THE VOYAGE OF THE PHŒBE.
It was a cold morning in January, and up here among the Jura hills the
clouds had melted into a small and chilling rain that fell ceaselessly.
The great “Paps of Jura” were hidden in the mist; even the valleys near
at hand were vague and dismal in the pale fog; and the Sound of Islay,
lying below, and the far sea beyond, were gradually growing
indistinguishable. In a rude little sheiling, built on one of the
plateaus of rock, Frank Lavender sat alone, listening to the plashing of
the rain without. A rifle that he had just carefully dried lay across
his knees. A brace of deer-hounds had stretched out their paws on the
earthen floor, and had put their long noses between their paws to
produce a little warmth. It was, indeed, a cold and damp morning, and
the little hut was pervaded with a smell of wet wood and also of peat
ashes, for one of the gillies had tried to light a fire, but the peats
had gone out.
It was Lavender who had let the fire go out. He had forgotten it. He was
thinking of other things--of a song, mostly, that Sheila used to sing,
and lines of it went hither and thither through his brain as he recalled
the sound of her voice:
Haste to thy barque,
Coastwise steer not:
Sail wide of Mull,
Jura near not!
Farewell, she said,
Her last pang subduing,
Brave Mac Intyre,
Costly thy wooing!
There came into the sheiling a little, wiry old keeper with shaggy gray
hair and keen black eyes. “Cosh bless me!” he said, petulantly, as he
wrung the rain out of his bonnet, “you hef let the peats go out, Mr.
Lavender, and who will tell when the rain will go off?”
“It can’t last long, Neil. It came on too suddenly for that. I thought
we were going to get one fine day when we started this morning, but you
don’t often manage that here, Neil.”
“Indeed, no, sir,” said Neil, who was not a native of Jura, and was as
eager as any one to abuse the weather prevailing there: “it is a ferry
bad place for the weather. If the Almichty were to tek the sun away a’
tagether, it would be days and weeks and days before you would find it
oot. But it iss a good thing, sir, you will get the one stag before the
mist came down; and he is not a stag, mirover, but a fine big hart, and
a royal, too, and I hef not seen many finer in the Jura hills. Oh, yes,
sir, when he wass crossing the burn I made out his points ferry well,
and I wass saying to myself, ‘Now, if Mr. Lavender will get this one, it
will be a grand day this day, and it will make up for many a wet day
among the hills.’”
“They haven’t come back with the pony yet?” Lavender asked, laying down
his gun and going to the door of the hut.
“Oh, no,” Neil said, following him. “It iss a long way to get the powny,
and maybe they will stop at Mr. MacDougall’s to hef a dram. And Mr.
MacDougall was saying to me yesterday that the ferry next time you wass
shoot a royal he would hef the horns dressed and the head stuffed to
make you a present, for he is ferry proud of the picture of Miss
Margaret; and he will say to me many’s sa time that I wass to gif you
the ferry best shooting, and not to be afraid of disturbing sa deer when
you had a mind to go out. And I am not sure, sir, we will not get
another stag to tek down with us yet, if the wind would carry away the
mist, for the rain that is nearly on now; and as you are ferry wet, sir,
already, it is no matter if we go down through the glen and cross the
water to get the side of Ben Bheulah.”
“That is true enough, Neil, and I fancy the clouds are beginning to
lift. And there they come with the pony.”
Neil directed his glass toward a small group that appeared to be coming
up the side of the valley below them, and that was still at some
considerable distance.
“Cosh bless me!” he cried, “what is that? There iss two strangers--oh
yes, indeed, and mirover--and there is one of them on the pony.”
Lavender’s heart leaped within him. If they were strangers they were
coming to see him, and how long was it since he had seen the face of any
of his old friends and companions? It seemed to him years.
“Is it a man or a woman on the pony, Neil?” he asked hurriedly, with
some wild fancy flashing through his brain. “Give me the glass.”
“Oh, it is a man,” said Neil, handing over the glass, “What would a
woman be doing up sa hills on a morning like this?”
The small party below came up out of the gray mist, and Lavender in the
distance heard a long view-halloo.
“Cott tam them!” said Neil, at a venture. “There is not a deer on Benan
Cabrach that will not hear them.”
“But if these strangers are coming to see me, I fear we must leave the
deer alone, Neil.”
“Ferry well, sir, ferry well, sir; it is a bad day whatever, and it is
not many strangers will come to Jura. I suppose they hef come to Port
Ascaig, and taken the ferry across the sound.”
“I am going to meet them on chance,” Lavender said; and set off along
the side of the deep valley, leaving Neil with the dogs and the rifles.
“Hillo, Johnny!” he cried, in amazement, when he came upon the advancing
group. “And you too, Mosenberg! By Jove, how did you ever get here?”
There was an abundance of handshaking and incoherent questions when
young Mosenberg jumped down on the wet heather, and the three friends
had actually met. Lavender scarcely knew what to say, these two faces
were so strange, and yet so familiar--their appearance there was so
unexpected, his pleasure so great.
“I can’t believe my eyes yet, Johnny. Why did you bring him here? Don’t
you know what you’ll have to put up with in this place? Well, this does
do a fellow’s heart good! I am awfully pleased to see you, and it is
very kind of you.”
“But I am very cold,” the handsome Jew boy said, swinging his arms and
stamping his feet. “Wet boats, wet carts, wet roads, wet saddles, and
everywhere cold, cold, cold.”
“And he won’t drink whisky; so what is he to expect?” Johnny Eyre said.
“Come along up to a little hut here,” Lavender said, “and we’ll try to
get a fire lit. And I have some brandy there.”
“And you have plenty of water to mix with it,” said the boy, looking
mournfully around. “Very good. Let us have the fire and the warm drink;
and then--you know the story of the music that was frozen in the
trumpet, and that all came out when it was thawed at a fire? When we get
warm we have very great news to tell you--oh, very great news indeed.”
“I don’t want any news--I want your company. Come along, like good
fellows, and leave the news for afterward. The men are going on with a
pony to fetch a stag that has been shot; they won’t be back for an hour,
I suppose, at the soonest. This is the sheiling up here where the brandy
is secreted. Now, Neil, help us to get up a blaze. If any of you have
newspapers, letters, or anything that will set a few sticks on fire--”
“I have a box of wax matches,” Johnny said, “and I know how to light a
peat-fire better than any man in the country.”
He was not very successful at first, for the peats were a trifle damp;
but in the end he conquered, and a very fair blaze was produced,
although the smoke that had filled the sheiling had nearly blinded
Mosenberg’s eyes. Then Lavender produced a small tin pot and a solitary
tumbler, and they boiled some water and lit their pipes, and made
themselves seats of peat around the fire. All the while a brisk
conversation was going on, some portions of which astonished Lavender
considerably.
For months back, indeed, he had almost cut himself off from the
civilized world. His address was known to one or two persons, and
sometimes they sent him a letter; but he was a bad correspondent. The
news of his aunt’s death did not reach him till a fortnight after the
funeral, and then it was by a singular chance that he noticed it in the
columns of an old newspaper. “That is the only thing I regret about
coming away,” he was saying to those two friends of his. “I should like
to have seen the old woman before she died; she was very kind to me.”
“Well,” said Johnny Eyre, with a shake of the head, “that is all very
well; but a mere outsider like myself--you see, it looks to me a little
unnatural that she should go and leave her money to a mere friend, and
not to her own relations.”
“I am very glad she did,” Lavender said. “I had as good as asked her to
do it long before. And Ted Ingram will make a better use of it than I
ever did.”
“It is all very well for you to say so now, after all this fuss about
those two pictures; but suppose she had left you to starve?”
“Never mind suppositions,” Lavender said, to get rid of the subject.
“Tell me, Mosenberg, how is that overture of yours getting on?”
“It is nearly finished,” said the lad, with a flush of pleasure, “and I
have shown it in rough to two or three good friends, and--shall I tell
you?--it may be performed at the Crystal Palace. But that is a chance.
And the fate of it, that is also a chance. But you--you have succeeded
all at once, and brilliantly, and all the world is talking of you and
yet you go away among mountains, and live in the cold and wet, and you
might as well be dead.”
“What an ungrateful boy it is!” Lavender cried. “Here you have a
comfortable fire, and hot brandy-and-water, and biscuits, and cigars if
you wish; and you talk about people wishing to leave these things and
die! Don’t you know that in half an hour’s time you will see that pony
come back with a deer--a royal hart--slung across it; and won’t you be
proud when MacDougall takes you out and gives you a chance of driving
home such a prize? Then you will carry the horns back to London, and you
will have them put up, and you will discourse to your friends of the
span and the pearls of the antlers and the crockets. To-night after
supper you will see the horns and the head brought into the room, and if
you fancy that you yourself shot the stag, you will see that this life
among the hills has its compensations.”
“It is a very cold life,” the lad said, passing his hands over the fire.
“That is because you won’t drink anything,” said Johnny Eyre, against
whom no such charge could be wrought. “And don’t you know that the
drinking of whisky is a provision invented by Nature to guard human
beings like you and me from cold and wet? You are flying in the face of
Providence if you don’t drink whisky among the Scotch hills.”
“And have you people to talk to?” said Mosenberg, looking at Lavender
with a vague wonder, for he could not understand why any man could
choose such a life.
“Not many.”
“What do you do on the long evenings when you are by yourself?”
“Well, it isn’t very cheerful, but it does a man good service sometimes
to be alone for a time; it lets him find himself out.”
“You ought to be up in London, to hear all the praise of the people
about your two pictures. Every one is talking of them; the newspapers,
too. Have you seen the newspapers?”
“One or two. But all I know of these two pictures is derived from offers
forwarded me by the secretary at the exhibition rooms. I was surprised
when I got them at first. But never mind them. Tell me more about the
people one used to know. What about Ingram now? Has he cut the Board of
Trade? Does he drive in the Park? Is he still in his rooms in Sloane
Street?”
“Then you have had no letters from him?” Mosenberg said, with some
surprise.
“No. Probably he does not know where I am. In any case--”
“But he is going to be married,” Mosenberg cried. “You did not know
that. And to Mrs. Lorraine.”
“You don’t say so? Why, he used to hate her; but that was before he knew
her. To Mrs. Lorraine?”
“Yes. And it is amusing. She is so proud of him. And if he speaks at the
table she will turn away from you, as if you were not worth listening
to, and have all her attention for him. And whatever is his opinion, she
will defend that, and you must not disagree with her. Oh, it is very
amusing!” and the lad laughed and shook back his curls.
“It is an odd thing,” Lavender said: “but many a time, long before
Ingram ever saw Mrs. Lorraine, I used to imagine these two married. I
knew she was just the sort of clever, independent, clear-headed woman to
see Ingram’s strong points, and rate them at their proper value. But I
never expected anything of the sort, of course; for I had always a
notion that some day or other he would be led into marrying some pretty,
gentle, soft-headed young thing, whom he would have to take through
life in a protecting sort of way, and who would never be a real
companion for him. So he is to marry Mrs. Lorraine, after all. Well, he
won’t become a man of fashion, despite all his money. He is sure to
start a yacht, for one thing. And they will travel a deal. I suppose I
must write and congratulate him.”
“I met them on the day I went to see your picture,” Mosenberg said.
“Mrs. Lorraine was looking at it a long time, and at last she came back
and said, ‘The sea in that picture makes me feel cold.’ That was a
compliment, was it not? Only you cannot get a good view very often, for
the people will not stand back from the pictures. But every one asks why
you do not keep these two over for the Academy.”
“I shall have other two for the Academy, I hope.”
“Commissions?” Johnny asked with a practical air.
“No. I have had some offers, but I prefer to leave the thing open. But
you have not told me how you got here yet,” Lavender added, continually
breaking away from the subject of the pictures.
“In the Phœbe,” Eyre said.
“Is she in the bay?”
“Oh, no. We had to leave her at Port Ellen to get a few small repairs
done, and Mosenberg and I came on by road to Port Ascaig. Mind you, she
was quite small enough to come round the Mull at this time of year.”
“I should think so. What’s your crew?”
“Two men and a lad, besides Mosenberg and myself; and I can tell you we
had our hands full sometimes.”
“You’ve given up open boats with stone ballast, now,” Lavender said with
a laugh.
“Rather. But it was no laughing matter,” Eyre added, with a sudden
gravity coming over his face. “It was the narrowest squeak I ever had,
and I don’t know now how I clung on to that place till the day broke.
When I came to myself and called out for you, I never expected to hear
you answer; and in the darkness, by Jove! your voice sounded like the
voice of a ghost. How you managed to drag me so far up that sea-weed I
can’t imagine; and then the dipping down and under the boat--”
“It was that dip down that saved me,” Lavender said. “It brought me to,
and made me scramble like a rat up the other side as soon as I felt my
hands on the rock again. It was a narrow squeak, as you say, Johnny. Do
you remember how black the place looked when the first light began to
show in the sky? and how we kept each other awake by calling? and how
you called ‘Hurrah!’ when we heard Donald? and how strange it was to
find ourselves so near the mouth of the harbor, after all? During the
night I fancied we must have been thrown on Battle Island, you know.”
“I do not like to hear about that,” young Mosenberg said. “And always,
if the wind came on strong or if the skies grew black, Eyre would tell
me all the story over again when we were in the boat coming down by
Arran and Cantyre. Let us go out and see if they come with the deer. Has
the rain stopped?”
At this moment, indeed, sounds of the approaching party were heard, and
when Lavender and his friends went to the door the pony, with the deer
slung on to him, was just coming up. It was a sufficiently picturesque
sight--the rude little sheiling with its peat fire, the brown and wiry
gillies, the slain deer roped on to the pony, and all around the wild
magnificence of hill and valley clothed in moving mists. The rain had
indeed cleared off, but these pale white fogs still clung around the
mountains and rendered the valleys vague, and Lavender informed Neil
that he would make no further effort that day; he gave the men a glass
of whisky all round, and then, with his friends, he proceeded to make
his way down to the small white cottage fronting the Sound of Islay,
which had been his home for months back.
Just before setting off, however, he managed to take young Mosenberg
aside for a moment. “I suppose,” he said, with his eyes cast down--“I
suppose you heard something from Ingram of--of Sheila?”
“Yes,” said the lad, rather bashfully. “Ingram had heard from her. She
was still in Lewis.”
“And well?”
“I think so--yes,” said Mosenberg; and then he added, with some
hesitation, “I should like to speak to you about it when we have the
opportunity. There were some things that Mr. Ingram said--I am sure he
would like you to know them.”
“There was no message to me?” Lavender asked, in a low voice.
“From her? No. But it was the opinion of Mr. Ingram--”
“Oh, never mind that, Mosenberg,” said the other, turning away wearily.
“I suppose you won’t find it too fatiguing to walk from here back? It
will warm you, you know, and the old woman down there will get you
something to eat. You may make it luncheon or dinner, as you like, for
it will be nearly two by the time you get down. Then you can go for a
prowl around the coast: if it does not rain I shall be working as long
as there is daylight. Then we can have a dinner and supper combined in
the evening. You will get venison and whisky.”
“Don’t you ever have anything else?”
“Oh, yes, the venison will be in honor of you: I generally have mutton
and whisky.”
“Look here, Lavender,” the lad said, with considerable confusion, “the
fact is, Eyre and I--we brought you a few things in the Phœbe--a
little wine, you know, and some such things. To-morrow, if you could get
a passenger to go down to Port Ellen--but no. I suppose we must go and
work the boat up the sound.”
“If you do that, I must go with you,” Lavender said, “for the chances
are that your skipper doesn’t know the currents in the sound; and they
are rather peculiar, I can tell you. So Johnny and you have brought me
some wine? I wish we had it now, to celebrate your arrival, for I am
afraid I can offer you nothing but whisky.”
The old Highland woman who had charge of the odd little cottage in which
Lavender lived was put into a state of violent consternation by the
arrival of these two strangers; but as Lavender said he would sleep on a
couple of chairs and give his bed to Mosenberg and the sofa to Eyre, and
as Mosenberg declared that the house was a marvel of neatness and
comfort, and as Johnny assured her that he had frequently slept in a
herring-barrel, she grew gradually pacified. There was a little
difficulty about plates and knives and forks at luncheon, which
consisted of cold mutton and two bottles of ale that had somehow been
overlooked; but all these minor inconveniences were soon smoothed over,
and then Lavender, carrying his canvas under his arm and a portable
easel over his shoulder, went down to the shore, bade his companions
good-bye for a couple of hours, and left them to explore the winding and
rocky coast of Jura.
In the evening they had dinner in a small parlor, which was pretty well
filled with a chest of drawers, a sofa and a series of large canvases.
There was a peat-fire burning in the grate and two candles on the table,
but the small room did not get oppressively hot, for each time the door
was opened a draught of cold sea-air rushed in from the passage,
sometimes blowing out one of the candles, but always sweetening the
atmosphere. Then Johnny had some fine tobacco with him, and Mosenberg
had brought Lavender a present of a meerschaum pipe, and presently a
small kettle of hot water was put in requisition, and the friends drew
round the fire.
“Well, it _is_ good of you to come and see a fellow like this,” Lavender
said, with a very apparent and hearty gratitude in his face. “I can
scarcely believe my eyes that it is true. And can you make any stay,
Johnny? Have you brought your colors with you?”
“Oh, no; I don’t mean to work,” Johnny said. “I have always had a fancy
for a mid-winter cruise. It’s a hardening sort of thing, you know. You
soon get used to it, don’t you, Mosenberg?” And Johnny grinned.
“Not yet--I may afterward,” said the lad. “But at present this is more
comfortable than being on deck at night when it rains and you know not
where you are going.”
“But that was only your own perversity. You might just as well have
stopped in the cabin, and played that cornopean, and made yourself warm
and comfortable. Really, Lavender, it’s very good fun, and if you only
watch for decent weather you can go anywhere. Fancy our coming around
the Mull with the Phœbe yesterday! And we had quite a pleasant trip
across to Islay.”
“And where do you propose to go after leaving Jura?” Lavender asked.
“Well, you know the main object of our cruise was to come and see you.
But if you care to come with us for a few days, we will go wherever you
like.”
“If you are going farther North, I must go with you,” Lavender said,
“for you are bound to drown yourself some day, Johnny, if some one
doesn’t take care of you.”
There was no deep design in this project of Johnny’s, but he had had a
vague impression that Lavender might like to go North, if only to have a
passing glimpse at the island he used to know.
“One of my fellows is well acquainted with the Hebrides,” he said. “If
you don’t think it too much of a risk, I should like it myself, for
those Northern islands must look uncommonly wild and savage in Winter,
and one likes to have new experiences. Fancy, Mosenberg, what material
you will get for your next piece; it will be full of storms and seas and
thunder. You know how the wind whistles through the overture to the
_Diamants de la Couronne_.”
“It will whistle through us,” said the boy, with an anticipatory shiver,
“but I do not mind the wind if it is not wet. It is the wet that makes a
boat so disagreeable. Everything is so cold and clammy; you can touch
nothing, and when you put your head up in the morning, pah! a dash of
rain and mist and salt water altogether gives you a shock.”
“What made you come around the Mull, Johnny, instead of cutting through
the Crinan?” Lavender asked of his friend.
“Well,” said the youth, modestly, “nothing, except that two or three men
said we couldn’t do it.”
“I thought so,” Lavender said. “And I see I must go with you, Johnny.
You must play no more of these tricks. You must watch your time, and run
her quietly up the Sound of Jura to Crinan; and watch again, and get her
up to Oban; and watch again, and get her up to Loch Sligachan. Then you
may consider. It is quite possible you may have fine, clear weather if
there is a moderate Northeast wind blowing--”
“A Northeast wind!” Mosenberg cried.
“Yes,” Lavender replied, confidently, for he had not forgotten what
Sheila used to teach him, “that is your only chance. If you have been
living in fog and rain for a fortnight you will never forget your
gratitude to a Northeaster when it suddenly sets in to lift the clouds
and show you a bit of blue sky. But it may knock us about a bit in
crossing the Minch.”
“We have come around the Mull, and we can go anywhere,” Johnny said.
“I’d back the Phœbe to take you safely to the West Indies; wouldn’t
you, Mosenberg?”
“Oh, no,” the boy said. “I would back her to take you, not to take me.”
Two or three days thereafter the Phœbe was brought up the sound from
Port Ellen, and such things as were meant as a present to Lavender were
landed. Then the three friends embarked, for the weather had cleared
considerably, and there was indeed, when they set out, a pale wintry
sunshine gleaming on the sea and on the white deck and spars of the
handsome little cutter which Johnny commanded. The Phœbe was
certainly a great improvement on the crank craft in which he used to
adventure his life on Loch Fyne; she was big enough, indeed, to give
plenty of work to everybody on board of her; and when she had once got
into harbor and things put to rights, her chief stateroom proved a jolly
and comfortable little place enough. They had some pleasant evenings in
this way after the work of the day was over, when the swinging lamps
shone down on the table that was furnished with glasses, bottles, cigars
and cards. Johnny was very proud of being in command and of his exploit
in doubling the Mull. He was continually consulting charts and
compasses, and going on deck to communicate his last opinion to his
skipper. Mosenberg, too, was getting better accustomed to the hardships
of yachting, and learning how to secure a fair amount of comfort.
Lavender never said that he wished to go near Lewis, but there was a
tacit understanding that their voyage should tend in that direction.
They had a little rough weather on reaching Skye, and in consequence
remained in harbor a couple of days. At the end of that time a happy
opportunity presented itself of cutting across the Little Minch--the
Great Minch was considered a trifle risky--to Loch Maddy in North Uist.
They were now in the Western Islands, and strange indeed was the
appearance which the bleak region presented at this time of the
year--the lonely coast, the multitudes of wild fowl, the half-savage,
wondering inhabitants, the treeless wastes and desolate rocks. What
these remote and melancholy islands might have looked like in fog and
misty rain could only be imagined, however, for, fortunately, the
longed-for Northeaster had set in, and there were wan glimmerings of
sunshine across the sea and the solitary shores. They remained in Loch
Maddy but a single day, and then, still favored by a brisk Northeast
breeze, made their way through the Sound of Harris and got to leeward of
the conjoint island of Harris and Lewis. There, indeed, were the great
mountains which Lavender had seen many a time from the North, and now
they were close at hand, and dark and forbidding. The days were brief at
this time, and they were glad to put into Loch Resort, which Lavender
had once seen in company with old Mackenzie when they had come into the
neighborhood on a salmon-fishing excursion.
The Phœbe was at her anchorage, the clatter on deck over, and Johnny
came below to see what sort of repast could be got for the evening. It
was not a very grand meal, but he said: “I propose that we have a bottle
of champagne to celebrate our arrival at the island of Lewis. Did you
ever see anything more successfully done? And now, if this wind
continues, we can creep up to-morrow to Loch Roag, Lavender, if you
would like to have a look at it.”
For a moment the color forsook Lavender’s face. “No, thank you, Johnny,”
he was about to say, when his friend interrupted him: “Look here,
Lavender; I know you would like to see the place, and you can do it
easily without being seen. No one knows me. When we anchor in the bay, I
suppose Mr. Mackenzie--as is the hospitable and praiseworthy custom in
these parts--will send a message to the yacht and ask us to dine with
him. I, at any rate, can go up and call on him, and make excuses for
you; and then I could tell you, you know--” Johnny hesitated.
“Would you do that for me, Johnny?” Lavender said. “Well, you are a good
fellow!”
“Oh,” Johnny said lightly, “it’s a capital adventure for me; and perhaps
I could ask Mackenzie--Mr. Mackenzie; I beg your pardon--to let me have
two or three clay pipes, for this briar-root is rapidly going to the
devil.”
“He will give you anything he has in the house; you never saw such a
hospitable fellow, Johnny. But you must take great care what you do.”
“You must trust to me. In the meantime let’s see what Pate knows about
Loch Roag.”
Johnny called down his skipper, a bluff, short, red-faced man, who
presently appeared, his cap in his hand.
“Will you have a glass of champagne, Pate?”
“Oh, ay, sir,” he said, not very eagerly.
“Would you rather have a glass of whisky?”
“Well, sir,” Pate said, in accents that showed that his Highland
pronunciation had been corrupted by many years’ residence in Greenock,
“I was thinkin’ the whisky was a wee thing better for ye on a cauld
nicht.”
“Here you are, then! Now, tell me, do you know Loch Roag?”
“Oh, ay, fine. Many’s the time I hiv been in to Borvapost.”
“But,” said Lavender, “do you know the loch itself? Do you know the bay
on which Mackenzie’s house stands?”
“Weel, I’m no’ sae sure aboot that, sir. But if ye want to gang there,
we can pick up some bit body at Borvapost that will tak’ us around.”
“Well,” Lavender said, “I think I can tell you how to go. I know the
channel is quite simple--there are no rocks about--and once you are
round the point you will see your anchorage.”
“It’s twa or three years since I was there, sir,” Pate remarked, as he
put the glass back on the table. “I mind there was a daft auld man there
that played the pipes.”
“That was old John the Piper,” Lavender said. “Don’t you remember Mr.
Mackenzie, whom they call the King of Borva?”
“Weel, sir, I never saw him, but I was aware he was in the place. I have
never been up here afore wi’ a party of gentlemen, and he wasna coming
down to see the like o’ us.”
With what a strange feeling Lavender beheld, the following afternoon,
the opening to the great loch that he knew so well! He recognized the
various rocky promontories, the Gaelic names of which Sheila had
translated for him. Down there in the South were the great heights of
Suainabhal and Cracabahl and Mealasabhal. Right in front was the sweep
of Borvapost Bay, and its huts and its small garden patches; and up
beyond it was the hill on which Sheila used to sit in the evening to
watch the sun go down behind the Atlantic. It was like entering again a
world with which he had once been familiar, and in which he had left
behind a peaceful happiness he had sought in vain elsewhere. Somehow, as
the yacht dipped to the waves and slowly made her way into the loch, it
seemed to him that he was coming home--that he was returning to the old
and quiet joys he had experienced there--that all the past time that had
darkened his life was now to be removed. But when, at last, he saw
Mackenzie’s house high up there over the tiny bay, a strange thrill of
excitement passed through him, and that was followed by a cold feeling
of despair, which he did not seek to remove.
He stood on the companion, his head only being visible, and directed
Pate until the Phœbe had arrived at her moorings, and then he went
below. He had looked wistfully for a time up to the square, dark house,
with its scarlet copings, in the vague hope of seeing some figure he
knew; but now sick at heart, and fearing that Mackenzie might make him
out with a glass, he sat down in the state-room, alone and silent and
miserable.
He was startled by the sound of oars, and got up and listened. Mosenberg
came down and said, “Mr. Mackenzie has sent a tall, thin man--do you
know him?--to see who we are, and whether we will go up to his house.”
“What did Eyre say?”
“I don’t know. I suppose he is going.”
Then Johnny himself came below. He was a sensitive young fellow, and at
this moment he was very confused, excited and nervous. “Lavender,” he
said, stammering somewhat, “I am going up now to Mackenzie’s house. You
know whom I shall see; shall I take any message--if I see a chance--if
your name is mentioned--a hint, you know--”
“Tell her,” Lavender said, with a sudden pallor of determination in his
face; but he stopped, and said abruptly, “Never mind, Johnny; don’t say
anything about me.”
“Not to-night, anyway,” Johnny said to himself as he drew on his best
jacket, with its shining brass buttons, and went up the companion to see
if the small boat was ready.
Johnny had had a good deal of knocking about the Western Highlands, and
was familiar with the frank and ready hospitality which the local
lairds--more particularly in the remote islands; where a stranger
brought recent newspapers and a breath of the outer world with
him--granted to all comers who bore with them the credentials of owning
a yacht. But never before had he gone up to a strange house with such
perturbation of spirit. He had been so anxious, too, that he had left no
time for preparation. When he started up the hill he could see, in the
gathering dusk, that the tall keeper had just entered the house, and
when he arrived there he found absolutely nobody about the place.
In ordinary circumstances he would simply have walked in and called some
one from the kitchen. But he now felt himself somewhat of a spy, and was
not a little afraid of meeting the handsome Mrs. Lavender, of whom he
had heard so much. There was no light in the passage, but there was a
bright red gloom in one of the windows, and almost inadvertently he
glanced in there. What was this strange picture he saw? The red flame of
the fire showed him the grand, figures on the walls of Sheila’s
dining-room, and lit up the white table-cover and the crystal in the
middle of the apartment. A beautiful young girl, clad in a tight blue
dress, had just arisen from beside the fire to light two candles that
were on the table; and then she went back to her seat and took up her
sewing, but not to sew, for Johnny saw her gently kneel down beside a
little bassinet that was a mass of wonderful pink and white, and he
supposed the door in the passage was open, for he could hear a low voice
humming some lullaby-song sung by the young mother to her child. He went
back a step bewildered by what he had seen. Could he fly down to the
shore, and bring Lavender up to look at this picture through the window,
and beg of him to go in and throw himself on her forgiveness and mercy?
He had not time to think twice. At this moment Mairi appeared in the
dusky passage, looking a little scared, although she did not drop the
plates she carried: “Oh, sir, and are you the gentleman that has come in
the yacht? And Mr. Mackenzie, he is upstairs just now, but he will be
down ferry soon; and will you come in and speak to Miss Sheila?”
“_Miss Sheila!_” he repeated to himself with amazement; and the next
moment he found himself before this beautiful young girl, apologizing to
her, stammering, and wishing that he had never undertaken such a task,
while he knew that all the time she was calmly regarding him with her
large, calm and gentle eyes, and that there was no trace of
embarrassment in her manner.
“Will you take a seat by the fire until papa comes down?” she said. “We
are very glad to have any one come to see us; we do not have many
visitors in the winter.”
“But I am afraid,” he stammered, “I am putting you to trouble;” and he
glanced at the swinging pink and white couch.
“Oh, no,” Sheila said with a smile; “I was just about to send my little
boy to bed.”
She lifted the sleeping child and rolled it in some enormous covering of
white and silken-haired fur, and gave the small bundle to Mairi to carry
to Scarlett.
“Stop a bit!” Johnny called out to Mairi; and the girl started and
looked around, whereupon he said to Sheila, with much blushing, “Isn’t
there a superstition about an infant waking to find silver in its hands?
I am sure you wouldn’t mind my--”
“He cannot hold anything yet,” Sheila said, with a smile.
“Then, Mairi, you must put this below his pillow. Is not that the same
thing for luck?” he said, addressing the young Highland girl as if he
had known her all his life; and Mairi went away proud and pleased to
have this precious bundle to carry, and talking to it with a thousand
soft and endearing phrases in her native tongue.
Mackenzie came in and found the two talking together. “How do you do,
sir?” he said, with a grave courtesy. “You are ferry welcome to the
island, and if there is anything you want for the boat you will hef it
from us. She is a little thing to hef come so far.”
“She’s not very big,” Johnny said, “but she’s a thorough good sailer;
and then we watch our time, you know. But I don’t think we shall go
farther North than Lewis.”
“Hef you no friends on board with you?” Mackenzie asked.
“Oh, yes,” Johnny answered, “two. But we did not wish to invade your
house in a body. To-morrow--”
“To-morrow!” said Mackenzie, impatiently; “no, but to-night! Duncan,
come here! Duncan, go down to the boat that has just come in and tell
the gentlemen--”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” Johnny cried, “but my two friends are
regularly done up--tired; they were just going to turn in when I left
the yacht. To-morrow, now, you will see them.”
“Oh, ferry well, ferry well,” said Mackenzie, who had hoped to have a
big dinner party for Sheila’s amusement. “In any way, you will stop and
hef some dinner? It is just ready--oh, yes--and it is not a ferry fine
dinner, but it will be different from your cabin for you to sit ashore.”
“Well, if you will excuse me--” Johnny was about to say, for he was so
full of the news he had to tell that he would have sacrificed twenty
dinners to get off at this moment. But Mr. Mackenzie would take no
denial. An additional cover was laid, for the stranger, and Johnny sat
down to stare at Sheila in a furtive way, and to talk to her father
about everything that was happening in the great world.
“And what now is this,” said Mackenzie, with a lofty and careless
air--“what is this I see in the papers about pictures painted by a
gentleman called Lavender? I hef a great interest in these exhibitions.
Perhaps you hef seen the pictures?”
Johnny blushed very red, but he hid his face over his plate, and
presently he answered, without daring to look at Sheila: “I should think
I have seen them! Why, if you care for coast landscapes, I can tell you
you never saw such thorough good work in all your life! Why, everybody’s
talking of them. You never heard of a man making such a name for himself
in so short a time.”
He ventured to look up. There was a strange, proud light in the girl’s
face, and the effect of it on this bearer of good tidings was to make
him launch into such praises of these pictures as considerably
astonished old Mackenzie. As for Sheila, she was proud and happy, but
not surprised. She had known it all along. She had waited for it
patiently, and it had come at last, although she was not to share in his
triumph.
“I know some people who know him,” said Johnny, who had taken two or
three glasses of Mackenzie’s sherry, and felt bold; “and what a shame it
is he should go away from all his friends, and almost cease to have any
communication with them! And then, of all the places in the world to
spend the Winter in, Jura is about the--”
“Jura!” said Sheila, quickly, and he fancied that her face paled
somewhat.
“I believe so,” he said; “somewhere on the Western coast, you know, over
the Sound of Islay.”
Sheila was obviously very much agitated, but her father said, in a
careless way, “Oh, yes, Jura is not a ferry good place in the Winter.
And the West side, you said? Ay, there are not many houses on the West
side; it is not a ferry good place to live in. But it will be ferry
cheap, whatever.”
“I don’t think that is the reason of his living there,” said Johnny,
with a laugh.
“But,” Mackenzie urged, rather anxiously, “you wass not saying he would
get much for these pictures? Oh, no, who will give much money for
pictures of rocks and sea-weed? Oh, no!”
“Oh, won’t they, though?” Johnny cried. “They give a deal more for that
sort of picture now than for the old-fashioned cottage-scenes, with a
young lady dressed in a drugget petticoat and a pink jacket, sitting
peeling potatoes. Don’t you make any mistake about that. The public are
beginning to learn what real good work is, and, by Jove! don’t they pay
for it, too? Lavender got eight hundred pounds for the smaller of the
two pictures I told you about.”
Johnny Eyre was beginning to forget that the knowledge he was showing of
Frank Lavender’s affairs was suspiciously minute.
“Oh, no, sir,” Mackenzie said, with a frown. “It is all nonsense the
stories that you hear. I hef had great experience of these exhibitions.
I hef been to London several times, and every time I wass in the
exhibitions.”
“But I should know something of it, too, for I am an artist myself.”
“And do you get eight hundred pounds for a small picture?” Mackenzie
asked severely.
“Well, no,” said Johnny, with a laugh. “But then I am a duffer.”
After dinner Sheila left the room: Johnny fancied he knew where she was
going. He pulled in a chair to the fire, lit his pipe, and said he would
have but one glass of toddy, which Mackenzie proceeded to make for him.
And then he said to the old King of Borva, “I beg your pardon, sir, but
will you allow me to suggest that that young girl who was in here before
dinner should not call your daughter Miss Sheila before strangers!”
“Oh, it is very foolish,” said Mackenzie, “but it is an old habit, and
they will not stop it. And Duncan, he is worse than any one.”
“Duncan, I suppose, is the tall fellow who waited at dinner?”
“Oh, ay, that is Duncan.”
Johnny’s ingenious bit of stratagem had failed. He wanted to have old
Mackenzie call his daughter Mrs. Lavender, so that he might have had
occasion to open the question and plead for his friend. But the old man
resolutely ignored the relationship between Lavender and his daughter so
far as this stranger was concerned, and so Johnny had to go away partly
disappointed.
But another opportunity might occur, and in the meantime was not he
carrying rare news down to the Phœbe? He had lingered too long in the
house, but now he made up for lost time, and once or twice nearly missed
his footing in running down the steep path. He had to find the small
boat for himself, and go out on the slippery stones and seaweed to get
into her. Then he pulled away from the shore, his oars striking white
fire into the dark water, the water gurgling at the bow. Then he got
into the shadow of the black hull of the yacht, and Pate was there to
lower the little gangway.
When Johnny stepped on deck, he paused, in considerable doubt as to what
he should do. He wished to have a word with Lavender alone; how could he
go down with such a message as he had to deliver to a couple of fellows
probably smoking and playing chess?
“Pate,” he said, “tell Mr. Lavender I want him to come on deck for a
minute.”
“He’s by himsel’, sir,” Pate said. “He’s been sitting by himsel’ for the
last hour. The young gentleman’s lain doon.”
Johnny went down into the little cabin. Lavender, who had neither book
nor cigar, nor any other sign of occupation near him, seemed in his
painful anxiety almost incapable of asking the question that rose to his
lips.
“Have you seen her, Johnny?” he said, at length, with his face looking
strangely careworn.
Johnny was an impressionable young fellow. There were tears running
freely down his cheeks as he said, “Yes, I have, Lavender, and she was
rocking a child in a cradle.”