Part 16 (1/2)
It was long before she recovered her consciousness, but at last she was aroused by the sound of sweet singing,
”I would I were a little bird, To build upon his breast, Or if I were a nightingale, To soothe my love to rest.
To gaze upon his tender eyes, All my reward should be, For I love, I love, I love my love, Because my love loves me.”
Opening her eyes with a s.h.i.+ver at the wild pathos of these tones, the Queen, by the chill bright light of the December sun, beheld her daughter, with Luachan beside her, seated on the beach of Raasay and twining pieces of damp sea-weed into her long hair.
Queen Margaret raised herself from the ground, and drew her hand across her brow. What had happened?
She herself lay on the gra.s.s close to the sea-sh.o.r.e; and near at hand Castle Brochel towered frowning into the morning sky. She called to her daughter. Miranda heeded not.
But now the sound of oars was heard, one-eyed Donald roughly grated his boat on the s.h.i.+ngle, and scrambling out, asked the Queen somewhat gruffly how she came there.
Confused and distressed, she could give no satisfactory answer. Donald then recounted to her how he had been rowing for hours round and round the spot where they had landed the previous night, unable to discover any trace of the large flat rock on which they had disembarked. At last in despair he had returned to the Island.
When he observed Miranda and her mother on the sh.o.r.e he expected also to see Eudaemon near at hand. Disappointed in this hope, he now continued, pointing inland with his long, skinny finger. ”I wadna say but the maister is in the Castle itsel'.”
At this moment, however, the Princess approached them, singing, sadly,
”But should it please the pitying powers, To call him to the sky, I'll plead a guardian angel's charge, Around my love to fly.
To guard him from all danger, How happy I should be, For I love, I love, I love my love, Because my love loves me.”
As she sang, Luachan uttered a melancholy howl. The perplexed seneschal looked from one to another in silent amazement, then muttering to himself, ”It's no unco canny for the beast to howl that gate,” he hastened, as fast as his withered limbs would permit, up the steep ascent to the Castle gate.
Meantime the Queen gazed fixedly on her daughter. What strange alteration had taken place in her beloved child? Those gentle blue eyes, wont to rest so placidly on all they surveyed, now restlessly turned from side to side, and never looked her straight in the face.
Her busy fingers plucked nervously at the wet garlands she carried on her arms, and her lips moved ceaselessly, though no audible sound came from them.
”Miranda, my love,” said the anxious mother, ”how came we hither?” A look of unutterable woe troubled the maiden's face. She drew from her bosom a golden needle, and holding it towards the north, she exclaimed,
”As points the faithful needle to the pole.”
Swinging the long slimy sea-weeds around her, she then suddenly gave a shrill laugh, and rushed up the castle hill, followed by Luachan, whose drooping ears and limp tail, seemed to the Queen's excited imagination prophetic of evil.
Stiff and sore in every limb from her unusual exposure, Queen Margaret raised herself from the ground and toiled slowly up the steep ascent.
Ere she reached the crest of the rocks upon which the Castle stood, the King came forth to meet her. In a terrible voice he cried--”What have you done to our child, to my darling Miranda?”
Thoroughly overcome with fatigue and misery, the poor Queen burst into tears, and Murdoch forgetting for the moment all save his wife's uncontrollable emotion, soothed her as best he could, and led her into the Castle hall.
Here she told her husband the strange events of the past night. She related their various adventures after Donald left them on the rock, and now, when too late, she bitterly lamented over her own hasty interference, and her imprudent words. She described how she had only time to perceive a being of n.o.ble and majestic mien seated on the previously empty throne. As his eye fell upon her she became unconscious, and could remember nothing more until she found herself on the beach at Raasay in the early morning.