ARROCHAR.
The Clyde is not, except in the neighbourhood of Lanark, a particularly
interesting river. When Scotchmen talk of the scenery of the Clyde
they are thinking, not of the river, but of the frith which bears its
name. When Alec Lindsay set out for Arrochar to enter upon his duties
as tutor to Mr. Fraser’s boys, he embarked at Glasgow; and he was much
disappointed to find that for the first part of his journey there was
little to satisfy his love of the picturesque.
The day was gloomy; there were but few passengers on board the
_Chancellor_. For a long way the narrow stream flowed between dull
level fields. When it became broader there appeared a long dyke
adorned with red posts surmounted by barrels, built in the channel to
mark the passage. This did not add to the beauty of the scene. Now and
then the steamer met one of her own class on its homeward journey;
sometimes she overtook a queer, melancholy-looking, floating dredger,
or a vessel outward-bound, towed by a small and abominably dirty
tug-boat.
But about twenty miles below Glasgow the scene changed. A wide expanse
of water stretched away to the horizon. On the left lay a large town
over which hung a dense cloud of smoke, but away to the west, beyond
the blue water, could be seen the bold bases of steep hills rising from
the sea itself, their summits being hidden in the clouds. At Greenock
all was life and bustle. Several steamers plying to different points of
the coast lay at the pier, and a crowd of passengers who had come by
train from Glasgow streamed down from the railway-station to meet them.
Alec stood on the bridge watching them with considerable amusement.
Here was a group of elderly maiden ladies, sisters probably, to whom
their month ‘at the salt water’ was the great event of the year. After
much debate they had decided to go to Kilcreggan this year, instead
of to Rothesay. Each carried an armful of wraps, small baskets, and
brown-paper parcels, and each rushed to a separate steamer, as if
thinking it more desirable that one at least should be right than
that all should be wrong. Each appealed excitedly to a porter for
directions, and eventually all assembled at the gangway of the proper
steamer. But the combined evidence of the porters was insufficient.
Each of the three travellers made a separate demand, one on the master,
another on the chief officer, and a third upon the steward, in order to
know whether the steamer was really going to Kilcreggan. At last they
were satisfied, settled themselves with their belongings in a sheltered
corner, and began to eat Abernethy biscuits.
Then came a whole family--an anxious mother, an aunt more anxious
than the mother, two servants, and six children, who were running in
different ways at once, and had to be manœuvred on board like so many
young pigs. As soon as they were shipped, two of them immediately made
for the engine-room, while the others rushed to the bulwarks, and
craned their necks over the side as far as they possibly could without
losing their balance.
In one corner was a little band of rosy school-girls in tweed frocks
and straw hats, cumbered with a collection of novels, tennis-bats, and
fishing-rods. Here and there were one or two gigantic Celts returning
to the hill country, while a few pale-faced young men stepped on board
with knapsacks on their shoulders. But the male passengers were few at
this hour of the day. A few hours later the steamers would be black
with men leaving the roar and worry of the city to sleep under the
shadow of the hills.
At length the bells clanged for the last time; the gangways were
pushed on shore; the old lady who always delays her departure till
that period made her appearance, and was somehow hoisted on board; the
escape-pipes ceased their roaring; and one after another the steamers
glided off upon the bosom of the frith.
And now, suddenly, the sun shone out, showing that the sea was not a
level plain of water, but covered with a million dancing wavelets.
The sunshine travelled westward over the sea, and Alec followed it
with his eyes. It rested on the distant hills, and then the haze that
covered them melted away, and they revealed themselves, dim in outline,
violet-coloured, magnified in the mist. As the steamer drew nearer
them it became plain that the nearer hills were much lower than those
beyond, and that many of them were covered with pines up to a certain
height. Above the woods they were often black--that was where the old
heather had been burnt to make room for the young shoots, or light
brown--that was where masses of last year’s bracken lay; sometimes they
were white with glistening rocks, or green from never-failing springs.
And now it could be seen that between the woods and the seashore ran a
white road, and that the coast was dotted for miles with houses, of all
shapes and sizes, each standing in its own ground, and sheltered by its
own green leaves. There was no town anywhere--nothing approaching to
one; but every three or four miles a few houses were built in a little
row, affording accommodation for a grocer’s and a baker’s shop; and
opposite the shops there was invariably a white wooden pier, affording
an outlet to the rest of the world.
Soon after crossing the frith, the _Chancellor_ made for one of
these landing-places. Round the pier there swarmed half a dozen
pleasure-boats of all sizes, some the merest cockleshells, navigated
(not unskilfully) by mariners who were barely big enough to make the
oars move through the water.
The rocky shore was adorned with groups of girls who were drying
their hair after their morning’s dip in the sea, and dividing their
attention between their novels, their little brothers in the boats just
mentioned, and the approaching steamer. The water being deep close to
the edge of the rocky coast, the pier was a very short one; and Alec
Lindsay, looking over the edge, through the green water swirling round
the piles of the pier, could see the pebbles on the shore twenty feet
below.
Ropes were thrown out and caught, and hawsers were dragged ashore by
their aid. With these the steamer was made fast at stem and stern,
gangways were run on board, and a score of passengers disembarked. In
another minute the steamer had been cast loose and had gone on her way.
The pier, the pleasure-boats, the girls on the rocks, the white dusty
road, the hedges of fuchsia, had disappeared. In a quarter of an hour
another pier had been reached where exactly the same scene presented
itself. No town, no promenade, no large hotels--not even a row of
public bathing-machines, or a German band.
After three or four stoppages the _Chancellor_ began to get fairly into
Loch Long. The hills on either side were not high, and were covered
only with grass and heather; but they had, nevertheless, a certain
quiet beauty. It seemed as if they made a world of their own, and as
if they were contemptuously indifferent to the foolish beings who came
among them for an hour in their impudent, puffing steamer, and were
gone like a cloud. Right in front was one bold eminence, perhaps a
thousand or twelve hundred feet high, which divided the waters of the
upper part of Loch Long from those of Loch Goil on the west. Gazing
at its weather-beaten rocks and its sketches of silent moorland, one
could hardly help tasting that renovating draught--the sense that one
has reached a place where man is as nothing, a sphere which is but
nominally under his sway, where he comes and goes, but leaves behind
him no mark upon the face of nature.
Leaving this eminence upon the left, the channel became narrower, and
the inlet seemed to be completely land-locked. In front the nearer
hills seemed to lie one behind another, fold upon fold, while beyond
some much loftier peaks raised their blue summits to heaven. Alec
Lindsay never tired of gazing on them. If he turned away his eyes, it
was that he might refresh them with a change of scene--the low green
rock, the salt water washing the white stones under the heather on the
hillside, the tiny rainbow in the foam of the paddle-wheels--and return
with new desire to the sight of the everlasting hills. Strange, he
thought to himself, as he gazed on the shadow of a cloud passing like
a spirit over a lonely peak--strange that the sight of masses of mere
dead earth and stone, the dullest and lowest forms of matter, should be
able to touch us more profoundly than all the lovely sights and sweet
sounds of the animated world!
In a few miles the top of the loch was reached. The mountains, standing
like giants ‘to sentinel enchanted land,’ rose almost from the water’s
edge. A few cottages stood clustering together at the mouth of a defile
which gave access to Loch Lomond on the east. One or two large houses
(of which ‘Glendhu,’ Mr. James Lindsay’s seaside residence, was one)
stood at intervals along the shore.
Alec’s first care after landing was to provide himself with a lodging,
as (much to his satisfaction) he was not required to live in Mr.
Fraser’s house; and he was fortunate enough to find the accommodation
he wanted in a cottage close to the seashore.
In the afternoon he called on Mrs. Fraser, and found her a fat, florid,
good-natured looking woman, ostentatiously dressed, and surrounded by a
troop of her progeny.
‘Come away, Mr. Lindsay,’ she said graciously, as she extended to him
a remarkably well-developed hand and arm. ‘I’m just fairly delighted
to see you. It will be an extraordinary pleasure to get rid of Hector
and John Thompson, though it should be but for three hours in the
day. You wouldn’t believe, Mr. Lindsay, what these two, not to speak
of Douglas and Phemie--I often tell her father she should have been a
boy--cost me in anxiety. I wonder I’m not worn to a shadow. The day
before yesterday, now, not content with going in to bathe four times,
they managed to drop Jamsie--that’s the one next to Douglas, Mr.
Lindsay--over the edge of the boat, and the bairn wasn’t able to speak
when they pulled him in again.’
‘Oh, ma!’ protested the young gentleman referred to, ‘I could have got
in again by myself, only John Thompson hit me a whack on the head with
his oar, trying to pull me nearer the boat.’
‘I don’t think it’s safe for the boys to be out in the little boat by
themselves, without either me or their father to look after them. I
don’t mind their being in the four-oar. What do you think, Mr. Lindsay?’
‘Really, I can hardly say, Mrs. Fraser, seeing that I know nothing of
boating. I haven’t had a chance of learning; I hope you will give me a
lesson,’ he added, turning to his new pupils.
The boys, who had been staring at Alec with a suspicious expression,
brightened up at this; and it was arranged that the first lesson in
boating should be given next day.
On the following afternoon Alec called at Glendhu, his uncle’s house,
to inquire whether any of the family had arrived; and was told that
they intended to come down in about a fortnight. In the evening, as
he looked over his newspaper, his eyes fell upon a paragraph which
informed him that Mr. Taylor, Professor of History in the University
of Glasgow, had died suddenly the day before. Alec was shocked and
surprised at the news; but the thought that was uppermost in his mind
was that in all probability he would never see Laura Mowbray again.
Now that her uncle was dead she would go back to her friends in London;
and in a few months she would forget him. Not until that moment had
Alec realized how constantly the thought of this girl had been in his
mind, how he had made her image play a part in all his dreams. And now
it was over! The world which had seemed so fair and bright but an hour
ago was dull and lifeless now.
But the companionship of Mrs. Fraser’s boys and girls saved him from
sinking into a foolish melancholy. He tried hard for three hours every
day to make them learn a little Latin grammar and history, and a great
part of every afternoon was spent in their company. They taught him
to row and steer, and to manage a sail. But his chief delight was in
the mountains. He was never tired of wandering among their lonely
recesses; he loved the bare granite rocks and crags even better than
the sheltered dell where the silver birches clustered round the rapid
stream. He learned to know the hills from every point of view, to
select at a glance the practicable side for an ascent; and before a
fortnight was over he had set his foot on the top of every peak within
walking distance of Arrochar.
About three weeks after his arrival, Alec heard that his uncle and Miss
Lindsay had come down; and one evening soon afterwards he went to see
them.
From the windows of the drawing-room at Glendhu the view was
magnificent. Under the low garden-wall were the still, blue waters of
the loch; and right in front ‘The Cobbler’ lifted his head against the
glowing western sky.
Alec was waiting there in silence, absorbed in the spectacle, when he
suddenly heard a soft voice behind him.
‘Mr. Lindsay!’
No need for him to turn round. The tones of her voice thrilled through
every fibre of his body.
Yes; it was she, simply dressed in black, standing with a smile on her
face, holding out her hand.
‘Why don’t you speak to me? Won’t you shake hands?’
‘Lau---- Miss Mowbray!’
‘Certainly. Am I a ghost?’
‘I thought you were far away--gone back to your friends in England.’
‘No,’ said Laura tranquilly, seating herself on a couch; ‘my poor uncle
left me as a legacy to Mr. Lindsay; and here I am. You have not even
said you are glad to see me.’
‘You know I am glad. But I was sorry to hear of your loss, and sorry to
think of your grief.’
‘Yes; it was very sad, and _so_ sudden,’ answered Laura, casting down
her eyes. ‘And how did you come to be here?’ she asked, lifting them
again to her companion’s face. Alec told her; and then his uncle and
Miss Lindsay came into the room.
‘So you’ve got a veesitor?’ said the old lady to Laura, as she came
forward.
‘Oh no!’ answered the girl. ‘I had no idea anyone was in the room when
I came in; and your nephew stared at me as if I had been an apparition.’
She smiled as she spoke; but Alec noticed that as soon as the elder
lady turned away the smile suddenly faded.
Nothing worth mentioning was said in the conversation that followed.
Alec hoped that before he took his leave he would receive a general
invitation to the house; but nothing of the kind was forthcoming. That,
however, mattered little. Laura was here, close to him; they would
be sure to meet; and of course he was at liberty to go to Glendhu
occasionally. He went home to his lodgings wondering at his good
fortune. The rosy hue had returned to the earth, and Arrochar was the
most delightful spot on the habitable globe.
The one event of the day in the village was the arrival of the steamer
and the departure of the coach which carried passengers to Tarbert on
Loch Lomond. It was a favourite amusement of the inhabitants to lounge
about the landing-place on these occasions, ostensibly coming for their
letters and newspapers, but really pleased to see new faces and make
comments about the appearance of the tourists. Laura Mowbray generally
found it necessary to go to the post-office about the time of the
steamer’s arrival; and Alec was not long in turning the custom to his
own advantage.
As he was walking back with her to Glendhu one day, he noticed that she
was rather abstracted.
‘I wonder what you are thinking of, Miss Mowbray,’ he said. ‘You have
not answered me once since we left the pier.’
‘Haven’t I? I’m sure I beg your pardon.’
‘See that patch of sunlight on the hill across the loch!’ cried Alec
enthusiastically. ‘See how it brings out the rich yellow colour of the
moss, while all the rest of the hill is in shadow.’
‘You ought to have been a painter,’ said his companion.
‘Don’t you think Arrochar is a perfectly _lovely_ place?’ returned Alec.
‘Yes; very pretty. But it is very dull.’
‘Dull?’
‘Yes; there is no life--no gaiety. It is said that the English take
their pleasures sadly; but they are gaiety itself compared with you
Scotch. You shut yourselves up in your own houses and don’t mix with
your neighbours at all. At least you have no amusements in which
anyone can share. The boating, tennis, bathing, everything is done _en
famille_. There is no fun, no mixing with the rest of the world. In an
English watering-place people stay at hotels, or in lodgings; and if
they tire of one place they can go to another. Then they have parties
of all kinds, and dances at the hotels. Here everyone takes a house
for two months, and moves down with servants, plate, linen, groceries,
perhaps even the family piano. I only wonder they don’t bring the
bedsteads. Having got to their houses, they stay there, and perhaps
never see a strange face till it is time to go back to town. It’s a
frightfully narrowing system, not to speak of the dulness of it.’
‘I never thought of it before,’ said Alec. ‘I don’t care to know more
people myself; I am never at my ease with people till I know them
pretty well. But I am sorry if you find it dull.’
‘Well, of course I couldn’t go to dances or anything of that kind
just yet; but it is dreadfully tiresome to see no one from one day to
another, to have no games or amusements of any kind.’
‘There are always the hills, you know,’ said Alec.
Laura glanced at her companion to see whether he was laughing, and
perceiving that he was perfectly serious, she turned away her face with
a little _moue_.
‘The hills don’t amuse me; they weary me; and sometimes, when I get
up in the night and look at them, they terrify me. Think what it
would be to be up among those rocks on a winter’s night, with the
snowflakes whirling around you, and the wind roaring--ugh! Let us talk
of something else.’
They did so, but there was little spirit in the conversation. Alec
could not conceive of anyone with a heart and a pair of eyes who should
not love these mountain-tops as he did himself. He had already endowed
Laura with every conceivable grace, and he had taken it for granted
that the power to appreciate mountain scenery was among her gifts.
Here, at least, was a deficiency, a point on which his mind and hers
were not in harmony.
With feminine tact Laura saw that she had disappointed her companion in
some way, and she easily guessed at the cause.
‘I see you don’t appreciate my straightforwardness,’ she said, after
a little pause. ‘Knowing that you have such a passion for mountain
scenery, I ought to have pretended that I was as fond of it as you are
yourself.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘That would have been polite; but it would not have been quite
straightforward. I always say the thing that comes uppermost, you know;
I can’t help it.’
Of course she did; and of course her simple honesty was infinitely
better than even a love of Scotch scenery. The latter would no doubt
come with more familiar acquaintance with it. And was she not herself
the most charming thing that the sun shone down upon that summer day?
Laura knew very well that this, or something like it, was the thought
in the lad’s mind as he bade her good-day with lingering eyes.
Perhaps she would not have been ill pleased if he had said what he
was thinking; but it never entered into his head to pay the girl a
compliment: he would have fancied it an impertinence.
‘What a queer, stupid boy he is!’ said Laura to herself, as she peeped
back at him while she closed the gate behind her. ‘I can’t help
liking him, but he is so provoking, with his enthusiastic, sentimental
nonsense. Heigh-ho! There’s the luncheon-bell. And after that there are
four hours to be spent somehow before dinner!’