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Macleod of Dare, a novel by William Black |
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Chapter 45. The Voyage Over |
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_ CHAPTER XLV. THE VOYAGE OVER And now the brave old _Umpire_ is nearing her Northern home once more; and surely this is a right royal evening for the reception of her. What although the sun has just gone down, and the sea around them become a plain of heaving and wrestling blue-black waves? Far away, in that purple-black sea, lie long promontories that are of a still pale rose-color; and the western sky is a blaze of golden-green; and they know that the wild, beautiful radiance is still touching the wan walls of Castle Dare. And there is Ardalanish Point; and that the ruddy Ross of Mull; and there will be a good tide in the Sound of Iona. Why, then, do they linger, and keep the old _Umpire_ with her sails flapping idly in the wind? "As you pass through Jura's Sound They are in no danger of Corrievreckan now; they are in familiar waters; only that is another Colonsay that lies away there in the south. Keith Macleod, seated up at the bow, is calmly regarding it. He is quite alone. There is no sound around him but the lapping of the waves. "And ever as the year returns, And is he listening now for the wild sound of her singing? Or is he thinking of the brave Macphail, who went back after seven long months of absence, and found the maid of Colonsay still true to him? The ruby ring she had given him had never paled. There was one woman who could remain true to her absent lover. Hamish came forward. "Will we go on now, sir?" said he, in the Gaelic. "No." Hamish looked round. The shining clear evening looked very calm, notwithstanding the tossing of the blue-black waves. And it seemed wasteful to the old sailor to keep the yacht lying-to or aimlessly sailing this way and that while this favorable wind remained to them. "I am not sure that the breeze will last, Sir Keith." "Are you sure of anything, Hamish?" Macleod said, quite absently. "Well, there is one thing we can all make sure of. But I have told you, Hamish, I am not going up the Sound of Iona in daylight: why, there is not a man in all the islands who would not know of our coming by to-morrow morning. We will go up the Sound as soon as it is dark. It is a new moon to-night; and I think we can go without lights, Hamish." "_Dunara_ is coming south to-night, Sir Keith," the old man said. "Why, Hamish, you seem to have lost all your courage as soon as you put Colin Laing ashore." "Colin Laing! Is it Colin Laing!" exclaimed Hamish, indignantly. "I will know how to sail this yacht, and I will know the banks, and the tides, and the rocks better than any fifteen thousands of Colin Laings!" "And what if the _Dunara_ is coming south? If she cannot see us, we can see her." But whether it was that Colin Laing had, before leaving the yacht, managed to convey to Hamish some notion of the risk he was running, or whether it was that he was merely anxious for his master's safety, it was clear that Hamish was far from satisfied. He opened and shut his big clasp-knife in an awkward silence. Then he said,-- "You will not go to Castle Dare, Sir Keith?" Macleod started; he had forgotten that Hamish was there. "No. I have told you where I am going." "But there is not any good anchorage at that island sir!" he protested. "Have I not been round every bay of it; and you too, Sir Keith? and you know there is not an inch of sand or of mud, but only the small loose stones. And then the shepherd they left there all by himself; it was mad he became at last, and took his own life too." "Well, do you expect to see his ghost?" Macleod said. "Come, Hamish, you have lost your nerve in the South. Surely you are not afraid of being anywhere in the old yacht so long as she has good sea-room around her?" "And if you are not wishing to go up the Sound of Iona in the daylight, Sir Keith," Hamish said, still clinging to the point, "we could bear a little to the south, and go round the outside of Iona." "The Dubh-Artach men would recognize the _Umpire_ at once," Macleod said, abruptly; and then he suggested to Hamish that he should get a little more way on the yacht, so that she might be a trifle steadier when Christina carried the dinner into the English lady's cabin. But indeed there was now little breeze of any kind. Hamish's fears of a dead calm was likely to prove true. Meanwhile another conversation had been going forward in the small cabin below, that was now suffused by a strange warm light reflected from the evening sky. Miss White was looking very well now, after her long sea-voyage. During their first few hours in blue water she had been very ill indeed; and she repeatedly called en Christina to allow her to die. The old Highland-woman came to the conclusion that English ladies were rather childish in their way; but the only answer she made to this reiterated prayer was to make Miss White as comfortable as was possible, and to administer such restoratives as she thought desirable. At length, when recovery and a sound appetite set in, the patient began to show a great friendship for Christina. There was no longer any theatrical warning of the awful fate in store for everybody connected with this enterprise. She tried rather to enlist the old woman's sympathies on her behalf, and if she did not very well succeed in that direction, at least she remained on friendly terms with Christina and received from her the solace of much gossip about the whereabouts and possible destination of the ship. And on this evening Christina had an important piece of news. "Where have we got to now, Christina?" said Miss White, quite cheerfully, when the old woman entered. "Oh yes, mem, we will still be off the Mull shore, but a good piece away from it, and there is not much wind, mem. But Hamish thinks we will get to the anchorage the night whatever." "The anchorage!" Miss White exclaimed eagerly. "Where? You are going to Castle Dare, surely?" "No, mem, I think not," said Christina. "I think it is an island; but you will not know the name of that island--there is no English for it at all." "But where is it? Is it near Castle Dare?" "Oh no, mem; it is a good way from Castle Dare; and it is out in the sea. Do you know Gometra, mem?--wass you ever going out to Gometra?" "Yes, of course, I remember something about it anyway." "Ah, well, it is away out past Gometra, mem; and not a good place for an anchorage whatever; but Hamish he will know all the anchorages." "What on earth is the use of going there?" "I do not know, mem." "Is Sir Keith going to keep me on board this boat forever?" "I do not know, mem." Christina had to leave the cabin just then; when she returned she said, with some little hesitation, "If I wass mekking so bold, mem, ass to say this to you: Why are you not asking the questions of Sir Keith himself? He will know all about it; and if you were to come into the saloon, mem--" "Do you think I would enter into any communication with him after his treatment of me?" said Miss White, indignantly, "No; let him atone for that first. When he has set me at liberty, then I will speak with him; but never so long as he keeps me shut up like a convict." "I wass only saying, mem," Christina answered, with great respect, "that if you were wishing to know where we were going, Sir Keith will know that; but how can I know it? And you know, mem, Sir Keith has not shut you up in this cabin; you hef the saloon, if you would please to hef it." "Thank you, I know!" rejoined Miss White. "If I choose, my gaol may consist of two rooms instead of one. I don't appreciate that amount of liberty. I want to be set ashore." "That I hef nothing to do with, mem," Christina said, humbly, proceeding with her work. Miss White, being left to think over these things, was beginning to believe that, after all, her obduracy was not likely to be of much service to her. Would it not be wiser to treat with the enemy--perhaps to outwit him by a show of forgiveness? Here they were approaching the end of the voyage--at least, Christina seemed to intimate as much; and if they were not exactly within call of friends, they would surely be within rowing distance of some inhabited island, even Gometra, for example. And if only a message could be sent to Castle Dare? Lady Macleod and Janet Macleod were women. They would not countenance this monstrous thing. If she could only reach them, she would be safe. The rose-pink died away from the long promontories, and was succeeded by a sombre gray; the glory in the west sank down; a wan twilight came over the sea and the sky; and a small golden star, like the point of a needle, told where the Dubh-Artach men had lit their beacon for the coming night. The _Umpire_ lay and idly rolled in this dead calm; Macleod paced up and down the deck in the solemn stillness. Hamish threw a tarpaulin over the skylight of the saloon, to cover the bewildering light from below; and then, as the time went slowly by, darkness came over the land and the sea. They were alone with the night, and the lapping waves, and the stars. About ten o'clock there was a loud rattling of blocks and cordage--the first puff of a coming breeze had struck her. The men were at their posts in a moment; there were a few sharp, quick orders from Hamish; and presently the old _Umpire_, with her great boom away over her quarter, was running free before a light southeasterly wind. "Ay, ay!" said Hamish, in sudden gladness, "we will soon be by Ardalanish Point with a fine wind like this, Sir Keith; and if you would rather hef no lights on her--well, it is a clear night whateffer; and the _Dunara_ she will hef up her lights." The wind came in bits of squalls, it is true; but the sky overhead remained clear, and the _Umpire_ bowled merrily along. Macleod was still on deck. They rounded the Ross of Mull, and got into the smoother waters of the Sound. Would any of the people in the cottages at Drraidh see this gray ghost of a vessel go gliding past over the dark water? Behind them burned the yellow eye of Dubh-Artach; before them a few small red points told them of the Iona cottages; and still this phantom gray vessel held on her way. The _Umpire_ was nearing her last anchorage. And still she steals onward, like a thief in the night She has passed through the Sound; she is in the open sea again; there is a calling of startled birds from over the dark bosom of the deep. Then far away they watch the light of a steamer; but she is miles from their course; they cannot even hear the throb of her engines. It is another sound they hear--a low booming as of distant thunder. And that black thing away on their right--scarcely visible over the darkened waves--is that the channelled and sea-bird haunted Staffa, trembling through all her caves under the shock of the smooth Atlantic surge? For all the clearness of the starlit sky, there is a wild booming of waters all around her rocks; and the giant caverns answer; and the thunder shudders out to the listening sea. The night drags on. The Dutchman is fast asleep in his vast Atlantic bed; the dull roar of the waves he has heard for millions of years is not likely to awake him. And Fladda and Lunga; surely this ghost-gray ship that steals by is not the old _Umpire_ that used to visit them in the gay summer-time, with her red ensign flying, and the blue seas all around her? But here is a dark object on the waters that is growing larger and larger as one approaches it. The black outline of it is becoming sharp against the clear dome of stars. There is a gloom around as one gets nearer and nearer the bays and cliffs of this lonely island; and now one hears the sound of breakers on the rocks. Hamish and his men are on the alert. The topsail has been lowered. The heavy cable of the anchor lies ready by the windlass. And then, as the _Umpire_ glides into smooth water, and her head is brought round to the light breeze, away goes the anchor with a rattle that awakes a thousand echoes; and all the startled birds among the rocks are calling through the night--the sea-pyots screaming shrilly, the curlews uttering their warning note, the herons croaking as they wing their slow flight away across the sea. The _Umpire_ has got to her anchorage at last. And scarcely was the anchor down when they brought him a message from the English lady. She was in the saloon, and wished to see him. He could scarcely believe this; for it was now past midnight, and she had never come into the saloon before. But he went down through the forecastle, and through his own stateroom, and opened the door of the saloon. For a second the strong light almost blinded him; but, at all events, he knew she was sitting there; and that she was regarding him with no fierce indignation at all, but with quite a friendly look. "Gertrude!" said he, in wonder; but he did not approach her. He stood before her, as one who was submissive. "So we have got to land at last," said she; and more and more he wondered to hear the friendliness of her voice. Could it be true, then? Or was it only one of those visions that had of late been torturing his brain? "Oh yes, Gerty!" said he. "We have got to an anchorage." "I thought I would sit up for it," said she. "Christina said we should get to land some time to-night; and I thought I would like to see you. Because, you know, Keith, you have used me very badly. And won't you sit down?" He accepted that invitation. _Could it be true? could it be true?_ This was ringing in his ears. He heard her only in a bewildered way. "And I want you to tell me what you mean to do with me," said she, frankly and graciously: "I am at your mercy, Keith." "Oh, not that--not that," said he; and he added, sadly enough, "it is I who have been at your mercy since ever I saw you, Gerty; and it is for you to say what is to become of you and of me. And have you got over your anger now? And will you think of all that made me do this, and try to forgive it for the sake of my love for you, Gerty? Is there any chance of that now?" She rather avoided the earnest gaze that was bent on her. She did not notice how nervously his hand gripped the edge of the table near him. "Well, it is a good deal to forgive, Keith; you will acknowledge that yourself: and though you used to think that I was ready to sacrifice everything for fame, I did not expect you would make me a nine-days' wonder in this way. I suppose the whole thing is in the papers now." "Oh no, Gerty; I sent a message to your father." "Well, that was kind of you--and audacious. Were you not afraid of his overtaking you? The _Umpire_ is not the swiftest of sailors, you used to say; and you know there are telegraphs and railways to all the ports." "He did not know you were in the _Umpire_, Gerty. But of course, if he were very anxious about you, he would write or come to Dare. I should not be surprised if he were there now." A quick look of surprise and gladness sprang to her face. "Papa--at Castle Dare!" she exclaimed. "And Christina says it is not far from here." "Not many miles away." "Then, of course, they will know we are here in the morning!" she cried, in the indiscretion of sudden joy. "And they will come out for me." "Oh no, Gerty, they will not come out for you. No human being but those on board knows that we are here. Do you think they could see you from Dare? And there is no one living now on the island. We are alone in the sea." The light died away from her face; but she said, cheerfully enough,-- "Well, I am at your mercy, then, Keith. Let us take it that way. Now you must tell me what part in the comedy you mean me to play; for the life of me I can't make it out." "Oh, Gerty, Gerty, do not speak like that!" he exclaimed. "You are breaking my heart! Is there none of the old love left? Is it all a matter for jesting?" She saw she had been incautious. "Well," said she, gently, "I was wrong; I know it is more serious than that; and I am not indisposed to forgive you, if you treat me fairly. I know you have great earnestness of nature; and--and you were very fond of me; and although you have risked a great deal in what you have done, still, men who are very deeply in love don't think much about consequences. And if I were to forgive you, and make friends again, what then?" "And if we were as we used to be," said he, with a grave wistfulness in his face, "do you not think I would gladly take you ashore, Gerty?" "And to Castle Dare?" "Oh yes, to Castle Dare! Would not my mother and Janet be glad to welcome you!" "And papa may be there?" "If he is not there, can we not telegraph for him? Why, Gerty, surely you would not be married anywhere but in the Highlands?" At the mention of marriage she blanched somewhat; but she had nerved herself to play this part. "Then, Keith," said she, gallantly, "I will make you a promise. Take me to Castle Dare to-morrow, and the moment I am within its doors I will shake hands with you, and forgive you, and we will be friends again as in the old days." "We were more than friends, Gerty," said he, in a low voice. "Let us be friends first, and then who knows what may not follow?" said she, brightly. "You cannot expect me to be overprofuse in affection just after being shut up like this?" "Gerty," said he, and he looked at her with those strangely tired eyes, and there was a great gentleness in his voice, "do you know where you are? You are close to the island that I told you of--where I wish to have my grave on the cliff. But instead of a grave, would it not be a fine thing to have a marriage here? No, do not be alarmed, Gerty! it is only with your own goodwill; and surely your heart will consent at last! Would not that be a strange wedding, too; with the minister from Salen; and your father on board; and the people from Dare? Oh, you would see such a number of boats come out that day, and we would go proudly back; and do you not think there would be a great rejoicing that day? Then all our troubles would be at an end, Gerty! There would be no more fear; and the theatres would never see you again; and the long happy life we should lead, we two together! And do you know the first thing I would get you, Gerty?--it would be a new yacht! I would go to the Clyde and have it built all for you. I would not have you go out again in this yacht, for you would then remember the days in which I was cruel to you; but in a new yacht you would not remember that any more; and do you not think we would have many a pleasant, long summer day on the deck of her, and only ourselves, Gerty? And you would sing the songs I first heard you sing, and I think the sailors would imagine they heard the singing of the mermaid of Colonsay; for there is no one can sing as you can sing, Gerty. I think it was that first took away my heart from me." "But we can talk about all these things when I am on shore again," said she, coldly. "You cannot expect me to be very favorably disposed so long as I am shut up here." "But then," he said, "if you were on shore you might go away again from me, Gerty! The people would get at your ear again; they would whisper things to you; you would think about the theatres again. I have saved you, sweetheart; can I let you go back?" The words were spoken with an eager affection, and yearning; but they sank into her mind with a dull and cold conviction that there was no escape for her through any way of artifice. "Am I to understand, then," said she, "that you mean to keep me a prisoner here until I marry you?" "Why do you speak like that, Gerty?" "I demand an answer to my question." "I have risked everything to save you; can I let you go back?" A sudden flash of desperate anger--even of hatred--was in her eyes; her fine piece of acting had been of no avail. "Well, let the farce end!" said she, with frowning eyebrows. "Before I came on board this yacht I had some pity for you. I thought you were at least a man, and had a man's generosity. Now I find you a coward, and a tyrant--" "Gerty!" "Oh, do not think you have frightened me with your stories of the revenge of your miserable chiefs and their savage slaves! Not a bit of it! Do with me what you like; I would not marry you if you gave me a hundred yachts!" "Gerty!" The anguish of his face was growing wild with despair. "I say, let the farce end! I had pity for you--yes, I had! Now--I hate you!" He sprang up with a quick cry, as of one shot to the heart. He regarded her, in a bewildered manner, for one brief second; and then he gently said, "Good-night, Gerty! God forgive you!" and he staggered backward, and got out of the saloon, leaving her alone. See! the night is still fine. All around this solitary bay there is a wall of rock, jet black, against the clear, dark sky, with its myriad twinkling stars. The new moon has arisen; but it sheds but little radiance yet down there in the south. There is a sharper gleam from one lambent planet--a thin line of golden-yellow light that comes all the way across from the black rocks until it breaks in flashes among the ripples close to the side of the yacht. Silence once more reigns around; only from time to time one hears the croak of a heron from the dusky shore. What can keep this man up so late on deck? There is nothing to look at but the great bows of the yacht black against the pale gray sea, and the tall spars and the rigging going away up into the starlit sky, and the suffused glow from the skylight touching a yellow-gray on the main-boom. There is no need for the anchor-watch that Hamish was insisting on: the equinoctials are not likely to begin on such a night as this. He is looking across the lapping gray water to the jet-black line of cliff. And there are certain words haunting him. He cannot forget them; he cannot put them away. * * * * * WHEREFORE IS LIGHT GIVEN TO HIM THAT IS IN MISERY, AND LIFE UNTO THE BITTER IN SOUL? * * * WHICH LONG FOR DEATH, BUT IT COMETH NOT; AND DIG FOR IT MORE THAN FOR HIDDEN TREASURES. * * * WHICH REJOICE EXCEEDINGLY, AND ARE GLAD WHEN THEY CAN FIND THE GRAVE. * * * * * Then, in the stillness of the night, he heard a breathing. He went forward, and found that Hamish had secreted himself behind the windlass. He uttered some exclamation in the Gaelic, and the old man rose and stood guiltily before him. "Have I not told you to go below before? and will I have to throw you down into the forecastle?" The old man stood irresolute for a moment. Then he said, also in his native tongue,-- "You should not speak like that to me, Sir Keith: I have known you many a year." Macleod caught Hamish's hand. "I beg your pardon, Hamish. You do not know. It is a sore heart I have this night." "Oh, God help us! Do I not know that!" he exclaimed, in a broken voice; and Macleod, as he turned away, could hear the old man crying bitterly in the dark. What else could Hamish do now for him who had been to him as the son of his old age? "Go below now, Hamish," said Macleod in a gentle voice and the old man slowly and reluctantly obeyed. But the night had not drawn to day when Macleod again went forward, and said, in a strange, excited whisper,-- "Hamish, Hamish, are you awake now?" Instantly the old man appeared; he had not turned into his berth at all. "Hamish, Hamish, do you hear the sound?" Macleod said, in the same wild way; "do you not hear the sound?" "What sound, Sir Keith?" said he; for indeed there was nothing but the lapping of the water along the side of the yacht and a murmur of ripples along the shore. "Do you not hear it, Hamish? It is a sound as of a brass-band!--a brass-band playing music--as if it was in a theatre. Can you not hear it, Hamish?" "Oh, God help us! God help us!" Hamish cried. "You do not hear it, Hamish?" he said. "Ah, it is some mistake. I beg your pardon for calling you, Hamish: now you will go below again." "Oh no, Sir Keith," said Hamish. "Will I not stay on deck now till the morning? It is a fine sleep I have had; oh yes, I had a fine sleep. And how is one to know when the equinoctials may not come on?" "I wish you to go below, Hamish." And now this sound that is ringing in his ears is no longer of the brass-band that he had heard in the theatre. It is quite different. It has all the ghastly mirth of that song that Norman Ogilvie used to sing in the old, half-forgotten days. What is it that he hears? "King Death was a rare old fellow, It is a strange mirth. It might almost make a man laugh. For do we not laugh gently when we bury a young child, and put the flowers over it, and know that it is at peace? The child has no more pain at the heart. Oh, Norman Ogilvie, are you still singing the wild song? and are you laughing now?--or is it the old man Hamish that is crying in the dark? * * * * * "There came to him many a maiden, It is such a fine thing to sleep--when one has been fretting all the night, and spasms of fire go through the brain! Ogilvie, Ogilvie, do you remember the laughing Duchess? do you think she would laugh over one's grave; or put her foot on it, and stand relentless, with anger in her eyes? That is a sad thing; but after it is over there is sleep. * * * * * "All came to the rare old fellow, Hamish!--Hamish!--will you not keep her away from me! I have told Donald what pibroch he will play; I want to be at peace now. But the brass-band--the brass-band--I can hear the blare of the trumpets; Ulva will know that we are here, and the Gometra men, and the sea-birds too, that I used to love. But she has killed all that now, and she stands on my grave. She will laugh, for she was light-hearted, like a young child. But you, Hamish, you will find the quiet grave for me; and Donald will play the pibroch for me that I told him of; and you will say no word to her of all that is over and gone. * * * * * See--he sleeps. This haggard-faced man is stretched on the deck; and the pale dawn, arising in the east, looks at him; and does not revive him, but makes him whiter still. You might almost think he was dead. But Hamish knows better than that; for the old man comes stealthily forward; and he has a great tartan plaid in his hand's; and very gently indeed he puts it over his young master. And there are tears running down Hamish's face; and he says "The brave lad! the brave lad!" _ |
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