A Princess of Thule. Black William
too, that this handsome, proud-featured, proud-spirited girl should so devote herself to the amusement of a man like Ingram, and, forgetting all the court that should have been paid to a pretty woman, seem determined to persuade him that he was conferring a favor upon her by every word and look. Of course, Lavender admitted to himself, Ingram was a very good sort of a fellow – a very good sort of a fellow, indeed. If any one was in a scrape about money, Ingram would come to the rescue without a moment’s hesitation, although the salary of a clerk in the Board of Trade might have been made the excuse, by any other man, for a very justifiable refusal. He was very clever, too – had read much, and all that kind of thing. But he was not the sort of man you might expect to get on well with women. Unless with very intimate friends he was a trifle silent and reserved. Often he was inclined to be pragmatic and sententious, and had a habit of saying unpleasantly better things when some careless joke was being made.
He was a little dingy in appearance, and a man who had a somewhat cold manner, who was sallow of face, who was obviously getting gray, and who was generally insignificant in appearance, was not the sort of man, one would think, to fascinate an exceptionally handsome girl, who had brains enough to know the fineness of her own face. But here was this princess paying attentions to him, such as must have driven a more impressionable man out of his senses, while Ingram sat quiet and pleased, sometimes making fun of her, and generally talking to her as if she were a child. Sheila had chatted very pleasantly with him, Lavender, in the morning, but it was evident that her relations with Ingram were of a very different kind, such as he could not well understand. For it was scarcely possible that she could be in love with Ingram, and yet, surely the pleasure that dwelt in her expressive face, when she spoke to him or listened to him, was not the result of a mere friendship.
If Lavender had been told at that moment that these two were lovers, and that they were looking forward to an early marriage, he would have rejoiced with an enthusiasm of joy. He would have honestly and cordially shaken Ingram by the hand; he would have made plans for introducing the young bride to all the people he knew; and he would have gone straight off, on reaching London, to buy Sheila a diamond necklace, even if he had to borrow the money from Ingram himself.
“And have you got rid of the Airgiod-cearc,4 Sheila?” said Ingram, suddenly breaking in upon these dreams; “or does every owner of hens still pay his annual shilling to the Lord of Lewis?”
“It is not away yet,” said the girl, “but when Sir James comes in the autumn I will go over to Stornoway and ask him to take away the tax; and I know he will do it, for what is the shilling worth to him, when he has spent thousands and thousands of pounds on the Lewis? But it will be very hard on some of the poor people that only keep one or two hens; and I will tell Sir James of all that – ”
“You will do nothing of the kind, Sheila,” said her father, impatiently. “What is the Airgiod-cearc to you, that you will go over to Stornoway only to be laughed at and make a fool of yourself?”
“That is nothing – not anything at all,” said the girl, “if Sir James will only take away the tax.”
“Why, Sheila, they would treat you as another Lady Godiva,” said Ingram, with a good-humored smile.
“But Miss Mackenzie is quite right,” exclaimed Lavender, with a sudden flush of color leaping into his handsome face, and an honest glow of admiration into his eyes. “I think it is a very noble thing for her to do, and nobody, either in Stornoway or anywhere else, would be such a brute as to laugh at her for trying to help those poor people, who have not too many friends and defenders, God knows.”
Ingram looked surprised. Since when had the young gentleman across the table acquired such a singular interest in the poorer classes, of whose very existence he had for the most part seemed unaware? But the enthusiasm in his face seemed quite honest; there could be no doubt of that. As for Sheila, with a beating heart she ventured to send to her companion a brief and timid glance of gratitude, which the young man observed, and never forgot.
“You will not know what it is all about,” said the King of Borva, with a peevish air, as though it were too bad that a person of his authority should have to descend to details about a petty hen-tax. “It is many and many a tax and a due Sir James will take away from his tenants in the Lewis, and he will spend more money a thousand times than ever he will get back; and it was this Airgiod-cearc, it will stand in the place of a great many things taken away, just to remind the folk that they have not their land all in their own right. It is many things you will have to do in managing the poor people, not to let them get too proud, or forgetful of what they owe to you; and now there is no more tacksmen to be the masters of the small crofters, and the crofters they would think they were landlords themselves if there were no dues for them to pay.”
“I have heard of those middlemen; they were dreadful tyrants and thieves, weren’t they?” said Lavender. Ingram kicked his foot under the table. “I mean, that was the popular impression of them – a vulgar error, I presume,” continued the young man, in the coolest manner. “And so you have got rid of them? Well, I dare say many of them were honest men, and suffered very unjustly in common report.”
Mackenzie answered nothing, but his daughter said quickly: “But you know, Mr. Lavender, they have not gone away merely because they cease to have the letting of the land to the crofters. They have still their old holdings, and so have the crofters, in most cases. Every one now holds direct from the proprietor, that is all.”
“So that there is no difference between the former tacksman and his serf, except the relative size of their farms?”
“Well, the crofters have no leases, but the tacksmen have,” said the girl, somewhat timidly; and then she added: “But you have not decided yet, Mr. Ingram, what you will do to-day. It is too clear for the salmon fishing. Will you go over to Meavig and show Mr. Lavender the Bay of Uig and the seven hunters?”
“Surely we must show him Borvapost first, Sheila,” said Ingram. “He saw nothing of it last night in the dark, and I think if you offered to take Mr. Lavender around in your boat, and show him what a clever sailor you are, he would prefer that to walking over the hill.”
“I can take you all around in the boat, certainly,” said the girl, with a quick blush of pleasure; and forthwith a message was sent to Duncan that cushions should be taken down to the Maighdean-mhara, the little vessel of which Sheila was both skipper and pilot.
How beautiful was the fair sea-picture that lay around them as the Maighdean-mhara stood out to the mouth of Loch Roag on this bright Summer morning! Sheila sat in the stern of the small boat, her hand on the tiller. Lufrath lay at her feet, his nose between the long and shaggy paws. Duncan, grave and watchful as to the wind and the points of the coast, sat amidships, with the sheets of the mainsail held fast, and superintended the seamanship of his young mistress with a respectful but most evident pride. And as Ingram had gone off with Mackenzie to walk over the White Water before going down to Borvapost, Frank Lavender was Sheila’s sole companion out in this wonderland of rock and sea and blue sky.
He did not talk much to her, and she was so well occupied with the boat that he could regard with impunity the shifting lights and graces of her face and all the wonder and winning depths of her eyes. The sea was blue around them; the sky overhead had not a speck of cloud in it; the white sand-bays, the green stretches of pasture and the far and spectral mountains trembled in a haze of sunlight. Then there was all the delight of the fresh and cool wind, the hissing of the water along the boat, and the joyous rapidity with which the small vessel, lying over a little, ran through the crisply curling waters, and brought into view the newer wonders of the opening sea.
Was it not all a dream, that he should be sitting by the side of this sea-princess, who was attended only by her deerhound and the tall keeper? And if a dream, why should it not go on forever? To live forever in this magic land – to have the princess herself carry him in this little boat into the quiet bays of the islands, or out at night, in the moonlight, on the open sea – to forget forever the godless South and its social phantasmagoria, and live in this beautiful and distant solitude, with the solemn secrets of the hills and the moving deep forever present to the imagination, might not that be a nobler life? And some day or other he would take this
Pronounced