Big Game Part 7

Margot's thoughts flew homeward, to the well-kept roads near her own home; to the grumbling and indignation of the family, if perchance a recent fall of snow had not been swept away as speedily as might be: "The road was thick with mud. Impossible to cross without splashing one's shoes. The snow was left to melt on the pavement--disgraceful!"

The Southerner railed at the discomfort of a greasy roadway; the Northerner was thankful to escape death by the aid of a warning pole!

Suddenly and unexpectedly the road took a quick swerve to the right, and lo, a narrow glen leading apparently into the very heart of the mountains.

Glenaire village at last! A little group of cottages, two whitewashed kirks, a schoolhouse, a post office, a crowded emporium where everything was to be purchased, from a bale of wincey to a red herring or a coil of rope; a baker's shop, sending forth a warm and appetising odour; a smithy, through the open door of which came out a glare of heat, astonishingly welcome after the long, chill drive; bare-footed children playing at tares by the wayside; an old man in a plaid, smoking a pipe and turning on the new arrivals a kindly, weather-beaten face,--these were the impressions left on Margot's mind as the horses put on an extra spurt, knowing full well that rest and food were near at hand.

After the little group of houses there came another stretch of road for perhaps three-quarters of a mile; a road which wound along between moorland on the right, and on the left a straggling tarn, thickly surrounded by rushes. The cone-shaped mountain at the head of the glen towered ever nearer and nearer, until it seemed as if it must be impossible to drive a hundred yards farther. Seen in the broad light of a summer afternoon it was wonderfully beautiful; but it was a wild and lonesome spot, and, given cloud or rain, its very grandeur and isolation would increase the sense of gloom.

Margot had time to shiver at an imaginary picture before an exclamation from Ron attracted her attention. There it stood! the little white inn, nestled beneath the shelter of a rock, so near to the head of the glen that the road came to an abrupt ending but a few yards farther on. A door in the middle; two small-paned windows on either side; a row of five windows overhead; to the right a garden stocked with vegetables and a tangle of bright-coloured flowers; to the left the stable-yard. This was the Nag's Head, and in the doorway stood the redoubtable Mrs McNab herself, staring with steely eyes at the daring feminine intruder.

The one overpowering impression made by Mrs McNab was cleanliness! She was so obtrusively, aggressively, immaculately clean, that the like of her had never before dazzled the eyes of the benighted Southern visitors. Her lilac print gown was glossy from the press of the iron; the hands folded across the snowy ap.r.o.n were puffed and lined from recent parboiling; her face shone like a mirror from a generous use of good yellow soap. White stockings showed above her black felt slippers; her hair--red streaked with grey--was plastered down on each side of her head, and, for greater security, tied with a broad black ribbon. A stiff white collar was fastened by a slab of pebble rimmed in silver, which proudly imagined itself to be an ornamental brooch. There was not a single feminine curve in her body; stiff and square she stood, like a sentinel on guard, her lips pressed into a thin line; in her eyes a smouldering flame.

Margot took her in, with one swift comprehensive glance, as the driver reined up his tired horses before the door. A temper; a quick temper, a temper easily provoked, but a kindly woman nevertheless. No country b.u.mpkin, but a shrewd, capable business woman, with two light blue eyes fixed stolidly on the main chance; a woman, moreover, blessed with a sense of humour; else why those deep lines stretching from nose to chin; that radiating nest of wrinkles round the eyes?

Margot's courage revived at the sight. She sprang down lightly from her perch and advanced towards the house, smiling in her most fascinating manner.

"How do you do, Mrs McNab? We have arrived, you see. So glad to be here at last!"

The mistress of the inn stared into her face, stolidly unmoved.

"It was two brithers I was expecting. I'm no caring for leddies!"

"You like gentlemen better? Oh, so do I--_Much_!" cried Margot with a gush. "But they need us to look after them, don't they? My brother is not at all strong. The drive has been delightful, but rather cold, all the same. I am afraid he may be chilled." She stretched out a little ungloved hand, and laid it lightly on the hard red fist. "Feel! We _should_ love some tea!"

Mrs McNab looked down at the delicate little hand, up into the pleading eyes, and over her set square face there pa.s.sed a contortion,--there is really no other word to describe it,--a contortion of unwilling amus.e.m.e.nt. The chin dropped, the lips twitched, the red lines which did duty for eyebrows wrinkled towards the nose. Similarly affected, an Irishwoman would have invoked all the saints in her calendar, and rained welcomes and blessings in a breath; an Englishwoman would have smiled a gracious welcome; but Mrs McNab drew away from the beguiling touch, turned a broad back on her guests, and with a curt "Come yer ways!" led the way into the house.

Behind her back Margot beamed and grimaced triumphantly to her confederate. Victory was in the air! Mrs McNab could not refuse to grant a night's shelter to a tired and chilly traveller, and by to- morrow--Margot smiled to herself, recalling the contortion of the dour Scotch face,--by to-morrow she was complacently satisfied that Mrs McNab would no longer wish to be rid of her unexpected guest!

CHAPTER NINE.

THE BROTHERS ELGOOD.

Inside the inn a mingling of odours greeted the nostrils. Furniture polish, soft soap, various whiffs from the bar, which by good fortune opened into the stable-yard, and was distinct from the house itself; a sweet, heavy odour of milk from the dairy; a smell of musk from the plants ranged along the window-sills. In the dining-room the tablecloth was laid, with a large home-cured ham in the place of honour. The floor was covered with oilcloth; the furniture was covered with horsehair. On the mantelpiece stood two large specimens of granite, and a last year's almanac. Red rep curtains were draped across the window, so as to conceal all the view except a glimpse of the road. The walls were hung with a fearsome paper, in which bouquets of deep blue flowers were grouped on a background of lozenges of an orange hue. Over the mantelpiece hung a coloured print of Queen Victoria; over the sideboard a print ent.i.tled "Deerstalking," representing two Highlanders in plaids and bonnets standing over the prostrate form of a "monarch of the waste." In the corner by the window were ma.s.sed together quite an imposing collection of "burial cards," memorialising McNab connections dead and gone, all framed to match in black bands with silver beadings.

Anything less homelike and inviting can hardly be imagined to welcome tired travellers at the end of a long and chilly journey. Margot shivered as she crossed the portals, and rubbed her hands together in disconsolate fashion, even her cheery optimism failing at the sight.

"It's so--_slippery_!" was the mental comment. "What an appalling room to sit in! What must it be like in bad weather! And no fire! We'd die of cold if we sat here all the evening. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll hug my hot bottle. What a mercy I remembered to bring it!"

Mrs McNab was speaking in hard, aloof accents, after the manner of one who, having been interrupted in her work by unwelcome intruders, is still determined to perform her duty toward them, as a matter of distasteful necessity. Shades of the obsequious landladies of the South! The tired guests quailed before the severity of this Northern welcome.

"If it's tea you're wanting, the kettle's on the hob. It will be waiting for you before ye're ready for it. Ye'll be wanting a wash, I'm thinking."

It was a statement, not a question, and, in response to it, brother and sister meekly ascended the staircase to the rooms allotted to their use in the front of the house--two whitewashed cribs, provided with nothing which was not absolutely necessary; a small, white-covered bed; a wooden chest of drawers, made to do duty for a dressing-table also, by the presence of a small mirror set fair and square in the middle of a coa.r.s.e-grained mat; a few pegs on the wall, a deal washstand, and a couple of chairs--that was all; but everything was exquisitely clean and orderly, and what did one want with luxurious upholstery when a peep through the open windows revealed a view which sent the blood racing through the veins in very ecstasy of delight? Purple mountains and a blue sky; golden yellow of gorse--a silver sheet of water, reflecting the dark fringe of the pines--it was wonderfully, incredibly beautiful in the clear afternoon light.

Margot thrust her head out of the window, forgetful of cold and fatigue.

What joy to think of waking up every morning for a month to a scene like this! Thirty mornings, and on every one of them the sun would shine, and the air blow clear and sweet. She would put on her thick, nailed boots, and clamber up the glen, to see what lay at the other side of the pa.s.s; she would take her sketching materials, and sit on that sunny knoll, trying to make some sort of a picture to send home to the poor father in his smoky prison-house. On hot days she would wade in the cool grey tarn...

The little maid was knocking at the door, and announcing that tea was ready, while Margot was still weaving her rose-coloured dreams. It was a cold douche in more ways than one, to return to the depressing atmosphere of the dining-room, but the meal itself was tempting and plentiful. Scones and toast, eggs and strawberry-jam, besides the solid flank of ham, and, better than all, plenty of delicious cream and fresh b.u.t.ter.

Margot poured out tea for herself and Ron, and, taking the hot-water-jug on her knee, warmed her numbed hands on it as she ate. For the first five or ten minutes no time was wasted in talking; then, the first pangs of hunger being appeased, the two young people began to compare impressions.

"Do you suppose this is the only sitting-room? Do you suppose we shall have to sit here in the evenings and when it rains? Fancy a long wet day, Ron, shining on horsehair chairs, with your feet on an oil-clothed floor, gazing at funeral cards! I should go to bed!"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea. Rest cure, you know! If we are very energetic in fine weather, we may be glad of a rest; but there _is_ another room. I caught sight of a sanctuary filled with woollen mats and wax flowers, with a real live piano in the corner. 'The best parlour,' I should say, and the pride of Mrs McNab's heart. I don't know if she will allow you to enter."

"She will; but she won't have a fire. It has been spring-cleaned, and has a waterfall of green paper in the grate--I can see it all!" Margot declared, with a shudder. She hugged the hot-water-jug still closer, and shivered expressively. "I shall be obliged to raid the kitchen-- there's nothing else for it!"

"You daren't!"

Margot laughed derisively, but her answer was checked by the sudden appearance of a man's figure pacing slowly past the window. Brother and sister sprang from their chairs, with a simultaneous impulse, rushed across the room, and crouched behind the moreen curtains. "Is it?" they queried breathlessly of each other--"Mr Elgood? Can it be?"

If it were Mr Elgood, he was certainly not imposing, so far as looks were concerned. A dumpy little man, of forty years or more, dressed in a baggy suit of grey tweed, with carpet slippers on his dumpy little feet. He had evidently started out of the inn to enjoy a smoke in the open air, sublimely unconscious of the scrutiny that was levelled upon him the while. His uncovered head showed a large bald patch, his face was round and of a cherubic serenity.

"I could twist him round like a teetotum!" whispered Margot, holding up a pert first finger and peering complacently.

"He looks terribly commonplace!" sighed Ronald disconsolately. "Not in the least the sort of man I expected."

Together they peered and peeped, ducking behind the curtains as the stranger approached, and gazing out again the moment his back was turned. Every now and then he halted in his promenade, stuck his hands inside his baggy pockets, and tilted slowly to and fro on the points of his carpeted toes. Anon he took his pipe from his mouth, and blew out big whiffs of smoke, glancing around the while with an expression of beatific contentment. The whole appearance of the man was an embodiment of the holiday spirit, the unrestrained enjoyment of one who has escaped from work, and sees before him a pageant of golden idle hours. Margot and Ronald smiled in sympathy even as they looked. He was a plain little man, a fat little man, a middle-aged little man, but they recognised in him the spirit of abiding youth, and recognising, felt their hearts warm towards him.

"He is nice, Ron, after all! I like him!"

"So do I. A capital chap. But he can't possibly be Elgood of the _Loadstar_."

Even as he spoke the last word the door was thrown suddenly open, and Mrs McNab entered, carrying a plate of hot scones. She stopped short to stare in surprise, while the two new arrivals hurried back to the table, obviously discomposed at being discovered playing the part of Peeping Tom.

Seated once more before the tea-tray, Margot made an effort at composure; decided that honesty was the best policy, and said in her most charming manner--

"We were looking at the gentleman who is walking up and down! Another of your guests, I suppose? It is interesting to see people who are staying in the same house."

Mrs McNab planted the scones in the centre of the table, and gathered together the soiled plates with a wooden stolidity. To all appearances she might not have heard a word that had been said. Margot seized the hot-water-jug, and shivered ostentatiously, trusting to pity to prevail where guile had failed; and sure enough the pale blue eye turned on her like a flash of steel.

"What's ailing ye with the water-jug?"

"I'm ailing myself!" returned Margot meekly. "So cold! I can't get warm. Tired out after the long journey."

She tried her best to look delicate and fragile, but the healthy bloom on her cheeks contradicted her words, and the landlady's reply showed no softening of heart.

"Cramped, more like! Better go ye're ways for a guid sharp trot, to bring the blood back to your veins. Ye'll be in time for the afternoon's post; but unless ye're expecting news of your own, ye needna fash for the rest. Mr Elgood's gane to fetch them."

"Mr Elgood?" Information had come at last, and in the most unexpected fashion. "The gentleman we have been watching?"

The thin lips lifted with a suspicion of scorn.

"Oh, him! That's just the brither. The real Mr Elgood's away till the village. You pa.s.sed it on the road."

She disappeared into the "lobby," and brother and sister nodded at each other solemnly, the while they munched the hot b.u.t.tered scones.