CHAPTER XIV.
A SUNDAY IN FAR SOLITUDES
Mary Avon is seated all alone on deck, looking rather wistfully around her at this solitary Loch-na-Chill – that is, the Loch of the Burying Place. It is Sunday morning, and there is a more than Sabbath peace dwelling over sea and shore. Not a ripple on the glassy sea; a pale haze of sunshine on the islands in the south; a stillness as of death along the low-lying coast. A seal rises to the surface of the calm sea, and regards her for a moment with his soft black eyes; then slowly subsides. She has not seen him; she is looking far away.
Then a soft step is heard on the companion; and the manner of the girl instantly changes. Are these tears that she hastily brushes aside? But her face is all smiles to welcome her friend. She declares that she is charmed with the still beauty of this remote and solitary loch.
Then other figures appear; and at last we are all summoned on deck for morning service. It is not an elaborate ceremony; there are no candles, or genuflexions, or embroidered altar-cloths. But the Laird has put on a black frock coat, and the men have put aside their scarlet cowls and wear smart sailor-looking cloth caps. Then the Laird gravely rises, and opens his book.
Sometimes, it is true, our good friend has almost driven us to take notice of his accent, and we have had our little jokes on board about it; but you do not pay much heed to these peculiarities when the strong and resonant voice – amid the strange silence of this Loch of the Burying Place – reads out the 103rd Psalm: "Like as a father peetieth his children," he may say; but one does not heed that. And who is to notice that, as he comes to these words, he lifts his eyes from the book and fixes them for a moment on Mary Avon's downcast face? "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children's children." Then, when he had finished the Psalm, he turned to the New Testament, and read in the same slow and reverent manner the 6th chapter of Matthew. This concluded the service; it was not an elaborate one.
Then, about an hour afterwards, the Laird, on being appealed to by his hostess, gave it as his opinion that there would be no Sabbath desecration at all in our going ashore to examine the ruins of what appeared to be an ancient chapel, which we could make out by the aid of our glasses on the green slope above the rocks. And as our young friends – Angus and the Youth – idly paddled us away from the yacht, the Laird began to apologise to his hostess for not having lengthened the service by the exposition of some chosen text.
"Ye see, ma'am," he observed, "some are gifted in that way, and some not. My father, now, had an amazing power of expounding and explaining – I am sure there was nothing in
Hutcheson's Exposeetion
he had not in his memory. A very famous man he was in those days as an Anti-Lifter – very famous; there were few who could argue with him on that memorable point."
"But what did you call him, sir?" asks his hostess, with some vague notion that the Laird's father had lived in the days of body-snatchers.
"An Anti-Lifter: it was a famous controversy; but ye are too young to remember of it perhaps. And now in these days we are more tolerant, and rightly so; I do not care whether the minister lifts the sacramental bread before distribution or not, now that there is no chance of Popery getting into our Presbyterian Church in disguise. It is the speerit, not the form, that is of importance: our Church authoritatively declares that the efficacy of the sacraments depends not 'upon any virtue in them or in him that doth administer them.' Aye; that is the cardinal truth. But in those days they considered it right to guard against Popery in every manner; and my father was a prominent Anti-Lifter; and well would he argue and expound on that and most other doctrinal subjects. But I have not much gift that way," added the Laird, modestly; quite forgetting with what clearness he had put before us the chief features of the great Semple case.
"I don't think you have anything to regret, sir," said our young Doctor, as he carelessly worked the oar with one hand, "that you did not bother the brains of John and his men with any exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. Isn't it an odd thing that the common fishermen and boatmen of the Sea of Galilee understood the message Christ brought them just at once? and now a days, when we have millions of churches built, and millions of money being spent, and tons upon tons of sermons being written every year, we seem only to get further and further into confusion and chaos. Fancy the great army of able-bodied men that go on expounding and expounding; and the learning and time and trouble they bestow on their work; and scarcely any two of them agreed; while the people who listen to them are all in a fog. Simon Peter, and Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee, must have been men of the most extraordinary intellect. They understood at once; they were commissioned to teach; and they had not even a Shorter Catechism to go by."
The Laird looked at him doubtfully. He did not know whether to recognise in him a true ally or not. However, the mention of the Shorter Catechism seemed to suggest solid ground; and he was just about entering into the question of the Subordinate Standards when an exclamation of rage on the part of his nephew startled us. That handsome lad, during all this theological discussion, had been keeping a watchful and matter-of-fact eye on a number of birds on the shore; and now that we were quite close to the sandy promontory, he had recognised them.
"Look! look!" he said, in tones of mingled eagerness and disappointment. "Golden plovers, every one of them! Isn't it too bad? It's always like this on Sunday. I will bet you won't get within half a mile of them to-morrow!"
And he refused to be consoled as we landed on the sandy shore; and found the golden-dusted, long-legged birds running along before us, or flitting from patch to patch of the moist greensward. We had to leave him behind in moody contemplation as we left the shore and scrambled up the rugged and rocky slope to the ruins of this solitary little chapel.
There was an air of repose and silence about these crumbling walls and rusted gates that was in consonance with a habitation of the dead. And first of all, outside, we came upon an upright Iona cross, elaborately carved with strange figures of men and beasts. But inside the small building, lying prostrate among the grass and weeds, there was a collection of those memorials that would have made an antiquarian's heart leap for joy. It is to be feared that our guesses about the meaning of the emblems on the tombstones were of a crude and superficial character. Were these Irish chiefs, those stone figures with the long sword and the harp beside them? Was the recurrent shamrock a national or religious emblem? And why was the effigy of this ancient worthy accompanied by a pair of pincers, an object that looked like a tooth-comb, and a winged griffin? Again, outside but still within the sacred walls, we came upon still further tombs of warriors, most of them hidden among the long grass; and here and there we tried to brush the weeds away. It was no bad occupation for a Sunday morning, in this still and lonely burial-place above the wide seas.
On going on board again we learned from John of Skye that there were many traces of an ancient ecclesiastical colonisation about this coast; and that in especial there were a ruined chapel and other remains on one of a small group of islands that we could see on the southern horizon. Accordingly, after luncheon, we fitted out an expedition to explore that distant island. The Youth was particularly anxious to examine these ecclesiastical remains; he did not explain to everybody that he had received from Captain John a hint that the shores of this sainted island swarmed with seals.
And now the gig is shoved off; the four oars strike the glassy water; and away we go in search of the summer isles in the south. The Laird settles himself comfortably in the stern; it seems but natural that he should take Mary Avon's hand in his, just as if she were a little child.
"And ye must know, Miss Mary," he says, quite cheerfully, "that if ever ye should come to live in Scotland, ye will not be persecuted with our theology. No, no; far from it; we respect every one's religion, if it is sincere; though we cling to our own. And why should we not cling to it, and guard it from error? We have had to fight for our civil and religious leeberties inch by inch, foot by foot; and we have won. The blood of the saints has not been shed in vain. The cry of the dying and wounded on many a Lanarkshire moor – when the cavalry were riding about, and hewing and slaughtering – was not wasted on the air! The Lord heard, and answered. And we do well to guard what we have gained; and, if need were, there are plenty of Scotsmen alive at this day who would freely spend their lives in defending their own releegion. But ye need not fear. These are the days of great toleration. Ye might live in Scotland all your life, and not hear an ill word said of the Episcopal Church!"
After having given this solemn assurance the Laird cast a glance of sly humour at Angus Sutherland.
"I will confess," said he, "when Dr. Sutherland brought that up this morning about Peter and Andrew, and James and John, I was a bit put out. But then," he added, triumphantly, "ye must remember that in those days they had not the inseedious attacks of Prelacy to guard against. There was no need for them to erect bulwarks of the faith. But in our time it is different, or rather it has been different. I am glad to think that we of the Scotch Church are emancipated from the fear of Rome; and I am of opeenion that with the advancing times they are in the right who advocate a little moderation in the way of applying and exacting the Standards. No, no; I am not for bigotry. I assure ye, Miss Mary, ye will find far fewer bigots in Scotland than people say."
"I have not met any, sir," remarks Miss Mary.
"I tell ye what," said he, solemnly; "I am told on good authority that there is a movement among the U. P. Presbytery to send up to the Synod a sort of memorial with regard to the Subordinate Standards – that is, ye know, the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms – just hinting, in a mild sort of way, that these are of human composition, and necessarily imperfect; and that a little amount of – of – "
The Laird could not bring himself to pronounce the word "laxity." He stammered and hesitated, and at last said —
"Well; a little judeecious liberality of construction – do ye see? – on certain points is admissible, while clearly defining other points on which the Church will not admit of question. However, as I was saying, we have little fear of Popery in the Presbyterian Church now; and ye would have no need to fear it in your English Church if the English people were not so sorely wanting in humour. If they had any sense of fun they would have laughed those millinery, play-acting people out o' their Church long ago – "
But at this moment it suddenly strikes the Laird that a fair proportion of the people he is addressing are of the despised English race; and he hastily puts in a disclaimer.
"I meant the clergy, of course," says he, most unblushingly, "the English clergy, as having no sense of humour at all – none at all. Dear me, what a stupid man I met at Dunoon last year! There were some people on board the steamer talking about Homesh – ye know, he was known to every man who travelled up and down the Clyde – and they told the English clergyman about Homesh wishing he was a stot. 'Wishing he was a what?' says he. Would ye believe it, it took about ten meenutes to explain the story to him bit by bit; and at the end of it his face was as blank as a bannock before it is put on the girdle!"
We could see the laughter brimming in the Laird's eyes; he was thinking either of the stot or some other story about Homesh. But his reverence for Sunday prevailed. He fell back on the Standards; and was most anxious to assure Miss Avon that, if ever she were to live in Scotland, she would suffer no persecution at all, even though she still determined to belong to the Episcopal Church.
"We have none in the neighbourhood of Strathgovan," he remarked, quite simply; "but ye could easily drive in to Glasgow" – and he did not notice the quick look of surprise and inquiry that Angus Sutherland immediately directed from the one to the other. But Mary Avon was poking down.
It was a long pull; but by and by the features of the distant island became clearer; and we made out an indentation that probably meant a creek of some sort. But what was our surprise, as we drew nearer and nearer to what we supposed to be an uninhabited island, to find the topmast of a vessel appearing over some rocks that guard the entrance to the bay? As we pulled into the still waters, and passed the heavy black smack lying at anchor, perhaps the two solitary creatures in charge of her were no less surprised at the appearance of strangers in these lonely waters. They came ashore just as we landed. They explained, in more or less imperfect English, that they were lobster-fishers; and that this was a convenient haven tor their smack, while they pulled in their small boat round the shores to look after the traps. And if – when the Laird was not looking – his hostess privately negotiated for the sale of half-a-dozen live lobsters, and if young Smith also took a quiet opportunity of inquiring about the favourite resorts of the seals; what then? Mice will play when they get the chance. The Laird was walking on with Mary Avon; and was telling her about the Culdees.
And all the time we wandered about the deserted island, and explored its ruins, and went round its bays, the girl kept almost exclusively with the Laird, or with her other and gentle friend; and Angus had but little chance of talking to her or walking with her. He was left pretty much alone. Perhaps he was not greatly interested in the ecclesiastical remains. But he elicited from the two lobster-fishers that the hay scattered on the floor of the chapel was put there by fishermen, who used the place to sleep in when they came to the island. And they showed him the curious tombstone of the saint, with its sculptured elephant and man on horseback. Then he went away by himself to trace out the remains of a former civilisation on the island; the withered stumps of a blackthorn hedge, and the abundant nettle. A big rat ran out; the only visible tenant of the crumbled habitation.
Meanwhile the others had climbed to the summit of the central hill; and behold! all around the smooth bays were black and shining objects, like the bladders used on fishermen's nets. But these moved this way and that; sometimes there was a big splash as one disappeared. The Youth sate and regarded this splendid hunting-ground with a breathless interest.
"I'm thinking ye ought to get your sealskin to-morrow, Miss Mary," says the Laird, for once descending to worldly things.
"Oh, I hope no one will be shot for me!" she said. "They are such gentle creatures."
"But young men will be young men, ye know," said he, cheerfully. "When I was Howard's age, and knew I had a gun within reach, a sight like that would have made my heart jump."
"Yes," said the nephew; "but you never do have a sight like that when you have a rifle within reach."
"Wait till to-morrow – wait till to-morrow," said the Laird, cheerfully. "And now we will go down to the boat. It is a long pull back to the yacht."
But the Laird's nephew got even more savage as we rowed back in the calm, pale twilight. Those wild duck would go whirring by within easy shot – apparently making away to the solitudes of Loch Swen. Then that greyish-yellow thing on the rocks – could it be a sheep? We watched it for several minutes, as the gig went by in the dusk; then, with a heavy plunge or two, the seal floundered down and into the water. The splash echoed through the silence.
"Did you ever see the like of that?" the Youth exclaimed, mortified beyond endurance. "Did you ever? As big as a cow! And as sure as you get such a chance, it is Sunday!"
"I am very glad," says Miss Avon. "I hope no one will shoot a seal on my account."
"The seal ought to be proud to have such a fate," said the Laird, gallantly. "Ye are saving him from a miserable and lingering death of cold, or hunger, or old age. And whereas in that case nobody would care anything or see anything more about him, ye give him a sort of immortality in your dining-room, and ye are never done admiring him. A proud fellow he ought to be. And if the seals about here are no very fine in their skins, still it would be a curiosity, and at present we have not one at all at Denny-mains."
Again this reference to Denny-mains: Angus Sutherland glanced from one to the other; but what could he see in the dusk?
Then we got back to the yacht: what a huge grey ghost she looked in the gloom! And as we were all waiting to get down the companion, Angus Sutherland put his hand on his hostess's arm, and stayed her.
"You must be wrong," said he, simply. "I have offended her somehow. She has not spoken ten words to me to-day."
CHAPTER XV.
HIDDEN SPRINGS
"Well, perhaps it is better, after all," says a certain person, during one of those opportunities for brief conjugal confidences that are somewhat rare on board ship. She sighs as she speaks. "I thought it was going to be otherwise. But it will be all the better for Angus not to marry for some years to come. He has a great future before him; and a wife would really be an encumbrance. Young professional men should never marry; their circumstances keep on improving, but they can't improve their wives."
All this is very clear and sensible. It is not always that this person talks in so matter-of-fact a way. If, however, everything has turned out for the best, why this sudden asperity with which she adds —
"But I did not expect it of Mary."
And then again —
"She might at least be civil to him."
"She is not uncivil to him. She only avoids him."
"I consider that her open preference for Howard Smith is just a little bit too ostentatious," she says, in rather an injured way. "Indeed, if it comes to that, she would appear to prefer the Laird to either of them. Any stranger would think she wanted to marry Denny-mains himself."
"Has it ever occurred to you," is the respectful question, "that a young woman – say once in a century – may be in that state of mind in which she would prefer not to marry anybody?"
Abashed? Not a bit of it! There is a calm air of superiority on her face: she is above trifles and taunts.
"If unmarried women had any sense," she says, "that would be their normal state of mind."
And she might have gone on enlarging on this text, only that at this moment Mary Avon comes along from the ladies' cabin; and the morning greetings take place between the two women. Is it only a suspicion that there is a touch of coldness in the elder woman's manner? Is it possible that her love for Mary Avon may be decreasing by ever so little a bit?
Then Angus comes down the companion: he has got some wild flowers; he has been ashore. And surely he ought to give them to the younger of the two women: she is of the age when such pretty compliments are a natural thing. But no. The flowers are for his hostess – for the decoration of her table; and Mary Avon does not look up as they are handed along.
Then young Mr. Smith makes his appearance; he has been ashore too. And his complaints and protests fill the air.
"Didn't I tell you?" he says, appealing more especially to the women-folk for sympathy. "Didn't I tell you? You saw all those golden plover yesterday, and the wild duck further up the loch: there is not a sign of one of them! I knew it would be so. As sure as Monday begins, you never get a chance! I will undertake to say that when we get to those islands where all the seals were yesterday, we sha'n't see one to-day!"
"But are we to stop here a whole day in order to let you go and shoot seals?" says his hostess.
"You can't help it," says he, laughing. "There isn't any wind."
"Angus," she says – as if nobody knew anything about the wind but the young Doctor – "is that so?"
"Not a doubt of it," he says. "But it is a beautiful day. You might make up a luncheon-party, and have a pic-nic by the side of the Saint's Well – down in the hollow, you know."
"Much chance I shall have with the seals, then!" remarks the other young man, good-naturedly enough.
However, it is enough that the suggestion has come from Angus Sutherland. A pic-nic on the Island of the Saints is forthwith commanded – seals or no seals. And while Master Fred, immediately after breakfast, begins his preparations, the Laird helps by carefully putting a corkscrew in his pocket. It is his invariable custom. We are ready for any emergency.
And if the golden plover, and mergansers, and seals appear to know that the new, busy, brisk working-days have begun again, surely we ought to know it too. Here are the same silent shores; and the calm blue seas and blue sky; and the solitary islands in the south – all just as they were yesterday; but we have a secret sense that the lassitude and idleness of Sunday are over, and that there is something of freedom in the air. The Laird has no longer any need to keep a check on his tongue: those stories about Homesh may bubble up to the surface of his mind just as they please. And indeed he is exceedingly merry and facetious as the preparations go on for this excursion. When at length he gets into the stern of the boat he says to his companion —
"There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,
And Mary Avon, and me.
– What ails ye, lass? I have not heard much of your singing of late."
"You would not have me sing profane songs on Sunday?" she says, demurely.
"No; but I mean long before Sunday. However," he says, cheerfully, and looking at her, "there is a wonderful change in ye – wonderful! Well do I mind the day I first saw ye, on the quay; though it seems a long time since then. Ye were a poor white bit thing then; I was astonished; and the next day too, when ye were lame as well, I said to myself, 'Well; it's high time that bit lass had a breath o' the sea air.' And now – why ye just mind me o' the lasses in the Scotch songs – the country lasses, ye know – with the fine colour on your face."
And indeed this public statement did not tend to decrease the sun-brown that now tinged Mary Avon's cheeks.
"These lads," said he – no doubt referring to his nephew and to Angus Sutherland, who were both labouring at the long oars – "are much too attentive to ye, putting ye under the shadow of the sails, and bringing ye parasols and things like that. No, no; don't you be afraid of getting sun-burned; it is a comely and wholesome thing: is it not reasonable that human beings need the sunlight as much as plants? Just ask your friend Dr. Sutherland that; though a man can guess as much without a microscope. Keep ye in the sun, Miss Mary; never mind the brown on your cheeks, whatever the young men say: I can tell ye ye are looking a great deal better now than when ye stepped on shore – a shilpit pale bit thing – on that afternoon."
Miss Avon had not been in the habit of receiving lectures like this about her complexion, and she seemed rather confused; but fortunately the measured noise of the rowlocks prevented the younger men from overhearing.
"There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,
And Mary Avon, and me." —
continued the Laird, in his facetious way; and he contentedly patted the hand of the girl beside him. "I fear I am growing very fond of idleness."
"I am sure, sir, you are so busy during the rest of the year," says this base flatterer, "that you should be able to enjoy a holiday with a clear conscience."
"Well, perhaps so – perhaps so," said the Laird, who was greatly pleased. "And yet, let one work as hard as one can, it is singular how little one can do, and what little thanks ye get for doing it. I am sure those people in Strathgovan spend half their lives in fault-finding; and expect ye to do everything they can think of without asking them for a farthing. At the last meeting of the ratepayers in the Burgh Hall I heckled them, I can tell ye. I am not a good speaker – no, no; far from it; but I can speak plain. I use words that can be driven into people's heads; and I will say this, that some o' those people in Strathgovan have a skull of most extraordinar' thickness. But said I to them, 'Do ye expect us to work miracles? Are we to create things out of nothing? If the rates are not to be increased, where are the new gas-lamps to come from? Do ye think we can multiply gas-lamps as the loaves and fishes were multiplied?' I'm thinking," added the Laird, with a burst of hearty laughter, "that the thickest-skulled of them all understood that – eh?"
"I should hope so," remarked Miss Avon.
Then the measured rattle of the oars: it wants hard pulling against this fiercely running tide; indeed, to cheat it in a measure, we have to keep working along the coast and across the mouth of Loch Swen.
"There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,
And Mary Avon, and me" —
says the Laird, as a playful introduction to another piece of talking. "I have been asking myself once or twice whether I know any one in the whole kingdom of Scotland better than you."
"Than me, sir?" she says, with a start of surprise.
"Yes," he says, sententiously. "That is so. And I have had to answer myself in the naygative. It is wonderful how ye get to know a person on board a yacht. I just feel as if I had spent years and years with ye; so that there is not any one I know with whom I am better acquaint. When ye come to Denny-mains, I shall be quite disappointed if ye look surprised or strange to the place. I have got it into my head that ye must have lived there all your life. Will ye undertake to say," he continues, in the same airy manner, "that ye do not know the little winding path that goes up through the trees to the flag-staff – eh?"
"I'm afraid I don't remember it," she says, with a smile.
"Wait till ye see the sunsets ye can see from there!" he says, proudly. "We can see right across Glasgow to Tennants' Stalk; and in the afternoon the smoke is all turning red and brown with the sunset – many's and many's the time I have taken Tom Galbraith to the hill, and asked him whether they have finer sunsets at Naples or Venice. No, no; give me fire and smoke and meestery for a strong sunset. But just the best time of the year, as ye'll find out" – and here he looked in a kindly way at the girl – "where there is a bit wood near the house, is the spring-time. When ye see the primroses and the blue-bells about the roots of the trees – when y