The Merry Men | Page 4

fellow of a mechanical turn, I had ever since been plotting
how to weigh that good ship up again with all her ingots, ounces, and
doubloons, and bring back our house of Darnaway to its long-forgotten
dignity and wealth.
This was a design of which I soon had reason to repent. My mind was
sharply turned on different reflections; and since I became the witness
of a strange judgment of God's, the thought of dead men's treasures has
been intolerable to my conscience. But even at that time I must acquit
myself of sordid greed; for if I desired riches, it was not for their own
sake, but for the sake of a person who was dear to my heart - my
uncle's daughter, Mary Ellen. She had been educated well, and had
been a time to school upon the mainland; which, poor girl, she would
have been happier without. For Aros was no place for her, with old
Rorie the servant, and her father, who was one of the unhappiest men in
Scotland, plainly bred up in a country place among Cameronians, long
a skipper sailing out of the Clyde about the islands, and now, with
infinite discontent, managing his sheep and a little 'long shore fishing

for the necessary bread. If it was sometimes weariful to me, who was
there but a month or two, you may fancy what it was to her who dwelt
in that same desert all the year round, with the sheep and flying sea-
gulls, and the Merry Men singing and dancing in the Roost!
CHAPTER II.
WHAT THE WRECK HAD BROUGHT TO AROS.
IT was half-flood when I got the length of Aros; and there was nothing
for it but to stand on the far shore and whistle for Rorie with the boat. I
had no need to repeat the signal. At the first sound, Mary was at the
door flying a handkerchief by way of answer, and the old long-legged
serving-man was shambling down the gravel to the pier. For all his
hurry, it took him a long while to pull across the bay; and I observed
him several times to pause, go into the stern, and look over curiously
into the wake. As he came nearer, he seemed to me aged and haggard,
and I thought he avoided my eye. The coble had been repaired, with
two new thwarts and several patches of some rare and beautiful foreign
wood, the name of it unknown to me.
'Why, Rorie,' said I, as we began the return voyage, 'this is fine wood.
How came you by that?'
'It will be hard to cheesel,' Rorie opined reluctantly; and just then,
dropping the oars, he made another of those dives into the stern which I
had remarked as he came across to fetch me, and, leaning his hand on
my shoulder, stared with an awful look into the waters of the bay.
'What is wrong?' I asked, a good deal startled.
'It will be a great feesh,' said the old man, returning to his oars; and
nothing more could I get out of him, but strange glances and an
ominous nodding of the head. In spite of myself, I was infected with a
measure of uneasiness; I turned also, and studied the wake. The water
was still and transparent, but, out here in the middle of the bay,
exceeding deep. For some time I could see naught; but at last it did
seem to me as if something dark - a great fish, or perhaps only a

shadow - followed studiously in the track of the moving coble. And
then I remembered one of Rorie's superstitions: how in a ferry in
Morven, in some great, exterminating feud among the clans; a fish, the
like of it unknown in all our waters, followed for some years the
passage of the ferry-boat, until no man dared to make the crossing.
'He will be waiting for the right man,' said Rorie.
Mary met me on the beach, and led me up the brae and into the house
of Aros. Outside and inside there were many changes. The garden was
fenced with the same wood that I had noted in the boat; there were
chairs in the kitchen covered with strange brocade; curtains of brocade
hung from the window; a clock stood silent on the dresser; a lamp of
brass was swinging from the roof; the table was set for dinner with the
finest of linen and silver; and all these new riches were displayed in the
plain old kitchen that I knew so well, with the high-backed settle, and
the stools, and the closet bed for Rorie; with the wide chimney the sun
shone into, and the clear-smouldering peats; with the pipes on the
mantelshelf and the three-cornered spittoons,