Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 700

'Listen, and I will tell you. He did not come home that evening – he, I mean, who is now your husband. There was company at the house, and he was expected. There was dancing and music, but I could not join in it. I stole away to my own room, and afterwards wandered out into the fields. I had heard of the charm of the Twelfth Rig, but it was not with any settled intention of trying it that I went out. When I got to the field, overcome with sorrow and weariness, for I had walked a long distance, I sank down; and thinking that nothing stirred in that lonely spot but the night-wind, gave loose to the grief and despair that filled my heart. When at last I rose up, I saw a figure wrapped in a cloak standing motionless in the centre of one of the ridges, pale, with wild eyes, and black dishevelled hair. As I gazed, it uttered a dreadful scream, and turning, fled. I had heard stories of the banshee, and I thought this must be it, or some spirit of doom, that had appeared to warn me of my approaching death. I believe I sank down again on the ground. My senses seemed to leave me. I know not what I did, but I heard a voice crying "Doomed, doomed!" and I think it was myself that uttered the words.'

'I heard it,' said Eliza. 'It pursued me as I fled, repeated, I suppose, by the mountain echoes. Ah! how it has haunted me. I tried to crush back the thought; but it was there still, though I wouldn't face it, and I felt in my heart that my days were numbered. Has the clearing up come too late? I have suffered so much, I scarcely feel fit for life now.'

'It comes too late for me. Though it was no spirit that stood in the midst of the Twelfth Rig, the charm will work still. I was ill after that night, very ill, else we might have met before you left, and recognised each other. Then came the shock that tore up by the roots the last hopes that lingered in my heart. You know to what I allude. I may speak of it now with calmness, standing as I do on the brink of the grave. – Why do you look so shocked? Have you never heard that Ellen Courtney was dying – dying of a broken heart?'

'No, no! I never heard it, never dreamt of it. O heaven!' – wringing her hands, and raising them above her head, with a despairing gesture – 'then I am a murderess! The punishment has descended in full force now. A curse could not but attend my marriage. Did not friends warn me again and again? and yet I persisted – persisted, though faith had to be broken on both sides, a heart cast aside, and trampled on. It was an unholy marriage, and the blessing of heaven could not sanctify it. It was that which made my husband cease to love me, shrivelled up my own heart, and made everything become valueless in my eyes. I was content to suffer myself; it was only reaping what I had sowed. But that you should suffer – suffer and die; you, who never injured any one, who must be gentle and good as an angel. But oh!' she pursued, dropping on her knees, and raising her dark eyes pleadingly, as sinner might to saint, 'remove the curse before you die – if heaven so wills – before I die, as perhaps I shall, and give me back my husband's love, the only thing that remains to me now.' The last words were uttered in a piteous moan.

'Do not speak so wildly,' entreated Ellen, sitting down on one of the seats, and raising her hand (Eliza marked its transparency) to her damp white forehead. 'You are not so much to blame. Life and happiness could never have been mine, even had you not intervened. If he ceased to love me, as he must have done soon, for he never loved me truly, I could not have borne it. My heart would have broke, and I should have died all the same. You have my forgiveness fully and entirely – and he has too. Do not fret yourself for the lover you forsook. His wound is healed. He has found happiness with one who long loved him in secret. This was the appointed day for his marriage with your cousin, Mary Conlan.'

Eliza started, and the blood rushed to her face. He then had forgotten her; and the thought sent a bitter pang through her heart; yet she thanked heaven that it was so.

'Part of the weight is lifted from my soul,' she said. 'And I have your forgiveness too. Lay your hand on my head, and say again that you forgive me, and breathe a blessing on me.'

The shadowy white hand was raised. It lay like a spotless lily, emblem of heaven's pity and forgiveness, on the dark bowed head.

'I forgive you from my heart. If my earnest wishes can make you happy, be so. – Now I must go.' She rose, but tottered as she attempted to walk.

'You are weak,' exclaimed Eliza. 'Let me go with you.'

'No, no; there is no need. I have not far to go.'

'But still, let me walk with you, and lean on me. I shall think you cannot bear my presence near you, if you refuse.'

'Be it so then.'

They left the chapel together. Not a word was spoken as they walked slowly on till Ellen paused before the gate of a villa.

'Good-bye, Eliza. We shall never meet again on earth. This third meeting, in which each first knows the other, is the last. Even if I lived, we could not be friends, our paths should lie far asunder; though your words, and still more your looks, tell me how it is with you, that we are sisters in disappointment and misfortune. But there' – she lifted her eyes, calm and serene, to the sky, where the moon, now fully risen, gleamed fair and radiant – 'there we may meet and be friends for ever. Farewell, Eliza.'

Overcome with emotion, Eliza cast herself, weeping, on the other's breast. For a few moments they mingled their tears together. 'Farewell, Eliza;' 'Farewell, Ellen.' A faint breeze swept through the beechen wood. It came wandering by them, and seemed to murmur in unknown tongue some sentence or benediction over their heads.

There was silence. Eliza felt her companion lean heavily on her. She grew alarmed. At last she said: 'It is not well for you to linger in the night-air. Will you not go into the house now?'

Ellen replied not. Heavier and heavier she leant, with a helpless weight that almost over-powered the other. Eliza raised the drooping head. A white, white face, a dim fast-glazing eye, met her gaze. It was the dead that lay on her bosom.

That night Eliza was very ill, so ill that a telegram was despatched in haste to her husband to come at once, if he wished to see her alive. He arrived next day, but only in time to gaze on a sweet marble face, that changed not even in the presence of the dread remorse that then awoke in his heart, and to clasp in his arms a fair but lifeless child, whose tender eyes had never opened on this world's light – whose only baptism was tears.

A few days after Hallow-eve, Daly received a black-sealed letter. It was that which Eliza had written to him, but never sent.

So they both slept. The remains of Ellen Courtney were conveyed to her own land; and on a dark November morning, when all nature seemed in mourning for the young and beautiful that had passed with the summer flowers, she was laid with her kindred, amidst streaming eyes and voices that blessed her name —

Poor victim of love and changeless faith.

But Eliza lay in a foreign soil, where the myrtle waved above her head, instead of her own mountain-ash – an exile even in death, from friends and home.

LIFE IN ST KILDA

CONCLUDING PAPER

On the 16th August I ascended the hill called Connaghar, where all the men had gone to catch and the women to carry home fulmars, leaving the village deserted. The weather was very warm, and although I carried my coat over my arm, I was fain to stop on my way up and cool myself in the light sea-breeze. About half-way up I saw my old friend Tormad, with his ruddy face and large white beard, seated on the edge of the cliff, with his attention fixed on the rope he held in his hands. 'Who is below?' I asked as I sat down beside him. 'Neil,' he answered. 'Is he far down?' 'Far – far,' he replied. Neil's voice could be heard calling from the abyss. In a little a crash sounds from below. Tormad looks anxious, and with craning head listens with deep attention; whilst two girls who had joined us, step with their bare feet to the very verge of the precipice and peer below. One of them, who has a light graceful figure, looks very picturesque as she stands poised on that stupendous cliff. She has a Turkey-red handkerchief on her head, and wears a coarse blue gown of a quaint shape, girdled at the waist, and only reaching to her knees. Her limbs are muscular and browned with the sun. She is engaged to Neil, and naturally feels anxious on his account. A shower of large stones had fallen, any one of which would have knocked his brains out had it chanced to hit; but fortunately a projecting crag above his head saves him. Tormad shifts his position to where he thinks the rock is less frangible. I leave him, and climb to where the cliffs form a lofty head or promontory which commands a view of the face of Connaghar. This hill rises one thousand two hundred and twenty feet above the sea, and is a precipice almost to the summit. The bottom of this tremendous cliff had been cleared of fulmars the previous day by men who had ascended from boats. Now the work had to be done from above.

It is a dreadful trade. A sound like the crack of a musket is occasionally heard, and one sees a huge stone bound and rattle with great leaps into the sea below. Parties of two or three men, laden with birds on their shoulders, are seen climbing by steep and perilous paths to the summit. From the spot where I lie basking in the sun, a path leads downwards to a steep grassy brae bounded by a cliff. This is considered a safe road for women, and a number of them go by it to where the men can bring them fulmars. Some of the girls can carry about two hundred pounds' weight, and seem rather proud of their strength; but as they toil up the dangerous path to where I recline, I hear them breathing heavily and in apparent distress; but in a few minutes they are all right again.

In the intervals of work a number of them sit around me and offer me a share of their oat-cakes and cheese, and hand me the little tub covered with raw sheepskin in which they carry milk: 'Drink, drink! you have taken none!' A number of the men also come up the path with coils of ropes and bundles of inflated gannets' craws on their backs. They are all barefooted and stripped to their underclothing. A pile of fulmars has been collected beside us, and the men whilst they rest economise time by extracting the oil. The receptacle for holding the oil is the stomach of a solan-goose, which is held open by one man, while another takes a fulmar, and squeezing the body, forces the oil in a stream from its gaping bill. When the fulmars and oil are carried home they are equally divided. The birds are plucked, and the feathers are sold to the factor for six shillings a St Kilda stone of twenty-four pounds. The flesh is pickled and used as food in winter and spring. The oil is sold to the factor for one shilling a St Kilda pint, which is equal to about five English pints. Over nine hundred St Kilda pints were exported in 1875. I ought to mention that it is the young fulmars that are caught in autumn. No art is required to capture them, as they are unable to fly; but they offer all the resistance in their power by spitting their oil in the faces of the men. The oil has a disagreeable odour. The old fulmars are caught in summer when hatching; a noose tied to the end of a rod being slipped over their heads. About the end of August all the fulmars leave St Kilda and take the young to sea for their education. They are absent for about two months and a half, and return lean and worthless.

On the 1st of September I began to be slightly alarmed that I might be detained on the island until the succeeding summer. No vessel had called since my arrival on the 21st of June. My stock of provisions had become exhausted, and I had to give up tea and coffee, and subsequently bread. The people began to pluck up their little crops, neither sickle nor scythe being used. The oatmeal supplied by the factor being done, the islanders had to depend on the grain grown on the island. The oats are thrashed with a flail; are scorched in a pot or in a straw basket containing hot stones, previous to being ground. The grain is then ground with hand-mills by the women, who work like furies.

On the 7th the new boat went to Stack Lee for gougan or young solan-geese, and returned in the evening with a few – about forty to each man. As at the Bass and other fowling stations, so also here are the gougan killed by blows on the head with a stick. The flesh of the gougan is wild and fishy in flavour; but when baked is an article of food. Every morning when I went up the village the usual salutation included expressions of fear that no ship would arrive. But my anxiety about the arrival of a ship was naturally less than theirs, for they were burning to receive further intelligence about the boat that was supposed to have been lost fourteen years ago. 'Is my poor wife alive? Is my mother, my brother, my son, my father, living or dead? Was my husband saved in some mysterious way, like Donald MacKinnon? Is he married again? Are all the women black in Africa?' Such were the agitating questions that passed through the minds of the people, and often found expression. Every time I went up the hill with my glass I would be questioned by some one on my return whether any vessel was visible, and my answer that there was not, was shouted from one end of the village to the other. The poor people were straitened for oatmeal, which was anxiously expected from the factor.

On the 5th of October in the evening, whilst I was sitting alone in a cloud of peat-smoke, gazing at nothing by the dull light of an iron lamp, my door was suddenly thrown open, and a woman in a state of alarm bawled out that there were strangers in the glen. I suggested that they were probably shipwrecked sailors, whom it would not be right to leave in the glen all night, cold, hungry, and without shelter. This seemed to move the women; and it was arranged that five men armed with staves should go to the top of the hill that separates the village from the glen and shout. In an hour or two the five men returned wet to the skin, and reported that, although they had whistled and shouted loudly, they had got no reply, and that they were sure there must be a mistake. But the woman still insisted that there were strangers in the glen. Next day a steamer was seen bearing away from the island, and it was no doubt her fog-whistle which had created the alarm.

In October, when the nights were getting long, spinning-wheels began to be busy in every house, making the thread which the men afterwards wove into cloth; and I spent the evening in one or other of the cottages, chatting with the people, and endeavouring to improve my Gaelic, and penetrate into their unsophisticated minds. I tried to tell them stories – such as Blue Beard– in which they seemed to feel a deep interest; the women sometimes improving my grammar, and helping me out of any difficulty. They would also tell me sgeulachdan or tales.

On the 21st October and for many days afterwards all the inhabitants went down the cliffs to pluck grass for their cattle. I saw the women lying on the narrow sloping ledges on the face of the rocks. A false step, and they would have fallen into the sea, hundreds of feet below, or been mangled on the projecting crags. About this time I gave up all hope of getting off the island until the following summer. My oatmeal was done, and after that I was obliged to depend on the people for a share of theirs. But I never wanted, although I put myself on short allowance.

On the 7th November a meeting was held in the church to return thanks for the harvest. A sudden change occurred in the weather: the sky became charged with thick vapour, and there was a heavy fall of hail accompanied by thunder and lightning. On the 8th December I went to the top of the hills, and notwithstanding my light diet, felt remarkably well; but slipping when twenty yards from home, I sprained my ankle, and lay for some time in torture. I crawled into the house, and after a time succeeded in cooking my dinner. I slept none; and next day my room was filled with sympathising male friends and ministering angels. Some brought me presents of potatoes and salt mutton, turf and fulmar-oil. On the 10th I held a levee, the whole people coming to see me between fore and afternoon services. The men about this time began to weave the thread which the women had spun. Both sexes worked from dawn of day until an hour or two after midnight. Their industry astonished me. I soon began to limp about in the evening; and when the nights were dark I got a live peat stuck on the end of a stick, to let me see the road home. At this time I made a miniature ship and put a letter in the hold, in the hope that she might reach the mainland. I was anxious that my friends should know that I was alive. Shortly afterwards I made a lantern out of a piece of copper that had come off a ship's bottom. A large limpet-shell filled with fulmar-oil served for a lamp inside. This lantern, a clumsy affair, was more admired than my sketches. On the 12th of January, which is New-year's-day in St Kilda, service was held in the church; and to celebrate the occasion, the minister preached a sermon.

On the 17th the most remarkable event occurred that had happened in St Kilda for many years. The people had just gone to church when, happening to look out at my door, I was startled to observe a boat in the bay. I had been nearly seven months on the island, and had never seen any ship or strange boat near it all that time. Robinson Crusoe scarcely felt more surprised when he saw the foot-print on the sand, than I did on beholding this apparition. I ran to the shore, where there was a heavy sea rolling, and shouted to the people in the boat; but my voice was drowned by the roar of the waves. A woman who had followed me gave notice to the congregation, and all poured out of the church. The St Kildans ran round the rocks to a spot where there seemed to be less surf, and waved on the boat to follow. I went with the others. When we arrived at the place indicated, the islanders threw ropes from the low cliffs to the men in the boat; but the latter declined to be drawn up, the captain bawling 'Mooch better dere,' pointing to the shore before the village, and putting about the boat. All ran back; but before we got to the shore the strange boat had run through the surf. Instantly all the men in her leaped into the sea and swam to the land, where they were grasped by the St Kildans. In a few minutes their boat was knocked to pieces on the rocks.

The strangers were invited into the minister's house and dry clothes given them. They proved to be the captain and eight of the crew of the Austrian ship Peti Dabrovacki, eight hundred and eighty tons, which had left Glasgow for New York five days before. The vessel had encountered bad weather; her ballast had shifted, and she lay on her beam-ends about eight miles west of St Kilda. Seven men had remained in her, and no doubt perished. The ship was not to be seen next day. When the survivors had got their clothes shifted, they were distributed amongst the sixteen families that compose the community, the minister keeping the captain, and every two families taking charge of one man, and providing him with a bed and board and clean clothes. I myself saw one man (Tormad Gillies) take a new jacket out of the box in which it had been carefully packed, and give it to the mate to wear during his stay, the young man having no coat but an oilskin. The oatmeal being done, the islanders took the grain they had kept for seed and ground it to feed the shipwrecked men. The hospitable conduct of the St Kildans was all the more commendable when one considers that their guests were all foreigners. But long before the five weeks had elapsed during which the Austrians lived on the island, they had by their good behaviour removed the prejudice that had prevailed against them at first. They were polite and obliging to the women, and went from house to house to assist in grinding the grain.

On the 28th January 1877 the wind blew violently from the north-west with heavy showers of sleet. It was the worst day I had seen in St Kilda. The huge waves came rolling into the bay against the wind, which caught them as they fell on the shore and carried them off in spin-drift. Yet many of the women went to church barefoot.

On the 29th the captain and sailors called on me and felt interested in seeing a canoe I had hewn out of a log. They helped me to rig her and to put the ballast right; but we had to wait until the wind was favourable. We put two bottles in her hold containing letters, which we hoped would find their way to the mainland and be posted.

This canoe carried a small sail, and was despatched on the 5th of February, the wind being in the north-west, and continuing so for some days. I thought she would reach Uist; but the Gulf Stream was stronger than I calculated on, and she went to Poolewe in Ross-shire, where she was found lying on a sandbank on the 27th by a Mr John Mackenzie, who posted the letters. Five days previous to the date when we launched the canoe, we sent off a life-buoy belonging to the lost ship. I suggested that a bottle containing a letter should be lashed to it and a small sail put up. This was done; but no one had much hope that this circular vessel would be of service. She was sent off on the 30th January, and strange to relate, drifted to Birsay in Orkney, and was forwarded to Lloyd's agent in Stromness on the 8th February, having performed the passage in nine days. During my residence in St Kilda, several canes that the Gulf Stream had brought from some tropical clime were picked up by the men. One was hollow and several inches in diameter. The St Kildans split these canes and make them into reeds for their looms.

On 17th February the Austrian skipper offered ten pounds for a passage to Harris in the new boat, for himself and men. The St Kildans accepted the offer, and arranged to send seven of their own men to bring her back. They would not allow the Austrians to go alone, being afraid that they (the St Kildans) might be left without a boat, and have no means of getting seed-corn and provisions. They drew lots who were to go, and it was stipulated that I was to be one of them. All was settled except the weather. We were waiting for a promising day, when, on the 22d, about seven in the morning, as I was lying in bed and thinking of getting up to make my breakfast, I was startled by hearing the sound of a steam-whistle. I lay back again muttering: 'It was the wind;' when hark! the whistle is repeated. I leaped up, ran to the door, and saw, sure enough, a steamer in the bay! Huddling on my clothes, I rushed barefoot up the village, rattling at every door, and shouting 'Steamer – strangers!' In a few minutes all the people were astir and hurrying to the shore. I had just time to throw the articles that lay handy into my trunk and to get on board the steamer's boat, which I saw belonged to Her Majesty. Then I discovered that I had left my purse and other property in the house; but the surf was too great to allow me to land again. I got on board the steamer, which I found to be the Jackal. 'How did you know we were here?' I inquired of one of the officers who stood on the quarter-deck. 'From the letter you wrote and put into the bottle lashed to the life-buoy.' I ran to the side of the ship muttering to myself: 'There is a Providence that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will;' and bawled to the St Kildans in the boat alongside: 'It was the life-buoy brought this steamer here, you incredulous people;' for they had smiled, although good-humouredly, at my efforts to send a letter home. A small supply of biscuits and oatmeal was given to them; and waving an adieu to my good St Kildan friends, we were speedily receding from the island.

I found all the officers extremely friendly and agreeable, and here beg to return my hearty thanks. I was made to feel quite at home. The shipwrecked captain and I were accommodated in the cabin. The Austrian sailors were well taken care of forward, and seemed particularly delighted at again having as much tobacco as they could use. We had been all smoking dried moss.

The wind had risen and the sea become rough; and if the Jackal had been half an hour later, she would have been obliged to return with her errand unexecuted; for it would have been impossible for a boat to approach the shore. We reached Harris the same evening, and anchored in the Sound all night. But as this part of the journey has appeared in the newspapers, I need not repeat it. Suffice it that I arrived barefoot and penniless, but in good health and spirits, in Greenock on the 26th. Here my narrative ends.

[Many of the facts related in the foregoing narrative were published in various newspapers in the early part of the present year, and led to considerable discussion. Stormy seasons, as we have seen, may set in, and communication with the proprietor or his factor be rendered impossible; the most anxious efforts to transmit provisions may be rendered abortive, and famine, if not actual starvation, be the result. Various hints for the melioration of the poor St Kildans have been thrown out, amongst others that those isolated beings should quit the island for good, and seek a new home in the more civilised Hebrides or elsewhere. One thing is sufficiently obvious, if the people are to remain on the island, they should be taught to speak and write English. Their adherence to Gaelic condemns them to innumerable privations, above all it excludes them from communication with the outer world, on whose sympathy they are forced to rely. Half a century ago, Dr John Macculloch lamented this exclusive use of Gaelic; and we echo all he said on the subject. We have no objection to Gaelic being made a philological study, but its continuance as a spoken language is in all respects to be regretted. – Ed.]

THE MONTH:

SCIENCE AND ARTS

The 'season' is at its busiest: crowds of sightseers are looking at the pictures in the Royal Academy, the Grosvenor Gallery, and in other resorts, and painting and sculpture are everywhere talked about; while fine art rejoices in its annual holiday, and 'art sales' (which are too often artful) draw throngs of competing buyers. The debates in parliament on reform of our universities have revived the education question; and sanguine talkers who believe that education can do everything, have had to be reminded once more that endowments however ample cannot create genius; that our greatest achievements in science, art, or literature have been wrought by unendowed men, and that nature will not produce a larger proportion of highest quality brain even though schools be multiplied. Meanwhile the experiment for the promotion of scientific research initiated by government has advanced a stage, and the investigators recommended by the Council of the Royal Society have received grants of money from the Paymaster-general to enable them to carry on their work. As this experiment is to be continued for five years, we may reasonably expect that it will assist in resolving the endowment question.

The cost of the expeditions sent out by this country in 1875 to observe the transit of Venus has been ascertained: it is forty thousand pounds; the estimate was twenty thousand pounds. As will be remembered, other nations engaged in the work as well as ourselves; and we have it on the authority of the Astronomer-royal that the total expenditure 'may amount to two hundred thousand pounds.' This is a large sum to pay for the endeavour to solve the problem of the earth's distance from the sun; but the problem is one of essential importance in astronomical science, and there is reason to hope that when all the computations are completed the true answer will appear. Remembering as we do the eclipse expeditions assisted by the Treasury and the Admiralty, and the expensive and abortive Arctic expedition, we agree with the learned functionary above referred to that 'the government has been very liberal.'

By a method known to astronomers, observations of the planet Mars can be made available for determining our distance from the sun. Sir George Airy speaks of this method as 'the best of all;' and as Mars is this year in the most favourable position for these special observations, a private expedition is to be sent to St Helena or to Ascension to make them. The expense will be about five hundred pounds; and this is to be provided by gifts from scientific men, and by a contribution from the Royal Astronomical Society.

The formation of meteorites is a question which has long been discussed by mineralogists and physicists. Professor Tschermak, after much study, has come to the conclusion that the active agent in the process is volcanic. He points out that the meteorites which fall to the earth are angular in form, that they have no concentric structure even in their interior, that their external crust is not an original characteristic, and that they are evidently fragmentary. Examination of the crust has shewn that during the later stages of flight, disruption of the meteorite itself sometimes takes place; and it is a fact worth record, that guided by the appearance of the crust and peculiarity of shape, Professor Maskelyne once succeeded in reconstructing a meteorite from fragments which had fallen miles apart.

From much evidence of this character Professor Tschermak has been confirmed in his views. He argues that 'the finding of hydrogen in meteoric iron is a proof that permanent gases and perhaps vapours, which are the great agents in transmitting volcanic energy, have played some part in the formation of meteorites; and although it may ever be impossible to obtain direct evidence of the volcanic activity which is supposed to have hurled these mysterious masses of stone and metal into space, yet such evidence as the violent gaseous upheavals on the solar surface; the action of our terrestrial volcanoes; and the stupendous eruptive phenomena of which the lunar craters tell the history, lend powerful support to any theory which assumes that meteorites owe their formation to volcanic agency.'