“Yea, I am glad I
and my father and mother and Ephraim that
thee is returned to Fair View,” answered Truelove.
“And has thee truly no shoes of plain and sober
stuffs? These be much too gaudy.”
“There’s a pair of black
callimanco,” said the storekeeper reluctantly;
“but these of flowered silk would so become your
feet, or this red-heeled pair with the buckles, or
this of fine morocco. Did you think of me every
day that I spent in Williamsburgh?”
“I prayed for thee every day,”
said Truelove simply, “for thee and
for the sick man who had called thee to his side.
Let me see thy callimanco shoes. Thee knows that
I may not wear these others.”
The storekeeper brought the plainest
footgear that his stock afforded. “They
are of a very small size, perhaps too small.
Had you not better try them ere you buy? I could
get a larger pair from Mr. Carter’s store.”
Truelove seated herself upon a convenient
stool, and lifted her gray skirt an inch above a slender
ankle. “Perchance they may not be too small,”
she said, and in despite of her training and the whiteness
of her soul two dimples made their appearance above
the corners of her pretty mouth. MacLean knelt
to remove the worn shoe, but found in the shoestrings
an obstinate knot. The two had the store to themselves;
for Ephraim waited for his sister at the landing,
rocking in his boat on the bosom of the river, watching
a flight of wild geese drawn like a snowy streamer
across the dark blue sky. It was late autumn,
and the forest was dressed in flame color.
“Thy fingers move so slowly
that I fear thee is not well,” said Truelove
kindly. “They that have nursed men with
fever do often fall ill themselves. Will thee
not see a physician?”
MacLean, sanguine enough in hue, and
no more gaunt of body than usual, worked languidly
on. “I trust no lowland physician,”
he said. “In my own country, if I had need,
I would send to the foot of Dun-da-gu for black
Murdoch, whose fathers have been physicians to the
MacLeans of Duart since the days of Galethus.
The little man in this parish, his father
was a lawyer, his grandfather a merchant; he knows
not what was his great-grandfather! There, the
shoe is untied! If I came every day to your father’s
house, and if your mother gave me to drink of her elder-flower
wine, and if I might sit on the sunny doorstep and
watch you at your spinning, I should, I think, recover.”
He slipped upon her foot the shoe
of black cloth. Truelove regarded it gravely.
“’Tis not too small, after all,”
she said. “And does thee not think it more
comely than these other, with their silly pomp of colored
heels and blossoms woven in the silk?” She indicated
with her glance the vainglorious row upon the bench
beside her; then looked down at the little foot in
its sombre covering and sighed.
“I think that thy foot would
be fair in the shoe of Donald Ross!” cried the
storekeeper, and kissed the member which he praised.
Truelove drew back, her cheeks very
pink, and the dimples quite uncertain whether to go
or stay. “Thee is idle in thy behavior,”
she said severely. “I do think that thee
is of the generation that will not learn. I pray
thee to expeditiously put back my own shoe, and to
give me in a parcel the callimanco pair.”
MacLean set himself to obey, though
with the expedition of a tortoise. Crisp autumn
air and vivid sunshine pouring in at window and door
filled and lit the store. The doorway framed
a picture of blue sky, slow-moving water, and ragged
landing; the window gave upon crimson sumac and the
gold of a sycamore. Truelove, in her gray gown
and close white cap, sat in the midst of the bouquet
of colors afforded by the motley lining of the Fair
View store, and gazed through the window at the riotous
glory of this world. At last she looked at MacLean.
“When, a year ago, thee was put to mind this
store, and I, coming here to buy, made thy acquaintance,”
she said softly, “thee wore always so stern
and sorrowful a look that my heart bled for thee.
I knew that thee was unhappy. Is thee unhappy
still?”
MacLean tied the shoestrings with
elaborate care; then rose from his knees, and stood
looking down from his great height upon the Quaker
maiden. His face was softened, and when he spoke
it was with a gentle voice. “No,”
he said, “I am not unhappy as at first I was.
My king is an exile, and my chief is forfeited.
I suppose that my father is dead. Ewin Mackinnon,
my foe upon whom I swore revenge, lived untroubled
by me, and died at another’s hands. My
country is closed against me; I shall never see it
more. I am named a rebel, and chained to this
soil, this dull and sluggish land, where from year’s
end to year’s end the key keeps the house and
the furze bush keeps the cow. The best years of
my manhood years in which I should have
acquired honor have gone from me here.
There was a man of my name amongst those gentlemen,
old officers of Dundee, who in France did not disdain
to serve as private sentinels, that their maintenance
might not burden a king as unfortunate as themselves.
That MacLean fell in the taking of an island in the
Rhine which to this day is called the Island of the
Scots, so bravely did these gentlemen bear themselves.
They made their lowly station honorable; marshals and
princes applauded their deeds. The man of my
name was unfortunate, but not degraded; his life was
not amiss, and his death was glorious. But I,
Angus MacLean, son and brother of chieftains, I serve
as a slave; giving obedience where in nature it is
not due, laboring in an alien land for that which
profiteth not, looking to die peacefully in my bed!
I should be no less than most unhappy.”
He sat down upon the bench beside
Truelove, and taking the hem of her apron began to
plait it between his fingers. “But to-day,”
he said, “but to-day the sky seems
blue, the sunshine bright. Why is that, Truelove?”
Truelove, with her eyes cast down
and a deeper wild rose in her cheeks, opined that
it was because Friend Marmaduke Haward was well of
his fever, and had that day returned to Fair View.
“Friend Lewis Contesse did tell my father, when
he was in Williamsburgh, that thee made a tenderer
nurse than any woman, and that he did think that Marmaduke
Haward owed his life to thee. I am glad that
thee has made friends with him whom men foolishly
call thy master.”
“Credit to that the blue sky,”
said the storekeeper whimsically; “there is
yet the sunshine to be accounted for. This room
did not look so bright half an hour syne.”
But Truelove shook her head, and would
not reckon further; instead heard Ephraim calling,
and gently drew her apron from the Highlander’s
clasp. “There will be a meeting of Friends
at our house next fourth day,” she said, in
her most dovelike tones, as she rose and held out her
hand for her new shoes. “Will thee come,
Angus? Thee will be edified, for Friend Sarah
Story, who hath the gift of prophecy, will be there,
and we do think to hear of great things. Thee
will come?”
“By St. Kattan, that will I!”
exclaimed the storekeeper, with suspicious readiness.
“The meeting lasts not long, does it? When
the Friends are gone there will be reward? I
mean I may sit on the doorstep and watch you and
watch thee spin?”
Truelove dimpled once more, took her
shoes, and would have gone her way sedately and alone,
but MacLean must needs keep her company to the end
of the landing and the waiting Ephraim. The latter,
as he rowed away from the Fair View store, remarked
upon his sister’s looks: “What makes
thy cheeks so pink, Truelove, and thy eyes so big
and soft?”
Truelove did not know; thought that
mayhap ’twas the sunshine and the blowing wind.
The sun still shone, but the wind
had fallen, when, two hours later, MacLean pocketed
the key of the store, betook himself again to the water’s
edge, and entering a small boat, first turned it sunwise
for luck’s sake, then rowed slowly downstream
to the great-house landing. Here he found a handful
of negroes boatmen and house servants basking
in the sunlight. Juba was of the number, and
at MacLean’s call scrambled to his feet and
came to the head of the steps. “No, sah,
Marse Duke not on de place. He order Mirza an’
ride off” a pause “an’
ride off to de glebe house. Yes, sah, I
done tol’ him he ought to rest. Goin’
to wait tel he come back?”
“No,” answered MacLean,
with a darkened face. “Tell him I will come
to the great house to-night.”
In effect, the storekeeper was now,
upon Fair View plantation, master of his own time
and person. Therefore, when he left the landing,
he did not row back to the store, but, it being pleasant
upon the water, kept on downstream, gliding beneath
the drooping branches of red and russet and gold.
When he came to the mouth of the little creek that
ran past Haward’s garden, he rested upon his
oars, and with a frowning face looked up its silver
reaches.
The sun was near its setting, and
a still and tranquil light lay upon the river that
was glassy smooth. Rowing close to the bank, the
Highlander saw through the gold fretwork of the leaves
above him far spaces of pale blue sky. All was
quiet, windless, listlessly fair. A few birds
were on the wing, and far toward the opposite shore
an idle sail seemed scarce to hold its way. Presently
the trees gave place to a grassy shore, rimmed by a
fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in the flood
below. Behind it was a little rise of earth,
a green hillock, fresh and vernal in the midst of
the flame-colored autumn. In shape it was like
those hills in his native land which the Highlander
knew to be tenanted by the daoine shi’
the men of peace. There, in glittering chambers
beneath the earth, they dwelt, a potent, eerie, gossamer
folk, and thence, men and women, they issued at times
to deal balefully with the mortal race.
A woman was seated upon the hillock,
quiet as a shadow, her head resting on her hand, her
eyes upon the river. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, slight
of figure, and utterly, mournfully still, sitting
alone in the fading light, with the northern sky behind
her, for the moment she wore to the Highlander an
aspect not of earth, and he was startled. Then
he saw that it was but Darden’s Audrey.
She watched the water where it gleamed far off, and
did not see him in his boat below the scarlet vines.
Nor when, after a moment’s hesitation, he fastened
the boat to a cedar stump, and stepped ashore, did
she pay any heed. It was not until he spoke to
her, standing where he could have touched her with
his outstretched hand, that she moved or looked his
way.
“How long since you left the
glebe house?” he demanded abruptly.
“The sun was high,” she
answered, in a slow, even voice, with no sign of surprise
at finding herself no longer alone. “I have
been sitting here for a long time. I thought
that Hugon might be coming this afternoon....
There is no use in hiding, but I thought if I stole
down here he might not find me very soon.”
Her voice died away, and she looked
again at the water. The storekeeper sat down
upon the bank, between the hillock and the fiery vine,
and his keen eyes watched her closely. “The
river,” she said at last, I like to
watch it. There was a time when I loved the woods,
but now I see that they are ugly. Now, when I
can steal away, I come to the river always. I
watch it and watch it, and think.... All that
you give it is taken so surely, and hurried away,
and buried out of sight forever. A little while
ago I pulled a spray of farewell summer, and went
down there where the bank shelves and gave it to the
river. It was gone in a moment for all that the
stream seems so stealthy and slow.”
“The stream comes from afar,”
said the Highlander. “In the west, beneath
the sun, it may be a torrent flashing through the mountains.”
“The mountains!” cried
Audrey. “Ah, they are uglier than the woods, black
and terrible! Once I loved them, too, but that
was long ago.” She put her chin upon her
hand, and again studied the river. “Long
ago,” she said, beneath her breath.
There was a silence; then, “Mr.
Haward is at Fair View again,” announced the
storekeeper.
The girl’s face twitched.
“He has been nigh to death,”
went on her informant. “There were days
when I looked for no morrow for him; one night when
I held above his lips a mirror, and hardly thought
to see the breath-stain.”
Audrey laughed. “He can
fool even Death, can he not?” The laugh was light
and mocking, a tinkling, elvish sound which the Highlander
frowned to hear. A book, worn and dog-eared,
lay near her on the grass. He took it up and
turned the leaves; then put it by, and glanced uneasily
at the slender, brown-clad form seated upon the fairy
mound.
“That is strange reading,” he said.
Audrey looked at the book listlessly.
“The schoolmaster gave it to me. It tells
of things as they are, all stripped of make-believe,
and shows how men love only themselves, and how ugly
and mean is the world when we look at it aright.
The schoolmaster says that to look at it aright you
must not dream; you must stay awake,” she
drew her hand across her brow and eyes, “you
must stay awake.”
“I had rather dream,”
said MacLean shortly. “I have no love for
your schoolmaster.”
“He is a wise man,” she
answered. “Now that I do not like the woods
I listen to him when he comes to the glebe house.
If I remember all he says, maybe I shall grow wise,
also, and the pain will stop.” Once more
she dropped her chin upon her hand and fell to brooding,
her eyes upon the river. When she spoke again
it was to herself: “Sometimes of nights
I hear it calling me. Last night, while I knelt
by my window, it called so loud that I put my hands
over my ears; but I could not keep out the sound, the
sound of the river that comes from the mountains, that
goes to the sea. And then I saw that there was
a light in Fair View house.”
Her voice ceased, and the silence
closed in around them. The sun was setting, and
in the west were purple islands merging into a sea
of gold. The river, too, was colored, and every
tree was like a torch burning stilly in the quiet
of the evening. For some time MacLean watched
the girl, who now again seemed unconscious of his
presence; but at last he got to his feet, and looked
toward his boat. “I must be going,”
he said; then, as Audrey raised her head and the light
struck upon her face, he continued more kindly than
one would think so stern a seeming man could speak:
“I am sorry for you, my maid. God knows
that I should know how dreadful are the wounds of
the spirit! Should you need a friend”
Audrey shook her head. “No
more friends,” she said, and laughed as she had
laughed before. “They belong in dreams.
When you are awake, that is a different
thing.”
The storekeeper went his way, back
to the Fair View store, rowing slowly, with a grim
and troubled face, while Darden’s Audrey sat
still upon the green hillock and watched the darkening
river. Behind her, at no great distance, was
the glebe house; more than once she thought she heard
Hugon coming through the bushes and calling her by
name. The river darkened more and more, and in
the west the sea of gold changed to plains of amethyst
and opal. There was a crescent moon, and Audrey,
looking at it with eyes that ached for the tears that
would not gather, knew that once she would have found
it fair.
Hugon was coming, for she heard the
twigs upon the path from the glebe house snap beneath
his tread. She did not turn or move; she would
see him soon enough, hear him soon enough. Presently
his black eyes would look into hers; it would be bird
and snake over again, and the bird was tired of fluttering.
The bird was so tired that when a hand was laid on
her shoulder she did not writhe herself from under
its touch; instead only shuddered slightly, and stared
with wide eyes at the flowing river. But the
hand was white, with a gleaming ring upon its forefinger,
and it stole down to clasp her own. “Audrey,”
said a voice that was not Hugon’s.
The girl flung back her head, saw
Haward’s face bending over her, and with a loud
cry sprang to her feet. When he would have touched
her again she recoiled, putting between them a space
of green grass. “I have hunted you for
an hour,” he began. “At last I struck
this path. Audrey”
Audrey’s hands went to her ears.
Step by step she moved backward, until she stood against
the trunk of a blood-red oak. When she saw that
Haward followed her she uttered a terrified scream.
At the sound and at the sight of her face he stopped
short, and his outstretched hand fell to his side.
“Why, Audrey, Audrey!” he exclaimed.
“I would not hurt you, child. I am not
Jean Hugon!”
The narrow path down which he had
come was visible for some distance as it wound through
field and copse, and upon it there now appeared another
figure, as yet far off, but moving rapidly through
the fading light toward the river. “Jean!
Jean! Jean Hugon!” cried Audrey.
The blood rushed to Haward’s
face. “As bad as that!” he said, beneath
his breath. Going over to the girl, he took her
by the hands and strove to make her look at him; but
her face was like marble, and her eyes would not meet
his, and in a moment she had wrenched herself free
of his clasp. “Jean Hugon! Help, Jean
Hugon!” she called.
The half-breed in the distance heard
her voice, and began to run toward them.
“Audrey, listen to me!”
cried Haward. “How can I speak to you, how
explain, how entreat, when you are like this?
Child, child, I am no monster! Why do you shrink
from me thus, look at me thus with frightened eyes?
You know that I love you!”
She broke from him with lifted hands
and a wailing cry. “Let me go! Let
me go! I am running through the corn, in the
darkness, and I hope to meet the Indians! I am
awake, oh, God! I am wide awake!”
With another cry, and with her hands
shutting out the sound of his voice, she turned and
fled toward the approaching trader. Haward, after
one deep oath and an impetuous, quickly checked movement
to follow the flying figure, stood beneath the oak
and watched that meeting: Hugon, in his wine-colored
coat and Blenheim wig, fierce, inquisitive, bragging
of what he might do; the girl suddenly listless, silent,
set only upon an immediate return through the fields
to the glebe house.
She carried her point, and the two
went away without let or hindrance from the master
of Fair View, who leaned against the stem of the oak
and watched them go. He had been very ill, and
the hour’s search, together with this unwonted
beating of his heart, had made him desperately weary, too
weary to do aught but go slowly and without overmuch
of thought to the spot where he had left his horse,
mount it, and ride as slowly homeward. To-morrow,
he told himself, he would manage differently; at least,
she should be made to hear him. In the mean time
there was the night to be gotten through. MacLean,
he remembered, was coming to the great house.
What with wine and cards, thought might for a time
be pushed out of doors.