Chapter II: Part 2

But next morning, as we find ourselves out on the blue Atlantic again, with Ru-na-Gaul lighthouse left far behind, and the pale line of Coll at the horizon, we begin to see why the skill and patient assiduity of this amateur psychologist should have raised that ghost for us the night before. Her uncle is coming. He is not one of the plausible kind. And if it should be necessary to invite him on board, might we not the more readily tolerate his cynical bluntness and rudeness, after we have been taught to abhor as the hatefullest of mortals the well-meaning hypocrite whose vanity makes his life a bundle of small lies? Very clever indeed, Miss Avon--very clever. But don't you raise any more ghosts; they are unpleasant company--even as an antidote. And now, John of Skye, if it must be that we are to encounter this pestilent creature at the end of our voyage, clap on all sail now, and take us right royally down through these far islands of the west. Ah! do we not know them of old? Soon as we get round the Cailleach Point we descry the nearest of them amid the loneliness of the wide Atlantic sea. For there is Carnaburg, with her spur of rock; and Fladda, long and rugged, and bare; and Lunga, with her peak; and the Dutchman's Cap--a pale blue in the south. How bravely the _White Dove_ swings on her way--springing like a bird over the western swell! And as we get past Ru-Treshnish, behold! another group of islands--Gometra and the green-shored Ulva, that guard the entrance to Loch Tua; and Colonsay, the haunt of the sea birds; and the rock of Erisgeir--all shining in the sun. And then we hear a strange sound--different from the light rush of the waves--a low, and sullen, and distant booming, such as one faintly hears in a sea-shell. As the _White Dove_ ploughs on her way, we come nearer and nearer to this wonder of the deep--the ribbed and fantastic shores of Staffa; and we see how the great Atlantic rollers, making for the cliffs of Gribun and Burg, are caught by those outer rocks and torn into masses of white foam, and sent roaring and thundering into the blackness of the caves. We pass close by; the air trembles with the shock of that mighty surge; there is a mist of spray rising into the summer air. And then we sail away again; and the day wears on as the white-winged _White Dove_ bounds over the heavy seas; and Mary Avon--as we draw near the Ross of Mull, all glowing in the golden evening--is singing a song of Ulva.

But there is no time for romance, as the _White Dove_ (drawing eight feet of water) makes in for the shallow harbour outside Bunessan.

"Down foresail!" calls out our John of Skye; and by and by her head comes up to the wind, the great mainsail flapping in the breeze. And again, "Down chub, boys!" and there is another rattle and roar amid the silence of this solitary little bay. The herons croak their fright and fly away on heavy wing; the curlews whistle shrilly; the sea-pyots whirr along the lonely shores. And then our good Friedrich d'or sounds his silver-toned bell.

The stillness of this summer evening on deck; the glory deepening over the wide Atlantic; the delightful laughter of the Laird over those "good ones" about Homesh; the sympathetic glance of Mary Avon's soft black eyes: did we not value them all the more that we knew we had something far different to look forward to? Even as we idled away the beautiful and lambent night, we had a vague consciousness that our enemy was stealthily drawing near. In a day or two at the most we should find the grim spectre of the East Wind in the rose-garden of Castle Osprey.

*CHAPTER V.*

*A BRAVE CAREER.*

Bur when we went on deck the next morning we forgot all about the detestable person who was about to break in upon our peace (there was small chance that our faithful Angus Sutherland might encounter the snake in this summer paradise, and trample on him, and pitch him out; for this easy way of getting rid of disagreeable folk is not permitted in the Highlands nowadays) as we looked on the beautiful bay shining all around us.

"Dear me!" said Denny-mains, "if Tom Galbraith could only see that now! It is a great peety he has never been to this place. I'm thinking I must write to him."

The Laird did not remember that we had an artist on board--one who, if she was not so great an artist as Mr. Galbraith, had at least exhibited one or two small landscapes in oil at the Royal Academy. But then the Academicians, though they might dread the contrast between their own work and that of Tom Galbraith, could have no fear of Mary Avon.

And even Mr. Galbraith himself might have been puzzled to find among his pigments any equivalent for the rare and clear colours of this morning scene as now we sailed away from Bunessan with a light topsail breeze. How blue the day was--blue skies, blue seas, a faint transparent blue along the cliffs of Burg and Gribun, a darker blue where the far Ru-Treshanish ran out into the sea, a shadow of blue to mark where the caves of Staffa retreated from the surface of the sun-brown rocks! And here, nearer at hand, the warmer colours of the shore--the soft, velvety olive-greens of the moss and breckan; the splashes of lilac where the rocks were bare of herbage; the tender sunny reds where the granite promontories ran out to the sea; the beautiful cream-whites of the sandy bays!

Here, too, are the islands again as we get out into the open--Gometra, with its one white house at the point; and Inch Kenneth, where the seals show their shining black heads among the shallows; and Erisgeir and Colonsay, where the skarts alight to dry their wings on the rocks; and Staffa, and Lunga, and the Dutchman, lying peaceful enough now on the calm blue seas. We have time to look at them, for the wind is slight, and the broad-beamed _White Dove_ is not a quick sailer in a light breeze. The best part of the forenoon is over before we find ourselves opposite to the gleaming white sands of the northern bays of Iona.

"But surely both of us together will be able to make him stay longer than ten days," says the elder of the two women to the younger--and you may be sure she was not speaking of East Wind.

Mary Avon looks up with a start; then looks down again--perhaps with the least touch of colour in her face--as she says hurriedly--

"Oh, I think you will. He is your friend. As for me--you see--I--I scarcely know him."

"Oh, Mary!" says the other reproachfully. "You have been meeting him constantly all these two months; you must know him better than any of us. I am sure I wish he was on board now--he could tell us all about the geology of the islands, and what not. It will be delightful to have somebody on board who knows something."

Such is the gratitude of women!--and the Laird had just been describing to her some further points of the famous heresy case.

"And then he knows Gaelic!" says the elder woman. "He will tell us what all the names of the islands mean."

"Oh, yes," says the younger one, "he understands Gaelic very well, though he cannot speak much of it."

"And I think he is very fond of boats," remarks our hostess.

"Oh, exceedingly--exceedingly!" says the other, who, if she does not know Angus Sutherland, seems to have picked up some information about him somehow. "You cannot imagine how he has been looking forward to sailing with you; he has scarcely had any holiday for years."

"Then he must stay longer than ten days," says the elder woman; adding with a smile, "you know, Mary, it is not the number of his patients that will hurry him back to London."

"Oh, but I assure you," says Miss Avon seriously, "that he is not at all anxious to have many patients--as yet! Oh, no!--I never knew any one who was so indifferent about money. I know he would live on bread and water--if that were necessary--to go on with his researches. He told me himself that all the time he was at Leipsic his expenses were never more than 1*l.* a week."

She seemed to know a good deal about the circumstances of this young F.R.S.

"Look at what he has done with those anaesthetics," continues Miss Avon. "Isn't it better to find out something that does good to the whole world than give yourself up to making money by wheedling a lot of old women?"

This estimate of the physician's art was not flattering.

"But," she says warmly, "if the Government had any sense, that is just the sort of man they would put in a position to go on with his invaluable work. And Oxford and Cambridge, with all their wealth, they scarcely even recognise the noblest profession that a man can devote himself to--when even the poor Scotch Universities and the Universities all over Europe have always had their medical and scientific chairs. I think it is perfectly disgraceful!"

Since when had she become so strenuous an advocate of the endowment of research?

"Why, look at Dr. Sutherland--when he is burning to get on with his own proper work--when his name is beginning to be known all over Europe--he has to fritter away his time in editing a scientific magazine and in those hospital lectures. And that, I suppose, is barely enough to live on. But I know," she says, with decision, "that in spite of everything--I know that before he is five-and-thirty, he will be President of the British Association."

Here, indeed, is a brave career for the Scotch student: cannot one complete the sketch as it roughly exists in the minds of those two women?

At twenty-one, B.M. of Edinburgh.

At twenty-six, F.R.S.

At thirty, Professor of Biology at Oxford: the chair founded through the intercession of the women of Great Britain.

At thirty-five, President of the British Association.

At forty, a baronetcy, for further discoveries in the region of anaesthetics.

At forty-five, consulting physician to half the gouty old gentlemen of England, and amassing an immense fortune.

At fifty----

Well, at fifty, is it not time that "the poor Scotch student," now become great and famous and wealthy, should look around for some beautiful princess to share his high estate with him? He has not had time before to think of such matters. But what is this now? Is it that microscopes and test-tubes have dimmed his eyes? Is it that honours and responsibilities have silvered his hair? Or, is the drinking deep of the Pactolus stream a deadly poison? There is no beautiful princess awaiting him anywhere. He is alone among his honours. There was once a beautiful princess--beautiful-souled and tender-eyed, if not otherwise too lovely--awaiting him among the Western Seas; but that time is over and gone many a year ago. The opportunity has passed. Ambition called him away, and he left her; and the last he saw of her was when he bade good-bye to the _White Dove_.

What have we to do with these idle dreams? We are getting within sight of Iona village now; and the sun is shining on the green shores, and on the ruins of the old cathedral, and on that white house just above the cornfield. And as there is no good anchorage about the island, we have to make in for a little creek on the Mull side of the Sound, called Polterriv, or the Bull-hole; and this creek is narrow, tortuous, and shallow; and a yacht drawing eight feet of water has to be guided with some circumspection--especially if you go up to the inner harbour above the rock called the Little Bull. And so we make inquiries of John of Skye, who has not been with us here before. It is even hinted, that if he is not quite sure of the channel, we might send the gig over to Iona for John Macdonald, who is an excellent pilot.

"John Macdonald!" exclaims John of Skye, whose professional pride has been wounded. "Will John Macdonald be doing anything more than I wass do myself in the Bull-hole--ay, last year--last year I will tek my own smack out of the Bull-hole at the norse end, and ferry near low water, too; and her deep-loaded? Oh, yes, I will be knowing the Bull-hole this many a year."

And John of Skye is as good as his word. Favoured by a flood-tide, we steal gently into the unfrequented creek, behind the great rocks of red granite; and so extraordinarily clear is the water that, standing upright on the deck, we can see the white sand of the bottom with shoals of young saithe darting this way and that. And then just as we get opposite an opening in the rocks, through which we can descry the northern shores of Iona, and above those the blue peak of the Dutchman, away goes the anchor with a short, quick rush; her head swings round to meet the tide; the _White Dove_ is safe from all the winds that blow. Now lower away the gig, boys, and bear us over the blue waters of the Sound!

"I am really afraid to begin," Mary Avon says, as we remonstrate with her for not having touched a colour-tube since she started. "Besides, you know, I scarcely look on it that we have really set out yet. This is only a sort of shaking ourselves into our places; I am only getting accustomed to the ways of our cabin now. I shall scarcely consider that we have started on our real voyaging until----"

Oh, yes, we know very well. Until we have got Angus Sutherland on board. But what she really said was, after slight hesitation:

"----until we set out for the Northern Hebrides."

"Ay, it's a good thing to feel nervous about beginning," says the Laird, as the long sweep of the four oars brings us nearer and nearer to the Iona shores. "I have often heard Tom Galbraith say that to the younger men. He says if a young man is over confident, he'll come to nothing. But there was a good one I once heard Galbraith tell about a young man that was pentin at Tarbert--that's Tarbert on Loch Fyne, Miss Avon. Ay, well, he was pentin away, and he was putting in the young lass of the house as a fisher-lass; and he asked her if she could not get a creel to strap on her back, as a background for her head, ye know. Well, says she----"

Here the fierce humour of the story began to bubble up in the Laird's blue-grey eyes. We were all half laughing already. It was impossible to resist the glow of delight on the Laird's face.

"Says she--just as pat as ninepence--says she, 'it's your ain head that wants a creel!'"

The explosion was inevitable. The roar of laughter at this good one was so infectious that a subdued smile played over the rugged features of John of Skye. "_It's your ain head that wants a creel:_" the Laird laughed, and laughed again, until the last desperately suppressed sounds were something like _kee! kee! kee!_ Even Mary Avon pretended to understand.

"There was a real good one," says he, obviously overjoyed to have so appreciative an audience, "that I mind of reading in the Dean's _Reminiscences_. It was about an old leddy in Edinburgh who met in a shop a young officer she had seen before. He was a tall young man, and she eyed him from head to heel, and says she--ha! ha!--says she, '_Od, ye're a lang lad: God gie ye grace._' Dry--very dry--wasn't it? There was real humour in that--a pawky humour that people in the South cannot understand at all. '_Od_', says she, '_ye're a lang lad: God grant ye grace._' There was a great dale of character in that."

We were sure of it; but still we preferred the Laird's stories about Homesh. We invariably liked best the stories at which the Laird laughed most--whether we quite understood their pawky humour or not.

"Dr. Sutherland has a great many stories about the Highlanders," says Miss Avon timidly; "they are very amusing."

"As far as I have observed," remarked the Laird--for how could he relish the notion of having a rival anecdote-monger on board?--"as far as I have observed, the Highland character is entirely without humour. Ay, I have heard Tom Galbraith say that very often, and he has been everywhere in the Highlands."

"Well, then," says Mary Avon, with a quick warmth of indignation in her face--how rapidly those soft dark eyes could change their expression!--"I hope Mr. Galbraith knows more about painting than he knows about the Highlanders! I thought that anybody who knows anything knows that the Celtic nature is full of imagination, and humour, and pathos, and poetry; and the Saxon--the Saxon!--it is his business to plod over ploughed fields, and be as dull and commonplace as the other animals he sees there!"

Gracious goodness!--here was a tempest! The Laird was speechless; for, indeed, at this moment we bumped against the sacred shores--that is to say, the landing-slip--of Iona; and had to scramble on to the big stones. Then we walked up and past the cottages, and through the potato-field, and past the white inn, and so to the hallowed shrine and its graves of the kings. We spent the whole of the afternoon there.

When we got back to the yacht and to dinner we discovered that a friend had visited us in our absence, and had left of his largesse behind him--nasturtiums and yellow-and-white pansies, and what not--to say nothing of fresh milk, and crisp, delightful lettuce. We drank his health.

Was it the fear of some one breaking in on our domestic peace that made that last evening among the western islands so lovely to us? We went out in the gig after dinner; the Laird put forth his engines of destruction to encompass the innocent lythe; we heard him humming the "Haughs o' Cromdale" in the silence. The wonderful glory of that evening!--Iona become an intense olive-green against the gold and crimson of the sunset; the warm light shining along the red granite of western Mull. Then the yellow moon rose in the south--into the calm violet-hued vault of the heavens; and there was a golden fire on the ripples and on the wet blades of the oars as we rowed back with laughter and singing.

_Sing tantara! sing tantara!_
_Sing tantara! sing tantara!_
_Said he, the Highland army rues_
_That ere they came to Cromdale!_

And then, next morning, we were up at five o'clock. If we were going to have a tooth pulled, why not have the little interview over at once? East Wind would be waiting for us at Castle Osprey.

Blow, soft westerly breeze, then, and bear us down by Fion-phort, and round the granite Ross--shining all a pale red in the early dawn. And here is Ardalanish Point; and there, as the morning goes by, are the Carsaig arches, and then Loch Buy, and finally the blue Firth of Lorn. Northward now, and still northward--until, far away, the white house shining amidst the firs, and the flag fluttering in the summer air. Have they descried us, then? Or is the bunting hoisted in honour of guests? The pale cheek of Mary Avon tells a tale as she descries that far signal; but that is no business of ours. Perhaps it is only of her uncle that she is thinking.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*OUR NEW GUESTS.*

Behold, now!--this beautiful garden of Castle Osprey all ablaze in the sun--the roses, pansies, poppies, and what not bewildering our eyes after the long looking at the blue water and, in the midst of the brilliant paradise--just as we had feared--the snake! He did not scurry away at our approach, as snakes are wont to do; or raise his horrent head, and hiss. The fact is, we found him comfortably seated under a drooping ash, smoking. He rose and explained that he had strolled up from the shore to await our coming. He did not seem to notice that Mary Avon, as she came along, had to walk slowly, and was leaning on the arm of the Laird.

Certainly nature had not been bountiful to this short, spare person who had now come among us. He had closely-cropped, coarse grey hair; an eagle beak; a certain pink and raw appearance of the face, as if perpetual east winds had chafed the skin; and a most pernicious habit of loudly clearing his husky throat. Then with the aggressive nose went a well-defined pugilist's jaw and a general hang-dog scowl about the mouth. For the rest Mr. Smethurst seemed desirous of making up for those unpleasant features which nature had bestowed upon him by a studied air of self-possession, and by an extreme precision of dress. Alack, and well-a-day! these laudable efforts were of little avail. Nature was too strong for him. The assumption of a languid air was not quite in consonance with the ferrety grey eyes and the bull-dog mouth; the precision of his costume only gave him the look of a well-dressed groom, or a butler gone on the turf. There was not much grateful to the sight about Mr. Frederick Smethurst.

But were we to hate the man for being ugly? Despite his raw face, he might have the white soul of an angel. And in fact we knew absolutely nothing against his public character or private reputation, except that he had once gone through the Bankruptcy Court; and even of that little circumstance our womenfolk were not aware. However, there was no doubt at all that a certain coldness--apparent to us who knew her well--marked the manner of this small lady who now went up and shook hands with him, and declared--unblushingly--that she was so glad he had run up to the Highlands.

"And you know," said she, with that charming politeness which she would show to the arch-fiend himself if he were properly introduced to her, "you know, Mr. Smethurst, that yachting is such an uncertain thing, one never knows when one may get back; but if you could spare a few days to take a run with us, you would see what a capital mariner Mary has become, and I am sure it would be a great pleasure to us."

These were actually her words. She uttered them without the least tremor of hesitation. She looked him straight in the face with those clear, innocent, confiding eyes of hers. How could the man tell that she was wishing him at Jericho?

And it was in silence that we waited to hear our doom pronounced. A yachting trip with this intolerable Jonah on board! The sunlight went out of the day; the blue went out of the sky and the seas; the world was filled with gloom, and chaos, and East Wind!

Imagine, then, the sudden joy with which we heard of our deliverance! Surely it was not the raucous voice of Frederick Smethurst, but a sound of summer bells.

"Oh, thank you," he said, in his affectedly indifferent way; "but the fact is, I have run up to see Mary only on a little matter of business, and I must get back at once. Indeed, I purpose leaving by the Dalmally coach in the afternoon. Thank you very much, though; perhaps some other time I may be more fortunate."

How we had wronged this poor man! We hated him no longer. On the contrary, great grief was expressed over his departure; and he was begged at least to stay that one evening. No doubt he had heard of Dr. Angus Sutherland, who had made such discoveries in the use of anaesthetics? Dr. Sutherland was coming by the afternoon steamer. Would not he stay and meet him at dinner?

Our tears broke out afresh--metaphorically--when East Wind persisted in his intention of departure; but of course compulsion was out of the question. And so we allowed him to go into the house, to have that business interview with his niece.

"A poor crayture!" remarked the Laird confidently, forgetting that he was talking of a friend of ours. "Why does he not speak out like a man, instead of drawling and dawdling? His accent is jist insufferable."

"And what business can he have with Mary?" says our sovereign lady sharply--just as if a man with a raw skin and an eagle-beak must necessarily be a pickpocket. "He was the trustee of that little fortune of hers, I know; but that is all over. She got the money when she came of age. What can he want to see her about now?"

We concerned ourselves not with that. It was enough for us that the snake was about to retreat from our summer paradise of his own free will and pleasure. And Angus Sutherland was coming; and the provisioning of the yacht had to be seen to; for to-morrow--to-morrow we spread our white wings again and take flight to the far north!

Never was parting guest so warmly speeded. We concealed our tears as the coach rolled away. We waved a hand to him. And then, when it was suggested that the wagonette that had brought Mary Avon down from Castle Osprey might just as well go along to the quay--for the steamer bringing Dr. Sutherland would be in shortly--and when we actually did set out in that direction, there was so little grief on our faces that you could not have told we had been bidding farewell to a valued friend and relative.

Now if our good-hearted Laird had had a grain of jealousy in his nature, he might well have resented the manner in which these two women spoke of the approaching guest. In their talk the word "he" meant only one person. "He" was sure to come by this steamer. "He" was so punctual in his engagements. Would he bring a gun or a rod; or would the sailing be enough amusement for him? What a capital thing it was for him to be able to take an interest in some such out-of-door exercise, as a distraction to the mind! And so forth, and so forth. The Laird heard all this, and his expectations were no doubt rising and rising. Forgetful of his disappointment on first seeing Mary Avon, he was in all likelihood creating an imaginary figure of Angus Sutherland--and, of course, this marvel of erudition and intellectual power must be a tall, wan, pale person, with the travail of thinking written in lines across the spacious brow. The Laird was not aware that for many a day after we first made the acquaintance of the young Scotch student he was generally referred to in our private conversation as "Brose."

And, indeed, the Laird did stare considerably when he saw--elbowing his way through the crowd and making for us with a laugh of welcome on the fresh-coloured face--a stout-set, muscular, blue-eyed, sandy-haired, good-humoured-looking, youngish man; who, instead of having anything Celtic about his appearance, might have been taken for the son of a south-country farmer. Our young Doctor was carrying his own portmanteau, and sturdily shoving his way through the porters who would fain have seized it.

"I am glad to see you, Angus," said our queen regent, holding out her hand; and there was no ceremonial politeness in that reception--but you should have seen the look in her eyes.

Then he went on to the waggonette.

"How do you do, Miss Avon?" said he, quite timidly, like a school-boy. He scarcely glanced up at her face, which was regarding him with a very pleasant welcome; he seemed relieved when he had to turn and seize his portmanteau again. Knowing that he was rather fond of driving, our mistress and admiral-in-chief offered him the reins, but he declined the honour; Mary Avon was sitting in front. "Oh, no, thank you," said he quite hastily, and with something uncommonly like a blush. The Laird, if he had been entertaining any feeling of jealousy, must have been reassured. This Doctor-fellow was no formidable rival. He spoke very little--he only listened--as we drove away to Castle Osprey. Mary Avon was chatting briskly and cheerfully, and it was to the Laird that she addressed that running fire of nonsense and merry laughter.

But the young Doctor was greatly concerned when, on our arrival at Castle Osprey, he saw Mary Avon helped down with much care, and heard the story of the sprain.

"Who bandages your ankle?" said he at once, and without any shyness now.

"I do it myself," said she cheerfully. "I can do it well enough."

"Oh, no, you cannot!" said he abruptly; "a person stooping cannot. The bandage should be as tight, and as smooth, as the skin of a drum. You must let some one else do that for you."

And he was disposed to resent this walking about in the garden before dinner. What business had she to trifle with such a serious matter as a sprain? And a sprain which was the recall of an older sprain. "Did she wish to be lame for life?" he asked sharply.

Mary Avon laughed, and said that worse things than that had befallen people. He asked her whether she found any pleasure in voluntary martyrdom; she blushed a little, and turned to the Laird.

The Laird was at this moment laying before us the details of a most gigantic scheme. It appeared that the inhabitants of Strathgovan, not content with a steam fire-engine, were talking about having a public park--actually proposing to have a public park, with beds of flowers, and iron seats; and, to crown all, a gymnasium, where the youths of the neighbourhood might twirl themselves on the gay trapeze to their hearts' content. And where the subscriptions were to come from; and what were the hardiest plants for borders; and whether the gymnasium should be furnished with ropes or with chains--these matters were weighing heavily on the mind of our good friend of Denny-mains. Angus Sutherland relapsed into silence, and gazed absently at a tree-fuchsia that stood by.

"It is a beautiful tree, is it not?" said a voice beside him--that of our midge-like empress.

He started.

"Oh, yes," he said cheerfully. "I was thinking I should like to live the life of a tree like that, dying in the winter, you know, and being quite impervious to frost, and snow, and hard weather; and then, as soon as the fine warm spring and summer came round, coming to life again and spreading yourself out to feel all the sunlight and the warm winds. That must be a capital life."

"But do you really think they can feel that? Why, you must believe that those trees and flowers are alive!"

"Does anybody doubt it?" said he quite simply. "They are certainly alive. Why----"

And here he bethought himself for a moment.

"If I only had a good microscope now," said he eagerly, "I would show you the life of a plant directly--in every cell of it: did you never see the constant life in each cell--the motion of the chlorophyll granules circling and circling night and day? Did no one ever show you that?"

Well, no one had ever shown us that. We may now and again have entertained angels unawares; but we were not always stumbling against Fellows of the Royal Society.

"Then I must borrow one somewhere," said he decisively, "and show you the secret life of even the humblest plant that exists. And then look what a long life it is, in the case of the perennial plants. Did you ever think of that? Those great trees in the Yosemite valley--they were alive and feeling the warm sunlight and the winds about them when Alfred was hiding in the marshes; and they were living the same undisturbed life when Charles the First had his head chopped off; and they were living--in peace and quietness--when all Europe had to wake up to stamp out the Napoleonic pest; and they are alive now and quite careless of the little creatures that come to span out their circumference, and ticket them, and give them ridiculous names. Had any of the patriarchs a life as long as that?"

The Laird eyed this young man askance. There was something uncanny about him. What might not he say when--in the northern solitudes to which we were going--the great Semple heresy-case was brought on for discussion?

But at dinner the Laird got on very well with our new guest; for the latter listened most respectfully when Denny-mains was demonstrating the exceeding purity, and strength, and fitness of the speech used in the south of Scotland. And indeed the Laird was generous. He admitted that there were blemishes. He deprecated the introduction of French words; and gave us a much longer list of those aliens than usually appears in books. What about _conjee_, and _que-vee_, and _fracaw_ as used by Scotch children and old wives?

Then after dinner--at nine o'clock the wonderful glow of the summer evening was still filling the drawing-room--the Laird must needs have Mary Avon sing to him. It was not a custom of hers. She rarely would sing a song of set purpose. The linnet sings all day--when you do not watch her; but she will not sing if you go and ask.

However, on this occasion, her hostess went to the piano, and sat down to play the accompaniment; and Mary Avon stood beside her and sang, in rather a low voice--but it was tender enough--some modern version of the old ballad of the Queen's Maries. What were the words? These were of them, any way:--

_Yestreen the Queen had four Maries;_ _This night she'll hae but three:_ _There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,_ _And Mary Carmichael, and me._

But indeed, if you had seen that graceful slim figure--clad all in black velvet, with the broad band of gold fringe round the neck--and the small, shapely, smoothly-brushed head above the soft swathes of white muslin--and if you had caught a glimpse of the black eyelashes drooping outward from the curve of the pale cheek--and if you had heard the tender, low voice of Mary Avon, you might have forgotten about the Queen's Maries altogether.

And then Dr. Sutherland: the Laird was determined--in true Scotch fashion--that everybody who could not sing should be goaded to sing.

"Oh, well," said the young man, with a laugh, "you know a student in Germany must sing whether he can or not. And I learned there to smash out something like an accompaniment also."

And he went to the piano without more ado and did smash out an accompaniment. And if his voice was rather harsh?--well, we should have called it raucous in the case of East Wind, but we only called it manly and strenuous when it was Angus Sutherland who sang. And it was a manly song, too--a fitting song for our last night on shore, the words hailing from the green woods of Fuinary, the air an air that had many a time been heard among the western seas. It was the song of the Biorlinn[#] that he sang to us; we could hear the brave chorus and the splash of the long oars:--

_Send the biorlinn on careering!_ _Cheerily and all together--_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_ _A long, strong pull together--_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_

_Give her way and show her wake_ _'Mid showering spray and curling eddies--_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_ _A long, strong pull together--_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_

Do we not hear now the measured stroke in the darkness of the morning? The water springs from her bows; one by one the headlands are passed. But lo! the day is breaking; the dawn will surely bring a breeze with it; and then the sail of the gallant craft will bear her over the seas:--

_Another cheer, our Isle appears!_ _Our biorlinn bears her on the faster--_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_ _A long, strong pull together--_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_

_Ahead she goes! the land she knows!_ _Behold! the snowy shores of Canna--_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_ _A long, strong pull together--_ _Ho, ro, clansmen!_

A long, strong pull together indeed: who could resist joining in the thunder of the chorus? And we were bound for Canna, too: this was our last night on shore.

[#] _Biorlinn_--that is, a rowing-boat. The word is pronounced _byurlen_. The song, which in a measure imitates the rhythm peculiar to Highland poetry--consisting in a certain repetition of the same vowel sounds--is the production of Dr. Macleod, of Morven. And here, for the benefit of any one who minds such things, is a rough draft of the air, arranged by a most charming young lady, who, however, says she would much rather die than have her name mentioned:--

Our last night on shore. In such circumstances one naturally has a glance round at the people with whom one is to be brought into such close contact for many and many a day. But in this particular case, what was the use of speculating, or grumbling, or remonstrating? There is a certain household that is ruled with a rod of iron. And if the mistress of that household chose to select as her summer companions a "shilpit bit thing," and a hard-headed, ambitious Scotch student, and a parochial magnate haunted by a heresy-case, how dared one object? There is such a thing as peace and quietness.

But however unpromising the outlook might be, do we not know the remark that is usually made by that hard-worked officer, the chief mate, when, on the eve of a voyage, he finds himself confronted by an unusually mongrel crew? He regards those loafers and outcasts--from the Bowery, and Ratcliffe Highway, and the Broomielaw--Greeks, niggers, and Mexicans--with a critical and perhaps scornful air, and forthwith proceeds to address them in the following highly polished manner:--

"By etcetera-etcetera, you are an etceteraed rum-looking lot; but etcetera-etcetera me _if I don't lick you into shape before we get to Rio_."

And so--good-night!--and let all good people pray for fair skies and a favouring breeze! And if there is any song to be heard in our dreams, let it be the song of the Queen's Maries--in the low, tender voice of Mary Avon:--

_There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,_ _And Mary Carmichael, and me._

*CHAPTER VII.*

*NORTHWARD.*

We have bidden good-bye to the land; the woods and the green hills have become pale in the haze of the summer light; we are out here, alone, on the shining blue plain. And if our young Doctor betrays a tendency to keep forward--conversing with John of Skye about blocks, and tackle, and winches; and if the Laird--whose parental care and regard for Mary Avon is becoming beautiful to see--should have quite a monopoly of the young lady, and be more bent than ever on amusing her with his "good ones;" and if our queen and governor should spend a large portion of her time below, in decorating cabins with flowers, in overhauling napery, and in earnest consultation with Master Fred about certain culinary mysteries; notwithstanding all these divergences of place and occupation, our little kingdom afloat is compact enough. There is always, for example, a reassembling at meals. There is an instant community of interest when a sudden cry calls all hands on deck to regard some new thing--the spouting of a whale or the silvery splashing of a shoal of mackerel. But now--but now--if only some cloud-compelling Jove would break this insufferably fine weather, and give us a tearing good gale!

It is a strange little kingdom. It has no postal service. Shilling telegrams are unknown in it; there is no newspaper at breakfast. There are no barrel-organs; nor rattling hansoms raising the dust in windy streets; there is no afternoon scandal; overheated rooms at midnight are a thing of the past. Serene, independent, self-centred, it minds its own affairs; if the whole of Europe were roaring for war, not even an echo of the cry would reach us. We only hear the soft calling of the sea-birds as we sit and read, or talk, or smoke; from time to time watching the shadows move on the blistering hot decks, or guessing at the names of the blue mountains that rise above Loch Etive and Lochaber. At the present moment there is a faint summer haze over these mountains; as yet we have around us none of the dazzling light and strangely intense colours that are peculiar to this part of the world, and that are only possible, in fact, in an atmosphere frequently washed clear by squalls of rain. This question of rain turns up at lunch.

"They prayed for rain in the churches last Sunday--so Captain John says," Mary Avon remarks.

"The distilleries are stopped: that's very serious," continues the Laird.

"Well," says Queen T., "people talk about the rain in the West Highlands. It must be true, as everybody says it is true. But now--excepting the year we went to America with Sylvia Balfour--we have been here for five years running; and each year we made up our mind for a deluge--thinking we had deserved it, you know. Well, it never came. Look at this now."

And the fact was that we were lying motionless on the smooth bosom of the Atlantic, with the sun so hot on the decks that we were glad to get below.

"Very strange--very strange, indeed," remarked the Laird, with a profound air. "Now what value are we to put on any historical evidence if we find such a conflict of testimony about what is at our own doors? How should there be two opeenions about the weather in the West Highlands? It is a matter of common experience--dear me! I never heard the like."

"Oh, but I think we might try to reconcile those diverse opinions!" said Angus Sutherland, with an absolute gravity. "You hear mostly the complaints of London people, who make much of a passing shower. Then the tourist and holiday folk, especially from the South, come in the autumn, when the fine summer weather has broken. And then," he added, addressing himself with a frank smile to the small creature who had been expressing her wonder over the fine weather, "perhaps, if you are pleased with your holiday on the whole, you are not anxious to remember the wet days; and then you are not afraid of a shower, I know; and besides that, when one is yachting, one is more anxious for wind than for fine weather."

"Oh, I am sure that is it!" called out Mary Avon quite eagerly. She did not care how she destroyed the Laird's convictions about the value of historical evidence. "That is an explanation of the whole thing."

At this, our young Doctor---who had been professing to treat this matter seriously merely as a joke--quickly lowered his eyes. He scarcely ever looked Mary Avon in the face when she spoke to him, or when he had to speak to her. And a little bit of shy embarrassment in his manner towards her--perceivable only at times--was all the more singular in a man who was shrewd and hard-headed enough, who had knocked about the world and seen many persons and things, and who had a fair amount of unassuming self-confidence, mingled with a vein of sly and reticent humour. He talked freely enough when he was addressing our admiral-in-chief. He was not afraid to meet _her_ eyes. Indeed, they were so familiar friends that she called him by his Christian name--a practice which in general she detested. But she would as soon have thought of applying "Mr." to one of her own boys at Epsom College as to Angus Sutherland.

"Well, you know, Angus," says she pleasantly, "you have definitely promised to go up to the Outer Hebrides with us, and back. The longer the calms last, the longer we shall have you. So we shall gladly put up with the fine weather."

"It is very kind of you to say so; but I have already had such a long holiday----"

"Oh!" said Mary Avon, with her eyes full of wonder and indignation. She was too surprised to say any more. She only stared at him. She knew he had been working night and day in Edinburgh.

"I mean," said he hastily, and looking down, "I have been away so long from London. Indeed, I was getting rather anxious about my next month's number; but luckily, just before I left Edinburgh, a kind friend sent me a most valuable paper, so I am quite at ease again. Would you like to read it, sir? It is set up in type."

He took the sheets from his pocket, and handed them to the Laird. Denny-mains looked at the title. It was _On the Radiolarians of the Coal Measures_, and it was the production of a well-known professor. The Laird handed back the paper without opening it.

"No, thank you," said he, with some dignity. "If I wished to be instructed, I would like a safer guide than that man."

We looked with dismay on this dangerous thing that had been brought on board: might it not explode and blow up the ship?

"Why," said our Doctor, in unaffected wonder, and entirely mistaking the Laird's exclamation, "he is a perfect master of his subject."

"There is a great deal too much speculation nowadays on these matters, and parteecularly among the younger men," remarked the Laird severely. And he looked at Angus Sutherland. "I suppose now ye are well acquainted with the _Vestiges of Creation_?"

"I have heard of the book," said Brose--regretfully confessing his ignorance, "but I never happened to see it."

The Laird's countenance lightened.

"So much the better--so much the better. A most mischievous and unsettling book. But all the harm it can do is counteracted by a noble work--a conclusive work that leaves nothing to be said. Ye have read the _Testimony of the Rocks_, no doubt?"

"Oh, yes, certainly," our Doctor was glad to be able to say; "but--but it was a long time ago--when I was a boy, in fact."

"Boy, or man, you'll get no better book on the history of the earth. I tell ye, sir, I never read a book that placed such firm conviction in my mind. Will ye get any of the new men they are talking about as keen an observer and as skilful in arguing as Hugh Miller? No, no; not one of them dares to try to upset the _Testimony of the Rocks_."

Angus Sutherland appealed against this sentence of finality only in a very humble way.

"Of course, sir," said he meekly, "you know that science is still moving forward----"

"Science?" repeated the Laird. "Science may be moving forward or moving backward; but can it upset the facts of the earth? Science may say what it likes; but the facts remain the same."

Now this point was so conclusive that we unanimously hailed the Laird as victor. Our young Doctor submitted with an excellent good humour. He even promised to post that paper on the Radiolarians at the very first post-office we might reach: we did not want any such explosive compounds on board.

That night we only got as far as Fishnish Bay--a solitary little harbour probably down on but few maps; and that we had to reach by getting out the gig for a tow. There was a strange bronze-red in the northern skies, long after the sun had set; but in here the shadow of the great mountains was on the water. We could scarcely see the gig; but Angus Sutherland had joined the men and was pulling stroke; and along with the measured splash of the oars, we heard something about "_Ho, ro, clansmen!_" Then, in the cool night air, there was a slight fragrance of peat-smoke; we knew we were getting near the shore.

"He's a fine fellow, that," says the Laird, generously, of his defeated antagonist. "A fine fellow. His knowledge of different things is just remarkable; and he's as modest as a girl. Ay, and he can row, too; a while ago when it was lighter, I could see him put his shoulders into it. Ay, he's a fine, good-natured fellow, and I am glad he has not been led astray by that mischievous book, the _Vestiges of Creation_."

Come on board now, boys, and swing up the gig to the davits! Twelve fathoms of chain?--away with her then!--and there is a roar in the silence of the lonely little bay. And thereafter silence; and the sweet fragrance of the peat in the night air, and the appearance, above the black hills, of a clear, shining, golden planet that sends a quivering line of light across the water to us. And, once more, good-night and pleasant dreams!

But what is this in the morning? There have been no pleasant dreams for John of Skye and his merry men during the last night; for here we are already between Mingary Bay and Ru-na-Gaul Lighthouse; and before us is the open Atlantic, blue under the fair skies of the morning. And here is Dr. Sutherland, at the tiller, with a suspiciously negligent look about his hair and shirt-collar.

"I have been up since four," says he, with a laugh. "I heard them getting under way, and did not wish to miss anything. You know these places are not so familiar to me as they are to you."

"Is there going to be any wind to-day, John?"

"No mich," says John of Skye, looking at the cloudless blue vault above the glassy sweeps of the sea.

Nevertheless, as the morning goes by, we get as much of a breeze as enables us to draw away from the mainland--round Ardnamurchan ("the headland of the great sea") and out into the open--with Muick Island, and the sharp Scuir of Eigg, and the peaks of Rum lying over there on the still Atlantic, and far away in the north the vast and spectral mountains of Skye.

And now the work of the day begins. Mary Avon, for mere shame's sake, is at last compelled to produce one of her blank canvases and open her box of tubes. And now it would appear that Angus Sutherland--though deprived of the authority of the sick-room--is beginning to lose his fear of the English young lady. He makes himself useful--not with the elaborate and patronising courtesy of the Laird, but in a sort of submissive, matter-of-fact shifty fashion. He sheathes the spikes of her easel with cork so that they shall not mark the deck. He rigs up, to counterbalance that lack of stability, a piece of cord with a heavy weight. Then, with the easel fixed, he fetches her a deck-chair to sit in, and a deck-stool for her colours, and these and her he places under the lee of the foresail, to be out of the glare of the sun. Thus our artist is started; she is going to make a sketch of the after-part of the yacht with Hector of Moidart at the tiller: beyond, the calm blue seas, and a faint promontory of land.

Then the Laird--having confidentially remarked to Miss Avon that Tom Galbraith, than whom there is no greater authority living, invariably moistens the fresh canvas with megilp before beginning work--has turned to the last report of the Semple case.

"No, no," says he to our sovereign lady, who is engaged in some mysterious work in wool, "it does not look well for the Presbytery to go over every one of the charges in the major proposeetion--supported by the averments in the minor--only to find them irrelevant; and then bring home to him the part of the libel that deals with tendency. No, no; that shows a lamentable want of purpose. In view of the great danger to be apprehended from these secret assaults on the inspiration of the Scriptures, they should have stuck to each charge with tenahcity. Now, I will just show ye where Dr. Carnegie, in defending _Secundo_--illustrated as it was with the extracts and averments in the minor--let the whole thing slip through his fingers."