THE PRISONER.
The sudden noise overhead and the hurried trampling of the men on deck
were startling enough; but surely there was nothing to alarm her in the
calm and serious face of this man who stood before her. He did not
advance to her. He regarded her with a sad tenderness, as if he were
looking at one far away. When the beloved dead come back to us in the
wonder-halls of sleep, there is no wild joy of meeting: there is
something strange. And when they disappear again, there is no surprise:
only the dull aching returns to the heart.
"Gertrude," said he, "you are as safe here as ever you were in your
mother's arms. No one will harm you."
"What is it? What do you mean?" said she, quickly.
She was somewhat bewildered. She had not expected to meet him thus
suddenly face to face. And then she became aware that the companion-way
by which she had descended into the saloon had grown dark: that was the
meaning of the harsh noise.
"I want to go ashore, Keith," said she hurriedly. "Put me on shore. I
will speak to you there."
"You cannot go ashore," said he, calmly.
"I don't know what you mean," said she; and her heart began to beat
hurriedly. "I tell you I want to go ashore, Keith. I will speak to you
there."
"You cannot go ashore, Gertrude," he repeated. "We have already left
Erith. * * * Gerty, Gerty," he continued, for she was struck dumb with
a sudden terror, "don't you understand now? I have stolen you away from
yourself. There was but the one thing left: the one way of saving you.
And you will forgive me, Gerty, when you understand it all--"
She was gradually recovering from her terror. She did understand it now.
And he was not ill at all.
"Oh, you coward! you coward! you coward!" she exclaimed, with a blaze of
fury in her eyes. "And I was to confer a kindness on you--a last
kindness! But you dare not do this thing! I tell you, you dare not do
it! I demand to be put on shore at once! Do you hear me?"
She turned wildly round, as if to seek for some way of escape. The door
in the ladies' cabin stood open; the clay-light was streaming down into
that cheerful little place; there were some flowers on the
dressing-table. But the way by which she had descended was barred over
and dark.
She faced him again, and her eyes were full of fierce indignation and
anger; she drew herself up to her full height; she overwhelmed him with
taunts, and reproaches, and scorn. That was a splendid piece of acting,
seeing that it had never been rehearsed. He stood unmoved before all
this theatrical rage.
"Oh yes, you were proud of your name," she was saying, with bitter
emphasis; "and I thought you belonged to a race of gentlemen, to whom
lying was unknown. And you were no longer murderous and revengeful; but
you can take your revenge on a woman, for all that! And you ask me to
come and see you, because you are ill! And you have laid a trap--like a
coward!"
"And if I am what you say, Gerty," said he, quite gently, "it is the
love of you that has made me that. Oh, you do not know!"
She saw nothing of the lines that pain had written on this man's face;
she recognized nothing of the very majesty of grief in the hopeless
eyes. He was only her gaoler, her enemy.
"Of course--of course," she said. "It is the woman--it is always the
woman who is in fault! That is a manly thing, to put the blame on the
woman! And it is a manly thing to take your revenge on a woman! I
thought, when a man had a rival, that it was his rival whom he sought
out. But you--you kept out of the way--"
He strode forward and caught her by the wrist. There was a look in his
face that for a second terrified her into silence.
"Gerty," said he, "I warn you! Do not mention that man to me--now or at
any time; or it will be bad for him and for you!"
She twisted her hand from his grasp.
"How dare you come near me!" she cried.
"I beg your pardon," said he, with an instant return to his former grave
gentleness of manner. "I wish to let you know how you are situated, if
you will let me, Gerty. I don't wish to justify what I have done, for
you would not hear me--just yet. But this I must tell you, that I don't
wish to force myself on your society. You will do as you please. There
is your cabin; you have occupied it before. If you would like to have
this saloon, you can have that too; I mean I shall not come into it
unless it pleases you. And there is a bell in your cabin; and if you
ring it, Christina will answer."
She heard him out patiently. Her reply was a scornful, perhaps nervous,
laugh.
"Why, this is mere folly," she exclaimed. "It is simple madness. I begin
to believe that you are really ill, after all; and it is your mind that
is affected. Surely you don't know what you are doing?"
"You are angry, Gerty," said he,
But the first blaze of her wrath and indignation had passed away; and
now fear was coming uppermost.
"Surely, Keith, you cannot be dreaming of such a mad thing! Oh, it is
impossible! It is a joke: it was to frighten me; it was to punish me,
perhaps. Well, I have deserved it; but now--now you have succeeded; and
you will let me go ashore, farther down the river."
Her tone was altered. She had been watching his face.
"Oh no, Gerty; oh no," he said. "Do you not understand yet? You were
everything in the world to me; you were life itself. Without you I had
nothing, and the world might just as well come to an end for me. And
when I thought you were going away from me, what could I do? I could not
reach you by letters, and letters; and how could I know what the people
around you were saying to you? Ah, you do not know what I have suffered,
Gerty! And always I was saying to myself that if I could get you away
from these people, you would remember the time that you gave me the red
rose, and all those beautiful days would come back again, and I would
lake your hand again, and I would forget altogether about the terrible
nights when I saw you beside me and heard you laugh just as in the old
times. And I knew there was only the one way left. How could I but try
that? I knew you would be angry, but I hoped your anger would go away.
And now you are angry, Gerty, and my speaking to you is not of much
use--as yet; but I can wait until I see yourself again, as you used to
be, in the garden--don't you remember, Gerty?"
Her face was proud, cold, implacable.
"Do I understand you aright: that you have shut me up in this yacht and
mean to take me away?"
"Gerty, I have saved you from yourself!"
"Will you be so kind as to tell me where we are going?"
"Why not away back to the Highlands, Gerty?" said he, eagerly. "And then
some day when your heart relents, and you forgive me, you will put your
hand in mine, and we will walk up the road to Castle Dare. Do you not
think they will be glad to see us that day, Gerty?"
She maintained her proud attitude, but she was trembling from head to
foot.
"Do you mean to say that until I consent to be your wife I am not to be
allowed to leave this yacht?"
"You will consent Gerty!"
"Not if I were to be shut up here for a thousand years!" she exclaimed,
with another burst of passion. "Oh, you will pay for this dearly! I
thought it was madness--mere folly; but if it is true, you will rue this
day! Do you think we are savages here? Do you think we have no law?"
"I do not care for any law," said he, simply. "I can only think of the
one thing in the world. If I have not your love, Gerty, what else can I
care about?"
"My love!" she exclaimed. "And this is the way to earn it, truly! My
love! If you were to keep me shut up for a thousand years, you would
never have it! You can have my hatred, if you like, and plenty of it,
too!"
"You are angry, Gerty!" was all he said.
"Oh, you do not know with whom you have to deal!" she continued, with
the same bitter emphasis. "You terrified me with stories of
butchery--the butchery of innocent women and children; and no doubt you
thought the stories were fine; and now you too would show you are one of
the race by taking revenge on a woman. But if she is only a woman, you
have not conquered her yet! Oh, you will find out before long that we
have law in this country, and that it is not to be outraged with
impunity. You think you can do as you like, because you are a Highland
master, and you have a lot of slaves round you!"
"I am going on deck now, Gerty," said he, in the same sad and gentle
way. "Shall I send Christina to you?"
For an instant she looked bewildered, as if she had not till now
comprehended what was going on; and she said, quite wildly,--
"Oh no, no, no, Keith; you don't mean what you say! You cannot mean it!
You are only frightening me! You will put me ashore--and not a word
shall pass my lips. We cannot be far down the river, Keith. There are
many places where you could put me ashore, and I could get back to
London by rail. They won't know I have ever seen you. Keith, you will
put me ashore now?"
"And if I were to put you ashore now, you would go away, Gerty, and I
should never see you again--never, and never. And what would that be for
you and for me, Gerty? But now you are here, no one can poison your
mind: you will be angry for a time; but the brighter days are coming--oh
yes, I know that: if I was not sure of that, what would become of me? It
is a good thing to have hope--to look forward to the glad days: that
stills the pain at the heart. And now we two are together at last,
Gerty! And if you are angry, the anger will pass away; and we will go
forward together to the glad days."
She was listening in a sort of vague and stunned amazement. Both her
anger and her fear were slowly yielding to the bewilderment of the fact
that she was really setting out on a voyage, the end of which neither
she nor any one living could know.
"Ah, Gerty," said he, regarding her with a strange wistfulness in the
sad eyes, "you do not know what it is to me to see you again! I have
seen you many a time--in dreams; but you were always far away, and I
could not take your hand. And I said to myself that you were not cruel;
that you did not wish any one to suffer pain. And I knew if I could only
see you again, and take you away from these people, then your heart
would be gentle, and you would think of the time when you gave me the
red rose, and we went out in the garden, and all the air round us was so
full of gladness that we did not speak at all. Oh yes; and I said to
myself that your true friends were in the North; and what would the men
at Dubh-Artach not do for you, and Captain Macallum too, when they knew
you were coming to live at Dare; and I was thinking that would be a
grand day when you came to live among us; and there would be dancing,
and a good glass of whiskey for every one, and some playing on the pipes
that day! And sometimes I did not know whether there would be more of
laughing or of crying when Janet came to meet you. But I will not
trouble you any more now, Gerty; for you are tired, I think; and I will
send Christina to you. And you will soon think that I was not cruel to
you when I took you away and saved you from yourself."
She did not answer; she seemed in a sort of trance. But she was aroused
by the entrance of Christina, who came in directly after Macleod left.
Miss White stared at this tall white-haired woman, as if uncertain how
to address her; when she spoke, it was in a friendly and persuasive way.
"You have not forgotten me, then, Christina?"
"No, mem," said the grave Highland woman. She had beautiful, clear,
blue-gray eyes, but there was no pity in them.
"I suppose you have no part in this mad freak?"
The old woman seemed puzzled. She said, with a sort of serious
politeness,--
"I do not know, mem. I have not the good English as Hamish."
"But surely you know this," said Miss Gertrude White, with more
animation, "that I am here against my will? You understand that, surely?
That I am being carried away against my will from my own home and my
friends? You know it very well; but perhaps your master has not told you
of the risk you run? Do you know what that is? Do you think there are no
laws in this country?"
"Sir Keith he is the master of the boat," said Christina. "Iss there
anything now that I can do for you, mem?"
"Yes," said Miss White, boldly; "there is. You can help me to get
ashore. And you will save your master from being looked on as a madman.
And you will save yourselves from being hanged."
"I wass to ask you," said the old Highland woman "when you would be for
having the dinner. And Hamish, he wass saying that you will hef the
dinner what time you are thinking of; and will you hef the dinner all by
yourself?"
"I tell you this, woman," said Miss White, with quick anger, "that I
will neither eat nor drink so long as I am on board this yacht! What is
the use of this nonsense? I wish to be put on shore. I am getting tired
of this folly. I tell you I want to go ashore; and I am going ashore;
and it will be the worse for any one who tries to stop me!"
"I do not think you can go ashore, mem," Christina said, somewhat
deliberately picking out her English phrases, "for the gig is up at the
davits now; and the dingy--you wass not thinking of going ashore by
yourself in the dingy? And last night, mem, at a town, we had many
things brought on board; and if you would tell me what you would hef for
the dinner, there is no one more willing than me. And I hope you will
hef very good comfort on board the yacht."
"I can't get it into your head that you are talking nonsense!" said Miss
White, angrily. "I tell you I will not go anywhere in this yacht! And
what is the use of talking to me about dinner? I tell you I will neither
eat nor drink while I am on board this yacht!"
"I think that would be a ferry foolish thing, mem," Christina said,
humbly enough; but all the same, the scornful fashion in which this
young lady had addressed her had stirred a little of the Highland
woman's blood; and she added--still with great apparent humility--"But
if you will not eat, they say that iss a ferry good thing for the pride;
and there iss not much pride left if one hass nothing to eat, mem."
"I presume that is to be my prison?" said Miss White, haughtily, turning
to the smart little stateroom beyond the companion.
"That iss your cabin, mem, if you please, mem," said Christina, who had
been instructed in English politeness by her husband.
"Well, now, can you understand this? Go to Sir Keith Macleod, and tell
him that I have shut myself up in that cabin; and that I will speak not
a word to any one; and I will neither eat nor drink until I am taken on
shore. And so, if he wishes to have a murder on his hands, very well! Do
you understand that?"
"I will say that to Sir Keith," Christina answered, submissively.
Miss White walked into the cabin and locked herself in. It was an
apartment with which she was familiar; but where had they got the white
heather? And there were books; but she paid little heed. They would
discover they had not broken her spirit yet.
On either side the skylight overhead was open an inch; and it was
nearer to the tiller than the skylight of the saloon. In the absolute
stillness of this summer day she heard two men talking. Generally they
spoke in the Gaelic, which was of course unintelligible to her; but
sometimes they wandered into English--especially if the name of some
English town cropped up--and thus she got hints as to the whereabouts of
the _Umpire_.
"Oh yes, it is a fine big town that town of Gravesend, to be sure,
Hamish," said the one voice, "and I have no doubt, now, that it will be
sending a gentleman to the Houses of Parliament in London, just as
Greenock will do. But there is no one you will send from Mull. They do
not know much about Mull in the Houses of Parliament."
"And they know plenty about ferry much worse places," said Hamish,
proudly. "And wass you saying there will be anything so beautiful about
Greenock ass you will find at Tobbermorry?"
"Tobermory!" said the other; "There are some trees at Tobermory--oh yes;
and the Mish-nish and the shops--"
"Yess, and the waterfahl--do not forget the waterfahl, Colin; and there
iss better whiskey in Tobbermorry ass you will get in all Greenock,
where they will be for mixing it with prandy and other drinks like that;
and at Tobbermorry you will hef a Professor come all the way from
Edinburgh and from Oban to gif a lecture on the Gaelic; but do you think
he would gif a lecture in a town like Greenock? Oh no; he would not do
that!"
"Very well, Hamish; but it is glad I am that we are going back the way
we came."
"And me, too, Colin."
"And I will not be sorry when I am in Greenock once more."
"But you will come with us first of all to Castle Dare, Colin," was the
reply. "And I know that Lady Macleod herself will be for shaking hands
with you, and thanking you that you wass tek the care of the yacht."
"I think I will stop at Greenock, Hamish. You know you can take her well
on from Greenock. And will you go round the Mull, Hamish, or through the
Crinan, do you think now?"
"Oh, I am not afrait to tek her round the Moil; but there iss the
English lady on board; and it will be smoother for her to go through the
Crinan. And it iss ferry glad I will be, Colin, to see Ardalanish Point
again; for I would rather be going through the Doruis Mohr twenty times
ass getting petween the panks of this tamned river."
Here they relapsed into their native tongue, and she listened no longer;
but, at all events, she had learned that they were going away to the
North. And as her nerves had been somewhat shaken, she began to ask
herself what further thing this madman might not do. The old stories he
had told her came back with a marvellous distinctness. Would he plunge
her into a dungeon and mock her with an empty cup when she was dying of
thirst? Would he chain her to a rock at low-water; and watch the tide
slowly rise? He professed great gentleness and love for her; but if the
savage nature had broken out at last! Her fear grew apace. He had shown
himself regardless of everything on earth: where would he stop, if she
continued to repel him? And then the thought of her situation--alone;
shut up in this small room; about to venture forth on the open sea with
this ignorant crew--so overcame her that she hastily snatched at the
bell on the dressing table and rang it violently. Almost instantly there
was a tapping at the door.
"I ask your pardon, mem," she heard Christina say.
She sprang to the door and opened it, and caught the arm of the old
woman.
"Christina, Christina!" she said, almost wildly, "you won't let them
take me away? My father will give you hundreds and hundreds of pounds if
only you get me ashore! Just think of him--he is an old man--if you had
a daughter--"
Miss White was acting very well indeed; though she was more concerned
about herself than her father.
"I wass to say to you," Christina explained with some difficulty, "that
if you wass saying that, Sir Keith had a message sent away to your
father, and you wass not to think any more about that. And now, mem, I
cannot tek you ashore; is iss no business I hef with that; and I could
not go ashore myself whateffer; but I would get you some dinner, mem."
"Then I suppose you don't understand the English language!" Miss White
exclaimed, angrily. "I tell you I will neither eat nor drink so long as
I am on board this yacht! Go and tell Sir Keith Macleod what I have
said."
So Miss White was left alone again; and the slow time passed; and she
heard the murmured conversation of the men; and also a measured pacing
to and fro, which she took to be the step of Macleod. Quick rushes of
feeling went through her, indignation, a stubborn obstinacy, a wonder
over the audacity of this thing, malevolent hatred even; but all these
were being gradually subdued by the dominant claim of hunger. Miss White
had acted the part of many heroines; but she was not herself a
heroine--if there is anything heroic in starvation. It was growing to
dusk when she again summoned the old Highland-woman.
"Get me something to eat," said she; "I cannot die like a rat in a
hole."
"Yes, mem," said Christina, in the most matter-of-fact way; for she had
never been in a theatre in her life, and she had not imagined that Miss
White's threat meant anything at all. "The dinner is just ready now,
mem; and if you will hef it in the saloon, there will be no one there;
that wass Sir Keith's message to you."
"I will not have it in the saloon; I will have it here."
"Ferry well, mem," Christina said, submissively. "But you will go into
the saloon, mem, when I will mek the bed for you, and the lamp will hef
to be lit, but Hamish he will light the lamp for you. And are there any
other things you wass thinking of that you would like, mem?"
"No; I want something to eat."
"And Hamish, mem, he wass saying I will ask you whether you will hef the
claret-wine, or--or--the other wine, mem, that makes a noise--"
"Bring me some water. But the whole of you will pay dearly for this!"
"I ask your pardon, mem?" said Christina, with great respect.
"Oh, go away, and get me something to eat!"
And in fact Miss White made a very good dinner, though the things had to
be placed before her on her dressing-table. And her rage and indignation
did not prevent her having, after all a glass or two of the claret-wine.
And then she permitted Hamish to come in and light the swinging lamp;
and thereafter Christina made up one of the two narrow beds. Miss White
was left alone.
Many a hundred times had she been placed in great peril--on the stage;
and she knew that on such occasions it had been her duty to clasp her
hand on her forehead and set to work to find out how to extricate
herself. Well, on this occasion she did not make use of any dramatic
gesture; but she turned out the lamp, and threw herself on the top of
this narrow little bed; and was determined that, before they got her
conveyed to their savage home in the North, she would make one more
effort for her freedom. Then she heard the man at the helm begin to hum
to himself "_Fhir a bhata, na horo eile_." The night darkened. And soon
all the wild emotions of the day were forgotten; for she was asleep.
* * * * *
Asleep--in the very waters through which she had sailed with her lover
on the white summer day. But _Rose-leaf! Rose-leaf! what faint wind will
carry you_ NOW _to the South?_