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Sir Archibald Maxwell Mackenzie

GREY TOR INN

IS N'T it a most extraordinary thing that when people are in a comfortable house, with a good roof over their heads, solid meals served at regular intervals three or four times a day, and every possible comfort, they instantly want to go outside and make themselves not only thoroughly uncomfortable, but generally ill besides, by having a picnic in the open? Ever since I had that walk with Miss Pomeroy, she has done nothing but talk about a picnic at some beastly little village in the vicinity where there is a church that the guide-books tell the usual lies about. As to churches—a church to my mind is a place to go to on Sundays with the rest of the congregation. It is plainly not constructed for week days, when it is empty, cold, and damp, and you | | 48 have to take your hat off in the draughts all the same, and talk in whispers. As to picnics—there's a kind of folly about them that it is altogether beyond me to understand. Why such things ever take place outside the grounds of a lunatic asylum, goodness only knows; they ought to be forbidden by law, and the people who organize them shut up as dangerous. However, I see I am in for this one. Miss Pomeroy wants the motor, but she won't get the motor without me. Heaven be praised, the weather has broken up in the mean time, which is the reason I am staying on here. Motoring on Dartmoor in a tearing nor'easter is no catch. My quarters are comfortable, and but for the women I should be doing very well.

The worst of it is, there is a whole batch of them now. A Mrs. MacGill and her companion are here, and these two and the Americans seem to have met before. The two old women are as thick as thieves, and the fair Virginia (she told me her name, | | 49 though she might have seen, I am sure, that I was simply dying not to know it) seems to have a good deal to say to the companion, though the latter does n't appear to me much in the line of such a lively young person. There 's no rule, of course, for women's likes and dislikes, any more than for anything else that has to do with them. The unlucky part of it is that Mrs. MacGill seemed to spot me the moment she heard my name. She says my father was her brother-in-law's first cousin, and her brother-in-law died at Agra in a fit; though what that has to do with it, goodness knows. It means I have got to be civil and to get mixed up with the rest of the party. A man can never be as rude as he feels, which is one of the drawbacks of civilization. So I have to sit at their table now, and talk the whole time—can't even have a meal in peace. The old woman MacGill is on one side, the American girl on the other. The companion sits opposite. She keeps quiet, which is one | | 50 mercy; generally has neuralgia,—a pale, rather ladylike young woman with a seen-better-days-and-once-was-decidedly-pretty air about her. The American girl's clothes take the cake, of course—a new frock every night and such ribbons and laces—my stars! I'd rather not be the man who has to pay for them. I'm surprised at her talking so much to the humble companion—thought this sort of girl never found it worth while to be civil to her own sex; but I conclude this is not invariably the case.

"I'm afraid your neuralgia is very bad up here," I heard her say to Miss Evesham (that's the companion's name) after dinner last night. "You come right along to my room, and I'll rub menthol on your poor temples." And they went off together and disappeared for the night.

The weather has cleared up to-day, though it is still too cold and windy, thank the Lord, for the picnic to Widdington-in-the-Wolds. I took the motor to a little town about four | | 51 miles off, and overtook the fair Virginia and Miss Evesham, footing it there on some errand of Mrs. MacGill's. I slowed down as I got near, but I soon saw Miss Pomeroy intended me to stop; there's no uncertainty about any of her desires.

"Now, Sir Archibald," said she with a straight look which made me understand that obedience was my rôle, "I know what you're going to do this very minute. Miss Evesham's neuralgia is so bad that she can scarcely see, and you've got to take her right along in your motor to the Unicorn Inn, and help choose a pony for Mrs. MacGill. Just a man's job—you'd love doing it, I should think."

I wanted to hum and haw a bit, but she did n't give me the chance. She pulled open the door behind. "Get in quick!" she said to the companion. "Quick, quick! a motor puff-puffing this way always makes me think it's in a desperate hurry and won't wait!"

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I, however, was not in such a hurry this time, though there's nothing I hate more, as a rule, than wasting motor power standing still.

"What are you going to do, Miss Pomeroy?" I shouted above the throbbing and shaking of the machine.

"Going right home to my mother," she replied. "It's about time, too."

"No, you don't," thought I, "and leave me saddled with the companion." For if you must have female society, you may as well have it good-looking when you are about it.

"Won't you do me the pleasure of taking a ride too?" I asked politely. I knew perfectly well she was dying for a ride in the motor, and I had turned a deaf ear to dozens of hints. But now that she wanted to do the other woman a good turn and walk home herself, nothing would content me but to have her in the motor. I know how inconvenient it is to be good-natured | | 53 and unselfish. I am obliged to be both so often, against my natural inclinations.

Miss Virginia's eyes gave a sparkle, but she hesitated a moment.

"The front seat's much the jolliest," I remarked, "and it's very good going—no end of a surface." She gave a jump and was up beside me in half a second, and we were off.

By Jove—that was a good bit of going! The road was clear, the surface like velvet. I took every bit out of the motor that was in it, and we went the pace and no mistake. Miss Virginia was as pleased as Punch, I could see. She had to hold on her hat with both hands, and her cheeks and lips were as red as roses; the ribbons flew out from her neck, and flapped across my face, which was a nuisance, of course; they had the faint scent of some flower or other; I hate smells as a rule, but this was not strong enough to be bad. We got down at the Unicorn, and though I said I knew nothing whatever about | | 54 ponies, I had to look through the stables with the hostler, and choose a beast and a trap for Mrs. MacGill. There was only one of each, so the choice was not difficult. The two girls drove home in the turnout. I thought it was time to disappear.