diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/twpop10.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/twpop10.txt | 3338 |
1 files changed, 3338 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/twpop10.txt b/old/twpop10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f582e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/twpop10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3338 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The White People, by Burnett** +#5 in our series by Frances Hodgson Burnett + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +The White People + +by Frances Hodgson Burnett + +March, 1996 [Etext #459] + + +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The White People, by Burnett** +*****This file should be named twpop10.txt or twpop10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, twpop11.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, twpop10a.txt. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text +files per month: or 400 more Etexts in 1996 for a total of 800. +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach 80 billion Etexts. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only 10% of the present number of computer users. 2001 +should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it +will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001. + + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois +Benedictine College). (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go +to IBC, too) + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext96 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with +OmniPage Professional OCR software +donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. +Contact Mike Lough <Mikel@caere.com> + + + + + +THE WHITE PEOPLE + +BY FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT + + + + + +TO +LIONEL +"The stars come nightly to the sky; +The tidal wave unto the sea; +Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high +Can keep my own away from me." + + + + + +THE WHITE PEOPLE + +CHAPTER I + +Perhaps the things which happened could +only have happened to me. I do not +know. I never heard of things like them +happening to any one else. But I am not sorry +they did happen. I am in secret deeply and +strangely glad. I have heard other people say +things--and they were not always sad people, +either--which made me feel that if they knew +what I know it would seem to them as though +some awesome, heavy load they had always +dragged about with them had fallen from their +shoulders. To most people everything is so +uncertain that if they could only see or hear and +know something clear they would drop upon +their knees and give thanks. That was what I +felt myself before I found out so strangely, and +I was only a girl. That is why I intend to +write this down as well as I can. It will not be +very well done, because I never was clever at all, +and always found it difficult to talk. + +I say that perhaps these things could only +have happened to me, because, as I look back +over my life, I realize that it has always been a +rather curious one. Even when those who took +care of me did not know I was thinking at all, I +had begun to wonder if I were not different from +other children. That was, of course, largely +because Muircarrie Castle was in such a wild +and remote part of Scotland that when my few +relations felt they must pay me a visit as a +mere matter of duty, their journey from London, +or their pleasant places in the south of +England, seemed to them like a pilgrimage to a +sort of savage land; and when a conscientious +one brought a child to play with me, the little +civilized creature was as frightened of me as I +was of it. My shyness and fear of its strangeness +made us both dumb. No doubt I seemed +like a new breed of inoffensive little barbarian, +knowing no tongue but its own. + +A certain clannish etiquette made it seem +necessary that a relation should pay me a visit +sometimes, because I was in a way important. +The huge, frowning feudal castle standing upon +its battlemented rock was mine; I was a great +heiress, and I was, so to speak, the chieftainess +of the clan. But I was a plain, undersized little +child, and had no attraction for any one but +Jean Braidfute, a distant cousin, who took care +of me, and Angus Macayre, who took care of +the library, and who was a distant relative +also. They were both like me in the fact that +they were not given to speech; but sometimes +we talked to one another, and I knew they were +fond of me, as I was fond of them. They were +really all I had. + +When I was a little girl I did not, of course, +understand that I was an important person, +and I could not have realized the significance +of being an heiress. I had always lived in the +castle, and was used to its hugeness, of which I +only knew corners. Until I was seven years +old, I think, I imagined all but very poor people +lived in castles and were saluted by every one +they passed. It seemed probable that all little +girls had a piper who strode up and down the +terrace and played on the bagpipes when guests +were served in the dining-hall. + +My piper's name was Feargus, and in time I +found out that the guests from London could +not endure the noise he made when he marched +to and fro, proudly swinging his kilts and treading +like a stag on a hillside. It was an insult +to tell him to stop playing, because it was his +religion to believe that The Muircarrie must +be piped proudly to; and his ancestors had +been pipers to the head of the clan for five +generations. It was his duty to march round +the dining-hall and play while the guests feasted, +but I was obliged in the end to make him believe +that he could be heard better from the terrace-- +because when he was outside his music was not +spoiled by the sound of talking. It was very +difficult, at first. But because I was his +chieftainess, and had learned how to give orders in a +rather proud, stern little voice, he knew he +must obey. + +Even this kind of thing may show that my +life was a peculiar one; but the strangest part +of it was that, while I was at the head of so +many people, I did not really belong to any one, +and I did not know that this was unusual. One +of my early memories is that I heard an under- +nursemaid say to another this curious thing: +"Both her father and mother were dead when +she was born." I did not even know that was +a remarkable thing to say until I was several +years older and Jean Braidfute told me what +had been meant. + +My father and mother had both been very +young and beautiful and wonderful. It was +said that my father was the handsomest chieftain +in Scotland, and that his wife was as +beautiful as he was. They came to Muircarrie +as soon as they were married and lived a splendid +year there together. Sometimes they were +quite alone, and spent their days fishing or riding +or wandering on the moor together, or reading +by the fire in the library the ancient books +Angus Macayre found for them. The library +was a marvelous place, and Macayre knew every +volume in it. They used to sit and read like +children among fairy stories, and then they +would persuade Macayre to tell them the ancient +tales he knew--of the days when Agricola +forced his way in among the Men of the Woods, +who would die any savage death rather than be +conquered. Macayre was a sort of heirloom +himself, and he knew and believed them all. + +I don't know how it was that I myself seemed +to see my young father and mother so clearly +and to know how radiant and wildly in love they +were. Surely Jean Braidfute had not words to +tell me. But I knew. So I understood, in a +way of my own, what happened to my mother +one brilliant late October afternoon when my +father was brought home dead--followed by the +guests who had gone out shooting with him. +His foot had caught in a tuft of heather, and his +gun in going off had killed him. One moment +he had been the handsomest young chieftain in +Scotland, and when he was brought home they +could not have let my mother see his face. + +But she never asked to see it. She was on the +terrace which juts over the rock the castle is +built on, and which looks out over the purple +world of climbing moor. She saw from there +the returning party of shooters and gillies winding +its way slowly through the heather, following +a burden carried on a stretcher of fir boughs. +Some of her women guests were with her, and +one of them said afterward that when she first +caught sight of the moving figures she got up +slowly and crept to the stone balustrade with a +crouching movement almost like a young +leopardess preparing to spring. But she only +watched, making neither sound nor movement +until the cortege was near enough for her to +see that every man's head was bowed upon his +breast, and not one was covered. + +Then she said, quite slowly, "They--have-- +taken off--their bonnets," and fell upon the +terrace like a dropped stone. + +It was because of this that the girl said that +she was dead when I was born. It must have +seemed almost as if she were not a living thing. +She did not open her eyes or make a sound; +she lay white and cold. The celebrated physicians +who came from London talked of catalepsy +and afterward wrote scientific articles which +tried to explain her condition. She did not +know when I was born. She died a few minutes +after I uttered my first cry. + +I know only one thing more, and that Jean +Braidfute told me after I grew up. Jean had +been my father's nursery governess when he +wore his first kilts, and she loved my mother +fondly. + +"I knelt by her bed and held her hand and +watched her face for three hours after they first +laid her down," she said. "And my eyes were +so near her every moment that I saw a thing +the others did not know her well enough, or love +her well enough, to see. + +"The first hour she was like a dead thing-- +aye, like a dead thing that had never lived. +But when the hand of the clock passed the +last second, and the new hour began, I bent +closer to her because I saw a change stealing +over her. It was not color--it was not even a +shadow of a motion. It was something else. +If I had spoken what I felt, they would have +said I was light-headed with grief and have sent +me away. I have never told man or woman. +It was my secret and hers. I can tell you, +Ysobel. The change I saw was as if she was +beginning to listen to something--to listen. + +"It was as if to a sound--far, far away at +first. But cold and white as stone she lay +content, and listened. In the next hour the far- +off sound had drawn nearer, and it had become +something else--something she saw--something +which saw her. First her young marble face +had peace in it; then it had joy. She waited in +her young stone body until you were born and +she could break forth. She waited no longer +then. + +"Ysobel, my bairn, what I knew was that he +had not gone far from the body that had held +him when he fell. Perhaps he had felt lost for +a bit when he found himself out of it. But soon +he had begun to call to her that was like his own +heart to him. And she had heard. And then, +being half away from earth herself, she had seen +him and known he was waiting, and that he +would not leave for any far place without her. +She was so still that the big doctors thought +more than once she had passed. But I knew +better." + +It was long before I was old enough to be told +anything like this that I began to feel that the +moor was in secret my companion and friend, +that it was not only the moot to me, but something +else. It was like a thing alive--a huge +giant lying spread out in the sun warming itself, +or covering itself with thick, white mist which +sometimes writhed and twisted itself into +wraiths. First I noticed and liked it some day, +perhaps, when it was purple and yellow with +gorse and heather and broom, and the honey +scents drew bees and butterflies and birds. +But soon I saw and was drawn by another thing. + +How young was I that afternoon when I sat +in the deep window and watched the low, soft +whiteness creeping out and hovering over the +heather as if the moor had breathed it? I do +not remember. It was such a low little mist at +first; and it crept and crept until its creeping +grew into something heavier and whiter, and it +began to hide the heather and the gorse and +broom, and then the low young fir-trees. It +mounted and mounted, and sometimes a breath +of wind twisted it into weird shapes, almost +like human creatures. It opened and closed +again, and then it dragged and crept and grew +thicker. And as I pressed my face against the +window-pane, it mounted still higher and got +hold of the moor and hid it, hanging heavy and +white and waiting. That was what came into +my child mind: that it had done what the moor +had told it to do; had hidden things which +wanted to be hidden, and then it waited. + +Strangers say that Muircarrie moor is the +most beautiful and the most desolate place in +the world, but it never seemed desolate to me. +From my first memory of it I had a vague, half- +comforted feeling that there was some strange +life on it one could not exactly see, but was +always conscious of. I know now why I felt +this, but I did not know then. + +If I had been older when I first began to see +what I did see there, I should no doubt have +read things in books which would have given +rise in my mind to doubts and wonders; but +I was only a little child who had lived a life quite +apart from the rest of the world. I was too +silent by nature to talk and ask questions, even +if I had had others to talk to. I had only +Jean and Angus, and, as I found out years +later, they knew what I did not, and would +have put me off with adroit explanations if I +had been curious. But I was not curious. I +accepted everything as it came and went. + + + +CHAPTER II + +I only six when Wee Brown Elspeth +was brought to me. Jean and Angus were +as fond of each other in their silent way as they +were of me, and they often went together with +me when I was taken out for my walks. I was +kept in the open air a great deal, and Angus +would walk by the side of my small, shaggy +Shetland pony and lead him over rough or +steep places. Sheltie, the pony, was meant for +use when we wished to fare farther than a child +could walk; but I was trained to sturdy marching +and climbing even from my babyhood. +Because I so loved the moor, we nearly always +rambled there. Often we set out early in the +morning, and some simple food was carried, so +that we need not return to the castle until we +chose. I would ride Sheltie and walk by turns +until we found a place I liked; then Jean and +Angus would sit down among the heather, +Sheltie would be secured, and I would wander +about and play in my own way. I do not +think it was in a strange way. I think I must +have played as almost any lonely little girl +might have played. I used to find a corner +among the bushes and pretend it was my house +and that I had little friends who came to play +with me. I only remember one thing which +was not like the ordinary playing of children. +It was a habit I had of sitting quite still a long +time and listening. That was what I called +it--"listening." I was listening to hear if the +life on the moor made any sound I could understand. +I felt as if it might, if I were very still +and listened long enough. + +Angus and Jean and I were not afraid of rain +and mist and change of weather. If we had +been we could have had little outdoor life. +We always carried plaids enough to keep us +warm and dry. So on this day I speak of we +did not turn back when we found ourselves in +the midst of a sudden mist. We sat down in a +sheltered place and waited, knowing it would +lift in time. The sun had been shining when +we set out. + +Angus and Jean were content to sit and guard +me while I amused myself. They knew I would +keep near them and run into no danger. I was +not an adventurous child. I was, in fact, in a +more than usually quiet mood that morning. +The quiet had come upon me when the mist +had begun to creep about and inclose us. I +liked it. I liked the sense of being shut in by +the soft whiteness I had so often watched from +my nursery window in the castle. + +"People might be walking about," I said to +Angus when he lifted me from Sheltie's back. + +"We couldn't see them. They might be +walking." + +"Nothing that would hurt ye, bairnie," he +answered. + +"No, they wouldn't hurt me," I said. I had +never been afraid that anything on the moor +would hurt me. + +I played very little that day. The quiet and +the mist held me still. Soon I sat down and +began to "listen." After a while I knew that +Jean and Angus were watching me, but it did +not disturb me. They often watched me when +they thought I did not know they were doing it. + +I had sat listening for nearly half an hour +when I heard the first muffled, slow trampling +of horses' hoofs. I knew what it was even +before it drew near enough for me to be conscious +of the other sounds--the jingling of arms +and chains and the creaking of leather one +notices as troopers pass by. Armed and mounted +men were coming toward me. That was what +the sounds meant; but they seemed faint and +distant, though I knew they were really quite +near. Jean and Angus did not appear to hear +them. I knew that I only heard them because +I had been listening. + +Out of the mist they rode a company of +wild-looking men wearing garments such as I +had never seen before. Most of them were +savage and uncouth, and their clothes were +disordered and stained as if with hard travel and +fight. I did not know--or even ask myself-- +why they did not frighten me, but they did not. +Suddenly I seemed to know that they were +brave men and had been doing some brave, +hard thing. Here and there among them I +caught sight of a broken and stained sword, +or a dirk with only a hilt left. They were all +pale, but their wild faces were joyous and +triumphant. I saw it as they drew near. + +The man who seemed their chieftain was a +lean giant who was darker but, under his +darkness, paler than the rest. On his forehead was +a queer, star-shaped scar. He rode a black +horse, and before him he held close with his +left arm a pretty little girl dressed in strange, +rich clothes. The big man's hand was pressed +against her breast as he held her; but though +it was a large hand, it did not quite cover a +dark-red stain on the embroideries of her dress. +Her dress was brown, and she had brown hair +and soft brown eyes like a little doe's. The +moment I saw her I loved her. + +The black horse stopped before me. The +wild troop drew up and waited behind. The +great, lean rider looked at me a moment, and +then, lifting the little girl in his long arms, bent +down and set her gently on her feet on the +mossy earth in the mist beside me. I got up +to greet her, and we stood smiling at each +other. And in that moment as we stood the +black horse moved forward, the muffled trampling +began again, the wild company swept on +its way, and the white mist closed behind it as +if it had never passed. + +Of course I know how strange this will seem +to people who read it, but that cannot be +helped and does not really matter. It was in +that way the thing happened, and it did not +even seem strange to me. Anything might happen +on the moor--anything. And there was +the fair little girl with the eyes like a doe's. + +I knew she had come to play with me, and +we went together to my house among the +bushes of broom and gorse and played happily. +But before we began I saw her stand and look +wonderingly at the dark-red stain on the +embroideries on her childish breast. It was as if +she were asking herself how it came there and +could not understand. Then she picked a fern +and a bunch of the thick-growing bluebells +and put them in her girdle in such a way that +they hid its ugliness. + +I did not really know how long she stayed. +I only knew that we were happy, and that, +though her way of playing was in some ways +different from mine, I loved it and her. Presently +the mist lifted and the sun shone, and we +were deep in a wonderful game of being hidden +in a room in a castle because something strange +was going to happen which we were not told +about. She ran behind a big gorse bush and +did not come back. When I ran to look for her +she was nowhere. I could not find her, and I +went back to Jean and Angus, feeling puzzled. + +"Where did she go?" I asked them, turning +my head from side to side. + +They were looking at me strangely, and both +of them were pale. Jean was trembling a little. + +"Who was she, Ysobel?" she said. + +"The little girl the men brought to play +with me," I answered, still looking about me. + +"The big one on the black horse put her down-- +the big one with the star here." I touched my +forehead where the queer scar had been. + +For a minute Angus forgot himself. Years +later he told me. + +"Dark Malcolm of the Glen," he broke out. +"Wee Brown Elspeth." + +"But she is white--quite white!" I said. + +"Where did she go?" + +Jean swept me in her warm, shaking arms and +hugged me close to her breast. + +"She's one of the fair ones," she said, kissing +and patting me. "She will come again. She'll +come often, I dare say. But she's gone now +and we must go, too. Get up, Angus, man. +We're for the castle." + +If we three had been different--if we had +ever had the habit of talking and asking questions-- +we might surely have asked one another +questions as I rode on Sheltie's back, with +Angus leading us. But they asked me nothing, +and I said very little except that I once spoke +of the wild-looking horsemen and their pale, +joyous faces. + +"They were glad," was all I said. + +There was also one brief query from Angus. + +"Did she talk to you, bairnie?" he said. + +I hesitated and stared at him quite a long +time. Then I shook my head and answered, +slowly, "N-no." + +Because I realized then, for the first time, +that we had said no words at all. But I had +known what she wanted me to understand, and +she had known what I might have said to her if +I had spoken--and no words were needed. +And it was better. + +They took me home to the castle, and I was +given my supper and put to bed. Jean sat +by me until I fell asleep; she was obliged to sit +rather a long time, because I was so happy with +my memories of Wee Brown Elspeth and the +certainty that she would come again. It was +not Jean's words which had made me sure. I +knew. + +She came many times. Through all my +childish years I knew that she would come and +play with me every few days--though I never +saw the wild troopers again or the big, lean +man with the scar. Children who play together +are not very curious about one another, and I +simply accepted her with delight. Somehow I +knew that she lived happily in a place not far +away. She could come and go, it seemed, without +trouble. Sometimes I found her--or she +found me upon the moor; and often she appeared +in my nursery in the castle. When we +were together Jean Braidfute seemed to prefer +that we should be alone, and was inclined to +keep the under-nurse occupied in other parts +of the wing I lived in. I never asked her to do +this, but I was glad that it was done. Wee +Elspeth was glad, too. After our first meeting +she was dressed in soft blue or white, and the +red stain was gone; but she was always Wee +Brown Elspeth with the doelike eyes and the +fair, transparent face, the very fair little face. +As I had noticed the strange, clear pallor of the +rough troopers, so I noticed that she was +curiously fair. And as I occasionally saw other +persons with the same sort of fairness, I thought +it was a purity of complexion special to some, +but not to all. I was not fair like that, and +neither was any one else I knew. + + + +CHAPTER III + +It was when I was ten years old that Wee +Elspeth ceased coming to me, and though +I missed her at first, it was not with a sense of +grief or final loss. She had only gone somewhere. + +It was then that Angus Macayre began to be +my tutor. He had been a profound student +and had lived among books all his life. He had +helped Jean in her training of me, and I had +learned more than is usually taught to children +in their early years. When a grand governess +was sent to Muircarrie by my guardian, she was +amazed at the things I was familiar with, but +she abhorred the dark, frowning castle and the +loneliness of the place and would not stay. +In fact, no governess would stay, and so Angus +became my tutor and taught me old Gaelic +and Latin and Greek, and we read together and +studied the ancient books in the library. It +was a strange education for a girl, and no doubt +made me more than ever unlike others. But +my life was the life I loved. + +When my guardian decided that I must live +with him in London and be educated as modern +girls were, I tried to be obedient and went to +him; but before two months had passed my +wretchedness had made me so ill that the doctor +said I should go into a decline and die if I were +not sent back to Muircarrie. + +"It's not only the London air that seems to +poison her," he said when Jean talked to him +about me; "it is something else. She will not +live, that's all. Sir Ian must send her home." + +As I have said before, I had been an +unattractive child and I was a plain, uninteresting +sort of girl. I was shy and could not talk to +people, so of course I bored them. I knew I did +not look well when I wore beautiful clothes. I +was little and unimportant and like a reed for +thinness. Because I was rich and a sort of +chieftainess I ought to have been tall and rather +stately, or at least I ought to have had a bearing +which would have made it impossible for people +to quite overlook me. But; any one could overlook +me--an insignificant, thin girl who slipped +in and out of places and sat and stared and +listened to other people instead of saying things +herself; I liked to look on and be forgotten. +It interested me to watch people if they did not +notice me. + +Of course, my relatives did not really like me. +How could they? They were busy in their +big world and did not know what to do +with a girl who ought to have been important +and was not. I am sure that in secret they were +relieved when I was sent back to Muircarrie. + +After that the life I loved went on quietly. +I studied with Angus, and made the book- +walled library my own room. I walked and +rode on the moor, and I knew the people who +lived in the cottages and farms on the estate. +I think they liked me, but I am not sure, because +I was too shy to seem very friendly. I was +more at home with Feargus, the piper, and with +some of the gardeners than I was with any one +else. I think I was lonely without knowing; +but I was never unhappy. Jean and Angus +were my nearest and dearest. Jean was of good +blood and a stanch gentlewoman, quite +sufficiently educated to be my companion as she +had been my early governess. + +It was Jean who told Angus that I was giving +myself too entirely to the study of ancient +books and the history of centuries gone by. + +"She is living to-day, and she must not pass +through this life without gathering anything +from it." + +"This life," she put it, as if I had passed +through others before, and might pass through +others again. That was always her way of +speaking, and she seemed quite unconscious of +any unusualness in it. + +"You are a wise woman, Jean," Angus said, +looking long at her grave face. "A wise +woman." + +He wrote to the London book-shops for the +best modern books, and I began to read them. +I felt at first as if they plunged me into a world +I did not understand, and many of them I could +not endure. But I persevered, and studied +them as I had studied the old ones, and in time +I began to feel as if perhaps they were true. +My chief weariness with them came from the +way they had of referring to the things I was so +intimate with as though they were only the +unauthenticated history of a life so long passed +by that it could no longer matter to any one. +So often the greatest hours of great lives were +treated as possible legends. I knew why men +had died or were killed or had borne black +horror. I knew because I had read old books +and manuscripts and had heard the stories which +had come down through centuries by word of +mouth, passed from father to son. + +But there was one man who did not write as +if he believed the world had begun and would +end with him. He knew he was only one, and +part of all the rest. The name I shall give him +is Hector MacNairn. He was a Scotchman, +but he had lived in many a land. The first +time I read a book he had written I caught my +breath with joy, again and again. I knew I +had found a friend, even though there was no +likelihood that I should ever see his face. He +was a great and famous writer, and all the +world honored him; while I, hidden away in +my castle on a rock on the edge of Muircarrie, +was so far from being interesting or clever that +even in my grandest evening dress and tiara of +jewels I was as insignificant as a mouse. In +fact, I always felt rather silly when I was +obliged to wear my diamonds on state occasions +as custom sometimes demanded. + +Mr. MacNairn wrote essays and poems, and +marvelous stories which were always real +though they were called fiction. Wheresoever +his story was placed--howsoever remote and +unknown the scene--it was a real place, and the +people who lived in it were real, as if he had some +magic power to call up human things to breathe +and live and set one's heart beating. I read +everything he wrote. I read every word of his +again and again. I always kept some book of +his near enough to be able to touch it with my +hand; and often I sat by the fire in the library +holding one open on my lap for an hour or more, +only because it meant a warm, close companionship. +It seemed at those times as if he sat +near me in the dim glow and we understood +each other's thoughts without using words, as +Wee Brown Elspeth and I had understood-- +only this was a deeper thing. + +I had felt near him in this way for several +years, and every year he had grown more +famous, when it happened that one June my +guardian, Sir Ian, required me to go to London +to see my lawyers and sign some important +documents connected with the management of the +estate. I was to go to his house to spend a +week or more, attend a Drawing-Room, and +show myself at a few great parties in a proper +manner, this being considered my duty toward +my relatives. These, I believe, were secretly +afraid that if I were never seen their world +would condemn my guardian for neglect of his +charge, or would decide that I was of unsound +mind and intentionally kept hidden away at +Muircarrie. He was an honorable man, and +his wife was a well-meaning woman. I did not +wish to do them an injustice, so I paid them +yearly visits and tried to behave as they wished, +much as I disliked to be dressed in fine frocks +and to wear diamonds on my little head and +round my thin neck. + +It was an odd thing that this time I found I +did not dread the visit to London as much as I +usually did. For some unknown reason I became +conscious that I was not really reluctant +to go. Usually the thought of the days before +me made me restless and low-spirited. London +always seemed so confused and crowded, and +made me feel as if I were being pushed and +jostled by a mob always making a tiresome +noise. But this time I felt as if I should +somehow find a clear place to stand in, where I +could look on and listen without being bewildered. +It was a curious feeling; I could not +help noticing and wondering about it. + +I knew afterward that it came to me because +a change was drawing near. I wish so much +that I could tell about it in a better way. But +I have only my own way, which I am afraid +seems very like a school-girl's. + +Jean Braidfute made the journey with me, +as she always did, and it was like every other +journey. Only one incident made it different, +and when it occurred there seemed nothing +unusual in it. It was only a bit of sad, +everyday life which touched me. There is nothing +new in seeing a poor woman in deep mourning. + +Jean and I had been alone in our railway +carriage for a great part of the journey; but +an hour or two before we reached London a +man got in and took a seat in a corner. The +train had stopped at a place where there is a +beautiful and well-known cemetery. People +bring their friends from long distances to lay +them there. When one passes the station, one +nearly always sees sad faces and people in +mourning on the platform. + +There was more than one group there that +day, and the man who sat in the corner looked +out at them with gentle eyes. He had fine, +deep eyes and a handsome mouth. When the +poor woman in mourning almost stumbled into +the carriage, followed by her child, he put out +his hand to help her and gave her his seat. +She had stumbled because her eyes were dim +with dreadful crying, and she could scarcely +see. It made one's heart stand still to see the +wild grief of her, and her unconsciousness of +the world about her. The world did not matter. +There was no world. I think there was nothing +left anywhere but the grave she had just staggered +blindly away from. I felt as if she had +been lying sobbing and writhing and beating +the new turf on it with her poor hands, and I +somehow knew that it had been a child's grave +she had been to visit and had felt she left to +utter loneliness when she turned away. + +It was because I thought this that I wished +she had not seemed so unconscious of and +indifferent to the child who was with her and +clung to her black dress as if it could not +bear to let her go. This one was alive at least, +even if she had lost the other one, and its little +face was so wistful! It did not seem fair to +forget and ignore it, as if it were not there. I +felt as if she might have left it behind on the +platform if it had not so clung to her skirt that it +was almost dragged into the railway carriage +with her. When she sank into her seat she +did not even lift the poor little thing into the +place beside her, but left it to scramble up as +best it could. She buried her swollen face in +her handkerchief and sobbed in a smothered +way as if she neither saw, heard, nor felt any +living thing near her. + +How I wished she would remember the poor +child and let it comfort her! It really was +trying to do it in its innocent way. It pressed +close to her side, it looked up imploringly, it +kissed her arm and her crape veil over and over +again, and tried to attract her attention. It +was a little, lily-fair creature not more than five +or six years old and perhaps too young to express +what it wanted to say. It could only cling +to her and kiss her black dress, and seem to beg +her to remember that it, at least, was a living +thing. But she was too absorbed in her anguish +to know that it was in the world. She neither +looked at nor touched it, and at last it sat with +its cheek against her sleeve, softly stroking her +arm, and now and then kissing it longingly. I +was obliged to turn my face away and look +out of the window, because I knew the man with +the kind face saw the tears well up into my +eyes. + +The poor woman did not travel far with us. +She left the train after a few stations were +passed. Our fellow-traveler got out before her +to help her on to the platform. He stood with +bared head while he assisted her, but she +scarcely saw him. And even then she seemed to +forget the child. The poor thing was dragged +out by her dress as it had been dragged in. +I put out my hand involuntarily as it went +through the door, because I was afraid it +might fall. But it did not. It turned its fair +little face and smiled at me. When the kind +traveler returned to his place in the carriage +again, and the train left the station, the black- +draped woman was walking slowly down the +platform and the child was still clinging to her +skirt. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +My guardian was a man whose custom +it was to give large and dignified parties. +Among his grand and fashionable guests there +was nearly always a sprinkling of the more +important members of the literary world. The +night after I arrived there was to be a +particularly notable dinner. I had come prepared +to appear at it. Jean had brought fine array +for me and a case of jewels. I knew I must +be "dressed up" and look as important as I +could. When I went up-stairs after tea, Jean +was in my room laying things out on the bed. + +"The man you like so much is to dine here +to-night, Ysobel," she said. "Mr. Hector +MacNairn." + +I believe I even put my hand suddenly to my +heart as I stood and looked at her, I was so +startled and so glad. + +"You must tell him how much you love his +books," she said. She had a quiet, motherly +way. + +"There will be so many other people who will +want to talk to him," I answered, and I felt +a little breathless with excitement as I said it. + +"And I should be too shy to know how to say +such things properly." + +"Don't be afraid of him," was her advice. +"The man will be like his books, and they're +the joy of your life." + +She made me look as nice as she could in the +new dress she had brought; she made me wear +the Muircarrie diamonds and sent me downstairs. +It does not matter who the guests were; +I scarcely remember. I was taken in to dinner +by a stately elderly man who tried to make me +talk, and at last was absorbed by the clever +woman on his other side. + +I found myself looking between the flowers for +a man's face I could imagine was Hector +MacNairn's. I looked up and down and saw +none I could believe belonged to him. There +were handsome faces and individual ones, but +at first I saw no Hector MacNairn. Then, on +bending forward a little to glance behind an +epergne, I found a face which it surprised and +pleased me to see. It was the face of the +traveler who had helped the woman in mourning +out of the railway carriage, baring his head +before her grief. I could not help turning and +speaking to my stately elderly partner. + +"Do you know who that is--the man at +the other side of the table?" I asked. + +Old Lord Armour looked across and answered +with an amiable smile. "It is the author the +world is talking of most in these days, and the +talking is no new thing. It's Mr. Hector +MacNairn." + +No one but myself could tell how glad I was. +It seemed so right that he should be the man +who had understood the deeps of a poor, passing +stranger woman's woe. I had so loved that +quiet baring of his head! All at once I knew +I should not be afraid of him. He would +understand that I could not help being shy, that +it was only my nature, and that if I said things +awkwardly my meanings were better than my +words. Perhaps I should be able to tell him +something of what his books had been to me. +I glanced through the flowers again--and he +was looking at me! I could scarcely believe it +for a second. But he was. His eyes--his +wonderful eyes--met mine. I could not explain +why they were wonderful. I think it was the +clearness and understanding in them, and a +sort of great interestedness. People sometimes +look at me from curiosity, but they do not look +because they are really interested. + +I could scarcely look away, though I knew +I must not be guilty of staring. A footman +was presenting a dish at my side. I took +something from it without knowing what it was. +Lord Armour began to talk kindly. He was +saying beautiful, admiring things of Mr. MacNairn +and his work. I listened gratefully, and +said a few words myself now and then. I was +only too glad to be told of the great people +and the small ones who were moved and uplifted +by his thoughts. + +"You admire him very much, I can see," +the amiable elderly voice said. + +I could not help turning and looking up. "It +is as if a great, great genius were one's friend-- +as if he talked and one listened," I said. "He is +like a splendid dream which has come true." + +Old Lord Armour looked at me quite thoughtfully, +as if he saw something new in me. + +"That is a good way of putting it, Miss +Muircarrie," he answered. "MacNairn would +like that. You must tell him about it yourself." + +I did not mean to glance through the flowers +again, but I did it involuntarily. And I met +the other eyes--the wonderful, interested ones +just as I had met them before. It almost +seemed as if he had been watching me. It +might be, I thought, because he only vaguely +remembered seeing me before and was trying to +recall where we had met. + +When my guardian brought his men guests to +the drawing-room after dinner, I was looking +over some old prints at a quiet, small table. +There were a few minutes of smiling talk, and +then Sir Ian crossed the room toward me, bringing +some one with him. It was Hector MacNairn +he brought. + +"Mr. MacNairn tells me you traveled +together this afternoon without knowing each +other," he said. "He has heard something of +Muircarrie and would like to hear more, Ysobel. +She lives like a little ghost all alone in her +feudal castle, Mr. MacNairn. We can't persuade +her to like London." + +I think he left us alone together because he +realized that we should get on better without a +companion. + +Mr. MacNairn sat down near me and began +to talk about Muircarrie. There were very few +places like it, and he knew about each one of +them. He knew the kind of things Angus +Macayre knew--the things most people had +either never heard of or had only thought of as +legends. He talked as he wrote, and I scarcely +knew when he led me into talking also. Afterward +I realized that he had asked me questions +I could not help answering because his eyes +were drawing me on with that quiet, deep +interest. It seemed as if he saw something in +my face which made him curious. + +I think I saw this expression first when we +began to speak of our meeting in the railway +carriage, and I mentioned the poor little fair +child my heart had ached so for. + +"It was such a little thing and it did so want +to comfort her! Its white little clinging hands +were so pathetic when they stroked and patted +her," I said. "And she did not even look at it." + +He did not start, but he hesitated in a way +which almost produced the effect of a start. +Long afterward I remembered it. + +"The child!" he said. "Yes. But I was +sitting on the other side. And I was so absorbed +in the poor mother that I am afraid I scarcely +saw it. Tell me about it." + +"It was not six years old, poor mite," I +answered. "It was one of those very fair +children one sees now and then. It was not +like its mother. She was not one of the +White People." + +"The White People?" he repeated quite +slowly after me. "You don't mean that she +was not a Caucasian? Perhaps I don't understand." + +That made me feel a trifle shy again. Of +course he could not know what I meant. How +silly of me to take it for granted that he would! + +"I beg pardon. I forgot," I even stammered +a little. "It is only my way of thinking +of those fair people one sees, those very fair +ones, you know--the ones whose fairness looks +almost transparent. There are not many of +them, of course; but one can't help noticing +them when they pass in the street or come +into a room. You must have noticed them, +too. I always call them, to myself, the White +People, because they are different from the +rest of us. The poor mother wasn't one, but +the child was. Perhaps that was why I looked +at it, at first. It was such a lovely little thing; +and the whiteness made it look delicate, and I +could not help thinking--" I hesitated, because +it seemed almost unkind to finish. + +"You thought that if she had just lost one +child she ought to take more care of the other," +he ended for me. There was a deep thoughtfulness +in his look, as if he were watching me. +I wondered why. + +"I wish I had paid more attention to the +little creature," he said, very gently. "Did +it cry?" + +"No," I answered. "It only clung to her and +patted her black sleeve and kissed it, as if it +wanted to comfort her. I kept expecting it to +cry, but it didn't. It made me cry because it +seemed so sure that it could comfort her if she +would only remember that it was alive and loved +her. I wish, I wish death did not make people +feel as if it filled all the world--as if, when it +happens, there is no life left anywhere. The +child who was alive by her side did not seem a +living thing to her. It didn't matter." + +I had never said as much to any one before, +but his watching eyes made me forget my shy +worldlessness. + +"What do you feel about it--death?" he +asked. + +The low gentleness of his voice seemed +something I had known always. + +"I never saw it," I answered. "I have never +even seen any one dangerously ill. I-- It is as +if I can't believe it." + +"You can't believe it? That is a wonderful +thing," he said, even more quietly than before. + +"If none of us believed, how wonderful that +would be! Beautiful, too." + +"How that poor mother believed it!" I said, +remembering her swollen, distorted, sobbing +face. "She believed nothing else; everything +else was gone." + +"I wonder what would have happened if you +had spoken to her about the child?" he said, +slowly, as if he were trying to imagine it. + +"I'm a very shy person. I should never have +courage to speak to a stranger," I answered. + +"I'm afraid I'm a coward, too. She might have +thought me interfering." + +"She might not have understood," he murmured. + +"It was clinging to her dress when she walked +away down the platform," I went on. "I dare +say you noticed it then?" + +"Not as you did. I wish I had noticed it +more," was his answer. "Poor little White +One!" + +That led us into our talk about the White +People. He said he did not think he was +exactly an observant person in some respects. +Remembering his books, which seemed to me +the work of a man who saw and understood +everything in the world, I could not comprehend +his thinking that, and I told him so. +But he replied that what I had said about my +White People made him feel that he must be +abstracted sometimes and miss things. He +did not remember having noticed the rare +fairness I had seen. He smiled as he said it, +because, of course, it was only a little thing-- +that he had not seen that some people were so +much fairer than others. + +"But it has not been a little thing to you, +evidently. That is why I am even rather curious +about it," he explained. "It is a difference +definite enough to make you speak almost as +if they were of a different race from ours." + +I sat silent a few seconds, thinking it over. +Suddenly I realized what I had never realized +before. + +"Do you know," I said, as slowly as he +himself had spoken, "I did not know that was true +until you put it into words. I am so used to +thinking of them as different, somehow, that I +suppose I do feel as if they were almost like +another race, in a way. Perhaps one would feel +like that with a native Indian, or a Japanese." + +"I dare say that is a good simile," he +reflected. "Are they different when you know +them well?" + +"I have never known one but Wee Brown +Elspeth," I answered, thinking it over. + +He did start then, in the strangest way. + +"What!" he exclaimed. "What did you +say?" + +I was quite startled myself. Suddenly he +looked pale, and his breath caught itself. + +"I said Wee Elspeth, Wee Brown Elspeth. +She was only a child who played with me," I +stammered, "when I was little." + +He pulled himself together almost instantly, +though the color did not come back to his face +at once and his voice was not steady for a few +seconds. But he laughed outright at himself. + +"I beg your pardon," he apologized. "I +have been ill and am rather nervous. I thought +you said something you could not possibly have +said. I almost frightened you. And you were +only speaking of a little playmate. Please go +on." + +"I was only going to say that she was fair +like that, fairer than any one I had ever seen; +but when we played together she seemed like +any other child. She was the first I ever knew." + +I told him about the misty day on the moor, +and about the pale troopers and the big, lean +leader who carried Elspeth before him on his +saddle. I had never talked to any one about +it before, not even to Jean Braidfute. But he +seemed to be so interested, as if the little story +quite fascinated him. It was only an episode, +but it brought in the weirdness of the moor and +my childish fancies about the things hiding in +the white mist, and the castle frowning on its +rock, and my baby face pressed against the +nursery window in the tower, and Angus and the +library, and Jean and her goodness and wise +ways. It was dreadful to talk so much about +oneself. But he listened so. His eyes never +left my face--they watched and held me as if he +were enthralled. Sometimes he asked a question. + +"I wonder who they were--the horsemen?" +he pondered. "Did you ever ask Wee Elspeth?" + +"We were both too little to care. We only +played," I answered him. "And they came +and went so quickly that they were only a sort +of dream." + +"They seem to have been a strange lot. +Wasn't Angus curious about them?" he suggested. + +"Angus never was curious about anything," +I said. "Perhaps he knew something about +them and would not tell me. When I was a +little thing I always knew he and Jean had +secrets I was too young to hear. They hid sad +and ugly things from me, or things that might +frighten a child. They were very good." + +"Yes, they were good," he said, thoughtfully. + +I think any one would have been pleased to +find herself talking quietly to a great genius-- +as quietly as if he were quite an ordinary person; +but to me the experience was wonderful. I had +thought about him so much and with such adoring +reverence. And he looked at me as if he +truly liked me, even as if I were something +new--a sort of discovery which interested him. +I dare say that he had never before seen a girl +who had lived so much alone and in such a +remote and wild place. + +I believe Sir Ian and his wife were pleased, +too, to see that I was talking. They were glad +that their guests should see that I was intelligent +enough to hold the attention even of a clever +man. If Hector MacNairn was interested in +me I could not be as silly and dull as I looked. +But on my part I was only full of wonder and +happiness. I was a girl, and he had been my +only hero; and it seemed even as if he liked +me and cared about my queer life. + +He was not a man who had the air of making +confidences or talking about himself, but before +we parted I seemed to know him and his +surroundings as if he had described them. A mere +phrase of his would make a picture. Such a +few words made his mother quite clear to me. +They loved each other in an exquisite, intimate +way. She was a beautiful person. Artists had +always painted her. He and she were completely +happy when they were together. They +lived in a house in the country, and I could not +at all tell how I discovered that it was an old +house with beautiful chimneys and a very big +garden with curious high walls with corner +towers round it. He only spoke of it briefly, +but I saw it as a picture; and always afterward, +when I thought of his mother, I thought of her +as sitting under a great and ancient apple-tree +with the long, late-afternoon shadows stretching +on the thick, green grass. I suppose I saw +that just because he said: + +"Will you come to tea under the big apple- +tree some afternoon when the late shadows +are like velvet on the grass? That is perhaps +the loveliest time." + +When we rose to go and join the rest of the +party, he stood a moment and glanced round the +room at our fellow-guests. + +"Are there any of your White People here +to-night?" he said, smiling. "I shall begin to +look for them everywhere." + +I glanced over the faces carelessly. "There +are none here to-night," I answered, and then I +flushed because he had smiled. "It was only a +childish name I gave them," I hesitated. "I +forgot you wouldn't understand. I dare say it +sounds silly." + +He looked at me so quickly. + +"No! no! no!" he exclaimed. "You mustn't +think that! Certainly not silly." + +I do not think he knew that he put out his +hand and gently touched my arm, as one might +touch a child to make it feel one wanted it to +listen. + +"You don't know," he said in his low, slow +voice, "how glad I am that you have talked to +me. Sir Ian said you were not fond of talking +to people, and I wanted to know you." + +"You care about places like Muircarrie. +That is why," I answered, feeling at once how +much he understood. "I care for Muircarrie +more than for all the rest of the world. And I +suppose you saw it in my face. I dare say that +the people who love that kind of life cannot help +seeing it there." + +"Yes," he said, "it is in your eyes. It was +what I saw and found myself wondering about +when I watched you in the train. It was really +the moor and the mist and the things you think +are hidden in it." + +"Did you watch me?" I asked. "I could not +help watching you a little, when you were so +kind to the poor woman. I was afraid you +would see me and think me rude." + +"It was the far look in your face I watched," +he said. "If you will come to tea under the +big apple-tree I will tell you more about it." + +"Indeed I will come," I answered. "Now +we must go and sit among the other people-- +those who don't care about Muircarrie at all." + + + +CHAPTER V + +I went to tea under the big apple-tree. It +was very big and old and wonderful. No +wonder Mr. MacNairn and his mother loved it. +Its great branches spread out farther than I +had ever seen the branches of an apple-tree +spread before. They were gnarled and knotted +and beautiful with age. Their shadows upon +the grass were velvet, deep and soft. Such a +tree could only have lived its life in such a +garden. At least it seemed so to me. The +high, dim-colored walls, with their curious, +low corner towers and the leafage of the wall +fruits spread against their brick, inclosed it +embracingly, as if they were there to take care +of it and its beauty. But the tree itself seemed +to have grown there in all its dignified loveliness +of shadow to take care of Mrs. MacNairn, who +sat under it. I felt as if it loved and was proud +of her. + +I have heard clever literary people speak of +Mrs. MacNairn as a "survival of type." Sometimes +clever people bewilder me by the terms +they use, but I thought I understood what they +meant in her case. She was quite unlike the +modern elderly woman, and yet she was not in +the least old-fashioned or demodee. She was +only exquisitely distinct. + +When she rose from her chair under the +apple-tree boughs and came forward to meet me +that afternoon, the first things which struck me +were her height and slenderness and her light +step. Then I saw that her clear profile seemed +cut out of ivory and that her head was a beautiful +shape and was beautifully set. Its every +turn and movement was exquisite. The mere +fact that both her long, ivory hands enfolded +mine thrilled me. I wondered if it were possible +that she could be unaware of her loveliness. +Beautiful people are thrilling to me, and Mrs. +MacNairn has always seemed more so than any +one else. This is what her son once said of her: + +"She is not merely beautiful; she is Beauty-- +Beauty's very spirit moving about among us +mortals; pure Beauty." + +She drew me to a chair under her tree, and +we sat down together. I felt as if she were glad +that I had come. The watching look I had seen +in her son's eyes was in hers also. They watched +me as we talked, and I found myself telling her +about my home as I had found myself telling +him. He had evidently talked to her about it +himself. I had never met any one who thought +of Muircarrie as I did, but it seemed as if they +who were strangers were drawn by its wild, +beautiful loneliness as I was. + +I was happy. In my secret heart I began to +ask myself if it could be true that they made me +feel a little as if I somehow belonged to some one. +I had always seemed so detached from every +one. I had not been miserable about it, and I +had not complained to myself; I only accepted +the detachment as part of my kind of life. + +Mr. MacNairn came into the garden later +and several other people came in to tea. It was +apparently a sort of daily custom--that people +who evidently adored Mrs. MacNairn dropped +in to see and talk to her every afternoon. She +talked wonderfully, and her friends' joy in her +was wonderful, too. It evidently made people +happy to be near her. All she said and did +was like her light step and the movements of +her delicate, fine head--gracious and soft and +arrestingly lovely. She did not let me drift +away and sit in a corner looking on, as I usually +did among strangers. She kept me near her, +and in some subtle, gentle way made me a part +of all that was happening--the talk, the charming +circle under the spreading boughs of the +apple-tree, the charm of everything. Sometimes +she would put out her exquisite, long- +fingered hand and touch me very lightly, and +each time she did it I felt as if she had given +me new life. + +There was an interesting elderly man who +came among the rest of the guests. I was +interested in him even before she spoke to me of +him. He had a handsome, aquiline face which +looked very clever. His talk was brilliantly +witty. When he spoke people paused as if they +could not bear to lose a phrase or even a word. +But in the midst of the trills of laughter +surrounding him his eyes were unchangingly sad. +His face laughed or smiled, but his eyes never. + +"He is the greatest artist in England and the +most brilliant man," Mrs. MacNairn said to me, +quietly. "But he is the saddest, too. He had +a lovely daughter who was killed instantly, in +his presence, by a fall. They had been +inseparable companions and she was the delight +of his life. That strange, fixed look has been in +his eyes ever since. I know you have noticed +it." + +We were walking about among the flower- +beds after tea, and Mr. MacNairn was showing +me a cloud of blue larkspurs in a corner when I +saw something which made me turn toward +him rather quickly. + +"There is one!" I said. "Do look at her! +Now you see what I mean! The girl standing +with her hand on Mr. Le Breton's arm." + +Mr. Le Breton was the brilliant man with the +sad eyes. He was standing looking at a mass +of white-and-purple iris at the other side of the +garden. There were two or three people with +him, but it seemed as if for a moment he had +forgotten them--had forgotten where he was. +I wondered suddenly if his daughter had been +fond of irises. He was looking at them with +such a tender, lost expression. The girl, who +was a lovely, fair thing, was standing quite close +to him with her hand in his arm, and she was +smiling, too--such a smile! + +"Mr. Le Breton!" Mr. MacNairn said in a +rather startled tone. "The girl with her hand in +his arm?" + +"Yes. You see how fair she is," I answered. + +"And she has that transparent look. It is so +lovely. Don't you think so? SHE is one of the +White People." + +He stood very still, looking across the flowers +at the group. There was a singular interest and +intensity in his expression. He watched the +pair silently for a whole minute, I think. + +"Ye-es," he said, slowly, at last, "I do see what +you mean--and it IS lovely. I don't seem to +know her well. She must be a new friend of my +mother's. So she is one of the White People?" + +"She looks like a white iris herself, doesn't +she?" I said. "Now you know." + +"Yes; now I know," he answered. + +I asked Mrs. MacNairn later who the girl was, +but she didn't seem to recognize my description +of her. Mr. Le Breton had gone away by that +time, and so had the girl herself. + +"The tall, very fair one in the misty, pale- +gray dress," I said. "She was near Mr. Le +Breton when he was looking at the iris-bed. +You were cutting some roses only a few yards +away from her. That VERY fair girl?" + +Mrs. MacNairn paused a moment and looked +puzzled. + +"Mildred Keith is fair," she reflected, "but +she was not there then. I don't recall seeing +a girl. I was cutting some buds for Mrs. +Anstruther. I--" She paused again and turned +toward her son, who was standing watching +us. I saw their eyes meet in a rather arrested way. + +"It was not Mildred Keith," he said. "Miss +Muircarrie is inquiring because this girl was one +of those she calls the White People. She was +not any one I had seen here before." + +There was a second's silence before Mrs. +MacNairn smilingly gave me one of her light, +thrilling touches on my arm. + +"Ah! I remember," she said. "Hector told +me about the White People. He rather fancied +I might be one." + +I am afraid I rather stared at her as I slowly +shook my head. You see she was almost one, +but not quite. + +"I was so busy with my roses that I did not +notice who was standing near Mr. Le Breton," +she said. "Perhaps it was Anabel Mere. She +is a more transparent sort of girl than Mildred, +and she is more blond. And you don't know +her, Hector? I dare say it was she." + + + +CHAPTER VI + +I remained in London several weeks. I +stayed because the MacNairns were so good +to me. I could not have told any one how I +loved Mrs. MacNairn, and how different everything +seemed when I was with her. I was never +shy when we were together. There seemed to +be no such thing as shyness in the world. I +was not shy with Mr. MacNairn, either. After +I had sat under the big apple-tree boughs in the +walled garden a few times I realized that I had +begun to belong to somebody. Those two +marvelous people cared for me in that way-- +in a way that made me feel as if I were a real +girl, not merely a queer little awkward ghost +in a far-away castle which nobody wanted to +visit because it was so dull and desolate and far +from London. They were so clever, and knew +all the interesting things in the world, but +their cleverness and experience never bewildered +or overwhelmed me. + +"You were born a wonderful little creature, +and Angus Macayre has filled your mind with +strange, rich furnishings and marvelous color +and form," Mrs. MacNairn actually said to me +one day when we were sitting together and she +was holding my hand and softly, slowly patting +it. She had a way of doing that, and she +had also a way of keeping me very near her +whenever she could. She said once that she +liked to touch me now and then to make sure +that I was quite real and would not melt away. +I did not know then why she said it, but I +understood afterward. + +Sometimes we sat under the apple-tree until +the long twilight deepened into shadow, which +closed round us, and a nightingale that lived in +the garden began to sing. We all three loved +the nightingale, and felt as though it knew +that we were listening to it. It is a wonderful +thing to sit quite still listening to a bird singing +in the dark, and to dare to feel that while it +sings it knows how your soul adores it. It is +like a kind of worship. + +We had been sitting listening for quite a long +time, and the nightingale had just ceased and +left the darkness an exquisite silence which fell +suddenly but softly as the last note dropped, +when Mrs. MacNairn began to talk for the +first time of what she called The Fear. + +I don't remember just how she began, and +for a few minutes I did not quite understand +what she meant. But as she went on, and Mr. +MacNairn joined in the talk, their meaning +became a clear thing to me, and I knew that +they were only talking quite simply of something +they had often talked of before. They +were not as afraid of The Fear as most people +are, because they had thought of and reasoned +about it so much, and always calmly and with +clear and open minds. + +By The Fear they meant that mysterious +horror most people feel at the thought of passing +out of the world they know into the one they +don't know at all. + +How quiet, how still it was inside the walls of +the old garden, as we three sat under the +boughs and talked about it! And what sweet +night scents of leaves and sleeping flowers were +in every breath we drew! And how one's +heart moved and lifted when the nightingale +broke out again! + +"If one had seen or heard one little thing, +if one's mortal being could catch one glimpse of +light in the dark," Mrs. MacNairn's low voice +said out of the shadow near me, "The Fear +would be gone forever." + +"Perhaps the whole mystery is as simple as +this," said her son's voice "as simple as this: +that as there are tones of music too fine to be +registered by the human ear, so there may be +vibrations of light not to be seen by the human +eye; form and color as well as sounds; just +beyond earthly perception, and yet as real as +ourselves, as formed as ourselves, only existing +in that other dimension." + +There was an intenseness which was almost +a note of anguish in Mrs. MacNairn's answer, +even though her voice was very low. I +involuntarily turned my head to look at her, +though of course it was too dark to see her face. +I felt somehow as if her hands were wrung +together in her lap. + +"Oh!" she said, "if one only had some +shadow of a proof that the mystery is only that +WE cannot see, that WE cannot hear, though they +are really quite near us, with us--the ones who +seem to have gone away and whom we feel we +cannot live without. If once we could be sure! +There would be no Fear--there would be none!" + +"Dearest"--he often called her "Dearest," +and his voice had a wonderful sound in the +darkness; it was caress and strength, and it +seemed to speak to her of things they knew +which I did not--"we have vowed to each other +that we WILL believe there is no reason for The +Fear. It was a vow between us." + +"Yes! Yes!" she cried, breathlessly, "but +sometimes, Hector--sometimes--" + +"Miss Muircarrie does not feel it--" + +"Please say `Ysobel'!" I broke in. "Please +do." + +He went on as quietly as if he had not even +paused: + +"Ysobel told me the first night we met that +it seemed as if she could not believe in it." + +"It never seems real to me at all," I said. +"Perhaps that is because I can never forget +what Jean told me about my mother lying still +upon her bed, and listening to some one calling +her." (I had told them Jean's story a few +days before.) "I knew it was my father; Jean +knew, too." + +"How did you know?" Mrs. MacNairn's +voice was almost a whisper. + +"I could not tell you that. I never asked +myself HOW it was. But I KNEW. We both +KNEW. Perhaps"--I hesitated--"it was because +in the Highlands people often believe +things like that. One hears so many stories all +one's life that in the end they don't seem +strange. I have always heard them. Those +things you know about people who have the +second sight. And about the seals who change +themselves into men and come on shore and +fall in love with girls and marry them. They +say they go away now and then, and no one +really knows where but it is believed that they +go back to their own people and change into +seals again, because they must plunge and riot +about in the sea. Sometimes they come home, +but sometimes they do not. + +"A beautiful young stranger, with soft, dark +eyes, appeared once not far from Muircarrie, +and he married a boatman's daughter. He was +very restless one night, and got up and left her, +and she never saw him again; but a few days +later a splendid dead seal covered with wounds +was washed up near his cottage. The fishers +say that his people had wanted to keep him +from his land wife, and they had fought with +him and killed him. His wife had a son with +strange, velvet eyes like his father's, and she +couldn't keep him away from the water. When +he was old enough to swim he swam out one +day, because he thought he saw some seals +and wanted to get near them. He swam out +too far, perhaps. He never came back, and the +fishermen said his father's people had taken +him. When one has heard stories like that all +one's life nothing seems very strange." + +"Nothing really IS strange," said Hector +MacNairn. "Again and again through all the +ages we have been told the secrets of the gods +and the wonders of the Law, and we have +revered and echoed but never believed. When +we believe and know all is simple we shall not +be afraid. You are not afraid, Ysobel. Tell +my mother you are not." + +I turned my face toward her again in the +darkness. I felt as if something was going on +between them which he somehow knew I could +help them in. It was as though he were calling +on something in my nature which I did not +myself comprehend, but which his profound +mind saw and knew was stronger than I was. + +Suddenly I felt as if I might trust to him and +to It, and that, without being troubled or +anxious, I would just say the first thing which +came into my mind, because it would be put +there for me by some power which could +dictate to me. I never felt younger or less +clever than I did at that moment; I was only +Ysobel Muircarrie, who knew almost nothing. +But that did not seem to matter. It was such +a simple, almost childish thing I told her. It +was only about The Dream. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"The feeling you call The Fear has never +come to me," I said to her. "And if it +had I think it would have melted away because +of a dream I once had. I don't really believe it +was a dream, but I call it one. I think I really +went somewhere and came back. I often wonder +why I came back. It was only a short +dream, so simple that there is scarcely anything +to tell, and perhaps it will not convey anything +to you. But it has been part of my life--that +time when I was Out on the Hillside. That is +what I call The Dream to myself, `Out on the +Hillside,' as if it were a kind of unearthly poem. +But it wasn't. It was more real than anything +I have ever felt. It was real--real! I wish +that I could tell it so that you would know +how real it was." + +I felt almost piteous in my longing to make +her know. I knew she was afraid of something, +and if I could make her know how REAL that one +brief dream had been she would not be afraid +any more. And I loved her, I loved her so +much! + +"I was asleep one night at Muircarrie," I +went on, "and suddenly, without any preparatory +dreaming, I was standing out on a hillside +in moonlight softer and more exquisite than I +had ever seen or known before. Perhaps I +was still in my nightgown--I don't know. My +feet were bare on the grass, and I wore something +light and white which did not seem to touch +me. If it touched me I did not feel it. My +bare feet did not feel the grass; they only knew +it was beneath them. + +"It was a low hill I stood on, and I was only +on the side of it. And in spite of the thrilling +beauty of the moon, all but the part I stood on +melted into soft, beautiful shadow, all below +me and above me. But I did not turn to look +at or ask myself about anything. You see the +difficulty is that there are no earthly words to +tell it! All my being was ecstasy--pure, light +ecstasy! Oh, what poor words-- But I know +no others. If I said that I was happy--HAPPY! +--it would be nothing. I WAS happiness itself, +I WAS pure rapture! I did not look at the +beauty of the night, the sky, the marvelous +melting shadow. I was PART of it all, one with +it. Nothing held me nothing! The beauty +of the night, the light, the air WERE what I was, +and I was only thrilling ecstasy and wonder at +the rapture of it." + +I stopped and covered my face with my +hands, and tears wet my fingers. + +"Oh, I cannot make it real! I was only there +such a short, short time. Even if you had been +with me I could not have found words for it, +even then. It was such a short time. I only +stood and lifted my face and felt the joy of it, +the pure marvel of joy. I only heard myself +murmuring over and over again: `Oh, how +beautiful! how beautiful! Oh, how BEAUTIFUL!' + +"And then a marvel of new joy swept through +me. I said, very softly and very slowly, as if +my voice were trailing away into silence: +`Oh--h! I--can--lie--down--here--on--the +grass--and--sleep . . . all--through--the +night--under--this--moonlight. . . . I can sleep +--sleep--' + +"I began to sink softly down, with the +heavenliest feeling of relaxation and repose, as +if there existed only the soul of beautiful rest. +I sank so softly--and just as my cheek almost +touched the grass the dream was over!" + +"Oh!" cried Mrs. MacNairn. "Did you +awaken?" + +"No. I came back. In my sleep I suddenly +found myself creeping into my bed again +as if I had been away somewhere. I was +wondering why I was there, how I had left the +hillside, when I had left it. That part WAS a +dream--but the other was not. I was allowed +to go somewhere--outside--and come back." + +I caught at her hand in the dark. + +"The words are all wrong," I said. "It is +because we have no words to describe that. But +have I made you feel it at all? Oh! Mrs. +MacNairn, have I been able to make you know +that it was not a dream?" + +She lifted my hand and pressed it passionately +against her cheek, and her cheek, too, was +wet--wet. + +"No, it was not a dream," she said. "You +came back. Thank God you came back, just +to tell us that those who do not come back +stand awakened in that ecstasy--in that +ecstasy. And The Fear is nothing. It is only +The Dream. The awakening is out on the +hillside, out on the hillside! Listen!" She +started as she said it. "Listen! The nightingale +is beginning again." + +He sent forth in the dark a fountain--a rising, +aspiring fountain--of golden notes which seemed +to reach heaven itself. The night was made +radiant by them. He flung them upward like +a shower of stars into the sky. We sat and +listened, almost holding our breath. Oh! the +nightingale! the nightingale! + +"He knows," Hector MacNairn's low voice +said, "that it was not a dream." + +When there was silence again I heard him +leave his chair very quietly. + +"Good night! good night!" he said, and went +away. I felt somehow that he had left us +together for a purpose, but, oh, I did not even +remotely dream what the purpose was! But +soon she told me, almost in a whisper. + +"We love you very much, Ysobel," she said. +"You know that?" + +"I love you both, with all my heart," I +answered. "Indeed I love you." + +"We two have been more to each other than +mere mother and son. We have been sufficient +for each other. But he began to love you that +first day when he watched you in the railway +carriage. He says it was the far look in your +eyes which drew him." + +"I began to love him, too," I said. And +I was not at all ashamed or shy in saying it. + +"We three might have spent our lives +together," she went on. "It would have been a +perfect thing. But--but--" She stood up as +if she could not remain seated. Involuntarily I +stood up with her. She was trembling, and she +caught and held me in her arms. "He cannot +stay, Ysobel," she ended. + +I could scarcely hear my own voice when I +echoed the words. + +"He cannot--stay?" + +"Oh! the time will come," she said, "when +people who love each other will not be separated, +when on this very earth there will be no pain, +no grief, no age, no death--when all the world +has learned the Law at last. But we have not +learned it yet. And here we stand! The +greatest specialists have told us. There is some +fatal flaw in his heart. At any moment, when +he is talking to us, when he is at his work, when +he is asleep, he may--cease. It will just be +ceasing. At any moment. He cannot stay." + +My own heart stood still for a second. Then +there rose before me slowly, but clearly, a +vision--the vision which was not a dream. + +"Out on the hillside," I murmured. "Out +on the hillside." + +I clung to her with both arms and held her +tight. I understood now why they had talked +about The Fear. These two who were almost +one soul were trying to believe that they were +not really to be torn apart--not really. They +were trying to heap up for themselves proof +that they might still be near each other. And, +above all, his effort was to save her from the +worst, worst woe. And I understood, too, why +something wiser and stronger than myself had +led me to tell the dream which was not a dream +at all. + +But it was as she said; the world had not +learned the Secret yet. And there we stood. +We did not cry or talk, but we clung to each +other--we CLUNG. That is all human creatures +can do until the Secret is known. And as we +clung the nightingale broke out again. + +"O nightingale! O nightingale!" she said in +her low wonder of a voice. "WHAT are you +trying to tell us!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +What I feel sure I know by this time is +that all the things we think happen by +chance and accident are only part of the weaving +of the scheme of life. When you begin to +suspect this and to watch closely you also begin to +see how trifles connect themselves with one +another, and seem in the end to have led to a +reason and a meaning, though we may not be +clever enough to see it clearly. Nothing is an +accident. We make everything happen ourselves: +the wrong things because we do not +know or care whether we are wrong or right, +the right ones because we unconsciously or +consciously choose the right even in the midst of +our ignorance. + +I dare say it sounds audacious for an ordinary +girl to say such things in an ordinary way; +but perhaps I have said them in spite of myself, +because it is not a bad thing that they should be +said by an every-day sort of person in simple +words which other every-day people can understand. +I am only expressing what has gradually +grown into belief in my mind through reading +with Angus ancient books and modern ones +--books about faiths and religions, books about +philosophies and magics, books about what the +world calls marvels, but which are not marvels +at all, but only workings of the Law most +people have not yet reasoned about or even +accepted. + +Angus had read and studied them all his life +before he began to read them with me, and we +talked them over together sitting by the fire +in the library, fascinated and staring at each +other, I in one high-backed chair and he in +another on the opposite side of the hearth. +Angus is wonderful--wonderful! He KNOWS +there is no such thing as chance. He KNOWS +that we ourselves are the working of the Law-- +and that we ourselves could work what now +are stupidly called "miracles" if we could only +remember always what the Law is. + +What I intended to say at first was merely +that it was not by chance that I climbed to the +shelf in the library that afternoon and pushed +aside the books hiding the old manuscript +which told the real story of Dark Malcolm of +the Glen and Wee Brown Elspeth. It seemed +like chance when it happened, but it was really +the first step toward my finding out the strange, +beautiful thing I knew soon afterward. + +From the beginning of my friendship with the +MacNairns I had hoped they would come and +stay with me at Muircarrie. When they both +seemed to feel such interest in all I told them of +it, and not to mind its wild remoteness, I took +courage and asked them if they would come to +me. Most people are bored by the prospect of +life in a feudal castle, howsoever picturesquely +it is set in a place where there are no neighbors +to count on. Its ancient stateliness is too dull. +But the MacNairns were more allured by what +Muircarrie offered than they were by other +and more brilliant invitations. So when I went +back to the castle I was only to be alone a week +before they followed me. + +Jean and Angus were quite happy in their +quiet way when I told them who I was expecting. +They knew how glad I was myself. Jean +was full of silent pleasure as she arranged the +rooms I had chosen for my guests, rooms which +had the most sweeping view of the moor. +Angus knew that Mr. MacNairn would love the +library, and he hovered about consulting his +catalogues and looking over his shelves, taking +down volumes here and there, holding them +tenderly in his long, bony old hand as he dipped +into them. He made notes of the manuscripts +and books he thought Mr. MacNairn would +feel the deepest interest in. He loved his library +with all his being, and I knew he looked forward +to talking to a man who would care for it in the +same way. + +He had been going over one of the highest +shelves one day and had left his step-ladder +leaning against it when he went elsewhere. It +was when I mounted the steps, as I often did +when he left them, that I came upon the +manuscript which related the old story of Dark +Malcolm and his child. It had been pushed +behind some volumes, and I took it out because it +looked so old and yellow. And I opened at once +at the page where the tale began. + +At first I stood reading, and then I sat down +on the broad top of the ladder and forgot +everything. It was a savage history of ferocious hate +and barbarous reprisals. It had been a feud +waged between two clans for three generations. +The story of Dark Malcolm and Ian Red Hand +was only part of it, but it was a gruesome thing. +Pages told of the bloody deeds they wrought on +each other's houses. The one human passion +of Dark Malcolm's life was his love for his +little daughter. She had brown eyes and brown +hair, and those who most loved her called her +Wee Brown Elspeth. Ian Red Hand was richer +and more powerful than Malcolm of the Glen, +and therefore could more easily work his cruel +will. He knew well of Malcolm's worship of his +child, and laid his plans to torture him through +her. Dark Malcolm, coming back to his rude, +small castle one night after a raid in which he +had lost followers and weapons and strength, +found that Wee Brown Elspeth had been carried +away, and unspeakable taunts and threats left +behind by Ian and his men. With unbound +wounds, broken dirks and hacked swords, Dark +Malcolm and the remnant of his troop of fighting +clansmen rushed forth into the night. + +"Neither men nor weapons have we to win +her back," screamed Dark Malcolm, raving +mad, "but we may die fighting to get near +enough to her to drive dirk into her little breast +and save her from worse." + +They were a band of madmen in their black +despair. How they tore through the black +night; what unguarded weak spot they found +in Ian's castle walls; how they fought their way +through it, leaving their dead bodies in the +path, none really ever knew. By what strange +chance Dark Malcolm came upon Wee Brown +Elspeth, craftily set to playing hide-and-seek +with a child of Ian's so that she might not cry +out and betray her presence; how, already +wounded to his death, he caught at and drove +his dirk into her child heart, the story only +offers guesses at. But kill and save her he did, +falling dead with her body held against his +breast, her brown hair streaming over it. Not +one living man went back to the small, rude +castle on the Glen--not one. + +I sat and read and read until the room grew +dark. When I stopped I found that Angus +Macayre was standing in the dimness at the +foot of the ladder. He looked up at me and I +down at him. For a few moments we were both +quite still. + +"It is the tale of Ian Red Hand and Dark +Malcolm you are reading?" he said, at last. + +"And Wee Brown Elspeth, who was fought +for and killed," I added, slowly. + +Angus nodded his head with a sad face. "It +was the only way for a father," he said. "A +hound of hell was Ian. Such men were savage +beasts in those days, not human." + +I touched the manuscript with my hand +questioningly. "Did this fall at the back there by +accident," I asked, "or did you hide it?" + +"I did," he answered. "It was no tale for +a young thing to read. I have hidden many +from you. You were always poking about in +corners, Ysobel." + +Then I sat and thought over past memories for +a while and the shadows in the room deepened. + +"Why," I said, laggingly, after the silence-- +"why did I call the child who used to play with +me `Wee Brown Elspeth'?" + +"It was your own fancy," was his reply. "I +used to wonder myself; but I made up my +mind that you had heard some of the maids +talking and the name had caught your ear. +That would be a child's way." + +I put my forehead in my hands and thought +again. So many years had passed! I had been +little more than a baby; the whole thing +seemed like a half-forgotten dream when I +tried to recall it--but I seemed to dimly +remember strange things. + +"Who were the wild men who brought her to +me first--that day on the moor?" I said. "I +do remember they had pale, savage, exultant +faces. And torn, stained clothes. And broken +dirks and swords. But they were glad of +something. Who were they?" + +"I did not see them. The mist was too +thick," he answered. "They were some wild +hunters, perhaps." + +"It gives me such a strange feeling to try to +remember, Angus," I said, lifting my forehead +from my hands. + +"Don't try," he said. "Give me the +manuscript and get down from the step-ladder. +Come and look at the list of books I have made +for Mr. MacNairn." + +I did as he told me, but I felt as if I were +walking in a dream. My mind seemed to have +left my body and gone back to the day when I +sat a little child on the moor and heard the dull +sound of horses' feet and the jingling metal and +the creak of leather coming nearer in the thick +mist. + +I felt as if Angus were in a queer, half-awake +mood, too--as if two sets of thoughts were +working at the same time in his mind: one his +thoughts about Hector MacNairn and the +books, the other some queer thoughts which +went on in spite of him. + +When I was going to leave the library and +go up-stairs to dress for dinner he said a strange +thing to me, and he said it slowly and in a heavy +voice. + +"There is a thing Jean and I have often talked +of telling you," he said. "We have not known +what it was best to do. Times we have been +troubled because we could not make up our +minds. This Mr. Hector MacNairn is no common +man. He is one who is great and wise +enough to decide things plain people could +not be sure of. Jean and I are glad indeed +that he and his mother are coming. Jean can +talk to her and I can talk to him, being a man +body. They will tell us whether we have been +right or wrong and what we must do." + +"They are wise enough to tell you anything,' +I answered. "It sounds as if you and Jean had +known some big secret all my life. But I am +not frightened. You two would go to your +graves hiding it if it would hurt me." + +"Eh, bairn!" he said, suddenly, in a queer, +moved way. "Eh, bairn!" And he took hold +of both my hands and kissed them, pressing +them quite long and emotionally to his lips. +But he said nothing else, and when he dropped +them I went out of the room. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +It was wonderful when Mr. MacNairn and +his mother came. It was even more +beautiful than I had thought it would be. They +arrived late in the afternoon, and when I took +them out upon the terrace the sun was reddening +the moor, and even the rough, gray towers +of the castle were stained rose-color. There +was that lovely evening sound of birds twittering +before they went to sleep in the ivy. The +glimpses of gardens below seemed like glimpses +of rich tapestries set with jewels. And there +was such stillness! When we drew our three +chairs in a little group together and looked out +on it all, I felt as if we were almost in heaven. + +"Yes! yes!" Hector said, looking slowly-- +round; "it is all here." + +"Yes," his mother added, in her lovely, lovely +voice. "It is what made you Ysobel." + +It was so angelic of them to feel it all in that +deep, quiet way, and to think that it was part +of me and I a part of it. The climbing moon +was trembling with beauty. Tender evening +airs quivered in the heather and fern, and the +late birds called like spirits. + +Ever since the night when Mrs. MacNairn +had held me in her arms under the apple-tree +while the nightingale sang I had felt toward her +son as if he were an archangel walking on the +earth. Perhaps my thoughts were exaggerated, +but it seemed so marvelous that he should be +moving among us, doing his work, seeing and +talking to his friends, and yet that he should +know that at any moment the great change +might come and he might awaken somewhere +else, in quite another place. If he had been +like other men and I had been like other girls, +I suppose that after that night when I heard the +truth I should have been plunged into the +darkest woe and have almost sobbed myself to +death. Why did I not? I do not know except +--except that I felt that no darkness could come +between us because no darkness could touch +him. He could never be anything but alive +alive. If I could not see him it would only be +because my eyes were not clear and strong +enough. I seemed to be waiting for something. +I wanted to keep near him. + +I was full of this feeling as we sat together +on the terrace and watched the moon. I could +scarcely look away from him. He was rather +pale that evening, but there seemed to be a +light behind his pallor, and his eyes seemed to +see so much more than the purple and yellow +of the heather and gorse as they rested on them. + +After I had watched him silently for a little +while I leaned forward and pointed to a part +of the moor where there was an unbroken blaze +of gorse in full bloom like a big patch of gold. + +"That is where I was sitting when Wee +Brown Elspeth was first brought to me," I said. + +He sat upright and looked. "Is it?" he +answered. "Will you take me there to-morrow? +I have always wanted to see the place." + +"Would you like to go early in the morning? +The mist is more likely to be there then, as it +was that day. It is so mysterious and beautiful. +Would you like to do that?" I asked him. + +"Better than anything else!" he said. "Yes, +let us go in the morning." + +"Wee Brown Elspeth seems very near me this +evening," I said. "I feel as if--" I broke off +and began again. "I have a puzzled feeling +about her. This afternoon I found some +manuscript pushed behind a book on a high shelf in +the library. Angus said he had hidden it there +because it was a savage story he did not wish +me to read. It was the history of the feud +between Ian Red Hand and Dark Malcolm +of the Glen. Dark Malcolm's child was called +Wee Brown Elspeth hundreds of years ago-- +five hundred, I think. It makes me feel so +bewildered when I remember the one I played +with." + +"It was a bloody story," he said. "I heard +it only a few days before we met at Sir Ian's +house in London." + +That made me recall something. + +"Was that why you started when I told you +about Elspeth?" I asked. + +"Yes. Perhaps the one you played with was +a little descendant who had inherited her name," +he answered, a trifle hurriedly. "I confess I +was startled for a moment." + +I put my hand up to my forehead and rubbed +it unconsciously. I could not help seeing a +woesome picture. + +"Poor little soul, with the blood pouring from +her heart and her brown hair spread over her +dead father's breast!" I stopped, because a +faint memory came back to me. "Mine," I +stammered--"mine--how strange!--had a great +stain on the embroideries of her dress. She +looked at it--and looked. She looked as if she +didn't like it--as if she didn't understand how +it came there. She covered it with ferns and +bluebells." + +I felt as if I were being drawn away into a +dream. I made a sudden effort to come back. +I ceased rubbing my forehead and dropped my +hand, sitting upright. + +"I must ask Angus and Jean to tell me about +her," I said. "Of course, they must have +known. I wonder why I never thought of +asking questions before." + +It was a strange look I met when I +involuntarily turned toward him--such an absorbed, +strange, tender look! + +I knew he sat quite late in the library that +night, talking to Angus after his mother and I +went to our rooms. Just as I was falling asleep +I remember there floated through my mind a +vague recollection of what Angus had said to +me of asking his advice about something; and +I wondered if he would reach the subject in their +talk, or if they would spend all their time in +poring over manuscripts and books together. + +The moor wore its most mysterious look when +I got up in the early morning. It had hidden +itself in its softest snows of white, swathing +mist. Only here and there dark fir-trees showed +themselves above it, and now and then the +whiteness thinned or broke and drifted. It +was as I had wanted him to see it--just as I +had wanted to walk through it with him. + +We had met in the hall as we had planned, +and, wrapped in our plaids because the early +morning air was cold, we tramped away together. +No one but myself could ever realize +what it was like. I had never known that there +could be such a feeling of companionship in the +world. It would not have been necessary for +us to talk at all if we had felt silent. We should +have been saying things to each other without +words. But we did talk as we walked--in quiet +voices which seemed made quieter by the mist, +and of quiet things which such voices seemed +to belong to. + +We crossed the park to a stile in a hedge where +a path led at once on to the moor. Part of the +park itself had once been moorland, and was +dark with slender firs and thick grown with +heather and broom. On the moor the mist grew +thicker, and if I had not so well known the path +we might have lost ourselves in it. Also I +knew by heart certain little streams that rushed +and made guiding sounds which were sometimes +loud whispers and sometimes singing babbles. +The damp, sweet scent of fern and heather was +in our nostrils; as we climbed we breathed its +freshness. + +"There is a sort of unearthly loveliness in it +all," Hector MacNairn said to me. His voice +was rather like his mother's. It always seemed +to say so much more than his words. + +"We might be ghosts," I answered. "We +might be some of those the mist hides because +they like to be hidden." + +"You would not be afraid if you met one of +them?" he said. + +"No. I think I am sure of that. I should +feel that it was only like myself, and, if I could +hear, might tell me things I want to know." + +"What do you want to know?" he asked me, +very low. "You!" + +"Only what everybody wants to know--that +it is really AWAKENING free, ready for wonderful +new things, finding oneself in the midst of +wonders. I don't mean angels with harps and +crowns, but beauty such as we see now; only +seeing it without burdens of fears before and +behind us. And knowing there is no reason to +be afraid. We have all been so afraid. We +don't know how afraid we have been--of everything." + +I stopped among the heather and threw my +arms out wide. I drew in a great, joyous +morning breath. + +"Free like that! It is the freeness, the +light, splendid freeness, I think of most." + +"The freeness!" he repeated. "Yes, the +freeness!" + +"As for beauty," I almost whispered, in a sort +of reverence for visions I remembered, "I have +stood on this moor a thousand times and seen +loveliness which made me tremble. One's soul +could want no more in any life. But `Out on +the Hillside' I KNEW I was part of it, and it was +ecstasy. That was the freeness." + +"Yes--it was the freeness," he answered. + +We brushed through the heather and the +bracken, and flower-bells shook showers of +radiant drops upon us. The mist wavered and +sometimes lifted before us, and opened up +mystic vistas to veil them again a few minutes +later. The sun tried to break through, and +sometimes we walked in a golden haze. + +We fell into silence. Now and then I glanced +sidewise at my companion as we made our +soundless way over the thick moss. He looked +so strong and beautiful. His tall body was so +fine, his shoulders so broad and splendid! How +could it be! How could it be! As he tramped +beside me he was thinking deeply, and he +knew he need not talk to me. That made me +glad--that he should know me so well and +feel me so near. That was what he felt when +he was with his mother, that she understood +and that at times neither of them needed words. + +Until we had reached the patch of gorse +where we intended to end our walk we did not +speak at all. He was thinking of things which +led him far. I knew that, though I did not +know what they were. When we reached the +golden blaze we had seen the evening before it +was a flame of gold again, because--it was only +for a few moments--the mist had blown apart +and the sun was shining on it. + +As we stood in the midst of it together--Oh! +how strange and beautiful it was!--Mr. MacNairn +came back. That was what it seemed to +me--that he came back. He stood quite still +a moment and looked about him, and then he +stretched out his arms as I had stretched out +mine. But he did it slowly, and a light came +into his face. + +"If, after it was over, a man awakened as you +said and found himself--the self he knew, but +light, free, splendid--remembering all the ages +of dark, unknowing dread, of horror of some +black, aimless plunge, and suddenly seeing all +the childish uselessness of it--how he would +stand and smile! How he would stand and +SMILE!" + +Never had I understood anything more +clearly than I understood then. Yes, yes! +That would be it. Remembering all the waste +of fear, how he would stand and SMILE! + +He was smiling himself, the golden gorse +about him already losing its flame in the light +returning mist-wraiths closing again over it, +when I heard a sound far away and high up the +moor. It sounded like the playing of a piper. +He did not seem to notice it. + +"We shall be shut in again," he said. "How +mysterious it is, this opening and closing! I like +it more than anything else. Let us sit down, +Ysobel." + +He spread the plaid we had brought to sit on, +and laid on it the little strapped basket Jean +had made ready for us. He shook the mist +drops from our own plaids, and as I was about +to sit down I stopped a moment to listen. + +"That is a tune I never heard on the pipes +before," I said. "What is a piper doing out on +the moor so early?" + +He listened also. "It must be far away. I +don't hear it," he said. "Perhaps it is a bird +whistling." + +"It is far away," I answered, "but it is not +a bird. It's the pipes, and playing such a +strange tune. There! It has stopped!" + +But it was not silent long; I heard the tune +begin again much nearer, and the piper was +plainly coming toward us. I turned my head. + +The mist was clearing, and floated about like +a thin veil through which one could see objects. +At a short distance above us on the moor I saw +something moving. It was a man who was +playing the pipes. It was the piper, and almost +at once I knew him, because it was actually my +own Feargus, stepping proudly through the +heather with his step like a stag on the hills. +His head was held high, and his face had a sort +of elated delight in it as if he were enjoying +himself and the morning and the music in a +new way. I was so surprised that I rose to my +feet and called to him. + +"Feargus!" I cried. "What--" + +I knew he heard me, because he turned and +looked at me with the most extraordinary +smile. He was usually a rather grave-faced +man, but this smile had a kind of startling +triumph in it. He certainly heard me, for he +whipped off his bonnet in a salute which was as +triumphant as the smile. But he did not +answer, and actually passed in and out of sight +in the mist. + +When I rose Mr. MacNairn had risen, too. +When I turned to speak in my surprise, he had +fixed on me his watchful look. + +"Imagine its being Feargus at this hour!" I +exclaimed. "And why did he pass by in such +a hurry without answering? He must have +been to a wedding and have been up all night. +He looked--" I stopped a second and laughed. + +"How did he look?" Mr. MacNairn asked. + +"Pale! That won't do--though he certainly +didn't look ill." I laughed again. "I'm +laughing because he looked almost like one of the +White People." + +"Are you sure it was Feargus?" he said. + +"Quite sure. No one else is the least like +Feargus. Didn't you see him yourself?" + +"I don't know him as well as you do; and +there was the mist," was his answer. "But he +certainly was not one of the White People when +I saw him last night." + +I wondered why he looked as he did when +he took my hand and drew me down to my +place on the plaid again. He did not let it go +when he sat down by my side. He held it in +his own large, handsome one, looking down on it +a moment or so; and then he bent his head and +kissed it long and slowly two or three times. + +"Dear little Ysobel!" he said. "Beloved, +strange little Ysobel." + +"Am I strange!" I said, softly. + +"Yes, thank God!" he answered. + +I had known that some day when we were +at Muircarrie together he would tell me what +his mother had told me--about what we three +might have been to one another. I trembled +with happiness at the thought of hearing him +say it himself. I knew he was going to say it +now. + +He held my hand and stroked it. "My +mother told you, Ysobel--what I am waiting +for?" he said. + +"Yes." + +"Do you know I love you?" he said, very low. + +"Yes. I love you, too. My whole life +would have been heaven if we could always +have been together," was my answer. + +He drew me up into his arms so that my +cheek lay against his breast as I went on, +holding fast to the rough tweed of his jacket +and whispering: "I should have belonged to +you two, heart and body and soul. I should +never have been lonely again. I should have +known nothing, whatsoever happened, but +tender joy." + +"Whatsoever happened?" he murmured. + +"Whatsoever happens now, Ysobel, know +nothing but tender joy. I think you CAN. `Out on +the Hillside!' Let us remember." + +"Yes, yes," I said; " `Out on the Hillside.' " +And our two faces, damp with the sweet mist, +were pressed together. + + + +CHAPTER X + +The mist had floated away, and the moor +was drenched with golden sunshine when +we went back to the castle. As we entered the +hall I heard the sound of a dog howling, and +spoke of it to one of the men-servants who had +opened the door. + +"That sounds like Gelert. Is he shut up +somewhere?" + +Gelert was a beautiful sheep-dog who +belonged to Feargus and was his heart's friend. +I allowed him to be kept in the courtyard. + +The man hesitated before he answered me, +with a curiously grave face. + +"It is Gelert, miss. He is howling for his +master. We were obliged to shut him in the +stables." + +"But Feargus ought to have reached here by +this time," I was beginning. + +I was stopped because I found Angus Macayre +almost at my elbow. He had that moment +come out of the library. He put his hand on +my arm. + +`Will ye come with me?" he said, and led me +back to the room he had just left. He kept +his hand on my arm when we all stood together +inside, Hector and I looking at him in wondering +question. He was going to tell me something-- +we both saw that. + +"It is a sad thing you have to hear," he said. +"He was a fine man, Feargus, and a most +faithful servant. He went to see his mother last +night and came back late across the moor. +There was a heavy mist, and he must have lost +his way. A shepherd found his body in a tarn +at daybreak. They took him back to his +father's home." + +I looked at Hector MacNairn and again at +Angus. "But it couldn't be Feargus," I cried. +"I saw him an hour ago. He passed us playing +on his pipes. He was playing a new tune I +had never heard before a wonderful, joyous +thing. I both heard and SAW him!" + +Angus stood still and watched me. They +both stood still and watched me, and even in +my excitement I saw that each of them looked +a little pale. + +"You said you did not hear him at first, but +you surely saw him when he passed so near," +I protested. "I called to him, and he took +off his bonnet, though he did not stop. He was +going so quickly that perhaps he did not hear +me call his name." + +What strange thing in Hector's look checked +me? Who knows? + +"You DID see him, didn't you?" I asked of +him. + +Then he and Angus exchanged glances, as if +asking each other to decide some grave thing. +It was Hector MacNairn who decided it. + +"No," he answered, very quietly, "I neither +saw nor heard him, even when he passed. +But you did." + +"I did, quite plainly," I went on, more and +more bewildered by the way in which they kept +a sort of tender, awed gaze fixed on me. "You +remember I even noticed that he looked pale. I +laughed, you know, when I said he looked almost +like one of the White People--" + +Just then my breath caught itself and I +stopped. I began to remember things--hundreds +of things. + +Angus spoke to me again as quietly as Hector +had spoken. + +"Neither Jean nor I ever saw Wee Brown +Elspeth," he said--"neither Jean nor I. But +you did. You have always seen what the rest +of us did not see, my bairn--always." + +I stammered out a few words, half in a +whisper. "I have always seen what you others +could not see? WHAT--HAVE--I--SEEN?" + +But I was not frightened. I suppose I could +never tell any one what strange, wide, bright +places seemed suddenly to open and shine before +me. Not places to shrink back from--oh no! +no! One could be sure, then--SURE! Feargus +had lifted his bonnet with that extraordinary +triumph in his look--even Feargus, who had +been rather dour. + +"You called them the White People," Hector +MacNairn said. + + +Angus and Jean had known all my life. +A very old shepherd who had looked in my +face when I was a baby had said I had the eyes +which "SAW." It was only the saying of an old +Highlander, and might not have been remembered. +Later the two began to believe I had +a sight they had not. The night before Wee +Brown Elspeth had been brought to me Angus +had read for the first time the story of Dark +Malcolm, and as they sat near me on the moor +they had been talking about it. That was why +he forgot himself when I came to ask them where +the child had gone, and told him of the big, +dark man with the scar on his forehead. After +that they were sure. + +They had always hidden their knowledge from +me because they were afraid it might frighten +me to be told. I had not been a strong child. +They kept the secret from my relatives because +they knew they would dislike to hear it and +would not believe, and also would dislike me as +a queer, abnormal creature. Angus had fears +of what they might do with doctors and severe +efforts to obliterate from my mind my "nonsense," +as they would have been sure to call it. +The two wise souls had shielded me on every +side. + +"It was better that you should go on thinking +it only a simple, natural thing," Angus said. +"And as to natural, what IS natural and what +is not? Man has not learned all the laws of +nature yet. Nature's a grand, rich, endless +thing, always unrolling her scroll with writings +that seem new on it. They're not new. They +were always written there. But they were not +unrolled. Never a law broken, never a new +law, only laws read with stronger eyes." + +Angus and I had always been very fond of the +Bible--the strange old temple of wonders, full of +all the poems and tragedies and histories of man, +his hates and battles and loves and follies, and +of the Wisdom of the universe and the promises +of the splendors of it, and which even those of +us who think ourselves the most believing +neither wholly believe nor will understand. +We had pored over and talked of it. We had +never thought of it as only a pious thing to do. +The book was to us one of the mystic, awe- +inspiring, prophetic marvels of the world. + +That was what made me say, half whispering: +"I have wondered and wondered what it meant +--that verse in Isaiah: `Behold the former things +are come to pass and new things do I declare; +before they spring forth I tell you of them.' +Perhaps it means only the unrolling of the +scroll." + +"Aye, aye!" said Angus; "it is full of such +deep sayings, and none of us will listen to them." + +"It has taken man eons of time," Hector +MacNairn said, thinking it out as he spoke-- +"eons of time to reach the point where he is +beginning to know that in every stock and stone +in his path may lie hidden some power he has +not yet dreamed of. He has learned that +lightning may be commanded, distance +conquered, motion chained and utilized; but he, +the one CONSCIOUS force, has never yet begun +to suspect that of all others he may be the one +as yet the least explored. How do we know +that there does not lie in each of us a wholly +natural but, so far, dormant power of sight--a +power to see what has been called The Unseen +through all the Ages whose sightlessness has +made them Dark? Who knows when the +Shadow around us may begin to clear? Oh, we +are a dull lot--we human things--with a queer, +obstinate conceit of ourselves." + +"Complete we think we are," Angus murmured +half to himself . "Finished creatures! +And look at us! How many of us in a million +have beauty and health and full power? And +believing that the law is that we must crumple +and go to pieces hour by hour! Who'd waste +the time making a clock that went wrong as +often? Nay, nay! We shall learn better than +this as time goes on. And we'd better be +beginning and setting our minds to work on it. +'Tis for us to do--the minds of us. And what's +the mind of us but the Mind that made us? +Simple and straight enough it is when once +you begin to think it out. The spirit of you +sees clearer than we do, that's all," he said to +me. "When your mother brought you into +the world she was listening to one outside +calling to her, and it opened the way for +you." + +At night Hector MacNairn and his mother +and I sat on the terrace under stars which +seemed listening things, and we three drew +nearer to one another, and nearer and nearer. + +"When the poor mother stumbled into the +train that day," was one of the things Hector +told me, "I was thinking of The Fear and of my +own mother. You looked so slight and small +as you sat in your corner that I thought at first +you were almost a child. Then a far look in +your eyes made me begin to watch you. You +were so sorry for the poor woman that you +could not look away from her, and something +in your face touched and puzzled me. You +leaned forward suddenly and put out your hand +protectingly as she stepped down on to the +platform. + +"That night when you spoke quite naturally +of the child, never doubting that I had seen it, +I suddenly began to suspect. Because of The +Fear"--he hesitated--"I had been reading and +thinking many things new to me. I did not +know what I believed. But you spoke so +simply, and I knew you were speaking the +truth. Then you spoke just as naturally of +Wee Brown Elspeth. That startled me because +not long before I had been told the tale in the +Highlands by a fine old story-teller who is the +head of his clan. I saw you had never heard +the story before. And yet you were telling me +that you had played with the child." + +"He came home and told me about you," +Mrs. MacNairn said. "His fear of The Fear +was more for me than for himself. He knew +that if he brought you to me, you who are more +complete than we are, clearer-eyed and nearer, +nearer, I should begin to feel that he was not +going--out. I should begin to feel a reality +and nearness myself. Ah, Ysobel! How we +have clung to you and loved you! And then +that wonderful afternoon! I saw no girl with +her hand through Mr. Le Breton's arm; Hector +saw none. But you saw her. She was THERE!" + +"Yes, she was there," I answered. "She +was there, smiling up at him. I wish he could +have known." + + +What does it matter if this seems a strange +story? To some it will mean something; to +some it will mean nothing. To those it has a +meaning for it will open wide windows into the +light and lift heavy loads. That would be quite +enough, even if the rest thought it only the +weird fancy of a queer girl who had lived alone +and given rein to her silliest imaginings. I +wanted to tell it, howsoever poorly and +ineffectively it was done. Since I KNEW I have +dropped the load of ages--the black burden. +Out on the hillside my feet did not even feel the +grass, and yet I was standing, not floating. I +had no wings or crown. I was only Ysobel out +on the hillside, free! + + +This is the way it all ended. + +For three weeks that were like heaven we +three lived together at Muircarrie. We saw +every beauty and shared every joy of sun and +dew and love and tender understanding. + +After one lovely day we had spent on the +moor in a quiet dream of joy almost strange in its +perfectness, we came back to the castle; and, +because the sunset was of such unearthly +radiance and changing wonder we sat on the terrace +until the last soft touch of gold had died out +and left the pure, still, clear, long summer +twilight. + +When Mrs. MacNairn and I went in to dress +for dinner, Hector lingered a little behind us +because the silent beauty held him. + +I came down before his mother did, and I +went out upon the terrace again because I saw +he was still sitting there. I went to the stone +balustrade very quietly and leaned against it as +I turned to look at him and speak. + +Then I stood quite still and looked long--for +some reason not startled, not anguished, not +even feeling that he had gone. He was more +beautiful than any human creature I had ever +seen before. But It had happened as they said +it would. He had not ceased--but something +else had. Something had ceased. + + +It was the next evening before I came out on +the terrace again. The day had been more +exquisite and the sunset more wonderful than +before. Mrs. MacNairn was sitting by her son's +side in the bedroom whose windows looked over +the moor. I am not going to say one word of +what had come between the two sunsets. +Mrs. MacNairn and I had clung--and clung. +We had promised never to part from each other. +I did not quite know why I went out on the +terrace; perhaps it was because I had always +loved to sit or stand there. + +This evening I stood and leaned upon the +balustrade, looking out far, far, far over the +moor. I stood and gazed and gazed. I was +thinking about the Secret and the Hillside. I +was very quiet--as quiet as the twilight's self. +And there came back to me the memory of what +Hector had said as we stood on the golden +patch of gorse when the mist had for a moment +or so blown aside, what he had said of man's +awakening, and, remembering all the ages of +childish, useless dread, how he would stand-- + +I did not turn suddenly, but slowly. I was +not startled in the faintest degree. He stood +there close to me as he had so often stood. + +And he stood--and smiled. + +I have seen him many times since. I shall +see him many times again. And when I see +him he always stands--and smiles. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The White People, by Burnett + |