The day on which Walter set out for Kinloch Houran was fine and bright,
the sky very clear, the sun shining, the hills standing out against the
blue, and every line of the tall trees clearly marked upon the
transparent atmosphere. It was not till two days after the conversation
above recorded--for there had been much to explain, and Walter was so
little acquainted with business that instructions of various kinds were
necessary. Miss Milnathort was visible much earlier than usual on the
morning of his departure, and he was admitted to see her. She was paler
than before, and her little soft face was full of agitation; the corners
of her mouth turned down, and her upper lip, which was a trifle too
long, quivering. This added rather than took away from her appearance of
youth. She was like a child who had exhausted itself with crying, and
still trembled with an occasional sob. She stretched up her arms to him
as if she would have put them round his neck, and bade God bless him
with a tremulous voice.
"You must have plenty of courage," she said; "and you must never, never
give up your own way."
Walter was touched to the heart by this look of trouble on the innocent,
young-old face.
"I thought it was always right to give up one's own way," he said, in
the light tone which he had come to employ with her.
She made an effort to smile in response.
"Oh yes, oh yes, it's the fashion to say so. You are a self-denying
race, to believe yourselves; but this time you must not yield."
"To whom am I supposed to be about to yield?" he asked. "You may be sure
I sha'n't unless I can't help myself."
The tears overflowed her bright old eyes; her hands shook as they held
his.
"God bless you! God bless you!" she said. "I will do nothing but pray
for you, and you will tell me when you come back."
He left her lying back upon her cushions sobbing under her breath. All
this half-perplexed, half-amused the young man. She was a very strange
little creature, he felt, neither old nor young; there was no telling
the reason of her emotion. She was so much indulged in all her whims,
like a spoiled child, that perhaps these tears were only her regrets for
a lost playmate. At the same time Walter knew that this was not so, and
was angry with himself for the thought. But how find his way out of the
perplexity? He shook it off, which is always the easiest way; and soon
the landscape began to attract his attention, and he forgot by degrees
that there was anything very unusual in the circumstances of his
journey. It was not till the first long stage of this journey was over
that he was suddenly roused to a recollection of everything involved, by
the appearance of Symington at the carriage window, respectfully
requesting to know whether he had wanted anything. Walter had not
remembered, or if he had remembered had thought no more of it, that this
quietly officious retainer had taken all trouble from him at the
beginning of his journey, as he had done during his stay in Mr.
Milnathort's house.
"What! are you here?" he said, with surprise, and a mixture of amusement
and offence.
"I beg your pardon, my lord," said Symington, with profound and serious
respect, yet always a twinkle in his eye, "but as the other man did not
turn up--and your lordship could scarcely travel without some
attendance----"
He had to rush behind to get his place in the train in the midst of his
sentence, and Walter was left to think it over alone. In the balance
between anger and amusement the latter fortunately won the day. The
comic side of the matter came uppermost. It seemed to him very droll
that he should be taken possession of, against his will, by the valet
who professed an attachment to the race, not to the individual members
of it, whose head was garlanded with crape in the quaint Scotch way for
Walter's predecessor, and who had "identified himself with the
Erradeens." He reminded himself that he was in the country of Caleb
Balderstone and Ritchie Moniplies, and he resigned himself to
necessity. Symington's comic yet so respectful consciousness that "the
other man" was a mere imagination, was joke enough to secure his pardon,
and Walter felt that though the need of attendance was quite new in his
life, that it might be well on his arrival in a strange country and a
lonely ruined house, to have some one with him who was not ignorant
either of the locality or the household.
The country increased in interest as he went on, and by and by he forgot
himself in gazing at the mountains which appeared in glimpses upon the
horizon, then seemed to draw nearer, closing in upon the road, which led
along by the head of one loch after another, each encompassed by its
circle of hills. Walter knew very little about Scotland. He thought it a
barren and wild country, all bleak and gloomy, and the lavish vegetation
of the west filled him with surprise and admiration. The sun was near
its setting when the railway journey came to an end, and he found
himself at a village station, from which a coach ran to Kinloch Houran.
It appeared that there was no other vehicle to be had, and though it was
cold there was nothing else for it but to clamber up on the top of the
rude coach, which was a sort of _char-à-banc_ without any interior.
Walter felt that it would become him ill, notwithstanding his new rank,
to grumble at the conveyance, upon which there mounted nimbly a girl
whom he had remarked when leaving Edinburgh, and whom he had watched for
at all the pauses of the journey. He thought her the very impersonation
of all he had ever heard of Scotch beauty, and so would most observers
to whom Scotland is a new country. The native Scot is aware that there
are as many brown locks as golden, and as many dark maidens as fair ones
in his own country; but notwithstanding, to the stranger it is the fair
who is the type. This young lady was warmly clothed in dark tweed, of
the ruddy heathery hue which is now so general, not long enough to
conceal her well-shod feet, closely fitting, and adapted for constant
walking and movement. She seemed to be met by friends all along the
route. From the carriage window Walter saw her look out with little
cries of pleasure. "Oh, is that you, Jack?" "Oh, Nelly, where are you
going?" "Oh, come in here, there is room in this carriage," and such
like. She was always leaning out to say a word to somebody, either of
farewell or welcome. "You will remember me to your mother," old
gentlemen would call to her, as the train went on. Walter was greatly in
want of amusement, and he was at the age when a girl is always
interesting. She became to him the heroine of the journey. He felt that
he was collecting a great deal of information about her as they
travelled on, and had begun to wonder whether he should ever find out
who she was, or see any more of her, when he perceived her, to his
delight, getting out, as he himself did, at Baldally. She was met by a
respectable woman servant, who took possession of her baggage, while the
young lady herself ran across the road to the coach, and with a hearty
greeting to John the coachman darted up to the seat immediately behind
him, where her maid presently joined her. Walter, and a personage of the
commercial traveller class, shared the coachman's seat in front, and
Symington and some other humbler passengers sat behind. The coach was
adapted for summer traffic, so that there were several lines of empty
seats between the two sets of travellers. It gave Walter a great deal of
pleasure to hear the soft voice of his fellow-traveller pouring forth,
low yet quite audible, an account of her journey to her maid, who was
evidently on the most confidential terms with her young mistress.
"Has mamma missed me--much?" she asked after the little Odyssey was
over.
"Oh, Miss Oona, to ask that," cried the woman; "how should we no miss
you?" and then there ensued a number of details on the home side. The
girl had been on a visit in Edinburgh, and had gone to balls, and "seen
everything." On the other hand many small matters, faithfully reported,
had filled up the time of separation. Walter listened to all this
innocent interchange with great amusement and interest as the coach made
its way slowly up the ascents of the hilly road. It was not in itself an
agreeable mode of progression: the wind was icy cold, and swept through
and through the unfortunates who faced it in front, sharpening into
almost absolute needle points of ice when the pace quickened, and the
noisy, jolting vehicle lumbered down the further side of a hill,
threatening every moment to pitch the passengers into the heathery bog
on one side or the other. He tried to diminish his own discomfort by the
thought that he took off the icy edge of the gale and sheltered the
little slim creature in her close ulster behind, about whose shoulders
the maid had wound the snowy mass of a great white knitted shawl. The
low sun was in their faces as they toiled and rattled along, and the
clear wintry blue of the sky was already strewn with radiant rosy masses
of cloud. When they reached the highest point of the road the dazzling
gleam of the great loch lying at their feet and made into a mirror of
steel by the last blaze of the sun before it disappeared, dazzled the
young man, who could see nothing except the cold intolerable brightness;
but in a moment more the scene disclosed itself. Hills all purple in the
sunset, clothed with that ineffable velvet down which softens every
outline, opened out on either side, showing long lines of indistinct
green valleys and narrower ravines that ran between, all converging
towards the broad and noble inland sea fringed with dark woods and
broken with feathery islands, which was the centre of the landscape. The
wonderful colour of the sky reflected in the loch, where everything
found a reflection, and every knoll and island floated double, changed
the character of the scene and neutralised the dazzling coldness of the
great water-mirror. Walter's involuntary exclamation at this sight
stopped for a moment all the conversation going on. "By Jove," he said,
"how glorious!" They all stopped talking, the coachman, the traveller,
the woman behind, and looked at him. Big John the driver, who knew
everybody, eyed him with a slightly supercilious air, as one who felt
that the new-comer could not be otherwise than contemptible, more or
less, even though his sentiments were irreproachable. "Ay, sir--so
that's your opinion? most folk have been beforehand with ye," said John.
The commercial traveller added, condescendingly, "It is cold weather for
touring, sir; but it's a grand country, as ye say." And then they
resumed their conversation.
The young lady behind was far more sympathetic. She made a distinct
pause, and when she spoke again it was with a flattering adoption of
Walter's tone to point out to her companion how beautiful the scene was.
"The isle is floating too, Mysie--look! If we could get there soon
enough we might land upon one of those rosy clouds."
Walter gave a grateful glance behind him, and felt that he was
understood.
"That is just your poetry, Miss Oona," said the maid; "but, bless me, I
have never told ye: there has been the light lighted in the castle these
two nights past. We have just thought upon you all the time, and how
much taken up you would be about it, your mamma and me."
"The light on the castle!" cried the young lady; and at this the
coachman, turning slightly round, entered into the conversation.
"That has it," he said; "I can back her up in that; just as clear and as
steady as a star. There are many that say they never can see it; but
they would be clever that had not seen it these two past nights."
"Who says they cannot see it?" said the girl, indignantly.
John gave a little flick to his leader, which made the whole machine
vibrate and roll.
"Persons of the newfangled kind that believe in nothing," he said. "They
will tell ye it cannot be--so how can you see it? though it is glinting
in their faces all the time."
"You are meaning me, John," said the traveller on the box-seat; "and
there's truth in what you say. I've seen what you call the light, and no
doubt it has the appearance of a light; but if ye tell me it's something
supernatural, there can be no doubt I will answer ye that there's
nothing supernatural. If you were to tell me ye had seen a ghost, I
would just reply in the same way. No, my man, I'm not impeachin' your
veracity. You saw something, I'll allow; but no' a ghost, for there are
no ghosts to see."
"That's just an awfu' easy way of settlin' the question," said the maid
from behind--and then she went on in a lower tone: "This will be the
third night since it began, and we've a' seen it on the Isle. Hamish,
he says the new lord maun be of a dour kind to need so many warnings.
And he's feared ill will come of it; but I say the new lord, no' bein'
here away nor of this country at all, how is he to ken?"
The girl's voice was now quite low, almost a whisper: but Walter being
immediately in front of her could still hear. "Has anything been heard,"
she said, "of the new lord?"
"Very little, Miss Oona, only that he's a young lad from the south with
no experience, and didna even know that he was the heir; so how could he
ken? as I say to Hamish. But Hamish he insists that it's in the blood,
and that he would ken by instinck; and that it shows an ill-will, and
ill will come of it."
"If I were he," cried the girl, "I would do the same. I would not be
called like that from the end of the world wherever I was."
"Oh, whisht, Miss Oona. It is such an auld, auld story; how can the like
of you say what should be done?"
"I would like myself," said the traveller, "to come to the bottom of
this business. What is it for, and who has the doing of it? The moment
you speak of a light ye pre-suppose a person that lights it and mainy
adjuncks and accessories. Now there's nobody, or next to nobody, living
in that auld ruin. It's some rendeyvouss, I can easily understand that.
The days of conspiracies are gone by, or I would say it was something
against the state; but whatever it is, it must have a purpose, and
mortal hands must do it, seeing there are no other. I have heard since
ever I began to travel this country of the Kinloch Houran light, but I
never heard a reason assigned."
"It's the living lord," cried the maid, "as everybody knows! that is
called to meet with----"
Here the young lady interfered audibly--
"Mysie, not a word!" The woman's voice continued, stifled as if a hand
had been laid on her mouth.
"With them that are--with ane that is--I'm saying nothing, Miss Oona,
but what all the loch is well aware----"
"It's just a ferlie of this part of the world," said John the driver;
"nae need of entering into it with them that believe naething. I'm no
what ye call credulous mysel'; but when it comes to the evidence of a
man's ain senses----"
"And what have your senses said to ye, my fine fellow? that there's a
queer kind of a glimmer up upon the auld tower? So are there
corpse-candles, if I'm not mistaken, seen by the initiated upon your
burial isle--what do you call it?"
"And wha has a word to say gainst that?" cried the driver angrily;
whilst Mysie behind murmured--"It's well seen ye have naething to do
with any grave there."
Now Walter was as entirely free from superstition as any young man need
be; but when he heard the laugh with which the sceptic greeted these
protests, he had the greatest mind in the world to seize him by the
collar and pitch him into the bog below. Why? but the impulse was quite
unreasonable and defied explanation. He had as little faith in
corpse-candles as any bagman ever had, and the embarrassed and uneasy
consciousness he had that the end of his journey was inexplicable, and
its purpose ridiculous, led him much more to the conclusion that he was
being placed in a ludicrous position, than that there was anything
solemnly or awfully mysterious in it. Nevertheless, so far from ranging
himself upon the side of the enlightened modern who took the
common-sense view of these Highland traditions, his scorn and impatience
of him was beyond words. For his own part he had not been sufficiently
self-possessed to join in the discussion; but at this moment he ventured
a question--
"Is this old castle you speak of--" here he paused not knowing how to
shape his inquiry; then added, "uninhabited?" for want of anything
better to say.
"Not altogether," said John; "there is auld Macalister and his wife that
live half in the water, half out of the water. And it's the story in the
parish that there are good rooms; aye ready for my lord. But I can tell
ye naething about that, for I'm always on the road, and I see nothing
but a wheen tourists in the summer, that are seeking information, and
have none to give, puir creatures. There's a new lord just come to the
title; ye will maybe have met with him if ye're from the south, for he's
just an English lad."
"England, my man John, is a wide road," said the traveller; "there are
too many for us all to know each other as ye do in a parish; this
gentleman will tell ye that."
John's satirical explanation that he had not suspected Mr. Smith, whose
northern accent was undoubted, of being an Englishman, saved Walter from
any necessity of making a reply; and by this time the coach was rattling
down upon a little homely inn, red-roofed and white-walled, which stood
upon a knoll, overlooking the loch, and was reflected in all its
brightness of colour in that mirror. The ground shelved rapidly down to
the water-side, and there were several boats lying ready to put out into
the loch--one a ponderous ferry boat, another a smaller, but still
substantial and heavy, cobble, in which a man with a red shirt and
shaggy locks was standing up relieved against the light. Walter jumped
down hurriedly with the hope of being in time to give his hand to the
young lady, who perhaps had divined his purpose, for she managed to
alight on the other side and so balk him. The landlady of the little inn
had come out to the door, and there was a great sound of salutations and
exclamations of welcome. "But I mustna keep you, Miss Oona, and your
mamma countin' the moments; and there's two or three parcels," the woman
said. The air had begun to grow a little brown, as the Italians say,
that faint veil of gathering shade which is still not darkness, was
putting out by degrees the radiance of the sky, and as Walter stood
listening all the mingled sounds of the arrival rose together in a
similar mist of sound, through which he sought for the soft little
accents of the young lady's voice amid the noises of the unharnessing,
the horses' hoofs and ostler's pails, and louder tones. Presently he saw
her emerge from the group with her maid, laden with baskets and small
parcels, and embarking under the conduct of the man in the red shirt,
whom she greeted affectionately as Hamish, assume her place in the
stern, and the ropes of the rudder, with evident use and wont. To watch
her steer out into the darkening loch, into the dimness and cold, gave
the young man a vague sensation of pain. It seemed to him as if the last
possible link with the human and sympathetic was detaching itself from
him. He did not know her indeed, but it does not take a long time or
much personal knowledge to weave this mystic thread between one young
creature and another. Most likely, he thought, she had not so much as
noticed him: but she had come into the half-real dream of his existence,
and touched his hand, as it were, in the vague atmosphere which
separates one being from another. Now he was left with nothing around
him but the darkening landscape and the noisy little crowd about the
coach; no one who could give him any fellowship or encouragement in the
further contact which lay before him with the mysterious and unknown.
After a few moments the landlady came towards him, smoothing down her
white apron, which made a great point in the landscape, so broad was it
and so white. She smiled upon him with ingratiating looks.
"Will you be going north, sir?" she said; "or will you be biding for the
night? Before we dish up the dinner and put the sheets on the bed we
like to know."
"Who is that young lady that has just gone away?" said Walter, not
paying much attention; "and where is she going? It is late and cold for
the water. Do you ever get frozen here?"
"That is Miss Oona of the Isle," said the landlady; "but as I was
saying, sir, about the beds----"
"Are the islands inhabited then?" said Walter; "and where is Kinloch
Houran? Does one go there by water too?"
"No, Mistress Macgregor," said Symington's voice on the other side; "my
lord will not bide here to-night. I've been down to the beach, and there
is a boat there, but not your lordship's own, any more than there was a
carriage waiting at Baldally. We must just put our pride in our pockets,
my lord, and put up with what we can get. When your lordship's ready
we're all ready."
By this time Big John and all the others were standing in a group
staring at Lord Erradeen with all their eyes. John explained himself in
a loud voice, but with an evident secret sense of shame.
"Hoo was I to ken? A lord has nae business to scour the country like
that, like ony gangrel body--sitting on the seat just like the rest of
us--Mr. Smith and him and me. Lord! hoo was I to ken? If you hear nae
good of yourself, it is just your ain blame. I was thinking of no lord
or any such cattle. I was just thinking upon my beasts. As for a lord
that gangs about like yon, deceiving honest folk, I wouldna give that
for him," John said, snapping his finger and thumb. His voice sank at
the end, and the conclusion of the speech was but half audible. Mrs.
Macgregor interposing her round, soft intonation between the speaker and
the stranger.
"Eh, my lord, I just beg your pardon! I had no notion--and I hope your
lordship found them a' civil. Big John is certainly a little quick with
his tongue--"
"I hope you're not supposing, Mistress Macgregor, that his lordship
would fash himself about Big John," said Symington, who had now taken
the direction of affairs. Walter, to tell the truth, did not feel much
inclination to enter into the discussion. The gathering chill of the
night had got into his inner man. He went down towards the beach slowly
pondering, taking every step with a certain hesitation. It seemed to him
that he stood on the boundary between the even ground of reality and
some wild world of fiction which he did not comprehend, but had a
mingled terror and hatred of. Behind him everything was homely and poor
enough; the light streamed out of the open doors and uncovered windows,
the red roof had a subdued glow of cheerfulness in the brown air, the
sounds about were cheerful, full of human bustle and movement, and
mutual good offices. The men led the horses away with a certain
kindness; the landlady, with her white apron, stopped to say a friendly
word to Big John, and interchanged civilities with the other humble
passengers who were bringing her no custom, but merely passing her door
to the ferry-boat that waited to take them across the loch. Everywhere
there was a friendly interchange, a gleam of human warmth and mutual
consolation. But before him lay the dark water, with a dark shadow of
mingled towers and trees lying upon it at some distance. He understood
vaguely that this was Kinloch Houran, and the sight of it was not
inviting. He did not know what it might be that should meet him there,
but whatever it was it repelled and revolted him. He seemed to be about
to overpass some invisible boundary of truth and to venture into the
false, into regions in which folly and trickery reigned. There was in
Walter's mind all the sentiment of his century towards the supernatural.
He had an angry disbelief in his mind, not the tranquil contempt of the
indifferent. His annoyed and irritated scorn perhaps was nearer faith
than he supposed; but he was impatient of being called upon to give any
of his attention to those fables of the past which imposture only could
keep up in the present. He felt that he was going to be made the victim
of some trick or other. The country people evidently believed, indeed,
as was natural enough to their simplicity; but Walter felt too certain
that he would see the mechanism behind the most artful veil to believe
it possible that he himself could be taken in, even for a moment. And
he had no desire to find out the contemptible imposture. He felt the
whole business contemptible; the secluded spot, the falling night, the
uninhabited place, were all part of the jugglery. Should he voluntarily
make himself a party to it, and walk into the snare with his eyes open?
He felt sure, indeed, that he would remain with his eyes open all the
time, and was not in the least likely to submit to any black art that
might be exercised upon him. But he paused, and asked himself was it
consistent with the dignity of a reasonable creature, a full-grown man,
to allow himself to be drawn into any degrading contact with this
jugglery at all?
The boat lay on the beach with his baggage already in it, and Symington
standing respectful awaiting his master's pleasure. Symington, no doubt,
was the god out of the machinery who had the _fin mot_ of everything and
all the strings in his hand. What if he broke the spell peremptorily and
retired to the ruddy fireside of the inn and defied family tradition? He
asked himself again what would come of it? and replied to himself
scornfully that nothing could come of it. What law could force him to
observe an antiquated superstition? It was folly to threaten him with
impossible penalties. And even if a thing so absurd could happen as that
he should be punished in purse or property for acting like a man of
sense instead of a fool, what then? The mere possibility of the risk
made Walter more disposed to incur it. It was monstrous and
insufferable that he should be made to carry out a tyrannical,
antiquated stipulation by any penalty of the law. It would be better to
fight it out once for all. All the sense of the kingdom would be with
him, and he did not believe that any judge could pronounce against him.
Here Symington called, with a slight tone of anxiety, "We are all ready,
my lord, and waiting." This almost decided Walter. He turned from the
beach, and made a few hasty steps up the slope.
But then he paused again, and turning round faced once more the
darkening water, the boat lying like a shadow upon the beach, the vague
figures of the men about it. The ferry-boat had pushed off and was
lumbering over the water with great oars going like bats' wings, and a
noisy human load. The other little vessel with that girl had almost
disappeared. He thought he could see in the darkness a white speck like
a bird, which was the white shawl that wrapped her throat and shoulders.
Her home lay somewhere in the centre of these dark waters, a curious
nest for such a creature. And his? He turned again towards the dark,
half-seen towers and gables. Some of them were so irregular in outline
that they could be nothing but ruins. He began to think of the past,
mute, out of date, harmless to affect the life that had replaced it,
which had taken refuge there. And he remembered his own argument about
the courtesy that the living owed to the dead. Well! if it was so, if it
was as a politeness, a courtesy to the past, it might be unworthy a
gentleman to refuse it. And perhaps when all was said it was just a
little cowardly to turn one's back upon a possible danger, upon what at
least the vulgar thought a danger. This decided him. He turned once
more, and with a few rapid steps reached the boat. Next moment they were
afloat upon the dark loch. There had been no wind to speak of on shore,
but the boat was soon struggling against a strong running current, and a
breeze which was like ice. The boatmen showed dark against the gleaming
loch, the rude little vessel rolled, the wind blew. In front of them
rose the dark towers and woods all black without a sign of human
habitation. Walter felt his heart rise at last with the sense of
adventure. It was the strangest way of entering upon a fine
inheritance.