Through the Mist

Front matter

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Well bound in cloth, full gilt back, black printing on side, cut edges. Prioe la. 6d. eaoh. By CAPTAIN MARRYAT. I Peter Simple. 7 Jacob Faithful. 12 Percival Keene. 2 The King's Own. 8 The Dog-Fiend. 13 Valerie. 3 Midshipman Easy. 9 Japhet in Search of a 14 Frank Mildmay. 4 Rattlin the Reefer. Father. 15 Olla Podrida. S Pacha of Many Tales. 10 The Poacher. 16 Monsieur Violet 6 Newton Forster. II The Phantom Ship. By W. H. AINSWORTH. 17 Windsor Castle. 23 The Spendthrift. 29 Ovingdean Grange. 18 Tower of London. 24 James the Second. 30 St. James's. 19 TheMiser'sDaughter. 25 Star Chamber. 31 Auriol. 20 Old St. Paul's. 26 Flitch of Bacon. ' 32 Rookwood. 21 Crichlon. 27 Lancashire Witches. 33 Jack Sheppard. 22 Guy Fawkes. 28 Mervyn Clitheroe. By 1. FENIMORE COOPER. 34 Lionel Lincoln. 39 Afloat and Ashore. 45 Ned Myers. 35 The Deerslayer. 40 Wyandotte. 46 The Last of the Mo 36 TheWaterwitch. 41 The Headsman. hicans. 37 The Two Admirals. 42 Homeward Bound. 47 The Spy. 38 The Red Rover. 44 The Sea Lions.

Chapter I. Red Cloaks

"Dulcie Duncan, do you intend to kill yourself? — oh, Dulcie !" A young girl, lissom and graceful, was standing on a grey moss-covered rock, and clinging with one hand to the big overhanging ferns, whilst the waters of the burn rushed around her. " Dulcie Duncan !" she called again, throwing her full red cloak back from her shoulder at the same time. A crashing, cracking sound of rotten branches and sticks, and a small fall of stones, was the only answer, when all at once, down with the falling sticks and stones came another young figure, in a like red cloak, and peep ing through the tall ferns carried in one arm, her voice rang out clearly above the sound of falling waters, " Oh, Ruby, look at me !" And both wearers of red cloaks went into ecstasies of laughter, only because a round hat had been flattened out of all shape, and knocked by the birken boughs rakishly over a pair of bright eyes.

All looked so peaceful and undisturbed on the bonnic buri-side this autumn afternoon; there was a golden glory of colour in the withering bracken and the brown red heather ; down slanting-wise through the wood came the gleaming sunlight, casting weird shadows of trees which were becoming bare, and lighting up the whole scene B with a dreamlike beauty which may leave with you one of those impressions which never fade. On a venerable grey moss-grown stone in the burn, stood these two graceful, well-made Highland lassies, Ruby and Dulcie Duncan. There was clearly no stand ing-room for two, and after vainly clinging together, Ruby, who for the last second or two had been balancing herself on nothing particular, fell with a sudden splash into a clear pool of water, taking her ferns, tightly grasped, with her.

This was, however, only the signal for renewed peals of laughter, when all at once, from the high banks above them, sounded — Crush — crash — rush ! And whilst the girls were looking round in astonish ment, a figure disengaged itself from the birch trees and brambles by some energetic movements down the bank, and then they saw a tall, bearded man in knickerbockers, with a pencil in his mouth, who. in his eager goodwill to assist, was heralding his coming by a shower of loose sticks and stones dislodged thereby. " Wait one moment, ladies, I will assist you," he cried. But Ruby objected to help; she was proud of her sure-footedness and of her agility, and valiantly she scrambled to her feet and sprang on to a stone just as the stranger reached them. " If you will give me your hand and allow me to assist you up the bank," he said.

" Ah, I see you are a good climber, but why not allow me the pleasure of assisting you in an emergency ?" Ruby looked a forlorn and dripping object enough, as she solemnly stood on the rock, but she said, somewhat coldly and distantly, " Thank you, I can manage quite well ; besides, my hands are all wet." At this there was the whisper of a laugh from Dulcie, who was perched on another rock, silently watching and listening ; and then she added, " Come, Ruby, we must go home to tea." Then they all three scrambled up the rough bank together, meanwhile the stranger told them that he Red Cloaks. 3 had been sketching the rocks above the burn, and for some time watching their scrambles, and admiring the red glimmer of their cloaks amongst the ferns and mosses. Somewhat to their surprise, the stranger continued to walk beside them after the proper path was reached, saying that he would see them further through the wood.

The two girls looked at one another, and hesitated as they walked on ; and then Ruby said that they must wish him good evening, and hurry home. " Then, good evening, ladies," he said, in his pleasant, joyous voice. "I trust that you do not consider me officious in coming to your aid unasked." " Oh no, thank you," said Ruby hastily; " it is because of " " Because of Auntie Jean," put in Dulcie, speaking for the first time. The stranger seemed to be amused, for he smiled ; and Dulcie's cheeks waxed rosy as he raised a ruffianly-looking hat, and disclosed square, broad brows, grizzly hair, clearly cut features, and deeply-set, keen eyes ; then bowing, he said, " I am glad of the chance which has favoured our making acquaintance ; I only hope I shall make Auntie Jean's acquaintance under as favourable auspices."

And then they parted, and the artist threw himself on to a cushion of moss, and with a smile watched the hurrying red cloaks disappearing through the wood. For some time the two girls walked silently along the old peat-road towards home, but when they were very safely out of earshot, Dulcie, with a merry sparkle in her eyes, said, " What a mercy we got rid of him ; he might have walked all the way home with us, and just fancy what Auntie Jean's and Auntie Bell's faces would have been, if he had done so !" After this they began to wonder who he could be, for in that distant, northern little Isle of Arran, where they lived, the advent in late autumn of an utter stranger was a thing to wonder and to marvel at. When home was in B sight, Ruby suddenly said, " Dulcie, what could he mean by saying he hoped he should make Auntie Jean's acquaintance under the same favourable auspices that he did ours ?

Now, only fancy our Auntie Jean sitting in a burn — just think of it !" But we must precede the two girls, and manage to arrive at home before them. A short distance from the village of Brodick stands a plain, ugly old house, which, much to the discomfort of strangers and visitors, went by the name of " Tigh-na- Beinne ; and the strangers and visitors being apt to con sider this " beyond them," fell into the way of calling it " the House on the Hill," or " the Hill House," which was near enough to the literal Gaelic, which meant " the house on the moor." The walls of the house were so painfully well whitewashed, that on a sunny day they made your eyes ache to look at them, whilst on a winter's day they looked equally cold ; neither were there pretty flowers and shrubs about it to break the lines and soften ugliness.

Before the house was a large piece of rough grass, and a straight drive on one side of it leading up to the house ; but behind it, up the hillside, rose a bonnie fir-tree wood, always fresh, always cool, always charming. In this house lived the Misses Mclnnes, who were much respected, and looked up to by friends and neigh bours. In person they were much alike, but in character they differed widely. Miss Jean, the elder, with her determination of purpose and strong will, was the master spirit; while Miss Bell, from long habits of obedience to the stronger will, and a happy admiration of her sister, showed at all times a loving-hearted humility, and a sweet and ever ready thought for others. Long ago there had been a third and younger Miss Mclnnes who had always been called the "wee one" by the other two, and in time the " wee one" married, at which Miss Jean was greatly offended and Miss Bell somewhat alarmed.

But long life was not given to the "wee one," or to her husband either, for she married very young and went to India, and before three years had Red Cloaks. 5 passed, both were lying in their graves, and two bit lassies were on their road from India to their only relatives in Scotland. Since then, years had gone, and the others that had come found these twins healthful, blooming, well-grown lassies, whilst their mother in her distant grave remained for ever and aye in her sisters' remembrance as the " wee one." The house on the hill-side possessed two " public" rooms, as the sitting-rooms are called in the North, and respectively known as the big parlour and the wee parlour, the latter being the chief living room of the family, where they had their meals, cut out and sewed their needlework, knitted stockings, did their accounts, and kept little saucers full of small messes of odds and ends, hooks and eyes, needles and pins, thimbles, &c. ; many a happy hour had this household, which for such long years had been a household of women, passed in this wee parlour.

The big parlour was only used on Sabbaths, and when there was company to tea ; then Miss Jean and Miss Bell sat on either side of the fire, resplendent in best caps and black silk dresses, and knitted stockings, in a much more stately way than usual, owing, probably, to the combined dignity of dress, cap, and room. We find both sisters sitting by the fire in the wee parlour ; they were fair, plain women, with freckles and sandy hair, and although in this respect ill-favoured by Nature, endowed by the same mother with hearts true as steel, and a simple kindliness of thought ; and as they had devoted themselves to the wee one, were they now devoting themselves to the wee one's bairnies. The tea-things were on the table, and the two aunts, with their knitting-needles, established between them and the fire.

" Mercy me !" said Auntie Bell, as the kettle, which had hitherto been singing away merrily in the exuberance of its spirits on the hob, spouted a splotch of boiling water into the fender, and the cat was sleeping in undesirably close vicinity to the falling water. " Mercy me, sister, see the cat !" And Miss Bell started up, but was undecided which to seize first, the kettle or the cat ; when Miss Jean darted before her, clutched the kettle, and placed it further from the fire with a jerk, at the same time pushing the cat aside with her foot. " See that now, Bell," said Miss Jean. " That is just a specimen of you and your ways ; you never could make up your mind in a moment, never think of a thing and do it then and there, always hesitating and undecided ; I wonder that you ever made up your mind to come into the world at all."

"How can you be so profane, sister? I was just fearing that the poor cat would be scalded." " And so she might have been if her safety had de pended upon you." Then the clock struck, and she added, "Six o'clock and those lassies not home yet; they are just daft with their ferns and burns." Then they knitted on silently, for they had spent their lives in thus quietly working together, and in the winter there was never much to say, when the summer visitors and tourists had left the glens and mountains to the islanders, in whose simple life events and strange cir cumstances were few and far between. So that Auntie Jean and Auntie Bell each set up their own particular hobby and interest, over which they could always, more or less mildly, excite themselves. Auntie Jean's hobby was their own little farmyard stock, consisting of a small army of chickens, one cow, two pigs, and some ducks.

Auntie Bell was always interested in the accounts of these animals, but she did not pretend to understand the mysteries of managing them as Jean did. Her own especial interest was the steamboat, its passengers and parcels, which came three times a week to the island, and Miss Bell was always on the quay, faithfully, as the day came round, and she would get a chat with this one, and a newspaper from that one, as well as a general knowledge of what was going on in their island home. The great world beyond was but of secondary interest. As time went on, she had come to regard her own presence on the quay as a sort of duty to be done, and afterwards she would return to relate at great length to those at home all the news that she had The IVee Parlour. 7 been able to collect, and which Miss Jean, although she was greatly interested in it, would call " havers."

They had three objects of mutual interest — xheir two nieces and the cat, whose name was Adam. All at once the hall door was heard to open and shut, and merry voices were laughing in the hall ; and then Dulcie, whose cheeks were vieing with her red cloak, put her head in at the door and said, " Oh, auwtie, I hope we are not late for tea; Ruby tumbled into the burn, and she couldn't be more wet than she is. We will be down in a moment." Then the door shut, and feet were heard pattering up the stairs. " Daft lassies," said Auntie Jean; then lifting the tea pot from the hob, where it had been " infusing," whilst Miss Bell hurried upstairs to watch over Ruby, and see that all damp garments were really put off". In a very short time she returned with the intelligence that they would be down almost immediately — that they were " doing their hair."

" 'Deed I might have known that," said Auntie Jean , " they are always doing their hair. It is my belief that that is the only lesson they ever really took to in Edin burgh." The two girls had been educated at a boarding-school in Edinburgh, the only apparent result of which was (according to Auntie Jean), that they could play a little on the pianoforte and sing tolerably ; that they were for ever " doing their hair ;" and lastly, now that school-days were ended for ever, they had an enormous correspondence with a number of girls whose names were all that were known to Auntie Jean and Auntie Bell.

Chapter II. The Wee Parlour

In a very short time the cosiest-looking tea-party imaginable was gathered about the table in the wee parlour ; Auntie Jean pouring out the tea, and Auntie Bell drinking any number of cups of it, and always trying to catch her sister, in a moment of absence of mind, to pour out another cupful for her, without the remark, " Why, Bell, you have had your third cup ;" or, " Well, Bell, I certainly would not advise you to drink five cups of tea." Upstairs, the girls had been consulting as to who would best tell the story of the adventure. Each one, however, had wished the other to undertake the matter, as it was uncertain how Auntie Jean would receive the news. Wishing to propitiate her, therefore, in the first place, Dulcie artfully began : " How many eggs did the hens lay to-day, Auntie ?" " Five," was the answer.

" I am sure it is very kind of them to go laying like that," remarked Dulcie. " Most people's hens are leaving off laying now the weather is changing," said Auntie Jean, with some pride, but it only requires a little management, and some meat cut up in their food." " I know everybody is jealous of our hens," continued Dulcie ; and — oh, by-the-by, Ruby had such an adven ture in the burn to-day ; but you tell it, Ruby." Now this was mean of Dulcie, and Ruby looked across at her ; but in her eyes was the merry mischievous look of which Ruby was somehow afraid, and somewhat hesitatingly she began, " Yes, I fell into the burn ; but it was Dulcie's fault, she would stick on a stone as if she were glued to it, and of course I couldn't stand very long on nothing, so in I went, sitting down in the water."

" Mercy me !" said Auntie Bell. " Great patience !" said Auntie Jean ; adding, " I suppose you did not stop sitting down ; you got up directly." " Well, as soon as I could, but " There was a pause, which made Dulcie break into a merry laugh, and then she took up the story :—' Whilst she was sitting in the burn looking ever so ridiculous, a great tall man, with the biggest beard you ever saw, came down the bank like an elephant, rattling the stones and sticks down before him ; and he called out to us, with a pencil in his mouth all the while, that we were to stop and he would help us, but we managed without him." " And very kind it was of the poor man, I am sure, to help you," began Miss Jean; "who, in the name of patience, could he have been ?" Auntie Bell was more excited, saying, " He did not land here by the boat ; he must have gone to Lamlash, and walked over the hill."

Who he could be, and why visiting Arran at that unusual season? formed the chief subject of conversation during tea, and Auntie Jean decided that he must be either boarded by his friends in an out-of-the-way place for some reason or other, or that he must be one of those erratic mortals known as artists. It is the custom in the North, when any one takes hopelessly to drinking, to board them in some out-of-the-world retired spot, where there is but little opportunity for the further indulgence of their vice, and where they have at least a chance of reforma tion. People were also boarded out in this way for harmless madness — when they were, in Highland phrase, "just not all there." And as for artists, of whom the island had naturally had no little experience, they were entirely given over to such eccentricities, that in Auntie Jean's opinion it fell little short of downright mad ness ; the new-comer was therefore to be avoided and feared.

It was very shortly after tea, before they had settled themselves down to their several employments, when the hall-door bell was heard to ring with a resolute peal which echoed through the stillness of the house. " Mercy me !" said Auntie Bell. " Great patience !" said Auntie Jean ; "who will that be at this hour of the night?" and the two ladies let their work fall on their knees and their hands on their work. Was it instinct, or was it a presentiment, which made both Ruby and Dulcie start at the sound, and silently meet each other's eyes, whilst Barbara was opening the door, and steps and voices were heard in the hall ? Barbara entered the room with a card in her hand, which she gave to Miss Jean, whispering confidentially the while, " Thon man's in the lobby; he tell't me tae gie ye this. — but the mercy kens wha he is."

Miss Jean held the card at some distance from her, and having twice altered its position, she read, " Mr. Harold Pierrepoint." The girls listened eagerly to the new sound. Miss Jean read it with a far-off consciousness stealing over her, — a long-forgotten dream of the past, —and yet she was all at sea. Miss Bell's behaviour was strange ; she twice tried to speak, and then she said, " Harold Pierrepoint, Jean !— mercy me 1" And then Miss Jean said slowly, "Harold Pierrepoint ! can it be the same ?" Whilst Barbara, in intense appreciation of the excite ment, remarked, " Did iver ye see the like !" Dulcie broke the silence : — " You had better ask Mr. Harold Pierrepoint in." Nobody stirred. Then Dulcie rose, saying, "Really, every one seems to have forgotten how to behave;" and, opening the door wide, she said clearly to the stranger, who was standing in the hall, "Will you walk in, please ?"

And the stranger who walked in was bigger than most people who entered the wee parlour ; his voice alone, or his boots, or his beard, seemed to fill it. Auntie Jean rose with an eager look of surprised inquiry, and held out her hand to the visitor, and for a moment or two they held each other's hands and looked fixedly at one another, and then he said, " Miss Mclnnes, do you remember me after all these years and years ? I should have known you anywhere !" whilst she, with less politeness, remarked, " Remember Harold Pierrepoint ! ay, well enough, but you've changed altogether ; if it had not been for your eyes and nose, you might have been the Emperor of Russia for all I should have known." Then the visitor turned to Miss Bell, and with both hands took hers, saying, " Miss Bell, what a real pleasure it is to see old friends again after all this weary while ; it makes me wish I had changed as little as you have during the time."

But Auntie Bell was as one in a dream. Twenty long years, bringing all their changes and all their sorrows, had rolled away since these two had last looked on one another ; but not until now did each feel what the roll of years had done, or how completely they had separated Past and Present. " And wee Mary " began Auntie Jean. " I know — I have heard," answered Harold Pierrepoint : " how well I remember seeing her and Duncan on board the India-bound ship. I think that was the last time that I saw you, Miss Bell, and Miss Jean." How well each one knew that ! whatever else may be forgotten, last meetings, last partings, last words, last looks, remain printed so deeply, that even Time's touch cannot efface them. Then Harold Pierrepoint's eyes wandered to where Ruby and Dulcie were standing together, looking on with eager curiosity.

" Those are wee Mary's daughters," began Auntie Jean ; " that is Ruby, and that is Dulcie Duncan." And whilst he shook hands warmly as an old friend with them, he inquired which was the elder of the two. " Auntie Jean says Ruby is the eldest," said Dulcie ; " only it does not much matter, because we are twins, and then we have the same coloured hair, and there is not a quarter of an inch between us, and this is how we are always shown off ;" and laughingly they stood back to back ; then, turning their faces round, Harold Pierre point thought he had seldom seen a prettier picture. Alike, they each had quantities of wavy brown hair, blooming complexions, little merry mouths, and white teeth ; only their eyes were of a different shade, but in each they were lovely. Ruby's eyes were of a clear dark hazel, and Dulcie's were darkest, deepest brown, like bits of soft velvet.

Those beautiful eyes were all that strangers could find to distinguish them, and yet more difference lay in their expression than in their colour. Ruby's eyes were always peaceful, Dulcie's full of life and mischief. It was a strange evening, and a somewhat uncanny one to Miss Bell, and it was all that she could do to believe that it was Harold Pierrepoint in the flesh whom she saw before her ; and their talk was a strange mixture of bits of the past and of the chief topics of public interest of the day. It is always so, more particularly when people have been intimate friends and they meet after long absence : it is so difficult, so impossible at first to take up all the dear old threads of interest where they left them, that they shyly fight them off with things uninteresting to each. " Do you often go rambling up the burns as I saw you doing to-day?" inquired Harold Pierrepoint; "and do you either, or both of you, sketch ?"

" We are always scrambling about the burns when we have time," said Dulcie; "we do not sketch, because it is too difficult ; but will you show us your sketches ? Perhaps you have a book which belongs to the pencil which you had in your mouth when you spoke to us to-day ?" He did not speak for a moment, and Dulcie knew that he was asking himself how it was that he had spoken to them with a pencil in his mouth ; and, finally, he sud denly recollected himself and said, " There is nothing worth looking at in it ;" and then he turned and added, " Miss Bell, what have you been doing in the sketching way lately ?" " Oh, I never attempt anything of the kind now," said Miss Bell, deprecatingly ; whilst the two girls with one voice cried, " Auntie Bell — sketch!" " Do you mean to say you have never seen her sketches ?" he said.

" I assure you Miss Bell used to make charming little sketches from nature, with a great deal of feeling in them too. Why I— why the first time I saw you— do you remember, Miss Bell?" and a remembrance of bygone days crossed Harold Pierrepoint, and he rose from his seat, and, dragging his chair along with him, he seated himself close by her, saying then, " You were in Stronnach Wood, do you remember? you had a white dress on, and a shepherd's tartan shawl, and you were working at an old stump of a tree with red fungi on it, and my sister Minnie and I had come out for a scramble ; and you were so astonished to see her, for you had not met since your school-days. Do you remember all those old times ?'' It was very certain that if he remembered, after all his travels and adventures, and through the long stretch of years that had elapsed, that she, remaining quietly in the old home with so few events to mark the march of time, would remember each circumstance of those old days ; and as she listened to his words, a long-forgotten light was rekindled in her eyes and a bright flush was warm ing her cheek.