A THREATENED INVASION.
Mary rose quickly, her clear eyes showing such obvious pleasure that
Kaethchen was inclined to be indignant. 'Mamie, have you no pride!'
Kaethchen said in her heart. 'It is not becoming in a young woman to be
so grateful--for an ordinary piece of civility. And Mary Stanley of all
people!' Well, Mary Stanley did not seem to be governed by any such
considerations; she went forward to receive her visitor with the
frankest smile of welcome lighting up her face; the magic-working dimple
did its part.
"I am so glad you have called," said she, "for I was thinking of writing
to you, and I was not sure whether you were at Heimra. We have not seen
the yacht coming and going of late."
"No," said he, as he took the chair nearest her (and Kaethchen remarked
that his eyes, too, showed pleasure, if less openly declared), "I went
down as far as Portree in the _Consuelo_--or I would have called before
now. Did you want to see me about--about anything?"
And this question he asked with a curious simplicity and directness of
manner. There was none of the self-consciousness of a young man
addressing a remarkably pretty young woman. It was rather like an offer
of neighbourly help: what trouble was she in now?
"I was wondering," she made answer, with a little timidity, "whether you
would care to go out on the Twelfth with my brother and Mr. Meredyth.
It is not a very grand shooting, as you know; but you would get some
little amusement, I suppose; and Miss Glendinning and I would come and
have lunch with you--if we were not in the way."
This ought to have been a sufficiently attractive invitation; but the
observant Kaethchen noticed that the young man hesitated.
"Thank you very much," said he; "it is most kind of you to have thought
of me; but the fact is I'm not much of a shot, and I shouldn't like to
spoil the bag. Of course, your brother will want to see what the moor
can yield; and with fair shooting two guns should give a very good
account of Lochgarra; so that it would be really a pity to spoil the
Twelfth by bringing in a useless gun. Thank you all the same for
thinking of me----"
"Oh, perhaps you don't care about shooting?" said Mary. "Perhaps you
are fonder of fishing?"
And hardly were the words out of her mouth when some sudden recollection
of that phantom poacher rushed in upon her mind; a hideous dread
possessed her; how could she have been so unutterably indiscreet? Not
only that, but there was yesterday's incident of the hurling of the
stone into the salmon-pool: would he imagine that she suspected
him--that she was probing into a guilty knowledge? She was bewildered
by what she had done; and yet determined to betray no consciousness of
her blunder. A ghastly and protracted silence seemed to follow her
question; but that was merely imagination on her part; he answered her
at once--and that in the most natural manner, without a trace of
embarrassment.
"I am a poor enough shot," said he, with a smile, "but I am even a worse
fisherman. You see, there is hardly any shooting on Heimra Island, but
there is still less fishing--none at all, practically. As for the
shooting, there are some rabbits among the rocks, and occasionally I
have seen a covey of grouse come flying across from the mainland; but
the truth is, when you get used to the charm of quiet in a place like
that, you don't want to have it broken by the banging of a gun----"
"Oh, no, of course not," said Mary, with a certain eagerness of
assent--for she was overjoyed to find that nothing had come of her
fancied indiscretion. "Of course not. I can quite imagine there must
be a singular fascination in the solitariness of such an island, and
the--the--silence. A fascination and a charm; and yet when Miss
Glendinning and I have been up among the hills here, sometimes it has
seemed too awful--too lifeless--it became terrible. Then out at
Heimra--the sea being all round you in the night--and the bit of land so
small--that must be a strange sensation; but perhaps you don't notice it
as a stranger might; you must have got used to it----"
"Yes," said he, "it is very solitary and very silent. All the same," he
added, rather absently, "I dare say I shall miss that very solitariness
and silence when I go away from Heimra, as I hope to do ere long. I
should not wonder if I looked back with some regret."
"Oh, you are going away from Heimra--and before long?" Mary
repeated--and Kaethchen glanced quickly at her.
"I hope so," he said. "Well, I would not trouble you with my schemes
and plans, but for the fact that they indirectly concern you." She
looked startled for a second; but he proceeded with a certain easy
cheerfulness of manner which Kaethchen thought became him; and he spoke
in a confidential and friendly way, more than was his wont: "Yes; if
what I am aiming at succeeds it will make your position here a good deal
easier. I know the difficulties you have to contend with on an estate
like this--the poverty of the soil--families growing up and marrying,
and still clinging to the small homesteads--the distance from
markets--the climate--and all that. And indeed my first scheme--my
ideal scheme," he went on, in this frank kind of fashion, "was
comprehensive enough: I wanted nothing less than to take away the whole
of the population with me--not the surplus population merely, but the
whole of the people bodily, leaving the sheep and the game in
undisturbed possession. That would have made matters easy for you--and
for Mr. Purdie. I thought I could carry them away with me to one of the
colonies; and get a grant of Crown Lands from the Government; and be
appointed to look after the settlement, so that I could live and die
among those I have known from my childhood. There was only one point of
the scheme that I was absolutely sure about, and that was that the
people would go if I asked them--yes, to the very oldest. 'If I have to
be carried on board the ship,' one of them said to me----"
"Have you considered--the terrible responsibility?" she said, in rather
a breathless way.
"Yes, indeed," said he, gravely. "And that comprehensive project was
not practicable: it was too big--too visionary. But for some time back
I have been making inquiries: indeed I went down to Portree chiefly to
see one of the Committee who manage the Emigrants' Information
Office--he is taking his holiday in Skye at present. And if in a more
modest and reasonable way I could take a number of the people away with
me, and found a little colony out in Queensland or in Canada, that would
give you some relief, and make it easier for those remaining
behind--would it not? North-Western Canada and Queensland--perhaps you
know--are the only colonies that offer the immigrant a free homestead of
160 acres; and Canada is especially hospitable, for at all the ports
there are Government agents, for the purpose of giving the immigrants
every information and procuring them work. Oh, I am very well aware,"
he continued--seeing that she was silent and absorbed--"that emigration
is not a certain panacea. There is no assurance that the emigrant is
going to leave all his ills and troubles behind him. Very often the
first generation have to suffer sore hardship; then the next reap the
reward of their toil and perseverance. And home-sickness--well, plenty
of them never get over that; and naturally, if they are home-sick, they
exaggerate their sufferings and misfortunes." He sought in his pockets
and brought out a letter. "Perhaps you would care to read that--I found
it awaiting me when I came home this time."
She took the letter, and looked at it in rather a perfunctory way. It
was clear that her mind was fixed on something quite different. Perhaps
she was thinking of that distant settlement--out among the pines and
snows of the North-West--or far away under the Southern Cross: the
drafted people working with a right goodwill, and concealing their
home-sickness, and making light of their hardships, so long as Young
Donald was with them. Perhaps she was thinking of the denuded
Lochgarra, and of the empty Eilean Heimra. After all, it was something
to have a neighbour, even if he lived in that lonely island. And if she
were doing her best with the people who remained--fostering industries,
spreading education, bettering their condition in every way--well, there
would be no one to whom she could show what she had done. What did her
brother care for such things?--her brother was thinking only of grouse,
and black-game, and grilse. Frank Meredyth?--she more than suspected
that his affectation of interest was only a sort of compliment paid to
herself. And then there was another thing, more difficult to formulate;
but away deep down in her heart somewhere there had sprung up a vague
desire that some day or other she might be able to show Donald Ross how
sorry she was for the injuries he had suffered at the hands of her
family. When once a close and firm friendship had been established
between them, he might be induced to forgive. But if he were going
away, while as yet he and she were almost strangers? And she knew that
the people who might remain with her at Lochgarra would say to
themselves that she was the one who had driven Young Donald across the
seas.
She forced herself to read the letter--
"Armadale, Minnesona, Canada.
"Mr. Ross of Heimra.--Sir,--Peter Macleod was showing me the letter you
was writing to him, and asking about me, and he said it my duty to
answer and give Mr. Ross the news. We have not much comfort here; I
think the Lord was not pleased with us that we left our own country and
come to America. My wife is very seeck; and while she has the seeckness
on her I cannot go away and get railway work; and there are the five
children, the oldest of them twelve, and not able to do mich. I have a
cow that is giving mulk. I have a yoke of oxen. There is not a well;
but I will begin at it soon. I have found a Lochgarra man, wan Neil
Campbell, about five miles from here; it is a pleasure to me that I have
the jance of speaking my own langwich. I have twelve tons of hay. The
soil is good; but the weather verra bad; ay, until the end of May there
was frost every night, and many's the time hailstones that would spoil
the crop in half an hour. I bought ten bolls of meal forbye[#] the
Government's supply; and if I had not had a little money I do not know
what I would have done; and now the money is gone, and I cannot go away
to work and leave my wife with the seeckness on her; and maybe if I did
go away I would not get any work whatever. What to do now it is beyond
me to say, and we are far away from any friends, my wife and me. When I
went to Kavanagh to bring the doctor to my wife I was hearing the news
from home that they believed I had brokken my leg. But it is not my
legs that are brokken--it is my heart that is brokken. There has been
no happiness within me since the day I left Loch Torridon and went away
to Greenock to the steamer. That was a bad day for me and my family; we
have had no peace or comfort since; it's glad I would be to see
Ru-na-uag once more--ay, if they would give me a job at brekkin stones.
This is all the news I am thinking of; and wishing Mr. Ross a long life
and happiness, I am, your respectful servant,
"ANGUS MACKAY."
[#] Forbye--besides.
"Poor man!" said Mary. And then she looked up as she handed back the
letter. "I should have thought," she continued, addressing Donald Ross,
"that a report like that would have caused you to hesitate before
recommending any more emigration. Was it you who sent that poor man
out?"
"Oh, no," he answered at once; "that Angus Mackay lived at Loch
Torridon--a long way south from here. I only got to know something of
him accidentally. But mind you, Miss Stanley, I would not assume that
even in his case emigration has been a failure. That letter is simply
saturated with home-sickness. I should not be at all surprised to hear
in a year or two that Angus was doing very well with his farm; and it is
almost a certainty that when his family have grown up they will find
themselves in excellent circumstances. Of course it is hard on him that
his wife should be ill, especially with those young children--but these
are misfortunes that happen everywhere."
"Emigration?" she repeated (and Kaethchen could tell by her tone that
this scheme of his found no favour in her sight). "So that is your cure
for the poverty and discontent in the Highlands? But don't you think it
is rather a confession of failure? Don't you think if the landlords
were doing their duty there would be no need to drive these poor people
away from their homes? No doubt, as you say, families grow up and
marry, while the land does not increase; but look at the thousands upon
thousands of acres that at present don't support a single human
being----"
"You mean the deer-forests?" he said quite coolly (for the owner of the
little island of Heimra had not much personal and immediate interest in
the rights and duties of proprietors). "Yes; they say that is the
alternative. They say either emigration or throwing open the
deer-forests to small tenants and crofters--banishing the deer
altogether, limiting the sheep-farms, planting homesteads. It sounds
very well in the House of Commons, but I'm afraid it wouldn't work in
practice. Such deer-forests as I happen to know are quite useless for
any such purpose; the great bulk of the soil is impossible--rocks and
peat simply; and then the small patches of land that might be
cultivated--less than two acres in every thousand, they say--are
scattered, and remote, and inaccessible. Who is to make roads, to begin
with--even if the crofters were mad enough to imagine that they could
send their handful of produce away to the distant markets with any
chance of competition?"
But she was not convinced: a curious obstinacy seemed to have got hold
of her.
"I can't help thinking," she repeated, "that emigration is a kind of
cowardly remedy. Isn't it rather like admitting that you have failed?
Surely there must be some other means? Why, before I came to Lochgarra
I made up my mind that I would try to find out about the crofters who
had gone away or been sent away, and I would invite them to come back
and take up their old holdings."
"It would be a cruel kindness," said he. "And I doubt whether they would
thank you for the offer. Yes, I dare say some would; and on their way
back to their old home they would be filled with joy. When they came in
sight of Ru-Minard I dare say they would be crying with delight; and
when they landed at Lochgarra they would be for falling on their knees
to kiss the beloved shore. But that wouldn't last long. When they came
to look at the sour and marshy soil, the peat-hags, and the rocks, they
would begin to alter their mind----"
"In any case," said she, "I have abandoned the idea for the present; I
find I have already plenty on my hands. And I don't confess that I have
failed yet. I am doing what I can. It is a very slow process; for they
seem to imagine that whatever I suggest is for my own interest; at the
same time, I don't see that I have failed yet. And as for
emigration----"
"But, Miss Stanley," said he seriously, "you don't suppose I would take
away any number of the people without your consent?"
At this she brightened up a little.
"Oh, it is only if there is a necessity? Only as a necessity, you
mean?"
"Perhaps there is something of selfishness in it, too," he admitted.
"Of course, I don't like the idea of living in Eilean Heimra all my
life--not now: I am free from any duty; and--and perhaps there are
associations that one ought to leave behind one. And if I could get
some post from the Government in connection with this emigration
scheme--if I could become the overseer of the little settlement--I
should still be among my own people: no doubt that has had something to
do with my forecasts----"
"But at all events," she interposed, quickly, "you won't be too
precipitate? It is a dreadful responsibility. Even if they exaggerate
their hardships through home-sickness, that is not altogether imaginary:
it is real enough to them at the time. And if actual suffering were to
take place----"
"I know the responsibility," he said. "I am quite aware of it. All
that I could do would be to obtain the fullest and most accurate
information; and then explain to the people the gravity of the step they
were about to take. Then it is not a new thing; there are quite
trustworthy accounts of the various colonial settlements; and this
evidence they would have to estimate dispassionately for themselves."
"Mr. Ross!" she remonstrated. "How can you say such a thing! You told
me just now that the whole of those people would follow you away to
Canada or Australia if you but said the word. Is that a fair judgment
of evidence? I don't think you could get rid of your responsibility by
putting a lot of Bluebooks before them----"
"I see you are against emigration," he said.
"It may be necessary in some places--I don't know yet that it is here,"
she answered him. "I would rather be allowed to try." And then she
said--looking at him rather timidly--"If you think I have not given them
enough, I will give them more. There is no forest land, as you know;
but--but there is some more pasture that perhaps Mr. Watson might be
induced to give up. I have given them Meall-na-Cruagan; if you wish it,
I will give them Meall-na-Fearn. Mr. Watson was most good-natured about
Meall-na-Cruagan; and I dare say there would be no difficulty in
settling what should be taken off his rent if he were to give up
Meall-na-Fearn and Corrie Bhreag. And--and there's more than that I
would try before having people banished."
Kate Glendinning observed that this young man changed colour. It was an
odd thing--and interesting to the onlooker. For usually he was so calm,
and self-possessed, and reserved: submissive, too, so that it was only
at times that he raised his keen black eyes to the young lady who was
addressing him: he seemed to wish to keep a certain distance between
them. But these last words of hers appeared to have touched him. The
pale, dark face showed a sense of shame--or deprecation.
"You must not imagine, Miss Stanley," said he, "that I came to ask for
anything. You have already been most generous--too generous, most
people would say. It would be imposing on you to ask for more; it would
be unfair; if I were in your position, I would refuse. But I thought my
scheme might afford you some relief----"
"And if you went away with them, what would you do with Heimra Island?"
she said, abruptly--and regarding him with her clear, honest eyes.
"That I don't know," said he, "except that I should be sorry to sell it.
And it would not be easy to let it, even as a summer holiday place.
There is no fishing or shooting to speak of; and it is a long way to
come. For a yachtsman it might make convenient headquarters----"
"But you would not sell the island?" she asked again.
"Not unless I was compelled," he made answer. "I might go away and
leave it for a time--the letting of the pasture would just about cover
the housekeeper's wages and the keeping up of the place; and then, years
hence, when my little community in Australia or Canada was all safely
established--when the heat of the day was over, as they say in the
Gaelic--I might come back there, and spend the end of my life in peace
and quiet. For old people do not need many friends around them: their
recollections are in the past."
And then he rose.
"I beg your pardon for troubling you about my poor affairs."
"But they concern me," she said, as she rose also, "and very
immediately. Besides that, we are neighbours. And so I am to
understand that you won't do anything further with your emigration
scheme--not at present?"
"Nothing until you consent--nor until you are quite satisfied that it is
a wise thing to embark on. And indeed there is no great hurry: I can't
keep my last term until November next. But by then I hope to have
learnt everything there is to be learned about the various
emigration-fields."
She rang the bell; but she herself accompanied him to the door, and out
into the hall.
"By the way," said she, "what has become of Anna Chlannach?--I thought
you were to tell her to come to me, so that I could assure her she
shouldn't be locked up in any asylum?"
"I'm afraid Anna has not got over her fear of you," said he, with a
smile. "She seems to think you tried to entrap her into the garden,
where Mr. Purdie was. And it isn't easy to reason with Anna Chlannach."
"Oh, then, you see her sometimes?" she asked.
"Sometimes--yes. If Anna catches sight of the _Sirene_ coming across,
she generally runs down to Camus Bheag, and waits for us, to ask for
news from the island."
"Will you tell her that I am very angry with her for not coming to see
me--when Barbara could quite easily be the interpreter between us?"
"I will. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" said she, as he left.
But she did not immediately go back to the drawing-room, and to
Kaethchen, and the dyed wools. She remained in the great, empty oak
hall, slowly walking up and down--with visions before her eyes. She saw
a name, too: it was _New Heimra_. And the actual Heimra out there--the
actual Heimra would then be deserted, save, perhaps, for some old
housekeeper, who would sit out in the summer evenings, and wonder
whether Young Donald was ever coming back to his home. Or perhaps an
English family would be in possession of that bungalow retreat: the
children scampering about with their noisy games: would they be silent a
little, when chance brought them to the lonely white grave, up there on
the crest of the hill?
She was startled from her reverie by some sound on the steps outside,
and, turning, found her brother and Frank Meredyth at the door.
"Now, Mamie, see what comes of all your coddling!" Fred Stanley
exclaimed as he came forward, and he held a piece of paper in his hand.
"This is a pretty state of affairs! But can you wonder? They easily
find out where the place is ripe for them--where the people have been
nursed into insolence and discontent--and on the Twelfth, too--oh, yes,
the Twelfth!--when they expect the keepers to be up on the hill, so
they'll be able to break a few of the drawing-room windows on their way
by----"
"What are you talking about?" she said, in answer to this incoherent
harangue; and she took the paper from him. It was a handbill, rather
shabbily printed; and these were the contents:--
THE HEATHER ON FIRE!
THE HEATHER ON FIKE!
_The Land for the People!--Away with Sheep, Deer, and Landlords!--The
Landlords must go!--Compulsory Emigration for Landlords!--Men of the
Highlands, stand up for your rights!--Down with Southern Rack-Renters!_
To THE
TENANTS, CROFTERS, AND COTTARS OF
LOCHGARRA AND NEIGHBOURHOOD:
A PUBLIC MEETING
_Will be held in Lochgarra Free Church, on Monday the 12th of August, at
one o'clock. Addresses by Mr. JOSIAH OGDEN, M.P., Miss ERNESTINE SIMON,
of Paris, and Mrs. ELIZABETH JACKSON NOYES, of the Connecticut Council
of Liberty. Mr. JOHN FRASER, Vice-President of the Stratherrick Branch
of the Highland Land League, will preside._
ADMISSION FREE.
Men of Lochgarra!--attend in your hundreds:
_"Who would be free themselves must strike the blow!"_
Well, Mary was not the least bit frightened.
"I don't see why they shouldn't hold a public meeting," said she, as she
handed him back the bill.
"Why, there will be a public riot!" he said. "You haven't seen the great
placards they have pasted up on the walls--done with a big brush--I
suppose they were afraid to print them; but if you go down through the
village you will see what they're after. '_Sweep the sheep off
Meall-na-Fearn_'--'_Take back the land_'--'_A general march into Glen
Orme_.'"
"Glen Orme deer-forest has nothing to do with me," she said.
"Do you think they will draw such fine distinctions?" he retorted. "I
can tell you, when once the march has begun, they won't stop to ask
whose fences they are tearing down; and a shot or two fired through your
windows is about the least you can expect. And that is what comes of
coddling people: they think they can terrorise over you whenever they
choose--they welcome any kind of agitator, and think they're going to
have it all their own way. And can't you see who suggested the Twelfth
to them? I'll bet it was that fellow Ross--a clever trick!--either we
lose the opening day of the shooting--and that would make him laugh like
a cat--or else we leave the place free for those parading blackguards to
plunder at their will."
"At all events, Miss Stanley," interposed Frank Meredyth, in a calmer
manner, "there can be no harm in postponing our grouse shooting until
the Tuesday. I think it will be better for Fred and myself to be about
the premises--and the keepers too--until this little disturbance has
blown over."
"Who are those people?" she said, taking back the paper and regarding
it. "Mr. Ogden I know something of--mostly from pictures of him in
_Punch_; but I thought it was strikes and trade unions in the north of
England that he busied himself with. What has brought him to Scotland?"
"Why, wherever there is mischief to be stirred up--and notoriety to be
earned for himself--that is enough for a low Radical of that stamp!" her
brother said. He was a young man, and his convictions were round and
complete.
"And Miss Ernestine Simon---who is she?"
"Oh, you don't know Ernestine?" said Frank Meredyth, with a smile. "Oh
yes, surely! Ernestine, the famous _petroleuse_, who fought at the
Buttes Chaumont and got wounded in the scramble through Belleville? You
must have heard of her, surely! Well, Ernestine is getting old now; but
there is still something of the sacred fire about her--a sort of _mouton
enrage_ desperation: she can use whirling words, as far as her broken
English goes."
"And Mrs. Noyes?" Mary continued. "Who is Mrs. Jackson Noyes, from
Connecticut?"
"There I am done," he confessed. "I never heard of Mrs. Jackson Noyes
in any capacity whatever. But I can imagine the sort of person she is
likely to be."
"And what do those people know about the Highlands?" Mary demanded
again.
"What they have been told by the Land League, I suppose," was his
answer--and therewithal Miss Stanley led the way back to the
drawing-room, to carry these startling tidings to Kate Glendinning.
But she was very silent and thoughtful all that evening; and when the
two gentlemen, after dinner, had gone out on the terrace to smoke a
cigar, she said--
"Kaethchen, I am going to confide in you; and you must not break faith
with me. You hear what is likely to happen next Monday. Very well: Mr.
Meredyth and Fred both want to remain about the house, along with the
keepers, in case there should be any disturbance, any injury done to the
place. Now I particularly wish that they should not; and you must back
me up, if it is spoken of again. Why, what harm can the people do? I
don't mind about a broken window, if one of the lads should become
unruly in going by. And if they drive the sheep off Meall-na-Fearn, the
sheep can be driven back the next day. I will warn Mr. Watson that he
must not allow his men to show resistance. But, above all, I am anxious
that Fred and Mr. Meredyth should leave in the morning for their
shooting, as they had arranged. For the truth is, Kaethchen, I mean to
go to this meeting; and I mean to go alone."
"Mamie!" Kaethchen exclaimed, with dismay in her eyes.
"There are many reasons," Mary Stanley went on. "If those strangers
know anything about the condition of the Highlands that I do not know, I
shall be glad to hear it. If they have merely come to stir up mischief,
I wish to make my protest. But there is more than that: perhaps the
people about here have their grievances and resentments that they would
speak of more freely at such a meeting; and if they have, I want to know
what they are; and I want to show that I am not afraid to trust myself
among my neighbours, and to listen to what they have got to say. For,
after all, Kaethchen, the more you think of it, the more that emigration
scheme--the drafting of a lot of people from their own homes--seems such
a complete confession of failure. I would rather try something else
first--or many things--rather than have the people go away to Canada or
Queensland."
"Mamie," said Kaethchen, rising to her feet, "I will not allow you to
thrust yourself into this danger. You don't know what an excited crowd
may not do. You are the representative here--the only
representative--of the very class whom these strangers have come to
denounce."
"That is why I mean to go and show them that the relations between
landlord and tenant need not necessarily be what they imagine them to
be," Mary said, with a certain dignity and reserve. "Why, if there is
any risk of a serious disturbance, is it not my place to be there, to do
what I can to prevent it?"
"I will appeal to Mr. Meredyth," said Kaethchen.
"You cannot," said Mary, calmly. "I have entrusted you with my
secret--you cannot break faith."
Kaethchen looked disconcerted for a second.
"It is quite monstrous, Mamie, that you should expose yourself to such a
risk. Is it because you are so anxious Mr. Ross should not take away a
lot of the people to Canada--and you want them to declare openly that
they are on good terms with you? At all events, you shall not be there
alone. I will go with you."
"It is quite needless, Kaethchen!"
"I don't care about that," said Kate Glendinning; and then she added,
vindictively: "and when I get hold of that Mr. Pettigrew, I will give
him a bit of my mind! The man of peace--always sighing and praying that
people should live together in _ahmity_--and here he goes and lends his
church to these professional mischief-makers. Wait till I get hold of
Mr. Pettigrew!"