BOOKSELU&SS STATIONERS. B P. ADFORD- m IN FAE LOCHABEE. BY TYILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF A VR1NCESS OF TITCLE," "MACLEOD OF DARE," ETC. NEW EDITION. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, HAESTON, SEAKLE, & EIVINGTON, LIMITED, St. Dunstan's ?t>ousr, FETTER LAKE, FLEET STREET, E.G. 1889. [All rights reserved.'] BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Crown 8vo. 6s. each. A DAUGHTER OF HETH. KILMENY. THREE FEATHERS. LADY SILVERDALE'S SWEETHEART. IN SILK ATTIRE. SUNRISE. THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A HOUSE-BOAT. THE PENANCE OF JOHN LOGAN. SAMPSON Low & Co., LTD., ST. DUNSTAN'S HOUSE, FETTER LANE, LONDOX. THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON. A PRINCESS OF THULE. THE MAID OF KILLEENA. MADCAP VIOLET. GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY. MACLEOD OF DARE. WHITE WINGS: a Yachting Romance. THE BEAUTIFUL WRETCH. SHANDON BELLS. YOLANDE : The Story of a Daughter. JUDITH SHAKESPEARE. THE WISE WOMEN OF INVERNESS. WHITE HEATHER. SABINA ZEMBRA. MACMILLAN & Co., LOSDOS. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PACK I. IN FETTERS ... ... ... ... ... 1 II. THE BIT LADY ... ... ... 16 III. IN A CALDRON OF THE HILLS ... ... ... 41 IV. JOHN 62 V. A BOAT LAUNCH ... ... ... ... 77 VI. UEEER ALLEN GIPFELN ... ... ... 90 VII. AT OYRE HOUSE ... ... ... ... 105 VIII. "FAREWELL TO LOCHABER" ... ... ... 125 IX. THE COWANS OF COHBIESLAW ... ... ... 145 X. HITHER AND THITHER ... ... ... 161 XI. A VISITOR ... 178 XII. INTERVENTION ... ... ... ... 196 XIII. A SUMMONS ... 213 XIV. AN EXPEDITION ... ... ... ... 228 XV. PRINCESS DEIRDRI ... ... ... ... 242 XVI. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE ... ... ... 258 XVII. IN EXTREMITY ... ... ... ... ... 273 XVIII. FOR GOOD OR ILL ... ... 290 XIX. A SUMMONS ... ... ... ... ... 307 XX. MA^ TO MAN ... ... . . 324 XXI. SOME SURPRISES... ... ... .. ... 336 XXII. A BATTLE ROYAL ... ... ... 355 XXIII. AGNES... ... ... ... ... ... 366 XXIV. HOMEWARD... 383 1781542 IN FAR LOCHABER CHAPTER I. IN FETTERS. KIRK o' SHIELDS, a small town in Lanarkshire, that all the week long was a roaring pandemonium of noise and fire and steam engines shrieking, boiler- works hammer- ing, blasts and furnaces belching forth red flame into the heavy, smoke-laden atmosphere sank of a Sunday into a sudden and unnatural quiet, that seemed to deepen and deepen as the slow hours of the afternoon dragged by and darkness and the night came down. And nowhere was the silence more marked and impressive than in the Minister's parlour, whence all worldly thoughts and cares and interests were supposed to be scrupulously banished, and the evening, after the active services of the day, given over to silent reading and meditation. On this particular Sabbath night there were three persons in the hushed little room, all of them absorbed in their pious task ; and not a sound was audible beyond the occasional turning over of a leaf, or perhaps (for human nature is frail, and the time passed slowly) a bit of a half-concealed sigh from one of the girls. The Minister himself sat in the big easy-chair by the fireplace, the family Bible spread open on his knees, his head slightly inclined for- B 2 IN FAB, LOCHABEK. ward, his two hands partly supporting the ponderous volume. He was rather a small man, of pronounced and stern features ; his forehead deeply lined ; his dark gray eyes, set under bushy eyebrows, usually expressing a profound and habitual melancholy, though at times they were capable of flashing forth a fire of resentment or indignation. Suffering had left its traces on this worn and furrowed face, but the resignation of the Christian was there as well. If the heavy brows, the keen nostrils, the strong upper lip and still stronger under lip, showed determination, not to say doggedness, of will, the deep-set, unutterably sad gray eyes were those of a man who had come through much tribulation, and had brought himself to accept these trials as the discipline of an all-wise and all-merciful Father. Of the two daughters who were seated at the table, both with books before them, the elder, Alison by name, was a young woman of eighteen or nineteen, of pale com- plexion, clear gray eyes with dark eyelashes, and smoothly braided dark brown hair. A calm intelligence and a sufficient self-possession were visible in her shapely fore- head and well-cut mouth ; but at this moment the ordi- nary bright and friendly scrutiny of her eyes had given way to an absent look as she leaned forward over her reading. Perhaps she saw but little of the printed page before her. In church that morning, after the intro- ductory psalm had been sung, the Minister had advanced to the front of the pulpit and made the brief announce- ment : "The prayers of this congregation are requested for a young woman about to enter upon a long journey ; " and the protracted and earnest and curiously personal appeal that followed for Divine protection and loving- kindness and guardianship was known by all the people present to be made on behalf of the Minister's own daughter, Alison Blair. And now, despite the strict IN FETTERS. 3 exclusion of all worldly things from the meditations of the Sabbath evening, perhaps there were visions before those mild, clear, calm gray eyes. On the morrow Alison Blair was going away into an unknown country. The younger sister, Agnes, was of the same complexion as Alison, but there was less decision of character in her refined and gentle face. Her large eyes were wistful, the mouth sensitive even to sadness, and her delicate features looked all the more ethereal that they were set about by faintly straw-coloured hair that even sunlight could hardly have made to shimmer into gold. And if in this noiseless small room there were visions also before her eyes, they were visions of no earthly country or earthly pilgrimage Her favourite reading was the Book of Revelation, and she did not tire of it ; for where was the limit to her far- reaching dreams of the new heaven and the new earth, the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband ? Nay, in this profound stillness could she not hear some distant murmur, as coming from the wide and wonderful spaces that were visible to her mental eyes ? On these Sabbath evenings Kirk o' Shields lay silent in the darkness, as if [stricken by the hand of death. But in the mystical and shining far regions that she beheld, were there no sounds that could come faintly towards an intently listening ear, across the starlit deeps of the sky? "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia : for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him : for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white : for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." Kirk o' Shields, and all its squalor and din and wretchedness, were forgotten in thesy 4 IN FAR LOCHABER. entranced dreams ; she beheld a great multitude, arrayed in shining robes, and singing, as it were, a new song. " And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders : and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth." And in her fanciful way she listened, and still listened, and seezaed to hear, as the hushed half-hours went by. ' Alison," said the Minister, happening to look up, " what book is that ye're reading ? " The sudden breaking of the deep silence startled the girl, but she answered the question, naming a well-known Sunday magazine, a bound volume of which lay before her on the table. " I thought as much," said the Minister, with a brief sigh of resignation, and he returned to his Bible. But the next moment he had looked up again, and in the deep-set gray eyes there was an angry glow of indignation. " And a fine thing it is," he said, with a resentment that was none the less bitter that it was uttered in slow and measured tones "a fine thing it is to bring novels and romances into a God-fearing family under the guise of reading fitted for the Sabbath-day ay, and ministers of the Gospel not ashamed to lend their names to such a practice. But the Enemy of Mankind has inseedious ways and means; he'll take servants where he can get them, even if they're just come down from the pulpit ; and little does the Reverend This or the Reverend That think whose work he is about when he is passing perneecious and soul- destroying leeterature into honest households. It's not enough that the frivolous and idle and worldly should steep their minds in that poison ; the remnant of Israel, that have been trying to keep the Lord's Day pure and sanctified to His name, they must be induced to drink also, and by His own appointed servants. His servants ? the IN FETTERS. 5 Devil's servants I call them : purveyors of lying, what else can they be ? The worship of lying that is a strange worship to be seen among men. And look at the altars the poor, blind, deluded creatures are proud to raise ! Look at the monument in Prince's Street of Edinburgh, and the monument in George's Square in Glasgow, to the Great Liar ! Grand monuments they are braw monu- ments they are raising their tall columns into the skies, and saying to every one that passes by, ' This is the man the nation delighteth to honour! ' Honour for the Greatest Liar that is the new worship on the face of God's earth. But of one thing, lass, you may be sure that when the Lord's persecuted people were being driven from moor to moss, and from glen to hill-side, scattered here and hewn down there by the bloody dragoons scarcely daring to lift up their voices in prayer and supplication lest their pursuers should overtake and overwhelm them they little thought or cared whether they should be made a by- word and a jest for the amusement of the Edinburgh lawyers and their fine leddies and misses. They knew that the flame in their hearts was of the Lord's kindling ; they knew that their blood, spilt on the heather, would not be spilt in vain. The Scotland of this day is a de- generate country surely if she doesna bethink her of what she owes to the martyrs of the Covenant." He paused for a second or two ; his eyes lost their fire and resumed their ordinary expression of profound and resigned sadness. "And yet I wonder," he said, slowly, "what old Adam Blair of Moss-end would have thought if he could have foreseen the time when preachers of the Gospel, ordained ministers of the Church of Christ, would connive at making novel-reading a pastime in believing families ay, and what he would have thought could he have fore- seen one of his own name and lineage busy with such work on a Sabbath evening." 6 IN FAK LOCHABEK. " I was not reading the story, father," Alison said gently ; " but I will go and get another book." Softly 'she stole away to her own little room upstairs. She had no need of any light ; a dull red glow a pul- sating red glow, waxing and waning in fitful flushes shone through the brown blind of the solitary window. In former years every house-window in Kirk o' Shields, as in most other Scotch towns, had its blind thus drawn down all day long on the Sabbath, as a matter of ordinary decorum ; but this observance has now almost entirely disappeared ; only here and there a respecter of other days a minister, or elder, or church officer, or the like tenaciously clings to the old custom. And of course the Rev. Ebenezer Blair was among these. He belonged to the famous family of the Blairs of Moss-end, who had borne their testimony in troublous times, and had achieved great honour in these parts ; and in all things, even in the smallest, Ebenezer Blair was content to walk in the foot- steps of his forefathers, whatever might be the changing fashion of his neighbours or friends. Alison easily found the volume that she sought ; but before returning to the room below, she went to the window, and put the blind aside a few inches, and looked out. Those red flames of the iron- works, now flashing up into the darkness of the night, and sending a swift crimson glow along the chimneys and slates of the opposite houses, had always had for her a singular fascination. Perhaps it was that they formed the one beautiful thing, the one beautiful piece of colour, visible in the murky atmosphere that hung over Kirk o' Shields from week's end to week's end. In the daytime the flames were of an orange hue lambent tiger-lilies she thought they were, shining afar amid that melancholy waste of gray; but at night they changed to crimson, and she could imagine them to be the fires of great altars, fed from unknown depths, and leaping IN FETTERS. 7 with their sudden, resplendent stag-horns of light into the black skies overhead. Silent and beautiful they were ; not fierce in any way ; the quick rose-flush that lit up the slates and the chimneys seemed a friendly thing ; the night was made less lonely. Was this a farewell look, then ? To-morrow she would be leaving those giant, silent, beautiful altar-flames far behind. At random for what few books were in the room were all of a religious cast she had taken a volume from the top of a chest of drawers, and it was not until she returned to her place in the parlour below that she discovered what she had done. She had unwittingly brought with her the book of all the books in the house that she most dreaded to wit, Paley's " Evidences of Christianity." There was a Free Library in Kirk o' Shields ; Alison Blair had the cariosity naturally accompanying a mind at once acute and intrepid ; little did her friends and acquaintances, still less her own immediate relatives, imagine how familiar she was with, and how eagerly she followed, the new speculations, problems, theories of these later times. Darwin, Huxley, Spencer were to her more than mere names and echoes of names. But even to her all this modern intellectual movement was in a manner a distant thing ; it seemed to be happening in some other planet ; it had no relation to the actual facts of her own life. She could read an article on the Mosaic account of creation without seriously feeling that the authority of Scripture was being impugned. It was something that interested her in a vague kind of way, this discussion going on in that distant realm ; in nowise did it seem to affect the assured and abiding faith in revelation that she held in common with the people among whom she dwelt. To them this certain faith was all in all ; it was their one possession a heavenly as well as an earthly possession ; holding fast by that, the poorest of them were richer than 8 IN FAR LOCH ABE R. princes or kings ; death had no sting for them, hell no terrors ; an everlasting crown was before them ; washed in the blood of the Lamb, and made white as snow, they would pass into the joy of their Lord. In works (as they were never tired of insisting to each other) there was no virtue ; works were carnal, and a snare to the soul ; in faith alone was saving grace ; and how, Alison might have asked herself, could these poor people around her, whose austere piety had something pathetic in it, even when they had " got assurance," as the phrase was how could they or this priceless belief of theirs be affected by what scientific men, and literary men, and statesmen, and others, were writing in magazines and reviews in the far- away city of London ? And then there came a time a chance phrase in an article had struck an unexpected chord when her heart seemed to stand still for a moment. Was the Christian religion, then, but a passing phenomenon similar to other phenomena that had appeared in the world before and since and with no higher sanction than its own lofty morality and purity of aim ? The question was a startling one, but it did not terrify her. She had been brought tip in an atmosphere of conviction. She had been accustomed to regard these writings and speculations as something quite apart from the present facts and conditions of life- Still, just by way of curiosity, perhaps, or to comfort herself by making assurance doubly sure, she thought she would make a patient study of Paley's " Evidences," which she had not read since she was a child of twelve. Alas ! this book did terrify her for a time. Doubts that she had never dreamed of before for her childish reading had been entirely perfunctory were now pre- sented to her mind ; and they seemed to have a far more startling significance than the elaborate arguments which were meant to resolve them. Why, on the very first page IN FETTERS. 9 she read these strange words : " Suppose, nevertheless, almost the whole race, either by the imperfection of their faculties, the misfortune of their situation, or by the loss of some prior revelation, to want this knowledge, and not to be likely, without the aid of a new revelation, to attain it. . . ." Was, then, the history of God's dealings with mankind so much a matter of conjecture was that portion of it included in the Christian revelation so small and temporary and fragmentary a thing that one had to guess at some previous revelation rather than believe that countless generations of the sons of men had lived and died in ignorance and gone to their doom ? This was but the beginning ; her imagination, with a rapidity she could not control, would persist in asking further and further questions, and the only answer was a shuddering dread. For she was quite alone. There was no one to whom she could go for guidance and help. Between her father and herself there was doubtless a measure, perhaps a consider- able measure, of affection : he on his part regarding her with the natural instinct of protection and care; she on her part moved to deep admiration by his stern integrity of character. But that affection took no visible sign. An expression of it would have been regarded as more than a weakness, as something culpable, as putting the creature before the Creator : for was not all the love and gratitude of the human heart due to the Divine Father ? And as between the Minister and his children there was no ex- pression of affection, so there was no confidence. When Alison, in her first bewilderment and alarm, thought of her going to her father with these doubts and perplexities, she could see his eyes afire with astonishment and anger. No pity there, but wrath : what devil had entered into her ? why had she not striven and wrestled to cast him out forthwith ? Was the Evil Spirit still vexing her ? To her knees, then ! in her own chamber with prayer 10 IN FAR LOCHABER. and fasting and supplication till she could come to say she was restored and in her right mind. There was Agnes, it is true; and between the two girls there was a devoted affection though betraying itself in deeds more than in words and a close confidence as well. But how was she to darken that fair young mind with her own morbid, and probably foolish, imaginings H Xot even in her loneliest hours, when her soul in its agony seemed crying aloud for a single word of sympathy, could she go to her sister. Her sister ? who knew that their mother, dead these many years, sometimes came to see them in the mid hours of the night, in the little room where they slept together. Again and again (so the younger girl averred, with eyes grown mystical and strange) she had seen the pale figure, gentle and smiling, who stood by the side of the bed and regarded her two children. Nay, she had heard her. " I don't know how it is, Ailie," she would say, as the two sisters sat before the fire by themselves of a winter evening, " but I seem to hear her when she comes into the room. I cannot make out what the noise is, or whether it is a noise, but it is something I hear and know. It wakes me ; and when I open my eyes I find her standing at the foot of the bed, and sometimes at the side, and quite near. And I'm not in the least afraid, she looks so kind ; just the old way, Ailie, you remember, when she would meet us coming home from school ? And some night I am going to say to her, ' Mother, will ye no waken Ailie too ? for she hardly believes you come to see her.' " " Hush, hush, Aggie ! " the elder sister would say ; " you should not speak of such things, for they pass un- derstanding ; and I doubt whether father would not be angry if he were to hear." " Some night you will see for yourself," the younger sister would say, and then fall into silence and reverie. IN FETTERS. 11 However, the paroxysm of alarm and uncertainty caused by Paley's " Evidences of Christianity " was not of long duration. Alison put the book aside and would not open it again. These doubts were all too terrible ; she shrank back from the appalling loneliness iu which she found herself. Nay, she strove to convince herself that she had been properly punished for wandering away from the fold and following her own poor reason. Who was she, to set up her individual judgment against the authority of the preachers and teachers in Israel ? Paley himself was but a human being like any other ; surely it was a perilous thing, in a matter of such supreme moment, to follow a fallible guide ! Womanlike, she clung to the majority ; and the majority not to say the entire com- munity of those around her were possessed by a faith which, however sombre it might be, was at least un- wavering and questionless. Paley's " Evidences " lay on the top of the chest of drawers in her room, and remained there untouched. But it was not for long that on this evening she had to practise the harmless hypocrisy of holding the book open before her, while she would not allow herself to read a single disquieting word. " Alison," said the Minister, presently, as he transferred the big Bible from his knees to the table, and drew in his chair, " ye may call in the weemen now." > Agnes went and got " the books ; " and directly after- wards, the two women-servants of the household, sum- moned by Alison, came into the room. The younger of these was a stout, red-haired, freckled, black-eyed wench, whose apathetic manner seemed to suggest that she would be glad enough when this ordeal was over.' " Dod, but our Minister dings a' ! " this buxom lass was used to say in confidence to her gossips. " He doesna gie the Lord a minute's peace. It's ask-asking and beg-beg- 12 IX FAR LOCHABER. ging frae morning till nicht. I'm sure I hope it'll no be like my brither Jock at hame. When he gangs fishing on the Lernock so the lads say he keeps whuppin' and whuppin' the water is never at rest for a second and deil a sea-trout or a grilse does he e'er bring hame wi' him. Look at the Sawbath, Kirsty, -woman, that they ca' a day o' rest. A day o' rest ! There's faimily worship at nine, when a body has scarcely got their breakfast swallowed ; then the Minister he's off to the Young Men's Christian Association that's at ten o'clock in the hall. Then there's the kirk itsel' at half-past eleeven : and the folk have hardly time to come out and look about them when it's in again at t\va o'clock for anither couple o' hours. Then there's the Minister's Bible class at six, and family worship again at nine. Dod, I never saw the like ! Weel, I suppose the Minister kens best. Sometimes the wean that keeps whingeing and whinge- ing* gets what it greets for. And sometimes," she would add, snappishly, " it gets a scud o' the side o' the he the elder servant a tall woman she was, dark- complexioned, and meagre of face came into the room with a kind of furtive fear in her eyes. This woman the solitary exception in this community was possessed by the dreadful conviction that she was not of the elect ; she was an outcast, consigned to everlasting punishment ; the scheme of salvation had no place for her ; and whatever portion of the Scripture might be read, the denunciations of the wicked could hardly be less terrible to her than descriptions of the eternal joys and glories from which she was hopelessly and for ever shut out. She was wholly reticent about this conviction of hers ; but it was well known. More than once Alison had unwittingly come upon the poor wretch when she was on her knees, appeal- * The child that keeps whimpering and whimpering. IN FETTERS. 13 ing with passionate tears and sobs, not that she might be forgiven, and allowed to take the lowest place among the ransomed, but that she might be enabled to lift np her heart to the Lord in gratitude for all His goodness to her. She did not complain of her awful fate, or seek in any way to escape from it. It was the Lord's will ; let Him be praised. And when Alison, shuddering to think of any human being going through life with this fearful doom continually before her, would say, " But, Margaret, what is the sin against the Holy Ghost ? What is the unfor- givable sin ? You do not even know what it is ! " she would shake her head in silence, or answer with her favourite text : " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him ! " " We will praise God by singing the eightieth Psalm," the Minister began ; and when they had found their places, he himself started the tune the old, familiar " Martyrdom " it was which was at once taken up by the fresh, clear voices of the girls " Hear, Tsrat 1's Shepherd ! Like a flock Thou that dost Joseph guide : Shine forth, Thou that dost between The cherubims abide ! In Ephraim's and Benjamin's, And in Manasseh's sight, O come for our salvation : Stir up Thy strength and might. " Turn us again, O Lord our God, And upon us vouchsafe To make Thy countenance to shine, And so we shall be safe. O Lord of hosts, almighty God, How long shall kindled be Thy wrath against the prayer made By Thine own folk to Thee? " The singing over, he opened the large Bible and proceeded to read the second chapter of the Book of Ruth no doubt choosing the story of the young Moabitess 14 IN FAR LOCHABER. who left her own country and went to live among an unknown people as having some reference to Alison and her departure on the morrow. And finally, when they all knelt down, and he engaged in prayer, his fervent appeal for Divine protection for this child of his who was going away into a strange land was even more personal and immediate than that he had preferred in open church'. Not only so, but it was full of urgent and earnest admoni- tion and exhortation addressed to herself. They were no common and worldly dangers she was to dread ; these things were of little account ; in this transitory space of time called life, sickness and sorrow, trouble and diseases, and death itself, were but trivial accidents. It was the far more deadly peril that the Christian soul might have to encounter that was to be feared the insidious attacks of Satan pride of heart, the allurements of the eye, frivolity, forgetfulness that every moment of time was of value in preparing for the Judgment-day of the Lord. And then he spoke of her going forth alone and yet not alone ; and his last words were words of consolation : " Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper : the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil : He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore." "Worship concluded, the women went their several ways, leaving the Minister to finish up his reading and put out the lights. And soon silence and sleep had fallen over the whole household bringing to the poor creature Margaret, it is to be hoped, some temporary and blessed forgetfulness of the awful doom for ever before her waking eyes ; and to Agnes Blair, perhaps, the mystic vision of a gentle and smiling mother, standing by her IN FETTERS. 15 bedside and regarding her with a wistful affection ; while as for Alison, it is to be imagined that her dreams were most likely to be of the far country she was about to enter, when she had left behind her the turmoil and din and lowering skies, the rigid observances, the monotonous duties, the incessant and morbid introspection, the cramped and fettered life of Kirk o' Shields. 16 IN FAR LOCHABER. CHAPTER II. THE BIT LADY. LEAGUE upon league of glassy calm, save where some wandering puff of wind stirred the still sea into a deeper blue ; the long green island of Lismore basking in the sun, and tapering away to its southernmost point, where the small white light-house stands ; the hills of Morven, in hues of faint rose-gray and lilac, grown distant in the heat ; close by, the winding shores of the main-land, with wooded knolls, and crags, and bays where the shallow water showed the sand below : this was the picture that Alison saw all around her as the great steamer thundered and throbbed away northward through the fair, summer- like day. Surely here was a new heaven and a new earth after Kirk o' Shields. And brilliant and beautiful as it was, it was all so restful. On board the steamer, it is true, the sunlight burned hot on the white deck, and on the scarlet funnels, and on the crimson velvet cushions beside her; but she could turn her bewildered eyes away from this overpowering blaze, and let them dwell grate- fully on the wide blue spaces of the sea, and on the hills that had grown almost ethereal in the haze produced by fine weather, and on a sky that down at the horizon-line in the south had scarcely any colour in it at all. A day of pale azure and silver it was ; calm and shining and clear ; there was not anywhere overhead a single fleecy flake to throw a patch of purple shadow on the fav- stretching and resplendent plain. THE BIT LADY. 17 By the air around her suddenly becoming warmer, she guessed that the steamer was lessening its speed ; and presently, when the great paddles had been stopped and then reversed, driving a mass of white, seething foam down into the clear bottle-green water, she found they were alongside Port Appin pier. With a natural curiosity, for she was a stranger in a strange land, she was scanning the small group of people assembled to meet their friends or their packages (and perhaps she was contrasting the fresh complexions and trim and trig adornment of one or two of the Highland lasses there with the too-familiar appearance of the bareheaded, tartan-shawled, worn-faced women who made up the bulk of the female population of Kirk o' Shields), when her eye happened to light on a new-comer, who was hastening down to the boat. He was a young man, and not over middle height ; but there was something effective and picturesque in the set of his strongly built frame, in the carriage of his head, and even in the long and easy and careless stride with which he came down the quay. He was none too soon ; indee'd the hawsers had been cast off and the gangway withdrawn when he stepped, or leaped, on to the paddle-box. He turned for a moment to wave his hand to one or two com- panions who had come as far as the head of the pier with him ; then he entered into conversation with the captain, the two of them being apparently very good friends. She was sitting here alone and observant ; and she seemed to perceive a peculiar sunniness (so to speak) and cheerfulness in this young man's look and bearing. Also she was aware that he had singularly clear eyes ; for once or twice they were turned in her direction, and instantly she had to drop her own. For the rest, his costume was novel to her. Sportsmen have no occasion to go wandering along the grimy streets of Kirk o' Shields. She had never seen anybody in knickerbockers ; and the simple and ser- c 18 IN FAB LOCHABER. viceable garb laced boots and Highland hose, a homespun shooting-jacket, a Tarn o' Shanter drawn forward over his brow, a bit of red silk tie showing under his flannel shirt- collar seemed somehow to suit the easy self-possession of his manner. Then he had the complexion of one familiar with the sun and sea-air ; fair as he was, his skin was a trifle darker than his short, twisted yellow moustache. Dandified ? perhaps a little. And yet there was a manly look about the breadth of his shoulders ; he had a flat back, a well-knit calf, and small ankle ; and always there was a kind of pride in the poise of his head. He was laughing and talking with the captain, but he was looking around at the same time ; more than once she had to swiftly lower her eyes. It was about a couple of minutes thereafter and to her astonishment and dismay that she found this young man approaching her. She knew, rather than saw, that he touched his cap. " I beg your pardon, but may I ask if you are Miss Blair ? " She ought to have been still further startled ; but the sound of his voice was pleasant to the ear. " Y yes," she said, glancing timidly upward. " I know your friends in Fort William," said he, "and they asked me to look after you, and get your luggage ashore for you. Of course they will be down at the quay ; but I will see your things got ready, if you will let me, so that you won't have any trouble." " Oh, thank you," said she, hardly knowing what to say. " I understand you have not been in the Highlands before," he continued; and with the greatest coolness he sat down beside her on the velvet cushion, and laid his arm on the gunwale of the steamer. " No," she answered ; but all the time she was asking THE BIT LADY. 19 herself what had enabled him to identify her. Was there some Kirk o' Shields peculiarity in her dress or appear- ance ? " You are lucky in having such a beautiful day for your first glimpse of them," he went on to say, with much placid assurance. " It isn't always like this. Those hills over there Kingairloch that is and those away up yonder, by Inversanda and Ardgour they are not nearly so far away as they seem to be ; it is the haze of the settled weather that makes them appear distant. That is Shuna island : do you see the old castle ? Why, there's a seal look ! " She turned her eyes in the direction indicated, and could make out a round dark object on the pale blue- white plain. " I shouldn't wonder if that is the old fellow that goes backward and forward after the ferry-boat between Port Appin and Lismore. He is a friendly old chap ; I dare say he has followed us so far just for the sake of company. There he's down off again, I suppose, for Appin." Presently he said perhaps casting back a little " I hope you will pardon my bluntness in addressing you, but, you see, I had made pretty sure. I had a good look round, though I fixed on you from the first. You seem surprised ? Well, I had heard you described so often, you know. Your Aunt Gilchrist is never done talking about you, and she told me again and again how I should recognize you. ' And when you see her ' this was her last message when I was coming away ' tell " the bit lady " that I am just wearying for her.' That is what she always calls you 'the bit lady.' " " It was a childish nickname," Alison said quickly, with her pale face and forehead showing some brief colour of embarrassment. "Oh, I know," said he, with a careless good-humour; 20 IN FAR LOCHALER. " I know quite well. I have had the minutest descrip- tions of you at a very early age indeed. I have' heard a good deal about ' the bit lady,' who was so prim, and precise, and accurate in her speech, and dignified in her manner. Oh yes, and very fierce she was in correcting rude boys, I understand. I have heard, too, of her remonstrating with the servants about their grammar ; and of her repetition of ' Fetual Calling ; ' and of her tame sparrow that was scolded because it wouldn't speak." Alison grew more and more embarrassed ; it was so strange to find a perfectly unknown person so intimately acquainted with her early years, and on such familiar speaking-terms with herself. She managed to interrupt him by asking how her Aunt Gilchrist was. " Oh, very well indeed. Last night she was in the highest of spirits. I suppose she was rid for the time of her rheumatism, or whatever the mysterious ailment is that she makes such fun of when it isn't there ; and she made the old Doctor suffer. But he doesn't mind much. For all their quarrelling, I never knew two sweethearts half so fond of each other as the Doctor and his sister are. If he scolds her the one moment he is petting her the next. And I am sure that both he and his wife, and all the family indeed, are remarkably good-natured so far as you are concerned ; for your Aunt Gilchrist makes not the slightest secret that she is going to leave her money to you or the most of it ; and yet they don't seem jealous; they tease her about it quite openly; and I think you will find they will make you. as welcome as the old lady herself. You haven't seen much of them ? " "Of my uncle's family?" said Alison and now she was growing less embarrassed, for this young man seemed so pleasant, and natural, and unaffected in manner ; and moreover he appeared to know all about her kinsfolk. " No, not very much; only when they came once or twice THE BIT LADY. 21 to see my Aunt Gilchrist in Edinburgh." And then she added, glancing up at him for a second, "Is Flora as pretty as ever? " "Miss Flora," said he, "is quite the belle of Fort William, as she lets all of us know. And as light-hearted as ever, I need not tell you that. By the way, I suppose you know what she calls you ? Haven't you heard ? She calls you Miss Dimity Puritan." For the first time a bit of a smile hovered round Alison's mouth, though her eyes were as usual downcast. " I seem to have various names in Fort William," she remarked. " But they are all given to you in kindness, any way," he answered. " Oh, I assure you that your coming is considered to be a very great affair ; and I look on myself as very fortunate in being your escort even this little bit of the way." He could not say any more at present, for the steamer was slowing into Ballachulish pier ; and Alison was much interested in watching the people land and set out by coach for Glencoe. She had risen now from her seat, and when she addressed remarks or questions to the young man who was by her side, it never occurred to Miss Dimity Puritan that she was talking to a person whose very name she did not know. . He seemed to belong to that family in Fort William to her uncle's family. Then he was not obtrusive in his attentions ; he was at her command no more ; and besides, his voice was soft and musical and pleasant to listen to. He tried to get her to say Balla-chaolish, but she only laughed a little and declined. Presently they set out northward again; and he told h^r the names of the various mountains those giant masses whose sterile altitudes, rising far above the sparsely wooded slopes and precipices, seemed to recede away from 22 IX FAK LOCHABER. human ken; although along their base, here and there, was some narrow strip of cultivation a field with the hay gathered into cocks (for, summer-like as the day was, they were now at the end of August), or a patch of yellowing corn just over the deep sapphire of the sea. Then, when they had got through the Narrows of Corran, they came in sight of the mighty bulk of Ben Nevis, towering high above the lower hills of bracken and heather, its vast shoulders of granite seamed with rose- pink scaurs, that caught a warm glow from the now westering sun. A brisk breeze had sprung up by this time from the north or north-west, driving the sea around them into a* vivid blue ; and far away beyond these lapping waters, on the shore, amid some soft green foliage, ivere two or three white dots of houses: these were the out- skirts of Fort William. While as yet they were a long way from the quay, he said "Your cousins have come down." " Can you make them out at so great a distance ? " she said, in some wonderment. " Oh, well," he made answer, apologetically ; " there are things that help you. I can see Miss Flora's sailor hat and dark dress. Then the tall lad by her side must be Hugh. Then the boy with the wheelbarrow that, of course, is Johnny." " But who is Johnny ? " she asked, for she had no cousin of that name. " Oh, you don't know Johnny ? Johnny works in the garden, and sails the boat, and does anything else he is driven to do. Besides that, he is a person of the keenest sense of humour. I know what he is thinking of at this moment. He is looking at this steamer, and wishing she might go on the rocks." "But why ? " said Alison, with open eyes. THE BIT LADY. 23 " That he might have the fun of seeing ug all struggling in the water," her companion remarked, calmly. " He is really a very humorous lad. But I am afraid I shall have to make a horsewhip curl round Master Johnny's legs if he doesn't put some restraint on his passion for setting living things, no matter what, to fight each other. He is too anxious to get at the survival of the fittest all at once. Nature works by slow methods ; Johnny is far too impatient. And then he has a habit of destroying the survivor which is exceedingly unfair, and unphilo- sophical too." " What an inhuman young wretch ! " she said. " Oh no. It's only his playful humour. He lives such a monotonous life grubbing up -weeds, sitting at the tiller, baiting night-lines, and so on. It is very hard. Here he has been several years in Fort William, and constantly in sight of the quay, and never once has a steamer burst her boilers and blown herself into the air. Well, now, will you come and show me your luggage ? We shall be there directly." Indeed there was little luggage to look after ; and when Johnny came on board (Alison regarded this stout, heavy- shouldered lump of a boy, with his broad, grinning face, and small, twinkling eyes, and wondered whether he was thinking it would be an excellent joke to drop her port- manteau into the sea) her few things were speedily trans- ferred ashore and put on the barrow. At the same time Alison, followed by the young man whose acquaintance she had made, passed along the gangway ; and no sooner had she stepped on to the quay than she was caught hold of by her cousin (a handsome and strapping young lady this was, fresh-complexioned, with dark blue eyes and black hair ; her costume of serge, with a straw hat showing a band of red ribbon) and heartily kissed on both cheeks and made welcome. It was a form of embrace unknown, 24 IX FAR LOCHABER. or at least not practised, in Kirk o' Shields ; Alison was blushing a little as she released herself, and turned to her other cousin a tall young lad of eighteen or twenty, who eyed her somewhat askance and offered him her hand. " I'm glad you got a good day for the sail," he said, rather bashfully. " I suppose you will go right on to the house now with Flora. Ludovick," he added, addressing the young man with the twisted yellow moustache and clear light eyes, "will you come along to the building- shed ? I want you to look at the belaying-pins ; I think Campbell has got them all Avrong." "Indeed no," said Miss Flora, promptly. "Ludovick is coming with us : aren't you, Ludovick ? And and this is my cousin, Alison " " We formed a little acquaintanceship on board the steamer," said he, pleasantly. "And I know Miss Blair's name ; but I'm afraid she doesn't know mine." " Alison," said Miss Flora at once, " let me introduce to you Captain Macdonell a great friend of ours ; that is why we asked him to look after you and see about your luggage, when we knew he was going down to Appin. Come, let us be off home ; Aunt Gilchrist will be wearying for you, as she says. Look at Hugh ! " the young lady continued, sending a farewell glance after her brother as they left the quay. " Isn't he glad to be rid of us ! He thought I would insist on marching him back to tea ; and of course he couldn't refuse, with his cousin just come ashore. But now he's off to stand about among damp shavings, and gaze and gaze at the wonderful boat that is all of his own designing. And precious glad he is to be rid of us girls, I know ; oh, you'll find out soon enough, Alison, what he thinks of us all. Useless creatures, every one. We can't do anything right. We can't throw a stone straight ; we can't sharpen a pencil, or shut a door, or do anything as it ought to be done ; when we jump THE BIT LADY. 25 from a wall \ve light on our heels ; we can't trim, a boat when she's sailing goodness gracious ! he shifts us about just as if we were ballast, and an ounce one way or another is all our fault ; and we'd run away from a cow if it wasn't for shame. If you only knew the contempt he has for us ! I wonder what he is thinking of you, Ludovick : you might be standing gazing at that marvellous boat instead of going home to drink tea with a lot of women." "He'll pay for all this," Ludovick Macdonell observed, shrewdly. " He will sing another tune some day. All at once an angel will appear on earth not from the clouds, but out of a finishing-school, most likely, and everything will be transformed and transfigured. And then to walk along the beach with her, her long yellow hair blown about by the sea- wind just think of the magic of it; and the dreams of doing extraordinary things for her sake be- coming a great poet, or taking the Queen's prize at Wim- bledon, or something of that kind. There will be no more contempt then not at all ; rather an indiscriminate affec- tion and esteem for any one so privileged as to belong to the same sex as the wonderful and adorable creature " " No, no, no, Ludovick," said Miss Flora, shaking her head ; "you will never find Hugh transmogrified like that. Ask his opinion of any girl, no matter who she is. If you say she has pretty fair hair, he says, ' Look at her piggy eyelashes.' If you say she sings well, he says, ' Yes, when by chance she hits the key.' If you praise her figure, he says, ' I hate draggle-tails ; can't she use a needle and thread instead of fixing up her dress with a pin ? ' Fancy a boy noticing a thing like that ! What business has he with pins and needles and thread, and sarcastic comments about mirrors and making-up ? No, there is no beauty in us that he should desire us," she continued, with a careless and probably inadvertent use of Scriptural phraseology that considerably startled Alison. " We'll 26 IN FAR LOCHABER. have to set my cousin here to see if she can do anything with him ; it is the quiet ones who do the most mischief." By this time they had passed along the straggling street of the little town with its whitewashed cottages, and small general stores, and banks, and inns, and churches and were out in the southern suburbs, where a number of detached villas, set among pretty gardens, overlooked the beach. It was all a fairy-land to the wistful-eyed stranger from Kirk o' Shields that beautiful panorama of sea, and wooded slopes, and far-reaching mountains ; while here, close at hand, everything seemed so fresh and clean and bright in the sunlight, and the air was sweet with the scent blown from the gardens. At one of the small gates her companions stopped, and she was invited to enter. She passed in by a little gray-pebbled path, and found herself in a wilderness in a very trim wilderness, it is true of old-fashioned flowers : nasturtiums, dahlias, pansies, marigolds, all set in plots and borders : while, as she glanced towards the house, she perceived that the front wall of it was hanging with white roses and the pen- dulous crimson bells of the tree-fuchsia. But she had not much time to examine the villa itself which was exceed- ingly smart, none the less, with its facings of brown stone, and its gables, and its green Venetian blinds ; for in the porch, and smiling a blithe welcome, was the imperious little dame who had summoned her thither. When Alison went forward, she found herself seized by both hands, and held at arm's-length, by this bright-complexion ed, silver- haired, pleasant-eyed small person, who subjected her to a keen and yet not unkindly scrutiny. " And how's the bit lady ? let's see how she's looking," the old dame said, in accents that were more familiar to Alison than the gently modulated Highland speech ; for Mrs. Gilchrist had lived many of the years of her life in Edinburgh. " Oh, none so ill, to have come out o' that THE BIT LADY. 27 awfu' town none so ill. I wonder ye can live in it at all ; I never see it but I think o' the bad place. I'm sure if the bad place is any worse than Kirk o' Shields, I peety the poor folk that are to be sent there. And how's my brother-in-law the Minister, Alison ? and that frail-look- ing young lassie, your sister ? " " They're very well indeed, Aunt Gilchrist," Alison said. " And I am sure they thought it very kind of you to ask me to come and stay with you for a while." " Yes ; but did they say the like ? " she said, with a laugh. " Na, na, they're dour folk in Kirk o' Shields ; they dinna speak what's in their mind. And there you are, just as ever, you bigoted wee Puritan, with your stubborn gray eyes ; and nothing in the wide world would induce yoa. to say they sent me a friendly word or a message though ye might tell a bit o' a white lee just for the sake o' civility." "I am sure they thought it very kind of you all the same, Aunt Gilchrist," said Miss Dimity Puritan, " even if they didn't send you any formal message." " Well, well, come indoors, or your Aunt Munro will be jealous. I think she has gone upstairs to see your things put right. Flora will show you the way and there's to be tea in the back garden directly, as I hear." " And I've brought you the illustrated papers, Mrs. Gilchrist," said the young militia captain, coming forward dutifully. " Uncut, I suppose," said she, glancing at the bundle. " Well, Captain Ludovick, you and I will go away and take our places at the table ; and then you can get a knife and cut the edges for me, for I'm a poor old woman, and hate trouble." They passed through the house and into the back garden, where there was a round table covered with a white cloth, and amply bespread. All kinds of cake were there, and 28 IX FAR LOCHABEE. soda-scones, short-bread, marmalade, black-currant jam, and the like : the Findon haddocks and the tea had not yet been summoned. This enclosed space behind the house sloped abruptly upward ; and there was a winding path to the summit of the grassy knoll, where the afternoon sun burned in golden light ; but down here there was a cool and pleasant shadow, and quietude for the eyes. How- ever, Mrs. Gilchrist did not occupy herself with the illus- trated papers when he had cut the edges for her. " So you managed to make her out on board the steamer ? " said she to the young man, who had laid aside his Tarn o' Shanter revealing thereby how light his com- plexion was ; for there was a well-marked division between the clear hue of the upper portion of his forehead and that of the rest of his face, which was browned by the sun. " Within two minutes of our leaving Appin pier," answered Captain Ludovick. " I recognized her the moment I saw her." " And what do you think of her ? " " I think she is extremely pretty," said he. " No, d'ye really think that ! " said Aunt Gilchrist, with affected surprise ; but the kind old dame's face had in- voluntarily lit up with pleasure at this praise of her protegee. " D'ye really think that now ? For I shouldna have thought it was her good looks that would have recommended her to folk. She's got her mother's eyes, it is true ; and there wasna a bonnier lass than my sister Ailie in a' the length and breadth o' Stirlingshire. And the bit creature has pretty hair too, if she wasna so prim about it. Flora will have to pull it about for her, and put her in the fashion. Maybe it's living in that bottomless pit o' a place that has kept her so pale ; but it's a natural complexion too mind that ; it's no ill health not a bit." " I know this," said he, with some decision ; "you may say what you please about her features, or her complexion, THE BIT LADY. 29 or tlie colour of her hair, but one thing is certain, you would never pass her by unnoticed. There is something particularly distinguished about her something unusual something that tells you in a moment she is not like the other strangers who may be around her, 011 board a steamer or anywhei-e else. Perhaps it is the self-possession of her manner a kind of dignity, and simplicity as well." "Ay, do ye say that now ? do ye say that ? " said the bright little dame, with much obvious pleasure. " Well, here she comes for herself. Here's my bit lady ! Come uway, you Lanarkshire lassie, and let's see whether the Highland air has made you hungry. Here, take this chair next me : that's where you're to sit whenever you and I are at the same table. And if your Aunt Munro is^jealous, you must just tell her that Highland kinship is stronger than Scotch, and that you've Highland blood in your veins, for all you were born in that wearyf u' hole o' fire and smoke." " I'm sure, Jane," said Aunt Munro, who was a tall, bland, well-featured, Scotch-looking woman, with mild eyes, and an expression of great gentleness "I'm sure, Jane, none of us will quarrel with you for being kind to Alison." And very kind, indeed, they all of them were to her ; and a very merry little party this was, assembled down here in the grateful shade, while the afternoon light shone yellow on the crest of the knoll above them. The old lady was in especially gay spirits. Perhaps she was pleased that her protegee had won the high approval of the only stranger who had as yet seen her ; perhaps she was looking forward with much content to having this constant companion to pet and tyrannize over; at all events, she was very cheerful and merry, and full of quips and jests and good-humoured raillery. And most of all did her gibes fall on the absent Doctor. 30 IN FAR LOCHABEE. " Oh, they're fine fellows, they doctors, with their long words that they hide themselves behind. That's how they escape ; when you've got them in a corner, and bade them declare their ignorance, they just jump through a big door and shut it in your face a big door of three or four syllables, in Latin or Greek, and there you're left helpless. Look at me, Alison Blair. How big am I ? I couldn't take a prize at a show of dolls ! But bless ye, this braw doctor of an uncle o' yours would make ye believe I had a whole pharmacopoeia of ailments in my wee body. I have a bit twinge in my toes sometimes, or along my fingers just nothing it is but you should hear the Doctor ! It's peripheral neuralgia one day ; it's nenreetis the next ; and rheumatic gout the next ; and I'm not to take this and I'm not to take that especially sugar. Alison, reach me the bowl." Alison passed the sugar-bowl to the old lady, who forthwith took out a goodly piece, and with a determined air plumped it into the large cup of tea before her. " That's for periphery ! " she said. She took out another piece and plumped it in, " And that's for neureetis ! " she said. She took a third piece and plumped it in. " And that's for rheumatic gout and my compliments to the whole three o' them ! " "Well, Aunt Gilchrist," said Flora's mother, with a good-natured smile, " I don't think it's the sugar the Doctor objects to as much as the port-wine. But ye may say what ye like of him, for if he is my husband, he is your brother." " Oh, he's an honest man, the Doctor as far as a doctor can be," said Aunt Gilchrist. " And I'm thinking, Alison, you and I will be for taking him away from his patients for a day or two now and again to give the poor creatures a chance of getting better. There's many THE BIT LADY. 31 a fine drive about here, and Mr. Carmichael has a most comfortable waggonette ; and we must take ye down Glenfinnan, and show ye where Prince Charlie first met the clans ; and out to Spean- Bridge too, and up Glen Xovis. It's a grand place, Fort William, for being in the middle of things. And then some day we must have a sail up the Caledonian Canal to Inverness ; and there I'll get ye a brooch of Scotch pebbles, or cairngorms, or something of that kind, for your neck. Black and white's very trim and neat oh yes, I find no fault ; very prim and trim and nice ye look; but it's not enough for a young lassie. Flora will come with us, and we'll get you some pretty ribbons and neckerchiefs and things to busk ye up a bit." Indeed she was just full of all kinds of generous schemes and projects ; and though Alison was the chief figure in them, the old lady had a thought for her other relations as well. Flora was to have this and that; she would bring Hugh a book of salmon- flies ; she even meant to surprise the Doctor with a present of a silver-headed walking-stick, with a snuff-box in the head ; and finally she bade the young folk go away and amuse themselves, warning Alison to come back with a good appetite for the nine-o'clock supper, for the Doctor would be present with his severely scrutinizing eye. " And now, Ludovick," said Flora, when the three younger people (Hugh had gone off to his studies) passed through the house, and were in the front garden, "what are we to do ? " " We can't go sailing, that is very certain," said he, looking away across the still sea-loch towards Stron- creggan and Conaglen. Certain enough it was ; for the afternoon had settled down into an absolute calm, and the water was like glass. The various features of the hills and mountains opposite 32 IN FAR LOCHABER. were all repeated on the flawless mirror ; and in the midst of this inverted world floated motionless a schooner- yacht, a brown-sailed smack, and a steam-launch the yellow masts of the schooner and the white funnel of the launch sending long reflections down until they almost touched the shore. Sailing was out of the question. "Then let us show Alison Fort William," said Flora. " She ought to begin at the beginning. She hasn't seen half the place yet." So the three of them, stepped do\vn into the road and set out for the town ; the golden after- noon shining all around them ; the still air warm, and sweet with the fragrance of these suburban gardens. Peace reigns in Fort William now. Lochiel has no trouble with his clansmen; the Government have no trouble with Lochiel ; the garrison buildings have been turned into private dwellings ; women sit on the grassy bastions of the fort and knit stockings, sheltering them- selves from the sun with an old umbrella ; in the square are wooden benches for looking on at the tossing of the caber r putting the stone, and other Highland games ; in the fosse is grown an excellent crop of potatoes and cabbages; and just outside there is a trimly kept bowling- green, in which the club-members practise the gentle art of reaching the tee when the waning afternoon releases them from their desk or counter. Indeed it is possible that Alison, who had visited Edinburgh once or twice, and had passed the lofty crags and castle walls of Stirling, may have been disappointed to find a place of fair historic fame with so little to show for itself ; but if Fort William is not in itself picturesque, it is in the very midst of wonderfully picturesque surroundings. When they took her along to "the Craigs," and ascended the mound there, she was struck dumb by the singular and varied and luminous beauty of the vast panorama extending away in every direction. The wild hills of THE BIT LADY. 33 Lochaber were all aflame in the sunset light ; dark amid trees stood the ruins of Inverlochy Castle ; the shallow waters before her stretched away up to Corpach, where a flood of golden radiance came pouring out of Loch Eil ; while all along the west, and as far south as Ardgour, the mountains were deepening and deepening in shadow, making the glow in the sky overhead all the more daz- zlingly brilliant. Alison, standing somewhat apart from her companions, and wholly silent and absent, was wist- fully wishing that her younger sister could be here for but an hour, for but a moment. Would it not enrich those pale visions of hers which formed so large a portion of her life ? Perhaps her imagination was starved in so cold and colourless a place as Kirk o' Shields ? And might there not be in heaven high hills like these, flame- smitten with rose and gold, and placid lakes reflecting their awful and silent splendour ? The Lord had made man in His own image; was it not possible that in fashioning the earth He had given us glimpses of that distant and mystic region which to poor Agnes seemed so white and wan ? Why should it be white and wan ? The Lord was the King of glory. " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory ? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." Some strange kind of exaltation filled her heart, and flooded her eyes with tears. Those roseate summits seemed so far away ; they were hardly of this earth ; they were God's footstool, removed beyond the habitations and the knowledge of men. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord ? " When her cousin Flora came quickly forward in alarm, for she had happened to see the tears running down the girl's face, she found Alison all trembling, and quite unable to speak. "Why, what is the matter?" said she, and she put 34 IN FAR LOCHABEE. her arm within Alison's arm ; and perhaps she guessed a little. " Come, come," said she kindly, " you must not let a pretty evening in the Highlands bewilder you. I'm sure I beg your pardon for leaving you to yourself for a minute or two : Ludovick and I are so deeply interested about our new tennis-court. Come away, and we will show you the river Nevis ; and then we shall have to be back in good time for supper, you know, or else both papa and Aunt Gilchrist will be for tearing us in pieces." And so she led Alison .away, and talked to her unceasingly, with plenty of help from Captain Macdonell ; so that long before they had returned to the house the girl had quite recovered her ordinary serenity, and was listening with an equal amount of amusement and of horror to a recital of some of the doings of the boy John. But, as it happened, they had lingered so long by the banks of the clear-running Nevis, that when they reached home again they were no less than ten minutes late ; and the reception they got not from the mild-eyed and soft- mannered Mrs. Munro, nor yet from the little, prim, gray- whiskered Doctor, but from Aunt Gilchrist herself was of the sharpest. She who had been all milk-and-honey in the afternoon was now a fiery little scorpion; and no one was safe from her grumblings and mutterings and biting innuendoes. It was not only the real culprits who suffered, as they all sat down at table ; there was a thrust here and a thrust there ; nothing, indeed, in the town of Fort William was right ; there were not even two clocks in the place that kept the same time. For a while the little Doctor fretted and fumed in silence; at length he said, petulantly " I wish, Jane, you would pay some heed to what one tells you, and get rid of that neureetis ; for as long as it keeps hanging about ye, ye do nothing but grumble at the whole mortal world." THE BIT LADY. 35 " Get rid of it ! " she said, with bitter scorn. " Yes, if you can tell me what it is, and what brought it there, and what's going to cure it ! The more o' that poison o' yours I take your iodides and salicine and stuff the worse it gets ; and then ye jink round the corner and call it by another name. I wonder," she went on contemptuously, "ye havena tried conjuring, or spirit-rapping, or reading n verse of the Bible backward ! What kind o' tune is it they whistle to make serpents dance ? Could ye no try that, Duncan, my man, when your bits o' bottles three times a day winna help ? " " If you'd take your medicine," said he, with some acerbity, " and leave alone that port-wine negus and cinnamon and sugar, you'd have a better chance of getting well ay, and of improving your temper besides, Aunt Gilchrist, let me tell you." "And if I have found out the only thing that gives me a little relief, I'm sure it was no doctor who made the discovery for me ! " she retorted. " I should think not ! " he said, with glooming brows. " He that will to Cupar maun to Cupar. And the relief you get at the time, or fancy you get, d'you no think you'll have to pay for that ? What are you laying up for yourself ? " "What am I laying up for myself?" she answered snappishly. " 'Deed, man, ye talk as if I was going to live for another half-century ! Laying up for myself H I dinna care what I'm laying up for myself, so that I can get an occasional five minutes' peace and quiet ; and that I have never got from any of your precious tablespoonfuls three times a day. Laying up for myself ? Would ye talk like that if ye felt the whole o' your ten toes on fire, and more fire shooting across your a.nkles ? I'm thinking, Duncan, my lad, ye'd be just as quick as any one to take whatever would still the pain ; and ye'd not be so anxious 36 IX FAR LOCHABEE. about squeezing in another miserable year or two between yourself and your coffin. And ye speak about my temper ! My temper ! Why, if ye get a bit twinge o' the toothache, it's like bringing the heavens and the earth to an end ! " She relapsed into silence and sulked. He also relapsed into silence and sulked ; and what conversation ensued was carried on between Captain Macdonell and Flora and Hugh. Alison observed that her Aunt Munro, so far from betraying any embarrassment over this quarrelling, seemed rather to be amused, in her quiet way, and did not seek to interfere. Now the nine-o'clock supper was the chief meal of the household the Doctor being away most of the day, and uncertain as to his movements and on the table there was a decanter of claret and also one of whiskey, while there was a jug of beer brought in for the two young men. When the question of drinking came along, Mrs. Munro pressed her sister-in-law to have some claret; but the offer was coldly, yet firmly, declined. Aunt Gilchrist would take a little water, please. The Doctor pretended to neither see nor hear. " Duncan," said his wife, " it has been a long and a hot day for you ; would you like some soda-water with your whiskey ? " He did not answer. He got up and rang the bell. A maid-servant appeared at the door. " Catherine, bring some hot water some boiling water and some ground cinnamon, and a lemon." Then he went to the sideboard and brought out a toddy-tumbler, a wineglass, and a dark bottle. Aunt Gilchrist would take no notice of his proceedings. Mrs. Munro was talking to Alison ; Flora was talking to Ludo- vick Macdonell. And meanwhile, the servant having returned, the little Doctor standing at the sideboard was brewing a large beaker of port-wine negus. THE BIT LADY. 37 Presently he brought the steaming tumbler, and the small silver ladle, and the wineglass round the table and put them before his sister. " I will not take it ! " she said shortly. " Ye will take it ! " said he. " I tell ye, I will not take it ! " she maintained fiercely. "And I tell ye, ye will take it!" he insisted, with equal vehemence. "I will not take it, not a drop, while I am in this house ; and that will not be long ! " said she, in a very high and mighty manner. Alison left her seat, and came round and put her hand on her aunt's shoulder. The old dame shook her off. " Go away ! " " Aunt Gilchrist ! " said Alison. The girl had a soft and winning voice. Aunt Gilchrist looked up for a moment and patted Alison's hand. " Well, well, what is it ? What does the bit lady want ? " " I want you to take the negus, Aunt Gilchrist," Alison said. Aunt Gilchrist stared defiantly at her brother. " He has put no sugar in it," said she. The doctor went and fetched the sugar, and dropped one piece into the rose-coloured fluid. " That's only for periphery," said she, discontentedly. " Oh, well, you stiff-necked woman ! there's another for deficient circulation, and here's another for muscular rheumatism : will that do for ye ? " said he, with a con- strained laugh ; and when he had plumped the two pieces into the hot negus he went back to his place. " They Highland folk ! " said Mrs. Munro, with a quiet smile, to Alison. " Their temper is just like a pickle tow brought near a candle. Decent Scotch bodies like you 38 IN FAR LOCHABER. and me, Alison, try to keep some reasonable control over themselves." Now, whether it was that this yielding on the part of her brother had pleased her, or whether it was that the stimulus of the hot negus did really afford her some assuagement of her wandering nerve-twinges, the old lady's mood was almost instantly changed. She grew most complacent and merry ; she declared she would soon teach the Doctor how to cure nervous inflammation, so that neuritis and peripheral neuralgia and all the rest of the crew would simply fly at his approach especially if he came with a tumbler of port-wine negus in his hand ; she returned to the bold and generous undertakings and projects of the afternoon ; and she challenged her brother to show his faith in his assistant by leaving him in full charge of the patients for a few days. When the supper- things were removed she insisted on Ludovick Macdonell lighting his pipe which he was very loath to do, for no one smoked except himself ; but she declared that the odour of tobacco in the evening was sweeter to her than the scent of roses, for it reminded her of happy days long gone by. And then (just as Alison was expecting to see "the books " brought in for family worship) Aunt Gil- christ announced in her tyrannical way that they must have a comfortable little game of " catch- the-ten." " Aunt Gilchrist ! " said Flora, with a laugh, by way of protest. " Well, then ? " " What will Miss Dimity Puritan say to our playing cards ? " Flora asked, with a look at her cousin. " The bit lady? Indeed I forgot ! " said the old dame, glancing doubtfully across the table. " But never mind ; we'll not ask her to play. Alison will come and sit by me, and I'll show her the game." And so it was that Alison (though with some compunc- THE BIT LADY. 39 tion, for she had been taught to regard " the devil's books " as one of Satan's most dangerous and deadly devices) found herself looking on at this game, which, after a little pre- liminary instruction as to the names and values of the cards, she managed to understand in a fashion. And not only was there no apparent wickedness, but she found herself equally amused and interested. In the very first hand it fell to her aunt's lot to hold the ten of trumps ; and the various efforts made by the other players to seize this treasure Alison was sharp enough to guess at. What she did not know was that Ludovick Macdonell, who had a suspicion as to where the Ten lay, intentionally and good-naturedly sacrificed his chance of capturing it by prematurely throwing away his Jack to Aunt Gilchrist's exuberant joy and triumph for ultimately she won the game. This evening Alison kept