Master of Glenkeith by Jean S. Macleod Page A

had been killed in an accident she had lived solely for her one remaining child.
    “You’ll be going to the Gathering next week?” Nigel asked as Glenkeith came into sight. “I hear that it’s to be bigger and better than ever this year and the stewards are expecting a record crowd. All we need is a good day for it. ‘Royal weather’, in fact!”
    Old Daniel turned to Tessa in the back seat.
    “That will be a sight for you!” he told her. “The Highland Games. You’ll not have seen anything like them, even in Rome!”
    “No, but I’ve heard about it,” Tessa said, forgetting about Andrew. “And I’ve always hoped I should see it one day. Oh! I hope we can go!” she exclaimed. “I hope nothing will stop us from going!”
    “Why should it?” Daniel said. “We all look forward to it from one year to the next and the pipers are already blowing for all they’re worth up on the hill! Did you not hear them this morning when you were standing out yonder at the moor fence?”
    “Yes,” Tessa said, “I heard them.”
    “You’ll hear them again at the Gathering,” Daniel promised. “And you’ll see the dancing, and men tossing the caber and all the other trials of strength we go in for up here in our wild hills! And the Queen will be there and perhaps some of the other members of the Royal party
    from Balmoral.”
    “The Queen!” Tessa said. “How wonderful!”
    She was already in a day-dream from which nothing would shake her, and Nigel Haddow saw it and understood.
    When they came to Glenkeith Andrew was standing in the stable yard beside the brake. He looked as if he had just returned from Ballater, but Margaret was nowhere to be seen.
    “Andrew!” Tessa cried excitedly, “we will be going to the Highland Gathering, won’t we? Mr. Haddow and your grandfather have been telling me all about it, and your grandfather says you should win quite easily at putting the weight!”
    “You see,” Nigel commented mildly, “you have a champion already, Drew!”
    Andrew was looking from the chair on the back of the car to his grandfather comfortably installed in front.
    “What happened?” he asked.
    “Nothing, really,” Nigel informed him before Tessa could think of what to say. “I gave them a lift back because they had a shaky wheel. I did what I could about it, but you’d better have a look at it, Drew, before they go out again. It wants a new pin and another hub.”
    He had dismissed the whole incident as something quite trivial, and Tessa supposed that it really was. After all, here they were back at Glenkeith, safe and sound, with no real harm done. They were not even going to be in Hester’s black books by being late for a meal!
    “You’ll stay and have a bite of dinner with us, Nigel? Daniel invited, but Nigel was forced to refuse.
    “My mother is having some company to-night,” he explained. “She has invited some people up for the Games and she believes in having them here in good time! You remember Alice Walsh and her brother from Edinburgh,” he added, turning to Andrew. “They were here for the Gathering two years ago and have always wanted to come back.”
    He helped Andrew and Tawse to carry the old man into the house, and when he came out Tessa was still standing
    beside his car surveying the damaged chair.
    “I’m sorry,” she said as Andrew came up behind them. “I hope it can be mended. It just—came off.”
    It sounded a limp, even a lame excuse, and she had not intended to offer it, but somehow Andrew made her feel like a child, and a thoughtless one at that.
    “I’m not worrying about the chair,” he said almost frigidly. “Tawse will see to that in a couple of minutes. I’m glad you enjoyed your walk.”
    She had not told him that she had enjoyed it, for he had not asked, but he had taken it for granted because she had met Nigel.
    “I did enjoy it, very much,” she found herself saying, and then the warm friendliness of the ride back to Glen-keith in Nigel