Annie o' the Banks o' Dee Part 14

They had parted with the carriage. Needs must where poverty and the devil drives! But they still had a little phaeton, and in this the old man and his niece enjoyed many a delightful drive. He would take her to concerts, too, and to the theatre also, so that, on the whole, life was by no means a galling load to anyone.

But a very frequent visitor at McLeod Cottage was Laird Fletcher. Not only so, but he took the old man and Annie frequently out by train. His carriage would be waiting at the station, and in this they drove away to his beautiful home.

The house itself was modern, but the grounds, under the sweet joy of June, looked beautiful indeed. It was at some considerable distance from the main road, and so in the gardens all was delightfully still, save for the music of happy song-birds or the purr of the turtle-dove, sounding low from the spreading cedars.

"A pleasing land of drowsyhead it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pa.s.s, For ever flushing round a summer sky.

There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh; But whate'er smacked of 'noyance or unrest Was far, far off expelled from this delicious nest."

Through these lovely rose-gardens and tree-shaded lawns frequently now wandered Annie, alone with Fletcher. He was so gentle, winning, and true that she had come to like him. Mind, I say nothing of love. And she innocently and frankly told him so as they sat together in a natural bower beneath a spreading deodar cedar. He was happy, but he would not risk his chance by being too precipitate.

Another day in the same arbour, after a moment or two of silence, she said: "Oh, I wish you were my uncle!" Fletcher winced a little, but summoned up courage to say:

"Ah, Annie, could we not be united by a dearer tie than that? Believe me, I love you more than life itself. Whether that life be long or short depends upon you, Annie."

But she only bent her head and cried, childlike.

"Ah, Mr Fletcher," she said at last, "I have no heart to give away. It lies at the bottom of the sea."

"But love would come."

"We will go to the house now, I think," and she rose.

Fletcher, poor fellow, silently, almost broken-heartedly, followed, and, of course, the Great Dane was there.

That night she told her uncle all. He said not a word. She told her maid in the bedroom.

"Oh, Miss Annie," said Jeanie, "I think you are very, very foolish. You refuse to marry this honest and faithful man, but your mourning will not, cannot restore the dead. Reginald Grahame is happier, a thousand, million times more happy, than anyone can ever be on this earth.

Besides, dear, there is another way of looking at the matter. Your poor Uncle McLeod is miles and miles from the pines, from the heath and the heather. He may not complain, but the artificial life of a city is telling on him. What a quiet and delightful life he would have at Laird Fletcher's!"

Annie was dumb. She was thinking. Should she sacrifice her young life for the sake of her dear uncle? Ah, well, what did life signify to her now? _He_ was dead and gone.

Thus she spoke:

"You do not think my uncle is ill, Jeannie?"

"I do not say he is _ill_, but I do say that he feels his present life irksome at times, and you may not have him long, Miss Annie. Now go to sleep like a baby and dream of it."

And I think Annie cried herself asleep that night.

"It becomes not a maiden descended from the n.o.ble clan McLeod to be otherwise than brave," she told herself next morning. "Oh, for dear uncle's sake I feel I could--" But she said no more to herself just then.

Fletcher called that very day, and took them away again to his bonnie Highland home. It was a day that angels would have delighted in. And just on that same seat beneath the same green-branched cedar Fletcher renewed his wooing. But he, this time, alluded to the artificial city life that the old Laird had to lead, he who never before during his old age had been out of sight of the waving pines and the bonnie blooming heather.

Fletcher was very eloquent to-day. Love makes one so. Yet his wooing was strangely like that of Auld Robin Grey, especially when he finished plaintively, appealingly, with the words:

"Oh, Annie, for his sake will you not marry me?"

Annie o' the Banks o' Dee wept just a little, then she wiped her tears away. He took her hand, and she half-whispered: "What must be _must_--'tis fate."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE "WOLVERINE" PUTS OUT TO SEA.

With the exception of the _Sunbeam_, probably no more handsome steam yacht ever left Southampton Harbour than the _Wolverine_. She was all that a sailor's fancy could paint.

Quite a crowd of people were on the quay to witness her departure on her very long and venturesome cruise. Venturesome for this reason, that, though rigged as a steam barque, she was but little over four hundred tons register.

Seamen on sh.o.r.e, as they glanced at her from stem to stem, alow and aloft, criticised her freely. But Jack's opinion was on the whole well embodied in a sentence spoken by a man-o'-wars-man, as he hitched up his nether garments and turned his quid in his mouth:

"My eyes, Bill and Elizabeth Martin, she is a natty little craft! I've been trying to find a flaw in her, or a hole, so to speak, but there's ne'er a one, Bill--above water, anyhow. Without the steam she reminds me of the old Aberdeen clippers. Look at her bilge, her lines, her bows, her jibboom, with its smart and business-like curve. Ah, Bill, how different to sail in a yacht like that from living cooped up in a blooming iron tank, as we are in our newest-fashioned man-o'-war teakettles! Heigho! Blowed if I wouldn't like to go on board of her!

Why, here is the doctor--splendid young fellow!--coming along the pier now. I'll overhaul him and hail him. Come on, Bill!"

Reginald Grahame was coming somewhat slowly towards them. It was just a day or two before the discovery of Craig Nicol's murder and the finding of his body in the wood.

Reginald was thinking of Bilberry Hall and Annie o' the Banks o' Dee.

Sorrow was depicted in every lineament of his handsome but mobile and somewhat nervous countenance. Was he thinking also of the cold, stiff body of his quondam friend Craig, hidden there under the dark spruce trees, the tell-tale knife beside him? Who can say what the innermost workings of his mind were? Some of the most bloodthirsty pirates of old were the handsomest men that ever trod the deck of a ship. We can judge no man's heart from his countenance. And no woman's either. There be she-devils who bear the sweet and winning features of saints. Our Scottish Queen Mary was beautiful, and as graceful as beautiful.

"If to her share some human errors fall, Look in her face, and you'll forget them all."

"Beggin' yer pardon, sir," said Jack, touching his hat and sc.r.a.ping a bit, like a horse with a loose shoe, "we're only just two blooming bluejackets, but we've been a-admiring of your craft--outside like.

D'ye think, sir, they'd let us on board for a squint?"

"Come with me, my lads. I'll take you on board."

Next minute, in company with Reginald--who was now called _Dr._-- Grahame, they were walking the ivory-white decks. Those two honest man-o'-war sailors were delighted beyond measure with all they saw.

"Why," said Jack--he was chief spokesman, for Bill was mute--"why, doctor, you have _sailors_ on board!--and mind you, sir, you don't find real sailors nowadays anywhere else except in the merchant service. We bluejackets are just like our ships--fighting machines. We ain't hearts of oak any longer, sir."

"No," said the doctor, "but you are hearts of iron. Ha! here comes the postman, with a letter for me, too. Thank you, postie."

He gave him sixpence, and tore the letter open, his hand shaking somewhat. Yes, it was from Annie. He simply hurriedly scanned it at present, but he heaved a sigh of relief as he placed it in his bosom.

Then he rejoined the bluejackets.

"Well, sir, we won't hinder you. I see you've got the Blue Peter up.

But never did I see cleaner white decks; every rope's end coiled, too.

The capstan itself is a thing o' beauty; all the bra.s.swork looks like gold, all the polished woodwork like ebony; and, blow me, Bill, just look at that binnacle! Blest if it wouldn't be a beautiful ornament for a young lady's boodwar (boudoir)! Well, sir, we wishes you a pleasant, happy voyage and a safe return. G.o.d bless you, says Jack, and good-bye."

"Good-bye to you, lads; and when you go to war, may you send the foe to the bottom of the ocean. There,"--he handed Jack a coin as he spoke--"drink _bon voyage_ to us."

"Ah, that will we!"

The sailors once more sc.r.a.ped and bowed, and Reginald hurried below to read Annie's letter. It was just a lover's letter--just such a letter as many of my readers have had in their day--so I need not describe it.