I’m no weel acquaint wi’ his forbears, but I’m weel eneuch acquaint wi’ Sir Erchie, and ‘better a guid coo than a coo o’ a guid kind,’ as my mither used to say. He used to be an awfu’ wild callont, a freend o’ puir Maister Quentin, and up to ony deevilry. But they tell me he’s a quieter lad since the war, as sair lamed by fa’in oot o’ an airyplane.”
“Will he be at the Mains just now?” Dickson asked.
“I wadna wonder. He has a muckle place in England, but he aye used to come here in the back-end for the shootin’ and in April for birds. He’s clean daft about birds. He’ll be out a’ day at the craig watchin’ solans, or lyin’ a’ mornin’ i’ the moss lookin’ at bog-blitters.”
“Will he help, think you?”
“I’ll wager he’ll help. Onyway it’s your best chance, and better a wee bush than nae beild. Now, sit in to your breakfast.”
It was a merry meal. Mrs. Morran dispensed tea and gnomic wisdom. Saskia ate heartily, speaking little, but once or twice laying her hand softly on her hostess’s gnarled fingers. Dickson was in such spirits that he gobbled shamelessly, being both hungry and hurried, and he spoke of the still unconquered enemy with ease and disrespect, so that Mrs. Morran was moved to observe that there was “naething sae bauld as a blind mear.” But when in a sudden return of modesty he belittled his usefulness and talked sombrely of his mature years he was told that he “wad never be auld wi’ sae muckle honesty.” Indeed it was very clear that Mrs. Morran approved of her nephew. They did not linger over breakfast, for both were impatient to be on the road. Mrs. Morran assisted Saskia to put on Elspeth’s shoes. “‘Even a young fit finds comfort in an auld bauchle,’ as my mother, honest woman, used to say.” Dickson’s waterproof was restored to him, and for Saskia an old raincoat belonging to the son in South Africa was discovered, which fitted her better. “Siccan weather,” said the hostess, as she opened the door to let in a swirl of wind. “The deil’s aye kind to his ain. Haste ye back, Mem, and be sure I’ll tak’ guid care o’ your leddy cousin.”
The proper way to the Mains of Garple was either by the station and the Ayr road, or by the Auchenlochan highway, branching off half a mile beyond the Garple bridge. But Dickson, who had been studying the map and fancied himself as a pathfinder, chose the direct route across the Long Muir as being at once shorter and more sequestered. With the dawn the wind had risen again, but it had shifted towards the north-west and was many degrees colder. The mist was furling on the hills like sails, the rain had ceased, and out at sea the eye covered a mile or two of wild water. The moor was drenching wet, and the peat bogs were brimming with inky pools, so that soon the travellers were soaked to the knees. Dickson had no fear of pursuit, for he calculated that Dobson and his friends, even if they had got out, would be busy looking for the truants in the vicinity of the House and would presently be engaged with the old Tower. But he realized, too, that speed on his errand was vital, for at any moment the Unknown might arrive from the sea.
So he kept up a good pace, half-running, half-striding, till they had passed the railway, and he found himself gasping with a stitch in his side, and compelled to rest in the lee of what had once been a sheepfold. Saskia amazed him. She moved over the rough heather like a deer, and it was her hand that helped him across the deeper hags. Before such youth and vigour he felt clumsy and old. She stood looking down at him as he recovered his breath, cool, unruffled, alert as Diana. His mind fled to Heritage, and it occurred to him suddenly that the Poet had set his affections very high. Loyalty drove him to speak for his friend.
“I’ve got the easy job,” he said. “Mr. Heritage will have the whole pack on him in that old Tower, and him with such a sore clout on his head. I’ve left him my pistol. He’s a terrible brave man!”
She smiled.
“Ay, and he’s a poet too.”
“So?” she said. “I did not know. He is very young.”
“He’s a man of very high ideels.”
She puzzled at the word, and then smiled. “He is like many of our young men in Russia, the students—his mind is in a ferment and he does not know what he wants. But he is brave.”
This seemed to Dickson’s loyal soul but a chilly tribute.
“I think he is in love with me,” she continued.
He looked up startled, and saw in her face that which gave him a view into a strange new world. He had thought that women blushed when they talked of love, but he eyes were as grave and candid as a boy’s. Here was one who had gone through waters so deep that she had lost the foibles of sex. Love to her was only a word of ill omen, a threat on the lips of brutes, an extra battalion of peril in an army of perplexities. He felt like some homely rustic who finds himself swept unwittingly into the moonlight hunt of Artemis and her maidens.
“He is a romantic,” she said. “I have known so many like him.”
“He’s no that,” said Dickson shortly. “Why he used to be aye laughing at me for being romantic. He’s one that’s looking for truth and reality, he says, and he’s terrible down on the kind of poetry I like myself.”
She smiled. “They all talk so. But you, my friend Dickson” (she pronounced the name in two staccato syllables ever so prettily), “you are different. Tell me about yourself.”
“I’m just what you see—a middle-aged retired grocer.”
“Grocer?” she queried. “Ah, yes, épicier. But you are a very remarkable épicier. Mr. Heritage I understand, but you and those little boys—no. I am sure of one thing—you are not a romantic. You are too humorous and—and—I think you are like Ulysses, for it would not be easy to defeat you.”
Her eyes were kind, nay affectionate, and Dickson experienced a preposterous rapture in his soul, followed by a sinking, as he realized how far the job was still from being completed.
“We must be getting on, Mem,” he said hastily, and the two plunged again into the heather.
The Ayr road was crossed, and the fir wood around the Mains became visible, and presently the white gates of the entrance. A wind-blown spire of smoke beyond the trees proclaimed that the house was not untenanted. As they entered the drive the Scots firs were tossing in the gale, which blew fiercely at this altitude, but, the dwelling itself being more in the hollow, the daffodil clumps on the lawn were but mildly fluttered.
The door was opened by a one-armed butler who bore all the marks of the old regular soldier. Dickson produced a card and asked to see his master on urgent business. Sir Archibald was at home, he was told, and had just finished breakfast. The two were led into a large bare chamber which had all the chill and mustiness of a bachelor’s drawing-room. The butler returned, and said Sir Archibald would see him. “I’d better go myself first and prepare the way, Mem,” Dickson whispered, and followed the man across the hall.
He found himself ushered into a fair-sized room where a bright fire was burning. On a table lay the remains of breakfast, and the odour of food mingled pleasantly with the scent of peat. The horns and heads of big game, foxes’ masks, the model of a gigantic salmon, and several bookcases adorned the walls, and books and maps were mixed with decanters and cigar-boxes on the long sideboard. After the wild out of doors the place seemed the very shrine of comfort. A young man sat in an arm-chair by the fire with a leg on a stool; he was smoking a pipe, and reading the Field, and on another stool at his elbow was a pile of new novels. He was a pleasant brown-faced young man, with remarkably smooth hair and a roving humorous eye.
“Come in, Mr. McCunn. Very glad to see you. If, as I take it, you’re the grocer, you’re a household name in these parts. I get all my supplies from you, and I’ve just been makin’ inroads on one of your divine hams. Now, what can I do for you?”
“I’m very proud to hear what you say, Sir Archibald. But I’ve not come on business. I’ve come with the queerest story you ever heard in your life and I’ve come to ask your help.”
“Go ahead. A good story is just