CHAPTER XIV
WANDERINGS IN THE WEST
On a singularly clear and brilliant morning in February a large and heavy screw-steamer slowly crept out of the land-locked little harbour of Portree, and steadily made away for the north. For her the squally Ben Inivaig at the mouth of the channel had no terrors; indeed, what could any vessel fear on such a morning as this? When they got well out into Raasay Sound, it seemed as if the whole world had been changed into a pantomime-scene. The sky was calm and cloudless; the sea was as glass and of the most dazzling blue; and those masses of white that appeared on that perfect mirror were the reflections of the snow-powdered islands – Raasay, and Fladda, and South Rona – that gleamed and shone and sparkled there in the sun. Not often are the wide waters of the Minch so fair and calm in mid-winter; the more usual thing is northerly gales, with black seas thundering by into Loch Staffin and Kilmaluag Bay, or breaking into sheets and spouts of foam along the headlands of Aird Point and Ru Hunish. This was as a holiday trip, but for the sharp cold. The islands were white as a solan's wing – save along the shores; the sea was of a sapphire blue; and when they got up by Rona light behold the distant snow-crowned hills of Ross and Cromarty rose faint and spectral and wonderful into the pale and summer-like sky. The men sung 'Fhir a Bhata' as they scoured the brass and scrubbed the decks; the passengers marched up and down, clapping their hands to keep them warm; and ever as the heavy steamer forged on its way, the world of blue sea and sky and snow-white hills opened out before them, until some declared at last that in the far north they could make out the Shiant Isles.
Now under shelter of the companion-way leading down into the saloon three men were standing, and two of them were engaged in an animated conversation. The third, who was Mr. Hodson, merely looked on and listened, a little amused, apparently. One of the others – a tall, heavy-bearded, north-Highland-looking man – was Mr. Carmichael, a famous estate-agent in London, who had run two or three commissions together as an excuse for this midwinter trip. The third member of the group was Ronald, who was hammering away in his usual dogmatic fashion.
'Pedigree? The pride of having ancestors?' he was saying. 'Why, there's not a man alive whose ancestry does not stretch as far back as any other man's ancestry. Take it any way ye like: if Adam was our grandfather, then we're all his grandchildren; or if we are descended from a jellyfish or a monkey, the line is of the same length for all of us – for dukes, and kings, and herd-laddies. The only difference is this, that some know the names of their forefathers, and some don't; and the presumption is that the man whose people have left no story behind them is come of a more moral, useful, sober, hard-working race than the man whose forbears were famous cut-throats in the middle ages, or dishonest lawyers, or king's favourites. It's plain John Smith that has made up the wealth of this country; and that has built her ships for her, and defended her, and put her where she is; and John Smith had his ancestors at Cressy and Agincourt as well as the rest – ay, and they had the bulk of the fighting to do, I'll be bound; but I think none the worse of him because he cannot tell you their names or plaster his walls with coats of arms. However, it's idle talking about a matter of sentiment, and that's the fact; and so, if you'll excuse me, I'll just go down into the cabin, and write a couple o' letters.'
A minute or so after he had disappeared, Mr. Hodson (who looked miserably cold, to tell the truth, though he was wrapped from head to heel in voluminous furs) motioned his companion to come a few yards aside, so that they could talk without fear of being overheard.
'Now,' said he, in his slow and distinct way, 'now we are alone, I want you to tell me what you think of that young man.'
'I don't like his politics,' was the prompt and blunt answer.
'No more do I,' said Mr. Hodson coolly. 'But for another reason. You call him a Radical, I call him a Tory. But no matter – I don't mean about politics. Politics? – who but a fool bothers his head about politics – unless he can make money out of them? No, I mean something more practical than that. Here have you and he been together these three days, talking about the one subject nearly all the time – I mean the management of these Highland estates, and the nature of the ground, and what should be done, and all that. Well, now, you are a man of great experience; and I want you to tell me what you think of this young fellow. I want you to tell me honestly; and it will be in strict confidence, I assure you. Now, has he got a good solid grip of the thing? Does he know? Does he catch on? Is he safe? Is he to be trusted? – '
'Oh, there, there, there!' said the big estate-agent, interrupting through mere good-nature. 'That's quite another thing – quite another thing. I've not a word to say against him there – no, quite the other way – a shrewd-headed, capable fellow he is, with a groundwork of practical knowledge that no man ever yet got out of books. As sharp-eyed a fellow as I have come across for many a day – didn't you see how he guessed at the weak points of that Mull place before ever he set foot ashore? Quick at figures, too – oh yes, yes, a capable fellow I call him; he has been posting himself up, I can see; but it's where his practical knowledge comes in that he's of value. When it's a question of vineries, or something like that, then he goes by the book – that's useless.'
Mr. Hodson listened in silence; and his manner showed nothing.
'I have been thinking he would be a valuable man for me,' the agent said presently.
'In your office?' said Mr. Hodson, raising his eyes.
'Yes. And for this reason. You see, if he would only keep away from those d – d politics of his, he is a very good-natured fellow, and he has got an off-hand way with him that makes shepherds, and keepers, and people of that kind friendly; the result is that he gets all the information that he wants – and that isn't always an easy thing to get. Now if I had a man like that in my office, whom I could send with a client thinking of purchasing an estate – to advise him – to get at the truth – and to be an intelligent and agreeable travelling-companion at the same time – that would be a useful thing.'
'Say, now,' continued Mr. Hodson (who was attending mostly to his own meditations), 'do you think, from what you've seen of this young man, that he has the knowledge and business-capacity to be overseer – factor, you call it, don't you? – of an estate – not a large estate, but perhaps about the size of the one we saw yesterday or this one we are going to now? Would he go the right way about it? Would he understand what had to be done – I mean, in improving the land, and getting the most out of it – '
Mr. Carmichael laughed.
'It's not a fair question,' said he. 'Your friend Strang and I are too much of one opinion – ay, on every point we're agreed – for many's the long talk we've had over the matter.'
'I know – I know,' Mr. Hodson said. 'Though I was only half-listening; for when you got to feu-duties and public burdens and things of that kind I lost my reckoning. But you say that you and Strang are agreed as to the proper way of managing a Highland estate: very well: assuming your theories to be correct, is he capable of carrying them out?'
'I think so – I should say undoubtedly – I don't think I would myself hesitate about trusting him with such a place – that is, when I had made sufficient inquiries about his character, and got some money guarantee about his stewardship. But then, you see, Mr. Hodson, I'm afraid, if you were to let Strang go his own way in working up an estate, so as to get the most marketable value into it, you and he would have different opinions at the outset. I mean with such an estate as you would find over there,' he added, indicating with his finger the long stretch of wild and mountainous country they were approaching. 'On rough and hilly land like that, in nine cases out of ten, you may depend on it, it's foresting that pays.'
'But that's settled,' Mr. Hodson retorted rather sharply. 'I have already told you, and Strang too, that if I buy a place up here I will not have a stag or a hind from end to end of it.'
'Faith, they're things easy to get rid of,' the other said good-naturedly. 'They'll not elbow you into the ditch if you meet them on the road.'
'No; I have heard too much. Why, you yourself said that the very name of American stank in the nostrils of the Highlanders.'
'Can you wonder?' said Mr. Carmichael quietly: they had been talking the night before of certain notorious doings, on the part of an American lessee, which were provoking much newspaper comment at the time.
'Well, what I say is this – if I buy a place in the Highlands – and no one can compel me to buy it – it is merely a fancy I have had for two or three years back, and I can give it up if I choose – but what I say is, if I do buy a place in the Highlands, I will hold it on such conditions that I shall be able to bring my family to live on it, and that I shall be able to leave it to my boy without shame. I will not associate myself with a system that has wrought such cruelty and tyranny. No; I will not allow a single acre to be forested.'
'There's such a quantity of the land good for nothing but deer,' Mr. Carmichael said, almost plaintively. 'If you only saw it! – you're going now by what the newspaper writers say – people who never were near a deer-forest in their lives.'
'Good for nothing but deer? But what about the black cattle that Ronald – that Strang – is always talking about?' was the retort – and Mr. Hodson showed a very unusual vehemence, or, at least, impatience. 'Well, I don't care. That has got nothing to do with me. But it has got to do with my factor, or overseer, or whatever he is. And between him and me this is how it will lie: "If you can't work my estate, big or small as it may be, without putting the main part of it under deer, and beginning to filch grazings here and there, and driving the crofters down to the sea-shore, and preventing a harmless traveller from having a Sunday walk over the hills, then out you go. You may be fit for some other place: not for mine." Then he went on in a milder strain. 'And Strang knows that very well. No doubt, if I were to put him in a position of trust like that, he might be ambitious to give a good account of his stewardship; I think, very likely he would be, for he's a young man; but if I buy a place in the Highlands, it will have to be managed as I wish it to be managed. When I said that I wanted the most made out of the land, I did not mean the most money. No. I should be glad to have four per cent for my investment; if I can't have that, I should be content with three; but it is not as a commercial speculation that I shall go into the affair, if I go into it at all. My wants are simple enough. As I tell you, I admire the beautiful, wild country; I like the people – what little I have seen of them; and if I can get a picturesque bit of territory somewhere along this western coast, I should like to give my family a kind of foothold in Europe, and I dare say my boy might be glad to spend his autumns here, and have a turn at the grouse. But for the most part of the time the place would be under control of the factor; and I want a factor who will work the estate under certain specified conditions. First, no foresting. Then I would have the crofts revalued – as fairly as might be; no crofter to be liable to removal who paid his rent. The sheep-farms would go by their market value, though I would not willingly disturb any tenant; however, in that case, I should be inclined to try Strang's plan of having those black cattle on my own account. I would have the cottars taken away from the crofts (allowing for the rent paid to the crofter, for that would be but fair, when the value of the crofts was settled), and I would build for them a model village, which you might look upon as a philanthropic fad of my own, to be paid for separately. No gratuitous grazing anywhere to crofter or cottar; that is but the parent of subsequent squabbles. Then I would have all the draining and planting and improving of the estate done by the local hands, so far as that was practicable. And then I should want four per cent return on the purchase-money; and I should not be much disappointed with three; and perhaps (though I would not admit this to anybody) if I saw the little community thriving and satisfied – and reckoning also the honour and glory of my being a king on my own small domain – I might even be content with two per cent. Now, Mr. Carmichael, is this practicable? And is this young fellow the man to undertake it? I would make it worth his while. I should not like to say anything about payment by results or percentage on profits; that might tempt him to screw it out of the poorer people when he was left master – though he does not talk like that kind of a fellow. I wrote to Lord Ailine about him; and got the best of characters. I went and saw the old man who is coaching him for that forestry examination; he is quite confident about the result – not that I care much about that myself. What do you say now? You ought to be able to judge.'
Mr. Carmichael hesitated.
'If you got the estate at a fair price,' he said at length, 'it might be practicable, though these improvement schemes suck in money as a sponge sucks in water. And as for this young fellow – well, I should think he would be just the man for the place – active, energetic, shrewd-headed, and a pretty good hand at managing folk, as I should guess. But, you know, before giving any one an important post like that – and especially with your going back to America for the best part of every year – I think you ought to have some sort of money guarantee as a kind of safeguard. It's usual. God forbid I should suggest anything against the lad – he's as honest looking as my own two boys, and I can say no more than that – still, business is business. A couple of sureties, now, of £500 apiece, might be sufficient.'
'It's usual?' repeated Mr. Hodson absently. 'Yes, I suppose it is. Pretty hard on a young fellow, though, if he can't find the sureties. A thousand pounds is a big figure for one in his position. He has told me about his father and his brother: they're not in it, anyhow – both of them with hardly a sixpence to spare. However, it's no use talking about it until we see whether this place here is satisfactory; and even then don't say a word about it to him; for if some such post were to be offered to him – and if the securities were all right and so forth – it has got to be given to him as a little present from an American young lady, if you can call it a present when you merely propose to pay a man a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. And I am less hopeful now; the three places we have looked at were clearly out of the question; and my Highland mansion may prove to be a castle in Spain after all.'
Late that night they reached their destination; and early next morning at the door of the hotel – which looked strangely deserted amid the wintry landscape – a waggonette was waiting for them, and also the agent for the estate they were going to inspect. They started almost directly; and a long and desperately cold drive it proved to be; Mr. Hodson, for one, was glad enough when they dismounted at the keeper's cottage where their tramp over the ground was to begin – he did not care how rough the country might be, so long as he could keep moving briskly.
Now it had been very clear during these past few days that Ronald had not the slightest suspicion that Mr. Hodson, in contemplating the purchase of a Highland estate (which was an old project of his), had also in his eye some scheme for Ronald's own advancement. All the way through he had been endeavouring to spy out the nakedness of the land, and to demonstrate its shortcomings. He considered that was his business. Mr. Hodson had engaged him – at what he considered the munificent terms of a guinea a day and all expenses paid – to come and give his advice; and he deemed it his duty to find out everything, especially whatever was detrimental, about such places as they visited, so that there should be no swindling bargain. And so on this Ross-shire estate of Balnavrain, he was proving himself a hard critic. This was hopelessly bleak; that was worthless bog-land; – why was there no fencing along those cliffs? – where were the roads for the peats? – who had had control over the burning of the heather? – wasn't it strange that all along these tops they had not put up more than a couple of coveys of grouse, a hare or two, and a single ptarmigan? But all at once, when they had toiled across this unpromising and hilly wilderness, they came upon a scene of the most startling beauty – for now they were looking down and out on the western sea, that was a motionless mirror of blue and white; and near them was a wall of picturesquely wooded cliffs; and below that again, and sloping to the shore, a series of natural plateaus and carefully planted enclosures; while stretching away inland was a fertile valley, with smart farmhouses, and snug clumps of trees, and a meandering river that had salmon obviously written on every square foot of its partially frozen surface.
'What a situation for a house!' was Ronald's involuntary exclamation – as he looked down on the sheltered semicircle below him, guarded on the east and north by the cliffs, and facing the shining west.
'I thought ye would say that,' the agent said, with a quiet smile. 'It's many's the time I've heard Sir James say he would give £20,000 if he could bring the Castle there; and he was aye minded to build there – ay, even to the day of his death, poor man; but then the Colonel, when the place came to him, said no; he would rather sell Balnavrain; and maist likely the purchaser would be for building a house to his ain mind.'
'And a most sensible notion too,' Mr. Hodson said. 'But look here, my friend: you've brought us up to a kind of Pisgah; I would rather go down into that land of Gilead, and see what the farmhouses are like.'
'Ay, but I brought ye here because it's about the best place for giving ye an idea of the marches,' said the man imperturbably, for he knew his own business better than the stranger. 'Do ye see the burn away over there beyond the farmhouse?'
'Yes, yes.'
'Well, that's the Balnavrain march right up to the top; and then the Duchess runs all along the sky-line yonder – to the black scaur.'
'You don't say!' observed Mr. Hodson. 'I never heard of a Duchess doing anything so extraordinary.'
'But we march with the Duchess,' said the other, a little bewildered.
'That's a little more decorous, anyway. Well now, I suppose we can make all that out on the Ordnance Survey map when we get back to the hotel. I'm for getting down into the valley – to have a look around; I take it that if I lived here I shouldn't spend all the time on a mountain-top.'
Well, the long and the short of it was that, after having had two or three hours of laborious and diligent tramping and inspection and questioning and explanation, and after having been entertained with a comfortable meal of oat-cake and hot broth and boiled beef at a hospitable farmhouse, they set out again on their cold drive back to the hotel, where a long business conversation went on all the evening, during dinner and after dinner. It was very curious how each of these three brought this or that objection to the place – as if bound to do so; and how the fascination of the mere site of it had so clearly captivated them none the less. Of course, nothing conclusive was said or done that night; but, despite these deprecatory pleas, there was a kind of tacit and general admission that Balnavrain, with proper supervision and attention to the possibilities offered by its different altitudes, might be made into a very admirable little estate, with a dwelling-house on it second in point of situation to none on the whole western sea-board of the Highlands.
'Ronald,' said Mr. Hodson that evening, when Mr. Carmichael had gone off to bed (he was making for the south early in the morning), 'we have had some hard days' work; why should we let Loch Naver lie idle? I suppose we could drive from here somehow? Let us start off to-morrow; and we'll have a week's salmon-fishing.'
'To Inver-Mudal?' he said – and he turned quite pale.
'Yes, yes, why not?' Mr. Hodson answered. But he had noticed that strange look that had come across the younger man's face; and he attributed it to a wrong cause. 'Oh, it will not take up so much of your time,' he continued. 'Mr. Weems declares you must have your certificate as a matter of course. And as for expenses – the present arrangement must go on, naturally, until you get back to Glasgow. What is a week, man? Indeed, I will take no denial.'
And Ronald could not answer. To Inver-Mudal? – to meet the girl whom he dared not acknowledge to be his wife? – and with his future as hopelessly uncertain as ever. Once or twice he was almost driven to make a confession to this stranger, who seemed so frankly interested in him and his affairs; but no; he could not do that; and he went to bed wondering with what strange look in her eyes Meenie would find him in Inver-Mudal – if he found it impossible to resist the temptation of being once more within sight of her, and within hearing of the sound of her voice.