I. A. R. Wylie

“ She freed one hand, and laid it on his shoulder. She laughed a little, and the laugh ended in a sob.
“Oh, Sandy McGrab, how glad I am! Play actors, both of us—children living their dreams! And now the curtain's gone down and the play's over. Only I don't need to be ashamed. I can look you in the eyes, Sandy McGrab, and you will look at me——” She stopped, and lifted his face gently to hers. “It was all true, wasn't it? Just for a little hour we rose above our circumstances and were ourselves. And you were Romeo and the laird, and I was Juliet and a great actress. ”

“ When I saw Sir John and your cousin, I realized what I had done—what you would think and suffer—and I had to make you understand—to explain. There's not many men I could explain to—but you are different. Those who understand goodness and greatness understand folly and meanness and misery——”
“Donna Eleonora!” he repeated.
She lifted her eyes to his face. She saw then that he was looking at her feet—at two small, pink feet. Her hands dropped limply, and the coat fell apart. Sandy McGrab turned away with a smothered groan. ”

“ Sandy McGrab pulled himself together.
“I'm not,” he said. “I'm a Highlander.”
She laughed.
“A Highland actor!” she said gayly. “Isn't that a possible combination?”
“Play actors are the children of the devil,” he declared, and the spirit of the late McGrab shone in his scornful eyes. ”

“ The McPhersons still occupied a fragment of their ancestral dominions, lived on bread and cheese and a majestic sense of superiority, and hated the interloper with an amazing, entirely racial pertinacity. The fact that it was Hodge's English money that provided the bread and cheese and gave sustenance to the superiority, softened them not at all. Sandy McGrab, who with the rest of Kirk Humphries took cautious sides with the ousted clan, was explaining the exact merits of the unshrinkable tweeds to Sir John's patronizing innocence. ”

“ You would have thought of me as Juliet—as Jessica—as Cleopatra—you would have seen me as I was with you up on the moors—on Juliet's balcony—and now you've seen me—like this—a child of the devil, as you'd say—a wandering outcast, a failure! I've flung the truth at you—all for nothing—gratis. It would be screamingly funny, only——”
She stopped short. Her dry, miserable eyes had caught sight of the sprig of heather, and passed on to the bowed head, the heaving shoulders. And suddenly she was beside him, her hands clasped over his.
“Laird,” she said, “don't—don't! It's hurting me. ”

“ At intervals, he raised a saluting forefinger to some unresponsive vassal on his newly acquired property, and presently, laying hold of Kirk Humphries' “guardian of souls”—a meek, shabby-coated gentleman, who accepted the English invasion as a chastisement from Heaven, mercifully tempered with bawbees—carried him off in triumph.
Sandy McGrab did not smile, but he happened to catch the eye of Saunders, the rival clothier on the other side of the road, and they looked at each other long and intently. Saunders sauntered across and propped a broad shoulder against the doorway. ”

“ It was even as Saunders had said, and yet——
“I canna think it!” he broke out, deeply moved, and with a sudden lapse into his own tongue. “I canna think it. You are not as they be.”
“Thank you again. I'm not like what?”
He pointed down to Kirk Humphries.
“Not like those,” he said.
“Ah!” She was silent a moment. “You mean—the traveling players,” she went on slowly. “You've seen them, I suppose?”
“No.”
“That means you wouldn't go to see them—for fear of your immortal soul? Why not? What's the matter with them?”
Sandy McGrab crimsoned. ”

“ He snorted unutterable threats. “It's the English ha'e brought Satan amongst us,” he went on, with redoubled fierceness, as a scurrying urchin in bedraggled kilt stumbled over his feet. “Me son Jamie heard tell that Sir John has ordered a foreign play actress—Donna Eleonora Dolamora, she's called—up to Glen Every, and that she's to play act to them——”
“In pink stockings?” queried Sandy, deeply distressed.
“Maybe. But she gets a hundred pounds a night, says Jamie.”
It impressed them both, in spite of themselves. Sandy McGrab glanced cautiously down the street in the direction of the hubbub. ”

“ He had taken a step forward, so that he stood, one foot advanced, on the very edge of the crag, his handsome, stubborn head thrown back, his shoulders squared, his hands clenched at his sides. A gust of wind caught his tartan shawl, and blew it back in a hold sweep against the rocks.
“My clan fought here——” he said jerkily,
“I felt sure. And now you are still defending the land from the invader—from me?”
“You are—welcome.”
“Am I? I'm glad—if it's true. I do not wish to flatter you. I have always loved everything that belongs to the Highlands. I've wanted to know and see and understand.” ”

“ Malcolm McPherson's burly figure filled the passage.
“Sandy,” he said, “you're a traitor, mon.”
“I'm worse,” said Sandy McGrab. “I'm the laird.”
“What the devil——” McPherson began, and laughed sourly. “It's the whisky bottle you've been at.”
“It's no whisky bottle.” Sandy jerked his head at the door behind him. “There's a lady in there,” he said.
“A lady? Muckle I care! There's that Englishman outside, and I canna shoot him. The weakness of the generation is in my blood. Go out, Sandy, mon, and tell him if he sets foot inside my door, I'll——”
“I canna do it,” Sandy interrupted. ”

“ I ha'e seen them in London—brazen-faced hussies, with blue eyes and golden hair, and no more on than a pair of pink stockings——”
“I canna believe it,” interrupted Sandy, crimson to the ears.
“You may weel say so—but it's the truth. I took no count of London, to which Sodom be white as snow, but I'll no stand by and see Kirk Humphries go to perdition. ”

“ IN the Highland town of Kirk Humphries, there is a high street, and at the end of the high street a clothier where the simple Londoner buys Scotch tweeds in the hopes of currying favor with the native. ”

“ I've heard those lines from a good many people—some of the very greatest—but I've never heard them like that. It was wonderful! Who are you?”
He made no answer, still petrified with the awfulness of his discovery and the loveliness of his discoverer.
“You must be a 'pro,'” she asserted gravely. ”

“ Sandy McGrab went into his ancestral dwelling and slammed the door.
II.
THE LAIRD ENTERTAINS.
“Well, I shall make one more attempt at a reconciliation,” said Sir John pompously and stretched out an unbooted foot in the direction of his valet. “The man's a fool, of course, going about with his nose in the air because his grandfather was a smarter sheep stealer than the others; but it's my duty as landowner to do the neighborly, and I shall ask him up to meet Donna Eleonora next week. The car at ten-thirty sharp, James.” ”

“ Don't answer if any one knocks. I'll put the light out. You're not afraid?”
“There's nothing left to be afraid of, is there?”
He made no answer. He went down the narrow stairs, through the deserted shop, and across the street to the rival clothier.
“I'll take the seventy,” he said to Saunders, who opened the door. “But I want it now.”
“Ye can have it, laddie.”
He was gone an hour. When he came back, she was still sitting where he had left her, an old plaid of his about her shoulders, her chin resting in her hand. ”