'Oh, Angus!' Maggie held out her hand to him on the pier, and he held
it as in a vice. 'It iss your own poat, then, Angus?'
'No; she iss not,' said Angus.
'No?'
'No! She iss yours, Maggie! I built her for ye--every inch of her grew
under my own hand--and she's no a pad poat at all, though it iss me
that says it----'
'Well, Angus----'
'Don't say another word, but go aboard,' said Angus, proceeding down
the steep slippery steps to the loch, leading Maggie gallantly by the
hand. Speedily the rope was unloosed, the white sail spread to the
breeze, and the boat moved gracefully and rapidly, under a glorious
sunset sky, out into the loch. Maggie sat holding the tiller silently
while Angus adjusted the ropes. The loch was radiant from shore to
shore in the rich evening light; quickly the white houses of the town
were left in the distance; and hardly a movement but the delicious
ripple of water cleft by the boat's bow, or the cry of a sea-gull
sailing lazily overhead, disturbed the stillness. Here and there in the
pools among the boulders in lonely parts of the shore, a heron stood
silent as its own shadow and solitary as a hermit; from the grassy
hollows by the beach a thin white mist rose, softening the green wooded
slopes, and adding a sense of distance to the heathery ridges in the
background, glorified by the red autumn sunset. Maggie was supremely
happy. When the sail was fairly set, Angus came and stretched himself
by her side.
'And ye think she iss a nice poat, and ye like her?' he said, looking
into Maggie's face.
'It wass fery kind of ye to think of giving me such a present as this,
Angus; but I cannot possibly take it.'
'Maggie,' said Angus, taking her disengaged hand in his, 'I hef long
wanted to tell you something--indeed I hef, Maggie--not that I'm a goot
hand at telling anything I want, but--all the time I wass building her,
and that wass longer than ye might think, Maggie--I hef looked to this
moment as a reward--when I would see you sitting there, looking that
happy and that peautiful--yes, Maggie, peautiful, and pleased with my
work--and proud am I to see ye so pleased wi' a trifle'----
'But it iss _not_ a trifle,' said the maiden interrupting him; 'it wass
a great undertaking! I nefer saw anything I liked half so much.'
'But it iss nothing, I tell you, Maggie, to what I would gif you if you
would be willing to take it--nothing! I would like you, Maggie, to take
all I hef--and myself too. It iss true I am only a common sailor, but
Maggie, my heart iss fery warm to you. Many's the time, when I wass a
hundred and maybe thousants of miles away from here, I wad pe thinking
of you--many a time in the middle of the night, when I wass on the deck
alone, watching and looking at the stars under a foreign sky, I would
single out a particular star and call it Maggie's eye, and watch it
lovingly, cass I thocht you might pe looking at it too, even if you
wass not thinking of me thousants of miles off; and it makes me fery
unhappy when I'm a long way off, to think that maybe I am forgotten,
and some other man iss trying to get your love, and maybe I losing my
chance of happiness for life, cass, like a fool, I held my peace, when
by speaking a word my happiness and yours might pe secure.'
Angus's arm had stolen round the girl's waist as he proceeded in the
speech that was a direct outflow from his heart. She did not try to
speak for a little. Angus saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
'It wass wrong of ye, Angus, efer to think I would forget ye,' she said.
'Then ye do think sometimes apoot me when I am not near you?'
'Angus, how can you pe speaking nonsense like that!'
'But it iss not nonsense to me, Maggie,' said her lover seriously; 'I
love you, Maggie, as I love no woman in the world; and Maggie, if you
were to--to--it wad break my'----
It was the old story. Two human souls meeting under the light of
heaven, each recognising in the other that which each yearned for, to
give completeness to life; the spoken word being the outward force
impelling them towards each other, as two dewdrops merge into one by
a movement external to both. The Highland girl had no desire to break
her lover's heart; nay, she was ready to give her own in exchange
for his love with all the impulsiveness of a simple and true nature.
As the boat sped on they noted not that twilight was deepening into
evening, that the stars were myriad-eyed above them, and the crescent
moon glimmered over the hills and shone in quivering tracks along the
loch. So it came about that at the same moment of time when the piper
in the clachan was apostrophising Angus's father in the words already
recorded--'Nae doot your son Angus will pe wanting me to learn him to
play the pipes too; and nae doot, when he comes for that purpose, he
will look to have his crack wi' Maggie,' &c.--his daughter's arms were
being thrown impulsively about Angus's neck, and Angus himself was the
happiest man in the Western Highlands.
Maggie reached Glen Heath with a joyous heart. She was there before
the piper. She speedily girt on her apron, and with tucked-up sleeves
proceeded to the more prosaic duty of baking 'scones' that might be
warm and palatable for the piper's supper; and as she rolled out the
dough, and patted and rolled and kneaded it, and turned it before the
fire until an appetising browniness covered each surface, she sang
merrily one of the merriest of the sad Gaelic melodies.
But the piper was late. The white cloth was spread, and the scones had
time to cool, before Diana leaping to her feet, stretched herself,
yawned, and went to the door sniffing. Maggie opened the door
immediately; the piper swung along the path unsteadily. The dog went to
meet him without enthusiasm, half-doubtful of her reception, and only
narrowly escaped the kick which the piper aimed at her.
'Get out, ye prute!' he said, as he came in; and when the animal still
came fawning towards him, he hurled his bagpipes with great force
at her head, only with the result, however, of breaking the pipe's
mouthpiece. 'O the prute!' he cried when he saw what had happened; 'she
has proken my favourite shanter--the shanter that I've played wi' for
fifteen years. O the prute! I'll cut her throat, to teach her to keep
oot o' my way. My best shanter too!'
'Come, dad, you are late,' said Maggie cheerily, going to meet him;
'you hef had a long walk. I hef boiled some eggs for ye, and baked some
scones; come, hef some supper before ye go to bed.'
'Ay, ay, ye are a praw lass, Maggie, one o' the right sort,' the piper
said. 'But to think my poor shanter's broken. I will nefer see her like
again whatefer!'
The piper sat down to supper with an enormous appetite, and Maggie
waited upon him devotedly, uncertain whether she should reveal her
secret or not in the present dubious state of her father's temper.
'Anypody peen here for me the day?' he asked between mouthfuls.
'Yes, Angus MacTavish wass here in the afternoon; and he'----
The piper laid down his knife, looked straight in his daughter's face
with a fierceness that startled her, saying: 'Hang Angus MacTavish and
efery man i' their black clan! A MacTavish nefer darkens my threshold
again! If Angus MacTavish efer comes to my house he will live to rue
it. I _hate_ efery living MacTavish!'
Maggie looked in her father's face amazed. To violent language she was
well accustomed; but sober or otherwise, she had never heard him utter
a word against the MacTavishes until now.
'Come, dad,' she said after a short silence, during which time she
decided it would be better to say nothing of what was uppermost in her
mind until morning--'come, dad; something has vexed you to-night. You
will be petter in the morning. Angus iss the best friend either you or
I hef in the wide world.'
'I tell you,' burst out the piper, 'I will not hef his name mentioned
in my hoose, not by you or any other! And if you go apoot with him,
Meg, as I hef seen ye do lately, I'll--I'll maybe pack you out of doors
too!'
The tears were in poor Maggie's eyes, but she comforted herself as she
put up the bolt in the door for the night, by assuring herself, as she
heard the piper stumbling up-stairs to his room: 'Poor dad, he iss
worse than usual to-night.' And when she slept, she dreamed of Angus.