"Better give them a couple of bottles of beer for their dinner," suggests Queen T., who is no lover of whiskey.
But do you think the Laird is to be put off his story by any such suggestion? We can see by his face that he has an anecdote to fire off; is it not apparent that his mention of whiskey was made with a purpose?
"There was a real good one," says he – and the laughter is already twinkling in his eyes, "about the man that was apologising before his family for having been drinking whiskey with some friends. 'Ay,' says he, 'they just held me and forced it down my throat.' Then says his son – a little chap about ten – says he, 'I think I could ha' held ye mysel', feyther' – ho! ho! ho!' says he, 'I think I could ha' held ye mysel', feyther;'" and the Laird laughed, and laughed again, till the tears came into his eyes. We could see that he was still internally laughing at that good one when we went below for luncheon.
At luncheon, too, the Laird quite made up his feud with Angus Sutherland, for he had a great many other good ones to tell about whiskey and whiskey drinking; and he liked a sympathetic audience. But this general merriment was suddenly dashed by an ominous suggestion coming from our young Doctor. Why, he asked, should we go on fighting against these northerly winds? Why not turn and run before them?
"Then you want to leave us, Angus," said his hostess reproachfully.
"Oh, no," he said, and with some colour in his face. "I don't want to go, but I fear I must very soon now. However, I did not make that suggestion on my own account; if I were pressed for time, I could get somewhere where I could catch the Clansman."
Mary Avon looked down, saying nothing.
"You would not leave the ship like that," says his hostess. "You would not run away, surely? Rather than that we will turn at once. Where are we now?"
"If the breeze lasts, we will get over to Uist, to Loch na Maddy, this evening, but you must not think of altering your plans on my account. I made the suggestion because of what Captain John was saying."
"Very well," says our Admiral of the Fleet, taking no heed of properly constituted authority. "Suppose we set out on our return voyage to-morrow morning, going round the other side of Skye for a change. But you know, Angus, it is not fair of you to run away when you say yourself there is nothing particular calls you to London."
"Oh," says he, "I am not going to London just yet. I am going to Banff, to see my father. There is an uncle of mine, too, on a visit to the manse."
"Then you will be coming south again?"
"Yes."
"Then why not come another cruise with us on your way back?"
It was not like this hard-headed young Doctor to appear so embarrassed.
"That is what I should like very much myself," he stammered, "if – if I were not in the way of your other arrangements."
"We shall make no other arrangements," says the other definitely. "Now that is a promise, mind. No drawing back. Mary will put it down in writing, and hold you to it."
Mary Avon had not looked up all this time.
"You should not press Dr. Sutherland too much," she says shyly; "perhaps he has other friends he would like to see before leaving Scotland."
The hypocrite! Did she want to make Angus Sutherland burst a blood-vessel in protesting that of all the excursions he had made in his life this would be to him for ever the most memorable; and that a repetition or extension of it was a delight in the future almost too great to think of? However, she seemed pleased that he spoke so warmly, and she did not attempt to contradict him. If he had really enjoyed all this rambling idleness, it would no doubt the better fit him for his work in the great capital.
We beat in to Loch na Maddy – that is, the Lake of the Dogs – in the quiet evening; and the rather commonplace low-lying hills, and the plain houses of the remote little village, looked beautiful enough under the glow of the western skies. And we went ashore, and walked inland for a space, through an intricate network of lagoons inbranching from the sea; and we saw the trout leaping and making circles on the gold-red pools, and watched the herons rising from their fishing and winging their slow flight across the silent lakes.
And it was a beautiful night, too, and we had a little singing on deck. Perhaps there was an under-current of regret in the knowledge that now – for this voyage, at least – we had touched our farthest point. To-morrow we were to set out again for the south.
CHAPTER XIII
FERDINAND AND MIRANDA
The wind was laughing at Angus Sutherland. All the time we had been sailing north it had blown from the north; how that we turned our faces eastward, it wheeled round to the east, as if it would imprison him for ever in this floating home.
"You would fain get away" – this was the mocking sound that one of us seemed to hear in those light airs of the morning that blew along the white canvas – "the world calls; ambition, fame, the eagerness of rivalry, the spell that science throws over her disciples, all these are powerful, and they draw you, and you would fain get away. But the hand of the wind is uplifted against you; you may fret as you will, but you are not round Ru Hunish yet!"
And perhaps the imaginative small creature who heard these strange things in the light breeze against which we were fighting our way across the Minch may have been forming her own plans. Angus Sutherland, she used often to say, wanted humanising. He was too proud and scornful in the pride of his knowledge; the gentle hand of a woman was needed to lead him into more tractable ways. And then this Mary Avon, with her dexterous, nimble woman's wit, and her indomitable courage, and her life and spirit, and abounding cheerfulness; would she not be a splendid companion for him during his long and hard struggle? This born match-maker had long ago thrown away any notion about the Laird transferring our singing-bird to Denny-mains. She had almost forgotten about the project of bringing Howard Smith, the Laird's nephew, and half-compelling him to marry Mary Avon: that was preposterous on the face of it. But she had grown accustomed, during those long days of tranquil idleness, to see our young Doctor and Mary Avon together, cut off from all the distractions of the world, a new Paul and Virginia. Why – she may have asked herself – should not these two solitary waifs, thus thrown by chance together on the wide ocean of existence, why should they not cling to each other and strengthen each other in the coming days of trial and storm? The strange, pathetic, phantasmal farce of life is brief; they cannot seize it and hold it, and shape it to their own ends; they know not whence it comes, or whither it goes; but while the brief, strange thing lasts, they can grasp each other's hand, and make sure – amid all the unknown things around them, the mountains, and the wide seas, and the stars – of some common, humble, human sympathy. It is so natural to grasp the hand of another in the presence of something vast and unknown.
The rest of us, at all events, have no time for such vague dreams and reveries. There is no idleness on board the White Dove out here on the shining deep. Dr. Sutherland has rigged up for himself a sort of gymnasium by putting a rope across the shrouds to the peak halyards; and on this rather elastic cross-bar he is taking his morning exercise by going through a series of performances, no doubt picked up in Germany. Miss Avon is busy with a sketch of the long headland running out to Vaternish Point; though, indeed, this smooth Atlantic roll makes it difficult for her to keep her feet, and introduces a certain amount of haphazard into her handiwork. The Laird has brought on deck a formidable portfolio of papers, no doubt relating to the public affairs of Strathgovan; and has put on his gold spectacles; and has got his pencil in hand. Master Fred is re-arranging the cabins; the mistress of the yacht is looking after her flowers. And then is heard the voice of John of Skye – "Stand by, boys!" and "Bout ship!" and the helm goes down, and the jib and foresail flutter and tear at the blocks and sheets, and then the sails gently fill, and the White Dove is away on another tack.
"Well, I give in," says Mary Avon, at last, as a heavier lurch than usual threatens to throw her and her easel together into the scuppers. "It is no use."
"I thought you never gave in, Mary," says our Admiral, whose head has appeared again at the top of the companion-stairs.
"I wonder who could paint like this," says Miss Avon, indignantly. And indeed she is trussed up like a fowl, with one arm round one of the gig davits.
"Turner was lashed to the mast of a vessel in order to see a storm," says Queen T.
"But not to paint," retorts the other. "Besides, I am not Turner. Besides, I am tired."
By this time, of course, Angus Sutherland has come to her help; and removes her easel and what not for her; and fetches her a deck-chair.
"Would you like to play chess?" says he.
"Oh, yes," she answers dutifully, "if you think the pieces will stay on the board."
"Draughts will be safer," says he, and therewith he plunges below, and fetches up the squared board.
And so, on this beautiful summer day, with the shining seas around them, and a cool breeze tempering the heat of the sun, Ferdinand and Miranda set to work. And it was a pretty sight to see them – her soft dark eyes so full of an anxious care to acquit herself well; his robust, hard, fresh-coloured face full of a sort of good-natured forbearance. But nevertheless it was a strange game. All Scotchmen are supposed to play draughts; and one brought up in a manse is almost of necessity a good player. But one astonished onlooker began to perceive that, whereas Mary Avon played but indifferently, her opponent played with a blindness that was quite remarkable. She had a very pretty, small, white hand; was he looking at that that he did not, on one occasion, see how he could have taken three pieces and crowned his man all at one fell swoop? And then is it considered incumbent on a draught-player to inform his opponent of what would be a better move on the part of the latter? However that may be, true it is that, by dint of much advice, opportune blindness, and atrocious bad play, the Doctor managed to get the game ended in a draw.
"Dear me," said Mary Avon, "I never thought I should have had a chance. The Scotch are such good draught-players."
"But you play remarkably well," said he – and there was no blush of shame on his face.
Draughts and luncheon carry us on to the afternoon; and still the light breeze holds out; and we get nearer and nearer to the most northerly points of Skye. And as the evening draws on, we can now make out the hilly line of Ross-shire – a pale rose-colour in the far east; and nearer at hand is the Skye coast, with the warm sunlight touching on the ruins of Duntulme, where Donald Gorm Mor fed his imprisoned nephew on salt beef, and then lowered to him an empty cup – mocking him before he died; and then in the west the mountains of Harris, a dark purple against the clear lemon-golden glow. But as night draws on, behold! the wind dies away altogether; and we lie becalmed on a lilac-and-silver sea, with some rocky islands over there grown into a strange intense green in the clear twilight.
Down with the gig, then, John of Skye! – and hurry in all our rods, and lines, and the occult entrapping inventions of our patriarch of Denny-mains. We have no scruple about leaving the yacht in mid-ocean, in charge of the steward only. The clear twilight shines in the sky; there is not a ripple on the sea; only the long Atlantic swell that we can hear breaking far away on the rocks. And surely such calms are infrequent in the Minch; and surely these lonely rocks can have been visited but seldom by passing voyagers?
Yet the great rollers – as we near the forbidding shores – break with an ominous thunder on the projecting points and reefs. The Doctor insists on getting closer and closer – he knows where the big lithe are likely to be found – and the men, although they keep a watchful eye about them, obey. And then – it is Mary Avon who first calls out – and behold! her rod is suddenly dragged down – the point is hauled below the water – agony and alarm are on her face.
"Here – take it – take it!" she calls out. "The rod will be broken."
"Not a bit," the Doctor calls out. "Give him the butt hard! Never mind the rod! Haul away!"
And indeed by this time everybody was alternately calling and hauling; and John of Skye, attending to the rods of the two ladies, had scarcely time to disengage the big fish, and smooth the flies again; and the Laird was declaring that these lithe fight as hard as a twenty-pound salmon. What did we care about those needles and points of black rock that every two or three seconds showed their teeth through the breaking white surf?
"Keep her close in, boys!" Angus Sutherland cried. "We shall have a fine pickling to-morrow."
Then one fish, stronger or bigger than his fellows, pulls the rod clean out of Mary Avon's hands.
"Well, I have done it this time," she says.
"Not a bit!" her companion cries. "Up all lines! Back now, lads – gently!"
And as the stern of the boat is shoved over the great glassy billows, behold! a thin dark line occasionally visible – the end of the lost rod! Then there is a swoop on the part of our Doctor; he has both his hands on the butt; there elapses a minute or two of fighting between man and fish; and then we can see below the boat the wan gleam of the captured animal as it comes to the surface in slow circles. Hurrah! a seven-pounder! John of Skye chuckles to himself as he grasps the big lithe.
"Oh, ay!" he says, "the young leddy knows ferry well when to throw away the rod. It is a gran' good thing to throw away the rod when there will be a big fish. Ay, ay, it iss a good fish."
But the brutes that fought hardest of all were the dog-fish – the snakes of the sea; and there was a sort of holy Archangelic joy on the face of John of Skye when he seized a lump of stick to fell these hideous creatures before flinging them back into the water again. And yet why should they have been killed on account of their snake-like eyes and their cruel mouth? The human race did not rise and extirpate Frederick Smethurst because he was ill-favoured.
By half-past ten we had secured a good cargo of fish; and then we set out for the yacht. The clear twilight was still shining above the Harris hills; but there was a dusky shadow along the Outer Hebrides, where the orange ray of Scalpa light was shining; and there was dusk in the south, so that the yacht had become invisible altogether. It was a long pull back; for the White Dove had been carried far by the ebb tide. When we found her, she looked like a tall grey ghost in the gathering darkness; and no light had as yet been put up; but all the same we had a laughing welcome from Master Fred, who was glad to have the fresh fish wherewith to supplement our frugal meals.
Then the next morning – when we got up and looked around – we were in the same place! And the glass would not fall; and the blue skies kept blue; and we had to encounter still another day of dreamy idleness.
"The weather is conspiring against you, Angus," our sovereign lady said, with a smile. "And you know you cannot run away from the yacht: it would be so cowardly to take the steamer."
"Well, indeed," said he, "it is the first time in my life that I have found absolute idleness enjoyable; and I am not so very anxious it should end. Somehow, though, I fear we are too well off. When we get back to the region of letters and telegrams, don't you think we shall have to pay for all this selfish happiness?"
"Then why should we go back?" she says lightly. "Why not make a compact to forsake the world altogether, and live all our life on board the White Dove?"
Somehow, his eyes wandered to Mary Avon; and he said – rather absently —
"I, for one, should like it well enough; if it were only possible."
"No, no," says the Laird, brusquely, "that will no do at all. It was never intended that people should go and live for themselves like that. Ye have your duties to the nation and to the laws that protect ye. When I left Denny-mains I told my brother Commissioners that what I could do when I was away to further the business of the Burgh I would do; and I have entered most minutely into several matters of great importance. And that is why I am anxious to get to Portree. I expect most important letters there."
Portree! Our whereabouts on the chart last night was marked between 45 and 46 fathoms W.S.W. from some nameless rocks; and here, as far as we can make out, we are still between these mystical numbers. What can we do but chat, and read, and play draughts, and twirl round a rope, and ascend to the cross-trees to look out for a breeze, and watch and listen to the animal-life around us?
"I do think," says Mary Avon to her hostess, "the calling of those divers is the softest and most musical sound I ever heard; perhaps because it is associated with so many beautiful places. Just fancy, now, if you were suddenly to hear a diver symphony beginning in an opera – if all the falsetto recitative and the blare of the trumpets were to stop – and if you were to hear the violins and flutes beginning, quite low and soft, a diver symphony, would you not think of the Hebrides, and the White Dove, and the long summer days? In the winter, you know, in London, I fancy we should go once or twice to see that opera!"
"I have never been to an opera," remarks the Laird, quite impervious to Mary Avon's tender enthusiasm. "I am told it is a fantastic exhibeetion."
One incident of that day was the appearance of a new monster of the deep, which approached quite close to the hull of the White Dove. Leaning over the rail we could see him clearly in the clear water – a beautiful, golden, submarine insect, with a conical body like that of a land-spider, and six or eight slender legs, by the incurving of which he slowly propelled himself through the water. As we were perfectly convinced that no one had ever been in such dead calms in the Minch before, and had lain for twenty-four hours in the neighbourhood of 45 and 46, we took it for granted that this was a new animal. In the temporary absence of our F.R.S., the Laird was bold enough to name it the Arachne Mary-Avonensis; but did not seek to capture it. It went on its golden way.
But we were not to linger for ever in these northern seas, surrounded by perpetual summer calms – however beautiful the prospect might be to a young man fallen away, for the moment, from his high ambitions. Whatever summons from the far world might be awaiting us at Portree was soon to be served upon us. In the afternoon a slight breeze sprung up that gently carried us away past Ru Hunish, and round by Eilean Trodda, and down by Altavaig. The grey-green basaltic cliffs of the Skye coast were now in shadow; but the strong sunlight beat on the grassy ledges above; and there was a distant roar of water along the rocks. This other throbbing sound, too: surely that must be some steamer far away on the other side of Rona?
The sunset deepened. Darker and darker grew the shadows in the great mountains above us. We heard the sea along the solitary shores.
The stars came out in the twilight: they seemed clearest just over the black mountains. In the silence there was the sound of a waterfall somewhere – in among those dark cliffs. Then our side-lights were put up; and we sate on deck; and Mary Avon, nestling close to her friend, was persuaded to sing for her
Yestreen the Queen had four Maries
– just as if she had never heard the song before. The hours went by; Angus Sutherland was talking in a slow, earnest, desultory fashion; and surely he must have been conscious that one heart there at least was eagerly and silently listening to him. The dawn was near at hand when finally we consented to go below.
What time of the morning was it that we heard John of Skye call out "Six or seven fathoms 'll do?" We knew at least that we had got into harbour; and that the first golden glow of the daybreak was streaming through the skylights of the saloon. We had returned from the wilds to the claims and the cares of civilisation; if there was any message to us, for good or for evil, from the distant world we had left for so long, it was now waiting for us on shore.