“Ye’re no gangin’, Sailor Willy? Sure ye’ll wait and see Tam Keith marrit on my lass?”
He instantly replied:
“I must go for a while. I have some things to do, and then I want to try to bring Maggie down for the dance!” and before anything could be said, he was gone.
The instant he left the door he slipped round to the back of the barn, and running across the sandhills to the left, crossed the wooden bridge, and hurrying up the roadway by the cottage on the cliff gained the watch-house. He knew that none of the company in the barn could leave till the service was over, with the minister’s eye on them, without giving cause for after suspicion; and he knew, too, that as there were no windows on the south side of the barn, nothing could be seen from that side. Without a moment’s delay he arranged his signals for the call for aid; and as the rockets whizzed aloft, sending a white glare far into the sky, he felt that the struggle had entered on its second stage.
The night had now set in with a darkness unusual in August. The swaithes of sea-mist whirled in by the wind came fewer and fainter, and at times a sudden rift through the driving clouds showed that there was starlight somewhere between the driving masses of mist and gloom. Willy Barrow once more tried all his weapons and saw that all his signals were in order. Then he strapped the revolver and the cutlass in his belt, and lit a dark lantern so that it might be ready in case of need. This done, he left the watch-house, locking the door behind him, and, after looking steadily across the Bay to the Scaurs beyond, turned and walked northward towards the Watter’s Mou’. Between the cliff on the edge of this and the watch-house there was a crane used for raising the granite boulders quarried below, and when he drew near this he stopped instinctively and called out, “Who is there?” for he felt, rather than saw, some presence. “It is only me, Willy,” came a soft voice, and a woman drew a step nearer through the darkness from behind the shaft of the crane.
“Maggie! Why, darling, what brings you here? I thought you were going to the wedding!”
“I knew ye wadna be there, and I wanted to speak wi’ ye” — this was said in a very low voice.
“How did you know I wouldn’t be there? — I was to join you if I could.”
“I saw Bella Cruickshank hand ye the telegram as ye went by the Post Office, and — and I knew there would be something to keep ye. O Willy, Willy! why do ye draw awa frae me?” for Sailor Willy had instinctively loosened his arms which were round her and had drawn back — in the instant his love and his business seemed as though antagonistic.
He answered with blunt truthfulness:
“I was thinking, Maggie, that I had no cause to be making love here and now. I’ve got work, mayhap, tonight!”
“I feared so, Willy — I feared so!”
Willy was touched, for it seemed to him that she was anxious for him, and answered tenderly:
“All right, dear! All right! There’s no danger — why, if need be, I am armed,” and he slipped his hand on the butt of the revolver in his belt. To his surprise Maggie uttered a deep low groan, and turning away sat on the turf bank beside her, as though her strength was failing her. Willy did not know what to say, so there was a space of silence.
Then Maggie went on hurriedly:
“O my God! it is a dreadfu’ thing to lift yer han’ in sic a deadly manner against yer neighbours, and ye not knowing what woe ye may cause.”
Willy could answer this time:
“Ay, lass! it’s hard indeed, and that’s the truth. But that’s the very reason that men like me are put here that can and will do their duty no matter how hard it may be.”
Another pause, and then Maggie spoke again. Willy could not see her face, but she seemed to speak between gasps for breath.
“Ye’re lookin’ for hard wark the nicht?”
“I am! — I fear so.”
“I can guess that that telegram tellt ye that some boats would try to rin in somewhere the nicht.”
“Mayhap, lass. But the telegrams are secret, and I must not speak of what’s in them.”
After a long pause Maggie spoke again, but in a voice so low that he could hardly hear her amid the roar of the breaking waves which came in on the wind:
“Willy, ye’re not a cruel man! — ye wadna, if ye could help it, dae harm to them that loved ye, or work woe to their belongin’s?”
“My lass! that I wouldn’t.”
As he answered he felt a horrible sinking of the heart. What did all this mean? Was it possible that Maggie, too, had any interest in the smuggling? No, no! a thousand times no! Ashamed of his suspicion he drew closer and again put his arm around her in a protecting way. The unexpected tenderness overcame her, and, bursting into tears, she threw herself on Willy’s neck and whispered to him between her sobs:
“O Willy, Willy! I’m in sic sair trouble, and there’s nane that I can speak to. Nae! not ane in the wide warld.”
“Tell me, darling; you know you’ll soon be my wife, and then I’ll have a right to know all!”
“Oh, I canna! I canna! I canna!” she said, and taking her arms from round his neck she beat her hands wildly together. Willy was something frightened, for a woman’s distress touches a strong man in direct ration to his manliness. He tried to soothe her as though she were a frightened child, and held her tight to him.
“There! there! my darling. Don’t cry. I’m here with you, and you can tell me all your trouble.”
She shook her head; he felt the movement on his breast, and he went on:
“Don’t be frightened, Maggie; tell me all. Tell me quietly, and mayhap I can help ye out over the difficult places.”
Then he remained silent, and her sobs grew less violent; at last she raised her head and dashed away her tears fiercely with her hand. She dragged herself away from him: he tried to stop her, but she said:
“Nae, nae, Willy dear; let me speak it in my am way. If I canna trust ye, wha can I trust? My trouble is not for mysel.”
She paused, and he asked:
“Who, then, is it for?”
“My father and my brothers.” Then she went on hurriedly, fearing to stop lest her courage should fail her, and he listened in dead silence, with a growing pain in his heart.
“Ye ken that for several seasons back our boat has had bad luck — we took less fish and lost mair nets than any of the boats; even on the land everything went wrong. Our coo died, and the shed was blawn doon, and then the blight touched the potatoes in our field. Father could dae naething, and had to borrow money on the boat to go on with his wark; and the debt grew and grew, till now he only owns her in name, and we never ken when we may be sold up. And the man that has the mortgage isn’t like to let us off or gie time!”
“Who is he? His name?” said Willie hoarsely.
“Mendoza — the man frae Hamburg wha lends to the boats at Peterhead.”
Willy groaned. Before his eyes rose the vision of that hard, cruel, white face that he had seen only a few minutes ago, and again he saw him hand out the presents with which he had bought the man and woman to help in his wicked scheme. When Maggie heard the groan her courage and her hope arose. If her lover could take the matter so much to heart all might yet be well, and in the moment all the womanhood in her awoke to the call. Her fear had broken down the barriers that had kept back her passion, and now the passion came with all the force of a virgin nature. She drew Willy close to her — closer still — and whispered to him in a low sweet voice, that thrilled with emotion:
“Willy, Willy, darlin’; ye wouldna see harm come to my father