No; Lavender was content at that moment to take down the outlines of the
great stones and the configuration of the lake and hill beyond, but by
and by he would give another sort of atmosphere to this wild scene. He
would have rain and darkness spread over the island, with the low hills
in the South grown desolate and remote, and the waters of the sea
covered with gloom. No human figure should be visible on this remote
plain, where these strange memorials had stood for centuries exposed to
Western gales and the stillness of the Winter nights, and the awful
silence of the stars. Would not Sheila, at least, understand the
bleakness and desolation of the picture? Of course her father would like
to have everything blue and green. He seemed a little disappointed when
it was clear that no distant glimpse of Borva could be introduced into
the sketch. But Sheila’s imagination would be captured by this sombre
picture, and perhaps by and by in some other land, amid fairer scenes
and in a more generous climate, she might be less inclined to hunger for
the dark and melancholy North when she looked on this record of its
gloom and sadness.
“Iss he going to put any people in the pictures?” said Mackenzie in a
confidential whisper to Ingram.
Ingram got up from the grass, and said with a yawn, “I don’t know. If he
does, it will be afterward. Suppose we go along to the wagonette and
see if Duncan has brought everything up from the boat?”
The old man seemed rather unwilling to be cut out of this particular
sketch, but he went, nevertheless; and Sheila, seeing the young man left
alone, and thinking that not quite fair, went over to him and asked if
she might be permitted to see as much as he had done.
Lavender shut up the book.
“No,” he said with a laugh, “you shall see it to-night. I have
sufficient memoranda to work something out of by and by. Shall we have
another look at the circle up there?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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