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diff --git a/44091-8.txt b/44091-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 383daad..0000000 --- a/44091-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6081 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Green Fire, by Fiona Macleod - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Green Fire - A Romance - -Author: Fiona Macleod - -Release Date: November 2, 2013 [EBook #44091] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEN FIRE *** - - - - -Produced by Les Galloway, sp1nd and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - GREEN FIRE - - A Romance - - BY - - FIONA MACLEOD - - "_While still I may, I write for you - The love I lived, the dream I knew_" - - - - NEW YORK - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - 1896 - - - - - Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - - - TO - - ESCLARMOUNDO - - "_Nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum._"--OVID - - - -"_There are those of us who would rather be with Cathal of the Woods, -and be drunken with green fire, than gain the paradise of the holy -Molios who banned him, if in that gain were to be heard no more the -earth-sweet ancient song of the blood that is in the veins of youth...._ - -"_O green fire of life, pulse of the world! O Love, O Youth, O Dream of -Dreams!_ - - "THE ANNIR CHOILLE." - - - - - CONTENTS - - - - BOOK FIRST - - THE BIRDS OF ANGUS OGUE - - CHAP. PAGE - - I. EUCHARIS 3 - - II. THE HOUSE OF KERIVAL 22 - - III. STORM 37 - - IV. THE DREAM AND THE DREAMERS 53 - - V. THE WALKER IN THE NIGHT 69 - - VI. VIA OSCURA 99 - - VII. "DEIREADH GACH COGAIDH, SITH" (THE - END OF ALL WARFARE, PEACE) 114 - - VIII. THE UNFOLDING OF THE SCROLL 125 - - - BOOK SECOND - - THE HERDSMAN - - IX. RETROSPECTIVE: FROM THE HEBRID ISLES 149 - - X. AT THE EDGE OF THE SHADOW 175 - - XI. MYSTERY 195 - - XII. IN THE GREEN ARCADES 208 - - XIII. THE MESSAGE 224 - - XIV. THE LAUGHTER OF THE KING 239 - - - BOOK THIRD - - XV. THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD 259 - - - - GREEN FIRE - - - - - BOOK FIRST - - _THE BIRDS OF ANGUS OGUE_ - - - - Hither and thither, - And to and fro, - They thrid the Maze - Of Weal and Woe: - O winds that blow - For golden weather - Blow me the birds, - All white as snow - On the hillside heather-- - Blow me the birds - That Angus know: - Blow me the birds, - Be it Weal or Woe! - - - - -CHAPTER I - -EUCHARIS - - - _Then, in the violet forest, all a-bourgeon, Eucharis said to me: "It - is Spring."_--ARTHUR RIMBAUD. - - -After the dim purple bloom of a suspended spring, a green rhythm ran -from larch to thorn, from lime to sycamore; spread from meadow to -meadow, from copse to copse, from hedgerow to hedgerow. The blackthorn -had already snowed upon the nettle-garths. In the obvious nests among -the bare boughs of ash and beech the eggs of the blackbird were -blue-green as the sky that March had bequeathed to April. For days -past, when the breath of the equinox had surged out of the west, the -missel-thrushes had bugled from the wind-swayed topmost branches of the -tallest elms. Everywhere the green rhythm ran. - -In every leaf that had uncurled there was a delicate bloom, that which -is upon all things in the first hours of life. The spires of the grass -were washed in a green, dewy light. Out of the brown earth a myriad -living things thrust tiny green shafts, arrow-heads, bulbs, spheres, -clusters. Along the pregnant soil keener ears than ours would have -heard the stir of new life, the innumerous whisper of the bursting -seed; and, in the wind itself, shepherding the shadow-chased sunbeams, -the voice of that vernal gladness which has been man's clarion since -Time began. - -Day by day the wind-wings lifted a more multitudinous whisper from -the woodlands. The deep hyperborean note, from the invisible ocean -of air, was still audible: within the concourse of bare boughs which -lifted against it, that surging voice could not but have an echo of its -wintry roar. In the sun-havens, however, along the southerly copses, -in daisied garths of orchard-trees, amid the flowering currant and -guelder and lilac bushes in quiet places where the hives were all -a-murmur, the wind already sang its lilt of spring. From dawn till -noon, from an hour before sundown till the breaking foam along the -wild cherry flushed fugitively because of the crimson glow out of the -west, there was a ceaseless chittering of birds. The starlings and the -sparrows enjoyed the commune of the homestead; the larks and fieldfares -and green and yellow linnets congregated in the meadows, where, too, -the wild bee already roved. Among the brown ridgy fallows there was -a constant flutter of black, white-gleaming, and silver-gray wings, -where the stalking rooks, the jerking pewets, and the wary, uncertain -gulls from the neighboring sea, feasted tirelessly from the teeming -earth. Often, too, the wind-hover, that harbinger of the season of the -young broods, quivered his curved wings in his arrested flight, while -his lance-like gaze penetrated the whins, beneath which a new-born -rabbit crawled, or discerned in the tangle of a grassy tuft the brown, -watchful eyes of a nesting quail. - -In the remoter woodlands the three foresters of April could be heard: -the woodpecker tapping on the gnarled boles of the oaks; the wild-dove -calling in low, crooning monotones to his silent mate; the cuckoo -tolling his infrequent peals from skyey belfries built of sun and mist. - -In the fields, where the thorns were green as rivulets of melted snow -and the grass had the bloom of emerald, and the leaves of docken, -clover, cinquefoil, sorrel, and a thousand plants and flowers, were -wave-green, the ewes lay, idly watching with their luminous amber -eyes the frisking and leaping of the close-curled, tuft-tailed, -woolly-legged lambs. In corners of the hedgerows, and in hollows in -the rolling meadows, the primrose, the celandine, the buttercup, the -dandelion, and the daffodil spilled little eddies of the sun-flood -which overbrimmed them with light. All day long the rapture of the -larks filled the blue air with vanishing spirals of music, swift and -passionate in the ascent, repetitive and less piercing in the narrowing -downward gyres. From every whin the poignant, monotonous note of the -yellow-hammer reëchoed. Each pastoral hedge was alive with robins, -chaffinches, and the dusky shadows of the wild-mice darting here and -there among the greening boughs. - -Whenever this green fire is come upon the earth, the swift contagion -spreads to the human heart. What the seedlings feel in the brown -mould, what the sap feels in the trees, what the blood feels in every -creature from the newt in the pool to the nesting bird--so feels the -strange, remembering ichor that runs its red tides through human hearts -and brains. Spring has its subtler magic for us, because of the dim -mysteries of unremembering remembrance and of the vague radiances of -hope. Something in us sings an ascendant song, and we expect, we know -not what; something in us sings a decrescent song, and we realize -vaguely the stirring of immemorial memories. - -There is none who will admit that spring is fairer elsewhere than in -his own land. But there are regions where the season is so hauntingly -beautiful that it would seem as though Angus Ogue knew them for his -chosen resting-places in his green journey. - -Angus Og, Angus MacGreine, Angus the Ever Youthful, the Son of -the Sun, a fair god he indeed, golden-haired and wonderful as Apollo -Chrusokomes. Some say that he is Love; some, that he is Spring; some, -even, that in him, Thanatos, the Hellenic Celt that was his far-off -kin, is reincarnate. But why seek riddles in flowing water? It may -well be that Angus Ogue is Love, and Spring, and Death. The elemental -gods are ever triune; and in the human heart, in whose lost Eden an -ancient tree of knowledge grows wherefrom the mind has not yet gathered -more than a few windfalls, it is surely sooth that Death and Love are -oftentimes one and the same, and that they love to come to us in the -apparel of Spring. - -Sure, indeed, Angus Ogue is a name above all sweet to lovers, for is -he not the god--the fair youth of the Tuatha-de-Danann, the Ancient -People, with us still, though for ages seen of us no more--from the -meeting of whose lips are born white birds, which fly abroad and nest -in lovers' hearts till the moment come when, on the yearning lips of -love, their invisible wings shall become kisses again? - -Then, too, there is the old legend that Angus goes to and fro upon the -world, a weaver of rainbows. He follows the spring, or is its herald. -Often his rainbows are seen in the heavens; often in the rapt gaze of -love. We have all perceived them in the eyes of children, and some of -us have discerned them in the hearts of sorrowful women and in the dim -brains of the old. Ah! for sure, if Angus Og be the lovely Weaver -of Hope he is deathless comrade of the spring, and we may well pray -to him to let his green fire move in our veins, whether he be but the -Eternal Youth of the World, or be also Love, whose soul is youth, or -even though he be likewise Death himself, Death to whom Love was wedded -long, long ago. - - * * * * * - -But nowhere was spring more lovely, nowhere was the green fire of -life so quick with impulsive ardors, as, one year of the years, in a -seaward region to the north of the ancient forest of Broceliande, in -what of old was Armorica and now is Brittany. - -Here spring often comes late, but ever lingers long. Here, too, in the -dim green avenues of the oak-woods of Kerival, the nightingales reach -their uttermost western flight. Never has the shepherd, tending his -scant flock on the upland pastures of Finistère, nor the fisherman -lying a-dream amid the sandy thickets of Ushant, heard that quaint -music--that primeval and ever young song of the passionate heart which -Augustine might well have had in mind when he exclaimed "Sero te amavi, -Pulchritudo, tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi." But, each April, -in the woods of Kerival, the nightingales congregate from afar, and -through May their songs make the forest like a sanctuary filled with -choristers swinging incense of a delicate music. - -It is a wonderful region, that which lies betwixt Ploumaliou on the -east and Kerloek on the west; the oldest, remotest part of an ancient, -remote land. Here the few hamlets and fewer scattered villages are, -even in externals, the same as they were a hundred or three hundred -years ago. In essentials, there is no difference since St. Hervé -or St. Ronan preached the new faith, or indeed since Ahès the Pale -rode through the forest aisles in the moonlight and heard the Nains -chanting, or since King Gradlon raced his horse against the foam when -his daughter let the sea in upon the fair city of Ys. The good _curés_ -preach the religion of Christ and of Mary to the peasants; but in the -minds of most of these there lingers much of the bygone faith that -reared the menhirs. Few indeed there are in whose ears is never an echo -of the old haunted world, when every wood and stream, every barren -moor and granite wilderness, every sea-pasture and creek and bay had -its particular presence, its spirit of good or ill, its menace, its -perilous enchantment. The eyes of the peasants by these shores, these -moors, these windy hill-slopes of the south, are not fixed only on the -meal-chest and the fallow-field, or, on fête-days, upon the crucifix -in the little church; but often dwell upon a past time, more sacred now -than ever in this bitter relinquishing age. On the lips of many may be -heard lines from that sad folk-song, "Ann Amzer Dremenet" (In the Long -Ago): - - Eur c'havel kaer karn olifant, - War-n-han tachou aour hag arc' hant. - - Daelou a ver, daelou c'houero: - Neb a zo enn han zo maro! - - Zo maro, zo maro pell-zo, - Hag hi luskel, o kana 'to, - - Hag hi luskel, luskel ato, - Kollet ar skiand-vad gant-ho. - - Ar skiand-vad ho deuz kollet; - Kollet ho deuz joaiou ar bed. - - * * * * * - - [But when they had made the cradle - Of ivory and of gold, - Their hearts were heavy still - With the sorrow of old. - - And ever as they rocked, the tears - Ran down, sad tears: - Who is it lieth dead therein, - Dead all these weary years? - - - And still they rock that cradle there - Of ivory and gold; - For in their brains the shadow is - The Shadow of Old. - - They weep, and know not what they weep; - They wait a vain rebirth: - Vanity of vanities, alas! - For there is but one birth - On the wide, green earth.] - -Old sayings they have, too; who knows how old? The charcoal-burner in -the woods above Kerloek will still shudder at the thought of death -on the bleak, open moor, because of the carrion-crow that awaits his -sightless eyes, the fox that will tear his heart out, and the toad -that will swallow his soul. Long, long ago Gwenc'hlan the Bard sang -thus of his foe and the foes of his people, when every battle field -was a pasture for the birds and beasts of prey, and when the Spirit of -Evil lurked near every corpse in the guise of a toad. And still the -shrimper, in the sands beyond Ploumaliou, will cry out against the -predatory sea fowl _A gas ar Gall--a gas ar Gall!_ (Chase the Franks!) -and not know that, ages ago, this cry went up from the greatest of -Breton kings, when Nomenoë drove the Frankish invaders beyond the Oust -and the Vilaine, and lighted their flight by the flames of Nantes and -Rennes. - -Near the northern frontier of the remotest part of this ancient region, -the Manor of Kerival was the light-house of its forest vicinage. It -was and is surrounded by woods, for the most part of oak and chestnut -and beech. Therein are trees of an age so great that they may have -sheltered the flight of Jud Mael, when Ahès chased him on her white -stallion from glade to glade, and one so venerably old that its roots -may have been soaked in the blood of their child Judik, whom she forced -her betrayer to slay with the sword before she thrust a dagger into -his heart. Northward of the manor, however, the forest is wholly of -melancholy spruce, of larch and pine. The pines extend in a desolate -disarray to the interminable dunes, beyond which the Breton sea lifts -its gray wave against a gray horizon. On that shore there are few -rocks, though here and there fang-like reefs rise, ready to tear and -devour any boat hurled upon them at full tide in days of storm. At -Kerival Haven, too, there is a wilderness of granite rock; a mass of -pinnacles, buttresses, and inchoate confusion, ending in long, smooth -ledges of black basalt, these forever washed by the green flow of the -tides. - -None of the peasants knew the age of the House of Kerival, or how long -the Kerival family had been there. Old Yann Hénan, the blind brother of -the white-haired _curé_, Père Alain, who was the oldest man in all the -countryside, was wont to say that Kerival woods had been green before -ever there was a house on the banks of the Seine, and that a Kerival -had been lord of the land before ever there was a king of France. All -believed this, except Père Alain, and even he dissented only when -Yann spoke of the seigneur's ancestor as the Marquis of Kerival; for, -as he explained, there were no marquises in those far-off days. But -this went for nothing; for, unfortunately, Père Alain had once in his -youth preached against the popular belief in Korrigans and Nains, and -had said that these supernatural beings did not exist, or at any -rate were never seen of man. How, then, could much credence be placed -on the testimony of a man who could be so prejudiced? Yann had but -to sing a familiar snatch from the old ballad of "Aotru Nann Hag ar -Gorrigan"--the fragment beginning - - Ken a gavas eur waz vihan - E-kichen ti eur Gorrigan, - -and ending - - Met gwell eo d'in mervel breman - 'Get dimizi d' eur Gorrigan!-- - - [The Lord Nann came to the Kelpie's Pool - And stooped to drink the water cool; - - But he saw the kelpie sitting by, - Combing her long locks listlessly. - - "O knight," she sang, "thou dost not fear - To draw these perilous waters near! - - Wed thou me now, or on a stone - For seven years perish all alone, - Or three days hence moan your death-moan!" - - "I will not wed you, nor alone - Perish with torment on a stone, - Nor three days hence draw my death-moan-- - - - For I shall die, O Kelpie fair, - When God lets down the golden stair, - And so my soul thou shalt not share-- - - But, if my fate is to lie dead, - Here, with thy cold breast for my bed, - Death can be mine, I will not wed!"] - -When Yann sang this, or told for the hundredth time the familiar story -of how Paskou-Hir the tailor was treated by the Nains when he sought to -rifle the hidden treasure in the grotto, every one knew that he spoke -what was authentic, what was true. As for Père Alain--well, priests are -told to say many things by the good, wise Holy Father, who rules the -world so well but has never been in Brittany, and so cannot know all -that happens there, and has happened from time immemorial. Then, again, -was there not the evidence of the alien, the strange, quiet man called -Yann the Dumb, because of his silence at most times--him that was the -servitor-in-chief to the Lady Lois, the beautiful paralyzed wife of the -Marquis of Kerival, and that came from the far north, where the kindred -of the Armorican race dwell among the misty isles and rainy hills -of Scotland? Indeed Yann had been heard to say that he would sooner -disbelieve in the Pope himself than in the kelpie, for in his own land -he had himself heard her devilish music luring him across a lonely -moor, and he had known a man who had gone fey because he had seen the -face of a kelpie in a hill-tarn. - -In the time of the greening, even the Korrigans are unseen of walkers -in the dusk. They are busy then, some say, winding the white into -the green bulbs of the water-lilies, or tinting the wings within the -chrysalis of the water-fly, or weaving the bright skins for the newts; -but however this may be, the season of the green flood over the brown -earth is not that wherein man may fear them. - -No fear of Korrigan or Nain, or any other woodland creature or haunter -of pool or stream, disturbed two who walked in the green-gloom of a -deep avenue in the midst of the forest beyond the Manor of Kerival. -They were young, and there was green fire in their hearts; for they -moved slow, hand claspt in hand, and with their eyes dwelling often -on the face of each other. And whenever Ynys de Kerival looked at -her cousin Alan she thought him the fairest and comeliest of the sons -of men; and whenever Alan turned the longing of his eyes upon Ynys he -wondered if anywhere upon the green earth moved aught so sweet and -winsome, if anywhere in the green world was another woman so beautiful -in body, mind, and spirit, as Ynys--Ynys the Dark, as the peasants -called her, though Ynys of the dusky hair and the hazel-green eyes -would have been truer of her whom Alan de Kerival loved. Of a truth, -she was fair to see. Tall she was, and lithe; in her slim, svelt body -there was something of the swift movement of the hill-deer, something -of the agile abandon of the leopard. She was of that small clan, the -true daughters of the sun. Her tanned face and hands showed that she -loved the open air, though indeed her every movement proved this. The -sun-life was even in that shadowy hair of hers, which had a sheen of -living light wrought into its fragrant dusk; it was in her large, deep, -translucent eyes, of a soft, dewy twilight-gray often filled with -green light, as of the forest-aisles or as the heart of a sea-wave as -it billows over sunlit sand; it was in the heart and in the brain of -this daughter of an ancient race--and the nostalgia of the green world -was hers. For in her veins ran the blood not only of her Armorican -ancestors but of another Celtic strain, that of the Gael of the Isles, -Through her mother, Lois Macdonald, of the remote south isles of the -Outer Hebrides, the daughter of a line as ancient as that of Tristran -de Kerival, she inherited even more than her share of the gloom, the -mystery, the sea-passion, the vivid oneness with nature which have -disclosed to so many of her fellow-Celts secret sources of peace. - -Everywhere in that region the peasant poets sang of Ynys the Dark or -of her sister Annaik. They were the two beautiful women of the world, -there. But, walking in the fragrant green-gloom of the beeches, Alan -smiled when he thought of Annaik, for all her milk-white skin and -her wonderful tawny hair, for all her strange, shadowy amber-brown -eyes--eyes often like dark hill-crystals aflame with stormy light. She -was beautiful, and tall too, and with an even wilder grace than Ynys; -yet--there was but one woman in the world, but one Dream, and her name -was Ynys. - -It was then that he remembered the line of the unfortunate boy-poet of -the Paris that has not forgotten him; and looking at Ynys, who seemed -to him the very spirit of the green life all around him, muttered: -"Then in the violet forest, all a-bourgeon, Eucharis said to me: 'It is -Spring.'" - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE HOUSE OF KERIVAL - - -It was with a sudden beating of the heart that, midway in Easter, Alan -de Kerival received in Paris two letters: one from the Marquis de -Kerival, and the other from his cousin Ynys, whom he loved. - -At all times he was ill at ease in the great city; or at all times save -when he was alone in his little study in the Tour de l'Ile, or in the -great circular room where the master astronomer, Daniel Darc, wrought -unceasingly. On rare occasions, golden afternoons these, he escaped to -the green places near Paris--to Rambouillet or St. Germain, or even -to Fontainebleau. There, under the leafless trees of winter or at the -first purpling of spring, he was wont to walk for hours, dreaming his -dream. For Alan was a poet, and to dream was his birthright. - -And for dream, what had he? There was Ynys above all, Ynys whom he -loved with ever deepening joy and wonder. More and more she had become -to him his real life; he lived in her, for her, because of her. More -and more, too, he realized that she was his strength, his inspiration. -But besides this abiding delight, which made his heart leap whenever -he saw a Breton name above a shop or on a volume on the bookstalls, -he was ever occupied by that wonderful past of his race which was to -him a living reality. It was perhaps because he so keenly perceived -the romance of the present--the romance of the general hour, of the -individual moment--that he turned so insatiably to the past with its -deathless charm, its haunting appeal. The great astronomer whom he -loved and served knew the young man well, and was wont to say that his -favorite assistant was born a thousand years too late. - -One day a Breton neighbor of the Marquis de Kerival questioned Daniel -Darc as to who the young man's friends were. "Nomenoë, Gradlon-Maur, -Gwenc'hlan, Taliésin, Merlin, and Oisin," was the reply. And it was -true. Alan's mind was as irresistibly drawn to the Celtic world of the -past as the swallow to the sun-way. In a word, he was not only a poet, -but a Celtic poet; and not only a Celtic poet, but a dreamer of the -Celtic dream. - -Perhaps this was because of the double strain in his veins. Doubtless, -too, it was continuously enhanced by his intimate knowledge of two of -the Celtic languages, that of the Breton and that of the Gael. It is -language that is the surest stimulus to the remembering nerves. We have -a memory within memory, as layers of skin underlie the epidermis. With -most of us this anterior remembrance remains dormant throughout life; -but to some are given swift ancestral recollections. Alan de Kerival -was of these few. - -His aunt, the Marquise, true Gael of the Hebrid Isles as she was, loved -the language of her people, and spoke it as she spoke English, even -better than French. Of Breton, save a few words and phrases, she knew -almost nothing--though Armorican was exclusively used throughout the -whole Kerival region, was the common tongue in the Manor itself, and -was habitually affected even by the Marquis de Kerival--on the few -occasions when Tristran the Silent, as the old nobleman was named, -cared to speak. But with two members of the household she invariably -spoke in Gaelic; with her nephew Alan, the child of her sister Silis -Macdonald, and her old servitor, Ian Macdonald, known among his fellows -as Yann the Dumb, mainly because he seldom spoke to them, having -no language but his own. Latterly, her daughter Ynys had become as -familiar with the one Celtic tongue as the other. - -With this double key, Alan unlocked many doors. All the wonderful -romance of old Armorica and of ancient Wales was familiar to him, and -he was deeply versed in the still more wonderful and magical lore of -the Gaelic race. In his brain ran ever that Ossianic tide which has -borne so many marvellous argosies through the troubled waters of the -modern mind. Old ballads of his native isles, with their haunting -Gaelic rhythms and idioms and their frequent reminiscences of the -Norse viking and the Danish summer-sailor, were often in his ears. He -had lived with his hero Cuchullin from the days when the boy showed his -royal blood at Emain-Macha till that sad hour when his madness came -upon him and he died. He had fared forth with many a Lifting of the -Sunbeam, and had followed Oisin step by step on that last melancholy -journey when Malvina led the blind old man along the lonely shores of -Arran. He had watched the _crann-tara_ flare from glen to glen, and at -the bidding of that fiery cross he had seen the whirling of swords, the -dusky flight of arrow-rain, and, from the isles, the leaping forth of -the war _birlinns_ to meet the viking galleys. How often, too, he had -followed Nial of the Nine Hostages, and had seen the Irish Charlemagne -ride victor through Saxon London, or across the Norman plains, or with -onward sword direct his army against the white walls of the Alps! -How often he had been with the great king Nomonoë, when he with his -Armoricans chased the Frankish wolves away from Breton soil, or had -raced with Gradlon-Maur from the drowning seas which overwhelmed Ys, -where the king's daughter had at the same moment put her hands on the -Gates of Love and Death! How often he had heard Merlin and Taliésin -speak of the secret things of the ancient wisdom, or Gwenc'hlan chant -upon his wild harp, or the fugitive song of Vivien in the green woods -of Broceliande, where the enchanted seer sleeps his long sleep and -dreams his dream of eternal youth. - -It was all this marvellous life of old which wrought upon Alan de -Kerival's life as by a spell. Often he recalled the words of a Gaelic -_sian_ he had heard Yann croon in his soft, monotonous voice--words -which made a light shoreward eddy of the present and were solemn with -the deep-sea sound of the past, that is with us even as we speak. - -He was himself, too, a poet, and loved to tell anew, in Breton, to the -peasants of Kerival, some of the wild north tales, or to relate in -Gaelic to his aunt and to Ynys the beautiful folk-ballads of Brittany, -which Annaik knew by heart and chanted with the strange, wailing music -of the forest-wind. - -In that old Manor, moreover, another shadow put a gloom into his -mind--this was another shadow than that which made the house so silent -and chill, the inviolate isolation of the paralyzed but still beautiful -Marquise Lois from her invalid husband, limb-useless from his thighs -because of a hurt done in the war into which he had gone brown-haired -and strong, and whence he had come broken in hope, shattered in health, -and gray with premature age. And this other shadow was the mystery of -his birth. - -It was in vain he had tried to learn the name of his father. Only three -people knew it: the Marquis Tristran, the Marquise Lois, and Yann the -Dumb. From none of these could he elicit more than what he had long -known. All was to be made clear on his twenty-fifth birthday; till then -he had to be content with the knowledge that he was Alan de Kerival by -courtesy only; that he was the son of Silis Macdonald, of an ancient -family whose ancestral home was in one of the isles of the Southern -Hebrides, of Silis, the dead sister of Lois de Kerival; and that he -was the adopted child of the Marquis and Marquise who bore that old -Armoric name. - -That there was tragedy inwrought with his story he knew well. From -fugitive words, too, he had gained the idea that his father, in common -with the Marquis Tristran, had been a soldier in the French army; -though as to whether this unknown parent was Scottish or Breton or -French, or as to whether he was alive or dead, there was no homing clew. - -To all his enquiries of the Marquise he received no answer, or was -told simply that he must wait. The Marquis he rarely saw, and never -spoke with. If ever he encountered the stern, white-haired man as he -was wheeled through the garden ways or down one of the green alleys, -or along the corridors of the vast, rambling château, they passed in -silence. Sometimes the invalid would look at him with the fierce, -unwavering eyes of a hawk; but for the most part the icy, steel-blue -eyes ignored the young man altogether. - -Yann, too, could not, or would not confide any thing more than Alan had -already learned from the Marquise. The gaunt old Hebridean--whose sole -recreation, when not sitting pipe in mouth before the flaming logs, was -to wander along the melancholy dunes by the melancholy gray sea, and -mutter continuously to himself in his soft island-Gaelic--would talk -slowly by the hour on old legends, and ballad-lore, and on seanachas of -every kind. When, however, Alan asked him about the sisters Lois and -Silis Macdonald, or how Lois came to marry a Breton, and as to the man -Silis loved, and what the name was of the isle whereon they lived,--or -even as to whether Ian himself had kith or kin living,--Yann would -justify his name. He took no trouble in evasion: he simply became dumb. - -Sometimes Alan asked the old man if he cared to see the Isles again. At -that, a look ever came into Ian Macdonald's eyes which made his young -clansman love him. - -"It will never, never be forgetting my own place I will be," he replied -once, "no, never. I would rather be hearing the sea on the shores there -than all the hymns of heaven, and I would rather be having the canna -and the heather over my head than be under the altar of the great -church at Kerloek. No, no, it is the pain I have for my own place, and -the isle where my blood has been for hundreds of years, and where for -sure my heart is, Alan Mac----" - -With eager ears Alan had hoped for the name whereat the old man had -stopped short. It would have told him much. "Alan, son of----!" Even -that baptismal name would probably have told him if his father were a -Gael or a Breton, an Englishman or a Frenchman. But Yann said no more, -then or later. - -Alan had hoped, too, that when he came back, after his first long -absence from Kerival, his aunt would be more explicit with him. A vain -hope, for when once more he was at the château he found the Marquise -even less communicative than was her wont. Her husband was more than -ever taciturn, and a gloom seemed to have descended upon the house. -For the first time he noticed a change in the attitude of Annaik. Her -great, scornful, wild-bird eyes looked at him often strangely. She -sought him, and then was silent. If he did not speak, she became -morose; if he spoke, she relapsed into her old scornful quiescence. -Sometimes, when they were alone, she unbent, and was his beautiful -cousin and comrade again; but in the presence of Ynys she bewildered -him by her sudden ennui or bitterness or even shadowy hostility. As for -Ynys, she was unhappy, save in Alan's love--a love that neither her -father nor mother knew, and of which she never spoke to Annaik. - -If Alan were a dreamer, Ynys was even more so. Then, too, she had what -Annaik had not, though she lacked what her sister had. For she was -mystical as that young saint of the Bretons who saw Christ walking by -night upon the hills, and believed that he met there a new Endymion, -his Bride of the Church come to him in the moonshine. Ynys believed in -St. Guennik, as she believed in Jeanne d'Arc, and no legend fascinated -her more than that strange one she had heard from Yann, of how Arthur -the Celtic hero would come again out of Flath-innis, and redeem his -lost, receding peoples. But, unlike Annaik, she had little of the -barbaric passion, little of that insatiate nostalgia for the life -of the open moor and the windy sea, though these she loved not less -whole-heartedly than did her sister. The two both loved Nature as -few women love her; but to Annaik the forest and the moorland were -home, while to Ynys they were rather sanctuaries or realms of natural -romance. This change to an unwelcome taciturnity had been noted by Alan -on his home visit at Christmas. Still, he had thought little of it -after his return to Paris, for the Noël-tide had been sweetened by the -word given to him by Ynys. - - * * * * * - -Then Easter had come, and with it the two letters of such import. That -from the Marquise was short and in the tongue he and she loved best: -but even thus it was written guardedly. The purport was that, now his -twenty-fifth birthday was at hand, he would soon learn what he had so -long wished to know. - -That from Ynys puzzled him. Why should dispeace have arisen between -Ynys and Annaik? Why should an already gloomy house have been made -still more sombre? - -One day, Ynys wrote, she had come upon Annaik riding Sultan, the black -stallion, and thrashing the horse till the foam flew from the champed -bit. When she had cried to Annaik to be merciful, and asked her why she -punished Sultan so, her sister had cried mockingly, "It is my love! -_Addio, Amore! Addio! Addio! Addio!_"--and at each _addio_ had brought -her whip so fiercely upon the stallion's quivering flanks that he had -reared, and all but thrown her, till she swung him round as on a pivot -and went at a wild gallop down a long beech-alley that led into the -heart of the forest. - -Well, these things would be better understood soon. In another week -he would be out of Paris, possibly never to return. And then ... -Brittany--Kerival--Ynys! - -Nevertheless his heart was not wholly away from his work. The great -astronomer had known and loved Hersart de Kerival, the younger brother -of Tristran, and it was for his sake that he had taken the young man -into his observatory. Soon he had discovered that the youth loved the -beautiful science, and was apt, eager, and yet patient to learn. In -the five years which Alan spent--with brief Brittany intervals--in -the observatory of the Tour de l'Ile, he had come to delight in the -profession which he had chosen, and of which the Marquise had approved. - -He was none the less close and eager a student because that he brought -to this enthralling science that spirit of the poetry of the past, -which was the habitual atmosphere wherein his mind dwelt. Even the -most eloquent dissertations of Daniel Darc failed to move him so much -as some ancient strain wherein the stars of heaven were hailed as -kindred of men; and never had any exposition of the lunar mystery so -exquisitely troubled him as that wonderful cry of Ossian which opens -the poem of "Darthula": - -"Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is -pleasant. Thou comest forth in loveliness; the stars attend thy -blue steps in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O moon, -and brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, -daughter of the night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence, and turn -aside their green sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy -course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall -like Ossian? Dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters -fallen from heaven? Are they who rejoiced with thee, at night, no -more?--Yes!--They have fallen, fair light! and thou dost often retire -to mourn. But thou thyself shalt fail, one night; and leave thy blue -path in heaven. The stars will then lift their green heads; they, who -were ashamed in thy presence, will rejoice." - - - - -CHAPTER III - -STORM - - -Yes, he was glad to leave Paris, although that home of lost -causes--thus designate in a far truer sense than is the fair city by -the Isis--had a spell for him. But not Paris, not even what, night -after night, he beheld from the Tour de l'Ile, held him under a spell -comparable with that which drew him back to the ancient land where his -heart was. - -In truth, it was with relief at last that he saw the city recede from -his gaze, and merge into the green alleys north-westward. With a sigh -of content, he admitted that it was indeed well to escape from that -fevered life--a life that, to him, even in his lightest mood, seemed -far more phantasmal than that which formed the background to all his -thoughts and visions. Long before the cherry orchards above Rouen -came into view he realized how glad he was even to be away from the -bare, gaunt room where so many of his happiest hours had been spent; -that windy crow's-nest of a room at the top of the Tour de l'Ile, -whence nightly he had watched the procession of the stars, and nightly -had opened the dreamland of his imagination to an even more alluring -procession out of the past. - -His one regret was in having to part from Daniel Darc, that strange -and impressive personality who had so fascinated him, and the spell -of whose sombre intellect, with its dauntless range and scope, had -startled the thought of Europe, and even given dreams to many to whom -all dreams had become the very Fata Morgana of human life. - -Absorbed as he was, Daniel Darc realized that Alan was an astronomer -primarily because he was a poet rather than an astronomer by inevitable -bias. He saw clearly into the young man's mind, and certainly did not -resent that his favorite pupil loved to dwell with Merlin rather than -with Kepler, and that even Newton or his own master Arago had no such -influence over him as the far-off, nigh inaudible music of the harp of -Aneurin. - -And, in truth, below all Alan's passion for science--of that science -which is at once the oldest, the noblest, and the most momentous; -the science of the innumerous concourse of dead, dying, and flaming -adolescent worlds, dust about the threshold of an unfathomable and -immeasurable universe, wherein this Earth of ours is no more than a -mere whirling grain of sand--below all this living devotion lay a -deeper passion still. - -Truly, his soul must have lived a thousand years ago. In him, at least, -the old Celtic brain was reborn with a vivid intensity which none -guessed, and none except Ynys knew--if even she, for Alan himself only -vaguely surmised the extent and depth of this obsession. In heart and -brain that old world lived anew. Himself a poet, all that was fair and -tragically beautiful was forever undergoing in his mind a marvellous -transformation--a magical resurrection rather, wherein what was remote -and bygone, and crowned with oblivious dust, became alive again with -intense and beautiful life. - - * * * * * - -It did not harmonize ill with Alan's mood that, on the afternoon of the -day he left Rouen, great, bulbous storm-clouds soared out of the west -and cast a gloom upon the landscape. - -That is a strange sophistry which registers passion according to its -nearness to the blithe weal symbolized in fair weather. Deep passion -instinctively moves toward the shadow rather than toward the golden -noons of light. Passion hears what love at the most dreams of; passion -sees what love mayhap dimly discerns in a glass darkly. A million of -our fellows are "in love" at any or every moment; and for these the -shadowy way is intolerable. But for the few, in whom love is, the eyes -are circumspect against the dark hour which comes when heart and brain -and blood are aflame with the paramount ecstasy of life. - -Deep passion is always in love with death. The temperate solicitudes of -affection know not this perverse emotion, which is simply the darker -shadow inevitable to a deeper joy--as the profundity of an Alpine lake -is to be measured by the height of the remote summits which rise sheer -from its marge. - -When Alan saw this gloom slowly absorb the sunlight, and heard below -the soft spring cadences of the wind the moan of coming tempest, his -melancholy lightened. Soon he would see the storm crushing through the -woods of Kerival; soon feel the fierce rain come sweeping inland from -Ploumaliou; soon hear, confusedly obscure, the noise of the Breton Sea -along the reef-set sands. Already he felt the lips of Ynys pressed -against his own. - - * * * * * - -The sound of the sea called through the dusk, now with the muffled -under roar of famished lions, now with a loud, continuous baying like -that of eager hounds. - -Seaward, the deepening shadows passed intricately from wave to wave. -The bays and sheltered waters were full of a tumult as of baffled -flight, of fugitives jostling each other in a wild and fruitless -evasion. Along the interminable reach of the Dunes of Kerival the -sea's lips writhed and curled; while out of the heart of the turbulent -waste beyond issued a shrill, intermittent crying, followed by stifled -laughter. Ever and again tons of whirling water, meeting, disparted -with a hoarse thunder. This ever-growing and tempestuous violence was -reiterated in a myriad raucous, clamant voices along the sands and -among the reefs and rocks and weed-covered wave-hollowed crags. - -Above the shore a ridge of tamarisk-fringed dune suspended, hanging -there dark and dishevelled, like a gigantic eyebrow on the forehead of -a sombre and mysterious being. Beyond this, again, lay a stretch of -barren moor, caught and claspt a mile away by a dark belt of pines, -amid which the incessant volume of the wind passed with a shrill -whistling. Further in among the trees were oases of a solemn silence, -filled only at intervals with a single flute-like wind-eddy, falling -there as the song of a child lost and baffled in a waste place. - -Over and above the noise of the sea was a hoarse cry thridding it -as a flying shuttle in a gigantic loom. This was the wind, which -continuously swept from wave to wave--shrewd, salt, bitter with the -sterile breath of the wilderness whereon it roamed, crying and moaning, -baying, howling, insatiate. - -The sea-fowl, congregating from afar, had swarmed inland. Their wailing -cries filled the spray-wet obscurities. The blackness that comes before -the deepest dark lay in the hollow of the great wings of the tempest. -Peace nowhere prevailed, for in those abysmal depths where the wind was -not even a whisper, there was listless gloom only, because no strife is -there, and no dream lives amid those silent apathies. - -Neither upon the waters nor on the land was there sign of human life. -In that remote region, solitude was not a dream but a reality. An -ancient land, this loneliest corner of sea-washed Brittany; an ancient -land, with ever upon it the light of olden dreams, the gloom of -indefinable tragedy, the mystery of a destiny long ago begun and never -fulfilled. - -Lost like a rock in a forest, a weather-worn, ivy-grown château stood -within sound, though not within sight, of this tempestuous sea. All -about it was the deep, sonorous echo of wind and wave, transmuted into -a myriad cries among the wailing pines and oaks and vast beeches of the -woods of Kerival. Wind and wave, too, made themselves audible amid the -gables and in the huge chimneys of the old manor-house; even in the -draughty corridors an echo of the sea could be heard. - -The pathways of the forest were dank with sodden leaves, the _débris_ -of autumn which the snows of winter had saved from the whirling gales -of January. Underneath the brushwood and the lower boughs these lay in -brown, clotted masses, emitting a fugitive, indefinite odor, as though -the ghost of a dead year passed in that damp and lifeless effluence. -But along the frontiers of the woods there was an eddying dust of -leaves and small twigs, and part at least of the indeterminate rumor -which filled the air was caused by this frail lapping as of innumerable -minute wings. - -In one of those leaf-quiet alleys, shrouded in a black-green darkness -save where in one spot the gloom was illumined into a vivid brown, -because of a wandering beam of light from a turret in the château, a -man stood. The head was forwardly inclined, the whole figure intent as -a listening animal. He and his shadow were as those flowers of darkness -whose nocturnal bloom may be seen of none save in the shadowy land of -dream. - -When for a moment the wind-wavered beam of light fell athwart his -face--so dark and wild that he might well have been taken for a -nameless creature of the woods--he moved. - -With a sudden gesture he flung his arms above his head. His shadow -sprang to one side with fantastic speed, leaping like a diver into the -gulf of darkness. - -"Annaik," he cried, "Annaik, Annaik!" - -The moan of the wind out of the sea, the confused noise of the wind's -wings baffling through the woods; no other answer than these, no other -sound. - -"Annaik, Annaik!" - -There was pain as of a wounded beast in the harsh cry of this haunter -of the dark; but the next moment it was as though the lost shadow had -leapt back, for a darkness came about the man, and he lapsed into the -obscurity as a wave sinks into a wave. - -But, later, out of the silence came a voice. - -"Ah, Annaik!" it cried, "ah, Annaik, forsooth! It is Annaik of Kerival -you are, and I the dust upon the land of your fathers--but, by the -blood of Ronan, it is only a woman you are; and, if I had you here it -is a fall of my fist you would be having--aye, the stroke and the blow, -for all that I love you as I do, white woman, aye, and curse you and -yours for that loving!" - -Then, once again, there was silence. Only the screeching of the -wind among the leaves and tortured branches; only the deep roar of -the tempest at the heart of the forest; only the thunder of the sea -throbbing pulse-like through the night. Nor when, a brief while later, -a white owl, swifter but not less silent than a drift of vapor, swooped -that way, was there living creature in that solitary place. - -The red-yellow beam still turned into brown the black-green of that -windy alley; but the man, and the shadow of him, and the pain of the -beast that was in him, and the cry of the baffled soul, the cry that -none might know or even guess--of all this sorrow of the night, nothing -remained save the red light lifting and falling through the shadowy -hair of what the poets of old called The Dark Woman ... Night. - -Only, who may know if, in that warmth and glow within the House of -Kerival, some sudden menace from the outside world of life did not -knock at the heart of Annaik, where she, tall and beautiful in her -cream-white youth and with her mass of tawny hair, stood by Ynys, -whose dusky loveliness was not less than her own--both radiant in the -fire-light, with laughter upon the lips and light within their eyes. - -Oh, flame that burns where fires of home are lit! and oh, flame that -burns in the heart to whom life has not said, Awake! and oh, flame that -smoulders from death to life, and from life to death, in the dumb lives -of those to whom the primrose way is closed! Everywhere the burning -of the burning, the flame of the flame; pain and the shadow of pain, -joy and the rapt breath of joy, flame of the flame that, burning, -destroyeth not till the flame is no more! - - * * * * * - -It was the night of the home-coming of Alan. So long had Ynys and -Annaik looked forward to this hour, that now hardly could they believe -the witness of their eyes when with eager glances they scrutinized the -new-comer--their Alanik of old. - -He stood before the great fire of logs. Upon his face the sharp, -damp breath of the storm still lingered, but in his eyes was a light -brighter than any dancing flame would cause, and in his blood a pulse -that leapt because of another reason than that swift ride through the -stormy woods of Kerival. - -At the red and stormy break of that day Ynys had awaked with a song -of joy in her heart that from hour to hour had found expression in -bird-like carollings, little words and fugitive phrases which rippled -from her lips, the sunshine-spray from the fount of life whereon her -heart swam as a nenuphar on an upwelling pool. Annaik also had waked -at that dawn of storm. She had risen in silence, and in silence had -remained all day; giving no sign that the flame within her frayed the -nerves of her heart. - -Throughout the long hours of tempest, and into that dusk wherein the -voice of the sea moved, moaning, across the land, laughter and dream -had alternated with Ynys. Annaik looked at her strangely at times, but -said nothing. Once, standing in the twilight of the dark-raftered room, -Ynys clasped her hands across her bosom and murmured, "Oh, heart be -still! My heaven is come." And in that hour, and in that place, she who -was twin to her--strange irony of motherhood, that should give birth in -one hour to Day and Night, for even as day and night were these twain, -so unlike in all things--in that hour and in that place Annaik also -clasped her hands across her bosom, and the words that died across the -shadow of her lips were, "Oh, heart be still! My hell is near." - -And now he for whom both had waited stood, flooded in the red fire glow -which leaped from panel to panel, and from rafter to rafter, while, -without, the howling of the wind rose and fell in prolonged, monotonous -cadences,--anathemas, rather,--whirled through a darkness full of -bewilderment and terror. - -As for Alan, it was indeed for joy to him to stand there, home once -more, with not only the savagery of the tempest behind him, but also -left behind, that unspeakably far-off, bewilderingly remote city of -Paris whence he had so swiftly come. - -It is said of an ancient poet of the Druid days that he had the power -to see the lives of the living, and these as though they were phantoms, -separate from the body. Was there not a young king of Albainn who, in a -perilous hour, discovered this secret of old time, and knew how a life -may be hidden away from the body so that none may know of it, save the -wind that whispers all things, and the tides of day and night that bear -all things upon their dark flood? - -King of Albainn, poet of the old time, not alone three youthful -dreamers would you have seen, there, in that storm-beset room. For -there you would have seen six figures standing side by side. Three of -these would have been Alan de Kerival, and Ynys the Dark, and Annaik -the Fair; and of the other three, one would be of a dusky-haired woman -with starry, luminous eyes; and one a pale woman with a wealth of tawny -hair, with eyes aflame, meteors in a desert place; and one a man, -young and strong and fair to see as Alan de Kerival, but round about -him a gloom, and through that gloom his eyes as stars seen among the -melancholy hills. - -Happy laughter of the world that is always young--happy, in that we are -not all seers of old or kings of Albainn! For who, looking into the -mirrors of Life and seeing all that is to be seen, would look again, -save those few to whom Life and Death have come sisterly and whispered -the secret that some have discerned, how these twain are one and the -same. - -Nevertheless, in that happy hour for him, Alan saw nothing of what Ynys -feared. Annaik had abruptly yielded to a strange gayety, and her swift -laugh and gypsy smile made his heart glad. - -Never had he seen, even in Paris, women more beautiful. Deep-set as -his heart was in the beauty of Ynys, he found himself admiring that of -Annaik with new eyes. Truly, she was just such a woman as he had often -imagined when Ian had recited to him the ballad of the Sons of Usna or -that of how Dermid and Graine fled from the wrath of Fionn. - -And they, too, looking at their tall cousin, with his wavy brown hair, -broad, low brows, gray-blue eyes, and erect carriage, thought him the -comeliest man to be seen in France; and each in her own way was proud -and glad, though one, also, with killing pain. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE DREAM AND THE DREAMERS - - -Soon after supper Annaik withdrew. Ynys and Alan were glad to be alone, -and yet Annaik's absence perturbed them. In going she bade good-night -to her cousin, but took no notice of her sister. - -At first the lovers were silent though they had much to say, and in -particular Alan was anxious to know what it was that Ynys had alluded -to in her letter when she warned him that unforeseen difficulties were -about their way. - -It was pleasant to sit in that low-roofed, dark old room, and feel the -world fallen away from them. Hand in hand they looked at each other -lovingly, or dreamed into the burning logs, seeing there all manner of -beautiful visions. Outside, the wind still moaned and howled, though -with less of savage violence, and the rain had ceased. - -For a time Ynys would have no talk of Kerival; Alan was to tell all -he could concerning his life in Paris, what he had done, what he had -dreamed of, and what he hoped for now. But at last he laughingly -refused to speak more of himself, and pressed her to reveal what had -been a source of anxiety. - -"You know, dear," she said, as she rose and leaned against the -mantel-piece, her tall figure and dusky hair catching a warm glow from -the fire--"you know how pitiable is this feud between my father and -mother--how for years they have seen next to nothing of each other; -how they live in the same house and yet are strangers? You know, too, -how more than ever unfortunate this is, for themselves, and for Annaik -and me, on account of our mother being an invalid, and of our father -being hardly less frail. Well, I have discovered that the chief, if not -indeed the only abiding source of misunderstanding is _you_, dear Alan!" - -"But why, Ynys?" - -"Ah, why? That is, of course, what I cannot tell you. Have you no -suspicion, no idea?" - -"None. All I know is that M. de Kerival allows me to bear his name, -but that he dislikes, if, indeed, he does not actually hate me." - -"There is some reason. I came upon him talking to my mother a short -time ago. She had told him of your imminent return. - -"'I never wish to see his face,' my father cried, with fierce -vehemence; then, seeing me, he refrained." - -"Well, I shall know all the day after to-morrow. Meanwhile, Ynys, we -have the night to ourselves. Dear, I want to learn one thing. What -does Annaik know? Does she know that we love each other? Does she know -that we have told each other of this love, and that we are secretly -betrothed?" - -"She _must_ know that I love you; and sometimes I think she knows that -you love me. But ... oh, Allan! I am so unhappy about it.... I fear -that Annaik loves you also, and that this will come between us all. It -has already frozen her to me and me to her." - -Alan looked at Ynys with startled eyes. He knew Annaik better than -any one did; and he dreaded the insurgent bitterness of that wild -and wayward nature. Moreover, in a sense he loved her, and it was for -sorrow to him that she should suffer in a way wherein he could be of no -help. - -At that moment the door opened, and Matieu, a white-haired old servant, -bowing ceremoniously, remarked that M. le Marquis desired to see -Mamzelle Ynys immediately. - -Ynys glanced round, told Matieu that she would follow, and then turned -to Alan. How beautiful she was! he thought; more and more beautiful -every time he saw her. Ah! fair mystery of love, which puts a glory -about the one loved; a glory that is no phantasmal light, but the -realized beauty evoked by seeing eyes and calling heart. On her face -was a wonderful color, a delicate flush that came and went. Again and -again she made a characteristic gesture, putting her right hand to her -forehead and then through the shadowy, wavy hair which Alan loved so -well and ever thought of as the fragrant dusk. How glad he was that she -was tall and lithe, graceful as a young birch; that she was strong and -kissed brown and sweet of sun and wind; that her beauty was old as the -world, and fresh as every dawn, and new as each recurrent spring! No -wonder he was a poet, since Ynys was the living poem who inspired all -that was best in his life, all that was fervent in his brain. - -Thought, kindred to this, kept him a long while by the fire in deep -revery, after Ynys had thrilled him by her parting kisses and had gone -to her father. He realized, then, how it was she gave him the sense of -womanhood as no other woman had done. In her, he recognized the symbol -as well as the individual. All women shared in his homage because of -her. His deep love for her, his ever growing passion, could evoke from -him a courtesy, a chivalry, toward all women which only the callous or -the coarse failed to note. She was his magic. The light of their love -was upon every thing: everywhere he found synonyms and analogues of -"Ynys." Deeply as he loved beauty, he had learned to love it far more -keenly and understandingly, because of her. He saw now through the -accidental, and everywhere discerned the eternal beauty, the echoes of -whose wandering are in every heart and brain, though few discern the -white vision or hear the haunting voice. - -And with his love had come knowledge of many things hidden from him -before. Sequences were revealed, where he had perceived only blind -inconsequence. Nature became for him a scroll, a palimpsest with daily -mutations. With each change he found a word, a clew, leading to the -fuller elucidation of that primeval knowledge which, fragmentarily, -from age to age has been painfully lost, regained, and lost again, -though never yet wholly irrecoverable. - -Through this new knowledge, too, he had come to understand the supreme -wonder and promise, the supreme hope of our human life in the mystery -of motherhood. All this and much more he owed to Ynys, and to his love -for her. She was all that a woman can be to a man. In her he found -the divine abstractions which are the beacons of the human soul in -its obscure wayfaring--Romance, Love, Beauty. It was not enough that -she gave him romance, that she gave him love, that she was the most -beautiful of women in his eyes. When he thought of the one, it was to -see the starry eyes and to hear the charmed voice of Romance herself, -in the voice and in the eyes of Ynys: when he thought of Love it was to -hear Ynys's heart beating, to listen to the secret rhythms in Ynys's -brain, to feel the life-giving sun-flood that was in her pure but -intense and glowing passion. - -Thus it was that she had for him that immutable attraction which a -few women have for a few men; an appeal, a charm, that atmosphere of -romance, that air of ideal beauty, wherein lies the secret of all -passionate art. The world without wonder, the world without mystery! -That, indeed, is the rainbow without colors, the sunrise without living -gold, the noon void of light. - -To him, moreover, there was but one woman. In Ynys he had found her. -This exquisite prototype was at once a child of nature, a beautiful -pagan, a daughter of the sun; was at once this and a soul alive with -the spiritual life, intent upon the deep meanings lurking everywhere, -wrought to wonder even by the common habitudes of life, to mystery -even by the familiar and the explicable. Indeed, the mysticism which -was part of the spiritual inheritance come with her northern strain was -one of the deep bonds which united them. - -What if both at times were wrought too deeply by this beautiful dream? -What if the inner life triumphed now and then, and each forgot the -deepest instinct of life, that here the body is overlord and the soul -but a divine consort? There are three races of man. There is the myriad -race which loses all, through (not bestiality, for the brute world is -clean and sane) perverted animalism; and there is the myriad race which -denounces humanity, and pins all its faith and joy to a life the very -conditions of whose existence are incompatible with the law to which we -are subject--the sole law, the law of Nature. Then there is that small -untoward clan, which knows the divine call of the spirit through the -brain, and the secret whisper of the soul in the heart, and forever -perceives the veils of mystery and the rainbows of hope upon our human -horizons; which hears and sees, and yet turns wisely, meanwhile, -to the life of the green earth, of which we are part; to the common -kindred of living things, with which we are at one--is content, in a -word, to live, because of the dream that makes living so mysteriously -sweet and poignant; and to dream, because of the commanding immediacy -of life. - -As yet, of course, Alan and Ynys had known little of the vicissitudes -of aroused life. What they did know, foresee, was due rather to -the second-sight of the imagination than to the keen knowledge of -experience. - -In Alan Ynys found all that her heart craved. She discovered this -nearly too late. A year before this last home-coming of her cousin, -she had been formally betrothed to Andrik de Morvan, the friend of her -childhood and for whom she had a true affection, and in that betrothal -had been quietly glad. When, one midwinter day, she and Alan walked -through an upland wood and looked across the snowy pastures and the -white slopes beyond, all aglow with sunlight, and then suddenly turned -toward each other, and saw in the eyes of each a wonderful light, and -the next moment were heart to heart, it was all a revelation. - -For long she did not realize what it meant. On that unforgettable day, -when they had left the forest ridge and were near Kerival again, she -had sat for a time on one of the rude cattle-gates which are frequent -in these woodlands, while Alan had leant beside her, looking up -with eyes too eloquent, and speaking of what he dreamed, with sweet -stammering speech of new found love. - -How she had struggled, mentally, with her duty, as she conceived it, -toward Andrik. She was betrothed to him; he loved her; she loved him -too, although even already she realized that there is a love which is -not only invincible and indestructible but that comes unsought, has no -need for human conventions, is neither moral nor immoral but simply -all-potent and thenceforth sovereign. To yield to that may be wrong; -but, if so, it is wrong to yield to the call of hunger, the cry of -thirst, the whisper of sleep, the breath of ill, the summons of death. -It comes, and that is all. The green earth may be another Endymion, -and may dream that the cold moonshine is all in all; but when the sun -rises, and a new heat and glory and passion of life are come, then -Endymion simply awakes. - -It had been a sadness to her to have to tell Andrik she no longer loved -him as he was fain to be loved. He would have no finality, then; he -held her to the bond--and in Brittany there is a pledge akin to the -"hand-fast" of the north, which makes a betrothal almost as binding as -marriage. - -Andrik de Morvan had gone to the Marquis de Kerival, and told him what -Ynys had said. - -"She is but a girl," the seigneur remarked coldly. "And you are wrong -in thinking she can be in love with any one else. There is no one for -whom she can care so much as for you; no one whom she has met with whom -she could mate; no one with whom I would allow her to mate." - -"But that matters little, if she will not marry me!" the young man had -urged. - -"My daughter is my daughter, De Morvan. I cannot compel her to marry -you. I know her well enough to be sure that she would ignore any -command of this kind. But women are fools; and one can get them to do -what one wants, in one way if not in another. Let her be a while." - -"But the betrothal!" - -"Let it stand. But do not press it. Indeed, go away for a year. You are -heir to your mother's estates in Touraine. Go there, work, learn all -you can. Meanwhile, write occasionally to Ynys. Do not address her as -your betrothed, but at the same time let her see that it is the lover -who writes. Then, after a few months, confide that your absence is due -solely to her, that you cannot live without her; and that, after a -vain exile, you write to ask if you may come and see her. They are all -the same. It is the same thing with my mares, for which Kerival is so -famous. Some are wild, some are docile, some skittish, some vicious, -some good, a few flawless--but.... Well, they are all mares. One knows. -A mare is not a sphinx. These complexities of which we hear so much, -what are they? Spindrift. The sea is simply the sea, all the same. The -tide ebbs, though the poets reverse nature. Ebb and flow, the lifting -wind, the lifted wave; we know the way of it all. It has its mystery, -its beauty; but we don't really expect to see a nereid in the hollow of -the wave, or to catch the echo of a triton in the call of the wind. As -for Venus Anadyomene, the foam of which she was made is the froth in -poets' brains. Believe me, Annaik, my friend, women are simply women; -creatures not yet wholly tamed, but tractable in the main, delightful, -valuable often, but certainly not worth the tribute of passion and pain -they obtain from foolish men like yourself." - -With this worldly wisdom Andrik de Morvan had gone home, unconvinced. -He loved Ynys; and sophistries were an ineffectual balm. - -But as for Ynys, she had long made up her mind. Betrothal or no -betrothal, she belonged now only to one man, and that man, Alan de -Kerival. She was his and his alone, by every natural right. How could -she help the accident by which she had cared for Andrik before she -loved Alan? Now, indeed, it would be sacrilege to be other than wholly -Alan's. Was her heart not his, and her life with her heart, and with -both her deathless devotion? - -Alan, she knew, trusted her absolutely. Before he went back to Paris, -after their love was no longer a secret, he had never once asked her to -forfeit any thing of her intimacy with Andrik, nor had he even urged -the open cancelling of the betrothal. But she was well aware his own -absolute loyalty involved for him a like loyalty from her; and she knew -that forgiveness does not belong to those natures which stake all upon -a single die. - -And so the matter stood thus still. Ynys and Andrik de Morvan were -nominally betrothed; and not only the Marquis and the Marquise de -Kerival, but Andrik himself, looked upon the bond as absolute. - -Perhaps Lois de Kerival was not without some suspicion as to how -matters were between the betrothed pair. Certainly she knew that Ynys -was not one who would give up any real or imagined happiness because of -a conventional arrangement or on account of any conventional duty. - -In Alan, Ynys found all that he found in her. When she looked at him, -she wondered how she could ever have dreamed of Andrik as a lover, -for Alan was all that Andrik was not. How proud and glad she felt -because of his great height and strength, his vivid features with their -gray-blue eyes and spirituel expression, his wavy brown hair, a very -type of youthful and beautiful manhood! Still more she revered and -loved the inner Alan whom she knew so well, and recognized with a proud -humility that this lover of hers, whom the great Daniel Darc had spoken -of as a man of genius, was not only her knight, but her comrade, her -mate, her ideal. - -Often the peasants of Kerival had speculated if the young seigneur -would join hands with her or with Annaik. Some hoped the one, some the -other; but those who knew Alan otherwise than merely by sight felt -certain that Ynys was the future bride. - -"They are made for each other," old Jeanne Mael, the village authority, -was wont to exclaim; "and the good God will bring them together soon or -late. 'Tis a fair, sweet couple they are; none so handsome anywhere. -That tall, dark lass will be a good mother when her hour comes; an' the -child o' him an' her should be the bonniest in the whole wide world." - -With that all who saw them together agreed. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE WALKER IN THE NIGHT - - -It was an hour from midnight when Alan rose, opened a window, and -looked out. The storm was over. He could see the stars glistening like -silver fruit among the upper branches of the elms. Behind the great -cypress known as the Fate of Kerival there was a golden radiance, as -though a disk of radiant bronze were being slowly wheeled round and -round, invisible itself but casting a quivering gleam upon the fibrous -undersides of the cypress spires. Soon the moon would lift upward, and -her paling gold become foam-white along the wide reaches of the forest. - -The wind had suddenly fallen. In this abrupt lapse into silence there -was something mysterious. After so much violence, after that wild, -tempestuous cry, such stillness! There was no more than a faint -rustling sound, as though invisible feet were stealthily flying along -the pathway of the upper boughs and through the dim defiles in the -dense coverts of oak and beech in the very heart of the woods. Only, -from hitherward of the unseen dunes floated a melancholy, sighing -refrain, the echo of the eddying sea-breath among the pines. Beyond the -last sands, the deep, hollow boom of the sea itself. - -To stay indoors seemed to Alan a wanton forfeiture of beauty. The -fragrance of the forest intoxicated him. Spring was come, indeed. -This wild storm had ruined nothing, for at its fiercest it had swept -overhead; and on the morrow the virginal green world would be more -beautiful than ever. Everywhere the green fire of spring would be -litten anew. A green flame would pass from meadow to hedgerow, from -hedgerow to the tangled thickets of bramble and dog-rose, from the -underwoods to the inmost forest glades. Everywhere song would be to -the birds, everywhere young life would pulse, everywhere the rhythm -of a new rapture would run rejoicing. The miracle of spring would be -accomplished in the sight of all men, of all birds and beasts, of all -green life. Each, in its kind, would have a swifter throb in the red -blood or the vivid sap. - -No, he could not wait. No, Alan added to himself with a smile, not even -though to sleep in the House of Kerival was to be beneath the same roof -as Ynys--to be but a few yards, a passage, a corridor away. Ah! for -sure, he could dream his dream as well out there among the gleaming -boughs, in the golden sheen of the moon, under the stars. Was there not -the silence for deep peace, and the voice of the unseen sea for echo -to the deep tides of love which surged obscurely in his heart? Yes, he -would go out to that beautiful redemption of the night. How often, in -fevered Paris, he had known that healing, either when his gaze was held -by the quiet stars, as he kept his hours-long vigil, or when he escaped -westward along the banks of the Seine, and could wander undisturbed -across grassy spaces or under shadowy boughs! - -In the great hall of the Manor he found white-haired Matieu asleep in -his wicker chair. The old man silently opened the heavy oaken door, -and, with a smile which somewhat perplexed Alan, bowed to him as he -passed forth. - -Could it be a space only of a few hours that divided him from his -recent arrival, he wondered. The forest was no longer the same. Then it -was swept by the wind, lashed by the rains, and was everywhere tortured -into a tempestuous music. Now it was so still, save for a ceaseless -faint dripping from wet leaves and the conduits of a myriad sprays -and branches, that he could hear the occasional shaking of the wings -of hidden birds, ruffling out their plumage because of the moonlit -quietudes that were come again. - -And then, too, he had seen Ynys; had held her hand in his; had looked -in her beautiful, hazel-green eyes, dusky and wonderful as a starlit -gloaming because of the depth of her dear love; had pressed his -lips to hers, and felt the throbbing of her heart against his own. -There, in the forest-edge, it was difficult to realize all this. It -would be time to turn soon, to walk back along the sycamore-margined -Seine embankment, to reach the Tour de l'Ile and be at his post in -the observatory again. Then he glanced backward, and saw a red light -shining from the room where the Marquis de Kerival sat up late night -after night, and he wondered if Ynys were still there, or if she were -now in her room and asleep, or if she lay in a waking dream. - -For a time he stared at this beacon. Then, troubled by many thoughts, -but most by his love, he moved slowly into one of the beech avenues -which radiated from the fantastic mediæval sun-dial at the end of the -tulip garden in front of the château. - -While the moon slowly lifted from branch to branch a transient stir of -life came into the forest. - -Here and there he heard low cries, sometimes breaking into abrupt -eddies of arrested song; thrushes, he knew, ever swift to slide their -music out against any tide of light. Once or twice a blackcap, in one -of the beeches near the open, sang so poignantly a brief strain that he -thought it that of a nightingale. Later, in an oak glade, he heard the -unmistakable song itself. - -The sea sound came hollowly under the boughs like a spent billow. -Instinctively he turned that way, and so crossed a wide glade that -opened on the cypress alley to the west of the château. - -Just as he emerged upon this glade he thought he saw a stooping figure -glide swiftly athwart the northern end of it and disappear among the -cypresses. Startled, he stood still. - -No one stirred. Nothing moved. He could hear no sound save the faint -sighing of the wind-eddy among the pines, the dull rhythmic beat of the -sea falling heavily upon the sands. - -"It must have been a delusion," he muttered. Yet, for the moment, he -had felt certain that the crouching figure of a man had moved swiftly -out of the shadow of the solitary wide-spreading thorn he knew so well, -and had disappeared into the darker shadow of the cypress alley. - -After all, what did it matter? It could only be some poor fellow -poaching. With a smile, Alan remembered how often he had sinned -likewise. He would listen, however, and give the man a fright, for -he knew that Tristran de Kerival was stern in his resentment against -poachers, partly because he was liberal in certain woodland-freedom -he granted, on the sole condition that none of the peasants ever came -within the home domain. - -Soon, however, he was convinced that he was mistaken. Deep silence -prevailed everywhere. Almost, he fancied, he could hear the soft fall -of the dew. A low whirring sound showed that a night-jar had already -begun his summer wooing. Now that, as he knew from Ynys, the cuckoo -was come, and that the swallows had suddenly multiplied from a score -of pioneers into a battalion of ever-flying darts; now that he had -listened to the nightingales calling through the moonlit woods and had -heard the love-note of the night-jar, the hot weather must be come at -last--that glorious tide of golden life which flows from April to June -and makes them the joy of the world. - -Slowly he walked across the glade. At the old thorn he stopped, and -leaned a while against its rugged, twisted bole, recalling incident -after incident associated with it. - -It was strangely restful there. Around him was the quiet sea of -moonlight; yonder, behind the cypresses and the pine-crowned dunes, -was the quiet sea of moving waters; yet, in the one, there was scarce -less of silence than in the other. Ah! he remembered abruptly, on just -such a night, years ago, he and Annaik had stood long there, hand in -hand, listening to a nightingale. What a strange girl she was, even -then! Well he recalled how, at the end of the song and when the little -brown singer had slipped from its bough, like a stone slung from a -sling, Annaik had laughed, though he knew not at what, and had all at -once unfastened her hair, and let its tawny bronze-red mass fall about -her shoulders. She was so beautiful and wild that he had clasped her -in his arms, and had kissed her again and again. And Annaik ... oh, he -remembered, half shyly, half exultantly ... she had laughed again, but -more low, and had tied the long drifts of her hair around his neck like -a blood-red scarf. - -It gave him a strange emotion to recall all this. Did Annaik also think -of it ever, he wondered? Then, too, had they not promised somewhat to -each other? Yes ... Annaik had said: "One night we shall come here -again, and then, if you do not love me as much as you do now, I shall -strangle you with my hair: and if you love me more we shall go away -into the forest, and never return, or not for long, long; but if you do -not love me at all, then you are to tell me so, and I will----" - -"What?" he had asked, when she stopped abruptly. - -At that, however, she had said no more as to what was in her mind, but -had asked him to carve upon the thorn the "A" of her name and the "A" -of his into a double "A." Yes, of course, he had done this. Where was -it? he pondered. Surely midway on the southward side, for then as now -the moonlight would be there. - -With an eagerness of which he was conscious he slipped from where he -leaned, and examined the bole of the tree. A heavy branch intervened. -This he caught and withheld, and the light flooded upon the gnarled -trunk. - -With a start, Alan almost relinquished the branch. There, unmistakable, -was a large carven "A," but not only was it the old double "A" made -into a single letter, but clearly the change had been made quite -recently, apparently within a few hours. Moreover, it was now linked to -another letter. The legend ran: "_A & J_." - -Puzzled, he looked close. There could be no mistake. The cutting was -recent. The "_J_," indeed, might have been that moment done. Suddenly -an idea flashed into his mind. He stooped and examined the mossed -roots. Yes, there were the fragments. He took one and put it between -his teeth; the wood was soft, and had the moisture of fibre recently -severed. - -Who was "J"? Alan pondered over every name he could think of. He -knew no one whose baptismal name began thus, with the exception of -Jervaise de Morvan, the brother of Andrik, and he was married and -resident in distant Pondicherry. Otherwise there was but Jak Bourzak, -the woodcutter--a bent, broken-down old man who could not have cut -the letters for the good reason that he was unable to write and was -so ignorant that, even in that remote region, he was called Jak the -Stupid. Alan was still pondering over this when suddenly the stillness -was broken by the loud screaming of peacocks. - -Kerival was famous for these birds, of which the peasantry stood in -superstitious awe. Indeed, a legend was current to the effect that -Tristran de Kerival maintained those resplendent creatures because -they were the souls of his ancestors, or such of them as before death -had not been able to gain absolution for their sins. When they were -heard crying harshly before rain or at sundown, or sometimes in the -moonlight, the hearers shuddered. "The lost souls of Kerival" became a -saying, and there were prophets here and there who foreboded ill for -Tristran the Silent, or some one near and dear to him, whenever that -strange clamor rang forth unexpectedly. - -Alan himself was surprised, startled. The night was so still, no -further storm was imminent, and the moon had been risen for some time. -Possibly the peacocks had strolled into the cypress alley, to strut to -and fro in the moonshine, as their wont was in their wooing days, and -two of them had come into jealous dispute. - -Still that continuous harsh tumult seemed rather to have the note of -alarm than of quarrel. Alan walked to the seaward side of the thorn, -but still kept within its shadow. - -The noise was now not only clamant but startling. The savage screaming, -like that of barbaric trumpets, filled the night. - -Swiftly the listener crossed the glade, and was soon among the -cypresses. There, while the dull thud of the falling seas was more than -ever audible, the screams of the peacocks were so insistent that he had -ears for these alone. - -At the eastern end of the alley the glade broke away into scattered -pines, and from these swelled a series of low dunes. Alan could see -them clearly from where he stood, under the boughs of a huge yew, one -of several that grew here and there among their solemn, columnar kin. - -His gaze was upon this open space when, abruptly, he started. A tall, -slim figure, coming from the shore, moved slowly inland across the -dunes. - -Who could this walker in the dark be? The shadowy Walker in the Night -herself, mayhap; the dreaded soulless woman who wanders at dead of -night through forests, or by desolate shores, or by the banks of the -perilous _marais_. - -Often he had heard of her. When any man met this woman, his fate -depended on whether he saw her before she caught sight of him. If she -saw him first, she had but to sing her wild, strange song, and he would -have to go to her; and when he was before her two flames would come out -of her eyes, and one flame would burn up his life as though it were dry -tinder, and the other would wrap round his soul like a scarlet shawl, -and she would take it and live with it in a cavern underground for a -year and a day. And on that last day she would let it go, as a hare is -let go a furlong beyond a greyhound. Then it would fly like a windy -shadow from glade to glade or from dune to dune, in the vain hope to -reach a wayside Calvary; but ever in vain. Sometimes the Holy Tree -would almost be reached; then, with a gliding swiftness, like a flood -racing down a valley, the Walker in the Night would be alongside the -fugitive. Now and again unhappy night-farers--unhappy they, for sure, -for never does weal remain with any one who hears what no human ear -should hearken--would be startled by a sudden laughing in the darkness. -This was when some such terrible chase had happened, and when the -creature of the night had taken the captive soul, in the last moments -of the last hour of the last day of its possible redemption, and rent -it this way and that, as a hawk scatters the feathered fragments of its -mutilated quarry. - -Alan thought of this wild legend, and shuddered. Years ago he had been -foolhardy enough to wish to meet the phantom, to see her before she saw -him, and to put a spell upon her. For, if this were possible, he could -compel her to whisper some of her secret lore, and she could give him -spells to keep him scathless till old age. - -But as, with fearful gaze, he stared at the figure which so leisurely -moved toward the cypress alley, he was puzzled by some vague -resemblance, by something familiar. The figure was that of a woman, -unmistakably; and she moved as though she were in a dream. - -But who could it be, there, in that lonely place, at that hour of the -night? Who would venture or care.... - -In a flash all was clear. It was Annaik! - -There was no room for doubt. He might have known her lithe walk, her -wildwood grace, her peculiar carriage; but before recognition of these -had come, he had caught a glimpse of her hair in the moonlight. It was -like burnished brass, in that yellow shine. There was no other such -hair in the world, he believed. - -But ... Annaik! What could she be doing there? How had she been able to -leave the château; when had she stolen forth; where had she wandered; -whither was she going; to what end? - -These and other thoughts stormed through Alan's mind. Almost--he -muttered below his breath--almost he would rather have seen the Walker -in the Night. - -As she drew nearer he could see her as clearly as though it were -daylight. She appeared to be thinking deeply, and ever and again be -murmuring disconnected phrases. His heart smote him when he saw her, -twice, raise her arms and then wring her hands as if in sore straits of -sorrow. - -He did not stir. He would wait, he thought. It might add to Annaik's -strange grief, if grief it were, to betray his presence. Again, was -it possible that she was there to meet some one--to encounter the "J" -whose initial was beside her own on the old thorn? How pale she was! -he noticed. A few yards away her dress caught; she hesitated, slowly -disengaged herself, but did not advance again. For the third time she -wrung her hands. - -What could it mean? Alan was about to move forward when he heard her -voice: - -"Oh, Alan, Alan, Alan!" - -What ... had she seen him? He flushed there in the shadow, and words -rose to his lips. Then he was silent, for she spoke again: - -"I hate her ... I hate her ... not for herself, no, no, no ... but -because she has taken you from me. Why does Ynys have you, all of you, -when I have loved you all along? None of us knew any thing--none, till -last Noël. Then we knew; only, neither you nor Ynys knew that I loved -you as a soul in hell loves the memory of its earthly joy." - -Strange words, there in that place, at that hour; but far stranger -the passionless voice in which the passionate words were uttered. -Bewildered, Alan leaned forward, intent. The words had waned to a -whisper, but were now incoherent. Fragmentary phrases, irrelevant -words, what could it all mean? - -Suddenly an idea made him start. He moved slightly, so as to catch the -full flood of a moonbeam as it fell on Annaik's face. - -Yes, he was right. Her eyes were open, but were fixed in an unseeing -stare. For the first time, too, he noted that she was clad simply in -a long dressing-gown. Her feet were bare, and were glistening with the -wet they had gathered; on her lustrous hair, nothing but the moonlight. - -He had remembered. Both Annaik and Ynys had a tendency to somnambulism, -a trait inherited from their father. It had been cured years ago, he -had understood. But here--here was proof that Annaik at any rate was -still subject to that mysterious malady of sleep. - -That she was absolutely trance-bound he saw clearly. But what he should -do--that puzzled, that bewildered him. - -Slowly Annaik, after a brief hesitancy when he fancied she was about to -awake, moved forward again. - -She came so close that almost she brushed against him; would have done -so, indeed, but that he was hidden from contact as well as from sight -by the boughs of the yew, which on that side swept to the ground. - -Alan put out his hand. Then he withdrew it. No, he thought, he would -let her go unmolested, and, if possible, unawaked: but he would follow -her, lest evil befell. She passed. His nerves thrilled. What was this -strange emotion, that gave him a sensation almost as though he had seen -his own wraith? But different ... for, oh--he could not wait to think -about that, he muttered. - -He was about to stoop and emerge from the yew-boughs when he heard a -sound which made him stop abruptly. - -It was a step; of that he felt sure. And at hand, too. The next moment -he was glad he had not disclosed himself, for a crouching figure -stealthily followed Annaik. - -Surely that was the same figure he had seen cross the glade, the figure -that had slipped from the thorn? - -If so, could it be the person who had cut the letter "J" on the bark of -the tree? The man kept so much in the shadow that it was difficult to -obtain a glimpse of his face. Alan waited. In a second or two he would -have to pass the yew. - -Just before the mysterious pursuer reached the old tree, he stopped. -Alan furtively glanced to his left. He saw that Annaik had suddenly -halted. She stood intent, as though listening. Possibly she had awaked. -He saw her lips move. She spoke, or called something; what, he could -not hear because of the intermittent screaming of the peacocks. - -When he looked at the man in the shadow he started. A moonbeam had -penetrated the obscurity, and the face was white against the black -background of a cypress. - -Alan recognized the man in a moment. It was Jud Kerbastiou, the -forester. What ... was it possible: could _he_ be the "J" who had -linked his initial with that of Annaik? - -It was incredible. The man was not only a boor, but one with rather -an ill repute. At any rate, he was known to be a poacher as well as a -woodlander of the old Breton kind--men who would never live save in the -forest, any more than a gypsy would become a clerk and live in a street. - -It was said among the peasants of Kerival that his father, old Iouenn -Kerbastiou, the charcoal burner, was an illegitimate brother of the -late Marquis--so that Jud, or Judik, as he was generally called, was -a blood-relation of the great folk at the château. Once this had been -hinted to the Marquis Tristran. It was for the first and last time. -Since then, Jud Kerbastiou had become more morose than ever, and was -seldom seen among his fellows. When not with his infirm old father, at -the hut in the woods that were to the eastward of the forest-hamlet -of Ploumael, he was away in the densely wooded reaches to the south. -Occasionally he was seen upon the slopes of the Black Hills, but this -was only in winter, when he crossed over into Upper Brittany with a -mule-train laden with cut fagots. - -That he was prowling about the home domain of Kerival was itself -ominous; but that in this stealthy manner he should be following Annaik -was to Allan a matter of genuine alarm. Surely the man could mean no -evil against one of the Big House, and one, too, so much admired, and -in a certain way loved, as Annaik de Kerival? And yet, the stealthy -movements of the peasant, his crouching gait, his patient dogging of -her steps--and this, doubtless, ever since _she_ had crossed the glade -from the forest to the cypresses--all this had a menacing aspect. - -At that moment the peacocks ceased their wild miaulling. Low and clear, -Annaik's voice same thrillingly along the alley: - -"_Alan! Alan! Oh, Alan, darling, are you there?_" - -His heart beat. Then a flush sprang to his brow, as with sudden anger -he heard Jud Kerbastiou reply, in a thick, muffled tone: - -"Yes, yes, ... and, and I love you, Annaik!" - -Possibly the sleeper heard and understood. Even at that distance Alan -saw the light upon her face, the light from within. - -Judik the peasant slowly advanced. His stealthy tread was light as that -of a fox. He stopped when he was within a yard of Annaik. "Annaik," he -muttered hoarsely, "Annaik, it was I who was out among the beeches in -front of the château while the storm was raging. Sure you must have -known it; else, why would you come out? I love you, white woman. I am -only a peasant ... but I love you, Annaik de Kerival, I love you--I -love you--I love you!" - -Surely she was on the verge of waking! The color had come back to her -white face, her lips moved, as though stirred by a breath from within. -Her hands were clasped, and the fingers intertwisted restlessly. - -Kerbastiou was so wrought that he did not hear steps behind him as Alan -moved swiftly forward. - -"Sure, you will be mine at last," the man cried hoarsely, "mine, and -none to dispute ... ay, and this very night, too." - -Slowly Jud put out an arm. His hand almost touched that of Annaik. -Suddenly he was seized from behind, and a hand was claspt firmly upon -his mouth. He did not see who his unexpected assailant was, but he -heard the whisper that was against his ear: - -"If you make a sound, I will strangle you to death." - -With a nod, he showed that he understood. "If I let go for the moment, -will you come back under the trees here, where she cannot see or hear -us?" - -Another nod. - -Alan relaxed his hold, but did not wholly relinquish his grip. -Kerbastiou turned and looked at him. - -"Oh, it's _you_!" he muttered, as he followed his assailant into the -shadow some yards back. - -"Yes, Judik Kerbastiou, it is I, Alan de Kerival." - -"Well, what do you want?" - -"What do I want? How dare you be so insolent, fellow? you, who have -been following a defenceless woman!" - -"What have _you_ been doing?" - -"I ... oh, of course I have been following Mlle. Annaik also ... but -that was ... that was ... to protect her." - -"And is it not possible I might follow her for the same reason?" - -"It is not the same thing at all, Judik Kerbastiou, and you know it. In -the first place you have no right to be here at all. In the next, I am -Mlle. Annaik's cousin, and----" - -"And I am her lover." - -Alan stared at the man in sheer amaze. He spoke quietly and assuredly, -nor seemed in the least degree perturbed. - -"But ... but ... why, Kerbastiou, it is impossible!" - -"What is impossible?" - -"That Annaik could love _you_." - -"I did not say she loved me. I said I was her lover." - -"And you believe that you, a peasant, a man held in ill repute even -among your fellow-peasants, a homeless woodlander, can gain the love of -the daughter of your seigneur, of a woman nurtured as she has been?" - -"You speak like a book, as the saying is, M. de Kerival." Judik uttered -the words mockingly, and with raised voice. Annaik, who was still -standing as one entranced, heard it: for she whispered again, "_Alan! -Alan! Alan!_" - -"Hush, man! she will hear. Listen, Judik, I don't want to speak -harshly. You know me. Every one here does. You must be well aware that -I am the last person to despise you or any man because you are poor -and unfortunate. But you _must_ see that such a love as this of yours -is madness." - -"All love is madness." - -"Oh, yes; of course! But look you, Judik, what right have you to be -here at all, in the home domain, in the dead of night?" - -"You love Ynys de Kerival?" - -"Yes ... well, yes, I do love her; but what then? What is that to you?" - -"Well, I love Annaik. I am here by the same right as you are." - -"You forget. _I_ am welcome. You come by stealth. Do you mean for a -moment to say that you are here to meet Mlle. Annaik by appointment?" - -The man was silent. - -"Judik Kerbastiou!" - -"Yes?" - -"You are a coward. You followed this woman whom you say you love with -intent to rob her." - -"You are a fool, Alan de Kerival." - -Alan raised his arm. Then, ashamed, he let it fall. - -"Will you go? Will you go now, at once, or shall I wake Mlle. Annaik, -and tell her what I have seen--and from what I believe I have saved -her?" - -"No, you need not wake her, nor tell her any thing. I know she has -never even given me a thought." - -Suddenly the man bowed his head. A sob burst through the dark. - -Alan put his hand on his shoulder. - -"Judik! Judik Kerbastiou! I am sorry for you from my heart. But go ... -go now, at once. Nothing shall be said of this. No one shall know any -thing. If you wish me to tell my cousin, I will. Then she can see you -or not, as she may wish." - -"I go. But ... yes, tell her. To-morrow. Tell her to-morrow. Only I -would not have hurt her. Tell her that. I go now. _Adiou._" - -With that Judik Kerbastiou lifted his shaggy head, and turned his great -black, gypsy-wild eyes upon Alan. - -"She loves _you_," he said simply. Then he stepped lightly over the -path, passed between the cypresses, and moved out across the glade. -Alan watched his dark figure slide through the moonlight. He traversed -the glade to the right of the thorn. For nearly half a mile he was -visible; then he turned and entered the forest. - - * * * * * - -An hour later two figures moved, in absolute silence, athwart the -sand-dunes beyond the cypress alley. - -Hand in hand they moved. Their faces were in deep shadow, for the -moonlight was now obscured by a league-long cloud. - -When they emerged from the scattered pines to the seaward of the -château, the sentinel peacocks saw them, and began once more their -harsh, barbaric screams. - -The twain unclasped their hands, and walked steadily forward, speaking -no word, not once looking one at the other. - -As they entered the yew-close at the end of the old garden of the -château they were as shadows drowned in night. For some minutes they -were invisible; though, from above, the moon shone upon their white -faces and on their frozen stillness. The peacocks sullenly ceased. - -Once more they emerged into the moon-dusk. As they neared the ivied -gables of the west wing of the Manor the cloud drifted from the moon, -and her white flood turned the obscurity into a radiance wherein every -object stood forth as clear as at noon. - -Alan's face was white as are the faces of the dead. His eyes did not -once lift from the ground. But in Annaik's face was a flush, and her -eyes were wild and beautiful as falling stars. - -It was not an hour since she had wakened from her trance; not an hour, -and yet already had Alan forgotten--forgotten her, and Ynys, and the -storm, and the after calm. Of one thing he thought only, and that -was of what Daniel Darc had once said to him laughingly: "If the old -fables of astrology were true, your horoscope would foretell impossible -things." - -In absolute silence they moved up the long flight of stone stairs that -led to the château; in absolute silence, they entered by the door which -old Matieu had left ajar; in silence, they passed that unconscious -sleeper; in silence, they crossed the landing where the corridors -diverged. - -Both stopped, simultaneously. Alan seemed about to speak, but his lips -closed again without utterance. - -Abruptly he turned. Without a word he passed along the corridor to the -right, and disappeared in the obscurity. - -Annaik stood a while, motionless, silent. Then she put her hand to her -heart. On her impassive face the moonlight revealed nothing; only in -her eyes there was a gleam as of one glad unto death. - -Then she too passed, noiseless and swift as a phantom. Outside, on the -stone terrace, Ys, the blind peacock, strode to and fro, uttering his -prolonged, raucous screams. When, at last, he was unanswered by the -peacocks in the cypress alley, his clamant voice no longer tore the -silence. - -The moon trailed her flood of light across the earth. It lay upon the -waters, and was still a glory there when, through the chill quietudes -of dawn, the stars waned one by one in the soft graying that filtered -through the morning dusk. The new day was come. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -VIA OSCURA - - -The day that followed this quiet dawn marked the meridian of spring. -Thereafter the flush upon the blossoms would deepen; the yellow pass -out of the green; and a deeper green involve the shoreless emerald sea -of verdure which everywhere covered the brown earth, and swelled and -lapsed in endlessly receding billows of forest and woodland. Up to that -noon-tide height Spring had aspired, ever since she had shaken the dust -of snow from her primrose-sandals; now, looking upon the way she had -come, she took the hand of Summer--and both went forth as one, so that -none should tell which was still the guest of the greenness. - -This was the day when Alan and Ynys walked among the green alleys of -the woods of Kerival, and when, through the deep gladness that was his -for all the strange, gnawing pain in his mind, in his ears echoed the -haunting line of Rimbaud, "Then, in the violet forest all a-bourgeon, -Eucharis said to me: 'It is Spring.'" - -Through the first hours of the day Alan had been unwontedly silent. -Ynys had laughed at him with loving eyes, but had not shown any shadow -of resentment. His word to the effect that his journey had tired him, -and that he had not slept at all, was enough to account for his lack of -buoyant joy. - -But, in truth, Ynys did not regret this, since it had brought a still -deeper intensity of love into Alan's eyes. When he looked at her, there -was so much passion of longing, so pathetic an appeal, that her heart -smote her. Why should she be the one chosen to evoke a love such as -this, she wondered; she, who was but Ynys, while Alan was a man whom -all women might love, and had genius that made him as one set apart -from his fellows, and was brow-lit by a starry fate? - -And yet, in a sense she understood. They were so much at one, so like -in all essential matters, and were in all ways comrades. It would -have been impossible for each not to love the other. But, deeper than -this, was the profound and intimate communion of the spirit. In some -beautiful, strange way, she knew she was the flame to his fire. At that -flame he lit the torch of which Daniel Darc and others had spoken. She -did not see why or wherein it was so, but she believed, and indeed at -last realized the exquisite actuality. - -In deep love, there is no height nor depth between two hearts, no -height nor depth, no length nor breadth. There is simply love. - -The birds of Angus Ogue are like the wild-doves of the forest: when -they nest in the heart they are as one. And her life, and Alan's, were -not these one? - -Nevertheless, Ynys was disappointed as the day went on, and her lover -did not seem able to rouse himself from his strange despondency. - -Doubtless this was due largely to what was pending. That afternoon he -was to have his long anticipated interview with the Marquise, and -would perhaps learn what might affect his whole life. On the other -hand, each believed that nothing would be revealed which was not of the -past solely. - -Idly, Ynys began to question her companion about the previous night. -What had he done, since he had not slept; had he read, or dreamed at -the window, or gone out, as had once been his wont on summer nights, -to walk in the cypress alley or along the grassy dunes? Had he heard -a nightingale singing in the moonlight? Had he noticed the prolonged -screaming of the peacocks--unusually prolonged, now that she thought of -it, Ynys added. - -"I wonder, dear, if you would love me whatever happened--whatever I -was, or did?" - -It was an inconsequent question. She looked up at him, half perturbed, -half pleased. - -"Yes, Alan." - -"But do you mean what you say, knowing that you are not only using a -phrase?" - -"I have no gift of expression, dearest. Words come to me without their -bloom and their fragrance, I often think. But ... Alan, _I love you_." - -"That is sweetest music for me, Ynys, my fawn. All words from you have -both bloom and fragrance, though you may not know it, shy flower. But -tell me again, do you mean what you say, _absolutely_?" - -"Absolutely. In every way, in all things, at all times. Dear, how -could _any thing_ come between us? It is _possible_, of course, that -circumstances might separate us. But nothing could really come between -us. My heart is yours." - -"What about Andrik de Morvan?" - -"Ah, you are not in earnest, Alan!" - -"Yes; I am more than half in earnest, Ynys, darling. Tell me!" - -"You cannot possibly believe that I care, that I could care, for Andrik -as I care for you, Alan." - -"Why not?" - -"Why not? Oh, have you so little belief, then, in women--in me? Alan, -do you not know that what is perhaps possible for a man, though I -cannot conceive it, is _impossible_ for a woman. That is the poorest -sophistry which says a woman may love two men at the same time. That -is, if by love is meant what you and I mean. Affection, the deepest -affection, is one thing; the love of man and woman, as _we_ mean it, is -a thing apart!" - -"You love Andrik?" - -"Yes." - -"Could you wed your life with his?" - -"I could have done so ... but for you." - -"Then, by your true heart, is there no possibility that he can in any -way ever come between us?" - -"None." - -"Although he is nominally your betrothed, and believes in you as his -future wife?" - -"That is not my fault. I drifted into that conditional union, as you -know. But after to-day he and every one shall know that I can wed no -man but you. But why do you ask me these things, Alan?" - -"I want to know. I will explain later. But tell me; could you be happy -with Andrik? You say you love him?" - -"I love him as a friend, as a comrade." - -"As an intimately dear comrade?" - -"Alan, do not let us misunderstand each other. There can only be -one supreme comrade for a woman, and that is the man whom she loves -supremely. Every other affection, the closest, the dearest, is as -distinct from that as day from night." - -"If by some malign chance you and Andrik married--say, in the event of -my supposed death--would you still be as absolutely true to me as you -are now?" - -"What has the accident of marriage to do with truth between a man and a -woman, Alan?" - -"It involves intimacies that would be a desecration otherwise. Oh, -Ynys, do you not understand?" - -"It is a matter of the inner life. Men so rarely believe in the hidden -loyalty of the heart. It is possible for a woman to fulfil a bond and -yet not be a bondswoman. Outer circumstances have little to do with the -inner life, with the real self." - -"In a word, then, if you married Andrik you would remain absolutely -mine, not only if I were dead, but if perchance the rumor were untrue -and I came back, though too late?" - -"Yes." - -"Absolutely?" - -"Absolutely." - -"And you profoundly know, Ynys, that in no conceivable circumstances -can Andrik be to you what I am, or any thing for a moment approaching -it?" - -"I do know it." - -"Although he were your husband?" - -"Although he were my husband." - -The worn lines that were in Alan's face were almost gone. Looking into -his eyes Ynys saw that the strange look of pain which had alarmed her -was no longer there. The dear eyes had brightened; a new hope seemed to -have arisen in them. - -"Do you believe me, Alan, dear?" she whispered. - -"If I did not, it would kill me, Ynys." - -And he spoke truth. The bitter sophistications of love play lightly -with the possibilities of death. Men who talk of suicide are likely to -be long-livers; lovers whose hearts are easily broken can generally -recover and astonish themselves by their heroic endurance. The human -heart is like a wave of the sea; it can be lashed into storm, it can -be calmed, it can become stagnant--but it is seldom absorbed from the -ocean till in natural course the sun takes up its spirit in vapor. -Yet, ever and again, there is one wave among a myriad which a spiral -wind-eddy may suddenly strike. In a moment it is whirled this way and -that; it is involved in a cataclysm of waters; and then cloud and sea -meet, and what a moment before had been an ocean wave is become an idle -skyey vapor. - -Alan was of the few men of whom that wave is the symbol. To him, death -could come at any time, if the wind-eddy of a certain unthinkable -sorrow struck him at his heart. - -In this sense, his life was in Ynys's hands as absolutely as though he -were a caged bird. He knew it, and Ynys knew it. - -There are a few men, a few women, like this. Perhaps it is well that -these are so rare. Among the hills of the north, at least, they may -still be found; in remote mountain valleys and in lonely isles, where -life and death are realized actualities and not the mere adumbrations -of the pinions of that lonely fugitive, the human mind, along the -endless precipices of Time. - -Alan knew well that both he and Ynys were not so strong as each -believed. Knowing this, he feared for both. And yet, there was but -one woman in the world for him--Ynys; as for her, there was but one -man--Alan. Without her, he could do nothing, achieve nothing. She was -his flame, his inspiration, his strength, his light. Without her, he -was afraid to live; with her, death was a beautiful dream. To her, Alan -was not less. She lived in him and for him. - -But we are wrought of marsh-fire as well as of stellar light. Now, as -of old, the gods do not make of the fairest life a thornless rose. A -single thorn may innocently convey poison; so that everywhere men and -women go to and fro perilously, and not least those who move through -the shadow and shine of an imperious passion. - -For a time, thereafter, Alan and Ynys walked slowly onward, hand in -hand, each brooding deep over the thoughts their words had stirred. - -"Do you know what Yann says, Alan?" Ynys asked in a low voice, after -both had stopped instinctively to listen to a thrush leisurely -iterating his just learned love carol, where he swung on a greening -spray of honeysuckle under a yellow-green lime. "Do you know what Yann -says?... He says that you have a wave at your feet. What does that -mean?" - -"When did he tell you that, Ynys, mo-chree?" - -"Ah, Alan, dear, how sweet it is to hear from your lips the dear Gaelic -we both love so well! And does that not make you more than ever anxious -to learn all that you are to hear this afternoon?" - -"Yes ... but that, that Ian Macdonald said; what else did he say?" - -"Nothing. He would say no more. I asked him in the Gaelic, and he -repeated only, 'I see a wave at his feet.'" - -"What Ian means by that I know well. It means I am going on a far -journey." - -"Oh, no, Alan, no!" - -"He has the sight upon him, at times. Ian would not say that thing, did -he not mean it. Tell me, my fawn, has he ever said any thing of this -kind about _you_?" - -"Yes. Less than a month ago. I was with him one day on the dunes near -the sea. Once, when he gave no answer to what I asked, I looked at him, -and saw his eyes fixt. 'What do you see, Yann?' I asked. - -"'I see great rocks, strange caverns. Sure, it is well I am knowing -what they are. They are the Sea-caves of Rona.' - -"There were no rocks visible from where we stood, so I knew that Ian -was in one of his visionary moods. I waited, and then spoke again, -whisperingly: - -"'Tell me, Ian MacIain, what do you see?' - -"'I see two whom I do not know. And they are in a strange place, they -are. And on the man I see a shadow, and on the woman I see a light. But -what that shadow is, I do not know; nor do I know what that light is. -But I am for thinking that it is of the Virgin Mary, for I see the -dream that is in the woman's heart, and it is a fair wonderful dream -_that_.' - -"That is all Yann said, Alan. As I was about to speak, his face changed. - -"'What is it, Ian?' I asked. - -"At first he would answer nothing. Then he said: 'It is a dream. It -means nothing. It was only because I was thinking of you and Alan -MacAlasdair.'" - -"Oh, Ynys!"--Alan interrupted with an eager cry--"that is a thing -I have long striven to know; that which lies in the words 'Alan -MacAlasdair.' My father, then, was named Alasdair! And was it Rona, you -said, was the place of the Sea-caves? Rona ... that must be an island. -The only Rona I know of is that near Skye. It may be the same. Now, -indeed, I have a clew, lest I should learn nothing to-day. Did Ian say -nothing more?" - -"Nothing. I asked him if the man and woman he saw were you and I, -but he would not speak. I am certain he was about to say yes, but -refrained." - -For a while they walked on in silence, each revolving many speculations -aroused by the clew given by the words of "Yann the Dumb." Suddenly -Ynys tightened her clasp of Alan's hand. - -"What is it, dear?" - -"Alan, some time ago you asked me abruptly what I knew about the -forester, Judik Kerbastiou. Well, I see him in that beech-covert -yonder, looking at us." - -Alan started. Ynys noticed that for a moment he grew pale as foam. His -lips parted, as though he were about to call to the woodlander: when -Judik advanced, making at the same time a sign of silence. - -The man had a wild look about him. Clearly, he had not slept since he -and Alan had parted at midnight. His dusky eyes had a red light in -them. His rough clothes were still damp; his face, too, was strangely -white and dank. - -Alan presumed that he came to say something concerning Annaik. He did -not know what to do to prevent this, but while he was pondering, Judik -spoke in a hoarse, tired voice: - -"Let the Lady Ynys go back to the château at once. She is needed there." - -"Why, what is wrong, Judik Kerbastiou?" - -"Let her go back, I say. No time for words now. Be quick. I am not -deceiving you. Listen ..." and with that he leaned toward Alan, and -whispered in his ear. - -Alan looked at him with startled amaze. Then, turning toward Ynys, he -asked her to go back at once to the château. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -"DEIREADH GACH COGAIDH, SITH" (THE END OF ALL WARFARE, PEACE) - - -Alan did not wait till Ynys was out of sight, before he demanded the -reason of Judik's strange appearance and stranger summons. - -"Why are you here again, Judik Kerbastiou? What is the meaning of this -haunting of the forbidden home domain? And what did you mean by urging -Mlle. Ynys to go back at once to the château?" - -"Time enough later for your other questions, young sir. Meanwhile come -along with me, and as quick as you can." - -Without another word the woodlander turned and moved rapidly along a -narrow path through the brushwood. - -Alan saw it would be useless to ask further questions at the moment; -moreover, he was now vaguely alarmed. What could all this mystery -mean? Could an accident have happened to the Marquis Tristran? It was -hardly likely, for he seldom ventured into the forest, unless when the -weather had dried all the ways: for he had to be wheeled in his chair, -and, as Alan knew, disliked to leave the gardens or the well-kept yew -and cypress alleys near the château. - -In a brief while, however, he heard voices. Judik turned, and waved to -him to be wary. The forester bent forward, stared intently, and then -beckoned to Alan to creep up alongside. - -"Who is it? What is it, Judik?" - -"Look!" - -Alan disparted a bough of underwood which made an effectual screen. In -the glade beyond were four figures. - -One of these he recognized at once. It was the Marquis de Kerival. He -was, as usual, seated in his wheeled chair. Behind him, some paces to -the right, was Raif Kermorvan, the steward of Kerival. The other two -men Alan had not seen before. - -One of these strangers was a tall, handsome man, of about sixty. His -close-cropped white hair, his dress, his whole mien, betrayed the -military man. Evidently a colonel, Alan thought, or perhaps a general; -at any rate an officer of high rank, and one to whom command and -self-possession were alike habitual. Behind this gentleman, one of the -most distinguished and even noble-looking men he had ever seen, and -again some paces to the right, was a man, evidently a groom, and to all -appearances an orderly in mufti. - -The first glance revealed that a duel was imminent. The duellists, of -course, were the military stranger and the Marquis de Kerival. - -"Who is that man?" Alan whispered to Kerbastion. "Do you know?" - -"I do not know his name. He is a soldier--a general. He came to Kerival -to-day; an hour or more ago. I guided him through the wood, for he and -his man had ridden into one of the winding alleys and had lost their -way. I heard him ask for the Marquis de Kerival. I waited about in the -shrubbery of the rose garden to see if ... if ... some one for whom -I waited ... would come out. After a time, half an hour or less, this -gentleman came forth, ushered by Raif Kermorvan, the steward. His man -brought around the two horses again. They mounted, and rode slowly -away. I joined them, and offered to show them a shorter route than that -which they were taking. The General said they wished to find a glade -known as Merlin's Rest. Then I knew what he came for, I knew what was -going to happen." "What, Judik?" - -"Hush! not so loud. They will hear us! I knew it was for a duel. It was -here that Andrik de Morvan, the uncle of him whom you know, was killed -by a man--I forget his name." - -"Why did the man kill Andrik de Morvan?" - -"Oh, who knows? Why does one kill any body? Because he was tired of -enduring the Sieur Andrik longer; he bored him beyond words to tell, I -have heard. Then, too, the Count, for he was a count, loved Andrik's -wife." - -Alan glanced at Judik. For all his rough wildness, he spoke on occasion -like a man of breeding. Moreover, at no time was he subservient in his -manner. Possibly, Alan thought, it was true what he had heard: that -Judik Kerbastiou was by moral right Judik de Kerival. - -While the onlookers were whispering, the four men in the glade had -all slightly shifted their position. The Marquis, it was clear, had -insisted upon this. The light had been in his eyes. Now the antagonists -and their seconds were arranged aright. Kermorvan, the steward, was -speaking slowly: directions as to the moment when to fire. - -Alan knew it would be worse than useless to interfere. He could but -hope that this was no more than an affair of honor of a kind not meant -to have a fatal issue; a political quarrel, perhaps; a matter of -insignificant social offence. - -Before Raif Kermorvan--a short, black-haired, bull-necked man, with -a pale face and protruding light blue eyes--had finished what he had -to say, Alan noticed what had hitherto escaped him: that immediately -beyond the glade, and under a huge sycamore, already in full leaf, -stood the Kerival carriage. Alain, the coachman, sat on the box, and -held the two black horses in rein. Standing by the side of the carriage -was Georges de Rohan, the doctor of Kerloek, and a personal friend of -the Marquis Tristran. - -Suddenly Kermorvan raised his voice. - -"M. le Général, are you ready?" - -"I am ready," answered a low, clear voice. - -"M. le Marquis, are you ready?" - -Tristran de Kerival did not answer, but assented by a slight nod. - -"Then raise your weapons, and fire the moment I say 'thrice.'" - -Both men raised their pistols. - -"You have the advantage of me, sir," said the Marquis coldly, in a -voice as audible to Alan and Judik as to the others. "I present a good -aim to you here. Nevertheless, I warn you once more that you will not -escape me ... this time." - -The General smiled; scornfully, Alan thought. Again, when suddenly -he lowered his pistol and spoke, Alan fancied he detected if not a -foreign accent, at least a foreign intonation. - -"Once more, Tristran de Kerival, I tell you that this duel is a crime; -a crime against me, a crime against Mme. la Marquise, a crime against -your daughters, and a crime against...." - -"That will do, General. I am ready. Are you?" - -Without further word the stranger slowly drew himself together. He -raised his arm, while his opponent did the same. - -"_Once! Twice! Thrice!_" There was a crack like that of a cattle-whip. -Simultaneously some splinters of wood were blown from the left side of -the wheeled chair. - -The Marquis Tristran smiled. He had reserved his fire. He could aim now -with fatal effect - -"It is murder!" muttered Alan, horrified; but at that moment the -Marquis spoke. Alan leaned forward, intent to hear. - -"_At last!_" That was all. But in the words was a concentrated longing -for revenge, the utterance of a vivid hate. - -Tristran de Kerival slowly and with methodical malignity took aim. -There was a flash, the same whip-like crack. - -For a moment it seemed as though the ball had missed its mark. Then, -suddenly, there was a bubbling of red froth at the mouth of the -stranger. Still, he stood erect. - -Alan looked at the Marquis de Kerival. He was leaning back, deathly -white, but with the bitter, suppressed smile which every one at the -château knew and hated. - -All at once the General swayed, lunged forward, and fell prone. - -Dr. de Rohan ran out from the sycamore, and knelt beside him. After a -few seconds he looked up. - -He did not speak, but every one knew what his eyes said. To make it -unmistakable, he drew out his handkerchief and put it over the face of -the dead man. - -Alan was about to advance when Judik Kerbastiou plucked him by the -sleeve. - -"Hst! M'sieur Alan! There is Mamzelle Ynys returning! She will be here -in another minute. She must not see what is there." - -"You are right, Judik. I thank you." - -With that he turned and moved swiftly down the leaf-hid path which -would enable him to intercept Ynys. - -"What is it, Alan?" she asked, with wondering eyes, the moment he was -at her side. "What is it? Why are you so pale?" - -"It is because of a duel that has been fought here. You must go back at -once, dear. There are reasons why you...." - -"Is my father one of the combatants? I know he is out of the château. -Tell me quick! Is he wounded? Is he dead?" - -"No, no, darling heart! He is unhurt. But I can tell you nothing more -just now. Later ... later. But why did you return here?" - -"I came with a message from my mother. She is in sore trouble, I fear. -I found her, on her couch in the Blue Salon, with tears streaming down -her face and sobs choking her." - -"And she wants me ... now?" - -"Yes. She told me to look for you, and bring you to her at once." - -"Then go straightway back, dear, and tell her that I shall be with her -immediately. Yes, go--go--at once." - -But by the time Ynys had moved into the alley which led her to the -château, and Alan had returned to the spot where he had left Judik, -rapid changes had occurred. - -The wheeled chair had gone. Alan could see it nearing the South Yews; -with the Marquis Tristran in it, leaning backward and with head erect. -At its side walked Raif Kermorvan. He seemed to be whispering to the -Seigneur. The carriage had disappeared; with it Georges de Rohan, the -soldier orderly, and, presumably, the dead man. - -Alan stood hesitant, uncertain whether to go first to the Marquise, -or to follow the man whom he regarded now with an aversion infinitely -deeper than he had ever done hitherto; with whom, he felt, he never -wished to speak again, for he was a murderer, if ever man was, and, -from Alan's standpoint, a coward as well. Tristran de Kerival was the -deadliest shot in all the country-side, and he must have known that, -when he challenged his victim, he gave him his death sentence. - -It did not occur to Alan that possibly the survivor was the man -challenged. Instinctively he knew that this was not so. - -Judik suddenly touched his arm. - -"Here," he said; "this is the name of the dead man. I got the servant -to write it down for me." - -Alan took the slip of paper. On it was: "_M. le Général Carmichael_." - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE UNFOLDING OF THE SCROLL - - -When Alan reached the château he was at once accosted by old Matieu. - -"Mme. la Marquise wishes to see you in her private room, M'sieu Alan, -and without a moment's delay." - -In a few seconds he was on the upper landing. At the door of the room -known as the Blue Salon he met Yann the Dumb. - -"What is it, Ian? Is there any thing wrong?" - -In his haste he spoke in French. The old islander looked at him, but -did not answer. - -Alan repeated his question in Gaelic. - -"Yes, Alan MacAlasdair, I fear there is gloom and darkness upon us all." - -"Why?" - -"By this an' by that. But I have seen the death-cloth about Lois nic -Alasdair bronnach for weeks past. I saw it about her feet, and then -about her knees, and then about her breast. Last night, when I looked -at her, I saw it at her neck. And to-day, the shadow-shroud is risen to -her eyes." - -"But your second-sight is not always true, you know, Ian. Why, you told -me when I was here last that I would soon be seeing my long dead father -again, and, more than that, that I should see him, but he never see me. -But of this and your other dark sayings, no more now. Can I go in at -once and see my aunt?" - -"I will be asking that, Alan-mo-caraid. But what you say is not true. -I have never yet 'seen' any thing that has not come to pass; though I -have had the sight but seldom, to Himself be the praise." With that Ian -entered, exchanged a word or two, and ushered Alan into the room. - -On a couch beside a great fireplace, across the iron brazier of which -were flaming pine-logs, an elderly woman lay almost supine. That she -had been a woman of great beauty was unmistakable, for all her gray -hair and the ravages that time and suffering had wrought upon her -face. Even now her face was beautiful; mainly from the expression of -the passionate dusky eyes which were so like those of Annaik. Her long, -inert body was covered with a fantastic Italian silk-cloth whose gay -pattern emphasized her own helpless condition. Alan had not seen her -for some months, and he was shocked at the change. Below the eyes, as -flamelike as ever, were purplish shadows, and everywhere, through the -habitual ivory of the delicate features, a gray ashiness had diffused. -When she held out her hand to him, he saw it as transparent as a fan, -and perceived within it the red gleam of the fire. - -"Ah, Alan, it is you at last! How glad I am to see you!" The voice was -one of singular sweetness, in tone and accent much like that of Ynys. - -"Dear Aunt Lois, not more glad than I am to see you"--and, as he spoke, -Alan kneeled at the couch and kissed the frail hand that had been held -out to him. - -"I would have so eagerly seen you at once on my arrival," he resumed, -"but I was given your message--that you had one of your seasons of -suffering, and could not see me. You have been in pain, Aunt Lois?" - -"Yes, dear, I am dying." - -"Dying! Oh, no, no, no! You don't mean _that_. And besides----" - -"Why should I not mean it? Why should I fear it, Alan? Has life meant -so much to me of late years that I should wish to prolong it?" - -"But you have endured so long!" - -"A bitter reason truly!... and one too apt to a woman! Well, enough of -this. Alan, I want to speak to you about yourself. But first tell me -one thing. Do you love any woman?" - -"Yes, with all my heart, with all my life, I love a woman." - -"Have you told her so? Has she betrothed herself to you?" - -"Yes." - -"Is it Annaik?" - -"Annaik ... Annaik?" - -"Why are you so surprised, Alan? Annaik is beautiful; she has long -loved you, I am certain; and you, too, if I mistake not, care for her?" - -"Of course, I do; of course I care for her, Aunt Lois. I love her. But -I do not love her as you mean." - -The Marquise looked at him steadily. - -"I do not quite understand," she said gravely. "I must speak to you -about Annaik, later. But now, will you tell me who the woman is?" - -"Yes. It is Ynys." - -"_Ynys!_ But, Alan, do you not know that she is betrothed to Andrik de -Morvan?" - -"I know." - -"And that such a betrothal is, in Brittany, almost as binding as a -marriage?" - -"I have heard that said." - -"And that the Marquis de Kerival wishes that union to take place?" - -"The Marquis Tristran's opinion, on any matter, does not in any way -concern me." - -"That may be, Alan; but it concerns Ynys. Do you know that I also wish -her to marry Andrik; that his parents wish it; and that every one -regards the union as all but an accomplished fact?" - -"Yes, dear Aunt Lois, I have known or presumed all you tell me. But -nothing of it can alter what is a vital part of my existence." - -"Do you know that Ynys herself gave her pledge to Andrik de Morvan?" - -"It was a conditional pledge. But, in any case, she will formally -renounce it." - -For a time there was silence. - -Alan had risen, and now stood by the side of the couch, with folded -arms. The Marquise Lois looked up at him, with her steadfast, shadowy -eyes. When she spoke again she averted them, and her voice was so low -as almost to be a whisper. - -"Finally, Alan, let me ask you one question. It is not about you and -Ynys. I infer that both of you are at one in your determination to take -every thing into your own hands. Presumably you can maintain her and -yourself. Tristran--the Marquis de Kerival--will not contribute a franc -toward her support. If he knew, he would turn her out of doors this -very day." - -"Well, Aunt Lois, I wait for your final question?" - -"It is this. _What about Annaik?_" - -Startled by her tone and sudden lifted glance, Alan stared in silence; -then recollecting himself, he repeated dully: - -"'What about Annaik?' ... Annaik, Aunt Lois, why do you ask me about -Annaik?" - -"She loves you." - -"As a brother; as the betrothed of Ynys; as a dear comrade and friend." - -"Do not be a hypocrite, Alan. You know that she loves you. What of your -feeling toward _her_?" - -"I love her ... as a brother loves a sister ... as any old playmate and -friend ... as ... as the sister of Ynys." - -A faint, scornful smile came upon the white lips of the Marquise. - -"Will you be good enough, then, to explain about last night?" - -"About last night?" - -"Come, be done with evasion. Yes, about last night. Alan, I know that -you and Annaik were out together in the cypress avenue, and again, on -the dunes, after midnight; that you were seen walking hand in hand; and -that, stealthily, you entered the house together." - -"Well?" - -"Well! The inference is obvious. But I will let you see that I know -more. Annaik went out of the house late. Old Matieu let her out. -Shortly after that you went out of the château. Later, you and she came -upon Judik Kerbastiou prowling about in the woods. It was more than an -hour after he left you that you returned to the château. Where were you -during that hour or more?" - -Alan flushed. He unfolded his arms; hesitated; then refolded them. - -"How do you know this?" he asked simply. - -"I know it, because...." - -But before she finished what she was about to say, the door opened and -Yann entered. - -"What is it, Ian?" - -"I would be speaking to you alone for a minute, Bantighearna." - -"Alan, go to the alcove yonder, please. I must hear in private what -Yann has to say to me." - -As soon as the young man was out of hearing, Yann stooped and spoke in -low tones. The Marquise Lois grew whiter and whiter, till not a vestige -of color remained in her face, and the only sign of life was in the -eyes. Suddenly she made an exclamation. - -Alan turned and looked at her. He caught her agonized whisper: "_Oh, my -God!_" - -"What is it--oh, what is it, dear Aunt Lois?" he cried, as he advanced -to her side. - -He expected to be waved back, but to his surprise the Marquise made no -sign to him to withdraw. Instead, she whispered some instructions to -Yann and then bade him go. - -When they were alone once more, she took a small silver flagon from -beneath her coverlet and poured a few drops upon some sugar. - -Having taken this, she seemed to breathe more easily. It was evident, -at the same time, that she had received some terrible shock. - -"Alan, come closer. I cannot speak loud. I have no time to say more to -you about Annaik. I must leave that to you and to her. But lest I die, -let me say at once that I forbid you to marry Ynys, and that I enjoin -you to marry Annaik, and that without delay." - -A spasm of pain crossed the speaker's face. She stopped, and gasped -for breath. When at last she resumed, it was clear she considered as -settled the matter on which she had spoken. - -"Alan, I am so unwell that I must be very brief. And now listen. You -are twenty-five to-day. Such small fortune as is yours comes now into -your possession. It has been administered for you by a firm of lawyers -in Edinburgh. See, here is the address. Can you read it? Yes?... Well, -keep the slip. This fortune is not much. To many, possibly to you, it -may not seem enough to provide more than the bare necessities of life, -not enough for its needs. Nevertheless, it is your own, and you will be -glad. It will, at least, suffice to keep you free from need if ever -you fulfil your great wish to go back to the land of your fathers, to -your own place." - -"That is still my wish and my hope." - -"So be it! You will have also an old sea castle, not much more than a -keep, on a remote island. It will at any rate be your own. It is on an -island where few people are; a wild and precipitous isle far out in the -Atlantic at the extreme of the Southern Hebrides." - -"Is it called Rona?" Alan interrupted eagerly. - -Without noticing, or heeding, his eagerness, she assented. - -"Yes, it is called Rona. Near it are the isles of Mingulay and Borosay. -These three islands were once populous, and it was there that for -hundreds of years your father's clan, of which he was hereditary chief, -lived and prospered. After the evil days, the days when the young King -was hunted in the west as though a royal head were the world's desire, -and when our brave kinswoman, Flora Macdonald, proved that women as -well as men could dare all for a good cause--after those evil days the -people melted away. Soon the last remaining handful were upon Borosay; -and there, too, till the great fire that swept the island a score of -years ago, stood the castle of my ancestors, the Macdonalds of Borosay. - -"My father was a man well known in his day. The name of Sir Kenneth -Macdonald was as familiar in London as in Edinburgh; and in Paris he -was known to all the military and diplomatic world, for in his youth he -had served in the French army with distinction, and held the honorary -rank of general. - -"Not long before my mother's death he came back to our lonely home in -Borosay, bringing with him a kinsman of another surname, who owned -the old castle of Rona on the Isle of the Sea-caves, as Rona is often -called by the people of the Hebrides. Also there came with him a young -French officer of high rank. After a time I was asked to marry this -man. I did not love him, did not even care for him, and I refused. In -truth ... already, though unknowingly, I loved your father--he that was -our kinsman and owned Rona and its old castle. But Alasdair did not -speak; and, because of that, we each came to sorrow. - -"My father told me he was ruined. If I did not marry Tristran de -Kerival, he would lose all. Moreover, my dying mother begged me to save -the man she had loved so well and truly, though he had left her so much -alone. - -"Well, to be brief, I agreed. My kinsman Alasdair was away at the time. -He returned on the eve of the very day on which I was suddenly married -by Father Somerled Macdonald. We were to remain a few weeks in Borosay -because of my mother's health. - -"When Alasdair learned what had happened he was furious. I believe he -even drew a riding whip across the face of Tristran de Kerival. Fierce -words passed between them, and a cruel taunt that rankled. Nor would -Alasdair have any word with me at all. He sent me a bitter message, but -the bitterest word he could send was that which came to me: that he and -my sister Silis had gone away together. - -"From that day I never saw Silis again, till the time of her death. -Soon afterward our mother died, and while the island-funeral was being -arranged our father had a stroke, and himself died, in time to be -buried along with his wife. It was only then that I realized how more -than true had been his statements as to his ruin. He died penniless. -I was reminded of this unpleasant fact at the time, by the Marquis de -Kerival; and I have had ample opportunity since for bearing it in vivid -remembrance. - -"As soon as possible we settled all that could be settled, and left for -Brittany. I have sometimes thought my husband's love was killed when he -discovered that Alasdair had loved me. He forbade me even to mention -his name, unless he introduced it; and he was wont to swear that a -day would come when he would repay in full what he believed to be the -damning insult he had received. - -"We took with us only one person from Borosay, an islander of Rona. He -is, in fact, a clansman both of you and me. It is of Ian I speak, of -course; him that soon came to be called here Yann the Dumb. My husband -and I had at least this to unite us: that we were both Celtic, and had -all our racial sympathies in common. - -"I heard from Silis that she was married and was happy. I am afraid -this did not add to my happiness. She wrote to me, too, when she -was about to bear her child. Strangely enough, Alasdair, who, like -his father before him, was an officer in the French army, was then -stationed not far from Kerival, though my husband knew nothing of this -at first. My own boy and Silis's were born about the same time. My -child died; that of Silis and Alasdair lived. You are that child. -No ... wait, Alan ... I will tell you his name shortly.... You, I say, -are that child. Soon afterward, Silis had a dangerous relapse. In her -delirium she said some wild things; among them, words to the effect -that the child which had died was hers, and that the survivor was -mine--that, somehow or other, they had been changed. Then, too, she -cried out in her waywardness--and, poor girl, she must have known then -that Alasdair had loved me before he loved her--that the child who -lived, he who had been christened Alan, was the child of Alasdair and -myself. - -"All this poor delirium at the gate of death meant nothing. But in some -way it came to Tristran's ears, and he believed. After Silis's death I -had brought you home, Alan, and had announced that I would adopt you. I -promised Silis this, in her last hour, when she was in her right mind -again; also that the child, you, should be brought up to speak and -think in our own ancient language, and that in all ways you should grow -up a true Gael. I have done my best, Alan?" - -"Indeed, indeed you have. I shall never, never forget that you have -been my mother to me." - -"Well, my husband never forgave that. He acquiesced, but he never -forgave. For long, and I fear to this day, he persists in his belief -that you are really my illegitimate child, and that Silis was right -in thinking that I had succeeded in having my own new-born babe -transferred to her arms, while her dead offspring was brought to me, -and, as my own, interred. It has created a bitter feud, and that is -why he hates the sight of you. That, too, Alan, is why he would never -consent to your marriage with either Ynys or Annaik." - -"But you yourself urged me a little ago to ... to ... marry Annaik." - -"I had a special reason. Besides, I of course know the truth. In his -heart, God knows, my husband cannot doubt it." - -"Then tell me this: is my father dead also, as I have long surmised?" - -"No ... yes, yes, Alan, he is dead." - -Alan noticed his aunt's confusion, and regarded her steadily. - -"Why do you first say 'no' and then 'yes'?" - -"Because...." - -But here again an interruption occurred. The portière moved back, and -then the wide doors disparted. Into the salon was wheeled a chair, in -which sat the Marquis de Kerival. Behind him was his attendant; at his -side, Kermorvan the steward. The face of the seigneur was still deathly -pale, and the features were curiously drawn. The silky hair, too, -seemed whiter than ever, and white as foam-drift on a dark wave were -the long thin hands which lay on the lap of the black velvet shooting -jacket he wore. - -"Ah, Lois, is this a prepared scene?" he exclaimed in a cold and -sneering voice, "or, has the young man known all along?" - -"Tristan, I have not yet told him what I now know. Be merciful." - -"Alan MacAlasdair, as the Marquise here calls you,--and she ought to -know,--have you learned yet the name and rank of your father?" - -"No." - -"Tell him, Lois." - -"Tristran, listen. All is over now. Soon I, too, shall be gone. In -the name of God I pray you to relent from this long cruelty, this -remorseless infamy. You know as well as I do that our first-born is -dead twenty-five years ago, and that this man here is truly the son of -Silis, my sister. And here is one overwhelming proof for you: _I have -just been urging him to marry Annaik._" - -At that Tristran the Silent was no longer silent. With a fierce laugh -he turned to the steward. - -"I call you to witness, Raif Kermorvan, that I would kill Annaik, or -Ynys either for that matter, before I would allow such an unnatural -union. Once and for all I absolutely ban it. Besides.... Listen, you -there with your father's eyes! You are sufficiently a Gael to feel that -you would not marry the daughter of a man who killed your father?" - -"God forbid!" - -"Well, then, God does forbid. Lois, tell this man what you know." - -"Alan," began the Marquise quaveringly, her voice fluttering like -a dying bird, "the name of your father is ... is ... Alasdair ... -Alasdair Carmichael!" - -"_Carmichael!_" - -For a moment he was dazed, bewildered. When, recently, had he heard -that name? - -Then it flashed upon him. He turned with flaming eyes to where the -Marquis sat, quietly watching him. - -"Oh, my God!" That was all. He could say no more. His heart was in his -throat. - -Then, hoarse and trembling, he put out his hands. - -"Tell me it is not true! Tell me it is not true!" - -"_What_ is not true, Alan Carmichael?" - -"That that was he who died in the wood yonder." - -"That was General Alasdair Carmichael." - -"My father?" - -"Your father!" - -"But, you devil, you murdered him! I saw you do it! You knew it was -he--and you killed him. You knew he would not try to kill you, and you -waited; then, when he had fired, you took careful aim and killed him!" - -"You reiterate, my friend. These are facts with which I am familiar." - -The cool, sneering tone stung Alan to madness. He advanced menacingly. - -"Murderer, you shall not escape!" - -"A fitting sentiment, truly, from a man who wants to marry my daughter!" - -"Marry your daughter! Marry the daughter of my father's murderer! I -would sooner never see the face of woman again than do this thing." - -"Good! I am well content. And now, young man, you are of age; you have -come into your patrimony, including your ruined keep on the island of -Rona; and I will trouble you to go--to leave Kerival for good and all." - -Suddenly, without a word, Alan moved rapidly forward. With a light -touch he laid his hand for a moment on the brow of the motionless man -in the wheeled chair. - -"There! I lay upon you, Tristran de Kerival, the curse of the newly -dead and of the living! May the evil that you have done corrode your -brain, and may your life silt away as sand, and may your soul know the -second death!" - -As he turned to leave the room he saw Kerbastiou standing in the -doorway. - -"Who are you, to be standing there, Judik Kerbastiou?" demanded the -steward angrily. - -"I am Rohan de Kerival. Ask this man here if I am not his son. Three -days ago the woman who was my mother died. She died a vagrant, in the -forest. But, nigh upon thirty years ago, she was legally married to -the young Marquis Tristran de Kerival. I am their child." - -Alan glanced at the man he had cursed. A strange look had come into his -ashy face. - -"Her name?" was all Tristran the Silent said. - -"Annora Brizeux." - -"You have proofs?" - -"I have all the proofs." - -"You are only a peasant, I disown you. I know nothing of you or of the -wanton that was your mother." - -Without a word Judik strode forward and struck him full in the face. At -that moment the miraculous happened. The Marquise, who had not stood -erect for years, rose to her full height. - -She, too, crossed the room. - -"Alan," she cried, "see! He has killed me as well as your father," and -with that she swayed, and fell dead, at the feet of the man who had -trampled her soul in the dust and made of her blossoming life a drear -and sterile wilderness. - - -BOOK SECOND - -_THE HERDSMAN_ - - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -RETROSPECTIVE: FROM THE HEBRID ISLES - - -At the end of the third month after that disastrous day when Alan -Carmichael knew that his father had been slain, and before his -unknowing eyes, by Tristran de Kerival, a great terror came upon him. - - * * * * * - -On that day itself he had left the Manor of Kerival. With all that -blood between him and his enemy he could not stay a moment longer in -the house. To have done so would have been to show himself callous -indeed to the memory of his father. - -Nor could he see Ynys. He could not look at her, innocent as she was. -She was her father's child, and her father had murdered his father. -Surely a union would be against nature; he must fly while he had the -strength. - -When, however, he had gained the yew close he turned, hesitated, and -then slowly walked northward to where the long brown dunes lay in a -golden glow over against the pale blue of the sea. There, bewildered, -wrought almost to madness, he moved to and fro, unable to realize all -that had happened, and with bitter words cursing the malign fate which -had overtaken him. - -The afternoon waned, and he was still there, uncertain as ever, still -confused, baffled, mentally blind. - -Then suddenly he saw the figure of Yann the Dumb, his friend and -clansman, Ian Macdonald. The old man seemed to understand at once that, -after what had happened, Alan Carmichael would never go back to Kerival. - -"Why do you come to see me here, Ian?" Alan had asked wearily. - -When Ian began, "_Thiginn gu d'choimhead_ ... I would come to see you, -though your home were a rock-cave," the familiar sound of the Gaelic -did more than any thing else to clear his mind of the shadows which -overlay it. - -"Yes, Alan MacAlasdair," Ian answered, in response to an eager -question, "whatever I know is yours now, since Lois nic Choinneach is -dead, poor lady; though, sure, it is the best thing she could be having -now, that death." - -As swiftly as possible Alan elicited all he could from the old man; all -that there had not been time to hear from the Marquise. He learned what -a distinguished soldier, what a fine man, what a true Gael, Alasdair -Carmichael had been. When his wife had died he had been involved in -some disastrous lawsuit, and his deep sorrow and absolute financial -ruin came to him at one and the same moment. It was at this juncture, -though there were other good reasons also, that Lois de Kerival had -undertaken to adopt and bring up Silis's child. When her husband -Tristran had given his consent, it was with the stipulation that Lois -and Alasdair Carmichael should never meet, and that the child was not -to learn his surname till he came into the small fortune due to him -through his mother. - -This and much else Alan learned from Ian. Out of all the pain grew a -feeling of bitter hatred for the cold, hard man who had wrought so much -unhappiness, and were it not for Ynys and Annaik he would, for the -moment, have rejoiced that, in Judik Kerbastiou, Nemesis had appeared. -At his first mention of the daughters, Ian had looked at him closely. - -"Will you be for going back to that house, Alan MacAlasdair?" he asked, -and in a tone so marked that, even in his distress, Alan noticed it. - -"Do you wish me to go back, Ian?" - -"God forbid! I hear the dust on the threshold rising at the thought." - -"We are both in an alien land, Ian." - -"_Och is diombuan gach cas air tìr gun eòlas_--Fleeting is the foot in -a strange land," said the islander, using a phrase familiar to Gaels -away from the isles. - -"But what can I do?" - -"Sure you can go to your own place, Alan MacAlasdair. There you can -think of what you will do. And before you go I must tell you that your -father's brother Uilleam is dead, so that you have no near kin now -except the son of the brother of your father, Donnacha Bàn as he is -called--or was called, for I will be hearing a year or more ago that -he, too, went under the wave. He would be your own age, and that close -as a month or week, I am thinking." - -"Nevertheless, Ian, I cannot go without seeing my cousin Ynys once -more." - -"You will never be for marrying the daughter of the man that murdered -your father?" Ian spoke in horrified amaze, adding, "Sure, if that -were so, it would indeed mean that they may talk as they like of this -southland as akin to Gaeldom, though that is not a thought that will -bring honey to the hive of my brain;--for no man of the isles would -ever forget _there_ that the blood of a father cries up to the stars -themselves." - -"Have you no message for me, from ... from ... her?" - -"Ay," answered the old islesman reluctantly. "Here it is. I did not -give it to you before, for fear you should be weak." - -Without a word, Alan snatched the pencilled note. It had no beginning -or signature, and ran simply: "My mother is dead, too. After all that -has happened to-day I know we cannot meet. I know, too, that I love -you with all my heart and soul; that I have given you my deathless -devotion. But, unless you say 'Come,' it is best that you go away at -once, and that we never see each other again." - -At that, Alan had torn off the half sheet, and written a single word -upon it. - -It was "_Come._" - -This he gave to Ian, telling him to go straightway with it, and hand -the note to Ynys in person. "Also," he added, "fulfil unquestioningly -every thing she may tell you to do or not to do." - -An hour or more after Ian had gone, and when a dark, still gloaming -had begun, he came again, but this time with Ynys. He and she walked -together; behind them came four horses, led by Ian. When the lovers -met, they had stood silent for some moments. Then Ynys, knowing what -was in Alan's mind, asked if she were come for life or death. - -"I love you, dear," was his answer; "I cannot live without you. If you -be in truth the daughter of the man who slew my father, why should his -evil blood be our undoing also? God knows but that even thus may his -punishment be begun. All his thoughts were upon you and Annaik." - -"Annaik is gone." - -"Gone! Annaik gone! Where has she gone?" - -"I know nothing. She sent me a line to say that she would never sleep -in Kerival again; that something had changed her whole life; that -she would return three days hence for our mother's funeral; and that -thereafter she and I would never meet." - -In a flash Alan saw many things; but deepest of all he saw the working -of doom. On the very day of his triumph Tristran de Kerival had lost -all, and found only that which made life more bitter than death. -Stammeringly now, Alan sought to say something about Annaik; that there -was a secret, an unhappiness, a sorrow, which he must explain. - -But at that Ynys had pointed to the dim gray-brown sea. - -"There, Alan, let us bury it all there; every thing, every thing! -Either you and I must find our forgetfulness there, or we must drown -therein all this terrible past which has an inexplicable, a menacing -present. Dear, I am ready. Shall it be life or death?" - -"Life." - -That was all that was said. Alan leaned forward, and tenderly kissing -her, took her in his arms. Then he turned to Ian. - -"Ian mac Iain, I call you to witness that I take Ynys de Kerival as -my wife; that in this taking all the blood-feud that lies betwixt us -is become as nought; and that the past is past. Henceforth I am Alan -Carmichael, and she here is Ynys Carmichael." - - * * * * * - -At that, Ian had bowed his head. It was against the tradition of his -people; but he loved Ynys as well as Alan, and secretly he was glad. - -Thereafter, Alan and Ynys had mounted, and ridden slowly southward -through the dusk; while Ian followed on the third horse, with, in rein, -its companion, on which were the apparel and other belongings which -Ynys had hurriedly put together. - -They were unmolested in their flight. Indeed, they met no one, till, at -the end of the Forest of Kerival, they emerged near the junction with -the high-road at a place called Trois Chênes. Then a woman, a gypsy -vagrant, insisted disaster would ensue if they went over her tracks -that night without first doing something to avert evil. They must cross -her hand with silver, she said. - -Impatient as he was, Alan stopped, and allowed the gypsy to have her -will. - -She looked at the hand Ynys held out through the obscurity, and almost -immediately dropped it. - -"Beware of crossing the sea," she said. "I see your death floating on a -green wave." - -Ynys shuddered, but said nothing. When Alan put out his hand the woman -held it in hers for a few seconds, and then pondered it intently. - -"Be quick, my good woman," he urged, "we are in a hurry." - -"It will be behind the shadow when we meet again," was all her reply: -enigmatical words, which yet in his ears had a sombre significance. But -he was even more perturbed by the fact that, before she relinquished -his hand, she stooped abruptly and kissed it. - -As the fugitives rode onward along the dusky high-road, Alan whispered -to Ynys that he could not forget the gypsy; that in some strange way -she haunted him; and even seemed to him to be linked to that disastrous -day. - -"That may well be," Ynys had answered, "for the woman was Annaik." - - * * * * * - -Onward they rode till they came to Haut-Kerloek, the ancient village -on the slope of the hill above the little town. There, at the Gloire -de Kerival they stopped for the night. Next morning they resumed their -journey, and the same afternoon reached St. Blaise-sur-Loise, where -they knew they would find the body of General Alasdair Carmichael. - -And it was thus that, by the strange irony of fate, Alasdair -Carmichael, who had never seen his son, who in turn had unknowingly -witnessed his father's tragic death, was followed to the grave-side by -that dear child for whom he had so often longed, and that by Alan's -side was the daughter of the man who had done so much to ruin his -life and had at the last slain him. At the same hour, on the same -day, Lois de Kerival was laid to her rest, with none of her kith and -kin to lament her; for Tristran the Silent was alone in his austere -grief. Two others were there, at whom the Curé looked askance: the rude -woodlander, Judik Kerbastiou, and another forest estray, a gypsy woman -with a shawl over her head. The latter must have known the Marquise's -charity, for the good woman wept quietly throughout the service of -committal, and, when she turned to go, the Curé heard a sob in her -throat. - -It took but a brief while for Alan to settle his father's few affairs. -Among the papers he found one addressed to himself: a long letter -wherein was set forth not only all necessary details concerning Alan's -mother and father, but also particulars about the small fortune that -was in keeping for him in Edinburgh, and the lonely house on the lonely -Isle of Rona among the lonely Hebrides. - -In St. Blaise Alan and Ynys went before the civil authorities, and were -registered as man and wife. The next day they resumed their journey -toward that exile which they had in view. - -Thereafter, slowly, and by devious ways, they fared far north. At -Edinburgh Alan had learned all that was still unexplained. He found -that there would be enough money to enable Ynys and himself to live -quietly, particularly at so remote a place as Rona. The castle or -"keep" there was unoccupied, and had, indeed, long been untenanted save -by the widow-woman Kirsten Macdonald, Ian's sister. In return for this -home, she had kept the solitary place in order. All the furniture that -had been there, when Alasdair Carmichael was last in Rona, remained. In -going thither, Alan and Ynys would be going home. - -The westward journey was a revelation to them. Never had there been so -beautiful a May, they were told. They had lingered long at the first -place where they heard the sweet familiar sound of the Gaelic. Hand in -hand, they wandered over the hill-sides of which the very names had a -poignant home-sweetness; and long, hot hours they spent together on -lochs of which Lois de Kerival had often spoken with deep longing in -her voice. - -As they neared the extreme of the mainland, Alan's excitement deepened. -He spoke hardly a word on the day the steamer left the Argyle coast -behind, and headed for the dim isles of the sea, Coll and Tiree; and -again on the following day Ynys saw how distraught he was, for, about -noon, the coast-line of Uist loomed, faintly blue, upon the dark -Atlantic horizon. - -At Loch Boisdale, where they disembarked, and whence they had to sail -the remainder of their journey in a fishing schooner, which by good -fortune was then there and disengaged, Ian was for the first time -recognized. All that evening Alan and Ynys talked with the islesmen; -Alan finding, to his delight, his Gaelic was so good that none for a -moment suspected he had not lived in the isles all his life. That of -Ynys, however, though fluent, had a foreign sound in it which puzzled -the admiring fishermen. - -It was an hour after sunrise when the _Blue Herring_ sailed out of -Loch Boisdale, and it was an hour before sunset when the anchor dropped -in Borosay Haven. - -On this night Alan perceived the first sign of aloofness among his -fellow Gaels. Hitherto every one had been cordial, and he and Ynys -had rejoiced in the courtesy and genial friendliness which they had -everywhere encountered. - -But in Balnaree ("Baille'-na-Righ"), the little village wherein was -focussed all that Borosay had to boast of in the way of civic life, he -could not disguise from himself that again and again he was looked at -askance. - -Rightly or wrongly he took this to be resentment because of his having -wed Ynys, the daughter of the man who had murdered Alasdair Carmichael. -So possessed was he by this idea that he did not remember how little -likely the islanders were to know aught concerning Ynys, or indeed any -thing beyond the fact that Alasdair MacAlasdair Rhona had died abroad. - -The trouble became more than an imaginary one when, on the morrow, he -tried to find a boat for the passage to Rona. But for the Frozen Hand, -as the triple-peaked hill to the south of Balnaree was called, Rona -would have been visible; nor was it, with a fair wind, more than an -hour's sail distant. - -Nevertheless, every one to whom he spoke showed a strange reluctance. -At last, in despair, he asked an old man of his own surname why there -was so much difficulty. - -In the island way, Sheumas Carmichael replied that the people on -Elleray, the island adjacent to Rona, were incensed. - -"But incensed at what?" - -"Well, at this and at that. But for one thing they are not having -any dealings with the Carmichaels. They are all Macdonalds, there, -Macdonalds of Barra. There is a feud, I am thinking; though I know -nothing of it; no, not I." - -"But Seumas mac Eachainn, you know well yourself that there are almost -no Carmichaels to have a feud with! There are you and your brother, and -there is your cousin over at Sgòrr-Bhan on the other side of Borosay. -Who else is there?" - -To this the man could say nothing. Distressed, Alan sought Ian and -bade him find out what he could. He, also, however, was puzzled and -even seriously perturbed. That some evil was at work could not be -doubted; and that it was secret boded ill. - -Ian was practically a stranger in Borosay because of his long absence. -But though this, for a time, shut him off from his fellow islanders, -and retarded his discovery of what strange reason accounted for the -apparently inexplicable apathy shown by the fishermen of Balnaree,--an -apathy, too, so much to their own disadvantage,--it enabled him, on the -other hand, to make a strong appeal to the clan-side of the islanders' -natures. After all, Ian mac Iain mhic Dhonuill was one of them, and -though he came there with a man in a shadow (though this phrase was not -used in Ian's hearing), that was not his fault. - -Suddenly Ian remembered a fact that he should have thought of at once. -There was the old woman, his sister Kirsten. He would speak of her, and -of their long separation, and of his desire to see her again before he -died. - -This made a difficult thing easy. Within an hour a boat was ready -to take the travellers to the Isle of the Caves--as Rona was called -locally. Before the hour was gone, they, with the stores of food and -other things they had been advised to take with them, were slipping -seaward out of Borosay Haven. - -The moment the headland was rounded the heights of Rona came into -view. Great gaunt cliffs they are, precipices of black basalt; though -on the south side they fall away in grassy declivities which hang a -greenness over the wandering wave forever sobbing round that desolate -shore. But it was not till the Sgòrr-Dhu, a conical black rock at the -southeast end of the island, was reached that the stone keep, known as -Caisteal-Rhona, came in sight. - -It stands at the landward extreme of a rocky ledge, on the margin of -a green _airidh_. Westward is a small dark-blue sea loch, no more -than a narrow haven. To the northwest rise sheer the ocean-fronting -precipitous cliffs; northward, above the green pasture and a stretch of -heather, is a woodland-belt of some three or four hundred pine-trees. -It might well be called I-monair, as Aodh the Islander sang of it; for -it is ever echoing with murmurous noises. If the waves dash against it -from the south or east, a loud crying is upon the faces of the rocks; -if from the north or north-east, there is a dull iteration, and amid -the pines a continual soughing sea voice. But when the wind blows from -the south-west, or the huge Atlantic billows surge out of the west, -Rona is a place filled with an indescribable tumult. Through the whole -island goes the myriad echo of a hollow booming, with an incessant -sound as though waters were pouring through vast hidden conduits in the -heart of every precipice, every rock, every bowlder. This is because of -the arcades of which it consists, for from the westward the island has -been honeycombed by the sea. No living man has ever traversed all those -mysterious, winding sea galleries. Many have perished in the attempt. -In the olden days the Uisteans and Barrovians sought refuge there from -the marauding Danes and other pirates out of Lochlin; and in the time -when the last Scottish king took shelter in the west many of his -island followers found safety among these perilous arcades. - -Some of them reach to an immense height. These are filled with a pale -green gloom which in fine weather, and at noon or toward sundown, -becomes almost radiant. But most have only a dusky green obscurity, and -some are at all times dark with a darkness that has seen neither sun -nor moon nor star for unknown ages. Sometimes, there, a phosphorescent -wave will spill a livid or a cold blue flame, and for a moment a vast -gulf of dripping basalt be revealed; but day and night, night and day, -from year to year, from age to age, that awful wave-clamant darkness -prevails unbroken. - -To the few who know some of the secrets of the Passages, it is -possible, except when a gale blows from any quarter but the north, -to thrid these dim arcades in a narrow boat, and so to pass from the -Hebrid Seas to the outer Atlantic. But to one unaware of the clews -there might well be no return to the light of the open day; for in that -maze of winding galleries and dim, sea-washed, and forever unlitten -arcades, there is only a hopeless bewilderment. Once bewildered, there -is no hope; and the lost adventurer will remain there idly drifting -from barren corridor to corridor, till he perish of hunger and thirst, -or, maddened by the strange and appalling gloom and the unbroken -silence,--for there the muffled voice of the sea is no more than a -whisper,--he leap into the green waters which forever slide stealthily -from ledge to ledge. - -From Ian mac Iain Alan had heard of such an isle, though he had not -known it to be Rona. Now, as he approached his wild, remote home he -thought of these death-haunted corridors, avenues of the grave as they -are called in the "Cumha Fhir-Mearanach Aonghas mhic Dhonuill--the -Lament of mad Angus Macdonald." - -When, at last, the unwieldy brown coble sailed into the little haven it -was to create unwonted excitement among the few fishermen who put in -there frequently for bait. A group of eight or ten was upon the rocky -ledge beyond Caisteal-Rhona, among them the elderly woman who was -sister to Ian mac Iain. - -At Alan's request, Ian went ashore in advance, in a small punt. He -was to wave his hand if all were well, for Alan could not but feel -apprehensive on account of the strange ill-will that had shown itself -at Borosay. - -It was with relief that he saw the signal when, after Ian had embraced -his sister, and shaken hands with all the fishermen, he had explained -that the son of Alasdair Carmichael was come out of the south, and -with a beautiful young wife, too, and was henceforth to live at -Caisteal-Rhona. - -All there uncovered and waved their hats. Then a shout of welcome went -up, and Alan's heart was glad, and that of Ynys. But the moment he -had set foot on land he saw a startled look come into the eyes of the -fishermen--a look that deepened swiftly into one of aversion, almost of -fear. - -One by one the men moved away, awkward in their embarrassment. Not one -came forward with outstretched hand, nor said a word of welcome. - -At first amazed, then indignant, Ian reproached them. They received his -words in ashamed silence. Even when with a bitter tongue he taunted -them, they answered nothing. - -"Giorsal," said Ian, turning in despair to his sister, "what is the -meaning of this folly?" - -But even she was no longer the same. Her eyes were fixed upon Alan -with a look of dread and indeed of horror. It was unmistakable, and -Alan himself was conscious of it, with a strange sinking of the heart. -"Speak, woman!" he demanded. "What is the meaning of this thing? Why do -you and these men look at me askance?" - -"God forbid!" answered Giorsal Macdonald with white lips; "God forbid -that we look at the son of Alasdair Carmichael askance. But...." - -"But what?" - -With that the woman put her apron over her head and moved away, -muttering strange words. - -"Ian, what is this mystery?" - -It was Ynys who spoke now, for on Alan's face was a shadow, and in his -eyes a deep gloom. She, too, was white, and had fear in her eyes. - -"How am I for knowing, Ynys-nighean-Lhois? It is all a darkness to me -also. But I will find out." - -That, however, was easier for Ian to say than to do. Meanwhile, the -brown cobble tacked back to Borosay, and the fishermen sailed away to -the Barra coasts, and Alan and Ynys were left solitary in their wild -and remote home. - -But in that very solitude they found healing. From what Giorsal hinted, -they came to believe that the fishermen had experienced one of those -strange dream-waves which, in remote isles, occur at times, when whole -communities will be wrought by the selfsame fantasy. When day by day -went past, and no one came nigh them, at first they were puzzled and -even resentful, but this passed and soon they were glad to be alone. -Only, Ian knew that there was another cause for the inexplicable -aversion that had been shown. But he was silent, and he kept a patient -watch for the hour that the future held in its dim shroud. As for -Giorsal, she was dumb; but no more looked at Alan askance. - -And so the weeks went. Occasionally, a fishing smack came with the -provisions for the weekly despatch of which Alan had arranged at Loch -Boisdale, and sometimes the Barra men put in at the haven, though they -would never stay long, and always avoided Alan as much as was possible. - -In that time Alan and Ynys came to know and love their strangely -beautiful island home. Hours and hours at a time they spent exploring -the dim, green winding sea galleries, till at last they knew the main -corridors thoroughly. They had even ventured into some of the narrow -snake-like passages, but never for long, because of the awe and dread -these held, silent estuaries of the grave. - -There, too, they forgot all the sorrow that had been theirs, forgot the -shadow of death which lay between them. They buried all in the deep sea -of love that was about the rock of their passion. For, as of another -Alan and another woman, the _mirdhei_ was upon them: the dream-spell of -love. - -Day by day, with them as with that Alan and Sorcha of whom they had -often heard, their joy had grown, like a flower moving ever to the sun; -and as it grew the roots deepened, and the tendrils met and intertwined -round the two hearts, till at last they were drawn together and became -one, as two moving rays of light will converge into one beam, or the -song of two singers blend and become as the song of one. - -As the weeks passed the wonder of the dream became at times a brooding -passion, at times almost an ecstasy. Ossian and the poets of old speak -of a strange frenzy that came upon the brave; and, sure, there is a -_mircath_ of another kind now and again in the world, in the green, -remote places at least. Aodh the islander, and Ian-Ban of the hills, -and other dreamer-poets know of it--the _mirdhei_, the passion that is -deeper than passion, the dream that is beyond the dream. This that was -once the fair doom of another Alan and Sorcha, of whom Ian had often -told him with hushed voice and dreaming eyes, was now upon himself and -Ynys. - -They were Love to each other. In each the other saw the beauty of the -world. Hand in hand they wandered among the wind-haunted pines, or -along the thyme and grass of the summits of the precipices; or they -sailed for hours upon the summer seas, blue lawns of moving azure, -glorious with the sun-dazzle and lovely with purple cloud-shadows and -amethystine straits of floating weed; or, by noontide, or at the full -of the moon, they penetrated far into the dim, green arcades, and were -as shadows in a strange and fantastic but ineffably sweet and beautiful -dream. - -Day was lovely and desirable to each, for day dreamed to night; and -night was sweet as life because it held the new day against its dark, -beating heart. Week after week passed, and to Ynys as to Alan it was as -the going of the gray owl's wing, swift and silent. - - * * * * * - -Then it was that, on a day of the days, Alan was suddenly stricken with -a new and startling dread. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -AT THE EDGE OF THE SHADOW - - -In the hour that this terror came upon him Alan was alone upon the -high slopes of Rona, where the grass fails and the moor purples at an -elevation of close on a thousand feet above the sea. - -The day had been cloudless since sunrise. The immeasurable range of -ocean expanded like the single petal of an azure flower; all of one -unbroken blue save for the shadows of the scattered isles and for the -fugitive amethyst where floating weed suspended. An immense number of -birds congregated from every quarter. Guillemots and skuas and puffins, -cormorants and northern divers, everywhere darted, swam, or slept -upon the listless sea, whose deep suspiration no more than lifted a -league-long calm here and there, to lapse insensibly, even as it rose. -Through the not less silent quietudes of air the sea-gulls swept with -curving flight, and the narrow-winged terns made a constant shimmer. -At remote altitudes the gannet motionlessly drifted. Oceanward the -great widths of calm were rent now and again by the shoulders of the -porpoises which followed the herring trail, their huge, black revolving -bodies looming large above the silent wave. Not a boat was visible -anywhere; not even upon the most distant horizons did a brown sail -fleck itself duskily against the skyward wall of steely blue. - -In the great stillness which prevailed, the noise of the surf beating -around the promontory of Aonaig was audible as a whisper; though even -in that windless hour the indescribable rumor of the sea, moving -through the arcades of the island, filled the hollow of the air -overhead. Ever since the early morning Alan had moved under a strange -gloom. Out of that golden glory of midsummer a breath of joyous life -should have reached his heart, but it was not so. For sure, there -is sometimes in the quiet beauty of summer an air of menace, a -breath, a suspicion, a dream-premonition, of suspended force--a force -antagonistic and terrible. All who have lived in these lonely isles -know the peculiar intensity of this summer melancholy. No clamor of -tempestuous wind, no prolonged sojourn of untimely rains, and no long -baffling of mists in all the drear inclemencies of that remote region, -can produce the same ominous and even paralyzing gloom which sometimes -can be born of ineffable peace and beauty. Is it that in the human soul -there is mysterious kinship with the outer soul which we call Nature; -and that in these few supreme hours which come at the full of the year -we are, sometimes, suddenly aware of the tremendous forces beneath and -behind us, momently quiescent? - -Standing with Ynys upon a grassy headland, Alan had looked long at -the dream-blue perspectives to the southward, seeing there at first -no more than innumerable hidden pathways of the sun, with blue-green -and silver radiance immeasurable, and the very breath and wonder -and mystery of ocean life suspended as in a dream. In the hearts of -each deep happiness brooded. Perhaps it was out of these depths that -rose the dark flower of this sudden apprehension that came upon him. -It was no fear for Ynys, nor for himself, not for the general weal: -but a profound disquietude, a sense of inevitable ill. Ynys felt the -tightening of his hand; and saw the sudden change in his face. It was -often so with him. The sun-dazzle, at which he would look with endless -delight, finding in it a tangible embodiment of the fugitive rhythms of -cosmic music which floated everywhere, would sometimes be a dazzle also -in his brain. In a moment a strange bewilderment would render unstable -those perilous sands of the human brain which are forever laved by -the strange waters of the unseen life. When this mood or fantasy, or -uncalculable accident occurred, he was often wrought either by vivid -dreams, or creative work, or else would lapse into a melancholy from -which not even the calling love of Ynys would arouse him. When she -saw in his face and in his eyes this sudden bewildered look, and knew -that in some mysterious way the madness of the beauty of the sea had -enthralled him, she took his hand and moved with him inland. In a -brief while the poignant fragrance from the trodden thyme and short -hill-grass, warmed by the sun, rose as an intoxication. For that hour -the gloom went. But when, later, he wandered away from Caisteal-Rhona, -once more the sense of foreboding was heavy upon him. Determined to -shake it off, he wandered high among the upland solitudes. There a cool -air forever moved even in the noons of August; and there, indeed, at -last, there came upon him a deep peace. With joy his mind dwelled over -and over again upon all that Ynys had been and was to him; upon the -depth and passion of their love; upon the mystery and wonder of that -coming life which was theirs and yet was not of them, itself already no -more than an unrisen wave or an unbloomed flower, but yet as inevitable -as they, but dowered with the light which is beyond where the mortal -shadows end. Strange, this passion of love for what is not; strange, -this deep longing of the woman--the longing of the womb, the longing -of the heart, the longing of the brain, the longing of the soul--for -the perpetuation of the life she shares in common with one whom she -loves; strange, this longing of the man, a longing deep-based in his -nature as the love of life or the fear of death, for the gaining from -the woman he loves this personal hostage against oblivion. For indeed -something of this so commonplace, and yet so divine and mysterious -tide of birth, which is forever at the flow upon this green world, is -due to an instinctive fear of cessation. The perpetuation of life is -the unconscious protest of humanity against the destiny of mortality. -Thoughts such as these were often with Alan now; often, too, with Ynys, -in whom, indeed, all the latent mysticism which had ever been a bond -between them had latterly been continually evoked. Possibly it was the -mere shadow of his great love; possibly it was some fear of the dark -way wherein the sunrise of each new birth is involved; possibly it was -no more than the melancholy of the isles, that so wrought him on this -perfect day. Whatsoever the reason, a deeper despondency prevailed -as noon waned into afternoon. An incident, deeply significant to him, -in that mood, at that time, happened then. A few hundred yards away -from where he stood, half hidden in a little glen where a fall of -water made a continual spray among the shadows of the rowan and birch, -was the bothie of a woman, the wife of Neil MacNeill, a fisherman of -Aonaig. She was there, he knew, for the summer pasturing, and even as -he recollected this, he heard the sound of her voice as she sang down -somewhere by the burnside. Moving slowly toward the corrie, he stopped -at a mountain ash which overhung a deep pool. Looking down, he saw the -woman, Morag MacNeill, washing and peeling potatoes in the clear brown -water. And as she washed and peeled, she sang an old-time shealing -hymn of the Virgin-Shepherdess, of Michael the White, and of Coluaman -the Dove. It was a song that, far away in Brittany, he had heard Lois, -the mother of Ynys, sing in one of those rare hours when her youth -came back to her with something of youth's passionate intensity. He -listened now to every word of the doubly familiar Gaelic, and when -Morag finished the tears were in his eyes, and he stood for a while as -one entranced.[A] - - [Footnote A: This hymn is taken down in the Gaelic and translated by - Mr. Alexander Carmichael of South Uist.] - - "A Mhicheil mhin! nan steud geala, - A choisin cios air Dragon fala, - Air ghaol Dia' us Mhic Muire, - Sgaoil do sgiath oirnn dian sinn uile, - Sgaoil do sgiath oirnn dian sinn uile. - - "A Mhoire ghradhach! Mathair Uain-ghil, - Cohhair oirnne, Oigh na h-uaisle; - A rioghainn uai'reach! a bhuachaille nan treud! - Cum ar cuallach cuartaich sinn le cheil, - Cum ar cuallach cuartaich sinn le cheil. - - "A Chalum-Chille! chairdeil, chaoimh, - An ainm Athar, Mic, 'us Spioraid Naoimh, - Trid na Trithinn! trid na Triath! - Comraig sinne, gleidh ar trial, - Comraig sinne, gleidh ar trial. - - "Athair! A Mhic! A Spioraid Naoimh! - Bi'eadh an Tri-Aon leinn, a la 's a dh-oidhche! - 'S air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann, - Bi'dh ar Mathair leinn, 's bith A lamh fo'r ceann, - Bi'dh ar Mathair leinn, 's bith A lamh fo'r ceann." - - - [Thou gentle Michael of the white steed, - Who subdued the Dragon of blood, - For love of God and the Son of Mary, - Spread over us thy wing, shield us all! - Spread over us thy wing, shield us all! - - Mary Beloved! Mother of the White Lamb, - Protect us, thou Virgin of nobleness, - Queen of beauty! Shepherdess of the flocks! - Keep our cattle, surround us together, - Keep our cattle, surround us together. - - Thou Columba, the friendly, the kind, - In name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit Holy, - Through the Three-in-One, through the Three, - Encompass us, guard our procession, - Encompass us, guard our procession. - - Thou Father! thou Son! thou Spirit Holy! - Be the Three-One with us day and night. - And on the crested wave, or on the mountain side, - Our Mother is there, and her arm is under our head, - Our Mother is there, and her arm is under our head.] - -After she had ceased Alan found himself repeating whisperingly, and -again and again: - - "Bi'eadh an Tri-Aon leinn, a la 's a dh-oidhche! - 'S air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann." - -Suddenly the woman glanced upward, perhaps because of the shadow that -moved against the green bracken below. With a startled gesture she -sprang to her feet. Alan looked at her kindly, saying with a smile, -"Sure, Morag nic Tormaid, it is not fear you need be having of one who -is your friend." Then, seeing that the woman stared at him with an -intent gaze, wherein was terror as well as surprise, he spoke to her -again. - -"Sure, Morag, I am no stranger that you should be looking at me with -those foreign eyes." He laughed as he spoke, and made as though he were -about to descend to the burnside. Unmistakably, however, the woman did -not desire his company. He saw that with the pain and bewilderment -which had come upon him whenever the like happened, as so often it had -happened since he had come to Rona. - -"Tell me, Bean Neil MacNeill, what is the meaning of this strangeness -that is upon you? Why do you not speak? Why do you turn away your -head?" - -Suddenly the woman flashed her black eyes upon him. - -"Have you ever heard of _am Buchaille Bàn--am Buchaille Buidhe_?" - -He looked at her in amaze. _Am Buchaille Bàn!_ ... The fair-haired -Herdsman, the yellow-haired Herdsman! What could she mean? In days gone -by, he knew, the islanders had, in the evil time after Culloden, so -named the fugitive Prince who had sought shelter in the Hebrides; and -in some of the runes of an older day still the Saviour of the World -was sometimes so called, just as Mary was called _Bhuachaille nan -treud_--Shepherdess of the Flocks. But as Alan knew well, no allusion -to either of these was intended. - -"Who is the Herdsman of whom you speak, Morag?" - -"Is it no knowledge you have of him at all, Alan MacAlasdair?" - -"None. I know nothing of the man, nothing of what is in your mind. Who -is the Herdsman?" - -"You will not be putting evil upon me because that you saw me here by -the pool before I saw you?" - -"Why should I, woman? Why do you think that I have the power of the -evil eye? Sure, I have done no harm to you or yours, and wish none. But -if it is for peace to you to know it, it is no evil I wish you, but -only good. The Blessing of Himself be upon you and yours and upon your -house." - -The woman looked relieved, but still cast her furtive gaze upon Alan, -who no longer attempted to join her. - -"I cannot be speaking the thing that is in my mind, Alan MacAlasdair. -It is not for me to be saying that thing. But if you have no knowledge -of the Herdsman, sure it is only another wonder of the wonders, and God -has the sun on that shadow, to the Stones be it said." - -"But tell me, Morag, who is the Herdsman of whom you speak?" - -For a minute or more the woman stood regarding him intently. Then -slowly, and as with difficulty, she spoke: - -"Why have you appeared to the people upon the isle, sometimes by -moonlight, sometimes by day or in the dusk? and have foretold upon one -and all who dwell here black gloom and the red flame of sorrow?--Why -have you, who are an outcast because of what lies between you and -another, pretended to be an emissary of the Son--ay, for sure, even, -God forgive you, to be the Son himself?" - -Alan stared at the woman in blank amaze. For a time he could utter no -word. Had some extraordinary delusion spread among the islanders, and -was there in the insane accusation of this woman the secret of that -inexplicable aversion which had so troubled him? - -"This is all an empty darkness to me, Morag. Speak more plainly, woman. -What is all this madness that you say? When have I uttered aught of -having any mission, or of being other than I am? When have I foretold -evil upon you or yours, or upon the isles beyond? What man has ever -dared to say that Alan MacAlasdair of Rona is an outcast? and what sin -is it that lies between me and another of which you know?" - -It was impossible for Morag MacNeill to doubt the sincerity of the man -who spoke to her. She crossed herself, and muttered the words of a -_sian_ for the protection of the soul against the demon powers. Still, -even while she believed in Alan's sincerity, she could not reconcile it -with that terrible and strange mystery with which rumor had filled her -ears. So, having nothing to say in reply to his eager questions, she -cast down her eyes and kept silence. - -"Speak, Morag, for Heaven's sake! Speak if you are a true woman; you -that see a man in sore pain, in pain, too, for that of which he knows -nothing, and of the ill of which he is guiltless!" - -But, keeping her face averted, the woman muttered simply: "I have no -more to say." With that she turned and moved slowly along the pathway -which led from the pool to her hillside bothie. - -With a sigh, Alan turned and moved across the moor. What wonder, he -thought, that deep gloom had been upon him that day? Here, in the -woman's mysterious words, was the shadow of that shadow. - -Slowly, brooding deep over what he had heard, he traversed the -Mona-nan-Con, as the hill-tract there was called, till he came to the -rocky wilderness known as the Slope of the Caverns. - -There for a time he leaned against a high bowlder, idly watching a few -sheep nibbling the short grass which grew about the apertures of some -of the many caves which disclosed themselves in all directions. Below -and beyond, he saw the illimitable calm beauty of the scene; southward -with no break anywhere; eastward, a sun-blaze void; south-westward, -the faint, blue film of the coast of Ulster; westward, the same -immeasurable windless expanse. From where he stood he could just hear -the murmur of the surge whispering all round the isle; the surge that, -even on days of profoundest calm, makes a murmurous rumor among the -rocks and shingle of the island shores. Not upon the moor side, but -in the blank hollows of the caves around him he heard, as in gigantic -shells, the moving of a strange and solemn rhythm: wave haunted-shells -indeed, for the echo that was bruited from one to the other came from -beneath, from out of those labyrinthine corridors and dim, shadowy -arcades, where through the intense green glooms the Atlantic waters -lose themselves in a vain wandering. - -For long he leaned there, revolving in his mind the mystery of Morag -MacNeill's words. Then, abruptly, the stillness was broken by the sound -of a dislodged stone. So little did he expect the foot of a fellow that -he did not turn at what he thought to be the slip of a sheep. But when -upon the slope of the grass, just beyond where he stood, a dusky blue -shadow wavered fantastically, he swung round with a sudden instinct of -dread. - -And this was the dread which, at the end of the third month after he -and Ynys had come to Rona, was upon Alan Carmichael. - -For there, standing quietly by another bowlder, at the mouth of another -cave, stood a man who was in all appearance identical with himself. -Looking at this apparition, he beheld one of the same height as -himself, with hair of the same hue, with eyes the same, and features -the same, with the same carriage, the same smile, even the same -expression. No, it was there, and there alone, that a difference was. - -Sick at heart, Alan wondered if he looked upon his own wraith. Familiar -as he was with the legends of his people, it would be no strange thing -to him that there, upon the hillside, should appear the phantasm of -himself. Had not old Ian MacIain--and that, too, though far away in a -strange land--seen the death of Lois Macdonald moving upward from her -feet to her knees, from her knees to her waist, from her waist to her -neck and, just before the end, how the shroud darkened along the face -until it hid the eyes? Had he not often heard from her, from Ian, of -the second self which so often appears beside the living when already -the shadow of doom is upon him whose hours are numbered? Was this, -then, the reason of what had been his inexplicable gloom? Was he indeed -at the extreme of life; was his soul amid shallows, already a rock upon -a blank, inhospitable shore? If not, who or what was this second self -which leaned there negligently; looking at him with scornfully smiling -lips, but with intent, unsmiling eyes. - -Then, slowly, there came into his mind this thought: How could a -phantom, that was itself intangible, throw a shadow upon the grass, -as though it were a living corporeal being? Sure, a shadow there was -indeed. It lay between the apparition and himself. A story heard in -boyhood came back to him; instinctively he stooped and lifted a stone -and flung it midway into the shadow. - -"Go back into the darkness," he cried, "if out of the darkness you -came; but, if you be a living thing, put out your hands!" - -The shadow remained motionless; though when Alan looked again at his -second self, he saw that the scorn which had been upon the lips was now -in the eyes also. Ay, for sure, that was scornful laughter that lay -in those cold wells of light. No phantom that; a man he, even as Alan -himself. His heart pulsed like that of a trapped bird, but, even in the -speaking, his courage came back to him. - -"Who are you?" he asked in a low voice that was strange even in his own -ears. - -"Am Buchaille", replied the man in a voice as low and strange. "I am -the Herdsman." - -A new tide of fear surged in upon Alan. That voice, was it not his -own; that tone, was it not familiar in his ears? When the man spoke, -he heard himself speak; sure, if he were am Buchaille Bàn, Alan, too, -was the Herdsman--though what fantastic destiny might be his was all -unknown to him. - -"Come near," said the man, and now the mocking light in his eyes was -lambent as cloud-fire--"come near, oh, Buchaille Bàn!" - -With a swift movement Alan leapt forward, but as he leaped his foot -caught in a spray of heather and he stumbled and nigh fell. When he -recovered himself, he looked in vain for the man who had called him. -There was not a sign, not a trace of any living being. For the first -few moments he believed it had all been a delusion. Mortal being did -not appear and vanish in that ghostly way. Still, surely he could not -have mistaken the blank of that place for a speaking voice, nor out -of nothingness have fashioned the living phantom of himself? Or could -he? With that, he strode forward and peered into the wide arch of -the cavern by which the man had stood. He could not see far into it, -but so far as it was possible to see, he discerned neither man nor -shadow of man, nor any thing that stirred; no, not even the dust of a -bearnan-Bride, that grew on a patch of grass a yard or two within the -darkness, had lost one of its aërial pinions. He drew back, dismayed. -Then, suddenly, his heart leapt again, for, beyond all question, all -possible doubt, there, in the bent thyme, just where the man had stood, -was the imprint of his feet. Even now the green sprays were moving -forward. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -MYSTERY - - -An hour passed, and Alan Carmichael still stood by the entrance to -the cave. So immovable was he that a ewe, listlessly wandering there -in search of cooler grass, lay down after a while, drowsily regarding -him with her amber-colored eyes. All his thought was intent upon the -mystery of what he had seen. No delusion this, he was sure. That was a -man whom he had seen. It might well have been some one whom he did not -know, though that were unlikely, of course, for on so small an island, -inhabited by less than a score of crofters, it was scarcely possible -for one to live there for many weeks and not know the name and face of -every soul upon the isle. Still, a stranger might have come. Only, if -this were so, why should he call himself the Herdsman? There was but -one herdsman on Rona, and he Angus MacCormic, who lived at Einaval on -the north side. In these outer isles, the shepherd and the herdsman -are appointed by the community, and no man is allowed to be one or the -other at will, any more than to be _maor_ or _constabal_. Then, too, -if this man were indeed herdsman, where was his _imir ionailt_, his -browsing tract? Looking round him, Alan could perceive nowhere any -fitting pasture. Surely no herdsman would be content with such an _imir -a bhuchaille_--rig of the herdsman--as that rocky wilderness where the -soft green grass grew in patches under this or that bowlder, on the -sun side of this or that mountain ash. Again, he had given no name, -but called himself simply _Am Buchaille_. This was how the woman Morag -had spoken; did she indeed mean this very man, and if so what import -lay in her words? But far beyond all other bewilderment for him was -that strange, that indeed terrifying likeness to himself; a likeness -so absolute, so convincing, that he knew he might himself easily have -been deceived, had he beheld the apparition in any place where it was -possible that a reflection could have misled him. - -Brooding thus, eye and ear were both intent for the faintest sight or -sound. But, from the interior of the cavern, not a breath came. Once, -from among the jagged rocks high on the west slope of Ben Einaval -he fancied he heard an unwonted sound: that of human laughter, but -laughter so wild, so remote, so unmirthful, that fear was in his heart. -It could not be other than imagination, he said to himself; for in that -lonely place there was none to wander idly at that season, and none -who, wandering, would laugh there, solitary. - -It was with an effort that Alan at last determined to probe the -mystery. Stooping, he moved cautiously into the cavern, and groped his -way along a narrow ledge which led, as he thought, into another larger -cave. But this proved to be one of the innumerable hollow corridors -which intersect the honeycombed slopes of this Isle of Caves. To wander -far in these lightless passages would be to court inevitable death. -Long ago, the piper whom the Prionnsa-Ban, the Fair Prince, loved to -hear in his exile,--he that was called Rory McVurich,--penetrated one -of the larger hollows to seek there for a child that had idly wandered -into the dark. Some of the clansmen, with the father and mother of -the little one, waited at the entrance to the cave. For a time there -was silence; then, as agreed upon, the sound of the pipes was heard, -to which a man named Lachlan McLachlan replied from the outer air. -The skirl of the pipes within grew fainter and fainter. Louder and -louder Lachlan played upon his _chantar_; shriller and shriller grew -the wild cry of the _feadan_; but for all that, fainter and fainter -waned the sound of the pipes of Rory McVurich. Generations have come -and gone upon the isle, and still no man has heard the returning air -which Rory was to play. He may have found the little child, but he -never found his backward path, and in the gloom of that honeycombed -hill he and the child and the music of the pipes lapsed into the same -stillness. Remembering this legend, familiar to him since his boyhood, -Alan did not dare to venture farther. At any moment, too, he knew he -might fall into one of the innumerable crevices which opened into the -sea-corridors hundreds of feet below. Ancient rumor had it that there -were mysterious passages from the upper heights of Ben Einaval, which -led into the intricate heart mazes of these perilous arcades. But for -a time he lay still, straining every sense. Convinced at last that the -man whom he sought had evaded all possible quest, he turned to regain -the light. Brief way as he had gone, this was no easy thing to do. For -a few moments, indeed, Alan lost his self-possession, when he found a -uniform dusk about him, and could scarce discern which of the several -branching narrow corridors was that by which he had come. But following -the greener light, he reached the cave, and soon, with a sigh of -relief, was upon the sun-sweet warm earth again. - -How more than ever beautiful the world seemed to him; how sweet upon -the eyes were cliff and precipice, the wide stretch of ocean, the -flying birds, the sheep grazing on the scanty pastures, and, above all, -the homely blue smoke curling faintly upward from the fisher crofts on -the headland east of Aonaig! - -Purposely he retraced his steps by the way of the glen. He would see -the woman, Morag MacNeill again, and insist on some more explicit word; -but when he reached the burnside once more, the woman was not there. -Possibly she had seen him coming, and guessed his purpose; half he -surmised this, for the peats in the hearth were brightly aglow, and -on the hob beside them the boiling water hissed in a great iron pot -wherein were potatoes. In vain he sought, in vain called. Impatient -at last he walked around the bothie and into the little byre beyond. -The place seemed deserted. The matter, small as it was, added to his -profound disquietude. Resolved to sift the mystery, he began to walk -swiftly down the slope. By the old shealing of Cnoc-na-Monie, now -forsaken, his heart leaped at sight of Ynys coming to meet him. At -first he thought he would say nothing of what had happened. But with -Ynys his was ever an impossible silence, for she knew every change -in his mind as a seaman knows the look of the sky and sea. Moreover, -she had herself been all day oppressed by something of the same -inexplicable apprehension. - -When they met, she put her hands on his shoulders and looked at him -lovingly with questioning eyes. Ah! he found rest and hope in those -deep pools of quiet light whence the dreaming love rose comfortingly to -meet his own yearning gaze. - -"What is it, Alan, mo-ghray; what is the trouble that is upon you?" - -"It is a trouble, Ynys, but one of which I can speak little, for it is -little I know." - -"Have you heard or seen aught that gives you fear?" - -"I have seen a man here upon Rona whom I have not seen or met before, -and it is one whose face is known to me, and whose voice too, and one -whom I would not meet again." - -"Did he give you no name, Alan?" - -"None." - -"Whence did he come? Whither did he go?" - -"He came out of the shadow, and into the shadow he went." - -Ynys looked steadfastly at her husband; her wistful gaze searching deep -into his unquiet eyes, and thence from feature to feature of the face -which had become strangely worn, for all the joy that lay between them. - -But she said no more upon what he had told her. - -"I, too, Alan mo rùn, have heard a strange thing to-day. You know old -Marsail Macrae? She is ill now with a slow fever, and she thinks that -the shadow which she saw lying upon her hearth last Sabbath, when -nothing was there to cause any shadow, was her own death, come for her, -and now waiting there. I spoke to the old woman comfortingly, but she -would not have peace, and her eyes looked at me strangely. - -"'What is it, Marsail?' I asked at last. To which she replied -mysteriously: - -"'Ay, ay, for sure, it was I who saw you first.' - -"'Saw me first, Marsail?' - -"'Ay, you and Alan MacAlasdair.' - -"'When and where was this sight upon you that you speak of?' - -"'It was one month before you and he came to Rona.' - -"This startled me, and I asked her to tell me her meaning. At first, I -could make little of what was said, for she muttered low, and moved her -head idly this way and that; moaning in her pain. But on my taking her -hand, she looked at me again; and then, apparently without an effort, -told me this thing: - - * * * * * - -"'On the seventh day of the month before you came--and by the same -token it was on the seventh day of the month following that you and -Alan MacAlasdair came to Caisteal-Rhona--I was upon the shore at -Aonaig, listening to the crying of the wind against the great precipice -of Biolacreag. With me were Roderick Macrea and Neil MacNeill, Morag -MacNeill, and her sister Elsa; and we were singing the hymn for those -who were out on the wild sea that was roaring white against the cliffs -of Berneray; for some of our people were there, and we feared for them. -Sometimes one sang, and sometimes another. And sure, it is remembering -I am, how, when I had called out with my old wailing voice: - - "'Boidh an Tri-aon leinn, a la 's a dh-oidche; - 'S air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann. - - [Be the Three-in-One with us day and night; - On the crested wave, when waves run high.] - -"'I had just sung this, and we were all listening to the sound of it -caught by the wind and whirled up against the black face of Biolacreag, -when suddenly I saw a boat come sailing quite into the haven. I called -out to those about me, but they looked at me with white faces, for no -boat was there, and it was a rough, wild sea it was in that haven. - -"'And in that boat I saw three people sitting, and one was you, Ynys -nighean Lhois, and one was Alan MacAlasdair, and one was a man who had -his face in shadow, and his eyes looked into the shadow at his feet. I -knew not who you were, nor whence you came, nor whether it was for Rona -you were, nor any thing at all; but I saw you clear, and I told those -about me what I saw. And Seumas MacNeill, him that is dead now, and -brother to Neil here at Aonaig, he said to me, "Who was that whom you -saw walking in the dusk the night before last?" "Alasdair MacAlasdair -Carmichael," answered one at that. Seumas muttered, looking at those -about him, "Mark what I say, for it is a true thing; that Alasdair -Carmichael of Rona is dead now, because Marsail here saw him walking in -the dusk when he was not upon the island; and now, you Neil, and you -Roderick, and all of you will be for thinking with me that the man and -the woman in the boat whom Marsail sees now will be the son and the -daughter of him who has changed." - -"'Well, well, it is a true thing that we each of us thought that -thought, but when the days went and nothing more came of it, the memory -of the seeing went too. Then there came the day when the cobble of -Aulay MacAulay came out of Borosay into Caisteal-Rhona haven. Glad we -were to see the face of Ian mac Iain again, and to hear the sob of joy -coming out of the heart of Kirsten, his sister: but when you and Alan -MacAlasdair came on shore, it was my voice that then went from mouth -to mouth, for I whispered to Morag MacNeill who was next me, that you -were the twain that I had seen in the boat.' - - * * * * * - -"Well, Alan," Ynys added, with a grave smile, "I spoke gently to old -Marsail, and told her that after all there was no evil in that seeing, -and that for sure it was nothing at all, at all, to see two people in -a boat, and nothing coming of that, save happiness for those two, and -glad content to be here, with hope like a white swallow nesting for aye -under the eaves of our house. - -"Marsail looked at me with big eyes. - -"'It is no white swallow that builds there, Ynys Bean Alan,' she said. - -"But when I asked her what she meant by that, she would say no more. -No asking of mine would bring the word to her lips; only she shook -her head and averted her gaze from my face. Then, seeing that it was -useless, I said to her: - -"'Marsail, tell me this: was that sight of yours the sole thing that -made the people here on Rona look askance at Alan MacAlasdair?' - -"For a time she stared at me with the dim, unrecognizing eyes of those -who are ill and in the shadow of death; then, suddenly they brightened, -and she spoke: - -"'It is not all.' - -"'Then what more is there, Marsail Macrae?' - -"'That is not for the saying. I have no more to say. Let you, or your -man, go elsewhere; that which is to be, will be. To each his own end.' - -"'Then tell me this at least,' I asked; 'is there peril for Alan or for -me in this island?' - -"But from that moment Marsail would say no more, and indeed I saw that -a swoon was upon the old woman, and that she heard not or saw not." - -After this, Ynys and Alan walked slowly home together, hand in hand, -both silent and revolving in their mind as in a dim dusk, that mystery -which, vague and unreal at first, had now become a living presence, and -haunted them by day and night. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -IN THE GREEN ARCADES - - -"In the shadow of pain, one may hear the footsteps of joy." So runs a -proverb of old. - -It was a true saying for Alan and Ynys. That night they lay down in -pain, their hearts heavy with the weight of some burden which they -felt and did not know. On the morrow they woke to the rapture of a -new day--a day of absolute beauty, when the stars grew pale in the -cloudless blue sky before the uprising of the sun, while the last vapor -lifted a white wing from the sea, and a dim spiral mist carried skyward -the memory of inland dews. The whole wide wilderness of ocean was of -living azure, aflame with gold and silver. Around the promontories of -the isles the brown-sailed fish-boats of Barra and Berneray, of Borosay -and Seila, moved blithely hither and thither. Everywhere the rhythm of -life pulsed swift and strong. The first sound which had awakened the -sleepers was of a loud singing of fishermen who were putting out from -Aonaig. The coming of a great shoal of mackerel had been signalled, and -every man and woman of the near isles was alert for the take. The first -sign had been the swift congregation of birds, particularly the gannets -and skuas. And as the men pulled at the oars, or hoisted the brown -sails, they sang a snatch of an old-world tune, wont to be chanted at -the first coming of the birds when spring-tide is on the flow again. - - "Bui' cheas dha 'n Ti thaine na Gugachan - Thaine 's na h-Eoin-Mhora cuideriu, - Cailin dugh ciaru bo 's a chro! - Bo dhonn! bo dhonn! bo dhonn bheadarrach! - Bo dhonn a ruin a bhlitheadh am baine dhuit - Ho ro! mo gheallag! ni gu rodagach! - Cailin dugh ciaru bo 's a chro-- - Na h-eoin air tighinn! cluinneam an ceol!" - - [Thanks to the Being, the Gannets have come. - Yes! and the Great Auks along with them. - Dark-haired girl!--a cow in the fold! - - - Brown cow! brown cow! brown cow, beloved ho! - Brown cow! my love! the milker of milk to thee! - Ho ro! my fair-skinned girl--a cow in the fold, - And the birds have come!--glad sight, I see!] - -Eager to be of help, Alan put off in his boat and was soon among the -fishermen, who in their new excitement were forgetful of all else than -that the mackerel were come, and that every moment was precious. For -the first time Alan found himself no unwelcome comrade. Was it, he -wondered, because that, there upon the sea, whatever of shadow dwelled -about him on the land was no longer visible? - -All through that golden noon, he and the others worked hard. From isle -to isle went the chorus of the splashing oars and splashing nets; of -the splashing of the fish and the splashing of gannets and gulls; of -the splashing of the tide leaping blithely against the sun-dazzle, and -the innumerous rippling wash moving out of the west--all this blent -with the loud, joyous cries, the laughter, and the hoarse shouts of the -men of Barra and the adjacent islands. It was close upon dusk before -the Rona boats put into the haven of Aonaig again; and by that time -none was blither than Alan Carmichael, who in that day of happy toil -had lost all the gloom and apprehension of the day before, and now made -haste to Caisteal-Rhona to add to his joy by a sight of Ynys in their -home. - -When, however, he got there, there was no Ynys to see. "She had gone," -said Kirsten Macdonald, "she had gone out in the smaller boat midway in -the afternoon, and had sailed around to Aoidhu, the great scaur which -ran out beyond the precipices at the south-west of Rona." - -This Ynys often did; and, of late, more and more often. Ever since she -had come to the Hebrid Isles, her love of the sea had deepened, and -had grown into a passion for its mystery and beauty. Of late, too, -something impelled to a more frequent isolation; a deep longing to -be where no eye could see, and no ear hearken. Those strange dreams -which, in a confused way, had haunted her mind in her far Breton home, -came oftener now and more clear. Sometimes, when she had sat in the -twilight at Kerival, holding her mother's hand and listening to tales -of that remote North to which her heart had ever yearned, she had -suddenly lost all consciousness of the speaker, or of the things said, -and had let her mind be taken captive by her uncontrolled imagination, -till in spirit she was far away, and sojourned in strange places, -hearing a language that she did not know, and yet which she understood, -and dwelt in a past or a present which she had never seen and which yet -was familiar. - -Since Ynys had known she was with child, this visionariness had been -intensified, this longing had become more and more a deep need. Even -with Alan she felt at times the intrusion of an alien influence. If -in her body was a mystery, a mystery also was in her brain and in her -heart. - -Alan knew this, and knowing, understood. It was for gladness to him -that Ynys should do as she would; that in these long hours of solitude -she drank deep of the elixir of peace; and that this way of happiness -was open to her as to him. Never did these isolations come between -them; indeed they were sometimes more at one then than when they were -together, for all the deep happiness which sustained both upon the -strong waters of their love. - -So, when Alan heard from Kirsten that Ynys had sailed westward, he -was in no way alarmed. But when the sun had set, and over the faint -blue film of the Isle of Tiree the moon had risen, and still no sign -of Ynys, he became restless and uneasy. Kirsten begged him in vain to -eat of the supper she had prepared. Idly he moved to and fro along the -rocky ledge, or down by the pebbly shore, or across the green _airidh_; -eager for a glimpse of her whom he loved so passing well. - -At last, unable longer to endure a growing anxiety, he put out in his -boat, and sailed swiftly before the slight easterly breeze which had -prevailed since moonrise. So far as Aoidhu, all the way from Aonaig, -there was not a haven anywhere, nor even one of the sea caverns which -honeycombed the isle beyond the headland. A glance, therefore, showed -him that Ynys had not yet come back that way. It was possible, though -unlikely, that she had sailed right round Rona; unlikely because in -the narrow straits to the north, between Rona and the scattered islets -known as the Innse-mhara, strong currents prevailed, and particularly -at the full of the tide, when they swept north-eastward, dark and swift -as a mill-race. - -Once the headland was passed and the sheer precipitous westward cliffs -loomed black out of the sea, he became more and more uneasy. As yet, -there was no danger; but he saw that a swell was moving out of the -west, and whenever the wind blew that way the sea arcades were filled -with a lifting, perilous wave, and escape from them was difficult -and often impossible. Out of the score or more great corridors which -opened between Aoidhu and Ardgorm, it was difficult to know into which -to hazard entry in quest of Ynys. Together they had examined all of -them. Some twisted but slightly; others wound sinuously till the green, -serpentine alleys, flanked by basalt walls hundreds of feet high, lost -themselves in an indistinguishable maze. - -But that which was safest, and wherein a boat could most easily make -its way against wind or tide, was the huge, cavernous corridor known -locally as the Uamh-nan-roin, the Cave of the Seals. - -For this opening Alan steered his boat. Soon he was within the wide -corridor. Like the great cave at Staffa, it was wrought as an aisle -in some natural cathedral; the rocks, too, were fluted columnarly and -rose in flawless symmetry as though graven by the hand of man. At the -far end of this gigantic aisle, there diverges a long, narrow arcade, -filled by day with the green shine of the water, and by night, when -the moon is up, with a pale froth of light. It is one of the few where -there are open gateways for the sea and the wandering light, and, by -its spherical shape, almost the only safe passage in a season of heavy -wind. Half-way along this arched arcade a corridor leads to a round -cup-like cavern, midway in which stands a huge mass of black basalt, in -shape suggestive of a titanic altar. Thus it must have impressed the -imagination of the islanders of old, for by them, even in a remote day, -it was called Teampull-nan-Mhara, the Temple of the Sea. Owing to the -narrowness of the corridor, and to the smooth, unbroken walls which -rise sheer from the green depths into an invisible darkness, the Strait -of the Temple is not one wherein to linger long, save in a time of calm. - -Instinctively, however, Alan quietly headed his boat along this narrow -way. When, silently, he emerged from the arcade, he could just discern -the mass of basalt at the far end of the cavern. But there, seated in -her boat, was Ynys; apparently idly adrift, for one oar floated in the -water alongside, and the other suspended listlessly from the tholes. - -His heart had a suffocating grip as he saw her whom he had come to -seek. Why that absolute stillness, that strange, listless indifference? -For a dreadful moment he feared that death had indeed come to her in -that lonely place where, as an ancient legend had it, a woman of old -time had perished, and ever since had wrought death upon any who came -thither solitary and unhappy. - -But at the striking of the shaft of his oar against a ledge, Ynys gave -a low cry and looked at him with startled eyes. Half rising from where -she crouched in the stern, she called to him in a voice that had in it -something strangely unfamiliar. - -"I will not hear!" she cried. "I will not hear! Leave me! Leave me!" - -Fearing that the desolation of the place had wrought upon her mind, -Alan swiftly moved toward her. The very next moment his boat glided -along hers. Stepping from the one to the other, he kneeled beside her. - -"_Ynys-ghaolaiche_, Ynys, my darling, what is it? what gives you dread? -There is no harm here. All is well. Look! See, it is I, Alan; Alan, -whom you love! Listen, dear; do you not know me; do you not know who I -am? It is I, Alan; Alan who loves you!" - -Even in that obscure light he could clearly discern her pale face, and -his heart smote him as he saw her eyes turn upon him with a glance wild -and mournful. Had she indeed succumbed to the sea madness which ever -and again strikes into a terrible melancholy one here and there among -those who dwell in the remote isles? But even as he looked, he noted -another expression come into the beautiful eyes, and almost before he -realized what had happened, Ynys's head was on his breast, and she -sobbing with a sudden gladness and passion of relief. - -The dusk deepened swiftly. In those serpentine arcades darkness grows -from hour to hour, even on nights when the moon makes the outer sea a -blaze of silver fire. But sweet it was to lie there in that solitary -place, where no sound penetrated save the low, soughing sigh of ocean, -audible there only as the breath of a sleeper: to lie there in each -other's arms, and to feel the beating of heart against heart, knowing -that whether in the hazard of life or death, all was well, since they -two were there and together. - -For long Ynys could say no word. And as for Alan--too glad was he to -have her again, to know that she lived indeed, and that his fear of the -sea madness was an idle fantasy; too glad was he to urge her to speak, -when her recovered joy was still sweet in her heart. But at last she -whispered to him how that she had sailed westward from Caisteal-Rhona, -having been overcome by the beauty of the day, and longing to be among -those mysterious green arcades where thought rose out of the mind -like a white bird and flew among shadows in strange places, bringing -back with it upon its silent wings the rumor of strange voices, and -oftentimes singing a song of what ears hear not. Deeply upon the two -had lain the thought of what was to be; the thought of the life she -bore within her, that was the tangible love of her and of Alan, and yet -was so strangely and remotely dissociate from either. Happy in happy -thoughts, and strangely wrought by vague imaginings, she had sailed -past precipice after precipice, and so at last into the Strait of the -Temple. Just before the last light of day had begun to glide out of -the pale green water, she had let her boat drift idly alongside the -Teampull-Mhara. There, for a while, she had lain, drowsily content, -dreaming her dream. Then, suddenly her heart had given a leap like a -doe in the bracken, and the pulses in her veins swung like stars on a -night of storm. - -For there, in that nigh unreachable and forever unvisited solitude was -the figure of a man. He stood on the summit of the huge basalt altar, -and appeared to have sprung from out the rock, or, himself a shadowy -presence, to have grown out of the obscure unrealities of the darkness. -She had stared at him, fascinated, speechless. - -When she had said this Ynys stopped abruptly, for she felt the -trembling of Alan's hand. - -"Go on," he said hoarsely, "go on. Tell me all!" - -To his amaze, she did not seem perturbed in the way he had dreaded when -she began to tell what she had seen. - -"But did you notice nothing about him, Ynys ... about his face, his -features?" - -"Yes. His eyes filled me with strange joy." - -"With joy? Oh, Ynys! Ynys! do you know whom--_what_--it was you saw? It -was a vision, a nothingness, a mere phantom; and that phantom was ... -was ... myself!" - -"You, Alan! Oh, no, Alan-aghray! dear, you do not know whom I saw--nor -do I, though I know it was not you!" - -"We will talk of this later, my fawn," Alan muttered. "Meanwhile, hold -on to this ledge, for I wish to examine this mass of rock that they -call the Altar." - -With a spring he was on the ledge. Then, swift and sure as a wild-cat, -he scaled the huge bowlder. - -Nothing; no one! There was not a trace of any human being. Not a bird, -not a bat; nothing. Moreover, even in that slowly blackening darkness -he could see that there was no direct connection between the summit or -side with the blank, precipitous wall of basalt beyond. Overhead there -was, so far as he could discern, a vault. No human being could have -descended through that perilous gulf. - -Was the island haunted? he wondered, as slowly he made his way back to -the boat. Or had he been startled into some wild fantasy, and imagined -a likeness where none had been? Perhaps, even, he had not really seen -any one. He had read of similar strange delusions. The nerves can soon -chase the mind into the dark zone wherein it loses itself. - -Or was Ynys the vain dreamer? That, indeed, might well be, and she -with child, and ever a visionary. Mayhap she had heard some fantastic -tale from Morag MacNeill or from old Marsail Macrae; the islanders had -_sgeul_ after _sgeul_ of a wild strangeness. - -In silence he guided the boats back into the outer arcade, where a -faint sheen of moonlight glistered on the water. Thence, in a few -minutes, he oared that wherein he and Ynys sat, with the other fastened -astern, into the open. - -When the moonshine lay full on her face, he saw that she was thinking -neither of him nor of where she was. Her eyes were heavy with dream. - -What wind there was blew against their course, so Alan rowed -unceasingly. In silence they passed once again the headland of Aoidhu; -in silence they drifted past a single light gleaming in a croft near -Aonaig--a red eye staring out into the shadow of the sea, from the -room where the woman Marsail lay dying; and in silence their keels -grided on the patch of shingle in Caisteal-Rhona haven. - -But when, once more, Alan found himself with Ynys in the safe quietudes -of the haven, he pressed her eagerly to give him some clear description -of the figure she had seen. - -Ynys, however, had become strangely reticent. All he could elicit from -her was that the man whom she had seen bore no resemblance to him, -except in so far as he was fair. He was taller, slimmer, and seemed -older. - -He thought it wiser not to speak to her on what he himself had seen, or -concerning his conviction that it was the same mysterious stranger who -had appeared to both. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -THE MESSAGE - - -For days thereafter Alan haunted that rocky, cavernous wilderness where -he had seen the Herdsman. - -It was in vain he had everywhere sought to find word of this mysterious -dweller in those upland solitudes. At times he believed that there was -indeed some one upon the island of whom, for inexplicable reasons, none -there would speak; but at last he came to the conviction that what he -had seen was an apparition, projected by the fantasy of overwrought -nerves. Even from the woman, Morag MacNeill, to whom he had gone with -a frank appeal that won its way to her heart, he learned no more than -that an old legend, of which she did not care to speak, was in some way -associated with his own coming to Rona. - -Ynys, too, never once alluded to the mysterious incident of the green -arcades which had so deeply impressed them both; never, that is, -after the ensuing day which followed, when, simply and spontaneously, -she told Alan that she believed that she had seen a vision. When he -reminded her that she had been convinced of its reality, Ynys answered -that for days past she had been dreaming a strange dream, and that -doubtless this had possessed her so that her nerves played her false, -in that remote and shadowy place. What this dream was she would not -confide, nor did he press her. - -But as the days went by and as no word came to either of any unknown -person who was on the island, and as Alan, for all his patient -wandering and furtive quest, both among the upland caves and in the -green arcades, found absolutely no traces of him whom he sought, the -belief that he had been duped by his imagination deepened almost to -conviction. - -As for Ynys, day after day, soft veils of dream obscured the bare -realities of life. But she, unlike Alan, became more and more convinced -that what she had seen was indeed no apparition. Whatever lingering -doubt she had was dissipated on the eve of the night when old Marsail -Macrae died. It was dusk when word came to Caisteal-Rhona that Marsail -felt the cold wind on the soles of her feet. Ynys went to her at once, -and it was in the dark hour which followed that she heard once more and -more fully the strange story which, like a poisonous weed, had taken -root in the minds of the islanders. Already from Marsail she had heard -of the Prophet, though, strangely enough, she had never breathed word -of this to Alan, not even when, after the startling episode of the -apparition in the Teampull-Mhara, she had, as she believed, seen the -Prophet himself. But there in the darkness of the low, turfed cottage, -with no light in the room save the dull red gloom from the heart of the -smoored peats, Marsail, in the attenuated, remote voice of those who -have already entered into the vale of the shadow, told her this thing. - - * * * * * - -"Yes, Ynys, wife of Alan MacAlasdair, I will be telling you this -thing before I change. You are for knowing, sure, that long ago -Uilleam, brother of him who was father to your man, had a son? Yes, -you know that, you say, and also that he was called Donnacha Bàn? -No, mo-run-geal, that is not a true thing that you have heard, that -Donnacha Bàn went under the wave years ago. He was the seventh son, -and was born under the full moon; 'tis Himself will be knowing whether -that was for or against him. Of these seven none lived beyond childhood -except the two youngest, Kenneth and Donnacha. Kenneth was always frail -as a February flower, but he lived to be a man. He and his brother -never spoke, for a feud was between them, not only because that each -was unlike the other and that the younger hated the older because thus -he was the penniless one--but most because both loved the same woman. -I will not be telling you the whole story now, for the breath in my -body will soon blow out in the draught that is coming upon me; but -this I will say to you: darker and darker grew the gloom between these -brothers. When Kirsteen Macdonald gave her love to Kenneth, Donnacha -disappeared for a time. Then, one day, he came back to Borosay, and -smiled quietly with his cold eyes when they wondered at his coming -again. Now, too, it was noticed that he no longer had an ill-will -upon his brother, but spoke smoothly with him and loved to be in his -company. But, to this day, no one knows for sure what happened. For -there was a gloaming when Donnacha Bàn came back alone, in his sailing -boat. He and Kenneth had sailed forth, he said, to shoot seals in the -sea arcades to the west of Rona; but in these dark and lonely passages, -they had missed each other. At last he had heard Kenneth's voice -calling for help, but when he had got to the place, it was too late, -for his brother had been seized with the cramps, and had sunk deep into -the fathomless water. There is no getting a body again that sinks in -these sea galleries. The crabs know that. - -"Well, this and much more was what Donnacha Bàn told to his people. -None believed him; but what could any do? There was no proof; none had -ever seen them enter the sea caves together. Not that Donnacha Bàn -sought in any way to keep back those who would fain know more. Not -so; he strove to help to find the body. Nevertheless, none believed; -and Kirsteen nic Dugall Mòr least of all. The blight of that sorrow -went to her heart. She had death soon, poor thing! but before the cold -grayness was upon her, she told her father, and the minister that was -there, that she knew Donnacha Bàn had murdered his brother. One might -be saying these were the wild words of a woman; but, for sure, no one -said that thing upon Borosay or Rona, or any of these isles. When all -was done, the minister told what he knew, and what he thought, to the -Lord of the South Isles, and asked what was to be put upon Donnacha -Bàn. 'Exile forever,' said the Chief, 'or if he stays here, the doom of -silence. Let no man or woman speak to him or give him food or drink; or -give him shelter, or let his shadow cross his or hers.' - -"When this thing was told to Donnacha Bàn Carmichael, he laughed at -first; but as day slid over the rocks where all days fall, he laughed -no more. Soon he saw that the Chief's word was no empty word; and -yet he would not go away from his own place. He could not stay upon -Borosay, for his father cursed him; and no man can stay upon the -island where a father's curse moves this way and that, forever seeking -him. Then, some say a madness came upon him, and others that he took -wildness to be his way, and others that God put upon him the shadow of -loneliness, so that he might meet sorrow there and repent. Howsoever -that may be, Donnacha Bàn came to Rona, and, by the same token, it -was the year of the great blight, when the potatoes and the corn came -to naught, and when the fish in the sea swam away from the isles. -In the autumn of that year there was not a soul left on Rona except -Kirsten Macdonald and the old man Ian, her father, who had guard of -Caisteal-Rhona for him who was absent. When, once more, smoke rose -from the crofts, the rumor spread that Donnacha Bàn, the murderer, had -made his home among the caves of the upper part of the isle. None knew -how this rumor rose, for he was seen of none. The last man who saw -him--and that was a year later--was old Padruic McVurich, the shepherd. -Padruic said that, as he was driving his ewes across the north slope of -Ben Einaval in the gloaming, he came upon a silent figure seated upon a -rock, with his chin in his hands, and his elbows on his knees--with the -great, sad eyes of him staring at the moon that was lifting itself out -of the sea. Padruic did not know who the man was. The shepherd had few -wits, poor man! and he had known, or remembered, little about the story -of Donnacha Bàn Carmichael, so, when he spoke to the man, it was as to -a stranger. The man looked at him and said: - -"'You are Padruic McVurich, the shepherd.' - -"At that a trembling was upon old Padruic, who had the wonder that this -stranger should know who and what he was. - -"'And who will you be, and forgive the saying?' he asked. - -"'_Am Faidh_--the Prophet,' the man said. - -"'And what prophet will you be, and what is your prophecy?' asked -Padruic. - -"'I am here because I wait for what is to be, and that will be for the -birth of a child that is to be a king.' - -"And with that the man said no more, and the old shepherd went silently -down through the hillside gloaming, and, heavy with the thoughts that -troubled him, followed his ewes down into Aonaig. But after that -neither he nor any other saw or heard aught of the shadowy stranger; -so that all upon Rona felt sure that Padruic had beheld no more than a -vision. There were some who thought that he had seen the ghost of the -outlaw Donnacha Bàn; and mayhap one or two who wondered if the stranger -that had said he was a prophet was not Donnacha Bàn himself, with a -madness come upon him; but at last these rumors went out to sea upon -the wind, and men forgot. But, and it was months and months afterward, -and three days before his own death, old Padruic McVurich was sitting -in the sunset on the rocky ledge in front of his brother's croft, -where then he was staying, when he heard a strange crying of seals. He -thought little of that; only, when he looked closer, he saw, in the -hollow of the wave hard by that ledge, a drifting body. - -"_Am Faidh--Am Faidh!_" he cried; "the Prophet, the Prophet!" - -At that his brother and his brother's wife ran to see; but it was -nothing that they saw. "It would be a seal," said Pol McVurich; but at -that Padruic had shook his head, and said no, for sure, he had seen -the face of the dead man, and it was of him whom he had met on the -hillside, and that had said he was the Prophet who was waiting there -for the birth of a king. - -"And that is how there came about the echo of the thought, that -Donnacha Bàn had at last, after his madness, gone under the green wave -and was dead. For all that, in the months which followed, more than one -man said he had caught a glimpse of a figure high up on the hill. The -old wisdom says that when Christ comes again, or the Prophet who will -herald Christ, it will be as a herdsman on a lonely isle. More than -one of the old people on Rona and Borosay remembered that _sgeul_ out -of the _seanachas_ that the tale-tellers knew. There were some who -said that Donnacha Bàn had never been drowned at all, and that he was -this Prophet, this Herdsman. Others would not have that saying at all, -but believed that the mysterious herdsman was indeed Am Buchaille Bàn, -the Fair-haired Shepherd, who had come again to redeem the people out -of their sorrow. There were even those who said that the Herdsman who -haunted Rona was no other than Kenneth Carmichael himself, who had not -died, but had had the mind-dark there in the sea caves where he had -been lost, and there had come to the knowledge of secret things, and so -was at last _Am Faidh Chriosd_." - - * * * * * - -A great weakness came upon the old woman when she had spoken thus -far. Ynys feared that she would have breath for no further word, but -after a thin gasping, and a listless fluttering of weak hands upon -the coverlet, whereon her trembling fingers plucked aimlessly at the -invisible blossoms of death, she opened her eyes once more and stared -in a dim questioning at her who sat by her bedside. - -"Tell me," whispered Ynys, "tell me, Marsail, what thought it is that -is in your own mind?" - -But already the old woman had begun to wander, though Ynys did not know -this. - -"For sure, for sure," she muttered, "_Am Faidh_ ... _Am Faidh_ ... an' -a child will be born ... an' a king he will be, an' ... that will be -the voice of Domhuill, my husband, I am hearing ... an' dark it is, an' -the tide comin' in ... an'----" - -Then, sure, the tide came in, and if in that darkness old Marsail -Macrae heard any voice at all, it was that of Domhuill who years agone -had sunk into the wild seas off the head of Barra. - -An hour later, with tears still in her eyes, Ynys walked slowly home -through the cloudy night. All she had heard came back to her with a -strange familiarity. Something of this, at least, she had known before. -Some hints of this mysterious Herdsman had reached her ears. In some -inexplicable way his real or imaginary presence there upon Rona seemed -a preordained thing for her. All that dreaming mysticism, which had -wrought so much of beauty and wonder into her girlhood in Brittany, -had expanded into a strange flower of the imagination--a flower whose -subtle fragrance affected her inward life. Sometimes she had wondered -if all the tragic vicissitudes which happened at Kerival, with the -strange and dreamlike life which she and Alan had led since, had so -wrought upon her that the unreal became real, and the actual merely -phantasmal; for now she felt more than ever assured that some hidden -destiny had controlled all this disastrous mischance, had led her and -Alan there to that lonely island. - -She knew that the wild imaginings of the islanders had woven the legend -of the Prophet, or at any rate of his message, out of the loom of the -longing and the deep nostalgia whereon is woven that larger tapestry, -the shadow-thridden life of the island Gael. Laughter and tears, -ordinary hopes and pleasures, and even joy itself, and bright gayety, -and the swift, spontaneous imagination of susceptible natures--all -this, of course, is to be found with the island Gael as with his -fellows elsewhere. But every here and there are some who have in -their minds the inheritance from the dim past of their race, and are -oppressed as no other people are oppressed by the gloom of a strife -between spiritual emotion and material facts. It is the brains of -dreamers such as these which clear the mental life of the community; -and it is in these brains are the mysterious looms which weave the -tragic and sorrowful tapestries of Celtic thought. It were a madness -to suppose that life in the isles consists of nothing but sadness or -melancholy. It is not so, or need not be so, for the Gael is a creature -of shadow and shine. But whatever the people is, the brain of the Gael -hears a music that is sadder than any music there is, and has for its -cloudy sky a gloom that shall not go, for the end is near, and upon the -westernmost shores of these remote isles, the Voice--as has been truly -said by one who has beautifully interpreted his own people--the Voice -of Celtic Sorrow may be heard crying, "_Cha till, cha till, cha till mi -tuille_"--I will return, I will return, I will return no more. - -Ynys knew all this well; and yet she too dreamed her Celtic -dream--that, even yet, there might be redemption for the people. She -did not share the wild hope which some of the older islanders held, -that Christ himself shall come again to redeem an oppressed race; but -might not another saviour arise, another redeeming spirit come into the -world? And if so, might not that child of joy be born out of suffering -and sorrow and crime; and if so, might not that child be born of her? - -With startled eyes she crossed the thyme-set ledge whereon stood -Caisteal-Rhona. Was it, after all, a message she had received from him -who appeared to her in that lonely cavern of the sea; was he indeed _Am -Faidh_, the mysterious Prophet of the isles? - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -THE LAUGHTER OF THE KING - - -What are dreams but the dust of wayfaring thoughts? Or whence are they, -and what air is upon their shadowy wings? Do they come out of the -twilight of man's mind; are they ghosts of exiles from vanished palaces -of the brain; or are they heralds with proclamations of hidden tidings -for the soul that dreams? - -It was a life of dream that Ynys and Alan lived; but Ynys the more, -for, as week after week went by, the burden of her motherhood wrought -her increasingly. Ever since the night of Marsail's death, Alan had -noticed that Ynys no longer doubted but that in some way a special -message had come to her, a special revelation. On the other hand, he -had himself swung back to his former conviction, that the vision he -had seen upon the hillside was, in truth, that of a living man. From -fragments here and there, a phrase, a revealing word, a hint gleaming -through obscure allusions, he came at last to believe that some one -bearing a close, and even extraordinary, resemblance to himself lived -upon Rona. Although upon the island itself he could seldom persuade any -one to speak of the Herdsman, the islanders of Seila and Borosay became -gradually less reticent. He ascertained this, at least: that their fear -and aversion, when he first came, had been occasioned by the startling -likeness between him and the mysterious being whom they called Am -Buchaille Bàn. On Borosay, he was told, the fishermen believed that -the _aonaran nan chreag_, the recluse of the rocks, as commonly they -spoke of him, was no other than Donnacha Bàn Carmichael, survived there -through these many years, and long since mad with his loneliness and -because of the burden of his crime. It was with keen surprise that Alan -learned how many of the fishermen of Borosay and Berneray, and even -of Barra, had caught a glimpse of the outcast. It was this relative -familiarity, indeed, that was at the root of the fear and aversion -which had met him upon his arrival. Almost from the moment he had -landed in Borosay, the rumor had spread that he was indeed no other -than Donnacha Bàn, and that he had chosen this way, now both his father -and Alasdair Carmichael were dead, to return to his own place. So like -was Alan to the outlaw who had long since disappeared from touch with -his fellow men, that many were convinced that the two could be no other -than one and the same. What puzzled him hardly less was the fact that, -on the rare occasions when Ynys had consented to speak of what she had -seen, the man she described bore no resemblance to himself. From one -thing and another, he came at last to the belief that he had really -seen Donnacha Bàn, his cousin; but that the vision of Ynys's mind was -born of her imagination, stimulated by all the tragedy and strange -vicissitudes she had known, and wrought by the fantastic tales of -Marsail and Morag MacNeill. - -By this time, too, the islanders had come to see that Alan MacAlasdair -was certainly not Donnacha Bàn. Even the startling likeness no longer -betrayed them in this way. The ministers and the priests laughed at the -whole story and everywhere discouraged the idea that Donnacha Bàn could -still be among the living. But for the unfortunate superstition that -to meet the Herdsman, whether the lost soul of Donnacha Bàn or indeed -the strange phantom of the hills of which the old legends spoke, was to -meet inevitable disaster; but for this, the islanders might have been -persuaded to make such a search among the caves of Rona as would almost -certainly have revealed the presence of any who dwelt therein. - -But as summer lapsed into autumn, and autumn itself through its golden -silences waned into the shadow of the equinox, a quiet happiness came -upon both Alan and Ynys. True, she was still wrought by her strange -visionary life, though of this she said little or nothing; and, as -for himself, he hoped that with the birth of the child this fantastic -dream life would go. Whoever the mysterious Herdsman was--if he indeed -existed at all except in the imaginations of those who spoke of him -either as the Buchaille Bàn, or as the _aonaran nan chreag_--Alan -believed that at last he had passed away. None saw him now: and even -Morag MacNeill, who had often on moonlight nights caught the sound of a -voice chanting among the upper solitudes, admitted that she now heard -nothing unusual. - -St. Martin's summer came at last, and with it all that wonderful, -dreamlike beauty which bathes the isles in a flood of golden light, and -puts upon sea and land a veil as of ineffable mystery. - -One late afternoon Ynys, returning to Caisteal-Rhona after an -unexplained absence of several hours, found Alan sitting at a table. -Spread before him were the sheets of one of the strange old Gaelic -tales which he had ardently begun to translate. She took up the page -which he had just laid down. It was from the _Eachdaireachd Challum -mhic cruimein_, and the last words that Alan had translated were these: - -"And when that king had come to the island, he lived there in the -shadow of men's eyes; for none saw him by day or by night, and none -knew whence he came or whither he fared; for his feet were shod with -silence, and his way with dusk. But men knew that he was there, and all -feared him. Months, even years, tramped one on the heels of the other, -and perhaps the king gave no sign, but one day he would give a sign; -and that sign was a laughing that was heard somewhere, be it upon the -lonely hills, or on the lonely wave, or in the heart of him who heard. -And whenever the king laughed, he who heard would fare ere long from -his fellows to join that king in the shadow. But sometimes the king -laughed only because of vain hopes and wild imaginings, for upon these -he lives as well as upon the strange savors of mortality." - - * * * * * - -Ynys read the page over and over; and when Alan saw how she brooded -upon it, he regretted that he had left it for her to see. - -He the more regretted this when he learned that that very afternoon she -had again been among the sea caves. She would not say what she had -seen or heard, if indeed she had heard or seen any thing unusual. But -that night she woke suddenly, and taking Alan by the hand, made him -promise to go with her on the morrow to the Teampull-Mhara. - -In vain he questioned her as to why she asked this thing. All she -would say was that she must go there once again, and with him, for -she believed that a spirit out of heaven had come to reveal to her a -wonder. Distressed by what he knew to be a madness, and fearful that it -might prove to be no passing fantasy, Alan would fain have persuaded -her against this intention. Even as he spoke, however, he realized -that it might be better to accede to her wishes, and, above all, to be -there with her, so that it might not be one only who heard or saw the -expected revelation. - -And it was a strange faring indeed, that which occurred on the morrow. -At noon, when the tide was an hour turned in the ebb, they sailed -westward from Caisteal-Rhona. It was in silence they made that strange -journey together; for, while Alan steered, Ynys lay down in the hollow -of the boat, with her head against his knees, and he saw that she -slept, or at least lay still with her eyes closed. - -When, at last, they passed the headland and entered the first of the -sea arcades, she rose and sat beside him. Hauling down the now useless -sail, he took an oar and, standing at the prow, urged the boat inward -along the narrow corridor which led to the huge sea cave of the Altar. - -In the deep gloom--for even on that day of golden light and beauty the -green air of the sea cave was heavy with shadow--there was a deathly -chill. What dull light there was came from the sheen of the green water -which lay motionless along the black basaltic ledges. When at last the -base of the Altar was reached, Alan secured the boat by a rope passed -around a projecting spur; and then lay down in the stern beside Ynys. - -"Tell me, dear, what is this thing that you expect to hear or see?" - -She looked at him strangely for a while, but, though her lips moved, -she said nothing. - -"Tell me, dear," he urged again, "who is it you expect to see or hear?" - -"_Am Buchaille Bàn_," she answered, "the Herdsman." - -For a moment he hesitated. Then, taking her hand in his, and raising it -to his lips, he whispered in her ear: - -"Dearest, all this is a vain dream. There is no Herdsman upon Rona. If -ever there was a man there who lived solitary--if ever, indeed, there -was an _aonaran nan chreag_--he is dead long since. What you have seen -and heard has been a preying upon you of wild thoughts. Think no more -of this vision. We have both suffered too much, and the knowledge of -what is behind us has wrought upon us too hardly. It is a mistake to be -here, on Rona, now. Ynys, darling, you and I are young, and we love; -let us leave this melancholy isle--these melancholy isles--and go back -into the green, sunny world wherein we had such joy before; yes, let -us even go back to Kerival; anywhere where we may live our life with -joy and glad content--but not here, not in these melancholy, haunted -isles, where our dreams become more real than our life, and life -itself, for us at least, the mere shadow of being. Ynys, will you come? -Will you go?" - -"All shall be as you will, Alan--_afterward_. But first, I must wait -here till our child is born, for I have heard that which is a message. -And one part of that message concerns you and me; and one concerns -others. And that which concerns you and me is that in this way, in this -child, to be born here in this place, lies the redemption of that evil -by which your father was slain by my father. It is not enough that you -and I have forgotten the past; the past remains. What we cannot do, -or no man or woman can do, the powers that are beyond the grave can -accomplish. Not our love, not even ours, can redeem that crime. But if, -born of us, one will come, who will be dowered with our love and free -from the blood shadow which lies upon us, then all will be well and the -evil shall be done with forever more. But also, has not the Prophet -said that one shall be born upon this island who will redeem his -oppressed people? And this Prophet, Alan, I have seen and heard. Never -have I seen his face aright, for it has ever been in the shadow; but I -have heard his voice, for he has spoken to me, and what he has said is -this: that in the fulness of time the child I shall bear will be he of -whom men have dreamed in the isles for ages past. Sure, dear, you and I -must be believing that thing, since he who tells it is no mere erring -_Faidh_, but himself an immortal spirit." - -Alan looked at the speaker in amaze. There could be no question of -her absolute sincerity; for the beautiful face was lit with a strange -light, and in her eyes was a proud gleam of conscious sacrifice. That -it was all a madness, a fantasy, he knew well. Long ago had Lois de -Kerival spoken of the danger that lay for Ynys; she being the inheritor -of a strange brooding spirit which belonged to her people. Now, in this -remote place, the life of dream and the life of reality had become one; -and Ynys was as a drifted ship among unknown seas and mists. - -But on one point he believed he might convince her. - -"Why do you speak of the Herdsman as a spirit, Ynys? What proof have -you of this? If you or I have seen any one at all, be sure it is a -mortal man and no spirit; nay, I know who it must be, if any one it -is, for throughout the isles men say that Donnacha Bàn, the son of the -brother of my father, was an outlaw here, and has lived long among the -caves." - -"This man," she said quietly, "is not Donnacha Bàn, but the Prophet of -whom the people speak. He himself has told me this thing. Yesterday I -was here, and he bade me come again. He spoke out of the shadow that is -about the Altar, though I saw him not. I asked him if he were Donnacha -Bàn, and he said 'No.' I asked him if he were _Am Faidh_, and he said -'Yes.' I asked him if he were indeed an immortal spirit, and herald of -that which was to be, and he said 'Even so.'" - -For a long while after this, no word was spoken betwixt the twain. The -chill of that remote place began to affect Ynys, and she shivered -slightly at times. But more she shivered because of the silence which -prevailed, and because that he who had promised to be there gave -no sign. Sure, she thought, it could not be all a dream; sure, the -Herdsman would come again. - -Then, at last, turning to Alan, she said, "We must come on the morrow; -for to-day he is not here." - -"No, dear; never, never shall we come here again. This is for the last -time. Henceforth, we shall dwell here in Rona no more." - -"You will do this thing for me, Alan, that I ask?" - -"I will do what you ask, Ynys." - -"Then take this written word, and leave it upon the top of the great -rock there that is called the Altar." - -With that she placed in his hand a slip of paper whereon she had -already written certain words. What they were, Alan could not discern -in that shadowy light; but, taking the slip in his hand, he stepped -on the black ledges at the base of the Altar, and slowly mounted the -precipitous rock. - -Ynys watched him till he became himself a shadow in that darkness. Her -heart leaped when suddenly she heard a cry fall to her out of the gloom. - -"Alan, Alan!" she cried, and a great fear was upon her when no answer -came; but at last, with passionate relief, she heard him clambering -slowly down the perilous slope of that obscure place. When he reached -the ledge, he stood still, regarding her. - -"Why do you not come into the boat, Alan?" she asked. - -"Dear, I have that to tell you which will let you see that I spoke -truth." - -She looked at him with parted lips, her breath coming and going like -that of a caged bird. - -"What is it, Alan?" she whispered. - -"Ynys, when I reached the top of the Altar, and in the dim light that -was there, I saw the dead body of a man lying upon the rock. His head -was lain back so that the gleam from a crevice in the cliff overhead -fell upon it. The man has been dead many hours. He is a man whose -hair has been grayed by years and sorrow, but the man is he who is of -my blood; he whom I resemble so closely; he that the fishermen call -_aonaran nan chreag_; he that is the Herdsman." - -Ynys made no reply; still she looked at him with large, wondering eyes. - -"Ynys, darling, do you not understand what it is that I say? This man, -that they call the Buchaille Bàn--this man whom you believe to be the -Herdsman of the old legend--is no other than Donnacha Bàn, he who years -and years ago slew his brother and has been an exile ever since on this -lonely island. How could he, then, a man as I am, though with upon him -a worse blood-shadow than lies upon us--how could he tell you aught of -what is to be? What message could he give you that is himself a lost -soul? - -"Would you be for following a herdsman who could lead you to no fold? -This man is dead, Ynys; and it is well that you brought me here to-day. -That is a good thing, and for sure God willed it. Out of this all our -new happiness may come. For now we know what is this mysterious shadow -that has darkened our lives ever since we came to Rona. Now we have -knowledge that it was no mere phantom I saw upon the hillside; and now -also we know that he who told you these strange, wild things of which -you speak was no prophet with a message from the world of the spirit, -but a man wrought to madness, a man who for all these years had lived -his lonely, secretive life upon the hills, or among these caves of the -sea. Come, then, dear, and let us go hence. Sure, at the last, it is -well that we have found this way. Come, Ynys, we will go now and never -come here again." - -He looked eagerly for her assenting eyes. With pain in his heart, -however, he saw that the dream--the strange, inexplicable fantasy--had -not yet gone out of them. With a sigh, he entered the boat and took her -hand. - -"Let us go," she said, and that was all. - -Slowly Alan oared the boat across the shadowy gulf of the cave, along -the narrow passage which led therefrom, and out into the pale green -gloom of the arched arcade wherein the sight and sound of the sea made -a music in his ears. - -But the short November day was already passing to its end. All the sea -westward was aflame with gold and crimson light, and in the great dome -of the sky a wonderful radiance lifted above the paleness of the clouds -whose pinnacled and bastioned heights towered in the south-west. - -A faint wind blew eastwardly; so, raising the sail, Alan made it fast -and then sat down beside Ynys. But she, rising, moved along the boat to -the mast, and leaned there with her face against the setting sun. - -Idly they drifted onward. Deep silence prevailed betwixt them; deep -silence was all about them, save for the endless, inarticulate murmur -of the sea, the splash of low waves against the rocks of Rona, and the -sigh of the surf at the base of the basalt precipices. - -And this was their homeward sailing on that day of revelation; Ynys, -with her back against the mast, and her face irradiated by the light of -the setting sun; he, steering, with his face in shadow. - -On a night of rain and amid the rumor of tempest, three weeks later, -Ynys heard the Laughter of the King, when the child who was to be the -bearer of so fair a destiny lay by her side, white and chill as the -foam thrown up for a brief while upon the rocks by the unheeding sea. - - -BOOK THIRD - -_THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD_ - - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD - - -When, once more, the exquisite mystery of spring came upon the world, -there was a not less wonderful rebirth in the heart of Ynys. - -With the coming of that child upon whom such high hopes had been -set--its birth, still and quiet as a snowdrop fallen before an icy wind -upon the snow which nurtured it--all the fear of a mysterious Nemesis, -because of her union with Alan despite the shadow of tragic crime which -made that union ominous of evil destiny; all the vague forebodings -which had possessed her ever since she left Kerival; and, at the last, -all the mystic elation with which her mind had become a winged and -wandering spirit, passed from her. - -The gloom of that northern winter was tonic to them both. As soon as -her weakness was past, and once more she was able to go about with -Alan, her old joyousness returned. In her eyes it was almost as though -the islanders shared her recovered happiness. For one thing, they -no more avoided her and Alan. With the death of the man who had so -long sustained a mysterious existence upon Rona, their superstitious -aversion went; they ceased to speak of _Am Buchaille Bàn_ and, whether -Donnacha Bàn had found on Rona one of the hidden ways to heaven or had -only dallied upon one of the byways to hell, it was commonly held that -he had paid his death-eric by his lonely and even appalling life of -unredeemed solitude. Now that there was no longer any possibility of -confusion between the outcast who had come to his tragic end, among the -sea caves of Rona, and his kinsman who bore to him so extraordinary a -resemblance, a deep sense of the injustice that had been done to Alan -Carmichael prevailed among the islanders. In many ways they showed -their regret; but most satisfactorily, so far as Alan was concerned, by -taking him as one of themselves; as a man no longer under the shadow -of doom or in any way linked to a disastrous fate. - -True, there were still some of the isle folk on Borosay and Barra who -maintained that the man who had been found in the sea cave, whether -Donnacha Bàn or some other, had nothing to do with the mysterious -Herdsman, whose advent, indeed, had long been anticipated by a -section of the older inhabitants. It was only seven years since Murdo -Macphail--better known as Murdo-Bronnach-namhara, Brown Murdoch of -the Sea, from his habit of preaching to the islanders from where he -stood waist-deep in the water--had prophesied that the Herdsman who -was Shepherd of Israel would indeed come again, and that within seven -years. And had he not added that if the Fair Lonely One were not -accepted of the people, there would be deep sorrow for one and all, and -a bitter wrong upon all the isles of the west? - -These murmurers now shook their heads and whispered often. Of a truth, -they said, the Herdsman was come as foretold, and Alan Carmichael -was blind indeed not to see that Ynys, his wife, had received a -vision, and, because of her silence, been punished in the death of her -first-born. - -But with the white growth of winter, the pleasant, familiar intercourse -that everywhere prevailed wrought finally against the last threadbare -fabric of superstition. Before the glow of the peats the sadness and -gloom slowly dissipated. It was a new delight to both Alan and Ynys to -find that the islanders could be so genial and almost gay, with a love -of laughter and music and grotesque humor which, even in the blithe -little fishing haven of Ploumaliou, they had never seen surpassed. - -The cold months passed for them in a quiet content. That could not be -happiness upon which was the shadow of so much pain; but there was -something akin to it in the sweet serenity which came like calm after -storm. - -Possibly they might have been content to remain in Rona; to find in -the island their interest and happiness. Ynys, indeed, often longed -to leave the place where she had been so sadly disillusioned; and yet -she did not urge that the home at Caisteal-Rhona should be broken up. -While they were still in this state of quiet suspense, news came that -affected them strangely. - -They had had no word from Kerival since they left, but one windy March -day a boat from Borosay put into the haven with letters from Alan's -agents in Edinburgh. Among them was one from the Abbé Cæsar de La -Bruyère, from Kerloek. From this Alan learned strange news. - - * * * * * - -On the very day that he and Ynys had left Kerival, Annaik had -disappeared. None knew where she had gone. At first it was thought -that Judik Kerbastiou had something to do with her absence, but two -days after she had gone he was again at Kerival. The house was a place -of anarchy. No one knew whom to obey; what to do. With the Marquise -Lois in her grave, with both Ynys and Annaik mysteriously absent and -apparently with no intention to return, and with Tristran the Silent -more morosely taciturn than his wont, and more than ever an invalid, -with all this it was difficult for those in authority to exact the -habitual duties. But in addition to this there were the imperious -claims of Judik Kerbastiou, emphasized by his refusal to be addressed -by any other name than the Sieur Jud de Kerival. - -When, suddenly, and while quietly dictating a letter, the Marquis -Tristran died, it seemed at last as though Judik's triumph had come. -For a brief while he was even addressed as M. le Marquis. But on -the noon following that day he had a rude awakening. A notary from -Ploumaliou arrived with the family lawyers, and produced a written and -signed confession on the part of the woman whom he had called mother, -that he was not her child at all, that her own child was dead, and -that Kerbastiou was really a forest foundling. As if this were not -enough, the notary also proved, even to the conviction of Judik, that -the written marriage testimony from the parish books was an impudent -forgery. - -So the man who had made so abrupt and dramatic an appearance on the -threshold of Kerival had, in the very moment of his triumph, to retreat -once more to his obscurity as a homeless woodlander. - -The sole heirs now were Annaik and Ynys, but of neither was any thing -known. The difficulty was partially solved by the abrupt appearance of -Annaik on the day of the second conclave. - -For a time thereafter all went well at Kerival. Then rumor began to -spread mysterious whispers about the Lady Annaik. She would see none of -her neighbors, whether from far or near, and even the Sieur de Morvan -and his kith or kin were denied. Then, too, she disappeared for days at -a time. Some thought she went to Ploumaliou or Kerloek, some that she -had gone as far away as Rennes or St. Brieuc, and a few even imagined -the remote Paris to be her goal. None dreamed that she had gone no -further than the forest of Kerival. - -But as the autumn waned, rumors became more explicit. Strange things -were said of Annaik de Kerival. At last the anxious Curé of Ploumaliou -took it upon himself to assure all who spoke to him about the Lady of -Kerival that he had good reason to believe she was privately married. -This, at least, drew some of the poison out of the gossip that had -arisen. - -Then a day came when the Lady Annaik dismissed the servants at Kerival, -and left none in the house save an old gardener and his wife. She was -going away for a time, she said. She went, and from that day was not -seen again. - -Then came, in the Abbé Cæsar de La Bruyère's letter, the strangest part -of the mystery. - -Annaik, ever since the departure of Alan and Ynys, had been living the -forest life. All her passionate sylvan and barbaric instincts had been -suddenly aroused. For the green woods and the forest ways she suffered -an intolerable nostalgia. But over and above this was another reason. -It seemed, said the Abbé Cæsar, that she must have returned the rude -love of Judik Kerbastiou. However this might be, she lived with him for -days at a time, and he himself had a copy of their marriage certificate -made out at a registrar's in a remote little hill-town in the Montagnes -Noires. - -This union with the morose and strange Judik Kerbastiou had not been -known to any of the peasants until her trouble came to her. When the -day was near she did not return to Kerival, but kept to the gypsy tent -which she shared with Judik. After the birth of the child, every one -knew, and every one marvelled. It was a madness: that was what all -said, from Kerloek to Ploumaliou. - -But neither the union nor the child brought happiness to these twain, -so much at one in their woodland life, so hopelessly alien in all else. -One day a man named Iouenn Kerbac'h, passing by the tent where Judik -and Annaik had taken shelter from a violent thunder-storm, overheard a -savage upbraiding on the part of Kerbastiou. Annaik was his wife, it -was true--so he cried--but a wife who had in nothing short of madness -renounced every thing, and now would claim nothing of her own nor allow -him to claim aught; a wife whom he loved with another madness, and yet -hated because she was so hopelessly remote from himself; a wife who -had borne a child, but a child that had nothing of the gypsy eyes and -swarthy darkness of Judik Kerbastiou, but was fair, and with skin as -white and eyes as blue as those of Alan de Kerival. - -It was this, and the terrible words that were said, which made Iouenn -Kerbac'h hurry onward, dreading to listen further. Yet nothing that he -overheard gave him so strange a fear as the laugh with which Annaik -de Kerival greeted a savage, screaming threat of death, hurled at her -because of her silence after the taunting accusation he had made ... -had made, and defied her to refute. - -None heard or saw Annaik Kerbastiou after that day, till the night of -the evening when Judik came into Haut-Kerloek and went straight to -Jehan Rusgol, the Maire. - -When asked what he had come for he had replied simply: "The woman -Annaik is dead." It was commonly thought that he had killed her, but -there was no evidence of this, and the end of the inevitable legal -procedure was the acquittal of the woodlander. From that day the man -was rarely seen of his fellows, and even then, for the most part, only -by charcoal-burners and others who had forest business. A few peasants -knew where his hut was, and now and again called to speak with him, or -to drink a cup of cider; but oftener than not he was absent, and always -with the child. The boy had survived his mother's death, and in some -strange way had suddenly become so dear to Judik Kerbastiou that the -two were inseparable. - -This, then, was the tidings which startled Alan and Ynys out of their -remote quiescence. - -The unexpected news, coupled with the urgent request that both should -return to Kerival, if only for a brief while, so as to prevent the -property falling into absolute ruin, came as a whip upon Alan's mind. -To all he said Ynys agreed, and was even glad to leave Rona and return -to Brittany. - - * * * * * - -So it was that, with the first days of April, they bade farewell to Ian -and his sister, whom they left at Caisteal-Rhona, which was henceforth -to be their home, and to all upon the island, and set forth in a -fishing smack for Borosay. - -It was not till the last of the precipices of Rona was lost to view -behind the south headland of Borosay that Ynys clearly realized the -deep gladness with which she left the lonely Isle of the Caves. That it -would have been impossible for her to live there long she was now well -assured; and for Alan, too, the life was not suitable. For the north, -and for the islands, they would ever have a deep feeling, almost sacred -in its intensity; but all that had happened made living there a thing -difficult and painful for them, and moreover each, though Ynys most, -missed that green woodland beauty, the ceaseless forest charm, which -made the very memory of Kerival so fragrant. - -They went away, then, not as travellers who fare far with no thought of -return, but rather as pilgrims returning homeward from a shrine sacred -to them by profound and intimate associations. - -That was, indeed, for them a strange home-going. From the first there -was something dreamlike, unreal, about that southward flight; in the -long sail across Hebrid seas, calm as glass until the south headlands -of Mull were passed, and then storm-swept; in the rapid journey across -Scotland and through England; and in the recrossing of that narrow sea -which had once seemed to them a gulf of ultimate division. - -But when once more they saw the grotesque bulbous spire of Ploumaliou -rising above the sand-dunes by which, from St. Malo, they approached -the dear, familiar country, all this uncertainty went from them. With -light hearts they realized it was indeed true; that they were free at -last of a life for which they were now unfitted, and that the lost -threads in the maze had been found. - -By their own wish the home-coming was so private that none knew of -it save the doctor, the Curé, the lawyer who accompanied them from -Ploumaliou, and the old gardener and his wife. As they neared the -château from the north, Alan and Ynys alighted from the dishevelled -carriage which was the sole vehicle of which Ploumaliou could boast. M. -Auriol could drive on alone; for themselves, they chose to reach their -home by the dunes and scattered pines, and thence by the yew close -behind the manor-house. - -The day was windless and of a serene beauty. Ever since noon the few -clouds, suspensive in the azure flood like islets of snow, had waned -till they were faint and light as blown swan's-down, then filmy as -vapor lifted against the sun, and at last were no more visible; there -had been the same unfathomable depths of azure, through which the -tides of light imperceptibly ebbed from the zenith. The sea, too, was -of a vivid though motionless blue, save where luminous with a white -sheen or wrought with violet shadows and straits of amethyst. Upon the -land lay a golden peace. A richer glow involved the dunes, where the -pine-shadows cast long, motionless blue shapes. As, hand in hand, Ynys -and Alan moved athwart the pine glade whence they could pass at once -either westward into the cypress alley or eastward through the yew -close, they stopped instinctively. Beyond them rose the chimneys and -gables of the House of Kerival, strangely still and remote, for all -their familiar look. What a brief while ago it seemed since he and she -had walked under these pines, wrought by the first ecstasy of their -virginal love. Then, those who now lay quiet in the darkness of the -earth were alive; Lois de Kerival, with her repressed, passionate heart -still at last; the Marquis Tristran, with the young grass growing soft -and green over his bitterness; Alasdair Carmichael, with the echo of -the island waves stilled under the quiet bells of the little church -which guarded the grave-yard of St. Blaise; and Annaik--poor lost waif -of beautiful womanhood, submerged forever in the green woods she loved -so well, and sleeping so sound a sleep at last in an unmarked hollow -beneath an ancient tree in some obscure glade or alley. - -A shadow was in Alan's eyes--a deeper shadow than that caused by -thought of the dead who lay heedless and listless, at once so near and -such depths away--a deeper shadow than that cast by memory of the crime -which overlay the past. - -As his eyes wandered to the cypress alley, his heart knew again a -pain almost beyond endurance; a pain that only the peace of Rona had -translated into a strong acquiescence in the irrevocable past--a pain -become less haunting under the stress of all which had happened in -connection with the Herdsman, till it knew a bitter resurrection when -Alan came to read of the tragic fate of the woman who had loved him. - -Through some wayward impulse Ynys abruptly asked him to go with her -through the cypress alley, so that they should approach the château -from the forest. - -Silently, and with downcast eyes, he walked by her side, his hand -still in hers. But his thoughts were with the dead woman, on the -bitter hazard of love, and on what lay, forever secret, between Annaik -and himself. And as he communed with himself, in an austere pain of -remembrance, he came to see more and more clearly that in some strange -way the Herdsman episode, with all involved therein, was no arbitrary -chance in the maze of life, but a definite working out of destiny. None -could ever know what Annaik had foretold, had known, on that terrible -night when the silence of the moonlit peace was continuously rent by -the savage screams of the peacocks; nor could any other than himself -discern, against the dark tapestries of what veiled his inner life, the -weaving of an inextricable web. - -It was difficult for him to believe that she was dead--Annaik, who had -always been so radiantly, superbly alive. Now there was dust upon that -wonderful bronze hair; darkness upon those lambent eyes; no swift pulse -beating in the red tide in the veins; a frost against the heart. What -a burden it had carried, poor heart! "Oh, Annaik, Annaik!" he muttered -below his breath, "what a hard wayfaring because of a passion crucified -upon the bitter tree of despair; what a fierce, silent, unwavering -tyranny over the rebellious voices crying unceasingly from every nerve, -or swept this way and that on every stormy tide of blood." - -That Annaik who loved the forest so passing well, and in whom the green -fire of life flamed consumingly, should no longer be alive to rejoice -in the glory of spring, now once again everywhere involving the brown -earth and the purple branches, was an almost unrealizable thing. To -walk in that cypress alley once more; to cross that open glade with its -single hawthorn; to move in the dark green shadow of that yew close; to -do this and remember all that Annaik had suffered, and that now she lay -quiet and beyond all pain or joy to touch her, was to Alan a thought -almost too poignant to be borne. - -It was with an effort he answered Ynys when she spoke, and it was in -silence that they entered the house which was now their home, and -where--years ago, as it seemed--they had been young and happy. - -But that night he sat alone for a time in the little room in the tower -which rose from the east wing of Kerival--the room he had fitted up as -an observatory, similar, on a smaller scale, to that in the Tour de -l'Ile where he had so deeply studied the mystery of the starry world. -Here he had dreamed many dreams, and here he dreamed yet another. - -For out of his thoughts about Annaik and Ynys arose a fuller, a deeper -conception of Womanhood. How well he remembered a legend that Ynys had -told him on Rona: a legend of a fair spirit which goes to and fro -upon the world, the Weaver of Tears. He loves the pathways of sorrow. -His voice is low and sweet, with a sound like the bubbling of waters -in that fount whence the rainbows rise. His eyes are in quiet places, -and in the dumb pain of animals as in the agony of the human brain: -but most he is found, oftenest are the dewy traces of his feet, in the -heart of woman. - -Tears, tears! They are not the saltest tears which are on the lids of -those who weep. Fierce tears there are, hot founts of pain in the mind -of many a man, that are never shed, but slowly crystallize in furrows -on brow and face, and in deep weariness in the eyes; fierce tears, -unquenchable, in the heart of many a woman, whose brave eyes look -fearlessly at life; whose dauntless courage goes forth daily to die, -but never to be vanquished. - -In truth the Weaver of Tears abides in the heart of Woman. O Mother of -Pity, of Love, of deep Compassion! with thee it is to yearn forever -for the ideal human; to bring the spiritual love into fusion with -human desire; endlessly to strive, endlessly to fail; always to hope -in spite of disillusion; to love unswervingly against all baffling -and misunderstanding, and even forgetfulness! O Woman, whose eyes are -always stretched out to her erring children, whose heart is big enough -to cover all the little children in the world, and suffer with their -sufferings, and joy with their joys! Woman, whose other divine names -are Strength and Patience, who is no girl, no Virgin, because she has -drunk too deeply of the fount of Life to be very young or very joyful. -Upon her lips is the shadowy kiss of death; in her eyes is the shadow -of birth. She is the veiled interpreter of the two mysteries. Yet what -joyousness like hers, when she wills; because of her unwavering hope, -her inexhaustible fount of love? - -So it was that, just as Alan had long recognized as a deep truth how -the spiritual nature of man has been revealed to humanity in many -divine incarnations, so he had come to believe that the spiritual -nature of woman has been revealed in the many Marys, sisters of the -Beloved, who have had the keys of the soul and the heart in their -unconscious keeping. In this exquisite truth he knew a fresh and vivid -hope. Was it all a dream that Ynys had dreamed, far away among the -sea arcades of Rona? Had the Herdsman, the Shepherd of Souls, indeed -revealed to her that a child was to be born who would be one of the -redeemers of the world? A Woman Saviour, who would come near to all of -us, because in her heart would be the blind tears of the child, and the -bitter tears of the man, and the patient tears of the woman; who would -be the Compassionate One, with no end or aim but compassion--with no -doctrine to teach, no way to show, but only deep, wonderful, beautiful, -inalienable, unquenchable compassion? - -For, in truth, there is the divine, eternal feminine counterpart to the -divine, eternal male, and both are needed to explain the mystery of the -dual Spirit within us--the mystery of the Two in One, so infinitely -stranger and more wonderful than that triune life which the blind -teachers of the blind have made a rock of stumbling and offence out of -a truth clear and obvious as noon. - -We speak of Mother Nature, but we do not discern the living truth -behind our words. How few of us have the vision of this great brooding -Mother, whose garment is the earth and sea, whose head is pillowed -among the stars; she who, with Death and Sleep as her familiar shapes, -soothes and rests all the weariness of the world, from the waning leaf -to the beating pulse; from the brief span of a human heart to the -furrowing of granite brows by the uninterrupted sun, the hounds of rain -and wind, and the untrammelled airs of heaven. - -Not cruel, relentless, impotently anarchic, chaotically potent, this -Mater Genetrix. We see her thus, who are flying threads in the loom she -weaves. But she is patient, abiding, certain, inviolate, and silent -ever. It is only when we come to this vision of her whom we call -Isis or Hera or Orchil, or one of a hundred other names, our unknown -Earth-Mother, that men and women will know each other aright, and go -hand in hand along the road of Life without striving to crush, to -subdue, to usurp, to retaliate, to separate. - -Ah, fair vision of humanity to come! man and woman side by side, sweet, -serene, true, simple, natural, fulfilling Earth's and Heaven's behests; -unashamed, unsophisticated, unaffected, each to each and for each; -children of one mother, inheritors of a like destiny, and, at the last, -artificers of an equal fate. - -Pondering thus, Alan rose and looked out into the night. In that great -stillness, wherein the moonlight lay like the visible fragrance of the -earth, he gazed long and intently. How shadowy, now, were these lives -that had so lately palpitated in this very place; how strange their -silence, their incommunicable knowledge, their fathomless peace! - -Was it all lost ... the long endurance of pain, the pangs of sorrow? If -so, what was the lesson of life? Surely, to live with sweet serenity -and gladness, content against the inevitable hour. There is solace of a -kind in the idea of a common end, of that terrible processional march -of life wherein the myriad is momentary, and the immeasurable is but a -passing shadow. But, alas! it is only solace of a kind; for what heart -that has beat to the pulse of love can relinquish the sweet dream of -life, and what coronal can philosophy put upon the brows of youth in -place of eternity? - -No, no! of this he felt sure. In the Beauty of the World lies the -ultimate redemption of our mortality. When we shall become at one with -nature, in a sense profounder even than the poetic imaginings of most -of us, we shall understand what now we fail to discern. The arrogance -of those who would have the stars as candles for our night, and the -universe as a pleasaunce for our thought, will be as impossible as the -blind fatuity of those who say we are of dust, briefly vitalized, that -shall be dust again, with no fragrance saved from the rude bankruptcy -of life, no beauty raised up against the sun to bloom anew. - -It is no idle dream, this; no idle dream that we are a perishing clan -among the sons of God, because of this slow waning of our joy, of our -passionate delight in the Beauty of the World. We have been unable to -look out upon the shining of our star, for the vision overcomes us; and -we have used veils which we call "scenery," "picturesqueness," and the -like--poor, barren words that are so voiceless and remote before the -rustle of leaves and the lap of water; before the ancient music of the -wind, and all the sovran eloquence of the tides of light. But a day may -come--nay, shall surely come--when indeed the poor and the humble shall -inherit the earth; they who have not made a league with temporal evils, -and out of whose heart shall arise the deep longing, that shall become -universal, of the Renewal of Youth. - - * * * * * - -Often, in the days that followed their return to Kerival, Alan and Ynys -talked of these hopes and fears. And, gradually, out of the beauty -of the spring, out of the intensity of the green fire of life which -everywhere flamed in the brown earth, on the hills, in the waters, in -the heart and brain of man, in the whole living, breathing world, was -born of them a new joy. They were as the prince and princess of the -fairy tales, for whom every thing was wonderful. Hand in hand they -entered into the kingdom of youth. It was theirs, thenceforth; and all -the joy of the world. - -To live, and love, and be full of a deep joy, a glad content, a -supporting hope! What destiny among the stars fairer than this? - -They would be harbingers of joy. That was what they said, one to -another. They would be so glad with sweet life that others would -rejoice; out of their strength they would strengthen, out of their joy -they would gladden, out of their peace they would comfort, out of their -knowledge they would be compassionate. - -Nor was their dream an unfulfilled vision. As the weeks slipped into -months, and the months lapsed into years, Alan and Ynys realized all -that it is possible for man and woman to know of happiness. Happiness, -duties, claims held them to Kerival; but there they lived in fair -comradeship with their fellows, with the green forest, with all that -nature had to give them for their delight through wind and wave, -through shadow and shine, through changing seasons and the exquisite -hazard of every passing hour. - -To them both, too, came the added joy which they feared had been -forfeited at Rona. When Ynys felt the child's hands on her breast, -she was as one transformed by a light out of heaven. Alan, looking at -mother and child, understood, with all his passion for the intimate -wonder and mystery of nature, the deeper truth in the words of one of -the greatest of men ... "the Souls of the Living are the Beauty of the -World." - -That sometimes a shadow fell was inevitable. None ever so dusked the -sun-way of Alan's mind as when, remote in the forest of Kerival, he -came upon the unkempt figure of Judik Kerbastiou, often carrying upon -his shoulder a little child whose happy laughter was sweet to hear, in -whose tawny hair was a light such as had gleamed in Annaik's, and whose -eyes were blue as the north seas and as Alan's were. - -Often, too, Alan, alone in his observatory, where he was wont to -spend much of his time, knew that strange nostalgia of the mind for -impossible things. Then, wrought for a while from his vision of green -life, and flamed by another green fire than that born of the earth, -he dreamed his dream. With him, the peopled solitude of night was a -concourse of confirming voices. He did not dread the silence of the -stars--the cold remoteness of the stellar fire. - -In that other watch-tower in Paris, where he had spent the best hours -of his youth, he had loved that nightly watch of the constellations. -Now, as then, in the pulse of the planets he found assurances which -Faith had not given him. In the vast, majestic order of that nocturnal -march, that diurnal retreat, he had learned the law of the whirling -leaf and the falling star; of the slow, æon-delayed comet and of the -slower wane of solar fires. Looking with visionary eyes into that -congregation of stars, he realized, not the littleness of the human -dream but its divine impulsion. It was only when, after long vigils -into the quietudes of night, he turned his gaze from the palaces of the -unknown, and thought of the baffled, fretful swarming in the cities of -men, that his soul rose in revolt against the sublime ineptitude of -man's spiritual leaguer against destiny. - -Destiny--_An Dan_--it was a word familiar to him since childhood, -when first he had heard it on the lips of old Ian Macdonald. And -once, on the eve of the Feast of Paschal, when Alan had asked Daniel -Darc what was the word which the stars spelled from zenith to nadir, -the astronomer had turned and answered simply, "_C'est le Destin_." -But Alan was of the few to whom this talismanic word opens lofty -perspectives, even while it obscures those paltry vistas which we deem -unending and dignify with vain hopes and void immortalities. - - -THE END - - Transcriber's Note - - Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained - except in obvious cases of typographical errors. - - Italics are shown thus _italic_. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Green Fire, by Fiona Macleod - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEN FIRE *** - -***** This file should be named 44091-8.txt or 44091-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/0/9/44091/ - -Produced by Les Galloway, sp1nd and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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