The Tender Glory by Jean S. Macleod

something happened to the van?” he asked.
    “The van wouldn’t do,” she explained. “I have to take my mother to hospital. She had a letter this morning asking her to be there tomorrow.”
    “Have you hired this car?” he asked.
    “Not definitely, but Jim told me to let him know as soon as I needed it.”
    “Orbister?” he mused. “I suppose we could get a message through to him some other way.”
    She was beginning to feel nervous.
    “I must get there, but I simply couldn’t take the van,” she said. “It’s so terribly unreliable.”
    He hesitated.
    “What time have you to be in Wick?” he asked.
    “In the early afternoon.” She was trying to work out some other plan. “I could almost get there and back tonight.”
    “Not in the state your van was in when I last saw it,” he decided briefly.
    “I might manage as far as Lybster. The lines can’t be down all the way along the coast.” She didn’t want his help if it was going to be offered reluctantly. “I could chance the van as far as that.”
    “You’d better leave this to me,” he said. “I’m going down to Golspie with the timber people. If I can get word through from there, I will.”
    “And if not?” Her eyes were anxious. “I can’t chance being able to telephone in the morning.”
    She felt peculiarly helpless, all of a sudden, aware of the treachery of the elements as never before. It was the wrong time of year to be taking unnecessary risks, especially with someone as ill as her mother.
    “I won’t leave it too late,” he promised abruptly. “If there’s no other way I’ll take you to Wick myself.”
    “I couldn’t let you do that,” she protested.
    “You may have to,” he told her. “There’s no one else with a car suitable enough within reasonable distance.”
    “I—wondered about Major Searle.”
    He shook his head.
    “He hasn’t bothered about a car since he came here.” “Then—”
    “It must be me,” he supplied dryly. “Don’t worry, you won’t have to feel obliged. I can fit in a business trip to Wick which is long overdue, if I have to take you.”
    Trying to thank him adequately, she paused halfway across the bridge.
    “I’m very grateful. It would have meant quite a journey to Wick and back in the dark.”
    He saluted her briefly.
    “Try not to worry too much,” he advised almost kindly. She watched from the bridge while he searched for the collie.
    “He’s down there, along the river.” She pointed to the grey speck picking its way among the stones. “Is he very old?”
    “Old and getting blind.” He came to stand beside her, whistling for the dog. “His working days are nearly over, but they have an instinct for sheep. Rab will round them up anywhere.”
    They stood watching the collie herding three ewes away from the dangers of the river bed. It was so still here under the trees that they could almost hear each other’s heartbeats, so quiet that the rest of the world might have been a thousand miles away. The collie came up round the end of the bridge, wet and panting, his red tongue lolling, his eyes vaguely searching for his master.
    “Heel!” Huntley commanded. “You’ll need your ride back to Sterne in the jeep after that exhibition!”
    Alison picked a delicate heart’s tongue fern from a cranny on the bridge, smoothing out the green leaves with her fingers.
    “It’s a miracle they last so long,” she observed. “They’re so tender and yet so tough.”
    He didn’t answer, but when she glanced up he was looking down at the tiny fern in her hands. His expression was baffling, as if he were struggling between contempt and understanding, and a wild colour flamed in her cheeks. Did he really think she had been trying to charm him?
    “Goodbye, Rab,” she said abruptly, stooping to pat the collie’s head. “Have a nice ride home!”
    When she was halfway up the hill she heard the jeep start, going in the opposite direction, through the estate. Huntley was either on