But even Sheila, when they had reached the loftiest part of their route, and could see beneath them the island and the water surrounding it, was struck by the exceeding beauty of the twilight, and as for her companion, he remembered it many a time thereafter as if it were a dream of the sea. Before them lay the Atlantic—a pale line of blue, still, silent and remote. Overhead, the sky was of a clear, pale gold, with heavy masses of violet cloud stretched across from North to South, and thickening as they got near to the horizon. Down at their feet, near the shore, a dusky line of huts and houses was scarcely visible, and over these lay a pale blue film of peat-smoke that did not move in the still air. Then they saw the bay into which the White Water runs, and they could trace the yellow glimmer of the river stretching into the island through a level valley of bog and morass. Far away, toward the East, lay the bulk of the island—dark green undulations of moorland and pasture; and there, in the darkness, the gable of one white house had caught the clear light of the sky, and was gleaming Westward like a star. But all this was as nothing to the glory that began to shine in the Southeast, where the sky was of a pale violet over the peaks of Melasabhal and Suainabhal. There, into the beautiful dome, rose the golden crescent of the moon, warm in color, as though it still retained the last rays of the sunset. A line of quivering gold fell across Loch Roag, and touched the black hull and spars of the boat in which Sheila had been sailing in the morning. That bay down there, with its white sands and massive rocks, its still expanse of water and its background of mountain peaks palely colored by the yellow moonlight, seemed really a home for a magic princess who was shut off from all the world. But here, in front of them, was another sort of sea and another sort of life—a small fishing village, hidden under a cloud of pale peat-smoke, and fronting the great waters of the Atlantic itself, which lay under a gloom of violet clouds.
“Now,” said Sheila, with a smile, “we have not always weather as good as this in the island. Will you not sit on the bench over there with Mr. Ingram, and wait until my papa and I come up from the village again?”
“No. The dogs would learn you were a stranger, and there would be a great deal of noise, and there will be many of the poor people asleep.”
So Sheila had her way; and she and her father went down the hillside into the gloom of the village, while Lavender went to join his friend Ingram, who was sitting on the wooden bench silently smoking a clay pipe.
“Well, I have never seen the like of this,” said Lavender, in his impetuous way; “it is worth going a thousand miles to see. Such colors and such clearness! and then the splendid outlines of those mountains, and the grand sweep of this loch! This is the sort of thing that drives me to despair, and might make one vow never to touch a brush again. And Sheila says it will be like this all the night through.”
He was unaware that he had spoken of her in a very familiar way, but Ingram noticed it.
“Ingram,” he said, suddenly, “that is the first girl I have ever seen whom I should like to marry.”
“Stuff!”
“But it is true. I have never seen any one like her—so handsome, so gentle, and yet so very frank in setting you right. And then she is so sensible, you know, and not too proud to have much interest in all sorts of common affairs—”