The Heather-Moon Part 15

They both knew much more about the Cathedral than I did, but even I knew something, because there was a book of father's which I had read. So, when they'd explained that the beautiful pink columns and the painted oak screens looked new because Cromwell's men whitewashed everything when they stabled horses in the Cathedral, and the white wasn't sc.r.a.ped off till comparatively lately, long after the Cathedral was a prison in 1745, I told them something they hadn't learned, or had forgotten. I was proud to have a story about Bruce coming to Carlisle to take his oath of allegiance, before the great repentance, and hating the Cathedral ever afterward.

Even the Castle doesn't look as splendid from outside as it really is.

It's like an enormous box, a good deal battered and patched, containing a kingdom's treasures. But of course I didn't know about the treasures until I had been in.

I had set my heart on seeing the place, because, as I said to Mr.

Somerled, I may never come back to Carlisle once I begin to live with mother and go about with her. It was a blow to be told at the entrance gate where the public enters (and where there ought to be a moat, but isn't) that the Castle was closed for repairs. Even a grown-up man like Mr. Somerled, who has seen everything, looked disappointed; but I suppose he couldn't fight his way in against the power of England; and we should have turned ignominiously away if it hadn't been for Mrs.

James. "You are surely not aware," said she in the aristocratic, long-worded way she has when she thinks of living up to the doctor (and when she isn't in earshot of Grandma) "of the distinguished ident.i.ty of this gentleman. This"--with a wave of her tiny hand--"is the great portrait painter, Somerled. I will not introduce him as 'Mr.,' for he is as far above that designation as Shakespeare."

The poor wretch who had refused us was flabbergasted. "Excuse me a minute, mum!" he muttered, and darted off to return with a young officer before "the Great Somerled" had time to remonstrate. But, instead of devoting undivided attention to the celebrity who must be appeased, the officer looked at me, and we recognized each other. His face changed, and I know mine did, because my cheeks felt as if some one had pinched them. No wonder, because this had been my ideal for almost a year, before I saw the photographs in shop windows of Robert Loraine, and I had dreamed several times that I was engaged to him, with a gorgeous diamond ring, and afterward that I was his widow in one of those sweet Marie Stuart caps. It almost seemed as if he might see the cap in my eyes, so I hurried to look down, and appear as calm as if I had never met him in the street when out walking with Heppie. Once I dropped my handkerchief, like ladies in books (only I did it on purpose, which they never do if heroines, not villainesses), and he ran after us and picked it up. That was, of course, the only time he ever spoke; but, though I have cared not only for Robert Loraine but Henry Ainley since, I should have known his voice anywhere. It was disappointing not to thrill; but to be honest, I must admit that the voice sounded meaningless now, compared with that of the Knight. Nevertheless, he was saying kind things, offering to be our guide over the Castle and show us curiosities that the "ordinary public" is not allowed to see.

Just as Mr. Somerled was thanking the officer (I soon found out that he was a lieutenant, named Donald Douglas) I heard other voices behind me.

"Good gracious!" I had just time to think, "it's Mrs. West and Mr.

Norman," when they came round a screen of masonry, and were upon us. As soon as they saw who we were they stopped, Mrs. West pale, with the same martyred expression, which grew sweeter and sadder every instant. Mr.

Norman shook hands with us in a cordial but embarra.s.sed way, and the man who had refused to let us enter at first would have headed the newcomers off, but Mr. Douglas stopped him.

"The Castle isn't open for visitors to-day," he said, "but I am making an exception of Mr. Somerled's party, and as you are friends of his I shall be delighted to include you."

"You're very kind indeed; but----" Mr. Norman had to begin answering because his sister didn't speak, and only looked, looked, looked at "her friend Mr. Somerled." Her brother awaited a cue until the pause grew embarra.s.sing, and then the Knight sprang to the rescue of another lady in distress.

"We shall be delighted too, Mrs. West," he said.

That was probably what she wanted, for she beamed on the Soldier Man (_my_ Soldier Man), and accepted his kindness. Mr. Douglas then put himself by my side; and Mrs. West annexed Mr. Somerled, or he annexed her. This left Mrs. James for Mr. Norman, and they hadn't been introduced: but they began chatting at once.

Mr. Douglas seemed quite interested when I told him he was the first soldier I'd ever known outside a book. He asked me if I thought I should like soldiers, and I said yes.

Into the heart of the fortress he led us: into the keep, square, ponderous, forbidding, cool even on a hot August day, and the best part left now of the proud old fortress.

Mrs. West had a notebook, a little purple and gold one, like a doubled-over pansy. As Mr. Douglas (laughing at himself because he was not experienced as a guide) rattled off all the information he could remember about Roman foundations--a sack by the Danes; William the Conqueror, and William Rufus, and a British fort older than the time of the Romans--she would scribble bits down hastily. But Mr. Norman took no notes, and when he saw her writing, he looked sad, almost guilty.

"Did you say the round wall the Britons built is under the keep?" she asked Mr. Douglas, who is, I feel, the kind of young man you would be calling "Donald" before you knew what you were doing. "Are there only three fortresses like this in all England? Do tell me what makes this unique?" And she looked at him so prettily that if I'd been in his place I'd have run to her like a dog and fawned at her feet. But he never stirred, and simply answered across the other people, though she is so much more intelligent than I--I, who couldn't describe properly what is a bastion.

Our guide lit a candle for the dark dungeons, awful places with grooves worn in the stone floors by the dragging feet of the prisoners, who paced rhythmically up and down in the tether of their chains. On the walls, covered with a cold sweat, as of deathless agony, we could see the staples; and there was one spot of a dreadful fascination, where Donald Douglas held his candle to show a trail of slimy moisture. Always this weeping stone had been there, he said, no one knew why; and in old days, when these dungeons bore the name of the "black h.e.l.l," prisoners tortured with thirst used, animal-like, to lick the oozing patch, making many hollows round it like miniature glacier mills. After Culloden one hundred and eighty men were thrown in during one night, and only fifty were alive in the morning.

It made me feel very loyal to Scotland hearing stories like this--though I was proud of the Castle too. And I loved the tale of Willie Armstrong, Kinmont Willie, treacherously given up to Lord Scrope, for the worst dungeon of all, by troopers who in taking him violated a border truce.

His escape was a real romance; and I am glad Lord Buccleugh, who saved him, was an ancestor of Sir Walter Scott.

It was no use appealing to Lord Scrope, the Warden of the West Marches, for justice, so Lord Buccleugh resolved to make a dash, and rescue the raider, whom he loved. He got forty men (the English said two hundred, but I know better), attacked the Castle, took it by a.s.sault, and carried Willie, with fetters still dangling from his wrists, clear away across the Eden and the roaring Esk, where none dared follow. When Queen Elizabeth asked him afterward how he had dared, he said, "What is there a brave man will not dare to do?"

It was not in the first dungeons that we heard the story of Willie Armstrong, but later, in the part of the Castle which the public is not allowed to see. We got there by climbing steep stairs into what are now the soldiers' storerooms: and it's because they are storerooms that they're kept so private. Once these rooms too were prisons; and behind an immense door of oak, almost in darkness, are perfectly wonderful wall-carvings cut into the reddish sandstone by prisoners: figures of men and devils; scenes of history; initials woven into ingenious monograms, Prince Charlie's among them, and hearts interlaced. I wish I had lived in those days, and I wondered aloud if there were any girls named Barribel then. Donald Douglas said yes; it was a very ancient and well-loved Scottish name.

Stupid people in 1835 tore down most of the tower where Queen Mary was imprisoned; but they were stopped before it was all gone, so luckily there is a corner left, with a few graceful carvings on the outer wall.

And only three years ago a wonderful old table was found hidden away in a dungeon which, it is thought, must have been used as her dining-table, before she was whisked away from Carlisle to Bolton Castle in 1568. We saw the table--very dark, very rough, looking like a prehistoric animal turned to wood; and Donald Douglas said it was perhaps the oldest table alive in England to-day--as old as King Edward's, and of the shape which gave an idea later for Tudor tables. As he talked, I could almost see Queen Mary sitting by this queer piece of furniture eating a poor meal, and reading some book which might help her forget--perhaps idly fingering the splendid black pearls which Mrs. James said were bought last year in a tiny shop in Scotland, kept by descendants of a faithful maid who went with her to the scaffold. And the shopkeeper, who thought they were wax beads, lying in an old forgotten box, sold them for ten shillings!

They found in another dungeon of the Castle, hidden in a crack of the wall, a silver snuff-box with a withered finger in it, which must have been a prisoner's "fetich." But it couldn't have brought him luck; otherwise, if he'd been released, he would have taken it away with him.

Probably he swung on the hanging beam that sticks out over the window of the old "condemned cell."

Next to Queen Mary's table, and perhaps the roof of the keep whence we could see away over the border into mystery-land, I liked best of all the Castle things a little deserted house in a courtyard, where Richard III lived for a while, when he was young. Few people know about it, or are taken to see it. But it alone would be enough to make the Castle interesting if there were nothing else. Only a few empty, echoing, half-ruinous rooms there are, with a queer chimney or two to give comfort; but Richard's enemies made it a charge against him that he lived in Carlisle Castle, splendidly housed in sinful luxury. What a pity all the tales against him were not so little true as that!

III

We're in Scotland!

Caesar could not have revelled in crossing the Rubicon as I revelled in crossing the border. The very word rings out like the sudden sound of bells, or the mysterious music that thrills one's blood in dreams.

Poor Caesar was obliged to burn his nice boats, and think disagreeable thoughts about the great responsibility he had taken, whereas we made our crossing in a beautiful motor-car, and I had no responsibility whatever. As for disagreeable thoughts, I had a few in England, but the air of Scotland has chased them away. I see that they were silly as well as selfish thoughts. I was so wicked that I hoped Mr. Somerled would not make up his quarrel with Mrs. West. I was afraid that if he did the poor princess he had rescued would be in his way, and that he would wish her safely back in her gla.s.s retort. Now they _have_ made up, yet somehow I don't feel in the way. He is so kind, and--yes, I must admit it--Mrs.

West is so tactful.

It seems that while Mr. Douglas and I were walking and talking together in Carlisle Castle she apologized to Mr. Somerled. And outside the entrance gates, when Mr. Douglas had shaken hands, hoping to "run across us" when he gets leave for Edinburgh, Mrs. West walked up to me. "I've begged Mr. Somerled's pardon," she said, with her pretty smile which never changes, "and he has forgiven me, so you mustn't go on thinking me an ill-natured, bad-tempered person, please; I'm not really. Only we writing people have 'temperaments,' just as artists have--Mr. Somerled himself, for instance. My brother scolded me, and I deserved it. He is _so_ interested in you and your talent for writing, and wants to be your friend. You won't blame him for my fault, will you?"

Of course I said no, and she held out her hand. When I'd put mine into it, she pressed it gently, and before letting it go asked in a lower voice if Mr. Somerled had told me why they quarrelled.

I shook my head emphatically as I answered that he hadn't said a word, and she looked suddenly much happier. "That is _like_ him!" she exclaimed--if one can exclaim in a whisper. "Well, we must forget what's pa.s.sed, and think of the future. Basil and I have hired a car now, and will travel in it; but that will be all the better for our novel, as I've just been telling Mr. Somerled, for we shan't have anything to distract our minds from the scenery and our notebooks. I've begged him to feel _no_ regrets: for now we're friends again, and we shall meet constantly, no doubt, without any embarra.s.sment, but a great deal of pleasure. As for you, dear little girl, you mustn't feel that the cloud we've pa.s.sed through need shadow you. It had to do only with us grown-ups. You have but to 'play dolls' and be happy, until you're safely tied up in your mother's ap.r.o.n-strings. Not that she's likely to have any!" And Mrs. West laughed, showing her white teeth that are almost like a child's.

"Thank you," I said. "I mean to be happy--_very_ happy!"

She looked over her shoulder at Mr. Norman, as if giving him a signal, and he came and talked to me. He said that he had hardly slept all night, because he was so miserable over what had happened, for every one's sake, but especially for his own, as he felt that a beautiful hope had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him. "It was the hope of a friendship with you," he added. "But now we'll take it up just where it fell down, won't we, finding that it isn't broken after all?"

While we were shaking hands I heard Mrs. West tell Mr. Douglas that I was the daughter of Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald, and he seemed immensely astonished, just as Mr. Somerled had, and Mrs. West and Mr. Norman.

I wonder why every one is so surprised? Can it be that actresses do not often have children?

We bade each other good-bye, all of us, for Mrs. West and Mr. Norman are going to see some places that apparently Mr. Somerled doesn't care about; and it isn't quite certain when we shall meet again. "We shall be like bad pennies, always turning up," Mr. Norman said; and Mrs. West added quickly to Mr. Somerled, "But if we do, you mustn't feel that we're tracking you down. The exigencies of authorship force us to be conscientious sight-seers."

As she spoke, she gave her brother a look. I don't know what it meant, but his face had a sad, tired expression, as if there had been some dispute or argument between him and his sister, and he was sick of it. I don't feel, somehow, that he's in a good mood for their story-writing together just now, and I'm sorry for him. I believe he would rather be motoring with us than with her. Perhaps they have had a difference of opinion about the plot of their book, for he told me in the summer-house that he'd suddenly got a new idea for a motor romance, and had lost interest in the old one.

When we were ready to start away from Carlisle Castle, Mr. Somerled condemned Vedder to sit at his feet; but the man seemed to take this quite for granted, and not to mind in the least. "Would one of you care to sit beside me?" he asked with so wooden an expression that it was impossible to guess whether he would prefer Mrs. James or me to say yes.

Selfishly, I wanted him to prefer me, and because he didn't seem to mind, I pretended not to hear, but went on talking to Mr. Douglas as if he were the most important person in the world. Suddenly I felt a kind of power over him, as if I were a grown-up woman in a book, and could make men take an interest in me. Still, I could quite well hear Mrs.

James answer that she was too great a coward for the front seat, but she was sure I would love it. Mr. Somerled turned to me then, without speaking, as if to wait for me to answer, and I couldn't help thinking, by the look in his eyes, that he _had_ wanted me, in spite of the wooden expression. So I stopped in the midst of a word to Mr. Douglas, and said, as meekly as a trained dove, that I should like to sit in front.

"What a pity you haven't got a congenial, romantic companion in the car, like that lad," said the Knight, rather sharply, "instead of a war-worn veteran of over thirty."

"Oh, I'd rather have you, because I feel already as if I'd known you always," I explained. "And do you know, it didn't seem to me there was anything romantic about Mr. Douglas, except his name."

"In that case, you are a little flirt," said he, driving fast. But when I looked at him in the greatest surprise, he seemed sorry. "I take that back," he said. "I really don't believe you know yet what the word means, or what you've done to earn it. Are you contented with me as a companion, or would you rather have Douglas, or Norman? I should really like to know, out of sheer curiosity, so you needn't mind telling the truth, for in any case you won't hurt my feelings."

"Why, but you are my Knight!" I said. And he asked no more questions then about personal matters. We talked of the scenery, or he let me talk, and said that it didn't disturb him in driving. He seemed quite to take an interest in what I had to say, as if I had been an intelligent person like Mrs. West. He didn't laugh at the high-flown ideas I've collected about history, and frontiers between countries, but said that my enthusiasms were contagious.

"I'd given up all hope of a thrill at crossing the border," he said. "I thought it was too late. 'What's long sought often comes when unsought,'

you know--or rather, you don't know yet, and I hope you never will. You are making me wonder if, after all, instead of putting off my homecoming too long, I haven't chosen just the right moment."

I was glad to hear this, though I don't know even now how I managed to give him that idea, unless by boiling with inward joy, and always insisting that the world's not old, but young--a wonderful place, where every flower and bird and every ray of sunlight is worth being born to see.

I asked him not to tell me when we came to the border, because I hoped to know it by instinct; and, as it turned out, I _did_ know. But I think any one with eyes must have known.