Produced by Al Haines.
DONALD ROSS OF HEIMRA
BY
WILLIAM BLACK
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. III.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY
_LIMITED,_
St. Dunstan's House,
FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1891.
[_All rights reserved._]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
I. Smoke and Flame
II. A Summons
III. A Forecast
IV. Slow but Sure
V. A Pious Pilgrimage
VI. Habet!
VII. "'Twas when the Seas were roaring"
VIII. A Mission
IX. The Banabhard
DONALD ROSS OF HEIMRA.
CHAPTER I.
SMOKE AND FLAME.
But that was not at all the view that Fred Stanley took of this amazing
and incomprehensible incident.
"There's some trick in it, Frank," he said vehemently, as he hurried his
friend along with him, on their way back to the house. "There's some
underhand trick in it, and I want to know what it means. I tell you, we
must get the keepers, and go up the hill at once, and see what is going
on. There's something at the bottom of all this jugglery."
"Jugglery or no jugglery," his companion said, with much good-humour,
"it has come in very handy. If a riot had been started, who knows what
the end might have been? It wasn't the raid into the Glen Orme forest
that concerned me, nor yet the driving of the sheep off Meall-na-Fearn;
but I confess I was anxious about your sister. If she had been
denounced before an angry and excited meeting----"
"Oh, we should have been able to take care of ourselves!" the younger
man said, dismissing that matter contemptuously.
"And if it was Ross of Heimra who stepped in to prevent all this,"
Meredyth continued, "I, for one, am very much obliged to him."
"Oh, don't be an ass, Frank!" the other said, with angry impatience.
"If it is Donald Ross who has done all this, I'll swear he has done it
for his own purposes. And I want to know. I want to find out. I want
to see what the trick means. And of one thing I am absolutely certain,
and that is, that Donald Ross is up on the moor at this very moment. Oh,
yes," the young man went on, seeing that his wild suspicions received no
encouragement from his more cautious companion, "a fine stratagem, to
keep us idling and kicking our heels about here all the morning--and on
the Twelfth, too! I thought it was odd that the meeting should be fixed
for the Twelfth; but now I begin to see. Now I begin to understand why
Donald Ross came over from Heimra yesterday afternoon."
"Well, what do you imagine?" Meredyth asked.
"Why, it's as clear as daylight!" the younger man exclaimed--jumping
from vague surmises to definite conclusions. "Here have we been hanging
about all the morning, like a couple of simpletons, waiting for a
general riot or some nonsense of that kind, while Ross and his gang of
poachers have been up on the moor, sweeping the best beats clean of
every bird! That has been the little programme!--and a fine consignment
of game to be sent away to Inverness to-night, as soon as the dark comes
down. But they may not be off the hill yet; and we'll hurry up Hector
and Hugh, and have a look round." And then he added, vindictively: "I'd
let the Twelfth go--I shouldn't mind a bit having had the Twelfth
spoilt--if only I could catch those scoundrels--and the chief of
them--red-handed."
"All I have to say is," observed the more phlegmatic Meredyth, "that if
we are going up the hill we may as well take our guns with us and a
brace of dogs. We can have an hour or two. The fag-end of the Twelfth
is better than no Twelfth; and your sister says she wants some birds."
"Birds?" the other repeated. "What do you expect to find on the ground
after those poaching thieves have been over it?"
However, in the end he consented; and as they found that
Hector--undisturbed by all those alarming rumours of riot and
pillage--had kept everything in readiness for them, the two young men
snatched a hasty sandwich and set forth. It was not a very eager
shooting party. There was a sensation that the great possibilities of
the Twelfth had been ruined for them. Nevertheless, there would be some
occupation for the afternoon, and the mistress of the household wanted
some grouse.
But, indeed, it soon became evident that it was not shooting that was
uppermost in Fred Stanley's mind. He overruled Hector's plan for taking
the nearest beats. He would have his companions hold away up the Corrie
Bhreag, which leads to the Glen Orme forest; and ever he was making for
the higher ranges--scanning the ground far ahead of him, and listening
intently in the strange silence; while he was clearly unwilling to have
the dogs uncoupled.
"Look here, man," at length said Meredyth, who, though new to the place,
had a trained eye for the features of a moor; "surely we have come down
wind far enough? It will take us all our time to get back before
dinner, even if we pick the beats on the way home----"
The answer was unexpected--a half-smothered exclamation of mingled anger
and triumph.
"Didn't I tell you so?" young Stanley exclaimed, with his eyes fixed on
a small, dark object a long distance up the glen. "Didn't I tell you we
should find him here? Don't you see him--away up yonder? My lad, when
you come poaching, you shouldn't put on sailor's clothes; they're too
conspicuous. What do you say, Hector: can you make him out? Well,
whether you can or not, I will tell you his name. That is Mr. Donald
Ross, if you want to know--and I guessed we should find him here or
hereabouts!"
"I am not sure," said Hector, slowly, also with his eyes fixed on the
distant and dark figure.
"But I am!" Fred Stanley went on. "And perhaps you can tell me what he
is doing up on our shooting?"
"Mebbe," said the serious-visaged keeper, with a little hesitation,
"mebbe he was waiting to see that none of the lads would be for going
into the forest. Or mebbe he was up at Glen Orme."
"Oh, stuff and nonsense!" the young man cried, scornfully. "Do you
think we are children! I tell you, we have caught him at last; and
wherever the rest of the gang have sneaked off to, he is bound to come
along here and face it out. Yes, he is coming: I can see he is moving
this way. Very well, Frank, you have the dogs uncoupled now, and begin
to shoot back home: I'm going to meet my gentleman--and I will take my
gun with me, just to keep a wholesome check on insolence."
"You will not," said Meredyth, with decision--for he knew not whither
this young man's obvious wrath and enmity might not lead him. "I will
wait here with you: whoever that is, he is clearly coming this way."
"Why, of course he must!" was the rejoinder. "He sees he is caught:
what else is there left for him but to come along and try to put some
kind of face on it?" Then presently he exclaimed: "Well, of all the
effrontry that I ever beheld! He is carrying a gun under his
arm!--how's that for coolness?"
"I am not thinking it is a gun, sir," said the tall, brown-bearded
keeper; "it is more like a steeck."
"Yes, it is a stick, Fred," Meredyth put in, after a moment.
"Oh, why should he have a gun? What does he want with a gun?" the young
man said, without being disconcerted for a moment. "He has only to
direct the operations of his confederates. A stick?--very likely!--the
master-poacher doesn't want to be encumbered with a gun!"
And so they waited. It was a singular scene for the Twelfth of August
on the side of a Highland hill: no ranging of dogs, no cracking of
breechloaders, no picking up of a bird here and there from the thick
heather, but a small group, standing silent and constrained, and dimly
aware that pent-up human passions were about to burst forth amid these
vast and impressive solitudes. Young Ross of Heimra--for it was
unmistakably he--came leisurely along; his attention was evidently fixed
on the sportsmen; perhaps he was wondering that they did not let loose
the dogs and get to work. But as he drew nearer he must have perceived
that they were awaiting his approach; and so--with something of
interrogation and surprise in his look--he came up to them.
"I hope you have had good sport," said Fred Stanley.
Donald Ross stared: there was something in the young man's tone that
seemed to strike him.
"I--I don't quite understand," said he.
"Oh, well, it's only this," replied the other, striving to keep down his
rising rage, and speaking in a deliberately taunting fashion, "that when
you find anyone on a Highland moor on the Twelfth of August you
naturally suppose that he has come for grouse. And why not? I am sorry
we have interrupted you. When you have the fishing and the stalking,
why shouldn't you have the shooting as well? I am sorry if we have
disturbed you----"
They formed a curious contrast, those two: the tall, handsome,
light-haired youth, with his fair complexion and his boyish moustache
causing him to look almost effeminate, and yet with his nostrils
dilated, his haughty grey eyes glistening with anger, a tremor of
passion about the lines of his lips; the other, though hardly so tall,
of more manly presence, his pale, proud, clear-cut features entirely
reticent, his coal-black eyes, so far, without flame in them, an
absolute self-possession and dignity governing his manner.
"I hardly know what you mean," said he, slowly, fixing those calmly
observant black eyes on the young lad. "What is it all about? Do I
understand you to accuse me of shooting over your moor--here--now?--do
you imagine----"
"Oh, it isn't that only!--it is half-a-dozen things besides!" the young
man exclaimed, letting his passion get entirely the mastery of him.
"Who has this place? Not those who bought it! It is you who have the
shooting and fishing and everything; and not content with that but you
play dog-in-the-manger as well--heaving stones into the pools when
anyone else goes down to the river. And who does the scringeing about
here?--answer me that!--do you think we don't know well enough? Let us
have an end of hypocrisy----"
"Let us have an end of madness!" said Donald Ross, sternly; and for a
second there was a gleam of fire in his black eyes. But that sudden
flame, and a certain set expression of the mouth, almost instantly
vanished; this young fellow, with the girlish complexion, was even now
so curiously like his sister. "I do not answer you," Donald Ross went
on, with a demeanour at once simple and austere. "You have chosen to
insult me. I do not answer you. You are in my country: it is the same
as if you were under my roof."
"Your country!" the hot-headed young man cried, in open scorn, "What
part of the country belongs to you! That rock of an island out
there!--and I wish you would keep to it; and you'd better keep to it;
for we don't mean to have this kind of thing going on any longer. We
mean to have an end of all this scringeing and poaching! We have been
precious near getting hold of those scringe-nets: we'll make sure of
them the next time. And I want once for all to tell you that we mean to
have the fishing for ourselves, and the shooting, too; and we want you
to understand that there is such a thing as the law of trespass. What
right have you to be here, at this moment, on this moor?" he demanded.
"How can you explain your being here? What are you doing here--on the
Twelfth? Do you know to whom this moor belongs? And by what right do
you trespass on it?"
"Fred," interposed Frank Meredyth, who was painfully conscious that the
two keepers--though they had discreetly turned away--must be hearing
something of this one-sided altercation, "enough of this: if there is
any dispute, it can be settled another time--not before third persons."
"One moment," said Donald Ross, turning with a grave courtesy to this
intervener. "You have heard the questions I have just been asked. Well,
I do not choose to account for my actions to any one. But this I wish
to explain. I have no right to be where I am, I admit; I have
trespassed some dozen yards on to this moor, in order to come up and
speak to you. When you saw me first I was on the old footpath--there it
is, you can see for yourself--that leads up this corrie, and through the
Glen Orme forest to Ledmore; it is an old hill road that everyone has
the right of using."
"Oh, yes, thieves' lawyers are always clever enough!" Fred Stanley said,
disdainfully.
Donald Ross regarded him for a moment--with a strange kind of look, and
that not of anger: then he quietly said, "Good afternoon!" to Meredyth,
and went on his way. Hector got out of the prevailing embarrassment by
uncoupling the dogs; and Frank Meredyth put cartridges in his gun. This
encounter did not augur well for steady shooting.
Meanwhile Donald Ross was making down for the coast, slowly and
thoughtfully. What had happened had been a matter of a few swift
seconds; it had now to be set in order and considered; the scene had to
be conjured up again--with all its minute but vivid incidents. And no
longer was there any need for him to affect a calm and proud
indifference; phrases that he had seemed to pass unheeded began to burn;
the rapid glances and tones of those brief moments, now that they were
recalled, struck deep. Indeed, the first effect of a blow is but to
stun and bewilder--the pain comes afterwards; and there are words that
cause more deadly wounds than any blows. Taunt and insult: these are
hard things for a Highlander to brook--and yet--and yet--that handsome,
headstrong boy, even in the white-heat of his passion, had looked so
curiously like his sister.
"Ah, well," said Ross, aloud, and there was a kind of smile on his face,
"it is, perhaps, a wholesome lesson. Hereafter I'd better mind my own
business. And if I have been ordered off the mainland--sent back to my
little island--very well: the sea-gulls and gannets won't accuse me of
trespass."
In time he drew near the village. But as he went down the hill from
Minard, and had to pass Lochgarra House, he did not turn his eyes in
that direction. He held straight on; and at length encountered a small
boy who had just been engaged in hauling a dinghy up on the beach.
"Alan," said he, "have you seen Big Archie anywhere about?"
"Ay," said the boy, "he was at the inn to look at the people driving
aweh."
"What people? The strangers who were at the church this morning?"
"Ay, chist that. There was many a one laughing at them," said Alan,
with a bit of a grin.
"Well, run along now, and see if you can find Big Archie, and tell him I
am going out to Heimra. Then you can come back with him, and pull us
out to the lugger."
And away went Alan, with a will, eager to earn the sixpence that he
foresaw awaiting his return, while the young laird of Heimra, having
nothing else to do until Big Archie should put in an appearance, seated
himself on the gunwale of the dinghy, with his eyes turned towards the
sea. Not once had he glanced in the direction of Lochgarra House.
But Lochgarra House had taken notice of him. Mary Stanley chanced to be
passing one of the windows, when of a sudden her face grew animated, and
her eyes--those liquid grey-green eyes that were at all times so clear
and radiant--those bland, good-humoured, kind eyes--shone with a quick
interest and delight.
"Kaethchen! Kaethchen!" she called. "There is Mr. Ross just gone
by--tell Barbara to run after him--quick! quick!--and--and my
compliments--and I want to see him most particularly. He must not go
out to Heimra before I have seen him--tell her not to lose a minute--I'm
afraid he may be going along now to get Big Archie's boat."
But at such a crisis Kate Glendinning did not choose to wait for any
servant. She flew into the hall, snatched a straw hat from the table,
tripped down the wide stone steps, and made her way as quickly as might
be round the sea-wall and along the beach. He did not hear her
approach; he seem plunged in a profound reverie.
"Mr. Ross!" she said, rather breathlessly and timidly, to attract his
attention.
He started to his feet; and, when he saw who this was, his naturally
pale, dark face grew suddenly suffused--an almost school-boyish
constraint visible there for a moment! Kaethchen was surprised; but she
made haste to deliver Miss Stanley's message.
"She happened to see you from the window; and she is most anxious you
should not go back to Heimra before she has a chance of thanking you for
your great kindness. For she quite understands it was you who prevented
all the mischief that might have arisen from those people coming here;
and she is very grateful; and wishes to say so to yourself. And I was to
give you her compliments, and say that she wished particularly to see
you--if you wouldn't mind coming along for a few moments."
This time he did throw a brief glance in the direction of Lochgarra
House--perhaps thinking of what otherwise might have been. But now, how
could he ever again be under that roof?
"Will you tell Miss Stanley," said he--and though that temporary
confusion had gone, there was still a curious reserve in his
manner--"that I am very glad if I have been of any service to her--very
glad that she should think so, I mean; but it isn't worth speaking
about; and she must not say anything more about it."
"But she wishes to see you!" exclaimed Kaethchen, who naturally had
expected an instant acquiescence. "Surely she is the best judge as to
whether she ought to thank you, or not. And that was the message I was
to take to you, that she wished most particularly to see you, before you
went out to Heimra. A few moments only--she will not detain you----"
"If you will excuse me, I would rather not go along," said he, looking
uneasily towards the cottages and the inn. "I have just sent for Big
Archie."
Kaethchen was astounded. What kind of a young man was this, to refuse
the invitation of a beautiful young woman--one, indeed, who had shown
herself singularly interested in him, even as he had gone out of his way
to render friendly little services to her? Kaethchen's secret
conjectures, founded on what she had recently observed as between these
two, seemed to have been suddenly and rudely stultified. What was the
key to this enigma? Jealousy? Was it the presence of Frank Meredyth
that interposed? Would he decline to visit the house until that
possible rival had been removed? She could not understand; she was
bewildered; but still she had her commission to execute; and the
faithful Kate was staunch.
"Miss Stanley will be disappointed," said she. "She is most anxious to
see you. A couple of minutes would be enough. And surely you could let
Big Archie wait."
"Thank you," said he--and it was clear that it was with the greatest
reluctance he was forcing himself to refuse--"but I would rather not. I
am very sensible of Miss Stanley's kindness; but--but she must not make
too much of this trifling thing."
Kaethchen paused irresolute. But, after all, she had no more to say.
She could not appeal to him, she could not beg of him, as a favour, to
accept Miss Stanley's invitation: Kaethchen also had a little pride; so
she civilly bade him good afternoon, and hoped he would have a pleasant
voyage home; and set out on her way back to the house.
"Well?" said Mary, when Kaethchen came into the room. But she had
already seen, from the window, that her messenger was returning alone.
"Oh," said Kaethchen, in an indifferent sort of fashion--and she began
to gather up some samples of homespun that were strewn on the table--"he
says he is going out to Heimra at once. He has sent for Big Archie. He
says--he says--that he is glad if he has rendered you any little
service--but you are not to think of it."
Mary's eyes had grown full of wonder. For out of these windows she
could plainly see that he was still waiting on the beach: the fact being
that the boy Alan had failed to find Big Archie at the inn, and had gone
off to seek him throughout the cottages.
"But did you tell Mr. Ross that I wished to speak with him?" she asked.
"I said that you most particularly wished to speak with him."
"Yes--and then?"
"Then he--he begged to be excused," said Kaethchen, bluntly.
Mary turned sharply away from the window, and for a second or two she
was silent.
"Why did you say 'most particularly'? What right had you to give him any
such message?" she demanded, with something of a cold and dignified air,
but not looking towards Kaethchen.
"Those were your very words, Mamie!" Kaethchen protested.
"I may have said something like that--in the hurry of calling to you,"
Mary said, with flushed face. "But you ought to have known. You might
have known it was not a message I wanted given to anyone--not to anyone.
However, it is of little consequence." She advanced to the table--her
head somewhat erect. "I suppose," she said, in a matter-of-fact way,
"you will be writing about those samples to the Frasers, in Inverness?"
"Yes, Mamie--you told me to."
"Very well," she continued, still with that air of unconcern; "you might
say to them at the same time that we can get patchwork quilts made for
them at from ten to twelve shillings the piece, if they send us the
materials. That is the price I promised to the women here. And if they
prefer the stockings made longer, I will have them made longer; only
they must give me a little more for them--there is so much more wool and
so much more work."
She glanced furtively over her shoulder: it was only now that Big Archie
had made his appearance--coming down the beach to the spot at which
young Ross was idly walking about.
"Kaethchen," she said of a sudden, with something of piteous vexation in
her tone, "are you certain you said 'most particularly'?--are you quite
certain?--I--I did not mean it--I was in a hurry--you did not say 'most
particularly,' did you? At the same time," she went on, with an abrupt
affectation of carelessness, "it is of very little consequence--no
consequence whatever: the only thing is that the Highlanders appear to
have odd manners--and that again, as I say, is a matter of perfect
indifference. Don't forget to mention the patchwork quilts and the
stockings."
But Kate Glendinning rose and went to the window. By this time Donald
Ross, Big Archie, and the young lad were all in the dinghy, on their way
out to the lugger.
"There is something strange, Mamie," Kaethchen said, thoughtfully. "I
cannot imagine what made him refuse to come along to this house--and
refuse with such embarrassment. And these are not Highland manners at
all. But sometimes a Highlander is too proud to speak."
They were soon to learn what all this meant. When the two young men
returned from their afternoon expedition, it appeared that they had got
thirteen and a half brace of grouse, and a few odds and ends--a very
fair bag, considering the size of the moor and the length of time they
had been out. But it was not the success of the shooting that caused
Fred Stanley to come into the drawing-room with something of a gay and
triumphant air.
"Well, we have caught your poaching friend at last," he said to his
sister, "and I think we have sent him home with a flea in his ear. I
knew we should corner him sooner or later, in spite of his cunning. And
a very pretty trick it was--to plan this insurrectionary meeting for the
Twelfth, so that we should be kept away from the hill, keepers and all.
But it didn't work, you see; for we lost no time in getting up to the
Corrie Bhreag, and there he was, sure enough. And very little he had to
say for himself--not a word!--but I had something to say to him; and I
don't think we shall be troubled with his presence about Lochgarra for
some little time to come."
"Are you speaking of Mr. Ross?" said Mary, with a certain calmness of
manner that did not quite conceal her alarm.
"I should think I was!"
"And what did you find him doing?"
"I found him on the moor--where he had no right to be; and if the rest
of the gang managed to hide themselves or to get safe away, well, I did
not care much about that; he was there to answer for them; and so we had
it out. Yes, I may say we had it out."
Mary turned to Frank Meredyth.
"Mr. Meredyth, what is all this about? What happened? Did you find Mr.
Ross shooting on the moor?"
"Well, no," said Meredyth, with something of disquiet, for he was now
placed in a most unenviable position. "The fact is, it would be
difficult to bring any definite charge against him; for he was coming
down from the direction of the Glen Orme forest, and when we first saw
him he was following an old hill-path that everybody has the right to
use--so he says. No, he wasn't shooting--not then, certainly; nor did we
see any one with him: but as regards Fred's suspicions--well, you know,
I have said before, that when you imagine there is poaching going on,
you see it in every circumstance."
"What was he doing up there at all?" the younger man broke in. "Why, he
had no defence to make. He had not a word to say for himself. It's all
very well to be high and mighty: you won't account for your actions to
any body--no, of course not, when you can't without convicting
yourself!"
"I suppose he had a gun with him?" said she, still addressing Frank
Meredyth.
"Well, no; he had not," Meredyth confessed, looking somewhat anxious and
disconcerted.
"A game-bag, at least? and a dog?" she went on; "or something that
entitled you to suspect him?"
"Oh, no, not at all. The truth is, he was simply coming down the
strath, and he had nothing under his arm but a walking-stick."
"Oh, indeed," said she; and she drew herself up a little proudly. "Very
well. You meet a stranger--no, not a stranger--but one of my friends,
whom you have seen under my roof, and he is walking along a public
footpath carrying a stick in his hand. Well, and then? I want to know
what happens then?"
Meredyth was grievously embarrassed.
"I am afraid there were a few hard words said--and--and I must say for
Mr. Ross that he showed great forbearance and self-control. Yes, I must
admit that; and also that Fred was rather too--too outspoken. I must
say I rather admired Mr. Ross because of his composure; for, indeed, I
thought at one time--well, it was a very awkward meeting. When there is
bad blood, you see--when one suspects poaching--everything points that
way."
"Oh, I am responsible for everything that occurred!" Fred Stanley broke
in again, impetuously. "Meredyth had nothing to do with it--nothing at
all! And I tell you I spoke plainly. I thought the time for pretence
and hypocrisy had gone by; I thought it was time my gentleman-poacher
should understand we weren't going to be made fools of any longer. Oh, I
spoke plainly enough, if that is what you want to find out!" continued
this confident lad, who seemed to be rather vain of his achievement. "I
told him we had had quite enough of him about Lochgarra--quite enough of
him, and his scringe-nets, and his thieving of salmon, and heaving of
stones into the pools. I told him we wanted this place to ourselves
now. I recommended him to keep to that small island out there----"
"It is infamous--it is shameless!" said Mary Stanley--and the beautiful,
proud face had grown suddenly pale, and there was a curious indignant
vibration in her voice. "Do you know what that man has done for me,
this very day? What does he value most in the world--what remains to
him of all the possessions which his family used to hold--what but the
devotion and affection with which these people about here regard him?
And he risked it all--for my sake! He took my side--against his own
people! They were appealed to by everything that could tempt them; and
they had been taught to regard me as their enemy; and who knows what
might have happened if he had not stepped in, and confronted them, and
said--'No.' He has forgiven the injuries, the irreparable injuries, my
family have done him and his; he has met me with friendliness at every
turn--and always keeping out of the way and claiming no thanks for it;
and now the return he gets is--insult!--and insult that he would scorn
to answer." She went on, with increasing indignation: "Shooting and
fishing! What do I care for the shooting and fishing! I would rather
have every fish in the river and every bird on the hill destroyed than
that the disgrace of such ingratitude should have fallen on this house!"
She paused--hesitated--her lips began to quiver. "I--I beg your pardon,
Mr. Meredyth--I am sorry you should have met with any annoyance to-day."
And the next second, and in despite of herself, she had burst into a
passionate fit of weeping; while with the proud head bent, her
handkerchief covering her eyes, and her frame shaken with sobbing, she
left the room. Instantly Kaethchen went with her--leaving silence
behind.
It was about half an hour thereafter that the dinner-gong sounded upward
from the big, empty, echoing hall. Kaethchen came down to the
drawing-room.
"Miss Stanley would rather that you did not wait for her," said she to
the two gentlemen. And therewith Kaethchen also withdrew.