Chapter II Kep was Gone
Far round the point yonder, though it could not be seen even from the cliff top, was a town, an old-fashioned seaport, into which even big ships often came for shelter, such times as the sea-birds flew far inland. A town of narrow streets and quaintly gabled houses, a town that smelt of tar from end to end, and a beach with boats and broad-beamed fishermen who wore jerseys or baggy breeches and braces only, sou’-westers, and the everlasting short pipes that they leaned against post or pillar to smoke.
These seafaring folk looked lazy, dreamy and very quiet in manner, yet never were they afraid to face the stormiest billows on the stormiest of nights if danger or duty called. There was the might of Old England and its daring and pride of pluck in their half-shut eyes, and this only wanted waking. In the season, a signal from a hill would set them all astir like a swarming hive of bees. The mackerel or pilchards had been spotted in silvery millions, and if the French themselves had been threatening a landing, the stir and commotion could scarce have been more.
Kep Drummond loved that old town. There was the odour of brine about it. Sometimes, I must admit, even the odour of unburied fish that might have been better out of the way; but still a run over to Marshton to yarn with the fisher-folk was always a most pleasant trip for the boy.
The fishermen idolized him, so did their honest, rough and witty wives, because Kep possessed the power of making them laugh at will. That is at his will, they had to laugh whether they willed it or not. There was not much about a ship of any kind that Kep wasn’t up to long before he was fourteen. One might therefore have dubbed him a sailor born, and not been very far wrong.
But Kep had another reason for visiting Marshton, and that lay in the fact that here he met men of many various nations, and delighted in talking to them in their own languages.
Apart from his marvellous musical powers, he had one great gift, namely, that of language. To say nothing of English, French, Italian and Spanish, he could converse in several other tongues, and could pick up almost any language in an incredibly short time.
My own opinion is that music and the gift of tongues go hand in hand, and that they are far more common in foreign European countries than they are in Britain. Iverach Drummond, the children’s father, was a true type of the wealthy Scotsman, and of the wandering Scot. One of the best yachtsmen who ever trod on the weather side of a quarter-deck, his devotion to travel took him everywhere, and when he got married to a noble Italian lady, for her sweet sake he bought the estates of Martello, so that she might be as near to the Mediterranean as possible.
Madge and Kep had been born here, but hitherto had been educated by worthy priests at their grandfather’s home on the shores of the blue Levant.
When his wife died Drummond was inconsolable. He seemed to care no more for yachting, because at sea everything spoke to him of that gentle lady and mother of his children who had always been by his side in fair weather or in foul.
He was, at the commencement of this story, as handsome a specimen of the true Highlander as one could wish to see. But honourable, strict, and sternly religious. He had, moreover, that pride of birth and lineage which we find clings to the scions of Scottish chiefs, be they ever so poor.
The result, therefore, of an interview that Kep had with his sturdy father, some days after Madge’s adventure on the cliff, is not to be wondered at.
“Father,” said Kep, peeping round the edge of the library door, “may I come?”
“Certainly, my dear boy.”
“Sure you are not too much pre-occupied to listen to what I have to say?”
“Unbend, my boy, unbend,” cried Drummond, laughing, “that is hardly conversational English. What do you want? A new pony? Or have you taken the motor-car fever?”
“Oh no, my handsome and dearest father. I should smash a motor-car to pieces in a week. A steam-launch would be more in my way.”
“And that shall be yours, Keppel, if you really think you can’t live without it.”
“I can live without it, father, and mean to. But I am a man now—fourteen last month—and so I want to go down to the sea in ships and see the Lord’s wonders in the mighty deep.”
“Well, my yacht is as taut and trim as she was on the day she was launched. Ah, lad, it was my—it was your dear mother who provided and baptized her.”
“But——” The boy hesitated, as well he might. “I want to go farther afloat than any yacht could ever take me. I wish to go and see wild places such as my best authors speak of, to kill wild beasts, to fight with savages, and snakes, and sharks, and tigers.”
“Pile it up, boy. You’re not at all ambitious, are you? But, Kep, I’m not rich enough to buy you a ship, and I have other views for you. You are my only son, and heir to all my property. I want to take you into London society. I want you to have a career, to become member for the county, and probably eventually Leader of the House.”
“Father, you are not at all ambitious, are you? But I hate society, I hate London, I hate M.P.s, and I hate the Leader of the House. I’d rather,” he added determinedly, “go to sea before the stick, and if you do not send me to sea, I fear I’ll run away.”
Iverach Drummond was trying to keep down his prideful wrath. He sat silent and stern now, so stern that Kep was frightened.
“Oh father, oh daddy, you’re not angry at little Kep?”
He was kneeling by the chief’s side, passionately holding his father’s hand and weeping.
“Your anger would kill me, dearest and best.”
“Then you won’t speak of sea to me again.”
The boy let go his father’s hand. There was a flash of Italian pride in his eyes. But he speedily turned them downwards, then glided away and closed the door.
And something at that moment told Drummond he should not see his boy more.
Martello Castle was really a fine old place, and historical also. Drummond—what will not love do—was as patriotic a Celt as ever drew blood in the Stuart cause, but for his wife’s sake he had expatriated himself and come to live here, far away from his own mountain wilds.
And yet he had the satisfaction of remembering that Cornwall itself had been a land of Celts, and, to some extent, the same blood that burned so fiercely in the bosoms of the ancient inhabitants was still alive in the people around him.
Drummond had shooting on this estate all the year round, and was lord of the manor, and yet, like Walter Scott, he would have died had he been prevented from seeing the heather that blooms on the Highland hills at least once a year.
He had, up to the time of his dear wife’s death, mingled cheerfully with the landed gentry and best families of the county, but at present and lately he had been somewhat more of a recluse. He was feeling old now, he avowed, though he was but little over forty. And all his hopes and fears centred in his boy Keppel and his daughter Madge. For their sakes he was at home to all who did him the honour of calling. And Madge was as contented and cheerful as ever a girl needs to be, and had more than the average girl’s opportunities of living an ideal life in her own grand gardens, or in woods and wilds. Though not so romantic and poetic at soul as her brother Kep, and with none of his extraordinary longings to see foreign life and seek for adventures abroad, she was nevertheless one of nature’s children.
On the same day upon which Kep had held that meeting with his father, he picked up his little rifle, kissed his sister, and told her he was going for shooting practice over the hills. There was something in his face that told Madge he was not happy, and but for the fact that her governess was with her she would have accompanied him.
Kep went to the hill to practise making bull’s eyes at boulders, as he phrased it, but his heart was not in the sport to-day, and presently he threw down the gun, and lay down himself to look at the sea, and to think.
What was he going to do? he asked himself. Going to run away from his parent, his sister, his home? There was only one word to answer the question, and that was “Yes.”
But the morale of these questions was what puzzled his most, for he had been strictly religious trained. Was he about to commit deliberately a sin for which he might never be forgiven?
This was a question that took him a long time to argue. There were many sides to it. He was going to sea in obedience to an impulse. Nothing was there to prevent him. There are fathers and fathers, some of these would send forth a hue and cry and bring a boy back nolens volens. His father, Kep knew well enough, was not one of these. He would be too proud to search for his lost boy, and he knew also the nature of that boy, knew that restraint and compulsion could only tend to harden him, and that the disgrace of being brought back a prisoner would break his brave heart.
No, there was little, if any, fear of pursuit, and he had some money of his own, enough at any rate to purchase his kit and rig-out. Yes, the world was all before him. Yet the “sin” attached to his flight—ah! that was the word he could not keep from ringing in his ears.
His father’s priest was Kep’s best friend, and his tutor besides. Should he go and tell him? Perhaps he should, but he would not. You may get pardon for sins you have done—if you are genuinely penitent—but not for those you have it in your heart to commit. He would not see his priest. What, never again? The lad’s heart gave an uneasy throb. That “never” is a long, long saddening word. So he told himself that he was not running away for good and all, only just for a few years, then if his father forgave him and asked him to return he would.
But his sister Madge—ah! how she would cry, and how bitter and hot and blinding would be those tears, for they loved each other, those two mitherless bairns, as only young sister and brother can. Kep was all the world to Madge. No boy ever so kind and gentle, so brave. None ever so pleasant and so wildly mirthfully, gleesome and humorous.
As he thought of this he took from his side pocket a tiny little black orchestra flute or piccolo. Not much bigger nor thicker was it than a fountain pen, but oh, the marvellous music he was wont to elicit from it. Mostly all Italian and German, chiefly operatic, yet the birds that perched on the golden scented furze in spring used to stop their songs to listen when Kep played, and little anxious creatures in fur used to peep wonderingly out of their holes. He took his pipe from his pocket, I say, and began to play—merrily at first, but soon mournfully and sadly. The music that he breathed into it or that welled out of it was such as he himself had never heard before. It seemed to come from his very soul, to be the very own voice of that soul; and what more sweet, if pure, than the soul of a boy of his still tender years?
This did not, could not, last long.
He dropped the magic pipe, and threw himself on his face to weep.
“Oh, Madge, oh, Madge,” he sobbed, “I am going away, away—I am following destiny—and you—you—how I love you, sister! but distance can never, never divide nor sunder us. Never, Madge, never.”
He spoke through his tears, as if his sister were close at his elbow.
“I’ll write often and often, and you shall write to me. I may not always get your letters, but you shall always have mine. What is this?” he added, speaking more to himself now. He picked something off a bush of ling. It was one of wild Madge’s hair-ribbons—they often sat down to rest, the brother and sister, in this very spot.
He looked at it. He held the bonnie blue silk to his lips, and sighed a sigh which gave him comfort. Then he attached the ribbon to his wee flute and tied it to a button hole.
He would never part from either ribbon or flute, go where he might, over sea or land. The ribbon would be his mascot and charm danger away, the tie that would knit him to his sister and to home.
Don’t laugh at poor Kep, if I tell you that he must now kneel down by the bush and pray. He marched off down the glen after this, but no farther than the house of Duncan Rae, one of his father’s keepers.
Duncan was at home and glad to see Kep. Would he not step inside and have a bowl of milk, his wife would be so pleased.
“And there,” continued Duncan, “comes Colie to bid you welcome and my two little lassies evermore. But has our good laird’s boy been crying? But see, Keppie, my lad, go to the brook and wash your face, and it is myself that will run for a towel for you.”
Kep always felt easy at that homely fireside, and in five minutes’ time he was sitting with a child girl on his knee and two more curly-haired tots listening to and laughing at his strange stories.
“But you’ll play a bit to us, Keppie, and sure the bairns will dance, for it is you that is the grand whistler. Never could scream of plover in the mist equal the shrill sweet music of your flute.”
And Kep did play, and forgot his sorrow for the time. Then he got up to go, and handed Duncan Rae his little rifle to keep until he called for it.
“But eh! boy, there is the big sorrow in your heart this moment, and there is something there you won’t tell your poor Duncan.”
“No sorrow, Duncan. Only joy to come.”
And he forced a smile as he waved his hand.
And Duncan stood looking after him till the hazel copse hid him from view.
Then he sighed and went in doors.
Bob, the great white owl, came that night to stare in at the window of the little turret chamber, but all was dark.
And the cawing of the rooks to greet the rising sun brought no young face to the window next morning.
Kep was gone.