Somehow, his eyes wandered to Mary Avon; and he said—rather absently—
"I, for one, should like it well enough; if it were only possible."
"No, no," says the Laird, brusquely, "that will no do at all. It was never intended that people should go and live for themselves like that. Ye have your duties to the nation and to the laws that protect ye. When I left Denny-mains I told my brother Commissioners that what I could do when I was away to further the business of the Burgh I would do; and I have entered most minutely into several matters of great importance. And that is why I am anxious to get to Portree. I expect most important letters there."
Portree! Our whereabouts on the chart last night was marked between 45 and 46 fathoms W.S.W. from some nameless rocks; and here, as far as we can make out, we are still between these mystical numbers. What can we do but chat, and read, and play draughts, and twirl round a rope, and ascend to the cross-trees to look out for a breeze, and watch and listen to the animal-life around us?
"I do think," says Mary Avon to her hostess, "the calling of those divers is the softest and most musical sound I ever heard; perhaps because it is associated with so many beautiful places. Just fancy, now, if you were suddenly to hear a diver symphony beginning in an opera—if all the falsetto recitative and the blare of the trumpets were to stop—and if you were to hear the violins and flutes beginning, quite low and soft, a diver symphony, would you not think of the Hebrides, and the White Dove, and the long summer days? In the winter, you know, in London, I fancy we should go once or twice to see that opera!"
"I have never been to an opera," remarks the Laird, quite impervious to Mary Avon's tender enthusiasm. "I am told it is a fantastic exhibeetion."
One incident of that day was the appearance of a new monster of the deep, which approached quite close to the hull of the White Dove. Leaning over the rail we could see him clearly in the clear water—a beautiful, golden, submarine insect, with a conical body like that of a land-spider, and six or eight slender legs, by the incurving of which he slowly propelled himself through the water. As we were perfectly convinced that no one had ever been in such dead calms in the Minch before, and had lain for twenty-four hours in the neighbourhood of 45 and 46, we took it for granted that this was a new animal. In the temporary absence of our F.R.S., the Laird was bold enough to name it the Arachne Mary-Avonensis; but did not seek to capture it. It went on its golden way.
But we were not to linger for ever in these northern seas, surrounded by perpetual summer calms—however beautiful the prospect might be to a young man fallen away, for the moment, from his high ambitions. Whatever summons from the far world might be awaiting us at Portree was soon to be served upon us. In the afternoon a slight breeze sprung up that gently carried us away past Ru Hunish, and round by Eilean Trodda, and down by Altavaig. The grey-green basaltic cliffs of the Skye coast were now in shadow; but the strong sunlight beat on the grassy ledges above; and there was a distant roar of water along the rocks. This other throbbing sound, too: surely that must be some steamer far away on the other side of Rona?
The sunset deepened. Darker and darker grew the shadows in the great mountains above us. We heard the sea along the solitary shores.
The stars came out in the twilight: they seemed clearest just over the black mountains. In the silence there was the sound of a waterfall somewhere—in among those dark cliffs. Then our side-lights were put up; and we sate on deck; and Mary Avon, nestling close to her friend, was persuaded to sing for her