Chapter 21

'They play, sitting at the luxurious wine, Men and gentle women under a bush, Without sin, without crime.'

'They are playing still,' Blake added. 'Unbeheld, undisturbed! I verily believe there is no Gael even now who would not in his heart of hearts let drift by him the Elysiums of Virgil, Dante, and Milton, to grasp at the Moy Mell, the Apple Isle, of the unknown Irish pagan! And then to play sitting at the luxurious wine,

'Men and gentle women under a bush!'

'It really cannot have been ping-pong that they played at, _sitting_. Bridge, more likely,' said Merton. 'And "good wine needs no bush!"'

The bard moved away, accompanied by his young hostess, who resented Merton's cynicism

'Tell me more of that lovely poem, Mr. Blake,' she said.

'I am jangled and out of tune,' said Blake wildly. 'The Sassenach is my torture! Let me take your hand, it is cool as the hands of the foam-footed maidens of--of--what's the name of the place?'

'Was it Clonmell?' asked Miss Macrae, letting him take her hand.

He pressed it against his burning brow.

'Though you laugh at me,' said Blake, 'sometimes you are kind! I am upset--I hardly know myself. What is yonder shape skirting the lawn? Is it the Daoine Sidh?'

'Why do you call her "the downy she"? She is no more artful than other people. She is my maid, Elspeth Mackay,' answered Miss Macrae, puzzled. They were alone, separated from the others by the breadth of the roof.

'I said the _Daoine Sidh_,' replied the poet, spelling the words. 'It means the People of Peace.'

'Quakers?'

'No, the fairies,' groaned the misunderstood bard. 'Do you know nothing of your ancestral tongue? Do you call yourself a Gael?'

'Of course I call myself a girl,' answered Miss Macrae. 'Do you want me to call myself a young lady?'

The poet sighed. 'I thought _you_ understood me,' he said. 'Ah, how to escape, how to reach the undiscovered West!'

'But Columbus discovered it,' said Miss Macrae.

'The undiscovered West of the Celtic heart's desire,' explained the bard; 'the West below the waters! Thither could we twain sail in the magic boat of Bran! Ah see, the sky opens like a flower!'

Indeed, there was a sudden glow of summer lightning.

'That looks more like rain,' said Merton, who was standing with the Budes at an opposite corner of the roof.

'I say, Merton,' asked Bude, 'how can you be so uncivil to that man? He took it very well.'

'A rotter,' said Merton. 'He has just got that stuff by heart, the verse and a lot of the prose, out of a book that I brought down myself, and left in the smoking-room. I can show you the place if you like.'

'Do, Mr. Merton. But how foolish you are! _do_ be civil to the man,' whispered Lady Bude, who shared his disbelief in Blake; and at that moment the tinkle of an electric bell in the smoking-room below reached the expectant ears of Mr. Macrae.

'Come down, all of you,' he said. 'The wireless telegraphy is at work.'

He waited till they were all in the smoking-room, and feverishly examined the tape.

'Escape of De Wet,' he read. 'Disasters to the Imperial Yeomanry. Strike of Cigarette Makers. Great Fire at Hackney.'

'There!' he exclaimed triumphantly. 'We might have gone to bed in London, and not known all that till we got the morning papers to-morrow. And here we are fifty miles from a railway station or a telegraph office--no, we're nearer Inchnadampf.'

'Would that I were in the Isle of Apples, Mell Moy, far, far from civilisation!' said Blake.

"There shall be no grief there or sorrow," so sings the minstrel of _The Wooing of Etain_.

"Fresh flesh of swine, banquets of new milk and ale shalt thou have with me then, fair lady," Merton read out from the book he had been speaking of to the Budes.

'Jolly place, the Celtic Paradise! Fresh flesh of swine, banquets of ale and new milk. _Quel luxe_!'

'Is that the kind of entertainment you were offering me, Mr. Blake?' asked Miss Macrae gaily. 'Mr. Blake,' she went on, 'has been inviting me to fly to the undiscovered West beneath the waters, in the magic boat of Bran.'

'Did Bran invent the submarine?' asked Mr. Macrae, and then the company saw what they had never seen before, the bard blushing. He seemed so discomposed that Miss Macrae took compassion on him.

'Never mind my father, Mr. Blake,' she said, 'he is a very good Highlander, and believes in Eachain of the Hairy Arm as much as the crofters do. Have you heard of Eachain, Mr. Blake? He is a spectre in full Highland costume, attached to our clan. When we came here first, to look round, we had only horses hired from Edinburgh, and a Lowlander--mark you, a _Lowlander_--to drive. He was in the stable one afternoon--the old stable, we have pulled it down--when suddenly the horses began to kick and rear. He looked round to the open door, and there stood a huge Highlander in our tartans, with musket, pistols, claymore, dirk, skian, and all, and soft brogues of untanned leather on his feet. The coachman, in a panic, made a blind rush at the figure, but behold, there was nobody, and a boy outside had seen no man. The horses were trembling and foaming. Now it was a Lowlander from Teviotdale that saw the man, and the crofters were delighted. They said the figure was the chief that fell at Culloden, come to welcome us back. So you must not despair of us, Mr. Blake, and you, that have "the sight," may see Eachain yourself, who knows?'

This happy turn of the conversation exactly suited Blake. He began to be very amusing about magic, and brownies, and 'the downy she,' as Miss Macrae called the People of Peace. The ladies presently declared that they were afraid to go to bed; so they went, Miss Macrae indicating her displeasure to Merton by the coldness of her demeanour.

The men, who were rather dashed by the pleasant intelligence which the telegraph had communicated, sat up smoking for a while, and then retired in a subdued state of mind.

Next morning, which was Sunday, Merton appeared rather late at breakfast, late and pallid. After a snatch of disturbed slumber, he had wakened, or seemed to waken, fretting a good deal over the rusticity of his bearing towards Blake, and over his hopeless affair of the heart. He had vexed his lady. 'If he is good enough for his hosts, he ought to be good enough for their guests,' thought Merton. 'What a brute, what a fool I am; I ought to go. I will go! I ought not to take coffee after dinner, I know I ought not, and I smoke too much,' he added, and finally he went to breathe the air on the roof.

The night was deadly soft and still, a slight mist hid the furthest verges of the sea's horizon. Behind it, the summer lightning seemed like portals that opened and shut in the heavens, revealing a glory without form, and closing again.

'I don't wonder that these Irish poets dreamed of Isles of Paradise out there:

'Lands undiscoverable in the unheard-of West, Round which the strong stream of a sacred sea Runs without wind for ever.'

thought Merton. 'Chicago is the realisation of their dream. Hullo, there are the lights of a big steamer, and a very low one behind it! Queer craft!'

Merton watched the lights that crossed the sea, when either the haze deepened or the fainter light on the smaller vessel vanished, and the larger ship steamed on in a southerly direction. 'Magic boat of Bran!' thought Merton. He turned and entered the staircase to go back to his room. There was a lift, of course, but, equally of course, there was nobody to manage it. Merton, who had a lighted bedroom-candle in his hand, descended the spiral staircase; at a turning he thought he saw, 'with the tail of his eye,' a plaid, draping a tall figure of a Highlander, disappear round the corner. Nobody in the castle wore the kilt except the piper, and he had not rooms in the observatory. Merton ran down as fast as he could, but he did not catch another view of the plaid and its wearer, or hear any footsteps. He went to the bottom of the staircase, opened the outer door, and looked forth. Nobody! The electric light from the open door of his own room blazed across the landing on his return. All was perfectly still, and Merton remembered that he had not heard the footsteps of the appearance. 'Was it Eachain?' he asked himself. 'Do I sleep, do I dream?'

He went back to bed and slumbered uneasily. He seemed to be awake in his room, in broad light, and to hear a slow drip, drip, on the floor. He looked up; the roof was stained with a great dark splash of a crimson hue. He got out of bed, and touched the wet spot on the floor under the blotch on the ceiling.

His fingers were reddened with blood! He woke at the horror of it: found himself in bed in the dark, pressed an electric knob, and looked at the ceiling. It was dry and white. 'I certainly have been smoking too much lately,' thought Merton, and, switching off the light, he slumbered again, so soundly that he did not hear the piper playing round the house, or the man who brought his clothes and hot water, or the gong for breakfast.

When he did wake, he was surprised at the lateness of the hour, and dressed as rapidly as possible. 'I wonder if I was dreaming when I thought that I went out on the roof, and saw mountains and marvels,' said Merton to himself. 'A queer thing, the human mind,' he reflected sagely. It occurred to him to enter the smoking-room on his way downstairs. He routed two maids who perhaps had slept too late, and were hurriedly making the room tidy. The sun was beating in at the window, and Merton noticed some tiny glittering points of white metallic light on the carpet near the new telegraphic apparatus. 'I don't believe these lazy Highland Maries have swept the room properly since the electric machine was put up,' Merton thought. He hastily seized, and took to his chamber, his book on old Irish literature, which was too clearly part of Blake's Celtic inspiration. Merton wanted no more quatrains, but he did mean to try to be civil. He then joined the party at breakfast; he admitted that he had slept ill, but, when asked by Blake, disclaimed having seen Eachain of the Hairy Arm, and did not bore or bewilder the company with his dreams.

Miss Macrae, in sabbatical raiment, was fresher than a rose and gay as a lark. Merton tried not to look at her; he failed in this endeavour.

II. Lost

The day was Sunday, and Merton, who had a holy horror of news, rejoiced to think that the telegraphic machine would probably not tinkle its bell for twenty-four hours. This was not the ideal of the millionaire. Things happen, intelligence arrives from the limits of our vast and desirable empire, even on the Day of Rest. But the electric bell was silent. Mr. Macrae, from patriotic motives, employed a Highland engineer and mechanician, so there was nothing to be got out of him in the way of work on the sabbath day. The millionaire himself did not quite understand how to work the thing. He went to the smoking-room where it dwelt and looked wistfully at it, but was afraid to try to call up his correspondents in London. As for the usual manipulator, Donald McDonald, he had started early for the distant Free Kirk. An 'Unionist' minister intended to try to preach himself in, and the majority of the congregation, being of the old Free Kirk rock, and averse to union with the United Presbyterians, intended to try to keep him out. They 'had a lad with the gift who would do the preaching fine,' and as there was no police-station within forty miles it seemed fairly long odds on the Free Kirk recalcitrants. However, there was a resolute minority of crofters on the side of the minister, and every chance of an ecclesiastical battle royal. Accompanied by the stalker, two keepers, and all the gardeners, armed with staves, the engineer had early set out for the scene of brotherly amity, and Mr. Macrae had reluctantly to admit that he was cut off from his communications.

Merton, who was with him in the smoking-room, mentally absolved the Highland housemaids. If they had not swept up the tiny glittering metallic points on the carpet before, they had done so now. Only two or three caught his eye.

Mr. Macrae, avid of news, accommodated himself in an arm-chair with newspapers of two or three days old, from which he had already sucked the heart by aid of his infernal machine. The Budes and Blake, with Miss Macrae (an Anglican), had set off to walk to the Catholic chapel, some four miles away, for crofting opinion was resolute against driving on the Lord's Day. Merton, self-denying and resolved, did not accompany his lady; he read a novel, wrote letters, and felt desolate. All was peace, all breathed of the Sabbath calm.

'Very odd there's no call from the machine,' said Mr. Macrae anxiously.

'It is Sunday,' said Merton.

'Still, they might send us something.'

'They scarcely favoured us last Sunday,' said Merton.

'No, and now I think of it, not at all on the Sunday before,' said Mr. Macrae. 'I dare say it is all right.'

'Would a thunder-storm further south derange it?' asked Merton, adding, 'There was a lot of summer lightning last night.'

'That might be it; these things have their tempers. But they are a great comfort. I can't think how we ever did without them,' said Mr. Macrae, as if these things were common in every cottage. 'Wonderful thing, science!' he added, in an original way, and Merton, who privately detested science, admitted that it was so.

'Shall we go to see the horses?' suggested Mr. Macrae, and they did go and stare, as is usual on Sunday in the country, at the hind-quarters of these noble animals. Merton strove to be as much interested as possible in Mr. Macrae's stories of his fleet American trotters. But his heart was otherwhere. 'They will soon be an extinct species,' said Mr. Macrae. 'The motor has come to stay.'

Merton was not feeling very well, he was afraid of a cigarette, Mr. Macrae's conversation was not brilliant, and Merton still felt as if he were under the wrath, so well deserved, of his hostess. She did not usually go to the Catholic chapel; to be sure, in the conditions prevailing at the Free Kirk place of worship, she had no alternative if she would not abstain wholly from religious privileges. But Merton felt sure that she had really gone to comfort and console the injured feelings of Blake. Probably she would have had a little court of lordlings, Merton reflected (not that Mr. Macrae had any taste for them), but everybody knew that, what with the weather, and the crofters, and the grouse disease, the sport at Castle Skrae was remarkably bad. So the party was tiny, though a number of people were expected later, and Merton and the heiress had been on what, as he ruefully reflected, were very kind terms--rather more than kind, he had hoped, or feared, now and then. Merton saw that he had annoyed her, and thrown her, metaphorically speaking, into the arms of the Irish minstrel. All the better, perhaps, he thought, ruefully. The poet was handsome enough to be one that 'limners loved to paint, and ladies to look upon.' He generally took chaff well, and could give it, as well as take it, and there were hours when his sentiment and witchery had a chance with most women. 'But Lady Bude says there is nothing in it, and women usually know,' he reflected. Well, he must leave the girl, and save his self-respect.

When nothing more in the way of pottering could be done at the stables, when its proprietor had exhausted the pleasure of staring at the balloon in its hall, and had fed the fowls, he walked with Merton down the avenue, above the shrunken burn that whispered among its ferns and alders, to meet the returning church-goers. The Budes came first, together; they were still, they were always, honeymooning. Mr. Macrae turned back with Lady Bude; Merton walked with Bude, Blake and Miss Macrae were not yet in sight. He thought of walking on to meet them--but no, it must not be.

'Blake owes you a rare candle, Merton,' said Bude, adding, 'A great deal may be done, or said, in a long walk by a young man with his advantages. And if you had not had your knife in him last night I do not think she would have accompanied us this morning to attend the ministrations of Father McColl. He preached in Gaelic.'

'That must have been edifying,' said Merton, wincing.

'The effect, when one does not know the language, and is within six feet of an energetic Celt in the pulpit, is rather odd,' said Bude. 'But you have put your foot in it, not a doubt of that.'

This appeared only too probable. The laggards arrived late for luncheon, and after luncheon Miss Macrae allowed Blake to read his manuscript poems to her in the hall, and to discuss the prospects of the Celtic drama. Afterwards, fearing to hurt the religious sentiments of the Highland servants by playing ping-pong on Sunday in the hall, she instructed him elsewhere, and clandestinely, in that pastime till the hour of tea arrived.

Merton did not appear at the tea-table. Tired of this Castle of Indolence, loathing Blake, afraid of more talk with Lady Bude, eating his own heart, he had started alone after luncheon for a long walk round the loch. The day had darkened, and was deadly still; the water was like a mirror of leaden hue; the air heavy and sulphurous.

These atmospheric phenomena did not gladden the heart of Merton. He knew that rain was coming, but he would not be with _her_ by the foaming stream, or on the black waves of the loch. Climbing to the top of the hill, he felt sure that a storm was at hand. On the east, far away, Clibrig, and Suilvean of the double peak, and the round top of Ben More, stood shadowy above the plain against the lurid light. Over the sea hung 'the ragged rims of thunder' far away, veiling in thin shadow the outermost isles, whose mountain crests looked dark as indigo. A few hot heavy drops of rain were falling as Merton began to descend. He was soaked to the skin when he reached the door of the observatory, and rushed up stairs to dress for dinner. A covered way led from the observatory to the Castle, so that he did not get drenched again on his return, which he accomplished punctually as the gong for dinner sounded.

In the drawing-room were the Budes, and Mr. Macrae was nervously pacing the length and breadth of the room.

'They must have taken refuge from the rain somewhere,' Lady Bude was saying, and 'they' were obviously Blake and the daughter of the house. Where were they? Merton's heart sank with a foolish foreboding.

'I know,' the lady went on, 'that they were only going down to the cove--where you and I were yesterday evening, Mr. Merton. It is no distance.'

'A mile and a half is a good deal in this weather, said Merton, 'and there is no cottage on this side of the sea loch. But they must have taken shelter,' he added; he must not seem anxious.

At this moment came a flash of lightning, followed by a crack like that of a cosmic whip-lash, and a long reverberating roar of thunder.

'It is most foolish to have stayed out so late,' said Mr. Macrae. 'Any one could see that a storm was coming. I told them so, I am really annoyed.'

Every one was silent, the rain fell straight and steady, the gravel in front of the window was a series of little lakes, pale and chill in the wan twilight.

'I really think I must send a couple of men down with cloaks and umbrellas,' said the nervous father, pressing an electric knob.

The butler appeared.

'Are Donald and Sandy and Murdoch about?' asked Mr. Macrae.

'Not returned from church, sir;' said the butler.

'There was likely to be a row at the Free Kirk,' said Mr. Macrae, absently.

'You must go yourself, Benson, with Archibald and James. Take cloaks and umbrellas, and hurry down towards the cove. Mr. Blake and Miss Macrae have probably found shelter on the way somewhere.'

The butler answered, 'Yes, sir;' but he cannot have been very well pleased with his errand. Merton wanted to offer to go, anything to be occupied; but Bude said nothing, and so Merton did not speak.

The four in the drawing-room sat chatting nervously: 'There was nothing of course to be anxious about,' they told each other. The bolt of heaven never strikes the daughters of millionaires; Miss Macrae was indifferent to a wetting, and nobody cared tremulously about Blake. Indeed the words 'confound the fellow' were in the minds of the three men.

The evening darkened rapidly, the minutes lagged by, the clock chimed the half-hour, three-quarters, nine o'clock.

Mr. Macrae was manifestly growing more and more nervous, Merton forgot to grow more and more hungry. His tongue felt dry and hard; he was afraid of he knew not what, but he bravely tried to make talk with Lady Bude.

The door opened, letting the blaze of electric light from the hall into the darkling room. They all turned eagerly towards the door. It was only one of the servants. Merton's heart felt like lead. 'Mr. Benson has returned, sir; he would be glad if he might speak to you for a moment.'

'Where is he?' asked Mr. Macrae.

'At the outer door, sir, in the porch. He is very wet.'

Mr. Macrae went out; the others found little to say to each other.

'Very awkward,' muttered Bude. 'They cannot have been climbing the cliffs, surely.'

'The bridge is far above the highest water-mark of the burn, in case they crossed the water,' said Merton.

Lady Bude was silent.

Mr. Macrae returned. 'Benson has come back,' he said, 'to say that he can find no trace of them. The other men are still searching.'

'Can they have had themselves ferried across the sea loch to the village opposite?' asked Merton.

'Emmiline had not the key of our boat,' said Mr. Macrae, 'I have made sure of that; and not a man in the village would launch a boat on Sunday.'

'We must go and help to search for them,' said Merton; he only wished to be doing something, anything.

'I shall not be a minute in changing my dress.'

Bude also volunteered, and in a few minutes, having drunk a glass of wine and eaten a crust of bread, they and Mr. Macrae were hurrying towards the cove. The storm was passing; by the time when they reached the sea-side there were rifts of clear light in the sky above them. They had walked rapidly and silently, the swollen stream roaring beneath them. It had rained torrents in the hills. There was nothing to be said, but the mind of each man was busy with the gloomiest conjectures. These had to be far- fetched, for in a country so thinly peopled, and so honest and friendly, within a couple of miles at most from home, on a Sunday evening, what conceivable harm could befall a man and a maid?

'Can we trust the man?' was in Merton's mind. 'If they have been ferried across to the village, they would have set out to return before now,' he said aloud; but there was no boat on the faint silver of the sea loch. 'The cliffs are the likeliest place for an accident, if there _was_ an accident,' he considered, with a pang. The cliffs might have tempted the light-footed girl. In fancy he saw her huddled, a ghastly heap, the faint wind fluttering the folds of her dress, at the bottom of the rocks. She had been wearing a long skirt, not her wont in the Highlands; it would be dangerous to climb in that; she might have forgotten, climbed, and caught her foot, and fallen.

'Blake may have snatched at her, and been dragged down with her,' Merton thought. All the horrid fancies of keen anxiety flitted across his mind's eye. He paused, and made an effort over himself. There _must_ be some other harmless explanation, an adventure to laugh at--for Blake and the girl. Poor comfort, that!

The men who had been searching were scattered about the sides of the cove, and, distinguishing the new-comers, gathered towards them.

'No,' they said, 'they had found nothing except a little book that seemed to belong to Mr. Blake.'