CHAPTER XVI.

THROUGH THE DARK

*WHITE WINGS:*

*A Yachting Romance.*

*CHAPTER I.*

*ON THE QUAY.*

A murmur runs through the crowd; the various idlers grow alert; all eyes

are suddenly turned to the south. And there, far away over the green

headland, a small tuft of brown smoke appears, rising into the golden

glow of the afternoon, and we know that by and by we shall see the great

steamer with her scarlet funnels come sailing round the point. The

Laird of Denny-mains assumes an air of still further importance; he

pulls his frock-coat tight at the waist; he adjusts his black satin

necktie; his tall, white, stiff collar seems more rigid and white than

ever. He has heard of the wonderful stranger; and he knows that now she

is drawing near.

Heard of her? He has heard of nothing else since ever he came to us in

these northern wilds. For the mistress of this household--with all her

domineering ways and her fits of majestic temper--has a love for her

intimate girl-friends far passing the love of men; especially when the

young ladies are obedient, and gentle, and ready to pay to her matronly

dignity the compliment of a respectful awe. And this particular friend

who is now coming to us: what has not the Laird heard about her during

these past few days?--of her high courage, her resolute unselfishness,

her splendid cheerfulness? "A singing-bird in the house," that was one

of the phrases used, "in wet weather or fine." And then the

enthusiastic friend muddled her metaphors somehow, and gave the puzzled

Laird to understand that the presence of this young lady in a house was

like having sweet-brier about the rooms. No wonder he put on his

highest and stiffest collar before he marched grandly down with us to

the quay.

"And does she not deserve a long holiday sir?" says the Laird's hostess

to him, as together they watch for the steamer coming round the point.

"Just fancy! Two months' attendance on that old woman, who was her

mother's nurse. Two months in a sick-room, without a soul to break the

monotony of it. And the girl living in a strange town all by herself!"

"Ay; and in such a town as Edinburgh," remarks the Laird, with great

compassion. His own property lies just outside Glasgow.

"Dear me," says he, "what must a young English leddy have thought of our

Scotch way of speech when she heard they poor Edinburgh bodies and their

yaumering sing-song? Not that I quarrel with any people for having an

accent in their way of speaking; they have that in all parts of England

as well as in Scotland--in Yorkshire, and Somersetshire, and what not;

and even in London itself there is a way of speech that is quite

recognisable to a stranger. But I have often thought that there was

less trace of accent about Glesca and the west of Scotland than in any

other part; in fact, ah have often been taken for an Englishman maself."

"Indeed!" says this gentle creature standing by him; and her upturned

eyes are full of an innocent belief. You would swear she was meditating

on summoning instantly her boys from Epsom College that they might

acquire a pure accent--or get rid of all accent--on the banks of the

Clyde.

"Yes," say the Laird, with a decision almost amounting to enthusiasm,

"it is a grand inheritance that we in the south of Scotland are

preserving for you English people; and you know little of it. You do

not know that we are preserving the English language for you as it was

spoken centuries ago, and as you find it in your oldest writings.

Scotticisms! Why, if ye were to read the prose of Mandeville or Wyclif,

or the poetry of Robert of Brunne or Langdale, ye would find that our

Scotticisms were the very pith and marrow of the English language. Ay;

it is so."

The innocent eyes express such profound interest that the Laird of

Denny-mains almost forgets about the coming steamer, so anxious is he to

crush us with a display of his erudition.

"It is just remarkable," he says, "that your dictionaries should put

down, as obsolete, words that are in common use all over the south of

Scotland, where, as I say, the old Northumbrian English is preserved in

its purity; and that ye should have learned people hunting up in Chaucer

or Gower for the very speech that they might hear among the bits o'

weans running about the Gallowgate or the Broomielaw. '_Wha's acht

ye?_' you say to one of them; and you think you are talking Scotch. No,

no; _acht_ is only the old English for possession: isn't '_Wha's acht

ye?_' shorter and pithier than '_To whom do you belong?_'

"Oh, certainly!" says the meek disciple: the recall of the boys from

Surrey is obviously decided on.

"And _speir_ for _inquire_; and _ferly_ for _wonderful_; and _tyne_ for

_lose_; and _fey_ for _about to die_; and _reek_ for _smoke_; and

_menseful_ for _becoming_; and _belyve_, and _fere_, and _biggan_, and

such words. Ye call them Scotch? Oh, no, ma'am; they are English; ye

find them in all the old English writers; and they are the best of

English too; a great deal better than the Frenchified stuff that your

southern English has become."

Not for worlds would the Laird have wounded the patriotic sensitiveness

of this gentle friend of his from the South; but indeed, she had surely

nothing to complain of in his insisting to an Englishwoman on the value

of thorough English?

"I thought," says she, demurely, "that the Scotch had a good many French

words in it."

The Laird pretends not to hear: he is so deeply interested in the

steamer which is now coming over the smooth waters of the bay. But,

having announced that there are a great many people on board, he returns

to his discourse.

"Ah'm sure of this, too," says he, "that in the matter of pronunciation

the Lowland Scotch have preserved the best English--you can see that

_faither_, and _twelmonth_, and _twa_, and such words are nearer the

original Anglo-Saxon----"

His hearers had been taught to shudder at the phrase

Anglo-Saxon--without exactly knowing why. But who could withstand the

authority of the Laird? Moreover, we see relief drawing near; the

steamer's paddles are throbbing in the still afternoon.

"If ye turn to _Piers the Plowman_," continues the indefatigable

Denny-mains, "ye will find Langdale writing--

And a fewe Cruddes and Crayme.

Why, it is the familiar phrase of our Scotch children!--Do ye think they

would say _curds_? And then, _fewe_. I am not sure, but I imagine we

Scotch are only making use of old English when we make certain forms of

food plural. We say 'a few broth;' we speak of porridge as 'they.'

Perhaps that is a survival, too, eh?"

"Oh, yes, certainly. But please mind the ropes, sir," observes his

humble pupil, careful of her master's physical safety. For at this

moment the steamer is slowing into the quay; and the men have the ropes

ready to fling ashore.

"Not," remarks the Laird, prudently backing away from the edge of the

pier, "that I would say anything of these matters to your young English

friend; certainly not. No doubt she prefers the southern English she

has been accustomed to. But, bless me! just to think that she should

judge of our Scotch tongue by the way they Edinburgh bodies speak!"

"It is sad, is it not?" remarks his companion--but all her attention is

now fixed on the crowd of people swarming to the side of the steamer.

"And, indeed," the Laird explains, to close the subject, "it is only a

hobby of mine--only a hobby. Ye may have noticed that I do not use

those words in my own speech, though I value them. No, I will not force

any Scotch on the young leddy. As ah say, ah have often been taken for

an Englishman maself, both at home and abroad."

And now--and now--the great steamer is in at the quay; the gangways are

run over; there is a thronging up the paddle-boxes; and eager faces on

shore scan equally eager faces on board--each pair of eyes looking for

that other pair of eyes to flash a glad recognition. And where is

she--the flower of womankind--the possessor of all virtue and grace and

courage--the wonder of the world? The Laird shares in our excitement.

He, too, scans the crowd eagerly. He submits to be hustled by the

porters; he hears nothing of the roaring of the steam; for is she not

coming ashore at last? And we know--or guess--that he is looking out

for some splendid creature--some Boadicea, with stately tread and

imperious mien--some Jephtha's daughter, with proud death in her

eyes--some Rosamond of our modern days, with a glory of loveliness on

her face and hair. And we know that the master who has been lecturing

us for half-an-hour on our disgraceful neglect of pure English will not

shock the sensitive Southern ear by any harsh accent of the North; but

will address her in beautiful and courtly strains, in tones such as

Edinburgh never knew. Where is the queen of womankind, amid all this

commonplace, hurrying, loquacious crowd?

Forthwith the Laird, with a quick amazement in his eyes, sees a small

and insignificant person--he only catches a glimpse of a black dress and

a white face--suddenly clasped round in the warm embrace of her friend.

He stares for a second; and then he exclaims--apparently to himself:--

"Dear me! What a shilpit bit thing!"

_Pale--slight--delicate--tiny_: surely such a master of idiomatic

English cannot have forgotten the existence of these words. But this is

all he cries to himself, in his surprise and wonder:--

"Dear me! What a shilpit bit thing!"

*CHAPTER II.*

*MARY AVON.*

The bright, frank laugh of her face!--the friendly, unhesitating,

affectionate look in those soft black eyes! He forgot all about

Rosamond and Boadicea when he was presented to this "shilpit" person.

And when, instead of the usual ceremony of introduction, she bravely put

her hand in his, and said she had often heard of him from their common

friend, he did not notice that she was rather plain. He did not even

stop to consider in what degree her Southern accent might be improved by

residence amongst the preservers of pure English. He was anxious to

know if she was not greatly tired. He hoped the sea had been smooth as

the steamer came past Easdale. And her luggage--should he look after

her luggage for her?

But Miss Avon was an expert traveller, and quite competent to look after

her own luggage. Even as he spoke, it was being hoisted on to the

waggonette.

"You will let me drive?" says she, eying critically the two shaggy,

farm-looking animals.

"Indeed I shall do nothing of the kind," says her hostess, promptly.

But there was no disappointment at all on her face as we drove away

through the golden evening--by the side of the murmuring shore, past the

overhanging fir-wood, up and across the high land commanding a view of

the wide western seas. There was instead a look of such intense delight

that we knew, however silent the lips might be, that the bird-soul was

singing within. Everything charmed her--the cool, sweet air, the scent

of the sea-weed, the glow on the mountains out there in the west. And

as she chattered her delight to us--like a bird escaped from its prison

and glad to get into the sunlight and free air again--the Laird sate

mute and listened. He watched the frank, bright, expressive face. He

followed and responded to her every mood--with a sort of fond paternal

indulgence that almost prompted him to take her hand. When she smiled,

he laughed. When she talked seriously, he looked concerned. He was

entirely forgetting that she was a "shilpit bit thing;" and he would

have admitted that the Southern way of speaking English--although, no

doubt, fallen away from the traditions of the Northumbrian dialect--had,

after all, a certain music in it that made it pleasant to the ear.

Up the hill, then, with a flourish for the last!--the dust rolling away

in clouds behind us--the view over the Atlantic widening as we ascend.

And here is Castle Osprey, as we have dubbed the place, with its wide

open door, and its walls half hidden with tree-fuchsias, and its great

rose-garden. Had Fair Rosamond herself come to Castle Osprey that

evening, she could not have been waited on with greater solicitude than

the Laird showed in assisting this "shilpit bit thing" to

alight--though, indeed there was a slight stumble, of which no one took

any notice at the time. He busied himself with her luggage quite

unnecessarily. He suggested a cup of tea, though it wanted but fifteen

minutes to dinner-time. He assured her that the glass was rising--which

was not the case. And when she was being hurried off to her own room to

prepare for dinner--by one who rules her household with a rod of

iron--he had the effrontery to tell her to take her own time: dinner

could wait. The man actually proposed to keep dinner waiting--in Castle

Osprey.

That this was love at first sight, who could doubt? And perhaps the

nimble brain of one who was at this moment hurriedly dressing in her own

room--and whom nature has constituted an indefatigable matchmaker--may

have been considering whether this rich old bachelor might not marry,

after all. And if he were to marry, why should not he marry the young

lady in whom he seemed to have taken so sudden and warm an interest? As

for her: Mary Avon was now two or three-and-twenty; she was not likely

to prove attractive to young men; her small fortune was scarcely worth

considering; she was almost alone in the world. Older men had married

younger women. The Laird had no immediate relative to inherit

Denny-mains and his very substantial fortune. And would they not see

plenty of each other on board the yacht?

But in her heart of hearts the schemer knew better. She knew that the

romance-chapter in the Laird's life--and a bitter chapter it was--had

been finished and closed and put away many and many a year ago. She

knew how the great disappointment of his life had failed to sour him;

how he was ready to share among friends and companions the large and

generous heart that had been for a time laid at the feet of a jilt; how

his keen and active interest, that might have been confined to his

children and his children's children, was now devoted to a hundred

things--the planting at Denny-mains, the great heresy case, the

patronage of young artists, even the preservation of pure English, and

what not. And that fortunate young gentleman--ostensibly his

nephew--whom he had sent to Harrow and to Cambridge, who was now living

a very easy life in the Middle Temple, and who would no doubt come in

for Denny-mains? Well, we knew a little about that young man, too. We

knew why the Laird, when he found that both the boy's father and mother

were dead, adopted him, and educated him, and got him to call him uncle.

He had taken under his care the son of the woman who had jilted him

five-and-thirty years ago; the lad had his mother's eyes.

And now we are assembled in the drawing-room--all except the new guest;

and the glow of the sunset is shining in at the open windows. The Laird

is eagerly proving to us that the change from the cold east winds of

Edinburgh to the warm westerly winds of the Highlands must make an

immediate change in the young lady's face--and declaring that she ought

to go on board the yacht at once---and asserting that the ladies' cabin

on board the _White Dove_ is the most beautiful little cabin he ever

saw--when----

When, behold! at the open door--meeting the glow of the

sunshine--appears a figure--dressed all in black velvet, plain and

unadorned but for a broad belt of gold fringe that comes round the neck

and crosses the bosom. And above that again is a lot of white muslin

stuff, on which the small, shapely, smooth-dressed head seems gently to

rest. The plain black velvet dress gives a certain importance and

substantiality to the otherwise slight figure; the broad fringe of gold

glints and gleams as she moves towards us; but who can even think of

these things when he meets the brave glance of Mary Avon's eyes? She

was humming, as she came down the stair--

_O think na lang, lassie, though I gang awa;_

_For I'll come and see ye, in spite o' them a',_

--we might have known it was the bird-soul come among us.

Now the manner in which the Laird of Denny-mains set about capturing the

affections of this innocent young thing--as he sate opposite her at

dinner--would have merited severe reproof in one of less mature age; and

might, indeed, have been followed by serious consequences but for the

very decided manner in which Miss Avon showed that she could take care

of herself. Whoever heard Mary Avon laugh would have been assured. And

she did laugh a good deal; for the Laird, determined to amuse her, was

relating a series of anecdotes which he called "good ones," and which

seemed to have afforded great enjoyment to the people of the south of

Scotland during the last century or so. There was in especial a

Highland steward of a steamer about whom a vast number of these stories

was told; and if the point was at times rather difficult to catch, who

could fail to be tickled by the Laird's own and obvious enjoyment?

"There was another good one, Miss Avon," he would say; and then the bare

memory of the great facetiousness of the anecdote would break out in

such half-suppressed guffaws as altogether to stop the current of the

narrative. Miss Avon laughed--we could not quite tell whether it was at

the Highland steward or the Laird--until the tears ran down her checks.

Dinner was scarcely thought of. It was a disgraceful exhibition.

"There was another good one about Homesh," said the Laird, vainly

endeavouring to suppress his laughter. "He came up on deck one

enormously hot day, and looked ashore, and saw some cattle standing

knee-deep in a pool of water. Says he--ha! ha! ha!--ho! ho! ho!--says

he---says he--'_A wish a wass a stot!_'--he! he! he!--ho! ho! ho!"

Of course we all laughed heartily, and Mary Avon more than any of us;

but if she had gone down on her knees and sworn that she knew what the

point of the story was, we should not have believed her. But the Laird

was delighted. He went on with his good ones. The mythical Homesh and

his idiotic adventures became portentous. The very servants could

scarcely carry the dishes straight.

But in the midst of it all the Laird suddenly let his knife and fork

drop on his plate, and stared. Then he quickly exclaimed--

"Bless me! lassie!"

We saw in a second what had occasioned his alarm. The girl's face had

become ghastly white; and she was almost falling away from her chair

when her hostess, who happened to spring to her feet first, caught her,

and held her, and called for water. What could it mean? Mary Avon was

not of the sighing and fainting fraternity.

And presently she came to herself--and faintly making apologies, would

go from the room. It was her ankle, she murmured--with the face still

white from pain. But when she tried to rise, she fell back again: the

agony was too great. And so we had to carry her.

About ten minutes thereafter the mistress of the house came back to the

Laird, who had been sitting by himself, in great concern.

"That girl! that girl!" she exclaims--and one might almost imagine there

are tears in her eyes. "Can you fancy such a thing! She twists her

ankle in getting down from the waggonette--brings back the old

sprain--perhaps lames herself for life--and, in spite of the pain, sits

here laughing and joking, so that she may not spoil our first evening

together! Did you ever hear of such a thing! Sitting here laughing,

with her ankle swelled so that I had to cut the boot off!"

"Gracious me!" says the Laird; "is it as bad as that?"

"And if she should become permanently lame--why--why----"

But was she going to make an appeal direct to the owner of Denny-mains?

If the younger men were not likely to marry a lame little white-faced

girl, that was none of his business. The Laird's marrying days had

departed five-and-thirty years before.

However, we had to finish our dinner, somehow, in consideration to our

elder guest. And then the surgeon came; and bound up the ankle hard and

fast; and Miss Avon, with a thousand meek apologies for being so stupid,

declared again and again that her foot would be all right in the

morning, and that we must get ready to start. And when her friend

assured her that this preliminary canter of the yacht might just as well

be put off for a few days--until, for example, that young doctor from

Edinburgh came who had been invited to go a proper cruise with us--her

distress was so great that we had to promise to start next day

punctually at ten. So she sent us down again to amuse the Laird.

But hark! what is this we hear just as Denny-mains is having his whisky

and hot water brought in? It is a gay voice humming on the stairs--

_By the margin of fair Zuerich's waters._

"That girl!" cries her hostess angrily, as she jumps to her feet.

The door opens; and here is Mary Avon, with calm self-possession, making

her way to a chair.

"I knew you wouldn't believe me," she says coolly, "if I did not come

down. I tell you my foot is as well as may be; and Dot-and-carry-one

will get down to the yacht in the morning as easily as any of you. And

that last story about Homesh," she says to the Laird, with a smile in

the soft black eyes that must have made his heart jump. "Really, sir,

you must tell me the ending of that story; it was so stupid of me!"

"Shilpit" she may have been; but the Laird, for one, was beginning to

believe that this girl had the courage and nerve of a dozen men.

*CHAPTER III.*

*UNDER WAY.*

The first eager glance out on this brilliant and beautiful morning; and

behold! it is all a wonder of blue seas and blue skies that we find

before us, with Lismore lying golden-green in the sunlight, and the

great mountains of Mull and Morven shining with the pale etherial

colours of the dawn. And what are the rhymes that are ringing through

one's brain--the echo perchance of something heard far away among the

islands--the islands that await our coming in the west?--

_O land of red heather!_

_O land of wild weather,_

_And the cry of the waves, and the laugh of the breeze!_

_O love, now, together_

_Through the wind and wild weather_

_We spread our while sails to encounter the seas!_

Up and out, laggards, now; and hoist this big red and blue and white

thing up to the head of the tall pole that the lads far below may know

to send the gig ashore for us! And there, on the ruffled blue waters of

the bay, behold! the noble _White Dove_, with her great mainsail, and

mizzen, and jib, all set and glowing in the sun; and the scarlet caps of

the men are like points of fire in this fair blue picture; and the red

ensign is fluttering in the light north-westerly breeze. Breakfast is

hurried over; and a small person who has a passion for flowers is

dashing hither and thither in the garden until she has amassed an armful

of our old familiar friends--abundant roses, fuchsias, heart's-ease,

various coloured columbine, and masses of southernwood to scent our

floating saloon; the waggonette is at the door, to take our invalid down

to the landing-slip; and the Laird has discarded his dignified costume,

and appears in a shooting-coat and a vast gray wide-awake. As for Mary

Avon, she is laughing, chatting, singing, here, there, and

everywhere--giving us to understand that a sprained ankle is rather a

pleasure than otherwise, and a great assistance in walking; until the

Laird pounces upon her--as one might pounce on a butterfly--and

imprisons her in the waggonette, with many a serious warning about her

imprudence. There let her sing to herself as she likes--amid the wild

confusion of things forgotten till the last moment and thrust upon us

just as we start.

And here is the stalwart and brown-bearded Captain John--John of Skye we

call him--himself come ashore in the gig, in all his splendour of blue

and brass buttons; and he takes off his peaked cap to the mistress of

our household--whom some of her friends call Queen Titania, because of

her midge-like size--and he says to her with a smile--

"And will Mrs. ---- herself be going with us this time?"

That is Captain John's chief concern: for he has a great regard for this

domineering small woman; and shows his respect for her, and his own high

notions of courtesy, by invariably addressing her in the third person.

"Oh, yes, John!" says she--and she can look pleasant enough when she

likes--"and this is a young friend of mine, Miss Avon, whom you have to

take great care of on board."

And Captain John takes off his cap again; and is understood to tell the

young lady that he will do his best, if she will excuse his not knowing

much English. Then, with great care, and with some difficulty, Miss

Avon is assisted down from the waggonette, and conducted along the rough

little landing-slip, and helped into the stern of the shapely and

shining gig. Away with her, boys! The splash of the oars is heard in

the still bay; the shore recedes; the white sails seem to rise higher

into the blue sky as we near the yacht; here is the black hull with its

line of gold--the gangway open--the ropes ready--the white decks

brilliant in the sun. We are on board at last.

"And where will Mr. ---- himself be for going?" asks John of Skye, as

the men are hauling the gig up to the davits.

Mr. ---- briefly but seriously explains to the captain that, from some

slight experience of the winds on this coast, he has found it of about

as much use to order the tides to be changed as to settle upon any

definite route. But he suggests the circumnavigation of the adjacent

island of Mull as a sort of preliminary canter for a few days, until a

certain notable guest shall arrive; and he would prefer going by the

south, if the honourable winds will permit. Further, John of Skye is

not to be afraid of a bit of sea, on account of either of those ladies;

both are excellent sailors. With these somewhat vague instructions,

Captain John is left to get the yacht under way; and we go below to look

after the stowage of our things in the various staterooms.

And what is this violent altercation going on, in the saloon?

"I will not have a word said against my captain," says Mary Avon. "I am

in love with him already. His English is perfectly correct."

This impertinent minx talking about correct English in the presence of

the Laird of Denny-mains!

"Mrs. ---- herself is perfectly correct; it is only politeness; it is

like saying 'Your Grace' to a Duke."

But who was denying it? Surely not the imperious little woman who was

arranging her flowers on the saloon table; nor yet Denny-mains, who was

examining a box of variegated and recondite fishing-tackle?

"It is all very well for fine ladies to laugh at the blunders of servant

maids," continues this audacious girl. "'Miss Brown presents her

compliments to Miss Smith; and would you be so kind,' and so on. But

don't they often make the same blunder themselves?"

Well, this was a discovery!

"Doesn't Mrs. So-and-So request the honour of the company of Mr.

So-and-So or Miss So-and-So for some purpose or other; and then you find

at one corner of the card '_R.S.V.P._?' 'Answer if YOU please'!"

A painful silence prevailed. We began to reflect. Whom did she mean to

charge with this deadly crime?

But her triumph makes her considerate. She will not harry us with scorn.

"It is becoming far less common now, however," she remarks. "'An answer

is requested,' is much more sensible."

"It is English," says the Laird, with decision. "Surely it must be more

sensible for an English person to write English. Ah never use a French

word maself."

But what is the English that we hear now--called out on deck by the

voice of John of Skye?

"Eachan, slack the lee topping-lift! Ay, and the tackle, too. That'll

do, boys. Down with your main-tack, now!"

"Why," exclaims our sovereign mistress, who knows something of nautical

matters, "we must have started!"

Then there is a tumbling up the companion-way; and lo! the land is

slowly leaving us; and there is a lapping of the blue water along the

side of the boat; and the white sails of the _White Dove_ are filled

with this gentle breeze. Deck-stools are arranged; books and

field-glasses and what not scattered about; Mary Avon is helped on deck,

and ensconced in a snug little camp-chair. The days of our summer

idleness have begun.

And as yet these are but familiar scenes that steal slowly by--the long

green island of Lismore--_Lios-mor_, the Great Garden; the dark ruins of

Duart, sombre as if the shadow of nameless tragedies rested on the

crumbling walls; Loch Don, with its sea-bird-haunted shallows, and Loch

Speliv leading up to the awful solitudes of Glen More; then, stretching

far into the wreathing clouds, the long rampart of precipices, rugged

and barren and lonely, that form the eastern wall of Mull.

There is no monotony on this beautiful summer morning; the scene changes

every moment, as the light breeze bears us away to the south. For there

is the Sheep Island; and Garveloch--which is the rough island; and

Eilean-na naomha--which is the island of the Saints. But what are these

to the small transparent cloud resting on the horizon?--smaller than any

man's hand. The day is still; and the seas are smooth: cannot we hear

the mermaiden singing on the far shores of Colonsay?

"Colonsay!" exclaims the Laird, seizing a field-glass. "Dear me! Is

that Colonsay? And they telled me that Tom Galbraith was going there

this very year."

The piece of news fails to startle us altogether; though we have heard

the Laird speak of Mr. Galbraith before.

"Ay," says he, "the world will know something o' Colonsay when Tom

Galbraith gets there."

"Whom did you say?" Miss Avon asks.

"Why, Galbraith!" says he. "Tom Galbraith!"

The Laird stares in amazement. Is it possible she has not heard of Tom

Galbraith? And she herself an artist; and coming direct from Edinburgh,

where she has been living for two whole months!

"Gracious me!" says the Laird. "Ye do not say ye have never heard of

Galbraith--he's an Academeecian!--a Scottish Academeecian!"

"Oh, yes; no doubt," she says, rather bewildered.

"There is no one living has had such an influence on our Scotch school

of painters as Galbraith--a man of great abeelity--a man of great and

uncommon abeelity--he is one of the most famous landscape painters of

our day----"

"I scarcely met any one in Edinburgh," she pleads.

"But in London--in London!" exclaims the astonished Laird. "Do ye mean

to say you never heard o' Tom Galbraith?"

"I--I think not," she confesses. "I--I don't remember his name in the

Academy catalogue----"

"The Royal Academy!" cries the Laird, with scorn. "No, no! Ye need not

expect that. The English Academy is afraid of the Scotchmen: their

pictures are too strong: you do not put good honest whisky beside small

beer. I say the English Academy is afraid of the Scotch school----"

But flesh and blood can stand this no longer: we shall not have Mary

Avon trampled upon.

"Look here, Denny-mains: we always thought there was a Scotchman or two

in the Royal Academy itself--and quite capable of holding their own

there, too. Why, the President of the Academy is a Scotchman! And as

for the Academy exhibition, the very walls are smothered with Scotch

hills, Scotch spates, Scotch peasants, to say nothing of the thousand

herring-smacks of Tarbert."

"I tell ye they are afraid of Tom Galbraith; they will not exhibit one

of his pictures," says the Laird, stubbornly; and here the discussion is

closed; for Master Fred tinkles his bell below, and we have to go down

for luncheon.

It was most unfair of the wind to take advantage of our absence, and to

sneak off, leaving us in a dead calm. It was all very well, when we

came on deck again, to watch the terns darting about in their

swallow-like fashion, and swooping down to seize a fish; and the strings

of sea-pyots whirring by, with their scarlet beaks and legs; and the

sudden shimmer and hissing of a part of the blue plain, where a shoal of

mackerel had come to the surface; but where were we, now in the open

Atlantic, to pass the night? We relinquished the doubling of the Ross of

Mull; we should have been content--more than content, for the sake of

auld lang syne--to have put into Carsaig; we were beginning even to have

ignominious thoughts of Loch Buy. And yet we let the golden evening

draw on with comparative resignation; and we watched the colour

gathering in the west, and the Atlantic taking darker hues, and a ruddy

tinge beginning to tell on the seamed ridges of Garveloch and the isle

of Saints. When the wind sprung up again--it had backed to due west,

and we had to beat against it with a series of long tacks, that took us

down within sight of Islay and back to Mull apparently all for

nothing--we were deeply engaged in prophesying all manner of things to

be achieved by one Angus Sutherland, an old friend of ours, though yet a

young man enough.

"Just fancy, sir!" says our hostess to the Laird--the Laird, by the way,

does not seem so enthusiastic as the rest of us, when he hears that this

hero of modern days is about to join our party. "What he has done beats

all that I ever heard about Scotch University students; and you know

what some of them have accomplished in the face of difficulties. His

father is a minister in some small place in Banffshire; perhaps he has

200*l.* a year at the outside. This son of his has not cost him a

farthing for either his maintenance or his education, since he was

fourteen; he took bursaries, scholarships, I don't know what, when he

was a mere lad; supported himself and travelled all over Europe--but I

think it was at Leipsic and at Vienna he studied longest; and the papers

he has written--the lectures--and the correspondence with all the great

scientific people--when they made him a Fellow, all he said was, 'I wish

my mother was alive.'"

This was rather an incoherent and jumbled account of a young man's

career.

"A Fellow of what?" says the Laird.

"A Fellow of the Royal Society! They made him a Fellow of the Royal

Society last year! And he is only seven-and-twenty! I do believe he

was not over one-and-twenty when he took his degree at Edinburgh. And

then--and then--there is really nothing that he doesn't know: is there,

Mary?"

This sudden appeal causes Mary Avon to flush slightly; but she says

demurely, looking down--

"Of course I don't know anything that he doesn't know."

"Hm!" says the Laird, who does not seem over pleased. "I have observed

that young men who are too brilliant at the first, seldom come to much

afterwards. Has he gained anything substantial? Has he a good

practice? Does he keep his carriage yet?"

"No, no!" says our hostess, with a fine contempt for such things. "He

has a higher ambition than that. His practice is almost nothing. He

prefers to sacrifice that in the meantime. But his reputation--among

the scientific--why--why, it is European!"

"Hm!" says the Laird. "I have sometimes seen that persons who gave

themselves up to erudeetion, lost the character of human beings

altogether. They become scientific machines. The world is just made up

of books for them--and lectures--they would not give a halfpenny to a

beggar for fear of poleetical economy----"

"Oh, how can you say such a thing of Angus Sutherland!" says she--though

he has said no such thing of Angus Sutherland. "Why, here is this girl

who goes to Edinburgh--all by herself--to nurse an old woman in her last

illness; and as Angus Sutherland is in Edinburgh on some

business--connected with the University, I believe--I ask him to call on

her and see if he can give her any advice. What does he do? He stops in

Edinburgh two months--editing that scientific magazine there instead of

in London--and all because he has taken an interest in the old woman and

thinks that Mary should not have the whole responsibility on her

shoulders. Is that like a scientific machine?"

"No," says the Laird, with a certain calm grandeur; "you do not often

find young men doing that for the sake of an old woman." But of course

we don't know what he means.

"And I am so glad he is coming to us!" she says, with real delight in

her face. "We shall take him away from his microscopes, and his

societies, and all that. Oh, and he is such a delightful companion--so

simple, and natural, and straightforward! Don't you think so, Mary?"

Mary Avon is understood to assent: she does not say much--she is so

deeply interested in a couple of porpoises that appear from time to time

on the smooth plain on the sea.

"I am sure a long holiday would do him a world of good," says this eager

hostess; "but that is too much to expect. He is always too busy. I

think he has got to go over to Italy soon, about some exhibition of

surgical instruments, or something of that sort."

We had plenty of further talk about Dr. Sutherland, and of the wonderful

future that lay before him, that evening before we finally put into Loch

Buy. And there we dined; and after dinner we found the wan, clear

twilight filling the northern heavens, over the black range of

mountains, and throwing a silver glare on the smooth sea around us. We

could have read on deck at eleven at night---had that been necessary;

but Mary Avon was humming snatches of songs to us, and the Laird was

discoursing of the wonderful influence exerted on Scotch landscape-art

by Tom Galbraith. Then in the south the yellow moon rose; and a golden

lane of light lay on the sea, from the horizon across to the side of the

yacht; and there was a strange glory on the decks and on the tall,

smooth masts. The peace of that night!--the soft air, the silence, the

dreamy lapping of the water!

"And whatever lies before Angus Sutherland," says one of us--"whether a

baronetcy, or a big fortune, or marriage with an Italian princess--he

won't find anything better than sailing in the _White Dove_ among the

western islands."

*CHAPTER IV.*

*A MESSAGE.*

What fierce commotion is this that awakes us in the morning--what

pandemonium broken loose of wild storm-sounds---with the stately _White

Dove_, ordinarily the most sedate and gentle of her sex, apparently gone

mad, and flinging herself about as if bent on somersaults? When one

clambers up the companion-way, clinging hard, and puts one's head out

into the gale, behold! there is not a trace of land visible

anywhere--nothing but whirling clouds of mist and rain; and

mountain-masses of waves that toss the _White Dove_ about as if she were

a plaything; and decks all running wet with the driven spray. John of

Skye, clad from head to heel in black oilskins--and at one moment up in

the clouds, the next moment descending into the great trough of the

sea---hangs on to the rope that is twisted round the tiller; and laughs

a good-morning; and shakes the salt water from his shaggy eyebrows and

beard.

"Hallo! John--where on earth have we got to?"

"Ay, ay, sir."

"I say WHERE ARE WE?" is shouted, for the roar of the rushing Atlantic

in deafening.

"'Deed I not think we are far from Loch Buy," says John of Skye, grimly.

"The wind is dead ahead of us--ay, shist dead ahead!"

"What made you come out against a headwind then?"

"When we cam' out," says John--picking his English, "the wind will be

from the norse--ay, a fine light breeze from the norse. And will Mr.

---- himself be for going on now? it is a ferry bad sea for the

leddies--a ferry coorse sea."

But it appears that this conversation--bawled aloud--has been overheard.

There are voices from below. The skylight of the ladies' cabin is

partly open.

"Don't mind us," calls Mary Avon. "Go on by all means!"

The other voice calls--

"Why can't you keep this fool of a boat straight? Ask him when we shall

be into the Sound of Iona."

One might as well ask him when we shall be into the Sound of Jericho or

Jerusalem. With half a gale of wind right in our teeth, and with the

heavy Atlantic swell running, we might labour here all day--and all the

night too--without getting round the Ross of Mull. There is nothing for

it but to turn and run, that we may have our breakfast in peace. Let

her away, then, you brave John of Skye!--slack out the main-sheet, and

give her plenty of it, too: then at the same moment Sandy from Islay

perceives that a haul at the weather topping-lift will clear the boom

from the davits; and now--and now, good Master Fred--our much-esteemed

and shifty Friedrich d'or--if you will but lay the cloth on the table,

we will help you to steady the dancing phantasmagoria of plates and

forks!

"Dear me!" says the Laird, when we are assembled together, "it has been

an awful night!"

"Oh, I hope you have not been ill!" says his hostess, with a quick

concern in the soft, clear eyes.

He does not look as if he had suffered much. He is contentedly chipping

an egg; and withal keeping an eye on the things near him, for the _White

Dove_, still plunging a good deal, threatens at times to make of

everything on the table a movable feast.

"Oh, no, ma'am, not ill," he says. "But at my time of life, ye see, one

is not as light in weight as one used to be; and the way I was flung

about in that cabin last night was just extraordinary. When I was

trying to put on my boots this morning, I am sure I resembled nothing so

much as a pea in a bladder--indeed it was so--I was knocked about like a

pea in a bladder."

Of course we expressed great sympathy, and assured him that the _White

Dove_--famed all along this coast for her sober and steady-going

behaviour--would never act so any more.

"However," said he thoughtfully, "the wakefulness of the night is often

of use to people. Yes, I have come to a decision."

We were somewhat alarmed: was he going to leave us merely because of

this bit of tossing?

"I dare say ye know, ma'am," says he slowly, "that I am one of the

Commissioners of the Burgh of Strathgovan. It is a poseetion of grave

responsibility. This very question now--about our getting a steam

fire-engine--has been weighing on my mind for many a day. Well, I have

decided I will no longer oppose it. They may have the steam fire-engine

as far as I am concerned."

We felt greatly relieved.

"Yes," continued the Laird, solemnly, "I think I am doing my duty in

this matter as a public man should--laying aside his personal prejudice.

But the cost of it! Do ye know that we shall want bigger nozzles to all

the fire-plugs?"

Matters were looking grave again.

"However," said the Laird cheerfully--for he would not depress us too

much, "it may all turn out for the best; and I will telegraph my

decision to Strathgovan as soon as ever the storm allows us to reach a

port."

The storm, indeed! When we scramble up on deck again, we find that it

is only a brisk sailing breeze we have; and the _White Dove_ is bowling

merrily along, flinging high the white spray from her bows. And then we

begin to see that, despite those driving mists around us, there is

really a fine clear summer day shining far above this twopenny-halfpenny

tempest. The whirling mists break here and there; and we catch glimpses

of a placid blue sky, flecked with lines of motionless cirrhus cloud.

The breaks increase; floods of sunshine fall on the gleaming decks;

clearer and clearer become the vast precipices of southern Mull; and

then, when we get well to the lee of Eilean-straid-ean, behold! the blue

seas around us once more; and the blue skies overhead; and the red

ensign fluttering in the summer breeze. No wonder that Mary Avon sings

her delight--as a linnet sings after the rain; and though the song is

not meant for us at all, but is really hummed to herself as she clings

on to the shrouds and watches the flashing and dipping of the

white-winged gulls, we know that it is all about a jolly young waterman.

The audacious creature: John of Skye has a wife and four children.

Too quickly indeed does the fair summer day go by--as we pass the old

familiar Duart and begin to beat up the Sound of Mull against a fine

light sailing breeze. By the time we have reached Ardtornish, the Laird

has acquired some vague notion as to how the gaff topsail is set.

Opposite the dark-green woods of Funeray, he tells us of the

extraordinary faculty possessed by Tom Galbraith of representing the

texture of foliage. At Salen we have Master Fred's bell summoning us

down to lunch; and thereafter, on deck, coffee, draughts, crochet, and a

profoundly interesting description of some of the knotty points in the

great Semple heresy case. And here again, as we bear away over almost to

the mouth of Loch Sunart, is the open Atlantic--of a breezy grey under

the lemon-colour and silver of the calm evening sky. What is the use of

going on against this contrary wind, and missing, in the darkness of the

night, all the wonders of the western islands that the Laird is anxious

to see? We resolve to run into Tobermory; and by and by we find

ourselves under the shadow of the wooded rocks, with the little white

town shining along the semicircle of the bay. And very cleverly indeed

does John of Skye cut in among the various craft--showing off a little

bit, perhaps--until the _White Dove_ is brought up to the wind, and the

great anchor-cable goes out with a roar.

Now it was by the merest accident that we got at Tobermory a telegram

that had been forwarded that very day to meet us on our return voyage.

There was no need for any one to go ashore, for we were scarcely in port

before a most praiseworthy gentleman was so kind as to send us on board

a consignment of fresh flowers, vegetables, milk, eggs, and so

forth--the very things that become of inestimable value to yachting

people. However, we had two women on board; and of course--despite a

certain bandaged ankle--they must needs go shopping. And Mary Avon,

when we got ashore, would buy some tobacco for her favourite Captain

John; and went into the post-office for that purpose, and was having the

black stuff measured out by the yard when some mention was made of the

_White Dove_. Then a question was asked; there was a telegram; it was

handed to Miss Avon, who opened it and read it.

"Oh!" said she, looking rather concerned; and then she regarded her

friend with some little hesitation.

"It is my uncle," she says; "he wants to see me on very urgent business.

He is--coming--to see me--the day after to-morrow."

Blank consternation followed this announcement. This person, even though

he was Mary Avon's sole surviving relative, was quite intolerable to us.

East Wind we had called him in secret, on the few occasions on which he

had darkened our doors. And just as we were making up our happy family

party--with the Laird, and Mary, and Angus Sutherland--to sail away to

the far Hebrides, here was this insufferable creature--with his raucous

voice, his washed-out eyes, his pink face, his uneasy manner, and

general groom or butler-like appearance--thrusting himself on us!

"Well, you know, Mary," says her hostess--entirely concealing her dismay

in her anxious politeness--"we shall almost certainly be home by the day

after to-morrow, if we get any wind at all. So you had better telegraph

to your uncle to come on to Castle Osprey, and to wait for you if you

are not there; we cannot be much longer than that. And Angus Sutherland

will be there; he will keep him company until we arrive."

So that was done, and we went on board again--one of us meanwhile vowing

to himself that ere ever Mr. Frederick Smethurst set sail with us on

board the _White Dove_, a rifle-bullet through her hull would send that

gallant vessel to the lobsters.

Now what do you think our Mary Avon set to work to do--all during this

beautiful summer evening, as we sat on deck and eyed curiously the other

craft in the bay, or watched the firs grow dark against the

silver-yellow twilight? We could not at first make out what she was

driving at. Her occupation in the world, so far as she had any--beyond

being the pleasantest of companions and the faithfullest of friends--was

the painting of landscapes in oil, not the construction of Frankenstein

monsters. But here she begins by declaring to us that there is one type

of character that has never been described by any satirist, or

dramatist, or fictionist--a common type, too, though only becoming

pronounced in rare instances. It is the moral Tartuffe, she

declares--the person who is through and through a hypocrite, not to

cloak evil doings, but only that his eager love of approbation may be

gratified. Look now how this creature of diseased vanity, of plausible

manners, of pretentious humbug, rises out of the smoke like the figure

summoned by a wizard's wand! As she gives us little touches here and

there of the ways of this professor of bonhomie--this bundle of

affectations--we begin to prefer the most diabolical villainy that any

thousand of the really wicked Tartuffes could have committed. He grows

and grows. His scraps of learning, as long as those more ignorant than

himself are his audience; his mock humility anxious for praise; his

parade of generous and sententious sentiment; his

pretence--pretence--pretence--all arising from no evil machinations

whatever, but from a morbid and restless craving for esteem. Hence,

horrible shadow! Let us put out the candles and get to bed.

But next morning, as we find ourselves out on the blue Atlantic again,

with Ru-na-Gaul lighthouse left far behind, and the pale line of Coll at

the horizon, we begin to see why the skill and patient assiduity of this

amateur psychologist should have raised that ghost for us the night

before. Her uncle is coming. He is not one of the plausible kind. And

if it should be necessary to invite him on board, might we not the more

readily tolerate his cynical bluntness and rudeness, after we have been

taught to abhor as the hatefullest of mortals the well-meaning hypocrite

whose vanity makes his life a bundle of small lies? Very clever indeed,

Miss Avon--very clever. But don't you raise any more ghosts; they are

unpleasant company--even as an antidote. And now, John of Skye, if it

must be that we are to encounter this pestilent creature at the end of

our voyage, clap on all sail now, and take us right royally down through

these far islands of the west. Ah! do we not know them of old? Soon as

we get round the Cailleach Point we descry the nearest of them amid the

loneliness of the wide Atlantic sea. For there is Carnaburg, with her

spur of rock; and Fladda, long and rugged, and bare; and Lunga, with her

peak; and the Dutchman's Cap--a pale blue in the south. How bravely the

_White Dove_ swings on her way--springing like a bird over the western

swell! And as we get past Ru-Treshnish, behold! another group of

islands--Gometra and the green-shored Ulva, that guard the entrance to

Loch Tua; and Colonsay, the haunt of the sea birds; and the rock of

Erisgeir--all shining in the sun. And then we hear a strange

sound--different from the light rush of the waves--a low, and sullen,

and distant booming, such as one faintly hears in a sea-shell. As the

_White Dove_ ploughs on her way, we come nearer and nearer to this

wonder of the deep--the ribbed and fantastic shores of Staffa; and we

see how the great Atlantic rollers, making for the cliffs of Gribun and

Burg, are caught by those outer rocks and torn into masses of white

foam, and sent roaring and thundering into the blackness of the caves.

We pass close by; the air trembles with the shock of that mighty surge;

there is a mist of spray rising into the summer air. And then we sail

away again; and the day wears on as the white-winged _White Dove_ bounds

over the heavy seas; and Mary Avon--as we draw near the Ross of Mull,

all glowing in the golden evening--is singing a song of Ulva.

But there is no time for romance, as the _White Dove_ (drawing eight

feet of water) makes in for the shallow harbour outside Bunessan.

"Down foresail!" calls out our John of Skye; and by and by her head

comes up to the wind, the great mainsail flapping in the breeze. And

again, "Down chub, boys!" and there is another rattle and roar amid the

silence of this solitary little bay. The herons croak their fright and

fly away on heavy wing; the curlews whistle shrilly; the sea-pyots whirr

along the lonely shores. And then our good Friedrich d'or sounds his

silver-toned bell.

The stillness of this summer evening on deck; the glory deepening over

the wide Atlantic; the delightful laughter of the Laird over those "good

ones" about Homesh; the sympathetic glance of Mary Avon's soft black

eyes: did we not value them all the more that we knew we had something

far different to look forward to? Even as we idled away the beautiful

and lambent night, we had a vague consciousness that our enemy was

stealthily drawing near. In a day or two at the most we should find the

grim spectre of the East Wind in the rose-garden of Castle Osprey.

*CHAPTER V.*

*A BRAVE CAREER.*

Bur when we went on deck the next morning we forgot all about the

detestable person who was about to break in upon our peace (there was

small chance that our faithful Angus Sutherland might encounter the

snake in this summer paradise, and trample on him, and pitch him out;

for this easy way of getting rid of disagreeable folk is not permitted

in the Highlands nowadays) as we looked on the beautiful bay shining all

around us.

"Dear me!" said Denny-mains, "if Tom Galbraith could only see that now!

It is a great peety he has never been to this place. I'm thinking I must

write to him."

The Laird did not remember that we had an artist on board--one who, if

she was not so great an artist as Mr. Galbraith, had at least exhibited

one or two small landscapes in oil at the Royal Academy. But then the

Academicians, though they might dread the contrast between their own

work and that of Tom Galbraith, could have no fear of Mary Avon.

And even Mr. Galbraith himself might have been puzzled to find among his

pigments any equivalent for the rare and clear colours of this morning

scene as now we sailed away from Bunessan with a light topsail breeze.

How blue the day was--blue skies, blue seas, a faint transparent blue

along the cliffs of Burg and Gribun, a darker blue where the far

Ru-Treshanish ran out into the sea, a shadow of blue to mark where the

caves of Staffa retreated from the surface of the sun-brown rocks! And

here, nearer at hand, the warmer colours of the shore--the soft, velvety

olive-greens of the moss and breckan; the splashes of lilac where the

rocks were bare of herbage; the tender sunny reds where the granite

promontories ran out to the sea; the beautiful cream-whites of the sandy

bays!

Here, too, are the islands again as we get out into the open--Gometra,

with its one white house at the point; and Inch Kenneth, where the seals

show their shining black heads among the shallows; and Erisgeir and

Colonsay, where the skarts alight to dry their wings on the rocks; and

Staffa, and Lunga, and the Dutchman, lying peaceful enough now on the

calm blue seas. We have time to look at them, for the wind is slight,

and the broad-beamed _White Dove_ is not a quick sailer in a light

breeze. The best part of the forenoon is over before we find ourselves

opposite to the gleaming white sands of the northern bays of Iona.

"But surely both of us together will be able to make him stay longer

than ten days," says the elder of the two women to the younger--and you

may be sure she was not speaking of East Wind.

Mary Avon looks up with a start; then looks down again--perhaps with the

least touch of colour in her face--as she says hurriedly--

"Oh, I think you will. He is your friend. As for me--you see--I--I

scarcely know him."

"Oh, Mary!" says the other reproachfully. "You have been meeting him

constantly all these two months; you must know him better than any of

us. I am sure I wish he was on board now--he could tell us all about

the geology of the islands, and what not. It will be delightful to have

somebody on board who knows something."

Such is the gratitude of women!--and the Laird had just been describing

to her some further points of the famous heresy case.

"And then he knows Gaelic!" says the elder woman. "He will tell us what

all the names of the islands mean."

"Oh, yes," says the younger one, "he understands Gaelic very well,

though he cannot speak much of it."

"And I think he is very fond of boats," remarks our hostess.

"Oh, exceedingly--exceedingly!" says the other, who, if she does not

know Angus Sutherland, seems to have picked up some information about

him somehow. "You cannot imagine how he has been looking forward to

sailing with you; he has scarcely had any holiday for years."

"Then he must stay longer than ten days," says the elder woman; adding

with a smile, "you know, Mary, it is not the number of his patients that

will hurry him back to London."

"Oh, but I assure you," says Miss Avon seriously, "that he is not at all

anxious to have many patients--as yet! Oh, no!--I never knew any one

who was so indifferent about money. I know he would live on bread and

water--if that were necessary--to go on with his researches. He told me

himself that all the time he was at Leipsic his expenses were never more

than 1*l.* a week."

She seemed to know a good deal about the circumstances of this young

F.R.S.

"Look at what he has done with those anaesthetics," continues Miss Avon.

"Isn't it better to find out something that does good to the whole world

than give yourself up to making money by wheedling a lot of old women?"

This estimate of the physician's art was not flattering.

"But," she says warmly, "if the Government had any sense, that is just

the sort of man they would put in a position to go on with his

invaluable work. And Oxford and Cambridge, with all their wealth, they

scarcely even recognise the noblest profession that a man can devote

himself to--when even the poor Scotch Universities and the Universities

all over Europe have always had their medical and scientific chairs. I

think it is perfectly disgraceful!"

Since when had she become so strenuous an advocate of the endowment of

research?

"Why, look at Dr. Sutherland--when he is burning to get on with his own

proper work--when his name is beginning to be known all over Europe--he

has to fritter away his time in editing a scientific magazine and in

those hospital lectures. And that, I suppose, is barely enough to live

on. But I know," she says, with decision, "that in spite of

everything--I know that before he is five-and-thirty, he will be

President of the British Association."

Here, indeed, is a brave career for the Scotch student: cannot one

complete the sketch as it roughly exists in the minds of those two

women?

At twenty-one, B.M. of Edinburgh.

At twenty-six, F.R.S.

At thirty, Professor of Biology at Oxford: the chair founded through the

intercession of the women of Great Britain.

At thirty-five, President of the British Association.

At forty, a baronetcy, for further discoveries in the region of

anaesthetics.

At forty-five, consulting physician to half the gouty old gentlemen of

England, and amassing an immense fortune.

At fifty----

Well, at fifty, is it not time that "the poor Scotch student," now

become great and famous and wealthy, should look around for some

beautiful princess to share his high estate with him? He has not had

time before to think of such matters. But what is this now? Is it that

microscopes and test-tubes have dimmed his eyes? Is it that honours and

responsibilities have silvered his hair? Or, is the drinking deep of

the Pactolus stream a deadly poison? There is no beautiful princess

awaiting him anywhere. He is alone among his honours. There was once a

beautiful princess--beautiful-souled and tender-eyed, if not otherwise

too lovely--awaiting him among the Western Seas; but that time is over

and gone many a year ago. The opportunity has passed. Ambition called

him away, and he left her; and the last he saw of her was when he bade

good-bye to the _White Dove_.

What have we to do with these idle dreams? We are getting within sight

of Iona village now; and the sun is shining on the green shores, and on

the ruins of the old cathedral, and on that white house just above the

cornfield. And as there is no good anchorage about the island, we have

to make in for a little creek on the Mull side of the Sound, called

Polterriv, or the Bull-hole; and this creek is narrow, tortuous, and

shallow; and a yacht drawing eight feet of water has to be guided with

some circumspection--especially if you go up to the inner harbour above

the rock called the Little Bull. And so we make inquiries of John of

Skye, who has not been with us here before. It is even hinted, that if

he is not quite sure of the channel, we might send the gig over to Iona

for John Macdonald, who is an excellent pilot.

"John Macdonald!" exclaims John of Skye, whose professional pride has

been wounded. "Will John Macdonald be doing anything more than I wass do

myself in the Bull-hole--ay, last year--last year I will tek my own

smack out of the Bull-hole at the norse end, and ferry near low water,

too; and her deep-loaded? Oh, yes, I will be knowing the Bull-hole this

many a year."

And John of Skye is as good as his word. Favoured by a flood-tide, we

steal gently into the unfrequented creek, behind the great rocks of red

granite; and so extraordinarily clear is the water that, standing

upright on the deck, we can see the white sand of the bottom with shoals

of young saithe darting this way and that. And then just as we get

opposite an opening in the rocks, through which we can descry the

northern shores of Iona, and above those the blue peak of the Dutchman,

away goes the anchor with a short, quick rush; her head swings round to

meet the tide; the _White Dove_ is safe from all the winds that blow.

Now lower away the gig, boys, and bear us over the blue waters of the

Sound!

"I am really afraid to begin," Mary Avon says, as we remonstrate with

her for not having touched a colour-tube since she started. "Besides,

you know, I scarcely look on it that we have really set out yet. This

is only a sort of shaking ourselves into our places; I am only getting

accustomed to the ways of our cabin now. I shall scarcely consider that

we have started on our real voyaging until----"

Oh, yes, we know very well. Until we have got Angus Sutherland on

board. But what she really said was, after slight hesitation:

"----until we set out for the Northern Hebrides."

"Ay, it's a good thing to feel nervous about beginning," says the Laird,

as the long sweep of the four oars brings us nearer and nearer to the

Iona shores. "I have often heard Tom Galbraith say that to the younger

men. He says if a young man is over confident, he'll come to nothing.

But there was a good one I once heard Galbraith tell about a young man

that was pentin at Tarbert--that's Tarbert on Loch Fyne, Miss Avon. Ay,

well, he was pentin away, and he was putting in the young lass of the

house as a fisher-lass; and he asked her if she could not get a creel to

strap on her back, as a background for her head, ye know. Well, says

she----"

Here the fierce humour of the story began to bubble up in the Laird's

blue-grey eyes. We were all half laughing already. It was impossible to

resist the glow of delight on the Laird's face.

"Says she--just as pat as ninepence--says she, 'it's your ain head that

wants a creel!'"

The explosion was inevitable. The roar of laughter at this good one was

so infectious that a subdued smile played over the rugged features of

John of Skye. "_It's your ain head that wants a creel:_" the Laird

laughed, and laughed again, until the last desperately suppressed sounds

were something like _kee! kee! kee!_ Even Mary Avon pretended to

understand.

"There was a real good one," says he, obviously overjoyed to have so

appreciative an audience, "that I mind of reading in the Dean's

_Reminiscences_. It was about an old leddy in Edinburgh who met in a

shop a young officer she had seen before. He was a tall young man, and

she eyed him from head to heel, and says she--ha! ha!--says she, '_Od,

ye're a lang lad: God gie ye grace._' Dry--very dry--wasn't it? There

was real humour in that--a pawky humour that people in the South cannot

understand at all. '_Od_', says she, '_ye're a lang lad: God grant ye

grace._' There was a great dale of character in that."

We were sure of it; but still we preferred the Laird's stories about

Homesh. We invariably liked best the stories at which the Laird laughed

most--whether we quite understood their pawky humour or not.

"Dr. Sutherland has a great many stories about the Highlanders," says

Miss Avon timidly; "they are very amusing."

"As far as I have observed," remarked the Laird--for how could he relish

the notion of having a rival anecdote-monger on board?--"as far as I

have observed, the Highland character is entirely without humour. Ay, I

have heard Tom Galbraith say that very often, and he has been everywhere

in the Highlands."

"Well, then," says Mary Avon, with a quick warmth of indignation in her

face--how rapidly those soft dark eyes could change their

expression!--"I hope Mr. Galbraith knows more about painting than he

knows about the Highlanders! I thought that anybody who knows anything

knows that the Celtic nature is full of imagination, and humour, and

pathos, and poetry; and the Saxon--the Saxon!--it is his business to

plod over ploughed fields, and be as dull and commonplace as the other

animals he sees there!"

Gracious goodness!--here was a tempest! The Laird was speechless; for,

indeed, at this moment we bumped against the sacred shores--that is to

say, the landing-slip--of Iona; and had to scramble on to the big

stones. Then we walked up and past the cottages, and through the

potato-field, and past the white inn, and so to the hallowed shrine and

its graves of the kings. We spent the whole of the afternoon there.

When we got back to the yacht and to dinner we discovered that a friend

had visited us in our absence, and had left of his largesse behind

him--nasturtiums and yellow-and-white pansies, and what not--to say

nothing of fresh milk, and crisp, delightful lettuce. We drank his

health.

Was it the fear of some one breaking in on our domestic peace that made

that last evening among the western islands so lovely to us? We went

out in the gig after dinner; the Laird put forth his engines of

destruction to encompass the innocent lythe; we heard him humming the

"Haughs o' Cromdale" in the silence. The wonderful glory of that

evening!--Iona become an intense olive-green against the gold and

crimson of the sunset; the warm light shining along the red granite of

western Mull. Then the yellow moon rose in the south--into the calm

violet-hued vault of the heavens; and there was a golden fire on the

ripples and on the wet blades of the oars as we rowed back with laughter

and singing.

_Sing tantara! sing tantara!_

_Sing tantara! sing tantara!_

_Said he, the Highland army rues_

_That ere they came to Cromdale!_

And then, next morning, we were up at five o'clock. If we were going to

have a tooth pulled, why not have the little interview over at once?

East Wind would be waiting for us at Castle Osprey.

Blow, soft westerly breeze, then, and bear us down by Fion-phort, and

round the granite Ross--shining all a pale red in the early dawn. And

here is Ardalanish Point; and there, as the morning goes by, are the

Carsaig arches, and then Loch Buy, and finally the blue Firth of Lorn.

Northward now, and still northward--until, far away, the white house

shining amidst the firs, and the flag fluttering in the summer air.

Have they descried us, then? Or is the bunting hoisted in honour of

guests? The pale cheek of Mary Avon tells a tale as she descries that

far signal; but that is no business of ours. Perhaps it is only of her

uncle that she is thinking.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*OUR NEW GUESTS.*

Behold, now!--this beautiful garden of Castle Osprey all ablaze in the

sun--the roses, pansies, poppies, and what not bewildering our eyes

after the long looking at the blue water and, in the midst of the

brilliant paradise--just as we had feared--the snake! He did not scurry

away at our approach, as snakes are wont to do; or raise his horrent

head, and hiss. The fact is, we found him comfortably seated under a

drooping ash, smoking. He rose and explained that he had strolled up

from the shore to await our coming. He did not seem to notice that Mary

Avon, as she came along, had to walk slowly, and was leaning on the arm

of the Laird.

Certainly nature had not been bountiful to this short, spare person who

had now come among us. He had closely-cropped, coarse grey hair; an

eagle beak; a certain pink and raw appearance of the face, as if

perpetual east winds had chafed the skin; and a most pernicious habit of

loudly clearing his husky throat. Then with the aggressive nose went a

well-defined pugilist's jaw and a general hang-dog scowl about the

mouth. For the rest Mr. Smethurst seemed desirous of making up for

those unpleasant features which nature had bestowed upon him by a

studied air of self-possession, and by an extreme precision of dress.

Alack, and well-a-day! these laudable efforts were of little avail.

Nature was too strong for him. The assumption of a languid air was not

quite in consonance with the ferrety grey eyes and the bull-dog mouth;

the precision of his costume only gave him the look of a well-dressed

groom, or a butler gone on the turf. There was not much grateful to the

sight about Mr. Frederick Smethurst.

But were we to hate the man for being ugly? Despite his raw face, he

might have the white soul of an angel. And in fact we knew absolutely

nothing against his public character or private reputation, except that

he had once gone through the Bankruptcy Court; and even of that little

circumstance our womenfolk were not aware. However, there was no doubt

at all that a certain coldness--apparent to us who knew her well--marked

the manner of this small lady who now went up and shook hands with him,

and declared--unblushingly--that she was so glad he had run up to the

Highlands.

"And you know," said she, with that charming politeness which she would

show to the arch-fiend himself if he were properly introduced to her,

"you know, Mr. Smethurst, that yachting is such an uncertain thing, one

never knows when one may get back; but if you could spare a few days to

take a run with us, you would see what a capital mariner Mary has

become, and I am sure it would be a great pleasure to us."

These were actually her words. She uttered them without the least

tremor of hesitation. She looked him straight in the face with those

clear, innocent, confiding eyes of hers. How could the man tell that

she was wishing him at Jericho?

And it was in silence that we waited to hear our doom pronounced. A

yachting trip with this intolerable Jonah on board! The sunlight went

out of the day; the blue went out of the sky and the seas; the world was

filled with gloom, and chaos, and East Wind!

Imagine, then, the sudden joy with which we heard of our deliverance!

Surely it was not the raucous voice of Frederick Smethurst, but a sound

of summer bells.

"Oh, thank you," he said, in his affectedly indifferent way; "but the

fact is, I have run up to see Mary only on a little matter of business,

and I must get back at once. Indeed, I purpose leaving by the Dalmally

coach in the afternoon. Thank you very much, though; perhaps some other

time I may be more fortunate."

How we had wronged this poor man! We hated him no longer. On the

contrary, great grief was expressed over his departure; and he was

begged at least to stay that one evening. No doubt he had heard of Dr.

Angus Sutherland, who had made such discoveries in the use of

anaesthetics? Dr. Sutherland was coming by the afternoon steamer. Would

not he stay and meet him at dinner?

Our tears broke out afresh--metaphorically--when East Wind persisted in

his intention of departure; but of course compulsion was out of the

question. And so we allowed him to go into the house, to have that

business interview with his niece.

"A poor crayture!" remarked the Laird confidently, forgetting that he

was talking of a friend of ours. "Why does he not speak out like a man,

instead of drawling and dawdling? His accent is jist insufferable."

"And what business can he have with Mary?" says our sovereign lady

sharply--just as if a man with a raw skin and an eagle-beak must

necessarily be a pickpocket. "He was the trustee of that little fortune

of hers, I know; but that is all over. She got the money when she came

of age. What can he want to see her about now?"

We concerned ourselves not with that. It was enough for us that the

snake was about to retreat from our summer paradise of his own free will

and pleasure. And Angus Sutherland was coming; and the provisioning of

the yacht had to be seen to; for to-morrow--to-morrow we spread our

white wings again and take flight to the far north!

Never was parting guest so warmly speeded. We concealed our tears as the

coach rolled away. We waved a hand to him. And then, when it was

suggested that the wagonette that had brought Mary Avon down from Castle

Osprey might just as well go along to the quay--for the steamer bringing

Dr. Sutherland would be in shortly--and when we actually did set out in

that direction, there was so little grief on our faces that you could

not have told we had been bidding farewell to a valued friend and

relative.

Now if our good-hearted Laird had had a grain of jealousy in his nature,

he might well have resented the manner in which these two women spoke of

the approaching guest. In their talk the word "he" meant only one

person. "He" was sure to come by this steamer. "He" was so punctual in

his engagements. Would he bring a gun or a rod; or would the sailing be

enough amusement for him? What a capital thing it was for him to be

able to take an interest in some such out-of-door exercise, as a

distraction to the mind! And so forth, and so forth. The Laird heard

all this, and his expectations were no doubt rising and rising.

Forgetful of his disappointment on first seeing Mary Avon, he was in all

likelihood creating an imaginary figure of Angus Sutherland--and, of

course, this marvel of erudition and intellectual power must be a tall,

wan, pale person, with the travail of thinking written in lines across

the spacious brow. The Laird was not aware that for many a day after we

first made the acquaintance of the young Scotch student he was generally

referred to in our private conversation as "Brose."

And, indeed, the Laird did stare considerably when he saw--elbowing his

way through the crowd and making for us with a laugh of welcome on the

fresh-coloured face--a stout-set, muscular, blue-eyed, sandy-haired,

good-humoured-looking, youngish man; who, instead of having anything

Celtic about his appearance, might have been taken for the son of a

south-country farmer. Our young Doctor was carrying his own

portmanteau, and sturdily shoving his way through the porters who would

fain have seized it.

"I am glad to see you, Angus," said our queen regent, holding out her

hand; and there was no ceremonial politeness in that reception--but you

should have seen the look in her eyes.

Then he went on to the waggonette.

"How do you do, Miss Avon?" said he, quite timidly, like a school-boy.

He scarcely glanced up at her face, which was regarding him with a very

pleasant welcome; he seemed relieved when he had to turn and seize his

portmanteau again. Knowing that he was rather fond of driving, our

mistress and admiral-in-chief offered him the reins, but he declined the

honour; Mary Avon was sitting in front. "Oh, no, thank you," said he

quite hastily, and with something uncommonly like a blush. The Laird,

if he had been entertaining any feeling of jealousy, must have been

reassured. This Doctor-fellow was no formidable rival. He spoke very

little--he only listened--as we drove away to Castle Osprey. Mary Avon

was chatting briskly and cheerfully, and it was to the Laird that she

addressed that running fire of nonsense and merry laughter.

But the young Doctor was greatly concerned when, on our arrival at

Castle Osprey, he saw Mary Avon helped down with much care, and heard

the story of the sprain.

"Who bandages your ankle?" said he at once, and without any shyness now.

"I do it myself," said she cheerfully. "I can do it well enough."

"Oh, no, you cannot!" said he abruptly; "a person stooping cannot. The

bandage should be as tight, and as smooth, as the skin of a drum. You

must let some one else do that for you."

And he was disposed to resent this walking about in the garden before

dinner. What business had she to trifle with such a serious matter as a

sprain? And a sprain which was the recall of an older sprain. "Did she

wish to be lame for life?" he asked sharply.

Mary Avon laughed, and said that worse things than that had befallen

people. He asked her whether she found any pleasure in voluntary

martyrdom; she blushed a little, and turned to the Laird.

The Laird was at this moment laying before us the details of a most

gigantic scheme. It appeared that the inhabitants of Strathgovan, not

content with a steam fire-engine, were talking about having a public

park--actually proposing to have a public park, with beds of flowers,

and iron seats; and, to crown all, a gymnasium, where the youths of the

neighbourhood might twirl themselves on the gay trapeze to their hearts'

content. And where the subscriptions were to come from; and what were

the hardiest plants for borders; and whether the gymnasium should be

furnished with ropes or with chains--these matters were weighing heavily

on the mind of our good friend of Denny-mains. Angus Sutherland

relapsed into silence, and gazed absently at a tree-fuchsia that stood

by.

"It is a beautiful tree, is it not?" said a voice beside him--that of

our midge-like empress.

He started.

"Oh, yes," he said cheerfully. "I was thinking I should like to live

the life of a tree like that, dying in the winter, you know, and being

quite impervious to frost, and snow, and hard weather; and then, as soon

as the fine warm spring and summer came round, coming to life again and

spreading yourself out to feel all the sunlight and the warm winds. That

must be a capital life."

"But do you really think they can feel that? Why, you must believe that

those trees and flowers are alive!"

"Does anybody doubt it?" said he quite simply. "They are certainly

alive. Why----"

And here he bethought himself for a moment.

"If I only had a good microscope now," said he eagerly, "I would show

you the life of a plant directly--in every cell of it: did you never see

the constant life in each cell--the motion of the chlorophyll granules

circling and circling night and day? Did no one ever show you that?"

Well, no one had ever shown us that. We may now and again have

entertained angels unawares; but we were not always stumbling against

Fellows of the Royal Society.

"Then I must borrow one somewhere," said he decisively, "and show you

the secret life of even the humblest plant that exists. And then look

what a long life it is, in the case of the perennial plants. Did you

ever think of that? Those great trees in the Yosemite valley--they were

alive and feeling the warm sunlight and the winds about them when Alfred

was hiding in the marshes; and they were living the same undisturbed

life when Charles the First had his head chopped off; and they were

living--in peace and quietness--when all Europe had to wake up to stamp

out the Napoleonic pest; and they are alive now and quite careless of

the little creatures that come to span out their circumference, and

ticket them, and give them ridiculous names. Had any of the patriarchs

a life as long as that?"

The Laird eyed this young man askance. There was something uncanny about

him. What might not he say when--in the northern solitudes to which we

were going--the great Semple heresy-case was brought on for discussion?

But at dinner the Laird got on very well with our new guest; for the

latter listened most respectfully when Denny-mains was demonstrating the

exceeding purity, and strength, and fitness of the speech used in the

south of Scotland. And indeed the Laird was generous. He admitted that

there were blemishes. He deprecated the introduction of French words;

and gave us a much longer list of those aliens than usually appears in

books. What about _conjee_, and _que-vee_, and _fracaw_ as used by

Scotch children and old wives?

Then after dinner--at nine o'clock the wonderful glow of the summer

evening was still filling the drawing-room--the Laird must needs have

Mary Avon sing to him. It was not a custom of hers. She rarely would

sing a song of set purpose. The linnet sings all day--when you do not

watch her; but she will not sing if you go and ask.

However, on this occasion, her hostess went to the piano, and sat down

to play the accompaniment; and Mary Avon stood beside her and sang, in

rather a low voice--but it was tender enough--some modern version of the

old ballad of the Queen's Maries. What were the words? These were of

them, any way:--

_Yestreen the Queen had four Maries;_

_This night she'll hae but three:_

_There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,_

_And Mary Carmichael, and me._

But indeed, if you had seen that graceful slim figure--clad all in black

velvet, with the broad band of gold fringe round the neck--and the

small, shapely, smoothly-brushed head above the soft swathes of white

muslin--and if you had caught a glimpse of the black eyelashes drooping

outward from the curve of the pale cheek--and if you had heard the

tender, low voice of Mary Avon, you might have forgotten about the

Queen's Maries altogether.

And then Dr. Sutherland: the Laird was determined--in true Scotch

fashion--that everybody who could not sing should be goaded to sing.

"Oh, well," said the young man, with a laugh, "you know a student in

Germany must sing whether he can or not. And I learned there to smash

out something like an accompaniment also."

And he went to the piano without more ado and did smash out an

accompaniment. And if his voice was rather harsh?--well, we should have

called it raucous in the case of East Wind, but we only called it manly

and strenuous when it was Angus Sutherland who sang. And it was a manly

song, too--a fitting song for our last night on shore, the words hailing

from the green woods of Fuinary, the air an air that had many a time

been heard among the western seas. It was the song of the Biorlinn[#]

that he sang to us; we could hear the brave chorus and the splash of the

long oars:--

_Send the biorlinn on careering!_

_Cheerily and all together--_

_Ho, ro, clansmen!_

_A long, strong pull together--_

_Ho, ro, clansmen!_

_Give her way and show her wake_

_'Mid showering spray and curling eddies--_

_Ho, ro, clansmen!_

_A long, strong pull together--_

_Ho, ro, clansmen!_

Do we not hear now the measured stroke in the darkness of the morning?

The water springs from her bows; one by one the headlands are passed.

But lo! the day is breaking; the dawn will surely bring a breeze with

it; and then the sail of the gallant craft will bear her over the

seas:--

_Another cheer, our Isle appears!_

_Our biorlinn bears her on the faster--_

_Ho, ro, clansmen!_

_A long, strong pull together--_

_Ho, ro, clansmen!_

_Ahead she goes! the land she knows!_

_Behold! the snowy shores of Canna--_

_Ho, ro, clansmen!_

_A long, strong pull together--_

_Ho, ro, clansmen!_

A long, strong pull together indeed: who could resist joining in the

thunder of the chorus? And we were bound for Canna, too: this was our

last night on shore.

[#] _Biorlinn_--that is, a rowing-boat. The word is pronounced

_byurlen_. The song, which in a measure imitates the rhythm peculiar to

Highland poetry--consisting in a certain repetition of the same vowel

sounds--is the production of Dr. Macleod, of Morven. And here, for the

benefit of any one who minds such things, is a rough draft of the air,

arranged by a most charming young lady, who, however, says she would

much rather die than have her name mentioned:--

[Illustration: Music fragments]

Our last night on shore. In such circumstances one naturally has a

glance round at the people with whom one is to be brought into such

close contact for many and many a day. But in this particular case, what

was the use of speculating, or grumbling, or remonstrating? There is a

certain household that is ruled with a rod of iron. And if the mistress

of that household chose to select as her summer companions a "shilpit

bit thing," and a hard-headed, ambitious Scotch student, and a parochial

magnate haunted by a heresy-case, how dared one object? There is such a

thing as peace and quietness.

But however unpromising the outlook might be, do we not know the remark

that is usually made by that hard-worked officer, the chief mate, when,

on the eve of a voyage, he finds himself confronted by an unusually

mongrel crew? He regards those loafers and outcasts--from the Bowery,

and Ratcliffe Highway, and the Broomielaw--Greeks, niggers, and

Mexicans--with a critical and perhaps scornful air, and forthwith

proceeds to address them in the following highly polished manner:--

"By etcetera-etcetera, you are an etceteraed rum-looking lot; but

etcetera-etcetera me _if I don't lick you into shape before we get to

Rio_."

And so--good-night!--and let all good people pray for fair skies and a

favouring breeze! And if there is any song to be heard in our dreams,

let it be the song of the Queen's Maries--in the low, tender voice of

Mary Avon:--

_There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,_

_And Mary Carmichael, and me._

*CHAPTER VII.*

*NORTHWARD.*

We have bidden good-bye to the land; the woods and the green hills have

become pale in the haze of the summer light; we are out here, alone, on

the shining blue plain. And if our young Doctor betrays a tendency to

keep forward--conversing with John of Skye about blocks, and tackle, and

winches; and if the Laird--whose parental care and regard for Mary Avon

is becoming beautiful to see--should have quite a monopoly of the young

lady, and be more bent than ever on amusing her with his "good ones;"

and if our queen and governor should spend a large portion of her time

below, in decorating cabins with flowers, in overhauling napery, and in

earnest consultation with Master Fred about certain culinary mysteries;

notwithstanding all these divergences of place and occupation, our

little kingdom afloat is compact enough. There is always, for example,

a reassembling at meals. There is an instant community of interest when

a sudden cry calls all hands on deck to regard some new thing--the

spouting of a whale or the silvery splashing of a shoal of mackerel.

But now--but now--if only some cloud-compelling Jove would break this

insufferably fine weather, and give us a tearing good gale!