A GRAVE.
In the by-gone days, this eager, active, stout-limbed young fellow had
met the hardest winter with a glad heart. He rejoiced in its thousand
various pursuits; he set his teeth against the driving hail; he laughed
at the drenching spray that sprung high over the bows of his boat; and
what harm ever came to him if he took the short-cut across the upper
reaches of Loch Scridain, wading waist-deep through a mile of sea-water
on a bitter January day? And where was the loneliness of his life when
always, wherever he went by sea or shore, he had these old friends
around him--the red-beaked sea-pyots whirring along the rocks; and the
startled curlews, whistling their warning note across the sea; and the
shy duck swimming far out on the smooth lochs; to say nothing of the
black game that would scarcely move from their perch on the larch-trees
as he approached, and the deer that were more distinctly visible on the
far heights of Ben-an-Sloich when a slight sprinkling of snow had
fallen?
But now all this was changed. The awfulness of the dark winter-time
amidst those Northern seas overshadowed him. "It is like going into a
grave," he had said to her. And, with all his passionate longing to see
her and have speech of her once more, how could he dare to ask her to
approach these dismal solitudes? Sometimes he tried to picture her
coming, and to read in imagination the look on her face. See now!--how
she clings terrified to the side of the big open packet-boat that
crosses the Frith of Lorn, and she dares not look abroad on the howling
waste of waves. The mountains of Mull rise sad and cold and distant
before her; there is no bright glint of sunshine to herald her approach.
This small dog-cart, now: it is a frail thing with which to plunge into
the wild valleys, for surely a gust of wind might whirl into the chasm
of roaring waters below Glen-More: who that has ever seen Glen-More on a
lowering January day will ever forget it--its silence, its loneliness,
its vast and lifeless gloom? Her face is pale now; she sits speechless
and awestricken; for the mountain-walls that overhang this sombre ravine
seem ready to fall on her, and there is an awful darkness spreading
along their summits under the heavy swathes of cloud. And then those
black lakes far down in the lone hollows, more death-like and terrible
than any tourist-haunted Loch Coruisk: would she not turn to him and,
with trembling hands, implore him to take her back and away to the more
familiar and bearable South? He began to see all these things with her
eyes. He began to fear the awful things of the winter-time and the seas.
The glad heart had gone out of him.
Even the beautiful aspects of the Highland winter had something about
them--an isolation, a terrible silence--that he grew almost to dread.
What was this strange thing, for example? Early in the morning he
looked from the windows of his room, and he could have imagined he was
not at Dare at all. All the familiar objects of sea and shore had
disappeared; this was a new world--a world of fantastic shapes, all
moving and unknown--a world of vague masses of gray, though here and
there a gleam of lemon-color shining through the fog showed that the
dawn was reflected on a glassy sea. Then he began to make out the things
around him. That great range of purple mountains was Ulva--Ulva
transfigured and become Alpine! Then those wan gleams of yellow light on
the sea?--he went to the other window, and behold! the heavy bands of
cloud that lay across the unseen peaks of Ben-an-Sloich had parted, and
there was a blaze of clear, metallic, green sky; and the clouds
bordering on that gleam of light were touched with a smoky and stormy
saffron-hue that flashed and changed amidst the seething and twisting
shapes of the fog and the mist. He turned to the sea again--what
phantom-ship was this that appeared in mid-air, and apparently moving
when there was no wind? He heard the sound of oars; the huge vessel
turned out to be only the boat of the Gometra men going out to the
lobster-traps. The yellow light on the glassy plain waxes stronger; new
objects appear through the shifting fog; until at last a sudden opening
shows him a wonderful thing far away--apparently at the very confines of
the world--and awful in its solitary splendor. For that is the distant
island of Staffa, and it has caught the colors of the dawn; and amidst
the cold grays of the sea it shines a pale, transparent rose.
He would like to have sent her, if he had got any skill of the brush,
some brief memorandum of that beautiful thing; but indeed, and in any
case, that was not the sort of painting she seemed to care for just
then. Mr. Lemuel, and his Palace of Art, and his mediæval saints, and
what not, which had all for a time disappeared from Miss White's
letters, began now to monopolize a good deal of space there; and there
was no longer any impertinent playfulness in her references, but, on the
contrary, a respect and admiration that occasionally almost touched
enthusiasm. From hints more than statements Macleod gathered that Miss
White had been made much of by the people frequenting Mr. Lemuel's
house. She had there met one or two gentlemen who had written very fine
things about her in the papers; and certain highly distinguished people
had been good enough to send her cards of invitation; and she had once
or twice been persuaded to read some piece of dramatic poetry at Mr.
Lemuel's afternoon parties; and she even suggested that Mr. Lemuel had
almost as much as said that he would like to paint her portrait. Mr.
Lemuel had also offered her, but she had refused to accept, a small but
marvellous study by Pinturicchio, which most people considered the gem
of his collection.
Macleod, reading and re-reading these letters many a time in the
solitudes of western Mull, came to the opinion that there must be a good
deal of amusement going on in London. And was it not natural that a
young girl should like to be petted, and flattered, and made much of?
Why should he complain when she wrote to say how she enjoyed this and
was charmed by that? Could he ask her to exchange that gay and pleasant
life for this hibernation in Mull? Sometimes for days together the
inhabitants of Castle Dare literally lived in the clouds. Dense bands of
white mist lay all along the cliffs; and they lived in a semi-darkness,
with the mournful dripping of the rain on the wet garden, and the
mournful wash of the sea all around the shores. He was glad, then, that
Gertrude White was not at Castle Dare.
But sometimes, when he could not forbear opening his heart to her, and
pressing her for some more definite assurance as to the future, the
ordinary playful banter in which she generally evaded his urgency gave
place to a tone of coldness that astonished and alarmed him. Why should
she so cruelly resent this piteous longing of his? Was she no longer,
then, so anxious to escape from the thraldom that had seemed so hateful
to her?
"Hamish," said Macleod, abruptly, after reading one of these letters,
"come, now, we will go and overhaul the _Umpire_, for you know she is to
be made very smart this summer; for we have people coming all the way
from London to Dare, and they must not think we do not know in Mull how
to keep a yacht in shipshape."
"Ay, sir," said Hamish; "and if we do not know that in Mull, where will
they be likely to know that?"
"And you will get the cushions in the saloon covered again; and we will
have a new mirror for the ladies' cabin, and Miss Macleod, if you ask
her, will put a piece of lace round the top of that, to make it look
like a lady's room. And then, you know, Hamish, you can show the little
boy Johnny Wickes how to polish the brass; and he will polish the brass
in the ladies' cabin until it is as white as silver. Because, you know,
Hamish, they have very fine yachts in the South. They are like hotels on
the water. We must try to be as smart as we can."
"I do not know about the hotels," said Hamish, scornfully. "And perhaps
it is a fine thing to hef a hotel; and Mr. M'Arthur they say he is a
ferry rich man, and he has ferry fine pictures too; but I was thinking
that if I will be off the Barra Head on a bad night--between the
Sgriobh bhan and the Barra Head on a bad night--it is not any hotel I
will be wishing that I wass in, but a good boat. And the _Umpire_ she is
a good boat; and I hef no fear of going anywhere in the world with
her--to London or to Inverary, ay, or the Queen's own castle on the
island--and she will go there safe, and she will come back safe; and if
she is not a hotel--well, perhaps she will not be a hotel; but she is a
fine good boat, and she has swinging lamps whatever."
But even the presence of the swinging-lamps, which Hamish regarded as
the highest conceivable point of luxury, did little to lessen the
dolorousness of the appearance of the poor old _Umpire_. As Macleod,
seated in the stern of the gig, approached her, she looked like some
dingy old hulk relegated to the duty of keeping stores. Her top-mast and
bowsprit removed; not a stitch of cord on her; only the black iron
shrouds remaining of all her rigging; her skylights and companion-hatch
covered with waterproof--it was a sorry spectacle. And then when they
went below, even the swinging-lamps were blue-moulded and stiff. There
was an odor of damp straw throughout. All the cushions and carpets had
been removed; there was nothing but the bare wood of the floor and the
couches and the table; with a match-box saturated with wet, an empty
wine-bottle, a newspaper five months old, a rusty corkscrew, a patch of
dirty water--the leakage from the skylight overhead.
That was what Hamish saw.
What Macleod saw, as he stood there absently staring at the bare wood,
was very different. It was a beautiful, comfortable saloon that he saw,
all brightly furnished and gilded, and there was a dish of
flowers--heather and rowan-berries intermixed--on the soft red cover of
the table. And who is this that is sitting there, clad in sailor-like
blue and white, and laughing, as she talks in her soft English speech?
He is telling her that, if she means to be a sailor's bride, she must
give up the wearing of gloves on board ship, although, to be sure, those
gloved small hands look pretty enough as they rest on the table and
play with a bit of bell-heather. How bright her smile is. She is in a
mood for teasing people. The laughing face, but for the gentleness of
the eyes, would be audacious. They say that the width between those
long-lashed eyes is a common peculiarity of the artist's face; but she
is no longer an artist; she is only the brave young yachtswoman who
lives at Castle Dare. The shepherds know her, and answer her in the
Gaelic when she speaks to them in passing; the sailors know her, and
would adventure their lives to gratify her slightest wish; and the
bearded fellows who live their solitary life far out at Dubh Artach
lighthouse, when she goes out to them with a new parcel of books and
magazines, do not know how to show their gladness at the very sight of
her bonnie face. There was once an actress of the same name, but this is
quite a different woman. And to-morrow--do you know what she is going to
do to-morrow?--to-morrow she is going away in this very yacht to a loch
in the distant island of Lewis, and she is going to bring back with her
some friends of hers who live there; and there will be high holiday at
Castle Dare. An actress? Her cheeks are too sun-browned for the cheeks
of an actress.
"Well, sir?" Hamish said, at length; and Macleod started.
"Very well, then," he said, impatiently, "why don't you go on deck and
find out where the leakage of the skylight is?"
Hamish was not used to being addressed in this fashion, and walked away
with a proud and hurt air. As he ascended the companion-way, he was
muttering to himself in his native tongue,--
"Yes, I am going to find out where the leakage is, but perhaps it would
be easier to find out below where the leakage is. If there is something
the matter with the keel, is it the cross-trees you will go to to look
for it? But I do not know what has come to the young master of late."
When Keith Macleod was alone, he sat down on the wooden bench and took
out a letter, and tried to find there some assurance that this beautiful
vision of his would some day be realized. He read it and re-read it; but
his anxious scrutiny only left him the more disheartened. He went up on
deck. He talked to Hamish in a perfunctory manner about the smartening
up of the _Umpire_. He appeared to have lost interest in that already.
And then again he would seek relief in hard work, and try to forget
altogether this hated time of enforced absence. One night word was
brought by some one that the typhoid fever had broken out in the
ill-drained cottages of Iona, and he said at once that next morning he
would go round to Bunessan and ask the sanitary inspector there to be so
kind as to inquire into this matter, and see whether something could not
be done to improve these hovels.
"I am sure the duke does not know of it, Keith," his cousin Janet said,
"or he would have a great alteration made."
"It is easy to make alterations," said he, "but it is not easy to make
the poor people take advantage of them. They have such good health from
the sea-air that they will not pay attention to ordinary cleanliness.
But now that two or three of the young girls and children are ill,
perhaps it is a good time to have something done."
Next morning, when he rose before it was daybreak, there was every
promise of a fine day. The full moon was setting behind the western
seas, lighting up the clouds there with a dusky yellow; in the east
there was a wilder glare of steely blue high up over the intense
blackness on the back of Ben-an-Sloich; and the morning was still, for
he heard, suddenly piercing the silence, the whistle of a curlew, and
that became more and more remote as the unseen bird winged its flight
far over the sea. He lit the candles, and made the necessary
preparations for his journey; for he had some message to leave at
Kinloch, at the head of Loch Scridain, and he was going to ride round
that way. By and by the morning light had increased so much that he blew
out the candles.
No sooner had he done this than his eye caught sight of something
outside that startled him. It seemed as though great clouds of
golden-white, all ablaze in sunshine, rested on the dark bosom of the
deep. Instantly he went to the window; and then he saw that these clouds
were not clouds at all, but the islands around glittering in the "white
wonder of the snow," and catching here and there the shafts of the early
sunlight that now streamed through the valleys of Mull. The sudden
marvel of it! There was Ulva, shining beautiful as in a sparkling bridal
veil; and Gometra a paler blue-white in the shadow; and Colonsay and
Erisgeir also a cold white; and Staffa pale gray; and then the sea that
the gleaming islands rested on was a mirror of pale-green and
rose-purple hues reflected from the morning sky. It was all dream-like,
so still, and beautiful, and silent. But he now saw that that fine
morning would not last. Behind the house clouds of a suffused yellow
began to blot out the sparkling peaks of Ben-an-Sloich. The colors of
the plain of the sea were troubled with gusts of wind until they
disappeared altogether. The sky in the north grew an ominous black,
until the farther shores of Loch Tua were dazzling white against that
bank of angry cloud. But to Bunessan he would go.
Janet Macleod was not much afraid of the weather at any time, but she
said to him at breakfast, in a laughing way,
"And if you are lost in a snowdrift in Glen Finichen, Keith, what are we
to do for you?"
"What are you to do for me?--why, Donald will make a fine Lament; and
what more than that?"
"Cannot you send one of the Camerons with a message, Keith?" his mother
said.
"Well, mother," said he, "I think I will go on to Fhion-fort and cross
over to Iona myself, if Mr. Mackinnon will go with me. For it is very
bad the cottages are there, I know; and if I must write to the duke, it
is better that I should have made the inquiries myself."
And, indeed, when Macleod set out on his stout young pony Jack, paying
but little heed to the cold driftings of sleet that the sharp east wind
was sending across, it seemed as though he were destined to perform
several charitable deeds all on the one errand. For, firstly, about a
mile from the house, he met Duncan the policeman, who was making his
weekly round in the interests of morality and law and order, and who had
to have his book signed by the heritor of Castle Dare as sure witness
that his peregrinations had extended so far. And Duncan was not at all
sorry to be saved that trudge of a mile in the face of those bitter
blasts of sleet; and he was greatly obliged to Sir Keith Macleod for
stopping his pony, and getting out his pencil with his benumbed fingers,
and putting his initials to the sheet. And then, again, when he had got
into Glen Finichen, he was talking to the pony and saying,--"Well, Jack,
I don't wonder you want to stop, for the way this sleet gets down one's
throat is rather choking. Or are you afraid of the sheep loosening the
rocks away up there, and sending two or three hundred-weight on our
head?"
Then he happened to look up the steep sides of the great ravine, and
there, quite brown against the snow, he saw a sheep that had toppled
over some rock, and was now lying with her legs in the air. He jumped
off his pony, and left Jack standing in the middle of the road. It was a
stiff climb up that steep precipice, with the loose stones slippery with
the sleet and snow; but at last he got a good grip of the sheep by the
back of her neck, and hauled her out of the hole into which she had
fallen, and put her, somewhat dazed but apparently unhurt, on her legs
again. Then he half slid and half ran down the slope again, and got into
the saddle.
But what was this now? The sky in the east had grown quite black; and
suddenly this blackness began to fall as if torn down by invisible
hands. It came nearer and nearer, until it resembled the dishevelled
hair of a woman. And then there was a rattle and roar of wind and snow
and hail combined; so that the pony was nearly thrown from its feet, and
Macleod was so blinded that at first he knew not what to do. Then he saw
some rocks ahead, and he urged the bewildered and staggering beast
forward through the darkness of the storm. Night seemed to have
returned. There was a flash of lightning overhead, and a crackle of
thunder rolled down the valley, heard louder than all the howling of the
hurricane across the mountain sides. And then, when they had reached
this place of shelter, Macleod dismounted, and crept as close as he
could into the lea of the rocks.
He was startled by a voice; it was only that of old John MacIntyre,
the postman, who was glad enough to get into this place of refuge too.
"It's a bad day for you to be out this day, Sir Keith," said he, in the
Gaelic, "and you have no cause to be out; and why will you not go back
to Castle Dare?"
"Have you any letter for me, John?" said he, eagerly.
Oh yes, there was a letter; and the old man was astonished to see how
quickly Sir Keith Macleod took that letter, and how anxiously he read
it, as though the awfulness of the storm had no concern for him at all.
And what was it all about, this wet sheet that he had to hold tight
between his hands, or the gust that swept round the rocks would have
whirled it up and away over the giant ramparts of the Bourg? It was a
very pretty letter, and rather merry; for it was all about a fancy-dress
ball which was to take place at Mr. Lemuel's house; and all the people
were to wear a Spanish costume of the time of Philip IV.; and there were
to be very grand doings indeed. And as Keith Macleod had nothing to do
in the dull winter-time but devote himself to books, would he be so kind
as to read up about that period, and advise her as to which historical
character she ought to assume?
Macleod burst out laughing, in a strange sort of way, and put the wet
letter in his pocket, and led Jack out into the road again.
"Sir Keith, Sir Keith!" cried the old man, "you will not go on now?" And
as he spoke, another blast of snow tore across the glen, and there was a
rumble of thunder among the hills.
"Why, John," Macleod called back again from the gray gloom of the
whirling snow and sleet, "would you have me go home and read books too?
Do you know what a fancy dress ball is, John? And do you know what they
think of us in the South, John: that we have nothing to do here in
winter-time--nothing to do here but read books?"
The old man heard him laughing to himself in that odd way, as he rode
off and disappeared into the driving snow; and his heart was heavy
within him, and his mind filled with strange forebodings. It was a dark
and an awful glen, this great ravine that led down to the solitary
shores of Loch Scridain.