The Hayburn Family by Guy McCrone

Author:Guy McCrone [McCrone, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845028336
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2014-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

II

And then, in just such time as it took for a lady to get herself into a leather dust-coat, a leather hat, and a veil; such time as it took for a man to turn the starting-handle of a motor-car, assure himself that the engine was running, jump up and take the steering-bar, Sir Henry and Lady Hayburn were off.

Quickly they made their way out of Partickhill, along Hyndland Drive, and thus into the farther, rural part of Great Western Road, passing Balgray Farm and the boating pond, and heading for Anniesland, where the long, straight road then terminated, splitting up into country lanes. They followed the narrow road to the humpbacked Canal Bridge at Temple, made for the toll-house of Canniesburn, ran through Bearsden, and were out into the glory of open country that lies to the west of Glasgow.

It was a sunlit day, of white, piled-up clouds floating high in a sky of clear blue: clouds that cast patches of shadow on rolling upland fields, pasture or purple-brown where they had been fresh-turned by the plough. To the left against the sun, the dark slopes of the Kilpatrick Hills. To the right, open country and woodlands, and beyond these, and mottled by the clouds, the long line of Campsie Fells, the first of the northern ranges, covered by the rough grass that makes them look, on such a laughing day of the early year, as though their flanks were clothed in rich green velvet.

They ran along the winding, narrow road, raising the dust behind them. Farm-boys, drowsing in carts, came to life, jumped from their seats, went to the heads of their horses, then looked back angrily at this new-fangled thing that passed them by. A high-stepping young pony from a nearby mansion house reared up on its hind legs, threatening to break the slender shafts of the governess cart to which it was harnessed.

Larks were singing. Everywhere by the roadsides, on the moors, by little streams, against the grey stone dykes, the flowering gorse was a triumph of yellow. Over there the birch-woods were still bare, but now there was a purple haze over them, purple from the buds full of rising sap that would presently burst and put forth the young green. Here and there, as they passed under high trees, nesting rooks flapped and squabbled in the branches.

Phœbe could not have told why she had thus suddenly given way to Henry, suddenly allowed her anger to be drained out of her. On every count he had been unreasonable over this matter of a house. Was she not to be its mistress? Would she not spend more of her time there than he would? And yet now, as she sat beside him, she did not seek to press the question he had left unanswered.

She was instinctive rather than reasonable towards her own. And she became bewildered when her two men, her husband and the young man who was to all intents her son, pulled in opposite directions.

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