LETTERS FROM AIRLIE.
"Oh," said Coquette, as they walked along the winding path, with the
beautiful scenery of the district gradually opening up before them,
"I did get two letters for you, uncle, at Tarbert, and forgot all
about them. Here they are; shall I read them?"
The two letters which she produced from, her pocket had the Airlie
stamp on them; and Mr. Cassilis at once bade her do as she pleased.
So she broke the seal of the first, and began to read aloud:
"'Honoured Sir and master in the Lord,--I tak up my pen to let ye
know that I have been,'--what is this?" said Coquette.
The Minister took it from her, and continued himself:
"--that I have been stung. Atweel I wat no man ever heard me
complain unnecessary-wise about my poseetion in life, which I accept
with gratitude and humeelity from the Giver of all Good--to wit the
Dispenser of all Mercies at present and to come; but I maun tak the
leeberty o' saying, honoured Sir, that I cannot bide in this house
any langer to be treated worse than the beast that perisheth. From
the fingers to the elbows--and my face and neck likewise--am I
covered wi' the venomous stings o' bees, and do suffer a pain
grievous, and like unto the plagues which were put on the people of
Egypt for their sins. Honoured Sir, I canna bear wi' they callants
any longer, as I chanced upon one o' them laughing like to split, and
am aware it was a skeein to inflict this wrong and injury upon me,
which I howp will cause you to inquire into, and begging the favour
of a reply to say when ye are coming back--and what sore punishment
will be meeted out to them that richly deserve the same--I am, your
humble and obedient servant in the Lord,
"ANDREW BOGUE."
"Can it be," said the Minister, when he had read this letter aloud,
"can it be that those mischievous boys have conspired to set a lot of
bees to sting him?"
Coquette looked somewhat frightened; but the Whaup observed,
cheerfully--
"Indeed, sir, those brothers of mine are fearful. I have done my
best with them to keep them out of mischief; but it is no use. And
to go and set a bees' bike at an auld man----!"
The Whaup shook his head disconsolately. His brothers were
incorrigible--even he had been compelled to desist from his efforts
to improve them.
"Do you hear him?" said Coquette, in a low voice to Lord Earlshope.
"And it was he himself who did plan all that about the bees, and got
them, and put them in a bag."
"And then," said Earlshope, aloud, to the Whaup, "the worst of it is
that they go and blame you for what they do themselves; so that the
whole district has got to dread you, whereas you have been trying to
put down these pranks."
The Whaup turned towards Lord Earlshope, and slowly winked one of his
eyes. By this time the Minister had opened the other letter, and was
perusing it in silence. It ran as follows:--
"Dear and Reverend Sir,--It behoves me to accomplish, or in other
words to fulfil the promise which I, as an elder in your church, made
to you, on your setting forth, to make you acquaint, or familiarise
you with, the events and occurrences, the state of feeling, and
general condition of this parish. Towards yourself, their spiritual
governor, leader, and guide, the people do show themselves most loyal
and friendly, hoping you will continue your voyages abroad to the
benefiting of your health, and that you may be saved from the perils
of the waters--or, as I might have said, from the dangers that
encompass them who go down to the sea in ships. As for the young man
who is to take your pulpit, God willing, next Sabbath, report speaks
well of his forbears; but divers persons who have heard him in
Arbroath, Greenock, and elsewhere, do fear that he is not severe
enough in defining the lines and limits of doctrine, holding rather
to the admonitory side, which does not give his hearers sufficient
chance, or opportunity, to use a less pagan word, to get at his own
stand-point, which is a grave, or, it might be said with safety, a
serious matter; for whereas those ministers who have been long with
us, and who have given proofs of their doctrinal soundness, may be
permitted to deal more with reproof and exhortation, it is for the
younger generation of preachers to declare themselves clearly and
sharply, that the church universal may not be ensnared and entrapped
in the dark, there being, I grieve to hear, a dangerous leaven of
looseness in the colleges and other places where young men
congregate, or, as I might say, come together. The only news of
importance, besides this subject, which I have to communicate, is
that Pensioner Lamont did once more, on the night of Tuesday, become
most abnormal drunk, and did dance and play his fiddle in an
uproarious and godless manner in the house of Mrs. Pettigrew; and
likewise that Lauchie--who is vulgarly called Field
Lauchie--Macintyre's wife's bairn has been visited with the rash,
which I hope will be taken as a sign of the warning finger of
Providence, and cause the said Lauchie to give over, or, as I may
say, abandon, his abominable and reckless conduct of walking to the
town of Ardrossan every Sabbath day, and remaining there until the
evening, I fear in no good company. This, dear and reverend sir,
from yours to command, ÆNEAS GILLESPIE."
"Good news from Airlie?" asked Lady Drum.
"Yes--in a manner, yes," replied the Minister, with dreamy eyes. It
was a new thing for him to hear only the distant echo of his parish.
"Your boys seem to want their elder brother to control them?"
continued Lady Drum.
"Yes," said the Minister. "He prevails on them to leave the Manse
quiet when he is there, though it may be only to lead them into
greater mischief elsewhere. But they will have to look after
themselves now for the rest of the autumn and winter."
"Why?"
"Because Tom is returning to his studies at Glasgow," observed the
Minister.
Coquette had been standing to watch some water-hens which, on the
opposite bank, were scrambling about in the rushes, and she came up
only in time to hear these last words.
"You are going to Glasgow?" she said to the Whaup.
"Yes," he replied, with some gravity. "I mean to work hard this
winter."
"And you will not be at Airlie all the time?"
"Does that distress you?" he asked.
"Nobody but Leesiebess and her husband," said Coquette, wistfully.
"It will not be pleasurable--the Manse--in the dark time of the
winter, with the cold of the hill. But I am glad you do go. You
will work hard; you will forget your games of mischief; you will come
back more like a man; and when you tell me you have studied well, and
have got--what is it called?--your certification, I will come out to
meet you at the Manse, and I will have a wreath of laurel-leaves for
you, and you will be the great hero of the hour."
"It is something to look forward to," said the Whaup, almost sadly.
"And when I come back will you be just the same, Coquette?--as quiet
and happy and pretty as you always are?"
"I do not know that I am quiet, or happy, or pretty, more than any
one else," said Coquette; "but I hope I shall be always the same to
you, if you come back in one year--two years--ten years."
The Whaup did not reply to that, but he said to himself: "_If she
would only wait two years! In two years' time I should have worked
to some purpose, and I would come home and ask her to marry me._"
All the rest of their walk along the pretty and picturesque bank he
was restless and impatient in manner--speaking to nobody, thinking
much. He cut with his stick at the rushes in the water or at the
twigs of the hedge, as if they were the obstacles that lay in his way
towards the beautiful goal he was dreaming of. At last he got into
the yacht again and went below. When the others followed, some time
after, they found him busy with his books.
Coquette went to him and said:
"Why do you read? Have I offended you? Are you angry with me?"
"No, no," he said, rising and going away; "you are a deal too kind
towards me, and towards all those people who don't understand how
good you are."
Coquette stood by in blank astonishment; she let him pass her and go
up on deck without uttering a word.
By this time the _Caroline_ was lying at anchor in Loch Crinan, and
the afternoon was drawing on apace. The day had dulled somewhat, and
far out among the western isles that lay along the horizon there was
a faint, still mist that made them shadowy and vague. Nevertheless,
the Whaup would have the skipper give him the pinnace for a run out
in quest of the guillemot plumage that Coquette had desired; and
when, indeed, that young lady appeared on deck, she beheld the tiny
boat, with its spritsail catching a light breeze, running far out
beyond the sharp island-rocks that crowd the entrance to the natural
harbour.
"It is so small a boat to go out to sea," she said to Lord Earlshope,
who was following the pinnace with his glass.
Meanwhile, the Whaup had stationed himself at the prow of the small
craft, steadying himself with his gun as she began to dip to the
waves; while all in front and around there opened out the great
panorama of lochs and islands, between Luing and Scarba on the north,
and the three dusky peaks of Jura in the south. The gloomy Sound of
Corrievreckan was steeped in mist; and Dubhchamus Point was scarcely
visible; but nearer at hand, in the middle of the grey and desolate
sea, lay Maoile Rock, and Ris an Valle, with Ruisker and the Ledge
apparently under the shadow of the Paps. The bright little boat,
despite her ballast and her cargo, went lightly as a feather over the
waves; and the Whaup kept his eyes alert. There were plenty of birds
about--the solitary solan poised high in the air--the heron calling
from out of the twilight that hung over the distant shores--gulls of
every description, from the pretty kittiwake to the great
black-winged depredator--but in vain he scanned the heaving plain of
waves for the special object of his quest. At last, however, they
heard the cry of the divers down in the south, and thither the small
boat was directed. The sound came nearer and nearer--apparently
there were dozens or hundreds of them all about--yet no feather of
one of them could be seen. Then there was a swift rustle out beyond
the boat--a dark moving line, rapidly crossing the waves--and the
pink flame leapt from the two barrels of the Whaup's gun. The
pinnace was put about, and run towards a certain dark speck that was
seen floating on the waves; while at the same moment over all the
west there broke a great and sudden fire of yellow--streaming down
from the riven clouds upon the dusky grey of the sea. In this wild
light the islands grew both dark and distant; and near at hand there
was a glare on the water that dazzled the eyes and made all things
look fantastic and strange. It lasted but for a moment. The clouds
slowly closed again; the west grew grey and cold; over all the sea
there fell the leaden-hued twilight; while the bow of the boat--going
this way and that in search of the dead bird--seemed to move forward
into the waste of waters like the nose of a retriever.
They picked up the bird--there was but one. The Whaup was not
satisfied. They could still hear the distant calling, and so they
stood out a bit farther to sea--none of them, perhaps, noticing how
rapidly the darkness was descending.
"There is a squall coming," said the man at the tiller, looking far
down into the south-west.
The Whaup saw nothing but a strangely black line along the misty
horizon--a line of deep purple. He was unwilling to go back then.
Besides, both sea and sky were sufficiently calm; and the coming
breeze would just suffice to run them into Loch Crinan.
"We had better make for the yacht, sir," said the man nearest him.
"It looks bad down there."
Unwilling as he was to give up, the Whaup perceived that the thin
line of black had become a broader band. He was still looking far
over the mystic plain of the waves towards that lurid streak, when he
seemed to hear an unfamiliar sound in the air. It was not a distant
sound, but apparently a muttering as of voices all around and in
front, hoarse, and low, and ominous. And while he still stood
watching, with a curiosity which dulled all sense of fear, the slow
widening of the blackness across the sea, a puff of wind smote his
cheek, and brought the message that those troubled voices of the
waves were deepening into a roar. Near the boat the sea was
comparatively calm, and the darkening sky was quite still; but it
appeared as though a great circle were inclosing them, and that the
advancing line of storm could be heard raging in the darkness without
being itself visible. In the intense stillness that reigned around
them, this great hoarse, deepening tumult of sounds found a strange
echo; and then, while the men were making ready for the squall, the
water in the immediate neighbourhood became powerfully agitated--a
hissing of breaking waves was heard all around--then the first blow
of the wind struck the boat as if with a hammer.
By this time the sail had been brailed up; and the tempest that now
came roaring along the black surface of the sea smote nothing but
spars and oars as it hurried the pinnace along with it. Running
before the wind, and plunging into the great hollows of the waves,
that seemed to be racing towards the shore, the light boat shipped
but little water, except when a gust of wind drove the crest of a
breaking wave across the rowers; but there came torrents of rain
sweeping along with the gale; and presently they found themselves
shut out from sight of land by the driving clouds. The Whaup still
kept outlook at the bow; but he had long ago laid aside his gun.
It was now a question of making the entrance to the loch without
running on the rocks with which it is studded; and as the boat rose
and sank with the waves, and reeled and staggered under the tearing
wind, the Whaup, dashing back the salt water from his eyes and mouth,
and holding on to the prow, peered into the wild gloom ahead, and was
near shouting joyously aloud from the mere excitement and mildness of
the chase. It was a race with the waves; and the pinnace rolled and
staggered down in a drunken fashion into huge black depths only to
rise clear again on the hissing masses of foam; while wind and water
alike--the black and riven sky, the plunging and foaming sea, and the
great roaring gusts of the gale that came tearing up from the
south--seemed sweeping onward for those dusky and jagged points which
formed the nearest line of land.
Coquette was standing on deck, her one small hand clinging to the
cold steel shrouds, while her face, terror-stricken and anxious, was
fixed on the blackness of the storm that raged outside the troubled
stillness of the harbour. Lord Earlshope begged her to go below from
the fierce torrents of the rain; and when she paid no heed to him, he
brought a heavy mantle, and covered her with it from head to foot.
She spoke not a word; and only trembled slightly when the wind came
in with a fierce cry from that angry warring of the elements that was
going on beyond the islands.
The darkness fell fast; and yet as far as they could see there was no
speck of a boat coming in from the wild and moving waste of grey. To
the girl standing there and gazing out, it appeared as though the
horizon of the other world--that mystic margin on which, in calmer
moments, we seem to see the phantoms of those who have been taken
from us passing in a mournful procession, speechless and cold-eyed,
giving to us no sign of recognition--had come close and near, and
might have withdrawn behind its shadowy folds all the traces of life
which the sea held. Could it be that the black pall of death had
fallen just beyond those gloomy islands, and hidden for ever from
mortal eyes that handful of anxious men who had lately been
struggling towards the shore? Was the bright young existence she had
grown familiar with, and almost learned to love, now snatched away
without one mute pressure of the hand to say farewell? She stood
there as if in a dream; and the things that passed before her eyes
had become spectral and ghastly. She scarcely knew that she heard
voices. She clung to the steel ropes--there was something like a
faint "hurrah!" wafted in with the tumult of the sea--there was the
vision of a face gleaming red and joyous with the salt spray and the
rain--and then she knew that she was sinking, with a sound as of the
sea closing over her head.