he_ believes you want it. But why should you? You don't know him

and his sister so very well. They aren't old friends. Darling, if I

am a bother to you--and I know I am--I'll go far away and change my

name and do anything you like, except marry Basil. It isn't that

I'm too young. It seems to me if I loved a man desperately I should

like to marry him while I was young, so as to give him all my

years, and because I should grudge the days and weeks and months

lived away from him. But Basil is just like a brother. He might

hold my hand all day, and I shouldn't have a single thrill, which

he says is the way for a girl to find out whether she's really in

love.

Everything might be so pleasant, if it weren't for this silliness.

We have seen Elgin, which has the most exquisite ruined Cathedral

that ever lived or died; and sweet Pluscarden Abbey not far off;

and Forres, full of memories of Macbeth; and a mysterious carved

shaft of sandstone called Sweno's Stone; and the hidden, secret

glen of the Findhorn River, where we had to get out, and walk for

miles through a gorge of the most entrancing beauty. Sometimes it

was wild and grand, sometimes peaceful as a dream of fairyland.

Every kind of lovely tree grew there, out of sheer, rocky walls red

as coral, or pale and glistening as gray satin; and you looked far

down on water brown as the brown of dogs' eyes--deep pools, and a

hundred rapids and tiny cataracts filling the glen with their

singing. But Mr. and Mrs. Vanneck would walk far ahead of us on the

steep narrow paths, which were so slippery I had to let Basil help

me, and it was most embarrassing and futile to keep refusing him

all the time. He says we were meant for each other, but I know

better!

You remember, don't you, dear, I didn't want to take this trip? My

feeling must have been a presentiment.

At Culloden Moor I couldn't help crying a little over Prince

Charlie and his brave Highlanders, for I think no other battlefield

can keep its sadness and romantic pathos, and its effect upon the

mind as that does. You know it's almost within sight and sound of

the sea; and the voice of the wind among the pines--dark, straight

ranks of pines like soldiers in mourning, standing in a

bloodstained sea of heather--seemed to me like the wail of ghostly

pipes playing a Highland lament. Wandering among the wavy graves

and piled cairns of the different clans who gave their lives in

vain for Prince Charlie, I was with Basil all alone, for those

wretched Vannecks would go off by themselves, as usual, in the most

marked way. He made me wipe my eyes with his handkerchief, and then

folded it up to 'keep forever.' He does choose the strangest places

to make love, and always contrives the minute the others go away,

to bring the subject round to that. Luckily we are all four

together in the car, as the chauffeur drives, but even there he

looks at me, which is quite getting on my nerves. Yesterday I asked

to sit in front, saying I wanted more air. It was after leaving

Inverness; and I had the best of it, quite by accident. It was a

horrid road, almost the only bad one we've had; full of flat holes

which the chauffeur called 'pans,' and the others, in the back of

the car, nearly had their spines come through the tops of their

heads. Strange what a difference there is, sitting in the driver's

seat! The bumping lasted all the way to Drumnadrochit, where we

turned away from a long, straight loch to mount up into lovely

strange country; then plunged down a steep hill to Invercannich--a

charming place ringed round with lovely, mysterious-looking

mountain-peaks which seem to say 'If we chose, we could tell you

the secret of Glen Affric, which we are hiding.'

Isn't that an alluring name--Glen Affric? A little while ago I

should have wanted immensely to see it; but now whenever any one

proposes walking through a glen I always argue that it would be

better not.

Last night we stopped at Strathpeffer, a gay and beautiful little

cure-town, which is like a walled flower-garden set down in the

midst of wild and stern Caledonia. The mountains are the walls; and

heather flows round them and beats against them like a purple

ocean. It is so foreign looking that it reminded Basil of Baden

Baden. Now we are going on into Ross-shire, which Basil describes

as a country of moorlands and great spaces where red deer live. But

already we have seen deer walking quite calmly out of the forests

on to our road, where they stop to gaze quizzically, without the

least fear, at the car. It is almost as if they took it for a

brother-animal. To-night we shall be at Loch Maree, and of course

you won't get this in time to telegraph there. But perhaps you

might wire to Ballachulish, where we shall be to-morrow. Do,

dearest, and tell me to come back to you. In spite of all the

loveliness, I can't stand this much longer, for I cannot make Basil

stop without being really _rude_ to him. You needn't keep me more

than a day if it's inconvenient. I'll go anywhere afterward--except

to Grandma's. Or even there, if she'll have me back!--Your loving

and anxious BARRIE.

TELEGRAM TO BARRIE FROM MRS. BALLANTREE MACDONALD

If you want to please me and be very happy yourself say 'Yes' to

B. N. Splendid thing for you. Could wish nothing better for your

future. Do relieve my mind by writing that you have decided. Yours

lovingly and hopefully,

BARBARA.

LETTER FROM BARRIE TO HER MOTHER

DEAREST: Your telegram gave me the most dreadful surprise

when I arrived here at Ballachulish, and everything else seemed

against me too, for there was a wire from Mr. Bennett's sister

asking Mr. and Mrs. Vanneck to make their visit to her as soon as

possible, at that shooting lodge you told us about. They wanted to

go, and I was the only thing that prevented them. If I had an

_enemy_ trying to push me into a corner this would have seemed like

his (or her) work--just as if it had been planned on purpose. But,

of course, that idea is nonsense. Basil said, 'Now, if you could

only care a little, and make up your mind to wait for the love, we

could be married at once, because I believe it's still easy to do

these things quickly in Scotland.' But I told him _I_ didn't feel

as if I could, even to please Barbara, though I liked him very

much. And I began to think that, after all, I should have to go

back to Carlisle and beg Grandma to take me in, when who should

come teuf-teufing up to the hotel but Mr. Somerled in the darling

Gray Dragon. I could have cried with joy. It was like a miracle,

because, though I thought he might come along some time, I wasn't

expecting him then, any more than you would expect manna to fall in

1912 just because you happened to be hungry and lost.

You will be surprised perhaps at my feeling that I was saved from

Basil and Grandma simply because Mr. Somerled happened to turn up

at our hotel in his motor-car. But I haven't told you all yet. He

wasn't alone. He had collected Duncan MacDonald and Miss MacDonald,

and he'd come to Ballachulish looking for us. I must confess to you

now that I wrote to him twice or three times, which was only

polite, as he'd been so kind about rescuing me before. And you

hadn't forbidden me to write. One of the things I told him in a

letter was about the visit to Mrs. Payne the Vannecks might be

making: and it occurred to him that some such complication as this

might arise. He thought if Mr. and Mrs. Vanneck wanted to go to the

Round House, it would be very nice for me to join my cousins (of

course the MacDonalds are my cousins) until you are ready for me to

come back to you. Or else I could go and stay at Dunelin Castle at

Dhrum, for they are willing to visit him there if I do. It has been

let to him for years, you know. As the MacDonalds are poor he was

afraid, if he didn't take the castle, they might let or even sell

it to some vulgar rich person who would spoil the island he loves.

Now he may buy it himself: for Duncan MacDonald has no son, and the

daughter is so plain and old that she can't possibly marry. Won't

it be good to have the castle still belonging to a MacDonald? And

it is so romantic that it should be Ian Somerled MacDonald, whom

Duncan used to despise. But perhaps you've never heard that story?

Now, both the father and daughter are sweet to 'their dear

cousin,' and very kind to me--to please him, of course. Next to

being with you, I'd rather go to Dhrum than do anything else in the

world. Perhaps it will seem to you just the right thing, because I

know how difficult it is to plan what to do with me for the rest of

my life, unless I marry Basil. And maybe you wouldn't so much mind

my not marrying him, if I had a proper place to stay for ever so

many weeks, while you looked round?

Mr. and Mrs. Vanneck haven't gone yet, but they will be starting

to-morrow morning for Dundee, and from there they will go to the

Round House. I am sorry to say I shan't miss them, as I did Mrs.

James. Cousin Duncan and Cousin Margaret (they have told me to call

them 'Cousin') don't seem Scottish at all, and so they are rather

disappointing. They live in London and don't care for Dhrum, but

they appear not to dislike the idea of visiting Mr. Somerled there.

I believe they have often in old times visited the people to whom

they let Dunelin Castle, but only when there was a very good _chef_

and a gay house-party. Cousin Margaret has a large, high nose, and

thin hair and a thin face and body. All her personality is thin and

cold, as if she couldn't care much about anything. But she does

care about women getting votes, and insists on talking politics in

the midst of lovely scenery. She looks so like her father, it is

quite funny, and their voices are exactly alike, slow and correct

and exaggeratedly English; and Scottish history bores them. They

are proud of the ancestor who ratted from Prince Charlie and fought

with Butcher Cumberland, so we have nothing in common. But any port

in a storm!

I suppose I mustn't go away in the Gray Dragon till I hear from

you? Yet surely you will say 'Yes,' as it will save you trouble,

without my being obliged to marry Basil. I am sorry for him, but he

will soon get over it, for he loves his writing better than

anything else in the world, and presently he will go back to it and

forget me. I think he likes me because I would make a new kind of

heroine for one of his novels, and I'm quite willing he should have

me for that.

I suppose if I go with Mr. Somerled Mrs. West will join Basil in a

few days, and they will continue their tour together as if nothing

had happened to interrupt it. Of course I haven't told Mr. Somerled

about Basil proposing, so when he suggested my going for a short

run with the Gray Dragon in memory of old times, he invited Basil

too. But that was before the Vannecks had looked out trains, and

decided that they couldn't get off till to-morrow. There wouldn't

be comfortable room for such a crowd even in the Gray Dragon.

Anyhow, Basil refused, saying he had writing to do--and I went with

Mr. Somerled and the cousins to the Pass of Glencoe--you know,

don't you, 'The Glen o' Weeping'?

It is only an afternoon excursion from Ballachulish, so I was sure

you wouldn't object to my deciding for myself. As for Ballachulish,

it is one of the most charming little places I've seen yet in

Scotland, although coming here as we did from Loch Maree it would

need to be beautiful indeed, not to be what you call in the theatre

an 'anticlimax.' Loch Maree lies all secret and hidden among deer

forests. Along the narrow, twisting road as you go, you hear the

rushing sound of many rivers. Nobody had ever even dreamed of

motor-cars when that road was made, so you have to travel slowly

and manoeuvre whenever you meet anything if you don't want to be

killed. Even as it was, we got mixed up with a big automobile

loaded with fish-baskets. Our flywheel was on the ground, running

helplessly round and round, screaming horribly, while both

chauffeurs abused each other. Such a funny accident, and we had

another, going up a very steep hill. We'd so little petrol that it

ran back, as your blood does if you hold up your hand, and the

motor would do nothing but groan till we found out what was the

matter. Altogether it was quite an adventure going on such a road

with such a weak, elderly car like Blunderbore: but it was worth it

all, for Loch Maree is the beautiful birthplace of baby rainbows.

As we came near, travelling a mere white seam in a carpet of purple

heather stitched together with silver streams, I saw any quantity

of unfinished rainbows, just waiting to be matched on to each other

like bits of a puzzle. They hovered over rivulets, dancing in the

sunlight; or stained with colour the rocks thickly silvered with a

brocade of lichen, or else hid suddenly in the heather which,

mingling with pale green bracken, made a straggling pattern of

amethyst and jade for miles along the way. Oh, it was all lovely;

and we stayed a night there, at an ideal inn where fishermen engage

their rooms years beforehand. A dear old waiter in the Loch Maree

hotel advised me in the kindest way never, never to speak of fresh

herring as fish, in Scotland. I wonder why? He said, would I have

fresh herrings or eggs? I said I'd have the fish. He said there was

_no fish_, but would I try the herring? That was the way the

subject came up.

We had two Highland ferries to cross, getting to Ballachulish.

Strome Ferry, which was difficult and almost dangerous because

there was a great storm of wind just then, and Dornie Ferry. I

liked those experiences better than almost anything we have done

with Blunderbore. The little ferries were so much more exciting

than a huge steam ferryboat, like that on the Tay. And in the wild,

lost country passing Clunie Inn, it poured with rain and wind, the

gale lashing us, rocking the car like a cradle. The spattering mud

made us look like hideous freckled people; and so the MacDonalds

saw me first. I hope Mr. Somerled explained I wasn't like that

really. We had so much arguing about Mrs. Payne's telegram and what

the Vannecks should do, that we had no time to wash, and I didn't

seem to care if I was never clean again. But the minute the Gray

Dragon appeared I cared _fearfully_. I took great pains with my

appearance before I started out with my new cousins, for Glencoe,

and I felt so happy that it seemed the place ought to call itself

the Glen o' Smiling instead of the Glen o' Weeping.

Of course, however, I lost that frivolous feeling when we were

there, even though it was a joy to be back with the Gray Dragon;

for the Pass of Glencoe is like the Valley of Death. It is a sad

mouth wide open, roaring to the sky for vengeance, biting at the

clouds with black, jagged teeth; a great mouth in a dead face wet

with the tears of the weeping that can never be dried. It rained

while we were there, and though rain doesn't matter to the Gray

Dragon, it made the Pass more wild and grim if possible, filling it

with gray, drifting ghosts: ghosts of the murdered clansmen; ghosts

disappearing into dark, open doorways of rock castles, or falling

on the green floor of the glen, to weep on the dim, faded purple of

the sparse heather. The river into which the weeping cataracts shed

their tears was black at first; but suddenly, though the rain did

not stop, the sun tore a hole through a cloud, and shot a huge

rainbow into the rushing water. It split into a thousand fragments,

still gleaming under the clear brown flood: and I thought it was as

if the MacDonald women, in trying to escape from the massacre, had

dropped their poor treasures--their cairngorms and garnets and

amethysts--and there the jewels had lain ever since under the

water, because no one dared fish them out. But also I thought the

key of the rainbow itself might be lying there; and that made me

happy again in spite of the sadness of the place: for Mr. Somerled

and I used to talk when we first knew each other about finding the

key of the rainbow together: and I saw by the way he looked that he

hadn't forgotten. It is a compliment when a man like that remembers

anything a girl says, don't you think?

Now, dear Barbara, I must send off this letter at once, though I

am going to telegraph at the same time, to ask if I may accept Mr.

Somerled's invitation. I tell you frankly I don't know how I shall

_bear_ it if you say no. But you won't. You are too kind and sweet,

and you do want me to be happy and find the key of the rainbow,

don't you?

Your BARRIE,

Who can hardly wait.

II

When Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald received the telegram, which reached her

the day before Barrie's letter, she showed it at once to Aline West. It

read:

"Please forgive me for not saying 'Yes' as you wish to B. N. But I

need give no more trouble for a long time, though. Mr. and Mrs.

Vanneck leaving to-morrow. Mr. Somerled has arrived here with my

cousins the MacDonalds from London and I am invited to make visit

Dunelin Castle at Dhrum. Do please let me go, unless you can have

me. They will bring me back first to see you unless that

inconvenient. Have just posted you long letter, but hope you will

wire answer to this.

"BARRIE."

"How simply fatal!" Barbara remarked, so calmly that Aline could have

boxed her ears. But, after all, it was she who cared, not Mrs. Bal. So

long as Barrie was reasonably safe and reasonably happy, and entirely

out of her way (even temporarily out of her way), Barbara did not much

mind about anything else. She had wanted to punish Somerled a little for

his indifference, past and present, to her (almost) irresistible self:

but she _had_ punished him, and it had been great fun, and she was tired

of bothering. Her sense of humour, a saving grace of hers, was tickled

by his persistence, and this unexpected coup at Ballachulish with the

MacDonalds. She could not help chuckling when she thought how Aline (it

had been mostly Aline) had maneuvered to throw that poor pretty child

into Basil's arms; and how, just as she seemed on the point of

succeeding, down swooped Somerled like a golden eagle of the mountains

to snap the prey out of his rival's mouth. Barbara would have preferred

that her daughter should marry Basil, since she must marry somebody to

be got rid of, being so _dreadfully_ in the way, poor pet! But luckily

Morgan Bennett had at last said what Barbara wanted him to say. He had

meant all along, no doubt, to say it--unless he had wavered from his

true allegiance a little on that perilous evening when he first saw

Barrie at the theatre. Barbara was safely engaged to him now; and though

she had had to tell him that "dear little sister Barrie" would probably

marry Basil Norman, she had only said "probably." She couldn't answer

for the creature--one never could for anybody.

"How _like_ Somerled!" she gurgled, as Aline sat speechless, with the

telegram in her hand. "Now we know where he's been. He went to London

and collected the MacDonald family, when all else had failed. He must be

making it well worth their while, for they hate their native wilds. But

then--London in _August_! I suppose they welcomed any change. My poor

dear, I _am_ sorry if you're fond of him, but this does look as if

Somerled were tremendously in earnest. And if he is, I don't think you

and I are capable of coping with him. We must let things shape

themselves, I'm afraid."

Aline's eyes, well again now, sent out a flash such as Basil knew.

"You're not going to fail me, are you?" she exclaimed. Her impulse was

to add shrilly, "Now that you've made your own market, and don't care a

rap what happens to any one else!" As she was Mrs. Bal's guest still,

and had been royally entertained, she sacrificed the momentary

satisfaction. Besides, this was the last moment in which it would be

safe to offend Mrs. Bal.

"Fail you? Of course not," said Barbara. "But what more can I do? I've

written and wired Barrie. We both arranged, first for the Vannecks to

stay longer, and then for them to go suddenly--or at least to say they

were going. We've done so _many_ things, I'm quite confused. And I

should have _loved_ Barrie to fall in love with your brother, who's

perfectly charming and so _sensible_ about everything. But you see, I

can't force the girl. And Somerled's on the spot. What do you _want_ me

to do that I haven't done?"

"I don't want you to do anything," Aline answered, struggling to keep

her head, "except to stand by me--and Basil. I do care for Ian. I've

confessed everything to you, and your not being certain about Mr.

Bennett made you so sweet and sympathetic, it was really a comfort. But

I've got my brother as well as myself to fight for. One never can be

sure what he'll do for himself, he's so modest, and always lets other

men get ahead. If you'll stick to us, I'll start off by the first train.

I fancy I'll have to go to Oban or somewhere, and hire a motor. Basil

has written about ferries there are to cross. It will be terrible,

alone. But if you'll stick to me----"

"Stick to you?" repeated Barbara, hoping that Aline did not mean to put

her to too much trouble. She was a little--just a little--tired of dear

Aline. It had been useful and pleasant to have her, during this time of

uncertainty concerning Morgan Bennett: a nice woman to go about with;

pretty, but not too pretty; young, yet not too young; celebrated, yet

not as celebrated or popular as herself; but now it was all settled

about Morgan; and Aline had been a tiny bit plaintive, which was boring.

Also it was boring to see how stodgily George Vanneck was in love with

Mrs. West, without shadow of turning, although Barbara had tried her

hand, just for fun, at tempting him to turn. Even a worm would; but

George Vanneck wouldn't, which made him seem so slow! And Mrs. West was

a woman with only two smiles, and no real sense of humour.

"All I mean is," Aline explained, uneasily feeling that she had lost her

power, "will you send me as your representative to Barrie? I _can't_ let

Ian think I have come because of him. But you are acting, and can't

possibly get away, so--as we're friends now, it would seem only natural

for me to go in your place."

"What will you do when you get to Ballachulish?"

"I'll give Barrie several reasons for marrying my brother, and if you'll

let me speak for you as well as for him and myself, I'm almost sure I

can--can save her from Somerled."

At this Barbara frankly laughed, the way of putting it seemed so quaint;

and as for herself, she was feeling extraordinarily happy. She had got

what she wanted from life. She had got Morgan Bennett. And at the end of

the week he was going to America for a month, which was nice, because

while feeling perfectly safe about the future, she would be able to have

a little rest cure, without bothering to be agreeable to him. He was

fascinating, but strenuous. And if she need not have Barrie staying with

her after all, she could accept a charming invitation for Sunday and

part of Monday in the adorable Trossachs. It was the Duchess of Dalmelly

who had asked her, and she had thought she must refuse because Barrie

was due in Glasgow on Saturday evening. She had not felt like putting

off the child again, as Morgan would be gone; yet the Duchess did not

know that Barrie existed, and Barbara didn't want her to know. Why not

let things arrange themselves, and Barrie go to Dunelin Castle with the

MacDonalds? The Duchess was said to have wonderful house-parties, and

the Duke's place near Callander was famous. Barbara had never been

invited before and would like to go, especially as the fiancée of a

millionaire. It would give her new importance.

"Oh, well, you must do as you like," she said easily to Aline, "but

don't fuss _too_ much. What is to be, will be, you know."

"Yes, I know," Aline answered dryly. "And now I'll look up trains."

III

Aline induced Mrs. Bal to telegraph Barrie, "Await my messenger";

nevertheless the girl was greatly surprised to see Mrs. West. She had

vaguely thought that Barbara might send one of the red-headed maids, to

take her back to Glasgow.

Of course Basil must have known, but he had not told. Since Somerled and

the MacDonalds came, he had kept to himself with his writing as an

excuse. Now Barrie realized that certainly he had been expecting his

sister; yet he had not gone to meet her with his car. Perhaps there had

not been time: or perhaps he had an inspiration, and could not tear

himself from work, even for a few hours.

When Aline arrived at Ballachulish, Barrie and Somerled and Margaret

MacDonald were walking together by the side of fair Loch Leven. Barrie

wore a white dress and no hat. The late afternoon sun was dazzling on

her hair, and as Somerled looked at her, across Miss MacDonald (it was

like Margaret to walk between them), there was an expression on his face

which made Aline feel capable of desperate things. A child like Barrie

to win him away from her so easily! There was something wrong about the

world. Aline yearned to right it, and live happily ever after. She had

travelled all night by train, and had been hours in a motor-car, never

once noticing the scenery; and instead of being enchanted with Connel

Ferry had regarded the crossing as a vexatious delay. Some of the most

beautiful scenes in Scotland had passed before her eyes between Oban and

Ballachulish; but if she thought of such things at all, she thought that

even a romantic writer couldn't be expected to notice irrelevant trifles

like nature, when bound up heart and soul in her own private romance.

Somerled wondered how he could possibly have found her face interesting.

He did not know which of her two smiles had less genuine human nature in

it, the sad one or the gay one. And he wondered for the first time if

Basil didn't write the best part of their books.

"I've come in a great hurry on an important mission from Mrs. Ballantree

MacDonald to Barrie," she explained to Somerled rather than to the girl,

as she got stiffly out of the motor-car. She was almost pathetically

anxious not to produce the impression that this frantic journey had been

undertaken on Ian's account. If she failed, she would put George Vanneck

out of his long misery by marrying him. She would even say that they had

been secretly engaged for some time. Anything rather than Somerled

should suspect the truth. But she was going to try hard not to fail.

"I'll see Basil presently," she said when Barrie asked if they oughtn't

to let him know. It occurred to Somerled that Aline did not want to meet

her brother before strangers. "Let me just get rid of this hired

motor-car--and then I must fulfil my mission before doing anything else.

Basil and I will have plenty of time together. I've finished my visit to

Mrs. Bal. Dear child, may I have a little talk with you in your own

room, and give you your Barbara's message?"

Barrie was eager, yet frightened. She could hardly wait to hear what was

her mother's verdict on the Plan; but it seemed ominous that she was to

learn it through Aline. Nothing good had come to her so far through Mrs.

West.

Barrie's room was small, and looked over a dovecote. The doves were

mourning a good deal more than was reasonable considering that their

griefs must have happened generations ago. Their continuous cooing

rasped Aline's nerves. How would it be best to begin? She had planned it

out a dozen times in the train, and a dozen times more in the car: but a

few doves and a disturbance in an unseen family of chickens were enough

to put everything out of her head. Suddenly she began to cry. That was

not a part of her design; but no inspiration could have been more

useful. The pretty, serene mask of her smooth face wrinkled up

pitifully, and made her seem real and human. Barrie's heart warmed to

her for the first time.

"Oh, Mrs. West, what is it?" she exclaimed. "Nothing has happened to

moth--to Barbara?"

Nothing that happened to any one except herself could have drawn tears

from Aline West, but Barrie did not know that.

"I am so--horribly unhappy!" wailed Aline, hiding her distorted face in

her hands. There was no time to fumble for a handkerchief.

"Is there anything I can do?" Barrie asked.

"There is--everything!" Aline choked. She began to realize from the

girl's agitated voice that the accident of her own tears had been

providential. "But you won't do it when you know."

"I will, indeed--if I can," Barrie warmly protested.

"You have taken Ian away from me," Aline sobbed. "He was mine till you

came. I worshipped him, and he loved me. He loves me still, but we

quarrelled--about you. I was jealous--I confess. You are so young.

I'm--thirty. He said he cared nothing for you in that way--that you were

only a child; but he'd promised you to take you to Edinburgh and be a

sort of guardian, and nothing would induce him to break his word. I was

foolish--I tried to make it a test with him. I said if he loved me he

would tell you he'd changed his mind, that he couldn't take you. But he

wouldn't be persuaded, and so we quarrelled. Everything has been wrong

between us since. He is so proud and hard! And my heart is breaking."

"I am sorry--very sorry," Barrie answered in a queer, level voice,

without any expression in it. "Did you come here to tell me this?"

"No, oh, no," Aline said quickly. "I came from your mother. I was to

tell you that she's going to marry Mr. Bennett, and that she hopes still

that you may make up your mind to accept my brother who loves you so

much, before Mr. Bennett comes back from America. He's going in a day or

two--for a few weeks. You know, it is so awkward for Barbara. If he

should find out that--little secret she's kept from him! He's rather a

strange man. He can be hard. She's afraid of him. She couldn't come to

you herself, and she dares not have you back because Mr. Bennett is

still there, and if he sees you--but you understand, don't you? I

offered to come. We are great friends, she and I. But--I wanted to come

for myself too. Ian is so terribly obstinate. He made up his mind that

you needed his help, and that he'd stand by you whatever happened. It is

his boast that he's never broken his word, nor failed any one. Even his

love for me wouldn't make him give up--and he won't give you up while he

thinks you are alone and needing a friend. See what he has done for you!

He has gone and fetched these MacDonalds. I knew something had happened

because his chauffeur was wired for, to meet him somewhere, but it was a

blow to hear from Barbara that he'd followed you. She showed me your

telegram. I almost lost hope then, that anything could ever come right

between Ian and me. But when she asked me to see you, I thought--it

seemed just possible, if I could make you understand----"

"Please tell me," Barrie said, still in that strange, dry voice, unlike

hers, and very old sounding for a young girl, "please tell me exactly

what you thought I might do--when you'd made me understand?"

"I thought you might feel that the only way to free Ian Somerled from

his supposed duty would be to marry some one else quickly. You know he

blames Barbara; but if you had a husband, you wouldn't need a guardian

any more. Then, if I asked him to forgive me--and I would ask him, for

I've no pride left!--he might come back. I believe he'd be glad to come

back, for we loved each other dearly before you parted us!"

"That is true," said Barrie; "if I marry some one else he will

be--released. I didn't know what trouble I was making for him."

"No, you didn't know, of course, for _he_ couldn't tell you," Aline

agreed. "But now you do know. Oh, the only way, if Ian is to be made

happy again in spite of himself, is for you to marry Basil. Think how

happy you will make him too! And Barbara. Every one will be happy, and

all through you."

"I'll see Basil and talk to him," said Barrie.

"You _will_? You little angel! But I must see him first and prepare him.

Are you going to do what we all want? Even Ian wants it at heart, though

he doesn't know it yet, for it would be such a relief for him to feel

you were all right, and he--could go back to--old times."

"I'd marry Basil to-morrow, if I could," Barrie replied.

"Perhaps you can," Aline said, radiant, drying her tears.

* * * * *

Basil persuaded himself that he would have been less than man if he

refused to accept his happiness, even though he could have wished it to

come to him spontaneously. But nothing, as Aline anxiously reminded him,

can be ideal in this world. And it wasn't as if it were certain that

Somerled would have married the girl if they had been let alone.

"We shall never know now what he _would_ have done," she said, "and I

for one don't want to know. I want to know only what he will _do_. Even

if he has been a little--infatuated, why, you told me yourself that

hearts are often caught in the rebound. I shall try so hard."

"But you are going away with us!" Basil said quickly. "You must."

"Oh, I will. I wouldn't trust you alone--to keep Barrie. But afterward I

shall write him a letter. Such a letter! Of course, we've all three

quite decided now" (it was she, and Basil reluctantly, who had decided)

"merely to tell him that we're obliged to take Barrie back to her

mother; that Mrs. Bal would hear of nothing else. And it won't be a lie,

because as soon as you're married, you will take her to see Barbara.

Morgan Bennett will be gone, so Mrs. Bal won't mind--much. Have you

decided where the wedding is to be?"

"Gretna Green," Basil answered with such prompt decision that Aline was

surprised.

"Why Gretna Green? It's such a long way," she objected, impatient for

the afterward, which was to be her reward. "I thought one place was as

good as another in Scotland nowadays, and that----"

"I've a special reason for wanting to be married to Barrie at Gretna

Green," said Basil, almost fiercely. "For one thing, she's told me that

it used to be a dream of hers. For another----"

"For another?"

"No matter. Only a fancy of mine--to rub out the recollection of

something I don't like. Of course, if Barrie objects--but I hope she

won't."

Barrie did not object in words. Only her heart rebelled. But her one

great wish was to put her heart to sleep. And nothing else mattered.

Nothing else must matter now.

IV

BARRIE WRITES AGAIN

This never was a story. I wrote things down, to please myself, just as

they happened. But now that the end of the heather moon has come, I must

write of its last days. I think by and by I shall send all this to Mrs.

James, in California, otherwise she will never understand how everything

came about; and besides, if it hadn't been for her the end would have

been very different.

This part will have to be a sort of confession. When I began to write, I

used not to say much about my feelings, even when I was sure of them,

which was seldom; but I see now that I fell in love with my knight the

minute I saw him first. I must have been fascinated, or it would not

have occurred to me to choose him as the man to buy my brooch. I might

have spoken to some one else. By the time we started on our trip and got

as far as Gretna Green, I _worshipped_ him. That is why I was so happy.

I never troubled then about what the end would be. I just gave myself up

to being happy, and it seemed as if such happiness must last forever. I

used to wonder why I wasn't more impatient to get to Edinburgh and see

my mother--the one thing I started out to do. But it was because I'd

fallen in love with my knight, and he was already more important for me

than any one else in the world, more important even than Barbara.

Soon I began to suspect what was happening; and in Edinburgh I was

quite, _quite_ sure. But I wasn't any longer perfectly happy. There were

clouds over the heather moon--that sweet, kind moon which I used to say

was the best of the year for falling in love.

I stopped writing then, for if I had written it would have had to be all

about my feelings. The world was full of them. They were like gulls

wheeling round a lighthouse lamp; and my heart was the lamp.

I thought, in Edinburgh, that my knight didn't care for me as I did for

him. He kept away, and let other men go with me everywhere. Now I

understand why, but then it made me miserable, for I knew he was the One

Man, and always would be. A girl who had once loved him could never look

at any one else. There were other things too that made me sad. Nobody

wanted me. People were always planning how to send me away: but the

heather moon shone in spite of all, and each evening when she came up,

out of the mysterious places where she hides, she seemed to say:

"Courage. Have faith in me. Don't lose hope, and I'll show you yet where

to find the rainbow key." So I wouldn't lose hope; and I felt rewarded

when my knight asked me to write to him, and promised that by and by I

should see him again.

Then a letter came, and though I couldn't think why he had gone back to

Carlisle to call on Grandma, I felt it must be for a reason connected

with me; and that was cheering--just to know that I was in his mind.

About London--when he went there afterward--I wasn't so sure. But it was

the happiest day in my life when he suddenly appeared at Ballachulish.

He came just in time, it seemed, to save me as he had saved me before. I

could hardly keep from showing how I adored him. As he had come such a

long way and had done so much for my sake, I thought that perhaps after

all he did care, though it seemed too wonderful to be true. Now and

then, while we were waiting to hear what Barbara would say about the

invitation to Dhrum, there was a look in his eyes that made me feel the

heather moon had been my true friend. He was changed, too, not hard and

cynical as he used to be, but kind and gentle to every one, as if he had

begun to see what a beautiful place the world can be.

This made it worse when Mrs. West came, and explained that all he had

done for me was for duty, not for love: that he loved her, and I had

spoiled everything for them both. Mrs. West said that he would stick to

his duty at all costs, until I was actually married, so I was glad then,

instead of sorry as I had been before, that Basil wanted me. I saw that

she was right, and the sooner it was over the better. But I didn't dare

think about the future. I just went on blindly, and did what Basil and

Mrs. West told me to do. Nothing seemed to matter except to show my

knight that after all my selfishness and thoughtlessness and conceit I

had freed him.

I would rather have been married anywhere than at Gretna Green, but

Basil had set his heart on that place.

We told my knight that Barbara was making me go away at once with Mrs.

West and Basil; or rather, I let them explain. I couldn't. I was afraid

I should break down, and he would see how wretched I was. It was all I

could do to say "good-bye." It nearly killed me to see the hurt,

surprised look on his face. Even now I can hardly write of that.

Basil had found out about the marriage laws. We had been in Scotland for

three weeks, and all we had to do, if we wanted to be married in a

hurry, was to declare before two witnesses who knew us both, that we

took each other as husband and wife. We could have done it just as well

at Ballachulish if Basil hadn't been determined it should be Gretna

Green; but afterward I thought that he, or perhaps Mrs. West, had felt

it would be better to have the wedding far away from my knight, who

called himself my guardian, and might consider it his duty to object.

Mrs. West was to be one of the witnesses, and, as Barbara couldn't leave

the man she was engaged to, the very last day before he sailed, Basil

thought we had better have Salomon the chauffeur for the second witness.

Mr. George Vanneck might have come on from Glasgow, but I heard Mrs.

West say to Basil, when he suggested telegraphing, "I don't want to see

him just now, and especially at the time of a wedding. He might be

unreasonable."

As we needed Salomon, we went all the way in the car, instead of taking

the train from Oban, which would have saved us a few hours.

When we got to Gretna Green it was evening, but the daylight lingered

still. In the south it would already have been gone. There was a pale

dusk mingling with the moonshine, and I couldn't help remembering the

mysterious light in Sweetheart Abbey, on my first night of Scotland and

the heather moon. I remembered my dream, too, the dream of the locked

ebony and silver box, which could be opened only by the key of the

rainbow. It nearly broke my heart to think of these things, and I wished

it _would_ break, so that I might die instead of marrying Basil: for if

I were dead I should be safely out of everybody's way, just the same as

being married.

Basil asked me where it was that we had gone through the ceremony for

the photographs, but before I had time to answer, the car brought us to

the house, and he recognized it from the biograph pictures. He told

Salomon to stop, and leaving Mrs. West and me in the car, he got out to

talk with the man of the house. Up till that moment I had been dully

wishing it were all over, and had been actually in a hurry; but suddenly

I felt as if I couldn't bear being married, and should have to run away.

I longed and almost prayed for something--anything--to happen which

would put off the wedding until another day. If an earthquake had

wrecked the house I should have been delighted. But nothing did happen.

Mrs. West talked cheeringly to me while Basil was gone, saying how happy

I should be all the rest of my life, and what a lovely honeymoon her

brother was planning. "I shall go away and leave you to your two

selves," she said; and though I'm afraid I almost hated her, still I

longed to cry out, "Oh, _don't_ go away!"

In a few minutes Basil came back, looking excited and rather happy, yet

there was that curiously pitiful, apologetic expression in his eyes

which had been in them always lately, as if he were ashamed and sorry

about something.

"It's all right," he explained. "The man tells me we can be married

here, and it's not too late. He says a good many people come even

nowadays, simply for the romance of having their wedding at Gretna

Green." Then Basil gave his hand to me, to help me down from the car. I

felt very weak, and almost sick. How different from the day when my

knight and I had dashed up to this door in the old-fashioned chaise, and

played the game of being married at the anvil! How my heart beat as he

held me for an instant in his arms! I ought to have known then that I

was in love with him. Now, it was as if my heart were dying, for it felt

cold and heavy as lead, as I told myself that after this it would be

wrong to call Mr. Somerled "my knight," or even to think of him at all,

since to think was to love.

Mrs. West got down from the car too, and took off her veil. Basil

explained to Salomon what it would be necessary for him to do, and how

he must leave his motor for a few minutes.

My knees trembled so that I could scarcely walk. Basil noticed it, and

insisted on my taking his arm. "It's because she has been sitting still

in the car so long," Mrs. West said to him hastily. "I am often like

that after a day's motoring."

"You're awfully pale," said Basil, staring at me anxiously. "You won't

faint or anything, will you?"

"Oh, no," I said. "I am quite well." I tried to speak naturally, but my

voice sounded as if it were some one else's, miles away. And for a

minute, after entering the little room that looked so familiar, I was

afraid that I might cry or be somehow stupid.

"Now," said Basil, "all we have to do is to state before these witnesses

that we take one another in marriage. Isn't that it?" he asked, turning

to the old man, who in the costume brought by the photographers, had

performed the ceremony over me and my knight.

"Yes, sir, that is all there is to it," he replied; but as he spoke he

was peering curiously at me. "That's all there is to what we call an

irregular marriage in Scotland, such as this is going to be. When I say

'irregular,' you mustn't think anything wrong. It's as legal as the kind

with banns. If you want to register your marriage, sir, you must make

application to the sheriff of the county; but it's just as binding and

legal without."

"That is what I understood," said Basil. "But, of course, I shall have

it registered. Are you ready, Barrie?"

"Excuse me the liberty, sir," broke in the old man, "but I think this

will be the young leddy who was done for the Cinema? I know her by her

hair. I'm not so sure, though, that I recognize you, sir, or----"

"No, no, it wasn't I. That was her guardian," Basil returned hurriedly.

"Now, Barrie, if you're ready----"

"Yes, I'm ready----" I began. I found that I could speak only in a

whisper. Or perhaps it was the whirr of a passing motor outside which

drowned my voice.

"Well then, come, dearest child, and stand here by me. Give me your

hand----Is anything the matter?"

I forgot to answer, the sound of that car out there was so like the

well-remembered purr of the Gray Dragon. But I seemed always to be

hearing a kind of undertone of Dragon music. Often I had turned my head

as we came from Oban, to see if some car gaining on us from behind were

the Gray Dragon. It never was; and this would not be. But it was not

passing after all. It was stopping near the house--as near as

Blunderbore would allow.

"Is anything the matter?" I heard the words more clearly the second time

he spoke.

"No," I said. "There is nothing----"

He took my hand, which was hanging by my side, for I had forgotten to

give it when he asked. His felt very hot to the touch, so mine must have

been cold. He pressed it warmly, and his eyes called to mine. There was

no light in the room, for it was not needed yet, and I could see that

his face was white. I wished above all things to pull my hand away from

him.

"I, Basil, take thee, Barribel----" he began formally.

"I forbid this marriage. It mustn't go on," said a voice at the door. It

sounded like the voice of my knight: but everything was so dream-like

and unreal that I thought the voice was part of the unreality. It could

not be his.

But it was. He came forward, covered with dust from head to foot, as if

he had been driving far and fast.

"Barribel MacDonald is already my wife," he said.

He took my hand away from Basil, who was so astounded that for an

instant he did not resist. But in another second a flood of rage seemed

to sweep over him, giving him strength and presence of mind.

"That's not true, and you know it!" he exclaimed, while Mrs. West stood

still as a statue, looking suddenly years older than before. "Barrie,

come to me."

But my knight would not let me go. He grasped my hand so tightly that it

hurt. I felt as if my fingers would break in his, and for just that

moment I was deliriously happy, until I remembered, with a sharp pain

like an icicle in my heart, that he loved Mrs. West.

"It _is_ true," he said. "We went through the marriage ceremony here,

three weeks ago, she and I, as this man will tell you. I am a Scot, and

I claim her as my wife by the law of Scotland, unless she will swear to

me now, before God, that she loves you and wants you for her husband. If

she can swear that, I will take steps to release her. What do you say,

Barrie?"

"I--I _like_ Basil very much," I stammered. "I was willing--I am

willing--to marry him."

"I didn't ask if you liked, but if you loved, him. Do you?"

"I--I want to marry him," I exclaimed, strength flowing into me as I

thought of Mrs. West. "Don't be afraid, Mr. Somerled. I've troubled you

enough. Even if we really are married, I would rather die than hold you.

I know everything--how it was about me you quarrelled with _her_. But

I've spoiled only a few weeks of your life. I won't spoil the rest. It

is she who ought to be your wife, not I."

"Who has said that to you?" he asked.

"It is her own idea!" Mrs. West cried.

"Then it is a very foolish idea," said he. "Mrs. West and I never had

it. If you love Basil Norman, Barrie, I won't stand in your way. But if

you don't love him, by heaven he shan't take you from me."

"There's no question of taking her from you. She doesn't belong to you,"

Basil flung back at him. "For a marriage to be legal one of the persons

concerned must have lived in Scotland for twenty-one days----"

"I lived in Scotland seventeen years."

"But not directly before that foolish business here----"

"I have never been without a holding in Scotland. Dunelin Castle has

been mine by lease for years. Now it's mine by right of ownership.

Whether our marriage was legal or not will have to be settled by

Scottish Law before the girl can marry any one else, and I shall fight

in the courts for my rights if you dispute them."

"Are you going to throw me over, Barrie?" Basil asked.

"You shall not put it to her like that!" said my knight. "Barrie, you

haven't answered my question. Do you love him?"

"No," I faltered. I could not lie.

"Do you love me?"

"You're cruel to ask me that, when you----"

"When you ought to have seen long ago, that I was at your feet, that I

was mad for you, that you were my one thought. I tried not to be a brute

as well as a fool, so I stood aside and gave all the other men who were

younger, and perhaps worthier, their chance. If you had loved anybody

else I'd have let you alone. But I don't think one of those men made

good. Do you love me, Barrie? Answer me now, as if we were alone

together?"

"Yes," I whispered.

He caught me in his arms, and kissed me on the mouth, holding me close

against his breast.

"Then," he said, "I am your husband. Are you my wife? I ask you before

these witnesses, who know us both."

"I am your wife," I repeated after him.

"This time," he exclaimed, "we are safely married, and not all the world

can part us now."

Basil and Aline went away before we did. Aline said she was going to

Glasgow, to tell Barbara how I had treated them, and to see the man she

was engaged to marry: that it was all a mistake, if not a deliberate

falsehood on my part, about her thinking Ian cared for her. Basil went

with her, not saying anything at all, except:

"Good-bye, Barrie. Some day perhaps you'll understand and forgive me. I

always had a presentiment that I shouldn't be able to bring it off at

the last; that Somerled would cut in and snatch you away from me."

Ian suggested taking me to Carlisle, only eight miles away, to stay with

Grandma until we could have a more conventional wedding. But when I

said, "_Aren't_ we really and truly married, then?" in a frightened

voice, he said, "Of course we are, my darling child--married as fast as

if by book and bell. Nothing can part us. I shall never let you go out

of my sight for five minutes after this--unless you want to go."

"But I don't," I said. And a sudden thought came to me. I told him I

wished he would take me to Sweetheart Abbey. If it had been appropriate

to spend the first night of the heather moon there, as Mrs. James had

said, it would be still more appropriate to spend the first night of the

honeymoon.

We bade the old man of the house good-bye and he shook hands with us

both. Ian gave him something which made him exclaim, "I thank you

kindly, indeed, sir! And I must say, if you'll excuse the liberty, I

never wanted the other gentleman to get her, sir. I felt in my bones

there was something wrong, so I kept on asking questions to delay the

thing. If I hadn't done that, it would all have been fixed up before you

came along."

"If it had been, I should have taken her away from him, anyhow," said

Ian, "because she was my wife, and she couldn't have been his."

"Not _exactly_ your wife, sir," the old man tried to explain, taking him

literally. "But----"

"If not in law she was in heart, and she was meant for me from the

beginning of time," said Ian.

Then we went out to the dear Gray Dragon, which was white with dust, and

so was dear Vedder.

"It's all right," Ian said to the stolid-looking fellow; and Vedder

answered, "Hurrah to heaven, sir!" which was a very queer expression,

but I liked it, and loved him for it. Basil used to say that chauffeurs

are a strange new race of men, but I think they are splendid. I hoped

that Ian would double Vedder's wages, and afterward he did.

We drove fast to Sweetheart Abbey, with the heather moon in the east, a

sweet, pale, thin-cheeked moon, past her prime of youth, but more

beautiful and kind than ever. As we flew along the empty road, the Gray

Dragon purring with joy in our joy, rabbits ran ahead of us, like tiny

messengers impatient to tell the good news of what had happened. Our

big, white headlight turned them into bouncing, gray balls, and there

were dozens of them, tearing along just in front of us sometimes, but we

would not have killed or hurt one for its weight in gold.

Ian took for us at the inn the very rooms he had taken before for Mrs.

James and me; and in his arms, with no lamplight but the heather moon

smiling through the window at us, I told him about my dream of his

bringing me the locked ebony and silver box, which could be opened only

with the rainbow key.

"It was a true dream, my darling," he said. "My heart was locked up in a

box for many years, and nobody but you could have opened it, for you are

_you_, and you have the key of the rainbow in your little hands. Never

will the box be locked again. Now my heart doesn't need, doesn't want a

box, because it is forever in your keeping."

There, at Sweetheart Abbey, in the little inn where I first began to ask

myself if Ian were not the One Man beside whom all others were shadows,

we told each other things and explained things that had seemed

mysterious.

I told him how I had worshipped him from the beginning, and couldn't

help going on to care more and more, though I feared that he liked Mrs.

West, and thought of me only as a child. "But I wasn't a child," I said.

"From the first minute I loved you I was a woman."

"You must have been a baby, or you would never have thought for a second

that I or any man could remember Mrs. West's existence when you were

there," he said scornfully. But as he was holding me very tightly in his

arms, the scorn did not hurt. "How you could believe her, when she told

you that what I did for you was from duty, I can't conceive. If you were

the heroine of one of Basil's novels there might be some excuse for you.

Heroines of stories always believe any wild thing the villain or

villainess chooses to tell them, but a real girl, with brains and eyes

and at least some common sense----"

"Do you think when you're in love your common sense can stay on top?" I

asked. "It seemed too good to be true that you could love me, and she

was far more fascinating than I! And you knew and liked her first, and

had asked her to take a long motor trip with you: and it _was_ true that

you quarrelled about me. Looking back it all seemed so natural,

especially remembering how you kept away from me and schemed--actually

_schemed_--to have me go about with other men, why shouldn't I believe a

woman _much_ older than I, when she _cried_ as she told me the story?

Why, at this very place, after you'd been so heavenly to me in the

Abbey, you were horrid next day, almost cross: and so you were often.

You hurt my feelings a dozen times a day, and every other man I saw was

kinder."

"Because they weren't fighting a great fight with themselves, as I was,"

he said, holding me a little more closely, if possible. "They, the

selfish chaps, were letting themselves go. I was saying to myself,

'Perhaps I'm too old and hard for her. I'm the first man she's ever

known. I must give her a chance to see and talk with others. For her own

sake, I mustn't yield to temptation and try to snatch her away from the

rest. Norman must have his chance. Douglas must have his chance. The

American boys must have theirs----' and by Jove, you seemed to like

giving it to them! You nearly drove me out of my mind."

"I thought you were being bored with me."

"You darling, adorable little idiot, as if a man could be bored with

you!"

"I didn't know."

"Well, you know now. I was nearly mad in Edinburgh, but I stuck to my

principles. I wanted to be sure one way or the other. But Norman had no

gratitude. He used your mother to help him against me----"

"That was Mrs. West, I think, who used her."

"Don't defend the fellow. It was both of them. They--and James sending

for his wife--drove me into a corner. But I wasn't going to be swept off

the board without a struggle. I meant from the beginning to fight for

you, if I saw a gleam of interest in your eyes for me, and sometimes I

thought I did see it. But thanks to Mrs. Bal MacDonald, they'd got you

in their clutches, those two. It suddenly occurred to me when I lost

Mrs. James, to go and get your grandmother--bring her by force if she

wouldn't come. I knew she had a sneaking kindness for me, as a MacDonald

man. There was a queer bond of sympathy between us, which we'd both felt

when we met. All our worst faults are alike. I dashed off to

Carlisle--quickest way, by train, and threw myself on the old lady's

mercy--told her everything. She was a trump, though perhaps her desire

to help was as much a wish to thwart her daughter-in-law as anything

else. She was too rheumatic to come with me in the car. I suppose it was

a wild scheme! But she herself suggested my going to London to invite

the MacDonalds. She thought, if I offered inducements--and she was

right. It was an inspiration on her part."

"But," I broke in, "isn't it glorious not to have chaperons at all?"

He didn't answer in words. Yet he made me understand in a far more

emphatic and satisfactory way, that he agreed.

"You can imagine what I felt when you coolly went off from Ballachulish

with Norman and his sister," Ian went on. "Then I _did_ think it was all

up--that I had been a fool for my hopes and my pains, till dear old

Vedder hummed and hawed and apologized for taking a liberty, and

mentioned that Salomon had boasted he was going to get his 'party' to

Gretna Green in the shortest time on record. 'It's a plot!' I said to

myself, as Mrs. James had warned me. And five minutes later Vedder and I

and the Gray Dragon were off at a pace--well, I'm afraid we exceeded the

legal limit most of the way; but the gods looked after us."

"And so did the heather moon!" I added.

* * * * *

Now we are at Dhrum, our own dear purple island set in a sea of gold;

but first we went back to Carlisle and visited Grandma; and to please

her and Ian, I consented to be married all over again, in church, with a

special license and everything such as the conventional bride does,

though it seemed treacherous to that happy moment at Gretna Green, which

was like heaven after the valley of death. Grandma was wonderful to Ian,

and very nearly nice to me. Not an unkind word did she say of Barbara,

and she didn't even refer to my running away.

"You have had the sense to choose a real man, and the good fortune to

win him. I'd hardly have thought it of you. A MacDonald too!" she

remarked. And I almost loved her. Mrs. Muir made us a wedding cake,

which she insisted on our taking away, in a large tin box: and when we

left Hillard House, Heppie's nose was pinker than I ever saw it, which

is saying a good deal.

Aline West was married to Mr. George Vanneck the very day we started

from Carlisle for Dhrum. We saw an account of the wedding in the paper.

It was at Glasgow; and she was going to a lovely place called St.

Fillans for her honeymoon. Basil gave her away, and was to return

immediately after to Canada, "on business."

It is like a dream to be living in the vast, turreted gray castle of our

ancestors, looking out over an endless sea, and to be the mistress of

such a house--I, little Barrie MacDonald, the princess rescued from a

glass retort. But it is a true dream. Ian says that he won me by a kind

of fraud, as the first Somerled won his Pictish princess; because we

weren't really married by that game we played with the photograph people

at Gretna Green. Only, he made up his mind even then, that if the wrong

man ever got a hold upon me, he would use the episode to frighten him

away. How thankful I am that it happened! If it hadn't, perhaps I should

have missed my happiness: but Ian says no, he would have snatched me

from Basil somehow, if not in one way, then in another. Poor Basil, I

can afford to remember him with forgiveness, and even a kind of

tenderness now! I think he always hated himself in his heart for doing

what he did. But tragedy came so near for a few hours that sometimes, if

Ian is separated from me for a moment, we have to rush to find each

other, and say "It's true--after all!"

At Dunelin Castle there are all the things I used to wish for: MacDonald

tartan on the walls and floors of many rooms; and torn, faded MacDonald

banners hanging in the dimness high up on the stone walls of the great

dining-hall--where we never dine. Pipers pipe us away in the morning,

and the skirl of the pipes mingles with the crying of gulls and the boom

of the sea in a thrilling way. The old servants look as if they had

never been born and could never die. They are delightfully superstitious

and quaint, and not one of them would kill a spider. Neither would I,

for the matter of that! I suppose it's my MacDonald blood and my love of

Bruce. You ought to see the elaborate precautions that are taken to get

rid of a spider in Dunelin Castle without insulting or hurting its

feelings!

Ian always wears the kilt; and if I hadn't loved him as much as I

possibly could before, I should have fallen in love with him all over

again the day I saw him in it first. He is painting my portrait in the

Gretna Green costume; and when we are tired, we take long walks

together, I in a short tweed, with my hair down my back, Ian in the

kilt. Our favourite tramp is to a mysterious, hidden lake, surrounded

with rugged black mountains like petrified guardian-dragons watching a

treasure. This wild, mountain walled lake is called the "Heart of

Dhrum," and Ian says it is no more wild or savage or dark with clouds

than _his_ heart used to be every day when he was giving other men their

chance with me. He says, too, that if the lady who used to be imprisoned

in a fearful dungeon under the dining-hall at Dunelin, and fed only with

salt beef, had been Aline West it would have served her right. He would

have given her no sympathy, but a great deal of salt and very little

beef. But of course he does not mean that. His heart overflows with

kindness for all humanity nowadays, and it never was hard really. He

finds the world a glorious place with very few faults; but he says it is

I who have taught him this lesson, and that I should be able to make a

skeleton-ghost, condemned to clank chains in an underground prison

through eternity, see his fate in a rose-coloured light. I love him to

say foolish things. And I love him when he says nothing at all, but only

looks at me.

He has taught me to dance the Highland fling. I do it with my hair down,

while the pipers pipe; and Ian cries Hoo! and Ha! and claps his hands,

as we dance, like the true Highlander he is. He was splendid in the

Games Week; for he could do the great jumps and "put" the stones as well

as the best of the Skye men who came over to compete with the men of

Dhrum. And here at Dunelin, where we danced reels till morning, on the

night of the ball we gave, he danced everybody else down--except me.

* * * * *

This castle, which my fierce ancestors built nearly a thousand years

ago, is a fairy castle for me and for Ian. It is all our own now, to

have and to hold, because he has bought it, so it will belong to a

MacDonald while it and the world lasts--I pray. We shall go to live in

America, where I hope Barbara may let me see her sometimes; but we shall

have this fairy island of purple and gold to come back to always, the

hidden home of our hearts.

I used to ask myself, when the heather moon vanished behind a mountain

or into the sea, in what secret place she lurked while she hid from the

world? Now I know that the purple island of Dhrum is her fastness, and

that because she loved us she brought us safely here, together.

I wonder sometimes if Basil will ever write his romance of our

journeyings and adventures under the heather moon--months or years from

now, when he has forgotten to be sad, and is only pleasantly romantic,

as when I knew him first? Ian says he will never write it, because if he

did, he would have to be the villain; and no man ever yet made himself

the villain of his own book. Perhaps that is true. But I do not think

there ought to be a real villain in a story about a rainbow key and a

heather moon.

THE END