The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols Part 37

The next minute he had put his helm gently up; the bow of the boat fell away from the wind; and presently--just as they had time to see the green depths of the rocks they had succeeded in weathering--the war-galley of the great chieftain was spinning away down Loch Scrone, racing with the racing waves, the wind tearing and hauling at her bellied-out jib.

'Hurrah, my lads! we'll soon be at Eilean-na-Rona now, eh?' Rob shouted.

He did not seem much put about by that narrow escape. Squalls were common on this coast, and it was the business of one aspiring to be a fisherman to take things as they came.

'Come, set to work and bale out the boat, you bare-shanks lot! How d'ye think she can sail with the half of Loch Scrone inside her?'

Thus admonished, the younger brothers were soon among the stone ballast baling out the surging water with such rude utensils as they could find. But the squall was of no great duration. The wind moderated in force; then it woke up again, and brought a smart shower of rain across; then, as if by magic, the heavens suddenly cleared, a burst of hot sunlight fell around them, the sea grew intensely blue, the far hills on the other side of Loch Scrone began to s.h.i.+ne green in the yellow light, and all that was left to tell of the squall that had very nearly put an end to the great chieftain and all his clan was a quickly running sea, now all sparkling in diamonds.

The danger being thus over, Rob once more delivered the tiller into the charge of his brother Nicol, and went forward to his post of observation at the bow. About the only bit of the imaginative voyage on which he had started that had a solid basis in fact was the existence of an old castle--or rather the ruins of what had once been a castle--on the island called Eilean-na-Rona; and now that they were racing down Loch Scrone, that small island was drawing nearer, and already they could make out the dark tower and ivied walls of the ancient keep. Far darker than the tower itself were the legends connected with this stronghold of former times; but for these the brothers MacNicol, who had seized on the place as their own, cared little. It is true, they had some dread of the dungeon, and none of them would have liked to visit Eilean-na-Rona at night; but in the daytime the old ruins formed an excellent retreat, where they could play such high jinks or hold such courtly tournaments as they chose.

They ran the boat into a little creek of the uninhabited island, driving her right up on the beach for safety's sake, there being no anchor. Then--Neil carrying a small basket the while and Duncan a coil of rope--they pa.s.sed through a wood of young larches and spruce, the air smelling strongly of bracken and meadow-sweet after the rain; and finally they reached the rocky eminence on which stood the ruins.

There was no way up, for tourists did not come that way, and the owner of the island, who was a farmer on the mainland, had but little care for antiquities. However, the lads found no difficulty. They swarmed up the face of the crags like so many squirrels, and found themselves on a gra.s.sy plateau which had once formed the outer courtyard of the keep. Around this plateau were fragments of what in former days had been a ma.s.sive wall, but most of the crumbling masonry was hidden under ivy and weeds. In front of them, again, rose the great tower with its arched and gloomy entrance, and its one or two small windows, in the clefts of which bunches of wallflower were growing. The only sign of life about the old castle or the uninhabited island was given by two or three jackdaws that wheeled about overhead, and cawed harshly in resentment of this intrusion.

The great chieftain, Robert of the Red Hand, having now a.s.sembled his kinsmen and allies in the ancient halls of Eilean-na-Rona, proceeded to speak as follows.

'Nicol, my man, ye have been tried and convicted.'

'I ken that,' was Nicol's philosophical reply.

'Ye had no business to make fast the sheet of the lug-sail; ye might have drooned the lot of us.'

Nicol nodded. He had sinned, and was prepared to suffer.

'Have ye ought to say against your being lowered into the dungeon?'

'I have not. Do you think I'm feared?' said Nicol scornfully.

'Ye will not pay the penny?'

'Deil a penny will I pay!'

'Nicol,' said his cousin Neil, with some touch of compa.s.sion--for indeed he knew that the dungeon was a gruesome place--'Nicol, maybe you have not got a penny?'

'Well, I have not,' said Nicol.

'Will I lend ye one?'

'What would be the use of that?' said Nicol; 'I would have to pay it back. Do you think I'm feared? I tell you I am not feared.'

So there was nothing for it but to get the rope and pa.s.s it under Nicol's arms, fastening it securely at his back. Thus bound, the culprit was marched through the archway of the old tower into an apartment that was but feebly lit by the reflected glare coming from without. The other boys, as well as Nicol, walked very carefully over the dank-smelling earth, until they came to what seemed to be a large hole dug out of the ground, and black as midnight. This was the dungeon into which Nicol was to be lowered, that he might expiate his offence before the high revels began.

[1] _Anglice_, seized hold of the weasel.

CHAPTER II.

THE LAST OF THE GAMES.

But before proceeding to relate how the captive clansman was lowered into the dungeon of the castle on Eilean-na-Rona, it will be necessary to explain why he did not choose to purchase his liberty by the payment of the sum of one penny. Pennies among the boys of Erisaig, and more especially among the MacNicols, were an exceedingly scarce commodity.

The father of the three MacNicols, who was also burdened with the charge of their orphan cousin Neil, was a hand on board the steamer _Glenara Castle_, and very seldom came ash.o.r.e. He had but small wages; and it was all he could do, in the bringing up of the boys, to pay a certain sum for their lodging and schooling, leaving them pretty much to cadge for themselves as regarded food and clothes. Their food, mostly porridge, potatoes, and fish of their own catching, cost little; and they did not spend much money on clothes, especially in summer time, when no Erisaig boy--except Rob MacNicol, who was a distinguished person--would submit to the enc.u.mbrance of shoes and stockings.

Nevertheless, for various purposes, money was necessary to them; and this they obtained by going down in the morning, when the herring boats came in, and helping the men to strip the nets. The men were generally tired out and sleepy with their long night's work; and if they had had anything like a good haul, they were glad to give these lads twopence or threepence apiece to undertake the labour of lifting the nets, yard by yard, out of the hold, shaking out the silvery fish and dexterously extricating those that had got more firmly enmeshed. Moreover, it was a work the boys delighted in. If it was not the rose, it was near the rose. If it was not for them as yet to sail away in the afternoon, watched by all the village, at least they could take this small part in the great herring trade. And when they had shaken out the last of the nets, and received their wages, they stepped ash.o.r.e with a certain pride; and generally they put both hands in their pockets as a real fisherman would do; and perhaps they would walk along the quays with a slight lurch, as if they, also, had been cramped up all the long night through, and felt somewhat unused to walking on first getting back to land.

Now these MacNicol boys, again imitating the well-to-do among the fishermen, had each an account at the savings bank; and the pence they got were carefully h.o.a.rded up. For if they wanted a new Glengarry cap, or if they wanted to buy a book telling them of all kinds of tremendous adventures at sea, or if it became necessary to purchase some more fis.h.i.+ng-hooks at the grocer's shop, it was their own small store of wealth they had to look to; and so it came about that a penny was something to be seriously considered. When Rob MacNicol had to impose a fine of one penny, he knew it was a dire punishment; and if there was any alternative, the fine was rarely paid. The fund, therefore, which he had started for the purchase of an old and disused set of bagpipes, and which was to be made up of those fines, did not grow apace. Of course, being a chieftain, he must needs have a piper. The revels in the halls of Eilean-na-Rona lacked half their impressiveness through the want of the pipes. No doubt, Rob had a sort of suspicion that, if ever they should grow rich enough to buy the old set of bagpipes, he would have to play them himself; but even the most ignorant person can perceive that to be one's own piper must at least be better than to have no piper at all.

And now the captive Nicol MacNicol was led to the edge of this black pit in the floor of the lower hall of the castle. On several occasions one or other of the boys had been lowered, for slighter offences, into this dungeon; but no one had ever been condemned to go to the bottom--if bottom there were. But Nicol did not flinch. He was satisfied of the justice of his sentence. He was aware he deserved the punishment. Above all he was determined to save that penny.

At the same time, when the other three had poised themselves so as to lower the rope gradually, and when he found himself descending into that black mole, he looked rather nervously below him. Of course he could see nothing. But there was a vague tradition that this dungeon was haunted by ghosts, vampires, warlocks, and other unholy things; and there was a chill, strange, earthy odour arising from it; and the walls that he sc.r.a.ped against were slimy and damp. He uttered no word, however; and those above kept slowly paying out the coil of rope.

Rob became somewhat concerned.

'It'll be no easy job to pull him back,' he said in a whisper.

'It's as deep as the dungeon they put Donald Gorm Mor into,' said his cousin Neil.

'Maybe there's no bottom at all,' said Duncan, rather awe-stricken.

Suddenly a fearful thing happened. There was a cry from below--a quick cry of alarm; and at the same moment they were startled by a wild whizzing and whirring around them, as if a legend of fiends had rushed out of the pit. With a shriek of fright Duncan sprang back from the edge of the dungeon; and that with such force that he knocked over his two companions. Moreover, in falling, they let go the rope; when they rose again they looked round in the twilight, but could find no trace of it. It had slipped over the edge. And there was no sound from below.

Rob was the first to regain his senses. He rushed to the edge of the hole and stooped over.

'Nicol, are ye there?'

His heart jumped within him when he heard his brother's voice.

'Yes, I am; and the rope too. How am I to get up?'

Rob turned quickly.

'Duncan, down to the boat with ye! Loosen the lug-sail halyards, and bring them up--quick, quick!'

Duncan was off like a young roe. He slid down the crags; he dashed through the larch-wood; he jumped into the boat on the beach.

Presently he was making his way as quickly back again, the halyards coiled round his arm so as not to prevent his climbing.

'Nicol!' shouted Rob.

'Ay?'

'I am lowering the halyards to ye. Fasten them to the end of the rope.'

'I canna see them.'

'Grope all round till ye come to them.'

And so, in process of time, the end of the rope was hauled up, and thereafter--to the great relief of every one--and to his own, no doubt, Nicol appeared alive and well, though somewhat anxious to get away from the neighbourhood of that dungeon. He went immediately out into the warm summer air, followed by the others.