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CHAPTER XVI.
AFTER THE GALE

"Well, indeed!" exclaimed the Laird, on putting his head out next morning. "This is wonderful – wonderful!"

Was it the long imprisonment in the darkness of the equinoctials that made him welcome with so much delight this spectacle of fair skies and sapphire seas, with the waves breaking white in Scalpa Sound, and the sunlight shining along the Coolins? Or was it not rather our long isolation from the ordinary affairs of the world that made him greet with acclamation this picture of brisk and busy human life, now visible from the deck of the yacht? We were no longer alone in the world. Over there, around the big black smacks – that looked like so many hens with broods of chickens – swarmed a fleet of fishing-boats; and as rapidly as hands could manage it, both men and women were shaking out the brown nets and securing the glittering silver treasure of the sea. It was a picturesque sight – the stalwart brown-bearded men in their yellow oilskins and huge boots; the bare-armed women in their scarlet short-gowns; the masses of ruddy brown nets; the lowered sails. And then the Laird perceived that he was not alone in regarding this busy and cheerful scene.

Along there by the bulwarks, with one hand on the shrouds and the other on the gig, stood Mary Avon, apparently watching the boats passing to and fro between the smacks and the shore. The Laird went gently up to her, and put his hand on her shoulder. She started, turned round suddenly, and then he saw, to his dismay, that her eyes were full of tears.

"What, what?" said he, with a quick doubt and fear coming over him. Had all his plans failed, then? Was the girl still unhappy?

"What is it, lass? What is the matter?" said he, gripping her hand so as to get the truth from her.

By this time she had dried her eyes.

"Nothing – nothing," said she, rather shame-facedly. "I was only thinking about the song of 'Caller Herring;' and how glad those women must be to find their husbands come back this morning. Fancy their being out on such a night as last night. What it must be to be a fisherman's wife – and alone on shore – "

"Toots, toots, lass!" cried the Laird, with a splendid cheerfulness; for he was greatly relieved that this was all the cause of the wet eyes. "Ye are jist giving way to a sentiment. I have observed that people are apt to be sentimental in the morning, before they get their breakfast. What! are ye peetying these folk? I can tell ye this is a proud day for them, to judge by they heaps o' fish. They are jist as happy as kings; and as for the risk o' their trade, they have to do what is appointed to them. Why, does not that Doctor friend o' yours say that the happiest people are they who are hardest worked?"

This reference to the Doctor silenced the young lady at once.

"Not that I have much right to talk about work," said the Laird, penitently. "I believe I am becoming the idlest crayture on the face of this world."

At this point a very pretty little incident occurred. A boat was passing to the shore; and in the stern of her was a young fisherman – a handsome young fellow, with a sun-tanned face and yellow beard. As they were going by the yacht, he caught a glimpse of Miss Avon; then when they had passed, he said something in Gaelic to his two companions, who immediately rested on their oars. Then he was seen rapidly to fill a tin can with two or three dozen herrings; and his companions backed their boat to the side of the yacht. The young fellow stood up in the stern, and with a shy laugh – but with no speech, for he was doubtless nervous about his English – offered this present to the young lady. She was very much pleased; but she blushed quite as much as he did. And she was confused, for she could not summon Master Fred to take charge of the herrings, seeing this compliment was so directly paid to herself. However, she boldly gripped the tin can, and said, "Oh, thank you very much;" and by this time the Laird had fetched a bucket, into which the glittering beauties were slipped. Then the can was handed back, with further and profuse thanks, and the boat pushed off.

Suddenly, and with great alarm, Miss Avon remembered that Angus had taught her what Highland manners were.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" she called out to the bearded young fisherman, who instantly turned round, and the oars were stopped. "I beg your pardon," said she, with an extreme and anxious politeness, "but would you take a glass of whisky?"

"No, thank ye, mem," said the fisherman, with another laugh of friendliness on the frank face; and then away they went.

The girl was in despair. She was about to marry a Highlander, and already she had forgotten the first of Highland customs. But unexpected relief was at hand. Hearing something going on, John of Skye had tumbled up from the forecastle, and instantly saw that the young lady was sorely grieved that those friendly fishermen had not accepted this return compliment. He called aloud, in Gaelic, and in a severe tone. The three men came back, looking rather like schoolboys who would fain escape from an embarrassing interview. And then at the same moment Captain John, who had asked Fred to bring up the whisky-bottle, said in a low voice to the young lady —

"They would think it ferry kind, mem, if you would pour out the whisky with your own hand."

And this was done, Miss Mary going through the ceremony without flinching; and as each of the men was handed his glass, he rose up in the boat, and took off his cap, and drank the health of the young lady, in the Gaelic. And Angus Sutherland, when he came on deck, was greatly pleased to hear of what she had done; though the Laird took occasion to remark at breakfast that he hoped it was not a common custom among the young ladies of England to get up early in the morning to have clandestine flirtations with handsome young fishermen.

Then all hands on deck: for now there are two anchors to be got in, and we must not lose any of this pleasant sailing breeze. In these sheltered and shining waters there are scarcely any traces of the recent rough weather, except that the wind still comes in variable puffs, and from all sorts of unexpected directions. In the main, however, it is N. by E., and so we have to set to work to leisurely beat up the Sound of Raasay.

"Well, this is indeed like old times, Mary!" Queen Titania cries, as she comfortably ensconces herself in a camp-chair: for Miss Avon is at the helm, and the young Doctor, lying at full length on the sunlit deck, is watching the sails and criticising her steering; and the Laird is demonstrating to a humble listener the immeasurable advantages enjoyed by the Scotch landscape-painters, in that they have within so small a compass every variety of mountain, lake, woodland, and ocean scenery. He becomes facetious, too, about Miss Mary's sketches. What if he were to have a room set apart for them at Denny-mains, to be called the White Dove Gallery? He might have a skilled decorator out from Glasgow to devise the furniture and ornamentation, so that both should suggest the sea, and ships, and sailors.

Here John of Skye comes aft.

"I think," says he to Miss Avon, with a modest smile, "we might put the gaff topsail on her."

"Oh, yes, certainly," says this experienced mariner; and the Doctor, seeing an opportunity for bestirring himself, jumps to his feet.

And so, with the topsail shining white in the sun – a thing we have not seen for some time – we leave behind us the gloomy opening into Loch Sligachan, and beat up through the Raasay narrows, and steal by the pleasant woods of Raasay House. The Laird has returned to that project of the Marine Gallery, and he has secured an attentive listener in the person of his hostess, who prides herself that she has a sure instinct as to what is "right" in mural decoration.

This is indeed like old times come back again. The light, cool breeze, the warm decks, the pleasant lapping of the water, and our steerswoman partly whistling and partly humming —

 
"They'll put a napkin round my e'en,
They'll no let me see to dee;
And they'll never let on to my faither and mither,
But I am awa' o'er the sea."
 

And this she is abstractedly and contentedly doing, without any notice of the fact that the song is supposed to be a pathetic one.

Then our young Doctor: of what does he discourse to us during this delightful daydreaming and idleness? Well, it has been remarked by more than one of us that Dr. Angus has become tremendously practical of late. You would scarcely have believed that this was the young F.R.S. who used to startle the good Laird out of his wits by his wild speculations about the origin of the world and similar trifles. Now his whole interest seemed to be centred on the commonest things: all the Commissioners of the Burgh of Strathgovan put together could not have been more fierce than he was about the necessity of supplying houses with pure water, for example. And the abuse that he heaped on the Water Companies of London, more especially, and on the Government which did not interfere, was so distinctly libellous that we are glad no alien overheard it.

Then as to arsenic in wall-papers: he was equally dogmatic and indignant about that; and here it was his hostess, rather than the Laird, who was interested. She eagerly committed to her note-book a recipe for testing the presence of that vile metal in wall-papers or anything else; and some of us had mentally to thank Heaven that she was not likely to get test-tubes, and zinc filings, and hydrochloric acid in Portree. The woman would have blown up the ship.

All this and much more was very different from the kind of conversation that used so seriously to trouble the Laird. When he heard Angus talk with great common sense and abundant information about the various climates that suited particular constitutions, and about the best soils for building houses on, and about the necessity for strict municipal supervision of drainage, he was ready to believe that our young Doctor had not only for his own part never handled that dangerous book the Vestiges of Creation, but that he had never even known any one who had glanced at its sophistical pages except with a smile of pity. Why, all the time that we were shut up by the equinoctials, the only profound and mysterious thing that Angus had said was this: "There is surely something wrong when the man who takes on himself all the trouble of drawing a bottle of ale is bound to give his friend the first tumbler, which is clear, and keep the second tumbler, which is muddy, for himself." But if you narrowly look into it, you will find that there is really nothing dangerous or unsettling in this saying – no grumbling against the ways of Providence whatsoever. It is mysterious, perhaps; but then so would many of the nice points about the Semple case have been, had we not had with us an able expositor.

And on this occasion, as we were running along for Portree, our F.R.S. was chiefly engaged in warning us against paying too serious heed to certain extreme theories about food and drink which were then being put put forward by a number of distinguished physicians.

"For people in good health, the very worst adviser is the doctor," he was saying; when he was gently reminded by his hostess that he must not malign his own calling, or destroy a superstition that might in itself have curative effects.

"Oh, I scarcely call myself a doctor," he said, "for I have no practice as yet. And I am not denying the power of a physician to help nature in certain cases – of course not; but what I say is that for healthy people the doctor is the worst adviser possible. Why, where does he get his experience? – from the study of people who are ill. He lives in an atmosphere of sickness; his conclusions about the human body are drawn from bad specimens; the effects that he sees produced are produced on too sensitive subjects. Very likely, too, if he is himself a distinguished physician, he has gone through an immense amount of training and subsequent hard work; his own system is not of the strongest; and he considers that what he feels to be injurious to him must be injurious to other people. Probably so it might be – to people similarly sensitive; but not necessarily to people in sound health. Fancy a man trying to terrify people by describing the awful appearance produced on one's internal economy when one drinks half a glass of sherry! And that," he added, "is a piece of pure scientific sensationalism; for precisely the same appearance is produced if you drink half a glass of milk."

"I am of opinion," said the Laird, with the gravity befitting such a topic, "that of all steemulants nothing is better or wholesomer than a drop of sound, sterling whisky."

"And where are you likely to get it? – "

"I can assure ye, at Denny-mains – "

"I mean where are the masses of the people to get it? What they get is a cheap white spirit, reeking with fusel-oil, with just enough whisky blended to hide the imposture. The decoction is a certain poison. If the Government would stop tinkering at Irish franchises, and Irish tenures, and Irish Universities, and would pass a law making it penal for any distiller to sell spirits that he has not had in bond for at least two years, they would do a good deal more service to Ireland, and to this country too."

"Still, these measures of amelioration must have their effect," observed the Liard, sententiously. "I would not discourage wise legislation. We will reconcile Ireland sooner or later, if we are prudent and conseederate."

"You may as well give them Home Rule at once," said Dr. Angus, bluntly. "The Irish have no regard for the historical grandeur of England; how could they? – they have lost their organ of veneration. The coronal region of the skull has in time become depressed, through frequent shillelagh practice."

For a second the Laird glanced at him: there was a savour of George Combe about this speech. Could it be that he believed in that monstrous and atheistical theory?

But no. The Laird only laughed; and said:

"I would not like to have an Irishman hear ye say so."

It was now abundantly clear to us that Denny-mains could no longer suspect of anything heterodox and destructive this young man who was sound on drainage, pure air, and a constant supply of water to the tanks.

Of course, we could not get into Portree without Ben Inivaig having a tussle with us. This mountain is the most inveterate brewer of squalls in the whole of the West Highlands, and it is his especial delight to catch the unwary, when all their eyes are bent on the safe harbour within. But we were equal with him. Although he tried to tear our masts out and frighten us out of our senses, all that he really succeeded in doing was to put us to a good deal of trouble and break a tumbler or two below. We pointed the finger of scorn at Ben Inivaig. We sailed past him, and took no more notice of him. With a favouring breeze, and with our topsail still set, we glided into the open and spacious harbour.

But that first look round was a strange one. Was this really Portree Harbour, or were we so many Rip Van Winkles? There were the shining white houses, and the circular bay, and the wooded cliffs; but where were the yachts that used to keep the place so bright and busy? There was not an inch of white canvas visible. We got to anchor near a couple of heavy smacks; the men looked at us as if we had dropped from the skies.

We went ashore and walked up to the telegraph office to see whether the adjacent islands of great Britain and Ireland – as the Cumbrae minister called them – had survived the equinoctials; and learned only too accurately what serious mischief had been done all along these coasts by the gale. From various points, moreover, we subsequently received congratulations on our escape, until we almost began to believe that we had really been in serious peril. For the rest, our friends at Borva were safe enough; they had not been on board their yacht at all.

That evening, in the silent and deserted bay, a council of war was held on deck. We were not, as it turned out, quite alone; there had also come in a steam yacht, the master of which informed our John of Skye that such a gale he had not seen for three-and-twenty years. He also told us that there was a heavy sea running in the Minch; and that no vessel would try to cross. Stornoway Harbour, we already knew, was filled with storm-stayed craft. So we had to decide.

Like the very small and white-faced boy who stood forth to declaim before a school-full of examiners and friends, and who raised his hand, and announced in a trembling falsetto that his voice was still for war, it was the women who spoke first, and they were for going right on the next morning.

"Mind," said Angus Sutherland, looking anxiously at certain dark eyes; "there is generally a good sea in the Minch in the best of weathers; but after a three or four days' – well – "

"I, for one, don't care," said Miss Avon, frankly regarding him.

"And I should like it," said the other woman, "so long as there is plenty of wind. But if Captain John takes me out into the middle of the Minch and keeps me rolling about on the Atlantic in a dead calm, then something will befall him that his mother knew nothing about."

Here Captain John was emboldened to step forward, and to say, with an embarrassed politeness —

"I not afraid of anything for the leddies; for two better sailors I never sah ahl my life lang."

However, the final result of our confabulation that night was the resolve to get under way next morning, and proceed a certain distance until we should discover what the weather was like outside. With a fair wind, we might run the sixty miles to Stornoway before night; without a fair wind, there was little use in our adventuring out to be knocked about in the North Minch, where the Atlantic finds itself jammed into the neck of a bottle, and rebels in a somewhat frantic fashion. We must do our good friends in Portree the justice to say that they endeavoured to dissuade us; but then we had sailed in the White Dove before, and had no great fear of her leading us into any trouble.

And so, good-night! – good-night! We can scarcely believe that this is Portree Harbour, so still and quiet it is. All the summer fleet of vessels have fled; the year has gone with them; soon we, too, must betake ourselves to the south. Good-night! – good-night! The peace of the darkness falls over us; if there is any sound, it is the sound of singing in our dreams.

CHAPTER XVII.
"A GOOD ONE FOR THE LAST."

"Ah, well, well," said the Laird, somewhat sadly, to his hostess, "I suppose we may now conseeder that we have started on our last day's sailing in the White Dove?"

"I suppose so," said she; and this was before breakfast, so she may have been inclined to be a bit sentimental too.

"I'm thinking," said he, "that some of us may hereafter look back on this sailing as the longest and grandest holiday of their life, and will recall the name of the White Dove with a certain amount of affection. I, for one, feel that I can scarcely justify myself for withdrawing so long from the duties that society demands from every man; and no doubt there will be much to set right when one goes back to Strathgovan. But perhaps one has been able to do something even in one's idleness – "

He paused here, and remained silent for a moment or two.

"What a fine thing," he continued, "it must be for a doctor to watch the return of health to a patient's face – to watch the colour coming back, and the eyes looking happy again, and the spirits rising; and to think that maybe he has helped. And if he happens to know the patient, and to be as anxious about her as if she were his own child, do not ye think he must be a proud man when he sees the results of what he has done for her, and when he hears her begin to laugh again?"

Despite the Laird's profound ingenuity, we knew very well who that doctor was. And we had learned something about the affection which this mythical physician had acquired for this imaginary patient.

"What a sensitive bit crayture she is!" said he, suddenly, as if he were now talking of some quite different person. "Have ye seen the difference the last few days have made on her face – have ye not observed it?"

"Yes, indeed I have."

"Ye would imagine that her face was just singing a song from the morning till the night – I have never seen any one with such expressive eyes as that bit lass has – and – and – it is fairly a pleasure to any one to look at the happiness of them."

"Which she owes to you, sir."

"To me?" said the Laird. "Dear me! – not to me. It was a fortunate circumstance that I was with ye on board the yacht, that is all. What I did no man who had the chance could have refused to do. No, no; if the lass owes any gratitude to anybody or anything it is to the Semple case."

"What?"

"Just so, ma'am," said the Laird composedly. "I will confess to ye that a long holiday spent in sailing had not that attraction for me it might have had for others – though I think I have come to enjoy it now with the best of ye; but I thought, when ye pressed me to come, that it would be a grand opportunity to get your husband to take up the Semple case, and master it thoroughly, and put its merits in a just manner before the public. That he does not appear to be as much interested in it as I had reason to expect is a misfortune – perhaps he will grow to see the importance of the principles involved in it in time; but I have ceased to force it on his attention. In the meanwhile we have had a fine, long holiday, which has at least given me leisure to consider many schemes for the advantage of my brother pareeshioners. Ay; and where is Miss Mary though?"

"She and Angus have been up for hours, I believe," said his hostess. "I heard them on deck before we started anyway."

"I would not disturb them," said the Laird, with much consideration. "They have plenty to talk about – all their life opening up before them – like a road through a garden, as one might say. And whatever befalls them hereafter I suppose they will always remember the present time as the most beautiful of their existence – the wonder of it, the newness, the hope. It is a strange thing that. Ye know, ma'am, that our garden at Denny-mains, if I may say so, is far from insigneeficant. It has been greatly commended by experienced landscape gardeners. Well, now, that garden, when it is just at its fullest of summer colour – with all its dahlias and hollyhocks and what not – I say ye cannot get half as much delight from the whole show as ye get from the first glint o' a primrose, as ye are walking through a wood, on a bleak March day, and not expecting to see anything of the kind. Does not that make your heart jump?"

Here the Laird had to make way for Master Fred and the breakfast tray.

"There is not a bairn about Strathgovan," he continued, with a laugh, "knows better than myself where to find the first primroses and bluebells and the red deadnettle, ye know, and so on. Would ye believe it, that poor crayture, Johnny Guthrie was for cutting down the hedge in the Coulterburn Road, and putting up a stone dyke!" Here the Laird's face grew more and more stern, and he spoke with unnecessary vehemence. "I make bold to say that the man who would cut down a hawthorn hedge where the children go to gather their bits o' flowers, and would put in its place a stone wall for no reason on the face of the earth, I say that man is an ass – an intolerable and perneecious ass!"

But this fierceness instantly vanished, for here was Mary Avon come in to bid him good morning. And he rose and took both her hands in his and regarded the upturned smiling face and the speaking eyes.

"Ay, ay, lass," said he, with great satisfaction and approval, "ye have got the roses into your cheeks at last. That is the morning air – the 'roses weet wi' dew' – it is a fine habit that of early rising. Dear me, what a shilpit bit thing ye were when I first saw ye about three months ago. And now I daresay ye are just as hungry as a hawk with walking up and down the deck in the sea-air – we will not keep ye waiting a moment."

The Laird got her a chair, next his own of course; and then rang Master Fred's bell violently.

"How's her head, skipper?" said Queen T., when the young Doctor made his appearance – he had roses, too, in his cheeks, freshened by the morning air.

"Well," said he frankly, as he sate down, "I think it would be judicious to have breakfast over as soon as possible; and get the things stowed away. We are flying up the Sound of Raasay like a witch on a broom; and there will be a roaring sea when we get beyond the shelter of Skye."

"We have been in roaring seas before," said she, confidently.

"We met a schooner coming into Portree Harbour this morning," said he, with a dry smile. "She left yesterday afternoon just before we got in. They were at it all night, but had to run back at last. They said they had got quite enough of it."

This was a little more serious, but the women were not to be daunted. They had come to believe in the White Dove being capable of anything, especially when a certain aid to John of Skye was on board. For the rest, the news was that the day was lovely, the wind fair for Stornoway, and the yacht flying northward like an arrow.

There was a certain solemnity, nevertheless, or perhaps only an unusual elaborateness, about our preparations before going on deck. Gun-cases were wedged in in front of canvases, so that Miss Avon's sketches should not go rolling on to the floor; all such outlying skirmishers as candlesticks, aneroids, draught-boards, and the like, were moved to the rear of compact masses of rugs; and then the women were ordered to array themselves in their waterproofs. Waterproofs? – and the sun flooding through the skylight! But they obeyed.

Certainly there did not seem to be any great need for waterproofs when we got above and had the women placed in a secure corner of the companion-way. It was a brilliant, breezy, blue-skied morning, with the decks as yet quite white and dry, and with the long mountainous line of Skye shining in the sun. The yacht was flying along at a famous pace before a fresh and steady breeze; already we could make out, far away on the northern horizon, a pale, low, faint-blue line, which we knew to be the hills of southern Lewis. Of course, one had to observe that the vast expanse of sea lying between us and that far line was of a stormy black; moreover, the men had got on their oilskins, though not a drop of spray was coming on board.

As we spun along, however, before the freshening wind, the crashes of the waves at the bows became somewhat more heavy, and occasionally some jets of white foam would spring up into the sunlight. When it was suggested to Captain John that he might set the gaff topsail, he very respectfully and shyly shook his head. For one thing, it was rather strange that on this wide expanse of sea not a solitary vessel was visible.

Farther and farther northward. And now one has to look out for the white water springing over the bows, and there is a general ducking of heads when the crash forward gives warning. The decks are beginning to glisten now; and Miss Avon has received one sharp admonition to be more careful, which has somewhat damped and disarranged her hair. And so the White Dove still flies to the north – like an arrow – like a witch on a broom – like a hare, only that none of these things would groan so much in getting into the deep troughs of the sea; and not even a witch on a broom could perform such capers in the way of tumbling and tossing, and pitching and rolling.

However all this was mere child's play. We knew very well when and where we should really "get it": and we got it. Once out of the shelter of the Skye coast, we found a considerably heavy sea swinging along the Minch, and the wind was still freshening up, insomuch that Captain John had to take the mizen and foresail off her. How splendidly those mountain masses of waves came heaving along – apparently quite black until they came near, and then we could see the sunlight shining green through the breaking crest; then there was a shock at the bows that caused the yacht to shiver from stem to stern; then a high springing into the air, followed by a heavy rattle and rush on the decks. The scuppers were of no use at all; there was a foot and a half of hissing and seething salt water all along the lee bulwarks, and when the gangway was lifted to let it out the next rolling wave only spouted an equal quantity up on deck, soaking Dr. Angus Sutherland to the shoulder. Then a heavier sea than usual struck her, carrying off the cover of the fore hatch and sending it spinning aft; while, at the same moment, a voice from the forecastle informed Captain John in an injured tone that this last invader had swamped the men's berths. What could he do but have the main tack hauled up to lighten the pressure of the wind? The waters of the Minch, when once they rise, are not to be stilled by a bottle of salad oil.

We had never before seen the ordinarily buoyant White Dove take in such masses of water over her bows; but we soon got accustomed to the seething lake of water along the lee scuppers, and allowed it to subside or increase as it liked. And the women were now seated a step lower on the companion-way, so that the rags of the waves flew by them without touching them; and there was a good deal of laughing and jesting going on at the clinging and stumbling of any unfortunate person who had to make his way along the deck. As for our indefatigable Doctor, his face had been running wet with salt water for hours; twice he had slipped and gone headlong to leeward; and now, with a rope double twisted round the tiller, he was steering, his teeth set hard.

"Well, Mary," shrieked Queen Titania into her companion's ear. "We are having a good one for the last!"

"Is he going up the mast?" cried the girl in great alarm.