White Heather: A Novel (Volume 1 of 3)

'He is not married?'

'No, sir.'

'Well, now, when he thinks about getting married, I suppose he'll pretty well have his choice about here?'

'Indeed there iss others besides him,' said Nelly rather proudly, but her face was red as she opened the door.

Well, whether it was owing to the intervention of Nelly or not, as soon as Mr. Hodson was ready to start he found Ronald waiting for him without; and not only that, but he had already assumed command of the expedition, having sent the one gillie who had arrived down to bale the boat. And then he would overhaul Mr. Hodson's fishing-gear – examining the rods, testing the lines and traces, and rejecting all the spoon baits, angels, sand-eels, and what not, that had been supplied by the London tackle-maker, for two or three of the familiar phantom minnows. Mr. Hodson could scarcely believe that this was the same man who last night had been discussing the disestablishment of state churches and the policy of protecting native industries. He had not a word for anything but the business before him; and the bold fashion in which he handled those minnows, all bristling with hooks, or drew the catgut traces through his fingers (Mr. Hodson shivered, and seemed to feel his own fingers being cut to the bone), showed that he was as familiar with the loch as with the hillside or the kennel.

'I'm not much on salmon-fishing myself,' the American remarked modestly.

'It's rather early in the season, sir, I'm afraid,' was the answer. 'But we might get a fish after all; and if we do it'll be the first caught in Scotland this year, I warrant.'

They set out and walked down to the shore of the loch, and there Mr. Hodson seated himself on the gunwale of the flat-bottomed coble, and watched the two men putting the rods together and fixing the traces. The day had now declared itself; wild and stormy in appearance, but fair on the whole; great floods of sunshine falling suddenly on the yellow slopes and the russet birch woods; and shadows coming as rapidly across the far heights of Clebrig, steeping the mountains in gloom. As for the gillie who had been proof against the seductions of keeping the New Year, and who was now down on one knee, biting catgut with his teeth, he was a man as tall and as sallow as Mr. Hodson himself, but with an added expression of intense melancholy and hopelessness. Or was that but temporary?

'Duncan doesna like that boat,' Ronald said, glancing at Mr. Hodson.

The melancholy man did not speak, but shook his head gloomily.

'Why?'

As the gillie did not answer, Ronald said —

'He thinks there is no luck with that boat.'

'That boat?' the gillie said, with an angry look towards the hapless coble. 'She has the worst luck of any boat in Sutherland —tam her,' he added, under his breath.

'In my country,' the American said, in his slow way, 'we don't mind luck much; we find perseverance about as good a horse to win with in the end.'

He was soon to have his perseverance tried. Everything being ready they pushed off from the shore, Ronald taking stroke oar, the gillie at the bow; Mr. Hodson left to pay out the lines of the two rods, and fix these in the stern, when about five-and-thirty yards had gone forth. At first, it is true, he waited and watched with a trifle of anxiety. He wanted to catch a salmon; it would be something to write about to his daughter; it would be a new experience for himself. But when time passed and the boat was slowly rowed along the loch at a measured distance from the shore, without any touch of anything coming to make the point of either rod tremble, he rather gave up his hope in that direction, and took to talking with Ronald. After all, it was not salmon-fishing alone that had brought him into these wilds.

'I suppose it is really too early in the season,' he observed, without much chagrin.

'Rayther,' said Ronald.

'Rawther,' said the melancholy gillie.

But at that instant something happened that startled every one of them out of their apathy. The top of one of the rods was violently pulled at, and then there was a long shrill yell of the reel.

'There he is, sir! there he is, sir!' Ronald called.

Mr. Hodson made a grab blindly – for he had been looking at the scenery around – at one of the rods. It was the wrong one. But before he knew where he was, Ronald had got hold of the other and raised the top so as to keep a strain on the fish. The exchange of the rods was effected in a moment. Then when Ronald had wound in the other line and put the rod at the bow, he took to his oar again, leaving Mr. Hodson to fight his unknown enemy as best he might, but giving him a few words of direction from time to time, quietly, as if it were all a matter of course.

'Reel in, sir, reel in – keep an even strain on him – let him go – let him go if he wants – '

Well, the fish was not a fierce fighter; after the first long rush he scarcely did anything; he kept boring downwards, with a dull, heavy weight. It seemed easy work; and Mr. Hodson – triumphant in the hope of catching his first salmon – was tempted to call aloud to the melancholy gillie —

'Well, Duncan, how about luck now?'

'I think it's a kelt,' the man answered morosely.

But the sinister meaning of this reply was not understood.

'I don't know what you call him,' said Mr. Hodson, holding on with both hands to the long, lithe grilse-rod that was bent almost double. 'Celt or Saxon, I don't know; but I seem to have got a good grip of him.'

'Then he heard Ronald say, in an undertone, to the gillie —

'A kelt? No fears. The first rush was too heavy for that.'

And the gillie responded sullenly —

'He's following the boat like a cow.'

'What is a kelt, anyway?' the American called out. 'Something that swims, I suppose? It ain't a man?'

'I hope it's no a kelt, sir,' said Ronald – but doubtfully.

'But what is a kelt, then, when he's at home?'

'A salmon, sir, that hasna been down to the sea; we'll have to put him back if he is.'

Whirr! went the reel again; the fish, kelt or clean salmon, had struck deep down. But the melancholy creature at the bow was taking no further interest in the fight. He was sure it was a kelt. Most likely the minnow would be destroyed. Maybe he would break the trace. But a kelt it was. He knew the luck of this 'tammed' boat.

The struggle was a tedious one. The beast kept boring down with the mere force of its weight, but following the coble steadily; and even Ronald, who had been combating his own doubts, at length gave in: he was afraid it was a kelt. Presently the last suspicion of hope was banished. With a tight strain on him, the now exhausted animal began to show near the surface of the water – his long eel-like shape and black back revealing too obviously what manner of creature he was. But this revelation had no effect on the amateur fisherman, who at last beheld the enemy he had been fighting with so long. He grew quite excited. A kelt? – he was a beautiful fine fish! If he could not be eaten he could be stuffed! Twenty pounds he was, if an ounce! – would he throw back such a trophy into the loch?

Ronald was crouching in the stern of the boat, the big landing-net in his hand, watching the slow circling of the kelt as it was being hauled nearer and nearer. His sentiments were of a different kind.

'Ah, you ugly brute! – ah, you rascal! – ah – ah!' – and then there was a deep scoop of the landing-net; and the next minute the huge eel-like beast was in the bottom of the boat, Duncan holding on to its tail, and Ronald gripping it by the gills, while he set to work to get the minnow out of its jaws. And then without further ado – and without stopping to discuss the question of stuffing – the creature was heaved into the water again, with a parting benediction of 'Bah, you brute!' It took its leave rapidly.

'Well, it's a pity, sir,' Ronald said; 'that would have been a twenty-four-pound salmon if he had been down to the sea.'

'It's the luck of this tammed boat,' Duncan said gloomily.

But Mr. Hodson could not confess to any such keen sense of disappointment. He had never played so big a fish before, and was rather proud that so slight a grilse-rod and so slender a line should (of course, with some discretion and careful nursing on his part) have overmastered so big a beast. Then he did not eat salmon; there was no loss in that direction. And as he had not injured the kelt in any way, he reflected that he had enjoyed half-an-hour's excitement without doing harm to anything or anybody, and he was well content. So he paid out the two lines again, and set the rods, and began to renew his talk with Ronald touching the customs connected with the keeping of the New Year.

After all, it was a picturesque kind of occupation, kelts or no kelts. Look at the scene around them – the lapping waters of the loch, a vivid and brilliant blue when the skies were shining fair, or black and stormy again when the clouds were heavy in the heavens; and always the permanent features of the landscape – the soft yellows of the lower straths, where the withered grass was mixed with the orange bracken; the soft russet of the leafless birch woods fringing the shores of the lake; the deep violet shadows of Ben Clebrig stretching up into the long swathes of mist; and then the far amphitheatre of hills – Ben Hee, and Ben Hope, and Ben Loyal – with sunlight and shade inter-mingling their ethereal tints, but leaving the snow-streaks always sparkling and clear. He got used to the monotony of the slow circling of the upper waters of the lake. He forgot to watch the points of the rods. He was asking all kinds of questions about the stags and the hinds, about ptarmigan, and white hares, and roe, about the price of sheep, the rents of crofts, the comparative wages of gillies, and shepherds, and foresters, and keepers, and stalkers, and the habits and customs of land-agents and factors. And at length, when it came to lunch-time, and when they landed, and found for him a sheltered place under the lee of a big rock, and when Ronald pointed out to him a grassy bank, and said rather ruefully —

'I dinna like to see that place empty, sir. That's where the gentlemen have the salmon laid out, that they may look at them at lunch-time – '

Mr. Hodson, as he opened the little basket that had been provided for him, answered cheerfully enough —

'My good friend, don't you imagine that I feel like giving it up yet. I'm not finished with this lake, and I'll back perseverance against luck any day. Seems to me we've done very well so far; I'm con-tent.'

By and by they went back into the coble again, and resumed their patient pursuit; and there is little doubt that by this time Ronald had come to the conclusion that this stranger who had come amongst them was a singularly odd and whimsical person. It was remarkable enough that he should have undertaken this long and solitary journey in order to fish for salmon, and then show himself quite indifferent as to whether he got any or not; and it was scarcely human for any one to betray no disappointment whatever when the first fish caught proved to be a kelt; but it was still stranger that a man rich enough to talk about renting a deer-forest should busy himself with the petty affairs of the very poorest people around. Why, he wanted to know how much Nelly the housemaid could possibly save on her year's wages; whether she was supposed to lay by something as against her wedding-day; or whether any of the lads about would marry her for her pretty face alone. And when he discovered that Mr. Murray, the innkeeper, was about to give a New Year supper and dance to the lads and lasses of the neighbourhood, he made no scruple about hinting plainly that he would be glad of an invitation to join that festive party.

'Not if I'm going to be anything of a wet blanket,' he said candidly. 'My dancing days are over, and I'm not much in the way of singing; but I'll tell them an American story; or I'll present them with a barrel of whisky – if that will keep the fun going.'

'I'm sure they'll be very glad, sir,' Ronald said, 'if ye just come and look on. When there's gentlemen at the Lodge, they generally come down to hear the pipes, and the young gentlemen have a dance too.'