Mackrimmon shall no more return,Oh never, never more return!
Mackrimmon shall no more return,Oh never, never more return!
Mackrimmon shall no more return,Oh never, never more return!
That was the wild and ominous air that was skirling up on the hillside; and Mackenzie’s face, as he heard it, grew wroth. “That teffle of a piper, John!” he said, “will be playingCha till mi tuiligh?”
“It is out of mischief, papa,” said Sheila—“that is all.”
“It will be more than mischief if I burn his pipes and drive him out of Borva. Then there will be no more of mischief.”
“It is very bad of John to do that,” said Sheila to Lavender, apparently in explanation of her father’s anger, “for we have given him shelter here when there will be no more pipes in all the Lewis. It was the Free Church ministers, they put down the pipes, for there was too much wildness at the marriages when the pipes would play.”
“And what do the people dance to now?” asked the young gentleman, who seemed to resent this paternal government.
Sheila laughed in an embarrassed way.
“Miss Mackenzie would rather not tell you,” said Ingram. “The fact is, the noble mountaineers of these districts have had to fall back on the Jew’s harp. The ministers allow the instrument to be used—I suppose because there is a look of piety in the name. But the dancing doesn’t get very mad when you have two or three young fellows playing a strathspey on a bit of a trembling wire.”
“That teffle of a piper John!” growled Mackenzie, under his breath; and so the Maighdean-mhara lightly sped on her way, opening out the various headlands of the islands, until at last she got into the narrows by Eilean-Aird-Meinish, and ran up the long arm of the sea to Mevaig.
They landed and went up the rocks. They passed two or three small white houses overlooking the still, green waters of the sea, and then, following the line of a river, plunged into the heart of a strange and lonely district, in which there appeared to be no life. The river track took them up a green glen, the sides of which were about as sheer as a railway cutting. There were no trees or bushes about, but the green pasture along the bed of the valley wore its brightest colors in the warm sunlight, and far up on the hillsides the browns and crimsons of the heather and the silver gray of the rocks trembled in the white haze of the heat. Over that again the blue sky, as still and silent as the world below.
They wandered on, content with idleness and a fine day. Mr. Mackenzie was talking with some little loudness, so that Lavender might hear, of Mr. John Stuart Mill, and was anxious to convey to Ted Ingram that a wise man, who is responsible for the well-being of his fellow creatures, will study all sides of all questions, however dangerous. Sheila was doing her best to entertain the stranger, and he, in a dream of his own, was listening to the information she gave him. How much of it did he carry away? He was told that the gray goose built its nest in the rushes at the edge of lakes; Sheila knew several nests in Borva. Sheila also caught the young of the wild duck when the mother was guiding them down the hill-rivulets to the sea. She had tamed many of them, catching them thus before they could fly. The names of most of the mountains about here ended inbhal, which was a Gaelic corruption of the Norsefiall, a mountain. There were many Norse names all through the Lewis, but more particularly towards the Butt. The terminationbost, for example,at the end of many words, meant an inhabited place, but she fanciedbostwas Danish. And did Mr. Lavender know of the legend connected with the air ofCha till, cha till mi tuille?
Lavender started as from a trance, with an impression that he had been desperately rude. He was about to say that the gray gosling in the legend could not speak Scandinavian, when he was interrupted by Mr. Mackenzie turning and asking him if he knew from what ports the English smacks hailed that came up hither to the cod and the ling fishing for a couple of months in the autumn. The young man said he did not know. There were many fishermen at Brighton. And when the King of Borva turned to Ingram, to see why he was shouting with laughter, Sheila suddenly announced to the party that before them lay the great Bay of Uig.
It was certainly a strange and impressive scene. They stood on the top of a lofty range of hills, and underneath them lay a vast semicircle, miles in extent, of gleaming white sand, that had in by-gone ages been washed in by the Atlantic. Into this vast plain of silver whiteness the sea, entering by a somewhat narrow portal, stretched in long arms of a pale blue. Elsewhere the great crescent of sand was surrounded by a low line of rocky hill, showing a thousand tints of olive-green and gray and heather purple; and beyond that again rose the giant bulk of Mealasabhal, grown pale in the heat, into the Southern sky. There was not a ship visible along the blue plain of the Atlantic. The only human habitation to be seen in the strange world beneath them was a solitary manse. But away toward the summit of Mealasabhal two specks slowly circled in the air, which Sheila thought were eagles; and far out on the Western sea, lying like dusky whales in the vague blue, were the Plada Islands—the remote and unvisited Seven Hunters—whose only inhabitants are certain flocks of sheep belonging to dwellers on the main land of Lewis.
The travelers sat down on a low rock of gneiss to rest themselves, and then and there did the King of Borva recite his grievances and rage against the English smacks. Was it not enough that they should in passing steal the sheep, but that they should also, in mere wantonness, stalk them as deer, wounding them with rifle bullets, and leaving them to die among the rocks. Sheila said bravely that no one couldtell that it was the English fishermen who did that. Why not the crews of merchant vessels, who might be of any nation? It was unfair to charge upon any body of men such a despicable act, when there was no proof of it whatever.
“Why, Sheila,” said Ingram, with some surprise, “you never doubted before that it was the English smacks that killed the sheep.”
Sheila cast down her eyes and said nothing.
Was the sinister prophecy of John the Piper to be fulfilled? Mackenzie was so much engaged in expounding politics to Ingram, and Sheila was so proud to show her companion all the wonders of Uig, that when they returned to Mevaig in the evening the wind had altogether gone down and the sea was as a sea of glass. But if John the Piper had been ready to foretell for Mackenzie the fate of Mackrimmon, he had taken means to defeat destiny by bringing over from Borvapost a large and heavy boat pulled by six rowers. These were not strapping young fellows, clad in the best blue cloth to be got in Stornoway, but elderly men, gray, wrinkled, weather-beaten and hard of face, who sat stolidly in the boat and listened with a sort of bovine gaze to the old hunchback’s wicked stories and jokes. John was in a mischievous mood, but Lavender, in a confidential whisper, informed Sheila, that her father would speedily be avenged on the inconsiderate piper.
“Come, men, sing us a song, quick!” said Mackenzie, as the party took their seats in the stern and the great oars splashed into the sea of gold. “Look sharp, John, and no teffle of a drowning song!”
In a shrill, high, querulous voice the piper, who was himself pulling one of the two stroke oars, began to sing, and then the men behind him gathering courage, joined in an octave lower, their voices being even more uncertain and lugubrious than his own. These poor fishermen had not had the musical education of Clan-Alpine’s warriors. The performance was not enlivening, and as the monotonous and melancholy sing-song that kept time to the oars told its story in Gaelic, all that the English strangers could make out was an occasional reference to Jura or Scarba or Isla. It was, indeed, the song of an exile shut up in “sea-worn Mull,” who was complaining of the wearisome look of the neighboring islands.
“But why do you sing such Gaelic as that, John?” said young Lavender, confidently. “I should have thought a man in your position—the last of the Hebridean bards—would have known the classical Gaelic. Don’t you know the classical Gaelic?”
“There iss only the wan sort of Kâllic, and it is a ferry goot sort of Kâllic,” said the piper, with some show of petulance.
“Do you mean to tell me you don’t know your own tongue? Do you not know what the greatest of all the bards wrote about your own island? ‘O et præsidium et dulce decus meum,agus, Tityre tu catulæ recubans sub tegmineStyornoway, Arma virumque cano,MacklyodaetBorvapostsub tegmine fagi?’ ”
Not only John the Piper, but all the men behind him, began to look amazed and sorely troubled; and all the more so that Ingram—who had picked up more Gaelic words than his friend—came to his assistance, and began to talk to him in this unknown tongue. They heard references in the conversation to persons and things with which they were familiar in their own language, but still accompanied by much more they could not understand.
The men now began to whisper awe-stricken questions to each other, and at last John the Piper could not restrain his curiosity. “What in the name of Kott is tat sort of Kâllic?” he asked, with some look of fear in his eyes.
“You are not such a student, John,” said Lavender, carelessly, “but still a man in your position should know something of your own language. A bard, a poet, and not know the classical form of your own tongue!”
“Is it ta Welsh Kâllic?” cried John, in desperation, for he knew that the men behind him would carry the story of his ignorance all over Borvapost.
“The Welsh Gaelic? No. I see you will have to go to school again.”
“There iss no more Kâllic in ta schools,” said the piper, eagerly seizing the excuse. “It iss Miss Sheila; she will hef put away all ta Kâllic from ta schools.”
“But you were born half a century before Miss Sheila; how is it that you neglected to learn that form of Gaelic that has been sacred to the use of the bards and poets since the time of Ossian?”
There were no more quips or cranks for John the Piperduring the rest of the pull home. The wretched man relapsed into a moody silence and worked methodically at his oar, brooding over this mysterious language of which he had not even heard. As for Lavender, he turned to Mackenzie and begged to know what he thought of affairs in France.
And so they sailed back to Borvapost over the smooth water that lay like a lake of gold. Was it not a strange sight to see the Atlantic one vast and smooth yellow plain under the great glow of saffron that spread across the regions of the sunset? It was a world of light, unbroken but by the presence of a heavy coaster that had anchored in the Bay, and that sent a long line of trembling black down on the perfect mirror of the sea. As they got near the shore, the portions that were in shadow showed with a strange distinctness the dark green of the pasture and the sharp outlines of the rocks; and there was a cold scent of sea-weed in the evening air. The six heavy oars plashed into the smooth bay. The big boat was moored to the quay, and its passengers landed once more in Borva. And when they turned, on their way home, to look from the brow of the hill, on which Sheila had placed a garden seat, lo! all the West was on fire, the mountains in the South had grown dark on their Eastern side, and the plain of the sea was like a lake of blood, with the heavy hull and masts of the coaster grown large and solemn and distant. There was scarcely a ripple around the rocks at their feet to break the stillness of the approaching twilight.
So another day had passed, devoid of adventure or incident. Lavender had not rescued his wonderful princess from an angry sea, nor had he shown prowess in slaying a dozen stags, nor in any way distinguished himself. To all outward appearance the relations of the party were the same at night as they had been in the morning. But the greatest crises of life steal on us imperceptibly, and have sometimes occurred and wound us in their consequences before we know. The memorable things in a man’s career are not always marked by some sharp convulsion. The youth does not necessarily marry the girl whom he happens to fish out of a mill-pond; his life may be far more definitely shaped for him at a prosaic dinner-table, where he fancies he is only thinking of the wines. We are indeed but as children seated on the shore, watching the ripples that come on toour feet; and while the ripples unceasingly repeat themselves, and while the hour that passes is but as the hour before it, constellation after constellation has gone by over our heads unheeded, and we wake with a start to find ourselves in a new day, with all our former life cut off from us and become as a dream.
AKNOCKINGat Ingram’s door.
“Well, what’s the matter?”
“Will ye be goin’ to ta fishin’, Mr. Ingram?”
“Is that you, Duncan? How the devil have you got over from Mevaig at this hour of the morning?”
“Oh, there wass a bit breeze tis morning, and I hef prought over ta Maighdean-mhara. And there iss a very good ripple on ta water, if you will tak ta other gentleman to try for ta salmon.”
“All right. Hammer at his door until he gets up. I shall be ready in ten minutes.”
About half an hour thereafter the two young men were standing at the front of Mackenzie’s house examining the enormous rod that Duncan had placed against the porch. It was still early morning, and there was a cold wind blowing in from the sea, but there was not a speck of cloud in the sky, and the day promised to be hot. The plain of the Atlantic was no longer a sheet of glass; it was rough and gray, and far out an occasional quiver of white showed where a wave was hissing over. There was not much of a sea on, but the heavy wash of the water around the rocks and sandy bays could be distinctly heard in the silence of the morning.
And what was this moving object down there by the shore where the Maighdean-mhara lay at anchor? Both the young men at once recognized the glimmer of the small white feather and the tightly-fitting blue dress of the sea-princess.
“Why, there is Sheila!” cried Ingram. “What in all the world is she about at such an hour?”
At this moment Duncan came out with a book of flies in his hand, and he said in rather a petulant way, “And it iss no wonder Miss Sheila will be out. And it was Miss Sheilaherself will tell me to see if you will go to ta White Water and try for a salmon.”
“And she is bringing up something from the boat; I must go and carry it for her,” said Lavender, making down the path to the shore with the speed of a deer.
When Sheila and he came up the hill, there was a fine color in the girl’s face from her morning’s exertions, but she was not disposed to go in-doors to rest. On the contrary, she was soon engaged in helping Mairi to bring in some coffee to the parlor, while Duncan cut slices of ham and cold beef big enough to have provisioned a fishing-boat bound for Caithness. Sheila had had her breakfast; so she devoted all her time to waiting upon her guests, until Lavender could scarcely eat through the embarrassment produced by her noble servitude. Ingram was not so sensitive, and made a very good meal indeed.
“Where’s your father, Sheila?” said Ingram, when the last of their preparations had been made and they were about to start for the river. “Isn’t he up yet?”
“My father?” said the girl, with the least possible elevation of her eyebrows—“he will be down at Borvapost an hour ago. And I hope that John the Piper will not see him this morning. But we must make haste, Mr. Ingram, for the wind will fall when the sun gets stronger, and then your friend will have no more of the fishing.”
So they set out, and Ingram put Sheila’s hand on his arm, and took her along with him in that fashion, while the tall gillie walked behind with Lavender, who was or was not pleased with the arrangement. The young man, indeed, was a trifle silent, but Duncan was in an amiable and communicative mood, and passed the time in telling him stories of the salmon he had caught, and of the people who had tried to catch them and failed. Sheila and Ingram certainly went a good pace up the hill and around the summit of it, and down again into the valley of the White Water. The light step of the girl seemed to be as full of spring as the heather on which she trod; and as for her feet getting wet, the dew must have soaked them long ago. She was in the brightest of spirits. Lavender could hear her laughing in a low, pleased fashion, and then presently her head would be turned up toward her companion, and all the light of some humorous anecdote would appear in her face and in her eloquent eyes,and it would be Ingram’s turn to break out into one of those short, abrupt laughs that had something sardonic in them.
But hark! From the other side of the valley comes another sound, the faint and distant skirl of the pipes, and yonder is the white-haired hunchback, a mere speck in a waste of brown and green morass. What is he playing to himself now?
“He is a foolish fellow, that John,” said the tall keeper, “for if he comes down to Borvapost this morning, it iss Mr. Mackenzie will fling his pipes in ta sea, and he will haf to go away and work in ta steamboat. He iss a very foolish fellow; and it wass him tat wass goin’ in ta steamboat before, and he went to a tailor in Styornoway, and he said to him, ‘I want a pair o’ troosers.’ And the tailor said to him, ‘What sort o’ troosers iss it you will want?’ And he said to him, ‘I want a pair o’ troosers for a steamboat.’ A pair o’ troosers for a steamboat!—he is a teffle of a foolish fellow. And it wass him that went in ta steamboat with a lot o’ freens o’ his, that wass a goin’ to Skye to a big weddin’ there; and it wass a very bad passage, and when tey got into Portree, the captain said to him, ‘John, where iss all your freens that tey do not come ashore?’ And he said to him, ‘I hef peen down below, sir, and four-thirds o’ ta whole o’ them are a’ half-troonded and sick and tead.’ Four-thirds o’ ta whole o’ them! And he iss just the ferry man to laugh at every other pody when it iss a mistake you will make in ta English.”
“I suppose,” said Lavender, “you found it rather difficult to learn good English?”
“Well, sir, I hefna got ta good English yet. But Miss Sheila she has put away all the Gaelic from the schools, and the young ones they will learn more of ta good English after that.”
“I wish I knew as much Gaelic as you know English,” said the young man.
“Oh, you will soon learn. It iss ferry easy if you will only stay in ta island.”
“It would take me several months to pick it up, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes—nine or six—that will do,” said Duncan. “You will begin to learn ta names o’ ta Islands and ta places. There now, as far as you can see is ta Seann Bheinn; and it means ta old hill. And there is a rock there; it is Stac-nan-Balg—”
Here Duncan looked rather perplexed.
“Yes,” said Lavender; “what does that mean?”
“It means—it means,” said Duncan, in still greater perplexity, and getting a little impatient, “it means—stac, tat iss a steep rock; Stac-nan-Balg—it means—well, sir,it is ower deep for ta English.”
The tone of mortification in which Duncan uttered these words warned Lavender that his philological studies might as well cease; and indeed Sheila and Ingram had by this time reached the banks of the White Water, and were waiting Duncan and his majestic rod.
It was much too bright and pleasant a morning for good fishing, but there was a fair ripple on the pools of the stream where ever and anon a salmon fresh run from the sea would leap into the air, showing a gleaming curve of silver to the sunlight. The splash of the big fish seemed an invitation, and Duncan was all anxiety to teach the stranger, who, as he fancied, knew nothing about throwing a fly. Ingram lay down on a rock some little distance back from the banks, and put his hands beneath his head and watched the operations going forward. But was it really Duncan who was to teach the stranger? It was Sheila who picked out flies for him. It was Sheila who held the rod while he put them on the line. It was Sheila who told where the bigger salmon usually lay—under the opposite bank of the broad and almost lake-like pool into which the small but rapid White Water came tumbling and foaming down its narrow channel of rocks and stones.
Then Sheila waited to see her pupil begin. He had evidently a little difficulty about the big double-handed rod, a somewhat more formidable engine of destruction than the supple little thing with which he had whipped the streams of Devonshire and Cornwall.
The first cast sent both flies and a lump of line tumbling on to the pool, and would have driven the boldest of salmon out of its wits. The second pretty nearly took a piece out of Ingram’s ear, and made him shift his quarters with rapidity. Duncan gave him up in despair. The third cast dropped both flies with the lightness of a feather in the running waters of the other side of the pool; and the next second there was a slight wave along the surface, a dexterous jerk with the butt, and presently the line was whirled out into themiddle of the pool, running rapidly off the reel from the straining rod.
“Plenty o’ line, sir, plenty o’ line!” shouted Duncan, in a wild fever of anxiety, for the fish had plunged suddenly.
Ingram had come running down to the bank. Sheila was all excitement and interest as she stood and watched every slackening or tightening of the line as the fish went up the pool and down the pool, and crossed the current in his efforts to escape. The only self-possessed person, indeed, was Lavender himself, who presently said, “Miss Mackenzie, won’t you take the rod now and have the honor of landing him? I don’t think he will show much more fight.”
At this moment, however, the line slackened suddenly, and the fish threw himself clean out of the water, turning a complete somersault. It was a dangerous moment, but the captive was well hooked, and in his next plunge Lavender was admonished by Duncan to keep a good strain on him.
“I will take the second one,” Sheila promised, “if you like; but you must surely land your first salmon yourself.”
I suppose nobody but a fisherman can understand the generosity of the offer made by the young man. To have hooked your first salmon—to have its first wild rushes and plunges safely over—and to offer to another the delight of bringing him victoriously to bank! But Sheila knew. And what could have surpassed the cleverness with which he had hooked the fish, and the coolness and courage he showed throughout the playing of him, except this more than royal offer on the part of the young hero?
The fish was losing strength. All the line had been got in, although the forefinger of the fisherman felt the pulse of his captive, as it were, ready for any expiring plunge. They caught occasional glimpses of a large white body gliding through the ruddy-brown water. Duncan was down on his knees more than once, with the landing-net in his hand, but again and again the big fish would sheer off, with just such indications of power as to make his conqueror cautious. At length he was guided slowly in to the bank. Behind him the landing-net was gently let into the water—then a quick forward movement, and a fourteen pounder was scooped up and flung upon the bank, landing-net and all. “Hurrah!” cried Ingram, and Lavender blushed like a school-girl; and Sheila, quite naturally and without thinking, shook hands with himand said, “I congratulate you;” and there was more congratulation in her glad eyes than in that simple little gesture.
It was a good beginning, and of course the young man was very much pleased to show Sheila that he was no mere lily-fingered idler about town. He buckled to his work in earnest. With a few more casts he soon got into the way of managing the big rod; and every time the flies fell lightly on the other side of the pool, to be dragged with gentle jerks across the foaming current of the stream. Ingram went back to his couch on the rock. He lay and watched the monotonous flinging back of the long rod, the light whistle of the line through the air, and the careful manipulation of the flies through the water. Or was it something else that he was watching—something that awakened in his mind a sudden sense of surprise and fear, and a new and strange consciousness that he had been guiltily remiss?
Sheila was wholly pre-occupied with her companion and his efforts. He had had one or two rises, but had struck either too soon or too late, until at last there was a terrific plunge and rush, and again the line was whirled out. But Duncan did not like the look of it somehow. The fish had been sheering off when it was hooked, and the deep plunge at the outset was ugly.
“Now will you take the rod?” said Lavender to Sheila.
But before she could answer the fish had come rushing up to the surface, and had thrown itself out of the water, so that it fell on the opposite bank. It was a splendid animal, and Duncan, despite his doubts, called out to Lavender to slacken his hold. There was another spring into the air, the fish fell with a splash into the water, and the line was flying helplessly into the air with the two flies floating about.
“Ay,” said Duncan, with a sigh, “it wass foul-hooked. It wass no chance of catching him whatever.”
Lavender was most successful next time, however, with a pretty little grilse of about half a dozen pounds, that seemed to have in him the spirit and fight of a dozen salmon. How he rushed and struggled, how he plunged and sulked, how he burrowed along the banks, and then ran out to the middle of the pool, and then threw himself into the air, with the line apparently, but not really, doubling up under him. All these things can only be understood by the fisherman who has played in a Highland stream a wild and powerful littlegrilse fresh in from the salt water. And it was Sheila who held him captive, who humored him when he sulked, and gently guided him away from dangerous places, and kept him well in hand when he tried to cross the current, until at last, all the fierceness gone out of him, he let himself be tenderly inveigled into the side of the pool, where Duncan, by a dexterous movement, surrounded him with network and placed his shining body among the bright green grass.
But Ingram was not so overjoyed this time. He complimented Sheila in a friendly way, but he was rather grave, and obviously did not care for this business of fishing. And so Sheila, fancying that he was rather dull because he was not joining in the sport, proposed that he should walk back to the house with her, leaving Mr. Lavender with Duncan. And Ingram was quite ready to do so.
But Lavender protested that he cared very little for salmon-fishing. He suggested that they should all go back together. The sun was killing the wind, and soon the pools would be as clear as glass. Had they not better try in the afternoon, when, perhaps, the breeze would freshen? And so they walked back to the house.
On the garden-seat a book lay open. It was Mr. Mill’s “Essay on Liberty,” and it had evidently been left there by Mr. Mackenzie, perhaps—who knows?—to hint to his friends from the South that he was familiar with the problems of the age. Lavender winked to Ingram, but somehow his companion seemed in no humor for a joke.
They had luncheon then, and after luncheon Ingram touched Lavender on the shoulder, and said, “I want to have a word with you privately. Let’s walk down to the shore.”
And so they did; and when they had got some little distance from the house, Ingram said: “Look here, Lavender. I mean to be frank with you. I don’t think it fair that you should try to drag Sheila Mackenzie into a flirtation. I knew you would fall in love with her. For a week or two, that does not matter—it harms no one. But I never thought of the chance of her being led into such a thing, for what is a mere passing amusement to you would be a very serious thing to her.”
“Well?”
“Well? Is not that enough? Do you think it fair to take advantage of this girl’s innocence of the world?”
Lavender stopped in the middle of the path, and said, somewhat stiffly, “This may be as well settled at once. You have talked of flirtation and all that sort of thing. You may regard it as you please, but before I leave this island I mean to ask Sheila Mackenzie to be my wife.”
“Why, you are mad!” cried Ingram, amazed to see that the young man was perfectly serious.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you mean to say,” continued Ingram, “that even supposing Sheila would consent—which is impossible—you would try to take away that girl from her father?”
“Girls must leave their fathers sometime or other,” said Lavender, somewhat sullenly.
“Not unless they are asked.”
“Oh, well, they are sure to be asked, and they are sure to go. If their mothers had not done so before them, where would they be? It’s all very well for you to talk about it, and argue it out as a theory, but I know what the facts of the case are, and what any man in my position would do; and I know that I am careless of any consequences, so long as I can secure her for my wife.”
“Apparently you are—careless of any consequences to herself or those about her.”
“But what is your objection, Ingram?” said the young man, suddenly abandoning his defiant manner; “why should you object? Do you think I would make a bad husband to the woman I married?”
“I believe nothing of the sort. I believe you would make a very good husband, if you were to marry a woman whom you know something about, and whom you had really learned to love and respect through your knowledge of her. I tell you, you know nothing about Sheila Mackenzie as yet. If you were to marry her to-morrow, you would discover in six months she was a woman wholly different from what you had expected.”
“Very well, then,” said Lavender, with an air of triumph; “you can’t deny this; you think so much of her that the real woman I would discover must be better than the one I imagine; and so you don’t expect I shall be disappointed?”
“If you marry Sheila Mackenzie you will be disappointed—not through her fault, but your own. Why, a more preposterous notion never entered a man’s head! She knowsnothing of your friends or your ways of life; you know nothing of hers. She would be miserable in London, even if you could persuade her father to go with her, which is the most unlikely thing in the world. Do give up this foolish idea, like a good fellow, and do it before Sheila is dragged into a flirtation that may have the most serious consequences to her.”
Lavender would not promise, but all that afternoon various resolutions and emotions were struggling within him for mastery, insomuch that Duncan could not understand the blundering way in which he whipped the pools. Mackenzie, Sheila and Ingram had gone off to pay a visit to an old crone who lived in a neighboring island, and in whom Ingram had been much interested a few years before; so that Lavender had an opportunity of practicing the art of salmon-fishing without interruptions. But all the skill he had shown in the morning seemed to have deserted him; and at last he gave the rod to Duncan, and sitting down on a top-coat flung on the wet heather, indolently watched the gillie’s operations.
Should he at once fly from temptation and return to London? Would it not be heroic to leave this old man in possession of his only daughter? Sheila would never know of the sacrifice, but what of that? It might be for her happiness that he should go.
But when a young man is in love, or fancies himself in love, with a young girl, it is hard for him to persuade himself that anybody else can make her as happy as he might. Who could be so tender to her, so watchful over her, as himself? He does not reflect that her parents have had the experience of years in taking care of her, while he would be a mere novice at the business. The pleasure with which he regards the prospect of being constantly with her he transfers to her, and she seems to demand it of him as a duty that he should confer upon her this new happiness.
Lavender met Sheila in the evening, and he was yet undecided. Sometimes he fancied, when their eyes met unexpectedly, that there was something wistful as well as friendly in her look; was she, too, dreaming of the vague possibilities of the future? This was strange, too, that after each of these little chance reveries she seemed to be moved by a resolution to be more than usually affectionate toward her father, and would go around the table and place her hand on his shoulderand talk to him. Perhaps these things were but delusions begotten of his own imaginings, but the possibility of their being real agitated him not a little, and he scarcely dared to think what might follow.
That evening Sheila sang, and all his half-formed resolutions vanished into air. He sat in a corner of the curious, dimly-lit and old-fashioned chamber, and, lying back in the chair, abandoned himself to dreams as Sheila sang the mystic songs of the Northern coast. There was something strangely suggestive of the sea in the room itself, and all her songs were of the sea. It was a smaller room than the large apartment in which they had dined, and it was filled with curiosities from distant shores, and with the strange captures made by the Borva fishermen. Everywhere, too, were the trophies of Mackenzie’s skill with rod and rifle. Deer’s horns, seal skins, stuffed birds, salmon in glass cases, masses of coral, enormous shells, and a thousand similar things made the little drawing-room a sort of grotto; but it was a grotto within hearing of the sound of the sea, and there was no musty atmosphere in a room that was open all day to the cold winds of the Atlantic.
With a smoking tumbler of whisky and water before him, the King of Borva sat at the table, poring over a large volume containing plans for bridges. Ingram was seated at the piano in continual consultation with Sheila about her songs. Lavender, in the dusky corner, lay and listened, with all sorts of fancies crowding in upon him as Sheila sang of the sad and wild legends of her home. Was it by chance, then, he asked himself, that these songs seemed so frequently to be the lamentation of a Highland girl for a fair-haired lover beyond the sea? First of all, she sang the “Wail of Dunevegan,” and how strangely her voice thrilled with the sadness of the song!—
Morn, oh mantle thy smiles of gladness!Night, oh come with thy clouds of sadness!Earth, thy pleasures to me seem madness!Macleod, my leal love, since thou art gone.Dunevegan, oh! Dunevegan, oh!Dunevegan! Dunevegan!
Morn, oh mantle thy smiles of gladness!Night, oh come with thy clouds of sadness!Earth, thy pleasures to me seem madness!Macleod, my leal love, since thou art gone.Dunevegan, oh! Dunevegan, oh!Dunevegan! Dunevegan!
Morn, oh mantle thy smiles of gladness!Night, oh come with thy clouds of sadness!Earth, thy pleasures to me seem madness!Macleod, my leal love, since thou art gone.Dunevegan, oh! Dunevegan, oh!Dunevegan! Dunevegan!
It was as in a dream that he heard Ingram talking in a matter-of-fact way about the airs, and asking the meaning of certain lines of Gaelic to compare them with the stiff and old-fashioned phrases of the translation. Surely this girlmust have sat by the shore and waited for her absent lover, or how could she sing with such feeling?—
Say, my love, why didst thou tarryFar over the deep sea?Knew’st thou not my heart was weary,Heard’st thou not how I sighed for thee?Did no light wind bear my wild despairFar over the deep sea?
Say, my love, why didst thou tarryFar over the deep sea?Knew’st thou not my heart was weary,Heard’st thou not how I sighed for thee?Did no light wind bear my wild despairFar over the deep sea?
Say, my love, why didst thou tarryFar over the deep sea?Knew’st thou not my heart was weary,Heard’st thou not how I sighed for thee?Did no light wind bear my wild despairFar over the deep sea?
He could imagine that beautiful face grown pale and wild with anguish. And then some day, as she went along the lonely island, with all the light of hope gone out of her eyes, and with no more wistful glances cast across the desolate sea, might not the fair-haired lover come at last, and leap ashore to clasp her in his arms, and hide the wonder-stricken eyes and the glad face in his bosom? But Sheila sang of no such meeting. The girl was always alone, her lover gone away from her across the sea or into the wilds.
Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries:Why tarries the youth with the bright yellow hair?Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries:Why seeks he the hill when his flock is not there?
Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries:Why tarries the youth with the bright yellow hair?Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries:Why seeks he the hill when his flock is not there?
Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries:Why tarries the youth with the bright yellow hair?Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries:Why seeks he the hill when his flock is not there?
That was what he heard her sing, until it seemed to him that her singing was a cry to be taken away from these melancholy surroundings of sea and shore, and carried to the secure and comfortable South, to be cherished and tended and loved. Why should this girl be left to live a cruel life up in these wilds, and to go through this world without knowing anything of the happy existence that might have been hers? It was well for harder and stronger natures to withstand the buffetings of wind and rain, and be indifferent to the melancholy influences of the lonely sea and the darkness of the Northern winters; but for her—for this beautiful, sensitive, tender-hearted girl—surely some other and gentler fate was in store. What he, at least, could do, he would. He would lay his life at her feet; and if she chose to go away from this bleak and cruel home to the sunnier South, would not he devote himself, as never a man had given himself to a woman before, to the constant duty of enriching her life with all the treasures of admiration and respect and love?
It was getting late, and Sheila retired. As she bade “good night” to him, Lavender fancied her manner was a little less frank toward him than usual, and her eyes were cast down. All the light of the room seemed to go with her when she went.
Mackenzie mixed another tumbler of toddy, and began toexpound to Ingram his views upon deer-forests and sheep-farms. Ingram lit a cigar, stretched out his legs and proceeded to listen with much complacent attention. As for Lavender, he sat awhile, hearing vaguely the sounds of his companions’ voices, and then, saying he was a trifle tired, he left and went to his own room. The moon was then clearly shining over Suainabhal, and a pathway of glimmering light lay across Loch Roag.
He went to bed, but not to sleep. He had resolved to ask Sheila Mackenzie to be his wife, and a thousand conjectures as to the future were floating about his imagination. In the first place, would she listen to his prayer? She knew nothing of him beyond what she might have heard from Ingram. He had had no opportunity, during their friendly talking, of revealing to her what he thought of herself; but might she not have guessed it? Then her father—what action might not this determined old man take in the matter? Would his love for his daughter prompt him to consider her happiness alone?
All these things, however, were mere preliminaries, and the imagination of the young man soon overleapt them. He began to draw pictures of Sheila as his wife in their London home, among his friends, at Hastings, at Ascot, in Hyde Park. What would people say of the beautiful sea-princess with the proud air, the fearless eye and the gentle and musical voice? Hour after hour he lay and could not sleep; a fever of anticipation, of fear and hope combined, seemed to stir in his blood and throb in his brain. At last, in a paroxysm of unrest, he rose, hastily dressed himself, stole down stairs, and made his way out into the cool air of the night.
It could not be the coming dawn that revealed to him the outlines of the shore and the mountains and the loch? The moon had already sunk in the Southwest; not from her came that strange clearness by which all these objects were defined. Then the young man bethought him of what Sheila had said of the twilight in these latitudes, and, turning to the North, he saw there a pale glow which looked as if it were the last faint traces of some former sunset. All over the rest of the heavens something of the same metallic clearness reigned, so that the stars were pale, and a gray hue lay over the sea, and over the island, the white bays, the black rocks and the valleys, in which lay a scarcely perceptible mist.
He left the house and went vaguely down to the sea. The cold air, scented strongly with the seaweed, blew about him, and was sweet and fresh on the lips and the forehead. How strange was the monotonous sound of the waves, mournful and distant, like the sound in a sea-shell! That alone spoke in the awful stillness of the night, and it seemed to be telling of those things which the silent stars and the silent hills had looked down on for ages and ages. Did Sheila really love this terrible thing, with its strange voice talking in the night, or did she not secretly dread it and shudder at it when she sang of all that old sadness? There was ringing in his ears the “Wail of Dunevegan” as he listened for a while to the melancholy plashing of the waves all around the lonely shores; and there was a cry of “Dunevegan, oh! Dunevegan, oh!” weaving itself curiously with those wild pictures of Sheila in London, which were still floating before his imagination.
He walked away around the coast, seeing almost nothing of the objects around him, but conscious of the solemn majesty of the mountains and the stillness of the throbbing stars. He could have called aloud, “Sheila! Sheila!” but that all the place seemed associated with her presence; and might he not turn suddenly to find her figure standing by him, with her face grown wild and pale as it was in the ballad, and a piteous and awful look in her eyes? He scarcely dared look around, lest there should be a phantom Sheila appealing to him for compassion, and complaining against him with her speechless eyes for a wrong that he could not understand. He fled from her, but he knew that she was there; and all the love in his heart went out to her as if beseeching her to go away and forsake him, and forgive him the injury of which she seemed to accuse him. What wrong had he done her that he should be haunted by this spectre, that did not threaten, but only looked piteously toward him with eyes full of entreaty and pain?
He left the shore, and blindly made his way up to the pasture-land above, careless whither he went. He knew not how long he had been away from the house, but here was a small fresh-water lake set around about with rushes, and far over there in the East lay a glimmer of the channels between Borva and Lewis. But soon there was another light in the East, high over the low mists that lay along the land. A pale blue-gray arose in the cloudless sky, and the stars went outone by one. The mists were seen to lie in thicker folds along the desolate valleys. Then a faintly yellow-whiteness stole up into the sky, and broadened and widened, and, behold! the little moorland loch caught a reflection of the glare, and there was a streak of crimson here and there on the dark-blue surface of the water. Loch Roag began to brighten. Suainabhal was touched with rose-red on its Eastern slopes. The Atlantic seemed to rise out of its purple sleep with the new light of a new dawn; and then there was a chirruping of birds over the heath, and the first shafts of the sunlight ran along the surface of the sea, and lit up the white wavelets that were breaking on the beach. The new day struck upon him with a strange sense of wonder. Where was he? Whither had gone the wild visions of the night, the feverish dread, the horrible forebodings? The strong mental emotion that had driven him out now produced its natural reaction; he looked about in a dazed fashion at the revelation of light around him, and felt himself trembling with weakness. Slowly, blindly, and hopelessly he set to walk back across the island, with the sunlight of the fresh morning calling into life ten thousand audible things of the moorland around him.
And who was this that stood at the porch of the house in the clear sunshine? Not the pale and ghastly creature who had haunted him during those wild hours, but Sheila herself, singing some snatches of a song, and engaged in watering the two bushes of sweet-brier at the gate. How bright and roseate and happy she looked, with the fine color of her face lit up by the fresh sunlight, and the brisk breeze from the sea stirring now and again the loose masses of her hair! Haggard and faint as he was, he would have startled her if he had gone up to her then. He dared not approach her. He waited until she had gone around to the gable of the house to water the plants there, and then he stole into the house and upstairs, and threw himself upon the bed. And outside he still heard Sheila singing lightly to herself as she went about her ordinary duties, little thinking in how strange and wild a drama her wraith had that night taken part.
VERYsoon, indeed, Ingram began to see that his friend had spoken to him quite frankly, and that he was really bent on asking Sheila to become his wife. Ingram contemplated this prospect with some dismay, and with some vague consciousness that he was himself responsible for what he could not help regarding as a disaster. He had half expected that Frank Lavender would, in his ordinary fashion, fall in love with Sheila—for about a fortnight. He had joked him about it, even before they came within sight of Sheila’s home.
He had listened with a grim humor to Lavender’s outbursts of admiration, and only asked himself how many times he had heard the same phrases before. But now things were looking more serious, for the young man had thrown himself into the prosecution of his new project with all the generous poetic enthusiasm of a highly impulsive nature. Ingram saw that everything a young man could do to win the heart of a young girl Lavender would do; and Nature had dowered him richly with various means of fascination. Most dangerous of all of these was a gift of sincerity that deceived himself. He could assume an opinion or express an emotion at will, with such genuine fervor that he himself forgot how recently he had acquired it, and was able to convince his companion for the moment that it was a revelation of his inmost soul. It was this charm of impetuous sincerity which had fascinated Ingram himself years before, and made him cultivate the acquaintance of a young man whom he at first regarded as a somewhat facile, talkative and histrionic person. Ingram perceived, for example, that young Lavender had so little regard for public affairs that he would have been quite content to see our Indian empire go, for the sake of eliciting a sarcasm from Lord Westbury; but at the same time, if you had appealed to his nobler instincts, and placed beforehim the condition of a certain populace suffering from starvation, he would have done all in his power to aid them; he would have written letters to the newspapers, would have headed subscriptions, and would have ended by believing that he had been the constant friend of the people of India throughout his life, and was bound to stick to them to the end of it.
As often as not he borrowed his fancies and opinions from Edward Ingram himself, who was amused and gratified at the same time to find his humdrum notions receive a dozen new lights and colors when transferred to the warmer atmosphere of his friend’s imagination. Ingram would even consent to receive from his younger companion advice, impetuously urged and richly illustrated, which he had himself offered in similar terms months before. At this very moment he could see that much of Lavender’s romantic conceptions of Sheila’s character was only an exaggeration of some passing hints he, Ingram, had dropped, as the Clansman was steaming into Stornoway. But then they were ever so much more beautiful. Ingram held to his conviction that he himself was a distinctly commonplace person. He had grown reconciled to the ordinary grooves of life. But young Lavender was not commonplace; he fancied he could see in him an occasional flash of something that looked like genius; and many and many a time, in regarding the brilliant and facile powers, the generous impulses, and the occasional ambitions of his companion, he wondered whether these would ever lead to anything in the way of production, or even of consideration of character, or whether they would merely remain the passing sensations of an indifferent idler. Sometimes, indeed, he devoutly wished that Lavender had been born a stonemason.
But all these pleasant and graceful qualities, which had made the young man an agreeable companion, were a serious danger now; for was it not but too probable that Sheila, accustomed to the rude and homely ways of the islanders, would be attracted and pleased and fascinated by one who had about him so much of a soft and Southern brightness with which she was wholly unfamiliar? This open-hearted frankness of his placed all his best qualities in the sunshine, as it were: she could not fail to see the singular modesty and courtesy of his bearing towards women, his gentle manners, his light-heartedness, his passionate admiration of theself-sacrifice of others, and his sympathy with their sufferings! Ingram would not have minded much if Lavender alone had been concerned in the dilemma now growing imminent; he would have left him to flounder out as he had got out of previous ones. But he had been surprised and pained, and even frightened, to detect in Sheila’s manner some faint indications—so faint that he was doubtful what construction to put on them—of a special interest in the young stranger whom he had brought with him to Borva.
What could he do in the matter supposing his suspicions were correct? Caution Sheila?—it would be an insult. Warn Mackenzie?—the King of Borva would fly into passion with everybody concerned, and bring endless humiliation on his daughter, who had probably never dreamed of regarding Lavender except as a chance acquaintance. Insist upon Lavender going South at once?—that would merely goad the young man into obstinacy. Ingram found himself in a grievous difficulty, afraid to say how much of it was of his own creation. He had no selfish sentiments of his own to consult: if it were to become evident that the happiness of Sheila and of his friend depended on their marrying each other, he was ready to forward such a project with all the influence at his command. But there were a hundred reasons why he should dread such a marriage. He had already mentioned several of them to Lavender in trying to dissuade the young man from his purpose. A few days had passed since then, and it was clear that Lavender had abandoned all notion of fulfilling those resolutions he had vaguely formed. But the more Ingram thought over the matter, and the further he recalled the ancient proverbs and stories about the fate of intermeddlers, the more evident it became to him that he could take no immediate action in the affair. He would trust to the chapter of accidents to save Sheila from what he considered a disastrous fate. Perhaps Lavender would repent. Perhaps Mackenzie, continually on the watch for small secrets, would discover something, and bid his daughter stay in Borva while his guests proceeded on their tour through Lewis. In any case, it was not all certain that Lavender would be successful in his suit. Was the heart of a proud-spirited, intelligent and busily-occupied girl to be won in a matter of three weeks or a month? Lavender would go South, and no more would be heard of it.
This tour around the island of Lewis, however, was not likely to favor much any such easy escape from the difficulty. On a certain morning the larger of Mr. Mackenzie’s boats carried the holiday party away from Borva; and, even at this early stage, as they sat at the stern of the heavy craft, Lavender had arrogated to himself the exclusive right of waiting upon Sheila. He had constituted himself her companion in all their excursions about Borva which they had undertaken, and now, on this longer journey, they were to be once more thrown together. It did seem a little hard that Ingram should be relegated to Mackenzie and his theories of government; but did he not profess to prefer that? Like most men, who have got beyond five-and-thirty, he was rather proud of considering himself an observer of life. He stood aside, as a spectator, and let other people, engaged in all manner of eager pursuits, pass before him for review. Toward young folks, indeed, he assumed a good-naturedly paternal air, as if they were but, as shy-faced children, to be humored. Were not their love affairs a pretty spectacle? As for himself, he was far beyond all that. The illusions of love-making, the devotion, and ambition, and dreams of courtship were no longer possible to him, but did they not constitute, on the whole, a beautiful and charming study, that had about it, at times, some little touches of pathos? At odd moments, when he saw Sheila and Lavender walking together in the evening, he was himself half inclined to wish that something might come of the young man’s determination. It would be so pleasant to play the part of a friendly counselor, to humor the follies of the young folks, to make jokes at their expense, and then, in the midst of their embarrassment and resentment, to go forward and pet them a little, and assure them of a real and earnest sympathy.
“Your time is to come,” Lavender said to him suddenly after he had been exhibiting some of his paternal forbearance and consideration; “you will get a dreadful twist some day, my boy. You have been doing nothing but dreaming about women, but some day or other you will wake up and find yourself captured and fascinated beyond anything you have ever seen in other people, and then you will discover what a desperately real thing it is.”
Ingram had a misty impression that he had heard something like this before. Had he not given Lavender somewarning of the same kind? But he was so much accustomed to hear those vague repetitions of his own remarks, and was, on the whole, so well pleased to think that his commonplace notions should take root and flourish in this goodly soil, that he never thought of asking Lavender to quote his authority for those profound observations on men and things.
“Now, Miss Mackenzie,” said the young man as the big boat was drawing near to Callernish, “what is to be our first sketch in Lewis?”
“The Callernish Stones, of course,” said Mackenzie himself; “it iss more than one hass come to the Lewis to see the Callernish Stones.”
Lavender had promised to the King of Borva a series of water-color drawings of Lewis, and Sheila was to choose the subjects from day to day. Mackenzie was gratified by this proposal, and accepted it with much magnanimity; but Sheila knew that before the offer was made Lavender had come to her and asked her if she cared about sketches, and whether he might be allowed to take a few on this journey and present them to her. She was very grateful, but suggested that it might please her papa if they were given to him. Would she superintend them, then, and choose the topics for illustration? Yes, she would do that; and so the young man was furnished with a roving commission.
He brought her a little sepia sketch of Borvapost, its huts, its bay, and its upturned boats on the beach. Sheila’s expressions of praise, the admiration and pleasure that shone in her eyes, would have turned any young man’s head. But her papa looked at the picture with a critical eye, and remarked, “Oh, yes, it is ferry good, but is not the color of Loch Roag at all. It is the color of a river where there is a flood of rain. I have neffer at all seen Loch Roag a brown color—neffer at all.”
It was clear then, that the subsequent sketches could not be taken in sepia, and so Lavender proposed to make a series of pencil-drawings, which could be washed in with color afterward. There was one subject, indeed, which since his arrival in Lewis he had tried to fix on paper by every conceivable means in his power, and that was Sheila herself. He had spoiled innumerable sheets of paper in trying to get some likeness of her which would satisfy himself, but all his usual skill seemed somehow to have gone from him. He could notunderstand it. In ordinary circumstances he could have traced in a dozen lines a portrait that would at least have shown a superficial likeness: he could have multiplied portraits by the dozen of old Mackenzie or Ingram or Duncan, but here he seemed to fail utterly. He invited no criticism, certainly. These efforts were made in his own room, and he asked no one’s opinion as to the likeness. He could, indeed, certify to himself that the drawing of the features was correct enough. There was the sweet and placid forehead, with its low masses of dark hair; there the short upper lip, the finely carved mouth, the beautifully-rounded chin and throat; and there the frank, clear, proud eyes, with their long lashes and highly-curved eyebrows. Sometimes, too, a touch of color added warmth to the complexion, put a glimmer of the blue sea beneath the long, black eyelashes, and drew a thread of scarlet around the white neck.
But was this Sheila? Could he take this sheet of paper to his friends in London and say, Here is the magical princess whom I hope to bring to you from the North, with all the glamour of the sea around her? He felt instinctively that there would be an awkward pause. The people would praise the handsome, frank, courageous head, and look upon the bit of red ribbon around the neck as an effective artistic touch. They would hand him back the paper with a compliment, and he would find himself in an agony of unrest because they had misunderstood the portrait, and seen nothing of the wonder that encompassed this Highland girl as if with a garment of mystery and dreams.
So he tore up portrait after portrait—more than one of which would have startled Ingram by its truth—and then, to prove to himself that he was not growing mad, he resolved to try a portrait of some other person. He drew a head of old Mackenzie in chalk, and was amazed at the rapidity and facility with which he executed the task. Then there could be no doubt as to the success of the likeness nor as to the effect of the picture. The King of Borva, with his heavy eyebrows, his aquiline nose, his keen gray eyes and flowing beard, offered a fine subject; and there was something really royal and massive and noble in the head that Lavender, well satisfied with his work, took down stairs one evening. Sheila was alone in the drawing-room, turning over some music.
“Miss Mackenzie,” he said, rather kindly, “would you look at this?”
Sheila turned around, and the sudden light of pleasure that leapt to her face was all the praise and all the assurance he wanted. But he had more than that. The girl was grateful to him beyond all the words she could utter; and when he asked her if she would accept the picture, she thanked him by taking his hand for a moment, and then she left the room to call in Ingram and her father. All the evening there was a singular look of happiness on her face. When she met Lavender’s eyes with hers there was a frank and friendly look of gratitude ready to reward him. When had he earned so much before by a simple sketch? Many and many a portrait, carefully executed and elaborately framed, had he presented to his lady friends in London, to receive from them a pretty note and a few words of thanks when next he called. Here with a rough chalk sketch he had awakened an amount of gratitude that almost surprised him, in the most beautiful and tender soul in this world; and had not this princess among women taken his hand for a moment as a childlike way of expressing her thanks, while her eyes spoke more than her lips? And the more he looked at those eyes, the more he grew to despair of ever being able to put down the magic of them in lines and colors.
At length, Duncan got the boat into the small creek at Callernish, and the party got out on the shore. As they were going up the steep path leading to the plain above, a young girl met them, who looked at them in rather a strange way. She had a fair, pretty, wondering face, with singularly high eyebrows, and clear, light blue eyes.
“How are you, Eily?” said Mackenzie, as he passed on with Ingram.
But Sheila, on making the same inquiry, shook hands with the girl, who smiled in a confidential way, and, coming quite close, nodded and pointed down to the water’s edge.
“Have you seen them to-day, Eily?” said Sheila, still holding the girl by the hands, and looking at the fair, pretty, strange face.
“It wass sa day before yesterday,” she answered, in a whisper, while a pleased smile appeared on her face, “and sey will be here sa night.”
“Good-bye, Eily; take care you don’t stay out at nightand catch cold, you know,” said Sheila; and then, with another little nod and a smile, the young girl went down the path.
“It is Eily of-the-Ghosts, as they call her,” said Sheila to Lavender as they went on; “the poor thing fancies she sees little people about the rocks, and watches for them. But she is very good and quiet, and she is not afraid of them, and she does no harm to any one. She does not belong to the Lewis—I think she is from Islay—but she sometimes comes to pay us a visit at Borva, and my papa is very kind to her.”
“Mr. Ingram does not appear to know her; I thought he was acquainted with every one in the island,” said Lavender.
“She was not here when he has been in the Lewis before,” said Sheila; “but Eily does not like to speak to strangers, and I do not think you could get her to speak to you if you tried.”
Lavender had paid but little attention to the “false men” of Callernish when first he saw them, but now he approached the long lines of big stones upon this lonely plateau with a new interest; for Sheila had talked to him about them many a time in Borva, and had asked his opinion about their origin and their age. Was the central circle of stones an altar, with the other series marking the approaches to it? Or, was it the grave of some great chieftain, with the remaining stones indicating the graves of his relations and friends? Or was it the commemoration of some battle in olden times, or the record of astronomical or geometrical discoveries, or a temple once devoted to serpent-worship, or what? Lavender, who knew absolutely nothing at all about the matter, was probably as well qualified as anybody else to answer these questions, but he forebore. The interest, however, that Sheila showed in such things he very rapidly acquired. When he came to see the rows of stones a second time he was much impressed by their position on this bit of hill overlooking the sea. He sat down on his camp-stool with the determination that, although he could not satisfy Sheila’s wistful questions, he would present her with some little sketch of these monuments and their surroundings, which might catch up something of the mysterious loneliness of the scene.
He would not, of course, have the picture as it then presented itself. The sun was glowing on the grass around him,and lighting up the tall, gray pillars of stone with a cheerful radiance. Over there the waters of Loch Roag were bright and blue, and beyond the lake the undulations of moorland were green and beautiful, and the mountains in the South grown pale as silver in the heat. Here was a pretty young lady, in a rough blue traveling dress and a hat and feather, who was engaged in picking up wild flowers from the warm heath. There was a gentleman from the office of the Board of Trade, who was sitting on the grass, nursing his knees and whistling. From time to time the chief figure in the foreground was an elderly gentleman, who evidently expected that he was going to be put into the picture, and who was occasionally dropping a cautious hint that he did not always wear this rough-and-ready sailor’s costume. Mackenzie was also most anxious to point out to the artist the names of the hills and districts lying to the south of Loch Roag, apparently with the hope that the sketch would have a certain topographical interest for future visitors.
No; Lavender was content at that moment to take down the outlines of the great stones and the configuration of the lake and hill beyond, but by and by he would give another sort of atmosphere to this wild scene. He would have rain and darkness spread over the island, with the low hills in the South grown desolate and remote, and the waters of the sea covered with gloom. No human figure should be visible on this remote plain, where these strange memorials had stood for centuries exposed to Western gales and the stillness of the Winter nights, and the awful silence of the stars. Would not Sheila, at least, understand the bleakness and desolation of the picture? Of course her father would like to have everything blue and green. He seemed a little disappointed when it was clear that no distant glimpse of Borva could be introduced into the sketch. But Sheila’s imagination would be captured by this sombre picture, and perhaps by and by in some other land, amid fairer scenes and in a more generous climate, she might be less inclined to hunger for the dark and melancholy North when she looked on this record of its gloom and sadness.
“Iss he going to put any people in the pictures?” said Mackenzie in a confidential whisper to Ingram.
Ingram got up from the grass, and said with a yawn, “I don’t know. If he does, it will be afterward. Suppose wego along to the wagonette and see if Duncan has brought everything up from the boat?”
The old man seemed rather unwilling to be cut out of this particular sketch, but he went, nevertheless; and Sheila, seeing the young man left alone, and thinking that not quite fair, went over to him and asked if she might be permitted to see as much as he had done.
Lavender shut up the book.
“No,” he said with a laugh, “you shall see it to-night. I have sufficient memoranda to work something out of by and by. Shall we have another look at the circle up there?”
He folded up and shouldered his camp-stool, and they walked up to the point at which the lines of the “mourners” converged. Perhaps he was moved by a great antiquarian curiosity; at all events, he showed a singular interest in the monuments, and talked to his companion about all the possible theories connected with such stones in a fashion that charmed her greatly. She was easily persuaded that the Callernish “Fir-Bhreige” were the most interesting relics in the world. He had seen Stonehenge, but Stonehenge was too scattered to be impressive. There was more mystery about the means by which the inhabitants of a small island could have hewn and carved and erected these blocks; there was, moreover, the mystery about the vanished population itself. Yes, he had been to Carnac also. He had driven down from Auray in a lumbering old trap, his coachman being unable to talk French. He had seen the half-cultivated plain on which there were rows and rows of small stones, scarcely to be distinguished from the stone walls of the adjoining farms. What was there impressive about such a sight when you went into a house and paid a franc to be shown the gold ornaments picked up about the place? Here, however, was a perfect series of those strange memorials, with the long lanes leading up to a circle, and the tallest of all the stones placed on the Western side of the circle, perhaps as the headstone of the buried chief. Look at the position, too—the silent hill, the waters of the sea-loch around it, and beyond that the desolation of miles of untenanted moorland. Sheila looked pleased that her companion, after coming so far, should have found something worth looking at in the Lewis.
“Does it not seem strange,” he said suddenly, “to think of young folks of the present day picking up wild flowersfrom among these old stones?” He was looking at a tiny bouquet which she had gathered.
“Will you take them?” she said, quite simply and naturally, offering him the flowers. “They may remind you some time of Callernish.”
He took the flowers and regarded them for a moment in silence, and then he said gently, “I do not think I shall want these to remind me of Callernish. I shall never forget our being here.”
At this moment, perhaps fortunately, Duncan appeared, and came along toward the young people with a basket in his hand.
“It wass Mr. Mackenzie will ask if ye will tek a glass o’ whisky, sir, and a bit o’ bread and cheese. And he wass sayin’ there was no hurry at all, and he will wait for you for two hours or half an hour whatever.”
“All right, Duncan; go back and tell him I have finished, and we shall be there directly. No, thank you, don’t take out the whisky—unless, Miss Mackenzie,” added the young man with a smile, “Duncan can persuade you.”
Duncan looked with amazement at the man who dared to joke about Miss Sheila taking whisky, and without waiting for any further commands indignantly shut the lid of the basket and walked off.
“I wonder, Miss Mackenzie,” said Lavender, as they went along the path down the hill—“I wonder what you would say if I happened to call you Sheila by mistake?”
“I should be glad if you did that. Every one calls me Sheila,” said the girl quietly enough.
“You would not be vexed?” he said, regarding her with a little surprise.
“No; why should I be vexed?” she answered; and she happened to look up, and he saw what a clear light of sincerity there was shining in her eyes.
“May I then call you Sheila?”
“Yes.”
“But—but—” he said, with a timidity and embarrassment of which she showed no trace whatever—“but people might think it strange, you know; and yet I should greatly like to call you Sheila; only, not before other people perhaps.”
“But why not?” she said, with her eyebrows just raised alittle. “Why should you wish to call me Sheila at one time and not at the other? It is no difference whatever, and every one calls me Sheila.”
Lavender was a little disappointed. He had hoped, when she consented in so friendly a manner to his calling her by any name he chose, that he could have established this little arrangement, which would have had about it something of the nature of a personal confidence. Sheila would evidently have none of that. Was it that she was really so simple and frank in her ways that she did not understand why there should be such a difference, and what it might imply, or was she well aware of everything he had been wishing, and able to assume this air of simplicity and ignorance with a perfect grace? Ingram, he reflected, would have said at once that to suspect Sheila of such duplicity was to insult her; but then Ingram was perhaps himself a trifle too easily imposed on, and he had notions about women, despite all his philosophical reading and such like, that a little more mingling in society might have caused him to alter. Frank Lavender confessed to himself that Sheila was either a miracle of ingenuousness or a thorough mistress of the art of assuming it. On the one hand, he considered it almost impossible for a woman to be so disingenuous; on the other hand, how could this girl have taught herself, in the solitude of a savage island, a species of histrionicism which women in London circles strove for years to acquire, and rarely acquired in any perfection? At all events, he said to himself, while he reserved his opinion on this point, he was not going to call Sheila, Sheila before folks who would know what that meant. Mr. Mackenzie was evidently a most irascible old gentleman. Goodness only knew what sort of law prevailed in these wild parts; and to be seized at midnight by a couple of brawny fishermen, to be carried down to a projecting ledge of rock! Had not Ingram already hinted that Mackenzie would straightway throw into Loch Roag the man who should offer to carry away Sheila from him?
But how could these doubts of Sheila’s sincerity last? He sat opposite her in the wagonette, and the perfect truth of her face, of her frank eyes and of her ready smile met him at every moment, whether he talked to her or to Ingram, or listened to old Mackenzie, who turned from time to time from the driving of the horses to inform the stranger of whathe saw around him. It was the most brilliant of mornings. The sun burned on the white road, on the green moorland, on the gray lichened rocks with their crimson patches of heather. As they drove by the curious convolutions of this rugged coast the sea that lay beyond these recurring bays and points was of a windy green, with here and there a streak of white, and the fresh breeze blowing across to them tempered the fierce heat of the sun. How cool, too, were those little fresh-water lakes they passed, the clear blue and white of them stirred into wavelets that moved the reeds and left air-bubbles about the half-submerged stones! Were not those wild geese over there, flapping in the water with their huge wings and taking no notice of the passing strangers? Lavender had never seen this lonely coast in times of gloom, with those little lakes becoming sombre pools, and the outline of the rocks beyond lost in the driving mist of the sea and the rain. It was altogether a bright and beautiful world he had got into, and there was in it but one woman, beautiful beyond his dreams. To doubt her was to doubt all women. When he looked at her he forgot the caution and distrust and sardonic self-complacency his Southern training had given him. He believed, and the world seemed to be filled with a new light.