Nancy Stair Part 2

In spite of Hugh Pitcairn we were off the following Monday, going out of Leith, with a clear sky, a stiff breeze, and six men of our own feather, caring little where our destination lay, if the cards turned well, the drink held plenty, and the ocean rolled beneath us. North we went; north till the sea itself seemed quieter and lonelier; north where the twilight held far into the night, to be back by two of the morning; north by John o' Groats and the Pentland Skerries; till one June day found us turned far down the wild west coast; a colorless cruise behind us, with never a storm, a pirate s.h.i.+p, nor a sight of the jolly roger.

At the end of the day of which I speak we were lying in toward sh.o.r.e, and I was aft with a pipe for company, when Sandy came from behind the pile of sail-cloth against which I sat to say that the brig would have to lay by for repairs and to inquire what I thought of going ash.o.r.e for an adventure.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Somewhere above Landgore. 'Tis the very place for treasure," he added, with a laugh.

"There's nothing would suit me better than a night ash.o.r.e," said I with truth, for I had had enough of the drink, the slack language, and the rough sea life, and looked forward to the land with a pleasant hurry of thoughts.

The moon shone bright in a sky of plain dark blue, making a path of swaying gold toward the beach, where we could see the water curl upon the sands like suds. A little back was a steep rise of granite rocks, with gorse and heather growing on the sides, at the bottom of which some gipsies, or free-traders, had built a great fire, and we heard them singing a drunken catch in chorus, and saw them whirling round and round the fire in a circle, as we stepped ash.o.r.e from the boat.

An ugly silence fell as we approached them, and their women drew off, thinking that we were government men, no doubt; but finding that we had no weightier business than to get some information as to our whereabouts, one of them gave us word that the path up the cliff led to the Cuckoo Tavern, kept by Mother d.i.c.kenson, where we could obtain what refreshment we needed as well as lodgment for the night. We had gone some fifty feet when one of the men cried after us:

"An' if luck's wi' ye, ye may have a glyff of the handsomest la.s.s in Scotland," at which a woman cuffed him with a ringing sound. There followed a muttered curse and a roar of laughter, which was the last we had of them.

The path up the cliff twisted and roved in such a manner to avoid the many boulders that the inn-light proved little better than a will-o'-the-wisp to guide us, and it was in a breathless condition that we reached the quaint low house, which was both neat and comfortable, seeming peculiarly so perhaps after our long voyage.

A queer old woman, with a humorous wry face, yellow and deeply lined, sharp black eyes, and a ready manner, stood behind a small bar and took note of us upon our entrance, with the air of one well able to judge our rank and bearing.

The rest went off with her to inspect the chambers which she was able to offer, laughing and chaffing each other as was their way, leaving me alone in the main room with my back to the fire. As I stood thus I heard a sudden noise, saw the curtain of a door at the side raised, and a girl in a black robe with a lighted candle in her hand looked in at me.

For twenty-seven years I had waited for a sight of that girl!

She was tall and slight, and carried herself with the careless grace of a child; her hair was of a bronze color, parted over the brows and rippling back into a great knot low on the head; her skin was cream, with a faint, steady pink burning in the cheeks, but as is the way of men, it was the eyes and lips I noted most; eyes of gray, filled with poetry and pa.s.sion; eyes which looked out under brows black and heavy and between lashes, curled and long, giving a peculiar significance to the glance. The lips were scarlet, the upper one being noticeably short and full; lips mutable and inviting, lips that were made for mine--and all this I knew in the first minute that our eyes met, when, as it seemed to me, our two souls rushed together.

At gaze with each other we stood, no word spoken between us, for a full minute of time, when the noise of the men coming back disturbed her; she dropped the curtain and the light of her candle disappeared, a little at a time, as though she were walking from me down some long pa.s.sage-way.

I do not know how love comes to other natures than my own, and men of notable integrity have told me how leisurely they strolled into the condition of loving; but for me, by one questioning glance from a pair of eyes, half gray, half blue, I was sunk fathoms deep in love, in love that knows nothing, cares for nothing but the one beloved. Soul and body I was signed, sealed, and delivered, "hers," in that first sight I had of her in the doorway with the candle in her hand and the crimson curtain framing her as if she were a picture.

We had supper, of which I ate nothing; liquor, of which I drank nothing; and merry talk, in which I took no part, Sandy jeering at me for a dull a.s.s, I remember, and pretending regret at not having asked the Reverend s...o...b..y in my place; but his talk was of no moment to me, for my pulse was going like a trip-hammer, my brain reeled with that headiest wine of Nature's brewing, and I wanted to get out under the stars and be alone.

Having some skill at singing, Geordie MacAllister urged that I recall the catch we had heard on the beach; but finding me adamant against such an exhibition, Dame d.i.c.kenson offered a suggestion for our entertainment.

"There's a ward of mine here, a young lady, who has the music, and, seeing ye're all gentlemen, might be urged to a song."

Five minutes from the time that she was seated with us, I had heard her voice, our eyes had held each other again, and I saw a carnation flush bloom suddenly in her cheek as our hands touched. She brought with her a curious old instrument, like a lute with many strings, and upon this she struck chords to the song she sang, "The Wronged Love of Great Laird Gregory," the melody of which seems ever to be with me; and yesterday, when I heard Nancy crooning it to herself, I cried aloud as a woman might, for the unfulfilled in all our lives, and my dead youth, and Marian Ingarrach.

And at her singing, the four of us--or five it may be, for I can not now rightly recall whether Sawney MacAllister came ash.o.r.e that night or not--sat before her beauty as though it were a part of witchery, for there was a bookish strangeness to it that on this wild coast, in a nest of smugglers and free-traders, after a cruise of rough living and deep drinking, we should be listening to the voice of a girl whose beauty was upsetting to the senses of man and whose bearing denoted breeding of the highest order.

She left us after a second singing, bidding us good-night in a laughing, friendly fas.h.i.+on, and looking at every one, save me, full in the eyes, as a child might have done; but when her hand touched mine, her eyes fell before me, and I, who knew something of woman's ways, felt with a leaping heart that she knew.

The rest were gone from the room when Sandy Carmichael, who had made the pretense of another pipe, came back to me as I stood looking into the fire.

"You saw her first!" he said.

"Aye," I answered, "and it's all over with me!"

"Is it to the church door?" he asked.

"It's to the foot of the Throne itself," I answered. "It's wherever she leads," for I was young and phrase-making was in the blood.

"Well," he says, "ye're Lord Stair, and if ye choose to marry a gips----"

"Choose!" I cried. "I have no choice. The men who stand balancing as to whether they will or they won't, with 'Would it be wise?' or 'Acceptable to the world?' I have no knowledge of, and want none, as I have told you often."

"Well," said he, "I've always called you crazy, Jock Stair," and here he put his hand lovingly on my shoulder, "but I never discovered until to-night how crazy you are. I'm not denying there's something fine about it; but is it sensible? Think o' Pitcairn," he said, with a laughing devil in his eye.

"Pitcairn may go to perdition," I answered with some heat.

"It's not Pitcairn that's on his way there, I'm thinking," he returned, with a droll look; "but we must all learn by experience, so gang your own gate. We're off at five in the morning. Do you go?"

He saw by my manner that nothing save an earthquake could get me from the house, and whistling, with some significance, "The Deil Has Nae Got all the Fools," he left me without a good-by word. After he had gone I went forth into the open to be alone. The stars were s.h.i.+ning brightly through white clouds, which the sea winds drove across the sky, and far down the cliff I could see the great beach fire and catch the laughter and song of the gipsy folk and free-traders.

Tales were not wanting of the men of Stair who had lost their wits when crossed in love; who had run away with other men's wives and had abided with some jauntiness the world's dispraise, cleaving until death did them part to the one woman who seemed G.o.d-made for them. I had thought before this, in a slighting manner, of the strange doings of my forebears; but the thing was upon me, and, come life, come death, I knew that there was henceforward for me but one woman in the world, Marian Ingarrach, an Irish gipsy-girl, with a beauty beyond the natural, and a voice of music like the sounding of an old harp.

I stood under the great tree, the blood of a man and a lover pulsing sweet and feverishly through my veins, when I saw her come out on the balcony, over the sea door, where some posies grew, which she had come to move back from the wind. I was not one to lose an opportunity like this, for nature in me was strong and impulse-driven. I crossed the s.p.a.ce which divided us and spoke up to her.

"Will you come down?" I called to her; "I have that which I would say to you to-night."

She started at the sound of my voice, hesitated for a moment, and with no answer in words disappeared from the porch, coming out of the door near which I stood.

Her hair, in two long plaits, hung almost to her knees, and by the moonlight I could see the flush of her cheek and the silver sheen of her eyes as she looked up at me with questioning in her glance, and I remember now the clutch at my throat which seemed to hold back all I would say, as I took off my cap and stood before her.

"I love you," I said headily, "I love you, and I want you for my wife,"

and, seeing the highness of the absurdity that my first words to her should be a proposal of marriage, I cried,

"Oh, my dear! my dear! ye'll think me daft to talk thus; but we men of Stair go gyte in these affairs. 'Tis love at first sight with us, or none at all; but if ye'll have me, I'll make ye Lady Stair; and what's far more, I'll try to make you a happy woman the rest of your days.

"It seems wild enough for me to be talking so," I went on, "to you, who do not even know my name," and here she interrupted me with a shy smile.

"Jock!" she said, reaching forth her hand, and the door of heaven opened, as it seemed.

"How did you know?" I asked.

"Sure," she said, "I listened for it. The other big man called you that."

"You cared to know?" I whispered, for my arm was around her by this time, and the world had slipped away.

"Very much."

"And you think you could learn to love me, Marian?"

I felt the little body quiver in my arms, and when she spoke there was fear in her voice.

"Do you think it is right?" she asked. "Do you think it can be right?

It seems as though for years, for all my life, I had waited for your coming, and I loved you the minute I saw you--you whom a few hours agone I did not know to be a living man. Tell me," she went on excitedly, "you who are a man and of the world, can this be all good?"

"It is as G.o.d meant such things to fall," I answered her, "and He deal so with me as I shall deal with thee."