Margot was delighted that the little man should have a chance of seeing
Ronald in one of his lightest, most boyish moods, for from the
expression of his face she feared that he had not so far previously been
favourably impressed by the lad's personality. Now it was impossible
not to admire and laugh as Ron played imaginary bagpipes on the end of
his walking-stick, or droned out lugubrious ballads in imitation of a
strolling minstrel who had visited the inn the night before. The ballad
dramatised the circumstances of the moment: the perilous ascent, the
wandering of three strangers across the moor, the flowing bowl which was
to refresh and strengthen them for the return journey. Ron's knowledge
of the native dialect was so slight that he fell back upon the more
stately phraseology of the early English poets, introducing a strange
Scotch term now and again with irresistibly comic effect.
The two listeners cheered him on with bursts of delighted laughter,
while at an unexpected clever turn, or apt stringing together of words,
the Chieftain would clap his hands and caper with delight.
"Good! good!" he would cry. "Neat! neat!" while his twinkling eyes
surveyed the boy with increasing respect. "Do you often improvise?" he
asked, when the ballad came to an end, and when Ron replied truthfully
enough in the negative, "Well, I have heard many fellows do it worse!"
was his flattering comment.
Margot had expected more, and felt that more was deserved, for the
ballad had been quite a brilliant effort to be rattled off on the spur
of the moment, but she could only hope that, in conclave with his
brother, the Chieftain might be more enthusiastic, and manage to impress
upon that absent-minded genius that the boy was worthy of his notice and
study.
In due time--a very short time, as it appeared--the cottage was reached
owned by the "guid-wife," who was ready to give--not sell--draughts of
buttermilk to the passers-by. Margot was a little chary of the first
taste, but the keen moorland air had done its work, and she too found it
as nectar to the palate. The guid-wife "had no English," but the two
women conversed eloquently with the language of the eyes, concerning the
sleeping baby in its cradle, and the toddling urchins around the door.
Here in the solitude this brave woman of the people reared her family,
made their garments, tended them when they were sick, cooked for them,
baked for them, washed for them, mended for them, and kept the three-
roomed cot as exquisitely clean as hands could make it. The girl who
dusted the drawing-room and arranged a few vases of flowers as her duty
in life, gazed at her with awe, and felt ashamed of her own idle
existence!
The buttermilk quaffed, Mr Elgood led the way to a thick patch of
heather some few hundred yards nearer home, came to a standstill, and,
spreading his handkerchief under his head, lay down with great
deliberation and crossed his arms in beatific content.