The Eagle Cliff by R. M. Ballantyne (best english books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

While the woman was speaking an elderly man entered, whom she introduced as her husband Ian. To him Barret had to re-repeat his story, and then asked if he and his friends could obtain shelter in the village for the night.

“Iss it shelter ye’ll be wantin’? Ye’ll hev that an’ welcome, though it will be of the poorest. But in the mornin’ ye’ll gang up to the hoose, for the laird wud be ill-pleased if we keepit ye here.”

“Pray, who is this laird?” asked Barret; “your wife has already mentioned him.”

“Maister Gordon is his name. He lives near the heed o’ Loch Lossie. It iss over eight mile from here,” said Ian; “an’ a coot shentleman he iss, too. Fery fond o’ company, though it iss not much company that comes this way, for the steam-poats don’t veesit the loch reg’lar or often. He’ll be fery glad to see you, sir, an’ to help ye to git home. But we’d petter be goin’ to tell your freen’s that we can putt them up for the nicht. I’ll go pack with ye, an we’ll take the poy to help an’ carry up their things.”

“You forget that we have been wrecked,” returned Barret with a laugh, “and have no ‘things’ to carry, except our own damp carcases.”

“That’s true, sir, but we’ll be none the worse o’ the poy, what-ë-ver. Come away, Tonal’,” said Ian, as they started back along the shore. “It iss under the Eagle Cliff where ye came to laund, I make no doot?”

“Well, I suppose it was; at least, there is a range of cliffs close to the place where our raft struck.”

“Oo ay—but it iss not the wee precipices, it iss the big hull behind them that we ca’ the Eagle Cliff.”

“Oh, indeed! I saw that cliff in a peculiar manner as I came along,” said Barret giving a description of the scene.

“Ay; it iss sometimes seen like that,” said Ian; “an’ we often see the eagle, but it’s no’ possible to git a shot at that crater. The laird is real keen to bring it doon, for it plays the mischief among the lambs, an’ him an’ his freen’s hes aften tried, but they hev not manicht it yet.”

Thus chatting they soon reached the raft, and found the disconsolate party waiting impatiently for them.

“Shall we leave it where it lies, or drag it further up on the beach?” asked Mabberly, referring to the raft.

“Ye petter haul it a wee higher up,” said Ian, examining the machine with much interest; “for when it comes on to plow there’s a heavy sea here. Weel, weel, but it iss a strange contrivance!”

“Ay; an’ also a useful one,” said the skipper, drily—at least as duly as was possible in the circumstance.

“Noo, shentlemen, I think we had petter be goin’.”

It was indeed time, for although the weather was warm and fine, the sun had set, and their damp garments began to feel uncomfortable.

At the Cove the whole party was accommodated in a single-roomed hut, which chanced to be empty at the time. Here the hospitable fishermen spread nets for bedding, and with plaids made up for the lack of blankets. They also kindled a large peat fire, and put on a pot of potatoes, and some splendid sea-trout, while Mrs Anderson prepared oat-cakes at her own fire, and sent them in as required.

“Noo, shentlemen, ye’ll tak a tram?” said Ian, producing a black bottle.

Immeasurable was the astonishment of the Highlander when the gentlemen refused a dram.

“But—but, ye’ll catch yer death o’ cauld, if ye don’t!” he said, remonstratively, as he stood bottle and glass in hand.

“Thanks, friend,” replied Jackman, “but we have taken in so much salt water during our swim to land that we are not sure whether the whisky would agree with it.”

“Hoots! havers!” exclaimed Ian, pouring out some of the liquid; “ye’re jokin’.”

“In truth we are not, then,” said Mabberly; “for we are all total abstainers.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Ian, who could not understand the principles or feelings of men who, after a long exhausting swim in their clothes, were capable of refusing whisky! For it is to be remembered that, although the time we write of is comparatively recent, that remote island had not been visited by any apostle of temperance or total abstinence in regard to alcohol. Of course Ian had heard something of such principles, but he did not believe in them, and certainly did not practise them. “Hooiver, shentlemen,” he added, “if ye wunna tak it—here’s wushin’ your fery coot health!”

Raising the glass, he drained it without winking, as if the contents had been water, smacked his lips and put the bottle away.

It must not be supposed that all the crew of the late unfortunate Fairy witnessed this proceeding unmoved, for, although they had all been engaged on the understanding that no strong drink was to be allowed or consumed while the voyage lasted, not one of them was a pledged abstainer, and now that the voyage was ended it did seem as if the laws of the voyage should no longer be binding. Still there remained a feeling that, as long as they continued a united party, the spirit of the agreement should not be broken; therefore the skipper and “Shames” let the bottle pass with a sigh, and Quin followed suit with an undertoned remark to Tips that, “he wouldn’t have belaved tim’tation to be so strong av he hadn’t wrastled wid it!”

By that time most of the men of the hamlet had returned, and a rig out of fisher clothes was lent to each of the unfortunates, so that they were enabled to pass the night in comfort while their own garments were in front of a good fire.

“Is that sick girl your daughter, Ian?” asked Giles Jackman that night, as he walked on the shore with his host before retiring to rest.

“No, sir; she’s a niece—the daughter of a brother o’ mine who hes feathered his nest petter than me. He’s a well-to-do grocer in Oban, an’ hes geen his bairn a pretty good edication; but it’s my opeenion they hev all but killed her wi’ their edication, for the doctor has telt them to stop it altogither, an’ send her here for a change o’ air.”

“Indeed! An interesting child, and so well-mannered, too,” remarked Jackman.

“Humph! Nae doot she is. They do say that it’s because my brither has gotten an English wife. But for my pairt, oor weemen seem to me to be as weel mainered as the weemen sooth o’ the Tweed.”

“Quite as well, I doubt not; though I have not seen much of your countrywomen, Ian. Besides, good manners are to be judged by varying standards. What is good in the opinion of the Eskimo may be thought very bad by the Hindoo, and vice versa. It is very much a matter of taste. The manners of your niece, at all events, are admirable. Now it is time to turn in. Good-night, Ian.”

The sun was high next morning when the wrecked men awoke, and began to feel the outcries of nature with reference to breakfast. Long before that time the men of Cove had gone off to the hills, the peat-hags, or the sea, according to their respective callings. But Mrs Anderson had a sumptuous breakfast of oatmeal porridge and fresh milk ready for the strangers.

“Musha! but it’ll make me mouth wather all the afthernoon thinkin’ of it,” said Quin, on finishing his second plateful.

“It’s prime wittles,” remarked Tips, as he helped himself to more.

“Now, Barret, have you finished?” asked Mabberly.

“No; why?”

“Because, in the first place, you are evidently eating too much for your health, and, in the second place, I want you to go up to what Ian calls the Hoose, as a deputation to the laird. You see, although we are forced, as it were, to throw ourselves on his hospitality, I don’t quite like to descend on him all at once with the whole strength of our party. It will be better for one of us to break the ice, and as you are the best-looking and most hypocritically urbane, when you choose, I think we could not do better than devolve the duty upon you.”

“Right, Bob, as usual; but don’t you think,” said Barret, helping himself to another ladleful of the porridge, “that my going may cut in two directions? Doubtless the laird would be agreeably surprised to meet with me; but then that will raise his expectations so high, that he will be woefully disappointed on meeting with you!”

“Come, friends,” cried Jackman, “it is dangerous to play with edged tools immediately after a meal. My medical knowledge assures me of that. I quite approve of Barret forming the deputation, and the sooner he starts off the better. The rest of us will assist Ian to fish in his absence.”

Thus authorised and admonished, Barret finished breakfast, put on his own garments—which, like those of his companions, were semi-nautical—and sallied forth for an eight miles’ walk over the mountains to the mansion of the laird, which lay on the other side of the Eagle’s Cliff ridge, on the shores of Loch Lossie.

He was guided the first part of the journey by Tonal’ with the ragged head, who, with an activity that seemed inexhaustible, led him up into wild and rugged places such as he had never before dreamed of—rocky fastnesses which, looked at from below, seemed inaccessible, even to goats, but which, on being attempted, proved to be by no means beyond the powers of a steady head and strong limbs.

Reaching the summit of a heather-clad knoll that projected from a precipitous part of the mountain-side, Barret paused to recover breath and look back at the calm sea. It lay stretched out far below him, looking, with its numerous islets in bird’s-eye view, somewhat like a map. The mists had completely cleared away, and the sun was glittering on the white expanse like a line of light from the shore to the horizon. Never before had our Englishman felt so like a bird, both as to the point of vision from which he surveyed the glorious scene, and the internal sensation of joy which induced him not only to wish that he could fly, but to think that a very little more of such exultation of spirit would enable him to do so!

“Is that the Cove down there?” he asked of the ragged companion who stood beside him.

“Ay, that’s the Cove!”

“Why, Donald, it looks like a mere speck in the scene from here, and the men look no bigger than crows.”

As this observation called for no answer none was given, and Donald seemed to regard his companion as one who was rather weak-minded.

“Have we come half-way yet, Donald?”

“No—no’ near.”

“Is it difficult to find the rest of the way from this point?”

“No; but it wad be diffeecult to miss it.”

“Well, Donald, my boy, I have a strong desire to be alone—that is, to try if I cannot go the rest of the way without guidance; so, if you will just give me a little direction, I’ll let you go home, and many thanks for coming thus far. Now, point out the landmarks.”

He turned, as he spoke, towards the grand mountain that still towered behind him.

“There’s naethin’ t’ pint oot,” returned the boy; “ye’ve only t’ haud on by this sheep track till ee come close under the cliff yonder.”

“The Eagle Cliff?”

“Ay. It’ll bring ee to a cairt road, an’ ye’ve only to follow that through the pass, an’ haud on till ee come to the hoose. Ye can see the hoose frae the other side o’ the pass.”

“And what is the ‘hoose’ called?” asked Barret.

“Kinlossie.”

“Thank you. Good-bye, my boy.”

A few coppers sent the youth of the ragged head away in high spirits. The young man watched him till he was concealed by a clump of small birch trees that hung like a fringe on the top of a neighbouring precipice. Barret had just