A Princess of Thule

“Yes, it iss a teffle of a good song,” he said, suddenly. “Now get up, Sheila, and go and tell Mairi we will have a bit of bread and cheese before going to bed. And there will be a little hot water wanted in the other room, for this room it iss too full of the smoke.”

Sheila, as she went out of the room, had her head cast down, and, perhaps, an extra tinge of color in her young and pretty face. But surely, Lavender thought to himself as he watched her anxiously, she did not look grieved. As for her father, what should he do now? Turn suddenly around and beg Mackenzie’s pardon, and throw himself on his generosity? When he did, with much inward trembling, venture to approach the old man, he found no such explanation possible. The King of Borva was in one of his grandest moods – dignified, courteous, cautious, and yet inclined to treat everybody and everything with a sort of lofty good humor. He spoke to Lavender in the most friendly way, but it was about the singular and startling fact that modern research had proved many of the Roman legends to be utterly untrustworthy. Mr. Mackenzie observed that the man was wanting in proper courage who feared to accept the results of such inquiries. It was better that we should know the truth, and then the kings who had really made Rome great might emerge from the fog of tradition in their proper shape. There was something quite sympathetic in the way he talked of those ill-treated sovereigns, whom the vulgar mind had clothed in mist.

Lavender was sorely beset by the rival claims of Rome and Borva upon his attention. He was inwardly inclined to curse Numa Pompilius – which would have been ineffectual – when he found that personage interfering with a wild effort to discover why Mackenzie should treat him in this way. And then it occurred to him that, as he had never said a word to Mackenzie about this affair, it was too much to expect that Sheila’s father should himself open the subject. On the contrary, Mackenzie was bent on extending a grave courtesy to his guest, so that the latter should not feel ill at ease until it suited himself to make any explanations he might choose. It was not Mackenzie’s business to ask this young man if he wanted to marry Sheila. No. The king’s daughter, if she were to be won at all, was to be won by a suitor; and it was not for her father to be in a hurry about it. So Lavender got back into the region of early Roman history, and tried to recall what he had learned in Livy, and quite coincided with everything that Niebuhr had said or proved, and with everything that Mackenzie thought Niebuhr had said or proved. He was only too glad, indeed, to find himself talking to Sheila’s father in this friendly fashion.

Then Sheila came in and told them that supper was laid in the adjoining room. At that modest meal a great good humor prevailed. Sometimes, it is true, it occurred to Ingram that Sheila occasionally cast an anxious glance to her father, as if she were trying to discover whether he was really satisfied, or whether he were not merely pretending satisfaction to please her; but for the rest the party was a most friendly and merry one. Lavender, naturally enough, was in the highest of spirits, and nothing could exceed the light-hearted endeavors he made to amuse, and interest, and cheer his companions. Sheila, indeed, sat up later than usual, even although pipes were lit again, and the slate-gray silk likely to bear witness to the fact in the morning. How comfortable and homely was this sort of life in the remote stone building overlooking the sea! He began to think that he could live always in Borva if only Sheila were with him as his companion.

Was it an actual fact, then, he asked himself next morning, that he stood confessed to the small world of Borva as Sheila’s accepted lover? Not a word on the subject had passed between Mackenzie and himself, and yet he found himself assuming the position of a younger relative, and rather expecting advice from the old man. He began to take a great interest too, in the local administration of the island. He examined the window-fastenings of Mackenzie’s house, and saw that they would be useful in the winter, and expressed to Sheila’s father his confidential opinion that the girl should not be allowed to go out in the Maighdean-mhara without Duncan.

“She will know as much about boats as Duncan himself,” said her father, with a smile. “But Sheila will not go out when the rough weather begins.”

“Of course, you keep her indoors then,” said the younger man, already assuming some little charge over Sheila’s comfort.

The father laughed aloud at this simplicity on the part of the Englishman:

“If we wass to keep indoors in the bad weather, it would be all the winter we would be indoors! There iss no day at all Sheila will not be out some time or other; and she is never so well as in the hard weather, when she will be out always in the snow and the frost, and hef plenty of exercise and amusement.”

“She is not often ailing, I suppose?” said Lavender.

“She is as strong as a young pony, that’s what Sheila is,” said her father, proudly. “And there’s no one in the island will run so fast, or walk so long without tiring, or carry things from the shore as she will – not one.”

But here he suddenly checked himself. “That is,” he said, with some little expression of annoyance, “I wass saying Sheila could do that if it wass any use; but she will not do such things, like a fisherman’s lass that hass to keep in the work.”

“Oh, of course not,” said Lavender, hastily. “But still, you know, it is pleasant to know she is so strong and well.”

And at this moment Sheila herself appeared, accompanied by her great deerhound, and testifying by the bright color in her face to the assurances of her health her father had been giving. She had just come up and over the hill at Borvapost, while as yet breakfast had not been served. Somehow or other, Lavender fancied she never looked so bright and bold and handsome as in the early morning, with the fresh sea-air tingling the color of her cheeks, and the sunlight shining in the clear eyes or giving from time to time a glimpse of her perfect teeth. But this morning she did not seem quite so frankly merry as usual. She patted her deerhound’s head, and rather kept her eyes away from her father and his companions. And then she took Brass away to give him his breakfast, just as Ingram appeared to bid her good-morning and ask her what she meant by being about so early.

How anxiously Lavender now began to calculate on the remaining days of their stay in Borva! They seemed so few. He got up at preposterously early hours to make each day as long as possible, but it slipped away with a fatal speed; and already he began to think of Stornoway and the Clansman and his bidding good-bye to Sheila. He had said no more to her of any pledge as regarded the future. He was content to see that she was pleased to be with him; and happy indeed were their rambles about the island, their excursions in Sheila’s boat, their visits to the White Water in search of salmon. Nor had he yet spoken to Sheila’s father. He knew that Mackenzie knew, and both seemed to take it for granted that no good could come of a formal explanation until Sheila herself should make her wishes known. That, indeed, was the only aspect of the case that apparently presented itself to the old King of Borva. He forgot altogether those precautions and investigations which are supposed to occupy the mind of a future father-in-law, and only sought to see how Sheila was affected toward the young man who was soon about to leave the island. When he saw her pleased to be walking with Lavender and talking with him of an evening, he was pleased, and would rather have a cold dinner than break in upon them to hurry them home. When he saw her disappointed because Lavender had been unfortunate in his salmon-fishing, he was ready to swear at Duncan for not having had the fish in better temper. And the most of his conversation with Ingram consisted of an endeavor to convince himself that, after all, what had happened was for the best, and that Sheila seemed to be happy.

But somehow or other, when the time for their departure was drawing near, Mackenzie showed a strange desire that his guests should spend the last two days in Stornoway. When Lavender first heard this proposal he glanced towards Sheila, and his face showed clearly his disappointment.

“But Sheila will go with us, too,” said her father, replying to that unuttered protest in the most innocent fashion; and then Lavender’s face brightened again, and he said that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to spend two days in Stornoway.

“And you must not think,” said Mackenzie, anxiously, “that one day or two days or a great many days will show you all the fine things about Stornoway. And if you were to live in Stornoway you would find very good acquaintances and friends there; and in the autumn, when the shooting begins, there are many English who will come up, and there will be ferry great doings at the castle. And there is some gentlemen now at Grimersta whom you hef not seen, and they are ferry fine gentlemen; and at Garra-na-hina there iss two more gentlemen for the salmon-fishing. Oh, there iss a great many fine people in the Lewis, and it is not all as lonely as Borva.”

“If it is half as pleasant a place to live in as Borva, it will do,” said Lavender, with a flush of enthusiasm in his face, as he looked toward Sheila, and saw her pleased and downcast eyes.

“But it iss not to be compared,” said Mackenzie, eagerly. “Borva, that is nothing at all; but the Lewis, it is a ferry different thing to live in the Lewis; and many English gentlemen hef told me they would like to live always in the Lewis.”

“I think I should, too,” said Lavender, lightly and carelessly, little thinking what importance the old man immediately and gladly put upon the admission.

From that moment, Lavender, though unconscious of what had happened, had nothing to fear in the way of opposition from Sheila’s father. If he had there and then boldly asked Mackenzie for his daughter, the old man would have given his consent freely, and bade Lavender to go to Sheila herself.

And so they set sail, one pleasant afternoon, from Borvapost, and the light wind that ruffled the blue of Loch Roag gently filled the mainsail of the Maighdean-mhara as she lightly ran down the tortuous channel.

“I don’t like to go away from Borva,” said Lavender, in a low voice, to Sheila, “but I might have been leaving the island with greater regret, for, you know, I expect to be back soon.”

“We shall always be glad to see you,” said the girl; although he would rather have had her say “I” than “we,” there was something in the tone of her voice that contented him.

At Garra-na-hina, Mackenzie pointed out with a great interest to Lavender a tall man who was going down through some meadows to the Amhuinn Dhubh, “the Black River.” He had a long rod over his shoulder, and behind him, at some distance, followed a shorter man, who carried a gaff and landing-net. Mackenzie anxiously explained to Lavender that the tall figure was that of an Englishman. Lavender accepted the statement. But would he not go down to the river and make his acquaintance! Lavender could not understand why he should be expected to take so great an interest in an ordinary English sportsman.

“Ferry well,” said Mackenzie, a trifle disappointed, “but you would find several of the English in the Lewis if you was living here.”

These two days in Stornoway were very pleasant. On their previous visit to the town, Mackenzie had given up much of his time to business affairs, and was a good deal away from his guests, but now he devoted himself to making them particularly comfortable in the place, and amusing them in every possible way. He introduced Lavender, in especial, to all his friends there, and was most anxious to impress on the young man that life in Stornoway was, on the whole, rather a brilliant affair. Then was there a finer point from which you could start at will for Inverness, Oban, and such great centres of civilization? Very soon there would even be a telegraphic cable laid to the mainland. Was Mr. Lavender aware that frequently you could see the Sutherland hills from this very town of Stornoway?

There Sheila laughed, and Lavender, who kept watching her face always, to read all her fancies and sentiments and wishes in the shifting lights of it, immediately demanded an explanation.

“It is no good thing,” said Sheila, “to see the Sutherland hills often, for when you see them it means to rain.”

But Lavender had not been taught to fear the rain of the Western Isles. The weather seemed to have conspired with Mackenzie to charm the young man with the island. At this moment, for example, they were driving away from Stornoway along the side of the great bay Northward, until it finds its furtherest promontory in Tiumpan Head. What magnificence of color shone around them in the hot sunlight! Where the ruffled blue sea came near the long sweep of yellow sand, it grew to a bright transparent green. The splendid curve of the bay showed a gleaming line of white where the waves broke in masses of hissing foam; and beyond that curve again long promontories of dark red conglomerate ran out into the darker waters of the sea, with their summits shining with the bright sea-grass. Here, close at hand, were warm meadows, with calves and lambs cropping the sweet-scented Dutch clover. A few huts, shaped like bee-hives, stood by the roadside, close by some deep peat cuttings. There was a cutting in the yellow sand of the bay for the pulling up of the captured whales. Now and then you could see a solan dart down from the blue heavens into the deep blue of the sea, sending up a spurt of water twenty feet high as he disappeared; and far onward between the red precipices and the ruffled waters herds of white sea-fowl flew from crag to crag, or dropped upon the sea to rise and fall with the waves.

At the small hamlet of Gress they got a large rowing-boat manned by sturdy fishermen, and set out to explore the great caves formed in the mighty wall of conglomerate that here fronts the sea. The wild-fowl flew about them, screaming and yelling at being disturbed. The long swell of the sea lifted the boat, passed from under it, and went on with majestic force to crash on the glowing red crags and send jets of foam flying up the face of them. They captured one of the sea-birds – a young thing about as big as a hen, with staring eyes, scant feathers, and a long beak with which it instinctively tried to bite its enemies – and the parents of it kept swooping down over the boat, uttering shrill cries, until their offspring was restored to the surface of the water. They went into the great loud-sounding caverns, getting a new impression of the extraordinary clearness of the sea-water by the depth at which the bottom was visible; and here their shouts occasionally called up from some dim twilight recess, far in among the perilous rocks, the head of a young seal which would instantly dive again and be seen no more. They watched the salmon splash in the shallower creeks where the sea had scooped out a tiny bay of ruddy sand, and then a slowly rolling porpoise would show his black back above the water and silently disappear again. All this was pleasant enough on a pleasant morning, in fresh sea-air and sunlight, in holiday time; and was there any reason, Mackenzie may fairly have thought, why this young man, if he did marry Sheila, should not come and live in a place where so much healthy amusement was to be found?

And in the evening, too, when they had climbed to the top of the hills on the South of Stornoway harbor, did not the little town look sufficiently picturesque, with its white houses, its shipping, its great castle and plantations lying in shadow under the green of the Eastern sky? Then away to the West what a strange picture presented itself! Thick bands of gray cloud lay across the sky, and the sunlight from behind them sent down great rays of misty yellow on the endless miles of moor. But how was it that, as these shafts of sunlight struck on the far and successive ridges of the moorland, each long undulation seemed to become transparent, and all the island appeared to consist of great golden-brown shells heaped up behind each other, with the sunlight shining through?

“I have tried a good many new effects since coming up here,” said Lavender, “but I shall not try that.”

“Oh, it iss nothing – it iss nothing at all,” said Mackenzie with a stupid air of unconcern. “There iss much more beautiful things than that in the island, but you will hef need of a ferry long time before you will find it all out. That – that iss nothing at all.”

“You will perhaps make a picture of it some other time,” said Sheila, with her eyes cast down, and as he was standing by her at the time, he took her hand and pressed it and said, “I hope so.”

Then, that night. Did not every hour produce some new and wonderful scene, or was it only that each minute grew to be so precious, and that the enchantment of Sheila’s presence filled the air around him? There was no moon, but the stars shone over the bay and the harbor and the dusky hills beyond the castle. Every few seconds the light-house at Arnish Point sent out its wild glare of orange fire into the heart of the clear darkness, and then as suddenly faded out and left the eyes too bewildered to make out the configuration of the rocks. All over the Northwest there still remained the pale glow of the twilight, and somehow Lavender seemed to think that that strange glow belonged to Sheila’s home in the West, and that the people in Stornoway knew nothing of the wonders of Loch Roag and of the nights there. Was he likely ever to forget?

“Good-bye, Sheila,” he said next morning, when the last signal had been given and the Clansman was about to move from her moorings.

She had bidden good-bye to Ingram already, but somehow she could not speak to his companion just at this last moment. She pressed his hand and turned away, and went ashore with her father. Then the big steamer throbbed its way out of the harbor, and by and by the island of Lewis lay but as a thin blue cloud along the horizon; and who could tell that human beings, with strange hopes and fancies and griefs, were hidden away in that pale line of vapor?