“They are not quite heathens, Maggie; indeed, I believe they claim to be the best kind of Christians; and Russian rubles turn into very good English sovereigns. There was some trouble about one of his ships at Odessa, and as a very clever London physician said that Uncle John needed travel and change, he thought he would go himself and see about it. But he is one of those men who do not like to tread in their own footsteps, so instead of coming back by the way he went, he will pass through Russia northward, to a port on the Baltic, called Riga, where also he has some business. I think Riga is on the Baltic; suppose you get the atlas, and we will trace his course together.”
“I have heard you speak much of Mr. Campbell, I would like well to see him.”
“You should have seen him ere this, Maggie; but I was waiting until —until, you looked and spoke as you do this morning;” and she rose and kissed the blush of Maggie’s cheek, and then turned the conversation to the dark tartans which she thought would be the best material for travelling dresses. “And we want them very prettily made,” she added, with a rising color, “for it is fine folk we are going to meet, Maggie—Lord John Forfar, and Captain Manners, and Lady Emma Bruce, and Miss Napier; so you see, Miss Promoter and Miss Campbell must dress accordingly.”
Maggie was young enough and happy enough to feel all the excitement of the proposed trip. Still she was troubled about her tryst with Allan. Oban and the Highlands were so far away. In Pittenloch, her mother, coming from Skye, had been looked upon almost as a foreigner. She was quite unable to compute the distances; she knew nothing of the time it would take to travel them: she felt ashamed to show anxiety to Mary on the matter. “But I’ll trust my way to His ordering. He’ll no let me be too late for any good thing He wills me;” and having thus settled the subject in her heart, she went about the necessary preparations in a joy of anticipation, which made Mary feel how pleasant it would be to have so fresh and charming a companion.
Two weeks afterward they were in Oban, watching from the heights the exquisite bay, and the lovely isle of Kerrera, the high mountains of Mull, and Ossian’s “Misty Morven.” The Petrel, a cutter yacht of forty tons, was lying at anchor. In the morning they were to start for a glimpse of the Atlantic across the purple bogs of the Lews; going by way of Mull and Canna, and swinging round Barra Head, toward the red, rent bastions of Skye. Through that charmful circle of the outer isles, with their slumbrous tarns, and meres, and treeless solitudes they went. And oh, how full of strange and dreamy beauty were the long quiet summer days in that land of mystic forgetfulness! that great, secret land of waters, with its irresistible tides, and the constant ocean murmur haunting it like a spirit voice.
Maggie enjoyed them with all her soul, though she did not speak in italics about her feelings; perhaps she did not know very well how to express herself. Forty years ago, even highly educated women did not rave about scenery, they knew nothing of shadows and colors, nothing of “effects” scarped, jagged and rifted. Neither had they any uneasy consciousness that they ought to blend the simple delights of fresh air, fresh scenes, and pleasant company, with some higher kind of recreation.
Coming home through the sound of Barra, Mary said, “We are a day or two late, Maggie, but I have not forgotten your tryst. We shall run down the coast now, and round the Mull of Kintyre on the 24th. The next day we may be at Drumloch, that will be early enough?”
“Mair than enough, Miss Campbell. I needna leave Drumloch until the 27th, though if it came easy I would leave before that.”
“How near we are to the cliffs; we are rippling the shadows along shore. Look at those forlorn headlands, Maggie. It was the sombre sadness of this land that charmed the early saints, and girt all these isles with their solitary cells.”
“I liked well to read about them; and I can never think of Iona without remembering Columba with his face bright from the communion of angels.”