STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PEN-HOLDER.
(By Wullie White, Author of "They Taught Her to Death" "A Pauper in Tulle," "My Cloudy Glare," "Green Pasterns in Picalilli," "Ran Fast to Royston," &c., &c., &c.)
["I now send you," writes this popular and delightful Author, "the latest of the Novels in which I mingle delicate sentiment with Hebridean or Highland scenery, and bring the wisdom of a Londoner to bear directly upon the unsophisticated innocence of a kilt-wearing population. I am now republishing my books in a series. I'll take short odds about my salmon-flies as compared with anyone else's, and am prepared to back my sunsets and cloud-effects against the world. No takers. I thought not. Here goes!">[
CHAPTER I.
I held it in my right hand, toying with it curiously, and not without pleasure. It was merely a long, wooden pen-holder, inky and inert to an unappreciative eye, but to me it was a bright magician, skilled in the painting of glowing pictures, a traveller in many climes, a tried and trusted friend, who had led me safely through many strange adventures and much uncouth dialect. "Old friend," I said, addressing it kindly, "shall you and I set out together on another journey? We have seen many countries, and the faces of many men, and yet, though we are advancing in years, the time has not yet come for me to lay you down, as having no need of you. What say you—shall we start once more?" I hear a confused sound as of men who murmur together, and say, "We have supped full of horrors, and have waded chin-deep in Zulu blood; we have followed the Clergy of the Established Church into the recesses of terrible crimes, and have endured them as they bared their too sensitive consciences to our gaze. We pine for simpler, and more wholesome pleasures. Now," I continued, "if only Queen TITA and the rest will help us, I think we can do something to satisfy this clamour." For all answer, my pen-holder nestled lovingly in my hand. I placed my patent sunset-nib in its mouth, waved it twice, dipped it once, and began.
CHAPTER II.
The weary day was at length sinking peacefully to rest behind the distant hills. The packed and tumbled clouds lay heavily towards the West, where a gaunt jagged tower of rock rose sheer into the sky. And lo! suddenly a broad shaft of blood-red light shot through the brooding cumulus and rested gorgeously upon the landscape. On each side of this a thin silvery veil of mist crept slowly up and hung in impalpable folds. The Atlantic sand stretching away to the North shone with the effulgence of burnished copper. And now brilliant flickers of coloured light, saffron, purple, green and rose danced over the heaven's startled face. The piled clouds opened and showed in the interspace a lurid lake of blood tinged with the pale violet of an Irishwoman's eyes. Great pillars of flame sprang up rebelliously and spread over the burning horizon. Then a strange, soft, yellow and vaporous light raised its twelve bore breech-loading ejector to its shoulder and shot across the Cryanlaughin hills, and the cattle shone red in the green pastures, and everything else glowed, and the whole world burned with the bewildering glare of a stout publican's nose in a London fog. And silence came down upon the everlasting hills whose outlines gleamed in a prismatic—
"That will do," said a mysterious Voice, "the paint-box is exhausted!"
CHAPTER III.
I was shocked at this rude interruption.
"Sir!" I said, "I cannot see you, though I hear your voice. Will you not disclose yourself?"
"Nonsense, man," said the aggravating, but invisible one, "do not waste time. Let us get on with the story. You know what comes next. Revenons à nos saumons. Ha, Ha! spare the rod and spoil the book!"
I was vexed, but I had to obey, and this was the result:
The pools were full of gleaming curves of silver, each one belonging to a separate salmon of gigantic size fresh run from the sea. The foaming Black Water tumbled headlong over its rocks and down its narrow channel. DONALD, the big keeper, stood industriously upon the bank arranging flies. "I hef been told," he observed, "tat ta English will be coming to Styornoway, and there will be no more Gaelic spoken. But perhaps it iss not true, for they will tell many lies. I am a teffle of a liar myself."
And lo! as we watched, the grey sky seemed to be split in two by an invisible wedge, and a purple gleam of light shot—
"Stow that!" said the Voice, "I have allowed you to put in a patch of Gaelic, but I really cannot let you do any more sun-pictures. Try and think that it is a close time for landscapes, and don't let the light shoot again for a bit."
"All right," I retorted, not without annoyance, "but you'll just have to make up your mind to lose that salmon. It was a magnificent forty-pounder, and, if it hadn't been for your ridiculous interruption, we should have landed him splendidly in another six pages."
"As you like," said the Voice.
CHAPTER IV.
And now our journey was drawing to a close. Out of the solemn hush of the purple mountains we had passed slowly southwards back to the roar and the turmoil of the London streets. And many friends had said farewell to us. SHEILA with her low, sweet brow, her exquisitely curved lips, and her soft blue eyes had held us enraptured, and we had wept with COQUETTE, and fiercely cheered the WHAUP while he held WATTIE by the heels, and made him say a sweer. And we had talked with MACLEOD and grown mournful with Madcap VIOLET, and had seen many another fresh and charming face, and had talked Gaelic with gusto and discrimination. And Queen TITA had sped with us, and we had adored BELLE, and yet we cried for more. But now the dream-journey was past, and lo! suddenly the whole heaven was blazing with light, and a bright saffron band lay across—
"Steady there!" said the Voice. "Remember your promise!"
THE END.