The weather was very fine, as warm as it often is in Scotland in June, though it was still only April. The Firth was blue as the sky above it, but of a deepened and darker tone; the rich brown cliffs stood out in strong relief with every inequality defined against that dazzling background. In the distance the opposite coast glimmered in the hazy brightness, marking itself by the white creamy edge of surf upon the rocks; and looming to the westward through a haze of mingled smoke and sunshine, stood Arthur’s Seat, like a muffled sentinel watching over the half-apparent towers and roofs of Edinburgh. The scene was fine enough to have attracted even a less susceptible gazer; and Fanshawe, though he was a good-for-nothing, had an eye for beauty. He sat down upon the cliff beyond the old house of Pitcomlie, half-way down, where the sea-side turf was all broken with bits of projecting rock. The salt spray dashed upon the red rocks underneath—whitest white and bluest blue, and russet brown of the richest tone, put in with all nature’s indifference to crudity of colour, made up the foreground; and the distant line of the opposite coast, the vague shadow of Tantallon, the Bass rock, lying like a great pebble on the water, the great hill in the distance, with its ridges glimmering through the smoke of the unseen town, lent many a suggestion, human fulness of imagery, mystery and depth to the landscape.
Fanshawe was fully capable of appreciating the beauty of the scene; but when he had taken in all its beauty, another thought crept upon him which was very natural. The broad estuary before him was all but deserted; only a few distant ships nearer Leith broke the blue as it shaded off into the distance. The Comlie boats were all safe in harbour, the fishermen taking their Sabbath ease; one or two white sails were dropping down the western coast, disappearing round St. Abb’s Head into the grey-blue horizon; but nothing was visible nearer, except the high white cliffs of the May, the lighthouse island, which he had already watched from his window. Nothing to do! nothing that could even suggest a passing hope of amusement. After a while he looked upon the scene with dismay; it was as blank to him as a beautiful face in stone. Then he climbed to the top of the cliff, and looked out across the rich flat homely country. These well-laboured fields were a thousand times better for Mr. Heriot’s rent-roll than if they had been picturesquely intersected by green lanes and waving hedgerows; but they were blank, blank to the soul of the strange visitor who found himself stranded in this noiseless place. Not a sound seemed to exist in that quiet country, except the murmur of the sea. Mr. Fanshawe said to himself spitefully that it was Scotch Sabbatarianism which prevented the very birds from singing, which chased away all rural sights and sounds, which swept the boats from the sea, and which demanded one monotonous level of dulness—dulness dead as death. And then this horrible question occurred to him: Was he sure it would be any better to-morrow? He was not at all sure; he conjured up before him other scenes of rural life which he had known; stray visits to his relatives, which he had paid at long intervals, when he had found the decorations of the church the only amusement and a school-feast the only dissipation; and here, in grim Scotland, there were not even these simple elements of pleasure. Mr. Fanshawe’s heart died within him as he gazed over that rich, well-ploughed country-side.
If it should occur to anyone that this mood was very inappropriate to the really sympathetic nature of one who had watched over Tom Heriot’s sick-bed, and had grieved over, and fully felt the frightful blow which his death had given to the family so near at hand, we can but say in reply that even to the most sympathetic the impression produced by death is the one that is effaced most rapidly. Already Fanshawe had felt, with that impatience which is natural to humanity, that enough had been given to Tom. He could not and would not have expressed the sentiment in words; but it was a natural sentiment. Mr. Heriot’s heart-broken despondency, which was partly veiled and partly heightened by the irritability of grief, overawed the young man; but already he had begun to feel it hard upon him that Marjory, for instance, should refuse to be comforted. He himself felt healed of his momentary wound; and why did not she begin at least to allow herself to be healed also?
It seemed to Fanshawe, as it seems to all except the chief sufferers in every such bereavement, that it is churlish and almost fictitious to “give way”—and that the natural thing is to get better of your grief as you do of a headache, or, at least, not to annoy and worry other people, by letting them see that it is continually there. He had felt it very much at the time, but he had got over it; and it seemed natural to him that others should get over it also. And when he met Mr. Charles and Milly coming very solemnly hand in hand round the corner of the old house, their gravity seemed almost a personal affront to him.
“The child is but a child,” he said to himself; “and the old fellow is only his uncle. Much my uncle would care if I were to die! Really this is making too great a fuss,” and a certain air of disapproval came into the look with which he met them. “Going to take a walk?” he said.
“We were going down to the foot of the cliff,” said Mr. Charles. “This little thing is pale, and wants the air; will you come too? It is not very high, but the cliff is bold, and I am fond of the place. No scenery, you know, no scenery,” said Mr. Charles, waving his hand towards the rocks with an air of protecting pride. “A poor thing, Sir, but mine own,” was the sentiment with which he gazed at the brown headland, the angle of the coast upon which his paternal house was placed; “but to us who were born here, it has a beauty of its own.”
“It has a great deal of beauty,” said Fanshawe; “but of a desolate kind. To look out upon a sea without even a boat—”
“There are plenty of boats sometimes,” said Mr. Charles, somewhat hastily; “you would not have the fishers out on the Sunday, unless when there’s some special necessity?—a great haul of herring, or such like—good food that should not be wasted, might excuse it; but without that there’s no reason. There are plenty of ships in Leith Harbour, and lying beyond Inchkeith as you would see when we crossed the Firth—”
As these words were said, Mr. Charles suddenly recollected how he had crossed the Firth last, a mourner bringing poor Tom to his burial; and he added hastily, “We were not thinking much of what we saw at such a sorrowful time; but still the ships were there.”
“Is Mr. Heriot fond of yachting?” said Fanshawe, taking no notice of this dolorous conclusion. “A yacht would be a resource.”