“You may say about it what you will please, but that is what I know—that is what I know ferry well myself.”
“And I should think there were not many people in the country who knew more about salmon than you,” said Frank Lavender. “And I hear, too, that your daughter is a great fisher.”
But this was a blunder. The old man frowned; “Who will tell you such nonsense? Sheila has gone out many times with Duncan, and he will put a rod in her hand; yes, and she will have caught a fish or two, but it iss not a story to tell. My daughter she will have plenty to do about the house without any of such nonsense. You will expect to find us all savages, with such stories of nonsense.”
“I am sure not,” said Lavender, warmly. “I have been very much struck with the civilization of the island, so far as I have seen it; and I can assure you I have always heard of Miss Sheila as a singularly accomplished young lady.”
“Yes,” said Mackenzie, somewhat mollified, “Sheila has been well brought up; she is not a fisherman’s lass, running about wild and catching the salmon. I cannot listen to such nonsense, and it iss Duncan will tell it.”
“I can assure you, no. I have never spoken to Duncan. The fact is, Ingram mentioned that your daughter had caught a salmon or two—as a tribute to her skill, you know.”
“Oh, I know it wass Duncan,” said Mackenzie, with a deeper frown coming over his face. “I will hef some means taken to stop Duncan from talking such nonsense.”
The young man knowing nothing as yet of the childlike obedience paid to the King of Borva by his islanders, thought to himself, “Well, you are a strong and self-willed old gentleman, but if I were you I should not meddle much with that tall keeper with the eagle beak and the gray eyes. I should not like to be a stag, and know that fellow was watching me somewhere with a rifle in his hands.”
At length they came upon the brow of the hill overlooking Gara-na-hina[2] and the panorama of the western lochs and mountains. Down there on the side of the hill was the small inn, with its little patch of garden; then a few moist meadows leading over to the estuary of the Black river; and beyond that an illimitable prospect of heathy undulations rising into the mighty peaks of Cracabhal, Mealasabhal and Suainabhal. Then on the right, leading away to the as yet invisible Atlantic, lay the blue plain of Loch Roag, with a margin of yellow seaweed along its shores, where the rocks revealed themselves at low water, and with a multitude of large, variegated and verdant islands which hid from sight the still greater Borva beyond.
They stopped to have a glass of whisky at Gara-na-hina, and Mackenzie got down from the wagonette and went into the inn.