Iain crossed the room and smelt the roses in the vase—they were out of Donald’s garden, he knew. How good to him they all were! He could hear Morag moving about in the tiny kitchen, humming a little song to herself. There was a savoury smell in the air. He took his suitcase and went up the steep narrow stair. There were three bedrooms upstairs; Iain had chosen the one overlooking the loch. It was very small, but it was clean and fresh and airy. There was a camp-bed in it, with brown blankets, and a dressing-chest with a mirror on the top; a press in the wall contained his clothes—what more could a man want?
He opened the casement window and looked out over the loch—it was queer to see it so near him, and the mountains looked different from this angle. The sun was high overhead and a small breeze from the south-west ruffled the surface of the loch into silver ripples. Iain leaned his elbows on the window-sill—above him and below was the roof—sloping down to the flat eaves. The ground—from where it came within the angle of his view—sloped gently to the loch’s edge. It was composed of grass and heather, green and purple in the bright afternoon sun. A sheep and a lamb—black-faced and nimble—were eating the grass between the patches of heather with amazing industry. It was all very peaceful.
I don’t see why I shouldn’t be happy here—Iain thought. He drew his head carefully backwards through the low window and hummed a little tune as he brushed his hair.
Morag was still busy in the kitchen when he went downstairs. He looked in to let her know he had come.
“It is good that MacAslan has come,” she said, smiling at him shyly. “Dinner is ready—I will bring it through.”
He went into the living-room and sat down at the table—there were things he must say to Morag, and it was a good opportunity to say them now with Donald firmly tethered at the house waiting the arrival of his tenants. He must come to an understanding with Morag, and the sooner the better.
She brought in his dinner and stood looking at him while he helped himself—what was he but a bairn? Morag thought; all men were just big bairns, helpless and simple and easily pleased and—but this was not so fortunate—easily put out about small matters.
“What are you thinking about, Morag?” he asked, looking up and seeing the ghost of a smile on her pretty fresh face.
“I was hoping MacAslan was enjoying his dinner,” she replied demurely.
“I should be an ungrateful wretch if I were not enjoying it—and a dyspeptic wretch into the bargain. But, Morag, this can’t go on. You’re not to come here again and cook my dinner.”
“And I was hoping MacAslan was liking it!” she cried with assumed dismay.
“It is not fair to Donald,” continued Iain gravely, ignoring her protest completely. “Nor to you either. You have your own work to do. I did not come here to be a trouble to my friends.”
“And who will cook MacAslan’s dinner and make his bed for him?”
“MacAslan will do it himself,” replied Iain, smiling. “I suppose you think I couldn’t do it properly.”
Morag smiled, too. “I do not think that,” she said. “I think MacAslan could do it very well when he felt inclined. But if he were to be out in the boat, or walking on the hills, he would not be inclined—and there would be no dinner at all—and that would be a pity.”
“It would be his own fault,” Iain pointed out.
“Yes, it would be his own fault,” she agreed. “But it would be no comfort to Donald to be thinking it was MacAslan’s own fault that he was not having any dinner. Donald would not be eating his own dinner if he thought maybe MacAslan was having none.”
“Well,” said Iain in perplexity—for he was beginning to visualise the difficulties more clearly now that he was actually confronting them. “Well, Morag, perhaps you’re right. But I’m not going to have you and Donald bothered—you had better arrange for a woman to come in daily, a woman from the village.”
“Och, and that would not do at all!” she cried in real dismay. “Is there one I could find who would make MacAslan’s dinner properly and keep the pans clean? Is there one I could be trusting to turn over the mattress every day?”
“Am I an infant in arms?” demanded Iain.
“Och, well—I wouldn’t go so far—but a woman from the village— Och, no, that would not do at all—and me promised to Miss Walker on the Holy Name to see to MacAslan myself—”
“Janet had no business to ask you,” Iain told her. He was beginning to feel quite angry. It was all very well for people to be fond of you, but these women were smothering him with their solicitude.
“I would have done it myself without Miss Walker,” Morag said, her eyes flashing fire at the thought of her enemy. “Miss Walker is no more anxious for MacAslan than his own people. I was after saying that same thing to Miss Walker herself,” she continued, tossing her head as the recollection of the verbal battle passed through her mind, “and Miss Walker said, ‘Then it’ll not hurt you to swear,’ and I swore by the Holy Name that I would care for MacAslan like my own son—”
Iain roared with laughter. “Oh, Morag!” he cried, “you’ll kill me!”
Morag’s anger subsided as suddenly as it had arisen, her eyes twinkled. “And that would be a pity,” she said demurely. She took his plate away and put out a dish of oatcakes, and a piece of cheese, and a plate of radishes nestling among crisp lettuce.
Iain helped himself. “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said.
“If MacAslan would be listening,” she said coaxingly, “it is all quite easy; there is nothing hard about it at all. I will come in the morning and make the dinner and tidy the cottage, and MacAslan will make the supper and the breakfast. It is all quite easy. Then, when Donald will be wondering what MacAslan is having for his dinner, I will be able to tell him.” She smiled at him—a whole real smile—with a flash of white teeth.
Iain rose and found his pipe on the mantelpiece. “Well,” he said, “it will be splendid for me, of course. Nothing could be better—I didn’t want to be a bother, you know.”
“I know,” she said, nodding gravely. “But it will be no bother. It will be easy and nice, and everybody will be pleased.” She thought again—men are just big bairns—easily enough managed if you have the way of it.
Iain spent the afternoon working at his boat. It was a very old boat (he had left his good one at the boat-house for the tenants, and the launch also) and it leaked badly. He fixed a couple of laths on the bottom and nailed them into place, but he was not pleased with the job. Donald appeared while he was still wondering how to improve it.
“Well, Donald?”
“The London people have come,” Donald said. “There is a lady, and a gentleman, and a young lady, and a wee boy—a wee boy with a white face and dark hair—and there are seven servants—”
“What is Mr. Hetherington Smith like?” enquired the landlord with some anxiety.
“Cha’n eil ann ach Sasunnach.” said Donald helplessly. “He is chust an Englishman, MacAslan.”
“I knew that,” Iain retorted irritably. “Can’t you tell me anything more about the people than that?”
“Well, now,” said Donald, taking off his cap and scratching his head in his perplexity. “Well, now, let me be thinking a moment, MacAslan. The London gentleman is big and grey, his hair is grey and his moustache also. And the lady, she is big, too, and nice-looking, but not very young. And the young lady has dark brown hair and a pale face—she is very pretty, the young lady is. And they talk in a funny way—but you will be knowing the way that London people talk, MacAslan?”
“Yes,” said Iain. “Did they seem pleased with everything?”
“Pleased? And why would they not be pleased?”
“What did they say?” Iain cried. “Can’t you tell me what they said when they saw the house?”
“Och, now, what did they say? The gentleman said, ‘Has Mister MacAslan never thought of making electric light out of the stream?”
Iain laughed at Donald’s mimicry of Mr. Hethe
rington Smith, but the laughter did not ring true. It was horrible to feel that these strangers were in his house prying out the poverty of the land.
“I did be taking them round the house,” Donald continued, warming up to his task. “They liked the portrait of old Mistress MacAslan. The gentleman said it was worth a lot of money, for the artist who painted it was a great man, and he is dead.”
“I know,” said Iain.
“And the big lady said, ‘What a Scotch face!’ and the young lady said she was thinking it was a beautiful face, full of character.”
“What did you show them next?” enquired Iain, whose pride was such that he could not bear to hear of his grand-mother being discussed by a set of complete strangers.
“I showed them the gun-room,” Donald said. “They are having a lot of gentlemen for the twelfth—a big party. The gentleman spoke to me about it. I think he does not know very much about shooting at all. He said to me, ‘Will you arrange it all, then? And can I hire beaters and dogs?’ And then he said, ‘I suppose you know where the butts are?’ So then I said, ‘I am MacAslan’s head keeper and I will be arranging all those things for you, Mr. Hetherington Smith. The ghillies have dogs and there are plenty of beaters to be had in the village. There is no need for you to be troubling yourself about those things. You have only to tell me the number of guns.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘I have two guns, but one of the gentlemen who is coming is a three-gun man.’ What do you make of that, MacAslan?”
Iain sat down on the boat and laughed heartily at Donald’s face. “This is what I make of it, Donald,” he said as soon as he could speak. “This is what I make of it—you had better see to it that you are close behind Mr. Hetherington Smith when he lets off his guns. I should carry them myself if I were you.”
“That is what I made of it, too,” said Donald solemnly.
* * * * *
Morag and Donald stayed and had their supper at the cottage that evening. It was the easiest way for everyone. After Iain had finished his simple meal he went upstairs to his bedroom to finish his unpacking. He could hear the two of them talking beneath his window, for Morag was in the little scullery washing up the dishes and Donald was sitting on the back-door-step smoking his pipe.
“Yes, indeed, there are seven of them,” Donald’s deep voice was saying. “A butler and six maids—ignorant, helpless creatures, every one of them. The butler is a stout man with whiskers on his cheeks—he does not know his place, that one. Strutting about as though the Big House belonged to him and asking for this and that and the other—Tha miseachd searbh sgith dhiubh!”
There was a ripple of laughter from Morag.
“And the maids,” Donald continued disgustedly. “There was no end to the things they were asking—‘How far is it to the nearest town, Mister MacNeil? Is there a bus service? Is there a Picture House in the village?’—and they not half an hour in the house! The cook is a foolish woman; she has no sense at all. ‘How shall I boil my kettle with no gas and no electric light?’ she asked me. ‘Och, you will boil it on the fire like other people, I suppose,’ I told her. And the housemaid was at me wanting some electric contrivance for sweeping the rooms—as though a broom were not good enough for a woman to sweep with!”
Iain could not help listening. He chuckled quietly to himself at the way Donald took off the various members of Mrs. Hetherington Smith’s staff. Donald was a born mimic, but it was very seldom that he would display his talent before MacAslan. He was too shy. To-night, with only Morag for audience, he was in great form.
Iain could not hear what Morag said next, but after a few moments Donald answered, “Cha n’eil fios agam co iad” (I do not know who they are), and then he added, still speaking in his own tongue: “But I am telling you, Morag, the servants know nothing except that they are rich—they know nothing but that, and they care nothing so long as the money is good and their stomachs are filled. It is nothing to them whom they serve.”
Morag had finished her task now; she came out on to the step and leaned against the lintel of the door. “But it is strange, that,” she said slowly. “They do not know that the people they serve are any better than themselves? And what of you, Donald? You will not care to be serving these people of whom nothing is known?”
“I am MacAslan’s man,” replied Donald quietly. “It is MacAslan I serve.”
CHAPTER X
THE FAIRY WOMAN
Some days passed. Iain settled down in the small cottage. He saw nothing of his tenants, but he heard of their activities from Donald. Mr. Hetherington Smith had been out with one of his guns, shooting rabbits for practice.
“The gentleman is not a bad shot,” Donald said reflectively, pushing tobacco into the bowl of his big black pipe with a gnarled finger. “He is slow, and a wee thing stiff—he is not friends with his gun, if you will be knowing what I mean; but he is not a bad shot at all at all, and he is a nice enough gentleman in his way. He said to me, ‘You tell me what I do wrong, MacNeil,’ he said—he is not wanting to shame himself in front of his guests, you see—and again he said, ‘Am I doing all right, MacNeil?’ ‘You are doing fine, Mr. Hetherington Smith,’ I said to him. ‘It is chust practice you are wanting, chust practice, and to be knowing your gun—to be knowing the feel of it. Carry it about with you,’ I said to him. I did not tell him to take it to bed with him, but that is what I would have liked to be telling him.”
“I believe you like Mr. Hetherington Smith,” said Iain, smiling at the description.
Donald did not answer. He thought about it seriously. The man was silly, but he could not help that, it was not his fault that he was silly. It is true, Donald mused, there is a fondness in me for the man—but he did not say so to MacAslan.
“I wish you would have a look at this boat, Donald,” said Iain at last—he was still tinkering with the wretched thing. “Look here. If I nail a strip of wood on in one place the old wood crumbles away—”
Donald bent his mind to the problem. “Och, it is rotten, MacAslan! Why not take my boat if you are wanting a boat at all? The only thing you can be doing with this is to be stretching a piece of canvas across the bad places with strips over it and tar on the top.”
“Yes, I see,” said Iain.
“It will not be a safe boat,” Donald warned him.
“No—but it will do for messing about on a calm day.”
Donald went away after that. He had an appointment with Mr. Hetherington Smith to shoot rabbits. In the afternoon Iain set to work on the old boat in real earnest—he had found a piece of canvas in the wood-shed. He stretched the canvas over the bad places and began to nail it down.
“Do you mind me watching you?” said a small voice suddenly.
Iain looked up and saw a boy in a grey flannel suit—it was not one of the boys from the village. Who could it be? Hadn’t Donald said something about a small boy arriving with the Hetherington Smiths?
“Hullo!” said Iain.
“Hullo—you don’t mind me watching, do you?”
Iain looked at him more closely. He had a pale face, delicately boned, and large dark eyes. His bare legs were thin and very white.
“Do you like watching people?” Iain asked.
“I like helping better,” the boy replied. “I suppose—I suppose you don’t want anybody to help you, do you? To hold things for you or—or anything—”
“You would get dirty,” objected Iain. “It’s a dirty job mending boats.”
“I wouldn’t mind that a bit!”
Iain said no more; he was immersed in the task he had undertaken. It was not an easy matter to stretch canvas and hold it in position and nail it down . . .
The boy had approached nearer and was watching intently. “Look!” he said. “I could hold it down while you nail it—see?” Two small thin hands, very white but amazingly capable, appeared at the edge of the canvas and tugged it into place. Iain nailed it down securely. They worked away together after that—it was certainly much easier. . . .
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br /> “There!” said Iain at last. “That will have to do in the meantime—it’s too hot to do any more.” He straightened his back and wiped his forehead. “You’ve helped a lot,” he added.
The boy blushed with pleasure. “It’s really a job for two,” he suggested. “I could come back to-morrow—easily.”
Iain looked at him—there were little beads of moisture below his eyes, and his cheek had a smear of tar across it.
“I hope you haven’t got tar on your clothes,” said Iain.
“No, only on my hands”—he showed his hands to Iain. “Aren’t they dirty?” he added proudly.
“You better come into the cottage and wash,” Iain told him.
They went into the cottage and cleaned the tar off with butter, and washed, and dried their hands on the kitchen towel. Iain had never seen a child he liked so much. He was frank and natural, and friendly and amusing without being the least bit cheeky or precocious. I wonder who he thinks I am, Iain reflected, or doesn’t he think about it, at all?
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