White Heather: A Novel (Volume 2 of 3)

And all the afternoon she sate in the stern of the coble and brooded, composing imaginary letters to the editor of the New York Herald, to the editor of the Nation, to the editor of the Chicago Tribune, to the editor of Puck, and a great many other journals, all of these phantom epistles beginning 'As an American girl I appeal to you,' and proceeding to beg of the editor to hold up to merciless scorn a certain feeble, shallow, and impertinent article (herewith enclosed) which had appeared in the Chicago Citizen. And on the way home, too, in the evening, she began to question her father as to his personal acquaintance with editors and journalists, which seemed to be of the slightest; and she at length admitted that she wanted some one to reply – and sharply – to an article that had been written about a friend of hers.

'You let that alone,' her father said. 'It's not very easy for any one to meddle in the politics of our country without coming out more or less tattooed; for they don't mind what they say about you; and you are very well to be out of it.'

'It isn't politics at all,' she said. 'And – and – the article is written about a friend of mine – and – I want to have the writer told what a fool he is.'

'But probably he would not believe it,' her father said quietly.

'He would see that some one else believed it.'

'I am not sure that that would hurt him much,' was the unsatisfactory answer.

When they drew near to Inver-Mudal she found herself quite afraid and ashamed at the thought of their possibly meeting Ronald. Had she not betrayed him? He had sought for no recognition; probably he was too proud or too manly and careless about what any one might write of him; it was she who had put him into that suppliant attitude, and brought upon him the insolent encouragement of a microcephalous fool. This was the return she had made him for all his kindness to her father and to herself. Why, he had told her to burn the verses! And to think that she should have been the means of submitting them to the scrutiny and patronage of this jackanapes – and that Mr. J. C. Huysen should as good as say 'Well, this is what we think of your prodigy' – all this was near bringing tears of rage to her eyes. For Miss Carry, it must be repeated, was 'a real good fellow,' and very loyal to her friends, and impatient of injustice done them; and perhaps, unconsciously to herself, she may have felt some of the consternation of the wild animal whose duty it is to protect her mate with her superior feminine watchfulness, and who, through neglect or carelessness, allows the destroyer to come in and slay. In any case, it certainly promised to be 'a very cold day' for Mr. Jack Huysen when these two should meet in Chicago.

That night, after dinner, father and daughter went out for a stroll; for by this time the moon was drawing to its full again; and all the world lay peaceful and silent in the wan clear light. They had not emerged from the trees in front of the inn on to the white pathway of the road when a sound in the distance caught Miss Carry's ears, and instantly she touched her father's arm and drew him back into the shadow. She wanted to hear what song this was that Ronald was singing on his homeward way.

At first she could make out nothing but fragments of the air – clear and soft and distant —

Music fragment

but as he drew nearer the words become more distinct:

And kiss'd her ripe ros-es, and blest her black e'e;
And aye since whene'er we meet, sing, for the sound is sweet,
"I was a-sleep but ye've wak-en'd me.'

Music fragment

So clear and penetrating and careless and joyous was this singing! – her heart was stirred with pride as she listened; this was not the voice of a man who would trouble himself with any whipper-snapper criticism; – nay, she began to wonder that she had wasted so much indignation on so trivial a thing. Then there was a sudden silence, except for his footfall; and presently the dark figure appeared out there on the white road – his shadow a sharp black in front of him, the little terrier trotting behind him – and in a minute or so the long swinging stride had carried him past their ambush on his homeward way to the cottage.

'What a splendid voice that fellow has got!' her father said, as they also now went out on to the white highway, and took the opposite direction.

'He seems to be very well contented with himself,' she said, rather absently.

CHAPTER VII

A LAST DAY ON THE LOCH

Ronald came down to the loch-side the next morning just as she was about to get into the coble – her father having started a few minutes before.

'I hear you have not been doing very well with the fishing,' said he, in that brisk, business-like fashion of his.

'The salmon appear to have gone away somewhere,' she replied.

'Oh, but that will never do,' said he cheerfully. 'We must try and make some alteration.'

He took the key of the kennels from his pocket.

'Here, Johnnie lad, ye may go and take the dogs out for a run.'

Was Ronald, then, coming with her? Her eyes brightened with anticipation; there was a welcome in the look of her face that ought to have been sufficient reward for him. Nor had she the courage to protest – though she knew that his time was drawing short now. As for the salmon – well, it was not about salmon she was thinking exclusively.

'They say a change of gillie sometimes brings a change of luck,' said he good-naturedly; and he began to overhaul the tackle, substituting smaller minnows for those already on. 'And I think we will try down at the other end of the loch this time. We will make sure of some trout in any case.'

'But it is so far away, Ronald; are you certain you can afford the time?' she was bound, in common fairness, to ask.

'Oh yes, I can afford the time,' said he, 'even if this should have to be my last day on the loch. Besides, if we do not treat you well, maybe you'll never come back.'

'And what is the use of our coming back, when you won't be here?' she was on the point of saying, but she did not say it, fortunately.

Then they set forth, on this still summer-like day; and they hailed the other boat in passing, and told them of their intended voyage of exploration. Indeed their prospects of sport at the setting out were anything but promising; the long levels of the lake were mostly of a pale glassy blue and white; and the little puffs of wind that stirred the surface here and there into a shimmer of silver invariably died down again, leaving the water to become a mirror once more of rock and tree and hill. But she was well content. This was an unknown world into which they were now penetrating; and it was a good deal more beautiful than the upper end of the lake (where the best fishing ground was) with which they had grown so familiar. Here were hanging woods coming right down to the water's edge; and lofty and precipitous crags stretching away into the pale blue sky; and winding bays and picturesque shores where the huge boulders, green and white and yellow with lichen, and the rich velvet moss, and the withered bracken, and the silver-clear stems of the birch trees were all brilliant in the sun. The only living creatures that seemed to inhabit this strange silent region were the birds. A pair of eagles slowly circled round and round, but at so great a height that they were but a couple of specks which the eye was apt to lose; black-throated divers and golden-eyed divers, disturbed by these unusual visitors, rose from the water and went whirring by to the upper stretches of the lake; a hen-harrier hovered in mid-air, causing a frantic commotion among the smaller birds beneath; the curlews, now wheeling about in pairs, uttered their long warning whistle; the peewits called angrily, flying zig-zag, with audible whuffing of their soft broad wings; the brilliant little redshanks flew like a flash along the shore, just skimming the water; and two great wild-geese went by overhead, with loud, harsh croak. And ever it was Ronald's keen eye that first caught sight of them; and he would draw her attention to them; and tell her the names of them all. And at last – as they were coming out of one of the small glassy bays, and as he was idly regarding the tall and rocky crags that rose above the birchwoods – he laughed lightly.

'Ye glaiket things,' said he, as if he were recognising some old friends, 'what brings ye in among the sheep?'

'What is it, Ronald?' she asked – and she followed the direction of his look towards those lofty crags, but could make out nothing unusual.

'Dinna ye see the hinds?' he said quietly.

'Where – where?' she cried, in great excitement; for she had not seen a single deer all the time of her stay.

'At the edge of the brown corrie – near the sky-line. There are three of them – dinna ye see them?'

'No, I don't!' she said impatiently.

'Do ye see the two sheep?'

'I see two white specks – I suppose they're sheep.'

'Well – just above them.'

But the boat was slowly moving all this time; and presently the gradual change in their position brought one of the hinds clear into view on the sky-line. The beautiful creature, with its graceful neck, small head, and upraised ears, was evidently watching them, but with no apparent intention of making off; and presently Miss Carry, whose eyes were becoming better accustomed to the place, could make out the other two hinds, one of them lying on the grass, the other contentedly feeding, and paying no heed whatever to the passing boat.

'I thought you said the sheep drove them away,' she said to him.

'It's the men and the dogs mostly,' he answered. 'Sometimes they will come in among the sheep like that, if the feeding tempts them. My word, that would be an easy stalk now – if it was the season.'

Very soon they found that the three hinds were no longer in view; but there were plenty of other things to claim their attention on this solitary voyage. What, for example, was this great circular mass of stones standing on a projecting promontory? These were the remains, he explained to her, of a Pictish fort. Another, in better preservation, was on the opposite shore; and, if she cared to visit it, she might make her way into the hollow passages constructed between the double line of wall, if she were not afraid of adders, nor yet of some of the uncemented stones falling upon her.

'And what are these?' she said, indicating the ruins of certain circles formed on the hill-plateaux just above the loch.

'They're down in the Ordnance Survey as "hut-circles,"' he said, 'but that is all I know about them.'

'At all events, there must have been plenty of people living here at one time?'

'I suppose so.'

'Well, I don't think I ever saw any place in our country looking quite so lonely as that,' she said, regarding the voiceless solitudes of wood and hill and crag. 'Seems as if with us there was always some one around – camping out, or something – but I dare say in Dacotah or Idaho you would get lonelier places than this even. Well, now, what do they call it?' she asked, as an afterthought.

'What? – the strath here?'