Nan’s uncle, moving with hopeless and dragging steps about the sides of Maam hill, ruminating constantly on nature’s caprice with sheep and crop, man’s injustice, the poverty of barns, the discomforts of seasons, nourishing his sour self on reflections upon all life’s dolours, would be coming after that for days upon the girl and Gilian gathering berries or on some such childish diversion in the woods behind the river. A gaunt, bowed man in the decline of years, with a grey tangle of beard—a fashion deemed untidy where the razor was on every other man’s face—he looked like a satyr of the trees, when he first came to the view of Gilian. He saw those young ones from remote vistas of the trees, or from above them in cliffs as they plucked the boughs. In lanes of greenwood he would peer in questioning and silent, and there he was certain to find them as close as lovers, though, had he known it, there was never word of love. And though Gilian was still, for the sake of a worn-out feud with the house of the Paymaster, no visitor to Maam, that saturnine uncle would say nothing. For a little he would look, they uncomfortable, then he would smile most grim, a satyr, as Gilian told himself, more than ever.

He came upon them often. Now it would be at the berries, now among the bulrushes of Dhu Loch. They strayed like children. Often, I say, for Gilian had no sooner hurried through his work in these days than he was off in the afternoon, and, on some pretence, would meet the girl on a tryst of her own making. She was indifferent—I have no excuse for her, and she’s my poor heroine—about his wasted hours so long as she had her days illumined by some flicker of life and youth. He never knew how often it was from weeping over a letter from Edinburgh, or a song familiar elsewhere, upon the harpsichord, she would come out to meet him. All she wanted was the adventure, though she did not understand this herself. If no one else in a bonnet came to Maam—and Young Islay was for reasons away in the Lowlands—this dreamer of the wild, with the unreadable but eloquent face and the mysterious moods would do very well. I will not deny that there might even be affection in her trysts. So far as she knew they were no different from trysts made by real lovers elsewhere since the start of time, for lovers have ever been meeting in the woods of these glens without saying to each other why.

Gilian went little to town in that weather, he was getting credit with Miss Mary, if not with her brothers, for a new interest in his profession. Nor did Nan. Her father did not let her go much without himself, he had his own reasons for keeping her from hearing the gossip of the streets.

A week or two passed. The corn, in the badger’s moon, yellowed and hung; silent days of heat haze, all breathless, came on the country; the stubble fields filled at evening with great flights of birds moving south. A spirit like Nan’s, that must ever be in motion, could not but irk to share such a doleful season; she went more than ever about the house of Maam sighing for lost companions, and a future not to be guessed at. Only she would cheer up when she had her duties done for the afternoon and could run out to the hillside to meet Gilian if he were there.

She was thus running, actually with a song on her lips, one day, when she ran into the arms of her uncle as he came round the corner of the barn.

“Where away?” said he shortly, putting her before him, with his hands upon her shoulders.

She reddened, but answered promptly, for there was nothing clandestine in her meetings on the bare hillside with Gilian.

“The berries again,” she said. “Some of the people from Glen Aray are coming over.”

“Some of the people,” he repeated ironically; “that means one particular gentleman. My lassie, there’s an end coming to that.”

He drew a large-jointed coarse hand through his tangled beard and chuckled to himself.

“Are you aware of that?” he went on. “An end coming to it. Oh! I see things; I’m no fool: I could have told your father long ago, but he’s putting an end to it in his own way, and for his own reasons.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” she said, surprised at the portentous tone. She was not a bit afraid of him, though he was so little in sympathy with her youth, so apparently in antagonism to her.

“What would you say to a man?” he asked cunningly.

“It would depend, uncle,” she said readily and cheerfully, though a sudden apprehension smote her at the heart. “It would depend on what he said to me first.”

The old man grinned callously as the only person in the secret.

“Suppose he said: ‘Come away home, wife, I’ve paid a bonny penny for ye’?”

“Perhaps I would say, if I was in very good humour at the time, ‘You’ve got a bonny wife for your bonny penny.’ More likely I would be throwing something at him, for I have my Uncle Jamie’s temper they say, but I’m nobody’s wife, and for want of the asking I’m not likely to be.”

“Well, we’ll see,” said the uncle oracularly. Then abruptly, “Have you heard that your father’s got an appointment?”

“I—I heard just a hint of it, of course he has not told me all about it yet,” she answered with a readiness that surprised herself when she reflected on it later, for the news now so unexpectedly given her in the momentary irritation of the old man was news indeed, and though she was unwilling to let him see that it was so, a tremendous oppression seized her; now she was to be lonely indeed. Half uttering her thoughts she said, “I’ll sooner go with him than stay here and——”

“Oh, there’s no going yonder,” said the uncle. “Sierra Leone is not a healthy clime for men, let alone for women. That’s where the man comes in. He could hardly leave you alone to stravaige about the hills there with all sorts of people from Glen Aray.”

“The white man’s grave!” said she, appalled.

“Ay!” said he, “but he’s no ordinary white man; he’s of good stock.”

“And—and—he has found a man for me,” she said bitterly. “Could I not be left to find one for myself?”

Her uncle laughed his hoarse rude laugh again, and still combed his tangled beard.

“Not to his fancy,” he answered. “It’s not every one who would suit.” He smiled grimly—a wicked elder man. “It’s not every one would suit,” he repeated—as if he was anxious to let the full significance of what he meant sink to her understanding. And he combed his rough beard with large-jointed knotted fingers, and looked from under his heavy eyebrows.

“Seeing the business is so commercial,” said she, “I’m sure that between the two of you you will make a good bargain. I am not sure but I might be glad to be anywhere out of this if father’s gone and I not with him.” She said it with outer equanimity, and unable to face him a moment longer without betraying her shame and indignation, she left him and went to the corn-field where Black Duncan was working alone.

That dark mariner was to some extent a grieved sharer of her solitude in Maam. The loss of the Jean on Ealan Dubh had sundered him for ever from his life of voyaging. The distant ports in whose dusks wild beasts roared and spices filled the air were far back in another life for him; even the little trips to the Clyde were, in the regrets of memory, experiences most precious. Now he had to wear thick shoes on the hill of Maam or sweat like a common son of the shore in the harvest-fields. At night upon his pillow in the barn loft he would lie and mourn for unreturning days and loud and clamorous experience. Or at morning ere he started the work of the day he would ascend the little tulloch behind the house and look far off at a patch of blue—the inner arm of the ocean.

Nan found him in one of his cranky moods, fretful at circumstances, and at her father who kept him there on the shore, and had no word of another ship to take the place of the Jean. Of late he had been worse than usual, for he had learned that the master was bound for abroad, and though he was a sure pensioner so long as Maam held together, it meant his eternal severance from the sea and ships.

Nan threw herself upon the grass beside him as he twisted hay-bands for the stacks, and said no more than “Good afternoon” for a little.

He gloomed at her, and hissed between his teeth a Skye pibroch. For a time he would have her believe he was paying no attention, but ever and anon he would let slip a glance of inquiry from the corner of his eyes. He was not too intent upon his own grievances to see that she was troubled with hers, but he knew her well enough to know that she must introduce them herself if they were to be introduced at all.

He changed his tune, let a little more affability come into his face, and it was an old air of her childhood on the Jean he had at his lips. As he whistled it he saw a little moisture at her eyes; she was recalling the lost old happiness of the days when she had gone about with that song at her lips. But he knew her better than to show that he perceived it.

“Have you heard that father’s going away, Duncan?” she asked in a little.

“I have been hearing that for five years,” said he shortly. He had not thought her worries would have been his own like this.

“Yes, but this time he goes.”

“So they’re telling me,” said Black Duncan.

He busied himself more closely than ever with his occupation.

“Do you think he should be taking me?” she asked in a little.

He stopped his work immediately, and looked up startled.

“The worst curse!” said he in Gaelic. “He could not be doing that. He goes to the Gold Coast. Do I not know it—the white man’s grave?”

“But this Glen Shira,” said she, pretending merriment, “it’s the white girl’s grave for me, Duncan. Should not I be glad to be getting out of it?” And now her eyes were suffused with tears though her lips were smiling.

“I know, I know,” said he, casting a glance up that lone valley that was so much their common grief. “And could we not be worse? I’m sure Black Duncan, reared in a bothy in Skye, who has been tossed by the sea, and been wet and dry in all airts of the world, would be a very thankless man if he was not pleased to be here safe and comfortable, on a steady bed at night, and not heeding the wind nor the storm no more than if he was a skart.”

“Oh! you’re glad enough to be here, then?” said she.

“Am I?” said he. And he sighed, so comical a sound from that hard mariner that she could not but laugh in spite of the anxieties oppressing her.

“I’m not going with him,” she proceeded.

“I know,” said he. “At least I heard—I heard otherwise, and I wondered when you said it, thinking perhaps you had made him change his mind.”

“You thought I had made him change—what do you mean?” she pressed, feeling herself on the verge of an explanation, but determined not to ask directly.

Black Duncan became cautious.

“You need not be asking me anything: I know nothing about it,” said he shortly. “I am very busy—I——” He hissed at his work more strenuously than ever.

Then Nan knew he was not to be got at that way.

“Oh, well, never mind,” said she; “tell me a story.”

“I have no time just now,” he answered.

Nan’s uncle came round the corner of the dyke, no sound from his footsteps, his hands in his pockets, his brows lowering. He looked at the two of them and surmised the reason of Nan’s discourse with Black Duncan.

“Women—” said he to himself vaguely. “Women—” said he, pausing for a phrase to express many commingled sentiments he had as to their unnecessity, their aggravation, and his suspicion of them. He did not find the right one. He lifted his hand, stroked again the tangled beard, then made a gesture, a large animal gesture—still the satyr—to the sky. He turned and went down to the riverside. Mid-way he paused and stroked his beard again, and looked grimly up at where the maid and the manservant were blue-black against the evening sky. He shrugged his shoulders, “Women,” said he, “they make trouble. I wish—I wish——” He had no word to finish the sentence with, he but sighed and proceeded on his way.

Nan seemed to be lazily watching his figure as she sat in the grass, herself observed by Black Duncan. But she really saw him not.

“Ah well! never mind the story, Duncan,” she said at last; “I know you are tired and not in the mood for sguullachd, and if you like I will sing you my song.”

“You randy!” he said to himself, “you are going to have it out of me, my dear.” And he bent the more industriously to his task.

“Stop! stop!” he cried before she had got halfway through the old song of “The Rover.” “Stop! stop!” said he. He threw the binding bands from him and faced the crimson west, with his back to her.

“Any port but that, my dear! If you are grieving because you think you are going abroad you need not be anything of the kind, my leddy. This is the place for you, about your father’s door and him away where the fevers are—aye and the harbours too with diversions in every one of them.”

“And Uncle Jamie’s going to keep me, is he?” said she. “Lucky me! I was aye so fond of gaiety, you mind.”

“Whoever it is that’s to keep you it might be worse,” said he.

“Then there’s somebody.”

“Somebody,” he repeated; “the cleverest young——”

“Stop! stop!” she cried, rising suddenly to her feet; “do not dare to mention a name; spare me that.”

He looked at her in amazement.

“Do you think I’m a stone, Duncan?”

“You would not be asking me that twice if I was younger myself,” he said redly, looking at her fine figure, the blush like a sunset on her neck, the palpitation of her bosom, the flash and menace of her eyes.

“Well, well, well, go on, tell me more,” she cried when she had recovered herself. “What more is there?”

“You are the one that should know most,” said he.

“I know nothing at all,” she answered bitterly. “It seems that nowadays the lady is the last to be taken into confidence about her own marriage.”

“Are you telling me?” he asked incredulously.

“I’m swearing it down your throat,” she cried. “If I had a friend in this countryside he would be pitying my shame that I must be bargained for like beast at a fair and not have a word in the bargain.”

“My name’s what my name may be,” said he, putting out an arm and addressing the world, “and you are my master’s daughter; I would cut off that hand to save you a minute’s vexation. What did Black Duncan know but that you had the picking of the gentleman yourself—and you might have picked worse, though I tell you I did not care to hear about the money in it.”

“The money,” she exclaimed, turning pale to the lips; “then—then—then there’s money in it?”

“He’s a smart young fellow——”

“No name, no name, or you are no friend of mine! Money, you say?”

“I could have picked no better for you myself.”

“Did you say money?”

“I thought once there might be something.”

“Money, money,” she repeated to herself.

“A tocher should not be all on one side,” said he, “and I know the gentleman would be glad to have you——”

“Perhaps the whole countryside knows more about it than I do; it could scarcely know less. I wondered why they were looking at me in the church on Sunday. Oh! I feel black burning shame—shame—shame!”

She put her hands to her face to hide her tears; she trembled in every part.

“They know; the cries are in at least,” said Duncan.

“The cries! the cries!” she repeated. “Is my fate so near at hand as that?”

“You’ll be a married woman before the General takes the road,” said he.

She took her hands from her face; her eyes froze and snapped, cold as ice, the very redness of her weeping cooling pale in her passion. She had no words to utter; she left him hurriedly, and ran fast into the house.