{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_44091/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_44091","id":"gutenberg_44091","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44091","summary":null,"tags":["Brittany (France) -- Fiction","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Category: Romance","Hebrides (Scotland) -- Fiction"],"text":"GREEN FIRE\n\n    A Romance\n\n    BY\n\n    FIONA MACLEOD\n\n    \"_While still I may, I write for you\n    The love I lived, the dream I knew_\"\n\n\n\n    NEW YORK\n    HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS\n    1896\n\n\n\n\n    Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS.\n\n    _All rights reserved._\n\n\n\n\n    TO\n\n    ESCLARMOUNDO\n\n    \"_Nec sine te nec tecum vivere possum._\"--OVID\n\n\n\n\"_There are those of us who would rather be with Cathal of the Woods,\nand be drunken with green fire, than gain the paradise of the holy\nMolios who banned him, if in that gain were to be heard no more the\nearth-sweet ancient song of the blood that is in the veins of youth...._\n\n\"_O green fire of life, pulse of the world! O Love, O Youth, O Dream of\nDreams!_\n\n  \"THE ANNIR CHOILLE.\"\n\n\n\n\n    CONTENTS\n\n\n\n    BOOK FIRST\n\n  THE BIRDS OF ANGUS OGUE\n\n  CHAP.                                     PAGE\n\n  I. EUCHARIS                                  3\n\n  II. THE HOUSE OF KERIVAL                    22\n\n  III. STORM                                  37\n\n  IV. THE DREAM AND THE DREAMERS              53\n\n  V. THE WALKER IN THE NIGHT                  69\n\n  VI. VIA OSCURA                              99\n\n  VII. \"DEIREADH GACH COGAIDH, SITH\" (THE\n        END OF ALL WARFARE, PEACE)           114\n\n  VIII. THE UNFOLDING OF THE SCROLL          125\n\n\n    BOOK SECOND\n\n  THE HERDSMAN\n\n  IX. RETROSPECTIVE: FROM THE HEBRID ISLES   149\n\n  X. AT THE EDGE OF THE SHADOW               175\n\n  XI. MYSTERY                                195\n\n  XII. IN THE GREEN ARCADES                  208\n\n  XIII. THE MESSAGE                          224\n\n  XIV. THE LAUGHTER OF THE KING              239\n\n\n    BOOK THIRD\n\n  XV. THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD                259\n\n\n\n    GREEN FIRE\n\n\n\n\n    BOOK FIRST\n\n    _THE BIRDS OF ANGUS OGUE_\n\n\n\n    Hither and thither,\n      And to and fro,\n    They thrid the Maze\n      Of Weal and Woe:\n      O winds that blow\n    For golden weather\n      Blow me the birds,\n      All white as snow\n    On the hillside heather--\n    Blow me the birds\n      That Angus know:\n    Blow me the birds,\n      Be it Weal or Woe!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nEUCHARIS\n\n\n _Then, in the violet forest, all a-bourgeon, Eucharis said to me: \"It\n is Spring.\"_--ARTHUR RIMBAUD.\n\n\nAfter the dim purple bloom of a suspended spring, a green rhythm ran\nfrom larch to thorn, from lime to sycamore; spread from meadow to\nmeadow, from copse to copse, from hedgerow to hedgerow. The blackthorn\nhad already snowed upon the nettle-garths. In the obvious nests among\nthe bare boughs of ash and beech the eggs of the blackbird were\nblue-green as the sky that March had bequeathed to April. For days\npast, when the breath of the equinox had surged out of the west, the\nmissel-thrushes had bugled from the wind-swayed topmost branches of the\ntallest elms. Everywhere the green rhythm ran.\n\nIn every leaf that had uncurled there was a delicate bloom, that which\nis upon all things in the first hours of life. The spires of the grass\nwere washed in a green, dewy light. Out of the brown earth a myriad\nliving things thrust tiny green shafts, arrow-heads, bulbs, spheres,\nclusters. Along the pregnant soil keener ears than ours would have\nheard the stir of new life, the innumerous whisper of the bursting\nseed; and, in the wind itself, shepherding the shadow-chased sunbeams,\nthe voice of that vernal gladness which has been man's clarion since\nTime began.\n\nDay by day the wind-wings lifted a more multitudinous whisper from\nthe woodlands. The deep hyperborean note, from the invisible ocean\nof air, was still audible: within the concourse of bare boughs which\nlifted against it, that surging voice could not but have an echo of its\nwintry roar. In the sun-havens, however, along the southerly copses,\nin daisied garths of orchard-trees, amid the flowering currant and\nguelder and lilac bushes in quiet places where the hives were all\na-murmur, the wind already sang its lilt of spring. From dawn till\nnoon, from an hour before sundown till the breaking foam along the\nwild cherry flushed fugitively because of the crimson glow out of the\nwest, there was a ceaseless chittering of birds. The starlings and the\nsparrows enjoyed the commune of the homestead; the larks and fieldfares\nand green and yellow linnets congregated in the meadows, where, too,\nthe wild bee already roved. Among the brown ridgy fallows there was\na constant flutter of black, white-gleaming, and silver-gray wings,\nwhere the stalking rooks, the jerking pewets, and the wary, uncertain\ngulls from the neighboring sea, feasted tirelessly from the teeming\nearth. Often, too, the wind-hover, that harbinger of the season of the\nyoung broods, quivered his curved wings in his arrested flight, while\nhis lance-like gaze penetrated the whins, beneath which a new-born\nrabbit crawled, or discerned in the tangle of a grassy tuft the brown,\nwatchful eyes of a nesting quail.\n\nIn the remoter woodlands the three foresters of April could be heard:\nthe woodpecker tapping on the gnarled boles of the oaks; the wild-dove\ncalling in low, crooning monotones to his silent mate; the cuckoo\ntolling his infrequent peals from skyey belfries built of sun and mist.\n\nIn the fields, where the thorns were green as rivulets of melted snow\nand the grass had the bloom of emerald, and the leaves of docken,\nclover, cinquefoil, sorrel, and a thousand plants and flowers, were\nwave-green, the ewes lay, idly watching with their luminous amber\neyes the frisking and leaping of the close-curled, tuft-tailed,\nwoolly-legged lambs. In corners of the hedgerows, and in hollows in\nthe rolling meadows, the primrose, the celandine, the buttercup, the\ndandelion, and the daffodil spilled little eddies of the sun-flood\nwhich overbrimmed them with light. All day long the rapture of the\nlarks filled the blue air with vanishing spirals of music, swift and\npassionate in the ascent, repetitive and less piercing in the narrowing\ndownward gyres. From every whin the poignant, monotonous note of the\nyellow-hammer re\u00ebchoed. Each pastoral hedge was alive with robins,\nchaffinches, and the dusky shadows of the wild-mice darting here and\nthere among the greening boughs.\n\nWhenever this green fire is come upon the earth, the swift contagion\nspreads to the human heart. What the seedlings feel in the brown\nmould, what the sap feels in the trees, what the blood feels in every\ncreature from the newt in the pool to the nesting bird--so feels the\nstrange, remembering ichor that runs its red tides through human hearts\nand brains. Spring has its subtler magic for us, because of the dim\nmysteries of unremembering remembrance and of the vague radiances of\nhope. Something in us sings an ascendant song, and we expect, we know\nnot what; something in us sings a decrescent song, and we realize\nvaguely the stirring of immemorial memories.\n\nThere is none who will admit that spring is fairer elsewhere than in\nhis own land. But there are regions where the season is so hauntingly\nbeautiful that it would seem as though Angus Ogue knew them for his\nchosen resting-places in his green journey.\n\nAngus Og, Angus MacGreine, Angus the Ever Youthful, the Son of\nthe Sun, a fair god he indeed, golden-haired and wonderful as Apollo\nChrusokomes. Some say that he is Love; some, that he is Spring; some,\neven, that in him, Thanatos, the Hellenic Celt that was his far-off\nkin, is reincarnate. But why seek riddles in flowing water? It may\nwell be that Angus Ogue is Love, and Spring, and Death. The elemental\ngods are ever triune; and in the human heart, in whose lost Eden an\nancient tree of knowledge grows wherefrom the mind has not yet gathered\nmore than a few windfalls, it is surely sooth that Death and Love are\noftentimes one and the same, and that they love to come to us in the\napparel of Spring.\n\nSure, indeed, Angus Ogue is a name above all sweet to lovers, for is\nhe not the god--the fair youth of the Tuatha-de-Danann, the Ancient\nPeople, with us still, though for ages seen of us no more--from the\nmeeting of whose lips are born white birds, which fly abroad and nest\nin lovers' hearts till the moment come when, on the yearning lips of\nlove, their invisible wings shall become kisses again?\n\nThen, too, there is the old legend that Angus goes to and fro upon the\nworld, a weaver of rainbows. He follows the spring, or is its herald.\nOften his rainbows are seen in the heavens; often in the rapt gaze of\nlove. We have all perceived them in the eyes of children, and some of\nus have discerned them in the hearts of sorrowful women and in the dim\nbrains of the old. Ah! for sure, if Angus Og be the lovely Weaver\nof Hope he is deathless comrade of the spring, and we may well pray\nto him to let his green fire move in our veins, whether he be but the\nEternal Youth of the World, or be also Love, whose soul is youth, or\neven though he be likewise Death himself, Death to whom Love was wedded\nlong, long ago.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut nowhere was spring more lovely, nowhere was the green fire of\nlife so quick with impulsive ardors, as, one year of the years, in a\nseaward region to the north of the ancient forest of Broceliande, in\nwhat of old was Armorica and now is Brittany.\n\nHere spring often comes late, but ever lingers long. Here, too, in the\ndim green avenues of the oak-woods of Kerival, the nightingales reach\ntheir uttermost western flight. Never has the shepherd, tending his\nscant flock on the upland pastures of Finist\u00e8re, nor the fisherman\nlying a-dream amid the sandy thickets of Ushant, heard that quaint\nmusic--that primeval and ever young song of the passionate heart which\nAugustine might well have had in mind when he exclaimed \"Sero te amavi,\nPulchritudo, tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi.\" But, each April,\nin the woods of Kerival, the nightingales congregate from afar, and\nthrough May their songs make the forest like a sanctuary filled with\nchoristers swinging incense of a delicate music.\n\nIt is a wonderful region, that which lies betwixt Ploumaliou on the\neast and Kerloek on the west; the oldest, remotest part of an ancient,\nremote land. Here the few hamlets and fewer scattered villages are,\neven in externals, the same as they were a hundred or three hundred\nyears ago. In essentials, there is no difference since St. Herv\u00e9\nor St. Ronan preached the new faith, or indeed since Ah\u00e8s the Pale\nrode through the forest aisles in the moonlight and heard the Nains\nchanting, or since King Gradlon raced his horse against the foam when\nhis daughter let the sea in upon the fair city of Ys. The good _cur\u00e9s_\npreach the religion of Christ and of Mary to the peasants; but in the\nminds of most of these there lingers much of the bygone faith that\nreared the menhirs. Few indeed there are in whose ears is never an echo\nof the old haunted world, when every wood and stream, every barren\nmoor and granite wilderness, every sea-pasture and creek and bay had\nits particular presence, its spirit of good or ill, its menace, its\nperilous enchantment. The eyes of the peasants by these shores, these\nmoors, these windy hill-slopes of the south, are not fixed only on the\nmeal-chest and the fallow-field, or, on f\u00eate-days, upon the crucifix\nin the little church; but often dwell upon a past time, more sacred now\nthan ever in this bitter relinquishing age. On the lips of many may be\nheard lines from that sad folk-song, \"Ann Amzer Dremenet\" (In the Long\nAgo):\n\n    Eur c'havel kaer karn olifant,\n    War-n-han tachou aour hag arc' hant.\n\n    Daelou a ver, daelou c'houero:\n    Neb a zo enn han zo maro!\n\n    Zo maro, zo maro pell-zo,\n    Hag hi luskel, o kana 'to,\n\n    Hag hi luskel, luskel ato,\n    Kollet ar skiand-vad gant-ho.\n\n    Ar skiand-vad ho deuz kollet;\n    Kollet ho deuz joaiou ar bed.\n\n           *       *       *       *       *\n\n    [But when they had made the cradle\n      Of ivory and of gold,\n    Their hearts were heavy still\n      With the sorrow of old.\n\n    And ever as they rocked, the tears\n      Ran down, sad tears:\n    Who is it lieth dead therein,\n      Dead all these weary years?\n\n\n    And still they rock that cradle there\n      Of ivory and gold;\n    For in their brains the shadow is\n      The Shadow of Old.\n\n    They weep, and know not what they weep;\n      They wait a vain rebirth:\n    Vanity of vanities, alas!\n      For there is but one birth\n      On the wide, green earth.]\n\nOld sayings they have, too; who knows how old? The charcoal-burner in\nthe woods above Kerloek will still shudder at the thought of death\non the bleak, open moor, because of the carrion-crow that awaits his\nsightless eyes, the fox that will tear his heart out, and the toad\nthat will swallow his soul. Long, long ago Gwenc'hlan the Bard sang\nthus of his foe and the foes of his people, when every battle field\nwas a pasture for the birds and beasts of prey, and when the Spirit of\nEvil lurked near every corpse in the guise of a toad. And still the\nshrimper, in the sands beyond Ploumaliou, will cry out against the\npredatory sea fowl _A gas ar Gall--a gas ar Gall!_ (Chase the Franks!)\nand not know that, ages ago, this cry went up from the greatest of\nBreton kings, when Nomeno\u00eb drove the Frankish invaders beyond the Oust\nand the Vilaine, and lighted their flight by the flames of Nantes and\nRennes.\n\nNear the northern frontier of the remotest part of this ancient region,\nthe Manor of Kerival was the light-house of its forest vicinage. It\nwas and is surrounded by woods, for the most part of oak and chestnut\nand beech. Therein are trees of an age so great that they may have\nsheltered the flight of Jud Mael, when Ah\u00e8s chased him on her white\nstallion from glade to glade, and one so venerably old that its roots\nmay have been soaked in the blood of their child Judik, whom she forced\nher betrayer to slay with the sword before she thrust a dagger into\nhis heart. Northward of the manor, however, the forest is wholly of\nmelancholy spruce, of larch and pine. The pines extend in a desolate\ndisarray to the interminable dunes, beyond which the Breton sea lifts\nits gray wave against a gray horizon. On that shore there are few\nrocks, though here and there fang-like reefs rise, ready to tear and\ndevour any boat hurled upon them at full tide in days of storm. At\nKerival Haven, too, there is a wilderness of granite rock; a mass of\npinnacles, buttresses, and inchoate confusion, ending in long, smooth\nledges of black basalt, these forever washed by the green flow of the\ntides.\n\nNone of the peasants knew the age of the House of Kerival, or how long\nthe Kerival family had been there. Old Yann H\u00e9nan, the blind brother of\nthe white-haired _cur\u00e9_, P\u00e8re Alain, who was the oldest man in all the\ncountryside, was wont to say that Kerival woods had been green before\never there was a house on the banks of the Seine, and that a Kerival\nhad been lord of the land before ever there was a king of France. All\nbelieved this, except P\u00e8re Alain, and even he dissented only when\nYann spoke of the seigneur's ancestor as the Marquis of Kerival; for,\nas he explained, there were no marquises in those far-off days. But\nthis went for nothing; for, unfortunately, P\u00e8re Alain had once in his\nyouth preached against the popular belief in Korrigans and Nains, and\nhad said that these supernatural beings did not exist, or at any\nrate were never seen of man. How, then, could much credence be placed\non the testimony of a man who could be so prejudiced? Yann had but\nto sing a familiar snatch from the old ballad of \"Aotru Nann Hag ar\nGorrigan\"--the fragment beginning\n\n    Ken a gavas eur waz vihan\n    E-kichen ti eur Gorrigan,\n\nand ending\n\n    Met gwell eo d'in mervel breman\n    'Get dimizi d' eur Gorrigan!--\n\n    [The Lord Nann came to the Kelpie's Pool\n    And stooped to drink the water cool;\n\n    But he saw the kelpie sitting by,\n    Combing her long locks listlessly.\n\n    \"O knight,\" she sang, \"thou dost not fear\n    To draw these perilous waters near!\n\n    Wed thou me now, or on a stone\n    For seven years perish all alone,\n    Or three days hence moan your death-moan!\"\n\n    \"I will not wed you, nor alone\n    Perish with torment on a stone,\n    Nor three days hence draw my death-moan--\n\n\n    For I shall die, O Kelpie fair,\n    When God lets down the golden stair,\n    And so my soul thou shalt not share--\n\n    But, if my fate is to lie dead,\n    Here, with thy cold breast for my bed,\n    Death can be mine, I will not wed!\"]\n\nWhen Yann sang this, or told for the hundredth time the familiar story\nof how Paskou-Hir the tailor was treated by the Nains when he sought to\nrifle the hidden treasure in the grotto, every one knew that he spoke\nwhat was authentic, what was true. As for P\u00e8re Alain--well, priests are\ntold to say many things by the good, wise Holy Father, who rules the\nworld so well but has never been in Brittany, and so cannot know all\nthat happens there, and has happened from time immemorial. Then, again,\nwas there not the evidence of the alien, the strange, quiet man called\nYann the Dumb, because of his silence at most times--him that was the\nservitor-in-chief to the Lady Lois, the beautiful paralyzed wife of the\nMarquis of Kerival, and that came from the far north, where the kindred\nof the Armorican race dwell among the misty isles and rainy hills\nof Scotland? Indeed Yann had been heard to say that he would sooner\ndisbelieve in the Pope himself than in the kelpie, for in his own land\nhe had himself heard her devilish music luring him across a lonely\nmoor, and he had known a man who had gone fey because he had seen the\nface of a kelpie in a hill-tarn.\n\nIn the time of the greening, even the Korrigans are unseen of walkers\nin the dusk. They are busy then, some say, winding the white into\nthe green bulbs of the water-lilies, or tinting the wings within the\nchrysalis of the water-fly, or weaving the bright skins for the newts;\nbut however this may be, the season of the green flood over the brown\nearth is not that wherein man may fear them.\n\nNo fear of Korrigan or Nain, or any other woodland creature or haunter\nof pool or stream, disturbed two who walked in the green-gloom of a\ndeep avenue in the midst of the forest beyond the Manor of Kerival.\nThey were young, and there was green fire in their hearts; for they\nmoved slow, hand claspt in hand, and with their eyes dwelling often\non the face of each other. And whenever Ynys de Kerival looked at\nher cousin Alan she thought him the fairest and comeliest of the sons\nof men; and whenever Alan turned the longing of his eyes upon Ynys he\nwondered if anywhere upon the green earth moved aught so sweet and\nwinsome, if anywhere in the green world was another woman so beautiful\nin body, mind, and spirit, as Ynys--Ynys the Dark, as the peasants\ncalled her, though Ynys of the dusky hair and the hazel-green eyes\nwould have been truer of her whom Alan de Kerival loved. Of a truth,\nshe was fair to see. Tall she was, and lithe; in her slim, svelt body\nthere was something of the swift movement of the hill-deer, something\nof the agile abandon of the leopard. She was of that small clan, the\ntrue daughters of the sun. Her tanned face and hands showed that she\nloved the open air, though indeed her every movement proved this. The\nsun-life was even in that shadowy hair of hers, which had a sheen of\nliving light wrought into its fragrant dusk; it was in her large, deep,\ntranslucent eyes, of a soft, dewy twilight-gray often filled with\ngreen light, as of the forest-aisles or as the heart of a sea-wave as\nit billows over sunlit sand; it was in the heart and in the brain of\nthis daughter of an ancient race--and the nostalgia of the green world\nwas hers. For in her veins ran the blood not only of her Armorican\nancestors but of another Celtic strain, that of the Gael of the Isles,\nThrough her mother, Lois Macdonald, of the remote south isles of the\nOuter Hebrides, the daughter of a line as ancient as that of Tristran\nde Kerival, she inherited even more than her share of the gloom, the\nmystery, the sea-passion, the vivid oneness with nature which have\ndisclosed to so many of her fellow-Celts secret sources of peace.\n\nEverywhere in that region the peasant poets sang of Ynys the Dark or\nof her sister Annaik. They were the two beautiful women of the world,\nthere. But, walking in the fragrant green-gloom of the beeches, Alan\nsmiled when he thought of Annaik, for all her milk-white skin and\nher wonderful tawny hair, for all her strange, shadowy amber-brown\neyes--eyes often like dark hill-crystals aflame with stormy light. She\nwas beautiful, and tall too, and with an even wilder grace than Ynys;\nyet--there was but one woman in the world, but one Dream, and her name\nwas Ynys.\n\nIt was then that he remembered the line of the unfortunate boy-poet of\nthe Paris that has not forgotten him; and looking at Ynys, who seemed\nto him the very spirit of the green life all around him, muttered:\n\"Then in the violet forest, all a-bourgeon, Eucharis said to me: 'It is\nSpring.'\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE HOUSE OF KERIVAL\n\n\nIt was with a sudden beating of the heart that, midway in Easter, Alan\nde Kerival received in Paris two letters: one from the Marquis de\nKerival, and the other from his cousin Ynys, whom he loved.\n\nAt all times he was ill at ease in the great city; or at all times save\nwhen he was alone in his little study in the Tour de l'Ile, or in the\ngreat circular room where the master astronomer, Daniel Darc, wrought\nunceasingly. On rare occasions, golden afternoons these, he escaped to\nthe green places near Paris--to Rambouillet or St. Germain, or even\nto Fontainebleau. There, under the leafless trees of winter or at the\nfirst purpling of spring, he was wont to walk for hours, dreaming his\ndream. For Alan was a poet, and to dream was his birthright.\n\nAnd for dream, what had he? There was Ynys above all, Ynys whom he\nloved with ever deepening joy and wonder. More and more she had become\nto him his real life; he lived in her, for her, because of her. More\nand more, too, he realized that she was his strength, his inspiration.\nBut besides this abiding delight, which made his heart leap whenever\nhe saw a Breton name above a shop or on a volume on the bookstalls,\nhe was ever occupied by that wonderful past of his race which was to\nhim a living reality. It was perhaps because he so keenly perceived\nthe romance of the present--the romance of the general hour, of the\nindividual moment--that he turned so insatiably to the past with its\ndeathless charm, its haunting appeal. The great astronomer whom he\nloved and served knew the young man well, and was wont to say that his\nfavorite assistant was born a thousand years too late.\n\nOne day a Breton neighbor of the Marquis de Kerival questioned Daniel\nDarc as to who the young man's friends were. \"Nomeno\u00eb, Gradlon-Maur,\nGwenc'hlan, Tali\u00e9sin, Merlin, and Oisin,\" was the reply. And it was\ntrue. Alan's mind was as irresistibly drawn to the Celtic world of the\npast as the swallow to the sun-way. In a word, he was not only a poet,\nbut a Celtic poet; and not only a Celtic poet, but a dreamer of the\nCeltic dream.\n\nPerhaps this was because of the double strain in his veins. Doubtless,\ntoo, it was continuously enhanced by his intimate knowledge of two of\nthe Celtic languages, that of the Breton and that of the Gael. It is\nlanguage that is the surest stimulus to the remembering nerves. We have\na memory within memory, as layers of skin underlie the epidermis. With\nmost of us this anterior remembrance remains dormant throughout life;\nbut to some are given swift ancestral recollections. Alan de Kerival\nwas of these few.\n\nHis aunt, the Marquise, true Gael of the Hebrid Isles as she was, loved\nthe language of her people, and spoke it as she spoke English, even\nbetter than French. Of Breton, save a few words and phrases, she knew\nalmost nothing--though Armorican was exclusively used throughout the\nwhole Kerival region, was the common tongue in the Manor itself, and\nwas habitually affected even by the Marquis de Kerival--on the few\noccasions when Tristran the Silent, as the old nobleman was named,\ncared to speak. But with two members of the household she invariably\nspoke in Gaelic; with her nephew Alan, the child of her sister Silis\nMacdonald, and her old servitor, Ian Macdonald, known among his fellows\nas Yann the Dumb, mainly because he seldom spoke to them, having\nno language but his own. Latterly, her daughter Ynys had become as\nfamiliar with the one Celtic tongue as the other.\n\nWith this double key, Alan unlocked many doors. All the wonderful\nromance of old Armorica and of ancient Wales was familiar to him, and\nhe was deeply versed in the still more wonderful and magical lore of\nthe Gaelic race. In his brain ran ever that Ossianic tide which has\nborne so many marvellous argosies through the troubled waters of the\nmodern mind. Old ballads of his native isles, with their haunting\nGaelic rhythms and idioms and their frequent reminiscences of the\nNorse viking and the Danish summer-sailor, were often in his ears. He\nhad lived with his hero Cuchullin from the days when the boy showed his\nroyal blood at Emain-Macha till that sad hour when his madness came\nupon him and he died. He had fared forth with many a Lifting of the\nSunbeam, and had followed Oisin step by step on that last melancholy\njourney when Malvina led the blind old man along the lonely shores of\nArran. He had watched the _crann-tara_ flare from glen to glen, and at\nthe bidding of that fiery cross he had seen the whirling of swords, the\ndusky flight of arrow-rain, and, from the isles, the leaping forth of\nthe war _birlinns_ to meet the viking galleys. How often, too, he had\nfollowed Nial of the Nine Hostages, and had seen the Irish Charlemagne\nride victor through Saxon London, or across the Norman plains, or with\nonward sword direct his army against the white walls of the Alps!\nHow often he had been with the great king Nomono\u00eb, when he with his\nArmoricans chased the Frankish wolves away from Breton soil, or had\nraced with Gradlon-Maur from the drowning seas which overwhelmed Ys,\nwhere the king's daughter had at the same moment put her hands on the\nGates of Love and Death! How often he had heard Merlin and Tali\u00e9sin\nspeak of the secret things of the ancient wisdom, or Gwenc'hlan chant\nupon his wild harp, or the fugitive song of Vivien in the green woods\nof Broceliande, where the enchanted seer sleeps his long sleep and\ndreams his dream of eternal youth.\n\nIt was all this marvellous life of old which wrought upon Alan de\nKerival's life as by a spell. Often he recalled the words of a Gaelic\n_sian_ he had heard Yann croon in his soft, monotonous voice--words\nwhich made a light shoreward eddy of the present and were solemn with\nthe deep-sea sound of the past, that is with us even as we speak.\n\nHe was himself, too, a poet, and loved to tell anew, in Breton, to the\npeasants of Kerival, some of the wild north tales, or to relate in\nGaelic to his aunt and to Ynys the beautiful folk-ballads of Brittany,\nwhich Annaik knew by heart and chanted with the strange, wailing music\nof the forest-wind.\n\nIn that old Manor, moreover, another shadow put a gloom into his\nmind--this was another shadow than that which made the house so silent\nand chill, the inviolate isolation of the paralyzed but still beautiful\nMarquise Lois from her invalid husband, limb-useless from his thighs\nbecause of a hurt done in the war into which he had gone brown-haired\nand strong, and whence he had come broken in hope, shattered in health,\nand gray with premature age. And this other shadow was the mystery of\nhis birth.\n\nIt was in vain he had tried to learn the name of his father. Only three\npeople knew it: the Marquis Tristran, the Marquise Lois, and Yann the\nDumb. From none of these could he elicit more than what he had long\nknown. All was to be made clear on his twenty-fifth birthday; till then\nhe had to be content with the knowledge that he was Alan de Kerival by\ncourtesy only; that he was the son of Silis Macdonald, of an ancient\nfamily whose ancestral home was in one of the isles of the Southern\nHebrides, of Silis, the dead sister of Lois de Kerival; and that he\nwas the adopted child of the Marquis and Marquise who bore that old\nArmoric name.\n\nThat there was tragedy inwrought with his story he knew well. From\nfugitive words, too, he had gained the idea that his father, in common\nwith the Marquis Tristran, had been a soldier in the French army;\nthough as to whether this unknown parent was Scottish or Breton or\nFrench, or as to whether he was alive or dead, there was no homing clew.\n\nTo all his enquiries of the Marquise he received no answer, or was\ntold simply that he must wait. The Marquis he rarely saw, and never\nspoke with. If ever he encountered the stern, white-haired man as he\nwas wheeled through the garden ways or down one of the green alleys,\nor along the corridors of the vast, rambling ch\u00e2teau, they passed in\nsilence. Sometimes the invalid would look at him with the fierce,\nunwavering eyes of a hawk; but for the most part the icy, steel-blue\neyes ignored the young man altogether.\n\nYann, too, could not, or would not confide any thing more than Alan had\nalready learned from the Marquise. The gaunt old Hebridean--whose sole\nrecreation, when not sitting pipe in mouth before the flaming logs, was\nto wander along the melancholy dunes by the melancholy gray sea, and\nmutter continuously to himself in his soft island-Gaelic--would talk\nslowly by the hour on old legends, and ballad-lore, and on seanachas of\nevery kind. When, however, Alan asked him about the sisters Lois and\nSilis Macdonald, or how Lois came to marry a Breton, and as to the man\nSilis loved, and what the name was of the isle whereon they lived,--or\neven as to whether Ian himself had kith or kin living,--Yann would\njustify his name. He took no trouble in evasion: he simply became dumb.\n\nSometimes Alan asked the old man if he cared to see the Isles again. At\nthat, a look ever came into Ian Macdonald's eyes which made his young\nclansman love him.\n\n\"It will never, never be forgetting my own place I will be,\" he replied\nonce, \"no, never. I would rather be hearing the sea on the shores there\nthan all the hymns of heaven, and I would rather be having the canna\nand the heather over my head than be under the altar of the great\nchurch at Kerloek. No, no, it is the pain I have for my own place, and\nthe isle where my blood has been for hundreds of years, and where for\nsure my heart is, Alan Mac----\"\n\nWith eager ears Alan had hoped for the name whereat the old man had\nstopped short. It would have told him much. \"Alan, son of----!\" Even\nthat baptismal name would probably have told him if his father were a\nGael or a Breton, an Englishman or a Frenchman. But Yann said no more,\nthen or later.\n\nAlan had hoped, too, that when he came back, after his first long\nabsence from Kerival, his aunt would be more explicit with him. A vain\nhope, for when once more he was at the ch\u00e2teau he found the Marquise\neven less communicative than was her wont. Her husband was more than\never taciturn, and a gloom seemed to have descended upon the house.\nFor the first time he noticed a change in the attitude of Annaik. Her\ngreat, scornful, wild-bird eyes looked at him often strangely. She\nsought him, and then was silent. If he did not speak, she became\nmorose; if he spoke, she relapsed into her old scornful quiescence.\nSometimes, when they were alone, she unbent, and was his beautiful\ncousin and comrade again; but in the presence of Ynys she bewildered\nhim by her sudden ennui or bitterness or even shadowy hostility. As for\nYnys, she was unhappy, save in Alan's love--a love that neither her\nfather nor mother knew, and of which she never spoke to Annaik.\n\nIf Alan were a dreamer, Ynys was even more so. Then, too, she had what\nAnnaik had not, though she lacked what her sister had. For she was\nmystical as that young saint of the Bretons who saw Christ walking by\nnight upon the hills, and believed that he met there a new Endymion,\nhis Bride of the Church come to him in the moonshine. Ynys believed in\nSt. Guennik, as she believed in Jeanne d'Arc, and no legend fascinated\nher more than that strange one she had heard from Yann, of how Arthur\nthe Celtic hero would come again out of Flath-innis, and redeem his\nlost, receding peoples. But, unlike Annaik, she had little of the\nbarbaric passion, little of that insatiate nostalgia for the life\nof the open moor and the windy sea, though these she loved not less\nwhole-heartedly than did her sister. The two both loved Nature as\nfew women love her; but to Annaik the forest and the moorland were\nhome, while to Ynys they were rather sanctuaries or realms of natural\nromance. This change to an unwelcome taciturnity had been noted by Alan\non his home visit at Christmas. Still, he had thought little of it\nafter his return to Paris, for the No\u00ebl-tide had been sweetened by the\nword given to him by Ynys.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen Easter had come, and with it the two letters of such import. That\nfrom the Marquise was short and in the tongue he and she loved best:\nbut even thus it was written guardedly. The purport was that, now his\ntwenty-fifth birthday was at hand, he would soon learn what he had so\nlong wished to know.\n\nThat from Ynys puzzled him. Why should dispeace have arisen between\nYnys and Annaik? Why should an already gloomy house have been made\nstill more sombre?\n\nOne day, Ynys wrote, she had come upon Annaik riding Sultan, the black\nstallion, and thrashing the horse till the foam flew from the champed\nbit. When she had cried to Annaik to be merciful, and asked her why she\npunished Sultan so, her sister had cried mockingly, \"It is my love!\n_Addio, Amore! Addio! Addio! Addio!_\"--and at each _addio_ had brought\nher whip so fiercely upon the stallion's quivering flanks that he had\nreared, and all but thrown her, till she swung him round as on a pivot\nand went at a wild gallop down a long beech-alley that led into the\nheart of the forest.\n\nWell, these things would be better understood soon. In another week\nhe would be out of Paris, possibly never to return. And then ...\nBrittany--Kerival--Ynys!\n\nNevertheless his heart was not wholly away from his work. The great\nastronomer had known and loved Hersart de Kerival, the younger brother\nof Tristran, and it was for his sake that he had taken the young man\ninto his observatory. Soon he had discovered that the youth loved the\nbeautiful science, and was apt, eager, and yet patient to learn. In\nthe five years which Alan spent--with brief Brittany intervals--in\nthe observatory of the Tour de l'Ile, he had come to delight in the\nprofession which he had chosen, and of which the Marquise had approved.\n\nHe was none the less close and eager a student because that he brought\nto this enthralling science that spirit of the poetry of the past,\nwhich was the habitual atmosphere wherein his mind dwelt. Even the\nmost eloquent dissertations of Daniel Darc failed to move him so much\nas some ancient strain wherein the stars of heaven were hailed as\nkindred of men; and never had any exposition of the lunar mystery so\nexquisitely troubled him as that wonderful cry of Ossian which opens\nthe poem of \"Darthula\":\n\n\"Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is\npleasant. Thou comest forth in loveliness; the stars attend thy\nblue steps in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O moon,\nand brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven,\ndaughter of the night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence, and turn\naside their green sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy\ncourse, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall\nlike Ossian? Dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters\nfallen from heaven? Are they who rejoiced with thee, at night, no\nmore?--Yes!--They have fallen, fair light! and thou dost often retire\nto mourn. But thou thyself shalt fail, one night; and leave thy blue\npath in heaven. The stars will then lift their green heads; they, who\nwere ashamed in thy presence, will rejoice.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nSTORM\n\n\nYes, he was glad to leave Paris, although that home of lost\ncauses--thus designate in a far truer sense than is the fair city by\nthe Isis--had a spell for him. But not Paris, not even what, night\nafter night, he beheld from the Tour de l'Ile, held him under a spell\ncomparable with that which drew him back to the ancient land where his\nheart was.\n\nIn truth, it was with relief at last that he saw the city recede from\nhis gaze, and merge into the green alleys north-westward. With a sigh\nof content, he admitted that it was indeed well to escape from that\nfevered life--a life that, to him, even in his lightest mood, seemed\nfar more phantasmal than that which formed the background to all his\nthoughts and visions. Long before the cherry orchards above Rouen\ncame into view he realized how glad he was even to be away from the\nbare, gaunt room where so many of his happiest hours had been spent;\nthat windy crow's-nest of a room at the top of the Tour de l'Ile,\nwhence nightly he had watched the procession of the stars, and nightly\nhad opened the dreamland of his imagination to an even more alluring\nprocession out of the past.\n\nHis one regret was in having to part from Daniel Darc, that strange\nand impressive personality who had so fascinated him, and the spell\nof whose sombre intellect, with its dauntless range and scope, had\nstartled the thought of Europe, and even given dreams to many to whom\nall dreams had become the very Fata Morgana of human life.\n\nAbsorbed as he was, Daniel Darc realized that Alan was an astronomer\nprimarily because he was a poet rather than an astronomer by inevitable\nbias. He saw clearly into the young man's mind, and certainly did not\nresent that his favorite pupil loved to dwell with Merlin rather than\nwith Kepler, and that even Newton or his own master Arago had no such\ninfluence over him as the far-off, nigh inaudible music of the harp of\nAneurin.\n\nAnd, in truth, below all Alan's passion for science--of that science\nwhich is at once the oldest, the noblest, and the most momentous;\nthe science of the innumerous concourse of dead, dying, and flaming\nadolescent worlds, dust about the threshold of an unfathomable and\nimmeasurable universe, wherein this Earth of ours is no more than a\nmere whirling grain of sand--below all this living devotion lay a\ndeeper passion still.\n\nTruly, his soul must have lived a thousand years ago. In him, at least,\nthe old Celtic brain was reborn with a vivid intensity which none\nguessed, and none except Ynys knew--if even she, for Alan himself only\nvaguely surmised the extent and depth of this obsession. In heart and\nbrain that old world lived anew. Himself a poet, all that was fair and\ntragically beautiful was forever undergoing in his mind a marvellous\ntransformation--a magical resurrection rather, wherein what was remote\nand bygone, and crowned with oblivious dust, became alive again with\nintense and beautiful life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt did not harmonize ill with Alan's mood that, on the afternoon of the\nday he left Rouen, great, bulbous storm-clouds soared out of the west\nand cast a gloom upon the landscape.\n\nThat is a strange sophistry which registers passion according to its\nnearness to the blithe weal symbolized in fair weather. Deep passion\ninstinctively moves toward the shadow rather than toward the golden\nnoons of light. Passion hears what love at the most dreams of; passion\nsees what love mayhap dimly discerns in a glass darkly. A million of\nour fellows are \"in love\" at any or every moment; and for these the\nshadowy way is intolerable. But for the few, in whom love is, the eyes\nare circumspect against the dark hour which comes when heart and brain\nand blood are aflame with the paramount ecstasy of life.\n\nDeep passion is always in love with death. The temperate solicitudes of\naffection know not this perverse emotion, which is simply the darker\nshadow inevitable to a deeper joy--as the profundity of an Alpine lake\nis to be measured by the height of the remote summits which rise sheer\nfrom its marge.\n\nWhen Alan saw this gloom slowly absorb the sunlight, and heard below\nthe soft spring cadences of the wind the moan of coming tempest, his\nmelancholy lightened. Soon he would see the storm crushing through the\nwoods of Kerival; soon feel the fierce rain come sweeping inland from\nPloumaliou; soon hear, confusedly obscure, the noise of the Breton Sea\nalong the reef-set sands. Already he felt the lips of Ynys pressed\nagainst his own.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe sound of the sea called through the dusk, now with the muffled\nunder roar of famished lions, now with a loud, continuous baying like\nthat of eager hounds.\n\nSeaward, the deepening shadows passed intricately from wave to wave.\nThe bays and sheltered waters were full of a tumult as of baffled\nflight, of fugitives jostling each other in a wild and fruitless\nevasion. Along the interminable reach of the Dunes of Kerival the\nsea's lips writhed and curled; while out of the heart of the turbulent\nwaste beyond issued a shrill, intermittent crying, followed by stifled\nlaughter. Ever and again tons of whirling water, meeting, disparted\nwith a hoarse thunder. This ever-growing and tempestuous violence was\nreiterated in a myriad raucous, clamant voices along the sands and\namong the reefs and rocks and weed-covered wave-hollowed crags.\n\nAbove the shore a ridge of tamarisk-fringed dune suspended, hanging\nthere dark and dishevelled, like a gigantic eyebrow on the forehead of\na sombre and mysterious being. Beyond this, again, lay a stretch of\nbarren moor, caught and claspt a mile away by a dark belt of pines,\namid which the incessant volume of the wind passed with a shrill\nwhistling. Further in among the trees were oases of a solemn silence,\nfilled only at intervals with a single flute-like wind-eddy, falling\nthere as the song of a child lost and baffled in a waste place.\n\nOver and above the noise of the sea was a hoarse cry thridding it\nas a flying shuttle in a gigantic loom. This was the wind, which\ncontinuously swept from wave to wave--shrewd, salt, bitter with the\nsterile breath of the wilderness whereon it roamed, crying and moaning,\nbaying, howling, insatiate.\n\nThe sea-fowl, congregating from afar, had swarmed inland. Their wailing\ncries filled the spray-wet obscurities. The blackness that comes before\nthe deepest dark lay in the hollow of the great wings of the tempest.\nPeace nowhere prevailed, for in those abysmal depths where the wind was\nnot even a whisper, there was listless gloom only, because no strife is\nthere, and no dream lives amid those silent apathies.\n\nNeither upon the waters nor on the land was there sign of human life.\nIn that remote region, solitude was not a dream but a reality. An\nancient land, this loneliest corner of sea-washed Brittany; an ancient\nland, with ever upon it the light of olden dreams, the gloom of\nindefinable tragedy, the mystery of a destiny long ago begun and never\nfulfilled.\n\nLost like a rock in a forest, a weather-worn, ivy-grown ch\u00e2teau stood\nwithin sound, though not within sight, of this tempestuous sea. All\nabout it was the deep, sonorous echo of wind and wave, transmuted into\na myriad cries among the wailing pines and oaks and vast beeches of the\nwoods of Kerival. Wind and wave, too, made themselves audible amid the\ngables and in the huge chimneys of the old manor-house; even in the\ndraughty corridors an echo of the sea could be heard.\n\nThe pathways of the forest were dank with sodden leaves, the _d\u00e9bris_\nof autumn which the snows of winter had saved from the whirling gales\nof January. Underneath the brushwood and the lower boughs these lay in\nbrown, clotted masses, emitting a fugitive, indefinite odor, as though\nthe ghost of a dead year passed in that damp and lifeless effluence.\nBut along the frontiers of the woods there was an eddying dust of\nleaves and small twigs, and part at least of the indeterminate rumor\nwhich filled the air was caused by this frail lapping as of innumerable\nminute wings.\n\nIn one of those leaf-quiet alleys, shrouded in a black-green darkness\nsave where in one spot the gloom was illumined into a vivid brown,\nbecause of a wandering beam of light from a turret in the ch\u00e2teau, a\nman stood. The head was forwardly inclined, the whole figure intent as\na listening animal. He and his shadow were as those flowers of darkness\nwhose nocturnal bloom may be seen of none save in the shadowy land of\ndream.\n\nWhen for a moment the wind-wavered beam of light fell athwart his\nface--so dark and wild that he might well have been taken for a\nnameless creature of the woods--he moved.\n\nWith a sudden gesture he flung his arms above his head. His shadow\nsprang to one side with fantastic speed, leaping like a diver into the\ngulf of darkness.\n\n\"Annaik,\" he cried, \"Annaik, Annaik!\"\n\nThe moan of the wind out of the sea, the confused noise of the wind's\nwings baffling through the woods; no other answer than these, no other\nsound.\n\n\"Annaik, Annaik!\"\n\nThere was pain as of a wounded beast in the harsh cry of this haunter\nof the dark; but the next moment it was as though the lost shadow had\nleapt back, for a darkness came about the man, and he lapsed into the\nobscurity as a wave sinks into a wave.\n\nBut, later, out of the silence came a voice.\n\n\"Ah, Annaik!\" it cried, \"ah, Annaik, forsooth! It is Annaik of Kerival\nyou are, and I the dust upon the land of your fathers--but, by the\nblood of Ronan, it is only a woman you are; and, if I had you here it\nis a fall of my fist you would be having--aye, the stroke and the blow,\nfor all that I love you as I do, white woman, aye, and curse you and\nyours for that loving!\"\n\nThen, once again, there was silence. Only the screeching of the\nwind among the leaves and tortured branches; only the deep roar of\nthe tempest at the heart of the forest; only the thunder of the sea\nthrobbing pulse-like through the night. Nor when, a brief while later,\na white owl, swifter but not less silent than a drift of vapor, swooped\nthat way, was there living creature in that solitary place.\n\nThe red-yellow beam still turned into brown the black-green of that\nwindy alley; but the man, and the shadow of him, and the pain of the\nbeast that was in him, and the cry of the baffled soul, the cry that\nnone might know or even guess--of all this sorrow of the night, nothing\nremained save the red light lifting and falling through the shadowy\nhair of what the poets of old called The Dark Woman ... Night.\n\nOnly, who may know if, in that warmth and glow within the House of\nKerival, some sudden menace from the outside world of life did not\nknock at the heart of Annaik, where she, tall and beautiful in her\ncream-white youth and with her mass of tawny hair, stood by Ynys,\nwhose dusky loveliness was not less than her own--both radiant in the\nfire-light, with laughter upon the lips and light within their eyes.\n\nOh, flame that burns where fires of home are lit! and oh, flame that\nburns in the heart to whom life has not said, Awake! and oh, flame that\nsmoulders from death to life, and from life to death, in the dumb lives\nof those to whom the primrose way is closed! Everywhere the burning\nof the burning, the flame of the flame; pain and the shadow of pain,\njoy and the rapt breath of joy, flame of the flame that, burning,\ndestroyeth not till the flame is no more!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was the night of the home-coming of Alan. So long had Ynys and\nAnnaik looked forward to this hour, that now hardly could they believe\nthe witness of their eyes when with eager glances they scrutinized the\nnew-comer--their Alanik of old.\n\nHe stood before the great fire of logs. Upon his face the sharp,\ndamp breath of the storm still lingered, but in his eyes was a light\nbrighter than any dancing flame would cause, and in his blood a pulse\nthat leapt because of another reason than that swift ride through the\nstormy woods of Kerival.\n\nAt the red and stormy break of that day Ynys had awaked with a song\nof joy in her heart that from hour to hour had found expression in\nbird-like carollings, little words and fugitive phrases which rippled\nfrom her lips, the sunshine-spray from the fount of life whereon her\nheart swam as a nenuphar on an upwelling pool. Annaik also had waked\nat that dawn of storm. She had risen in silence, and in silence had\nremained all day; giving no sign that the flame within her frayed the\nnerves of her heart.\n\nThroughout the long hours of tempest, and into that dusk wherein the\nvoice of the sea moved, moaning, across the land, laughter and dream\nhad alternated with Ynys. Annaik looked at her strangely at times, but\nsaid nothing. Once, standing in the twilight of the dark-raftered room,\nYnys clasped her hands across her bosom and murmured, \"Oh, heart be\nstill! My heaven is come.\" And in that hour, and in that place, she who\nwas twin to her--strange irony of motherhood, that should give birth in\none hour to Day and Night, for even as day and night were these twain,\nso unlike in all things--in that hour and in that place Annaik also\nclasped her hands across her bosom, and the words that died across the\nshadow of her lips were, \"Oh, heart be still! My hell is near.\"\n\nAnd now he for whom both had waited stood, flooded in the red fire glow\nwhich leaped from panel to panel, and from rafter to rafter, while,\nwithout, the howling of the wind rose and fell in prolonged, monotonous\ncadences,--anathemas, rather,--whirled through a darkness full of\nbewilderment and terror.\n\nAs for Alan, it was indeed for joy to him to stand there, home once\nmore, with not only the savagery of the tempest behind him, but also\nleft behind, that unspeakably far-off, bewilderingly remote city of\nParis whence he had so swiftly come.\n\nIt is said of an ancient poet of the Druid days that he had the power\nto see the lives of the living, and these as though they were phantoms,\nseparate from the body. Was there not a young king of Albainn who, in a\nperilous hour, discovered this secret of old time, and knew how a life\nmay be hidden away from the body so that none may know of it, save the\nwind that whispers all things, and the tides of day and night that bear\nall things upon their dark flood?\n\nKing of Albainn, poet of the old time, not alone three youthful\ndreamers would you have seen, there, in that storm-beset room. For\nthere you would have seen six figures standing side by side. Three of\nthese would have been Alan de Kerival, and Ynys the Dark, and Annaik\nthe Fair; and of the other three, one would be of a dusky-haired woman\nwith starry, luminous eyes; and one a pale woman with a wealth of tawny\nhair, with eyes aflame, meteors in a desert place; and one a man,\nyoung and strong and fair to see as Alan de Kerival, but round about\nhim a gloom, and through that gloom his eyes as stars seen among the\nmelancholy hills.\n\nHappy laughter of the world that is always young--happy, in that we are\nnot all seers of old or kings of Albainn! For who, looking into the\nmirrors of Life and seeing all that is to be seen, would look again,\nsave those few to whom Life and Death have come sisterly and whispered\nthe secret that some have discerned, how these twain are one and the\nsame.\n\nNevertheless, in that happy hour for him, Alan saw nothing of what Ynys\nfeared. Annaik had abruptly yielded to a strange gayety, and her swift\nlaugh and gypsy smile made his heart glad.\n\nNever had he seen, even in Paris, women more beautiful. Deep-set as\nhis heart was in the beauty of Ynys, he found himself admiring that of\nAnnaik with new eyes. Truly, she was just such a woman as he had often\nimagined when Ian had recited to him the ballad of the Sons of Usna or\nthat of how Dermid and Graine fled from the wrath of Fionn.\n\nAnd they, too, looking at their tall cousin, with his wavy brown hair,\nbroad, low brows, gray-blue eyes, and erect carriage, thought him the\ncomeliest man to be seen in France; and each in her own way was proud\nand glad, though one, also, with killing pain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE DREAM AND THE DREAMERS\n\n\nSoon after supper Annaik withdrew. Ynys and Alan were glad to be alone,\nand yet Annaik's absence perturbed them. In going she bade good-night\nto her cousin, but took no notice of her sister.\n\nAt first the lovers were silent though they had much to say, and in\nparticular Alan was anxious to know what it was that Ynys had alluded\nto in her letter when she warned him that unforeseen difficulties were\nabout their way.\n\nIt was pleasant to sit in that low-roofed, dark old room, and feel the\nworld fallen away from them. Hand in hand they looked at each other\nlovingly, or dreamed into the burning logs, seeing there all manner of\nbeautiful visions. Outside, the wind still moaned and howled, though\nwith less of savage violence, and the rain had ceased.\n\nFor a time Ynys would have no talk of Kerival; Alan was to tell all\nhe could concerning his life in Paris, what he had done, what he had\ndreamed of, and what he hoped for now. But at last he laughingly\nrefused to speak more of himself, and pressed her to reveal what had\nbeen a source of anxiety.\n\n\"You know, dear,\" she said, as she rose and leaned against the\nmantel-piece, her tall figure and dusky hair catching a warm glow from\nthe fire--\"you know how pitiable is this feud between my father and\nmother--how for years they have seen next to nothing of each other;\nhow they live in the same house and yet are strangers? You know, too,\nhow more than ever unfortunate this is, for themselves, and for Annaik\nand me, on account of our mother being an invalid, and of our father\nbeing hardly less frail. Well, I have discovered that the chief, if not\nindeed the only abiding source of misunderstanding is _you_, dear Alan!\"\n\n\"But why, Ynys?\"\n\n\"Ah, why? That is, of course, what I cannot tell you. Have you no\nsuspicion, no idea?\"\n\n\"None. All I know is that M. de Kerival allows me to bear his name,\nbut that he dislikes, if, indeed, he does not actually hate me.\"\n\n\"There is some reason. I came upon him talking to my mother a short\ntime ago. She had told him of your imminent return.\n\n\"'I never wish to see his face,' my father cried, with fierce\nvehemence; then, seeing me, he refrained.\"\n\n\"Well, I shall know all the day after to-morrow. Meanwhile, Ynys, we\nhave the night to ourselves. Dear, I want to learn one thing. What\ndoes Annaik know? Does she know that we love each other? Does she know\nthat we have told each other of this love, and that we are secretly\nbetrothed?\"\n\n\"She _must_ know that I love you; and sometimes I think she knows that\nyou love me. But ... oh, Allan! I am so unhappy about it.... I fear\nthat Annaik loves you also, and that this will come between us all. It\nhas already frozen her to me and me to her.\"\n\nAlan looked at Ynys with startled eyes. He knew Annaik better than\nany one did; and he dreaded the insurgent bitterness of that wild\nand wayward nature. Moreover, in a sense he loved her, and it was for\nsorrow to him that she should suffer in a way wherein he could be of no\nhelp.\n\nAt that moment the door opened, and Matieu, a white-haired old servant,\nbowing ceremoniously, remarked that M. le Marquis desired to see\nMamzelle Ynys immediately.\n\nYnys glanced round, told Matieu that she would follow, and then turned\nto Alan. How beautiful she was! he thought; more and more beautiful\nevery time he saw her. Ah! fair mystery of love, which puts a glory\nabout the one loved; a glory that is no phantasmal light, but the\nrealized beauty evoked by seeing eyes and calling heart. On her face\nwas a wonderful color, a delicate flush that came and went. Again and\nagain she made a characteristic gesture, putting her right hand to her\nforehead and then through the shadowy, wavy hair which Alan loved so\nwell and ever thought of as the fragrant dusk. How glad he was that she\nwas tall and lithe, graceful as a young birch; that she was strong and\nkissed brown and sweet of sun and wind; that her beauty was old as the\nworld, and fresh as every dawn, and new as each recurrent spring! No\nwonder he was a poet, since Ynys was the living poem who inspired all\nthat was best in his life, all that was fervent in his brain.\n\nThought, kindred to this, kept him a long while by the fire in deep\nrevery, after Ynys had thrilled him by her parting kisses and had gone\nto her father. He realized, then, how it was she gave him the sense of\nwomanhood as no other woman had done. In her, he recognized the symbol\nas well as the individual. All women shared in his homage because of\nher. His deep love for her, his ever growing passion, could evoke from\nhim a courtesy, a chivalry, toward all women which only the callous or\nthe coarse failed to note. She was his magic. The light of their love\nwas upon every thing: everywhere he found synonyms and analogues of\n\"Ynys.\" Deeply as he loved beauty, he had learned to love it far more\nkeenly and understandingly, because of her. He saw now through the\naccidental, and everywhere discerned the eternal beauty, the echoes of\nwhose wandering are in every heart and brain, though few discern the\nwhite vision or hear the haunting voice.\n\nAnd with his love had come knowledge of many things hidden from him\nbefore. Sequences were revealed, where he had perceived only blind\ninconsequence. Nature became for him a scroll, a palimpsest with daily\nmutations. With each change he found a word, a clew, leading to the\nfuller elucidation of that primeval knowledge which, fragmentarily,\nfrom age to age has been painfully lost, regained, and lost again,\nthough never yet wholly irrecoverable.\n\nThrough this new knowledge, too, he had come to understand the supreme\nwonder and promise, the supreme hope of our human life in the mystery\nof motherhood. All this and much more he owed to Ynys, and to his love\nfor her. She was all that a woman can be to a man. In her he found\nthe divine abstractions which are the beacons of the human soul in\nits obscure wayfaring--Romance, Love, Beauty. It was not enough that\nshe gave him romance, that she gave him love, that she was the most\nbeautiful of women in his eyes. When he thought of the one, it was to\nsee the starry eyes and to hear the charmed voice of Romance herself,\nin the voice and in the eyes of Ynys: when he thought of Love it was to\nhear Ynys's heart beating, to listen to the secret rhythms in Ynys's\nbrain, to feel the life-giving sun-flood that was in her pure but\nintense and glowing passion.\n\nThus it was that she had for him that immutable attraction which a\nfew women have for a few men; an appeal, a charm, that atmosphere of\nromance, that air of ideal beauty, wherein lies the secret of all\npassionate art. The world without wonder, the world without mystery!\nThat, indeed, is the rainbow without colors, the sunrise without living\ngold, the noon void of light.\n\nTo him, moreover, there was but one woman. In Ynys he had found her.\nThis exquisite prototype was at once a child of nature, a beautiful\npagan, a daughter of the sun; was at once this and a soul alive with\nthe spiritual life, intent upon the deep meanings lurking everywhere,\nwrought to wonder even by the common habitudes of life, to mystery\neven by the familiar and the explicable. Indeed, the mysticism which\nwas part of the spiritual inheritance come with her northern strain was\none of the deep bonds which united them.\n\nWhat if both at times were wrought too deeply by this beautiful dream?\nWhat if the inner life triumphed now and then, and each forgot the\ndeepest instinct of life, that here the body is overlord and the soul\nbut a divine consort? There are three races of man. There is the myriad\nrace which loses all, through (not bestiality, for the brute world is\nclean and sane) perverted animalism; and there is the myriad race which\ndenounces humanity, and pins all its faith and joy to a life the very\nconditions of whose existence are incompatible with the law to which we\nare subject--the sole law, the law of Nature. Then there is that small\nuntoward clan, which knows the divine call of the spirit through the\nbrain, and the secret whisper of the soul in the heart, and forever\nperceives the veils of mystery and the rainbows of hope upon our human\nhorizons; which hears and sees, and yet turns wisely, meanwhile,\nto the life of the green earth, of which we are part; to the common\nkindred of living things, with which we are at one--is content, in a\nword, to live, because of the dream that makes living so mysteriously\nsweet and poignant; and to dream, because of the commanding immediacy\nof life.\n\nAs yet, of course, Alan and Ynys had known little of the vicissitudes\nof aroused life. What they did know, foresee, was due rather to\nthe second-sight of the imagination than to the keen knowledge of\nexperience.\n\nIn Alan Ynys found all that her heart craved. She discovered this\nnearly too late. A year before this last home-coming of her cousin,\nshe had been formally betrothed to Andrik de Morvan, the friend of her\nchildhood and for whom she had a true affection, and in that betrothal\nhad been quietly glad. When, one midwinter day, she and Alan walked\nthrough an upland wood and looked across the snowy pastures and the\nwhite slopes beyond, all aglow with sunlight, and then suddenly turned\ntoward each other, and saw in the eyes of each a wonderful light, and\nthe next moment were heart to heart, it was all a revelation.\n\nFor long she did not realize what it meant. On that unforgettable day,\nwhen they had left the forest ridge and were near Kerival again, she\nhad sat for a time on one of the rude cattle-gates which are frequent\nin these woodlands, while Alan had leant beside her, looking up\nwith eyes too eloquent, and speaking of what he dreamed, with sweet\nstammering speech of new found love.\n\nHow she had struggled, mentally, with her duty, as she conceived it,\ntoward Andrik. She was betrothed to him; he loved her; she loved him\ntoo, although even already she realized that there is a love which is\nnot only invincible and indestructible but that comes unsought, has no\nneed for human conventions, is neither moral nor immoral but simply\nall-potent and thenceforth sovereign. To yield to that may be wrong;\nbut, if so, it is wrong to yield to the call of hunger, the cry of\nthirst, the whisper of sleep, the breath of ill, the summons of death.\nIt comes, and that is all. The green earth may be another Endymion,\nand may dream that the cold moonshine is all in all; but when the sun\nrises, and a new heat and glory and passion of life are come, then\nEndymion simply awakes.\n\nIt had been a sadness to her to have to tell Andrik she no longer loved\nhim as he was fain to be loved. He would have no finality, then; he\nheld her to the bond--and in Brittany there is a pledge akin to the\n\"hand-fast\" of the north, which makes a betrothal almost as binding as\nmarriage.\n\nAndrik de Morvan had gone to the Marquis de Kerival, and told him what\nYnys had said.\n\n\"She is but a girl,\" the seigneur remarked coldly. \"And you are wrong\nin thinking she can be in love with any one else. There is no one for\nwhom she can care so much as for you; no one whom she has met with whom\nshe could mate; no one with whom I would allow her to mate.\"\n\n\"But that matters little, if she will not marry me!\" the young man had\nurged.\n\n\"My daughter is my daughter, De Morvan. I cannot compel her to marry\nyou. I know her well enough to be sure that she would ignore any\ncommand of this kind. But women are fools; and one can get them to do\nwhat one wants, in one way if not in another. Let her be a while.\"\n\n\"But the betrothal!\"\n\n\"Let it stand. But do not press it. Indeed, go away for a year. You are\nheir to your mother's estates in Touraine. Go there, work, learn all\nyou can. Meanwhile, write occasionally to Ynys. Do not address her as\nyour betrothed, but at the same time let her see that it is the lover\nwho writes. Then, after a few months, confide that your absence is due\nsolely to her, that you cannot live without her; and that, after a\nvain exile, you write to ask if you may come and see her. They are all\nthe same. It is the same thing with my mares, for which Kerival is so\nfamous. Some are wild, some are docile, some skittish, some vicious,\nsome good, a few flawless--but.... Well, they are all mares. One knows.\nA mare is not a sphinx. These complexities of which we hear so much,\nwhat are they? Spindrift. The sea is simply the sea, all the same. The\ntide ebbs, though the poets reverse nature. Ebb and flow, the lifting\nwind, the lifted wave; we know the way of it all. It has its mystery,\nits beauty; but we don't really expect to see a nereid in the hollow of\nthe wave, or to catch the echo of a triton in the call of the wind. As\nfor Venus Anadyomene, the foam of which she was made is the froth in\npoets' brains. Believe me, Annaik, my friend, women are simply women;\ncreatures not yet wholly tamed, but tractable in the main, delightful,\nvaluable often, but certainly not worth the tribute of passion and pain\nthey obtain from foolish men like yourself.\"\n\nWith this worldly wisdom Andrik de Morvan had gone home, unconvinced.\nHe loved Ynys; and sophistries were an ineffectual balm.\n\nBut as for Ynys, she had long made up her mind. Betrothal or no\nbetrothal, she belonged now only to one man, and that man, Alan de\nKerival. She was his and his alone, by every natural right. How could\nshe help the accident by which she had cared for Andrik before she\nloved Alan? Now, indeed, it would be sacrilege to be other than wholly\nAlan's. Was her heart not his, and her life with her heart, and with\nboth her deathless devotion?\n\nAlan, she knew, trusted her absolutely. Before he went back to Paris,\nafter their love was no longer a secret, he had never once asked her to\nforfeit any thing of her intimacy with Andrik, nor had he even urged\nthe open cancelling of the betrothal. But she was well aware his own\nabsolute loyalty involved for him a like loyalty from her; and she knew\nthat forgiveness does not belong to those natures which stake all upon\na single die.\n\nAnd so the matter stood thus still. Ynys and Andrik de Morvan were\nnominally betrothed; and not only the Marquis and the Marquise de\nKerival, but Andrik himself, looked upon the bond as absolute.\n\nPerhaps Lois de Kerival was not without some suspicion as to how\nmatters were between the betrothed pair. Certainly she knew that Ynys\nwas not one who would give up any real or imagined happiness because of\na conventional arrangement or on account of any conventional duty.\n\nIn Alan, Ynys found all that he found in her. When she looked at him,\nshe wondered how she could ever have dreamed of Andrik as a lover,\nfor Alan was all that Andrik was not. How proud and glad she felt\nbecause of his great height and strength, his vivid features with their\ngray-blue eyes and spirituel expression, his wavy brown hair, a very\ntype of youthful and beautiful manhood! Still more she revered and\nloved the inner Alan whom she knew so well, and recognized with a proud\nhumility that this lover of hers, whom the great Daniel Darc had spoken\nof as a man of genius, was not only her knight, but her comrade, her\nmate, her ideal.\n\nOften the peasants of Kerival had speculated if the young seigneur\nwould join hands with her or with Annaik. Some hoped the one, some the\nother; but those who knew Alan otherwise than merely by sight felt\ncertain that Ynys was the future bride.\n\n\"They are made for each other,\" old Jeanne Mael, the village authority,\nwas wont to exclaim; \"and the good God will bring them together soon or\nlate. 'Tis a fair, sweet couple they are; none so handsome anywhere.\nThat tall, dark lass will be a good mother when her hour comes; an' the\nchild o' him an' her should be the bonniest in the whole wide world.\"\n\nWith that all who saw them together agreed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE WALKER IN THE NIGHT\n\n\nIt was an hour from midnight when Alan rose, opened a window, and\nlooked out. The storm was over. He could see the stars glistening like\nsilver fruit among the upper branches of the elms. Behind the great\ncypress known as the Fate of Kerival there was a golden radiance, as\nthough a disk of radiant bronze were being slowly wheeled round and\nround, invisible itself but casting a quivering gleam upon the fibrous\nundersides of the cypress spires. Soon the moon would lift upward, and\nher paling gold become foam-white along the wide reaches of the forest.\n\nThe wind had suddenly fallen. In this abrupt lapse into silence there\nwas something mysterious. After so much violence, after that wild,\ntempestuous cry, such stillness! There was no more than a faint\nrustling sound, as though invisible feet were stealthily flying along\nthe pathway of the upper boughs and through the dim defiles in the\ndense coverts of oak and beech in the very heart of the woods. Only,\nfrom hitherward of the unseen dunes floated a melancholy, sighing\nrefrain, the echo of the eddying sea-breath among the pines. Beyond the\nlast sands, the deep, hollow boom of the sea itself.\n\nTo stay indoors seemed to Alan a wanton forfeiture of beauty. The\nfragrance of the forest intoxicated him. Spring was come, indeed.\nThis wild storm had ruined nothing, for at its fiercest it had swept\noverhead; and on the morrow the virginal green world would be more\nbeautiful than ever. Everywhere the green fire of spring would be\nlitten anew. A green flame would pass from meadow to hedgerow, from\nhedgerow to the tangled thickets of bramble and dog-rose, from the\nunderwoods to the inmost forest glades. Everywhere song would be to\nthe birds, everywhere young life would pulse, everywhere the rhythm\nof a new rapture would run rejoicing. The miracle of spring would be\naccomplished in the sight of all men, of all birds and beasts, of all\ngreen life. Each, in its kind, would have a swifter throb in the red\nblood or the vivid sap.\n\nNo, he could not wait. No, Alan added to himself with a smile, not even\nthough to sleep in the House of Kerival was to be beneath the same roof\nas Ynys--to be but a few yards, a passage, a corridor away. Ah! for\nsure, he could dream his dream as well out there among the gleaming\nboughs, in the golden sheen of the moon, under the stars. Was there not\nthe silence for deep peace, and the voice of the unseen sea for echo\nto the deep tides of love which surged obscurely in his heart? Yes, he\nwould go out to that beautiful redemption of the night. How often, in\nfevered Paris, he had known that healing, either when his gaze was held\nby the quiet stars, as he kept his hours-long vigil, or when he escaped\nwestward along the banks of the Seine, and could wander undisturbed\nacross grassy spaces or under shadowy boughs!\n\nIn the great hall of the Manor he found white-haired Matieu asleep in\nhis wicker chair. The old man silently opened the heavy oaken door,\nand, with a smile which somewhat perplexed Alan, bowed to him as he\npassed forth.\n\nCould it be a space only of a few hours that divided him from his\nrecent arrival, he wondered. The forest was no longer the same. Then it\nwas swept by the wind, lashed by the rains, and was everywhere tortured\ninto a tempestuous music. Now it was so still, save for a ceaseless\nfaint dripping from wet leaves and the conduits of a myriad sprays\nand branches, that he could hear the occasional shaking of the wings\nof hidden birds, ruffling out their plumage because of the moonlit\nquietudes that were come again.\n\nAnd then, too, he had seen Ynys; had held her hand in his; had looked\nin her beautiful, hazel-green eyes, dusky and wonderful as a starlit\ngloaming because of the depth of her dear love; had pressed his\nlips to hers, and felt the throbbing of her heart against his own.\nThere, in the forest-edge, it was difficult to realize all this. It\nwould be time to turn soon, to walk back along the sycamore-margined\nSeine embankment, to reach the Tour de l'Ile and be at his post in\nthe observatory again. Then he glanced backward, and saw a red light\nshining from the room where the Marquis de Kerival sat up late night\nafter night, and he wondered if Ynys were still there, or if she were\nnow in her room and asleep, or if she lay in a waking dream.\n\nFor a time he stared at this beacon. Then, troubled by many thoughts,\nbut most by his love, he moved slowly into one of the beech avenues\nwhich radiated from the fantastic medi\u00e6val sun-dial at the end of the\ntulip garden in front of the ch\u00e2teau.\n\nWhile the moon slowly lifted from branch to branch a transient stir of\nlife came into the forest.\n\nHere and there he heard low cries, sometimes breaking into abrupt\neddies of arrested song; thrushes, he knew, ever swift to slide their\nmusic out against any tide of light. Once or twice a blackcap, in one\nof the beeches near the open, sang so poignantly a brief strain that he\nthought it that of a nightingale. Later, in an oak glade, he heard the\nunmistakable song itself.\n\nThe sea sound came hollowly under the boughs like a spent billow.\nInstinctively he turned that way, and so crossed a wide glade that\nopened on the cypress alley to the west of the ch\u00e2teau.\n\nJust as he emerged upon this glade he thought he saw a stooping figure\nglide swiftly athwart the northern end of it and disappear among the\ncypresses. Startled, he stood still.\n\nNo one stirred. Nothing moved. He could hear no sound save the faint\nsighing of the wind-eddy among the pines, the dull rhythmic beat of the\nsea falling heavily upon the sands.\n\n\"It must have been a delusion,\" he muttered. Yet, for the moment, he\nhad felt certain that the crouching figure of a man had moved swiftly\nout of the shadow of the solitary wide-spreading thorn he knew so well,\nand had disappeared into the darker shadow of the cypress alley.\n\nAfter all, what did it matter? It could only be some poor fellow\npoaching. With a smile, Alan remembered how often he had sinned\nlikewise. He would listen, however, and give the man a fright, for\nhe knew that Tristran de Kerival was stern in his resentment against\npoachers, partly because he was liberal in certain woodland-freedom\nhe granted, on the sole condition that none of the peasants ever came\nwithin the home domain.\n\nSoon, however, he was convinced that he was mistaken. Deep silence\nprevailed everywhere. Almost, he fancied, he could hear the soft fall\nof the dew. A low whirring sound showed that a night-jar had already\nbegun his summer wooing. Now that, as he knew from Ynys, the cuckoo\nwas come, and that the swallows had suddenly multiplied from a score\nof pioneers into a battalion of ever-flying darts; now that he had\nlistened to the nightingales calling through the moonlit woods and had\nheard the love-note of the night-jar, the hot weather must be come at\nlast--that glorious tide of golden life which flows from April to June\nand makes them the joy of the world.\n\nSlowly he walked across the glade. At the old thorn he stopped, and\nleaned a while against its rugged, twisted bole, recalling incident\nafter incident associated with it.\n\nIt was strangely restful there. Around him was the quiet sea of\nmoonlight; yonder, behind the cypresses and the pine-crowned dunes,\nwas the quiet sea of moving waters; yet, in the one, there was scarce\nless of silence than in the other. Ah! he remembered abruptly, on just\nsuch a night, years ago, he and Annaik had stood long there, hand in\nhand, listening to a nightingale. What a strange girl she was, even\nthen! Well he recalled how, at the end of the song and when the little\nbrown singer had slipped from its bough, like a stone slung from a\nsling, Annaik had laughed, though he knew not at what, and had all at\nonce unfastened her hair, and let its tawny bronze-red mass fall about\nher shoulders. She was so beautiful and wild that he had clasped her\nin his arms, and had kissed her again and again. And Annaik ... oh, he\nremembered, half shyly, half exultantly ... she had laughed again, but\nmore low, and had tied the long drifts of her hair around his neck like\na blood-red scarf.\n\nIt gave him a strange emotion to recall all this. Did Annaik also think\nof it ever, he wondered? Then, too, had they not promised somewhat to\neach other? Yes ... Annaik had said: \"One night we shall come here\nagain, and then, if you do not love me as much as you do now, I shall\nstrangle you with my hair: and if you love me more we shall go away\ninto the forest, and never return, or not for long, long; but if you do\nnot love me at all, then you are to tell me so, and I will----\"\n\n\"What?\" he had asked, when she stopped abruptly.\n\nAt that, however, she had said no more as to what was in her mind, but\nhad asked him to carve upon the thorn the \"A\" of her name and the \"A\"\nof his into a double \"A.\" Yes, of course, he had done this. Where was\nit? he pondered. Surely midway on the southward side, for then as now\nthe moonlight would be there.\n\nWith an eagerness of which he was conscious he slipped from where he\nleaned, and examined the bole of the tree. A heavy branch intervened.\nThis he caught and withheld, and the light flooded upon the gnarled\ntrunk.\n\nWith a start, Alan almost relinquished the branch. There, unmistakable,\nwas a large carven \"A,\" but not only was it the old double \"A\" made\ninto a single letter, but clearly the change had been made quite\nrecently, apparently within a few hours. Moreover, it was now linked to\nanother letter. The legend ran: \"_A & J_.\"\n\nPuzzled, he looked close. There could be no mistake. The cutting was\nrecent. The \"_J_,\" indeed, might have been that moment done. Suddenly\nan idea flashed into his mind. He stooped and examined the mossed\nroots. Yes, there were the fragments. He took one and put it between\nhis teeth; the wood was soft, and had the moisture of fibre recently\nsevered.\n\nWho was \"J\"? Alan pondered over every name he could think of. He\nknew no one whose baptismal name began thus, with the exception of\nJervaise de Morvan, the brother of Andrik, and he was married and\nresident in distant Pondicherry. Otherwise there was but Jak Bourzak,\nthe woodcutter--a bent, broken-down old man who could not have cut\nthe letters for the good reason that he was unable to write and was\nso ignorant that, even in that remote region, he was called Jak the\nStupid. Alan was still pondering over this when suddenly the stillness\nwas broken by the loud screaming of peacocks.\n\nKerival was famous for these birds, of which the peasantry stood in\nsuperstitious awe. Indeed, a legend was current to the effect that\nTristran de Kerival maintained those resplendent creatures because\nthey were the souls of his ancestors, or such of them as before death\nhad not been able to gain absolution for their sins. When they were\nheard crying harshly before rain or at sundown, or sometimes in the\nmoonlight, the hearers shuddered. \"The lost souls of Kerival\" became a\nsaying, and there were prophets here and there who foreboded ill for\nTristran the Silent, or some one near and dear to him, whenever that\nstrange clamor rang forth unexpectedly.\n\nAlan himself was surprised, startled. The night was so still, no\nfurther storm was imminent, and the moon had been risen for some time.\nPossibly the peacocks had strolled into the cypress alley, to strut to\nand fro in the moonshine, as their wont was in their wooing days, and\ntwo of them had come into jealous dispute.\n\nStill that continuous harsh tumult seemed rather to have the note of\nalarm than of quarrel. Alan walked to the seaward side of the thorn,\nbut still kept within its shadow.\n\nThe noise was now not only clamant but startling. The savage screaming,\nlike that of barbaric trumpets, filled the night.\n\nSwiftly the listener crossed the glade, and was soon among the\ncypresses. There, while the dull thud of the falling seas was more than\never audible, the screams of the peacocks were so insistent that he had\nears for these alone.\n\nAt the eastern end of the alley the glade broke away into scattered\npines, and from these swelled a series of low dunes. Alan could see\nthem clearly from where he stood, under the boughs of a huge yew, one\nof several that grew here and there among their solemn, columnar kin.\n\nHis gaze was upon this open space when, abruptly, he started. A tall,\nslim figure, coming from the shore, moved slowly inland across the\ndunes.\n\nWho could this walker in the dark be? The shadowy Walker in the Night\nherself, mayhap; the dreaded soulless woman who wanders at dead of\nnight through forests, or by desolate shores, or by the banks of the\nperilous _marais_.\n\nOften he had heard of her. When any man met this woman, his fate\ndepended on whether he saw her before she caught sight of him. If she\nsaw him first, she had but to sing her wild, strange song, and he would\nhave to go to her; and when he was before her two flames would come out\nof her eyes, and one flame would burn up his life as though it were dry\ntinder, and the other would wrap round his soul like a scarlet shawl,\nand she would take it and live with it in a cavern underground for a\nyear and a day. And on that last day she would let it go, as a hare is\nlet go a furlong beyond a greyhound. Then it would fly like a windy\nshadow from glade to glade or from dune to dune, in the vain hope to\nreach a wayside Calvary; but ever in vain. Sometimes the Holy Tree\nwould almost be reached; then, with a gliding swiftness, like a flood\nracing down a valley, the Walker in the Night would be alongside the\nfugitive. Now and again unhappy night-farers--unhappy they, for sure,\nfor never does weal remain with any one who hears what no human ear\nshould hearken--would be startled by a sudden laughing in the darkness.\nThis was when some such terrible chase had happened, and when the\ncreature of the night had taken the captive soul, in the last moments\nof the last hour of the last day of its possible redemption, and rent\nit this way and that, as a hawk scatters the feathered fragments of its\nmutilated quarry.\n\nAlan thought of this wild legend, and shuddered. Years ago he had been\nfoolhardy enough to wish to meet the phantom, to see her before she saw\nhim, and to put a spell upon her. For, if this were possible, he could\ncompel her to whisper some of her secret lore, and she could give him\nspells to keep him scathless till old age.\n\nBut as, with fearful gaze, he stared at the figure which so leisurely\nmoved toward the cypress alley, he was puzzled by some vague\nresemblance, by something familiar. The figure was that of a woman,\nunmistakably; and she moved as though she were in a dream.\n\nBut who could it be, there, in that lonely place, at that hour of the\nnight? Who would venture or care....\n\nIn a flash all was clear. It was Annaik!\n\nThere was no room for doubt. He might have known her lithe walk, her\nwildwood grace, her peculiar carriage; but before recognition of these\nhad come, he had caught a glimpse of her hair in the moonlight. It was\nlike burnished brass, in that yellow shine. There was no other such\nhair in the world, he believed.\n\nBut ... Annaik! What could she be doing there? How had she been able to\nleave the ch\u00e2teau; when had she stolen forth; where had she wandered;\nwhither was she going; to what end?\n\nThese and other thoughts stormed through Alan's mind. Almost--he\nmuttered below his breath--almost he would rather have seen the Walker\nin the Night.\n\nAs she drew nearer he could see her as clearly as though it were\ndaylight. She appeared to be thinking deeply, and ever and again be\nmurmuring disconnected phrases. His heart smote him when he saw her,\ntwice, raise her arms and then wring her hands as if in sore straits of\nsorrow.\n\nHe did not stir. He would wait, he thought. It might add to Annaik's\nstrange grief, if grief it were, to betray his presence. Again, was\nit possible that she was there to meet some one--to encounter the \"J\"\nwhose initial was beside her own on the old thorn? How pale she was!\nhe noticed. A few yards away her dress caught; she hesitated, slowly\ndisengaged herself, but did not advance again. For the third time she\nwrung her hands.\n\nWhat could it mean? Alan was about to move forward when he heard her\nvoice:\n\n\"Oh, Alan, Alan, Alan!\"\n\nWhat ... had she seen him? He flushed there in the shadow, and words\nrose to his lips. Then he was silent, for she spoke again:\n\n\"I hate her ... I hate her ... not for herself, no, no, no ... but\nbecause she has taken you from me. Why does Ynys have you, all of you,\nwhen I have loved you all along? None of us knew any thing--none, till\nlast No\u00ebl. Then we knew; only, neither you nor Ynys knew that I loved\nyou as a soul in hell loves the memory of its earthly joy.\"\n\nStrange words, there in that place, at that hour; but far stranger\nthe passionless voice in which the passionate words were uttered.\nBewildered, Alan leaned forward, intent. The words had waned to a\nwhisper, but were now incoherent. Fragmentary phrases, irrelevant\nwords, what could it all mean?\n\nSuddenly an idea made him start. He moved slightly, so as to catch the\nfull flood of a moonbeam as it fell on Annaik's face.\n\nYes, he was right. Her eyes were open, but were fixed in an unseeing\nstare. For the first time, too, he noted that she was clad simply in\na long dressing-gown. Her feet were bare, and were glistening with the\nwet they had gathered; on her lustrous hair, nothing but the moonlight.\n\nHe had remembered. Both Annaik and Ynys had a tendency to somnambulism,\na trait inherited from their father. It had been cured years ago, he\nhad understood. But here--here was proof that Annaik at any rate was\nstill subject to that mysterious malady of sleep.\n\nThat she was absolutely trance-bound he saw clearly. But what he should\ndo--that puzzled, that bewildered him.\n\nSlowly Annaik, after a brief hesitancy when he fancied she was about to\nawake, moved forward again.\n\nShe came so close that almost she brushed against him; would have done\nso, indeed, but that he was hidden from contact as well as from sight\nby the boughs of the yew, which on that side swept to the ground.\n\nAlan put out his hand. Then he withdrew it. No, he thought, he would\nlet her go unmolested, and, if possible, unawaked: but he would follow\nher, lest evil befell. She passed. His nerves thrilled. What was this\nstrange emotion, that gave him a sensation almost as though he had seen\nhis own wraith? But different ... for, oh--he could not wait to think\nabout that, he muttered.\n\nHe was about to stoop and emerge from the yew-boughs when he heard a\nsound which made him stop abruptly.\n\nIt was a step; of that he felt sure. And at hand, too. The next moment\nhe was glad he had not disclosed himself, for a crouching figure\nstealthily followed Annaik.\n\nSurely that was the same figure he had seen cross the glade, the figure\nthat had slipped from the thorn?\n\nIf so, could it be the person who had cut the letter \"J\" on the bark of\nthe tree? The man kept so much in the shadow that it was difficult to\nobtain a glimpse of his face. Alan waited. In a second or two he would\nhave to pass the yew.\n\nJust before the mysterious pursuer reached the old tree, he stopped.\nAlan furtively glanced to his left. He saw that Annaik had suddenly\nhalted. She stood intent, as though listening. Possibly she had awaked.\nHe saw her lips move. She spoke, or called something; what, he could\nnot hear because of the intermittent screaming of the peacocks.\n\nWhen he looked at the man in the shadow he started. A moonbeam had\npenetrated the obscurity, and the face was white against the black\nbackground of a cypress.\n\nAlan recognized the man in a moment. It was Jud Kerbastiou, the\nforester. What ... was it possible: could _he_ be the \"J\" who had\nlinked his initial with that of Annaik?\n\nIt was incredible. The man was not only a boor, but one with rather\nan ill repute. At any rate, he was known to be a poacher as well as a\nwoodlander of the old Breton kind--men who would never live save in the\nforest, any more than a gypsy would become a clerk and live in a street.\n\nIt was said among the peasants of Kerival that his father, old Iouenn\nKerbastiou, the charcoal burner, was an illegitimate brother of the\nlate Marquis--so that Jud, or Judik, as he was generally called, was\na blood-relation of the great folk at the ch\u00e2teau. Once this had been\nhinted to the Marquis Tristran. It was for the first and last time.\nSince then, Jud Kerbastiou had become more morose than ever, and was\nseldom seen among his fellows. When not with his infirm old father, at\nthe hut in the woods that were to the eastward of the forest-hamlet\nof Ploumael, he was away in the densely wooded reaches to the south.\nOccasionally he was seen upon the slopes of the Black Hills, but this\nwas only in winter, when he crossed over into Upper Brittany with a\nmule-train laden with cut fagots.\n\nThat he was prowling about the home domain of Kerival was itself\nominous; but that in this stealthy manner he should be following Annaik\nwas to Allan a matter of genuine alarm. Surely the man could mean no\nevil against one of the Big House, and one, too, so much admired, and\nin a certain way loved, as Annaik de Kerival? And yet, the stealthy\nmovements of the peasant, his crouching gait, his patient dogging of\nher steps--and this, doubtless, ever since _she_ had crossed the glade\nfrom the forest to the cypresses--all this had a menacing aspect.\n\nAt that moment the peacocks ceased their wild miaulling. Low and clear,\nAnnaik's voice same thrillingly along the alley:\n\n\"_Alan! Alan! Oh, Alan, darling, are you there?_\"\n\nHis heart beat. Then a flush sprang to his brow, as with sudden anger\nhe heard Jud Kerbastiou reply, in a thick, muffled tone:\n\n\"Yes, yes, ... and, and I love you, Annaik!\"\n\nPossibly the sleeper heard and understood. Even at that distance Alan\nsaw the light upon her face, the light from within.\n\nJudik the peasant slowly advanced. His stealthy tread was light as that\nof a fox. He stopped when he was within a yard of Annaik. \"Annaik,\" he\nmuttered hoarsely, \"Annaik, it was I who was out among the beeches in\nfront of the ch\u00e2teau while the storm was raging. Sure you must have\nknown it; else, why would you come out? I love you, white woman. I am\nonly a peasant ... but I love you, Annaik de Kerival, I love you--I\nlove you--I love you!\"\n\nSurely she was on the verge of waking! The color had come back to her\nwhite face, her lips moved, as though stirred by a breath from within.\nHer hands were clasped, and the fingers intertwisted restlessly.\n\nKerbastiou was so wrought that he did not hear steps behind him as Alan\nmoved swiftly forward.\n\n\"Sure, you will be mine at last,\" the man cried hoarsely, \"mine, and\nnone to dispute ... ay, and this very night, too.\"\n\nSlowly Jud put out an arm. His hand almost touched that of Annaik.\nSuddenly he was seized from behind, and a hand was claspt firmly upon\nhis mouth. He did not see who his unexpected assailant was, but he\nheard the whisper that was against his ear:\n\n\"If you make a sound, I will strangle you to death.\"\n\nWith a nod, he showed that he understood. \"If I let go for the moment,\nwill you come back under the trees here, where she cannot see or hear\nus?\"\n\nAnother nod.\n\nAlan relaxed his hold, but did not wholly relinquish his grip.\nKerbastiou turned and looked at him.\n\n\"Oh, it's _you_!\" he muttered, as he followed his assailant into the\nshadow some yards back.\n\n\"Yes, Judik Kerbastiou, it is I, Alan de Kerival.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you want?\"\n\n\"What do I want? How dare you be so insolent, fellow? you, who have\nbeen following a defenceless woman!\"\n\n\"What have _you_ been doing?\"\n\n\"I ... oh, of course I have been following Mlle. Annaik also ... but\nthat was ... that was ... to protect her.\"\n\n\"And is it not possible I might follow her for the same reason?\"\n\n\"It is not the same thing at all, Judik Kerbastiou, and you know it. In\nthe first place you have no right to be here at all. In the next, I am\nMlle. Annaik's cousin, and----\"\n\n\"And I am her lover.\"\n\nAlan stared at the man in sheer amaze. He spoke quietly and assuredly,\nnor seemed in the least degree perturbed.\n\n\"But ... but ... why, Kerbastiou, it is impossible!\"\n\n\"What is impossible?\"\n\n\"That Annaik could love _you_.\"\n\n\"I did not say she loved me. I said I was her lover.\"\n\n\"And you believe that you, a peasant, a man held in ill repute even\namong your fellow-peasants, a homeless woodlander, can gain the love of\nthe daughter of your seigneur, of a woman nurtured as she has been?\"\n\n\"You speak like a book, as the saying is, M. de Kerival.\" Judik uttered\nthe words mockingly, and with raised voice. Annaik, who was still\nstanding as one entranced, heard it: for she whispered again, \"_Alan!\nAlan! Alan!_\"\n\n\"Hush, man! she will hear. Listen, Judik, I don't want to speak\nharshly. You know me. Every one here does. You must be well aware that\nI am the last person to despise you or any man because you are poor\nand unfortunate. But you _must_ see that such a love as this of yours\nis madness.\"\n\n\"All love is madness.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes; of course! But look you, Judik, what right have you to be\nhere at all, in the home domain, in the dead of night?\"\n\n\"You love Ynys de Kerival?\"\n\n\"Yes ... well, yes, I do love her; but what then? What is that to you?\"\n\n\"Well, I love Annaik. I am here by the same right as you are.\"\n\n\"You forget. _I_ am welcome. You come by stealth. Do you mean for a\nmoment to say that you are here to meet Mlle. Annaik by appointment?\"\n\nThe man was silent.\n\n\"Judik Kerbastiou!\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"You are a coward. You followed this woman whom you say you love with\nintent to rob her.\"\n\n\"You are a fool, Alan de Kerival.\"\n\nAlan raised his arm. Then, ashamed, he let it fall.\n\n\"Will you go? Will you go now, at once, or shall I wake Mlle. Annaik,\nand tell her what I have seen--and from what I believe I have saved\nher?\"\n\n\"No, you need not wake her, nor tell her any thing. I know she has\nnever even given me a thought.\"\n\nSuddenly the man bowed his head. A sob burst through the dark.\n\nAlan put his hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"Judik! Judik Kerbastiou! I am sorry for you from my heart. But go ...\ngo now, at once. Nothing shall be said of this. No one shall know any\nthing. If you wish me to tell my cousin, I will. Then she can see you\nor not, as she may wish.\"\n\n\"I go. But ... yes, tell her. To-morrow. Tell her to-morrow. Only I\nwould not have hurt her. Tell her that. I go now. _Adiou._\"\n\nWith that Judik Kerbastiou lifted his shaggy head, and turned his great\nblack, gypsy-wild eyes upon Alan.\n\n\"She loves _you_,\" he said simply. Then he stepped lightly over the\npath, passed between the cypresses, and moved out across the glade.\nAlan watched his dark figure slide through the moonlight. He traversed\nthe glade to the right of the thorn. For nearly half a mile he was\nvisible; then he turned and entered the forest.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAn hour later two figures moved, in absolute silence, athwart the\nsand-dunes beyond the cypress alley.\n\nHand in hand they moved. Their faces were in deep shadow, for the\nmoonlight was now obscured by a league-long cloud.\n\nWhen they emerged from the scattered pines to the seaward of the\nch\u00e2teau, the sentinel peacocks saw them, and began once more their\nharsh, barbaric screams.\n\nThe twain unclasped their hands, and walked steadily forward, speaking\nno word, not once looking one at the other.\n\nAs they entered the yew-close at the end of the old garden of the\nch\u00e2teau they were as shadows drowned in night. For some minutes they\nwere invisible; though, from above, the moon shone upon their white\nfaces and on their frozen stillness. The peacocks sullenly ceased.\n\nOnce more they emerged into the moon-dusk. As they neared the ivied\ngables of the west wing of the Manor the cloud drifted from the moon,\nand her white flood turned the obscurity into a radiance wherein every\nobject stood forth as clear as at noon.\n\nAlan's face was white as are the faces of the dead. His eyes did not\nonce lift from the ground. But in Annaik's face was a flush, and her\neyes were wild and beautiful as falling stars.\n\nIt was not an hour since she had wakened from her trance; not an hour,\nand yet already had Alan forgotten--forgotten her, and Ynys, and the\nstorm, and the after calm. Of one thing he thought only, and that\nwas of what Daniel Darc had once said to him laughingly: \"If the old\nfables of astrology were true, your horoscope would foretell impossible\nthings.\"\n\nIn absolute silence they moved up the long flight of stone stairs that\nled to the ch\u00e2teau; in absolute silence, they entered by the door which\nold Matieu had left ajar; in silence, they passed that unconscious\nsleeper; in silence, they crossed the landing where the corridors\ndiverged.\n\nBoth stopped, simultaneously. Alan seemed about to speak, but his lips\nclosed again without utterance.\n\nAbruptly he turned. Without a word he passed along the corridor to the\nright, and disappeared in the obscurity.\n\nAnnaik stood a while, motionless, silent. Then she put her hand to her\nheart. On her impassive face the moonlight revealed nothing; only in\nher eyes there was a gleam as of one glad unto death.\n\nThen she too passed, noiseless and swift as a phantom. Outside, on the\nstone terrace, Ys, the blind peacock, strode to and fro, uttering his\nprolonged, raucous screams. When, at last, he was unanswered by the\npeacocks in the cypress alley, his clamant voice no longer tore the\nsilence.\n\nThe moon trailed her flood of light across the earth. It lay upon the\nwaters, and was still a glory there when, through the chill quietudes\nof dawn, the stars waned one by one in the soft graying that filtered\nthrough the morning dusk. The new day was come.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nVIA OSCURA\n\n\nThe day that followed this quiet dawn marked the meridian of spring.\nThereafter the flush upon the blossoms would deepen; the yellow pass\nout of the green; and a deeper green involve the shoreless emerald sea\nof verdure which everywhere covered the brown earth, and swelled and\nlapsed in endlessly receding billows of forest and woodland. Up to that\nnoon-tide height Spring had aspired, ever since she had shaken the dust\nof snow from her primrose-sandals; now, looking upon the way she had\ncome, she took the hand of Summer--and both went forth as one, so that\nnone should tell which was still the guest of the greenness.\n\nThis was the day when Alan and Ynys walked among the green alleys of\nthe woods of Kerival, and when, through the deep gladness that was his\nfor all the strange, gnawing pain in his mind, in his ears echoed the\nhaunting line of Rimbaud, \"Then, in the violet forest all a-bourgeon,\nEucharis said to me: 'It is Spring.'\"\n\nThrough the first hours of the day Alan had been unwontedly silent.\nYnys had laughed at him with loving eyes, but had not shown any shadow\nof resentment. His word to the effect that his journey had tired him,\nand that he had not slept at all, was enough to account for his lack of\nbuoyant joy.\n\nBut, in truth, Ynys did not regret this, since it had brought a still\ndeeper intensity of love into Alan's eyes. When he looked at her, there\nwas so much passion of longing, so pathetic an appeal, that her heart\nsmote her. Why should she be the one chosen to evoke a love such as\nthis, she wondered; she, who was but Ynys, while Alan was a man whom\nall women might love, and had genius that made him as one set apart\nfrom his fellows, and was brow-lit by a starry fate?\n\nAnd yet, in a sense she understood. They were so much at one, so like\nin all essential matters, and were in all ways comrades. It would\nhave been impossible for each not to love the other. But, deeper than\nthis, was the profound and intimate communion of the spirit. In some\nbeautiful, strange way, she knew she was the flame to his fire. At that\nflame he lit the torch of which Daniel Darc and others had spoken. She\ndid not see why or wherein it was so, but she believed, and indeed at\nlast realized the exquisite actuality.\n\nIn deep love, there is no height nor depth between two hearts, no\nheight nor depth, no length nor breadth. There is simply love.\n\nThe birds of Angus Ogue are like the wild-doves of the forest: when\nthey nest in the heart they are as one. And her life, and Alan's, were\nnot these one?\n\nNevertheless, Ynys was disappointed as the day went on, and her lover\ndid not seem able to rouse himself from his strange despondency.\n\nDoubtless this was due largely to what was pending. That afternoon he\nwas to have his long anticipated interview with the Marquise, and\nwould perhaps learn what might affect his whole life. On the other\nhand, each believed that nothing would be revealed which was not of the\npast solely.\n\nIdly, Ynys began to question her companion about the previous night.\nWhat had he done, since he had not slept; had he read, or dreamed at\nthe window, or gone out, as had once been his wont on summer nights,\nto walk in the cypress alley or along the grassy dunes? Had he heard\na nightingale singing in the moonlight? Had he noticed the prolonged\nscreaming of the peacocks--unusually prolonged, now that she thought of\nit, Ynys added.\n\n\"I wonder, dear, if you would love me whatever happened--whatever I\nwas, or did?\"\n\nIt was an inconsequent question. She looked up at him, half perturbed,\nhalf pleased.\n\n\"Yes, Alan.\"\n\n\"But do you mean what you say, knowing that you are not only using a\nphrase?\"\n\n\"I have no gift of expression, dearest. Words come to me without their\nbloom and their fragrance, I often think. But ... Alan, _I love you_.\"\n\n\"That is sweetest music for me, Ynys, my fawn. All words from you have\nboth bloom and fragrance, though you may not know it, shy flower. But\ntell me again, do you mean what you say, _absolutely_?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. In every way, in all things, at all times. Dear, how\ncould _any thing_ come between us? It is _possible_, of course, that\ncircumstances might separate us. But nothing could really come between\nus. My heart is yours.\"\n\n\"What about Andrik de Morvan?\"\n\n\"Ah, you are not in earnest, Alan!\"\n\n\"Yes; I am more than half in earnest, Ynys, darling. Tell me!\"\n\n\"You cannot possibly believe that I care, that I could care, for Andrik\nas I care for you, Alan.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Why not? Oh, have you so little belief, then, in women--in me? Alan,\ndo you not know that what is perhaps possible for a man, though I\ncannot conceive it, is _impossible_ for a woman. That is the poorest\nsophistry which says a woman may love two men at the same time. That\nis, if by love is meant what you and I mean. Affection, the deepest\naffection, is one thing; the love of man and woman, as _we_ mean it, is\na thing apart!\"\n\n\"You love Andrik?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Could you wed your life with his?\"\n\n\"I could have done so ... but for you.\"\n\n\"Then, by your true heart, is there no possibility that he can in any\nway ever come between us?\"\n\n\"None.\"\n\n\"Although he is nominally your betrothed, and believes in you as his\nfuture wife?\"\n\n\"That is not my fault. I drifted into that conditional union, as you\nknow. But after to-day he and every one shall know that I can wed no\nman but you. But why do you ask me these things, Alan?\"\n\n\"I want to know. I will explain later. But tell me; could you be happy\nwith Andrik? You say you love him?\"\n\n\"I love him as a friend, as a comrade.\"\n\n\"As an intimately dear comrade?\"\n\n\"Alan, do not let us misunderstand each other. There can only be\none supreme comrade for a woman, and that is the man whom she loves\nsupremely. Every other affection, the closest, the dearest, is as\ndistinct from that as day from night.\"\n\n\"If by some malign chance you and Andrik married--say, in the event of\nmy supposed death--would you still be as absolutely true to me as you\nare now?\"\n\n\"What has the accident of marriage to do with truth between a man and a\nwoman, Alan?\"\n\n\"It involves intimacies that would be a desecration otherwise. Oh,\nYnys, do you not understand?\"\n\n\"It is a matter of the inner life. Men so rarely believe in the hidden\nloyalty of the heart. It is possible for a woman to fulfil a bond and\nyet not be a bondswoman. Outer circumstances have little to do with the\ninner life, with the real self.\"\n\n\"In a word, then, if you married Andrik you would remain absolutely\nmine, not only if I were dead, but if perchance the rumor were untrue\nand I came back, though too late?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Absolutely?\"\n\n\"Absolutely.\"\n\n\"And you profoundly know, Ynys, that in no conceivable circumstances\ncan Andrik be to you what I am, or any thing for a moment approaching\nit?\"\n\n\"I do know it.\"\n\n\"Although he were your husband?\"\n\n\"Although he were my husband.\"\n\nThe worn lines that were in Alan's face were almost gone. Looking into\nhis eyes Ynys saw that the strange look of pain which had alarmed her\nwas no longer there. The dear eyes had brightened; a new hope seemed to\nhave arisen in them.\n\n\"Do you believe me, Alan, dear?\" she whispered.\n\n\"If I did not, it would kill me, Ynys.\"\n\nAnd he spoke truth. The bitter sophistications of love play lightly\nwith the possibilities of death. Men who talk of suicide are likely to\nbe long-livers; lovers whose hearts are easily broken can generally\nrecover and astonish themselves by their heroic endurance. The human\nheart is like a wave of the sea; it can be lashed into storm, it can\nbe calmed, it can become stagnant--but it is seldom absorbed from the\nocean till in natural course the sun takes up its spirit in vapor.\nYet, ever and again, there is one wave among a myriad which a spiral\nwind-eddy may suddenly strike. In a moment it is whirled this way and\nthat; it is involved in a cataclysm of waters; and then cloud and sea\nmeet, and what a moment before had been an ocean wave is become an idle\nskyey vapor.\n\nAlan was of the few men of whom that wave is the symbol. To him, death\ncould come at any time, if the wind-eddy of a certain unthinkable\nsorrow struck him at his heart.\n\nIn this sense, his life was in Ynys's hands as absolutely as though he\nwere a caged bird. He knew it, and Ynys knew it.\n\nThere are a few men, a few women, like this. Perhaps it is well that\nthese are so rare. Among the hills of the north, at least, they may\nstill be found; in remote mountain valleys and in lonely isles, where\nlife and death are realized actualities and not the mere adumbrations\nof the pinions of that lonely fugitive, the human mind, along the\nendless precipices of Time.\n\nAlan knew well that both he and Ynys were not so strong as each\nbelieved. Knowing this, he feared for both. And yet, there was but\none woman in the world for him--Ynys; as for her, there was but one\nman--Alan. Without her, he could do nothing, achieve nothing. She was\nhis flame, his inspiration, his strength, his light. Without her, he\nwas afraid to live; with her, death was a beautiful dream. To her, Alan\nwas not less. She lived in him and for him.\n\nBut we are wrought of marsh-fire as well as of stellar light. Now, as\nof old, the gods do not make of the fairest life a thornless rose. A\nsingle thorn may innocently convey poison; so that everywhere men and\nwomen go to and fro perilously, and not least those who move through\nthe shadow and shine of an imperious passion.\n\nFor a time, thereafter, Alan and Ynys walked slowly onward, hand in\nhand, each brooding deep over the thoughts their words had stirred.\n\n\"Do you know what Yann says, Alan?\" Ynys asked in a low voice, after\nboth had stopped instinctively to listen to a thrush leisurely\niterating his just learned love carol, where he swung on a greening\nspray of honeysuckle under a yellow-green lime. \"Do you know what Yann\nsays?... He says that you have a wave at your feet. What does that\nmean?\"\n\n\"When did he tell you that, Ynys, mo-chree?\"\n\n\"Ah, Alan, dear, how sweet it is to hear from your lips the dear Gaelic\nwe both love so well! And does that not make you more than ever anxious\nto learn all that you are to hear this afternoon?\"\n\n\"Yes ... but that, that Ian Macdonald said; what else did he say?\"\n\n\"Nothing. He would say no more. I asked him in the Gaelic, and he\nrepeated only, 'I see a wave at his feet.'\"\n\n\"What Ian means by that I know well. It means I am going on a far\njourney.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Alan, no!\"\n\n\"He has the sight upon him, at times. Ian would not say that thing, did\nhe not mean it. Tell me, my fawn, has he ever said any thing of this\nkind about _you_?\"\n\n\"Yes. Less than a month ago. I was with him one day on the dunes near\nthe sea. Once, when he gave no answer to what I asked, I looked at him,\nand saw his eyes fixt. 'What do you see, Yann?' I asked.\n\n\"'I see great rocks, strange caverns. Sure, it is well I am knowing\nwhat they are. They are the Sea-caves of Rona.'\n\n\"There were no rocks visible from where we stood, so I knew that Ian\nwas in one of his visionary moods. I waited, and then spoke again,\nwhisperingly:\n\n\"'Tell me, Ian MacIain, what do you see?'\n\n\"'I see two whom I do not know. And they are in a strange place, they\nare. And on the man I see a shadow, and on the woman I see a light. But\nwhat that shadow is, I do not know; nor do I know what that light is.\nBut I am for thinking that it is of the Virgin Mary, for I see the\ndream that is in the woman's heart, and it is a fair wonderful dream\n_that_.'\n\n\"That is all Yann said, Alan. As I was about to speak, his face changed.\n\n\"'What is it, Ian?' I asked.\n\n\"At first he would answer nothing. Then he said: 'It is a dream. It\nmeans nothing. It was only because I was thinking of you and Alan\nMacAlasdair.'\"\n\n\"Oh, Ynys!\"--Alan interrupted with an eager cry--\"that is a thing\nI have long striven to know; that which lies in the words 'Alan\nMacAlasdair.' My father, then, was named Alasdair! And was it Rona, you\nsaid, was the place of the Sea-caves? Rona ... that must be an island.\nThe only Rona I know of is that near Skye. It may be the same. Now,\nindeed, I have a clew, lest I should learn nothing to-day. Did Ian say\nnothing more?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I asked him if the man and woman he saw were you and I,\nbut he would not speak. I am certain he was about to say yes, but\nrefrained.\"\n\nFor a while they walked on in silence, each revolving many speculations\naroused by the clew given by the words of \"Yann the Dumb.\" Suddenly\nYnys tightened her clasp of Alan's hand.\n\n\"What is it, dear?\"\n\n\"Alan, some time ago you asked me abruptly what I knew about the\nforester, Judik Kerbastiou. Well, I see him in that beech-covert\nyonder, looking at us.\"\n\nAlan started. Ynys noticed that for a moment he grew pale as foam. His\nlips parted, as though he were about to call to the woodlander: when\nJudik advanced, making at the same time a sign of silence.\n\nThe man had a wild look about him. Clearly, he had not slept since he\nand Alan had parted at midnight. His dusky eyes had a red light in\nthem. His rough clothes were still damp; his face, too, was strangely\nwhite and dank.\n\nAlan presumed that he came to say something concerning Annaik. He did\nnot know what to do to prevent this, but while he was pondering, Judik\nspoke in a hoarse, tired voice:\n\n\"Let the Lady Ynys go back to the ch\u00e2teau at once. She is needed there.\"\n\n\"Why, what is wrong, Judik Kerbastiou?\"\n\n\"Let her go back, I say. No time for words now. Be quick. I am not\ndeceiving you. Listen ...\" and with that he leaned toward Alan, and\nwhispered in his ear.\n\nAlan looked at him with startled amaze. Then, turning toward Ynys, he\nasked her to go back at once to the ch\u00e2teau.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\"DEIREADH GACH COGAIDH, SITH\" (THE END OF ALL WARFARE, PEACE)\n\n\nAlan did not wait till Ynys was out of sight, before he demanded the\nreason of Judik's strange appearance and stranger summons.\n\n\"Why are you here again, Judik Kerbastiou? What is the meaning of this\nhaunting of the forbidden home domain? And what did you mean by urging\nMlle. Ynys to go back at once to the ch\u00e2teau?\"\n\n\"Time enough later for your other questions, young sir. Meanwhile come\nalong with me, and as quick as you can.\"\n\nWithout another word the woodlander turned and moved rapidly along a\nnarrow path through the brushwood.\n\nAlan saw it would be useless to ask further questions at the moment;\nmoreover, he was now vaguely alarmed. What could all this mystery\nmean? Could an accident have happened to the Marquis Tristran? It was\nhardly likely, for he seldom ventured into the forest, unless when the\nweather had dried all the ways: for he had to be wheeled in his chair,\nand, as Alan knew, disliked to leave the gardens or the well-kept yew\nand cypress alleys near the ch\u00e2teau.\n\nIn a brief while, however, he heard voices. Judik turned, and waved to\nhim to be wary. The forester bent forward, stared intently, and then\nbeckoned to Alan to creep up alongside.\n\n\"Who is it? What is it, Judik?\"\n\n\"Look!\"\n\nAlan disparted a bough of underwood which made an effectual screen. In\nthe glade beyond were four figures.\n\nOne of these he recognized at once. It was the Marquis de Kerival. He\nwas, as usual, seated in his wheeled chair. Behind him, some paces to\nthe right, was Raif Kermorvan, the steward of Kerival. The other two\nmen Alan had not seen before.\n\nOne of these strangers was a tall, handsome man, of about sixty. His\nclose-cropped white hair, his dress, his whole mien, betrayed the\nmilitary man. Evidently a colonel, Alan thought, or perhaps a general;\nat any rate an officer of high rank, and one to whom command and\nself-possession were alike habitual. Behind this gentleman, one of the\nmost distinguished and even noble-looking men he had ever seen, and\nagain some paces to the right, was a man, evidently a groom, and to all\nappearances an orderly in mufti.\n\nThe first glance revealed that a duel was imminent. The duellists, of\ncourse, were the military stranger and the Marquis de Kerival.\n\n\"Who is that man?\" Alan whispered to Kerbastion. \"Do you know?\"\n\n\"I do not know his name. He is a soldier--a general. He came to Kerival\nto-day; an hour or more ago. I guided him through the wood, for he and\nhis man had ridden into one of the winding alleys and had lost their\nway. I heard him ask for the Marquis de Kerival. I waited about in the\nshrubbery of the rose garden to see if ... if ... some one for whom\nI waited ... would come out. After a time, half an hour or less, this\ngentleman came forth, ushered by Raif Kermorvan, the steward. His man\nbrought around the two horses again. They mounted, and rode slowly\naway. I joined them, and offered to show them a shorter route than that\nwhich they were taking. The General said they wished to find a glade\nknown as Merlin's Rest. Then I knew what he came for, I knew what was\ngoing to happen.\" \"What, Judik?\"\n\n\"Hush! not so loud. They will hear us! I knew it was for a duel. It was\nhere that Andrik de Morvan, the uncle of him whom you know, was killed\nby a man--I forget his name.\"\n\n\"Why did the man kill Andrik de Morvan?\"\n\n\"Oh, who knows? Why does one kill any body? Because he was tired of\nenduring the Sieur Andrik longer; he bored him beyond words to tell, I\nhave heard. Then, too, the Count, for he was a count, loved Andrik's\nwife.\"\n\nAlan glanced at Judik. For all his rough wildness, he spoke on occasion\nlike a man of breeding. Moreover, at no time was he subservient in his\nmanner. Possibly, Alan thought, it was true what he had heard: that\nJudik Kerbastiou was by moral right Judik de Kerival.\n\nWhile the onlookers were whispering, the four men in the glade had\nall slightly shifted their position. The Marquis, it was clear, had\ninsisted upon this. The light had been in his eyes. Now the antagonists\nand their seconds were arranged aright. Kermorvan, the steward, was\nspeaking slowly: directions as to the moment when to fire.\n\nAlan knew it would be worse than useless to interfere. He could but\nhope that this was no more than an affair of honor of a kind not meant\nto have a fatal issue; a political quarrel, perhaps; a matter of\ninsignificant social offence.\n\nBefore Raif Kermorvan--a short, black-haired, bull-necked man, with\na pale face and protruding light blue eyes--had finished what he had\nto say, Alan noticed what had hitherto escaped him: that immediately\nbeyond the glade, and under a huge sycamore, already in full leaf,\nstood the Kerival carriage. Alain, the coachman, sat on the box, and\nheld the two black horses in rein. Standing by the side of the carriage\nwas Georges de Rohan, the doctor of Kerloek, and a personal friend of\nthe Marquis Tristran.\n\nSuddenly Kermorvan raised his voice.\n\n\"M. le G\u00e9n\u00e9ral, are you ready?\"\n\n\"I am ready,\" answered a low, clear voice.\n\n\"M. le Marquis, are you ready?\"\n\nTristran de Kerival did not answer, but assented by a slight nod.\n\n\"Then raise your weapons, and fire the moment I say 'thrice.'\"\n\nBoth men raised their pistols.\n\n\"You have the advantage of me, sir,\" said the Marquis coldly, in a\nvoice as audible to Alan and Judik as to the others. \"I present a good\naim to you here. Nevertheless, I warn you once more that you will not\nescape me ... this time.\"\n\nThe General smiled; scornfully, Alan thought. Again, when suddenly\nhe lowered his pistol and spoke, Alan fancied he detected if not a\nforeign accent, at least a foreign intonation.\n\n\"Once more, Tristran de Kerival, I tell you that this duel is a crime;\na crime against me, a crime against Mme. la Marquise, a crime against\nyour daughters, and a crime against....\"\n\n\"That will do, General. I am ready. Are you?\"\n\nWithout further word the stranger slowly drew himself together. He\nraised his arm, while his opponent did the same.\n\n\"_Once! Twice! Thrice!_\" There was a crack like that of a cattle-whip.\nSimultaneously some splinters of wood were blown from the left side of\nthe wheeled chair.\n\nThe Marquis Tristran smiled. He had reserved his fire. He could aim now\nwith fatal effect\n\n\"It is murder!\" muttered Alan, horrified; but at that moment the\nMarquis spoke. Alan leaned forward, intent to hear.\n\n\"_At last!_\" That was all. But in the words was a concentrated longing\nfor revenge, the utterance of a vivid hate.\n\nTristran de Kerival slowly and with methodical malignity took aim.\nThere was a flash, the same whip-like crack.\n\nFor a moment it seemed as though the ball had missed its mark. Then,\nsuddenly, there was a bubbling of red froth at the mouth of the\nstranger. Still, he stood erect.\n\nAlan looked at the Marquis de Kerival. He was leaning back, deathly\nwhite, but with the bitter, suppressed smile which every one at the\nch\u00e2teau knew and hated.\n\nAll at once the General swayed, lunged forward, and fell prone.\n\nDr. de Rohan ran out from the sycamore, and knelt beside him. After a\nfew seconds he looked up.\n\nHe did not speak, but every one knew what his eyes said. To make it\nunmistakable, he drew out his handkerchief and put it over the face of\nthe dead man.\n\nAlan was about to advance when Judik Kerbastiou plucked him by the\nsleeve.\n\n\"Hst! M'sieur Alan! There is Mamzelle Ynys returning! She will be here\nin another minute. She must not see what is there.\"\n\n\"You are right, Judik. I thank you.\"\n\nWith that he turned and moved swiftly down the leaf-hid path which\nwould enable him to intercept Ynys.\n\n\"What is it, Alan?\" she asked, with wondering eyes, the moment he was\nat her side. \"What is it? Why are you so pale?\"\n\n\"It is because of a duel that has been fought here. You must go back at\nonce, dear. There are reasons why you....\"\n\n\"Is my father one of the combatants? I know he is out of the ch\u00e2teau.\nTell me quick! Is he wounded? Is he dead?\"\n\n\"No, no, darling heart! He is unhurt. But I can tell you nothing more\njust now. Later ... later. But why did you return here?\"\n\n\"I came with a message from my mother. She is in sore trouble, I fear.\nI found her, on her couch in the Blue Salon, with tears streaming down\nher face and sobs choking her.\"\n\n\"And she wants me ... now?\"\n\n\"Yes. She told me to look for you, and bring you to her at once.\"\n\n\"Then go straightway back, dear, and tell her that I shall be with her\nimmediately. Yes, go--go--at once.\"\n\nBut by the time Ynys had moved into the alley which led her to the\nch\u00e2teau, and Alan had returned to the spot where he had left Judik,\nrapid changes had occurred.\n\nThe wheeled chair had gone. Alan could see it nearing the South Yews;\nwith the Marquis Tristran in it, leaning backward and with head erect.\nAt its side walked Raif Kermorvan. He seemed to be whispering to the\nSeigneur. The carriage had disappeared; with it Georges de Rohan, the\nsoldier orderly, and, presumably, the dead man.\n\nAlan stood hesitant, uncertain whether to go first to the Marquise,\nor to follow the man whom he regarded now with an aversion infinitely\ndeeper than he had ever done hitherto; with whom, he felt, he never\nwished to speak again, for he was a murderer, if ever man was, and,\nfrom Alan's standpoint, a coward as well. Tristran de Kerival was the\ndeadliest shot in all the country-side, and he must have known that,\nwhen he challenged his victim, he gave him his death sentence.\n\nIt did not occur to Alan that possibly the survivor was the man\nchallenged. Instinctively he knew that this was not so.\n\nJudik suddenly touched his arm.\n\n\"Here,\" he said; \"this is the name of the dead man. I got the servant\nto write it down for me.\"\n\nAlan took the slip of paper. On it was: \"_M. le G\u00e9n\u00e9ral Carmichael_.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE UNFOLDING OF THE SCROLL\n\n\nWhen Alan reached the ch\u00e2teau he was at once accosted by old Matieu.\n\n\"Mme. la Marquise wishes to see you in her private room, M'sieu Alan,\nand without a moment's delay.\"\n\nIn a few seconds he was on the upper landing. At the door of the room\nknown as the Blue Salon he met Yann the Dumb.\n\n\"What is it, Ian? Is there any thing wrong?\"\n\nIn his haste he spoke in French. The old islander looked at him, but\ndid not answer.\n\nAlan repeated his question in Gaelic.\n\n\"Yes, Alan MacAlasdair, I fear there is gloom and darkness upon us all.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"By this an' by that. But I have seen the death-cloth about Lois nic\nAlasdair bronnach for weeks past. I saw it about her feet, and then\nabout her knees, and then about her breast. Last night, when I looked\nat her, I saw it at her neck. And to-day, the shadow-shroud is risen to\nher eyes.\"\n\n\"But your second-sight is not always true, you know, Ian. Why, you told\nme when I was here last that I would soon be seeing my long dead father\nagain, and, more than that, that I should see him, but he never see me.\nBut of this and your other dark sayings, no more now. Can I go in at\nonce and see my aunt?\"\n\n\"I will be asking that, Alan-mo-caraid. But what you say is not true.\nI have never yet 'seen' any thing that has not come to pass; though I\nhave had the sight but seldom, to Himself be the praise.\" With that Ian\nentered, exchanged a word or two, and ushered Alan into the room.\n\nOn a couch beside a great fireplace, across the iron brazier of which\nwere flaming pine-logs, an elderly woman lay almost supine. That she\nhad been a woman of great beauty was unmistakable, for all her gray\nhair and the ravages that time and suffering had wrought upon her\nface. Even now her face was beautiful; mainly from the expression of\nthe passionate dusky eyes which were so like those of Annaik. Her long,\ninert body was covered with a fantastic Italian silk-cloth whose gay\npattern emphasized her own helpless condition. Alan had not seen her\nfor some months, and he was shocked at the change. Below the eyes, as\nflamelike as ever, were purplish shadows, and everywhere, through the\nhabitual ivory of the delicate features, a gray ashiness had diffused.\nWhen she held out her hand to him, he saw it as transparent as a fan,\nand perceived within it the red gleam of the fire.\n\n\"Ah, Alan, it is you at last! How glad I am to see you!\" The voice was\none of singular sweetness, in tone and accent much like that of Ynys.\n\n\"Dear Aunt Lois, not more glad than I am to see you\"--and, as he spoke,\nAlan kneeled at the couch and kissed the frail hand that had been held\nout to him.\n\n\"I would have so eagerly seen you at once on my arrival,\" he resumed,\n\"but I was given your message--that you had one of your seasons of\nsuffering, and could not see me. You have been in pain, Aunt Lois?\"\n\n\"Yes, dear, I am dying.\"\n\n\"Dying! Oh, no, no, no! You don't mean _that_. And besides----\"\n\n\"Why should I not mean it? Why should I fear it, Alan? Has life meant\nso much to me of late years that I should wish to prolong it?\"\n\n\"But you have endured so long!\"\n\n\"A bitter reason truly!... and one too apt to a woman! Well, enough of\nthis. Alan, I want to speak to you about yourself. But first tell me\none thing. Do you love any woman?\"\n\n\"Yes, with all my heart, with all my life, I love a woman.\"\n\n\"Have you told her so? Has she betrothed herself to you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Is it Annaik?\"\n\n\"Annaik ... Annaik?\"\n\n\"Why are you so surprised, Alan? Annaik is beautiful; she has long\nloved you, I am certain; and you, too, if I mistake not, care for her?\"\n\n\"Of course, I do; of course I care for her, Aunt Lois. I love her. But\nI do not love her as you mean.\"\n\nThe Marquise looked at him steadily.\n\n\"I do not quite understand,\" she said gravely. \"I must speak to you\nabout Annaik, later. But now, will you tell me who the woman is?\"\n\n\"Yes. It is Ynys.\"\n\n\"_Ynys!_ But, Alan, do you not know that she is betrothed to Andrik de\nMorvan?\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"And that such a betrothal is, in Brittany, almost as binding as a\nmarriage?\"\n\n\"I have heard that said.\"\n\n\"And that the Marquis de Kerival wishes that union to take place?\"\n\n\"The Marquis Tristran's opinion, on any matter, does not in any way\nconcern me.\"\n\n\"That may be, Alan; but it concerns Ynys. Do you know that I also wish\nher to marry Andrik; that his parents wish it; and that every one\nregards the union as all but an accomplished fact?\"\n\n\"Yes, dear Aunt Lois, I have known or presumed all you tell me. But\nnothing of it can alter what is a vital part of my existence.\"\n\n\"Do you know that Ynys herself gave her pledge to Andrik de Morvan?\"\n\n\"It was a conditional pledge. But, in any case, she will formally\nrenounce it.\"\n\nFor a time there was silence.\n\nAlan had risen, and now stood by the side of the couch, with folded\narms. The Marquise Lois looked up at him, with her steadfast, shadowy\neyes. When she spoke again she averted them, and her voice was so low\nas almost to be a whisper.\n\n\"Finally, Alan, let me ask you one question. It is not about you and\nYnys. I infer that both of you are at one in your determination to take\nevery thing into your own hands. Presumably you can maintain her and\nyourself. Tristran--the Marquis de Kerival--will not contribute a franc\ntoward her support. If he knew, he would turn her out of doors this\nvery day.\"\n\n\"Well, Aunt Lois, I wait for your final question?\"\n\n\"It is this. _What about Annaik?_\"\n\nStartled by her tone and sudden lifted glance, Alan stared in silence;\nthen recollecting himself, he repeated dully:\n\n\"'What about Annaik?' ... Annaik, Aunt Lois, why do you ask me about\nAnnaik?\"\n\n\"She loves you.\"\n\n\"As a brother; as the betrothed of Ynys; as a dear comrade and friend.\"\n\n\"Do not be a hypocrite, Alan. You know that she loves you. What of your\nfeeling toward _her_?\"\n\n\"I love her ... as a brother loves a sister ... as any old playmate and\nfriend ... as ... as the sister of Ynys.\"\n\nA faint, scornful smile came upon the white lips of the Marquise.\n\n\"Will you be good enough, then, to explain about last night?\"\n\n\"About last night?\"\n\n\"Come, be done with evasion. Yes, about last night. Alan, I know that\nyou and Annaik were out together in the cypress avenue, and again, on\nthe dunes, after midnight; that you were seen walking hand in hand; and\nthat, stealthily, you entered the house together.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Well! The inference is obvious. But I will let you see that I know\nmore. Annaik went out of the house late. Old Matieu let her out.\nShortly after that you went out of the ch\u00e2teau. Later, you and she came\nupon Judik Kerbastiou prowling about in the woods. It was more than an\nhour after he left you that you returned to the ch\u00e2teau. Where were you\nduring that hour or more?\"\n\nAlan flushed. He unfolded his arms; hesitated; then refolded them.\n\n\"How do you know this?\" he asked simply.\n\n\"I know it, because....\"\n\nBut before she finished what she was about to say, the door opened and\nYann entered.\n\n\"What is it, Ian?\"\n\n\"I would be speaking to you alone for a minute, Bantighearna.\"\n\n\"Alan, go to the alcove yonder, please. I must hear in private what\nYann has to say to me.\"\n\nAs soon as the young man was out of hearing, Yann stooped and spoke in\nlow tones. The Marquise Lois grew whiter and whiter, till not a vestige\nof color remained in her face, and the only sign of life was in the\neyes. Suddenly she made an exclamation.\n\nAlan turned and looked at her. He caught her agonized whisper: \"_Oh, my\nGod!_\"\n\n\"What is it--oh, what is it, dear Aunt Lois?\" he cried, as he advanced\nto her side.\n\nHe expected to be waved back, but to his surprise the Marquise made no\nsign to him to withdraw. Instead, she whispered some instructions to\nYann and then bade him go.\n\nWhen they were alone once more, she took a small silver flagon from\nbeneath her coverlet and poured a few drops upon some sugar.\n\nHaving taken this, she seemed to breathe more easily. It was evident,\nat the same time, that she had received some terrible shock.\n\n\"Alan, come closer. I cannot speak loud. I have no time to say more to\nyou about Annaik. I must leave that to you and to her. But lest I die,\nlet me say at once that I forbid you to marry Ynys, and that I enjoin\nyou to marry Annaik, and that without delay.\"\n\nA spasm of pain crossed the speaker's face. She stopped, and gasped\nfor breath. When at last she resumed, it was clear she considered as\nsettled the matter on which she had spoken.\n\n\"Alan, I am so unwell that I must be very brief. And now listen. You\nare twenty-five to-day. Such small fortune as is yours comes now into\nyour possession. It has been administered for you by a firm of lawyers\nin Edinburgh. See, here is the address. Can you read it? Yes?... Well,\nkeep the slip. This fortune is not much. To many, possibly to you, it\nmay not seem enough to provide more than the bare necessities of life,\nnot enough for its needs. Nevertheless, it is your own, and you will be\nglad. It will, at least, suffice to keep you free from need if ever\nyou fulfil your great wish to go back to the land of your fathers, to\nyour own place.\"\n\n\"That is still my wish and my hope.\"\n\n\"So be it! You will have also an old sea castle, not much more than a\nkeep, on a remote island. It will at any rate be your own. It is on an\nisland where few people are; a wild and precipitous isle far out in the\nAtlantic at the extreme of the Southern Hebrides.\"\n\n\"Is it called Rona?\" Alan interrupted eagerly.\n\nWithout noticing, or heeding, his eagerness, she assented.\n\n\"Yes, it is called Rona. Near it are the isles of Mingulay and Borosay.\nThese three islands were once populous, and it was there that for\nhundreds of years your father's clan, of which he was hereditary chief,\nlived and prospered. After the evil days, the days when the young King\nwas hunted in the west as though a royal head were the world's desire,\nand when our brave kinswoman, Flora Macdonald, proved that women as\nwell as men could dare all for a good cause--after those evil days the\npeople melted away. Soon the last remaining handful were upon Borosay;\nand there, too, till the great fire that swept the island a score of\nyears ago, stood the castle of my ancestors, the Macdonalds of Borosay.\n\n\"My father was a man well known in his day. The name of Sir Kenneth\nMacdonald was as familiar in London as in Edinburgh; and in Paris he\nwas known to all the military and diplomatic world, for in his youth he\nhad served in the French army with distinction, and held the honorary\nrank of general.\n\n\"Not long before my mother's death he came back to our lonely home in\nBorosay, bringing with him a kinsman of another surname, who owned\nthe old castle of Rona on the Isle of the Sea-caves, as Rona is often\ncalled by the people of the Hebrides. Also there came with him a young\nFrench officer of high rank. After a time I was asked to marry this\nman. I did not love him, did not even care for him, and I refused. In\ntruth ... already, though unknowingly, I loved your father--he that was\nour kinsman and owned Rona and its old castle. But Alasdair did not\nspeak; and, because of that, we each came to sorrow.\n\n\"My father told me he was ruined. If I did not marry Tristran de\nKerival, he would lose all. Moreover, my dying mother begged me to save\nthe man she had loved so well and truly, though he had left her so much\nalone.\n\n\"Well, to be brief, I agreed. My kinsman Alasdair was away at the time.\nHe returned on the eve of the very day on which I was suddenly married\nby Father Somerled Macdonald. We were to remain a few weeks in Borosay\nbecause of my mother's health.\n\n\"When Alasdair learned what had happened he was furious. I believe he\neven drew a riding whip across the face of Tristran de Kerival. Fierce\nwords passed between them, and a cruel taunt that rankled. Nor would\nAlasdair have any word with me at all. He sent me a bitter message, but\nthe bitterest word he could send was that which came to me: that he and\nmy sister Silis had gone away together.\n\n\"From that day I never saw Silis again, till the time of her death.\nSoon afterward our mother died, and while the island-funeral was being\narranged our father had a stroke, and himself died, in time to be\nburied along with his wife. It was only then that I realized how more\nthan true had been his statements as to his ruin. He died penniless.\nI was reminded of this unpleasant fact at the time, by the Marquis de\nKerival; and I have had ample opportunity since for bearing it in vivid\nremembrance.\n\n\"As soon as possible we settled all that could be settled, and left for\nBrittany. I have sometimes thought my husband's love was killed when he\ndiscovered that Alasdair had loved me. He forbade me even to mention\nhis name, unless he introduced it; and he was wont to swear that a\nday would come when he would repay in full what he believed to be the\ndamning insult he had received.\n\n\"We took with us only one person from Borosay, an islander of Rona. He\nis, in fact, a clansman both of you and me. It is of Ian I speak, of\ncourse; him that soon came to be called here Yann the Dumb. My husband\nand I had at least this to unite us: that we were both Celtic, and had\nall our racial sympathies in common.\n\n\"I heard from Silis that she was married and was happy. I am afraid\nthis did not add to my happiness. She wrote to me, too, when she\nwas about to bear her child. Strangely enough, Alasdair, who, like\nhis father before him, was an officer in the French army, was then\nstationed not far from Kerival, though my husband knew nothing of this\nat first. My own boy and Silis's were born about the same time. My\nchild died; that of Silis and Alasdair lived. You are that child.\nNo ... wait, Alan ... I will tell you his name shortly.... You, I say,\nare that child. Soon afterward, Silis had a dangerous relapse. In her\ndelirium she said some wild things; among them, words to the effect\nthat the child which had died was hers, and that the survivor was\nmine--that, somehow or other, they had been changed. Then, too, she\ncried out in her waywardness--and, poor girl, she must have known then\nthat Alasdair had loved me before he loved her--that the child who\nlived, he who had been christened Alan, was the child of Alasdair and\nmyself.\n\n\"All this poor delirium at the gate of death meant nothing. But in some\nway it came to Tristran's ears, and he believed. After Silis's death I\nhad brought you home, Alan, and had announced that I would adopt you. I\npromised Silis this, in her last hour, when she was in her right mind\nagain; also that the child, you, should be brought up to speak and\nthink in our own ancient language, and that in all ways you should grow\nup a true Gael. I have done my best, Alan?\"\n\n\"Indeed, indeed you have. I shall never, never forget that you have\nbeen my mother to me.\"\n\n\"Well, my husband never forgave that. He acquiesced, but he never\nforgave. For long, and I fear to this day, he persists in his belief\nthat you are really my illegitimate child, and that Silis was right\nin thinking that I had succeeded in having my own new-born babe\ntransferred to her arms, while her dead offspring was brought to me,\nand, as my own, interred. It has created a bitter feud, and that is\nwhy he hates the sight of you. That, too, Alan, is why he would never\nconsent to your marriage with either Ynys or Annaik.\"\n\n\"But you yourself urged me a little ago to ... to ... marry Annaik.\"\n\n\"I had a special reason. Besides, I of course know the truth. In his\nheart, God knows, my husband cannot doubt it.\"\n\n\"Then tell me this: is my father dead also, as I have long surmised?\"\n\n\"No ... yes, yes, Alan, he is dead.\"\n\nAlan noticed his aunt's confusion, and regarded her steadily.\n\n\"Why do you first say 'no' and then 'yes'?\"\n\n\"Because....\"\n\nBut here again an interruption occurred. The porti\u00e8re moved back, and\nthen the wide doors disparted. Into the salon was wheeled a chair, in\nwhich sat the Marquis de Kerival. Behind him was his attendant; at his\nside, Kermorvan the steward. The face of the seigneur was still deathly\npale, and the features were curiously drawn. The silky hair, too,\nseemed whiter than ever, and white as foam-drift on a dark wave were\nthe long thin hands which lay on the lap of the black velvet shooting\njacket he wore.\n\n\"Ah, Lois, is this a prepared scene?\" he exclaimed in a cold and\nsneering voice, \"or, has the young man known all along?\"\n\n\"Tristan, I have not yet told him what I now know. Be merciful.\"\n\n\"Alan MacAlasdair, as the Marquise here calls you,--and she ought to\nknow,--have you learned yet the name and rank of your father?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Tell him, Lois.\"\n\n\"Tristran, listen. All is over now. Soon I, too, shall be gone. In\nthe name of God I pray you to relent from this long cruelty, this\nremorseless infamy. You know as well as I do that our first-born is\ndead twenty-five years ago, and that this man here is truly the son of\nSilis, my sister. And here is one overwhelming proof for you: _I have\njust been urging him to marry Annaik._\"\n\nAt that Tristran the Silent was no longer silent. With a fierce laugh\nhe turned to the steward.\n\n\"I call you to witness, Raif Kermorvan, that I would kill Annaik, or\nYnys either for that matter, before I would allow such an unnatural\nunion. Once and for all I absolutely ban it. Besides.... Listen, you\nthere with your father's eyes! You are sufficiently a Gael to feel that\nyou would not marry the daughter of a man who killed your father?\"\n\n\"God forbid!\"\n\n\"Well, then, God does forbid. Lois, tell this man what you know.\"\n\n\"Alan,\" began the Marquise quaveringly, her voice fluttering like\na dying bird, \"the name of your father is ... is ... Alasdair ...\nAlasdair Carmichael!\"\n\n\"_Carmichael!_\"\n\nFor a moment he was dazed, bewildered. When, recently, had he heard\nthat name?\n\nThen it flashed upon him. He turned with flaming eyes to where the\nMarquis sat, quietly watching him.\n\n\"Oh, my God!\" That was all. He could say no more. His heart was in his\nthroat.\n\nThen, hoarse and trembling, he put out his hands.\n\n\"Tell me it is not true! Tell me it is not true!\"\n\n\"_What_ is not true, Alan Carmichael?\"\n\n\"That that was he who died in the wood yonder.\"\n\n\"That was General Alasdair Carmichael.\"\n\n\"My father?\"\n\n\"Your father!\"\n\n\"But, you devil, you murdered him! I saw you do it! You knew it was\nhe--and you killed him. You knew he would not try to kill you, and you\nwaited; then, when he had fired, you took careful aim and killed him!\"\n\n\"You reiterate, my friend. These are facts with which I am familiar.\"\n\nThe cool, sneering tone stung Alan to madness. He advanced menacingly.\n\n\"Murderer, you shall not escape!\"\n\n\"A fitting sentiment, truly, from a man who wants to marry my daughter!\"\n\n\"Marry your daughter! Marry the daughter of my father's murderer! I\nwould sooner never see the face of woman again than do this thing.\"\n\n\"Good! I am well content. And now, young man, you are of age; you have\ncome into your patrimony, including your ruined keep on the island of\nRona; and I will trouble you to go--to leave Kerival for good and all.\"\n\nSuddenly, without a word, Alan moved rapidly forward. With a light\ntouch he laid his hand for a moment on the brow of the motionless man\nin the wheeled chair.\n\n\"There! I lay upon you, Tristran de Kerival, the curse of the newly\ndead and of the living! May the evil that you have done corrode your\nbrain, and may your life silt away as sand, and may your soul know the\nsecond death!\"\n\nAs he turned to leave the room he saw Kerbastiou standing in the\ndoorway.\n\n\"Who are you, to be standing there, Judik Kerbastiou?\" demanded the\nsteward angrily.\n\n\"I am Rohan de Kerival. Ask this man here if I am not his son. Three\ndays ago the woman who was my mother died. She died a vagrant, in the\nforest. But, nigh upon thirty years ago, she was legally married to\nthe young Marquis Tristran de Kerival. I am their child.\"\n\nAlan glanced at the man he had cursed. A strange look had come into his\nashy face.\n\n\"Her name?\" was all Tristran the Silent said.\n\n\"Annora Brizeux.\"\n\n\"You have proofs?\"\n\n\"I have all the proofs.\"\n\n\"You are only a peasant, I disown you. I know nothing of you or of the\nwanton that was your mother.\"\n\nWithout a word Judik strode forward and struck him full in the face. At\nthat moment the miraculous happened. The Marquise, who had not stood\nerect for years, rose to her full height.\n\nShe, too, crossed the room.\n\n\"Alan,\" she cried, \"see! He has killed me as well as your father,\" and\nwith that she swayed, and fell dead, at the feet of the man who had\ntrampled her soul in the dust and made of her blossoming life a drear\nand sterile wilderness.\n\n\nBOOK SECOND\n\n_THE HERDSMAN_\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nRETROSPECTIVE: FROM THE HEBRID ISLES\n\n\nAt the end of the third month after that disastrous day when Alan\nCarmichael knew that his father had been slain, and before his\nunknowing eyes, by Tristran de Kerival, a great terror came upon him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn that day itself he had left the Manor of Kerival. With all that\nblood between him and his enemy he could not stay a moment longer in\nthe house. To have done so would have been to show himself callous\nindeed to the memory of his father.\n\nNor could he see Ynys. He could not look at her, innocent as she was.\nShe was her father's child, and her father had murdered his father.\nSurely a union would be against nature; he must fly while he had the\nstrength.\n\nWhen, however, he had gained the yew close he turned, hesitated, and\nthen slowly walked northward to where the long brown dunes lay in a\ngolden glow over against the pale blue of the sea. There, bewildered,\nwrought almost to madness, he moved to and fro, unable to realize all\nthat had happened, and with bitter words cursing the malign fate which\nhad overtaken him.\n\nThe afternoon waned, and he was still there, uncertain as ever, still\nconfused, baffled, mentally blind.\n\nThen suddenly he saw the figure of Yann the Dumb, his friend and\nclansman, Ian Macdonald. The old man seemed to understand at once that,\nafter what had happened, Alan Carmichael would never go back to Kerival.\n\n\"Why do you come to see me here, Ian?\" Alan had asked wearily.\n\nWhen Ian began, \"_Thiginn gu d'choimhead_ ... I would come to see you,\nthough your home were a rock-cave,\" the familiar sound of the Gaelic\ndid more than any thing else to clear his mind of the shadows which\noverlay it.\n\n\"Yes, Alan MacAlasdair,\" Ian answered, in response to an eager\nquestion, \"whatever I know is yours now, since Lois nic Choinneach is\ndead, poor lady; though, sure, it is the best thing she could be having\nnow, that death.\"\n\nAs swiftly as possible Alan elicited all he could from the old man; all\nthat there had not been time to hear from the Marquise. He learned what\na distinguished soldier, what a fine man, what a true Gael, Alasdair\nCarmichael had been. When his wife had died he had been involved in\nsome disastrous lawsuit, and his deep sorrow and absolute financial\nruin came to him at one and the same moment. It was at this juncture,\nthough there were other good reasons also, that Lois de Kerival had\nundertaken to adopt and bring up Silis's child. When her husband\nTristran had given his consent, it was with the stipulation that Lois\nand Alasdair Carmichael should never meet, and that the child was not\nto learn his surname till he came into the small fortune due to him\nthrough his mother.\n\nThis and much else Alan learned from Ian. Out of all the pain grew a\nfeeling of bitter hatred for the cold, hard man who had wrought so much\nunhappiness, and were it not for Ynys and Annaik he would, for the\nmoment, have rejoiced that, in Judik Kerbastiou, Nemesis had appeared.\nAt his first mention of the daughters, Ian had looked at him closely.\n\n\"Will you be for going back to that house, Alan MacAlasdair?\" he asked,\nand in a tone so marked that, even in his distress, Alan noticed it.\n\n\"Do you wish me to go back, Ian?\"\n\n\"God forbid! I hear the dust on the threshold rising at the thought.\"\n\n\"We are both in an alien land, Ian.\"\n\n\"_Och is diombuan gach cas air t\u00ecr gun e\u00f2las_--Fleeting is the foot in\na strange land,\" said the islander, using a phrase familiar to Gaels\naway from the isles.\n\n\"But what can I do?\"\n\n\"Sure you can go to your own place, Alan MacAlasdair. There you can\nthink of what you will do. And before you go I must tell you that your\nfather's brother Uilleam is dead, so that you have no near kin now\nexcept the son of the brother of your father, Donnacha B\u00e0n as he is\ncalled--or was called, for I will be hearing a year or more ago that\nhe, too, went under the wave. He would be your own age, and that close\nas a month or week, I am thinking.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless, Ian, I cannot go without seeing my cousin Ynys once\nmore.\"\n\n\"You will never be for marrying the daughter of the man that murdered\nyour father?\" Ian spoke in horrified amaze, adding, \"Sure, if that\nwere so, it would indeed mean that they may talk as they like of this\nsouthland as akin to Gaeldom, though that is not a thought that will\nbring honey to the hive of my brain;--for no man of the isles would\never forget _there_ that the blood of a father cries up to the stars\nthemselves.\"\n\n\"Have you no message for me, from ... from ... her?\"\n\n\"Ay,\" answered the old islesman reluctantly. \"Here it is. I did not\ngive it to you before, for fear you should be weak.\"\n\nWithout a word, Alan snatched the pencilled note. It had no beginning\nor signature, and ran simply: \"My mother is dead, too. After all that\nhas happened to-day I know we cannot meet. I know, too, that I love\nyou with all my heart and soul; that I have given you my deathless\ndevotion. But, unless you say 'Come,' it is best that you go away at\nonce, and that we never see each other again.\"\n\nAt that, Alan had torn off the half sheet, and written a single word\nupon it.\n\nIt was \"_Come._\"\n\nThis he gave to Ian, telling him to go straightway with it, and hand\nthe note to Ynys in person. \"Also,\" he added, \"fulfil unquestioningly\nevery thing she may tell you to do or not to do.\"\n\nAn hour or more after Ian had gone, and when a dark, still gloaming\nhad begun, he came again, but this time with Ynys. He and she walked\ntogether; behind them came four horses, led by Ian. When the lovers\nmet, they had stood silent for some moments. Then Ynys, knowing what\nwas in Alan's mind, asked if she were come for life or death.\n\n\"I love you, dear,\" was his answer; \"I cannot live without you. If you\nbe in truth the daughter of the man who slew my father, why should his\nevil blood be our undoing also? God knows but that even thus may his\npunishment be begun. All his thoughts were upon you and Annaik.\"\n\n\"Annaik is gone.\"\n\n\"Gone! Annaik gone! Where has she gone?\"\n\n\"I know nothing. She sent me a line to say that she would never sleep\nin Kerival again; that something had changed her whole life; that\nshe would return three days hence for our mother's funeral; and that\nthereafter she and I would never meet.\"\n\nIn a flash Alan saw many things; but deepest of all he saw the working\nof doom. On the very day of his triumph Tristran de Kerival had lost\nall, and found only that which made life more bitter than death.\nStammeringly now, Alan sought to say something about Annaik; that there\nwas a secret, an unhappiness, a sorrow, which he must explain.\n\nBut at that Ynys had pointed to the dim gray-brown sea.\n\n\"There, Alan, let us bury it all there; every thing, every thing!\nEither you and I must find our forgetfulness there, or we must drown\ntherein all this terrible past which has an inexplicable, a menacing\npresent. Dear, I am ready. Shall it be life or death?\"\n\n\"Life.\"\n\nThat was all that was said. Alan leaned forward, and tenderly kissing\nher, took her in his arms. Then he turned to Ian.\n\n\"Ian mac Iain, I call you to witness that I take Ynys de Kerival as\nmy wife; that in this taking all the blood-feud that lies betwixt us\nis become as nought; and that the past is past. Henceforth I am Alan\nCarmichael, and she here is Ynys Carmichael.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt that, Ian had bowed his head. It was against the tradition of his\npeople; but he loved Ynys as well as Alan, and secretly he was glad.\n\nThereafter, Alan and Ynys had mounted, and ridden slowly southward\nthrough the dusk; while Ian followed on the third horse, with, in rein,\nits companion, on which were the apparel and other belongings which\nYnys had hurriedly put together.\n\nThey were unmolested in their flight. Indeed, they met no one, till, at\nthe end of the Forest of Kerival, they emerged near the junction with\nthe high-road at a place called Trois Ch\u00eanes. Then a woman, a gypsy\nvagrant, insisted disaster would ensue if they went over her tracks\nthat night without first doing something to avert evil. They must cross\nher hand with silver, she said.\n\nImpatient as he was, Alan stopped, and allowed the gypsy to have her\nwill.\n\nShe looked at the hand Ynys held out through the obscurity, and almost\nimmediately dropped it.\n\n\"Beware of crossing the sea,\" she said. \"I see your death floating on a\ngreen wave.\"\n\nYnys shuddered, but said nothing. When Alan put out his hand the woman\nheld it in hers for a few seconds, and then pondered it intently.\n\n\"Be quick, my good woman,\" he urged, \"we are in a hurry.\"\n\n\"It will be behind the shadow when we meet again,\" was all her reply:\nenigmatical words, which yet in his ears had a sombre significance. But\nhe was even more perturbed by the fact that, before she relinquished\nhis hand, she stooped abruptly and kissed it.\n\nAs the fugitives rode onward along the dusky high-road, Alan whispered\nto Ynys that he could not forget the gypsy; that in some strange way\nshe haunted him; and even seemed to him to be linked to that disastrous\nday.\n\n\"That may well be,\" Ynys had answered, \"for the woman was Annaik.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOnward they rode till they came to Haut-Kerloek, the ancient village\non the slope of the hill above the little town. There, at the Gloire\nde Kerival they stopped for the night. Next morning they resumed their\njourney, and the same afternoon reached St. Blaise-sur-Loise, where\nthey knew they would find the body of General Alasdair Carmichael.\n\nAnd it was thus that, by the strange irony of fate, Alasdair\nCarmichael, who had never seen his son, who in turn had unknowingly\nwitnessed his father's tragic death, was followed to the grave-side by\nthat dear child for whom he had so often longed, and that by Alan's\nside was the daughter of the man who had done so much to ruin his\nlife and had at the last slain him. At the same hour, on the same\nday, Lois de Kerival was laid to her rest, with none of her kith and\nkin to lament her; for Tristran the Silent was alone in his austere\ngrief. Two others were there, at whom the Cur\u00e9 looked askance: the rude\nwoodlander, Judik Kerbastiou, and another forest estray, a gypsy woman\nwith a shawl over her head. The latter must have known the Marquise's\ncharity, for the good woman wept quietly throughout the service of\ncommittal, and, when she turned to go, the Cur\u00e9 heard a sob in her\nthroat.\n\nIt took but a brief while for Alan to settle his father's few affairs.\nAmong the papers he found one addressed to himself: a long letter\nwherein was set forth not only all necessary details concerning Alan's\nmother and father, but also particulars about the small fortune that\nwas in keeping for him in Edinburgh, and the lonely house on the lonely\nIsle of Rona among the lonely Hebrides.\n\nIn St. Blaise Alan and Ynys went before the civil authorities, and were\nregistered as man and wife. The next day they resumed their journey\ntoward that exile which they had in view.\n\nThereafter, slowly, and by devious ways, they fared far north. At\nEdinburgh Alan had learned all that was still unexplained. He found\nthat there would be enough money to enable Ynys and himself to live\nquietly, particularly at so remote a place as Rona. The castle or\n\"keep\" there was unoccupied, and had, indeed, long been untenanted save\nby the widow-woman Kirsten Macdonald, Ian's sister. In return for this\nhome, she had kept the solitary place in order. All the furniture that\nhad been there, when Alasdair Carmichael was last in Rona, remained. In\ngoing thither, Alan and Ynys would be going home.\n\nThe westward journey was a revelation to them. Never had there been so\nbeautiful a May, they were told. They had lingered long at the first\nplace where they heard the sweet familiar sound of the Gaelic. Hand in\nhand, they wandered over the hill-sides of which the very names had a\npoignant home-sweetness; and long, hot hours they spent together on\nlochs of which Lois de Kerival had often spoken with deep longing in\nher voice.\n\nAs they neared the extreme of the mainland, Alan's excitement deepened.\nHe spoke hardly a word on the day the steamer left the Argyle coast\nbehind, and headed for the dim isles of the sea, Coll and Tiree; and\nagain on the following day Ynys saw how distraught he was, for, about\nnoon, the coast-line of Uist loomed, faintly blue, upon the dark\nAtlantic horizon.\n\nAt Loch Boisdale, where they disembarked, and whence they had to sail\nthe remainder of their journey in a fishing schooner, which by good\nfortune was then there and disengaged, Ian was for the first time\nrecognized. All that evening Alan and Ynys talked with the islesmen;\nAlan finding, to his delight, his Gaelic was so good that none for a\nmoment suspected he had not lived in the isles all his life. That of\nYnys, however, though fluent, had a foreign sound in it which puzzled\nthe admiring fishermen.\n\nIt was an hour after sunrise when the _Blue Herring_ sailed out of\nLoch Boisdale, and it was an hour before sunset when the anchor dropped\nin Borosay Haven.\n\nOn this night Alan perceived the first sign of aloofness among his\nfellow Gaels. Hitherto every one had been cordial, and he and Ynys\nhad rejoiced in the courtesy and genial friendliness which they had\neverywhere encountered.\n\nBut in Balnaree (\"Baille'-na-Righ\"), the little village wherein was\nfocussed all that Borosay had to boast of in the way of civic life, he\ncould not disguise from himself that again and again he was looked at\naskance.\n\nRightly or wrongly he took this to be resentment because of his having\nwed Ynys, the daughter of the man who had murdered Alasdair Carmichael.\nSo possessed was he by this idea that he did not remember how little\nlikely the islanders were to know aught concerning Ynys, or indeed any\nthing beyond the fact that Alasdair MacAlasdair Rhona had died abroad.\n\nThe trouble became more than an imaginary one when, on the morrow, he\ntried to find a boat for the passage to Rona. But for the Frozen Hand,\nas the triple-peaked hill to the south of Balnaree was called, Rona\nwould have been visible; nor was it, with a fair wind, more than an\nhour's sail distant.\n\nNevertheless, every one to whom he spoke showed a strange reluctance.\nAt last, in despair, he asked an old man of his own surname why there\nwas so much difficulty.\n\nIn the island way, Sheumas Carmichael replied that the people on\nElleray, the island adjacent to Rona, were incensed.\n\n\"But incensed at what?\"\n\n\"Well, at this and at that. But for one thing they are not having\nany dealings with the Carmichaels. They are all Macdonalds, there,\nMacdonalds of Barra. There is a feud, I am thinking; though I know\nnothing of it; no, not I.\"\n\n\"But Seumas mac Eachainn, you know well yourself that there are almost\nno Carmichaels to have a feud with! There are you and your brother, and\nthere is your cousin over at Sg\u00f2rr-Bhan on the other side of Borosay.\nWho else is there?\"\n\nTo this the man could say nothing. Distressed, Alan sought Ian and\nbade him find out what he could. He, also, however, was puzzled and\neven seriously perturbed. That some evil was at work could not be\ndoubted; and that it was secret boded ill.\n\nIan was practically a stranger in Borosay because of his long absence.\nBut though this, for a time, shut him off from his fellow islanders,\nand retarded his discovery of what strange reason accounted for the\napparently inexplicable apathy shown by the fishermen of Balnaree,--an\napathy, too, so much to their own disadvantage,--it enabled him, on the\nother hand, to make a strong appeal to the clan-side of the islanders'\nnatures. After all, Ian mac Iain mhic Dhonuill was one of them, and\nthough he came there with a man in a shadow (though this phrase was not\nused in Ian's hearing), that was not his fault.\n\nSuddenly Ian remembered a fact that he should have thought of at once.\nThere was the old woman, his sister Kirsten. He would speak of her, and\nof their long separation, and of his desire to see her again before he\ndied.\n\nThis made a difficult thing easy. Within an hour a boat was ready\nto take the travellers to the Isle of the Caves--as Rona was called\nlocally. Before the hour was gone, they, with the stores of food and\nother things they had been advised to take with them, were slipping\nseaward out of Borosay Haven.\n\nThe moment the headland was rounded the heights of Rona came into\nview. Great gaunt cliffs they are, precipices of black basalt; though\non the south side they fall away in grassy declivities which hang a\ngreenness over the wandering wave forever sobbing round that desolate\nshore. But it was not till the Sg\u00f2rr-Dhu, a conical black rock at the\nsoutheast end of the island, was reached that the stone keep, known as\nCaisteal-Rhona, came in sight.\n\nIt stands at the landward extreme of a rocky ledge, on the margin of\na green _airidh_. Westward is a small dark-blue sea loch, no more\nthan a narrow haven. To the northwest rise sheer the ocean-fronting\nprecipitous cliffs; northward, above the green pasture and a stretch of\nheather, is a woodland-belt of some three or four hundred pine-trees.\nIt might well be called I-monair, as Aodh the Islander sang of it; for\nit is ever echoing with murmurous noises. If the waves dash against it\nfrom the south or east, a loud crying is upon the faces of the rocks;\nif from the north or north-east, there is a dull iteration, and amid\nthe pines a continual soughing sea voice. But when the wind blows from\nthe south-west, or the huge Atlantic billows surge out of the west,\nRona is a place filled with an indescribable tumult. Through the whole\nisland goes the myriad echo of a hollow booming, with an incessant\nsound as though waters were pouring through vast hidden conduits in the\nheart of every precipice, every rock, every bowlder. This is because of\nthe arcades of which it consists, for from the westward the island has\nbeen honeycombed by the sea. No living man has ever traversed all those\nmysterious, winding sea galleries. Many have perished in the attempt.\nIn the olden days the Uisteans and Barrovians sought refuge there from\nthe marauding Danes and other pirates out of Lochlin; and in the time\nwhen the last Scottish king took shelter in the west many of his\nisland followers found safety among these perilous arcades.\n\nSome of them reach to an immense height. These are filled with a pale\ngreen gloom which in fine weather, and at noon or toward sundown,\nbecomes almost radiant. But most have only a dusky green obscurity, and\nsome are at all times dark with a darkness that has seen neither sun\nnor moon nor star for unknown ages. Sometimes, there, a phosphorescent\nwave will spill a livid or a cold blue flame, and for a moment a vast\ngulf of dripping basalt be revealed; but day and night, night and day,\nfrom year to year, from age to age, that awful wave-clamant darkness\nprevails unbroken.\n\nTo the few who know some of the secrets of the Passages, it is\npossible, except when a gale blows from any quarter but the north,\nto thrid these dim arcades in a narrow boat, and so to pass from the\nHebrid Seas to the outer Atlantic. But to one unaware of the clews\nthere might well be no return to the light of the open day; for in that\nmaze of winding galleries and dim, sea-washed, and forever unlitten\narcades, there is only a hopeless bewilderment. Once bewildered, there\nis no hope; and the lost adventurer will remain there idly drifting\nfrom barren corridor to corridor, till he perish of hunger and thirst,\nor, maddened by the strange and appalling gloom and the unbroken\nsilence,--for there the muffled voice of the sea is no more than a\nwhisper,--he leap into the green waters which forever slide stealthily\nfrom ledge to ledge.\n\nFrom Ian mac Iain Alan had heard of such an isle, though he had not\nknown it to be Rona. Now, as he approached his wild, remote home he\nthought of these death-haunted corridors, avenues of the grave as they\nare called in the \"Cumha Fhir-Mearanach Aonghas mhic Dhonuill--the\nLament of mad Angus Macdonald.\"\n\nWhen, at last, the unwieldy brown coble sailed into the little haven it\nwas to create unwonted excitement among the few fishermen who put in\nthere frequently for bait. A group of eight or ten was upon the rocky\nledge beyond Caisteal-Rhona, among them the elderly woman who was\nsister to Ian mac Iain.\n\nAt Alan's request, Ian went ashore in advance, in a small punt. He\nwas to wave his hand if all were well, for Alan could not but feel\napprehensive on account of the strange ill-will that had shown itself\nat Borosay.\n\nIt was with relief that he saw the signal when, after Ian had embraced\nhis sister, and shaken hands with all the fishermen, he had explained\nthat the son of Alasdair Carmichael was come out of the south, and\nwith a beautiful young wife, too, and was henceforth to live at\nCaisteal-Rhona.\n\nAll there uncovered and waved their hats. Then a shout of welcome went\nup, and Alan's heart was glad, and that of Ynys. But the moment he\nhad set foot on land he saw a startled look come into the eyes of the\nfishermen--a look that deepened swiftly into one of aversion, almost of\nfear.\n\nOne by one the men moved away, awkward in their embarrassment. Not one\ncame forward with outstretched hand, nor said a word of welcome.\n\nAt first amazed, then indignant, Ian reproached them. They received his\nwords in ashamed silence. Even when with a bitter tongue he taunted\nthem, they answered nothing.\n\n\"Giorsal,\" said Ian, turning in despair to his sister, \"what is the\nmeaning of this folly?\"\n\nBut even she was no longer the same. Her eyes were fixed upon Alan\nwith a look of dread and indeed of horror. It was unmistakable, and\nAlan himself was conscious of it, with a strange sinking of the heart.\n\"Speak, woman!\" he demanded. \"What is the meaning of this thing? Why do\nyou and these men look at me askance?\"\n\n\"God forbid!\" answered Giorsal Macdonald with white lips; \"God forbid\nthat we look at the son of Alasdair Carmichael askance. But....\"\n\n\"But what?\"\n\nWith that the woman put her apron over her head and moved away,\nmuttering strange words.\n\n\"Ian, what is this mystery?\"\n\nIt was Ynys who spoke now, for on Alan's face was a shadow, and in his\neyes a deep gloom. She, too, was white, and had fear in her eyes.\n\n\"How am I for knowing, Ynys-nighean-Lhois? It is all a darkness to me\nalso. But I will find out.\"\n\nThat, however, was easier for Ian to say than to do. Meanwhile, the\nbrown cobble tacked back to Borosay, and the fishermen sailed away to\nthe Barra coasts, and Alan and Ynys were left solitary in their wild\nand remote home.\n\nBut in that very solitude they found healing. From what Giorsal hinted,\nthey came to believe that the fishermen had experienced one of those\nstrange dream-waves which, in remote isles, occur at times, when whole\ncommunities will be wrought by the selfsame fantasy. When day by day\nwent past, and no one came nigh them, at first they were puzzled and\neven resentful, but this passed and soon they were glad to be alone.\nOnly, Ian knew that there was another cause for the inexplicable\naversion that had been shown. But he was silent, and he kept a patient\nwatch for the hour that the future held in its dim shroud. As for\nGiorsal, she was dumb; but no more looked at Alan askance.\n\nAnd so the weeks went. Occasionally, a fishing smack came with the\nprovisions for the weekly despatch of which Alan had arranged at Loch\nBoisdale, and sometimes the Barra men put in at the haven, though they\nwould never stay long, and always avoided Alan as much as was possible.\n\nIn that time Alan and Ynys came to know and love their strangely\nbeautiful island home. Hours and hours at a time they spent exploring\nthe dim, green winding sea galleries, till at last they knew the main\ncorridors thoroughly. They had even ventured into some of the narrow\nsnake-like passages, but never for long, because of the awe and dread\nthese held, silent estuaries of the grave.\n\nThere, too, they forgot all the sorrow that had been theirs, forgot the\nshadow of death which lay between them. They buried all in the deep sea\nof love that was about the rock of their passion. For, as of another\nAlan and another woman, the _mirdhei_ was upon them: the dream-spell of\nlove.\n\nDay by day, with them as with that Alan and Sorcha of whom they had\noften heard, their joy had grown, like a flower moving ever to the sun;\nand as it grew the roots deepened, and the tendrils met and intertwined\nround the two hearts, till at last they were drawn together and became\none, as two moving rays of light will converge into one beam, or the\nsong of two singers blend and become as the song of one.\n\nAs the weeks passed the wonder of the dream became at times a brooding\npassion, at times almost an ecstasy. Ossian and the poets of old speak\nof a strange frenzy that came upon the brave; and, sure, there is a\n_mircath_ of another kind now and again in the world, in the green,\nremote places at least. Aodh the islander, and Ian-Ban of the hills,\nand other dreamer-poets know of it--the _mirdhei_, the passion that is\ndeeper than passion, the dream that is beyond the dream. This that was\nonce the fair doom of another Alan and Sorcha, of whom Ian had often\ntold him with hushed voice and dreaming eyes, was now upon himself and\nYnys.\n\nThey were Love to each other. In each the other saw the beauty of the\nworld. Hand in hand they wandered among the wind-haunted pines, or\nalong the thyme and grass of the summits of the precipices; or they\nsailed for hours upon the summer seas, blue lawns of moving azure,\nglorious with the sun-dazzle and lovely with purple cloud-shadows and\namethystine straits of floating weed; or, by noontide, or at the full\nof the moon, they penetrated far into the dim, green arcades, and were\nas shadows in a strange and fantastic but ineffably sweet and beautiful\ndream.\n\nDay was lovely and desirable to each, for day dreamed to night; and\nnight was sweet as life because it held the new day against its dark,\nbeating heart. Week after week passed, and to Ynys as to Alan it was as\nthe going of the gray owl's wing, swift and silent.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThen it was that, on a day of the days, Alan was suddenly stricken with\na new and startling dread.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nAT THE EDGE OF THE SHADOW\n\n\nIn the hour that this terror came upon him Alan was alone upon the\nhigh slopes of Rona, where the grass fails and the moor purples at an\nelevation of close on a thousand feet above the sea.\n\nThe day had been cloudless since sunrise. The immeasurable range of\nocean expanded like the single petal of an azure flower; all of one\nunbroken blue save for the shadows of the scattered isles and for the\nfugitive amethyst where floating weed suspended. An immense number of\nbirds congregated from every quarter. Guillemots and skuas and puffins,\ncormorants and northern divers, everywhere darted, swam, or slept\nupon the listless sea, whose deep suspiration no more than lifted a\nleague-long calm here and there, to lapse insensibly, even as it rose.\nThrough the not less silent quietudes of air the sea-gulls swept with\ncurving flight, and the narrow-winged terns made a constant shimmer.\nAt remote altitudes the gannet motionlessly drifted. Oceanward the\ngreat widths of calm were rent now and again by the shoulders of the\nporpoises which followed the herring trail, their huge, black revolving\nbodies looming large above the silent wave. Not a boat was visible\nanywhere; not even upon the most distant horizons did a brown sail\nfleck itself duskily against the skyward wall of steely blue.\n\nIn the great stillness which prevailed, the noise of the surf beating\naround the promontory of Aonaig was audible as a whisper; though even\nin that windless hour the indescribable rumor of the sea, moving\nthrough the arcades of the island, filled the hollow of the air\noverhead. Ever since the early morning Alan had moved under a strange\ngloom. Out of that golden glory of midsummer a breath of joyous life\nshould have reached his heart, but it was not so. For sure, there\nis sometimes in the quiet beauty of summer an air of menace, a\nbreath, a suspicion, a dream-premonition, of suspended force--a force\nantagonistic and terrible. All who have lived in these lonely isles\nknow the peculiar intensity of this summer melancholy. No clamor of\ntempestuous wind, no prolonged sojourn of untimely rains, and no long\nbaffling of mists in all the drear inclemencies of that remote region,\ncan produce the same ominous and even paralyzing gloom which sometimes\ncan be born of ineffable peace and beauty. Is it that in the human soul\nthere is mysterious kinship with the outer soul which we call Nature;\nand that in these few supreme hours which come at the full of the year\nwe are, sometimes, suddenly aware of the tremendous forces beneath and\nbehind us, momently quiescent?\n\nStanding with Ynys upon a grassy headland, Alan had looked long at\nthe dream-blue perspectives to the southward, seeing there at first\nno more than innumerable hidden pathways of the sun, with blue-green\nand silver radiance immeasurable, and the very breath and wonder\nand mystery of ocean life suspended as in a dream. In the hearts of\neach deep happiness brooded. Perhaps it was out of these depths that\nrose the dark flower of this sudden apprehension that came upon him.\nIt was no fear for Ynys, nor for himself, not for the general weal:\nbut a profound disquietude, a sense of inevitable ill. Ynys felt the\ntightening of his hand; and saw the sudden change in his face. It was\noften so with him. The sun-dazzle, at which he would look with endless\ndelight, finding in it a tangible embodiment of the fugitive rhythms of\ncosmic music which floated everywhere, would sometimes be a dazzle also\nin his brain. In a moment a strange bewilderment would render unstable\nthose perilous sands of the human brain which are forever laved by\nthe strange waters of the unseen life. When this mood or fantasy, or\nuncalculable accident occurred, he was often wrought either by vivid\ndreams, or creative work, or else would lapse into a melancholy from\nwhich not even the calling love of Ynys would arouse him. When she\nsaw in his face and in his eyes this sudden bewildered look, and knew\nthat in some mysterious way the madness of the beauty of the sea had\nenthralled him, she took his hand and moved with him inland. In a\nbrief while the poignant fragrance from the trodden thyme and short\nhill-grass, warmed by the sun, rose as an intoxication. For that hour\nthe gloom went. But when, later, he wandered away from Caisteal-Rhona,\nonce more the sense of foreboding was heavy upon him. Determined to\nshake it off, he wandered high among the upland solitudes. There a cool\nair forever moved even in the noons of August; and there, indeed, at\nlast, there came upon him a deep peace. With joy his mind dwelled over\nand over again upon all that Ynys had been and was to him; upon the\ndepth and passion of their love; upon the mystery and wonder of that\ncoming life which was theirs and yet was not of them, itself already no\nmore than an unrisen wave or an unbloomed flower, but yet as inevitable\nas they, but dowered with the light which is beyond where the mortal\nshadows end. Strange, this passion of love for what is not; strange,\nthis deep longing of the woman--the longing of the womb, the longing\nof the heart, the longing of the brain, the longing of the soul--for\nthe perpetuation of the life she shares in common with one whom she\nloves; strange, this longing of the man, a longing deep-based in his\nnature as the love of life or the fear of death, for the gaining from\nthe woman he loves this personal hostage against oblivion. For indeed\nsomething of this so commonplace, and yet so divine and mysterious\ntide of birth, which is forever at the flow upon this green world, is\ndue to an instinctive fear of cessation. The perpetuation of life is\nthe unconscious protest of humanity against the destiny of mortality.\nThoughts such as these were often with Alan now; often, too, with Ynys,\nin whom, indeed, all the latent mysticism which had ever been a bond\nbetween them had latterly been continually evoked. Possibly it was the\nmere shadow of his great love; possibly it was some fear of the dark\nway wherein the sunrise of each new birth is involved; possibly it was\nno more than the melancholy of the isles, that so wrought him on this\nperfect day. Whatsoever the reason, a deeper despondency prevailed\nas noon waned into afternoon. An incident, deeply significant to him,\nin that mood, at that time, happened then. A few hundred yards away\nfrom where he stood, half hidden in a little glen where a fall of\nwater made a continual spray among the shadows of the rowan and birch,\nwas the bothie of a woman, the wife of Neil MacNeill, a fisherman of\nAonaig. She was there, he knew, for the summer pasturing, and even as\nhe recollected this, he heard the sound of her voice as she sang down\nsomewhere by the burnside. Moving slowly toward the corrie, he stopped\nat a mountain ash which overhung a deep pool. Looking down, he saw the\nwoman, Morag MacNeill, washing and peeling potatoes in the clear brown\nwater. And as she washed and peeled, she sang an old-time shealing\nhymn of the Virgin-Shepherdess, of Michael the White, and of Coluaman\nthe Dove. It was a song that, far away in Brittany, he had heard Lois,\nthe mother of Ynys, sing in one of those rare hours when her youth\ncame back to her with something of youth's passionate intensity. He\nlistened now to every word of the doubly familiar Gaelic, and when\nMorag finished the tears were in his eyes, and he stood for a while as\none entranced.[A]\n\n  [Footnote A: This hymn is taken down in the Gaelic and translated by\n  Mr. Alexander Carmichael of South Uist.]\n\n    \"A Mhicheil mhin! nan steud geala,\n    A choisin cios air Dragon fala,\n    Air ghaol Dia' us Mhic Muire,\n    Sgaoil do sgiath oirnn dian sinn uile,\n    Sgaoil do sgiath oirnn dian sinn uile.\n\n    \"A Mhoire ghradhach! Mathair Uain-ghil,\n    Cohhair oirnne, Oigh na h-uaisle;\n    A rioghainn uai'reach! a bhuachaille nan treud!\n    Cum ar cuallach cuartaich sinn le cheil,\n    Cum ar cuallach cuartaich sinn le cheil.\n\n    \"A Chalum-Chille! chairdeil, chaoimh,\n    An ainm Athar, Mic, 'us Spioraid Naoimh,\n    Trid na Trithinn! trid na Triath!\n    Comraig sinne, gleidh ar trial,\n    Comraig sinne, gleidh ar trial.\n\n    \"Athair! A Mhic! A Spioraid Naoimh!\n    Bi'eadh an Tri-Aon leinn, a la 's a dh-oidhche!\n    'S air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann,\n    Bi'dh ar Mathair leinn, 's bith A lamh fo'r ceann,\n    Bi'dh ar Mathair leinn, 's bith A lamh fo'r ceann.\"\n\n\n    [Thou gentle Michael of the white steed,\n    Who subdued the Dragon of blood,\n    For love of God and the Son of Mary,\n    Spread over us thy wing, shield us all!\n    Spread over us thy wing, shield us all!\n\n    Mary Beloved! Mother of the White Lamb,\n    Protect us, thou Virgin of nobleness,\n    Queen of beauty! Shepherdess of the flocks!\n    Keep our cattle, surround us together,\n    Keep our cattle, surround us together.\n\n    Thou Columba, the friendly, the kind,\n    In name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit Holy,\n    Through the Three-in-One, through the Three,\n    Encompass us, guard our procession,\n    Encompass us, guard our procession.\n\n    Thou Father! thou Son! thou Spirit Holy!\n    Be the Three-One with us day and night.\n    And on the crested wave, or on the mountain side,\n    Our Mother is there, and her arm is under our head,\n    Our Mother is there, and her arm is under our head.]\n\nAfter she had ceased Alan found himself repeating whisperingly, and\nagain and again:\n\n    \"Bi'eadh an Tri-Aon leinn, a la 's a dh-oidhche!\n    'S air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann.\"\n\nSuddenly the woman glanced upward, perhaps because of the shadow that\nmoved against the green bracken below. With a startled gesture she\nsprang to her feet. Alan looked at her kindly, saying with a smile,\n\"Sure, Morag nic Tormaid, it is not fear you need be having of one who\nis your friend.\" Then, seeing that the woman stared at him with an\nintent gaze, wherein was terror as well as surprise, he spoke to her\nagain.\n\n\"Sure, Morag, I am no stranger that you should be looking at me with\nthose foreign eyes.\" He laughed as he spoke, and made as though he were\nabout to descend to the burnside. Unmistakably, however, the woman did\nnot desire his company. He saw that with the pain and bewilderment\nwhich had come upon him whenever the like happened, as so often it had\nhappened since he had come to Rona.\n\n\"Tell me, Bean Neil MacNeill, what is the meaning of this strangeness\nthat is upon you? Why do you not speak? Why do you turn away your\nhead?\"\n\nSuddenly the woman flashed her black eyes upon him.\n\n\"Have you ever heard of _am Buchaille B\u00e0n--am Buchaille Buidhe_?\"\n\nHe looked at her in amaze. _Am Buchaille B\u00e0n!_ ... The fair-haired\nHerdsman, the yellow-haired Herdsman! What could she mean? In days gone\nby, he knew, the islanders had, in the evil time after Culloden, so\nnamed the fugitive Prince who had sought shelter in the Hebrides; and\nin some of the runes of an older day still the Saviour of the World\nwas sometimes so called, just as Mary was called _Bhuachaille nan\ntreud_--Shepherdess of the Flocks. But as Alan knew well, no allusion\nto either of these was intended.\n\n\"Who is the Herdsman of whom you speak, Morag?\"\n\n\"Is it no knowledge you have of him at all, Alan MacAlasdair?\"\n\n\"None. I know nothing of the man, nothing of what is in your mind. Who\nis the Herdsman?\"\n\n\"You will not be putting evil upon me because that you saw me here by\nthe pool before I saw you?\"\n\n\"Why should I, woman? Why do you think that I have the power of the\nevil eye? Sure, I have done no harm to you or yours, and wish none. But\nif it is for peace to you to know it, it is no evil I wish you, but\nonly good. The Blessing of Himself be upon you and yours and upon your\nhouse.\"\n\nThe woman looked relieved, but still cast her furtive gaze upon Alan,\nwho no longer attempted to join her.\n\n\"I cannot be speaking the thing that is in my mind, Alan MacAlasdair.\nIt is not for me to be saying that thing. But if you have no knowledge\nof the Herdsman, sure it is only another wonder of the wonders, and God\nhas the sun on that shadow, to the Stones be it said.\"\n\n\"But tell me, Morag, who is the Herdsman of whom you speak?\"\n\nFor a minute or more the woman stood regarding him intently. Then\nslowly, and as with difficulty, she spoke:\n\n\"Why have you appeared to the people upon the isle, sometimes by\nmoonlight, sometimes by day or in the dusk? and have foretold upon one\nand all who dwell here black gloom and the red flame of sorrow?--Why\nhave you, who are an outcast because of what lies between you and\nanother, pretended to be an emissary of the Son--ay, for sure, even,\nGod forgive you, to be the Son himself?\"\n\nAlan stared at the woman in blank amaze. For a time he could utter no\nword. Had some extraordinary delusion spread among the islanders, and\nwas there in the insane accusation of this woman the secret of that\ninexplicable aversion which had so troubled him?\n\n\"This is all an empty darkness to me, Morag. Speak more plainly, woman.\nWhat is all this madness that you say? When have I uttered aught of\nhaving any mission, or of being other than I am? When have I foretold\nevil upon you or yours, or upon the isles beyond? What man has ever\ndared to say that Alan MacAlasdair of Rona is an outcast? and what sin\nis it that lies between me and another of which you know?\"\n\nIt was impossible for Morag MacNeill to doubt the sincerity of the man\nwho spoke to her. She crossed herself, and muttered the words of a\n_sian_ for the protection of the soul against the demon powers. Still,\neven while she believed in Alan's sincerity, she could not reconcile it\nwith that terrible and strange mystery with which rumor had filled her\nears. So, having nothing to say in reply to his eager questions, she\ncast down her eyes and kept silence.\n\n\"Speak, Morag, for Heaven's sake! Speak if you are a true woman; you\nthat see a man in sore pain, in pain, too, for that of which he knows\nnothing, and of the ill of which he is guiltless!\"\n\nBut, keeping her face averted, the woman muttered simply: \"I have no\nmore to say.\" With that she turned and moved slowly along the pathway\nwhich led from the pool to her hillside bothie.\n\nWith a sigh, Alan turned and moved across the moor. What wonder, he\nthought, that deep gloom had been upon him that day? Here, in the\nwoman's mysterious words, was the shadow of that shadow.\n\nSlowly, brooding deep over what he had heard, he traversed the\nMona-nan-Con, as the hill-tract there was called, till he came to the\nrocky wilderness known as the Slope of the Caverns.\n\nThere for a time he leaned against a high bowlder, idly watching a few\nsheep nibbling the short grass which grew about the apertures of some\nof the many caves which disclosed themselves in all directions. Below\nand beyond, he saw the illimitable calm beauty of the scene; southward\nwith no break anywhere; eastward, a sun-blaze void; south-westward,\nthe faint, blue film of the coast of Ulster; westward, the same\nimmeasurable windless expanse. From where he stood he could just hear\nthe murmur of the surge whispering all round the isle; the surge that,\neven on days of profoundest calm, makes a murmurous rumor among the\nrocks and shingle of the island shores. Not upon the moor side, but\nin the blank hollows of the caves around him he heard, as in gigantic\nshells, the moving of a strange and solemn rhythm: wave haunted-shells\nindeed, for the echo that was bruited from one to the other came from\nbeneath, from out of those labyrinthine corridors and dim, shadowy\narcades, where through the intense green glooms the Atlantic waters\nlose themselves in a vain wandering.\n\nFor long he leaned there, revolving in his mind the mystery of Morag\nMacNeill's words. Then, abruptly, the stillness was broken by the sound\nof a dislodged stone. So little did he expect the foot of a fellow that\nhe did not turn at what he thought to be the slip of a sheep. But when\nupon the slope of the grass, just beyond where he stood, a dusky blue\nshadow wavered fantastically, he swung round with a sudden instinct of\ndread.\n\nAnd this was the dread which, at the end of the third month after he\nand Ynys had come to Rona, was upon Alan Carmichael.\n\nFor there, standing quietly by another bowlder, at the mouth of another\ncave, stood a man who was in all appearance identical with himself.\nLooking at this apparition, he beheld one of the same height as\nhimself, with hair of the same hue, with eyes the same, and features\nthe same, with the same carriage, the same smile, even the same\nexpression. No, it was there, and there alone, that a difference was.\n\nSick at heart, Alan wondered if he looked upon his own wraith. Familiar\nas he was with the legends of his people, it would be no strange thing\nto him that there, upon the hillside, should appear the phantasm of\nhimself. Had not old Ian MacIain--and that, too, though far away in a\nstrange land--seen the death of Lois Macdonald moving upward from her\nfeet to her knees, from her knees to her waist, from her waist to her\nneck and, just before the end, how the shroud darkened along the face\nuntil it hid the eyes? Had he not often heard from her, from Ian, of\nthe second self which so often appears beside the living when already\nthe shadow of doom is upon him whose hours are numbered? Was this,\nthen, the reason of what had been his inexplicable gloom? Was he indeed\nat the extreme of life; was his soul amid shallows, already a rock upon\na blank, inhospitable shore? If not, who or what was this second self\nwhich leaned there negligently; looking at him with scornfully smiling\nlips, but with intent, unsmiling eyes.\n\nThen, slowly, there came into his mind this thought: How could a\nphantom, that was itself intangible, throw a shadow upon the grass,\nas though it were a living corporeal being? Sure, a shadow there was\nindeed. It lay between the apparition and himself. A story heard in\nboyhood came back to him; instinctively he stooped and lifted a stone\nand flung it midway into the shadow.\n\n\"Go back into the darkness,\" he cried, \"if out of the darkness you\ncame; but, if you be a living thing, put out your hands!\"\n\nThe shadow remained motionless; though when Alan looked again at his\nsecond self, he saw that the scorn which had been upon the lips was now\nin the eyes also. Ay, for sure, that was scornful laughter that lay\nin those cold wells of light. No phantom that; a man he, even as Alan\nhimself. His heart pulsed like that of a trapped bird, but, even in the\nspeaking, his courage came back to him.\n\n\"Who are you?\" he asked in a low voice that was strange even in his own\nears.\n\n\"Am Buchaille\", replied the man in a voice as low and strange. \"I am\nthe Herdsman.\"\n\nA new tide of fear surged in upon Alan. That voice, was it not his\nown; that tone, was it not familiar in his ears? When the man spoke,\nhe heard himself speak; sure, if he were am Buchaille B\u00e0n, Alan, too,\nwas the Herdsman--though what fantastic destiny might be his was all\nunknown to him.\n\n\"Come near,\" said the man, and now the mocking light in his eyes was\nlambent as cloud-fire--\"come near, oh, Buchaille B\u00e0n!\"\n\nWith a swift movement Alan leapt forward, but as he leaped his foot\ncaught in a spray of heather and he stumbled and nigh fell. When he\nrecovered himself, he looked in vain for the man who had called him.\nThere was not a sign, not a trace of any living being. For the first\nfew moments he believed it had all been a delusion. Mortal being did\nnot appear and vanish in that ghostly way. Still, surely he could not\nhave mistaken the blank of that place for a speaking voice, nor out\nof nothingness have fashioned the living phantom of himself? Or could\nhe? With that, he strode forward and peered into the wide arch of\nthe cavern by which the man had stood. He could not see far into it,\nbut so far as it was possible to see, he discerned neither man nor\nshadow of man, nor any thing that stirred; no, not even the dust of a\nbearnan-Bride, that grew on a patch of grass a yard or two within the\ndarkness, had lost one of its a\u00ebrial pinions. He drew back, dismayed.\nThen, suddenly, his heart leapt again, for, beyond all question, all\npossible doubt, there, in the bent thyme, just where the man had stood,\nwas the imprint of his feet. Even now the green sprays were moving\nforward.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nMYSTERY\n\n\nAn hour passed, and Alan Carmichael still stood by the entrance to\nthe cave. So immovable was he that a ewe, listlessly wandering there\nin search of cooler grass, lay down after a while, drowsily regarding\nhim with her amber-colored eyes. All his thought was intent upon the\nmystery of what he had seen. No delusion this, he was sure. That was a\nman whom he had seen. It might well have been some one whom he did not\nknow, though that were unlikely, of course, for on so small an island,\ninhabited by less than a score of crofters, it was scarcely possible\nfor one to live there for many weeks and not know the name and face of\nevery soul upon the isle. Still, a stranger might have come. Only, if\nthis were so, why should he call himself the Herdsman? There was but\none herdsman on Rona, and he Angus MacCormic, who lived at Einaval on\nthe north side. In these outer isles, the shepherd and the herdsman\nare appointed by the community, and no man is allowed to be one or the\nother at will, any more than to be _maor_ or _constabal_. Then, too,\nif this man were indeed herdsman, where was his _imir ionailt_, his\nbrowsing tract? Looking round him, Alan could perceive nowhere any\nfitting pasture. Surely no herdsman would be content with such an _imir\na bhuchaille_--rig of the herdsman--as that rocky wilderness where the\nsoft green grass grew in patches under this or that bowlder, on the\nsun side of this or that mountain ash. Again, he had given no name,\nbut called himself simply _Am Buchaille_. This was how the woman Morag\nhad spoken; did she indeed mean this very man, and if so what import\nlay in her words? But far beyond all other bewilderment for him was\nthat strange, that indeed terrifying likeness to himself; a likeness\nso absolute, so convincing, that he knew he might himself easily have\nbeen deceived, had he beheld the apparition in any place where it was\npossible that a reflection could have misled him.\n\nBrooding thus, eye and ear were both intent for the faintest sight or\nsound. But, from the interior of the cavern, not a breath came. Once,\nfrom among the jagged rocks high on the west slope of Ben Einaval\nhe fancied he heard an unwonted sound: that of human laughter, but\nlaughter so wild, so remote, so unmirthful, that fear was in his heart.\nIt could not be other than imagination, he said to himself; for in that\nlonely place there was none to wander idly at that season, and none\nwho, wandering, would laugh there, solitary.\n\nIt was with an effort that Alan at last determined to probe the\nmystery. Stooping, he moved cautiously into the cavern, and groped his\nway along a narrow ledge which led, as he thought, into another larger\ncave. But this proved to be one of the innumerable hollow corridors\nwhich intersect the honeycombed slopes of this Isle of Caves. To wander\nfar in these lightless passages would be to court inevitable death.\nLong ago, the piper whom the Prionnsa-Ban, the Fair Prince, loved to\nhear in his exile,--he that was called Rory McVurich,--penetrated one\nof the larger hollows to seek there for a child that had idly wandered\ninto the dark. Some of the clansmen, with the father and mother of\nthe little one, waited at the entrance to the cave. For a time there\nwas silence; then, as agreed upon, the sound of the pipes was heard,\nto which a man named Lachlan McLachlan replied from the outer air.\nThe skirl of the pipes within grew fainter and fainter. Louder and\nlouder Lachlan played upon his _chantar_; shriller and shriller grew\nthe wild cry of the _feadan_; but for all that, fainter and fainter\nwaned the sound of the pipes of Rory McVurich. Generations have come\nand gone upon the isle, and still no man has heard the returning air\nwhich Rory was to play. He may have found the little child, but he\nnever found his backward path, and in the gloom of that honeycombed\nhill he and the child and the music of the pipes lapsed into the same\nstillness. Remembering this legend, familiar to him since his boyhood,\nAlan did not dare to venture farther. At any moment, too, he knew he\nmight fall into one of the innumerable crevices which opened into the\nsea-corridors hundreds of feet below. Ancient rumor had it that there\nwere mysterious passages from the upper heights of Ben Einaval, which\nled into the intricate heart mazes of these perilous arcades. But for\na time he lay still, straining every sense. Convinced at last that the\nman whom he sought had evaded all possible quest, he turned to regain\nthe light. Brief way as he had gone, this was no easy thing to do. For\na few moments, indeed, Alan lost his self-possession, when he found a\nuniform dusk about him, and could scarce discern which of the several\nbranching narrow corridors was that by which he had come. But following\nthe greener light, he reached the cave, and soon, with a sigh of\nrelief, was upon the sun-sweet warm earth again.\n\nHow more than ever beautiful the world seemed to him; how sweet upon\nthe eyes were cliff and precipice, the wide stretch of ocean, the\nflying birds, the sheep grazing on the scanty pastures, and, above all,\nthe homely blue smoke curling faintly upward from the fisher crofts on\nthe headland east of Aonaig!\n\nPurposely he retraced his steps by the way of the glen. He would see\nthe woman, Morag MacNeill again, and insist on some more explicit word;\nbut when he reached the burnside once more, the woman was not there.\nPossibly she had seen him coming, and guessed his purpose; half he\nsurmised this, for the peats in the hearth were brightly aglow, and\non the hob beside them the boiling water hissed in a great iron pot\nwherein were potatoes. In vain he sought, in vain called. Impatient\nat last he walked around the bothie and into the little byre beyond.\nThe place seemed deserted. The matter, small as it was, added to his\nprofound disquietude. Resolved to sift the mystery, he began to walk\nswiftly down the slope. By the old shealing of Cnoc-na-Monie, now\nforsaken, his heart leaped at sight of Ynys coming to meet him. At\nfirst he thought he would say nothing of what had happened. But with\nYnys his was ever an impossible silence, for she knew every change\nin his mind as a seaman knows the look of the sky and sea. Moreover,\nshe had herself been all day oppressed by something of the same\ninexplicable apprehension.\n\nWhen they met, she put her hands on his shoulders and looked at him\nlovingly with questioning eyes. Ah! he found rest and hope in those\ndeep pools of quiet light whence the dreaming love rose comfortingly to\nmeet his own yearning gaze.\n\n\"What is it, Alan, mo-ghray; what is the trouble that is upon you?\"\n\n\"It is a trouble, Ynys, but one of which I can speak little, for it is\nlittle I know.\"\n\n\"Have you heard or seen aught that gives you fear?\"\n\n\"I have seen a man here upon Rona whom I have not seen or met before,\nand it is one whose face is known to me, and whose voice too, and one\nwhom I would not meet again.\"\n\n\"Did he give you no name, Alan?\"\n\n\"None.\"\n\n\"Whence did he come? Whither did he go?\"\n\n\"He came out of the shadow, and into the shadow he went.\"\n\nYnys looked steadfastly at her husband; her wistful gaze searching deep\ninto his unquiet eyes, and thence from feature to feature of the face\nwhich had become strangely worn, for all the joy that lay between them.\n\nBut she said no more upon what he had told her.\n\n\"I, too, Alan mo r\u00f9n, have heard a strange thing to-day. You know old\nMarsail Macrae? She is ill now with a slow fever, and she thinks that\nthe shadow which she saw lying upon her hearth last Sabbath, when\nnothing was there to cause any shadow, was her own death, come for her,\nand now waiting there. I spoke to the old woman comfortingly, but she\nwould not have peace, and her eyes looked at me strangely.\n\n\"'What is it, Marsail?' I asked at last. To which she replied\nmysteriously:\n\n\"'Ay, ay, for sure, it was I who saw you first.'\n\n\"'Saw me first, Marsail?'\n\n\"'Ay, you and Alan MacAlasdair.'\n\n\"'When and where was this sight upon you that you speak of?'\n\n\"'It was one month before you and he came to Rona.'\n\n\"This startled me, and I asked her to tell me her meaning. At first, I\ncould make little of what was said, for she muttered low, and moved her\nhead idly this way and that; moaning in her pain. But on my taking her\nhand, she looked at me again; and then, apparently without an effort,\ntold me this thing:\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"'On the seventh day of the month before you came--and by the same\ntoken it was on the seventh day of the month following that you and\nAlan MacAlasdair came to Caisteal-Rhona--I was upon the shore at\nAonaig, listening to the crying of the wind against the great precipice\nof Biolacreag. With me were Roderick Macrea and Neil MacNeill, Morag\nMacNeill, and her sister Elsa; and we were singing the hymn for those\nwho were out on the wild sea that was roaring white against the cliffs\nof Berneray; for some of our people were there, and we feared for them.\nSometimes one sang, and sometimes another. And sure, it is remembering\nI am, how, when I had called out with my old wailing voice:\n\n    \"'Boidh an Tri-aon leinn, a la 's a dh-oidche;\n    'S air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann.\n\n    [Be the Three-in-One with us day and night;\n    On the crested wave, when waves run high.]\n\n\"'I had just sung this, and we were all listening to the sound of it\ncaught by the wind and whirled up against the black face of Biolacreag,\nwhen suddenly I saw a boat come sailing quite into the haven. I called\nout to those about me, but they looked at me with white faces, for no\nboat was there, and it was a rough, wild sea it was in that haven.\n\n\"'And in that boat I saw three people sitting, and one was you, Ynys\nnighean Lhois, and one was Alan MacAlasdair, and one was a man who had\nhis face in shadow, and his eyes looked into the shadow at his feet. I\nknew not who you were, nor whence you came, nor whether it was for Rona\nyou were, nor any thing at all; but I saw you clear, and I told those\nabout me what I saw. And Seumas MacNeill, him that is dead now, and\nbrother to Neil here at Aonaig, he said to me, \"Who was that whom you\nsaw walking in the dusk the night before last?\" \"Alasdair MacAlasdair\nCarmichael,\" answered one at that. Seumas muttered, looking at those\nabout him, \"Mark what I say, for it is a true thing; that Alasdair\nCarmichael of Rona is dead now, because Marsail here saw him walking in\nthe dusk when he was not upon the island; and now, you Neil, and you\nRoderick, and all of you will be for thinking with me that the man and\nthe woman in the boat whom Marsail sees now will be the son and the\ndaughter of him who has changed.\"\n\n\"'Well, well, it is a true thing that we each of us thought that\nthought, but when the days went and nothing more came of it, the memory\nof the seeing went too. Then there came the day when the cobble of\nAulay MacAulay came out of Borosay into Caisteal-Rhona haven. Glad we\nwere to see the face of Ian mac Iain again, and to hear the sob of joy\ncoming out of the heart of Kirsten, his sister: but when you and Alan\nMacAlasdair came on shore, it was my voice that then went from mouth\nto mouth, for I whispered to Morag MacNeill who was next me, that you\nwere the twain that I had seen in the boat.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Well, Alan,\" Ynys added, with a grave smile, \"I spoke gently to old\nMarsail, and told her that after all there was no evil in that seeing,\nand that for sure it was nothing at all, at all, to see two people in\na boat, and nothing coming of that, save happiness for those two, and\nglad content to be here, with hope like a white swallow nesting for aye\nunder the eaves of our house.\n\n\"Marsail looked at me with big eyes.\n\n\"'It is no white swallow that builds there, Ynys Bean Alan,' she said.\n\n\"But when I asked her what she meant by that, she would say no more.\nNo asking of mine would bring the word to her lips; only she shook\nher head and averted her gaze from my face. Then, seeing that it was\nuseless, I said to her:\n\n\"'Marsail, tell me this: was that sight of yours the sole thing that\nmade the people here on Rona look askance at Alan MacAlasdair?'\n\n\"For a time she stared at me with the dim, unrecognizing eyes of those\nwho are ill and in the shadow of death; then, suddenly they brightened,\nand she spoke:\n\n\"'It is not all.'\n\n\"'Then what more is there, Marsail Macrae?'\n\n\"'That is not for the saying. I have no more to say. Let you, or your\nman, go elsewhere; that which is to be, will be. To each his own end.'\n\n\"'Then tell me this at least,' I asked; 'is there peril for Alan or for\nme in this island?'\n\n\"But from that moment Marsail would say no more, and indeed I saw that\na swoon was upon the old woman, and that she heard not or saw not.\"\n\nAfter this, Ynys and Alan walked slowly home together, hand in hand,\nboth silent and revolving in their mind as in a dim dusk, that mystery\nwhich, vague and unreal at first, had now become a living presence, and\nhaunted them by day and night.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nIN THE GREEN ARCADES\n\n\n\"In the shadow of pain, one may hear the footsteps of joy.\" So runs a\nproverb of old.\n\nIt was a true saying for Alan and Ynys. That night they lay down in\npain, their hearts heavy with the weight of some burden which they\nfelt and did not know. On the morrow they woke to the rapture of a\nnew day--a day of absolute beauty, when the stars grew pale in the\ncloudless blue sky before the uprising of the sun, while the last vapor\nlifted a white wing from the sea, and a dim spiral mist carried skyward\nthe memory of inland dews. The whole wide wilderness of ocean was of\nliving azure, aflame with gold and silver. Around the promontories of\nthe isles the brown-sailed fish-boats of Barra and Berneray, of Borosay\nand Seila, moved blithely hither and thither. Everywhere the rhythm of\nlife pulsed swift and strong. The first sound which had awakened the\nsleepers was of a loud singing of fishermen who were putting out from\nAonaig. The coming of a great shoal of mackerel had been signalled, and\nevery man and woman of the near isles was alert for the take. The first\nsign had been the swift congregation of birds, particularly the gannets\nand skuas. And as the men pulled at the oars, or hoisted the brown\nsails, they sang a snatch of an old-world tune, wont to be chanted at\nthe first coming of the birds when spring-tide is on the flow again.\n\n    \"Bui' cheas dha 'n Ti thaine na Gugachan\n    Thaine 's na h-Eoin-Mhora cuideriu,\n    Cailin dugh ciaru bo 's a chro!\n    Bo dhonn! bo dhonn! bo dhonn bheadarrach!\n    Bo dhonn a ruin a bhlitheadh am baine dhuit\n    Ho ro! mo gheallag! ni gu rodagach!\n    Cailin dugh ciaru bo 's a chro--\n    Na h-eoin air tighinn! cluinneam an ceol!\"\n\n    [Thanks to the Being, the Gannets have come.\n    Yes! and the Great Auks along with them.\n    Dark-haired girl!--a cow in the fold!\n\n\n    Brown cow! brown cow! brown cow, beloved ho!\n    Brown cow! my love! the milker of milk to thee!\n    Ho ro! my fair-skinned girl--a cow in the fold,\n    And the birds have come!--glad sight, I see!]\n\nEager to be of help, Alan put off in his boat and was soon among the\nfishermen, who in their new excitement were forgetful of all else than\nthat the mackerel were come, and that every moment was precious. For\nthe first time Alan found himself no unwelcome comrade. Was it, he\nwondered, because that, there upon the sea, whatever of shadow dwelled\nabout him on the land was no longer visible?\n\nAll through that golden noon, he and the others worked hard. From isle\nto isle went the chorus of the splashing oars and splashing nets; of\nthe splashing of the fish and the splashing of gannets and gulls; of\nthe splashing of the tide leaping blithely against the sun-dazzle, and\nthe innumerous rippling wash moving out of the west--all this blent\nwith the loud, joyous cries, the laughter, and the hoarse shouts of the\nmen of Barra and the adjacent islands. It was close upon dusk before\nthe Rona boats put into the haven of Aonaig again; and by that time\nnone was blither than Alan Carmichael, who in that day of happy toil\nhad lost all the gloom and apprehension of the day before, and now made\nhaste to Caisteal-Rhona to add to his joy by a sight of Ynys in their\nhome.\n\nWhen, however, he got there, there was no Ynys to see. \"She had gone,\"\nsaid Kirsten Macdonald, \"she had gone out in the smaller boat midway in\nthe afternoon, and had sailed around to Aoidhu, the great scaur which\nran out beyond the precipices at the south-west of Rona.\"\n\nThis Ynys often did; and, of late, more and more often. Ever since she\nhad come to the Hebrid Isles, her love of the sea had deepened, and\nhad grown into a passion for its mystery and beauty. Of late, too,\nsomething impelled to a more frequent isolation; a deep longing to\nbe where no eye could see, and no ear hearken. Those strange dreams\nwhich, in a confused way, had haunted her mind in her far Breton home,\ncame oftener now and more clear. Sometimes, when she had sat in the\ntwilight at Kerival, holding her mother's hand and listening to tales\nof that remote North to which her heart had ever yearned, she had\nsuddenly lost all consciousness of the speaker, or of the things said,\nand had let her mind be taken captive by her uncontrolled imagination,\ntill in spirit she was far away, and sojourned in strange places,\nhearing a language that she did not know, and yet which she understood,\nand dwelt in a past or a present which she had never seen and which yet\nwas familiar.\n\nSince Ynys had known she was with child, this visionariness had been\nintensified, this longing had become more and more a deep need. Even\nwith Alan she felt at times the intrusion of an alien influence. If\nin her body was a mystery, a mystery also was in her brain and in her\nheart.\n\nAlan knew this, and knowing, understood. It was for gladness to him\nthat Ynys should do as she would; that in these long hours of solitude\nshe drank deep of the elixir of peace; and that this way of happiness\nwas open to her as to him. Never did these isolations come between\nthem; indeed they were sometimes more at one then than when they were\ntogether, for all the deep happiness which sustained both upon the\nstrong waters of their love.\n\nSo, when Alan heard from Kirsten that Ynys had sailed westward, he\nwas in no way alarmed. But when the sun had set, and over the faint\nblue film of the Isle of Tiree the moon had risen, and still no sign\nof Ynys, he became restless and uneasy. Kirsten begged him in vain to\neat of the supper she had prepared. Idly he moved to and fro along the\nrocky ledge, or down by the pebbly shore, or across the green _airidh_;\neager for a glimpse of her whom he loved so passing well.\n\nAt last, unable longer to endure a growing anxiety, he put out in his\nboat, and sailed swiftly before the slight easterly breeze which had\nprevailed since moonrise. So far as Aoidhu, all the way from Aonaig,\nthere was not a haven anywhere, nor even one of the sea caverns which\nhoneycombed the isle beyond the headland. A glance, therefore, showed\nhim that Ynys had not yet come back that way. It was possible, though\nunlikely, that she had sailed right round Rona; unlikely because in\nthe narrow straits to the north, between Rona and the scattered islets\nknown as the Innse-mhara, strong currents prevailed, and particularly\nat the full of the tide, when they swept north-eastward, dark and swift\nas a mill-race.\n\nOnce the headland was passed and the sheer precipitous westward cliffs\nloomed black out of the sea, he became more and more uneasy. As yet,\nthere was no danger; but he saw that a swell was moving out of the\nwest, and whenever the wind blew that way the sea arcades were filled\nwith a lifting, perilous wave, and escape from them was difficult\nand often impossible. Out of the score or more great corridors which\nopened between Aoidhu and Ardgorm, it was difficult to know into which\nto hazard entry in quest of Ynys. Together they had examined all of\nthem. Some twisted but slightly; others wound sinuously till the green,\nserpentine alleys, flanked by basalt walls hundreds of feet high, lost\nthemselves in an indistinguishable maze.\n\nBut that which was safest, and wherein a boat could most easily make\nits way against wind or tide, was the huge, cavernous corridor known\nlocally as the Uamh-nan-roin, the Cave of the Seals.\n\nFor this opening Alan steered his boat. Soon he was within the wide\ncorridor. Like the great cave at Staffa, it was wrought as an aisle\nin some natural cathedral; the rocks, too, were fluted columnarly and\nrose in flawless symmetry as though graven by the hand of man. At the\nfar end of this gigantic aisle, there diverges a long, narrow arcade,\nfilled by day with the green shine of the water, and by night, when\nthe moon is up, with a pale froth of light. It is one of the few where\nthere are open gateways for the sea and the wandering light, and, by\nits spherical shape, almost the only safe passage in a season of heavy\nwind. Half-way along this arched arcade a corridor leads to a round\ncup-like cavern, midway in which stands a huge mass of black basalt, in\nshape suggestive of a titanic altar. Thus it must have impressed the\nimagination of the islanders of old, for by them, even in a remote day,\nit was called Teampull-nan-Mhara, the Temple of the Sea. Owing to the\nnarrowness of the corridor, and to the smooth, unbroken walls which\nrise sheer from the green depths into an invisible darkness, the Strait\nof the Temple is not one wherein to linger long, save in a time of calm.\n\nInstinctively, however, Alan quietly headed his boat along this narrow\nway. When, silently, he emerged from the arcade, he could just discern\nthe mass of basalt at the far end of the cavern. But there, seated in\nher boat, was Ynys; apparently idly adrift, for one oar floated in the\nwater alongside, and the other suspended listlessly from the tholes.\n\nHis heart had a suffocating grip as he saw her whom he had come to\nseek. Why that absolute stillness, that strange, listless indifference?\nFor a dreadful moment he feared that death had indeed come to her in\nthat lonely place where, as an ancient legend had it, a woman of old\ntime had perished, and ever since had wrought death upon any who came\nthither solitary and unhappy.\n\nBut at the striking of the shaft of his oar against a ledge, Ynys gave\na low cry and looked at him with startled eyes. Half rising from where\nshe crouched in the stern, she called to him in a voice that had in it\nsomething strangely unfamiliar.\n\n\"I will not hear!\" she cried. \"I will not hear! Leave me! Leave me!\"\n\nFearing that the desolation of the place had wrought upon her mind,\nAlan swiftly moved toward her. The very next moment his boat glided\nalong hers. Stepping from the one to the other, he kneeled beside her.\n\n\"_Ynys-ghaolaiche_, Ynys, my darling, what is it? what gives you dread?\nThere is no harm here. All is well. Look! See, it is I, Alan; Alan,\nwhom you love! Listen, dear; do you not know me; do you not know who I\nam? It is I, Alan; Alan who loves you!\"\n\nEven in that obscure light he could clearly discern her pale face, and\nhis heart smote him as he saw her eyes turn upon him with a glance wild\nand mournful. Had she indeed succumbed to the sea madness which ever\nand again strikes into a terrible melancholy one here and there among\nthose who dwell in the remote isles? But even as he looked, he noted\nanother expression come into the beautiful eyes, and almost before he\nrealized what had happened, Ynys's head was on his breast, and she\nsobbing with a sudden gladness and passion of relief.\n\nThe dusk deepened swiftly. In those serpentine arcades darkness grows\nfrom hour to hour, even on nights when the moon makes the outer sea a\nblaze of silver fire. But sweet it was to lie there in that solitary\nplace, where no sound penetrated save the low, soughing sigh of ocean,\naudible there only as the breath of a sleeper: to lie there in each\nother's arms, and to feel the beating of heart against heart, knowing\nthat whether in the hazard of life or death, all was well, since they\ntwo were there and together.\n\nFor long Ynys could say no word. And as for Alan--too glad was he to\nhave her again, to know that she lived indeed, and that his fear of the\nsea madness was an idle fantasy; too glad was he to urge her to speak,\nwhen her recovered joy was still sweet in her heart. But at last she\nwhispered to him how that she had sailed westward from Caisteal-Rhona,\nhaving been overcome by the beauty of the day, and longing to be among\nthose mysterious green arcades where thought rose out of the mind\nlike a white bird and flew among shadows in strange places, bringing\nback with it upon its silent wings the rumor of strange voices, and\noftentimes singing a song of what ears hear not. Deeply upon the two\nhad lain the thought of what was to be; the thought of the life she\nbore within her, that was the tangible love of her and of Alan, and yet\nwas so strangely and remotely dissociate from either. Happy in happy\nthoughts, and strangely wrought by vague imaginings, she had sailed\npast precipice after precipice, and so at last into the Strait of the\nTemple. Just before the last light of day had begun to glide out of\nthe pale green water, she had let her boat drift idly alongside the\nTeampull-Mhara. There, for a while, she had lain, drowsily content,\ndreaming her dream. Then, suddenly her heart had given a leap like a\ndoe in the bracken, and the pulses in her veins swung like stars on a\nnight of storm.\n\nFor there, in that nigh unreachable and forever unvisited solitude was\nthe figure of a man. He stood on the summit of the huge basalt altar,\nand appeared to have sprung from out the rock, or, himself a shadowy\npresence, to have grown out of the obscure unrealities of the darkness.\nShe had stared at him, fascinated, speechless.\n\nWhen she had said this Ynys stopped abruptly, for she felt the\ntrembling of Alan's hand.\n\n\"Go on,\" he said hoarsely, \"go on. Tell me all!\"\n\nTo his amaze, she did not seem perturbed in the way he had dreaded when\nshe began to tell what she had seen.\n\n\"But did you notice nothing about him, Ynys ... about his face, his\nfeatures?\"\n\n\"Yes. His eyes filled me with strange joy.\"\n\n\"With joy? Oh, Ynys! Ynys! do you know whom--_what_--it was you saw? It\nwas a vision, a nothingness, a mere phantom; and that phantom was ...\nwas ... myself!\"\n\n\"You, Alan! Oh, no, Alan-aghray! dear, you do not know whom I saw--nor\ndo I, though I know it was not you!\"\n\n\"We will talk of this later, my fawn,\" Alan muttered. \"Meanwhile, hold\non to this ledge, for I wish to examine this mass of rock that they\ncall the Altar.\"\n\nWith a spring he was on the ledge. Then, swift and sure as a wild-cat,\nhe scaled the huge bowlder.\n\nNothing; no one! There was not a trace of any human being. Not a bird,\nnot a bat; nothing. Moreover, even in that slowly blackening darkness\nhe could see that there was no direct connection between the summit or\nside with the blank, precipitous wall of basalt beyond. Overhead there\nwas, so far as he could discern, a vault. No human being could have\ndescended through that perilous gulf.\n\nWas the island haunted? he wondered, as slowly he made his way back to\nthe boat. Or had he been startled into some wild fantasy, and imagined\na likeness where none had been? Perhaps, even, he had not really seen\nany one. He had read of similar strange delusions. The nerves can soon\nchase the mind into the dark zone wherein it loses itself.\n\nOr was Ynys the vain dreamer? That, indeed, might well be, and she\nwith child, and ever a visionary. Mayhap she had heard some fantastic\ntale from Morag MacNeill or from old Marsail Macrae; the islanders had\n_sgeul_ after _sgeul_ of a wild strangeness.\n\nIn silence he guided the boats back into the outer arcade, where a\nfaint sheen of moonlight glistered on the water. Thence, in a few\nminutes, he oared that wherein he and Ynys sat, with the other fastened\nastern, into the open.\n\nWhen the moonshine lay full on her face, he saw that she was thinking\nneither of him nor of where she was. Her eyes were heavy with dream.\n\nWhat wind there was blew against their course, so Alan rowed\nunceasingly. In silence they passed once again the headland of Aoidhu;\nin silence they drifted past a single light gleaming in a croft near\nAonaig--a red eye staring out into the shadow of the sea, from the\nroom where the woman Marsail lay dying; and in silence their keels\ngrided on the patch of shingle in Caisteal-Rhona haven.\n\nBut when, once more, Alan found himself with Ynys in the safe quietudes\nof the haven, he pressed her eagerly to give him some clear description\nof the figure she had seen.\n\nYnys, however, had become strangely reticent. All he could elicit from\nher was that the man whom she had seen bore no resemblance to him,\nexcept in so far as he was fair. He was taller, slimmer, and seemed\nolder.\n\nHe thought it wiser not to speak to her on what he himself had seen, or\nconcerning his conviction that it was the same mysterious stranger who\nhad appeared to both.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE MESSAGE\n\n\nFor days thereafter Alan haunted that rocky, cavernous wilderness where\nhe had seen the Herdsman.\n\nIt was in vain he had everywhere sought to find word of this mysterious\ndweller in those upland solitudes. At times he believed that there was\nindeed some one upon the island of whom, for inexplicable reasons, none\nthere would speak; but at last he came to the conviction that what he\nhad seen was an apparition, projected by the fantasy of overwrought\nnerves. Even from the woman, Morag MacNeill, to whom he had gone with\na frank appeal that won its way to her heart, he learned no more than\nthat an old legend, of which she did not care to speak, was in some way\nassociated with his own coming to Rona.\n\nYnys, too, never once alluded to the mysterious incident of the green\narcades which had so deeply impressed them both; never, that is,\nafter the ensuing day which followed, when, simply and spontaneously,\nshe told Alan that she believed that she had seen a vision. When he\nreminded her that she had been convinced of its reality, Ynys answered\nthat for days past she had been dreaming a strange dream, and that\ndoubtless this had possessed her so that her nerves played her false,\nin that remote and shadowy place. What this dream was she would not\nconfide, nor did he press her.\n\nBut as the days went by and as no word came to either of any unknown\nperson who was on the island, and as Alan, for all his patient\nwandering and furtive quest, both among the upland caves and in the\ngreen arcades, found absolutely no traces of him whom he sought, the\nbelief that he had been duped by his imagination deepened almost to\nconviction.\n\nAs for Ynys, day after day, soft veils of dream obscured the bare\nrealities of life. But she, unlike Alan, became more and more convinced\nthat what she had seen was indeed no apparition. Whatever lingering\ndoubt she had was dissipated on the eve of the night when old Marsail\nMacrae died. It was dusk when word came to Caisteal-Rhona that Marsail\nfelt the cold wind on the soles of her feet. Ynys went to her at once,\nand it was in the dark hour which followed that she heard once more and\nmore fully the strange story which, like a poisonous weed, had taken\nroot in the minds of the islanders. Already from Marsail she had heard\nof the Prophet, though, strangely enough, she had never breathed word\nof this to Alan, not even when, after the startling episode of the\napparition in the Teampull-Mhara, she had, as she believed, seen the\nProphet himself. But there in the darkness of the low, turfed cottage,\nwith no light in the room save the dull red gloom from the heart of the\nsmoored peats, Marsail, in the attenuated, remote voice of those who\nhave already entered into the vale of the shadow, told her this thing.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Yes, Ynys, wife of Alan MacAlasdair, I will be telling you this\nthing before I change. You are for knowing, sure, that long ago\nUilleam, brother of him who was father to your man, had a son? Yes,\nyou know that, you say, and also that he was called Donnacha B\u00e0n?\nNo, mo-run-geal, that is not a true thing that you have heard, that\nDonnacha B\u00e0n went under the wave years ago. He was the seventh son,\nand was born under the full moon; 'tis Himself will be knowing whether\nthat was for or against him. Of these seven none lived beyond childhood\nexcept the two youngest, Kenneth and Donnacha. Kenneth was always frail\nas a February flower, but he lived to be a man. He and his brother\nnever spoke, for a feud was between them, not only because that each\nwas unlike the other and that the younger hated the older because thus\nhe was the penniless one--but most because both loved the same woman.\nI will not be telling you the whole story now, for the breath in my\nbody will soon blow out in the draught that is coming upon me; but\nthis I will say to you: darker and darker grew the gloom between these\nbrothers. When Kirsteen Macdonald gave her love to Kenneth, Donnacha\ndisappeared for a time. Then, one day, he came back to Borosay, and\nsmiled quietly with his cold eyes when they wondered at his coming\nagain. Now, too, it was noticed that he no longer had an ill-will\nupon his brother, but spoke smoothly with him and loved to be in his\ncompany. But, to this day, no one knows for sure what happened. For\nthere was a gloaming when Donnacha B\u00e0n came back alone, in his sailing\nboat. He and Kenneth had sailed forth, he said, to shoot seals in the\nsea arcades to the west of Rona; but in these dark and lonely passages,\nthey had missed each other. At last he had heard Kenneth's voice\ncalling for help, but when he had got to the place, it was too late,\nfor his brother had been seized with the cramps, and had sunk deep into\nthe fathomless water. There is no getting a body again that sinks in\nthese sea galleries. The crabs know that.\n\n\"Well, this and much more was what Donnacha B\u00e0n told to his people.\nNone believed him; but what could any do? There was no proof; none had\never seen them enter the sea caves together. Not that Donnacha B\u00e0n\nsought in any way to keep back those who would fain know more. Not\nso; he strove to help to find the body. Nevertheless, none believed;\nand Kirsteen nic Dugall M\u00f2r least of all. The blight of that sorrow\nwent to her heart. She had death soon, poor thing! but before the cold\ngrayness was upon her, she told her father, and the minister that was\nthere, that she knew Donnacha B\u00e0n had murdered his brother. One might\nbe saying these were the wild words of a woman; but, for sure, no one\nsaid that thing upon Borosay or Rona, or any of these isles. When all\nwas done, the minister told what he knew, and what he thought, to the\nLord of the South Isles, and asked what was to be put upon Donnacha\nB\u00e0n. 'Exile forever,' said the Chief, 'or if he stays here, the doom of\nsilence. Let no man or woman speak to him or give him food or drink; or\ngive him shelter, or let his shadow cross his or hers.'\n\n\"When this thing was told to Donnacha B\u00e0n Carmichael, he laughed at\nfirst; but as day slid over the rocks where all days fall, he laughed\nno more. Soon he saw that the Chief's word was no empty word; and\nyet he would not go away from his own place. He could not stay upon\nBorosay, for his father cursed him; and no man can stay upon the\nisland where a father's curse moves this way and that, forever seeking\nhim. Then, some say a madness came upon him, and others that he took\nwildness to be his way, and others that God put upon him the shadow of\nloneliness, so that he might meet sorrow there and repent. Howsoever\nthat may be, Donnacha B\u00e0n came to Rona, and, by the same token, it\nwas the year of the great blight, when the potatoes and the corn came\nto naught, and when the fish in the sea swam away from the isles.\nIn the autumn of that year there was not a soul left on Rona except\nKirsten Macdonald and the old man Ian, her father, who had guard of\nCaisteal-Rhona for him who was absent. When, once more, smoke rose\nfrom the crofts, the rumor spread that Donnacha B\u00e0n, the murderer, had\nmade his home among the caves of the upper part of the isle. None knew\nhow this rumor rose, for he was seen of none. The last man who saw\nhim--and that was a year later--was old Padruic McVurich, the shepherd.\nPadruic said that, as he was driving his ewes across the north slope of\nBen Einaval in the gloaming, he came upon a silent figure seated upon a\nrock, with his chin in his hands, and his elbows on his knees--with the\ngreat, sad eyes of him staring at the moon that was lifting itself out\nof the sea. Padruic did not know who the man was. The shepherd had few\nwits, poor man! and he had known, or remembered, little about the story\nof Donnacha B\u00e0n Carmichael, so, when he spoke to the man, it was as to\na stranger. The man looked at him and said:\n\n\"'You are Padruic McVurich, the shepherd.'\n\n\"At that a trembling was upon old Padruic, who had the wonder that this\nstranger should know who and what he was.\n\n\"'And who will you be, and forgive the saying?' he asked.\n\n\"'_Am Faidh_--the Prophet,' the man said.\n\n\"'And what prophet will you be, and what is your prophecy?' asked\nPadruic.\n\n\"'I am here because I wait for what is to be, and that will be for the\nbirth of a child that is to be a king.'\n\n\"And with that the man said no more, and the old shepherd went silently\ndown through the hillside gloaming, and, heavy with the thoughts that\ntroubled him, followed his ewes down into Aonaig. But after that\nneither he nor any other saw or heard aught of the shadowy stranger;\nso that all upon Rona felt sure that Padruic had beheld no more than a\nvision. There were some who thought that he had seen the ghost of the\noutlaw Donnacha B\u00e0n; and mayhap one or two who wondered if the stranger\nthat had said he was a prophet was not Donnacha B\u00e0n himself, with a\nmadness come upon him; but at last these rumors went out to sea upon\nthe wind, and men forgot. But, and it was months and months afterward,\nand three days before his own death, old Padruic McVurich was sitting\nin the sunset on the rocky ledge in front of his brother's croft,\nwhere then he was staying, when he heard a strange crying of seals. He\nthought little of that; only, when he looked closer, he saw, in the\nhollow of the wave hard by that ledge, a drifting body.\n\n\"_Am Faidh--Am Faidh!_\" he cried; \"the Prophet, the Prophet!\"\n\nAt that his brother and his brother's wife ran to see; but it was\nnothing that they saw. \"It would be a seal,\" said Pol McVurich; but at\nthat Padruic had shook his head, and said no, for sure, he had seen\nthe face of the dead man, and it was of him whom he had met on the\nhillside, and that had said he was the Prophet who was waiting there\nfor the birth of a king.\n\n\"And that is how there came about the echo of the thought, that\nDonnacha B\u00e0n had at last, after his madness, gone under the green wave\nand was dead. For all that, in the months which followed, more than one\nman said he had caught a glimpse of a figure high up on the hill. The\nold wisdom says that when Christ comes again, or the Prophet who will\nherald Christ, it will be as a herdsman on a lonely isle. More than\none of the old people on Rona and Borosay remembered that _sgeul_ out\nof the _seanachas_ that the tale-tellers knew. There were some who\nsaid that Donnacha B\u00e0n had never been drowned at all, and that he was\nthis Prophet, this Herdsman. Others would not have that saying at all,\nbut believed that the mysterious herdsman was indeed Am Buchaille B\u00e0n,\nthe Fair-haired Shepherd, who had come again to redeem the people out\nof their sorrow. There were even those who said that the Herdsman who\nhaunted Rona was no other than Kenneth Carmichael himself, who had not\ndied, but had had the mind-dark there in the sea caves where he had\nbeen lost, and there had come to the knowledge of secret things, and so\nwas at last _Am Faidh Chriosd_.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA great weakness came upon the old woman when she had spoken thus\nfar. Ynys feared that she would have breath for no further word, but\nafter a thin gasping, and a listless fluttering of weak hands upon\nthe coverlet, whereon her trembling fingers plucked aimlessly at the\ninvisible blossoms of death, she opened her eyes once more and stared\nin a dim questioning at her who sat by her bedside.\n\n\"Tell me,\" whispered Ynys, \"tell me, Marsail, what thought it is that\nis in your own mind?\"\n\nBut already the old woman had begun to wander, though Ynys did not know\nthis.\n\n\"For sure, for sure,\" she muttered, \"_Am Faidh_ ... _Am Faidh_ ... an'\na child will be born ... an' a king he will be, an' ... that will be\nthe voice of Domhuill, my husband, I am hearing ... an' dark it is, an'\nthe tide comin' in ... an'----\"\n\nThen, sure, the tide came in, and if in that darkness old Marsail\nMacrae heard any voice at all, it was that of Domhuill who years agone\nhad sunk into the wild seas off the head of Barra.\n\nAn hour later, with tears still in her eyes, Ynys walked slowly home\nthrough the cloudy night. All she had heard came back to her with a\nstrange familiarity. Something of this, at least, she had known before.\nSome hints of this mysterious Herdsman had reached her ears. In some\ninexplicable way his real or imaginary presence there upon Rona seemed\na preordained thing for her. All that dreaming mysticism, which had\nwrought so much of beauty and wonder into her girlhood in Brittany,\nhad expanded into a strange flower of the imagination--a flower whose\nsubtle fragrance affected her inward life. Sometimes she had wondered\nif all the tragic vicissitudes which happened at Kerival, with the\nstrange and dreamlike life which she and Alan had led since, had so\nwrought upon her that the unreal became real, and the actual merely\nphantasmal; for now she felt more than ever assured that some hidden\ndestiny had controlled all this disastrous mischance, had led her and\nAlan there to that lonely island.\n\nShe knew that the wild imaginings of the islanders had woven the legend\nof the Prophet, or at any rate of his message, out of the loom of the\nlonging and the deep nostalgia whereon is woven that larger tapestry,\nthe shadow-thridden life of the island Gael. Laughter and tears,\nordinary hopes and pleasures, and even joy itself, and bright gayety,\nand the swift, spontaneous imagination of susceptible natures--all\nthis, of course, is to be found with the island Gael as with his\nfellows elsewhere. But every here and there are some who have in\ntheir minds the inheritance from the dim past of their race, and are\noppressed as no other people are oppressed by the gloom of a strife\nbetween spiritual emotion and material facts. It is the brains of\ndreamers such as these which clear the mental life of the community;\nand it is in these brains are the mysterious looms which weave the\ntragic and sorrowful tapestries of Celtic thought. It were a madness\nto suppose that life in the isles consists of nothing but sadness or\nmelancholy. It is not so, or need not be so, for the Gael is a creature\nof shadow and shine. But whatever the people is, the brain of the Gael\nhears a music that is sadder than any music there is, and has for its\ncloudy sky a gloom that shall not go, for the end is near, and upon the\nwesternmost shores of these remote isles, the Voice--as has been truly\nsaid by one who has beautifully interpreted his own people--the Voice\nof Celtic Sorrow may be heard crying, \"_Cha till, cha till, cha till mi\ntuille_\"--I will return, I will return, I will return no more.\n\nYnys knew all this well; and yet she too dreamed her Celtic\ndream--that, even yet, there might be redemption for the people. She\ndid not share the wild hope which some of the older islanders held,\nthat Christ himself shall come again to redeem an oppressed race; but\nmight not another saviour arise, another redeeming spirit come into the\nworld? And if so, might not that child of joy be born out of suffering\nand sorrow and crime; and if so, might not that child be born of her?\n\nWith startled eyes she crossed the thyme-set ledge whereon stood\nCaisteal-Rhona. Was it, after all, a message she had received from him\nwho appeared to her in that lonely cavern of the sea; was he indeed _Am\nFaidh_, the mysterious Prophet of the isles?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nTHE LAUGHTER OF THE KING\n\n\nWhat are dreams but the dust of wayfaring thoughts? Or whence are they,\nand what air is upon their shadowy wings? Do they come out of the\ntwilight of man's mind; are they ghosts of exiles from vanished palaces\nof the brain; or are they heralds with proclamations of hidden tidings\nfor the soul that dreams?\n\nIt was a life of dream that Ynys and Alan lived; but Ynys the more,\nfor, as week after week went by, the burden of her motherhood wrought\nher increasingly. Ever since the night of Marsail's death, Alan had\nnoticed that Ynys no longer doubted but that in some way a special\nmessage had come to her, a special revelation. On the other hand, he\nhad himself swung back to his former conviction, that the vision he\nhad seen upon the hillside was, in truth, that of a living man. From\nfragments here and there, a phrase, a revealing word, a hint gleaming\nthrough obscure allusions, he came at last to believe that some one\nbearing a close, and even extraordinary, resemblance to himself lived\nupon Rona. Although upon the island itself he could seldom persuade any\none to speak of the Herdsman, the islanders of Seila and Borosay became\ngradually less reticent. He ascertained this, at least: that their fear\nand aversion, when he first came, had been occasioned by the startling\nlikeness between him and the mysterious being whom they called Am\nBuchaille B\u00e0n. On Borosay, he was told, the fishermen believed that\nthe _aonaran nan chreag_, the recluse of the rocks, as commonly they\nspoke of him, was no other than Donnacha B\u00e0n Carmichael, survived there\nthrough these many years, and long since mad with his loneliness and\nbecause of the burden of his crime. It was with keen surprise that Alan\nlearned how many of the fishermen of Borosay and Berneray, and even\nof Barra, had caught a glimpse of the outcast. It was this relative\nfamiliarity, indeed, that was at the root of the fear and aversion\nwhich had met him upon his arrival. Almost from the moment he had\nlanded in Borosay, the rumor had spread that he was indeed no other\nthan Donnacha B\u00e0n, and that he had chosen this way, now both his father\nand Alasdair Carmichael were dead, to return to his own place. So like\nwas Alan to the outlaw who had long since disappeared from touch with\nhis fellow men, that many were convinced that the two could be no other\nthan one and the same. What puzzled him hardly less was the fact that,\non the rare occasions when Ynys had consented to speak of what she had\nseen, the man she described bore no resemblance to himself. From one\nthing and another, he came at last to the belief that he had really\nseen Donnacha B\u00e0n, his cousin; but that the vision of Ynys's mind was\nborn of her imagination, stimulated by all the tragedy and strange\nvicissitudes she had known, and wrought by the fantastic tales of\nMarsail and Morag MacNeill.\n\nBy this time, too, the islanders had come to see that Alan MacAlasdair\nwas certainly not Donnacha B\u00e0n. Even the startling likeness no longer\nbetrayed them in this way. The ministers and the priests laughed at the\nwhole story and everywhere discouraged the idea that Donnacha B\u00e0n could\nstill be among the living. But for the unfortunate superstition that\nto meet the Herdsman, whether the lost soul of Donnacha B\u00e0n or indeed\nthe strange phantom of the hills of which the old legends spoke, was to\nmeet inevitable disaster; but for this, the islanders might have been\npersuaded to make such a search among the caves of Rona as would almost\ncertainly have revealed the presence of any who dwelt therein.\n\nBut as summer lapsed into autumn, and autumn itself through its golden\nsilences waned into the shadow of the equinox, a quiet happiness came\nupon both Alan and Ynys. True, she was still wrought by her strange\nvisionary life, though of this she said little or nothing; and, as\nfor himself, he hoped that with the birth of the child this fantastic\ndream life would go. Whoever the mysterious Herdsman was--if he indeed\nexisted at all except in the imaginations of those who spoke of him\neither as the Buchaille B\u00e0n, or as the _aonaran nan chreag_--Alan\nbelieved that at last he had passed away. None saw him now: and even\nMorag MacNeill, who had often on moonlight nights caught the sound of a\nvoice chanting among the upper solitudes, admitted that she now heard\nnothing unusual.\n\nSt. Martin's summer came at last, and with it all that wonderful,\ndreamlike beauty which bathes the isles in a flood of golden light, and\nputs upon sea and land a veil as of ineffable mystery.\n\nOne late afternoon Ynys, returning to Caisteal-Rhona after an\nunexplained absence of several hours, found Alan sitting at a table.\nSpread before him were the sheets of one of the strange old Gaelic\ntales which he had ardently begun to translate. She took up the page\nwhich he had just laid down. It was from the _Eachdaireachd Challum\nmhic cruimein_, and the last words that Alan had translated were these:\n\n\"And when that king had come to the island, he lived there in the\nshadow of men's eyes; for none saw him by day or by night, and none\nknew whence he came or whither he fared; for his feet were shod with\nsilence, and his way with dusk. But men knew that he was there, and all\nfeared him. Months, even years, tramped one on the heels of the other,\nand perhaps the king gave no sign, but one day he would give a sign;\nand that sign was a laughing that was heard somewhere, be it upon the\nlonely hills, or on the lonely wave, or in the heart of him who heard.\nAnd whenever the king laughed, he who heard would fare ere long from\nhis fellows to join that king in the shadow. But sometimes the king\nlaughed only because of vain hopes and wild imaginings, for upon these\nhe lives as well as upon the strange savors of mortality.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYnys read the page over and over; and when Alan saw how she brooded\nupon it, he regretted that he had left it for her to see.\n\nHe the more regretted this when he learned that that very afternoon she\nhad again been among the sea caves. She would not say what she had\nseen or heard, if indeed she had heard or seen any thing unusual. But\nthat night she woke suddenly, and taking Alan by the hand, made him\npromise to go with her on the morrow to the Teampull-Mhara.\n\nIn vain he questioned her as to why she asked this thing. All she\nwould say was that she must go there once again, and with him, for\nshe believed that a spirit out of heaven had come to reveal to her a\nwonder. Distressed by what he knew to be a madness, and fearful that it\nmight prove to be no passing fantasy, Alan would fain have persuaded\nher against this intention. Even as he spoke, however, he realized\nthat it might be better to accede to her wishes, and, above all, to be\nthere with her, so that it might not be one only who heard or saw the\nexpected revelation.\n\nAnd it was a strange faring indeed, that which occurred on the morrow.\nAt noon, when the tide was an hour turned in the ebb, they sailed\nwestward from Caisteal-Rhona. It was in silence they made that strange\njourney together; for, while Alan steered, Ynys lay down in the hollow\nof the boat, with her head against his knees, and he saw that she\nslept, or at least lay still with her eyes closed.\n\nWhen, at last, they passed the headland and entered the first of the\nsea arcades, she rose and sat beside him. Hauling down the now useless\nsail, he took an oar and, standing at the prow, urged the boat inward\nalong the narrow corridor which led to the huge sea cave of the Altar.\n\nIn the deep gloom--for even on that day of golden light and beauty the\ngreen air of the sea cave was heavy with shadow--there was a deathly\nchill. What dull light there was came from the sheen of the green water\nwhich lay motionless along the black basaltic ledges. When at last the\nbase of the Altar was reached, Alan secured the boat by a rope passed\naround a projecting spur; and then lay down in the stern beside Ynys.\n\n\"Tell me, dear, what is this thing that you expect to hear or see?\"\n\nShe looked at him strangely for a while, but, though her lips moved,\nshe said nothing.\n\n\"Tell me, dear,\" he urged again, \"who is it you expect to see or hear?\"\n\n\"_Am Buchaille B\u00e0n_,\" she answered, \"the Herdsman.\"\n\nFor a moment he hesitated. Then, taking her hand in his, and raising it\nto his lips, he whispered in her ear:\n\n\"Dearest, all this is a vain dream. There is no Herdsman upon Rona. If\never there was a man there who lived solitary--if ever, indeed, there\nwas an _aonaran nan chreag_--he is dead long since. What you have seen\nand heard has been a preying upon you of wild thoughts. Think no more\nof this vision. We have both suffered too much, and the knowledge of\nwhat is behind us has wrought upon us too hardly. It is a mistake to be\nhere, on Rona, now. Ynys, darling, you and I are young, and we love;\nlet us leave this melancholy isle--these melancholy isles--and go back\ninto the green, sunny world wherein we had such joy before; yes, let\nus even go back to Kerival; anywhere where we may live our life with\njoy and glad content--but not here, not in these melancholy, haunted\nisles, where our dreams become more real than our life, and life\nitself, for us at least, the mere shadow of being. Ynys, will you come?\nWill you go?\"\n\n\"All shall be as you will, Alan--_afterward_. But first, I must wait\nhere till our child is born, for I have heard that which is a message.\nAnd one part of that message concerns you and me; and one concerns\nothers. And that which concerns you and me is that in this way, in this\nchild, to be born here in this place, lies the redemption of that evil\nby which your father was slain by my father. It is not enough that you\nand I have forgotten the past; the past remains. What we cannot do,\nor no man or woman can do, the powers that are beyond the grave can\naccomplish. Not our love, not even ours, can redeem that crime. But if,\nborn of us, one will come, who will be dowered with our love and free\nfrom the blood shadow which lies upon us, then all will be well and the\nevil shall be done with forever more. But also, has not the Prophet\nsaid that one shall be born upon this island who will redeem his\noppressed people? And this Prophet, Alan, I have seen and heard. Never\nhave I seen his face aright, for it has ever been in the shadow; but I\nhave heard his voice, for he has spoken to me, and what he has said is\nthis: that in the fulness of time the child I shall bear will be he of\nwhom men have dreamed in the isles for ages past. Sure, dear, you and I\nmust be believing that thing, since he who tells it is no mere erring\n_Faidh_, but himself an immortal spirit.\"\n\nAlan looked at the speaker in amaze. There could be no question of\nher absolute sincerity; for the beautiful face was lit with a strange\nlight, and in her eyes was a proud gleam of conscious sacrifice. That\nit was all a madness, a fantasy, he knew well. Long ago had Lois de\nKerival spoken of the danger that lay for Ynys; she being the inheritor\nof a strange brooding spirit which belonged to her people. Now, in this\nremote place, the life of dream and the life of reality had become one;\nand Ynys was as a drifted ship among unknown seas and mists.\n\nBut on one point he believed he might convince her.\n\n\"Why do you speak of the Herdsman as a spirit, Ynys? What proof have\nyou of this? If you or I have seen any one at all, be sure it is a\nmortal man and no spirit; nay, I know who it must be, if any one it\nis, for throughout the isles men say that Donnacha B\u00e0n, the son of the\nbrother of my father, was an outlaw here, and has lived long among the\ncaves.\"\n\n\"This man,\" she said quietly, \"is not Donnacha B\u00e0n, but the Prophet of\nwhom the people speak. He himself has told me this thing. Yesterday I\nwas here, and he bade me come again. He spoke out of the shadow that is\nabout the Altar, though I saw him not. I asked him if he were Donnacha\nB\u00e0n, and he said 'No.' I asked him if he were _Am Faidh_, and he said\n'Yes.' I asked him if he were indeed an immortal spirit, and herald of\nthat which was to be, and he said 'Even so.'\"\n\nFor a long while after this, no word was spoken betwixt the twain. The\nchill of that remote place began to affect Ynys, and she shivered\nslightly at times. But more she shivered because of the silence which\nprevailed, and because that he who had promised to be there gave\nno sign. Sure, she thought, it could not be all a dream; sure, the\nHerdsman would come again.\n\nThen, at last, turning to Alan, she said, \"We must come on the morrow;\nfor to-day he is not here.\"\n\n\"No, dear; never, never shall we come here again. This is for the last\ntime. Henceforth, we shall dwell here in Rona no more.\"\n\n\"You will do this thing for me, Alan, that I ask?\"\n\n\"I will do what you ask, Ynys.\"\n\n\"Then take this written word, and leave it upon the top of the great\nrock there that is called the Altar.\"\n\nWith that she placed in his hand a slip of paper whereon she had\nalready written certain words. What they were, Alan could not discern\nin that shadowy light; but, taking the slip in his hand, he stepped\non the black ledges at the base of the Altar, and slowly mounted the\nprecipitous rock.\n\nYnys watched him till he became himself a shadow in that darkness. Her\nheart leaped when suddenly she heard a cry fall to her out of the gloom.\n\n\"Alan, Alan!\" she cried, and a great fear was upon her when no answer\ncame; but at last, with passionate relief, she heard him clambering\nslowly down the perilous slope of that obscure place. When he reached\nthe ledge, he stood still, regarding her.\n\n\"Why do you not come into the boat, Alan?\" she asked.\n\n\"Dear, I have that to tell you which will let you see that I spoke\ntruth.\"\n\nShe looked at him with parted lips, her breath coming and going like\nthat of a caged bird.\n\n\"What is it, Alan?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Ynys, when I reached the top of the Altar, and in the dim light that\nwas there, I saw the dead body of a man lying upon the rock. His head\nwas lain back so that the gleam from a crevice in the cliff overhead\nfell upon it. The man has been dead many hours. He is a man whose\nhair has been grayed by years and sorrow, but the man is he who is of\nmy blood; he whom I resemble so closely; he that the fishermen call\n_aonaran nan chreag_; he that is the Herdsman.\"\n\nYnys made no reply; still she looked at him with large, wondering eyes.\n\n\"Ynys, darling, do you not understand what it is that I say? This man,\nthat they call the Buchaille B\u00e0n--this man whom you believe to be the\nHerdsman of the old legend--is no other than Donnacha B\u00e0n, he who years\nand years ago slew his brother and has been an exile ever since on this\nlonely island. How could he, then, a man as I am, though with upon him\na worse blood-shadow than lies upon us--how could he tell you aught of\nwhat is to be? What message could he give you that is himself a lost\nsoul?\n\n\"Would you be for following a herdsman who could lead you to no fold?\nThis man is dead, Ynys; and it is well that you brought me here to-day.\nThat is a good thing, and for sure God willed it. Out of this all our\nnew happiness may come. For now we know what is this mysterious shadow\nthat has darkened our lives ever since we came to Rona. Now we have\nknowledge that it was no mere phantom I saw upon the hillside; and now\nalso we know that he who told you these strange, wild things of which\nyou speak was no prophet with a message from the world of the spirit,\nbut a man wrought to madness, a man who for all these years had lived\nhis lonely, secretive life upon the hills, or among these caves of the\nsea. Come, then, dear, and let us go hence. Sure, at the last, it is\nwell that we have found this way. Come, Ynys, we will go now and never\ncome here again.\"\n\nHe looked eagerly for her assenting eyes. With pain in his heart,\nhowever, he saw that the dream--the strange, inexplicable fantasy--had\nnot yet gone out of them. With a sigh, he entered the boat and took her\nhand.\n\n\"Let us go,\" she said, and that was all.\n\nSlowly Alan oared the boat across the shadowy gulf of the cave, along\nthe narrow passage which led therefrom, and out into the pale green\ngloom of the arched arcade wherein the sight and sound of the sea made\na music in his ears.\n\nBut the short November day was already passing to its end. All the sea\nwestward was aflame with gold and crimson light, and in the great dome\nof the sky a wonderful radiance lifted above the paleness of the clouds\nwhose pinnacled and bastioned heights towered in the south-west.\n\nA faint wind blew eastwardly; so, raising the sail, Alan made it fast\nand then sat down beside Ynys. But she, rising, moved along the boat to\nthe mast, and leaned there with her face against the setting sun.\n\nIdly they drifted onward. Deep silence prevailed betwixt them; deep\nsilence was all about them, save for the endless, inarticulate murmur\nof the sea, the splash of low waves against the rocks of Rona, and the\nsigh of the surf at the base of the basalt precipices.\n\nAnd this was their homeward sailing on that day of revelation; Ynys,\nwith her back against the mast, and her face irradiated by the light of\nthe setting sun; he, steering, with his face in shadow.\n\nOn a night of rain and amid the rumor of tempest, three weeks later,\nYnys heard the Laughter of the King, when the child who was to be the\nbearer of so fair a destiny lay by her side, white and chill as the\nfoam thrown up for a brief while upon the rocks by the unheeding sea.\n\n\nBOOK THIRD\n\n_THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD_\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD\n\n\nWhen, once more, the exquisite mystery of spring came upon the world,\nthere was a not less wonderful rebirth in the heart of Ynys.\n\nWith the coming of that child upon whom such high hopes had been\nset--its birth, still and quiet as a snowdrop fallen before an icy wind\nupon the snow which nurtured it--all the fear of a mysterious Nemesis,\nbecause of her union with Alan despite the shadow of tragic crime which\nmade that union ominous of evil destiny; all the vague forebodings\nwhich had possessed her ever since she left Kerival; and, at the last,\nall the mystic elation with which her mind had become a winged and\nwandering spirit, passed from her.\n\nThe gloom of that northern winter was tonic to them both. As soon as\nher weakness was past, and once more she was able to go about with\nAlan, her old joyousness returned. In her eyes it was almost as though\nthe islanders shared her recovered happiness. For one thing, they\nno more avoided her and Alan. With the death of the man who had so\nlong sustained a mysterious existence upon Rona, their superstitious\naversion went; they ceased to speak of _Am Buchaille B\u00e0n_ and, whether\nDonnacha B\u00e0n had found on Rona one of the hidden ways to heaven or had\nonly dallied upon one of the byways to hell, it was commonly held that\nhe had paid his death-eric by his lonely and even appalling life of\nunredeemed solitude. Now that there was no longer any possibility of\nconfusion between the outcast who had come to his tragic end, among the\nsea caves of Rona, and his kinsman who bore to him so extraordinary a\nresemblance, a deep sense of the injustice that had been done to Alan\nCarmichael prevailed among the islanders. In many ways they showed\ntheir regret; but most satisfactorily, so far as Alan was concerned, by\ntaking him as one of themselves; as a man no longer under the shadow\nof doom or in any way linked to a disastrous fate.\n\nTrue, there were still some of the isle folk on Borosay and Barra who\nmaintained that the man who had been found in the sea cave, whether\nDonnacha B\u00e0n or some other, had nothing to do with the mysterious\nHerdsman, whose advent, indeed, had long been anticipated by a\nsection of the older inhabitants. It was only seven years since Murdo\nMacphail--better known as Murdo-Bronnach-namhara, Brown Murdoch of\nthe Sea, from his habit of preaching to the islanders from where he\nstood waist-deep in the water--had prophesied that the Herdsman who\nwas Shepherd of Israel would indeed come again, and that within seven\nyears. And had he not added that if the Fair Lonely One were not\naccepted of the people, there would be deep sorrow for one and all, and\na bitter wrong upon all the isles of the west?\n\nThese murmurers now shook their heads and whispered often. Of a truth,\nthey said, the Herdsman was come as foretold, and Alan Carmichael\nwas blind indeed not to see that Ynys, his wife, had received a\nvision, and, because of her silence, been punished in the death of her\nfirst-born.\n\nBut with the white growth of winter, the pleasant, familiar intercourse\nthat everywhere prevailed wrought finally against the last threadbare\nfabric of superstition. Before the glow of the peats the sadness and\ngloom slowly dissipated. It was a new delight to both Alan and Ynys to\nfind that the islanders could be so genial and almost gay, with a love\nof laughter and music and grotesque humor which, even in the blithe\nlittle fishing haven of Ploumaliou, they had never seen surpassed.\n\nThe cold months passed for them in a quiet content. That could not be\nhappiness upon which was the shadow of so much pain; but there was\nsomething akin to it in the sweet serenity which came like calm after\nstorm.\n\nPossibly they might have been content to remain in Rona; to find in\nthe island their interest and happiness. Ynys, indeed, often longed\nto leave the place where she had been so sadly disillusioned; and yet\nshe did not urge that the home at Caisteal-Rhona should be broken up.\nWhile they were still in this state of quiet suspense, news came that\naffected them strangely.\n\nThey had had no word from Kerival since they left, but one windy March\nday a boat from Borosay put into the haven with letters from Alan's\nagents in Edinburgh. Among them was one from the Abb\u00e9 C\u00e6sar de La\nBruy\u00e8re, from Kerloek. From this Alan learned strange news.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOn the very day that he and Ynys had left Kerival, Annaik had\ndisappeared. None knew where she had gone. At first it was thought\nthat Judik Kerbastiou had something to do with her absence, but two\ndays after she had gone he was again at Kerival. The house was a place\nof anarchy. No one knew whom to obey; what to do. With the Marquise\nLois in her grave, with both Ynys and Annaik mysteriously absent and\napparently with no intention to return, and with Tristran the Silent\nmore morosely taciturn than his wont, and more than ever an invalid,\nwith all this it was difficult for those in authority to exact the\nhabitual duties. But in addition to this there were the imperious\nclaims of Judik Kerbastiou, emphasized by his refusal to be addressed\nby any other name than the Sieur Jud de Kerival.\n\nWhen, suddenly, and while quietly dictating a letter, the Marquis\nTristran died, it seemed at last as though Judik's triumph had come.\nFor a brief while he was even addressed as M. le Marquis. But on\nthe noon following that day he had a rude awakening. A notary from\nPloumaliou arrived with the family lawyers, and produced a written and\nsigned confession on the part of the woman whom he had called mother,\nthat he was not her child at all, that her own child was dead, and\nthat Kerbastiou was really a forest foundling. As if this were not\nenough, the notary also proved, even to the conviction of Judik, that\nthe written marriage testimony from the parish books was an impudent\nforgery.\n\nSo the man who had made so abrupt and dramatic an appearance on the\nthreshold of Kerival had, in the very moment of his triumph, to retreat\nonce more to his obscurity as a homeless woodlander.\n\nThe sole heirs now were Annaik and Ynys, but of neither was any thing\nknown. The difficulty was partially solved by the abrupt appearance of\nAnnaik on the day of the second conclave.\n\nFor a time thereafter all went well at Kerival. Then rumor began to\nspread mysterious whispers about the Lady Annaik. She would see none of\nher neighbors, whether from far or near, and even the Sieur de Morvan\nand his kith or kin were denied. Then, too, she disappeared for days at\na time. Some thought she went to Ploumaliou or Kerloek, some that she\nhad gone as far away as Rennes or St. Brieuc, and a few even imagined\nthe remote Paris to be her goal. None dreamed that she had gone no\nfurther than the forest of Kerival.\n\nBut as the autumn waned, rumors became more explicit. Strange things\nwere said of Annaik de Kerival. At last the anxious Cur\u00e9 of Ploumaliou\ntook it upon himself to assure all who spoke to him about the Lady of\nKerival that he had good reason to believe she was privately married.\nThis, at least, drew some of the poison out of the gossip that had\narisen.\n\nThen a day came when the Lady Annaik dismissed the servants at Kerival,\nand left none in the house save an old gardener and his wife. She was\ngoing away for a time, she said. She went, and from that day was not\nseen again.\n\nThen came, in the Abb\u00e9 C\u00e6sar de La Bruy\u00e8re's letter, the strangest part\nof the mystery.\n\nAnnaik, ever since the departure of Alan and Ynys, had been living the\nforest life. All her passionate sylvan and barbaric instincts had been\nsuddenly aroused. For the green woods and the forest ways she suffered\nan intolerable nostalgia. But over and above this was another reason.\nIt seemed, said the Abb\u00e9 C\u00e6sar, that she must have returned the rude\nlove of Judik Kerbastiou. However this might be, she lived with him for\ndays at a time, and he himself had a copy of their marriage certificate\nmade out at a registrar's in a remote little hill-town in the Montagnes\nNoires.\n\nThis union with the morose and strange Judik Kerbastiou had not been\nknown to any of the peasants until her trouble came to her. When the\nday was near she did not return to Kerival, but kept to the gypsy tent\nwhich she shared with Judik. After the birth of the child, every one\nknew, and every one marvelled. It was a madness: that was what all\nsaid, from Kerloek to Ploumaliou.\n\nBut neither the union nor the child brought happiness to these twain,\nso much at one in their woodland life, so hopelessly alien in all else.\nOne day a man named Iouenn Kerbac'h, passing by the tent where Judik\nand Annaik had taken shelter from a violent thunder-storm, overheard a\nsavage upbraiding on the part of Kerbastiou. Annaik was his wife, it\nwas true--so he cried--but a wife who had in nothing short of madness\nrenounced every thing, and now would claim nothing of her own nor allow\nhim to claim aught; a wife whom he loved with another madness, and yet\nhated because she was so hopelessly remote from himself; a wife who\nhad borne a child, but a child that had nothing of the gypsy eyes and\nswarthy darkness of Judik Kerbastiou, but was fair, and with skin as\nwhite and eyes as blue as those of Alan de Kerival.\n\nIt was this, and the terrible words that were said, which made Iouenn\nKerbac'h hurry onward, dreading to listen further. Yet nothing that he\noverheard gave him so strange a fear as the laugh with which Annaik\nde Kerival greeted a savage, screaming threat of death, hurled at her\nbecause of her silence after the taunting accusation he had made ...\nhad made, and defied her to refute.\n\nNone heard or saw Annaik Kerbastiou after that day, till the night of\nthe evening when Judik came into Haut-Kerloek and went straight to\nJehan Rusgol, the Maire.\n\nWhen asked what he had come for he had replied simply: \"The woman\nAnnaik is dead.\" It was commonly thought that he had killed her, but\nthere was no evidence of this, and the end of the inevitable legal\nprocedure was the acquittal of the woodlander. From that day the man\nwas rarely seen of his fellows, and even then, for the most part, only\nby charcoal-burners and others who had forest business. A few peasants\nknew where his hut was, and now and again called to speak with him, or\nto drink a cup of cider; but oftener than not he was absent, and always\nwith the child. The boy had survived his mother's death, and in some\nstrange way had suddenly become so dear to Judik Kerbastiou that the\ntwo were inseparable.\n\nThis, then, was the tidings which startled Alan and Ynys out of their\nremote quiescence.\n\nThe unexpected news, coupled with the urgent request that both should\nreturn to Kerival, if only for a brief while, so as to prevent the\nproperty falling into absolute ruin, came as a whip upon Alan's mind.\nTo all he said Ynys agreed, and was even glad to leave Rona and return\nto Brittany.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo it was that, with the first days of April, they bade farewell to Ian\nand his sister, whom they left at Caisteal-Rhona, which was henceforth\nto be their home, and to all upon the island, and set forth in a\nfishing smack for Borosay.\n\nIt was not till the last of the precipices of Rona was lost to view\nbehind the south headland of Borosay that Ynys clearly realized the\ndeep gladness with which she left the lonely Isle of the Caves. That it\nwould have been impossible for her to live there long she was now well\nassured; and for Alan, too, the life was not suitable. For the north,\nand for the islands, they would ever have a deep feeling, almost sacred\nin its intensity; but all that had happened made living there a thing\ndifficult and painful for them, and moreover each, though Ynys most,\nmissed that green woodland beauty, the ceaseless forest charm, which\nmade the very memory of Kerival so fragrant.\n\nThey went away, then, not as travellers who fare far with no thought of\nreturn, but rather as pilgrims returning homeward from a shrine sacred\nto them by profound and intimate associations.\n\nThat was, indeed, for them a strange home-going. From the first there\nwas something dreamlike, unreal, about that southward flight; in the\nlong sail across Hebrid seas, calm as glass until the south headlands\nof Mull were passed, and then storm-swept; in the rapid journey across\nScotland and through England; and in the recrossing of that narrow sea\nwhich had once seemed to them a gulf of ultimate division.\n\nBut when once more they saw the grotesque bulbous spire of Ploumaliou\nrising above the sand-dunes by which, from St. Malo, they approached\nthe dear, familiar country, all this uncertainty went from them. With\nlight hearts they realized it was indeed true; that they were free at\nlast of a life for which they were now unfitted, and that the lost\nthreads in the maze had been found.\n\nBy their own wish the home-coming was so private that none knew of\nit save the doctor, the Cur\u00e9, the lawyer who accompanied them from\nPloumaliou, and the old gardener and his wife. As they neared the\nch\u00e2teau from the north, Alan and Ynys alighted from the dishevelled\ncarriage which was the sole vehicle of which Ploumaliou could boast. M.\nAuriol could drive on alone; for themselves, they chose to reach their\nhome by the dunes and scattered pines, and thence by the yew close\nbehind the manor-house.\n\nThe day was windless and of a serene beauty. Ever since noon the few\nclouds, suspensive in the azure flood like islets of snow, had waned\ntill they were faint and light as blown swan's-down, then filmy as\nvapor lifted against the sun, and at last were no more visible; there\nhad been the same unfathomable depths of azure, through which the\ntides of light imperceptibly ebbed from the zenith. The sea, too, was\nof a vivid though motionless blue, save where luminous with a white\nsheen or wrought with violet shadows and straits of amethyst. Upon the\nland lay a golden peace. A richer glow involved the dunes, where the\npine-shadows cast long, motionless blue shapes. As, hand in hand, Ynys\nand Alan moved athwart the pine glade whence they could pass at once\neither westward into the cypress alley or eastward through the yew\nclose, they stopped instinctively. Beyond them rose the chimneys and\ngables of the House of Kerival, strangely still and remote, for all\ntheir familiar look. What a brief while ago it seemed since he and she\nhad walked under these pines, wrought by the first ecstasy of their\nvirginal love. Then, those who now lay quiet in the darkness of the\nearth were alive; Lois de Kerival, with her repressed, passionate heart\nstill at last; the Marquis Tristran, with the young grass growing soft\nand green over his bitterness; Alasdair Carmichael, with the echo of\nthe island waves stilled under the quiet bells of the little church\nwhich guarded the grave-yard of St. Blaise; and Annaik--poor lost waif\nof beautiful womanhood, submerged forever in the green woods she loved\nso well, and sleeping so sound a sleep at last in an unmarked hollow\nbeneath an ancient tree in some obscure glade or alley.\n\nA shadow was in Alan's eyes--a deeper shadow than that caused by\nthought of the dead who lay heedless and listless, at once so near and\nsuch depths away--a deeper shadow than that cast by memory of the crime\nwhich overlay the past.\n\nAs his eyes wandered to the cypress alley, his heart knew again a\npain almost beyond endurance; a pain that only the peace of Rona had\ntranslated into a strong acquiescence in the irrevocable past--a pain\nbecome less haunting under the stress of all which had happened in\nconnection with the Herdsman, till it knew a bitter resurrection when\nAlan came to read of the tragic fate of the woman who had loved him.\n\nThrough some wayward impulse Ynys abruptly asked him to go with her\nthrough the cypress alley, so that they should approach the ch\u00e2teau\nfrom the forest.\n\nSilently, and with downcast eyes, he walked by her side, his hand\nstill in hers. But his thoughts were with the dead woman, on the\nbitter hazard of love, and on what lay, forever secret, between Annaik\nand himself. And as he communed with himself, in an austere pain of\nremembrance, he came to see more and more clearly that in some strange\nway the Herdsman episode, with all involved therein, was no arbitrary\nchance in the maze of life, but a definite working out of destiny. None\ncould ever know what Annaik had foretold, had known, on that terrible\nnight when the silence of the moonlit peace was continuously rent by\nthe savage screams of the peacocks; nor could any other than himself\ndiscern, against the dark tapestries of what veiled his inner life, the\nweaving of an inextricable web.\n\nIt was difficult for him to believe that she was dead--Annaik, who had\nalways been so radiantly, superbly alive. Now there was dust upon that\nwonderful bronze hair; darkness upon those lambent eyes; no swift pulse\nbeating in the red tide in the veins; a frost against the heart. What\na burden it had carried, poor heart! \"Oh, Annaik, Annaik!\" he muttered\nbelow his breath, \"what a hard wayfaring because of a passion crucified\nupon the bitter tree of despair; what a fierce, silent, unwavering\ntyranny over the rebellious voices crying unceasingly from every nerve,\nor swept this way and that on every stormy tide of blood.\"\n\nThat Annaik who loved the forest so passing well, and in whom the green\nfire of life flamed consumingly, should no longer be alive to rejoice\nin the glory of spring, now once again everywhere involving the brown\nearth and the purple branches, was an almost unrealizable thing. To\nwalk in that cypress alley once more; to cross that open glade with its\nsingle hawthorn; to move in the dark green shadow of that yew close; to\ndo this and remember all that Annaik had suffered, and that now she lay\nquiet and beyond all pain or joy to touch her, was to Alan a thought\nalmost too poignant to be borne.\n\nIt was with an effort he answered Ynys when she spoke, and it was in\nsilence that they entered the house which was now their home, and\nwhere--years ago, as it seemed--they had been young and happy.\n\nBut that night he sat alone for a time in the little room in the tower\nwhich rose from the east wing of Kerival--the room he had fitted up as\nan observatory, similar, on a smaller scale, to that in the Tour de\nl'Ile where he had so deeply studied the mystery of the starry world.\nHere he had dreamed many dreams, and here he dreamed yet another.\n\nFor out of his thoughts about Annaik and Ynys arose a fuller, a deeper\nconception of Womanhood. How well he remembered a legend that Ynys had\ntold him on Rona: a legend of a fair spirit which goes to and fro\nupon the world, the Weaver of Tears. He loves the pathways of sorrow.\nHis voice is low and sweet, with a sound like the bubbling of waters\nin that fount whence the rainbows rise. His eyes are in quiet places,\nand in the dumb pain of animals as in the agony of the human brain:\nbut most he is found, oftenest are the dewy traces of his feet, in the\nheart of woman.\n\nTears, tears! They are not the saltest tears which are on the lids of\nthose who weep. Fierce tears there are, hot founts of pain in the mind\nof many a man, that are never shed, but slowly crystallize in furrows\non brow and face, and in deep weariness in the eyes; fierce tears,\nunquenchable, in the heart of many a woman, whose brave eyes look\nfearlessly at life; whose dauntless courage goes forth daily to die,\nbut never to be vanquished.\n\nIn truth the Weaver of Tears abides in the heart of Woman. O Mother of\nPity, of Love, of deep Compassion! with thee it is to yearn forever\nfor the ideal human; to bring the spiritual love into fusion with\nhuman desire; endlessly to strive, endlessly to fail; always to hope\nin spite of disillusion; to love unswervingly against all baffling\nand misunderstanding, and even forgetfulness! O Woman, whose eyes are\nalways stretched out to her erring children, whose heart is big enough\nto cover all the little children in the world, and suffer with their\nsufferings, and joy with their joys! Woman, whose other divine names\nare Strength and Patience, who is no girl, no Virgin, because she has\ndrunk too deeply of the fount of Life to be very young or very joyful.\nUpon her lips is the shadowy kiss of death; in her eyes is the shadow\nof birth. She is the veiled interpreter of the two mysteries. Yet what\njoyousness like hers, when she wills; because of her unwavering hope,\nher inexhaustible fount of love?\n\nSo it was that, just as Alan had long recognized as a deep truth how\nthe spiritual nature of man has been revealed to humanity in many\ndivine incarnations, so he had come to believe that the spiritual\nnature of woman has been revealed in the many Marys, sisters of the\nBeloved, who have had the keys of the soul and the heart in their\nunconscious keeping. In this exquisite truth he knew a fresh and vivid\nhope. Was it all a dream that Ynys had dreamed, far away among the\nsea arcades of Rona? Had the Herdsman, the Shepherd of Souls, indeed\nrevealed to her that a child was to be born who would be one of the\nredeemers of the world? A Woman Saviour, who would come near to all of\nus, because in her heart would be the blind tears of the child, and the\nbitter tears of the man, and the patient tears of the woman; who would\nbe the Compassionate One, with no end or aim but compassion--with no\ndoctrine to teach, no way to show, but only deep, wonderful, beautiful,\ninalienable, unquenchable compassion?\n\nFor, in truth, there is the divine, eternal feminine counterpart to the\ndivine, eternal male, and both are needed to explain the mystery of the\ndual Spirit within us--the mystery of the Two in One, so infinitely\nstranger and more wonderful than that triune life which the blind\nteachers of the blind have made a rock of stumbling and offence out of\na truth clear and obvious as noon.\n\nWe speak of Mother Nature, but we do not discern the living truth\nbehind our words. How few of us have the vision of this great brooding\nMother, whose garment is the earth and sea, whose head is pillowed\namong the stars; she who, with Death and Sleep as her familiar shapes,\nsoothes and rests all the weariness of the world, from the waning leaf\nto the beating pulse; from the brief span of a human heart to the\nfurrowing of granite brows by the uninterrupted sun, the hounds of rain\nand wind, and the untrammelled airs of heaven.\n\nNot cruel, relentless, impotently anarchic, chaotically potent, this\nMater Genetrix. We see her thus, who are flying threads in the loom she\nweaves. But she is patient, abiding, certain, inviolate, and silent\never. It is only when we come to this vision of her whom we call\nIsis or Hera or Orchil, or one of a hundred other names, our unknown\nEarth-Mother, that men and women will know each other aright, and go\nhand in hand along the road of Life without striving to crush, to\nsubdue, to usurp, to retaliate, to separate.\n\nAh, fair vision of humanity to come! man and woman side by side, sweet,\nserene, true, simple, natural, fulfilling Earth's and Heaven's behests;\nunashamed, unsophisticated, unaffected, each to each and for each;\nchildren of one mother, inheritors of a like destiny, and, at the last,\nartificers of an equal fate.\n\nPondering thus, Alan rose and looked out into the night. In that great\nstillness, wherein the moonlight lay like the visible fragrance of the\nearth, he gazed long and intently. How shadowy, now, were these lives\nthat had so lately palpitated in this very place; how strange their\nsilence, their incommunicable knowledge, their fathomless peace!\n\nWas it all lost ... the long endurance of pain, the pangs of sorrow? If\nso, what was the lesson of life? Surely, to live with sweet serenity\nand gladness, content against the inevitable hour. There is solace of a\nkind in the idea of a common end, of that terrible processional march\nof life wherein the myriad is momentary, and the immeasurable is but a\npassing shadow. But, alas! it is only solace of a kind; for what heart\nthat has beat to the pulse of love can relinquish the sweet dream of\nlife, and what coronal can philosophy put upon the brows of youth in\nplace of eternity?\n\nNo, no! of this he felt sure. In the Beauty of the World lies the\nultimate redemption of our mortality. When we shall become at one with\nnature, in a sense profounder even than the poetic imaginings of most\nof us, we shall understand what now we fail to discern. The arrogance\nof those who would have the stars as candles for our night, and the\nuniverse as a pleasaunce for our thought, will be as impossible as the\nblind fatuity of those who say we are of dust, briefly vitalized, that\nshall be dust again, with no fragrance saved from the rude bankruptcy\nof life, no beauty raised up against the sun to bloom anew.\n\nIt is no idle dream, this; no idle dream that we are a perishing clan\namong the sons of God, because of this slow waning of our joy, of our\npassionate delight in the Beauty of the World. We have been unable to\nlook out upon the shining of our star, for the vision overcomes us; and\nwe have used veils which we call \"scenery,\" \"picturesqueness,\" and the\nlike--poor, barren words that are so voiceless and remote before the\nrustle of leaves and the lap of water; before the ancient music of the\nwind, and all the sovran eloquence of the tides of light. But a day may\ncome--nay, shall surely come--when indeed the poor and the humble shall\ninherit the earth; they who have not made a league with temporal evils,\nand out of whose heart shall arise the deep longing, that shall become\nuniversal, of the Renewal of Youth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOften, in the days that followed their return to Kerival, Alan and Ynys\ntalked of these hopes and fears. And, gradually, out of the beauty\nof the spring, out of the intensity of the green fire of life which\neverywhere flamed in the brown earth, on the hills, in the waters, in\nthe heart and brain of man, in the whole living, breathing world, was\nborn of them a new joy. They were as the prince and princess of the\nfairy tales, for whom every thing was wonderful. Hand in hand they\nentered into the kingdom of youth. It was theirs, thenceforth; and all\nthe joy of the world.\n\nTo live, and love, and be full of a deep joy, a glad content, a\nsupporting hope! What destiny among the stars fairer than this?\n\nThey would be harbingers of joy. That was what they said, one to\nanother. They would be so glad with sweet life that others would\nrejoice; out of their strength they would strengthen, out of their joy\nthey would gladden, out of their peace they would comfort, out of their\nknowledge they would be compassionate.\n\nNor was their dream an unfulfilled vision. As the weeks slipped into\nmonths, and the months lapsed into years, Alan and Ynys realized all\nthat it is possible for man and woman to know of happiness. Happiness,\nduties, claims held them to Kerival; but there they lived in fair\ncomradeship with their fellows, with the green forest, with all that\nnature had to give them for their delight through wind and wave,\nthrough shadow and shine, through changing seasons and the exquisite\nhazard of every passing hour.\n\nTo them both, too, came the added joy which they feared had been\nforfeited at Rona. When Ynys felt the child's hands on her breast,\nshe was as one transformed by a light out of heaven. Alan, looking at\nmother and child, understood, with all his passion for the intimate\nwonder and mystery of nature, the deeper truth in the words of one of\nthe greatest of men ... \"the Souls of the Living are the Beauty of the\nWorld.\"\n\nThat sometimes a shadow fell was inevitable. None ever so dusked the\nsun-way of Alan's mind as when, remote in the forest of Kerival, he\ncame upon the unkempt figure of Judik Kerbastiou, often carrying upon\nhis shoulder a little child whose happy laughter was sweet to hear, in\nwhose tawny hair was a light such as had gleamed in Annaik's, and whose\neyes were blue as the north seas and as Alan's were.\n\nOften, too, Alan, alone in his observatory, where he was wont to\nspend much of his time, knew that strange nostalgia of the mind for\nimpossible things. Then, wrought for a while from his vision of green\nlife, and flamed by another green fire than that born of the earth,\nhe dreamed his dream. With him, the peopled solitude of night was a\nconcourse of confirming voices. He did not dread the silence of the\nstars--the cold remoteness of the stellar fire.\n\nIn that other watch-tower in Paris, where he had spent the best hours\nof his youth, he had loved that nightly watch of the constellations.\nNow, as then, in the pulse of the planets he found assurances which\nFaith had not given him. In the vast, majestic order of that nocturnal\nmarch, that diurnal retreat, he had learned the law of the whirling\nleaf and the falling star; of the slow, \u00e6on-delayed comet and of the\nslower wane of solar fires. Looking with visionary eyes into that\ncongregation of stars, he realized, not the littleness of the human\ndream but its divine impulsion. It was only when, after long vigils\ninto the quietudes of night, he turned his gaze from the palaces of the\nunknown, and thought of the baffled, fretful swarming in the cities of\nmen, that his soul rose in revolt against the sublime ineptitude of\nman's spiritual leaguer against destiny.\n\nDestiny--_An Dan_--it was a word familiar to him since childhood,\nwhen first he had heard it on the lips of old Ian Macdonald. And\nonce, on the eve of the Feast of Paschal, when Alan had asked Daniel\nDarc what was the word which the stars spelled from zenith to nadir,\nthe astronomer had turned and answered simply, \"_C'est le Destin_.\"\nBut Alan was of the few to whom this talismanic word opens lofty\nperspectives, even while it obscures those paltry vistas which we deem\nunending and dignify with vain hopes and void immortalities.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n  Transcriber's Note\n\n  Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained\n  except in obvious cases of typographical errors.\n\n  Italics are shown thus _italic_.","title":"Green Fire: A Romance","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":51108}