Chapter XVIII: Snow-Bound in a Mountain-Land

It is easy getting to a Highland home or hotel home, but it is somewhat difficult to get away again, for hospitality to strangers is part and parcel of Scottish religion. So Antony and his people found themselves prisoners in the beautiful vale of Strathpeffer for more than a week. But he must journey on at last farther and farther into the wilds of Ross and Sutherland. Although he had already made an excellent record for a winter tour, he was determined to reach, if possible, a lonely central lake near which was a hotel.

Ben Wyvis, with its massive bulk, is in evidence everywhere here. It is about the third highest mountain in this land of mountain and flood, and there seems no getting rid of the giant Ben. It does not look so high as it is because it is nowhere peaked or coned like Ben Ledi, for instance.

Away they moved early one lovely, hard frosty morning, with the Ben to the left, sometimes seen, sometimes hidden by the dense woods they penetrated, past the romantic Falls of Rogie, and westward and north away.

Antony was a little anxious, however, about the weather. The wind was down. Hardly a breath moved the twigs. But strange banks of rock-like clouds began slowly to arise in the west. Like ships becalmed at sea, they were waiting for the wind. Even a little breeze would have sufficed to have carried them upwards and over the sky, obliterating the blue and bringing night and darkness on a full hour before its time. But that breeze came not for the time being; and as they champed their bits and jingled their harness--sweetest music to a gipsy's ear--the very horses seemed glad of the respite. But the country soon became lonesome in the extreme, and its aspect one of threatening dreariness. Never a soul did they meet on the road except one Highland shepherd with his dog and a few half-wild sheep. Antony pulled up his cavalcade to question this wiry old fellow, whose plaid was right over his head.

'What think you of the weather, my friend?'

And here is Donald's reply: 'Oh loshins! my good people, if it's going far you are, whip up your fine horses and make the quick and proper haste. For sure enough the snow will soon be down on you even more also. Get into shelter soon.'

'Much of a fall, think you, Donald?'

'Och, it may not be so much of a fall, my dear laddie, but it's the wild wind that will be roaring. The blizzard, the blizzard; and if it's only bits of English bodies you are, it will snow you up and smother ye!'

And so Donald went on with his shivering sheep and his hardy dog. It was but poor heartening he had left behind him. But there would be no going back.

About two miles farther on Antony could not help gazing uneasily at the moorland around him. It was very far as yet from the inn where they hoped to get stabling and a good pitch, and here there was shelter of no kind. But, above all, a low wind began now to sweep moaning over the veldt, the clouds had come up, had met the sun and obscured it, and, worse still, snow had begun to fall. Moreover, Antony was a fairly good student of nature, and knew that the little pellets that were now coming down, although no bigger than grains of mustard-seed, would soon be succeeded by huge dry flakes that would cover the ground inches deep in an hour and entirely impede progress. But in far less than that time, so thick was the storm, it was impossible to see many yards ahead. A milestone had not been visible for hours, nor was there a finger-post, and the force of the wind kept increasing almost momentarily.

Antony, like the good caravan-captain he was, sent his scout forward to prospect for a good place on which to draw up and form a gipsy laager. He was not long in returning. He had found just the spot, well sheltered by rocks on two sides. So Antony ordered him ahead to act as guide.

Yes, the ground was hard, and was but little likely to give way under the wheels; so, in the midst of the blinding drift and wind-whirled ice-dust, he drew off the road and formed as comfortable a pitch as was possible under the trying circumstances. The large caravan was positioned close to the little one to shelter it, the wagon was located handy, a stable-tent erected under the rocks with poles and canvas, to harbour the hardy horse that dragged the 'Silver Queen.' With this horse the groom was to sleep.

After things were made fairly snug, the coachman and his four good nags were sent off to fight their way to the distant hotel, the groom going along with orders to return if possible, and if it were not too dangerous, as soon as the horses were stabled and their comfort secured. Then, as the wind might change at any moment and wreck the 'Gipsy Queen,' Antony quickly got out his four strong iron pegs, and the ropes which were as thick as the painter of Lotty's yacht, and in less than an hour had the huge caravan safely anchored. She might and she would roll and toss and tug at her anchors, but hardly a hurricane itself would be strong enough to pull her from her moorings.

'Yes, Mrs Pendlebury, a good idea. We'll be glad to have dinner an hour earlier, even if we have to get some supper later on!'

After dinner, and as there was no chance of the groom returning that night, for darkness had already fallen, Antony went down the back steps to have another interview with his housekeeper, and to see that the one horse was snug for the night. He was nearly blown off his feet and half-suffocated with the choking ice-dust raised by the whirling blizzard before he was able to reach the back door of the little caravan. Being in comparative shelter, she was rocking far less than the large house-on-wheels; but Antony was glad enough to get inside.

'Sit down, Mrs Pendlebury; this is not a night to stand upon ceremony.' He held up his forefinger. 'Hark!' he said, almost solemnly.

Rising and falling in mournful cadence was the shriek of the wind. Hungry wolves howling on lonely Russian steppes, wild beasts in forest jungle, these seemed to be the voices that fell now on the listening ear. Anon they would lull a little, only to increase next minute with redoubled rage and force, while frozen moss torn from the rocks and mixed with snow was blown against the window-panes, threatening every moment to dash them in. It was difficult even to hear each other talking.

'I greatly fear, Mary, that we may be storm-stayed for days. I came to ask how we are off for stores and oil.'

Mary was understood to report as follows: Two gallons of oil in the kettle under the big caravan, groceries (including butter) enough for a week, milk (only condensed, but plenty of that), eggs a dozen; item, a leg of mutton uncooked; item, two cold roast-fowls (if Mary had said frozen she would have been nearer the mark); item, a roast-goose that the kindly proprietor at the Spa had insisted on putting inside the little caravan just as she started.

'And fixings, Mary?'

'Plenty of potatoes and green kale, and oat-cakes galore.'

Antony was understood to say 'Hurrah!' but the sound was drowned in an extra blast of the storm-wind which was now tearing through the camp with more than hurricane force.

'And I,' he said, when it lulled for a few moments, 'have among my stores, Mary, two unopened bottles of wine of the Highlands, which, before we get out of this we may be glad to dispense to keepers.'

It brightened a little after this, and Antony took advantage of the change to rush out and put up the shutters on both the caravans. He returned to the 'Silver Queen' almost immediately after, and glad enough was he to get inside, for the blizzard appeared to be now at its very height; and, curiously enough, the thermometer as well as the barometer had gone down with a run, and the former now stood at three degrees below zero, and the cold was intense.

'Shall I light the lamp, sir?'

The lamp, by the way, hung on gimbals, like that on board a ship.

'Oh, not for a while; I have banked my own fire in the 'Gipsy Queen,' and Wallace and pussy are lying snugly on the rug; but by your fire, if you will let me sit a short time, I think it will be ever so much more cosy without the lamp.'

The firelight in the pretty wee grate was certainly far more romantic, for it flickered and flared on their faces as they sat around it, while at their backs it was all shadows Rembrandtesque. Antony would fain have conversed, or even told stories, but the noise was every now and then so terrific that it was impossible to do so with any amount of profit.

But to sit and look at each other's faces, or the play of the light thereon, grew a little irksome at last; then quietly, and without being told, Lotty took down her violin-case and opened it almost with a species of reverence, for no little girl ever looked half so well after her doll as she took care of her beautiful instrument. There was a soft silk handkerchief over it, visible when the case was opened, and this carefully lifted off revealed the violin itself, its breast between the _f_-holes white with the powdered resin from bow and strings. That bow itself was worth more than many a good violin would fetch in the market.

The child smiled when she took this baby of hers out of its velvet-lined bassinet. She looked for a moment at her left-hand finger-tips as if to make sure the nails were correctly trimmed, then glanced at the fire as if fearful that a piece of coal might tumble out and dust arise. And now with exquisite tenderness she drew the bow across the strings before adjusting them to tune. Every string that Lotty possessed was well stretched before being tried, so that there was seldom much to do in the tuning way. Fastidious, indeed, would he have been who could not listen to-night with pleasure to the music this infant prodigy elicited from her favourite instrument.

But part of Lotty's power to please lay in the fact that she never played much on any evening, having apparently a latent dread of tiring an audience. To-night, at all events, Antony was not tired; in fact, he could have sat and listened to the sweet strains until long past midnight. And, oh! methinks that if harps are twanged as angels sing in heaven, the violin itself must lead. But the music, weird and dreamy, ceased at last, and Lotty put the child of her heart back again into its cosy case.

Well, all that fearful night the wind raged and howled with unabated violence, and it was probably owing to this, and to the rocking and tossing of his palace-upon-wheels, that Antony slept so long next morning, for when he flashed his electric light upon his watch, lo! he found it was nearly eight o'clock. He leapt out of bed and lit his lamp, and had just finished dressing when rat-tat-tat came to the back door. It was not until then that Antony noticed that the wind had gone down completely, the storm-spirit had spent its violence, and through the frozen panes of the skylight the beams of the rising sun were trying to struggle. So hard still was the frost that these panes of glass were not only covered by fern-fronds and flowers, but with powder.

'I thought, Mr Blake, it would be a pity to disturb you before.'

'Thank your kindness, Mary.'

'But breakfast is all ready, sir.'

'Well, ask Lotty to come in this morning and keep me company.'

He had, with his own hands, lit the stove half an hour ago, and the fire burned bright and clear in the frosty atmosphere.

'She will be delighted, I'm sure, but'----

'But what, Mary?'

'You'll have to carry her through the snow-wreaths.'

And when Antony looked out, lo and behold! he found that the 'Gipsy Queen' was embedded in a bank of snow as high as the steps themselves, and that a bank fully fourteen feet in height and shaped like a huge beach-comber separated the camp from the highway. A shovel and a spade were part of the caravan outfit, but this snow was far too powdery to be dug; so, enveloping himself in oilskin leggings and coat, Antony left Mary to put the caravan straight and lay the cloth, while he scrambled through to the back steps of the 'Silver Queen.' He found Lotty dressed as neatly and prettily as if she were going to be a Gipsy May-Queen. She gave him smiling welcome, and appeared quite delighted with this turn affairs had taken.

'Oh, isn't it beautiful and romantic, Mr Blake?'

'No doubt of that, dear; but goodness knows how many days, weeks, or months we may have to lie here.'

'And I hope it will be for quite a long, long time. What fun Wallace and I will have!'

There was a large kettle standing over the stove.

'Pray, what is in there, Lotty?' said Antony.

'Oh, that is snow cooking for tea, you know.'

And then Antony remembered that there was not a drop of water in either caravan.

'Breakfast is waiting, Mr Blake, and will soon get cold,' said Mary, bustling in.

'Come on, Lotty!' He was standing beneath the steps, the snow high above his knees, and holding out a pair of mittened hands. 'Jump into my oilskin, dear.'

'What! Have I to be carried like a baby?'

'Like the baby you are. Jump!'

Lotty jumped, and was soon deposited high and dry in the large caravan.

Wallace had gone away somewhere a jet black dog; he now returned a pure white one, and it took Antony full two minutes to make him presentable.

Real finnan-haddocks (hot, done to a turn, and served up between snow-white towels), oat-cakes, butter as sweet as spring primroses, new-laid duck-eggs, and coffee whose fragrance and aroma filled the whole saloon.

Antony was hungry, with a hill or mountain hunger, and gay with it all. So, too, was his little companion. Kind and generous treatment spoil some children; but Lotty was far too old-fashioned, pretty and lady-like though she was, to be spoiled.

'Isn't this life idyllic, my little pal?'

'I'm sure, Mr Blake, it is perfectly idyllic. But what does idyllic mean?'

'It means just this,' he answered with youthful rapture, 'it means all the beauty and the romance and peace and poetry we see around us both outside and in. That is idyllic.'