Part 9

When we reached the top of the glen, and dropped down on the Parliamentary Road near the lake of water lilies, we held our way to the right, toward the point of Sleat. We passed the farm of Knock, the white outhouses, the church and school-house, the old castle on the shore, and driving along, we could pleasantly depasture our eyes on the cultivated ground, with a picturesque hut perched here and there; the towering masses of the Knoydart hills and the Sound of Sleat between. Sleat is the best wooded, the sunniest, and most carefully cultivated portion of the island; and passing along the road the traveller is struck with signs of blithe industry and contentment. As you draw near Armadale Castle you can hardly believe that you are in Skye at all. The hedges are as trim as English hedges, the larch plantations which cover the faces of the low hills that look towards the sea are not to be surpassed by any larch plantations in the country. The Armadale home farm is a model of neatness, the Armadale porter-lodges are neat and white; and when, through openings of really noble trees, you obtain a glimpse of the castle itself, a handsome modern-looking building rising from sweeps of closely-shaven lawn, you find it hard to believe that you are within a few miles of the moory desolation that stretches between Isle Oronsay and Broadford. Great lords and great seats, independent of the food they provide the imagination, are of the highest practical uses to a country. From far Duntulm Macdonald has come here and settled, and around him to their very tops the stony hills laugh in green. Great is the power of gold. Drop a sovereign into the hat of the mendicant seated by the wayside and into his face you bring a pleasant light. Bestow on land what gold can purchase, Labour, and of the stoniest aridity you make an emerald.

[Sidenote: Waiting the steamer.]

Ardvasar is situated about the distance of a mile from the Armadale plantations, and counts perhaps some twenty houses. A plain inn stands by the wayside, where refreshments may be procured; there is a merchant's shop filled with goods of the most miscellaneous description; in this little place also resides a most important personage--the agent of the Messrs Hutcheson, who is learned in the comings and goings of the steamers. On our arrival we learned from the agent that the steamer on the present occasion would be unusually late, as she had not yet been sighted between Ardnamurchan and Eig. In all probability she would not be off Ardvasar till ten P.M. It is difficult to kill time anywhere; but at this little Skye clachan it is more difficult than almost anywhere else. We fed the horse, and returned it and the dog-cart to Mr M'Ian. We sat in the inn and looked aimlessly out of the window; we walked along the ravine, and saw the stream sleeping in brown pools, and then hurrying on in tiny waterfalls; we watched the young barbarians at play in the wide green in front of the houses; we lounged in the merchant's shop; we climbed to the top of eminences and looked seaward, and imagined fondly that we beheld a streak of steamer smoke on the horizon. The afternoon wore away, and then we had tea at the inn. By this the steamer had been visible for some little time, and had gone in to Eig. After tea we carried our traps down to the stony pier and placed them in the boat which would convey us to the steamer when she lay to in the bay. Thereafter we spent an hour in watching men blasting a huge rock in a quarry close at hand. We saw the train laid and lighted, the men scuttling off, and then there was a dull report, and the huge rock tumbled quietly over in ruins. When we got back to the pier, passengers were gathering: drovers with their dogs--ancient women in scarlet plaids and white caps, going on to Balmacara or Kyle--a sailor, fresh from China, dressed in his best clothes, with a slate-coloured parrot in a wicker cage, which he was conveying to some young people at Broadford. On the stony pier we waited for a considerable time, and then Mr Hutcheson's agent, accompanied by some half dozen men, came down in a hurry; into the boat we were all bundled, drovers, dogs, ancient women, sailor, parrot, and all, the boat shoved off, the agent stood up in the bow, the men bent to their oars, and by the time we were twenty boat-lengths from the pier the _Clansman_ had slid into the bay opposite the castle and lay to, letting off volumes of noisy steam.

[Sidenote: The Clansman.]

When the summer night was closing the _Clansman_ steamed out of Armadale Bay. Two or three ladies were yet visible on the deck. Wrapped in their plaids, and with their dogs around them, drovers were smoking amidships; sportsmen in knickerbockers were smoking on the hurricane deck; and from the steerage came at intervals a burst of canine thunder from the leashes of pointers and setters congregated there. As the night fell the air grew cold, the last lady disappeared, the sportsmen withdrew from their airy perches, amidships the pipe of the drover became a point of intense red. In the lighted cabin gentlemen were drinking whisky punch, and discussing, as their moods went, politics, the weather, the fluctuations in the price of stock, and the condition of grouse. Among these we sat; and my companion fell into conversation with a young man of an excited manner and a restless eye. I could see at a glance that he belonged to the same class as my tobacco-less friend of Glen Sligachan. On Fellowes he bestowed his entire biography, made known to him the name of his family--which was, by the way, a noble one--volunteered the information that he had served in the Mediterranean squadron, that he had been tried by a court martial for a misdemeanour of which he was entirely guiltless, and had through the testimony of nefarious witnesses been dismissed the service. While all this talk was going on the steward and his assistants had swept away the glasses from the saloon table, and from the oddest corners and receptacles were now drawing out pillows, sheets, and blankets. In a trice everything became something else; the sofas of the saloon became beds, the tables of the saloon became beds, beds were spread on the saloon floor, beds were extemporised near the cabin windows. When the transformation had been completed, and several of the passengers had coiled themselves comfortably in their blankets, the remainder struggling with their boots, or in various stages of dishabille, the ex-naval man suddenly called out "Steward!"

[Sidenote: The ex-naval man.]

That functionary looked in at the saloon door in an instant.

"Bring me a glass of brandy and water."

"It's quite impossible, Mr ----," said the steward; "the spirit-room is shut for the night. Besides, you have had a dozen glasses of brandy and water to-day already. You had better go to bed, sir."

"Didn't I tell you," said the ex-naval man, addressing Fellowes, who had by this time got his coat and vest off; "didn't I tell you that the whole world is in a conspiracy against me? It makes a dead set at me. That fellow now is as great a foe of mine as was the commodore at Malta."

Fellowes made no reply, and got into bed. I followed his example. The ex-naval man sat gloomily alone for a while, and then with the assistance of the steward he undressed and clambered into a cool berth beside one of the cabin windows. Thereafter the lights were turned low.

I could not sleep, however; the stifling air of the place, in which there lived a faint odour of hot brandy and water, and the constant throb throb of the engines, kept me awake. I turned from one side to the other, till at last my attention was attracted by the movements of my strange friend opposite. He raised his head stealthily and took covert survey of the saloon; then he leant on his elbow; then he sat upright in his berth. That feat accomplished, he began to pour forth to some imaginary auditor the story of his wrongs.

He had not gone on long when a white night-capped head bounced up in a far corner of the dim saloon. "Will you be good enough," said the pale apparition in a severe voice, "to go to sleep? It's monstrous, sir, that you should disturb gentlemen at this hour of the night by your nonsensical speeches."

At the sight and the voice the ex-naval man sank into his berth as suddenly as an alarmed beaver sinks into his dam, and there was silence for a time.

Shortly, from the berth, I saw the ex-naval man's head rising as stealthily as the head of a blackcock above a bunch of rushes. Again he sat up in bed, and again to the same invisible auditor he confided his peculiar griefs.

"Confound you, sir." "What do you mean, sir?" and at the half-dozen white apparitions confronting him the ex-naval man again dived.

In about ten minutes the head opposite began again to stir. Never from ambush did Indian warrior rise more noiselessly than did the ex-naval man from his blankets. He paused for a little on his elbow, looked about him cautiously, got into a sitting position, and began a third harangue.

"What the devil!" "This is intolerable!" "Steward, steward!" "Send the madman on deck;" and the saloon rose _en masse_ against the disturber of its rest. The steward came running in at the outcry, but the ex-naval man had ducked under like a shot, and was snoring away in simulated slumber as if he had been the Seven Sleepers rolled into one.

That night he disturbed our rest no more, and shortly after I fell asleep.

A fierce trampling on deck, and the noise of the crane hoisting the cargo from the deep recesses of the hold awoke me. I dressed and went above. The punctual sun was up and at his work. We were off a strip of sandy beach, with a row of white houses stretching along it, and with low rocky hills behind the houses. Some half-dozen deeply-laden shore boats were leaving the side of the steamer. Then a cow was brought forward, a door was opened in the bulwarks, and the animal quietly shoved out. Crummie disappeared with a considerable plunge, and came to the surface somewhat scant of breath, and with her mind in a state of utter bewilderment. A boat was in readiness; by a deft hand a coil of rope was fastened around the horns, the rowers bent to their task, and Crummie was towed ashore in triumph, and on reaching it seemed nothing the worse of her unexpected plunge forth.

The noisy steam was then shut off; from the moving paddles great belts of pale-green foam rushed out and died away far astern; the strip of beach, the white houses with the low rocky hills behind, began to disappear, and the steamer stood directly for Portree, which place was reached in time for breakfast. We then drove to the Landlord's, and on alighting I found my friend John Penruddock marching up and down on the gravel in front of the house.

_JOHN PENRUDDOCK._

Penruddock was rather a hero of mine. He was as tall, muscular, and broad-shouldered as the men whom Mr Kingsley delights to paint, and his heart was as tender as his head was shrewd. A loquacious knave could not take him in, and from his door a beggar would not be sent empty away. The pressure of his mighty hand when he met you gave you some idea of what the clenched fist would be with its iron ridge of knuckles. He was the healthiest-minded man I have ever met in my walk through life. He was strong yet gentle, pious yet without the slightest tincture of cant or dogmatism; and his mind was no more infested with megrims, or vanity, or hypochondriasis, or sentimentality, than the wind-swept sky of June with vapours. He was loyal and affectionate to the backbone: he stuck to his friends to the last. Pen was like the run of ordinary mortals while your day of prosperity remained, but when your night of difficulty fell he came out like a lighthouse, and sent you rays of encouragement and help.

[Sidenote: John Penruddock.]

Pen had farms in Ireland as well as in Skye, and it was when on a visit to him in Ulster some years since that I became acquainted with his homely but enduring merits. For years I had not seen such a man. There was a reality and honest stuff in him, which in living with him and watching his daily goings on revealed itself hour by hour, quite new to me. The people I had been accustomed to meet, talk with, live with, were different. The tendency of each of these was towards art in one form or other. And there was a certain sadness somehow in the contemplation of them. They fought and strove bravely; but like the Old Guard at Waterloo, it was brave fighting on a lost field. After years of toil there were irremediable defects in that man's picture; fatal flaws in that man's book. In all their efforts were failure and repulse, apparent to some extent to themselves, plain enough to the passionless looker-on. That resolute, hopeless climbing of heaven was, according to the mood, a thing to provoke a jest or a sigh. With Penruddock all was different. What he strove after he accomplished. He had a cheerful mastery over circumstances. All things went well with him. His horses ploughed for him, his servants reaped for him, his mills ground for him, successfully. The very winds and dews of heaven were to him helps and aids. Year after year his crops grew, yellowed, were cut down and gathered into barns, and men fed thereupon; and year after year there lay an increasing balance at his banker's. This continual, ever-victorious activity seemed strange to me--a new thing under the sun. We usually think that poets, painters, and the like, are finer, more heroical, than cultivators of the ground. But does the production of a questionable book really surpass in merit the production of a field of unquestionable turnips? Perhaps in the severe eyes of the gods the production of a wooden porringer, water-tight, and fit for househould uses, is of more account than the rearing of a tower of Babel, meant to reach to heaven. Alas! that so many must work on these Babel towers; cannot help toiling on them to the very death, though every stone is heaved into its place with weariness and mortal pain; though when the life of the builder is wasted out on it, it is fit habitation for no creature, can shelter no one from rain or snow--but towering in the eyes of men a _Folly_ (as the Scotch phrase it) after all.

I like to recall my six weeks' sojourn in sunny Ulster with my friend. I like to recall the rows of whity-green willows that bordered the slow streams; the yellow flax fields with their azure flowers, reminding one of the maidens in German ballads; the flax tanks and windmills; the dark-haired girls embroidering muslins before the doors, and stealing the while the hearts of sheepish sweethearts leaning against the cottage walls, by soft blarney and quick glances; the fields in which a cow, a donkey, half a dozen long-legged porkers--looking for all the world like pigs on stilts--cocks and hens, ducks and geese promiscuously fed; and, above all, I like to recall that somnolent Sunday afternoon in the little uncomfortably-seated Presbyterian church, when--two-thirds of the congregation asleep, the precentor soundest of all, and the good clergyman illustrating the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints by a toddler at its mother's knee attempting to walk, falling and bumping its forehead, getting picked up, and in a little while, although the bump had grown to the size of an egg, spurring and struggling to get to the floor once again--my eye wandered to the open church door, and in the sunshine saw a feeding bee fold its wings on a flower and swing there in the wind, and I forgot for a while drawling shepherd and slumbering flock. These are trifles, but they are pleasant trifles. Staying with Pen, however, an event of importance did occur.

It was arranged that we should go to the fair at Keady; but Pen was obliged on the day immediately preceding to leave his farm at Arranmore on matter of important business. It was a wretched day of rain, and I began to tremble for the morrow. After dinner the storm abated, and the dull dripping afternoon set in. While a distempered sunset flushed the west the heavy carts from the fields came rolling into the courtyard, the horses fetlock-deep in clay and steaming like ovens. Then, at the sound of the bell, the labourers came, wet, weary, sickles hanging over their arms, yet with spirits merry enough. These the capacious kitchen received, where they found supper spread. It grew dark earlier than usual, and more silent. The mill-wheel rushed louder in the swollen stream, and lights began to glimmer here and there in the dusty windows. Penruddock had not yet come; he was not due for a couple of hours. Time began to hang heavily; so slipping to bed I solved every difficulty by falling soundly asleep.

The lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep, the barking of dogs, and the loud voices of men in the courtyard beneath, awoke me shortly after dawn. In the silence that followed I again fell asleep, and was roused at last by the clangour of the breakfast bell. When I got up the sun was streaming gloriously through the latticed window; heaven was all the gayer and brighter for yesterday's gloom and sulky tears, and the rooks were cawing and flapping cheerfully in the trees above. When I entered the breakfast-room Pen was already there, and the tea-urn was bubbling on the table.

[Sidenote: On the way to the fiar.]

At the close of the meal Tim brought the dog-cart to the door. Pen glanced at his watch. "We have hit the time exactly, and will arrive as soon as Mick and the cattle." There was an encouraging chir-r-r, a flick of the whip, and in a trice we were across the bridge and pegging along the highway at a great pace.