The Lindsays

by John K. Leys

But about twenty miles below Glasgow the scene changed. A wide expanse of water stretched away to the horizon. On the left lay a large town over which hung a dense cloud of smoke, but away to the west, beyond the blue water, could be seen the bold bases of steep hills rising from the sea itself, their summits being hidden in the clouds. At Greenock all was life and bustle. Several steamers plying to different points of the coast lay at the pier, and a crowd of passengers who had come by train from Glasgow streamed down from the railway-station to meet them.

Alec stood on the bridge watching them with considerable amusement. Here was a group of elderly maiden ladies, sisters probably, to whom their month ‘at the salt water’ was the great event of the year. After much debate they had decided to go to Kilcreggan this year, instead of to Rothesay. Each carried an armful of wraps, small baskets, and brown-paper parcels, and each rushed to a separate steamer, as if thinking it more desirable that one at least should be right than that all should be wrong. Each appealed excitedly to a porter for directions, and eventually all assembled at the gangway of the proper steamer. But the combined evidence of the porters was insufficient. Each of the three travellers made a separate demand, one on the master, another on the chief officer, and a third upon the steward, in order to know whether the steamer was really going to Kilcreggan. At last they were satisfied, settled themselves with their belongings in a sheltered corner, and began to eat Abernethy biscuits.

Then came a whole family—an anxious mother, an aunt more anxious than the mother, two servants, and six children, who were running in different ways at once, and had to be manœuvred on board like so many young pigs. As soon as they were shipped, two of them immediately made for the engine-room, while the others rushed to the bulwarks, and craned their necks over the side as far as they possibly could without losing their balance.

In one corner was a little band of rosy school-girls in tweed frocks and straw hats, cumbered with a collection of novels, tennis-bats, and fishing-rods. Here and there were one or two gigantic Celts returning to the hill country, while a few pale-faced young men stepped on board with knapsacks on their shoulders. But the male passengers were few at this hour of the day. A few hours later the steamers would be black with men leaving the roar and worry of the city to sleep under the shadow of the hills.

At length the bells clanged for the last time; the gangways were pushed on shore; the old lady who always delays her departure till that period made her appearance, and was somehow hoisted on board; the escape-pipes ceased their roaring; and one after another the steamers glided off upon the bosom of the frith.

And now, suddenly, the sun shone out, showing that the sea was not a level plain of water, but covered with a million dancing wavelets. The sunshine travelled westward over the sea, and Alec followed it with his eyes. It rested on the distant hills, and then the haze that covered them melted away, and they revealed themselves, dim in outline, violet-coloured, magnified in the mist. As the steamer drew nearer them it became plain that the nearer hills were much lower than those beyond, and that many of them were covered with pines up to a certain height. Above the woods they were often black—that was where the old heather had been burnt to make room for the young shoots, or light brown—that was where masses of last year’s bracken lay; sometimes they were white with glistening rocks, or green from never-failing springs.

And now it could be seen that between the woods and the seashore ran a white road, and that the coast was dotted for miles with houses, of all shapes and sizes, each standing in its own ground, and sheltered by its own green leaves. There was no town anywhere—nothing approaching to one; but every three or four miles a few houses were built in a little row, affording accommodation for a grocer’s and a baker’s shop; and opposite the shops there was invariably a white wooden pier, affording an outlet to the rest of the world.

Soon after crossing the frith, the Chancellor made for one of these landing-places. Round the pier there swarmed half a dozen pleasure-boats of all sizes, some the merest cockleshells, navigated (not unskilfully) by mariners who were barely big enough to make the oars move through the water.

The rocky shore was adorned with groups of girls who were drying their hair after their morning’s dip in the sea, and dividing their attention between their novels, their little brothers in the boats just mentioned, and the approaching steamer. The water being deep close to the edge of the rocky coast, the pier was a very short one; and Alec Lindsay, looking over the edge, through the green water swirling round the piles of the pier, could see the pebbles on the shore twenty feet below.

Ropes were thrown out and caught, and hawsers were dragged ashore by their aid. With these the steamer was made fast at stem and stern, gangways were run on board, and a score of passengers disembarked. In another minute the steamer had been cast loose and had gone on her way. The pier, the pleasure-boats, the girls on the rocks, the white dusty road, the hedges of fuchsia, had disappeared. In a quarter of an hour another pier had been reached where exactly the same scene presented itself. No town, no promenade, no large hotels—not even a row of public bathing-machines, or a German band.