Macleod of Dare Part 64

"We were more than friends, Gerty," said he, in a low voice.

"Let us be friends first, and then who knows what may not follow?" said she, brightly. "You cannot expect me to be overprofuse in affection just after being shut up like this?"

"Gerty," said he, and he looked at her with those strangely tired eyes, and there was a great gentleness in his voice, "do you know where you are? You are close to the island that I told you of--where I wish to have my grave on the cliff. But instead of a grave, would it not be a fine thing to have a marriage here? No, do not be alarmed, Gerty! it is only with your own goodwill; and surely your heart will consent at last!

Would not that be a strange wedding, too; with the minister from Salen; and your father on board; and the people from Dare? Oh, you would see such a number of boats come out that day, and we would go proudly back; and do you not think there would be a great rejoicing that day? Then all our troubles would be at an end, Gerty! There would be no more fear; and the theatres would never see you again; and the long happy life we should lead, we two together! And do you know the first thing I would get you, Gerty?--it would be a new yacht! I would go to the Clyde and have it built all for you. I would not have you go out again in this yacht, for you would then remember the days in which I was cruel to you; but in a new yacht you would not remember that any more; and do you not think we would have many a pleasant, long summer day on the deck of her, and only ourselves, Gerty? And you would sing the songs I first heard you sing, and I think the sailors would imagine they heard the singing of the mermaid of Colonsay; for there is no one can sing as you can sing, Gerty. I think it was that first took away my heart from me."

"But we can talk about all these things when I am on sh.o.r.e again," said she, coldly. "You cannot expect me to be very favorably disposed so long as I am shut up here."

"But then," he said, "if you were on sh.o.r.e you might go away again from me, Gerty! The people would get at your ear again; they would whisper things to you; you would think about the theatres again. I have saved you, sweetheart; can I let you go back?"

The words were spoken with an eager affection, and yearning; but they sank into her mind with a dull and cold conviction that there was no escape for her through any way of artifice.

"Am I to understand, then," said she, "that you mean to keep me a prisoner here until I marry you?"

"Why do you speak like that, Gerty?"

"I demand an answer to my question."

"I have risked everything to save you; can I let you go back?"

A sudden flash of desperate anger--even of hatred--was in her eyes; her fine piece of acting had been of no avail.

"Well, let the farce end!" said she, with frowning eyebrows. "Before I came on board this yacht I had some pity for you. I thought you were at least a man, and had a man's generosity. Now I find you a coward, and a tyrant--"

"Gerty!"

"Oh, do not think you have frightened me with your stories of the revenge of your miserable chiefs and their savage slaves! Not a bit of it! Do with me what you like; I would not marry you if you gave me a hundred yachts!"

"Gerty!"

The anguish of his face was growing wild with despair.

"I say, let the farce end! I had pity for you--yes, I had! Now--I hate you!"

He sprang up with a quick cry, as of one shot to the heart. He regarded her, in a bewildered manner, for one brief second; and then he gently said, "Good-night, Gerty! G.o.d forgive you!" and he staggered backward, and got out of the saloon, leaving her alone.

See! the night is still fine. All around this solitary bay there is a wall of rock, jet black, against the clear, dark sky, with its myriad twinkling stars. The new moon has arisen; but it sheds but little radiance yet down there in the south. There is a sharper gleam from one lambent planet--a thin line of golden-yellow light that comes all the way across from the black rocks until it breaks in flashes among the ripples close to the side of the yacht. Silence once more reigns around; only from time to time one hears the croak of a heron from the dusky sh.o.r.e.

What can keep this man up so late on deck? There is nothing to look at but the great bows of the yacht black against the pale gray sea, and the tall spars and the rigging going away up into the starlit sky, and the suffused glow from the skylight touching a yellow-gray on the main-boom.

There is no need for the anchor-watch that Hamish was insisting on: the equinoctials are not likely to begin on such a night as this.

He is looking across the lapping gray water to the jet-black line of cliff. And there are certain words haunting him. He cannot forget them; he cannot put them away.

WHEREFORE IS LIGHT GIVEN TO HIM THAT IS IN MISERY, AND LIFE UNTO THE BITTER IN SOUL? * * * WHICH LONG FOR DEATH, BUT IT COMETH NOT; AND DIG FOR IT MORE THAN FOR HIDDEN TREASURES. * * * WHICH REJOICE EXCEEDINGLY, AND ARE GLAD WHEN THEY CAN FIND THE GRAVE.

Then, in the stillness of the night, he heard a breathing. He went forward, and found that Hamish had secreted himself behind the windla.s.s.

He uttered some exclamation in the Gaelic, and the old man rose and stood guiltily before him.

"Have I not told you to go below before? and will I have to throw you down into the forecastle?"

The old man stood irresolute for a moment. Then he said, also in his native tongue,--

"You should not speak like that to me, Sir Keith: I have known you many a year."

Macleod caught Hamish's hand.

"I beg your pardon, Hamish. You do not know. It is a sore heart I have this night."

"Oh, G.o.d help us! Do I not know that!" he exclaimed, in a broken voice; and Macleod, as he turned away, could hear the old man crying bitterly in the dark. What else could Hamish do now for him who had been to him as the son of his old age?

"Go below now, Hamish," said Macleod in a gentle voice and the old man slowly and reluctantly obeyed.

But the night had not drawn to day when Macleod again went forward, and said, in a strange, excited whisper,--

"Hamish, Hamish, are you awake now?"

Instantly the old man appeared; he had not turned into his berth at all.

"Hamish, Hamish, do you hear the sound?" Macleod said, in the same wild way; "do you not hear the sound?"

"What sound, Sir Keith?" said he; for indeed there was nothing but the lapping of the water along the side of the yacht and a murmur of ripples along the sh.o.r.e.

"Do you not hear it, Hamish? It is a sound as of a bra.s.s-band!--a bra.s.s-band playing music--as if it was in a theatre. Can you not hear it, Hamish?"

"Oh, G.o.d help us! G.o.d help us!" Hamish cried.

"You do not hear it, Hamish?" he said. "Ah, it is some mistake. I beg your pardon for calling you, Hamish: now you will go below again."

"Oh no, Sir Keith," said Hamish. "Will I not stay on deck now till the morning? It is a fine sleep I have had; oh yes, I had a fine sleep. And how is one to know when the equinoctials may not come on?"

"I wish you to go below, Hamish."

And now this sound that is ringing in his ears is no longer of the bra.s.s-band that he had heard in the theatre. It is quite different. It has all the ghastly mirth of that song that Norman Ogilvie used to sing in the old, half-forgotten days. What is it that he hears?

"King Death was a rare old fellow, He sat where no sun could s.h.i.+ne; And he lifted his hand so yellow, And poured out his coal-black wine!

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for the coal-black wine!"

It is a strange mirth. It might almost make a man laugh. For do we not laugh gently when we bury a young child, and put the flowers over it, and know that it is at peace? The child has no more pain at the heart.

Oh, Norman Ogilvie, are you still singing the wild song? and are you laughing now?--or is it the old man Hamish that is crying in the dark?

"There came to him many a maiden, Whose eyes had forgot to s.h.i.+ne; And widows with grief o'erladen, For a draught of his sleepy wine.

Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for the coal-black wine!"