White Heather: A Novel (Volume 1 of 3)

'There's Ronald outside, mem, and I think he might go away and shoot something for the gentleman's dinner.'

'Very well,' said Mrs. Murray; 'go and say that I would be very much obliged to him indeed if he would bring me a hare or two the first time he is going up the hill, but at his own convenience, to be sure.'

But that was not the message that Nelly went to deliver. She wanted to show her authority before all these half-critical idlers, and also, as a good-looking lass, her independence and her mastery over men-folk.

'Ronald,' said she, at the door of the inn, 'I think you might just as well be going up the hill and bringing us down a hare or two, instead of standing about here doing nothing.'

'Is that Highland manners, lass?' he said, but with perfect good humour. 'I'm thinking ye might say "if ye please." But I'll get ye a hare or two, sure enough, and ye'll keep the first dance for me on Monday night.'

'Indeed I am not sure that I will be at the dancing at all,' retorted the pretty Nelly; but this was merely to cover her retreat – she did not wish to have any further conversation before that lot of idle half-grinning fellows.

As for Ronald, he bade them good-morning, and went lightly on his way again. He was going up the hill anyway; and he might as well bring down a brace of hares for Mrs. Murray; so, after walking along the road for a mile or so, he struck off across some rough and partly marshy ground, and presently began to climb the lower slopes of Clebrig, getting ever a wider and wider view as he ascended, and always when he turned finding beneath him the wind-stirred waters of the loch, where a tiny dark object, slow-moving near the shores, told him where the salmon fishers were patiently pursuing their sport.

No, there were no more unsettling notions in his brain; here he was master and monarch of all he surveyed; and if he was profoundly unconscious of the ease with which he breasted this steep hillside, at least he rejoiced in the ever-widening prospect – as lochs and hills and stretches of undulating moorland seemed to stretch ever and ever outward until, afar in the north, he could make out the Kyle of Tongue and the faint line of the sea. It was a wild and changeable day; now filled with gloom, again bursting forth into a blaze of yellow sunshine; while ever and anon some flying tag of cloud would come sweeping across the hillside and engulf him, so that all he could then discern was the rough hard heather and bits of rock around his feet. It was just as one of these transient clouds was clearing off that he was suddenly startled by a loud noise – as of iron rattling on stones; and so bewildering was this unusual noise in the intense silence reigning there that instinctively he wheeled round and lowered his gun. And then again, the next second, what he saw was about as bewildering as what he had heard – a great creature, quite close by, and yet only half visible in the clearing mist, with huge outspread wings, dragging something after it across the broken rocks. The truth flashed upon him in an instant; it was an eagle caught in a fox-trap; the strange noise was the trap striking here and there on a stone. At once he put down his gun on an exposed knoll and gave chase, with the greatest difficulty subduing the eager desire of the yelping Harry to rush forward and attack the huge bird by himself. It was a rough and ludicrous pursuit but it ended in capture – though here, again, circumspection was necessary, for the eagle, with all his neck-feathers bristling, struck at him again and again with the talons that were free, only one foot having been caught in the trap. But the poor beast was quite exhausted; an examination of the trap showed Ronald that he must have flown with this weight attached to his leg all the way from Ben Ruach, some half dozen miles away; and now, though there was yet an occasional automatic motion of the beak or the claws, as though he would still strike for liberty, he submitted to be firmly seized while the iron teeth of the trap were being opened. And then Ronald looked at his prize (but still with a careful grip). He was a splendid specimen of the golden eagle – a bird that is only found here and there in Sutherlandshire, though the keepers are no longer allowed to kill them – and, despite himself, looking at the noble creature, he began to ask himself casuistical questions. Would not this make a handsome gift for Meenie? – he could send the bird to Macleay at Inverness, and have it stuffed and returned without anybody knowing. Moreover, the keepers were only charged to abstain from shooting such golden eagles as they might find on their own ground; and he knew from the make of the trap that this one must have come from a different shooting altogether; it was not a Clebrig eagle at all. But he looked at the fierce eye of the beast, and its undaunted mien; he knew that, if it could, it would fight to the death; and he felt a kind of pride in the creature, and admiration for it, and even a sort of sympathy and fellow-feeling.

'My good chap,' said he, 'I'm not going to kill you in cold blood – not me. Go back to your wife and weans, wherever they are. Off!'

And he tried to throw the big beast into the air. But this was not like flinging up a released pigeon. The eagle fell forward, and stumbled twice ere it could get its great wings into play; and then, instead of trying to soar upward, it went flapping away down wind – increasing in speed, until he could see it, now rising somewhat, cross the lower windings of Loch Naver, and make away for the northern skies.

'It's a God's mercy,' he was saying to himself, as he went back to get his gun, 'that I met the creature in the daytime; had it been at night, I would hae thought it was the devil.'

Some two or three hundred feet still farther up the hillside he came to his own eyrie – a great mass of rock, affording shelter from either southerly or easterly winds, and surrounded with some smaller stones; and here he sate contentedly down to look around him – Harry crouched at his feet, his nose between his paws, but his eyes watchful. And this wide stretch of country between Clebrig and the northern sea would have formed a striking prospect in any kind of weather – the strange and savage loneliness of the moorlands; the solitary lakes with never a sign of habitation along their shores; the great ranges of mountains whose silent recesses are known only to the stag and the hind; but on such a morning as this it was all as unstable and unreal as it was wildly beautiful and picturesque; – for the hurrying weather made a kind of phantasmagoria of the solid land; bursts of sunlight that struck on the yellow straths were followed by swift gray cloud-wreaths blotting out the world; and again and again the white snow-peaks of the hills would melt away and become invisible only to reappear again shining and glorious in a sky of brilliant blue; until, indeed, it seemed as if the earth had no substance and fixed foundation at all, but was a mere dream, an aerial vision, changed and moved and controlled by some unseen and capricious hand.

And then again, on the dark and wind-driven lake far below him, that small object was still to be made out – like some minute, black, crawling water insect. He took out his glass from its leather case, adjusted it, and placed it to his eye. What was this? In the world suddenly brought near – and yet dimly near, as though a film interposed – he could see that some one was standing up in the stern of the boat, and another crouching down, by his side. Was that a clip or the handle of the landing-net; in other words, was it a salmon or a kelt that was fighting them there? He swept the dull waters of the loch with his glass; but could make out no splashing or springing anywhere near them. And then he could see by the curve of the rod that the fish was close at hand; there was a minute or two longer of anxiety; then a sudden movement on the part of the crouching person – and behold a silver-white object gleams for a moment in the air and then disappears!

'Good!' he says to himself – with a kind of sigh of satisfaction as if he had himself taken part in the struggle and capture.

How peaceful looks the little hamlet of Inver-Mudal! The wild storm-clouds, and the bursts of sunlight, and the howling winds seem to sail over it unheeded; down in the hollow there surely all is quiet and still. And is Meenie singing at her work, by the window; or perhaps superintending Maggie's lessons; or gone away on one of the lonely walks that she is fond of – up by the banks of the Mudal Water? It is a bleak and a bare stream; there is scarce a bush on its banks; and yet he knows of no other river – however hung with foliage and flowers – that is so sweet and sacred and beautiful. What was it he wrote in the bygone year – one summer day when he had seen her go by – and he, too, was near the water, and could hear the soft murmuring over the pebbles? He called the idle verses

MUDAL IN JUNEMudal, that comes from the lonely mere,Silent or whispering, vanishing ever,Know you of aught that concerns us here? —You, youngest of all God's creatures, a river.Born of a yesterday's summer shower,And hurrying on with your restless motion,Silent or whispering, every hour,To lose yourself in the great lone ocean.Your banks remain; but you go by,Through day and through darkness swiftly sailing:Say, do you hear the curlew cry,And the snipe in the night-time hoarsely wailing?Do you watch the wandering hinds in the morn;Do you hear the grouse-cock crow in the heather;Do you see the lark spring up from the corn,All in the radiant summer weather?O Mudal stream, how little you knowThat Meenie has loved you, and loves you ever;And while to your ocean home you flow,She says good-bye to her well-loved river! —O see you her now – she is coming anigh —And the flower in her hand her aim discloses:Laugh, Mudal, your thanks as you're hurrying by —For she flings you a rose, in the month of roses!

Well, that was written as long ago as last midsummer; and was Meenie still as far away from him as then, and as ignorant as ever of his mute worship of her, and of these verses that he had written about her? But he indulged in no day-dreams. Meenie was as near to him as he had any right to expect – giving him of an assured and constant friendship; and as for these passing rhymes – well, he tried to make them as worthy of her as he could, though he knew she should never see them; polishing them, in so far as they might be said to have any polish at all, in honour of her; and, what is more to the point, at once cutting out and destroying any of them that seemed to savour either of affectation or of echo. No: the rude rhymes should at least be honest and of his own invention and method; imitations he could not, even in fancy, lay at Meenie's feet. And sometimes, it is true, a wild imagination would get hold of him – a whimsical thing, that he laughed at: supposing that life – the actual real life here at Inver-Mudal – were suddenly to become a play, a poem, a romantic tale; and that Meenie was to fall in love with him; and he to grow rich all at once; and the Stuarts of Glengask to be quite complaisant: why, then, would it not be a fine thing to bring all this collection of verses to Meenie, and say 'There, now, it is not much; but it shows you that I have been thinking of you all through these years?' Yes, it would be a very fine thing, in a romance. But, as has been said, he was one not given to day-dreams; and he accepted the facts of life with much equanimity; and when he had written some lines about Meenie that he regarded with a little affection – as suggesting, let us say, something of the glamour of her clear Highland eyes, and the rose-sweetness of her nature, and the kindness of her heart – and when it seemed rather a pity that she should never see them – if only as a tribute to her gentleness offered by a perfectly unbiassed spectator – he quickly reminded himself that it was not his business to write verses but to trap foxes and train dogs and shoot hoodie-crows. He was not vain of his rhymes – except where Meenie's name came in. Besides, he was a very busy person at most seasons of the year; and men, women, and children alike showed a considerable fondness for him, so that his life was full of sympathies and interests; and altogether he cannot be regarded, nor did he regard himself, as a broken-hearted or blighted being. His temperament was essentially joyous and healthy; the passing moment was enough; nothing pleased him so much as to have a grouse, or a hare, or a ptarmigan, or a startled hind appear within sure and easy range, and to say 'Well, go on. Take your life with you. Rather a pleasant day this: why shouldn't you enjoy it as well as I?'

However, on this blustering and brilliant morning he had not come all the way up hither merely to get a brace of hares for Mrs. Murray, nor yet to be a distant spectator of the salmon-fishing going on far below. Under this big rock there was a considerable cavity, and right at the back of that he had wedged in a wooden box lined with tin, and fitted with a lid and a lock. It was useful in the autumn; he generally kept in it a bottle of whisky and a few bottles of soda-water, lest any of the gentlemen should find themselves thirsty on the way home from the stalking. But on this occasion, when he got out the key and unlocked the little chest, it was not any refreshment of that kind he was after. He took out a copy-book – a cheap paper-covered thing such as is used in juvenile schools in Scotland – and turned to the first page, which was scrawled over with pencilled lines that had apparently been written in time of rain, for there were plenty of smudges there. It had become a habit of his that, when in these lonely rambles among the hills, he found some further rhymes about Meenie come into his head, he would jot them down in this copy-book, deposit it in the little chest, and probably not see them again for weeks and weeks, when, as on the present occasion, he would come with fresh eyes to see it there were any worth or value in them. Not that he took such trouble with anything else. His rhyming epistles to his friends, his praises of his terrier Harry, his songs for the Inver-Mudal lasses to sing – these things were thrown off anyhow, and had to take their chance. But his solitary intercommunings away amid these alpine wastes were of a more serious cast; insensibly they gathered dignity and repose from the very silence and awfulness of the solitudes around; there was no idle and pastoral singing here about roses in the lane. He regarded the blurred lines, striving to think of them as having been written by somebody else:

Through the long sad centuries Clebrig slept,Nor a sound the silence broke,Till a morning in Spring a strange new thingBetrayed him and he awoke;And he laughed, and his joyous laugh was heardFrom Erribol far to Tongue;And his granite veins deep down were stirred,And the great old mountain grew young.'Twas Love Meenie he saw, and she walked by the shore,And she sang so sweet and so clear,That the sound of her voice made him see againThe dawn of the world appear;And at night he spake to the listening starsAnd charged them a guard to keepOn the hamlet of Inver-Mudal thereAnd the maid in her innocent sleep,Till the years should go by; and they should seeLove Meenie take her stand'Mong the maidens around the footstool of God —She gentlest of all the band!

He tore the leaf out, folded it, and put it in his pocket.

'Another one for the little bookie that's never to be seen,' said he, with a kind of laugh; for indeed he treated himself to a good deal of satire, and would rather have blown his brains out than that the neighbourhood should have known he was writing these verses about Meenie Douglas.

'And hey, Harry, lad!' he called, as he locked the little cupboard again, 'I'm thinking we must be picking up a hare now, if it's for soup for the gentleman's dinner the night. So ye were bauld enough to face an eagle? I doubt, if both his feet had been free, but ye might have had a lift in the air, and seen the heavens and the earth spread out below ye.'

He shouldered his gun and set out again – making his way towards some rockier ground, where he very soon bagged the brace of hares he wanted. He tied their legs together, slung them over his shoulder, and began to descend the mountain again – usually keeping his eye on the minute black speck on the loch, lest there might be occasion again for his telescope.

He took the two hares – they looked remarkably like cats, by the way, for they were almost entirely white – into the inn, and threw them on to the chair in the passage.

'There you are, Nelly, lass,' said he, as the fair-haired Highland maid happened to go by.

'All right,' said she, which was no great thanks.

But Mr. Murray, in the parlour, had heard the keeper's voice.

'Ronald,' he cried, 'come in for a minute, will ye?'

Mr. Murray was a little, wiry, gray-haired, good-natured looking man, who, when Ronald entered the parlour, was seated at the table, and evidently puzzling his brains over a blank sheet of paper that lay before him.

'Your sister Maggie wass here this morning,' the inn-keeper said – still with his eyes fixed upon the paper – 'and she wass saying that maybe Meenie – Miss Douglas – would like to come with the others on Monday night – ay, and maybe Mrs. Douglas herself too as well – but they would hef to be asked. And Kott pless me, it is not an easy thing, if you hef to write a letter, and that is more polite than asking – it is not an easy thing, I am sure. Ronald,' he said, raising his eyes and turning round, 'would you tek a message?'

'Where?' said Ronald – but he knew well enough, and was only seeking time to make an excuse.

'To Mrs. Douglas and the young lass; and tell them we will be glad if they will come with the others on Monday night – for the doctor is away from home, and why should they be left by themselves? Will you tek the message, Ronald?'

'How could I do that?' Ronald said. 'It's you that's giving the party, Mr. Murray.'

'But they know you so ferry well – and – and there will be no harm if they come and see the young lads and lasses having a reel together – ay, and a song too. And if Mrs. Douglas could not be bothered, it's you that could bring the young lady – oh yes, I know ferry well – if you will ask her, she will come.'

'I am sure no,' Ronald said hastily, and with an embarrassment he sought in vain to conceal. 'If Miss Douglas cares to come at all, it will be when you ask her. And why should ye write, man? Go down the road and ask her yourself – I mean, ask Mrs. Douglas; it's as simple as simple. What for should ye write a letter? Would ye send it through the post too? That's ceremony for next-door neighbours!'

'But Ronald, lad, if ye should see the young lass herself – '

'No, no; take your own message, Mr. Murray; they can but give you a civil answer.'

Mr. Murray was left doubting. It was clear that the awful shadow of Glengask and Orosay still dwelt over the doctor's household; and that the innkeeper was not at all sure as to what Mrs. Douglas would say to an invitation that she and her daughter Meenie – or Williamina, as the mother called her – should be present at a merry-meeting of farm lads, keepers, gillies, and kitchen wenches.

CHAPTER VIII

THE NEW YEAR'S FEAST

Loud and shrill in the empty barn arose the strains of the Athole March, warning the young lasses to hasten with the adjustment of their ribbons, and summoning the young lads about to look sharp and escort them. The long and narrow table was prettily laid out; two candelabra instead of one shed a flood of light on the white cover; the walls were decorated with evergreens and with Meenie's resplendent paper blossoms; the peats in the improvised fireplace burned merrily. And when the company began to arrive, in twos and threes, some bashful and hesitating, others merry and jocular, there was a little embarrassment about the taking of places until Ronald laid down his pipes and set to work to arrange them. The American gentleman had brought in Mrs. Murray in state, and they were at the head of the table; while Ronald himself took the foot, in order, as he said, to keep order – if he were able – among the lasses who had mostly congregated there. Then the general excitement and talking was hushed for a minute, while the innkeeper said grace; and then the girls – farm wenches, some of them, and Nelly, the pretty parlour-maid, and Finnuala, the cook's youngest sister, who was but lately come from Uist and talked the quaintest English, and Mr. Murray's two nieces from Tongue, and the other young lasses about the inn – all of them became demure and proper in their manner, for they were about to enjoy the unusual sensation of being waited upon.

This, of course, was Ronald's doing. There had been a question as to which of the maids were to bring in supper for so large a number; so he addressed himself to the young fellows who were standing about.

'You lazy laddies,' he said, 'what are ye thinking o'? Here's a chance for ye, if there's a pennyworth o' spunk among the lot o' ye. They lasses there wait on ye the whole year long, and make the beds for ye, and redd the house; I'm thinking ye might do worse than wait on them for one night, and bring in the supper when they sit down. They canna do both things; and the fun o' the night belongs to them or to nobody at all.'

At first there was a little shamefaced reluctance – it was 'lasses' work,' they said – until a great huge Highland tyke – a Ross-shire drover who happened to be here on a visit – a man of about six feet four, with a red beard big enough for a raven to build in, declared that he would lend a hand, if no one else did; and forthwith brought his huge fist down on the bar-room table to give emphasis to his words. There was some suspicion that this unwonted gallantry was due to the fact that he had a covetous eye on Jeannie, Donald Macrae's lass, who was a very superior dairy-mistress, and was also heir-presumptive to her father's farmstead and about a score of well-favoured cattle; but that was neither here nor there; he was as good as his word; he organised the brigade, and led it; and if he swallowed a stiff glass of whisky before setting out from the kitchen for the barn, with a steaming plate of soup in each hand, that was merely to steady his nerves and enable him to face the merriment of the whole gang of those girls. And then when this red-bearded giant of a Ganymede and his attendants had served every one, they fetched in their own plates, and sat down; and time was allowed them; for the evening was young yet, and no one in a hurry.

Now if Mr. Hodson had been rather doubtful lest his presence might produce some little restraint, he was speedily reassured, to his own great satisfaction, for he was really a most good-natured person and anxious to be friendly with everybody. In the general fun and jollity he was not even noticed; he could ask Mrs. Murray any questions he chose without suspicion of being observant; the young lady next him – who was Jeannie Macrae herself, and to whom he strove to be as gallant as might be – was very winsome and gentle and shy, and spoke in a more Highland fashion than he had heard yet; while otherwise he did not fare at all badly at this rustic feast, for there were boiled fowls and roast hares after the soup, and there was plenty of ale passed round, and tea for those who wished it. Nay, on the contrary, he had rather to push himself forward and assert himself ere he could get his proper share of the work that was going on. He insisted upon carving for at least half a dozen neighbours; he was most attentive to the pretty Highland girl next him; and laughed heartily at Mrs. Murray's Scotch stories, which he did not quite understand; and altogether entered into the spirit of the evening. But there was no doubt it was at the other end of the table that the fun was getting fast and furious; and just as little doubt that Ronald the keeper was suffering considerably at the hands of those ungrateful lasses for whom he had done so much. Like a prudent man, he held his tongue and waited his opportunity; taking their teasing with much good humour; and paying no heed to the other young fellows who were urging him to face and silence the saucy creatures. And his opportunity came in the most unexpected way. One of the girls, out of pure mischief, and without the least notion that she would be overheard, rapped lightly on the table, and said: 'Mr. Ronald Strang will now favour us with a song.' To her amazement and horror there was an almost instant silence; for an impression had travelled up the table that some announcement was about to be made.