Chapter 4

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