remark silenced the brothers: where indeed could be use without interest?
But Mercy, though she could hardly have said she found the conversation VERY interesting, felt there was something in the men that cared to talk about such things, that must be interesting if she could only get at it. They were not like any other men she had met!
Christina's whole interest in men was the admiration she looked for and was sure of receiving from them; Mercy had hitherto found their company stupid.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LAKE
Silence lasted until they reached the shoulder of the hill that closed the view up the valley. As they rounded it, the sun went behind a cloud, and a chill wind, as if from a land where dwelt no life, met them. The hills stood back, and they were on the shore of a small lake, out of which ran the burn. They were very desolate-looking hills, with little heather, and that bloomless, to hide their hard gray bones. Their heads were mostly white with frost and snow; their shapes had little beauty; they looked worn and hopeless, ugly and sad—and so cold! The water below was slaty gray, in response to the gray sky above: there seemed no life in either. The hearts of the girls sank within them, and all at once they felt tired. In the air was just one sign of life: high above the lake wheeled a large fish-hawk.
"Look!" said Alister pointing; "there is the osprey that lives here with his wife! He is just going to catch a fish!"
He had hardly spoken when the bird, with headlong descent, shot into the water, making it foam up all about. He reappeared with a fish in his claws, and flew off to find his mate.
"Do you know the very bird?" asked Mercy.
"I know him well. He and his wife have built on that conical rock you see there in the middle of the water many years."
"Why have you never shot him? He would look well stuffed!" said Christina.
She little knew the effect of her words; the chief HATED causeless killing; and to hear a lady talk of shooting a high-soaring creature of the air as coolly as of putting on her gloves, was nauseous to him. Ian gave him praise afterwards for his unusual self-restraint. But it was a moment or two ere he had himself in hand.
"Do you not think he looks much better going about God's business?" he said.
"Perhaps; but he is not yours; you have not got him!"
"Why should I have him? He seems, indeed, the more mine the higher he goes. A dead stuffed thing—how could that be mine at all? Alive, he seems to soar in the very heaven of my soul!"
"You showed the fox no such pity!" remarked Mercy.
"I never killed a fox to HAVE him!" answered Alister. "The osprey does no harm. He eats only fish, and they are very plentiful; he never kills birds or hares, or any creature on the land. I do not see how any one could wish to kill the bird, except from mere love of destruction! Why should I make a life less in the world?"
"There would be more lives of fish—would there not?" said Mercy. "I don't want you to shoot the poor bird; I only want to hear your argument!"
The chief could not immediately reply, Ian came to his rescue.
"There are qualities in life," he said. "One cannot think the fish-life so fine, so full of delight as the bird-life!"
"No. But," said Mercy, "have the fishes not as good a right to their life as the birds?"
"Both have the right given them by the maker of them. The osprey was made to eat the fish, and the fish, I hope, get some good of being eaten by the osprey."
"Excuse me, Captain Macruadh, but that seems to me simple nonsense!" said Christina.
"I hope it is true."
"I don't know about being true, but it must be nonsense."
"It must seem so to most people."
"Then why do you say it?"
"Because I hope it is true."
"Why should you wish nonsense to be true?"
"What is true cannot be nonsense. It looks nonsense only to those that take no interest in the matter. Would it be nonsense to the fishes?"
"It does seem hard," said Mercy, "that the poor harmless things should be gobbled up by a creature pouncing down upon them from another element!"
"As the poor are gobbled up everywhere by the rich!"
"I don't believe that. The rich are very kind to the poor."
"I beg your pardon," said Ian, "but if you know no more about the rich than you do about the fish, I can hardly take your testimony. The fish are the most carnivorous creatures in the world."
"Do they eat each other?"
"Hardly that. Only the cats of Kilkenny can do that."
"I used a common phrase!"
"You did, and I am rude: the phrase must bear the blame for both of us. But the fish are even cannibals—eating the young of their own species! They are the most destructive of creatures to other lives."
"I suppose," said Mercy, "to make one kind of creature live on another kind, is the way to get the greatest good for the greatest number!"
"That doctrine, which seems to content most people, appears to me a poverty-stricken and selfish one. I can admit nothing but the greatest good to every individual creature."
"Don't you think we had better be going, Mercy? It has got quite cold; I am afraid it will rain," said Christina, drawing her cloak round her with a little shiver.
"I am ready," answered Mercy.
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