Pharais; and, The Mountain Lovers. Sharp William
the boat ready? For what should I be going into the boat?"
"The Clansman! Do you not see her? Bi ealamh; bi ealamh! or she will go past us like a dream."
"She has flown no flag, she has no green light at the mast. No one will be coming ashore, and no freight; and there is no freight to go from here, and no one who wants the ferry unless it be yourself, Lora nighean Tormaid!"
"Alastair is there: he was to come by the steamer to-day! Be quick, Ian! Do you hear me?"
"I hear," said the old man, as he slowly moved toward the boulder to his left, unloosed the rope from the iron clank, and drew the boat into the deep water alongside the landing-ledge.
"There is no good in going out, Lora bhàn! The wind is rising: ay, I tell you, the wind goes high: we may soon hear the howling of the sea-dogs."
But Lora, taking no notice, had sprung into the boat, and was already adjusting the long oars to the old-fashioned wooden thole-pins. Ian followed, grumblingly repeating, "Tha gaoth ruhòr am! Tha coltas stairm' air!"
Once, however, that the wash of the sea caught the wherry, and the shrewd air sent the salt against their faces, the old man appeared to realise that the girl was in earnest. Standing, he laid hold of the sloped mast, to steady himself against the swaying as the tide sucked at the keel and the short waves slapped against the bows, and then gave a quick calculating glance seaward and at the advancing steamer.
Rapidly he gave his directions to Lora to take the helm and to keep the boat to windward:
"Gabh an stiuir, Lora: cum ris a' ghàoth i!"
The next moment the long oars were moving slowly, but powerfully, through the water, and the ferry-boat drove into the open, and there lay over a little with the double swing of wind and tide.
The gloaming was now heavy upon the sea; for a mist had come up with the dipping of the sun, and thickened the dusk.
Suddenly Ian called to Lora to hold the oars. As soon as she had caught them, and was steadying the boat in the cross surge of the water, he lifted a lantern from under the narrow fore-deck, lighted the wick below the seat (after the wind had twice blown the flame into the dark), and then, gripping the mast, waved the signal to and fro overhead.
It was well he thought of this, for the steamer was going at full speed, and would not have slackened.
In a few minutes thereafter the heavy stertorous throb and splash was close by them, while the screw revolved now at quarter-speed.
A hoarse voice came from the Clansman:
"Ferry ahoy!"
"Ay, ay, ta ferry she will pe," called back Ian in the quaint English of which he was so proud: though he thought the language a poor, thin speech, and fit only for folk who never left the mainland.
"What are ye oot for, Ian? Ha' ye ony body comin' aboard?"
"We've come out for Mr. Alastair Macleod," Lora broke in eagerly: "we've come to take him off."
"Hoots, my girl, what for d'ye fash yersel an' us too for the like o' sic havers. There's no one aboard who wants to land at Innisròn: an' as for Alastair Macleod, he was na' on the Clansman when we left Greenock, so he could na' well be on her the now! As for you, Ian Maclean, are ye doited, when, wi' neither flag nor green light aloft, ye stop the steamer like this, a' for a lassie's haverin'! Ye'll hear o' this yet, my man, I'se telling ye! Auld fule that ye are, awa' wi' ye! keep aff the wash o' the steamer: … an' by the Lord, I'll …"
But already the Clansman was forging ahead, and the second-officer's menace was swallowed up in the tumult of churned seas.
A minute later the steamer was a dark mass to the nor'-west, with a sheet of white writhing after her, and a swirl of flaming cinders from her funnel riding down the night like a shoal of witch-lights.
The wherry rocked heavily, caught as she was in the surge from the screw, and lying adrift in the sliding hollows and rough criss-cross of the waves.
Lora sat motionless and speechless. The old man stared down into the darkness of the boat: but though his lips moved continuously, no sound came from them.
For a time it was as though a derelict were the sport of the sea, which had a dull moan in it, that partly was from the stifled voice of the tide as it forced its way from the cauldrons of the deep, and partly from the fugitive clamour of breaking waves, and mostly from the now muffled, now loud and raucous sough of the wind as it swung low by the surge, or trailed off above the highest reach of the flying scud.
At last, in a whisper, the girl spoke.
"Ian, has aught of evil come to Alastair?"
"God forbid!"
"Do you know anything to his undoing?"
"No, Lora bhàn."
"You have not had the sight upon him lately?"
The islesman hesitated a moment. Raising his eyes at last, he glanced first at his companion and then out into the dusk across the waves, as though he expected to see some one or something there in answer to his quest.
"I dreamt a dream, Lora, wife of Alastair. I saw you and him and another go away into a strange place. You and the other were as shadows; but Alastair was a man, as now, though he walked through mist, and I saw nothing of him but from the waist upward."
Silence followed this, save for the wash of the sea, the moan of wind athwart wave, and the soft rush of the breeze overhead.
Ian rose, and made as though he were going to put out the oars; but as he saw how far the boat had drifted from the shore, and what a jumble of water lay between them and the isle, he busied himself with hoisting the patched brown sail.
As if no interval had occurred, Lora abruptly called him by name.
"Ian," she added, "what does the mist mean? … the mist that you saw about the feet and up to the waist of Alastair?"
There was no reply. Ian let go the sail, secured it, and then seated himself a few feet away from Lora.
She repeated the question: but the old man was obstinately silent, nor did he speak word of any kind till the wherry suddenly slackened, as she slipped under the lee of the little promontory of the landing-place.
"The tide will be on turning now," he exclaimed in his awkward English, chosen at the moment because he did not dare to speak in the Gaelic, fearful as he was of having any further word with his companion; "and see, after all, the wind she will soon pe gone."
Lora, who had mechanically steered the boat to its haven, still sat in the stern, though Ian had stepped on to the ledge and was holding the gunwale close to it so that she might step ashore with ease. She looked at him as though she did not understand. The old man shifted uneasily. Then his conscience smote him for having used the cold, unfriendly English instead of the Gaelic so dear to them both: for was not the girl in the shadow of trouble, and did he not foresee for her more trouble to come? So, in a gentle, apologetic voice, he repeated in Gaelic what he had said about the tide and the wind:
"Thill an sruth: Dh' fhalbh a' ghàoth."
"There will be peace to-night," he added. "It was but a sunset breeze, after all. There will be no storm. I think now there will be a calm. It will be bad for the herring-boats. It is a long pull and a hard pull when the water sleeps against the keel. A dark night, too, most likely."
Lora rose, and slowly stepped on shore. She took no notice of Ian's sudden garrulity. She did not seem to see him even.
He looked at her with momentary resentment: but almost simultaneously a pitiful light came into his eyes.
"He will be here to-morrow," he murmured, "and if not, then next day for sure."
Lora moved up the ledge in silence.
In the middle of the cove she stopped, waved her hand, and, in a dull voice bidding good-night, wished sound sleep to him:
"Beannachd leibh! Cadal math dhiubh!"
Ian answered simply, "Beannachd leibh!" and turned