But what was this now? The sky in the east had grown quite black; and suddenly this blackness began to fall as if torn down by invisible hands. It came nearer and nearer, until it resembled the dishevelled hair of a woman. And then there was a rattle and roar of wind and snow and hail combined; so that the pony was nearly thrown from its feet, and Macleod was so blinded that at first he knew not what to do. Then he saw some rocks ahead, and he urged the bewildered and staggering beast forward through the darkness of the storm. Night seemed to have returned. There was a flash of lightning overhead, and a crackle of thunder rolled down the valley, heard louder than all the howling of the hurricane across the mountain sides. And then, when they had reached this place of shelter, Macleod dismounted, and crept as close as he could into the lea of the rocks.
He was startled by a voice; it was only that of old John MacIntyre, the postman, who was glad enough to get into this place of refuge too.
"It"s a bad day for you to be out this day, Sir Keith," said he, in the Gaelic, "and you have no cause to be out; and why will you not go back to Castle Dare?"
"Have you any letter for me, John?" said he, eagerly.
Oh yes, there was a letter; and the old man was astonished to see how quickly Sir Keith Macleod took that letter, and how anxiously he read it, as though the awfulness of the storm had no concern for him at all.
And what was it all about, this wet sheet that he had to hold tight between his hands, or the gust that swept round the rocks would have whirled it up and away over the giant ramparts of the Bourg? It was a very pretty letter, and rather merry; for it was all about a fancy-dress ball which was to take place at Mr. Lemuel"s house; and all the people were to wear a Spanish costume of the time of Philip IV.; and there were to be very grand doings indeed. And as Keith Macleod had nothing to do in the dull winter-time but devote himself to books, would he be so kind as to read up about that period, and advise her as to which historical character she ought to a.s.sume?
Macleod burst out laughing, in a strange sort of way, and put the wet letter in his pocket, and led Jack out into the road again.
"Sir Keith, Sir Keith!" cried the old man, "you will not go on now?" And as he spoke, another blast of snow tore across the glen, and there was a rumble of thunder among the hills.
"Why, John," Macleod called back again from the gray gloom of the whirling snow and sleet, "would you have me go home and read books too?
Do you know what a fancy dress ball is, John? And do you know what they think of us in the South, John: that we have nothing to do here in winter-time--nothing to do here but read books?"
The old man heard him laughing to himself in that odd way, as he rode off and disappeared into the driving snow; and his heart was heavy within him, and his mind filled with strange forebodings. It was a dark and an awful glen, this great ravine that led down to the solitary sh.o.r.es of Loch Scridain.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
OVER THE SEAS.
But no harm at all came of that reckless ride through the storm; and in a day or two"s time Macleod had almost argued himself into the belief that it was but natural for a young girl to be fascinated by these new friends. And how could he protest against a fancy-dress ball, when he himself had gone to one on his brief visit to London? And it was a proof of her confidence in him that she wished to take his advice about her costume.
Then he turned to other matters; for, as the slow weeks went by, one eagerly disposed to look for the signs of the coming spring might occasionally detect a new freshness in the morning air, or even find a little bit of the whitlow-gra.s.s in flower among the moss of an old wall.
And Major Stuart had come over to Dare once or twice; and had privately given Lady Macleod and her niece such enthusiastic accounts of Miss Gertrude White that the references to her forthcoming visit ceased to be formal and became friendly and matter of course. It was rarely, however, that Keith Macleod mentioned her name. He did not seem to wish for any confidant. Perhaps her letters were enough.
But on one occasion Janet Macleod said to him, with a shy smile.
"I think you must be a very patient lover, Keith, to spend all the winter here. Another young man would have wished to go to London."
"And I would go to London, too!" he said suddenly, and then he stopped.
He was somewhat embarra.s.sed. "Well, I will tell you, Janet. I do not wish to see her any more as an actress, and she says it is better that I do not go to London; and--and, you know, she will soon cease to be an actress."
"But why not now," said Janet Macleod, with some wonder, "if she has such a great dislike for it?"
"That I do not know," said he, somewhat gloomily.
But he wrote to Gertrude White, and pressed the point once more, with great respect, it is true, but still with an earnestness of pleading that showed how near the matter lay to his heart. It was a letter that would have touched most women; and even Miss Gertrude White was pleased to see how anxiously interested he was in her.
"But you know, my dear Keith," she wrote back, "when people are going to take a great plunge into the sea, they are warned to wet their head first. And don"t you think I should accustom myself to the change you have in store for me by degrees? In any case, my leaving the stage at the present moment could make no difference to us--you in the Highlands, I in London. And do you know, sir, that your request is particularly ill-timed; for, as it happens, I am about to enter into a new dramatic project of which I should probably never have heard but for you. Does that astonish you? Well, here is the story. It appears that you told the d.u.c.h.ess of Wexford that I would give her a performance for the new training-ship she is getting up; and, being challenged, could I break a promise made by you? And only fancy what these clever people have arranged, to flatter their own vanity in the name of charity. They have taken St. George"s Hall, and the distinguished amateurs have chosen the play; and the play--don"t laugh, dear Keith--is "Romeo and Juliet!" And I am to play _Juliet_ to the _Romeo_ of the Honorable Captain Brierley, who is a very good-looking man, but who is so solemn and stiff a Romeo that I know I shall burst out laughing on the dreaded night. He is as nervous now at a morning rehearsal as if it were his _debut_ at Drury Lane; and he never even takes my hand without an air of apology, as if he were saying, "Really, Miss White, you must pardon me; I am compelled by my part to take your hand; otherwise I would die rather than be guilty of such a liberty." And when he addresses me in the balcony-scene, he _will not_ look at me; he makes his protestations of love to the flies; and when I make my fine speeches to him, he blushes if his eyes should by chance meet mine, just as if he had been guilty of some awful indiscretion. I know, dear Keith, you don"t like to see me act, but you might come up for this occasion only. Friar Lawrence is the funniest thing I have seen for ages. The nurse, however, Lady Bletherin, is not at all bad. I hear there is to be a grand supper afterwards somewhere, and I have no doubt I shall be presented to a number of ladies who will speak for the first time to an actress and be possessed with a wild fear; only, if they have daughters, I suppose they will keep the fluttering-hearted young things out of the way, lest I should suddenly break out into blue flame, and then disappear through the floor. I am quite convinced that Captain Brierley considers me a bold person because I look at him when I have to say,
""O gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, p.r.o.nounce it faithfully!""
Macleod crushed this letter together, and thrust it into his pocket. He strode out of the room, and called for Hamish.
"Send Donald down to the quay," said he, "and tell them to get the boat ready. And he will take down my gun too."
Old Hamish, noticing the expression of his master"s eyes, went off quickly enough, and soon got hold of Donald, the piper-lad.
"Donald," said he, in the Gaelic, "you will run down to the quay as fast as your legs can carry you, and you will tell them to get the boat ready, and not to lose any time in getting the boat ready, and to have the seat dry, and let there be no talking when Sir Keith gets on board.
And here is the gun too, and the bag; and you will tell them to have no talking among themselves this day."
When Macleod got down to the small stone pier, the two men were in the boat. Johnny Wickes was standing at the door of the storehouse.
"Would you like to go for a sail, Johnny?" Macleod said abruptly, but there was no longer that dangerous light in his eyes.
"Oh yes, sir," said the boy, eagerly; for he had long ago lost his dread of the sea.
"Get in, then, and get up to the bow."
So Johnny Wickes vent cautiously down the few slippery stone steps, half tumbled into the bottom of the great open boat, and then scrambled up to the bow.
"Where will you be for going, sir?" said one of the men when Macleod had jumped into the stern and taken the tiller.
"Anywhere--right out!" he answered, carelessly.
But it was all very well to say "right out!" when there was a stiff breeze blowing right in. Scarcely had the boat put her nose out beyond the pier, and while as yet there was but little way on her, when a big sea caught her, springing high over her bows and coming rattling down on her with a noise as of pistol-shots. The chief victim of this deluge was the luckless Johnny Wickes, who tumbled down into the bottom of the boat, vehemently blowing the salt-water out of his mouth, and rubbing his knuckles into his eyes. Macleod burst out laughing.
"What"s the good of you as a lookout?" he cried. "Didn"t you see the water coming?"
"Yes, sir," said Johnny, ruefully laughing, too. But he would not be beaten. He scrambled up again to his post, and clung there, despite the fierce wind and the clouds of spray.
"Keep her close up, sir," said the man who had the sheet of the huge lugsail in both his hands, as he cast a glance out at the darkening sea.
But this great boat, rude and rough and dirty as she appeared, was a splendid specimen of her cla.s.s; and they know how to build such boats up about that part of the world. No matter with how staggering a plunge she went down into the yawning green gulf, the white foam hissing away from her sides; before the next wave, high, awful, threatening, had come down on her with a crash as of mountains falling, she had glided buoyantly upward, and the heavy blow only made her bows spring the higher, as though she would shake herself free, like a bird, from the wet. But it was a wild day to be out. So heavy and black was the sky in the west that the surface of the sea out to the horizon seemed to be a moving ma.s.s of white foam, with only streaks of green and purple in it. The various islands changed every minute as the wild clouds whirled past.
Already the great cliffs about Dare had grown distant and faint as seen through the spray; and here were the rocks of Colonsay, black as jet as they reappeared through the successive deluges of white foam; and far over there, a still gloomier ma.s.s against the gloomy sky told where the huge Atlantic breakers were rolling in their awful thunder into the Staffa caves.
"I would keep her away a bit," said the sailor next Macleod. He did not like the look of the heavy breakers that were crashing on to the Colonsay rocks.
Macleod, with his teeth set hard against the wind, was not thinking of the Colonsay rocks more than was necessary to give them a respectful berth.
"Were you ever in a theatre, Duncan?" he said, or rather bawled, to the brown-visaged and black-haired young fellow who had now got the sheet of the lugsail under his foot as well as in the firm grip of his hands.
"Oh yes, Sir Keith," said he, as he shook the salt-water away from his short beard. "It was at Greenock. I will be at the theatre, and more than three times or two times."
"How would you like to have a parcel of actors and actresses with us now?" he said, with a laugh.
""Deed, I would not like it at all," said Duncan, seriously; and he twisted the sheet of the sail twice round his right wrist, so that his relieved left hand could convey a bit of wet tobacco to his mouth. "The women they would chump apout, and then you do not know what will happen at all."
"A little bit away yet, sir!" cried out the other sailor, who was looking out to windward, with his head between the gunwale and the sail.
"There is a bad rock off the point."