Chapter X: Arrochar

The Clyde is not, except in the neighbourhood of Lanark, a particularly interesting river. When Scotchmen talk of the scenery of the Clyde they are thinking, not of the river, but of the frith which bears its name. When Alec Lindsay set out for Arrochar to enter upon his duties as tutor to Mr. Fraser’s boys, he embarked at Glasgow; and he was much disappointed to find that for the first part of his journey there was little to satisfy his love of the picturesque.

The day was gloomy; there were but few passengers on board the _Chancellor_. For a long way the narrow stream flowed between dull level fields. When it became broader there appeared a long dyke adorned with red posts surmounted by barrels, built in the channel to mark the passage. This did not add to the beauty of the scene. Now and then the steamer met one of her own class on its homeward journey; sometimes she overtook a queer, melancholy-looking, floating dredger, or a vessel outward-bound, towed by a small and abominably dirty tug-boat.

But about twenty miles below Glasgow the scene changed. A wide expanse of water stretched away to the horizon. On the left lay a large town over which hung a dense cloud of smoke, but away to the west, beyond the blue water, could be seen the bold bases of steep hills rising from the sea itself, their summits being hidden in the clouds. At Greenock all was life and bustle. Several steamers plying to different points of the coast lay at the pier, and a crowd of passengers who had come by train from Glasgow streamed down from the railway-station to meet them.

Alec stood on the bridge watching them with considerable amusement. Here was a group of elderly maiden ladies, sisters probably, to whom their month ‘at the salt water’ was the great event of the year. After much debate they had decided to go to Kilcreggan this year, instead of to Rothesay. Each carried an armful of wraps, small baskets, and brown-paper parcels, and each rushed to a separate steamer, as if thinking it more desirable that one at least should be right than that all should be wrong. Each appealed excitedly to a porter for directions, and eventually all assembled at the gangway of the proper steamer. But the combined evidence of the porters was insufficient. Each of the three travellers made a separate demand, one on the master, another on the chief officer, and a third upon the steward, in order to know whether the steamer was really going to Kilcreggan. At last they were satisfied, settled themselves with their belongings in a sheltered corner, and began to eat Abernethy biscuits.

Then came a whole family--an anxious mother, an aunt more anxious than the mother, two servants, and six children, who were running in different ways at once, and had to be manœuvred on board like so many young pigs. As soon as they were shipped, two of them immediately made for the engine-room, while the others rushed to the bulwarks, and craned their necks over the side as far as they possibly could without losing their balance.

In one corner was a little band of rosy school-girls in tweed frocks and straw hats, cumbered with a collection of novels, tennis-bats, and fishing-rods. Here and there were one or two gigantic Celts returning to the hill country, while a few pale-faced young men stepped on board with knapsacks on their shoulders. But the male passengers were few at this hour of the day. A few hours later the steamers would be black with men leaving the roar and worry of the city to sleep under the shadow of the hills.

At length the bells clanged for the last time; the gangways were pushed on shore; the old lady who always delays her departure till that period made her appearance, and was somehow hoisted on board; the escape-pipes ceased their roaring; and one after another the steamers glided off upon the bosom of the frith.

And now, suddenly, the sun shone out, showing that the sea was not a level plain of water, but covered with a million dancing wavelets. The sunshine travelled westward over the sea, and Alec followed it with his eyes. It rested on the distant hills, and then the haze that covered them melted away, and they revealed themselves, dim in outline, violet-coloured, magnified in the mist. As the steamer drew nearer them it became plain that the nearer hills were much lower than those beyond, and that many of them were covered with pines up to a certain height. Above the woods they were often black--that was where the old heather had been burnt to make room for the young shoots, or light brown--that was where masses of last year’s bracken lay; sometimes they were white with glistening rocks, or green from never-failing springs.

And now it could be seen that between the woods and the seashore ran a white road, and that the coast was dotted for miles with houses, of all shapes and sizes, each standing in its own ground, and sheltered by its own green leaves. There was no town anywhere--nothing approaching to one; but every three or four miles a few houses were built in a little row, affording accommodation for a grocer’s and a baker’s shop; and opposite the shops there was invariably a white wooden pier, affording an outlet to the rest of the world.

Soon after crossing the frith, the _Chancellor_ made for one of these landing-places. Round the pier there swarmed half a dozen pleasure-boats of all sizes, some the merest cockleshells, navigated (not unskilfully) by mariners who were barely big enough to make the oars move through the water.

The rocky shore was adorned with groups of girls who were drying their hair after their morning’s dip in the sea, and dividing their attention between their novels, their little brothers in the boats just mentioned, and the approaching steamer. The water being deep close to the edge of the rocky coast, the pier was a very short one; and Alec Lindsay, looking over the edge, through the green water swirling round the piles of the pier, could see the pebbles on the shore twenty feet below.

Ropes were thrown out and caught, and hawsers were dragged ashore by their aid. With these the steamer was made fast at stem and stern, gangways were run on board, and a score of passengers disembarked. In another minute the steamer had been cast loose and had gone on her way. The pier, the pleasure-boats, the girls on the rocks, the white dusty road, the hedges of fuchsia, had disappeared. In a quarter of an hour another pier had been reached where exactly the same scene presented itself. No town, no promenade, no large hotels--not even a row of public bathing-machines, or a German band.

After three or four stoppages the _Chancellor_ began to get fairly into Loch Long. The hills on either side were not high, and were covered only with grass and heather; but they had, nevertheless, a certain quiet beauty. It seemed as if they made a world of their own, and as if they were contemptuously indifferent to the foolish beings who came among them for an hour in their impudent, puffing steamer, and were gone like a cloud. Right in front was one bold eminence, perhaps a thousand or twelve hundred feet high, which divided the waters of the upper part of Loch Long from those of Loch Goil on the west. Gazing at its weather-beaten rocks and its sketches of silent moorland, one could hardly help tasting that renovating draught--the sense that one has reached a place where man is as nothing, a sphere which is but nominally under his sway, where he comes and goes, but leaves behind him no mark upon the face of nature.

Leaving this eminence upon the left, the channel became narrower, and the inlet seemed to be completely land-locked. In front the nearer hills seemed to lie one behind another, fold upon fold, while beyond some much loftier peaks raised their blue summits to heaven. Alec Lindsay never tired of gazing on them. If he turned away his eyes, it was that he might refresh them with a change of scene--the low green rock, the salt water washing the white stones under the heather on the hillside, the tiny rainbow in the foam of the paddle-wheels--and return with new desire to the sight of the everlasting hills. Strange, he thought to himself, as he gazed on the shadow of a cloud passing like a spirit over a lonely peak--strange that the sight of masses of mere dead earth and stone, the dullest and lowest forms of matter, should be able to touch us more profoundly than all the lovely sights and sweet sounds of the animated world!

In a few miles the top of the loch was reached. The mountains, standing like giants ‘to sentinel enchanted land,’ rose almost from the water’s edge. A few cottages stood clustering together at the mouth of a defile which gave access to Loch Lomond on the east. One or two large houses (of which ‘Glendhu,’ Mr. James Lindsay’s seaside residence, was one) stood at intervals along the shore.

Alec’s first care after landing was to provide himself with a lodging, as (much to his satisfaction) he was not required to live in Mr. Fraser’s house; and he was fortunate enough to find the accommodation he wanted in a cottage close to the seashore.

In the afternoon he called on Mrs. Fraser, and found her a fat, florid, good-natured looking woman, ostentatiously dressed, and surrounded by a troop of her progeny.

‘Come away, Mr. Lindsay,’ she said graciously, as she extended to him a remarkably well-developed hand and arm. ‘I’m just fairly delighted to see you. It will be an extraordinary pleasure to get rid of Hector and John Thompson, though it should be but for three hours in the day. You wouldn’t believe, Mr. Lindsay, what these two, not to speak of Douglas and Phemie--I often tell her father she should have been a boy--cost me in anxiety. I wonder I’m not worn to a shadow. The day before yesterday, now, not content with going in to bathe four times, they managed to drop Jamsie--that’s the one next to Douglas, Mr. Lindsay--over the edge of the boat, and the bairn wasn’t able to speak when they pulled him in again.’

‘Oh, ma!’ protested the young gentleman referred to, ‘I could have got in again by myself, only John Thompson hit me a whack on the head with his oar, trying to pull me nearer the boat.’

‘I don’t think it’s safe for the boys to be out in the little boat by themselves, without either me or their father to look after them. I don’t mind their being in the four-oar. What do you think, Mr. Lindsay?’

‘Really, I can hardly say, Mrs. Fraser, seeing that I know nothing of boating. I haven’t had a chance of learning; I hope you will give me a lesson,’ he added, turning to his new pupils.

The boys, who had been staring at Alec with a suspicious expression, brightened up at this; and it was arranged that the first lesson in boating should be given next day.

On the following afternoon Alec called at Glendhu, his uncle’s house, to inquire whether any of the family had arrived; and was told that they intended to come down in about a fortnight. In the evening, as he looked over his newspaper, his eyes fell upon a paragraph which informed him that Mr. Taylor, Professor of History in the University of Glasgow, had died suddenly the day before. Alec was shocked and surprised at the news; but the thought that was uppermost in his mind was that in all probability he would never see Laura Mowbray again. Now that her uncle was dead she would go back to her friends in London; and in a few months she would forget him. Not until that moment had Alec realized how constantly the thought of this girl had been in his mind, how he had made her image play a part in all his dreams. And now it was over! The world which had seemed so fair and bright but an hour ago was dull and lifeless now.

But the companionship of Mrs. Fraser’s boys and girls saved him from sinking into a foolish melancholy. He tried hard for three hours every day to make them learn a little Latin grammar and history, and a great part of every afternoon was spent in their company. They taught him to row and steer, and to manage a sail. But his chief delight was in the mountains. He was never tired of wandering among their lonely recesses; he loved the bare granite rocks and crags even better than the sheltered dell where the silver birches clustered round the rapid stream. He learned to know the hills from every point of view, to select at a glance the practicable side for an ascent; and before a fortnight was over he had set his foot on the top of every peak within walking distance of Arrochar.

About three weeks after his arrival, Alec heard that his uncle and Miss Lindsay had come down; and one evening soon afterwards he went to see them.

From the windows of the drawing-room at Glendhu the view was magnificent. Under the low garden-wall were the still, blue waters of the loch; and right in front ‘The Cobbler’ lifted his head against the glowing western sky.

Alec was waiting there in silence, absorbed in the spectacle, when he suddenly heard a soft voice behind him.

‘Mr. Lindsay!’

No need for him to turn round. The tones of her voice thrilled through every fibre of his body.

Yes; it was she, simply dressed in black, standing with a smile on her face, holding out her hand.

‘Why don’t you speak to me? Won’t you shake hands?’

‘Lau---- Miss Mowbray!’

‘Certainly. Am I a ghost?’

‘I thought you were far away--gone back to your friends in England.’

‘No,’ said Laura tranquilly, seating herself on a couch; ‘my poor uncle left me as a legacy to Mr. Lindsay; and here I am. You have not even said you are glad to see me.’

‘You know I am glad. But I was sorry to hear of your loss, and sorry to think of your grief.’

‘Yes; it was very sad, and _so_ sudden,’ answered Laura, casting down her eyes. ‘And how did you come to be here?’ she asked, lifting them again to her companion’s face. Alec told her; and then his uncle and Miss Lindsay came into the room.

‘So you’ve got a veesitor?’ said the old lady to Laura, as she came forward.

‘Oh no!’ answered the girl. ‘I had no idea anyone was in the room when I came in; and your nephew stared at me as if I had been an apparition.’

She smiled as she spoke; but Alec noticed that as soon as the elder lady turned away the smile suddenly faded.

Nothing worth mentioning was said in the conversation that followed. Alec hoped that before he took his leave he would receive a general invitation to the house; but nothing of the kind was forthcoming. That, however, mattered little. Laura was here, close to him; they would be sure to meet; and of course he was at liberty to go to Glendhu occasionally. He went home to his lodgings wondering at his good fortune. The rosy hue had returned to the earth, and Arrochar was the most delightful spot on the habitable globe.

The one event of the day in the village was the arrival of the steamer and the departure of the coach which carried passengers to Tarbert on Loch Lomond. It was a favourite amusement of the inhabitants to lounge about the landing-place on these occasions, ostensibly coming for their letters and newspapers, but really pleased to see new faces and make comments about the appearance of the tourists. Laura Mowbray generally found it necessary to go to the post-office about the time of the steamer’s arrival; and Alec was not long in turning the custom to his own advantage.

As he was walking back with her to Glendhu one day, he noticed that she was rather abstracted.

‘I wonder what you are thinking of, Miss Mowbray,’ he said. ‘You have not answered me once since we left the pier.’

‘Haven’t I? I’m sure I beg your pardon.’

‘See that patch of sunlight on the hill across the loch!’ cried Alec enthusiastically. ‘See how it brings out the rich yellow colour of the moss, while all the rest of the hill is in shadow.’

‘You ought to have been a painter,’ said his companion.

‘Don’t you think Arrochar is a perfectly _lovely_ place?’ returned Alec.

‘Yes; very pretty. But it is very dull.’

‘Dull?’

‘Yes; there is no life--no gaiety. It is said that the English take their pleasures sadly; but they are gaiety itself compared with you Scotch. You shut yourselves up in your own houses and don’t mix with your neighbours at all. At least you have no amusements in which anyone can share. The boating, tennis, bathing, everything is done _en famille_. There is no fun, no mixing with the rest of the world. In an English watering-place people stay at hotels, or in lodgings; and if they tire of one place they can go to another. Then they have parties of all kinds, and dances at the hotels. Here everyone takes a house for two months, and moves down with servants, plate, linen, groceries, perhaps even the family piano. I only wonder they don’t bring the bedsteads. Having got to their houses, they stay there, and perhaps never see a strange face till it is time to go back to town. It’s a frightfully narrowing system, not to speak of the dulness of it.’

‘I never thought of it before,’ said Alec. ‘I don’t care to know more people myself; I am never at my ease with people till I know them pretty well. But I am sorry if you find it dull.’

‘Well, of course I couldn’t go to dances or anything of that kind just yet; but it is dreadfully tiresome to see no one from one day to another, to have no games or amusements of any kind.’

‘There are always the hills, you know,’ said Alec.

Laura glanced at her companion to see whether he was laughing, and perceiving that he was perfectly serious, she turned away her face with a little _moue_.

‘The hills don’t amuse me; they weary me; and sometimes, when I get up in the night and look at them, they terrify me. Think what it would be to be up among those rocks on a winter’s night, with the snowflakes whirling around you, and the wind roaring--ugh! Let us talk of something else.’

They did so, but there was little spirit in the conversation. Alec could not conceive of anyone with a heart and a pair of eyes who should not love these mountain-tops as he did himself. He had already endowed Laura with every conceivable grace, and he had taken it for granted that the power to appreciate mountain scenery was among her gifts. Here, at least, was a deficiency, a point on which his mind and hers were not in harmony.

With feminine tact Laura saw that she had disappointed her companion in some way, and she easily guessed at the cause.

‘I see you don’t appreciate my straightforwardness,’ she said, after a little pause. ‘Knowing that you have such a passion for mountain scenery, I ought to have pretended that I was as fond of it as you are yourself.’

‘No, indeed.’

‘That would have been polite; but it would not have been quite straightforward. I always say the thing that comes uppermost, you know; I can’t help it.’

Of course she did; and of course her simple honesty was infinitely better than even a love of Scotch scenery. The latter would no doubt come with more familiar acquaintance with it. And was she not herself the most charming thing that the sun shone down upon that summer day?

Laura knew very well that this, or something like it, was the thought in the lad’s mind as he bade her good-day with lingering eyes. Perhaps she would not have been ill pleased if he had said what he was thinking; but it never entered into his head to pay the girl a compliment: he would have fancied it an impertinence.

‘What a queer, stupid boy he is!’ said Laura to herself, as she peeped back at him while she closed the gate behind her. ‘I can’t help liking him, but he is so provoking, with his enthusiastic, sentimental nonsense. Heigh-ho! There’s the luncheon-bell. And after that there are four hours to be spent somehow before dinner!’