Donald Ross of Heimra (Volume 3 of 3)

William Black

Donald Ross of Heimra (Volume 3 of 3)

CHAPTER I

SMOKE AND FLAME

But that was not at all the view that Fred Stanley took of this amazing and incomprehensible incident.

"There's some trick in it, Frank," he said vehemently, as he hurried his friend along with him, on their way back to the house. "There's some underhand trick in it, and I want to know what it means. I tell you, we must get the keepers, and go up the hill at once, and see what is going on. There's something at the bottom of all this jugglery."

"Jugglery or no jugglery," his companion said, with much good-humour, "it has come in very handy. If a riot had been started, who knows what the end might have been? It wasn't the raid into the Glen Orme forest that concerned me, nor yet the driving of the sheep off Meall-na-Fearn; but I confess I was anxious about your sister. If she had been denounced before an angry and excited meeting – "

"Oh, we should have been able to take care of ourselves!" the younger man said, dismissing that matter contemptuously.

"And if it was Ross of Heimra who stepped in to prevent all this," Meredyth continued, "I, for one, am very much obliged to him."

"Oh, don't be an ass, Frank!" the other said, with angry impatience. "If it is Donald Ross who has done all this, I'll swear he has done it for his own purposes. And I want to know. I want to find out. I want to see what the trick means. And of one thing I am absolutely certain, and that is, that Donald Ross is up on the moor at this very moment. Oh, yes," the young man went on, seeing that his wild suspicions received no encouragement from his more cautious companion, "a fine stratagem, to keep us idling and kicking our heels about here all the morning – and on the Twelfth, too! I thought it was odd that the meeting should be fixed for the Twelfth; but now I begin to see. Now I begin to understand why Donald Ross came over from Heimra yesterday afternoon."

"Well, what do you imagine?" Meredyth asked.

"Why, it's as clear as daylight!" the younger man exclaimed – jumping from vague surmises to definite conclusions. "Here have we been hanging about all the morning, like a couple of simpletons, waiting for a general riot or some nonsense of that kind, while Ross and his gang of poachers have been up on the moor, sweeping the best beats clean of every bird! That has been the little programme! – and a fine consignment of game to be sent away to Inverness to-night, as soon as the dark comes down. But they may not be off the hill yet; and we'll hurry up Hector and Hugh, and have a look round." And then he added, vindictively: "I'd let the Twelfth go – I shouldn't mind a bit having had the Twelfth spoilt – if only I could catch those scoundrels – and the chief of them – red-handed."

"All I have to say is," observed the more phlegmatic Meredyth, "that if we are going up the hill we may as well take our guns with us and a brace of dogs. We can have an hour or two. The fag-end of the Twelfth is better than no Twelfth; and your sister says she wants some birds."

"Birds?" the other repeated. "What do you expect to find on the ground after those poaching thieves have been over it?"

However, in the end he consented; and as they found that Hector – undisturbed by all those alarming rumours of riot and pillage – had kept everything in readiness for them, the two young men snatched a hasty sandwich and set forth. It was not a very eager shooting party. There was a sensation that the great possibilities of the Twelfth had been ruined for them. Nevertheless, there would be some occupation for the afternoon, and the mistress of the household wanted some grouse.

But, indeed, it soon became evident that it was not shooting that was uppermost in Fred Stanley's mind. He overruled Hector's plan for taking the nearest beats. He would have his companions hold away up the Corrie Bhreag, which leads to the Glen Orme forest; and ever he was making for the higher ranges – scanning the ground far ahead of him, and listening intently in the strange silence; while he was clearly unwilling to have the dogs uncoupled.

"Look here, man," at length said Meredyth, who, though new to the place, had a trained eye for the features of a moor; "surely we have come down wind far enough? It will take us all our time to get back before dinner, even if we pick the beats on the way home – "

The answer was unexpected – a half-smothered exclamation of mingled anger and triumph.

"Didn't I tell you so?" young Stanley exclaimed, with his eyes fixed on a small, dark object a long distance up the glen. "Didn't I tell you we should find him here? Don't you see him – away up yonder? My lad, when you come poaching, you shouldn't put on sailor's clothes; they're too conspicuous. What do you say, Hector: can you make him out? Well, whether you can or not, I will tell you his name. That is Mr. Donald Ross, if you want to know – and I guessed we should find him here or hereabouts!"

"I am not sure," said Hector, slowly, also with his eyes fixed on the distant and dark figure.

"But I am!" Fred Stanley went on. "And perhaps you can tell me what he is doing up on our shooting?"

"Mebbe," said the serious-visaged keeper, with a little hesitation, "mebbe he was waiting to see that none of the lads would be for going into the forest. Or mebbe he was up at Glen Orme."

"Oh, stuff and nonsense!" the young man cried, scornfully. "Do you think we are children! I tell you, we have caught him at last; and wherever the rest of the gang have sneaked off to, he is bound to come along here and face it out. Yes, he is coming: I can see he is moving this way. Very well, Frank, you have the dogs uncoupled now, and begin to shoot back home: I'm going to meet my gentleman – and I will take my gun with me, just to keep a wholesome check on insolence."

"You will not," said Meredyth, with decision – for he knew not whither this young man's obvious wrath and enmity might not lead him. "I will wait here with you: whoever that is, he is clearly coming this way."

"Why, of course he must!" was the rejoinder. "He sees he is caught: what else is there left for him but to come along and try to put some kind of face on it?" Then presently he exclaimed: "Well, of all the effrontry that I ever beheld! He is carrying a gun under his arm! – how's that for coolness?"

"I am not thinking it is a gun, sir," said the tall, brown-bearded keeper; "it is more like a steeck."

"Yes, it is a stick, Fred," Meredyth put in, after a moment.

"Oh, why should he have a gun? What does he want with a gun?" the young man said, without being disconcerted for a moment. "He has only to direct the operations of his confederates. A stick? – very likely! – the master-poacher doesn't want to be encumbered with a gun!"

And so they waited. It was a singular scene for the Twelfth of August on the side of a Highland hill: no ranging of dogs, no cracking of breechloaders, no picking up of a bird here and there from the thick heather, but a small group, standing silent and constrained, and dimly aware that pent-up human passions were about to burst forth amid these vast and impressive solitudes. Young Ross of Heimra – for it was unmistakably he – came leisurely along; his attention was evidently fixed on the sportsmen; perhaps he was wondering that they did not let loose the dogs and get to work. But as he drew nearer he must have perceived that they were awaiting his approach; and so – with something of interrogation and surprise in his look – he came up to them.

"I hope you have had good sport," said Fred Stanley.

Donald Ross stared: there was something in the young man's tone that seemed to strike him.

"I – I don't quite understand," said he.

"Oh, well, it's only this," replied the other, striving to keep down his rising rage, and speaking in a deliberately taunting fashion, "that when you find anyone on a Highland moor on the Twelfth of August you naturally suppose that he has come for grouse. And why not? I am sorry we have interrupted you. When you have the fishing and the stalking, why shouldn't you have the shooting as well? I am sorry if we have disturbed you – "

They formed a curious contrast, those two: the tall, handsome, light-haired youth, with his fair complexion and his boyish moustache causing him to look almost effeminate, and yet with his nostrils dilated, his haughty grey eyes glistening with anger, a tremor of passion about the lines of his lips; the other, though hardly so tall, of more manly presence, his pale, proud, clear-cut features entirely reticent, his coal-black eyes, so far, without flame in them, an absolute self-possession and dignity governing his manner.

"I hardly know what you mean," said he, slowly, fixing those calmly observant black eyes on the young lad. "What is it all about? Do I understand you to accuse me of shooting over your moor – here – now? – do you imagine – "

"Oh, it isn't that only! – it is half-a-dozen things besides!" the young man exclaimed, letting his passion get entirely the mastery of him. "Who has this place? Not those who bought it! It is you who have the shooting and fishing and everything; and not content with that but you play dog-in-the-manger as well – heaving stones into the pools when anyone else goes down to the river. And who does the scringeing about here? – answer me that! – do you think we don't know well enough? Let us have an end of hypocrisy – "

"Let us have an end of madness!" said Donald Ross, sternly; and for a second there was a gleam of fire in his black eyes. But that sudden flame, and a certain set expression of the mouth, almost instantly vanished; this young fellow, with the girlish complexion, was even now so curiously like his sister. "I do not answer you," Donald Ross went on, with a demeanour at once simple and austere. "You have chosen to insult me. I do not answer you. You are in my country: it is the same as if you were under my roof."

"Your country!" the hot-headed young man cried, in open scorn, "What part of the country belongs to you! That rock of an island out there! – and I wish you would keep to it; and you'd better keep to it; for we don't mean to have this kind of thing going on any longer. We mean to have an end of all this scringeing and poaching! We have been precious near getting hold of those scringe-nets: we'll make sure of them the next time. And I want once for all to tell you that we mean to have the fishing for ourselves, and the shooting, too; and we want you to understand that there is such a thing as the law of trespass. What right have you to be here, at this moment, on this moor?" he demanded. "How can you explain your being here? What are you doing here – on the Twelfth? Do you know to whom this moor belongs? And by what right do you trespass on it?"

"Fred," interposed Frank Meredyth, who was painfully conscious that the two keepers – though they had discreetly turned away – must be hearing something of this one-sided altercation, "enough of this: if there is any dispute, it can be settled another time – not before third persons."

"One moment," said Donald Ross, turning with a grave courtesy to this intervener. "You have heard the questions I have just been asked. Well, I do not choose to account for my actions to any one. But this I wish to explain. I have no right to be where I am, I admit; I have trespassed some dozen yards on to this moor, in order to come up and speak to you. When you saw me first I was on the old footpath – there it is, you can see for yourself – that leads up this corrie, and through the Glen Orme forest to Ledmore; it is an old hill road that everyone has the right of using."

"Oh, yes, thieves' lawyers are always clever enough!" Fred Stanley said, disdainfully.

Donald Ross regarded him for a moment – with a strange kind of look, and that not of anger: then he quietly said, "Good afternoon!" to Meredyth, and went on his way. Hector got out of the prevailing embarrassment by uncoupling the dogs; and Frank Meredyth put cartridges in his gun. This encounter did not augur well for steady shooting.

Meanwhile Donald Ross was making down for the coast, slowly and thoughtfully. What had happened had been a matter of a few swift seconds; it had now to be set in order and considered; the scene had to be conjured up again – with all its minute but vivid incidents. And no longer was there any need for him to affect a calm and proud indifference; phrases that he had seemed to pass unheeded began to burn; the rapid glances and tones of those brief moments, now that they were recalled, struck deep. Indeed, the first effect of a blow is but to stun and bewilder – the pain comes afterwards; and there are words that cause more deadly wounds than any blows. Taunt and insult: these are hard things for a Highlander to brook – and yet – and yet – that handsome, headstrong boy, even in the white-heat of his passion, had looked so curiously like his sister.

"Ah, well," said Ross, aloud, and there was a kind of smile on his face, "it is, perhaps, a wholesome lesson. Hereafter I'd better mind my own business. And if I have been ordered off the mainland – sent back to my little island – very well: the sea-gulls and gannets won't accuse me of trespass."

In time he drew near the village. But as he went down the hill from Minard, and had to pass Lochgarra House, he did not turn his eyes in that direction. He held straight on; and at length encountered a small boy who had just been engaged in hauling a dinghy up on the beach.

"Alan," said he, "have you seen Big Archie anywhere about?"

"Ay," said the boy, "he was at the inn to look at the people driving aweh."

"What people? The strangers who were at the church this morning?"

"Ay, chist that. There was many a one laughing at them," said Alan, with a bit of a grin.

"Well, run along now, and see if you can find Big Archie, and tell him I am going out to Heimra. Then you can come back with him, and pull us out to the lugger."

And away went Alan, with a will, eager to earn the sixpence that he foresaw awaiting his return, while the young laird of Heimra, having nothing else to do until Big Archie should put in an appearance, seated himself on the gunwale of the dinghy, with his eyes turned towards the sea. Not once had he glanced in the direction of Lochgarra House.

But Lochgarra House had taken notice of him. Mary Stanley chanced to be passing one of the windows, when of a sudden her face grew animated, and her eyes – those liquid grey-green eyes that were at all times so clear and radiant – those bland, good-humoured, kind eyes – shone with a quick interest and delight.

"Käthchen! Käthchen!" she called. "There is Mr. Ross just gone by – tell Barbara to run after him – quick! quick! – and – and my compliments – and I want to see him most particularly. He must not go out to Heimra before I have seen him – tell her not to lose a minute – I'm afraid he may be going along now to get Big Archie's boat."

But at such a crisis Kate Glendinning did not choose to wait for any servant. She flew into the hall, snatched a straw hat from the table, tripped down the wide stone steps, and made her way as quickly as might be round the sea-wall and along the beach. He did not hear her approach; he seem plunged in a profound reverie.

"Mr. Ross!" she said, rather breathlessly and timidly, to attract his attention.

He started to his feet; and, when he saw who this was, his naturally pale, dark face grew suddenly suffused – an almost school-boyish constraint visible there for a moment! Käthchen was surprised; but she made haste to deliver Miss Stanley's message.

"She happened to see you from the window; and she is most anxious you should not go back to Heimra before she has a chance of thanking you for your great kindness. For she quite understands it was you who prevented all the mischief that might have arisen from those people coming here; and she is very grateful; and wishes to say so to yourself. And I was to give you her compliments, and say that she wished particularly to see you – if you wouldn't mind coming along for a few moments."

This time he did throw a brief glance in the direction of Lochgarra House – perhaps thinking of what otherwise might have been. But now, how could he ever again be under that roof?

"Will you tell Miss Stanley," said he – and though that temporary confusion had gone, there was still a curious reserve in his manner – "that I am very glad if I have been of any service to her – very glad that she should think so, I mean; but it isn't worth speaking about; and she must not say anything more about it."

"But she wishes to see you!" exclaimed Käthchen, who naturally had expected an instant acquiescence. "Surely she is the best judge as to whether she ought to thank you, or not. And that was the message I was to take to you, that she wished most particularly to see you, before you went out to Heimra. A few moments only – she will not detain you – "

"If you will excuse me, I would rather not go along," said he, looking uneasily towards the cottages and the inn. "I have just sent for Big Archie."

Käthchen was astounded. What kind of a young man was this, to refuse the invitation of a beautiful young woman – one, indeed, who had shown herself singularly interested in him, even as he had gone out of his way to render friendly little services to her? Käthchen's secret conjectures, founded on what she had recently observed as between these two, seemed to have been suddenly and rudely stultified. What was the key to this enigma? Jealousy? Was it the presence of Frank Meredyth that interposed? Would he decline to visit the house until that possible rival had been removed? She could not understand; she was bewildered; but still she had her commission to execute; and the faithful Kate was staunch.

"Miss Stanley will be disappointed," said she. "She is most anxious to see you. A couple of minutes would be enough. And surely you could let Big Archie wait."

"Thank you," said he – and it was clear that it was with the greatest reluctance he was forcing himself to refuse – "but I would rather not. I am very sensible of Miss Stanley's kindness; but – but she must not make too much of this trifling thing."

Käthchen paused irresolute. But, after all, she had no more to say. She could not appeal to him, she could not beg of him, as a favour, to accept Miss Stanley's invitation: Käthchen also had a little pride; so she civilly bade him good afternoon, and hoped he would have a pleasant voyage home; and set out on her way back to the house.

"Well?" said Mary, when Käthchen came into the room. But she had already seen, from the window, that her messenger was returning alone.

"Oh," said Käthchen, in an indifferent sort of fashion – and she began to gather up some samples of homespun that were strewn on the table – "he says he is going out to Heimra at once. He has sent for Big Archie. He says – he says – that he is glad if he has rendered you any little service – but you are not to think of it."

Mary's eyes had grown full of wonder. For out of these windows she could plainly see that he was still waiting on the beach: the fact being that the boy Alan had failed to find Big Archie at the inn, and had gone off to seek him throughout the cottages.

"But did you tell Mr. Ross that I wished to speak with him?" she asked.

"I said that you most particularly wished to speak with him."

"Yes – and then?"

"Then he – he begged to be excused," said Käthchen, bluntly.

Mary turned sharply away from the window, and for a second or two she was silent.

"Why did you say 'most particularly'? What right had you to give him any such message?" she demanded, with something of a cold and dignified air, but not looking towards Käthchen.

"Those were your very words, Mamie!" Käthchen protested.

"I may have said something like that – in the hurry of calling to you," Mary said, with flushed face. "But you ought to have known. You might have known it was not a message I wanted given to anyone – not to anyone. However, it is of little consequence." She advanced to the table – her head somewhat erect. "I suppose," she said, in a matter-of-fact way, "you will be writing about those samples to the Frasers, in Inverness?"

"Yes, Mamie – you told me to."

"Very well," she continued, still with that air of unconcern; "you might say to them at the same time that we can get patchwork quilts made for them at from ten to twelve shillings the piece, if they send us the materials. That is the price I promised to the women here. And if they prefer the stockings made longer, I will have them made longer; only they must give me a little more for them – there is so much more wool and so much more work."

She glanced furtively over her shoulder: it was only now that Big Archie had made his appearance – coming down the beach to the spot at which young Ross was idly walking about.

"Käthchen," she said of a sudden, with something of piteous vexation in her tone, "are you certain you said 'most particularly'? – are you quite certain? – I – I did not mean it – I was in a hurry – you did not say 'most particularly,' did you? At the same time," she went on, with an abrupt affectation of carelessness, "it is of very little consequence – no consequence whatever: the only thing is that the Highlanders appear to have odd manners – and that again, as I say, is a matter of perfect indifference. Don't forget to mention the patchwork quilts and the stockings."

But Kate Glendinning rose and went to the window. By this time Donald Ross, Big Archie, and the young lad were all in the dinghy, on their way out to the lugger.

"There is something strange, Mamie," Käthchen said, thoughtfully. "I cannot imagine what made him refuse to come along to this house – and refuse with such embarrassment. And these are not Highland manners at all. But sometimes a Highlander is too proud to speak."

They were soon to learn what all this meant. When the two young men returned from their afternoon expedition, it appeared that they had got thirteen and a half brace of grouse, and a few odds and ends – a very fair bag, considering the size of the moor and the length of time they had been out. But it was not the success of the shooting that caused Fred Stanley to come into the drawing-room with something of a gay and triumphant air.

"Well, we have caught your poaching friend at last," he said to his sister, "and I think we have sent him home with a flea in his ear. I knew we should corner him sooner or later, in spite of his cunning. And a very pretty trick it was – to plan this insurrectionary meeting for the Twelfth, so that we should be kept away from the hill, keepers and all. But it didn't work, you see; for we lost no time in getting up to the Corrie Bhreag, and there he was, sure enough. And very little he had to say for himself – not a word! – but I had something to say to him; and I don't think we shall be troubled with his presence about Lochgarra for some little time to come."

"Are you speaking of Mr. Ross?" said Mary, with a certain calmness of manner that did not quite conceal her alarm.

"I should think I was!"

"And what did you find him doing?"

"I found him on the moor – where he had no right to be; and if the rest of the gang managed to hide themselves or to get safe away, well, I did not care much about that; he was there to answer for them; and so we had it out. Yes, I may say we had it out."

Mary turned to Frank Meredyth.

"Mr. Meredyth, what is all this about? What happened? Did you find Mr. Ross shooting on the moor?"

"Well, no," said Meredyth, with something of disquiet, for he was now placed in a most unenviable position. "The fact is, it would be difficult to bring any definite charge against him; for he was coming down from the direction of the Glen Orme forest, and when we first saw him he was following an old hill-path that everybody has the right to use – so he says. No, he wasn't shooting – not then, certainly; nor did we see any one with him: but as regards Fred's suspicions – well, you know, I have said before, that when you imagine there is poaching going on, you see it in every circumstance."

"What was he doing up there at all?" the younger man broke in. "Why, he had no defence to make. He had not a word to say for himself. It's all very well to be high and mighty: you won't account for your actions to any body – no, of course not, when you can't without convicting yourself!"