Part 58 (1/2)
”And where are we going, Hamish,” says Colin Laing, in the Gaelic, ”when we leave this place?”
”When you are told, then you will know,” says Hamish.
”You had enough talk of it last night in the cabin. I thought you were never coming out of the cabin,” says the cousin from Greenock.
”And if I have a master, I obey my master without speaking,” Hamish answers.
”Well, it is a strange master you have got. Oh, you do not know about these things, Hamish. Do you know what a gentleman who has a yacht would do when he got into Gravesend as we got in last night? Why, he would go ash.o.r.e, and have his dinner in a hotel, and drink four or five different kinds of wine, and go to the theatre. But your master, Hamish, what does he do? He stays on board, and sends ash.o.r.e for time-tables and such things; and what is more than that, he is on deck all night, walking up and down. Oh yes; I heard him walking up and down all night, with the yacht lying at anchor!”
”Sir Keith is not well. When a man is not well he does not act in an ordinary way. But you talk of my master,” Hamish answered, proudly.
”Well, I will tell you about my master, Colin--that he is a better master than any ten thousand masters that ever were born in Greenock, or in London either. I will not allow any man to say anything against my master.”
”I was not saying anything against your master. He is a wiser man than you, Hamish. For he was saying to me last night, 'Now, when I am sending Hamish to such and such places in London, you must go with him, and show him the trains, and cabs, and other things like that.' Oh yes, Hamish, you know how to sail a yacht; but you do not know anything about towns?”
”And who would want to know anything about towns? Are they not full of people who live by telling lies and cheating each other?”
”And do you say that is how I have been able to buy my house at Greenock,” said Colin Laing, angrily, ”with a garden, and a boathouse, too?”
”I do not know about that,” said Hamish; and then he called out some order to one of the men. Macleod was at this moment down in the saloon, seated at the table, with a letter enclosed and addressed lying before him. But surely this was not the same man who had been in these still waters of the Thames in the by-gone days--with gay companions around him, and the band playing ”A Highland Lad my Love was born,” and a beautiful-eyed girl, whom he called Rose-leaf, talking to him in the quiet of the summer noon. This man had a look in his eyes like that of an animal that has been hunted to death, and is fain to lie down and give itself up to its pursuers in the despair of utter fatigue. He was looking at this letter. The composition of it had cost him only a whole night's agony. And when he sat down and wrote it in the blue-gray dawn, what had he not cast away?
”Oh no,” he was saying now to his own conscience, ”she will not call it deceiving! She will laugh when it is all over--she will call it a stratagem--she will say that a drowning man will catch at anything. And this is the last effort--but it is only a stratagem: she herself will absolve me, when she laughs and says, 'Oh, how could you have treated the poor theatres so?'”
A loud rattling overhead startled him.
”We must be at Erith,” he said to himself; and then, after a pause of a second, he took the letter in his hand. He pa.s.sed up the companion-way.
Perhaps it was the sudden glare of the light around that falsely gave to his eyes the appearance of a man who had been drinking hard; but his voice was clear and precise as he said to Hamish,--
”Now, Hamish, you understand everything I have told you?”
”Oh yes, Sir Keith.”
”And you will put away that nonsense from your head; and when you see the English lady that you remember, you will be very respectful to her, for she is a very great friend of mine; and if she is not at the theatre, you will go on to the other address, and Colin Laing will go with you in the cab. And if she comes back in the cab, you and Colin will go outside beside the driver, do you understand? And when you go ash.o.r.e, you will take John Cameron with you, and you will ask the pier-master about the moorings.”
”Oh yes, Sir Keith; have you not told me before?” Hamish said, almost reproachfully.
”You are sure you got everything on board last night?”
”There is nothing more that I can think of, Sir Keith.”
”Here is the letter, Hamish.”
And so he pledged himself to the last desperate venture.
Not long after that Hamish, and Laing, and John Cameron went in the dingy to the end of Erith pier, and left the boat there; and went along to the head of the pier, and had a talk with the pier-master. Then John Cameron went back, and the other two went on their way to the railway-station.
”And I will tell you this, Hamish,” said the little black Celt, who swaggered a good deal in his walk, ”that when you go in the train you will be greatly frightened; for you do not know how strong the engines are, and how they will carry you through the air.”
”That is a foolish thing to say,” answered Hamish, also speaking in the Gaelic; ”for I have seen many pictures of trains; and do you say that the engines are bigger than the engines of the _Pioneer_, or the _Dunara Castle_, or the _Clansman_ that goes to Stornoway? Do not talk such nonsense to me. An engine that runs along the road, that is a small matter; but an engine that can take you up the Sound of Sleat, and across the Minch, and all the way to Stornoway, that is an engine to be talked about!”