The long, swinging stroke of the men soon took us round the successive headlands until we were once more in the open, with the mountains of Skye in the north, and, far away at the horizon, a pale line which we knew to be North Uist. And now the green shores of Canna were becoming more precipitous; and there was a roaring of the sea along the spurs of black rock; and the long Atlantic swell, breaking on the bows of the gig, was sending a little more spray over us than was at all desirable. Certainly no one who could have seen the Doctor at this moment—with his fresh-coloured face dripping with the salt water and shining in the sunlight—would have taken him for a hard-worked and anxious student. His hard work was pulling stroke-oar, and he certainly put his shoulders into it, as the Laird had remarked; and his sole anxiety was about Mary Avon's art-materials. That young lady shook the water from the two blank canvases, and declared it did not matter a bit.
These lonely cliffs!—becoming more grim and awful every moment, as this mite of a boat still wrestles with the great waves, and makes its way along the coast. And yet there are tender greens where the pasturage appears on the high plateaus; and there is a soft ruddy hue where the basalt shines. The gloom of the picture appears below—in the caves washed out of the conglomerate by the heavy seas; in the spurs and fantastic pillars and arches of the black rock; and in this leaden-hued Atlantic springing high over every obstacle to go roaring and booming into the caverns. And these innumerable white specks on the sparse green plateaus and on this high promontory: can they be mushrooms in millions? Suddenly one of the men lifts his oar from the rowlock, and rattles it on the gunwale of the gig. At this sound a cloud rises from the black rocks; it spreads; the next moment the air is darkened over our heads; and almost before we know what has happened, this vast multitude of puffins has wheeled by us, and wheeled again further out to sea—a smoke of birds! And as we watch them, behold! stragglers come back—in thousands upon thousands—the air is filled with them—some of them swooping so near us that we can see the red parrot-like beak and the orange-hued web-feet, and then again the green shelves of grass and the pinnacles of rock become dotted with those white specks. The myriads of birds; the black caverns; the arches and spurs of rock; the leaden-hued Atlantic bounding and springing in white foam: what says Mary Avon to that? Has she the courage?
"If you can put me ashore?" says she.
"Oh, we will get you ashore, somehow," Dr. Sutherland answers.
But, indeed, the nearer we approach that ugly coast the less we like the look of it. Again and again we make for what should be a sheltered bit; but long before we can get to land we can see through the plunging sea great masses of yellow, which we know to be the barnacled rock; and then ahead we find a shore that, in this heavy surf, would make match-wood of the gig in three seconds. Our Doctor, however, will not give in. If he cannot get the gig on to any beach or into any creek, he will land our artist somehow. And at last—and in spite of the remonstrances of John of Skye—he insists on having the boat backed in to a projecting mass of conglomerate, all yellowed over with small shell-fish, against which the sea is beating heavily. It is an ugly landing-place; we can see the yellow rock go sheer down in the clear green sea; and the surf is spouting up the side in white jets. But if she can watch a high wave, and put her foot there—and there—will she not find herself directly on a plateau of rock at least twelve feet square?
"Back her, John!—back her!—" and therewith the Doctor, watching his chance, scrambles out and up to demonstrate the feasibility of the thing. And the easel is handed out to him; and the palette and canvases; and finally Mary Avon herself. Nay, even the Laird will adventure, sending on before him the luncheon-basket.
It is a strange studio—this projecting shell-crusted rock, surrounded on three sides by the sea, and on the fourth by an impassable cliff. And the sounds beneath our feet—there must be some subterranean passage or cave into which the sea roars and booms. But Angus Sutherland rigs up the easel rapidly; and arranges the artist's camp-stool; and sets her fairly agoing; then he proposes to leave the Laird in charge of her. He and the humble chronicler of the adventures of these people mean to have some further exploration of this wild coast.
But we had hardly gone a quarter of a mile or so—it was hard work pulling in this heavy sea—when the experienced eye of Sandy from Islay saw that something was wrong.
"What's that?" he said, staring.
We turned instantly, and strove to look through the mists of spray. Where we had left the Laird and Mary Avon there were now visible only two mites, apparently not bigger than puffins. But is not one of the puffins gesticulating wildly?