To-day provided ideal conditions for opening the season's play: rainstorm without, glowing fire within, table recovered with new cloth, man revived with splendid holiday—but the Home Champion would not defend her title. As a matter of fact Minerva has funked playing ever since our return from the holiday. Says she cannot get the visions of the glorious greens and blues and purples of the Western Seas and islands out of her eyes; and when she takes a cue in her hand it always seems to turn into a fishing-rod and she catches herself trying to tempt imaginary trout out of the middle pockets with an imaginary "Zulu."
At the present moment the funking Champion is curled up on a window-seat, asleep—dreaming probably of the last eel she caught and conquered; while I, the eager challenger, have put the cover on the table and set me down by the window to try a new pipe and watch the sun decline.
It is no longer wet; the air is growing warmer. An hour ago heavy showers swept the valley, and everything was dreary. Now, the rain is over and gone, and the clouds steadily rising. The sun has picked the foothills out in vivid greens and is shedding a warmth of light and colour on the distant spaces that is charming to look at through the faint haze still lingering in the foreground.
Ben Lomond is just peeping over the top of the last cloud travelling westward.
The valley of the Campsie lies before me. Straight in front, through the break between the Campsie Fells and the Kilpatrick Hills, the broad shoulders and hoary head of Ben Lomond loom large and massive. Farther off and to the right Ben Ledi's round top rises to the sky. From Ben Ledi to Ben Nevis is but a step— to an active imagination— and almost I hear the steamer's whistle at Fort William.
After rain in the west cometh colour in the sky. In an hour or two we shall have one of our specially fine sunsets when all the colours in the universe collect on the edge of the Kilpatrick Hills and dance themselves to death in the wildest abandonment. Purple and deep rose, pinks and emeralds, rich red gold, innumerable shades of innumerable colours, grouping, wedding, dissolving, delicately and daintily as figures in the visions of a child.
A herring boat is passing along the canal at the foot of the field in front. With its huge brown sail, the only part of the boat visible from here, the effect is comical. One wonders, looking at the great brown wing, what sort of wild fowl has invaded the district. Many fowl of this kind tome daily through the corn.
A little way along the canal a fine belt of wood rises from the opposite bank and stretches itself lazily northward.
A delightful, mysterious wood, hiding in its shadowed depths some pretty glades and nooks- and under its roots, some hundred fathoms deep, a blazing furnace clamouring for food. (Thai the cosy, glowing billiard-room fire might be led, three-and-twenty miners were done to depth there four weeks ago. Coal is costly to the conscience- sometimes). In the middle of this wood a broad avenue of glorious beech trees springs upon you unawares, and, after living a righteous and upright life for a quarter of a mile, suddenly disappears from your view. I may tell you the mystery of this avenue another day.
At present I must feed my blackbird. See, he is in the laurel bush, waiting. He comes to my lawn regularly now for his supper, and talks quite easily and learnedly as he eats and hops around. He brings me all the news of the day from the neighbouring plantation, where a few thrushes and chaffinches live. But I fail to catch the meaning of much that he says. Have you observed that the blackbird is the Chesterfield of his world? Always courteous, studious, graceful, and refined in his conversation. I cannot say that of all my visitors. But there, he is off.
And look! Old Mother Nature has rung up the curtain, and plays for our benefit. She uses the Kilpatrick Hills as a sort of stage upon which she performs as a lightning sketch-artist. See how she splashes her colours all over the sky, in a dare-devil reckless way that would bring an ordinary artist into the hands of the police for committing a public nuisance. Gold, and green, and deep dark purple, and pools of bloody fire that no self-respecting artist would handle. Her audacity makes one gasp.....
Swish-swash! The western sky is a sea of green and gold. Rich molten living gold on the nearer side, gradually softening off into a faint indefinite green too delicate to classify. And all along the nearer shore the sea is studded with purple islands; dense purple.
By Jove! What is that in the centre of that little isle beyond the second cape? It is the mouth of Hell! I swear it. Look at the ugly yawning jaws. Look... in its throat is a gargle of boiling blood bubbling in fiery and fierce unrest. Mow it fumes and rages in the heat of anger! Happy thought. Let me think of all the people I should like to drop gently into the mouth of the pit and see splutter and dance helplessly in the frothing liquid furnace "Let not the sun go down upon your poor relations'"?
Ah, bah! I am a good calvinist, and hell was a happy invention!