Bog-Myrtle and Peat Part 2

_With Rosemary for remembrance, And Rue, sweet Rue, for you_.

It was at the waterfoot of the Ken, and the time of the year was June.

"Boat ahoy!"

The loud, bold cry carried far through the still morning air. The rain had washed down all that was in the sky during the night, so that the hail echoed through a world blue and empty.

Gregory Jeffray, a n.o.ble figure of a youth, stood leaning on the arch of his mare's neck, quieting the nervous tremors of Eulalie, that very dainty lady. His tall, alert figure, tight-reined and manly, was brought out by his riding-dress. His pose against the neck of the beautiful beast, from which a moment before he had swung himself, was that of Hadrian's young Antinous.

"Boat ahoy!"

Gregory Jeffray, growing a little impatient, made a trumpet of his hands, and sent the powerful voice, with which one day he meant to thrill listening senates, sounding athwart the dancing ripples of the loch.

On the farther sh.o.r.e was a flat white ferry-boat, looking, as it lay motionless in the river, like a white table chained in the water with its legs in the air. The chain along which it moved plunged into the shallows beside him, and he could see it descending till he lost it in the dusky pool across which the ferry plied. To the north, Loch Ken ran in glistening levels and island-studded reaches to the base of Cairnsmuir.

"Boat ahoy!"

A figure, like a white mark of exclamation moving over green paper, came out of the little low whitewashed cottage opposite, and stood a moment looking across the ferry, with one hand resting on its side and the other held level with the eyes. Then the observer disappeared behind a hedge, to be seen immediately coming down the narrow, deep-rutted lane towards the ferry-boat. When the figure came again in sight of Gregory Jeffray, he had no difficulty in distinguis.h.i.+ng a slim girl, clad in white, who came sedately towards him.

When she arrived at the white boat which floated so stilly on the morning glitter of the water, only just stirred by a breeze from the south, she stepped at once on board. Gregory could see her as she took from the corner of the flat, where it stood erect along with other boating gear, something which looked like a short iron hoe. With this she walked to the end of the boat nearest him. She laid the hoe end of the instrument against a chain that ran breast-high along one side of the boat and at the stern plunged diagonally into the water. His mare lifted her feet impatiently, as though the sh.o.r.eward end of the chain had brought a thrill across the loch from the moving ferry-boat. Turning her back to him, the girl bent her slim young body without an effort; and, as though by the gentlest magic, the ferry-boat drew nearer to him.

It did not seem to move; yet gradually the s.p.a.ce of blue water between it and the sh.o.r.e on which the whitewashed cottage stood spread and widened. He could hear the gentle clatter of the wavelets against the lip of the landing-drop as the boat came nearer. His mare tossed her head and snuffed at this strange four-footed thing that glided towards them.

Gregory, who loved all women, watched with natural interest the sway and poise of the girlish figure. He heard the click and rattle of the chain as she deftly disengaged her gripper-iron at the farther end, and, turning, walked the deck's length towards him.

She seemed but a young thing to move so large a boat. He forgot to be angry at being kept so long waiting, for of all women, he told himself, he most admired tall girls in simple dresses. His exceptional interest arose from the fact that he had never before seen one manage a ferry-boat.

As he stood on the sh.o.r.e, and the great flat boat moved towards him, he saw that the end of it nearest him was pulled up a couple of feet clear of the water. Still the boat moved noiselessly forward, till he heard it first grate and then ground gently, as the graceful pilot bore her weight upon the iron bar to stay its progress. Gregory specially admired the flex of her arms bent outwardly as she did so. Then she went to the end of the boat, and let down the tilted gangway upon the pebbles at his feet.

Gregory Jeffray instinctively took off his hat as he said to this girl, "Good-morning! Can I get to the village of Dullarg by this ferry?"

"This is the way to the Dullarg," said the girl, simply and naturally, leaning as she spoke upon her dripping gripper-iron.

Her eyes did not refuse to take in the goodliness of the youth while his attention was for the moment given to his mare.

"Gently, gently, la.s.s!" he said, patting the neck which arched impatiently as she felt the boards hollow beneath her feet. Yet she came obediently enough on deck, arching her fore-feet high and throwing them out in an uncertain and tentative manner.

Then the girl, with a quiet and matter-of-fact acceptance of her duties, placed her iron once more upon the chain, and bent herself to the task with well-accustomed effort of her slender body.

The heart of the young man was stirred within him. True, he might have beheld fifty field-wenches breaking their backs among the harvest sheaves without a pang. This, however, was very different.

"Let me help you," he said.

"It is better that you stand by your horse," she said.

Gregory Jeffray looked disappointed.

"Is it not too hard work for you?" he queried, humbly and with abased eyes.

"No," said the girl. "Ye see, sir, I live with my mother's two sisters at the boathouse. They are very kind to me. They brought me up, though I had neither father nor mother. And what signifies bringing the boat across the Water a time or two?"

Her ready and easy movements told the tale for her. She needed no pity.

She asked for none, for which Gregory was rather sorry. He liked to pity people, and then to right their grievances, if it were not very difficult. Of what use otherwise was it to be, what he was called in Galloway, the "Boy Sheriff"? Besides, he was taking a morning ride from the Great House of the Barr, and upon his return to breakfast he desired to have a tale to tell which would rivet attention upon himself.

"And do you do nothing all day, but only take the boat to and fro across the loch?" he asked.

He saw the way clear now, he thought, to matter for an interesting episode--the basis of which should be the delight of a beautiful girl in spending her life in the carrying of desirable young men, riding upon horses, over the s.h.i.+ning morning waters of the Ken. They should all look with eyes of wonder upon her; but she, the cold Dian of the lochside, would never return look for look to any of them, save perhaps to Gregory Jeffray. Gregory went about the world finding pictures and making romances for himself. He meant to be a statesman; and, with this purpose in view, it was wholly necessary for him to study the people, and especially, he might have added, the young women of the people. Hitherto he had done this chiefly in his imagination, but here certainly was material attractive to his hand.

"Do you work at nothing else?" he repeated, for the girl was uncomplimentarily intent upon her gripper-iron. How deftly she lifted it just at the right moment, when it was in danger of being caught upon the revolving wheel! How exactly she exerted just the right amount of strength to keep the chain running sweetly upon its cogs! How daintily she stepped back, avoiding the dripping of the water from the linked iron which rose from the bed of the loch, pa.s.sed under her hand, and dipped diagonally down again into the deeps! Gregory had never seen anything like it, so he told himself.

It was not until he had put his question the third time that the girl answered, "Whiles I take the boat over to the waterfoot when there's a cry across the Black Water."

The young man was mystified.

"'A cry across the Black Water!' What may that be?" he said.

The girl looked at him directly almost for the first time. Was he making fun of her? She wondered. His face seemed earnest enough, and handsome.

It was not possible, she concluded.

"Ye'll be a stranger in these parts?" she answered interrogatively, because she was a Scottish girl, and one question for another is good national barter and exchange.

Gregory Jeffray was about to declare his names, t.i.tles, and expectations; but he looked at the girl again, and saw something that withheld him.

"Yes," he said, "I am staying for a week or two over at Barr."

The boat grounded on the pebbles, and the girl went to let down the hinged end. It had seemed a very brief pa.s.sage to Gregory Jeffray. He stood still by his mare, as though he had much more to say.

The girl placed her cleek in the corner, and moved to leave the boat. It piqued the young man to find her so unresponsive. "Tell me what you mean by 'a cry across the Black Water,'" he said.

The girl pointed to the strip of sullen blackness that lay under the willows upon the southern sh.o.r.e.

"That is the Black Water of Dee," she said simply, "and the green point among the trees is the Rhonefoot. Whiles there's a cry from there. Then I go over in the boat, and set them across."

"Not in this boat?" he said, looking at the upturned deal table swinging upon its iron chain.

She smiled at his ignorance.

"That is the boat that goes across the Black Water of Dee," she said, pointing to a small boat which lay under the bank on the left.

"And do you never go anywhere else?" he asked, wondering how she came by her beauty and her manners.

"Only to the kirk on the Sabbaths," she said, "when I can get some one to watch the boat for me."

"I will watch the boat for you!" he said impulsively.

The girl looked distressed. This gay gentleman was making fun of her, a.s.suredly. She did not answer. Would he never go away?

"That is your way," she said, pointing along the track in front. Indeed, there was but one way, and the information was superfluous.