White Heather: A Novel (Volume 1 of 3)

But the keeper answered, with much nonchalance —

'I suppose he has his ill-wishers and his well-wishers, like most other folk; and I suppose, like most other folk, he doesna pay ower great attention to what people say of him.'

They did not pursue the subject further at this moment, for a turn of the road brought them suddenly within sight of a stranger, and the appearance of a stranger in these parts was an event demanding silence and a concentration of interest. Of course, to Ronald Strang Miss Meenie Douglas was no stranger; but she was obviously a source of some embarrassment: the instant he caught sight of her his face reddened, and as she approached he kept his eyes fixed on the ground. It was not that he was ashamed she should see him acting the part of a gillie; for that he did not care in the least, it was as much a part of his work as anything else; what vexed him was lest some sign of recognition should show the stranger gentleman that Miss Douglas had formed the acquaintance of the person who was at the moment carrying his waterproof and his fishing-rods. And he hoped that Meenie would have the sense to go by without taking any notice of him; and he kept his eyes on the road, and walked forward in silence.

'Who is she?' Mr. Hodson asked, in an undertone, and with some astonishment, for he had no idea there was any such neatly-dressed and pretty young lady in the neighbourhood.

Ronald did not answer, and they drew nearer. Indeed, Meenie was looking quite beautiful this morning; for the cold air had brightened up the colour in her cheeks; and the wide-apart blue-gray eyes were clear and full of light; and her brown hair, if it was tightly braided and bound behind, had in front been blown about a little by the wind, and here and there a stray curl appeared on the fair white forehead. And then again her winter clothing seemed to suit the slight and graceful figure; she looked altogether warm, and furry, and nice, and comfortable; and there was a sensible air about her dress – the blue serge skirt, the tight-fitting sealskin coat (but this was a present from the laird of Glengask and Orosay) and the little brown velvet hat with its wing of ptarmigan plumage (this was a present not from Glengask, and probably was not of the value of three halfpence, but she wore it, nevertheless, when she was at her smartest). And if Ronald thought she was going to pass him by without a word, he was mistaken. It was not her way. As she met them, one swift glance of her Highland eyes was all she bestowed on the stranger; then she said, pleasantly, as she passed —

'Good morning, Ronald.'

He was forced to look up.

'Good morning, Miss Douglas,' said he, with studied respect; and they went on.

'Miss Douglas?' Mr. Hodson repeated, as soon as they were beyond hearing. 'The doctor's daughter, I presume?'

'Yes, sir.'

'But – but – I had no idea – why, she is a most uncommonly pretty young lady – one of the most interesting faces I have seen for many a day. You did not say there was such a charming young person in the place; why, she adds a new interest altogether; I fancy my daughter won't be long in making her acquaintance when she comes here.'

Indeed, as they got down to the boat, and the two men set about getting the rods ready, all his talk was about the pretty young lady he had seen; and he scarcely noticed that Ronald, in answering these questions, showed a very marked reserve. He could not be got to speak of her except in curt answers; perhaps he did not like to have the melancholy Duncan listening; at all events, he showed a quite absorbing interest in the phantom minnows, and traces, and what not. Moreover, when they got into the boat, there was but little opportunity for conversation. The day had become more and more squally; there was a considerable sea on; it was all the two men could do to keep sufficient way on the coble so that the phantoms should spin properly. Then every few minutes a rain-cloud would come drifting across – at first mysterious and awful, as if the whole world were sinking into darkness; then a few big drops would patter about; then down came the sharp clattering shower, only to be followed by a marvellous clearing up again, and a burst of watery sunshine along the Clebrig slopes. But these changes kept Mr. Hodson employed in sheltering himself from the rain while it lasted, and then getting off his waterproof again lest perchance there might come a salmon at one of the lines. That event did actually occur; and when they least expected it. In one of the heaviest of the squalls they had such a fight to get the boat along that the minnows, sinking somewhat, caught the bottom. Of course the rowers had to back down – or rather to drift down – to get the lines released; and altogether the prospect of affairs seemed so unpromising – the heavens darkening with further rain, the wind blowing in sharper and sharper gusts, and the water coming heavily over the bows – that Mr. Hodson called out that, as soon as he had got the minnows free, they might as well run the coble on to the land, and wait for calmer weather. But this was a lee shore. The men were willing to give up for a time – but not until they had got to the sheltered side; so he was counselled to put out the lines again, slowly, and they began anew their fight against the gale. Well, he was actually paying out the first of the lines with his hand, when suddenly – and without any of the preliminary warnings that usually tell of a salmon being after a minnow – the line was snatched from his fingers, and out went the reel with that sharp long shriek that sends the whole boat's crew into an excitement of expectation. But there was no spring into the air away along there in the darkened and plunging waters; as he rapidly got in his line, he knew only of a dull and heavy strain; and the men had to keep on with their hard pulling against the wind, for the fish seemed following the boat in this sulky and heavy fashion.

'What do you think?' Mr. Hodson said, half turning round, and not giving plainer voice to his anxieties.

'I'm afraid it's a kelt, sir,' the dismal gillie answered.

'Looks like it, don't it?' the fisherman said rather dolefully; for the fish showed no sign of life whatever.

'We'll see by and by,' was Ronald's prudent answer; but even he was doubtful; the only good feature being that, if the fish showed no fight, at least he kept a heavy strain on the rod.

But it seemed as if everything was conspiring against them. The black heavens above them burst into a torrent of rain; and with that came a squall that tore the water white, and blew them down on the fish in spite of their hardest efforts. Shorter and shorter grew the line as it was rapidly got in, and still the fish did not show; it was now so near to the boat that any sudden movement on its part was almost certain to produce a catastrophe. Nor could they drive the boat ashore; the beach was here a mass of sharp stones and rocks; in three minutes the coble would have been stove in. With faces set hard the two men pulled and pulled against the storm of wind and rain; and Mr. Hodson – seated now, for he dared not attempt to stand up, the boat was being thrown about so by the heavy waves – could only get in a little more line when he had the chance, and look helplessly on, and wait.

Then, all of a sudden, there was a long shrill shriek – heard loud above the din of wind and water – continued and continued, and in vain he tried to arrest this wild rush; and then, some seventy or eighty yards away, there was a great white splash among the rushing black waves – and another – and another – and then a further whirling out of some fifteen yards of line, until he glanced with alarm at the slender quantity left on the reel. But presently he began to get some in again; the men were glad to let the boat drift down slowly; harder and harder he worked at the big reel, and at last he came to fighting terms with the animal – kelt or salmon, as it might be – with some five-and-twenty yards out, and the squall moderating a little, so that the men could keep the boat as they wanted. Nay, he ventured to stand up now, wedging his legs and feet so that he should not be suddenly thrown overboard; and it was quite evident, from the serious purpose of his face, that all possibility of this being a kelt had now been thrown aside.

'No kelt is he, Ronald?' he called aloud.

'Not a bit, sir! There's no kelt about that one. But give him time; he's a good big fish, or I'm sore mistaken.'

They were far from the end yet, however. The long rush and the splashing had exhausted him for a while; and the fisherman, with a firm application of the butt, thought he could make the fish show himself; but still he kept boring steadily down, sometimes making little angry rushes of a dozen yards or so. And then all of a sudden began some wild cantrips. There was another rush of ten or a dozen yards; and a clear leap into the air – a beautiful, great, silvery creature he looked amid all this hurrying gloom; and then another downward rush; and then he came to the surface again, and shook and tugged and struck with his tail until the water was foaming white about him. These were a few terribly anxious seconds, but all went happily by, and then it was felt that the worst of the fighting was over. After that there was but the sullen refusal to come near the boat – the short sheering off whenever he saw it or one of the oars; but now, in the slow curves through the water, he was beginning to show the gleam of his side; and Ronald was crouching down in the stern, gaff in hand.

'Steady, sir, steady,' he was saying, with his eye on those slow circles; 'give him time, he's no done yet; a heavy fish, sir – a good fish that – twenty pounds, I'm thinking – come along, my beauty, come along —the butt now, sir!' And then, as the great gleaming fish, head up, came sheering along on its side, there was a quick dive of the steel clip, and the next second the splendid creature was in the bottom of the coble.

Mr. Hodson sank down on to his seat; it had been a long fight – over half an hour; he was exhausted with the strain of keeping himself balanced; and he was also (what he had not perceived in this long spell of excitement) wet to the skin. He pulled out a spirit-flask from the pocket of his waterproof – as ill-luck would have it, that useful garment happened to be lying in the bottom of the boat when the fight began – and gave the two men a liberal dram; he then took a sip himself; and when there had been a general quarrel over the size of the fish – nineteen the lowest, twenty-two the highest guess – they began to consider what they ought to do next. The weather looked very ugly. It was resolved to get up to the head of the loch anyhow, and there decide; and so the men took to their oars again, and began to force their way through the heavy and white-crested waves.

But long ere they had reached the head of the loch Mr. Hodson had become aware of a cold feeling about his shoulders and back, and quickly enough he came to the conclusion that sitting in an open boat, with clothes wet through, on a January day, did not promise sufficient happiness. He said they might put him ashore as soon as possible.

'Indeed, sir, it's no much use going on in this weather,' Ronald said, 'unless maybe you were to try the fly.'

'I thought you said it was rather early for the fly.'

'Rayther early,' Ronald admitted.

'Rawther,' said Duncan.

'Anyhow,' observed Mr. Hodson, 'I don't feel like sitting in this boat any longer in wet clothes. I'm going back to the inn right now; maybe the afternoon will clear up – and then we might have another try.'

They got ashore at last, and Mr. Hodson at once started off for the inn; and when the two men had got the rods taken down, and the fish tied head and tail for the better carrying of it, they set out too. But Ronald seemed unusually depressed and silent. Where was the careless joke – the verse of an idle song – with which he was wont to brave the discomforts of wind and weather? The two men strode along without a word; and it was not likely that Duncan the dismal should be the first to break the silence. Nay, when they got to the inn, Ronald would not go in for a minute or two, as was his custom, to see the fish weighed and have a chat. He went on to his own cottage; got the key of the kennel; and presently he and the dogs were leaving the little scattered hamlet, taking the lonely moorland road that led away up the Mudal valley.

He knew not why he was so ill at ease; but something had gone wrong. Had his mind been disturbed and disquieted by the American gentleman's plainly hinting to him that he was living in a fool's paradise; and that old age, and illness, and the possible ingratitude of his master were things to be looked forward to? Or was it that the sudden meeting with Meenie, with this stranger looking on, seemed to have revealed to him all at once how far away she was from him? If she and he had met, as every day they did, and passed with the usual friendly greeting, it would all have been quite simple and ordinary enough; but with this stranger looking on, – and she appearing so beautiful and refined and neatly dressed, and wearing moreover the present given her by Glengask and Orosay – while he, on the other hand, was carrying the gentleman's waterproof and a bundle of rods – well, that was all different somehow. And why had she said 'Good-morning!' with such a pointed friendliness? He did not wish this stranger to imagine that Miss Douglas and he were even acquaintances. And then he thought that that very night he would burn all those stupid verses he had written about her; that secret and half-regretful joy of his – of imagining himself in a position that would entitle him to address her so – was all too daring and presuming. It is true, she wore the ptarmigan's wing she had begged him to get for her (and never in all the years had he so gladly sped up the Clebrig slopes as when she sent him on that errand), but that was a trifle; any young lady, if she wanted such a thing, would naturally ask the nearest gamekeeper. And then the other young lady – the American young lady – when she came, and made Meenie's acquaintance: would not they be much together? Meenie would be still farther and farther away then. He would himself have to keep studiously aloof, if in the generosity of her heart she wished to be as friendly as ever.

Well, these were not very bitter or tragic thoughts; and yet – and yet – there was something wrong. He scarcely knew what it was, but only that the little hamlet – as he returned to it after a long and solitary wandering – did not seem to be the simple and natural and happy place that it used to be. But one thing he was glad of. The second gillie had now arrived from Tongue. Consequently his services would no longer be needed in the coble; he would return to his own ways; and be his own master. And as for companions? – well, Clebrig and he had long been friends.

CHAPTER VI

A PROGRAMME

That same evening little Maggie, having made herself as smart and neat as possible, went along the dark road to the doctor's house, was admitted, and forthwith passed upstairs to Miss Douglas's own room. It was an exceedingly small apartment; but on this cold winter night it looked remarkably warm and snug and bright, what with the red peats in the fireplace, and the brilliant little lamp on the table; and it was prettily decorated too, with evidences of feminine care and industry everywhere about. And Meenie herself was there – in her gown of plain blue serge; and apparently she had been busy, for the table was littered with patterns and designs and knitting-needles and what not, while a large mass of blue worsted was round the back of a chair, waiting for the winding.

'Help me to clear the table, Maggie,' she said good-naturedly, when her visitor entered, 'and then we will get tea over: I declare I have so many things to think of that I am just driven daft.'

And then she said – with some touch of anger —

'Do you know that I saw your brother – on a cold, wet day like this – and he was walking along the road, with his jacket open, and paying no heed at all to the weather? Maggie, why do you not make him take some care of himself? In January – and he goes about as if it were June! How would you like it if he were to catch a bad cold and have to take to his bed? Why do you not make him take care of himself?'

'He would only laugh at me,' the little Maggie said ruefully. 'He doesna mind anything. I do my best to get his clothes dried when he comes in wet; but he doesna like to be bothered – especially if he's writing or reading; he says that a pipe keeps the harm away. I'm sure if you would speak to him, Meenie, he would take a great deal more care.'

'What, me!' the girl said – and there was a touch of colour in the pretty refined face; and then she added, with a good-humoured smile, 'No, he would not mind what I said, I know. But it is little matter; for with such a wilful man you can do nothing except by cunning. Do you see the wool there, Maggie?'

She laughed; but the little, red-haired, freckled girl looked rather frightened.

'Oh no, Meenie, I dare not take it,' she said. 'He would know I had not the money to buy all that wool; and then he would ask; and I should be scolded —

'Nonsense, nonsense!' the other cried, in her friendly way. 'Do you think a man would ask any such questions? It would never occur to him at all! When the jersey is all knitted and complete, you will just say to him, "Ronald, here is a jersey that I have knitted for you all by myself; and you are to put it on whenever there is a cold morning;" and you will see he will think your knitting it yourself explains everything. Ask about the wool? – he will never think of such a thing. If you hang the jersey on the nail of his bedroom door, it will be all a matter of course; I should not wonder, now, if he forgot to say "Thank you."'

'And then there is another thing,' Maggie said, rather timidly and wistfully. 'How am I to tell him that I knitted the jersey when you know that you will do the most of it? For it is always that; you did nearly all the socks that we gave to Ronald; and he thinks it was me.'

But here the good humour left Meenie Douglas's face – that was suddenly grown red and embarrassed.

'How can you talk such foolishness?' she said, rather sharply. 'If I show you here or there how you are to go on, is that doing the knitting for you? I wonder you have no more sense, Maggie. Of course, I will have to begin the jersey for you; and if I cast on the stitches for the width of the neck, what is that? It is what any one would do for you – Mrs. Murray, or one of the girls at the inn. And I hope you are not going away with that idea in your head; or sooner or later you will be telling somebody that I am knitting a jersey for your brother – that would be a fine thing!'

A timid appealing hand was put on her arm.

'I am sure that Ronald would rather never see or hear of any jersey than have anything make you angry, Meenie.'

The trouble was over in a moment: the girl was essentially quick and generous and kind-hearted; and this small lassie was about her only companion. Moreover, tea was brought in at this moment by the maidservant; and so the question of the proportion of work contributed by either of them to Ronald's woollen gear was put aside.

'And what do you think of this now, Maggie?' the elder said, with some eagerness in her face and eyes. 'You know the great preparations they are making for Monday night – the long barn is to be cleared; and they are going to have a chimney made and a fireplace; and long tables all the way down, and wooden forms to sit on; and some of the lads, they say, are talking of a chandelier to be made out of hoops, and candles stuck all the way round. And all that trouble for the grown-up folk! Is it fair? Oh, it is quite absurd to have such a deal of trouble; and all for the grown-up people. Now, if Ronald would help me – and you know he is such a favourite he always has his own way with everybody – would it not be a fine thing to ask Mr. Murray to leave all those preparations as they are for a day or two – perhaps till Wednesday – and by that time we could have messages sent to the farms round about, and all the children brought in for a soirée? Why should the grown-up people have everything? And there would be nobody but ourselves, – that's Ronald and you and I, Maggie, – for the children would have more freedom and amusement that way – you see my father is not likely to be back by then, or we might ask him – and then, with nearly a week, we could send to Tongue for a great many things – and – and – have a splendid children's party just as fine as fine could be.'