White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume I

The piece of news fails to startle us altogether; though we have heard the Laird speak of Mr. Galbraith before.

"Ay," says he, "the world will know something o' Colonsay when Tom Galbraith gets there."

"Whom did you say?" Miss Avon asks.

"Why, Galbraith!" says he. "Tom Galbraith!"

The Laird stares in amazement. Is it possible she has not heard of Tom Galbraith? And she herself an artist; and coming direct from Edinburgh, where she has been living for two whole months!

"Gracious me!" says the Laird. "Ye do not say ye have never heard of Galbraith – he's an Academeecian! – a Scottish Academeecian!"

"Oh, yes; no doubt," she says, rather bewildered.

"There is no one living has had such an influence on our Scotch school of painters as Galbraith – a man of great abeelity – a man of great and uncommon abeelity – he is one of the most famous landscape painters of our day – "

"I scarcely met any one in Edinburgh," she pleads.

"But in London – in London!" exclaims the astonished Laird. "Do ye mean to say you never heard o' Tom Galbraith?"

"I – I think not," she confesses. "I – I don't remember his name in the Academy catalogue – "

"The Royal Academy!" cries the Laird, with scorn. "No, no! Ye need not expect that. The English Academy is afraid of the Scotchmen: their pictures are too strong: you do not put good honest whisky beside small beer. I say the English Academy is afraid of the Scotch school – "

But flesh and blood can stand this no longer: we shall not have Mary Avon trampled upon.

"Look here, Denny-mains: we always thought there was a Scotchman or two in the Royal Academy itself – and quite capable of holding their own there, too. Why, the President of the Academy is a Scotchman! And as for the Academy exhibition, the very walls are smothered with Scotch hills, Scotch spates, Scotch peasants, to say nothing of the thousand herring-smacks of Tarbert."

"I tell ye they are afraid of Tom Galbraith; they will not exhibit one of his pictures," says the Laird, stubbornly; and here the discussion is closed; for Master Fred tinkles his bell below, and we have to go down for luncheon.

It was most unfair of the wind to take advantage of our absence, and to sneak off, leaving us in a dead calm. It was all very well, when we came on deck again, to watch the terns darting about in their swallow-like fashion, and swooping down to seize a fish; and the strings of sea-pyots whirring by, with their scarlet beaks and legs; and the sudden shimmer and hissing of a part of the blue plain, where a shoal of mackerel had come to the surface; but where were we, now in the open Atlantic, to pass the night? We relinquished the doubling of the Ross of Mull; we should have been content – more than content, for the sake of auld lang syne – to have put into Carsaig; we were beginning even to have ignominious thoughts of Loch Buy. And yet we let the golden evening draw on with comparative resignation; and we watched the colour gathering in the west, and the Atlantic taking darker hues, and a ruddy tinge beginning to tell on the seamed ridges of Garveloch and the isle of Saints. When the wind sprung up again – it had backed to due west, and we had to beat against it with a series of long tacks, that took us down within sight of Islay and back to Mull apparently all for nothing – we were deeply engaged in prophesying all manner of things to be achieved by one Angus Sutherland, an old friend of ours, though yet a young man enough.

"Just fancy, sir!" says our hostess to the Laird – the Laird, by the way, does not seem so enthusiastic as the rest of us, when he hears that this hero of modern days is about to join our party. "What he has done beats all that I ever heard about Scotch University students; and you know what some of them have accomplished in the face of difficulties. His father is a minister in some small place in Banffshire; perhaps he has 200*l.* a year at the outside. This son of his has not cost him a farthing for either his maintenance or his education, since he was fourteen; he took bursaries, scholarships, I don't know what, when he was a mere lad; supported himself and travelled all over Europe – but I think it was at Leipsic and at Vienna he studied longest; and the papers he has written – the lectures – and the correspondence with all the great scientific people – when they made him a Fellow, all he said was, 'I wish my mother was alive.'"

This was rather an incoherent and jumbled account of a young man's career.

"A Fellow of what?" says the Laird.

"A Fellow of the Royal Society! They made him a Fellow of the Royal Society last year! And he is only seven-and-twenty! I do believe he was not over one-and-twenty when he took his degree at Edinburgh. And then – and then – there is really nothing that he doesn't know: is there, Mary?"

This sudden appeal causes Mary Avon to flush slightly; but she says demurely, looking down —

"Of course I don't know anything that he doesn't know."

"Hm!" says the Laird, who does not seem over pleased. "I have observed that young men who are too brilliant at the first, seldom come to much afterwards. Has he gained anything substantial? Has he a good practice? Does he keep his carriage yet?"

"No, no!" says our hostess, with a fine contempt for such things. "He has a higher ambition than that. His practice is almost nothing. He prefers to sacrifice that in the meantime. But his reputation – among the scientific – why – why, it is European!"

"Hm!" says the Laird. "I have sometimes seen that persons who gave themselves up to erudeetion, lost the character of human beings altogether. They become scientific machines. The world is just made up of books for them – and lectures – they would not give a halfpenny to a beggar for fear of poleetical economy – "

"Oh, how can you say such a thing of Angus Sutherland!" says she – though he has said no such thing of Angus Sutherland. "Why, here is this girl who goes to Edinburgh – all by herself – to nurse an old woman in her last illness; and as Angus Sutherland is in Edinburgh on some business – connected with the University, I believe – I ask him to call on her and see if he can give her any advice. What does he do? He stops in Edinburgh two months – editing that scientific magazine there instead of in London – and all because he has taken an interest in the old woman and thinks that Mary should not have the whole responsibility on her shoulders. Is that like a scientific machine?"

"No," says the Laird, with a certain calm grandeur; "you do not often find young men doing that for the sake of an old woman." But of course we don't know what he means.

"And I am so glad he is coming to us!" she says, with real delight in her face. "We shall take him away from his microscopes, and his societies, and all that. Oh, and he is such a delightful companion – so simple, and natural, and straightforward! Don't you think so, Mary?"

Mary Avon is understood to assent: she does not say much – she is so deeply interested in a couple of porpoises that appear from time to time on the smooth plain on the sea.

"I am sure a long holiday would do him a world of good," says this eager hostess; "but that is too much to expect. He is always too busy. I think he has got to go over to Italy soon, about some exhibition of surgical instruments, or something of that sort."

We had plenty of further talk about Dr. Sutherland, and of the wonderful future that lay before him, that evening before we finally put into Loch Buy. And there we dined; and after dinner we found the wan, clear twilight filling the northern heavens, over the black range of mountains, and throwing a silver glare on the smooth sea around us. We could have read on deck at eleven at night – had that been necessary; but Mary Avon was humming snatches of songs to us, and the Laird was discoursing of the wonderful influence exerted on Scotch landscape-art by Tom Galbraith. Then in the south the yellow moon rose; and a golden lane of light lay on the sea, from the horizon across to the side of the yacht; and there was a strange glory on the decks and on the tall, smooth masts. The peace of that night! – the soft air, the silence, the dreamy lapping of the water!

"And whatever lies before Angus Sutherland," says one of us – "whether a baronetcy, or a big fortune, or marriage with an Italian princess – he won't find anything better than sailing in the White Dove among the western islands."

CHAPTER IV

A MESSAGE

What fierce commotion is this that awakes us in the morning – what pandemonium broken loose of wild storm-sounds – with the stately White Dove, ordinarily the most sedate and gentle of her sex, apparently gone mad, and flinging herself about as if bent on somersaults? When one clambers up the companion-way, clinging hard, and puts one's head out into the gale, behold! there is not a trace of land visible anywhere – nothing but whirling clouds of mist and rain; and mountain-masses of waves that toss the White Doveabout as if she were a plaything; and decks all running wet with the driven spray. John of Skye, clad from head to heel in black oilskins – and at one moment up in the clouds, the next moment descending into the great trough of the sea – hangs on to the rope that is twisted round the tiller; and laughs a good-morning; and shakes the salt water from his shaggy eyebrows and beard.

"Hallo! John – where on earth have we got to?"

"Ay, ay, sir."

"I say WHERE ARE WE?" is shouted, for the roar of the rushing Atlantic in deafening.

"'Deed I not think we are far from Loch Buy," says John of Skye, grimly. "The wind is dead ahead of us – ay, shist dead ahead!"

"What made you come out against a headwind then?"

"When we cam' out," says John – picking his English, "the wind will be from the norse – ay, a fine light breeze from the norse. And will Mr. – himself be for going on now? it is a ferry bad sea for the leddies – a ferry coorse sea."

But it appears that this conversation – bawled aloud – has been overheard. There are voices from below. The skylight of the ladies' cabin is partly open.

"Don't mind us," calls Mary Avon. "Go on by all means!"

The other voice calls —

"Why can't you keep this fool of a boat straight? Ask him when we shall be into the Sound of Iona."

One might as well ask him when we shall be into the Sound of Jericho or Jerusalem. With half a gale of wind right in our teeth, and with the heavy Atlantic swell running, we might labour here all day – and all the night too – without getting round the Ross of Mull. There is nothing for it but to turn and run, that we may have our breakfast in peace. Let her away, then, you brave John of Skye! – slack out the main-sheet, and give her plenty of it, too: then at the same moment Sandy from Islay perceives that a haul at the weather topping-lift will clear the boom from the davits; and now – and now, good Master Fred – our much-esteemed and shifty Friedrich d'or – if you will but lay the cloth on the table, we will help you to steady the dancing phantasmagoria of plates and forks!

"Dear me!" says the Laird, when we are assembled together, "it has been an awful night!"

"Oh, I hope you have not been ill!" says his hostess, with a quick concern in the soft, clear eyes.

He does not look as if he had suffered much. He is contentedly chipping an egg; and withal keeping an eye on the things near him, for the White Dove, still plunging a good deal, threatens at times to make of everything on the table a movable feast.

"Oh, no, ma'am, not ill," he says. "But at my time of life, ye see, one is not as light in weight as one used to be; and the way I was flung about in that cabin last night was just extraordinary. When I was trying to put on my boots this morning, I am sure I resembled nothing so much as a pea in a bladder – indeed it was so – I was knocked about like a pea in a bladder."