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

It was the habit of our three friends—Bob Mabberly, John Barret, and Giles Jackman—during their residence at Kinlossie, to take a stroll together every morning before breakfast by the margin of the sea, for they were fond of each other’s company, and Mabberly, as a yachtsman, had acquired the habit of early rising. He had also learned to appreciate the early morning hours as being those which present Nature in her sweetest, as well as her freshest, aspect—when everything seems, more than at other periods of the day, to be under the direct influence of a benignant Creator.

It was also the habit of Captain McPherson and his man, James McGregor, to indulge daily in similar exercise at about the same hour, but, owing probably to their lives having been spent chiefly on the sea, they were wont to ramble up a neighbouring glen in preference to sauntering on the shore.

One bright calm morning, however, when the sky was all blue and the loch was like a mirror, the two seamen took it into their heads to desert the glen and ramble along the shore. Thus it came to pass that, on returning homeward, they encountered our three friends.

“It iss fery strange that we should foregather this mornin’, Mr Mabberly,” said the skipper, after greeting the young men; “for Shames an’ me was jist speakin’ aboot ye. We will be thinkin’ that it iss foolishness for hum an’ me to be stoppin’ here wastin’ our time when we ought to be at oor work.”

“Nonsense, Captain,” said Mabberly; “surely you don’t think that taking a holiday in a pleasant place like this is wasting time. Besides, I don’t consider you free from your engagement to me. You were hired for the trip, and that includes land as well as water, so I won’t give you your discharge till you have had a long rest, and recruited yourselves after the shock to your nervous systems occasioned by the wreck and the swim to shore!”

A grim smile played on the skipper’s iron features when reference was made to his nerves, and a flicker of some sort illumined the wooden visage of McGregor.

“You are fery kind, sir,” returned the skipper; “but we don’t like to be receivin’ pay for doin’ nothin’. You see, neither Shames nor me cares much for fushin’ in the burns, or goin’ after the deer, an’ there’s no chance o’ raisin’ the yat from the pottom o’ the sea, so, if you hev no objection, sir, we will be goin’ by the steamer that arrives to-morrow. I thought I would speak to you to-day, for we will hev to start early in the mornin’, before you’re up, for it iss a long way we’ll hev to go. Iss it not so, Shames?”

“Oo, ay,” replied the seaman, with more than ever of the nasal twang; “it iss a coot many miles to where the poat comes in—so the poy Tonal’ wass tellin’ me, what-ë-ver.”

Mabberly tried to persuade the men to remain a little longer, but they were obdurate, so he let them go, knowing well that his father, who was a wealthy merchant and shipowner, would see to the interests of the men who had suffered in his son’s service.

As they retraced their steps to the house the skipper gave Giles Jackman some significant glances, which induced him to fall behind the others.

“You want to speak with me privately, I think, skipper?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” replied the seaman, with some embarrassment. “But it iss not fery easy nor pleesant to do so. A man does not like to speak of another man’s failin’s, you see, but as I am goin’ away I’m obleeged to do it. You will hev noticed, sir, that Ivor Tonalson iss raither fond of his tram?”

“I’m afraid that I have observed that—poor fellow.”

“He is a goot man, sir, is Tonalson—a fery goot man—when he iss sober, but he hes got no power to resist the tram. An’ whiles he goes on the spree, an’ then he gits wild wi’ D.T. you know, sir. Noo, ever since we cam’ here, Ivor an’ me hes been great friends, an’ it hes been heavy on my mind to see him like that, for he’s a fine man, a superior person, is Ivor, if he would only let alone the whusky. So I hev spoken to him wance or twice—serious like, you know. At first he was not pleased, but the last time I spoke, he took it kindly, an’ said he would think aboot what I had been sayin’. Noo, it’s heavy on me the thoucht o’ goin’ away an’ leavin’ him in that state, so I thoucht that maybe ye would tak the metter up, sir, an’ see what ye can do wi’ him. Git him, if ye can, to become a total abstainer, nothin’ less than that wull do wi’ a man in that condeetion.”

Jackman was greatly surprised, not only at the tenor of the skipper’s remarks, but at the evidently deep feeling with which he spoke, for up to that time the reticence and quiet coolness of the man had inclined him to think that his mind and feelings were in harmony with his rugged and sluggish exterior. It was, therefore, with something of warmth that he replied,—“I shall be only too happy to do as you wish, Captain; all the more that I have had some serious thoughts and feelings in that direction. Indeed, I have made up my mind, as it happens, to speak to Ivor on that very subject, not knowing that you were already in the field. I am particularly sorry for his poor old mother, who has suffered a great deal, both mentally and physically, on his account.”

“Ay, that’s the warst o’ it,” said the skipper. “It wass the sicht o’ the poor wumin ailin’ in body an’ broken heartit that first set me at Ivor.”

“But how comes it, Captain, that you plead so earnestly for total abstinence?” asked Jackman with a smile. “Have I not heard you defend the idea of moderate drinking, although you consented to sail in a teetotal yacht?”

“Mr Jackman,” said the skipper, with almost stern solemnity, “it iss all fery weel for men to speak aboot moderate drinkin’, when their feelin’s iss easy an’ their intellec’s iss confused wi’ theories an’ fancies, but men will change their tune when it iss brought home to themselves. Let a man only see his brither or his mither, or his faither, on the high road to destruction wi’ drink, an’ he’ll change his opeenion aboot moderate drinkin’—at least for hard drinkers—ay, an’ he’ll change his practice too, unless he iss ower auld, or his stamick, like Timothy’s, canna git on withoot it. An’ that minds me that I would tak it kind if ye would write an’ tell me how he gets on, for I hev promised to become a total abstainer if he wull.”

That very afternoon, while out shooting on the hills, Jackman opened the campaign by making some delicate approaches to the keeper on the subject, in a general and indirect way, but with what success he could not tell, for Ivor was respectfully reserved.

About the same time John Barret went off alone for a saunter in one of the nearest and most picturesque of the neighbouring glens. He had declined to accompany his comrades that day, for reasons best known to himself. After writing a few letters, to keep up appearances, and to prevent his being regarded as a mere idler, he went off, as we have said, to saunter in the glen.

He had not sauntered far when he came upon a sight which is calculated, whenever seen, to arouse sentiments of interest in the most callous beholder—a young lady painting! It would be wrong to say he was surprised, but he was decidedly pleased, to judge from the expression of his handsome face. He knew who the lady was, for by that time he had studied the face and figure of Milly Moss until they had been indelibly photographed on his—well, on the sensitive-plate of his soul, wherever that lay.

Milly had quite recovered from her accident by that time and had resumed her favourite pursuits.

“I’m very glad to have caught you at work at last, Miss Moss,” he said, on coming up to the picturesque spot on which her easel was erected. “I wish much to receive that lesson which you so kindly promised to give me.”

“I thought it was just the other way. Did you not say that you would teach me some of those perplexing rules of perspective which my book lays down so elaborately—and, to me, so incomprehensibly?”

“I did, but did not you promise to show me how to manipulate oils—in regard to which I know absolutely nothing? And as practice is of greater importance than theory, you must be the teacher and I the pupil.”

Upon this point they carried on a discussion until Milly, declaring she was wasting her time and losing the effects of light and shade, went seriously to work on the canvas before her. Barret, whose natural colour was somewhat heightened, stood at a respectful distance, looking on.

“You are quite sure, I hope,” said the youth, “that it does not disturb you to be overlooked? You know I would not presume to do so if you had not promised to permit me. My great desire, for many a day, has been to observe the process of painting in oils by one who understands it.”

How he reconciled this statement with the fact that he was not looking at the picture at all, but at the little white hand that was deftly applying the brush, and the beautiful little head that was moving itself so gracefully