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 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 PR4124 
 
 .W46 
 
 1893 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00038938114 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 PRESENTED BY THE 
 
 WILLIAM A. WHITAKER 
 
 FOUNDATION 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/whiteheathernoveOOblac 
 
This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the 
 last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be 
 renewed by bringing it to the library. 
 
 DATE „pT, 
 DUE **^^ 
 
 DATE 
 
 DUE ^^^- 
 
 - - 
 
 \ w 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 JUL 3 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 m 1 6 21 
 
 W 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Form No. 513 
 
 
 
 
WHITE HEATHEK. 
 
"^^ .uo U.- 
 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM BLACK 
 
 NEW AND REVISED EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MAESTON & COMPANY 
 
 LIMITED 
 
 1893. 
 
 [Ail rights reserved] 
 
LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OltAP. 
 
 
 
 
 PAOIE 
 
 I. — A Journey Northward ..... 1 
 
 II. — Meenie .... 
 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 HI. — On the Loch 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 22 
 
 IV. — A Letter .... 
 
 
 
 
 31 
 
 v. — Beginnings .... 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 VI. — A Programme 
 
 
 
 
 5-2 
 
 VII.— An Eyrie .... 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 VIII.— The New Year's Feast 
 
 
 
 
 70 
 
 IX. — Enticements 
 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 X. — High Festival 
 
 
 
 
 92 
 
 XL— A Revelation 
 
 
 
 
 101 
 
 XII. — "When Shadows Fall" 
 
 
 
 
 110 
 
 XIII. — A New Arrival . 
 
 
 
 
 119 
 
 XIV. — "About Illinois" 
 
 
 
 
 131 
 
 XV.— Wild Times 
 
 
 
 
 142 
 
 XVI.— Dreams and Visions . 
 
 
 
 
 154 
 
 XVII.— A Further Discovery 
 
 
 
 
 164 
 
 XVIII. — Confessions 
 
 
 
 
 172 
 
 XIX. — Hesitations 
 
 
 
 
 182 
 
 XX. — " Among the UNTnoDDEN Ways " 
 
 
 
 
 193 
 
 XXI. — A Lesson in Fi.y-Fishing . 
 
 
 
 
 202 
 
 XXII. POETA . . . NON FIT . 
 
 
 
 
 214 
 
 XXIII. — A Last Day on the Loch . 
 
 
 
 
 225 
 
 XXIV.— The Parting 
 
 
 
 
 284 
 
 XXV. — Southwards 
 
 
 
 
 244 
 
 XXVI.— Gray Days .... 
 
 
 
 
 . 255 
 
 XXVII.-Kate 
 
 
 
 
 262 
 
 XXVIIL— A Social Evening 
 
 
 
 
 . 273 
 
vi 
 
 CONTENT& 
 
 
 
 
 CHAr. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 —Inducements .... . . 283 
 
 XXX. 
 
 —Entanglements 
 
 , 
 
 . 294 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 — Campsie Glen . 
 
 
 
 
 . 303 
 
 XXXII.- 
 
 —The Downward Wat 
 
 
 
 
 . 312 
 
 XXXIII.- 
 
 —A Message 
 
 
 
 
 . 321 
 
 XXXIV.- 
 
 —In Glasgow Town . 
 
 
 
 
 . 331 
 
 XXXV.- 
 
 —A Resolve 
 
 
 
 
 . 339 
 
 XXXVI.- 
 
 —A Bolder Step 
 
 
 
 
 . 348 
 
 XXXVIL- 
 
 —A Meeting 
 
 
 
 
 . 357 
 
 XXXVIII.- 
 
 —Confession 
 
 
 
 
 . 366 
 
 XXXIX.- 
 
 —At the Pear-tree Well 
 
 
 
 
 . 375 
 
 XL.- 
 
 —The Coming of Troubles 
 
 
 
 
 . 384 
 
 XLL- 
 
 -In Other Climes 
 
 
 
 
 . 395 
 
 XLII.- 
 
 —A Challenge . 
 
 
 
 
 . 408 
 
 XLIIL- 
 
 -A. Wedding 
 
 
 
 
 . 416 
 
 XLIV.- 
 
 -In Darkened Wats . 
 
 
 
 
 . 427 
 
 XLV.- 
 
 —In Absence 
 
 
 
 
 . 439 
 
 XLVI.- 
 
 -Wanderings in the West 
 
 
 
 . 449 
 
 XLVII.- 
 
 —A Pledge Eedeemed 
 
 
 
 . 459 
 
 XLVIIL- 
 
 -The Factor of Balnavka 
 
 IN 
 
 
 
 . 468 
 
WHITE HEATHEE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A JOUENEY NOETH^yARD. 
 
 On a certain cold evening in January, and just as the 
 Scotch night-mail was about to start for the north, a stranger 
 drove up to Euston and alighted, and was glad enough to 
 escape from the chill draughts of the echoing station into 
 the glow and warmth and comfort of a sleeping-car. He 
 was a man of means apparently ; for one half of this 
 carriage, containing four berths, and forming a room apart, 
 as it were, had been reserved for himseK alone ; while his 
 travelling impedimenta — fur-lined coats and hoods and rugs 
 and what not — were of an elaborate and sumptuous descrip- 
 tion. On the other hand, there was nothing of ostentation 
 about either his dress or appearance or demeanour. He 
 was a tall, thin, quiet-looking man, with an aquiline nose, 
 sallow complexion, and keen but not unkindly gray eyes. 
 His short-cropped hair was grizzled, and there were deep 
 lines in the worn and ascetic face ; but this may have been 
 the result of an exhausting climate rather than of any mental 
 care, for there was certainly no touch of melancholy in his 
 expression. His costume was somewhat prim and precise ; 
 there was a kind of schoolmasterish look about the stiff 
 white collar and small black tie ; his gloves were new and 
 neat. For the rest, he seemed used to travelling ; he began 
 to make himself at home at once, and scarcely looked up 
 from this setting of things to rights when the conductor 
 made his appearance. 
 
 B 
 
2 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 " Mr. Hodson, sir ? " the latter said, with an inquiring 
 glance. 
 
 " That's about what they call me," he answered slowly, 
 as he opened a capacious dressing-bag covered with 
 crocodile-hide. 
 
 " Do you expect any friends to join you farther along, 
 sir ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of," was the answer — and a pair of 
 dark-blue velvet slippers, with initials worked in gold, were 
 fished out and thrown upon the seat beside him. 
 
 But when the conductor had got one of the lower 
 sleeping-berths made ready and the traveller had completed 
 his leisurely arrangements for passing the night in comfort, 
 a somewhat one-sided conversation ensued. This gaunt, 
 slow-speaking, reserved man proved to be quite talkative — 
 in a curious, measured, dry, and staccato fashion ; and if 
 his conversation consisted chiefly of questions, these showed 
 that he had a very honest and simple concern in the welfare 
 of this other human being whom chance had thrown in his 
 way, and that he could express his friendly interest without 
 any touch of patronage or condescension. He asked first 
 about the railway-line ; how the company's servants were 
 paid ; what were their hours on duty ; whether they had 
 formed any associations for relief in case of sickness ; what 
 this particular man got for his work ; whether he could 
 look forward to any bettering of his lot, and so forth. And 
 then, fixing his eyes more scrutinisingly on his companion, 
 he began to ask about his family affairs — where he lived ; 
 what children he had ; how often he saw them ; and the 
 like ; and these questions were so obviously prompted by 
 no idle curiosity, but by an honest sympathy, and by the 
 apparent desire of one human being to get to imderstand 
 fully and clearly the position and surroundings and pros- 
 pects of this other fellow-creature, that it was impossible for 
 any one to take offence. 
 
 " And how old is your little girl ? " 
 
 " Eight, sir : she will be nine in May next." 
 
 " What do you call her ? " 
 
 " Caroline, sir." 
 
 " Why, you don't say ! " he exclaimed, with his eyes — 
 which were usually calm and observant — lighting up with 
 
A JOURNEY NORTHWARD 3 
 
 some surprise. " That is the name of my girl too — though 
 I can't call her little any more. Well now," he added, as 
 he took out his purse and selected a sovereign from the 
 mass of coins, " I think this is about what you ought to do. 
 When you get back to Camden Town, you start an account 
 in the Post Office Savings Bank, in your little girl's name, 
 and you put in this sovereign as a first deposit. Then, 
 whenever you have an odd sixpence or shilling to give her 
 — a birthday present, or that — you keep adding on and on ; 
 and there will be a nice little sum for her in after years. 
 And if ever she asks, you can tell her it was the father of 
 an American Caroline who made her this little present ; 
 and if she grows up to be as good a girl as the American 
 Carry, she'll do very well, I think." 
 
 The conductor scarcely knew how to express his thanks, 
 but the American cut him short, saying coolly — • 
 
 " I don't give the sovereign to you at all. It is in trust 
 for your daughter. And you don't look to me the kind of 
 man who would go and drink it." 
 
 He took out an evening newspaper, and, at the hint, 
 the conductor went away to get ready the berths in the 
 other end of the car. When he came back again to see if 
 the gentleman wanted anything further for the night, they 
 had thundered along the line until they were nearing 
 Rugby. 
 
 " Why, yes," Mr. Hodsou said, in answer to the questiou, 
 " you might get me a bottle of soda-water when we get to 
 the station." 
 
 " I have soda-water in the car, sir." 
 
 " Bring me a bottle, then, please." 
 
 " And shall I get anything else for you, sir, at Rugby ? " 
 
 "No, I thank you." 
 
 When the man returned with the soda-water, the traveller 
 had taken from his dressing-bag a Ijottle labelled " Bromide 
 of Potassium," and he was just about to mix his customary 
 sleeping-draught when it occurred to him that perhaps this 
 conductor could tell him something of the new and far 
 country into which he was about to adventure for the first 
 time. And in making these inquiries he showed that he 
 was just as frank-spoken about his own plans and circum- 
 stances as he expected other people to be about theirs. 
 
^ WHITE HEATHER 
 
 When the conductor confessed that he knew next to nothing 
 about the north of Scotland, never having been farther than 
 Perth, and even then his knowledge of the country being 
 confined to the railway-line and the stations, Mr. Hodson 
 went on to say — in that methodical way of his, with little 
 rising inflexions here and there — 
 
 " Well, it's bound to be different from London, anyway. 
 It can't be like London ; and that's the main thing for me. 
 Why, that London fog, never moving, same in the morning, 
 same at night, it's just too dismal for anything ; the inside 
 of a jail is a fool to it. 'Pears to me that a London after- 
 noon is just about as melancholy as they make it ; if there's 
 anything more melancholy than that anywhere, I don't know 
 it. Well, now, it can't be like that at Cape Wrath." 
 
 " I should think not, sir." 
 
 " I daresay if I lived in the town, and had my club, and 
 knew people, it might be different ; and my daughter seems 
 to get through the time well enough ; but young folks are 
 easily amused. Say, now, about this salmon-fishing in the 
 north : you don't know when it begins ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " You haven't seen anybody going yet with a bundle of 
 rods ? " 
 
 " Xo, su", not this year yet." 
 
 " Hope they haven't been playing it on me — I was told 
 I could begin on the eleventh. But it don't signify much 
 so long's I get out of that infernal cut-throat atmosphere 
 of London." 
 
 At this point the train began to slow into Rugby 
 station, and the conductor left to attend to his duties ; and 
 by the time they were moving out again and on their way 
 to the far north, Mr. Hodson had mixed and drunk his 
 nightly potion, and, partially undressed, was wrapped up in 
 the thick and warm coverings of the sleeping-berth, where, 
 whether owing to the bromide of potassium, or the jog-trot 
 rattle of the wheels, he was soon plunged in a profound 
 slumber. 
 
 Well, if part of his design in thus venturing upon a 
 journey to the north in mid-winter was to get away from 
 the monotonous mists of London, the next morning showed 
 him that so far he had been abundantly successful. The 
 
A JOURNEY NORTHWARD 5 
 
 day breaking caused him to open his eyes ; and instinctively 
 he turned to the window. There before him was a strange, 
 and unusual, and welcome sight. No more dismal grays, 
 and the gathering down of a hopeless dusk ; but the clear, 
 glad light of the morning — a band of flashing gold all 
 along the eastern horizon, behind the jet-black stems and 
 branches of the leafless trees ; and over that the heavens 
 were all of a pale and luminous lilac, with clouds hanging 
 here and there — clouds that were dark and almost thunder- 
 ous in their purple look, but that really meant nothing but 
 beauty, as they lay there soft and motionless in the glowing 
 and mystical dawn. Quickly he got up. The windows 
 were thrown open. And this air that rushed in — so fresh, 
 so sweet, so full of all kinds of mellow and fragrant mess- 
 ages from the hills, and the pine-woods, and the wide-lying 
 straths — did it not bring a strange kind of joy and surprise 
 with it ? 
 
 " A beautiful morning, sir ; we are getting near to Perth 
 now," the conductor said, when he made his appearance. 
 
 " Are we in time ? " 
 
 " Yes, in very good time." 
 
 " And no hurry about breakfast ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; you don't start again till nine o'clock." 
 
 Even this big hollow station, with its wide stone plat- 
 forms and resounding arch : was it the white light that 
 filled it, or the fresh air that blew through ifc, that made it 
 quite a cheerful place ? He was charmed with the accent 
 of the timid handmaiden who brought him his breakfast in 
 the refreshment room, and who waited on him in such a 
 friendly, half-anxious, shy fashion ; and he wondered whether 
 he would dare to offer so pretty and well-mannered a young 
 lady anything over the customary charge in token of his 
 gratitude to her for her gentle ways. Perth itself : well, 
 there had been rain in the night, and the streets near the 
 station were full of mud ; but then the cart ruts in the mud 
 were gleaming lines of gold ; and the beautiful sky hung 
 over the slowly rising smoke of the houses ; and the air 
 was everywhere so sweet and welcome. He had got 
 into a new world altogether ; the weight of the London 
 atmosphere was lifted from him ; he whistled " Auld Lang 
 Syne " — which was the only Scotch air he knew — and the 
 
6 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 lugubrious tune sounded quite pleasant on so joyous a 
 morning. 
 
 Moreover, these were but first and commonplace experi- 
 ences. For by and by, when he had again taken his seat 
 to prosecute his journey — and he found himself the sole 
 occupant of the carriage — the sunrise had widened into the 
 full splendour of a sunlit day ; and as the train sped away 
 to the north, he, sitting at the window there, and having 
 nothing to do but examine the new country he was entering, 
 was wholly amazed at the intensity and brilliancy of the 
 colouring around, and at the extraordinary vividness of the 
 light. The wide stretches of the Tay shone Uke bur- 
 nished silver ; there were yellow straths and fields ; and 
 beech hedges of a rich russet-red ; and fir-woods of a deep 
 fresh green ; and still farther away low-lying hills of a soft 
 and ruddy purple, touched sharp here and there with 
 patches of snow ; and over all these a blue sky as of 
 summer. The moist, -^a arm air that blew in at the window 
 seemed laden with pine odours ; the country women at the 
 small stations had a fresh pink colour in their cheeks ; 
 everywhere a new and glad and wholesome life seemed to 
 be abroad, and cheerfulness, and rich hues, and sunlight. 
 
 " This Ls good enough," he said to himself. " This is 
 something like what I shipped for." 
 
 And so they sped on : through the soft, wide-stretching 
 woods of Murthly, and Birnam, and Dunkeld ; through the 
 shadow and sudden gleams of Killiecrankie Pass ; on by 
 Blair Athol and the banks of the Garry ; until, with slow 
 and labouring breath, the train began to force its way up 
 the heights of the Grampians, in the lone neighbourhood 
 of the Drumouchter Forest. The air was keener here ; the 
 patches of snow were nearer at hand ; indeed, in some 
 places the line had evidently been cleared, and large snow 
 banks heaped up on each side. But by and by the motion 
 of the train seemed to become easier ; and soon it was 
 apparent that the descent had begun ; presently they were 
 rattling away down into the wide and shining valley of 
 Strathspey ; and far over there on the west and north, and 
 keeping guard over the plain, as it were, rose the giant 
 masses of the Cairngorm Hills, the snow sparkling here 
 and there on their shoulders and peaks. 
 
A JOURNEY NORTHWARD 7 
 
 It was not until half-past four in the afternoon that the 
 long railway journey came to an end ; and during that time 
 he had come upon many a scene of historical interest and 
 pictorial beauty. He had been within a short distance 
 of the mournful " haughs of Cromdale ; " he had crossed 
 Culloden Moor. Xearing Forres, he had come within 
 sight of the Northern Sea ; and thereafter had skirted the 
 blue ruffled waters of the Moray, and Cromarty, and Dor- 
 noch Firths. But even when he had got to Lairg, a little 
 hamlet at the foot of Loch Shin, his travelling for the day 
 was not nearly over ; there still remained a drive of four- 
 and-twenty miles ; and although it was now dusk and the 
 weather threatened a change, he preferred to push on that 
 night. Travelling did not seem to tire him much ; no 
 doubt he was familiar with immeasurably greater distances 
 in his own country. Moreover, he had learned that there 
 was nothing particular to look at in the stretch of wild 
 moorland that lay between him and his destination ; and 
 then again, if it was dark now, there would be moonlight 
 later on. So he ate his dinner leisurely and in content, 
 until a waggonette with two stout horses was brought 
 round ; then he got in ; and presently they were away from 
 the little hamlet and out in a strange land of darkness 
 and silence, scarcely anything visible around them, the only 
 sound the jog-trot clatter of the horses' feet. 
 
 It was a desperately lonely drive. The road appeared 
 to go over interminable miles of flat or scarcely undulating 
 moorland ; and even when the moonlight began to make 
 the darkness faintly visible, that only increased the sense 
 of solitude, for there was not even a single tree to break the 
 monotony of the sombre horizon line. It had begun to rain 
 also : not actual rain, but a kind of thin drizzle, that seemed 
 to mix itself up with the ineffectual moonlight, and throw 
 a wan haze over these far-reaching and desolate wastes. 
 Tramp, tramp went the horses' feet through this ghostly 
 world ; the wet mist grew thicker and thicker and clung 
 around the traveller's hair ; it was a chilling mist, moreover, 
 and seemed to search for weak places about the throat. 
 The only sharply defined objects that the eye could rest on 
 were the heads and npthrown ears of the horses, that shone 
 in the light sent forward by the lamps : all else was a form- 
 
8 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 less wilderness of gloom, shadows following shadows, and 
 ever the desolate landscape stretching on and on, and 
 losing itseK in the night. 
 
 The American stood up in the waggonette, perhaps to 
 shake off for a second the clammy sensation of the wet. 
 
 " Say, young man," he observed — but in an absent kind 
 of way, for he Avas regarding, as far as that was possible, the 
 dusky undulations of the mournful landscape — " don't you 
 think now, that for a good wholesome dose of God-forsaken- 
 ness, this'll about take the cake ? " 
 
 " Ah beg your paurdon, sir," said the driver, who was 
 apparently a Lowlander. 
 
 The stranger, however, did not seem inclined to continue 
 the conversation ; he sank into his seat again ; gathered 
 his rugs round him ; and contented himself as hereto- 
 fore by idly watching the lamplight touching here and 
 there on the harness and lighting up the horses' heads and 
 ears. 
 
 Mile after mile, hour after hour, went by in this mono- 
 tonous fashion ; and to the stranger it seemed as if he were 
 piercing farther and farther into some unknown land 
 unpeopled by any human creatures. Not a ray of Hght 
 from any hut or farmhouse was visible anywhere. But as 
 the time went on, there was at least some little improvement 
 in the weather. Either the moonliglit was growing stronger, 
 or the thin drizzle clearing off ; at all events he could now 
 make out ahead of him — and beyond the flat moorland — 
 the dusky masses of some mountains, with one great peak 
 overtopping them all. He asked the name. 
 
 " That is Ben Clebrig, sir." 
 
 And then through the mist and the moonlight a dull 
 sheet of silver began to disclose itself dimly. 
 
 " Is that a lake down there ? " 
 
 " Loch Naver, sir." 
 
 " Then we are not far from Inver-Mudal ? " 
 
 " No far noo ; just a mile or two, sir," was the consoling 
 answer. 
 
 And indeed when he got to the end of his journey, and 
 reached the little hostelry set far amid these moorland and 
 mountain wilds, his welcome there made ample amends. 
 He was ushered into a plain, substantially furnished, and 
 
A JO URNE V NOR THIVA RD g 
 
 spacious sitting-room, brightly lit up by the lamp that stood 
 on the white cloth of the table, and also by the blazing glare 
 from the peats in the mighty fireplace ; and when his eyes 
 had got accustomed to this bewilderment of warmth and 
 light, he found, awaiting his orders, and standing shyly at 
 the door, a pretty, tall, fair-haired girl, who, with the 
 softest accent in the world, asked him what she should bring 
 him for supper. And when he said he did not care to have 
 anything, she seemed quite surprised and even concerned. 
 It was a long, long drive, she said, in her shy and pretty 
 way ; and would not the gentleman have some hare-soup 
 — that they had kept hot for him ? and so forth. But her 
 coaxing was of no avail. 
 
 " By the way, what is your name, my girl ? " he said. 
 
 " Nelly, sir." 
 
 "Well, then, Nelly, do you happen to know whether 
 Lord Ailine's keeper is anywhere in the neighbourhood ? " 
 
 " He is in the unn, sir, waiting for you." 
 
 " Oh, indeed. Well, tell him I should like to see him. 
 And say, what is his name ? " 
 
 " Ronald, sir." 
 
 " Eonald ? " 
 
 " That is his first name," she explained. 
 
 " His ' first name ' ? I thought that was one of our 
 Americanisms." 
 
 She did not seem to understand this. 
 
 " Ronald Strang is his name, sir ; but we jist call him 
 Ronald." 
 
 " Very well, Nelly ; you go and tell him I want to see 
 him." 
 
 " Ferry well, sir," she said ; and away she went. 
 
 But little indeed did this indefatigable student of nature 
 and human nature — who had been but half interested by his 
 observations and experiences through that long day's trav el 
 — know what was yet in store for him. The door opened ; 
 a slim-built and yet muscular young man of eight-and-twenty 
 or so appeared there, clad in a smart deer-stalking costume 
 of brownish green ; he held his cap in his hand ; and round 
 his shoulder was the strap from which hung behind the brown 
 leather case of his telescope. This Mr. Hodson saw at a 
 glance ; and also something more. He prided himself on 
 
lo WHITE HE A THER 
 
 his judgment of character. And when his quick look had 
 taken in the keen, sun-tanned face of this young fellow, the 
 square, intellectual forehead, the firm eyebrows, the finely 
 cut and inteUigent mouth, and a certain proud set of the 
 head, he said to himself, " This is a man : there's something 
 here worth knowing." 
 
 " Good evening, sir," the keeper said, to break the 
 momentary silence. 
 
 " Good evening," said Mr. Hodson (who had been rather 
 startled out of his manners). " Come and sit down by the 
 fire ; and let's have a talk now about the shooting and the 
 salmon-fishing. I have brought the letters from the Duke's 
 agent with me." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Strang ; and he moved a bit farther into 
 the room ; but remained standing, cap in hand. 
 
 " Pull in a chair," said Mr. Hodson, who was searching 
 for the letters. 
 
 " Thank ye, sir ; thank ye," said the keeper ; but he 
 remained standing nevertheless. 
 
 Mr. Hodson returned to the table. 
 
 "Sit down, man, sit down," said he, and he himself 
 pulled in a chair. " I don't know what your customs are 
 over here, but anyhow I'm an American citizen ; I'm not 
 a lord." 
 
 Somewhat reluctantly the keeper obeyed this injunction, 
 and for a minute or two seemed to be rather uncomfort- 
 able ; but when he began to answer the questions concisely 
 put to him with regard to the business before them, his 
 shyness wholly wore away, for he was the master of this 
 subject, not the stranger who was seeking for information. 
 Into the details of these matters it is needless to enter 
 here ; and, indeed, so struck was the American with the 
 talk and bearing of this new acquaintance that the con- 
 versation went far afield. And the farther afield it went, 
 the more and more was he impressed with the extraordinary 
 information and intelligence of the man, the independence 
 of his views, the shrewdness and sometimes sarcasm of his 
 judgments. Always he was very respectful ; but in his 
 eyes — which seemed singularly dark and lustrous here 
 indoors, but which, out of doors and when he was after 
 the wary stag, or the still more wary hinds, on the far 
 
A JOURNEY NORTHWARD ii 
 
 slopes of Clebrig, contracted and became of a keen brownish 
 gray — there was a kind of veiled fire of humour which, as the 
 stranger guessed, might in other circumstances blaze forth 
 wildly enough. Mr. Hodson, of Chicago, was entirely 
 puzzled. A gamekeeper ? He had thought (from his 
 reading of English books) that a gamekeeper was a vel- 
 veteen-coated person whose ideas ranged from the ale-house 
 to the pheasant coverts, and thence and quickly back again. 
 But this man seemed to have a wide and competent know- 
 ledge of public affairs ; and, when it came to a matter of 
 argument (they had a keen little squabble about the pro- 
 tection tariffs of America) he could reason hard, and was 
 not over-compliant. 
 
 " God bless me," Mr. Hodson was driven to exclaim at 
 last, " what is a man of your ability doing in a place like 
 this ? Why don't you go away to one of the big cities — ■ 
 or over to America — where a young fellow with his wits 
 about him can push himself forward ? " 
 
 " I woidd rather be ' where the dun deer lie,' " said he, 
 with a kind of bashful laugh. 
 
 " You read Kingsley ? " the other said, still more astonished. 
 
 " My brother lends me his books from time to time," 
 Ronald said modestly. " He's a Free Church minister in 
 Glasgow." 
 
 " A Free Church minister ? He went through college, 
 then ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; he took his degree at Aberdeen." 
 
 " But — but — " said the newcomer, who had come upon 
 a state of affairs he could not understand at all — " Avho 
 w^as your father, then ? He sent your brother to college, 
 I presume ? " 
 
 " Oh no, sir. My father is a small farmer down the 
 Lammermuir way ; and he just gave my brother Andrew his 
 wages like the rest, and Andrew saved up for the classes." 
 
 " You are not a Highlander, then ? " 
 
 " But half-and-half, like my name, sir," he said (and all 
 the shyness was gone now : he spoke to this stranger 
 frankly and simply as he w'ould have spoken to a shepherd 
 on the hillside). " My mother was Highland. She was a 
 Macdonald ; and so she would have me called Eonald j 
 it's a common name wi' them.' 
 
12 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Mr. Hodson stared at him for a second or two in 
 silence. 
 
 " Well," said he, slowly, " I don't know. Different men 
 have different ways of looking at things. I think if I were 
 of your age, and had yonr intelligence, I would try for 
 something better than being a gamekeeper." 
 
 " I am very well content, sir," said the other placidly ; 
 " and I couldna be more than that anywhere else. It's a 
 healthy life ; and a healthy life is the best of anything — at 
 least that is my way of thinking. I wadna like to try 
 the toun ; I doubt it wouldn't agree wi' me." And then 
 he rose to his feet. " I beg your pardon, sir ; I've been 
 keeping ye late." 
 
 Well, Mr. Hodson was nothing loth- to let him go ; for 
 although he had arrived at the conviction that here was a 
 valuable human life, of exceptional quality and distinction, 
 being absolutely thrown away and wasted, still he had not 
 formed the arguments by which he might try to save it 
 for the general good, and for the particular good of the 
 young man himself. He wanted time to think over this 
 matter — and in cold blood ; for there is no doubt that he 
 had been surprised and fascinated by the intellectual bold- 
 ness and incisiveness 'of the younger man's opinions and 
 by the chance sarcasms that had escaped him. 
 
 " I could get him a good opening in Chicago soon 
 enough," he was thinking to himself, when the keeper had 
 left, " but upon my soul I don't know the man who is fit 
 to become that man's m.aster. Why, I'd start a newspaper 
 for him myself, and make him editor — and if he can't 
 write, he has. got mother-wit enough to guide them who 
 can — but he and I would be quarrelling in a week. That 
 fellow is not to be driven by anybody." 
 
 He now rang the bell for a candle ; and the slim and 
 yellow-haired Nelly showed him upstairs to his room, which 
 he found to be comfortably warm, for there was a blazing 
 peat fire in the grate, scenting all the air with its delicious 
 odour. He bade her good-night, and turned to open his 
 dressing-bag ; but at the same moment he heard voices 
 without, and being of an inquiring turn of mind, he went 
 to the window. The first thing he saw was that outside a 
 beautiful clear moon was now shining ; the leafless elm- 
 
A JO URNE V NOR THWA RD 1 3 
 
 trees and the heavy-foliaged pines throwing sharp black 
 shadows across the white road. And this laughing and 
 jesting at the door of the inn ? — surely he heard Konald's 
 voice there — the gayest of any — among the jibes that 
 seemed to form their farewells for the night ? Then there 
 was the shutting of a door ; and in the silence that 
 ensued he saw the solitary, straight-limbed, clean-made 
 figure of a man stride up the white road, a little dog 
 trotting behind him. 
 
 " Come along, Harry, my lad," the man said to his 
 small companion — and that, sure enough, was the keeper's 
 voice. 
 
 And then, in the stillness of the moonlight night, this 
 watcher and listener was startled to hear a clear and 
 powerful tenor voice suddenly begin to sing— in a careless 
 fashion, it is true, as if it were but to cheer the homeward 
 going— 
 
 " Come all ye jolly shepherds. 
 
 That whistle through the glen, 
 Vll tell ye of a secret 
 
 That courtiers dinna hen. 
 JVJiat is the greatest bliss 
 
 That the tongue 0' man can namel— 
 'Tis to woo a honnie lassie 
 
 When the kye come hame." 
 
 " Great heavens ! " said Mr. Hodson to himself, " such a 
 voice — and all Europe waiting for a new tenor ! But at 
 seven or eight and twenty I suppose he is beyond training." 
 
 The refrain became more and more distant : 
 
 " When the kye come hame, 
 Wlien the hye come hame, 
 'Twixt the gloamin' and the mirk, 
 When the hye come hame." 
 
 Both the keeper and the little trotting terrier had dis- 
 appeared now, having turned a corner of the road where 
 there was a clump of trees. The traveller who had 
 wandered into these remote wilds sate down for a minute 
 or two to sum up his investigations of the evening, and 
 they were these : 
 
 " Accounts of the deer seem shaky ; but there may have 
 been bad shooting this last year, as he says. The salmon- 
 
14 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 fishing sounds more likely ; and then Carry could come 
 with us in the boat — which would make it less dull for 
 her. Anyhow, I have discovered the most remarkable 
 man I have met with as yet in the old country ; and to 
 think of his being thrown away like that ! " 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MEENIE. 
 
 We may now follow Eonald Strang as he walks along to 
 his cottage, which, with its kennels and its shed for hanging 
 up the slain deer, stands on a little plateau by the roadside, 
 a short distance from the inn. The moonlight night is 
 white and beautiful, but far from silent ; for the golden 
 plover are whistling and calling down by the lochside, and 
 the snipe are sending their curious harsh note across the 
 moorland wastes. Moreover, he himself seems to be in a 
 gay mood (perhaps glad to be over the embarrassment of 
 a first meeting with the stranger), and he is conversing 
 amicably with his little terrier. The subject is rats. 
 Whether the wise little Harry knows all that is said need 
 not be determined : but he looks up from time to time 
 and wags his stump of a tail as he trots placidly along. 
 And so they get up to the cottage and enter, for the outer 
 door is on the latch, thieves being unheard of in this 
 remote neighbourhood ; though here Harry hesitates, for 
 he is uncertain whether he is to be invited into the 
 parlour or not. But the next moment all consideration of 
 this fom'-footed friend is driven out of his master's head. 
 Ronald had expected to find the parlour empty, and his 
 little sister, at present his sole housekeeper, retired to rest. 
 But the moment he opens the door, he finds that not only 
 is she there, sitting by the table near to the solitary lamp, 
 but that she has a companion with her. And well he 
 knows who that must be. 
 
 " Dear me, Miss Douglas," he exclaimed, " have I kept 
 you so late ! " 
 
 The young lady, who now rose, with something of a 
 flush over her features — for she had been startled by his 
 sudden entrance — was certainly an extraordinarily pretty 
 
MEENIE 15 
 
 creature : not so much handsome, or distinguished, or 
 striking, as altogether pretty and winning and gentle-looking. 
 She was obviously of a pure Highland type : the figure 
 slender and graceful, the head small and beautifully formed ; 
 the forehead rather square for a woman, but getting its 
 proper curve from the soft and pretty hair ; the features 
 refined and intelligent ; the mouth sensitive ; the expression 
 a curious sort of seeking to please, as it were, and ready to 
 form itself into an abundant gratitude for the smallest act 
 of kindness. Of course, much of this look was owing to her 
 eyes, which were the true Highland eyes ; of a blue gray 
 these were, with somewhat dark lashes ; wide apart, and shy, 
 and apprehensive, they reminded one of the startled eyes of 
 some wild animal ; but they were entirely human in their 
 quick sympathy, in their gentleness, in their appeal to all 
 the world, as it were, for a favouring word. As for her 
 voice — well, if she used but few of the ordinary Highland 
 phrases, she had undoubtedly a considerable trace of High- 
 land accent ; for, although her father was an Edinburgh man, 
 her mother (as the elderly lady very soon let her neighbours 
 know) was one of the Stuarts of Glengask and Orosay ; 
 and then again Meenie had lived nearly all her life in the 
 Highlands, her father never having risen above the position 
 of a parish doctor, and welcoming even such local re- 
 movals as served to improve his position in however slight 
 a way. 
 
 " Maggie," said Miss Douglas (and the beautiful wide- 
 apart eyes were full of a shy apology), " was feeling a little 
 lonely, and I did not like to leave her." 
 
 " But if I had known," said he, " I would not have stayed 
 so late. The gentleman that is come about the shooting 
 is a curious man ; it's no the salmon and the grouse and 
 the deer he wants to know about only ; it's everything in 
 the country. Now, Maggie, lass, get ye to bed. And I 
 will see you down the road, Miss Douglas." 
 
 " Indeed there is no need for that," said Meenie, with 
 downcast eyes. 
 
 " Would ye have a bogle run away with ye ? " he said 
 good-naturedly. 
 
 And so she bade good-night to the little Maggie, and 
 took up some books and drawings she had brought to 
 
1 6 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 beguile tlie time withal ; and then she went out into the 
 clear night, followed by the young gamekeeper. 
 
 And what a night it was — or rather, might have been — 
 for two lovers I The wide waters of the loch lay still and 
 smooth, with a broad pathway of silver stretching away into 
 the dusk of the eastern hills ; not a breath of wind stirred 
 bush or tree ; and if Ben Clebrig in the south was mostly 
 a bulk of shadow, far away before them in the northern 
 skies rose the great shoulders of Ben Loyal, pallid in the 
 moonlight, the patches of snow showing white up near the 
 stars. They had left behind them the little hamlet — which 
 merely consisted of a few cottages and the inn ; they were 
 alone in this pale silent world. And down there, beneath 
 the little bridge, ran the placid Mudal Water : and if they 
 had a Bible with them ? — and would stand each on one 
 side of the stream ? — and clasp hands across ? It was a 
 night for lovers' vows. 
 
 " Maggie is getting on well with her lessons," the pretty 
 young lady said, in that gentle voice of hers. " She is very 
 diligent." 
 
 " I'm sure I'm much obliged to ye. Miss Douglas," was 
 the respectful answer, " for the trouble ye take with her. 
 It's an awkward thing to be sae far from a school. I'm 
 thinking I'll have to send her to my brother in Glasgow, 
 and get her put to school there." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, indeed," said she, " that will be a change 
 now. And who will look after the cottage for you, 
 Ronald ? " 
 
 She addressed him thus quite naturally, and without 
 shyness ; for no one ever dreamed of calling him anything 
 else. 
 
 " Well, I suppose Mrs. MacGregor will give the place a 
 redd * up from time to time. But a keeper has but half 
 learned his business that canna shift for himself ; there's 
 some of the up-country lodges with ne'er a woman-l^ody 
 within a dozen miles o' them." 
 
 " It is your brother the minister that Maggie will be 
 going to ? " she said. 
 
 " Oh yes ; he is married, and has a family of his own ; 
 she will be comfortable there." 
 
 * " Kedd," a setting to rights. 
 
MEENIE 17 
 
 " Well, it is strange," said she, " that you should have a 
 brother in Glasgow, and I a sister, and that your mother 
 should be Highland and mine too." 
 
 But this was putting himself and her on much too 
 common a footing ; and he was always on his guard against 
 that, however far her gentleness and good-nature might 
 lead her. 
 
 " When is your father coming back, Miss Douglas .? " 
 said he. 
 
 " Well, I really do not know," she said. " I do not think 
 he has ever had so wide a district to attend to, and we are 
 never sure of his being at home." 
 
 " It must be very lonely for a young lady brought up 
 like you," he ventured to say, "that ye should have no 
 companions. And for your mother, too ; I wonder she 
 can stand it." 
 
 " Oh no," she said, " for the people are so friendly 
 with us. And I do not know of any place that I like 
 better." 
 
 By this time they were come to the little wooden gate 
 of the garden, and he opened that for her. Before them 
 was the cottage, with its windows, despite the moonlight on 
 the panes, showing the neat red blinds within. She gave 
 him her hand for a second. 
 
 " Good-night, Ronald," said she pleasantly. 
 
 " Good-night, Miss Douglas," said he ; " Maggie must 
 not keep you up so late again." 
 
 And therewith he walked away back again along the 
 white road, and only now perceived that by some accident 
 his faithful companion Harry had been shut in when they 
 left. He also discovered, when he got home, that his sister 
 Maggie had been so intent puzzling over some arithmetical 
 mysteries which Meenie had been explaining to her, that 
 she had still further delayed her going to bed. 
 
 " What, what .? " said he, good-humouredly. " Not \\\ 
 bed yet, lass ? " 
 
 The little red-headed, freckled-faced lassie obediently 
 gathered up her belongings, but at the door she lingered 
 for a moment. 
 
 " Ronald," said she, timidly, " why do ye call j\Ieenie 
 ' Miss Douglas ? ' It's not friendly." 
 
 c 
 
1 8 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " When ye're a bit older, lass, ye'll understand," he said, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 Little Maggie was distressed in a vague way, for she had 
 formed a warm affection for Meenie Douglas, and it seemed 
 hard and strange that her own brother should show himself 
 so distant in manner. 
 
 " Do you think she's proud ? for she's not that," the 
 little girl made bold to say. 
 
 " Have ye never heard o' the Stuarts of Glengask ? " said 
 he ; and he added grimly, " My certes, if ye were two or 
 three years older, I'm thinking Mrs. Douglas would have 
 told ye ere now how Sir Alexander used to call on them in 
 Edinburgh every time he came north. Most folk have 
 heard that story. But however, when Meenie, as ye like 
 to call her, goes to live in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or some 
 o' the big towns, of course she'll be Miss Douglas to every 
 one, as she ought to be here, only that she's taken a fancy 
 to you, and, my lass, fairly spoils ye with her kindness. 
 Now, off with ye, and dinna fash your head about what I 
 or any one else calls her ; if she's content to be Meenie to 
 you, ye should be proud enough." 
 
 As soon as she was gone he stirred up the peats, lit his 
 pipe, and drew in a chair to the small table near the fire. 
 It was his first pipe that evening, and he wished to have it 
 in comfort. And then, to pass the time, he unlocked and 
 opened a drawer in the table, and began to rummage 
 through the papers collected there — all kinds of shreds and 
 fragments they were, scored over mostly in pencil, and 
 many of them bearing marks as if the writing had been 
 done outside in the rain. 
 
 The fact was, that in idle times, when there was no 
 trapping to be done, or shooting of hoodie-crows, or break- 
 ing-in of young dogs, he would while away many an hour 
 on the hillside or along the shores of the loch by stringing 
 verses together. They were done for amusement's sake. 
 Sometimes he jotted them down, sometimes he did not. 
 If occasionally, when he had to write a letter to a friend of 
 his at Tongue, or make some request of his brother in 
 Glasgow, he put these epistles into jingling rhyme, that was 
 about all the publication his poetical efforts ever achieved ; 
 and he was most particular to conceal from the " gentiy " 
 
MEENIE 19 
 
 who came down to the shooting any knowledge that he 
 scribbled at all. He knew it would be against him. He 
 had no wish to figure as one of those local poets (and alas ! 
 they have been and are too numerous in Scotland) who, 
 finding within them some small portion of the afflatus of a 
 Burns, or a Motherwell, or a Tannahill, are seduced away 
 from their lawful employment, gain a fleeting popularity in 
 their native village, perhaps attain to the dignity of a notice 
 in a Glasgow or Edinburgh newspaper, and subsequently and 
 almost inevitably die of drink, in the most abject misery of 
 disappointment. No ; if he had any ambition it was not 
 in that direction ; it was rather that he should be known 
 as the smartest deerstalker and the best trainer of dogs in 
 Sutherlandshire. He knew where his strength lay, and 
 where he found content. And then there was another 
 reason why he could not court newspaper applause with 
 these idle rhymes of his. They were nearly all about 
 Meenie Douglas. Meenie-olatry was written all across 
 those scribbled sheets. And of course that was a dark 
 secret known only to himself ; and indeed it amused him, 
 as he turned over the loose leaves, to think that all the 
 Stuarts of Glengask and Orosay (and that most severe and 
 terrible of them all, Mrs. Douglas) could not in the least 
 prevent his saying to Meenie just whatever he pleased — • 
 within the wooden confines of this drawer. And what had 
 he not said ? Sometimes it was but a bit of careless 
 singing — 
 
 'Roses njhite, roses red, 
 Bases in the lane, 
 
 Tell me, roses red and ivliife, 
 Where is Meenie gane? 
 
 is she on Loch Loyal's side? 
 
 Or tip by Mudal Water ? 
 In vain the xvild doves in the woods 
 
 Everywhere have sought her. 
 
 Hoses white, roses red, 
 
 Eoses in tlie lane, 
 Tell me, roses red and ivliite. 
 
 Where is Meenie gane ? 
 
 Well, now, supposing you arc far away up on Ben 
 Clebrig's slopes, a gun over your shoulder, and idly looking 
 
 c 2 
 
20 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 out for a ^Yhite hare or a ptarmigan, if you take to humming 
 these careless rhymes to some such tune as " Cherry Ripe," 
 who is to hinder ? The strongest of all the south winds 
 cannot carry the tidings to Glengask nor yet to Orosay's 
 shores. And so the whole country-side — every hill and 
 stream and wood and rock — came to be associated with 
 Meenie, and saturated with the praise and glory of her. 
 Why, he made the very mountains fight about her ! 
 
 Hen Loyal s]pal;e to Ben Clehrig, 
 
 And they thundered their vote of war: 
 " Yo2i looh duivn on your sheep and your sheep/olds; 
 I see the ocean afar. 
 
 " You hole doiin on the huts and the hamlets. 
 And the trivial tasks of men; 
 I see the great ships sailing 
 Along the northern main." 
 
 Ben Clehrig laughed, and the laughter 
 Shook heaven and earth and sea : 
 " There is something in that small hamlet 
 That is fair enough for me — 
 
 " Ay, fairer than all your sailing sJiips 
 Struck ivith the morning flame : 
 A fresh young floicer from the hand of God — 
 Rose Meenie- is her name ! " 
 
 But at this moment, as he turned over this mass of 
 scraps and fragments, there was one, much more audacious 
 than the rest, that he was in search of, and when he found 
 it a whimsical fancy got into his head. If he were to make 
 out a fair copy of the roughly scrawled lines, and fold that 
 up, and address it to Meenie, just to see how it looked ? 
 He took out his blotting-pad, and selected the best sheet 
 of note-paper he could find ; and then he wrote (with a 
 touch of amusement, and perhaps of something else, too, 
 in his mind the while) thus — 
 
 loilt thou he my dear love ? 
 
 (Meenie and Meenie), 
 ivilt thou he my ain love ? 
 
 (My sweet Meenie). 
 Were yon loi' me upon the hill, 
 It's I loould gar the dogs he still. 
 We'd lie our lane and kiss our fill, 
 (My love Meenie). 
 
MEENIE 21 
 
 Ahoon the hum a wild hush grows 
 
 (Jtleenie and Meenie), 
 And on the hush there hlooms a rose 
 
 (JMy sweet Meenie') ; 
 And wad ye tali the rose frae me, 
 And wear it cohere it fain would he. 
 It's to your arms that I would flee, 
 
 {Bose-sweet Meenie !) 
 
 He carefully folded the paper and addressed it outside 
 —so : 
 
 Miss Wilhelmina Stuart Douglas, 
 
 Care of James Douglas, Esq., M.D., 
 Inver-Mudal, 
 
 Sutherlandshire. 
 
 And then he held it out at arm's length, and regarded it, 
 and laughed, in a contemptuous kind of way, at his own 
 folly. 
 
 " Well," he was thinking to himself, " if it were not for 
 Stuart of Glengask, I suppose the day might come when I 
 could send her a letter like that ; but as it is, if they were 
 to hear of any such madness, Glengask and all his kith and 
 kin would be for setting the heather on fire." 
 
 He tossed the letter back on the blotting-pad, and rose 
 and went and stood opposite the blazing peats. This 
 movement aroused the attention of the little terrier, who 
 immediately jumped up from his snooze and began to 
 whimper his expectation. Strang's heart smote him. 
 
 " God bless us ! " he said aloud. " When a lass gets 
 into a man's head, there's room for nothing else ; he'll 
 forget his best friends. Here, Harry, come along, and I'll 
 get ye your supper, my man." 
 
 He folded up the blotting-pad and locked it in the drawer, 
 blew out the candles, called Harry to follow him into the 
 kitchen, where the small terrier was duly provided for and 
 left on guard. Then he sought out his own small room. 
 He was whistling as he went ; and, if he dreamt of any- 
 thing that night, be sure it was not of the might and 
 majesty of Sir Alexander Stuart of Glengask and Orosay. 
 These verses to Meenie were bub playthings and fancies — - 
 for idle hours. 
 
22 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE LOCH. 
 
 A CONSIDERABLE wind ai'ose during the night ; Mr. Hodson 
 did not sleep very well ; and, lying awake towards morning, 
 he came to the conclusion that he had been befooled, or 
 rather that he had befooled himself, with regard to that 
 prodigy of a gamekeeper. He argued with himself that 
 his mental faculties must have been dulled by the long 
 day's travel ; he had come into the inn jaded and tired ; 
 and then finding himself face to face with an ordinarily 
 alert and intrepid intellect, he had no doubt exaggerated 
 the young man's abilities, and made a wonder of him where 
 no wonder was needed. That he was a person of consider- 
 able information and showed common sense was likely 
 enough. Mr. Hodson, in his studies of men and things, 
 had heard something of the intelligence and education to 
 be found among the working classes in Scotland. He had 
 heard of the handloom weavers who were learned botanists ; 
 of the stone-masons who were great geologists ; of the village 
 poets who, if most of their efforts were but imitations of 
 Ferguson and Burns- and Tannahill, would here and there, 
 in some chance moment of inspiration, sing out some true 
 and pathetic song, to be taken to the hearts of their 
 countrymen, and added to a treasure-store of rustic min- 
 strelsy such as no other nation in the world has ever pro- 
 duced. At the same time he was rather anxious to meet 
 Strang again, the better to get the measure of him. And 
 as he was also curious to see what this neighbourhood into 
 which he had penetrated looked like, he rose betimes in 
 the morning — indeed, before the day was fully declared. 
 
 The wind still moaned about the house, but outside 
 there was no sign of any storm ; on the contrary, every- 
 thing was strangely calm. The lake lay a dark lurid purple 
 in the hollow of the encircling hills ; and these, along 
 the eastern heavens, were of the deepest and softest olive 
 green ; just over them was a line of gleaming salmon-red, 
 keen and resplendent as if molten from a furnace ; and 
 over that again soft saffron-dusky clouds, deepening in tone 
 the higher they hung in the clear pale steel hues of the 
 
ON THE LOCH 23 
 
 overhead sky. There was no sign of life anywhere — ■ 
 nothing but the birch woods sloping down to the shore ; 
 the moorland wastes of the lower hills ; and above these 
 the giant bulk and solemn shadows of Ben Clebrig,* dark 
 against the dawn. It was a lovely sight ; he began to 
 think he had never before in his life felt himself so much 
 alone. But whence came the sound of the wind that 
 seemed to go moaning down the strath towards the purple 
 lake? 
 
 Well, he made no doubt that it was up towards the 
 north and west that the storm was brewing ; and he re- 
 membered that a window in the sitting-room below looked 
 in that direction ; there he would be able to ascertain 
 whether any fishing was practicable. He finished his 
 dressing and went down. The breakfast table was laid ; a 
 mighty mass of peats was blazing cheerfully in the spacious 
 fireplace. And the storm ? Why, all the wide strath on 
 this northern side of the house was one glow of yellow 
 light in the now spreading sunrise ; and still farther away 
 in the north the great shoulders of Ben Loyal f had caught 
 a faint roseate tinge ; and the same pale and beautiful 
 colour seemed to transfuse a large and fleecy cloud that 
 clung around the snow-scarred peak. So he came to 
 the conclusion that in this corner of the glen the wind 
 said more than it meant ; and that they might adventure 
 on the loch without risk of being swamped or blown 
 ashore. 
 
 The slim tall Highland lass made her appearance with 
 further plenishings for the table, and " Good moarning ! " 
 she said, in her pretty way, in answer to his greeting. 
 " Say, now, has that man come down from Tongue yet ? " 
 " No, sir," said Nelly, " he wass no come down yet." 
 And then she looked up with a demure smile. " They 
 would be keeping the New Year at Tongue last night." 
 "Keeping the New Year on the lith of January ? " 
 "It's the twelfth is the usual day, sir," she explained, 
 " but that was Saturday, and they do not like a Saturday 
 night, for they have to stop at twelve o'clock, and so most 
 of them were for keeping it last night." 
 
 * That is, the Hill of the Playing Trout. 
 
 t More properly Ben Laoghal, the Hill of the Calves. 
 
24 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 " Oh, indeed. Then the festive gentleman won't show 
 up to-day ? " 
 
 " But it is of no matter whatelfer whether he comes or 
 no ; for I am sm'e that Eonald will be willing to lend a 
 hand. Oh, I am sure of it. I will ask him myself." 
 
 " You will ask him ? " was Mr. Hodson's internal soliloquy. 
 " It is to you he will grant the favour. Indeed ! " 
 
 He fixed his eyes on her. 
 
 " He is a good-looking young fellow, that Eonald." 
 
 She did not answer that ; she was putting the marmalade, 
 and the honey, and the cream on the table. 
 
 " He is not married ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " "Well, now, when he thinks about getting married, I 
 suppose he'll pretty well have his choice about here ? " 
 
 " Indeed there iss others besides him," said Nelly rather 
 proudly, but her face was red as she opened the door. 
 
 Well, whether it was owing to the intervention of Nelly 
 or not, as soon as Mr. Hodson was ready to start he found 
 Ronald waiting for him without ; and not only that, but he 
 had already assumed command of the expedition, having 
 sent the one gillie who had arrived down to bale the boat. 
 And then he would overhaul Mr. Hodson's fishing-gear — ■ 
 examining the rods, testing the lines and traces, and reject- 
 ing all the spoon baits, angels, sand-eels, and what not, that 
 had been supplied by the London tackle-maker, for two or 
 three of the familiar phantom minnows. Mr. Hodson 
 could scarcely believe that this was the same man who last 
 night had been discussing the disestablishment of state 
 churches and the policy of protecting native industries. 
 He had not a word for anything but the business before 
 him ; and the bold fashion in which he handled those 
 minnows, all bristling with hooks, or drew the catgut traces 
 through his fingers (Mr. Hodson shivered, and seemed to 
 feel his own fingers being cut to the bone), showed that he 
 was as familiar with the loch as with the hillside or the 
 kennel. 
 
 " I'm not much on salmon-fishing myself," the American 
 remarked modestly. 
 
 " It's rather early in the season, sir, I'm afraid," was 
 the answer. " But we might get a fish after all ; and if 
 
ON THE LOCH ^5 
 
 we do it'll be the first caught in Scotland this year, I 
 warrant," 
 
 They set out and walked down to the shore of the loch, 
 and there Mr. Hodson seated himself on the gunwale of 
 the flat-bottomed coble, and watched the two men putting 
 the rods together and fixing the traces. The day had now 
 declared itself ; wild and stormy in appearance, but fair on 
 the whole ; great floods of sunshine falling suddenly on the 
 yellow slopes and the russet birch woods ; and shadows 
 coming as rapidly across the far heights of Clebrig, steeping 
 the mountains in gloom. As for the gillie who had been 
 proof against the seductions of keeping the New Year, and 
 who was now down on one knee, biting catgut with his 
 teeth, he was a man as tall and as sallow as Mr. Hodson 
 himself, but with an added expression of intense melancholy 
 and hopelessness. Or was that but temporary ? 
 
 " Duncan doesna like that boat," Ronald said, glancing 
 at Mr. Hodson. 
 
 The melancholy man did not speak, but shook his head 
 gloomily. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 As the gilhe did not answer. Eon aid said— 
 
 " He thinks there is no luck with that boat." 
 
 " That boat ? " the gillie said, with an angry look towards 
 the hapless coble. " She has the worst luck of any boat in 
 Sutherland — iam lier ! " he added, under his breath. 
 
 " In my country," the American said, in his slow way, 
 " we don't mind luck much ; we find perseverance about as 
 good a horse to win with in the end." 
 
 He was soon to have his perseverance tried. Every- 
 thing being ready they pushed off from the shore, Ronald 
 taking stroke oar, the gillie at the bow ; Mr. Hodson left 
 to pay out the lines of the two rods, and fix these in the 
 stern, when about five-and-thirty yards had gone forth. At 
 first, it is true, he waited and watched with a trifle of anxiety. 
 He wanted to catch a salmon ; it would be something to 
 write about to his daughter ; it would be a new experience 
 for himself. But when time passed and the boat was slowly 
 rowed along the loch at a measured distance from the shore, 
 without any touch of anything coming to make the point 
 of either rod tremble, he rather gave up his hope in that 
 
26 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 direction, and took to talking with Eonald. After all, it 
 was not salmon-fishing alone that had brought him into 
 these wilds. 
 
 "I suppose it is really too early in the season," he 
 observed, without much chagrin. 
 
 " Rayther," said Eonald. 
 
 " Eawther," said the melancholy gillie. 
 
 But at that instant something happened that startled 
 every one of them out of their apathy. The top of one of 
 the rods was violently pulled at, and then there was a long 
 shrill yell of the reel. 
 
 "There he is, sir ! there he is, sir ! " Eonald called. 
 
 Mr. Hodson made a grab blindly — for he had been 
 looking at the scenery around — at one of the rods. It was 
 the wrong one. But before he knew where he was, Eonald 
 had got hold of the other and raised the top so as to keep 
 a strain on the fish. The exchange of the rods was effected 
 in a moment. Then when Eonald had wound in the 
 other line and put the rod at the bow, he took to his oar 
 again, leaving Mr. Hodson to fight his unknown enemy as 
 best he might, but giving him a few words of direction 
 from time to time, quietly, as if it were all a matter of 
 course. 
 
 " Eeel in, sir, reel in — keep an even strain on him — let 
 him go — let him go if he wants " 
 
 Well, the fish was not a fierce fighter ; after the first 
 long rush he scarcely did anything ; he kept boring down- 
 wards, with a dull, heavy weight. It seemed easy work ; 
 and Mr. Hodson — triumphant in the hope of catching his 
 first salmon — was tempted to call aloud to the melancholy 
 gillie — 
 
 " Well, Duncan, how about luck now .? " 
 
 " I think it's a kelt," the man answered morosely. 
 
 But the sinister meaning of this reply was not under- 
 stood. 
 
 " I don't know what you call him," said Mr. Hodson, 
 holding on with both hands to the long, lithe grilse-rod 
 that was bent almost double. " Celt or Saxon, I don't 
 know ; but I seem to have got a good grip of him." 
 
 Then he heard Eonald say, in an undertone, to the 
 gillie — 
 
ON THE LOCH 27 
 
 " A kelt ? N"o fears. The first rush was too heavy for 
 that." 
 
 And the gilHe responded sullenly— 
 
 " He's following the boat like a cow." 
 
 " What is a kelt, anyway ? " the American called out. 
 " Something that swims, I suppose ? It ain't a man ? " 
 
 " I hope it's no a kelt, sir," said Ronald — but doubtfully. 
 
 " But what is a kelt, then, when he's at home ? " 
 
 " A salmon, sir, that hasna been down to the sea ; we'll 
 have to put him back if he is." 
 
 Whirr ! went the reel again ; the fish, kelt or clean 
 salmon, had struck deep down. But the melancholy 
 creature at the bow was taking no further interest in the 
 fight. He was sure it was a kelt. Most likely the minnow 
 would be destroyed. Maybe he would break the trace. 
 But a kelt it was. He knew the luck of this " tammed " 
 boat. 
 
 The struggle was a tedious one. The beast kept boring 
 down with the mere force of its weight, but following the 
 coble steadily ; and even Ronald, who had been combating 
 his own doubts, at length gave in : he was afraid it was a 
 kelt. Presently the last suspicion of hope was banished. 
 With a tight strain on him, the now exhausted animal 
 began to show near the surface of the water — his long eel- 
 like shape and black back revealing too obviously what 
 manner of creature he was. But this revelation had no 
 effect on the amateur fisherman, who at last beheld the 
 enemy he had been fighting with so long. He grew quite 
 excited. A kelt ? — he was a beautiful fine fish ! If he 
 could not be eaten he could be stuffed ! Twenty pounds 
 he was, if an ounce I — would he throw back such a trophy 
 into the loch .? 
 
 Ronald was crouching in the stern of the boat, the big 
 landing-net in his hand, watching the slow circling of the 
 kelt as it was being hauled nearer and nearer. His senti- 
 ments were of a different kind. 
 
 " Ah, you ugly brute ! — ah, you rascal ! — ah — ah !" — and 
 then there was a deep scoop of the landing-net ; and the 
 next minute the huge eel-like beast was in the bottom of 
 the boat, Duncan holding on to its tail, and Ronald gripping 
 it by the gills, while he set to work to get the minnow out 
 
28 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 of its jaws. And then without further ado — and without 
 stopping to discuss the question of stuffing — the creature 
 was heaved into the water again, with a parting benediction 
 of " Bah, you brute ! " It took its leave rapidly. 
 
 " Well, it's a pity, sir," Eonald said ; " that would have 
 been a twenty-four pound salmon if he had been down to 
 the sea." 
 
 " It's the luck of this tammed boat," Duncan said gloomily. 
 
 But Mr. Hodson could not confess to any such keen 
 sense of disappointment. He had never played so big a 
 fish before, and was rather proud that so slight a grilse-rod 
 and so slender a line should (of course, with some discretion 
 and careful nursing on his part) have overmastered so big 
 a beast. Then he did not eat salmon ; there was no loss 
 in that direction. And as he had not injured the kelt in 
 any way, he reflected that he had enjoyed half-an-hour's 
 excitement without doing harm to anything or anybody, 
 and he was well content. So he paid out the two lines 
 again, and set the rods, and began to renew his talk with 
 Eonald touching the customs connected with the keeping 
 of the New Year. 
 
 After all, it was a picturesque kind of occupation, kelts 
 or no kelts. Look at the scene around them — the lapping 
 waters of the loch, a vivid and brilliant blue when the skies 
 were shining fair, or black and stormy again when the clouds 
 were heavy in the heavens ; and always the permanent 
 features of the landscape — the soft yellows of the lower 
 straths, where the withered grass was mixed with the orange 
 bracken ; the soft russet of the leafless birch woods fringing 
 the shores of the lake ; the deep violet shadows of Ben 
 Clebrig stretching up into the long swathes of mist ; and 
 then the far amphitheatre of hills — Ben Hee, and Ben 
 Hope, and Ben Loyal — with sunlight and shade inter- 
 mingling their ethereal tints, but leaving the snow-streaks 
 always sparkling and clear. He got used to the monotony 
 of the slow circling of the upper waters of the lake. He 
 forgot to watch the points of the rods. He was asking all 
 kinds of questions about the stags and the hinds, about 
 ptarmigan, and white hares, and roe, about the price of 
 sheep, the rents of crofts, the comparative wages of gillies, 
 and shepherds, and foresters, and keepers, and stalkers, and 
 
ON THE LOCH 29 
 
 the habits and customs of land-agents and factors. And at 
 length, when it came to lunch-time, and when they landed, 
 and found for him a sheltered place under the lee of a big 
 rock, and when Eonald pointed out to him a grassy bank, 
 and said rather ruefully — 
 
 "I dinna like to see that place empty, sir. That's 
 where the gentlemen have the salmon laid out, that they 
 may look at them at lunch-time — " 
 
 Mr. Hodson, as he opened the little basket that had 
 been provided for him, answered cheerfully enough — 
 
 "My good friend, don't you imagine that I feel like 
 giving it up yet. I'm not finished with this lake, and I'll 
 back perseverance against luck any day. Seems to me 
 we've done very well so far ; I'm con-tent." 
 
 By and by they went back into the coble again, and 
 resumed their patient pursuit ; and there is little doubt that 
 by this time Ronald had come to the conclusion that this 
 stranger who had come amongst them was a singularly odd 
 and whimsical person. It was remarkable enough that he 
 should have undertaken this long and solitary journey in 
 order to fish for salmon, and then show himself quite 
 indifferent as to whether he got any or not ; and it was 
 scarcely human for any one to betray no disappointment 
 whatever when the first fish caught proved to be a kelt ; 
 but it was still stranger that a man rich enough to talk 
 about renting a deer-forest should busy himself Avith the 
 petty affairs of the very poorest people around. Why, he 
 wanted to know how much Nelly the housemaid could 
 possibly save on her year's wages ; whether she was supposed 
 to lay by something as against her wedding-day ; or whether 
 any of the lads about would marry her for her pretty face 
 alone. And when he discovered that Mr. Murray, the 
 innkeeper, was about to give a New Year supper and dance 
 to the lads and lasses of the neighbourhood, he made no 
 scruple about hinting plainly that he would be glad of an 
 invitation to join that festive party. 
 
 " Not if I'm going to be anything of a wet blanket," he 
 said candidly. " My dancing days are over, and I'm not 
 much in the way of singing ; but I'll tell them an American 
 story ; or I'll present them with a barrel of whisky — if that 
 will keep the fun going." 
 
30 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 " I'm sure they'll be very glad, sir," Ronald said, " if ye 
 just come and look on. When there's gentlemen at the 
 Lodge, they generally come down to hear the pipes, and 
 the young gentlemen have a dance too." 
 
 " What night did you say ? " 
 
 "Monday next, sir." 
 
 Well, he had only intended remaining here for a day or 
 two, to see what the place was like ; but this temptation 
 was too great. Here was a famous opportunity for the 
 pursuit of his favourite study — the study of life and manners. 
 This, had Eonald but known it, was the constant and 
 engrossing occupation that enabled this contented traveller 
 to accept with equanimity the ill-luck of kelt-catching ; it 
 was a hobby he could carry about with him everywhere ; 
 it gave a continuous interest to every hour of his life. He 
 cared little for the analyses of science ; he cared less for 
 philosophical systems ; metaphysics he laughed at ; but 
 men and women — the problems of their lives and surround- 
 ings, their diverse fortunes and aspirations and dealings 
 with each other — that was the one and constant subject 
 that engrossed his interest. No doubt there was a little 
 more than this ; it was not merely as an abstract study 
 that he was so fond of getting to know how people lived. 
 The fact was that, even after having made ample provision 
 for his family, he still remained possessed of a large fortune ; 
 his own expenditure was moderate ; and he liked to go 
 about with the consciousness that here or there, as occasion 
 served, he could play the part of a little Providence. It 
 was a harmless vanity ; moreover, he was a shrewd man, 
 not likely to be deceived by spurious appeals for charity. 
 ]\Iany was the young artist whom he had introduced to 
 buyers ; many the young clerk whom he had helped to 
 a better situation ; more than one young woman in the 
 humblest of circumstances had suddenly found herself 
 enabled to purchase her wedding outfit (with a trifle over, 
 towards the giving her greater value in her lover's eyes), 
 through the mysterious benevolence of some unknown 
 benefactor. This man had been brought up in a country 
 where every one is restlessly pushing forward ; and being 
 possessed of abundant means, and a friendly disposition, 
 it seemed the most natural thing in the world that here or 
 
ON THE LOCH 31 
 
 there, at a fitting opportunity, he should lend a helping 
 hand. And there was always this possibility present to 
 him — this sense of power — as he made those minute 
 inquiries of his into the conditions of the lives of those 
 amongst whom he chanced to be living. 
 
 The short winter day was drawing to a close ; the 
 brilliant steely blue of the driven water had given place 
 to a livid gray ; and the faint gleams of saffron-yellow 
 were dying out in the western skies, 
 
 " Suppose we'd better be going home now," Mr. Hodson 
 remarked at a venture, and with no great disappointment in 
 his tone. 
 
 " I'm afraid, sir, there's no such chance now," Ronald said. 
 
 " We must call again ; they're not at home to-day," the 
 other remarked, and began with much complacency to reel 
 in one of the lines. 
 
 He was doing so slowly, and the men were as slowly 
 pulling in for the shore in the gathering dusk, when ivhiir ! 
 went the other reel. The loud and sudden shriek in this 
 silence was a startling thing ; and no less so was the spring- 
 ing into the air — at apparently an immense distance away — 
 of some creature, kelt or salmon, that fell into the water 
 again with a mighty splash. Instinctively Mr. Hodson had 
 gripped this rod, and passed the other one he had been 
 reeling in to Strang. It was an anxious moment. Whirr ! 
 went another dozen yards of line ; and again the fish sprang 
 into the air — this time plainly visible. 
 
 " A clean fish, sir ! a clean fish ! " was the welcome 
 cry. 
 
 But there was no time to hazard doubts or ask questions ; 
 this sudden visitor at the end of the line had not at all 
 made up his mind to be easily captured. First of all he 
 came sailing in quietly towards the boat, giving the fisher- 
 man all he could do to reel in and keep a strain on him ; 
 then he whirled out the line so suddenly that the rod was 
 nearly bent double ; and then, in deep water, he kept per- 
 sistently sulking and boring, refusing to yield an inch. 
 This was a temporary respite. 
 
 " Well, now, is this one all right ? " Mr. Hodson called 
 out — but he was rather bewildered, for he knew not what 
 this violent beast might not be after next, and the gathering 
 
32 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 darkness looked strange, the shadows of Olebrig overhead 
 seeming to blot out the sky. 
 
 " A clean fish, sir," was the confident answer. 
 
 "ISTo doubt o' that, sir," even the melancholy Duncan 
 admitted ; for he foresaw a dram now, if not a tip iu 
 actual money. 
 
 Then slowly and slowly the salmon began to yield to 
 the strain on him — which was considerable, for this was the 
 heavier of the two rods — and quickly the line was got in, 
 the pliant cm've of the rod remaining always the same ; 
 while Mr. Hodson flattered himself that he was doing very 
 well now, and that he was surely becoming the master of 
 the situation. But the next instant something happened 
 that his mind was not rapid enough to comprehend : some- 
 thing dreadful and horrible and sudden : there was a 
 whirring out of the reel so rapid that he had to lower the 
 point of the rod almost to the water ; then the fish made 
 one flashing spring along the surface — and this time he saw 
 the creature, a gleam of silver in the dusk— and then, to 
 his unspeakable dismay and mortification, he felt the line 
 quite slack. He did utter a little monosyllable. 
 
 " He's off, sir," the melancholy gillie said in a tone of 
 sad resignation. 
 
 " Not a bit, sir, not a bit ! Eeel in, quick I " Ronald 
 called to him : and the fisherman had sense enough to 
 throw the rod as far back as he could to see if there was 
 yet some strain on it. Undoubtedly the fish was still 
 there. Moreover, this last cantrip seemed to have taken 
 the spirit out of him. By and by, with a strong, steady 
 strain on him, he suffered himself to be guided more 
 and more towards the boat, until, now and again, they 
 could see a faint gleam in the dark water ; and now 
 Eonald had relinquished his oar, and was crouching down 
 in the stern — this time not with the landing-net in his 
 hand, but with the bright steel clip just resting on the 
 gunwale. 
 
 " He's showing the white feather now, sir ; give him a 
 little more of the butt." 
 
 However, he had not quite given in yet : each time he 
 came in sight of the boat he would make another ineffectual 
 rush, but rarely getting down deeper than three or four 
 
ON THE LOCH 33 
 
 yards. And then, with a short line and the butt well 
 towards him, he began to make slow semicircles this way 
 and that ; and always he was being steadily hauled nearer 
 the coble ; until with one quick dip and powerful upward 
 pull Eonald had got him transfixed on the gaff and landed 
 — the huge, gleaming, beautiful silver creature ! — in the 
 bottom of the boat. 
 
 " Well done, sir ! — a clean fish ! — a beauty — the first 
 caught in Scotland this year, I know ! " — these were the 
 exclamations he heard now ; but he scarcely knew how it 
 had all happened, for he had been more excited than he 
 was aware of. He felt a vague and general sense of satis- 
 faction ; wanted to give the men a glass of whisky, and had 
 none to give them ; thought that the capture of a salmon 
 was a noble thing ; would have liked his daughter Carry 
 to hear the tidings at once ; and had a kind of general 
 purpose to devote the rest of that year to salmon-fishing in 
 the Highlands. From this entrancement he was awakened 
 by a dispute between the two men as to the size of the 
 fish. 
 
 " He's twelve pounds, and no more," the melancholy 
 Duncan said, eyeing him all over. 
 
 " Look at his shoulders, man," Ronald rejoined. " Four- 
 teen pounds if he's an ounce. Duncan, lad, ye've been 
 put off your guessing by the sight of the kelt." 
 
 " He's a good fish whateffer," Duncan was constrained 
 to admit — for he still foresaw that prospect of a dram when 
 they returned to the inn, with perhaps a more substantial 
 handselling of good luck. 
 
 Of course, they could do no more fishing that afternoon, 
 for it was nearly dark ; but it was wonderful how the 
 capture of this single salmon seemed to raise the spirits of 
 the little party as they got ashore and walked home. There 
 was a kind of excitement in the evening air. They talked 
 in a rapid and eager way — about what the fish had done ; 
 what were the chances of such and such a rush ; the prob- 
 able length of time it had been up from the sea ; the 
 beauty of its shape ; the smallness of its head ; the fresh- 
 ness of its colour, and so forth — and there was a kind of 
 jubilation abroad. The first fish caught in Scotland that 
 year ! — of course, it must be packed forthwith and sent 
 
34 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 south to his daughter Carry and her friends. And Mr. 
 Hodson was quite facetious with the pretty Nelly when she 
 came in to lay the table for dinner ; and would have her 
 say whether she had not yet fixed her mind on one or other 
 of these young fellows around. As for the small hamlet of 
 Inver-Mudal, it was about as solitary and forlorn a habita- 
 tion as any to be found in the wilds of northern Scotland ; 
 and he was there all by himself ; but with the blazing peat- 
 fire, and the brilliant white cloth on the dinner-table, and 
 the consciousness that the firm, stout-shouldered, clean-run 
 fourteen-pounder was lying in the dairy on a slab of cold 
 stone, he considered that Inver-Mudal was a most enjoyable 
 and sociable and comfortable place, and that he had not 
 felt himself so snug and so much at home for many and 
 many a day. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A LETTER. 
 
 After dinner he found himself with a pretty long evening 
 before him, and thought he could not do better than 
 devote the major part of it to writing to his daughter. He 
 would not confess to himself that he wanted her to know 
 at once that he had caught his first salmon ; that was but 
 a trivial incident in the life of a philosopher and student 
 of mankind ; still she would be glad to hear of his adven- 
 tures ; and it was not an unpleasant way of passing the 
 time. So he wrote as follows : — ■ 
 
 " My darling Carry — You will be rejoiced to learn that 
 I have discovered a harbour of refuge for you, where that 
 minute organ you call your mind may lay aside its heaviest 
 load of trouble. Here, at last, is one corner of Europe where 
 you need have no fear of anybody mistaking you for one 
 of the Boston girls of fiction ; indeed you might go about 
 all day talking your beloved Texas with impunity ; although, 
 ray dear young lady, that is a habit you would do well to 
 drop, for sooner or later it will get you into trouble when 
 you are least expecting it. But short of scalping children 
 or using a bowie-knife for a fork, I think you might do 
 or say anything you pleased here ; it is the most out-of-the 
 
A LETTER 35 
 
 world sort of place ; a community of fifteen or twenty, I 
 should guess, hidden away in a hole of a valley, and 
 separated from the rest of the universe by great ranges of 
 mountains and interminable miles of moorland. The people 
 seem very friendly, but shy ; and I don't quite catch on to 
 them yet, for their speech bothers me— scarcely any two 
 of them seem to have the same accent ; 'but I hope to get 
 to know something more about them next Monday, when 
 they have a New Year celebration, which I am invited to 
 the same. "Would you like to join in ? By all means come 
 if you care to ; the station is Lairg ; wire, and I will meet 
 you there. You will miss the wild excitement of paying 
 afternoon calls and drinking tea ; but you will get sunlight 
 and fresh air into your lungs. The talk about the fierce 
 weather is all nonsense. There is a sprinkling of snow on 
 the higher hills, but the temperature is quite agreeable. 
 In any case I expect you to come here with me in March, 
 when the salmon-fishing will begin in earnest ; and I have 
 no doubt you will have made the acquaintance of the 
 whole of the people in a couple of days, shy as they are. 
 There is another point I have not forgotten. As you seem 
 determined to set yourself up for your lifetime with reminis- 
 cences of your travels in Europe, I have had to consider 
 what you could carry away from here. I am afraid that 
 Inver-Mudal jewellery wouldn't make much of a show ; 
 and I haven't seen any shell necklaces or silk scarves or 
 blue pots about. But what about a Highland maid ? I 
 suppose the N.Y. Customs officers wouldn't charge much 
 for that article of vertu. Now the maid who waits on me 
 here is very pretty and gentle in manner ; and I suppose 
 she could be induced to go — for a proper consideration ; 
 and you could begin the training of her now, and have her 
 quite accomplished by the time we got home. Sounds 
 rather like slavery, don't it ? — but she would be going to 
 the land of the free, and the banner would wave over her. 
 She gets eighty dollars a ye?a' and her board ; I'd go better 
 than that, if you took a fancy to her. 
 
 " But the most remarkable person here — perhaps it is 
 the contrast between his personal abilities and his position 
 that is the striking thing — is a deerstalker and gamekeeper 
 whom they familiarly call Ronald ; and I confess that, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 WHtTE HkA THER 
 
 with all I had heard of the intelligence of the Scotch 
 peasantry, this fellow, before I had been talking with him 
 ten minutes, rather made me open my eyes. And yet, 
 looking back over the different subjects we fell upon, I 
 don't know that he said anything so very remarkable on 
 any one of them. I think it is rather the personal character 
 of the man that is impressive — the manliness and indepen- 
 dence of his judgment, and yet his readiness to consider 
 the other side if you can convince him ; his frank (and, I 
 should say, foolish) recognition of the differences of social 
 position ; and then a kind of curious self-respect he has 
 which refuses to allow him to become quite friendly, though 
 you may be willing enough to forget that you are talking 
 of taking a shooting on which he is one of the employes, 
 and anxious only to converse with him as man to man. 
 I'm afraid this is rather mixed, but you would have to see 
 him to understand quite well what manner of person he is 
 — a good-looking fellow too, well knit together, with a 
 keen, hard face, full of life and a half-concealed force of 
 humour. I should judge he would make a pretty fair king 
 of good company in the unrestrained intercourse of a few 
 boon companions ; and I imagine he has a hard head if 
 there should be any drinking going on. What to do with 
 him I don't know. It is absurd he should be where he is. 
 His brother has been to college, taken his degree, and is 
 now in the Scotch Church somewhere. But this fellow 
 seems quite content to trap foxes and shoot gray crows, 
 and, in the autumn, look after the grouse-shooting and 
 deerstalking of other people. A man of his brains would 
 not be in that position for a fortnight in our country. 
 Here everything is fixed. He thinks it is natural for him 
 to be in a subservient position. And yet there is a curious 
 independence about the fellow ; I don't know what induce- 
 ment I could put before him to get him out of it. Suppose 
 we said, ' Come you with us to America, and we'll run 
 you for President ; ' I'm afraid he'd quote Kingsley in our 
 face, and be off to ' where the dun deer lie.' In fact his 
 reverence for the star-spangled banner appears to be of a 
 mitigated description. I found he knew more than I 
 expected about our wire-pulling gentry at home ; but then, 
 on the other hand, I discovered that he knew nothing 
 
A LETTER 37 
 
 about the necessity of protecting the industries of a youug 
 country beyond what he had read in the English papers, 
 and you know what high old Mother Hubbardism that is. 
 Now I want to do something for this fellow, and don't know 
 how. He's too good a man to be thrown away — a kind 
 of upper servant, as it were, of his lordship. He has 
 plenty of ability and he has plenty of knowledge in a dozen 
 different directions, if they could only be applied. But 
 then he is a dogged kind of a creature — he is not pliant ; 
 if you can show him sufficient reason for changing he 
 might change, otherwise not one inch will he budge. What 
 is the inducement to be ? It is useless offering him an 
 allotment of land in Nebraska ; here he has miles and 
 miles of the most picturesque territory conceivable, of 
 which, save for a month or two in the autumn, he is the 
 absolute master. He enjoys an ownership over these hills 
 and moors and lochs more obvious than that of the Duke 
 himself ; he would not exchange that for the possession of 
 a bit of table-land on the Platte Valley, unless he were a 
 fool, and that he is far from being. The Presidentship ? 
 Well, I waved your beloved banner over him, but he didn't 
 enthuse worth a cent. However, I must cast about and 
 see what is to be done with him, for I am really interested 
 in the man." 
 
 At this moment there was a tapping at the door, and 
 Nelly appeared with a huge armful of peats, which she 
 began to build up dexterously in the fireplace, always 
 leaving a central funnel open. 
 
 " Say, my girl, when will this letter go south ? " Mr. 
 Hodson asked. 
 
 " To-morrow moarning," was the answer. 
 
 " And the fish, too ? " 
 
 '' Yes, sir, by the mail cart." 
 
 " Has Duncan packed it in the rushes yet ? " 
 
 " Oh no, sir, Eonald will do that ; he can do it better 
 as any of them ; he would not let any one else do it, for 
 they're saying it iss the first fish of the year, and he's very 
 proud of your getting the fish, sir." 
 
 " Icli audi I " observed Mr. Hodson to himself ; and he 
 would probably have continued the conversation, but that 
 suddenly a strange noise Avas heard, coming from some 
 
38 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 distant part of the inn — a harsh, high note, all in mono- 
 tone. 
 
 " What's that now, NeUy ? " 
 
 "It will be Ronald tuning his pipes," said she, as she 
 was going to the door, 
 
 " Oh, he can play the pipes too ? " 
 
 " Indeed, yes, sir ; and better as any in Sutherland, I 
 hef heard them say," she added. 
 
 Just as she opened the door the drones and chanter 
 broke aAvay into a shrill and lively march that seemed to 
 flood the house with its penetrating tones. 
 
 " I think it's ' Dornoch Links ' he's playing," Nelly said, 
 with a quiet smile, "for there's some of the fisher-lads come 
 through on their way to Tongue." 
 
 She left then ; but the solitary occupant of the sitting- 
 room thought he could not do better than go to the door 
 and listen for a while to this strange sort of music, which 
 he had never heard played properly before. And while he 
 could scarcely tell one tune from another except by the 
 time — the slow, wailing, melancholy Lament, for example, 
 was easily enough distinguished from the bright and lively 
 Strathspey — here and there occurred an air — the " 79th's 
 Farewell," or the " Barren Rocks of Aden," or the " Pibroch 
 of Donald Dhu," had he but known the names of them — • 
 which had a stately and martial ring about it ; he guessed 
 that it was meant to lead the tramp of soldiers. And he 
 said to himself — 
 
 " Here, now, is this fellow, who might be piper to a 
 Highland regiment, and I daresay all the use he makes 
 of his skill is to walk up and down outside the dining- 
 room window of the Lodge and play to a lot of white- 
 kneed Englishmen when they come down for the autumn 
 shooting." 
 
 He retm-ned to his letter. 
 
 " I have the honoiu' to inform you that the first salmon 
 caught on any Scotch loch this year was caught by me this 
 afternoon, and to-morrow will be on its way to you. If 
 you don't believe the story, look at the salmon itself for 
 evidence. And as regards this loch-fishing, it appears to 
 me you might have a turn at it when we come up in March 
 — taking one of the two rods ; a little practice with Indian 
 
A LETTER 39 
 
 clubs meanwhile would enable yon to make a better fight 
 of it when you have to keep a continuous strain on a 
 fourteen-pound fish for twenty minutes or half an hour. 
 You must have some amusement or occupation ; for there 
 is no society — except, by the w'ay, the doctor's daughter, 
 who might be a companion for you. I have not seen her 
 yet ; but the handmaiden I have mentioned above informs 
 me that she is ' a ferry pretty young lady, and ferry much 
 thought of, and of a ferry great family too.' I should not 
 imagine, however, that her Highland pride of blood would 
 bar the way against your making her acquaintance ; her 
 father is merely the parish doctor — or rather, the district 
 doctor, for he has either two or three parishes to look after 
 — and I don't suppose his emoluments are colossal. They 
 have a pretty cottage ; it is the swell feature of the village, 
 if you can call the few small and widely scattered houses a 
 village. You could practise Texas talk on her all day 
 long ; I daresay she wouldn't know. 
 
 " Good-night ; it's rather sleepy work being out in that 
 boat in the cold. Good-night, good-night ; and a kiss from 
 the Herr Papa." 
 
 Well, by this time the fisher-lads had left the inn and 
 were off on the way to Tongue — and glad enough to have 
 a moonlight night for the weary trudge. Eonald remained 
 behind for a while, drinking a glass of ale with the inn- 
 keeper ; and generally having to keep his wits about him, 
 for there was a good deal of banter going on. Old John 
 Murray was a facetious person, and would have it that Nelly 
 was setting her cap at Eonald ; while the blushing Nelly, 
 for her part, declared that Ronald was nothing but a poor 
 south-country body ; while he in fair warfare had to retort 
 that she was " as Hielan's a Mull drover." The quarrel 
 was not a deadly one ; and when Ronald took up his pipes 
 in order to go home, he called out to her in parting — 
 
 " Nelly, lass, see you get the lads to clean out the barn 
 ere Monday next ; and put on your best ribbons, lassie ; 
 I'm thinking they'll be for having a spring 0' Tullochgorum." 
 
 The pipes were over his shoulder as he walked away 
 along the moonlit road ; but he did not tune up ; he had 
 had enough playing for that evening. And be sure that in 
 his mind there was no discontent because he had no allot- 
 
40 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 ment of land on the Platte Valley, nor yet a place in a 
 Chicago bank, nor the glory of being pipe-major to a High- 
 land regiment. He Avas perfectly content as he was ; and 
 knew naught of these things. If there was any matter 
 troubling him — on this still and moonlight night, as he 
 walked blithely along, inhaling the ket:i sweet air, and 
 conscious of the companionship of the f;uthful Harry — it 
 Avas that the jog-trot kind of tune he had invented for 
 certain verses did not seem to have sufficient defiuiteness 
 about it. But then the verses themselves — as they kept 
 time to his tramp on the road— were careless and light- 
 hearted enough : 
 
 The blossom icas tvliite on the hlackthorn tree. 
 
 And the mavis was singing rarely ; 
 Wlien Meenie, Love Meenie, imlked out w€ me, 
 
 All in the springtime early. 
 
 " Meenie, Love Meenie, your face let me sec, 
 
 Meenie, come answer me fairly ; 
 Meenie, Love Meenie, loill you wed me, 
 
 All in the springtime early ^^ 
 
 Meenie hut laughed; and hentna the pain 
 That shot through my heart fu' sairly : 
 " Ki7id sir, it's a maid that I woidd remain, 
 All in the springtime early." 
 
 And " Hey, Harry, lad," he was saying, as he entered 
 the cottage and went into the little parlour, where a candle 
 had been left burning, " we'll have our supper together 
 now ; for between you and me I'm just as hungry as a 
 gled." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BEGINNINGS. 
 
 Next day promised to give them sharper work on the loch. 
 The weather had changed towards the morning ; showers 
 of haQ had fallen ; and now all the hills around — Ben 
 Hee and Ben Hope and Ben Loyal — had their far peaks 
 and shoulders powdered over, while the higher slopes 
 and summit of the giant Clebrig were one solid mass of 
 white. It was much colder, too ; and the gusts of wind that 
 
BEGINNINGS 41 
 
 came hurling along Strath Terry * struck down on the locli, 
 spreading out like black fans, and driving the darkened 
 water into curling crisp foam. It was a wild, changeable, 
 blowy morning ; sunlight and gloom intermingled ; and 
 ever the wind howled and moaned around the house, and 
 the leafless trees outside bent and shivered before the 
 wintry blast. 
 
 When the tall Highland lass brought in breakfast it 
 appeared that the recusant gillie had not yet come down 
 from Tongue ; but it was no matter, she said ; she would 
 call Eonald. Now this exactly suited Mr. Hodson, who 
 wanted to have some further speech with the young man 
 — in view of certain far-reaching designs he had formed ; 
 and what better opportunity for talk than the placid trolling 
 for salmon on the lake there ? But courtesy demanded 
 some small protest. 
 
 " I am afraid I cannot ask him a second day," he 
 remarked. 
 
 " Oh," said she (for she did not wish the gentleman to 
 imagine that she thought over much of the smart young 
 keeper), " he ought to be ferry glad if he can be of use 
 to any one. He is jist amusing himself with the other 
 lads." 
 
 Which was strictly true at this moment. On the little 
 plateau outside Ronald's cottage two or three of them were 
 standing together. They had got a heavy iron ball, to 
 which was attached about a yard and a half of rope, and 
 one after another was trying who could launch this ball the 
 farthest, after swinging it three or four times round his 
 head. It came to Ronald's turn. He was not the most 
 thick-set of those young fellows ; but he was wiry and 
 muscular. He caught the rope with both hands, swung 
 the heavy weight round his head some four or five times — ■ 
 his teeth getting ever and ever more firmly clenched the 
 while — and then away went the iron ball through the air, 
 not only far outstripping all previous efforts, but unluckily 
 landing in a wheelbarrow and smashing sadly a jacket 
 which one of the lads had thrown there when he entered 
 upon this competition. When he somewhat ruefully took 
 
 * No cloxibt corrupted from Strath Tairihh, tlie Strath of the Bull. 
 
42 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 np the rent garment, there was much ironical laughing ; 
 perhaps that was the reason that none of them heard ISTelly 
 calling. 
 
 " Eonald ! " 
 
 The tall, slim Highland maid was pretty angry by this 
 time. She had come out of the house without any head- 
 gear on ; and the cold wind was blowing her yellow hair 
 about her eyes ; and she was indignant that she had to 
 walk so far before attracting the attention of those idle lads. 
 " Eonald, do you hear ! " she called ; and she would not 
 move another yard towards them. 
 And then he happened to notice her, 
 " Well, lass, what is't ye want ? " 
 
 " Come away at once ! " she called, in not the most 
 friendly way. " The gentleman wants you to go down to 
 the loch." 
 
 But he was the most good-natured of all these young 
 fellows ; the lasses about ordered him this way or that just 
 as they pleased. 
 
 " What ! " he called to her, " hasna Fraser come down 
 from Tongue yet ? " 
 " No, he has not." ^ 
 
 " Bless us ; the whisky, must have been strong," said he, 
 as he picked up his jacket. " I'll be there in a minute, 
 Xelly." 
 
 And so it was that when Mr. Hodson went into the 
 little front hall, he found everything in trim readiness for 
 getting down to the loch — the proper minnows selected ; 
 traces tried ; luncheon packed ; and his heavy waterproof 
 coat slung over Eonald's arm. 
 
 " Seems you think I can't carry my own coat ? " Mr. 
 Hodson said ; for he did not like to see this man do any- 
 thing in the shape of servant work ; whereas Eonald per- 
 formed these little offices quite naturally and as a matter of 
 course. 
 
 " I'll take it, sir," said he ; " and if you're ready now 
 we'll be off. Come along, Duncan." 
 
 And he was striding away with his long deerstalker step, 
 when j\Ir. Hodson stopped him. 
 
 " Wait a bit, man ; I will walk down to the loch with 
 vou." 
 
BEGINNINGS 43 
 
 So Duncan went on, and the American and Ronald 
 followed. 
 
 " Sharp this morning." 
 
 " Eayther sharp." 
 
 " But this must be a very healthy life of yours — out in 
 the fresh air always — plenty of exercise — and so forth," 
 
 " Just the healthiest possible, sir." 
 
 " But monotonous a little ? " 
 
 " 'Deed no, sir. A keeper need never be idle if he 
 minds his business ; there's always something new on 
 hand." 
 
 " Then we'll say it is a very enjoyable life, so long as 
 your health lasts, and you are fit for the work ? " 
 
 This was apparently a question. 
 
 " Well, sir, the head stalker on the Rothie-Mount forest 
 is seventy-two years of age ; and there is not one of the 
 young lads smarter on the hill than he is." 
 
 "An exception, doubtless. The betting is all against 
 your matching that record. Well, take your own case : 
 what have you to look forward to as the result of all your 
 years of labour ? I agree with you that in the meantime it 
 is all very fine ; I can understand the fascination of it, even, 
 and the interest you have in becoming acquainted with the 
 habits of the various creatures, and so forth. Oh yes, I 
 admit that — the healthiness of the life, and the interest of 
 it ; and I daresay you get more enjoyment out of the 
 shooting and stalking than Lord Ailine, who pays such a 
 preposterous price for it. But say we give you a fairly long 
 lease of health and strength sufficient for the work : we'll 
 take you at sixty ; what then ? Something happens — rheu- 
 matism, a broken leg, anything — that cripples you. You 
 are superseded ; you are out of the running ; what is to 
 become of you ? " 
 
 " Well, sir," said Ronald instantly, " I'm thinking his 
 lordship wouldna think twice about giving a pension to a 
 man that had worked for him as long as that." 
 
 It was a luckless answer. For Mr. Hodson, whose first 
 article of belief was that all men are born equal, had come 
 to Europe with a positive resentment against the very 
 existence of lords, and a detestation of any social system 
 that awarded them position and prestige merely on account 
 
44 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 of the accident of their birth. And what did he find now ? 
 Here was a young fellow of strong natural character, of 
 marked ability, and fairly independent spirit, so corrupted 
 by this pernicious system that he looked forward quite 
 naturally to being helped in his old age by his lordship — • 
 by one of those creatures who still wore the tags and rags 
 of an obsolete feudalism, and were supposed to " protect " 
 their vassals. The House of Peers had a pretty bad time 
 of it during the next few minutes ; if the tall, sallow-faced, 
 gray-eyed man talked with little vehemence, his slow, 
 staccato sentences had a good deal of keen irony in them. 
 Ronald listened respectfully. And perhaps the lecture was 
 all the 'more severe that the lecturer had but little oppor- 
 tunity of delivering it in his own domestic circle. Truly it 
 was hard that his pet grievance won for him nothing but a 
 sarcastic sympathy there ; and that it was his own daughter 
 who flouted him with jibes and jeers. 
 
 "Why, you know, pappa dear," she would say as she 
 stood at the window of their hotel in Piccadilly, and 
 watched the carriages passing to and fro beneath her, 
 " lords may be bad enough, but you know they're not half 
 as bad as the mosquitoes are at home. They don't worry 
 one half as much ; seems to me you might live in this 
 country a considerable time and never be worried by one 
 of them. Why, that's the worst of it. When I left home, 
 I thought the earls and marquises would just be crowding 
 us ; and they don't seem to come along at all. I confess 
 they are a mean lot. Don't they know well enough that 
 the first thing [" the fooist thing," she said, of course ; but 
 her accent sounded quite quaint and pretty if you happened 
 to be looking at the pretty, soft, opaque, dark eyes] the 
 first thing an American girl has to do when she gets to 
 Europe is to have a lord propose to her, and to reject him ? 
 But how can I ? They won't come along I It's just too 
 horrid for anything ; for of course when I go back home 
 they'll say — ' It's because you're not a Boston girl. Lon- 
 don's full of lords ; but it's only Boston girls they run 
 after ; and, poor things, they and their coronets are always 
 being rejected. The noble pride of a Eepublican country ; 
 wave the banner I ' " 
 
 But here Mr. Hodson met with no such ill-timed and 
 
Beginnings 45 
 
 flippant opposition. Ronald the keeper listened respect- 
 fully, and only spoke when spoken to ; perhaps the 
 abstract question did not interest him. But when it came 
 to the downright inquiry as to whether he, Strang, con- 
 sidered his master, Lord Ailine, to be in any way whatever 
 a better man than himself, his answer was prompt. 
 
 " Yes, sir, he is," he said, as they walked leisurely along 
 the road. " He is a better man than me by two inches 
 round the chest, as I should guess. Why, sir, the time 
 that I hurt my kneecap, one night we were coming down 
 Ben Strua, our two selves, nothing would hinder his 
 lordship but he must carry me on his back all the way 
 down the hill and across the burn till we reached the 
 shepherd's bothy. Ay, and the burn in spate ; and the 
 night as dark as pitch ; one wrong step on the swing-bridge, 
 and both of us were gone. There's Peter McEachran at 
 Tongue, that some of them think's the strongest man iu 
 these parts ; and I offered to bet him five shillings he 
 wouldna carry me across that bridge — let alone down the 
 hill — on a dark night. But would he try ? Not a bit, 
 sir." 
 
 " I should think Peter Mac — what's his name ? — was a 
 wiser man than to risk his neck for five shillings," Mr. 
 Hodson said drily. "And you — you would risk yours— 
 for what ? " 
 
 " Oh, they were saying things about his lordship," Eonald 
 said carelessly. 
 
 " Then he is not worshipped as a divinity by everybody ?" 
 the American said shrewdly. 
 
 But the keeper answered, with much nonchalance — 
 
 " I suppose he has his ill-wishers and his well-wishers, 
 like most other folk ; and I suppose, like most other folk, 
 he doesna pay ower great attention to what people say of 
 him." 
 
 They did not pursue the subject further at this moment, 
 for a turn of the road brought them suddenly within sight 
 of a stranger, and the appearance of a stranger in these 
 parts was an event demanding silence and a concentration 
 of interest. Of course, to Ronald Strang Miss Meenie 
 Douglas was no stranger ; but she was obviously a source 
 of some embarrassment : the instant he caught sight of her 
 
46 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 his face reddened, and as she approached he kept his eyes 
 fixed on the ground. It was not that he was ashamed she 
 should see him acting the part of a gillie ; for that he did 
 not care in the least, it was as much a part of his work as 
 anything else ; what vexed him was lest some sign of 
 recognition should show the stranger gentleman that Miss 
 Douglas had formed the acquaintance of the person who 
 was at the moment carrying his waterproof and his fishing- 
 rods. And he hoped that Meenie would have the sense to 
 go by without taking any notice of him ; and he kept his 
 eyes on the road, and walked forward in silence. 
 
 " Who is she ? " Mr. Hodson asked, in an undeiione, 
 and with some astonishment, for he had no idea there 
 was any such neatly-dressed and pretty young lady in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Ronald did not answer, and they drew nearer. Indeed, 
 Meenie was looking quite beautiful this morning ; for the 
 cold air had brightened up the colour in her cheeks ; and 
 the wide-apart blue-gray eyes were clear and full of light ; 
 and her brown hair, if it was tightly braided and bound 
 behind, had in front been blown about a little by the wind, 
 and here and there a stray curl appeared on the fair white 
 forehead. And then .again her winter clothing seemed to 
 suit the slight and graceful figure ; she looked altogether 
 warm, and furry, and nice, and comfortable ; and there 
 was a sensible air about her dress— the blue serge skirt, 
 the tight-fitting sealskin coat (but this was a present from 
 the laird of Glengask and Orosay), and the little brown 
 velvet hat with its wing of ptarmigan plumage (this was a 
 present not from Glengask, and probably was not of the 
 value of three halfpence, but she wore it, nevertheless, 
 when she was at her smartest). And if Ronald thought 
 she was going to pass him by without a word, he was 
 mistaken. It was not her way. As she met them, one 
 swift glance of her Highland eyes was all she bestowed on 
 the stranger ; then she said, pleasantly, as she passed — 
 
 " Good morning, Ronald." 
 
 He was forced to look up. 
 
 " Good morning. Miss Douglas," said he, with studied 
 respect ; and they went on. 
 
 " Miss Douglas ? " Mr. Hodson repeated, as soon aa 
 
BEGINNINGS 47 
 
 they were beyond hearing. "The doctor's daughter, I 
 presume ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "But — but — I had no idea — "why, she is a most un- 
 commonly pretty young lady — one of the most interesting 
 faces I have seen for many a day. You did not say there 
 was such a charming young person in the place ; why, she 
 adds a new interest altogether ; I fancy my daughter won't 
 be long in making her acquaintance when she comes here." 
 
 Indeed, as they got down to the boat, and the two men 
 set about getting the rods ready, all his talk was about the 
 pretty young lady he had seen ; and he scarcely noticed 
 that Ronald, in answering these questions, showed a very 
 marked reserve. He could not be got to speak of her 
 except in curt answers ; perhaps he did not like to have 
 the melancholy Duncan listening ; at all events, he showed 
 a quite absorbing interest in the phantom minnows, and 
 traces, and what not. Moreover, when they got into the 
 boat, -there was but little opportunity for conversation. 
 The day had become more and more squally ; there was a 
 considerable sea on ; it was all the two men could do to 
 keep sufficient way on the coble so that the phantoms 
 should spin properly. Then every few minutes a rain-cloud 
 would come drifting across — at first mysterious and awful, 
 as if the whole world were sinking into darkness ; then a 
 few big drops would patter about ; then down came the 
 sharp clattering shower, only to be followed by a marvellous 
 clearing up again, and a burst of watery sunshine along the 
 Clebrig slopes. But these changes kept Mr. Hodson em- 
 ployed in sheltering himself from the rain while it lasted, 
 and then getting ofY his waterproof again lest perchance 
 there might come a salmon at one of the lines. That event 
 did actually occur ; and when they least expected it. In 
 one of the heaviest of the squalls they had such a fight to 
 get the boat along that the minnows, sinking somewhat, 
 caught the bottom. Of course the rowers had to back 
 down — or rather to drift down — to get the lines released ; 
 and altogether the prospect of affairs seemed so unpromising 
 — the heavens darkening with further rain, the wind blowing 
 in sharper and sharper gusts, and the water coming heavily 
 over the bows — that Mr. Hodson called out that, as soon 
 
48 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 as he had got the minnows free, they might as well run the 
 coble on to the land, and wait for calmer weather. But 
 this was a lee shore. The men were willing to give up for 
 a time — but not until they had got to the sheltered side ; 
 so he was counselled to put out the lines again, slowly, 
 and they began anew their fight against the gale. Well, 
 he was actually paying out the first of the lines with his 
 hand, when suddenly — and without any of the preliminary 
 warnings that usually tell of a salmon being after a minnow 
 — the line was snatched from his fingers, and out went the 
 reel with that sharp long shriek that sends the whole boat's 
 crew into an excitement of expectation. But there was 
 no spring into the air away along there in the darkened 
 and plunging waters ; as he rapidly got in his line, he 
 knew only of a dull and heavy strain ; and the men had 
 to keep on with their hard pulling against the wind, for 
 the fish seemed following the boat in this sulky and heavy 
 fashion. 
 
 " What do you think ? " Mr. Hodson said, half turning 
 round, and not giving plainer voice to his anxieties. 
 
 " I'm afraid it's a kelt, sir," the dismal gillie answered. 
 
 " Looks like it, don't it ? " the fisherman said rather 
 dolefully ; for the fish showed no sign of life whatever. 
 
 " We'll see by and by," was Ronald's prudent answer ; 
 but even he was doubtful ; the only good feature being 
 that, if the fish showed no fight, at least he kept a heavy 
 strain on the rod. 
 
 But it seemed as if everything was conspiring against 
 them. The black heavens above them burst into a torrent 
 of rain ; and Avith that came a squall that tore the water 
 white, and blew them down on the fish in spite of their 
 hardest efforts. Shorter and shorter grew the line as it was 
 rapidly got in, and still the fish did not show ; it was now 
 so near to the boat that any sudden movement on its part 
 was almost certain to produce a catastrophe. Nor could 
 they drive the boat ashore ; the beach was here a mass of 
 sharp stones and rocks ; in three minutes the coble would 
 have been stove in. With faces set hard the two men 
 pulled and pulled against the storm of wind and rain ; and 
 Mr. Hodson — seated now, for he dared not attempt to stand 
 up, the boat was being thrown about so by the heavy waves 
 
BEGINNINGS 49 
 
 —could only get in a little more line when he had the 
 chance, and look helplessly on, and wait. 
 
 Then, all of a sudden, there was a long shrill shriek — 
 heard loud above the din of wind and water — continued 
 and continued, and in vain he tried to arrest this wild rush ; 
 and then, some seventy or eighty yards away, there was a 
 great white splash among the rushing black waves — and 
 another — and another — and then a further whirling out of 
 some fifteen yards of line, until he glanced with alarm at 
 the slender quantity left on the reel. But presently he 
 began to get some in again ; the men were glad to let the 
 boat drift down slowly ; harder and harder he worked at 
 the big reel, and at last he came to fighting terms with the 
 animal — kelt or salmon, as it might be — with some five-and 
 twenty yards out, and the squall moderating a little, so that 
 the men could keep the boat as they wanted. Nay, he 
 ventured to stand up now, wedging his legs and feet so that 
 he should not be suddenly thrown overboard ; and it was 
 quite evident, from the serious purpose of his face, that all 
 possibility of this being a kelt had now been thrown aside. 
 
 " No kelt is he, Ronald ? " he called aloud. 
 
 " Not a bit; sir ! There's no kelt about that one. But 
 give him time ; he's a good big fish, or I'm sore mis- 
 taken." 
 
 They were far from the end yet, however. The long rush 
 and the splashing had exhausted him for a while ; and the 
 fisherman, with a firm application of the butt, thought he 
 could make the fish show himself ; but still he kept boring 
 steadily down, sometimes making little angry rushes of a 
 dozen yards or so. And then all of a sudden began some 
 wild cantrips. There was another rush of ten or a dozen 
 yards ; and a clear leap into the air — a beautiful, great, 
 silvery creature he looked amid all this hurrying gloom ; 
 and then another downward rush ; and then he came to the 
 surface again, and shook and tugged and struck with his tail 
 until the water was foaming white about him. These were 
 a few terribly anxious seconds, but all went happily by, 
 and then it was felt that the worst of the fighting was over. 
 After that there was but the sullen refusal to come near 
 the boat — the short sheering oflf whenever he saw it or one 
 of the oars ; but now, in the slow curves through the water, 
 
so WHITE HE A THER 
 
 he was beginning to show the gleam of his side ; and 
 Konald was crouching down in the stern, gaff in hand. 
 
 " Steady, sir, steady," he was saying, with his eye on 
 those slow circles ; " give him time, he's no done yet ; a 
 heavy fish, sir — a good fish that — twenty pounds, I'm 
 thinking — come along, my beauty, come along — the hutt 
 noiv, sir ! " And then, as the great gleaming fish, head up, 
 came sheering along on its side, there was a quick dive of 
 the steel clip, and the next second the splendid creature 
 was in the bottom of the coble. 
 
 Mr. Hodson sank down on to his seat ; it had been a long 
 fight — over half an hour ; he was exhausted with the strain 
 of keeping himself balanced ; and he was also (what he had 
 not perceived in this long spell of excitement) wet to the 
 skin. He pulled out a spirit-flask from the pocket of his 
 waterproof — as ill-luck would have it, that useful garment 
 happened to be lying in the bottom of the boat when the 
 fight began — and gave the two men a liberal dram ; he 
 then took a sip himself ; and when there had been a general 
 quarrel over the size of the fish — nineteen the lowest, 
 twenty-two the highest guess — they began to consider what 
 they ought to do next. The weather looked very ugly. .It 
 was resolved to get, up to the head of the loch anyhow, 
 and there decide ; and so the men took to their oars again, 
 and began to force their way through the heavy and white- 
 crested waves. 
 
 But long ere they had reached the head of the loch Mr. 
 Hodson had become aware of a cold feeling about his 
 shoulders and back, and quickly enough he came to the con- 
 clusion that sitting in an open boat, with clothes wet through, 
 on a January day, did not promise sufficient happiness. He 
 said they might put him ashore as soon as possible. 
 
 " Indeed, sir, it's no much use going on in this weather," 
 Ronald said, " unless maybe you were to try the fly." 
 
 " I thought you said it was rather early for the fly." 
 
 " Eayther early," Ronald admitted. 
 
 " Rawther," said Duncan. 
 
 " Anyhow," observed Mr. Hodson, " I don't feel like 
 sitting in this boat any longer in' wet clothes. I'm going 
 back to the inn right now ; maybe the afternoon will clear 
 up — and then we might have another try." 
 
BEGINNINGS 51 
 
 They got ashore at last, and Mr. Hodsoii at once started 
 off for the inn ; and when the two men had got the rods 
 taken down, and the fish tied head and tail for the better 
 carrying of it, they set out too. But Eonald seemed un- 
 QSiially depressed and silent. Where was the careless joke 
 — the verse of an idle song — with which he was wont to 
 brave the discomforts of wind and weather ? The two men 
 strode along without a word ; and it was not likely that 
 Duncan the dismal should be the first to break the silence. 
 Nay, when they got to the inn, Eonald would not go in for 
 a minute or two, as was his custom, to see the fish weighed 
 and have a chat. He went on to his own cottage ; got the 
 key of the kennel ; and presently he and the dogs were 
 leaving the little scattered hamlet, taking the lonely moor- 
 land road that led away up the Mudal valley. 
 
 He knew not why he was so ill at ease ; but something 
 had gone wrong. Had his mind been disturbed and dis- 
 quieted by the American gentleman's plainly hinting to him 
 that he was living in a fool's paradise ; and that old age, and 
 illness, and the possible ingratitude of his master were things 
 to be looked forward to ? Or was it that the sudden 
 meeting with Meenie, with this stranger looking on, seemed 
 to have revealed to him all at once how far away she was 
 from him ? If she and he had met, as every day they did, 
 and passed with the usual friendly greeting, it would all 
 have been quite simple and ordinary enough ; but with this 
 stranger looking on, — and she appearing so beautiful and 
 refined and neatly dressed, and wearing moreover the 
 present given her by Glengask and Orosay — while he, on 
 the other hand, was carrying the gentleman's waterproof 
 and a bundle of rods — well, that was all different somehow. 
 And why had she said " Good-morning I " with such a pointed 
 friendliness ? He did not wish this stranger to imagine that 
 Miss Douglas and he were even acquaintances. And then 
 he thought that that very night he would burn all those 
 stupid verses he had written about her ; that secret and 
 half -regretful joy of his — of imagining himself in a position 
 that would entitle him to address her so — was all too daring 
 and presuming. It is true, she wore the ptarmigan's wing 
 she had begged him to get for her (and never in all the 
 years had he so gladly sped up the Clebrig slopes as when 
 
 E 2 
 
52 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 she sent him on that errand), but that was a trifle ; any 
 young lady, if she wanted such a thing, would naturally ask 
 the nearest gamekeeper. And then the other young lady 
 — the American young lady — when she came, and made 
 Meenie's acquaintance : would not they be much together ? 
 Meenie would be still farther and farther away then. He 
 would himself have to keep studiously aloof if in the 
 generosity of her heart she wished to be as friendly as ever. 
 Well, these were not very bitter or tragic thoughts ; and 
 yet — and yet — there was something wrong. He scarcely 
 knew what it was, but only that the little hamlet — as he 
 returned to it after a long and solitary wandering — did not 
 seem to be the simple and natural and happy place that it 
 used to be. But one thing he was glad of. The second 
 gillie had now arrived from Tongue. Consequently his 
 services would no longer be needed in the coble ; he would 
 return to his own ways ; and be his own master. And as 
 for companions ? — well, Clebrig and he had long been 
 friends. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A PEOGEAMME. 
 
 That same evening little Maggie, having made herself as 
 smart and neat as possible, went along the dark road to the 
 doctor's house, was admitted, and forthwith passed upstairs 
 to Miss Douglas's own room. It was an exceedingly small 
 apartment ; but on this cold winter night it looked remark- 
 ably warm and snug and bright, what with the red peats in 
 the fireplace, and the brilliant little lamp on the table ; and 
 it was prettily decorated too, with evidences of feminine 
 care and industry everywhere about. And Meenie herself 
 was there — in her gown of plain blue serge ; and apparently 
 the had been busy, for the table was littered with patterns 
 and designs and knitting needles and what not, while a 
 large mass of blue worsted was round the back of a chair, 
 waiting for the winding. 
 
 " Help me to clear the table, Maggie," she said good- 
 naturedly, when her visitor entered, " and then we will get 
 tea over : I declare I have so many things to think of that 
 I am just driven daft." 
 
A PROGRAMME 53 
 
 " And then she said — with some touch of anger — 
 
 " Do you know that I saw your brother — on a cold, wet 
 day like this — and he was walking along the road, with his 
 jacket open, and paying no heed at all to the weather ? 
 Maggie, why do you not make him take some care of 
 himself ? In January — and he goes about as if it were 
 June ! How would you Hke it if he were to catch a bad 
 cold and have to take to his bed ? "Why do you not make 
 him take care of himself ? " 
 
 "He would only laugh at me," the little Maggie said 
 ruefully. " He doesna mind anything, I do my best to 
 get his clothes dried when he comes in wet ; but he doesna 
 like to be bothered — especially if he's writing or reading ; 
 he says that a pipe keeps the harm away. I'm sure if you 
 would speak to him, Meenie, he would take a great deal 
 more care." 
 
 " What, me ! " the girl said — and there was a touch of 
 colour in the pretty refined face ; and then she added, with 
 a good-humoured smile, " No, he would not mind what I 
 said, I know. But it is little matter ; for with such a 
 wilful man you can do nothing except by cunning. Do 
 you see the wool there, Maggie ? " 
 
 She laughed ; but the little, red-haired, freckled girl 
 looked rather frightened. 
 
 " Oh no, Meenie, I dare not take it," she said. " He 
 would know I had not the money to buy all that wool ; and 
 then he would ask ; and I should be scolded " 
 
 " Nonsense, nonsense ! " the other cried, in her friendly 
 way. " Do you think a man would ask any such questions ? 
 It would never occur to him at all ! When the jersey is all 
 knitted and complete, you will just say to him, ' Eonald, 
 here is a jersey that I have knitted for you all by myself ; 
 and you are to put it on whenever there is a cold morning ; ' 
 and you will see he wiU think your knitting it yourself 
 explains everything. Ask about the wool ? — he will never 
 think of such a thing. If you hang the jersey on the nail 
 of his bedroom door, it will be all a matter of course ; I 
 should not wondei-, now, if he forgot to say ' Thank you.' " 
 
 " And then there is another thing," Maggie said, rather 
 timidly and wistfully. "How am I to tell him that I 
 knitted the jersey when you know that you will do the 
 
54 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 most of it ? For it is always that ; you did nearly all the 
 socks that we gave to Ronald ; and he thinks it was me." 
 
 But here the good humour left Meenie Douglas's face — 
 that was suddenly grown red and embarrassed. 
 
 " How can you talk such foolishness ? " she said, rather 
 sharply. " If I show you here or there how you are to go 
 on, is that doing the knitting for you ? 1 wonder you have 
 no more sense, Maggie. Of course, I will have to begin the 
 jersey for you ; and if I cast on the stitches for the width of 
 the neck, what is that ? It is what any one would do for you 
 — Mrs. Murray, or one of the girls at the inn. And I hope 
 you are not going away with that idea in your head ; or sooner 
 or later you will be telling somebody that I am knitting a 
 jersey for your brother — that would be a fine thing ! " 
 - A timid appealing hand was put on her arm. 
 
 " I am sure that Ronald would rather never see or hear 
 of any jersey than have anything make you angry, Meenie." 
 
 The trouble was over in a moment : the girl was 
 essentially quick and generous and kind-hearted ; and this 
 small lassie was about her only companion. Moreover, tea 
 was brought in at this moment by the maidservant ; and so 
 the question of the proportion of work contributed by either 
 of them to Ronald's woollen gear was put aside. 
 . " And what do you think of this now, Maggie ? " the elder 
 said, with some eagerness in her face and eyes. " You know 
 the great preparations they are making for Monday night — 
 the long barn is to be cleared ; and they are going to have 
 a chimney made and a fireplace ; and long tables all the 
 way down, and wooden forms to sit on ; and some of the 
 lads, they say, are talkijig of a chandelier to be made out of 
 hoops, and candles stuck all the way round. And all that 
 trouble for the grown-up folk I Is it fair ? Oh, it is quite 
 absurd to have such a deal of trouble ; and all for the 
 grown-up people. Now, if Ronald would help me — and 
 you know he is such a favourite he always has his own way 
 with everybody — would it not be a fine thing to ask Mr. 
 Murray to leave all those preparations as they are for a day 
 or two — perhaps till Wednesday — and by that time we 
 could have messages sent to the farms round about, and 
 all the children brought in for a soiree ? Why should the 
 grown-up people have everything ? And there would be 
 
A PROGRAMME 
 
 55 
 
 nobody but ourselves, — that's Ronald and you and I, Maggie, 
 — for the children would have more freedom and amuse- 
 ment that way — you see my father is not likely to be back 
 by then, or we might ask him — and then, with nearly a 
 week, we could send to Tongue for a great many things — • 
 and — and — have a splendid children's party just as fine as 
 fine could be." 
 
 She was quite excited over this matter, 
 
 " Look," she said, going and fetching a sheet of paper 
 which was written over in a bold, large hand (her own 
 handwriting was small and neat enough, but this had been 
 assumed for so important a public purpose) ; " look at the 
 programme — it is all guess work as yet, of course, for I 
 have not asked Eonald ; but I am sure he will help us ; 
 and if he says it is to be done, then everything will go right 
 — they will keep the barn for us ; and the people will send 
 the children ; and those of them who can't go back will stay 
 the night at the inn. I have saved my pocket-money for 
 months for it ; but who could have expected such a chance 
 — the barn all fitted up, and the fire to keep it warm, and 
 the chandelier ? There now, Maggie, what do you think ? " 
 
 The little Maggie took up the big sheet of paper, won- 
 dering ; for all this was a wild and startling project amid 
 the monotony of their life in this remote and small hamlet. 
 
 CHILDREN'S S0IR:^E. 
 
 Inver-Mudal, Wednesday, January 23. 
 
 Mr. Ronald Strang in the Chair. 
 
 PROGRAMME. 
 
 Psalm . 
 Address 
 
 Song 
 
 Beading . 
 Song 
 Pipe-Music 
 
 Service of Tea and CaJ:e. 
 
 Service of Baisins. 
 
 " My love she's but a lassie ytt." . 
 " The Cameroniau's Dream." 
 " O dinna cross the burn, Willie.". 
 " Lord Breadalbane's March." 
 
 . Old Hundredth. 
 Chairman. 
 
 ]\rB. Ronald Strangi. 
 Miss M. Douglas. 
 Mr. Ronald Strang. 
 Mr. Ronald Strang. 
 
 Service of Oranges. 
 Hymn . '•Whither, pilgrims, are you going?'* Children. 
 Duet . " Huntingtower." . 
 
 ( Miss ]M. Douglas 
 \ & Miss M. Strang. 
 
56 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 But at this point Maggie broke into pure affright. 
 
 " Oh, Meenie 1 " she cried — " how can I ? — before them 
 all I " 
 
 " But only before children ! " was the quick remonstrance. 
 " "Would you have Ronald do everything ? Why, look — 
 an address — a song — a song — a march on the pipes — is he 
 to have no rest at all ? " 
 
 " But you, Meenie — you can sing so well and without 
 trouble — I know I will spoil everything " 
 
 " No, no, you will spoil nothing ; and we will get through 
 very well." 
 
 " Ferry well," she said, in spite of her Edinburgh birth ; 
 and she was evidently vastly proud of her skill in drawing 
 up so brilliant and varied a programme. Maggie continued 
 her reading — but now in some alarm : 
 
 Song . " The Laird o' Oockpen " . . Mr. Ronald Strang. 
 Beading . " Jeanie Morrison." . . . Miss M. Douglas. 
 
 Service of Shortbread. 
 
 Song . " Gloomy Winter's now awa'." . Mr. Eonald Strang. 
 Song . " Auld Lang Syne." . . . The Company. 
 Vote of thanlis to the Chairman . . . Miss M. Douglas. 
 
 Finale. 
 Pipe-Music, " Caidil gu lo " (Sleep on till day) Mr. Eonald Strang. 
 
 Meenie looked and laughed with pleasure ; she was quite 
 proud of her skill of arrangement. 
 
 " But, Meenie," her companion said, " why have ye not 
 put down a duet between you and Ronald ? He can sing 
 so well ; and you ; and that would be prettier far than 
 anything. Do ye no mind the time we were a' away fishing 
 at Loch Loyal ; and we were walking back ; and Ronald 
 was telling us of what he saw in a theatre in Edinburgh ? 
 And when he told us about the young lady's sweetheart 
 coming in a boat at night, and singing to her below the 
 window, you knew what it was well enough — and you tried 
 it together — oh ! that was so fine ! Will ye no ask him to 
 sing that with ye ? " 
 
 Meenie's face flushed somewhat ; and she would have 
 
A PROGRAMME 57 
 
 evaded the question with a little laugh but that it was 
 repeated. Whereupon she said — 
 
 " Why, now, Maggie, you have such a memory ! And I 
 have no doubt there was nonsense going on as we were 
 walking back from Loch Loyal — for a beautiful night it 
 was, in the middle of summer, when there is no darkness 
 at all in the skies all the night long. Oh yes, I remember 
 it too ; and very well ; but it was amongst ourselves ; we 
 are not going to have any such nonsense before other 
 people. And if we were to sing ' hush thee, my baby,' 
 would not the children be thinking it was a hint for them 
 to go away to bed ? And besides, surely I have asked 
 Eonald to do enough for us ; do you not think he will be 
 surprised, and perhaps angry, when he sees how often his 
 name comes there ? " 
 
 " Indeed no, I'm sure," Maggie said promptly. " There's 
 just nothing that he wouldna do for you, Meenie." 
 
 " But I will wait till I see him in a good humour," said 
 her friend, laughing, " before I ask him for so much." 
 
 " Mich," she said ; unawares she had caught up a good 
 many of the local touches. 
 
 " kxA do ye think ye could ever find him in an ill- 
 humour wi' you .P " Maggie said, almost reproachfully. 
 
 There was no answer to the question ; the programme 
 was put aside. 
 
 " Yery well, then," Meenie said, " we will suppose that is 
 settled. And what is next ? Why, Maggie, if I had not 
 the brain of a prime minister, I could never get through so 
 many schemes. Oh, this is it : of course we shall be very 
 much obliged to them if they lend us the barn and all its 
 fittings ; and we should do something for them in return. 
 And I am sure the lads will be thinking of nothing but the 
 carpentering ; and the lasses at the inn will be thinking 
 only of the cooking of the supper, and their own ribbons 
 and frocks. Now, Maggie, suppose you and I were to do 
 something to make the barn look pretty ; I am sure Ronald 
 would cut us a lot of fir-branches, for there's nothing else 
 just now ; and we could fix them up all round the barn ; 
 and then — look here." 
 
 She had got a lot of large printed designs ; and a heap 
 of stiff paper of various colours. 
 
58 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " We will have to make paper flowers for them, because 
 there's none growing just now ; and very well they will look 
 among the fir-branches. Oh yes, very well indeed. Eed 
 and white roses do not grow on fir-branches — it does not 
 need the old man of Eoss to tell us that ; but they will 
 look very well whatever ; and then large orange lilies, and 
 anything to make a bold show in so big a place. And if 
 the lads are making a chandelier out of the hoops of a 
 barrel, we will ask them to let us put red worsted round 
 the hoops ; that will look very well too. For we must 
 do something to thank them, Maggie ; and then, indeed, 
 when it comes to our turn, we will have the chance too 
 of looking at the decorations when we have the children's 
 soir6e." 
 
 Maggie looked up quickly. 
 
 " But, Meenie, you are coming to the party on Monday 
 night too ? " 
 
 There was no embarrassment on the beautiful, fine, 
 gentle face. She only said — 
 
 " Well, no one has asked me." 
 
 And the little Maggie flushed with shame and vexation. 
 
 " Indeed, now ! Did Eonald not speak to you about 
 it ? " 
 
 " Oh, I have known about it for a long time," she said 
 lightly, " and I was very glad to hear of it, for I thought it 
 was a great chance for me to get the loan of the barn." 
 
 " But you — you, Meenie — that they did not ask you flrst 
 of all ! " the younger girl cried. " But it can only be that 
 every one is expected to come — every one except the small 
 children who canna sit up late. And I'm sure I did not 
 expect to go ; but Mr. Murray, he was joking and saying 
 that I vrould have to dance the flrst dance wi' him ; and 
 Ronald said I might be there for a while. But — but — I'm 
 no going if you're no going, Meenie." 
 
 " But that is nonsense, Maggie," the other said good- 
 naturedly. " Of course you must go. And I should like 
 well enough " 
 
 " I am sure Mr. Mm'ray would put you at the head of 
 the table — by his own side — and proud, too !" Maggie 
 exclaimed warmly. 
 
 " And I am sure I should not wish anything like that," 
 
A PROGRAMME 59 
 
 Meenie said, laughing. " I would far rather go with you. 
 I would like to see some of the dancing." 
 
 "Oh, Meenie," her companion said, with eyes full of 
 earnestness, " did you ever see Ronald dance the sword- 
 dance ? " 
 
 " No, I have not, Maggie." 
 
 "They say there is none can do it like him. And if 
 he would only go to the Highland meetings, he could win 
 prizes and medals — and for the pipe-playing too, and the 
 tossing the caber. There is not one of the lads can come 
 near him ; but it is not often that he tries ; for he is 
 not proud." 
 
 " I am glad that he does not go to the Highland meet- 
 ings," Meenie said, rather quietly, and with her eyes cast 
 down. 
 
 " No, he is not proud," said Maggie, continuing (for she 
 had but the one hero in all the world), " although there is 
 nothing he canna do better than any of them. There was 
 one of the gentlemen said to him last year— the gentleman 
 hadna been shooting very Avell the day before — he said, 
 ' Ronald, let one of the gillies look after the dogs to-day, 
 and go you and bring your gun, and make up for my 
 mistakes ; ' and when he came home in the evening, he 
 said, ' It was a clean day's shooting the day ; we did not 
 leave one wounded bird or hare behind us.' And another 
 gentleman was saying, ' Ronald, if ye could sell your eye- 
 sight, I would give ye five hundred pounds for't.' And 
 Duncan was saying that this gentleman that's come for the 
 fishing, he doesna talk to Ronald about the salmon and the 
 loch, but about everything in the country, and Ronald 
 knows as well as him about such things. And his lord- 
 ship, too, he writes to Ronald, ' Dear Ronald,' and quite 
 friendly ; and when he was going away he gave Ronald his 
 own pipe, that has got a silver band on it, and his tobacco • 
 pouch, with the letters of his name worked in silk. And 
 there's not one can say that Ronald's proud." 
 
 Well, this was very idle talk ; and moreover it was con- 
 tinued, for the red-haired and freckled little sister was never 
 weary of relating the exploits of her handsome brother — the 
 adventures he had had with wild cats, and stags, and seals, 
 and eagles, and the like ; and, strangely enough, Miss 
 
6o WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Douglas showed no sign of impatience whatever. Nay, she 
 listened with an interest that scarcely allowed her to inter- 
 rupt with a word ; and with satisfaction and approval, to 
 judge by her expression ; and all that she would say from 
 time to time — and absently — was : 
 
 " But he is so careless, Maggie 1 Why don't you speak 
 to him ? You really must make him more heedful of 
 himself." 
 
 However, the night was going by ; and Maggie's praises 
 and recitals had come to an end. Meenie went down to 
 the door to see her friend comfortably wrapped up ; but 
 there was no need of escort ; the stars were shining clear, 
 though the wind still howled blusteringly. And so they 
 said good-bye ; and Maggie went on through . the dark to 
 the cottage, thinking that Meenie Douglas was the most 
 beautiful and sweet and warm-hearted companion she was 
 ever likely to meet with through all her life, and wondering 
 how it came about that Eonald and Mr. Murray and the rest 
 of them had been so disgracefully neglectful in not inviting 
 her to the New Year's festivities on the forthcoming- 
 Monday. Ronald, at least, should hear of his remissness, 
 and that at once. 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 AN EYEIE. 
 
 " Come along, Harry, my lad," the young keeper cried next 
 morning to his faithful terrier, " and we'll go and have a 
 look up the hUl." 
 
 He slipped a cartridge or two into his pocket, more by 
 custom than design as it were ; put his gun over his 
 shoulder ; and went out into the cold clear air, the little 
 terrier trotting at his heels. The vague unrest of the 
 previous evening was altogether gone now ; he was his 
 natural self again ; as he strode along the road he was 
 lightly singing — but also under his breath, lest any herd- 
 laddie should overhear — 
 
 Roses red^ roses ivhite, 
 
 Boses in the lane, 
 Tell me, roses white and red, 
 
 Wliere is Meenie ganef 
 
AN EYRIE 6i 
 
 And when he got as far as the inn he found that the mail- 
 cart had just arrived, so he turned aside to have a little 
 gossip with the small group of shepherds and others who 
 had come to see whether there were any newspapers or 
 letters for them. He was a great favourite with these ; 
 perhaps also an object of envy to the younger of the lads ; 
 for he lived the life of a gentleman, one might say, and was 
 his own master ; moreover, where was there any one who 
 looked so smart and dressed so neatly — his Glengarry cap, 
 his deerstalking jacket, his knickerbockers, his hand-knitted 
 socks, and white spats, and shoes, being all so trim and 
 well cared for, even in this wild winter weather ? There 
 v/as some laughing and joking about the forthcoming 
 supper-party ; and more than one of them would have had 
 him go inside with them to have " a glass," but he was proof 
 against that temptation ; while the yellow-haired Nelly, 
 who was at work within, happening to turn her eyes to the 
 window, and catching sight of him standing there, and 
 being jealous of his popularity with all those shepherd-lads 
 and gillies, suddenly said to her mistress — 
 
 " There's Ronald outside, mem, and I think he might go 
 away and shoot something for the gentleman's dinner." 
 
 " Very well," said Mrs. Murray ; " go and say that I 
 would be very much obliged to him indeed if he would 
 bring me a hare or two the first time he is going up the 
 hill, but at his own convenience, to be sure." 
 
 But that was not the message that Nelly went to deliver. 
 She wanted to show her authority before all these half- 
 critical idlers, and also, as a good-looking lass, her indepen- 
 dence and her mastery over men-folk. 
 
 " Ronald," said she, at the door of the inn, " I think you 
 might just as well be going up the hill and bringing us down a 
 hare or two, instead of standing about here doing nothing." 
 
 " Is that Highland manners, lass ? " he said, but with 
 perfect good humour. " I'm thinking ye might say ' if ye 
 please.' But I'll get ye a hare or two, sure enough, and 
 ye'll keep the first dance for me on Monday night." 
 
 " Indeed I am not sure that I will be at the dancing at 
 aU," retorted the pretty Nelly ; but this was merely to cover 
 her retreat — she did not wish to have any further conversa- 
 tion before that lot of idle half-grinnina; fellows. 
 
62 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 As for Ronald, lie bade them good-morning, and went 
 lightly on his way again. He was going up the hill any- 
 way ; and he might as well bring down a brace of hares for 
 Mrs. Murray ; so, after walking along the road for a mile 
 or so, he struck off across some rough and partly marshy 
 ground, and presently began to climb the lower slopes of 
 Clebrig, getting ever a wider and wider view as he ascended, 
 and always when he turned finding beneath him the wind- 
 stirred waters of the loch, where a tiny dark object, slow- 
 moving near the shores, told him where the salmon fishers 
 were patiently pursuing their sport. 
 
 No, there was no more unsettling notions in his brain ; 
 here he was master and monarch of all he surveyed ; and 
 if he was profoundly unconscious of the ease with which he 
 breasted this steep hillside, at least he rejoiced in the ever- 
 widening prospect — as lochs and hills and stretches of 
 undulating moorland seemed to stretch ever and ever out- 
 ward until, afar in the north, he could make out the Kyle 
 of Tongue and the faint line of the sea. It was a wild and 
 changeable day ; now filled with gloom, again bursting 
 forth into a blaze of yellow sunshine ; while ever and anon 
 some flying tag of cloud would come sweeping across the 
 hillside and engulf him, so that all he could then discern 
 was the rough hard heather and bits of rock around his 
 feet. It was just as one of these transient clouds was 
 clearing off that he was suddenly startled by a loud noise 
 — as of iron rattling on stones ; and so bewildering was 
 this unusual noise in the intense silence reigning there that 
 instinctively he wheeled round and lowered his gun. And 
 then again, the next second, what he saw was about as 
 bewildering as what he had heard — a great creature, quite 
 close by, and yet only half visible in the clearing mist, with 
 huge outspread wings, dragging something after it across 
 the broken rocks. The truth flashed upon him in an 
 instant ; it was an eagle caught in a fox-trap ; the strange 
 noise was the trap striking here and there on a stone. At 
 once he put down his gun on an exposed knoll and gave 
 chase, with the greatest difficulty subduing the eager desire 
 of the yelping Harry to rush forward and attack the huge 
 bird by himself. It was a rough and ludicrous pursuit ; 
 but it ended in capture — ^though here, again, circumspec- 
 
AN EYRIE 63 
 
 tion was necessary, for the eagle, with all his ueck-feathers 
 bristling, struck at him again and again with the talons that 
 were free, only one foot having been caught in the trap. 
 But the poor beast was quite exhausted ; an examination of 
 the trap showed Ronald that he must have flown with this 
 weight attached to his leg all the way from Ben Euach, some 
 half dozen miles away ; and now, though there was yet an 
 occasional automatic motion of the beak or the claws, as 
 though he would still strike for liberty, he submitted to be 
 firmly seized while the iron teeth of the trap were being 
 opened. And then Eonald looked at his prize (but still with 
 a careful grip). He was a splendid specimen of the golden 
 eagle — a bird that is only found here and there in Suther- 
 landshire, though the keepers are no longer allowed to kill 
 them — and, despite himself, looking at the noble creature, 
 he began to ask himself casuistical questions. Would not 
 this make a handsome gift for Meenie ? — he could send the 
 bird to Macleay at Inverness, and have it stuffed and re- 
 turned without anybody knowing. Moreover, the keepers 
 were only charged to abstain from shooting such golden 
 eagles as they might find on their own ground ; and he knew 
 from the make of the trap that this one must have come 
 from a different shooting altogether ; it was not a Clebrig 
 eagle at all. But he looked at the fierce eye of the beast, 
 and its undaunted mien ; he knew that, if it could, it would 
 fight to the death ; and he felt a kind of pride in the 
 creature, and admiration for it, and even a sort of sympathy 
 and fellow-feeling. 
 
 " My good chap," said he, " I'm not going to kill you in 
 cold blood — not me. Go back to your wife and weans, 
 wherever they are. Off ! " 
 
 And he tried to throw the big beast into the air. But 
 this was not like flinging up a released pigeon. The eagle 
 fell forward, and stumbled twice ere it could get its great 
 wings into play ; and then, instead of trying to soar up- 
 ward, it Avent flapping away down wind — increasing in 
 speed, until he could see it, now rising somewhat, cross 
 the lower windings of Loch Naver, and make away for the 
 northern skies. 
 
 " It's a God's mercy," he was saying to himself, as he 
 ■went back to get his gun, " that I met the creature in the 
 
64 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 daytime ; had it been at night, I would hae thought it was 
 the devil." 
 
 Some two or three hundred feet still farther up the hill- 
 side he came to his owu eyrie — a great mass of rock, 
 affording shelter from either southerly or easterly winds, 
 and surrounded with some smaller stones ; and here he 
 sate contentedly down to look around him — Harry crouched 
 at his feet, his nose between his paws, but his eyes watch- 
 ful. And this wide stretch of country between Clebrig 
 and the northern sea would have formed a striking prospect 
 in any kind of weather — the strange and savage loneliness 
 of the moorlands ; the solitary lakes with never a sign of 
 habitation along their shores ; the great ranges of mountains 
 whose silent recesses are known only to the stag and the 
 hind ; but on such a morning as this it was all as unstable 
 and unreal as it was wildly beautiful and picturesque ; — 
 for the hurrying weather made a kind of phantasmagoria of 
 the solid land ; bursts of sunlight that struck on the yellow 
 straths were followed by swift gray cloud-wreaths blotting 
 out the world ; and again and again the white snow-peaks 
 of the hills would melt away and become invisible, only to 
 reappear again shining and glorious in a sky of brilliant 
 blue ; until, indeed, it seemed as if the earth had no sub- 
 stance and fixed foundation at all, but was a mere dream, 
 an aerial vision, changed and moved and controlled by 
 some unseen and capricious hand. 
 
 And then again, on the dark and wind-driven lake far 
 below him, that small object was still to be made out — 
 like some minute, black, crawling water insect. He took 
 out his glass from its leather case, adjusted it, and placed 
 it to his eye. What was this ? In the world suddenly 
 brought near — and yet dimly near, as though a film inter- 
 posed — he could see that some one was standing up in the 
 stern of the boat, and another crouching down by his side. 
 Was that a clip or the handle of the landing-net ; in other 
 words, was it a salmon or a kelt that was fighting them 
 there ? He swept the dull waters of the loch with his 
 glass ; but could make out no splashing or springing any- 
 where near them. And then he could see by the curve of 
 the rod that the fish was close at hand ; there was a minute 
 or two longer of anxiety ; then a sudden movement on the 
 
AN EYRIE 65 
 
 part of the crouching person — and behold a silver-white 
 object gleams for a moment in the air and then disappears ! 
 
 " Good ! " he says to himself — with a kind of sigh of 
 satisfaction as if he had himself taken part in the struggle 
 and capture. 
 
 How peaceful looks the little hamlet of Inver-Mudal ! 
 The wild storm-clouds, and the bursts of sunlight, and the 
 howling wind seem to sail over it unheeded ; down in the 
 hollow there surely all is quiet and still. And is Meenie 
 singing at her work, by the window ; or perhaps superin- 
 tending Maggie's lessons ; or gone away on one of the 
 lonely walks that she is fond of — up by the banks of the 
 Mudal Water ? It is a bleak and a bare stream ; there is 
 scarce a bush on its banks ; and yet he knows of no other 
 river — however hung with foliage and flowers — that is so 
 sweet and sacred and beautiful. What was it he wrote in 
 the bygone year — one summer day when he had seen her 
 go by — and he, too, was near the water, and could hear 
 the soft murmuring over the pebbles ? He called the 
 idle verses 
 
 MUDAL IN JUNE. 
 
 Mudal, that comes from the lonely mere. 
 
 Silent or ichisperino, vanishing ever. 
 Know you of cnight that concerns us here ? — 
 
 You, youngest of all God's creatures, a river. 
 
 Born of a yesterday's summer shower, 
 
 And hurrying on with your restless motion. 
 
 Silent or tohispering. every hour. 
 
 To lose yourself in the great lone ocean. 
 
 Your hanlcs remain; hut you go hy. 
 
 Through day and through darkness swiftly sailing : 
 Say, do you hear the curlew cry. 
 
 And the snipe in the night-time hoarsely wailing f 
 
 Do you watch the icandering hinds in the morn; 
 
 Do you hear the grouse-coclc crow in the heather. 
 Do you see the larlc spring up from the corn. 
 
 All in the radiaid summer loeatherl 
 
 Mudal stream, how little you know 
 
 That Meenie has loved you, and loves you ever f ^ 
 
 And lohile to your ocean home you flow, 
 She says good-bye to her well-loved river! — 
 
 F 
 
66 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 see you her now — she is coming anigh^ 
 And the flower in her hand her aim discloses : 
 
 Laugh, Mudal, your thanks as you're hurrying hy — • 
 For she flings you a rose, in the month of roses I 
 
 Well, that was wi'itten as long ago as last midsummer ; and 
 was Meenie still as far away from him as then, and as 
 ignorant as ever of his mute worship of her, and of these 
 verses that he had written about her ? But he indulged 
 in no day-dreams. Meenie was as near to him as he had 
 any right to expect — giving him of an assured and constant 
 friendship ; and as for these passing rhymes — well, he tried 
 to make them as worthy of her as he could, though he 
 knew she should never see them ; polishing them, in so 
 far as they might be said to have any polish at all, in 
 honour ;of her ; and, what is more to the point, at once 
 cutting out and destroying any of them that seemed to 
 savour either of affectation or of echo. No : the rude 
 rhymes should at least be honest and of his own invention 
 and method ; imitations he could not, even in fancy, lay 
 at Mcenie's feet. And sometimes, it is true, a wild imagina- 
 tion would get hold of him — a whimsical thing, that he 
 laughed at : supposing that life — the actual real life here 
 at Inver-]\Iudal — were suddenly to become a play, a poem, 
 a romantic tale ; and that Meenie was to fall in love with 
 him ; and he to grow rich all at once ; and the Stuarts of 
 Glcngask to be quite complaisant : why, then, would it not 
 be a line thing to bring all this collection of verses to 
 Meenie, and say " There, now, it is not much ; but it shows 
 you that I have been thinking of you all through these 
 years ? " Yes, it would be a very fine thing, in a romance. 
 But, as has been said, he was one not given to day-dreams ; 
 and he accepted the facts of life with much equanimity ; 
 and when he had written some lines about Meenie that he 
 regarded with a little affection — as suggesting, let us say, 
 something of the glamour of her clear Highland eyes, and 
 the rose-sweetness of her nature, and the kindness of her 
 heart — and when it seemed rather a pity that she should 
 never see them — if only as a tribute to her gentleness 
 offered by a perfectly unbiassed spectator — he quickly re- 
 minded himself that it was not his business to write verses 
 but to trap foxes and train dogs and shoot hoodie-crows. 
 
AN EYRIE 67 
 
 He was nob vain of his rhymes — except where Mcenie's 
 name came in. Besides, ho was a very busy person at 
 most seasons of the year ; and men, women, and children 
 alike showed a considerable fondness for him, so that his 
 life was full of sympathies and interests ; and altogether 
 he cannot be regarded, nor did he regard himself, as a 
 broken-hearted or blighted being. His temperament was 
 essentially joyous and healthy ; the passing moment was 
 enough ; nothing pleased him so much as to have a grouse, 
 or a hare, or a ptarmigan, or a startled hind appear within 
 sure and easy range, and to say, " Well, go on. Take your 
 life with you. Eather a pleasant day this : why shouldn't 
 yon enjoy it as well as I ? " 
 
 However, on this blustering and brilliant morning he 
 had not come all the way up hither merely to get a brace of 
 hares for Mrs. Murray, nor yet to be a distant spectator of 
 the salmon-fishing going on far below. Under this big 
 rock there was a considerable cavity, and right at the back 
 of that he had wedged in a wooden box lined with tin, and 
 fitted with a lid and a lock. It was useful in the autumn ; 
 he generally kept in it a bottle of whisky and a few bottles 
 of soda-water, lest any of the gentlemen should find them- 
 selves thirsty on the way home from the stalking. But on 
 this occasion, -when he got out the key and unlocked the 
 little chest, it was not any refreshment of that kind he was 
 after. He took out a copy-book — a cheap paper-covered 
 thing such as is used in juvenile schools in Scotland — and 
 turned to the first page, which was scrawled over with 
 pencilled lines that had apparently been written in time of 
 rain, for there were plenty of smudges there. It had 
 become a habit of his that, when in these lonely rambles 
 among the hills, he found some further rhymes about 
 Meenie come into his head, he would jot them down in 
 this copy-book, deposit it in the little chest, and probably 
 not see them again for weeks and weeks, when, as on the 
 present occasion, he would come with frc'sh eyes to see if 
 there were any worth or value in them. Not that he took 
 such trouble with anything else. His rhyming epistles to 
 his friends, his praises of his terrier Harry, his songs for 
 the Invcr-Mudal lasses to sing — these things were thrown 
 off anyhow, and had to take their chance. But his solitary 
 
 F 2 
 
68 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 intercoinmunings away amid these alpine wastes were of a 
 more serious cast ; insensibly they gathered dignity and 
 repose from the very silence and awfulness of the solitudes 
 around ; there was no idle and pastoral singing here about 
 roses in the lane. He regarded the blurred lines, striving 
 to think of them as having been written by somebody else : 
 
 Through the long sad centuries Clehrig slept, 
 
 Nor a sound the silence broke, 
 Till a morning in spring a strange new thing 
 
 Betrayed him and he aivohe ; 
 
 And he laughed, and his joyous laugh was heard 
 
 From Errihol far to Tongue ; 
 And his granite veins deep doum were stirred, 
 
 And the great old mountain greio young. 
 
 'Twas Love Meenie he saio, and she walhed by the shore, 
 
 And she sang so sweet and so clear. 
 That the sound of her voice made him see again 
 
 Tlie daicn of the icorld appear ; 
 
 And at night he spahe to the listening stars 
 
 And charged them a guard to heep 
 On the hamlet of Inver-Mudal there 
 
 A7id the maid in her innocent sleep. 
 
 Till the years should go by; and they should see- 
 Love Meenie talce her stand 
 
 'Mong the maidens around the footstool of God—~ 
 She gentlest of all the band ! 
 
 He tore the leaf out, folded it, and put it in his pocket. 
 
 "Another one for the little bookie that's never to be 
 seen," said he, with a kind of laugh ; for indeed he treated 
 himself to a good deal of satire, and would rather have 
 blown his brains out than that the neighbourhood should 
 have known he was writing these verses about Meenie 
 Douglas. 
 
 " And hey, Harry, lad ! " he called, as he locked the 
 little cupboard again, " I'm thinking we must be picking up 
 a hare now, if it's for soup for the gentleman's dinner the 
 night. So ye were bauld enough to face an eagle ? I 
 doubt, if both his feet had been free, but ye might have 
 had a lift in the air, and seen the heavens and the earth 
 spread out below ye." 
 
AN EYRIE 69 
 
 He shouldered his gun and set out again — making his 
 way towards some rockier ground, where he very soon 
 bagged the brace of hares he wanted. He tied their legs 
 together, slung them over his shoulder, and began to 
 descend the mountain again — usually keeping his eye on 
 the minute black speck on the loch, lest there might be 
 occasion again for his telescope. 
 
 He took the two hares — they looked remarkably like 
 cats, by the way, for they were almost entirely white — into 
 the inn and threw them on to the chair in the passage. 
 
 " There you are, Nelly, lass," said he, as the fair-haired 
 Highland maid happened to go by. 
 
 " All right," said she, which was no great thanks. 
 
 But Mr. Murray, in the parlour, had heard the keeper's 
 voice. 
 
 " Ronald," he cried, " come in for a minute, will ye ? " 
 
 Mr. Murray was a little, wiry, gray-haired, good-natured 
 looking man, who, when Ronald entered the parlour, was 
 seated at the table, and evidently puzzling his brains over 
 a blank sheet of paper that lay before him. 
 
 " Your sister Maggie wass here this morning," the inn- 
 keeper said— still with his eyes fixed upon the paper — " and 
 she wass saying that maylie Meenie — Miss Douglas— would 
 like to come with the otliers on Monday night — ay, and 
 maybe Mrs. Douglas herself too as well — but they would hef 
 to be asked. And Kott pless me, it is not an easy thing, if you 
 hef to write a letter, and that is more polite than asking — • 
 it is not an easy thing, I am sure. Ronald," he said, raising 
 his eyes and turning round, " would you tek a message ? " 
 
 " AVhere ? " said Ronald — but he knew well enough, and 
 was only seeking time to make an excuse. 
 
 " To Mrs. Douglas and the young lass ; and tell them 
 we will be glad if they will come with the others on Monday 
 night — for the doctor is away from home, and why should they 
 be left by themselves ? Will you tek the message, Ronald ? " 
 
 " How could I do that ? " Ronald said. " It's you that's 
 giving the party, Mr. Murray." 
 
 " But they know you so ferry well — and — and there will 
 be no harm if they come and see the young lads and lasses 
 having a reel together — ay, and a song too. And if Mrs. 
 Douglas could not be bothered, it's you that could bring 
 
70 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 the young lady — oh yes, I know ferry vvcll — if you will ask 
 her, she will come." 
 
 "I am sure no," Ronald said hastily, and with an 
 embarrassment he sought in vain to conceal. " If Miss 
 Douglas cares to come at all, it will be when you ask her. 
 And why should ye write, man ? Go down the road and 
 ask her yourself — I mean, ask Mrs. Douglas ; it's as simple 
 as simple. What for should ye write a letter ? AVould yc 
 send it through the post too ? That's ceremony for next- 
 door neighbours ! " 
 
 " But, Eonald, lad, if ye should see the young lass 
 herself " 
 
 " No, no ; take your own message, Mr. IMurray ; they 
 can but give you a civil answer." 
 
 Mr. Murray was left doubting. It was clear that the 
 awful shadow of Gilengask and Orosay still dwelt over the 
 doctor's household ; and that the innkeeper was not at all 
 sure as to Avhat Mrs. Douglas would say to an invitation 
 that she and her daughter Meenie — or Williamina, as the 
 mother called her — should be present at a merry-meeting 
 of farm-lads, keepers, gillies, and kitchen wenches. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE NEW year's FEAST. 
 
 Loud and shrill in the empty barn arose the strains of the 
 Athole Marcli, warning the young lasses to hasten with the 
 adjustment of their ribbons, and summoning the young 
 lads about to look sharp and escort them. The long and 
 narrow table was prettily laid out ; two candelabra instead 
 of one shed a flood of light on the white cover ; the walls 
 were decorated with evergreens and with Meeiiie's re- 
 splendent paper blossoms ; the peats in the improvised 
 fireplace burned merrily. And Afhen the company began 
 to arrive, in twos and threes, some bashful and hesitating, 
 others merry and jocular, there was a little embarrassment 
 about the taking of places until Ronald laid down his pipes 
 and set to work to arrange them. The American gentle- 
 man had brought in Mrs. Murray in state, and they were 
 at the head of the table ; while Ronald himself took the 
 
THE NEW YEAR'S FEAST 71 
 
 foot, in order, as he said, to keep order — if lie were able — 
 among the lasses who had mostly congregated there. Tlien 
 the general excitement and talking was hushed for a minute, 
 while the innkeeper said grace ; and then tke girls— farm 
 wenches, some of them, and Nelly, the pretty parlour-maid, 
 and Finnuala, the cook's youngest sister, who was but lately 
 come from Uist and talked the quaintest English, and Mr. 
 Murray's two nieces from Tongue, and the other young 
 lasses about the inn — all of them became demure and 
 proper in their manner, for they were about to enjoy the 
 unusual sensation of being waited upon. 
 
 This, of course, was Ronald's doing. There had been 
 a question as to which of the maids were to bring in supper 
 for so large a number ; so he addressed himself to the 
 young fellows who were standing about. 
 
 " You lazy laddies," he said, " what are ye thinking 0' ? 
 Here's a chance for ye, if there's a pennyworth o' spunk 
 among the lot 0' ye. They lasses there wait on ye the 
 whole year long, and make the beds for ye, and redd the 
 house ; I'm thinking ye might do worse than wait on them 
 for one night, and bring in the supper when they sit down. 
 They canna do both things ; and the fun o' the night 
 belongs to them or to nobody at all." 
 
 At first there was a little shamefaced reluctance — it was 
 " lasses' work," they said — until a great huge Highland tyke 
 — a Ross-shire drover who happened to be here on a visit 
 — a man of about six feet four, with a red beard big enough 
 for a raven to build in, declared that he would lend a hand, 
 if no one else did ; and forthwith brought his huge fist 
 down on the bar-room table to give emphasis to his words. 
 There was some suspicion that this unwonted gallantry was 
 due to the fact that he had a covetous eye on Jeannie, 
 Donald Macrae's lass, who was a very superior dairy- 
 mistress, and was also heir-presumptive to her father's 
 farmstead and about a score of well-favoured cattle ; but 
 that was neither here nor there ; he was as good as his 
 word ; he organised the brigade, and led it ; and if he 
 swallowed a stiff glass of whisky before setting out from 
 the kitchen for the barn, with a steaming plate of soup in 
 each hand, that was merely to steady his nerves and en- 
 able him to face the merriment of the whole gang of those 
 
72 WHITE HEA 2 HER 
 
 girls. And then when this red-boarded giant of a Gany- 
 mede and his attendants had served every one, they fetched in 
 their own plates, and sat down ; and time was allowed them ; 
 for the evening was young yet, and no one in a hurry. 
 
 Now if Mr. Hodson had been rather doubtful lest his 
 presence might produce some httle restraint, he was speedily 
 reassured, to his own great satisfaction, for he was really a 
 most good-natured person and anxious to be friendly with 
 everylbody. In the general fun and jollity he was not even 
 noticed ; he could ask Mrs. Murray any questions he chose 
 without suspicion of being observant ; the young lady next 
 him — who was Jeannie Macrae herself, and to whom he 
 strove to be as gallant as might be — was very winsome and 
 gentle and shy, and spoke in a more Highland fashion than 
 he had heard yet ; while otherwise he did not fare at all 
 badly at this rustic feast, for there were boiled fowls and 
 roast hares after the soup, and there was plenty of ale 
 passed round, and tea for those who wished it. Nay, on 
 the contrary, he had rather to push himself forward and 
 assert himself ere he could get his proper share of the work 
 that was going on. He insisted upon carving for at least 
 half a dozen neighbours ; he was most attentive to the 
 pretty Highland girl next him ; and laughed heartily at 
 Mrs. Murray's Scotch stories, which he did not quite 
 understand ; and altogether entered into the spirit of the 
 evening. But there was no doubt it was at the other end 
 of the table that the fun was getting fast and furious ; and 
 just as little doubt that Ronald the keeper was suffering 
 considerably at the hands of those ungrateful lasses for 
 whom he had done so much. Like a prudent man, he 
 held his tongue and waited his opportunity ; taking their 
 teasing with much good humour ; and paying no heed to 
 the other young fellows who were urging him to face and 
 silence the saucy creatures. And his opportunity came in 
 the most unexpected way. One of the girls, out of pure 
 mischief, and without the least notion that she would be 
 overheard, rapped lightly on the table, and said : " Mr. 
 Eonald Strang will now favour us with a song." To her 
 amazement and horror there was an almost instant silence ; 
 for an impression had travelled up the table that some 
 announcemeiit was about to be made. 
 
THE NEW YEAR'S FEAST 73 
 
 " What is it now ? What are you about down there ? " 
 their host called to them — and the silence, to her who had 
 unwittingly caused it, was terrible. 
 
 But another of the girls, still bent on mischief, was bold 
 enough to say : 
 
 " Oh, it's Ronald that's going to sing us a song." 
 
 " Sing ye a song, ye limmer, ere ye're through with your 
 supper ? " Ronald said sharply. " I'd make ye sing your- 
 self — with a leather strap — if I had my will o' ye." 
 
 But this was not heard up the table. 
 
 " Very well, then, Ronald," the innkeeper cried, graciously. 
 " Come away with it now. There is no one at all can 
 touch you at that." 
 
 " Oh, do not ask him," the pretty Nelly said — apparently 
 addressing the company, but keeping her cruel eyes on him. 
 " Do not ask Ronald to sing. Ronald is such a shy lad." 
 
 He glanced at her ; and then he seemed to make up 
 his mind. 
 
 " Very well, then," said he, " I'll sing ye a song — and 
 let's have a chorus, lads." 
 
 Now in Sutherlandshire, as in many other parts of the 
 Highlands, the chief object of singing in company is to 
 establish a chorus ; and the audience, no matter whether 
 they have heard the air or not, so soon as it begins, proceed 
 to beat time with hand and heel, forming a kind of accom- 
 panying tramp, as it were ; so that by the time the end of 
 the first verse is reached, if they have not quite caught the 
 tune, at least they can make some kind of rhythmic noise 
 with the refrain. And on this occasion, if the words were 
 new— and Ronald, on evil intent, took care to pronounce 
 them clearly — the air was sufficiently like " Jenny dang the 
 Weaver " for the general chorus to come in, in not more 
 than half a dozen keys. This was what Ronald sang — and 
 he sang it in that resonant tenor of his, and in a rollicking 
 fashion — just as if it were an impromptu, and not a weapon 
 that he had carefully forged long ago, and hidden away to 
 serve some such chance as the present : 
 
 O Zajise,"?, lasses, gang your ways, 
 And dust the house, or wash the claes. 
 Ye put me in a hind o' hlaze — 
 
 Fe'ZZ break my heart among ye 1 
 
74 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 The girls rather hung their heads — the imputation that 
 they were all setting their cajjs at a modest youth who 
 wanted to have nothing to do with them was scarcely what 
 they expected. But the lads had struck the tune somehow ; 
 and there was a roaring chorus, twice repeated, with heavy 
 boots marking the time — 
 
 Fc'ZZ hreali my heart among ye ! 
 And then the singer proceeded — gravely — 
 
 At liirli or marl:ct, morn or e'en. 
 The lihe o' than was never seen. 
 For each is kind, and each a queen; — 
 Ye^ll breah my heart among ye! 
 
 And again came the roaring chorus from the delighted lads — - 
 
 Fe'ZZ hreah my heart among ye! 
 
 There was but one more verse — 
 
 Tliere's that one darh, and that one fair, 
 And yon has iveaUh o" yellow hair; 
 Gang hame, gang home — I can nae mair — 
 Ye'll hreah my heart among ye ! 
 
 Yellow hair ? The allusion was so obvious that the 
 pretty Nelly blushed scarlet — all the more visibly because 
 of her fair complexion ; and when the thunder of the 
 thrice-repeated refrain had ceased, she leant forward and 
 said to him in a low voice, but with much terrible meaning — 
 " My lad, when I get you by yourself, I'll give it to you ! " 
 They had nearly finished supper by this time ; but ere 
 they had the decks cleared for action, there was a formal 
 ceremony to be gone through. The host produced his 
 quaich — a small cup of horn, with a handle on each side ; 
 and likewise a bottle of whisky ; and as one guest after 
 another took hold of the quaich with the thumb and fore- 
 finger of each hand, the innkeeper filled the small cup with 
 whisky, which had then to be drank to some more or less 
 appropriate toast. These were in Gaelic for the most part — 
 " To the goodman of the inn " ; " To the young girls that are 
 Jcind, and old wives that keep a dean house " ; " Good health ; 
 and good Inch in finding things washed ashore^'' and so forth 
 
THE NEW YEAR'S FEAST 75 
 
 — and when it came to Mr. Hodson's turn, he would have 
 a try at the Gachc too. 
 
 " I think I can wrestle with it, if you give me an easy one," 
 he remarked, as he took the quaich between his fingers and 
 held it till it was filled. 
 
 "Oh no, sir, do not trouble about the Gaelic," said his 
 pretty neighbour Jeannie — blushing very much, for there 
 was comparative silence at the time. 
 
 "But I want to have my turn. If it's anything a white 
 man can do, I can do it." 
 
 "Bay air do shlainte — that is, your good health," said 
 Jeannie, blushing more furiously than ever. 
 
 He carefully balanced the cup in his hands, gravely 
 turned towards his hostess, bowed to her, repeated the 
 magic words with a very fair accent indeed, and drained off 
 the whisky — amid the general applause ; though none of 
 them suspected that the swallowing of the whisky was to 
 him a much more severe task than the pronunciation of 
 the Gaelic. And then it came to Ronald's turn. 
 
 " Oh no, Mr. Murray," said the slim-waisted Nelly, who 
 had recovered from her confusion, and whose eyes were 
 now as full of mischief as ever, " do not ask Ronald to say 
 anything in the Gaelic ; he is ashamed to hear himself 
 speak. It is six years and more he has been trying to say 
 ' a young calf,' and he cannot do it yet." 
 
 " And besides, he's thinking of the lass he left behind in 
 the Lothians," said her neighlaour. 
 
 " Ajid they're all black-haired girls there," continued the 
 fair-haired Nelly. " Ronald, drink ' mo nighean diihh^ " 
 
 He fixed his eyes on her steadily, and said : " Tir nam 
 heann, nan gJeann, s^nan gaisgcach ;* and may all the saucy 
 jades m Sutherland find a husband to keep them in order 
 ere the year be out." 
 
 And now two or three of the lasses rose to clear the 
 table ; for the red-bearded drover and his brigade had not 
 the skill to do that ; and the men lit their pipes ; and there 
 was a good deal of joyous schicarmcrci. In the midst of it 
 all there was a rapping of spoons and knuckles at the upper 
 end of the table ; and it was clear, from the importance of 
 his look, that Mr. Murray himself was about to favour the 
 * The land of hills and glens and heroes. 
 
76 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 company — so that a general silence ensued. And very well 
 indeed did the host of the evening sing— in a shrill, high- 
 pitched voice, it is true, but still with such a multitude of 
 small flourishes and quavers and grace notes as showed 
 he had once been proud enough of his voice in the days 
 gone by. " Scotland yet " he sang ; and there was a uni- 
 versal rush at tlie chorus — ■ 
 
 *' Awl trnw ye as I sing, my lads. 
 The hurden ot shall he, 
 Auld Scotland's howes, and Scotland's Jcnowes, 
 
 And Scotland's hills for me, 
 I'll drinh a cup to Scotland yet, 
 Wi' a' the lionours three." 
 
 And was their American friend to be excluded ? — not if he 
 knew lb. He could make a noise as well as any ; and he 
 waved the quaich — which had wandered back to him — 
 round his head ; and strident enough was his voice with 
 
 " Til drinh a cup to Scotland yet, 
 Wi' a' the honours three." 
 
 " I feel half a Scotchman already," said he gaily to his 
 hostess. 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I wish you were altogether one," she said 
 in her gentle way. " I am sure I think you would look a 
 little better in health if you lived in this country." 
 
 " But I don't look so ill, do I ? " said he — rather dis- 
 appointed ; for he had been striving to be hilarious, and 
 had twice drank the contents of the quaich, out of pure 
 friendliness. 
 
 " Well, no, sir," said Mrs. Murray politely, " not more 
 than most of them I hef seen from your country ; but 
 surely it cannot be so healthy as other places ; the young 
 ladies are so thin and delicate-looking whatever ; many a 
 one I would like to hef kept here for a while — for more 
 friendly young ladies I never met with anywhere — just to 
 see what the mountain air and the sweet milk would do 
 for her." 
 
 *' Well, then, Mrs. Murray, you will have the chance of 
 trying your doctoring on my daughter when she comes up 
 here a few weeks hence ; but I think you won't find much 
 
THE NEW YEARS FEAST 'jj 
 
 of the invalid about her — it's my belief she could give 
 twenty pounds to any girl I know of in a go-as-you-please 
 race across the stiffest ground anywhere. There's not much 
 the matter with my Carry, if she'd only not spend the whole 
 day in those stores in Regent Street. Well, that will be 
 over when she comes here ; I should think it'll make her 
 stare some, if she wants to buy a veil or a pair of gloves." 
 
 But the girls at the foot of the table had been teasing 
 Ronald to sing something ; silence was forthwith procured ; 
 and presently — for he was very good natured, and sang 
 whenever he was asked — the clear and penetrating tenor 
 voice was ringiug along the rafters • 
 
 *' The news frae Mo i dart cam' yestreen. 
 Will soon gar many ferlie,* 
 For ships o' icar hae jiist come in 
 A7id landed royal Charlie." 
 
 It was a well-known song, with a resounding chorus ; 
 
 " Come through the heather, around him gather, 
 Ye're a' the icelcomer early ; 
 Around him cling icV a' your hin, 
 For icluCll he king hut Charlie'^" 
 
 Nay, was not this the right popular kind of song — to have 
 two choruses instead of one ? — • 
 
 " Come through the heather, around him gather. 
 Come Eonald, and Donald, come a'thegitlier 
 And claim your right/ u' lawfu' king. 
 For icha'll he king but Charlie ? " 
 
 This song gave great satisfaction ; for they had all taken 
 part in the chorus ; and they were pleased with the melo- 
 dious result. And then the lasses were at him again : 
 " Ronald, sing ' Doon the burn, Davie lad.' " 
 " Ronald, will you not give us ' Logan AVater ' now ? " 
 " Ronald, ' Auld Joe Nicholson's Bonnie Nannie ' or 
 ' My Peggy is a young thing ' — whichever you like best 
 yourself." 
 
 "No, no," said the pretty Nelly, "ask him to sing 
 ' When the kye come hame,' and he will be thinking of the 
 black-haired lass he left in the Lothians." 
 
 * " Ferlie," wonder. 
 
78 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " Gae wa', gae wa'," said he, rising aud shaking himself 
 free from them. " I ken what'll put other things into your 
 heads — or into your heels rather." 
 
 He picked up his pipes, which had been left in a corner, 
 threw the drones over his shoulder, and marched to the 
 upper end of the barn ; then there was a preliminary groan 
 or two, and presently the chanter broke away into a lively 
 reel tunc. The effect of this signal, as it might be called, 
 was magical ; every one at once divined what was needed ; 
 and the next moment they were all helping to get the long 
 table separated into its component parts and carried out 
 into the dark. There was a cross table left at the upper 
 end, by the peat-fire, for the elderly people and the 
 spectators to sit at, if they chose ; the younger folk had 
 wooden forms at the lower end ; but the truth is that they 
 were so eager not to have any of the inspiriting music 
 thrown away that several sets were immediately formed, and 
 off they went to the brisk strains of Miss Jenny Gordon'' s 
 Favour lie— mievl\y\&tmg deftly, setting to partners again, 
 fingers and thumbs snapped in the air, every lad amongst 
 them showing off his best steps, and ringing whoops sent 
 up to the rafters as the reel broke oft" again into a quick 
 strathspey. It Avas- wild and barbaric, no doubt ; but 
 there was a kind of rhythmic poetry in it too ; Ronald 
 grew prouder and prouder of the fire that he could infuse 
 into this tempestuous and yet methodical crowd ; the 
 whoops became yells ; and if the red-bearded drover, 
 dancing opposite the slim-figured Nelly, Avould challenge 
 her to do her best, and could himself perform some re- 
 markable steps and shakes, well, Nelly was not ashamed to 
 raise her gown an inch or two just to show him that he was 
 not dancing with a flat-footed creature, but that she had 
 swift toes and graceful ankles to compare with any. And 
 then again they would trip off into the figure 8, swinging 
 round with arms interlocked ; and again roof and rafter 
 would " dirl " with the triumphant shouts of the men. Then 
 came the long wailing monition from the pipes ; the sounds 
 died down ; panting and laughing and rosy-cheeked the 
 lasses were led to the benches by their partners ; and a 
 general halt was called. 
 
 Little Maggie stole up to her brother. 
 
THE NEW YEAR'S FEAST 79 
 
 " I'm going home now, Eonald," she said. 
 
 *' Very well," he said. " Mind you go to bed as soon as 
 ye get in. Good-night, lass." 
 
 " Good-night, Eonald." 
 
 She was going away, when he said to her— 
 
 " Maggie, do ye think that Miss Douglas is not coming 
 along to see the dancing ? I thought she would do that if 
 she would rather no come to the supper." 
 
 In truth he had had his eye on the door all the time he 
 was playing Mias Jenny Gordonh Favourite. 
 
 " I am sure if she stays away," the little Maggie said, " it 
 is not her own doing. Meenio wanted to come. It is 
 very hard that everybody should be at the party and not 
 Meenie." 
 
 " Well, well, good-night, lass," said he ; for the young folk 
 were choosing their partners again, and the pipes were 
 wanted. Soon there was another reel going on, as fast and 
 furious as before. 
 
 At the end of this reel — Meenie had not appeared, by the 
 way, and Eonald concluded that she was not to be allowed 
 to look on at the dancing— the yellow-haired Nelly came 
 up to the top of the room, and addressed Mrs. Murray in 
 the Gaelic ; but as she finished up with the word quadrille, 
 and as she directed one modest little glance towards Mr. 
 Hodson, that amiable but astute onlooker naturally inferred 
 that he was somehow concerned in this speech. Mrs. 
 Murray laughed. 
 
 " Web, sir, the girls are asking if you would not like to 
 have a dance too ; and they could have a quadrille." 
 
 " I've no cause to brag about my dancing," he said good- 
 humouredly, " but if Miss Nelly will see me through, I dare 
 say we'll manage somehow. Will you excuse my ignor- 
 ance ? " 
 
 Now the tall and slender Highland maid had not in any 
 way bargained for this — it was merely friendliness that had 
 prompted her proposal ; but she could not well refuse ; and 
 soon one or two sets were formed ; and a young lad called 
 Munro, from Lairg, who had brought his fiddle with him for 
 this great occasion, proceeded to tune up. The quadrille, 
 when it came off, was performed with more of vigour than 
 science ; there was no ignominious shirking of steps — no 
 
8o WHITE HEATHER 
 
 idle and languid walking — but a thorough and resolute 
 flinging about, as the somewhat bewildered Mr. Hodson 
 speedily discovered. However, he did his part gallantly, 
 and was now grown so gay that when, at the end of the 
 dance, he inquired of the fair Kelly whether she would like 
 to have any little refreshment, and when she mildly 
 suggested a little water, and offered to go for it herself, he 
 would hear of no such thing. No, no ; he went and got 
 some soda-water, and declared that it was much more 
 wholesome with a little whisky in it ; and had some himself 
 also. Gay and gallant ? — why, certainly. He tlircw off 
 thirty years of his life ; he forgot that this was the young 
 person who would be waiting at table after his daughter 
 Carry came hither : he would have danced another quadrille 
 with her ; and felt almost jealous when a young fellow 
 came up to claim her for the Hi/jMand Scliottische — thus 
 sending him back to the society of Mrs, Murray. And it 
 was not until he had sate down that he remembered he had 
 suggested to his daughter tlie training of this pretty High- 
 land girl for the position of maid and travelling companion. 
 But what of tliat ? If all men were born equal, so were 
 women ; and he declared to himself that any day he would 
 rather converse with Nelly tlie pretty ]mrlour-maid than 
 (supposing him to have the chance) with Her Hlustrious 
 Highness the Princess of Pfalzgrafwciler-Gunzenhausen. 
 
 In the meantime Ronald, his pipes not being then 
 needed, had wandered out into the cold night-air. There 
 were some stai's visible, but they shed no great light ; the 
 world lay black enough all around. He went idly and 
 dreamily along the road — the sounds in the barn growing- 
 fainter and fainter — until he reached the plateau where 
 his own cottage stood. There was no light in it anywhere ; 
 doubtless Maggie had at once gone to bed, as she had 
 been bid. And then he wandered on again — walking a 
 little more quietly — until he reached the doctor's house. 
 Here all the lights were out but one ; there was a red glow 
 in that solitary window ; and he knew that that was 
 Meenie's room. Surely she could not be sitting up and 
 listening ? — even the skirl of the pipes could scarcely be 
 heard so far ; and her window was closed. Eeading, 
 perhaps ? He knew so many of her favourites—" The 
 
ENTICEMENTS 8r 
 
 Burial March of Dundee," " Jeannie Morrison," " Bonny 
 KQmeny," " Ohristabel," the " Hymn before Sunrise in the 
 Yalley of Chamounix," and others of a similar noble or 
 mystical or tender kind ; and perhaps, after all, these 
 were more in consonance with the gentle dignity and rose- 
 sweetness of her mind and nature than the gambols of a lot 
 of fann-lads and wenches ? He walked on to the bridge, 
 and sate down there for a while, in the dark and the silence ; 
 he could hear the Mudal Water rippling by, but could see 
 nothing. And when he passed along the road again, the 
 light in the small red-blinded window was gone ; Meenie 
 was away in the world of dreams and phantoms — and he 
 wondered if the people there knew who this was who had 
 come amongst them, with her wondering eyes and sweet ways. 
 He went b3,ck to the barn, and resumed his pipe-playing 
 with all his wonted vigour — waking up the whole thing, as 
 it were ; but nothing could induce him to allow one or 
 other of the lads to be his substitute, so that he might go 
 and choose a partner for one of the reels. He would not 
 dance ; he said his business was to keep the merry-making 
 going. And he and they did keep it going till between 
 five and six in the morning, when all hands were piped for 
 the singing of " Auld Lang Syne : " and thereafter there was 
 a general dispersal, candles going this way and that through 
 the blackness like so many will-o'-the-wisps ; and the last 
 good-nights at length sank into silence — a silence as 
 profound and hushed as that that lay over the unseen 
 heights of Clebrig and the dark and still lake below. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ENTICEMENTS. 
 
 At about eleven o'clock on the same morning Miss Douglas 
 was standing at the window of her own little room looking 
 rather absently at the familiar wintry scene without, and 
 occasionally turning to a letter that she held in her hand, 
 and that she had apparently just then written. Presently, 
 however, her face brightened. There was a faint sound in 
 the distance as of some one singing ; no doubt that was 
 Bonald ; he would be coming along the road with the dogs, 
 
 G 
 
83 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 and if she were in any difficulty he would be the one to 
 help. So she waited for a second or two, hoping to be 
 able to signal him to stop ; and the next minute he was in 
 sight, walking briskly with his long and steady stride, the 
 small terrier at his heels, the other dogs — some handsome 
 Gordon setters, a brace of pointers, and a big brown 
 retriever — ranging farther afield.. 
 
 But why was it, she asked herself, that whenever he 
 drew near her father's cottage he invariably ceased his 
 singiug ? Elsewhere, as well she knew, he beguiled the 
 tedium of these lonely roads with an almost constant succes- 
 sion of songs and snatches of songs ; but here he invariably 
 became mute. And why did he not raise his eyes to the 
 window^ — where she was waiting to give him a friendly wave 
 of the hand, or even an invitation to stop and come within 
 doors for a minute or two ? ISlo, on he went with that long 
 stride of his, addressing a word now and again to one or 
 other of the dogs, and apparently thinking of nothing else. 
 So, as there was nothing for it now but to go out and 
 intercept him on his return, she proceeded to put on her 
 ulster and a close-fitting deerstalker's cap ; and thus 
 fortified against the gusty north wind that was driving 
 clouds and sunshine across the loch and along the slopes of 
 Clebrig, she left the cottage, and followed the road that he 
 had taken. 
 
 As it turned out, she had not far to go ; for she saw 
 that he was now seated on the parapet of the little bridge 
 spanning the Mudal Water, and no doubt he was cutting 
 tobacco for his pipe. When she drew near, he rose ; when 
 she drew nearer, he put his pipe in his Avaistcoat pocket. 
 
 "Good-morning, Ronald!" she cried, and the pretty 
 fresh-tinted face smiled on him, and the clear gray-blue 
 Highland eyes regarded him in the most frank and friendly 
 way, and without any trace whatever of maiden bashfulness. 
 
 " Good-morning, Miss Douglas," said he ; he was far 
 more shy than she Avas. 
 
 "What a stupid.thing happened this morning," said she. 
 " When I hoard that the American gentleman was going 
 south, I wanted to tell the driver to briug the children 
 from Crask with him as he came back in the evening ; and 
 I sent Elizabeth round to the inn to tell him that : and 
 
ENTICEMENTS 83 
 
 then — what do you think ! — they had started away half 
 an hour before there was any need. But now I have written 
 a letter to the Crask people, asking them to stop the 
 waggonette as it comes back in the afternoon, and telling 
 them that Ave will make the children very comfortable here 
 for the night ; and if only I could get it sent to Crask 
 everything would be arranged. And do you think now you 
 could get one of the young lads to take it to Crask if I gave 
 him a shilling ? " 
 
 She took out her purse, and selected a shilling from the 
 very slender store of coins there. 
 
 " It is not much for so long a walk," she said, rather 
 doubtfully. " Eight miles there and eight back — is it 
 enough, do you think ? " 
 
 " Oh, I'll get the letter sent for ye. Miss Douglas, easily 
 enough," said he — and indeed he had already taken it from 
 her hand. 
 
 Then she offered him the shilling, but with a little 
 gesture he refused it. And then — for there flashed upon 
 her mind a sudden suspicion that perhaps he might choose 
 to walk all that way himself just to please her (indeed, he 
 had done things like that before) — she became greatly 
 embarrassed, 
 
 " Give me the letter, Ronald," said she, " and I will find 
 some one myself. You are going away now with the dogs." 
 
 " Oh no," said he, " I will see that the Crask folk get 
 your message." 
 
 " And the money to pay the lad ? " said she timidly. 
 
 "Dinna bother your head wi' that," he answered. 
 " There's enough money scattered about the place just now 
 - — the American gentleman was free-handed this morning. 
 Ay, and there's something I've got for you." 
 
 " For me ? " she said, with her eyes opening somewhat. 
 
 " Well," said he (and very glad he was to have the letter 
 safe and sound in his possession), " I was telling him about 
 the children's party to-morrow night ; and he's a friendly 
 kind o' man, that ; he said he would like to have been at 
 it, if he could have stayed ; and I'm sure lie would have 
 got on wi' them well enough, for he's a friendly kind of 
 man, as I say. Well, then, I couldna tell him the exact 
 number 0' the bairns ; but no matter what number, each 
 
 G 2 
 
84 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 one o' them is to find sevenpence under the teacup — tiiat's 
 a penny for each fish he got. Ay, he's a shrewd-headed 
 fellow, too ; for says he ' I suppose, now, the old people 
 will be for having the children save up the sixpence, so at 
 least they'll have the penny to spend ; ' and he was curious 
 even to find out where the bairns in a place like this got 
 their toys, or if sweeties ever came their way. ' It's little 
 enough of either o' them,' I said to him, ' they see, except 
 when Miss Douglas has been to Lairg or Tongue ; ' and he 
 was very anxious to make your acquaintance, I may tell ye, 
 but he said he would wait till his daughter came with him 
 the next time. I'm thinking the bairns will be pleased to 
 find a little packet of money in the saucers ; and it's not too 
 much for a man to pay for the luck o' getting seven salmon 
 in the middle of January — for who could have expected 
 that ? " 
 
 And then Meenie laughed. 
 
 " It's little you know, Eonald, what is in store for you 
 to-morrow night. It will be the hardest night's work you 
 ever undertook in your life." 
 
 " I'm not afraid o't," he answered simply. 
 
 " But you do not know yet." 
 
 She opened her' ulster and from an inside pocket pro- 
 duced the formidable document that she had shown to 
 Eonald's sister ; and then she buttoned the long garment 
 again, and contentedly sate herself down on the low stone 
 parapet, the programme in her hand. And now all trace 
 of embarrassment was fled from her ; and when she spoke 
 to him, or smiled, those clear frank eyes of hers looked 
 straight into his, fearing nothing, but only expecting a 
 welcome. She did not, as he did, continually remember 
 that she was Miss Douglas, the doctor's daughter, and he 
 merely a smart young deerstalker. To her he was simply 
 Ronald — the Ronald that every one knew and liked ; who 
 had a kind of masterful way throughout this neighbourhood, 
 and was arbiter in all matters of public concern ; but who, 
 nevertheless, was of such amazing good nature that there 
 was no trouble he would not undertake to gratify her 
 slightest wish. And as he was so friendly and obliging 
 towards her, she made no doubt he was so to others ; and 
 that would account for his great popularity, she considered ; 
 
ENTICEMENTS 85 
 
 and she thought it was very kicky for this remote little 
 hamlet that it held within it one who was capable of pro- 
 ducing so much good feeling, and keeping the social atmo- 
 sphere sweet and sound. 
 
 As for him, he met this perfect friendship of hers with a 
 studied respect. Always, if it was on the one side " Eonald," 
 on the other it. was " Miss Douglas." Why, her very costume 
 was a bar to more familiar relations. At this moment, as 
 she sate on the stone parapet of the bridge, looking down at 
 the document before her, and as he stood at a little distance, 
 timidly awaiting what she had to say, it occurred to him 
 again, as it had occurred before, that no matter what dress 
 it was, each one seemed to become her better than any 
 other. What was there particular in a tight-fitting gray 
 ulster and a deerstalker's cap ? and yet there was grace 
 there, and style, and a nameless charm. If one of the 
 lasses at the inn, now, were sent on an errand on one of 
 these wild and blustering mornings, and got her hair blown 
 about, she came back looking untidy ; but if Miss Douglas 
 had her hair blown about, so that bits and curls of it got free 
 from the cap or the velvet hat, and hung lightly about her 
 forehead or her ears or her neck, it was a greater witchery 
 than ever. Then everything seemed to fit her so well and 
 so easily, and to be so simple ; and always leaving her — how- 
 ever it was so managed — perfect freedom of movement, so 
 that she could swing a child on to her shoulder, or run 
 after a truant, or leap from bank to bank of a burn without 
 disturbing in the least that constant symmetry and neat- 
 ness. To Ronald it was all a wonder ; and there was a still 
 further wonder always seeming to accompany her and sur- 
 round her. Why was it that the bleakest winter day, on 
 these desolate Sutherland moors, suddenly grew filled with 
 light when he chanced to see a well-known figure away 
 along the road — the world changing into a joyful thing, as 
 if the summer were already come, and the larks singing in 
 the blue ? And when she spoke to him, there was a kind 
 of music in the air ; and when she laughed— why, Clebrig 
 and Ben Loyal and the whispering Mudal Water seemed 
 all to be listening and all to be glad that she was happy 
 and pleased. She was the only one, other than himself, 
 that the faithful Harry would follow ; and he would go with 
 
86 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 her wherever she went, so long as she gave him an occa- 
 sional word of encouragement. 
 
 " Will I read you the programme, Ronald ? " said she, 
 with just a trace of mischief in the gray-blue eyes. " I'm 
 sare you ought to hear what has to be done, for you are 
 to be in the chair, you know." 
 
 " Me ? " said he, in astonishment. " I never tried such 
 a thing in my life." 
 
 " Oh yes," she said cheerfully. " They tell me you are 
 always at the head of the merry-makings : and is not this 
 a simple thing ? And besides, I do not want any other 
 grown people — I do not want Mr. Murray — he it a very 
 nice man — but he would be making jokes for the grov\'n-up 
 people all the time. I want nobody but you and Maggie 
 and myself besides the children, and we will manage it 
 very well, I am sure." 
 
 There was a touch of flattery in the proposal. 
 
 " Indeed, yes," said he at once. " We will manage well 
 enough, if ye wish it that way." 
 
 " Very well, then," said she, turning with a practical air 
 to the programme. " We begin with singiug Old Hundred, 
 and then the children will have tea and cake — and the 
 sixpence and the • penny. And then there is to be an 
 address by the Chairman — that's you, Ronald." 
 
 " Bless me, lassie ! " he was startled into saying ; and 
 then he stammered an apology, and sought safety in a 
 vehement protest against the fancy that he could make a 
 speech — about anything whatever. 
 
 " Well, that is strange," said Meenie looking at him, and 
 rather inclined to laugh at his perplexity. " It is a strange 
 thing if you cannot make a little speech to them ; for I 
 have to make one — at the end. See, there is my name." 
 
 He scarcely glanced at the programme. 
 
 " And what have you to speak about, Miss Douglas ? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " About you." 
 
 " About me ? " he said, rather aghast. 
 
 " It is a vote of thanks to the Chairman — and easy enough 
 it will be, I am sure. For I have only to say about you 
 what I hear every one say about you ; and that will be 
 simple enough." 
 
ENTICEMENTS 87 
 
 The open sincerity of lier friendship — and even of her 
 marked liking for him — was so apparent that for a second 
 or so he was rather bewildered. But he was not the kind 
 of man to misconstrue frankness ; he knew that was part 
 of herself ; she was too generous, too much inclined to 
 think well of everybody ; and the main point to which he 
 had to confine himself was this, that if she, out of her 
 good-nature, could address a few words to those children — ■ 
 about him or any other creature or object in the world — 
 it certainly behoved him to do his best also, although he 
 had never tried anything of the kind before. And then a 
 sudden fancy struck him ; and his eyes brightened eagerly. 
 
 "Oh yes, yes," he said, "I will find something to say. 
 I would make a bad hand at a sermon ; but the bairns 
 have enough 0' that at times ; I dare say we'll find some- 
 thing for them o' another kind — and they'll no be sorry 
 if it's short. I'm thinking I can find something that'll 
 please them." 
 
 And what was this that was in his head ? — what but 
 the toast of the Mistress of the Feast ! If Meenie had 
 but known, she would doubtless have protested against the 
 introduction of any mutual admiration society into the 
 modest hamlet of Inver-Mudal ; but at that moment she 
 was still scanning the programme. 
 
 " Now you know, Eonald," she said, " it is to be all quiet 
 and private ; and that is why the grown-up people are to be 
 kept out except ourselves. AVell, then, after they have had 
 raisins handed round, you are to sing ' My love she's but a 
 lassie yet ' — that is a compliment to the little ones ; and 
 then I will read them something ; and then you are to 
 sing ' dinna cross the burn, Willie ' — I have put down 
 no songs that I have not heard you sing. And then if 
 you would play them ' Lord Breadalbane's March ' on the 
 pipes " 
 
 She looked up again, with an air of apology. 
 
 " Do you think I am asking too much from you, Eonald ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " Indeed not a bit," said he promptly. " I will play or 
 sing for them all the night long, if you want ; and I'm sure 
 it's much better we should do it all ourselves, instead o' 
 having a lot o' grown-up folk to make the bairns shy." 
 
88 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " It is not the Chairman anyway that will make them 
 shy — if what they say themselves is true," said Meenie very 
 prettily ; and she folded up her programme and put it in 
 her pocket again. 
 
 She rose ; and he whistled in the dogs, as if he would 
 return to the village. 
 
 " I thought you were taking them for a run," said she. 
 
 " Oh, they have been scampering about ; I will go back 
 now." 
 
 Nor did it occur to her for a moment that she would 
 rather not walk back to the door of her mother's house 
 with him. On the contrary, if she had been able to attract 
 his notice when he passed, she would have gone down to 
 the little garden-gate, and had this conversation with him 
 in view of all the windows. If she wanted him to do any- 
 thing for her, she never thought twice about going along 
 to his cottage and knocking at the door ; or she would, in 
 the event of his not being there, go on to the inn and ask 
 if any one had seen Ronald about. And so on this occa- 
 sion she went along the road with him in much good- 
 humour ; praising the dogs, hoping the weather would con- 
 tinue fine, and altogether in high spirits over her plans for 
 the morrow. 
 
 However, they were not to part quite so pleasantly. 
 At the small garden-gate, and evidently awaiting them, 
 stood Mrs. Douglas ; and Eonald guessed that she was in 
 no very good temper. In truth, she seldom was. She 
 was a doll-like little woman, rather pretty, with cold clear 
 blue eyes, fresh-coloured cheeks, and quite silver-white hair, 
 which was carefully curled and braided — a pretty little old 
 lady, and one to be petted and made much of, if only she 
 had had a little more amiability of disposition. But she was 
 a disappointed woman. Her big good-natured husband had 
 never fulfilled the promise of his early years, when, in a 
 fit of romance, she married the penniless medical student 
 whom she had met in Edinburgh. He was not disap- 
 pointed at all ; his life suited him well enough ; he was 
 excessively fond of his daughter Meenie, and wanted no 
 other companion when she was about ; after the hard work 
 of making a round of professional visits in that wild district, 
 the quiet and comfort and neatness of the little cottage at 
 
ENTICEMENTS 89 
 
 Inver-Mudal were all that he required. But it was far 
 otherwise with the once ambitious little woman whom he 
 had married. The shadow of the dignity of the Stuarts of 
 Glengask still dwelt over her ; and it vexed her that she 
 had nothing with which to overawe the neighbours or to 
 convince the passing stranger of her importance. Perhaps 
 if she had been of commanding figure, that might have 
 helped her, however poor her circumstances might be ; as 
 it was, being but five feet two inches in height — and rather 
 toy-like withal — everything seemed against her. It was 
 but little use her endeavouring to assume a majestic manner 
 when her appearance was somehow suggestive of a glass 
 case ; and the sharpness of her tongue, which was consider- 
 able, seemed to be but little heeded even in her own house, 
 for both her husband and her daughter were persons of an 
 easy good humour, and rather inclined to pet her in spite of 
 herself. 
 
 " Grood-morning, Mrs. Douglas," Eonald said respectfully, 
 and he raised his cap as they drew near. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Strang," she said, with much 
 precision, and scarcely glancing at him. 
 
 She turned to Meenie. 
 
 " Willi am ina, how often have I told you to shut the gate 
 after you when you go out ? " she said sharply. " Here has 
 the cow been in again." 
 
 " It cannot do much harm at this time of the year," 
 Meenie said lightly. 
 
 " I suppose if I ask you to shut the gate that is enough ? 
 Where have you been ? Idling, I suppose. Have you 
 written to Lady Stuart to thank her for the Birthday Book ? " 
 
 It seemed to Ronald (who wished to get away, but 
 could scarcely leave without some civil word of parting) 
 that she referred to Lady Stuart in an unmistakably clear 
 tone. She appeared to take no notice of Ronald's presence, 
 but she allowed him to hear that there was such a person as 
 Lady Stuart in existence. 
 
 " Why, mother, it only came yesterday, and I haven't 
 looked over it yet," Meenie said. 
 
 " I think when her ladyship sends you a present," observed 
 the little woman, with severe dignity, " the least you can 
 do is to write and thank her at once. There are many 
 
go WHITE HEATHER 
 
 who would be glad of the chance. Go in and write the 
 letter now." 
 
 " Very well, mother," said Meenie, with perfect equa- 
 nimity ; and then she called " Good-moruing, Ronald ! " 
 and went indoors. 
 
 What was he to do to pacify this imperious little dame ? 
 As a gamekeeper, he knew hut the one way. 
 
 " Would a hare or two, or a brace of ptarmigan be of any 
 use to you, Mrs. Douglas ? " said he. 
 
 " Indeed," she answered, with much dignity, " we have 
 not had much game of any kind of late, for at Glengask 
 they do not shoot any of the deer after Christmas." 
 
 This intimation that her cousin, Sir Alexander, was the 
 owner of a deer-forest might have succeeded with anybody 
 else. But alas ! this young man was a keeper, and very 
 well he knew that there was no forest at all at Glengask, 
 though occasionally in October they might come across a 
 stag that had been driven forth from the herd, or they might 
 find two or three strayed hinds in the woods later on ; while, 
 if Mrs. Douglas had but even one haunch sent her in the 
 year — say at Christmas — he considered she got a very fair 
 share of whatever venison was going at Glengask. But of 
 course he said nothing of all this. 
 
 " Oh, very well," said he, " I'm thinking o' getting two 
 or three o' the lads to go up the hill for a hare-drive one 
 o' these days. The hares '11 be the better o' some thinning 
 down — on one or two o' the far tops ; and then again, when 
 we've got them it's no use sending them south — they're no 
 worth the carriage. So if ye will take a few o' them, I'm 
 sure you're very welcome. Good-morning, ma'am." 
 
 " Good-morning," said she, a little stiffly, and she turned 
 and walked towards the cottage. 
 
 As for him, he strode homeward with right goodwill ; 
 for Meenie's letter was in his pocket ; and he had forthwith 
 to make his way to Crash — jDreferring not to place any 
 commission of hers in alien hands. He got the dogs 
 kennelled up — all except the little terrier ; he slung his 
 telescope over his shoulder, and took a stick in his hand. 
 " Come along, Harry, lad, ye'll see your friends at Crash ere 
 dinner time, and if ye're well-behaved ye'll come home in 
 the waggonette along wi' the bairns." 
 
ENTICEMENTS gi 
 
 It was a brisk and breezy morning ; the keen nortli wind 
 was fortunately behind him ; and soon he was swinging 
 along through the desolate solitudes of Strath Terry, his 
 footfall on the road the only sound in the universal still- 
 ness. And yet not the only sound, for sometimes he con- 
 versed with Harry, and sometimes he sent his clear tenor 
 voice ringing over the wide moorland, and startling here or 
 there a sheep, the solitary occupant of these wilds. For 
 no longer had he to propitiate that domineering little dame ; 
 and the awful shadow of Gleugask was as nothing to him ; 
 the American, with his unsettling notions, had departed ; 
 here he was at home, his own master, free iu mind, and 
 with the best of all companions trotting placidly at his 
 heels. No wonder his voice rang loud and clear and con- 
 tented : — • 
 
 " T/s not beneath the hurgonet. 
 Nor yet beneath the croiim, 
 'Tis not on couch of velvet. 
 Nor yet on bed of cloivn. 
 
 Harry, lad, do ye see that hoodie ? Was there ever such 
 impudence ? I could maist kill him with a stone. But 
 I'll come along and pay a visit to the gentleman ere the 
 month's much older : — 
 
 '' 'Tis beneath the spreading birch. 
 In the dell tvitliout a name, 
 Wi' a bonnie, honnie lassie, 
 When the Inje come hame. 
 
 What think ye o' that now ? — for we'll have to do our best 
 to-morrow night to please the bairns. Ah, you wise wee 
 deevil ! — catch you drinking out o' a puddle when ye see 
 any running water near. 
 
 " When the hye come hame, tvhen the hye come hame, 
 'Twixt the gloaming and the mirk, u'hen the hye come hame," 
 
 iffll: 
 
92 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HIGH FESTIVAL. 
 
 A children's tea-party in a Highland barn sounds a trivial 
 sort of affair ; and, as a spectacle, would doubtless suffer in 
 contrast with a fancy-dress ball in Kensington or with a 
 State concert at Buckingham Palace. But human nature 
 is the important thing, after all, no matter what the sur- 
 roundings may be ; and if one considers what the ordinary 
 life of these children was — the dull monotony of it in those 
 far and bleak solitudes ; their ignorance of pantomime 
 transformation scenes ; their lack of elaborately illustrated 
 fairy tales, and similar aids to the imagination enjoyed by 
 more fortunate young people elsewhere — it was surely an 
 interesting kind of project to bring these bairns away from 
 the homely farm or the keeper's cottage, in the depth of 
 mid-winter, and to march them through the blackness of a 
 January evening into a suddenly opening wonderland of 
 splendour and colour and festivity. They were not likely 
 to remember that this was but a barn — this beautiful place, 
 with its blazing candelabra, and its devices of evergreens 
 and great white and red roses, and the long table sump- 
 tuously set forth, and each guest sitting down, finding him- 
 self or herself a capitalist to the extent of sevenpence. And 
 so warm and comfortable the lofty building was ; and so 
 brilliant and luminous with those circles of candles ; and 
 the loud strains of the pipes echoing through it — giving 
 them a welcome just as if they were grown-up people : no 
 wonder they stared mostly in silence at first, and seemed 
 awestruck, and perhaps were in doubt whether this might 
 not be some Cinderella kind of feast, that they might 
 suddenly be snatched away from — and sent back again 
 through the cold and the night to the far and silent cottage 
 in the glen. But this feeling soon wore off ; for it was no 
 mystical fairy — though she seemed more beautiful and 
 gracious, and more richly attired than any fairy they had 
 ever dreamed about — who went swiftly here and there and 
 everywhere, arranging their seats for them, laughing and 
 talking with them, forgetting not one of their names, and 
 
HIGH FESTIVAL 93 
 
 as busy and merry and high-spirited as so great an occasion 
 obviously demanded. 
 
 Moreover, is it not in these early years that ideals are 
 unconsciously being formed — from such experiences as are 
 nearest ? — ideals that in after-life may become standards 
 of conduct and aims. They had never seen any one so 
 gentle-mannered as this young lady who was at once their 
 hostess and the little mother of them all, nor any one so 
 dignified and yet so simple and good-humoured and kind. 
 They could not but observe with what marked respect 
 Ronald Strang (a most important person in their eyes) 
 treated her — insisting on her changing places with him, lest 
 she should be in a draught when the door was opened ; 
 and not allowing her to touch the teapots that came hot 
 and hot from the kitchen, lest she should burn her fingers ; 
 he pouring out the tea himself, and rather clumsily too. 
 And if their ideal of sweet and gracious womanhood 
 (supposing it to be forming in their heads) was of but a 
 prospective advantage, was there not something of a more 
 immediate value to them in thus being allowed to look on 
 one who was so far superior to the ordinary human creatures 
 they saw around them ? She formed an easy key to the 
 few imaginative stories they were familiar with. Cinderella, 
 for example : when they read how she fascinated the prince 
 at the ball, and won all hearts and charmed all eyes, they 
 could think of Miss Douglas, and eagerly understand. The 
 Queen of Sheba, when she came in all her splendour : how 
 were these shepherds' and keepers' and crofters' children 
 to form any notion of her appearance but by regarding 
 Miss Douglas in this beautiful and graceful attire of hers ? 
 In point of fact, her gown was but of plain black silk ; but 
 there was something about the manner of her wearing it 
 that had an indefinable charm ; and then she had a sin- 
 gularly neat collar and a pretty ribbon round her neck ; and 
 there were slender silver things gleaming at her wrists from 
 time to time. Indeed, there was no saying for how many 
 heroines of history or fiction Miss Meenie Douglas had 
 unconsciously to herself to do duty — in the solitary com- 
 munings of a summer day's herding, or during the dreary 
 hours in which these hapless little people were shut up in 
 some small, close, overcrowded parish church, supposing 
 
94 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 that they lived anywhere withui half a dozen miles of such 
 a building : now she would be Joan of Arc, or perhaps 
 Queen Esther that was so surpassing beautiful, or Lord 
 Ullin's daughter that was drowned within sight of XJIva's 
 shores. And was it not sufficiently strange that the same 
 magical creature, who represented to them everything that 
 was noble and beautiful and refined and queen-like, should 
 now be moving about amongst them, cutting cake for them, 
 laughing, joking, patting this one or that on the shoulder, 
 and apparently quite delighted to wait on them and serve 
 them ? 
 
 The introductory singing of the Old Hundredth Psalm 
 was, it must be confessed, a failure. The large majority of 
 the children present had never either heard or seen a piano ; 
 and when Meenie went to that strange-looking instrument 
 (it had been brought over from her mother's cottage with 
 considerable difficulty), and when she sate down and struck 
 the first deep resounding chords — and when Ronald, at his 
 end of the table, led off the singing with his powerful 
 tenor voice — they wore far too much interested and awe- 
 struck to follow. Meenie sang, in her quiet clear way, and 
 Maggie timidly joined in, but the children were silent. 
 However, as has already been said, the restraint that was at 
 first pretty obvious very soon wore off ; the tea and cake 
 were consumed amid much general hilarity and satisfaction ; 
 and when in due course the Chairman rose to deliver his 
 address, and when Miss Douglas tapped on the table to 
 secure attention, and also by way of applause, several of 
 the elder ones had quite enough courage and knowledge of 
 affairs to follow her example, so that the speaker may be 
 said to have been received with favour. 
 
 And if there were any wise ones there, whose experience 
 had taught them that tea and cake were but a snare to 
 entrap innocent people into being lectured and sermonised, 
 they were speedily reassured. The Chairman's address 
 was mostly alDOut starlings and jays and rabbits and ferrets 
 and squirrels ; and about the various ways of taming these, 
 and teaching them ; and of his own various successes and 
 failures when he was a boy. He had to apologise at the 
 outset for not speaking in the Gaelic ; for he said that if he 
 tried they would soon be laughing at him ; he would nave 
 
HIGH FESTIVAL 95 
 
 to speak in English ; bnt if he mentioned any bird or beast 
 wliose name they did not understand, they were to ask hiin, 
 and he would tell them the Gaelic name. And very soon 
 it was clear enough that this was no lectm'e on the wander- 
 ings of the children of Israel, nor yet a sermon on justifica- 
 tion by faith ; the eager eyes of the boys followed every 
 detail of the capture of the nest of youug osprcys ; the girls 
 were like to cry over the untimely fate of a certain tame 
 sparrow that had strayed within the reach — or the spring 
 rather — of an alien cat ; and general laughter greeted the 
 history of the continued and uncalled-for mischiefs and evil 
 deeds of one Peter, a squirrel but half reclaimed from its 
 savage ways, that had cost the youthful naturalist much 
 anxiety and vexation, and also not a little blood. There 
 was, moreover, a dark and wild story of revenge — on an ill- 
 conditioned cur that was the terror of the whole village, and 
 was for ever snapping at girls' ankles and boys' legs — a 
 most improper and immoral story to be told to young 
 folks, though the boys seemed to think the ill-tempered 
 beast got no more than it deserved. That small village, by 
 the way, down there in the Lothians, seemed to have been 
 a very remarkable place ; the scene of the strangest exploits 
 and performances on the part of terriers, donkeys, pet 
 kittens, and tame jackdaws ; haunted by curious folk, too, 
 who knew all about bogles and kelpies and such uncanny 
 creatures, and had had the most remarkable experiences of 
 them (though modern science was allowed to come in here 
 for a little bit, with its cold-blooded explanations of the 
 supernatural). And when, to finish up this discursive and 
 apparently aimless address, he remarked that the only thing- 
 lacking in that village where he had been brought up, and 
 where he had observed all these incidents and wonders, 
 was the presence of a kind-hearted and generous young 
 lady, who, on an occasion, would undertake all the trouble 
 of gathering together the children for miles around, and 
 would do everything she could to make them perfectly 
 happy, they knew perfectly well whom he meant ; and when 
 he said, in conclusion, that if they knew of any such an one 
 about here, in Inver-Mudal, and if they thought that she 
 had been kind to them, and if they wished to show her that 
 they were grateful to her for her goodness, they could not 
 
96 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 do better than give her three loud cheers, the lecture came 
 to an end in a perfect storm of applause ; and Meenie — 
 blushing a little, and yet laughing — had to get up and say 
 that she was responsible for the keeping of order by this 
 assembly, and would allow no speech-making and no cheer- 
 ing that was not put down in the programme. 
 
 After this there was a service of raisins ; and in the 
 general quiet that followed Mr. Murray came into the room, 
 just to see how things were going on. Now the innkeeper 
 considered himseK to be a man of a humorous turn ; and 
 when he went up to shake hands with Miss Douglas, and 
 looked down the long table, and saw Ronald presiding at 
 the other end, and her presiding at this, and all the children 
 sitting so sedately there, he remarked to her in his waggish 
 way— 
 
 "Well, now, for a young married couple, you have a 
 very large family." 
 
 But Miss Douglas was not a self-conscious young person, 
 nor easily alarmed, and she merely laughed and said — 
 
 " I am sure they are a very well-behaved family indeed." 
 
 But Eonald, who had not heard the jocose remark, by 
 the way, objected to any one coming in to claim Miss 
 Douglas's attention on so important an occasion ; and in 
 his capacity of Chairman he rose and rapped loudly on the 
 table. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen," he said, " we're not going to 
 have any idlers here the night. Any one that bides with 
 us must do something. I call on Mr. Murray to sing his 
 well-known song, ' Bonnie Peggie, 0.' " 
 
 "Indeed no, indeed no," the innkeeper said, instantly 
 retreating to the door. " There iss too many good judges 
 here the night. I'll leave you to yourselfs ; but if there's 
 anything in the inn you would like sent over, do not be 
 afraid to ask for it, Ronald. And the rooms for the children 
 are all ready, and the beds ; and we'll make them very 
 comfortable, Miss Douglas, be sure of that now." 
 
 " It's ower soon to talk about beds yet," Ronald said, 
 when the innkeeper had gone ; and he drove home the 
 wooden bolt of the door, so that no other interloper should 
 get in. Meenie had said she wanted no outsiders present ; 
 that was enough. 
 
HIGH FESTIVAL 97 
 
 And then they set about getting through the programme 
 — the details of which need not be repeated here. Song 
 followed song ; when there was any pause Meenie played 
 simple airs on the piano ; for " The Cameronian's Dream," 
 when it came to her turn to read them something, she sub- 
 stituted " The Pied Piper of Hamelin," which was listened 
 to with breathless interest. Even the little Maggie did her 
 part in the " Huntingtower " duet very creditably — fortified 
 by the knowledge that there were no critics present. And 
 as for the children, they had become quite convinced that 
 there was to be no sermon ; and that they were not to be 
 catechised about their lessons, nor examined as to the 
 reasons annexed to the Fourth Commandment ; all care 
 was gone from them ; for the moment life was nothing but 
 shortbread and raisins and singing, with admiration of Miss 
 Douglas's beautiful hair and beautiful kind eyes and soft 
 and laughing voice. 
 
 And then, as the evening wore on, it became time to 
 send these young people to the beds that had been prepared 
 for them ab the inn ; and of course they could not break 
 up without singing " Auld Lang Syne " — Meenie officiating 
 at the piano, and all the others standing up and joining 
 hands. And then she had to come back to the table to 
 propose a vote of thanks to the Chairman. Well, she 
 was not much abashed. Perhaps there was a little extra 
 colour in her face at the beginning ; and she said she had 
 never tried to make a speech before ; and, indeed, that now 
 there was no occasion, for that all of them knew Eonald 
 (so she called him, quite naturally), and knew that he was 
 always willing to do a kindness when he was asked. And 
 she said that he had done a great deal, more than had been 
 originally begged of him ; and they ought all of them, 
 including herself, to be very grateful to him ; and if they 
 wished to give him a unanimous vote of thanks, they were 
 all to hold up their right hand — as she did. So that vote 
 was carried ; and Eonald said a few words in reply — mostly 
 about Miss Douglas, in truth, and also telling them to whom 
 they were indebted for the money found in each saucer. 
 Then came the business of finding wraps for them and 
 muffling them up ere they went out into the January night 
 (though many a one there was all unused to such precau- 
 
98 WHITE HE A J HER 
 
 tions, and wondered that Miss Donglas should be so care- 
 ful of them),'while Ronald, up at the head of the room, was 
 playing them a parting salute on the pipes — Caidil gu Jo it 
 was, which means " Sleep on till day." Finally, when 
 Maggie and Meenie were ushering their small charges 
 through the darkness to the back-door of the inn, he found 
 himself alone ; and, before putting out the candles and fasten- 
 ing up, he thought he might as well have a smoke — for that 
 solace had been denied him during the long evening. 
 
 Well, he was staring absently into the mass of smoulder- 
 ing peats, and thinking mostly of the sound of Meenie's 
 voice as he had heard it when she sang with the children 
 " Whither, pilgrims, are you going ? " wdien he heard foot- 
 steps behind him, and turning found that both Meenie 
 and Maggie had come back. 
 
 " Ronald," said Meenie, with her pretty eyes smiling at 
 him, " do you know that Maggie and I are rather tired " 
 
 " Well, I dinna wonder," said he. 
 
 " Yes, and both of us very hungry too. And I am sure 
 there will be no supper waiting for either Maggie or me 
 when we go home ; and do you think you could get us 
 some little thing now ? " 
 
 " Here ? " said he, with his face lighting up with pleasure : 
 were those three to have supper all by themselves ? 
 
 " Oh yes," said she, in her friendly way. " I am not sure 
 that my mother woiild like me to stay at the inn for supper ; 
 but this is our own place ; and the table laid ; and Maggie 
 and I would rather bo here, I am sure. And you — are 
 you not hungry too — after so long a time — I am sure you 
 want something besides raisins and shortbread. But if it 
 will be any trouble " 
 
 "Trouble or no trouble," said he quickly, "has nothing 
 to do wi't. Here, Maggie, lass, clear the end of the table ; 
 and we'll soon get some supper for ye." 
 
 And away he went to the inn, summoning the lasses 
 there, and driving and hurrying them until they had 
 arranged upon a large tray a very presentable supper — ■ 
 some cold beef, and ham, and cheese, and bread, and ale ; 
 and when the fair-haired Nelly was ready to start forth with 
 this burden, he lit a candle and walked before her through 
 the darkness, lest she should miss her footing. And very 
 
HIGH FESTIVAL 99 
 
 demure was Nelly when she placed this supper on the table ; 
 there was not even a look for the smart young keeper ; and 
 when Meenie said to her — 
 
 " I hear, Nelly, you had great goings-on on Monday 
 night " — she only answered — " Oh yes, miss, there was that " 
 — and could not be drawn into conversation, but left the 
 moment she had everything arranged. 
 
 But curiously enough, when the two girls had taken 
 their seats at this little cross table, Ronald remained 
 standing — just behind them, indeed, as if he were a waiter. 
 And would Miss Douglas have this ? and would Miss 
 Douglas have that ? he suggested — mostly to cloak his 
 shamefacedness ; for indeed that first wild assumption that 
 they were all to have supper together was banished now as 
 an impertinence. He would wait on them, and gladly ; 
 but — but his own supper would come after. 
 
 " And what will you have yourself, Ronald ? " Meenie 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh," said he, " that will do by and by. I am not so 
 hungry as you." 
 
 " Did you have so much of the shortbread ? " said she, 
 laughing. 
 
 He went and stirred up the peats — and the red glow 
 sent a genial warmth across towards them, 
 
 " Come, Ronald," said the little Maggie, " and have some 
 supper." 
 
 " There is no hurry," he said evasively. " I think I will 
 go outside and have a pipe now ; and get something by 
 and by." 
 
 " I am sure," said Meenie saucily, " that it is no compli- 
 ment to us that you would rather go away and smoke. See, 
 now, if we cannot tempt you." 
 
 And therewith, with her own pretty fingers, she made 
 ready his place at the table ; and put the knife and fork 
 properly beside the plate ; and helped him to a slice of beef 
 and a slice of ham ; and poured some ale into his tumbler. 
 Not only that, but she made a little movement of arranging 
 her dress which was so obviously an invitation that he 
 should there and then take a place by her, that it was not 
 in mortal man to resist ; though, indeed, after sitting down, 
 he seemed to devote all his attention to looking after his 
 
 H 2 
 
loo WHITE HEATHER 
 
 companions. And very soon any small embarrassment was 
 entirely gone ; Mecnie was in an unusually gay and merry 
 mood — for she was pleased that her party had been so 
 obviously a success, and all her responsibilities over. And 
 this vivacity gave a new beauty to her face ; her eyes seemed 
 more kind than ever ; when she laughed, it was a sweet 
 low laugh, like the cooing of pigeons on a summer after- 
 noon. 
 
 " And what are you thinking of, Maggie ? " she said, 
 suddenly turning to the little girl, who had grown rather 
 silent amid this talking and joking. 
 
 "• I was wishing this could go on for ever," was the simple 
 answer. 
 
 " What ? A perpetual supper ? Oh, you greedy girl ! 
 Why, you must be looking forward to the Scandinavian 
 heaven " 
 
 " No, it's to be with Ronald and you, Meenie dear — 
 just like now — for you seem to be able to keep everybody 
 happy." 
 
 Miss Douglas did blush a little at this ; but it was an 
 honest compliment, and it was soon forgotten. And then, 
 when they had finished supper, she said — 
 
 " Eonald, do yoii know that I have never played an 
 accompaniment to one of your songs ? Would you not 
 like to hear how it sounds ? " 
 
 " But — but I'm not used to it — I should be putting you 
 wrong " 
 
 " No, no ; I'm sure we will manage. Come along," she 
 said briskly, " There is that one I heard you sing the other 
 day — I heard you, though you did not see me—' Gae bring 
 to me a pint o' wine, and fill it in a silver tassie ; that I 
 may drink, before I go, a service to my bonnie lassie ' — and 
 very proud she was, I suppose. Well, now, we will try 
 that one." 
 
 So they went to the other end of the barn, where the 
 piano was ; and there was a good deal of singing there, and 
 laughing and joking — among this little party of three. 
 And Meenie sang too — on condition (woman-like) that 
 Ronald would light his pipe. Little Maggie scarcely knew 
 which to admire the more — this beautiful and graceful 
 young lady, who was so complaisant and friendly and kind, 
 
A REVELATION loi 
 
 
 
 or her own brother, who was so handsome and manly and 
 modest, and yet could do everything in the world. Nor 
 could there have been any sinister doubt in that wish of hers 
 that these three should always be together as they were 
 then ; how was she to know that this was the last evening 
 on which Meenie Douglas and Eonald were to meet on 
 these all too friendly terms ? 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A REVELATION. 
 
 Eaely the next morning, when as yet the sunrise was still 
 widening up and over the loch, and the faint tinge of red 
 had not quite left the higher slopes of Clebrig, Eonald had 
 akeady finished his breakfast, and was in his own small 
 room, smoking the customary pipe, and idly — and with 
 some curious kind of whimsical amusement in his brain — 
 turning over the loose sheets of scribbled verses. And that 
 was a very ethereal and imaginary Meenie he found there — 
 a Meenie of lonely hillside wanderings — a Meenie of day- 
 dreams and visions : not the actual, light-hearted, shrewd- 
 headed Meenie of the evening before, who was so merry 
 after the children had gone, and so content with the little 
 supper-party of three, and would have him smoke his pipe 
 without regard to her pretty silk dress. This Meenie on 
 paper was rather a wistful, visionary, distant creature ; whereas 
 the Meenie of the previous evening was altogether good- 
 humoured and laughing, with the quaintest mother- ways in 
 the management of the children, and always a light of kind- 
 ness shining in her clear Highland eyes. He would have 
 to write something to portray Meenie (to himself) in this 
 more friendly and actual character. He could do it easily 
 enough, he knew. There never was any lack of rhymes 
 when Meenie was the occasion. At other things he had to 
 labour — frequently, indeed, until, reilecting that this was 
 not his business, he would fling the scrawl hito the fire, and 
 drive it into the peats with his heel, and go away with much 
 content. But wheui Meenie was in his head, everything 
 came readily enough ; all the world around seemed full of 
 beautiful things to compare with her ; the birds were singing 
 
I02 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 of her ; the mountains were there to guard he© ; the burn, 
 as it whispered through the rushes, or danced over the open 
 bed of pebbles, had but the one continual murmur of 
 Meenie's name. Yerses ? he could have written them by 
 the score — and laughed at them, and burned them, too. 
 
 Suddenly the little Maggie appeared. 
 
 " Ronald," she said, " the Doctor's come home." 
 
 " What — at this time in the morning ? " he said turning 
 to her. 
 
 " Yes, I am sure ; for I can see the dog-cart at the door 
 of the inn." 
 
 " Well now," said he, hastily snatching up his cap, " that 
 is a stroke of luck — if he will come with us. I will go 
 and meet him." 
 
 But he need not have hurried so much ; the dog-cart 
 was still at the door of the inn when he went out ; and 
 indeed remained there as he made his way along the road. 
 The Doctor, who was a most sociable person, had stopped 
 for a moment to hear the news ; but Mr. Murray happened 
 to be there, and so the chat was a protracted one. In the 
 meantime Ronald's long swinging stride soon brought him 
 into their neighbom'hood. 
 
 " Good-morning, Doctor ! " he cried. 
 
 " Good-morning, Ronald," said the other, turning round. 
 He was a big man, somewhat corpulent, with an honest, 
 wholesome, ruddy face, soft brown eyes, and an expressive 
 mouth, that could temper his very apparent good-natm'e 
 with a little mild sarcasm. 
 
 " You've come back in the nick of time," the keeper 
 said — for well he knew the Doctor's keen love of a gun. 
 " I'm thinking of driving some of the far tops the day, to 
 thin down the hares a bit ; and I'm sure ye'd be glad to 
 lend us a hand." 
 
 " Man, I was going home to my bed, to tell ye the truth," 
 said the Doctor ; " it's very little sleep I've had the last ten 
 days." 
 
 " What is the use of that ? " said Ronald, " there's aye 
 plenty o' time for sleep in the winter." 
 
 And then the heavy-framed occupant of the dog-cart 
 glanced up at the far-reaching heights of Clebrig, and there 
 was a grim smile on his mouth. 
 
A REVELATION 103 
 
 " It's all very well," said he, " for herring-stomached yoiiug 
 fellows like you to face a hill like that ; but I've got weight 
 to carry, man ; and " 
 
 " Come, come. Doctor ; it's not the first time you've been 
 on Clebrig," Eonald said — ho could see that Meenie's father 
 wanted to be persuaded. " Besides, we'll no try the highest 
 tops up there — there's been too much snow. And I'll tell 
 ye how we'll make it easy for ye ; we'll row ye down the 
 loch and begin at the other end and work home — there, it's 
 a fair offer," 
 
 It was an offer, at all events, that the big doctor could 
 not withstand. 
 
 " Well, well," said he, " I'll just drive the dog-cart along 
 and see how they are at home ; and then if the wife let's 
 me out 0' her clutches, I'll come down to the loch side as 
 fast as I can." 
 
 Eonald turned to one of the stable-lads (all of whom were 
 transformed into beaters on this occasion). 
 
 " Jimmy, just run over to the house and fetch my gun ; 
 and bid Maggie put twenty cartridges — number 4, she 
 knows where they arc — into the bag ; and then ye can 
 take the gun and the cartridge-bag down to the boat— and 
 be giving her a bale-out till I come along. I'm going to 
 the farm now, to get two more lads if I can ; tell the 
 Doctor I'll no be long after him, if he gets down to the loch 
 first." 
 
 Some quarter of an hour thereafter they set forth ; and 
 a rough pull it was down the loch, for the wind was blow- 
 ing hard, and the waves were coming broadside on. Those 
 who were at the oars had decidedly the best of it, for it 
 was bitterly cold ; but even the others did not seem to 
 mind much — they were chiefly occupied in scanning the 
 sky-line of the hills (a habit that one naturally falls into in 
 a deer country), while Eonald and the Doctor, seated in 
 the stern, were mostly concerned about keeping their guns 
 dry. In due course of time they landed, made their way 
 through a wood of young birch-trees, followed the channel 
 of a burn for a space, and by and by began to reach the 
 upper slopes, where the plans for the first drive were care- 
 fully drawn out and explained. 
 
 Now it is unnecessary to enter into details of the day's 
 
104 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 achievements, for they were neither exciting nor difficult 
 nor daring. It was clearly a case of shooting for the pot ; 
 although Ronald, in his capacity of keeper, was anxious to 
 have the hares thinned down, knowing well enough that 
 the over-multiplying of them was as certain to bring in 
 disease as the overstocking of a mountain farm with sheep. 
 But it may be said that the sport, such as it was, was done 
 in a workmanlike manner. In Ronald's case, each cartridge 
 meant a hare — and no praise to him, for it was his business. 
 As for the Doctor, he was not only an excellent shot, but 
 he exercised a wise and humane discretion as well. No- 
 thing would induce him to fire at long range on the off- 
 chance of hitting ; and this is all the more laudable in the 
 shooting of mountain hares, for these, when wounded, will 
 frequently dodge into a hole among the rocks, like a rabbit, 
 bafl&ing dogs and men, and dying a miserable death. More- 
 over, there was no need to take risky shots. The two guns 
 were posted behind a stone or small hillock — lying at full 
 length on the ground, only their brown-capped heads and 
 the long barrels being visible. Then the faint cries in the 
 distance became somewhat louder — with sticks rattled on 
 rocks, and stones flung here and there ; presently, on the 
 sky-line of the plq,teau, a small object appeared, sitting 
 upright and dark against the sky ; then it came shambling 
 leisurely along — becoming bigger and bigger and whiter 
 and whiter every moment, until at length it showed itself 
 almost like a cat, but not running stealthily like a cat, 
 rather hopping forward on its ungainly high haunches ; and 
 then again it would stop and sit up, its ears thrown back, 
 its eyes not looking at anything in front of it, its snow- 
 white body, with here and there a touch of bluish-brown, 
 offering a tempting target for a pea-rifle. But by this time, 
 of course, numerous others had come hopping over the sky- 
 line ; and now as the loud yells and shouts and striking of 
 stones were close at hand, there was more swift running 
 instead of hobbling and pausing among the white friglitened 
 creatures ; and as they cared for nothing in front (in fact 
 a driven hare cannot see anything that is right ahead of it, 
 and will run against your boots if you happen to be stand- 
 ing in the way), but sped noiselessly across the withered 
 grass and hard clumps of heather — bang I went the first 
 
A REVELATION 105 
 
 barrel, and then another and another, as quick as fingers 
 could unload and reload, until here, there, and everywhere 
 — but always within a certain radius from the respective 
 posts — a white object lay on the hard and wintry ground. 
 The beaters came up to gather them together ; the two 
 guns liad risen from their cold quarters ; there were found 
 to be thirteen hares all told — a quite sufficient number for 
 this part — and not one had crawled or hobbled away 
 wounded. 
 
 But we will now descend for a time from these bleak 
 altitudes and retmrn to the little hamlet — which seemed to 
 lie there snugly enough and sheltered in the hollow, though 
 the wind was hard on the dark and driven loch. Some 
 hour or so after the shooters and beaters had left, Meenie 
 Douglas came along to Eonald's cottage, and, of course, 
 found Maggie the sole occupant, as she had expected. She 
 was very bright and cheerful and friendly, and spoke warmly 
 of Eonald's kindness in giving her father a day's shooting. 
 
 " My mother was a little angry," she said, laughing, " that 
 he should go away just the first thing after coming home ; 
 but you know, Maggie, he is so fond of shooting ; and it is 
 not always he can get a day, especially at this time of the 
 year ; and I am very glad he has gone ; for you know there 
 are very few who have to work so hard." 
 
 " I wish they may come upon a stag," said the little 
 Maggie — with reckless and irresponsible generosity. 
 
 " Do you know, Maggie," said the elder young lady, 
 with a shrewd smile on her face, " I am not sm-e that my 
 mother likes the people about here to be so kind ; she is 
 always expecting my father to get a better post — but I know 
 he is not likely to get one that will suit him as well with 
 the fishing and shooting. There is the Mudal— the gentle- 
 men at the lodge let him have that all the spring through ; 
 and when the loch is not let, he can always have a day by 
 writing to Mr. Crawford ; and here is Ronald, when the 
 hinds have to be shot at Christmas, and so on. And if 
 the American gentleman takes the shooting as well as the 
 loch, surely he will ask my father to go with him a day or 
 two on the hill ; it is a lonely thing shooting by one's self. 
 Well now, Maggie, did you put the curtains up again in 
 Ronald's room ? " 
 
io6 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " Yes, I did," was the answer, " and he did not tear them 
 down this time, for I told him you showed me how to hang 
 them ; but he has tied them back so tliat they might just 
 as well not be there at all. Come and see, Meenie dear." 
 
 She led the way into her brother's room ; and there, 
 sure enough, the window-curtains (which were wholly un- 
 necessary, by the way, except from the feminine point of 
 view, for there was certainly not too much light coming 
 in by the solitary window) had been tightly looped and 
 tied back, so that the view down the loch should be un- 
 impeded. 
 
 " No matter," said Meenie ; " the window is not so bare- 
 looking as it used to be. And I suppose he will let them 
 remain up now." 
 
 " Oh yes, when he was told that you had something to 
 do with them," was the simple answer. 
 
 Meenie went to the wooden mantelpiece, and put the 
 few things there straight, just as she would have done in 
 her own room, blowing the light white peat-dust off them, 
 and arranging them in neater order. 
 
 " I wonder, now," she said, " he does not get frames for 
 these photographs ; they wiU be spoiled by finger marks 
 and the dust." 
 
 Maggie said shyly — 
 
 " That was what he said to me the other day — but not 
 about these — about the one you gave me of yourself. He 
 asked to see it, and I showed him how careful I was in 
 wrapping it up ; but he said no — the first packman that 
 came through I was to get a frame if he had one, and 
 glass too ; or else that he would send it in to Inverness to 
 be framed. But you know, Meenie, it's not near so nice- 
 looking — or anything, anything like so nice-looking — as 
 you are." 
 
 " Nothing could be that, I am sure," said Meenie lightly ; 
 and she was casting her eyes about the room, to see what 
 further improvements she could suggest. 
 
 But Maggie had growm suddenly silent, and was stand- 
 ing at the little writing-table, apparently transfixed with 
 astonishment. It will be remembered that when Eonald, 
 in the morning, heard that the Doctor was at the door of 
 the inn, he had hurriedly hastened away to intercept him ; 
 
A REVELATION 107 
 
 and that, subseqneutly, in order to same time, he had sent 
 back a lad for his gun and cartridges, while he went on to 
 the farm. Now it was this last arrangement that caused 
 him to overlook the fact that he had left his writing- 
 materials — the blotting-pad and everything — lying exposed 
 on the table ; a piece of neglect of which he had scarcely 
 ever before been guilty. And as ill-luck would have it, as 
 Maggie was idly wandering round the room, waiting for 
 Meenie to make any further suggestions for the smartening 
 of it, what must she see lying before her, among these 
 papers, but a letter, boldly and conspicuously addressed ? 
 
 " Well ! " she exclaimed, as she took it up. " Meenie, 
 here is a letter for you ! why didna he send it along to 
 you ? " 
 
 " A letter for me ? " Meenie said, with a little surprise. 
 " No ! why should Ronald write a letter to me ? — I see him 
 about every day." 
 
 " But look ! " 
 
 Meenie took the letter in her hand ; and regarded the 
 address ; and laughed. 
 
 "It is very formal," said she. "There is no mistake 
 about it. ^ Miss] Wilhelmina Stuart Douglas''- — when was I 
 ever called that before ? And ' Inver-Mudal, Sutherland- 
 shire, N.B.'' He should have added Europe, as if he was 
 sending it from the moon. "Well, it is clearly meant for 
 me, any way — oh, and open too " 
 
 The next minute all the careless amusement fled from 
 her face ; her cheeks grew very white, and a frightened, 
 startled look sprang to her eyes. She but caught the first 
 few lines— 
 
 " wilt thou he my dear love ? 
 {Meenie and Meenie^ 
 ivilt thou he my ain love? 
 
 {My eiceet Meenie)" 
 
 and then it was with a kind of shiver that her glance ran 
 over the rest of it ; and her heart was beating so that she 
 could not speak ; and there was a mist before her eyes. 
 
 "Maggie," she managed to say at length — and she 
 hurriedly folded up the paper again and placed it on the 
 table with the others — " I should not have read it — it was 
 
io8 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 not meant for me — it was not meant that I should read it 
 — come away, come away, Maggie." 
 
 She took the younger girl out of the room, and herself 
 shut the door, firmly, although her fingers were all trembling. 
 
 "Maggie," she said, "you must promise never to tell 
 any one that you gave me that letter — ^that I saw it " 
 
 " But what is the matter, Meenie ? " the smaller girl 
 said in bewilderment, for she could see by the strange 
 half -frightened look of Miss Douglas's face that something 
 serious had happened. 
 
 " AVell, it is nothing — it is nothing," she forced herself to 
 say. " It will be all right. I shouldn't have read the letter 
 ■ — it was not meant for me to see — but if you say nothing 
 about it, no harm will be done. That's all ; that's all. 
 And now I am going to see if the children are ready that 
 are to go by the mail-car." 
 
 " But I will go with you, Meenie." 
 
 Then the girl seemed to recollect herself ; and she 
 glanced round at the interior of the cottage, and at the 
 little girl, with an unusual kind of look. 
 
 " No, no, not this morning, Maggie," she said. " You 
 have plenty to do. Good-bye — good-bye ! " and she stooped 
 and kissed her, and patted her on the shoulder, and left, 
 seeming anxious to get away and be by herself. 
 
 Maggie remained there in considerable astonishment. 
 What had happened ? "Why should she not go to help with 
 the children ? and why good-bye — when Meenie would be 
 coming along the road in less than an hour, as soon as the 
 mail-car had left ? And all about the reading of something 
 contained in that folded sheet of paper. However, the 
 little girl wisely resolved that, whatever was in that letter, 
 she would not seek to know it, nor would she speak of it 
 to any one, since Meenie seemed so anxious on that point ; 
 and so she set about her domestic duties again — looking 
 forward to the end of these and the resumption of her 
 knitting of her brother's jersey. 
 
 AVell, the winter's day went by, and they had done good 
 work on the hill. As the dusk of the afternoon began to 
 creep over the heavens, they set out for the lower slopes on 
 their way home ; and very heavily weighted the lads were 
 with the white creatures skmg over their backs on sticks. 
 
A REVELATION 109 
 
 But the dusk was not the worst part of this descent ; the 
 wind was now driving over heavy clouds from the north ; 
 and again and again they would be completely enveloped, 
 and unable to see anywhere more than a yard from their 
 feet. In these circumstances Eonald took the lead ; the 
 Doctor coming next, and following, indeed, more by sound 
 than by sight ; the lads bringing up in the wake in solitary 
 file, with their heavy loads thumping on their backs. It 
 was a ghostly kind of procession ; though now and again 
 the close veil around them would be rent in twain, and they 
 would have a glimpse of something afar off — perhaps a spur 
 of Ben Loyal, or the dark waters of Loch Meidie studded 
 with its small islands. Long before they had reached 
 Inver-Mudal black night had fallen ; but now they were 
 on easier ground ; and at last the firm footing of the road 
 echoed to their measured tramp, as the invisible company 
 inarched on and down to the warmth and welcome lights of 
 the inn. 
 
 The Doctor, feeling himself something of a truant, went 
 on direct to his cottage ; but the others entered the inn ; 
 and as Bonald forthwith presented Mrs. IMurray with half 
 a dozen of the hares, the landlord was right willing to call 
 for ale for the beaters, who liad had a hard day's work. 
 Nor was Eonald in a hurry to get home ; for he heard that 
 Maggie was awaiting him in the kitchen ; and so he and 
 Mr. Murray had a pipe and a chat together, as was their 
 custom. Then he sent for his sister. 
 
 " Well, Maggie, lass," said he, as they set out through 
 the dark, " did you see all the bairns safely off this morn- 
 ing ? " 
 
 " No, Ronald," she said, " Meenic did not seem to want 
 me ; so I stayed at home." 
 
 " And did you find Harry sufficient company for ye ? 
 But I suppose Miss Douglas came and stayed with ye for 
 a while." 
 
 " No, Ronald," said the little girl, in a tone of some 
 surprise ; " she has not been near the house the whole day, 
 since the few minutes in the morning." 
 
 " Oh," said he, lightly, " she may have been busy, now 
 her father is come home. And ye maun try and get on wi' 
 your lessons as well as ye can, lass, without bothering Miss 
 
no WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Douglas too much ; she canna always spend so much time 
 with ye." 
 
 The little girl was silent. She was thinking of that 
 strange occurrence in the morning of which she was not to 
 speak ; and in a vague kind of way she could not but 
 associate that with Meenie's absence all that day, and also 
 with the unusual tone of her "good-bye." But yet, if 
 there were any trouble, it would speedily pass away. Eonald 
 would put everything right. Nobody could withstand him 
 — that was the first and last article of her creed. And so, 
 when they got home, she proceeded cheerfully enough to 
 stir up the peats, and to cook their joint supper in a manner 
 really skilful for one of her years ; and she laid the cloth ; 
 and i^ut the candles on the table ; and had the tea and 
 everything ready. Then they sate down ; and Eonald was 
 in very good spirits, and talked to her, and tried to amuse 
 her. But the little Maggie rather wistfully looked back to 
 the brilHant evening before, when Meenie was with them ; 
 and perhaps wondered whether there would ever again be a 
 supper-party as joyful and friendly and happy as they three 
 had been when they were all by themselves in the big gaily- 
 lit barn. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 "when shadows fall." 
 
 The deershed adjoining the kennels was a gloomy place, 
 with its bare walls, its lack of light, and its ominous-looking 
 crossbeams, ropes, and pulley for hanging up the slain deer ; 
 and the morning was dark and lowering, with a bitter wind 
 howling along the glen, and sometimes bringing with it a 
 sharp smurr of sleet from the northern hills. But these 
 things did not seem to alfect Eonald's spirits nracli as he 
 stood there, in his shirt-sleeves, and bare-headed, sorting 
 out the hares that were lying on the floor, and determining 
 to whom and to whom such and such a brace or couple of 
 brace should be sent. Four of the plumpest he had already 
 selected for Mrs. Douglas (in the vague hope that the useful 
 present might make her a little more placable), and he was 
 going on with his choosing and setting aside — sometimes 
 lighting a pipe — sometimes singing carelessly — 
 
" WHEN SHA DOWS FALL'' in 
 
 " v^e aft liae met at e'en, honnie Peggie, 0, 
 On the banks d" Cart sae green, honnie Peggie, 0, 
 Mliere the loafers smoothly rin, 
 Far aneath the roariii' linn. 
 Far frae busy strife and din, bonnie Peggie, " — 
 
 ■when the httle Maggie came stealing in. 
 
 " Ronald," she said, with an air of reproach, " why are ye 
 going about on such a morning without your jacket, and 
 bare-headed, too ? " 
 
 " Toots, toots, lassie, it's a fine morning," said he in- 
 differently. 
 
 " It was Meenie said I was not to let you do such foolish 
 things," the little lass ventured to say diffidently. 
 
 Of course this put a new aspect on the case, but he would 
 not admit as much directly. 
 
 " Oh, well," said he, " if you bring me out my coat and 
 bonnet I will put them on, for I'm going down to the 
 Doctor's with two or three of the hares." 
 ■ And then she hesitated. 
 
 " Eonald," said she, " I will take them to Mrs. Douglas, 
 if you like." 
 
 " You ? " said he. 
 
 " FoT I would give them to her with a nice message from 
 you ; and — and — if you take them, you will say nothing at 
 all ; and where is the compliment ? " 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " Ye 're a wise little lass ; but four big hares are heavy to 
 carry — with the wind against ye ; so run away and get me 
 my coat and my Glengarry ; and I will take them along 
 myself, compliment or no compliment." 
 
 However, as it turned out, Mrs. Donglas was not the 
 first of the family he w^as fated to meet that morning. He 
 had scarcely left the deershed when he i:)erccivcd Meenie 
 coming along the road ; and this was an auspicious and 
 kindly event ; for somehow the day seemed to go by more 
 smoothly and evenly and contentedly when he had chanced 
 to meet Meenie in the morning, and have a few minutes' 
 chat with her about affairs in general, and an assurance that 
 all was going well with her. So he went forward to meet 
 her with a light heart ^ and he thought she would be 
 pleased that he was taking the hares to her mother ; and 
 
1 1 2 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 perhaps, too, he considered that they might be a little more 
 frank in their friendship after the exceeding good fellow- 
 ship of the night of the children's party. 
 
 He went forward unsuspectingly. 
 
 " Good-morning, Miss Douglas ! " said he, slackening in 
 his pace, for naturally they always stopped for a few seconds 
 or minutes when they met thus. 
 
 But to his astonishment Miss Douglas did not seem 
 inclined to stay. Her eyes were bent on the ground as she 
 came along ; she but timidly half lifted them as she reached 
 him ; and " Good-morning, Ronald ! " she said, and would 
 have passed on. And then it seemed as if, in her great 
 embarrassment, she did not know what to do. She stopped ; 
 her face was suffused with red ; and she said hurriedly — ■ 
 and yet with an effort to appear unconcerned — 
 
 " I suppose Maggie is at home ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," said he, and her manner was so changed tliat 
 he also scarce knew what to say or to think. 
 
 And again she was going on, and again she lingered — 
 with a sudden fear that she might be thought ungracious 
 or unkind. 
 
 " The children all got away safely yesterday morning," 
 said she — but her eyes never met his ; and there was still 
 tell-tale colour in her cheeks. 
 
 " So I heard," he answered. 
 
 "I am sure they must have enjoyed the evening," she 
 said, as if forcing herself to speak. 
 
 And then it suddenly occurred to him — for this encounter 
 had been all too brief and bewildering for any proper under- 
 standing of it — that perhaps her mother had been reproving 
 her for being too friendly with the people about the inn 
 and with himself, and that he was only causing her embar- 
 rassment by detaining her, and so he said — 
 
 " Oh yes, I'm sure o' that. Well, good-morning, Miss 
 Douglas ; I'm going along to give your mother these two 
 or three hares." 
 
 " Good-morning," said she — still without looking at him 
 — and then she went. 
 
 And he, too, went on his way ; but only for a brief 
 space ; presently he sate down on the low stone 'dyke by 
 the roadside, and dropped the hares on the ground at his 
 
« WHEN SHADO WS FALL'' 113 
 
 feet. What could it all mean ? She seemed anxious to 
 limit their acquaintanceship to the merest formalities ; and 
 yet to be in a manner sorry for having to do so. Had he 
 unwittingly given her some cause of olYcnce ? He began 
 to recall the minutest occurrences of the night of the 
 children's party — wondering if something had then happened 
 to account for so marked a change ? But he could think 
 of nothing. The supper-party of three was of her own 
 suggestion ; she could not be angry on that account. 
 Perhaps he ought to have asked this person or that person 
 over from the inn to join them, for the sake of propriety ? 
 Well, he did not know much about such matters ; it seemed 
 to him that they were very happy as they were ; and that 
 it was nobody else's business. But would she quarrel with 
 him on that account ? Or on account of his smoking in 
 her presence ? Again and again he wished that his pipe 
 had been buried at the bottom of the loch ; and indeed his 
 smoking of it that evening had given him no enjoyment 
 whatever, except in so far as it seemed to please her ; but 
 surely, in any case, that was a trifle ? Meenie would not 
 suddenly become cold and distant (in however reluctant a 
 way) for a small matter like that ? Nor could she be angry 
 Avith him for taking her father away for a day on the hill ; 
 she was always glad when the Doctor got a day's shooting 
 from anybody. No ; the only possible conclusion he could 
 come to was that J\Irs. Douglas had more strongly than 
 ever disapproved of Meenie's forming friendships among 
 people not of her own station in life ; and that some 
 definite instructions had been given, which the girl was 
 anxious to obey. And if that were so, ought he to make 
 it any the more difficult for her ? He would be as reserved 
 and distant as she pleased. Ho knew that she was a very 
 kindly and sensitive creature ; and might dread giving pain ; 
 and herself suffer a good deal more than those from whom 
 she was in a measure called upon to separate herself. That 
 was a reason why it should be made easy for her ; and ho 
 would ask Maggie to get on with her lessons by herself, as 
 much as she could ; and when he met Miss Douglas on the 
 road, his greeting of her would be of the briefest— and yet 
 with as much kindness as she chose to accept in a word or 
 a look. And if he might not present her with the polecat's 
 
 I 
 
114 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 skin that was now just about dressed ? — well, perhaps the 
 American gentleman's daughter would take it, and have it 
 made into something, when she came up in March. 
 
 The pretty, little, doll-like woman, with the cold eyes 
 and the haughty stare, was at the front-door of the cottage, 
 scattering food to the fowls. 
 
 " I have brought ye two or three hares, Mrs. Douglas, if 
 they're of any use to ye," Ronald said modestly. 
 
 " Thank you," said she, with lofty courtesy, " thank you ; 
 I am much obliged. Will you step in and sit down for a 
 few minutes ? — -I am sure a little spirits will do you no 
 harm on such a cold morning." 
 
 In ordinary circumstances he would have declined that 
 invitation ; for he had no great love of this domineering 
 little woman, and much preferred the society of her big, 
 good-natured husband ; but he was curious about Meenie, 
 and even inclined to be resentful, if it appeared that she 
 had been dealt with too harshly. So he followed Mrs. 
 Douglas into the dignified little parlour — which was more 
 like a museum of cheap curiosities than a room meant for 
 actual human use ; and forthwith she set on the crimson- 
 dyed table-cover a glass, a tumbler, a jug of water, and a 
 violet-coloured bulbous glass bottle with an electro-plated 
 stopper. Ronald v/as bidden to help himself ; and also, out 
 of her munificence, she put before him a little basket of 
 sweet biscuits. 
 
 " I hear the Doctor is away again," Ronald said — and a 
 hundred times would he rather not have touched the violet 
 bottle at all, knowing that her clear, cold, blue eyes were 
 calmly regarding his every movement. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " to Tongue. There is a consultation 
 there. I am sure he has had very little peace and quiet 
 lately." 
 
 "I am glad he had a holiday yesterday," Ronald said, 
 with an endeavour to be agreeable. 
 
 But she answered severely — 
 
 " It might have been better if he had spent the first day 
 of his getting back with his own family. But that has 
 always been his way ; everything sacrificed to the whim of 
 the moment — to his own likings and dislikings." 
 
 " He enjoys a day's sport as much as any man I ever 
 
" WHEN SHADOWS FALL'' 115 
 
 saw," said he — not knowing very well what to talk 
 about. 
 
 " Yes, I daresay," she answered shortly. 
 
 Then she pushed the biscuits nearer him ; and returned 
 to her attitude of observation, with her small, neat, white 
 hands crossed on her lap, the rings on the fingers being 
 perhaps just a little displayed. 
 
 " Miss Douglas is looking very well at present," he said, 
 at a venture. 
 
 " WilUamina is well enough — she generally is," she said 
 coldly. " There is never much the matter with her health. 
 She might attend to her studies a little more and do her- 
 seK no harm. But she takes after her father." 
 
 There was a little sigh of resignation. 
 
 " Some of us," said he good-naturedly, " were expecting 
 her to come over on Monday night to see the dancing." 
 
 But here he had struck solid rock. In a second — from 
 her attitude and demeanour — ^lie had guessed why it was 
 that Meenie had not come over to the landlord's party : a 
 matter about which he had not found courage to question 
 Meenie herself. 
 
 " Williamina," observed the little dame, with a magnificent 
 dignity, " has other things to think of — or ought to have, at 
 her time of life, and in her position. I have had occasion 
 frequently of late to remind her of what is demanded of 
 her ; she must conduct herself not as if she were for ever 
 to be hidden away in a Highland village. It will be neces- 
 sary for her to take her proper place in society, that she is 
 entitled to from her birth and her relatives ; and of course 
 she must be prepared— of course she must be prepared. 
 There are plenty who will be willing to receive her ; it will be 
 her own fault if she disappoints them — and us, too, her own 
 parents. Williamina will never have to lead the life that I 
 have had to lead, I hope ; she belongs by birth to another 
 sphere ; and I hope she will make the most of her chances." 
 
 " ]\Iiss Douglas would be made welcome anywhere, I am 
 sure," he ventured to say ; but she regarded him with a 
 superior look — as if it Avere not for him to pronounce an 
 opinion on such a point. 
 
 " Soon," she continued — and she was evidently bent on 
 impressing him, " she will be going to Grlasgow to finish in 
 
 I 2 
 
ii6 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 music and German, and to get on with her Italian : you 
 will see she has no time to lose in idle amusement. We 
 would send her to Edinburgh or to London, but her sister 
 being in Glasgow is a great inducement ; and she will- be 
 well looted after. But, indeed, Williamina is not the kind 
 of girl to go and marry a penniless student ; she has too 
 much common sense ; and, besides, she has seen how it 
 turns out. Once in a family is enough. No ; we count 
 on her making a good man'iage, as the first step towards 
 her taking the position to Avhich she is entitled ; and I am 
 sure that Lady Stuart will take her in hand, and give her 
 every chance. As for their taking her abroad with them — 
 and Sir Alexander almost promised as much — what better 
 could there be than that ? — she would be able to show off 
 her acquirements and accomplishments ; she would be intro- 
 duced to the distinguished people at the ministerial recep- 
 tions and balls ; she would have her chance, as I say. And 
 with such a chance before her, surely it would be nothing 
 less than wicked of her to fling away her time in idle follies. 
 I want her to remember what lies before her ; a cottage 
 like this is all very well for me — I have made my bed and 
 must lie on it ; but for her — who may even be adopted 
 by Lady Stuart — who knows ? for stranger] things have 
 happened — it would be downright madness to sink into 
 content with her present way of hfe." 
 
 " And when do you think that M — that Miss Douglas 
 will be going away to Glasgow ? " he asked — but absently, 
 as it were, for he was thinking of Inver-Mudal, and Clebrig, 
 and Loch Loyal, and Strath-Terry, and of Meenie being 
 away from them all. 
 
 " That depends entirely on herself," was the reply. " As 
 soon as she is sufficiently forward all round for the finishing 
 lessons, her sister is ready to receive her." 
 
 " It will be lonely for you with your daughter away," 
 said he. 
 
 " Parents have to make sacrifices," she said. " Yes, and 
 children too. And better they should make them while 
 they are young than all through the years after. I hope 
 Williamina's will be no wasted life." 
 
 He did not know what further to say ; he was dismayed, 
 perplexed, downhearted, or something : if this was a lesson 
 
" WHEN SHADO WS FALL " 117 
 
 she had meant to read him, it had struck home. So he 
 rose aud took his leave ; and she thanked him again for 
 the hares ; and he went out, and found Harry awaiting him 
 on the doorstep. Moreover, as he went down to the little 
 gate, he perceived that Mecnie was coming back — she had 
 been but to the inn with a message ; and, obeying some 
 curious kind of instinct, he turned to the left — pretending not 
 to have seen her coming ; and soon he was over the bridge, 
 and wandering away up the lonely glen whose silence is 
 broken only by the whispering rush of Mudal Water. 
 
 He wandered on and on through the desolate moorland, 
 on this wild and blustering day, paying but little heed to 
 the piercing wind or the driven sleet that smote his eyelids. 
 And he was not so very sorrowful ; his common sense had 
 told him all this before ; Rose Meeuic, Love ]\Ieenie, was 
 very well in secret fancies and rhymes and verses ; but 
 beyond that she was nothing to him. And what would 
 Clebrig do, and Mudal Water, and all the wide, bleak 
 country that had been brought up in the love of her, aud 
 was saturated with the charm of her presence, and seemed 
 for ever listening in deathlike silence for the light music of 
 her voice ? There were plenty of verses running through 
 his head on this wild day too ; the hills and the clouds and 
 the January sky were full of speech ; and they were all of 
 them to be bereft of her as well as he : — 
 
 3Iudal, that comes from the lonely loch, 
 
 Down through the moorland russet and brown. 
 
 Know you the news that we have for you ? — 
 Meenie^s away to Glasgow tmon. 
 
 See Ben Clebrig, his giant front 
 
 Hidden and dark with a sudden froiim; 
 
 What is the light of the v<dley to him. 
 Since Mecnie's away to Glasgow town ? 
 
 Empty the valley, empty the world, 
 
 The sun may arise and the sun go down ; 
 
 But luhat to do witk the lonely hours, 
 Since Meenie's away to Glasgow town? 
 
 Call her back, Clebrig ! Mudal, call, 
 
 Ere all of the young spring time be flown ; 
 
 Birds, trees, and blossoms — you that she loved — • 
 summon her bach from Glasgorv town! 
 
 " Call her back, Clebrig ! Mudal, call ! " he repeated to 
 
1 1 8 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 himself as he marched along the moorland road ; for 
 what would they do without some one to guard, and some 
 one to watch for, and some one to listen for, in the first 
 awakening of the dawn ? Glasgow — the great and grimy 
 city — that would be a strange sort of guardian, in the 
 young spring days that were coming, for this fair Suther- 
 land flower. And yet might not some appeal be made 
 even there — some summons of attention, as it were ? 
 
 Glasgoio foion, how little you Jcnow 
 
 Tliat Meenie lias ivandered in 
 To the very heart of your darlcened streets, 
 
 Through all the hustle and din. 
 
 A Sutherland hlossom shining fair 
 
 Amid all your dismal haze, 
 Forgetting the breath of the summer hills, 
 
 And the Hue of the Northern days. 
 
 From Dixon's fire-tcreathg to Bollox stalk. 
 Blow, south wind, and clear the shy. 
 
 Till she think of Ben Clehn'g's sunny slopes, 
 Where the hashing red-deer lie. 
 
 Blow, south icind, and slwio her a glimpse of blue 
 
 Through the pall of duslcy hroion ; 
 And see that you guard her and tend her well. 
 
 You, fortunate Glasgow townl 
 
 But then — but then — that strange, impossible time — 
 during which there would be no ]\Ieenie visible anywhere 
 along the mountain roads ; and Mudal, Water would go by 
 unheeded ; and there would be no careless, clear-singing 
 girl's voice along Loch Naver's shores — that strange time 
 would surely come to an end, and he could look forward 
 and see how the ending of it would be : 
 
 The clouds lay heavy on Clehrig's crest. 
 
 For days and iccehs together; 
 The shepherds along Strath-Terry^s side 
 
 Cursed at the rainy ivcather ; 
 Tliey searce could get a favouring day 
 
 For the burning of the heather. 
 
 When sudden the clouds loere rent in twain 
 And the hill laughed out to the sun ; 
 
 And the hinds stole up, loith icondering eyes. 
 To the far slopes yellow and dun; 
 
 And the birds icere singing in every hush 
 As at spring anew begun. 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL 119 
 
 Clehrig, what is it iliat maJies you glad, 
 
 And lohither is gone your frown ? 
 Are you looldng afar into the south. 
 
 The long, wide strath adoicn'i 
 And see you that Meenie is coming hacJc — 
 
 Love Meenie, from Glasgow town! 
 
 He laughed. Not yet was Love Meenie taken away 
 from them all. And if in the unknown future the Stuarts 
 of Glengask and Orosay were to carry her olf and make 
 a great lady of her, and take her to see strange places, and 
 perhaps marry her to some noble person, at least in the 
 meantime Ben Clebrig and Ben Loyal and the wide straths 
 between knew that they still held in the mighty hollow of 
 their hand this sweet flower of Sutherlandshire, and that 
 the world and the skies and the woods and lakes seemed 
 fairer because of her presence. And as regarded himself, 
 and his relations with her ? Well, what must be must. 
 Only he hoped — and there was surely no great vanity nor 
 self-love nor jealousy in so modest a hope — that the change 
 of her manner towards him was due to the councils of her 
 mother rather than to anything he had unwittingly said or 
 done. Rose Meenie — Love Meenie — he had called her in 
 verses ; but always he had been most respectful to herself ; 
 and he could not believe that she thought him capable of 
 doing anything to offend her. 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 A NEW AREIVAL. 
 
 Very early one Sunday morning, while as yet all the world 
 seemed asleep, a young lady stole out from the little hotel 
 at Lairg, and wandered down by herself to the silent and 
 beautiful shores of Loch Shin. The middle of March it 
 was now, and yet the scene around her was quite summer- 
 like ; and she was a stranger from very far climes indeed, 
 who had ventured into the Highlands at this ordinarily 
 untoward time of the year ; so that there was wonder as 
 well as joy in her heart as she regarded the fairyland before 
 her, for it was certainly not what she had been taught to 
 expect. There was not a ripple on the glassy surface of the 
 
I20 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 lake ; every feature of the sleeping and faintly sunlit world 
 was reflected accurately on the perfect miiTor : the browns 
 and yellows of the lower moorland ; the faint purple of the 
 birch-woods ; the aerial blues of the distant hills, with here 
 and there a patch of snow ; and the fleecy white masses of 
 the motionless clouds. It was a kind of dream-world — soft- 
 toned and placid and still, the only sharp bit of colour being 
 the scfirlet-painted lines of a boat that floated double on 
 that sea of glass. There was not a sound anywhere but the 
 twittering of small birds ; nor any movement but the slow 
 rising into the air of a tiny column of blue smoke from a 
 distant cottage ; summer seemed to be here already, as the 
 first light airs of the morning — fresh and clear and sweet — 
 came stealing along the silver surface of the water, and only 
 troubling the magic picture here and there in long trembling 
 swathes. 
 
 The young lady was of middle height, but looked taller 
 than that by reason of her slight and graceful form ; she 
 was pale, almost sallow, of face, with fine features and a 
 pretty smile ; her hair was of a lustrous black ; and so, 
 too, were her eyes — which were large and soft and 
 attractive. Yery foreign she looked as she stood by the 
 shores of this Highland loch ; her figure and complexion 
 and beautiful opaque soft dark eyes perhaps suggesting 
 more than anything else the Spanish type of the Southern 
 American woman ; but there was nothing foreign about her 
 attire ; she had taken care about that ; and if her jet-black 
 hair and pale cheek had prompted her to choose unusual 
 tones of colour, at all events the articles of her costume 
 were all correct — the warm and serviceable ulster of some 
 roughish yellow and gray material, the buff-coloured, 
 gauntletcd gloves, and the orange-hued Tam o' Shauter 
 which she wore quite as one to the manner born. For the 
 rest, one could easily see that she was of a cheerful 
 temperament ; pleased with herself ; not over shy, perhaps ; 
 and very straightforward in her look. 
 
 However, the best description of this young lady was 
 the invention of an ingenious youth dwelling on the 
 southern shores of Lake ]\Iichigan. — " Carry Hodson," he 
 observed on one occasion, " is just a real good fellow, that's 
 what she is." It was a happy phrase, and it soon became 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL 121 
 
 popular among the young gentlemen who wore English 
 hats and vied with each other in driving phantom vehicles 
 behind long-stepping horses. " Carry Hodson ?— she's just 
 the best fellow going," they would assure you. And how 
 better can one describe her ? There was a kind of frank 
 camaraderie about her ; and she liked amusement, and was 
 easily amused ; and she laboured under no desire at all of 
 showing herself "bright" — which chiefly reveals itself in 
 impertinence ; but, above all, there was in her composition 
 not a trace of alarm over her relations, however frank and 
 friendly, with the other sex ; she could talk to any man — ■ 
 old or young, married or single — positively without wonder- 
 ing when he was about to begin to make love to her. For 
 one thing, she was quite capable of looking after herself ; 
 for another, the very charm of her manner — the delightful 
 openness and straightforwardness of it — seemed to drive 
 flirtation and sham sentiment forthwith out of court. And 
 if, when those young gentlemen in Chicago called Miss 
 Carry Hodson "a real good fellow," they could not help 
 remembering at the same time that she was an exceedingly 
 pretty girl, perhaps they appreciated so highly the privilege 
 of being on good-comrade terms with her that they were con- 
 tent to remain there rather than risk everything by seeking 
 for more. However, that need not be discussed further 
 here. People did say, indeed, that Mr. John C. Huysen, 
 the editor of the GMcaijo Citizen, was more than likely to 
 carry off the pretty heiress ; if there was any truth in the 
 rumour, at all events Miss Carry Hodson remained just 
 as frank and free and agreeable with everybody — especially 
 with young men who could propose expeditions and amuse- 
 ments. 
 
 Now there was only one subject capable of entirely up- 
 setting this young lady's equanimity ; and it is almost a 
 pity to have to introduce it here ; for the confession must 
 be made that, on this one subject, she was in the habit of 
 using very reprehensible language. Where, indeed, she 
 had picked up so much steamboat and backwoods slang — 
 unless through the reading of Texas Siflings — it is im- 
 possible to say ; but her father, who was about the sole 
 recipient of these outbursts, could object with but little 
 show of authority, for he was hinaself exceedingly fond, not 
 
122 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 exactly of slang, but of those odd phrases, sometimes 
 half-humorons, that the Americans invent from day to day 
 to vary the monotony of ordinary speech. These phrases 
 are like getting off the car and rnnning alongside a little 
 bit ; you reach your journey's end — the meaning of the 
 sentence — all the same. However, the chief bugbear and 
 grievance of Miss Carry Hodson's life was the Boston girl 
 as displayed to us in fiction ; and so violent became her 
 detestation of that remarkable young person that it was 
 very nearly interfering with her coming to Europe. 
 
 " But, pappa dear," she would say, regarding the book 
 before her with some amazement, " will the people in 
 Europe think I am like tliat ? " 
 
 " They won't think anything about you," he would say 
 roughly. 
 
 "What a shame — what a shame — to say American girls 
 are like that ! " she would continue vehemently. " The 
 self-conscious little beasts — with then* chatter about tone, 
 and touch, and culture ! And the men — my gracious, 
 pappa, do the people in England think that our young 
 fellows talk like that ? ' Analyse me ; formulate me ! ' he 
 cries to the girl ; ' can't you imagine my environment by 
 the aid of your own intuitions 1 '■ — I'd analyse him if he 
 came to me ; I'd analyse him fast enough : Nine different 
 sorts of a born fool ; and the rest imitation English prig. 
 I'd formulate him if he came to me with his pretentious 
 idiotcy ; I'd show him the kind of chipmunk I am." 
 
 " You are improving, Miss Carry," her father would say 
 resignedly. " You are certainly acquiring force in your 
 language ; and sooner or later you will be coming out with 
 some of it when you least expect it ; and then whether it's 
 you or the other people that will get fits I don't know. 
 You'll make them jump." 
 
 " No, no, pappa dear," she would answer good-naturedly ; 
 for her vehemence was never of long duration. " I have 
 my company manners when it is necessary. Don't I know 
 what I am ? Oh yes, I do. I'm a real high-toned North 
 Side society lady ; and can behave as sich — when there's 
 anybody present. But when it's only you and me, pappa, 
 I like to wave the banner a little — that's all." 
 
 This phrase of hers, about waving the banner, had come 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL 123 
 
 to mean so many different things that her father could not 
 follow half of them, and so it was handy in winding np a 
 discussion ; and he could only remark, with regard to her 
 going to Europe, and her dread lest she should be suspected 
 of resembliug one of the imaginary beings for whom she 
 had conceived so strong a detestation, that really people in 
 Europe were as busy as people elsewhere, and might not 
 show too absorbing an interest in declaring what she was 
 like ; that perhaps their knowledge of the Boston young 
 lady of fiction was limited, and the matter not one of 
 deep concern ; and that the best thing she could do was 
 to remember that she was an American girl, and that she 
 had as good a right to dress in her own way and speak in 
 her own way and conduct herself in her own way as any 
 French, or German, or English, or Italian person she might 
 meet. All of which Miss Carry received with much sub- 
 mission — except about dress : she hoped to be able to study 
 that subject, with a little attention, in Paris. 
 
 Well, she was standing there looking abroad on the 
 fairy-like picture of lake and wood and mountain — and 
 rather annoyed, too, that, now she was actually in the midst 
 of scenes that she had prepared herself for by reading, she 
 could recollect none of the reading at all, but was wholly 
 and simply interested in the obvious beauty of the place itself 
 — when she became conscious of a slow and stealthy foot- 
 step behind her, and, instantly turning, she discovered that 
 a great dun-colom-ed dog, no doubt belonging to the hotel, 
 had come down to make her acquaintance. He said as 
 much by a brief and heavy gambol, a slow wagging of his 
 mighty tail, and the upturned glance of his small, flat, 
 leonine eyes. 
 
 " Well," she said, " who are you ? Would you like to go 
 for a walk ? " 
 
 Whether he understood her or no he distinctly led the 
 way — taking the path leading along the shores of the loch 
 towards Inver-shin ; and as there did not seem to be any 
 sign yet of anybody moving about the hotel, she thought 
 she might just as well take advantage of this volunteered 
 escort. Not that the mastiff was over communicative in his 
 friendliness ; he would occasionally turn round to see if she 
 was following ; and if she called to him and spoke to him, 
 
124 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 he would merely make another heavy effort at a gambol and 
 go on again with his slow-moving pace. Now and again a 
 shepherd's collie would come charging down on him from 
 the hillside, or two or three small terriers, keeping sentry at 
 the door of a cottage, would suddenly break the stillness of 
 the Sunday morning by the most ferocious barking at his 
 approach ; but he took no heed of one or the other. 
 
 "Do you know that you are an amiable dog — but not 
 amusing ? " she said to him, when he had to wait for her to 
 let him get through a swinging stile. " I've got a dog at 
 home not a quarter as big as you, and he can talk twice as 
 much. I suppose your thoughts are important, though. 
 What do they call you ? Dr. Johnson ? " 
 
 He looked at her with the clear, lionlike eyes, but only for 
 a second ; seemed to think it futile trying to understand 
 her ; and then went on again with his heavy, shambling 
 waddle. And she liked the freshness of the morning, and 
 the novelty of being all alone by herself in the Scottish 
 Highlands, and of going forward as a kind of pioneer and 
 discoverer ; and so she walked on in much delight, listening 
 to the birds, looking at the sheep, and thinking nothing at 
 all of breakfast, and the long day's drive before her father 
 and herself. 
 
 And then a sudden conviction was flashed on her mind 
 that something was wrong. There was a man coming rush- 
 ing along the road after her — Avith neither coat nor cap on 
 — and as he drew near she could hear him say — ■ 
 
 " Ah, you rascal ! you rascal ! Bolted again ? " 
 
 He seemed to pay no attention to her ; he ran past her 
 and made straight for the mastiff ; and in a couple of 
 minutes had a nnizzle securely fastened on the beast, and 
 was leading him back with an iron chain. 
 
 '• Surely that is not a ferocious dog ? " said she, as they 
 came up — and perhaps she was curious to know whether 
 she had run any chance of being eaten. 
 
 '• The master had to pay five pounds last year for his 
 worrying sheep — the rascal," said the man ; and the great 
 dog wagged his tail as if in approval. 
 
 " Why, he seems a most gentle creature," she said, 
 walking on with the man. 
 
 " Ay, and so he is, miss — most times. But he's barely 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL 125 
 
 three years old, and already he's killed two collies and a 
 terrier, and worried three sheep." 
 
 " Killed other dogs ? Oh, Dr. Johnson 1 " she exclaimed. 
 
 " He's sweirt * to begin, miss ; but when he does begin 
 he maun kill — there's no stopping him. The rascal! he 
 likes fine to get slippin' away wi' one of the gentlefolks, if 
 he's let off the chain for a few minutes — it's a God's mercy 
 he has done no harm this morning — it was the ostler let 
 him off the chain — and he'd have lost his place if there 
 had been ony mair worrying." 
 
 " No, no, no, he would not," she said confidently. " I 
 took the dog away. If any mischief had been done, I 
 would have paid — why, of course." 
 
 " ^Vhy, of cois,''^ was what she really said ; but all the 
 man knew was that this American young lady spoke with a 
 very pleasant voice ; and seemed good-natured ; and was 
 well-meaning, too, for she would not have had the ostler 
 suffer. Anyway, the mastiff, with as much dignity as was 
 compatible with a muzzle and an iron chain, was conducted 
 back to his kennel ; and Miss Hodson went into the hotel, 
 and expressed her profound sorrow that she had kept 
 breakfast waiting ; but explained to her father that it was 
 not every morning she had the chance of exploring the 
 Highlands all by herself — or rather accompanied by a huge 
 creature apparently of amiable nature, but with really dark 
 possibilities attached. 
 
 In due course of time the waggonette and horses were 
 brought round to the door of the little hotel ; their baggage 
 was put in ; and presently they had set forth on their drive 
 through the still, sunlit, solitary country. But this was a 
 far more pleasant journey than his first venturing into these 
 wilds. He had been warning his daughter of the bleak 
 and savage solitude she would have to encounter ; but now 
 it appeared quite cheerful — in a subdued kind of way, as if 
 a sort of Sunday silence hung over the landscape. The 
 pale blue waters of Loch Shin, the beech-woods, the russet 
 slopes of heather, the snow-touched azure hills along the 
 horizon — all these looked pretty and were peacefully 
 shining on this fair morning ; and even after they had got 
 
 ♦ Sweirt, reluctant. 
 
126 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 away from the last trace of human habitation, and were 
 monotonously driving through mile after mile of the wide, 
 boggy, hopeless peatlaud, the winter colours were really 
 brighter than those of summer, and the desolation far from 
 overpowering. If they met with no human beings, there 
 were other living objects to attract the eye. A golden 
 plover — standing on a hillock not half a dozen yards off, 
 would be caUing to his mate ; a wild duck would go 
 whirring by ; a red-plumed grouse-cock would cease dusting 
 himself in the road, and would be off into the heather as 
 they came along, standhig and looking at them as they 
 passed. And so on and on they went, mile after mile, along 
 the fair shining Strath-Terry ; the morning air blowing 
 freshly about them ; the sunlight lying placidly on those 
 wide stretches of russet and golden bogland ; and now and 
 again a flash of dark blue showing where some mountain- 
 tarn lay silent amid the moors. 
 
 " And you thought I should be disappointed, pappa 
 dear ? " said Miss Carry, " or frightened by the loneliness ? 
 AVhy, it's just too beautiful for anything ! And so this is 
 where tlie Clan Mackay lived in former days ? " 
 
 " Is it ? " said her father, " I wonder what they lived 
 on. I don't think we'd give much for that land in Illinois. 
 Give for it ? You couldn't get a white man to trade for 
 that sort of land ; we'd have to ask AVisconsin to take it 
 and hide it away somewhere." 
 
 " AVhat are those things for ? " she asked, indicating 
 certain tall poles that stood at intervals along the roadside. 
 
 " Why, don't you know? These are poles to tell them 
 where the road is in snow time." 
 
 " Then it is not always May in these happy latitudes ? " 
 she observed shrewdly. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " I heard some dreadful stories when I was here in 
 January — but I don't believe much in weather stories. 
 Anyhow, we've got to take what comes now ; and so far 
 there is not much to howl about." 
 
 And at last they came in sight of the ruffled blue waters 
 of Loch Naver ; and the long yeUow promontories running 
 out into the lake ; and the scant birch- woods fringing here 
 and there the rocky shore ; with the little hamlet of Inver- 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL 127 
 
 Mudal nestling down there in the hollow ; and far away in 
 the north the mountain masses of Ben Hope and Ben Loyal 
 struck white with snow. And she was very curious to see 
 the kind of people who lived in these remote solitudes ; and 
 the pretty sloe-black eyes were all alert as the waggonette 
 rattled aloug towards the two or three scattered houses ; 
 and perhaps, as they drove up to the inn, she Avas wonder- 
 ing whether Konald the gamekeeper, of whom she had 
 heard so much, would be anywhere visible. But there was 
 scarcely any one there. The Sabbath quiet lay over the 
 little hamlet. Mr. Murray appeared, however, — in his 
 Sunday costume, of course, — and an ostler ; and presently 
 Miss Carry and her father were in the sitting-room that 
 had been prepared for them — a great mass of peats cheer- 
 fully blazing in the capacious fireplace, and the white- 
 covered table furnished with a substantial luncheon. 
 
 " And what do you think of your future maid ? " her 
 father asked, when the pretty Nelly had left the room. 
 
 " Well, I think she has the softest voice I ever heard a 
 woman speak with," v/as the immediate answer. " And 
 such a pretty way of talking — and looking at you — very 
 gentle and friendly. But she won't do for my maid, pappa ; 
 she's too tall ; I should want to put a string round her 
 neck and lead her about like a giraife." 
 
 However, she was pleased with the appearance and 
 manner of the girl, and that was something ; for, oddly 
 enough, Mr, Hodson seemed to imagine that he had 
 discovered this remote hamlet, and was responsible for it, 
 and anxious that his daughter should think well of it, and 
 of the people she might meet in it. He called her atten- 
 tion to the scent of the peat ; to the neatness with which 
 the joints on the table had been decorated with little paper 
 frills ; to the snugness and quiet of the sitting-room ; to 
 the spacious character of the views from the windows — -one 
 taking in Clebrig and the loch, the other reaching away up 
 to Ben Loyal. All these things he had provided for her, 
 as it were ; and it must be said that she was a most 
 escellent travelling-companion, always content, easily inte- 
 rested, never out of humour. So, when he proposed, after 
 luncheon, that they should go along and call on Ronald 
 Strang, she readily consented ; no doubt a keeper's dwelling 
 
128 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 in these wilds would be something curious — perhaps of a 
 wigwam character, and of course filled with all kinds of 
 trophies of his hunting. 
 
 Well, they went along to the cottage, and Mr. Hodson 
 knocked lightly on the door. There was no answer. He 
 rapped a little more loudly ; then they heard some one 
 within ; and presently the door was thrown open, and 
 Ronald stood before them — a book in one hand, a pipe in 
 the other, no jacket covering his shirfc-slceves, and the 
 absence of any necktie showing a little more than was 
 necessary of the firm set of his sun-tanned throat. He had 
 been caught unawares — as his startled eyes proclaimed ; in 
 fact, he had been reading Paradise Regained., and manfully 
 resisting the temptation to slip on to the gracious melody 
 of V Allegro, and II Penseroso, and Lycidas ; and when he 
 heard the tapping he fancied it was merely one of the lads 
 come for a chat or the last newspaper, and had made no 
 preparations for the reception of visitors. 
 
 " How are you, Ronald ? " said Mr. Hodson. " I have 
 brought my daughter to see you." 
 
 " Will ye step in, sir ? " said Ronald hastily, and with a 
 terrible consciousness of his untidy appearance. " Ay, in 
 there — will ye sit down for a few minutes — and will ye ex- 
 cuse me — I thought you werena coming till to-morrow " 
 
 "Well, I thought they might object to driving me on a 
 Sunday. I can't make it out. Perhaps what I have read 
 about Scotland is not true. Or perhaps they have altered of 
 late years. Anyhow they made no objection, and here I am." 
 
 In the midst of these brief sentences — each pronounced 
 with a little rising inflexion at the end — Ronald managed 
 to slip away and get himself made a little more presentable. 
 When he returned the apparent excuse for his absence was 
 that he brought in some glasses and water and a bottle of 
 whisky ; and then he went to a little mahogany sideboard 
 and brought out a tin case of biscuits. 
 
 " You need not trouble about these things for us ; we 
 have just had lunch," Mr. Hodson said. 
 
 " Perhaps the young lady ? " said Ronald timidly, 
 
 and even nervously, for there was no plate handy, and he 
 did not know how to offer her the biscuits. 
 
 "Oh no, I thank you," she said, with a pretty and 
 
A NEW ARRIVAL 120 
 
 gracious smile ; and he happened to meet her eyes just at 
 that time ; and instantly became aware that they were 
 curiously scrutinising and observant, despite their apparent 
 softness and lustrous blackness. 
 
 Now Miss Carry Hodson had an abundance of shrewd 
 feminine perception, and it was easy for her to see that 
 this handsome and stalwart young fellow had been griev- 
 ously disturbed, and was even now unnerved, through his 
 having been caught in disarray on the occasion of a young 
 lady visiting him ; and accordingly, to allow him to recover, 
 she deliberately effaced herself ; saying not a word, nor even 
 listening, while her father and he proceeded to talk about 
 the salmon-fishing, and about the distressingly fine weather 
 that threatened to interfere with that pursuit. She sate 
 silent, allowing those observant eyes of hers to roam freely 
 round the room, and indeed wondering how a man of his 
 occupations could so have contrived to rob his home of all 
 distinctive character and to render it so clearly common- 
 place. There was nothing wild or savage about it ; nob 
 the skin of any beast, nor the plumage of any bird ; every- 
 thing was of a bourgeois neatness and respectability — the 
 ornaments on the mantelshelf conspicuously so ; and what 
 was strangest of all — though this will scarcely be believed 
 — the two roebucks' heads that adorned the wall, in a 
 country where roe abound, were earthenware casts, and 
 very bad casts too, obviously hailing from Germany. She 
 observed, however, that there were a good many books 
 about — some of them even piled in obscure corners ; and 
 to judge by the sober character of their cloth binding she 
 guessed them to be of a rather superior class. The pictures 
 on the walls were some cheap reprints of Landseer ; a 
 portrait of the Duke of Sutherland, in Highland garb ; a 
 view of Dunrobin Castle ; and a photograph of Mr. Millais' 
 " Order of Eelease." 
 
 After a while she began to know (without looking) that 
 the young man had assumed sufficient courage to glance at 
 her from time to time ; and she allowed him to do that ; 
 for she considered that the people in Regent Street had 
 fitted her out in Highland fashion in a sufficiently accurate 
 way. But it soon appeared that he was talking about her ; 
 and what was this wild proposal ? 
 
I30 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " It seems a pity," he was saying', " if the fish are taking, 
 not to have two boats at the work. And there's that big 
 rod o' yours, sir — yon could use that for the trolling ; and 
 let the young lady have one o' your grilse rods. Then 
 there's mine — she can have that and welcome " 
 
 " Yes, but the gillies " 
 
 " Oh, I'll take a turn myself ; I'm no so busy the now. 
 And I can get one o' the lads to lend a hand." 
 
 " Do you hear this, Carry ? " her father said. 
 
 " What, pappa ? " 
 
 " Eonald wants you to start off salmon-fishing to-morrow, 
 in a boat all to yourself " 
 
 " Alone ? " 
 
 " Why, no ! He says he will go with you, and one of the 
 lads ; and you will have all the best advice and experience 
 — I don't think it's fair, myself — but it's very good-natured 
 anyhow " 
 
 " And do you think there's a chance of my catching a 
 salmon ? " she said eagerly, and she turned her eloquent 
 black eyes, all lit up Avith pleasure, full upon him. 
 
 " Oh yes, indeed," said he, looking down, " and many 
 and many a one, I :am sure, if we could only get a little wet 
 weather." 
 
 " ]\Iy 1 " she exclaimed. " If I caught a salmon, I'd have 
 it stuffed right away " 
 
 "With sage and onions, I suppose," her father said 
 severely. 
 
 " And we begin to-morrow ? Why, it's just too delight- 
 ful — I was looking forward to days and days indoors, with no- 
 thing but books. And I shall really have a chance ? " 
 
 " I think you might as well thank Eonald for his offer," 
 her father said. " I should never have thought of it." 
 
 Well, she hesitated ; for it is a difficult thing to make 
 a formal little speech when it is asked for by a third 
 person ; but the young keeper quickly laughed away her 
 embarrassment. 
 
 " No, no, sir ; we'll wait for that till we see how our 
 luck turns out. And we'll have the Duke's boat, mind, 
 that Duncan says is the lucky one ; you'll have to look 
 sharp, sir, or we'll have the biggest show on the grass at the 
 end of the day." 
 
^' ABOUT ILLINOIS'' 13I 
 
 Mr. Hodson now rose to take his leave, for he wanted 
 his daughter to walk down to the shores of the loch where 
 they were next day to begin their labours. And thus it 
 was that Miss Carrj' — who had looked forward at the most 
 to sitting in the boat with her father and looking on — 
 found herself pledged to a course of salmon-fishing, under 
 the immediate guidance and instruction of the young keeper ; 
 and she had noticed that he had already talked of the 
 occupants of the Duke's boat as " we " — assuming that he 
 and she were in a sort of partnership, and pitted against 
 the others. Well, it would be amusiug, she thought. She 
 also considered that he was very good-looking ; and that it 
 would be pleasanter to have a companion of that kind than 
 a surly old boatman. She imagined they might easily be- 
 come excellent friends — at least she was willing enough ; 
 and he seemed civil and good-humoured and modest ; 
 and altogether the arrangement promised to work very well. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 "about I L L I N I s." 
 
 There was a good deal of bustle in the inn next morning ; 
 Ronald busy with the fishing-tackle for the second boat ; 
 luncheon being got ready for six ; and the gillies fighting 
 as to which party should have the landing-net and which 
 the clip. In the midst of all this Miss Carry— looking very 
 smart in her Highland costimie, Tam 0' Shanter and all^ 
 came placidly in to breakfast, and as she sate down she 
 said — 
 
 " Pappa dear, I met such a pretty girl." 
 
 " Have you been out ? " he asked. 
 
 " Only as far as the bridge. I met her as I was coming 
 back. And she looked so pretty and shy that I spoke to 
 her ; I think she was a little frightened at first ; but any- 
 way I got to know who she is— the Doctor's daughter. 
 Oh, you should hear her speak — the accent is so pretty and 
 gentle. AVell, it's all settled, pappa ; I'm just in love with 
 the Highland people, from this out." 
 
 " There's safety in numbers," observed her father grimly ; 
 
 K 2 
 
132 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 and then lie proceeded to explore the contents of the 
 covers. 
 
 When they were ready to go down to the loch they found 
 that the men had already set out — all but Eonald, who had 
 remained behind to see if there was nothina: further he 
 could carry for the young lady. So these three started 
 together ; and of course all the talk was about the far too 
 fine weather, and the chances of getting a fish or two in 
 spite of it, and the betting on the rival boats. Miss Carry 
 listened in silence ; so far she had heard or seen nothing 
 very remarkable about the handsome young keeper who 
 had so impressed her father. He spoke frankly and freely 
 enough, it is true (when he was not speaking to her), and 
 he was recounting with some quiet sarcasm certain super- 
 stitious beliefs and practices of the people about there ; 
 but, apart from the keen look of his eyes, and the maiily 
 riug of his voice, and the easy swing of the well-built figure, 
 there was nothing, as she considered, very noticeable about 
 him. She thought his keeper's costume rather picturesque, 
 and weather-worn into harmonious colour ; and woudered 
 how men in towns had come to wear the unsightly garments 
 of these present days. And so at last they arrived at the 
 loch ; and found that the gillies had got the rods fixed and 
 everything ready ; and presently the black boat, with Mr. 
 Hoclson and his two gillies, was shoved off, and Eonald, 
 liefore asking the young lady to step into the green boat — 
 the Duke's boat — was showing her what she should do if 
 a salmon should attach itself to either of the lines. 
 
 " I don't feel like catching a salmon somehow," she re- 
 marked. '' I don't think it can be true. Anyway you'll 
 see I shan't scream." 
 
 She stepped into the boat and took her seat ; the rods 
 were placed for her ; the coble was shoved farther into the 
 water, and then Ronald and the young lad got in and took 
 to the oars. Miss Carry was bidden to pay out one of the 
 lines slowly as they moved away from the bank ; and in 
 due course she had both lines out and the two rods fixed at 
 the proper angle, and the reels free. She obeyed all his 
 instructions without haste or confusion. She was a pro- 
 mising pupil. And he wondered what nerve she would 
 show when the crisis came 
 
''ABOUT ILLINOIS'' 133 
 
 Now it may be explained for the benefit of those inex- 
 perienced in such things that these fishing cobles have a 
 cross bench placed about midway between the stern and 
 the thwart occupied by the stroke oar ; and the usual 
 custom is for the fisherman to sit on this bench facing the 
 stern, so that he can see both rods and be ready for the 
 first shaking of the top. But Miss Carry did not under- 
 stand this at all. In entering the coble she naturally took 
 her place right astern, facing the rowers. It never entered 
 her head to be guilty of the discourtesy of turning her back 
 on them ; besides, Ronald was directing her with his eyes 
 as much as with his speech, and she must be able to see 
 him ; moreover he did not tell her she was sitting the 
 wrong way ; and then again was not the first signal to be 
 the shrieking of the reel ? — and both reels were now under 
 her observation, so that she could snatch at either rod in 
 a second. The consequence of all this was that she and 
 Ronald sate face to face — not more than a yard and a half 
 between them — their eyes exactly on a level — and when 
 they spoke to each other, it was very distinctly unter vier 
 Augen., for the boy at the bow was mostly hidden. 
 
 " Pappa dear," she said to her father that evening, " he 
 is a very nervous man." 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " Ronald." 
 
 " Nonsense. He is hard as nails. He don't know what 
 nerves mean." 
 
 " He is a very nervous man," she insisted (and had she 
 not been studying him for a whole day ?). " His eyes throb 
 when you meet them suddenly. Or rather he seems to 
 know they are very powerful and penetrating — and he does 
 not like to stare at you — so you can see there is a tremor 
 of the lid sometimes as he looks up — as if he would partly 
 veil his eyes. It's very curious. He's shy — like a wild 
 animal almost. And that pretty girl I met this morning 
 has something of that look too." 
 
 _" Perhaps they're not used to having the cold gaze of 
 science turned on them," her father remarked drily. 
 
 " Is that me ? " 
 
 " You may take it that way." 
 
 "Then you're fjuite wrong. It isn't science at all. It is 
 
134 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 an active and benevolent sympathy ; I am going to make 
 friends with every one of them, Konald says her name is 
 Miss Douglas — and I mean to call." 
 
 " Very well, then," said her father, who left this young 
 lady pretty much the mistress of her own actions. 
 
 However, to return to the fishing : the morning did not 
 promise well, the weather being too bright and clear, though 
 there was a very fair breeze — of a curious sultry character 
 for the middle of March— blowing up from the south and 
 making a good ripple on the loch. Again and again the 
 two boats crossed each other ; and the invariable cry was — • 
 
 " Nothing yet ? " 
 
 And the answer — ■ 
 
 " Not a touch." 
 
 By this time Miss Carry had got to know a good deal 
 about the young keeper whose eyes were so directly on a 
 level with hers. He had been to Aberdeen, and to Glasgow, 
 and to Edinburgh ; but never out of Scotland ? — no. Had 
 he no wish to see London and Paris ? Had he no wish to 
 see America ? — why, if he came over, her father would 
 arrange to have him put in the way of seeing everything. 
 And perhaps he might be tempted to stay ? — there were 
 such opportunities for young men, especially in the west. 
 As for her, she was most communicative about herself ; and 
 apparently she had been everywhere and seen everything — 
 except Stratford-on-Avon : that was to be the climax ; that 
 was to be the last thing they should visit in Europe — and 
 then on to Liverpool and home. She had been a great 
 deal longer in Europe than her father, she said. Her 
 mother was an invalid and could not travel ; her brother 
 George (Joidge, she called him) was at school ; so she and 
 a schoolfellow of hers had set out for Europe, accompanied 
 by a maid and a courier, and had " seen most everything " 
 from St. Petersburg to Wady Haifa. And all this and more 
 she told him with the black soft eyes regarding him openly ; 
 and the pale, foreign, tea-rose tinted face full of a friendly 
 interest ; and the pretty, white, delicate small fingers idly 
 intertwisting the buff-coloured gloves that she had taken off 
 at his recfuest. Inver-Mudal, Clebrig, Ben Loyal, the straths 
 and woods around looked to him small and confined on this 
 quiet morning. She seemed to have brought with her a 
 
''ABOUT ILLINOIS'' 135 
 
 wider atmosphere, a larger air. And for a young girl like 
 this to know so much — to have seen so much — and to talk 
 so simply and naturally of going here, there, or anywhere, 
 as if distance were nothing, and time nothing, and money 
 nothing ; all this puzzled him not a little. She must have 
 courage, then, and daring, and endurance, despite the pale 
 face and the slender figure, and the small, white, blue-veined 
 hands ? Why, she spoke of running over to Paris, in about 
 a fortnight's time, to be present at the wedding of a friend, 
 just as any one about here would speak of driving on to 
 Tongue and returning by the mail-cart next day. 
 
 Suddenly there was a quick, half -suppressed exclamation. 
 
 " There he is ! — there he is ! " 
 
 And all in a second, as it seemed, Ronald had flung his 
 oar back to the lad behind, seized one of the rods and raised 
 it and put it in her hands, and himself got hold of the 
 other, and was rapidly reeling in the line. What was 
 happening she could hardly tell — she was so bewildered. 
 The rod that she painfully held upright was being violently 
 shaken — now and again there was a loud, long whirr of the 
 reel — and Eonald was by her shoulder, she knew, but not 
 speaking a word — and she was wildly endeavouring to 
 recall all that he had told her. Then there was a sudden 
 slackening of the line — what was this ? 
 
 " All right," said he, very quietly. " Reel in now — as 
 quick as ye can, please." 
 
 Well, she was reeling in as hard as her small and delicate 
 wrist was able to do — and in truth she was too bewildered 
 to feel excited ; and above all other earthly things was she 
 anxious that she shouldn't show herself a fool, or scream, 
 or let the thing go — when all at once the handle of the reel 
 seemed to be whipped from her grasp ; there was a long 
 whirring shriek of the line ; she could hear somewhere a 
 mighty splash (though she dared not look at anything but 
 what was in her hands), and at the same moment she 
 fancied Ronald said, with a quiet laugh — 
 
 " We've beat them this time — a clean fish ! " 
 
 " Do you think we'll get him ? " she said breathlessly. 
 
 " We'll hold on to him as long as he holds on to us," 
 Ronald said ; and she heard him add to himself, " I would 
 rather than five shillings we got the first fish ! " 
 
136 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " But this thing is so heavy ! " she pleaded. 
 
 " Never mind — that's right — that's right — keep a good 
 strain on him — we'll soon bring him to his senses." 
 
 Again there was a sudden slackening of the line ; and 
 this time she actually saw the animal as it sprang into the 
 air — a white gleaming curved thing — but instantly her 
 ; ttention was on the reel. 
 
 " That's it — you're doing fine," he said, with an inten- 
 tional quietude cf tone, so that she might not get over- 
 nervous and make a mistake. 
 
 Then he made her stand up, and fortunately the coble 
 was rocking but little ; and he moved her left hand a little 
 higher up the rod, so that she should have better leverage ; 
 and she did all that she was bid mutely and meekly, though 
 her arm was already beginning to feel the heavy strain. 
 She vowed to herself that so long as she could draw a 
 breath she would not give in. 
 
 The other boat was passing — but of course at a respectful 
 distance. 
 
 " Hold on to him. Carry ! " her father called. 
 
 She paid no heed. She dared not even look in his 
 direction. The fish seemed to be following up the coble 
 now, and it was all that the slender wrist could do to get 
 in the line so as to keep the prescribed curve on the rod. 
 And then she had to give way again ; for the salmon went 
 steadily and slowly down — boring and sulking — and they 
 pulled the boat away a bit, lest he should suddenly come 
 to the surface and be after some dangerous cantrip. She 
 took advantage of this period of quiet to pass the rod from 
 her left hand to her right ; and that relieved her arm a 
 little ; and she even ventured to say — 
 
 " How long is he going on like this ? " 
 
 " We'll give him his own time, Miss," Eonald said. 
 
 " Don't call me Miss," she said, with a little vexation. 
 
 " I — I beg yom- pardon — what then ? " 
 
 " Oh, anything you like. Mind you catch me if I fall 
 into the water." 
 
 The truth was she was a little bit excited, and desperately 
 anxious that her strength should hold out ; and even per- 
 mitting herself an occasional gleam of hope and joy and 
 triumph. Her first salmon ? Here would be tidings for 
 
*' ABOUT ILLINOIS'" 137 
 
 the girls at home ! If only the beast would do something — 
 or show signs of yielding — anything rather than she should 
 have to give in, and weakly resign the rod to Eonald ! As 
 for him, he stood almost touching her shoulder. 
 
 "Xo, no," said he, "there's no fear 0' your falling into 
 the water, "We've got to get this gentleman out first." 
 
 And then her feeble efforts at talking (meant to show 
 that she was not excited, but having exactly the contrary 
 effect) all went by the board. Something was happening — 
 she knew not what — something wild, terrifying, violent, 
 desperate — and apparently quite near — and all the line was 
 slack now — and the handle of the reel stuck in her frantic 
 efforts to turn it with an impossible quickness^and her 
 heart was choking with fright. For why would this beast 
 spring, and splash, and churn the water, while the line 
 seemed to go all wrong and everything become mixed ? 
 But her trembling fingers got the reel to work at last ; and 
 she wound as quickly as she could ; and by this time the 
 salmon had disappeared again, and was bearing an even, 
 dead strain on the rod, but not so heavily as before. 
 
 " My gracious ! " she said — she was quite breathless. 
 
 " It's all right," he said quietly ; but he had been pretty 
 breathless too, and for several seconds in blank despair. 
 
 The fish began to show signs of yielding — that last fierce 
 thrashing of the water had weakened him. She got in more 
 and more line — Ronald's instructions being of the briefest 
 and quietest — and presently they could see a faint gleam in 
 the water as the big nsh sailed this way or that. But still, 
 she knew not what he might not do. That terrible time 
 had been altogether unexpected. And yet she knew — and 
 her left arm was gratefully conscious — that the strain was 
 not so heavy now ; the line was quite short ; and she became 
 aware that she was exercising more and more power over her 
 captive and could force him to stop Ms brief and ineffectual 
 rushes. 
 
 Once or twice he had come quite near the boat — sailing 
 in on his side, as it were — and then sheering off again at 
 the sight of them ; but these efforts to get away were 
 growing more and more feeble ; and at last Ronald called— 
 
 " We'll try him this time— give him the butt well— that's 
 right— lift his head — now " and then there was a 
 
138 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 quick stroke of the clip, and tlio great monster was in the 
 boat, and she sank down on to the bench, her arms limp 
 and trembling-, but her hand still grasping the rod. And 
 she felt a little inclined to laugh and to cry ; and she 
 wondered where her father was ; and she looked on in a 
 dazed way as they killed the fish, and got the phantom- 
 minnow out of its mouth, and proceeded to the weighing of 
 the prize. 
 
 " Eleven pounds and a half — well done the Duke's 
 boat ! " Eonald cried. " Is it your first salmon, Miss 
 Hodson ? " 
 
 " Why, certainly." 
 
 " You'll have to drink its health, or there'll be no more 
 luck for you this season," said he, and he reached back for a 
 pocket-flask. 
 
 " But where is my father ? " she said — she was anxious he 
 should hear the news. 
 
 " Oh," said he coolly, " tney've been into a fish for 
 the last ten minutes ; I wouldna tell ye, in case it might 
 distract ye." 
 
 " Have they got one ? " she cried. 
 
 "They've got something — ^and I dinna think it's a kelt 
 from the way they're working." 
 
 She clapped her hands in delight. Yes, and that in- 
 voluntary little action revealed to her what she had not 
 known before — that one of her fingers was pretty badly cut, 
 and bleeding. 
 
 " AVhat's this ? " she said, but she did not heed much — ■ 
 now that the great beautiful gleaming fish lay in the bottom 
 of the boat. 
 
 Ronald cared a great deal more. He threw aside the 
 flask. A cut ? — it was his own stupidity was the cause of 
 it ; he ought to have known that her delicate fingers could 
 not withstand the whirring out of the line ; he should have 
 allowed her to keep on her gloves. And nothing would do 
 but that she must carefully bathe the wound in the fresh 
 water of the loch ; and he produced a piece of plaster ; and 
 then he cut a strip oflf her handkerchief, and bound up the 
 finger so. 
 
 " What do I care ? " she said — pointing to the salmon. 
 
 And then he begged her to drink a little whisky and 
 
''ABOUT ILLINOIS'' 139 
 
 water — for luck's sake — though he had been rather scornful 
 about these customs in the morning ; and she complied — 
 smiling towards him as the Netherby bride may have looked 
 at Young Lochinvar ; but yet he would not drink in her 
 presence ; he put the flask aside ; and presently they were 
 at their work again, both lines out, and the southerly breeze 
 still keeping up. 
 
 They passed the other boat. 
 
 " What weight ? " was the cry. 
 
 " Eleven and a half. Have you got one ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " How much ? " 
 
 " Jusu over seven." 
 
 "Duncan will be a savage man," said Ronald, with a 
 laugh. " It's all the bad luck of his boat, he'll be saying ; 
 though it's good enough luck for the two first fish to be 
 clean fish and no kelt." 
 
 However, the Duke's boat fell away from its auspicious 
 beginning that morning. AYhen lunch time arrived, and 
 both cobles lauded at a part of the shore agreed upon, 
 where there was a large rock for shelter, and a good ledge 
 for a seat, Miss Carry had but the one fish to be taken out 
 and placed on the grass, while her father had two — resj^ec- 
 tively seven and thirteen pounds. And very picturesque, 
 indeed, it was to see those white gleaming creatures lying 
 there ; and the two boats drawn up on the shore, with the 
 long rods out at the stern ; and the gillies forming a group 
 at some distance off uuder the shelter of the stone dyke ; 
 and the wide waters of the lake all a breezy blue in the cup 
 of the encircling sunlit hills. Ronald got out the luncheon, 
 for he had seen to the packing of it — and he knew more 
 about table napkins and things of that sort than those men ; 
 and then, when he had made everything right, and brought 
 ashore a cushion for Miss Carry to sit upon, and so forth, he 
 went away. 
 
 " Ronald," J\rr. Hodson called to him, " ain't you going 
 to have some lunch ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Come along, then ; there's plenty of room rig-ht here." 
 
 " Thank ye, sir ; I know where they've putf my little 
 parcel," said he — and he Avent and sate down with the gillies ; 
 
140 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 and soon there was enough talking and laughing amongst 
 them — faintly heard across the wind. 
 
 " Well ? " said her father, when they were left alone. 
 
 " Oh, it's just too delightful for anything." 
 
 This was her summing up of the whole situation. And 
 then she added — 
 
 " Pappa, may I send my salmon to Lily Selden ? " 
 
 " I wouldn't call it kindness," said he. " Looks more 
 like boasting. And what's the good, since she is staying at 
 a hotel." 
 
 " Oh, she will be as glad as I am even to see it. But 
 can't they cook it at a hotel anyway ? I want to be even 
 with Lily about that balloon. I don't see much myself in 
 going up in a balloon. I would just like to have Lily here 
 now — think she wouldn't fall down and worship those beau- 
 tiful creatures ? " 
 
 " Well, you may send her yours, if you like," her father 
 said. " Bat you needn't dawdle so over your luncheon. 
 These days are short ; and I want to see what we can do on 
 our first trial." 
 
 " I'm ready, now, if it comes to that," said she placidly ; 
 and she put a couple of sweet biscuits in her pocket, to 
 gtiard against emergency. 
 
 And soon they were afloat again. But what was this 
 that was coming over the brief winter afternoon ? The 
 sultry south wind did not die away, nor yet did any mani- 
 fest clouds appear in the heavens, but a strange gloom 
 began to fill the skies, obscuring the sun, and gradually 
 becoming darker and darker. It was very strange ; for, 
 while the skies overhead were thus unnaturally black, and 
 the lapping ^vater around the boats similarly livid, the low- 
 lying hills at the horizon were singularly keen and intense 
 in colour. The air was hot and close, though the breeze 
 still came blowing up Strath-Terry. There was a feeling 
 as if thunder were imminent, though there were no clouds 
 anywhere gathering along the purple mountain-tops. 
 
 This unusual darkness seemed to affect the fishing. 
 Bound after round they made — touching nothing but one 
 or two ke'\s ; and this Eonald declared to be a bad sign, 
 for that when the kelts began to take, there was small chance 
 of a clean fish. ' However, Miss Carry did not care. She 
 
''ABOUT ILLINOIS" 141 
 
 jiad caught her first salmon — that was enough. Nay, it 
 was sufficient to make her very cheerful and communicative ; 
 and she told him a good deal about her various friends in 
 the Garden City — but more especially, as it seemed to the 
 respectful listener, of the young men who, from a humble 
 beginning, had been largely successful in business ; and she 
 asked him many questions about himself, and was curious 
 about his relations with Lord Ailine. Of course, she went 
 on the assumption that the future of the world lay in 
 America, and that the future of America lay in the l)ountiful 
 lap of Chicago : and she half intimated that she could not 
 understand how any one could waste his time anywhere 
 else. Her father had been born in a log-cabin ; but if he 
 —that is, Eonald — could see the immense blocks devoted 
 to " Hodson's reaper " " on Clinton and Canal streets " he 
 would understand what individual enterprise could achieve 
 out west. The " manifest destiny " of Chicago loomed large 
 in this young lady's mind ; the Eastern Cities were " not in 
 it," so to speak ; and Ronald heard with reverence of the 
 trade with J\Iontana, and Idaho, and Wyoming, and Colo- 
 rado, and Utah, and ISTevada, It is true that she was 
 recalled from this imparting of information by a twenty-five 
 minutes' deadly straggle with a creature that turned out 
 after all to be a veritable clean salmon : and with this 
 triumph ended the day's sport ; for the afternoon was 
 rapidly wearing to dusk. The gloom of the evening, by 
 the way, was not decreased by a vast mass of smoke that 
 came slowly rolling along between the black sky and the 
 black lake ; though this portentous thing — that looked as if 
 the whole world were on fire — meant nothing further than 
 the barning of the heather down Strath-Terry way. When 
 both cobles were drawn up on the beach, it was found that 
 Mr. Hodson had also added one clean salmon to his score ; 
 so that the five fish, put in a row on the grass, made a very 
 goodly display, and were a sufficiently auspicious beginning. 
 
 " Carry," said her father, as they walked home together 
 in the gathering darkness, "do you know Avhat you are 
 expected to do ? You have caught your first salmon : that 
 means a sovereign to tJie men in the boat." 
 
 " I will give a sovereign to the young fellow," said she, 
 " and willingly ; but I can't offer money tu Ronald." 
 
142 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " "Why not ? it is the custom here." 
 
 " Oh, I declare I couldn't do it. My gracious, no ! I 
 would sooner — I would sooner — no, no, pappa dear, I could 
 not offer him money." 
 
 " Well, we must do something. You see, we are taking 
 up all his time. I suppose we'll have to send for another 
 gillie — if you care to go on with that boat " 
 
 " I should think I did ! " she said. " But why should you 
 send for another gillie so long as Ronald says he is not busy ? 
 I daresay he can tell us when he is ; I don't believe he's 
 half so shy as he looks. And he's much better fun than 
 one of these Highlanders ; he wants his own way ; and, 
 with all his shyness, he has a pretty good notion of himself 
 and his own opinions. He don't say you are a fool if you 
 differ from him ; but he makes you feel like it. And then, 
 besides," she added lightly, " we can make it up to him some 
 way or other. Why, I have been giving him a great deal of 
 good advice this afternoon." 
 
 " You ? About what ? " 
 
 "About Blinois," she said. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WILD TIMES. 
 
 What that mysterious gloom had meant on the previous 
 evening was revealed to them the next morning by a 
 roaring wind that came swooping down from the Clebrig 
 slopes, shaking the house, and howling through the bent and 
 leafless trees. The blue surface of the lake was driven white 
 with curling tips of foam ; great bursts of sunlight sped 
 across the plains and suddenly lit up the northern hills ; 
 now and again Ben Hope or Ben Hee or Ben Loyal would 
 disappear altogether behind a vague mass of gray, and then as 
 quickly break forth again into view, the peaks and shoulders 
 all aglow and the snow-patches glittering clear and sharp. 
 The gillies hung about the inn door, disconsolate. Nelly 
 made no speed with the luncheon-baskL'ts. And probably 
 Mr. Hodson and his daughter would have relapsed into 
 letter-writing, reading, and other feeble methods of passing 
 a rough day iu the Highlands, had not Ronald come along 
 
IVILD TIMES 143 
 
 and changed tlie whole aspect of affairs. For if the wind 
 was too strong, he pointed out, to admit of their working 
 the phantom-minnow properly, they might at least try the 
 fly. There were occasional lulls in the gale. It was some- 
 thing to do. Would Miss Hodson venture ? Miss Hodson 
 replied by swinging her waterproof on her arm ; and they 
 all set out. 
 
 Well, it was a wild experiment. At first, indeed, when 
 they got down to the shores of the loch, the case Avas quite 
 hopeless ; no boat — much less a shallow flat-bottomed 
 coble — could have lived in such a sea ; and they merely 
 loitered about, holding themselves firm against the force of 
 the wind, and regarding as best they might the savage 
 beauty of the scene around them — the whirling blue and 
 white of the loch, the disappearing and reappearing hills, 
 the long promontories suddenly become of a vivid and 
 startling yellow, and then as suddenly again steeped in 
 gloom. But Miss Carry was anxious to be aboard. 
 
 " We should only be driven across to the shore yonder," 
 Ronald said ; " or maybe capsized." 
 
 " Oh, but that would be delightful," she remarked in- 
 stantly. " I never had my life saved. It would read very 
 well in the papers." 
 
 " Yes, but it might end the other way," her father inter- 
 posed. " And then I don't see where the fun would come 
 in — though you would get your newspaper paragraph all 
 the same." 
 
 Eonald had been watching the clouds and the direction of 
 the squalls on the loch ; there was some appearance of a lull. 
 
 " We'll chance it now," he said to the lad ; and forthwith 
 they shoved the boat into the water, and arranged the 
 various things. 
 
 Miss Carry was laughing. She knew it was an adven- 
 ture. Her father remonstrated ; but she Avould not be 
 hindered. She took her seat in the coble, and got hold of 
 the rod ; then they shoved off and jumped in ; and pre- 
 sently she Avas paying out the line, to which AA^as attached 
 a " silver doctor " about as long as her forefinger. Casting, 
 of course, Avas beyond her skill, even had the wind been 
 less violent ; there Avas nothing for it but to trail the fly 
 through these rushing and tumblino- and hissing waves. 
 
144 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 And at first everything seemed to go well enough. — 
 except that the coble rolled in the trough of the waves so 
 that every minute she expected to be pitched overboard. 
 They were drifting down the wind ; with the two oars held 
 hard in the water to retard the pace ; and the dancing 
 movement of the coble was rather enjoyable ; and there 
 was a kind of fierceness of sunlight and wind and hurrying 
 water that fired her brain. These poor people lingering on 
 the shore — what were they afraid of ? Why, was there ever 
 anything so delightful as this — the cry of the wind and the 
 rush of the water ; and everything around in glancing 
 lights and vivid colours ; for the lake was not all of that 
 intense and driven blue, it became a beautiful roseate 
 purple where the sunlight struck through the shallows on 
 the long banks of ruddy sand. She would have waved her 
 cap to those poor forlorn ones left behind, but that she felt 
 both hands must be left free in case of emergency. 
 
 But alas ! that temporary lull in which they had started 
 was soon over. A sharper squall than any before came 
 darkening and tearing across the loch ; then another and 
 another ; until a downright gale was blowing, and ap- 
 parently increasing every moment in violence. Whither 
 were they drifting ? They dared not run the coble ashore ; 
 all along those rocks a heavy sea was breaking white ; they 
 would have been upset and the boat stove in in a couple of 
 minutes. 
 
 " This'll never do, Johnnie, lad," she heard Eonald call 
 out. " We'll have to fight her back, and get ashore at the 
 top." 
 
 " Yery well ; we can try." 
 
 And then the next moment all the situation of affairs 
 seemed changed. There was no longer that too easy and 
 rapid surging along of the coble, but apparently an effort 
 to drive her through an impassable wall of water ; while 
 smash after smash on the bows carae the successive waves, 
 springing into the air, and coming down on the backs of 
 the men with a rattling volley of spray. Nay, Miss Carry, 
 too, got her Highland baptism — for all her crouching and 
 shrinking and ducking ; and her laughing face was running 
 wet ; and her eyes — which she would not shut, for they 
 were fascinated with the miniature rainbows that appeared 
 
WILD TIMES 145 
 
 from time to time in the whirling spray — were half- 
 blinded. But she did not seem to care. There was a fierce 
 excitement and enjoyment in the struggle — for she could 
 see how hard the men were pulling. And which was getting 
 the better of the fight — this firm and patient endeavour, or 
 the fell power of wind and hurrying seas ? 
 
 And then something happened that made her heart 
 stand still : there was a shriek heard above all the noise 
 of the waves^and instinctively she caught up the rod and 
 found the line whirling out underneath her closed fingers. 
 What was it Ronald had exclaimed ? " Oh, thunder ! " or 
 some such thing ; but the next moment he had called to her 
 in a warning voice — 
 
 " Sit still— sit still — don't move — never mind the 
 fish — let him go — he'll break away with the fly and 
 welcome." 
 
 But it seemed to him cowardly advice too ; and she one 
 Ijehind her father in the score. He sent a glance forward 
 in a kind of desperation : no, there was no sign of the 
 squall moderating, and they Avere a long way from the head 
 of the loch. Moreover, the salmon, that was either a strong 
 beast or particularly lively, had already taken out a large 
 length of line, in the opposite direction. 
 
 "Do you think," said he hurriedly, "you could jump* 
 ashore and take the rod with you, if I put you in at the 
 point down there ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " she said, eagerly enough. 
 
 "You win get wet." 
 
 " I don't care a cent about that— I will do whatever 
 you say " 
 
 He spoke a few words to the lad at the bow ; and sud- 
 denly shifted his oar thither. 
 
 " As hard as ye can, my lad." 
 
 And then he seized the rod from her, and began reeling 
 in the line with an extraordinary rapidity, for now they were 
 drifting down the loch again. 
 
 " Do ye see the point down there, this side the bay ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " There may be a little shelter there ; and we're going 
 to try to put ye ashore. Hold on to the rod, whatever ye 
 do ; and get a footing as fast as ye can." 
 
 L 
 
146 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " And then ? " she said. " What then ? What am I to 
 do ? " — for she was rather bewildered — the water still blind- 
 ing her eyes, the wind choking her breath. 
 
 " Hold on to the rod — and get in Avhat line ye can." 
 
 All this Avild, rapid, breathless thing seemed to take 
 place at once. He gave her the rod ; seized hold of his 
 oar again, and shifted it ; then they seemed to be turning 
 the bow of the boat towards a certain small promontory 
 where some birch trees and scattered stones faced the 
 rushing water. What was happening — or going to happen 
 — she knew not ; only that she was to hold on to the rod ; 
 and then there was a sudden grating of the bow on stones — 
 a smash of spray over the stern — the col)le wheeled round — 
 Ronald had leapt into the water — and, before she knew 
 where she was, he had seized her by the waist and swung 
 her ashore — and though she fell, or rather slipped and 
 quietly sat down on some rocks, she still clung to the rod, 
 and she hardly had had her feet wet ! This was what she 
 knew of her own position ; as for Eonald and the lad, they 
 paid no further heed to her, for they were seeking to get 
 the coble safe from the heavy surge ; and then again she 
 had her own affairs to attend to ; for the salmon, though it 
 was blissfully sulking after the first long rushes, might sud- 
 denly make up its mind for cantrips. 
 
 Then Ronald was by her side again — rather breathless. 
 
 " You've still got hold of him ? — that's right — but give 
 him his own time — let him alone — I don't want him in here 
 among the stones in rough water like this." 
 
 And then he said, rather shamefacedly — 
 
 " I beg your pardon for gripping ye as I had to do — I 
 — I thought we should have been over — and you would 
 have got sorely wet." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right," she said — seeking in vain amid the 
 whirling waste of waters for any sign or glimpse of the 
 salmon. " But you — you must be very wet — why did you 
 jump into the water ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's nothing — there, let him go ! — give him his 
 owm way !— now, reel in a bit— quicker — quicker — that'll 
 do, now\" 
 
 As soon as she had got the proper strain on the fish 
 again, she held out her right hand. 
 
WILD TIMES 147 
 
 " Pull off my glove, please," she said — but still with her 
 eyes intent on the whirling waves. 
 
 Well, he unbuttoned the long gauntlet — though the 
 leather was all saturated with water ; but when he tried the 
 fingers, he could not get them to yield at all ; so he had 
 to pull down the gauntlet over the hand, and haul off the 
 glove by main force — then he put it in his pocket, for there 
 was no time to waste on ceremony. 
 
 There was a sudden steady pull on the rod ; and away 
 went the reel. 
 
 " Let him go — let him go — ah, a good fish, and a clean 
 fish too ! I hope he'll tire himself out there, before we 
 bring him in among the stones." 
 
 Moreover, the gale was abating somewhat, though the 
 big waves still kept chasing each other in and springing 
 high on the rocks. She became more eager about getting 
 the fish. Hitherto, she had l)een rather excited and be- 
 wildered, and intent only on doing what she was bid ; now 
 the prospect of really landing the salmon had become 
 joyful. 
 
 " But how shall we ever get him to come in here ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " He's bound to come, if the tackle holds ; and I'm 
 thinking he's well hooked, or he'd been off ere now, with 
 all this scurrying water." 
 
 She shifted the rod to her right hand ; her left arm was 
 beginning to feel the continued strain. 
 
 " Has the other boat been out ? " she asked. 
 
 " No, no," said he, and then he laughed. " It would be 
 a fine thing if we could take back a good fish. I know 
 well what they were thinking when we let the boat drift 
 down the second time — they were thinking we had got the 
 line aground, and were in trouble. And now they canna 
 see us — it's little they're thinking that we're playing a 
 fish." _ ^ ° ^ ^ ° 
 
 " AVe " and " us " he said quite naturally ; and she, also, 
 had got into the way of calling him Ronald — as every 
 one did. 
 
 Well, that was a long and a stiff' fight with the salmon ; 
 for whenever it found that it was being towed into the 
 shallows, away it went again, with rush on rush, so that 
 
 L 2 
 
148 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 Miss Carry had her work cut out for her, and had every 
 muscle of her arms and back aching. 
 
 "Twenty pounds, you'll see," she heard the lad Johnnie 
 say to his companion ; and Ronald answered him — 
 
 " I would rather tlian ten shillings it was." 
 
 Twenty pounds ! She knew that this was rather a rarity 
 on this loch — ten or eleven pounds being about the average ; 
 and if only she could capture this animal — in the teeth of 
 a gale too— and go back to the others in triumph, and 
 also with another tale to tell to Lily Selden ! She put more 
 and more strain on ; she had both hands firm on the butt ; 
 her teeth were set hard. Twenty pounds ! Or if the hook 
 should give way ? Or the line be cut on a stone ? Or the 
 fish break it with a spring and lash of its tail ? Fortu- 
 nately she knew but little of the many and heart-rending 
 accidents that happen in salmon-fishing, so that her fears 
 were fewer than her hopes ; and at last her heart beat 
 quickly Avlien she saw Ronald take the clip in his hand. 
 
 But he was very cautious ; and bade her take time ; and 
 spoke in an equable voice — just as if she were not growing 
 desperate, and wondering how long her arms would hold 
 out ! Again and again, by dint of tight reeling up and 
 putting on a deadly strain, she caught a glimpse of the 
 salmon ; and each of these times she thought she could 
 guide it sailingly towards the spot where Ronald was crouch- 
 ing down by the rocks ; and then again it would turn and 
 head away and disappear — taking the line very slowly now, 
 but still taking it. She took advantage of one of these 
 pauses in the fight to step farther back some two or three 
 yards ; this was at Ronald's direction ; and she obeyed 
 without understanding. But soon she knew the reason ; 
 for at last the salmon seemed to come floating in without 
 even an effort at refusal ; and as she was called on to give 
 him the butt firmly, she found she could almost drag him 
 right up and under Ronald's arm. And then there was a 
 loud " hurrah ! " from the lad John as the big silver fish 
 gleamed in the air ; and the next second it was lying there 
 on the withered grass and bracken. Miss Carry, indeed, 
 was so excited that she came near to breaking the top of 
 the rod ; she forgot that the struggle was over ; and still 
 held on tightly. 
 
WILD TIMES 149 
 
 " Lower the top, Miss," the lad John said, " or ye can 
 put the rod down altogether," 
 
 Indeed he took it from her to lay it down safely, and 
 right glad was she ; for she was pretty well exhausted by 
 this time, and fain to take a seat on one of the rocks 
 while they proceeded to weigh the salmon with a pocket- 
 scale. 
 
 " Seventeen pounds — and a beauty : as pretty a fish as 
 ever I saw come out of the loch." 
 
 " Well, we've managed it, Eonakl," said she, laughing, 
 " but I don't know how. There he is — sure ; but how we 
 got him out of that hurricane I can't tell." 
 
 " There was twice I thought ye had lost him," said he 
 gravely. " The line got desperately slack after ye jumped 
 ashore " 
 
 " Jumped ashore ? " she said. " Seems to me I was flung 
 ashore, like a sack of old clothes." 
 
 " But ye were not hurt ? " said he, glancing quickly at 
 her. 
 
 " No, no ; not a bit — nor even wet ; and if I had been, 
 tliat is enough for anything." 
 
 " Johnnie, lad, get some rushes, and put the fish in the 
 box. We'll have a surprise for them, when we get back, 
 I'm thinking." 
 
 " And can we get back ? " she said. 
 
 " We'll try, anyway — oh yes — it's no so bad now." 
 
 But stiU it was a stiff pull ; and they did not think it 
 worth while to put out the line again. Miss Carry devoted 
 her whole attention to sheltering herself from the spray ; 
 and was fairly successful. When, at length, they reached 
 the top of the loch and landed, they were treated to a little 
 mild sarcasm from those who had prudently remained on 
 shore ; but they said nothing ; the time was not yet come. 
 
 Then came the question as to whether all of them could 
 pull down the opposite side of the loch to the big rock ; for 
 there they would have shelter for lunch ; while here in the 
 open every gust that swooped down from the Clebrig slopes 
 caught them in mid career. Nay, just then the wind seemed 
 to moderate ; so they made all haste into the cobles ; and 
 in due time the whole party were landed at the rock, which, 
 with its broad ledges for seats, and its overhanging ferns, 
 
I50 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 formed a very agreeable and sheltered resort. Of course, 
 there was but the one thing wanting. A fishing party at 
 lunch on the shores of a Highland loch is a very picturesque 
 thing ; but it is incomplete without some beautiful silver- 
 gleaming object in the foreground. There always is a bit 
 of grass looking as if it were just meant for that display ; 
 and when the little plateau is empty, the picture lacks its 
 chief point of interest. 
 
 " Well, you caught something if it wasn't a salmon," her 
 father said, glancing at her dripping hat and hair. 
 
 " Yes, we did," she answered innocently. 
 
 " You must be wet through in spite of your waterproof. 
 Sometimes I could not see the boat at all for the showers of 
 spray. Did you get much shelter where you stopped ? " 
 
 "Not much— a little." 
 
 " It was a pretty mad trick, your going out at all. Of 
 course Ronald only went to please you ; he must have 
 known you hadn't a ghost of a chance in a gale like that." 
 
 " Pappa dear," said she, "there's nothing mean about me. 
 There's many a girl I know would play it on her pa ; but 
 I'm not one of that kind. When I have three kings and a 
 pair " 
 
 " Stop it, Carry,"' said he angrily, " I'm tired of your 
 Texas talk. \Yhat do you mean ? " 
 
 " I only want to show my hand," she said sweetly ; and 
 she called aloud — " Johnnie ! " 
 
 The young lad jumped up from the group that were 
 cowering under the shelter of the stone dyke. 
 
 " Bring the fish out of the boat, please." 
 
 He went down to the coble, and got the salmon out of 
 the well ; and then, before bringing it and placing it on 
 the grass before the young lady, he held it up in triumph 
 for the gillies to see : the sarcasm was all the other way 
 now. 
 
 " You see, pa]i]m dear, you would have Ijct your boots 
 against it, wouldu't you ? " she remarked. 
 
 " But where did you get it ? " he said, in amazement. " I 
 was watching your lioat all the time. I did not see you 
 playing a fish." 
 
 " Because we got ashore as fast as we could, and had the 
 fight out there. But please, pappa, don't ask me anything 
 
IVILD TIMES 151 
 
 more than that. I dou't know what happened. The wind 
 was choking me, and I was half bhnd, and the stones were 
 slippery and moving, and — and everything was in a kind of 
 uproar. Perhaps you don't think I did catch the salmon. 
 If my arms could speak, they could tell you a different tale 
 just at this minute ; and I shall have a hack to-morrow 
 morning, I know that. Seventeen pounds, Eonald says ; 
 and as prettily shaped a fish as he has ever seen taken out 
 of the lake." 
 
 " He is a handsome fish," her father admitted ; and then 
 he looked up impatiently at the wind-driven sky. " There 
 is no doubt there are plenty of fish in the lake, if the 
 weather would only give us a chance. But it's either a dead 
 calm or else a raging gale. Why, just look at that ! " 
 
 For at this moment a heavier gust than ever struck 
 down on the water— and widened rapidly out — and tore 
 the tops of the waves into spray — until a whirling gray 
 cloud seemed to be flying over to the other shores. The 
 noise and tumult of the squall were indescribable ; and 
 then, in five or six minutes or so, the loch began to reappear 
 again, black and sullen, from under that mist of foam ; and 
 the wind subsided — only to keep moaning and howling as 
 if meditating further springs. There was not much use 
 in hurrying lunch. The gillies had comfortably lit their 
 pipes. Two of the younger lads were trying their strength 
 and skill at "putting the stone ; " the others merely lay and 
 looked on ; an occasional glance at the loch told them they 
 need not stir. 
 
 It was not jealousy of his daughter having caught a fish 
 that made Mr. Hodson impatient ; it was the waste of time. 
 He could not find refuge in correspondence ; he had no 
 book with him ; while gazing at scenery is a feeble substitute 
 for salmon-fishing, if the latter be your aim. And then 
 again the loch was very tantalising — awaking delusive hopes 
 every few minutes. Sometimes it would become almost 
 quiet — save for certain little black puff's of wind that fell 
 vertically and widened and widened out ; and they would 
 be on the point of summoning the men to the cobles when, 
 with a low growl and then a louder roar, the gale would be 
 rushing down again, and the storm witches' white hair 
 streaming across the suddenly darkened waters. 
 
152 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " ' Ben Clebrig— the Hill of the Playing Tront,' " said 
 he peevishly. " I don't believe a word of it. Why, the 
 Celtic races were famous for giving characteristic names to 
 places — describing the things accurately. ' The Hill of the 
 Playing Trout ! ' Now, if they had called it ' The Hill of 
 the Infernal Whirlwinds,' or ' The Hill of Blasts and 
 Hurricanes,' or something of that kind, it would have been 
 nearer the mark. And this very day last year, according to 
 the list that Eonald has, they got nine salmon." 
 
 " Perhaps we may get the other eight yet, pappa," said she 
 lightly. 
 
 x^nd indeed, shortly after this, the day seemed to be 
 getting a little quieter ; and her father decided upon a start. 
 The men came along to the coble, llonald said to her — 
 
 " We will let them get well ahead of us ; it's their turn 
 now." And so he and she and the lad John remained on 
 the shore, looking after the departing boat, and in all 
 sincerity wishing them good luck. 
 
 Presently she said " What's that ? "—for something had 
 struck her sharply on the cheek. It was a heavy drop of 
 rain, that a swirl of wind had sent round the side of the 
 rock ; and now she became aware that everywhere beyond 
 their shelter there was a loud pattering, becoming every 
 moment heavier and heavier, while the wind rose and rose 
 into an ominous high screeching. And then all round 
 there was a hissing and a roar ; and from under the rock 
 she looked forth on the most extraordinary phantasmagoria 
 - — for now the sheets of rain as they fell and broke on the 
 water were caught by the angry mountain blasts and torn 
 into spindrift, so that the whole lake seemed to be a mass 
 of white smoke. And her father ? — well, she could see 
 something like the ghost of a boat and two or three phan- 
 tom figures ; but whether they were trying to fight their 
 way, or letting everything go before the tempest, or what, 
 she could not make out — for the whirling white rain-smoke 
 made a mere spectral vision of them. Eonald came to her. 
 
 " That's bad luck," said he composedly. 
 
 " What ? " she asked, quickly. " They are not in 
 danger ? " 
 
 " Oh no," said he. " But they've got both minnows 
 aground, as far as I caii make out," 
 
WILD TIMES 153 
 
 " But what about that ? why don't they throw the rods 
 and everything overboard, and get into safety ? " 
 
 " Oh, they'll try to save the minnows, I'm thinking." 
 
 And they did succeed in doing so — after a long and 
 strenuous struggle ; and then Mr. Hodson was glad to have 
 them row him back to the shelter of the rock. Apparently 
 his success with regard to the minnows had put him into 
 quite a good humour. 
 
 " Carry," said he, " I'm not an obstinate man— I know 
 when I've got enough. I will allow that this battle is too 
 much for me. I'm going home. I'm going to walk." 
 
 "Then I will go with you, pappa," she said promptly. 
 
 " You may stay if you choose," said he. " You may stay 
 and take my share as well as your own. But I'm going to 
 see what newspapers the mail brought this morning ; and 
 there may be letters." 
 
 " And I have plenty to do also," said she. " I mean to 
 call on that pretty Miss Douglas I told you of — the Doctor's 
 daughter. And do you think she would come along aud 
 dine with us ? — or must I ask her mother as well ? " 
 
 " I don't know what the society rules are here," he 
 answered. " I suspect you will have to find out." 
 
 "And Ronald — do you think he would come in aud 
 spend the evening with us ? I can't find out anything 
 about him — it's all phantom-minnows and things Avhen he 
 is in the boat." 
 
 " Well, I should like that too," said he : for he could not 
 forsake the theories which he had so fro(|ueatly propounded 
 to her. 
 
 And so they set forth for the inn, leaving the men to get 
 the boats back when they could ; and after a long and 
 brave battling with rain and wind they achieved shelter at 
 last. And then Miss Carry had to decide what costume 
 would be most appropriate for an afternoon call in the 
 Highlands — on a day filled with pulsating hurricanes. 
 Her bodice of blue with its regimental gold braid she might 
 fairly adopt — for it could be covered over and protected ; 
 but her James I. hat with its gray and saffron plumes she 
 had to discard — she had no wish to see it suddenly whirling 
 away in the direction of Ben Loyal. 
 
1 54 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 DREAMS AND VISIONS. 
 
 Miss Hodson was in no kind of anxiety or embarrassment 
 about this visit ; she had quite sufficient reliance on her 
 own tact ; and when, going along to the Doctor's cottage, 
 she found Meenie alone in that little room of hers, she 
 explained the whole situation very prettily and simply and 
 naturally. Two girls thrown together in this remote and 
 solitary place, with scarcely any one else to talk with ; why 
 should they not know each other ? That was the sum and 
 substance of her appeal ; with a little touch here and there 
 about her being a stranger, and not sure of the ways and 
 customs of this country that she found herself in. And 
 then Meenie, who was perhaps a trifle overawed at first by 
 this resplendent visitor, was almost inclined to smile at the 
 notion that any apology was necessary, and said in her gentle 
 and quiet way — 
 
 " Oh, but it is very kind of you. And if you had lived 
 in one or two Scotch parishes, you would know that the 
 minister's family and the doctor's family are supposed to 
 know every one." 
 
 She did not add " and be at every one's disposal " — for 
 that might have seemed a little rude. However, the intro- 
 duction was over and done with ; and j\Iiss Carry set her- 
 self to work to make herself agreeable — which she could 
 do very easily when she liked. As yet she kept the 
 invitation to dinner in the background ; talked of all kinds 
 of things — the salmon-fishing, the children's soiree she had 
 heard of ; Ronald ; Ronald's brother the minister ; and her 
 wonder that Ronald should be content with his present 
 position ; and always those bright dark eyes seemed to be 
 scanning everything in the room with a pleased curiosity, 
 and then again and again returning to JMeenie's face, and 
 her dress, and her way of wearing her hair, with a frank 
 scrutiny which made the country mouse not a little shy in 
 the presence of this ornate town mouse. For Miss Carry, 
 with her upper wrappings discarded, was not only very 
 prettily attired, but also she had about her all kinds of 
 
DREAMS AND VISIONS 155 
 
 nick-nacks and bits of finery that seemed to have come 
 from many lands, and to add to her foreign look. Of 
 course, a woman's glance — even the glance of a shy High- 
 land girl — takes note of these things ; and they seemed 
 but part of the unusual character and appearance of this 
 stranger, who seemed so delicate and fragile, and yet was 
 full of an eager vivacity and talkativeness, and whose soft, 
 large, black eyes, if they seemed to wander quickly and 
 restlessly from one object to another, were clearly so full of 
 kindness and a wish to make friends. And very friendly 
 indeed she was ; and she had nothing but praise for the 
 Highlands, and Highland scenery, and Highland manners, 
 and even the Highland accent. 
 
 " I suppose I have an accent myself ; but of course I 
 don't know it," she rattled on. " Even at home they say 
 our western accent is pretty bad. "Well, I suppose I have 
 got it ; but auyway I am not ashamed of it, and I am 
 not in a hurry to change it. I have heard of American 
 girls in Europe who were most afraid to speak lest they 
 should be found owi— found out ! AVhy, I don't see that 
 English girls try to hide their accent, or want to copy any 
 one else ; and 1 don't see why American girls should be 
 ashamed of having an American accent. Your accent, now ; 
 I have been trying to make out what it is, but I can't. It 
 is very pretty ; and not the least like the English way of 
 talking ; but I can't just make out where the difference is." 
 
 For this young lady had a desperately direct way of 
 addressing any one. She seemed to perceive no atmosphere 
 of conventionality between person and person ; it was brain 
 to brain, direct ; and no paiLsing to judge of the effect of 
 sentences. 
 
 " I know my mother says that I speak in the Highland 
 way," ^leenie said, with a smile. 
 
 " There now, I declare," said ]\Iiss Hodson, " that did not 
 sound like an English person speaking, and yet I could not 
 tell you where the difference was. I really think it is more 
 manner than accent. The boatmen and the girls at the 
 inn — they all speak as if they were aiixious to please you." 
 
 "Then it cannot be a very disagreeable accent," said 
 Meenie, laughing in her quiet way. 
 
 " No, no ; I like it. I like it very much. Eonald now, 
 
156 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 has nothing of that ; he is positive and dogmatic — I would 
 say gruff in his way of talking, if he was not so obliging. 
 But he is very obliging and good-natured ; there is just 
 nothing he won't do for us — and we are perfect strangers to 
 him." 
 
 And so she prattled on, apparently quite satisfied that 
 now they were good friends ; while Meenie had almost 
 forgotten her shyness in the interest with which she lis- 
 tened to this remarkable young lady who had been all over 
 the world and yet took her travelling so much as a matter of 
 course. Then Miss Hodson said — 
 
 " You know my father and I soon exhaust our remarks 
 on the events of the day when we sit down to dinner ; 
 and we were wondering whether you Avould take pity on 
 our solitude and come along and dine with us this evening. 
 "Will you ? I wish you would — it Avonld be just too kind of 
 you." 
 
 Meenie hesitated. 
 
 " I would like very well," said she, " but — but my mother 
 and the lad have driven away to Tongue to fetch my father 
 home— and it may be late before they are back " 
 
 "The greater reason why you should come — why, to 
 think of your sitting here alone ! I will come along for 
 you myself. And if you are afraid of having too much of 
 the star-spangled banner, we'll get somebody else in who is 
 not an American ; I mean to ask Ronald if he will come in 
 and spend the evening with us — or come in to dinner as well, 
 if he has time " 
 
 Xow the moment she uttered these words she perceived 
 the mistake she had made. ]\Ieenie all at once looked 
 troubled, conscious, apprehensive — there was a touch of extra 
 colour in her face : perhaps she was annoyed that she was 
 betraying this embarrassment. 
 
 " I think some other night, if you please," the girl said, 
 in a low voice, and with her eyes cast down, " some other 
 night, when mamma is at home — I would like to ask her 
 first." 
 
 "Class distinctions," said Miss Carry to herself, as she 
 regarded this embarrassment with her observant eyes. 
 " Fancy class distinctions in a little community like this 
 —in mid-v/inter too ! Of course the Doctor's dauo-liter 
 
DREAMS AND VISIONS 157 
 
 iliiist not sit down to dinner with Lord Ailine's head 
 keeper." 
 
 But she could not oiler to leave Eonald out — that would 
 but have added to the girl's confusiou, whatever was the 
 cause of it. She merely said lightly — 
 
 " Very well, then, some other evening you will take pity 
 on us — -and I hope before I go to Paris. And then I 
 want you to let me come in now and again and have a 
 cup of tea with you ; and I get all the iUustrated periodicals 
 sent me from home — with the fashion-plates, you know." 
 
 She rose. 
 
 " What a nice room — it is all your own, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Oh yes : that is why it is so untidy." 
 
 " But I like to see a room look as if it was being used. 
 "Well, now, what are these ? " she said, going to the mantel- 
 shelf, where a row of bottles stood. 
 
 " These are medicines." 
 
 "Why, you dou't look sick," the other said, turning 
 suddenly. 
 
 " Oh no. These are a few simple things that my father 
 leaves with me when he goes from home — they are for 
 children mostly — and the people have as much faith in me 
 as in anybody," Meenie said, with a shy laugh. " Papa 
 says I can't do any harm with them, in any case ; and the 
 people are pleased." 
 
 " Hush, bush, dear, you must not tell me any secrets of 
 that kind," said Miss Carry gravely ; and then she proceeded 
 to get on her winter wraps. 
 
 ]\Icenie went downstairs with her, and at the door would 
 see that she was all properly protected and buttoned up about 
 the throat. 
 
 " For it is very brave of you to come into Sutherlandshire 
 in the winter," said she ; " we hardly expect to see any one 
 until the summer is near at hand." 
 
 " Then you will let me come and have some tea with you 
 at times, will you not ? " 
 
 " Oh yes — if you will be so kind." 
 
 They said good-bye and shook hands ; and then Miss 
 Carry thought that Meenie looked so pretty and so shy, and 
 had so much appealing gentleness and friendliness in the 
 clear, transparent, timid blue-gray eyes, that she kissed her, 
 
1 5 8 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 and said " Good-bye, dear," again, and went out into the dusk 
 and driving wind of the afternoon, entirely well pleased with 
 her visit. 
 
 But it seemed as though she were about to be disap- 
 pointed in both directions ; for when she called in at 
 Ronald's cottage he was not there ; and when she returned 
 to the inn, he was not to be found, nor could any one say 
 whither he had gone. She and her father dined by them- 
 selves. She did not say why Meenie had declined to come 
 along and join them ; but she had formed her own opinion on 
 that point ; and the more she thought of it, the more absurd 
 it seemed to her that this small handful of people living all 
 by themselves in the solitude of the mountains should think 
 it necessary to observe social distinctions. Was not Ronald, 
 she asked herself, fit to associate with any one ? But then 
 she remembered that the Highlanders were said to be very 
 proud of their descent ; and she had heard something about 
 Glengask and Orosay ; and she resolved that in the future 
 she would be more circumspect in the matter of invitations. 
 
 About half-past eight or so the pretty Xelly appeared with 
 the message that Ronald was in the inn, and had heard that 
 he was being asked for. 
 
 " What will I tell him ye want, sir ? " she said, naturally 
 assuming that Ronald was to be ordered to do something. 
 
 " Give him my compliments," said Mr. Hodson, "and say 
 we should be obliged if he would come in and smoke a pipe 
 and have a chat with us, if he has nothing better to do," 
 
 But Nelly either thought this was too much politeness to 
 1)6 thrown away on the handsome keeper, or^ else she had 
 some small private quarrel with him ; for all she said to him, 
 and that brusquely, was — 
 
 " Ronald, you're wanted in the parlour." 
 
 Accordingly, when he came along the passage, and tapped 
 at the door and opened it, he stood there uncertain, cap in 
 hand. Mr. Hodson had to repeat the invitation — explain- 
 ing that they had wanted him to have some dinner with 
 them, but that he could not be found ; and then Ronald, 
 with less of embarrassment than might have been expected — 
 for he knew these two people bettor now — shut the door, 
 and laid down his cap, and modestly advanced to the chair 
 that Mr. Hodson had drawn in towards one side of the big 
 
Dreams and visions is9 
 
 fireplace. Miss Carry was seated apart on a sofa, apparently 
 engaged in some sort of knitting work ; but her big black 
 eyes could easily be raised when there was need, and she could 
 join in the conversation when she chose. 
 
 At first that was mostly about the adjacent shooting, 
 which Mr. Hodson thought of taking for a season merely 
 by way of experiment ; and the question was how long be 
 would in that case have to be away from his native country. 
 This naturally took them to America, and eventually and 
 alas ! to politics — which to Miss Carry was but as the eating 
 of chopped straw. However, Mr. Hodson (if you could keep 
 the existence of lords out of his reach) was no very violent 
 polemic ; and moreover, whenever the Bird of Freedom 
 began to clap its wings too loudly, was there not on the sofa 
 there a not inattentive young lady to interfere with a little 
 gentle sarcasm ? Sometimes, indeed, her interpositions 
 were both uncalled for and unfair ; and sometimes they were 
 not quite clearly intelligible. When, for example, they were 
 talking of the colossal statue of Liberty enlightening the 
 World which the French Eepublic proposed to present to 
 the American licpublic to be set up in New York Bay, she 
 pretended not to know in which direction— east or west — ' 
 the giant figure was to extend her light and liberty giving 
 arm ; and her objection to her father's definition of the 
 caucus system as a despotism tempered by bolting, was a still 
 darker saying of which Ronald could make nothing whatever. 
 But what of that ? Whatever else was veiled to him, this 
 was clear — that her interference was on his behalf, so that 
 he should not be overpressed in argument or handicapped for 
 lack of information ; and he was very grateful to her, 
 naturally ; and far from anxious to say anything against a 
 country that had sent him so fair and so generous an ally. 
 
 But, after all, was not this laudation of the institutions 
 of the United States meant only as a kindness — as an 
 inducement to him to go thither, and better his position ? 
 There was the field where the race was to the swiftest, 
 where the best man got to the front, and took the prize 
 which he had fairly won. There no accident of birth, no 
 traditional usage, was a hindrance. The very largeness of 
 the area gave to Ihe individual largeness of view. 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Carry (luit they took no heed of her 
 
i6o WHITE HEATHER 
 
 impertinence) " in our country a bar-tender mixes drinks 
 with his mind fixed on Niagara." 
 
 Naj'', the very effort to arouse dissatisfaction in the bosom 
 of this man who seemed all too well contented with his 
 circumstances was in itself meant as a kindness. Why should 
 he be content ? Why should he not get on ? It was all 
 very well to have health and strength and high spirits, and 
 to sing tenor songs, and be a favourite with the farm-lasses ; 
 but that could not last for ever. He was throwing away 
 his life. His chances were going by him. Why, at his age, 
 what had so-and-so done, and what had so-and-so not done ? 
 And how had they started ? What did they owe to fortune 
 — what, rather, to their own resolution and brain ? 
 
 " Ronald, my good fellow," said his Mentor, in the most 
 kindly way, " if I could only get you to breathe the atmo- 
 sphere of Chicago for a fortnight, I am pretty sure you 
 wouldn't come back to stalk deer and train dogs for Lord 
 Ailine or any other lordship." 
 
 Miss Carry said nothing ; but she pictured to herself 
 Ronald passing down Madison Street — no longer, of course, 
 in his weather-tanned stalking costume, but attired as the 
 other young gentlemen to be found there ; and going into 
 Burke's Hotel for an oyster luncheon ; and coming out 
 again chewing a toothpick ; and strolling on to the Grand 
 Pacific to look at the latest telegrams. And she smiled 
 (though, indeed, she herself had not been behindhand in 
 urging him to get out of his present estate and better his 
 fortunes), for there was something curiously incongruous in 
 that picture ; and she was quite convinced that in Wabash 
 Avenue he would not look nearly as handsome nor so much 
 at his ease as now he did. 
 
 " I am afraid," said he, with a laugh, " if ye put me down 
 in a place like that, I should be sorely at a loss to tell what 
 to turn my hand to. It's rather late in the day for me to 
 begin and learn a new trade." 
 
 " Nonsense, man," the other said. " You have the know- 
 ledge already, if you only knew how to apply it." 
 
 " The knowledge ? " Ronald repeated, with some surprise. 
 Most of his book-reading had been in the field of English 
 poetry ; and he did not see how he could carry that to 
 market. 
 
DREAMS AND VISIONS i6i 
 
 Mr. Hodson took out his note-book ; and began to look 
 over the leaves. 
 
 "And you don't need to go as far as Chicago, if you 
 would rather not," said he. 
 
 *■ If you do," said Miss Carry flippantly, " mind you don't 
 eat any of our pork. Pappa dear, do you know why a wise 
 man doesn't eat pork in Illinois 1 Don't you know ? It is 
 because there is a trichinosis worth t\vo of that." 
 
 Eouald laughed ; but her father was too busy to attend 
 to such idiotcy. 
 
 " Even if you would rather remain in the old country," 
 he continued, " and enjoy an out-of-door life, why should 
 YOU not make use of what you already know ? I have 
 heard you talk about the draining of soil, and planting of 
 trees, and so on : well, look here now. I have been in- 
 quiring into that matter ; and I find that the Highland 
 and Agricultural Society of Scotland grants certificates for 
 proficiency in the theory and practice of forestry. Why 
 shouldn't you try to gain one of those certificates ; and 
 then apply for the post of land-steward ? I'll bet you could 
 manage an estate as well as most of them who are at it — 
 especially one of those Highland sporting estates. And 
 then you would become a person of importance ; and not 
 be at any lordship's beck and call ; you would have an 
 opportunity of beginning to make a fortune, if not of 
 making one at once ; and if you wanted to marry, there 
 would be a substantial future for you to look to." 
 
 " And then you would come over and see us at Chicago," 
 said Miss Carry. " "We live on North Park Avenue ; and 
 you would not feel lonely for want of a lake to look at — 
 we've a pretty big one there." 
 
 " But the first step — about the certificate ? " said Eonald 
 doubtfully — though, indeed, the interest that these two 
 kindly people showed in him was very delightful, and he 
 was abundantly grateful, and perhaps also a trifle bewildered 
 by these ambitious and seductive dreams. 
 
 " Well, I should judge that would be easy enough," con- 
 tinued Mr. Hodson, again referring to his note-book in 
 that methodical, slow-mannered way of his. " You would 
 have to go to Edinburgh or Glasgow, and attend some 
 classes, I should imagine, for they want you to know sonie* 
 
 M 
 
1 62 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 thiug of surveying and geology and chemistry and botany. 
 Some of these yon could read up here — for you have plenty 
 of leisure, and the subjects are just at your hand. I don't 
 see any difficulty about that. I suppose you have saved 
 something now, that you could maintain yourself when you 
 were at the classes ? " 
 
 " I could manage for a while," was the modest answer. 
 
 " I have myself several times thought of buying an estate 
 in the Highlands," Mr. Hodson continued, " if I found that 
 I have not forgotten altogether how to handle a gun ; and 
 if I did so, I would give you the management right off. 
 But it would not do for you to risk such a chance ; what 
 you want is to qualify yourself, so that you can take your 
 stand on your own capacity, and demand the market value 
 for it." 
 
 Well, it was a flattering proposal ; and this calm, shrewd- 
 lieaded man seemed to consider it easily practicable — and 
 as the kind of thing that a young man in his country would 
 naturally make for and achieve ; while the young lady on 
 the sofa had now thrown aside the pretence of knitting, 
 and was regarding him with eloquent eyes, and talking as 
 if it were all settled and attained, and Ronald already be- 
 come an enterprising and prosperous manager, whom tliey 
 should come to see when they visited Scotland, and who was 
 certainly to be their guest when he crossed the Atlantic. 
 No wonder his head was turned. Everything seemed so 
 easy — why, both she and her father appeared to be sur- 
 rounded, when at home, with men who had begun with 
 nothing and made fortunes. And then he would not be 
 torn away altogether from the hills. He might still have a 
 glimpse of the dun deer from time to time ; there would 
 still be the dewy mornings by lake and strath and mountain- 
 tarn, with the stumbling on a bit of white heather, and the 
 picking it and wearing it for luck. iVnd if he had to bid 
 farewell to Clebrig and Ben Loyal and Ben Hope and 
 Bonnie Strath-Xaver — well, there were other districts far 
 more beautiful than that, as well he knew, where he would 
 still hear the curlew whistle, and the grouse-cock crow in 
 the evening, and the great stags bellow their challenge 
 through the mists of the dawn. And as for a visit to 
 Chicago ? — and a view of great cities, and harbours, and 
 
DREAMS AND VISIONS 163 
 
 the wide activities of the world ? — surely all that was a 
 wonderful dream, if only it might come true ! 
 
 " I'm sm-e I beg; yom- pardon," said he, rising, " for 
 letting ye talk all this time about my small affairs. I think 
 you'll have a quieter day to-morrow ; the wind has backed 
 to the east ; and that is a very good wind for this loch. 
 And I've brought the minnows that I took to mend ; the 
 kelts are awful beasts for destroying the minnows." 
 
 He put the metal bos on the mantelpiece. They would 
 have had him stay longer — and Miss Carry, indeed, called 
 reproaches down on her head that she had not asked him 
 to smoke nor offered him any kind of hospitality — but he 
 begged to be excused. And so he went out and got home 
 through the cold dark night — to his snug little room and 
 the peat-iire, and his pipe and papers and meditations. 
 
 A wonderful dream, truly — -and all to be achieved by the 
 reading up of a few subjects of some of which he already 
 knew more than a smattering. And why should he not 
 try ? It seemed the way of the world — at least, of the 
 world of which he had been learning so much from these 
 strangers — to strive and push forward and secure, if possible, 
 means and independence. Why should he remain at Inver- 
 Mudal ? The old careless happiness had fled from it. 
 Meenie had passed him twice now — each time merely giving 
 liim a formal greeting, and yet, somehow, as he imagined, 
 with a timid trouble in her eyes, as if she Avas sorry to do 
 that. Her superintendence of ]\Iaggie's lessons was more 
 restricted now ; and never by any chance did she come near 
 the cottage when he was within or about. The old friend- 
 liness was gone ; the old happy companionship — however 
 restricted and respectful on his side ; the old, frank appeal 
 for his aid and counsel when any of her own small schemes 
 had to be undertaken. And was she in trouble on his 
 account ? — and had the majesty of Glengask and Orosay 
 been invoked ? Well, that possibility need harrow no 
 human soul. If his acquaintanceship — or companionship, 
 \\\ a measure — with Meenie was considered undesirable, there 
 was an easy way out of the difficulty. Acquaintanceship or 
 companionship, whichever it might be, it would end — it 
 had ended. 
 
 And then again, he said to himself, as he sate at the 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 little table and turned over those leaves that contained 
 many a gay morning song and many a midnight musing — 
 but all about Meenie, and the birds and flowers and hills 
 and streams that knew her — soon she would be away from 
 Inver-Mudal, and what would the place be like then ? 
 Perhaps when the young corn was springing she would take 
 her departure ; and what would the world be like when she 
 had left ? He could see her seated in the little carriage ; 
 her face not quite so bright and cheerful as usually it was ; 
 her eyes — that were sometimes as blue as a speedwell in 
 June, and sometimes gray like the luminous clear gray of 
 the morning sky — perhaps clouded a little ; and the sensitive 
 lips trembhng ? The children would be there, to bid her 
 good-bye. And then away through the lonely glens she 
 would go, by hill and river and wood, till they came in 
 sight of the western ocean, and Loch Inver, and the great 
 steamer to carry her to the south. Meenie would be away 
 — and Inver-Mudal, tlmi ? 
 
 Small birds in the corn 
 Are coicering and quailing : 
 my lost love. 
 Whence are you sailing ? 
 
 Fierce the gale hJows 
 Adown the bleak river; 
 The valley is empty 
 For ever and ever. 
 
 Out on the seas, 
 
 The night ivinds are rvailing ; 
 
 my lost love. 
 
 Whence are you sailing ? _ 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A FURTHEE DISCOVERY. 
 
 It can hardly be wondered at that these suddenly presented 
 ambitious projects — this call to be up and doing, and getting 
 forward in the general race of the world — should add a 
 new interest and fascination, in his eyes, to the society of 
 the American father and daughter who had wandered into 
 these distant wilds. And perhaps, after all, he had been 
 rnerely wasting his time and throwing away his life ? 
 
A FURTHER DISCOVERY 165 
 
 That solitary, contented, healthy and happy existence was 
 a mistake — au idle dream — an anachronism, even ? The 
 common way of the world was right ; and that, as he heard 
 of it in the echoes brought by these strangers from without, 
 was all a pushing and striving and making the most of 
 opportunities, until the end was reached — independence 
 and ease and wealth ; the power of choosing this or that 
 continent for a residence ; the radiant happiness and glow 
 of success. And then it all seemed so easy and practicable 
 when he heard these two talking about their friends and the 
 fortunes they had made ; and it seemed still more easy — 
 and a far more desirable and beautiful thing — when it was 
 Aliss Carry herself who was speakiug, she seated alone in 
 the stern of the boat, her eyes — that had a kind of surface 
 darkness and softness, like blackberries wet with rain — 
 helping out her speech, and betraying an open friendliness, 
 and even conferring a charm on her descriptions of that far- 
 off pork-producing city of the west. Mr. Hodson, as he 
 sate upright in his easy-cbair before the fire, spoke slowly 
 and sententiously, and without any visible enthusiasm ; 
 Miss Carry, in the stern of the coble, her face all lit up with 
 the blowing winds and the sunlight, talked with far greater 
 vivacity, and was obviously deeply interested in the future 
 of her companion. And it had come to this now, that, 
 as she sate opposite him, he quite naturally and habitually 
 regarded her eyes as supplementing her meaning ; he no 
 longer rather shrank from the directness of her look ; he no 
 longer wished that she would sit the other way, and attend 
 to the tops of the salmon-rods. As for their speech together, 
 the exceeding frankness of it and lack of conventionality 
 arose from one or two causes, but no doubt partly from 
 tills — that during their various adventures on the loch there 
 was no time for the observance of studied forms. It was 
 " Do this " and " Do that," on his part — sometimes with 
 even a sharp word of monition ; and with her it was " Will 
 that do, Ronald ? " or again, — when she was standing up in 
 fell encounter with her unseen enemy, both hands engaged 
 with the rod — " Ronald, tie my cap down, or the wind will 
 blow it away — No, no, the other strings — underneath ! " 
 
 Indeed, on the morning after the evening on which 
 they had been urging him to make a career for himself, 
 
x66 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 there was not much chance of any calm discussion of that 
 subject. The proceedings of the day opened in a remark- 
 ably lively manner. For one thing the wind had backed 
 still farther during the night, and Avas now blowing briskly 
 from the north, bringing with it from time to time smart 
 snow showers that blackened the heavens and earth for a 
 feAV minutes and then sped on, leaving the peaks and 
 shoulders and even the lower spurs of the hills all a 
 gleaming Avhitc in the Avintry sunlight. 
 
 " Salmon-fishiug in a snow-storm — well, I declare ! " said 
 she, as she stood on the shore of the lake, watching him 
 putting the rods together. 
 
 " The very best time," said he, in his positive way (for he 
 had assumed a kind of authority over her, whereas with 
 Meenie he was always reserved and distant and timidly 
 gentle). " None better. I would just like to find a foot of 
 snow on the ground, right down to the edge of the loch ; 
 and the flakes falling so thick ye couldna see a dozen yards 
 ahead of ye." 
 
 " Do you know where I should be then ? " she retorted. 
 " I should be Avarming my toes in front of Mrs. Murray's 
 peat-fire." 
 
 " Xot one bit," said he, just as positively. " If ye heard 
 the salmon Avere taking, ye'd be down here fast enough, I'm 
 thinking." 
 
 And presently it seeme'd as if this early start of theirs 
 AA'as to be rcAA'arded, for scarcely Avere both lines out — and 
 Miss Carry AA'as just settling herself down for a little quiet 
 talk, and AA'as pulling the collar of her ulster higher OA'er her 
 ears (for the Avind was somewhat cold) — Avhen a sudden 
 tugging and straining at one of the rods, followed by a 
 sharp scream of the reel, upset all these little plans. She 
 made a dash at the rod and raised it quickly. 
 
 " That's a good fish — that's a good fish ! " Eonald cried, 
 Avitli his mouth set hard. " Now let's see if Ave canna hold 
 on to this one. Let him go, lassie ! — I beg your pardon — ■ 
 let him go — let him go — that's right — a clean fish, and a 
 beauty ! " 
 
 Beauty or no, the salmon had no hesitation about shoAV- 
 ing himself, at least : for noAV he began to lash the surface 
 of the water, some fifty yards away, not springing into the 
 
A FURTHER DISCO t^ERY 167 
 
 air, but merely beating tlie waves with head and body and 
 tail to get rid of this unholy thing that he had pursued and 
 gripped. Then down he went with a mighty plunge — the 
 reel whirring out its shrill cry, and Miss Carry's gloves 
 suffering in consequence — and there he sulked ; so that 
 they backed the boat agam, and again she got in some of 
 the line. What was the sound that came across the lake 
 to them, in the face of the northerly wind ? 
 
 " They're waving a handkerchief to ye, Miss Hodson," 
 said he, " from the other boat." 
 
 " Oh, bother," said she (for the strain of a heavy salmon 
 and forty yards of line was something on her arms), "here, 
 take the handkerchief from this breast-pocket, and Avave it 
 l)ack to them — stand up beside me — they won't see the 
 ditference " 
 
 He did as he was bid ; apparently she paid little atten- 
 tion ; she seemed wholly bent on getting the fish. And 
 clearly the salmon had somewhat exhausted himself with 
 his first escapades ; he now lay deep down, not stirring an 
 inch ; so that she got in her line until there was not more 
 than twenty yards out : then they waited. 
 
 And meanwhile this strange thing that was overtaking 
 them ? The bright, windy, changeable day, with its gleam- 
 ing snow-slope.5 and sunlit straths and woods darkened by 
 passing shadows — seemed to lie slowly receding from them, 
 and around them came a kind of hushed and stealthy 
 gloom. And then the wind stirred again ; the gusts came 
 sharper and colder ; here and there a wet particle stung the 
 cheek or the back of the hand. Of course, she was in a 
 death-struggle with a salmon ; she could not heed. And 
 presently the gathering blackness all around seemed to 
 lireak into a soft bewilderment of snow ; large, soft, woolly 
 Hakes came driving along before the wind ; all the world 
 was shut out from them ; they could see nothing but a 
 short space of livid dark water, and feel nothing but this 
 choking silent thing in the air. And then again, with a 
 magical rapidity, the heavens and the earth seemed to open 
 above and. around them ; the clouds swept on ; there was 
 a great deep of dazzling blue suddenly revealed in the sky 
 overhead ; and all the dancing waters of the lake, from the 
 boat to the farthest shores, were one flashing and Inpping 
 
i68 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 mass of keeu, pure cobalt, absolutely bewildering to the 
 eyes. The joy of that radiant colour, after the mystery and 
 the darkness I And then the sunlight broke out ; and 
 Clebrig had a touch of gold along his mighty shoulders ; 
 and Ben Loyal's snow-slopes were white against the brilliant 
 blue ; and it seemed as if the fairest of soft summer skies 
 were shining over Bonnie Strath-ISTaver. 
 
 To her it meant that she could see a little more clearly. 
 She shook the snowflakes from her hair. 
 
 " Ronald, you are sure it is not a kelt ? " 
 
 " Indeed I am. There's nothing of the kelt about that 
 one." 
 
 " If it is," said she, " I'll go home and tell my ma." 
 
 She was clearly feeling a little more secure about this 
 one. And she did capture the creature in the end, though 
 it was after a long and arduous struggle. For he was a 
 strong fish — fresh run up from the sea, and heavy for his 
 size ; and again and again, and a dozen times repeated, 
 he would make rushes away from the boat just as the} 
 thought he was finally showing the white feather. It was 
 the toughest fight she had had ; but practice was hardening 
 her muscles a little ; and she had acquired a little dexterity 
 in altering her position and shifting the strain. By this 
 time the other boat was coming round. 
 
 " Stick to him, Carry ! " her father cried. " No Secesh 
 tactics allowed : hold on to him ! " 
 
 The next moment Eonald had settled all that by a 
 smart scoop of the clip ; and there in the bottom of the 
 boat lay a small-headed deep-shouldered fish of just over 
 sixteen pounds — Eonald pinning him down to get the 
 minnow out of his jaw, and the lad Johnnie grinning all 
 over his ruddy face Avith delight. 
 
 Miss Carry looked on in a very calm and business-like 
 fashion ; though in reality her heart was beating quickly — 
 with gladness and exultation. And then, Avith the same 
 business-like calmness, she took from the deep pocket of 
 her ulster a flask that she had borrowed from Mr. Murray. 
 
 "Eonald," said she, "you must drink to our good 
 luck." 
 
 She handed him the flask. She appeared to be quite to 
 the manner born now. You would not have imagined 
 
A FURTHER DISCOVERY 169 
 
 that her heart was beating so quickly, or her hands just 
 a nttle bit nervous and shaky after that prolonged 
 excitement. 
 
 Good luck seemed to follow the Duke's boat this morning. 
 Within the next three quarters of an hour they had got hold 
 of another salmon — just over ten pounds. And it was 
 barely lunch time when they had succeeded in landing a 
 third — this time a remarkably handsome fish of fifteen 
 pounds. She now thought she had done enough. She 
 resumed her seat contentedly ; there was no elation visible 
 on her face. But she absolutely forbade the putting out of 
 the lines again. 
 
 " Look here, Eonald," she said seriously. " What do you 
 think I came here for ? Do you think I came here to 
 leave my bones in a foreign land ? I am just about dead 
 now. My arms are not made of steel. AVe can go ashore, 
 and get lunch unpacked ; the other boat will follow quickly 
 enough. I tell you my arms and wrists have just had about 
 enough for one morning." 
 
 And a very snag and merry little luncheon-party they 
 made there — down by the side of the lapping water, and 
 under the shelter of a wood of young birch-trees. For the 
 other boat had brought ashore two salmon ; so that the 
 five handsome fish, laid side by side on a broad slab of 
 rock, made an excellent show. Miss Carry said nothing 
 about her arms aching ; but she did not seem to be in as 
 great a hurry as the others to set to work again. No ; she 
 enjoyed the rest ; and, observing that Eonald had finished 
 his lunch, she called to him, under the pretext of wanting 
 to know something about sending the fish south. This led 
 on to other things ; the three of them chatting together con- 
 tentedly enough, and Ronald even making bold enough to 
 light his pipe. A very friendly little group this was — away 
 by themselves there in these wintry solitudes — with the wide 
 blue waters of the lake in front of them, and the snows of 
 Clebrig white against the sky. And if he were to go away 
 from these familiar scenes, might he not come back again 
 in the after days ? And with the splendid power of remain- 
 ing or going, just as he pleased ? — just as these friendly 
 folk could, who spoke so lightly of choosing this or that 
 quarter of the globe for their temporary habitation ? Yes, 
 
170 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 tliere were many things that money could do : these two 
 strangers, now, could linger here at Inver-Mudal just as 
 long as the salmon-hshing continued to amuse them ; or 
 they could cross over to Paris, and see the wonders there ; 
 or they could go away back to the great cities and harbours 
 and lakes and huge hotels that they spoke so much about. 
 He listened with intensest interest, and with a keen imagina- 
 tion. And was this part of the shore around them — with 
 its rocks and brushwood and clear water — really like the 
 shores of Lake George, where she was so afraid of rattle- 
 snakes ? She said she would send him some photographs 
 of Lake Michigan. 
 
 Then in the boat in the afternoon she quite innocently 
 remarked that she Avished he was going back home with 
 them ; for that he would find the voyage across the Atlantic 
 so amusing. She described the people coming out to say 
 good-bye at Liverpool ; and the throwing of knives and 
 pencil-cases and what not as farewell gifts from the steamer 
 to the tender, and vice versa, ; she described the scamper 
 round Queenstown and the waiting for the mails ; then the 
 long days on the wide ocean, with all the various occnpa- 
 tions, and the concerts in the evening, and the raffles in 
 the smoking-room (this from hearsay) ; then the crowding 
 on deck for the first glimpse of the American coast-line ; 
 and the gliding over the shallows of Sandy Hook ; and the 
 friends who would come steaming down the Bay to wave 
 handkerchiefs and welcome them home. She seemed to 
 regard it as a quite natural and simple thing that he should 
 be of this party ; and that, after landing, her father should 
 take him about and " see him through," as it were : and if 
 her fancy failed to carry out these forecasts, and to picture 
 him walking along Dearborn Avenue or driving out with 
 them to Washington Park, it Avas that once or twice ere 
 now she had somehow arrived at the notion that Konald 
 Strang and Chicago Avould prove to be incongruous. Or 
 was it some instinctive feeling that, however natural and 
 fitting their friendship might be in this remote little place 
 in the Highlands, it might give rise to awkwardness 
 over there ? Anyhow, that could not prevent her father 
 from seeing that Eonald had ample introductions and 
 tfuidance when he landed at Xew York : and was not 
 
A FURTHER DISCOVERY IT I 
 
 that tlie proper sphere for one of his years and courage and 
 abilities ? 
 
 When they got ashore at the end of the day it was found 
 that each boat had got two more salmon, so that there was 
 a display of nine big fish on the grass there in the gathering 
 dusk. 
 
 " And to think that I should live to catch five salmon in 
 one day," said ]\Iiss Carry, as she contemplated her share 
 of the spoih " Well, no one will believe it ; for they're just 
 real mean people at home ; and they won't allow that any 
 thing's happened to you in Europe unless you have some- 
 thing to show for it. I suppose Ronald would give me a 
 written guarantee. Anyway, I am going to take that big 
 one along to the Doctor — it will be a good introduction, 
 won't it, pappa ? " 
 
 But a curious thing happened about that same salmon. 
 When they got to the inn the fish were laid out on the 
 stone flags of the dairy — the coolest and safest place for 
 them in -the house ; and Miss Carry, who had come along 
 to see them, when she wanted anything done, naturally 
 turned to Ronald. 
 
 " Ronald," said she, " I want to give that big one to J\Irs. 
 Douglas, and I am going along now to the cottage. Will 
 you carry it for me ? " 
 
 He said something about getting a piece of string and 
 left. A couple of minutes thereafter the lad Johnnie 
 appeared, with a stout bit of cord in his hand ; and he, 
 having affixed that to the head and the tail of the salmon, 
 caught it up, and stood in readiness. She seemed sur- 
 prised. 
 
 " AVhere is Ronald ? " said she — for he was always at her 
 bidding. 
 
 " He asked me to cany the fish to the Doctor's house, 
 mem," said the lad. " Will I go now ? " 
 
 Moreover, this salmon was accidentally responsible for 
 a still further discovery. When Miss Carry went along to 
 call on the Douglases, little Maggie was with her friend 
 Meenie ; and they all of them had tea together ; and wlien 
 the little Maggie considered it fitting she should go home, 
 jMiss Carry said she would accompany her — for it was now 
 quite dark. And they had a good deal of talk by the way, 
 
172 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 partly about schooling and accomplishments, bnt much 
 more largely about Ronald, who was the one person in all 
 the world in the eyes of his sister. And if Maggie was 
 ready with her information, this pretty young lady was 
 equally interested in receiving it, and also in making in- 
 quiries. And thus it came about that Miss Cany now for 
 the first time learned that Ronald was in the habit of writ- 
 ing poems, verses, and things of that kind ; and that they 
 were greatly thought of by those who had seen them or to 
 whom he had sent them. 
 
 " "Why, I might have guessed as much," she said to 
 herself, as she walked on alone to the inn — though what 
 there was in Ronald's appearance to suggest that he was 
 a writer of rhymes it might have puzzled any one to 
 determine. 
 
 But this was a notable discovery ; and it set her quick 
 and fertile brain working in a hundred different ways ; but 
 mostly she bethought her of one John C. Huysen and of 
 a certain newspaper-office on Fifth Avenue, Chicago, 111. 
 
 " Well, there," she said to herself, as the result of these 
 rapid cogitations, " if -Tack Huysen's good for anything — if 
 he wants to say he has done me a service — if he wants to 
 show he has the spirit of a man in him — well, now's his 
 cliance.''^ 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CONFESSIONS. 
 
 It was but another instance 'of the curiously magnetic 
 influence of this man's personality that she instantly aud 
 unhesitatingly assumed that what he wcoiQ must be of value. 
 Now every second human being, as well she knew, ^\Tites 
 verses at one period of his life, and these are mostly trash ; 
 and remain discreetly hidden, or are mercifully burned. 
 But what Ronald wrote, she was already certain, must be 
 characteristic of himself, and have interest and definite 
 worth ; and what better could she do than get hold of some 
 of these things, and have them introduced to the public, 
 perhaps with some little preliminary encomium written by 
 a friendly hand ? She had heard from the little Maggie 
 
CONFESSIONS 173 
 
 that Konald had never sent any of his writings to the news- 
 papers ; might not this be a service ? She could not offer 
 him a sovereign because he happened to be in the boat 
 when she caught her first salmon ; but fame — the appeal 
 to the wide-reading public — the glory of print ? Nay, 
 might they not be of some commercial value also ? She 
 knew but little of the customs of the Chicago journals, but 
 she guessed that a roundabout hint conveyed to Mr. John 
 C, Huysen would not be without effect. And what were 
 the subjects, she asked herself, that Ronald wrote about ? 
 In praise of deerstalking, for one thing, and mountain- 
 climbhig, and out-of-door life, she felt assured : you could 
 see it in his gait and in his look ; you could hear it in his 
 laugh and his singing as he went along the road. Politics, 
 perhaps — if sarcastic verses were in his way ; for there was 
 a sharp savour running through his talk ; and he took 
 abundant interest in public affairs. Or perhaps he would 
 be for recording the charms of some rustic maiden — some 
 " Jessie, the Flower 0' Dumblane " — some blue-eyed and 
 rather silent and uninteresting young person, living alone 
 in a glen, and tending cattle or hanging out things to dry 
 on a hedge ? Well, even a song would be something. The 
 Chicago Citizen might not pay very much for it, but the 
 great and generous public might take kindly to it ; and if 
 Jack Huysen did not say something friendly about it, then 
 Fhe would know the reason why. 
 
 But the stiffest struggle Miss Carry ever had with any 
 salmon was mere child's play compared with the fight she 
 had with Ronald himself over this matter. At first he was 
 exceedingly angry that she should have been told ; but 
 then he laughed, and said to her that there were plenty of 
 folk in Scotland as elsewhere who wrote idle verses, but 
 that they had the common sense to say nothing about it. 
 If she wanted a memento of her stay in the Highlands to 
 take back with her to America, he would give her her choice 
 of the deer-skins he had in the shed ; that would be appro- 
 priate, and she was welcome to the best of them ; but as 
 for scribblings and nonsense of that kind — no, no. On the 
 other hand she was just as persistent, and treated him to 
 a little gentle raillery, wondering that he had not yet out- 
 grown the years of shyness ; and finally, when everything 
 
174 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 else bad failed, putting her request as a grace and courtesy 
 to be granted to an American stranger. Tbis was bardly 
 fair ; but sbe was very anxious about the matter ; and sbe 
 knew that ber demand was founded far less on mere 
 curiosity tban on an bonest desire to do bim a service. 
 
 Of course be yielded ; and a terrible time be bad of it 
 tbe night be set about selecting something to show to her. 
 For bow could sbe understand tbe circumstances in which 
 these random things Avere written — these idle fancies of a 
 summer morning — these careless love songs — these rhymed 
 epistles in which the practical common sense and shrewd 
 advice were much more conspicuous tban any graces of art ? 
 And then again so many of them were about Meenie ; and 
 these were forbidden ; the praise of Meenie — even when it 
 was tlie birds and tbe roses and tbe foxgloves and tbe 
 summer rills that sang of ber — was not for alien eyes. But 
 at last be lit upon some verses supposed to convey the 
 sentiments of certain exiles met together on New Year's 
 night in IsTova Scotia ; and he thought it was a simple kind 
 of thing ; at all events it would get bim out of a grievous 
 difficulty. So — for the lines bad been written many a day 
 ago, and came upon bim now with a new aspect — be altered 
 a phrase here or there, by way of passing the time ; and 
 finally he made a fair copy. The next morning, being a 
 Sunday, be espied Miss Carry walking down towards tbe 
 river ; and be overtook her and gave her this little piece to 
 redeem bis pledge. 
 
 " It's not worth much," said be, " but you'll understand 
 what it is about. Burn it when you've read it — that's 
 
 all I ask of ye " Then on be went, glad not 
 
 to be cross- questioned, tbe faithful Harry trotting at 
 his heels. 
 
 So sbe sat down on the stone parapet of the little 
 bridge — on this bushed, still, shining morning that was 
 quite summer-like in its calm — and opened the paper with 
 not a little curiosity. And well enough sbe understood 
 the meaning of the little piece : she knew that tbe Mac- 
 kays* used to live about here ; and was not Strath-Xaver 
 but a few miles off ; and this tbe very Mudal river 
 running underneath tbe bridge on which she was sitting ? 
 * Pronounced MacMse, ■with the accent on the second syllable. 
 
CONFESSIONS T75 
 
 But here are tlie verses she read — and he had entitled 
 them 
 
 AC BOSS THE SEA. 
 
 In Nova Scotia's clime they're met 
 
 To heep the New Year's night ; 
 The merry lads and lasses crowd 
 
 Around the Hazing light. 
 
 But father and mother sit u-iihdraivn 
 
 To let their fancies flee 
 To the old, old time, and the old, old home 
 
 That's far across the sea. 
 
 And what strange sights and scenes are these 
 
 That sadden their shaded eyes'? 
 Is it only thus they can see again 
 
 The land of the Maelcays ? 
 
 there the red-deer roam at icill ; 
 
 And the grouse whirr on the wing; 
 And the curlew ccdl, and the ptarmigan 
 
 Drink at the mountain spring; 
 
 And the hares lie snug on the hillside; 
 
 And the lusty hlacheoch croics ; 
 But the river the children used to love 
 
 Through an empty valley flows. 
 
 Bo they see again a young lad wait 
 
 To shelter with his plaid. 
 When she steals to him in the gathering dusli; 
 
 His gentle Highland' maid? 
 
 Bo thty hear the pipes at the weddings; 
 
 Or the low sad funeral wail 
 As the lout goes out to the island, 
 
 And the pibroch tells its tcde ? 
 
 fair is Nai'cr's strath, and fair 
 
 The strath that Mudal laves; 
 And dear the haunts of our childhood. 
 
 And dear the old follis' graves ; 
 
 And the parting from one's native land 
 
 Is a sorrow hard to dree : 
 God's forgiveness to them that sent us 
 
 So far across the sea .' 
 
 And is honnie Strafh-Naver shining, 
 As it shone in the bygone years '? — 
 
 As it shines for us now — ay, ever — 
 Though our eyes are blind with tears. 
 
176 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Well, her own eyes were moisb — though that was but 
 for a moment ; for when she proceeded to walk slowly and 
 meditatively back to the inn, her mind was busy with many 
 things ; and she began to think that she had not got any 
 way near to the understanding of this man, whom she had 
 treated in so familiar a fashion, as boatman, and com- 
 panion, and gillie — almost as valet. What lay behind 
 those eyes of his, that glowed with so strange a light at 
 times, and seemed capable of reading her through and 
 through, only that the slightly tremulous eyelids came 
 down and veiled them, or that he turned away his head ? 
 And why this strain of pathos in a nature that seemed 
 essentially joyous and glad and careless ? Not only that, 
 but in the several discussions with her father — occasionally 
 becoming rather warm, indeed — Ronald had been invariably 
 on the side of the landlord, as was naturally to be expected. 
 He had insisted that the great bulk of the laud given over 
 to deer was of no possible use to any other living creature ; 
 he had maintained the right of the landlord to clear any 
 portion of his property of sheep and forest it, if by so doing 
 he could gain an increase of rental ; he had even maintained 
 the right of the landlord to eject non-paying tenants from 
 holdings clearly not capable of supporting the ever-increas- 
 ing families ; and so forth. But was his feeling, after all, 
 with the people — he himself being one of the people ? 
 His stout championship of the claims and privileges of 
 Lord i\.iline — that was not incompatible with a deeper sense 
 of the cruelty of driving the poor people away from the 
 land of their birth and the home of theii' childhood ? 
 His natural sentiment as a man was not to be overborne 
 by the fact that he was officially a dependent on Lord 
 Ailine ? These and a good many other curious problems 
 concerning him — and concerning his possible future — 
 occupied her until she had got back to the snug little 
 parlour ; and there, as she found her father seated in front 
 of the blazing fire, and engaged in getting through the 
 mighty pile of newspapers and illustrated journals and 
 magazines that had come by the previous day's mail, she 
 thought she might as well sit down and ^vrite a long letter 
 to her bosom friend in Chicago, through whose inter- 
 mediation these verses might discreetly be brought to the 
 
CONFESSIONS 177 
 
 notice of Mr. Huysen. She had reasons for not asking any 
 favour directly. 
 
 " Dearest Em," she wrote — after having studied a long 
 while as to how she should begin — " would it surprise you 
 to know that I have at last found my fate in the very 
 handsome person of a Scotch gamekeeper ? Well, it ain't 
 so ; don't break the furniture ; but the fact is my poor 
 brain has been wool-gathering a little in this land of wild 
 storms and legends and romantic ballads ; and to-morrow I 
 am fleeing away to Paris — the region of clear atmosphere, 
 and reasonable people, and cynicism ; and I hope to have 
 any lingering cobwebs of romance completely blown out of 
 my head. Not that I would call it romance, even if it 
 were to happen ; I should call it merely the plain result of 
 my father's theories. You know he is always preaching 
 that all men are born equal ; which isn't true anyhow ; he 
 would get a little nearer the truth if he were to say that all 
 men are born equal except hotel clerks, who are of a superior 
 race ; but wouldn't it be a joke if I were to take him at 
 his word, and ask him how he would like a gamekeeper as 
 his son-in-law ? But you need not be afraid, my dear Em ; 
 this chipmunk has still got a little of her senses left ; and I 
 may say in the words of the poet — ■ 
 
 ' Tliere is uot in this wide world a valet so sweet ' — 
 
 no, nor any Claude Melnotte of a gardener, nor any hand- 
 some coachman or groom, who could induce me to run away 
 with him. It would be ' playing it too low down on pa,' as 
 you used to say ; besides, one knows how these things 
 always end. Another besides ; how do I know that he 
 would marry me, even if I asked him ? — and I should have 
 to ask him, for he would never ask me. Now, Em, if you 
 don't burn this letter the moment you have read it, I will 
 murder you, as sure as you are alive. 
 
 " Besides, it is a shame. He is a real good fellow ; and 
 no such nonsense has got into his head, I know. I know- 
 it, because I tried him twice for fun ; I got him to tie my 
 cap under my chin ; and I made him take my pocket- 
 handkerchief out of my breast-pocket when I was fighting 
 a salmon (I caught/i'e in one day — monsters !), and do you 
 
 N 
 
178 WHITE HEA THER 
 
 think the bashful young gentleman was embarrassed and 
 showed trembling fingers ? Not a bit ; I think he thought 
 me rather a nuisance — in the polite phraseology of the 
 English people. But I wish I could tell you about him, 
 really. It's all very well to say he is very handsome and 
 hardy-looking and weather-tanned ; but how can I describe 
 to you how respectful his manner is, and yet always keeping 
 his own self-respect, and he won't quarrel with me — he 
 only laughs when I have been talking absolute folly — 
 though papa and he have rare fights, for he has very positive 
 opinions, and sticks to his guns, I can tell you. But the 
 astonishing thing is his education ; he has been nowhere, 
 but seems to know everything ; he seems to be c[uite content 
 to be a gamekeeper, though his brother took his degree at 
 college and is now in the Scotch Church. I tell you he 
 makes me feel pretty small at times. The other night 
 papa and I went along to his cottage after dinner, and 
 found him reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire — lent him by his brother, it appeared. I borrowed 
 the first vohmie — but, oh, squawks ! it is a good deal too 
 stiff work for the likes of me. And then there is never the 
 least pretence or show, but all the other way ; he will talk 
 to you as long as you like about his deer-stalking and about 
 what he has seen his dogs do ; but never a word about 
 books or writing — unless you happen to have found out. 
 
 "Now I'm coming to business. I have never seen any 
 writing of his until this morning, when, after long goading, 
 he showed me a little poem which I will copy out and 
 enclose in this letter when I have finished. Now, darling- 
 Em, I want you to do me a real kindness ; the first time 
 you see Jack Huysen — I don't want to ask the favour of him 
 direct — will you ask him to print it in the Citizen, and to 
 say something nice about it .? I don't want any patronage : 
 understand — I mean let Jack Huysen understand — that 
 Ronald Strang is a particular friend of both my father and 
 myself ; and that I am sending you this without his authority, 
 but merely to give him a little pleasant surprise, perhaps, 
 when he sees it in print ; and perhaps to tempt him to 
 give us some more. I should like him to print a volume, 
 — for he is really far above his present station, and it is 
 absurd he should not take his ^Aace, — and if he did that I 
 
CONFESSIONS 179 
 
 know of a young party who would buy 500 copies even if 
 she w^ere to go back home without a single Paris bonnet. 
 Tell Jack Huysen there is to be no j)atronage, mind ; there 
 is to be nothing about the peasant-poet, or anything like 
 that ; for this man is a fientleman, if I know anything about 
 it ; and I won't have him trotted out as a phenomenon — ■ 
 to be discussed by the dudes who smoke cigarettes in 
 Lincoln Park. If you could only talk to him for ten 
 minutes it would be better than fifty letters, but I suppose 
 there are attractions nearer home just at present. My kind 
 remembrances to T. T. 
 
 " I forgot to say that I am quite ignorant as to whether 
 newspapers ever pay for poetry — I mean if a number of 
 pieces were sent. Or could Jack Huysen find a publisher 
 who would undertake a volume ; my father will see he does 
 not lose anything by it ? I really want to do something for 
 this Eonald, for he has been so kind and attentive to us ; 
 and before long it may become more difficult to do so ; for 
 of course a man of his abilities is not likely to remain as he 
 is ; indeed, he has already formed plans for getting away 
 altogether from his present way of life, and whatever he 
 tries to do I know he will do — and easily. But if I talk 
 any more about him, you will be making very very mistaken 
 guesses ; and I won't give you the delight of imagining even 
 for a moment that I have been caught at last ; when the 
 sad event arrives there will be time enough for you to take 
 your cake-walk of triumph up and down the room — of 
 course to Dancing in the. Barn, as in the days of old." 
 
 Here followed a long and rambling chronicle of her 
 travels in Europe since her last letter, all of which may be 
 omitted ; the only point to be remarked was that her very 
 brief experiences of Scotland took up a disproportionately 
 large portion of the space, and that she was minute in her 
 description of the incidents and excitement of salmon- 
 fishing. Then followed an outline of her present plans ; a 
 string of questions ; a request for an instant reply ; and 
 finally — 
 
 " With dearest love, old Em, 
 
 ''Thine, 
 
 " Carrijr 
 N 2 
 
i8o WHITE HEATHER 
 
 And then slie had to copy the verses ; but when she 
 had done that, and risen, and gone to the window for a 
 time, some misgiving seemed to enter her mind, for she 
 returned to the table, and sate down again, and wrote this 
 postscript : 
 
 "Perhaps, after all, you won't see much in this little 
 piece ; if you were here, among the very places, and affected 
 by all the old stories and romantic traditions and the wild 
 scenery, it might be different. Since I've been to Europe 
 I've come to see what's the trouble about om* reading 
 English history and literature at home ; why, you can't do 
 it, you can't understand it, unless you have lived in an 
 atmosphere that is just full of poetry and romance, and 
 meeting people whose names tell you they belong to the 
 families who did great things in history centuries and 
 centuries ago. I can't explain it very well — not even to 
 myself ; but I feel it ; why, you can't take a single day's 
 drive in England without coming across a hundred things 
 of interest — JSTormau churches, and the tombs of Saxon 
 Kings, and old abbeys, and monasteries, and battlefields, 
 and, just as interesting as any, farm-houses of the sixteenth 
 century in their quaint old-fashioned orchards. And as for 
 Scotland, why, it is just steeped to the lips in poetry and 
 tradition ; the hills and the glens have all their romantic 
 stories of the clans, many of them very pathetic ; and you 
 want to see these wild and lonely places before you can 
 understand the legends. And in southern Scotland too — ■ 
 what could any one at home make of such a simple couplet 
 as this — 
 
 ' Tlie King sits in Dunfermline town, 
 Drinhing the hlude-red icine;' 
 
 but when you come near Dunfernihne and see the hill 
 where Malcolm Canmore built his castle in the eleventh 
 century, and when you are told that it was from this very 
 town that Sir Patrick Spens and the Scots lords set out for 
 ' Norroway o'er the faem,' everything comes nearer to you. 
 In America, I remember very well, Flodden Field sounded 
 to us something very far away, that we couldn't take much 
 interest in ; but if you were here just now, dear Em, and 
 told that a bit farther north there Avas a river that the Earl 
 of Caithness and his clan had to cross when they went to 
 
CONFESSIONS i8r 
 
 Flodden, and that the people living there at this very day 
 won't go near it on the anniversary of the battle, becanse 
 on that day the ghosts of the earl and his men, all clad in 
 green tartan, come home again and are seen to cross the 
 river, wouldn't that interest you ? In America we have got 
 nothing behind ns ; when you leave the day before yester- 
 day you don't want to go back. But here, in the most 
 vulgar superstitions and customs, you come upon the 
 strangest things. Would you believe it, less than twenty 
 miles from this place there is a little lake that is supposed 
 to cure the most desperate diseases — diseases that the 
 doctors have given up ; and the poor people meet at mid- 
 night, on the first Monday after the change of the moon, 
 and then they throw a piece of money into the lake, and go 
 in and dip themselves three times, and then they must get 
 home before sunrise. Perhaps it is very absurd, but they 
 belong to that same imaginative race of people who have 
 left so many weird stories and poetical legends behind them ; 
 and what I say is that you want to come over and breathe 
 this atmosphere of tradition and romance, and see the 
 places, before you can quite understand the charm of all 
 that kind of literature. And perhaps you don't find much 
 in these verses about the poor people who have been driven 
 away from their native strath ? Well, they don't claim to 
 be much. They were never meant for tjou to see. But 
 yes, I do think you will like them ; and anyhow Jack 
 Huysen has got to like them, and treat them hospitably, 
 unless he is anxious to have his hair raised. 
 
 " G-racious me, I think I must hire a haU. I have just 
 read this scrawl over. Sounds ratlier muzzy, don't it ? 
 But it's this poor brain of mine that has got full of con- 
 fusion and cobwebs and theories of equality, when I wasn't 
 attendnig to it. My arms had the whole day's work to do 
 — as they remind me at this minute ; and the Cerebral 
 Hemispheres laid their heads, or their half-heads together, 
 when I was busy with the salmon ; and entered into a 
 conspiracy against me ; and began to make pictures — 
 ghosts, phantom earls, and romantic shepherds and peasant- 
 poets, and I don't know what kind of dreams of a deer- 
 stalker walking down Wabash Avenue. But, as I said, 
 to-morrow I start for Paris, thank goodness ; and in that 
 
182 WHITE HEATHEk 
 
 calmer atmosphere I hope to come to my senses again ; 
 and I will send you a long account of Lily Selden's marriage 
 — though your last letter to me was a fraud : what do I 
 care about the C. M. 0. A. ? This letter, anyhow, you 
 must burn ; I don't feel like reading it over again myself, 
 or perhaps I Avould save you the trouble ; but you may 
 depend on it that the one I shall send you from Paris will 
 be quite sane. 
 
 " Second P.S. — Of course you must manage Jack Huysen 
 with a little discretion. I don't want to be drawn into it 
 any more than I can help ; I mean, I would just hate to 
 write to him direct and ask him for a particular favour ; 
 but this is a very little one, and you know him as well as 
 any of us. And mind you burn this letter — instantly — the 
 moment you have read it — for it is just full of nonsense 
 and wool-gathering ; and it ivill not occur agcdn. Toujours 
 a toL C. H." 
 
 " What have you been writing all this time ? " her father 
 said, when she rose. 
 
 " A letter — to Emma Kerfoot." 
 
 " It will make her stare. You don't often write long 
 letters." 
 
 " I do not," said she, gravely regarding the envelope ; 
 and then she added solemnly : " But this is the record of 
 a chapter in my life that is now closed for ever — at least, I 
 hope so." 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HESITATIONS. 
 
 The waggonette stood at the door ; Miss Carry's luggage 
 Avas put in ; and her father was waiting to see her off. But 
 the young lady herself seemed unwilling to take the final 
 step ; twice she went back into the inn, on some pretence 
 or another ; and each time she came out she looked im- 
 patiently around, as if wondering at the absence of some one. 
 
 " Well, ain't you ready yet ? " her father asked. 
 
 " I Avant to say good-bye to Ronald," she said half angrily. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense — you are not going to America. Why, 
 you will be back in ten days or a fortnight. See here, 
 
HESITATIONS 183 
 
 Carry," he added, " are you sure you don't want me to go 
 part of the way with you ? " 
 
 " N"ot at all," she said promptly. " It is impossible for 
 Mary to mistake the directions I wrote to her ; and I shall 
 find her in the Station Hotel at Inverness all right. Don't 
 you worry about me, pappa." 
 
 She glanced along the road again, in the direction of 
 the keeper's cottage ; but there was no one in sight. 
 
 " Pappa dear," she said, in an undertone — for there were 
 one or two onlookers standing by — " if Eonald should 
 decide on giving up his place here, and trying what you 
 suggested, you'll have to stand by him." 
 
 " Oh yes, I'll see him through," was the complacent 
 answer. " I should take him to be the sort of man who 
 can look after himself ; but if he Avants any kind of help — 
 well, here I am ; I won't go back on a man who is acting on 
 my advice. Why, if he were to come out to Chicago " 
 
 " Oh, no, not Chicago, pappa," she said, somewhat 
 earnestly, " not to Chicago. I am sure he will be more at 
 home — he will be happier — in his own country." 
 
 She looked around once more ; and then she stepped 
 into the waggonette. 
 
 " He might have come to see me off," she said, a little 
 proudly. " Good-bye, pappa dear — I will send you a tele- 
 gram as soon as I get to Paris." 
 
 The two horses sprang forward ; Miss Carry waved her 
 lily hand ; and then set to work to make herself comfortable 
 with wraps and rugs, for the morning was chill. She 
 thought it was very unfriendly of Eonald not to have come 
 to say good-bye. And what was the reason of it ? Of 
 course he could know nothing of the nonsense she had 
 written to her friend in Chicago. 
 
 " Have you not seen Ronald about anywhere ? " she asked 
 of the driver. 
 
 " Xo, mem," answered that exceedingly shy youth, " he 
 wass not about all the morning. But I heard the crack of 
 a gun ; maybe he wass on the hill." 
 
 And presently he said — • 
 
 " I'm thinking that's him along the road — it's two of his 
 dogs whatever." 
 
 And indeed this did turn out to be Ptonald who was com- 
 
t84 white heather 
 
 ing striding along the road, with his gun over his shonlde'r, 
 a brace of setters at his heels, and something danghng from 
 his left hand. The driver pulled vc^ his horses. 
 
 " I've brought ye two or three golden plover to take with 
 ye, Miss Hodson," Ronald said — and he handed up the birds. 
 
 Well, she was exceedingly pleased to find that he had 
 not neglected her, nay, that he had been especially thinking 
 of her and her departure. But what should she do with 
 these birds in a hotel ? 
 
 " It's so kind of you," she said, " but really I'm afraid 
 they're — would you not rather give them to my father ? " 
 
 " Ye must not go away empty-handed," said he, with 
 good-humoured insistence ; and then it swiftly occurred to 
 her that perhaps this was some custom of the neighbour- 
 hood ; and so she accepted the little parting gift with a 
 very pretty speech of thanks. 
 
 He raised his cap, and was going on. 
 
 " Ronald," she called, and he turned. 
 
 " I Avish you would tell me," she said — and there was a 
 little touch of colour in the pretty, pale, interesting face— 
 " if there is anything I could bring from London that would 
 help you — I mean books about chemistry — or — or — about 
 trees — or instruments for land-surveying — I am sure I 
 could get them " 
 
 He laughed, in a doubtful kind of way. 
 
 " I'm obliged to ye," he said, " but it's too soon to speak 
 about that. I havena made up my mind yet." 
 
 " Not yet ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " But you Avill ? " 
 
 He said nothing. 
 
 " Good-bye, then." 
 
 She held out her hand, so that he could not refuse to 
 take it. So they parted ; and the horses' hoofs rang again 
 in the silence of the valley ; and she sat looking after the 
 disappearing figure and the meekly following dogs. And 
 then, in the distance, she thought she could make out 
 some faint sound : was he singing to himself as he strode 
 along towards the little hamlet ? 
 
 " At all events," she said to herself, with just a touch of 
 pique, " he does not seem much downhearted at my going 
 
HESITATIONS 1S5 
 
 away." And little indeed did she imaji'ine that this song 
 he was thus carelessly and unthinkingly singing was all 
 about Meenie, and red and white roses, and trifles light 
 and joyous as the summer air. For not yet had black care 
 got a grip of his heart. 
 
 But this departure of Miss Carry for the south now gave 
 him leisure to attend to his own affairs and proper duties, 
 which had suffered somewhat from his attendance in the 
 coble ; and it was not until all these were put straight 
 that he addressed himself to the serious consideration of 
 the ambitious and daring project that had been pkced 
 before him. Hitherto it had been pretty much of an idle 
 speculation — a dream, in short, that looked very charming 
 and fascinating as the black-eyed young lady from over the 
 seas sate in the stern of the boat and chatted through the 
 idle hours. Her imagination did not stay to regard the 
 immediate and practical difficulties and risks ; all these 
 seemed already surmounted ; Ronald had assumed the 
 position to which he was entitled by his abilities and per- 
 sonal character ; she only wondered which part of Scotland 
 he would be living in when next her father and herself 
 visited Europe ; and whether they might induce him to go 
 over with them for a while to the States. But when Ronald 
 himself, in cold blood, came to consider ways and means, 
 there was no such plain and easy sailing. Not that he hesi- 
 tated about cutting himself adrift from his present moorings ; 
 he had plenty of confidence in himself, and knew that he 
 could always earn a living Avith his ten fingers, whatever 
 happened. Then he had between £80 and £90 lodged 
 in a savings bank in Inverness ; and out of that he could 
 pay for any classes he might have to attend, or perhaps 
 offer a modest premium if he wished to get into a surveyor's 
 office for a short time. But there were so many things to 
 think of. What should he do about Maggie, for example ? 
 Then Lord Ailine had always been a good master to 
 him : would it not seem ungrateful that he should throw 
 up his situation without apparent reason ? And so forth, 
 and so forth, through cogitations long and anxious ; and 
 many a half-hour on the hillside and many a half-hour by 
 the slumbering peat-fire was given to this great project ; 
 but always there was one side of the question that he shut 
 
1 86 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 out from his mind. For how could he admit to himself 
 that this lingering hesitation — this dread, almost, of what 
 lay await for him in the future — had anything to do with 
 the going away from Meenie, and the leaving behind him, 
 and perhaps for ever, the hills and streams and lonely glens 
 that were all steeped in the magic and witchery of her 
 presence ? Was it not time to be done with idle fancies ? 
 And if, in the great city — in Edinburgh or Glasgow, as the 
 case might be — he should fall to thinking of Ben Loyal 
 and Bonnie Strath-Naver, and the long, long days on 
 Clebrig ; and Meenie coming home in the evening from 
 her wanderings by Mudal-Water, with a few wild-flowers, 
 perhaps, or a bit of white heather, but always with her 
 beautiful blue-gray Highland eyes so full of kindness as 
 8he stopped for a few minutes' friendly chatting — 'Well, that 
 would be a pretty picture to look back upon, all lambent 
 and clear in the tender colours that memory loves to 
 use. A silent picture, of course : there would be no 
 sound of the summer rills, nor the sweeter sound of 
 Meenie's voice ; but not a sad picture ; only remote and 
 ethereal, as if the years had come between, and made 
 everything distant and pale and dreamlike. 
 
 The first definite thing that he did was to write to his 
 brother in Glasgow, acquainting him with his plans, and 
 begging him to obtain some further particulars about the 
 Highland and Agricultural Society's certificates. The 
 answer that came back from Glasgow was most encourag- 
 ing ; for the Eev. Alexander Strang, though outwardly a 
 heavy and lethargic man, had a shrewd head enough, and 
 was an enterprising shifty person, not a little proud of the 
 position that he had won for himself, and rather inclined 
 to conceal from his circle of friends — who were mostly 
 members of his congregation — the fact that his brother was 
 merely a gamekeeper in the Highlands. Nay, more, he 
 was willing to assist ; he would take Maggie into his house, 
 so that there might be no difficulty in that direction ; and 
 in the meantime he would see what were the best class- 
 books on the subjects named, so that Ronald might be 
 working away at them in these comparatively idle spring 
 and summer months, and need not give up his situation 
 prematurely. There was even some hint thrown out that 
 
UESITA TIONS 1 87 
 
 perhaps Ronald might board with his brother ; but this was 
 not pressed ; for the fact was that Mrs. Alexander was a 
 severely rigid disciplinarian, and on the few occasions on 
 which Eonald had been their guest she had given both 
 brothers to understand that the frivolous gaiety of Ronald's 
 talk, and the independence of his manners, and his Grallio- 
 like indifference about the fierce schisms and heart-burnings 
 in the Scotch Church were not, in her opinion, in conson- 
 ance with the atmosphere that ought to prevail in a Free 
 Church minister's house. But on the whole the letter was 
 very friendly and hopeful ; and Ronald was enjoined to let 
 his brother know when his decision should be finally taken, 
 and in what way assistance could be rendered him. 
 
 One night the little Maggie stole away through the dark 
 to the Doctor's cottage. There was a light in the windoAV 
 of Meenie's room ; she could hear the sound of the piano ; 
 no doubt Meenie was practising and alone ; and on such 
 occasions a visit from Maggie was but little interruption. 
 And so the smaller girl went boldly towards the house and 
 gained admission, and was proceeding upstairs without any 
 ceremony, when the sudden cessation of the music caused 
 her to stop. And then she heard a very simple and pathetic 
 air begin — just touched here and there with a few chords : 
 and was Meenie, tired with the hard work of the practising, 
 allowing herself this little bit of quiet relaxation ? She was 
 singing too — though so gently that Maggie could scarcely 
 make out the words. But she knew the song — had not 
 Meenie sung it many times before to her ? — and who but 
 Meenie could put such tenderness and pathos into the 
 simple air .'' She had almost to imagine the words — so gentle 
 was the voice that went with those lightly-touched chords — 
 
 " The sun rase sae rosy, the gray hills adorning, 
 
 Light sprang the laverock, and mounted on hie, 
 When true to the tryst o' blythe May's dewy morning, 
 
 Jeanie cam' linking out owre the green lea. 
 To mark her impatience I crap 'mong the brackens, 
 
 Aft, aft to the kent gate she turned her black e'e; 
 Then lying down dowilie, sighed, by the icillow tree, 
 
 ' I am asleep, do not ivaken me.' " * 
 
 * "7 am asleep, do not waken me" \b the English equivalent of 
 the Gaelic name of the air, which is a very old one, and equally 
 pathetic in its Irish and Higlilaud versions. 
 
i88 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Then there was silence. The httle Maggie waited ; for 
 this song was a great favourite with Eonald, who himself 
 sometimes attempted it ; and she would be able to tell him 
 when she got home that she had heard Meenie sing it — and 
 he always listened with interest to anything, even the smallest 
 particulars, she could tell him about Meenie and about what 
 she had done or said. But where were the other verses ? 
 She waited and listened ; the silence was unbroken. And 
 so she tapped lightly at the door and entered. 
 
 And then something strange happened. For when 
 Maggie shut the door behind her and went forward, Meenie 
 did not at once turn her head to see who this was, but had 
 hastily whipped out her handkerchief and passed it over 
 her eyes. And when she did turn, it was with a kind of 
 look of bravery — as if to dare any one to say that she 
 had been crying — though there were traces of tears on her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " Is it you, Maggie ? I am glad to see you," she managed 
 to say. 
 
 The younger girl was rather frightened and sorely con- 
 cerned as well. 
 
 "But what is it, Meenie dear?" she said, going and 
 taking her hand. " Are you in trouble ? " 
 
 "No, no," her friend said, with an effort to appear quite 
 cheerful, " I was thinking of many things — I scarcely know 
 what. And now take off your things and sit down, Maggie, 
 and tell me all about this great news. It was only this 
 afternoon that my father learnt that you and your brother 
 were going away ; and he would not believe it at first, till 
 he saw Ronald himself. And it is true, after all ? Dear 
 me, what a change there will l^e ! " 
 
 She spoke quite in her usual manner now ; and her lips 
 were no longer trembling, but smiling ; and the Highland 
 eyes were clear, and as full of kindness as ever. 
 
 " But it is a long way off, Meenie," the smaller girl 
 began to explain quickly, when she had taken her seat by 
 the fire, " and Eonald is so anxious to please everybody, 
 and — and that is why I came along to ask you what you 
 think best." 
 
 " I "i " said Meenie, with a sadden slight touch of 
 reserve. 
 
HESITATIONS 189 
 
 " It'll uot be a nice thing going away among strange folk," 
 said her companion, " but I'll no grumble if it's to do Eonald 
 good ; and even among strange folk — well, I don't care 
 as long as I have Eonald and you, Meenie. And it's to 
 Glasgow, and not to Edinburgh, he thinks he'll have to go ; 
 and then you will be in Glasgow too ; so I do not mind 
 anything else. It will not be so lonely for any of us ; and 
 we can spend the evenings together — oh no, it will not be 
 lonely at all " 
 
 " But, Maggie," the elder girl said gravely, " I am not 
 going to Glasgow." 
 
 Her companion looked up quickly, with frightened 
 eyes. 
 
 " But you said you were going, Meenie ! " 
 
 " (Jh no," the other said gently. " My mother has often 
 talked of it — and I suppose I may have to go some time ; 
 but my father is against it ; and I know I am not going at 
 present anyway." 
 
 " And you are staying here — and — and Eonald and me 
 ■ — we will be by ourselves in Glasgow ! " the other exclaimed, 
 as if this prospect were too terrible to be quite compre- 
 hended as yet. 
 
 " But if it is needful he should go ? " Meenie said. 
 " People have often to part from their friends like that," 
 
 " Yes, and it's no much matter when they have plenty of 
 friends," said the smaller girl, with her eyes becoming moist, 
 " but, Meenie, I havena got one but you." 
 
 " Oh no, you must not say that," her friend remonstrated. 
 " Why, there is your brother in Glasgow, and his family ; I 
 am sure they will be kind to you. And Eonald will make 
 plenty of friends wherever he goes — you can see that for 
 yourself -, and do you think you will be lonely in a great 
 town like Glasgow ? It is the very place to make friends, 
 and plenty of them " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know what to do — I don't know what to 
 do, if you are not going to Glasgow, Meenie ! " she broke 
 in. " I wonder if it was that that Eonald meant. He 
 asked me whether I would like to stay here or go with 
 him, for IMrs. Murray has offered to take me in, and I 
 would have to help at keeping the books, and that is very 
 kind of them, I am sure, for I did not think I could be of 
 
igo WHITE HE A THER 
 
 any use to anybody. And you are to be here in Inver- 
 Mudal — and Ronald away in Glasgow " 
 
 Well, it was a bewildering thing. These were the two 
 people she cared for most of all in the world ; and virtually 
 she was called upon to choose between them. And if she 
 had a greater loyalty and reverence towards her brother, 
 still, Meenie was her sole girl-friend, and monitress, and 
 counsellor. What would her tasks be without Meenie's 
 approval ; how could she get on with her knitting and 
 sewing without Meenie's aid ; what would the days be like 
 without the witchery of Meenie's companionship — even if 
 that were limited to a passing word or a smile ? Ronald had 
 not sought to influence her choice ; indeed, the alternative 
 had scarcely been considered, for she believed that Meenie 
 was going to Glasgow also ; and with her hero brother and 
 her beautiful girl-friend both there, what more could she 
 wish for in the world ? But now ■ ? 
 
 Well, Meenie, in her wise and kind way, strove to calm 
 the anxiety of the girl ; and her advice was altogether in 
 favour of Maggie's going to Glasgow with her brother 
 Ronald, if that were equally convenient to him, and of no 
 greater expense than her remaining in Inver-Mudal with 
 Mrs. Murray. 
 
 " For you know he wants somebody to look after him," 
 Meenie continued, with her eyes rather averted, " and if 
 it does not matter so much here about his carelessness of 
 being wet and cold, because he has plenty of health and 
 exercise, it will be very different in Glasgow, where there 
 should be some one to bid him be more careful." 
 
 " But he pays no heed to me," the little sister sighed, 
 " unless I can tell him you have been saying so-and-so — 
 then he listens. He is very strange. He has never once 
 worn the blue jersey that I knitted for him. He asked me 
 a lot of questions about how it was begun ; and I told him 
 as little as I could about the help you had given me," she 
 continued evasively, " and when the snow came on, I thought 
 he would wear it ; but no — he put it away in the drawer 
 with his best clothes, and it's lying there all neatly folded 
 up — and what is the use of that ? If you were going to 
 Glasgow, Meenie, it would be quite different. It will be 
 very lonely there. . _ . 
 
HESITATIONS igt 
 
 " Lonely ! " the other exclaimed ; " with your brother 
 Ronald, and your other brother's family, and all their 
 friends. And then you will be able to go to school and 
 have more regular teaching — Eonald spoke once or twice to 
 me about that." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," the little Maggie said ; but the prospect 
 did not cheer her much ; and for some minutes they both 
 sate silent, she staring into the fire. And then she said 
 bitterly — ■ 
 
 " 1 wish the American people had never come here. It 
 is all their doing. It never would have come into Ronald's 
 head to leave Inver-Mudal but for them. ' And where else 
 will he be so well known — and — and every one speaking- 
 well of him— and every one so friendly " 
 
 " But, Maggie, these things are always happening," her 
 companion remonstrated. " Look at the changes my father 
 has had to make." 
 
 " And I wonder if we are never to come back to Inver- 
 Mudal, Meenie ? " the girl said suddenly, with appealing 
 
 Meenie tried to laugh, and said — 
 
 " Who can tell ? It is the way of the world for people 
 to come and go. And Glasgow is a big place — perhaps 
 you would not care to come back after having made plenty 
 of friends there." 
 
 " My friends will always be here, and nowhere else," the 
 smaller girl said, with emphasis. " Oh, Meenie, do you 
 think if Ronald were to get on well and make more money 
 than he has now, he would come back here, and bring me 
 too, for a week maybe, just to see every one again ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell you that, Maggie," the elder girl said, 
 rather absently. 
 
 After this their discussion of the strange and unknown 
 future that lay before them languished somehow ; for Meenie 
 seemed preoccupied, and scarcely as blithe and hopeful as 
 she had striven to appear. But when Maggie rose to 
 return home^saying that it was time for her to be looking 
 after Ronald's supper — her friend seemed to pull herself 
 together somewhat, and at once and cheerfully accepted 
 Maggie's invitation to come and have tea with her the 
 following afternoon. 
 
193 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 "For you have been so little in to see us lately," the 
 small Maggie said ; " and Ronald always engaged with the 
 American people — and often in the evening too as well as 
 the whole day long." 
 
 " But I must make a great deal of you now that you are 
 going away," said Miss Douglas, smiling. 
 
 " And Ronald — will I ask him to stay in till you come ? " 
 
 But here there was some hesitation. 
 
 " Oh no, I would not do that^no doubt he is busy just 
 now with his preparations for going away. I would not say 
 anything to him — you and I will have tea together by 
 ourselves." 
 
 The smaller girl looked up timidly. 
 
 " Ronald is going away too, Meenie." 
 
 Perhaps there was a touch of reproach in the tone ; at all 
 events Meenie said, after a moment's embarrassment — ■ 
 
 " Of course I should be very glad if he happened to be 
 in the houss — and — and had the time to spare ; but I think 
 he will understand that, Maggie, without your saying as 
 much to him." 
 
 " He gave plenty of his time to the American young 
 lady," said Maggie, rather proudly. 
 
 " But I thought you and she were great friends," Meenie 
 said, in some surprise. 
 
 " It takes a longer time than that to make friends," the 
 girl said ; and by and by she left. 
 
 Then Meenie went up to her room again, and sate down 
 in front of the dull, smouldering peat-fire, with its heavy 
 lumps of shadow, and its keen edges of crimson, and its 
 occasional flare of flame and shower of sparks. There w^ere 
 many pictures there— of distant things ; of the coming 
 spring-time, with all the new wonder and gladness somehow 
 gone out of it ; and of the long long shining summer days, 
 and Inver-Mudal grown lonely ; and of the busy autumn 
 time, with the English people come from the south, and no 
 Ronald there, to manage everything for them. For her 
 heart was very affectionate ; and she had but few friends ; 
 and Glasgow was a great distance away. There were some 
 other fancies too, and self-questionings and perhaps even 
 self-reproaches, that need not be mentioned here. When, 
 by and by, she rose and went to the piano, which was still 
 
'* AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS'' 193 
 
 open, it was not to resume her seat. She stood absently 
 staring at the keys — for these strange pictures followed her ; 
 and indeed that one half -unconscious trial of " / am asleep, 
 do not icalcen me " had been quite enough for her in her 
 present mood. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 "among the TJNTRODDEIT WATS." 
 
 Yes ; it soon became clear that Meenie Douglas, in vie^v 
 of this forthcoming departure, had resolved to forego some- 
 thing of the too obvious reserve she had recently imposed 
 on herself — if, indeed, that maidenly shrinking and shyness 
 had not been rather a matter of instinct than of will. AVhen 
 Eonald came home on the following evening she was seated 
 with Maggie in the old familiar way at a table plentifully 
 littered with books, patterns, and knitting ; and when she 
 shook hands with him, her timidly uplifted eyes had much 
 of the old friendliness in them, and her smile of welcome 
 was pleasant to see. It was he who was diffident and 
 very respectful. For if her mother had enjoined her to 
 be a little more distant in m.anncr towards this one or 
 the other of those around her — well, that was quite intelli- 
 gible ; that was quite right ; and he could not complain ; 
 but on the other hand, if the girl herself, in this very small 
 domestic circle, seemed rather anxious to put aside those 
 barriers which were necessary out of doors, he would not 
 presume on her good-nature. And yet — and yet — he could 
 not help thawing a little ; for she was very kind, and even 
 merry withal ; and her eyes were like the eyes of the 
 Meenie of old. 
 
 " I am sure Maggie will be glad to get away from Inver- 
 Mudal," she was saying, " for she will not find anywhere a 
 schoolmistress as hard as I have been. But maybe she 
 will not have to go to school at all, if she has to keep house 
 for you ? " 
 
 "But she'll no have to keep house for me," Ronald 
 said at once. " If she goes to Glasgow, she'll be much 
 better with my l^rother's family, for that wiU be a home 
 for her." 
 
194 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " And wliere will you go, Ronald ? " she said. 
 
 " Oh, into a lodging — •! can fend for myself." 
 
 At this she looked grave — nay, she did not care to 
 conceal her disapproval. For had she not been instructing 
 Maggie in the mysteries of housekeeping in a town — as far 
 as these were known to herself : and had not the little girl 
 showed great courage ; and declared there was nothing she 
 would not attempt rather than be separated from her 
 brother Eonald ? 
 
 " It would never do," said he, " to leave the lass alone in 
 the house all day in a big town. It's very well here, where 
 she has neighbours and people to look after her from time 
 to time ; but among strangers " 
 
 Then he looked at the table. 
 
 " But Where's the tea ye said ye would ask Miss Douglas 
 in to ? " 
 
 " We were so busy with the (rlasgow housekeeping," 
 Meeuie said, laughing, " that we forgot all about it." 
 
 " I'll go and get it ready now," the little Maggie said, 
 and she went from the room, leaving these two alone. 
 
 He was a little embarrassed ; and she was also. There 
 had been no amantium irae of any kind ; but all the same 
 the integratio amotis was just a trifle difficult ; for she on 
 her side was anxious to have their old relations re-estabhshed 
 during the brief period that would elapse ere he left the 
 neighbourhood, and yet she was hesitating and uncertain ; 
 while he on his side maintained a strictly respectful reserve. 
 He " knew his place ; " his respect towards her was part of 
 his own self-respect ; and if it did not occur to him that it 
 was rather hard upon Meeuie that all the advances towards 
 a complete rehabilitation of their friendship should come 
 from her, that was because he did not know that she was 
 moved by any such wish, and also because he was completely 
 ignorant of a good deal else that had happened of late. Of 
 course, certain thiiigs Avere obvious enough. Clearly the 
 half-frightened, distant, and yet regretful look with which 
 she had recently met and parted from Mm when by chance 
 tliey passed each other in the road was no longer in her eyes ; 
 there was a kind of appeal for friendliness in her manner 
 towards him ; she seemed to say, " Well, you are going 
 away ; don't let us forget the old terms on which we used 
 
''AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS'' 195 
 
 to meet." And not only did he quickly respond to that 
 feeling, but also he was abundantly grateful to her ; did 
 not he wish to carry away with him the pleasantest 
 memories of this beautiful, sweet-natured friend, who had 
 made all the world magical to him for a while, who had 
 shown him the grace and dignity and honour of true 
 womanhood, and made him wonder no less at the charm 
 of her clear-shining simplicity and naturalness ? The very 
 name of " Love Meenie " would be as the scent of a rose 
 — as the song of a lark — for him through all the long 
 coming years. 
 
 " It will make a great change about here," said she, with 
 her eyes averted, " your going away." 
 
 " There's no one missed for long," he answered, in his 
 downright fashion. " Where people go, people come ; the 
 places get filled up." 
 
 " Yes, but sometimes they are not quite the same," said 
 she rather gently. She was thinking of the newcomer. 
 Would he be the universal favourite that Ronald was — 
 always good-natured and laughing, but managing everybody 
 and everything ; lending a hand at the sheep-shearing or 
 playing the pipes at a wedding — anything to keep life 
 moving along briskly ; and always ready to give her father 
 a day's hare-shooting or a turn at the pools of Mudal- Water 
 when the spates began to clear ? She knew quite well — 
 for often had she heard it spoken of — that no one could 
 get on as well as Eonald with the shepherds at the time of 
 the heather-burning : when on the other moors the shepherds 
 and keepers were growling and quarrelling like rival leashes 
 of collies, on Lord Ailine's ground everything was peace and 
 quietness and good humour. And then she had a vague 
 impression that the next keeper would be merely a keeper ; 
 whereas Ronald was — Ronald. 
 
 " I'm sure I was half-ashamed," said he, " when I got his 
 lordship's letter. It was as fair an offer as one man could 
 make to another ; or rather, half a dozen offers ; for he 
 said he would raise my wage, if that was what was wrong ; 
 or he would let me have another lad to help me in the 
 kennels ; or, if I was tired of the Highlands he would get 
 me a place at his shooting in the south. Well, I was sweirt 
 to trouble his lordship with my small affairs ; but after that 
 
 2 
 
196 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 I couldna but sit down and write to him the real reason 
 of my leaving " 
 
 " And I'm certain," said she quickly, " that he will write 
 back and offer you any help in his power." 
 
 " No, no," said he, with a kind of laugh, " the one letter 
 is enough — if it ever comes to be a question of a written 
 character. But it's just real friendly and civil of him ; 
 and if I could win up here for a Aveek or a fortnight 
 in August, I would like well to lend them a hand and 
 set them going ; for it will be a good year for the grouse, 
 I'm thinking " 
 
 " Oh, will you be coming to see us in August ? " she said, 
 with her eyes suddenly and rather wistfully lighting up. 
 
 " "Well, I don't know how I may be situated," said he. 
 " And there's the railway expense — though I would not 
 mind that much if I had the chance otherwise ; for his 
 lordship has been a good master to me ; and I would just 
 like to lend him a hand, and start the new man with the 
 management of the dogs and the beats. That's one thing 
 Lord Ailine wdll do for me, I hope : I hope he will let me 
 hajVe a word about the man that's coming in my place ; I 
 would not like to have a cantankerous ill-tempered brute 
 of a fellow coming in to have charge of my dogs. They're 
 the bonniest lot in Sutherlandshire." 
 
 All this was practical enough ; and meanwhile she had 
 set to work to clear the table, to make Avay for Maggie. 
 When the young handmaiden appeared with the tea-things 
 he left the room for a few minutes, and presently returned 
 with a polecat-skin, carefully dressed and smoothed, in his 
 hand. 
 
 " Here's a bit thing," said he, " I wish ye would take, if 
 it's of any use to you. Or if ye could tell me anything ye 
 wished it made into, I could have that done when I go 
 south. And if your mother would like one or two of the 
 deer-skins, I'm sure she's welcome to them ; they're useful 
 about a house." 
 
 " Indeed, you are very kind, Ronald," said she, flushing 
 somewhat, " and too kind, indeed — for you know that ever 
 since we have known you all these kindnesses have always 
 been on one side — and — and — we have never had a chance 
 of doing anything in return for you " 
 
''AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS'' 197 
 
 " Oh, nonsense," said he good-naturedly. " "Well, there 
 is one thing your father could do for me — if he would take 
 my gun, and my rifle, and rods and reels, and just keep 
 tbem in good working order, that would be better than 
 taking them to Glasgow and getting them spoiled with rust 
 and want of use. I don't want to part with them altogether ; 
 for they're old friends ; and I would like to have them left 
 in safe keeping " 
 
 She laughed lightly. 
 
 " And that is yom- way of asking a favour — to offer my 
 father the loan of all these things. Well, I am sure he will 
 be very glad to take charge of them " 
 
 " And to use them," said he, '* to use them ; for that is 
 the sure way of keeping them in order." 
 
 " But perhaps the new keeper may not be so friendly ? " 
 
 " Oh, I will take care about that," said he confidently ; 
 " and in any case you know it was his lordship said your 
 father might have a day on the Mudal- Water whenever he 
 liked. And what do you think, now, about the little skin 
 there ? " 
 
 " I think I will keep it as it is — just as you have given 
 it to me," she said simply. 
 
 In due course they had tea together ; but that after- 
 noon or evening meal is a substantial affair in the north — 
 cold beef, ham, scones, oatmeal cake, marmalade, jam, and 
 similar things all making their appearance— and one not 
 to be lightly hurried over. And Meenie was so much at 
 home now ; and there was so much to talk over ; and she 
 was so hopeful. Of com'se, Eonald must have holiday- 
 times, like other people ; and where would he spend these, 
 if he did not come back to his old friends ? And he would 
 have such chances as no mere stranger could have, coming 
 through on the mail-cart and asking everywhere for a little 
 trout-fishing. Ronald would have a day or two's stalking 
 from Lord Ailine ; and there was the loch ; and Mudal- 
 Water ; and if the gentlemen were after the grouse, would 
 they not be glad to have an extra gun on the hill for a daji 
 or two, just to make up a bag for them ? 
 
 " And then," said Meenie, with a smile, " who knows but 
 that Ronald may in time be able to have a shooting of his 
 own ? Stranger things have happened." 
 
198 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 When tea was over and the thhigs removed he lit 
 his pipe, and the girls took to their knitting. And never, 
 he thought, had Meenie looked so pretty and pleased and 
 quickly responsive with her clear and happy eyes. He 
 forgot all about Mrs, Douglas's forecast as to the future 
 estate of her daughter ; he forgot all about the Stuarts of 
 Grlengask and Orosay ; this was the Meenie whom Mudal 
 knew, whom Clebrig had charge of, who was the friend and 
 companion of the birds and the wild-flowers and the summer 
 streams. What a wonderful thing it was to see her small 
 fingers so deftly at work ; when she looked up the room 
 seemed full of light and entrancement ; her sweet low laugh 
 found an echo in the very core of his heart. And they all 
 of them, for this one happy evening, seemed to forget that 
 soon there was to be an end. They were together ; the 
 world shut out ; the old harmony re-established, or nearly 
 re-established ; and Meenie was listening to his reading of 
 " the Eve of St. Agnes " — in the breathless hush of the little 
 room — or she was praying, and in vain, for him to bring 
 his pipes and play " Lord Lovat's Lament," or they were 
 merely idly chatting and laughing, while the busy work 
 of the fingers went on. And sometimes he sate quite 
 silent, listening to the other two ; and her voice seemed 
 to fill the room with music ; and he wondered whether 
 he could carry away in his memory some accurate 
 recollection of the peculiar, soft, rich tone, that made 
 the simplest things sound valuable. It was a happy 
 evening. 
 
 But when she rose to go away she grew graver ; and 
 as she and Ronald went along the road together — it was 
 very dark, though there were a few stars visible here and 
 there — she said to him in rather a low voice — ■ 
 
 " Well, Ronald, the parting between friends is not very 
 pleasant, but I am sure I hope it will all be for the best, 
 now that you have made up yom' mind to it. And every 
 one seems to think you will do well." 
 
 " Oh, as for that," said he, " that is all right. If the 
 worst comes to the worst, there is always the Black 
 Watch." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Well, they're always sending the Forty-Second into the 
 
''AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS'' 199 
 
 thick of it, no matter what part of the world the fighting is, 
 so that a man has a good chance. I suppose I'm not too 
 old to get enlisted ; sometimes I wish I had thought of it 
 when I was a lad — I don't know that I would like anything 
 better than to be a sergeant in the Black Watch. And I'm 
 sure I would serve three years for no pay at all if I could 
 only get one single chance of winning the V.O. But it 
 comes to few ; it's Hke the big stag — it's there when ye least 
 expect it ; and a man's hand is not just always ready, and 
 steady. But I'm sure ye needna bother about what's going 
 to happen to me — that's of small account." 
 
 " It is of very great account to your friends, at all events," 
 said she valiantly, " and you must not forget, when you are 
 far enough away from here, that you have friends here Avho 
 are thinking of you and always wishing you well. It will be 
 easy for you to forget ; you will have all kinds of things to 
 do, and many people around you ; but the others here may 
 often think of you, and wish to hear from you. It is the 
 one that goes away that has the best of it, I think — among 
 the excitement of meeting strange scenes and strange 
 faces " 
 
 " But I am not likely to forget," said he, rather peremp- 
 torily ; and they walked on in silence. 
 
 Presently she said — 
 
 " I have a little album that I wish you would write some- 
 thing in before you go away altogether." 
 
 " Oh yes, I will do that," said he, " and gladly." 
 
 " But I mean something of your own," she said rather 
 more timidly. 
 
 " Why, but who told you " 
 
 " Oh, every one knows, surely ! " said she. " And why 
 should you conceal it ? There were the verses that you 
 wrote about. Mrs. Semple's little girl — I saw them when I 
 was at Tongue last — and indeed I think they are quite 
 beautiful : will you write out a copy of them in my 
 album ? " 
 
 " Or something else, perhaps," said he — for instantly it 
 flashed upon him that it was something better than a mere 
 copy that was needed for Meenie's book. Here, indeed, 
 was a chance. If there was any inspiration to be gained 
 from these wild hills and straths and lonely lakes, now was 
 
20O WHITE HE A THER 
 
 the time for them to be propitious ; would not Clebrig — 
 the giant Clebrig — whose very child Meenie was — come to 
 his aid, that so he might present to her some fragment of 
 song or rhyme not unworthy to be added to her little 
 treasury ? 
 
 " I will send for the book to-morrow," said he. 
 
 " I hope it will not give you too much trouble," said she, 
 as they reached the small gate, " but it is very pleasant to 
 turn over the leaves and see the actual writing of your 
 friends, and think of when you last saw them and where 
 they are now. And that seems to be the way with most of 
 our friends ; I suppose it is because we have moved about 
 so ; but there is scarcely any one left — and if it was not for 
 a letter occasionally, or a dip into that album, I should 
 think we were almost alone in the world. Well, good-night, 
 Eonald — or will you come in and have a chat with my 
 father ? " 
 
 " I am afraid it is rather late," he said. 
 
 "Well, good-night." 
 
 " Good-night, Miss Douglas," said he, and then he walked 
 slowly back to his home. 
 
 And indeed he was in no mood to turn to the scientific 
 volumes that had already arrived from Glasgow. His heart 
 was all afire because of the renewal of Meenie's kindness ; 
 and the sound of her voice was still in his ears ; and quite 
 naturally he took out that blotting-pad full of songs and 
 fragments of songs, to glance over them here and there, and 
 see if amongst them there was any one likely to recall to him 
 when he was far away from Inver-Mudal the subtle mystery 
 and charm of her manner and look. And then he began 
 to think what a stranger coming to Inver-Mudal would see 
 in Meenie '^. Perhaps only the obvious things — the pretty 
 oval of the cheek and chin, the beautiful proud mouth, the 
 wide-apart contemplative eyes ? And perhaps these would 
 be sufficient to attract ? He began to laugh with scorn at 
 this stranger — who could only see these obvious things — 
 who knew nothing about Meenie, and the sweetness of her 
 ways, her shrewd common-sense and the frank courage and 
 honour of her mind. And what if she were to turn coquette 
 under the influence of this alien admiration ? Or perhaps 
 become sharply proud ? Well, he set to work — out of 
 
''AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS'' 201 
 
 a kind of whimsicality — and in time had scribbled out 
 this — 
 
 FLOWER AUCTION. 
 
 Who loill huy pansies 9 
 
 There are her eyes. 
 Dew-soft and tender^ 
 
 Love in them lies. 
 
 Who will buy roses'? 
 
 There are her lips, 
 And there is the nectar 
 
 That Cupidon sips. 
 
 Who IV ill huy lilies ? 
 
 There are her cheeks. 
 And there the shy Hushing 
 
 That maidhood bespeaks 
 
 " Meenie, Love Meenie, 
 
 WJtat must one pay'?" 
 " Good stranger, the market's 
 
 Not open to-day ! " 
 
 He looked at the verses again and again ; and the longer 
 he looked at them the less he liked them — he scarcely knew 
 why. Perhaps they were a little too literary ? They seemed 
 to lack naturalness and simplicity ; at all events, they were 
 not true to Meenie ; why should Meenie figure as a flippant 
 coquette ? And so he threw them away and turned to his 
 books — not the scientific ones — to hunt out something that 
 was like Meenie. He came near it in Tannahill, but was 
 not quite satisfied. A verse or two in Keats held his fancy 
 for a moment. But at last he found what he wanted in 
 Wordsworth — ■ 
 
 " A violet by a mossy stone 
 Half hidden from the eye ; 
 — Fair as a star, when only one 
 Is shining in the sky." 
 
 Yes ; that was liker Meenie — 'who " dwelt among the 
 untrodden ways." 
 
202 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A LESSO^^ IN rLY-FISniNG. 
 
 Miss Carry Eodson' returned from Paris in a very radiant 
 mood ; she bad had what she called a real good time, and 
 everything connected with the wedding had gone off most 
 successfully. Her dress, that she had ordered long before 
 she came to the Highlands, was a perfect fit ; Lily Selden 
 made the most charming and beautiful of brides ; and no 
 less a person than a prince (rather swarthy, and bailing 
 from some mysterious region east of the Carpathians) 
 had proposed the health of the bridesmaids, and had 
 made especial mention of the young ladies who had 
 travelled long distances to be present on the auspicious 
 occasion. 
 
 However, on the morning after her return to Inver-Mudal 
 her equanimity was somewhat dashed. "When she went 
 along the passage to the little hall — to see what the morn- 
 ing was like outside — she found waiting there a respectable- 
 looking elderly Highlander, with grizzled locks, who touched 
 his cap to her, and who had her waterproof over his arm. 
 This last circumstance made her suspicious ; instantly she 
 went back to her father. 
 
 " Who is that man ? " she asked. 
 
 " What man ? " 
 
 "Why, an old man, who is waiting there, and he has 
 got my waterproof slung over his arm." 
 
 " Well, I suppose that is the nev7 gillie." 
 
 " Isn't Ronald going down "i " she said, with very evident 
 disappointment. 
 
 " (3f course not," her father said, with some sharpness. 
 " I think you have taken up enough of his time. And just 
 now, when he is getting ready to go away, do you think I 
 could allow him to waste day after day in attending to us ? 
 Seems to me it would be more to the point if you put your 
 small amount of brain into devising some means of squaring 
 up with him for what he has done already." 
 
 " Oh, very well," she said — or rather, what she did really 
 say was " Oh, vurry well " — and the pretty, pale, attractive 
 face resumed its ordinary complacency, and she went off 
 
A LESSON IN FLY-FISHING 203 
 
 to make friends with the new gillie. She was on good 
 terms with the old Highlander in about a couple of minutes ; 
 and presently they were on their way down to the loch, 
 along with the lad John. Her father was to follow as soon 
 as he had finished his letters. 
 
 But she was now to discover, what she had never dis- 
 covered before, that salmon-fishing on a loch is a rather 
 monotonous affair, unless the fish are taking very freely 
 indeed. For one thing, the weather had settled down 
 into a fine, clear, spring-like calm and quiet that was not 
 at all favourable to the sport. It was very beautiful, no 
 doubt ; for sometimes for hours together the lake would be 
 like a sheet of glass — the yellow shores and purple birch- 
 woods all accurately doubled, with nearer at hand the 
 faint white reflections of the snow-peaks in the north 
 stretching out into the soft and deep blue ; and when a 
 breath of wind, from some unexpected point of the com- 
 pass, began to draw a sharp line of silver botween earth 
 and water, and then came slowly across the loch to them, 
 ruffling out that magic inverted picture on its way, the 
 breeze was deliciously fresh and balmy, and seemed to 
 bring with it tidings of the secret life that was working 
 forward to the leafiness of summer. They kept well out 
 into the midst of this spacious circle of loveliness, for old 
 Malcolm declared they would be doing more harm than 
 good by going over the fishing ground ; so she had a 
 sufficiently ample view of this great panorama of water and 
 wood and far mountain-slopes. But it grew monotonous. 
 She began to think of Paris, and the brisk, busy days — a 
 hurry of gaiety and pleasure and interest using up every 
 possible minute. She wished she had a book — some 
 knitting — anything. Why, when Ronald was in the boat 
 — with his quick sarcastic appreciation of every story she 
 had to tell, or every experience she had to describe — there 
 was always enough amusement and talking. But this old 
 man was hopeless. She asked him questions about his 
 croft, his family, his sheep and cows ; and he answered 
 gravely ; but she took no interest in his answers, as her 
 father might have done. She was unmistakably glad to 
 get ashore for lunch — which was picturesque enough, by 
 the way, with that beautiful background all around ; and 
 
204 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 neither her father nor herself was in any hurry to break up 
 the small picnic-party and set to work again. 
 
 Nor did they do much better in the afternoon — though 
 her father managed to capture a small eight-pounder ; and 
 so, in the evening, before dinner, she went along to Eonald 
 to complain. She found him busy with his books ; his 
 gun and cap and telescope lying on the table beside him, 
 showed that he had just come in. 
 
 " Ay," said he, " it's slow work in weather like this. But 
 will ye no sit down ? " and he went and brought her a 
 chair. 
 
 " Xo, I thank you," said she ; " I came along to see if 
 you thought there was likely to be any change. Is your 
 glass a good one ? " 
 
 " First-rate," he answered, and he went to the small 
 aneroid and tapped it lightly. " It was given me by a 
 gentleman that shot his first stag up here. I think he 
 would have given me his head, he was so pleased. Well, 
 no, Miss Hodson, there's not much sign of a change. 
 But I'll tell ye what we'll do, if you're tired of the loch, 
 we'll try one or two of the pools on the Mudal." 
 
 " You mean the river down there ? " 
 
 " There's not much hope there either — for the water's 
 low the now ; but we miglit by chance get a little wind, 
 or there are some broken bits in the stream " 
 
 " But you mean with a fly — how could I throw a fly ? " 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 " Ye'll never learn younger," was the quiet answer. " If 
 there's no change to-morrow I'll take ye up the river my- 
 self — and at least ye can get some practice in casting " 
 
 " Oh no, no," said she hurriedly, " thank you very much, 
 but I must not take up your time " 
 
 " I'm no so busy that I cannot leave the house for an 
 hour or two," said he — and she understood by his manner 
 that he was "putting his foot down," in which case she 
 knew she might just as well give in at once. " But I warn 
 ye that it's a dour river at the best, and not likely to be in 
 good ply ; however, we might just happen on one." And 
 then he added, by way of explanation, " If we should, it 
 will have to be sent to Lord Ailine, ye understand." 
 
 " Why .? " 
 
A LESSON IN FlY-PlSH/NG ^05 
 
 " Because the river doesna belong to your fishing ; it 
 goes with the shooting." 
 
 " Oh," said she, somewhat coldly. " And so, when Lord 
 Ailine gives any one a day's fishing he claims whatever 
 fish they may catch ? " 
 
 " When his lordship gives a day's fishing he does not ; 
 hut when the keeper does— that's different," was the per- 
 fectly simple and respectful answer. 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon," said she hastily, and sincerely 
 hoping she had said nothing to wound his feelings. Ap- 
 parently she had not, for he proceeded to warn her about 
 the necessity of her putting on a thick pair of boots ; and 
 he also gently hinted that she might wear on her head 
 something less conspicuous than the bright orange Tarn 0' 
 Shanter of which she seemed rather fond. 
 
 Accordingly, next morning, instead of sending him a 
 message that she was ready, she walked along to the cottage, 
 accoutred for a thorough stiff day's work. The outer door 
 was open, so she entered without ceremony ; and then 
 tapped at the door of the lifctle parlour, which she pro- 
 ceeded to open also. She then found that Ronald was 
 not alone ; there was a young man sitting there, who 
 instantly rose as she made her appearance. She had but 
 a m.omentary glimpse of him, but she came to the conclu- 
 sion that the gamekeepers in this part of the world were 
 a good-looking race, for this was a strongly-built young- 
 fellow, keen and active, apparently, with a rather pink and 
 white complexion, closely-cropped head, bright yellow mous- 
 tache, and singularly clear blue eyes. He wore a plain 
 tweed suit ; and as he rose he picked up a billycock hat 
 that was lying on the table. 
 
 " I'll see you to-night, Ronald," said he, " I'm going off 
 by the mail again to-morrow." 
 
 And as he passed by ]\Iiss Carry, he said, very modestly 
 and respectfully — 
 
 " I hope you will have good sport." 
 
 "Thank you," said she, most civilly, for he seemed a 
 well-mannered young man, as he slightly bowed to her in 
 passing, and made his way out. 
 
 Ronald had everything ready for the start. 
 
 " I'm feared they'll be laughing at us for trying the river 
 
2b6 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 on so clear a day," said he, as he put his big fly-book in 
 his pocket. " And there's been no rain to let the fish 
 get up." 
 
 " Oh I don't mind about that," said she, as he held the 
 door open, and she went out, "it will be more interesting 
 thati the lake. However, I've nothing to say against the 
 lake fishing, for it has done such wonders for my father. I 
 have not seen him so well for years. "Whether it is the 
 quiet life, or the mountain air, I don't know, but he sleeps 
 perfectly, and he has entirely given up the bromide of 
 potassium. I do hope he will take the shooting and come 
 back in the autumn." 
 
 " His lordship was saying there were two other gentlemeu 
 after it," remarked Ronald significantly. 
 
 " Who Avas saying ? " 
 
 " His lordship — that was in the house the now wheii 
 ye came in." 
 
 " Was that Lord Ailine ? " she said— and she almost 
 paused in their walk along the road; 
 
 " Oh yes." 
 
 " You don't say ! Why, how did he come here ? '^ 
 
 " By the mail this morning." 
 
 " With the country people ? " 
 
 " Just like anybody else," he said. 
 
 " Well, I declare ! I thought he would have come with 
 a coach and outriders — in state, you know " 
 
 " What for ? " said he impassively. " He had no luggage, 
 I suppose, but a bag and a waterproof. It's different in 
 the autumn, of course, when all the gentlemen come up, 
 and there's luggage and the rifles and the cartridge-boxes 
 — then they have to have a brake or a waggonette." 
 
 " And that was Lord Ailine," she said, half to herself ; 
 and there was no further speaking between them until they 
 had gone past the Doctor's cottage and over the bridge and 
 were some distance up " the strath that Mudal laves " — to 
 quote her companion's own words. 
 
 " Now," said he, as he stooped and began to put together 
 the slender grilse-rod, " we'll just let ye try a cast or two 
 on this bit of open grass — and we'll no trouble with a fly as 
 
 yet." 
 
 He fastened on the reel, got the line through the rings, 
 
A LESSON TN FLY-FISHING IQ7 
 
 and drew out a few yards' length. Then lie gave her the 
 rod ; showed her how to hold it ; and then stood just 
 beliind her, with his right hand covering hers. 
 
 " Now," said he, " keep your left hand just about as steady 
 as ye can — and don't jerk — this way " 
 
 Of course it Was really he who was making these fetv 
 preliminary casts, and each time the line ran out and fell 
 straight and trembling on the grass. 
 
 " Now try it yoiu'self." 
 
 At first she made a very bad job of it — especially when 
 she tried to do it by main force ; the line came curling 
 down not much more than the rod's length in front of her, 
 and the more she whipped the closer became the curls. 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't catch on quite," she said, uncon- 
 sciously adopting one of her father's phrases. 
 
 " Patience — patience," said he ; and again he gripped 
 her hand in his and the line seemed to run out clear with 
 the gentlest possible forward movement. 
 
 And then he put out more line — -and still more and 
 more — until every backward and upward swoop of the rod, 
 and every forward cast, was accompanied by a " swish " 
 through the air. This was all very well ; and she was 
 throwing a beautiful, clean line ; but she began to wonder 
 when the bones in her right hand would suddenly succumb 
 and be crunched into a jelly. The weight of the rod — 
 which seemed a mighty engine to her — did not tell on her, 
 for his one hand did the whole thing ; but his grip was 
 terrible ; and yet she did not like to speak. 
 
 " Now try for yourself," said he, and he stepped aside. 
 
 " Wait a minute," she said — and she shook her hand, to 
 get the life back iuto it. 
 
 " I did not hm't you ? " said he, in great concern. 
 
 *' We learn in suffering what we teach in song," she said 
 lightly, " If I am to catch a salmon with a fly-rod, I sup- 
 pose I have got to go through something." 
 
 She set to work again ; and, curiously enoagh, she 
 seemed to succeed better with the longer line than with 
 the short one. There was less jerking ; the forward 
 movement was more even ; and though she was far indeed 
 from throwing a good line, it was very passable for a 
 beginner. 
 
2o8 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " You know," said she, giving him a good-humoured hint, 
 " I don't feel like doing this all day." 
 
 " Well, then, we'll go down to the water now," said he, 
 and he took the rod from her. 
 
 They walked down through the swampy grass and 
 heather to the banks of the stream ; and here he got out 
 his fly-book — a bulged and baggy volume much the worse 
 for wear. And then it instantly occurred to her that this 
 was something she could get for him — the most splendid 
 fly-book and assortment of salmon flies to be procured in 
 London — until it just as suddenly occurred to her that 
 he would have little use for these in Glasgow. She saw 
 him select a smallish black and gold and crimson-tipped 
 object from that bulky volume ; and a few minutes there- 
 after she was armed for the fray, and he was standing by 
 watching. 
 
 Now the Mudal, though an exceedingly " dour " salmon- 
 river, is at least easy for a beginner to fish, for there is 
 scarcely anywhere a bush along its level banks. And there 
 were the pools — some of them deep and drumly enough in 
 all conscience ; and no doubt there were salmon in them, 
 if only they could be seduced from their lair. For one 
 thing, Ronald had taken her to a part of the stream where 
 she could not, in any case, do much harm by her preliminary 
 whippings of the water. 
 
 She began — not without some little excitement, and 
 awful visions of triumph and glory if she should really 
 be able to catch a salmon by her own unaided skill. Of 
 course she caught in the heather behind her sometimes ; 
 and occasionally the line would come down in a ghastly 
 heap on the water ; but then again it would go fairly out 
 and over to the other bank, and the letting it down with 
 the current and drawing it across — as he had shown her in 
 one or two casts — was a comparatively easy matter. She 
 worked hard, at all events, and obeyed implicitly— until 
 alas ! there came a catastrophe. 
 
 " A little bit nearer the bank if you can," said he ; " just 
 a foot nearer." 
 
 She clenched her teeth. Back went the rod with all her 
 might — and forward again with all her might — but midway 
 and overhead there was a mighty crack like that of a horse- 
 
A LESSON IN FLY-FISHING 209 
 
 whip ; and calmly he regarded the line as it fell on the 
 water. 
 
 " The fly's gone," said he — ^but with not a trace of 
 vexation. 
 
 " Oh, Ronald, I'm so sorry ! " she cried, for she knew 
 that these things were expensive, even where they did not 
 involve a considerable outlay of personal skill and trouble. 
 
 " Not at all," said he, as he quietly sate down on a dry 
 bunch of heather and got out his book again. " AH 
 beginners do that, I'll just show ye in a minute or two 
 how to avoid it. And we'll try a change now." 
 
 Indeed she was in no way loth to sit down on the 
 heather too ; and even after he had selected the particular 
 Childers he wanted, she took the book, and would have 
 him tell her the names of all the various flies, which, quite 
 apart from their killing merits, seemed to her beautiful and 
 interesting objects. x\nd finally she said — 
 
 " Eonald, my arms are a little tired. "Won't you try a 
 cast or two ? I am sure I shoidd learn as much by looking 
 on." 
 
 He did as he was bid ; and she went with him ; but he 
 could not stir anything. The river was low ; the day was 
 clear ; there was no wind. But at last they came to a part 
 of the stream where there was a dark and deep pool, and 
 below that a wide bed of shingle, while between the shingle 
 and the bank was a narrow channel where the water tossed 
 and raced before breaking out into the shallows. He 
 drew her a little bit back from the bank and made her take 
 the rod again. 
 
 " If there's a chance at all, it's there," he said. " Do ye 
 see that stone over there ? — well, just try to drop the fly a 
 foot above the stone, and let it get into the swirl." 
 
 She made her first cast — the line fell in a tangled heap 
 about three yards short. 
 
 " Ye've got out of the way of it," said he, and he took 
 the rod from her, let out a little more line, and then gave 
 it to her again, standing behind her, with his hand over- 
 gripping hers. 
 
 " Now ! " 
 
 The fly fell a foot short — but clean. The next cast it 
 fell at the precise spot indicated, and was swept into the 
 
 P 
 
210 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 current, and dragged slowly and jerkily across. Again he 
 made the cast for her, with the same negative result ; and 
 then he withdrew his hand. 
 
 " That's right — very well done ! " he said, as she con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " Yes, but what's the use when you have tried " 
 
 She had scarcely got the words out when she suddenly 
 found the line held tight — and tighter — she saw it cut its 
 way through the water, up and towards the hank of the 
 pool above — and down and down was the point of the rod 
 pulled until it almost touched the stream. All this had 
 happened in one wild second. 
 
 " Let the line go ! — what are ye doing, lassie ? " he 
 cried. 
 
 The fact was that in her sudden alarm she had grasped 
 both line and rod more firmly than ever ; and in another 
 half second the fish must inevitably have broken something. 
 But this exclamation of his recalled her to her senses — she 
 let the line go free — got up the rod — and then waited 
 events — with her heart in her mouth. She had not long to 
 wait. It very soon appeared to her as if she had hooked 
 an incarnate flash of lightning ; for there was nothing this 
 beast did not attempt to do ; now rushiug down the narrow 
 channel so close to the bank that a single out-jutting twig 
 must have cut the line ; now lashing on the edge of the 
 shallows ; twice jerking himself into the air ; and then 
 settling down in the deep pool, not to sulk, but to twist 
 and tug at the line in a series of angry snaps. And always 
 it was " Oh, Ronald, what shall I do now ? " or " Ronald, 
 what will he do next ? " 
 
 " You're doing well enough," said he placidly. " But it 
 will be a long fight ; and ye must not let him too far down 
 the stream, or he'll take ye below the footbridge. And 
 don't give him much line ; follow him, tather." 
 
 She Avas immediately called on to act on this advice ; for 
 with one determined, vicious rush, away went the salmon 
 down the stream — she after him as well as her Woman's 
 skirts would allow, and ahvays and valorously she was keep- 
 ing a tight strain on the pliant rod. A,las }. all of a sudden 
 her foot caught in a tuft of heather— down she went, 
 proJde, her arms thrown forward so that nothing could save 
 
A LESSON IN FLY-FISHING 211 
 
 her. But did she let go the rod ? Not a bit ! She clung 
 to it with the one hand ; and when Ronald helped her to 
 her feet again, she had no thought of herself at all — all her 
 breathless interest was centred on the salmon. Fortunately 
 that creature had now taken to sulking, in a pool farther 
 down ; and she followed him, getting in the line the while. 
 
 " But I'm afraid you're hurt," said he. 
 
 " Xo, no." 
 
 Something was tickling the side of her face. She shifted 
 the grip of the rod, and passed the back of her right hand 
 across her ear ; a brief glance showed her that her knuckles 
 were stained with blood. But she took no further heed ; 
 for she had to get both hands on the rod again. 
 
 " She has pluck, that one," Eonald said to himself ; but 
 he said nothing aloud, he wanted her to remain as self- 
 possessed as possible. 
 
 " And what if he goes down to the footbridge, Ronald ? " 
 she said presently. 
 
 " But ye must not let him." 
 
 " But if he will go ? " 
 
 " Then ye'll give me the rod and I'll take it under the 
 bridge." 
 
 The fish lay there as heavy and dead as a stone ; nothing 
 they could do could stir him an inch. 
 
 " The beast has been at this work before," Eonald said. 
 " That jagging to get the hook out is the trick of an old 
 hand. But this sulking will never do at all." 
 
 He left her and went farther up the stream to the place 
 where the river ran over the wide bed of shingle. There 
 he deliberately walked into the water — picking up a few 
 pebbles as he went — and, with a running leap, crossed the 
 channel and gained the opposite bank. Then he quickly 
 walked down to within a yard or two of the spot where the 
 " dour " salmon lay. 
 
 She thought this was very foolish child's play that he 
 should go and fling little stones at a fish he could not see. 
 But presently she perceived that he was trying all he could 
 to get the pebbles to drop vertically and parallel with the 
 line. And then the object of this device was apparent. 
 The salmon moved heavily forward, some few inches only. 
 Another pebble was dropped. This time the fish made a 
 
 p 2 
 
212 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 violent rush up stream that caused Miss Cany's reel to 
 shi'iek ; and off she set after him (but with more circum- 
 spection this time as regards her footing), getting in the 
 line as rapidly as possible as she went. Ronald now came 
 over and joined her, and this was comforting to her 
 nerves. 
 
 Well, long before she had killed that fish she had 
 discovered the difference between loch-fishing and river- 
 fishing ; but she did kill him in the end ; and mightily 
 pleased she Avas when she saw him lying on the sere wintry 
 grass. Eonald would have had her try again ; but she had 
 had enongh ; it was past lunch time, and she was hungry ; 
 moreover, she was tired ; and then again she did not wish 
 that he should waste the whole day. So, when she had 
 sate down for a while, and watched him tie the salmon head 
 and tail, they set out for the village again, very well content ; 
 while as for the slight wound she had received by her ear 
 catching on a twig of heather when she fell, that was quite 
 forgotten now. 
 
 " And ye are to have the fish," said he. " I told his 
 lordship this morning you Avere going to try your hand at 
 the casting : and he said if you got one you would be proud 
 of it, no doubt, and ye were to keep it, of course." 
 
 " Weh, that is very kind ; I suppose I must thank him 
 if I see him ? " 
 
 And she was very curious to know all about Lord Ailine ; 
 and why he should come to Inver-Mudal merely for these 
 few hours ; and what kind of people he brought with him 
 in the autumn. He answered her as well as he could ; and 
 then they went on to other things — all in a very gay and 
 merry mood, for he was as proud as she AA'as over this 
 achievement. 
 
 At the same moment Meenie Douglas was in her own 
 little room, engaged on a work of art of a not very ambitious 
 kind. She had lying before her on the table a pencil- 
 sketch in outline of such features of the landscape as could 
 be seen from the Avindow — the loch, the wooded pro- 
 montories, Ben Clebrig, and the little clump of trees that 
 sheltered the inn ; and she AA'as engaged in making a 
 smaller copy of this drawing, in pen and ink, on a paper- 
 cutter of broAvn wood. She was not much of an artist, 
 
A LESSON IN FLY-FISHING 213 
 
 perhaps ; but surely these simple outliues were recognisable ; 
 and if they were to be entitled " A Souvenir" and carried 
 away to the south as a little parting present, might they not 
 ill some idle moment of the future recall some brief memory 
 of these northern wilds ? So she was at work on this task 
 ^and very careful that the lines should be clear and precise 
 — when she heard the sound of voices without — or rather 
 one voice, which presently she recognised to be Ronald's : 
 she could not easily mistake it. And if she were to go to 
 the window and get him to stop for a minute at the gate, 
 and show him the sketch that she had just about finished — 
 perhaps he would be pleased ? 
 
 She went to the window — but instantly drew back. She 
 liad just caught a glimpse : it was the American young lady 
 he was walking with — at a time when he was supposed to 
 be so busy ; and he was carrying her rod for her and her 
 ulster as well as the salmon ; and they were laughing and 
 gaily talking together, like a pair of lovers almost on this 
 clear spring day. Meenie went slowly back to the table — 
 her face perhaps a trifle paler than usual ; and she sate 
 down and began to look at the little drawing that she had 
 been rather proud of. But her lips were proud and firm. 
 Why should she give a drawing to any one — more especially 
 to one who was so ready with his friendship and so quick 
 to consort with strangers ? Tlie lines on the brown wood 
 seemed cold and uninteresting ; she was no longer anxious 
 that they should suggest an accm'ate picture ; nay, she 
 pushed the thing away from her, and rose, and went back 
 to the window, and stood idly gazing out there, her lips still 
 proud, her mien defiant. 
 
 And then — well, Ronald was going away. Was it worth 
 while to let pride or self-love come between them and 
 becloud these last few days, when perhaps they might never 
 see each other again ? For well she knew of her mother's 
 aims and hopes Avith regard to herself ; and well she knew 
 that — whatever she may have guessed from the verses of 
 Ronald's which assuredly had never been meant for her to 
 see — it was neither for him nor for her to expect that the 
 harsh facts and necessities of the world should give place 
 and yield to a passing fancy, a dream, a kind of wistful, 
 half-poetic shadow of what otherwise might have been. But 
 
214 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 at least Eonald and she might part friends ; nay, they 
 should part friends. And so she returned to the table — 
 overmastering her momentary pride ; and she took up the 
 discarded little drawing and regarded it with gentler eyes. 
 For, after all (as she could not forget) Eonald was going 
 away. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 POETA . . . NOX FIT. 
 
 It soon became obvious that the salmon-fishers from the 
 other side of the Atlantic had got into a long spell of 
 deplorably fine weather ; and a gentle melancholy settled 
 down upon the souls of the gillies. In vain, morning after 
 morning, the men searched every quarter of the heavens 
 for any sign of even a couple of days' deluge to flood the 
 rivers and send the kelts down and bring the clean salmon 
 up from the sea. This wild and bleak region grew to be 
 like some soft summer fairyland ; the blue loch and the 
 yellow headlands, and the far treeless 'stretches of moor lay 
 basking in the sunlight ; Ben Loyal's purples and browns 
 were clear to the summit ; Ben Clebrig's snows had nearly 
 all melted away. Xor could the discontented boatmen 
 understand how the two strangers should accept this state 
 of affairs with apparent equanimity. Both were now 
 provided Avith a book ; and Avhen the rods had been 
 properly set so as to be ready for any emergency, they 
 could pass the time pleasantly enough in this perfect 
 stillness, gliding over the smooth waters, and drinking in 
 the sweet mountain air. As for ?,Iiss Carry, she had 
 again attacked the first volume of Gibbon — for she would 
 not be beaten ; and very startling indeed it was when a 
 fish did happen to strike the minnow, to be so suddenly 
 summoned back from Palmyra to this Highland loch. In 
 perfect silence, with eyes and attention all absented, she 
 would be reading thus — 
 
 " ^Mwll tlie Sijrian queen was Irought into the presence of 
 Aurelian, he sternly asked her, how she had presumed to rise 
 in arms against the Emperor of Rome ? The answer of 
 Zemlia was a prudent mixture of respect and firmness " — 
 
PORTA . . . NON FIT 215 
 
 when sharp would come the warning cry of Malcolm — 
 " There he is, Miss I^there he is ! " — and she would dash 
 down the historian to find the rod being violently shaken 
 and the reel screaming out its joyous note. Moreover, in 
 this still weather, the unusual visitor not unfrcquently 
 brought some other element of surprise with him. She 
 acquired a considerable experience of the different forms of 
 foul-hooking and of the odd manoeuvres of the fish in such 
 circumstances. On one occasion the salmon caught himself 
 on the minnow by his dorsal fin ; and for over an hour 
 contented himself with rolling about under water Avithout 
 once showing himself, and with such a strain that she 
 thought he must be the champion fish of the lake : when 
 at last they did get him into the boat he was found to be a 
 trifle under ten pounds. But, taken altogether, this cultiva- 
 tion of literature, varied by an occasional " fluke " of a cap- 
 ture, and these placid and dreamlike mornings and after- 
 noons, were far from being as satisfactory as the former and 
 wilder days when Eonald was in the boat, even with all 
 their discomforts of wind and rain and snow. 
 
 By this time she had acquired another grievance. 
 
 "Why did you let him go, pappa, without a single word ? " 
 she would say, as they sate over their books or newspapers 
 in the evening. " It was my only chance. You could 
 easily have introduced yourself to him by speaking of the 
 shooting " 
 
 "You know very well. Carry," he would answer— trying 
 to draw her into the fields of common sense — " I can say 
 nothing about that till I see how mother's health is." 
 
 " I am sure she would say yes if she saw what the place 
 has done for you, pappa ; salmon-fishing has proved better 
 for you than bromide of potassium. Bnt that's not the 
 trouble at all. Why did you let him go ? Why did you 
 let him spend the evening at the Doctor's ? — and the next 
 morning he went about the whole time with Eonald ! My 
 only chance of spurning a lord, too. Do they kneel in 
 this country, pappa, when they make their declaration ; 
 or is that only in plays ? Never mind ; it would be all the 
 same. ' No, my lord ; the daughter of a free Republic 
 cannot wed a relic of feudalism ; farewell, my lord, fare 
 well ! I know that you are heart-broken for life ; but the 
 
2i6 WHITR HEATHER 
 
 daughter of a free Eepublic must be true to her manifest 
 destiny.' " 
 
 " Oh, be quiet ! " 
 
 " And then the girls at home, when I got back, they 
 would all have come crowding around : ' Do tell, now, did 
 you get a British nobleman to propose. Carry ? ' ' What 
 do you imagine I went to Em'ope f or ? ' ' And you 
 rejected him ? ' ' You bet your pile on that. Why, 
 you should have seen him writhe on the floor when I 
 spurned him ! I spurned him, I tell you I did — ^the 
 daughter of a free Republic ' " 
 
 " Will you be quiet ! " 
 
 " But it was really too bad, pappa ! " she protested. 
 " There he was lounging around all the morning. And all 
 I heard him say was when he was just going — when he was 
 on the mail-car, ' Ronald,' he called out, ' have you got a 
 match about you ? ' — and he had a wooden pipe in his 
 hand. And that's all I know about the manners and 
 conversation of the British nobility ; and what will they 
 say of me at home ? " 
 
 " When does Ronald go ? " he would ask ; and this, at 
 least, was one sure way of bringing her back to the paths of 
 sanity and soberness ; for the nearer that this departure 
 came, the more concerned she was about it, having some 
 faint consciousness that she herself had a share of the 
 responsibility. 
 
 And in another direction, moreover, she was becoming 
 a little anxious. No message of any kind had arrived from 
 the Clticago Citizen. Now she had written to Miss Kerfoot 
 before she left for Paris ; her stay in the French capital 
 had extended to nearly three weeks ; there was the space 
 occupied in going and returning ; so that if Jack Huysen 
 meant to do anything with the verses it was about time 
 that that should appear. And the more she thought of it 
 the more she set her heart on it, and hoped that Ronald's 
 introduction to the reading public would be a flattering one 
 and one of which he could reasonably be proud. Her 
 father had it in his power to secure his material advance- 
 ment ; and that was well enough ; but what if it were 
 reserved for her to confer a far greater service on him l! 
 For if this first modest effort were welcomed in a friendly 
 
PORTA . . . MON FIT 217 
 
 way, might he not be induced to put forth a volume, and 
 claim a wider recognition ? It need not interfere with his 
 more practical work ; and then, supposing it were suc- 
 cessful ? Look at the status it would win for him — a thing 
 of far more value in the old country, where society is 
 gradated into ranks, than in her country, where every one 
 (except hotel clerks, as she insisted) was on the same plane. 
 He would then he the equal of anybody — even in this old 
 England ; she had at least acquired so far a knowledge of 
 English society. And if he owed the first suggestion and 
 impulse to her ? — if she were to be the means, in however 
 small and tentative a fashion, of his ultimately establishing 
 his fame ? That he could do so if he tried, she never 
 thought of doubting. She saw him every day, aud the 
 longer she knew him the more she was certain that the 
 obvious mental force that seemed to radiate from him in 
 the ordinary conversation and discussion of everyday life 
 only wanted to be jjut into a definite literary channel to 
 make its mark. And was not the time ripe for a poet ? 
 And it was not Edinburgh, or Glasgow, or London that had 
 nowadays to decide on his merits, but two great continents 
 of English-speaking people. 
 
 At length came the answer to her urgent prayer — a letter 
 from Miss Kerfoot and a copy of the Chicago Citizen. 
 The newspaper she opened first ; saw with delight that a 
 long notice — a very long notice indeed — had been accorded 
 to the verses she had sent ; and with a proud heart she 
 put the paper in her pocket, for careful reading when she 
 should get down to the lake. Miss Kerfoot's letter she 
 glanced over ; but it did not say much ; the Avriter observed 
 that Mr. Jack Huysen had only seemed half pleased when 
 informed of Carry's extraordinary interest in the phenomenal 
 Scotch gamekeeper ; and, referring to the article in the 
 Citizen, she said Jack Huysen had entrusted the writing of 
 it to Mr. Gr. Quincy Eegan, who was, she understood, one 
 of the most cultured young men in Chicago, and likely to 
 make quite a reputation for himself ere long. There were 
 some other matters mentioned in this letter ; but they need 
 not detain us here. 
 
 Miss Carry was in very high spirits as she set forth from 
 the inn with her father to walk down to the boats. They 
 
2i8 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 met Ronald, too, on their way ; lie was accompanied "by the 
 man who was to take his place after his leaving ; and Miss 
 Carry could not help comparing the two of them as they 
 came along the road. But, after all, it was not outward 
 appearance that made the real difference between men ; it 
 was mental stature ; she had that in her pocket which could 
 show to everybody how Ronald was a head and shoulders 
 over any of his peers. And she took but little interest in 
 the setting up of the rods or the selection of the minnows ; 
 she wanted to be out on the lake, alone, in the silence, to 
 read line by line and word by word this introduction of her 
 hero to the public. 
 
 The following is the article : 
 
 " A Reiiaekable Literary Discovert — Our Fellow- 
 citizens ABROAD — Another rustic Poet — Chicaoo 
 CLAiiis HIM. It may be in the recollection of some of our 
 readers that a few years ago a small party of American 
 tourists, consisting of Curtis H. Mack, who was one of our 
 most distinguished major-generals in the rebellion, and is 
 now serving on the Indian frontier ; his niece, Miss Hettie 
 F. Doig, a very talented lady and contributor to several of 
 our best periodicals'; and John Grimsby Patterson, editor of 
 the Baltimore Evening News, were travelling in Europe, 
 when they had the good fortune to discover an Irish poet, 
 Patrick Milligan, who had long languished in obscurity, no 
 doubt the victim of British jealousy as well as of misrule. 
 Major-Cleneral Mack interested himself in this poor man, 
 amd, in conjunction with WiUiam B. Stevens, of Cleveland, 
 Ohio, had liun brought over to this country, where they 
 were eventually successful in obtaining for him a post- 
 mastership in New Petersburg, Conn., leaving him to devote 
 such time as he pleased to the service of the tuneful nine. 
 Mr. Milligan's Doric reed has not piped to us much of late 
 years ; but we must all remember the stirring verses which 
 he wrote on the occasion of Colonel George W. Will's 
 nomination for Governor of Connecticut. It has now been 
 reserved for another party of American travellers, still 
 better known to us than the above, for they are no other 
 than our esteemed fellow-citizen, Mr. Josiah Hodson and 
 his brilliant and accomplished daughter. Miss Caroline 
 Hodson, to make a similar discovery in the Highlands of 
 
POETA . . . NON FIT 219 
 
 Scotland ; and in view of such recurring instances, we may 
 well ask whether there be not in the mental alertness of 
 our newer civilisation a capacity for the detection and re- 
 cognition of intellectual merit which exists not among the 
 deadening influences of an older and exhausted civilisation. 
 It has sometimes been charged against this country that we 
 do not excel in arts and letters ; that we are in a measure 
 careless of them ; that political problems and material 
 interests occupy our mind. The present writer, at least, is 
 in no hurry to repel that charge, odious as it may seem to 
 some. We, as Americans, should remember that the 
 Athenian Eepublic, with which our western Eepublic has 
 nothing to fear in the way of comparison, when it boasted 
 its most lavish display of artistic and literary culture, was 
 no less conspicuous for its moral degeneracy and political 
 corruption. It was in the age of Pericles and of Phidias, of 
 Socrates and Sophocles, of Euripides and Aristophanes and 
 Thucydides, that Athens showed herself most profligate ; 
 private licence was unbridled ; justice was bought and sold ; 
 generals incited to war that they might fill their pockets 
 out of the public purse ; and all this spectacle in striking 
 contrast with the manly virtues of the rude and unlettered 
 kingdom of Sparta, whose envoys were laughed at because 
 they had not the trick of Athenian oratory and casuistry. 
 We say, then, that we are not anxious to repel this charge 
 brought against our great western Republic, that we assign 
 to arts and letters a secondary place ; on the contrary, we 
 are content that the over-cultivation of these should fatten 
 on the decaying and effete nations of Euroj^e, as phosphorus 
 shines in rotten wood." 
 
 Now she had determined to read every sentence of this 
 article conscientiously, as something more than a mere 
 intellectual treat ; but, as she went on, joy did not seem to 
 be the result. The reference to Patrick Milligan and the 
 postmastership in Connecticut she considered to be distinctly 
 impertinent ; but perhaps Jack Huysen had not explained 
 clearly to the young gentleman all that she had written to 
 Emma Kerfoot ? Anyhow, she thought, when he came to 
 Ronald's little Highland poem, he would perhaps drop his 
 Athenians, and talk more like a reasonable human being. 
 
 " That the first strain from the new singer's lyi'e should 
 
226 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 be placed at the services of the readers of the Citizen, we 
 owe to the patriotism of the well-known and charming lady 
 whose name we have given above ; nor could the verses 
 have fallen into better hands. In this case there is no need 
 that Horace should cry to Tyndaris — 
 
 matre pulchrd filia imlclirior. 
 Quern criminosis cunque voles inodtim 
 Pones iambis, sive flammd 
 Sive mart libet Hadriano. 
 
 Moreover, we have received a hint that this may not be 
 the last piece of the kind with which we may be favoured ; 
 so that we have again to thank our fair fellow-townswoman 
 for her kindly attention. But lest our readers may be 
 growing weary of this j^roJ eg om en o n, ^Ye will at once quote 
 this latest utterance of the Scottish muse which has come 
 to us under such favourable auspices : " 
 
 Here followed Eonald's poor verses, that perhaps looked 
 insignificant enough, after this sonorous trmnpet-blaring. 
 The writer proceeded : 
 
 " Now certain qualities in this composition are so obvious 
 that we need hardly specify them ; we give the writer credit 
 for simplicity, pathos, and a hearty sympathy with the 
 victims of the tyrannical greed of the chase-loving British 
 landlord. But it is with no intent of looking a gift-horse 
 in the mouth (which would be a poor return for the 
 courtesy of the lady who has interested herself in the rustic 
 bard) if we proceed to resolve this piece into its elements, 
 that we may the more accurately cast the horoscope of this 
 new applicant for the public applause. To begin with, the 
 sentiment of nostalgia is but a slender backbone for any 
 work of literary art. In almost every case it is itself a 
 fallacy. What were the conditions under which these 
 people — arbitrarily and tyrannically, it may have been— 
 were forced away from their homes ? Either they were 
 bad agriculturists or the land was too poor to support them ; 
 and in either case their transference to a more generous 
 soil could be nothing but a benefit to them. Their life 
 must have been full of privations and cares. Forsan et Imc 
 oUm meminisse juvahit ; but the pleasure ought to lie in 
 thinking of the escape ; so that we maintain that to base 
 any piece of literary work on such a false sentiment as 
 
POET A . . . NON FIT 221 
 
 nostalgia is seen to be, leads us to suspect the veracity of 
 the writer and calls upon us to be on our guard. More- 
 over, we maintain that it is of the essence of pastoral and 
 idyllic poetry to be cheerful and jocund ; and it is to be 
 observed that sadness prevails in poetry only when a nation 
 has passed its youth and becomes saturated with the regret 
 of- old age. We prefer the stories told 
 
 Where Corydon and Thijrsis viet 
 Are at their savoury dinner set; 
 
 and the lyrist when he sings 
 
 Didce ridentem Lalagen amabo, 
 Dulee Joquentem ; 
 
 and we hold that when the poets of a nation are permeated 
 by a lackadaisical sentiment — when they have the candour 
 to style themselves the idle singers of an empty day — when 
 the burden of their song is regret and weariness and a 
 lamentation over former joys — then it is time for such 
 poets and the nation they represent to take a back seat in 
 the lecture halls of literature, and give way to the newer 
 and stronger race that is bound to dominate the future." 
 
 She read no farther ; and it is a great pity that she did 
 not ; for the writer by and by went on to say some very nice 
 things about these unlucky verses ; and even hinted that 
 here was a man who might be benefited by coming to stay 
 in Chicago, — "the future capital of the future empire of 
 the world," — and by having his eyes opened as to the rate 
 of progress possible in these modern days ; and wound up 
 with a most elaborate compliment to the intellectual per- 
 spicacity and judgment of Miss Carry herself. She did 
 not read beyond what is quoted above for the simple reason 
 that she was in a most violent rage, and also extremely 
 mortified with herself for being so vexed. She tore the 
 newspaper into shreds, and crushed these together, and 
 flung them into the bottom of the boat. Her cheeks were 
 quite pale ; her eyes burning ; and through all the anger of 
 her disappointment ran the shame of the consciousness that 
 it was she who had exposed Konald to this insult. "What 
 though he should never know anything about it ? Her 
 friends in Chicago would know. And it was the man whom 
 
223 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 she wanted to glorify and make a hero of who had, through 
 her instrumentality, been subjected to the pedantic criticism, 
 the pretentious analyses, and, worst of all, the insulting 
 patronage of this unspeakable ass. Suddenly she regretted 
 the destruction of the newspaper ; she would like to have 
 looked at it again, to justify her wrath. No matter ; she 
 could remember enough ; and she would not forget Jack 
 Huysen's share in this transaction. 
 
 She was very silent and reserved at lunch time ; and her 
 father began to believe that, after all, in spite of her repeated 
 assurances, their ill-luck with the fishing was weighing on 
 her spirits. 
 
 "You know, Carry," said he, " it is not in the nature of 
 things that weather like this can last in the Highlands of 
 Scotland. It is notoriously one of the wettest places in the 
 world. There mvM be rain coming soon ; and then think 
 of all the fish that will be rushing up in shoals, and what a 
 time we shall have." 
 
 " I am not disappointed with the fishing at all, pappa," 
 she said. *' I think we have done very well." 
 
 " What is the matter, then ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing." 
 
 And then she said — 
 
 " Well, I will tell you, pappa. I asked Jack Huysen to 
 do me a very particular favour ; and he did not do it ; and 
 when I next see Jack Huysen, I think he will find it a very 
 cold day." 
 
 The words were mysterious ; but the tone was enough. 
 
 And all the afternoon she sate in the stern of the coble 
 and brooded, composing imaginary letters to the editor of 
 the NciD Yorlc Herald, to the editor of the Nation, to the 
 editor of the Chicago Trihune, to the editor of Puclc, and 
 a great many other journals, all of these phantom epistles 
 beginning " As an American girl I appeal to you," and 
 proceeding to beg of the editor to hold up to merciless 
 scorn a certain feeble, shallow, and impertinent article 
 (herewith enclosed) which had appeared in the Ghicarjo 
 Citizen. And on the way home, too, in the evening, she 
 began to question her father as to his personal acquaintance 
 with editors and journalists, which seemed to be of the 
 slightest ; and she at length admitted that she wanted sbme 
 
POETA . . . NON FIT 223 
 
 one to reply — and sharply — to an article that had been 
 written about a friend of hers. 
 
 " You let that alone," her father said. " It's not very 
 easy for any one to meddle in the politics of our country 
 without coming out more or less tattooed ; for they don't 
 mind what they say about you ; and you are very well to 
 be out of it." 
 
 " It isn't politics at all," she said. " And — and — the 
 article is written about a friend of mine — and — I want to 
 have the writer told what a fool he is." 
 
 " But probably he would not believe it," her father said 
 quietly. 
 
 " He would see that some one else believed it." 
 
 " I am not sure that that would hurt him much," was the 
 unsatisfactory answer. 
 
 When they drew near to Inver-JMudal she found herself 
 quite afraid and ashamed at the thought of their possibly 
 meeting- Ronald, Had she not betrayed him ? He had 
 sought for no recognition ; probalily he was too proud or 
 too manly and careless about what any one might write of 
 him ; it was she who had put him into that suppliant atti- 
 tude, and brought upon him the insolent encouragement of 
 a microcephalous fool. This was the return she had made 
 him for all his kindness to her father and to herself. Why, 
 he had told her to Ixirn the verses ! And to think that she 
 should have been the means of submitting them to the 
 scrutiny and patronage of this jackanapes — and that Mr. J. 
 C. Huysen should as good as say " Well, this is what we 
 think of your prodigy "■ — all this was near bringing tears of 
 rage to her eyes. For Miss Carry, it must be repeated, was 
 " a real good fellow," and very loyal to her friends, and 
 impatient of injustice done them ; and perhaps, uncon- 
 sciously to herself, she may have felt some of the consterna- 
 tion of the wild animal whose duty it is to protect her mate 
 with her superior feminine watchfulness, and who, through 
 neglect or carelessness, allows the destroyer to come in and 
 slay. In any case, it certainly promised to be " a very cold 
 day " for Mr. Jack Huysen when these two should meet in 
 Chicago. 
 
 That night, after dinner, father and daughter went out 
 for a stroll ; for by this time the moon was drawing to its 
 
224 
 
 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 full again ; and all the world lay peaceful and silent in the 
 wan clear light. They had not emerged from the trees in 
 front of the inn on to the white pathway of the road when 
 a sound in the distance caught Miss Carry's ears, and 
 instantly she touched her father's arm and drew him back 
 into the shadow. She wanted to hear what song this was 
 that Eouald was singing on his homeward way. 
 
 At first she could make out nothing but fragments of 
 the air — clear and soft and distant — 
 
 ^^ 
 
 •^ »«— I — ^ 1^ »« — 1 »' . • . — I 
 
 n*^ . - T — I fs— ^^^^5^T — r^- — -r-»-f^ ^ ' -m-V^-m—^ 
 
 but as he drew nearer the words became more distinct : 
 
 And kiss'd her ripe ros - ee, and blest her black c;*e ; And ay 
 
 when - e'er we meet, 
 
 k I ? I 
 
 
 3=it 
 
 ;f-^li 
 
 feiiig, for the sound is sweet, 
 
 sleep but ye've wak - en'd me.' 
 
 So clear and penetrating and careless and joyous was 
 this singing ! — her heart was stirred with pride as she 
 listened ; this was not the voice of a man who would trouble 
 himself with any whipper-snapper criticism ; — nay, she began 
 to wonder that she had wasted so much iudignation on so 
 trivial a thing. Then there was a sudden silence, except 
 for his footfall ; and presently the dark figure appeared out 
 there on the white road— his shadow a sharp black in front 
 of him, the little terrier trotting behind him — and in a 
 minute or so the long swinging stride had carried him past 
 their ambush on his homeward way to the cottage. 
 
 " "What a splendid voice that fellow has got ! " her father 
 said, as they also now went out on to the white highway, 
 and took the opposite direction. 
 
 " He seems to be very well contented with himself," she 
 jsaid, rather absently. 
 
A LAST DA V ON THE LOCH 225 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 A LAST DAY ON THE LOCH. 
 
 Ronald came down to the loch-side the next morning just 
 as she was about to get into the coble — her father having 
 started a few minutes before. 
 
 " I hear you have not been doing very well with the fish- 
 ing," said he, in that brisk, business-like fashion of his. 
 
 " The salmon appear to have gone away somewhere," she 
 replied. 
 
 " Oh, but that will never do," said he cheerfully. " We 
 must try and make some alteration." 
 
 He took the key of the kennels from his pocket. 
 
 "Here, Johnnie lad, ye may go and take the dogs out 
 for a run." 
 
 Was Ronald, then, coming with her ? Her eyes brightened 
 with anticipation ; there was a welcome in the look of her 
 face that ought to have been sufficient reward for him. 
 IsTor had she the courage to protest — though she knew that 
 his time was drawing short now. As for the salmon — well, 
 it was not about salmon she was thinking exclusively. 
 
 " They say a change of gillie sometimes brings a change 
 of luck," said he good-naturedly ; and he began to overhaul 
 the tackle, substituting smaller minnows for those already 
 on. " And I think we will try down at the other end of 
 the loch this time. We will make sure of some trout in 
 any case." 
 
 " But it is so far away, Ronald ; are you certain you can 
 afford the time .? " she was bound, in common fairness, to 
 ask. 
 
 ' ' Oh yes, I can afford the time," said he, " even if this 
 should have to be my last day on the loch. Besides, if we 
 do not treat you well, maybe you'll never come back." 
 
 " And what is the use of our coming back, when you 
 won't be here ? " she was on the point of saying, but she 
 did not say it, fortunately. 
 
 Then they set forth, on this still summer-like day ; and 
 they hailed the other boat in passing, and told them of their 
 intended voyage of exploration. Indeed their prospects of 
 
226 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 sport at the setting out were anything hut promising ; the 
 long levels of the lake were mostly of a pale glassy blue and 
 white ; and the little puffs of wind that stirred the sur- 
 face here and there into a shimmer of silver invariably died 
 down again, leaving the water to become a mirror once 
 more of rock and tree and hill. But she was well content. 
 This was an unknown world into which they were now 
 penetrating ; and it was a good deal more beautiful than 
 the upper end of the lake (where the best fishing ground 
 was) with which they had grown so familiar. Here were 
 hanging woods coming right down to the water's edge ; and 
 lofty and precipitous crags stretching away into the pale 
 blue sky ; and winding bays and picturesque shores where 
 the huge boulders, green and white and yellow with lichen, 
 and the rich velvet moss, and the withered bracken, and 
 the silver-clear stems of the birch-trees were all brilliant in 
 the sun. The only living creatures that seemed to inhabit 
 this strange silent region were the birds. A pair of eagles 
 slowly circled round and round, but at so great a height 
 that they were but a couple of specks which the eye was apt 
 to lose ; black -throated divers and golden-eyed divers, dis- 
 turbed by these unusual visitors, rose from the water and 
 went whirring by to the upper stretches of the lake ; a hen- 
 harrier hovered in mid-air, causing a frantic commotion 
 among the smaller birds beneath ; the curlews, now wheel- 
 ing about in pairs, uttered their long warning whistle ; the 
 peewits called angrily, flying zig-zag, with audible whuffing 
 of their soft broad wings ; the brilliant Httle redshanks fiew 
 like a flash along the shore, just skimming the water ; and 
 two great wild-geese went by overhead, with loud, harsh 
 croak. And ever it was Eonald's keen eye that first caught 
 sight of them ; and he would draw her attention to them ; 
 and tell her the names of them all. And at last — as they 
 were coming out of one of the small glassy bays, and as he 
 was idly regarding the tall and rocky crags that rose above 
 the birchwoods — he laughed lightly. 
 
 " Ye glaiket things," said he, as if he were recognising 
 some old friends, " what brings ye in among the sheep ? " 
 
 " What is it, Pionald .? " she asked — and she followed the 
 direction of his look towards those lofty crags, but could 
 make dtit riothing unusual. 
 
A LAST DAY ON THE LOCH 227 
 
 *' Dinna ye see the hinds ? " he said quietly. 
 
 " Where — where ? " she cried, in great excitement ; for 
 she had not seen a single deer all the time of her stay. 
 
 "At the edge of the brown corrie — near the sky-line. 
 There are three of them — dinna ye see them ? " 
 
 " No, I don't ! " she said impatiently. 
 
 " Do ye see the two sheep ? " 
 
 " I see two white specks — I suppose they're sheep. " 
 
 " Well — just above them." 
 
 But the boat was slowly moving all this time ; and pre- 
 sently the gradual change in their position brought one of 
 the hinds clear into view on the sky-line. The beautiful 
 creature, with its graceful neck, small head, and upraised 
 ears, was evidently watching them, but with no apparent 
 intention of making off ; and presently Miss Carry, whose 
 eyes were becoming better accustomed to the place, could 
 make out the other two hinds, one of them lying on the 
 grass, the other contentedly feeding, and paying no heed 
 whatever to the passing boat. 
 
 "I thought you said the sheep drove them away," she 
 said to him, 
 
 " It's the men and the dogs mostly," he answered. " Some- 
 times they will come in among the sheep like that, if the 
 feeding tempts them. My word, that would be an easy 
 stalk now — if it was the season." 
 
 Very soon they found that the three hinds were no longer 
 in view ; but there were plenty of other things to claim their 
 attention on this solitary voyage. What, for example, was 
 this great circular mass of stones standing on a projecting 
 promontory ? These were the remains, he explained to 
 her, of a Pictish fort. Anotlier, in better preservation, was 
 on the opposite shore ; and, if she cared to visit it, she 
 might make her way into the hollow passages constructed 
 between the double line of wall, if she were not afraid of 
 adders, nor yet of some of the uncemented stones falling 
 upon her. 
 
 " And what are these ? " she said, indicating the ruins of 
 certain circles formed on the hill-plateaux just above the 
 loch. 
 
 " They're down in the Ordnance Survey as ' hut-circles,' " 
 he said, " but that is all I know about them." 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " At all events, there must have been plenty of people 
 living- here at one time ? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " Well, I don't think I ever saw any place in our country 
 looking quite so lonely as that," she said, regarding the 
 voiceless solitudes of Avood and hill and crag. " Seems as if 
 with us there Avas always some one around — camping out, 
 or something— but I dare say in Dacotah or Idaho you 
 Avould get lonelier places than this even. Well, noAV, what 
 do they call it ? " she asked, as an afterthought. 
 
 " What ?— the strath here ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I suppose they would call it part of Strath-Naver." 
 
 The mere mention of Strath-Naver struck a chill to her 
 heart. It recalled to her how she had betrayed him by 
 sending those harmless verses across the Atlantic, and sub- 
 jecting them to the insolence of a nincompoop's patronage. 
 And if Ronald should ever get to know ? Might not some 
 busybody send him a copy of the paper ? These Scotch 
 people had so many relatives and friends all through the 
 States. Or perhaps his brother in Glasgow might have 
 some correspondent over there ? She dared not look him 
 in the face, she felt so guilty ; and once or twice she was 
 almost on the point of confessing everything, and begging 
 for his forgiveness, and getting him to promise that he 
 Avould not read the article should it ever be sent to him. 
 
 And then it occurred to her as a very* strange thing that 
 from the moment of Ronald's appearance that morning at 
 the loch-side until now she had never even given a thought 
 to AA'hat had caused her so much annoyance the day before. 
 His very presence seemed to bring with it an atmosphere 
 of I'epose and safety and self-conhdence. When she had 
 seen him go stalking by on the previous night, she had in- 
 stantly said to herself — " Oh, that is not the kind of man 
 to Avorry about Avhat is said of him." And this morning, 
 Avhen he came down to the boat, she had never thought of 
 him as a criticised and suffering poet, but as — well, as the 
 Ronald that all of them kncAv and were familiar with — self- 
 reliant, good-natured, masterful in his Avay, and ever ready 
 Avith a laugh and a song and a jest, save when there was 
 any young lady there, to make him a Uttle more demure 
 
A LAST DAY ON THE LOCH 229 
 
 and respectful in his manner. Ronald a disappointed poet ? 
 — Ronald suffering agony because a two-for-a-quarter kind 
 of a creature out there in Chicago did not think well of 
 him ? She ventured to lift her eyes a little. He Avas not 
 looking her way at all. He was regarding the shore in- 
 tently ; and there was a quiet and humorous smile on the 
 hard-set, sun-tanned face. 
 
 " There are six — seven — blackcocks ; do ye see them ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ; what handsome birds they are ! " she said, 
 with a curious sense of relief. 
 
 " Ay," said he, " the lads are very friendly amongst them- 
 selves just now ; but soon there will be wars and rumours 
 of wars when they begin to set up house each for himself. 
 There will be many a pitched battle on those knolls there. 
 Handsome ? Ay, they're handsome enough ; but hand- 
 some is as handsome does. The blackcock is not nearly 
 as good a fellow as the grousecock, that stays with his 
 family, and protects them, and gives them the first warning 
 cry if there's danger. These rascals there wander off by 
 themselves, and leave their wives and children to get on as 
 they can. They're handsome — but they're ne'cr-do-weels. 
 There's one thing : the villain has a price put on his head ; 
 for a man would rather bring down one old cock thumping 
 on the grass than fill his bag with gray hens." 
 
 A disappointed poet indeed ! And she was so glad to 
 find him talking in his usual half bantering careless fashion 
 (that he should talk in any other way was only a wild sug- 
 gestion of her own conscience, struck with a qualm on the 
 mention of Strath-Naver) that she made many inquiries 
 about the habits of black game and similar creatures ; and 
 was apparently much interested ; and all the while was 
 vowing within herself that she would think no more of the 
 mortifying disappointment she had met with, but would 
 give up this last day on the loch wholly to such fancies and 
 (juiet amusements as she would like to look back upon in 
 after hours. 
 
 And a very pleasant day they spent in this still, silent, 
 beautiful region, cut off from all of the world, as it were. 
 There were plenty of trout, and therefore there was plenty 
 of occupation ; moreover, one or two good-sized sea-trout 
 added to the value of the basket. Nor was this solitary 
 
230 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 district quite so untenanted as she had supposed. About 
 mid-day it occurred to her that she was becoming hungry ; 
 and then the wild reflection flashed on her that the kmch 
 was in the other boat — some eight miles away. She con- 
 fided her perplexity — her despair — to Ronald. 
 
 " It is my fault," he said, with vexation very visible in 
 his face. " I should have remembered. But — but — " he 
 added timidly — for he was not accustomed to ministering 
 to the wants of young ladies — " I could get ye some bread 
 and a drink of milk, if that would do." 
 
 " What, right here ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Why, nothing could be better ! " 
 
 They were rowing the boat ashore by this time ; and 
 when they had got to land, he leaped on to the beach, and 
 presently disappeared. In little more than a quarter of an 
 hour he was back again, bringing with him a substantial 
 loaf of home-made bread and a large jug of milk. 
 
 " Well done I " she said, " There's plenty for all of us. 
 Lend me your knife, Eonald." 
 
 " Oh no," said he, " it's for you." 
 
 And a hard fight she had of it ere she could get the two 
 men to accept a fair division ; but she had her way in the 
 end ; and Ronald, seeing that she was determined they 
 should share the milk also (she drank first, and handed the 
 jug to him quite as a matter of course), swiftly and stealthily 
 pulled off the cup from his whisky-flask, and old Malcolm 
 and he drank from that, pouring the milk into it from the 
 jug. It was a frugal picnic ; but she Avas very happy ; and 
 she was telling him that when he came to Chicago, and 
 they were showing him the beauties of Lake IMichigan, they 
 might give him a grander luncheon than this, but none 
 more comfortable. 
 
 In the afternoon they set out for home, picking up a 
 few more trout by the way ; and when they at length drew 
 near to the upper waters of the lake they found the other 
 boat still pursuing its unwearied round. Moreover Mr. 
 Hodson's strict attention to business had been rewarded 
 by the capture of a handsome fish of sixteen pounds ; 
 whereas they had nothing but a miscellaneous collection of 
 bro^YU and white trout. But, just as they were thinking of 
 
A LAST DAY ON THE LOCH 231 
 
 goiiig ashore, for the dnsk was now coming on, a niSst 
 extraordinary piece of luck befell them. Miss Carry was 
 scarcely thinking of the rods when the sudden shriek of 
 one of the reels startled her out of her idle contemplation. 
 
 " Surely that is a salmon, Eonald ! " she cried, as she 
 instantly grasped the rod and got it up. 
 
 He did not stay to answer, for his business was to get in 
 the other line as fast as possible. But he had just got 
 this second rod into his hand when lo ! there was a tugging 
 and another scream of a reel — there was now a salmon at 
 each of the lines ! It was a position of the direst danger — 
 for a single cross rush of either of the fish must inevitably 
 break both off — and how were they to be kept separate, 
 with both rods confined to one boat ? Eonald did not lose 
 his head. 
 
 " Eow ashore, Malcolm — row ashore, man ! " he shouted 
 — " fast as ever ye can, man ! " 
 
 Nor did he wait until the bow had touched land ; he 
 slipped over the edge of the boat while as yet the Avater 
 was deep enough to take him up to the waist ; and away he 
 Avaded, taking the one rod with him, and slowly increasing 
 the distance between the two fish. By the time he got 
 ashore there was a hundred yards or so between them, and 
 he did not attempt to play this salmon at all ; he gave it 
 plenty of law ; and merely waited to see the end of Miss 
 Carry's struggle. 
 
 She hardly knew what had happened, except that Eonald's 
 going away had left her very nervous and excited and help- 
 less. How was she ever to land a fish unless he was at her 
 shoulder directing her ? But by this time old Malcolm had 
 jammed the bow of the boat on to the beach, had got in the 
 oars, and now sate patiently waiting, clip in hand. 
 
 The fish was not a very game one, though he was no kelfc. 
 
 " Put a good strain on him, Miss," said old Malcolm — 
 v,'ho had been taking a sly look round. " Eonald's keeping 
 the other one for ye." 
 
 " What do you say ? " she called to him — rather breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Eonald wiU be wanting ye to play the other fish too," 
 said the old man. " And a wonderful fine thing, if we can 
 get them both — oh yes, indeed. It is not an ordinary 
 
232 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 thing to hook two sahnon at once and land them both — I 
 wass neffer seeing that done except once before." 
 
 " Beast ! " she said, between her teeth — for the fish made 
 a desperate rush away out into the loch, with a magnificent 
 flourish in the air as a finish. But no harm was done ; 
 indeed, it was about his last strong effort to free himself. 
 Yard after yard of the line was got in again ; his struggles 
 to get away grew less and less vigorous ; at last the old 
 Highlander made an adventurous swoop with the clip, and 
 was successful in landing the brilliant creature in the bottom 
 of the boat. 
 
 " Now, Miss," he cried, " leave him to me — leave him to 
 me. Quick, get ashore, and try for the other one. And 
 will you take the clip ? " 
 
 He was greatly excited by this unusual adventure ; and 
 so was she — and breathless, moreover ; but she managed to 
 do as she was bid. She got rather wet in getting ashore ; 
 for Konald was not there to help her ; but she had no time 
 to mind that ; she .made her way as rapidly as she could 
 along the bank, and there was Eonald awaiting her, with a 
 quiet smile on his face. 
 
 " This is better work," said he placidly, as he gave her 
 the rod. 
 
 She was anxious no longer ; she was triumphant, Eonald 
 was with her ; of course she would get this one also. And 
 who but Eonald would have brought such a stroke of luck 
 to the boat ? 
 
 " I would get in some of the line now," said he calmly. 
 " I have been letting him do as he liked ; and he is a long 
 way out. And mind, you'll have to watch him ; he is quite 
 fresh ; there has been no fighting at all yet." 
 
 " Oh, Eonald," she said, with the pretty pale face grown 
 quite rosy with the excitement and the hard work, " won't 
 it be just too splendid for anything if we can get them 
 both!" 
 
 " I hope ye may," he said, " for it's not likely to happen 
 again in your lifetime." 
 
 The fish now began to rebel against the new strain that 
 Avas being put on him, and indulged in a variety of audacious 
 cantrips — apparently at a considerable distance out. By 
 this time the other boat was also ashore, and Miss Carry's 
 
A LAST DA Y ON THE LOCH 233 
 
 father came along to see how Ronald's pupil could play a 
 salmon. Just as he drew near, there was a pretty lively 
 scrimmage going on, 
 
 " Why, you want to have them all," he complained. " It 
 is not fair sport to bag a brace of salmon right and left." 
 
 She did not answer — in fact, she could not ; she had 
 enough to do. For now the salmon seemed wanting to 
 get right out to the middle of the lake ; and the length of 
 line that lay between her and her enemy dragged heavily 
 on her arms. And then he altered his tactics — coming 
 rapidly to the surface and trying to break the suddenly 
 slackened line by furious lashings of his tail. But all this 
 was in vain ; and now, as he seemed yielding a little, she 
 put a heavier strain on him, and began to reel up. It was 
 very well done, and without a word of admonition ; for 
 Ronald was proud of his pupil, and wished to show that he 
 could leave her to herself. 
 
 By and by the fish began to show himself a little more 
 amenable, and preparations were made for receiving him on 
 shore. Miss Carry stepped back a few yards ; her father 
 got out of the Avay altogether ; Ronald crouched down, 
 clip in hand. Of course, when the salmon found himself 
 being guided into the shallows, he was off like a bolt ; and 
 again and again he repeated these sullen ruslies ; but each 
 time they were growing weaker ; and at last, as the gleam 
 of something white showed in the water, Ronald made a 
 sudden plunge with the clip — and the salmon was ashore. 
 He laughed. 
 
 " I suppose this will be my last day on the loch, and a 
 very good finish it is." 
 
 The men brought along the other fish, and these were 
 all laid out on the grass side by side, though it was now 
 too dark to see much of them. As regards the three 
 salmon, Mr. Hodson's, on being accurately weighed, was 
 found to be sixteen and a half pounds, ]\Iiss Carry's two 
 respectively fourteen pounds and eleven pounds. She was 
 a very happy young woman as she walked home with her 
 father and Ronald through the now rapidly gathering dusk. 
 His last day on the lake : — well, it would be something 
 pleasant to look back upon in after times — the summer-like 
 weather, the still water, the silent and sunlit craG,s and woods 
 
254 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 and bays. And j)erhaps, too, he would remember some- 
 thing of her bright society, her friendly disioosition, and the 
 frank good-comradeship with which she shared her meal of 
 milk and bread with two common boatmen. Nay, he could 
 not well help remembering that — and with a touch of grati- 
 tude and kindness, too — even though they should never 
 meet again through the long years of life. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 THE PARTINfl. 
 
 Now amid all his preparations for departure nothing dis- 
 tressed him so much as the difficulty he found in trying to 
 write something worthy of being placed in Meenie's book. 
 It was to be his last gift to her ; she herself had asked for 
 it ; surely he ought to do his best ? And perhaps it was 
 this very anxiety that baffled him. Even of such small 
 lyrical faculty as he possessed, he was in no sense the 
 master. He could write easily enough at the instigation 
 of some passing fancy ; but the fancy had to come uncalled- 
 for ; it was not of his summoning. And now, in this hour 
 of direst need, no kindly Ariel would come to help him. 
 Walking across the lonely moors, Avith the dogs for his sole 
 companions, or lying on a far hillside, and tearing twigs of 
 heather with his teeth, he worried his brain for a subject, 
 and all to no purpose. Perhaps, if praise of Meenie had 
 been permissible — if he could have dared to write anything 
 about herself in her own book — he might have found the 
 task more easy ; for that was the one direction in which 
 his imagination was always facile enough. One morning, 
 indeed, when he was coming down the Clebrig slopes, he 
 saw Miss Carry and Meenie walking together along the 
 road ; and he had not much difficulty in shaping out some 
 such verses as these — jingling the rhymes together without 
 much concern about the sense, and then scribbling the 
 result on the back of an envelope to see how it looked : 
 
 By MuclaVs river she idly strayed, 
 Aiid drank afresh tho. morning breeze: 
 
 Tell me, you heautiful darli-eyed maid. 
 That's come across the Atlantic seas — 
 
THE PARTING 235 
 
 /See \joM our winsome Sutherlaiid flower. 
 Her cheek the tint of the summer rose. 
 
 Her gokl-hroion hair her only dower. 
 
 Her soul as ivhite as Ben Clehricfs snows; 
 
 Blue as the ruffled loch her eyes, 
 
 Sweet her breath as the blossoming heather: 
 
 do you thinlc the lohole icorld's skies 
 Can see aught fairer than you together i 
 
 Sisters twain — one slender and dark, 
 
 Her cheek faint-tanned by the tropic south; 
 
 One Northern bred. Iter voice like a lark, 
 Tlie joy of the hills in her gladsome youth. 
 
 Ben Clebrig shall judge — nay, shall keep the two. 
 And bind them in chains of love for ever; 
 
 Look to it, Clebrig ; guard them' true : 
 
 Sisters twain— and icliy should they sever'? 
 
 But even here there was a false note ; and he knew it. 
 Perhaps he was vaguely jealous of any alien interference : 
 was not Meenie the sole and only care of the giant 
 mountain ? Anyhow, the verses were of no avail for 
 Meenie's book ; and otherwise he did not care for them ; 
 so the envelope was crumpled up and thrown away. 
 
 On the evening before the brother and sister were to 
 leave for the south, Meenie came along to see them. 
 Ronald had got quite accustomed to find Miss Douglas in 
 the house of late ; for Maggie needed a good deal of 
 direction and help — the tearful little lass being sorely 
 distraught at the thought of going away. But on this 
 occasion it v;as himself she had come to seek. 
 
 " I have made a little drawing for you, Ronald," said she 
 — and the beautiful Highland eyes were downcast a little 
 • — ■" as well as I could, of the loch and the hills and the 
 river ; and I want you to take it to Glasgow with you, and 
 put it on the mantelpiece of your room, and then sometimes 
 it will make you think of the old place and of us all." 
 
 " I'm sure it will not need a picture to make me do that," 
 said he, " but all the same I am obliged to ye, and it will 
 be the chief treasure in the house " 
 
 " Oh no, oh no," she said, with a rueful smile — and 
 she ventured to raise her eyes. " You must not think it a 
 picture at all — but only a few lines scribbled on a paper- 
 
236 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 knife to make you remember the place when you happen 
 to find it lying about. And you must not look at it until 
 I have gone, because you would feel bound to praise it ; 
 and that would be as awkward for you as for me — for 
 indeed it is nothing at all. And here," she added, producing 
 a small slip of paper, " is my sister's address in Glasgow ; 
 and I have written to her ; and she will be very glad if yoa 
 will call on them when you have the time." 
 
 " I don't know how to thank ye," said he. " It's when 
 people are going away that they find out how many friends 
 they are leaving behind." 
 
 " In your case," said she, very modestly and prettily, " it 
 is not difficult to count — you have only to say the whole 
 country-side." And then she added : " I heard of the lads 
 that came all the way from Tongue." 
 
 " The wild fellows ! — they had a long tramp here and 
 back home again." 
 
 She looked at him rather hesitatingly. 
 
 " There will be fi great many coming to see you off 
 to-morrow morning, Ronald," she said. 
 
 " I should think not — I should think not," he said. 
 
 " Oh, but I know there will be. Every one is talking of 
 it. And I was thinking — if it Avas not too much trouble — 
 if you were not too busy — I was wondering if you Avould 
 come along and say good-bye to my father and mother this 
 evening — ^I would rather have that than — than — with a 
 crowd of people standing by " 
 
 " Oh yes, certainly," he said, at once. " When will I 
 come ? Xow, if ye like." 
 
 " And Maggie too ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, why not ? " 
 
 " And about my album, Eonald ? " 
 
 " Well," said he, with not a little embarrassment, " I have 
 not written anything in it yet ; but I will give it to you in 
 the morning ; and — and if there's nothing in it, then ye 
 must just understand that I could not get anything good 
 enough, and I will send something from Glasgow " 
 
 " Indeed no," said she promptly. " Why should you 
 trouble about a thing like that ? Write your name in the 
 book, Eonald, and that will be enough." 
 
 The three of them now went outside, and the door was 
 
THE PARTING 237 
 
 shut behind them. It was a beautiful night ; the moon 
 was slowly rising over the solitudes of Strath-Terry ; and 
 the lake was like a sheet of silver. They were rather 
 silent as they walked along the gray highway ; to-morrow 
 was to make a difference to all of theh lives. 
 
 When they reached the Doctor's cottage, and when 
 Ronald and Maggie were ushered into the parlom*, it was 
 clear that the visit had been expected ; for there was cake 
 on the table, and there were plates and knives, and a 
 decanter of sherry, and a number of wine-glasses. And 
 not only was the big good-humoured Doctor as friendly as 
 ever, but even the awe-inspiring little Dresden-china lady 
 condescended, in these unusual circumstances, to be gracious. 
 Of course the talk was all about Eonald's going away, and 
 his prospects in Glasgow, and so forth ; and Mrs. Douglas 
 took care to impress him with the fact that, on the occasion 
 of Lord Ailine having recently spent an evening with them, 
 his lordship had distinctly approved of the step Ronald 
 had taken, and hoped it might turn out well in every way, 
 
 " Will there be any office work, Ronald ? " the Doctor 
 asked. 
 
 " I suppose so, for a time." 
 
 " You'll not like that, my lad." 
 
 " I'll have to take what comes-, like other folk," was the 
 simple answer. 
 
 How pretty Meenie was on this last evening ! She did 
 not say much ; and she hardly ever looked at him ; but 
 her presence, then as ever, seemed to bring with it an 
 atmosphere of gentleness and sweetness ; and when, by 
 chance, she did happen to regard him, there was a kind of 
 magic Avonder in her eyes that for the moment rather 
 bedazzled him and made his answers to these good people's 
 inquiries somewhat inconsecutive. For they were curious 
 to know about his plans and schemes ; and showed much 
 interest in his welfare ; while all the time he sate thinking 
 of how strange Glasgow would be without the chance of 
 catching a glimpse of Meenie anywhere ; and wondering 
 whether his dream-sweetheart — the imaginary Meenie whom 
 he courted and wooed and won in these idle verses of his 
 —would be nearer to him there, or would fade gradually 
 away and finally disappear. 
 
238 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " In any case, Ronald," said Mrs. Douglas — and she 
 thus addressed him for the first time, " you have a good 
 friend in his lordship." 
 
 " I know that." 
 
 " I suppose I am breaking no confidence," continued 
 the little dame, in her grand way, " in saying that he plainly 
 intimated to us his willingness, supposing that you were 
 not as successful as we all hope you may be — I say, his 
 lordship plainly intimated to us that he would always have 
 a place open for you somewhere," 
 
 "Yes, I think he would do that," Ronald said; "but 
 when a man has once put his hand to the ploagh he must 
 not go back." 
 
 And perhaps, for one feeble moment of indecision, he 
 asked himself what had ever tempted him to put his hand 
 to the plough, and to go away from this quiet security 
 and friendliness and peace. But it was only for a moment. 
 Of course, all that had been argued out before. The step 
 had been taken ; forwards, and not backwards, he must go. 
 Still, to be sitting in this quiet little room — with the strange 
 consciousness that Meenie was so near — watching the 
 nimble, small fingers busy with her knitting — and wonder- 
 ing when she would raise those beautiful, deep, tender, clear 
 eyes ; and to think that on the morrow hour after hour 
 would be placing a greater and greater distance between 
 him and the possibility of any such another evening- 
 nay, that it was not only miles but years, and perhaps a 
 whole lifetime, that he was placing between her and him — 
 that was no joyful kind of a fancy. If it had been Meenie 
 who was going away, that would have been easier to bear. 
 
 "Call her had; Clebrig ; Mudal, call; 
 Ere all of the young springtime he jloion " 
 
 he would have cried to hill and river and loch and glen, 
 knowing that sooner or later Love Meenie would come 
 liack from Cllasgow Town. But his own going away was 
 very different — and perhaps a final thing. 
 
 By and by he rose, and begged to be excused. Maggie 
 might stay for a while longer with Miss Douglas, if she 
 liked ; as for him, he had some matters to attend to. And 
 so they bade him good-bye, and wished him well, and hoped 
 
THE PARTING 239 
 
 to hear all good things of him. Thus they parted ; and he 
 went out by himself into the clear moonlight night. 
 
 But he did not go home. A strange unrest and longing 
 had seized him ; a desire to be alone with the silence of the 
 night ; perhaps some angry impatience that he could not 
 make out so much as a few trivial verses for this beautiful 
 girl-friend whom he might never see again. He could 
 write about his dream-sweetheart easily enough ; and was 
 there to be never a word for Meenie herself ? So he walked 
 down to the river ; and wandered along the winding and 
 marshy banks — startling many wildfowl the while — until 
 he reached the lake. There he launched one of the cobles, 
 and pulled out to the middle of the still sheet of water ; 
 and took the oars in again. By this time the redshank and 
 curlews and plover had quieted down once more ; there was 
 a deadly stillness all around ; and he had persuaded himself 
 that he had only come to have a last look at the hills and 
 the loch and the moorland wastes that Meenie had made 
 magical for him in the years now left behind ; and to bid 
 farewell to these ; and carry away in his memory a beautiful 
 picture of them. 
 
 It was a lonely and a silent world. There was not a 
 sound save the distant murmur of a stream ; no breath of 
 wind came down from the Clebrig slopes to ruffle the broad 
 silver sweeps of moonlight on the water ; the tiny hamlet 
 half hidden among the trees gave no sign of life. The 
 cottage he had left — the white front of it now palely clear 
 in the distance — seemed a ghostly thing : a small, solitary, 
 forsaken thing, in the midst of this vast amphitheatre of 
 hills that stood in awful commune with the stars. On such 
 a night the wide and vacant spaces can readily become 
 peopled ; phantoms issue from the shadows of the woods 
 and grow white in the open ; an unknown wind may arise, 
 bringing with it strange singing from the northern seas. 
 And if he forgot the immediate purpose of the verses that 
 he wanted ; if he forgot that he must not mention the 
 name of Meenie ; if he saw only the little cottage, and the 
 moonlit loch, and the giant bulk of Clebrig that was keeping 
 guard over the sleeping hamlet, and watching that no sprites 
 or spectres should work their evil charms within reach of 
 Meenie's haH-hstening ear — well, it was all a fire in his 
 
240 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 blood and his brain, and he could not stay to consider. 
 The phantom-world was revealed ; the silence now was filled 
 as with a cry from the lone seas of the far north ; and, all 
 impatient and eager and half bewildered, he seemed to press 
 forward to seize those visions and that weird music ere both 
 should vanish and be mute : — 
 
 The moonligld lies on Loch Naver, 
 And the night is strange and still ; 
 
 And the stars are tioinlding coldly 
 Above the Clehrig hill. 
 
 And there hy the side of the water, 
 
 ivhat strange shapes are these ? 
 these are the wild witch-maidens 
 
 Down from the northern seas. 
 
 And they stand in a magic circle, 
 
 Pale in tlic moonlight sheen; 
 And each has over her forehead 
 
 A star of golden green, 
 
 loliat is their song ? — of sailors 
 
 That never again shall sail; 
 And the music soimds like the sobbing 
 
 And sighing that brings a gale. 
 
 Bui who is she who comes yonder 'i— 
 
 And all in lohite is she ; 
 And her eyes are open, but nothing 
 
 Of the outward tcorld can she see. 
 
 haste you back, Meenie, haste you, 
 
 And haste to your bed again; 
 For these are the wild witch-maidens 
 
 Down from the northern main. 
 
 Tliey open the magic circle ; 
 
 TItey draw her into the ring; 
 TJiey kneel before her, and slowly 
 
 A strange, sad song they sing — 
 
 A strange, sad song — as of sailors 
 
 That never again shall sail ; 
 And the music sounds like the sobbing 
 
 And sighing that brings a gale. 
 
 haste you back, Meenie, haste you. 
 
 And haste to your bed again ; 
 For these are the wild witch-maidens 
 
 Down from the northern main. 
 
THE PARTING 241 
 
 " come with us, rose-ichite Mecnie, 
 To our sea-halls draped with green; 
 come loitli us, rose-white Meenie, 
 And he our rose-white queen ! 
 
 *'And you shall have robes of splendour, 
 With shells and pearls besfrewn ; 
 And a sceptre olden and golden, 
 And a rose-white coral throne. 
 
 ^^ And by day you ivill hear the music 
 Of the ocean come nigher and niglier ; 
 And by night you will see your palace 
 Ablaze loHh phosphor fire. 
 
 " come loith us, rose-ichite Meenie, 
 To our sea-halls draped ivith green ; 
 come icith us, rose-iohite Meenie, 
 And be our rose-white queen ! " 
 
 But Clebrig heard; and the thunder 
 
 JJoivn from his iron hand sped ; 
 And the band of the loild ivitch-maidens 
 
 One swift shriek uttered, and fled. 
 
 And Meenie awoke, and terror 
 
 And ivonder were in her eyes ; 
 And she looked at the moon-white valley. 
 
 And she looked to the starlit skies. 
 
 haste you back, Meenie, haste you, 
 
 And haste to your bed again ; 
 For these are the wild witch-maidens 
 
 Down from the northern main. 
 
 hear you not yet their singing 
 Gome faintly back on the breeze ? — 
 
 The song of tlte wild tvitch-sisters 
 As they fly to the Iceland seas. 
 
 hark — His a sound like the sobbing 
 
 And sighing that brings a gale : 
 A low, sad song — as of sailors 
 
 That never again shall sail! 
 
 Slowly lie pulled in to the shore again, and fastened up 
 the boat ; and slowly he walked away through the silent 
 and moonlit landscape, revolving these verses in his mind, 
 but not trying in the least to estimate their value, supposing 
 them to have any at all. Even when he had got home, and 
 in the stillness of his own room — for by this time Maggie 
 
 R 
 
242 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 had gone to bed — was wi'iting out the hnes, with apparent 
 ease enough, on a large sheet of paper, it was with no kind 
 of critical doubt or anxiety. He could not have written 
 them otherwise ; probably he knew he was not likely to 
 make them any better by over-refining them. And the 
 reason why he put them down on the large sheet of paper 
 was that Meenie's name occurred in them ; and she might not 
 like that familiarity to appear in her album ; he would fold 
 the sheet of paper and place it in the book, and she could 
 let it remain there or burn it as she chose. And then he 
 went and had his supper, which Maggie had left warm by 
 the fire, and thereafter lit a pipe — or rather two or three 
 pipes, as it befell, for this was the last night before his leaving 
 Inver-J\Iudal, and there were many dreams and reveries (and 
 even fantastic possibilities) to be dismissed for ever. 
 
 The next morning, of course, there was no time or room 
 for poetic fancies. AYhen he had got Maggie to take along 
 the little book to the Doctor's cottage, he set about making 
 his final preparations, and here he was assisted by his suc- 
 cessor, one Peter Munro. Finally he went to say good-bye 
 to the dogs. 
 
 " Good-bye, doggies, good-bye," said he, as they came 
 bounding to the front of the kennel, pawing at him through 
 the Avooden bars, and barking and whining, and trying to 
 lick his hand. " Good-bye, Bess ! Good-ljye, Lugar — lad, 
 lad, we've had many a day on the hill together." 
 And then he turned sharply to his companion. 
 " Ye'll not forget what I told you about that dog, 
 Peter?" 
 
 " I will not," said the other. 
 
 "If I thought that dog was not to be looked after, I 
 would get out my rifle this very minute and put a l^ullet 
 through his head — though it would cost me £7. Mind 
 what I've told ye now ; if he's not fed separate, he'U starve ; 
 he's that gentle and shy that he'll not go near the trough 
 when the others are feeding. And a single cross word on 
 the hill will spoil him for the day — mind you tell any strange 
 gentlemen that come up with his lordship — some o' them 
 keep roaring at dogs as if they were bull-calves. There's 
 not a better setter in the county of Sutherland than that 
 old Lugar — but he wants civil treatment." 
 
THE PARTING 243 
 
 **ril look after him, never fear, Eonald," his com- 
 panion said. " And now come away, man. YeVe seen to 
 everything ; and the mail-gig will be here in half an 
 hour." 
 
 Eonald was still patting the dogs' heads, and talking to 
 them — he seemed loth to leave them, 
 
 " Come away, man," his companion nrged. " All the 
 lads are at the inn, and they want to have a parting glass 
 with you. Your sister and every one is there, and every- 
 thing is ready." 
 
 " Yery well," said he, and he turned away rather moodily. 
 
 But when they were descended from the little plateau 
 into the highway he saw that Meenie Douglas was coming 
 along the road — and rather quickly ; and for a minute he 
 hesitated, lest she should have some message for him, 
 
 " Oh, Eonald," shel said, and he hardly noticed that her 
 face was rather pale and anxious, " I wanted to thank you 
 — I could not let you go away without thanking you — it — 
 it is so beautiful " 
 
 " I should beg your pardon," said he, with his eyes cast 
 down, " for making use of your short name — — " 
 
 " But, Eonald," she said very bravely (though after a 
 moment's hesitation, as if she had to nerve herself), " when- 
 ever you think of any of us here, I hope you will think of 
 me by that name always — and now, good-bye I " 
 
 He lifted his eyes to hers for but a second — for but a 
 second only, and yet, perhaps, with some sudden and un- 
 foreseen and farewell message on his part, and on hers some 
 swift and not overglad guessing. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " 
 
 They shook hands in silence, and then she turned and 
 went away ; and he rejoined his companion and then they 
 Avent on together. But Meenie did not re-enter the cottage. 
 She stole away down to the river, and lingered by the bridge, 
 listening. For there were faint sounds audible in the still 
 morning air. 
 
 The mail-cart from the north came rattling along, and 
 crossed the bridge, and went on towards the inn, and again 
 there was silence, but for these faint sounds. And now she 
 could make out the thin echoes of the pipes — no doubt 
 one of the young lads was playing — LocMeVs aivay to 
 
 R 2 
 
244 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 France^ perhaps, or A Thousand Blessings, for surely no 
 one, on such an occasion, would think of Macrim.mon''s 
 Lament — 
 
 " Maerimmon shall no more return 
 Oh ! never, never more return ! " 
 
 It would be something joyous they were playing there to 
 speed him on his way ; and the " drink at the door " — the 
 Beoch an Dhorvis — would be going the round ; and many 
 would be the hand-shaking and farewell. And then, by 
 and by, as she sate there all alone and listening, she heard 
 a faint sound of cheering — and that was repeated, in a 
 straggling sort of fashion ; and thereafter there was silence. 
 
 The mail-cart had driven away for the south. 
 
 Nor even now did she go back to the cottage. She 
 wandered away through the wild moorland wastes — ^liour 
 after hour, and aimlessly ; and when, by chance, a shepherd 
 or crofter came along the road, she left the highway and 
 went aside among the heather, pretending to seek for wild- 
 flowers or the like : for sometimes, if not always, there was 
 that in the beautiful, tender Highland eyes which she would 
 have no stranger see. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 SOUTHWAEDS. 
 
 As for him, it was a sufficiently joyous departure ; for some 
 of the lads about were bent on accompanying him on 
 the mail-car as far as Lairg ; and they took with them John 
 Macalpine and his weather-worn pipes to cheer them by the 
 way ; and at Crask they each and all of them had a glass 
 of whisky ; and on the platform at Lairg railway-station 
 the clamour of farewell was great. And even when he had 
 got quit of that noisy crew, and was in the third-class 
 compartment, and thundering away to the south, his 
 thoughts and fancies were eager and ardent and glad 
 enough ; and his brain was busy with pictures ; and these 
 were altogether of a joyful and hopeful kind. Already he 
 saw himself on that wide estate — somewhere or other in 
 the Highlands he fondly trusted ; draining and planting 
 
SOUTHWARDS 245 
 
 and enclosing here ; there pruning and thinning and fell- 
 ing ; manufactui'ing charcoal and tar ; planning temporary 
 roads and bridges ; stacking bark and faggots ; or discussing 
 with the head-keeper as to the desirability or non-desirability 
 of reintroducing capercailzie. And if the young American 
 lady and her father should chance to come that way, would 
 he not have pleasm'e and pride in showing them over the 
 place ? — nay, his thoughts went farther afield, and he saw 
 before him Chicago, with its masts and its mighty lake, and 
 himself not without a friendly grip of welcome on getting 
 there. As for Meenie, where would she be in those coming 
 and golden and as yet distant days ? Far away from him, 
 no doubt ; and what else could he expect ?— for now he saw 
 her among the fine folk assembled at the shooting-lodge in 
 Glengask— and charming all of them Avith her sweet and 
 serious beauty and her gentle ways — and again he pictured 
 her seated on the white deck of Sir Alexander's yacht, a 
 soft south wind filling the sails, and the happy gray-blue 
 Highland eyes looking forward contentedly enough to the 
 yellow line of the Orosay shore. That was to be her future 
 — fair and shining ; for always he had associated Meenie 
 with beautiful things — roses, the clear tints of the dawn, 
 the singing of a lark in the blue ; and who could doubt that 
 her life would continue so, through these bright and freshly- 
 coming years ? 
 
 Yes, it was a glad enough departure for him ; for he 
 was busy and eager, and only anxious to set to work at once. 
 But by and by, when the first novelty and excitement of the 
 travelling was beginning to wear off, he suddenly discovered 
 that the little Maggie, seated in the corner there, was 
 stealthily crying. 
 
 " What, what, lass ? " said he cheerfully. " What is it 
 now ? " 
 
 She did not answer ; and so he had to set to work to 
 comfort her ; making light of the change ; painting in 
 glowing colours all that lay before them ; and promising 
 that she should write to Miss Douglas a complete account 
 of all her adventures in the great city. He was not very 
 successful, for the little lass was sorely grieved over the 
 parting from the few friends she had in the world ; but at 
 least it was an occupation ; and perhaps in convincing her 
 
246 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 he was likewise convincing himself that all was for the best, 
 and proving that people should be well content to leave 
 the monotony and dulness of a Highland village for the wide 
 opportunities of Glasgow. 
 
 But even he, with all his eager hopes and ambitions, was 
 chilled to the heart when at last they drew near to the giant 
 town. They had spent the night in Inverness, for he had 
 some business to transact there on behalf of Lord Ailine ; 
 and now it was afternoon — an afternoon dull and dismal, 
 with an east wind blowing that .-made even the outlying- 
 landscape they had come through dreary and hopeless. 
 Then, as they got nearer to the city, such suggestions of 
 the country as still remained grew more and more grim ; 
 there were patches of sour-looking grass surrounded by 
 damp stone walls ; gaunt buildings soot-begrimed and 
 gloomy ; and an ever-increasing blue-gray mist pierced 
 by tall chimneys that were almost spectral in the dulled 
 light. He had been to Glasgow before, but chiefly on one 
 or two swift errands connected with guns and game and 
 fishing-rods ; and he did not remember having found it so 
 very melancholy-looking a place as this was. He was rather 
 silent as he got ready for leaving the train. 
 
 He found his brother Andrew awaiting them ; and he 
 had engaged a cab, for a slight drizzle had begun. More- 
 over, he said he hald secured for Ronald a lodging right 
 opposite the station ; and thither the younger brother forth- 
 with transferred his things ; then he came down the 
 hollow-resounding stone stair again, and got into the cab, 
 and set out for the Eeverend Andrew's house, which was on 
 the soutli side of the city. 
 
 And what a fierce and roaring J\Iaelstrom was this into 
 which they now were plunged ! The dusky crowds of 
 people, the melancholy masses of dark-hued buildings, the 
 grimy flagstones, all seemed more or less phantasmal 
 through the gray veil of mist and smoke ; but always there 
 arose the harsh and strident rattle of the tram-cars and the 
 waggons and carts — a confused, commingled, unending 
 din that seemed to fill the brain somehow and bewilder 
 one. It appeared a terrible place this, with its cold gray 
 streets and hazy skies, and its drizzle of rain ; when, in 
 course of time, they crossed a wide bridge, and caught a 
 
SOUTHWARDS 247 
 
 glimpse of the river and the masts and funnels of some 
 ships and steamers, these were all ghost-like in the thin, 
 nbiquitons fog. Ronald did not talk much, for the unceas- 
 ing turmoil perplexed and confused him ; and so the stout, 
 phlegmatic minister, whose bilious-hued face and gray eyes 
 were far from being unkindly in their expression, addressed 
 hunself mostly to the little Maggie, and said that Eosina 
 and Alexandra and Esther and their brother James were 
 all highly pleased that she was coming to stay with them, 
 and also assured her that Glasgow did not always look so 
 dull and miserable as it did then. 
 
 At length they stopped in front of a house in a long, 
 unlovely, neutral-tinted street ; and presently two rather 
 weedy-looking girls, who turned otit to be Eosina and 
 Alexandra, were at the door, ready to receive the new- 
 comers. Of course it was Maggie who claimed their fii'st 
 attention; and she was carried off to her own quarters to 
 remove the stains of travel (and of tears) from her face ; as 
 for Eonald, he was ushered at once into the parlour, where 
 his sister-in-law — a tall, thin Avomau, with a lachrymose 
 face, but with sufficiently watchful eyes — greeted him in a 
 melancholy way, and sighed, and introduced him to the 
 company. That consisted of a Mr. M'Lachlan — a large, 
 pompons-looking person, with a gray face and short- 
 cropped white hair, whose cool stare of observation and 
 lofty smile of patronage instantly made Eonald say to him- 
 self, " My good friend, we shall have to put you into your 
 proper place ; " Mrs. M'Lachlan, an insiguificant woman, 
 dowdily dressed ; and finally, Mr. "Weems, a little, old, 
 withered man, with a timid and appealing look coming 
 from under bushy black eyebrows — though the rest of his 
 hair was gray. This Mr. Weems, as Eonald knew, was in 
 a kind of fashion to become his coach. The poor old man 
 had been half-killed in a railway accident ; had thus been 
 driven from active duty ; and now, with a shattered con- 
 stitution and a nervous system all gone to bits, managed 
 to live somehow on the interest of the compensation-sum 
 awarded him by the railway-company. He did not look 
 much of a hardy forester ; but if his knowledge of land and 
 timber measuring and surveying, and of book-keeping and 
 accounts, was such as to enable him to give this stalwart 
 
248 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 pupil a few practical lessons, so far well ; and even the 
 moderate recompense would doubtless be a welcome addition 
 to his income. 
 
 And now this high occasion was to be celebrated by a 
 " meat-tea," for the Reverend Andrew was no stingy person, 
 though his wife had sighed and sighed again over the 
 bringing into the house of a new mouth to feed. Maggie 
 came downstairs, accompanied by the other members of 
 the family ; Mr. M'Lachlan was invited to sit at his 
 hostess's right hand ; the others of them took their seats 
 in due course ; and the minister pronounced a long and 
 formal blessing, which was not without a reference or two 
 to the special circumstances of their being thus brought 
 together. And if the good man spoke apparently under 
 the assumption that the Deity had a particular interest in 
 this tea-meeting in Abbotsford Place, it was assuredly 
 without a thought of irreverence ; to himself the occasion 
 was one of importance ; and the way of his life led him 
 to have continual — and even familiar — communion with 
 the unseen Powers. 
 
 But it was not Ronald's affairs that were to be the 
 staple of conversation at this somewhat melancholy ban- 
 quet. It very soon appeared that Mr. M'Lachlan was an 
 elder — and a ruling elder, unmistakably — of Andrew 
 Strang's church, and Tie had come prepared with a notable 
 proposal for wiping off the debt of the same. 
 
 "Ah'm not wan thiit'll gang back from his word," he 
 said, in his pompous and raucous voice, and he leaned 
 back in his chair, and crossed his hands over his capacious 
 black satin w^aistcoat, and gazed loftily on his audience. 
 "Wan hundred pounds — there it is, as sure as if it was in 
 my pocket this meenit — and there it'll be when ye get fower 
 ither members o' the congregation to pit doon their fifty 
 pounds apiece. Not but that there's several in the church 
 abler than me to pit doon as much ; but ye ken how it is, 
 Mr. Strang, the man makes the money and the woman 
 spends it ; and there's mair than one family we ken o' 
 that should come forrit on an occasion like this, but that 
 the money rins through the fingers o' a feckless wife. 
 What think ye, noo, o' Mrs. Nicol setting up her powny- 
 sarriage, and it's no nine years since Geordie had to make 
 
SOUTHWARDS 249 
 
 a composition ? And they tell me that Mrs. Paton's lasses, 
 when they gang doon the watter — and not for one month 
 in the year will they let that house 0' theirs at Dunoon — 
 they tell me that the pairties and dances they have is jist 
 extraordinar' and the wastry beyond a' things. Ay, it's 
 them that save and scrimp and deny themselves that's 
 expected to do everything in a case like this — notwith- 
 standing it's a public debt — mind, it's a public debt, bind- 
 ing on the whole congregation ; but what ah say ah'll 
 stand to — there's wan hundred pounds ready, when there's 
 fower ithers wi' fifty pounds apiece — that's three hundred 
 pounds — and wi' such an example before them, surely the 
 rest 0' the members will make up the remaining two hundred 
 and fifty — surely, surely." 
 
 " It's lending to the Lord," said the minister's wife sadly 
 as she passed the marmalade to the children. 
 
 The conversation now took the form of a discussion as 
 to which of the members might reasonably be expected to 
 come forward at such a juncture ; and as Ronald had no 
 part or interest in this matter he made bold to turn to Mr. 
 Weems, who sate beside him, and engage him in talk on 
 their own account. Indeed, he had rather taken a liking 
 for this timorous little man, and wished to know more 
 about him and his belongings and occupations ; and when 
 Mr. Weems revealed to him the great trouble of his life— the 
 existence of a shrill-voiced chanticleer in the backyard of the 
 cottage adjoining his own, out somewhere in the Pollokshaws 
 direction — Ronald was glad to come to his help at once. 
 
 " Oh, that's all right," said he. " I'll shoot him for 
 you." 
 
 But this calm proposal was like to drive the poor little 
 man daft with terror. His nervous system suffered cruelly 
 from the skirling of the abominable fowl ; but even that 
 was to be dreaded less than a summons and a prosecution 
 and a deadly feud with his neighbour, who was a drunken, 
 quarrelsome, cantankerous shoemaker, 
 
 " But, God bless me," Ronald said, " it's not to be thought 
 of that any human being should be tortured like that by a 
 brute beast. Well, there's another way 0' settling the hash 
 0' that screeching thing. You just go and buy a pea-shooter 
 —or if one of the laddies will lend you a tin-whistle, that 
 
250 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 will do ; tlieu go and buy twopence-worth of antibilious 
 pills — indeed, I suppose any kind would serve ; and then 
 fire half a dozen over into the back-yard ; my Avord, when 
 the bantam gentleman has picked up these bonny looking 
 peas, and swallowed them, he'll no be for flapping his wings 
 and crowing, I'm thinking ; he'll rather be for singing the 
 tune of ' Annie Laurie.' But maybe you're not a good 
 shot with a pea-shooter ? Well, I'll come over and do it for 
 you early some morning, when the beast's hungry." 
 
 But it was difficult for any one to talk, even in the 
 most subdued and modest way, with that harsh and strident 
 voice laying down the law at the head of the table. And 
 now the large-waistcoated elder was on the subject of the 
 temperance movement ; arraigning the government for not 
 suppressing the liquor-traffic altogether ; denouncing the 
 callous selfishness of those who were inclined to tem- 
 porise with the devil, and laying at their door all the misery 
 caused by the drunkenness of their fellow-creatnres ; and 
 proudly putting in evidence his own position in the city of 
 Glasgow — his authority in the church — the regard paid to 
 his advice — and the solid, substantial slice of the Avorld's 
 gear that he possessed — as entirely due to the fact that he 
 had never, not even as a young man, imbibed one drop 
 of alcohol. jSTow Eonald Strang was ordinarily a most 
 abstemious person — and no credit to him, nor to any one 
 in the like case ; for his firm physique and his way of living 
 hitherto had equally rendered him independent of any such 
 artificial aid (though a glass of whisky on a wet day on the 
 hillside did not come amiss to him, and his hard head 
 could steer him safely through a fair amount of jollification 
 when those wild lads came down from Tongue). But he 
 was irritated by that loud and raucous voice ; he resented 
 the man's arrogance and his domineering over the placid 
 and phlegmatic Andrew, who scarcely opened his mouth ; 
 and here and there he began to put in a sharp saying or 
 two that betokened discontent and also a coming storm. 
 " They used to say that cleanliness was next to godliness ; 
 but nowadays ye would put total abstinence half a mile 
 ahead of it," he would say, or something of the kind ; and 
 in due course these two were engaged in a battle-royal of 
 discussion. It shall not be put down here ; for who was 
 
SOUTHWARDS 251 
 
 ever convinced — in morals, or art, or literature, or anything 
 else — by an argument ? it needs only be said that the 
 elder, being rather hard pressed, took refuge in Scriptural 
 authority. But alas ! this was not of much avail ; for the 
 whole family of the East Lothian farmer (not merely the 
 student one of them) had been brought up with exceeding 
 care, and taught to give chapter and verse for everything ; 
 so that when Mr. M'Lachlan sought to crush his antagonist 
 with the bludgeon of ((notation he found it was only a 
 battledore he had got hold of. 
 
 " ' Wine is a mocker ; strong drink is raging ; and who- 
 soever is deceived thereby is not wise,' " he would say 
 severely. 
 
 " ' Wine which cheereth God and man,' " the other would 
 retort. " ' Wine that makcth glad the heart of man.' 
 What make ye of these ? " 
 
 " ' AVho hath woe ? who hath sorrow ? who hath bab- 
 bling ? — they that tarry long at the wine ; they that go to 
 seek mixed wine.' What better authority can we have ? " 
 
 " Ay, man, the wise king said that ; but it wasna his last 
 word. ' Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, 
 and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him 
 drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no 
 more.' " 
 
 " The devil quoting Scripture for his own ends," the 
 Eeverend Andrew interposed, with a mild facetiousness. 
 
 " It's a dreadful thing to hear in a minister's house," 
 said the minister's wife, appealing to her neighbour, Mrs. 
 M'Lachlan. 
 
 " What is ? A verse from the Proverbs of Solomon ? " 
 Eonald said, turning to her quite good-naturedly. 
 
 But instantly he saw that she was distressed, and even 
 more lachrymose than ever ; and he knew that nothing- 
 would convince her that he was not a child of wrath and of 
 the devil ; and he reproached himself for having entered 
 into any discussion of any kind whatever in this house, 
 where Maggie was to live — he hoped in perfect accord and 
 amity. As for himself, he wished only to be out of it. He 
 was not in his right element. The vulgar complacency of 
 the rich elder irritated him ; the melancholy unreason of 
 his sister-in-law depressed him. He foresaw that not here 
 
252 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 was any abiding-place for him while he sojourned in the 
 great city. 
 
 But how was he to get away ? They lingered and 
 dawdled over their tea-drinking in a most astonishing 
 fashion ; his brother being the most intemperate of all of 
 them, and obviously accounting thereby for his pallid and 
 bilious cheeks. Moreover, they had returned to that fruit- 
 ful topic of talk — the capability of this or the other member 
 of the congregation to subscribe to the fund for paying off 
 the debt on the church ; and as this involved a discussion 
 of everybody's ways and means, and of his expenditure, and 
 the manner of living of himself, his wife, his sons, and 
 daughters and servants, the very air seemed thick with 
 trivial and envious tittle-tattle, the women-folk, of course, 
 being more loquacious than any. 
 
 " Lord help us," said Eonald to himself, as he sate there 
 in silence, " this house would be a perfect jDaradise for an 
 Income-tax Commissioner." 
 
 However, the fourth or fifth tea-pot was exhausted at 
 last ; the minister offered up a prolonged thanksgiving ; 
 and Eonald thought that now he might get away — and out 
 into the freer air. But that was not to be as yet. His 
 brother observed that it was getting late ; that all the 
 members of the household were gathered together ; and 
 they might appropriately have family worship now. So 
 the two servant-girls were summoned in to clear the table, 
 and that done, they remained ; the minister brought the 
 family Bible over from the sideboard ; and all sate still and 
 attentive, their books in their hand, while he sought out 
 the chapter he wanted. It was the Eighth of the Epistle 
 to the Itomans ; and he read it slowly and elaborately, but 
 without any word of comment' or expounding. Then he 
 said that they would sing to the praise of the Lord the 
 ZCIII. Psalm — himself leading off Avith the fine old tune 
 of Martyrdom ; and this the young people sang very well 
 indeed, though they were a little interfered with by the 
 uncertain treble of the married women and the bovine 
 baritone of the elder. Thereafter the minister offered up a 
 prayer, in which very pointed reference was made to the 
 brother and sister who had come from the far mountains to 
 dwell within the gates of the city ; and then all of them 
 
SOUTHWARDS 253 
 
 rose, and the maidservants withdrew, and those remaining 
 who had to go began to get ready for their departure. 
 
 " Come over and see us soon again," the minister said to 
 him, as they followed him into the lobby ; but the minister's 
 wife did not repeat that friendly invitation. 
 
 "Ronald," the little Maggie whispered — and her lips 
 were rather tremulous, " if you hear from Meenie, will you 
 let me know ? " 
 
 " But I am not likely to hear from her, lass," said he, 
 with his hand upon her shoulder. " You must write to her 
 yourself, and she will answer, and send ye the news." 
 
 " Mind ye pass the public-houses on the way gaun hame," 
 said the elder, by way of finishing up the evening with a 
 joke : Ronald took no notice, but bade the others good-bye, 
 and opened the door and went out. 
 
 When he got into the street his first startled impression 
 was that the world was on fire — all the heavens, but es- 
 pecially the southern heavens, were one blaze of soft and 
 smoky blood-red, into which the roofs and chimney-stacks 
 of the dusky buildings rose solemn and dark. A pulsating 
 crimson it was, now dying away slightly, again gleaming up 
 with a sudden fervour ; and always it looked the more 
 strange and bewildering because of the heavy gloom of the 
 buildings and the ineffectual lemon-yellow points of the gas- 
 lamps. Of course he remembered instantly what this must 
 be — the glow of the ironworks over there in the south; 
 and presently he had turned his back on that sullen radiance, 
 and was making away for the north side of the city. 
 
 But when he emerged from the comparative quiet of the 
 southern thoroughfares into the glare and roar of Jamaica 
 Street and Argyll Street, all around him there seemed even 
 more of bewiderment than in the daytime. The unceasing 
 din of tramway-cars and vans and carts still filled the air ; 
 but now there was everywhere a fierce yellow blaze of gas- 
 light — glowing in the great stocked windows, streaming out 
 across the crowded pavements, and shining on the huge 
 gilded letters and sprawling advertisements of the shops. 
 Then the people — a continuous surge, as of a river ; the 
 men begrimed for the most part, here and there two or 
 three drunk and bawling, the women Avith cleaner faces, 
 but most of them bareheaded, with Highland shawls wrapped 
 
254 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 round their shoulders. The suffused crimson glow of the 
 skies was scarcely visible now ; this horizontal blaze of 
 gas-light killed it ; and through the yellow glare passed the 
 dusky phantasmagoria of a city's life — the cars and horses, 
 the grimy crowds. Buchanan Street, it is true, was less 
 noisy ; and he walked quickly, glad to get out of that 
 terrible din ; and by and by, when he got away up to Port 
 Dnndas Eoad, where his lodging was, he found the world 
 grown quite quiet again, and gloomy and dark, save for the 
 solitary gas-lamps and the faint dull crimson glow sent 
 across from the southern skies. 
 
 He went up the stone stair, was admitted to the house, 
 and shown into the apartment that his brother had secured 
 for him. It had formerly been used as a sitting-room, with 
 a bedroom attached ; but now these were separated, and a 
 bed was placed at one end of the little parlour, which was 
 plainly and not untidily furnished. When his landlady left 
 he proceeded to unpack his things, getting out first his 
 books, which he placed on the mantel-shelf to be ready for 
 use in the morning ; then he made some further disposition 
 of his belongings ; and then — then somehow he fell away 
 from this industrious mood, and became more and more 
 absent, and at last went idly to the window, and stood 
 looking out there. There was not much to be seen — a few 
 lights about the Caledonian Eailway Station, some dusky 
 sheds, and that faint red glow in the sky. 
 
 But — Inver-Mudal ? Well, if only he had reflected, 
 Inver-]\Iudal must at this moment have been just about as 
 dark as was this railway station and the neighbourhood 
 surrounding it — unless, indeed, it happened to be a clear star- 
 lit night away up there in the north, with the heavens shining 
 beautiful and benignant over Clebrig, and the loch, and the 
 little hamlet among the trees. However, that was not the 
 Inver-Mudal he was thinking of ; it was the Inver-Mudal 
 of a clear spring day, with sweet winds blowing across the 
 moors, and the sunlight'yellow on Clebrig's slopes, and Loch 
 Naver's waters all a rippling and dazzling blue. And Mr. 
 Murray standing at the door of the inn, and smoking his 
 pipe, and joking with any one that passed ; the saucy Nelly 
 casting glances among the lads ; Harry with dark suspicions 
 of rats wherever he could find a hole in the wall of the 
 
GRAY DAYS 255 
 
 barn ; Maggie, under instruction of Duncan the ploughman, 
 driving the two horses hauling a harrow over the rough red 
 land ; everywhere the birds singing ; the young corn show- 
 ing green ; and then — just as the chance might be — Meenie 
 coming along the road, her golden-brown hair blown by the 
 wind, her eyes about as blue as Loch Naver's shining waters, 
 and herself calling, with laughter and scolding, to Maggie 
 to desist from that tomboy work. And where was it all 
 gone now ? He seemed to have shut his eyes upon that 
 beautiful clear, joyous world ; and to have plunged into a 
 hideous and ghastly dream. The roar and yellow glare — 
 the black houses — the lurid crimson in the sky — the terrible 
 loneliness and silence of this very room — well, he could not 
 quite understand it yet. But perhaps it would not always 
 seem so bewildering ; perhaps one might grow accustomed 
 in time ? — and teach one's self to forget ? And then again 
 he had resolved that he would not read over any more the 
 verses he had written in the olden days about Meenie, and 
 the hills and the streams and the straths that knew her and 
 loved her — for these idle rhymes made him dream dreams ; 
 that is to say, he had almost resolved — he had very nearly 
 resolved — that he would not read over any more the verses 
 he had written about Meenie. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 GRAY DAYS. 
 
 But, after all, that first plunge into city-life had had some- 
 thing of the excitement of novelty ; it was the settling 
 down thereafter to the dull monotonous round of labour, in 
 this lonely lodging, with the melancholy gray world of mist 
 surrounding him and shutting him in, that was to test the 
 strength of his resolve. The first day was not so bad ; for 
 now and again he would relieve the slow tedium of the 
 hours by doing a little carpentering about the room ; and 
 the sharp sound of hammer and nail served to break in 
 upon that hushed, slumberous murmur of the great city 
 without that seemed a mournful, distant, oppressive thing. 
 But the next day of this solitary life (for it was not until 
 the end of the week he was to see Mr. Weems) was dread- 
 
256 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 ful. The dull, silent gray hours would not go by. Wrestling 
 with Ewart's Agricultural Assistant, or Balfour's Elements 
 of Botany, or with distressing problems in land-surveying 
 or timber-measuring, he would think the time had passed ; 
 and then, going to the window for a moment's relief to eye 
 and brain, he would see by the clock of the railway station 
 that barely half an hour had elapsed since last he had looked 
 at the obdurate hands. How he envied the porters, the 
 cab-drivers, the men Avho were loading and unloading the 
 waggons ; they seemed all so busy and contented ; they 
 were getting through with their work ; they had something 
 to show for their labour ; they had companions to talk to 
 and joke with ; sometimes he thought he could hear them 
 laughing. And ah, how much more he envied the traveller 
 who drove up and got leisurely out of the cab, and had 
 his luggage carried into the station, himself following and 
 disappearing from view ! Whither was he going, then, 
 away from this great, melancholy city, with its slow hours, 
 and wan skies, and dull, continuous, stupefying murmur ? 
 Whither, indeed ! — away by the silver links of Forth, 
 perhaps, with the castled rock of Stirling rising into the 
 windy blue and white ; away by the wooded banks of Allan 
 Water and the bonnie Braes of Donne ; by Strathyre, and 
 Grlenogle, and Glenorchy ; and past the towering peaks of 
 Ben Cruachan, and out to the far-glancing waters of the 
 Avestern seas. Indeed it is a sore pity that Miss Carry 
 Ilodson, in a fit of temper, had crushed together and thrust 
 into the bottom of the boat the newspaper containing an 
 estimate of Eonald's little Highland poem ; if only she had 
 handed it on to him, he would have learned that the senti- 
 ment of nostalgia is too slender and fallacious a thing for 
 any sensible person to bother his head about ; and, instead 
 of wasting his time in gazing at the front of a railway 
 station, he would have gone resolutely back to Strachan's 
 Agricultural Tables and the measuring and mapping of 
 surface areas. 
 
 On the third day he grew desperate. 
 
 " In God's name let us see if there's not a bit of blue 
 sky anywhere ! " he said to himself ; and he flung his books 
 aside, and put on his Glengarry cap, and took a stick in his 
 hand, and went out. 
 
GI^AV DAYS 257 
 
 Alas ! that there were 110 light pattering steps following 
 him down the stone stair ; the faithful Harry had had to be 
 left behind, under charge of Mr. Murray of the inn. And 
 indeed Ronald found it so strange to be going out without 
 some companion of the kind that when he passed into the 
 wide, dull thoroughfare, he looked up and down everywhere 
 to see if he could not find some homeless w^andering cur 
 that he could induce to go with him. But there was no 
 sign of dog-life visible ; for the matter of that there was 
 little sign of any other kind of life ; there was nothing 
 before him but the wide, empty, duU-hued street, apparently 
 terminating in a great wilderness of india-rubber Avorks and 
 oil-works and the like, all of them busily engaged in pouring 
 volumes of smoke through tall chimneys into the already 
 sufficiently murky sky. 
 
 But when he got farther north, he found that there were 
 lanes and alleys permeating this mass of public works ; and 
 eventually he reached a canal, and crossed that, deeming 
 that if he kept straight on he must reach the open country 
 somewhere. As yet he could make out no distance ; blocks 
 of melancholy soot-begrimed houses, timber-yards, and 
 blank stone walls shut in the view on every hand ; more- 
 over there was a brisk north wind blowing that was sharply 
 pungent with chemical fumes and also gritty with dust ; so 
 that he pushed on quickly, anxious to get some clean air 
 into his lungs, and anxious, if that were possible, to get a 
 glimpse of green fields and blue skies. For, of course, he 
 could not always be at his books ; and this, as he judged, 
 must be the nearest way out into the country ; and he could 
 not do better than gain some knowledge of his surroundings, 
 and perchance discover some more or less secluded sylvan 
 retreat, where, in idle time, he might pess an hour or so 
 with his pencil and his verses and his memories of the 
 moors and hiUs. 
 
 But the farther out he got the more desolate and de- 
 solating became the scene around him. Here was neither 
 town nor country ; or rather, both were there ; and both 
 were dead. He came upon a bit of hawthorn-edge ; the 
 stems Avere coal-black, the leaves begrimed out of all 
 semblance to natural foliage. There were long straight 
 roads, sometimes fronted by a stone wall and sometimes 
 
 S 
 
258 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 by a block of liuildings — dwelling-houses, apparently, but 
 of the most squalid and dingy description ; the windows 
 opaque with dirt ; the '* closes " foul ; the pavements in front 
 unspeakable. But the most curious thing was the lifeless 
 aspect of this dreary neighbourhood. Where were the 
 people ? Here or there two or three ragged children would 
 be playing in the gutter ; or perhaps, in a dismal little shop 
 an old woman might be seen, with some half-withered 
 apples and potatoes on the counter. But where were the 
 people who at one time or other must have inhabited these 
 great, gaunt, gloomy tenements ; He came to a dreadful 
 place called Saracen Cross — a very picture of desolation and 
 misery ; the tall blue-black buildings showing hardly any 
 sign of life in their upper flats ; the shops below being for 
 the most part tenantless, the windows rudely boarded over. 
 It seemed as if some blight had fallen over the land, first 
 obliterating the fields, and then laying its withering hand 
 on the houses that had been built on them. And yet these 
 melancholy-looking buildings were not wholly uninhabited ; 
 here or there a face was visible — but always of women or 
 children ; and perhaps the men-folk were away at work 
 somewhere in a factory. Anyhow, under this dull gray sky, 
 with a dull gray mist in the air, and with a strange silence 
 everywhere around, the place seemed a City of the Dead ; 
 he could not understand how human beings could live in it 
 at all. 
 
 At last, however, he came to some open spaces that still 
 bove some half-decipherable marks of the country, and his 
 spirits rose a little. He even tried to sing " say, will 
 you marry me, Nelly Munro ? " — to force himself into a 
 kind of liveliness, as it were, and to prove to himself that 
 things were not quite so bad after all. But the words 
 stuck in his throat. His voice sounded strangely in this 
 silent and sickly solitude. And at last he stood stock still, 
 to have a look round about him, and to make out what 
 kind of a place this was that he had entered into. 
 
 Well, it was a very strange kind of place. It seemed to 
 have been forgotten by somebody, when all the other land 
 near was being ploughed through by railway-lines and 
 heaped up into embankments. Undoubtedly there were 
 traces of the country still remaining — and even of agricul- 
 
GRA Y DA YS 259 
 
 ture ; here and there a line of trees, stunted and nipped by 
 the poisonous ah' ; a stragghng hedge or two, withered and 
 black ; a patch of corn, of a pallid and hopeless colour ; 
 and a meadow with cattle feeding in it. But the road that 
 led through these bucolic solitudes was quite new and made 
 of cinders ; in the distance it seemed to lose itself in a 
 network of railway embankments ; while the background of 
 this strange simulacrum of a landscape — so far as that 
 could be seen through the pall of mist and smoke — seemed 
 to consist of further houses, ironworks, and tall chimney- 
 stacks. Anything more depressing and disconsolate he had 
 never witnessed ; nay, he had had no idea that any such 
 God-forsaken neighbourhood existed anywhere in the world ; 
 and he thought he would much rather be back at his books 
 than wandering through this dead and spectral land. More- 
 over it was beginning to rain — a thin, pertinacious drizzle 
 that seemed to hang in the thick and clammy air ; and so 
 he struck away to the right, in the direction of some houses, 
 guessing that there he would find some way of getting back 
 to the city other than that ghastly one he had come by. 
 
 By the time he had reached these houses — a suburb or 
 village this seemed to be that led in a straggling fashion up 
 to the crest of a small hill — it was raining heavily. Now 
 ordinarily a gamekeeper in the Highlands is not only 
 indifferent to rain, but apparently incapable of perceiving 
 the existence of it. When was wet weather at Inver-Mudal 
 ever known to interfere with the pursuits or occupations of 
 anybody ? Why, the lads there would as soon have thought 
 of taking shelter from the rain as a terrier would. But it 
 is one thing to be walking over wet heather in knicker- 
 bocker-stockings and shoes, the water quite clean, and the 
 exercise keeping legs and feet warm enough, and it is 
 entirely another thing to be walking through mud made of 
 black cinders, with clammy trousers flapping coldly round 
 one's ankles. Nay, so miserable was all this business that 
 he took refuge in an entry leading into one of those " lands " 
 of houses ; and there he stood, in the cold stone passage, 
 with a chill wind blowing through it, looking out on the 
 swimming pavements, and the black and muddy road, and 
 the dull stone walls, and the mournful skies. 
 
 At length, the rain moderating somewhat, he issued out 
 
 S 2 
 
26o WHITE HE A THER 
 
 from his shelter, and set forth for the town. A tramway- 
 car passed him, but he had no mind to be jammed in 
 amongst a lot of elderly women, all damp and with dripping 
 umbrellas. Nay, he was trying to convince himself that the 
 very discomfort of this dreary march homeward — through 
 mud and drizzle and fog — was a wholesome thing. After 
 that glimpse of the kind of country that lay outside the 
 town — in this direction at least — there would be less tempta- 
 tion for him to throw down his books and go off for idle 
 strolls. He assured himself that he ought to be glad that 
 he found no verdant meadows and purling brooks ; that, 
 on the contrary, the aspect of this suburban territory was 
 sufficiently appalling to drive him back to his lodgings. 
 All the same, when he did arrive there, he was somewhat 
 disheartened and depressed ; and he went up the stone 
 staircase slowly ; and when he entered that solitary, dull 
 little room, and sate down, he felt limp and damp and tired 
 — tired, after a few miles' walk ! And then he took to his 
 books again, with his mouth set hard. 
 
 Late that night he was sitting as usual alone, and rather 
 absently turning over his papers ; and already it had come 
 to this that now, when he chanced to read any of these 
 writings of his of former days, they seemed to have been 
 written by some one else. Who was this man, then, that 
 seemed to go through the world with a laugh and a song, 
 as it were ; rating this one, praising that ; having it all his 
 own way ; and with never a thought of the morrow .'' But 
 there was one piece in particular that struck home. It was 
 a description of the little terrier ; he had pencilled it on the 
 back of an envelope one warm summer day Avhen he was 
 lying at full length on the heather, with Harry not half a 
 dozen yards off, his nose between his paws. Harry did not 
 know that his picture was being taken. 
 
 Aiild^ gray, and grizzled] yellow een; 
 
 A nose as brown's a berry; 
 A icit as sharp as ony preen — 
 
 That's my wee chieftain Harry. 
 
 Lord sahes! — the courage of the man! 
 
 The biggest lam-yard ratten. 
 He'll snip him by the neql(, o'er-han'. 
 
 As he the deil had gatten. 
 
GRA V DA YS 261 
 
 And ivhen Ms master's work on hand. 
 There's none maun come anear him; 
 
 The biggest Duke in all Scotland, 
 My Harry's teeth ivould fear him. 
 
 But ordinar' ivise like fowl or freen. 
 
 He's harmless as a kitten; 
 As soon he'd think 0' worryin' 
 
 A hennie when she's sittin' 
 
 But Harry, lad, ye're groicin auld ; 
 
 Your days are gettin feiver ; 
 And maybe Heaven has made a faull 
 
 For such wee things as you are. 
 
 And u-hat strange kintra will that be ? 
 
 And icill they fill your coggies ? 
 And whatna strange folk there icill ses 
 
 There's ivater for the doggies ? 
 
 Ae thing I braivly ken; it's this — 
 
 Ye may hae work or play there; ■ 
 But if your master once ye miss, 
 
 I'm bound ye ivinna stay there. 
 
 It was the last verse that struck home. It was through no 
 f aihire of devotion on the part of the faithful Harry that he 
 was now at Inver-Mudal ; it was his Master that had played 
 him false, and severed the old companionship. And he 
 kept thinking about the little terrier ; and wondering 
 whether he missed his master as much as his master missed 
 him ; and wondering whether Meenie had ever a word for 
 him as she went by — for she and Harry had always been 
 great friends. Nay, perhaps Meenie might not take it ill if 
 Maggie wrote to her for news of the little dog ; and then 
 Meenie would answer ; and might not her letter take a 
 wider scope, and say something about the people there, and 
 about herself ? Surely she would do that ; and some fine 
 morning the answer — in Meenie's handwriting— would be 
 delivered in Abbotsford Place ; and he knew that Maggie 
 would not be long in apprising him of the same. Perhaps, 
 indeed, he might himself become possessed of that precious 
 missive ; and bring it away with him ; and from time to 
 time have a glance at this or that sentence of it — in 
 Meenie's own actual handwriting^when the long dull work 
 of the day was over, and his fancy free to fly away to the 
 
262 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 north again, to Strath-Terry and Clebrig and Loch-Naver, 
 and the neat small cottage with the red blinds in the win- 
 dows. It seemed to him a long time now since he had left 
 all of these ; he felt as though Glasgow had engulfed him : 
 while the day of his rescue — the day of the fulfilment of 
 his ambitious designs — was now growing more and more 
 distant and vague and uncertain, leaving him only the slow 
 drudgery of these weary hours. But Meenie's letter would 
 be a kind of talisman ; to see her handwriting would be 
 like hearing her speak ; and surely this dull little lodging 
 was quiet enough, so that in the hushed silence of the 
 eveniug, he, reading those cheerful phrases, might persuade 
 himself that it was Meenie's voice he was listening to, with 
 the quiet, clear, soft laugh that so well he remembered. 
 
 And so these first days went by ; and he hoped in time to 
 get more accustomed to this melancholy life ; and doggedly 
 he stuck to the task he had set before him. As for the out- 
 come of it all — well, that did not seem quite so facile nor so 
 fine a thing as it had appeared before he came away from 
 the north ; but he left that for the future to decide ; and in 
 the meantime he was above all anxious not to perplex him- 
 self by the dreaming of idle dreams. He had come to 
 Glasgow to work ; not to build impossible castles in 
 the air. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 KATE. 
 
 And yet it was a desperately hard ordeal ; for this man was 
 by nature essentially joyous, and sociable ; and fitted to be 
 the king of all good company ; and the whole of his life 
 had been spent in the open, iu brisk and active exercise : 
 and sunlight and fresh air were to him as the very breath 
 of his nostrils. But here he was, day after day, week after 
 week, chained to these dismal tasks ; in solitude : with the 
 far white dream of ambition becoming more and more 
 distant and obscured ; and with a terrible consciousness 
 ever growing upon him that in coming away from even the 
 mere neighbourhood of Meenie, from the briefest com- 
 panionship with her, he had sacrificed the one beautiful 
 
KA TE 263 
 
 thing, the 0)ie precious possession, that his life had ever 
 held for him or would hold. What though the impalpable 
 barrier of Glengask and Orosay rose between him and her ? 
 He was no sentimental Claude Melnotte ; he had common 
 sense ; he accepted facts. Of course Meenie would go 
 away in due time. Of course she was destined for higher 
 things. Bat what then ? What of the meanwhile ? Could 
 anything happen to him quite so wonderful, or worth the 
 striving for, as Meenie's smile to him as she met him in the 
 road ? What for the time being made the skies full of 
 brightness, and made the pulses of the blood flow gladly, 
 and the day become charged with a kind of buoyancy of 
 life ? And as for these vague ambitions for the sake of 
 which he had bartered away his freedom and sold himself 
 into slavery — towards what did they tend ? For whom ? 
 The excited atmosphere the Americans had brought with 
 them had departed now : alas ! this other atmosphere into 
 which he had plunged was dull and sad enough, in all 
 conscience ; and the leaden days weighed down upon him ; 
 and the slow and solitary hours would not go by. 
 
 One evening he was coming in to the town by way of the 
 Pollokshaws road ; he had spent the afternoon hard at work 
 with Mr. Weems, and was making home again to the silent 
 little lodging in the north. He had now been a month and 
 more in Glasgow ; and had formed no kind of society or 
 companionship whatever. Once or twice he had looked 
 in at his brother's ; but that was chiefly to see how the 
 little Maggie was going on ; his sister-in-law gave him no 
 over-friendly welcome ; and, indeed, the social atmosphere 
 of the Reverend Andrew's house was far from being con- 
 genial to him. As for the letter of introduction that 
 Meenie had given him to her married sister, of course he 
 had not had the presumption to deliver that ; he had 
 accepted the letter, and thanked Meenie for it — for it was 
 but another act of her always thoughtful kindness ; but Mrs. 
 Gemmill was the wife of a partner in a large warehouse ; 
 and they lived in Queen's Crescent ; and altogether Ronald 
 had no thought of calling on them — although to be sure 
 he had heard that Mrs. Gemmill had been making suffi- 
 ciently minute and even curious inquiries with regard to 
 him of a member of his brother's congregation whom 
 
264 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 she happened to know, No ; he lived his life alone ; 
 wrestling with the weariness of it as best he might ; and 
 not quite knoAving, perhaps, how deeply it Avas eating into 
 his heart. 
 
 Well, he was walking absently home on this dull gray 
 evening, watching the lamp-lighter adding point after point 
 to the long string of golden stars, when there went by a 
 smartly appointed dog-cart. He did not particularly remark 
 the occupants of the vehicle, though he knew they were two 
 women, and that one of them was driving ; his glance fell 
 rather on the well-groomed cob, and he thought the 
 varnished oak dog-cart looked neat and business-like. 
 The next second it was pulled up ; there was a pause, 
 during which time he was of course drawing nearer ; and 
 then a woman's voice called to him — • 
 
 " Bless me, is that you, Ronald ? " 
 
 He looked up in amazement. And who was this, then, 
 who had turned her head round and was now regarding 
 him with her laughing, handsome, bold black eyes .^ She 
 was a woman apparently of five-and-thirty or so, but ex- 
 ceedingly well preserved and comely ; of pleasant features 
 and fresh complexion ; and of rather a manly build and 
 carriage — an appearance that was not lessened by her 
 wearing a narrow-brimmed little billycock hat. And then, 
 even in this gathering dusk, he recognised her ; and im- 
 consciously he repeated her own words — 
 
 " Bless me, is that you, Mrs. — Mrs. — Menzies — " for in 
 truth he had almost forgotten her name. 
 
 " Mrs. This or Mrs. That ! " the other cried. " I thought 
 my name was Kate — it used to be anyway. Well, I declare ! 
 Come, give us a shake of your hand — auntie, this is my 
 cousin Eonald ! — and who would hae thought of meeting 
 you in Glasgow, now ! " 
 
 " I have been here a month and more," Eonald said, 
 taking the proffered hand. 
 
 " And never to look near me once — there's friendliness ! 
 Eh, and what a man you've grown to — ye were just a bit 
 laddie when I saw ye last — but aye after the lasses, though 
 — oh aye — bless me, what changes there hae been since 
 then ! " 
 
 " Well, Katie, it's not you that have changed much any- 
 
KA TE 26s 
 
 way," said he, for he was making out again the old familiar 
 girlish expression in the firmer features of the mature 
 woman. 
 
 " And what's brought ye to Glasgow ? " said she — but 
 then she corrected herself : " No, no ; I'll have no long 
 story wi' you standing on the pavement like that. Jump 
 up behind, Konald, lad, and come home wi' us, and we'll 
 have a crack thegither " 
 
 "Katie, dear," said her companion, who was a little, 
 white-face, cringing and fawning old woman, " let me get 
 down and get up behind. Your cousin must sit beside 
 
 ye " 
 
 But already Ronald had swung himself on to the after- 
 seat of the vehicle ; and Mrs. Menzies had touched the 
 cob with her whip ; and soon they were rattling away into 
 the town. 
 
 " I suppose ye heard that my man was dead .? " said she 
 presently, and partly turning round. 
 
 " I think I did," he answered rather vaguely. 
 
 " He was a good man to me, like Auld Robin Gray," said 
 this strapping widow, who certainly had a very matter-of-fact 
 way in talking about her deceased husband. " But he was 
 never the best of managers, poor man. I've been doing 
 better ever since. We've a better business, and not a 
 penny of mortgage left on the tavern." 
 
 " Weel ye may say that, Katie," whined the old woman. 
 " There never was such a manager as you — never. Ay, and 
 the splendid furniture — it was never thought o' in his time 
 — bless 'm ! A good man he was, and a kind man ; but no 
 the manager you are, Katie ; there's no such another tavern 
 in a' Glesca." 
 
 Now although the cousinship with Ronald claimed by 
 Mrs. Menzies did not exist in actual fact, — there was some 
 kind of remote relationship, however, — still, it must be 
 confessed that it was very ungrateful and inconstant of him 
 to have let the fate and fortunes of the pretty Kate Burnside 
 (as she w^as in former days) so entirely vanish from his mind 
 and memory. Kate Burnside was the daughter of a small 
 farmer in the Lammermuir district ; and the Strangs and 
 Burnsides were neighbours as well as remotely related by 
 blood. But that was not the only reason why Ronald 
 
266 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 ought to have remembered a little more about the stalwart, 
 black-eyed, fresh-cheeked country wench who, though she 
 was some seven or eight years or more his senior, he had 
 badly chosen for his sweetheart in his juvenile days. Nay, 
 had she not been the first inspirer of his muse ; and had he 
 not sung this ox-eyed goddess in many a laboured verse, 
 carefully constructed after the manner of Tannahill or 
 Motherwell or Allan Cunningham ? The "lass of Lammer 
 Law " he called her in these artless strains ; and Kate was 
 far from resenting this frank devotion ; nay, she even 
 treasured up the verses in which her radiant beauties were 
 enumerated ; for why should not a comely East Lothian 
 wench take pleasure in being told that her cheeks outshone 
 the rose, and that the *' darts o' her bonnie black een " had 
 slain their thousands, and that her faithful lover would come 
 to see her, ay, though the Himalayas barred his way ! But 
 then, alas ! — as happens in the world — the faithful lover was 
 sent off into far neighbourhoods to learn the art and 
 mystery of training pointers and setters ; and Kate's father 
 died, and the family dispersed from the farm ; Kate went 
 into service in Glasgow, and there she managed to capture 
 the affections of an obese and elderly publican whom — -she 
 being a prudent and sensible kind of a creature — she forth- 
 with married ; by and by, through partaking too freely of his 
 own wares, he considerately died, leaving her in sole posses- 
 sion of the tavern (he had called it a public-house, but she 
 soon changed all that, and the place too, when she was 
 established as its mistress) ; and now she was a handsome, 
 buxom, firm-nerved woman, who could and did look well 
 after her own affairs ; who had a flourishing business, a 
 comfortable bank account, and a sufficiency of friends of her 
 own way of thinking ; and whose raven-black hair did not 
 as yet show a single streak of gray. It was all this latter 
 part of Kate Burnside's — or rather, Mrs. Menzies's — career 
 of which Eonald was so shamefully ignorant ; but she 
 speedily gave him enough information about herself as they 
 drove through the gas-lit streets, for she was a voluble, 
 high-spirited woman, who could make herself heard when 
 she chose. 
 
 " Ay," said she, at length, " and where have ye left the 
 goodwife, Ronald ? " . 
 
KA TE 267 
 
 " What goodwife ? " said he. 
 
 " Ye dinna tell me that you're no married yet ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of," said lie. 
 
 " AVhat have ye been about, man ? Ye were aye daft 
 about the lasses ; and ye no married yet ? What have ye 
 been about man, to let them a' escape ye ? " 
 
 " Some folk have other things to think of," said he 
 evasively. 
 
 " Dinna tell me," she retorted. " I ken weel what's 
 uppermost in the mind 0' a handsome lad like you. Weel, 
 if ye're no married, ye're the next door to it, I'll be bound. 
 What's she like ? " 
 
 " I'll tell ye when I find her," said he drily. 
 
 " Ye're a dark one ; but I'll find ye out, my man." 
 
 She could not continue the conversation, for they were 
 about to cross the bridge over the Clyde, and the con- 
 gested traffic made her careful. And then again Jamaica 
 Street was crowded and difiicult to steer through ; but 
 presently she left that for a quieter thoroughfare leading 
 off to the right ; and in a few moments she had pulled 
 up in front of a large tavern, close by a spacious archway. 
 
 " Auntie, gang you and fetch illec to take the cob round, 
 will ye ? " said she ; and then Ronald, surmising that she 
 had now reached home, leapt to the ground, and went to 
 the horse's head. Presently the groom appeared, and Kate 
 Menzies descended from her chariot. 
 
 Now in Glasgow, for an establishment of this kind to 
 be popular, it must have a side entrance — the more the 
 merrier, indeed — by which people can get into the tavern 
 without being seen ; but besides this it soon appeared that 
 Mrs. Menzies had a private right of way of her own. She 
 bade Ronald follow her ; she went through the archway ; 
 produced a key and opened a door ; and then, passing 
 along a short lobby, he found himself in what might be 
 regarded as the back parlour of the public-house, but was 
 in reahty a private room reserved by Mrs. Menzies for 
 herself and her intimate friends. And a very briUiant little 
 apartment it Avas ; handsomely furnished and shining with 
 stained wood, plate glass, and velvet ; the gas-jets all aglow 
 in the clear globes ; the table in the middle laid with a 
 white cloth for supper, all sparkling with crystal and 
 
268 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 polished electro-plate. Moreover (for business is business) 
 this luxurious little den commanded at will complete views 
 of the front premises ; and there was also a door leading 
 thither ; but the door was shut, and the red blinds were 
 drawn over the two windows, so that the room looked quite 
 like one in a private dwelling. 
 
 " And now, my good woman," said Mrs. Mcnzies, as she 
 threw her hat and cloak and dog-skin gloves into a corner, 
 " just you mak' them hurry up wi' supper ; for we're just 
 home in time ; and we'll want another place at the table. 
 And tell Jeannie there's a great friend o' mine come in, if 
 she can get anything special — Lord's sake, Eonald, if I had 
 kent I was going to fall in with you I would have looked 
 after it mysel'." 
 
 " Ye need not bother about me," said he, " for supper 
 is not much in my way — not since I came to the town. 
 Without the country air, I think one would as lief not sit 
 down to a table at all." 
 
 " Oh, I can cure ye o' that complaint," she said con- 
 fidently ; and she rang the bell. 
 
 Instantly the door was opened, and he caught a glimpse 
 of a vast palatial-looking place, with more stained wood 
 and plate glass and velvet, and with several smartly-dressed 
 young ladies standing or moving behind the long mahogany 
 counters ; moreover, one of these— a tall and serious-eyed 
 maiden — now stood at the partly opened door. 
 
 " Gin and bitters, Mary," said Mrs. Menzies briskly — 
 she was at this moment standing in front of one of the 
 mirrors, complacently smoothing her hair with her hands, 
 and setting to rights her mannish little necktie. 
 
 The serious-eyed handmaiden presently reappeared, bring- 
 ing a small salver, on which was a glass filled with some 
 kind of a fluid, which she presented to him. 
 
 " AYhat's this ? " said he, appealing to his hostess. 
 
 " Drink it and find out," said she ; " it'll make ye jump 
 wi' hunger, as the Hielanmau said." 
 
 He did as he was bid ; and loudly she laughed at the wry 
 face that he made. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 " It's a devil of a kind of thing, that," said he ; for it was 
 a first experience. 
 
ICA TB 269 
 
 " Ay, but wait till ye find bow biingry it will make yc," 
 she answered; and then she returned from the mirror. " And 
 I'm sure ye'll no mind my hair being a wee thing camstrairy, 
 Ronald ; there's no need for ceremony between auld freens, 
 as the saying is " 
 
 " But, look here, Katie, my lass," said he — for perhaps 
 he was a little emboldened by that fiery fluid, " I'm thinking 
 that maybe I'm making myself just a little too much at 
 home. Now, some other time, when ye've no company, I'll 
 come in and see ye " 
 
 But she cut him short at once, and with some pride. 
 
 " Indeed, I'll tell ye this, that the day that Ronald Strang 
 comes into my house — and into my own house too — that's 
 no the day that he's gaun out o't without eating and drinking. 
 Ma certes, no ! And as for company, why there's none but 
 auld mother Paterson — I ca' her auntie ; but she's no more 
 my auntie than you are — ye see, my man, Ronald, a poor 
 unprotected helpless widow woman maun look after appear- 
 ances — for the world's unco given to leein', as Shakespeare 
 says. There, Ronald, that's another thing," she added 
 suddenly — " ye'll take me to the theatre ! — my word, avc'11 
 have a box ! " 
 
 But these gay visions were interrupted by the reappear- 
 ance of Mrs. Paterson, who was followed by a maidservant 
 bearing a dish on which was a large sole, smoking hot. 
 Indeed, it soon became apparent that this was to be a very 
 elal)orate banquet, such as Ronald was not at all familiar 
 Avith ; and all the care and flattering attention his hostess 
 could pay him she paid him, laughing and joking with him, 
 and insisting on his having the very best of everything, and 
 eager to hand things to him — even if she rather ostenta- 
 tiously displayed her abundant rings in doing so. And 
 when mother Paterson said — 
 
 " What will ye drink, Katie dear .^ Some ale — or some 
 porter ? " 
 
 The other stormily answered^ 
 
 " Get out, ye daft auld wife ! Ale or porter the first day 
 that my cousin Ronald comes into my own house ? Cham- 
 pagne's tlie word, woman ; and the best ! AVhat will ye 
 have, Ronald — Avhat brand do ye like ? — Moctt and Shan- 
 dou ? " 
 
270 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Eonald laughed. 
 
 " What do I know about such things ? " said he. " And 
 besides, there's no reason for such extravagance. There's 
 been no stag killed the day." 
 
 ' "There's been no stag killed the day," she retorted, 
 " but Ronald Strang's come into my house, and he'll have 
 the best that's in it, or my name's no Kate Burnside — or 
 Kate Menzies, I should say, God forgie me ! Ring the 
 bell, auntie." 
 
 This time the grave-eyed barmaid appeared. 
 
 " A bottle of j\Ioett and Shandon, Mary." 
 
 " A pint bottle, m'm ? " 
 
 " A pint bottle — ye stupid idiot ? " she said (but quite 
 good-naturedly). " A quart bottle, of^ course ! " 
 
 And then when the bottle was brought and the glasses 
 filled, she said — 
 
 " Here's your health, Ronald ; and right glad am I to 
 see you looking so weel — ye were aye a bonnie laddie, and 
 ye've kept the promise o't — ay, indeed, the whole o' you 
 iStrangs were a handsome family — except your brother 
 Andrew, maybe " 
 
 " Do ye ever see Andrew ? " Ronald said ; for a modest 
 man does not like to have his looks discussed, even in the 
 most flattering way. 
 
 Then loudly laughed Kate Menzies. 
 
 " Me ? Me gang and see the Reverend Andrew Strang ? 
 No fears ! He's no one o' my kind. He'd drive me out 
 o' the house wi' bell, book, and candle. I hae my ain 
 friends, thank ye — and I'm going to number you amongst 
 them so long as ye stop in this town. Auntie, pass the 
 bottle to Ronald ! " 
 
 And so the banquet proceeded — a roast fowl and bacon, 
 an apple-tart, cheese and biscuits and what not following in 
 due succession ; and all the time she was learning more and 
 more of the life that Ronald had led since he had left the 
 Lothians, and freely she gave him of her confidences in 
 return. On one point she Avas curiously inquisitive, and 
 that was as to whether he had not been in some entangle- 
 ment with one or other of the Highland lasses up there in 
 Sutherlandshire ; and there was a considerable amount of 
 joking on that subject, which Ronald bore good-naturedly 
 
KATE 271 
 
 enough ; finding it on the whole the easier way to let her 
 surmises have free course. 
 
 " But ye're a dark one ! " she said at length. " And ye 
 would hae me believe that a strapping fellow like you hasna 
 had the lasses rinnin' after him ? I'm no sae daft." 
 
 " I'll tell ye what it is, Katie," he retorted, " the lasses in 
 the Highlands have their work to look after ; they dinna 
 live a' in clover, like the Glasgow dames." 
 
 " Dinna tell me — dinna tell me," she said. 
 
 And now, as supper was over and the table cleared, she 
 went to a small mahogany cabinet and opened it. 
 
 " I keep some cigars here for my particular friends," said 
 Mrs. Menzies, " but I'm sure I dinna ken which is the best. 
 Gome and pick for yourself, Ronald lad ; if you're no 
 certain the best plan is to take the biggest." 
 
 " This is surely living on the fat of the land, Katie," lie 
 protested. 
 
 " And what for no ? " said she boldly. " Let them enjoy 
 themselves that's earned the right to it." 
 
 "But that's not me," he said. 
 
 "Well, it's me," she answered. "And when my cousin 
 Eonald comes into my house, it's the best that's in it that's 
 at his service — and no great wonder either ! " 
 
 Well, her hospitality was certainly a little stormy ; but 
 the handsome widow meant kindly and well ; and it is 
 scarcely to be marvelled at if — under the soothing influences 
 of the fragrant tobacco — he was rather inclined to substitute 
 for this brisk and business-like Kate Menzies of these present 
 days the gentler figure of the Kate Burnside of earlier years, 
 more especially as she had taken to talking of those times, 
 and of all the escapades the young lads and lasses used to 
 enjoy on Hallowe'en night or during the first-footing at 
 Hogmanay. 
 
 " And now I mind me, Ronald," she said, " ye used to be 
 a fine singer when ye were a lad. Do ye keep it up still ? " 
 
 " I sometimes try," he answered. " But there's no been 
 much occasion since I came to this town. It's a lonely 
 kind o' place, for a' the number 0' folk in it." 
 
 "Well, now ye're among friends, give us something ! " 
 
 " Oh, that I will, if ye like," said he readily ; audhe laid 
 aside his cigar. 
 
2/2 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 And then he sang — moderating his voice somewhat, so 
 that he should not be heard in the front premises — a verse 
 or two of an old favourite — 
 
 " The sun rase sae rosy, the gray hills adorning. 
 Light sprung the laverock, and mounted sae high," 
 
 and if his voice was quiet, still the clear penetrating quality 
 of it was there ; and when he had finished Kate Menzies 
 said to him — after a second of irresolution — 
 
 " Ye couldna sing like that when yo were a lad, Ronald. 
 It's maist like to gar a body greet." 
 
 But he would not sing any more that night ; he guessed 
 that she must have her business affairs to attend to ; and 
 he was resolved upon going, in spite of all her importunacy. 
 However, as a condition, she got him to promise to come 
 and see her on the following evening. It was Saturday 
 night ; several of her friends were in the habit of dropping 
 in on that night ; finally, she pressed her entreaty so that 
 he could not well refuse ; and, having promised, he left. 
 
 And no doubt as he went home through the great, noisy, 
 lonely city, he felt warmed and cheered by this measure of 
 human companionship that had befallen him. As for Kate 
 Menzies, it Avould have been a poor return for her excessive 
 kindness if he had stopped to ask himself whether her robust 
 camaraderie did not annoy him a little. He had had plenty 
 of opportunities of becoming acquainted with the manners 
 and speech and ways of refined and educated women ; indeed, 
 there are few gamekeepers in the Highlands who have not 
 at one time or another enjoyed that privilege. Noble and 
 gracious ladies who, in the south, would as soon think of 
 talking to a doormat as of entering into any kind of general 
 conversation with their butler or coachman, will fall quite 
 naturally into the habit— when they are living away in the 
 seclusion of a Highland glen with the shooting-party at the 
 lodge — of stopping to have a chat with Duncan or Hector 
 the gamekeeper when they chance to meet him coming along 
 the road with his dogs ; and, what is more, they find him 
 worth the talking to. Then, again, had not Eonald been 
 an almost daily spectator of Miss Douglas's sweet and win- 
 ning manners — and that continued through years ; and had 
 not the young ximerican lady, during the briefer period she 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING 273 
 
 was in the north, made quite a companion of him in her 
 frank and brave fashion ? He had almost to confess to 
 himself that there was just a little too much of Mrs, Men- 
 zies's tempestuous good nature ; and then again he refused 
 to confess anything of the kind ; and quarrelled with himself 
 for being so ungrateful. Why, the first bit of real, heart- 
 felt friendliness that had been shown him since he came to 
 this great city ; and he was to examine it ; and be doubtful ; 
 and wish that the keeper of a tavern should be a little more 
 refined ! 
 
 " Eonald lad," he was saying to himself when he reached 
 his lodging in the dusky Port Dundas Road, " it's over-fed 
 stomachs that wax proud. You'll be better-minded if you 
 keep to your books and plainer living." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 A SOCIAL EVENING. 
 
 Looking forward to this further festivity he worked hard 
 at his studies all day, and it was not until nearly nine 
 o'clock in the evening that he went away down through the 
 roaring streets to keep his engagement with Kate Menzies. 
 And very snug and comfortable indeed did the little parlour 
 look, with its clear glass globes and warmly-cushioned seats 
 and brilliant mirrors and polished wood. Kate herself 
 (who was quite resplendent in purple velvet and silver 
 necklace and bangles) was reading a sporting newspaper ; 
 old mother Paterson was sewing ; there were cigar-boxes on 
 the table. 
 
 " And what d'ye mean," cried the handsome widow gaily, 
 when he made his appearance, " by coming at this hour ? 
 Did not I tell ye we would expect ye to supper ? " 
 
 "Would ye have me eat you out o' house and home, 
 woman ? " he said. " Besides, I had some work to get 
 through." 
 
 " Well, sit down and make yerself happy ; better late 
 than never ; there's the cigars " 
 
 " I would as lief smoke a pipe, Katie, if ye don't object — 
 only that I'm shamed to smoke in a fine place like this " 
 
 " What is't for, man ? Do ye think I got it up for an 
 
 T 
 
274 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 exhibition — to be put in a glass case ! And what'll ye 
 drink now, Eonald — some Moett and Shandon ? " 
 
 " Indeed no," said he. "If I may light my pipe I want 
 nothing else." 
 
 " But I canna bear an empty table," said she. " Here, 
 auntie, get your flounces and falderals out o' the road — 
 bless us, woman, ye make the place look like a milliner's 
 shop ! And bring out the punch-bowl frae the chiffonier — 
 I want ye to see it, Ronald, for it was gien to my gudeman 
 by an auld freend o' his in Ayr, that got it from the last of 
 the lairds o' Garthlie. And if ane or twa o' them happen 
 to come in to-night we'll try a brew — for there's naething so 
 wholesome, after a', as the wine o' the country, and I can gie 
 ye some o' the real stuff. Will ye no try a drop the noo ? " 
 
 " No thank ye, no thank ye," said he, for he had lit his 
 pipe, and was well content. 
 
 "Well, well, we'll have one o' the lasses in to set the 
 tumblers and the glasses, for I canna thole to see a bare 
 table ; and in the meantime, Eonald, you and me can hae 
 a crack be oursels, and ye can tell me what ye mean to do 
 when ye get your certificate " 
 
 " If I get it, ye mean, lass." 
 
 " No fears," she said confidently ; " ye were aye one o' 
 the clever ones ; I'll warrant ye there's na skim-milk in 
 your head where the brains should be. But I want to ken 
 what ye're ettling at after you've got the certificate, and 
 what's your plans, and the like ; for I've been thinking 
 about it ; and if there was any kind o' a starting needed — 
 the loan of a bit something in the way of a nest Qgg, ye 
 see — weel, I ken a place where ye might get that, and ye 
 wouldna have to whistle long at the yett either." 
 
 Now there was no mistaking the generosity of this offer, 
 however darkly it might be veiled by Kate Menzie's figura- 
 tive manner of speech ; and it was with none the less grati- 
 tude that he answered her and explained that a head-forester 
 traded with the capital of his employer, though, to be sure, 
 he might on entering a new situation have to find sureties 
 for him. 
 
 " Is it caution-money ye mean, Eonald ? " she said 
 frankly. 
 
 " Well, if a man had no one to speak for him — no one 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING 275 
 
 whose word they would take," he said to her (though all 
 this was guess-work on his part), " they might ask him for 
 security. There would be no payment of money, of course, 
 unless he robbed his employer ; and then the sureties would 
 have to make that good as far as they had undertaken. 
 But it's a long way off yet, Katie, and hardly worth speaking 
 about. I daresay Lord Ailine would say a word for me." 
 
 " And is that a' ? " she said, with a laugh. " Is that a' 
 the money's wanted for^to guarantee the honesty 0' one 
 0' the Strangs 0' Whittermains ? Weel, I'm no a rich 
 woman, Ronald — for my money's maistly sunk in the tavern 
 — and doing weel enough there too — but if it's a surety ye 
 want, for three hunder pounds, ay, or five hunder pounds, 
 just you come to me, and the deil's in't if we canna manage 
 it somehow." 
 
 " I thank ye for the offer anyway ; I'm sure you mean 
 it," said he. 
 
 " That lawyer 0' mine," she continued, " is a dour chiel ; 
 he'll no let me do this ; and he's grumbling at that ; and a 
 poor widov\r woman is supposed to hae nae soul 0' her ain, 
 I'm sure the fuss that he makes about that cob, and only 
 fifty-five guineas, and come o' the best Clydesdale stock " 
 
 " But it was no the expense, it was no the expense, Katie 
 dear," whined the old woman, " it was the risk to your life 
 frae sae high-mettled a beast. Just think o't, at your time 
 0' life, wi' a grand business, and yoursel' the manager o' it, 
 and wi' sae mony freends, think what it would be if ye 
 broke your neck " 
 
 " Broke your grandmother's fiddlestrings ! " said she. 
 " The beast's as quiet's a lamb. But that auld man, Peter 
 Gunn. I suppose he's a good lawyer — indeed, every one 
 says that — but he's as pernickety as an auld woman ; and 
 he'd mak' ye think the world was made 0' silk paper, and 
 ye daurna stir a step for fear o' fa'in through. But you 
 just give me the word, Ronald, when the security's wanted ; 
 and we'll see if auld Peter can hinder me frae doing what I 
 ought to do for one o' my own kith and kin." 
 
 They were thus talking when there came a knock at the 
 outer door : then there was a clamour of voices in the little 
 lobby ; and presently there were ushered into the room 
 three visitors, who were forthwith introduced to Ronald, 
 
 T 2 
 
276 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 with a few words of facetious playfulness from the widow. 
 There was first a Mr. Jaap, a little old man with Jewish 
 features, bald on the top of his head, but with long, flowing 
 gray hair behind ; a mild-looking old man, but with merry 
 eyes nevertheless — and indeed all of them seemed to have 
 been joking as they came in. Then there was a Mr. Laid- 
 law, a younger man, of middle height, and of a horsey type ; 
 stupid-looking, rather, but not ill-natured. The third was 
 Captain M'Taggart, a large heavy man, with a vast, radiant, 
 Bardolphian face, whose small, shrewd, twinkling blue eyes 
 had the expression rather of a Clyde skipper given to rough 
 jesting and steady rum-drinking (and he was all that) than 
 of the high-souled, child-hearted sailor of romance. 
 
 " Sit ye down, sit ye down," their hostess said gaily. 
 " Here, captain, is a job for ye : here's the punch-bowl that 
 we only have on great days, ye ken ; and your brew is 
 famous — whether wi' old Jamaica or Long John. Set to 
 work now — here's the sugar and the lemons ready for ye — • 
 for ye maun a' drink the health o' my cousin here that's 
 come frae Sutherland." 
 
 "Frae Sutherland, say ye, Mistress?" the big skipper 
 said, as he reached over for the lemons. " Ye should ca' 
 him your kissin frae the Hielands then. Do ye ken that 
 story, Laidlaw ? D'ye ken that yin about the Hieland 
 kissins, Jaap ? Man, that's a gude yin ! have ye no heard 
 it ? Have ye no heard it, Mistress ? " 
 
 " Tell us what it is first, and we'll tell you afterwards," 
 said she saucily. 
 
 " Weel, then," said he — and he desisted from his prepara- 
 tions for the punch-making, for he was famous along the 
 Broom ielaw as a story-teller, and liked to keep up his 
 reputation, " it was twa young lasses, twa cousins they were, 
 frae the west side o' Skye — and if there's ony place mair 
 Hielan than that, it's no me that ever heard o't — and they 
 were ta'en into service in an inn up about the Gairloch or 
 Loch Inver, or one o' they lochs. Both o' them were good- 
 looking lasses, mind ye ; but one o' them just unusual 
 handsome. Well, then, there happened to come to the 
 inn an English tourist — a most respectable old gentleman 
 he was ; and it was one o' they two lasses — and no the 
 brawest o' them either — that had to wait on him : but he 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING 277 
 
 was a freeudly auld man ; and on the mornin' 0' his gaim 
 awa he had to ring for something or other, and when she 
 brought it to him, he said to her, jist by way 0' compli- 
 ment, ye ken, ' You are a very good-looking girl, do you 
 know. Flora ? ' And of com'se the lass was very well 
 pleased ; but she was a modest lassie too ; and she said, 
 ' Oh no, sir ; but I hef heard them say my kissin was 
 peautif ul ! ' ' Your what ? ' said he. ' My kissin, sir — ' 
 ' Get away, you bold hussy ! Off with you at once, or I'll 
 ring for your master — you brazen baggage ! ' — and to this 
 very day, they tell me, the poor lass doesna ken what on 
 earth it was that made the auld man into a madman ; for 
 what harm had she done in telling him that her cousin was 
 better-looking than herself ? " 
 
 This recondite joke was received with much laughter by 
 the company ; and even Eonald had to admit that the Clyde 
 skipper's imitation of the Highland accent was very fairly 
 well done. But joke-making is dull work with empty 
 glasses ; and so Captain M'Taggart set himself seriously to 
 the business of brewing that bowl of punch, while Kate 
 Menzies polished the silver ladle to an even higher extreme 
 of brilliancy. 
 
 Now these three old cronies of the widow's had betrayed 
 a little surprise on finding a stranger installed in their 
 favourite howf ; and perhaps they might have been inclined 
 to resent the intrusion had not Kate Menzies very speedily 
 intimated her views upon the subject in unmistakable 
 language. Her " cousin Eonald " was all her cry ; it was 
 Eonald this and Eonald that ; and whatever Eonald said, 
 that was enough, and decisive. For, of course, after a glass 
 or so of punch, the newcomers had got to talking politics — 
 or what they took to be politics ; and Eonald, when he was 
 invited to express his opinion, proved to be on the un- 
 popular side ; nor did he improve his position by talking 
 with open scorn of a great public agitation then going on — 
 indeed, he so far forgot himself as to define stump-oratory 
 as only another form of foot-and-mouth disease. But at 
 least he had one strenuous backer, and neither Mr. Laidlaw 
 nor Mr, Jaap nor the big skipper was anxious to quarrel 
 with a controversialist who had such abundant stores of 
 hospitality at her command. Moreover, Kate Menzies was 
 
278 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 in the habit of speaking her mind ; was it not better, for 
 the sake of peace and quietness, to yield a little ? This 
 cousin of hers from the Highlands could parade some book- 
 learning it is true ; and he had plenty of cut-and-dried 
 theories that sounded plausible enough ; and his apparent 
 knowledge of the working of American institutions was 
 sufficiently good for an argument — so long as one could 
 not get at the real facts ; but they knew, of course, that, 
 with time to get at these facts and to furnish forth replies 
 to his specious reasonings, they could easily prove their own 
 case. In the meantime they would be magnanimous. For 
 the sake of good fellowship — and to oblige a lady — they 
 shifted the subject. 
 
 Or rather she did. 
 
 "I suppose you'll be going to the Harmony Club to- 
 night ? " she said. 
 
 " For a while, at least," replied the captain. " Mr. Jaap's 
 new song is to be sung the nicht ; and we maun get him 
 an encore for't. Not that it needs us ; ' Caledonia's hills 
 and dales ' will be a' ower Glasgow before a fortnight's out ; 
 and it's young Tam Dalswinton that's to sing it. Tam'll 
 do his best, no fear." 
 
 " It's little ye think," observed Mrs. Menzies, with a kind 
 of superior air, " that there's somebody not a hundred miles 
 frae here that can sing better than a' your members and a' 
 your professionals put thegither. The Harmony Club ! 
 If the Harmony Club heard hm, they might tak tent and 
 learn a lesson." 
 
 " Ay, and wha's he when he's at hame. Mistress ? " 
 Captain M'Taggart said. 
 
 " He's not fifty miles away frae here anyway," she said. 
 " And if I was to tell ye that he's sitting not three yards 
 away frae ye at this meenit ? " 
 
 " Katie, woman, are ye daft ? " Ronald said, and he 
 laughed, but his forehead grew red all the same. 
 
 " No, I'm no," she answered confidently. " I ken what 
 I'm saying as weel as most folk. Oh, I've heard some o' 
 the best o' them — no at the Harmony Club, for they're too 
 high and mighty to let women bodies in — but at the City 
 Hall concerts and in the theatres ; and I've got a good 
 enough ear, too ; I ken what's what ; and I ken if my 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING 279 
 
 cousin Ronald were to stand up at the Saturday Evening 
 Concerts, and sing the song he sung in this very room last 
 night, I tell ye he would take the shine out o' some 0' 
 them ! " 
 
 " He micht gie us a screed now," Mr. Laidlaw suggested 
 — his somewhat lack-lustre eyes going from his hostess to 
 Ronald. 
 
 " Faith, no ! " Ronald said, laughing, " there's been ower 
 great a flourish beforehand. The fact is, Mrs. Menzies 
 here " 
 
 " I thought I tolled ye my name was Kate ? " she said 
 sharply. 
 
 " Kate, Cat, or Kitten, then, as ye like, woman, what I 
 mean to say is that ower long a grace makes the porridge 
 cold. Some other time — some other time, lass." 
 
 "Ay, and look here, Mr. Jaap," continued the widow, 
 who was determined that her cousin's superior qualifications 
 should not be hidden, "ye are aye complaining that ye 
 canna get anything but trash to set your tunes to. "Well, 
 here's my cousin ; I dinna ken if he still keeps at the trade, 
 but as a laddie he could just write ye anything ye liked right 
 aff the reel, and as good as Burns, or better. There's your 
 chance now. Everybody says your music's jist splendid — 
 and the choruses taken up in a meenit — but you just ask 
 Ronald there to gie ye something worth while making a 
 song 0'." 
 
 Now not only did the old man express his curiosity to 
 see some of Ronald's work in this way, and also the gratifi- 
 cation it would give him to set one of his songs to music, 
 but Ronald was likewise well pleased with the proposal. 
 His own efforts in adapting tunes to his verses he knew 
 were very amateurish ; and would it not be a new sensa- 
 tion—a little pride commingled with the satisfaction perhaps 
 — to have one of his songs presented with an original air 
 all to itself, and perhaps put to the test of being sung before 
 some more or less skilled audience ? He knew he had 
 dozens to choose from ; some of them patriotic ; others con- 
 vivial, others humorous in a kind of way : from any of these 
 the musician was welcome to select as' he liked. The love 
 songs about Meenie were a class apart. 
 
 And now that they had got away from the thrashed-out 
 
28o WHITE HE A THER 
 
 straw of politics to more congenial themes, tliese three 
 cm'ionsly assorted boon-companions proved to be extremely 
 pleasant and good-natured fellows ; and when, at length, 
 they said it was time for them to be off to the musical club, 
 they cordially invited Ronald to accompany them. He "was 
 nothing loth, for he was curious to see the place ; and if 
 Mrs. Menzies grumbled a little at being left alone she con- 
 soled herself by hinting that her jjro%e could teach them 
 a lesson if he chose to do so. 
 
 " AVhen ye've listened for a while to their squalling, 
 Ronald, my man, jist you get up and show them how an 
 East Lothian lad can do the trick." 
 
 " What's that, Mistress ? I thought ye said your cousin 
 was frae the Hielans," the skipper broke in. 
 
 " Frae the Hielans ? Frae East Lothian, I tell ye ; 
 where I come frae mysel' ; and where ye'll find the brawest 
 lads and lasses in the breadth o' Scotland," she added 
 saucily. 
 
 " And they dinna stay a' at hame either," remarked the 
 big skipper, with much gallantry, as the visitors prepared 
 to leave. 
 
 They went away through the noisy, crowded, glaring 
 streets, and at length entered a spacious dark courtyard, at 
 the head of which was a small and narrow entrance. The 
 skipper led the way-; but as they passed up the staircase 
 they became aware of a noise of music overhead ; and when 
 they reached the landing, they had to pause there, so as not 
 to interrupt the proceedings within. It was abundantly 
 clear what these were. A man's voice was singing " Green 
 grow the rashes, " to a smart and lively accompaniment 
 on the piano ; while at the end of each verse, joined in a 
 sufficiently enthusiastic chorus : 
 
 " Green grow the rashes, 0, 
 Green grow the rashes, 0, 
 The siveeteit hours that e\r I speiit, 
 Were spent among the lassvs, 0." 
 
 and that was repeated : 
 
 " Green grow the rashes, 0, 
 Green grow the rashes, 0, 
 The sweetest hours that e'er I spent. 
 Were spent among the lasses, 0." 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING 281 
 
 Then there was silence. The skipper now opened the 
 door ; and, as they entered, Eonald found himself near the 
 head of a long and loftdy-ceilinged apartment, the atmo- 
 sphere of which was of a pale blue cast, through the presence 
 of much tobacco smoke. All down this long room were 
 t\.-in rows of small tables, at which little groups of friends 
 or acquaintances sate — repectable looking men they seemed, 
 many of them young fellows, more of them of middle age, 
 and nearly all of them furnished with drinks and pipes or 
 cigars. At the head of the room was a platform, not raised 
 more than a foot from the floor, with a piano at one end of 
 it ; and in front of the platform was a special semicircular 
 tal3le, presided over by a bland rubicund gentleman, to whom 
 Eonald was forthwith introduced. Indeed, the newcomers 
 were fortunate enough to find seats at this semicircular 
 table ; and when beverages were called for and pipes lit, 
 they waited for the further continuance of the proceedings. 
 These were of an entirely simple and ingenuous character, 
 and had no taint whatsoever of the ghastly make-believe of 
 wit, the mean swagger, and facetious innuendo of the 
 London music hall. Xow a member of the Club, when 
 loudly called upon by the general voice, would step up to 
 the platform and sing some familiar Scotch ballad ; and 
 again one of the professional singers in attendance (they 
 did not appear in swallow-tail and white tie, by the way, 
 but in soberer attire) would " oblige " with something more 
 ambitious ; but throughout there was a paevailing tendency 
 towards compositions with a chorus ; and the chorus grew 
 ■^ore universal and more enthusiastic as the evening pro- 
 ceeded. Then occasionally between the performances there 
 occurred a considerable interval, during which the members 
 of the Club would make brief visits to the other tables ; and 
 in this way Eonald made the acquaintance of a good number 
 of those moderately convivial souls. For, if there was a 
 tolerable amount of treating and its corresponding chal- 
 lenges, there was no drunkenness apparent anywhere ; there 
 was some loud talking ; and Captain M'Taggart was unduly 
 anxious that everybody should come and sit at the Presi- 
 dent's table ; but the greatest hilarity did not exceed bounds. 
 It was to be observed, however, that, as the evening drew 
 on, it was the extremely sentimental songs that were the 
 
282 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 chief favourites — those that mourned the bygone days of 
 boyhood and youth, or told of the premature decease of 
 some beloved Annie or Mary. 
 
 Ronald was once or twice pressed to sing ; but he good- 
 naturedly refused. 
 
 " Some other time, if I may have the chance, I will try 
 to screw up my courage," he said. " And by that time ye'll 
 have forgotten what Mrs. Menzies said : the East Lothian 
 folk are wonderful for praising their own kith and kin." 
 
 As to letting old Mr. Jaap have a song or two to set to 
 music, that was another and simpler matter ; and he pro- 
 mised to hunt out one or two of them. In truth, it would 
 not be difficult, as he himself perceived, to find something 
 a little better than the " Caledonia's hills and dales " which 
 was sung that night, and which was of a very familiar pattern 
 indeed. And Eonald looked forward with not a little 
 natural satisfaction to the possibility of one of his songs 
 being sung in that resounding hall ; a poet must have his 
 audience somewhere ; and this, at least, was more extensive 
 than a handful of farm lads and lasses collected together in 
 the barn at Inver-Mudal. 
 
 At about half-past eleven the entire company broke up 
 and dispersed ; and Ronald, after thanking his three com- 
 panions very heartily for their hospitality during the evening, 
 set off for his lodgings in the north of the city. He was 
 quite enlivened and inspirited by this unusual whirl of 
 gaiety ; it had come into his sombre and lonely life as a 
 startling surprise. The rattle of the piano — the resounding 
 choruses — the eager talk of these boon-companions — all this 
 was of an exciting nature ; and as he walked away through 
 the now darkened thoroughfares, he began to wonder 
 whether he could not wTite some lilting verses in the old 
 haphazard Avay. He had not even tried such a thing since 
 he came to Glasgow ; the measurement of surface areas and 
 the classification of Dicotyledons did not lead him in that 
 direction. But on such a gala-night as this, surely he might 
 string some lines together — about Glasgow lads and lasses, 
 and good-fellowship, and the delights of a roaring town ? 
 It would be an experiment, in any case. 
 
 "Well, when he had got home and lit the gas, and sate 
 down to the jingling task, it was not so difficult, after all. 
 
INDUCEMENTS 283 
 
 But there was an undernote running through these verses 
 that he had not contemplated when he set out. When the 
 first glow of getting them together was over, he looked 
 down the page, and then he put it away ; in no circum- 
 stances could this kind of song find its way into the 
 Harmony Club ; and yet he was not altogether disappointed 
 that it was so. 
 
 Glasgow lasses are fair enough 
 
 And Glasgoiv lads are merry ; 
 But I would he loith my own dear maid, 
 
 A-ivandering down Strath-Terry. 
 
 And she ivould he singing her morning song, 
 The song that the larhs have taught lier ; 
 
 A song of the northern seas and hills, 
 And a song of Mudal-Water. 
 
 The hands go thundering through the streets. 
 
 The fifes and drums together ; 
 Far rather I'd hear the grouse-cock crow 
 
 Among the purple heather ; 
 
 And I loould he on Ben Clebrig's hrow, 
 
 To loatch the red-deer stealing 
 In single file adown the glen 
 
 And past the summer slieilin-g. 
 
 Glasgow lasses are fair enough. 
 
 And Glasgoio lads are merry ; 
 But ah, for the voice of my own dear maid, 
 
 A-singing adown Strath-Terry! 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 IXDUCEIIENTS. 
 
 Ronald's friendship with the hospitable widow and his 
 acquaintanceship with those three boon-companions of hers 
 grew apace ; and many a merry evening they all of them 
 had together in the brilliant little parlour, Ronald singing 
 his own or any other songs without stint, the big skipper 
 telling elaborately facetious Highland stories, the widow 
 bountiful with her cigars and her whisky-toddy. And 
 yet he was ill, ill at ease. He would not admit to 
 himself, of course, that he rather despised these new 
 acquaintances — for were they not most generous and kind 
 
284 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 towards him ? — nor yet that the loud hilarity he joined iii 
 was on his part at times a trifle forced. Indeed, he could 
 not very well have defined the cause of this disquietude 
 and restlessness and almost despair that was present to his 
 consciousness even when the laugh was at its loudest and 
 the glasses going round most merrily. But the truth was 
 he had begun to lose heart in his work. The first glow of 
 determination that had enabled him to withstand the de- 
 pression of the dull days and the monotonous labour had 
 subsided now. The brilliant future the Americans had 
 painted for him did not seem so attractive. Meenie was 
 away ; perhaps never to be met with more ; and the old 
 glad days that were filled with the light of her presence 
 were all gone now and growing ever more and more distant. 
 And in the solitude of the little room up there in the Port 
 Dundas Koad — with the gray atmosphere ever present at 
 the windows, and the dull rumble of the carts and waggons 
 Avithout — he was now getting into a habit of pushing aside 
 his books for a while, and letting his fancies go far afield ; 
 insomuch that his heart seemed to grow more and more 
 sick within him, and more and more he grew to think that 
 somehow life had gone all wrong with him. 
 
 There is in Glasgow a thoroughfare familiarly known as 
 Balmanno Brae. It is in one of the poorer neighbourhoods 
 of the town ; and is in truth rather a squalid and uninter- 
 esting place ; but it has the one striking peculiarity of being 
 extraordinarily steep, having been built on the side of a 
 considerable hill. Now one must have a powerful imagin- 
 ation to see in this long, abrupt, blue-gray thoroughfare — 
 with its grimy pavements and house-fronts, and its gutters 
 running with dirty water — any resemblance to the wide 
 slopes of Ben Clebrig and the carolling rills that flow down 
 to Loch ISTaver ; but all the same Ronald had a curious 
 fancy for mounting this long incline, and that at the hardest 
 pace he could go. For sometimes, in that little room, he 
 felt almost like a caged animal dying for a wider air, a 
 more active work ; and here at least was a height that 
 enabled him to feel the power of his knees ; while the mere 
 upward progress was a kind of inspiriting thing, one always 
 having a vague fancy that one is going to see farther in 
 getting higher. Alas ! there was but the one inevitable 
 
INDUCEMENTS 285 
 
 termination to these repeated climbings ; and tliat not the 
 wide panorama embracing Loch Lojal and Ben Hope and 
 the far Kyle of Tongue, but a wretched little lane called 
 Eotten Eow — a double line of gloomy houses, with here 
 and there an older-fashioned cottage with a thatched roof, 
 and with everywhere pervading the close atmosphere an 
 odour of boiled herrings. And then again, looking back, 
 there was no yellow and wide-shining Strath-Terry, with its 
 knolls of purple heather and its devious rippling burns, but 
 only the great, dark, grim, mysterious city, weltering in its 
 smoke, and dully groaning, as it were, under the grinding 
 burden of its monotonous toil. 
 
 As the Twelfth of August drew near he became more 
 and more restless, He had written to Lord Ailine to say 
 that, if he could be of any use, he would take a run up to 
 Inver-Mudal for a week or so, just to see things started for 
 the season ; but Lord Ailine had considerately refused the 
 olfer, saying that everything seemed going on well enough, 
 except, indeed, that Lugar the Gordon setter was in a fair 
 way of being spoilt, for that, owing to Ronald's parting- 
 injunctions, there was not a man or boy about the place 
 would subject the dog to any kind of chastisement or 
 discipline whatever. And it sounded strange to Ronald to 
 hear that he was still remembered away up there in the 
 remote little hamlet. 
 
 On the morning of the day before the Twelfth his books 
 did not get much attention. He kept going to the window 
 to watch the arrivals at the railway station opposite, wonder- 
 ing whether this one or that was off and away to the wide 
 moors and the hills. Then, about mid-day, he saw a young 
 lad bring up four dogs — a brace of setters, a small spaniel, 
 and a big brown retriever — and give them over in charge 
 to a porter. Well, human nature could not stand this any 
 longer. His books were no longer thought of ; on went 
 his Glengarry cap ; and in a couple of minutes he was 
 across the road and into the station, where the porter was 
 hauling the dogs along the platform. 
 
 " Here, my man, I'll manage the doggies for ye," he 
 said, getting hold of the chains and straps ; and of 
 course the dogs at once recognised in him a natural 
 ally and were less alarmed. A shambling, bow-legged 
 
286 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 porter hauling at them they could not understand at all ; 
 but in the straight figure and sun-tanned cheek and 
 clear eye of the newcomer they recognised features 
 familiar to them ; and then he spoke to them as if he 
 knew them. 
 
 " Ay, and what's your name, then ? — Bruce, or Wallace, 
 or Soldier ? — but there'll no be much work for you for a 
 while yet. It's you, you two bonnie lassies, that'll be 
 amongst the heather the morn ; and well I can see ye'll 
 work together, and back each other, and just set an example 
 to human folk. And if ye show yourselves just a wee bit 
 eager at the beginning o' the day — well, well, well, we all 
 have our faults, and that one soon wears off. And what's 
 your names, then ? — Lufra, or Nell, or Bess, or Fan 1 And 
 you, yoa wise auld chiel — I'm thinking ye could get a grip 
 o' a mallard that would make him imagine he had got back 
 into his mother's nest— you're a wise one— the Free Kirk 
 elder o' the lot " — for, indeed, the rest of them were all 
 pawing at him, and licking his hands, and whimpering their 
 friendship. The porter had to point out to him that he, 
 the porter, could not stand there the whole day with 
 " a' wheen dogs ; " whereupon Ronald led these new 
 companions of his along to the dog-box that had been 
 provided for them, and there, when they had been properly 
 secured, the porter left him. Ronald could still talk to 
 them, however, and ask them questions ; and they seemed 
 to understand well enough ; indeed, he had not spent so 
 pleasant a half -hour for many and many a day. 
 
 There chanced to come along the platform a little, wiry, 
 elderly man, with a wholesome-looking, weather-tanned face, 
 who was carrying a bundle of fishing-rods over his shoulder ; 
 and seeing how Ronald was engaged he spoke to him in 
 passing and began to talk about the dogs. 
 
 " Perhaps they're your dogs 1 " Ronald said. 
 
 " No, no, our folk are a' fishing folk," said the little old 
 man, who was probably a gardener or something of the kind, 
 and who seemed to take readily to this new acquaintance. 
 " I've just been in to Glasgow to get a rod mended, and to 
 bring out a new one that the laird has bought for himself." 
 
 He grinned in a curious sarcastic way. 
 
 " He's rather a wee man ; and this rod — Lord sakes, ye 
 
INDUCEMENTS 287 
 
 never saw such a thing ! it would break the back o' a 
 Samson — bless ye, the but o't's like a weaver's beam ; and 
 for our gudeman to buy a thing like that — well, rich folk 
 hae queer ways 0' spending their money." 
 
 He was a friendly old man ; and this joke of his 
 master having bought so tremendous an engine seemed to 
 afford him so much enjoyment that when Konald asked 
 to be allowed to see this formidable weapon he said at 
 once — 
 
 " Just you come along outside there, and we'll put it 
 thegither, and ye'll see what kind 0' salmon-rod an old man 
 o' five foot five thinks he can cast wi' " 
 
 " If it's no^taking up too much of your time," Eonald 
 suggested, but eager enough he was to get a salmon-rod 
 into his fingers again. 
 
 " I've three quarters of an hour to wait," was the reply, 
 " for I canna make out they train books ava." 
 
 They went out beyond the platform to an open space, 
 and very speedily the big rod was put together. It was 
 indeed an enormous thing ; but a very fine rod, for all that ; 
 and so beautifully balanced and so beautifully pliant that 
 Eonald, after having made one or two passes through the 
 air with it, could not help saying to the old man, and 
 rather wistfully too 
 
 " I suppose ye dinna happen to have a reel about 
 
 ye?" 
 
 " That I have," was the instant answer, " and a brand 
 new hundred-yard line on it too. Would ye like to try a 
 cast ? I'm thinking ye ken something about it." 
 
 It was an odd kind of place to try the casting-power of 
 a salmon-rod, this dismal no-man's-land of empty trucks 
 and rusted railway -points and black ashes ; but no sooner 
 had Eonald begun to send out a good line — taking care to 
 recover it so that it should not fray itself along the gritty 
 ground — than the old man perceived he had to deal with 
 no amateur. 
 
 " Man, ye're a dab, and no mistake ! As clean a line as 
 ever I saw cast ! It's no the first time yoiCve handled a 
 salmon-rod, I'U be bound ! " 
 
 " It's the best rod I've ^ever had in my hand," Eonald 
 
 said ^'^ ^"^ Vxao-QTI fn rOAl m fViQ lina nrvoin " T'vn i-r>n,^V> 
 
288 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 obliged to ye for letting me try a cast — it's many a day no^v 
 since I threw a line." 
 
 They took the rod down and put it in its case. 
 
 " I'm much obliged to ye," Eonald repeated (for the 
 mere handling of this rod had fired his veins with a strange 
 kind of excitement). " Will ye come and take a dram ? " 
 
 " No, thank ye, I'm a teetotaler," said the other ; and 
 then he glanced at Eonald curiously. "But ye seem to 
 ken plenty about dogs and about fishing and so on — what 
 are ye doing in Glasgow and the morn the Twelfth ? Ye 
 are not a town lad ? " 
 
 " No, I'm not ; but I have to live in the town at present," 
 was the answer. " Well, good-day to ye ; and many thanks 
 for the trial o' the rod." 
 
 " Good-day, my lad ; I wish I had your years and the 
 strength o' your shouthers." 
 
 In passing Ronald said good-bye again to the handsome 
 setters and the spaniel and the old retriever ; and then he 
 went on and out of the station, but it was not to return to 
 his books. The seeing of so many people going away to the 
 north, the talking with the dogs, the trial of the big salmon- 
 rod, had set his brain a little wild. What if he were to go 
 back and beg of the withered old man to take him with 
 him — ay, even as the humblest of gillies, to watch, gaff in 
 hand, by the side of the broad silver-rippling stream, or to 
 work in a boat on a blue-ruffied loch ! To jump into a 
 third-class carriage and know that the firm inevitable giip 
 of the engine was dragging him away into the clearer light, 
 the wider skies, the glad free air ! No wonder they said 
 that fisher folk were merry folk ; the very jolting of the 
 engine would in such a case have a kind of music in it ; 
 how easily could one make a song that would match with 
 the swing of the train ! It was in his head now, as he 
 rapidly and blindly walked away along the Cowcaddens, 
 and along the New City Eoad, and along the Western 
 Eoad — random rhymes, random verses, that the jolly 
 company could sing together as the engine thundered 
 along — 
 
 Out of the station u-e rattle au-ay, 
 
 Wi' a clangour of axle and iclieel ; 
 Tliere^s a merrier sound that ive know in the north — 
 The merry, merry shrielc of the reel ! 
 
INDUCEMENTS 289 
 
 you, that shouther the heavy iron gun, 
 
 And have steep, steep hraes to speel — 
 We envy you not ; enough is for us 
 
 The merry, merry shriek of the reel ! 
 
 Wlien the twenty-four pounder leaps in the air. 
 
 And the line flies out icith a squeal — 
 that is the hlessedest sound upon earth. 
 
 The merry, merry shriek of the reel! 
 
 So here's to good fellows ! — for them that are not, 
 Let them gang and sup kail ivi' the deil .' 
 
 We've other -work here — so look out, my lads. 
 For the first, sharp shriek of the reel I 
 
 He did not care to put the rough- jolting verses down on 
 paper, for the farther and the more rapidly he walked away 
 out of the town the more was his brain busy with pictures 
 and visions of all that they would be doing at this very 
 moment at Inver-JMudal. 
 
 " God bless me," he said to himself, " I could almost 
 swear I hear the dogs whimpering in the kennels." 
 
 There would be the young lads looking after the panniers 
 and the ponies ; and the head-keeper up at the lodge dis- 
 cussing witli Lord Ailine the best way of taking the hill in 
 the morning, supposing the wind to remain in the same 
 direction ; and Mr. Murray at the door of the inn, smoking 
 his pipe as usual ; and the pretty Xelly indoors waiting 
 upon the shooting party just arrived from the south and 
 listening to all their wants. And Harry would be wondering, 
 amid all this new bustle and turmoil, why his master did 
 not put in an appearance ; perhaps scanning each succeeding 
 dog-cart or waggonette that came along the road ; and then, 
 not so blithe-spirited, making his way to the Doctor's house. 
 Comfort awaited him there, at all events ; for Ronald had 
 heard that Meenie had taken pity on the little terrier, and 
 that it Avas a good deal oftener with her than at the inn. 
 Only all this seemed now so strange ; the great dusk city 
 lay behind him like a nightmare from which he had but 
 partially escaped, and that with tightened breath ; and he 
 seemed to be straining his ears to catch those soft and 
 friendly voices so far away. And then later on, as the 
 darkness fell, what would be happening there ? The lads 
 would be coming along to the inn ; lamps lit, and chairs 
 
 U 
 
290 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 drawn in to the table ; Mr. Murray looking in at times with 
 his jokes, and perhaps with a bit of a treat on so great an 
 occasion. And surely — surely — as they begin to talk of 
 this year and of last year and of the changes — surely some 
 one will say — perhaps Nelly, as she brings in the ale — but 
 surely some one will say — as a mere word of friendly re- 
 membrance — " Well, I wish Ronald was here now with his 
 pipes, to play us The Barren Rocks of Aden." Only a 
 single friendly word of remembrance — it was all that he 
 craved. 
 
 He struck away south through Dowanhill and Partick, 
 and crossed the Clyde at Govan Ferry ; then he made his 
 way back to the town and Jamaica Street bridge ; and 
 finally, it being now dusk, looked in to see whether Mrs. 
 Menzies was at leisure for the evening. 
 
 " What's the matter, Ronald ? " she said instantly, as he 
 entered, for she noticed that his look was careworn and 
 strange. 
 
 " Well, Katie, lass, I don't quite know what's the 
 matter wi' me, but I feel as if I just couldna go back to 
 that room of mine and sit there by myself — at least not 
 yet ; I think I've been put a bit daft wi' seeing the people 
 going away for the Twelfth ; and if ye wouldna mind my 
 sitting here for a while with ye, for the sake o' com- 
 pany- 
 
 " Mind ! " she said. " Mind ! What I do mind is that 
 you should be ganging to that lodging-house at a', when 
 there's a room — and a comfortable room, though I say it 
 that shouldn't — in this very house at your disposal, when- 
 ever ye like to bring yom* trmik till it. There it is — an 
 empty room, used by nobody — and who more welcome to 
 it than my ain cousin ? I'U tell ye what, Ronald, my lad, 
 ye're wearing yoursel' away on a gowk's errand. Your 
 certificate ! How do ye ken ye'll get your certificate ? 
 How do ye ken ye will do such great things with it when 
 ye get it ? You're a young man ; you'll no be a young 
 man twice ; what I say is, take your fling when ye can get 
 it ! Look at Jimmy Laidlaw — he's off the first thing in 
 the morning to the Mearns — £15 for his share of the 
 shooting — do you think he can shoot like you ? — and why 
 should ye no have had your share too ? " 
 
INDUCEMENTS 291 
 
 " Well, it was very kind of you, Katie, woman, to make 
 ihe offer ; but — but — there's a time for everything." 
 
 " Man, I could have driven ye out every morning in the 
 dog-cart ! and welcome. I'm no for having young folk 
 waste the best years of their life, and find out how little 
 use the rest o't's to them — no that I consider mysel' one 
 0' the auld folk yet " 
 
 " You, Katie dear ! " whined old mother Paterson from 
 her millinery corner. " You— just in the prime 0' youth, 
 one micht say ! you one o' the auld folk ? — ay, in thirty 
 years' time maybe ! " 
 
 " Take my advice, Ronald, my lad," said the widow 
 boldly. " Dinna slave away for naething — because folk 
 have put fancy notions into your head. Have a better 
 opinion 0' yoursel' ! Take your chance 0' life when ye 
 can get it — books and books, what's the use 0' books ? " 
 
 " Too late now — I've made my bed and maun lie on it," 
 he said gloomily ; but then he seemed to try to shake off 
 this depression. " Well, well, lass, Rome was not built in 
 a day. And if I were to throw aside my books, what 
 then ? How would that serve ? Think ye that that 
 would make it any the easier for me to get a three-weeks' 
 shooting wi' Jimmy Laidlaw ? " 
 
 " And indeed ye might have had that in any case, and 
 welcome," said Kate Menzies, with a toss of her head. 
 " Who is Jimmy Laidlaw, I wonder ! But it's no use 
 arguin' wi' ye, Ronald, lad ; he that will to Cupar maun to 
 Cupar ; only I dinna like to see ye looking just ill." 
 
 " Enough said, lass ; I didna come here to torment vc 
 with my wretched affairs," he answered ; and at this moment 
 the maidservant entered to lay the cloth for supper, while 
 Mrs. Menzies withdrew to make herself gorgeous for the 
 occasion. 
 
 He was left with old mother Paterson. 
 
 " There's none so blind as them that winna see," she 
 began, in her whining voice. 
 
 " What is't ? " 
 
 " Ay, Ay," she continued, in a sort of maundering 
 soliloquy, " a braw woman like that — and free-handed as 
 the day — she could have plenty offers if she liked. But 
 there's none so blind as them that winna see. There's 
 
 u 2 
 
292 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Mr. Laidlaw there, a good-looking man, and wan wi' a 
 good penny at the bank ; and wonldna he just jump at 
 the chance, if she had a nod or a wink for him ? But 
 Katie was aye like that — headstrong ; she would aye 
 have her ain way — and there she is, a single woman, a 
 braw, handsome, young woman — and weel provided for 
 — weel provided for — only it's no every one that takes 
 her fancy. A prize like that, to be had for the asking ! 
 Dear me — but there's nane so blind as them that winna see" 
 
 It was not by any means the first time that mother 
 Paterson had managed to drop a few dark hints — and 
 much to his embarrassment, moreover, for he could not 
 pretend to ignore their purport. Nay, there was some- 
 thing more than that. Kate Menzie's rough-and-ready 
 friendliness for her cousin had of late become more and 
 more pronounced — almost obtrusive, indeed. She wanted 
 to have the mastery of his actions altogether. She W'ould 
 have him pitch his books aside and come for a drive with 
 her whether he was in the humour or no. She offered 
 him the occupancy of a room which, if it was not actually 
 W'ithin the tavern, communicated with it. She seemed 
 unable to understand why he should object to her paying 
 £15 to obtain for him a share in a small bit of conjoint 
 shooting out at the Mearns. And so forth in many ways. 
 A\^el], these things, taken by themselves, he might have 
 attributed to a somewhat tempestuous good-nature ; but 
 here was this old woman, Avhenever a chance occurred, 
 whining about the folly of people who did not see that 
 Katie dear was so handsome and generous and so mar- 
 vellous a matrimonial prize. Nor could he very well tell 
 her to mind her own business, for that would be admitting 
 that he imderstood her hints. 
 
 However, on this occasion he had not to listen long ; 
 for presently Mrs Menzies returned, smiling, good-natured, 
 radiant in further finery ; and then they all had supper 
 together ; and she did her best to console her cousin for 
 being cooped up in the great city on the eve of the 
 Twelfth. And Eonald was very grateful to her ; and 
 perhaps, in his eager desire to keep up this flow of high 
 spirits, and to forget what was happening at Inver-Mudal 
 and about to happen, he may have drunk a little too 
 
INDUCEMENTS S93 
 
 much ; at all events, when Laidlaw and Jaap and the 
 skipper came in they found him in a very merry mood, 
 and Kate Menzies equally hilarious and happy. Songs ? 
 • — he was going to no Harmony Club that night, he 
 declared — he would sing them as many songs as ever they 
 liked — but he was not going to forsake his cousin. Nor 
 were the others the least unwilling to remain where they 
 were ; for here they were in privacy, and the singing was 
 better, and the liquor unexceptionable. The blue smoke 
 rose quietly in the air ; the fumes of Long John warmed 
 blood and brain ; and then from time to time they heard 
 of the brave, or beautiful, or heart-broken maidens of 
 Scotch song — ]\Iaggie Lauder, or Nelly Munro, or Barbara 
 Allan, as the chance might be — and music and good 
 fellowship and whisky all combined to throw a romantic 
 halo round these simple heroines. 
 
 " But sing us one o' your own, Ronald, my lad — there's 
 none better, and that's what I say ! " cried the widow ; and 
 as she happened to be passing his chair at the time — going 
 to the sideboard for some more lemons, she slapped him on 
 the shoulder by way of encouragement. 
 
 " One o' my own ? " said he. " But which — which — 
 lass ? Oh, well, here's one." 
 
 He lay back in his chair, and quite at haphazard, and 
 carelessly and jovially began to sing — in that clearly pene- 
 trating voice that neither tobacco smoke nor whisky seemed 
 to affect — 
 
 'Ro&es white, roses red, 
 
 Eoses ill the lane. 
 Tell me, roses red and ivhite^ 
 Jlliere is 
 
 And then suddenly something seemed to grip his heart. 
 But the stumble was only for the fiftieth part of a second. 
 He continued : 
 
 Where is Jeannie (jaiie ? 
 
 And so he finished the careless little verses. Nevertheless, 
 Kate Menzies, returning to her seat, had noticed that quick, 
 instinctive pulling of himself up. 
 
 " And who's Jeannie when she's at home ?" she asked 
 saucily. 
 
294 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 " Jeannie ? " lie said, with apparent indifference. 
 " Jeannie ? There's plenty o' that name about." 
 
 " Ay ; and how many o' them are at Inver-Mudal ? " she 
 asked, regarding him shrewdly, and with an air which he 
 resented. 
 
 But the little incident passed. There was more sing- 
 ing, drinking, smokiug, talking of nonsense and laughing. 
 And at last the time came for the merry companions to 
 separate : and he went away home through the dark streets 
 alone. He had drunk too much, it must be admitted ; 
 but he had a hard head ; and he had kept his wits about 
 him ; and even now as he ascended the stone stairs to his 
 lodgings he remembered with a kind of shiver, and also 
 with not a little heartfelt satisfaction, how he had just 
 managed to save himself from bringing Meenie's name 
 before that crew. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 ENTANGLEMENTS. 
 
 And then came along the great evening on which the first 
 of Eonald's songs that Mr. Jaap had set to music was to 
 be sung at the Harmony Club. Ronald had unluckily got 
 into the way of going a good deal to that club. It was a 
 relief from weary days and vain regrets ; it was a way of 
 escape from the too profuse favours that Kate Menzies 
 wished to shower upon him. Moreover, he had become 
 very popular there. His laugh was hearty ; his jokes and 
 sarcasms were always good-natured ; he could drink with 
 the best without getting quarrelsome. His acquaintance- 
 ship rapidly extended ; his society was eagerly bid for in 
 the rough-and-ready fashion that prevails towards midnight ; 
 and long after the club was closed certain of these boon- 
 companions would " keep it up " in this or the other 
 bachelor's lodgings, while through the open window there 
 rang out into the empty street the oft-repeated chorus — 
 
 " We are na fou\ ice're nae that foii', 
 But just a drappie in our e'e; 
 
 ■ -, Tlie cock may craw, the day may dato. 
 
 And aye we^ll taste the barley bree ! " 
 
ENTANGLEMENTS 295 
 
 The night -time seemed to go by so easily ; the daytime 
 was so slow. He still did his best, it is true, to get on with 
 this work that had so completely lost all its fascination for 
 him ; and he tried hard to banish dreams. For one thing, 
 he had gathered together all the fragments of verse he had 
 written about Meenie, and had added thereto the little 
 sketch of Inver-Mudal she had given him ; and that parcel 
 he had resolutely locked away, so that he should no longer 
 be tempted to waste the hours in idle musings, and in 
 useless catechising of himself as to how he came to be 
 in Glasgow at all. He had forborne to ask from Maggie 
 the answer that Meenie had sent to her letter. In truth, 
 there were many such ; for there was almost a constant 
 correspondence between these two ; and as the chief sub- 
 ject of Maggie's writings was always and ever Ronald, 
 there were no doubt references to him in the replies that 
 came from Inver-Mudal. But he only heard vaguely of 
 these ; he did not call often at his brother's house ; and 
 he grew to imagine that the next definite news he would 
 hear about Meenie would be to the effect that she had 
 been sent to live with the Stuarts of Glengask, with a view 
 to her possible marriage with some person in their rank of 
 life. 
 
 There was a goodly to-do at the Harmony Club on the 
 evening of the production of the new song ; for Ronald, as 
 has been said, was much of a favourite ; and his friends 
 declared that if Jaap's music was at all up to the mark, 
 then the new piece would be placed on the standard and 
 permanent list. Mr. Jaap's little circle, on the other 
 hand, who had heard the air, were convinced that the 
 refrain would be caught at once ; and as the success of 
 the song seemed thus secure, Mrs. Menzies had resolved 
 to celebrate the occasion by a supper after the perform- 
 ance, and Jimmy Laidlaw had presented her, for that 
 purpose, with some game which he declared was of his 
 own shooting. 
 
 " What's the use o' making such a fuss about nothing ? " 
 Ronald grumbled. 
 
 " What ? " retorted the big skipper facetiously. " Nae- 
 thing ? Is bringing out a new poet naething ? " 
 
 Now this drinking song, as it turned out, was a very 
 
296 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 curious kind of drinking song. Observe that it was written 
 by a young fellow of eight-and-twenty ; of splendid physique, 
 and of as yet untouched nerve, who could not possibly 
 have had wide experience of the vanities and disappoint- 
 ments of human life. What iron had entered into his soul, 
 then, that a gay and joyous drinking song should have 
 been written in this fashion ? — • 
 
 Goodu friends and neighhours, life is short. 
 
 And man, iTiey say, is made to mourn; 
 Dame Fortune maizes iis all her sport. 
 And laughs our vert/ best to scorn : 
 
 Well, icell ; ice'll have, if that he so, 
 A merry glass before we go. 
 
 The blue-eyed lass u'ill change her mind, 
 
 And give her hisses otherichere ; 
 And she'll be cruel that ^vas kind, 
 And pass you by with but a stare: 
 
 Well, v:ell ; weUl have, if that be so, 
 A merry glass before ice go. 
 
 The silly laddie sits and fills 
 
 Wi' dreams and schemes the first 0' life; 
 And then comes heap on heap 0' ills. 
 
 And squalling bairns and scolding wife: 
 Well, icell ; ice'll have, if that be so, 
 A merry glass before ice go. 
 
 Come stir the fire and mahe us icarm; 
 The night tcithout is dark and icet ; 
 An hour or tica 'tic ill do nae harm 
 The dints 0' fortune to forget : 
 
 So noio we'll have, come iceal or icoe. 
 Another glass before ice go. 
 
 To bonny lasses, honest blades, —~ 
 
 We'll up and give a hearty cheer; 
 Contention is the worst of trader — 
 
 We drink their health, both far and near: 
 And so we'll have, come iceal or ivoe. 
 Another glass before we go. 
 
 And here's ourselves .' — no much to boast ; 
 
 For man's a icean that lives and learns; 
 And some icin hame. and some are lost; 
 But still — we're all John Thomson's bairns I 
 So here, your hand'. — come iceal or xcoe, 
 Another glass before ice go ! 
 
ENTANGLEMENTS 297 
 
 '•^ And some win hame, and some are lost'''' — this was a 
 curious note to strike in a bacchanalian song ; but of course 
 in that atmosphere of tobacco and whisky and loud-voiced 
 merriment such minor touches were altogether unnoticed. 
 
 " Gentlemen," called out the rubicund chairman, rapping 
 on the table, " silence, if you please. Mr. Aikman is about 
 to favour us with a new song written by our recently-elected 
 member, Mr. Ronald Strang, the music by our old friend 
 Mr. Jaap. Silence — silence, if you please." 
 
 Mr. Aikman, who was a melancholy-looking youth, with 
 a white face, straw-coloured hair, and almost colourless eyes, 
 stepped on to the platform, and after the accompanist had 
 played a few bars of prelude, began the song. Feeble as 
 the young man looked, he had, notwithstanding, a powerful 
 baritone voice ; and the air was simple, with a well-marked 
 swing in it ; so that the refrain — -at first rather uncertain 
 and experimental — became after the first verse more and 
 more general, until it may be said that the whole room 
 formed the chorus. And from the very beginning it was 
 clear that the new song was going to be a great success. 
 Any undercurrent of reflection — or even of sadness — there 
 might be in it Avas not perceived at all by this roaring 
 assemblage ; the refrain was the practical and actual thing ; 
 and when once they had fairly grasped the air, they sang 
 the chorus with a will. Nay, amid the loud burst of 
 applause that followed the last verse came numerous cries 
 for an encore ; and these increased until the whole room 
 was clamorous ; and then the pale-faced youth had to step 
 back on to the platform and get through all of the verses 
 again. 
 
 " So here, your liand ! — come iveal or icoe, 
 Another glass hefure ive go ! " 
 
 roared the big skipper and Jimmy Laidlaw with the best of 
 them ; and then in the renewed thunder of cheering that 
 followed — 
 
 " Man, I wish Kate Menzies was here," said the one ; 
 and — 
 
 " Your health, Ronald, lad ; yeVe done the trick this 
 time," said the other. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the chairman, again calling them to 
 
298 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 silence, " I propose that the thanks of the club be given to 
 these two members whom I have named, and who have 
 kindly allowed us to place this capital song on our per- 
 manent list." 
 
 " I second that, Mr. Chairman," said a little, round, fat 
 man, with a beaming- countenance and a bald head ; " and 
 I propose that we sing that song every night just afore we 
 leave." 
 
 But this last suggestion was drowned amidst laughter and 
 cries of dissent. " What ? — instead of ' Auld Lang Syne ' ? " 
 " Ye're daft, Johu Campbell." " Would ye hae the ghost o' 
 Eobbie Burns turning up ? " Indeed, the chairman had to 
 interpose and suavely say that while the song they had just 
 heard would bring any such pleasant evenings as they spent 
 together to an appropriate close, still, they would not disturb 
 cstablislied precedent ; there Would be many occasions, he 
 hoped, for them to hear this production of two of their 
 most talented members. 
 
 In the interval of noise and talk and laughter that 
 followed, it seemed to Eonald that haK the people in the 
 hall wanted him to drink with them. Fame came to him 
 in the shape of unlimited proffers of glasses of whisky ; and 
 he experienced so much of the delight of having become a 
 public character as consisted in absolute strangers assuming 
 the right to make his acquaintance off-hand. Of course 
 they were all members of the same club ; and in no case 
 Avas very strict etiquette observed within these four walls ; 
 nevertheless Eonald found that he had immediately and 
 indefinitely enlarged the circle of his acquaintances ; and 
 that this meant drink. 
 
 " Another glass ? " he said, to one of those strangers who 
 had thus casually strolled up to the table where he sate. 
 " My good friend, there was nothing said in that wretched 
 song about a caskful. I've had too many other ones 
 already." 
 
 However, relief came ; the chairman hammered on the 
 table ; the business of the evening was resumed ; and the 
 skipper, Jaap, Laidlaw, and Eonald were left to them- 
 selves. 
 
 Now there is no doubt that this little circle of friends 
 was highly elated over the success of the new song ; and 
 
ENTANGLEMENTS 299 
 
 Ronald had been pleased enough to hear the words he had 
 written so quickly caught up and echoed by that, to him, 
 big assemblage. Probably, too, they had all of them, in 
 the enthusiasm of the moment, been somewhat liberal in 
 their cups : at all events, a little later on in the evening, 
 when Jimmy Laidlaw stormily demanded that Eonald should 
 sing a song from the platform — to show them what East 
 Lothian could do, as Kate Menzies had said — Ronald did 
 not at once, as usual, shrink from the thought of facing so 
 large an audience. It was the question of the accompani- 
 ment, he said. He had had no practice in singing to a 
 piano. He would put the man out. Why should he not 
 sing here — if sing he must — at the table where they were 
 sitting ? That was what he was used to ; he had no skill 
 in keeping correct time ; he would only bother the accom- 
 panist, and bewilder himself. 
 
 " No, I'll tell ye what it is, Ronald, my lad," his friend 
 Jaap said to him. " I'll play the accompaniment for ye, 
 if ye pick out something I'm familiar wi' ; and don't you 
 heed me ; you look after yourself. Even if ye change the 
 key — and that's not likely — I'll look after ye. Is't a 
 bargain ? " 
 
 Well, he was not afraid — on this occasion. It was 
 announced from the chair that Mr. Ronald Strang, to whom 
 they were already indebted, would favour the company with 
 " The MacGregors' Gathering," accompanied by Mr. Jaap ; 
 and in the rattle of applause that followed this announce- 
 ment, Ronald made his way across the floor and went up 
 the couple of steps leading to the platform. Why he had 
 consented he hardly knew, nor did he stay to ask. It 
 was enough that he had to face this long hall, and its 
 groups of faces seen through the pale haze of the tobacco 
 smoke ; and then the first notes of the piano startled him 
 into the necessity of getting into the same key. He began 
 — a little bewildered, perhaps, and hearing his own voice 
 too consciously — 
 
 " r/te mooji's on the lahe, and the mist's on the hrae, 
 And the clan has a name that is nameless by day." 
 
 " Louder, man, louder ! " the accompanist muttered, 
 imder his breath. 
 
3od White he a ther 
 
 Whether it was this admonition, or whether it was that 
 he gained confidence from feeling himself in harmony with 
 the firm-struck notes of the accompaniment, his voice rose 
 in clearness and courage, and he got through the first verse 
 with very fair success. Nay, when he came to the second, 
 and the music went into a pathetic minor, the sensitiveness 
 of his ear still carried him through bravely — 
 
 " Glenorchi/s proud mountains, Colchurn and her towers, 
 Glenstrae and Glen Lyon no longer are ours — 
 We're landless, landless, landless, Gregalach." 
 
 All this was very well done ; for he began to forget his 
 audience a little, and to put into his singing something of 
 the expression that had come naturally enough to him when 
 he was away on the Clebrig slopes or w'andering along 
 Strath-Terry. As for the audience — when he had finished 
 and stepped back to his seat — they seemed quite electrified. 
 Not often had such a clear-ringing voice penetrated that 
 murky atmosphere. But nothing would induce Eonald to 
 repeat the performance. 
 
 " What made me do it ! " he kept asking himself. " What 
 made me do it ? Bless me, surely I'm no fou' ? " 
 
 " Ye've got a most extraordinarily fine voice, Mr. Strang," 
 the chairman said, in his most complaisant manner, " I hope 
 it's not the last time ye'll favour us." 
 
 Eonald did not answer this. He seemed at once moody 
 and restless. Presently he said — 
 
 " Come away, lads, come away. In God's name let's 
 get a breath o' fresh air — the smoke o' this place is like the 
 bottomless pit." 
 
 " Then let's gang down and have a chat wi' Kate 
 Menzies," said Jimmy Laidlaw at once. 
 
 " Ye're after that supper, Jimmy ! " the big skipper said 
 facetiously. 
 
 " What for no ? Would ye disappoint the woman ; 
 and her sae anxious to hear what happened to Strang's 
 poetry ? Come on, Eonald — she'll be as proud as 
 Punch. And we'll tell her about ' The MacGregors' 
 Gathering' — she said East Lothian would show them 
 something." 
 
 " Yery well, then — very well ; anything to get out o* 
 
ENTANGLEMENTS 301 
 
 here," Eonald said ; and away they all went down to the 
 tavern. 
 
 The widow received them most graciously ; and very 
 sumptuous indeed was the entertainment she had provided 
 for them. She knew that the drinking song would be 
 successful — if the folk had common sense and ears. And 
 he had simg "The MacGregors' Gathering" too? — Avell, 
 had they ever heard singing like that before ? 
 
 " But they have been worrying you "i " she said, glancing 
 shrewdly at him. " Or, what's the matter — ye look down 
 in the mouth — indeed, Ronald, ye've never looked yoursel' 
 since the night ye came in here just before the grouse 
 shooting began. Here, man, drink a glass 0' champagne ; 
 that'll rouse ye up." 
 
 Old mother Paterson was at this moment opening a 
 bottle. 
 
 " Not one other drop of anything, Katie, lass, will 1 
 drink this night," Eonald said. 
 
 " What ? A lively supper we're likely to have, then ! " 
 the widow cried. " "Where's your spunk, man ? I think 
 ye're broken-hearted about some lassie — that's what it is ! 
 Here, now." 
 
 She brought him the foaming glass of champagne ; but 
 he would not look at it. 
 
 " And if I drink to your health out of the same glass ? " 
 
 She touched the glass with her lips. 
 
 " There, now, if you're a man, ye'll no refuse noo." 
 
 Nor could he. And then the supper came along ; and 
 there was eating and talking and laughing and further 
 drinking, until a kind of galvanised hilarity sprang up once 
 more amongst them. And she would have Ronald declare 
 to them which of the lasses in Sutherlandshire it was who 
 had broken his heart for him ; and, in order to get her 
 away from the subject, he was very amenable in her hands, 
 and would do anything she l)ade him, singing first one 
 song and then another, and not refusing the drinking of 
 successive toasts. As for the others, they very prudently 
 declined having anything to do with champagne. But 
 Ronald was her pet, her favourite ; and she had got a 
 special box of cigars for him — all wrapped up in silverfoil 
 and labelled ; and she would have them tell her over and 
 
302 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 over again how Eonald's voice sounded in the long hall 
 when he sang — 
 
 " Glenstrae and Glen Lyon no longer are ours," 
 
 and she would have them tell her again of the thunders of 
 cheering that followed — 
 
 " Well, loell; we'll have, if that be so. 
 Another glass before we go." 
 
 Nay, she would have them try a verse or two of it there 
 and then — led by Mr. Jaap ; and she herself joined in the 
 chorus ; aud they clinked their glasses together, and were 
 proud of their vocalisation and their good comradeship. 
 Indeed, they prolonged tliis jovial evening as late as the 
 law allowed them I and then the widow said gaily— 
 
 " There's that poor man thinks I'm gaun to allow him 
 to gang away to that wretched hole o' a lodging o' his, 
 Avhere he's just eating his heart out wi' solitariness and a 
 \vheen useless books. But I'm not. I ken better than 
 that, Eonald, my lad. Whilst ye've a' been singing and 
 roaring, I've had a room get ready for ye ; and there ye'll 
 sleep this night, -my man — for I'm not going to hae ye 
 march away through the lonely streets, and may be cut 
 your throat ere daybreak ; and ye can lock yourself in, if 
 ye're feared that any warlock or bogle is likely to come 
 and snatch ye ; and in the morning ye'll come down and 
 have your breakfast wi' auntie Paterson and me — and then 
 — what then ? What do ye think ? When the dog-cart's 
 at the door, and me gaun to drive ye oot to Campsie 
 Glen ? There, laddie, that's the programme ; and wet or 
 dry is my motto. If it's wet we'll sing ' Come under my 
 plaidie ' ; and we'll take a drop o' something comfortable 
 wi' us to keep out the rain." 
 
 " I wish I was gaun wi' ye. Mistress," the big skipper said. 
 
 " Two's company and three's none." said Kate Menzies, 
 with a frank laugh. " Is't a bargain, Eonald ? " 
 
 " It's a bargain, lass ; and there's my hand on't," he said, 
 " Now, Where's this room — for I don't know whether it has 
 been the smoke, or the singing, or the whisky, or all o' 
 them together, but my head's like a ship sailing before the 
 wind, without any helm to steer her." 
 
 "Your head" she said proudly. "Your head's like 
 
CAMPSIE GLEN 303 
 
 iron, man ; there's nothing the matter wi' ye. And here's 
 Alec — he'll show you where your room is ; and in the 
 morning ring for whatever ye want ; mind ye, a glass 0' 
 champagne and angostura bitters is just first-rate ; and we'll 
 have breakfast at whatever hour ye please — and then we'll 
 be off to Campsie Glen." 
 
 The little party now broke up, each going his several 
 way ; and Eonald, having bade them all good-night, 
 followed the ostler-lad Alec along one or two gloomy cor- 
 ridors until he found the room that had been prepared for 
 him. As he got to bed he was rather sick and sorry about 
 the whole night's proceedings, he scarcely knew why ; and 
 his thinking faculty was in a nebulous condition ; and he 
 only vaguely knew that he would rather not have pledged 
 himself to go to Campsie Glen on the fohowing morning. 
 jSTo matter — " another glass hefore ive go,''^ that was the last of 
 the song they had all shouted : he had forgotten that other 
 line — " and some ivin liame, and some are lostT 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 CAHPSIE GLEN 
 
 The next morning, between nine and ten o'clock, there was 
 a rapping at his door, and then a further rapping, and then 
 he awoke — confused, uncertain as to his Avhereabouts, and 
 with his head going like a threshing machine. Again there 
 came the loud rapping. 
 
 " Come in, then," he called aloud. 
 
 The door was opened, and there was the young widow, 
 smiling and jocund as the morn, and very smartly attired ; 
 and alongside of her was a servant-lass bearing a small tray, 
 on which were a tumbler, a pint bottle of champagne, and 
 some angostura bitters. 
 
 " Bless me, woman," he said, " I was wondering where 
 I was. And what's this now ? — do ye want to make a 
 drunkard o' me ? " 
 
 " Not I," said Kate Menzies blithely, " I want to make a 
 man o' ye. Ye'll just take a glass o' this, Ronald, my lad ; 
 and then ye'll get up and come down to breakfast ; for 
 we're going to have a splendid drive. The weather's as 
 
304 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 bright and clear as a new shilling ; and I've been uj* since 
 seven o'clock, and I'm free for the day now. Here ye are, 
 lad ; this'll put some life into ye." 
 
 She shook a few drops of bitters into the tumbler, and 
 then poured out a foaming measure of the amber-coloured 
 wine, and offered it to him. He refused to take it. 
 
 " I canna look at it, lass. There was too much o' that 
 going last night." 
 
 " And the very reason you should take a glass now ! " 
 she said. " Well, I'll leave it on the mantelpiece, and ye 
 can take it when ye get up. Make haste, Eonald, lad ; it's 
 a pity to lose so fine a morning." 
 
 When they had left, he dressed as rapidly as possible, 
 and went down. Breakfast was awaiting him — though it 
 did not tempt him much. And then, by and by, the 
 smart dog-cart was at the door ; and a hamper was put in ; 
 and Kate Menzies got up and took the reins. There was 
 no sick-and-sorriness al^ont her at all events. She was 
 radiant and laughing and saucy ; she wore a driving-coat 
 fastened at the neck by a horse-shoe brooch of brilliants, 
 and a white straw hat with a wide-sweeping jet-black ostrich 
 feather. It was clear that the tavern was a paying concern. 
 
 " And why will ye aye sit behind, Mr. Strang " mother 
 Paterson whined, as she made herself comfortable in front. 
 " I am sure Katie would rather have ye here than an auld 
 wife like me. You could talk to her ever so much better." 
 
 " That would be a way to go driving through Glasgow 
 town," he said, as he swung himself up on the back seat ; 
 " a man in front and a woman behind ! Never you fear ; 
 there can be plenty of talking done as it is." 
 
 But as they drove away through the city — and even 
 Grlasgow looked quite bright and cheerful on this sunny 
 morning, and there was a stirring of cool air that was 
 grateful enough to his throbbing temples — it appeared that 
 the buxom widow^ w-anted to have most of the talking to 
 herself. She was very merry ; and laughed at his peniten- 
 tial scorn of himself and was for spurring him on to 
 further poetical efforts. 
 
 " East Lothian for ever ! " she was saying, as they got 
 away out by the north of the town. " Didna I tell them ? 
 Ay, and ye've got to do something better yet, Ronald, my 
 
tAMPSIE GLEN 305 
 
 lad, than the ' other glass before we go.' You're no 
 at that time o' life yet to talk as if everything had gone 
 ■vn'ong ; and the blue-eyed lass — ^what blue-eyed lass was it, 
 I wonder, that passed ye by with but a stare ? Let her, 
 and welcome, the hussy ; there's plenty others. But no, my 
 lad, what I want ye to write is a song about Scotland, and 
 the East Lothian part o't especially. Ye've no lived long 
 enough in the Hielans to forget your ain country, have 
 ye ? and where's there a song about Scotland nowadays ? 
 ' Caledonia's hills and dales ' ? — stuff ! — I wonder Jaa]> 
 Avould hae bothered his head about rubbish like that. 
 ISTo, no ; we'll show them whether East Lothian canna 
 do the trick ! — and it's no the Harmony Club but the 
 City Hall 0' Glasgow that ye'll hear that song sung in — ■ 
 that's better like ! Ye mind what Eobbie says, Ronald, 
 my lad ? — 
 
 " ' £"en ilien a ivisJi, I mind its poirer — • 
 A icish that to my latest hour 
 
 Shall strongly heave my hreast — ■ 
 That I for poor auld Scotland's sahe. 
 Some usefu' ijlan or hooh coidd make. 
 Or sing a sang at least.' 
 
 That's what ye've got to do yet, my man." 
 
 And so they bowled along the wide whinstone road, out 
 into this open landscape that seemed to lie behind a thin 
 veil of pale-blue smoke.- It was the country, no doubt ; but 
 a kind of sophisticated country ; there were occasional 
 grimy villages and railway-embankments and canals and 
 what not ; and the pathway that ran alongside the wi.le 
 highway was of black ashes — not much like a Sutherland- 
 shire road. However, as they got still farther away from 
 the town matters improved. There were hedges and 
 woods — getting a touch of the golden autumn on their 
 foliage now ; the landscape grew brighter ; those hills far 
 ahead of them rose into a fairly clear blue sky. And then 
 the brisk motion and the fresher air seemed to drive away 
 from him the dismal recollections of the previous night ; he 
 ceased to upbraid himself for having been induced to sing 
 before all those people ; he would atone for the reckless- 
 ness of his potations by taking greater care in the future. 
 So that when in due course of time they reached the inn 
 
 X 
 
3o6 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 fit the foot of Campsio Glen, and had the horse and trap 
 put up, and set out to explore the beauties of that not too 
 savage solitude, he was in a sufficiently cheerful frame of 
 mind, and Kate Menzies had no reason to complain of her 
 companion. 
 
 They had brought a luncheon basket with them ; and as 
 he had refused the proffered aid of a stable-lad, he had to 
 carry this himself, and Kate Menzies was a liberal provider. 
 Accordingly, as they began to make their way up the steep 
 and slippery ascent — for rain had recently fallen, and the 
 narrow path was sloppy enough — he had to leave the two 
 women to look after themselves ; and a fine haphazard 
 scramble and hauling and pushing — with screams of fright 
 and bursts of laughter — ensued. This was hardly the proper 
 mood in which to seek out Nature in her sylvan retreats ; 
 but the truth is that the glen itself did not wear a very 
 romantic aspect. JSTo doubt there were massive boulders in 
 the bed of the stream : and they had to clamber past 
 precipitous rocks ; and overhead was a wilderness of foliage. 
 But everything was dull-hued somehow, and damp-looking, 
 and dismal ; the green-mossed boulders, the stems of the 
 trees, the dark red earth were all of a sombre hue ; while 
 here and there the eye caught sight of a bit of newspaper, 
 or of an empty soda-water bottle, or perchance of the 
 non-idyllic figure of a Glasgow youth seated astride a 
 fallen bough, a pot-hat on his head and a Manilla cheroot 
 in his mouth. But still, it was more of the country than 
 the Broomielaw ; and when Kate and her companion had 
 to pause in their panting struggle up the slippery path, 
 and after she had recovered her breath sufficiently to 
 demand a halt, she would turn to pick ferns from the 
 dripping rocks, or to ask Ronald if there were any more 
 jjicturesque place than this in Sutherlandshire. Xow 
 Eonald was not in the least afflicted by the common curse 
 of travellers — the desire for comparison ; he was well 
 content to say that it was a " pretty bit glen " ; for one thing 
 his attention was chiefly devoted to keeping his footing, for 
 the heavy basket was a sore encumbrance. 
 
 However, after some further climbing, they reached 
 certain drier altitudes ; and there the hamper was deposited, 
 while they looked out for such trunks or big stones as 
 
 I 
 
CAMPS IE GLEN 307 
 
 would make convenient seats. The old woman was speech- 
 less from exhaustion ; Kate was laughing at her own 
 breathlessness, or miscalling the place for having dirtied 
 her boots and her skirts ; while Eonald was bringing things 
 together for their comfort, so that they could have their 
 luncheon in peace. This was not quite the same kind of 
 a luncheon party as that he had attended on the shores of 
 the far northern loch — with Miss Carry complacently re- 
 garding the silver-clear salmon lying on the smooth, dry 
 greensward ; and the American talking in his friendly 
 fashion of the splendid future that lay before a capable 
 and energetic young fellow in the great country beyond the 
 seas ; while all around them the sweet air was blowing, and 
 the clear light shining, and the white clouds sailing high 
 over the Clebrig slopes. Things were changed with him 
 since then — he did not himself know how much they had 
 changed. But in all circumstances he was abundantly 
 good-natured and grateful for any kindness shown him ; 
 and as Kate Menzies had projected this trip mainly on his 
 account, he did his best to promote good-fellowship, and 
 was sers^iceable and handy, and took her raillery in excellent 
 part. 
 
 " Katie dear," whimpered old mother Paterson, as Eonald 
 took out the things from the hamper, " ye jist spoil every one 
 that comes near ye. Such extravagance— such waste — ■ 
 many's the time I wish ye would get married, and have a 
 man to look after ye •" 
 
 " Stop your havering — who would marry an auld woman 
 like me ? " said Mrs. Menzies with a laugh. " Ay, and what's 
 the extravagance, noo, that has driven ye oot o' your 
 mind ? " 
 
 " Champagne again ! " the old woman said, shaking her 
 head. " Champagne again ! Dear me, it's like a Duke's 
 house " 
 
 " What, ye daft auld craytur ? "Would ye have me take 
 my cousin Ronald for his first trip to Campsie Glen, and 
 bring out a gill 0' whisky in a soda-water bottle ? " 
 
 " Indeed, Katie, lass, ye needna have brought one thing 
 or the other for me," he said. " It's a drop 0' water, and 
 nothing else, that will serve my turn." 
 
 " We'll see about that," she said confidently. 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Her provisioning was certainly of a sumptuous nature — ■ 
 far more sumptuous, indeed, than the luncheons the rich 
 Americans used to have carried down for them to the loch- 
 side, and a perfect banquet as compared with the frugal 
 bit of cold beef and bread that Lord Ailine and his friends 
 allowed themselves on the hill. Then, as regards the 
 champagne, she would take no refusal — he had to submit, 
 She was in the gayest of moods ; she laughed and joked ; 
 nay, at one point, she raised her glass aloft, and waved it 
 round her head, and sang — 
 
 " send Leivie Gordon hame, 
 And the lad I daurna name; 
 Though his had: he at the tea', 
 Mere's to him that's far aica' ! " 
 
 " "What, what, lass ? " Ronald cried grimly. " Are ye 
 thinking ye're in a Highland glen ? Do ye think it was 
 frae places like this that the lads were called out to follow 
 Prince Charlie ? " 
 
 " I carena — I carena ! " she said ; for what had trivial 
 details of history to do with a jovial picnic in Campsie 
 Glen ? " Come, Ronald, lad, tune up ! Hang the Harmony 
 Club ! — give us a song in the open air I " 
 
 " Here goes, then — 
 
 ' It was ahout the Martinmas time, 
 And a gay time it ivas then, 0, 
 That our guidwife had puddins to mal;*, 
 And she boiled them in the fan, ' " — 
 
 and then rang out the chorus, even the old mother 
 Paterson joining in with a feeble treble — 
 
 " the harrin' o' our door, weel, weel, weel, 
 And the harrin' a' our door, weel!" 
 
 " Your health and song, Ronald ! " she cried, when he 
 had finished — or rather when they all had finished. " Man, 
 if there was just a laddie here wi' a fiddle or a penny 
 whistle I'd get up and dance a Highland Schottische wi' 
 ye — auld as I am ! " 
 
 After luncheon, they set out for further explorations 
 (having deposited the basket in a secret place) and always 
 
CAMPSIE GLEN 309 
 
 Kate Menzie's laugh was the loudest, her jokes the 
 merriest. 
 
 " Auld, say ye ? " mother Paterson complained. " A 
 lassie — a very lassie I Ye can skip about like a twa-year- 
 auld colt." 
 
 By and by they made their devious and difficult way 
 down the glen again ; and they had tea at the inn ; and 
 then they set out to drive back to Glasgow — and there was 
 much singing the while. That is, up to a certain point ; 
 for this easy homeward drive, as it turned out, was destined 
 to be suddenly and sharply stopped short, and that in a 
 way that might have produced serious consequences. They 
 were bowling merrily along, taking very little heed of any- 
 thing on either side of them, when, as it chanced, a small 
 boy who had gone into a field to .recover a kite that had 
 dropped there, came up unobserved behind the hedge, and 
 threw the kite over, preparatory to his struggling through 
 himself. The sudden appearance of this white thing 
 startled the cob ! it swerved to the other side of the road, 
 hesitated, and was like to rear, and then getting an incau- 
 tious cut from Kate's whip, away it tore along the highway, 
 getting completely the mastery of her. Ronald got up 
 behind. 
 
 " Give me the reins, lass," he called to her. 
 
 " I'll manage him — the stupid beast ! " she said ; with 
 her teeth shut firm. 
 
 But all her pulling seemed to make no impression on 
 the animal — nay, the trap was now swaying and jolting 
 about in a most ominous manner. 
 
 "If ye meet anything, we're done for, Kate — run the 
 wheel into the hedge." 
 
 It was excellent advice, if it could have been properly 
 followed ; but unluckily, just at the very moment when, 
 with all her might and main, she twisted the head of the 
 cob to the side of the road, there happened to be a deep 
 ditch there. Over the whole thing went — Eonald and 
 Mrs. Menzies being pitched clean into the hedge ; mother 
 Paterson, not hanging on so well, being actually deposited 
 on the other side, but in a gradual fashion. Oddly enough, 
 the cob, with one or two pawings of his forefeet, got on to 
 the road again, and the trap righted itself ; while a farm- 
 
310 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 lad who had been coming along ran to the beast's head 
 and held him. As it turned out, there was no harm done 
 at all. 
 
 Bat that, at first, was apparently not Kate Menzies's 
 impression. 
 
 "Ronald, Eonakl," she cried, and she clung to him 
 frantically, " I'm dying — I'm dying — kiss me ! " 
 
 He had got a grip of her, and was getting her on to her 
 feet again. 
 
 "There's nothing the matter wi' ye, woman," he said, 
 with unnecessary roughness. 
 
 " Eonald, Eonald — I'm hurt — I'm dying — kiss me ! " 
 she cried, and she would have fallen away from him, but 
 that he gathered her up, and set her upright on the road. 
 
 "There's nothing the matter wi' ye — what? tumbling 
 into a hawthorn hedge ? — pull yourself together, woman ! 
 It's old mother Paterson that may have been hurt." 
 
 He left her unceremoniously to get over to the other 
 side of the edge, and as he went off she darted a look 
 of anger — of violent rage, even — towards him, which 
 happily he did not see. Moreover, she had to calm 
 herself ; the farm lad was looking on. And when at 
 length mother Paterson — who was merely terrified, and 
 \vas quite uninjured — was hoisted over or through the 
 hedge, and they all prepared to resume their seats in the 
 trap, Kate Menzies was apparently quite collected and 
 mistress of herself, though her face was somewhat pale, 
 and her manner was distinctly reserved and cold. She 
 gave the lad a couple of shillings ; got up and took the 
 reins ; waited until the others were seated, and then drove 
 away without a word. Mother Paterson was loud in her 
 thankfulness over such a providential escape ; she had only 
 had her wrists scratched slightly. 
 
 Ronald was sensible of her silence, though he could not 
 well guess the cause of it. Perhaps the fright had sobered 
 down her high spirits ; at all events, she was now more 
 circumspect with her driving ; and, as her attention was so 
 much devoted to the cob, it was not for him to interfere. 
 As they drew near Glasgow, however, she relaxed the cold 
 severity of her manner, and made a few observations ; and 
 when they came in sight of St. EoUox, she even con- 
 
CAM PS IE GLEN 311 
 
 descended to ask him whether he would not go ou with 
 them to the tavern and have some supper with them as 
 usual. 
 
 " I ought to go back to my work," said he, " and that's 
 the truth. But it would be a glum ending for sach an 
 unusual holiday as this." 
 
 " Your prospects are not so very certain," said Kate, who 
 could talk excellent English when she chose, and kept her 
 broad Scotch for familiar or affectionate intercourse. " An 
 hour or two one way or the other is not likely to make 
 much difference." 
 
 " I am beginning to think that myseK," he said, rather 
 gloomily. 
 
 And then, with a touch of remorse for the depressing 
 speech she had made, she tried to cheer him a little ; and, 
 in fact, insisted on his going on with them. She even 
 quoted a couplet from his own song to him^ 
 
 " J.?i hour or tiva 'tioill do nae harm, 
 The dints 0' fortune to forget;" 
 
 and she said that, after the long drive, he ought to have 
 a famous appetite for supper, and that there would be a 
 good story to tell about their being shot into a hawthorn 
 hedge, supposing that the skipper and Laidlaw and Jaap 
 came in in the evening. 
 
 Nevertheless, all during the evening there was a certain 
 restraint in her manner. Altogether gone was her profuse 
 friendship and her pride in East Lothian, although she 
 remained as hospitable as ever. Sometimes she regarded 
 him sharply, as if trying to make out something. On his 
 part, he thought she was probably a little tired after the 
 fatigues of the day ; perhaps, also, he preferred her quieter 
 manner. 
 
 Then again, when the ^^ drei Geseflm^^ came in, there 
 was a little less hilarity than usual ; and, contrary to her 
 wont, she did not press them to stav when they proposed 
 to adjourn to the club, llonald, who had been vaguely 
 resolving not to go near that haunt for some time to come, 
 found that that was the alternative to his returning to his 
 solitary lodging and his books at a comparatively early 
 hour of the evening. Doubtless he should have conquered 
 
3 1 2 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 his repugnance to this latter course ; but the temptation — ■ 
 after a long day of pleasure-making — to finish up the last 
 hour or so in the society of these good fellows was great. 
 He went to the Harmony Club, and was made more 
 welcome than ever ; and somehow, in the excitement of the 
 moment, he was induced to sing another song, and there 
 were more people than ever claiming his acquaintance, and 
 challenging him to have " another one." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE DOWNWARD WAY. 
 
 With a fatal certainty he was going from bad to worse ; 
 and there was no one to w^arn him ; and if any one had 
 warned him, probably he would not have cared. Life had 
 come to be for him a hopeless and useless thing. His 
 own instinct had answered true, when the American was 
 urging him to go and cast himself into the eager strife of 
 the world, and press forward to the universal goal of wealth 
 and ease and independence. " I'd rather be ' where the 
 dun deer lie,' " he had said. Kingsley's poem had taken 
 firm root in his mind, simply because it found natural soil 
 there. 
 
 " Nor I ivadna he a clerk, mitlier, to hide aye hen, 
 Scrahhling oiver the sheets o' parchment ivith a weary, iceary peyi ; 
 Looking through the Jang stane windows at a narroio strip o' shy, 
 Like a laverock in a withy cage, until I pine away and die. 
 
 ****** 
 Ye'll hury me 'twixt the hrae and the burn, in a glen far away. 
 Where I may hear the heafhcock craiu and the great harts hray ; 
 And gin my ghaist can icalk, mither, I'll go glowering at the sky, 
 The livelong night on the black hillsides where the dun deer lie." 
 
 His way of existence up there on the far hillsides — unlike 
 that of the luckless outlaw — had been a perfectly happy 
 and contented one. His sound common sense had put 
 away from him that craving for fame which has rendered 
 so miserable the lives of many rustic verse writers ; he was 
 proud of his occupation, grateful to the good friends around 
 him, and always in excellent health and spirits. Another 
 
THE DOWNWARD WAY 313 
 
 thing has to be said — to pacify the worthy folk who 
 imagine that ambition must necessarily fill the mind of 
 youth : had he come away from that sphere of careless 
 content with a sufficient aim to strive for, perhaps affairs 
 might have gone differently. If it could have been said to 
 him : " Fight your way to the worldly success that the 
 Americans have so liberally prophesied for you ; and then 
 come back, and you will find Meenie Douglas awaiting 
 you ; and you shall win her and wear her, as the rose and 
 crown of your life, in spite of all the Stuarts of Grlengask " 
 — then the little room in Port Dundas Road would no 
 longer have been so gray ; and all the future would have 
 been filled with Hght and hope ; and the struggle, however 
 arduous and long, would have been glad enough. But 
 with no such hope ; with increasing doubts as to his 
 ultimate success ; and with a more dangerously increasing 
 indifference as to whether he should ever reach that 
 success, the temptations of the passing hour became irre- 
 sistibly strong. And he became feebler to resist them. 
 He did not care. After all, these gay evenings at the 
 Harmony Club were something to look forward to during 
 the long dull days ; with a full glass and a good-going pipe 
 and a roaring chorus the hours passed ; and then from 
 time to time there was the honour and glory of hearing 
 one of his own songs sung. He was a great figure at these 
 gatherings now ; that kind of fame at least had come to 
 him, and come to him unsought ; and there were not 
 wanting a sufficiency of rather muddle-headed creatures 
 who declared that he was fit to rank with very distinguished 
 names indeed in the noble roll-call of Scotland's poets ; 
 and who, unfortunately, were only too eager to prove the 
 faith that was in them by asking him to drink at their 
 expense. 
 
 In this rhyming direction there was one very curious 
 point : when he began to turn over the various pieces that 
 might be made available for Mr. Jaap, he was himself 
 astonished to find how little melody there was in them. 
 Whatever little musical faculty he had seemed to be all 
 locked up in the love-verses he had written about Meenie. 
 Many of the fragments had other qualities — homely 
 common sense ; patriotism ; a great affection for dumb 
 
314 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 animals ; here and there sometimes a touch of humour or 
 pathos ; but somehow they did not sing. It is true that 
 the following piece — 
 
 SHOUT HEE TO S ROUTE ER. 
 
 From Hudson's Bay to the Bio Grand', 
 
 The Scot is ever a rover; 
 In Netv South Wales and in Neivfoundland, 
 
 And all the wide world over ; 
 
 Cliorus : But it's slioutlier to shouther, my honnie lads, 
 And let every Scot he a brifher ; 
 And ive'll icorh as ice can, and ice'll via if loe can, 
 For the salce of our aidd Scotch mitlicr. 
 
 She's a puir aidd ivife. ivi' little to give ; 
 
 And she's rather stint o' caressing ; 
 But she's shown us how honest lives we may live. 
 
 And she's sent us out wi' her blessing. 
 
 Clioras: And it's shouther to shouther, etc. 
 
 Her land's no rich ; and her crops are slim ; 
 
 And I winna say much for the weather; 
 But she's given us legs that can gaily dim' 
 
 Up the slopes o' the blossoming heather. 
 
 Chorus : And it's- shouther to shouther, etc. 
 
 And she's given us hearts that, ivhatever they say 
 
 {And I trow that ive might be better") 
 There's one sair fault they never loill lute — 
 
 Our mither, we'll never forget her ! 
 
 Chorus: And it's shouther to shoidher, my bonnie lads, 
 And let every Scot be a brither ; 
 And ice'll work as ive can, and we'll win if loe can, 
 For the sahe of our aidd Scotch mither! 
 
 had attained a great success at the Harmony Club; but 
 that was merely because Mr. Jaap had managed to write 
 for it an effective air, that could be easily caught up and 
 sung in chorus ; in itself there was no simple, natural 
 " lilt " whatever. And then, again, in his epistolary rhymes 
 to friends and acquaintances (alas ! that was all over now) 
 there were many obvious qualities, but certainly not the 
 lyrical one. Here, for example, are some verses he had 
 sent in former days to a certain Johnnie Pringle, living at 
 
THE DOWNWARD WAY 315 
 
 Tongue, who had had his eye on a young lass down Loch 
 Loyal way : 
 
 Johnnie, leave the lass alane ; 
 Her mother has but that one wean; 
 For a' the others have been ta'en, 
 
 As iceel ye ken, Johnnie. 
 
 'Tis true her bonnie e\n ivould rive 
 The heart 0' any man alive ; 
 And in the husry* she would tltrivo— 
 I grant ye that, Johnnie. 
 
 But ivad ye tak' awa the lass, 
 
 1 tell ye what wvuld come to pass. 
 The mother soon u-oidd hae the grass 
 
 Boon her auld head, Johnnie. 
 
 They've got some gear, and bit 0' land 
 Tlint ivell icould hear another hand ; 
 Come doivn frae Tongue, and take your stand 
 By Loyal' s side, Jolmnie ! 
 
 Ye'd herd a bit, and work the farm, 
 And keep the icidoio-wife frae harm ; 
 And wha woidO keep ye snug and icarm 
 In ivinter-time, Johnnie 1 — 
 
 The lass hersel' — that I'll be sicorn I 
 And bonnier creature ne'er was born: 
 Come down the strath the morrow's morn, 
 Your best foot first, Johnnie ! 
 
 \sq[\, there may be wise and friendly counsel in verses such 
 as these ; but they do not lend themselves readily to the 
 musician who Avould adapt them for concert purposes. 
 No ; all such lyrical faculty as he possessed had been given 
 in one direction. And yet not for one moment was he 
 tempted to show Mr. Jaap any of those little love-lyrics 
 that he had written about Meenie — those careless verses 
 that seemed to sing themselves, as it were, and that were 
 all about summer mornings, and red and Avhite roses, and 
 the carolling of birds, and the whispering of Clebrig's 
 streams. Meenie's praises to be sung at the Harmony 
 Club ! — he could as soon have imagined herself singing- 
 there. 
 
 One wet and miserable afternoon old Peter Japp was 
 
 * " Husry," housewifery. 
 
3i6 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 passing through St. Enoch's Square when, much to his 
 satisfaction, he ran against the big skipper, who had just 
 come out of the railway station. 
 
 " Hallo, Captain," said the little old man, " back 
 already ? " 
 
 " Just up frae Greenock ; and precious glad to be ashore 
 again, I can tell ye," said Captain M'Taggart. "That 
 Mary Jane '11 be my grave, mark my words ; I never get 
 as far south as the Mull o' Galloway without wondering 
 whether I'll ever see Ailsa Craig or the Tail o' the Bank 
 again. Well, here I am this time ; and I was gaun doon 
 to hae a glass on the strength o't — to the widow's " 
 
 "We'll gang in some other place," Mr. Japp said. "I 
 want to hae a word wi' ye about that young fellow 
 Strang." 
 
 They easily discovered another howf ; and soon they 
 were left by themselves in a little compartment, two big 
 tumblers of ale before them. 
 
 " Ay, and what's the matter wi' him ? " said the 
 skipper. 
 
 " I dinna rightly ken," the little old musician said, " but 
 something is. Ye see, I'm feared the lad has no' muckle 
 siller " 
 
 " It's a common complaint, Peter I " the skipper said, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 "Ay ; but ye see, the maist o' us hae some way o' leevin. 
 That's no the case wi' Eonald. He came to Glasgow, as I 
 understand it, wi' a sma' bit nest-egg ; and he's been leevin 
 on that ever since — every penny coming out o' his capital, 
 and never a penny being added. That's enough to make a 
 young fellow anxious." 
 
 "Ay?" 
 
 " But there's mair than that. He's a proud kind o' 
 chiel. It's just wonderfu' the way that Mrs. Menzies 
 humours him, and pretends this and that so he'll no be at 
 any expense ; and when they gang out driving she takes 
 things wi' her — and a lot o' that kind o' way o' working ; 
 but a' the same there's sma' expenses that canna be avoided, 
 and deil a bit — she says — will he let her pay. And the 
 sma' things maun be great things to him, if he's eating ijito 
 Jiis uest-egg in that way." 
 
THE DOWNWARD WAY 31? 
 
 " It's easy getting out 0' that difficulty," said tlie big 
 skipper, who was of a less sympathetic nature than the old 
 musician. " What for does he no stay at hame ? He 
 doesna need to gang driving wi' her unless he likes." 
 
 " It's no easy getting away from Mrs. Menzies," the old 
 man said shrewdly, " if she has a mind to take ye wi' 
 her. And she hersel' sees that he canna afford to spend 
 money even on little things ; and yet she's feared to say 
 anything to him. Man, dinna ye mind when she wanted 
 him to take a room in the house ? — what was that but that 
 she meant him to have his board free ? But no — the 
 deevil has got some 0' the Hielan pride in him ; she was 
 just feared to say anything mail' about it. And at the 
 club, too, it's no every one he'll drink wi' though there's 
 plenty ready to stand Sam, now that Eonald is kent as a 
 AM'iter 0' poetry. Not that but wi' ithers he's ower free — 
 ay, confound him, he's getting the reputation 0' a harum- 
 scarum deil — if he takes a liking to a man, he'U gang off 
 wi' him and his neighbours for the time being, and good- 
 ness knows when or where they'll stop. A bottle 0' whisky 
 in their pocket, and off they'll make ; I heard the other 
 week 0' him and some 0' them finding themselves at day- 
 break in Helensburgh — naught would do the rascal the 
 night before but that he maun hae a sniff o' the saut sea- 
 air ; and off they set, him and them, the lang night through, 
 until the daylight found them staring across to Eoseneath 
 and Kempoch Point. He's no in the best 0' hands, that's 
 the fact. If he would but marry the widow — " 
 
 " What would Jimmy Laidlaw say to that ? " the skipper 
 said, with a loud laugh. 
 
 " Jimmy Laidlaw ? He hasna the ghost 0' a chance so 
 long as this young fellow's about. Kate's just daft about 
 him ; but he's no inclined that way, I can see — unless 
 hunger should tame him. Weel, M'Taggart, I dinna like 
 to see the lad being led away to the mischief. He's got 
 into ill hands. If it's the want o' a settled way 0' leevin 
 that's worrying him, and driving him to gang wild and 
 reckless at times, something should be done. I'm an auld 
 man now ; I've seen ower many young fellows like that 
 gang to auld Harry ; and I like this lad — I'm no going to 
 jstand by and look on without a word." 
 
3i8 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " Ay, and what would ye hiv me dae, Peter ? Take him 
 as a hand on board the Mary Jane ? " 
 
 " Na, na. The lad maun gang on wi' his surveying and 
 that kind o' thing — though he seems less and less to think 
 there'll be any solid outcome frae it. But what think ye o' 
 this ? There's Mr. Jackson paying they professionals from 
 week to week ; and here's a fellow wi' a finer natural voice 
 than any o' them — if it had but a little training. "Well, 
 now, why shouldna Jackson pay the lad for his singing ? " 
 
 " Not if he can get it for nothing, Peter ! " 
 
 " But he canna — that's just the thing, man," retorted 
 the other. " It's only when Ronald has had a glass and is 
 in the humour that he'll sing anything. Why shouldna he 
 be engaged like the others ? It would be a stand-by. It 
 would take up none o' his time. And it might make 
 him a wee thing steadier if he kent he had to sing every 
 night." 
 
 "Yery well, then, ask Tom Jackson about it," the big 
 skipper said. " Ye may say it would please the members — 
 I'll back ye up with that. Confound him, I dinna ken the 
 deevil had got his leg over the trace." 
 
 The old man answered with a cautious smile : 
 
 " Ye're rough and ready, " M'Taggart ; but that'll no do. 
 Ronald's a camstrairy chiel. There's Hielan blood in his 
 veins ; and ye never ken when his pride is gaun to bleeze 
 oot and be up the lum wi'm in a fluff." 
 
 " Beggars canna be choosers, my good freen " 
 
 "Beggars? They Hielan folk are never beggars ? they'll 
 rob and plunder ye, and fling ye ower a hedge, and rifle 
 your pockets, but deil a bit o' them '11 beg. Na, na ; we'll 
 have to contrive some roundabout way to see how he'll take 
 it. But I'll speak to Jackson ; and we'll contrive some- 
 thing, I doubtna. Sae finish up your beer, Captain ; and 
 if ye're gaun doon to see Mrs. Menzies, I'll gang as far wi' 
 ye ; I havena been there this nicht or twa." 
 
 Now that was an amiable and benevolent, but, as it 
 turned out, most unfortunate design. That same night 
 Ronald did show up at the Harmony Club ; and there was 
 a little more than usual of hilarity and good fellowship 
 over the return of the skipper from the perils of the 
 deep. Laidlaw was there too ; and he also had been 
 
THE DOIVNIVARD WAY 319 
 
 acquainted witli the way in which they meant to approach 
 Ronald, to see whether he could not be induced to sing 
 regularly at these musical meetings for a stipulated pay- 
 ment. 
 
 Their first difficulty was to get him to sing at all ; and 
 for a long time he was good-humouredly obdurate, and they 
 let him alone. But later on in the evening one of his own 
 songs was sung — " The fisher lads are bound for hame " — 
 and was received with immense applause, which naturally 
 pleased him ; and then there was a good deal of talking 
 and laughing and conviviality ; in the midst of which the 
 skipper called to him — 
 
 "Now, Eonald lad, tune up; I havena heard a song 
 frae ye this three weeks and mair ; man, if I had a voice 
 like yours wouldna I give them — 
 
 " ' Tlie boat roclis at the pier 0' Leith, 
 
 Fu' loud the icind blams frae the ferry ; 
 The ship rides by the Berunek Law, 
 And I maun leave my bonnie Mary ! ' " 
 
 And indeed he did, in this loud and general hum, sing 
 these lines, in tones resembling the sharpening of a rusty 
 saw. 
 
 " Yery well, then," Eonald said. " But I'll sing it where 
 I am — once there's quietness. I'm not going up on that 
 platform." 
 
 Of course, the chairman was glad enough to make the 
 announcement, for Pionald's singing was highly appreciated 
 by the members ; moreover there was a little experiment to 
 be tried. So peace was restored ; the accompanist struck 
 a few notes ; and Ptonald, with a little indecision at first, 
 but afterwards with a clear-ringing courage, sang that gayest 
 of all parting songs. In the hubbub of applause that 
 followed none but the conspirators saw what now took 
 place. The chairman called a waiter, and spoke a few 
 words to him in an undertone ; the waiter went over to 
 the table where Ronald was sitting and handed him a 
 small package ; and then Ronald, naturally thinking that 
 this was merely a written message or something of the kind, 
 opened the folded piece of white paper. 
 
 There was a message, it is true, — " with T. Jackson's 
 
320 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 compliments," — and there was also a sovereign and a 
 shilling. For an instant Eonald regarded this thing with 
 a kind of bewilderment ; and then his ejes blazed ; the 
 money was dashed on to the ground ; and, without a word 
 or a look to any one in the place, he had clapped on his hat 
 and stalked to the door, his mouth firm shut, his lips pale. 
 This glass door was a private door leading to an outer 
 passage formerly described ; the handle seemed stiff or 
 awkward : so by main force he drove it before him, and 
 the door swinging back into the lobby, smashed its glass 
 panels against the wall. The " breenge "• — for there is no 
 other word — caused by this violent departure was tremen- 
 dous ; and the three conspirators could only sit and look at 
 each other. 
 
 " The fat's in the fire now," said the skipper. 
 
 " I wonder if the guinea '11 pay for the broken glass," 
 said Jimmy Laidlaw. 
 
 But it w'as the little old musician, whose scheme this had 
 been, who was most concerned. 
 
 " We'll have to get hold o' the lad and pacify him," said 
 he. " The Hielan deevil ! But if he doesna come back 
 here, he'll get among a worse lot than we are — we'll have 
 to get hold o' him. Captain, and bring him to his 
 senses." 
 
 Well, in the end — after a day or two — Eonald was 
 pacified ; and he did go back to the club, and resumed 
 his relations with the friends and acquaintances he had 
 formed there. And that was how it came about that 
 Meenie's married sister — who happened to know certaiu 
 members of the Eev. Andrew Strang's congregation, and 
 who was very curious to discover why it was that Meenie 
 betrayed such a singular interest in this mere gamekeeper, 
 and was repeatedly referring to him in her correspondence 
 — added this postscript to a letter wdiich she was sending to 
 Inver-Mudal : 
 
 " I don't know whether it may interest you to hear that 
 Eonald Strang, Mr. Strang's brother, whom you have several 
 times asked about, is drinldng himself to death, and that in 
 the lowest of low company." 
 
A MESSAGE 321 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 A MESSAGE. 
 
 Cleae and brilliant in their blue and white are these shining 
 northern skies ; and the winds that come blowing over the 
 moorland are honey-scented from the heather ; and the 
 wide waters of the loch are all of a ruffled and shimmering 
 silver, with a thin fringe of foam along the curving bays. 
 And this is Love Meenie that comes out from the cottage 
 and comes down to the road ; with perhaps less of the 
 wild-rose tint in her cheeks than used to be there, and less 
 of the ready light of gladness that used to leap into her 
 blue-gray eyes ; but still with that constant gentleness of 
 expression that seems to bring her into accord with all the 
 beautiful things in the landscape around her. And, indeed, 
 on this particular morning she is cheerful enough ; walking 
 briskly, chatting to the ancient terrier that is trotting at her 
 side, and equably regarding now the velvet-soft shadows 
 that steal along the sunlit slopes of Clebrig, and now the 
 wheehng and cu'chng of some peewits that have been 
 startled from their marshy haunts by the side of the 
 stream. 
 
 " And who knows but that there may be a message or a 
 bit of news for us this morning ? " she says to the faithful 
 Harry. " For yonder comes the mail. And indeed it's 
 well for you, my good little chap, that you can't understand 
 how far away Glasgow is ; I suppose you expect to see your 
 master at any minute, at every turn of the road. And if 
 lie should send you a message — or Maggie either — how am 
 I to tell you ? " 
 
 The pretty Nelly is at the door of the inn, scattering 
 food to the fowls. 
 
 " It's a peautiful moarning, Miss Douglas," she says. 
 
 And here is Mr. Murray, with his pipe, and his occultly 
 humorous air. 
 
 " And are you come along for your letters, Miss Meenie ? " 
 he says. " Ay, ay, it is not an unusual thing for a young 
 leddy to be anxious about a letter — it is not an unusual 
 thing at ahl." 
 
 And now the mail-car comes swinging up to the door ; 
 
 T 
 
322 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 the one or two passengers alight, glad to stretch their legs ; 
 the letter bags are hauled down, and Miss Douglas follows 
 them indoors. Mrs. Murray, who acts as post-mistress, is 
 not long in sorting out the contents. 
 
 " Two for me ? " says Meenie. " And both from Glasgow ? 
 Well, now, that does not often hajDpen." 
 
 But of course she could not further interrupt the post- 
 mistress in the performance of her duties ; so she put the 
 letters in her pocket ; passed out from the inn and through 
 the little crowd of loiterers ; and made for the high-road 
 and for home. She was in no hurry to open these budgets 
 of news. Such things came but once in a while to this 
 remote hamlet ; and when they did come they were leisurely 
 and thoroughly perused — not skimmed and thrown aside. 
 Kevertheless when she got up to the high-road she thought 
 she would pause there for just a second, and run her eye 
 over the pages, lest there might be some mention of Ronald's 
 name. She had heard of him but little of late ; and he had 
 never once written to her — perhaps he had no excuse for 
 doing so. It was through Maggie that from time to time 
 she got news of him ; and now it was Maggie's letter that 
 she opened first. 
 
 Well, there was not much about Ronald. Maggie Avas 
 at school ; Ronald was busy ; he seldom came over to the 
 minister's house. And so Meenie, with a bit of a sigh, put 
 that letter into her pocket, and turned to the other. But 
 now she was indifferent and careless. It was not likely 
 that her sister had anything to say about Ronald ; for he 
 had not yet called at the house. Moreover, Mrs. Gemmill, 
 from two or three expressions she had used, did not seem 
 anxious to make his acquaintance. 
 
 And then the girl's breath caught, and she became 
 suddenly pale. " Drinldng himself to decdh, in the lowest oj 
 low company " — these were the words confronting her startled 
 eyes ; and the next instant she had darted a glance along 
 the road, and another back towards the inn, as if with a 
 sudden strange fear that some one had overseen. No, 
 she was all alone ; with the quickly closed letter in her 
 trembling hand ; her brain bewildered ; her heart beating ; 
 and with a kind of terror on her face. And then, rather 
 blindly, she turned and walked away in the other direction 
 
A MESSAGE 323' 
 
 —not towards her own home ; and still held the letter 
 tightly clasped, as if she feared that some one might get at 
 this ghastly secret. 
 
 " Ronald ! — Ronald ! " — there was a cry of anguish in 
 her heart ; for this was all too sharp and sudden an end to 
 certain wistful dreams and fancies. These were the dreams 
 and fancies of long wakeful nights, when she would lie and 
 wonder what was the meaning of his farewell look towards 
 her ; and wonder if he could guess that his going away was 
 to change all her life for her ; and wonder Avhether, if all 
 things were to go well with him, he would come back and 
 claim her love — that was there awaiting him, and would 
 always await him, whether he ever came back or no. And 
 sometimes, indeed, the morning light brought a joyous 
 assurance with it ; she knew well why he had not ventured 
 to hand her that tell-tale message that he had actually 
 written out and addressed to her ; but in the glad future, 
 when he could come Avith greater confidence and declare 
 the truth — would she allow father or mother, or any one 
 else to interfere ? On these mornings the Mudal-Water 
 seemed to laugh as it Avent rippling by ; it had a friendly 
 sound ; she could hear it 
 
 Move the sioeet forget-me-nots 
 TJiat grow for happy lovers." 
 
 And at such times her favourite and secret reading was of 
 women who had been bold and generous with their love ; 
 and she feared she had been timid and had fallen in too 
 easily with her mother's schemes for her ; but now that she 
 understood herself better — now that her heart had revealed 
 itself plainly to her — surely, if ever that glad time were to 
 come — if ever she were to see him hasten along to the little 
 garden-gate — on the very first moment of his arrival — she 
 would not stint her welcome of him ? White, white were 
 the mornings on which such fancies filled her head ; and 
 the Mudal laughed along its clear brown shadows ; and 
 there was a kind of music in the moorland air. 
 
 " Drinlcing himself to death, ^'^^ ^^'■'^ lowest of low company : " 
 black night seemed to have fallen upon her, and a wild 
 bewilderment, and a crushing sense of hopelessness that 
 shut out for ever those fair visions of the future. She did 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 not stay to ask whether this might not be a woman's ex^ 
 aggeration or the mere gossip of a straitlaced set ; the blow 
 had fallen too suddenly to let her reason about it ; she only 
 knew that the very pride of her life, the secret hope of her 
 heart, had been in a moment extinguished. And Ronald — 
 Eonald that was ever the smartest and handsomest of them 
 all — the gayest and most audacious, the very king of all the 
 company whithersoever he went — was it this same Eonald 
 who had in so short a time become a bleared and besotted 
 drunkard, shunning the public ways, hiding in ignoble 
 haunts, with the basest of creatures for his only friends ? 
 And she — that had been so proud of him — that had been 
 so assured of his future, — nay, that had given him the love 
 of her life, and had sworn to herself that, whether he ever 
 came to claim it or no, no other man should take his place 
 in her heart — she it was who had become possessed of this 
 dreadful secret, while all the others were still imagining 
 that Ronald was as the Ronald of yore. She dared not go 
 back to Inver-Mudal — not yet, at least. She went away 
 along the highway ; and then left that for a path that led 
 alongside a small burn ; and by and by, when she came to 
 a place Avhere she was screened from all observation by 
 steep and wooded banks, she sat down there with some 
 kind of vague notion that she ought more carefully to read 
 this terrible news ; but presently she had flung herself, face 
 downward, on the heather, in an utter agony of grief, and 
 there she lay and sobbed and cried, with her head buried 
 in her hands. " Ronald ! Ronald ! " her heart seemed to 
 call aloud in its despair ; but how was any appeal to be 
 carried to him — away to Glasgow town ? And was this the 
 end ? Was he never coming back ? The proud young life 
 that promised so fair to be sucked under and whirled away 
 in a black current ; and as for her — for her the memory of 
 a few happy days spent on Mudal's banks, and years and 
 years of lonely thinking over what might have been. 
 
 A sharp whistle startled her ; and she sprang to her feet, 
 and hastily dried her eyes. A Gordon setter came ranging 
 through the strip of birch-wood, and then its companion ; 
 both dogs merely glanced at her — they were far too intent 
 on their immediate work to take further notice. And then 
 it quickly occurred to her that, if this were Lord Ailine 
 
A MESSAGE 325 
 
 who was coming along, perhaps she might appeal to him 
 — she might beg of him to write to Ronald — or even to 
 go to Glasgow — for had not these two been companions 
 and friends ? And he was a man — he would knOw what 
 • to do — what could she do, a helpless girl ? Presently 
 Lord Ailine appeared, coming leisurely along the banks 
 of the little stream in company with a keeper and a 
 young lad ; and when he saw her, he raised his cap and 
 greeted her. 
 
 "Don't let us disturb you, Miss Douglas," said he. 
 " Gathering flowers for the dinner-table, I suppose ? " 
 
 " I hope I have done no harm," said she, though her 
 mind was so agitated that she scarcely knew what she said. 
 " I — I have not seen any birds — nor a hare either." 
 
 " Harm ? No, no," he said good-naturedly. " I hope 
 your mamma is quite well. There's a haunch of a roe- 
 buck at the lodge that Duncan can take along this after- 
 noon " 
 
 " Your lordship," said the keeper reprovingly, " there's 
 Bella drawing on to something." 
 
 " Good morning. Miss Douglas," he said quickly, and the 
 next moment he was off. 
 
 But even during that brief interview she had instinctively 
 arrived at the conclusion that it was not for her to spread 
 about this bruit in Inver-Mudal. She could not. This 
 news about Ronald to come from her lips — with perhaps 
 this or that keeper to carry it on to the inn and make it 
 the topic of general wonder there ? They would hear of 
 it soon enough. But no one — not even any one in her own 
 household — would be able to guess what it meant to her ; 
 as yet she herself could hardly realise it, except that all of 
 a sudden her life seemed to have grown dark. 
 
 She had to get back to the cottage in time for the mid- 
 day dinner, and she sate at table there, pale and silent, and 
 with a consciousness as of guilt weighing upon her. She 
 even did her best to eat something, in order to avoid their 
 remarks and looks ; but she failed in that, and was glad 
 to get away as soon as she could to the privacy of her 
 own room. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know what's the matter with William- 
 ina," Mrs. Douglas said with a sigh. " She has not been 
 
326 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 looking herself for many a day back ; and she seems going 
 from bad to worse — she ate hardly a scrap at dinner." 
 
 Of course it was for the Doctor to prescribe. 
 
 " She wants a change," he said. 
 
 "A change," the little dame retorted with some asperity, 
 for this was a sore subject with her. " She would have had 
 a change long before now, but for her and you together. 
 Three months ago I wanted her sent to Glasgow " 
 
 " Glasgow — for any one in indifferent health — ■" the big 
 bland Doctor managed to interpolate ; but she would not 
 listen. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't understand the girl. She has no 
 proper pride. Any other girl in her position would be 
 glad to have such chances, and eager to make use of them. 
 But no — she would sooner go looking after a lot of cottar's 
 children than set to work to qualify herself for taking her 
 proper place in society ; and what is the use of my talking 
 when you encourage her in her idleness ? " 
 
 " I like to have the girl at home," he said, rather 
 feebly. 
 
 " There," she said, producing a letter and opening it — 
 although he had heard the contents a dozen times before. 
 '• There it is — in black and white — a distinct invitation. 
 ' Could you let Meehie come to us for a month or six weeks 
 when we go to Brighton in November ? ' " 
 
 " Well, said the good-natured Doctor, " that would be 
 a better kind of a change. Sea-air — sunlight — plenty of 
 society and amusement." 
 
 "She shall not go there, nor anywhere else, with my 
 cousin and his family, until she has fitted herself for taking 
 such a position," said the little woman peremptorily. " Sir 
 Alexander is good-nature itself, but I am not going to send 
 him a half-educated Highland girl that he would be ashamed 
 of. Why, the best families in England go to Brighton for 
 the winter — every one is there. It would be worse than 
 sending her to London. And what does this month or six 
 weeks mean ? — Surely it is plain enough. They want to 
 try her. They Avant to see what her accomplishments are. 
 They want to see whether they can take her abroad with 
 them, and present her at Paris and Florence and Rome. 
 Every year now Sir Alexander goes abroad at Christmas 
 
A MESSAGE 327 
 
 time ; aud of course if she satisfied them she would be 
 asked to go also — aud there, think of that chance ! " 
 
 " The girl is well enough," said he. 
 
 She was on the point of retorting that, as far as he knew 
 anything about the matter, Williamiua was well enough. 
 But she spared him. 
 
 " No, she has no proper pride," the little Dresden-china 
 woman continued. "And just now, when everything is in 
 her favour. Agatha never had such chances. Agatha 
 never had Williamina's good looks. Of course, I say no- 
 thing against Mr. Gemmill — he is a highly respectable man 
 — and if the business is going on as they say it is going, 
 I don't sec why they should not leave Queen's Crescent 
 and take a larger house — up by the AVest End Park. And 
 he is an intelligent man, too ; the society they have is 
 clever and intellectual — you saw in Agatha's last letter 
 about the artists' party she had — why, their names are in 
 every newspaper — quite distinguished people, in that way 
 of life. And, at all events, it would be a beginning. 
 Williamina would learn something, Agatha is a perfect 
 musician — you can't deny that." 
 
 But here the big Doctor rebelled ; aud he brought the 
 weight of his professional authority to bear upon her. 
 
 " Now, look liere, Jane, when I said that the girl wanted 
 a change, I meant a change ; but not a change to singing- 
 lessons, and music-lessons, and German lessons, and Italian 
 lessons, and not a change to an atmosphere like that of 
 Glasgow. Bless my soul, do you think that kind of change 
 will bring back the colour to her cheek, and give her an 
 appetite, and put some kind of cheerfulness into her ? 
 Queen's Crescent ! She's not going to Queen's Crescent 
 with my will. Brighton, if you like." 
 
 " Brighton ? To get herself laughed at, and put in the 
 background, as a half-educated ignorant Highland peasant 
 girl ? So long as she is what she is, she shall not go to 
 Brighton with my will." 
 
 So here was an absolute dead-lock so far as Meenie's 
 future was concerned ; but she knew nothing of it ; aud 
 if she had known she would not have heeded much. It 
 was not of her own future she was thinking. And it seemed 
 so terrible to her to know that there was nothing she would 
 
328 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 not have adventured to save this man from destruction, 
 and to know that she was incapable of doing anything at 
 all. If she could but see him for a moment — to make an 
 appeal to him ; if she could but take his hand in hers ; 
 would she not say that there had been timidity, doubt, mis- 
 apprehension in the past, but that now there was no time 
 for any of these ; sho had come to claim him and save him 
 and restore him to himself — no matter what he might think 
 of her ? Indeed she tried to put all thought of herself out 
 of the matter. She would allow no self-pride to interfere, 
 if only she could be of the smallest aid to him, if she 
 could stretch out her hand to him, and appeal to him, and 
 drag him back. But how 1 She seemed so helpless. And 
 yet her anxiety drove her to the consideration of a hundred 
 wild and impossible schemes, insomuch that she could 
 not rest in her own room, to which she had retreated for 
 safety and quiet. She put on her bonnet again and went 
 out — still with that guilty consciousness of a secret hanging 
 over her ; and she went down the road and over the bridge ; 
 and then away up the solitary valley thi'ough which the 
 Mudal flows. Alas ! there was no laughing over the brown 
 shallows now ; there was no thinking of 
 
 " the siceet forget-me-nots. 
 That grow for happy lovers ; " 
 
 all had become dark around her ; and the giant grasp of 
 Glasgow had taken him away from her, and dragged him 
 down, and blotted out for ever the visions of a not impos- 
 sible future with which she had been wont to beguile the 
 solitary hours. " Drinldng himself to death, in the loivest 
 of loiv company : " could this be Eonald, that but a few 
 months ago had been the gayest of any, with audacious 
 talk of what he was going to try for, with health and 
 happiness radiant in his eyes ? And it seemed to her that 
 her sister Agatha had been proud of writing these words, 
 and proud of the underhning of them, and that there was 
 a kind of vengeance in them ; and the girl's mouth was 
 shut hard ; and she was making vague and fierce resolu- 
 tions of showing to all of them — far and near — that she 
 was not ashamed of her regard for Eonald Strang, game- 
 keeper or no gamekeeper, if ever the chance should serve. 
 
A MESSAGE 329 
 
 Ashamed ! He had been for her the very king of men — 
 in his generosity, his courage, his gentleness, his manliness, 
 his modesty, and his staunch and unfaltering fealty to his 
 friends. And was he to fall away from that ideal, and to 
 become a wi'eck, a waif, an outcast ; and she to stand by 
 and not stretch out a hand to save ? 
 
 But what could she do ? All the day she pondered ; 
 all the evening ; and through the long, silent, and wakeful 
 night. And when, at last, as the gray of the dawn 
 showed in the small window, she had selected one of these 
 hundred bewildered plans and schemes, it seemed a fantastic 
 thing that she was about to do. She would send him a 
 piece of white heather. He would know it came from her 
 — he would recognise the postmark, and also her hand- 
 writing. And if he took it as a message and an appeal, as 
 a token of good wishes and friendliness, and the hope of 
 better fortune ? Or if — and here she fell a-trembling, for 
 it was a little cold in these early hours — if ho should take it 
 as a confession, as an unmaidenly declaration ? Oh, she 
 did not care. It was all she could think of doing ; and do 
 something she must. And she remembered with a timid 
 and nervous joy her own acknowledged influence over him 
 — had not Maggie talked of it a thousand times ? — and if 
 he were to recognise this message in its true light, what 
 then ? " Ronald ! Ronald ! " her heart was still calling, 
 with something of a tremulous hope amid all its grief and 
 pity. 
 
 She was out and abroad over the moorland long before 
 any one was astir, and searching with an anxious diligence, 
 and as yet without success. White heather is not so 
 frequently met with in the North as in the West High- 
 lands ; and yet in Sutherlandshire it is not an absolute 
 rarity ; many a time had she come across a little tuft of it 
 in her wanderings over the moors. But now, search as she 
 might, she could not find the smallest bit ; and time began 
 to press ; for this was the morning for the mail to go south 
 — if she missed it, she would have to wait two more days. 
 And as half-hour after half-hour went by, she became more 
 anxious and nervous and agitated ; she went rapidly from 
 knoll to knoll, seeking the likeliest places ; and all in vain. 
 It was a question of minutes now. She could hear the 
 
330 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 mail-cart on the road behind her ; soon it would pass her 
 and go on to the inn, where it would remain but a brief 
 while before setting out again for Lairg. And presently, 
 when the mail-cart did come along and go by, then she 
 gave up the quest in despair ; and in a kind of bewildered 
 way set out for home. Her heart was heavy and full of its 
 disappointment ; and her face was paler a little than usual ; 
 but at least her eyes told no tales. 
 
 And then, all of a sudden, as she was crossing the Mudal 
 bridge, she caught sight of a little tuft of gray away along 
 the bank and not far from the edge of the stream. At first 
 she thought it was merely a patch of withered heather ; and 
 then a wild hope possessed her ; she quickly left the bridge 
 and made her way towards it ; and the next moment she 
 was joyfully down on her knees, selecting the whitest spray 
 she could find. And the mail-cart ? — it would still be at 
 the inn — the inn was little more than half a mile off — ■ 
 could she run hard and intercept them after all, and send 
 her white-dove message away to the south .? To think of 
 it was to try it, at all events ; and she ran as no town-bred 
 girl ever ran in her life — past the Doctor's cottage, along 
 the wide and empty road, past the keeper's house and the 
 kennels, across the bridge that spans the little burn. Alas ! 
 there was the mail-cart already on its way. 
 
 " Johnnie, Johnnie ! " she called. 
 
 Happily the wind was blowing towards him ; he heard, 
 looked back, and pulled up his horses. 
 
 " Wait a minute — I have a letter for you to take ! " she 
 called, though her strength was all gone now. 
 
 And yet she managed to get quickly down to the in)i, 
 and astonished Mrs. Murray by breathlessly begging for an 
 envelope. 
 
 " Tell Nelly — tell Nelly," she said, while her trembling 
 fingers Avrote the address, ''to come and take this to the 
 mail-cart — they're waiting — Johnnie will post it at 
 Lairg." 
 
 And then, when she had finished the tremulous address, 
 and carefully dried it with the blotting-paper, and given the 
 little package to Nelly, and bade her run — quick, quick — ■ 
 to hand it to the driver, then the girl sank back in the 
 chair and began laughing in a strange, half -hysterical way, 
 
IN GLASGOW TOWN 331 
 
 and then that became a burst of crying, with her face 
 hidden in her liands. But the good-hearted Mrs. Murray 
 was there ; and her arms were round the girl's neck ; and 
 she was saying, in her gentle Highland way — 
 
 " Well, well, now, to think you should hef had such a run 
 to catch the mail-cart — and no wonder you are dead-beat 
 — ay, ay, and you not looking so well of late, Miss Meenie. 
 But you will just rest here a while ; and Nelly will get you 
 some tea ; and there is no need for you to go back home 
 until you have come to yourself better. No, you hef not 
 been looking well lately ; and you must not tire yourself 
 like this— dear me, the place Avould be quite different 
 ahltog ether if anything was to make you ill." 
 
 CHAPTEK XXXIY. 
 
 IN GLASGOW TOWN. 
 
 It was as late as half-past ten o'clock — and on a sufficiently 
 gray and dull and cheerless morning — that Ronald's land- 
 lady, surprised not to have heard him stirring, knocked at 
 his room. There was no answer. Then she knocked 
 again, opened the door an inch or two, and dropped a letter 
 on the floor. 
 
 " Are ye no up yet ? " 
 
 The sound of her voice aroused him. 
 
 " In a minute, woman," he said sleepily ; and, being thus 
 satisfied, the landlady went off, shutting the door behind 
 her. 
 
 He rose in the bed and looked around him, in a dazed 
 fashion. He was already partially dressed, for he had been 
 up two hours before, but had thrown himself down on the 
 bed again, over-fatigued, half -stupefied, and altogether dis- 
 contented. The fact is, he had come home the night 
 before in a reckless mood, and had sate on through hour 
 after hour until it was nearly dawn, harassing himself with 
 idle dreams and idle regrets, drinking to drown care, 
 smoking incessantly, sometimes scrawling half-scornful 
 rhymes. There were all the evidences now on the table 
 before him — a whisky-bottle, a tumbler, a wooden pipe and 
 plenty of ashes, a sheet of paper scrawled over in an un- 
 
332 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 certain hand. He took up that sheet to recall what he had 
 written : 
 
 Kincj Death came striding along the road, 
 
 And he laughed aloud to see 
 How every rich man's mother's son 
 
 Would taJce to his heels and flee. 
 
 Dulce, lord, or merchant, off they slapped, 
 
 WJienever that he drew near; 
 And they dropped their guineas as loild they ran. 
 
 And their faces icere tchite icith fear. 
 
 But the poor folic labouring in the fields 
 
 Watched him as he passed by ; 
 And they took to their spades and mattochs again, 
 
 And turned to their work ivith a sigh. 
 
 Then farther along the road he saw 
 
 An old man sitting alone ; 
 His head lay heavy upon his hands, 
 
 And sorrowful was his moan. 
 
 Old age had shrivelled and bent his frame; 
 
 Age and hard ivorh together 
 Had scattered Ms lochs, and bleared his eyes — 
 
 Age and the lointer weatlier. 
 
 " Old man," said Death, " do you tremble to hnoio 
 
 That now ydu are near the erid?" 
 The old man looked : " You are Death," said he, 
 
 " And at last I've found a friend." 
 
 It was a strange kind of mood for a young fellow to 
 have fallen into ; but he did not seem to think so. As he 
 contemplated the scrawled lines — with rather an absent 
 and preoccupied air — this was what he was saying to 
 himself — 
 
 " If the old gentleman would only come striding along 
 the Port Dundas Road, I know one that would be glad 
 enough to go out and meet him and shake hands with him, 
 this very minute." 
 
 He went to the window and threw it open, and sate 
 down : the outer air would be pleasanter than this inner 
 atmosphere, impregnated with the fumes of whisky and 
 tobacco ; and his head was burning, and his pulses heavy. 
 But the dreariness of this outlook ! — the gray pavements, 
 the gray railway station, the gray sheds, the gray skies ; and 
 
IN GLASGOW TOWN 333 
 
 evermore the dull slumberous sound of the great city already 
 plunged in its multitudinous daily toil. Then he began to 
 recall the events of the preceding evening ; and had not 
 Mrs. Menzies promised to call for him, about eleven, to 
 drive him out to see some of her acquaintances at Miln- 
 gavie ? Well, it would be something to do ; it would be 
 a relief to get into the fresher air — to get away from this 
 hopeless and melancholy neighbourhood. Kate Menzies 
 had high spirits ; she could laugh away remorse and 
 discontent and depression ; she could make the hours 
 go by somehow. And now, as it was almost eleven, he 
 would finish his dressing and be ready to set out when 
 she called ; as for breakfast, no thought of that entered his 
 mind. 
 
 Then he chanced to see something white lying on the 
 floor — an envelope — perhaps this was a note from Kate, 
 saying she was too busy that morning and could not come 
 for him ? He Avent and took up the letter ; and instantly 
 —as he regarded the address on it — a kind of bewilder- 
 ment, almost of fear, appeared on his face. For well he 
 knew Meenie's handwriting : had he not pondered over 
 every characteristic of it — the precise small neatness of it, 
 the long loops of the Ts, the German look of the capital K ? 
 And why should J\Ieenie WTite to him ? 
 
 He opened the envelope and took out the bit of white 
 heather that Meenie had so hastily despatched : there was 
 no message, not the smallest scrap of writing. But was not 
 this a message — and full of import, too ; for surely Meenie 
 would not have adopted this means of communicating with 
 him at the mere instigation of an idle fancy 1 And why 
 should she have sent it — and at this moment ? Had she 
 heard, then ? Had any gossip about him reached Inver- 
 Mudal ? And how much had she heard ? There was a 
 kind of terror in his heart as he went slowly back to the 
 window, and sate down there, still staring absently at this 
 token that had been sent him, and trying hard to make out 
 the meaning of it. What was in Meenie's mind ? What 
 was her intention ? Not merely to give him a sprig of 
 white heather with wishes for good luck ; there was more 
 than that, as he easily guessed ; but how much more ? 
 And at first there was little of joy or gladness or gratitude 
 
334 ivniTE HEA THER 
 
 in his thinking ; there was rather fear, and a wondering* as 
 to what Meenie had heard of him, and a sickening sense of 
 shame. The white gentleness of the message did not strike 
 him ; it was rather a reproach — a recaUing of other days — ■ 
 Meenie's eyes were regarding him with proud indignation — 
 this was all she had to say to him now. 
 '■ A man's voice was heard outside ; the door was brusquely 
 opened ; Jimmy Laidlaw appeared. 
 
 " What, man, no ready yet ? Ai'e ye just out o' your 
 bed ? Where's your breakfast ? Dimia ye ken it's eleven 
 o'clock ? " ' 
 
 Ronald regarded him with no friendly eye. He wished 
 to be alone ; there was much to think of ; there was more 
 in his mind than the prospect of a rattling, devil-may-care 
 drive out to Milngavie. 
 
 " Is Kate below ? " said he. 
 
 " She is that. Look sharp, man, and get on your coat. 
 She doesna like to keep the cob standing." 
 
 " Look here, Laidlaw," Ronald said, " I wish ye would 
 do me a good turn. Tell her that — that I'll be obliged if 
 she will excuse me ; I'm no up to the mark ; ye'll have a 
 merrier time of it if ye go by yourselves ; there now, like a 
 good fellow, make it straight wi' her." 
 
 " Do ye want her to jump doon ma throat ? " retorted 
 Mr. Laidlaw, with a laugh. " I'll tak' no sic message. 
 Come, come, man, pull yoursel' thegither. What's the 
 matter ? Hammer and tongs in your head ? — the fresh 
 air'll drive that away. Come along 1 " 
 
 " The last word's the shortest," Ronald said stubbornly. 
 "I'm not going. Tell her not to take it ill — I'm — I'm 
 obliged to her, tell her " 
 
 " Indeed, I'll leave you and her to fight it out between 
 ye," said Laidlaw. " D'ye think I want the woman to snap 
 my head off ? " 
 
 He left, and Ronald fondly hoped that they would drive 
 away and leave him to himself. But presently there was a 
 light tapping at the door. 
 
 " Ronald ! " 
 
 He recognised the voice, and he managed to throw a 
 coat over his shoulders — just as Kate Menzies, without 
 further ceremony, made her appearance. 
 
IN GLASGOW TOWN 335 
 
 " What's this now ? " exclaimed the buxom widow — who 
 was as radiant and good-natured and smartly dressed as 
 ever — " what does this daft fellow Laidlaw mean by bringing 
 me a message like that ? I ken ye better, Eonald, my lad. 
 Down in the mouth ? — take a hair 0' the dog that bit ye. 
 Here, see, I'll pour it out for ye." 
 
 She went straight to the bottle, uncorked it, and poured 
 out about a third of a tumblerful of whisky. 
 
 " Ronald, Eonald, ye're an ill lad to want this in the 
 morning ; but what must be, must ; here, put some life 
 into ye. The day'U be just splendid outside the town ; 
 and old Jaaps with us too ; and I've got a hamper ; and 
 somewhere or other we'll camp out, like a band of gypsies. 
 Dinna fear, lad ; I'll n-o drag ye into the MacDougals' 
 house until we're on the way back ; and then it'll just be 
 , a cup o' tea and a look at the bairns, and on we drive again 
 to the town. What's the matter ? Come on, my lad ! — 
 we'll have a try at ' Cauld Kail in Aberdeen ' when we get 
 away frae the houses." 
 
 *' Katie, lass," said he, rather shamefacedly, " I'm — I'm 
 sorry that I promised — -but I'll take it kind of ye to excuse 
 me — I'm no in the humour someway — and ye'li be better 
 
 by yourselves- " 
 
 " Ay, and what good'll ye do by pu'ing a wry mouth ? " 
 said she tauntingly. " ' The devil was ill, the devil a saint 
 would be.' Here, man ! it's no the best medicine, but it's 
 better than none." 
 
 She took the whisky to him, and gave him a hearty slap 
 on the shoulder. There was a gleam of sullen fire in his 
 eye. 
 
 " It's ill done of ye, woman, to drive a man against his 
 will," he said, and he retreated from her a step or two. 
 
 " Oh," said she, proudly, and she threw the whisky into 
 the coal-scuttle, and slammed the tumbler down on the 
 table, for she had a temper too, " if ye'll no be coaxed, 
 there's them that will If that's what Long John does for 
 your temper, I'd advise you to change and try Talisker. 
 Good morning to ye, my braw lad, and thank ye for your 
 courtesy." 
 
 She stalked from the room, and banged the door behind 
 her when she left. But she was really a good-hearted kind 
 
336 WHITE HE A THEk 
 
 of creature ; before she had reached the outer door she 
 had recovered herself ; and she turned and came into the 
 room again, a single step or so. 
 
 " Ronald," she said, in quite a different voice, " it'll no 
 he for your good to quarrel wi' me- 
 
 " I wish for no quarrel wi' ye, Katie womau- 
 
 " For I look better after ye than some o' them. If ye'll 
 no come for the drive, will ye look in in the afternoon or 
 at night, if it suits ye better ? Seven o'clock, say — ^to show 
 that there's no ill feeling between us." 
 
 " Yes, I will," said he — mainly to get rid of her ; for, 
 indeed, he could scarcely hear what she was saying to him 
 for thinking of this strange and mysterious message that 
 had come to him from Meenie. 
 
 And then, when she had gone, he rapidly washed and 
 dressed, and went away out from the house — out by the 
 Cowcaddens, and Shamrock Street, and West Prince's 
 Street, and over the Kelvin, and up to Hillhead, to certain 
 solitary thoroughfares he had discovered in his devious 
 wanderings ; and all the time he was busy with various 
 interpretations of this message from Meenie and of her 
 reasons for sending it. At first, as has been said, there 
 was nothing for him but shame and self-abasement ; this 
 was a reproach ; she had heard of the condition into which 
 he had fallen ; this was to remind him of what had been. 
 And indeed, it was now for the first time that he began to 
 be conscious of what that condition was. He had fled to 
 those boon-companions as a kind of refuge from the hope- 
 lessness of the weary hours, from the despair with regard to 
 the future that had settled down over his life. He had 
 laughed, drunk, smoked, and sung the time away, glad to 
 forget. AYhen haunting memories came to rebuke, then 
 there was a call for another glass, another song. Nay, he 
 could even make apologies to himself when the immediate 
 excitement was over. Why should he do otherwise '^. The 
 dreams conjured up by the Americans had no more charms 
 for him. Why should he work towards some future that 
 had no interest for him ? 
 
 Death is the end of life; ah, lohy 
 Should life all labour be ? 
 
IN GLASGOW TOWN 337 
 
 Aud so Kate Meiizies's dog-cart became a pleasant tiling, as 
 it rattled along the hard stony roads ; and many a merry 
 glass they had at the wayside inns ; and then home again 
 in the evening to supper, and singing, and a good-night 
 bacchanalian festival at the Harmony Club. The hours 
 passed ; he did not wish to think of what his life had 
 become ; enough if, for the time being, he could banish 
 the horrors of the aching head, the hot pulse, the trembling 
 hands. 
 
 But if Mecnie had heard of all this, how would it appear 
 to her ? and he made no doubt that she had heard. It 
 was some powerful motive that had prompted her to do this 
 thing. He knew that her sister had beqn making inquiries 
 about him ; his brother's congregation was a hot-bed of 
 gossip ; if any news of him had been sent by that agency, 
 no doubt it was the worst. And still Meenie did not turn 
 away from him with a shudder ? He took out the envelope 
 again. What could she mean ? Might he dare to think it 
 was this — that, no matter what had happened, or what she 
 had heard, she still had some little faith in him, that the 
 recollection of their old friendship was not all gone away ? 
 Eeproach it might be — but perhaps also an appeal ? 
 And if Meenie had still some interest in what happened to 
 him ? 
 
 He would go no farther than that. It was characteristic 
 of the man that, even with this white token of goodwill and 
 remembrance and good wishes before his eyes — with this 
 unusual message just sent to him from one who was 
 genei'ally so shy and reserved — he permitted to himself no 
 wildly daring fancies or bewildering hopes. ISTor had the 
 majesty of the Stuarts of Glengask and Orosay anything to 
 do with this restraint : it was the respect that he paid to 
 Meenie herself. And yet — and yet this was a friendly 
 token ; it seemed to make the day whiter somehow ; it was 
 with no ill-will she had been thinking of him when she 
 gathered it from one of the knolls at the foot of Clebrig or 
 from the banks of Mudal-Water. So white and fresh it 
 was ; it spoke of clear skies and sweet moorland winds ; 
 aud there seemed to be the soft touch of her fingers still 
 on it as she had pressed it into the envelope ; and it was 
 Meenie's own small white hand that had written that 
 
338 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 rather trembling " Mr. Bonald Strang.''^ A gentle message ; 
 he grew to think that there was less of reproach in it ; if 
 she had heard evil tidings of him, perhaps she was sorry 
 more than anything else ; Meenie's eyes might have sorrow 
 in them and pain, but anger — never. And her heart — 
 well, sm'ely her heart could not have been set bitterly against 
 him, or she would not have sent him this mute little token 
 of remembrance, as if to recall the olden days. 
 
 And then he rose and drove against the bars that caged 
 him in. Why should the ghastly farce be played any 
 longer ? Why should he go through that dull mechanical 
 routine in which he had no interest whatever ? Let others 
 make what money they choose ; let others push forward to 
 any future that they might think desirable ; let them aim 
 at being first in the world's fight for wealth, and having 
 saloon-carriages, and steam-yachts on Lake Michigan, and 
 cat-boats on Lake George : but as for him, if Lord Aihne, 
 now, would only let him go back to the little hamlet in the 
 northern wilds, and give him charge of the dogs again, and 
 freedom to ask Dr. Douglas to go with him for a turn at 
 the mountain hares or for a day's salmon-fishing on the 
 Mudal- — in short, if only he could get back to his old life 
 again, with fair skies over him, and fresh blowing winds 
 around him, and wholesome blood running cheerily through 
 his veins ? And then the chance, at some hour or other of 
 the long day, of meeting Meenie, and finding the beautiful, 
 timid, Highland eyes fixed on his : " Are you going along 
 to the inn, Ronald ? " he could almost hear her say. " And 
 will you be so kind as to take these letters for me ? " 
 
 But contracted habits are not so easily shaken off as all 
 that ; and he was sick and ill at ease ; and when the hour 
 came for him to go down and see Kate Menzies and her 
 friends, perhaps he was not altogether sorry that he had 
 made a definite promise which he was bound to keep. 
 He left the envelope, with its piece of white heather, at 
 home. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was rather dull, they thought ; and 
 there was some facetious raillery over his not having yet re- 
 covered from the frolic of the previous night ; with frequent 
 invitations to take a hair of the dog that had bitten him; 
 Kate was the kindest ; she had been a little alarmed by the 
 
A RESOLVE 339 
 
 definite repugnance he had shown in the morning ; she was 
 glad to be friends with him again. As for him — well, he 
 was as good-natm'ed as ever ; but rather absent in manner ; 
 for sometimes, amid all their boisterous camaraderie, he 
 absolutely forgot what they were saying ; and in a kind of 
 dream he seemed to see before him the sunlit Strath- 
 Terry, and the blue waters of the loch, and Mudal's stream 
 winding through the solitary moorland waste — and a 
 young girl there stooping to pick up something from the 
 heather. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 A EESOLVE. 
 
 The days passed ; no answer came to that mute message 
 of hers ; nay, how could she expect any answer ? But 
 these were terrible days to her — of mental torture, and 
 heart-searching, and unceasing and unsatisfied longing, and 
 yearning, and pity. And then out of all this confusion of 
 thinking and suffering there gradually grew up a clear and 
 definite resolve. "What if she were to make of that bit of 
 white heather but an avant-courrier ? What if she were 
 herself to go to Glasgow, and seek him out, and confront 
 him, and take him by the hand ? She had not overrated 
 her old influence with him : well she knew that. And how 
 could she stand by idle and allow him to perish ? The 
 token she had sent hira must have told him of her thinking 
 of him ; he would be prepared ; perhaps he would even 
 guess that she had come to Glasgow for his sake ? Well, 
 she did not mind that much ; Ronald would have gentle 
 thoughts of her, whatever happened ; and this need was 
 far too sore and pressing to permit of timid and sensitive 
 hesitations. 
 
 One morning she went to her father's room and tapped 
 at the door. 
 
 " Come in ! " 
 
 She was rather pale as she entered. 
 
 " Father," she said, " I would like to 2:0 to Glasgow for a 
 while." 
 
 Her father turned in his chair and regarded her. 
 
 z 2 
 
340 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " What's the matter with ye, my girl ? " he said, " You've 
 not been looking yourself at all for some time back, and 
 these last few days you've practically eaten nothing. And 
 yet your mother declares there's nothing the matter. 
 Glasgow ? I dare say a change would do you good — 
 cheer you up a bit, and that ; but — Glasgow 1 More 
 schooling, more fees, that Avould he the chief result, I 
 imagine ; and that's what your mother's driving at. I 
 think it's nonsense : you're a grown woman ; you've 
 learned everything that will ever be of any use to you." 
 
 " I ought to have, any way, by this time," Meenie said 
 simply, " And indeed it is not for that, father. I — I should 
 like to go to Glasgow for a while." 
 
 "There's Lady Stuart would have ye stay with them at 
 Brighton for a few weeks ; but your mother seems to think 
 you should go amongst them as a kind of Mezzofanti — it's 
 precious little of that there's about Sir Alexander, as I know 
 well. However, if you're not to go to them until you are 
 polished out of all human shape and likeness, I suppose I 
 must say nothing " 
 
 " But I would rather go and stay with Agatha, father," 
 the girl said. 
 
 He looked at her again. 
 
 " Well," said he, " I do think something must be done. 
 It would be a fine thing for you — you of all creatures in 
 the world — to sink into a hopeless antemic condition. 
 Lassie, where's that eldritch laugh o' yours gone to ? And 
 I see you go dawdling along the road — you that could beat 
 a young roedeer if you were to try. Glasgow ? — well, I'll 
 see what your mother says." 
 
 " Thank you, father," she said, but she did not leave at 
 once. " I think I heard you say that Mr. Blair was going 
 south on Monday," she timidly suggested. 
 
 This Mr. Blair was a U.P. minister from Glasgow, who 
 was taking a well-earned holiday up at Tongue — fishing in 
 the various lochs in that neighbourhood — and who was 
 known to the Douglases. 
 
 " You're in a deuce of a hurry. Miss," her father said, 
 but good-naturedly enough. " You mean you could go to 
 Glasgow under his escort ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
A RESOLVE 341 
 
 "Well, I will see what your mother says — I suppose 
 she will be for making a fuss over the necessary 
 preparations." 
 
 But this promise and half permission had instantly 
 brought to the girl a kind of frail and wandering joy and 
 hope ; and there was a brief smile on her face as she 
 said — 
 
 " Well, you know, father, if I have to get any things I 
 ought to get them in Glasgow. The preparations at 
 Inver-Mudal can't take much time." 
 
 " I will see what your mother thinks about it," said the 
 big, good-humoured Doctor, who was cautious about 
 assenting to anything until the ruler and lawgiver of the 
 house had been consulted. 
 
 The time was short, but the chance of sending Meenie 
 to Glasgow under charge of the Rev. Mr. Blair was oppor- 
 tune ; and Mrs. Douglas had no scruple about making use 
 of this temporary concern on the part of her husband 
 about Meenie's health for the working out of her own ends. 
 Of course the girl was only going away to be brightened up 
 by a little society. The change of air might possibly do 
 her good. There could be no doubt she had been looking 
 ill ; and in her sister's house she would have every atten- 
 tion paid her, quite as much as if she were in her own 
 home. All the same, Mrs. Douglas was resolved that this 
 opportunity for linally fitting Meenie for that sphere in 
 which she hoped to see her move should not be lost. 
 Agatha should have private instructions. And Agatha 
 herself was a skilled musician. Moreover, some little 
 society — of a kind — met at ]\Ir. GemmiU's house ; the time 
 would not be entirely lost, even if a little economy in the 
 matter of fees was practised, in deference to the prejudices 
 and dense obtuseness of one who ought to have seen more 
 clearly his duty in this matter — that is to say, of Meenie's 
 father. 
 
 And so it was that, when the Monday morning came 
 round, Meenie had said good-bye to every one she knew, 
 and was ready to set out for the south. Not that she 
 was going by the mail. Oh no, Mr. Murray would not 
 hear of that, nor yet of her being sent in her father's 
 little trap. No ; Mr. Murray placed his own large wag- 
 
342 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 gonette and a pair of horses at her disposal ; and when 
 the mail-cart came along from Tongue, Mr. Blair's luggage 
 Avas quickly transferred to the more stately vehicle, and 
 immediately they started. She did not look like a girl 
 going away for a holiday. She was pale rather, and silent ; 
 and Mr. Blair, who had memories of her as a bright, 
 merry, clear-eyed lass, could not understand why she 
 should be apparently so cast down at the thought of leav- 
 ing her father's home for a mere month or so. As for old 
 John Murray, he went into the inn, grumbling and dis- 
 contented. 
 
 " It is a strange thing," he said, — for he was grieved and 
 offended at their sending Meenie away, and he knew that 
 Inver-Mudal would be a quite different place with her not 
 there, — " a strange thing indeed to send a young girl away 
 to Glasgow to get back the roses into her cheeks. Ay, 
 will she get them there ? A strange thing indeed. And 
 her father a doctor too. It is just a teffle of a piece of 
 nonsense." 
 
 The worthy minister, on the other hand, was quite 
 delighted to have so pretty a travelling companion with 
 him on that long journey to the south ; and he looked 
 after her with the most anxious paternal solicitude, and 
 from time to time he would try to cheer her with the 
 recital of ancient Highland anecdotes that he had picked 
 up during his fishing excursions. But he could see that 
 the girl was preoccupied ; her eyes were absent and her 
 manner distraught ; sometimes her colour came and went 
 in a curious way, as if some sudden fancy had sent a 
 tremor to her heart. Then, as they drew near to the 
 great city — it was a pallid-clear morning, with some faint 
 suggestions of blue overhead that gave the wan landscape 
 an almost cheerful look — she was obviously suffering from 
 nervous excitement ; her answers to him Avere inconsequent, 
 though she tried her bravest to keep up the conversation. 
 The good man thought he would not bother her. No 
 doubt it would be a great change — from the quiet of Inver- 
 Mudal to the roar and bustle of the vast city ; and no 
 doubt the mere sight of hundreds and hundreds of strangers 
 would in itself be bewildering. Meenie, as he under- 
 stood, had been in Glasgow before, but it was some years 
 
A RESOLVE 343 
 
 ago, and she had not had a long experience of it ; in any 
 case, she would naturally be restless and nervous in 
 looking forward to such a complete change in her way of 
 life. 
 
 As they slowed into the station, moreover, he could 
 not help observing how anxiously and eagerly she kept 
 glancing from stranger to stranger, as they passed them on 
 the platform. 
 
 " There will be somebody waiting for you, Miss Meenie ? " 
 he said at a venture. 
 
 " No, no," she answered, somewhat hurriedly and shame- 
 facedly as he thought — and the good minister was puzzled ; 
 " Agatha wrote that Mr. Gemmill would be at the ware- 
 house, and — and she would be busy in the house on a 
 Monday morning, and I was just to take a cab and come 
 on to Queen's Crescent. Oh ! I shall manage all right," 
 she added, with some bravado. 
 
 And yet, when they had seen to their luggage, and got 
 along to the platform outside the station, she seemed too 
 bewildered to heed what was going on. Mr. Blair called 
 a cab and got her boxes put on the top ; but she was 
 standing there by herself, looking up and down, and 
 regarding the windows of the houses opposite in a kind of 
 furtive and half-frightened way. 
 
 " This is Port Dundas Eoad ? " she said to the minister 
 (for had not Maggie, in her voluminous communications 
 about Ronald, described the exact locality of his lodging, 
 and the appearance of the station from his room ?) 
 
 " It is." 
 
 She hesitated for a second or two longer ; and then, 
 recalling herself with an effort, she thanked the minister 
 for all his kindness, and bade him good-bye, and got into 
 the cab. Of course she kept both windows down, so that 
 she could command a view of both sides of the thorough- 
 fares as the man drove her away along the Cowcaddeus 
 and the New City Road. But alas ! how was she ever to 
 find Ronald — by accident, as she had hoped — in that con- 
 tinuous crowd ? She had pictured to herself her suddenly 
 meeting him face to face ; and she would read in his eyes 
 how much he remembered of Inver-Mudal and the olden 
 days. But among this multitude, how was such a thing 
 
344 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 possible ? And then it was so necessary that this meeting 
 should be observed by no third person. 
 
 However, these anxious doubts and fears were forcibly 
 driven from her head by her arrival at Queen's Crescent, 
 and the necessity of meeting the emergencies of the 
 moment. She had but a half recollection of this secluded 
 little nook, with its semicircle of plain, neat, well-kept 
 houses, looking so entirely quiet and respectable ; and its 
 pretty little garden, with its grass-plots, and its flower- 
 plots, and its trim walks and fountain — all so nice and neat 
 and trim, and at this minute looking quite cheerful in the 
 palhd sunshine. And here, awaiting her at the just opened 
 door, was her sister Agatha — a sonsy, sufficiently good- 
 looking young matron, who had inherited her buxom 
 proportions from her father, bat had got her Highland 
 eyes, which were like Meenie's, from her mother. And 
 also there were a smaller Agatha — a self-important little 
 maiden of ten — and two younger children ; and as the 
 advent of this pretty young aunt from Sutherlandshire was 
 of great interest to them, there was a babble of inquiries 
 and answers as they escorted her into the house. 
 
 "And such a surprise to hear you were coming," her 
 sister was saying. " We little expected it — but ye're none 
 the less welcome — and Walter's just quite set up about it. 
 Ay, and ye're not looking so well, my father says ? — let's 
 see." 
 
 She took her by the shoulders and wheeled her to the 
 light. But, of course, the girl was flushed with the excite- 
 ment of her arrival, and pleased with the attentions of the 
 little people, so that for the moment the expression of her 
 face was bright enough. 
 
 " There's not much wrong," said the sister, " but I dou't 
 wonder at your being dull in yon dreadful hole. And I 
 suppose there's no chance of moving now. If my father 
 had only kept to Edinburgh or Glasgow, and got on like 
 anybody else, we might all have been together, and among 
 friends and acquaintances ; but it was aye the same — give 
 him the chance of a place where there was a gun or a 
 fishing-rod handy, and that was enough. Well, well, 
 Meenie, we must wake ye up a bit if you've been feeling 
 dull ; and Walter — he's as proud as a peacock that you're 
 
A RESOLVE 345 
 
 come ; I declare it's enough to make any other woman 
 than myself jealous, the way he shows your portrait to any- 
 body and everybody that comes to the house ; and I had 
 a hint from him this morning that any bit things ye might 
 need — mother's letter only came on Saturday — that they 
 were to be a present from him, and there's nothing stingy 
 about Wat, though I say it who shouldn't. And you'll 
 have to share Aggie's bed for a night or two until we have 
 a room got ready for you." 
 
 "If I had only known that I was going to put you 
 about, Agatha " 
 
 " Put us about, you daft lassie ! " the elder sister ex- 
 claimed. " Come away, and I'll show you where your 
 things will have to be stored for the present. And my 
 father says there are to be no finishing lessons, or anything 
 of that kind, for a while yet ; you're to walk about and 
 amuse yourself ; and we've a family-ticket for the Botanic 
 Gardens — you can take a book there or some knitting ; 
 and then you'll have to help me in the house, for Walter 
 will be for showing you off as his Highland sister-in-law, 
 and we'll have plenty of company." 
 
 And so the good woman rattled on ; and how abundantly 
 and secretly glad was Meenie that not a word was said of 
 Ronald Strang ! She had felt guilty enough when she 
 entered the house ; she had come on a secret errand that 
 she dared not disclose ; and one or two things in her sister's 
 letters had convinced her that there were not likely to be 
 very friendly feelings towards Ronald in this little domestic 
 circle. But when they had gone over almost every con- 
 ceivable topic, and not a single question had been asked 
 about Ronald, nor any reference even made to him, she 
 felt immensely relieved. To them, then, he was clearly of 
 no importance. Probably they had forgotten that she had 
 once or twice asked if he had called on them. Or perhaps 
 her sister had taken it for granted that the piece of news 
 she had sent concerning him would effectually and for ever 
 crush any interest in him that Meenie may have felt. 
 Anyhow, his name was not even mentioned ; and that was 
 so far well. 
 
 But what a strange sensation was this — when in the 
 afternoon she went out for a stroll with the smaller Agatha 
 
34^ WHITE HEATHER 
 
 — to feel that at any moment, at the turning of any corner, 
 she might suddenly encounter Ronald. That ever-moving 
 crowd had the profoundest interest for her ; these rather 
 grimy streets a continuous and mysterious fascination. Of 
 course the little Agatha, when they went forth from the 
 house, was for going up to the West End Park or out by 
 Billhead to the Botanic Gardens, so that the pretty young 
 aunt should have a view of the beauties of Glasgow. But 
 Meenie had no difficulty in explaining that green slopes and 
 trees and things of that kind had no novelty for her, 
 whereas crowded streets and shops and the roar of cabs and 
 carriages had ; and so they turned city-wards when they 
 left the house, and went away in by Cambridge Street and 
 Sauchiehall Street to Buchanan Street. And was this the 
 way, then, she asked herself (and she was rather an absent 
 companion for her little niece), that Eonald would take on 
 leaving his lodgings to get over to the south side of the 
 city, where, as she understood from his sister's letters, lived 
 the old forester who was superintending his studies ? But 
 there were so many people here ! — and all seemingly 
 strangers to each other ; scarcely any two or three of them 
 stopping to have a chat together ; and all of them 
 apparently in such a. hurry. Argyll Street was even worse ; 
 indeed, she recoiled from that tumultuous thoroughfare ; 
 and the two of them turned north again. The lamplighter 
 was beginning his rounds ; here and there an orange star 
 gleamed in the pallid atmosphere ; here and there a shop 
 window glowed yellow. When they got back to Queen's 
 Crescent they found that Mr. Gemmill had returned ; it 
 was his tea-time ; and there was a talk of the theatre for 
 the older folk. 
 
 Well, she did not despair yet. For one thing, she had 
 not been anxious to meet Ronald during that first plunge 
 into the great city, for Agatha was with her. But that was 
 merely because the little girl had obtained a holiday in 
 honour of her aunt's coming ; thereafter she went to school 
 every morning ; moreover, the household happened to be a 
 maidservant short, and Mrs. Gemmill was busy, so that 
 Meenie was left to do pretty much as she liked, and to go 
 about alone. And her walks did not take her much to the 
 Botanic Gardens, nor yet to the West End Park and Kelvin 
 
A RESOLVE ^ 347 
 
 Grove ; far rather she preferred to go errands for her sister, 
 and often these would take her in by Sauchiehall Street and 
 the top of Buchanan Street ; and always her eyes were 
 anxious and yet timorous, seeking and yet half -fearing to 
 find. But where was Eonald ? She tried different hours. 
 She grew to know every possible approach to that lodging 
 in the Port Dundas Road. And she had schooled herself 
 now so that she could search long thoroughfares with a 
 glance that was apparently careless enough ; and she had so 
 often pictured to herself their meeting, that she knew she 
 would not exhibit too great a surprise nor make too open a 
 confession of her joy. 
 
 And at last her patient waiting was rewarded. It was 
 in Eenfield Street that she suddenly caught sight of him — ■ 
 a long way off he was, but coming towards her, and all 
 unconscious of her being there. For a moment her school- 
 ing of herself gave way somewhat ; for her heart was 
 beating so wildly as almost to choke her ; and she went on 
 with her eyes fixed on the ground, wondering what she 
 should say, wondering if he would find her face grown 
 paler than it used to be, wondering what he would think of 
 her having sent him the bit of white heather. And then 
 she forced herself to raise her eyes ; and it was at the very 
 same instant that he caught sight of her — though he was 
 yet some distance off — and for the briefest moment she saw 
 his strange and startled look. But what was this .? Perhaps 
 he fancied she had not seen him ; perhaps he had reasons 
 for not wishing to be seen ; at all events, after that one 
 swift recognition of her, he had suddenly slunk away — • 
 down some lane or other — and when she went forward, in 
 rather a blind and bewildered fashion, behold ! there was 
 no Ronald there at all. She looked around — with a heart 
 as if turned to stone — but there was no trace of him. And 
 then she went on, rather proudly — or perhaps, rather, trying 
 to feel proud and hurt ; but there was a gathering mist 
 coming into her eyes ; and she scarcely knew — nor cared — 
 whither she was walking. 
 
343 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 ' CHAPTER XXXYI. 
 
 A BOLDER STEP. 
 
 As for him, he shmk aside hurriedly and all abashed and 
 dismayed. He did not pause until he was safe away from 
 any pursuit ; and there was a lowering expression on his 
 face, and his hand shook a little. He could only hope 
 that she had not seen him. Instantly he had seen her, he 
 knew that he dared not meet the beautiful clear eyes, that 
 would regard him, and perhaps mutely ask questions of him, 
 even if there was no indignant reproach in them. For 
 during these past few days he had gradually been becoming 
 conscious of the squalor and degradation into which he had 
 sunk ; and sometimes he would strive to raise himself out 
 of that ; and sometimes he would sink back despairing, 
 careless of what might become of him or his poor affairs. 
 But always there Avas there in his room that mystic white 
 token that Meenie had sent him ; and at least it kept him 
 thinking — his conscience was not allowed to slumber ; and 
 sometimes it became so strong an appeal to him — that is 
 to say, he read into the message such wild and daring and 
 fantastic possibihties— that he would once more resume that 
 terrible struggle with the iron bands of habit that bound him. 
 
 " What is the matter wi' Eonald ? " Kate Menzies asked 
 of her cronies. " He hasna been near the house these three 
 or four days." 
 
 " I'm thinking he's trying to earn the Blue Ribbon," said 
 old Mr. Jaap. 
 
 "And no thriving weel on't, poor lad," said Jimmy 
 Laidlaw. " Down in the mouth's no the word. He's just 
 like the ghost o' himsel'." 
 
 " I tell ye what, ^Mistress," said the big skipper, who 
 was contemplating with much satisfaction a large beaker of 
 hot rum and water, " the best thing you could do would be 
 just to take the lad in hand, and marry him right off. He 
 would have somebody to look after him, and so would you ; 
 as handsome a couple as ever stepped along Jamaica Street, 
 I'll take my oath." 
 
 The buxom widow laughed and blushed ; but she was 
 bound to protest. 
 
A BOLDER STEP 349 
 
 "Na, na, Captain, I ken better than that. I'm no 
 going to throw away a business like this on any man. I'll 
 bide my ain mistress for a while longer, if ye please," 
 
 And then mother Paterson — who had a handy gift of 
 facile acquiescence— struck in — ■ 
 
 " That's right, Katie dear ! Ye're sich a wise woman. 
 To think ye'd throw away a splendid place like this, and a 
 splendid business, on any man, and make him maister ! 
 And how long would it be before he ate and drank ye out o' 
 house and ha' ? — set him up with a handsome wife and a 
 splendid business thrown at his heed, and scarcely for the 
 asking ! Na, na, Katie, woman, ye ken your own affairs 
 better than that ; ye're no for any one to come in and be 
 maister here." 
 
 " But I'm concerned about the lad," said Kate Menzies, 
 a little absently. " He met wi' none but friends here. He 
 might fa' into worse hands." 
 
 " Gang up yersel', Mistress, and hae a talk wi' him," said 
 the skipper boldly. 
 
 Kate Menzies did not do that ; but the same evening 
 she wrote Ronald a brief note. And very well she could 
 write too — in a dashing, free handwriting ; and gilt-edged 
 was the paper, and rose-pink Avas the envelope. 
 
 " Deah Ronald — Surely there is no quarrel between us. 
 If I have offended you, come and tell me ; don't go away 
 and sulk. If I have done or said anything to offend you, 
 I will ask your pardon. Can I do anything more than 
 that ? Your cousin and friend, 
 
 " Kate Menzies." 
 
 Of course he had to answer such an appeal in person ; 
 he went down the next morning. 
 
 " Quarrel, woman ? What put that into your head ? If 
 there had been anything of that kind, I would have told 
 you fast enough ; I'm not one of the sulking kind." 
 
 " Well, I'm very glad to ken we're just as good friends 
 as before," said Kate, regarding him, " but I'm not glad to 
 see the way ye're looking, Ronald, my lad. Ye're not 
 yourself at all, my man — what's got ye whitey-faced, limp, 
 shaky-looking like that ? See here." 
 
 She went to the sideboard, and the next instant there 
 
3SO WHITE HEATHER 
 
 was on the table a bottle of champagne, with a couple of 
 glasses, and a flask of angostura bitters. 
 
 " No, no, Katie, lass, I will not touch a drop," said he ; 
 and he rose and took his cap in his hand. 
 
 " You will not ? " she said. " You will not ? Why, man, 
 you're ill — you're ill, I tell ye. It's medicine ! " 
 
 He gripped her by the hand, and took the bottle from 
 her, and put it down on the table. 
 
 " If I'm ill, I deserve to be, and that's the fact, lass. 
 Let be — let be, woman ; I'm obliged to ye — some other 
 time — some other time." 
 
 " Then if you winna, I will," she said, and she got hold 
 of the bottle and opened it and poured out a glass of the 
 foaming fluid. 
 
 " And dinna I ken better what's good for ye than ye do 
 yersel' ? " said she boldly. " Ay, if ye were ruled by me, 
 and drank nothing but what ye get in this house, there 
 would be little need for ye to be frightened at what a 
 wean might drink. Ye dinna ken your best friends, my lad." 
 
 " I know you wish me weel, Katie, lass," said he, for he 
 did not wish to appear ungrateful, " but I'm better without 
 it." 
 
 " Yes," said she , tauntingly. *' Ye're better without 
 sitting up a' night wi' a lot o' roystering fellows, smoking 
 bad tobacco and drinking bad whisky. What mak's your 
 face sae white ? It's fusel-oil, if ye maun ken. Here, 
 Ronald, what canna hurt a woman canna hurt a man o' 
 your build — try it, and see if ye dinna feel better." 
 
 She put a good dash of bitters into the glass, and poured 
 out the champagne, and offered it to him. He did not 
 wish to offend her ; and he himself did not believe the 
 thing could hurt him ; he took the glass and sipped about 
 a teaspoonful, and then set it down. 
 
 Kate Menzies looked at him, and laughed aloud, and 
 took him by the shoulders and pushed him back into his 
 chair, 
 
 " There's a man for ye ! Whatna young ladies' seminary 
 have ye been brought up at ? " 
 
 " I'll tell ye, lass," he retorted. " It was one where they 
 taught folk no to force other folk to drink against their will." 
 
 " Then it was different frae the one where I was broucrht 
 
A BOLDER STEP 351 
 
 up, for there, when the doctor ordered anybody to take 
 medicine, they were made to take it. And here's yours," 
 she said ; and she stood before him with the glass in her 
 hand. She was good-natured ; it would have been un- 
 gracious to refuse ; he took the glass from her and drank 
 off the contents. 
 
 Now a glass of champagne, even with the addition of a 
 little angostura bitters, cannot be called a very powerful 
 potion to those accustomed to such things ; but the fact 
 was that he had not touched a drop of any alcoholic fluid 
 for two days ; and this seemed to go straight to the brain. 
 It produced a slight, rather agreeable giddiness ; a sense of 
 comfort was diffused throughout the system ; he was not 
 so anxious to get away. And Kate began talking — up- 
 braiding him for thinking that she wanted to see him 
 otherwise than well and in his usual health, and declaring 
 that if he were guided by her, there would be no need for 
 him to torture himself with total abstinence, and to reduce 
 himself to this abject state. The counsel (which was meant 
 in all honesty) fell on yielding ears ; Kate brought some 
 biscuits, and filled herself out another glass. 
 
 " That's what it is," she said boldly, " if you would be 
 ruled by my advice there would be no shaking hands and 
 white cheeks for ye. Feeling better, are ye ? — ay, I warrant 
 ye ! Here, man, try this." 
 
 She filled his glass again, adding a good dose of bitters. 
 
 " This one I will, but not a drop more," said he. " Ye're 
 a desperate creature, lass, for making folk comfortable." 
 
 " I ken what's the matter wi' you better than ye ken 
 yoursel', Eonald," said she, looking at him shrewdly. '• You're 
 disappointed — you're out o' heart — because thae fine 
 American friends 0' yours hae forgotten you ; and you've 
 got sick o' this new work 0' yours ; and you've got among 
 a lot 0' wild fellows that are leading ye to the devil. Mark 
 my words. Americans ! Better let a man trust to his ain 
 kith and kin." 
 
 " "Well, Katie, lass, I maun say tl.is, that ye've just been 
 ower kind to me since ever I came to Glasgow." 
 
 " Another glass, Ronald " 
 
 " Not one drop — thank ye " — and this time he rose with 
 the definite resolve to get away, for even these two glasses 
 
352 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 had caused a swimming in his head, and he knew not how 
 much more he might drink if he stayed. 
 
 " Better go for a long walk, then," said Kate, " and come 
 back at three and have dinner with us. I'll soon put ye 
 on your legs again — -trust to me," 
 
 But when he went out into the open air, he found 
 himself so giddy and half-dazed and bewildered that, instead 
 of going away for any long walk, he thought he would go 
 back home and lie down. He felt less happy now. Why 
 had he taken this accursed thing after all his resolves ? 
 
 And then it was — as he went up Renfield Street — that 
 he caught his first glimpse of Meenie. No wonder he 
 turned and slunk rapidly away — anxious to hide anywhere 
 ■ — hoping that Meenie had not seen him. And what a 
 strange thing was this — Meenie in Glasgow town 1 Oh, if 
 he could only be for a single day as once he had been — as 
 she had known him in the happy times when life went by 
 like a laugh and a song — how wonderful it would be* to go 
 along these thoroughfares hoping every moment to catch 
 sight of her face ! A dull town ? — no, a radiant town, with 
 music in the air, and joy and hope shining down from the 
 skies ! But now — he was a cowering fugitive — sick in body 
 and sick in mind---trembling with the excitement of this 
 sudden meeting — and anxious above all other things that 
 he should get back to the seclusion of his lodging unseen. 
 
 Well, he managed that, at all events ; and there he 
 sate down, wondering over this thing that had just happened. 
 Meenie in Glasgow town ! — and why ? And why had she 
 sent him the w'hite heather ? Nay, he could not doubt but 
 that she had heard ; and that this was at once a message of 
 reproach and an appeal ; and what answer had he to give 
 supposing that some day or other he should meet her face 
 to face ? How could he win back to his former state, so 
 that he should not be ashamed to meet those clear, kind 
 eyes ? If there were but some penance now — no matter 
 what suft'ering it entailed — that would obliterate these last 
 months and restore him to himself, how gladly w^ould he 
 welcome that ! But it w^as not only the bodily sickness — 
 he believed he could mend that ; he had still a fine phy- 
 sique ; and surely absolute abstention from stimulants, no 
 matter with what accompanying depression, would in time 
 
A BOLDER STEP 353 
 
 give him back his health — it was mental sickness and 
 hopelessness and remorse that had to be cured ; and how 
 was that to be attempted ? Or why should he attempt it ? 
 What care had he for the future ? To be sure, he would 
 stop drinking, definitely ; and he would withdraw himself 
 from those wild companions ; and he would have a greater 
 regard for his appearance ; so that, if he should by chance 
 meet Meenie face to face, he would not have to be al- 
 together so ashamed. But after ? When she had gone 
 away again ? For of course he assumed that she was 
 merely here on a visit. 
 
 And all this time he was becoming more and more con- 
 scious of how far he had fallen — of the change that had 
 come over himself and his circumstances in these few 
 months ; and a curious fancy got into his head that he 
 would like to try to realise what he had been like in those 
 former days. He got out his blotting-pad of fragments — 
 not those dedicated to Meenie, that had been carefully put 
 aside — and about the very first of them that he chanced to 
 light upon, when he looked down the rough lines, made 
 him exclaim — 
 
 " God bless me, was I like that — and no longer ago than 
 last January ? " 
 
 The piece was called ' A Winter Song ' ; and surely the 
 man who could write in this gay fashion had an abundant 
 life and joy and hope in his veins, and courage to face the 
 worst bleakness of the winter, and a glad looking-for ward 
 to the coming of the spring ? 
 
 Keen hloios the icind upon Clehn'g's side, 
 And the snow lies thiclc on the heather ; 
 
 And the shivering hinds are glad to hide 
 Away from the winter weather. 
 
 Chorus : But soon the birds icill hegin to sing, 
 And ice icill sing too, my dear. 
 To give good tcelcoming to the spring, 
 In the primrose-time 0' the year I 
 
 Harli hoio the hlach lake, torn and tost, 
 
 Thunders along its shores ; 
 And the burn is hard in the grip of the frost, 
 
 And white, snow-white are the moors. 
 
 Chorus : But soon the Nrds will begin to sing, ete, 
 
 2 A 
 
354 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 then the loarm west winds will blow, 
 
 And all in the sunny tveather. 
 It's over the moorlands we will go, 
 
 You and I, my love, together. 
 
 Chorus : And then the birds ivill begin to sing, 
 And we v:ill sing too, my dear. 
 To give good welcoming to the spring, 
 In the primrose-time o' the year ! 
 
 Why, surely tlie blood must have been dancing in his brain 
 Avhen he wrote that ; and the days white and clear around 
 him ; and life merry and hopeful enough. And now ? 
 "Well, it was no gladdening thing to think of : he listlessly 
 put away the book. 
 
 And then he rose and went and got a pail of water and 
 thrust his head into that — for he was glad to feel that this 
 muzzy sensation was going ; and thereafter he dried and 
 brushed his hair with a little more care than usual ; and 
 put on a clean collar. Nay, he began to set the little room 
 to rights — and his life in Highland lodges had taught him 
 how to do that aboftt as well as any woman could ; and he 
 tried to brighten the window-panes a little, to make the 
 place look more cheerful ; and he arranged the things on 
 the mantel-shelf in better order — with the bit of white 
 heather in the middle. Then he came to his briar-root 
 pipe ; and paused. He took it up, hesitating. 
 
 " Yes, my friend, you must go too," he said, with firm 
 lips ; and he deliberately broke it, and tossed the fragments 
 into the grate. 
 
 And then he remembered that it was nearly three 
 o'clock, and as he feared that Kate Menzies might send 
 some one of her friends to fetch him, or even come for him 
 herself, he put on his cap, and took a stick in his hand, 
 and went out. In half an hour or so he had left the city 
 behind him and was lost in that melancholy half-country 
 that lies around it on the north ; but he cared little now 
 how the landscape looked ; he was wondering what had 
 brought Meenie to Glasgow town, and whether she had 
 seen him, and what she had heard of him. And at Inver- 
 ]\Iudal too ? "Well, they might think the worst of him 
 there if they chose. But had Meenie heard ? 
 
 He scarcely knew how far he went ; but in the dusk of 
 
A BOLDER STEP 355 
 
 the evening he was again approaching the city by the Great 
 "Western Eoad ; and as he came nearer to the houses, he 
 found that the lamps were lit, and the great town settling 
 down into the gloom of the night. Now he feared no 
 detention ; and so it was that when he arrived at Melrose 
 Street he paused there. Should he venture into Queen's 
 Crescent ? — it was but a stone's throw away. For he 
 guessed that Meenie must be staying with her sister ; and 
 he knew the address that she had given him, though he 
 had never called ; nay, he had had the curiosity, once or 
 twice in passing, to glance at the house ; and easily enough 
 he could now make it out if he chose. He hesitated for a 
 second or two ; then he stealthily made his way along the 
 little thoroughfare ; and entered the crescent — but keeping 
 to the opposite side from Mrs. Gemmill's dwelling — and 
 there quietly walked up and down. He could see the 
 windows well enough ; they were all of them lit ; and the 
 house seemed warm and comfortable ; Meenie would be at 
 home there, and among friends, and her bright laugh would 
 be heard from room to room. Perhaps they had company 
 too — since all the windows were aHaze ; rich folk, no doubt, 
 for the Gemmills were themselves well-to-do people ; and 
 Meenie would be made much of by these strangers, and 
 they would come round her, and the beautiful Highland 
 eyes would be turned towards them, and they would hear 
 her speak in her quiet, gentle, quaint way. Nor was there 
 any trace of envy or jealousy in this man's composition — - 
 outcast as he now deemed himself. Jealousy of Meenie ? 
 — why, he wished the bountiful heavens to pom* their 
 choicest blessings upon her, and the winds to be for ever 
 soft around her, and all sweet and gracious things to await 
 her throughout her childhood and her womanhood and her 
 old age. No ; it did not trouble him that these rich folk 
 were fortunate enough to be with her, to listen to her, to 
 look at the clear, frank eyes ; it might have troubled him 
 had he thought that they might not fully understand the 
 generous rose-sweetness of her nature, nor fully appreciate 
 her straightforward, unconscious simplicity, nor be suffi- 
 ciently kind to her. And it was scarcely necessary to con- 
 sider that ; of course they all of them would be kind to her, 
 for how could they help it ? 
 
356 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 But his guess that they might be entertaining friends 
 ^Yas wrong. By and by a cab drove up ; in a few minutes 
 the door was opened ; he ventured to draw a little nearer ; 
 and then he saw three figures — one of then almost 
 assuredly Meenie — come out and enter the vehicle. They 
 drove off ; no doubt they were going to some concert or 
 theatre, he thought ; and he was glad that Meenie was 
 being amused and entertained so ; and was among friends. 
 And as for himself ? — 
 
 " "Well," he was inwardly saying, as he resumed his walk 
 homeward, " the dreams that look so fine when one is up 
 among the hills are knocked on the head sure enough when 
 one comes to a town. I'll have no more to do with these 
 books ; nor with the widow Menzies and her friends either. 
 To-morrow morning I'm off to the recruiting-sergeant — 
 that's the best thing for me now." 
 
 By the time he had got home he was quite resolved upon 
 this. But there was a note lying there on the table for 
 him. 
 
 " That woman again," he said to himself. " Katie, lass, 
 I'm afraid you and I must part, but I hope we'll part good 
 friends." 
 
 And then his eyes grew suddenly startled. He took up 
 the note, staring at the outside, apparently half afraid. 
 And then he opened it and read — but in a kind of wild 
 and breathless bewilderment — these two or three lines, 
 written in rather a shaky hand — 
 
 " Dear Ronald — I wish to see you. Would it trouble 
 you to be at the corner of Sauchiehall Street and Eenfield 
 Street to-morrow morning at eleven ? — I will not detain you 
 more than a few minutes. Yours sincerely, 
 
 " Meenie Douglas." 
 
 There was not much sleep for him that night. 
 
A MEETING 357 
 
 CHAPTER XXXYII. 
 
 A MEETING. 
 
 Indeed there was no sleep at all for him that night. He 
 knew not what this summons might mean ; and all the 
 assurance and self-confidence of former days was gone now ; 
 he was nervous, distracted, easily alarmed ; ready to imagine 
 evil things ; and conscious that he Avas in no fit state to 
 present himself before Meenie. And yet he never thought 
 of slinking away. Meenie desired to see him, and that 
 was enough. Always and ever he had been submissive to 
 her slightest wish. And if it were merely to reproach 
 him, to taunt him with his weakness and folly, that 
 she had now sent for him, he would go all the same. He 
 deserved that and more. If only it had been some one 
 else — not Meenie — whose resolute clear eyes he had to 
 meet ! 
 
 That brief interview over — and then for the Queen's 
 shilling : this was what was before him now, and the way 
 seemed clear enough. But so unnerved was he that the 
 mere idea of having to face this timid girl made him more 
 and more restless and anxious ; and at last, towards three 
 o'clock in the morning, he, not having been to bed at all, 
 opened the door and stole down the stair and went out 
 into the night. The black heavens were pulsating from 
 time to time with a lurid red sent over from the ironworks 
 in the south ; somewhere there was the footfall of a police- 
 man unseen ; the rest was darkness and a terrible silence. 
 He wandered away through the lonely streets, he scarcely 
 knew whither. He was longing that the morning should 
 come, and yet dreading its approach. He reached the little 
 thoroughfare that leads into Queen's Crescent ; but he held 
 on his way without turning aside ; it was not for this poor 
 trembling ghost and coward to pass under her window, with 
 " Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast " as his 
 unspoken benediction. He held on his way towards the 
 open country, wandering quite aimlessly, and busy only 
 with guesses and forebodings and hopeless desires that he 
 might suddenly find before him the dark-rolling Avaters of 
 Lethe, and plunge into them, and wash away from him all 
 
358 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 knowledge and recollection of the past. When at length he 
 turned towards the city, the gray dawn was breaking in the 
 dismal skies ; the first of the milk-carts came slowly crawl- 
 ing into the town ; and large waggons laden with vege- 
 tables and the like. He got back to his lodgings ; threw 
 himself on the bed ; and there had an hour or two of 
 broken and restless sleep. 
 
 When he awoke he went quickly to the window. The 
 skies were heavy ; there was a dull drizzle in the thick 
 atmosphere ; the pavements were wet. It Avas with a 
 sudden sense of relief that he saw what kind of a day it was. 
 Of course Meenie would never think of coming out on so 
 wet and miserable a morning. He would keep the appoint- 
 ment, doubtless ; she would not appear — taking it for 
 granted he would not expect her ; and then — then for the 
 recruiting-sergeant and a final settlement of all these ills 
 and shames. Nevertheless he dressed himself with scrupu- 
 lous neatness ; and brushed and rebrushed his clothes ; 
 and put on his deerstalker's cap — for the sake of old days. 
 And then, just as he was leaving, he took a little bit of 
 the white heather, and placed it in his waistcoat pocket ; 
 if the talisman had any subtle power whatever, all the good 
 luck that he could wish for was to find Meenie not too 
 bitter in her scorn. 
 
 He made his way to the corner of Sauchiehall Street 
 some little time before the appointed hour. But it was 
 actually raining now ; of course Meenie would not come. 
 So he idly paced up and down ; staring absently at the 
 shop windows ; occasionally looking along the street, but 
 with no great expectation ; and thinking how well content 
 and satisfied with themselves these people seemed to be 
 who were now hunying by under their streaming umbrellas. 
 His thoughts went far afield. Yimiera — Salamanca — Ciudad 
 Kodrigo — Balaklava — Alma — Lucknow — Alumbagh — 
 these were the names and memories that were in his head. 
 An old school companion of his own had got the Y.C. for 
 a conspicuous act of daring at the storming of the Eedan, 
 and if that were not likely to be his proud fate, at least 
 in this step he was resolved upon he would find safety and 
 a severance from degrading bonds, and a final renunciation 
 of futile ambitions and foolish and idle dreams. 
 
A MEETING 3|9 
 
 He was looking into a bookseller's windo-w. A timid 
 hand touched his arm. 
 
 " Ronald ! " 
 
 And oh I the sudden wonder and the thrill of finding 
 before him those beautiful, friendly, glad eyes, so true, so 
 frank, so full of all womanly tenderness and solicitude, 
 and abundant and obvious kindness ! Where was the 
 reproach of them ? They were full of a kind of half- 
 hidden joy — timid and reluctant, perhaps, a little — but 
 honest and clear and unmistakable ; and as for him — well, 
 his breath was clean taken away by the surprise, and by the 
 sudden revulsion of feeling from a listless despair to the 
 consciousness that Meenie was still his friend ; and all he 
 could do was to take the gentle hand in both of his and 
 hold it fast. 
 
 " I — I heard that you were not — not very well, Eonald," 
 she managed to say. 
 
 And then the sound of her voice — that brought with it 
 associations of years — seemed to break the spell that was on 
 him. 
 
 " Bless me. Miss Douglas," he said, " you will get quite 
 wet ! Vv^'ill you not put up your umbrella — or — or take 
 shelter somewhere ? " 
 
 " Oh, I do not mind the rain," she said, and there was 
 a kind of tremulous laugh about her lips, as if she were 
 trying to appear very happy indeed. " I do not mind the 
 rain. We did not heed the rain much at Inver-Mudal, 
 Ronald, when there was anything to be done. And — and 
 so glad I am to see you ! It seems so long a time since you 
 left the Highlands." 
 
 " Ay ; and it has been a bad time for me," he said ; and 
 now he was beginning to get his wits together again. He 
 could not keep Miss Douglas thus standing in the wet. 
 He would ask her why she had sent for him ; and then he 
 would bid her good-bye and be off ; but with a glad, glad 
 heart that he had seen her even for these few seconds. 
 
 " And there are so many things to be talked over after so 
 long a time," said she ; " I hope you have a little while to 
 spare, Ronald " 
 
 " But to keep you in the rain, Miss Douglas " 
 
 " Oh, but this will do," said she (and whatever her inward 
 
36o WHITE HE A THER 
 
 thoughts were, her speech was blithe enough). "See, I 
 will put up the umbrella, and you will carry it for me — it is 
 not the first time, Ronald, that you and I have had to walk 
 in the rain together, and without any umbrella. And do 
 you know why I do not care for the rain ? " she added, 
 glancing at him again with the frank, affectionate eyes ; 
 " it's because I am so glad to find you looking not so ill 
 after all, Ronald." 
 
 " Not so ill, maybe, as I deserve to be," he answered ; 
 but he took the umbrella and held it over her ; and they 
 went down Renfield Street a little way and then into West 
 Regent Street ; and if she did not put her hand on his arm, 
 at least she was very close to him, and the thrill of the touch 
 of her dress was magnetic and strange. Strange, indeed ; 
 and strange that he should find himself walking side by side 
 with Meenie through the streets of Glasgow town ; and 
 listening mutely and humbly the while to all her varied talk 
 of what had happened since he left Inver-Mudal. What- 
 ever she had heard of him, it seemed to be her wish to 
 ignore that. She appeared to assume that their relations to 
 each other now were just as they had been in former days. 
 And she was quite bright and cheerful and hopeful ; how 
 could he know that the first glance at his haggard face had 
 struck like a dagger to her heart ? 
 
 Moreover, the rain gradually ceased ; the umbrella was 
 lowered ; a light west wind was quietly stirring ; and by 
 and by a warmer light began to interfuse itself through the 
 vaporous atmosphere. Nay, by the time they had reached 
 Blythswood Square, a pallid sunshine was clearly shining 
 on the wet pavements and door-steps and house-fronts ; and 
 far overhead, and dimly seen through the mysteriously 
 moving pall of mist and smoke, there were faint touches of 
 blue, foretelling the opening out to a joyfuller day. The 
 wide square was almost deserted ; they could talk to each 
 other as they chose ; though, indeed, the talking was mostly 
 on her side. Something, he scarcely knew what, kept him 
 silent and submissive ; but his heart was full of gratitude 
 towards her ; and from time to time — for how could he 
 help it ? — some chance word or phrase of appeal would 
 bring him face to face with Meenie's eyes. 
 
 So far she had cunningly managed to avoid alll reference 
 
A MEETING 361 
 
 to his own affairs, so that he might get accustomed to this 
 friendly conversation ; but at length she said — 
 
 " And now about yourself, Ronald ? " 
 
 " The less said the better," he answered. " I wish that I 
 had never come to this town." 
 
 " What ? " she said, with a touch of remonstrance in her 
 look. " Have you so soon forgotten the fine prospects you 
 started away with ? Surely not ! Why, it was only the 
 other day I had a letter from Miss Hodson — the young 
 American lady, you remember — and she was asking all 
 about you, and whether you had passed the examination 
 yet ; and she said her father and herself were likely to 
 come over next spring, and hoped to hear you had got the 
 certificate," 
 
 He seemed to pay no heed to this news. 
 
 " I wish I had never left Inver-Mudal," he said. " I was 
 content there ; and what more can a man wish for any- 
 where ? It's little enough of that I've had since I came to 
 this town. But for whatever has happened to me, I've 
 got myself to blame ; and — and I beg your pardon. Miss 
 Douglas, I will not bother you with any poor concerns of 
 mine " 
 
 " But if I wish to be bothered ? " she said quickly. 
 " Ronald, do you know why I have come from the 
 Highlands ? " 
 
 Her face was blushing a rosy red ; bub her eyes were 
 steadfast and clear and kind ; and she had stopped in her 
 walk to confront him. 
 
 " I heard the news of you — yes, I heard the news," she 
 continued ; and it was his eyes, not hers, that were down- 
 cast ; " and I knew you would do much for me — at least, I 
 thought so, — and I said to myself that if I were to go to 
 Glasgow, and find you, and ask you for my sake to give 
 me a promise " 
 
 "I know what ye would say. Miss Douglas," he inter- 
 posed, for she was dreadfully embarrassed. " To give up 
 the drink. Well, it's easily promised and easily done, note 
 — indeed, I've scarcely touched a drop since ever I got the 
 bit of heather you sent me. It was a kind thing to think of 
 —maybe I'm making too bold to think it was you that sent 
 it " 
 
362 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " I knew you would know that it was I that sent it — 1 
 meant you to know," she said simply. 
 
 " It was never any great love of the drink that drove me 
 that way," he said. " I think it was that I might be able 
 to forget for a while." 
 
 " To forget what, Eonald ? " she asked, regarding him. 
 
 " That ever I was such a fool as to leave the only people 
 I cared for," he answered frankly, " and come away here 
 among strangers, and bind myself to strive for what I 
 had no interest in. But bless me. Miss Douglas, to think 
 I should keep ye standing here — talking about my poor 
 affairs " 
 
 " Ronald," she said calmly, " do you know that I have 
 come all the way to Glasgow to see you and to talk 
 about your affairs and nothing else ; and you are not going 
 to hurry away ? Tell me about yourself. What are you 
 doing ? Are you getting on with your studies ? " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 *' No, no. I have lost heart that way altogether. Many's 
 the time I have thought of writing to Lord Ailine, and 
 asking to be taken back, if it was only to look after the 
 dogs. I should never have come to this town ; and now I 
 am going away from" it, for good." 
 
 " Going away ? Where ? " she said, rather breathlessly. 
 
 " I want to make a clean break off from the kind of life 
 I have been leading," said he, " and I know the surest way. 
 I mean to enlist into one of the Highland regiments that's 
 most likely to be ordered off on foreign service." 
 
 " Ronald ! " 
 
 She seized his hand and held it. 
 
 " Ronald, you will not do that ! " 
 
 Well, he was startled by the sudden pallor of her face ; 
 and bewildered by the entreaty so plainly visible in the 
 beautiful eyes ; and perhaps he did not quite know how he 
 answered. But he spoke quickly. 
 
 " Oh, of course I will not do that," he said, " of course I 
 will not do that. Miss Douglas, so long as you are in 
 Glasgow. How could I ? Why, the chance of seeing yon, 
 even at a distance — for a moment even — I would wait days 
 for that. When I made up my mind to enlist, I had no 
 thought that I might ever have the chance of seeing you. 
 
A MEETING 363 
 
 Oh no ; I will wait until you have gone back to the High- 
 lands — how could I go away from Glasgow and miss any 
 single chance of seeing yon, if only for a moment ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," she said eagerly, " you will do nothing until 
 then, anyway ; and in the meantime I shall see you 
 often " 
 
 His face lighted up with surprise. 
 
 " Will you be so kind as that ? " he said quickly. And 
 then he dropped her hand. " No, no. I am so bewildered 
 by the gladness of seeing you that — that I forgot. Let me 
 go my own way. You were always so generous in your 
 good nature that you spoiled us all at Inver-Mudal ; here 
 — here it is different. You are living with your sister, I 
 suppose ? and of course you have many friends, and many 
 things to do and places to visit. You must not trouble 
 about me ; but as long as you are in Glasgow — well, there 
 will always be the chance of my catching a glimpse of you 
 — and if you knew what it was — to me " 
 
 But here he paused abruptly, fearful of offending by 
 confessing too much ; and now they had resumed their 
 leisurely walking along the half-dried pavements ; and 
 Meenie was revolving certain little schemes and artifices in 
 her brain — with a view to their future meeting. And the 
 morning had grown so much brighter ; and there was a 
 pleasant warmth of sunlight in the air ; and she was glad 
 to know that at least for a time Eonald Avould not be 
 leaving the country. She turned to him with a smile. 
 
 " I shall have to be going back home now," she said, 
 "but you will not forget, Ronald, that you have made me 
 two promises this morning." 
 
 " It's little you know, Miss Douglas," said he, " what I 
 would do for you, if I but knew what ye wished. I mean 
 for you yourself. For my own self, I care but little what 
 happens to me. I have made a mistake in my life some- 
 how. I " 
 
 " Then will you promise me more, Ronald ? " said she 
 quickly ; for she would not have him talk in that strain, 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " Wih you make me a promise that you will not enhst at 
 all?" 
 
 " I will, if it is worth heeding one way or the other." 
 
364 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 " But make me the promise," said she, and she regarded 
 him with no unfriendly eyes. 
 
 " There's my hand on't." 
 
 " And another — that you will work hard and try and 
 get the forestry certificate ? " 
 
 " What's the use of that, lass ? " said he, forgetting his 
 respect for her. " I have put all that away now. That's 
 all away beyond me now." 
 
 " No," she said proudly. " No. It is not. Oh, do yon 
 think that the people who know you do not know what 
 your ability is ? Do you think they have lost their faith 
 in you ? Do you think they are not still looking forward 
 and hoping the time may come that they may be proud of 
 your success, and — and — come and shake hands with you, 
 Ronald — and say how glad they are ? And have you no 
 regard for them, or heed for their — their affection towards 
 you ? " 
 
 Her cheeks were burning red, but she was far too much 
 in earnest to measure her phrases ; and she held his hand 
 in an imploring kind of way ; and surely, if ever a brave 
 and unselfish devotion and love looked out from a woman's 
 eyes, that was the message that Meenie's eyes had for him 
 then. 
 
 " I had a kind of fancy," he said, " that if I could get 
 abroad — with one 0' those Highland regiments — there 
 might come a time when I could have the chance of winning 
 the V.C. — the Victoria Cross, [I mean ; ay, and it would 
 have been a proud day for me the day that I was able to 
 send that home to you." 
 
 " To me, Ronald ? " she said, rather faintly. 
 
 " Yes, yes," said he. " Whatever happened to me after 
 that day would not matter much." 
 
 " But you have promised " 
 
 " And I will keep that promise, and any others you may 
 ask of me, Miss Douglas." 
 
 "That you will call me Meenie, for one?" she said, 
 quite simply and frankly. 
 
 " No, no ; I could not do that," he answered — and yet 
 the permission sounded pleasant to the ear. 
 
 " We are old friends, Ronald," she said. " But that is a 
 small matter. Well, now, I must be getting back home ; 
 
A MEETING 365 
 
 and yet I should like to see you again soon, Ronald, for 
 there are so many things I have to talk over with you. 
 "Will you come and see my sister ? " 
 
 His hesitation and embarrassment were so obvious that 
 she instantly repented her of having thrown out this 
 invitation ; moreover, it occurred to herself that there 
 would be little chance of her having any private speech of 
 Ronald (which was of such paramount importance at this 
 moment) if he called at Queen's Crescent. 
 
 "No, not yet," she said, rather shamefacedly and with 
 downcast eyes ; " perhaps, since — since there are one or 
 two private matters to talk over, we — we could meet just 
 as now ? It is not — taking up too much of your time, 
 Ronald .? " 
 
 " Why," said he, " if I could see you for a moment, 
 any day — merely to say ' good morning ' — that would 
 be a well-spent day for me ; no more than that used 
 to make many a long day quite happy for me at Inver- 
 Mudal" 
 
 " Could you be here to-morrow at eleven, Ronald ? " she 
 asked, looking up shyly. 
 
 " Yes, yes, and gladly ! " he answered ; and presently 
 they had said good-bye to each other ; and she had set out 
 for Queen's Crescent by herself ; while he turned towards 
 the east. 
 
 And now all his being seemed transfused with joy and 
 deep gratitude ; and the day around him was clear and 
 sweet and full of light ; and all the world seemed swinging 
 onward in an ether of happiness and hope. The dreaded 
 interview !^ — where was the reproach and scorn of it ? 
 Instead of that it had been all radiant with trust and 
 courage and true affection ; and never had Meenie's eyes 
 been so beautiful and solicitous with all good wishes ; never 
 had her voice been so strangely tender, every tone of it 
 seeming to reach the very core of his heart. And how was 
 he to requite her for this bountiful care and sympathy — 
 that overawed him almost when he came to think of it ? 
 Nay, repayment of any kind was all impossible : where was 
 the equivalent of such generous regard ? But at least he 
 could faithfully observe the promises he had made — yes, 
 these and a hundred more ; and perhaps this broken life of 
 
366 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 his might still be of some small service, if in any way it 
 could win for him a word of Meenie's approval. 
 
 And then, the better to get away from temptation, and 
 to cut himself wholly adrift from his late companions, he 
 walked home to his lodgings and packed up his few things 
 and paid his landlady a fortnight's rent in lieu of notice, as 
 had been agreed upon. That same night he was established 
 in new quarters, in the Garscube Eoad ; and he had left no 
 address behind him ; so that if Kate Menzies, or the 
 skipper, or any of his cronies of the Harmony Club were to 
 wonder at his absence and seek to hunt him out, they would 
 seek and hunt in vain. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 CONFESSION. 
 
 That night he slept long and Soundly, and his dreams were 
 all about Inver-Mudal and the quiet life among the hills ; 
 and, strangely enough, he fancied himself there, and Meenie 
 absent ; and always he was wondering when she was coming 
 back from Glasgow town, and always he kept looking for 
 her as each successive mail-cart came through from the 
 south. And then in the morning, when he awoke, and 
 found himself in the great city itself, and knew that Meenie 
 was there too, and that in a few hours they were to meet, 
 his heart was filled with joy, and the day seemed rich and 
 full of promise, and the pale and sickly sunlight that 
 struggled in through the window panes and lit up the 
 dusty little room seemed a glorious thing, bringing with it 
 all glad tidings. " You, fortunate Glasgow town ! " he had 
 rhymed in the olden days ; and this was the welcome that 
 Glasgow town had for Meenie — sunlight, and perhaps a 
 glimpse of blue here and there, and a light west wind 
 blowing in from the heights of Dowanhill and Hillhead. 
 
 He dressed with particular care ; and if his garments 
 were not of the newest fashionable cut, at least they clung 
 with sufficient grace and simplicity of outline to the manly 
 and well-set figure. And he knew himself that he was 
 looking less haggard than on the previous day. He was 
 feeling altogether better ; the long and sound sleep had 
 
CONFESSION 367 
 
 proved a powerful restorative ; and his heart was light 
 with hope. The happy sunlight shining out there on the 
 gray pavements and the gray fronts of the houses ! — was 
 there ever in all the world a fairer and joyfuUer city than 
 this same Glasgow town ? 
 
 He was in Blythswood Square long before the appointed 
 hour ; and she also was a little early. But this time it was 
 Meenie who was shy and embarrassed ; she was not so 
 earnest and anxious as she had been the day before, for 
 much of her errand was now satisfactorily accomplished ; 
 and when, after a moment's hesitation, he asked her 
 whether she would not go and have a look at the terraces 
 and trees in the West End Park, it seemed so like two 
 lovers setting out for a walk together that the conscious 
 blood mantled in her cheeks, and her eyes were averted. 
 But she strove to be very business-like ; and asked him a 
 number of questions about Mr. Weems ; and wondered that 
 the Americans had said nothing further about the purchase 
 of an estate in the Highlands, of which there had been 
 some little talk. In this way — and with chance remarks 
 and inquiries about Maggie, and the Eeverend Andrew, 
 and Mr. Murray, and Harry the terrier, and what not — • 
 they made their way through various thoroughfares until 
 they reached the tall gates of the West End Park. 
 
 Here there was much more quietude than in those noisy 
 streets ; and when they had walked along one of the wide 
 terraces, until they came to a seat partly surrounded by 
 shrubs, Meenie suggested that they might sit down there, 
 for she wished to reason seriously with him. He smiled a 
 little ; but he was very plastic in her hands. Nay, was it 
 not enough merely to hear Meenie speak — no matter what 
 the subject might be ? And then he was sitting by her 
 side, with all that wide prospect stretched out before them 
 ■ — the spacious terraces, the groups of trees, the curving 
 river, and the undulating hills beyond. It was a weird 
 kind of a morning, moreover ; for the confused and wan 
 sunlight kept struggling through the ever-changing mist, 
 sometimes throwing a coppery radiance on the late autumn 
 foliage, or again shining pale and silver-like as the fantastic 
 cloud-wreaths slowly floated onward. The view before 
 them was mysterious and vast because of its very vague- 
 
368 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 ness ; and even the new University buildings — over there 
 on the heights above the river — looked quite imposing and 
 picturesque, for they loomed largo and dusky and remote 
 through the bewildering sunlit haze. 
 
 " Now, Eonald," she said, " I want you to tell me how it 
 was you came to lose heart so, and to give up what you 
 undertook to do when you left Inver-Mudal. Why, when 
 you left you were full of such high hopes ; and every one 
 was sure of yom* success ; and you were all anxiety to begin." 
 
 " That's true, Miss Douglas," he answered, rather absently. 
 " I think my head must have been in a kind of a whirl at 
 that time. It seemed so fine and easy a thing to strive for ; 
 and I did not stop to ask what use it would be to me, sup- 
 posing I got it." 
 
 " The use ? " she said. " A better position for yourself — 
 isn't it natural to strive for that ? And perhaps, if you did 
 not care much to have more money for yourself — for you 
 have very strange notions, Ronald, about some things — 
 you must see how much kindness can be done to others 
 by people who are well off. I don't understand you at 
 all " 
 
 " Well, then," said he, shifting his ground, " I grew sick 
 and tired of the town life. I was never meant for that. 
 Every day " 
 
 " But, Ronald," she said, internipting him in a very 
 definite tone of remonstrance, " you knew that your town 
 life was only a matter of months ! And the harder you 
 worked the sooner it would be over ! What reason was 
 that ? " 
 
 " There may have been other reasons," he said, but 
 rather unwillingly. 
 
 " What were they ? " . 
 
 " I cannot tell you." 
 
 " Ronald," she said, and the touch of wounded pride in 
 her voice thrilled him strangely, " I have come all the way 
 from the Highlands — and — and done what few girls would 
 have done — for your sake ; and yet you will not be frank 
 with me — when all that I want is to see you going straight 
 towards a happier future." 
 
 " I dare not tell you, you would be angry." 
 
 " I am not given to anger," she answered, calmly, and yet 
 
CONFESSION 369 
 
 with a little surprised resentment. For she could but 
 imagine that this was some entanglement of debt, or 
 something of the kind, of which he was ashamed to 
 speak ; and yet, unless she knew clearly the reasons that 
 had induced him to abandon the project that he had under- 
 taken so eagerly, how was she to argue with him and urge 
 him to resume it ? 
 
 " Well, then, we'll put it this way," said he, after a second 
 or two of hesitation — and his face was a little pale, and his 
 eyes were fixed on her with an anxious nervousness, so that, 
 at the first sign of displeasure, he could instantly stop. 
 " There was a young lass that I knew there— in the High- 
 lands — and she was, oh yes, she was out of my station 
 altogether, and away from me — and yet the seeing her from 
 time to time, and a word now and again, was a pleasure to 
 me, greater maybe than I confessed to myscK — the greatest 
 that I had in life, indeed." 
 
 She made no sign, and he continued, slowly and 
 watchfully, and still with that pale earnestness in his face. 
 
 " x\nd then I wrote things about her — and amused my- 
 self with fancies — well, what harm could that do to her ? — ■ 
 so long as she knew nothing about it. And I thought I 
 was doing no harm to myself either, for I knew it was im- 
 possible there could be anything between us, and that she 
 would be going away sooner or later, and I too. Yes, and 
 I did go away, and in high feather, to be sure, and every- 
 thing was to be for the best, and I was to have a fight for 
 money like the rest of them. God help me, lassie, before I 
 was a fortnight in the town, my heart was like to break." 
 
 She sate quite still and silent, trembling a little, perhaps, 
 her eyes downcast, her fingers working nervously with the 
 edge of the small shawl she wore. 
 
 " I had cut myself away from the only thing I craved for 
 in the world — just the seeing and speaking to her from time 
 to time, for I had no right to think of more than that ; and 
 I was alone and down-hearted ; and I began to ask myself 
 what was the use of this slavery. Ay, there might have 
 been a use in it — if I could have said to myself, " Well, 
 now, fight as hard as ye can, and if ye win, who knows but 
 that ye might go back to the north, and claim her as the 
 prize ? " But that was not to be thought of. She had 
 
 2 c 
 
370 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 never hinted anything of the kind to me, nor I to her ; but 
 when I found myself cut away from her like that, the days 
 were terrible, and my heart was like lead, and I knew that 
 I had cast away just everything that I cared to live for. 
 Then I fell in with some companions — a woman cousin o' 
 mine and some friends of hers — and they helped to make 
 me forget what I didna wish to think of, and so the time 
 passed. Well, now, that is the truth ; and ye can under- 
 stand, Miss Douglas, that I have no heart to begin again, 
 and the soldiering seemed the best thing for me, and a rifle- 
 bullet my best friend. But — but I will keep the promise 
 I made to ye — that is enough on that score ; oh yes, I 
 will keep that promise, and any others ye may care to ask ; 
 only I caimot bide in Glasgow." 
 
 He heard a faint sob ; he could see that tears were 
 gliding stealthily down her half -hidden face ; and his heart 
 was hot with anger against himself that he had caused her 
 this pain. But how could he go away ? A timid hand 
 sought his, and held it for a brief moment with a tremulous 
 clasp. 
 
 " I am very sorry, Eonald," she managed to say, in a 
 broken voice. " I suppose it could not have been other- 
 wise — I suppose it could not have been otherwise." 
 
 For some time they sate in silence— though he could 
 hear an occasional half-stifled sob. He could not pretend 
 to think that Meenie did not understand ; and this was 
 her great pity for him ; she did not drive him away in 
 anger — her heart was too gentle for that. 
 
 " Miss Douglas," said he at length, " I'm afraid I've 
 spoiled your walk for you wi' my idle story. Maybe the 
 best thing I can do now is just to leave you." 
 
 " No — stay," she said, under her breath ; and she was 
 evidently trying to regain her composure. " You spoke — • 
 you spoke of that girl — Ronald, I wish I had never 
 come to Glasgow !— I wish I had never heard what you 
 told me just now I " 
 
 And then, after a second — 
 
 " But how could I help it — when I heard what was 
 happening to you, and all the wish in the world I had was 
 to know that you were brave and well and successful and 
 happy ? I could not help it 1 . . . And now — and now — 
 
CONFESSION- 2,7 1 
 
 Ilonald,'' she said, as if with a struggle against that choking 
 weight of sobs ; for much was demanded of her at this 
 moment ; and her voice seemed powerless to utter all that 
 her heart prompted her to say, " if — if that girl you spoke 
 of— if she was to see clearly what is best for her life 
 and for yours — if she was to tell you to take up your 
 work again, and work hard, and hard, and hard — and 
 then, some day, it might be years after this, when you 
 came back again to the north, you would find her still 
 waiting ? " 
 
 " Meenie ! " 
 
 He grasped her hand : his face was full of a bewilder- 
 ment of hope— not joy, not triumph, but as if he hardly 
 dared to believe what he had heard. 
 
 " Eonald," she said, in a kind of wild way, — and she 
 turned her wet eyes towards him in full, unhesitating 
 abandonment of affection and trust, nor could she with- 
 draw the hand that he clasped so firmly, — " what will you 
 think of me ? — what will you think of me ? — but surely 
 there should be no hiding or false shame, and surely there 
 is for you and for me in the world but the one end to hope 
 for ; and if not that — why, then, nothing. If you go away, 
 if you have nothing to hope for, it will be the old misery 
 back again, the old despair ; and as for me — well, that 
 is not of much matter. But, Ronald — Ronald — whatever 
 happens — don't think too hardly of me — I know I should 
 not have said so much— but it would just break my heart 
 to think you were left to yourself in Glasgow — with nothing 
 to care for or hope for " 
 
 " Think of you ! " he cried, and in a kind of wonder of 
 rapture he was regarding Meenie's tear-filled eyes, that 
 made no shame of meeting his look. " I think of you — 
 and ever will — as the tenderest and kindest and truest- 
 hearted of women." He had both her hands now ; and he 
 held them close and warm. " Even now — at this minute — 
 when you have given yourself to me — you have no thought 
 of yourself at all — it is all about me, that am not worth it, 
 and never was. Is there any other woman in the world so 
 brave and unselfish ! Meenie, lass — no, for this once — 
 and no one will ever be able to take the memory away 
 from me — for this once let me call you my love and my 
 
 9 V ^ 
 
372 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 darling — my true-hearted love and darling ! — well, now, 
 that's said and done with ; and many a day to come I will 
 think over these few minutes, and think of sitting here 
 with you in this West End Park on the bench here, and 
 the trees around, and I will say to myself that I called 
 Meenie my love and my darling, and she was not angry — • 
 not angry." 
 
 " No, not angry, Ronald," and there was a bit of a strange 
 and tender smile shining through the tears in the. blue-gray 
 eyes. 
 
 " Ay, indeed," said he, more gravely, " that will be some- 
 thing for me ; maybe, everything. I can scarcely believe 
 that this has just happened — my heart's in a flame, and 
 my head's gone daft, I think ; and it seems as if there was 
 nothing for me but to thank God for having sent you into 
 the world and made you as unselfish and generous as you 
 are. But that's not the way of looking at it, my — my good 
 lass. You have too little thought for yourself. Why, 
 what a coward I should be if I did not ask you to think of 
 the sacrifice you are making ! " 
 
 " I am making no sacrifice, Eonald," she said, simply 
 and calmly. " I spoke what my heart felt ; and perhaps 
 too readily. But I am going back to the Highlands. I 
 shall stay there till you come for me, if ever you come for 
 me. They spoke of my going for a while to my mother's 
 cousins ; but I shall not do that ; no, I shall be at Inver- 
 Mudal, or wherever my father is, and you will easily get to 
 know that, Ronald. But if things go ill, and you do not 
 come for me — or — or, if ye do not care to come for me — 
 well, that is as the world goes, and no one can tell before- 
 hand. Or many years may go by, and when you do come 
 for me, Ronald, you may find me a gray-haired woman — ■ 
 but you will find me a single woman." 
 
 She spoke quite calmly ; this was no new resolve ; it 
 was his lips, not hers, that were tremulous, for a second or 
 so. But only for a second ; for now he was all anxiety to 
 cheer her and comfort her as regards the future. He 
 could not bring himself to ask her to consider again ; the 
 prize was too precious ; rather he spoke of all the chances 
 and hopes of life, and of the splendid future that she had 
 placed before him. Now there was something worth striv- 
 
CONFESSION 373 
 
 ing for — something worth the winning. And akeady, with 
 the wild audacity that was now pulsating in his veins, he 
 saw the way clear — a long way, perhaps, and tedious, but 
 all filled with light and strewn with blossoms here or 
 there (these were messages, or a look, or a smile, from 
 Meenie), and at the end of it, waiting to welcome him, Love- 
 Meenie, Eose-Meenie, with love-radiance shining in her 
 eyes. 
 
 He almost talked her into cheerfulness (for she had 
 grown a little despondent after that first devotion of self- 
 surrender) ; and by and by she rose from the bench. She 
 was a little pale. 
 
 " I don't know whether I have done well or ill, Eonald," 
 she said, in a low voice, " but I do not think I could have 
 done otherwise. It is for you to show hereafter that I 
 have done right." 
 
 " But do you regret ? " he said quickly. 
 
 She turned to him with a strange smile on her face. 
 
 " Eegret ? No. I do not think I could have done 
 otherwise. But it is for you to show to all of them that I 
 have done right." 
 
 " And if it could only be done all at once, Meenie ; 
 that's where the soldier has his chance " 
 
 " No, it is not to be done all at once," she said ; " it will 
 be a hard and difficult waiting for you, and a slow waiting 
 for me " 
 
 " Do you think I care for any hardness or difficulty 
 now ? " he said. " Dear Meenie, you little know what a 
 prize you have set before me. Why, now, here, every 
 moment that I pass with you seems worth a year ; and yet 
 I grudge every one " 
 
 " Bat why ? " she said, looking up. 
 
 " I am going over to PoUokshaws the instant I leave 
 you to try to pick up the threads of everything I had 
 let slip. Dear lass, you have made every quarter of an 
 hour in the day far too short ; I want twelve hours in 
 the day to be with you, and other twelve to be at my 
 work." 
 
 " We must see each other very little, Eonald," she said, 
 as they set out to leave the Park. "People would only 
 talk " 
 
374 WHITE HEATHER 
 " But to morrow " 
 
 " No. My sister is going down to Dunoon to-morrow to 
 see about the shutting up of the house for the winter, and 
 I am going with her. But on Friday — if you were in the 
 Botanic Gardens — early in the forenoon — perhaps I could 
 see you then ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said he eagerly ; and as they went down 
 towards the Woodland Eoad he strove to talk to her very 
 cheerfully and brightly indeed, for he could not but see 
 that she was a little troubled. 
 
 Then, when they were about to part, she seemed to try 
 to rouse herself a little, and to banish whatever doubts and 
 hesitations may have been harassing her mind. 
 
 " Eonald," she said, with a bit of a smile, " when you told 
 me of that girl in the Highlands that you knew, you said 
 you — you had never said anything to her that would lead 
 her to imagine you were thinking of her. But you wrote 
 her a letter." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and she saw it," Meenie continued ; but with 
 downcast eyes. " It was not meant for her to see ; but she 
 saw it. It was some verses — very pretty they were — but 
 — but rather daring; — considering that " 
 
 " Bless me," he exclaimed, " did you see that ? " 
 
 She nodded. And then his mind went swiftly back to 
 that period. 
 
 " Meenie, that was the time you were angry with me." 
 
 She looked up. 
 
 " And yet not so very angry, Eonald." 
 
 " But Love from Love towards school ivith heavy looks^ 
 Not always. Five miles an hour or so was the pace at 
 which Ronald sped over to Pollokshaws ; and very much 
 astonished was the nervous little Mr. Weems over the new- 
 found and anxious energy of his quondam pupil. Eonald 
 remained all day there, and, indeed, did not leave the 
 cottage until it was very late. As he walked back into the 
 town all the world around him lay black and silent ; no 
 stars were visible ; no crescent moon ; nor any dim outline 
 of cloud ; but the dusky heavens were flushed with the 
 red fires of the ironworks, as the flames shot fiercely up 
 
AT THE PEAR-TREE WELL 375 
 
 and sent their sullen splendour across the startled night. 
 And that, it may have occurred to him, was as the lurid 
 glare that had lit up his own life for a while, until the fires 
 had grown down, and the world grown sombre and dead ; 
 but surely there was a clear dawn about to break by and 
 by in the east — clear and silvery and luminous — like the 
 first glow of the morn along the Clebrig slopes. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 AT THE PEAE-TEEE WELL. 
 
 He was almost glad that Meenie was going away for these 
 two days, for he was desperately anxious to make up for 
 the time he had lost ; and the good-natured little Mr. 
 AVeems, instead of showing any annoyance or resentment, 
 rather aided and abetted this furious zeal on the part of his 
 pupil. All the same, Eonald found occasion to be within 
 easy distance of the railway station on the morning of 
 Meenie's departure ; and about a few minutes to eight he 
 saw herself and her sister step out of one of the cabs that 
 were being driven up. If only he could have signalled a 
 good-bye to her 1 But he kept discreetly in the background ; 
 glad enough to see that she was looking so fresh and bright 
 and cheerful — even laughing she was, over some little 
 mishap, as he imagined. And then so trim and neat she 
 was in her travelling attire ; and so daintily she walked — 
 tbe gr-aceful figure moving (as he thought) as if to a kind 
 of music. The elder sister took the tickets ; then they 
 entered one of the carriages ; and presently the train had 
 slowly rolled away from the platform and was gone. 
 
 That glimpse of Meenie had filled his heart with un- 
 utterable delight ; he scarcely knew what he was doing 
 when he got out into the open air again. The day seejned 
 a festal day ; there was gladness abroad in the very atmo- 
 sphere ; it was a day for good-companionship, and the 
 drinking of healths, and the wishing of good wishes to all 
 the world. His thoughts were all with Meenie — in that 
 railway carriage flying away down to Greenock ; and yet 
 here, around him, there was gladness and happiness that 
 seen^ed to demand some actual expression and recognition 1 
 
376 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Almost unconsciously — and mth his brain busy with very 
 distant matters — he walked into a public-house. 
 
 " Give me a glass of Highland whisky, my lad," said he 
 to the young man standing behind the counter : " Talisker, 
 if ye have it." 
 
 The whisky was measured out and placed before him. 
 He did not look at it. He was standing a little apart. 
 And now Meenie would be out by Pollokshields, in the 
 whiter air ; by and by she would pass through Paisley's 
 smoke ; then through the placid pastoral country until she 
 would come in sight of Dumbarton's castled crags and the 
 long wide valley of the Clyde. And then the breezy waters 
 of the Firth ; and the big steamboat ; and Meenie walking 
 up and down the white deck, and drawing the sealskin 
 coat a little tighter round the slight and graceful figure. 
 There would be sunlight there ; and fresh sea-winds blow- 
 ing up from Arran and Bute, from Cumbrae and Cantire. 
 And Meenie — 
 
 But at this moment his attention was somehow drawn to 
 the counter, and he was startled into a consciousness of 
 where he was and what he was doing. He glanced at the 
 whisky — with a kind of shiver of fright. 
 
 " God forgive me — I did not want it," he said to the 
 astonished youth who was looking at him, " but here's the 
 money for 't." 
 
 He put down the few coppers on the counter and 
 hurriedly left the place. But the sudden fright Avas all. As 
 he sped away out to Pollokshaws he was not haunted by 
 any consciousness of having escaped from danger. He was 
 sure enough of himself in that direction. If a mortal 
 craving for drink had seized him, he would almost have 
 been glad of the fight ; it would be something to slay the 
 dragon, for Meenie's sake. But he had naturally a sound 
 and firm constitution ; his dissipation had not lasted long 
 enough to destroy his strength of will ; and indeed this 
 incident of the public-house, so far from terrifying him with 
 any doubts as to the future, only served to remind him that 
 dreams and visions — and brains gone " daft " with access of 
 joy — are not appropriate to the thoroughfares of a business 
 city. 
 
 No ; as he walked rapidly away from the town, by way 
 
AT THE PEAR-TREE WELL 377 
 
 of Strathbungo and Crossmyloof and Shawlands, what he 
 was chiefly busy with was the hammering out of some tune 
 that would fit the winter song he had chanced upon a few 
 days before. And now he did not regard those gay and 
 galloping verses with a stupefied wonder as to how he ever 
 came to write them ; rather he tried to reach again to that 
 same pitch of light-heartedness ; and of course it was for 
 Meenie's delight, and for hers only, that this tune had to 
 be got at somehow. It was a laughing, glad kind of a tune 
 that he wanted : 
 
 then the loarm west winds will Mow, 
 
 And all in the sunny weather 
 It's over the moorlands we ivill go, 
 
 You and I, my love, together. 
 
 Chorus : And then the birds will begin to sing, 
 And we loill sing too, my dear. 
 
 To give good welcoming to the spring. 
 In the primrose-time 0' the year — 
 In the primrose-time. 
 In the primrose-time, 
 In the primrose-tiine 0' the year — 
 
 To give good welcoming to the spring. 
 In the primrose time 0' the year. 
 
 Yes ; and it was in the coming spring-time that he was to 
 try for the certificate in forestry ; and thereafter — if he 
 were so fortunate as to get that — he might set forth on the 
 path that the Americans had so confidently sketched out 
 for him — the path that was now to lead him to Meenie, as 
 the final crown and prize. " You may find me a gray-haired 
 woman, Eonald," she had said, " but you will find me a 
 single woman." But still he was young in years ; and there 
 was hope and courage in his veins ; and what if he were to 
 win to her, after all, before there was a single streak of 
 middle age in the beautiful and abundant brown tresses ? 
 
 Then, again, on the evening before the morning on 
 which he was to meet her in the Botanic Gardens, he undid 
 the package containing that anthology of verse devoted to 
 Meenie ; and began to turn the pieces over, wondering 
 wliich, or if any of them, would please her, if he took them 
 to her. But this was rather a visionary Meenie he found in 
 these verses ; not the real and actual Meenie who had sate 
 
378 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 beside him on a bench in the West End Park, and placed 
 her hand in his, and pledged her life to him, while the 
 beautiful, tear-filled eyes sought his so bravely. And could 
 he not write something about this actual Meenie ; and 
 about Glasgow ; and the wonder she had brought into the 
 great, prosaic city ? He tried his hand at it, anyway, for a 
 little while : 
 
 The dim red fires of yonder gleaming forge 
 No to dwell triumphant on the hrow of night ; 
 
 A thousand chimneys blackest smoke disgorge, 
 Bepelling from the world the stars' pale light : 
 
 A little taper shines adown the street, 
 
 From out her casement ivhere she lingers still 
 
 To listen to the sound of iMSsing feet, 
 
 Tliat all the night icith leaden echoes fill — 
 
 But he soon stopped. This was not like Meenie at all — 
 Meenie, who was ever associated m his mind with flowers 
 and birds and fair sunlight and the joy of the summer hills. 
 He threw that spoiled sheet into the fire ; and sought 
 among the old pieces for one that he might copy out fairly 
 for her ; and this is what he eventually chose : 
 
 All on-a fair May morning 
 
 The roses hegan to hloio; 
 Some of them tipped with crimson, 
 
 Some of them tipped ivith snow. 
 
 But they looked the one to the other, 
 
 And they looked adown the glen ; 
 They looked the one to the other. 
 
 And they rubbed their eyes again. _ 
 
 " there is the lark in the heavens, 
 And the mavis sings in the tree; 
 And surely tins is the summer, 
 But Meenie we cannot see. 
 
 " Surely there must he summer 
 Coming to this far clime; 
 And has Meenie, Love Meenie, forgottoi. 
 Or have we mistaken the timeV 
 
 Then a foxglove spake to the roses : 
 
 " hush you and cease your din; 
 
 For Fm going back to my sleeping, 
 
 Till Meenie brings summer iii," 
 
AT THE PEAR-TREE WELL 379 
 
 Well, it was but a trifle ; but trifles are sometimes 
 important things when seen through lovers' eyes. 
 
 Next morning he went along to the Botanic Gardens ; 
 paid his sixpence with equanimity (for he had dispensed 
 with the ceremony of dining the previous day) and entered. 
 It was rather a pleasant morning ; and at first sight he was 
 rather shocked by the number of people — nursemaids and 
 children, most of them — who were idly strolling along the 
 trimly-kept walks or seated in front of the wide ojDen par- 
 terres. How was he to find Meenie in such a great place ; 
 and, if he did find her, were they to walk up and down 
 before so many eyes ? For he had guessed that Meenie 
 would be in no hurry to tell her sister of what had happened 
 — until the future seemed a little more clear and secure ; 
 it would be time enough to publish the news when that had 
 assumed a more definite character. 
 
 But on and on he went — with glances that were keen 
 and sharp enough — until suddenly, just as he had passed the 
 greenhouses, he came almost face to face with Meenie, who 
 was seated on a bench, all by herself, with a book before 
 her. But she was not reading. " and proudly rose she 
 up " ; and yet shyly, too ; and as he took her hand in his, 
 the joy with which she regarded him needed no confession 
 in words — it was written there in the clear tender eyes. 
 
 " Indeed I am so glad to see you, Eonald ! " she said. 
 " I have been so miserable these two days " 
 
 " But why ? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't know, hardly. I have been wondering whether 
 I had done right ; and then to go about with my sister, 
 keeping this secret from her ; and then I was thinking of 
 the going away back to Inver-Mudal, and never seeing you, 
 and not knowing how you were getting on. But now — 
 now that you are here, it seems all quite right and safe. 
 You look as if you brought good news. What does ho 
 think, Eonald ? " 
 
 " He ? " he repeated. " Who ? " 
 
 " The old man out there at Pollokshaws, is it ? " 
 
 Ronald laughed. 
 
 " Oh, the old gentleman seems pretty confident ; but for 
 rery shame's sake I had to let him have a holiday to-day. 
 I am not going over till to-morrow," 
 
38o WHITE HE A THER 
 
 " And he thinks you will pass ? " 
 
 " He seems to think so." 
 
 " I wish the time were here now, and that it was all well 
 over," she said. " Oh, I should be so proud, Eonald ; and 
 it will be something to speak of to every one ; and then — 
 then that will be but the beginning ; and day by day I shall 
 be expecting to hear the news. But what a long, long time 
 it seems to look forward to." 
 
 " Ay, lass ; and it will be worse for you than for me ; for 
 there will be the continual trying and hoping for me, and 
 for you nothing but the weary waiting. Well " 
 
 " Oh, but do you think I am afraid ? " she said bravely. 
 " No. I have faith in you, Eonald. I know you will do 
 your best." 
 
 " I should deserve to be hanged and buried in a ditch 
 if I did not," said he. " But we will leave all that for a 
 while, Meenie ; I Avant you to come for a stroll along the 
 banks over the Kelvin. Would ye wonder to find some 
 sea-gulls flying about ? — they're there, though ; or they 
 were there a week or two ago. And do you know that I 
 got a glimpse of you at the railway station on Wednesday 
 morning ? " 
 
 " I did not see you, Eonald," she said, with some surprise. 
 
 " No, no ; I kept out o' the way. It's not for me, lass, 
 it's for you to say when any of your folk are to be told 
 what we are looking forward to ; and for my part I would 
 as lief wait till I could put a clearer plan before them — 
 something definite." • 
 
 " And that is my opinion too, Eonald," she answered, in 
 rather a low voice. " Let it be merely an understanding 
 between you and me. I am content to wait." 
 
 "Well, then," said he, as they reached the top of the 
 high bank overhanging the river, and began to make their 
 way down the narrow little pathways cut through the trees 
 and shrubs, " here is a confession : I was so glad to see 
 you on that morning — and so glad to see you looking so 
 well — that I half lost my senses, I think ; I went away 
 through the streets in a kind o' dream ; and, sure as I'm 
 here, I walked into a public-house and ordered a glass of 
 whisky " 
 
 She looked up in sudden alarm. 
 
A T THE PEAR- TREE WELL 381 
 
 " jSTo, no, no," said he contentedly, " you need not fear 
 that, my good lassie ; it was just that I was bewildered 
 with having seen ye, and thinking of where ye were going, 
 I walked out 0' the place without touching it. Ay, and 
 what think ye 0' Dunoon ? And what kind of a day was it 
 when ye got out on the Firth ? " 
 
 So she began to tell him of all her adventures and ex- 
 periences ; and by this time they had got down near to the 
 water's edge ; and here — of what value would his knowledge 
 of forestry have been otherwise ? — he managed to find a 
 seat for her. They were quite alone here — the brown river 
 before them ; several sea-gulls placidly paddling on its 
 surface, others flying and dipping overhead ; and if this 
 bank of the stream was in shadow, the other — with some 
 small green meadows backed by clumps of elms and maples 
 — was bright and fair enough in the yellow autumn sun- 
 shine. They were in absolute silence, too, save for the con- 
 tinual soft murmur of the water, and the occasional whirring 
 by of a blackbird seeking safety underneath a laurel bush. 
 
 "Meenie," said he, putting one hand on her shoulder, 
 "here are some verses I copied out for ye last night — 
 they're not much worth — -but they were written a long time 
 ago, when little did I think I should ever dare to put them 
 into your hand." 
 
 She read them ; and there was a rose colour in her face 
 as she did so : not that she was proud of their merit, but 
 because of the revelation they contained. 
 
 " A long time ago ? " she said, with averted eyes — but 
 her heart was beating warmly. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " there are dozens and dozens of similar 
 things, if ever ye care to look at them. It was many a 
 happy morning on the hill, and many a quiet night at home, 
 they gave me ; but somehow, lass, now that I look at them, 
 they hardly seem to grip ye fast enough. I want something 
 that will bind ye closer to myself — something that ye can 
 read when you are back in the Highlands — something that 
 is known only to our two selves. Well, now, these things 
 that I have written from time to time — you're a long way 
 off in them somehow — the Meenie that's in them is not 
 this actual Meenie, warm and kind and generous and 
 breathing " 
 
382 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 "And a little bit happy, Eonald, just at present," she 
 said, and she took his hand. 
 
 " And some day, when I get through with busier work, 
 I must try to write you something for yourself " 
 
 " But, Ronald, all these pieces you speak of belong to 
 me," she said promptly, " and I want them, every one — 
 every, every one. Yes, and I specially want that letter — ■ 
 if you have not kept it, then you must remember it, and 
 write it out for me again " 
 
 " I came across it last night," said he, with an embarrassed 
 laugh. " Indeed I don't wonder you were angry." 
 
 " I have told you before, Eonald, that I was not angry," 
 she said, with a touch of vexation. " Perhaps I was a little 
 • — a little frightened — and scarcely knowing how much you 
 meant ■" 
 
 " Well, you know now, Meenie dear ; but last night, 
 when I was going over those scraps of things, I can tell 
 you I was inclined to draw back. I kept saying to myself 
 — ' "What ! is she really going to see herself talked about 
 in this way ? ' For there's a good deal of love-making in 
 them, Meenie, and that's a fact ; I knew I could say what 
 I liked, since no one would be any the wiser, but, last 
 night, when I looked at some of them, I said — ' No ; I'm 
 not going to provoke a quarrel with Meenie. She would 
 fling things about, as the American used to say, if she saw 
 all this audacious song-writing about her.' " 
 
 " I'll chance that quarrel, Ronald," she answered to this, 
 " for I want every, every, every one of them ; and you must 
 copy them all, for I am going to take them with me when 
 I leave Glasgow." 
 
 " And, indeed," said he, " you'll understand them better 
 in the Highlands ; for they're all about Ben Loyal, and the 
 Mudal, and Loch Naver, and Clebrig." 
 
 " And to think you hid them from me all that time ! " 
 
 "Why, Meenie darling, you would have called on the 
 whole population to drive me out of the place if I had 
 shown them to you. Think of the effect produced by a 
 single glance at one of them I — you tortured me for weeks 
 wondering how I had offended you." 
 
 " Wen, you can't offend me now, Ronald, that ivay^'' said 
 she, very prettily. 
 
AT THE PEAR-TREE WELL 383 
 
 And so their lovers' talk went on, until it was time for 
 Meenie to think of returning home. But just beyond these 
 Botanic Gardens, and down in a secluded nook by the side 
 of the river, there is a little spring that is variously known 
 as the Three-Tree Well and the Pear-Tree Well. It is a 
 limpid little stream, running into the Kelvin ; it rises in a 
 tiny cavern and flows for a few yards through a cleft in the 
 rocks. Now these rocks, underneath the overarching trees, 
 have been worn quite smooth (except where they are scored 
 with names) by the footsteps of generation after generation 
 of lovers who, in obedience to an old and fond custom, 
 have come hither to plight their troth while joining hands 
 over the brooklet. Properly the two sweethearts, each 
 standing on one side, ought to join their hands on a Bible 
 as they vow their vows, and thereafter should break a six- 
 pence in twain, each carrying away the half ; but these 
 minor points are not necessary to the efficacy of this prob- 
 ably pagan rite. And so — supposing that Ronald had heard 
 of this place of sacred pilgrimage, and had indeed discovered 
 its whereabouts in his rambles around Glasgow — and sup- 
 posing him to have got a friendly under-gardener to unlock 
 a gate in the western palisades of the Gardens — and then, 
 if he were to ask Meenie to step down to the river-side and 
 walk along to the hallowed well ? And yet he made of it 
 no solemn ceremony ; the morning was bright and clear 
 around them ; and Meenie was rather inclined to smile at 
 the curious old custom. But she went through it never- 
 theless ; and then he stept across the rill again ; and said 
 he — 
 
 " There's but this remaining now, Meenie darling — ■' Ae 
 fond kiss and then we sever,' " 
 
 She stepped back in affright. 
 
 " Ronald, not with that song on your lips ! Don't you 
 remember what it goes on to say ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't," he answered good-naturedly ; for he had 
 quoted the phrase at random. 
 
 " Why, don't you remember ? — ■ 
 
 ' Had ice never loved sae Ttindly, 
 
 Had ice never loved sae blindly, 
 Never met — or never parted, 
 
 We had ne'er been broken-hearted.'" 
 
384 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 "My good-hearted lass," said he, interlinking his arm 
 with hers, /' ye must not be superstitious. What'3 in a 
 song ? There'll be no severance betwixt you and me — the 
 Pear-Tree Well has settled that." 
 
 " And that is not at all superstition ? " said she, looking 
 up with a smile — until she suddenly found her blushing 
 face overshadowed. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 THE COMING OF TROUBLES. 
 
 These were halcyon days. Those two bad arrived at a 
 pretty accurate understanding of the times of each other's 
 comings and goings ; and if they coi;ld snatch but five 
 minutes together, as he was on his way over to the south, 
 well, that was something ; and not unfrequently the linger- 
 ing good-bye was lengthened out to a quarter of an hour ; 
 and then again when high fortune was in the ascendant, a 
 whole golden hour was theirs — that was as precious as a 
 year of life. For their hastily-snatched interviews the most 
 convenient and secret rendezvous Avas Hill Street, Garnet 
 Hill ; a quiet little thoroughfare, too steep for cabs or 
 carriages to ascend. And very cheerful and bright and 
 pleasant this still neighbourhood looked on those October 
 mornings ; for there was yet some crisp and yellow foliage 
 on the trees ; and the little patches of green within the 
 railings lay warm in the light ; and on the northern side of 
 the street the house-fronts Avere of a comfortable sunny gray. 
 Ordinarily there were so few people about that these two 
 could walk hand in hand, if they chose ; or they could 
 stand still, and converse face to face, when some more than 
 usually interesting talk was going forward. And it was 
 quite astonishing what a lot of things they had to say to each 
 other, and the importance that attached to the very least of 
 them. 
 
 But one piece of news that Meenie brought to these stolen 
 interviews was by no means insignificant : she was now re- 
 ceiving marked attentions from a young Glasgow gentleman 
 — attentions that her sister had perceived at a very early 
 period, though Meenie had striven to remain blind to them. 
 
THE COMING OF TROUBLES 385 
 
 Nor was there anything very singular in this. Mr. Gemmill 
 was exceedingly proud of his pretty sister-in-law ; he had 
 asked lots of people to the house for the very purpose of 
 meeting her ; she was the centre of interest and attraction 
 at these numerous gatherings ; and what more natural than 
 that some susceptible youth should have his mind disturbed 
 by an unwitting glance or two from those clear Highland 
 eyes ? And what rendered this prospect so pleasing to the 
 Gemmills was this : the young man who had been stricken 
 by these unintentional darts was no other than the only son 
 of the founder of the firm in which Mr. Gemmill was a 
 junior partner — the old gentleman having retired from the 
 business some dozen years before, carrying with him a very 
 substautial fortune indeed, to which this son was sole heir. 
 In more ways than one this match, if it were to be a match, 
 would be highly advantageous ; and Mrs. Gemmill, while 
 saying little, was secretly rejoiced to see everything going 
 on so well. If Meenie chanced to ask what such and such 
 a piece was (Mr. Frank Lauder played a little), even that 
 sliglit expression of interest was inevitably followed by her 
 receiving the sheet of music by post next morning. Flowers, 
 again : one cannot very well refuse to accept flowers ; they 
 are not like other gifts ; they may mean nothing. Then, it 
 was quite remarkable how often he found himself going to 
 the very same theatre or the very same concert that the 
 Gemmills had arranged to take Meenie to ; and naturally — • 
 as it chanced he had no one going with him — he asked to 
 be allowed to go with them. He even talked of taking a 
 seat in j\Iaple Street Church (this was the church that the 
 Gemmills attended), for he said that he was tired to death of 
 the preaching of that old fogey, Dr. Tcith, and that Mr. 
 Smilie's last volume of poems (Mr. Smilie was the Maple 
 Street Church minister) had aroused in him a great curiosity 
 to hear his sermons. 
 
 And as for j\Ir. Frank Lauder himself — well, he was pretty 
 much as other young Glasgow n:ien of fashion ; though, to 
 be sure, these form a race by themselves, and a very curious 
 race too. They are for the most part a good-natured set of 
 lads ; free and generous in their ways ; not anything like 
 the wild Lotharios which, amongst themselves, they profess 
 to be ; well dressed ; a little lacking in repose of manner ; 
 
 2 C 
 
386 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 many of them given to boating and yacliting — and some of 
 them even expert seamen ; nearly all of them fond of airing 
 a bit of Cockney slang picked up in a London music hall 
 during a fortnight's visit to town. But their most odd 
 characteristic is an affectation of knowingness — as if they 
 had read the book of nature and human nature tlu'ough to 
 the last chapter ; whereas these well-dressed, good-natured, 
 but rather brainless young men are as innocently ignorant 
 of that book as of most other books. Knowing jjut one 
 language — and that imperfectly — is no doubt a bar to 
 travel ; but surely nowhere else on the face of the globe 
 could one find a set of young fellows — with similar oppor- 
 tunities set before them — content to remain so thoroughly 
 untutored and untravelled ; and nowhere else a set of youths 
 Avho, Avhile professing to be men of the world, could show 
 themselves so absolutely unversed in the world's ways. But 
 they (or some of them) understand the lines of a yacht ; 
 and they don't drink champagne as sweet as they used to 
 do ; and no doubt, as they grow into middle age, they will 
 throw aside the crude affectations of youth, and assume a 
 respectable gravity of manner, and eventually become solid 
 and substantial pillars of the Free, U.P., and Established 
 Churches. 
 
 This Frank Lauder was rather a favourable specimen of 
 his class ; perhaps, in his extreme desire to ingratiate him- 
 self with Meenie, he assumed a modesty of demeanour that 
 was not quite natural to him. But his self-satisfied jocosity, 
 his mean interpretation of human motives, his familiarly 
 conventional opinions in all matters connected with the 
 arts, could not always be hidden beneath this mask of 
 meekness ; and Meenie's shrewd eyes had discerned clearly 
 of what kind he was at a very early period of their acquaint- 
 ance. For one thing, her solitary life in the Highlands 
 had made of her a diligent and extensive reader ; while her 
 association with Ronald had taught her keen independence 
 of judgment ; and she was almost ashamed to find how 
 absolutely unlettered this youth was, and how he would 
 feebly try to discover what her opinion was, in order to 
 express agreement with it. That was not Ronald's way. 
 Ronald took her sharply to task when she fell away from his 
 standard — or rather their conjoint standard — in some of 
 
THE COMING OF TROUBLES 387 
 
 her small preferences. Even in music, of which this young 
 gentleman knew a little, his tastes were the tastes of the 
 mob. 
 
 "Why do you always get away from the room when 
 Mr. Lauder sits down to the piano ? " her sister said, with 
 some touch of resentment. 
 
 " I can endure a little Offenbach," she answered saucily, 
 " when I'm strong and in good health. But we get a little 
 too much of it when he comes here." 
 
 Of course Ronald was given to know of these visits and 
 of their obvious aim ; but he did not seem very deeply 
 concerned. 
 
 " You know I can't help it, Ronald," she said, one 
 morning, as they were slowly climbing the steep little 
 Randolph Terrace together, her hand resting on his arm, 
 " I can't tell him to go away while my sister keeps asking 
 him to the house. They say that a girl can always show 
 by her manner when any attention is displeasing to her. 
 AVell, that depends. I can't be downright rude — I am 
 staying in my sister's house. And then, I wouldn't say he 
 was conceited — I wouldn't say that, Ronald— but — but he 
 is pretty well satisfied with himself ; and perhaps not so 
 sensitive about one's manner towards him as some might 
 be. As for you, Ronald," she said, with a laugh, " I could 
 send you flying, like a bolt from a bow, with a single 
 look." 
 
 " Could you, lass ? " said he. " I doubt it. Perhaps I 
 would refuse to budge. I have got charge of you now." 
 
 " Ah, well, I am not likely to try, I think," she continued, 
 " But about this Mr. Lauder, Ronald — you see, he is a very 
 important person in Mr. Gemmill's eyes ; for he and his 
 father have still some interest in the warehouse, I suppose ; 
 and I know he thinks it is time that j\lr. Gemmill's name 
 should be mentioned in the firm — not mere " Co." And 
 that would please Agatha too ; and so they're very polite to 
 him ; and they expect me to be very polite to him too. A'oa 
 see, Ronald, 1 can't tell him to go away until he says some- 
 thing — either to me or to Agatha ; and he won't take a hint, 
 though he must see that I would rather not have him send 
 flowers and music and that ; and then, again, I sometimes 
 think it is not fair to you, Ronald, that I should allow any- 
 
 2 C 2 
 
388 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 thing of the kind to go on — merely through the difficulty 
 of speaking " 
 
 He stopped, and put his hand over the hand that lay on 
 his arm : there was not a human being in sight. 
 
 " Tell me this, Meenie darling : does his coming to the 
 house vex you and trouble you ? " 
 
 " Oh no — not in the least," said she, blithely and yet 
 seriously. " I am rather pleased when he comes to the 
 house. "When he is there of an evening, and I have the 
 chance of sitting and looking at him, it makes me quite 
 happy." 
 
 This was rather a startling statement, and instantly she 
 saw a quick, strange look in his eyes. 
 
 " But you don't understand, Ronald," she said placidly, 
 and without taking away her eyes from his. " Every time 
 I look at him I think of you, and it's the difference that 
 makes me glad." 
 
 Halcyon days indeed ; and Glasgow became a radiant 
 golden city in this happy autumn time ; and each meeting 
 Avas sweeter and dearer than its predecessor ; and their twin 
 lives seemed to be floating along together on a river of joy. 
 With what a covetous care she treasured up each fragment 
 of verse he brought her, and hid it away in a little thin 
 leathern case she had herself made, so that she could wear 
 it next her heart. He purchased for her little presents — 
 such as he could afford — to show her that he was thinking 
 of her on the days when they could not meet ; and when 
 she took these, and kissed them, it was not of their pecu- 
 niary value she was thinking. As for her, she had vast 
 schemes as to what she was going to make for him when 
 she got back to the Highlands. Here, in Glasgow, nothing 
 of the kind was possible. Her sister's eyes Avcre too sharp, 
 and her own time too much occupied. Indeed, what between 
 the real lover, who was greedy of every moment she could 
 spare for these secret interviews, and the pscudo lover, who 
 kept the Queen's Crescent household in a constant turmoil 
 of engagements and entertainments and visits. Rose Meenie 
 found the hours sufficiently full ; and the days of her stay 
 in Glasgow were going by rapidly. 
 
 " But Scripture saith, an ending to all line things must 
 be ; " and the ending, in this case, was the work of the 
 
THE COMING OF TROUBLES 389 
 
 widow Meiizies. Kate felt herself at once aggrieved and 
 perplexed by Ronald's continued absence ; but she was even 
 more astonished when, on sending to make inquiries, she 
 found he had left his lodgings and gone elsewhere, leaving 
 no address. She saw a purpose in this ; she leapt to the 
 conclusion that a woman had something to do with it ; and 
 in her jealous auger and mortification she determined 011 
 leaving no stone unturned to discover his whereabouts. 
 But her two cronies, Laidlaw and old Jaap (the skipper 
 was away at sea again), seemed quite powerless to aid her. 
 They knew that Eouald occasionally used to go over to 
 Pollokshaws ; but further than that, notliiug. He never 
 came to the Harmony Club now ; and not one of his former 
 companions knew anything about him. Old Mr. Jaap 
 hoped that no harm had come to the lad, whom he liked ; 
 but Jimmy Laidlaw was none so sorry over this disappear- 
 ance : he might himself have a better chance Avith the widow, 
 now that Kate's handsome cousin was out of the way. 
 
 It was Kate herself who made the discovery, and that 
 in the simplest manner possible. She and mother Paterson 
 had been away somewhere outside the town for a drive ; 
 and they were returning by the Great Western Road, one 
 evening towards dusk, when all at once the widow caught 
 sight of Ronald, at some distance off, and just as he was in 
 the act of saying good-bye to a woman — to a young girl 
 apparently. Kate pulled up the cob so suddenly that she 
 nearly pitched her companion headlong into the street. 
 
 " What is it, Katie dear ? " 
 
 She did not answer ; she let the cob move forward a 
 yard or two, so as to get the dog-cart close in by the pave- 
 ment ; and then she waited — watching with an eager scrntiny 
 this figure that was now coming along. j\[eenie did not 
 notice her ; probably the girl was too busy with her own 
 thoughts ; but these could not have been sad ones, for the 
 bright young face, with its tender colour rather heightened 
 by the sharpness of the evening air, seemed happy enough. 
 
 " Flying high, he is," was Kate Menzies's inward comment 
 as she marked the smart costume and the well-bred air and 
 carriage of this young lady. 
 
 And then, the inoment she had passed, Kate said 
 quickly— 
 
390 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 " Here, auntie, take the reins, and wait here. Never 
 mind how long. He'll no stir ; if you're feared, bid a laddie 
 stand by his head." 
 
 " But what is't, Katie dear ? " 
 
 She did not answer ; she got down from the trap ; and 
 then, at first quicli:ly, and afterwards more cautiously, she 
 proceeded to follow the girl whom she had seen parting 
 from Ronald. Nor had she far to go, as it turned out. 
 Meenie left the main thoroughfare at Melrose Street — Kate 
 Menzies keeping fairly close up to her now ; and almost 
 directly after was standing at the door of her sister's house 
 in Queen's Crescent, waiting for the ringing of the bell to 
 be answered. It needed no profound detective skill on 
 the part of Mrs. Menzies to ascertain the number of the 
 house, so soon as the girl had gone inside ; and thereafter 
 she hurried back to the dog-cart, and got up, and continued 
 her driving. 
 
 "Well, that bangs Banagher ! " she said, with a loud 
 laugh, as she smartly touched the cob with the whip. " The 
 Great Western Pioad, of a' places in the world ! The 
 Great Western Eoad — and he goes off by the New City 
 Road — there's a place for twa lovers to forgather ! 
 
 " UV?Z meet heside tlie dushy glen, on yon hum side, 
 Wliere the hushes form a cosie den, on yon hum side." 
 
 But the Great '\^'estern Road — bless us a', and the laddie 
 used to write poetry ! " 
 
 " But what is it, Katie ? " 
 
 " Why, it's Ronald and his lass, woman : didna ye see 
 them ? Oh ay, he's carried his good looks to a braw 
 market — set her up wi' her velvet hat and her sealskin 
 coat, and living in Queen's Crescent forbye. Ay, ay, he's 
 ta'en his pigs to a braw market " 
 
 " It's no possible, Katie dear ! " exclaimed mother 
 Paterson, who affected to be very much shocked. " Your 
 cousin Ronald wi' a sweetheart ?^and him so much in- 
 debted to you " 
 
 "The twa canary birds ! " she continued, with mirth that 
 sounded not quite real. " But never a kiss parting, wi' a' 
 they folk about. And that's why ye've been hiding your- 
 self away, my lad ? But I jalouse that that braw young 
 
THE CO.MING OF TROUBLES 391 
 
 leddy o' yours would laugh the other side of her month if 
 her friends were to find out her pranks." 
 
 And indeed that was the thought that chiefly occupied 
 her mind during the rest of tlie drive home. Arrived there, 
 she called for the Post-Office Directory, and found that the 
 name of the people living in that house in Queen's Crescent 
 was Gemmill. She asked her cronies, when they turned 
 up in the evening, who this Gemmill was ; but neither of 
 them knew. Accordingly, being left to her own resources, 
 and without letting even mother Paterson know, she took a 
 sheet of paper and wrote as follows— 
 
 " Sir — Who is the young lady in your house who keeps 
 appointments with Konald Strang, formerly of Inver-Mudal ? 
 Keep a better look-out. Yours, A Friend." 
 
 And this slie enclosed in an envelope, and directed it to 
 ]Mr. Gemmill of such and such a number, Queen's Crescent, 
 and herself took it to the post. It was a mere random 
 shot, for she had nothing to go upon but her own sudden 
 suspicions ; but she was angry and hot-headed ; and in no 
 case, she considered, would this do any harm. 
 
 She succeeded far better than she could have expected. 
 Mr. Gemmill handed the anonymous note to his wife with 
 a brief laugh of derision. But Agatha (who knew more 
 about Eonald Strang than he) looked startled. She would 
 not say anything. She would not admit to her husband 
 that this was anything but an idle piece of malice. Never- 
 theless, when ]\Ir. Gemmill left for the city, she began to 
 consider what she should do. 
 
 Unfortunately, as it happened that morning, Mecnie just 
 played into her sister's hand. 
 
 " Aggie dear, I am going along to Sauchiehall Street foi- 
 some more of that crimson wool : can I bring you any- 
 thing ? " 
 
 " No, thank you," she said ; and then instantly it occurred 
 to her that she would go out and follow her sister, just to 
 see whether there might be any ground for this anonymous 
 warning. It certainly was a strange tiling that any one 
 should know that Meenie and llonald Strang were even 
 acquainted. 
 
 And at first — as she kept a shrewd eye on the girl, whom 
 she allowed to precede her l)y some distance — all seemed 
 
392 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 to go we]]. Meenie looked neither to the right nor to the 
 left as she walked, with some quickness, along St. George's 
 Eoad towards Sauchiehall Street. When she reached the 
 wool shop and entered, Mrs. Gemmill's conscience smote 
 her — why should she have been so quick to harbour 
 suspicions of her own sister ? But she would still watch 
 her on the homeward way — just to make sure. 
 
 When Meenie came out again from the shop she looked 
 at her watch ; and it was clear that she was now quickening 
 her pace as she set forth. Why this hurry, Mrs. Gemmill 
 asked herself ? — the girl was not so busy at home. But 
 the solution of the mystery was soon apparent. Meenie 
 arrived at the corfier of Hill Street ; gave one quick glance 
 up the quiet little thoroughfare ; the next moment Mrs. 
 Gemmill recognised well enough — for she had seen him 
 once or twice in the Highlands — who this well-built, 
 straight-limbed young fellow was who was now coming- 
 down the steep little street at such a swinging pace. 
 And Meenie went forward to meet him, with her face 
 upturned to his ; and she put her hand on his arm quite 
 as if that were her familiar custom ; and away these 
 two went — slowly, it is true, for the ascent was steep — and 
 clearly they were Leeding not anything and not anybody 
 around. 
 
 Agatha turned away and went home ; she had seen 
 enough. To say that she Avas deeply shocked would hardly 
 be true ; for there are very few young women who have 
 not, at some time or other in their lives, made an innocent 
 little arrangement by which they might enjoy an unobserved 
 interview with the object of theii* choice ; and, if there are 
 any such extremely proper young persons, Agatha Gemmill 
 knew that she had not been in the category herself. But 
 she was resolved upon being both indignant and angry. 
 It was her duty. There was this girl wilfully throwing 
 away all the chances of her life. A gamekeeper ! — that 
 her sister should be for marrying a gamekeeper just at the 
 time that Mr. Gemmill expected to have his name announced 
 as a partner in the great firm ! N"ay, she made no doubt 
 that Meenie had come to Glasgow for the very purpose of 
 seeking him out. And what was to become of young 
 Frank Ijauder ? Intleed, by the time Meenie returned 
 
THE COMING OF TROUBLES 393 
 
 home, her sister had succeeded in nursing' up a consider- 
 able voknue of wrath ; for she .considered she was doing 
 •well to be angry. 
 
 But when the battle-royal did begin, it was at first all on 
 one side. Meenie did not seek to deny anything. She 
 quite calmly admitted that she meant to marry Ronald, 
 if ever their circumstances should be so favourable. She 
 even confessed that she had come to Glasgow in the hope 
 of seeing him. Had she no shame in making such an 
 avowal ? — no, she said, she had none ; none at all. And 
 what had she meant by encouraging Mr. Lauder ? — she 
 had not encouraged him in any way, she answered ; she 
 would rather have had none of his attentions. 
 
 But it was when the elder sister began to speak angrily 
 and contemptuously of Ronald that the younger sister's 
 eyes flashed tire and her lips grew j^ale. 
 
 " A gentleman ? " she retorted. " I might marry a gentle- 
 man ? I tell you there is no such gentleman — in manner, 
 in disposition, in education — I say there is no such gentle- 
 man as he is comes to this house ! " 
 
 " Deary me ! " said Agatha sarcastically, but she was 
 rather frightened by this unwonted vehemence. " To think 
 that a gamekeeper " 
 
 " He is not a gamekeeper ! He will never be a game- 
 keeper again. But if he were, what should I care ? It was 
 as a gamekeeper that I learnt to know him. It was as a 
 gamekeeper that I gave him my love. Do you think I 
 care what occupation he follows when I know what he is 
 himself 1: " 
 
 " Hoity-toity ! Here's romance in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury ! — and from you, Meenie, that were always such a 
 sensible girl ! But I'll have nothing to do with it. Back 
 you pack to the Highlands, and at once ; that's what I have 
 got to say." 
 
 " I am quite willing to go back," the girl said proudly. 
 
 " Ah, because you think you will be allowed to write to 
 him ; and that all the fine courting will go on that way ; 
 and I've no doubt you're thinking he's going to make money 
 in Glasgow — for a girl as mad as you seem to be will 
 believe anything. Well, don't believe iliat. Don't believe 
 you will have any fine love-making in absence, and all that 
 
394 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 kind of stuff. Mother will take good care. I should not 
 wonder if she sent you to a school in Germany, if the 
 expense Avere not too great — how would you like that ? " 
 
 " But she will not." 
 
 "Why, then?" 
 
 " Because I will not go." 
 
 " Here's bravery ! I suppose you want something more 
 heroic — drowning yourself because of your lost love — ^or 
 locking yourself up in a convent to escape from your cruel 
 parents— something that will make the papers Avi'ite things 
 about you ? But I think you will find a difference after you 
 have been two or three months at Inver-Mudal. Perhaps 
 you will have come to your senses then. Perhaps you will 
 have learnt what it was to have had a good prospect of 
 settling yourself in life — with a respectable well-conducted 
 young man— of good family — the Landers of Craig them- 
 selves are not in the least ashamed that some of the family 
 have been in business — yes, you will think of that, and that 
 you threw the chance away because of an infatuation about 
 a drunken ne'er-do-weel " 
 
 " He is not — he is not ! " she said passionately ; and her 
 cheeks were white ; but there was something grasping her 
 heart, and like to -suifocate her, so that she could not pro- 
 test more. 
 
 " Anyway, I will take care that I shall have nothing to 
 do with it," the elder sister continued ; " and if you should 
 see him again before you go, I would advise you to bid 
 him good-bye, for it will be the last time. Mother will 
 take care of that, or I am mistaken." 
 
 She left the room ; and the girl remained alone — proud 
 and pale and rebellious ; but still with this dreadful weight 
 upon her heart, of despair and fear that she would not 
 acknowledge. If only she could see Ronald ! One word 
 from him — one look — would be enough. But if this were 
 true ? — if she were never to be allowed to hear from him 
 again ? — they might even appeal to himself, and Avho could 
 say what promise they might not extract from him, if they 
 Avcre sufficiently cunning of approach "i They might say it 
 Avas for her welfare — they might appeal to his honour — they 
 might Avin some pledge from him — and she knowing nothing 
 of it all ! If onlv she could see him for one moment J 
 
IN OTHER CLIMES 395 
 
 The very pulses of her blood seemed to keep repeating his 
 name at every tlirob — yearning towards him, as it were ; 
 and at last she threw herself down on the sofa and buried 
 her head in the cushion, and burst into a wild and long- 
 continued fit of weeping and sobbing. But this in time 
 lightened the Aveight at her heart, at any rate ; and when 
 at length she rose — with tear-stained cheeks and tremulous 
 lips and dishevelled hair— there was still something in her 
 look that showed that the courage with which she had 
 faced her sister was not altogether gone ; and soon the lips 
 had less of tremulousness about them than of a proud 
 decision ; and there was that in the very calmness of her 
 demeanour that would have warned all whom it might 
 concern that the days of her placid and obedient girlhood 
 were over. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLI. 
 
 IX OTHEE CLIMES. 
 
 IsTever was there a gayer party than this that was walking 
 from the hotel towards the shores of Lake George, on a 
 brilliant and blue-skied October morniug. Perhaps the 
 most demure — or the most professedly demure — was Miss 
 Carry Hodson herself, who affected to walk apart a little ; 
 and swung carelessly the fur cape she carried in her hand ; 
 and refused all kinds of attentions from a tall, lank, long- 
 haired young man who humbly followed her ; and pre- 
 tended that she was wholly engrossed with the air of 
 
 "i'wj in love, sweet Mistress Frue, 
 Sooth I can't conceal it ; 
 My poor heart is brohe in tiro — 
 You alone can heal it." 
 
 As for the others of this light-hearted and laughing group of 
 young folk, they were these : J^Iiss Kerfoot, a fresh-coloured, 
 plump, pleasant-looking girl, wearing much elaborate head- 
 gear rather out of proportion to her stature ; her married 
 sister, Mrs. Lalor, a grass-widow who was kind enough to 
 play chaperon to the young people, but whose effective 
 black eyes had a little trick of roving on their own account 
 — ^perhaps merely in quest of a joke ; Dr. Thomas P. Tilley, 
 
396 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 an adolescent practitioner, who might have inspired a little 
 more confidence in his patients had he condescended to 
 powder his profuse chestnut-brown hair ; and, finally, the long 
 and lank gentleman Avho waited so humbly on Miss Hodson, 
 and who was Mr. J. C. Huysen, of the Chicago Citizen, 
 Miss Carry had at length — and after abundant meek inter- 
 cession and explanations and expressions of remorse — 
 pardoned the repentant editor for his treatment of Ronald. 
 It was none of his doing, he vowed and declared. It was 
 some young jackass whom the proprietors of the paper had 
 introduced to him. The article had slipped in without his 
 having seen it first. If only her Scotch friend would write 
 something more, he would undertake that the Chicago 
 Citizen would treat it with the greatest respect. And so 
 forth. Miss Carry Avas for a long time obdurate, and 
 affected to think that it was poetical jealousy on his part 
 (for the lank-haired editor had himself in former days written 
 and published sentimental verse — a fact which was not 
 forgotten by one or two of the wicked young men on the 
 staff of the N. Y. Sun Avhen Mr. Huysen adventured into 
 the stormy arena of politics) ; but in the end she restored 
 him to favour, and found him more submissive than ever. 
 And in truth there' was substantial reason for his submis- 
 sion. The Chicago Citizen paid well enough, no doubt ; 
 but the editor of that journal had large views ; and Miss 
 Hodson's husband — if all stories were true — would find 
 himself in a very enviable position indeed. 
 
 " Mayn't I carry your cape for you. Miss Hodson ? " the 
 tall editor said, in the most pleading way in the world. 
 
 " No, I thank you," she answered, civilly enough ; but she 
 did not turn her head ; and she made believe that her mind 
 was wholly set on 
 
 ^^I'm in love, sineet ]\[it-lrcss True, 
 Suoth I can't conceal it." 
 
 This timid prayer and its repulse had not escaped the sharp 
 observation of Miss Kerfoot. 
 
 " Oh," said she, " there's no doing anything with Carry, 
 ever since we came to Fort George. Nothing's good 
 enough for her ; the hills are not high enough ; and the 
 place is iiot wild enough ; and there's no catching of salmon 
 
IN OTHER CLIMES 397 
 
 in drenching rain — so there's no amusement for her. 
 Amusement ? I know where the trouble is ; I know what 
 amusement she wants ; I know what makes her grumble at 
 the big hotels, and the decent clothes that people prefer to 
 wear, and the rattlesnakes, and all the rest. Of course this 
 lake can't be like the Scotch lake ; there isn't a handsome 
 young gamekeeper here for her to flirt with. Flirtation, 
 was it ? "Well, I suppose it was, and no more. I don't 
 imderstand the manners and customs of savage nations. 
 Look at her now. Look at that thing on her head. I've 
 heard of girls wearing true-love knots, and rings, and things 
 of that kind, to remind them of their sweethearts ; but I 
 never heard of their going about wearing a yellow Tam-o'- 
 Shanter." 
 
 Miss Carry smiled a superior smile ; she would pay no 
 heed to these ribald remarks ; apparently she was wholly 
 engrossed with 
 
 "PiH in love, sweet Mistress Friie." 
 
 " It isn't fair of you to tell tales out of school, Em," 
 the young matron said. 
 
 " But I wasn't there. If I liad been, there would have 
 been a little better behaviour. Why, I never ! Do you know 
 how they teach girls to use a salmon-rod in that country ? " 
 
 The question was addressed to Sir. Huyscn ; but Miss 
 Kerfoot's eyes were flsed on Miss Carry. 
 
 "No, I don't," he answered. 
 
 " Oh, you don't know," she said. " You don't know. 
 Keally. Well, I'll tell you. The gamekeeper — and the 
 handsomer the better — stands overlooking the girl's 
 shoulder ; and she holds the rod ; and he grips her hand 
 and the rod at the same time." 
 
 " But I know how," the young Doctor interposed. " See 
 here — give me your hand — I'll show you in a minute." 
 
 " Oh no, you shan't," said she, instantly disengaging 
 herself ; " this is a respectable country. AVc don't do such 
 things in New York State. Of course, over there it's 
 din'erent. Oh yes ; if I were there myself — and — and if 
 the gamekeeper was handsome enough — and if he asked 
 me to have a lesson in salmon-fishing — don't you think I 
 would go ? Why, I should smile ! " 
 
39^ WHITE HE A THER 
 
 But here Miss Cany burst out laughing ; for her friend 
 had been caught. These two girls were in the habit of 
 talking the direst slang between themselves (and occasionally 
 Miss Carry practised a little of it on her papa), but this 
 wickedness they did in secret ; outsiders were not supposed 
 to know anything of that. And now Dr. Tilley did not 
 sceiQ very much pleased at hearing Miss Kerfoot say " I 
 should smile " ; and Miss Kerfoot looked self-conscious and 
 amused and a little embarrassed ; and Carry kept on 
 laughing. However, it all blew over ; for now they were 
 down at the landing stage ; and presently the Doctor 
 was handing them into the spick and span new cat-boat 
 that he had just had sent through from New York that 
 autumn. 
 
 Indeed it was a right joyous party tliat now went sailing 
 out on the clear lapping waters ; for there was a brisk 
 breeze l^lowing ; and two pairs of sweethearts in one small 
 boat's cargo make a fair proportion ; and Lake George, in 
 October, before the leaves are beginning to fall, is just 
 about as beautiful a place as any one can want. The far 
 low hills were all red and brown and yellow with maple and 
 scrub oak, except where the pines and the hemlocks inter- 
 posed a dark blue-green ; and nearer at hand, on the silvery 
 surface of the lake, were innumerable small wooded islands, 
 with a line of white foam along the windward shores ; and 
 overhead a perfectly cloudless sky of intense and brilliant 
 blue. And if these were not enough for the gay voyagers, 
 then there were other things — laughter, sarcasm, subtle 
 compliments, daring or stolen glances ; until at last the full 
 tide of joy burst into song. Who can tell which of them it 
 was that started 
 
 " V%f. givine hacJc to Dixie, no more Tse gwine to icander, 
 My hearths turned hack io Dixie, I canH stay here no longer " ? 
 
 No matter ; nor was it of much consequence whether the 
 words of the song were of a highly intellectual cast, nor 
 whether the music was of the most distinguished character, 
 so long as there was a chorus admirably adapted for soprano, 
 alto, tenor, and bass. It Avas very speedily clear that this 
 was not the lirst time these four had practised the chorus 
 (Mrs. Lalor Avas alloAved to come in just Avhere she pleased), 
 
tN OTHER CLIAIES 
 
 399 
 
 nor was there any great sadness in their interpretation of 
 the words — 
 
 
 I'se gwine back to Dix - ie, I'se gwine back to 
 
 il=^ 
 
 --ztvmt 
 
 -gr— jr 
 
 -^T 
 
 
 sHi^EiE3=: 
 
 :== — I — ==1^= y = :^:|=:zs==5iz 
 
 Dix - ie, I'se gwine where Ihe or - aitge bios - soms grow, . . . 
 
 ^ -- — : ^^--f 1 1 ^— ] 1 J gi dp ] ^-^B-3B-»d--l 
 
 
 I r— 5 r 
 
 . . . For I hear the chil - dren call - ing, I see their sad tears 
 
 
 ii 
 
 ^=ir- 
 
 
 glii^i^ 
 
 
 fall - ing, iMy heart's turn'd back to Dix - ie. And I must go. 
 
 :-! — i_n 
 
 
 :*:— ^ * z=^3z:^-=m fju qi H ' ,=xrg|j 
 
400 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 Ifc is impossible to say how often they repeated the chorus ; 
 until Mrs. Lalor asked the girls why they were so fond of 
 singing about orange blossoms, and then presently they 
 turned to something else. 
 
 All this time they were beating up against a stiff but 
 steady head-wind ; the Doctor at the tiller ; the lank editor 
 standing by the mast at the bow ; the girls and their 
 chaperon snugly ensconced in the capacious cock-pit, but 
 still having to dodge the enormously long boom when the 
 boat was put about. The women-folk, of course, paid no 
 attention to the sailing ; they never do ; they were quite 
 happy in leaving the whole responsibility on the owner of 
 the craft ; and were entirely wrapped up in their own petty 
 affairs. Nay, so recklessly inconsiderate were they that 
 they began to be angry because Dr. Tilley would not get 
 out his banjo — which was in the tiny cabin, or rather 
 locker, at the bow. They wanted to sing " Dancing in the 
 Barn," they said. What was the use of that without a 
 banjo to play the dance music ? 
 
 " Yery well," said the complaisant Doctor, *' we'll run 
 into some quiet creek in one of the islands ; and then I'll 
 see what I can do for you." 
 
 No, no, they silid ; they wanted to sing sailing ; they 
 did not wish to go ashore, or near the shore. Well, the 
 amiable Doctor scarce knew how to please them, for he 
 could not steer the boat and play the banjo at the same 
 time ; and he was not sure about entrusting the safety of 
 so precious a cargo to the uncertain seamanship of the 
 editor. However, they were now a long way from Fort 
 George ; they might as well take a run back in that 
 direction ; and so — the boat having been let away from the 
 wind and put on a fair course for the distant landing-stage 
 — Mr. Huysen was called down from the bow and directed 
 as to how he should steer ; and then the Doctor went 
 forward and got out the banjo. 
 
 Now this " Dancing in the Barn " (the words are idiotie 
 enough) has a very catching air ; and no sooner had the 
 Doctor — -who was standing up on the bit of a deck forward, 
 where Jack Huysen had been — begun the tinkling prelude 
 than the girls showed little movements of hands and feet, 
 as if they were performing an imaginary " cake-walk." 
 
m OTHER CLIMES 
 
 401 
 
 "O/i, ice^ll meet at the hall in the evening, 
 Kase I love to pass the time away " 
 
 — they were all singing at it now ; they did not wait for 
 any chorus ; and Miss Carry had caught Miss Em's hand, 
 and Avas holding it on high, and keeping time to the music, 
 as if she were in reality leading her down the barn. 
 
 yjESE 
 
 m 
 
 :=r^f= 
 
 it=: 
 
 As we move so grace - fnl - ly. 
 
 5"^^ 
 
 Break. 
 
 &^^£ 
 
 '^ 
 
 P-q?: 
 
 ■imS— 
 
 
 :±lf 
 
 --S- 
 
 rprz 
 
 AA- 
 
 " i g~P ~ w 
 
 H 
 
 t 
 
 t 
 
 I^^ 
 
 -x^ 
 
 We're as hap - py as can 
 
 -^^E^^ 
 
 ^^E'^E^iiEE^ 
 
 ^^t^^=l: 
 
 ±iL=^z=zX. 
 
 =t: 
 
 I* Nn 
 
 r 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 :J?=^t 
 
 I*— ^: 
 
 =S=«^3r^ 
 
 ^^ll^^is-J 
 
 ^-:e 
 
 Den swing your partners all to 
 
 
 i^ 
 
 
 3=t 
 
 a(31«|- 
 
 3r3:— i-^- 
 
 ii D 
 
402 
 
 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Then came in the, rippling dance— played as a solo on the 
 banjo ; and so catching was it that the two girls stood np, 
 and made believe to dance a little. Yon see, the boat was 
 running free before the wind, and there was scarcely any 
 appreciable motion, though she was going at a good speed, 
 for her mainsail was enormously large and the breeze was 
 brisk. 
 
 " I say, Huysen," the Doctor called, while he was playing 
 the dance, " look what you're about. Never mind the 
 singing. Keep her bow straight for the landing-stage." 
 
 Then the next verse bes'an — 
 
 "■ Den u-e's off to icorh in de morning, 
 Singing as u:e go out to de field," 
 
 and they all went at it with a will, 
 and then the light rippling dance— 
 
 And then the chorus ; 
 
IN OTHER CLIMES 
 
 403 
 
 i)ANCE. 3 
 
 and the Iayo twirls were on their feet again, making believe 
 to posture a little, while the sharp clear notes of the banjo 
 tinkled and tinkled, amid the steady swishing noise of the 
 water along the side of the boat. But all of a sudden there 
 was a startled cry of warning — the banjo was dropped on 
 the deck, and the Doctor sprung aft in a vain effort to 
 check what he had seen was coming ; the next moment the 
 great boom came heavily swinging along, accelerating its 
 pace as it went out to leeward, until there was a frightful 
 
 2 T) -2 
 
404 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 crash that seemed to tear the whole craft to pieces. And 
 then, in this wild lurch, what had happened ? Tilley was 
 the first to see. There was something in the water. He 
 tore <M his coat and slipped over the boat's side — heeding 
 nothing of the piercing screams of those he had left, but 
 shaking the wet from his eyes and nose and mouth, and 
 looking all around him like a Newfoundland dog. Then 
 he caught sight of a small floating object — some dozen 
 yards away — and he made for that : it was the yellow 
 Tam-o'-Shanter, he could see ; then he heard a half-stifled 
 cry just behind him, and turning round was just able to 
 catch hold of Carry Hodson before she sank a second time. 
 However, she was quite passive — perhaps she had been 
 stunned by a blow from the boom ; and he was an excellent 
 swimmer ; and he could easily keep her afloat — if only Jack 
 Huysen knew enough about sailing to get the boat back 
 speedily. It was in vain to think of swimming with her to 
 the shore ; the land was too far off ; and the weight of her 
 wet clothes was increasing. He looked after the boat ; it 
 seemed a terrible distance away ; but as far as he could 
 make out — through the water that was blinding his eyes — 
 they had got her round into the wind again and were no 
 doubt trying to make for him. 
 
 Meanwhile, Jack Huysen had been so thunderstruck by 
 what had occurred, Avhen his own carelessness or an awkward 
 gust of wind had caused the great boom to gybe, that for 
 some seconds he seemed quite paralysed, and of course all 
 this time the little craft was swinging along before the 
 breeze. The shrieks of the women bewildered him, more- 
 over. And then it occurred to him that he must get back 
 — somehow, anyhow ; and more by instinct than of know- 
 ledge he jammed down the helm, and rounded the boat into 
 the wind, where the big sail began to flop about with the 
 loose mainsheet dragging this way and that. And then 
 he set about trying little experiments — and in a frantic 
 nervousness all the same ; he knew, or he discovered, that 
 he must needs get in the mainsheet ; and eventually the 
 boat began to make uncertain progress — uncertain, because 
 he had been terrified, and was afraid to keep proper way on 
 her, so that she staggered up into the wind incessantly. 
 But this at all events kept them near the course they had 
 
IN OTHER CLIMES 405 
 
 come ; and from time to time she got ahead a bit ; and the 
 women had ceased their shrieking, and had subsided, the 
 one into a terrified silence, the other into frantic weeping 
 and clasping of her hands. 
 
 " Can't you — can't you look out ? Why don't you look 
 out for them ? " he cried, though he scarce knew what he 
 said, so anxious was he about the tiller and those puffs of 
 wind that made the boat heel over whenever he allowed the 
 sail to fill. 
 
 And then there was a cry — from Mrs. Lalor. 
 
 " Look — look — this way— you're going away from them." 
 
 He could only judge by the direction of her gaze ; he put 
 the boat about. She began to laugh, in a hysterical fashion. 
 
 " Oh yes, yes, we are getting nearer — we are getting 
 nearer — he sees us — Em, Em, look ! — poor Carry ! — Oh, 
 quick, quick with the boat — quick, quick, quick ! " 
 
 l>ut the wringing of her hands was of little avail ; and 
 indeed when they did eventually draw cautiously close to 
 the two people in the water, the business of getting them 
 dragged on board proved a difficult and anxious matter, for 
 the girl was quite unconscious and lay in their hands like a 
 corpse. The young Doctor was very much exhausted too ; 
 but at least he preserved his senses. He sat down for a 
 minute to recover his breath. 
 
 " Jack," he gasped, " put my coat round her — wrap her 
 warm — Mrs. Lalor, get off her boots and stockings — chafe 
 her feet and hands — quick." 
 
 And then he rose and went to where she was lying and 
 stooped over her. 
 
 "Yes, yes, her heart is beating — come away with that 
 coat, man." 
 
 But it was his own coat that Jack Huysen had quickly 
 taken off ; and when Carry Hodson was wrapped in it, and 
 when the women were doing what they could to restore her 
 circulation, he fetched the other coat for the young Doctor, 
 and made him put that on, though the latter declared he 
 was all right now. And then the Doctor took the tiller, 
 slacked out the mainsheet, and once more they were running 
 before the wind towards Fort George. Not a word had 
 been said about the cause of the mishap or its possible 
 consequences. 
 
4o6 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 These at first — and to Jack Huysen's inexpressible joy — • 
 seemed to be trivial enough. Immediately she had recovered 
 consciousness she sate up, and began to say a few words — 
 though with some difficulty ; and indeed, so brave was she, 
 and so determined to do something to relieve the obvious 
 anxiety of these good friends of hers, that when at length 
 they reached the landing-stage and got ashore she declared 
 that she was quite recovered, that she could walk to the 
 hotel as well as any of them, that she had never felt better 
 in her born days. Nay, she made a joke of the whole 
 matter, and of her heavy skirts, and of the possible contents 
 of Jack Huysen's coat-pockets ; and when they did reach 
 the hotel, and when she had changed her wet garments, she 
 came down again looking perfectly well — if a little bit tired. 
 
 It was not until the afternoon that she began to com- 
 plain of shiverings ; and then again, when dinner time 
 arrived, Mrs. Lalor came down Avith the message that 
 Carry had a slight headache, and would rather remain in 
 her room. Next morning, too, she thought she would 
 rather not get up ; she had a slight cough, and her breath- 
 ing was ditiicult ; she had most relief when she lay quite 
 still. 
 
 " What does this mean, Tom ? " Jack Huysen said — and 
 as if he feared the answer. 
 
 " I hope it means nothing at all," was the reply ; but the 
 young Doctor looked grave, and moved away as if he did 
 not wish to have any further talking. 
 
 However, there was no perceptible change for the worse 
 that day ; and Miss Carry, Avhen she could speak at all, 
 said that she was doing very well, and implored them to go 
 away on their usual excursions, and leave her to herself. 
 A servant might sit outside in the passage, she said ; if she 
 Avanted her, she could ring. Of course, this only sufficed 
 to set Emma Kerfoot into a fit of weeping and sobbing 
 — that Carry should think them capable of any such 
 heartlessness. 
 
 But on the following morning matters were much more 
 serious. She could hardly speak at all ; and when she did 
 manage to utter a few panting words she said it was a pain 
 in her chest that was troubling her — not much ; no, no, 
 not much, she said ; she wished they would all go away and 
 
IN OTHER CLIMES 407 
 
 amuse themselves ; the pain Avould leave ; she would be all 
 right by and by. 
 
 "Jack, look here," said the young Doctor, when they 
 were together ; " I'm afraid this is pneumonia — and a sharp 
 attack too," 
 
 " Is it dangerous ? " Huysen said quickly, and with rather 
 a pale face. 
 
 The answer to this was another question : 
 
 " She left her mother at home, didn't she ? " 
 
 " Yes," said he breathlessly. " Do you want to send for 
 her ? But that would be no use. Her mother could nob 
 travel just now ; she's too much of an invalid ; why, it was 
 she who sent Carry away on this holiday." 
 
 " Her father, then ? " 
 
 " Why, yes, he's at home just now. Shall I telegraph 
 for him ? " 
 
 " Xo — not yet — I don't want to frighten her. We'll see 
 in the morning." 
 
 But long before the morning came they discovered how 
 things were going with her. Late that night Mrs. Lalor, 
 who had undertaken to sit up till her sister should come 
 to relieve her, stole noiselessly along to the room of the 
 latter and woke her. 
 
 " Em, darling, who is Ronald ? " she whispered, 
 
 " Ilonald ? I don't know," was the answer — for she was 
 still somewhat confused, 
 
 " Carry is asking that one Eonald should be sent for — • 
 do come and see her, Em — I think she's wandering a little 
 — she says there's never any luck in the boat except when 
 Ronald is in it — -I don't understand it at all " 
 
 " But I do — I do now," said the girl, as she hastily got 
 up and put a dressing-gown and some WTaps around her, 
 " And you'll have to send for the Doctor at once, IMary — 
 he said he would not be in bed till two. She must be in 
 a fever — that's delirium — if she thinks she is in the High- 
 lands again." 
 
 And delirium it was, though of no violent kind. No, 
 she lay quite placidly ; and it was only at times that she 
 uttered a few indistinct words ; but those around her now 
 perceived that her brain had mixed up this Lake George 
 with that other Scotch lake they had heard of, and they 
 
4o8 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 guessed that it was about salmon-fishing she was thinking 
 when she said that it was Ronald that always brought good 
 luck to the boat. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 A CEALLEXGE. 
 
 On the evening of the day on which Agatha Gemmill had 
 made her portentous discovery about the secret interviews 
 between her sister and Ronald, Mr. Gemmill— a little, red- 
 headed man with shrewd blue eyes — came home in very 
 good spirits. 
 
 " Look here, Aggie — here's an invitation for you," he 
 was beginning — when he saw that something was wrong. 
 " What is it now ? " he asked. 
 
 And then the story was told him — and not without a 
 touch of indignation in the telling. But Mr. Gemmill did 
 not seem so horror-stricken as his wife had expected ; she 
 began to emphasise the various points ; and was inclined to 
 be angry with him for his coolness. 
 
 " Girls often have fancies like that — you know well 
 enough, Agatha," he said. " All you have to do is to take 
 a gentle way with her, and talk common sense to her, and 
 it will be all right. If you make a row, you will only drive 
 her into obstinacy. She will listen to reason ; she's not a 
 fool ; if you take a quiet and gentle way with her " 
 
 " A quiet and gentle way ! " his wife exclaimed. " I will 
 take no way with her at all — not I ! I'm not going to 
 have any responsibility of the kind. Back she goes to the 
 Highlands at once — that's all the way I mean to take with 
 her. See, there's a letter I've -written to mother." 
 
 " Then you mean to make a hash of this affair amongst 
 you," said he, with calm resignation. "You will merely 
 drive the girl into a corner ; and her pride will keep her 
 there " 
 
 " Oh yes, men always think that women are so easily 
 persuaded," his wife broke in. " Perhaps you would like 
 to try arguing with her yourself ? But, any way, I wash 
 my hands of the whole matter. I shall have her packed off 
 home at once." 
 
A CHALLENGE 409 
 
 " I don't think you will," the husband said quietly. " I 
 was going to tell you : the Lauders are giving a big dinner- 
 party on the 27th — that is a fortnight hence ; and here is 
 an invitation for the three of us ; and Frank Lauder as 
 good as admitted this morning that the thing was got up 
 for the very purpose of introducing Meenie to the old folk. 
 Well, then, I have already written and accepted ; and I 
 will tell you this — I'm not going to offend the old gentle- 
 man just because you choose to quarrel with your sister." 
 
 " Quarrel ? " she retorted. " Oh yes — she never can do 
 any wroug. She has made a fool of you Avith her pretty 
 eyes — as she does to every man that comes to the house. 
 Why, they're like a set of great babies when she's in the 
 room ; and you would think from the way they go on that 
 she was the Queen of Sheba — instead of the ill-tempered 
 little brat she is." 
 
 But Mrs. Gemmill was a sensible woman too. 
 
 " Of course we can't offend the old people. She'll have 
 to stay. But as soon as that is over, off she goes to the 
 Highlands again ; and there she can stop until she has 
 recovered her senses." 
 
 However, this invitation was but an additional grievance. 
 She went with it at once to Meenie's room. 
 
 " Look at that. Read that." 
 
 The girl glanced at the formal note — with no great 
 interest. 
 
 " Do you know what that means ? That was meant to 
 introduce you to Frank Lauder's family and friends." 
 
 " I do not wish to go," Meenie said perversely. 
 
 " But you'll have to go, for we have accepted for you. 
 \Ye can't offend and insult people simply because you are 
 bent on making a fool of yourself. But this is what I want 
 to say : I had intended sending you back to Inver-Mudal 
 at once ; but now you will have to stay with us another 
 fortnight. Very well, during that time I forbid you to have 
 any communication with that man, of any kind whatever— 
 do you hear ? " 
 
 She sate silent. 
 
 " Do you hear ? " 
 
 " Yes, I hoar," she said, 
 
 "Well?" 
 
4IO WHITE HEATHER 
 
 "Very well." 
 
 " But it is not very well," the elder sister said angrily. 
 " I want to know what you mean to do." 
 
 The answer Avas given with perfect calmness. 
 
 " I mean to do precisely as I have been doing. I am not 
 ashamed of anything I have done." 
 
 " What ? You are not ashamed ? Do you mean to tell 
 me that you will keep on meeting that man — in the public 
 streets — making a spectacle of yourself in the streets of 
 Glasgow — and bringing disgrace on yourself and your 
 family ? " 
 
 "You are talking like a mad woman," JMeenie said 
 proudly. 
 
 " You will see whether I act like one, I say you shall 
 not be allowed to misconduct yourself while you are under 
 this roof- — that I will make sure of." 
 
 " What will you do ? " the girl said, in a strangely taunting 
 tone : indeed, one could scarcely have believed that this 
 was Meenie that was speaking. " Lock me up in my room ? 
 they only do that in books. Besides, Mr. Gemmill would 
 prevent your doing anything so ridiculous." 
 
 " Oh, it's he that would come to let you out ? " the elder 
 sister said. " You've discovered that, have you ? What 
 more, I wonder ! " 
 
 But here the scene, which threatened to become more 
 and more stormy, came to a sudden end. Tiiere was a 
 sharp call from below — Mr. Gemmill having doubtless 
 overheard some of these wild words. 
 
 " Agatha, come downstairs at once ! " 
 
 So the girl was left once more alone — proud and pale 
 and trembling a little, but with her mind more obdurate 
 than ever. Nor would she go down to supper that night. 
 Mr. Gemmill went twice to the door of her room (his wife 
 would not budge a foot) and begged her to come down- 
 stairs. The lirst time she said she did not wish for any 
 supper. The second time she said that if her conduct 
 had been so disgraceful she was not fit to associate with 
 his family. And so, being by nature a kindly-hearted man, 
 he went away and got some food for her, and carried the 
 little tray to her room with his own hands — a proceeding that 
 only made his wife the angrier. Why should she be spoilt 
 
A CHALLENGE 411 
 
 and petted with such foolish indulgence ? Starvation was 
 the best cure for her pride. But of course he was like the 
 rest of the men — made simpletons of by a pair of girl's 
 gray eyes. 
 
 Alas ! all her pride and courage went from her in the 
 long dark hours of the night, and her sister's threats 
 assumed a more definite and terrible meaning. It was true 
 she had a fortnight's respite — during that fortnight she was 
 her own mistress and could do as slie pleased — but after ? 
 Would, she be shut up in that little hamlet in the northern 
 wilds, with absolutely no means of learning anything about 
 Ronald, not permitted to mention his name, cut off from 
 him as though he were in another world ? She saw month 
 after month go by — or year after year even- — with no word 
 or message coming to keep alive the fond hope in her 
 breast. He might even be dead without her knowing. 
 And how all too short this fortnight seemed, during which 
 she might still have some chance of seeing him and gaining 
 from him some assurance with regard to a future that 
 looked more than ever uncertain and vague. 
 
 The next day it had been arranged between them that 
 they were not to meet, for he was to be at home all that 
 day and busy ; but her anxiety was too great : she resolved 
 to go to his lodgings and ask for him. She had never 
 done that before ; but now the crisis was too serious to let 
 her heed what any one might say — indeed she did not 
 think for a moment about it. So all the morning she went 
 about the house, performing such small duties as had been 
 entrusted to her, and wondering when the heavy rain would 
 leave off. At last, about noon, when the dismal skies gave 
 no sign of clearing, she got her ulster and deerstalker's cap, 
 put on a thick pair of boots, and, armed with a stout 
 umbrella, went out into the black and dripping world. No 
 one had attempted to hinder her. 
 
 And yet it was with some curious sense of shame that 
 she timidly rang the bell when she reached these obscure 
 lodgings. The door was in a dusky entry ; the landlady 
 who answered the summons did not notice how the girl's 
 cheeks were unusually flushed when she asked if Mr. 
 Ronald Strang were at home, 
 
 "• Yes, he is," tlie woman said ; and then she hesitated, 
 
412 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 apparently not quite knowing whether slie should ask the 
 young lady to step in or not. 
 
 " Will you tell him that I should like to see him for a 
 moment — here ! " she said. 
 
 In less than a minute Ronald was with her — and he had 
 brought his cap in his hand ; for he had guessed who this 
 was ; and instinctively he knew that he could not ask her 
 to come within doors. But when she said she had something 
 to say to him, and turned to face the dismal day outside, he 
 could not but glance at the swimming pavements and the 
 murky atmosphere. 
 
 " On such a morning, Meenie " 
 
 " Ob, but I am well wrapped up," she said, quite happily 
 — for the mere sight of him had restored her courage, " and 
 you shall have the umbrella — yes — I insist— take it — well, 
 then, I ask you to take it as a favour, for I am not going 
 to have you get wet on my account." 
 
 Of course he took the umbrella — to hold over her ; and 
 so they went out into the wet streets. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you, Ronald," she said, looking up 
 with a face that told its own story of joy and confidence ; 
 " don't blame me ; I have been miserable ; I could not 
 help coming to ask you for a little — a little comfort, I think, 
 and hope " 
 
 " But what have you been doing to your eyes, Meenie, 
 darling ? What kind of a look is that in them ? " 
 
 " Well, I cried all last night — all the night through, I 
 believe," said she simply ; but there was no more crying in 
 her eyes, only light and love and gladness. "And now, the 
 moment I see you I think I must have been so foolish. The 
 moment I see you everything seems right ; I am no longer 
 afraid ; my heart is quite light and hopeful again." 
 
 " Ay, and what has been frightening you, then ? " 
 
 And then she told him all the story — as they walked 
 along the wet pavements, with the bedraggled passers-by 
 hurrying through the rain, and the tramway-cars and 
 omnibuses and carts and cabs keeping up their unceasing 
 roar. But Agatha's threats were no longer so terrible to 
 her — now that she had hold of Ronald's arm ; she glanced 
 up at him from time to time with eyes full of courage and 
 confidence ; a single glimpse of him had driven away all 
 
A CHALLENGE 413 
 
 these dire spectres and phantoms. Indeed, if the truth 
 were known, it was he who was most inchned to take this 
 news seriously ; though, of course, he did not show that to 
 her. No ; he affected to laugh at the idea that they could 
 be kept from communicating with each other : if she were 
 to be sent back to Inver-Mudal, he said, that was only 
 anticipating what must have happened in any case ; it 
 would no doubt be a pity to miss these few stolen minutes 
 from time to time ; but would not that be merely a spur to 
 further and constant exertion ? 
 
 " Ay, lass," said he, " if I could have any reasonable and 
 fair prospect to put before them, I would just go to your 
 friends at once ; but all the wishing in the world, and all 
 the work in the world, will not make next spring come any 
 the quicker ; and until I'm a certificated forester I'm loth 
 to bother Lord Ailine, or anybody else, about a place. But 
 what o' that ? It's not a long time ; and unless Mr. 
 TVeems is making a desperate fool o' me, I've a good 
 chance ; and Lord Ailine will do his best for me among 
 his friends, that I know well. In the meantime, if they will 
 not let you write to me " 
 
 " But, Bonald, how can they help my writing to you, or 
 coming to see you, if I wish ? " 
 
 " I was not thinking of your sister and her folk," he 
 answered — and he spoke rather gravely. "I was thinking 
 of your father and mother. Well, it is not a nice thing for 
 a young lass to be in opposition to her own folk : it's a sore 
 trouble to both sides ; and though she may be brave 
 enough at first, time will tell on her — especially when she 
 sees her own father and mother suffering through her 
 defiance of them." 
 
 " Then I am not to write to you, Eonald, if they say no ?" 
 she asked quickly, and with her face grown anxious again. 
 
 Well, it was a difficult question to answer off-hand ; 
 and the noise in the streets bothered him ; and he was 
 terriljly troubled about Meenie having to walk through the 
 rain and mud. 
 
 " Will you do this for me, Meenie ? " he said. " I cannot 
 bear to have ye getting wet like this. If we w^ere to get 
 into an omnibus, now, and go down the town, I know a 
 restaurant where we could go in and have a comfortable 
 
414 WHITE HEATHEk 
 
 corner, and be able to talk in peace and quiet. You and 
 I have never broken bread together, quite by ourselves. 
 Will you do that "i " 
 
 She did not hesitate for a moment. 
 
 " Yes — if you think so — if you wish it," she said. 
 
 And so they went down to the restaurant, which was 
 rather a big place, cut into small compartments ; and one 
 of these they had to themselves, for it was but half-past 
 twelve- as yet; and by and by a frugal little lunch was 
 before them. The novelty of the situation was so amusing 
 — to Moenie at least — that for a time it drove graver 
 thoughts away altogether. She acted as mistress of the 
 feast ; and would insist on his having this or that ; and 
 wondered that he had never even tasted Worcester sauce ; 
 and was altogether tenderly solicitous about him ; whereas 
 he, on the other hand, wished not to be bothered by any 
 of these things, and wanted only to know what Meenie 
 meant to do when she went back to Inver-Mudal. 
 
 "But you must tell me what you would have me do," 
 she said timidly. 
 
 "Well, I don't want you to quarrel with your mother 
 and father on my account, and be living in constant 
 Avretchedness. If they say you are not to write to me, 
 don't write " 
 
 " But you said a little while ago there would be no 
 difficulty in our hearing from each other," she said, with 
 Avide open eyes. 
 
 " I have been thinking about it, good lass," said he, " and 
 I don't want you to anger your folk and have a heavy 
 heart in consequence. In the meantime you must look to 
 them — you must do what they say. By and by it may be 
 different ; in the meantime I don't want you to get into 
 trouble " 
 
 " Then it's little you know how this will end, Eonald," 
 she said, rather sadly. " I have thought over it more than 
 you have. If I go back to Inver-Mudal prepared to do 
 everything they wish me to do — I mean my mother, not 
 my father, for I don't know what he might say — then it 
 isn't only that you will never hear from me, and that I 
 shall never hear a word from you ; there's more than that : 
 I shall never see you again in this world." 
 
A CHALLENGE 415 
 
 He turned very pale ; and, scarcely knowing what he 
 did, he stretched his hand over the narrow little table, and 
 seized her hand, and held it firm. 
 
 -' I will not let you go, then. I will keep you here in 
 Glasgow, with me, Meenie. Do you think I can let you go 
 away for ever ? For you are mine. I don't care who says 
 ay or no ; you are mine ; my own true-hearted girl ; the 
 man or woman is not born that will sunder us two." 
 
 Of course he had to speak in a low tone ; but the grip 
 of his hand was sufficient emphasis. And then he said, 
 regarding her earnestly and yet half-hesitatingly — 
 
 "There is one way that Avould give you the right to 
 judge what was best for yourself — that would give you 
 the right to act or say what you pleased — even to leave 
 your father's house, if that was necessary. Will you 
 become my wife, Meenie, before you go back to Inver- 
 Mudal ? " 
 
 She started, as well she might ; but he held her hand 
 firm. 
 
 " The thing is simple. There is my brother the minister. 
 We could walk over to his house, go through the ceremony 
 in a few minutes, and you could go back to your sister's, 
 and no one be a bit the wiser. And then surely you would 
 be less anxious about the future ; and if you thought it 
 right to send me a letter, you would be your own mistress 
 as to that " 
 
 " It's a terrible thing, Ronald ! " 
 
 " I don't see that, Meenie, dear ; I've heard of more 
 tliau one youug couple taking their fate in their own 
 hand that way. And there's one thing about it — it ' maks 
 sikker.' " 
 
 They had some anxious talk over this sudden project — 
 he eager, she frightened — until the restaurant began to get 
 crowded with its usual middle-day customers. Then Ronald 
 paid his modest score, and they left ; and now, as they 
 made away for the western districts of the city, the day was 
 clearing up somewhat, and at times a pale silvery gleam 
 shone along the Avet pavements. And still Meenie was 
 undecided ; and sometimes she would timidly steal a glance 
 at him, as if to assure herself and gain courage ; and some- 
 times she would wi^^tfully look away along this busy Sauehie- 
 
4i6 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 hall Street, as if her future and all the coming years were 
 somehow at the end of it. As for him, now that he had 
 hit upon this daring project, he was eager in defence of it ; 
 and urged her to give her consent there and then ; and 
 laboured to prove to her how much happier she would be 
 at Inver-Mudal — no matter what silence or space of time 
 might interpose between them — Avith the knowledge that 
 this indissoluble bond united them. Meenie remained 
 silent for the most part, with wistful eyes ; but she clung to 
 his arm as if for protection ; and they did not hasten their 
 steps on their homeward way. 
 
 When they parted she had neither said yes nor no ; but 
 she had promised to write to him that night, and let him 
 know her decision. And in the morning, he got this brief 
 message — the handwriting was not a little shaky, but he had 
 scarcely time to notice that, so rapid was the glance he 
 threw over the trembling lines : — 
 
 " Dear Eoxald — If it can be done quite, quite secretly 
 —yes. " L. M." 
 
 The signature, it may be explained, consisted of the 
 initials of a pet name that he had bestowed on her. She 
 had found it lirst of all in some of those idle verses that he 
 now copied out for her from time to time ; and she had 
 asked him how he liad dared to address her in tliat way, 
 while as yet they were but the merest acquaintances. How- 
 ever, she did not seem very angry. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 A Wedding. 
 
 This golden-radiant city of Glasgow ! — with its thousand 
 thousand activities all awakening to join the noise and din 
 of the joyous morning, and its over-arching skies full of a 
 white light of hope and gladness and fair assurance of the 
 future. The clerks and warehousemen were hurrying by to 
 their desks and counters ; work-folk were leisurely getting 
 home for their well-earned breakfast ; smart young men and 
 slim-waisted women were already setting the shop windows 
 
A WEDDING 417 
 
 to i'iL,4its ; great lorries ^Yere clattering their loads of long 
 iron bars through the crowded streets ; and omnibuses and 
 tramway-cars and railway-trains were bringing in from all 
 points of the compass their humming freight of eager human 
 bees to this mighty and dusky hive. But dusky it did not 
 appear to him, as he was speedily making his way across 
 the town towards his brother's house. It was all transfigured 
 and glorified — the interminable thoroughfares, the sky- 
 piercing chimneys, the masses of warehouses, the overhead 
 network of telegraph-lines, the red-funnelled steamers moving 
 slowly away through the pale blue mist of the Broomielaw : 
 all these were spectral in a strange kind of way, and yet 
 beautiful ; and he could not but think that the great mass 
 of this busy multitude was well content with the pleasant 
 morning, and the nebulous pale-golden sunlight, and the 
 glimpses of long cirrus cloud hanging far above the city's 
 smoke. For the moment he had ceased to hang his happi- 
 ness on the chance of his succeeding with the Highland and 
 Agricultural Society. Something far more important — and 
 wonderful — was about to happen. He was about to secure 
 Meenie to himself for ever and ever. Xot a certificate in 
 forestry, but Meenie's marriage-lines — that was what would 
 be in his pocket soon ! And after ?— well, the long months, 
 or even years, might have to go by ; and she might be far 
 enough away from him, and condemned to silence — but 
 she would be his wife. 
 
 And then, just as he had reached the south side of the 
 river, he paused — paused abruptly, as if he had been struck. 
 For it had suddenly occurred to him that perhaps, after all, 
 this fine project was not feasible. He had been all intent 
 on gaining Meenie's acquiescence ; and, having got that, 
 had thought of nothing but winning over the Reverend 
 Andrew into being an accomplice ; but now he was quickly 
 brought up by this unforeseen obstacle — could Meenie, not 
 being yet twenty-one, go through even this formal ceremony 
 without the consent of her parents ? It seemed to him 
 that she could not — from his reading of books. He knew 
 nothing of the marriage law of Scotland ; but it appeared 
 to him, from what he could recollect of his reading, that a 
 girl under twenty-one could not marry without her parents' 
 consent. And this was but the letting in of waters. There 
 
 2 E 
 
41 8 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 were all kinds of other things — the necessity of having lived 
 a certain time in this or that parish ; the proclamation of 
 banns — which would be merely an invitation to her relatives 
 to interfere ; and so on. He resumed his walk ; but with 
 less of gay assurance. He could only endeavour to fortify 
 himself with the reflection that in the one or two instances 
 of which he had heard of this very thing being done the 
 young people had been completely successful and had kept 
 their secret until they judged the time fitting for the dis- 
 closing of it. 
 
 When he reached his brother's house, the Eeverend 
 Andrew was in his study, engaged in the composition of 
 the following Sunday's sermon ; he was seated at a little 
 table near the fire ; a pot of tea on the chimney-piece ; a 
 large Bible and Cruden's Concordance lying open on the 
 sofa beside him. The heavy, bilious-hued man rose leisurely, 
 and rubbed his purplish hands, and put them. underneath 
 his coat-tails, as he turned his back to the fire, and stood on 
 the hearth-rug, regarding his brother. 
 
 " Well, Ronald, lad, ye're not frightened for a cold 
 morning, to come out with a jacket like that." 
 
 " The morning's well enough," said Ronald briefly ; and 
 forthwith he laid before his brother the errand on which he 
 had come, and besought his assistance, if that were practi- 
 cable. He told the story simply and concisely ; not plead- 
 ing any justification ; but rather leaving the facts to speak 
 for themselves. And would his brother help ? — in other 
 words, supposing there were no other obstacle in the way, 
 would Andrew perform this ceremony for them, and so 
 render their future proof against all contingencies ? He 
 was not asked for any advice ; he was not asked to assume 
 any responsibility ; would he merely exercise this clerical 
 function of his on their behalf — seeing how urgent matters 
 were ? 
 
 The Reverend Andrew was very much puzzled, not to say 
 perturbed. He began to walk up and down the room ; 
 his head bent forward, his hands still underneath his 
 coat-tails. 
 
 " You put me in a box, Ronald, and that's a fact," said 
 he. " I'm thinking my wishes as a brother will be for set- 
 ting themselves up against my duty as a minister of the 
 
A WEDDING 4.19 
 
 Gospel, For I dare not counsel any j'oung girl to defy the 
 authority of her own people " 
 
 " She has not asked you for any counsel," Ronald said 
 curtly. " And besides we don't know what the authority 
 might be. I dare say, if her father knew all the circum- 
 stances, he would be on our side ; and I suppose he has as 
 muchright to speak as her little spitfire of a mother." 
 
 This was hard on Mrs. Douglas, who had always treated 
 Ronald with courtesy — if of a lofty and distant kind ; but 
 impetuous young people, when their own interests are at 
 stake, are seldom just to their elders. However, the Rev- 
 erend Andrew now began to say that, if he were altogether 
 an outsider, nothing would give hiui greater pleasure than 
 to sec this wish of his brother's accomplished. He had 
 observed much, he said ; he had heard more ; he knew the 
 saving iufiuence that this gij-l bad exercised on Ronald's 
 life ; he could pray for nothing better than that these two 
 should be joined in lawful bonds, towards the strengthening 
 of each other, and the establishment of a mutual hope and 
 trust. 
 
 " But it would never do for me to be mixed up in it, 
 Rouald," he continued. "When it came to be known, 
 think of what ill-minded folk might say. I must have 
 regard to my congregation as well as to myself ; and what 
 if they were to accuse me of taking part in a conspiracy ? " 
 
 " A conspiracy ? " Ronald repeated sharply. " What 
 kind of a conspiracy ? To steal away a rich heiress — is 
 that it ? God bless me, the lass has nothing beyond what 
 she stands up in ! There's the sealskin coat Glengask gave 
 her ; they can have that back, and welcome. AVhat con- 
 spiracy would ye make out ? " 
 
 " No, no, lad ; I'm thinking what ill tongues might say." 
 
 " TiCt them lick their own venom till they rot ! What 
 care I ?" ^^, , " 
 
 '• Yes, yes, yes, lad ; but ye're not a placed minister ; 
 ye've but yourself and her to think of. Now, just wait a 
 bit." 
 
 He had gone back to his chair by the fire, and was 
 seated there, staring into the red coals. 
 
 " I suppose you've heard of Dugald Manuering, of 
 Airdrie ? " he said, at length. 
 
 2 E 2 
 
420 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 " Yes, indeed," was the answer. " Meenie — that is — • 
 Miss Donglas and I went to hear him the Sunday before 
 last, but there was not a seat to be got anywhere— no, nor 
 standing-room either." 
 
 This ]Mr. Maunering was a young divine of the U.P. 
 Church who had an extraordinary popularity at this time 
 among the young people of the south of Scotland, and 
 especially the young people of Glasgow, and that from a 
 variety of causes. He was a singularly eloquent preacher — 
 flowing, ornate, and poetical ; he was entirely unconven- 
 tional, not to say daring, in his choice of subjects ; his 
 (juotations were as commonly from Shakes^x-'are and Cole- 
 lidge and Byron and Browning as from the usual pulpit 
 authorities ; he was exceedingly handsome, and rather 
 delicate-looking — pale and large-eyed and long-haired ; and 
 he had refused the most flattering offers — ■" calls " is the 
 proper word — from various west-end congregations of 
 Glasgow, because he considered it his duty to remain 
 among the mining-folk of Airdrie. When he did accept 
 an invitation to preach in this or that city church, the 
 young people from far and near came flocking to hear him ; 
 and a good many of their elders too, though these were not 
 without certain prickings of conscience as to the propriety 
 of devoting the Lord's day to what was remarkably like a 
 revel in pure literature. 
 
 " Dugald's coming over here this afternoon," the elder 
 brother continued, as if he were communing with himself. 
 " He's an enthusiastic kind of fellow — he'll stick at nothing, 
 if he thinks it's right. I wish, now, I had that portrait — 
 but ]\raggie's away to school by this time ^" 
 
 " What portrait ? " Eonald asked. 
 
 Thfe Eeverend Andrew did not answer, but rose, and 
 slowly and thoughtfully left the room. When he came back 
 he had in his hand a photograph of Meenie framed in a 
 little frame of crimson velvet, and that he put on the table : 
 Ronald recognised it swiftly enough. 
 
 " He has got an eye for a handsome young lass, has 
 Dugald," the minister said shrewdly. " I'll just have that 
 lying about, as it were. Ay, it's a straightforward, frank 
 face, that ; and one that has nothing to hide. I'll just 
 have it lying about when Dugald comes over this after- 
 
A WEDDING 421 
 
 uoon, and see if he doesna pick it up and have a good 
 look at it." 
 
 " But what mean ye, Andrew ? " his brother said. 
 
 " Why, then, lad, I think I'll just tell Dugald the whole 
 story ; and if he's not as hot-headed as any of ye to carry 
 the thing through, I'll be surprised. And I suppose if he 
 marries ye, that's just as good as any one else ? — for to 
 tell you the truth, Ronald, I would rather not be mixed up 
 in it myself." 
 
 " And the banns ? " said Ronald quickly. " And the 
 length of time in the parish ? And the consent of her 
 mother and father ? " 
 
 The minister waved his hand with a superior air ; these 
 were trivial things, not to say popular errors ; what had 
 been of real consequence was the extent to which he dared 
 implicate himself. 
 
 " I will not say," he observed slowly, "that I might not, 
 in other circumstances, have preferred the pablication of 
 banns. It would have been more in order, and more 
 seemly ; for I do not like the interference of the secular 
 arm in what should be a solely sacred office. Besides that, 
 there is even a premium put on publicity, as is right ; five 
 shillings for the one proclamation, but only half-a-crown if 
 you have them proclaimed two following Sundays. Well, 
 well, we mustn't complain ; I see sufficient reason ; from 
 all I can learn — and you were ever a truth-teller, Ronald, 
 in season and out of season, as well I mind — it seems to 
 me you are fulfilling the laws of God, and breaking none of 
 man's making ; so just you go to the Registrar of the parish, 
 and give him the particulars, and deposit a half-crown as 
 the worthy man's fee, and then, eight days hence, you call 
 on him again, and he'll give you a certificate entitling you 
 to be married in any house or church in the Kingdom of 
 Scotland. And if there's no other place handy, ye're wel- 
 come to the room you're standing in at this minute ; though 
 I would as lief have the marriage take place anywhere else, 
 and that's the truth, Ronald ; for although I can defend 
 what little I have done to my own conscience, I'm no sure 
 I should like to stand against the clishmaclavers of a lot of 
 old wives." 
 
 " Where am I to find the Registrar, Andrew?" he asked : 
 
422 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 he was a little bewildered by the rapidity Avitli which this 
 crisis seemed approaching. 
 
 " I suppose you've a good Scotch tongue in your head, 
 and can ask for the loan of a Directory," was the laconic 
 answer. The Reverend Andrew had taken up the photo- 
 graph again, and was regarding it. " An honest, sweet face ; 
 as pretty a lass as ever a man was asked to work and strive 
 for and to win. Well, I do not wonder, Eonald, lad — with 
 
 such a prize before you But off you go now, for 1 
 
 must get to my work again ; and if you come over and have 
 a cup of tea in the afternoon, between four and five, I 
 suppose Dugald Mannering will be here, and maybe ye'll be 
 the best hand to explain the whole situation of affairs." 
 
 And so Ronald left to seek out the Registrar ; and as 
 he went away through the busy and sunlit streets, he was 
 asking himself if there was not one of all those people who 
 could guess the secret that he carried with him in his bosom, 
 and that kept his heart warm there. 
 
 The Rev. Dugald Mannering, as it turned out, was not 
 nearly so eager and enthusiastic as Ronald's brother had 
 prophesied ; for it behoves a youthful divine to maintain a 
 serious and deliberative countenance, when weighty matters 
 are put before him for judgment. But afterwards, when the 
 two young men were together walking away home through 
 the dusky streets of Glasgow, the U.P. minister became 
 m.uch more frank and friendly and communicative. 
 
 " I see your brother's position well enough, ]\Ir. Strang," 
 said he. " I can understand his diffidence ; and it is but 
 right that he should be anxious not to give the envious and 
 ill-natured a chance of talking. He is willing to let the 
 ceremony take place in his house, because you are his 
 brother. If I were you, I would rather have it take place 
 anywhere else — ^both as being fairer to him, and as being 
 more likely to ensure secrecy, which you seem to think 
 necessary." 
 
 Ronald's face burned red : should he have to ask Meenie 
 to come to his humVile lodgings, with the wondering, and 
 perhaps discontented and suspicious, landlady, as sole on- 
 looker ? 
 
 " AVell, now," the young preacher continued, " when I 
 come to Glasgow, there are two old maiden aunts of mine 
 
A WEDDING ^423 
 
 who are good enough to put me up. They live in Rose 
 Street, Garnethill ; and they're very kind old people. Now 
 I shouldn't wonder at all if they took it into their head to 
 befriend the young lady on this occasion — I mean, if you 
 will allow me to mention the circumstances to them ; indeed, 
 I am sure they would ; probably they would be delighted ; 
 indeed I can imagine their experiencing a fearful joy on 
 finding this piece of romance suddenly tumbling into the 
 middle of their prim and methodical lives. The dear old 
 creatures ! — I will answer for them. I will talk to them as 
 soon as I get home now. And do you think you could per- 
 suade Miss Douglas to call on them ? " 
 
 Ronald hesitated. 
 
 " If they were to send her a message, perhaps " 
 
 "When are you likely to see her ? " 
 
 " To-morrow morning, at eleven," he said promptly. 
 
 " Very well. I will get one of the old ladies to write a 
 little note to Miss Douglas ; and I will post it to you to- 
 night ; and to-morrow morning, if she is so inclined, bring 
 her along and introduce yourself and her — will you ? I shall 
 be there, so there won't be any awkwardness ; and I would 
 not hurry you, but I've to get back to Airdrie to-morrow 
 afternoon. Is it a bargain ? " 
 
 " So far as I am concerned — yes ; and many thanks to 
 ye," Ronald said, as he bade his companion good-bye and 
 went away home to his solitary lodgings. 
 
 But when, the next morning, in Randolph Terrace — and 
 after he had rapidly told lier all that had happened — he 
 suggested that she should there and then go along and call 
 on the Misses Manuering, IMeenie started back in a kind of 
 fright, and a flush of embarrassment overspread her face. 
 And why — why — he asked, in wonder. 
 
 " Oh, Ronald," she said, glancing hurriedly at her costume, 
 " these — these are the first of your friends you have asked 
 me to go to see, and do you think I could go like tJm ? " 
 
 " This " meant that she had on a plain and serviceable 
 ulster, a smart little hat with a ptarmigan's wing on it, a 
 pair of not over-new gloves, and so forth. Ronald was 
 amazed. He considered that JMeenie was always a wonder 
 of neatness and symmetry, no matter how she was attired. 
 And to think that any one might find fault with her ! 
 
424 WHtTE HEATHER 
 
 " Besides, they're not my friends," lie exclaimed, *' I 
 never saw them in my life." 
 
 " They know Avho your brother is," she said. " Do you 
 think I would give any one occasion to say you were marry- 
 ing a slattern ? Just look." 
 
 She held out her hands ; the gloves were certainly worn. 
 
 " Take them off, and show them the prettiest-shaped 
 hands in Glasgow town," said he. 
 
 " And my hair — I know it is all rough and untidy — isn't 
 it now ? " she said, feeling about the rim of her hat. 
 
 "Well, it is a little," he confessed, " only it's far prettier 
 that way than any other." 
 
 " Eonald," she pleaded, " some other time — on Friday 
 morning — will Friday morning do ? " 
 
 " Oh, I know^ what you want," said he. " You want to 
 go and get on your sealskin coat and your velvet hat and a 
 new pair of gloves and all the rest ; and do you know what 
 the old ladies are like to say when they see you ? — they'll 
 say, ' Here's a swell young madam to be thinking of marry- 
 ing a man that may have but a couple o' pounds a week or 
 so at first to keep house on.' " 
 
 " Oh, will they think that ? " she said quickly. " Well, 
 ril — I'll go now, Eonald — but please make my hair smooth 
 behind — and is my collar all right "i " 
 
 And yet it was not such a very dreadful interview, after 
 all ; for the two old dames made a mighty fuss over this 
 pretty young creature ; and vied with each other in petting 
 her, and cheering her, and counselling her ; and w'hen the 
 great event was spoken of in which they also were to play 
 a part they affected to talk in a lower tone of voice, as if it 
 were something mysterious and tragic and demanding the 
 greatest caution and circumspection. As for the young 
 minister, he sate rather apart, and allowed his large soft eyes 
 to dwell upon JMeenie, with something of wistfulness in his 
 look. He could do so with impunity, in truth, for the old 
 ladies entirely monopolised her. They patted her on the 
 shoulder, to give her courage ; they spoke as if they them- 
 selves had gone through the wedding ceremony a hundred 
 times. Was she sure she would rather have no other wit- 
 nesses ? Would she stand up at the head of the room 
 now, and they would show her all she would have to do ? 
 
A WEDDING 425 
 
 And they stroked lier hand ; and purred about her ; and 
 were mysteriously elated over their share in this romantic 
 business ; insomuch that they altogether forgot Eonald — 
 Avho was left to talk politics with the absent-eyed young 
 parson. 
 
 Between this interview and the formal wedding a whole 
 week had to elapse ; and during that time Agatha Gemmill 
 saw fit to deal in quite a different way with her sister. She 
 was trying reason now, and persuasion, and entreaty ; and 
 that at least was more agreeable to Meenie than being 
 driven into a position of angry antagonism. Moreover, 
 Meenie did not seek to vaunt her self-Avill and independ- 
 ence too openly. Her meetings with Eonald were few ; 
 and she made no ostentatious parade of them. She was 
 civil to ]\Ir. Frank Lauder when he came to the house. 
 Indeed, jMr. Gremmill, Avho arrogated to himself the success 
 of this milder method of treating the girl, was bold enough 
 to declare that everything was going on well ; Meenie had 
 as much common sense as most folk ; she A\'as not likely 
 to throw herself away ; and when once she had seen old 
 Mr. Lauder's spacious mansion, and picture galleries, and 
 what not, and observed the style in which the family lived, 
 he made no doubt but that they would soon have to wel- 
 come Frank liauder as a brother-in-law. 
 
 Trembling, flushed at times, and pale at others, and 
 clinging nervously to Ronald's arm, Meenie made her way 
 up this cold stone staircase in Garnethill, and breathless 
 and agitated she stood on the landing, while he rang the 
 bell. 
 
 " Oh, Ronald, I hope I am doing right," she murmured. 
 
 " We will let the future be the judge of that, my good 
 girl," he said, with modest confidence. 
 
 The old dames almost smothered her with their atten- 
 tions and kindness ; and they had a bouquet for her — all 
 in white, as became a bride ; and they had prepared other 
 little nick-nacks for her adornment, so that they had to 
 carry her off to their own room, for the donning of these. 
 And when they Ijronght her back — rose-red she was, and 
 timid, and trembling — each of them had one of her hands, 
 as if she was to be their gift to give away ; and very im- 
 portant and mysterious were they about the shutting of the 
 
426 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 doors, and the conducting the conversation in Avhispers. 
 Then the minister came forward, and showed them with a 
 little gesture of his hand where they should stand before him. 
 The ceremonial of a Scotch wedding is of the simplest ; 
 but the address to the young people thus entering life 
 together may be just anything you please. And in truth 
 there was a good deal more of poetry than of theology in 
 these mellifluent sentences of the Rev. Mr. Mannering's, as 
 he spoke of the obligations incurred by two young folk 
 separating themselves from all others and resolved upon 
 going through the world's joys and sorrows always side by 
 side ; and the old dames were much affected ; and when 
 he went on to quote the verses, 
 
 " And OH her lover's arm slie leant. 
 
 And round Iter icaid she felt it fold, 
 And far across the hills they iveut 
 la that new Korld icliich is the old," 
 
 they never thought of asking whether the lines were quite 
 apposite ; they were sobbing unaffectedly and profusely ; 
 and Meenie's eyes were rather wet too. And then, when it 
 was all over, they caught her to their arms as if she had 
 been their own ; and would lead her to the sofa, and over- 
 whelm her with all kinds of little attentions and caresses. 
 Cake and wine, too — of course she must have some cake 
 and mne ! 
 
 " Should I, Ronald ? " she said, looking up, Avith her 
 eyes all wet and shining and laughing : it was her first 
 appeal to the authority ot^ her husband. 
 
 " x\s you like — as you like, surely." 
 
 But when they came to him he gently refused. 
 
 " Not on your wedding day ! " the old ladies exclaimed — ■ 
 and then he raised the glass to his lips ; and they did not 
 notice that he had not touched it when he put it down 
 again. 
 
 And so these two were married now — whatever the 
 future might have in store for them ; and in a brief space 
 of time — as soon, indeed, as she could tear herself away 
 from these kind friends, she had dispossessed herself of 
 her little bits of bridal finery ; and had bade a long and 
 lingering good-bye to Ronald ; and was stealing back to 
 her sister's house. - • ■ 
 
IN DARKENED WAYS 427 
 
 CHAPTER XLIY. 
 
 IN DAEKENED WAYS. 
 
 It was with feelings not to be envied that Jack Huysen 
 stalked up and down the verandah in front of this Fort 
 George hotel, or haunted the long, echoing corridors, eager 
 to question any one who had access to the sick room. AH 
 the mischief seemed to be of bis doing ; all the help and 
 counsel and direction in this time of distress seemed to be 
 afforded by his friend Tilley. It was he — that is, Huysen 
 — whose carelessness had led to the boating catastrophe ; 
 it was the young Doctor who had plunged into the lake 
 and saved Carry's life. Not only that, but it was on his 
 shoulders that there now seemed to rest the burden of 
 saving her a second time ; for she had gone from bad to 
 worse ; the fever had increased rapidly ; and while Doctor 
 Tilley was here, there, and everywhere in his quiet but per- 
 sistent activity, taking elaborate precautions about the 
 temperature of the room, instructing the two trained nurses 
 whom he had telegraphed for from New York, and pacify- 
 ing the mental vagaries of the patient as best he might, 
 what could Jack Huysen do but wander about like an 
 uneasy spirit, accusing himself of having wrought all this 
 evil, and desperately conscious that he conld be of no use 
 whatever in mitigating its results. 
 
 She was not always delirious. For the most part she lay 
 moaning slightly, breathing with the greatest difficulty, and 
 complaining of that constant paiu in her chest ; while her 
 high pulse and temperature told how the fever was rather 
 gaining upon her than abating. But then again, at times, 
 her face would grow flushed ; and the beautiful soft black 
 eyes would grow strangely bright ; and she would talk in 
 panting whispers, in an eager kind of way, and as if she 
 had some secret to tell. And always the same delusion 
 occupied her mind — that this was Loch Naver ; that they 
 had got into trouble somehow, because Ronald was not 
 in the boat ; that they had sent for Ronald, but he 
 had gone away ; and so forth. And sometimes she 
 uttered bitter reproaches ; Ronald had been ill-treated by 
 some one ; nay, she herself had been to blame ; ajid who 
 
428 WHITE HE A THEk 
 
 was to make np to him for what he had suffered at her 
 hands ? 
 
 " Not that he cared," she said, rather proudly aud con- 
 temptuously, one hushed evening that the Doctor was 
 trying to soothe her into (|uietude. " No, no. Ronald care 
 what a conceited scribbling schoolboy said about him ? 
 No ! I should think not. Perhaps he never knew — indeed, 
 I think he never knew. He never knew that all our friends 
 in Chicago were asked to look on and see him lectured, 
 and patronised, and examined. Oh ! so clever the news- 
 paper-writer was — with his airs of criticism and patronage ! 
 But the coward that he was — the coward — to strike in the 
 dark — to sit in his little den and strike in the dark I Why 
 didn't Jack Huysen drag him out ? Why didn't he make 
 hun sign his name, that we could tell who this was with his 
 braggart airs ? The coward ! Why, Ronald would have 
 felled him ! No ! no ! He would not have looked the 
 way the poor pretentious fool was going. He would have 
 laughed. Doctor, do you know who he was ? Did you 
 ever meet him ? " 
 
 " But who, Miss Carry ? " he said, as he patted her hot 
 hand. 
 
 She looked at him wonderingly. 
 
 " Why, don't you know ? Did you never hear ? The 
 miserable creature that was allowed to speak ill of our 
 Ronald. Ah ! do you think I have forgotten ? Does Jack 
 Huysen think I have forgotten ? No, I will not forget — • 
 you can tell him, I will not forget — I will not forget — I will 
 not forget — " 
 
 She was growing more and more vehement ; and to 
 pacify her he had to assure her that he himself would see 
 this matter put straight ; and that it was all right, and that 
 ample amends would be made. 
 
 Of course, he paid no great attention to these delirious 
 wanderings ; but that same evening, when he had gone into 
 the smoking-room to report to Jack Huysen how things 
 were going, this complaint of IMiss Carry's happened to 
 recur to his mind. 
 
 " Look here, Jack, what's this that she's always talking 
 about — seems to worry her a good deal— some newspaper 
 article — and you're mixed up in it, too — something you 
 
IN DARKENED WAYS 429 
 
 appear to have said or clone about that fellow her father 
 took sucli a fancy for — I mean, when they were in Scot;- 
 land- " 
 
 " Oh, I know," said the editor, and he blushed to the 
 very roots of his long-flowing hair. " I know. But it's an 
 old story. It's all forgotten now." 
 
 "Well, it is not," the young Doctor said, "and that's the 
 fact. She worries about it continually. Very strange, now, 
 how her mind just happened to take that bent. I don't 
 remember that we were talking much about the Scotch 
 Highlands. But they must have been in her head when she 
 fell ill ; and now it's nothing else. Well, what is it about 
 the newspaper article, anyway ? " 
 
 "Why, nothing to make a fuss about," Jack Huysen said, 
 but rather uneasily. " I thought it was all forgotten. She 
 said as much. Wonder you don't remember the article — 
 suppose you missed it — but it was about this same High- 
 land fellow, and some verses of his — it was young Eegan 
 wrote it — confound him, I'd have kicked him into Lake 
 Michigan before I let him write a line in the paper, if I'd 
 have known there was going to be this trouble about it. 
 And I don't think now there w^as much to find fault with — 
 I only glanced over it before sending it to her, and it 
 seemed to mc favourable enough — of course, there was a 
 little of the de haut en has business — you know how young 
 fellows like to write — but it was favourable — very favour- 
 able, I should say — however, she chose to work up a pretty 
 high old row on the strength of it when she came home, 
 and I had my work cut out for me before I could pacify 
 her. Wliy, you don't say she's at that again ? Women are 
 such curious creatures ; they hold on to things so ; I wonder, 
 now, why it is she takes such an interest in that fellow — 
 after all this time ? " 
 
 " Just as likely as not the merest coincidence- — some 
 trifle that got hold of her brain when she first became 
 delirious," the young Doctor said. " I suppose the boating, 
 and the lake, and all that, brought back recollections of the 
 Highlands ; and she seems to have been fascinated by the 
 life over there — the wildness of it caught her imagination, 
 I suppose. She must have been in considerable danger 
 ouce or twice, I should guess ; or perhaps she is mixing 
 
430 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 that up with the mishap of tlie other day. AYell, I know I 
 wish her father were here. We can't do more than what 
 is being done ; still, I wish he were here. If he can get 
 through to Glen Falls to-night, you may depend on it he'll 
 come along somehow." 
 
 By this time Jack Huysen was nervously pacing up 
 and down — there was no one but themselves in the 
 room, 
 
 " Now, look here, Tom," he said, presently, " I wish you 
 would tell me, honour bright : was it a squall that caught 
 the boat, or was it downright carelessness on my part ? I 
 may as well know. I can't take more shame to myself 
 anyhow — and to let you jump in after her, too, when I'm a 
 better swimmer than you are — I must have lost my head 
 altogether — — " 
 
 " And much good you'd have done if you had jumped 
 iu," the Doctor said, " and left the two women to manage 
 the boat. How should we have got picked up, then ? " 
 
 " But about that gybing, now — was it my fault ? " 
 
 " No, it was mine," the Doctor said curtly. " I shouldn't 
 have given up the tiller. Fact is, the girls were just mad 
 about that ' Dancing iu the Barn ' ; and I was fool 
 enough to yield to them. I tell you. Jack, it isn't half as 
 easy as it looks steering a boat that's running fair before 
 the wind ; I don't blame you at all ; I dare say there was 
 a nasty puff that caught you when you Averen't looking ; 
 anyhow, it's a blessing no one was hit by the boom — that 
 was what I feared at first for Miss Hodson when I found 
 her insensible — I was afraid she had been hit about the 
 head " 
 
 " And you don't think it was absolute carelessness ? " the 
 other said quickly. " Mind, I was steering straight for the 
 pier, as you said." 
 
 " Oh, well," said the young Doctor evasively, " if you had 
 noticed in time, you know — or when I called to you — but 
 perhaps it was too late then. It's no use going back on 
 that now ; what we have to do now is to fight this fever as 
 well as we can." 
 
 " I would take it over from her if I could," Jack Huysen 
 said, " and willingly enough." 
 
 It was not until early the next morning that Mr. Hodson 
 
IN DARKENED WAYS 431 
 
 aiTivcd. He looked dreadfully jialc and harassed and 
 fatigued ; for the fact was he was not in Chicago when 
 they telegraphed for him ; some business affairs had called 
 him away to the south ; and the news of his daughter's 
 iliness followed him from place to place until it found 
 him in a remote corner of Louisiana, whence he had 
 travelled night and day without giving himself an hour's 
 rest. And now he would not stay to dip his hands and 
 face in cold water after his long and anxious journey ; 
 he merely asked a few hurried questions of the Doctor ; 
 and then, stealthily and on tip-toe, and determined to 
 show no sign of alarm or perturbation, he went into 
 Carry's room. 
 
 She had been very delirious during the night — talking 
 wildly and frantically in spite of all their efforts to soothe 
 her ; but now she lay exhausted, with the flushed face, and 
 bluish lipa, and eager, restless eyes so strangely unlike the 
 Carry of other days. She recognised him at once — but 
 not as a new-comer ; she appeared to think he had been 
 there all the time. 
 
 " Have you seen him, pappa ? " she said, in that eager 
 way. " Did you see him when you were out ? " 
 
 " Who, darling ? " he said, as he sate down beside her 
 and took her wasted hand in his. 
 
 " AVhy, Eonald, to be sure ! Oh, something dreadful 
 was about to happen to him — I don't know what it was — - 
 something dreadful and dreadful — and I called out — at the 
 window — at the window there — and nurse says it is all 
 right now — all right now " 
 
 " Oh yes, indeed," her father said gently, '' you may 
 depend it is all right with Ronald now. Don't you fret 
 about that." 
 
 " Ah, but we neglected him, pappa, we neglected him ; 
 and I worst of any," she went on, in that panting, breath- 
 less way. " It was always the same — always thinking of 
 doing something for him, and never doing it. I meant to 
 have written to the innkeeper for his address in Glasgow ; 
 but no — that was forgotten too. And then the spliced rod, 
 that George was to have got for me — I wanted Ronald to 
 have the best salmon-rod that America could make — but 
 it was all talkinu' — all ta'kiufr. Ah, it was never talking 
 
432 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 with him when he could do us a service — and the other 
 boatmen getting money, of course — and he scarcely a 
 ' thank you ' when he came away. Why didn't George 
 get the fishing-rod ? " 
 
 " It's all right, Carry, darling," her father said, whisper- 
 ing to her, "you lie quiet now, and get w^ell, and you'll see 
 what a splendid salmon-rod we'll get for Eonald. Not that 
 it would be of much use to him, you see, when he's in 
 Glasgow with his books and studies ; but it will show him we 
 have not forgotten him. Don't you trouble about it, now ; 
 I will see it is all right ; and you will give it to him your- 
 self, if we go over there next spring, to try the salmon- 
 fishing again." 
 
 " Then you will take George with you, pappa," she said, 
 regarding him with her burning eyes. 
 
 " Oh yes ; and you " 
 
 " Not me, not me," she said, shaking her head. " I am 
 going away. The Doctor doesn't know ; I know. They 
 have been very kind ; but — but — ask them, pappa, not to 
 bother me to take things now — I want to be let alone, now 
 you are here — it will only be for a little while " 
 
 " Why, what nonsense you talk ! " he said — but his heart 
 was struck with a sudden fear, for these few straggling sen- 
 tences she had uttered without any appearance of delirium. 
 " I tell you, you must hasten to get well and strong ; for when 
 George and you and I go to Scotland, there will be a great 
 deal of travelling to do. You know we've got to fix on that 
 piece of land, and see how it is all to be arranged and 
 managed, so that George will have a comfortable little estate 
 of his own when he comes of age ; or maybe, if it is a pretty 
 place, we may be selfish and keep it in our own hands — eh, 
 ('arry ? — and then, you see, we shall have to have Eonald 
 travel about with us, to give us his advice : and the weather 
 may be bad, you know, you'll have to brace yourself up. 
 There, now, I'm not going to talk to you any more just 
 now. Lie still and quiet ; and mind you do everything the 
 Doctor bids you — why, you to talk like that ! — you ! I 
 never thought you would give in. Carry : w'hy, even as a 
 schoolgirl yon had the pluck of a dozen ! Don't you give 
 in ; and you'll see if we haven't those two cobles out on 
 Loch Navcr before many months are over." 
 
IN DARKENED WAYS 433 
 
 She shook her head languidly ; her eyes were closed 
 now. And he was for slipping out of the room but that 
 she clung to his hand for a moment, 
 
 " Pappa," she said, in a low voice, and she opened her 
 eyes and regarded him — and surely at this moment, as he 
 said to himself, she seemed perfectly sane and reasonable, 
 " I want you to promise me something." 
 
 " Yes, yes," he said quickly : what was it he would not 
 have promised in order to soothe and quiet her mind at 
 such a time ? 
 
 " I don't know about going with you and George," she 
 said, slowly, and apparently with much difficulty. " It seems 
 a long way off — a long time — and — -and I hardly care now 
 what happens. But you will look after Ronald ; you must 
 promise me that, pappa ; and tell him I was sorry ; I sup- 
 pose he heard the shooting was taken, and would know why 
 we did not go over in the autumn ; but you will lind him 
 out, pappa, and see what he is doing ; and don't let him 
 think we forgot him altogether." 
 
 " Carry, darling, you leave that to me ; it will be all right 
 with Ronald, I promise you," her father said eagerly. " Why, 
 to think you should have been worrying about that ! Oh ! 
 you will see it will be all right about Ronald, never fear ! — 
 what would you say, now, if I were to telegraph to him to 
 come over and see you, if only you make haste and get well ! " 
 
 These assurances, at all events, seemed to pacify her 
 somewhat ; and as she now lay still and quiet, her father 
 stole out of the room, hoping that perhaps the long-prayed- 
 for sleep might come to calm the fevered brain. 
 
 But the slow hours passed, and, so far from any improve- 
 ment becoming visible, her condition grew more and more 
 serious. The two doctors — for Doctor Tilley had summoned 
 iu additional aid — were assiduous enough ; but, when 
 (|uestioned, they gave evasive answers; and when Mr, 
 llodson begged to be allowed to telegraph to a celebrated 
 Boston physician, who was also a particular friend of his 
 own, asking him to come along at once, they acquiesced, it 
 is true, but it was clearly with the view of satisfying Mr. 
 Hodson's mind, rather than with any hope of advantage to 
 the patient. From him, indeed, they scarcely tried to conceal 
 the extreme gravity of the case. Emma Kerfoot and Mrs. 
 
 2 P 
 
434 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 Lalor were quieted with vague assurances ; but Mr. Hodson 
 Icuew of tlie peril in wliich his daughter lay ; and, as it was 
 impossible for him to go to sleep, and as his terrible anxiety 
 put talking to these friends out of the question, he kept 
 mostly to his own room, walking up and down, and fearing 
 every moment lest direr news should arrive. For they had 
 been much of companions, these two ; and she was an 
 only daughter ; and her bright, frank, lovable character — 
 that he had Avatched from childhood growing more and 
 more beautiful and coming into closer communion with 
 himself as year after year went by — had wound its tendrils 
 round his heart. That Carry, of all people in the world, 
 should be taken away from them so, seemed so strange and 
 unaccountable : she that was ever so full of life and gaiety 
 and confidence. The mother had been an invalid during 
 most of her married life ; the boy George had not the 
 strongest of constitutions ; but Carry was always to the fore 
 with her audacious spirits and light-heartedness, ready for 
 anything, and the best of travelling companions. And if 
 she were to go, what would his life be to him ? — the light 
 of it gone, the gladness of it vanished for ever. 
 
 That afternoon the delirium returned ; and she became 
 more and more wildly excited ; until the paroxysm passed 
 beyond all bounds. She imagined that Ronald was in 
 some deadly peril ; he was alone, with no one to help ; his 
 enemies had hold of him ; they were carrying him off, to 
 thrust him into some black lake ; she could hear the waters 
 roaring in the dark. It Avas in vain that the nurse tried to 
 calm her and to reason with her ; the Avild, frightened eyes 
 Avere fixed on vacancy ; and again and again she made as 
 if she Avould rush to his help, and would then sink back 
 exhausted and moaning, and heaping reproaches on those 
 Avho Avere alloAviug Eonald to be stricken down unaided. 
 Then the climax came, quite unexpectedly. The nurse — 
 Avho happened at the moment to be alone Avith her in the 
 room — went to the side-table for some more ice ; and she 
 Avas talking as she went ; and trying to make her charge 
 believe that everything Avas going on Avell enough Avith this 
 friend of hers in Scotland. But all of a sudden, when the 
 imrse's back was thus turned, the girl sprang from the bed 
 and rushed to the AvindoAV. She tore aside the curtains 
 
 
IN DARKENED WA YS 435 
 
 that had been tied together to deaden the light ; she tugged 
 and strained at the under sash ; she was for throwing her- 
 self out — to fly to Eoiiald's succoor. 
 
 " See, see, see ! " she cried, and she wrenched herself 
 f-way from the nurse's frightened grasp. " Oh, don't you 
 see that they are killing him — they are killing him— and 
 none to help ! Ronald — Ronald ! Oh, what shall I do ? 
 Nurse, nurse, help me with the window — quick— quick — 
 oh, don't you hear him calling ? — ^and they are driving him 
 down to the lake — he will be in the water soon — and lost 
 —lost— lost— Ronald !— Ronald !— " 
 
 Nay, by this time she had actually succeeded in raising 
 the under sash of the window a few inches — notwithstanding 
 that the nurse clung round her, and tried to hold her arms, 
 while she uttered shriek after shriek to call attention ; and 
 there is no doubt that the girl, grown quite frantic, would 
 have succeeded in opening the window and throwing herself 
 out, had not Mrs. Lalor, alarmed by the shrieking of the 
 nurse, rushed in. Between them they got her back into 
 bed ; and eventually she calmed down somewhat ; for, 
 indeed, this paroxysm had robbed her of all her remaining 
 strength. She lay in a kind of stupor now ; she paid no 
 heed to anything that was said to her ; only her eyes were 
 restless — when any one entered the room. 
 
 Dr. Tilley was with her father ; the younger man was 
 apparently calm, though rather pale ; J\Ir. Hodsou made 
 no effort to conceal his agony of anxiety. 
 
 " I can only tell you what is our opinion," the young 
 Doctor said, speaking for himself and his brother prac- 
 titioner. " We should be as pleased as you could be to have 
 Dr. J\Iacartney here ; but the delay — well, the delay might 
 ]>rove dangerous. Her temperature is 107 — you know what 
 that means ? " 
 
 " Bat this rolling up in a wet sheet — there is a risk, isn't 
 there ? " the elder man said ; and how keenly he was watch- 
 ing the expression of the young Doctor's face ! 
 
 " I have only seen it used in extreme cases," was the 
 answer. " If she were my own daughtei', or sister, that is 
 what I would do." 
 
 " You have a right to speak — you have already saved 
 her life once," her father said. 
 
 2 F 2 
 
436 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 "If we could only bring about a profuse perspiration ," 
 the young Doctor said, a little more eagerly — for he had 
 been maintaining a professionally dispassionate manner ; 
 " and then if that should end in a long deep sleep — every- 
 thing would go well then. But at present every hour that 
 passes is against us — and her temperature showing no sign 
 of abating." 
 
 " Very well," her father said, after a moment's involuntary 
 hesitation. " If you say the decision rests with me, I will 
 decide. "We will not wait for Macartney. Do what you 
 propose to do — I know you think it is for the best." 
 
 And so it proved. Not once, but twice, within a space 
 of seven days, had this young Doctor saved Carry Hodson's 
 life. That evening they were all seated at dinner in the big 
 dining-hall — Mrs. Lalor and her sister, Jack Iluysen, and 
 Carry's father — though the food before them did not seem 
 to concern them much. They were talking amongst tliem- 
 selves, but rather absently and disconnectedly ; and, what 
 was strange enough, they spoke in rather low tones, as if 
 that were of any avail. Dr. Tiliey came in, and walked 
 quickly up to the table ; and quite unwittingly he put his 
 hand on Emma Kerfoot's shoulder. 
 
 " I have good news," said he, and there was a kind of 
 subdued triumph in his eyes. " She is sleeping as soundly 
 — as soundly as any human being ever slept — everything 
 has come off well — why, I am as happy as if I had been 
 declared President ! " But instantly he perceived that this 
 exuberance of triumph was not in accordance with pro- 
 fessional gravity. " I think there is every reason to be 
 satisfied with the prospect," he continued in more measured 
 tones, " and now that Dr. Sargent is with her, and the 
 night nurse just come down, I think I will take the oppor- 
 tunity to get something to eat — for I have forgotten about 
 that since breakfast." 
 
 " Oh, Tom ! " cried Miss Kerfoot reproachfully ; and 
 presently everybody at the table was showering attentions 
 on this young man. 
 
 " And may I go in and see her now ? " said Miss Ker- 
 foot, preparing to steal away. 
 
 " No," was the peremptory answer. " No one. Every 
 half hour of a sleep like that is woith its weight in gold — 
 
IN DARI^ENEi) WA YS 437 
 
 T;rell, that's a muddle, but you know what I mean. It's 
 worth a cart-load of gold, anyway. I hope she'll go on for 
 twenty-four hours, or thirty-six, for the matter of that. Oh, 
 I can tell you it is quite refreshing to look at her — talk about 
 the sleep of an infant ! — you never saw an infant sleeping 
 as deep and sound as that ; and I shouldn't wander now if 
 her temperature were down another degree by midnight." 
 
 But he saw that Mr. Hodson was still terribly agitated. 
 
 " Well, sir, would you like to go in and see her for a 
 moment ? I have told the nurse to leave the door half an 
 inch open, and there's a screen to keep off the draught ; I 
 dare say we can slip in without disturbing her." 
 
 And so it was that Mr. Hodson saw his daughter again 
 — not with flushed cheeks and dilated eye, but lying still 
 and calm, a very weight of sleep appearing to rest on her 
 eyelids. And when he came out of the room again, he 
 pressed the young man's hand — it was a message of thanks 
 too deep for words. 
 
 All that night she slept ; and all next day she slept, 
 without a moment's intermission. AVhen, at length, she 
 opened her eyes, and stirred a little, Emma Kerfoot was by 
 the bedside in an instant. 
 
 " Dear Carry ! " she said. " Do you want anything ? " 
 
 She shook her head slightly ; she was excessively Aveak ; 
 ])ut the look in her eyes was one of calm intelligence ; it 
 was clear that the delirium had left her. 
 
 " Do you know that your father is here ? " 
 
 " Why ? " she managed to say. 
 
 " Because you have been so ill ! Don't you know ? 
 Don't you recollect ? " 
 
 "Yes— I know, alittle,"she said. "AVhereis Jacklluysen ? " 
 
 " He is here in the hotel too. Oh, how glad they will 
 all be to hear that you are quite yourself again. And I 
 nuist go and tell them, as soon as nurse comes ; for, you 
 know, you'll have a long pull before you, Carry ; and if 
 you don't get quite well again not one of us will ever 
 forgive ourselves for bringing you to Lake George. And 
 there's Jack Huysen, poor fellow, he has just been dis- 
 tracted ; and all the time you were ill you never had a word 
 for him — though he used to haunt the jjassage outside just 
 like a ghost — well, well, you'll have to make it up to him." 
 
438 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 At this moment the nurse appeared, and Miss Kerfoot 
 was free to depart on her joyful errand. Of course, she 
 was for summoning everybody — and Jack Huysen among 
 the rest ; but the doctors interposed ; their patient must 
 be kept perfectly quiet ; in the meantime no one but her 
 father was to have access to her room. 
 
 Now Mr. Hodson, wlien he was seated there by her 
 side, and chatting hghtly and carelessly about a variety of 
 indifferent matters (she herself being forbidden to speak), 
 considered that he could not do better than relieve her 
 mind of any anxiety she may have entertained on Eonald's 
 account. All through her delirium that was the one thing 
 that seemed to trouble her ; and, lest she should revert to 
 it, he thought he might as well give her ample assurance 
 that Ronald should be looked after. However, to his great 
 surprise, he found that she was quite ignorant of her having 
 made these appeals on behalf of Eonald. She did not 
 seem to know that she had been in dire distress about 
 him, reproaching herself for their treatment of him, and 
 begging her father to make such atonement as was yet 
 possible. No ; when she was allowed to speak a little, she 
 said quite calmly that it was a pity they had not been able 
 to go to Scotland that autumn ; that they should have 
 written to Eonald to see how he was getting on ; and that 
 her father, if he visited the old country, in the coming 
 spring, ought surely to seek him out, and remind him that 
 he had some friends in America who would be glad to hear 
 of his welfare. But Mr. Hodson said to himself that 
 he would do a little more than that. He was not going 
 to recall the promise that he had made to his daughter 
 when, as he thought, she lay near to the very gates of death. 
 What had put that pathetic solicitude into her mind he 
 knew not ; but she had made her appeal, with dumb fever- 
 stricken eyes and trembling voice ; and he had answered 
 her and pledged his word. Eonald should be none the 
 loser that this sick girl had thought of him Avhen that she 
 seemed to be vanishing away from them for ever ; surely 
 in that direction, as well as any other, the father might fitly 
 give his thank-offering — for the restitution to life of the 
 sole daughter of his house ? 
 
IN ABSENCE 439 
 
 CHAPTEE XLV. 
 
 IN ABSENCE. 
 
 Loch Naver lay calm and still under the slow awakening 
 of the dawn. All along the eastern horizon the low-lying 
 hills were of a velvet-textnred olive-green — a mysterious 
 shadow-land where no detail was visible ; but overhead the 
 skies were turning to a clear and luminous gray ; the roseate 
 tinge was leaving the upper slopes of Ben Loyal and Ben 
 Clebrig ; and the glassy surface of the lake was gradually 
 whitening as the red-golden light changed to silver and 
 broadened up and through the wide sleeping world. An 
 intense silence lay over the little hamlet among the trees ; 
 not even a dog was stirring ; but a tiny column of pale blue 
 smoke issuing from one of the chimneys told that some one 
 was awake within — probably the yello\v-haired Nelly, whose 
 duties began at an early hour. 
 
 And what was IMeenie — or Rose Meenie, or Love 
 Meenie, as she might be called now, after having all those 
 things written about her — what was she doing awake and 
 up at such a time ? At all events, her morning greeting 
 was there confronting her. She had brought it and put it 
 on the little dressing-table ; and as she brushed out her 
 beautiful abundant brown tresses, her eyes went back again 
 and again to the pencilled lines, and she seemed not ill- 
 pleased. For this was what she read : 
 
 The hinds are feedinrj upon the hiU, 
 And the hares on the falloio lea ; 
 Awahe, awahe. Love Meenie ! 
 Birds are sincjin<j in every tree ; 
 
 And roses you'll find on your icindow-sill 
 To scent the morning air; 
 
 Awahe, awake, Love Meenie, 
 For the world is shining fair ! 
 
 who is the mistress of bird and flower? 
 Ben Clebrig Icnoivs, I v-een ! 
 
 Atvalce, aivahe. Love Meenie, 
 To shoto them their mistress and queen! 
 
 And it could hardly be expected that she should bring any 
 very keen critical SLTutiny to bear on these careless verses of 
 
440 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 Konald's (of which she had now obtained a goodly ntimbei', 
 by dint of wheedling and entreaty, and even downright 
 insistence), seeing that nearly all of them were written in 
 her ])raise and honour ; but even apart from that she had 
 convinced herself that they were very fine indeed ; and 
 that one or two of them were really pathetic ; and she was 
 not without the hope that, when the serious affairs of life 
 liad been attended to, and a little leisure and contempla- 
 tion become possible, Ronald might turn to his poetical 
 labours again and win some little bit of a name for himself 
 amongst a few sympathetic souls here and there. That he 
 could do so, if he chose, she was sure enough. It was all 
 very Avell for him to make light of these scraps and frag- 
 ments ; and to threaten to destroy them if she revealed the 
 fact of their existence to anybody ; but she knew their 
 worth, if he did not ; and when, in this or that magazine 
 or review, she saw a piece of poetry mentioned with praise, 
 her first impulse was to quickly read it in order to ask her- 
 self whether Ronald — given time and opportunity — could 
 not have done as well. Moreover, the answer to that 
 question was invariably the same ; and it did not leave her 
 unhappy. It is true (for she would be entirely dispassion- 
 ate) he had not written anything quite so fine as " Chris- 
 tabel " — as yet ; but the years were before him ; she had 
 confidence ; the world should see — and give him a fitting 
 Avclcome all in good time. 
 
 When, on this clear morning, she was fully equipped 
 for her walk, she stole silently down the stair, and made 
 her way out into the now awakening day. The little 
 hamlet was showing signs of life. A stable-lad was trying 
 to get hold of a horse that had strayed into the meadow ; 
 a collie was barking its excitement over this performance ; 
 the pretty Nelly appeared carrying an armful of clothes to 
 be hung out to dry. And then, as Mecnie passed the inn, 
 she was joined by Harry the terrier, who, after the first 
 grovelling demonstrations of joy, seemed to take it for 
 granted that he was to be allowed to accompany her. And 
 she was nothing loth. The fact was, she was setting out 
 in quest of that distant eyrie of Ronald's of which he had 
 often told her ; and she doubted very much whether she 
 would be able to find it ; and she considered that perhaps 
 
IN ABSENCE 44t 
 
 the little terrier might help her. "Would he not naturally 
 make for his master's accustomed resting-place, when they 
 were sufficiently high up on the far Clebrig slopes ? 
 
 So they went away along the road together ; and she 
 was talking to her companion ; and telling him a good deal 
 more about Glasgow, and about his master, than probably 
 he could understand. Considering, indeed, that this young 
 lady had just been sent home in deep disgrace, she seemed 
 ill excellent spirits. She had borne the parting admonitions 
 and upbraidings of her sister Agatha with a most astonish- 
 ing indifference ; she had received her mother's reproaches 
 with a placid equanimity that the little woman could not 
 understand at all (only that Meenie's face once or twice 
 grew fixed and proud when there was some scornful reference 
 to Ronald) ; and she had forthwith set about nursing 
 her father — who had caught a severe chill and was in bed — 
 with an amiable assiduity, just as if nothing had happened. 
 As regards her father, he either did not know, or had 
 refused to know, about Meenie's lamentable conduct. On 
 this one point he was hopelessly perverse ; he never would 
 listen to anything said against this daughter of his ; Meenie 
 was always in the right — no matter what it was. And so, 
 notwithstanding that she had been sent home as one in dis- 
 grace, and had been received as one in disgrace, she installed 
 herself as her father's nurse with an amazing self-content ; 
 and she brought him his beef-tea and port-wine at the stated 
 intervals (for the good Doctor did not seem to have as much 
 faith in drugs as might have been anticipated) ; and she 
 kept the peat-fire piled up and blazing ; and she methodi- 
 cally read to him the Inverness Courier, the Glasfiow 
 Werldij Citizen, and the Edinhurgli Scotsman ; and when 
 these were done she would get out a volume of old ballads, 
 or perhaps " The Eve of St. Agnes," or " Esmond," or " As 
 You Like It," or the " AVinter's Tale." It did not matter 
 much to him what she read ; he liked to hear the sound of 
 jMeenic's voice — in this hushed, half-slumberous, warm little 
 room, while the chill north winds howled without, chasing 
 each other across the driven loch, and sighing and sobbing 
 away along the lonely Strath-Terry. 
 
 But on this fair morning there was not a breath stirring ; 
 and the curving bays and promontories and birch-woods, 
 
442 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 and the far hills beyond, were all reflected in the magic 
 mirror of the lake, as she sped along the highway, making 
 for the Clebrig slopes. And soon she Avas mounting these 
 — with the light step of one trained to the heather ; and 
 ever as she got higher and higher the vast panorama around 
 her grew wider and more wide, until she could see hills 
 and lochs and wooded islands that never were visible from 
 Inver-Mudal. In the perfect silence, the sudden whirr of 
 a startled grouse made her heart jump, A hare — that 
 looked remarkably like a cat, for there was as much white 
 as bluish-brown about it — got up almost at her feet and 
 sped swiftly away over heath and rock until it disappeared 
 in one of the numerous peat-hags. There was a solitary 
 eagle slowly circling in the blue ; but at so great a height 
 that it was but a speck. At one moment she thought she 
 had caught sight of the autlers of a stag ; and for a second 
 she stopped short, rather frightened ; but presently she had 
 convinced herself that these were but two bits of withered 
 birch, appearing over the edge of a rock far above her. It 
 was a little chillier here ; but the brisk exercise kept her 
 warm. And still she toiled on and on ; until she knew, or 
 guessed, that she was high enough ; and now the question 
 was to discover the whereabouts of the clump of rocks under 
 shelter of which Eonald was accustomed to sit, when he 
 had been up here alone, dreaming day-dreams, and scribbling 
 the foolish rhymes that had won to her favour, whatever he 
 might think of them. 
 
 At first this seemed a hopeless task ; for the whole place 
 was a wilderness of moss and heather and peat-hags, with 
 scarcely a distinctive feature anywhere. But she wandered 
 about, watching the little terrier covertly ; and at last she 
 saw him put his nose in an inquiring way into a hole under- 
 neath some tumbled boulders. He turned and looked at 
 her ; she followed. And now there could be no doubt that 
 this was Ronald's halting-place and pulpit of meditation ; 
 for she forthwith discovered the hidden case at the back of 
 the little cave — though the key of that now belonged to his 
 successor. And so, in much content, she sate herself down 
 on the heather ; with all the wide, sunlit, still world mapped 
 out before her — the silver thread of Mudal "Water visible 
 here and there among the moors, and Loch Meadie with 
 
IN ABSENCE 443 
 
 its islands, and Ben Hope and Ben Loyal, and Bonnie 
 Strath-Naver, and the far Kyle of Tongne close to the 
 northern Sea. 
 
 Now, what had Love Meenie climbed all this height for ? 
 what but to read herself back into the time when Konald 
 used to come here alone ; and to think of what he had 
 been thinking ; and to picture herself as still an uncon- 
 scious maiden wandering about that distant little hamlet 
 that seemed but two or three dots down there among the 
 trees. This, or something like it, has always been a 
 favourite pastime with lovers ; but Meenie had an additional 
 source of interest in the possession of a packet of those idle 
 rhymes, and these were a kind of key to bygone moods 
 and days. And so it was here — in this strange stillness — ■ 
 that Ronald had written these verses about her ; and 
 perhaps caught a glimpse of her, with his telescope, as she 
 came out from the cottage to intercept the mail ; when 
 little indeed was she dreaming that he had any such fancies 
 in his head. And now as she turned over page after page, 
 sometimes she laughed a little, when she came to something 
 that seemed a tritle audacious — and she scarcely wondered 
 that he had been afraid of her seeing such bold declara- 
 tions : and then again a kind of compunction filled her 
 heart ; and she wished that Ronald had not praised her 
 so ; for what had she done to deserve it ; and how would 
 her coming life be made to correspond with these all too 
 generous and exalted estimates of her character ? Of 
 course she liked well enough to come upon praises of her 
 abundant brown hair, and her Highland eyes, and the rose- 
 leaf tint of her cheeks, and the lightness of her step ; for 
 she was aware of these things as well as he ; and glad 
 enough that she possessed them, for had they not com- 
 mended her to him ? But as for these other wonderful 
 graces of mind and disposition with which he had adorned 
 her ? She was sadly afraid that he would find her stupid, 
 ill-instructed, unread, fractious, unreasonable, incapable of 
 understanding him. Look, for example, how he could 
 imbue these hills and moors and vales with a kind of magic, 
 so that they seemed to become his personal friends. To 
 her they were all dead things (except Mudal Water, at 
 times, on the summer evenings), but to him they seemed 
 
444 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 instinct with life. They spoke to him ; and he to them { 
 he understood them ; they were his companions and 
 friends ; who but himself could tell of what this very hill 
 of Clebrig was thinking ? — 
 
 Ban Clehrig's a hlaie of splendour 
 
 III the first red flush of the morn, 
 And his gaze is fixed on the eastward 
 
 To greet the day neiv-horn ; 
 And he listens a-slill for the Lellvio 
 
 Of the anilered stag afar. 
 And he latighs at the royal challenge. 
 
 The hoarse, harsh challenge of inar. 
 
 But Ben Clebrig is gentle and placid 
 
 When the sun sinlcs into the vnst. 
 And a mild and a melloio radiance 
 
 Shines on his giant crest ; 
 For he's loolcing down upon Mecnie 
 
 As she ivanders along the road, 
 And the mountain hestows his blessing 
 
 On the fairest child of God. 
 
 There again : what could he sec in her (she asked herself) 
 that he should write of her so ? He had declared to her 
 that the magic with which all this neighbourhood was 
 imbued was due to h'er presence there ; bat how could she, 
 knowing herself as she did, believe that ? And how to 
 show her gratitude to him ; and her faith in him ; and her 
 confidence as to the future ? "\Yell, she could but give to 
 him her life and the love that was the life of her life — if 
 these were worth the taking. 
 
 But there was one among these many pieces that she 
 had pondered over which she returned to again and again, 
 and with a kind of pride ; and that not because it sounded 
 her praises, but because it assured her hopes. As for 
 llonald's material success in life, she was troubled with 
 little doubt about that. It might be a long time before he 
 could come to claim his wife ; but she was content to wait ; 
 in that direction she had no fears whatever. But there 
 was something beyond that. She looked forward to the 
 day when even the Stuarts of Glengask and Orosay should 
 know what manner of man this was whom she had chosen 
 for her husband. Her mother had called him an un- 
 educated peasant ; but she paid no heed to the taunt ; 
 
IN ABSENCE 445 
 
 rather she was thinking of the time Avhen Ronald — other 
 things being settled — might perhaps go to Edinburgh, and 
 get to know some one holding the position there that 
 Jeffrey used to hold (her reading was a little old-fashioned) 
 who Avould introduce him to the world of letters and open 
 the way to fame. She knew nothing of Carry Hodson's 
 luckless attempt in this direction ; she knew, on the con- 
 trary, that Ronald was strongly averse from having any of 
 these scraps printed ; but she said to herself that the fitting 
 time would come. And if these unpolished verses are 
 found to belie her confident and proud prognostications as 
 to the future, let it be remembered that she was hardly 
 nineteen, that she was exceedingly warm-hearted, that she 
 was a young wife, and day and night with little to think 
 about but the perfections of her lover, and his kindness to 
 her, and his praise of her, and the honour in which he held 
 her. However, this piece was not about Meenie at all — he 
 had called it 
 
 BY ISLATS SHORES. 
 
 Bij Islai/s shores she sate and sang: 
 *' iviuds, come hloioing o'er the sea. 
 
 And hrinfj me had: my love again 
 That went to fight in Germanie I " 
 
 And all the livelong day she sang, 
 And nursed the hairn upon her knee : 
 
 " Balou, halou, my honnie bairn. 
 Thy father's fur in Germanie, 
 
 But ere the summer days are gane. 
 And lointer hlackens hush and tree. 
 
 Thy father will ice icelcome hame 
 Frae the red ivars in Germanie." 
 
 dark the night fell, dark and mirk ; 
 
 A ivraith stood by her icily : 
 " Dear icife, I'll never more win hame. 
 
 For I am slain in Germanie. 
 
 On Minden's field Tm lying stark, 
 And Heaven is now my far countrie, 
 
 Farewell, dear wife, fareivell, farewell, 
 I'll ne'er win hame frae Germanie." 
 
 And all the year she came and ivent, 
 And wandered ivild frae sea to sea ; 
 
 "0 neighbours, is he ne'er come hack, 
 My love that went to Germanie "i" 
 
446 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 Port Ellen saw her many a time; 
 
 Ixound by Port Asltaig ivandered she : 
 " Where is the ship that's sailing in 
 
 With my dear love frae Germanie 1 " 
 
 Ptid ivhen the darhened ivinter fell : 
 " Ifs cold for haiih my halm and mo ; 
 
 Let me lie down and rest aivhile : 
 My love's aivay frae Germanie. 
 
 far away and aivay he dwells ; 
 
 High Heaven is now his fair countrie ; 
 And there he stands — ivith arms outstretched — 
 
 To ivclcome hame my hairn and me I " 
 
 And if Meenie's eyes were filled with tears when she 
 had re-read the familiar lines, her heart was proud enough ; 
 and all her kinsmen of Glengask and Orosay had no terrors 
 for her ; and her mother's taunts no sting. Of course, all 
 this that she hoped for was far away in the future ; but 
 even as regarded the immediate years before her she refused 
 to be harassed by any doubt. Perhaps she would not 
 have asserted in set terms that a knack of stringing verses 
 together proved that the writer had also the capacity and 
 knowledge and judgment necessary to drain and fence and 
 plant and stock a Highland estate ; abstract questions of 
 the kind had little interest for her ; what she did know — 
 what formed the first article of her creed, and the last, and 
 the intervening thirty-seven-^was that Eouald could do 
 anything he put his mind to. And this was a highly useful 
 and comfortable belief, considering all her circumstances. 
 
 And so she sped away down the mountain-side again — ■ 
 glad to have discovered Ronald's retreat ; and so light and 
 swift was her step that when she at length reached the inn 
 she found herself just ahead of the mail coming in from the 
 south. Of course she waited for letters ; and when Mrs. 
 Mui'ray had opened the bags, it was found there were three 
 for the Doctor's cottage. The first was from Ronald ; that 
 Meeuie whipped into her pocket. The second was for 
 Mrs. Douglas, and clearly in Agatha's handwriting. The 
 third, addressed to Meenie, had an American stamp on it ; 
 and this was the one that she opened and read as she 
 quietly walked homeward. 
 
 It was a long letter ; and it was from Miss Carry Hodson ; 
 
IN ABSENCE 447 
 
 who first of all described the accident that had befallen her, 
 and her subsequent illness ; and plainly intimated that no 
 such thing would have happened had her Highland friends 
 been in charge of the boat. Then she went on to say that 
 her father had just sailed for Europe ; that he had business 
 to transact in Scotland ; that he wished to see Ronald ; and 
 would Miss Douglas be so very kind as to ask the innkeeper, 
 or the post-master at Lairg, or any one who knew Ronald's 
 address in Glasgow, to drop a post-card to her father, 
 addressed to the Langham Hotel, London, with the informa- 
 tion. Moreover, her father had intimated his intention of 
 taking the Loch Naver salmon-fishing for the next season, 
 if it was not as yet let ; and in that case the writer would 
 be overjoyed to find herself once more among her Inver- 
 Mudal friends. Finally, and as a kind of reminder and 
 keepsake, she had sent by her father a carriage-rug made 
 mostly of chipmunk skins ; and she would ask Miss 
 Douglas's acceptance of it ; and hoped that it would keep 
 her knees snug and warm and comfortable when the winds 
 were blowing too sharply along Strath-Terry. 
 
 Of course, all this was wonderful news to come to such 
 a quiet and remote corner of the world ; but there Avas 
 other news as well ; and that by an odd coincidence. 
 Some little time after Mrs. Douglas had received the letter 
 from Agatha, she came to ]\Ieenie. 
 
 " Williamina," said she, "Agatha writes to me about 
 Mr. Frank Lauder." 
 
 "Yes ?" said Meenie, rather coldly. 
 
 " He intends renting the salmon-fishing on the loch for 
 the next season ; and he will be alone at the inn. Agatha 
 hopes that we shall be particularly civil to him ; and I hope 
 — I say, I hope — that every one in this house will be. It 
 is of the greatest importance, considering how he stands 
 with regard to Mr. Gemmill. I hope he will be received 
 in this house with every attention and kindness," 
 
 And then the pompous little dame left. It was almost 
 a challenge she had thrown down ; and j\Ieenie was at first 
 a little bewildered. What then ? — would this young man, 
 for the six weeks or two months of his stay, be their con- 
 stant visitor ? He would sit in the little parlour, evening 
 after evening ; and how could she keep him from talking to 
 
4+8 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 her, and how could she keep him from looking at her ? 
 And Konald — her husband— would be far away ; and 
 alone, perhaps ; and not allowed a word with her ; whereas 
 she would have to be civil and polite to this young man ; 
 and even if she held her eyes downcast, how could she help 
 his regarding her face ? 
 
 And then she suddenly bethought her of Miss Hodson's 
 letter. "\Yliat ? — was Mr. Hodson after the fishing too ? 
 And ought not the lust tenant to have the refusal "i And 
 should not the Duke's agent know ? And why should she 
 not write him a note — just in case no inquiry had been 
 made ? She had not much time to think about the matter ; 
 but she guessed quickly enough that, if an American mil- 
 lionaire and the son of a Glasgow merchant are after the 
 same thing, and that thing purchasable, the American is 
 likely to get it. And why should Ronald's wife be stared 
 at and talked to by this young man — however harmless and 
 amiable his intentions ? 
 
 So she went swiftly to her own room and wrote as 
 follows : — 
 
 "Dear Mr. Crawford — I have just heard from Miss 
 Hodson, whose father was here last spring, that he is on 
 his way to Europe ; and that he hopes to have the fishing 
 again this year. I think I ought to let you know, just in 
 case you should have any other application for the loch. I 
 am sure Miss Hodson will be much disappointed if he does 
 not get it. Yours sincerely, 
 
 " Meexie S, Douglas." 
 
 " There," said she, and there was a little smile of 
 triumph about her mouth, " if that doesn't put a spoke in 
 the wheel of Mr. Frank Lauder, poor fellow, I don't know 
 what will." 
 
 " Spiteful little cat," her sister Agatha would have called 
 her, had she known ; but women's judgments of women are 
 not as men's. 
 
WANDERINGS IN THE WEST 449 
 
 CHAPTER XLYI. 
 
 WANDEEINGS 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 Kil- 
 maluag 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. Carmichacl, 
 a famous estate-agent in London, who had run two or three 
 
 2 G 
 
450 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 commissions together as an excuse for this mid-winter trip. 
 The third member of the group was Ronald, who was ham- 
 mering 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 fore- 
 fathers, 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 cannofc 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 Uke his politics," was the prompt and blunt 
 f.nswer. 
 
 " No more do I," said Mr. Hodson coolly. " But for 
 another reason. You call him a Iladical, 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 "i No, I mean something 
 
WANDERINGS IN THE WES2' 451 
 
 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. AVell, 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. jSTow, has he 
 got a good sohd 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. 
 Novv- 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 
 
 2 G 2 
 
452 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 mostly to Lis 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^! 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 get some money guarantee about his steward- 
 ship. 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 
 Avould have different opinions at the outset. I mean with 
 such an estate as you w^ould 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 
 
WANDERINGS IN THE WEST 453 
 
 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 pro- 
 voking much newspaper comment at the time. 
 
 " Well, what I say is this — if I buy a place in the High- 
 lauds — 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 aero 
 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. " WeD, 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 
 tilch 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 ho 
 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 
 
454 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 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 w^estern 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 plant- 
 ing 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 com- 
 munity 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 
 
WANDERINGS IN THE WEST 455 
 
 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 my- 
 self. What do you say now ? Yon 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 securities, now, of £500 apiece, might be 
 snfficient." 
 
 " It's nsual ? " 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 laig 
 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 
 
456 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 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 
 Avas to begin— he did not care how rough the country might 
 b3, 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 Plighland estate (which 
 was an old project of his), had also in his eye some scheme 
 for Eonald's own advancement. All the way through h& 
 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 worth- 
 less 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 clilTs ; 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 ob- 
 viously written on every square foot of its partially frozen 
 surface. 
 
 " What a situation for a house ! " was Ronald's in- 
 
WANDERINGS IN THE WEST 457 
 
 voluntary 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 Bal- 
 navrain ; and maist likely the purchaser would be for build- ' 
 ing 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 farm- 
 house, they set out again on their cold drive back to the 
 hotel, where a long lausiness conversation went on all the 
 
45 S WHITE HEATHER 
 
 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 ; bui, 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. 
 
 " Eonald," 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 con- 
 tinued. " Mr. AVeems declares you must have your certifi- 
 cate 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 1 — 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 Avith 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. 
 
A PLEDGE REDEEMED 459 
 
 CHAPTER XLYII. 
 
 A PLEDGE REDEEMED. 
 
 Mr. Hodson coiild by no means get to understand the 
 half -expressed rehictance, the trepidation almost, with which 
 Eonald seemed to regard this visit to Inver-Mudal. It 
 was not a matter of time ; for his studies for the examina- 
 tion were practically over. It was not a matter of expense ; 
 for he was being paid a guinea a day. It was not debt ; 
 on that point Mr. Hodson had satisfied himself by a few 
 plain questions ; and he knew to a sovereign what sum 
 Ronald had still in the bank. Nor could he believe, after 
 the quite unusual terms in which Lord Ailine had written 
 about the young man's conduct and character, that Ronald 
 was likely to have done anything to cause him to fear a 
 meeting with his former friends. And so, having some 
 little experience of the world, he guessed that there was 
 j)robably a girl in the case ; and discreetly held his peace. 
 
 But little indeed was he prepared for the revelation that 
 was soon to be made. On the afternoon of one of these 
 cold February days they were driving northward along 
 Strath-Terry. A sprinkling of snow had fallen in the 
 morning ; the horses' hoofs and the wheels of the waggon- 
 ette made scarcely any sound in this prevailing silence. 
 They had come in sight of Loch Naver ; and the long 
 sheet of water looked quite black amid the white undula- 
 tions of the woods and the moorland and the low-lying 
 hills. Now at this point the road leading down to the 
 village makes a sudden turn ; and they were just cutting- 
 round the corner when Ronald, who had been anxiously 
 looking forward, caught sight of that that most he longed 
 and that most he feared to see. It was Meenie herself — 
 she was walking by the side of the way, carrying some little 
 parcel in her hand ; and they had come upon her quite 
 unexpectedly, and noiselessly besides ; and what might she 
 not betray in this moment of sudden alarm ? He gripped 
 the driver's arm, thinking he might stop the horses ; but it 
 was now too late for that. They were close to her ; she 
 heard the patter of horses' hoofs ; she looked up, startled ; 
 and the next moment — when she saw Ronald there — she 
 
46o WHITE HE A THER 
 
 had uttered a quick, sharp cry, and had staggered back a 
 step or so, until in her fright she caught at the wire fence 
 behind her. She did not fall ; but her face was as white 
 as the snow around her ; and when he leapt from the 
 waggonette, and seized her by both wrists, so as to hold her 
 there, she could only say, "Ronald, Eonald," and could 
 seek for no explanation of this strange arrival. But he 
 held her tight and firm ; and with a wave of his hand he 
 bade the driver drive on and leave them. And Mr. Hodson 
 lowered his eyes, thinking that he had seen enough ; but 
 he formally raised his hat, all the same ; and as he was 
 being driven on to the inn, he returned to his surmise that 
 there was a girl in the case — only who could have imagined 
 that it was the Doctor's daughter ? 
 
 Nor was there a single word said about this tell-tale 
 meeting when Eonald came along to the inn, some few 
 minutes thereafter. He seemed a little preoccupied, that 
 was all. He rather avoided the stormy welcome that 
 greeted him everywhere ; and appeared to be wholly bent 
 on getting the preparations pushed forward for the fishing 
 of the next day. Of course everything had to be arranged ; 
 for they had had no thought of coming to Inver-Mudal 
 when they sailed from Glasgow ; there was not even a boat 
 on the loch, nor a single gillie engaged. 
 
 But later on that evening, when the short winter day 
 had departed, and the blackness of night lay over the land, 
 Ronald stole away from the inn, and went stealthily down 
 through the fields till he found himself by the side of the 
 river. Of course, there was nothing visible ; had he not 
 known every foot of the ground, he dared not have come 
 this way ; but onward he went like a ghost through the 
 dark until he finally gained the bridge, and there he paused 
 and listened. *'Meenie ! " he said, in a kind of whisper ; 
 but there was no reply. And so he groped his way to the 
 stone dyke by the side of the road, and sate down there, 
 and waited. 
 
 This was not how he had looked forward to meeting 
 Meenie again. Many a time he had pictured that to him- 
 self—his getting back to Inver-Mudal after the long separa- 
 tion — the secret summons — and Meenie coming silently 
 out from the little cottage to join him. But always the 
 
A PLEDGE REDEEMED 461 
 
 night was a moonlight night ; and the wide heavens calm 
 and clear ; and Loch Naver rippling in silver under the 
 dusky shadows of Ben Clebrig. Why, he had already 
 written out that summons ; and he had sent it to Meenie ; 
 and no doubt she had read it over to herself more than 
 once ; and wondered when the happy time was to be. The 
 night that he had looked forward to was more like a night 
 for a lovers' meeting : this was the message he had sent her — ■ 
 
 u-liite's the moon upon the loch, 
 
 And hlach the hushes on the hrae. 
 And red the light in your window-pane: 
 
 When u-ill ye come away, 
 Meenie, 
 
 Wlien ivill ye come aivayf 
 
 FIl icrap ye round and keep ye warm, ■. 
 
 For mony a secret ice've to tell. 
 And ne!er a sound will hinder us 
 
 Down in yon hidden dell, 
 Meenie, 
 
 Down in yon hidden dell. 
 
 see the moon is sailing on 
 
 Through fleecy clouds across the sides. 
 
 But fairer far the light that I hnoio. 
 The love-light in your eyes, 
 Meenie, 
 The love-light in your eyes. 
 
 haste and haste; the night is sweet. 
 But sweeter far icliat I icould hear ; 
 
 And I have a secret to tell you, 
 A whisper in your ear, 
 
 Meenie, 
 A whimper in your ear. 
 
 But here was a bitter cold winter night ; and Meenie 
 would have to come through the snow ; and dark as pitch 
 it was — he would have to guess at the love-light in her 
 eyes, so cruelly dense was this blackness all around. 
 
 Then his quick ear detected a faint sound in the dis- 
 tance — a hushed footfall on the snow ; and that came nearer 
 and nearer ; he went out to the middle of the road. 
 
 " Is that you, Meenie ? " 
 
 The answer was a whisper — 
 
 *' Ronald!" ,.. -{ 
 
462 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 And like a ghost she came to him through the dark ; 
 but indeed this was no ghost at all that he caught to him 
 and that clung to him, for if her cheeks were cold her 
 breath was warm about his face, and her lips were warm, 
 and her ungloved hands . that were round his neck were 
 warm, and all the furry wrappings that she wore could not 
 quite conceal the joyful beating of her heart. 
 
 " Oh, Eonald — Eonald — you nearly killed me with the 
 fright — I thought something dreadful had happened — that 
 you had come back without any warning — and now you 
 say instead that it's good news — oh, let it be good news, 
 Ronald — let it be good news— if you only knew how I 
 have been thinking and thinking — and crying sometimes — 
 through the long days and the long nights — let it be good 
 news that you have brought with you, Ronald ! " 
 
 " Well, lass " (but this was said after some little time ; 
 for he had other things to say to her with which we have 
 no concern here), " it may be good news ; but it's pretty 
 much guess-work ; and maybe I'm building up some- 
 thing on my own conceit, that will have a sudden fall, 
 and serve me right. And then even at the best I hardly 
 see " 
 
 " But, Ronald, you said it was good news ! " And then 
 she altered her tone. " Ah, but I don't care ! I don't care 
 at all when you are here. It is only when you are away 
 that my heart is like lead all the long day ; and at night I 
 lie and think that everything is against us — and such a 
 long time to wait — and perhaps my people finding out — 
 but what is it, Ronald, you had to tell me ? " 
 
 " Well, now, Meenie," said he. 
 
 " But that is not my name — to you," said she ; for indeed 
 she scarce knew what she said, and Avas all trembling, and 
 excited, and clinging to him — there, in the dark, mid the 
 Avild waste of the snow. 
 
 " Love-Meenie and Rose-Meenie, all in one," said he, 
 " listen, and I'll tell you now what maybe lies before us. 
 Maybe, it is, and that only ; I think this unexpected coming 
 to see you may have put me off my head a bit ; but if it's 
 all a mistake — well, we are no worse off than we were 
 before. And this is what it is now : do you remember my 
 telling you that IMr. Hodson had often been talking oi 
 
A PLEDGE REDEEMED 463 
 
 buying an estate in the Highlands ? — well, he has just been 
 looking at one — it's over there on the Eoss-shire coast — 
 and it's that has brought us to the Highlands just now, for 
 he would have me come and look at it along Avith him. 
 And what would you think if he made me the factor of it ? 
 Well, maybe I'm daft to think of such a thing ; but he has 
 been talking and talking in a way I cannot understand 
 unless some plan of that kind is in his head ; ay, and he 
 has been making inquiries about me, as I hear ; and not 
 making much of the forestry certificate, as to whether I get 
 it or no ; but rather, as I should guess, thinking about 
 putting me on this Babiavrain place as soon as it becomes 
 his own. Ay, ay, sweetheart ; that would be a fine thing 
 for me, to be in a position just like that of Mr. Crawford — 
 though on a small scale ; and who could prevent my coming 
 to claim my good wife then, and declaring her as mine 
 before all the world ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, Eonald," she said eagerly, " but why do you 
 talk like that ? Why do you speak as if there was trouble ? 
 Surely he wiU make you factor ! It was he that asked you 
 to go away to Glasgow ; he always was your friend ; if he 
 buys the estate, who else could he get to manage it as 
 well ? " 
 
 " But there's another thing, sweetheart," said he, rather 
 hopelessly. " He spoke about it yesterday. Indeed, he 
 put it plain enough. He asked me fairly whether, sup- 
 posing somebody was to offer me the management of an 
 estate, I could get guarantees — securities for my honesty, 
 in fact ; and he even mentioned the sum that would be 
 needed. Well, well, it's beyond me, my girl — where could 
 I find two people to stand surety for me at £500 apiece"? " 
 
 She uttered a little cry, and clung closer to him. 
 
 " Eonald — Eonald — surely you will not miss such a 
 chance for that — it is a matter of form, isn't it ? — and 
 some one " 
 
 " But who do I know that has got £500, and that I 
 could ask ? " said he. " Ay, and two of them. Maybe 
 Lord Ailine might be one — he was always a good friend 
 to me — but two of them — two of them — well, well, good 
 lass, if it has all got to go, we must wait for some other 
 chance." 
 
464 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 "Yes," said Meenie bitterly, "and this American — he 
 calls himself a friend of yonrs too — and he wants guaran- 
 tees for your honesty ! " 
 
 " It's the usual thing, as he said himself," Eonald said. 
 " But don't be downhearted, my dear. Hopes and dis- 
 appointments come to every one, and we must meet them 
 like the rest. The world has always something for us — 
 even these few minutes — with your cheeks grown warm 
 again — and the scent of your hair— ay, and your heart as 
 gentle as ever." 
 
 But she was crying a little. 
 
 " Ronald — surely — it is not possible this chance should 
 be so near us — and then to be taken away. And can't I 
 do something ? I know the Glengask people will be angry 
 — but — but I would write to Lady Stuart — or if I could 
 only go to her, that would be better — it would be between 
 woman and woman, and surely she would not refuse when 
 she knew how we were placed — and — and it would be 
 something for me to do — for you know you've married a 
 pauper bride, Ronald — and I bring you nothing — when 
 even a farmer's daughter would have her store of napery 
 and a chest of drawers and all that — but couldn't I do this, 
 Ronald ? — I would go and see Lady Stuart^she could 
 not refuse me ! " 
 
 He laughed lightly ; and his hands were clasped round 
 the soft brown hair. 
 
 " No, no, no, sweetheart ; things will have come to a 
 pretty pass before I would have you exposed to any 
 humiliation of that sort. And why should you be down- 
 hearted ? The world is young for both of us. Oh, don't 
 you be afraid ; a man that can use his ten fingers and is 
 willing to work will tumble into something sooner or later ; 
 <and what is the use of being lovers if we are not to have 
 our constancy tried ? No, no ; you keep a brave heart ; if 
 this chance has to be given up, we'll fall in with another ; 
 nnd maybe it will be all the more welcome that we have had 
 to wait a little while for it." 
 
 " A liitle while, Ronald ? " said she. 
 
 He strove to cheer her and reassure her still further ; 
 although, indeed, there was not much time for that ; for 
 he had been commanded to dine with ]\Ir. Hodson at half- 
 
A PLEDGE REDEEMED 465 
 
 past seven ; and he knew better than to keep the man who 
 might possibly be his master w^aiting for dinner. And 
 presently Meenie and he were going quietly along the 
 snow-hushed road ; and he bade her good-bye — many and 
 many times repeated — near the little garden-gate ; and 
 then made his way back to the inn. He had just time to 
 brush his hair and smarten himself up a bit when the pretty 
 Nelly — who seemed to be a little more friendly and indulgent 
 towards him than in former days — came to say that she had 
 taken the soup into the parlour, and that the gentleman was 
 waiting. 
 
 Now Mr. Hodson was an astute person ; and he sus- 
 pected something, and was anxious to know more ; but he 
 was not so ill-advised as to begin with direct questions. 
 For one thing, there was still a great deal to be talked over 
 about the Balnavrain estate — which he had almost decided 
 on purchasing ; and, amongst other matters, Ronald was 
 asked whether the overseer of such a place would consider 
 £400 a year a sufficient salary, if a plainly and comfortably 
 built house were thrown in ; and also whether, in ordinary 
 circumstances, there would be any difficulty about a young 
 fellow obtaining two sureties to be responsible for him. 
 From that it was a long way round to the Doctor's daughter ; 
 but Mr. Hodson arrived there in time ; for he had brought 
 for her a present from his own daughter ; and he seemed 
 inclined to talk in a friendly way about the young lady. 
 And at last he got the whole story. Once started, Ronald 
 spoke frankly enough. He confessed to his day-dreams 
 about one so far superior to him in station ; he described 
 his going away to Glasgow ; his loneliness and despair 
 there ; his falling among evil companions and his drinking ; 
 the message of the white heather ; his pulling himself up ; 
 and Mecnie's sudden resolve and heroic self-surrender. 
 The private marriage, too — yes, he heard the whole story 
 from beginning to end ; and the more he heard the more 
 his mind was busy ; though he was a quiet kind of person, and 
 the recital did not seem to move him in any way whatever. 
 
 And yet it may be doubted whether, in all the county of 
 Sutherland, or in all the realm of England, there was 
 any happier man that night than Mr. Josiah Hodson. For 
 here was something entirely after his own heart. His pet 
 
 2 H 
 
466 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 hobby was playing the part of a small beneficent Providence ;; 
 and he had already befriended Eonald, and was greatly 
 interested in him ; moreover, had he not promised his 
 daughter, when she lay apparently very near to death, that 
 Ronald should be looked after ? But surely he had never 
 looked forward to any such opportunity as this ! And then 
 the girl was so pretty — that, also, was something. His 
 heart warmed to the occasion ; dinner being over, they 
 drew their chairs towards the big fireplace where the peats 
 were blazing cheerfully ; Ronald was bidden to light his 
 pipe ; and then the American — in a quiet, indifferent, sen- 
 tentious way, as if he were talking of some quite abstract 
 and unimportant matter — made his proposal. 
 
 " Well, now, Ronald," said he, as he stirred up some of the 
 peats with his foot, " you seemed to think that £400 a year 
 and a house thrown in was good enough for the overseer of 
 that Balnavrain place. I don't know what your intentions 
 are ; but if you like to take that situation, it's yours." 
 ' Ronald looked startled — but only for a moment. 
 
 " I thank ye, sir ; I thank ye," he said, with rather a 
 downcast face. " I will not say I had no suspicion ye were 
 thinking of some -such kindness ; and I thank ye — most 
 heartily I thank ye. But it's beyond me. I could not get 
 the securities." 
 
 "Well, now, as to that," the American said, after a 
 moment's consideration, " I am willing to take one security 
 — I mean for the whole amount ; and I want to name the 
 person myself. If Miss Douglas will go bail for you — or 
 Mrs. Strang, I suppose I should call her — then there is no 
 more to be said. Ronald, my good fellow, if the place is 
 worth your while, take it ; it's yours." 
 . A kind of flash of joy and gratitude leapt to the younger 
 man's eyes ; but all he could manage to say Avas — • 
 
 "If I could only telU?r.'" 
 
 " Well, now, as to that again," said Mr. Hodson, rising 
 slowly, and standing with his back to the fire, " I have got 
 to take along that present from my daughter — to-morrow 
 morning would be best ; and I could give her the informa- 
 tion, if you wished. But I'll tell you what would be still 
 better, my friend : you just let me settle this little affair 
 with the old people — with the mamma, as I understand. 
 
A PLEDGE REDEEMED 467 
 
 I'm not much of a talkist ; but if you give me permission 
 I'll have a try ; I think we might come to some kind of a 
 reasonable understanding, if she doesn't flatten me with 
 her swell relations. Why, yes, I think I can talk sense to 
 her. I don't want to see the girl kept in that position ; 
 your Scotch ways — well, we haven't got any old ballads in my 
 country, and we like to have our marriages fair and square 
 and aboveboard : now let me tell the old lady the whole 
 story, and try to make it up with her. She can't scold my 
 head off." 
 
 And by this time he was walking up and down the room ; 
 and he continued — 
 
 " No ; I shall go round to-morrow afternoon, when we 
 come back from the fishing. And look here, Ronald ; this 
 is what I want you to do ; you must get the other boat 
 down to the lake — and you will go in that one — and get 
 another lad or two — I will pay them anything they want. I 
 can't have my overseer actiug as gillie, don't you see — if I 
 am going to talk with his mother-in-law ; you must get out 
 the other boat ; and if you catch a salmon or two, just you 
 send them along to the Doctor, with your compliments — do 
 you hear, your compliments, not mine. Now " 
 
 " And I have not a word of thanks ! " Eonald exclaimed. 
 "My head is just bewildered " 
 
 " Say, now," the American continued quietly — in fact, he 
 seemed to be considering his finger-nails more than any- 
 thing else, as he walked up and down the room — " say, now, 
 what do you think the Doctor's income amounts to in the 
 year ? Not much ? Two hundred pounds with all expenses 
 paid ? " 
 
 " I really don't know," Ronald said — not understanding 
 the drift of this question. 
 
 " Not three hundred, anyway ? " 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know." 
 
 " Ah. Well, now, I've got to talk to that old lady to- 
 morrow about the prospects of her son-in-law — though she 
 don't know she has got one," Mr. Hodson was saying — half 
 to himself, as it were. " I suppose she'll jump on me when 
 I begin. But there's one thing. If I can't convince her 
 with four hundred a year, I'll try her with five — and Carry 
 shall kiss me the difference." 
 
 2 H 2 
 
468 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 CHAPTER XLYIII. 
 
 THE FACTOR OF BALNAVRAIN. 
 
 Well, now, some couple of montlis or so thereafter, this 
 same Miss Carry was one of a party of four — all Americans 
 - — who set out from Lairg station to drive to Inver-Mudal ; 
 and very comfortable and content with each other they 
 seemed to be when they were eusconced in the big wag- 
 gonette. For a convalescent, indeed. Miss Hodson appeared 
 to be in excellent spirits ; but there may have been reasons 
 for that ; for she had recently become engaged ; and her 
 betrothed, to mark that joyful circumstance, had left for 
 Europe with her ; and -it was his first trip to English shores ; 
 and more especially it was his first trip to the Highlands of 
 Scotland ; and very proud was she of her self-imposed office 
 of chaperon and expounder and guide. Truth to tell, the 
 long and lank editor found that in many respects he had 
 fallen upon troublous times ; for not only was he expected 
 to be profoundly interested in historical matters about which 
 he did not care a red cent, and to accept any and every 
 inconvenience and discomfort as if it were a special blessing 
 from on high, and to be ready at all moments to admire 
 mountains and glens and lakes when he would much rather 
 have been talking of something more personal to Miss Carry 
 and himself, but also — and this was the cruellest wrong of all 
 — he had to listen to continued praises of Ronald Strang that 
 now and again sounded suspiciously like taunts. And on 
 such occasions he was puzzled by the very audacity of her 
 eyes. She regarded him boldly— as if to challenge him to 
 say that she did not mean every word she uttered ; and he 
 dared not quarrel with her, or dispute ; though sometimes 
 he had his own opinion as to whether those pretty soft dark 
 eyes were quite so innocent and simple and straightforward 
 as they pretended to be. 
 
 " Ah," said she, as they were now driving away from the 
 village into the wide, wild moorland, " ah, when you see 
 Ronald, you will see a man." 
 
 She had her eyes fixed on him. 
 ■ " I suppose they don't grow that kind of a thing in our 
 country," he answered meekly ■•..■■ ■,.•;; - 
 
THE FACTOR OF BALNA VRAIN 469 
 
 " I mean," she said with a touch of pride, " I mean a man 
 who is not ashamed to be courteous to women — a man wh-o 
 knows how to show proper respect to women." 
 
 " Why, yes, I'll allow you won't find that quality in an 
 American," he said, with a subtle sarcasm that escaped her, 
 for she was too obviously bent on mischief. 
 
 " And about the apology, now ? " 
 
 " What apology ? " 
 
 "For your having published an insulting article about 
 Ronald, to be sure. Of course you will have to apologise 
 to him, before this very day is over." 
 
 " I will do anything else you like," the long editor said, 
 with much complaisance. " I will fall in love with the 
 young bride, if you like. Or I'll tell lies about the weight 
 of the salmon when I get back home. But an apology ? 
 Seems to me a man making an apology looks about as 
 foolish as a woman throwing a stone : I don't see my way 
 to that. Besides, where does the need of it come in, any- 
 how ? You never read the article. It was very com- 
 plimentary, as I think ; yes, it was so ; a whole column and 
 more about a Scotch gamekeeper " 
 
 "A Scotch gamekeeper!" Miss Carry said proudly. 
 "Well, now, just you listen to me. Ronald knows nothing 
 at all about this article ; if he did, he would only laugh at 
 it ; but he never heard of it ; and it's not to be spoken of 
 here. But I mean to speak of it, by and by. I mean to 
 speak of it, when I make the acquaintance of — what's his 
 distinguished name ? " 
 
 But here Miss Kerfoot — who, with her married sister, 
 occupied the other side of the waggonette — broke in. 
 
 " You two quarrelling again ! " And then she sighed. 
 " But what is the good of a drive, anyway, when we haven't 
 got Doctor Tom and his banjo ? " 
 
 " A banjo — in Strath-Terry ? " Miss Carry cried. " Do 
 you mean to say you would like to hear a banjo tinkle- 
 tinkling in a country like this ? " 
 
 " Yes, my dyaw," said Miss Kerfoot coolly : she had 
 been making some studies in English pronunciation, and 
 was getting on pretty well. 
 
 " I suppose you can't imagine how Adam passed the 
 time without one in the Garden of Eden — wanted to play 
 
470 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 to Eve on the moouligiit niglits— a cake-walk, I suppose — 
 pumpkin-pie — why, I wonder what's the use of bringing 
 you to Europe." 
 
 For answer Miss Kerfoot began to hum to her.^elf — but 
 with the words sounding clearly enough — 
 
 " Tse gwine hacJc to Dixie, 
 
 Tse (fwine back to Dixie, 
 Tse giviiie irliere the orange blossoms grow; 
 
 0, Td rather he in Dixie, 
 
 Td rather be in Dixie, 
 For travelling in the Highlands is so " 
 
 But here remorse of conscience smote her ; and she seized 
 Carry's hand. 
 
 " No, I won't say it — you poor, weak, invalid thiyg. 
 And were they worrying you about the Highlands, and the 
 slow trains, and the stuffy omnibus at Lairg ? Well, they 
 shan't say anything more to you — that they shan't ; and you 
 are to have everything your own way ; and I'm going to 
 fall in love with Eonald, just to keep you company." 
 
 But alas ! when they did eventually get to Inver-Mudal, 
 there was no Ronald to be found there. Mr. Murray was 
 there, and Mrs. Murray, and the yellow-haired Nelly ; and 
 the travellers were told that luncheon was awaiting them ; 
 and also that Mr. Hodson had had the second boat put 
 in readiness, lest any of them should care to try the fishing 
 in theafternoon. 
 
 " But where is Ronald ? " said Miss CaiTy, not in the 
 least concealing her vexation. 
 
 " Don't cry, poor thing," Miss Kerfoot whispered to her. 
 " It shall have its Ronald ! " 
 
 " Oh, don't bother ! " she said angrily. " Mr. Murray, 
 where is Ronald ? Is he with my father on the loch ? " 
 
 " No, no ; it's the two gillies that's with Mr. Hodson on 
 the loch," the innkeeper said. "And do not you know. 
 Miss, that Ronald is not here at ahl now ; he is away at the 
 place in Ross-shire." 
 
 " Oh yes, I know that well enough," she said, " but my 
 father wrote that he was coming over to see us for a day 
 or two ; and he was to be here this morning — and his wife 
 as well. But it is of no consequence. I suppose we had 
 better 2:0 in and have lunch now." 
 
THE FACTOR OF BALNAVRAIN 471 
 
 Miss Kerfoot was covertly laughing. But there was a 
 young lad there called Johnnie — a shy lad he was, and he 
 ■was standing apart from the others, and thus it was that 
 he could see along the road leading down to the Mudal 
 hridge. Something in that direction attracted Johnnie's 
 attention ; he came over and said a word or two to Mr. 
 Murray ; the innkeeper went to the gable of the house, 
 so that he could get a look up Tongue way, and then 
 he said — ■ 
 
 " Oh yes, I think that will be Ronald." 
 
 " Don't you hear ? " said Miss Kerfoot, who was following 
 the others into the inn. " They say that Ronald is coming 
 right now," 
 
 Miss Carry turned at once, and went to where the inn- 
 keeper was standing. Away long there, and just coming 
 over the bridge, was a dog-cart, with two figures in it. 
 She watched it. By and by it was pulled up in front of 
 the Doctor's cottage ; she guessed that that was Meenie 
 who got down from the vehicle and went into the house : 
 no doubt this was Ronald who was now bringing the dog- 
 •cart along to the inn. And then the others were sum- 
 moned : and presently Ronald had arrived and was being 
 introduced to them ; and Miss Carry had forgotten all her 
 impatience, for he looked just as handsome and good- 
 natured and modest-eyed as ever ; and it was very clear 
 that Miss Kerfoot was much impressed with the frankness 
 and simplicity of his manner ; and the editor strove to be 
 particularly civil ; and Mrs. Lalor regarded the new-comer 
 with an obviously appi'oving glance. For they all had 
 heard the story ; and they were interested in him, and in 
 his young wife ; besides they did not wish to wound the 
 feelings of this poor invalid creature — and they knew what 
 she thought of Ronald. 
 
 And how was he to answer all at once these hundred 
 ■questions about the Ross-shire place, and the house that 
 was building for them, and the farm where he and his wife 
 were temporarily staying ? 
 
 " Come in and have lunch with us, Ronald," said Miss 
 Oarry, in her usual frank way, " and then you will tell us all 
 about it. We were just going in ; and it's on the table." 
 
 ^' I cannot do that very well, I thank ye," said he, " for I 
 
472 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 have to go Lack to the Doctor's as soon as I have seen the 
 mare looked after •" 
 
 " Oh, but I thought yon were coming down to the loch 
 with ns ! " she said, with very evident disappointment. 
 
 " Yes, yes, to be sure ! " said he. " I'll be back in a 
 (juarter of an hour at the furthest ; and then I'll take one 
 of the lads with me and we'll have the other boat got out 
 as well." 
 
 " But you don't understand, Ronald," she said quickly. 
 " The other boat is there — ready— and two gillies, and rods, 
 and everything. I only want you to come with us for luck ; 
 there's always good luck when you are in the boat. Ah, 
 do you know what they did to me on Lake George ? " 
 
 " Indeed, I was sorry to hear of it, Miss," said he gravely. 
 
 " Miss ! " she repeated, with a kind of reproach ; but she 
 could not keep the others waiting any longer ; and so there 
 was an appointment made that they were all to meet at the 
 loch side in half an hour ; and she and her friends went 
 into the house. 
 
 When it came to setting out, however, Mrs. Lalor 
 begged to be excused ; she was a little bit tired, she said, 
 and would go and lie down. So the other three went by 
 themselves ; and when they got down to the loch, they not 
 only found that Ronald was there awaiting them, but also 
 that Mr. Hodson had reeled up his lines and come ashore 
 to welcome them. Of course that ^vas the sole reason. 
 At the same time the gillies had got out three remarkably 
 handsome salmon and put them on the grass ; and that 
 was the display that met the eyes of the strangers when 
 they drew near. Mr. Hodson was not proud ; but he ad- 
 mitted that they were good-looking fish. Yes ; it was a fair 
 morning's work. But there were plenty more where these 
 came from, he said encouragingly ; they'd better begin. 
 
 Whereupon Miss Carry said promptly — 
 
 " Come along, Em. Mr. Huysen, will you go with pappa, 
 when he is ready ? " And Ronald will come with us, to give 
 us good luck at the start." 
 
 Miss Kerfoot said nothing, but did as she was bid ; she 
 merely ca.£t a glance at Mr. Huysen as they were leaving ; 
 and her eyes were demure. 
 
 However, if she considered this manoeuvre — as doubtless 
 
THE FACTOR OF BALNAVRAIN 473 
 
 she did — a piece of mere wilful and perverse coquetry on 
 the part of her friend, she was entirely mistaken, It 
 simply never would have entered Miss Carry's head that 
 Ronald should have gone into any other person's boat, so 
 long as she was there — nor would it have entered his head 
 either. But besides that, she had brought something for 
 him ; and she wished to have time to show it to him ; and 
 so, when the boat was well away from the shore, and when 
 he had put out both the lines, she asked him to be so kind 
 as to undo the long case lying there, and to put the rod 
 together, and say what he thought of it. It was a salmon- 
 rod, she explained ; of American make ; she had heard 
 they were considered rather superior articles ; and if he 
 approved of this one, she begged that he would keep it. 
 
 He looked up with a little surprise. 
 
 " Ye are just too kind," said he. " There's that beautiful 
 rug that you sent to my wife, now " 
 
 " But isn't it useful ? " she said, in her quick, frank way. 
 " Isn't it comfortable 1 When you were coming along this 
 morning, didn't she find it comfortable ? " 
 
 " Bless me ! " he cried. " Do you think she would put a 
 beautiful thing like that into a dog-cart to be splashed with 
 mud, and soiled with one's boots ? No, no ; it's put over 
 an easy-chair at the Doctor's until we get a house of our 
 own, and proud she is of it, as she ought to be." 
 
 And proud was he, too, of this beautiful rod — if he 
 declared that it was far too fine for this coarse trolling work ; 
 and Miss Kerfoot arrived at the impression that if he could 
 not make pretty speeches of thanks, there was that in his 
 manner that showed he was not ungrateful. 
 
 Nor was Miss Carry's faith in Ronald's good luck 
 belied ; for they had not been more than twenty minutes 
 out on the loch when they had got hold of something ; 
 and at once she rose superior to the excitement of the 
 gillies, and to the consternation of her American friend. 
 Perhaps she was showing off a little ; at all events, she 
 seemed quite cool and collected, as if this strain on the rod 
 and the occasional long scream of the reel were a usual 
 kind of thing ; and Ronald looked on in quiet composure, 
 believing that his pupil was best left alone. But alas ! 
 alas ! for that long illness. The fish was a heavy one 
 
474 WHITE HEATHER 
 
 and a game fighter ; Miss Carry's arms were weaker than 
 she had thought ; at the end of about a quarter of an 
 hour — during which time the salmon had been plung- 
 ing and boring and springing, and making long rushes in 
 every conceivable manner — she began to feel the strain. 
 But she was a brave lass ; as long as ever she could 
 stand upright, she held on ; then she said, rather faintly — ■ 
 
 " Ronald ! " 
 
 " Take the rod," she said, " The fish isn't played out ; but 
 I am." 
 
 " What's the matter 'i " said he, in great alarm, as she 
 sank on to the seat. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, nothing," she said, though she was a little 
 pale. " Give Em the rod — give Miss Kerfoot the rod — 
 quick, Em, get up and land your first salmon." 
 
 " Oh my gracious no ; I should die of fright ! " was the 
 immediate answer. 
 
 But Ronald had no intention of allowing Miss Carry's 
 salmon to be handed over to any one else. He turned to 
 the gillies. 
 
 " Is there not a drop of whisky in the boat ? Quick, 
 lads, if you have such a thing — quick, quick ! — " 
 
 They handed him a small green bottle ; but she shrank 
 from it. 
 
 " The taste is too horrid for anything," she said. " But 
 I will have another try. Stand by me, Ronald ; and mind 
 I don't fall overboard." 
 
 She got hold of the rod again ; he held her right arm — • 
 but only to steady her. 
 
 " Carry — Carry ! " her friend said anxiously. " I wish 
 you'd leave it alone. Remember, you've been ill — it's too 
 much for you — oh, I wish the thing would go away ! " 
 
 " I mean to wave the banner over this beast, if I die for 
 it," Miss Carry said, under her breath ; and Ronald laughed 
 • — for that was more of his way of thinking. 
 
 "We'll have him, sure enough," he said. "Ay, and a 
 fine fish, too, that I know." 
 
 " Oh, Ronald ! " she cried. 
 
 For there was a sudden and helpless slackening of the 
 line. But she had experience enough to reel up hard ; 
 and presently it appeared that the salmon was there — ^very 
 
THE FACTOR OF BALNAVRAIN 475 
 
 much there, in fact, for now it began to go through some 
 performances — within five-and-twenty yards of the boat — 
 that nearly frightened Miss Kerfoot out of her wits. And 
 then these cantrips moderately slowed down ; the line was 
 got in shorter ; Ronald, still steadying Miss Carry's right 
 arm with his left hand, got hold of the clip in the other ; 
 and the young lady who was the spectator of all this 
 manoeuvring began rather to draw away in fear, as that 
 large white gleaming thing showed nearer and nearer the 
 coble. Nay, she uttered a quick cry of alarm when a 
 sudden dive of the steel hook brought out of the water 
 a huge silvery creature that the next moment was in the 
 bottom of the boat ; and then she found that Carry had 
 sunk down beside her, pretty well exhausted, but immensely 
 proud ; and that the gillies were laughing and vociferous 
 and excited over the capture ; and Eonald calmly getting 
 out his scale-weight from his pocket. The other boat was 
 just then passing. 
 
 " A good one "i " Mr. Hodson called out. 
 
 " Just over sixteen pounds, sir." 
 
 " Well done. But leave us one or two ; don't take 
 them all." 
 
 Miss Carry paid no heed. She was far too much ex- 
 hausted ; but pleased and satisfied, also, that she had been 
 able to see this fight to the end. And she remembered 
 enough of the customs of the country to ask the two gillies 
 to take a dram — though it had to come from their own 
 bottle ; she said she would see that that was replenished 
 when they got back to the inn. 
 
 It was a beautiful clear evening as they all of them — 
 the fishing having been given up for the day — walked away 
 through the meadows, and up into the road, and so on to 
 the little hamlet ; the western sky was shining in silver- 
 gray and lemon and saffron ; and there was a soft sweet 
 feeling almost as of summer in the air, though the year was 
 yet young. They had got six fish all told ; that is to say, 
 Mr. Hodson's boat had got one more in the afternoon ; 
 while Miss Carry had managed to pick up a small thing of 
 eight pounds or so just as they were leaving off. The fact 
 was, they did not care to prosecute the fishing till the last 
 moment : for there was to be a little kind of a dinner- 
 
4/6 WHITE HE A THER 
 
 celebration that evening ; and no doubt some of them 
 wanted to make themselves as smart as possible — though 
 the possibilities, as a rule, don't go very far in the case of a 
 fishing-party in a Highland inn — all to pay due honour to 
 the bride. 
 
 And surely if ever Meenie could lay claim to the title 
 of Rose-Meenie it was on this evening when she came 
 among these stranger folk — who were aware of her story, 
 if not a word was said or hinted of it — and found all the 
 women be-petting her. And Mrs. Douglas was there, 
 radiant in silk and ribbons, if somewhat austere in manner ; 
 and the big good-natured Doctor was there, full to over- 
 flowing with jests and quips and occult Scotch stories ; and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Murray had done their very best for the 
 decoration of the dining-room — though Sutherlandshire in 
 April is far from being Florida, And perhaps, too. Miss 
 Carry was a little paid out when she saw the perfectly 
 servile adulation which Mr, J. C. Huysen (who had a sen- 
 sitive heart, according to the young men of the N. Y . Suii) 
 laid at the feet of the pretty young bride ; though Mr. 
 Hodson rather interfered with that, claiming Mrs. Strang 
 as his own. Of course. Miss Kerfoot was rather down- 
 hearted, because of the absence of her Tom and his banjo ; 
 but Eonald had promised her she should kill a salmon on 
 the morrow ; and that comforted her a little. Mrs. Lalor 
 had recovered, and was chiefly an amused spectator ; there 
 was a good deal of human nature about ; and she had eyes. 
 
 Altogether it was a pleasant enough evening ; for, al- 
 though the Americans and the Scotch are the two nations 
 out of all the world that are the most madly given to after- 
 dinner speech-making, nothing of the kind was attempted : 
 Mr. Hodson merely raised his glass and gave " The Bride ! " 
 and Ronald said a few manly and sensible words in reply. 
 Even Mrs. Douglas so far forgot the majesty of Glengask 
 and Orosay as to become quite complaisant ; perhaps she 
 reflected that it was, after all, chiefly through the kindness 
 of these people that her daughter and her daughter's 
 husband had been placed in a comfortable and assured 
 position. 
 
 Ronald and Meenie had scarcely had time as yet to 
 cease from beins: lovers : and so it was that on this same 
 
THE FACTOR OF BALNAVRAIN 477 
 
 night he presented her with two or three more of those 
 rhymes that sometimes he still wrote about her when the 
 fancy seized him. In fact, he had written these verses as 
 he sate on the deck of the big screw-steamer, when she was 
 slowly steaming up the Raasay Sound. 
 
 loliaVs the sweetest thing there is 
 
 In all the wide, wide worlds — 
 A rose that hides its deepest scent 
 
 In the petals closely curled? 
 
 Or the Iwney thafs in the clover; 
 
 Or the lark's sonq in the morn; 
 Or the wind that hloics in summer 
 
 Across the fields of corn ; 
 
 Or the dew that the queen of the fairies 
 
 From her acorn-chalice sips? 
 Ah no; for sweeter and sweeter far 
 
 Is a Jiiss from Meenie's lips ! 
 
 And Meenie was pleased — perhaps, indeed, she said as 
 much and showed as much, when nobody was by ; but all 
 the same she hid away the little fragment among a mass 
 of similar secret treasures she possessed ; for she was a 
 young wife now ; and fully conscious of the responsibilities 
 of her position ; and well was she aware that it would 
 never do for any one to imagine that nonsense of that kind 
 was allowed to interfere with the important public duties 
 of the factor of Balnavrain. 
 
 THE EXD. 
 
LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, 
 
 BTAMFORD STREET ASD CHAKIKG CUOSS. 
 
The followmq is a complete list of the new llnlf-Croicn Edition 
 of Mr. Black's ]>/ovels, and the probable order of their 
 monthly issue beginning January 1892. 
 
 A Daughter of Heth. (Beady.) Sunrise. (Beady.) 
 
 The Strange Adventures of a 
 
 Phaeton. (Heady.) 
 A Princess of Thule. (Beady.) 
 In Silk Attire. (Ready.) 
 Kilmeny. (lieady.) 
 Madcap Violet. (Ready.) 
 Three Feathers. (Ready.) 
 The Maid of Killeena. (Ready.) 
 Green Pastures and Piccadilly. 
 
 (Ready.) 
 Macleod of Dare. (Ready.) 
 Lady Silverdale's Sweetheart. 
 
 (Ready.) 
 White Wings. (Ready.) 
 
 The Beautiful Wretch. 
 
 (Ready.) 
 Shandon Bells. (Ready.) 
 Adventures in Thule. (Ready.) 
 Yolande. (Ready.) 
 Judith Shakespeare. (Ready.) 
 The Wise Women of Inverness. 
 
 (Ready.) 
 White Heather. (Ready.) 
 Sahina Zembra. 
 The Strange Adventures of a 
 
 House Boat 
 In Far Lochaber. 
 The Penance of John Logan. 
 Prince Fortunatus. 
 
 London: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, Limited, 
 St. DnxsTAN'd House, Fbttks Lane.