TOO slow, far too slow, passed the lengthening days. Kate was bedded by
nine to make them shorter by an hour or two, but what she took from the
foot of the day she tacked to the head of it, as Paddy in the story eked
his blanket, and she was up in the mornings long before Wanton Wully
rang the six-hours' bell. The elder Dyces--saving Ailie, who knew
all about it, hearing it from Bud in passionate whispers as they lay
together in one bed in the brightening moms of May--might think summer's
coming was what made the household glad, Kate sing like the laverock,
and Lennox so happy and so good, but it was the thought of Charles.
“You've surely taken a desperate fancy for Prince Charlie songs,” said
Miss Bell to Bud and the maid of Colonsay. “Is there not another ditty
in the ballant?” and they would glance at each other guiltily, but never
let on.
“Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie, brave Charlie, Come o'er
the stream, Charlie, and I'll be Maclean.”
Bud composed that one in a jiffy, sitting one day at the kitchen window,
and of all the noble Jacobite measures Kate liked it best, “it was so
clever, and so desperate like the thing!” Such a daft disease is love!
To the woman whose recollection of the mariner was got from olden
Sabbath walks 'tween churches in the windy isle, among the mossy tombs,
and to Bud, who had never seen him, but had made for herself a portrait
blent of the youth so gay and gallant Kate described, and of George
Sibley Purser, and of dark, ear-ringed men of the sea that in “The
Tempest” cry, “Heigh, my hearts! cheerily, cheerily, cheerily, my
hearts! yare, yare,” the prospect of his presence was a giddy joy.
And after all the rascal came without warning, to be for a day and a
night within sound of Kate's minstrelsy without her knowing it, for he
lodged, an ardent but uncertain man, on the other side of the garden
wall, little thinking himself the cause and object of these musical
mornings. Bud found him out--that clever one! who was surely come from
America to set all the Old World right--she found him at the launching
of the _Wave_.
Lady Anne's yacht dozed like a hedgehog under leaves through the winter
months below the beeches on what we call the hard--on the bank of the
river under Jocka's house, where the water's brackish, and the launching
of her was always of the nature of a festival, for the Earl's men were
there, John Taggart's band, with “A Life on the Ocean Wave” between each
passage of the jar of old Tom Watson's home-made ale--not tipsy lads
but jovial, and even the children of the schools, for it happened on a
Saturday.
Bud and Footles went with each other and the rest of the bairns, unknown
to their people, for in adventures such as these the child delighted,
and was wisely never interdicted.
The man who directed the launch was a stranger in a foreign-looking,
soft slouch hat--Charles plain to identify in every feature, in the big,
brown, searching eyes that only Gaelic could do justice to, and his walk
so steeve and steady, his lovely beard, his tread on the hard as if he
owned the land, his voice on the deck as if he were the master of the
sea. She stood apart and watched him, fascinated, and could not leave
even when the work was done and the band was home-returning, charming
the road round the bay with “Peggy Baxter's Quickstep.” He saw her
lingering, smiled on her, and beckoned on her to cross the gangway that
led to the yacht from the little jetty.
“Well, wee lady,” said he, with one big hand on her head and another on
the dog, “is this the first of my crew at a quay-head jump? Sign on at
once and I'll make a sailor of you.”
“Oh, please,” said she, looking up in his face, too anxious to enter
into his humor, “are you our Kate's Charles?”
“Kate!” said he, reflecting, with a hand in his beard, through which his
white teeth shone. “There's such a wheen of Kates here and there, and
all of them fine, fine gyurls! Still-and-on, if yours is like most of
her name that I'm acquaint with, I'm the very man for her; and my name,
indeed, is what you might be calling Charles. In fact”--in a burst of
confidence, seating himself on a water-breaker--“my Christian name is
Charles--Charlie, for short, among the gentry. You are not speaking, by
any chance, of one called Kate MacNeill?” he added, showing some red in
the tan of his countenance.
“Of course I am,” said Bud, reproachfully. “Oh, men! men! As if there
could be any other! I hope to goodness you love her same as you said
you did, and haven't been--been carrying on with any other Kates for a
diversion. I'm Lennox Dyce. Your Kate stays with me and Uncle Dan, and
Auntie Bell and Auntie Ailie, and this sweet little dog by the name of
Footles. She's so jolly! My, won't she be tickled to know you've come!
And--and how's the world, Captain Charles?”
“The world?” he said, aback, looking at her curiously as she seated
herself beside him on a hatch.
“Yes, the world, you know--the places you were in,” with a wave of the
hand that seemed to mean the universe.
“'Edinburgh, Leith,
Portobello, Musselburgh, _and_ Dalkeith?'
--No, that's Kate's favorite geography lesson, 'cause she can sing it.
I mean Rotterdam and Santander and Bilbao--all the lovely places on the
map where a letter takes four days and a twopence-ha'penny stamp, and's
mighty apt to smell of rope.”
“Oh, them!” said he, with the warmth of recollection; “they're not so
bad--in fact, they're just A1. It's the like of there you see life and
spend the money.”
“Have you been in Italy?” asked Bud. “I'd love to see that old Italy--
for the sake of Romeo and Juliet, you know, and my dear, dear Portia.”
“_I_ know,” said Charles. “Allow me! Perfect beauties, all fine, fine
gyurls; but I don't think very much of dagoes. I have slept in their
sailors' homes, and never hear Italy mentioned but I feel I want to
scratch myself.”
“Dagoes!” cried Bud; “that's what Jim called them. Have you been in
America?”
“Have I been in America? I should think I have,” said he, emphatically.
“The Lakes. It's yonder you get value--two dollars a day and everywhere
respected like a gentleman. Men's not mice out yonder in America.”
“Then you maybe have been in Chicago?” cried Bud, her face filled with
a happy expectation as she pressed the dog in her arms till its fringe
mixed with her own wild curls.
“Chicago?” said the Captain. “Allow me! Many a time. You'll maybe not
believe it, but it was there I bought this hat.”
“Oh!” cried Bud, with the tears in her eyes, and speechless for a
moment, “I--I--could just hug that hat. Won't you please let me--let me
pat it?”
“Pat away,” said Captain Charles, laughing, and took it off with the
sweep of a cavalier that was in itself a compliment. “You know yon
place--Chicago?'' he asked, as she patted his headgear fondly and
returned it to him. For a little her mind was far away from the deck
of Lady Anne's yacht, her eyes on the ripple of the tide, her nostrils
full, and her little bosom heaving.
“You were there?” he asked again.
“Chicago's where I lived,” she said. “That was mother's place,” and into
his ear she poured a sudden flood of reminiscence--of her father and
mother, and the travelling days and lodging-houses, and Mr. and Mrs.
Molyneux, and the graves in the far-off cemetery. The very thought of
them all made her again American in accent and in phrase. He listened,
understanding, feeling the vexation of that far-sundering by the sea as
only a sailor can, and clapped her on the shoulder, and looking at him
she saw that in his eyes which made her love him more than ever. “Oh,
my!” she said, bravely, “here I'm talking away to you about myself and
I'm no more account than a rabbit under these present circumstances,
Captain Charles, and all the time you're just pining to know all about
your Kate.”
The Captain tugged his beard and reddened again. “A fine, fine gyurl!”
said he. “I hope--I hope she's pretty well.”
“She's fine,” said Bud, nodding her head gravely. “You bet Kate can
walk now without taking hold. Why, there's never anything wrong with her
'cepting now and then the croodles, and they're not anything lingering.”
“There was a kind of a rumor that she was at times a trifle delicate,”
said Charles. “In fact, it was herself who told me, in her letters.”
Bud blushed. This was one of the few details of her correspondence on
which she and Kate had differed. It had been her idea that an invalidish
hint at intervals produced a nice and tender solicitude in the roving
sailor, and she had, at times, credited the maid with some of Mrs.
Molyneux's old complaints, a little modified and more romantic, though
Kate herself maintained that illness in a woman under eighty was looked
upon as anything but natural or interesting in Colonsay!
“It was nothing but--but love,” she said now, confronted with the
consequence of her imaginative cunning. “You know what love is, Captain
Charles! A powerfully weakening thing, though I don't think it would
hurt anybody if they wouldn't take it so much to heart.”
“I'm glad to hear it's only--only what you mention,” said Charles, much
relieved. “I thought it might be something inward, and that maybe she
was working too hard at her education.”
“Oh, she's not taking her education so bad as all that,” Bud assured
him. “She isn't wasting to a shadow sitting up nights with a wet towel
on her head soaking in the poets and figuring sums. All she wanted was
to be sort of middling smart, but nothing gaudy.”
Captain Charles looked sideways keenly at the child as she sat beside
him, half afraid himself of the irony he had experienced among her
countrymen, but saw it was not here. Indeed, it never was in Lennox
Dyce, for all her days she had the sweet, engaging self-unconsciousness
no training can command: frankness, fearlessness, and respect for all
her fellows--the gifts that will never fail to make the proper friends.
She talked so composedly that he was compelled to frankness himself on a
subject no money could have made him speak about to any one a week ago.
“Between you and me and the mast,” said he, “I'm feared Kate has got far
too clever for the like of me, and that's the way I have not called on
her.”
“Then you'd best look pretty spry,” said Bud, pointing a monitory finger
at him, “for there's beaux all over the place that's wearing their
Sunday clothes week-days, and washing their faces night and morning,
hankering to tag on to her, and she'll maybe tire of standing out in the
cold for you. I wouldn't be skeered, Cap', if I was you; she's not too
clever for or'nary use; she's nicer than ever she was that time you used
to walk with her in Colonsay.” Bud was beginning to be alarmed at the
misgivings to which her own imaginings had given rise.
“If you saw her letters,” said Charles, gloomily. “Poetry and foreign
princes. One of them great at the dancing! He kissed her hand. He
would never have ventured a thing like that if she hadn't given him
encouragement.”
“Just diversion,” said Bud, consolingly. “She was only--she was only
putting by the time; and she often says she'll only marry for her own
conveniency, and the man for her is--well, _you_ know, Captain Charles.”
“There was a Russian army officer,” proceeded the seaman, still
suffering a jealous doubt.
“But he's dead. He's deader 'n canned beans. Mr. Wanton gied him--gied
him the _baggonet_. There wasn't really anything in it, anyway. Kate
didn't care for him the tiniest bit, and I guess it was a great relief.”
“Then she's learning the piano,” said the Captain; “that's not like a
working-gyurl. And she talked in one of her letters about sitting
on Uncle Dan's knee.” Bud dropped the dog at her feet and burst
into laughter; in that instance she had certainly badly jumbled the
identities.
“It's nothing to laugh at,” said the Captain, tugging his beard. “It's
not at all becoming in a decent gyurl; and it's not like the Kate I knew
in Colonsay.” Bud saw the time had come for a full confession. “Captain
Charles,” she said, when she recovered herself, “it--it wasn't Kate said
that at all; it was another girl called Winifred Wallace. You see, Kate
is always so busy doing useful things--_such_ soup! and--and a-washing
every Monday, and taking her education, and the pens were all so
dev--so--so stupid, that she simply had to get some one to help her
write those letters; and that's why Winifred Wallace gave a hand and
messed things up a bit, I guess. Where the letters talked solemn sense
about the weather and the bad fishing and bits about Oronsay, and
where they told you to be sure and change your stockings when you came
down-stairs from the mast out the wet, and where they said you were the
very, very one she loved, that was Kate; but when there was a lot of
dinky talk about princes and Russian army officers and slabs of poetry,
that was just Winifred Wallace putting on lugs and showing off. No, it
wasn't all showing off; it was because she kind of loved you herself.
You see, she didn't have any beau of her own, Mr. Charles, and--and she
thought it wouldn't be depriving Kate of anything to pretend, for Kate
said there was no depravity in it.”
“Who's Winifred Wallace?” asked the surprised sailor.
“I'm all the Winifred Wallace there is,” said Bud, penitently. “It's
my poetry name--it's my other me. I can do a heap of things when I'm
Winifred I can't do when I'm plain Bud, or else I'd laugh at myself
enough to hurt, I'm so mad. Are you angry, Mr. Charles?”
“Och! just Charles to you,” said the sailor. “Never heed the honors. I'm
not angry a bit. Allow me! In fact, I'm glad to find the prince and the
piano and the poetry were all nonsense.”
“I thought that poetry pretty middling myself,” admitted Bud, but in a
hesitating way that made her look very guilty.
“The poetry,” said he, quickly, “was splendid. There was nothing wrong
with it that I could see; but I'm glad it wasn't Kate's--for she's a
fine, fine gyurl, and brought up most respectable.”
“Yes,” said Bud, “she's better 'n any poetry. You must feel gay because
you are going to marry her.”
“I'm not so sure of her marrying me. She maybe wouldn't have me.”
“But she can't help it!” cried Bud. “She's bound to, for the witch-lady
fixed it on Hallowe'en. Only, I hope you won't marry her for years and
years. Why, Auntie Bell'd go crazy if you took away our Kate; for good
girls ain't so easy to get nowadays as they used to be when they had
three pound ten in the half-year, and nailed their trunks down to the
floor of a new place when they got it, for fear they might be bounced.
I'd be vexed I helped do anything if you married her for a long while.
Besides, you'd be sorry yourself, for her education is not quite done;
she's only up to compound multiplication and the Tudor kings. You'd just
be sick sorry.”
“Would I?”
“Course you would! That's love. Before one marries it's hunkydory--it's
fairy all the time--but after that it's the same old face at breakfast,
Mr. Cleland says, and simply putting up with each other. Oh, love's a
wonderful thing, Charles; it's the Great Thing; but sometimes I say,
'Give me Uncle Dan!' Promise you'll not go marrying Kate right off.”
The sailor roared with laughter. “Lord!” said he, “if I wait too long
I'll be wanting to marry yourself, for you're a dangerous gyurl.”
“But I'm never going to marry,” said Bud. “I want to go right on loving
everybody, and don't yearn for any particular man tagging on to me.”
“I never heard so much about love in English all my life,” said Charles,
“though it's common enough, and quite respectable in Gaelic. Do you--do
you love myself?”
“Course I do!” said Bud, cuddling Footles. “Then,” said he, firmly, “the
sooner I sign on with Kate the better, for you're a dangerous gyurl.”
So they went down the road together, planning ways of early
foregatherings with Kate, and you may be sure Bud's way was cunningest.