Part 56 (1/2)
”Well, that was a pretty story you told me this morning, Hamish, about the carrying off the young English lady. And have you thought any more about it?”
”I have thought enough about it,” Hamish said, in his native tongue.
”Then perhaps you could tell me, when you start on this fine expedition, how you are going to have the yacht taken to London? The lads of Mull are very clever, Hamish, I know; but do you think that any one of them can steer the _Umpire_ all the way from Loch-na-Keal to the river Thames?”
”Is it the river Thames?” said Hamish, with great contempt. ”And is that all--the river Thames? Do you know this, Sir Keith, that my cousin Colin Laing, that has a whiskey-shop now in Greenock, has been all over the world, and at China and other places; and he was the mate of many a big vessel; and do you think he could not take the _Umpire_ from Loch-na-Keal to London? And I would only have to send a line to him and say, 'Colin, it is Sir Keith Macleod himself that will want you to do this;' and then he will leave twenty or thirty shops, ay, fifty and a hundred shops, and think no more of them at all. Oh yes, it is very true what you say Sir Keith. There is no one knows better than I the soundings in Loch Scridain and Loch Tua; and you have said yourself that there is not a bank or a rock about the islands that I do not know; but I have not been to London--no, I have not been to London. But is there any great trouble in getting to London? No, none at all, when we have Colin Laing on board.”
Macleod was apparently making a gay joke of the matter; but there was an anxious, intense look in his eyes all the same--even when he was staring absently at the table before him.
”Oh yes, Hamish,” he said, laughing in a constrained manner, ”that would be a fine story to tell. And you would become very famous--just as if you were working for fame in a theatre; and all the people would be talking about you. And when you got to London, how would you get through the London streets?”
”It is my cousin who would show me the way: has he not been to London more times than I have been to Stornoway?”
”But the streets of London--they would cover all the ground between here and Loch Scridain; and how would you carry the young lady through them?”
”We would carry her,” said Hamish, curtly.
”With the bagpipes to drown her screams?”
”I would drown her screams myself,” said Hamish, with a sudden savageness; and he added something that Macleod did not hear.
”Do you know that I am a magistrate, Hamish?”
”I know it, Sir Keith.”
”And when you come to me with this proposal, do you know what I should do?”
”I know what the old Macleods of Dare would have done,” said Hamish, proudly, ”before they let this shame come on them. And you, Sir Keith--you are a Macleod, too; ay, and the bravest lad that ever was born in Castle Dare! And you will not suffer this thing any longer, Sir Keith; for it is a sore heart I have from the morning till the night; and it is only a serving-man that I am; but sometimes when I will see you going about--and nothing now cared for, but a great trouble on your face--oh, then I say to myself, 'Hamish, you are an old man, and you have not long to live; but before you die you will teach the fine English madam what it is to bring a shame on Sir Keith Macleod!'”
”Ah, well, good-night-now, Hamish; I am tired,” he said; and the old man slowly left.
He was tired--if one might judge by the haggard cheeks and the heavy eyes; but he did not go to sleep. He did not even go to bed. He spent the livelong night, as he had spent too many lately, in nervously pacing to and fro within this hushed chamber; or seated with his arms on the table, and the aching head resting on the clasped hands. And again those wild visions came to torture him--the product of a sick heart and a bewildered brain; only now there was a new element introduced. This mad project of Hamish's at which he would have laughed in a saner mood, began to intertwist itself with all these pa.s.sionate longings and these troubled dreams of what might yet be possible to him on earth; and wherever he turned it was suggested to him; and whatever was the craving and desire of the moment, this, and this only, was the way to reach it.
For if one were mad with pain, and determined to crush the white adder that had stung one, what better way than to seize the hateful thing and cage it so that it should do no more harm among the sons of men? Or if one were mad because of the love of a beautiful white Princess--and she far away, and dressed in bridal robes: what better way than to take her hand and say, ”Quick, quick, to the sh.o.r.e! For the summer seas are waiting for you, and there is a home for the bride far away in the North?” Or if it was only one wild, despairing effort--one last means of trying--to bring her heart back again? Or if there was but the one fierce, captured kiss of those lips no longer laughing at all? Men had ventured more for far less reward, surely? And what remained to him in life but this? There was at least the splendid joy of daring and action!
The hours pa.s.sed; and sometimes he fell into a troubled sleep as he sat with his head bent on his hands; but then it was only to see those beautiful pictures of her, that made his heart ache all the more. And sometimes he saw her all in sailor-like white and blue, as she was stepping down from the steamer; and sometimes he saw the merry d.u.c.h.ess coming forward through the ball-room, with her saucy eyes and her laughing and parted lips; and sometimes he saw her before a mirror; and again she smiled--but his heart would fain have cried aloud in its anguish. Then again he would start up, and look at the window. Was he impatient for the day?
The lamp still burned in the hushed chamber. With trembling fingers he took out the letter Ogilvie had written to him, and held the slip of printed paper before his bewildered gaze. ”The young and gifted actress.” She is ”shortly to be married.” And the new piece that all the world will come to see, as soon as she is returned from her wedding tour, is ”of a tragic nature.”
Hamis.h.!.+ Hamis.h.!.+ do you hear these things? Do you know what they mean?
Oh, we will have to look sharp if we are to be there in time. Come along, you brave lads! it is not the first time that a Macleod has carried off a bride. And will she cry, do you think--for we have no pipes to drown her screams? Ah, but we will manage it another way than that, Hamis.h.!.+ You have no cunning, you old man! There will be no scream when the white adder is seized and caged.
But surely no white adder? Oh, sweetheart, you gave me a red rose! And do you remember the night in the garden, with the moonlight around us, and the favor you wore next your heart was the badge of the Macleods?
You were not afraid of the Macleods then; you had no fear of the rude Northern people; you said they would not crush a pale Rose-leaf. And now--now--see! I have rescued you; and those people will persuade you no longer: I have taken you away--you are free! And will you come up on deck now, and look around on the summer sea? And shall we put in to some port, and telegraph that the runaway bride is happy enough, and that they will hear of her next from Castle Dare? Look around, sweetheart: surely you know the old boat. And here is Christina to wait on you; and Hamish--Hamish will curse you no more--he will be your friend now. Oh, you will make the mother's heart glad at last! she has not smiled for many a day.