Donald Ross of Heimra (Volume 3 of 3)

Fortune favoured her. The Tontine Hotel is almost opposite the railway station, so that she had no difficulty in finding it; and hardly had she got within the doorway when she met Donald Ross himself crossing the hall, and apparently on his way into the street. When he made out who this was (her face was in shadow, and he did not at first recognise her) his eyes looked startled, and he threw an involuntary glance towards the door to see if there was any one accompanying her. But the girl was alone.

"Mr. Ross," said Käthchen, rather nervously – for she had not expected to encounter him just at once – "I wish to speak with you – "

"Oh, come in here, then," said he, with a certain coldness of manner, as if he were about to face an unpleasant ordeal that was also useless; and he led the way into the coffee-room, where, at this time of the day, there was no one, not even a waiter.

Nervous Käthchen distinctly was; for she knew the terrible responsibility that lay on her; and all the fine calmness she had been calculating on in her communings with herself in lonely railway-carriages seemed now to have fled. But perhaps it was just as well; for in a somewhat incoherent, but earnest, fashion, she plunged right into the middle of things, and told him the whole story – told him of the factor's circumstantial and malignant slander, of Mary's momentary bewilderment, of the luckless meeting, and of her subsequent bitter remorse and despair. At one portion of this narrative his face grew dark, and the black eyes burned with a sullen fire.

"I have a long account to settle with Purdie," said he, as if to himself, "and it is about time the reckoning was come."

But when she had quite finished with her eager explanations, and excuses, and indirect appeals, what was his reply? Why, not one word. She looked at him – in blank dismay.

"But, Mr. Ross! – Mr. Ross! – " she said, piteously.

There was no response: he had received her communication – that was all.

"I have told you everything: surely you understand: what – what message am I to take?" Käthchen exclaimed, in trembling appeal.

"I have heard what you had to say," he answered her, with a studied reserve that seemed to Käthchen's anxious soul nothing less than brutal, "and of course I am sorry if there has been any misunderstanding, or any suffering, anywhere. But these things are past. And as for the present, I do not gather that you have been commissioned by Miss Stanley to bring one solitary word to me – one expression of any kind whatsoever. Why should I return any reply? – she has not spoken one word."

"Oh, you ask too much!" Käthchen exclaimed, in hot indignation. "You ask too much! Do you think Mary Stanley would send for you? She is as proud as yourself – every bit as proud! And she is a woman. You are a man: it is your place to have the courage of yielding – to have the courage of offering forgiveness, even before it is asked. If I were a man, and if I loved a woman that I thought loved me, I would not stand too much on my dignity, even if she did not speak. And what do you want – that she should say she is sorry? Mr. Ross, she is ill! I tell you, she is ill. Come and judge for yourself what all this has done to her! – you will see only too clearly whether she has been sorry or not. And that superstition of hers, about there being a fatality attending her family – that they cannot help inflicting injury and insult on you and yours – who can remove that but yourself? No," she said, a little stiffly, "I have no message from Mary Stanley to you; and if I had, I would not deliver it. And now it is for you to say or do what you think best."

"Yes, yes; yes, yes," he said, after a moment's deliberation. "I was thinking too much of the Little Red Dwarf; I was thinking too much of that side of it. I will go back to Lochgarra, and at once. And this is Thursday; the steamer will be coming down from Glasgow to-day; that will be the easiest way for us to go back."

There was a flash of joy and triumph – and of gratitude – in Käthchen's sufficiently pretty eyes.

CHAPTER IX

THE BANABHARD

The big steamer was slowly and cautiously making in for Lochgarra Bay – slowly and cautiously, for though the harbour is an excellent one after you are in it, the entrance is somewhat difficult of navigation; and Donald Ross and Kate Glendinning were seated in the after part of the boat, passing the time in talking. And of course it was mostly of Miss Stanley they spoke.

"For one thing, you ought to remember," said Käthchen, "the amount of prejudice against you she has had to overcome. If you only knew the character she received of you the very first evening we arrived here! I wonder if you would recognise the picture – a terrible outlaw living in a lonely island, a drunken, thieving, poaching ne'er-do-well, a malignant conspirator and mischief-maker: Mr. Purdie laid on the colours pretty thickly. By the way, I wish you would tell me the cause of that bitter animosity Mr. Purdie shows against you and all your family – "

"It is simple enough – but it is not worth speaking about," he said, with a certain indifference. It was not of Purdie, nor of Purdie's doings, that he was thinking at the moment.

"But I want to know – I am curious to know," Käthchen insisted.

"It is simple enough, then," he repeated. "When the old factor died – old MacInnes – I hardly remember him, but I fancy he was a decent sort of man – when he died, my father appointed this Purdie, on the recommendation of a friend, and without knowing much about him. Well, Purdie never did get on at all with the people about here. He was an ill-tempered, ill-conditioned brute, to begin with; spiteful, revengeful, and merciless; and of course the people hated him, and of course he came to know it, and had it out with them whenever he got the chance. You see, my father was almost constantly abroad, and Purdie had complete control. My mother tried to interfere a little; and he resented her interference; I think it made him all the more savage. And at last the discontent of the people broke out in open revolt. Purdie happened to have come over to Lochgarra; and when they heard of it, the whole lot of them – from Minard, and Cruagan, and everywhere – came together in front of the inn, and there was no end of howling and hooting. Purdie escaped through the back-garden, and took refuge with the Minister; but the crowd followed him to the Minister's cottage, and burnt his effigy in front of the door – oh, I don't know what they didn't do. Only, it got into the papers; it was a public scandal; and my father, coming to hear of it, at once deposed the twopenny-halfpenny tyrant. That is all the story. But no doubt his being ignominiously dismissed was a sore thing for a man of his nature – the public humiliation, and all the rest of it – "

"But how did he get back to his former position?" Käthchen demanded.

"Miss Stanley's uncle put him back when he bought the estate," Donald Ross said, quietly. "I fancy he had an idea that Purdie was the right kind of man for this place, especially as he himself had to be absent a good deal. Yes, I will say this for Purdie – he is an excellent man of business; he will squeeze out for you every penny of rent that is to be got at; and he has no sort of hesitation about calling in the aid of the sheriff. And of course he came back more malevolent than ever; he knew they had rejoiced over his downfall; and he was determined to make them smart for it. As for his honouring me with his hatred, that is quite natural, I suppose. It was my father who sent him into disgrace; and then – then the people about here and I are rather friendly, you know; and they had a great regard for my mother; and all that taken together is enough for Purdie. We were in league with his enemies; and they with us."

"I can imagine what he thought," said Käthchen, meditatively, "when he saw the new proprietress taking you into her counsels, and adopting a new system, and interfering with him, and overriding his decisions at every turn. He made a bold stroke to sever that alliance between her and you; but it failed; and now he is sorry – very sorry – exceedingly sorry, I should think."

"What do you mean?" he asked, fixing his eyes upon her.

"Perhaps I should leave Mary herself to tell you," she answered him. "But that is of little consequence; it cannot be a secret. Very well: she has ordered Mr. Purdie to prepare a statement of his accounts; and his factorship ceases at Michaelmas. It was the last thing she told me before I left Lochgarra."

Donald Ross laughed.

"I had intended to have a word with Purdie," said he, "but it seems the Baintighearna has been before me."

The arrival of the steamer is always a great event at Lochgarra; there were several well-known faces on the quay. Here were the Gillie Ciotach, and Big Archie, and the Minister, and Peter Grant, the innkeeper; and here also was Anna Clannach. The poor lass was in sad distress; she was crying and wringing her hands.

"What is the matter, Anna?" said Donald Ross, in Gaelic, as he stepped from the gangway on to the pier.

"I am wishing to go out to Heimra," said the Irish-looking girl with the dishevelled hair and streaming eyes.

"Why so?" he asked.

"It is to find my mother," she made answer, with many sobs. "When I was sleeping my mother came to me, and said I was to come out to Heimra for her, and bring her back, but when I offer the money to the men they laugh at me – "

"Anna," said he, gently, "you must not think of going out to Heimra. If you were not to find your mother there, that would be great sorrow for you. If she is coming for you, you must wait patiently – "

"But I am going out in the steamer?" said the girl, beginning to cry afresh.

"The steamer?" he said. "The steamer does not call at Heimra, not at any time."

"But it is Mr. Ross has the mastery,"[1 - Tighearnas– lordship, or dominion.] she pleaded. "It is every one that must obey Mr. Ross; and the steamer will take me out to Heimra if he tells the captain."

"Now, Anna," he said, trying to reason with her, "listen to what I am telling you. How can a great boat like that go into the small harbour of Eilean Heimra? And I have no authority over the captain, nor has any one: it is to Stornoway he is going now, and to no other place. So you must wait patiently; and I think you should go and live with the Widow MacVean, and help to do little things about the croft. For it is not good for a young lass to be without an occupation."

Anna Chlannach turned away weeping silently, and refusing to be comforted; while young Ross was immediately tackled by the Minister, who had a long tale to tell about some Presbytery case in Edinburgh.

What now occurred it is difficult to describe consecutively, for so many things seemed to happen at once, or within the space of a few breathless seconds. The captain had discharged his cargo (Kate Glendinning and Donald Ross, with their bodyguard of Coinneach and Calum, were the only passengers), and was getting under weigh again; and to do this the more easily he had signalled down to have the engines reversed, while keeping the stern hawser on its stanchion on the pier, so that the bow of the boat should gradually slew round. It was to the man who was in charge of this massive rope that Anna Chlannach, seeing the steamer was beginning to move, addressed her final and frantic appeal – nay, she even seized him by the arm, and implored him, with loud lamentations, to let her go on the boat. The man, intently watching the captain on the bridge, tried to shake her off; grew more and more impatient of her importunity; at last he said savagely —

"To the devil with you and your mother! – I tell you your mother is dead and buried these three years!"

At this Anna Chlannach uttered a piercing shriek – she seemed to reel under the blow, in a wild horror – then, with her hands raised high above her head, she rushed to the end of the quay, and threw herself over, right under the stern-post of the steamer. Donald Ross, startled by that despairing cry, wheeled round just in time to see her disappear; and in a moment he was after her, heedless of the fact that the steamer was still backing, the powerful screw churning up the green water into seething and hissing whirlpools. But the captain had seen this swift thing happen; instantly he recognised the terrible danger; he rapped down to the engine room "Full speed ahead!" – while the man in charge of the hawser, who had not seen, taking this for a sufficient signal, slipped the noose off the post, and let the ponderous cable drop into the sea.

"The raven's death to you, what have you done!" Archie MacNichol cried, as he ran quickly to the edge of the quay, and stared over, his eyes aghast, his lips ashen-grey.

There was nothing visible but the seething and foaming water, with its million million bells of air showing white in the pellucid green. Had the girl been struck down by the revolving screw? Had Donald Ross been knocked senseless by a blow from the heavy cable? Big Archie pulled off his jacket and flung it aside. He clambered over the edge of the quay, and let himself down until he stood on one of the beams below. His eyes – a fisherman's eyes – were searching those green deeps, that every moment showed more and more clear.

All this was the work of a second, and so was Archie's quick plunge into the sea when he beheld a dark object rise to the surface, some half-dozen yards away from him – the tangled black hair and the wan face belonging to a quite listless if not lifeless form. It needed but a few powerful strokes to take him along – then one arm was placed under the apparently inanimate body – while with the other he began to fight his way back again to the pier. Of course, bearing such a burden, it was impossible for him to drag himself up to his former position; he could only cling on to one of the mussel-encrusted beams, waiting for the boat that the people were now hurriedly pushing off from the shore. And if, while bravely hanging on there, he looked back to see if there was no sign of that other one, then he looked in vain: the corpse of the hapless Anna Chlannach was not found until some two days thereafter.

Meanwhile, this was what was taking place at Lochgarra House. Barbara had come to tell her young mistress, who was lying tired and languid on the sofa, of the arrival of the steamer.

"Go to the window, Barbara," said she, rather faintly, "and – and tell me who are coming ashore. Maybe you can make them out?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, mem," said Barbara, who had been famous for her eyesight, even among the keepers and stalkers, when she was parlour-maid up at Glen Orme.

She went to the window.

"There is Miss Glendinning, mem," said Barbara, in her soft-spoken way; "and glad I am of that: it is not good for Miss Stanley to be so much alone. Yes, and Mr. Ross coming ashore too – no, he is going back down the gang way – maybe he is going onto Stornoway? – no, no, I think he is only calling something to Coinneach Breac, and the lad Calum – and they are carrying a portmanteau. And there is Anna Chlannach going from the one to the other on the quay – yes, and Mr. Ross now speaking to her – and Miss Glendinning speaking to the Minister. And now Mr. Ross speaking to the Minister – and – and Miss Glendinning watching the steamer – ay, just waiting to see her go aweh… Oh, mem! – oh, mem! – there is something happening on the quay!" exclaimed Barbara, in terrified accents. "The people are running – and I am not seeing Mr. Ross anywhere – and they are shoving out a boat from the shore – "

"What is it! – what is it, Barbara! Tell me! – tell me!"