Malcolm | Page 9

with the largest and reddest of daisies, was thus
occasionally swept by wild salt waves, and at times, when the northern
wind blew straight as an arrow and keen as a sword from the regions of
endless snow, lay under a sheet of gleaming ice.

The sun had been up for some time in a cloudless sky. The wind had
changed to the south, and wafted soft country odours to the shore, in
place of sweeping to inland farms the scents of seaweed and broken salt
waters, mingled with a suspicion of icebergs. From what was called the
Seaton, or seatown, of Portlossie, a crowd of cottages occupied entirely
by fisherfolk, a solitary figure was walking westward along this grass at
the back of the dune, singing. On his left hand the ground rose to the
high road; on his right was the dune, interlaced and bound together by
the long clasping roots of the coarse bent, without which its sands
would have been but the sport of every wind that blew. It shut out from
him all sight of the sea, but the moan and rush of the rising tide
sounded close behind it. At his back rose the town of Portlossie, high
above the harbour and the Seaton, with its houses of grey and brown
stone, roofed with blue slates and red tiles. It was no highland town
--scarce one within it could speak the highland tongue, yet down from
its high streets on the fitful air of the morning now floated
intermittently the sound of bagpipes--borne winding from street to
street, and loud blown to wake the sleeping inhabitants and let them
know that it was now six of the clock.
He was a youth of about twenty, with a long, swinging, heavy footed
stride, which took in the ground rapidly--a movement unlike that of the
other men of the place, who always walked slowly, and never but on
dire compulsion ran. He was rather tall, and large limbed. His dress was
like that of a fisherman, consisting of blue serge trowsers, a shirt
striped blue and white, and a Guernsey frock, which he carried flung
across his shoulder. On his head he wore a round blue bonnet, with a
tuft of scarlet in the centre.
His face was more than handsome--with large features, not finely cut,
and a look of mingled nobility and ingenuousness--the latter amounting
to simplicity, or even innocence; while the clear outlook from his full
and well opened hazel eyes indicated both courage and promptitude.
His dark brown hair came in large curling masses from under his
bonnet. It was such a form and face as would have drawn every eye in a
crowded thoroughfare.
About the middle of the long sandhill, a sort of wide embrasure was cut
in its top, in which stood an old fashioned brass swivel gun: when the
lad reached the place, he sprang up the sloping side of the dune, seated

himself on the gun, drew from his trowsers a large silver watch,
regarded it steadily for a few minutes, replaced it, and took from his
pocket a flint and steel, wherewith he kindled a bit of touch paper,
which, rising, he applied to the vent of the swivel. Followed a great
roar.
It echoes had nearly died away, when a startled little cry reached his
keen ear, and looking along the shore to discover whence it came, he
spied a woman on a low rock that ran a little way out into the water.
She had half risen from a sitting posture, and apparently her cry was the
result of the discovery that the rising tide had overreached and
surrounded her. There was no danger whatever, but the girl might well
shrink from plunging into the clear beryl depth in which swayed the
seaweed clothing the slippery slopes of the rock. He rushed from the
sandhill, crying, as he approached her, "Dinna be in a hurry, mem; bide
till I come to ye," and running straight into the water struggled through
the deepening tide, the distance being short and the depth almost too
shallow for swimming. In a moment he was by her side, scarcely saw
the bare feet she had been bathing in the water, heeded as little the
motion of the hand which waved him back, caught her in his arms like
a baby, and had her safe on the shore ere she could utter a word; nor did
he stop until he had carried her to the slope of the sandhill, where he set
her gently down, and without a suspicion of the liberty he was taking,
and filled only with a passion of service, was proceeding to dry her feet
with the frock which he had dropped there as he ran to her assistance.