Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-13.pdf/85

84 "Oh," Johnny said lightly, "it's a capital adventure for me; and perhaps I could ask Mackenzie—Mr. Mackenzie: I beg your pardon—to let me have two or three clay pipes, for this brier-root is rapidly going to the devil."

"He will give you anything he has in the house: you never saw such a hospitable fellow, Johnny. But you must take great care what you do."

"You trust to me. In the mean time let's see what Pate knows about Loch Roag."

Johnny called down his skipper, a bluff, short, red-faced man, who presently appeared, his cap in his hand.

"Will you have a glass of champagne, Pate?"

"Oh ay, sir," he said, not very eagerly.

"Would you rather have a glass of whisky?"

"Well, sir," Pate said, in accents that showed that his Highland pronunciation had been corrupted by many years' residence in Greenock, "I was thinkin' the whisky was a wee thing better for ye on a cauld nicht."

"Here you are, then! Now, tell me, do you know Loch Roag?"

"Oh ay, fine. Many's the time I hiv been in to Borvabost."

"But," said Lavender, "do you know the loch itself? Do you know the bay on which Mackenzie's house stands?"

"Weel, I'm no sae sure aboot that, sir. But if ye want to gang there, we can pick up some bit body at Borvabost that will tak' us round."

"Well," Lavender said, "I think I can tell you how to go. I know the channel is quite simple—there are no rocks about—and once you are round the point you will see your anchorage."

"It's twa or three years since I was there, sir," Pate remarked as he put the glass back on the table: "I mind there was a daft auld man there that played the pipes."

"That was old John the Piper," Lavender said. "Don't you remember Mr. Mackenzie, whom they call the King of Borva?"

"Weel, sir, I never saw him, but I was aware he was in the place. I have never been up here afore wi' a party o gentlemen, and he wasna coming down to see the like o' us."

With what a strange feeling Lavender beheld, the following afternoon, the opening to the great loch that he knew so well! He recognized the various rocky promontories, the Gaelic names of which Sheila had translated for him. Down there in the south were the great heights of Suainabhal and Cracabhal and Mealasabhal. Right in front was the sweep of Borvabost Bay, and its huts and its small garden patches ; and up beyond it was the hill on which Sheila used to sit in the evening to watch the sun go down behind the Atlantic. It was like entering again a world with which he had once been familiar, and in which he had left behind a peaceful happiness he had sought in vain elsewhere. Somehow, as the yacht dipped to the waves and slow ly made her way into the loch, it seemed to him that he was coming home—that he was returning to the old and quiet joys he had experienced there—that all the past time that had darkened his life was now to be removed. But when, at last, he saw Mackenzie's house high up there over the tiny bay, a strange thrill of excitement passed through him, and that was followed by a cold feeling of despair, which he did not seek to remove.

He stood on the companion, his head only being visible, and directed Pat until the Phœbe had arrived at her moorings, and then he went below. He had looked wistfully for a time up to the square, dark house, with its scarlet copings, in the vague hope of seeing some figure he knew; but now, sick at heart and fearing that Mackenzie might make him out with a glass, he sat down in the state-room, alone and silent and miserable.

He was startled by the sound of oar and got up and listened. Mosenber came down and said, "Mr. Mackenzie has sent a tall, thin man—do you know him?—to see who we are, and whether we will go up to his house."

"What did Eyre say?"

"I don't know. I suppose he is going."

Then Johnny himself came below