'Oh, no comparison! One is a bridle-path all along a wonderful brown trout stream that goes racing down our hill. There's a moor on one side, and a wood on the other, and a peat bog at the bottom.'
'We might perhaps stop short of the bog.'
'Yes, we'd stop at old McTaggart's. He's the head-keeper and a real friend. McTaggart "has the Gaelic." But he hasn't much else, so perhaps you'd prefer his wife.'
Jean's face was full of laughter. Stonor's plan of going to Scotland had singularly altered the character of that country. Its very inhabitants were now perceived to be enlivening even to talk about; to _know_--the gamekeeper's wife alone--would repay the journey thither.
'I assure you Mrs. McTaggart is a travelled, experienced person.'
He shook his head while he humoured her. 'I'm not sure travel or experience is what we chiefly prize--in ladies.'
'Oh, isn't it? I didn't know, you see. I didn't know how dreadfully you might miss the terribly clever people you're accustomed to in London.'
'It's because of the terribly clever people we are glad to go away.'
He waxed so eloquent in his admiration of the womanly woman (who seemed by implication to have steered clear of Mrs. McTaggart's pitfalls), that Jean asked with dancing eyes--
'Are you consoling me for not being clever?'
'Oh, dear, yes. No possible shadow of doubt about it.'
'Then,' he laughed, 'I'm coming to Inverness-shire! I'll even go so far as to call on the McTaggarts if you'll undertake that she won't instruct me about foreign lands.'
'No such irrelevance! She'd tell you about London. She was here for six whole months. And she got something out of it I don't believe even you have. A Certificate of Merit.'
'No. London certainly never gave me one.'
'You see! Mrs. McTaggart lived the life of the Metropolis with such success that she passed an examination before she left. The subject was: "Incidents in the Life of Abraham." It says so on the certificate. She has it framed and hung in the parlour.'
He smiled. 'I admit few can point to such fruits of Metropolitan Ausbildung. But I think I shall prefer the burnside--or even the bog.'
'No; the moors. They're best of all.' She sat looking straight before her, with her heart's deep well overflowing at her eyes. As if she felt vaguely that some sober reason must be found for seeing those same moors in this glorified light all of a sudden, she went on, 'I'll show you a special place where white heather grows, and the rabbits tumble about as tame as kittens. It's miles away from the sea, but the gulls come sunning themselves and walking about like pigeons. I used to hide up there when I was little and naughty. Nobody ever found the place out except an old gaberlunzie, and I gave him tuppence not to tell.'