The Mystery of the Green Ray

“Our friend has visitors,” said Myra, “and he’s not there to receive them. How very rude! That yacht is often there. She only makes about eight knots as a rule, although she gives you the impression she could do more. You see, she’s been built for strength and comfort more than for looks. She calls at Glasnabinnie in the afternoons sometimes, and is there after dark, and sails off before six.” (Myra was always out of doors before six in the morning, whatever the weather.) “From which I gather,” she continued, “that the owner lives some distance away and sleeps on board. She can’t be continuously cruising, or she would make a longer stay sometimes.”

“You seem to know the ways of yacht-owners, dear,” I said. “Hullo! what is that hut on the cliff above the falls? That’s new, surely.”

“Oh! that beastly thing,” said Myra in disgust. “That’s his, too. A smoking-room and study, I believe. He had it built there because he has an uninterrupted view that sweeps the sea.”

“Why ‘beastly thing’?” I asked. “It’s too far away to worry you, though it isn’t exactly pretty, and I know you hate to see anything in the shape of a new building going up.”

“Oh! it annoys me,” she answered airily, “and somehow it gets on daddy’s nerves. You see, it has a funny sort of window which goes all round the top of the hut. This is evidently divided into several small windows, because they swing about in the wind, and when the sun shines on them they catch the eye even at our distance. And, as I say, they get on daddy’s nerves, which have not been too good the last week or two.”

“Never mind,” I consoled her; “he’ll be all right when his friends come up for the Twelfth. I think the doctors are wrong to say that he should never have a lot of people hanging round him, because there can surely be no harm in letting him see a few friends. I certainly think he’s right to make an exception for the grouse.”

“Grouse!” sniffed Myra. “They come for the Twelfth because they like to be seen travelling north on the eleventh! And I have to entertain them. And some of the ones who come for the first time tell me they suppose I know all the pretty walks round about! And in any case,” she finished, in high indignation, “can you imagine me entertaining anybody?”

“Yes, my dear, I can,” I replied; and the “argument” kept us busy till we reached Invermalluch. The old General came down to the landing-stage to meet us, and was much more honestly pleased to see me than I had ever known him before.

“Ah! Ronald, my boy!” he exclaimed heartily. “’Pon my soul, I’m glad to see you. It’s true, I suppose? You’ve heard the news?”

The question amused me, because it was so typical of the old fellow. Here had I come from London, where the Cabinet was sitting night and day, to a spot miles from the railway terminus, to be asked if I had heard the news!

“You mean the war, of course?” I replied.

“Yes; it’s come, my boy, at last. Come to find me on the shelf! Ah, well! It had to come sooner or later, and now we’re not ready. Ah, well, we must all do what we can. Begad, I’m glad to see you, my boy, thundering glad. It’s a bit lonely here sometimes for the little woman, you know; but she never complains.” (In point of fact, she even contrived to laugh, and take her father’s arm affectionately in her’s.) “And besides, there are many things I want to have a talk with you about, Ronald – many things. By the way, had lunch?”

“We lunched at Mallaig, thank you, sir,” I explained.

“Well, well, Myra will see you get all you want – won’t you, girlie?” he said.

“I say, Ronnie,” Myra asked, as we reached the house, “are you very tired after your journey, or shall we have a cup of tea and then take our rods for an hour or so?”

I stoutly declared I was not the least tired – as who could have been in the circumstances? – and I should enjoy an hour’s fishing with Myra immensely. So I ran upstairs and had a bath, and changed, and came down to find the General waiting for me. Myra had disappeared into the kitchen regions to give first-aid to a bare-legged crofter laddie who had cut his foot on a broken bottle.

“Well, my boy,” said the old man, “you’ve come to tell us something. What is it?”

“Oh!” I replied, as lightly as I could, “it is simply that we are in for a row with Germany, and I’ve got a part in the play, so to speak. I’m enlisting.”

“Good boy,” he chuckled, “good boy! Applying for a commission, I suppose – man of your class and education, and all that – eh?”

“Oh, heavens, no!” I laughed. “I shall just walk on with the crowd, to continue the simile.”

“Glad to hear it, my boy – I am, indeed. ’Pon my soul, you’re a good lad, you know – quite a good lad. Your father would have been proud of you. He was a splendid fellow – a thundering splendid fellow. We always used to say, ‘You can always trust Ewart to do the straight, clean thing; he’s a gentleman.’ I hope your comrades will say the same of you, my boy.”

“By the way, sir,” I added, “I also intended to tell you that in the circumstances I – I – Well, I mean to say that I shan’t – shan’t expect Myra to consider herself under – under any obligations to me.”

However difficult it was for me to say it, I had been quite certain that the old General would think it was the right thing to say, and would be genuinely grateful to me for saying it off my own bat without any prompting from him. So I was quite unprepared for the outburst that followed.

“You silly young fellow!” he cried. “’Pon my soul, you are a silly young chap, you know. D’you mean to tell me you came here intending to tell my little girl to forget all about you just when you are going off to fight for your country, and may never come back? You mean to run away and leave her alone with an old crock of a father? You know, Ewart, you – you make me angry at times.”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” I apologised, though I had no recollection of having made him angry before.

“Oh! I know,” he said, in a calmer tone. “Felt it was your duty, and all that – eh? I know. But, you see, it’s not your duty at all. No. Now, there are one or two things I want to tell you that you don’t know, and I’ll tell you one of ’em now and the rest later. The first thing – in absolute confidence, of course – is that – ”

But at this point Myra walked in, and the General broke off into an incoherent mutter. He was a poor diplomatist.

“Ah! secrets? Naughty!” she exclaimed laughingly. “Are you ready, Ronnie?”

“He’s quite ready, my dear,” said the old man graciously. “I’ve said all I want to say to him for the time being. Run along with girlie, Ewart. You don’t want to mess about with an old crock.”

“Daddy,” said Myra reproachfully, “you’re not to call yourself names.”

“All right, then; I won’t,” he laughed. “You young people will excuse me, I’m sure. I should like to join you; but I have a lot of letters to write, and I daresay you’d rather be by yourselves. Eh? – you young dog!”

It was a polite fiction between father and daughter that when the old fellow felt too unwell to join her or his guests he “had a lot of letters to write.” And occasionally, when he was in the mood to overtax his strength, she would never refer to it directly, but often she would remark, “You know you’ll miss the post, daddy.” And they both understood. So we set out by ourselves, and I naturally preferred to be alone with Myra, much as I liked her father. We went out on to the verandah, and while I unpacked my kit Myra rewound her line, which had been drying on the pegs overnight.

“Are you content with small mercies, Ron?” she asked, “or do you agree that it is better to try for a salmon than catch a trout?”

“It certainly isn’t better to-day, anyway,” I answered. “I want to be near you, darling. I don’t want the distance of the pools between us. We might walk up to the Dead Man’s Pool, and then fish up stream; and later fish the loch from the boat. That would bring us back in nice time for dinner.”

“Oh! splendid!” she cried; and we fished out our fly-books. Her’s was a big book of tattered pig-skin, which reclined at the bottom of the capacious “poacher’s pocket” in her jacket. The fly-book was an old favourite – she wouldn’t have parted with it for worlds. Having followed her advice, and changed the Orange I had tied for the “bob” to a Peacock Zulu, which I borrowed from her, we set out.

“Just above the Dead Man’s Pool you get a beautiful view of Hilderman’s hideous hut,” Myra declared as we walked along. I may explain here that “Dead Man’s Pool” is an English translation of the Gaelic name, which I dare not inflict on the reader.

“See?” she cried, as we climbed the rock looking down on the gorgeous salmon pool, with its cool, inviting depths and its subtle promise of sport. “Oh! Ronnie, isn’t it wonderful?” she cried. “Almost every day of my life I have admired this view, and I love it more and more every time I see it. I sometimes think I’d rather give up my life than the simple power to gaze at the mountains and the sea.”

“Why, look!” I exclaimed. “Is that the window you meant?”

“Yes,” Myra replied, with an air of annoyance, “that’s it. You can see that light when the sun shines on it, which is nearly all day, and it keeps on reminding us that we have a neighbour, although the loch is between us. Besides, for some extraordinary reason it gets on father’s nerves. Poor old daddy!”

It may seem strange to the reader that anyone should take notice of the sun’s reflection on a window two and a quarter miles away; but it must be remembered that all her life Myra had been accustomed to the undisputed possession of an unbroken view.

“Anyhow,” she added, as she turned away, “we came here to fish. One of us must cross the stream here and fish that side. We can’t cross higher up, there’s too much water, and there’s no point in getting wet. I’ll go, and you fish this side; and when we reach the loch we’ll get into the boat. See, Sholto’s across already.”

And she tripped lightly from boulder to boulder across the top of the fall which steams into the Dead Man’s Pool, while I stood and admired her agile sureness of foot as one admires the graceful movements of a beautiful young roe. Sholto was pawing about in a tiny backwater, and trying to swallow the bubbles he made, until he saw his beloved mistress was intent on the serious business of fishing, and then he climbed lazily to the top of a rock, where he could keep a watchful eye on her, and sprawled himself out in the sun. I have fished better water than the Malluch river, certainly, and killed bigger fish in other lochs than the beautiful mountain tarn above Invermalluch Lodge; but I have never had a more enjoyable day’s sport than the least satisfying of my many days there.

There was a delightful informality about the sport at the Lodge. One fished in all weathers because one wanted to fish, and varied one’s methods and destination according to the day. There was no sign of that hideous custom of doing the thing “properly” that the members of a stockbroker’s house-party seem to enjoy – no drawing lots for reaches or pools overnight, no roping-in a gillie to add to the chance of sending a basket “south.” When there was a superfluity of fish the crofters and tenants were supplied first, and then anything that was left over was sent to friends in London and elsewhere. At the end of the day’s sport we went home happy and pleased with ourselves, not in the least depressed if we had drawn a blank, to jolly and delightful meals, without any formality at all. And if we were wet, there was a great drying-room off the kitchen premises where our clothes were dried by a housemaid who really understood the business. As for our tackle, we dried our own lines and pegged them under the verandah, and rewound them again in the morning, made up our own casts, and generally did everything for ourselves without a retinue of attendants. And thereby we enjoyed ourselves hugely.

Angus and Sandy, the two handy-men of the place, would carry the lunch-basket or pull the boats on the loch or stand by with the gaff or net – and what experts they are! – but the rest we did for ourselves. By the time I had got a pipe on and wetted my line, Myra was some fifty yards or so up stream making for a spot where she suspected something. She has the unerring instinct of the inveterate poacher! I cast idly once or twice, content to revel in the delight of holding a rod in my hand once more, intoxicated with the air and the scenery and the sunshine (What a good thing the fish in the west “like it bright!”), and after a few minutes a sudden jerk on my line brought me back to earth. I missed him, but he thrilled me to the serious business of the thing, and I fished on, intent on every cast.

I suppose I must have fished for about twenty minutes, but of that I have never been able to say definitely. It may possibly have been more. I only know that as I was picking my way over some boulders to enable me to cast more accurately for a big one I had risen, I heard Myra give a sharp, short cry. I turned anxiously and called to her.

I could not distinguish her at first among the great gray rocks in the river. Surely she could not have fallen in. Even had she done so, I hardly think she would have called out. She was extraordinarily sure on her feet, and, in any case, she was an expert swimmer. What could it be? Immediately following her cry came Sholto’s deep bay, and then I saw her. She was standing on a tall, white, lozenge-shaped rock, that looked almost as if it had been carefully shaped in concrete. She was kneeling, and her arm was across her face. With a cry I dashed into the river, and floundered across, sometimes almost up to my neck, and ran stumbling to her in a blind agony of fear. Even as I ran her rod was carried past me, and disappeared over the fall below.

“Myra, my darling,” I cried as I reached her, and took her in my arms, “what is it, dearest? For God’s sake tell me – what is it?”

“Oh, Ronnie, dear,” she said, “I don’t know, darling. I don’t understand.” Her voice broke as she lifted her beautiful face to me. I looked into those wonderful eyes, and they gazed back at me with a dull, meaningless stare. She stretched out her arm to grasp my hand, and her own hand clutched aimlessly on my collar.

In a flash I realised the hideous truth.

Myra was blind!

CHAPTER IV.

THE BLACK BLOW

“Oh, Ronnie, darling,” Myra asked, in a pitiful voice that went to my heart. “What can it mean? I – I – I can’t see – anything at all.”

“It’s the sun, darling; it will be all right in a minute or two. There, lie in my arms, dear, and close your poor eyes. It will be all right soon, dearest.”

I tried to comfort her, to assure her that it was just the glare on the water, that she would be able to see again in a moment, but I felt the pitiful inadequacy of my empty words, and it seemed that the light had gone out of my life. I pray that I may never again witness such a harrowing sight as that of Myra, leaning her beautiful head on my shoulder, suddenly stricken blind, doing her best to pacify her dog, who was heart-broken in the instinctive knowledge of a new, swift grief which he could not understand.

I must ask the reader to spare me from describing in detail the terrible agony of the next few days, when the hideous tragedy of Myra’s blindness overcame us all in its naked freshness. I cannot bring myself to speak of it even yet. I would at any time give my life to save Myra’s sight, her most priceless possession. I make this as a simple statement of fact, and in no spirit of romantic arrogance, and I think I would rather die than live again the gnawing agony of those days.

I took Myra in my arms, and carried her back to the house. Poor child; she realised almost immediately that I was as dumbfounded as she was herself at the terrible blow which had befallen her, and that I had no faith in my empty assurances that it would soon be all right again, and she would be able to see as well as ever in an hour or two, at most. So she at once began to comfort me! I marvelled at her bravery, but she made me more miserable than ever. I felt that she might have a sort of premonition that she would never see again. As we crossed the stream above the fall I saw again the reflected light from Hilderman’s window, and a pang shot through me as I remembered her words on that very spot – that she would rather die than be unable to see her beloved mountains.

I clutched her in my arms, and held her closer to me in dumb despair.

“Am I very heavy, Ron, dear?” she asked presently. “If you give me your hand, dear, I could walk. I think I could even manage without it; but, of course, I should prefer to have your hand at any time.” She gave a natural little laugh, which almost deceived me, and again I marvelled at her pluck. I had known Myra since she was four, and I might have expected that she would meet her tragic misfortune with a smile.

“You’re as light as a feather, dearest,” I protested, “and, as far as that goes, I’d rather carry you at any time.”

“I’m glad you were here when it happened, dear,” she whispered.

“Tell me, darling, how did it happen?” I asked. “I mean, what did it seem like? Did things gradually grow duller and duller, or what?”

“No,” she answered; “that was the extraordinary part of it. Quite suddenly I saw everything green for a second, and then everything went out in a green flash. It was a wonderful, liquid green, like the sea over a sand-bank. It was just a long flash, very quick and sharp, and then I found I could see nothing at all. Everything is black now, the black of an intense green. I thought I’d been struck by lightning. Wasn’t it silly of me?”

“My poor, brave little woman,” I murmured. “Tell me, where were you then?”

“Just where you found me, on the Chemist’s Rock. I call it the Chemist’s Rock because it’s shaped like a cough-lozenge. I was casting from there; it makes a beautiful fishing-table. I looked up, and then – well, then it happened.”

“We’re just coming to the house,” said Myra suddenly. “We’re just going to turn on to the stable-path.”

“Darling!” I cried, nearly dropping her in my excitement; “you can see already?”

“Oh, Ronnie, I’m so sorry,” she said penitently. “I only knew by the smell of the peat stacks.” I could not restrain a groan of disappointment, and Myra stroked my face, and murmured again, “I’m sorry, dearest.”

“Will you please put me down now?” she asked. “If daddy saw you carrying me to the house he’d have a fit, and the servants would go into hysterics.” So I put her tenderly on her feet, and she took my arm, and we walked slowly to the house. She could see nothing, not even in the hazy confusion of the nearly blind; yet she walked to the house with as firm a step and as natural an air as if she had nothing whatever the matter with her.

“You had better leave dad to me, Ron,” she suggested. “We understand each other, and I can explain to him. You would find it difficult, and it would be painful for you both. Just tell him that I’m not feeling very well, and he’ll come straight to me. Don’t tell him I want to see him. Give me your arm to my den, dear.”

I led her to her “den,” a little room opening on to the verandah. There was a writing-table in the window covered with correspondence in neat little piles, for Myra was on all the charity committees in the county, and the rest of the room was given up to a profusion of fishing tackle, shooting gear, and books. Sholto followed us, every now and then rubbing his great head against her skirt. I left her there, and turned into the hall, where I met the General. He had heard us return.

“You’re back early, my boy,” he remarked.

“Yes,” I said, taking out my cigarette-case to give myself an air of assurance which was utterly unknown to me. “Myra is not feeling very well. She’s resting for a bit.”

“Not well?” he exclaimed, in surprise. “Very unusual, very unusual indeed.” And he turned straight into Myra’s room without waiting for an answer to his quiet tap on the door. With a heavy heart I went upstairs to the old schoolroom, now given over to Mary McNiven, Myra’s old nurse.

“Master Ronald! I am glad,” she cried, when I accepted her invitation to “come in.” Mary had boxed my ears many times in my boyhood, and the fact that we were old friends made it difficult for me to tell her my terrible news. I broke it as gently as I could, and warned her not to alarm the servants, and very soon she wiped away her tears and went downstairs to see what she could do. I went out into the fresh air for a moment to pull myself together, marvelling at the unreasoning cruelty of fate. I turned into the hall, and met the General coming out of Myra’s room. He was talking to Mary and one of the housemaids.

“These things often occur,” he was explaining in a very matter-of-fact voice. “They are unusual, though not unheard-of, and very distressing at the time. But I am confident that Miss Myra will be quite herself again in a day or two. Meanwhile, she had better go to bed and rest, and take care of herself while Angus fetches Doctor Whitehouse. No doubt he will give her some lotion to wash her eyes with, and it will be only a day or two before we see Miss Myra about again as usual. You must see that she has no light near her, and that she rests her eyes in every possible way. There is nothing whatever for you girls to get anxious or frightened about. I have seen this sort of thing before, though usually in the East.”

The old man dismissed the maids, and went into the drawing-room, while I spent a few moments with Myra. I was delighted to see the General taking it so well, as I had even been afraid of his total collapse, so I took what comfort I could from his ready assurance that he was quite accustomed to that sort of thing. But when, some twenty minutes later, I went to look for him in the drawing-room, and found him prostrate on the sofa, his head buried in his arms, I realised whence Myra had derived her pluck. He looked up as he heard the door open, and tears were streaming down his rugged old face.

“Never mind me, Ronald,” he said brokenly. “Never mind me. I shall be all right in a minute. I – I didn’t expect this, but I shall be all right in a minute.” I closed the door softly and left him alone.

I found Angus had harnessed the pony, and was just about to start for Glenelg to fetch Doctor Whitehouse. So I told him to tell the General that I should be better able to explain to the doctor what had happened, and, glad of the diversion, I drove in for him myself. But when he arrived he made a long and searching examination, patted Myra’s head, and told her the nerve had been strained by the glare on the water, and rest was all that was needed; and, as soon as he got outside her door, he sighed and shook his head. In the library he made no bones about it, and her father and I were both grateful to him.

“It’s not a bit of use my saying I know when I don’t,” the doctor declared emphatically. “I’m puzzled – indeed, I’m absolutely beaten. This is a thing I’ve not only never come across before, but I’ve never even read about it. This green flash, the suddenness of it, the absence of pain – she says she feels perfectly well. She could see wonderfully well up to the second it happened; no warning headaches, and nothing whatever to account for it. I have known a sudden shock to the system produce instantaneous blindness, such as a man in a very heated state diving into ice-cold water. But in this case there is nothing to go by. I can only do her harm by pretending to know what I don’t know, and you know as much as I do. She must see a specialist, and the sooner the better. I would recommend Sir Gaire Olvery; that would mean taking her up to London. Mr. Herbert Garnesk is the second greatest oculist in the country; but undoubtedly Sir Gaire is first. Meanwhile I will give her a little nerve tonic; it will do her no harm, and will give her reason to think that we know how to treat her, so that it may do her good. She must wear the shade I brought her, and take care her eyes are never exposed to the light.”

“The fact that you yourself can make nothing of it is for us or against us?” asked the General, in an anxious voice.

He was looking haggard and tired out.

“In what way?” queried the doctor.

“I mean that if she had – er – totally lost her – the use of her eyes – for all time, could you be certain of that or not? Or can you give us any reason to hope that the very fact of your not understanding the nature of the case points to her getting over it?”