BLUE PETER.
By the time he had put up Kelpie, Malcolm found that his only chance
of seeing Blue Peter before he left London, lay in going direct to the
wharf. On his road he reflected on what had just passed, and was not
altogether pleased with himself. He had nearly lost his temper with
Liftore; and if he should act in any way unbefitting the position he
had assumed, from the duties of which he was in no degree exonerated
by the fact that he had assumed it for a purpose, it would not only
be a failure in himself, but an impediment perhaps insurmountable in
the path of his service. To attract attention was almost to insure
frustration. When he reached the wharf he found they had nearly got her
freight on board the smack. Blue Peter stood on the forecastle. He went
to him and explained how it was that he had been unable to join him
sooner.
“I didna ken ye,” said Blue Peter, “in sic playactor kin’ o’ claes.”
“Nobody in London would look at me twice now. But you remember how we
were stared at when first we came,” said Malcolm.
“Ow ay!” returned Peter with almost a groan; “there’s a sair cheenge
past upo’ you, but I’m gauin’ hame to the auld w’y o’ things. The
herrin’ ’ll be aye to the fore, I’m thinkin’; an’ gien we getna a
harbour we’ll get a h’aven.”
Judging it better to take no notice of this pretty strong expression of
distrust and disappointment, Malcolm led him aside, and putting a few
sovereigns in his hand, said,
“Here, Peter, that will take you home.”
“It’s ower muckle--a heap ower muckle. I’ll tak naething frae ye but
what’ll pay my w’y.”
“And what is such a trifle between friends?”
“There _was_ a time, Ma’colm, whan what was mine was yours, an’ what
was yours was mine, but that time’s gane.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Peter; but still I owe you as much as that for
bare wages.”
“There was no word o’ wauges when ye said, Peter, come to Lon’on wi’
me.--Davie there--he maun hae his wauges.”
“Weel,” said Malcolm, thinking it better to give way, “I’m no abune
bein’ obleeged to ye, Peter. I maun bide my time, I see, for ye winna
lippen till me. Eh man! your faith’s sune at the wa’.”
“Faith! what faith?” returned Peter, almost fiercely. “We’re tauld
to put no faith in man; an’ gien I bena come to that yet freely, I’m
nearer till ’t nor ever I was afore.”
“Weel, Peter, a’ ’at I can say is, I ken my ain hert, an’ ye dinna ken
’t.”
“Daur ye tell me!” cried Peter. “Disna the Scriptur’ itsel’ say the
hert o’ man is deceitfu’ an’ despratly wickit: who can know it?”
“Peter,” said Malcolm, and he spoke very gently, for he understood that
love and not hate was at the root of his friend’s anger and injustice,
“gien ye winna lippen to me, there’s naething for ’t but I maun lippen
to you. Gang hame to yer wife, an’ gi’e her my compliments, an’ tell
her a’ ’at’s past atween you an’ me, as near, word for word, as ye can
tell the same; an’ say till her, I pray her to jeedge atween you an’
me--an’ to mak the best o’ me to ye ’at she can, for I wad ill thole to
loss yer freenship, Peter.”
The same moment came the command for all but passengers to go ashore.
The men grasped each other’s hand, looked each other in the eyes with
something of mutual reproach, and parted--Blue Peter down the river to
Scaurnose and Annie, Malcolm to the yacht lying still in the Upper Pool.
He saw it taken properly in charge, and arranged for having it towed up
the river and anchored in the Chelsea Reach.
When Blue Peter found himself once more safe out at sea, with twelve
hundred yards of canvas spread above him in one mighty wing betwixt
boom and gaff; and the wind blowing half a gale, the weather inside him
began to change a little. He began to see that he had not been behaving
altogether as a friend ought. It was not that he saw reason for being
better satisfied with Malcolm or his conduct, but reason for being
worse satisfied with himself; and the consequence was that he grew
still angrier with Malcolm, and the wrong he had done him seemed more
and more an unpardonable one.
When he was at length seated on the top of the coach running betwixt
Aberdeen and Fochabers, which would set him down as near Scaurnose as
coach could go, he began to be doubtful how Annie, formally retained
on Malcolm’s side by the message he had to give her, would judge in
the question between them; for what did she know of theatres and such
places? And the doubt strengthened as he neared home. The consequence
was that he felt in no haste to execute Malcolm’s commission; and
hence, the delights of greeting over, Annie was the first to open her
bag of troubles: Mr Crathie had given them notice to quit at Midsummer.
“Jist what I micht hae expeckit!” cried Blue Peter, starting up. “Woe
be to the man ’at puts his trust in princes! I luikit till him to
save the fisher-fowk, an’ no to the Lord; an’ the tooer o’ Siloam’s
fa’en upo’ my heid:--what does he, the first thing, but turn his ain
auld freen’s oot o’ the sma beild they had! That his father nor his
gran’father, ’at was naither o’ them God-fearin’ men, wad never hae put
their han’ till. Eh, wuman! but my hert’s sair ’ithin me. To think o’
Ma’colm MacPhail turnin’ his back upo’ them ’at’s been freens wi’ ’im
sin ever he was a wee loonie, rinnin’ aboot in coaties!”
“Hoot, man! what’s gotten intill yer heid?” returned his wife. “It’s no
Ma’colm; it’s the illwully factor. Bide ye till he comes till ’s ain,
an’ Maister Crathie ’ll hae to lauch o’ the wrang side o’ ’s mou’.”
But thereupon Peter began his tale of how he had fared in London, and
in the excitement of keenly anticipated evil, and with his recollection
of events wrapped in the mist of a displeasure which had deepened
during his journey, he so clothed the facts of Malcolm’s conduct in the
garments of his own feelings that the mind of Annie Mair also became
speedily possessed with the fancy that their friend’s good fortune
had upset his moral equilibrium, and that he had not only behaved to
her husband with pride and arrogance, breaking all the ancient bonds
of friendship between them, but had tried to seduce him from the ways
of righteousness by inveigling him into a playhouse, where marvels
of wickedness were going on at the very time. She wept a few bitter
tears of disappointment, dried them hastily, lifted her head high, and
proceeded to set her affairs in order as if death were at the door.
For indeed it was to them as a death to leave Scaurnose. True, Annie
came from inland, and was not of the fisher-race, but this part of
the coast she had known from childhood, and in this cottage all her
married years had been spent, while banishment of the sort involved
banishment from every place they knew, for all the neighbourhood was
equally under the power of the factor. And poor as their accommodation
here was, they had plenty of open air and land room; whereas if they
should be compelled to go to any of the larger ports, it would be to
circumstances greatly inferior, and a neighbourhood in all probability
very undesirable for their children.