Lochinvar: A Novel

No sooner had they struck than a cloud of sea-fowl flew out about them, their wings beating in their faces, and the birds themselves stunning them with deafening cries. But presently, with protesting calls and roopy whistlings, the evicted inhabitants settled back again to their roosting-places.

As they went on the boat began to feel the incoming heave of the outer swell. A new freshness, too, came to them in the air which blew over the low island of Fiara straight into the great archway out of which they were presently floating.

So with Wat and his sweetheart standing erect paddling the boat, they passed out of the rock-fast gloom into the heartsome clatter of the narrow Sound of Fiara. On either side of it the cliffs rose measurelessly above them, and Fiara itself was a blue-black ridge before them. But Wat had crossed the strait too often to have any fear, so bidding Kate sit down, he settled the oars in the rowlocks to cross the stronger current to be expected there.

Presently, and without further difficulty, they came to the little indentations in the rock, almost like rudely cut steps, where Wat had slipped into the water to swim across when first he made his venture towards Suliscanna.

"Here we will disembark the stores," said he.

And Scarlett was safely put ashore to receive them as Wat handed them out, while Kate held the boat firmly with the boat-hook to the side of the little natural pier. Then the still unconscious Jan was tossed behind a bowlder to sleep off his strong waters, with as scant ceremony as if he had been a bale of goods.

"Now, Kate," said Wat when all had been landed.

The girl took Scarlett's hand and lightly leaped ashore. Her eyes served her better in the dark than those of either of the men.

But a new danger occurred to Wat.

"We cannot leave the boat here," he said; "it might be driven away, or, what is worse, spied from the top of the tall rocks of Lianacraig. Listen, Scarlett. I am going to paddle it across to the cave, anchor it out there in a safe place, and swim back. I shall not be away many minutes. Look to Kate till I return."

"Better say 'Kate, look to old blind Jack!'" muttered Scarlett. "He is good for nought in this condemnable dark but to stumble broadcast and bark his poor bones. But I'll take my regimental oath the lass sees like a marauding grimalkin at midnight."

Wat was half-way across the strait or thereby by the time Scarlett had finished, and again the darkness of the great rock-shaft swallowed him up. Being arrived within the archway, he searched about for a recess wide enough to let the boat swing at her stem and stern anchors without knocking her sides against the rock. He was some time in finding one, but at last a fortunate essay to the left of the entrance conducted him into a little landlocked dock just large enough for his purpose. Here he concealed and made fast his prize before once more slipping into the water to return to the island of Fiara. Wat swam back with a glad and thankful heart. He had now brought both his sweetheart and his friend to the isle of safety – safety which for the time at least was complete. He had a vessel on either side of his domains, and the enemy on the larger island possessed no boat which would enable them to reach his place of shelter – that is, supposing them as ignorant as the Suliscanna islanders of the wondrous rock-passage underneath Lianacraig. Truly he had much reason to be proud of his night's work.

Kate was standing ready to give him her hand as he drew himself out of the water upon the rocks. He could see her slender figure dark against the primrose flush of the morn. But he wasted no time either in love-making or salutations. They must have all their stores carried over the southern beach by daybreak, and safely housed from wind and weather in the rocky hall where Wat had arranged the couch of heather tops.

So without a word Kate and Wat loaded themselves happily and contentedly with the gifts of their late kind hostess – a bag of meal, home-cured hams, a cheese, together with stores of powder and shot for their pistols. They could see the figure of the master-at-arms stumbling on in front of them, and could hear, borne faintly back on the breeze, the sound of his steady grumbling.

Wat and Kate smiled at each other through the dusk, and the kindred feeling and its mutual recognition cheered them. The night had been anxious enough, but now the morning was coming and they could look on each other's faces. So they plodded on as practically and placidly as if they had been coworkers of an ancient partnership, sharers of one task, yoke-fellows driving the same plough-colter through the same furrow.

When they had arrived at the northern side of the island, Wat showed his companions where to stow the goods in the large open hall of rock, at the sheltered end of which he had arranged Kate's sleeping-chamber. The place was not indeed a cave, but only a large opening in an old sea cliff, which had been left high and dry by the gradual accumulation of the sand and mud brought down by the tide-race of the Suck. The entrance was completely concealed by the birches and rowan bushes which grew up around it and projected over it at every angle, their bright green leaves and reddening berries showing pleasantly against the dark of the interior.

Wat immediately started off again to make one final trip, to see that nothing had been left at the southern landing-place. Finding nothing, he came back much elated so thoroughly to have carried through his purposes in the space of a summer's night, and at last to have both Kate and Scarlett safe with him on the isle of Fiara.

As for Wise Jan, he was left to sleep in peace behind the bowlder by the landing-place till his scattered senses should return.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE ISLE OF BLISS

Under the double shelter of the great cliffs of Lianacraig and the lower but more effectual barrier of the ridge which runs across the little island of Fiara in the direction of its greatest length, Wat and his love abode for a season in great peace. Scarlett accepted the situation with the trained alacrity of a soldier of fortune. He built camp-fires of the drift-wood of the shore, allowing the smoke to dissipate itself along the walls of the cliffs upon dark nights, and using only charred and smokeless wood on the smaller cooking-fires of the day.

He also took Wise Jan under his sway and rigid governance, so that, very much to his own surprise, that youth found himself continually running here and there at the word of command, as unquestioningly as if he had been a recruit of a newly formed regiment under the drastic treatment of the famous master-at-arms.

At first Kate felt the strangeness of being left upon a lonely island with none of her own sex to speak to or give her countenance. But she was a girl of many experiences in a world which was then specially hard and cruel to lonely women.

While yet a child she had seen houses invaded by rude soldiery. She had fled from conventicle with the clatter of hoofs and the call of trumpet telling of the deadly pursuit behind her. Even the manner of her capture and her confinement on this distant isle told a plain tale of suffering endured and experience gained. Hers had been, largely by her own choice, no sheltered life passed in the bieldy howe of common things. She had met sorrow and difficulty before, face to face, eye to eye, and was ready so to encounter them again.

But to be on the island of Fiara in daily contact with her lover, to gain momentarily in knowledge of her own affection, to feel the bonds which bound her to this one man continually strengthen, were some of the new experiences of these halcyon days.

Wat and Kate walked much under the shelter of that wall of rocks which stood a hundred yards back from the sandy northern shore of the island. Here they were screened from observation in every direction save towards the north, and that way the sea was clear to the Pole. Blue and lonely it spread before them, the waves coming glittering and balancing in from the regions of ice and mist, as sunnily and invitingly as though they had been the billows of the Pacific arching themselves in thunder upon a strand of coral.

Here the two walked at morn and even, discussing, among other things, their loves, their former happenings, the strange ways of Providence: most of all their future, which, indeed, looked dark enough at the present, but which, nevertheless, shone for them with a rosy glow of hope and youth. There are no aspirants more sure of success than the young who, strong in the permanence of mutual affection, take hands and look towards the rising sun. All happens to those who know how to wait, especially if they have the necessary time before them. If they be young, the multitude of the coming years beckons them onward, and so their hearts be true and worthy, the very stars in their courses will fight for them. The hatreds and prejudices which oppose them lose their edge; their opponents, being of those that go down the slope to the dark archway of death, pass away within and are seen no more. But the young true-lovers remain. And lo! in a moment there is nothing before them but the plain way to walk in – the sweetness of a morning still young, a morning without clouds, the sweeter for the night and the long and weary way they have come together, hand in loving hand.

"Kate," said Wat, "tell me when you first knew that you loved me."

They were walking on the sand, across which the evening shadows were beginning to lengthen over the intricate maze of ripple-marks, and when each whorled worm-casting was gathering a little pool of blue shadow on its eastern side.

The girl clasped her hands behind her back and gazed abstractedly away to the sunsetting, her shapely head turned a little aside as though she were listening to the voice of her own heart and hearing its answer too keenly to dare give it vent in words.

"I think," said she, at last, very slowly – "I think I began to love you on the night when I saw you first, after I had come across the seas to Holland."

"What!" cried Lochinvar, astonished at her answer; "but then you were more hard and cruel to me than ever – would not even hear me speak, and sent me away unsatisfied and most unhappy."

Kate gave Wat a glance which said for a sufficient answer, had he possessed the wit to read it: "I was a woman, and so afraid of my own heart – you a man, and therefore could not help revealing yours."

"It was then," she answered, aloud, "that I first felt in my own breast the danger of loving you. That made me afraid – yes, much afraid."

"And why were you afraid, dear love?" Wat questioned, softly.

"Because in love a woman has to think for herself, and for him who loves her, also. She sees further on. Difficulties loom larger to her. They close in upon her soul and fright her. Then, also, she has to watch within, lest – lest – "

Here the girl stopped and gazed away pensively to the north. She did not finish her sentence.

"Lest what, Kate?" urged Wat, softly, eager for the ending of her confession, for the revelation of the maiden's heart was sweet to him.

"Lest her own heart betray her and open its gates to the enemy," she answered, very low.

She walked on more sharply for a space. She was still thinking, and Wat had the sense not to interrupt her meditation.

"Yet the chief matter of her thought," she went on, "the thought of the girl who is wooed and is in danger of loving, is only to keep the castle so long – and then, when she is sure that the right besieger blows the horn without the gate, she leaps up with joy to draw the bolts of the doors, to fling them wide open, to strike the flag that waves aloft. Then, right glad at heart, she runs to meet her lord in the gateway, with the keys of her life in her hands."

She turned herself suddenly about with a lovely expression of trust in her eyes, and impulsively held out both her own hands.

"Take them," she said, "my lord!"

And Wat Gordon took the girl's hands in his, and falling on his knee he kissed them very tenderly and reverently.

Then he rose, and keeping her left hand still in his right, they walked along silently for a time into the sunset, their eyes wet because of the sound of their hearts crying each to each, and the shining of love glowing richer than the rose of the west on their faces.

It was Wat who spoke first.

"Love," he said, "you will never change when the days darken? You will stand firm when you hear me spoken against, when you cannot thus hearken to my voice pleading with you, when there is none to speak well of me?"

"My lad, was it not then that I loved you most," she replied, very gently, "when men spoke evil things in my ears, and told me how that you were unworthy, unknightly, untrue? Was it not even then that my heart cried out louder than ever, 'I will believe my king before them all – before the hearing of my friend's ears, the seeing of my mother's eyes, before the sworn word on the tongue of my father?'"

"Ah, love," said Wat, "it is sweet, greatly sweet, to listen to the speaking of your heart."

And well might he say it, for it was, indeed, a lovely thing to hear the throb of faith run rippling through her voice like the sap of the spring through the quickening forest trees.