Macleod of Dare

THE UMPIRE.

"This is the loneliest place I have ever seen," Miss Gertrude White was saying on this the third morning after her arrival. "It seems scarcely in the world at all. The sea cuts you off from everything you know; it would have been nothing if we had come by rail."

They walked on in silence, the blue waves beside them curling a crisp white on the smooth sands.

"Pappy," said she, at length, "I suppose if I lived here for six months no one in England would know anything about me? If I were mentioned at all, they would think I was dead. Perhaps some day I might meet some one from England; and I would have to say, 'Don't you know who I am? Did you never hear of one called Gertrude White? I was Gertrude White.'"

"No doubt," said her father, cautiously.

"And when Mr. Lemuel's portrait of me appears in the Academy, people would be saying, 'Who is that?' Miss Gertrude White, as Juliet? Ah, there was an actress of that name. Or was she an amateur? She married somebody in the Highlands. I suppose she is dead now?"

"It is one of the most gratifying instances, Gerty, of the position you have made," her father observed, in his slow and sententious way, "that Mr. Lemuel should be so willing, after having refused to exhibit at the Academy for so many years, to make an exception in the case of your portrait."

"Well, I hope my face will not get burned by the sea-air and the sun," she said. "You know he wants two or three more sittings. And do you know, pappy, I have sometimes thought of asking you to tell me honestly—not to encourage me with flattery, you know—whether my face has really that high-strung pitch of expression when I am about to drink the poison in the cell. Do I really look like Mr. Lemuel's portrait of me?"

"It is your very self, Gerty," her father said, with decision. "But then Mr. Lemuel is a man of genius. Who but himself could have caught the very soul of your acting and fixed it on canvas?"

She hesitated for a moment, and then there was a flush of genuine enthusiastic pride mantling on her forehead as she said, frankly,—

"Well, then, I wish I could see myself!"

Just as quickly she changed her mood on the present occasion. She was looking again far over the darkly blue and ruffled seas toward the white-sailed yacht.

"He must have gone away in the dark to get that boat for us," said she, musingly. "Poor fellow, how very generous and kind he is! Sometimes—shall I make the confession, pappy?—I wish he had picked out some one who could better have returned his warmth of feeling."

She called it a confession; but it was a question. And her father answered more bluntly than she had quite expected.

"I am not much of an authority on such points," said he, with a dry smile; "but I should have said, Gerty, that you have not been quite so effusive towards Sir Keith Macleod as some young ladies would have been on meeting their sweetheart after a long absence."

The pale face flushed, and she answered, hastily,

"But you know, papa, when you are knocked about from one boat to another, and expecting to be ill one minute and drowned the next, you don't have your temper improved, do you? And then perhaps you have been expecting a little too much romance?—and you find your Highland chieftain handing down loaves, with all the people in the steamer staring at him. But I really mean to make it up to him, papa, if I could only get settled down for a day or two and get into my own ways. Oh dear me!—this sun—it is too awfully dreadful! When I appear before Mr. Lemuel again, I shall be a mulatto!"

"Why did you take so much trouble?" said she to him—and she took his hand in a very kind way as he stepped on shore. "We could very well have gone back in the boat."

"Oh, but I want to take you round by Loch Tua," said he, looking with great gratitude into those friendly eyes. "And it was no trouble at all. And will you step into the gig now?"

He took her hand and guided her along the rocks until she reached the boat; and he assisted her father too. Then they pushed off, and it was with a good swing the men sent the boat through the lapping waves. And here was Hamish standing by the gangway to receive them; and he was gravely respectful to the stranger lady, as he assisted her to get up the small wooden steps; but there was no light of welcome in the keen gray eyes. He quickly turned away from her to give his orders; for Hamish was on this occasion skipper, and had donned a smart suit of blue with brass buttons. Perhaps he would have been prouder of his buttons, and of himself, and of the yacht he had sailed for so many years, if it had been any other than Gertrude White who had now stepped on board.

"And will you have a cup of tea now, Gertrude? Johnny will get it to you in a moment."

"No, thank you," said she, with a smile, for she knew not how often he had offered her a cup of tea since her arrival in the Highlands. "But do you know, Keith, your yacht has a terrible bachelor look about it? All the comforts of it are in this saloon and in those two nice little state-rooms. Your lady's cabin looks very empty; it is too elegant and fine, as if you were afraid to leave a book or a match-box in it. Now, if you were to turn this into a lady's yacht; you would have to remove that pipe-rack, and the guns and rifles and bags."

"Oh," said he, anxiously, "I hope you do not smell any tobacco?"

"Not at all," said she. "It was only a fancy. Of course you are not likely to turn your yacht into a lady's yacht."

He started and looked at her. But she had spoken quite thoughtlessly, and had now turned to her father.

When they went on deck again they found that the Umpire, beating up in the face of a light northerly breeze, had run out for a long tack almost to the Dutchman's Cap; and from a certain distance they could see the grim shores of this desolate island, with its faint tinge of green grass over the brown of its plateau of rock. And then Hamish called out, "Ready, about!" and presently they were slowly leaving behind that lonely Dutchman and making away for the distant entrance to Loch Tua. The breeze was slight; they made but little way; far on the blue waters they watched the white gulls sitting buoyant; and the sun was hot on their hands. What did they talk about in this summer idleness? Many a time he had dreamed of his thus sailing over the clear seas with the fair Fionaghal from the South, until at times his heart, grown sick with yearning, was ready to despair of the impossible. And yet here she was sitting on a deck-stool near him—the wide-apart, long-lashed eyes occasionally regarding him—a neglected book open on her lap—the small gloved hands toying with the cover. Yet there was no word of love spoken. There was only a friendly conversation, and the idle passing of a summer day. It was something to know that her breathing was near him.

"Come now, Hamish," Macleod said, fearing this monotonous idleness would weary his fair guest, "you will tell us now one of the old stories that you used to tell me when I was a boy."

Hamish had, indeed, told the young Macleod many a mysterious tale of magic and adventure, but he was not disposed to repeat any one of these in broken English in order to please this lady from the South.

"It is no more of the stories I hef now, Sir Keith," said he. "It was a long time since I had the stories."

"Oh, I could construct one myself," said Miss White, lightly. "Don't I know how they all begin? 'There was once a king in Erin, and he had a son and this son it was who would take the world for his pillow. But before he set out on his travels, he took counsel of the falcon, and the hoodie, and the otter. And the falcon said to him, go to the right; and the hoodie said to him, you will be wise now if you go to the left; but the otter said to him, now take my advice,' etc., etc."

"You have been a diligent student," Macleod said, laughing heartily. "And, indeed, you might go on with the story and finish it; for who knows now when we shall get back to Dare?"

It was after a long period of thus lying in dead calm—with the occasional appearance of a diver on the surface of the shining blue sea—that Macleod's sharply observant eye was attracted by an odd thing that appeared far away at the horizon.

"What do you think is that now?" said he, with a smile.

They looked steadfastly, and saw only a thin line of silver light, almost like the back of a knife, in the distant dark blue.

"The track of a seal swimming under water," Mr. White suggested.

"Or a shoal of fish," his daughter said.

"Watch!"

"I cannot believe," said she to him, "that those fierce murders and revenges took place in such beautiful scenes as these. How could they?"

And then, in the broad and still waters of Loch Tua, with the lonely rocks of Ulva close by them, they were again becalmed; and now it was decided that they should leave the yacht there at certain moorings, and should get into the gig and be pulled through the shallow channel between Ulva and Mull that connects Loch Tua with Loch-na-Keal. Macleod had been greatly favored by the day chosen at haphazard for this water promenade: at the end of it he was gladdened to hear Miss White say that she had never seen anything so lovely on the face of the earth.

What jarred, then? Not the silent appearance of the head of a seal in that shining plain of blue and white; for the poor old fellow only regarded the boat for a second or two with his large and pathetic eyes, and then quietly disappeared. Perhaps it was this—that Miss White was leaning over the side of the boat, and admiring very much the wonderful hues of groups of sea-weed below, that were all distinctly visible in the marvellously clear water. There were beautiful green plants that spread their flat fingers over the silver-white sands; and huge rolls of purple and sombre brown; and long strings that came up to the surface—the traceries and decorations of these haunts of the mermaid.

"It is like a pantomime," she said. "You would expect to see a burst of lime-light, and Neptune appearing with a silver trident and crown. Well, it only shows that the scene-painters are nearer nature than most people imagine. I should never have thought there was anything so beautiful in the sea."

And then again she said, when they had rounded Ulva, and got a glimpse of the open Atlantic again,

"Where is it, Keith, you proposed to sink all the theatres in England for the benefit of the dolphins and the lobsters?"

He did not like these references to the theatre.

"It was only a piece of nonsense," said he, abruptly.

But then she begged him so prettily to get the men to sing the boat-song, that he good-humoredly took out a sheet of paper and a pencil, and said to her,—

"If I write it down for you, I must write it as it is pronounced. For how would you know that Fhir a bhata, na horo eile is pronounced Feer a vahta na horo ailya?"

"And perhaps, then," said she, with a charming smile, "writing it down would spoil it altogether? But you will ask them to sing it for me."

He said a word or two in the Gaelic to Sandy, who was rowing stroke; and Sandy answered with a short, quick laugh of assent.

She took that formidable vessel in her small hands, and the men rested on their oars; and then the metal cup was passed along. Whether it was the dram, or whether it was the old familiar chorus they struck up—

certain it is that the boat swung forward with a new strength, and erelong they beheld in the distance the walls of Castle Dare. And here was Janet at the small quay, greatly distressed because of the discomfort to which Miss White must have been subjected.

"But I have been telling Sir Keith," she said, with a sweet smile, "that I have come through the most beautiful place I have ever seen in the world."

This was not, however, what she was saying to herself when she reached the privacy of her own room. Her thoughts took a different turn.

"And if it does seem impossible"—this was her inward speech to herself—"that those wild murders should have been committed in so beautiful a place, at least there will be a fair chance of one occurring when I tell him that I have signed an engagement that will last till Christmas. But what good could come of being in a hurry?"

A CAVE IN MULL.

And now that Miss Gertrude White was actually in Castle Dare—now that he could walk with her along the lonely mountain-slopes and show her the wonders of the Western seas and the islands—what was it that still occasioned that vague unrest? His nervous anxiety that she should be pleased with all she saw? or a certain critical coldness in her glance? or the consciousness that he was only entertaining a passing visitor—a beautiful bird that had alighted on his hand, and that the next moment would be winging its flight away into the silvery South?

"You are becoming a capital sailor," he said to her one day, with a proud light on his face. "You have no fear at all of the sea now."

He and she and the cousin Janet—Mr. White had some letters to answer, and had stayed at home—were in the stern of the gig, and they were being rowed along the coast below the giant cliffs of Gribun. Certainly if Miss White had confessed to being a little nervous, she might have been excused. It was a beautiful, fresh, breezy, summer day; but the heavy Atlantic swell, that slowly raised and lowered the boat as the men rowed along, passed gently and smoothly on, and then went booming and roaring and crashing over the sharp black rocks that were quite close at hand.

"I think I would soon get over my fear of the sea," she said, gently.

"And you will have no fear of the beast when you go into Mackinnon's cave," said Janet Macleod to her, with a friendly smile, "because no one has ever heard of it again. Do you know, it was a strange thing? They saw in the sand the footprint of an animal that is not known to any one about here; even Keith himself did not know what it was—"

"I think it was a wild-cat," said he.

"And the men they had nothing to do then; and they went all about the caves, but they could see nothing of it. And it has never come back again."

"And I suppose you are not anxious for its coming back?" Miss White said.

"Perhaps you will be very lucky and see it some day, and I know that Keith would like to shoot it, whatever it is."

"That is very likely," Miss White said, without any apparent sarcasm.

"Do you not come with us?" Miss White called back to the boat.

"Oh, it is many a time I have been in the cave," said Janet Macleod; "and I will have the luncheon ready for you. And you will not stay long in the cave, for it is cold and damp."

He took her hand, for the scrambling over the rough rocks and stores was dangerous work for unfamiliar ankles. They drew nearer to this awful thing, that rose far above them, and seemed waiting to enclose them and shut them in forever. And whereas about the other caves there were plenty of birds flying, with their shrill screams denoting their terror or resentment, there was no sign of life at all about this black and yawning chasm, and there was an absolute silence, but for the rolling of the breakers behind them that only produced vague and wandering echoes. As she advanced over the treacherous shingle, she became conscious of a sort of twilight appearing around her. A vast black thing—black as night and still as the grave—was ahead of her; but already the change from the blaze of sunlight outside to this partial darkness seemed strange on the eyes. The air grew colder. As she looked up at the tremendous walls, and at the mysterious blackness beyond, she grasped his hand more tightly, though the walking on the wet sand was now comparatively easy. And as they went farther and farther into this blackness, there was only a faint, strange light that made an outline of the back of his figure, leaving his face in darkness; and when he stopped to examine the sand, she turned and looked back, and behold the vast portal by which they entered had now dwindled down into a small space of bewildering white.

Then he produced a candle and lit it; and as they advanced farther into the blackness, there was visible this solitary star of red fire, that threw dull, mysterious gleams from time to time on some projecting rocks.

"You must give me your hand again, Keith," said she, in a low voice; and when he shifted the candle, and took her hand in his, he found that it was trembling somewhat.

"Will you go any farther?" said he.

"No."

They stood and looked around. The darkness seemed without limits; the red light was insufficient to produce anything like an outline of this immense place, even in faint and wandering gleams.

"If anything were to move, Keith," said she, "I should die."

"Oh, nonsense!" said he, in a cheerful way; but the hollow echoes of the cavern made his voice sound sepulchral. "There is no beast at all in here, you may be sure. And I have often thought of the fright a wild-cat or a beaver may have got when he came in here in the night, and then discovered he had stumbled on a lot of sleeping men—"

"Of men!"

"They say this was a sanctuary of the Culdees; and I often wonder how the old chaps got their food. I am afraid they must have often fallen back on the young cormorants: that is what Major Stuart calls an expeditious way of dining—for you eat two courses, fish and meat, at the same time. And if you go further along, Gertrude, you will come to the great altar-stone they used."

"I would rather not go," said she. "I—I do not like this place. I think we will go back now, Keith."

As they cautiously made their way back to the glare of the entrance, she still held his hand tight; and she did not speak at all. Their footsteps echoed strangely in this hollow space. And then the air grew suddenly warm; and there was a glow of daylight around; and although her eyes were rather bewildered, she breathed more freely, and there was an air of relief on her face.

"I think I will sit down for a moment, Keith," said she; and then he noticed, with a sudden alarm, that her cheeks were rather pale.

"Oh, no!" said she, with a forced cheerfulness, and she sat down for a moment on one of the smooth boulders. "You must not think I am such a coward as that. But—the chilling atmosphere—the change—made me a little faint."

"Shall I run down to the boat for some wine for you? I know that Janet has brought some claret."

"Oh, not at all!" said she—and he saw with a great delight that her color was returning. "I am quite well now. But I will rest for a minute, if you are in no hurry, before scrambling down those stones again."

He was in no hurry; on the contrary, he sat down beside her and took her hand.

"You know, Gerty," said he, "it will be some time before I can learn all that you like and dislike, and what you can bear, and what pleases you best; it will be some time, no doubt; but then, when I have learned, you will find that no one will look after you so carefully as I will."

"I know you are very kind to me," said she, in a low voice.

"And now," said he, very gently, and even timidly, but his firm hand held her languid one with something of a more nervous clasp, "if you would only tell me, Gerty, that on such and such a day you would leave the stage altogether, and on such and such a day you would let me come to London—and you know the rest—then I would go to my mother, and there would be no need of any more secrecy, and instead of her treating you merely as a guest she would look on you as her daughter, and you might talk with her frankly."

She did not at all withdraw the small gloved hand, with its fringe of fur at the end of the narrow sleeve. On the contrary, as it lay there in his warm grasp, it was like the small, white, furred foot of a ptarmigan, so little and soft and gentle was it.

He had been listening to these faltering phrases in a kind of dazed and pained stupor. It was like the water overwhelming a drowning man. But at last he cried out—and he grasped both her hands in the sudden vehemence of the moment—

"Gerty, you are not drawing back! You do not despair of our being husband and wife! What is it that you mean?"

"Oh, Keith!" said she, quickly withdrawing one of her hands, "you frighten me when you talk like that! You do not know what you are doing—you have hurt my wrist!"

"Oh, I hope not!" said he. "Have I hurt your hand, Gerty?—and I would cut off one of mine to save you a scratch! But you will tell me now that you have no fears—that you don't want to draw back! I would like to take you back to Dare, and be able to say to every one, 'Do you know that this is my wife—that by and by she is coming to Dare—and you will all be kind to her for her own sake and for mine.' And if there is anything wrong, Gerty, if there is anything you would like altered, I would have it altered. We have a rude way of life; but every one would be kind to you. And if the life here is too rough for you, I would go anywhere with you that you choose to live. I was looking at the houses in Essex. I would go to Essex, or anywhere you might wish; that need not separate us at all. And why are you so cold and distant, Gerty? Has anything happened here to displease you? Have we frightened you by too much of the boats and of the sea? Would you rather live in an English county away from the sea? But I would do that for you, Gerty—if I was never to see a sea-bird again."

And in spite of himself tears rose quickly to his eyes; for she seemed so far away from him, even as he held her hand; and his heart would speak at last—or break.

Then she looked him frankly in the face, with those beautiful, clear, sad eyes.

"You deserve all the love a woman can give you, Keith; for you have a man's heart. And I wish I could make you a fair return for all your courage, and gentleness, and kindness—"

"Ah, do not say that," he said, quickly. "Do not think I am complaining of you, Gerty. It is enough—it is enough—I thank God for his mercy to me; for there never was any man so glad as I was when you gave me the red rose. And now, sweetheart—now you will tell me that I will put away all this trouble and have no more fears; and there will be no need to think of what you are doing far away; and there will be one day that all the people will know—and there will be laughing and gladness that day; and if we will keep the pipes away from you, all the people about will have the pipes, and there will be a dance and a song that day. Ah, Gerty, you must not think harshly of the people about here. They have their ways. They would like to please you. But my heart is with them; and a marriage-day would be no marriage-day to me that I did not spend among my own people—my own people."

He was talking quite wildly. She had seen him in this mood once or twice before, and she was afraid.

"But you know, Keith," said she, gently, and with averted eyes, "a great deal has to be done before then. And a woman is not so impulsive as a man; and you must not be angry if I beg for a little time—"

"There is a drop of rain!" she exclaimed; and she suddenly sprang to her feet. The skies were black overhead. "Oh, dear me!" she said, "how thoughtless of us to leave your poor cousin Janet in that open boat, and a shower coming on! Please give me your hand now, Keith. And you must not take all these things so seriously to heart, you know; or I will say you have not the courage of a feeble woman like myself. And do you think the shower will pass over?"

"I do not know," said he, in a vague way, as if he had not quite understood the question; but he took her hand, and in silence guided her down to the rocks, where the boat was ready to receive them.

And now they saw the strange transformation that had come over the world. The great troubled sea was all of a dark slate-green, with no glad ripples of white, but with long-squally drifts of black; and a cold wind was blowing gustily in; and there were hurrying clouds of a leaden hue tearing across the sky. As for the islands—where were they? Ulva was visible, to be sure, and Colonsay—both of them a heavy and gloomy purple; and nearer at hand the rock of Errisker showed in a wan, gray light between the lowering sky and the squally sea; but Lunga, and Fladda, and Staffa, and Iona, and even the long promontory of the Ross of Mull, were all hidden away behind the driving mists of rain.

"Oh you lazy people!" Janet Macleod cried, cheerfully—she was not at all frightened by the sudden storm. "I thought the wild beast had killed you in the cave. And shall we have luncheon now, Keith, or go back at once?"

He cast an eye towards the westward horizon and the threatening sky: Janet noticed at once that he was rather pale.

"We will have luncheon as they pull us back," said he, in an absent way, as if he was not quite sure of what was happening around him.

"Oh yes," he said, "oh yes, you are becoming a good sailor now, Gertrude. You have no longer any fear of the water."

"You will become like little Johnny Wickes, Miss White," the cousin Janet said, "the little boy I showed you the other day. He has got to be like a duck in his love for the water. And, indeed, I should have thought he would have got a fright when Keith saved him from drowning; but no."

"Did you save him from being drowned?" she said, turning to him. "And you did not tell me the story?"

"It was no story," said he. "He fell into the water, and we picked him up somehow;" and then he turned impatiently to the men, and said some words to them in the Gaelic, and there was no more singing of the Farewell to the Boatman after that.

They got home to Castle Dare before the rain came on; though, indeed, it was but a passing shower, and it was succeeded by a bright afternoon that deepened into a clear and brilliant sunset; but as they went up through the moist-smelling larch-wood—and as Janet happened to fall behind for a moment, to speak to a herdboy who was by the wayside—Macleod said to his companion,—

"And have you no other word for me, Gertrude?"

Then she said with a very gracious smile,

"You must be patient, Keith. Are we not very well off as we are? I know a good many people who are not quite so well off. And I have no doubt we shall have courage to meet whatever good or bad fortune the days may bring us; and if it is good, then we shall shake hands over it, just as the village people do in an opera."

Fine phrases; though this man, with the dark and hopeless look in his eyes, did not seem to gain much gladness from them. And she forgot to tell him about that engagement which was to last till Christmas; perhaps if she had told him just then he would scarcely have heard her.

THE NEW TRAGEDY.

His generous, large nature fought hard to find excuses for her. He strove to convince himself that this strange coldness, this evasion, this half-repellent attitude, was but a form of maiden coyness. It was her natural fear of so great a change. It was the result, perhaps, of some last lingering look back to the scene of her artistic triumphs. It did not even occur to him as a possibility that this woman with her unstable sympathies and her fatally facile imagination, should have taken up what was now the very end and aim of his life, and have played with the pretty dream until she grew tired of the toy, and was ready to let her wandering fancy turn to something other and new.

He dared not even think of that; but all the same, as he stood at this open window alone, an unknown fear had come over him. It was a fear altogether vague and undefined; but it seemed to have the power of darkening the daylight around him. Here was the very picture he had so often desired that she should see—the wind-swept Atlantic; the glad blue skies with their drifting clouds of summer white; the Erisgeir rocks; the green shores of Ulva; and Colonsay and Gometra and Staffa all shining in the sunlight; with the sea-birds calling, and the waves breaking, and the soft west wind stirring the fuchsia-bushes below the windows of Castle Dare. And it was all dark now; and the sea was a lonely thing—more lonely than ever it had been even during that long winter that he had said was like a grave.

And she?—at this moment she was down at the small bridge that crossed the burn. She had gone out to seek her father; had found him coming up through the larch-wood, and was now accompanying him back. They had rested here; he sitting on the weatherworn parapet of the bridge; she leaping over it, and idly dropping bits of velvet-green moss into the whirl of clear brown water below.

"I suppose we must be thinking of getting away from Castle Dare, Gerty," said he.

But even Mr. White was somewhat taken aback by the cool promptitude of this reply.

"Well, you know your own business best," he said to her. "It is not for me to interfere. I said from the beginning I would not interfere. But still I wish you would be a little more explicit, Gerty, and let one understand what you mean—whether, in fact, you do mean, or do not mean, to marry Macleod."

"And who said that I proposed not to marry him?" said she; but she still leaned over the rough stones and looked at the water. "The first thing that would make me decline would be the driving me into a corner—the continual goading, and reminding me of the duty I had to perform. There has been just a little too much of that here"—and at this point she raised herself so that she could regard her father when she wished—"and I really must say that I do not like to be taking a holiday with the feeling hanging over you that certain things are expected of you every other moment, and that you run the risk of being considered a very heartless and ungrateful person unless you do and say certain things you would perhaps rather not do and say. I should like to be let alone. I hate being goaded. And I certainly did not expect that you, too, papa, would try to drive me into a corner."

She spoke with some little warmth. Mr. White smiled.

"I was quite unaware, Gerty," said he, "that you were suffering this fearful persecution."

"You may laugh, but it is true," said she, and there was a trifle of color in her cheeks. "The serious interests I am supposed to be concerned about! Such profound topics of conversation! Will the steamer come by the south to-morrow, or round by the north? The Gometra men have had a good take of lobsters yesterday. Will the head-man at the Something lighthouse be transferred to some other lighthouse? and how will his wife and family like the change? They are doing very well with a subscription for a bell for the Free Church at Iona. The deer have been down at John Maclean's barley again. Would I like to visit the weaver at Iona who has such a wonderful turn for mathematics? and would I like to know the man at Salen who has the biographies of all the great men of the time in his head?"

"It is all very well for the Macleods to interest themselves with these trumpery little local matters. They play the part of grand patron; the people are proud to honor them; it is a condescension when they remember the name of the crofter's youngest boy. But as for me—when I am taken about—well, I do not like being stared at as if they thought I was wearing too fine clothes. I don't like being continually placed in a position of inferiority through my ignorance—an old fool of a boatman saying 'Bless me!' when I have to admit that I don't know the difference between a sole and a flounder. I don't want to know. I don't want to be continually told. I wish these people would meet me on my own ground. I wish the Macleods would begin to talk after dinner about the Lord Chamberlain's interference with the politics of burlesque, and then perhaps they would not be so glib. I am tired of hearing about John Maclean's boat, and Donald Maclean's horse, and Sandy Maclean's refusal to pay the road-tax. And as for the drinking of whiskey that these sailors get through—well, it seems to me that the ordinary condition of things is reversed here altogether; and if they ever put up an asylum in Mull, it will be a lunatic asylum for incurable abstainers."

"Now, now, Gerty!" said her father; but all the same he rather liked to see his daughter get on her high horse, for she talked with spirit, and it amused him. "You must remember that Macleod looks on this as a holiday-time, and perhaps he may be a little lax in his regulations. I have no doubt it is because he is so proud to have you on board his yacht that he occasionally gives the men an extra glass; and I am sure it does them no harm, for they seem to be as much in the water as out of it."

She paid no heed to this protest. She was determined to give free speech to her sense of wrong, and humiliation, and disappointment.

"Well, there's no pleasing you, Gerty," said he.

"I don't want to be pleased; I want to be let alone," said she.

But she said this with just a little too much sharpness; for her father was, after all, a human being; and it did seem to him to be too bad that he should be taunted in this fashion, when he had done his best to preserve a wholly neutral attitude.

"Let me tell you this, madam," said he, in a playful manner, but with some decision in his tone, "that you may live to have the pride taken out of you. You have had a good deal of flattery and spoiling; and you may find out you have been expecting too much. As for these Macleods here, I will say this—although I came here very much against my own inclination—that I defy any one to have been more kind, and courteous, and attentive than they have been to you. I don't care. It is not my business, as I tell you. But I must say, Gerty, that when you make a string of complaints as the only return for all their hospitality—their excessive and almost burdensome hospitality—I think that even I am bound to say a word. You forget how you come here. You, a perfect stranger, come here as engaged to marry the old lady's only son—to dispossess her—very probably to make impossible a match that she had set her heart on. And both she and her niece—you understand what I mean—instead of being cold, or at least formal, to you, seem to me to think of nothing from morning till night but how to surround you with kindness, in a way that Englishwomen would never think of. And this you call persecution; and you are vexed with them because they won't talk to you about theatres—why, bless my soul, how long it is since you were yourself talking about theatres as if the very word choked you?"

Now this was too much for Mr. White. In the small eyes behind the big gold spectacles there was a quick flash of fire.

"Don't be a fool, Gerty!" said he, in downright anger. "You know it is no use your trying to humbug me. If you think the ways of this house are too poor and mean for your grand notions of state—if you think he has not enough money, and you are not likely to have fine dinners and entertainments for your friends—if you are determined to break off the match—why, then do it! but, I tell you, don't try to humbug me!"

Miss White's pathetic attitude suddenly vanished. She drew herself up with much dignity and composure, and said,

"At all events, sir, I have been taught my duty to you; and I think it better not to answer you."

With that she moved off toward the house; and Mr. White, taking to whistling, began to do as she had been doing—idly throwing bits of moss into the rushing burn. After all, it was none of his business.

But that evening, some little time before dinner, it was proposed they should go for a stroll down to the shore; and then it was that Miss White thought she would seize the occasion to let Macleod know of her arrangements for the coming autumn and winter. Ordinarily, on such excursions, she managed to walk with Janet Macleod—the old lady of Castle Dare seldom joined them—leaving Macleod to follow with her father; but this time she so managed it that Macleod and she left the house together. Was he greatly overjoyed? There was a constrained and anxious look on his face that had been there too much of late.

"I suppose Oscar is more at home here than in Bury Street, St. James's?" said she, as the handsome collie went down the path before them.

"No doubt," said he, absently: he was not thinking of any collie.

"What beautiful weather we are having," said she, to this silent companion. "It is always changing, but always beautiful. There is only one other aspect I should like to see—the snow time."

This was a strange conversation for two engaged lovers it was not much more interesting than their talk—how many ages ago?—at Charing Cross station. But then, when she had said to him, "Ought we to take tickets?" she had looked into his face with those appealing, innocent, beautiful eyes. Now her eyes never met his. She was afraid.

She managed to lead up to her announcement skilfully enough. By the time they reached the shore an extraordinarily beautiful sunset was shining over the sea and the land, something so bewildering and wonderful that they all four stopped to look at it. The Atlantic was a broad expanse of the palest and most brilliant green, with the pathway of the sun a flashing line of gold coming right across until it met the rocks, and there was a jet black against the glow. Then the distant islands of Colonsay, and Staffa, and Lunga, and Fladda lying on this shining green sea, appeared to be of a perfectly transparent bronze; while nearer at hand the long ranges of cliffs were becoming a pale rose-red under the darkening blue-gray sky. It was a blaze of color such as she had never even dreamed of as being possible in nature; nothing she had as yet seen in these northern latitudes had at all approached it. And as she stood there, and looked at those transparent islands of bronze on the green sea, she said to him,—

"Do you know, Keith, this is not at all like the place I had imagined as the scene of the gloomy stories you used to tell me about the revenges of the clans. I have been frightened once or twice since I came here, no doubt, by the wild sea, and the darkness of the cathedral, and so forth; but the longer I stay the less I see to suggest those awful stories. How could you associate such an evening as this with a frightful tragedy? Do you think those people ever existed who were supposed to have suffocated, or slaughtered, or starved to death any one who opposed their wishes?"

"And I do not suppose they troubled themselves much about fine sunsets," said he. "That was not what they had to think about in those days."

"We have no appliances here for the education of an actress—I am very sorry," said he.

"Now, Keith, that is hardly fair," said she, with a smile. "You know it is only a trial. And you saw what they said of my Juliet. Oh, did I tell you about the new tragedy that is coming out?"

"No, I do not think you did," said he.

"Ah, well, it is a great secret as yet; but there is no reason why you should not hear of it."

"I am not anxious to hear of it," said he, without any rudeness.

"But it concerns me," she said, "and so I must tell you. It is written by a brother of Mr. Lemuel, the artist I have often spoken to you about. He is by profession an architect; but if this play should turn out to be as fine as some people say it is, he ought to take to dramatic writing. In fact, all the Lemuels—there are three brothers of them, you know—are like Michael Angelo and Leonardo—artists to the finger-tips, in every direction—poets, painters, sculptors, and all the rest of it. And I do think I ought to feel flattered by their choice in asking me to play the heroine; for so much depends on the choice of the actress—"

"And you are still to act?" said he, quickly, though he spoke in a low voice, so that those behind should not hear.

"Surely I explained to you?" said she, in a pleasant manner. "After all, lifelong habits are not so easily cast aside; and I knew you would be generous, and bear with me a little bit, Keith."

He turned to her. The glow of the sunset caught his face. There was a strange, hopeless sadness in his eyes.

"Generous to you?" said he. "You know I would give you my life if that would serve you. But this is worse than taking my life from me."

"Keith, Keith!" said she, in gentle protest, "I don't know what you mean. You should not take things so seriously. What is it, after all? It was as an actress that you knew me first. What is the difference of a few months more or less? If I had not been an actress, you would never have known me—do you recollect that? By the way, has Major Stuart's wife got a piano?"

"Oh yes," said he, with a laugh, "Mrs. Stuart has got a piano; she has got a very good piano. And what is the song you would sing now, sweetheart? Shall we finish up and have done with it, with a song at the end? That is the way in the theatre, you know—a dance and a song as the people go. And what shall our song be now? There was one that Norman Ogilvie used to sing."

"I don't know why you should talk to me like that, Keith," said she, though she seemed somewhat frightened by this fierce gayety. "I was going to tell you that if Mrs. Stuart had a piano I would very gladly sing one or two songs for your mother and Miss Macleod when we went over there to-morrow. You have frequently asked me. Indeed, I have brought with me the very songs I sung to you the first time I saw you—at Mrs. Ross's."

Instantly his memory flew back to that day—to the hushed little room over the sunlit gardens—to the beautiful, gentle, sensitive girl who seemed to have so strange an interest in the Highlands—to the wonderful thrill that went through him when she began to sing with an exquisite pathos, "A wee bird cam' to our ha' door," and to the prouder enthusiasm that stirred him when she sang, "I'll to Lochiel, and Appin, and kneel to them!" These were fine, and tender, and proud songs. There was no gloom about them—nothing about a grave, and the dark winter-time, and a faithless lost love. This song of Norman Ogilvie's that he had gayly proposed they should sing now? What had Major Stuart, or his wife, or any one in Mull to do with "Death's black wine?"

He turned in silence and led the way back. Behind them he could faintly hear Mr. White discoursing to Janet Macleod about the manner in which the old artists mixed their own pigments.

Then Macleod said, with a great gentleness and restraint,

"And when you go away from here, Gertrude, I suppose I must say good-by to you; and no one knows when we shall see each other again. You are returning to the theatre. If that is your wish, I would not try to thwart it. You know best what is the highest prize the world can give you. And how can I warn you against failure and disappointment? I know you will be successful. I know the people will applaud you, and your head will be filled with their praises. You are going forward to a new triumph, Gerty; and the first step you will take will be on my heart."

AN UNDERSTANDING.

"Pappy dear," said Miss White to her father, in a playful way, although it was a serious sort of playfulness, "I have a vague feeling that there is a little too much electricity in the atmosphere of this place just at present. I am afraid there may be an explosion; and you know my nerves can't stand much of a shock. I should be glad to get away."

"I told him last night," said she, "of my having signed an engagement till Christmas next."

"Oh, indeed!" said her father, quickly; looking at her over his spectacles.

"Yes," said she, thoughtfully, "and he was not so disturbed or angry as I had expected. Not at all. He was very kind about it. But I don't understand him."

"What do you not understand?"

"He has grown so strange of late—so sombre. Once, you know, he was the lightest-hearted young man—enjoying every minute of his life, you know—and really, pappy, I think—"

And here Miss White stopped.

"At all events," said she, quickly, "I want to be in a less dangerously excited atmosphere, where I can sit down and consider matters calmly. It was much better when he and I corresponded, then we could fairly learn what each other thought. Now I am almost afraid of him—I mean, I am afraid to ask him a question. I have to keep out of his way. And if it comes to that, pappy, you know, I feel now as if I was called on to act a part from morning till night, whereas I was always assured that if I left the stage and married him it was to be my natural self, and I should have no more need to pose and sham. However, that is an old quarrel between you and me, pappy, and we will put it aside. What's more to the purpose is this—it was half understood that when we left Castle Dare he was to come with us through at least a part of the Highlands."

"There was a talk of it."

"Don't you think," said Miss White, with some little hesitation, and with her eyes cast down—"don't you think that would be a little inconvenient?"

"I should say that was for you to decide," he answered, somewhat coldly; for it was too bad that she should be continually asking his advice and then openly disregarding it.

"Are you so certain you will astonish the public?" her father said.

"I have the courage to try," she answered, readily. "And you are not going to throw cold water on my endeavors, are you, pappy? Well, as I was saying, it is perhaps natural for Sir Keith Macleod to feel a bit annoyed; and I am afraid if he went travelling with us, we should be continually skating on the edge of a quarrel. Besides, to tell you the truth, pappy—with all his kindness and gentleness, there is sometimes about him a sort of intensity that I scarcely like—it makes me afraid of him. If it were on the stage, I should say it was a splendid piece of acting—of the suppressed vehement kind, you know; but really—during a holiday-time, when one naturally wishes to enjoy the fine weather and gather strength for one's work—well, I do think he ought not to come with us, pappy."

"Very well; you can hint as much without being rude."

"I was thinking," said she, "of the Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin who were in that Newcastle company, and who went to Aberdeen. Do you remember them, pappy?"

"The low comedian, you mean?"

"Yes. Well, at all events they would be glad to see us. And so—don't you think?—we could let Macleod understand that we were going to see some friends in the North? Then he would not think of coming with us."

"The representation would scarcely be justifiable," observed Mr. White, with a profound air, "in ordinary circumstances. But, as you say, it would be neither for his comfort nor for yours that he should go with us."

"Comfort!" she exclaimed. "Much comfort I have had since I came here! Comfort I call quiet, and being let alone. Another fortnight at this place would give me brain fever—your life continually in danger either on the sea or by the cliffs—your feelings supposed to be always up at passion pitch—it is all a whirl of secret or declared emotions that don't give you a moment's rest. Oh, pappy, won't it be nice to have a day or two's quiet in our own home, with Carry and Marie? And you know Mr. Lemuel will be in town all the summer and winter. The material for his work he finds within himself. He doesn't need to scamper off like the rest of them to hunt out picturesque peasants and studies of waterfalls—trotting about the country with a note-book in hand—"

"I was not comparing myself with an artist like Mr. Lemuel, pappy. No, no. Of course I have to keep my eyes open, and pick up things that may be useful. His work is the work of intense spiritual contemplation—it is inspiration—"

"No doubt," the father said; "the inspiration of Botticelli."

"Papa!"

Mr. White chuckled to himself. He was not given to joking: an epigram was not in consonance with his high sententiousness. But instantly he resumed his solemn deportment.

"A picture is as much a part of the world as a human face: why should I not take my inspiration from a picture as well as from a human face?"

"You mean to say he is only a copyist—a plagiarist!" she said, with some indignation.

"Not at all," said he. "All artists have their methods founded more or less on the methods of those who have gone before them. You don't expect an artist to discover for himself an entirely new principle of art, any more than you expect him to paint in pigments of his own invention. Mr. Lemuel has been a diligent student of Botticelli—that is all."

This strange talk amidst the awful loneliness and grandeur of Glen-Sloich! They were idly walking along the rough road: far above them rose the giant slopes of the mountains retreating into heavy masses of cloud that were moved by the currents of the morning wind. It was a gray day; and the fresh-water lake here was of a leaden hue, and the browns and greens of the mountain-side were dark and intense. There was no sign of human life or habitation; there was no bird singing; the deer was far away in the unknown valleys above them, hidden by the mystic cloud phantoms. There was an odor of sweet-gale in the air. The only sound was the murmuring of the streams that were pouring down through these vast solitudes to the sea.

"The sky is becoming very dark," Mr. White said; "we had better go back, Gerty."

"Tuesday, then, shall we say, pappy?" she remarked, just before entering.