Part 10 (2/2)
”But thou must have heard the town noises?”
”A confused noise pa.s.sed through my ears, a noise full of hurry like a morning dream, that was all. Now, I am going for my swim and I will bring the news home with me.”
But long before it was within expectation of Ragnor's return, the three women standing at the open door saw Ian coming rapidly to the house from the town. His walk was swift and full of excitement. His head was thrown upward, and he kept striking himself on the right side, just over the place where his ancestors had worn their dirks or broadswords. As soon as he saw the three women he flung his Glengarry skyward and shouted a ringing ”Hurrah!”
As he approached them, all were struck with his remarkable beauty, his manly figure, his swift graceful movements and his handsome face suffused with the brightness of fiery youth. Through their long black lashes his eyes were s.h.i.+ning and glowing and full of spirit, and indeed his whole personality was instinct with verve and fire. Anyone watching his approach would have said--”Here comes a youth made to lead a rattling charge of cavalry.”
”Whatever is the matter with you, Ian?” cried Mistress Brodie. ”You are surely gone daft.”
”No indeed!” he answered. ”I seem at this very hour to have just found myself and my senses.”
”What is all the fuss about, Ian?” asked Rahal.
”England has gone to war at the long last with the cruel, crafty black Bear of the North.”
”Well then, it is full time she did so, there are none will say different.”
”And,” continued Ian, ”there is a s.h.i.+p now in harbour carrying enlisting officers--you may see her; she is to call at the Orkney and Shetland Islands for recruits for the navy, and Great Scot! she will get them! All she wants! She could take every man out of Kirkwall!”
”The Mayor and Captain Ragnor will not permit her to do so. She will have to leave men to manage the fis.h.i.+ng,” said Rahal.
”I thought the women could do that,” said Ian.
”You do not know what you are talking about. It takes two or three men to lift a net full of fish out of the water, and they are about done up if they manage it. Come in and get your breakfast. If your news be true, there is no saying when Ragnor will get home. He will have some reasoning with his men to do, he cannot spare many of them.”
”I have a good idea,” said Mistress Brodie. ”I will give a dance on Friday night for the enlisting officers, and we will invite all the presentable young men, and all the prettiest girls, to meet them.”
”But you will be too late on Friday. The cutter and her crew will leave Thursday morning early,” said Ian.
”Then say Wednesday night.”
”That might do. I could tell the men freshly enlisted to wear a white ribbon in their coats----”
”No, no, no!” cried Rahal. ”What are you saying, Ian? A white favour is a Stuart favour. You would set the men fighting in the very dance room. There is no excuse in the Orkneys for a Stuart memory.”
”I was not thinking of the Stuarts. Have they not done bothering yet?”
”In the Scotch heart the Stuart lives forever,” said Rahal, with a sigh.
But the dance was decided on and some preparations made for it as soon as breakfast was over. Ian was enthusiastic on the matter and Thora caught his enthusiasm very readily, and before night, all Kirkwall was preparing to feast and rejoice because England was going to make the great Northern Bear--”the Bear that walks like a man”--stay in the North where he belonged.
CHAPTER V
SUNNA AND THORA
Love, the old, old troubler of the world.
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