Without sight or sound of a human being, they descended to the Laver, climbed again by the cart track, and passed the deserted West Lodge and inn to the village. It was almost full dawn when the three stood in Mrs. Morran’s kitchen.
“I’ve brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie,” said Dickson.
They made an odd group in that cheerful place, where the new-lit fire was crackling in the big grate—the wet undignified form of Dickson, unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb; the shrouded figure of Cousin Eugenie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed her eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a glow like blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and an ancient mutch on her head.
Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she had not done since her girlhood. She curtseyed.
“I’m proud to see ye here, Mem. Off wi’ your things, and I’ll get ye dry claes, Losh, ye’re fair soppin’ And your shoon! Ye maun change your feet… Dickson! Awa’ up to the loft, and dinna you stir till I give ye a cry. The leddies will change by the fire. And You, Mem”—this to Cousin Eugenie—”the place for you’s your bed. I’ll kinnle a fire ben the hoose in a jiffey. And syne ye’ll have breakfast—ye’ll hae a cup o’ tea wi’ me now, for the kettle’s just on the boil. Awa’ wi’ ye. Dickson,” and she stamped her foot.
Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street. From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after some twenty minutes’ vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting stockinged toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran setting the table.
“Auntie Phemie, hearken to me. We’ve taken on too big a job for two men and six laddies, and help we’ve got to get, and that this very morning. D’you mind the big white house away up near the hills ayont the station and east of the Ayr road? It looked like a gentleman’s shooting lodge. I was thinking of trying there. Mercy!”
The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia and noting her apparel. Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in their place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick homespun stockings, which had been made for some one with larger feet than hers. A pair of the coarse low-heeled shoes which country folk wear in the farmyard stood warming by the hearth. She still had her russet jumper, but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind known as a “Comforter.” Amazingly pretty she looked in Dickson’s eyes, but with a different kind of prettiness. The sense of fragility had fled, and he saw how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness. She looked like a queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying through the world with.
“Ay, they’re some o’ Elspeth’s things, rale guid furthy claes,” said Mrs. Morran complacently. “And the shoon are what she used to gang about the byres wi’ when she was in the Castlewham dairy. The leddy was tellin’ me she was for trampin’ the hills, and thae things will keep her dry and warm… I ken the hoose ye mean. They ca’ it the Mains of Garple. And I ken the man that bides in it. He’s yin Sir Erchibald Roylance. English, but his mither was a Dalziel. 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