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 donot 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 strangelyglad. I have heard other people say things--and they were not alwayssad people, either--which made me feel that if they knew what I know itwould seem to them as though some awesome, heavy load they had alwaysdragged about with them had fallen from their shoulders. To most peopleeverything is so uncertain that if they could only see or hear and knowsomething clear they would drop upon their knees and give thanks. Thatwas what I felt myself before I found out so strangely, and I was only agirl. That is why I intend to write this down as well as I can. It willnot be very well done, because I never was clever at all, and alwaysfound 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 rathercurious one. Even when those who took care of me did not know I wasthinking at all, I had begun to wonder if I were not different fromother children. That was, of course, largely because MuircarrieCastle was in such a wild and remote part of Scotland that when my fewrelations felt they must pay me a visit as a mere matter of duty, theirjourney 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 aconscientious one brought a child to play with me, the little civilizedcreature was as frightened of me as I was of it. My shyness and fear ofits strangeness made us both dumb. No doubt I seemed like a new breed ofinoffensive little barbarian, knowing no tongue but its own. 

A certain clannish etiquette made it seem necessary that a relationshould pay me a visit sometimes, because I was in a way important. Thehuge, frowning feudal castle standing upon its battlemented rock wasmine; I was a great heiress, and I was, so to speak, the chieftainessof the clan. But I was a plain, undersized little child, and had noattraction for any one but Jean Braidfute, a distant cousin, who tookcare of me, and Angus Macayre, who took care of the library, and who wasa distant relative also. They were both like me in the fact that theywere not given to speech; but sometimes we talked to one another, and Iknew they were fond of me, as I was fond of them. They were really all Ihad. 

When I was a little girl I did not, of course, understand that I wasan important person, and I could not have realized the significance ofbeing an heiress. I had always lived in the castle, and was used to itshugeness, 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 weresaluted by every one they passed. It seemed probable that all littlegirls had a piper who strode up and down the terrace and played on thebagpipes when guests were served in the dining-hall. 

My piper's name was Feargus, and in time I found out that the guestsfrom London could not endure the noise he made when he marched to andfro, 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 hisreligion to believe that The Muircarrie must be piped proudly to;and his ancestors had been pipers to the head of the clan for fivegenerations. It was his duty to march round the dining-hall and playwhile the guests feasted, but I was obliged in the end to make himbelieve that he could be heard better from the terrace--because when hewas outside his music was not spoiled by the sound of talking. It wasvery difficult, at first. But because I was his chieftainess, and hadlearned how to give orders in a rather proud, stern little voice, heknew he must obey. 

Even this kind of thing may show that my life was a peculiar one; butthe strangest part of it was that, while I was at the head of so manypeople, I did not really belong to any one, and I did not know that thiswas unusual. One of my early memories is that I heard an under-nursemaidsay to another this curious thing: "Both her father and mother were deadwhen she was born. " I did not even know that was a remarkable thing tosay until I was several years older and Jean Braidfute told me what hadbeen meant. 

My father and mother had both been very young and beautiful andwonderful. It was said that my father was the handsomest chieftain inScotland, and that his wife was as beautiful as he was. They came toMuircarrie as soon as they were married and lived a splendid year theretogether. Sometimes they were quite alone, and spent their days fishingor riding or wandering on the moor together, or reading by the fire inthe library the ancient books Angus Macayre found for them. The librarywas a marvelous place, and Macayre knew every volume in it. They usedto sit and read like children among fairy stories, and then they wouldpersuade Macayre to tell them the ancient tales he knew--of the dayswhen Agricola forced his way in among the Men of the Woods, who woulddie any savage death rather than be conquered. Macayre was a sort ofheirloom himself, and he knew and believed them all. 

I don't know how it was that I myself seemed to see my young father andmother so clearly and to know how radiant and wildly in love theywere. Surely Jean Braidfute had not words to tell me. But I knew. So Iunderstood, in a way of my own, what happened to my mother one brilliantlate October afternoon when my father was brought home dead--followed bythe guests who had gone out shooting with him. His foot had caught in atuft of heather, and his gun in going off had killed him. One momenthe had been the handsomest young chieftain in Scotland, and when he wasbrought 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 overthe rock the castle is built on, and which looks out over the purpleworld of climbing moor. She saw from there the returning party ofshooters and gillies winding its way slowly through the heather, following a burden carried on a stretcher of fir boughs. Some of herwomen guests were with her, and one of them said afterward that when shefirst caught sight of the moving figures she got up slowly and creptto the stone balustrade with a crouching movement almost like a youngleopardess preparing to spring. But she only watched, making neithersound nor movement until the cortege was near enough for her to see thatevery man's head was bowed upon his breast, and not one was covered. 

Then she said, quite slowly, "They--have--taken off--their bonnets, " andfell upon the terrace like a dropped stone. 

It was because of this that the girl said that she was dead when I wasborn. 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 catalepsyand afterward wrote scientific articles which tried to explain hercondition. She did not know when I was born. She died a few minutesafter I uttered my first cry. 

I know only one thing more, and that Jean Braidfute told me after I grewup. Jean had been my father's nursery governess when he wore his firstkilts, and she loved my mother fondly. 

"I knelt by her bed and held her hand and watched her face for threehours after they first laid her down, " she said. "And my eyes were sonear her every moment that I saw a thing the others did not know herwell enough, or love her well enough, to see. 

"The first hour she was like a dead thing--aye, like a dead thing thathad 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 changestealing over her. It was not color--it was not even a shadow of amotion. It was something else. If I had spoken what I felt, they wouldhave said I was light-headed with grief and have sent me away. I havenever 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 tosomething--to listen. 

"It was as if to a sound--far, far away at first. But cold and white asstone she lay content, and listened. In the next hour the far-offsound had drawn nearer, and it had become something else--something shesaw--something which saw her. First her young marble face had peace init; then it had joy. She waited in her young stone body until you wereborn and she could break forth. She waited no longer then. 

"Ysobel, my bairn, what I knew was that he had not gone far from thebody that had held him when he fell. Perhaps he had felt lost for a bitwhen he found himself out of it. But soon he had begun to call to herthat was like his own heart to him. And she had heard. And then, beinghalf 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 sostill that the big doctors thought more than once she had passed. But Iknew better. "

It was long before I was old enough to be told anything like this that Ibegan to feel that the moor was in secret my companion and friend, thatit was not only the moot to me, but something else. It was like a thingalive--a huge giant lying spread out in the sun warming itself, orcovering itself with thick, white mist which sometimes writhed andtwisted 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 sawand was drawn by another thing. 

How young was I that afternoon when I sat in the deep window and watchedthe low, soft whiteness creeping out and hovering over the heather asif the moor had breathed it? I do not remember. It was such a low littlemist at first; and it crept and crept until its creeping grew intosomething heavier and whiter, and it began to hide the heather andthe gorse and broom, and then the low young fir-trees. It mounted andmounted, and sometimes a breath of wind twisted it into weird shapes, almost like human creatures. It opened and closed again, and then itdragged and crept and grew thicker. And as I pressed my face against thewindow-pane, it mounted still higher and got hold of the moor and hidit, hanging heavy and white and waiting. That was what came into mychild mind: that it had done what the moor had told it to do; had hiddenthings which wanted to be hidden, and then it waited. 

Strangers say that Muircarrie moor is the most beautiful and the mostdesolate place in the world, but it never seemed desolate to me. From myfirst memory of it I had a vague, half-comforted feeling that therewas some strange life on it one could not exactly see, but was alwaysconscious 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, Ishould no doubt have read things in books which would have given risein my mind to doubts and wonders; but I was only a little child who hadlived a life quite apart from the rest of the world. I was too silent bynature to talk and ask questions, even if I had had others to talk to. Ihad only Jean and Angus, and, as I found out years later, they knew whatI did not, and would have put me off with adroit explanations if I hadbeen curious. But I was not curious. I accepted everything as it cameand went. 

CHAPTER II

I only six when Wee Brown Elspeth was brought to me. Jean and Angus wereas fond of each other in their silent way as they were of me, and theyoften went together with me when I was taken out for my walks. I waskept in the open air a great deal, and Angus would walk by the side ofmy 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 thana child could walk; but I was trained to sturdy marching and climbingeven from my babyhood. Because I so loved the moor, we nearly alwaysrambled there. Often we set out early in the morning, and some simplefood was carried, so that we need not return to the castle until wechose. I would ride Sheltie and walk by turns until we found a placeI liked; then Jean and Angus would sit down among the heather, Sheltiewould be secured, and I would wander about and play in my own way. I donot think it was in a strange way. I think I must have played as almostany lonely little girl might have played. I used to find a corner amongthe bushes and pretend it was my house and that I had little friends whocame to play with me. I only remember one thing which was not like theordinary playing of children. It was a habit I had of sitting quitestill 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 couldunderstand. I felt as if it might, if I were very still and listenedlong enough. 

Angus and Jean and I were not afraid of rain and mist and change ofweather. If we had been we could have had little outdoor life. We alwayscarried plaids enough to keep us warm and dry. So on this day I speakof we did not turn back when we found ourselves in the midst of a suddenmist. We sat down in a sheltered place and waited, knowing it would liftin 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 anadventurous child. I was, in fact, in a more than usually quiet moodthat morning. The quiet had come upon me when the mist had begun tocreep about and inclose us. I liked it. I liked the sense of being shutin by the soft whiteness I had so often watched from my nursery windowin the castle. 

"People might be walking about, " I said to Angus when he lifted me fromSheltie'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 thatanything 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 Jeanand Angus were watching me, but it did not disturb me. They oftenwatched 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 firstmuffled, slow trampling of horses' hoofs. I knew what it was even beforeit drew near enough for me to be conscious of the other sounds--thejingling of arms and chains and the creaking of leather one notices astroopers pass by. Armed and mounted men were coming toward me. That waswhat the sounds meant; but they seemed faint and distant, though I knewthey 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 garmentssuch 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 andfight. 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 menand had been doing some brave, hard thing. Here and there among them Icaught sight of a broken and stained sword, or a dirk with only ahilt left. They were all pale, but their wild faces were joyous andtriumphant. 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 closewith 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; butthough it was a large hand, it did not quite cover a dark-red stain onthe embroideries of her dress. Her dress was brown, and she had brownhair and soft brown eyes like a little doe's. The moment I saw her Iloved her. 

The black horse stopped before me. The wild troop drew up and waitedbehind. The great, lean rider looked at me a moment, and then, liftingthe little girl in his long arms, bent down and set her gently on herfeet 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 theblack horse moved forward, the muffled trampling began again, the wildcompany swept on its way, and the white mist closed behind it as if ithad never passed. 

Of course I know how strange this will seem to people who read it, butthat cannot be helped and does not really matter. It was in that way thething happened, and it did not even seem strange to me. Anything mighthappen on the moor--anything. And there was the fair little girl withthe eyes like a doe's. 

I knew she had come to play with me, and we went together to my houseamong the bushes of broom and gorse and played happily. But before webegan I saw her stand and look wonderingly at the dark-red stain onthe embroideries on her childish breast. It was as if she were askingherself how it came there and could not understand. Then she pickeda fern and a bunch of the thick-growing bluebells and put them in hergirdle in such a way that they hid its ugliness. 

I did not really know how long she stayed. I only knew that we werehappy, and that, though her way of playing was in some ways differentfrom mine, I loved it and her. Presently the mist lifted and the sunshone, and we were deep in a wonderful game of being hidden in a room ina castle because something strange was going to happen which we were nottold about. She ran behind a big gorse bush and did not come back. WhenI ran to look for her she was nowhere. I could not find her, and I wentback 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 wastrembling a little. 

"Who was she, Ysobel?" she said. 

"The little girl the men brought to play with me, " I answered, stilllooking about me. 

"The big one on the black horse put her down--the big one with the starhere. " 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 herbreast. 

"She's one of the fair ones, " she said, kissing and patting me. "Shewill come again. She'll come often, I dare say. But she's gone now andwe 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 talkingand asking questions--we might surely have asked one another questionsas I rode on Sheltie's back, with Angus leading us. But they askedme nothing, and I said very little except that I once spoke of thewild-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 headand answered, slowly, "N-no. "

Because I realized then, for the first time, that we had said no wordsat all. But I had known what she wanted me to understand, and she hadknown what I might have said to her if I had spoken--and no words wereneeded. And it was better. 

They took me home to the castle, and I was given my supper and put tobed. Jean sat by me until I fell asleep; she was obliged to sit rather along time, because I was so happy with my memories of Wee Brown Elspethand the certainty that she would come again. It was not Jean's wordswhich had made me sure. I knew. 

She came many times. Through all my childish years I knew that shewould come and play with me every few days--though I never saw the wildtroopers again or the big, lean man with the scar. Children who playtogether are not very curious about one another, and I simply acceptedher with delight. Somehow I knew that she lived happily in a place notfar away. She could come and go, it seemed, without trouble. SometimesI found her--or she found me upon the moor; and often she appeared inmy nursery in the castle. When we were together Jean Braidfute seemed toprefer that we should be alone, and was inclined to keep the under-nurseoccupied in other parts of the wing I lived in. I never asked her to dothis, but I was glad that it was done. Wee Elspeth was glad, too. Afterour first meeting she was dressed in soft blue or white, and the redstain was gone; but she was always Wee Brown Elspeth with the doelikeeyes and the fair, transparent face, the very fair little face. As I hadnoticed the strange, clear pallor of the rough troopers, so I noticedthat she was curiously fair. And as I occasionally saw other personswith the same sort of fairness, I thought it was a purity of complexionspecial to some, but not to all. I was not fair like that, and neitherwas 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 orfinal loss. She had only gone somewhere. 

It was then that Angus Macayre began to be my tutor. He had been aprofound student and had lived among books all his life. He had helpedJean in her training of me, and I had learned more than is usuallytaught to children in their early years. When a grand governess wassent to Muircarrie by my guardian, she was amazed at the things Iwas familiar with, but she abhorred the dark, frowning castle and theloneliness of the place and would not stay. In fact, no governess wouldstay, and so Angus became my tutor and taught me old Gaelic and Latinand Greek, and we read together and studied the ancient books in thelibrary. It was a strange education for a girl, and no doubt made memore 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 beeducated 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 thatthe doctor said I should go into a decline and die if I were not sentback to Muircarrie. 

"It's not only the London air that seems to poison her, " he said whenJean 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 aplain, uninteresting sort of girl. I was shy and could not talk topeople, so of course I bored them. I knew I did not look well when Iwore beautiful clothes. I was little and unimportant and like a reed forthinness. Because I was rich and a sort of chieftainess I ought to havebeen tall and rather stately, or at least I ought to have had a bearingwhich would have made it impossible for people to quite overlook me. But; any one could overlook me--an insignificant, thin girl who slippedin and out of places and sat and stared and listened to other peopleinstead 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? Theywere busy in their big world and did not know what to do with a girl whoought to have been important and was not. I am sure that in secret theywere relieved when I was sent back to Muircarrie. 

After that the life I loved went on quietly. I studied with Angus, andmade 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 seemvery friendly. I was more at home with Feargus, the piper, and withsome of the gardeners than I was with any one else. I think I was lonelywithout knowing; but I was never unhappy. Jean and Angus were my nearestand dearest. Jean was of good blood and a stanch gentlewoman, quitesufficiently educated to be my companion as she had been my earlygoverness. 

It was Jean who told Angus that I was giving myself too entirely to thestudy of ancient books and the history of centuries gone by. 

"She is living to-day, and she must not pass through this life withoutgathering anything from it. "

"This life, " she put it, as if I had passed through others before, andmight 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 graveface. "A wise woman. "

He wrote to the London book-shops for the best modern books, and I beganto read them. I felt at first as if they plunged me into a world I didnot 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 tofeel as if perhaps they were true. My chief weariness with them camefrom the way they had of referring to the things I was so intimate withas though they were only the unauthenticated history of a life solong passed by that it could no longer matter to any one. So often thegreatest hours of great lives were treated as possible legends. Iknew why men had died or were killed or had borne black horror. I knewbecause I had read old books and manuscripts and had heard the storieswhich had come down through centuries by word of mouth, passed fromfather to son. 

But there was one man who did not write as if he believed the world hadbegun and would end with him. He knew he was only one, and part ofall the rest. The name I shall give him is Hector MacNairn. He was aScotchman, but he had lived in many a land. The first time I read a bookhe had written I caught my breath with joy, again and again. I knew Ihad found a friend, even though there was no likelihood that I shouldever see his face. He was a great and famous writer, and all the worldhonored him; while I, hidden away in my castle on a rock on the edge ofMuircarrie, was so far from being interesting or clever that even in mygrandest evening dress and tiara of jewels I was as insignificant as amouse. In fact, I always felt rather silly when I was obliged to wear mydiamonds on state occasions as custom sometimes demanded. 

Mr. MacNairn wrote essays and poems, and marvelous stories which werealways real though they were called fiction. Wheresoever his story wasplaced--howsoever remote and unknown the scene--it was a real place, andthe people who lived in it were real, as if he had some magic power tocall 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. Ialways kept some book of his near enough to be able to touch it with myhand; and often I sat by the fire in the library holding one open onmy lap for an hour or more, only because it meant a warm, closecompanionship. It seemed at those times as if he sat near me in the dimglow and we understood each other's thoughts without using words, as WeeBrown 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 hadgrown 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 importantdocuments connected with the management of the estate. I was to goto his house to spend a week or more, attend a Drawing-Room, and showmyself at a few great parties in a proper manner, this being consideredmy duty toward my relatives. These, I believe, were secretly afraid thatif I were never seen their world would condemn my guardian forneglect of his charge, or would decide that I was of unsound mind andintentionally 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 aninjustice, so I paid them yearly visits and tried to behave as theywished, much as I disliked to be dressed in fine frocks and to weardiamonds on my little head and round my thin neck. 

It was an odd thing that this time I found I did not dread the visitto London as much as I usually did. For some unknown reason I becameconscious that I was not really reluctant to go. Usually the thoughtof the days before me made me restless and low-spirited. London alwaysseemed so confused and crowded, and made me feel as if I were beingpushed and jostled by a mob always making a tiresome noise. But thistime I felt as if I should somehow find a clear place to stand in, whereI could look on and listen without being bewildered. It was a curiousfeeling; I could not help noticing and wondering about it. 

I knew afterward that it came to me because a change was drawing near. Iwish so much that I could tell about it in a better way. But I have onlymy 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 waslike every other journey. Only one incident made it different, and whenit occurred there seemed nothing unusual in it. It was only a bit ofsad, everyday life which touched me. There is nothing new in seeing apoor woman in deep mourning. 

Jean and I had been alone in our railway carriage for a great part ofthe journey; but an hour or two before we reached London a man got inand took a seat in a corner. The train had stopped at a place wherethere is a beautiful and well-known cemetery. People bring their friendsfrom long distances to lay them there. When one passes the station, onenearly 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 thecorner looked out at them with gentle eyes. He had fine, deep eyes and ahandsome mouth. When the poor woman in mourning almost stumbled intothe carriage, followed by her child, he put out his hand to help herand gave her his seat. She had stumbled because her eyes were dim withdreadful crying, and she could scarcely see. It made one's heart standstill to see the wild grief of her, and her unconsciousness of the worldabout her. The world did not matter. There was no world. I think therewas nothing left anywhere but the grave she had just staggered blindlyaway from. I felt as if she had been lying sobbing and writhing andbeating the new turf on it with her poor hands, and I somehow knew thatit had been a child's grave she had been to visit and had felt she leftto utter loneliness when she turned away. 

It was because I thought this that I wished she had not seemed sounconscious of and indifferent to the child who was with her and clungto her black dress as if it could not bear to let her go. This one wasalive at least, even if she had lost the other one, and its little facewas so wistful! It did not seem fair to forget and ignore it, as ifit were not there. I felt as if she might have left it behind on theplatform if it had not so clung to her skirt that it was almost draggedinto the railway carriage with her. When she sank into her seat she didnot even lift the poor little thing into the place beside her, but leftit to scramble up as best it could. She buried her swollen face in herhandkerchief 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 toher side, it looked up imploringly, it kissed her arm and her crapeveil over and over again, and tried to attract her attention. It wasa little, lily-fair creature not more than five or six years old andperhaps too young to express what it wanted to say. It could only clingto her and kiss her black dress, and seem to beg her to remember thatit, at least, was a living thing. But she was too absorbed in heranguish to know that it was in the world. She neither looked at nortouched it, and at last it sat with its cheek against her sleeve, softlystroking her arm, and now and then kissing it longingly. I was obligedto turn my face away and look out of the window, because I knew the manwith 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 afew stations were passed. Our fellow-traveler got out before her to helpher 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. Iput out my hand involuntarily as it went through the door, because I wasafraid it might fall. But it did not. It turned its fair little faceand smiled at me. When the kind traveler returned to his place in thecarriage again, and the train left the station, the black-draped womanwas walking slowly down the platform and the child was still clinging toher skirt. 

CHAPTER IV

My guardian was a man whose custom it was to give large and dignifiedparties. Among his grand and fashionable guests there was nearly alwaysa sprinkling of the more important members of the literary world. Thenight after I arrived there was to be a particularly notable dinner. Ihad come prepared to appear at it. Jean had brought fine array forme and a case of jewels. I knew I must be "dressed up" and look asimportant as I could. When I went up-stairs after tea, Jean was in myroom 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 lookedat her, I was so startled and so glad. 

"You must tell him how much you love his books, " she said. She had aquiet, motherly way. 

"There will be so many other people who will want to talk to him, " Ianswered, 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 hisbooks, 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 doesnot matter who the guests were; I scarcely remember. I was taken in todinner by a stately elderly man who tried to make me talk, and at lastwas absorbed by the clever woman on his other side. 

I found myself looking between the flowers for a man's face I couldimagine was Hector MacNairn's. I looked up and down and saw none I couldbelieve belonged to him. There were handsome faces and individual ones, but at first I saw no Hector MacNairn. Then, on bending forward a littleto glance behind an epergne, I found a face which it surprised andpleased me to see. It was the face of the traveler who had helped thewoman in mourning out of the railway carriage, baring his head beforeher grief. I could not help turning and speaking to my stately elderlypartner. 

"Do you know who that is--the man at the other side of the table?" Iasked. 

Old Lord Armour looked across and answered with an amiable smile. "It isthe author the world is talking of most in these days, and the talkingis no new thing. It's Mr. Hector MacNairn. "

No one but myself could tell how glad I was. It seemed so right thathe should be the man who had understood the deeps of a poor, passingstranger woman's woe. I had so loved that quiet baring of his head! Allat once I knew I should not be afraid of him. He would understand that Icould not help being shy, that it was only my nature, and that if I saidthings awkwardly my meanings were better than my words. Perhaps Ishould 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 couldscarcely believe it for a second. But he was. His eyes--his wonderfuleyes--met mine. I could not explain why they were wonderful. I thinkit was the clearness and understanding in them, and a sort of greatinterestedness. People sometimes look at me from curiosity, but they donot look because they are really interested. 

I could scarcely look away, though I knew I must not be guilty ofstaring. A footman was presenting a dish at my side. I took somethingfrom 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 wasonly too glad to be told of the great people and the small ones who weremoved 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, greatgenius were one's friend--as if he talked and one listened, " I said. "Heis like a splendid dream which has come true. "

Old Lord Armour looked at me quite thoughtfully, as if he saw somethingnew 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 itinvoluntarily. And I met the other eyes--the wonderful, interestedones just as I had met them before. It almost seemed as if he had beenwatching me. It might be, I thought, because he only vaguely rememberedseeing me before and was trying to recall where we had met. 

When my guardian brought his men guests to the drawing-room afterdinner, 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 theroom toward me, bringing some one with him. It was Hector MacNairn hebrought. 

"Mr. MacNairn tells me you traveled together this afternoon withoutknowing each other, " he said. "He has heard something of Muircarrie andwould like to hear more, Ysobel. She lives like a little ghost allalone in her feudal castle, Mr. MacNairn. We can't persuade her to likeLondon. "

I think he left us alone together because he realized that we should geton better without a companion. 

Mr. MacNairn sat down near me and began to talk about Muircarrie. Therewere very few places like it, and he knew about each one of them. Heknew the kind of things Angus Macayre knew--the things most people hadeither never heard of or had only thought of as legends. He talked as hewrote, and I scarcely knew when he led me into talking also. AfterwardI realized that he had asked me questions I could not help answeringbecause his eyes were drawing me on with that quiet, deep interest. Itseemed 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 ourmeeting in the railway carriage, and I mentioned the poor little fairchild my heart had ached so for. 

"It was such a little thing and it did so want to comfort her! Its whitelittle clinging hands were so pathetic when they stroked and pattedher, " I said. "And she did not even look at it. "

He did not start, but he hesitated in a way which almost produced theeffect of a start. Long afterward I remembered it. 

"The child!" he said. "Yes. But I was sitting on the other side. And Iwas 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 thosevery 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 meanthat 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 Imeant. 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 wayof thinking of those fair people one sees, those very fair ones, youknow--the ones whose fairness looks almost transparent. There are notmany of them, of course; but one can't help noticing them when they passin the street or come into a room. You must have noticed them, too. I always call them, to myself, the White People, because they aredifferent from the rest of us. The poor mother wasn't one, but the childwas. Perhaps that was why I looked at it, at first. It was such a lovelylittle thing; and the whiteness made it look delicate, and I could nothelp thinking--" I hesitated, because it seemed almost unkind to finish. 

"You thought that if she had just lost one child she ought to take morecare of the other, " he ended for me. There was a deep thoughtfulness inhis look, as if he were watching me. I wondered why. 

"I wish I had paid more attention to the little creature, " he said, verygently. "Did it cry?"

"No, " I answered. "It only clung to her and patted her black sleeve andkissed 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 couldcomfort 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 theworld--as if, when it happens, there is no life left anywhere. The childwho was alive by her side did not seem a living thing to her. It didn'tmatter. "

I had never said as much to any one before, but his watching eyes mademe 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 onedangerously ill. I--It is as if I can't believe it. "

"You can't believe it? That is a wonderful thing, " he said, even morequietly 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 wasgone. "

"I wonder what would have happened if you had spoken to her about thechild?" 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 astranger, " 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, " Iwent on. "I dare say you noticed it then?"

"Not as you did. I wish I had noticed it more, " was his answer. "Poorlittle White One!"

That led us into our talk about the White People. He said he did notthink he was exactly an observant person in some respects. Rememberinghis books, which seemed to me the work of a man who saw and understoodeverything in the world, I could not comprehend his thinking that, andI told him so. But he replied that what I had said about my White Peoplemade him feel that he must be abstracted sometimes and miss things. Hedid not remember having noticed the rare fairness I had seen. He smiledas he said it, because, of course, it was only a little thing--that hehad 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 Iam even rather curious about it, " he explained. "It is a differencedefinite enough to make you speak almost as if they were of a differentrace from ours. "

I sat silent a few seconds, thinking it over. Suddenly I realized what Ihad never realized before. 

"Do you know, " I said, as slowly as he himself had spoken, "I did notknow that was true until you put it into words. I am so used to thinkingof them as different, somehow, that I suppose I do feel as if they werealmost like another race, in a way. Perhaps one would feel like thatwith a native Indian, or a Japanese. "

"I dare say that is a good simile, " he reflected. "Are they differentwhen you know them well?"

"I have never known one but Wee Brown Elspeth, " I answered, thinking itover. 

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 breathcaught itself. 

"I said Wee Elspeth, Wee Brown Elspeth. She was only a child who playedwith me, " I stammered, "when I was little. "

He pulled himself together almost instantly, though the color did notcome back to his face at once and his voice was not steady for a fewseconds. But he laughed outright at himself. 

"I beg your pardon, " he apologized. "I have been ill and am rathernervous. I thought you said something you could not possibly havesaid. I almost frightened you. And you were only speaking of a littleplaymate. Please go on. "

"I was only going to say that she was fair like that, fairer than anyone I had ever seen; but when we played together she seemed like anyother child. She was the first I ever knew. "

I told him about the misty day on the moor, and about the pale troopersand the big, lean leader who carried Elspeth before him on his saddle. Ihad 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 quitefascinated him. It was only an episode, but it brought in the weirdnessof the moor and my childish fancies about the things hiding in the whitemist, and the castle frowning on its rock, and my baby face pressedagainst the nursery window in the tower, and Angus and the library, andJean and her goodness and wise ways. It was dreadful to talk so muchabout oneself. But he listened so. His eyes never left my face--theywatched and held me as if he were enthralled. Sometimes he asked aquestion. 

"I wonder who they were--the horsemen?" he pondered. "Did you ever askWee Elspeth?"

"We were both too little to care. We only played, " I answered him. "Andthey 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 knewsomething about them and would not tell me. When I was a little thingI always knew he and Jean had secrets I was too young to hear. They hidsad and ugly things from me, or things that might frighten a child. Theywere very good. "

"Yes, they were good, " he said, thoughtfully. 

I think any one would have been pleased to find herself talking quietlyto 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 muchand with such adoring reverence. And he looked at me as if he trulyliked me, even as if I were something new--a sort of discovery whichinterested him. I dare say that he had never before seen a girl who hadlived so much alone and in such a remote and wild place. 

I believe Sir Ian and his wife were pleased, too, to see that Iwas talking. They were glad that their guests should see that I wasintelligent enough to hold the attention even of a clever man. If HectorMacNairn was interested in me I could not be as silly and dull as Ilooked. But on my part I was only full of wonder and happiness. I was agirl, and he had been my only hero; and it seemed even as if he liked meand cared about my queer life. 

He was not a man who had the air of making confidences or talking abouthimself, but before we parted I seemed to know him and his surroundingsas 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 eachother in an exquisite, intimate way. She was a beautiful person. Artistshad always painted her. He and she were completely happy when they weretogether. They lived in a house in the country, and I could not at alltell how I discovered that it was an old house with beautiful chimneysand a very big garden with curious high walls with corner towers roundit. He only spoke of it briefly, but I saw it as a picture; and alwaysafterward, when I thought of his mother, I thought of her as sittingunder a great and ancient apple-tree with the long, late-afternoonshadows stretching on the thick, green grass. I suppose I saw that justbecause he said:

"Will you come to tea under the big apple-tree some afternoon when thelate shadows are like velvet on the grass? That is perhaps the loveliesttime. "

When we rose to go and join the rest of the party, he stood a moment andglanced round the room at our fellow-guests. 

"Are there any of your White People here to-night?" he said, smiling. "Ishall 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 onlya childish name I gave them, " I hesitated. "I forgot you wouldn'tunderstand. I dare say it sounds silly. "

He looked at me so quickly. 

"No! no! no!" he exclaimed. "You mustn't think that! Certainly notsilly. "

I do not think he knew that he put out his hand and gently touched myarm, 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 thatyou have talked to me. Sir Ian said you were not fond of talking topeople, 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 thanfor all the rest of the world. And I suppose you saw it in my face. Idare say that the people who love that kind of life cannot help seeingit there. "

"Yes, " he said, "it is in your eyes. It was what I saw and found myselfwondering about when I watched you in the train. It was really the moorand 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 meand think me rude. "

"It was the far look in your face I watched, " he said. "If you will cometo 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 theother 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 andwonderful. No wonder Mr. MacNairn and his mother loved it. Its greatbranches spread out farther than I had ever seen the branches of anapple-tree spread before. They were gnarled and knotted and beautifulwith age. Their shadows upon the grass were velvet, deep and soft. Sucha tree could only have lived its life in such a garden. At least itseemed so to me. The high, dim-colored walls, with their curious, lowcorner towers and the leafage of the wall fruits spread against theirbrick, inclosed it embracingly, as if they were there to take care ofit and its beauty. But the tree itself seemed to have grown there in allits dignified loveliness of shadow to take care of Mrs. MacNairn, whosat 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 termsthey use, but I thought I understood what they meant in her case. Shewas quite unlike the modern elderly woman, and yet she was not in theleast old-fashioned or demodee. She was only exquisitely distinct. 

When she rose from her chair under the apple-tree boughs and cameforward to meet me that afternoon, the first things which struck me wereher height and slenderness and her light step. Then I saw that her clearprofile seemed cut out of ivory and that her head was a beautiful shapeand was beautifully set. Its every turn and movement was exquisite. Themere fact that both her long, ivory hands enfolded mine thrilled me. I wondered if it were possible that she could be unaware of herloveliness. Beautiful people are thrilling to me, and Mrs. MacNairn hasalways seemed more so than any one else. This is what her son once saidof her:

"She is not merely beautiful; she is Beauty--Beauty's very spirit movingabout among us mortals; pure Beauty. "

She drew me to a chair under her tree, and we sat down together. I feltas if she were glad that I had come. The watching look I had seen in herson's eyes was in hers also. They watched me as we talked, and I foundmyself telling her about my home as I had found myself telling him. Hehad evidently talked to her about it himself. I had never met any onewho thought of Muircarrie as I did, but it seemed as if they who werestrangers 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 betrue that they made me feel a little as if I somehow belonged to someone. I had always seemed so detached from every one. I had not beenmiserable about it, and I had not complained to myself; I only acceptedthe detachment as part of my kind of life. 

Mr. MacNairn came into the garden later and several other people camein to tea. It was apparently a sort of daily custom--that people whoevidently adored Mrs. MacNairn dropped in to see and talk to her everyafternoon. She talked wonderfully, and her friends' joy in her waswonderful, too. It evidently made people happy to be near her. All shesaid and did was like her light step and the movements of her delicate, fine head--gracious and soft and arrestingly lovely. She did not letme drift away and sit in a corner looking on, as I usually did amongstrangers. She kept me near her, and in some subtle, gentle way made mea part of all that was happening--the talk, the charming circle underthe spreading boughs of the apple-tree, the charm of everything. Sometimes she would put out her exquisite, long-fingered hand and touchme very lightly, and each time she did it I felt as if she had given menew life. 

There was an interesting elderly man who came among the rest of theguests. I was interested in him even before she spoke to me of him. Hehad a handsome, aquiline face which looked very clever. His talk wasbrilliantly witty. When he spoke people paused as if they could notbear to lose a phrase or even a word. But in the midst of the trillsof laughter surrounding him his eyes were unchangingly sad. His facelaughed 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 alovely daughter who was killed instantly, in his presence, by a fall. They had been inseparable companions and she was the delight of hislife. That strange, fixed look has been in his eyes ever since. I knowyou have noticed it. "

We were walking about among the flower-beds after tea, and Mr. MacNairnwas showing me a cloud of blue larkspurs in a corner when I sawsomething which made me turn toward him rather quickly. 

"There is one!" I said. "Do look at her! Now you see what I mean! Thegirl standing with her hand on Mr. Le Breton's arm. "

Mr. Le Breton was the brilliant man with the sad eyes. He was standinglooking at a mass of white-and-purple iris at the other side of thegarden. There were two or three people with him, but it seemed as if fora moment he had forgotten them--had forgotten where he was. I wonderedsuddenly if his daughter had been fond of irises. He was looking at themwith such a tender, lost expression. The girl, who was a lovely, fairthing, was standing quite close to him with her hand in his arm, and shewas smiling, too--such a smile!

"Mr. Le Breton!" Mr. MacNairn said in a rather startled tone. "The girlwith 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 wasa singular interest and intensity in his expression. He watched the pairsilently for a whole minute, I think. 

"Ye-es, " he said, slowly, at last, "I do see what you mean--and it ISlovely. I don't seem to know her well. She must be a new friend of mymother's. So she is one of the White People?"

"She looks like a white iris herself, doesn't she?" I said. "Now youknow. "

"Yes; now I know, " he answered. 

I asked Mrs. MacNairn later who the girl was, but she didn't seem torecognize my description of her. Mr. Le Breton had gone away by thattime, and so had the girl herself. 

"The tall, very fair one in the misty, pale-gray dress, " I said. "Shewas near Mr. Le Breton when he was looking at the iris-bed. You werecutting 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. Idon't recall seeing a girl. I was cutting some buds for Mrs. Anstruther. I--" She paused again and turned toward her son, who was standingwatching us. I saw their eyes meet in a rather arrested way. 

"It was not Mildred Keith, " he said. "Miss Muircarrie is inquiringbecause this girl was one of those she calls the White People. She wasnot any one I had seen here before. "

There was a second's silence before Mrs. MacNairn smilingly gave me oneof her light, thrilling touches on my arm. 

"Ah! I remember, " she said. "Hector told me about the White People. Herather fancied I might be one. "

I am afraid I rather stared at her as I slowly shook my head. You seeshe was almost one, but not quite. 

"I was so busy with my roses that I did not notice who was standing nearMr. Le Breton, " she said. "Perhaps it was Anabel Mere. She is a moretransparent sort of girl than Mildred, and she is more blond. And youdon't know her, Hector? I dare say it was she. "

CHAPTER VI

I remained in London several weeks. I stayed because the MacNairns wereso 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 shywhen we were together. There seemed to be no such thing as shyness inthe world. I was not shy with Mr. MacNairn, either. After I had satunder the big apple-tree boughs in the walled garden a few times Irealized that I had begun to belong to somebody. Those two marvelouspeople cared for me in that way--in a way that made me feel as if Iwere a real girl, not merely a queer little awkward ghost in a far-awaycastle which nobody wanted to visit because it was so dull and desolateand far from London. They were so clever, and knew all the interestingthings in the world, but their cleverness and experience neverbewildered or overwhelmed me. 

"You were born a wonderful little creature, and Angus Macayre has filledyour mind with strange, rich furnishings and marvelous color and form, "Mrs. MacNairn actually said to me one day when we were sitting togetherand she was holding my hand and softly, slowly patting it. She had away of doing that, and she had also a way of keeping me very near herwhenever she could. She said once that she liked to touch me now andthen to make sure that I was quite real and would not melt away. I didnot know then why she said it, but I understood afterward. 

Sometimes we sat under the apple-tree until the long twilight deepenedinto shadow, which closed round us, and a nightingale that lived in thegarden began to sing. We all three loved the nightingale, and felt asthough it knew that we were listening to it. It is a wonderful thing tosit quite still listening to a bird singing in the dark, and to dare tofeel that while it sings it knows how your soul adores it. It is like akind of worship. 

We had been sitting listening for quite a long time, and the nightingalehad just ceased and left the darkness an exquisite silence which fellsuddenly but softly as the last note dropped, when Mrs. MacNairn beganto 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 notquite understand what she meant. But as she went on, and Mr. MacNairnjoined in the talk, their meaning became a clear thing to me, and I knewthat they were only talking quite simply of something they had oftentalked of before. They were not as afraid of The Fear as most peopleare, because they had thought of and reasoned about it so much, andalways calmly and with clear and open minds. 

By The Fear they meant that mysterious horror most people feel at thethought of passing out of the world they know into the one they don'tknow at all. 

How quiet, how still it was inside the walls of the old garden, as wethree sat under the boughs and talked about it! And what sweet nightscents of leaves and sleeping flowers were in every breath we drew! Andhow 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 couldcatch one glimpse of light in the dark, " Mrs. MacNairn's low voice saidout 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 beregistered by the human ear, so there may be vibrations of light not tobe seen by the human eye; form and color as well as sounds; justbeyond earthly perception, and yet as real as ourselves, as formed asourselves, 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 involuntarilyturned my head to look at her, though of course it was too dark to seeher 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 mysteryis only that WE cannot see, that WE cannot hear, though they are reallyquite near us, with us--the ones who seem to have gone away and whom wefeel we cannot live without. If once we could be sure! There would be noFear--there would be none!"

"Dearest"--he often called her "Dearest, " and his voice had a wonderfulsound in the darkness; it was caress and strength, and it seemed tospeak to her of things they knew which I did not--"we have vowed to eachother that we WILL believe there is no reason for The Fear. It was a vowbetween 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 couldnot believe in it. "

"It never seems real to me at all, " I said. "Perhaps that is because Ican never forget what Jean told me about my mother lying still upon herbed, and listening to some one calling her. " (I had told them Jean'sstory 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 Highlandspeople often believe things like that. One hears so many stories allone's life that in the end they don't seem strange. I have always heardthem. Those things you know about people who have the second sight. Andabout the seals who change themselves into men and come on shore andfall in love with girls and marry them. They say they go away now andthen, and no one really knows where but it is believed that they goback to their own people and change into seals again, because theymust plunge and riot about in the sea. Sometimes they come home, butsometimes they do not. 

"A beautiful young stranger, with soft, dark eyes, appeared once notfar from Muircarrie, and he married a boatman's daughter. He was veryrestless one night, and got up and left her, and she never saw himagain; but a few days later a splendid dead seal covered with wounds waswashed up near his cottage. The fishers say that his people had wantedto keep him from his land wife, and they had fought with him and killedhim. 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 enoughto swim he swam out one day, because he thought he saw some seals andwanted to get near them. He swam out too far, perhaps. He never cameback, and the fishermen said his father's people had taken him. When onehas heard stories like that all one's life nothing seems very strange. "

"Nothing really IS strange, " said Hector MacNairn. "Again and againthrough all the ages we have been told the secrets of the gods and thewonders 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 arenot afraid, Ysobel. Tell my mother you are not. "

I turned my face toward her again in the darkness. I felt as ifsomething was going on between them which he somehow knew I could helpthem in. It was as though he were calling on something in my naturewhich I did not myself comprehend, but which his profound mind saw andknew was stronger than I was. 

Suddenly I felt as if I might trust to him and to It, and that, withoutbeing troubled or anxious, I would just say the first thing which cameinto my mind, because it would be put there for me by some power whichcould dictate to me. I never felt younger or less clever than I did atthat moment; I was only Ysobel Muircarrie, who knew almost nothing. Butthat did not seem to matter. It was such a simple, almost childish thingI 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 Ionce had. I don't really believe it was a dream, but I call it one. Ithink I really went somewhere and came back. I often wonder why Icame back. It was only a short dream, so simple that there is scarcelyanything to tell, and perhaps it will not convey anything to you. But ithas been part of my life--that time when I was Out on the Hillside. Thatis what I call The Dream to myself, 'Out on the Hillside, ' as if it werea kind of unearthly poem. But it wasn't. It was more real than anythingI have ever felt. It was real--real! I wish that I could tell it so thatyou would know how real it was. "

I felt almost piteous in my longing to make her know. I knew she wasafraid of something, and if I could make her know how REAL that onebrief 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 hillsidein moonlight softer and more exquisite than I had ever seen or knownbefore. Perhaps I was still in my nightgown--I don't know. My feet werebare on the grass, and I wore something light and white which did notseem to touch me. If it touched me I did not feel it. My bare feet didnot 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 inspite of the thrilling beauty of the moon, all but the part I stood onmelted into soft, beautiful shadow, all below me and above me. But I didnot turn to look at or ask myself about anything. You see the difficultyis that there are no earthly words to tell it! All my being wasecstasy--pure, light ecstasy! Oh, what poor words-- But I know noothers. If I said that I was happy--HAPPY!--it would be nothing. I WAShappiness itself, I WAS pure rapture! I did not look at the beauty ofthe night, the sky, the marvelous melting shadow. I was PART of itall, one with it. Nothing held me nothing! The beauty of the night, thelight, the air WERE what I was, and I was only thrilling ecstasy andwonder 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, eventhen. It was such a short time. I only stood and lifted my face and feltthe joy of it, the pure marvel of joy. I only heard myself murmuringover and over again: 'Oh, how beautiful! how beautiful! Oh, howBEAUTIFUL!'

"And then a marvel of new joy swept through me. I said, very softly andvery 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 cansleep--sleep--'

"I began to sink softly down, with the heavenliest feeling of relaxationand repose, as if there existed only the soul of beautiful rest. I sankso softly--and just as my cheek almost touched the grass the dream wasover!"

"Oh!" cried Mrs. MacNairn. "Did you awaken?"

"No. I came back. In my sleep I suddenly found myself creeping into mybed again as if I had been away somewhere. I was wondering why I wasthere, how I had left the hillside, when I had left it. That partWAS a dream--but the other was not. I was allowed to gosomewhere--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 todescribe 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, andher cheek, too, was wet--wet. 

"No, it was not a dream, " she said. "You came back. Thank God you cameback, just to tell us that those who do not come back stand awakened inthat ecstasy--in that ecstasy. And The Fear is nothing. It is onlyThe Dream. The awakening is out on the hillside, out on the hillside!Listen!" She started as she said it. "Listen! The nightingale isbeginning again. "

He sent forth in the dark a fountain--a rising, aspiring fountain--ofgolden notes which seemed to reach heaven itself. The night was maderadiant by them. He flung them upward like a shower of stars intothe sky. We sat and listened, almost holding our breath. Oh! thenightingale! 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 thathe had left us together for a purpose, but, oh, I did not even remotelydream 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 havebeen sufficient for each other. But he began to love you that first daywhen he watched you in the railway carriage. He says it was the far lookin your eyes which drew him. "

"I began to love him, too, " I said. And I was not at all ashamed or shyin saying it. 

"We three might have spent our lives together, " she went on. "It wouldhave been a perfect thing. But--but--" She stood up as if she could notremain seated. Involuntarily I stood up with her. She was trembling, andshe 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 otherwill not be separated, when on this very earth there will be no pain, nogrief, no age, no death--when all the world has learned the Law atlast. But we have not learned it yet. And here we stand! The greatestspecialists have told us. There is some fatal flaw in his heart. At anymoment, when he is talking to us, when he is at his work, when he isasleep, he may--cease. It will just be ceasing. At any moment. He cannotstay. "

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 whythey had talked about The Fear. These two who were almost one soulwere trying to believe that they were not really to be torn apart--notreally. They were trying to heap up for themselves proof that they mightstill be near each other. And, above all, his effort was to save herfrom the worst, worst woe. And I understood, too, why something wiserand stronger than myself had led me to tell the dream which was not adream at all. 

But it was as she said; the world had not learned the Secret yet. Andthere we stood. We did not cry or talk, but we clung to each other--weCLUNG. That is all human creatures can do until the Secret is known. Andas 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 thinkhappen by chance and accident are only part of the weaving of the schemeof life. When you begin to suspect this and to watch closely you alsobegin to see how trifles connect themselves with one another, and seemin the end to have led to a reason and a meaning, though we may notbe clever enough to see it clearly. Nothing is an accident. We makeeverything happen ourselves: the wrong things because we do not knowor care whether we are wrong or right, the right ones because weunconsciously or consciously choose the right even in the midst of ourignorance. 

I dare say it sounds audacious for an ordinary girl to say such thingsin 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-daysort of person in simple words which other every-day people canunderstand. I am only expressing what has gradually grown into belief inmy mind through reading with Angus ancient books and modern ones--booksabout faiths and religions, books about philosophies and magics, booksabout 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 oreven accepted. 

Angus had read and studied them all his life before he began to readthem with me, and we talked them over together sitting by the fire inthe library, fascinated and staring at each other, I in one high-backedchair and he in another on the opposite side of the hearth. Angus iswonderful--wonderful! He KNOWS there is no such thing as chance. He KNOWS that we ourselves are the working of the Law--and that weourselves could work what now are stupidly called "miracles" if we couldonly remember always what the Law is. 

What I intended to say at first was merely that it was not by chancethat I climbed to the shelf in the library that afternoon and pushedaside the books hiding the old manuscript which told the real story ofDark Malcolm of the Glen and Wee Brown Elspeth. It seemed like chancewhen it happened, but it was really the first step toward my finding outthe strange, beautiful thing I knew soon afterward. 

From the beginning of my friendship with the MacNairns I had hoped theywould come and stay with me at Muircarrie. When they both seemed tofeel such interest in all I told them of it, and not to mind its wildremoteness, I took courage and asked them if they would come to me. Mostpeople are bored by the prospect of life in a feudal castle, howsoeverpicturesquely it is set in a place where there are no neighbors to counton. Its ancient stateliness is too dull. But the MacNairns were moreallured by what Muircarrie offered than they were by other and morebrilliant invitations. So when I went back to the castle I was only tobe alone a week before they followed me. 

Jean and Angus were quite happy in their quiet way when I told themwho I was expecting. They knew how glad I was myself. Jean was full ofsilent 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 hiscatalogues and looking over his shelves, taking down volumes here andthere, holding them tenderly in his long, bony old hand as he dippedinto them. He made notes of the manuscripts and books he thought Mr. MacNairn would feel the deepest interest in. He loved his library withall his being, and I knew he looked forward to talking to a man whowould care for it in the same way. 

He had been going over one of the highest shelves one day and had lefthis step-ladder leaning against it when he went elsewhere. It was whenI mounted the steps, as I often did when he left them, that I cameupon the manuscript which related the old story of Dark Malcolm and hischild. It had been pushed behind some volumes, and I took it out becauseit looked so old and yellow. And I opened at once at the page where thetale began. 

At first I stood reading, and then I sat down on the broad top of theladder and forgot everything. It was a savage history of ferocious hateand barbarous reprisals. It had been a feud waged between two clans forthree generations. The story of Dark Malcolm and Ian Red Hand was onlypart of it, but it was a gruesome thing. Pages told of the bloody deedsthey wrought on each other's houses. The one human passion of DarkMalcolm's life was his love for his little daughter. She had browneyes and brown hair, and those who most loved her called her Wee BrownElspeth. Ian Red Hand was richer and more powerful than Malcolm of theGlen, and therefore could more easily work his cruel will. He knew wellof Malcolm's worship of his child, and laid his plans to torture himthrough her. Dark Malcolm, coming back to his rude, small castle onenight after a raid in which he had lost followers and weapons andstrength, found that Wee Brown Elspeth had been carried away, andunspeakable taunts and threats left behind by Ian and his men. Withunbound wounds, broken dirks and hacked swords, Dark Malcolm and theremnant of his troop of fighting clansmen rushed forth into the night. 

"Neither men nor weapons have we to win her back, " screamed DarkMalcolm, raving mad, "but we may die fighting to get near enough to herto drive dirk into her little breast and save her from worse. "

They were a band of madmen in their black despair. How they tore throughthe black night; what unguarded weak spot they found in Ian's castlewalls; how they fought their way through it, leaving their dead bodiesin the path, none really ever knew. By what strange chance Dark Malcolmcame upon Wee Brown Elspeth, craftily set to playing hide-and-seek witha 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 intoher child heart, the story only offers guesses at. But kill and save herhe did, falling dead with her body held against his breast, her brownhair streaming over it. Not one living man went back to the small, rudecastle on the Glen--not one. 

I sat and read and read until the room grew dark. When I stopped Ifound that Angus Macayre was standing in the dimness at the foot of theladder. He looked up at me and I down at him. For a few moments we wereboth quite still. 

"It is the tale of Ian Red Hand and Dark Malcolm you are reading?" hesaid, 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 afather, " he said. "A hound of hell was Ian. Such men were savage beastsin those days, not human. "

I touched the manuscript with my hand questioningly. "Did this fall atthe 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 havehidden 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 inthe room deepened. 

"Why, " I said, laggingly, after the silence--"why did I call the childwho used to play with me 'Wee Brown Elspeth'?"

"It was your own fancy, " was his reply. "I used to wonder myself; butI made up my mind that you had heard some of the maids talking and thename had caught your ear. That would be a child's way. "

I put my forehead in my hands and thought again. So many years hadpassed! I had been little more than a baby; the whole thing seemed likea half-forgotten dream when I tried to recall it--but I seemed to dimlyremember strange things. 

"Who were the wild men who brought her to me first--that day on themoor?" I said. "I do remember they had pale, savage, exultant faces. Andtorn, stained clothes. And broken dirks and swords. But they were gladof something. Who were they?"

"I did not see them. The mist was too thick, " he answered. "They weresome 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 thestep-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 mindseemed to have left my body and gone back to the day when I sat a littlechild on the moor and heard the dull sound of horses' feet and thejingling 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 setsof thoughts were working at the same time in his mind: one his thoughtsabout Hector MacNairn and the books, the other some queer thoughts whichwent on in spite of him. 

When I was going to leave the library and go up-stairs to dress fordinner he said a strange thing to me, and he said it slowly and in aheavy 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 troubledbecause we could not make up our minds. This Mr. Hector MacNairn isno common man. He is one who is great and wise enough to decide thingsplain people could not be sure of. Jean and I are glad indeed that heand 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 wrongand what we must do. "

"They are wise enough to tell you anything, " I answered. "It soundsas if you and Jean had known some big secret all my life. But I am notfrightened. You two would go to your graves hiding it if it would hurtme. "

"Eh, bairn!" he said, suddenly, in a queer, moved way. "Eh, bairn!" Andhe took hold of both my hands and kissed them, pressing them quitelong and emotionally to his lips. But he said nothing else, and when hedropped them I went out of the room. 

CHAPTER IX

It was wonderful when Mr. MacNairn and his mother came. It was evenmore beautiful than I had thought it would be. They arrived late inthe afternoon, and when I took them out upon the terrace the sun wasreddening the moor, and even the rough, gray towers of the castlewere stained rose-color. There was that lovely evening sound of birdstwittering before they went to sleep in the ivy. The glimpses of gardensbelow seemed like glimpses of rich tapestries set with jewels. And therewas such stillness! When we drew our three chairs in a little grouptogether and looked out on it all, I felt as if we were almost inheaven. 

"Yes! yes!" Hector said, looking slowly--round; "it is all here. "

"Yes, " his mother added, in her lovely, lovely voice. "It is what madeyou Ysobel. "

It was so angelic of them to feel it all in that deep, quiet way, and tothink that it was part of me and I a part of it. The climbing moon wastrembling with beauty. Tender evening airs quivered in the heather andfern, and the late birds called like spirits. 

Ever since the night when Mrs. MacNairn had held me in her arms underthe apple-tree while the nightingale sang I had felt toward her son asif he were an archangel walking on the earth. Perhaps my thoughts wereexaggerated, but it seemed so marvelous that he should be moving amongus, doing his work, seeing and talking to his friends, and yet that heshould know that at any moment the great change might come and he mightawaken somewhere else, in quite another place. If he had been like othermen and I had been like other girls, I suppose that after that nightwhen I heard the truth I should have been plunged into the darkest woeand have almost sobbed myself to death. Why did I not? I do not knowexcept--except that I felt that no darkness could come between usbecause no darkness could touch him. He could never be anything butalive alive. If I could not see him it would only be because my eyeswere 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 watchedthe moon. I could scarcely look away from him. He was rather pale thatevening, but there seemed to be a light behind his pallor, and his eyesseemed to see so much more than the purple and yellow of the heather andgorse as they rested on them. 

After I had watched him silently for a little while I leaned forward andpointed to a part of the moor where there was an unbroken blaze of gorsein full bloom like a big patch of gold. 

"That is where I was sitting when Wee Brown Elspeth was first brought tome, " I said. 

He sat upright and looked. "Is it?" he answered. "Will you take me thereto-morrow? I have always wanted to see the place. "

"Would you like to go early in the morning? The mist is more likely tobe 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 asif--" 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 highshelf in the library. Angus said he had hidden it there because it was asavage story he did not wish me to read. It was the history of the feudbetween Ian Red Hand and Dark Malcolm of the Glen. Dark Malcolm's childwas called Wee Brown Elspeth hundreds of years ago--five hundred, Ithink. It makes me feel so bewildered when I remember the one I playedwith. "

"It was a bloody story, " he said. "I heard it only a few days before wemet 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 hadinherited her name, " he answered, a trifle hurriedly. "I confess I wasstartled for a moment. "

I put my hand up to my forehead and rubbed it unconsciously. I could nothelp seeing a woesome picture. 

"Poor little soul, with the blood pouring from her heart and her brownhair spread over her dead father's breast!" I stopped, because a faintmemory came back to me. "Mine, " I stammered--"mine--how strange!--hada great stain on the embroideries of her dress. She looked at it--andlooked. She looked as if she didn't like it--as if she didn't understandhow 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 suddeneffort 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 questionsbefore. "

It was a strange look I met when I involuntarily turned toward him--suchan absorbed, strange, tender look!

I knew he sat quite late in the library that night, talking to Angusafter his mother and I went to our rooms. Just as I was falling asleepI remember there floated through my mind a vague recollection ofwhat Angus had said to me of asking his advice about something; and Iwondered if he would reach the subject in their talk, or if they wouldspend all their time in poring over manuscripts and books together. 

The moor wore its most mysterious look when I got up in the earlymorning. It had hidden itself in its softest snows of white, swathingmist. Only here and there dark fir-trees showed themselves above it, andnow and then the whiteness thinned or broke and drifted. It was as I hadwanted 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 plaidsbecause the early morning air was cold, we tramped away together. No onebut myself could ever realize what it was like. I had never known thatthere could be such a feeling of companionship in the world. It wouldnot have been necessary for us to talk at all if we had felt silent. Weshould have been saying things to each other without words. But we didtalk as we walked--in quiet voices which seemed made quieter by themist, 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 tothe moor. Part of the park itself had once been moorland, and was darkwith slender firs and thick grown with heather and broom. On the moorthe mist grew thicker, and if I had not so well known the path we mighthave lost ourselves in it. Also I knew by heart certain little streamsthat rushed and made guiding sounds which were sometimes loud whispersand sometimes singing babbles. The damp, sweet scent of fern and heatherwas in our nostrils; as we climbed we breathed its freshness. 

"There is a sort of unearthly loveliness in it all, " Hector MacNairnsaid to me. His voice was rather like his mother's. It always seemed tosay so much more than his words. 

"We might be ghosts, " I answered. "We might be some of those the misthides 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 likemyself, 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 seenow; only seeing it without burdens of fears before and behind us. Andknowing there is no reason to be afraid. We have all been so afraid. Wedon't know how afraid we have been--of everything. "

I stopped among the heather and threw my arms out wide. I drew in agreat, joyous morning breath. 

"Free like that! It is the freeness, the light, splendid freeness, Ithink of most. "

"The freeness!" he repeated. "Yes, the freeness!"

"As for beauty, " I almost whispered, in a sort of reverence for visionsI remembered, "I have stood on this moor a thousand times and seenloveliness which made me tremble. One's soul could want no more in anylife. But 'Out on the Hillside' I KNEW I was part of it, and it wasecstasy. That was the freeness. "

"Yes--it was the freeness, " he answered. 

We brushed through the heather and the bracken, and flower-bells shookshowers of radiant drops upon us. The mist wavered and sometimes liftedbefore us, and opened up mystic vistas to veil them again a few minuteslater. The sun tried to break through, and sometimes we walked in agolden haze. 

We fell into silence. Now and then I glanced sidewise at my companion aswe made our soundless way over the thick moss. He looked so strongand beautiful. His tall body was so fine, his shoulders so broad andsplendid! How could it be! How could it be! As he tramped beside me hewas thinking deeply, and he knew he need not talk to me. That made meglad--that he should know me so well and feel me so near. That was whathe felt when he was with his mother, that she understood and that attimes neither of them needed words. 

Until we had reached the patch of gorse where we intended to end ourwalk we did not speak at all. He was thinking of things which led himfar. I knew that, though I did not know what they were. When we reachedthe golden blaze we had seen the evening before it was a flame of goldagain, because--it was only for a few moments--the mist had blown apartand the sun was shining on it. 

As we stood in the midst of it together--Oh! how strange and beautifulit was!--Mr. MacNairn came back. That was what it seemed to me--that hecame back. He stood quite still a moment and looked about him, and thenhe stretched out his arms as I had stretched out mine. But he did itslowly, and a light came into his face. 

"If, after it was over, a man awakened as you said and foundhimself--the self he knew, but light, free, splendid--remembering allthe ages of dark, unknowing dread, of horror of some black, aimlessplunge, and suddenly seeing all the childish uselessness of it--how hewould 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 hewould stand and SMILE!

He was smiling himself, the golden gorse about him already losing itsflame in the light returning mist-wraiths closing again over it, when Iheard a sound far away and high up the moor. It sounded like the playingof a piper. He did not seem to notice it. 

"We shall be shut in again, " he said. "How mysterious it is, thisopening 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 littlestrapped basket Jean had made ready for us. He shook the mist drops fromour own plaids, and as I was about to sit down I stopped a moment tolisten. 

"That is a tune I never heard on the pipes before, " I said. "What is apiper 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, andplaying 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 whichone could see objects. At a short distance above us on the moor I sawsomething moving. It was a man who was playing the pipes. It was thepiper, and almost at once I knew him, because it was actually my ownFeargus, stepping proudly through the heather with his step like a stagon the hills. His head was held high, and his face had a sort of elateddelight in it as if he were enjoying himself and the morning and themusic in a new way. I was so surprised that I rose to my feet and calledto him. 

"Feargus!" I cried. "What--"

I knew he heard me, because he turned and looked at me with the mostextraordinary smile. He was usually a rather grave-faced man, but thissmile had a kind of startling triumph in it. He certainly heard me, forhe whipped off his bonnet in a salute which was as triumphant as thesmile. But he did not answer, and actually passed in and out of sight inthe mist. 

When I rose Mr. MacNairn had risen, too. When I turned to speak in mysurprise, he had fixed on me his watchful look. 

"Imagine its being Feargus at this hour!" I exclaimed. "And why didhe pass by in such a hurry without answering? He must have been to awedding and have been up all night. He looked--" I stopped a second andlaughed. 

"How did he look?" Mr. MacNairn asked. 

"Pale! That won't do--though he certainly didn't look ill. " I laughedagain. "I'm laughing because he looked almost like one of the WhitePeople. "

"Are you sure it was Feargus?" he said. 

"Quite sure. No one else is the least like Feargus. Didn't you see himyourself?"

"I don't know him as well as you do; and there was the mist, " was hisanswer. "But he certainly was not one of the White People when I saw himlast night. "

I wondered why he looked as he did when he took my hand and drew me downto my place on the plaid again. He did not let it go when he sat down bymy side. He held it in his own large, handsome one, looking down on ita moment or so; and then he bent his head and kissed it long and slowlytwo 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 wouldtell me what his mother had told me--about what we three might have beento one another. I trembled with happiness at the thought of hearing himsay 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 amwaiting 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 couldalways have been together, " was my answer. 

He drew me up into his arms so that my cheek lay against his breast asI 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 shouldnever have been lonely again. I should have known nothing, whatsoeverhappened, but tender joy. "

"Whatsoever happened?" he murmured. 

"Whatsoever happens now, Ysobel, know nothing but tender joy. I thinkyou CAN. 'Out on the Hillside!' Let us remember. "

"Yes, yes, " I said; "'Out on the Hillside. '" And our two faces, dampwith the sweet mist, were pressed together. 

CHAPTER X

The mist had floated away, and the moor was drenched with goldensunshine when we went back to the castle. As we entered the hall I heardthe sound of a dog howling, and spoke of it to one of the men-servantswho 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 hisheart'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 toshut 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 hadthat 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 hadjust 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 tellme 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 lastnight and came back late across the moor. There was a heavy mist, and hemust 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 beFeargus, " I cried. "I saw him an hour ago. He passed us playing on hispipes. 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 whenhe passed so near, " I protested. "I called to him, and he took off hisbonnet, though he did not stop. He was going so quickly that perhaps hedid 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 decidesome grave thing. It was Hector MacNairn who decided it. 

"No, " he answered, very quietly, "I neither saw nor heard him, even whenhe passed. But you did. "

"I did, quite plainly, " I went on, more and more bewildered by theway in which they kept a sort of tender, awed gaze fixed on me. "Youremember I even noticed that he looked pale. I laughed, you know, when Isaid he looked almost like one of the White People--"

Just then my breath caught itself and I stopped. I began to rememberthings--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 Jeannor I. But you did. You have always seen what the rest of us did notsee, my bairn--always. "

I stammered out a few words, half in a whisper. "I have always seen whatyou others could not see? WHAT--HAVE--I--SEEN?"

But I was not frightened. I suppose I could never tell any one whatstrange, wide, bright places seemed suddenly to open and shine beforeme. Not places to shrink back from--oh no! no! One could be sure, then--SURE! Feargus had lifted his bonnet with that extraordinarytriumph 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 lookedin my face when I was a baby had said I had the eyes which "SAW. " Itwas only the saying of an old Highlander, and might not have beenremembered. 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 readfor the first time the story of Dark Malcolm, and as they sat near me onthe moor they had been talking about it. That was why he forgot himselfwhen I came to ask them where the child had gone, and told him of thebig, dark man with the scar on his forehead. After that they were sure. 

They had always hidden their knowledge from me because they were afraidit might frighten me to be told. I had not been a strong child. Theykept the secret from my relatives because they knew they would disliketo 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 doctorsand severe efforts to obliterate from my mind my "nonsense, " as theywould have been sure to call it. The two wise souls had shielded me onevery side. 

"It was better that you should go on thinking it only a simple, naturalthing, " 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 newon it. They're not new. They were always written there. But they werenot unrolled. Never a law broken, never a new law, only laws read withstronger eyes. "

Angus and I had always been very fond of the Bible--the strange oldtemple of wonders, full of all the poems and tragedies and histories ofman, his hates and battles and loves and follies, and of the Wisdom ofthe universe and the promises of the splendors of it, and which eventhose of us who think ourselves the most believing neither whollybelieve nor will understand. We had pored over and talked of it. We hadnever thought of it as only a pious thing to do. The book was to us oneof the mystic, awe-inspiring, prophetic marvels of the world. 

That was what made me say, half whispering: "I have wondered andwondered what it meant--that verse in Isaiah: 'Behold the former thingsare come to pass and new things do I declare; before they spring forth Itell 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 uswill listen to them. "

"It has taken man eons of time, " Hector MacNairn said, thinking it outas he spoke--"eons of time to reach the point where he is beginning toknow that in every stock and stone in his path may lie hidden somepower he has not yet dreamed of. He has learned that lightning may becommanded, distance conquered, motion chained and utilized; but he, theone CONSCIOUS force, has never yet begun to suspect that of all othershe may be the one as yet the least explored. How do we know that theredoes not lie in each of us a wholly natural but, so far, dormant powerof sight--a power to see what has been called The Unseen through all theAges whose sightlessness has made them Dark? Who knows when theShadow around us may begin to clear? Oh, we are a dull lot--we humanthings--with a queer, obstinate conceit of ourselves. "

"Complete we think we are, " Angus murmured half to himself. "Finishedcreatures! And look at us! How many of us in a million have beautyand health and full power? And believing that the law is that we mustcrumple and go to pieces hour by hour! Who'd waste the time making aclock that went wrong as often? Nay, nay! We shall learn better thanthis as time goes on. And we'd better be beginning and setting our mindsto work on it. 'Tis for us to do--the minds of us. And what's the mindof us but the Mind that made us? Simple and straight enough it is whenonce you begin to think it out. The spirit of you sees clearer than wedo, that's all, " he said to me. "When your mother brought you into theworld she was listening to one outside calling to her, and it opened theway for you. "

At night Hector MacNairn and his mother and I sat on the terrace understars which seemed listening things, and we three drew nearer to oneanother, and nearer and nearer. 

"When the poor mother stumbled into the train that day, " was one of thethings 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 thoughtat first you were almost a child. Then a far look in your eyes made mebegin to watch you. You were so sorry for the poor woman that you couldnot look away from her, and something in your face touched and puzzledme. You leaned forward suddenly and put out your hand protectingly asshe stepped down on to the platform. 

"That night when you spoke quite naturally of the child, never doubtingthat I had seen it, I suddenly began to suspect. Because of TheFear"--he hesitated--"I had been reading and thinking many things new tome. I did not know what I believed. But you spoke so simply, and I knewyou were speaking the truth. Then you spoke just as naturally of WeeBrown Elspeth. That startled me because not long before I had been toldthe tale in the Highlands by a fine old story-teller who is the head ofhis clan. I saw you had never heard the story before. And yet you weretelling me that you had played with the child. "

"He came home and told me about you, " Mrs. MacNairn said. "His fear ofThe Fear was more for me than for himself. He knew that if he broughtyou to me, you who are more complete than we are, clearer-eyed andnearer, nearer, I should begin to feel that he was not going--out. Ishould begin to feel a reality and nearness myself. Ah, Ysobel! How wehave clung to you and loved you! And then that wonderful afternoon! Isaw 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. Iwish he could have known. "

What does it matter if this seems a strange story? To some it will meansomething; to some it will mean nothing. To those it has a meaning forit will open wide windows into the light and lift heavy loads. Thatwould be quite enough, even if the rest thought it only the weird fancyof a queer girl who had lived alone and given rein to her silliestimaginings. I wanted to tell it, howsoever poorly and ineffectivelyit was done. Since I KNEW I have dropped the load of ages--the blackburden. Out on the hillside my feet did not even feel the grass, and yetI was standing, not floating. I had no wings or crown. I was only Ysobelout on the hillside, free!

This is the way it all ended. 

For three weeks that were like heaven we three lived together atMuircarrie. We saw every beauty and shared every joy of sun and dew andlove and tender understanding. 

After one lovely day we had spent on the moor in a quiet dream of joyalmost strange in its perfectness, we came back to the castle; and, because the sunset was of such unearthly radiance and changing wonderwe sat on the terrace until the last soft touch of gold had died out andleft the pure, still, clear, long summer twilight. 

When Mrs. MacNairn and I went in to dress for dinner, Hector lingered alittle behind us because the silent beauty held him. 

I came down before his mother did, and I went out upon the terrace againbecause I saw he was still sitting there. I went to the stone balustradevery 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 beautifulthan any human creature I had ever seen before. But It had happened asthey said it would. He had not ceased--but something else had. Somethinghad ceased. 

It was the next evening before I came out on the terrace again. The dayhad been more exquisite and the sunset more wonderful than before. Mrs. MacNairn was sitting by her son's side in the bedroom whose windowslooked over the moor. I am not going to say one word of what had comebetween the two sunsets. Mrs. MacNairn and I had clung--and clung. Wehad promised never to part from each other. I did not quite know why Iwent out on the terrace; perhaps it was because I had always loved tosit 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 thinkingabout the Secret and the Hillside. I was very quiet--as quiet as thetwilight's self. And there came back to me the memory of what Hector hadsaid as we stood on the golden patch of gorse when the mist had fora moment or so blown aside, what he had said of man's awakening, and, remembering all the ages of--childish, useless dread, how he wouldstand-- I did not turn suddenly, but slowly. I was not startled in thefaintest 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. Andwhen I see him he always stands--and smiles.