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

about while contemplating the work, is more than we can explain.

Soon the painter became still more deeply absorbed in her work, and the pupil more deeply still in the painter. It was a magnificent sweep of landscape that lay before them—a glen glowing with purple and green, alive with flickering sunlight and shadow, with richest browns and reds and coolest greys in the foreground; precipices, crags, verdant slopes of bracken, pine and birch woods hanging on the hillsides, in the middle distance, and blue mountains mingling with orange skies in the background, with MacRummle’s favourite stream appearing here and there like a silver thread, running through it all. But Barret saw nothing of it. He only saw a pretty hand, a blushing cheek and sunny hair!

The picture was not bad. There was a good deal of crude colour in the foreground, no doubt, without much indication of form; and there was also some wonderfully vivid green and purple, with impossible forms and amazing perspective—both linear and aerial—in places, and Turneresque confusion of yellow in the extreme distance. But Barret did not note that—though by means of some occult powers of comprehension he commented on it freely! He saw nothing but Milly Moss.

It was a glorious chance. He resolved to make the most of it.

“I had no idea that painting in oils was such a fascinating occupation,” he remarked, without feeling quite sure of what he said.

“I delight in it,” returned the painter, slowly, as she touched in a distant sheep, which—measured by the rules of perspective, and regard being had to surrounding objects—might have stood for an average cathedral.

Milly did not paint as freely as usual that afternoon. There was something queer, she said, about the brushes. “I can’t get it to look right,” she said at last, wiping out an object for the third time and trying again.

“No doubt,” murmured the youth, “a cottage like that must be difficult to—”

“Cottage!” exclaimed Milly, laughing outright; “it is not a cottage at all; it’s a cow! Oh! Mr Barret, that is a very poor compliment to my work and to your own powers of discernment.”

“Nay, Miss Moss,” retorted the pupil, in some confusion, “but you have wiped it out twice, confessing, as you did so, that you could not paint it! Besides, my remark referred to the cottage which I thought you were going to paint—not to your unsuccessful representations of the cow.”

The poor youth felt that his explanation was so lame that he was somewhat relieved when the current of their thoughts was diverted by a loud shouting in the road farther down the glen. A shade of annoyance, however, rested for a moment on the face of his companion, for she recognised the voices, and knew well that the quiet tête-à-tête with her willing and intelligent pupil must now be interrupted.

“My cousins,” she remarked, putting a touch on the cow that stamped that animal a lusus naturae for all time coming.

Another whoop told that the cousins were drawing near. In a few minutes they appeared in the path emerging from a clump of hazel bushes.

“They are evidently bent on a photographic expedition,” remarked Barret, as the boys approached, Junkie waving his hat with hilarious good-will when he discovered the painters.

“And Flo is with them,” said Milly, “from which I conclude that they are having what Junkie calls a day of it; for whenever they are allowed to take Flo, they go in for a high holiday, carrying provisions with them, so as to be able to stay out from morning till night.”

The appearance of the young revellers fully bore out Milly’s statement, for they were all more or less burdened with the means or signs of enjoyment. Archie carried his box of dry plates in his left hand, and his camera and stand over his right shoulder; Eddie bore a colour-box and sketching-book; Junkie wielded a small fishing-rod, and had a fishing-basket on his back; and Flo was encircled with daisy chains and crowned with laurel and heather, besides which, each of the boys had a small bag of provisions slung on his shoulder.

“Hooray! hooray!
Out for the day!”

sang, or rather yelled, Junkie, as he approached.

“Ramble and roam—
Never go home!”

added Archie, setting down his camera, and beginning to arrange it.

“All of us must
Eat till we bust!

“Junkie teached me zat,” said innocent Flo, with a look of grave surprise at the peals of laughter which her couplet drew from her brothers.

“Yes, that’s what we’re goin’ to do,” said Junkie; “we’ve had lunch at the foot of Eagle Glen, and noo we are going up to Glen Orrack to dine, and fish, an’ paint, an’ botanise. After that we’ll cross over the Swan’s Neck, an’ finish off the bustin’ business with supper on the sea-shore. Lots of grub left yet, you see.”

He swung round his little wallet as he spoke, and held it up to view.

“Would you like some, Cousin Milly?” asked Eddie, opening his bag. “All sorts here. Bread, cheese, ginger snaps, biscuits, jam— Oh! I say, the jam-pot’s broken! Whatever shall we do?”

He dipped his fingers into his wallet as he spoke, and brought them out magenta!

Their hilarity was dissipated suddenly, and grave looks were bestowed on Eddie’s digits, until Flo’s little voice arose like a strain of sweet music to dissipate the clouds.

“Oh! never mind,” she said; “I’s got anuzzer pot in my bag.”

This had been forgotten. The fact was verified by swift examination, and felicity was restored.

“What are you going to photograph?” asked Milly, seeing that Archie was busy making arrangements.

“You, Cousin Milly. You’ve no notion what a splendid couple you and Mr Barret look—stuck up so picturesquely on that little mound, with its rich foreground of bracken, and the grey rock beside you, and the peep through the bushes, with Big Ben for a background; and the easel, too—so suggestive! There, now, I’m ready. By the way, I might take you as a pair of lovers!”

Poor Milly became scarlet, and suddenly devoted herself to the lusus naturae! Barret took refuge in a loud laugh, and then said:

“Really, one would suppose that you were a professional, Archie; you order your sitters about with such self-satisfied presumption.”

“Yes, they always do that,” said Milly, recovering herself, and looking calmly up from the cow—which now resembled a megatherium—“but you must remember, Cousin Archie, that I am a painter, and therefore understand about attitudes, and all that, much better than a mere photographer. So, if I condescend to sit, you must take your orders from me!”

“Fire away then with your orders,” cried the impatient amateur.

“See, sir, I will sit thus—as if painting,” said Milly, who was desperately anxious to have it over, lest Archie should make some awkward proposition. “Mr Barret will stand behind me, looking earnestly at the picture—”

“Admiringly,” interposed Barret.

“Not so—earnestly, as if getting a lesson,” said Milly, with a teacher’s severity; “and Flo will sit thus, at my feet, taking care (hold it, dear,) of my palette.”

“More likely to make a mess of it,” said Junkie.

“Now, are you ready? Steady! Don’t budge a finger,” cried Archie, removing the little leather cap.

In her uncertainty as to which of her fingers she was not to budge, Flo nervously moved them all.

“You’re movin’, Flo!” whispered Junkie.

“No, I’m not,” said Flo, looking round indignantly.

“There, I knew you couldn’t hold your tongue, Junkie,” cried the photographer, hastily replacing the cap. “However, I think I had it done before she moved.”

“And look—you’ve got the nigger in!” cried Junkie, snatching up the black doll, which had been lying unobserved on its owner’s knee all the time.

“Never mind, that’ll do no harm. Now, then, soldiers, form up, an’ quick march,” said Archie, closing up his apparatus. “We have got plenty of work before us, and no time to waste.”

Obedient to this rather inaccurately given word of command, Archie’s troops fell into line, and, with a whooping farewell, continued their march up the glen.

During the remainder of that beautiful afternoon, the artist and pupil continued at their “fascinating” work. Shall we take advantage of our knowledge to lift the curtain, and tell in detail how Milly introduced a few more megatheriums into her painting, and violated nearly all the rules of perspective, to say nothing of colour and chiaro-oscuro? Shall we reveal the multitude of absurd remarks made by the pupil, in his wild attempts at criticism of an art, about which he knew next to nothing? No; it would be unwarrantable—base! Merely remarking that painter and pupil were exceedingly happy, and that they made no advance whatever in the art of painting, we turn to another scene in the neighbourhood of Kinlossie House.

It was a wide grass-field from which the haycocks had recently been removed, leaving it bare and uninteresting. Nevertheless, there were two points of interest in that field which merit special attention. One was a small black bull, with magnificent horns, the shaggiest of coats, and the wickedest of eyes. The other was our friend MacRummle, taking a short cut through the field, with a basket on his back, a rod in one hand, and an umbrella in the other.

We may at once account for the strange presence of the latter article, by explaining that, on the day before—which was rainy—the laird, had with an umbrella, accompanied his friend to his first pool in the river, at which point their roads diverged; that he had stayed to see MacRummle make his first two or three casts, during which time the sky cleared, inducing the laird to close his umbrella, and lean it against the bank, after which he went away and forgot it. Returning home the next day our angler found and took charge of it.

That he had been successful that day was made plain, not only by the extra stoop forward, which was rendered necessary by the weight of his basket, and the beaming satisfaction on his face, but by the protruding tail of a grilse which was too large to find room for the whole of itself, inside.

“You’re a lucky man to-day, Dick,” murmured the enthusiastic angler to himself, as he jogged across the field.

Had he known what was in store for him, however, he would have arrived at a very different estimate of his fortunes!

The field, as we have said, was a large one. MacRummle had reached the centre of it when the black bull, standing beside the wall at its most distant corner, seemed to feel resentment at this trespass on its domain.

It suddenly bellowed in that low thunderous tone which is so awfully suggestive of conscious power. MacRummle stopped short. He was naturally a brave man, nevertheless his heart gave his ribs an unwonted thump when he observed the bull in the distance glaring at him. He looked round in alarm. Nothing but an unbroken flat for a hundred yards lay around him in all directions, unrelieved by bush, rock, or tree, and bounded by a five-foot wall, with only one gate, near to where the bull stood pawing the earth and apparently working itself into a rage.

“Now, Dick,” murmured the old gentleman, seriously, “it’s do or die with you if that brute charges, for your legs are not much better than pipe-stems, and your wind is— Eh! he comes!”

Turning sharply, he caused the pipe-stems to wag with amazing velocity—too fast, indeed, for his toe, catching on something, sent him violently to the ground, and the basket flew over his head with such force that the strap gave way. He sprang up instantly, still unconsciously holding on to rod and umbrella.

Meanwhile, the bull, having made up its mind, came charging down the field with its eyes flashing and its tail on high.

MacRummle looked back. He saw that the case was hopeless. He was already exhausted and gasping. A young man could scarcely have reached the wall in time. Suddenly he came to a ditch, one of those narrow open drains with which inhabitants of wet countries are familiar. The sight of it shot a