_When a man lights a fire for a poor little bird,
It shows that those beautiful words he has heard,
That never a sparrow can fall to the ground
But a wound in the heart of his Maker be found._
When Ralph St. Jermyn had arrived at the Scotts’ there were assembled,
within reasonable distance, what Aunt Elsie would have called all
Diana’s admirers, and Marcus, having expressed a wish to see them all
together, so that he might judge of them, Diana set about to make plans
so that he might have the opportunity he sought.
Her mind being full of islands, having heard much of one from Miles
Hastings, she bethought herself of a bird-island that lay out to sea at
some distance from the end of the Loch, and on that island she proposed
Uncle Marcus and the other men should spend some time together. Marcus
was perfectly willing. He was interested in sea-birds and loved the
sea; moreover, he was always anxious to do anything Diana asked him to
do, in the hope, perhaps, that Aunt Elsie would have proved in like
circumstances less amenable. There was always that incentive to an
extreme amiability.
Uncle Marcus said he would ask St. Jermyn to join them and stay the
night; but Diana must understand it was late in the season for young
birds to be hatched. It was very unlikely there would be any. Diana
didn’t mind that—a bird was a bird, no matter its age. She had a good
deal to say to Miles Hastings on the subject of islands. She dwelt
on them particularly at those times when he wanted to talk of other
things—emphasizing rather persistently, he thought, the fact that
whereas one man on an island was as helpless as a new-born babe,
another was useful, resourceful, and undefeated. He said he understood:
Uncle Marcus would be rather useless, St. Jermyn more so. “But you,”
said Diana, “would make soup out of birds’ nests?”
He questioned it, but she persisted and went so far as to predict
that he would serve it up in the half of a cocoanut shell, to which
he readily agreed, such things being usually found on the islands of
Scotland.
“Wait and see,” she said.
He was waiting as it was, and growing daily more and more hopeless;
just as surely as Diana was growing more and more delightful, and, of
course, more and more beautiful. Any girl may do that, is bound to do
it, in the eyes at least of the man who loves her. With Mr. Maitland,
Hastings felt he made no progress. He was polite, as a host is almost
in duty bound to be, but he never talked about Diana as Hastings would
have liked him to talk: never left them alone together, as Hastings
would have liked to be left. He very often, on the contrary, prevented
them being alone and Diana unfortunately did not seem to notice it.
Hastings wondered in what way he might propitiate his host. He might
save him from drowning, but it was hardly likely Mr. Maitland would
place himself in that particular danger, thereby affording Hastings the
opportunity he so earnestly sought. He might save Diana from drowning,
but even to benefit himself he would not let her risk that peril by
water.
The island, on which Diana proposed Uncle Marcus and the young men
should be stranded for a while, rose straight from the sea: a barren
rock. It would take three quarters of an hour to get there in the
motor launch, and given a fine day it should prove a delightful
expedition—“For those who like it,” said Watkins mournfully.
Diana undertook to make all the arrangements. She and John discussed
the matter at length, and John would have been seen—if any one had
looked—to shake his head every now and then during the discussion, and
to raise a protesting hand; but protest as he would, Diana triumphed
and her word was law—just as her will was his pleasure, which John was
most careful to say when it was most evident her will was _not_ his
pleasure.
Uncle Marcus had suggested taking lunch with them, but Diana objected.
She said they would get frightfully tired of the island, and as soon as
they had seen what birds there might be just out of the shell, and what
birds there might be not quite out of the shell, they would long to go
home. Again Diana had her way.
They landed on the island: Diana climbing up ahead of them all and
calling first to one, then to another to come and look here—and there.
She pointed out evidence of original sin as presented by the sight of
a little bird still attached to its shell, who was ready to fight for
the rocky inheritance that was his by at least the right of priority.
The men were interested. Everything in the nature of uncultivated land,
be it rock or otherwise, suggested interesting problems to St. Jermyn,
and at his fingers’ ends he had statistics as to how many herrings were
eaten per day per gull. That opened up the “Fisheries” question, an
important one.
Marcus was perfectly ready to discuss any question with St. Jermyn; but
he wanted first of all to take a photograph of a particular gull, who
at all events up to this moment had not deprived the poor man of a
single herring. “Just wait,” he said, “one moment!”
Marcus found St. Jermyn very interesting: and exactly the kind of man
he would like Diana to marry if she must marry, but he did not see the
necessity. Hastings, too, was, of course, very attractive, for even to
Marcus a certain length of limb and an amazing amount of virility in a
young man were attractive. As to many middle-aged men youth strongly
appealed to him, and it was only because of Diana that he made the
smallest attempt to withstand Hastings. Having only just discovered
her, as it were, he did not see why he should give her up to the first
man who happened to fall in love with her.
When all the men were deeply engaged with the birds on the island,
Diana took the opportunity to slip away, back to the landing-place
where John awaited her orders. “Now, John,” she said; and John drew
from his capacious pockets various things, among them a flask, a
bottle, and a parcel. “Just inside the cave, John, there!” Diana
pointed to the cave, and John climbed up the rock and put the things
inside the cave. Diana followed him, and at the mouth of the cave she
built a cairn of stones, and under the top stone she placed a slip of
paper; then telling John to be quick she left the place as quickly as
she had come and sliding down the rock called to him to slide softly:
but John was heavier than Diana and slid less gracefully, and little
stones came rattling down with him.
“They’ll no be hearin’ them,” said John.
Diana dropped into the boat where Tooke was biding his time, and hers.
She told him to slip off quietly, and he assured her that what noise
the boat would make would be drowned by the sound of the wind which
was rising. John screwed up his eyes, looked out to sea, and predicted
a “storrrm.” Diana was afraid they might not escape unseen, and she
looked anxiously to the quickly receding island; but John said the
gentlemen would be so busy in taking the little birds that they would
not be looking.
“Not taking them, John; that would be horribly cruel!”
“Just their photograph-ees, miss,” said John.
He went on to say he had been one day fishing on the loch with a
gentleman, and as they had passed an island on the loch they had seen
three wee birds just out of the shell, and when they came back five
hours later and passed the island the wee birds had swum out to meet
them. “And, indeed, they did and the gentleman took them.”
“Not the birds, John,” protested Diana again for the sake of his
reassurance, “just their photograph-ees,” and Diana thought of Uncle
Marcus, who was also just taking photograph-ees of little birds, and
her eyes danced and she saw nothing of the storm that was coming.
She got home and ate a most excellent luncheon cooked in Mrs. Oven’s
best manner, and having drunk her coffee sat down to write a letter,
and the letter she wrote was this:
DEAREST AUNT ELSIE,—I am all alone. It’s really rather nice. I think
it’s a little tiring being so much with men. They are so exacting,
don’t you think so? However, to-day they have left me alone and I
don’t feel deserted or in the least unhappy, but I should love to
see you, if only for a minute. I don’t know why, but I feel I should
like to have some one to laugh with. You are such a splendid laugher.
Uncle Marcus has gone on a kind of a scientific expedition. He wants
very much to take what John calls photograph-ees of sea-birds on their
nests, and he has taken all the men with him.
I suppose there is no better way of judging of a man’s character than
to be stranded with him on a desert island. I can imagine that, if by
any chance, Uncle Marcus and party were stranded there, Mr. Watkins
would read his poetry to him. Wouldn’t the Marky man love it? Mr.
Pease? What would he do? Tell him stories of his life as a child?—his
lonely childhood? Mr. St. Jermyn, I imagine, would leave him severely
alone; would go to the farthest part of the island and would gently
curse in an unparliamentary manner. What do you think, my aunt? And
Captain Hastings, what would he do? I think and believe he would cook
a delicious dinner and feed Uncle Marcus, give him soup in cocoanut
shells and seaweed fritters, and fried eggs—gulls’ eggs. We shall
see—should see, I mean.
Uncle Marcus is frightfully pleased with life. Of course, the shooting
is not what he expected and the river is low, but he is very much
softened by his stay in the Highlands, and yesterday he hoped you were
quite well: and he wondered if you minded living in a relaxing part
of the world; which, by the way, you don’t do. But I didn’t say so
because it seems to make him more of a happy Christian to think you
do. Pillar is delightful here. He shot a grey-hen the other day, a
very bad sin, and when he was reprimanded, he expressed contrition,
but added: “It was very encouraging, sir.” I suppose it is when you
don’t shoot much. Uncle Marcus forgets that a man, though poor and
lowly, may be a sportsman. I want him to give the gillies a day on the
moor; and I want Uncle Marcus and all my young men to act as gillies.
The boat will be going to fetch Uncle Marcus in a minute, so I must
stop. I hope you aren’t very lonely. I wish you were here!
Your loving
DIANA
Then she walked to the window and looked out. It was raining, not
heavily; but a fine, driving mist blotted out the landscape. The island
would be rather a horrible place now—rather horrible! She became grave;
she no longer wanted Aunt Elsie because she was a splendid laugher, but
rather because she was one to quiet fears, to make things look brighter
than they really were. Could any aunt in the world do that now? No
glimmer of light pierced the grey pall that hung over the Lodge of
Glenbossie.
Diana went to the door and called John, and out of the mist stepped
John, and Sandy with him. Beads of moisture stood all over their rough
tweed coats and they looked as serious as they looked moist. They said:
“What aboot the gentlemen, now?” and Diana asked, “What about them?”
And Sandy looked to John and John shook his head and was thinking the
sea would be too rough: there would be no fetching them now. And Sandy
nodded. John was right there.
“Not to-day?” asked Diana.
John doubted it: Sandy doubted it. Diana began to doubt it.
The moor was no longer visible. The birch wood was blotted out.
“Tooke must try, Sandy—John! He must! Make him!”
“Aye,” said the two men, and like Shetland ponies they turned their
backs to the storm.
“What did we leave on the island? Enough whiskey for them all?”
John shook his head.
“Not enough?” asked Diana incredulously. “There was a whole flask.”
“And there are five gentlemen to it,” said John, and he shook his head.
“But five men couldn’t drink a flask of whiskey in one day, it’s such
disgusting stuff!” said Diana.
And John looked to Sandy and Sandy to John. It took a good joke to make
Sandy laugh—he laughed the noo!
“We left a lobster—and a tin of sardines, didn’t we, John?” said Diana
anxiously.
John would not be saying that much whatever.
“And a match?”
“A match, yes.” John admitted that.
“What else?”
He said they had thought that enough, for the matter of an hour or two.
“Some tobacco, John?”
“Yes, some tobacco.”
One match, some tobacco, a tin of sardines, a lobster, a flask of
whiskey, a bottle of water, and two empty cocoanut shells and—five men.
* * * * *
Marcus Maitland peering into his camera hoped he hadn’t taken two
photographs on one film, and Hastings was quite certain he had not.
Why that certain assurance should have been his was simply evidence
that it had been his duty in life to assure his elders and betters
that whatever their excellencies had done, they had done well and that
nothing they did could be wrong. “Take another,” he suggested, “to make
sure.” And Marcus took another. As he wound up the film he wondered
where his niece was. Hastings, of course, was wondering, too, and
hoping: “Not on the other side of the island with St. Jermyn.” “I don’t
know, sir,” he said; “shall I go and find her?”
At the same moment Mr. Watkins came along. He wanted, he said, to show
Miss Carston something really most interesting he had found. Every one
had something most interesting to show Miss Carston, but she was not to
be found. Marcus suggested they should all look for her, she couldn’t
be far off. The island was small—but she herself was not to be found,
though all the men sought her.
Uncle Marcus thought she must be in the boat and went to see, but he
could find no boat. It was, therefore, quite evident she had gone
fishing. They must wait till she came back; she must be back soon. They
waited.
A sea-bird island is not a very pleasant place to be on for any length
of time: moreover, there was a storm getting up.
“Let us call for help!” said Pease. “Let us shout!”
Watkins yodled. Ever since he had come north he had been awaiting his
chance to do it. He did it again and again.
“Don’t do that,” said Marcus; “I can’t hear.”
Watkins, piqued, said there was nothing to hear.
“Listen!” entreated Marcus.
They listened. There was the screaming of birds disturbed: the
chippering of chicks alarmed; but no sound of Diana’s voice, or
anything like it.
“It looks stormy,” said Marcus, turning up the collar of his coat.
“A bit choppy,” admitted Hastings.
“The mist rolls up—List to the sound of guns—buns—duns—puns—runs—” said
Watkins; then he added wistfully, “It’s curious that there is no rhyme
to month.”
“Who wants one?” asked Pease.
“It’s not a question of wanting one, my dear Pease; there is not one
to be had. If I stay here a month I cannot say so in a poem without
great difficulty, and probably—”
“There’s bunth, of course,” said Hastings, “but perhaps he doesn’t
count.” He lit a cigarette.
“Never heard of such a word.”
“No? He—or it if you prefer it—is a jolly little beast, usually to be
found in the tropics under a leaf, and is something between a marmoset
and a beetle.” Hastings threw away the match with which he had lighted
his cigarette and Marcus picked it up; he hated matches thrown about.
“A what?” asked Watkins, his pocket-book ready and pencil poised.
“It’s no time for joking, Hastings,” said Marcus. “A storm in this
part of the world can get up in a moment: we’re in for one now, unless
I’m very much mistaken and we may be here for hours. What can have
happened?”
“We are stranded on a desert island, that’s quite clear,” said
Hastings, and he remembered Diana’s words. What had she said about
desert islands? She had rather harped on the subject. Was she playing
a practical joke? It looked like it. If she had planned a ridiculous
game he would play it with her. If she had meant to be funny he would
laugh with her. He would enter into the spirit of any joke she chose to
perpetrate—be it good, bad, or indifferent; and after all an island is
an island, and a man is a boy, and what man is there, who is as much a
boy as he ought to be, who can be on an island and not light a fire? or
be in a wood and not look for birds’ nests? Being very much of a man
he was very much of a boy. Diana had spoken in fun of desert islands.
Did she realize how deeply implanted in the heart of every real man
is the longing for the primordial life? Not for long, perhaps, but to
experience it, for once? Hastings had dreamed all his life of a desert
island. He had cooked, he had built, he had slept, on a desert island.
He had lain awake under the stars above it, slept, lulled by the wind
that rocked it. He had risen with the sun that rose behind it, and had
bathed in the noonday heat that scorched it. Did Diana know the lure
of those dreams? He set out to explore and at the mouth of the cave he
came upon the cairn of her building. He took the paper from under the
top stone and he read of the historical one match, with which she dared
him to light a fire! It required, she said, the very particular skill
of the experienced explorer to light a fire with the last match. “I
am sure you can do it,” she wrote. Further she said she knew exactly
how a desert island should be furnished—there should, by rights, of
course, be a chest of drawers in the cave. She knew how it should be
stocked: with what cunning the stores should be hidden; they should
stand upon a rock in full view—but she realized how little time there
was to spare, how soon Uncle Marcus would tire of a desert island; so
she had placed all he should need in a box, and in that box he would
find two halves of a cocoanut shell, in which to make soup, and other
things, such as whiskey, that should help to keep Uncle Marcus warm and
happy for a little while—and sardines that should sustain him. Hastings
wished Diana had thought of a funnier joke, but he had vowed he would
be amused. He would light the fire; that at least would be good fun,
and he would stick faithfully to the one match. He would tell her he
had made soup and boiled eggs. He would get Uncle Marcus to swear he
had swallowed them; he—Miles—should not be the loser in the end: the
joke should be his ... until such time as it should find its way home
again to her!
He went out of the cave to gather driftwood. The storm had risen, he
was caught by the scudding rain and whipped by the wind. He wished she
would come. In a moment the rain was running down his neck and oozing
over the tops of his shoes. The joke was beginning to pall, but he said
to himself, and truly, that if it had been any one else’s it would have
palled long before. He was going back to the cave when he saw at his
feet a little bird that looked about to die. “Poor little beggar!”
he said. “It’s a poor joke, isn’t it?” And lifting it up he examined
it, promising to do what he could to save its funny little life. “You
would, would you?” he asked, as the little bird pecked at his finger.
“Wait a bit, my little friend, until you are sitting by a warm fire
with a speck of whiskey inside you—eh? Come along!”
The joke was not such a bad one after all. A fire has been lighted for
worse things than for the warming of a little half-dead bird. “You’re
an ugly little beggar—yes, you are!” he said. “Now be quiet while I
light a fire with one match—one match, old man, is all that stands
between you and death—yes, death!”
To the little bird it must have been an enormous giant that placed him
so tenderly in a safe place, under the shadow of a great rock. The
little bird watched with interest the arranging of that fire: gasped
when the one match nearly went out: blinked when the flame fostered
in the hollow of a gigantic hand flared up straight and strong—and
yellow, the colour of its mother’s eyes—a colour warm, comforting,
and kind. The giant put the flame to the driftwood; it caught here,
went out there, blazed up here; the little bird squeaked. “Wait a
bit, sonny—it’ll be all right. It’s no joke dying when you’re so
young, is it? I had measles myself long ago—here—draw up to the fire,
closer—that’s right—now for a little whiskey. Like it, old man? No, no
more! True Scotsman that you are—later on, perhaps! Now go to sleep.
I’ll go and see what the others are doing—squawk if you’re frightened—I
shan’t be far off.”
It wasn’t such a bad joke after all. Bother the rain!
Meanwhile Marcus had taken all the photographs he could take and began
to find Diana’s joke—if joke it were—a poor one—and a stupid one. He
made no vow to be amused by it—no uncle would. Watkins, anxious to
help, said the only thing he could do to while away the time was to
recite and he cleared his throat.
“If you would shout instead, I should be very much obliged,” said
Marcus; “some one might hear you.”
Shouting was not at all the same thing to Watkins because it was a
thing he did with great difficulty. However, he must try and he should
be very glad if some one should chance to hear him because his landlady
never did, and she always put the blame on his voice. He asked St.
Jermyn to shout too, and St. Jermyn shouted.
“You should be a fine singer,” said Watkins, clearing his throat again.
“Think so?” asked St. Jermyn, indifferent to praise.
“_I_ do—indeed I do—don’t you?”
“Yes, _I_ do, of course.”
“You? Oh, I see you are joking.”
“I never felt less like joking—d’you know what a storm here can mean?”
“Not particularly here,” said Mr. Watkins.
“I thought not. Shout!”
Watkins shouted. Marcus stood in the fine drizzling rain peering out to
sea—and saw nothing.
Again St. Jermyn shouted.
“Be quiet!” said Watkins; his ears, attuned to the elements, he
said, were the first to hear an answering call. It was the hoot of a
steamer—at that moment of all sounds most blessed—even the voice of
Diana must have been less sweet.
“It’s a yacht,” said Marcus.
“The Scotts, I expect,” said Ralph St. Jermyn; “I told them if they
should be round here to look us up.” (What a comfortable thing it is to
have cousins who have yachts! and other things, most desirable.) “They
will find difficulty in getting a boat off—unless they can get under
the lee of the island,” he added.
Until that moment when Mrs. Scott held out two hands to Marcus to
greet him, he had never been able to excuse his want of judgment in
having allowed himself to call her beautiful. He had always felt he
had risked his reputation in so doing—his reputation as a judge of
beauty. Now as he took her hands in his he found her of all women the
most to be admired. There was something after all that was better than
beauty of line, there was charm of expression, and she was, at this
moment, perhaps, even beautiful: but he could not see because she wore
a sou’wester well pulled down over her eyes, but he could imagine the
kindness beaming from those eyes. The smile on her lips he could see,
so that if he did not stand completely exonerated he at least must be
largely excused—to a cold, wet man all women may seem beautiful.
“You dear moist things,” she said, “how did you get stranded here?”
A few minutes after they had left the island, and Marcus was being
ministered to by Mrs. Scott, Miles Hastings came in search of him. He
shouted; but there was no answer except the screeching of birds as they
flew up in their thousands at his approach. There was no sign of man.
Was this another joke?—this time a poor one—a very poor one? It had
not been Diana’s fault that the day had turned out wet; but this was
childish. He walked on and shouted again. There was still no answer.
The waves hurled themselves against the rocks, making a noise like the
booming of guns—old Watkins had said that. It was quite evident that
by some miraculous chance the others had got off the island, and had
forgotten him. He wondered that St. Jermyn had forgotten him: perhaps
he had not—that was another way of looking at it!
There was nothing to be done so he went back to the cave, where he
found that the little bird, at all events, had not forgotten him. “What
shall we do?” he asked, and the little bird said nothing—how should
he know when he had lived so short a time—and knew nothing as yet of
the division of days? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, were to him as one. He
would have no divisions between them—if he had the ordering of things.
There was one thing Hastings could always do, and that anywhere, no
matter where—think of Diana! He pulled up the collar of his coat closer
round his ears, sat down in the best shelter he could find, picked up
the little bird, told it to be good, and proceeded to think of Diana.
If she had forgotten him the situation was about as bad as it could be,
but he was convinced something must have happened—a thousand things
might have happened. The motor launch might have gone wrong—if it had,
then she might be in danger. He sprang up to look. “All right, old
chap, I won’t drop you.” He looked first one way, then another, and
in neither direction could he see anything. A veil impenetrable hung
between him and the mainland. The storm raged—more and more furiously.
He knew it must spend itself in time, it was bound to. Diana at that
moment was wondering what he was doing?
She could never have guessed that he was greatly exercised over the
feeding of his young charge with bits of sardine—meant for Marcus. That
done he was going to think about her. That he would think about her she
might have guessed—but she could hardly have guessed how tenderly he
was going to do it.