A Princess of Thule

“I have heard of those middlemen; they were dreadful tyrants and thieves, weren’t they?” said Lavender. Ingram kicked his foot under the table. “I mean, that was the popular impression of them – a vulgar error, I presume,” continued the young man, in the coolest manner. “And so you have got rid of them? Well, I dare say many of them were honest men, and suffered very unjustly in common report.”

Mackenzie answered nothing, but his daughter said quickly: “But you know, Mr. Lavender, they have not gone away merely because they cease to have the letting of the land to the crofters. They have still their old holdings, and so have the crofters, in most cases. Every one now holds direct from the proprietor, that is all.”

“So that there is no difference between the former tacksman and his serf, except the relative size of their farms?”

“Well, the crofters have no leases, but the tacksmen have,” said the girl, somewhat timidly; and then she added: “But you have not decided yet, Mr. Ingram, what you will do to-day. It is too clear for the salmon fishing. Will you go over to Meavig and show Mr. Lavender the Bay of Uig and the seven hunters?”

“Surely we must show him Borvapost first, Sheila,” said Ingram. “He saw nothing of it last night in the dark, and I think if you offered to take Mr. Lavender around in your boat, and show him what a clever sailor you are, he would prefer that to walking over the hill.”

“I can take you all around in the boat, certainly,” said the girl, with a quick blush of pleasure; and forthwith a message was sent to Duncan that cushions should be taken down to the Maighdean-mhara, the little vessel of which Sheila was both skipper and pilot.

How beautiful was the fair sea-picture that lay around them as the Maighdean-mhara stood out to the mouth of Loch Roag on this bright Summer morning! Sheila sat in the stern of the small boat, her hand on the tiller. Lufrath lay at her feet, his nose between the long and shaggy paws. Duncan, grave and watchful as to the wind and the points of the coast, sat amidships, with the sheets of the mainsail held fast, and superintended the seamanship of his young mistress with a respectful but most evident pride. And as Ingram had gone off with Mackenzie to walk over the White Water before going down to Borvapost, Frank Lavender was Sheila’s sole companion out in this wonderland of rock and sea and blue sky.

He did not talk much to her, and she was so well occupied with the boat that he could regard with impunity the shifting lights and graces of her face and all the wonder and winning depths of her eyes. The sea was blue around them; the sky overhead had not a speck of cloud in it; the white sand-bays, the green stretches of pasture and the far and spectral mountains trembled in a haze of sunlight. Then there was all the delight of the fresh and cool wind, the hissing of the water along the boat, and the joyous rapidity with which the small vessel, lying over a little, ran through the crisply curling waters, and brought into view the newer wonders of the opening sea.

Was it not all a dream, that he should be sitting by the side of this sea-princess, who was attended only by her deerhound and the tall keeper? And if a dream, why should it not go on forever? To live forever in this magic land – to have the princess herself carry him in this little boat into the quiet bays of the islands, or out at night, in the moonlight, on the open sea – to forget forever the godless South and its social phantasmagoria, and live in this beautiful and distant solitude, with the solemn secrets of the hills and the moving deep forever present to the imagination, might not that be a nobler life? And some day or other he would take this island-princess up to London, and he would bid the women that he knew – the scheming mothers and the doll-like daughters – stand aside from before this perfect work of God. She would carry with her the mystery of the sea in the deeps of her eyes, and the music of the far hills would be heard in her voice, and all the sweetness and purity and brightness of the clear Summer skies would be mirrored in her innocent soul. She would appear in London as some wild-plumaged bird hailing from distant climes, and before she had lived there long enough to grow sad, and have the weight of the city cloud the brightness of her eyes, she would be spirited away again into this strange sea-kingdom, where there seemed to be perpetual sunshine and the light music of the waves.

Poor Sheila! She little knew what was expected of her, or the sort of drama into which she was being thrown as a central figure. She little knew that she, a simple Highland girl, was being transformed into a wonderful creature of romance, who was to put to shame the gentle dames and maidens of London society, and do many other extraordinary things. But what would have appeared the most extraordinary of all these speculations, if she had only known of them, was the assumption that she would marry Frank Lavender. That the young man had quite naturally taken for granted; but, perhaps, only as a basis for his imaginative scenes. In order to do these fine things she would have to be married to somebody, and why not to himself? Think of the pride he would have in leading this beautiful girl, with her quaint manners and fashion of speech, into a London drawing-room! Would not every one wish to know her? Would not everyone listen to her singing of those Gaelic songs? for, of course, she must sing well. Would not all his artist friends be anxious to paint her? and she would go to the Academy to convince the loungers there how utterly the canvas had failed to catch the light and dignity and sweetness of her face.

When Sheila spoke he started.

“Did you not see it?”

“What?”

“The seal; it rose for a moment just over there,” said the girl, with a great interest visible in her eyes.

The beautiful dreams he had been dreaming were considerably shattered by this interruption. How could a fairy princess be so interested in some common animal showing its head out of the sea? It also occurred to him, just at this moment, that if Sheila and Mairi went out in this boat by themselves, they must be in the habit of hoisting up the mainsail; and was such rude and coarse work befitting the character of a princess?

“He looks very like a black man in the water, when his head comes up,” said Sheila – “when the water is smooth, so that you will see him look at you. But I have not told you yet about the Black Horse that Alister-nan-Each saw at Loch Suainabhal one night. Loch Suainabhal, that is inland and fresh water – so it was not a seal; but Alister was going along the shore, and he saw it lying up by the road, and he looked at it for a long time. It was quite black, and he thought it was a boat; but when he came near, he saw it begin to move, and then it went down across the shore, and splashed into the loch. And it had a head bigger than a horse, and quite black, and it made a noise as it went down the shore to the loch.”

“Don’t you think Alister must have been taking a little whisky, Miss Mackenzie?”

“No, not that, for he came to me just after he will see the beast.”

“And do you really believe he saw such an animal?” said Lavender, with a smile.

“I do not know,” said the girl, gravely. “Perhaps it was only a fright, and he imagined he saw it; but I do not know it is impossible there can be such an animal at Loch Suainabhal. But that is nothing; it is of no consequence. But I have seen stranger things than the Black Horse, that many people will not believe.”

“May I ask what they are?” he said, gently.

“Some other time, perhaps, I will tell you; but there is much explanation about it, and, you see, we are going in to Borvapost.”

Was this, then, the capital of the small empire over which the princess ruled? He saw before him but a long row of small huts or hovels, resembling beehives, which stood above the curve of a white bay, and at one portion of the bay was a small creek, near which a number of large boats, bottom upward, lay on the beach. What odd little dwellings those were! The walls, a few feet high, were built of rude blocks of stone or slices of turf, and from those low supports rose a rounded roof of straw, which was thatched over by a further layer of turf. There were few windows, and no chimneys at all – not even a hole in the roof. And what was meant by the two men, who, standing on one of the turf walls, were busily engaged in digging into the rich brown and black thatch and heaving it into a cart? Sheila had to explain to him that while she was doing everything in her power to get the people to suffer the introduction of windows, it was hopeless to think of chimneys; for by carefully guarding against the egress of the peat smoke, it slowly saturated the thatch of the roof, which at certain periods of the year was then taken off to dress the fields, and a new roof of straw put on.

By this time they had run the Maighdean-mhara – the “Sea Maiden” into a creek, and were climbing up the steep beach of shingle that had been worn smooth by the unquiet waters of the Atlantic.

“And will you want to speak to me, Ailasa?” said Sheila, turning to a small girl who had approached her somewhat diffidently.

She was a pretty little thing, with a round, fair face, tanned by the sun, brown hair and soft, dark eyes. She was bare-headed, bare-footed and bare-armed, but she was otherwise smartly dressed, and she held in her hand an enormous flounder, apparently about half as heavy as herself.

“Will ye hef the fesh, Miss Sheila,” said the small Ailasa, holding out the flounder, but looking down all the same.

“Did you catch it yourself, Ailasa?”

“Yes, it wass Donald and me; we wass out in a boat, and Donald had a line.”

“And it is a present for me?” said Sheila, patting the small head and its wild and soft hair. “Thank you, Ailasa. But you must ask Donald to carry it up to the house and give it to Mairi. I cannot take it with me just now, you know.”

There was a small boy cowering behind one of the upturned boats, and by his furtive peepings showing that he was in league with his sister. Ailasa, not thinking that she was discovering his whereabouts, turned quite naturally in that direction, until she was suddenly stopped by Lavender, who called to her and put his hand in his pocket. But he was too late. Sheila had stepped in, and with a quick look, which was all the protest that was needed, shut her hand over the half crown he had in his fingers.

“Never mind, Ailasa,” she said. “Go away and get Donald, and bid him carry the fish up to Mairi.”

Lavender put up the half-crown in his pocket in a somewhat dazed fashion; what he chiefly knew was that Sheila had for a moment held his hand in hers, and that her eyes had met his.

Well, that little incident of Ailasa and the flounder was rather pleasant to him. It did not shock the romantic associations he had begun to weave around his fair companion. But when they had gone up to the cottages – Mackenzie and Ingram not yet having arrived – and when Sheila proceeded to tell him about the circumstances of the fishermen’s lives, and to explain how such and such things were done in the fields and pickling-houses, and so forth, Lavender was a little disappointed. Sheila took him into some of the cottages, or rather hovels, and he vaguely knew in the darkness that she sat down by the low glow of the peat-fire, and began to ask the women about all sorts of improvements in the walls and windows and gardens, and what not. Surely it was not for a princess to go advising people about particular sorts of soap, or offering to pay for a pane of glass if the husband of the woman would make the necessary aperture in the stone-wall. The picture of Sheila appearing as a sea-princess in a London drawing-room was all very beautiful in its way, but here she was discussing as to the quality given to broth by the addition of a certain vegetable which she offered to send down from her own garden, if the cottager in question would try to grow it.

“I wonder, Miss Mackenzie,” he said, at length, when they got outside, his eyes dazed with the light and smarting with the peat-smoke, “I wonder you can trouble yourself with such little matters, that those people should find out for themselves.”

The girl looked up with some surprise: “That is the work I have to do. My papa cannot do everything in the island.”

“But what is the necessity for your bothering yourself about such things? Surely they ought to be able to look after their own gardens and houses. It is no degradation – certainly not; for anything you interested yourself in would become worthy of attention by the very fact – but, after all, it seems such a pity you should give up your time to these commonplace details.”

“But some one must do it,” said the girl, quite innocently, “and my papa has no time. And they will be very good in doing what I ask them – everyone in the island.”

Was this a willful affectation? he said to himself. Or was she really incapable of understanding that there was anything incongruous in a young lady of her position, education and refinement busying herself with the curing of fish and the cost of lime? He had himself marked the incongruity long ago, when Ingram had been telling him of the remote and beautiful maiden whose only notions of the world had been derived from literature – who was more familiar with the magic land in which Endymion wandered than with any other – and that at the same time she was about as good as her father at planning a wooden bridge over a stream. When Lavender had got outside again – when he found himself walking with her along the white beach in front of the blue Atlantic – she was again the princess of his dreams. He looked at her face, and he saw in her eyes that she must be familiar with all the romantic nooks and glades of English poetry. The plashing of the waves down there and the music of her voice recalled the sad legends of the fishermen he hoped to hear her sing. But ever and anon there occurred a jarring recollection – whether arising from a contradiction between his notion of Sheila and the actual Sheila, or whether from some incongruity in itself, he did not stop to consider. He only knew that a beautiful maiden who had lived by the sea all her life, and who had followed the wanderings of Endymion in the enchanted forest, need not have been so particular about a method of boiling potatoes, or have shown so much interest in a pattern for children’s frocks.

Mackenzie and Ingram met them. There was the usual “Well, Sheila?” followed by a thousand questions about the very things she had been inquiring into. That was one of the odd points about Ingram that puzzled and sometimes vexed Lavender; for if you are walking home at night it is inconvenient to be accompanied by a friend who would stop to ask about the circumstances of some old crone hobbling along the pavement, or who could, on his own door-step, stop to have a chat with a garrulous policeman. Ingram was about as odd as Sheila herself in the attention he paid to those wretched cotters and their doings. He could not advise on the important subject of broth, but he would have tasted it by way of discovery, even if it had been presented to him in a tea-cup. He had already been prowling around the place with Mackenzie. He had inspected the apparatus in the creek for hauling up the boats. He had visited the curing houses. He had examined the heaps of fish drying on the beach. He had drunk whisky with John the Piper and shaken hands with Alister-nan-Each. And now he had come to tell Sheila that the piper was bringing down luncheon from Mackenzie’s house, and that after they had eaten and drunk on the white beach they would put out the Maighdean-mhara once more to sea, and sail over to Mevaig, that the stranger might see the wondrous sands of the Bay of Uig.

But it was not in consonance with the dignity of a king that his guests should eat from off the pebbles, like so many fishermen, and when Mairi and another girl brought down the baskets, luncheon was placed in the stern of the small vessel, while Duncan got up the sails and put out from the stone quay. As for John the Piper, was he insulted for having been sent on a menial errand? They had scarcely got away from the shore when the sounds of the pipes were wafted to them from the hillside above, and it was the “Lament of Mackrimmon” that followed them out to sea:

Mackrimmon shall no more return,
Oh never, never more return!

That was the wild and ominous air that was skirling up on the hillside; and Mackenzie’s face, as he heard it, grew wroth. “That teffle of a piper, John!” he said, “will be playing Cha till mi tuiligh?”

“It is out of mischief, papa,” said Sheila – “that is all.”

“It will be more than mischief if I burn his pipes and drive him out of Borva. Then there will be no more of mischief.”

“It is very bad of John to do that,” said Sheila to Lavender, apparently in explanation of her father’s anger, “for we have given him shelter here when there will be no more pipes in all the Lewis. It was the Free Church ministers, they put down the pipes, for there was too much wildness at the marriages when the pipes would play.”

“And what do the people dance to now?” asked the young gentleman, who seemed to resent this paternal government.

Sheila laughed in an embarrassed way.

“Miss Mackenzie would rather not tell you,” said Ingram. “The fact is, the noble mountaineers of these districts have had to fall back on the Jew’s harp. The ministers allow the instrument to be used – I suppose because there is a look of piety in the name. But the dancing doesn’t get very mad when you have two or three young fellows playing a strathspey on a bit of a trembling wire.”

“That teffle of a piper John!” growled Mackenzie, under his breath; and so the Maighdean-mhara lightly sped on her way, opening out the various headlands of the islands, until at last she got into the narrows by Eilean-Aird-Meinish, and ran up the long arm of the sea to Mevaig.