Black William
White Heather: A Novel (Volume 1 of 3)
CHAPTER V
BEGINNINGS
Next day promised to give them sharper work on the loch. The weather had changed towards the morning; showers of hail had fallen; and now all the hills around – Ben Hee and Ben Hope and Ben Loyal – had their far peaks and shoulders powdered over, while the higher slopes and summit of the giant Clebrig were one solid mass of white. It was much colder, too; and the gusts of wind that came hurling along Strath Terry[#] struck down on the loch, spreading out like black fans, and driving the darkened water into curling crisp foam. It was a wild, changeable, blowy morning; sunlight and gloom intermingled; and ever the wind howled and moaned around the house, and the leafless trees outside bent and shivered before the wintry blast.
[#] No doubt corrupted from Strath Tairibh, the Strath of the Bull.
When the tall Highland lass brought in breakfast it appeared that the recusant gillie had not yet come down from Tongue; but it was no matter, she said; she would call Ronald. Now this exactly suited Mr. Hodson, who wanted to have some further speech with the young man – in view of certain far-reaching designs he had formed; and what better opportunity for talk than the placid trolling for salmon on the lake there? But courtesy demanded some small protest.
'I am afraid I cannot ask him a second day,' he remarked.
'Oh,' said she (for she did not wish the gentleman to imagine that she thought over much of the smart young keeper), 'he ought to be ferry glad if he can be of use to any one. He is jist amusing himself with the other lads.'
Which was strictly true at this moment. On the little plateau outside Ronald's cottage two or three of them were standing together. They had got a heavy iron ball, to which was attached about a yard and a half of rope, and one after another was trying who could launch this ball the farthest, after swinging it three or four times round his head. It came to Ronald's turn. He was not the most thick-set of those young fellows; but he was wiry and muscular. He caught the rope with both hands, swung the heavy weight round his head some four or five times – his teeth getting ever and ever more firmly clenched the while – and then away went the iron ball through the air, not only far outstripping all previous efforts, but unluckily landing in a wheelbarrow and smashing sadly a jacket which one of the lads had thrown there when he entered upon this competition. When he somewhat ruefully took up the rent garment, there was much ironical laughing; perhaps that was the reason that none of them heard Nelly calling.
'Ronald!'
The tall, slim Highland maid was pretty angry by this time. She had come out of the house without any head-gear on; and the cold wind was blowing her yellow hair about her eyes; and she was indignant that she had to walk so far before attracting the attention of those idle lads.
'Ronald, do you hear!' she called; and she would not move another yard towards them.
And then he happened to notice her.
'Well, lass, what is't ye want?'
'Come away at once!' she called, in not the most friendly way. 'The gentleman wants you to go down to the loch.'
But he was the most good-natured of all these young fellows; the lasses about ordered him this way or that just as they pleased.
'What!' he called to her, 'hasna Fraser come down from Tongue yet?'
'No, he has not.'
'Bless us; the whisky must have been strong,' said he, as he picked up his jacket. 'I'll be there in a minute, Nelly.'
And so it was that when Mr. Hodson went into the little front hall, he found everything in trim readiness for getting down to the loch – the proper minnows selected; traces tried; luncheon packed; and his heavy waterproof coat slung over Ronald's arm.
'Seems you think I can't carry my own coat?' Mr. Hodson said; for he did not like to see this man do anything in the shape of servant work; whereas Ronald performed these little offices quite naturally and as a matter of course.
'I'll take it, sir,' said he; 'and if you're ready now we'll be off. Come along, Duncan.'
And he was striding away with his long deerstalker step, when Mr. Hodson stopped him.
'Wait a bit, man; I will walk down to the loch with you.'
So Duncan went on, and the American and Ronald followed.
'Sharp this morning.'
'Rayther sharp.'
'But this must be a very healthy life of yours – out in the fresh air always – plenty of exercise – and so forth.'
'Just the healthiest possible, sir.'
'But monotonous a little?'
''Deed no, sir. A keeper need never be idle if he minds his business; there's always something new on hand.'
'Then we'll say it is a very enjoyable life, so long as your health lasts, and you are fit for the work?'
This was apparently a question.
'Well, sir, the head stalker on the Rothie-Mount forest is seventy-two years of age; and there is not one of the young lads smarter on the hill than he is.'
'An exception, doubtless. The betting is all against your matching that record. Well, take your own case: what have you to look forward to as the result of all your years of labour? I agree with you that in the meantime it is all very fine; I can understand the fascination of it, even, and the interest you have in becoming acquainted with the habits of the various creatures, and so forth. Oh yes, I admit that – the healthiness of the life, and the interest of it; and I daresay you get more enjoyment out of the shooting and stalking than Lord Ailine, who pays such a preposterous price for it. But say we give you a fairly long lease of health and strength sufficient for the work: we'll take you at sixty; what then? Something happens – rheumatism, a broken leg, anything – that cripples you. You are superseded; you are out of the running; what is to become of you?'
'Well, sir,' said Ronald instantly, 'I'm thinking his lordship wouldna think twice about giving a pension to a man that had worked for him as long as that.'
It was a luckless answer. For Mr. Hodson, whose first article of belief was that all men are born equal, had come to Europe with a positive resentment against the very existence of lords, and a detestation of any social system that awarded them position and prestige merely on account of the accident of their birth. And what did he find now? Here was a young fellow of strong natural character, of marked ability, and fairly independent spirit, so corrupted by this pernicious system that he looked forward quite naturally to being helped in his old age by his lordship – by one of those creatures who still wore the tags and rags of an obsolete feudalism, and were supposed to 'protect' their vassals. The House of Peers had a pretty bad time of it during the next few minutes; if the tall, sallow-faced, gray-eyed man talked with little vehemence, his slow, staccato sentences had a good deal of keen irony in them. Ronald listened respectfully. And perhaps the lecture was all the more severe that the lecturer had but little opportunity of delivering it in his own domestic circle. Truly it was hard that his pet grievance won for him nothing but a sarcastic sympathy there; and that it was his own daughter who flouted him with jibes and jeers.
'Why, you know, pappa dear,' she would say as she stood at the window of their hotel in Piccadilly, and watched the carriages passing to and fro beneath her, 'lords may be bad enough, but you know they're not half as bad as the mosquitoes are at home. They don't worry one half as much; seems to me you might live in this country a considerable time and never be worried by one of them. Why, that's the worst of it. When I left home, I thought the earls and marquises would just be crowding us; and they don't seem to come along at all. I confess they are a mean lot. Don't they know well enough that the first thing ['the fooist thing,' she said, of course; but her accent sounded quite quaint and pretty if you happened to be looking at the pretty, soft, opaque, dark eyes] the first thing an American girl has to do when she gets to Europe is to have a lord propose to her, and to reject him? But how can I? They won't come along! It's just too horrid for anything; for of course when I go back home they'll say – "It's because you're not a Boston girl. London's full of lords; but it's only Boston girls they run after; and, poor things, they and their coronets are always being rejected. The noble pride of a Republican country; wave the banner!"'
But here Mr. Hodson met with no such ill-timed and flippant opposition. Ronald the keeper listened respectfully, and only spoke when spoken to; perhaps the abstract question did not interest him. But when it came to the downright inquiry as to whether he, Strang, considered his master, Lord Ailine, to be in any way whatever a better man than himself, his answer was prompt.
'Yes, sir, he is,' he said, as they walked leisurely along the road. 'He is a better man than me by two inches round the chest, as I should guess. Why, sir, the time that I hurt my kneecap, one night we were coming down Ben Strua, our two selves, nothing would hinder his lordship but he must carry me on his back all the way down the hill and across the burn till we reached the shepherd's bothy. Ay, and the burn in spate; and the night as dark as pitch; one wrong step on the swing-bridge, and both of us were gone. There's Peter McEachran at Tongue, that some of them think's the strongest man in these parts; and I offered to bet him five shillings he wouldna carry me across that bridge – let alone down the hill – on a dark night. But would he try? Not a bit, sir.'
'I should think Peter Mac – what's his name? – was a wiser man than to risk his neck for five shillings,' Mr. Hodson said drily. 'And you – you would risk yours – for what?'
'Oh, they were saying things about his lordship,' Ronald said carelessly.
'Then he is not worshipped as a divinity by everybody?' the American said shrewdly.
But the keeper answered, with much nonchalance —
'I suppose he has his ill-wishers and his well-wishers, like most other folk; and I suppose, like most other folk, he doesna pay ower great attention to what people say of him.'
They did not pursue the subject further at this moment, for a turn of the road brought them suddenly within sight of a stranger, and the appearance of a stranger in these parts was an event demanding silence and a concentration of interest. Of course, to Ronald Strang Miss Meenie Douglas was no stranger; but she was obviously a source of some embarrassment: the instant he caught sight of her his face reddened, and as she approached he kept his eyes fixed on the ground. It was not that he was ashamed she should see him acting the part of a gillie; for that he did not care in the least, it was as much a part of his work as anything else; what vexed him was lest some sign of recognition should show the stranger gentleman that Miss Douglas had formed the acquaintance of the person who was at the moment carrying his waterproof and his fishing-rods. And he hoped that Meenie would have the sense to go by without taking any notice of him; and he kept his eyes on the road, and walked forward in silence.
'Who is she?' Mr. Hodson asked, in an undertone, and with some astonishment, for he had no idea there was any such neatly-dressed and pretty young lady in the neighbourhood.
Ronald did not answer, and they drew nearer. Indeed, Meenie was looking quite beautiful this morning; for the cold air had brightened up the colour in her cheeks; and the wide-apart blue-gray eyes were clear and full of light; and her brown hair, if it was tightly braided and bound behind, had in front been blown about a little by the wind, and here and there a stray curl appeared on the fair white forehead. And then again her winter clothing seemed to suit the slight and graceful figure; she looked altogether warm, and furry, and nice, and comfortable; and there was a sensible air about her dress – the blue serge skirt, the tight-fitting sealskin coat (but this was a present from the laird of Glengask and Orosay) and the little brown velvet hat with its wing of ptarmigan plumage (this was a present not from Glengask, and probably was not of the value of three halfpence, but she wore it, nevertheless, when she was at her smartest). And if Ronald thought she was going to pass him by without a word, he was mistaken. It was not her way. As she met them, one swift glance of her Highland eyes was all she bestowed on the stranger; then she said, pleasantly, as she passed —
'Good morning, Ronald.'
He was forced to look up.
'Good morning, Miss Douglas,' said he, with studied respect; and they went on.
'Miss Douglas?' Mr. Hodson repeated, as soon as they were beyond hearing. 'The doctor's daughter, I presume?'
'Yes, sir.'
'But – but – I had no idea – why, she is a most uncommonly pretty young lady – one of the most interesting faces I have seen for many a day. You did not say there was such a charming young person in the place; why, she adds a new interest altogether; I fancy my daughter won't be long in making her acquaintance when she comes here.'
Indeed, as they got down to the boat, and the two men set about getting the rods ready, all his talk was about the pretty young lady he had seen; and he scarcely noticed that Ronald, in answering these questions, showed a very marked reserve. He could not be got to speak of her except in curt answers; perhaps he did not like to have the melancholy Duncan listening; at all events, he showed a quite absorbing interest in the phantom minnows, and traces, and what not. Moreover, when they got into the boat, there was but little opportunity for conversation. The day had become more and more squally; there was a considerable sea on; it was all the two men could do to keep sufficient way on the coble so that the phantoms should spin properly. Then every few minutes a rain-cloud would come drifting across – at first mysterious and awful, as if the whole world were sinking into darkness; then a few big drops would patter about; then down came the sharp clattering shower, only to be followed by a marvellous clearing up again, and a burst of watery sunshine along the Clebrig slopes. But these changes kept Mr. Hodson employed in sheltering himself from the rain while it lasted, and then getting off his waterproof again lest perchance there might come a salmon at one of the lines. That event did actually occur; and when they least expected it. In one of the heaviest of the squalls they had such a fight to get the boat along that the minnows, sinking somewhat, caught the bottom. Of course the rowers had to back down – or rather to drift down – to get the lines released; and altogether the prospect of affairs seemed so unpromising – the heavens darkening with further rain, the wind blowing in sharper and sharper gusts, and the water coming heavily over the bows – that Mr. Hodson called out that, as soon as he had got the minnows free, they might as well run the coble on to the land, and wait for calmer weather. But this was a lee shore. The men were willing to give up for a time – but not until they had got to the sheltered side; so he was counselled to put out the lines again, slowly, and they began anew their fight against the gale. Well, he was actually paying out the first of the lines with his hand, when suddenly – and without any of the preliminary warnings that usually tell of a salmon being after a minnow – the line was snatched from his fingers, and out went the reel with that sharp long shriek that sends the whole boat's crew into an excitement of expectation. But there was no spring into the air away along there in the darkened and plunging waters; as he rapidly got in his line, he knew only of a dull and heavy strain; and the men had to keep on with their hard pulling against the wind, for the fish seemed following the boat in this sulky and heavy fashion.
'What do you think?' Mr. Hodson said, half turning round, and not giving plainer voice to his anxieties.
'I'm afraid it's a kelt, sir,' the dismal gillie answered.
'Looks like it, don't it?' the fisherman said rather dolefully; for the fish showed no sign of life whatever.
'We'll see by and by,' was Ronald's prudent answer; but even he was doubtful; the only good feature being that, if the fish showed no fight, at least he kept a heavy strain on the rod.
But it seemed as if everything was conspiring against them. The black heavens above them burst into a torrent of rain; and with that came a squall that tore the water white, and blew them down on the fish in spite of their hardest efforts. Shorter and shorter grew the line as it was rapidly got in, and still the fish did not show; it was now so near to the boat that any sudden movement on its part was almost certain to produce a catastrophe. Nor could they drive the boat ashore; the beach was here a mass of sharp stones and rocks; in three minutes the coble would have been stove in. With faces set hard the two men pulled and pulled against the storm of wind and rain; and Mr. Hodson – seated now, for he dared not attempt to stand up, the boat was being thrown about so by the heavy waves – could only get in a little more line when he had the chance, and look helplessly on, and wait.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a long shrill shriek – heard loud above the din of wind and water – continued and continued, and in vain he tried to arrest this wild rush; and then, some seventy or eighty yards away, there was a great white splash among the rushing black waves – and another – and another – and then a further whirling out of some fifteen yards of line, until he glanced with alarm at the slender quantity left on the reel. But presently he began to get some in again; the men were glad to let the boat drift down slowly; harder and harder he worked at the big reel, and at last he came to fighting terms with the animal – kelt or salmon, as it might be – with some five-and-twenty yards out, and the squall moderating a little, so that the men could keep the boat as they wanted. Nay, he ventured to stand up now, wedging his legs and feet so that he should not be suddenly thrown overboard; and it was quite evident, from the serious purpose of his face, that all possibility of this being a kelt had now been thrown aside.
'No kelt is he, Ronald?' he called aloud.
'Not a bit, sir! There's no kelt about that one. But give him time; he's a good big fish, or I'm sore mistaken.'
They were far from the end yet, however. The long rush and the splashing had exhausted him for a while; and the fisherman, with a firm application of the butt, thought he could make the fish show himself; but still he kept boring steadily down, sometimes making little angry rushes of a dozen yards or so. And then all of a sudden began some wild cantrips. There was another rush of ten or a dozen yards; and a clear leap into the air – a beautiful, great, silvery creature he looked amid all this hurrying gloom; and then another downward rush; and then he came to the surface again, and shook and tugged and struck with his tail until the water was foaming white about him. These were a few terribly anxious seconds, but all went happily by, and then it was felt that the worst of the fighting was over. After that there was but the sullen refusal to come near the boat – the short sheering off whenever he saw it or one of the oars; but now, in the slow curves through the water, he was beginning to show the gleam of his side; and Ronald was crouching down in the stern, gaff in hand.
'Steady, sir, steady,' he was saying, with his eye on those slow circles; 'give him time, he's no done yet; a heavy fish, sir – a good fish that – twenty pounds, I'm thinking – come along, my beauty, come along —the butt now, sir!' And then, as the great gleaming fish, head up, came sheering along on its side, there was a quick dive of the steel clip, and the next second the splendid creature was in the bottom of the coble.
Mr. Hodson sank down on to his seat; it had been a long fight – over half an hour; he was exhausted with the strain of keeping himself balanced; and he was also (what he had not perceived in this long spell of excitement) wet to the skin. He pulled out a spirit-flask from the pocket of his waterproof – as ill-luck would have it, that useful garment happened to be lying in the bottom of the boat when the fight began – and gave the two men a liberal dram; he then took a sip himself; and when there had been a general quarrel over the size of the fish – nineteen the lowest, twenty-two the highest guess – they began to consider what they ought to do next. The weather looked very ugly. It was resolved to get up to the head of the loch anyhow, and there decide; and so the men took to their oars again, and began to force their way through the heavy and white-crested waves.
But long ere they had reached the head of the loch Mr. Hodson had become aware of a cold feeling about his shoulders and back, and quickly enough he came to the conclusion that sitting in an open boat, with clothes wet through, on a January day, did not promise sufficient happiness. He said they might put him ashore as soon as possible.
'Indeed, sir, it's no much use going on in this weather,' Ronald said, 'unless maybe you were to try the fly.'
'I thought you said it was rather early for the fly.'
'Rayther early,' Ronald admitted.
'Rawther,' said Duncan.
'Anyhow,' observed Mr. Hodson, 'I don't feel like sitting in this boat any longer in wet clothes. I'm going back to the inn right now; maybe the afternoon will clear up – and then we might have another try.'
They got ashore at last, and Mr. Hodson at once started off for the inn; and when the two men had got the rods taken down, and the fish tied head and tail for the better carrying of it, they set out too. But Ronald seemed unusually depressed and silent. Where was the careless joke – the verse of an idle song – with which he was wont to brave the discomforts of wind and weather? The two men strode along without a word; and it was not likely that Duncan the dismal should be the first to break the silence. Nay, when they got to the inn, Ronald would not go in for a minute or two, as was his custom, to see the fish weighed and have a chat. He went on to his own cottage; got the key of the kennel; and presently he and the dogs were leaving the little scattered hamlet, taking the lonely moorland road that led away up the Mudal valley.
He knew not why he was so ill at ease; but something had gone wrong. Had his mind been disturbed and disquieted by the American gentleman's plainly hinting to him that he was living in a fool's paradise; and that old age, and illness, and the possible ingratitude of his master were things to be looked forward to? Or was it that the sudden meeting with Meenie, with this stranger looking on, seemed to have revealed to him all at once how far away she was from him? If she and he had met, as every day they did, and passed with the usual friendly greeting, it would all have been quite simple and ordinary enough; but with this stranger looking on, – and she appearing so beautiful and refined and neatly dressed, and wearing moreover the present given her by Glengask and Orosay – while he, on the other hand, was carrying the gentleman's waterproof and a bundle of rods – well, that was all different somehow. And why had she said 'Good-morning!' with such a pointed friendliness? He did not wish this stranger to imagine that Miss Douglas and he were even acquaintances. And then he thought that that very night he would burn all those stupid verses he had written about her; that secret and half-regretful joy of his – of imagining himself in a position that would entitle him to address her so – was all too daring and presuming. It is true, she wore the ptarmigan's wing she had begged him to get for her (and never in all the years had he so gladly sped up the Clebrig slopes as when she sent him on that errand), but that was a trifle; any young lady, if she wanted such a thing, would naturally ask the nearest gamekeeper. And then the other young lady – the American young lady – when she came, and made Meenie's acquaintance: would not they be much together? Meenie would be still farther and farther away then. He would himself have to keep studiously aloof, if in the generosity of her heart she wished to be as friendly as ever.
Well, these were not very bitter or tragic thoughts; and yet – and yet – there was something wrong. He scarcely knew what it was, but only that the little hamlet – as he returned to it after a long and solitary wandering – did not seem to be the simple and natural and happy place that it used to be. But one thing he was glad of. The second gillie had now arrived from Tongue. Consequently his services would no longer be needed in the coble; he would return to his own ways; and be his own master. And as for companions? – well, Clebrig and he had long been friends.
