White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume I

The Laird stared at this young lady as if she had gone mad; but there was only a look of complacent friendliness on Mary Avon's face.

"You mean that you write sham letters?" says her hostess. "You gull those unfortunate people into believing that all their wishes are realised?"

"But you make them happy!" says Mary Avon, confidently.

"Yes – and the disappointment afterwards!" retorts her friend, almost with indignation. "Imagine their disappointment when they find they have been duped! Of course they would write letters and discover that the anonymous person had no existence."

"Oh, no!" says Mary Avon, eagerly. "There could be no such great disappointment. The happiness would be definite and real for the time. The disappointment would only be a slow and gradual thing when they found no answer coming to their letter. You would make them happy for a whole week or so by accepting their offer; whereas by not answering their letter or letters you would only puzzle them, and the matter would drop away into forgetfulness. Do you not think it would be an excellent scheme?"

Come on deck, you people; this girl has got demented. And behold! as we emerge once more into the sunlight and whirling spray and wind, we find that we are nearing Skye again on the port tack, and now it is the mouth of Loch Bracadaile that we are approaching. And these pillars of rock, outstanding from the cliffs, and worn by the northern seas?

"Why, these must be Macleod's Maidens!" says Angus Sutherland, unrolling one of the charts.

And then he discourses to us of the curious fancies of sailors – passing the lonely coasts from year to year – and recognising as old friends, not any living thing, but the strange conformations of the rocks – and giving to these the names of persons and of animals. And he thinks there is something more weird and striking about these solitary and sea-worn rocks fronting the great Atlantic than about any comparatively modern Sphinx or Pyramid; until we regard the sunlit pillars, and their fretted surface and their sharp shadows, with a sort of morbid imagination; and we discover how the sailors have fancied them to be stone women; and we see in the largest of them – her head and shoulder tilted over a bit – some resemblance to the position of the Venus discovered at Milo. All this is very fine; but suddenly the sea gets darkened over there; a squall comes roaring out of Loch Bracadaile; John of Skye orders the boat about; and presently we are running free before this puff from the north-east. Alas! alas! we have no sooner got out of the reach of the squall than the wind backs to the familiar north, and our laborious beating has to be continued as before.

But we are not discontented. Is it not enough, as the golden and glowing afternoon wears on, to listen to the innocent prattle of Denny-mains, whose mind has been fired by the sight of those pillars of rock. He tells us a great many remarkable things – about the similarity between Gaelic and Irish, and between Welsh and Armorican; and he discusses the use of the Druidical stones, as to whether the priests followed serpent-worship or devoted those circles to human sacrifice. He tells us about the Picts and Scots; about Fingal and Ossian; about the doings of Arthur in his kingdom of Strathclyde. It is a most innocent sort of prattle.

"Yes, sir," says our Doctor – quite gravely – though we are not quite sure that he is not making fun of our simple-hearted Laird, "there can be no doubt that the Aryan race that first swept over Europe spoke a Celtic language, more or less akin to Gaelic, and that they were pushed out, by successive waves of population, into Brittany, and Wales, and Ireland, and the Highlands. And I often wonder whether it was they themselves that modestly call themselves the foreigners or strangers, and affixed that name to the land they laid hold of, from Galicia and Gaul to Galloway and Galway? The Gaelic word gall, a stranger, you find everywhere. Fingal himself is only Fionn-gall– the Fair Stranger; Dubh-gall– that is, the familiar Dugald – or the Black Stranger – is what the Islay people call a Lowlander. Ru-na-Gaul, that we passed the other day – that is the Foreigner's Point. I think there can be no doubt that the tribes that first brought Aryan civilisation through the west of Europe spoke Gaelic or something like Gaelic."

"Ay," said the Laird, doubtfully. He was not sure of this young man. He had heard something about Gaelic being spoken in the Garden of Eden, and suspected there might be a joke lying about somewhere.

However, there was no joking about our F.R.S. when he began to tell Mary Avon how, if he had time and sufficient interest in such things, he would set to work to study the Basque people and their language – that strange remnant of the old race who inhabited the west of Europe long before Scot, or Briton, or Roman, or Teuton had made his appearance on the scene. Might they not have traditions, or customs, or verbal survivals to tell us of their pre-historic forefathers? The Laird seemed quite shocked to hear that his favourite Picts and Scots – and Fingal and Arthur and all the rest of them – were mere modern interlopers. What of the mysterious race that occupied these islands before the great Aryan tide swept over from the East?

Well, this was bad enough; but when the Doctor proceeded to declare his conviction that no one had the least foundation for the various conjectures about the purposes of those so-called Druidical stones – that it was all a matter of guess-work whether as regarded council-halls, grave-stones, altars, or serpent-worship – and that it was quite possible these stones were erected by the non-Aryan race who inhabited Europe before either Gaul or Roman or Teuton came west, the Laird interrupted him, triumphantly —

"But," says he, "the very names of those stones show they are of Celtic origin – will ye dispute that? What is the meaning of Carnac, that is in Brittany – eh? Ye know Gaelic?"

"Well, I know that much," said Angus, laughing. "Carnac means simply the place of piled stones. But the Celts may have found the stones there, and given them that name."

"I think," says Miss Avon, profoundly, "that when you go into a question of names, you can prove anything. And I suppose Gaelic is as accommodating as any other language."

Angus Sutherland did not answer for a moment; but at last he said, rather shyly —

"Gaelic is a very complimentary language, at all events. Beau is 'a woman;' and bean-nachd is 'a blessing.' An ti a bheannaich thu– that is, 'the one who blessed you.'"

Very pretty; only we did not know how wildly the young man might not be falsifying Gaelic grammar in order to say something nice to Mary Avon.

Patience works wonders. Dinner-time finds us so far across the Minch that we can make out the lighthouse of South Uist. And all these outer Hebrides are now lying in a flood of golden-red light; and on the cliffs of Canna, far away in the south-east, and now dwarfed so that they lie like a low wall on the sea, there is a paler red, caught from the glare of the sunset. And here is the silver tinkle of Master Fred's bell.

On deck after dinner; and the night air is cooler now; and there are cigars about; and our young F.R.S. is at the tiller; and Mary Avon is singing, apparently to herself, something about a Berkshire farmer's daughter. The darkness deepens, and the stars come out; and there is one star – larger than the rest, and low down, and burning a steady red – that we know to be Ushinish lighthouse. And then from time to time the silence is broken by, "Stand by, forrard! 'Bout ship!" and there is a rattling of blocks and cordage and then the head-sails fill and away she goes again on the other tack. We have got up to the long headlands of Skye at last.

Clear as the night is, the wind still comes in squalls, and we have the topsail down. Into which indentation of that long, low line of dark land shall we creep in the darkness?

But John of Skye keeps away from the land. It is past midnight. There is nothing visible but the black sea and the clear sky, and the red star of the lighthouse; nothing audible but Mary Avon's humming to herself and her friend – the two women sit arm-in-arm under half-a-dozen of rugs – some old-world ballad to the monotonous accompaniment of the passing seas.

One o'clock: Ushinish light is smaller now, a minute point of red fire, and the black line of land on our right looms larger in the dusk. Look at the splendour of the phosphorous-stars on the rushing waves.

And at last John of Skye says in an undertone to Angus —

"Will the leddies be going below now?"

"Going below!" he says in reply. "They are waiting till we get to anchor. We must be just off Dunvegan Loch now."

Then John of Skye makes his confession.

"Oh, yes; I been into Dunvegan Loch more as two or three times; but I not like the dark to be with us in going in; and if we lie off till the daylight comes, the leddies they can go below to their peds. And if Dr. Sutherland himself would like to see the channel in going in, will I send below when the daylight comes?"

"No, no, John; thank you," is the answer. "When I turn in, I turn in for good. I will leave you to find out the channel for yourself."

And so there is a clearance of the deck, and rugs and camp-stools handed down the companion. Deoch-an-doruis in the candle-lit saloon? To bed – to bed!

It is about five o'clock in the morning that the swinging out of the anchor-chain causes the yacht to tremble from stem to stern; and the sleepers start in their sleep, but are vaguely aware that they are at a safe anchorage at last. And do you know where the brave White Doveis lying now? Surely if the new dawn brings any stirring of wind – and if there is a sound coming over to us from this far land of legend and romance – it is the wild, sad wail of Dunvegan! The mists are clearing from the hills; the day breaks wan and fair; the great grey castle, touched by the early sunlight, looks down on the murmuring sea. And is it the sea, or is it the cold wind of the morning, that sings and sings to us in our dreams —

Dunvegan – oh! Dunvegan!

CHAPTER XI

DRAWING NEARER

She is all alone on deck. The morning sun shines on the beautiful blue bay; on the great castle perched on the rocks over there; and on the wooded green hills beyond. She has got a canvas fixed on her easel; she sings to herself as she works.

Now this English young lady must have beguiled the tedium of her long nursing in Edinburgh by making a particular acquaintance with Scotch ballads; or how otherwise could we account for her knowledge of the "Song of Ulva," and now of the "Song of Dunvegan?"

Macleod the faithful, and fearing none!Dunvegan – oh! Dunvegan!

– she hums to herself as she is busy with this rough sketch of sea and shore. How can she be aware that Angus Sutherland is at this very moment in the companion way, and not daring to stir hand or foot lest he should disturb her?

Friends and foes had our passion thwarted,

she croons to herself, though, indeed, there is no despair at all in her voice, but a perfect contentment —

But true, tender, and lion-hearted,Lived he on, and from life departed,Macleod, whose rival is breathing none!Dunvegan – oh, Dunvegan!

She is pleased with the rapidity of her work. She tries to whistle a little bit. Or, perhaps it is only the fresh morning air that has put her in such good spirits?

Yestreen the Queen had four Maries.

What has that got to do with the sketch of the shining grey castle? Among these tags and ends of ballads, the young Doctor at last becomes emboldened to put in an appearance.

"Good morning, Miss Avon," says he; "you are busy at work again?"

She is not in the least surprised. She has got accustomed to his coming on deck before the others; they have had a good deal of quiet chatting while as yet the Laird was only adjusting his high white collar and satin neckcloth.

"It is only a sketch," said she, in a rapid and highly business-like fashion, "but I think I shall be able to sell it. You know most people merely value pictures for their association with things they are interested in themselves. A Yorkshire farmer would rather have a picture of his favourite cob than any Raphael or Titian. And the ordinary English squire: I am sure that you know in his own heart he prefers one of Herring's farm yard pieces to Leonardo's Last Supper. Well, if some yachting gentleman, who has been in this loch, should see this sketch, he will probably buy it, however bad it is, just because it interests him – "

"But you don't really mean to sell it?" said he.

"That depends," said she demurely, "on whether I get any offer for it."

"Why," he exclaimed, "the series of pictures you are now making should be an invaluable treasure to you all your life long: a permanent record of a voyage that you seem to enjoy very much. I almost shrink from robbing you of that one of Canna; still, the temptation is too great. And you propose to sell them all?"

"What I can sell of them," she says; and then she adds, rather shyly, "You know I could not very well afford to keep them all for myself. I – I have a good many almoners in London; and I devote to them what I can get for my scrawls – that is, I deduct the cost of the frames, and keep the rest for them. It is not a large sum."

"Any other woman would spend it in jewellery and dresses," says he bluntly.

At this, Miss Mary Avon flushes slightly, and hastily draws his attention to a small boat that is approaching. Dr. Sutherland does not pay any heed to the boat.

He is silent for a second or so; and then he says, with an effort to talk in a cheerful and matter-of-fact way —

"You have not sent ashore yet this morning: don't you know there is a post-office at Dunvegan?"

"Oh, yes; I heard so. But the men are below at breakfast, I think, and I am in no hurry to send, for there won't be any letters for me, I know."

"Oh, indeed," he says, with seeming carelessness, "it must be a long time since you have heard from your friends."

"I have not many friends to hear from," she answers, with a light laugh, "and those I have don't trouble me with many letters. I suppose they think I am in very good hands at present."

"Oh, yes – no doubt," says he, and suddenly he begins to talk in warm terms of the delightfulness of the voyage. He is quite charmed with the appearance of Dunvegan Loch and castle. A more beautiful morning he never saw. And in the midst of all this enthusiasm the small boat comes alongside.

There is an old man in the boat, and when he has fastened his oars, he says a few words to Angus Sutherland, and hands up a big black bottle. Our young Doctor brings the bottle over to Mary Avon. He seems to be very much pleased with everything this morning.

"Now, is not that good-natured?" says he. "It is a bottle of fresh milk, with the compliments of – , of Uginish. Isn't it good-natured?"

"Oh, indeed it is," says she, plunging her hand into her pocket. "You must let me give the messenger half-a-crown."

"No, no; that is not the Highland custom," says the Doctor; and therewith he goes below, and fetches up another black bottle, and pours out a glass of whiskey with his own hand, and presents it to the ancient boatman. You should have seen the look of surprise in the old man's face when Angus Sutherland said something to him in the Gaelic.

And alas! and alas! – as we go ashore on this beautiful bright day, we have to give up for ever the old Dunvegan of many a dream – the dark and solitary keep that we had imagined perched high above the Atlantic breakers – the sheer precipices, the awful sterility, the wail of lamentation along the lonely shores. This is a different picture altogether that Mary Avon has been trying to put down on her canvas – a spacious, almost modern-looking, but nevertheless picturesque castle, sheltered from the winds by softly wooded hills, a bit of smooth, blue water below, and further along the shores the cheerful evidences of fertility and cultivation. The wail of Dunvegan? Why, here is a brisk and thriving village, with a post-office, and a shop, and a building that looks uncommonly like an inn; and there, dotted all about, and encroaching on the upper moorland, any number of those small crofts that were once the pride of the Highlands and that gave to England the most stalwart of her regiments. Here are no ruined huts and voiceless wastes; but a cheerful, busy picture of peasant-life; the strapping wenches at work in the small farm-yards, well-built and frank of face; the men well clad; the children well fed and merry enough. It is a scene that delights the heart of our good friend of Denny-mains. If we had but time, he would fain go in among the tiny farms, and inquire about the rent of the holdings, and the price paid for those picturesque little beasts that the artists are for ever painting – with a louring sky beyond, and a dash of sunlight in front. But our Doctor is obdurate. He will not have Mary Avon walk further; she must return to the yacht.

But on our way back, as she is walking by the side of the road, he suddenly puts his hand on her arm, apparently to stop her. Slight as the touch is, she naturally looks surprised.

"I beg your pardon," he says, hastily, "but I thought you would rather not tread on it – "

He is regarding a weed by the wayside – a thing that looks like a snapdragon of some sort. We did not expect to find a hard-headed man of science betray this trumpery sentiment about a weed.

"I thought you would rather not tread upon it when you knew it was a stranger," he says, in explanation of that rude assault upon her arm. "That is not an English plant at all; it is the Mimulus, its real home is in America."

We began to look with more interest on the audacious small foreigner that had boldly adventured across the seas.

"Oh," she says, looking back along the road, "I hope I have not trampled any of them down."

"Well, it does not much matter," he admits, "for the plant is becoming quite common now in parts of the West Highlands; but I thought as it was a stranger, and come all the way across the Atlantic on a voyage of discovery, you would be hospitable. I suppose the Gulf-stream brought the first of them over."

"And if they had any choice in the matter," says Mary Avon, looking down, and speaking with a little self-conscious deliberation, "and if they wanted to be hospitably received, they showed their good sense in coming to the West Highlands."

After that there was a dead silence on the part of Angus Sutherland. But why should he have been embarrassed? There was no compliment levelled at him that he should blush like a schoolboy. It was quite true that Miss Avon's liking – even love – for the West Highlands was becoming very apparent; but Banffshire is not in the West Highlands. What although Angus Sutherland could speak a few words in the Gaelic tongue to an old boatman? He came from Banff. Banffshire is not in the West Highlands.

Then that afternoon at the great castle itself: what have we but a confused recollection of twelfth-century towers; and walls nine feet thick; and ghost-chambers; and a certain fairy-flag, that is called the Bratach-Sith; and the wide view over the blue Atlantic; and of a great kindness that made itself visible in the way of hothouse flowers and baskets of fruit, and what not? The portraits, too: the various centuries got mixed up with the old legends, until we did not know in which face to look for some transmitted expression that might tell of the Cave of Uig or the Uamh-na-Ceann. But there was one portrait there, quite modern, and beautiful, that set all the tourist-folk a raving, so lovely were the life-like eyes of it; and the Laird was bold enough to say to the gentle lady who was so good as to be our guide, that it would be one of the greatest happinesses of his life if he might be allowed to ask Mr. Galbraith, the well-known artist of Edinburgh, to select a young painter to come up to Dunvegan and make a copy of this picture for him, Denny-mains. And Dr. Sutherland could scarcely come away from that beautiful face; and our good Queen T. was quite charmed with it; and as for Mary Avon, when one of us regarded her, behold! as she looked up, there was a sort of moisture in the soft black eyes.

What was she thinking of? That it must be a fine thing to be so beautiful a woman, and charm the eyes of all men? But now – now that we had had this singing-bird with us on board the yacht for so long a time – would any one of us have admitted that she was rather plain? It would not have gone well with any one who had ventured to say so to the Laird of Denny-mains, at all events. And as for our sovereign-lady and mistress, these were the lines which she always said described Mary Avon: —

Was never seen thing to be praised derre,2Nor under blacke cloud so bright a sterre,As she was, as they saiden, every oneThat her behelden in her blacke weed;And yet she stood, full low and still, alone,Behind all other folk, in little brede,3And nigh the door, ay under shame's drede;Simple of bearing, debonair of cheer,With a full surë4 looking and mannere.

How smart the saloon of the White Dovelooked that evening at dinner, with those geraniums, and roses, and fuchsias, and what not, set amid the tender green of the maidenhair fern! But all the same there was a serious discussion. Fruit, flowers, vegetables, and fresh milk, however welcome, fill no larder; and Master Fred had returned with the doleful tale that all his endeavours to purchase a sheep at one of the neighbouring farms had been of no avail. Forthwith we resolve to make another effort. Far away, on the outer shores of Dunvegan Loch, we can faintly descry, in the glow of the evening, some crofter's huts on the slopes of the hill. Down with the gig, then, boys; in with the fishing-rods; and away for the distant shores, where haply, some tender ewe-lamb, or brace of quacking duck, or some half-dozen half-starved fowls may be withdrawn from the reluctant tiller of the earth!

It is a beautiful clear evening, with lemon-gold glory in the north-west. And our stout-sinewed Doctor is rowing stroke, and there is a monotonous refrain of

Ho, ro, clansmen!A long, strong pull together,Ho, ro, clansmen!

"We must give you a wage as one of the hands, Angus," says Queen T.

"I am paid already," says he. "I would work my passage through for the sketch of Canna that Miss Avon gave me."

"Would you like to ask the other men whether they would take the same payment?" says Miss Avon, in modest depreciation of her powers.

"Do not say anything against the landscape ye gave to Dr. Sutherland," observes the Laird. "No, no; there is great merit in it. I have told ye before I would like to show it to Tom Galbraith before it goes south; I am sure he would approve of it. Indeed, he is jist such a friend of mine that I would take the leeberty of asking him to give it a bit touch here and there – what an experienced artist would see amiss ye know – "

"Mr. Galbraith may be an experienced artist," says our Doctor friend with unnecessary asperity, "but he is not going to touch that picture."

"Ah can tell ye," says the Laird, who is rather hurt by this rejection, "that the advice of Tom Galbraith has been taken by the greatest artists in England. He was up in London last year, and was at the studio of one of the first of the Acadameecians, and that very man was not ashamed to ask the opeenion of Tom Galbraith. And says Tom to him, 'The face is very fine, but the right arm is out of drawing.' You would think that impertinent? The Acadameecian, I can tell you, thought differently. Says he, 'That has been my own opeenion, but no one would ever tell me so; and I would have left it as it is had ye no spoken.'"

"I have no doubt the Academacian who did not know when his picture was out of drawing was quite right to take the advice of Tom Galbraith," says our stroke-oar. "But Tom Galbraith is not going to touch Miss Avon's sketch of Canna – " and here the fierce altercation is stopped, for stroke-oar puts a fresh spurt on, and we hear another sound —

Soon the freshening breeze will blow.Well show the snowy canvas on her,Ho, ro, clansmen!A long, strong pull together,Ho, ro, clansmen!

Well, what was the result of our quest? After we had landed Master Fred, and sent him up the hills, and gone off fishing for lithe for an hour or so, we returned to the shore in the gathering dusk. We found our messenger seated on a rock, contentedly singing a Gaelic song, and plucking a couple of fowls which was all the provender he had secured. It was in vain that he tried to cheer us by informing us that the animals in question had cost only sixpence a-piece. We knew that they were not much bigger than thrushes. Awful visions of tinned meats began to rise before us. In gloom we took the steward and the microscopic fowls on board, and set out for the yacht.