The Reverend James Gillespie had a certain coarse fibre in him, which
made it only natural that the snub direct he had received from Dr.
Kennedy should make him more determined than he had been before
on a _tête-a-tête_ with Marjory. Consequently, much to her disgust,
she found him solemnly waiting for her on a tombstone in the old
burying-ground. The spectacle was an irritating one.
"Why didn't you go down with the others?" she asked crossly. "You know
quite well I didn't need--anyone." A certain politeness prevented her
employing the personal pronoun. Not that her lover would have cared,
since he came of a class in which a certain amount of shrewishness in
the wooed is not only considered correct, but, to a certain extent,
propitious. And, although he had a veneer of polish on those points
which had come into friction with his new world, love-making was not
one of them. There he was, simply the cottier's son, full of inherited
tradition in regard to rural coquetry. A fact which, at the outset,
put Marjory at a disadvantage, since he refused to take the
uncompromising hint, which she gave as soon as it dawned upon her what
his purpose really was. And yet she could hardly refuse the man before
he had asked her the momentous question. So it was with concentrated
mixture of sheer wrath and intense amusement that she suddenly found
him, as they paused by the wishing-well, on his knees before her
declaiming his passion in set terms. The disposition to box his ears
vanished in almost hysterical laughter, until the blank surprise on
his face recalled her to the fact that the man was, at any rate,
paying her the highest tribute in his power, and had a right to be
heard. But not in that ridiculous position!
"You had better get up, Mr. Gillespie," she said peremptorily; "the
ground is quite damp, and I can hear what you have to say much better
when you are standing."
The facts were undeniable but the prosaic interruption had checked the
flow of Mr. Gillespie's eloquence, and he stood red and stuttering
until Marjory's slender stock of patience was exhausted, and she
interrupted him, loftily:
"I suppose you meant just now to ask me to be your wife? If that was
so----"
Her tone roused his temper. "Such was my intention," he interrupted
sulkily. "I thought I spoke pretty plainly, and I fancy you must have
been prepared for it."
Prepared! prepared for this!--this outrage on her girlish dreams. For
it was her first proposal. What right had this man to thrust himself
into her holy of holies and smirch the romance--the beauty of it all?
It is the feeling with which many a girl listens for the first time to
a lover.
"Prepared!" she echoed. "Are you mad? The very idea is preposterous!"
His face was a study. "The Bishop," he began, "and Lady George didn't
seem to--to think----"
"Then I am to understand that you have consulted them?" she asked, in
supreme anger; but his sense of duty came to his aid and made him
bold.
"The Bishop, of course. Apart from his spiritual authority, he has
claims upon me which I should be indeed ungrateful to ignore, and--and
it meant much to be sure of your welcome."
The real good feeling underlying the stilted words went straight to
Marjory's sense of justice, and made her, metaphorically, pass the
Bishop. Besides, this little discussion had, as it were, taken the
personal flavour from the point at issue and left her contemptuously
tolerant, as she had been many and many a time over the Reverend
James's views of life.
"And Lady George," she asked, categorically, magisterially; "has she
also claims to be consulted?"
He coughed. "I rather think she broached the subject. She--she saw I
loved you." And here the man himself broke through the clerical
coating. "For I do love you. It isn't preposterous. I would do my best
to make you a good husband, and--and you could teach the school
children anything you liked."
"The Bishop wouldn't approve of that," she replied impatiently, yet in
kinder tones. "Oh! Mr. Gillespie, it only shows how little you
understand--how little you know. You would never have dreamed of such
a thing, you and the Bishop, if you had had the least conception of
what I really am. Perhaps I had no right to call it preposterous, but
it is impossible, utterly impossible, and he ought to have seen it."
This slur on his patron's acumen roused the young man's doggedness. "I
do not see why it should be either preposterous or impossible, unless
you love someone else."
Then she turned and rent him, a whole torrent of indignant regret and
dislike seeming to loosen her tongue. "Love! Oh! don't dare to mention
the word. You don't understand it--it is profanation--I don't know
anything about it myself, but _this_ must be wrong. Ah! Mr. Gillespie,
for goodness sake let us talk about something else!"
"Then I am to understand that you refuse," he began.
"Refuse! of course I refuse." She felt she would have liked to go down
among the whole posse of people--Paul Macleod among the number, for
all she knew--who had deemed such a thing possible, and cry: "Listen!
I have refused him, do you hear? I hate him, and you, too." But the
next moment the very thought of coming amongst them, with him, as if
of her own free will, seemed to her unbearable, and she stopped short
in the headlong course downwards, which she had begun.
"I suppose you couldn't help it," she said, with a catch in her
breath, "and it is very kind of you, of course, and I am obliged and
all that; but if you wouldn't mind leaving me I should prefer it. I
don't want any tea, thanks; all I want is to get home."
"I--I am sorry," he stammered, utterly taken aback.
"Oh, don't be sorry!" she interrupted; "it has nothing to do with you,
I assure you. Only it is so strange at first. Good-bye."
She was off at a dignified walk, with her head in the air, in an
opposite direction before he had recovered from his mingled surprise
and consternation at the effect his proposal had had on her. At any
rate, she had not been indifferent, and this thought bringing a
certain consolation with it, he made his way down to the picnic party,
and was soon recovering his equanimity over scones and jam.
Marjory, on the other hand, felt her indignation grow as she hurried
along, regardless of briars and brakes, to the shore beyond the
Narrowest, where, out of sight of the others, she might hope to find a
boat which would ferry her across the loch.
She found one, but hardly what she desired, since, as she made her way
through the alder brakes to a projecting rock, she saw the "Tubhaneer"
lying close in, with Paul Macleod and Alice Woodward in the stern,
while her brother and two of the children were lolling about in the
bows. They had been amusing themselves by tacking lazily about in the
slack water.
She would have beaten a quick retreat had not Paul's eye been quicker
and a swift turn of the rudder shown her that she was observed.
"Oh, don't trouble," she called, "I only want to get across, and I'll
find one of the rowing boats about, I expect."
"They are above," he called back; "the tide is running out fast now,
so I sent them to the upper bay. Just step on the further rock, if you
can, and I'll run her up to it for a second."
There was something in the easy familiarity and decision of his manner
which always soothed her into reasonable compliance, and the next
minute she found herself apologising to Alice Woodward as the bellying
sail slanted them across the loch.
"Oh, Alice won't mind," said Paul, cheerfully; "she likes sailing,
don't you, Alice?"
Marjory looked at them, as they looked at each other, and was silent.
So that was settled. And that again was Love. Love and Marriage! What
a ghastly farce it was when you came close to it!
"I'm sorry Kennedy has gone," remarked Paul, with his eyes on her
face; "he is one of the best fellows I ever met. We shall have to
tack, Sam; the tide is too strong."
Even so; the uncertain breeze failing ere they reached the slack
water, they missed the landing-stage by a few yards and drifted into
the shallow, seaweedy bay below. But Paul was over the side, knee-deep
among the boulders, ere Marjory could expostulate. "Steady her a bit,
Sam, you can get a grip on that oarweed. Now then, Miss Carmichael, if
you please; I'm a duffer at steering, but I can lift you across
easily, if you'll allow me--thanks."
She would have preferred to wade but for the opposition it would have
provoked, and when, after a few slippery strides, he set her down on
the shingle, turned to go with the briefest of acknowledgments.
"Wait a bit, please," he said, quietly. "Alice, I must see Miss
Carmichael past the gate. MacInnes' bull is loose, and he isn't always
quite canny. I'll be back in a minute. Keep the helm in, Sam, and
don't let her drift; the current runs like a mill race round the
point."
They were already well over the soft, sea-pink set turf; Marjory
walking fast, with heightened colour.
"There is really no need for you to keep Miss Woodward waiting," she
said impatiently. "I am quite accustomed to take care of myself."
"Alice will not mind."
Alice! Was he so eager for her to realise the new position that he
must needs enforce the knowledge of it upon her in this fashion?
"I am glad Miss Woodward does not mind. I should."
"I am perfectly aware of that--you have not her philosophic
acquiescence in the inevitable. It is a pity, for you fret yourself
needlessly over people--who are not worth it."
Was he not worth it? The thought made her walk faster, until a sudden
cry from behind made her companion pause and look back hastily.
"Good God! they'll be on the rocks," he cried, as, without an
instant's delay, he dashed across the sward down to the shore,
followed closely by Marjory, whose heart throbbed with sudden fear as
she realised what had occurred. The boat which they had left safely in
the backwater a minute before, was now racing down the stream with
sails full set. How this had occurred was another question, which
could not then be answered. Possibly Sam, proud of his new seamanship,
had proposed a sail. Anyhow, there they were in the stream, and even
without knowledge of that sunken shelf of rock half a mile further
down the curve, over which the water rushed in a fall at this time of
the tide, the young man sufficiently grasped the danger of the
situation to be doing his best to lower the sail again. But the rope
had kinked in the pulley, and the sudden discovery that he had
forgotten to re-ship the rudder--which Paul had removed in order to
bring the boat closer into shore--completed his consternation,
rendering him absolutely helpless. All this Captain Macleod took in as
he ran, and ere Marjory had reached him he had kicked off his boots
and flung coat and waistcoat aside to free himself for the sharp,
short struggle with the racing tide, in which lay his only chance of
reaching the boat. Then he waded breast high in the slack water, and
bided his time. It needed quick thought and quicker decision to seize
the exact moment when, by one supreme effort, he could hope to
succeed; and yet Marjory, watching with held breath, felt a wild rush
of exultation, not of fear, as with one splendid stroke he shot far
into the current. Swimming has always an effortless look, and the
sweeping stream, carrying him down, remorselessly aided the illusion,
so that not even Marjory, with her knowledge of the tide, guessed how
nearly Paul Macleod's strength was spent as his hand touched the
gunwale. But touch it he did, and the next moment, with Sam's help, he
was aboard and busy at the sail, while Alice Woodward, deeming the
danger over, began to cry helplessly, and even Marjory breathed again.
Only for a moment, however; the next, though the sail was down, she
realised that the boat was still in the current, and that Paul was
vainly trying to tear up a thwart. The rudder! the rudder must have
gone adrift in Sam's clumsy efforts to ship it!
Then they were no better off than before--nay, worse! since they were
nearer those unseen rocks, and he--_he_ was in danger now.
What was to be done? The thought was agonising as, scarcely knowing
why, she kept abreast of the drifting boat, stumbling over the
boulders, slipping on the seaweed, unable to see, to think, to do
anything save listen to the ominously rising roar of the water which
just beyond the turn fell in a regular cascade over that black jagged
shelf of rock.
Ah, those helpless children! and Paul! She must do something--try to
do something. And then on a sudden it came to her, as such things do
come, as if they had all been settled beforehand clear and connected.
At the last spit of land, not fifty yards above the fall, a streak of
sand bank, capped by a pile of boulders, jutted out. If she could
cross the dip and reach them! The herons used to sit there till well
on to half-tide, and once she and Will had found oysters. The trivial
thoughts came, as they will come in times of stress, flashing through
the brain without obscuring it. Even as she thought them, her mind was
busy over the one certainty, that somehow she must give help! By
cutting across the next grassy curve she would be there in time. They
might think she was deserting them. What then? If she could succeed
even so far, _he_ would know that it was not so--_he_ would understand
that she meant to be nearer--nearer.
He did; and a great glow of pride in her pluck came to him, when, as
the boat swept round the curve, he saw her floundering, half swimming
towards the boulders, and at the sight bent quickly for a coil of
rope. But she had not thought of that--her one impulse having been to
get nearer.
And now she is as far as she can go. Sheer at her feet, sliding among
the stones, is the stream--below her is the roar and rush of the fall,
save to her left, where it shelves to an eddy--above her is the boat
drifting, drifting, more slowly now, for the shelf of rock backs the
water a little. Then for the first time she realises what is to be
done, for there is Paul at the bows with the coil poised in his hand.
Of course! that was it! that was it!
She dug her heels into the crevices of the boulders as she stood
knee-deep among them, and kept her eyes upon his face.
"Now!"
As the cry left her lips, something like a black snake shot out
through the air and flung itself across her breast, stinging and
almost blinding her with pain; but there was no time for pain--no
time! To seize it, bend it round the nearest boulder, and so twice
round her waist with a loop through across her arm, took all her
thoughts, all her strength, till, with a slow rasping noise of the wet
rope slipping on stone, the strain began and the knot grew tight.
Tight.--tighter--then a slip--then tighter again.
Pain--yes, it was pain. My God! what pain. Ah! another slip. But
Paul--was that a knife he had in his hand? No! No! that should never
be; there should be no more slipping even if she drowned for it. With
more of sheer obstinacy than courage she flung herself sideways in the
water among the rocks. So, with her whole body wedged in behind the
two boulders, there could be no more slipping. There could be nothing
more but life or death for both of them.
And it was life. Paul Macleod, standing knife in hand, ready to cut
the rope, felt the claim of her pluck to fair play, and paused. She
should do this thing if she could! And even as the decision came to
him, came also the knowledge that she had done it, as, with a sidelong
sway the boat brought up and drifted into slacker water.
Five minutes after he was untying the knot and binding his wet
handkerchief round her bruised arm.
"Salt water," he said, a trifle unsteadily, "is the best thing in the
world for bruises, and you are more bruised than hurt, I fancy. No!
Blanche," for Alice Woodward's shrieks had by that time attracted
plenty of help, and the boats had come over in hot haste from the
other side; "don't fuss over Miss Carmichael with sal volatile and
salts. She doesn't need it. But we are both wet through, and if she is
wise she will walk home with me at once. It is better than waiting for
the carriage."
"Yes, please," she replied, catching eagerly at the chance of escape
from the general excitement and gratitude. "Indeed, I would rather,
Lady George; I am not a bit hurt, only, as your brother says, wet
through, so I had better get home at once."
They started off together at a brisk pace, but silently, until as they
topped the nearest rise, the chill evening wind striking through her
wet garments, made her shiver. Then he held out his hand to her
suddenly, with a smile.
"Come! let us run. It will take off the stiffness and keep us both
warm." So hand in hand, like a couple of children, they ran through
the autumn woods, startling the roe deer from the oak coverts, and the
sea-gulls from the little sheltered bays. Hand in hand, while the
shadows darkened and the gold in the west faded to grey. Warm, human
hand in hand, confident, content in their companionship, and seeking
nothing more than that confidence, that content.
"I don't think you'll take cold," said Paul, with the blood tingling
in his veins, and his breath coming fast.
"I don't think I shall," she laughed.