The Eagle Cliff, R. M. Ballantyne [best fiction books to read .txt] 📗

perhaps a portrait of yourself on the bicycle, in all the illustrated papers? Even if you had only injured her severely, they would have made a sensation of it, with an offer, perhaps, of a hundred pounds for your capture, and a careful indication of the streets through which you passed when you ran away—”

“Ay, that’s what makes the matter so much worse,” Barret would reply; “the unutterable meanness of running away!”

“But you repented of that immediately,” Jackman would return in soothing tones; “and you did your utmost to undo it, though the effort was futile.”

Barret was usually comforted a good deal by the remarks of his friend, and indeed frequently forgot his trouble, especially when meditating on botanical subjects with Milly. Still, it remained a fact that he was haunted by the little old lady, more or less, and had occasional bad dreams, besides becoming somewhat anxious every time he opened a newspaper.

While Barret and the skipper were thus taking what the latter called an easy day of it, their friend Mabberly, with Eddie and Junkie and the seaman McGregor, had gone over the pass in the waggonette to the village of Cove for a day’s sea-fishing. They were driven by Ivor Donaldson.

“You’ll not have been in these parts before, sir?” said Ivor, who was a quiet, polite, and sociable man when not under the influence of drink.

“No, never,” answered Mabberly, who sat on the seat beside him; “and if it had not been for our misfortune, or the carelessness of that unknown steamer, I should probably never have known of the existence of your beautiful island. At least, I would have remained in ignorance of its grandeur and beauty.”

“That proves the truth of the south-country sayin’, sir,—‘It’s an ill wind that blaws nae guid.’”

“It does, indeed; for although the loss of my father’s yacht is a very considerable one, to have missed the hospitality of the laird of Kinlossie, and the rambling over your magnificent hills, would have been a greater misfortune.”

The keeper, who cherished a warm feeling for old Mr Gordon, and admired him greatly, expressed decided approval of the young man’s sentiments, as was obvious from the pleased smile on his usually grave countenance, though his lips only gave utterance to the expression, “Fery true, sir; you are not far wrong.”

At the Eagle Pass they halted a few minutes to breathe the horses. Eddie and Junkie, of course, jumped down, followed by James McGregor, with whom they had already formed a friendship.

“Come away, an’ we’ll show you the place where Milly fell down. Come along, quicker, Shames,” cried Junkie, adopting the name that the skipper used; for the boy’s love of pleasantry not infrequently betrayed him into impudence.

With a short laugh, Mabberly turned to Ivor, and asked if Shames was the Gaelic for James.

“No, sir” replied the keeper; “but James is the English for Shames.”

“Ha! you are quoting now—or rather, misquoting—from the lips of some Irishman.”

“Weel, sir, I never heard it said that quota-ashun wass a sin,” retorted Ivor; then, turning to the stupendous cliff that frowned above them, “Hev ye heard of the prophecy, sir, aboot this cliff?”

“No. What is it?”

“It’s said that the cliff is to be the scene of a ghost story, a love story, and a murder all at the same time.”

“Is that all, Ivor? Did the prophet give no indication how the stories were to end, or who the murderer is to be, or the murdered one?”

“Never a word, sir; only they wass all to be aboot the same time. Indeed, the prophet, whether man or wuman, is not known. Noo, we better shump up.”

In a few minutes the waggonette was rattling down the slopes that led to Cove, and soon afterwards they were exchanging greetings with old Ian Anderson, the fisherman.

“Iss it to fush, ye’ll be wantin’?” asked Ian, as he ushered the party into his cottage, where Mrs Anderson was baking oat-cakes, and Aggy was busy knitting socks with her thin fingers as deftly and rapidly as if she had been in robust health.

“Yes, that is our object to-day,” said Mabberly. “Good-day, Mrs Anderson; good-day, Aggy. I’m glad to see you looking so much better, though I can’t see very well for your cottage is none of the lightest,” he said, glancing at the small window, where a ragged head, with a flattened white nose, accounted for the obscurity.

“There might be more light,” said Ian, seizing a thick thorn stick, and making a sudden demonstration towards the door, the instant effect of which action was an improvement in the light. It did not last long, however, for “Tonal’,” after watching at the corner of the cottage long enough to make sure that the demonstration was a mere feint, returned to his post of observation.

“Yes, sir,” remarked Mrs Anderson; “Aggy is much better. The fresh air is doin’ her cood already, an’ the peels that the shentleman—your friend—gave her is workin’ wonders.”

“They usually do, of one sort or another,” returned Mabberly, with a peculiar smile. “I’m glad they happen to be wonders of the right sort in Aggy’s case. My friend has been out in India, and his prescriptions have been conceived in a warm climate, you see, which may account for their wonder-working qualities. Can we have your boat to-day, Mr Anderson?”

“Oo, ay; ye can hev that, sir,” said Ian, summoning Donald to his presence with a motion of his finger. “Tonal’,” he said, when ragged head stood at the open door, “hev we ony pait?”

“Ay, plenty.”

“Co doon, then, an’ git the poat ready.”

The boy disappeared without reply—a willing messenger. A few minutes more, and Ivor and Ian were rowing the boat towards a part of the sea which was deemed good fishing ground, while the rest of the party busied themselves arranging the lines.

Strong brown lines they were, wound on little square wooden frames, each with a heavy leaden sinker and a couple of strong coarse hooks of whitened metal attached to the lines by stout whipcord; for the denizens of those western waters were not the poddlies, coddlings, and shrimps that one is apt to associate with summer resorts by the sea. They were those veritable inhabitants of the deep that figure on the slabs of Billingsgate and similar markets—plaice and skate of the largest dimensions, congers that might suggest the great sea serpent, and even sharks of considerable size.

The surroundings were cognate. Curlews and sandpipers whistled on the shore, complaining sea-mews sailed overhead, and the low-lying skerries outside were swarming with “skarts” and other frequenters of the wild north.

“Oh, what a funny face!” exclaimed Junkie, as a great seal rose head and shoulders out of the sea, not fifty yards off, to look at them. Its observations induced it to sink promptly.

“Let co the anchor, Tonal’,” said Ian; “the pottom should be cood here.”

“Hand me the pait, Junkie,” said McGregor.

“Shie a bit this way,” shouted Eddie.

“There—I’ve broke it!” exclaimed Junkie, almost whimpering, as he held up the handle of his knife in one hand, and in the other a mussel with a broken blade sticking in it.

“Never mind, Junkie. You can have mine, and keep it,” said Mabberly, handing to the delighted boy a large buck-horn-handled knife, which bristled with appliances.

“An’ don’t try it on again,” said Ian. “Here iss pait for you, my poy.”

A few minutes more, and the lines were down, and expectation was breathlessly rampant.

“Hi!” burst from Eddie, at the same moment that “Ho!” slipped from McGregor; but both ceased to haul in on finding that the “tugs” were not repeated.

“Hallo!” yelled “Tonal’,” who fished beside Junkie, on feeling a tug worthy of a whale; and, “Hee! hee!” burst from Junkie, whose mischievous hand had caused the tug when ragged head was not looking.

In the midst of these false alarms Ivor drew up his line, and no one was aware of his success until a fish of full ten pounds’ weight was floundering in the boat. The boys were yet commenting on it noisily, when Ian put a large cod beside it.

“What a tug!” cried Eddie, beginning to haul up in violent haste.

“Hev a care, or the line will pairt,” said McGregor.

At the same moment “Shames” himself gave a jerk, as if he had received an electric shock, and in a few seconds a large plaice and a small crab were added to the “pile!”

“I’ve got something at last,” said Mabberly, doing his best to repress excitement as he hauled in his line deliberately.

The something turned out to be an eel about four feet long, which went about the boat as if it were in its native element, and cost an amazing amount of exertion, whacking, and shouting, to subdue.

But this was nothing to the fish with which Junkie began to struggle immediately after, and which proved to be a real shark, five feet long. After the united efforts of Ian and Donald had drawn it to the surface, Junkie was allowed to strike the gaff into it, and a loud cheer greeted the monster of the deep as it was hurled into the bottom of the boat.

Thus, in expectation, excitation, and animation, they spent the remainder of that memorable day.