AT BARVAS BRIDGE.
Very soon, indeed, Ingram began to see that his friend had spoken to him
quite frankly, and that he was really bent on asking Sheila to become
his wife. Ingram contemplated this prospect with some dismay, and with
some vague consciousness that he was himself responsible for what he
could not help regarding as a disaster. He had half expected that Frank
Lavender would, in his ordinary fashion, fall in love with Sheila--for
about a fortnight. He had joked him about it even before they came
within sight of Sheila's home. He had listened with a grim humor to
Lavender's outbursts of admiration, and only asked himself how many
times he had heard the same phrases before. But now things were looking
more serious, for the young man had thrown himself into the prosecution
of his new project with all the generous poetic enthusiasm of a highly
impulsive nature. Ingram saw that everything a young man could do to win
the heart of a young girl Lavender would do; and Nature had dowered him
richly with various means of fascination. Most dangerous of all of these
was a gift of sincerity that deceived himself. He could assume an
opinion or express an emotion at will, with such a genuine fervor that
he himself forgot how recently he had acquired it, and was able to
convince his companion for the moment that it was a revelation of his
inmost soul. It was this charm of impetuous sincerity which had
fascinated Ingram himself years before, and made him cultivate the
acquaintance of a young man whom he at first regarded as a somewhat
facile, talkative and histrionic person. Ingram perceived, for example,
that young Lavender had so little regard for public affairs that he
would have been quite content to see our Indian empire go for the sake
of eliciting a sarcasm from Lord Westbury; but at the same time, if you
had appealed to his nobler instincts, and placed before him the
condition of a certain populace suffering from starvation, he would have
done all in his power to aid them: he would have written letters to the
newspapers, would have headed subscriptions, and would have ended by
believing that he had been the constant friend of the people of India
throughout his life, and was bound to stick to them to the end of it.
As often as not he borrowed his fancies and opinions from Edward Ingram
himself, who was amused and gratified at the same time to find his
humdrum notions receive a dozen new lights and colors when transferred
to the warmer atmosphere of his friend's imagination. Ingram would even
consent to receive from his younger companion advice, impetuously urged
and richly illustrated, which he had himself offered in simpler terms
months before. At this very moment he could see that much of Lavender's
romantic conceptions of Sheila's character was only an exaggeration of
some passing hints he, Ingram, had dropped as the Clansman was steaming
into Stornoway. But then they were ever so much more beautiful. Ingram
held to his conviction that he himself was a distinctly commonplace
person. He had grown reconciled to the ordinary grooves of life. But
young Lavender was not commonplace: he fancied he could see in him an
occasional flash of something that looked like genius; and many and many
a time, in regarding the brilliant and facile powers, the generous
impulses and the occasional ambitions of his companion, he wondered
whether these would ever lead to anything in the way of production, or
even of consolidation of character, or whether would merely remain the
passing sensations of an indifferent idler. Sometimes, indeed, he
devoutly wished that Lavender had been born a stonemason.
But all these pleasant and graceful qualities, which had made the young
man an agreeable companion, were a serious danger now; for was it not
but too probable that Sheila, accustomed to the rude and homely ways of
the islanders, would be attracted and pleased and fascinated by one who
had about him so much of a soft and southern brightness with which she
was wholly unfamiliar? This open-hearted frankness of his placed all his
best qualities in the sunshine, as it were: she could not fail to see
the singular modesty and courtesy of his bearing toward women, his
gentle manners, his light-heartedness, his passionate admiration of the
self-sacrifice of others, and his sympathy with their sufferings. Ingram
would not have minded much if Lavender alone had been concerned in the
dilemma now growing imminent: he would have left him to flounder out of
it as he had got out of previous ones. But he had been surprised and
pained, and even frightened, to detect in Sheila's manner some faint
indications--so faint that he was doubtful what construction to put on
them--of a special interest in the young stranger whom he had brought
with him to Borva.
What could he do in the matter, supposing his suspicions were correct?
Caution Sheila?--it would be an insult. Warn Mackenzie?--the King of
Borva would fly into a passion with everybody concerned, and bring
endless humiliation on his daughter, who had probably never dreamed of
regarding Lavender except as a chance acquaintance. Insist upon Lavender
going south at once?--that would merely goad the young man into
obstinacy. Ingram found himself in a grievous difficulty, afraid to say
how much of it was of his own creation. He had no selfish sentiments of
his own to consult: if it were to become evident that the happiness of
Sheila and of his friend depended on their marrying each other, he was
ready to forward such a project with all the influence at his command.
But there were a hundred reasons why he should dread such a marriage. He
had already mentioned several of them to Lavender in trying to dissuade
the young man from his purpose. A few days had passed since then, and it
was clear that Lavender had abandoned all notion of fulfilling those
resolutions he had vaguely formed. But the more Ingram thought over the
matter, and the further he recalled all the ancient proverbs and stories
about the fate of intermeddlers, the more evident it became to him that
he could take no immediate action in the affair. He would trust to the
chapter of accidents to save Sheila from what he considered a disastrous
fate. Perhaps Lavender would repent. Perhaps Mackenzie, continually on
the watch for small secrets, would discover something, and bid his
daughter stay in Borva while his guests proceeded on their tour through
Lewis. In any case, it was not at all certain that Lavender would be
successful in his suit. Was the heart of a proud-spirited, intelligent
and busily-occupied girl to be won in a matter of three weeks or a
month? Lavender would go south, and no more would be heard of it.
This tour round the island of Lewis, however, was not likely to favor
much any such easy escape from the difficulty. On a certain morning the
larger of Mr. Mackenzie's boats carried the holiday party away from
Borva; and even at this early stage, as they sat at the stern of the
heavy craft, Lavender had arrogated to himself the exclusive right of
waiting upon Sheila. He had constituted himself her companion in all
their excursions about Borva which they had undertaken, and now, on this
longer journey, they were to be once more thrown together. It did seem a
little hard that Ingram should be relegated to Mackenzie and his
theories of government; but did he not profess to prefer that? Like most
men who have got beyond five-and-thirty, he was rather proud of
considering himself an observer of life. He stood aside as a spectator,
and let other people, engaged in all manner of eager pursuits, pass
before him for review. Toward young folks, indeed, he assumed a
good-naturedly paternal air, as if they were but as shy-faced children
to be humored. Were not their love-affairs a pretty spectacle? As for
himself, he was far beyond all that. The illusions of love-making, the
devotion and ambition and dreams of courtship, were no longer possible
to him, but did they not constitute on the whole a beautiful and
charming study, that had about it at times some little touches of
pathos? At odd moments, when he saw Sheila and Lavender walking together
in the evening, he was himself half inclined to wish that something
might come of the young man's determination. It would be so pleasant to
play the part of a friendly counselor, to humor the follies of the young
folks, to make jokes at their expense, and then, in the midst of their
embarrassment and resentment, to go forward and pet them a little, and
assure them of a real and earnest sympathy.
"Your time is to come," Lavender said to him suddenly after he had been
exhibiting some of his paternal forbearance and consideration: "you will
get a dreadful twist some day, my boy. You have been doing nothing but
dreaming about women, but some day or other you will wake up to find
yourself captured and fascinated beyond anything you have ever seen in
other people, and then you will discover what a desperately real thing
it is."
Ingram had a misty impression that he had heard something like this
before. Had he not given Lavender some warning of the same kind? But he
was so much accustomed to hear those vague repetitions of his own
remarks, and was, on the whole, so well pleased to think that his
commonplace notions should take root and flourish in this goodly soil,
that he never thought of asking Lavender to quote his authority for
those profound observations on men and things.
"Now, Miss Mackenzie," said the young man as the big boat was drawing
near to Callernish, "what is to be our first sketch in Lewis?"
"The Callernish Stones, of course," said Mackenzie himself: "it iss
more than one hass come to the Lewis to see the Callernish Stones."
Lavender had promised to the King of Borva a series of water-color
drawings of Lewis, and Sheila was to choose the subjects from day to
day. Mackenzie was gratified by this proposal, and accepted it with much
magnanimity; but Sheila knew that before the offer was made Lavender had
come to her and asked her if she cared about sketches, and whether he
might be allowed to take a few on this journey and present them to her.
She was very grateful, but suggested that it might please her papa if
they were given to him. Would she superintend them, then, and choose the
topics for illustration? Yes, she would do that; and so the young man
was furnished with a roving commission.
He brought her a little sepia sketch of Borvabost, its huts, its bay,
and its upturned boats on the beach. Sheila's expressions of praise, the
admiration and pleasure that shone in her eyes, would have turned any
young man's head. But her papa looked at the picture with a critical
eye, and remarked, "Oh yes, it is ferry good, but it is not the color of
Loch Roag at all. It is the color of a river when there is a flood of
rain. I have neffer at all seen Loch Roag a brown color--neffer at all."
It was clear, then, that the subsequent sketches could not be taken in
sepia, and so Lavender proposed to make a series of pencil-drawings,
which could be washed in with color afterward. There was one subject,
indeed, which since his arrival in Lewis he had tried to fix on paper by
every conceivable means in his power, and that was Sheila herself. He
had spoiled innumerable sheets of paper in trying to get some likeness
of her which would satisfy himself, but all his usual skill seemed
somehow to have gone from him. He could not understand it. In ordinary
circumstances he could have traced in a dozen lines a portrait that
would at least have shown a superficial likeness: he could have
multiplied portraits by the dozen of old Mackenzie or Ingram or Duncan,
but here he seemed to fail utterly. He invited no criticism, certainly.
These efforts were made in his own room, and he asked no one's opinion
as to the likeness. He could, indeed, certify to himself that the
drawing of the features was correct enough. There was the sweet and
placid forehead with its low masses of dark hair; there the short upper
lip, the finely-carved mouth, the beautifully-rounded chin and throat;
and there the frank, clear, proud eyes, with their long lashes and
highly-curved eyebrows. Sometimes, too, a touch of color added warmth
to the complexion, put a glimmer of the blue sea beneath the long black
eyelashes, and drew a thread of scarlet round the white neck. But was
this Sheila? Could he take this sheet of paper to his friends in London
and say, Here is the magical princess whom I hope to bring to you from
the North, with all the glamour of the sea around her? He felt
instinctively that there would be an awkward pause. The people would
praise the handsome, frank, courageous head, and look upon the bit of
red ribbon round the neck as an effective artistic touch. They would
hand him back the paper with a compliment, and he would find himself in
an agony of unrest because they had misunderstood the portrait, and seen
nothing of the wonder that encompassed this Highland girl as if with a
garment of mystery and dreams.
So he tore up portrait after portrait--more than one of which would have
startled Ingram by its truth--and then, to prove to himself that he was
not growing mad, he resolved to try a portrait of some other person. He
drew a head of old Mackenzie in chalk, and was amazed at the rapidity
and facility with which he executed the task. Then there could be no
doubt as to the success of the likeness nor as to the effect of the
picture. The King of Borva, with his heavy eyebrows, his aquiline nose,
his keen gray eyes and flowing beard, offered a fine subject; and there
was something really royal and massive and noble in the head that
Lavender, well satisfied with his work, took down stairs one evening.
Sheila was alone in the drawing-room, turning over some music.
"Miss Mackenzie," he said rather kindly, "would you look at this?"
Sheila turned round, and the sudden light of pleasure that leapt to her
face was all the praise and all the assurance he wanted. But he had more
than that. The girl was grateful to him beyond all the words she could
utter; and when he asked her if she would accept the picture, she
thanked him by taking his hand for a moment, and then she left the room
to call in Ingram and her father. All the evening there was a singular
look of happiness on her face. When she met Lavender's eyes with hers
there was a frank and friendly look of gratitude ready to reward him.
When had he earned so much before by a simple sketch? Many and many a
portrait, carefully executed and elaborately framed, had he presented to
his lady friends in London, to receive from them a pretty note and a few
words of thanks when next he called. Here with a rough chalk sketch he
had awakened an amount of gratitude that almost surprised him in the
most beautiful and tender soul in the world; and had not this princess
among women taken his hand for a moment as a childlike way of expressing
her thanks, while her eyes spoke more than her lips? And the more he
looked at those eyes, the more he grew to despair of ever being able to
put down the magic of them in lines and colors.
At length Duncan got the boat into the small creek at Callernish, and
the party got out on the shore. As they were going up the steep path
leading to the plain above a young girl met them, who looked at them in
rather a strange way. She had a fair, pretty, wondering face, with
singularly high eyebrows and clear, light-blue eyes.
"How are you, Eily?" said Mackenzie as he passed on with Ingram.
But Sheila, on making the same inquiry, shook hands with the girl, who
smiled in a confidential way, and, coming quite close, nodded and
pointed down to the water's edge.
"Have you seen them to-day, Eily?" said Sheila, still holding the girl
by the hands, and looking at the fair, pretty, strange face.
"It wass sa day before yesterday," she answered in a whisper, while a
pleased smile appeared on her face, "and sey will be here sa night."
"Good-bye, Eily: take care you don't stay out at night and catch cold,
you know," said Sheila; and then, with another little nod and a smile,
the young girl went down the path.
"It is Eily-of-the-Ghosts, as they call her," said Sheila to Lavender as
they went on: "the poor thing fancies she sees little people about the
rocks, and watches for them. But she is very good and quiet, and she is
not afraid of them, and she does no harm to any one. She does not belong
to the Lewis--I think she is from Islay--but she sometimes comes to pay
us a visit at Borva, and my papa is very kind to her."
"Mr. Ingram does not appear to know her: I thought he was acquainted
with every one in the island," said Lavender.
"She was not here when he has been in the Lewis before," said Sheila;
"but Eily does not like to speak to strangers, and I do not think you
could get her to speak to you if you tried."
Lavender had paid but little attention to the "false men" of Callernish
when first he saw them, but now he approached the long lines of big
stones up on this lonely plateau with a new interest; for Sheila had
talked to him about them many a time in Borva, and had asked his opinion
about their origin and their age. Was the central circle of stones an
altar, with the other series marking the approaches to it? Or was it the
grave of some great chieftain, with the remaining stones indicating the
graves of his relations and friends? Or was it the commemoration of some
battle in olden times, or the record of astronomical or geometrical
discoveries, or a temple once devoted to serpent-worship, or what?
Lavender, who knew absolutely nothing at all about the matter, was
probably as well qualified as anybody else to answer these questions,
but he forbore. The interest, however, that Sheila showed in such
things he very rapidly acquired. When he came to see the rows of stones
a second time he was much impressed by their position on this bit of
hill overlooking the sea. He sat down on his camp-stool with the
determination that, although he could not satisfy Sheila's wistful
questions, he would present her with some little sketch of these
monuments and their surroundings which might catch up something of the
mysterious loneliness of the scene.
He would not, of course, have the picture as it then presented itself.
The sun was glowing on the grass around him, and lighting up the tall
gray pillars of stone with a cheerful radiance. Over there the waters of
Loch Roag were bright and blue, and beyond the lake the undulations of
moorland were green and beautiful, and the mountains in the south grown
pale as silver in the heat. Here was a pretty young lady, in a rough
blue traveling-dress and a hat and feather, who was engaged in picking
up wild-flowers from the warm heath. There was a gentleman from the
office of the Board of Trade, who was sitting on the grass, nursing his
knees and whistling. From time to time the chief figure in the
foreground was an elderly gentleman, who evidently expected that he was
going to be put into the picture, and who was occasionally dropping a
cautious hint that he did not always wear this rough-and-ready sailor's
costume. Mackenzie was also most anxious to point out to the artist the
names of the hills and districts lying to the south of Loch Roag,
apparently with the hope that the sketch would have a certain
topographical interest for future visitors.
No: Lavender was content at that moment to take down the outlines of the
great stones and the configuration of lake and hill beyond, but by and
by he would give another sort of atmosphere to this wild scene. He would
have rain and darkness spread over the island, with the low hills in the
south grown desolate and remote, and the waters of the sea covered with
gloom. No human figure should be visible on this remote plain, where
these strange memorials had stood for centuries, exposed to western
gales and the stillness of the winter nights and the awful silence of
the stars. Would not Sheila, at least, understand the bleakness and
desolation of the picture? Of course her father would like to have
everything blue and green. He seemed a little disappointed when it was
clear that no distant glimpse of Borva could be introduced into the
sketch. But Sheila's imagination would be captured by this sombre
picture, and perhaps by and by in some other land, amid fairer scenes
and in a more generous climate, she might be less inclined to hunger for
the dark and melancholy North when she looked on this record of its
gloom and its sadness.
"Iss he going to put any people in the pictures?" said Mackenzie in a
confidential whisper to Ingram.
Ingram got up from the grass, and said with a yawn, "I don't know. If he
does, it will be afterward. Suppose we go along to the wagonette and see
if Duncan has brought everything up from the boat?"
The old man seemed rather unwilling to be cut out of this particular
sketch, but he went nevertheless; and Sheila, seeing the young man left
alone, and thinking that not quite fair, went over to him and asked if
she might be permitted to see as much as he had done.
Lavender shut up the book.
"No," he said with a laugh, "you shall see it to-night. I have
sufficient memoranda to work something out of by and by. Shall we have
another look at the circle up there?"
He folded up and shouldered his camp-stool, and they walked up to the
point at which the lines of the "mourners" converged. Perhaps he was
moved by a great antiquarian curiosity: at all events, he showed a
singular interest in the monuments, and talked to his companion about
all the possible theories connected with such stones in a fashion that
charmed her greatly. She was easily persuaded that the Callernish
"Fir-Bhreige" were the most interesting relics in the world. He had seen
Stonehenge, but Stonehenge was too scattered to be impressive. There
was more mystery about the means by which the inhabitants of a small
island could have hewn and carved and erected these blocks: there was,
moreover, the mystery about the vanished population itself. Yes, he had
been to Carnac also. He had driven down from Auray in a rumbling old
trap, his coachman being unable to talk French. He had seen the
half-cultivated plain on which there were rows and rows of small stones,
scarcely to be distinguished from the stone walls of the adjoining
farms. What was there impressive about such a sight when you went into a
house and paid a franc to be shown the gold ornaments picked up about
the place? Here, however, was a perfect series of those strange
memorials, with the long lanes leading up to a circle, and the tallest
of all the stones placed on the western side of the circle, perhaps as
the headstone of the buried chief. Look at the position, too--the silent
hill, the waters of the sea-loch around it, and beyond that the
desolation of miles of untenanted moorland. Sheila looked pleased that
her companion, after coming so far, should have found something worth
looking at in the Lewis.
"Does it not seem strange," he said suddenly, "to think of young folks
of the present day picking up wild-flowers from among these old stones?"
He was looking at a tiny bouquet which she had gathered.
"Will you take them?" she said, quite simply and naturally offering him
the flowers. "They may remind you some time of Callernish."
He took the flowers, and regarded them for a moment in silence, and then
he said gently, "I do not think I shall want these to remind me of
Callernish. I shall never forget our being here."
At this moment, perhaps fortunately, Duncan appeared, and came along
toward the young people with a basket in his hand.
"It wass Mr. Mackenzie will ask if ye will tek a glass o' whisky, sir,
and a bit o' bread and cheese. And he wass sayin' there wass no hurry at
all, and he will wait for you for two hours or half an hour whatever."
"All right, Duncan: go back and tell him I have finished, and we shall
be there directly. No, thank you, don't take out the whisky--unless,
Miss Mackenzie," added the young man with a smile, "Duncan can persuade
you."
Duncan looked with amazement at the man who dared to joke about Miss
Sheila taking whisky, and without waiting for any further commands
indignantly shut the lid of the basket and walked off.
"I wonder, Miss Mackenzie," said Lavender as they went along the path
and down the hill--"I wonder what you would say if I happened to call
you Sheila by mistake?"
"I should be glad if you did that. Every one calls me Sheila," said the
girl quietly enough.
"You would not be vexed?" he said, regarding her with a little surprise.
"No: why should I be vexed?" she answered; and she happened to look up,
and he saw what a clear light of sincerity there was shining in her
eyes.
"May I then call you Sheila?"
"Yes."
"But--but--" he said, with a timidity and embarrassment of which she
showed no trace whatever--"but people might think it strange, you know;
and yet I should greatly like to call you Sheila; only, not before other
people perhaps."
"But why not?" she said with her eyebrows just raised a little. "Why
should you wish to call me Sheila at one time and not at the other? It
is no difference whatever, and every one calls me Sheila."
Lavender was a little disappointed. He had hoped, when she consented in
so friendly a manner to his calling her by any name he chose, that he
could have established this little arrangement, which would have had
about it something of the nature of a personal confidence. Sheila would
evidently have none of that. Was it that she was really so simple and
frank in her ways that she did not understand why there should be such a
difference, and what it might imply, or was she well aware of
everything he had been wishing, and able to assume this air of
simplicity and ignorance with a perfect grace? Ingram, he reflected,
would have said at once that to suspect Sheila of such duplicity was to
insult her; but then Ingram was perhaps himself a trifle too easily
imposed on, and he had notions about women, despite all his
philosophical reading and such like, that a little more mingling in
society might have caused him to alter. Frank Lavender confessed to
himself that Sheila was either a miracle of ingenuousness or a thorough
mistress of the art of assuming it. On the one hand, he considered it
almost impossible for a woman to be so disingenuous; on the other hand,
how could this girl have taught herself, in the solitude of a savage
island, a species of histrionicism which women in London circles strove
for years to acquire, and rarely acquired in any perfection? At all
events, he said to himself, while he reserved his opinion on this point,
he was not going to call Sheila Sheila before folks who would know what
that meant. Mr. Mackenzie was evidently a most irascible old gentleman.
Goodness only knew what sort of law prevailed in these wild parts; and
to be seized at midnight by a couple of brawny fishermen, to be carried
down to a projecting ledge of rock--! Had not Ingram already hinted that
Mackenzie would straightway throw into Loch Roag the man who should
offer to carry away Sheila from him?
But how could these doubts of Sheila's sincerity last? He sat opposite
her in the wagonette, and the perfect truth of her face, of her frank
eyes and of her ready smile met him at every moment, whether he talked
to her or to Ingram, or listened to old Mackenzie, who turned from time
to time from the driving of the horses to inform the stranger of what he
saw around him. It was the most brilliant of mornings. The sun burned on
the white road, on the green moorland, on the gray-lichened rocks with
their crimson patches of heather. As they drove by the curious
convolutions of this rugged coast, the sea that lay beyond these
recurring bays and points was of a windy green, with here and there a
streak of white, and the fresh breeze blowing across to them tempered
the fierce heat of the sun. How cool, too, were those little fresh-water
lakes they passed, the clear blue and white of them stirred into
wavelets that moved the reeds and left air-bubbles about the
half-submerged stones! Were not those wild-geese over there, flapping in
the water with their huge wings and taking no notice of the passing
strangers? Lavender had never seen this lonely coast in times of gloom,
with those little lakes become sombre pools, and the outline of the
rocks beyond lost in the driving mist of the sea and the rain. It was
altogether a bright and beautiful world he had got into, and there was
in it but one woman, beautiful beyond his dreams. To doubt her was to
doubt all women. When he looked at her he forgot the caution and
distrust and sardonic self-complacency his southern training had given
him. He believed, and the world seemed to be filled with a new light.
"That is Loch-na-Muirne," Mackenzie was saying, "and it iss the Loch of
the Mill; and over there that is Loch-a-Bhaile, and that iss the Loch of
the Town; but where iss the loch and the town now? It wass many hundreds
of years before there will be numbers of people in this place; and you
will come to Dun Charlobhaidh, which is a great castle, by and by. And
what wass it will drive away the people, and leave the land to the moss,
but that there wass no one to look after them? 'When the natives will
leave Islay, farewell to the peace of Scotland.' That iss a good
proverb. And if they have no one to mind them, they will go away
altogether. And there is no people more obedient than the people of the
Highlands--not anywhere; for you know that we say, 'Is it the truth, as
if you were speaking before kings?' And now there is the castle, and
there wass many people living here when they could build that."
It was, in truth, one of those circular forts the date of which has
given rise to endless conjecture and discussion. Perched up on a hill,
it overlooked a number of deep and narrow valleys that ran landward,
while the other side of the hill sloped down to the sea-shore. It was a
striking object, this tumbling mass of dark stones standing high over
the green hollows and over the light plain of the sea. Was there not
here material for another sketch for Sheila? While Lavender had gone
away over the heights and hollows to choose his point of view a rough
and ready luncheon had been spread out in the wagonette, and when he
returned, perspiring and considerably blown, he found old Mackenzie
measuring out equal portions of peat-water and whisky, Duncan flicking
the enormous "clegs" from off the horses' necks, Ingram trying to
persuade Sheila to have some sherry out of a flask he carried, and
everybody in very good spirits over such an exciting event as a roadside
luncheon on a summer forenoon.
The King of Borva had by this time become excellent friends with the
young stranger who had ventured into his dominions. When the old
gentleman had sufficiently impressed on everybody that he had observed
all necessary precaution in studying the character and inquiring into
the antecedents of Lavender, he could not help confessing to a sense of
lightness and vivacity that the young man seemed to bring with him and
shed around him. Nor was this matter of the sketches the only thing that
had particularly recommended Lavender to the old man. Mackenzie had a
most distinct dislike to Gaelic songs. He could not bear the monotonous
melancholy of them. When Sheila, sitting by herself, would sing these
strange old ballads of an evening, he would suddenly enter the room,
probably find her eyes filled with tears, and then he would in his
inmost heart devote the whole of Gaelic minstrelsy and all its authors
to the infernal gods. Why should people be for ever saddening themselves
with the stories of other folks' misfortunes? It was bad enough for
those poor people, but they had borne their sorrows and died, and were
at peace. Surely it was better that we should have songs about
ourselves--drinking or fighting, if you like--to keep up the spirits, to
lighten the serious cares of life, and drown for a while the
responsibility of looking after a whole population of poor,
half-ignorant, unphilosophical creatures.
"Look, now," he would say, speaking of his own tongue, "look at this
teffle of a language! It has no present tense to its verbs: the people
they are always looking forward to a melancholy future or looking back
to a melancholy past. In the name of Kott, hef we not got ourselves to
live? This day we live in is better than any day that wass before or iss
to come, bekass it is here and we are alive. And I will hef no more of
these songs about crying, and crying, and crying!"
Now Sheila and Lavender, in their mutual musical confidences, had at an
early period discovered that each of them knew something of the older
English duets, and forthwith they tried a few of them, to Mackenzie's
extreme delight. Here, at last, was a sort of music he could
understand--none of your moanings of widows and cries of luckless girls
to the sea, but good common-sense songs, in which the lads kissed the
lasses with a will, and had a good drink afterward, and a dance on the
green on their homeward way. There was fun in those happy Mayfields, and
good health and briskness in the ale-house choruses, and throughout them
all a prevailing cheerfulness and contentment with the conditions of
life certain to recommend itself to the contemplative mind. Mackenzie
never tired of hearing those simple ditties. He grew confidential with
the young man, and told him that those fine, common-sense songs recalled
pleasant scenes to him. He himself knew something of English village
life. When he had been up to see the Great Exhibition he had gone to
visit a friend living in Brighton, and he had surveyed the country with
an observant eye. He had remarked several village-greens, with the
May-poles standing here and there in front of the cottages, emblazoned
with beautiful banners. He had, it is true, fancied that the May-pole
should be in the centre of the green; but the manner in which the waves
of population swept here and there, swallowing up open spaces and so
forth, would account to a philosophical person for the fact that the
May-poles were now close to the village-shops.
"Drink to me only with thine eyes," hummed the King of Borva to himself
as he sent the two little horses along the coast-road on this warm
summer day. He had heard the song for the first time on the previous
evening. He had no voice to speak of; he had missed the air, and these
were all the words he remembered; but it was a notable compliment all
the same to the young man who had brought these pleasant tunes to the
island. And so they drove on through the keen salt air, with the sea
shining beside them and the sky shining over them; and in the afternoon
they arrived at the small, remote and solitary inn of Barvas, placed
near the confluence of several rivers that flow through Loch Barvas (or
Barabhas) to the sea. Here they proposed to stop the night, so that
Lavender, when his room had been assigned to him, begged to be left
alone for an hour or two, that he might throw a little color into his
sketch of Callernish. What was there to see at Barvas? Why, nothing but
the channels of the brown streams, some pasture-land and a few huts,
then the unfrequented lake, and beyond that some ridges of white sand
standing over the shingly beach of the sea. He would join them at
dinner. Mackenzie protested in a mild way: he really wanted to see how
the island was to be illustrated by the stranger. There was a greater
protest, mingled with compassion and regret, in Sheila's eyes; but the
young man was firm. So they let him have his way, and gave him full
possession of the common sitting-room, while they set off to visit the
school and the Free-Church manse and what not in the neighborhood.
Mackenzie had ordered dinner at eight, to show that he was familiar with
the ways of civilized life; and when they returned at that hour
Lavender had two sketches finished.
"Yes, they are very good," said Ingram, who was seldom enthusiastic
about his friend's work.
But old Mackenzie was so vastly pleased with the picture, which
represented his native place in the brightest of sunshine and colors,
that he forgot to assume a critical air. He said nothing against the
rainy and desolate version of the scene that had been given to Sheila:
it was good enough to please the child. But here was something
brilliant, effective, cheerful; and he alarmed Lavender not a little by
proposing to get one of the natives to carry this treasure, then and
there, back to Borvabost. Both sketches were ultimately returned to his
book, and then Sheila helped him to remove his artistic apparatus from
the table on which their plain and homely meal was to be placed. As she
was about to follow her father and Ingram, who had left the room, she
paused for a moment and said to Lavender, with a look of frank gratitude
in her eyes, "It is very good of you to have pleased my papa so much. I
know when he is pleased, though he does not speak of it; and it is not
often he will be so much pleased."
"And you, Sheila?" said the young man, unconscious of the familiarity he
was using, and only remembering that she had scarcely thanked him for
the other sketch.
"Well, there is nothing that will please me so much as to see him
pleased," she said with a smile.
He was about to open the door for her, but he kept his hand on the
handle, and said, earnestly enough, "But that is such a small matter--an
hour's work. If you only knew how gladly I would live all my life here
if only I could do you some greater service--"
She looked a little surprised, and then for one brief second reflected.
English was not wholly familiar to her: perhaps she had failed to catch
what he really meant. But at all events she said gravely and simply,
"You would soon tire of living here: it is not always a holiday." And
then, without lifting her eyes to his face, she turned to the door, and
he opened it for her and she was gone.
It was about ten o'clock when they went outside for their evening
stroll, and all the world had grown enchanted since they had seen it in
the colors of the sunset. There was no night, but a strange clearness
over the sky and the earth, and down in the south the moon was rising
over the Barvas hills. In the dark green meadows the cattle were still
grazing. Voices of children could be heard in the far distance, with the
rumble of a cart coming through the silence, and the murmur of the
streams flowing down to the loch. The loch itself lay like a line of
dusky yellow in a darkened hollow near the sea, having caught on its
surface the pale glow of the northern heavens, where the sun had gone
down hours before. The air was warm and yet fresh with the odors of the
Atlantic, and there was a scent of Dutch clover coming across from the
sandy pastures nearer the coast. The huts of the small hamlet could but
faintly be made out beyond the dark and low-lying pastures, but a long,
pale line of blue smoke lay in the motionless air, and the voices of the
children told of open doors. Night after night this same picture, with
slight variations of position, had been placed before the stranger who
had come to view these solitudes, and night after night it seemed to him
to grow more beautiful. He could put down on paper the outlines of an
every-day landscape, and give them a dash of brilliant color to look
well on a wall; but how to carry away, except in the memory, any
impression of the strange lambent darkness, the tender hues, the
loneliness and the pathos of those northern twilights?
They walked down by the side of one of the streams toward the sea. But
Sheila was not his companion on this occasion. Her father had laid hold
of him, and was expounding to him the rights of capitalists and various
other matters. But by and by Lavender drew his companion on to talk of
Sheila's mother; and here, at least, Mackenzie was neither tedious nor
ridiculous nor unnecessarily garrulous. It was with a strange interest
the young man heard the elderly man talk of his courtship, his marriage,
the character of his wife, and her goodness and beauty. Was it not like
looking at a former Sheila? and would not this Sheila now walking before
him go through the same tender experiences, and be admired and loved and
petted by everybody as this other girl had been, who brought with her
the charm of winning ways and a gentle nature into these rude wilds? It
was the first time he had heard Mackenzie speak of his wife, and it
turned out to be the last; but from that moment the older man had
something of dignity in the eyes of this younger man, who had merely
judged of him by his little foibles and eccentricities, and would have
been ready to dismiss him contemptuously as a buffoon. There was
something, then, behind that powerful face, with its deep-cut lines, its
heavy eyebrows and piercing and sometimes sad eyes, besides a mere
liking for tricks of childish diplomacy. Lavender began to have some
respect for Sheila's father, and made a resolution to guard against the
impertinence of humoring him too ostentatiously.
Was it not hard, though, that Ingram, who was so cold and
unimpressionable, who smiled at the notion of marrying, and who was
probably enjoying his pipe quite as much as Sheila's familiar talk,
should have the girl all to himself on this witching night? They reached
the shores of the Atlantic. There was not a breath of wind coming in
from the sea, but the air seemed even sweeter and cooler as they sat
down on the great bank of shingle. Here and there birds were calling,
and Sheila could distinguish each one of them. As the moon rose a faint
golden light began to tremble here and there on the waves, as if some
subterranean caverns were lit up and sending to the surface faint and
fitful rays of their splendor. Farther along the coast the tall banks of
white sand grew white in the twilight, and the outlines of the dark
pasture-land behind grew more distinct.
But when they rose to go back to Barvas the moonlight had grown full and
clear, and the long and narrow loch had a pathway of gold across,
stretching from the reeds and sedges of the one side to the reeds and
sedges of the other. And now Ingram had gone on to join Mackenzie, and
Sheila walked behind with Lavender, and her face was pale and beautiful
in the moonlight.
"I shall be very sorry when I have to leave Lewis," he said as they
walked along the path leading through the sand and the clover; and there
could be no doubt that he felt the regret expressed in the words.
"But it is no use to speak of leaving us yet," said Sheila cheerfully:
"it is a long time before you will go away from the Lewis."
"And I fancy I shall always think of the island just as it is now--with
the moonlight over there, and a loch near, and you walking through the
stillness. We have had so many evening walks like this."
"You will make us very vain of our island," said the girl with a smile,
"if you will speak like that always to us. Is there no moonlight in
England? I have pictures of English scenery that will be far more
beautiful than any we have here; and if there is the moon here, it will
be there too. Think of the pictures of the river Thames that my papa
showed you last night--"
"Oh, but there is nothing like this in the South," said the young man
impetuously. "I do not believe there is in the world anything so
beautiful as this. Sheila, what would you say if I resolved to come and
live here always?"
"I should like that very much--more than you would like it, perhaps,"
she said with a bright laugh.
"That would please you better than for you to go always and live in
England, would it not?"
"But that is impossible," she said. "My papa would never think of living
in England."
For some time after he was silent. The two figures in front of them
walked steadily on, an occasional roar of laughter from the deep chest
of Mackenzie startling the night air, and telling of Ingram's being in a
communicative mood. At last Lavender said, "It seems to me so great a
pity that you should live in this remote place, and have so little
amusement, and see so few people of tastes and education like your own.
Your papa is so much occupied--he is so much older than you, too--that
you must be left to yourself so much; whereas if you had a companion of
your own age, who could have the right to talk frankly to you, and go
about with you, and take care of you--"
By this time they had reached the little wooden bridge crossing the
stream, and Mackenzie and Ingram had got to the inn, where they stood in
front of the door in the moonlight. Before ascending the steps of the
bridge, Lavender, without pausing in his speech, took Sheila's hand and
said suddenly, "Now don't let me alarm you, Sheila, but suppose at some
distant day--as far away as you please--I came and asked you to let me
be your companion then and always, wouldn't you try?"
She looked up with a startled glance of fear in her eyes, and withdrew
her hand from him.
"No, don't be frightened," he said quite gently. "I don't ask you for
any promise. Sheila, you must know I love you--you must have seen it.
Will you not let me come to you at some future time--a long way
off--that you may tell me then? Won't you try to do that?"
There was more in the tone of his voice than in his words. The girl
stood irresolute for a second or two, regarding him with a strange,
wistful, earnest look; and then a great gentleness came into her eyes,
and she put out her hand to him and said in a low voice, "Perhaps."
But there was something so grave and simple about her manner at this
moment that he dared not somehow receive it as a lover receives the
first admission of love from the lips of a maiden. There had been
something of a strange inquiry in her face as she regarded him for a
second or two; and now that her eyes were bent on the ground it seemed
to him that she was trying to realize the full effect of the concession
she had made. He would not let her think. He took her hand and raised it
respectfully to his lips, and then he led her forward to the bridge. Not
a word was spoken between them while they crossed the shining space of
moonlight to the shadow of the house; and as they went indoors he caught
but one glimpse of her eyes, and they were friendly and kind toward him,
but evidently troubled. He saw her no more that night.
So he had asked Sheila to be his wife, and she had given him some timid
encouragement as to the future. Many a time within these last few days
had he sketched out an imaginative picture of the scene. He was familiar
with the passionate rapture of lovers on the stage, in books and in
pictures; and he had described himself (to himself) as intoxicated with
joy, anxious to let the whole world know of his good fortune, and above
all to confide the tidings of his happiness to his constant friend and
companion. But now, as he sat in one corner of the room, he almost
feared to be spoken to by the two men who sat at the table with steaming
glasses before them. He dared not tell Ingram: he had no wish to tell
him, even if he had got him alone. And as he sat there and recalled the
incident that had just occurred by the side of the little bridge, he
could not wholly understand its meaning. There had been none of the
eagerness, the coyness, the tumult of joy he had expected: all he could
remember clearly was the long look that the large, earnest, troubled
eyes had fixed upon him, while the girl's face, grown pale in the
moonlight, seemed somehow ghost-like and strange.