The Eagle Cliff

“Quite as like as that, Flo,” replied Archie, with a laugh; “liker, if anything.”

“By the way, how did you get on with your photographing yesterday afternoon, Archie?” asked Barret.

“Pretty well with some of the views; but I ruined the last one, because father would have me introduce Captain McPherson and his man McGregor.”

“Is that so, captain?” asked Mrs Gordon.

“Oo, ay; it iss true enough,” answered the skipper, with a grim smile. “He made a queer like mess o’ me, what-ë-ver.”

“How was it, Archie?”

“Well, mother, this is how it was. You know the waterfall at the head of Raven’s Nook? Well, I have long wanted to take that, so I went up with father and Mr Mabberly. We found the captain and McGregor sitting there smoking their pipes, and when I was arranging the camera, the captain said to me—”

“No, Maister Archie,” interrupted the skipper; “I did not say anything to Shames. You should be more parteekler. But Shames said something to me, what-ë-ver.”

“Just so; I forgot,” continued Archie. “Well, McGregor said to the captain, ‘What would you think if we wass to sit still an’ co into the pictur’?’”

“Oo, ay; that was just it, an’ fery like him too,” said the skipper, laughing at Archie’s imitation, though he failed to recognise the similarity to his own drawling and nasal tones. People always do thus fail. We can never see ourselves!

“Well,” continued Archie, “father insisted that I was to take them, though they quite spoiled the view. So I did; but in the very middle of the operation, what did the captain do but insist on changing his—”

“Not at all, Maister Archie,” again interrupted the skipper; “you have not got the right of it. It wass Shames said to me that he thought you had feenished, an’ so I got up; an’ then you roared like a wild bullock to keep still, and so what could I do but keep still? an so—”

“Exactly; that was it,” cried Archie, interrupting in his turn; “but you kept still standing, and so there were three figures in the picture when it was done, and your fist in the standing one came right in front of your own nose in the sitting one, for all the world as if you were going to knock yourself down. Such a mess it was altogether!”

“That iss fery true. It wass a mess, what-ë-ver!”

“You must show me this curious photograph, Archie, after lunch,” said Barret; “it must be splendid.”

“But it is not so splendid as my dolly,” chimed in Flo. “I’ll show you zat after lunch too.”

Accordingly, after the meal was over, Archie carried Barret off to his workshop. Then Flo took him to the nursery, where she not only showed him the portrait of the nigger doll, which was a striking likeness—for dolls invariably sit well—but took special pains to indicate the various points which had “come out” so “bootifully”—such as the nails which Junkie had driven into its wooden head for the purpose of making it behave better; the chip that Junkie had taken off the end of its nose when he tried to convert that feature into a Roman; the deep line drawn round the head close to the hair by Junkie, when, as the chief of the Micmac Indians, he attempted to scalp it; and the hole through the right eye, by which Junkie proposed to let a little more light into its black brain.

Having seen and commented on all these things, Barret retired to the smoking-room, not to smoke, but to consult a bundle of newspapers which the post had brought to the house that day.

For it must not be imagined that the interests and amusements by which he was surrounded had laid the ghost of the thin, little old lady whom he had mur— at least run down—in London. No; wherever he went, and whatever he did, that old lady, like Nemesis, pursued him. When he looked down, she lay sprawling—a murdered, at least a manslaughtered, victim—at his feet. When he looked up, she hung, like the sword of Damocles, by a single fibre of maiden’s hair over his head.

It was of no use that his friend Jackman rallied him on the point.

“My dear fellow,” he would say, “don’t you see that if you had really killed her, the thing would have been published far and wide all over the kingdom, with a minute description, and perhaps a portrait of yourself on the bicycle, in all the illustrated papers? Even if you had only injured her severely, they would have made a sensation of it, with an offer, perhaps, of a hundred pounds for your capture, and a careful indication of the streets through which you passed when you ran away—”

“Ay, that’s what makes the matter so much worse,” Barret would reply; “the unutterable meanness of running away!”

“But you repented of that immediately,” Jackman would return in soothing tones; “and you did your utmost to undo it, though the effort was futile.”

Barret was usually comforted a good deal by the remarks of his friend, and indeed frequently forgot his trouble, especially when meditating on botanical subjects with Milly. Still, it remained a fact that he was haunted by the little old lady, more or less, and had occasional bad dreams, besides becoming somewhat anxious every time he opened a newspaper.

While Barret and the skipper were thus taking what the latter called an easy day of it, their friend Mabberly, with Eddie and Junkie and the seaman McGregor, had gone over the pass in the waggonette to the village of Cove for a day’s sea-fishing. They were driven by Ivor Donaldson.

“You’ll not have been in these parts before, sir?” said Ivor, who was a quiet, polite, and sociable man when not under the influence of drink.

“No, never,” answered Mabberly, who sat on the seat beside him; “and if it had not been for our misfortune, or the carelessness of that unknown steamer, I should probably never have known of the existence of your beautiful island. At least, I would have remained in ignorance of its grandeur and beauty.”

“That proves the truth of the south-country sayin’, sir,—‘It’s an ill wind that blaws nae guid.’”

“It does, indeed; for although the loss of my father’s yacht is a very considerable one, to have missed the hospitality of the laird of Kinlossie, and the rambling over your magnificent hills, would have been a greater misfortune.”

The keeper, who cherished a warm feeling for old Mr Gordon, and admired him greatly, expressed decided approval of the young man’s sentiments, as was obvious from the pleased smile on his usually grave countenance, though his lips only gave utterance to the expression, “Fery true, sir; you are not far wrong.”

At the Eagle Pass they halted a few minutes to breathe the horses. Eddie and Junkie, of course, jumped down, followed by James McGregor, with whom they had already formed a friendship.

“Come away, an’ we’ll show you the place where Milly fell down. Come along, quicker, Shames,” cried Junkie, adopting the name that the skipper used; for the boy’s love of pleasantry not infrequently betrayed him into impudence.

With a short laugh, Mabberly turned to Ivor, and asked if Shames was the Gaelic for James.

“No, sir” replied the keeper; “but James is the English for Shames.”

“Ha! you are quoting now—or rather, misquoting—from the lips of some Irishman.”

“Weel, sir, I never heard it said that quota-ashun wass a sin,” retorted Ivor; then, turning to the stupendous cliff that frowned above them, “Hev ye heard of the prophecy, sir, aboot this cliff?”

“No. What is it?”

“It’s said that the cliff is to be the scene of a ghost story, a love story, and a murder all at the same time.”

“Is that all, Ivor? Did the prophet give no indication how the stories were to end, or who the murderer is to be, or the murdered one?”

“Never a word, sir; only they wass all to be aboot the same time. Indeed, the prophet, whether man or wuman, is not known. Noo, we better shump up.”

In a few minutes the waggonette was rattling down the slopes that led to Cove, and soon afterwards they were exchanging greetings with old Ian Anderson, the fisherman.

“Iss it to fush, ye’ll be wantin’?” asked Ian, as he ushered the party into his cottage, where Mrs Anderson was baking oat-cakes, and Aggy was busy knitting socks with her thin fingers as deftly and rapidly as if she had been in robust health.

“Yes, that is our object to-day,” said Mabberly. “Good-day, Mrs Anderson; good-day, Aggy. I’m glad to see you looking so much better, though I can’t see very well for your cottage is none of the lightest,” he said, glancing at the small window, where a ragged head, with a flattened white nose, accounted for the obscurity.

“There might be more light,” said Ian, seizing a thick thorn stick, and making a sudden demonstration towards the door, the instant effect of which action was an improvement in the light. It did not last long, however, for “Tonal’,” after watching at the corner of the cottage long enough to make sure that the demonstration was a mere feint, returned to his post of observation.

“Yes, sir,” remarked Mrs Anderson; “Aggy is much better. The fresh air is doin’ her cood already, an’ the peels that the shentleman—your friend—gave her is workin’ wonders.”

“They usually do, of one sort or another,” returned Mabberly, with a peculiar smile. “I’m glad they happen to be wonders of the right sort in Aggy’s case. My friend has been out in India, and his prescriptions have been conceived in a warm climate, you see, which may account for their wonder-working qualities. Can we have your boat to-day, Mr Anderson?”

“Oo, ay; ye can hev that, sir,” said Ian, summoning Donald to his presence with a motion of his finger. “Tonal’,” he said, when ragged head stood at the open door, “hev we ony pait?”

“Ay, plenty.”

“Co doon, then, an’ git the poat ready.”

The boy disappeared without reply—a willing messenger. A few minutes more, and Ivor and Ian were rowing the boat towards a part of the sea which was deemed good fishing ground, while the rest of the party busied themselves arranging the lines.