Courage, True Hearts Part 11

Few of the herring boats really belonged to this bay, but they all used often to run in here, and after arranging their nets, they set sail for their mighty draughts of fishes.

Duncan and Conal were always welcome, because they a.s.sisted right willingly and merrily at the work.

The boats were very large, and all open in the centre--the well, this s.p.a.ce was called--and with a cuddy, or small living and cooking room, both fore and aft.

It used to be rough work, this herring fishing, and not over cleanly, but the boys always put on the oldest clothes they had, with waterproof leggings, oil-skin hats, and sou'westers.

They would be out sometimes for two days and nights.

The beauty of the scenery, looking towards the land at the sunset hour, it would be impossible for pen or pencil to do justice to. The smooth sea, with its patches of crimson, opal, or orange, the white sands of the bay, the dark, frowning headlands, the dark greenery of the s.h.a.ggy woods and forests, and the rugged hills towering high against the eastern horizon; the whole made a picture that a Turner only could have conveyed to canvas.

The dolphin is--from a poet's point of view--a very interesting animal, with an air of romance about him. Dolphins are said to be of a very joyous temperament. Well, perhaps; but they are, nevertheless, about the worst enemies those hardy, northern, herring-fishery men have to encounter.

They come in shoals after the herrings, and go "slick" through the nets, carrying great pieces away on their ungainly bodies. And the boatmen can do nothing to protect their silvery harvest.

Once, while our young heroes were on board one of the largest and best of the boats, it came on to blow off the land--not simply a gale of wind, but something near akin to a hurricane. They were driven out to sea about sundown, and Duncan and Conal could never forget the sufferings of that fearful night.

After trying in vain to beat to windward, they put up the helm--narrowly escaping broaching-to--and ran before it.

But all through the darkness, and until the gray and uncertain light of day broke slowly over the storm-tossed ocean, the seas were continually breaking over the st.u.r.dy boat, and everyone was drenched to the skin.

It might have been said, with truth, that she was swamped, so full of water was the well.

The great waves were now visible enough, each with its yellow sides and its foaming mane. It seemed, indeed, that the ocean was stirred up to its very bottom, and when down in the trough of the seas, with those "combers" threatening far above, with truth might it have been said that the waves were mountains high.

All the nets were lost, but no lives.

About noon the wind veered round to the west, and all sail was set, and the boat steered for land; but so far into the Atlantic had they been driven that it was sunrise next morning before they succeeded in reaching the bay.

And there sad news awaited them.

There would be mourning widows and weeping children, for two bonnie boats had perished with all their brave crews.

Well, there is danger in every calling, but far more, I think, in that of the northern fisherman than in any other.

But how doubly dear to him is life on sh.o.r.e, when he reaches his little white-washed cottage, after a successful run, and meets his smiling wife and happy children, who run to greet their daddy home from sea.

Summer was already on the wane, and July nights were getting longer.

Frank must soon seek once more his London home.

But he was healthier, stronger, happier now, by far and away, than when he first arrived at Glenvoie.

Ah! but the parting with everyone, but especially with bonnie young Flora, would be sad and sad indeed.

One morning, about a week before Frank was to leave for the south, Duncan came into his room.

"You and I and Conal are going up the hill to-day," he said, "all by ourselves, and I have something to propose which I feel sure you will be glad to approve of."

"All right!" said Frank.

So after breakfast the three boys slipped away to the hills, without telling anyone what they were after.

A council was to be held.

CHAPTER VII.--THE PARTING COMES AT LAST.

If Duncan M'Vayne were a mere imaginary hero, I should not take credit for any virtue that in him lay, but I don't mind telling you, reader, that very few of the heroes of my stories are altogether creations of my fairly fertile brain. Like most sailor-men who have seen a vast deal of the world, I have so much truth to tell that it would be downright foolish to fall back upon fiction for some time yet.

And so I am not ashamed to say that Duncan was one of those _rara aves_--boys who think. I do not care to study the characters of boys who are not just a little bit out of the common run. Ordinary boys are as common as sand-martins in an old gravel-pit, and they are not worth writing about.

Well brought up as he had been, so far away in the lonesome wilds of the Scottish Highlands, and having few companions save his brother and parents, it is but little wonder that he dearly loved his father and mother. To tell the whole truth, the affection felt by Scottish boys towards their parents is very real and sincere indeed. It is a love that most a.s.suredly pa.s.ses the knowledge of southerners, and in saying so I am most sincere.

Well, neither he, Duncan, nor Conal either could help knowing that of late years circ.u.mstances connected with the estate of Glenvoie had become rather straitened, and although obliged to keep up a good show, as I may term it, his father was far indeed from being wealthy at the present time. The estate was not a large one certainly, but it would have been big enough to live well upon, had the shootings let as well as they did long ago.

Is it any wonder that talking together about their future, as they frequently did before going to sleep, Duncan and Conal used often to ask each other the question, "How best can we be of some use to Daddy?" And it was indeed a difficult one to answer.

Both lads had already all the "schooling" they needed to enable them to make a st.u.r.dy fight with or against the world, but the idea of going as clerks or shopmen to a city like Glasgow or even Edinburgh was utterly repulsive to their feelings.

They were sons of a proud Highland chief, although a poor one. Alas!

how often poverty and pride are to be seen, arm in arm, in bonnie Scotland. But anyhow, they were M'Vaynes. Besides, the wild country in which they had spent most of their lives until now, had imbued them with romance.

Is that to be wondered at? Did not romance dwell everywhere around them? Did they not breathe it in the very air that blew from off the mountains, and over the heathery moorlands? Did it not live in the dark waving pine forests, and in the very cliffs that overhung the leaden lakes, cliffs whereon the eagle had his eyry? Was it not heard in the roar of the cataract, and seen in the foaming rapids of streams that chafed its every boulder obstructing their pa.s.sage to yonder ocean wild and wide? Yes, and Duncan was proud of that romance, and proud too, with a pride that is unknown in England of the grand story of his never-conquered country.

And so we cannot be astonished to find the three lads sitting together, in solemn conclave, on a bright summer's forenoon, far away on a green brae that overlooked Glenvoie.

Indeed, they had come here seriously to discuss their future.

Viking was lying close to Duncan with his great loving lump of a head on the boy's lap.

"You see," Duncan was saying, "it is precious hard for lads like us, who haven't any money to get a kind of a start in the world. If we could only get a beginning, I feel certain we should need no more. But our father is poor, Frank!"

"Heigho!" sighed Frank, "and so, alas! is mine."

"I know," continued Duncan, "that he would sc.r.a.pe the needful together somehow if we asked him. He could not sell any portion of the estate, because it is entailed, but I know that father would try hard to raise enough money to send Conal and me to sea as apprentices."

"And you really think you'll go to sea?" said Frank.

"As certain as sunrise, Frank. Mind I don't expect to find things quite so rosy as books paint them, but to sea I go for all that, and so will Conal."

"And so will I," cried Frank determinedly. "For my father is poorer far than yours. But I won't go before the mast, as I think you mean to."

"No?"

"No! because I have an uncle who has already promised to give me a little lift in life, and I haven't got so much Highland pride as you, so I'll ask him to apprentice me.