VOYAGE TO LONDON.
For a few minutes Malcolm stood alone in the dim starlight of winter,
looking out on the dusky sea, dark as his own future, into which
the wind now blowing behind him would soon begin to carry him. He
anticipated its difficulties, but never thought of perils: it was
seldom anything oppressed him but the doubt of what he ought to do.
This was ever the cold mist that swallowed the airy castles he built
and peopled with all the friends and acquaintances of his youth. But
the very first step towards action is the death-warrant of doubt, and
the tide of Malcolm’s being ran higher that night, as he stood thus
alone under the stars, than he had ever yet known it run. With all
his common-sense, and the abundance of his philosophy, which the much
leisure belonging to certain phases of his life had combined with
the slow strength of his intellect to render somewhat long-winded in
utterance, there was yet room in Malcolm’s bonnet for a bee above the
ordinary size, and if it buzzed a little too romantically for the taste
of the nineteenth century, about disguises and surprises and bounty
and plots and rescues and such like, something must be pardoned to
one whose experience had already been so greatly out of the common,
and whose nature was far too child-like and poetic, and developed in
far too simple a surrounding of labour and success, difficulty and
conquest, danger and deliverance, not to have more than the usual
amount of what is called _the romantic_ in its composition.
The buzzing of his bee was for the present interrupted by the return of
Blue Peter with his wife. She threw her arms round Malcolm’s neck, and
burst into tears.
“Hoots, my woman!” said her husband, “what are ye greitin’ at?”
“Eh, Peter!” she answered, “I canna help it. It’s jist like a deith.
He’s gauin’ to lea’ us a’, an’ gang hame till ’s ain, an’ I canna bide
’at he sud grow strange-like to hiz ’at ha’e kenned him sae lang.”
“It’ll be an ill day,” returned Malcolm, “whan I grow strange to ony
freen’. I’ll ha’e to gang far down the laich (_low_) ro’d afore that be
poassible. I mayna aye be able to du jist what ye wad like; but lippen
ye to me: I s’ be fair to ye. An’ noo I want Blue Peter to gang wi’ me,
an’ help me to what I ha’e to du--gien ye ha’e nae objection to lat
him.”
“Na, nane ha’e I. I wad gang mysel’ gien I cud be ony use,” answered
Mrs Mair; “but women are i’ the gait whiles.”
“Weel, I’ll no even say thank ye; I’ll be awin’ ye that as weel ’s the
lave. But gien I dinna du weel, it winna be the fau’t o’ ane or the
ither o’ you twa freen’s. Noo, Peter, we maun be aff.”
“No the nicht, surely?” said Mrs Mair, a little taken by surprise.
“The suner the better, lass,” replied her husband. “An’ we cudna ha’e a
better win’. Jist rin ye hame, an’ get some vicktooals thegither, an’
come efter hiz to Portlossie.”
“But hoo ’ill ye get the boat to the watter ohn mair han’s? I’ll need
to come mysel’ an’ fess Jean.”
“Na, na; let Jean sit. There’s plenty i’ the Seaton to help. We’re
gauin’ to tak the markis’s cutter. She’s a heap easier to lainch, an’
she’ll sail a heap fester.”
“But what’ll Maister Crathie say?”
“We maun tak oor chance o’ that,” answered her husband, with a smile
of confidence; and thereupon he and Malcolm set out for the Seaton,
while Mrs Mair went home to get ready some provisions for the voyage,
consisting chiefly of oatcakes.
The prejudice against Malcolm from his imagined behaviour to Lizzy
Findlay, had by this time, partly through the assurances of Peter,
partly through the power of the youth’s innocent presence, almost died
out, and when the two men reached the Seaton, they found plenty of
hands ready to help them to reach the little sloop. Malcolm said he was
going to take her to Peterhead, and they asked no questions but such as
he contrived to answer with truth, or to leave unanswered. Once afloat,
there was very little to be done to her, for she had been laid up in
perfect condition, and as soon as Mrs Mair appeared with her basket,
and they had put that, a keg of water, some fishing-lines, and a pan of
mussels for bait, on board, they were ready to sail, and wished their
friends a light good-bye, leaving them to imagine they were gone but
for a day or two, probably on some business of Mr Crathie’s.
With the wind from the north-west, they soon reached Duff Harbour,
where Malcolm went on shore and saw Mr Soutar. He, with a landsman’s
prejudice, made strenuous objections to such a mad prank as sailing to
London at that time of the year, but in vain. Malcolm saw nothing mad
in it, and the lawyer had to admit he ought to know best. He brought
on board with him a lad of Peter’s acquaintance, and now fully manned,
they set sail again, and by the time the sun appeared were not far from
Peterhead.
Malcolm’s spirits kept rising as they bowled along over the bright cold
waters. He never felt so capable as when at sea. His energies had been
first called out in combat with the elements, and hence he always felt
strongest, most at home, and surest of himself on the water. Young
as he was, however, such had been his training under Mr Graham, that
a large part of this elevation of spirit was owing to an unreasoned
sense of being there more immediately in the hands of God. Later in
life, he interpreted the mental condition thus--that of course he was
always and in every place equally in God’s hands, but that at sea he
felt the truth more keenly. Where a man has nothing firm under him,
where his life depends on winds invisible and waters unstable, where
a single movement may be death, he learns to feel what is at the same
time just as true every night he spends asleep in the bed in which
generations have slept before him, or any sunny hour he spends walking
over ancestral acres.
They put in at Peterhead, purchased a few provisions, and again set
sail.
And now it seemed to Malcolm that he must soon come to a conclusion
as to the steps he must take when he reached London. But think as
he would, he could plan nothing beyond finding out where his sister
lived, going to look at the house, and getting into it if he might.
Nor could his companion help him with any suggestions, and indeed he
could not talk much with him because of the presence of Davy, a rough,
round-eyed, red-haired young Scot, of the dull invaluable class that
can only do what they are told, but do that to the extent of their
faculty.
They knew all the coast as far as the Frith of Forth; after that they
had to be more careful. They had no charts on board, nor could have
made much use of any. But the wind continued favourable, and the
weather cold, bright, and full of life. They spoke many coasters on
their way, and received many directions.
Off the Nore they had rough weather, and had to stand off and on for
a day and a night till it moderated. Then they spoke a fishing boat,
took a pilot on board, and were soon in smooth water. More and more
they wondered as the channel narrowed, and ended their voyage at length
below London Bridge, in a very jungle of masts.