A Princess of Thule. Black William

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СКАЧАТЬ “Love in thine eyes sits beaming,” and while Ingram, in his quiet, desultory, and often sardonic fashion, amused the young girl with stories of her lover’s bravery and kindness and dare-devil escapades, the merry trot of the horses beat time to the bells on their necks, the fresh West wind blew a cloud of white dust away over the moorland behind them, there was a blue sky shining all around them, and the blue Atlantic basking in the light.

      They stopped a few moments at both the hamlets of Suainabost and Tabost to allow Sheila to pay a hurried visit to one or two of the huts, while Mackenzie, laying hold of some of the fishermen he knew, got them to show Lavender the curing-house, in which the young gentleman professed himself profoundly interested. They also visited the school-house, and Lavender found himself beginning to look upon a two-storied building with windows as something imposing, and a decided triumph of human skill and enterprise. But what was the school-house of Tabost to the grand building at the Butt? They had driven away from the high-road by a path leading through long and sweet-smelling pastures of Dutch clover; they had got up from these sandy swathes to a table-land of rock; and here and there they got glimpses of fearful precipices leading sheer down to the boiling and dashing sea. The curious contortions of the rocks, the sharp needles of them springing in isolated pillars from out of the water, the roar of the eddying currents that swept through the chasms and dashed against the iron-bound shore, the wild sea-birds that flew about and screamed over the rushing waves and the surge, naturally enough drew the attention of the strangers altogether away from the land; and it was with a start of surprise they found themselves before an immense mass of yellow stone-work – walls, house, and tower – that shone in the sunlight. And here were the lighthouse-keeper and his wife, delighted to see strange faces and most hospitably inclined; insomuch that Lavender, who cared little for luncheon at any time, was constrained to take as much bread and cheese and butter and whisky as would have made a ploughman’s dinner. It was a strange sort of a meal this, away out at the end of the world, as it were. The snug little room might have been in the Marylebone road; there were photographs about, a gay label on the whisky bottle, and other signs of an advanced civilization; but outside nothing but the wild precipices of the coast, a surging sea that seemed almost to surround the place, the wild screaming of the sea-birds, and a single ship appearing like a mere speck on the Northern horizon.

      They had not noticed the wind much as they drove along; but now, when they went out on the high table-land of rock, it seemed to be blowing half a gale across the sea. The sunlight sparkled on the glass of the lighthouse, and the great yellow shaft of stone stretched away upward into a perfect blue. As clear a blue lay far beneath them when the sea came rushing in among the lofty crags and sharp pinnacles of rock, bursting into foam at their feet and sending long jets of white spray up into the air. In front of the great wall of rock the sea-birds wheeled and screamed, and on the points of some of the islands stood several scarts, motionless figures of jet black on the soft brown and green of the rock. And what was this island they looked down upon from over one of the bays? Surely a mighty reproduction by Nature herself of the Sphynx of the Egyptian plains. Could anything have been more striking and unexpected and impressive than the sudden discovery of this great mass of rock resting in the wild sea, its hooded head turned away toward the North and hidden from the spectator on land, its gigantic bulk surrounded by a foam of breakers? Lavender, with his teeth set hard against the wind, must needs take down the outlines of this strange scene upon paper, while Sheila crouched at her father’s side for shelter, and Ingram was chiefly engaged in holding on to his cap.

      “It blows here a bit,” said Lavender amid the roar of the waves. “I suppose in the Winter-time the sea will sometimes break across this place?”

      “Ay, and over the top of the light-house, too,” said Mackenzie with a laugh, as though he was rather proud of the way his native seas behaved.

      “Sheila,” said Ingram, “I never saw you take refuge from the wind before.”

      “It is because we will be standing still,” said the girl, with a smile which was scarcely visible, because she had half hidden her face in her father’s great gray beard. “But when Mr. Lavender is finished we will go down to the great hole in the rocks that you will have seen before, and perhaps he will make a picture of that, too.”

      “You don’t mean to say you would go down there, Sheila?” said Ingram, “and in this wind!”

      “I have been down many times before.”

      “Indeed, you will do nothing of the kind, Sheila,” said her father; “you will go back to the light-house if you like – yes, you may do that – and I will go down the rocks with Mr. Lavender; but it iss not for a young lady to go about among the rocks, like a fisherman’s lad that wants the birds’ eggs or such nonsense.”

      It was quite evident that Mackenzie had very little fear of his daughter not being able to accomplish the descent of the rocks safely enough; it was a matter of dignity. And so Sheila was at length persuaded to go across the plain to a sheltered place, to await there until the others should clamber down to the great and naturally-formed tunnel through the rocks that the artist was to sketch.

      Lavender was ill at ease. He followed his guide mechanically as they made their way, in zigzag fashion, down the precipitous slopes and over slippery plateaus; and when at last he came in sight of the mighty arch, the long cavern, and the glimmer of sea and shore that could be seen through it, he began to put down the outlines of the picture as rapidly as possible, but with little interest in the matter. Ingram was sitting on the bare rocks beside him, Mackenzie was some distance off – should he tell his friend of what Sheila had said in the morning? Strict honesty, perhaps, demanded as much, but the temptation to say nothing was great. For it was evident that Ingram was now well inclined to the project, and would do his best to help it on; whereas, if once he knew that Sheila had resolved against it, he, too, might take some sudden step – such as insisting on their immediate return to the midland – which would settle the matter forever. Sheila had said she would herself make the necessary explanation to Ingram, but she had not done so: perhaps she might lack the courage or an opportunity to do so, and in the meantime was not the interval altogether favorable to his chances? Doubtless she was a little frightened at first. She would soon get less timid, and would relent and revoke her decision of the morning. He would not, at present at any rate, say anything to Ingram.

      But when they had got up again to the summit of the rocks, an incident occurred that considerably startled him out of these vague and anxious speculations. He walked straight over to the sheltered spot in which Sheila was waiting. The rushing of the wind doubtless drowned the sound of his footsteps, so that he came on her unawares; and on seeing him she rose suddenly from the rock on which she had been sitting, with some effort to hide her face away from him. But he had caught a glimpse of something in her eyes that filled him with remorse.

      “Sheila,” he said, going forward to her, “what is the matter? What are you unhappy about?”

      She could not answer; she held her face turned from him and cast down; and then, seeing her father and Ingram in the distance, she set out to follow them to the lighthouse. Lavender walking by her side, and wondering how he could deal with the distress that was only too clearly written on her face.

      “I know it is I who have grieved you,” he said in a low voice, “and I am very sorry. But if you will tell me what I can do to remove this unhappiness I will do it now. Shall I consider our talking together of last night as if it had not taken place at all?”

      “Yes,” she said in as low a voice, but clear and sad, and determined in its tone.

      “And I shall speak no more to you about this affair until I go away altogether?”

      And again she signified her assent, gravely and firmly.

      “And then,” he said, “you will soon forget all about it, for, of course, I shall never come back to Lewis again.”

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