_ CHAPTER NINETEEN. HOW KENNETH WAS TOO RASH
Five days had passed--days of imprisonment, for one of the storms prophesied had come over the ocean from the far west, and there had been nothing to do but read, play chess and billiards, write letters, and-- most interesting amusement of all to the London visitor--get up to an open window and watch the great dark waves come rolling in, to break with a noise like thunder, and deluge the rock with foam right up to the castle walls. Every now and then a huge roller would dash right into the bath cave, when there would be quite an explosion, and Max listened with a feeling of awe to the escape of the confined air, and wondered whether it would be possible for the place to be undermined, and the whole rock swept away.
"What!" cried Kenneth, when he broached the idea. "Nonsense! It has gone on like that for thousands of years. It's jolly! Next time we bathe, there won't be a scrap of weed left. The place will be regularly scoured out, and the bottom covered with soft shelly sand."
The outlook was most dismal. All the glorious colours of sea, sky, and mountain were blotted out, and it was only at intervals, when the drifting rain-clouds lifted a little, that a glimpse could be seen of some island out at sea.
Boom, rush, roar. The wind whistled and yelled as it rattled past the windows, and at times the violence was so great that Max turned an inquiring look at his young host, as if to ask whether there was any danger.
"Like a sail to-day?" asked the latter.
"Sail? with the sea like this!"
"Well, I don't think I should like it," said Kenneth, laughing. "Tavvy says the boat was going adrift out in the bay, but he caught her in time. It's quite rough even there. Here, let's put on waterproofs, and go out."
"Oh no. There: see how it rains."
"Yes, that's pretty tidy," said Kenneth, as the air was literally blackened by the tremendous torrent that fell. "I say, Max, this is the sort of day to see the Mare's Tail. My word! there's some water coming down now."
"It must be terrible."
"Terrible? Nonsense! Here, come into the kitchen and let's see if there's any one there."
Max wondered, but followed his young host to the kitchen, expecting to see no one but the maids, and perhaps Grant, the severe butler; but, when they reached the great stone-floored place, there were Tavish, Long Shon, and Scoodrach, the two latter seated at a table, and the great forester toasting the back of his legs at the fire, and sending up a cloud of steam, an example followed by the three dogs, who sent up smaller clouds of their own.
There was a chorus, or rather a trio of good-mornings, and a series of rappings from dogs' tails, and Max ventured to suggest to the great Highlander that it was very wet.
"Ou ay," he said; "a wee bit shoory, put she'll pe over soon."
"Pretty good spate up in the hills, Tavvy," cried Kenneth.
"Ou ay, Maister Ken; but it's gran' weather for ta fush."
"A' was thenking ye'd like to tak' ta chentleman up ta glen to see ta fa's," said Long Shon.
"Ah, we might do that when the shower's over."
"There'll pe a teal of watter coming down fra Ben Doil."
"Yes, we'll go, Max; and, say, Tav, we never went after the stags Scoody and I saw. Think we could get a shot at them to-day?"
"Weel, she might, Maister Ken, put she'd pe a wee pit wat for ta young chentleman."
"Oh, he wouldn't mind. You'd like to go deerstalking, Max?"
"Yes, I should like to go, but--"
"Oh, we wouldn't go while it rains hard; and you'd only get your feet wet."
"She couldna get over ta mountain to-day," said Long Shon decisively; "and ta glen'll be so full of watter, she couldna stand."
"Oh, nonsense! We could go, Tav?"
"Ou ay, she could go, put there's a teal o' watter apoot."
Just at that moment a weird-looking figure appeared at the door, with his long grey hair and beard streaked together with the rain, and, as he caught Max's eye, he smiled at him, raised one hand, gave a mysterious-looking nod, and beckoned to him to come.
"Here, Maxy, old Donald wants you."
"What for?" said Max, as he shrinkingly met the old man's eye, as he still kept on beckoning, and completely ignored the presence of the rest.
"He wants to give you a tune on the pipes."
Donald beckoned again in a quiet, mysterious manner, and the three dogs looked at him uneasily, Sneeshing uttering a low growl, as if he had unpleasant memories of bagpipe melodies and stones thrown at him because he had been unable to bear the music, and had howled.
"What's the matter, Tonal'?" cried Kenneth, as the old man kept on beckoning.
"She disna want onybody but ta Southron chiel'," said the old man sternly; and he continued to wave Max toward him with his long, claw-like hand.
For a few moments Max felt as if he must go--as if some force which he had not the moral courage to resist was drawing him, and he was about to rise, when the old man gave a fierce stamp with his foot.
"You'll be obliged to go, Maxy," said Kenneth. "Have a concert all to yourself for three or four hours. It will be rather windy, but the rain doesn't come in on one side of the old tower room."
"No, no, not to-day!" cried Max hastily.
"Oh, you'll have to go," said Kenneth, as the old man kept on waving his hand imperiously. "Won't he, Scood?"
"Ou ay, she'll have to go and hear ta pipes."
As if angered at the invitation not being accepted, old Donald took a couple of strides forward into the kitchen.
This was too much for Sneeshing, who leaped up on to his four short legs, barked furiously, and then, overcome by recollections of the last air he had heard, he threw up his head so as to straighten his throat, and gave forth the most miserable howl a dog could utter.
Old Donald shouted something in Gaelic, and made for the dog, which began to bark and snap at him, and this roused Dirk and Bruce to take part with him in baying at the old piper, who stopped short, as if startled at the array of teeth.
The noise was so great that Grant the butler came hurrying in.
"Turn those dogs oot!" he cried. "You, Tonal', what do you want?"
"Ta Southron chiel'," said the old man mysteriously.
"She lo'es ta pipes, and she'll play him ta Mackhai's Mairch."
Turning to Max, he waved him toward the door.
"No, no, not to-day," said Grant, who read the young visitor's reluctance to go.
"But ta chiel' lo'es ta pipes," cried Donald.
"Then you shall play to him another time."
"Yes, another time, Tonal'. Be off now, and I'll bring ye a wee drappie by and by," cried Kenneth.
"She'll pring her a wee drappie? Good laddie! She shall pring her a wee drappie, and she wass nice and try up in the tower, and she wass make a nice fire."
He made a mysterious sign or two, suggestive of his making a silent promise to give his young master all the music he had intended for Max, and went slowly out of the great stone-floored place.
"Noo, send oot the dogs," said Grant; and, to make sure, he did it himself, a quiet wave of his hand being sufficient to drive them all out into the yard behind the kitchen.
"She said she should soon pe fine," said Long Shon, as a gleam of sunshine shot through the window; for the storm was passing over, and its rearguard, in the form of endless ragged fleecy clouds, could be seen racing across the blue sky; while, in an hour from then, the sky was swept clear, and the sun shone out bright and warm.
"Now," cried Kenneth, "let's get the rifles, and go and have a stalk."
"It would jist aboot be madness," said Grant; "and the Chief would be in a fine way. Tell him he can't go."
"Oh ay! he's spout richt, Maister Ken. She's too fu' o' watter to go over the mountain and through ta glen."
"She wass saying she'd go and tak' the young chentleman to see the fa's."
"Ay, there's a gran' fa' o' watter the noo," said Tavish.
"Oh, very well, then; let's go and see the falls. Come along, Scoody. I'll get a gun. You'll take yours, Max."
"Shall I?"
"Yes, of course. We may get a good shot at something."
The two lads went back into the hall, and, passing through a swing door, they suddenly came upon The Mackhai pacing up and down.
He looked up, frowning as he caught sight of Max, and was evidently going to say something; but he checked himself, and went quickly into the library and shut the door.
"I'd give something to know what's the matter with father," said Kenneth thoughtfully. "He never used to be like this."
Max felt uncomfortable, and, being very sensitive, he turned to his companion:
"Have I done anything to annoy him?" he asked.
"You? No. What nonsense! There, come along. We haven't had such a day as this for ever so long, and I've been indoors till I can hardly breathe. Why not have a sail?"
Max looked aghast at the heaving sea.
"Perhaps it is a bit too rough," said Kenneth. "Never mind; we'll go and see the falls."
Ten minutes later they were skirting round the little bay, to turn in by the first swollen river, to track its bed up to the mountain, where the "fa's" they were to see were to be found, and, even as they went, a low, deep, humming sound came to the ear, suggestive of some vast machinery in motion; while the river at their side ran as if it were so much porter covered with froth, great flakes of which were eddying here and there, and being cast up in iridescent patches on the stony banks.
At the end of a quarter of an hour's climbing and stumbling among the wet rocks and bushes, during which the two big dogs had been trotting quietly along at their master's heels, and Sneeshing, in a wonderful state of excitement, hunting everywhere for that rabbit which he had on his mind, Max stopped short.
"Hallo! Tired?" cried Kenneth, laughing.
"Oh no! But it seems such a pity to go hurrying on. Wait a few minutes."
Kenneth laughed, and yet he could not help feeling gratified at his companion's enthusiasm.
"Here, hold hard a bit, Tawy," he cried. "Stop a bit, Shon."
The two men halted; the dogs settled themselves upon a sunny rock, Bruce with his pointed nose comfortably across Dirk's rough, warm frill, and Sneeshing curled himself up in the angle formed by the two dogs' bodies, close up to and as much under Dirk's long hair as he could; while Scoodrach seated himself on a huge block of black slate, which did not belong to the place, but must have fallen from some vein high up the gorge, and been brought down by wintry floods, a little way at a time, during hundreds of years, till it lay jammed in among the great blocks of granite like a chip in a basin of lumps of sugar. This piece of slate suited Scoodrach's eye, and he took out his big knife and began to sharpen it.
Long Shon took a little curly sheep's horn out of his pouch, and had a pinch of snuff.
Tavish filled a dumpy black wooden pipe, and began to smoke; while Kenneth, as he smilingly watched Max, hummed over Black Donald's bagpipe tune, "The March of the Clan Mackhai."
"Well," said Kenneth at last, breaking the silence, through which came a low, deep, humming roar, "what do you think of Dunroe?"
"Think!" cried Max, in a low, deep voice; "it's heavenly."
And he stood gazing up the narrow glen, with its intensely dark shadows among the rocks, through which the brilliant sun-rays struck down, making the raindrops which hung upon the delicate leaves of the pendent birches glisten like diamonds.
For it was one beautiful series of pictures at which the lad gazed: patches of vivid blue above, seen through the openings among the trees; right below, the foaming river coming down in a hundred miniature falls; silver-stemmed and ruddy-bronze birches rooting in the sides, and sending their leaves and twigs hanging over like cascades of verdure; pines and spruces rising up on all sides like pyramids of deep, dark green; and everywhere the masses of rock glittering with crystals, and clothed with mosses of the most vivid tints, and among whose crevices the ferns threw up their pointed, softly-laced fronds.
The sunlight glanced down like sheaves of dazzling silver arrows; and over the water, and softly riding down the glen, came soft, filmy clouds of mist, so fine and delicate that they constantly faded into invisibility; while every now and then there were passing glimpses of colour appearing and disappearing over the rushing torrent, as if there had been a rainbow somewhere up above--one which had broken up, and these were its fragments being borne away.
"I never saw anything so beautiful," said Max, almost wondering at his companion's want of enthusiasm.
"And do you know what makes it so beautiful?"
"It was made so."
"Yes; but it is the sun. If a black cloud came over now, and it began to rain, the place would look so gloomy and miserable that you'd want to hurry home."
"Yes; ta young Chief's richt," said Tavish, nodding his head. "It's ta ferry wettest place I know when ta rain comes doon and ta wind will plow."
"Let's go on," said Kenneth after awhile. "It gets more and more beautiful higher up."
"It can't be!" cried Max. "And is this all your father's property?"
"Yes," said Kenneth proudly; "this all belongs to The Mackhai."
"Ant it will aal pelong to ta young Chief some tay, when he crows a pig man."
Max went on with a sigh, but only to find that the place really did grow more beautiful as they climbed on, while the deep, humming roar grew louder and more awe-inspiring as they penetrated farther and farther into the recesses of the mountain. For the long and heavy rain had charged the fountains of the hills to bursting. Every lakelet was brimming, every patch of moss saturated, and from a thousand channels, that were at first mere threads, the water came rushing down to coalesce in the narrow glen, and eddy, and leap, and swirl, and hurry on toward the sea.
"Why are we climbing up so high?" said Max suddenly.
"To show you our glen, and take you up by the falls."
A curious shrinking sensation came upon Max, and Kenneth noticed it.
"This isn't the Grey Mare's Tail," he said, laughing; "and we're not in a boat."
"I can't help feeling a little nervous," said Max frankly. "I am not used to this sort of thing."
"And we are. Yes, of course. It's too bad to laugh at you. Come on."
"Is there any danger?"
"Well, of course there is, if you go and tumble in, but you needn't go near."
The humming roar grew louder as they tramped on along a sheep-track in and out among the huge stones which had fallen from the sides of the great gully. Now they were in deep shadow, where brilliant speckled fungi, all white and red, stood out like stools beneath the birch trees; then they were high up on quite a shelf, where the turf and moss were short, and the sun shone out clearly; and ever, as they turned angle after angle of the great zigzag, the roar of the water grew louder, till, after another hour's slow climbing, they descended a sloping green track and came into a great hollow directly facing them; and a couple of hundred feet overhead, a narrow rift, out of which poured an amber stream of water on to a huge block of rock some twenty feet below, the result being that the great spout of amber water was broken and turned into a sheet of foam, which spread out all over the great block, and fell sheer the rest of the distance, over a hundred and fifty feet, into a vast hollow below. Here it careered round and round, and rushed onward toward where the group were standing, while high above all floated a cloud of fine vapour which resembled white smoke, and upon which played the iridescent colours of half a rainbow, completing the picture in a way which made Max watch it in silent delight.
"Well, what do you think of it?" said Kenneth, who was amused by the London lad's rapt manner.
"Eh? think?" said Max, starting and colouring.
"Yes. What were you thinking?"
"I was wishing that it was mine--all my own, so that I could come and sit here and think."
"Well, you may come here and sit and think, but it never will be yours. It has always belonged to the Mackhais ever since they conquered the Mackalps, and took it with claymore and targe. There was a tremendous fight up above there, and, as my ancestors cut down the Mackalps, they threw them into the stream at the top, and there they were shot out over the fall, and carried right out to sea."
"How horrible!"
"Horrible? Why, it was all considered very brave and grand, and we are very proud of it. There's a sword down at the castle that they say was used in the great fight."
"And are you proud of it?"
"I don't know. I suppose so. Does seem queer, though, to chop chaps with swords and pitch 'em into the water. Rather an awkward place to come down, wouldn't it, Max?"
"Awful!"
"Well, never mind talking about it. Come up and see."
"What! climb up there?"
"To be sure. Oh, you needn't be afraid. It's quite safe. You go up that narrow path, and get round in among those birch trees, and that brings you out by the top."
"I--"
"Oh, don't come if you're scared," said Kenneth contemptuously.
Max rose from the stone upon which he had been seated.
"I'm ready," he said.
"Well, you are a rum chap, Maxy," cried Kenneth, clapping him on the shoulder. "Sometimes I think you are the jolliest coward I ever saw, and sometimes I think you've got plenty of pluck. Which is it?"
"I'm afraid I'm very cowardly," said Max sadly.
"Oh, come, now I'm sure of it!" cried Kenneth warmly.
"That I am a great coward?"
"No; that you're full of pluck. My father says that a fellow must be very brave to own he is a coward. Come on."
They started up the side, with Scoodrach following close behind.
"Going up to ta top o' ta fa's, Maister Kenneth?" shouted Long Shon.
"Yes. Coming with us?"
"She'd petter tak' care," cried Tavish. "There's a teal o' watter, and ta stanes is ferry wat."
"All right, Tavvy; we'll mind," cried Kenneth; and he plunged in among the bushes and rocks, to begin climbing upward in and out, and gradually leaving the rushing waters of the fall behind, while, as the misty foam with its lovely ferny surroundings faded from the eye, the loud splash and roar gradually softened upon the ear till the sound was once more a deep, murmurous hum, which acted as a bass accompaniment to a harsh, wild air which Scoodrach began to sing, or rather bray.
Kenneth stopped short, held back the bushes of hazel dotted with nuts, and turned round to give Max a comical look.
"What's the matter, Scoody?" he cried. "Eh? ta matter? I only scratched my hand wi' a bit thorn."
"Oh! Well, you needn't make so much noise about it."
"Noise spout it! She titn't mak' nae noise."
"Yes, you did. You hulloaed horribly."
"She titn't. She was chust singing a wee bit sang."
"Singing? Did you say singing?"
"Ay, she was chust singing ta Allambogle."
"Do you hear that, Maxy? he thinks he was singing."
"Wah!" ejaculated Scoodrach; and the little party climbed on, with Max wondering how anybody could find breath to make such a noise when climbing up so great a steep.
In a few minutes the sound of the fall began to grow louder once more, and a shrinking sensation to attack Max; but he put a bold face upon the matter, and followed close to Kenneth till the latter turned to him.
"Here we are," he said, "close to the spout." Max looked, but could see nothing, only a dense tangle of hazel stubbs among the green moss, at whose roots grew endless numbers of fungi, shaped like rough chalices, and of the colour of a ripe apricot.
"I can't see it."
"No, not there; but you can here."
As he spoke, Kenneth divided the bushes, and held them apart for his companion to join him, and the next moment they were standing on the brink of a narrow rift in the rock, so narrow that the bush-tips met overhead, and made the water that glided silently along many feet below look quite dark.
"But that's not the whole of the water which goes over the fall," said Max wonderingly.
"Every drop. It's narrow, but it's fine and deep, and when it spouts out it falls on to the stones and spreads round so as to look big--makes the most of itself. Now then, are you tired?"
"Yes; my legs ache a bit."
"Very well, then, this is the nearest way home."
"I don't understand you."
"Jump in here, and the water would carry you right away down to the bathing-cave. Scood and I have sent strings of corks down here, and the stream has carried them right to Dunroe."
"I think I'd rather walk," said Max, smiling.
"So would I. Now come on and see where the water falls."
He led the way, and Max and Scoodrach followed, the latter, who was musically disposed that morning, taking advantage of the noise made by the falls to use it as a cloak to cover his own, with the result that every now and then Max was startled by hearing sounds close behind him remarkably suggestive of Donald Dhu being close upon their track, armed with his pipes, and doing battle with all his might.
"Here you are," cried Kenneth, brushing through the last of the hazel boughs, and standing out on the rock close to the edge of the great hollow into which the water poured; and the shrinking sensation increased, as Max joined his friend, and found that there was nothing to protect him from falling into the great gulf at whose brink they stood.
All this struck him for the moment, but the dread was swept away by the rush of thought which took its place. For there below, as he gazed down at the falling water arching from the narrow rift into a stony basin, to then rush over the sides and fall in a silvery veil, to the deep chasm fringed with delicate dew--sparkling greenery, amidst whose leaves and boughs floated upward a cloud of white mist, which kept changing, as the sun shone upon it, to green and yellow and violet and orange of many depths of tone, but all dazzlingly bright, one melting into the other and disappearing to reappear in other rainbow hues.
Far below them, toward where the rugged hollow opened out to allow of the escape of the water from the falls, Tavish and Long Shon could be seen, seated on the stones they had chosen, smoking their pipes and basking in company with the dogs, for the warm rays of a sunny day had of late been rare.
"There's a teal o' watter in the fa's," said Scoodrach gravely.
"Of course there is, stupid, after this rain," cried Kenneth. "Tell me something I don't know."
"Couldn't tell her nothing she don't know," cried Scoodrach. "She reats books, and goes to school, and learns efferything."
"That's just what the masters say I don't do, Scoody. Here, let's go down to the basin."
"What! get down there?" cried Max in horror, as Kenneth seated himself on the edge of the stony channel through which the water came down from the mountain before making its leap.
"Yes; it's easy enough," cried Kenneth, dangling his legs to and fro, and making them brush through the fronds of a beautiful fern growing in a crevice. "Scoody and I have often been down."
"But she shall not go pelow now," said the young gillie, looking down at the smooth, glassy current. "There's chust too much watter in ta way."
"Get out!" cried Kenneth. "Look here, Max: you can get down here to the edge of the water, and follow it to where it makes its first leap, and then get under it to the other side, and clamber on to the edge of the basin where it spreads, and look down. It's glorious. Come on."
"Na, she will not come," cried Scoodrach. "There's too much watter."
"You're a worse coward than Max."
"Nay, she shall na go," cried Scoodrach, making a bound to the spot where Kenneth was seated; but quick as thought the lad twisted round, let himself glide down, and, as the young gillie made a dash at his hands, they slid over the moss and grass and were gone.
Kenneth's merry laugh came up out of the narrow rift, sounding muffled and strange, and the two lads looked down to where he was creeping along, some fifteen feet below them, in the half-darkness of the hollow, and holding on by the pendent roots which issued from the crevices, as he picked his way along the stones, with the water often washing against his feet.
"Come down, Max. Don't be a coward," he cried, as he looked up over his shoulder at the two anxious faces, while the hiss, rush, and roar of the water nearly covered with sound his half-heard voice.
"She's coing to troon herself, ye ken!" cried Scoodrach, stamping his foot with rage. "Come pack, Maister Ken! Do she hear me? Come pack!"
Kenneth probably did not hear the words, but he looked up again and laughed, as he stood near the end of the narrow gully, with the sunny light of the great hollow behind him showing up his form, and at the same time his face was lit up strangely by the weird gleam of a reflection from the rushing, glassy, peat-stained stream as it glided on to the mouth of the gully for its leap.
"She canna stay here and see her young maister troon herself," cried Scoodrach wildly. "She must go town and ket trooned too."
"Coming, Scoody?" cried Kenneth, as he half turned round where he stood on a little block of stone, against which the water surged.
Scoodrach was in the act of seating himself upon the edge previous to lowering himself down, and, why he knew not, he hesitated and spoke, half to Max, half to himself.
"She'll go and trag her pack! she'll go and trag her pack!" Then he uttered a hoarse cry, for, as they saw Kenneth, framed in as it were by the narrow rock, gazing back at them, while the swift gleaming water swept by his legs, they suddenly noted that he started and made a clutch at an overhanging root which came away in his hands, while the stone upon which he was standing tottered over and disappeared in the rushing water.
But Kenneth was active as a monkey; and, failing in his first attempt to grasp something to support him, he made a second leap and caught at a hazel bough which grew out horizontally above his head.
This time he was successful, and, as the sturdy bough bent and swayed, the lad hung right over the rushing water.
"Chump! Swing and chump, Maister Ken!" cried Scoodrach; and then he was silent, and sat staring wildly, for he realised that he could not help his young master--that there would not be time.
Kenneth was swinging to and fro, the bough dipping and rising and dipping, so low that the water almost touched his feet. As he hung he tried to get a better hold, and made a struggle to go hand over hand to the place where the bough joined the mossy roots.
But it was all in vain. Before he could get his loosened hand past a secondary branch, the rotten root broke away from its insecure hold in the gully wall, and one moment the two spectators saw Kenneth hanging there, his form shown up by the light behind; the next, they saw branch and its holder descend quickly into the glassy water, which was momentarily disturbed by a few leafy twigs standing above its surface, then a hand appeared, then again with half the arm, making a clutch at vacancy, and then there was nothing but the water gliding onward to the opening through which it leaped down into the basin on the top of the spreading rock. _