Part 16 (1/2)
The exile broke off and sighed heavily. Before the two a little yard, all gay with hollyhocks and roses, sloped down to the wider of the two creeks between which stretched the Fair View plantation. It was late of a holiday afternoon. A storm was brewing, darkening all the water, and erecting above the sweep of woods monstrous towers of gray cloud. There must have been an echo, for MacLean's sigh came back to him faintly, as became an echo.
”Is there not peace here, 'beyond the sea'?” said Truelove softly. ”Thine must be a dreadful country, Angus MacLean!”
The Highlander looked at her with kindling eyes. ”Now had I the harp of old Murdoch!” he said.
”'Dear is that land to the east, Alba of the lakes!
Oh, that I might dwell there forever'”--
He turned upon the doorstep, and taking between his fingers the hem of Truelove's ap.r.o.n fell to plaiting it. ”A woman named Deirdre, who lived before the days of Gillean-na-Tuaidhe, made that song. She was not born in that land, but it was dear to her because she dwelt there with the man whom she loved. They went away, and the man was slain; and where he was buried, there Deirdre cast herself down and died.” His voice changed, and all the melancholy of his race, deep, wild, and tender, looked from his eyes. ”If to-day you found yourself in that loved land, if this parched gra.s.s were brown heather, if it stretched down to a tarn yonder, if that gray cloud that hath all the seeming of a crag were crag indeed, and eagles plied between the tarn and it,”--he touched her hand that lay idle now upon her knee,--”if you came like Deirdre lightly through the heather, and found me lying here, and found more red than should be in the tartan of the MacLeans, what would you do, Truelove? What would you cry out, Truelove? How heavy would be thy heart, Truelove?”
Truelove sat in silence, with her eyes upon the sky above the dream crags.
”How heavy would grow thy heart, Truelove, Truelove?” whispered the Highlander.
Up the winding water, to the sedges and reeds below the little yard, glided the boy Ephraim in his boat. The Quakeress started, and the color flamed into her gentle face. She took up the distaff that she had dropped, and fell to work again. ”Thee must not speak to me so, Angus MacLean,” she said. ”I trust that my heart is not hard. Thy death would grieve me, and my father and my mother and Ephraim”--
”I care not for thy father and mother and Ephraim!” MacLean began impetuously. ”But you do right to chide me. Once I knew a green glen where maidens were fain when paused at their doors Angus, son of Hector, son of Lachlan, son of Murdoch, son of Angus that was named for Angus Mor, who was great-grandson of Hector of the Battles, who was son of Lachlan Lubanach! But here I am a landless man, with none to do me honor,--a wretch bereft of liberty”--
”To me, to all Friends,” said Truelove sweetly, halting a little in her work, ”thee has now what thee thyself calls freedom. For G.o.d meant not that one of his creatures should say to another: 'Lo, here am I! Behold thy G.o.d!' To me, and my father and mother and Ephraim, thee is no bond servant of Marmaduke Haward. But thee is bond servant to thy own vain songs; thy violent words; thy idle pride, that, vaunting the cruel deeds of thy forefathers, calls meekness and submission the last worst evil; thy shameless reverence for those thy fellow creatures, James Stewart and him whom thee calls the chief of thy house,--forgetting that there is but one house, and that G.o.d is its head; thy love of clamor and warfare; thy hatred of the ways of peace”--
MacLean laughed. ”I hate not all its ways. There is no hatred in my heart for this house which is its altar, nor for the priestess of the altar. Ah!
now you frown, Truelove”--
Across the clouds ran so fierce a line of gold that Truelove, startled, put her hand before her eyes. Another dart of lightning, a low roll of thunder, a bending apart of the alder bushes on the far side of the creek; then a woman's voice calling to the boy in the boat to come ferry her over.
”Who may that be?” asked Truelove wonderingly.
It was only a little way to the bending alders. Ephraim rowed across the gla.s.sy water, dark beneath the approach of the storm; the woman stepped into the boat, and the tiny craft came lightly back to its haven beneath the bank.
”It is Darden's Audrey,” said the storekeeper.
Truelove shrank a little, and her eyes darkened. ”Why should she come here? I never knew her. It is true that we may not think evil, but--but”--
MacLean moved restlessly. ”I have seen the girl but twice,” he said. ”Once she was alone, once--It is my friend of whom I think. I know what they say, but, by St. Kattan! I hold him a gentleman too high of mind, too n.o.ble--There was a tale I used to hear when I was a boy. A long, long time ago a girl lived in the shadow of the tower of Duart, and the chief looked down from his walls and saw her. Afterwards they walked together by the sh.o.r.e and through the glens, and he cried her health when he drank in his hall, sitting amongst his tacksmen. Then what the men whispered the women spoke aloud; and so, more quickly than the tarie is borne, word went to a man of the MacDonalds who loved the Duart maiden. Not like a lover to his tryst did he come. In the handle of his dirk the rich stones sparkled as they rose and fell with the rise and fall of the maiden's white bosom. She prayed to die in his arms; for it was not Duart that she loved, but him.
She died, and they snooded her hair and buried her. Duart went overseas; the man of the MacDonalds killed himself. It was all wrought with threads of gossamer,--idle fancy, shrugs, smiles, whispers, slurring speech,--and it was long ago. But there is yet gossamer to be had for the gathering; it gleams on every hand these summer mornings.”
By now Darden's Audrey had left the boat and was close upon them. MacLean arose, and Truelove hastily pushed aside her wheel. ”Is thee seeking shelter from the storm?” she asked tremulously, and with her cheeks as pink as a seash.e.l.l. ”Will thee sit here with us? The storm will not break yet awhile.”
Audrey heeded her not, her eyes being for MacLean. She had been running,--running more swiftly than for a thousand May Day guineas. Even now, though her breath came short, every line of her slender figure was tense, and she was ready to be off like an arrow. ”You are Mr. Haward's friend?” she cried. ”I have heard him say that you were so--call you a brave gentleman”--
MacLean's dark face flushed. ”Yes, we are friends,--I thank G.o.d for it.
What have you to do with that, my la.s.s?”
”I also am his friend,” said Audrey, coming nearer. Her hands were clasped, her bosom heaving. ”Listen! To-day I was sent on an errand to a house far up this creek. Coming back, I took the short way home through the woods because of the storm. It led me past the schoolhouse down by the big swamp. I thought that no one was there, and I went and sat down upon the steps to rest a moment. The door behind me was partly open. Then I heard two voices: the schoolmaster and Jean Hugon were inside--close to me--talking. I would have run away, but I heard Mr. Haward's name.” Her hand went to her heart, and she drew a sobbing breath.
”Well!” cried MacLean sharply.
”Mr. Haward went yesterday to Williamsburgh--alone--without Juba. He rides back--alone--to Fair View late this afternoon--he is riding now. You know the sharp bend in the road, with the steep bank above and the pond below?”