People who only know the West Highlands in the rainy months of August
and September, when a chill damp, almost suggestive of winter, comes
to the air, will scarcely credit the intense heat which June and July
often bring to the narrow glens, shut in on all sides by sun-baked
mountains. Then the springs fail, and the cattle break through the
fences, seeking the nearest point of the river; or stand knee-deep in
the estuary water, flicking away the plague of flies with their tails,
and lowing seaward to the returning tides. Then the burns, fine as a
silver thread down the mountain sides, run with a clear bell-like
tinkle through the boulders over which they will dash with a roar and
a rush in the coming Lammas floods. Then the cotton grass hangs
motionless on its hair-like stem, and the bog myrtle gives out a hot,
dry, aromatic scent, to mingle with that of the drying grass. On such
days as these, everything having life instinctively seeks the shade.
So Marjory Carmichael, on the morning after the laird's return, left
the dusty high-road, crossed the fast hardening bogs by the tussocks
of gay mosses tufted with bell-heather, and so continued her walk
along the alder-fringed bank of the river. Even at that early hour not
a leaf was stirring; the very bees hung lazily on the pale lilac
scabious flowers, and the faint hush of the river had a metallic
sound. Marjory, clambering down a fern-clad bank, sat down beneath a
clump of hazels, set with green nuts. Below her the river, between the
alder stems, showed olive and gold in sunlight or shade, with every
now and again a foam fleck sailing by; for, some fifty yards above her
resting-place, the Eira, fresh from a boisterous half-mile scramble
among the rocks, rushed through a narrow chasm at racing speed, and
fell recklessly, dashing itself into a white heat of hurry in a
seething whirling pool set in sheer walls of rock, and thence finding
outlet for its passion in a wider basin, and so, with ever clearing
face, sliding into peace in the dark oily pool beneath the bank where
Marjory sate. Her favourite nook, however, in all the river side, lay
higher up, close to the leap, where she could watch the gleaming
sea-trout and an occasional salmon patiently trying at the fall, see
the flash of the rapids beyond the fringing ferns, or mark the
drifting shadows on the opposite hillside. But the single rowan tree,
clinging with distorted roots to the heather-tufted cliff, flung its
branches over the fall, and gave no shade elsewhere; hence on this
hottest of hot July mornings Marjory chose the hazel hollow instead,
and leaning back among the flowering grasses, which sent a pinkish
bloom of tiny fallen blossom on her curly hair, drew a long, closely
written letter from her pocket, turned to its last sheet, and began to
read it. Not for the first time, but then Cousin Tom's letters were
worth a dozen of most people's, especially when they had something to
say, as this one had:--
"What a hurry you seem to be in to begin work; and I am always in such
a hurry to begin play. But then you have arrived, or are about to
arrive, at the years of discretion, and I am a mere child of
forty-one. Twenty years between us, dear! It is a lifetime; and what
right have I, or any other old foozle, to dictate to you, Mademoiselle
Grands-serieux, who, clever as she is, hardly knows, I think, when her
most affectionate and unworthy guardian is attempting a jest. It is an
evil habit in the old. Expect to hear from the School Committee in
Hounslow before many days are over. I think all is settled fairly, but
I hear there is no chance of your being needed before the beginning of
November. And this is still July. Three whole months, therefore, ere
Mademoiselle need take up the burden of teaching vulgar little boys
the elements of Euclid. And yet the momentous coming of age, when
Wisdom, let us hope, is to be justified of one of her children, is
this week. Marjory, my dear! Fate has given you a real holiday at
last! Of course, I am an incorrigible idler compared to you, but,
believe me, my heart has ached at times over your sense of duty! Life
is not all work, even if it is not all beer and skittles. So take the
goods the gods provide (as dear old Wilson would say in the proper
tongue--my Latin is merely a catalogue of dry bones)--put away all the
books--let two and two be five or five hundred for the time, while you
cross the Asses' Bridge with the rest of humanity. Wake up, my dear
little girl! or rather begin to dream! Of what? you ask. Of anything,
my dear, except Woman's Suffrage. By the way, I have six new reasons
against the latter, which I will detail to Mademoiselle Grands-serieux
when a detestable bacillus, who will neither be born nor die, permits
of my joining her in the earthly paradise. Meanwhile have a good
time--a real good time."
Marjory leant back again on a great basket of spreading lastrea which
gave out scent like honey as she crushed it. Cousin Tom was
delightful, and perhaps he was right. The sudden content with Life as
it was which had come to her the day before when she realised its
peace, its beauty, its kindliness, returned now. Through the arching
hazel boughs the sunlight filtered down in a tempered brilliance
restful to the eyes; a grasshopper shrilled in the bents; a yellow
butterfly, settling on a leaf beside her, folded its wings and,
apparently, went to sleep. An earthly paradise, indeed! Surely if one
could dream anywhere it would be here.
Suddenly a faint _shwish-shwish_ broke the silence. _Shwish-shwish_,
at regularly recurring intervals. Marjory, recognising the sound,
wondered listlessly who could be fishing the lower pool at this early
hour. One of the keepers, perhaps, hopeful of a trout for his master's
breakfast; rather a forlorn chance even in the pot above, with that
cloudless sky. A jarring whizz, accompanied by a convulsion in the
alder branches, broke in on her drowsiness, making her sit up with
intelligent appreciation of the cause. The somebody, whoever he might
be, was "in" to the tree. Another convulsion, gentler, but more
prolonged; another short and sharp, as if somebody were losing his
temper. Then a persuasive wiggle to all points of the compass in turn,
and finally the whirr of a check reel.
Somebody being evidently about to try conclusions with Nature, Marjory
leant forward in deep interest, knowing by bitter experience that it
was two to one against humanity. At last, as she expected, there came
a series of short, sharp jerks; then something she had not expected.
On the morning air one comprehensive monosyllable--"Damn." That was
all. No affix, no suffix; without nominative or accusative; soft, but
trenchant.
"A gentleman," said Marjory to herself, without a moment's hesitation,
as she rose to peer through the thick tangle of alders. If so, the
laird, of course. Yes! It must be he, on the opposite bank, standing
irresolute; weighing the pros and cons of breaking in, no doubt.
Marjory's experienced eyes following the taut line, rested finally on
the cast looped round a branch just above her, and apparently within
reach. The mere possibility was sufficient to make her forget all save
the instinct to help.
"Don't break, please, I can get it."
Her eager voice, unmistakably girlish and refined, echoed across to
Paul Macleod, who, after a moment's astonished search, traced it to a
face half-seen among the parting leaves. He took off his hat
mechanically, for though it might have been a pixie's there was no
mistaking its gender, and the sex found a large measure of outward
respect in Paul Macleod. For the rest, help offered was with him
invariably help accepted; a fact which accounted for a large portion
of his popularity, since people like those around whom the memory of
their own benevolence can throw a halo. So he stood watching Marjory
settle methodically to her task, wondering the while who the girl
could possibly be. For that she had white hands and trim ankles was
abundantly evident, and neither of these charms was to be expected in
the rustic beauties of the Glen.
"I am afraid I am giving you a lot of trouble," he said
sympathetically, as for the third time the branch flew back from
Marjory's hold with a sudden spring.
"Not at all," she gasped jerkily; one cannot speak otherwise on tiptoe
with both hands above one's head.
"Perhaps I had better help."
"Perhaps you had," she answered resentfully, desisting for a moment
after a fourth rebuff. "There is no positive necessity for you to
remain idle. You might for instance reel in as I pull."
His faint smile was tempered by respect. The young lady on the
opposite bank knew what she was about, and, perhaps, might even be
good looking, if she were not quite so red in the face. So he obeyed
meekly, and was rewarded by a gasp of triumph.
"There! I've got it. I knew you could help if you tried."
"I'm immensely obliged," he began; then the girl's foot slipped, the
branch sprang from her hand, she made an ineffectual jump after it,
and the next instant the all but disentangled cast, flung into the air
by the rebound, was hard and fast in a higher twig.
Marjory could have stamped with despite; thought it wiser to laugh,
but found the opposite bank full of silent, grieved sympathy.
"I'll get it yet," she called across the water, with renewed
determination.
"I think, if you'll allow me, I will break in," came the deferential
voice after a time. "It really must be very tiring to jump like that."
"Not at all; thank you," she retorted, without a pause. "I never--give
in."
"So it appears. Will you allow me to come over and help?"
Come over and help, indeed! Marjory's growing anger slackened to
contempt. As if he could come over without a detour of half a mile
down or quarter of a mile up the river; and he must know it, unless he
had no memory. "You can't," she jerked between her efforts. "You
had--better slack line--and sit down--I'll get it somehow."
Very much "somehow." Her hat fell off first. Then, after a desperate
spring, in which she succeeded in clutching a lower branch, a hairpin
struck work. Hot, dishevelled, exasperated, yet still determined, she
persevered without deigning another reference to the silence over the
way, until an arm clothed in grey tweed reached over hers and bent the
branch down within her reach. She looked round, and, even in her
surprise, the great personal charm and beauty of the face looking into
hers struck her almost painfully; for it seemed to soothe her quick
vexation, and so to claim something from her.
"I jumped," he said, answering the look on hers. "It is quite easy by
the fall."
Something new to her, something which sent a lump to her throat, made
her turn away and say stiffly: "I am sorry I gave you the trouble of
coming. It would have been better if you had broken in. Good morning."
He stood grave as a judge, courteous, deferential, yet evidently
amused, still bending down the bough.
"Will you not finish the task you began? You said you never gave in;
besides, I can hardly do it for myself." The fact was palpable; it
required two hands to disentangle a singularly awkward knot. To deny
this would be to confess her own annoyance, so she turned back again.
Rather an awkward task with a face so close to your own, watching your
ineptitude. And yet she forgot her impatience in a sudden thought. If
he had fallen! If that face had had the life crushed out of it!
"You ought not to have jumped," she said, impulsively. "It was very
dangerous."
"Pardon me; I have done it hundreds of times when I was a boy."
"Boys may do foolish things."
He smiled. "And men should not; but are dangerous things necessarily
foolish?"
"Needlessly dangerous things are so, surely?"
"In that case, what becomes of courage?"
She paused, frankly surprised both at herself and him. How came it
that he understood so quickly, that she followed him so clearly? Yet
it was pleasant.
"Courage has nothing to do with the question."
His smile broadened. "Thanks. I began by saying so. The fact being
that the jump is not dangerous."
"No one else jumps it," she persisted.
"Pardon me for mentioning that I am an unusually good jumper.
Besides--
"The game is never yet worth a rap
For a rational man to play,
Into which some misfortune, some mishap
Cannot possibly find its way."
Again something new to her, something which this time sent a thrill of
answering recklessness through her veins, something of the mere joy
and pride of life made her ask in quick interest--"Who wrote that?"
"A man who gave in at last; he shot himself."
Marjory's face paled. Yes; men did that sort of thing, she knew. She
had read of it, and accepted the truth of it calmly. Now for the first
time she felt that she understood it, that she too stood on the brink
of the Great Unknown Sea, which might bring her to the haven where she
would be, or to shipwreck. Then in quick relief came a new cause for
resentment in the perception, as she began to wind up the now
disentangled cast, that a large portion of line remained attached to
it. In other words, her companion had deliberately cut it, and brought
his rod with him; had risked his life not for the sake of his flies,
but simply to amuse himself at her expense.
"I think that is all I can do for you," she said, in a white heat of
annoyance. "Good morning, Captain Macleod."
The name slipped from her unawares, and she recognised her own mistake
immediately. Her knowledge of his identity being a sort of
introduction, from which she could scarcely escape. For his position
as laird of Gleneira, owner of the very ground on which she was
trespassing, could not be ignored. She could not dismiss him like a
tramp. He took the advantage she had given him, coolly.
"Thanks, so many," he said, holding back a branch to allow of her
passing before him, "but I am going also. It is too bright for sport.
In truth, I never expected any, and only came out to renew my
acquaintance with the river, and discover, what I expected, that I
have almost forgotten how to throw a fly."
"Indeed, you have not forgotten how to break in, at any rate," she
replied viciously; then ashamed of her unnecessary heat, since surely
it was none of her business if he broke every cast he possessed, she
added, in superior tones, "there is no reason, however, why you should
not get a fish in the Long Pool. The sun won't touch it for half an
hour."
"The Long Pool," he echoed, "which is that? I'm afraid I have almost
forgotten it, too."
It was a palpable excuse for continuing the conversation, and as such
Marjory resented it; at the same time, no one ever appealed to her for
information without meeting with prompt attention, the teaching
element being strong in her. So was impatience at crass stupidity; or,
as Captain Macleod preferred to call it, a deficient bump of locality.
"I'll see you as far as the Alder Island," she said at last, with some
irritation, "then you can't possibly make a mistake." That, at any
rate, would be better than trailing the whole two miles back to
Gleneira beside him. Not that he was forward or objectionable; on the
contrary, he treated her with a deference which would have been
pleasant had it not covered a quiet coercion which was perfectly
intolerable. So the glint of the Long Pool behind the Alder Island
came as a relief, and she pointed to it in a sort of triumph.
"I'm afraid it is no use," he said despondently. "Too fine; besides, I
haven't had my breakfast, and it is growing late. I'll get Cameron to
come down afterwards and show me the casts. A river changes in ten
years."
"You can't possibly judge from here; and I can show you the cast
perfectly," she retorted. It had come to a stand-up fight with the
gloves on between his will and hers, and accustomed as she was to
instant submission from everybody of the opposite sex, she would not
confess her own defeat by getting rid of him with a crude dismissal.
To begin with he scarcely merited the insult, and, in addition, it
might be awkward afterwards. So she pointed out the probable lie of
the fish, and, her sporting instincts overcoming her contempt,
exclaimed against the gaudy cast he selected--a cast no decent fish
would have looked at except in flood time.
"No! no!" she cried, in real eagerness. "Something less like a
firework, if you have one--a brown body and turkey wing. Ah! here's
the very thing. I don't believe in the steel loops, though, do you--?
Will doesn't. And you have bridge rings I see; I never saw them
before. They look good. Now then! Just below the break, down the slidy
bit, and across to the ripple--Oh-h!"
The exclamation was caused by a fall as of a coiled hawser on the
water, and a separate "blob" of each fly on the surface.
"You had better try again," she said gravely, "and don't thrash so;
use your wrist."
"If there was more wind," he suggested.
"Nonsense! you ought to be able to throw that distance anyhow. It's
all knack; it will come back after a cast or two. I'm sure it will."
Apparently she was wrong. The line ceased, it is true, to fall in a
heap like an umbrella, yet failed by many feet to reach the break
above the slidy bit.
"Give me the rod a moment," she cried, "and I'll show you the turn of
the wrist. You'll recognise it then."
There was an instant's pause as she stood, one foot planted against a
stone, her lithe figure thrown backwards, her chin following the
little toss of her head, tilted sideways; so that her eager young face
was in full view of her companion; and then the long line flew out in
the spey cast and seemed to nestle down just where the water broke.
"Bravo!" cried Captain Macleod, as much to the picture as to the
skill. And then before he could say another word came an eddy, a noise
like the cloop of a cork, a glint of a silvery side, and the whirr of
the reel. Things to drive all else from a fisherman's brain.
"In to him!" shouted the Captain, excitedly; "and a beauty, too. No!
no; keep it. I'd rather you kept it! I'd like to see you land him--if
you can."
The implied doubt, joined to the vicious shooting of something like a
huge silver whiting with its tail in its mouth into the air, warning
the girl of the danger of a slack line, had the desired effect. She
set her teeth and gave herself up to repairing the error of
indecision. The fish, having got his head, was now further down the
pool than he should have been, and close to an ugly snag, towards
which he bored with the strange cunning which seems born in fish.
Marjory gave him the butt bravely, but he fought like a demon, and for
one instant the reel gave out an ominous clicking.
"Perhaps I had better," came an eager voice beside her. "It is heavier
than I thought."
"Please not! Please let me keep it now! I'd rather lose him--there!" A
rapid wind-up emphasised her excitement. "I can manage him, you
see--if you will go down--there by the white stones--I'll get him
into the shallow--the tackle is so light I can scarcely bring him
up--and--and--don't be in a hurry--I'll bring him in right over the
click."
The old imperiousness was back in full swing, and once again she had a
willing slave, eager as she was for the sight of something long and
brown curving, snakelike, into the shallow as if of its own free will,
or coming in despairingly "this side up." It was a sharp, swift
struggle, all the sharper and swifter because of that ominous snag
over the way; and then an eight-pound grilse with the sea-lice still
on him lay on the bank.
"Oh! What a beautiful creature! One of the prettiest I have ever
seen," cried Marjory, ecstatically, on her knees beside the prize.
"Very much so, indeed." Captain Macleod's voice was absent, and his
eyes were not on the fish. "You killed him splendidly."
The light went out of the girl's face; she rose to her feet slowly.
"I wish I had given you the rod," she said, still looking down on the
palpitating, quivering bar of silver.
"That is most forgiving of you!"
She turned upon him almost indignantly. "Oh! I wasn't thinking of all
that--that stuff! I was thinking--it seems so cruel."
"Many things seem so afterwards. One might spend a lifetime in
regretting, if it was worth it; but it isn't."
"Isn't it? I wish anyhow that I hadn't killed that fish."
"Why not go further back, and wish you hadn't interfered to safe my
cast? for, as it happens, the one you chose out was the very one Fate
had ordained should remain in an alder bush----"
"Perhaps I do," she replied stiffly, realising how he had played upon
her for the first time. The knowledge, rather to her own surprise,
brought tears to her eyes.
"I don't wonder that you regret having helped me," he said with a
sudden change of manner. "If you will tell me where to leave the fish
I will no longer trouble you. I am sorry for having given you so much
already."
There was no mistaking the hidden depth of his apology. As he stood
there in the sunlight, looking at her gravely, Marjory felt to the
full the charm of his gracious presence. Who could really be angry
with him for such a trifle? For it was a trifle after all.
"My name is Marjory Carmichael," she said briefly, "and I live at the
Lodge with the Camerons. But I don't want the fish. I don't indeed."
"Then you shall not have it. I owe you some obedience, do I not?--and
thanks beyond measure."
He stood there with his cap off smiling at her, and she, feeling
apologetic in her turn, hesitated. After all, if he was going her way
it would be foolishness itself to tramp that mile and a half with an
interval of fifty yards or so between them.
"And now I must emulate your skill," he said cheerfully, "though I
can't expect your luck." And as she moved away she saw his flies
settle softly as thistledown in the right place. Well! that was better
than keeping up the pretence.
As for him, though he continued to fish conscientiously, his thoughts
were with the figure of the retreating girl. She had amused him and
interested him greatly. A relation, he supposed, of Dr. Carmichael's;
in fact, he had a dim recollection of a curly-haired child scampering
about on a Sheltie ten years before; though he had never known the
doctor, who had lived as a recluse. But how came she here still, and
with the Camerons? A cut above them surely! By Jove! how she had hung
on to that grilse, and how nearly she had cried over it afterwards.
Maudlin sentimentality, of course, and yet he had felt the same a
hundred times over a wounded deer. The look in her eyes had been like
that, somehow; uncommonly pretty eyes they were, too, into the
bargain!