The Green Ray Read Online

They seemed to see again those descendants of the Lord of the Isles, Angus Og, the companion of Robert Bruce, and brother-at-arms of that hero, who fought for the independence of his country.

“I should like to come back here at night-fall,” said Miss Campbell, “It seems to me that would be the best time to recall these memories; I should see them bringing up the corpse of the unfortunate Duncan; I should hear the conversation of the men as they laid him in the ground, consecrated to his ancestors. Now really, Mr. Sinclair, don’t you think it would be the most propitious time to invoke the goblins who guard the royal cemetery?”

“Yes, Miss Campbell, and I don’t think they could refuse to appear if you called them.”

“How now, Miss Campbell, do you believe in hobgoblins?” exclaimed Aristobulus.

“Yes, sir, I believe in them, like the true Scotch woman I am,” replied Miss Campbell.

“But, of course, you well know that they are quite imaginary, that nothing of the kind exists!”

“And suppose I do believe in them!” replied Miss Campbell. “I like to believe in domestic brownies who do the house-work; in sorcerers who perform their spells by certain incantations; in the Valkyrias, those fatal virgins of Scandinavian mythology, who carry off the fallen warriors from the battle-field; in those household fairies sung of by our poet Burns in his immortal verses, which no true Highlander can ever forget:—

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance.
Or for Colean the route is ta’en,
Beneath the moon’s pale beams;
There up the cove to strave and rove
Amang the rocks and streams
To sport that night.

“Ah! Miss Campbell,” continued the perverse fellow, “do you think that poets have any faith in those dreams of their imagination?”

“Most certainly, sir!” replied Oliver Sinclair, “or else their poetry would sound as unreal as any work which is not based on profound conviction.”

“And you as well, sir?” said Aristobulus, “I knew you were an artist, but I did not think you were a poet.”

“It is all the same thing,” said Miss Campbell; “art embraces many forms.”

“But no—no!—it is not possible!…You cannot believe in all the mythology of the ancient bards, whose disordered brains invoked imaginary divinities!”

“Oh! Mr. Ursiclos!” exclaimed Sam, touched in a tender point, “please do not treat our ancestors, who have sung of old Scotland, with such disrespect.”

“And just listen to them for a moment!” said Sam, quoting from his favourite poem.

“Pleasant are the words of song, lovely the tales of other times! They are like the calm dew of the morning on the hill…”

“When the sun is faint on its side, and the lake is settled and blue in the vale” added his brother.

The brothers would no doubt have indulged indefinitely in the poems of Ossian, had not Aristobulus abruptly cut them short, saying,—

“Gentlemen, have you ever seen a single one of these sprites, of whom you talk so enthusiastically? No. And are they to be seen? No, again.”

“That is just where you are mistaken, sir, and I pity you for never having seen one,” said Miss Campbell, who would not yield a hair of her hobgoblin to her opponent. “They can be seen in any of the Scotch highlands, gliding through lonely glens, rising out of the depths of ravines, fluttering over the surface of lakes, sporting in peaceful waters, and enjoying themselves in the midst of winter storms. And stop; why should not this Green Ray, which I persist in following, be the scarf of some Valkyria with its fringe trailing in the water on the horizon?”

“Oh! dear no!” exclaimed Aristobulus. “Not at all! And I will tell you what your Green Ray really is.”

“Please don’t tell me, sir,” cried Miss Campbell. “I do not wish to know.”

“But I must,” persisted Aristobulus, quite excited by this discussion.

“I forbid you—”

“I must tell you all the same, Miss Campbell. If this last ray from the sun, just as it dips below the horizon is green, it is most likely because, just as it passes the thin line of water, it becomes impregnated with the colour—”

“That’s enough, Mr. Ursiclos—!”

“Unless this green is the natural result of the crimson of the sun’s disk, which suddenly disappears, but leaves the impression on the retina of the eye, for in optics green is the complemental colour of crimson.”

“Ah! sir, your physical arguments—”

“My arguments, Miss Campbell, agree with the nature of things,” replied Aristobulus, “and, indeed, I am thinking of publishing some notes on this subject.”

“Let us go, uncles,” said Miss Campbell, thoroughly annoyed. “Mr. Ursiclos will spoil my Green Ray with his explanation!”

“Sir,” interposed Oliver Sinclair, “your notes on the Green Ray could not fail to be most curious, but allow me to propose another subject to you, perhaps more interesting still.”

“And what may that be?” asked Aristobulus, in a pompous tone.

“You must doubtless know, that savants have treated scientifically this important question, the influence of fishes’ tails on the undulation of the sea!”

“I beg your pardon, sir!”

“Well, sir, here is another, which I especially commend to your learned meditation, and that is: The influence of wind instruments on the formation of tempests!”

CHAPTER XVI
TWO GUN-SHOTS

FOR the next two or three days they saw nothing of Aristobulus. Had he left Iona by the steamer after seeing that it was only loss of time to run after Miss Campbell? No one could say; at any rate it was just as well that he kept out of the way, for the young girl was no-longer indifferent to him, she absolutely hated him. To have stripped her ray of its poetry, to have materialized her dream, to have changed the scarf of a Valkyria into a horrid, optical phenomenon! Perhaps she might have forgiven him anything but this.

The brothers were not even allowed to go and make inquiries as to what had become of Ursiclos.

Besides, what good would that have been? What could they have said to him, and what could they still hope for? Could they henceforth ever expect a union between these two beings, so entirely opposed to each other, and separated by the gulf which there is between vulgar prose and sublime poetry, the one with his mania for reducing everything to scientific formulas, the other living only in the ideal, which ignores causes and is content with impressions.

Meanwhile, Partridge, at Dame Bess’s instigation, had learnt that the “young old savant,” as he called him, had not yet effected his departure, and that he was still staying at the fisherman’s hut, where he took his meals in solitude.

At any rate, Aristobulus did not trouble them with his company. The truth is that when he did not confine himself to his room, intent, no doubt, on some lofty scientific speculation, he went off, with his gun over his shoulder, to the farther shores of the coast, and there gave vent to his ill-humour by a great slaughter of black mergansers, or sea-gulls. Did he still retain some hope then? Did he flatter himself that when once Miss Campbell’s whim had been gratified, she would return to her senses? Possibly he did, considering the vanity of the man.

But one day a very awkward accident happened to him, which might, indeed, have proved fatal, had it not been for the generous and timely assistance of his rival.

It occurred on the afternoon of the 2nd of September, when Aristobulus had gone to inspect the rocks at the southern point of the island. One of these granitic masses especially attracted his attention, so much so, that he determined to climb to the summit, which, however, was a most imprudent undertaking as the rock was smooth and slippery, and there was scarcely an inch of foot-hold.

But Aristobulus was not to be daunted; he began to climb the steep side, helping himself up by clinging to tufts of vegetation growing here and there, and with great difficulty he managed to reach the top.

When once there, he gave himself up to his favourite pursuit of mineralogy, but when he wanted to descend, it was quite another matter. After having looked carefully for the easiest side to let himself slide down, he was about to commence the descent, when his foot slipped, and he went over the side without being able to stop himself. He would certainly have been pitched into the surf below, had not his fall been broken by a projecting shrub.

Aristobulus now found himself in a ludicrous, not to say dangerous position; he could not get up again, and at the same time it was impossible for him to descend.

An hour passed thus, and no one knows what would have happened, had not Oliver Sinclair, with his artist’s knapsack on his shoulder, been passing that way at the time, and heard his cries. At sight of Aristobulus suspended thirty feet in the air, and swinging to and fro like a sign-board in front of a tavern, he could hardly help laughing, but, as one may be sure, he did not hesitate a moment in going to his assistance.

This was not done without great difficulty; Oliver was obliged to get to the top of the rock, to hoist the hanging man up again, and then help him to descend on the other side.

“Mr. Sinclair,” said Aristobulus, as soon as he felt himself in safety. “I miscalculated the angle of inclination of this side of the rock; hence it was I slipped and was suspended.”

“Mr. Ursiclos,” replied Oliver, “I am most happy that chance allowed me to be of service to you!”

“Let me thank you nevertheless.”

“Do not mention it, sir; you would have certainly done as much for me.”

“Undoubtedly.”

Oliver Sinclair did not think of mentioning this incident, which was of no consequence to him. As to Aristobulus, he never spoke of it again, but as he highly valued his important person, he took it kindly of his rival, for having helped him out of this awkward predicament.

And now as to the famous ray; it must be admitted that it was singularly loath to show itself, and yet there was no time to be lost, for autumn would soon shroud the sky with her veil of mists, there would be no more soft, clear evenings, which, in these northern latitudes, are few and far between. No more such distinctly defined horizons as might have been traced by a geometrician’s compass, or an artist’s pencil. Would they be obliged to give up the phenomenon, which they had gone from place to place to see? Must they put off the observation till the following year, or obstinately persist in following it under other skies?

In truth, this was as much a cause of annoyance to Oliver Sinclair as Miss Campbell; they were both incensed at seeing the horizon daily obscured in sea mists. Such was the case during the first four days of this foggy month of September.

Every evening Miss Campbell, her uncles, and Oliver Sinclair sat on some rock, with the waves softly lapping beneath them, and conscientiously watched the sun set in brilliant banks of clouds, far more beautiful, no doubt, than if the sky had been perfectly clear.

An artist would have gone into raptures at the splendour and majesty of the spectacle, unfolded every evening, at the dazzling mass of colours shading off from one cloud to another, from deep violet at the zenith, to vivid crimson at the horizon, at the glittering cascade of molten gold, showered on the aerial rocks, but in this case the rocks were clouds, and these clouds, drifting across the sun’s disk, absorbed its last rays, and completely hid them from the eyes of the anxious observers. Then they would all turn away disappointed like the spectators of a fairy scene at a theatre, the last effect of which has been spoilt by a blunder of the scene-shifter, and, taking the longest route, they would return to the Duncan Arms.

“Wait till to-morrow,” Miss Campbell would say.

“Yes, to-morrow,” repeated the uncles, “we have a kind of presentiment that to-morrow—”

And each evening the brothers had a kind of presentiment which invariably ended in disappointment.

However, the 5th of September dawned fair and cloud less, the haze vanished away in the early sunbeams.

The barometer, which for some days had been rising, went up still higher, and remained at settled fine weather.