Margot grunted unsympathetically. She was out of breath with scrambling
up the hillside, a trifle out of temper also, and consequently not in
the mood to enthuse over artistic contrasts. She did not speak again
until the summit was reached, and she threw herself on the ground to
rest, and wait the arrival of the Chieftain. His gasps and grunts could
already be heard in the distance, for, notwithstanding his various
handicaps, he was surprisingly nimble, and in a few moments a round
scarlet face hove into sight, and a round grey body rolled over on the
ground by her side.
"Piff! piff! whew-w! Don't look at me, please--I don't like--being
stared at by ladies--when my--complexion is flushed!" he gasped
brokenly, mopping his face with a large silk handkerchief. "Every
time--I--come up here--I vow I'll--never come again; but when I'm once
up, I--never want to go down!"
He flourished his handkerchief to the left, pointing out the wide
moorland, beautiful in colouring with its bright rank greens, and the
bloomy purple of heather undulating gently up and down like the waves of
an inland sea.
The pure rarefied air fanned the heated faces of the climbers, and with
every moment seemed to instil fresh life and vigour. It was easy to
believe that, once started, one would wander on and on over this
wonderful moorland, feeling no fatigue, possessed with the desire to go
farther and farther, to see what surprise lay beyond the next hillock.
After all, it was Mr Elgood who made the first start. One moment he
lay still, puffing and blowing, bemoaning past youth, and bewailing loss
of strength; the next, like an indiarubber ball, he had bounced to his
feet, and was strutting forward, waving his short arms in the air, the
white silk handkerchief streaming behind him like a flag.
"Allons, mes enfants! No lolling allowed on the moors. Keep your eye
on that green peak to the right, and make for it as straight as a die.
A few hundred yards away is a cottage where, if we are very polite and
ask prettily, the guid-wife will give us a cup of buttermilk, the Gaelic
substitute for afternoon tea. In a certain spot, which shall be
nameless, I should as soon think of drinking poison in glassfuls, but
after a stretch on the moors it tastes like nectar! Take my word for
it, and try!"
That was the first walk which Ron and Margot had ever taken over a
Scotch moor, and to the last day of their lives they remembered it with
joy. The air went to their heads so that they grew "fey," and sang, and
laughed, and teased each other like a couple of merry-hearted children,
while the Chieftain was the biggest child of the three.
At times he declared that he was tired out and must turn back, but
hardly were the words out of his mouth, than, lo, he was dancing an
impromptu hornpipe with astonishing nimbleness and dexterity! He took a
lively interest in all that his companions did and said, and did not
hesitate to put question after question in order to arrive at a fuller
understanding of any case in point; but London, and all that took place
in London, remained a forbidden topic. He was the Elgood of Elgood, and
they were "his bonnie men," and life outside the Highlands had ceased to
exist.