Part 23 (1/2)

He stepped back from the willow. He took off and dropped upon the moor hat and riding-coat and boots, inner coat and waistcoat. Then he entered the Kelpie's Pool. He searched it, measure by measure, and at last he found the body of Elspeth. He drew it up; he loosened and let fall the stone tied in the plaid that was wrapped around it; he bore the form out of the pool and laid it upon the bank beyond the willow.

The sunlight showed the whole, the face and figure. The laird of Glenfernie, kneeling beside it, put back the long drowned hair and saw, pinned upon the bosom of the gown, the folded letter, wrapped twice in thicker paper. He took it from her and opened it. The writing was yet legible.

I hope that I shall not be found. If I am, let this answer for me. I was unhappy, more unhappy than you can think. Let no one be blamed. It was one far from here and you will not know his name. Do not think of me as wicked nor as a murderess. The unhappy should have pardon and rest. Good-by to all--good-by!

In the upper corner was written, ”For White Farm.” That was all.

Glenfernie put this letter into the bosom of his s.h.i.+rt. He then got on again the clothing he had discarded, and, stooping, put his arms beneath the lifeless form. He lifted it and bore it from the Kelpie's Pool and up the moor. He was a man much stronger than the ordinary; he carried it as though he felt no weight. The icy water of the pool upon him was as nothing, and as he walked his face was still as a stone face in a desert. So he came with Elspeth's body back to the glen, and Mother Binning saw him coming.

”Hech, sirs! Hech, sirs! Will it hae been that way--will it hae been that way?”

He stopped for a moment. He laid his burden down upon the boards just within the door and smoothed back the streaming hair. ”Even the sh.e.l.l flung out by the ocean is beautiful!”

”Eh, man! Eh, man! It's wae sometimes to be a woman!”

”Give me,” he said, ”a plaid, dry and warm, to hap her in.”

”Will ye na leave her here? Put her in my bed and gae tell White Farm!”

”No, I will carry her home.”

Mother Binning took from a chest a gray plaid. He lifted again the dead woman, and she happed the plaid about her. ”Ah, the la.s.sie--the la.s.sie! Come to me, Glenfernie, and I will scry for you who it was!”

He looked at her as though he did not hear her. He lifted the body, holding it against his shoulder like a child, and went forth. He knew the path so absolutely, he was so strong and light of foot, that he went without difficulty through the glen, by the loud crying water, by the points of crag and the curving roots and the drifts of snow, by the green patches of moss and the trees great and small. He did not hasten nor drag, he did not think. He went like a bronze Talus, made simply to find, to carry home.

Known feature after known feature of the place rose before him, pa.s.sed him, fell away. Here was the arm of the glen, and here was the pebbled cape and the thorn-tree. The winter water swirled around it, sang of cold and a hateful power. Here was the mouth of the glen. Here were the fields which had been green and then golden with ripe corn. Here were the White Farm roof and chimneys and windows, and blue smoke from the chimney going straight up like a wraith to meet blue sky. Before him was the open door.

He had thought of there being only Jenny and the two servant la.s.ses.

But in the time he had been gone there had regathered to White Farm, for learning each from each, for consultation, for mere rest and food, a number of the searchers. Jarvis Barrow had returned from the northward-stretching moor, Thomas and w.i.l.l.y from the southerly fields.

Men who had begun to drag deep places in the stream were here for some provision. A handful of women, hooded and wrapped, had come from neighboring farms or from the village. Among them talked Mrs.

Macmurdo, who kept the shop, and the hostess of the Jardine Arms. And there was here Jock Binning, who, for all his lameness and his crutches, could go where he wished.... But it was Gilian, crossing upon the stepping-stones, who saw Glenfernie coming by the stream with the covered form in his arms. She met him; they went up the bank to the house together. She had uttered one cry, but no more.

”The Kelpie's Pool,” he had answered.

Jarvis Barrow came out of the door. ”Eh! G.o.d help us!”

They laid the form upon a bed. All the houseful crowded about. There was no helping that, and as little might be helped Jenny's lamentations and the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of others. It was White Farm himself who took away the plaid. It lay there before them all, the drowned form. The face was very quiet, strangely like Elspeth again, the Elspeth of the springtime. All looked, all saw.

”Gude guide us!” cried Mrs. Macmurdo. ”And I wadna be some at the Judgment Day when come up the beguiled, self-drownit la.s.sies!”

Jock Binning's voice rose from out the craning group. ”Aye, and I ken--and I ken wha was the man!”

White Farm turned upon him. He towered, the old man. A winter wrath and grief, an icy, scintillant, arctic pa.s.sion, marked two there, the laird of Glenfernie and the elder of the kirk. Gilian's grief stood head-high with theirs, but their anger, the old man's disdaining and the young man's jealousy, was far from her. In Jarvis Barrow's hand was the paper, taken from Elspeth, given him by Glenfernie. He turned upon the cripple. ”Wha, then? Wha, then? Speak out!”

He had that power of command that forced an answer. Jock Binning, crutched and with an elfish face and figure and voice, had pulled down upon himself the office of revelator. The group swayed a little from him and he was left facing White Farm and the laird of Glenfernie. He had a wailing, chanting, elvish manner of speech. Out streamed this voice:

”'Twere the last of June, twa-three days after the laird rode to Edinburgh, and she brought my mither a giftie of plums and sat doon for a crack with her. By he came and stood and talked. Syne the clouds thickened and the thunder growlit, and he wad walk with her hame through the glen--”

”Wha wad? Wha?”