Red Rowans Part 16

"There! I told you so!" cried the Reverend James, excitedly; "a five-pounder at least!" After which, naturally, there was no time for sentiment, no time for anything but an unconfessed race as to which of the three should have his fly on the water first. Marjory, left to her own devices, wandered as far as she could round the level edge, which to the south lay between the lake and the cliff, until she came to the moss-clad moraine, through which the water found its way to new life in the first long leap of the burn below; for the loch itself was fed by unseen springs. She could hear the stream beneath her feet tinkling musically, and gurgling softly, as if laughing at something it had left behind, or something it was going to meet; and the sound oppressed her vaguely. Here, in an angle of sand, stood a half-ruined boat-house, and within it a boat painted gaily, yet with an air of disuse about it which made Marjory go inside and look at it more closely. It seemed sound enough, and yet, as she wandered on, she hoped that the fishers might not be tempted to use it out on those unknown depths. Then, coming on a great bank of dewberries, she sank down into the yielding heather and gave herself up to enjoyment, finally stretching herself at long length on the springy softness, and watching the lake through her half-closed eyelids. Suddenly, with a smile, she began to sing, and then as suddenly ceased. Cliffs could give back an echo, certainly, but not so clear an one as the tenor tone which followed close on that first phrase of the "Lorelei." An instant after Paul's figure showed round a rock below, busily engaged with a swishing trout rod.

"Die schonste Madchen sitzet Dort oben wunderbar."

An echo, indeed! and Marjory sat up among the dewberries, feeling indignant.

"Captain Macleod," she called aggressively, "have you caught anything?"

He turned, as if he had been unaware of her presence, and raised his cap. "It is not a question of my catching anything, Miss Carmichael, but of my being caught. There is a syren about somewhere; I heard her just now; did you?"

"I generally hear myself when I am singing," she replied coldly.

"Where is Will?"

"Will," replied Paul, cheerfully, "is swearing round the corner. He has just had a splendid rise, and his hook drew. No further description necessary."

She laughed, and Captain Macleod went on in the easy familiar tone which had taken the sting out of so many other remarks which, to Marjory's unsophisticated ears, had savoured of impertinence.

"If we neither of us get another this round, we are going to start over the hills for the fence. I want to see it myself. You will find a splendid place for tea about a quarter of a mile down below the fall.

Heaps of sticks--bits of the primeval forest washed out of the moss--so you will manage nicely; besides Gillespie will be here."

It was just such a careless, brotherly speech as Will might have made, and Marjory appreciated it. Besides the thought of an hour or two, absolutely to herself, in those solitudes had an indescribable charm; indescribable because, to those who know it not of themselves, words are useless, and those who do need them not. For her, with a stainless past and a hopeful future, it was bliss unalloyed to wander down the burn-side, resting here and there, watching the ring-ouzel skim from shelter, or an oak-eggar moth settle lazily on a moss-cushion. And yet, as she sate perched on a rock far down the valley above a deeper pool than usual, she amused herself by singing the "Lorelei" from beginning to end, secure from unwelcome echoes. So back on her traces to the baskets which had been hidden in the fern, and the preparations for tea. The relics of the primeval forest burnt bravely aided by some juniper branches, the kettle was filled, boiled, and set securely on a stony hob; and then, free from cares, Marjory chose out a springy nest among the short heather and curled herself round lazily to watch the sky line where before long two figures should come striding into sight, dark against the growing gold of the westering sun. Blissful indeed; extremely comfortable also.

When she woke Paul Macleod was calling her by name, and she started up in a hurry. "I came on as fast as I could lest you should be wearying," he said, and his face showed he spoke the truth. "It was further than we thought for. Where's Gillespie? He can't be fishing still, surely. I didn't see him on the sh.o.r.e as I came past."

Marjory, confused as she was by sudden awakening, remembered one thing, and one thing only--the boat--the old rotten-looking boat.

"You didn't see him--and he hasn't been here! Oh! Captain Macleod, I do hope nothing has happened--the boat----"

"Nonsense!" replied Paul, decisively, "nothing can have happened.

Still, it's late--you have been asleep some time, I expect. Perhaps he has missed you, and gone home."

"He could not miss the fire," she said quickly, "and he cannot swim.

If he has taken the boat, and if----"

"There is no use imagining evil," put in Paul, drily; "as you are anxious I will go----"

"I will come with you," she said eagerly; "if I put some more wood on the fire----"

"It will be ready for us when we return," remarked Paul, cheerfully, "and Gillespie will want his tea. I expect he is in to the big trout or----" he paused before her anxious face and told her again that nothing could have happened. She surely did not believe in pixies?

Still, he grew graver when a look at the boat-house proved it to be empty, and his first shout brought no answer, except a confused, resounding echo.

"If he had gone beyond that bluff into the inaccessible part, which he is likely to have done with the boat--he might not hear. Come on--and don't imagine the worst. If, when we can see all the water----"

He paused, and said no more, as, with her following fast at his heels, he hurried up the brae which hid the further reach of the lake. So, being a step or two ahead, and several inches taller than she was, a view halloo, followed by a laugh, was her first intimation that the search had come to an end. The next instant she had joined the laugh, for a more ridiculous sight than the Reverend James Gillespie presented as he stood up, in full clerical costume, on an uneven rock some two feet square, in the very middle of the loch, could scarcely be imagined. The cause, however, was clear in the half-sunk, water-logged boat, jammed on a jagged rock, which was just visible above the water close by.

"Have you been there long?" called Paul, recovering himself.

"All the afternoon," came back in hoa.r.s.e and distinctly cross tones.

"I shouted till I could shout no more. I thought you had all gone home!"

"Gone to sleep," remarked Paul, aside, as he sate down and began deliberately to unlace his boots. "Now, Miss Carmichael, if you will look after the tea, I'll rescue the shipwrecked mariner, and bring him to be comforted."

Marjory, eyeing the stretch of black water nervously, suggested he had better wait for Will to turn up; but Paul laughed. "I'm relieved to find you have some anxiety left for me--yet it is really absurd. I could swim ten times the distance ten times over; besides, I'll bring him back with the oars if that will satisfy you?"

She felt that it ought, yet as she turned to leave him, the keen pang at her heart surprised her, and not even his gay call of rea.s.surance, "Two teas, please, hot, in ten minutes," given, she knew, from such kindly motives, availed to drive away a sudden thought of that gracious face--drowned--dead--drowned. Such irrational fears, when they come at all, come overwhelmingly; since the mind, imaginative enough even to admit them, is their natural prey. Yet this very imagination of her own was in itself startling to the girl, who caught herself wishing she had not sung the "Lorelei," with a sort of surprised pain at her own fancifulness. It was absurd, ridiculous, and yet the sight of Will's loose-limbed figure coming to meet her, brought distinct relief as she bade him go on and help Captain Macleod. Even so, as she blew at the fire and made the tea, the thought would come that a man who could not swim would be of no possible use if--if--if---- So, in the midst of her imaginings, came at last the sight of three figures striding down the brae, talking and laughing; at least, two of them were so engaged, the Reverend James having scarcely recovered his temper, and being, in addition, almost quite inaudible from his previous efforts to make himself heard.

"The pixie wouldn't have him, said he wouldn't suit the place," said Paul, gravely, when, with the aid of several cups of tea, the victim had finished his tale of the big trout, which had deliberately dragged him on to a jag, knocked a hole in the bottom of the rotten old boat, and left him helpless, taking advantage--and this seemed the greatest offence--of the confusion consequent on the man[oe]uvre, to swim away with ten yards of good trout line and an excellent cast. At least, this was Will's view of the situation, the Reverend James attempting hoa.r.s.ely to give greater prominence to the saving of his own life, while Paul gave a graphic description of their procession down the loch to the landing-place, with the clerical costume packed out of harm's way in the fishing-basket which was swung to the b.u.t.t end of the rod, and Marjory indignantly disclaimed the slumber of the Seven Sleepers, declaring that the shouting must have gone on when she had been down the burn. So, chattering and laughing, the tea things were packed up, and they started homewards.

"Let us have a race down the level," said Paul, suddenly; "that water was cold as ice."

Five minutes after, when Marjory caught him up, as he lingered a little behind the two others, who were just disappearing behind the bluff at the entrance to the sanctuary, she was startled at his face.

"Ague," he said, in answer to her look. "That is the worst of India. I told you the water was cold enough to give anyone the shivers." He tried to laugh it off, but he was blue and pinched, his teeth were chattering, and with every step the effort to stand steady became more apparent. The sight of his helplessness made the girl forget everything but her womanly instinct to give comfort.

"You had far better sit down for a while," she said, eagerly. "I can easily light a fire, and we have the kettle. Some hot whiskey and water----" But Paul was actually beyond refusal; he sate down weakly, utterly knocked over for the time, and unable to do anything but mutter, between the chatterings of his teeth, that it would not last long--that it would be all right when the hot fit began--that she had better go on and leave him. To all of which Marjory replied, in businesslike fashion, by bringing him a great bundle of bracken as a pillow, spreading her waterproof over him, and piling it over with more fern, till he smiled faintly, and chattered something about there being no necessity for covering him up with leaves--he was not dead yet. Then the fire had to be lit, the kettle boiled, a jorum of hot toddy brewed, a stone warmed and set to hands and feet.

"Now, if you lie still for half an hour," she said magisterially, "I expect you will be much better when I come back." And he was hot--as fire, of course, and shaky still, but minus the cramps, and very apologetic for the delay.

"You couldn't possibly help it," she interrupted quickly. "You looked--you looked----" and then something seemed to rise up in her throat and keep her silent. But it was just this look of utter helplessness which remained in her mind, bringing with it always a tender compa.s.sion; and as the remembrance of him with little Paul on his shoulder served to soften her towards his atrocious sentiments, so that of his sudden physical collapse served to lessen the sort of resentment she had hitherto felt to the charm of his great good looks.

She could not have explained how either of these facts came about; she was not even aware that it was so, and yet it did make a difference in her att.i.tude towards him. A pity for his weakness, for his faults and failings, came to take the place of condemnation.

So the days pa.s.sed, until one evening as they trudged home from an unsuccessful raid on the river, Mr. Gillespie remarked that the herring were in at Craignish, and the mackerel often came at the back of the herring, so, maybe, it would be worth while to have a try at them.

"Better than the river, anyhow," grumbled Will, who, even with the red-tailed fly, felt the horrid weight of an empty creel on his shoulders.

Paul looked at Marjory. It had come to that in most things by this time, and as often as not, as now, no words were necessary. "Then I will tell John Macpherson to have the boat ready to-morrow, for it is my last day--of leisure, I mean. My sister comes on Sat.u.r.day, my guests follow on Monday, and after that--the deluge, I suppose."

"I should not wonder," remarked Will, gravely; "the midges were awful to-day."

Both Paul and Marjory laughed; they could not help it, despite their vague regret that holiday time was over.

CHAPTER X.

Paul's last day was one of those never-to-be-forgotten days, when the mist lies in light wreaths below the mountain tops, which rise clear and sharp against an intense blue sky; when ma.s.ses of white cloud hang in mid-air, bringing with each new moment some fresh beauty, born of shadow, to sea and sh.o.r.e; when a cool breeze blows unevenly, every now and again darkening the water to a purple, and cresting the waves with foam-streaks edged with turquoise.

"None too soon," said Paul, briefly, as the "Tubhaneer" (so called from her washing-tub-like build) cast off her moorings, and stood out for the middle of the loch. "I told you it would be the deluge after to-day, Miss Carmichael. We shall have rain to-morrow."

Will nodded his head.

"Oh, don't talk of to-morrow!" said Marjory, quickly; "to-day is enough, surely."

Paul, from amid-ships, applauded softly, and she attempted a frown, which ended feebly in a smile. And wherefore not? Sufficient, indeed, unto that day was the pleasure thereof. The red-brown sail drew bravely, the long line lay curled up forward, the oyster dredger rested athwart, the rifles were with Paul amid-ships, the lithe rods swept out astern behind Marjory as she leant lightly over the tiller, her eyes upon the quivering sail; for it needed every inch she could gain to avoid a tack, even though the current of the outgoing tide was aiding them to slip through the Narrowest to the open sea beyond.

"Where will the white rock be?" she asked of Donald Post, who, being learned in banks and baits, would often set his wife to carry the bag while he was off and away after the sea fishing. He was now opening mussels with a crunching sound, regular as a machine.