Free Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart Page B

small pernickety mouth, and pale blue eyes set in a multitude of radiating wrinkles. He had neat hands, and wore a big gold ring set with a black stone.
    He smiled at me, showing a flash of gold in his mouth.
    "Miss—cr—Brooke? My name is Hay."
    "How do you do?" I murmured politely.
    "1 hope you don't mind me coming over to speak, Miss Brooke, but the fact is"—he hesitated, and looked at me a little shyly—"the fact is, I wanted to ask a favor."
    "Of course." 1 wondered what on earth was coming next.
    "You see," he went on, still with that bashful expression that sat comically upon his round face, "you see, I'm footloose."
    "You're what?" I said, startled.
    "Footloose."
    "That's what I thought you said. But—"
    "It's my nom de ploom," he said. "I'm a writer." The scarlet pullover broadened perceptibly. "Footloose."
    "Oh, I see! A writer—but how very clever of you, Mr. Hay. Er, novels, is it?"
    "Travel books, Miss Brooke, travel books. I bring beauty to you at the fireside—that's what we put on the covers, you know. 'To you in your armchair I bring the glories of the English countryside.' And" he added, fairly, "the Scotch.
    That's why I'm here."
    "I see. Collecting material?"
    "Takin' walks," said Hubert Hay, simply. "I go on walks, and write about them, with maps. Then I mark them A, B, or C, according as to how difficult they are, and give them one, two or three stars according as to if they're pretty."
    "How—very original," I said lamely, conscious of Nicholas sitting well within hearing. "It must take a lot of time."
    "It's dead easy," said Hubert Hay frankly. "That is, if you can write like I can. I've always had the knack, somehow.
    And it pays all right."
    "I shall look out for your books," I promised, and he beamed down at me.
    "I'll send you one, I will indeed. The last one was called Sauntering in Somerset. You'd like it. And they're not books really, in a manner of speaking—they're paperbacks. I think the best I ever did was Wandering through Wales. I'll send you that too."
    "Thank you very much."
    I noticed then that he was holding an old Tatler and a Country Life in his hand. He put the two magazines down on the table and tapped them with a forefinger.

    "I saw your photo in these," he said. "It is you, isn't it?" "Yes."
    He leafed through Country Life until he found the picture. It was me, all right, a David Gallien photograph in tweeds, with a brace of lovely Irish setters stealing the picture. Hubert Hay looked at me, all at once shy again.
    "I take photos for my books," he said, hesitantly.
    I waited, feeling rather helpless. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nicholas stand up, and begin leisurely to feel in his pockets for tobacco, Hubert Hay said, with a rush: "When these geology chaps take a picture of a rock, they put a hammer in to show you the scale. I thought if I took a picture of the Coolins I'd like to—to put a lady in, so that you could tell how big the hills were, and how far away."
    Nicholas was grinning. I sensed rather than saw it. Hubert Hay looked at me across David Gallien's beautifully composed advertisement, and said, wistfully: "And you do photograph nice, you do really."
    Nicholas said casually: "You'd better find out what she charges. I believe it comes pretty high."
    Hubert Hay looked at him, and then back at me, in a kind of naive bewilderment. "I—shouldn't I have—?"
    He looked so confused, so uncharacteristically ready to be deflated, that I forgot my own embarrassment, and Hugo Montefior's probable apoplexy. I looked furiously at Nicholas. "Mr. Drury was joking," I said swiftly. "Of course you may take a picture of me if you want to, Mr. Hay. I'd love to be in your book. When shall we do it?"
    He flushed with pleasure, and the scarlet pullover expanded again to its original robin-roundness. "That's very kind of you, I'm sure, very kind indeed. I'm honored, I am really. If it clears up, how about this afternoon, on Sgurr na Stri^
    with the Coolins