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Mrs. MacGill

THIS has been a terrible day of fatigue and discomfort. I was a woman of sixty in the morning, but I felt like a woman of eighty-six by night. Danger, especially when combined with want of proper food, ages one in a short time. My sister Isabella, who knew Baden Powell, declares that she would scarcely have recognized him to be the same man after as before the siege of Mafeking, particularly about the mouth.

My velvet mantle, after all it has suffered, will never be as good again, and I have reason to be thankful if I escape a severe illness on my own account after the mad rashness of this day's proceedings.

The young people (I include Cecilia, though considerably over thirty) had been talking a great deal about an expedition to a distant hamlet called Widdington-in-the- | | 122 Wolds. Miss Pomeroy had, of course, persuaded that misguided young man to take her in the motor, although there can be little conversation of a tender nature in a machine that makes such awful noises; still young people now can doubtless shout anything. Poor Mr. MacGill used always to say that he could scarcely catch my replies.

Cecilia assured me that it was a short drive, so I consented to allow her to take me in a pony chaise. Certainly I never saw a quieter-looking animal than that pony at first sight; she had, indeed, an air of extreme gentleness. People say that is frequently combined with great strength—at least in dogs, and I think in men too; in horses it does not seem to be the case, for this poor animal had a very dangerous habit of putting her hind feet together and sliding down a descent. Several times at small declivities she seemed to slide forwards, and the carriage slid after her, so that I thought we should both be thrown out. At last, having driven many | | 123 miles, meeting several droves of the wild ponies, which happily did us no harm, we came to the top of a quite precipitous hill, which Cecilia declared we must descend before we could arrive at Widdington.

I had already warned her that I felt no confidence in her driving, but she is sadly obstinate, and made some almost impertinent retort, so we began to descend the hill. We had gone only a short distance, however, when the pony, curiously enough, sat down.

"Is this a common action with horses, Cecilia?" I gasped.

Then came a cracking noise. "It's the shafts breaking, I'm afraid," she said quite coolly, and jumped out. I got out too, of course, as fast as I could, and Cecilia began to undo the straps of the animal's harness. Again I felt I had had a narrow escape. I am not able now for these nervous shocks—they take too much out of me. I had been reading some of those alarming books about the neighbourhood, and felt I should be | | 124 quite afraid to ask for assistance from any passer-by. There were none, as we had seen nothing but ponies since we left Grey Tor, but in several books the violent passions of the natives had been described.

Cecilia said that she would lead the animal, so we started to go down the long hill, which was so very steep I thought I should never reach the bottom. Cecilia seemed to think nothing of it. "You can do it quite well, Mrs. MacGill," she said. "Well," I replied, "if a creature with four feet, like that pony, can tumble so, how do you suppose that I, on two, can do it easily?" My velvet mantle, though warm, is very heavy, and my right knee was still extremely painful. It now began to rain a little, and the sky got very dark, which, I remember, the books say is always a prelude to one of those terrific storms which apparently sweep across Dartmoor in a moment. "If it rains," I said, "the river always rises. 'Dart is up,' as they say, and we shall never reach home | | 125 alive." Cecilia declared in her stupid way that we were nowhere near the Dart. "Why are we on Dartmoor, then?" I asked. "I have read everywhere that the river runs with appalling velocity, and sweeps on in an angry torrent, carrying away trees and houses like straw; there are no trees, but those small houses down there would be swept away in no time. If we can only get down to the village, and get something to eat, and a carriage to take us home in, I shall be thankful!"

Cecilia appeared uncertain as to whether we could get any means of conveyance at the inn, so I suggested that we should just walk on. "Nothing," I said, "shall make me try to go back with that animal. Our lives were in danger when she sat down. I am sure that they must have a quieter horse of some kind, in such a lonely place."

Somehow or other we did get down, and were standing by the wayside when Sir Archibald's motor drove towards us, seeming to have descended the hills in per- | | 126 fect safety. Miss Pomeroy, of course, was on the box. She looked rouged. I cannot be quite certain, as I am unaware of ever having seen any one whom I absolutely knew to be addicted to the habit, but Mr. MacGill had a cousin whom he used to speak of with considerable asperity, who used to be known as "the damask rose," and that was because she painted, I am sure. Miss Pomeroy's cheeks were startling. Her poor mother looked like leather, but was calm enough, in the back seat. She is a sensible woman, and when the young people (I include Cecilia for convenience) all began to exclaim in their silly way about Widdington, calling it "lovely" and "picturesque" (I must say that Sir Archibald had too much good sense to join in this), she remarked aside to me with a quiet smile, "You and I, Mrs. MacGill, are too old to care about the picturesque upon an empty stomach." To stand in a damp church with a stiff knee is even worse, as I told Cecilia, when she had insisted on dragging me into | | 127 the building, which smells of mildew. The sacred edifice should always, I hope, suggest thoughts of death to all of us, but Miss Pomeroy appeared more cheerful than usual, and stood talking with Cecilia about pillars till I was chilled through. The cold is more penetrating in these old churches than anywhere else—I suppose because so many people used to be buried there. It seems hideous to relate that on coming out, we sat down to lunch in a ditch.

Mrs. Pomeroy is so infatuated about her daughter that she would do anything to please her. I insisted at first that Cecilia was to accompany me into the inn, but Mrs. Pomeroy gave me such an account of the scene of carousal going on there that, rather than sit in the bar, I consented to eat out of doors.

The others called it a fine day, and even spoke of enjoyment. It showed good sense can the part of our cavalier that he, at least, never made any pretence of enjoying him- | | 128 self. He is thoroughly sick of that girl, but she will run after him. It makes me ashamed of my sex. When I was a girl I always affected not to see Mr. MacGill until he absolutely spoke to me; and even when he had made me a distinct offer—which girls like Virginia Pomeroy do not seem to consider necessary—I appeared to hesitate, and told him to ask papa. Of course if Mr. Pomeroy is dead (and her mother always wears black, though not the full costume—she may be only divorced, one hears such things about Americans), why then one can't expect her to do that, but I very much doubt if she will ever consult Mrs. Pomeroy for a moment—that is to say, if she can squeeze anything at all like a proposal from Sir Archibald.

I have tried in vain to put the young man upon his guard. Give them hair and complexion, and they are deaf adders all; yet what is that compared to principle, and some notion of cooking! Miss Pomeroy asks for | | 129 nothing if she has a bog of sweets; yet only the other day I heard her confess to eating bread and cheese in an inn, along with that unfortunate young man, who probably considered it a proof of simplicity. He is sadly mistaken. Ten courses at dinner is the ordinary thing in New York, I believe, one of them canvas-back ducks upon ice!

By three o'clock, when this horrid meal was over, Mrs. Pomeroy and I were both so chilled and fatigued that I sent Cecilia to entreat that the woman of the inn would allow us to rest for an hour in a room where there were no drunkards. We were con-ducted to a small bedchamber, where I lay down on the bed, while Mrs. Pomeroy had a nap upon two chairs. Like myself, she is always troubled by a tendency to breathlessness after eating—and even lunch in a ditch is a meal, of course. She also talked a little about her daughter in perhaps a pardonable strain for a mother, who can scarcely be expected to realize what the girl really is.

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A Mr. Calhoun of Richmond, a suburb of New York, appears to have paid her some attentions. She must have greatly exaggerated them to her another, for Mrs. Pomeroy evidently believes that it is fully in her power to marry the young man if she likes. It will be a merciful escape for Sir Archibald for a while, even though they can be divorced so easily in New York.