“Look ye, uncle,” exclaimed the younger fisherman, “your threat might be spared. Our little property was my grandfather’s and of right descended to his only son. As for the affair at the tryst, I dare either of my cousins to say the quarrel was of my seeking. I have no wish to raise my hand against the sons or the husband of my aunt; but if forced to it, you will find that neither my father nor myself are wholly at your mercy.” He rose to his feet as he spoke.
“Whisht, Ernest,” said the old fisherman calmly, “sit down; your uncle maun hae ither thoughts. It is now twenty years, Eachen,” he continued, “since I was called to my sister’s deathbed. You cannot forget what passed there. There had been grief and hunger beside that bed. I’ll no say you were willingly unkind. Few folk are that but when they have some purpose to serve by it, and you could have none; but you laid no restraint on a harsh temper, and none on a craving habit, that forgets everything but itself, and sae my poor sister perished in the middle of her days, a wasted heart-broken thing. I have nae wish to hurt you. We baith passed our youth in a bad school, and I owre aften feel I havena unlearned a’ my own lessons to wonder that you suldna have unlearned a’ yours. But we’re getting old men, Eachen, why suld we die fools? and fools we maun die, if we die enemies.”
“You are likely in the right,” said the stern old man. “But ye were aye a luckier man than me, William—luckier for this warld, I’m sure—maybe luckier for the next. I had aye to seek, and that without finding, the good that came in your gate o’ itsel’. Now that age is coming upon us, ye get a snug rental frae the little house and croft, and I have naething; and ye have character and credit, but wha wald trust me, or wha cares for me? Ye hae been made an elder o’ the kirk, too, I hear, and I am still a reprobate; but we were a’ born to be just what we are, an’ sae we maun submit. And your son, too, shares in your luck: he has heart and hand, and my whelps have neither; and the girl Henry, that scouts that sot there, likes him; but what wonder of that!—William Beth, we needna quarrel; but for peace’ sake let me alone—we have naething in common, and friends we canna and winna be.”
“We had better,” whispered Ernest to his father, “not sleep in the cave to-night.”
But why record the quarrels of this unfortunate evening? An hour or two passed away in disagreeable bickerings, during which the patience of even the old fisherman was well-nigh worn out, and that of Ernest had failed him altogether. And at length they both quitted the cave, boisterous as the night was, and it was now stormier than ever; and heaving off their boat till she rode at the full length of her swing from the shore, they sheltered themselves under the sail. The Macinlas returned next evening to Tarbat; but though the wind moderated during the day, the yawl of William Beth did not enter the Bay of Cromarty. Weeks passed away during which the clergyman of the place corresponded regarding the missing fishermen with all the lower ports of the Firth, but they had disappeared as it seemed for ever; and Eachen Macinla, in the name of his sons, laid claim to their property, and entered a second time into possession of the house and the little field.
Where the northern headland of the Firth sinks into the low sandy tract that nearly fronts the town of Cromarty, there is a narrow grassy terrace raised but a few yards over the level of the beach. It is sheltered behind by a steep undulating bank—for though the rock here and there juts out, it is too rich in vegetation to be termed a precipice. To the east, the coast retires into a semicircular rocky recess, terminating seawards in a lofty, dark-browed precipice, and bristling throughout all its extent with a countless multitude of crags that at every heave of the wave break the surface into a thousand eddies. Towards the west, there is a broken and somewhat dreary waste of sand. The terrace itself, however, is a sweet little spot, with its grassy slopes that recline towards the sun, partially covered with thickets of wild-rose and honeysuckle, and studded in their season with violets and daisies, and the delicate rock geranium. Towards its eastern extremity, with the bank rising immediately behind, and an open space in front which seemed to have been cultivated at one time as a garden, there stood a picturesque little cottage. It was that of the widow of William Beth. Five years had now elapsed since the disappearance of her son and husband, and the cottage bore the marks of neglect and decay. The door and window, bleached white by the sea winds, shook loosely to every breeze; clusters of chickweed luxuriated in the hollows of the thatch, or mantled over the eaves; and a honeysuckle, that had twisted itself round the chimney, lay withering in a tangled mass at the foot of the wall. But the progress of decay was more marked in the widow than in her dwelling. She had had to contend with grief and penury;—a grief not the less undermining in its effects from the circumstance of its being sometimes suspended by hope—a penury so extreme, that every succeeding day seemed as if won by some providential interference from absolute want. And she was now, to all appearance, fast sinking in the struggle. The autumn was well-nigh over; she had been weak and ailing for months before; and she had now become so feeble as to be confined for days together to her bed. But happily, the poor solitary woman had at least one attached friend in the daughter of a farmer of the parish, a young and beautiful girl, who, though naturally of no melancholy temperament, seemed to derive almost all she enjoyed of pleasure from the society of the widow.
Autumn we have said was near its close. The weather had given indications of an early and severe winter; and the widow, whose worn-out and delicate frame was affected by every change of atmosphere, had for a few days been more than usually indisposed. It was now long past noon, and she had but just risen. The apartment, however, bore witness that her young friend had paid her the accustomed morning visit; the fire was blazing on a clean, comfortable-looking hearth, and every little piece of furniture was arranged with the most scrupulous care. Her devotions were hardly over when the well-known tap and light foot of her friend Helen Henry were again heard at the door.
“To-morrow, mother,” said Helen, as she took her seat beside her, “is Ernest’s birthday. Is it not strange that, when our minds make pictures of the dead, it is always as they looked best, and kindliest, and most lifelike? I have been seeing Ernest all day long, as when I saw him on his last birthday.”
“Ah, my bairn!” said the widow, grasping her young friend by the hand, “I see that, sae lang as we continue to meet, our thoughts will be aye running the ae way. I had a strange dream last night, an’ must tell it you. You see yon rock to the east, in the middle o’ the little bay, that now rises through the back draught o’ the sea, like the hulk o’ a ship, an’ is now buried in a mountain o’ foam. I dreamed I was sitting on that rock, in what seemed a bonny simmer’s morning. The sun was glancin’ on the water, an’ I could see the white sand far down at the bottom, wi’ the reflection o’ the little waves aboon running over it in long curls o’ gowd. But there was no way of leaving the rock, for the deep waters were round an’ round me; an’ I saw the tide covering ae wee bittie after anither, till at last the whole was covered. An’ yet I had but little fear, for I remembered that baith Ernest an’ William were in the sea afore me; an’ I had the feeling that I could hae rest nowhere but wi’ them. The water at last closed o’er me, an’ I sank frae aff the rock to the sand at the bottom. But death seemed to have no power given him to hurt me, an’ I walked as light as ever I had done on a gowany brae, through the green depths o’ the sea. I saw the silvery glitter o’ the trout an’ the salmon shining to the sun, far, far aboon me, like white pigeons i’ the lift; and around me there were crimson star-fish, an’ sea-flowers, and long trailing plants that waved in the tide like streamers; an’ at length I came to a steep rock wi’ a little cave like a tomb in it. Here, I said, is the end o’ my journey—William is here, an’ Ernest. An’ as I looked into the cave, I saw there were bones in it, an’ I prepared to take my place beside them. But, as I stooped to enter, some one called on me, an’, on looking up, there was William. ‘Lillias,’ he said, ‘it is not night yet, nor is that your bed; you are to sleep, not with me, but, lang after this, with Ernest; haste you home, for he is waiting for you.’ ‘Oh, take me to him!’ I said; an’ then all at once I found mysel’ on the shore dizzied and blinded wi’ the bright sunshine; for at the cave there was a darkness like that o’ a simmer’s gloamin; an’ when I looked up for William, it was Ernest that stood before me, lifelike and handsome as ever; an’ you were beside him.”
The day had been gloomy and lowering, and though there was little wind, a tremendous sea, that as the evening advanced rose higher and higher against the neighbouring precipice, had been rolling ashore since morning. The wind now began to blow in long hollow gusts among the cliffs, and the rain to patter against the widow’s casement.