A Princess of Thule

by William Black

“But why should we go in quest of a breeze?” Mrs. Ingram said, petulantly.

“Why, mem,” said Mackenzie, taking the matter seriously, “you was not thinking we could sail a boat without wind? But I am no sure that there will not be a breeze before night.”

Mackenzie was right. As the evening wore on and the sun drooped in the West, the aspect of affairs changed somewhat, and there was now and again a sort of shiver apparent on the surface of the lake-like bay. When, indeed, the people on board came up on deck, just before dinner they found a rather thunderous-looking sunset spreading over the sky. Into the clear saffron glory of the Western sky some dark and massive purple clouds had risen. The mountains of Mull had grown light and milk-like, and yet they seemed near. The glass-like bay began to move, and the black shadow of a ship that lay on the gleaming yellow plain began to tremble as the water cut lines of light across the reflection of the masts. You could hear voices afar off. Under the ruins of the castle and along the curves of the coast the shadows of the water were a pure green, and the rocks were growing still more sharp and distinct in the gathering dusk. There was a cold smell of the sea in the air. And then swiftly the pale colors of the West waxed lurid and fierce, the mountains became of a glowing purple, and then all the plain of the sea was dashed with a wild glare of crimson, while the walls of Dunolly grew black, and overhead the first scouts of the marshaling forces of the clouds came up in flying shreds of gold and fire.

“Oh, ay, we may hef a breeze the night,” Mackenzie said.

“I hope we shan’t have a storm,” Mrs. Ingram said.

“A storm? Oh, no; no storm at all. It will be a ferry good thing if the wind lasts till the morning.”

Mackenzie was not at all sure that there would be storm enough, and went down to dinner grumbling over the fineness of the weather. Indeed, when they came on deck again later on in the night, even the slight breeze that he had hoped for seemed impossible. The night was perfectly still. A few stars had come out overhead, and their light scarcely trembled on the smooth waters of the bay. A cold, fresh scent of seaweed was about, but no wind. The orange lights in Oban burned pale and clear, the red and green lamps of the steamers and yachts in the bay did not move. And when Mrs. Ingram came up to take Sheila forward to the bow of the boat, to sit down there to have a confidential talk with her, a clear and golden moon was rising over the sharp black ridge of Kerrara into the still and beautiful skies, and there was not a ripple of the water along the sides of the yacht to break the wonderful silence of the night.

“My dear,” she said, “you have a beautiful place to live in.”

“But we do not live here,” Sheila said, with a smile. “This is to me as far away from home as England can be to you when you think of America. When I came here for the first time I thought I had got into another world, and that I should never be able to get back again to the Lewis.”

“And is the island you live in more beautiful than this place?” she asked, looking around on the calm sea, the lambent skies and the far mountains beyond, which were gray and ghost-like in the pale glow of the moon.