Red Rowans Part 14

The words seemed to jar the very foundations of happy, idle, careless content, and Paul, even in his surprise, felt aggrieved.

"Of course I remember her; but they told me she was dead. Who did she marry?"

The Reverend James Gillespie put on his most professional manner. "I'm afraid it is a very sad story, but no one really knows the facts of the case. She left home, as you may have heard----"

"Yes! I have heard," put in Paul, suddenly, resentfully. "And I--I can understand the rest. It's a common enough story, in all conscience."

"Too true, too true," began his companion, but the laird had risen, and, with a remark that he would wait outside for the tardy letters, left the schoolhouse. Apparently he tired even of that, for when Marjory, after lingering longer than was necessary over the arrangements for the morrow's inspection with Mr. Gillespie, came out with a half-annoyed expectation of finding the tall figure still lounging under the horse-chestnut tree, it had gone, rather to her surprise.

Still, it would ensure her the solitary walk home which she loved; since really it was too much to expect her to devote a whole afternoon to the Reverend James who, curtly dismissed to a neglected parishioner up the Glen, watched her pa.s.s down the loch with wistful yet still admiring eyes until she disappeared behind a knoll of ash trees, hiding the bridge which carried the road to the other side of the river, and so down the seash.o.r.e to Gleneira House and Lodge. A road which, beautiful at all times, was never so beautiful as in the sunsetting. There was one point, however, where its beauty seemed to culminate, where, after climbing a rocky knoll cushioned with bosses of bell-heather and the close oak scrub which springs from the roots of past cuttings, it dipped down to the very edge of the water. Here, on spring tides, the waves crept up to smooth away the wheel marks, and leave a scalloped fringe of seaweed on the turf beyond. And hence you could see straight through the cleft of the Narrowest, where the hills embosoming the upper portion of the loch sloped down into the gentler contours of the lower, right away to the Linnhe Loch, and so beyond the purple bluff of Mull to the wide Atlantic. On that evening the sun was setting into it in a golden glory, guiltless of a cloud.

And Marjory, cresting the knoll, thought instantly that here, indeed, was a chance of the Green Ray. For ever since she had read Jules Verne's book the idea of this, the last legacy of a dying day, had remained with her fancifully. Many and many a time, half in jest, half in earnest, she had watched for it, wondering if she would feel different after she had seen it. If, in fairy-tale fashion, the world would seem the better for it. Even if the legend was no legend, and the phenomenon simply a natural one, due to refraction, there must be something exhilarating in seeing that which other people had not seen; in seeing the world transfigured, even for a second, for you, and you only. Unless, indeed, others were watching with you. And, then, what a strange tie that would be! To have seen something together that the rest of the world had not seen; something at which it would laugh, but which you knew to be true. The quaintness of the idea attracted her as she walked over the crisp shingle to sit on a rock close to the incoming tide. Out yonder on the far sea horizon it was a blaze of light, but closer in the loch showed like a golden network of ripples with ever-widening meshes enclosing the purple water till it ended, at her very feet, in a faint foam-edge. There was no sound save the blab-blabbing of the tiny wavelets on the rocks as they whispered to each other of the havoc they had done far out at sea, or met every now and again with a little tinkle of laughter to drown a stone.

To Marjory, looking and listening so intently that consciousness seemed to leave eyes and ears, came a sudden dread, not for herself, but for others different from what she was.

"Drowned--dead, drowned--drowned and cold--dead, dead, drowned!" Those whispering voices seemed to repeat it over and over again, as for the first time in her life she realised that others might not steer straight for the sun across the ocean of life, as she did, unswervingly. Of course, in a scholastic, unreal way she knew well that there were swift currents to betray, big loadstone rocks to make the compa.s.s waver, but till she had met Paul Macleod the possibility of anyone deliberately and wilfully weighting his log and depolarising his compa.s.s had not occurred to her. It is so, often, with those who, as she was, are almost overburdened with that mysterious outcome of past sacrifices, a sense of duty. But Paul, she recognised clearly, might steer straight for the rocks, though his knowledge of seamanship was equal to her own. On that point she would take no denial. It was her one solace against her own interest in him. But for it what scorn would be too great for the weakness of her tolerance for a handsome face, a soft voice, and the most engaging of manners. No! The charm--for there was undoubtedly a charm--lay elsewhere; in his considerateness, his quick sympathy. This did not come, as he averred, from a mere selfish desire to be liked, a mere selfish consideration for his own comfort. It might suit him to say so, to declare his disbelief in anything higher, to scoff, for instance, at the Green Ray. The girl's thoughts rebounded swiftly to their starting-point, and brought back sight to her dream-blinded eyes.

Too late! Too late! The last outermost edge of the sun had dipped beneath the sea; the fateful moment was past, and with the little chill shudder of a breeze which had crept like a sigh over the water at the Death of Day, the little wavelets at her feet were whispering--

"Drowned--dead--drowned! Who cares? Drowned! drowned! drowned!"

She rose suddenly and stretched her hands out to the fast fading glow, as if in entreaty. But only for a second; the next the voice of someone coming up the opposite side of the knoll carolling a Gaelic song made her turn quickly to see Paul Macleod outlined against the blue of the hills as he paused on the summit to take breath and look up into the child's face above him with a smile; for little Paul was perched on his shoulder.

The western glow, already leaving the earth, fell full on those two faces, and on the firm delicate hands, holding the child secure. It was like a St. Christopher, thought Marjory, with a pulse, almost of pain, at her heart. For it left her bereft of something; of something that had gone out irrevocably to be Paul's henceforth, even though the first glimpse of her standing below made him loosen his clasp almost roughly.

"Is that you, Miss Carmichael?" he called, walking on to meet her; "I'm doing good Samaritan against the grain; but I found the little imp on the road. He had fallen from a rowan tree and sprained his ankle."

She found it easier for some reason to speak to the child in reproof.

"I've told you so often not to climb so recklessly," she said in Gaelic.

"He was getting berries for you; there was a bunch half ripe at the very top; at least so he says," replied Captain Macleod in the same language, then at her look of surprise added a trifle bitterly--"you see I remember--we lairds don't often speak it--more's the pity--but I have an uncomfortable memory for the days of my youth."

"It was very good of you," she began, when he cut her short.

"It was least trouble to carry him. He was whimpering like a little cur at the river pool, so I elected to bring him along instead of going back half a mile to ask someone else to do it for me. His grandmother's cottage is just below the point there, isn't it? He can walk as far as that." As he spoke he swung the child to the ground lightly. "And you needn't look so fierce, Miss Carmichael; it won't hurt him."

She took no notice of his remark, except to ask the child if he could manage.

"If you speak in that tone of voice he will say 'no,' of course; but I a.s.sure you it is all right. I've tied it up tight, and it wasn't very bad to begin with."

It had indeed been very neatly bandaged with a handkerchief torn into strips, and the sight softened her rising indignation. "Possibly, but it will be none the worse for being put in hot water. Come, Paulie, lean on me, and if it's bad I'll carry you----"

Before she could finish, the child was back on his namesake's shoulder.

"If you will show me the way down, I'll save you the trouble."

The accent he laid deliberately on the p.r.o.noun took half the virtue from his action, and yet the certainty that he had purposely put it there showed her that he was alive to something else, and made her lead the way silently to the cottage; and, even when there, the remembrance of the St. Christopher picture joined to the unconscious Highland hospitality, which forbids an unsought parting on the threshold, made her ask if he would not come in and let old Peggy thank him for his kindness.

"I doubt if she would," he replied curtly; "anyhow I won't risk it."

Perhaps he exercised a wise discretion. Marjory herself was inclined to think so, in view of the old woman's general att.i.tude towards the world.

"Pickin' rowan berries, was he," she echoed wrathfully, turning as she so often did when angry to the broader Scotch of her youth; "they're the deil's ain beads for young folk--aye! I mind it was so in the beginning!" Her restless claw-like fingers busied themselves over the coverlid, and her restless eyes followed Marjory, who was attending to the sprained foot, which to say sooth was not a very serious matter.

"And Mr. Paul hefted the wean, and wouldna' come in bye to say a word to the auld wife. That was real kind, or maybe it wasn't; but there!

he never brocht luck to my hoose, an' he wouldn't raise a finger to do't. It's the way o' the warld, the way o' the warld."

"That is not fair, Peggy," retorted the girl, roused as she always was by injustice. "The laird was speaking of you only the other day. He is much annoyed at your having been allowed to go on the roll, and said----"

The old pauper's hands stopped their uncanny fingerings, and every line of the old face hardened.

"If I choose to be on the pairish, I'll be on the pairish. It's better than Mr. Paul's charity, an' ye may just tell him sae frae old Peggy Duncan. I may be wrang, I may be richt, an' Him above only kens hoo it is, but I was no born on his land, and I'm no his poor."

"All the kinder of him to offer help," persisted Marjory. "And you have no right, just because you are in an evil temper, to speak as if he had done you some wrong."

"Wha says he did?--not I! D'ye think I soud be lyin' here wi' him oot ben if he had. Na! Na! Half deid as they are, my auld fingers wad be at his bonnie fause face." The very vigour of her own voice seemed to choke her, and she fell into a fit of coughing, then lay back exhausted into a more Christian frame of mind. "G.o.d guid us, Miss Marjory," she gasped, "but I'm jest an awfu' limmer whiles. If I was to be nippit awa' this nicht I ken fine whaur I'd wauken."

"And quite right, too," replied her visitor, severely, recognising the half-apologetic tenor of the last remark, and, seizing the opportunity for a bit of her mind before old Peggy, with some sidelong sally, should escape deftly from the difficulty, after her wont.

"Aye, aye! The tongue is an unruly member, and yet I bridle it whiles for fear o' findin' myself in the same mansion wi' the pairish officer. Eh! yon's an awfu' man, Miss Marjory, for sweerin', and I just couldna' thole him. So, if ye like, ye may give old Peggy Duncan's thanks to the laird, when you see him, for bringing the laddie hame. Maybe it was kind o' him."

"It was kind of him, very kind," said the girl, stoutly, feeling dimly pleased to hear herself say so, and know that there could be no mistake about that. And yet she felt vexed when she found him waiting for her on the road when she came out into the darkening dusk.

"I thought it was the proper thing to do," he replied, to her little stiff expression of regret that he should have troubled himself so far.

"What was the proper thing?" she asked captiously. "I am quite accustomed to walking home in the dark."

"Proper to act up to your opinion of me, and be self-sacrificing, perhaps." He paused, then said, suddenly, "Don't let us quarrel, Miss Carmichael; it is such a lovely evening."

True a thousand-fold! True beyond measure! The light had left everything, save the sky and the sea as they walked on side by side silently.

"How's the patient?" he said, at last, reverting somewhat to the old, airy, half-bantering tone.

"Well; thanks to you. If he had walked home he might have been laid up for days."

"I did as little as I could, I a.s.sure you."

"On the contrary, you did more than was necessary. Paul told me how you comforted him, and sang songs all the way to cheer him up."

She would not allow him this denial of his own virtues, or accept his estimate of himself.

"That was to cheer myself up, and forget my dislike to carrying a dirty little boy, I expect. The study of one's own motives, Miss Carmichael----"

He got no further, for she turned to him with a quick gesture of pained denial. "Don't--please don't. Why should you slander yourself?"

Something in her tone roused a response in him for a moment, but the next he had smothered it in a sort of reckless desire to shock this girl with the intelligent, trustful eyes--to force her from her belief in him.

"Slander," he echoed; "there is no slander, I a.s.sure you. What do you know about my life? Would it help you to understand my complicated state of mind about that boy, for instance, if I told you that I was once madly in love with his mother, and that I still think her the most beautiful woman I ever saw?"

He had not intended this confidence; yet now he had given it, he did not regret the impulse, nor did he wonder at it, since the thought of that past idyll had been interfering so much with the present one during the afternoon, that he felt inclined to get rid of both once and for all.