HAMISH.
And now--look! The sky is as blue as the heart of a sapphire, and the
sea would be as blue too, only for the glad white of the rippling waves.
And the wind is as soft as the winnowing of a sea-gull's wing; and
green, green, are the laughing shores of Ulva. The bride is coming. All
around the coast the people are on the alert--Donald in his new finery;
Hamish half frantic with excitement; the crew of the _Umpire_ down at
the quay; and the scarlet flag fluttering from the top of the white
pole. And behold!--as the cry goes along that the steamer is in sight,
what is this strange thing? She comes clear out from the Sound of Iona;
but who has ever seen before that long line running from her stem to her
top-mast and down again to her stern?
"Oh, Keith!" Janet Macleod cried, with sudden tears starting to her
eyes, "do you know what Captain Macallum has done for you? The steamer
has got all her flags out!"
Macleod flushed red.
"Well, Janet," said he, "I wrote to Captain Macullum, and I asked him to
be so good as to pay them some little attention; but who was to know
that he would do that?"
"And a very proper thing, too," said Major Stuart, who was standing hard
by. "A very pretty compliment to strangers; and you know you have not
many visitors coming to Castle Dare."
The major spoke in a matter of fact way. Why should not the steamer show
her bunting in honor of Macleod's guests! But all the same the gallant
soldier, as he stood and watched the steamer coming along, became a
little bit excited too; and he whistled to himself, and tapped his toe
on the ground. It was a fine air he was whistling. It was all about
breast-knots!
"Into the boat with you now, lads!" Macleod called out; and first of all
to go down to the steps was Donald; and the silver and cairngorms on his
pipes were burnished so that they shone like diamonds in the sunlight;
and he wore his cap so far on one side that nobody could understand how
it did not fall off. Macleod was alone in the stern. Away the white boat
went through the blue waves.
"Put your strength into it now," said he, in the Gaelic, "and show them
how the Mull lads can row!"
And then again--
"Steady now! Well rowed all!"
And here are all the people crowding to one side of the steamer to see
the strangers off; and the captain is on the bridge; and Sandy is at the
open gangway: and, at the top of the iron steps, there is only one
Macleod sees--all in white and blue--and he has caught her eyes--at
last! at last!
He seized the rope and sprang up the iron ladder.
"Welcome to you, sweetheart!" said he, in a low voice, and his trembling
hand grasped hers.
"How do you, Keith?" said she. "Must we go down these steps?"
He had no time to wonder over the coldness--the petulance almost--of her
manner: for he had to get both father and daughter safely conducted into
the stern of the boat; and their luggage had to be got in; and he had to
say a word or two to the steward; and finally he had to hand down some
loaves of bread to the man next him, who placed them in the bottom of
the boat.
"The commissariat arrangements are primitive," said Mr. White, in an
undertone, to his daughter; but she made no answer to his words or his
smile. But, indeed, even if Macleod had overheard, he would have taken
no shame to himself that he had secured a supply of white bread for his
guests. Those who had gone yachting with Macleod--Major Stuart, for
example, or Norman Ogilvie--had soon learned not to despise their host's
highly practical acquaintance with tinned meats, pickles, condensed
milk, and suchlike things. Who was it had proposed to erect a monument
to him for his discovery of the effect of introducing a leaf of lettuce
steeped in vinegar between the folds of a sandwich?
Then he jumped down into the boat again; and the great steamer steamed
away; and the men struck their oars into the water.
"We will soon take you ashore now," said he, with a glad light on his
face; but so excited was he that he could scarcely get the tiller-ropes
right; and certainly he knew not what he was saying. And as for her--why
was she so silent after the long separation? Had she no word at all for
the lover who had so hungered for her coming?
And then Donald, perched high at the bow, broke away into his wild
welcome of her; and there was a sound now louder than the calling of the
sea birds and the rushing of the seas. And if the English lady knew that
this proud and shrill strain had been composed in honor of her, would it
not bring some color of pleasure to the pale face? So thought Donald at
least; and he had his eyes fixed on her as he played as he had never
played before that day. And if she did not know the cunning modulations
and the clever fingering, Macleod knew them, and the men knew them; and
after they got ashore they would say to him,--
"Donald, that was a good pibroch you played for the English lady."
But what was the English lady's thanks? Donald had not played over sixty
seconds when she turned to Macleod and said,--
"Keith I wish you would stop him. I have a headache."
And so Macleod called out at once, in the lad's native tongue. But
Donald could not believe this thing, though he had seen the strange lady
turn to Sir Keith. And he would have continued had not one of the men
turned to him and said,--
"Donald, do you not hear? Put down the pipes."
For an instant the lad looked dumbfounded; then he slowly took down the
pipes from his shoulder and put them beside him, and then he turned his
face to the bow, so that no one should see the tears of wounded pride
that had sprung to his eyes. And Donald said no word to any one till
they got ashore; and he went away by himself to Castle Dare, with his
head bent down and his pipes under his arm; and when he was met at the
door by Hamish, who angrily demanded why he was not down at the quay
with his pipes, he only said,--
"There is no need of me or my pipes any more at Dare; and it is
somewhere else that I will now go with my pipes."
But meanwhile Macleod was greatly concerned to find his sweetheart so
cold and distant; and it was all in vain that he pointed out to her the
beauties of this summer day--that he showed her the various islands he
had often talked about, and called her attention to the skarts sitting
on the Erisgeir rocks, and asked her--seeing that she sometimes painted
a little in water-color--whether she noticed the peculiar, clear,
intense, and luminous blue of the shadows in the great cliffs which they
were approaching. Surely no day could have been more auspicious for her
coming to Dare?
"The sea did not make you ill?" he said.
"Oh no," she answered; and that was true enough, though it had produced
in her agonizing fears of becoming ill which had somewhat ruffled her
temper. And besides, she had a headache. And then she had a nervous fear
of small boats.
"It is a very small boat to be out in the open sea," she remarked,
looking at the long and shapely gig that was cleaving the summer waves.
"Not on a day like this, surely," said he, laughing. "But we will make a
good sailor of you before you leave Dare, and you will think yourself
safer in a boat like this than in a big steamer. Do you know that the
steamer you came in, big as it is, draws only five feet of water?"
If he had told her that the steamer drew five tons of coal she could
just as well have understood him. Indeed, she was not paying much
attention to him. She had an eye for the biggest of the waves that were
running by the side of the white boat.
But she plucked up her spirits somewhat on getting ashore; and she made
the prettiest of little courtesies to Lady Macleod; and she shook hands
with Major Stuart, and gave him a charming smile; and she shook hands
with Janet, too, whom she regarded with a quick scrutiny. So this was
the cousin that Keith Macleod was continually praising?
"Miss White has a headache, mother," Macleod said, eager to account
beforehand for any possible constraint in her manner. "Shall we send for
the pony?"
"Oh no," Miss White said, looking up at the bare walls of Dare. "I shall
be very glad to have a short walk now--unless you, papa, would like to
ride?"
"Certainly not--certainly not," said Mr. White, who had been making a
series of formal remarks to Lady Macleod about his impressions of the
scenery of Scotland.
"We will get you a cup of tea," said Janet Macleod, gently, to the
new-comer, "and you will lie down for a little time, and I hope the
sound of the waterfall will not disturb you. It is a long way you have
come: and you will be very tired, I am sure."
"Yes, it is a pretty long way," she said; but she wished this
over-friendly woman would not treat her as if she were a spoiled child.
And no doubt they thought, because she was English, she could not walk
up to the farther end of that fir-wood?
So they all set out for Castle Dare; and Macleod was now walking--as
many a time he had dreamed of his walking--with his beautiful
sweetheart; and there were the very ferns that he thought she would
admire; and here the very point in the fir-wood where he would stop her
and ask her to look out on the blue sea, with Inch Kenneth, and Ulva,
and Staffa, all lying in the sunlight, and the razor-fish of land--Coll
and Tiree--at the horizon. But instead of being proud and glad, he was
almost afraid. He was so anxious that everything should please her that
he dared scarce bid her look at anything. He had himself superintended
the mending of the steep path; but even now the recent rains had left
some puddles. Would she not consider the moist, warm odors of this
larch-wood as too oppressive?
"What is that?" she said, suddenly.
There was a sound far below them of the striking of oars in the water,
and another sound of one or two men monotonously chanting a rude sort of
chorus.
"They are taking the gig on to the yacht," he said.
"But what are they singing?"
"Oh, that is _Fhir a bhata_" said he; "it is the common boat-song. It
means, _Good-by to you, boatman, a hundred times, wherever you may be
going._"
"It is very striking, very effective, to hear singing and not see the
people," she said. "It is the very prettiest introduction to a scene; I
wonder it is not oftener used. Do you think they could write me down the
words and music of that song?"
"Oh no, I think not," said he, with a nervous laugh. "But you will find
something like it, no doubt, in your book."
So they passed on through the plantation; and at last they came to an
open glade; and here was a deep chasm spanned by a curious old bridge of
stone almost hidden by ivy; and there was a brawling stream dashing down
over the rocks and flinging spray all over the briers, and queen of the
meadow, and foxgloves on either bank.
"That is very pretty," said she; and then he was eager to tell her that
this little glen was even more beautiful when the rowan-trees showed
their rich clusters of scarlet berries.
"Those bushes there, you mean," said she. "The mountain-ash?"
"Yes."
"Ah," she said, "I never see those scarlet berries without wishing I was
a dark woman. If my hair were black, I would wear nothing else in it."
By this time they had climbed well up the cliff; and presently they came
on the open plateau on which stood Castle Dare, with its gaunt walls and
its rambling courtyards, and its stretch of damp lawn with a few
fuchsia-bushes and orange-lilies, that did not give a very ornamental
look to the place.
"We have had heavy rains of late," he said, hastily; he hoped the house
and its surroundings did not look too dismal.
And when they went inside and passed through the sombre dining-hall,
with its huge fireplace, and its dark weapons, and its few portraits
dimly visible in the dusk, he said,--
"It is very gloomy in the daytime; but it is more cheerful at night."
And when they reached the small drawing-room he was anxious to draw her
attention away from the antiquated furniture and the nondescript
decoration by taking her to the window and showing her the great breadth
of the summer sea, with the far islands, and the brown-sailed boat of
the Gometra men coming back from Staffa. But presently in came Janet,
and would take the fair stranger away to her room; and was as attentive
to her as if the one were a great princess, and the other a meek
serving-woman. And by and by Macleod, having seen his other guest
provided for, went into the library and shut himself in, and sat down,
in a sort of stupor. He could almost have imagined that the whole
business of the morning was a dream; so strange did it seem to him that
Gertrude White should be living and breathing under the same roof with
himself.
Nature herself seemed to have conspired with Macleod to welcome and
charm this fair guest. He had often spoken to her of the sunsets that
shone over the Western seas; and he had wondered whether, during her
stay in the North, she would see some strange sight that would remain
forever a blaze of color in her memory. And now on this very first
evening there was a spectacle seen from the high windows of Dare that
filled her with astonishment, and caused her to send quickly for her
father, who was burrowing among the old armor. The sun had just gone
down. The western sky was of the color of a soda-water bottle become
glorified; and in this vast breadth of shining clear green lay one long
island of cloud--a pure scarlet. Then the sky overhead and the sea far
below them were both of a soft roseate purple; and Fladda and Staffa and
Lunga, out at the horizon, were almost black against that flood of green
light. When he asked her if she had brought her water-colors with her,
smiled. She was not likely to attempt to put anything like that down on
paper.
Then they adjourned to the big hall, which was now lit up with candles;
and Major Stuart had remained to dinner: and the gallant soldier, glad
to have a merry evening away from his sighing wife, did his best to
promote the cheerfulness of the party. Moreover, Miss White had got rid
of her headache, and showed a greater brightness of face; so that both
the old lady at the head of the table and her niece Janet had to confess
to themselves that this English girl who was like to tear Keith Macleod
away from them was very pretty, and had an amiable look, and was soft
and fine and delicate in her manners and speech. The charming simplicity
of her costume, too: had anybody ever seen a dress more beautiful with
less pretence of attracting notice? Her very hands--they seemed objects
fitted to be placed on a cushion of blue velvet under a glass shade, so
white and small and perfectly formed were they. That was what the
kindly-hearted Janet thought. She did not ask herself how these hands
would answer if called upon to help--amidst the grime and smoke of a
shepherd's hut--the shepherd's wife to patch together a pair of homespun
trousers for the sailor son coming back from the sea.
"And now," said Keith Macleod to his fair neighbor, when Hamish had put
the claret and the whiskey on the table, "since your head is well now,
would you like to hear the pipes? It is an old custom of the house. My
mother would think it strange to have it omitted," he added, in a lower
voice.
"Oh, if it is a custom of the house," she said, coldly--for she thought
it was inconsiderate of him to risk bringing back her headache--"I have
no objection whatever."
And so he turned to Hamish and said something in the Gaelic. Hamish
replied in English, and loud enough for Miss White to hear.
"It is no pibroch there will be this night, for Donald is away."
"Away?"
"Ay, just that. When he wass come back from the boat, he will say to me,
'Hamish, it is no more of me or my pipes they want at Dare, and I am
going away; and they can get some one else to play the pipes.' And I
wass saying to him then, 'Donald, do not be a foolish lad; and if the
English lady will not want the pibroch you made for her, perhaps at
another time she will want it.' And now, Sir Keith, it is Maggie
MacFarlane; she wass coming up from Loch-na-Keal this afternoon, and who
was it she will meet but our Donald, and he wass saying to her, 'It is
to Tobermory now that I am going, Maggie; and I will try to get a ship
there; for it is no more of me or my pipes they will want at Dare.'"
This was Hamish's story; and the keen hawk-like eye of him was fixed on
the English lady's face all the time he spoke in his struggling and
halting fashion.
"Confound the young rascal!" Macleod said, with his face grown red. "I
suppose I shall have to send a messenger to Tobermory and apologize to
him for interrupting him to-day." And then he turned to Miss White.
"They are like a set of children," he said, "with their pride and
petulance."
This is all that needs be said about the manner of Miss White's coming
to Dare, besides these two circumstances: First of all, whether it was
that Macleod was too flurried, and Janet too busy, and Lady Macleod too
indifferent to attend to such trifles, the fact remains that no one, on
Miss White's entering the house, had thought of presenting her with a
piece of white heather, which, as every one knows, gives good health and
good fortune and a long life to your friend. Again, Hamish seemed to
have acquired a serious prejudice against her from the very outset. That
night, when Castle Dare was asleep, and the old dame Christina and her
husband were seated by themselves in the servants' room, and Hamish was
having his last pipe, and both were talking over the great events of the
day, Christina said, in her native tongue,
"And what do you think now of the English lady, Hamish?"
Hamish answered with an old and sinister saying:
"_A fool would he be that would burn his harp to warm her._"