Lochinvar: A Novel

When their boat overset among the whirlpools and treacherous water volcanoes of the Suck of Suliscanna, Wat Gordon had been sculling at the stern. And when the water swallowed him, pulling him down as though he had been jerked through a trap-door by the arm of some invisible giant – or, more exactly, drawn slowly under by the tentacle of the dread Kraken of these Northern seas – he kept a tight grip on the oar with which he had been alternately steering and propelling the boat, as Jack Scarlett cried him his orders from the bows.

Wat Gordon had been born in the old tower of Lochinvar, in the midst of that strange, weird, far-withdrawn moorland loch, set amid its scanty pasture-meadows of sour bent-grass and its leagues of ambient heather. As a boy he had more often gone ashore by diving from his window or paddling out from the little stone terrace than by the more legitimate method of unhooking the boat from its iron lintel and pulling himself across to the main-land. But this was a different kind of swimming, for here in the tumble and tumultuous swirl of angry waters Wat was no more than a plaything tossed about, to be tantalized with the blue sky and the summer sea, and then again to be pulled under and smothered in the seething hiss of the Suck of Suliscanna.

Nevertheless, Wat found space to breathe occasionally, and as he was driven swiftly towards the north along the face of the great Lianacraig precipices and close under them he clutched his oar tighter, holding it under his arm and leaning his chest upon it. So close to the land was he that he voyaged quite unseen by the watchers on the cliffs above, who supposed that he had gone down with the boat. But the current had seized him in its mid-strength, and after first sweeping him close inshore it was now hurrying him northward and westward of the isle, under the vast face of the mural precipice in which the cliffs of Lianacraig culminated. The boat had cleared itself of its mast and sail, and Wat could see that she floated, upturned indeed, but still becking and bowing safely on the humps and swirls of the fierce tidal current which swept both master and vessel along, equally derelict and at its mercy.

The whole northern aspect of the Isle of Suliscanna is stern and forbidding. Here the cliffs of Lianacraig break suddenly down to the sea in one great face of rock many hundreds of feet in height. So precipitous are they that only the cragsmen or the gatherer of seabirds' eggs can scale their crests of serrated rock even from the south, or look down upon the little island of Fiara, the tall southern cliffs of which correspond humbly to the mightier uprising of the precipices of Lianacraig upon the larger isle. But Fiara has for ages been set in the whirl of the backwater which speeds past its greater neighbor on either side, and has taken advantage of its position to thrive upon the waste of its rival. For the tide-race of the Suck, which sets past Suliscanna with such consuming fury, sweeps its prey, snatched in anger from the cliffs and beaches of Suliscanna, and spreads it in mud and sand along the lower northern rocks of Fiara. So that this latter island, instead of frowning out grimly towards the Pole, extends green and pastoral on the other side of the deep strait and behind its frowning southward front of rocks.

At this time Fiara was wholly without inhabitant, and remained as it had come from the shaping hand of the tides and waves. And so mainly it abides to this day. The islanders of Suliscanna had indeed a few sheep and goats upon it, the increase of which they used to harvest when my Lord of Barra's factor came once a year in his boat to take his tithes of the scanty produce of their barren fortress isle.

It was, then, upon the northern shore of this islet of Fiara that Wat, exhausted with the stress and the rough, deadly horseplay of the waves, was cast ashore still grasping his oar. He landed upon a long spit of sand which stretched out at an obtuse angle into the scour of the race, forming a bar which was perpetually being added to by the tide and swept away again when the winds and the waters fought over it their duels to the death in the time of storm.

Thus Wat Gordon found himself destitute and without helper upon this barren isle of Fiara. His companion he had seen sink beneath the waves, and he well knew that it was far out of the power of the soldier Scarlett to reach the shore by swimming. Also he had seen him entangled in the cordage of the sail. So Wat heaved a sigh for the good comrade whom he had brought away from the solvent paymasters and the excellently complaisant landladies of Amersfort, to lay his bones for his sake upon the inhospitable shores of Suliscanna – and, what was worse, without advantage to the quest upon which they had ventured forth with so much recklessness.

Wat knew certainly that his love was upon that island of Suliscanna. For months he had carefully traced her northward. With the aid of Madcap Mehitabel he had been able to identify the spot at which the chief's boat had taken off Captain Smith's passenger, and a long series of trials and failures had at last designated Suliscanna as the only possible prison of his love.

So soon as he was certain of this he had come straight to the spot with the reckless confidence of youth, only to see his hopes shattered upon the natural defences of the isle, before ever he had a chance to encounter the other enemies whom, he doubted not, Barra had set to guard the prison of Kate of the Dark Lashes.

But even in his sad and apparently hopeless plight the knowledge that his love was near by stimulated Wat's desire to make the best of his circumstances.

First of all he set himself the task of exploring the islet, and of discovering if there was any way by which he could reach that other island, past which he had been carried by the current of the race, and on which he hoped to find his love.

From the summit of the south-looking crags of Fiara which he ascended, he could look up at a perpendicular face of vast and gloomy cliffs. Lianacraig fronted him, solid and unbroken on either side as far as he could see. That lower part of it on which the surf fretted and the swell thundered was broken by caves and openings – none of them, save one, of any great size.

But that one made a somewhat notable exception. It was a gateway, wide and high, squarely cut in the black front of the precipice, into which one might have driven two carriages, with all their horses and attendants, abreast, and yet have left room to spare on either side. The swell which pulsed along the narrow strait between Fiara and Suliscanna, regular as the beating of a strong man's heart, was lost within its wide maw, and did not as elsewhere come pouring back again in tessellated foam, white as milk curdled in a churn. The square tunnel to which this was the imposing entrance evidently penetrated far into the rock, and communicated with some larger cavity deep within.

The rest of the isle, which had so unexpectedly become Wat's prison-house, was cut on its northerly aspect into green flats of sparse grass, terminating in sweet sickle-sweeps of yellow sand, over which the cool, green luxury of the sea lapped with a gliding motion. And as Wat looked down upon them from above he saw lights wavering and swaying over the clean-rippled floor, and could fancy that he discerned the fishes wheeling and steering among the bent rays and wandering shadows that flickered and danced like sunshine through thick leaves.

So Wat stood a long time still upon the topmost crest of Fiara, printing its possibilities upon his heart.

Two hundred yards across the smooth, unvexed strait, which slept between its two mighty walls of rock, rose the giant cliffs of Lianacraig, with the ocean-swell passing evenly along their base from end to end – smooth, green steeps of water, dimpled everywhere into knolls and valleys. Seabirds nested up there by thousands. Gillemots sat solemnly in rows like piebald bottles of black and white. Cormorants stood on the lower skerries, shaking their wings for hours together as if they had been performing a religious rite. And here with his gorgeous beak, like a mummer's mask drawn over his ears for sport, waddled the puffin – the bird whose sad fate it is, according to the rhyme, to be forever incapable of amorous dalliance. For have not half a dozen generations been told in rhyme how

"Tammy Norrie o' the Bass
Canna kiss a bonny lass?"

But as Wat looked for a moment away from the white-spotted, lime-washed ledges of Suliscanna to the green-fringed, sandy shores of his own island, he saw that in the water to the north which sent him off at a run. Long ere he reached the beach he had recognized the boat from which John Scarlett and he had been capsized, bobbing quietly up and down at the entrance of the bay.

The rebound or "back-spang" of the current from some hidden reef to the northward had turned the boat aside, even as it had done Wat himself with his oar, and there the treasure was almost within his reach. Wat's clothing was still damp from his previous immersion, so that it was no sacrifice to slip it off him and swim out to the boat. Then, laying his hand on the inverted stern, he managed easily enough to push her before him to a shelving beach of sand, where presently, by the aid of a spar of driftwood, he turned her over. To his great joy he found that the little vessel was still fairly water-tight and apparently uninjured, in spite of her rough-and-tumble steeple-chase with the white horses of the Suck of Suliscanna. Wat opened the lockers and saw, as he had expected, that the pistols and powder were useless. But he found, too, Scarlett's sword and his own trusty blade, together with a dagger, all of which he had the satisfaction of polishing there and then with fine sand held in the palm of his hand.

Then he swung his sword naked to his belt, and felt himself another man in an instant.

The lockers also contained a pair of hams of smoked bacon, which had suffered no damage from the water, and which, so far as sustenance went, would at least serve to tide him over a week or two should he be compelled to remain so long upon the isle.

Nevertheless, when Wat sat down to consider his position and plans, he felt that difficulties had indeed closed impenetrably upon him.

Yet he wasted no time in idle despondency. Lochinvar was of other mettle. He believed his love to be on the island close to him – it might be in the power of his enemy himself, certainly in the hands of his emissaries. John Scarlett, his trusty comrade, was equally surely lost to him. Nevertheless, while his own life lasted, he could not cease from seeking his love, nor yet abandon the quest on which he had come.

So, using the dagger for both knife and cooking apparatus, he cut and ate a slice of the smoked bacon. Then he quenched his thirst with a long drink out of a delicious spring which sent a tiny thread of crystal trickling down the rocks towards the northern strand of Fiara.

CHAPTER XXX

WAT SWIMS THE WATER CAVERN

Whereupon, refreshed and invigorated, Wat proceeded to reconnoitre. He set about his inquiries with the utmost circumspection and caution, for it occurred to him that if Barra's first line of defence – that of the whirls and glides of the Suck of Suliscanna – had proved itself so effective, it was likely that he had made other dispositions equally dangerous in the event of that line being forced. Wat Gordon pushed his boat into the water and clambered on board. But he soon found that, damaged and water-logged as she was, she would move but sluggishly through the water, and must prove but little under command in any seaway. It was manifestly impossible therefore for Wat, with his single sculling oar, to venture out again into the tide-race which threshed and tore its way past the eastern side of the island.

Wat's harbor of refuge was on the northern shore, in the safest nook of the little sandy haven in which he had first brought his boat ashore. He was resolved, so soon as it should grow a little dusk, that he would endeavor to turn the angle of his small isle, and see if by any means he could find a landing-place along the western side of Suliscanna. When, therefore, the sun had dipped beneath the sea-line, and the striped rose and crimson of the higher clouds faded to gray, Wat slipped into his boat and pushed off. He guided her slowly, sculling along the inner side of the sandy reef which protected the northern bay of Fiara.

As Wat sailed farther to the west he could hear the surf hammering in the caves which look towards the Atlantic – a low, continuous growl of sound, mostly reverberating like the distant roaring of many wild beasts, but occasionally exploding with a louder boom as a full-bodied green roller from mid-ocean fairly caught the mouth of a cave, for a moment gagged and compressed the imprisoned air within it, and then sent it shooting upward through some creux or gigantic blow-hole in a burst of foam and white water which rose high into the air. The wonder and solemnity of this ceaseless artillery at the hour of evening, and with the Atlantic itself lying like a sea of glass outside, impressed the landwardborn Wat greatly. For he had never before dwelt in the midst of such sea-marvels, nor yet upon the shores of such a rock-bound, wave-warded prison as this inhospitable isle of Suliscanna.

The heavy boat slowly gathered way under the pressure of the broad oar-blade wielded by Wat's very vigorous young arms. And all went well while he kept the inner and protected side of the reef, but so soon as he had begun to clear the lofty cliffs of Suliscanna, and to bethink himself of attempting to cross the belt of turbid and angry waters interposed between the quiet inner haven and the cool, green lift of the ocean waves without, the boat stuck in the sand and heeled over, first with an oozy glide, and then with a sharper "rasp," as though the knife-edge of a basalt reef were masked beneath. Her head fell sharply away, and the waves coming over the bar in brown-churned foam threatened every moment to swamp her.

Wat felt the depth of the water with his oar, and promptly leaped overboard. His feet sank dangerously into the slushy ooze of the bank, but the boat, relieved of his weight, rose buoyantly on the swell, and Wat, clasping his hands about her prow, was dragged clear, and presently, drenched and dripping for the third time that day, he found himself aboard again.

Clearly there was nothing further to be obtained by persevering in that direction, at least with a boat so unwieldy as that in which Scarlett and he had come over from the main-land. So Wat resolved to try if he could not find a smooth and safe passage by hugging the shore of Fiara, thus avoiding the sweep of the tide-race, and in the end reaching the still, deep strait lying between the rocks of his isle and the huge, lowering cliffs of Lianacraig, which so tantalizingly shut out from his view all that he wished to see of the spot on which, as he believed, his love waited for him.

Full of this thought, Wat turned the prow of the boat and struck confidently along the shore, past the bay where he had first brought the derelict ashore, and on towards the projecting eastern ness of Suliscanna. But here there was no projecting bar, and Wat promptly found himself in the same uneasy, boiling swirl which had so disastrously ended his former voyage. Nevertheless, he persevered for some distance, for indeed he saw no other way of reaching the southern isle. But suddenly, not ten yards in front of his boat, appeared the turbulent, arched back of a yet more furious tide-race. The prow of the boat was snatched around in an instant; two or three staggering blows were dealt her on the quarter as she turned tail. The oar was almost dragged from his hand, and in another moment Wat found himself floating in the smooth water at the tail of the reef, not far from where he had started. He almost laughed, so suddenly and completely had the proof been afforded him that there was no outgate east or west for a heavy craft so undermanned as his was.

It was with a heavy heart, therefore, that Wat had perforce to give up the boat as a means of reaching the southern island. After his defeat he went ashore and sat gloomily watching the pale lilac light of the evening fade from the rocks above the narrow strait. Beneath him the waters of the deep sound were still, and only beat with a pleasant, clappering sound on the rocks. A quick and desperate resolve stirred in Wat's heart.

He stripped himself of his upper clothes, and, leaving all but his shirt and his knee-breeches among the rocks, he bound these upon his head, fastening them with his soldier's belt under his chin.

Then, without pausing a moment to give his resolution time to cool, he dropped into the water and swam straight across the narrow, rock-walled strait towards the black rampart line of the cliffs of Lianacraig.

He was well aware that he had taken his life in his hand, for from the side of the sea these grim crags had apparently never been scaled by human foot. But Wat had another idea than climbing in his mind. As he had watched the waves glide without sound or rebound into the great square arch which yawned in the midst of the rocky face, a belief had grown into certainty within him that the passage must be connected with another arm of the sea at the farther side of the cliffs. With quick, characteristic resolve he determined to discover if this supposition were correct. He found no difficulty in swimming across the narrow strait of Fiara, in spite of a curious dancing undertow which now threw him almost out of the water, and anon mischievously plucked him by the feet as if to drag him bodily down to the bottom. Presently, however, he found himself close underneath the loom of the cliffs, and the great black archway, driven squarely into their centre, yawned above him.

By this time Wat's eyes had become somewhat accustomed to the darkness, and he could make out that the line where the sea met the rocks was brilliantly phosphorescent, and that this pale green glimmer penetrated for some distance into the dark of the rock-cut passage.

Wat did not hesitate a moment, but whispering "For her sake!" he pushed, with a full breast-stroke, straight into the midst of that sullen, brooding blackness and horror of unsteady water. Outside in the sound he had been conscious of the brisk, changeful grip of winds fretting the water, the swift pull of currents fitful as a woman's lighter fancies, the flash of iridescent silver foam defining and yet concealing the grim cliff edges. But inside there was nothing but the blackness of darkness, made only more apparent by a pervading greenish glimmer which, perhaps because it existed more in the eyes of the swimmer than in the actual illumination of the cavern, revealed nothing tangible, but on the contrary seemed only to render the gloom more tense and horrible.

But Wat had made up his mind and was not to be turned aside. He would follow this sea-pass to its end – even if that end should bring death to himself. For at all hazards he was resolved to break a way to his sweetheart, if indeed she yet lived and loved him.

The silence of the cave was remarkable. Wat could feel as he swam the slow, regular pulse-beat of the outer ocean-swell which passed up beneath him, and which at each undulation heaved him some way towards the roof. But he could hear no thundering break as it arched itself on the clattering pebbles or broke on the solid rock bottom as it would have done if the cavern had come soon to an end. He oared his way therefore in silence through the midst of the darkness, keeping his place in the centre of the tunnel by instinct, and perhaps also a little by the faint glimmer of phosphorescence which pursued him through the cave.

The way seemed endless, but after a while, though the wall of rock continued to stand up on either hand, it grew perceptibly lighter overhead. Wat chanced to look downward between his arms as he swam. A disk of light burned in the pure water beneath him. He turned on his back and glanced up, and there, at the top of an immense black cleft with perpendicular walls, lo! the stars were shining. Without knowing it he had come out of the tunnelled cavern into one of the "goës" or narrow fiords which cut into the Lianacraig fortress of basalt to its very foundations.

The passage still kept about the same width, and the water within it heaved and sighed as before, but the rock wall seemed gradually to decrease in height as Wat went on. Also the direction of the "goë" changed every minute, so that Wat had to steer his way carefully in order to avoid striking upon the jutting, half-submerged rocks at the corners.

Presently the passage ended, and Wat came out again on a broader stretch of water, over which the free, light breezes of the night played chilly. He found himself quite close to the beach of Suliscanna. There was a scent of peat-reek and cheerful human dwellings in the air – of cattle also, the acrid tang of goats, and, sweetest of all to a shipwrecked man, the indescribable kindly something by which man advertises his permanent residence to his fellows amid all the world of inhuman things.

After the darkness of the "goë" it seemed almost lucid twilight here, and Wat could see a black tower relieve itself against the sky, darker than the intense indigo padding in which the stars were set that moonless night. He stood on shore and rubbed himself briskly all over with the rough cloth of his knee-breeches before clothing himself in them. Then he donned the shirt and belt which he had brought over with him on his head by way of that perilous passage through the rocky gateway of Suliscanna, whose virgin defences had probably never been violated in such a manner before.

Being now clothed and in the dignity of his right mind, Wat cautiously directed his way upward towards the bulk of a tower which he saw loom dark above him.

CHAPTER XXXI

BESS LANDSBOROUGH'S CATECHISM

As he went his unshod feet sometimes rasped on the sharp edges of slaty rocks, and anon trod with a pleasantly tickling sensation on the shaggy bull's-fell of the inland heather. Wat drew his breath instinctively shorter and more anxiously, not so much from any increased consciousness of danger as because he knew that at last he trod the isle whereon his love lay asleep, all unconscious of his living presence so near her.