THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS (continued 2)

During the noons, she sought—alone or with Nial—that white merle of which Sorcha had told her once, which had haunted her waking and sleeping dreams ever since. Whoever heard its song would be in fairyland for a thousand years, though the joy of that would be no more than a year and a day of mortal time. Whoever saw it might follow its flight, and for the seer of the white merle there would open wonder after wonder. The green spirits of the trees would come forth, chanting low their murmurous rhyme: the souls of the flowers would steal hand-in-hand, from leaf-covert to leaf-covert, or dance in the golden light of the sunbeams; the singing of the birds, the crooning of the cushats, the hum of the wild-bee and the wood-wasp, the voices of all living things from the low bleat of the fawn to the singing stir of the gnats by the pool or in the hollows—all would become clear as human speech, and would be sweet to hear.

Long, long ago, that white merle had flown out of Eden. Its song has been in the world ever since, though few there are who hear it, knowing it for what it is, and none who has seen the flash of its white wings through the green-gloom of the living wood—the sun-splashed, rain-drenched, mist-girt, storm-beat wood of human life.

But Oona watched for the white shimmer, for the magic song. She looked everywhere save where the white merle nested—in the fair soul of her; listened everywhere save where its secret song was—in the music of her young life in heart and brain. Ah, the sweet song of it!

As for Nial, he crouched for hours at a time, lest by noon or dusk he might hear or see the magic bird. If only he could catch but a glimpse of the white merle, sure he would see his lost soul somewhere among the green spirits who, Oona said, would be seen coming out of the trees which were their bodies. Neither did he know that there was one place where it rested often on a spray in its singing flight, a fugitive Hope; or that notes of its unreachable song pierced the gloom of his bitter pain.

Sorcha alone, only Sorcha, started at times as though she heard it: and in her dreams, and in the dreams of Alan, it sang, a white wonder on a golden bough, in the moonlight.

But for Torcall Cameron in his sorrow there was no white merle. Oona asked him once what its first notes were like.

"Bron! bron! mo bron!" he answered; "mo bron, mo bron, ochone, arone! Doil-ghios orm'sa, tha mo chridhe briste!"10

Almost every afternoon he went out alone upon the heights, though never again by the cairn where Marsail lay. Sometimes he would sit on a boulder, brooding dark; at times Sorcha or Oona would descry him kneeling in the heather, often with fierce gestures, as he prayed wild prayers—fragments of which the wind sometimes bore to the listener, who no more durst approach.

Ever since that day by the cairn Nial had kept out of his way. Not without reason; for once, as the dwarf lay sleeping in the noon-heat, under the shadow of a rock, he was suddenly seized in an iron grip.

It was in vain for him to struggle. What he saw in the face of his captor gave him the courage of desperation.

"Let me go, Màm-Gorm!" he muttered in a voice hoarse with passion. "Let me go. I am Nial of the woods."

"Ay, Nial of the woods! Spawn of the Evil One! Think you I don't know you to be the child of the Cailliach? You talk of your lost soul, poor fool! Your lost soul, you that never had and never will have a soul!"

"Let me go, Màm-Gorm!"

"Let you go! and where will I be letting you go to, you that are no man, but only an elfish creature of the woods? Was it you that came out of the grave that day—that day by the cairn?"

"And what will you do, Màm-Gorm?"

"What will I do? What will I do? By the blood on my soul, I will drive a stake through your body, so that no more shall you haunt the living!"

"Let me go, Torcall Cameron, in the name of God!"

The blind man relaxed his grip a little, which had become like a vice. The words brought a shock to his heart. He had never heard Nial call him by his name before: and if he were of demon birth, how could he say "an ainm an Athar"?

"Let me go, Torcall Cameron, or I will put a rosad upon you, a spell that no sian of Oona or Sorcha will save you from."

"You, you thing of the woods, you put a spell upon me: you who had my bread, and had my fire, and who would have died but for me! Ay, and you would put a spell upon me! And what would that rosad be like, now, from you that have never consorted with men, and have learned nothing save from the lassie Oona?"

"When I was with the children of the wind," Nial began, to be interrupted at once by his captor, who muttered, "Ah, the gypsies I forgot"—and grew grave, as with the shadow of a fear.

"When I was with the children of the wind, Màm-Gorm, I learned some things that even you may not know. And in the woods I have learned that which no man knows. And if I put the evil upon you, you will die slow, year by year, from the brain that is behind your eyes to the last bones of your feet!"

Cameron shuddered.

"It may be so. God forgive me, any way. You have done me no harm. But look you, Nial of the woods, keep out of my way when I wander abroad—and let me hear no more of your spells. There: you are free to go. Yet even now that my hand is off you, I long to make sure that you are not the thing that came out of the cairn."

With a dark, vengeful face the elf-man moved out of reach; then he whispered in a slow, meaning way:

"I am going, for I see Marsail coming down the hill from the cairn, and with her is a man——"

"A man! A man!" shouted Cameron, trembling as in an ague. "Who is the man? What is he like? Give me your hand, Nial, give me your hand, for the love of God!"

"He is tall and fair, and dripping wet, with his hair lank about his head, with the water in it."

Ah, he had his revenge now! Màm-Gorm gave a low moan, and sank to his knees. There he cowered, muttering incoherently.

"Nial," he whispered hoarsely at last, "Nial, Nial, do they come this way—Marsail and—and—the man who is dripping wet?"

The dwarf raised his head and stared about him. He was tempted to make his late tormentor suffer; but the brute heart of the soulless man was melted because of the agony of one of the lords of life.

"I see no one now, Màm-Gorm."

"No one—no one?"

"No."

"Are you sure, Nial?"

"I am sure."

"Give me your hand."

"You will do me no hurt?"

"On my soul!"

Nial slowly advanced, took the outstretched hand in his, and helped the trembling man to rise.

"Nial, tell me this thing. Have you seen these—these—these two before this?"

"I have never seen the woman."

"Then how do you know it was Marsail, who is dead years and years and years agone?"

"Is it forgetting you are that when I was a child I saw her body, on the day of the snow?"

There was a pause, wherein the questioner brooded darkly. At last, in a low strained voice, he asked:

"Have you ever seen the man?"

"No."

"Do you know who he was?"

"No."

"Can you guess who he was?"

Silence.

"Speak, Nial!"

Silence.

"Speak, Nial, whom I have fathered."

"He was dripping wet, as though—as though——"

"Well?"

"As though he had fallen into the Linn o' Mairg."

A savage spasm came into Cameron's face. The nails of his fingers drew blood in the prisoned hand, which was snatched away as Nial again moved out of reach.

"I will lay my curse upon you, you evil beast!" Cameron shouted hoarsely—"Dhonas's a dholas ort!—Bas dunach ort!—Ay, ay, Nial the Soulless, son of the demon-woman, God against thee and in thy face, drowning on sea and burning on land, a stake of the whitethorn between thy heart and the pit of thy belly!"11

Of the few curses he knew, none seemed to Nial so terrible, so mysterious, so straight upon life out of Death, as that conveyed by the two words, "Marbh'asg ort!"

He waited till the fury of the man was spent. Then, frowning darkly, with his red, bloodshot eyes agleam, he muttered, "Marbh'asg ort!... Your death-wrappings be about you!" So low was his voice that it fell unheeded.

Cameron turned his sightless eyes upon him. Nial shivered. The blindness of his king hurt him as a searing pain.

"What was the thing you said, Nial of the brutes?"

With a great effort, the bitter word was slain ere it was spoken. The voice that came from that wild, fantastic, woodland thing, with its shaggy peaked head, its faun-like ears, its rude, misshapen body, was ever harsh as a branch grating in the wind; but now it was gentle. Tears that were unshed softened it. The grief of the pariah was its benediction.

"Màm-Gorm, my father, the thing I said was a bitter thing out of Nial the herd, but this thing that I say to you is by poor Nial of the brutes, and that is God preserve you ... ay, gu'n gleidheadh Dia thu, Torcall-mo-maighstir!"

And with that the brute turned from the man who had cursed him, and with slow steps and bent head made his way across the hillside, till he entered the forest, whence he came not for three days, and where none, not even Oona, saw him.

It may be that he had heard at last the song of the white merle.

V

So the weeks went till the coming of the season that, because of the heats and of the drought, is called the month of the hanging of the dog's mouth.12

Great heat, with many thunders, had prevailed. For nine days at the beginning of July the rain poured: or ceased, only to let rainbows come and go upon the gleaming hills. During this time Oona and the blind man at Màm-Gorm were much together. A change had come upon the child. She looked at her foster-father often, with a wistful gaze. Something puzzled her. In the air, some vague trouble moved like a vanishing shadow. Of Nial she saw little. Now and again she heard his signal in the forest, and answered it: sometimes, at dawn or dusk, coming upon him on the hillside, sitting solitary on some isolated boulder, or crouching by a pool, and staring intently into its depths. But he would not come across the airidh. No one knew how he lived. Once or twice Murdo the shepherd gave him to eat: and, every morning and night, Oona put a small crock of porridge and oatcakes, or other food, in a place where the vagrant could have it if he willed—and thrice, at least, she found it empty. On the few moonlit nights she fancied she saw a pale, misty column of thin smoke rise above the pines.

Still more was she troubled about Sorcha. Her beautiful sister had grown even lovelier to look upon, but there was a new look in her eyes, a new hush in her voice. She shepherded on the mountain as one in a trance: as one in a dream she moved about the house. At night, in her sleep, she sighed often, and moaned gently: and once, turning and finding Oona by her, she put her arms round the child, and, sleeping still, whispered, "Ah, heart of my heart, joy of my joy!"

Oona knew that Sorcha and Alan Gilchrist loved each other. She knew, also, that this was why Alan could never come to Màm-Gorm, for her foster-father had laid his ban upon their love. But what did this love mean? What, she pondered vaguely, did this tragic silence, this tragic yet happy silence hide? "I know now," she said one day to Sorcha at the coming home of the kye, "I know now why it is that Alan, when he meets you in the gloaming by the byre or in the hay-shed, or down in the strath by the Mairg Water, calls you 'Dream.'"

Sorcha was startled, and the beautiful face flushed at the knowledge that she had been seen at these secret meetings with Alan. Oona's unconsciousness of any cause of embarrassment, however, reassured her.

"So you have seen us, Oona my flower? Well, see to it that you say nothing of this to father, or to any one. And, Oona, my bonnie, how do you know he—Alan—calls me 'Dream': and what do you mean by saying you know now what that means?"

"I heard him call you so, that moonlight night last week, when you came hand in hand through the wood. He called you Sunshine, Joy, and then Dream—and you said that 'Dream' was best, for it was the name he gave you 'that day.' ... Sorcha!"

"Yes, birdeen?"

"What was 'that day'?"

The girl turned her face aside, because of the flame in it; but the flush was in the white neck as well, and the child laughed.

"Ah, it was when he first kissed you!"

"Yes, dear," Sorcha answered, flushing again; "yes, it must have been then."

"Sorcha, tell me, do you love him very much?"

"Yes. More than I can tell you, my sunbeam. When you are a woman you will understand."

"When I am a woman I am going to marry Nial."

"Nial!"

"Yes. No one will love him, because he has no soul; but I love him, and will marry him. Half of my soul will then be his."

"Is that so, then? Sure 'tis a south wind for Nial! And where will you live, Oona-my-heart?"

"The White Merle will show us the way."

"Ah, I see, it is a fairy tale. Well ... Oona, I will tell you a secret. I have heard the song of the White Merle!"

The child's eyes grew big with wonder and excitement.

"When? Where? Was it where the old yews are in the Upper Strath?"

"It was now here and now there."

"But when, when?"

"Whenever Alan called me 'Dream,' and the other names, I heard the song of the White Merle."

"Ah, it is you that I envy! Sorcha, do you think that if Nial called me beautiful names I should hear it, too?"

"I fear not, dearie ... not yet. Perhaps—perhaps if you called Nial those beautiful names he would hear the song."

"Then I will."

"No, not yet, Bonnikin. You will only harm Nial. But now run away. Father will be seeking you."

"Ah, and who will be seeking you?" cried Oona, as she danced away, laughing. "Ah, 'tis a good name, Dream; for you are always dreaming in your eyes now, Sorcha!"

Yet day by day thereafter the child laughed less blithely. There was a shadow about her foster-father. It held her spellbound. Never had she been so long away from the woods before, never before had she been so long indoors. She was glad to be with the blind man, and to take his hand when he went out to stride sometimes for miles along the rough ways of the hills. She talked much to him about the White Merle, and the "guid-folk," and the quiet people; sometimes of Nial, and of the strange things he saw and heard, and how the birds and beasts would come to him, and how he harmed none, nor they him. Sometimes she asked about the Cailliach, or about the wind-spirits; or strange questions about the people of the Strath, glimpses of whom she had occasionally, and for whom, particularly for the black-garbed minister, she did not conceal her contempt and dislike. Sometimes she sang; and that was what the blind man liked best. Once only she spoke of Alan: how she thought that Christ must be like him, so fair to see was he; how she loved his low voice, and soft touch, and grave, sweet eyes.

But she saw at once that no good would come out of any mention of that name. Her foster-father grew moodily taciturn; and when, after a long silence, he spoke, it was to ask her in a harsh voice if she had ever broken his command, and climbed the opposite slopes of Tornideon.

"Never, father."

"And have you ever sought the woman Anabal, that is mother of Alan?"

"No."

He seemed satisfied, and asked nothing further. But as for Oona, she brooded over this more and more, and wondered more and more because of the ban upon Alan, and because of the feud between Torcall Cameron in his loneliness on Iolair and Anabal Gilchrist in her loneliness on Tornideon.

The first day of August came with settled weather, and almost tropic heat.

All that day Torcall Cameron had been strangely restless. If Oona left him for more than a few moments, he grew impatient, and then angry. Again and again she begged him to come into the green shadowy woods, or even to climb to the Ridge of the Stags on Iolair; but he would not. At last, weary with the heat and the long blank hours, weary too with Oona's importunities, and not wholly unwilling to humour her for his own sake, he let her take his hand and lead him forth at her will.

Sorcha alone knew that, for some reason which she never fathomed, her father's "black day" was this first day of August. Year after year, his "dubhachas," his gloom, came upon him with that dawn, so that he would have word with none. She knew, too, that when the dark day was gone, her father was better for weeks thereafter, and sometimes smiled and laughed like other men.

The night before had been an ill passing of July. Murdo, the shepherd, had come in, his face white. As he had come down the mountain he had heard a wild and beautiful singing, and had descried a herd of deer being driven with the wind, keeping close together. He had not seen the demon-woman, for he had turned his head away, and muttered a sian to keep the evil of her from coming about him like a snake. But he thought the wind brought some of the words of her song to him, and they were of death and the grave. Then, muttering "Glacar iad's na innleachdan a dhealbh iad"—"Let them be taken in the devices they have imagined"—he had fled. Later, Oona came with a strange story from Nial. He had been crossing the highland behind Màm-Gorm, and had seen two men and two women walking silently with bowed heads. One man was tall and dripping wet, as though he had come out of water, and his lank hair hung adown his face. The other man was Màm-Gorm himself. The faces of the others he could not see, but one woman was tall and gaunt, with wild, straggling grey hair—a woman like Anabal Gilchrist on Tornideon. He heard only one word spoken, and that was when Màm-Gorm stopped, looked at the house, and said, "C'aite am bheil an eilidriom?"13

"What is an eilidriom, Sorcha?" Oona had added. To which her sister had replied that she did not know, and that she was to say nothing of this in the house.

"And what then, Oona?"

Nial, the child resumed, had heard no more. But when he turned and looked toward the strath he saw nine men moving away from Màm-Gorm, carrying in their midst a long black box. When he glanced back, the four wayfarers he had seen had disappeared.

Yet, as Sorcha knew, her father had not stirred from the house that day. Nothing of what Murdo or Nial had seen came to his ears—of that she was heedful. But suddenly, while they were eating the porridge, Oona asked her foster-father what an "eilidriom" was.

Cameron sprang to his feet, pale as death, and shaking, with the milk that he had spilt from the mug in his hand running down his breast as though his life-blood were pouring from him, white, too, with fear.

"What is that you say, Oona?" he cried, hoarsely; "what is that you say? Do you see a carbad-mhàrbh—at the door—coming here?"

"No—no——" murmured the child, terrified.

"Then how do you know that word for it? Who told it to you? I have not heard it said for years. No man uses it in this country. I have not heard it since—since Marsail died—and then it was from—from the people yonder on Tornideon, for Anabal Gilchrist was of the isles."

But here Sorcha had interposed, and said that Oona had picked it up in some way—in one of the old runes told her by Murdo, no doubt.

For the rest of that night Torcall Cameron only once opened his lips, and that not at the covering of the peats, or when Sorcha sang one of the sweet orain spioradail he loved so well, after she had read a while in the Book of Peace. It was when she came to him after he had lain down in his bed, and kissed him, and let her flooding tears fall warm upon his blind, upstaring eyes: then he pulled her head closer, and whispered, "Sorcha, Sorcha, my soul swims in mist!"

It was a night of beauty, and still. All slept. But toward dawn a voice arose in the corries. From height to height it went, and the long wail of it swept past the green airidh of Màm-Gorm and wandered sobbing through the forest. Then all was still again. The dawn that came soon after was of pale gold and faintest wild-rose. Peace was in the heaven.

But with that sudden passing wail, so often heard on the mountains when there is not a cloud in the sky, and when far and near not a branch sways, and the gnats dance in long columns perpendicularly without drifting this way or that—with that voice out of the hills, Torcall awoke.

When Sorcha arose she heard him moaning. Wearily she wondered what this fateful date meant, this dreaded first day of the eighth month. When she went to him, he said no other word than this: "I have heard the lamentable cry of death."

"The cry of death?" she repeated, questioningly.

"Ay, truly, the lamentation of the demon-women mourning for the dead."

So it was that all that day Torcall Cameron had been as a man in an ill-dream, weary of the long hours, yet dreading the passing of them into the shadow. So, too, it was that, at the last, he went forth with Oona.

At first they wandered into the forest, but here Torcall was never at ease, and so after a time they strolled hand in hand from glade to glade, till the sound of Mairg Water came soothing-cool through the heat.

The peace and utter quietude lay as balm upon the weary man. He grew drowsy at last, as his trouble seemed to lift from him. More than once he would have stopped, and thrown himself on the ground, content to stir no further, but Oona urged him to come on to where the river ran through shelving ledges with a singing sound, and nothing else was to be heard but the whisper of the silver birches and the thin, green reeds.

The crooning of the cushats was in his ears. Sweet it was to have that soft touch of sound after the lamentable cry of the hills, that morning cry now dulled, so that it was there only as a shadow in a darkened room.

He was glad when the breath of the water came upon his face, and he could sit down among the bracken and fragrant gale, and do no more than listen idly to the passage of the water. The whispering water, the scarce audible susurrus of faintly stirred leaves overhead, the singing of the gnats, the low incessant croon of the cushats, these were all the sounds to hear. Not a breath of wind moved in the pinewood, so that it gave not even that vast, slow suspiration which may be heard in forests once or twice between sunrise and sundown even on stillest days. All the birds were still, though few sang even at daybreak in that season of the young brood. Over the reaches of the water the swallows skimmed, hawking silently.

An hour passed. Thinking that he slept, and weary of sitting still so long, Oona rose and slipped away. At first she went to a great yew that towered near the fringe of the forest, to see if the wood-doves she had heard crooning there had fallen asleep, for now they no longer made their croodling moan. Then, having espied them, sitting close with fluffed plumage and drooping wings as they drowsed in the warm shadow, she peered here and there for the nest of a shrew-mouse, for often she had heard thereabouts the patter of the wild-mice in days of drought.

Her quest led her on and on. A sudden splash made her look at the narrow river. A grilse had leaped half out of the clear amber-brown water, and missed the dragonfly which had been poising its arrow-flight close to a wreath of circling foam. The tumult of the linn, a score of yards beyond her, was pleasant in her ears. She forgot the shrew-mice, and thought only of the great salmon that Nial declared slept or lay waiting night and day under a ledge at the bottom of the linn. Yes; she would steal across the rocks, and creep in among the boulders, and lie along the lowest ledge that sloped to the seething hollow, whose black depths, and the deafening noise of whose tumult, had ever an irresistible fascination for her.

She seemed like a water-sprite herself, as she stood on a high rock at a place where the ledges sloped sheer into a crevice, at the bottom of which a snake of brown water writhed through holes and crannies till it leaped out into a back eddy of the river whence it came. She had plucked a branch of rowan-berries, some still green or ruddy brown, but others already kissed into flame by the sun. This she waved slowly to and fro before her, partly to keep the midges away, partly because the rhythm of the running water was flowing through her brain, and so along all the nerves of her body. The sunflood beat full upon her. Her short, ragged, scanty dress glowed like a chestnut-husk in the sunlight; in the hot yellow sunshine the tanned skin of her legs and feet gleamed ivory white. With parted lips and shining eyes she stood intent, transfigured.

Suddenly she started. A look of curiosity, of astonishment, came into her eyes.

What, she wondered, was that unfamiliar object lying in a ferny hollow of the rocks which formed the bridge of Mairg Water, whence the stream fell in a rushing cataract into the Linn? A human figure, clearly; a woman, too. Who could she be? Was she alive or dead? Was it Sorcha? No. Could it be one of the fairy-women of whom she had heard so often: the Cailliach, of whom she had been told so many tales; or that green-clad, yellow-scarfed, mysterious Bandruidh, the sorceress who won the souls out of grown men, and whose glance was fateful as a kelpie's? A kelpie's! Ah, was this indeed not the kelpie of the Linn o' Mairg, lying there in wait for her! or might it be in truth the kelpie, yet only asleep there in the great heat? If so, now was the time to espy it, and perhaps steal or find a hair of its head—which, wound about the third finger of her left hand, would make her a princess among the secret people, and enable her to know what no one in the whole strath, or the greater strath of the world beyond, would know, to see what no one would see.

These were the thoughts which passed through her mind, while her blue eyes gazed unwaveringly at the woman, dead or asleep.

At last, slowly, and with careful heed, she drew nearer and nearer. When still many yards away she recognised the sleeper, whose deep, regular breathing reassured her. It was Anabal Gilchrist, the mother of Alan, the woman banned to her and Sorcha by their father as though she were accursed. True to her word, Oona had never been at Ardoch-beag, the widow Anabal's farm, but several times she had caught a glimpse of the solitary woman, and now knew her at the first glance. Once, more than two years back, she had been luring trout one evening in the Mairg Water near Ardoch ford; and had been startled by the sudden appearance of a woman, who had seized her in her arms and kissed her over and over, sobbing convulsively the while. The woman had drawn her plaid over her head, and what with this, and the dusk, and her fear, Oona had not time to discover who it was. Later, she was convinced that it was no other than the mother of Alan.

When she saw her now before her she stood hesitatingly. She felt drawn to this sad-faced woman who had once snatched her in the dusk and covered her face with kisses; but she was still more attracted by the mystery which enveloped her.

It was only a quarrel, Sorcha had told her; and often she had heard her sister say that if only her father and Anabal would meet, all might be explained. In a flash an idea came into the child's mind. The thought sent the blood leaping from her heart. Her eyes shone.

Two motives impelled Oona. Neither was of itself, but one was interwrought with the other. The love of mischief, with her innate audacity and fearlessness, urged her to place her foster-father in the last place in the world where he would fain be; but, also, something in her heart pleaded for the quiet bringing together, in that hushed and beautiful sun-going, of these two bitter haters.

Yes, she would do it, though she knew that her foster-father's wrath might fall heavily upon her. If—if only Sorcha—no, she did not care, she would do it. After all, no harm would come of it. She would watch, and if the woman rose and went away, she would come back and take her foster-father's hand and lead him home again.

Though the woman slept, overcome with weariness, why was it that a trouble of deep sorrow still lay upon her face, as the trouble of waters, even after the sea-wind has died into the blue calm of the air? The tears were still wet upon the hand that lay across her breast; why had they fallen? The child stood a while brooding. What did it mean? Slowly she glanced about her. No one was visible. It was clear that by the way the woman lay she had not fallen.

At that moment Oona noticed that Torcall had slipped a little, because of the slope whereon he had lain. Drowsily he was feeling about him for an easier rest.

Like a hare, as swift and as soundlessly, she made her way to him.

"Rise, father," she whispered; "come further up the stream; it is pleasanter there."

For nights Torcall Cameron had had little or no sleep.

Weary with these long, long hours; weary with his fasting and his restless idleness; weary with the windless heat; and, above all, weary of his own thoughts and of himself, he resigned himself gladly into Oona's hands.

Even as he walked he swayed. Sleep was so heavy upon him that the roar of the waters of the Linn came to him no loudlier than as the muffled song and humming rhythm of the stream itself.

Gently, with her heart beating the while, the child led the blind man to the place where the woman Anabal, after long weeping, had fallen into deep slumber. He lay down like a child. The noise of the rushing waters lulled him, the ancientest, sweetest cradle-song in all the wide green world. If he heard at all the breathing of the sleeping woman, no other thought could have come to him than that it was Oona.

She stared down at them with awestruck eyes. What was this unthinkable terror that shook her like a leaf? For a moment she conquered her fear, a fear so vague, and of the soul only, that she did not know she was afraid, though the nerves in her body leaped to the breath of it.

The tears came into her eyes. Yellow was the light that fell upon the tangled iron-grey hair of the weary sleeper at her feet; yellow as yellow flowers was the gleam upon the brown-grey tresses of the weary sleeper by his side.

The hand of the woman moved. Out of the sunglow the arm crept like a snake, then it lay still in the shadow betwixt the two who slumbered unheeding.

Oona knew not why she did it, nor even what she did; but with a touch, light almost as the warm sunbeam itself, she guided the hand of Anabal toward that of Torcall. As two ships draw together on a calm sea though far apart, so the hands of these two, who had not spoken one with the other for weary years, slipped at last side by side. The man stirred a moment, smiled, and gently clasped the hand in his.

Then, when all was well, Oona shivered with actual dread. What if they should die so? What if they were already dead? Once more she fought back this terrifying emotion. How quiet they seemed! Sweet is the grey sleep of the old.

"Tha iad rèidha nis," she sighed rather than whispered; "they are at peace now."

But now no longer could she stay. Like a fawn, after she had crept back upon the grassy ledges, she leaped from boulder to boulder. Soon she was at the verge of the forest. Inexplicable fear drove her like a whip. Minute after minute passed, and still she fled as though pursued. Nearly a mile had she gone before she stopped, only to fling herself into the bracken in a sheltered place, a kind of cave formed by the gigantic roots of a fallen pine-tree, long years ago wrenched away like a reed and stricken to the ground. There, sobbing at she knew not what, she cried herself to sleep at last. When the dark came, her slumber was unbroken. A solitary moonbeam that made its way through the dense covert to where she slept lay upon her feet, upon her slow-moving breast, upon the white flower of her face, upon the outspread tangle of her hair, which it clothed with fugitive pale gold. No vision of ill disturbed her. Once only she stirred, as, in dreamland, she thought she heard the song of the White Merle.

VI

When the gloaming fell upon the Linn o' Mairg, Anabal stirred. The churr of a fern-owl echoed in her ear, and dimly she awoke to the knowledge that it was late. But where was she? She had dreamed a pleasant dream. Hand in hand—even now, she thought—hand in hand even now were she and Fergus—Fergus so long dead, and never come again to put his lips against the pain in her heart.

After all, was it a dream? Or, rather, was not all that weary past a dream? She would not open her eyes. She would press the hand that clasped hers, then she would know.

Ah, the joy and the pain of it! It was Fergus indeed! She had moved her hand and pressed his, and the pressure had been returned—faintly and slowly, as though in sleep, yet still returned! But where was she? That noise of waters all about her, that ceaseless surge and splash, the smell of the rushing water, the cool spray upon her face: was this not indeed the Linn o' Mairg, where, late that afternoon, she had fallen asleep?

Now at last it was clear. Yes, she was at the Linn o' Mairg. But the time of her mourning was over, and her evil was no more anywhere in the blue sky or in the green earth, for Fergus had come to her.

In this hour of death, she must tell him all. She would not open her eyes yet awhile. She of the living might not be able to look on that of the dead. And first, moreover, she must speak.

"Fergus!"

No sound came from the sleeper by her side. She imagined that his hand quivered, but she did not know for sure.

"Fergus!"

Ah! now he was awake from his death-sleep, for she heard his breath come quick and hard. The hand she held in hers shuddered as with palsy.

"Ah, cold hand of my heart!" she murmured, raising it, chafing it the while, and putting it to her lips at last.

"Ah, cold hand out of the grave! Often have I felt it at my heart! Fergus, dear to me, Fergus, Fergus! Ah, one word to me, one word to me!"

Still no whisper from the man beside her. She could hear the shuddering breath of him.

"Fergus, I must speak! If the dead know aught, lang syne you must have known I knew nothing of the evil deed done upon you. But oh, my man, my man, I had loved Torcall before I loved you! Fergus, listen! Do not draw away from me! Do not rise! Fergus, Fergus, I must tell you all!"

"Speak!"

Awe came upon her as a sudden darkness at noon. The dead had spoken. The life in her body tore at the gateway of the heart. The voice was human, hoarse and low as it was. Almost she had courage. Once more that low, hoarse mandate came. The sound shuddered through the dark upon her ear.

"Speak!"

"Be not too hard upon me, Fergus! I loved him, though not as he loved me. I never forgave him because that in his anger he married Marsail. But when I was to marry you, whom I loved as I had never loved him——"

Here the sobbing woman stopped a moment, because of the fierce grip upon her hand, then, panting, resumed.

"... Then, as God knows my soul, I put him out of my heart. But the wild beast in him arose and rent him. He went to and fro mad because of his lust of me. Then the day came when, in my weakness and loneliness, he had his will of me. For days after that I did not see him. Then the spell of the sin fell upon me, and it was sweet—sweet for a brief while was that evil and accursed dream! Then it was that you came back from the fishing among the isles, to this place where your father lived, and where I was because of the mother that bore me, and is long dead, God be praised! And when you married me, Fergus, the child that is Oona was already within me, God shaping that burden there underneath my heart, till every pulse beat heavy with it! And now you know the thing that has eaten at my life all these weary years."

No sound, save the constrained sobbing breath of him who listened.

"Look!" he whispered at last.

Slowly Anabal opened her eyes. In the misty dusk she could see the white sheen of the flying water, but not the face of her beloved. The dark figure was there, clothed as in life. Taller he seemed, and broader; but sure, Fergus—sure, Fergus. Who but he, with those eyes of love and longing burning upon her out of the night!

"Anabal!"

O God, the agony of it! The voice was even as the voice of Torcall, the man who had sown her womb with the seed of sin, and had reaped blindness and sorrow all the years of his life. Bitter the mockery of this thing.

"Fergus! Fergus! Heart o' me, husband!"

"Anabal!"

With a scream she sprang to her feet. She swayed as one drunken. The man saw it, though he was blind.

"Back! Back! Back!" she cried, groping blankly with outstretched arms. "Back, if you be a phantom out o' hell! Back, if you be the Fiend himself! Back, Fergus, back, if dead ye be, and are here but to mock me. Back! Back! Back! Torcall Cameron! Back, man, back! I am grey, grey, withered, grey and old.... Ah, my God!"

He had leaped upon her, as a wolf leaps. She was in his grasp, and the strength in her was as melting snow.

"Anabal! God hears me: I dare not lie to you, I who am blind——"

"Torcall Cameron, as God is my witness, I saw your face in his dead eyes."

The man groaned; then, as though weary, spoke once again:

"I have sworn. I have not lied. Fergus slipped and fell, I not touching him nor near him at the time. I tried to catch him as he fell, but the Mairg Water was in spate, and it was useless. He came out at the Kelpie's Pool. He was not quite dead, and I looked into his eyes ere the veils came on."

Still no word, only that dread silence.

"Anabal! Anabal! Let all this misery be at an end. Sorrow has aged us both. But I have loved you ever. I love you now. Woman, woman, you were mine, all of you, all of you, mine to the leaping body, to the beating heart, to the shaking soul—mine—mine—before ever he touched you! Mine you were before ever I put my sin upon you; mine you have been ever since, and ever sh——"

"Torcall!"

"I hear."

"Who brought you hither, this night of all nights?"

"Oona."

No sooner had he spoken the name than a cry escaped his lips, mate of that which burst from hers.

"Go, go! Man, devil, murderer, madman, go, go!" and, screaming thus, with a fierce struggle, Anabal Gilchrist strove to escape from the grip that held her.

"Anabal! Anabal! At least do not send me to my death! I am blind. Lead me home. Put me hence, and through the wood! I am blind, and the night lives with terrors for me!"

For a moment the woman was about to yield. A long tress of her grey-brown hair fell upon his hand, and he grasped it as a drowning man at a rope. Then she saw, or believed that she saw, a look in his face that maddened her.

"Never, so help me God!"

Without a word, he was upon her. He had her in his arms, and was laughing low, horribly, mirthlessly.

"I will never let you go, Anabal!... I have waited long.... You are mine, and no one else's ... mine you were, mine you are, mine you'll be till the Last Day and for evermore!"

She felt one arm slacken, and his hand seek hers. Before she realised what he did, he had snatched the wedding-ring from her finger and thrown it into the Linn.

Once more he laughed.

"Anabal! Anabal!... Anabal, my joy! I love you.... I love you.... I love you. All the youth of my life is upon me again. I am blind, but I see you as on the day when you quickened with new life! Dear, O my dear, heart of me, joy of me! Anabal, listen! I am Torcall! All is forgotten: all the weary years are gone! Sweetheart, this is my heart against your heart! Ah—h—h!"

He had seized her, and the flames of his kisses scorched her face. Between his panting, sobbing cries, and her choking breath, he buried his face in her hair, heedless of the grey blight upon that yellow corn; and bruised that quivering body, whose flesh was still so warm, so firm, young long after the breath of age on the hair, in the eyes.

Then she gathered the strength that was in her. With a fierce blow she made him reel, so that he nigh slipped and fell.

"Murderer!"

A blank silence came upon them. Around, the rush of the water: swift-sighing it seethed beyond, with hollow roar and surge in the linn below where they stood. Over the forest lay a faint yellow bloom: the moon shining upon it from behind Ben Iolair. A fern-owl churred its love-cry through the warm, fragrant night. A thin, impalpable mist obscured the few stars that shone, but the splintered lance-rays of them glistered this faint exhalation of the earth.

When the man spoke, his voice was as though frozen.

"It is a lie."

"No lie is it, Torcall Cameron; for I see the naked truth in your soul."

"It is a lie."

"Where is my man, where is my man Fergus, whom you slew?"

"I slew him not."

"Liar! Liar! Even here, on this very spot, on this very night years agone, he came upon his death at your hand!"

"Listen! I heard you: now, hearken to me.... On that night, but before it was dark, we met, here. It is true. True also that there was fear and hate between us. But as God hears me, as God sees me, as God hath stricken me blind and gloomed the bitter life of me, I did not put his death upon him!"

"Anabal!"

Her breath came hot against his face.

"Anabal!"

No word, no sign. He knew by the passage of her breath that she looked now this way and now that: behind him, beside, beyond.

She saw that they were standing now on the extreme of the slippery ledge that overhung the seething depths. No longer did she make any attempt to resist him. Death called out of the pool. She made no effort to save either him or herself.

"Anabal!"

Mechanically she moved her arms as though to free herself. She felt his hold slacken.

"Anabal! Do you yield?"

"I yield."

Mechanically, again, she leaned forward and kissed him on the breast. The next moment his foot slipped. He reeled, staggered wildly. Anabal snatched her arm away.

Again he slipped and fell forward. He was now on the very edge of the ledge. His hand fell upon one of her feet. She stooped to push aside his arm. He raised it, caught at something, gave a wild cry, and shot into the dark, with heavy plunge and splash.

In the moonshine—for the yellow bloom had now expanded into a flood of rippling gold—she saw the black mass of his body whirled to and fro. Once the white face was turned to her—a blank disc. Twice, thrice, she saw the black arms move above the seething caldron in a strange, fantastic dance.

Then, in a moment, as from a bolt, the body was shot into the deep pool beyond the outer fang-like rocks of the Linn.

Anabal Gilchrist turned, the foam on the water not more wan than her white face.

With slow steps she regained the heathy ground. She did not look back once, then, nor as she clomb the long slope to her home.

VII

It was an hour before midnight when Oona awoke. So often had she slept in the woods, through the hot summer nights, that there was nothing strange or terrifying in the blackness of darkness about her. She could smell the pungent odour of the bracken, and, somewhere near, wild mint. The keen fragrance of the pines and firs everywhere prevailed.

Ah, she was in the forest: how warm and sweet it was! Where was Nial? Scarce more than this drifted through her mind; then the heaviness of sleep came upon her again.

The night waned. Dawn broke upon the eastern hills. Slowly the light travelled downward beyond the crests of the mountains. It reached the forest, and spread an unshimmering sheen over it, like the silver calm on a green sea. Then, out of the sky a marvellous flower grew. It was a dusky, rosy grey at first, as it lifted through the blue-black heaven, already steel-blue in the east. Green folds of pink uncurled and fell languidly on each side: drooping petals. There was a stir and quiver; then a shaft of gold, another, and another. Suddenly it was as though the heart of the flower burst. In the yellow mist and radiance, wherefrom tall, waving foliage of golden fire moved as though fanned by a wind from within, a cloud of glowing flakes arose. These may have been the wild bees that make the honey of Magh Mell, or the birds of Angus Óg, beloved youth-god of the yellow hair. Then the golden heart of the miracle swelled, with a mighty suspiration. Petals of rose and gold-green and pale pink as of shells unclosed from it. The vast blue flower was aureoled now with an ascendant glory.

One by one the stars melted into heaven. Low in the south-west a planet seemed to divide, then to close again, in a nebulous gleaming haze. Then this night-bloom slowly paled, dwindled, and sank into a deep gulf. An indescribable fragrance, an almost inaudible rustling sound—faint, as the roar of the rushing world is faint beyond all ears to hear—filled the air. The pulse of the world quickened. The green earth sighed, and was awake.

Through her sleep Oona heard the croodling of doves. Then a bleating fawn in a fern-covert close by made her stir. Suddenly she half-rose, stared about her, and felt the breath of the cool wind that, too, had been awakened by the sun, and was now sighing softly through the pine-glades.

Then in a moment there came upon her the remembrance of what had happened.

With a cry she sprang to her feet. What of her foster-father? Had he awaked in the gloaming and found the woman Anabal beside him? Had he made peace, or was his anger even now brooding terribly? Who had seen him home? What would he say—what would Sorcha say? Perhaps, even, he had fallen into the Linn, or, it might be, he had tried to make his way home alone through the forest, and now lay somewhere in its depths, blind and baffled.

Thus was the child wrought. But what could she do? she wondered. Should she make her way swiftly through the forest and up Wester Iolair to Màm-Gorm, and there see if her foster-father was in his bed and asleep? What would he say and do? Once she had seen him in a passionate rage, and her heart shook at the remembrance. Perhaps he would kill her. Does it hurt much to be killed? she wondered. Then she thought of Nial. If she could find him, he could discover for her that which she feared to seek herself. Where would he be? For nights past he had not been seen at Màm-Gorm. He might be high upon the mountain, perhaps at Murdo's remote sheiling on Ben Iolair, by Sgòrr Glan. He might be at the cave, Uav-an-teine: the great hollow cavern, dry even in winter weather, which lay but a short way above the Linn o' Mairg.

Yes, that was likeliest. Nial loved the place. There he might sleep where no dew nor rain could touch him, and with the sound of Mairg Water to be his lullaby through the dark. She would seek him there. But first she would go to the Linn, so that she might know that her foster-father no longer lay by the stream-side.

The heart of the birdeen lightened as she walked swiftly through the dewy fern. She began to call back to the cushats and other birds as they uttered their matin cries. Then she laughed, and broke into snatches of song.

The light was streaming down the Strath as she emerged into the open glade above the Linn. Here, among the trees on the slope and in the many cavernous rocks and bosky hollows, deep shadows still lingered. It would be nigh upon an hour before the morning twilight waned hence.

A glance showed her that there was no one at the Linn. She ran down close to it, and peered eagerly here and there, on either side. There was no one visible. With a sigh of relief she was about to step forward to take a sunrise peep into the Pool below the Linn, for the great salmon she had never yet been able to descry, when she stopped, because of the croaking of a raven.

It was not lucky to go athwart the croaking of a fee-ach' at sunrise. The great black bird swung on an outspread bough of a hazel, close to the Kelpie's Pool, and croaked with harsh, monotonous reiteration. Oona stooped, lifted a stone, and threw it at the raven, who watched her closely.

"Fitheach! fitheach! The way of the sun to you! Be off, be off!"

Croak! croak!

"Black fēē-ach, black fēē-ach, go where the dead are, and do not cross my way, or I will put a rosad upon thee!"

Croak! croak! croak!

Half angry, half glad, the child threw another stone; then turned, leaped from stone to stone till she gained the grass again, and then went singing low toward the cave called the Uav-an-teine.

The arch of it was still in shadow, and the bracken on the brow of the arch: though the rowan that leaned forward into the air bathed its upper branches in sunlight. On the smooth thyme-set sward beyond, the yellow shine lay; so warm, that the butterflies hovered in and out of the golden area.

With cautious steps Oona advanced. If Nial were there she wished to surprise him while he slept.

She crawled to one side of the sunswept cave, within which was still a warm dusk. Surely that was the sound of breathing? Yes; she could hear the steady rise and fall, faint though it was. With a smile she moved forward.

Suddenly she stood as one changed into stone. What was this: what did it mean? No sign of Nial was there. But, among dried bracken and dead leaves, blown or drifted there in autumnal days, and forming a place of rest fit for the weariest deer that ever leaped before the baying hounds, lay two figures, clasped in one another's arms.

For a moment the idea flashed across Oona's mind that the sleepers were Torcall and Anabal. Then she knew who they were, for who had such a mass of lovely dark-brown hair as Sorcha? what man of the Strath had the curly yellow hair of Alan? So that was where the lovers met! Once or twice, within these last few cloudless days and nights, she knew that Sorcha, when at length the restless lapwings had ceased their querulous crying in the moonlight, had slipped quietly from the house. She knew, too, that once at least Sorcha did not return till sunrise, for she had been awake, and had risen, and had seen her sister moving slow through the dew, with so wonderful a look in her eyes, so beautiful, so strange, that she had not dared to speak, and had fled back to her bed, with a sob in her throat, she knew not why.

She smiled, and pondered how best to startle them. How she wished Nial were here also, so that he might laugh when Alan and Sorcha suddenly awoke, and found themselves observed!

But, as she looked, the change that had already been at work in her of late, swayed her mood otherwise.

She rose to her feet, and leaned against the green mossy boulder at the side of the cave. For a while she stood thus, her eyes intent upon the lovers. How beautiful Sorcha's face was, faint-flushed like that! What a new, strange light upon her face! And Alan: how tall and strong he was, how bonnie the rippling gold hair of his head! His fair face, whiter now than she had ever seen it, seemed cut out of stone, so sharp were the outlines. Thus, she thought, must Angus Óg seem: Angus, the fairest youth of the world, whom none sees now, for he is of the Ancient People, who, though still among us, are invisible to mortal eyes. Often had Sorcha told her of him: sure, now, this was he?

Instinctively, she looked to see if white birds hovered anywhere. For the olden tale said that the kisses of Angus Óg became white birds, and that these flew abroad continually, to nest in lovers' hearts till the moment came when, on meeting lips of love, their invisible wings should become kisses again.

No, there were no birds: none, at least, for her eyes to see.

The hot sunlight moved upon her bare feet. Soon it would reach her waist, she knew, if she stood brooding there: and when it did that, the glow would be upon the face of Alan, and he would awake.

A sudden fantasy took her. Almost she had laughed aloud. When she moved into the space opposite the cave it was as though she waded in sunshine. Everywhere in the light the dew shone, filled with unburning fire.

She crossed the sunspace, to where a mass of honeysuckle drooped over a wild brier. With deft fingers she made a crown of this, starred with some pink wild-roses, plucked from a low bush beyond the brier; then of the dusky yellow honeysuckle wove a garland.

Decorated thus, and with sparkling eyes, she turned and faced the cave again. Soundlessly she began to dance.

At first it was the mere joy of her laughing glee. Soon, she hoped Alan or Sorcha would wake. Ah, then, how she would laugh, to see them stare confusedly at her, dancing there in the sunlight!

But as she wavered to and fro in the sunsea, a dreamy pleasure moved her to half-forgetfulness of where she was. A mavis on the rowan over the cave began to sing, the strange late song that sometimes wells forth in silent August; at first, long, sweet, vibrant notes, then a swift gurgling music, and then, as his heart warmed against the sun, more and more wildly sweet, till the hot air swung with the intoxication of his rapture.

More and more, too, was Oona rapt as she wavered to and fro. The swift rhythm of her joyous dance wrought her as with a spell. A dream lay in her eyes, now set far away—far away, where Angus Óg was, and where the sun rose and the moon waxed and waned to the singing of the white merle.

The sunlight seemed to drift her onward, as though she were a dancing wave on the forehead of the tide. Soon she was past the cave, and still, as the sunbeams flickered, she leaped and swayed, rapt in an ecstasy beyond thought or heed.

Suddenly, the thrush ceased. There was a whirr of wings: then a sharp, quickly repeated strident cry.

Another second, and Oona was a laughing child again, crouched low in the bracken. Alan or Sorcha was awake, and had stirred!

Ah, no, she thought, she would not let them see her now. True, they might hear her, where she lay panting like a young bird escaped from a hawk! As soundlessly as she could, for her quick breathing and the rustle of the bracken, she half-crawled, half-ran, back the way she had come. Soon she was safe, for the pines enclosed her, and then the beeches and birks near the water-slope. From behind a vast beech-bole she watched to see if she were pursued, or seen. But no one came. All was as before: only, the thrush did not venture back to the rowan, which now threw its flickering fingerlike shadows on the smooth turf below, in front of the cave.

VIII

Already the breath of the day was windlessly hot.

Flushed with her dancing in the sunlight, and with the languor of August in her blood, Oona listened eagerly to the cool sound of the running of Mairg Water.

The next moment she was free of her scanty raiment, and was by the streamside. As she stood among a cluster of yellow irises, the sunlight lay upon the gold of her hair and the glowing ivory-white of her body, and then seemed to spill in yellow fire among the tall blooms about her feet. A faint green glimmer from the emerald iris-sheaths dusked the small white thighs.

A leap like a fawn, and she was in the water. A hundred miniature rainbows gleamed in the dazzle of spray as she splashed to and fro, after she had come to the surface some yards downstream. What joy it was to feel the cool brown water laving her body: to dive and swim like an otter: to float slowly with the current under overhanging foliage, and see the young sedge-warblers in the reeds or among the water-willows, or to look up at the curving boughs of a birch or rowan, deep green against the deep blue! Then the wonder and beauty to rest with outspread arms, and breast against the flow: to stare down into the mirroring depth, and see the flickering feathers of the quicken and the red rowan-berries marvellously real and near, with lovely shadow-birds flitting to and fro among the shadow-branches, and, strangest of all, another white Oona drifting like a phantom through that greenshine underworld!

When she swung round suddenly, and held herself back against the downflow, as an otter half-alarmed will do, it was not because she was drifting too near the "race" just above the cataract. A strange sound came from the Linn, or beyond it. The noise of the water was in her ears, and she could not hear distinctly: but surely that noise was the cry of one in sorrow, and, at any rate, human.

With a swift movement she slid to the bank, caught at a tuft of flowering sedge, and then stood, dripping and all agleam in the sunlight, while with inclined head she listened intently.

Now she could hear more distinctly: certainly some one was by or near the Linn. The noise of the churned waters rose and fell in a long, wavering, unequal sigh; and in one of the downward hushes her keen ears caught tones and even words she fancied she recognised.

She hesitated for a moment as to whether to run back for the handful of clothes she had left upstream, but then bethought her that it was only Nial and no stranger who might throw stones at her as a kelpie—as some boys from the Strath, who at Beltane had been burning small fires and cooking wild-birds' eggs, had done many weeks agone at Nial.14

How often, in her wanderings with Nial, she had bathed, to his wonder and awe at her white beauty, her daring, her skill! As for him, though he loved the running water almost with a passion, nothing would induce him to enter it, except when alone and in the dim light. As a boy he had been as much at home in it as any creature of the river. But once, after he had come to know Oona, and to find in her the one person in the world whose soul did not loom too infinitely remote above his drear loneliness of spirit, he had leaped one dead-calm noon into the water; and there and then, for the first time, realised, in the phantom which swam with him or beneath him, the misshapen ugliness of his body, the savagery of his distorted head and features. From that day he had never entered the stream, save at late dusk or on moonless nights.

So with swift steps, which left small pads of damp upon the rock-ledges, Oona ran toward the great boulder which overhung the cataract.

As she passed the place where, a few hours ago, she had left her foster-father and the woman Anabal, she glanced here and there for any trace of either she might not have seen before. The next moment she caught sight of Nial.

She watched him curiously. What did it mean? she wondered. He was crouching, with his back to her, on the extreme of the ledge overlooking the Kelpie's Pool—that deep caldron which received all that was at last disgorged from the maelstrom of the Linn. His head was bent forward, and sometimes he leaned on his hands, and sometimes swayed backward or sideways.

What startled her more were the strange, wild, barbaric words that Nial was chanting, with thin, hoarse, monotonous wail. What was this rune he chanted? Why did he crouch there, chanting and swaying, swaying and chanting?

Sometimes he ceased for a few moments that crooning, mourning, appealing, inexplicable chant, and appeared to be speaking, and to gesticulate as he spoke.

Fantastic thoughts flashed through the child's brain. Perhaps it was the kelpie who was trying to lure Nial to her arms; or mayhap Nial had seen her, and was putting a rosad upon her. She knew that the people of the Strath, and even Murdo the shepherd—in truth, Alan, too, and perhaps Sorcha, though she would not say it—believed that the elf-man was in league with all the mysterious or dreadful creatures of the shadow, from the harmless "guidfolk" of the hill-hollow to the yellow-clad demon-woman who drove her herd of deer and sang her death-song, and to the dark and terrible kelpie who lurked in the deep pool in that wild place beyond the Linn o' Mairg. Or, again, Nial might be uttering some incantation: or be at his old quest, the seeking of his lost soul.

Surely it must be that, she thought, as soundlessly she approached him.

Within the last minute or two a change had come over him. Every now and then he raised his head, often clasping and unclasping his hands, swaying to and fro the while, and speaking or chanting rapidly, with wild, scarce coherent words. He was as one in an ecstasy. Oona, for the first time, feared him. She stood, only a few yards behind him now, and listened.

At these words Oona glanced swiftly to right and left. Nowhere had she heard again the croaking of the raven, and now she could descry neither of Nial's three birds of omen. But just as her gaze was wandering back to the dwarf, she caught sight of the fitheach further downstream, perched upon a dead branch near some rocks, and even as she looked she heard its harsh, savage croak! croak!

"Ay, ay, ròc, Fēē-ach, ròc! Dean rocail, dean rocail!" began Nial again, with a wild gesture....

"Nial! Nial!"

He ceased all movement, all sound, as though smitten into silence. Her fear partially overcome, now that she had gathered from his words that he thought he had found his soul at last, but that it was dead—yet with a dread in her heart because of the thing that lay there in the pool, whether alive, dead, or asleep, or treacherously assuming life—she called again, and more loudly:

"Nial! Nial!"

Slowly he looked round. A bewildered terror in his eyes waned. It was only Oona.

"Nial, Nial-mo-ghràidh, what is it?"

"Hush, mo-mùirnean," he muttered, beckoning to her to creep close to him. The slight breeze that had sprung up for its brief life crept along the stream, and whispered along the grass and in the hot-smelling fern. The murmurous sound of it made the child glance apprehensively behind her. She dreaded the elfin footsteps that folk said could be heard at times near Nial.

"What is it, dear Nial?"

"Ssh! Hush! Come here: look! ... look!" he whispered.

Gently she stole beside him, leaned over the ledge, and stared down into the pool. A mere breath of the breeze ruffled the surface, and all she could see was a dark mass with a dusky white splatch, looming shadowily through the amber water, and strangely distorted by the silver shimmer caused by the wind-eddy, which came and went round the circuit of the pool like a baffled bird.

"What is it? Who is it? What is it, Nial?"

"Hush, do not speak so loud! It is my soul."

"Your soul, Nial?"

"Ay, true. Sure it is my soul. All night I was in the woods, and I heard a tap-tapping going ever before me, and at dawn it led me down by the Mairg, and then the spirit flew away before me, and the annir-choille was just like a woodpecker! And when it flew up by the Linn, I...."

"Whisper louder, Nial! I can't hear."

"When it flew up by the Linn, I saw it change into a curlew, and it wheeled over the Linn and called cian-cian-cianalas, and then I was afraid, though the annir-choille that was like a woodpecker had made hope to me of finding my soul."

"Who is the annir-choille, Nial?"

He gloomed at her silently. Then in a constrained voice, and with averted eyes:

"How should I know? I know nothing. I am Nial."

"But what have you been told?"

"They call her the wood-maid—the tree-maid."

"Ah-h! ... and Nial...."

"But when I came near, the curlew flew away. Then it was that I looked into the pool. And then, and then it was, Oona-mo-rùn, that I saw my soul lying here—big as a man's soul should be, and with a face as white as yours; ay, a fair, good body like Alan's, an' with clothes on, too—dark, beautiful clothes; an' the hands of him that moved about were white; an' ... oh, Oona-birdeen, look you now, and see if it is not as I say!"

The awed child stared into the brown depths, where the surface was still ruffled silvery here and there, with a glinting, glancing shimmer that made all things below shiftily uncertain.

"Do you see it, Oona?" cried an eager whisper at her ear.

"Ay, sure."

"Oona, Oona, is it dead? Oona, birdeen, Oona-mo-gràidh, it may—it may be living! O Oona, the white soul o' me—white as you, my fawn!"

The blue eyes glanced up from the pool, and at the speaker. She looked at him, then downward again.

"Nial!"

"Yes ... yes, Oona ..."

"The wood-maid has been playing with you."

"No, no, no—that is not a true word on your lips!"

"Sure, a true thing it is. Look, Nial; see how big it is. The white face of it is yonder by the salmon-hole, and one foot is moving against the rock below us!"

"And what of that! Sure, it is a beautiful soul, dead or alive; and big as a man's should be, and fair and white and strong!"

"Nial ... Nial ... it may be alive, for I see its hands moving ... but ... but"—and here tears came into the child's eyes, and her voice shook with sorrow for her hapless friend—"but ... oh, Nial ... so big a soul will never be able to creep into your body ... for you are small, dear, small, and—and ... an' then it is so big and strong!"

Alas, the pity of it! Never once had Nial thought of this; never had he dreamed that so large a soul could not get into his dwarfish, misshapen frame.

He stared in wild amaze, first at Oona, then at the drowned thing in the water—his soul, or a phantom, or a body, or mayhap the kelpie, he knew not which, now—then at Oona again. A fierce pain was in his eyes. He bit his lip, in the way he did whenever Màm-Gorm struck him—a thing that had not been for months past. A little rivulet of blood trickled into his thin matted beard, tangled and twisted this way and that like a goat's.

"Nial! Nial!" moaned Oona pitifully.

"Ay, it is true ... that is a true thing that you will be saying, Oona. Sure, it would need to be a soul as small as your own that would do for poor Nial."

"No, no, Nial!" cried the child comfortingly, "bigger than mine, really, really—yes, and ... and ... fatter!"

A sob shook his heavy frame. Oh, the long seeking, and the near goal, and the bitter futile finding! Still, Oona's sympathy was sweet. Dear birdeen that she was, to say he would have a bigger soul than hers, bigger and fatter too! But, no, he thought—no, better to have one the same as Oona's, for all he was so much older and bigger and stronger than she was.

"Ah, Oona-mùirnean, if I could only find my soul at all—anywhere, anywhere!"

"But you will find it, Nial! You will find it! Sorcha told me that you are sure to find it. Never mind what they say down there in the Strath. What do they know about souls? And ... and ... Nial!"

"Yes, my birdeen."

"If ... if ... you can't find your soul anywhere—and all this summer we'll go seeking, seeking, for it, till we have listened at every tree in the forest and on the mountain-side—if you can't find it anywhere, I am going to marry you!"

Nial looked at the child bewildered. He knew little of what marriage was, save that in the Strath two married people lived in one house, and that the woman was called by the name of her man, and that they were sadder, and led duller lives—so at least it seemed to him. Sure, it would be for pleasure that he and Oona should have a cot of their own, though he, and she too for that, preferred the pinewood; and a thing for laughter that she, the bit birdeen Oona, should be called Bean Nial!

"Why would you be marrying poor Nial, Oona my doo?"

"Because you would then have half my soul. Yes, yes, Nial! don't shake your head like that; I know you would. Sorcha told me it was in the Book."

For the moment the outcast forgot what lay in the pool. Of three things he stood ever in awe. First, Torcall Cameron, the man of men. Second, the Book, which was a mystery, and held all the sians and rosads, all the spells and incantations in the world, and, as he had heard, was full of "living words," though never had he, being soulless, seen any coming or going to it, like bees, where it lay on the shelf above Torcall's bed. Third, the inscrutable powers which worked somewhere, somehow, behind Torcall, before which even he, Màm-Gorm, was, almost incredible though it seemed, as mist before the wind.

When, therefore, he heard Oona speak of the Book, his awe held him for a moment spellbound. Never had he so much as dreamed that his name was even mentioned there at all. The wonder, the mystery of it, almost took his breath away. What an ill thing, then, that word of the preaching-man he had met once in the Strath, who had told him, in answer to his asking, that he, Nial, could have no name in the Book of Life, because he was unbaptised, and a godless heathen, and a soulless elf-man at that! And now—now—Sorcha had seen his name in the Book—ay, and not in any poor, small Strath Bible, but in the great Bioball that was Torcall Cameron's own, up at Màm-Gorm, on the hillside of Iolair!

But of that mystery he was to hear no more then and there. A cry had come from Oona, a cry of such terror, with moan upon moan, that his heart within him was as a flame in a windy place.

What had happened to the child? Was there a spell upon her? he wondered; was that down there in truth no other than the treacherous, quiet-seeming, murderous kelpie!

He saw that she was shivering all over; that her body was as pallid as her white face.

Not a word came from her. She kneeled forward, staring stonily into the pool.

"Oona! Oona!" he whispered chokingly, terrified beyond further power of speech. Without averting her gaze, she slowly raised an arm and pointed at what had hitherto been but a blurred figure at the bottom of the water. The arm, the pointing hand, remained thus, as though paralysed.

Nial bent over the ledge. The slight breeze had now passed. Not a breath shook the feather-leaf of a rowan. The sunflood poured out of the east upon the shimmering land. Though but an hour after sunrise, the heat palpitated. For the first time that morning there was no wind-eddy upon the pool. The brown water was as lucid as a mirror.

The thing—corpse, or soul, or kelpie—had begun to move. It was slowly rising to the surface.

He shuddered. This, then, was the cause of Oona's fear. Yet, even as this thought passed through his brain, he knew that there was some other reason for the frozen agony of the child.

The body ascended gradually, face downward, the arms trailing stiffly beneath it. One foot was still caught by the weeds, which had caught it as in a net. With a slow gyration the corpse swung round, face upward. The weed-thrall gave way. The drowned rose with outstretched arms.

Oona shrieked, then sank back, cowering, and covered her eyes with her hands. Nial! Nial neither thought nor felt; he was stunned by a blank, bewildering amaze.

For what he saw, and what Oona had seen, was the drowned body and the dead face of ... Torcall Cameron!

In the awful, throbbing silence, broken only by the turmoil of the Linn and by the incessant moaning of the child, the dwarf stared as at some horrible impossibility.

It could not be! Màm-Gorm, of all men in the world! Màm-Gorm, the great, strong, stern man of the hills! no, no, no—sure, it could not be! Moreover, as he knew, Màm-Gorm never left the hillside; in all the time he had known him, he had never come nigh the Linn o' Mairg, nor even near Mairg Water, and how could he be there? And would not Oona for sure have seen him that very morning in his own bed belike? Besides ... Màm-Gorm ... it was as though the preaching-man were to cry out, "There is no God!"

At his ear he heard a moaning whisper: "It is my doing; it is my doing."

"Oona, Oona-lassie, is it mad that you will be!"

"O Nial, Nial, Nial! it is of me, this thing! Ay, sure—ay, sure! O arone! arone! it was I who left him sleeping nigh the Linn last night, thinking to make peace between him and the woman Anabal that is Alan's mother! And oh, oh, she has gone away in the gloaming not seeing him, and he will be for going home when he wakes, and will be calling Oona, Oona, Oona, and I not be hearing him, for I was away in the wood, with the fear upon me! And then he will be moving through the dark, and—and—O Nial, Nial! He is drowned, drowned, and the water is on him because of me! Nial! Nial!"

The child swayed to and fro in her passionate grief. A new fear came upon Nial: that she might throw herself into the pool, to be drowned even as her foster-father was.

But at that moment both were hushed into staring silence.

Slowly the corpse began to sink again. Down, down it went, leaning forward more and more, till it seemed as though it were standing upright on some unseen ledge of rock. Then, gradually, it revolved further, till once more it hung suspended in the depths, face downward, and with stiff arms adroop beneath.

Without further gyration, motionlessly it seemed, the body sank, till it became blurred, obscure, shapeless. Then there was no more of it than a black shadow far down in the brown depths.

Oona rose to her full height. She gave a long sigh, one short, choking sob. Her eyes stared unwaveringly at nothing; the nails of her fingers cut the small clenched hands. The raven on the dead branch beyond the pool, that had been croaking monotonously ever since she had first heard it, became suddenly still.

Nial rose too. He knew, without word from her, without thought even, what she meant to do.

"Oona!"

She did not glance round, but he saw her throat quiver.

"My birdeen, my birdeen, ah, my bonnie wee fawn! Come back, come back! Sure, it is not him at all! It is the kelpie, Oona, it is the kelpie!" When the words came from her, hushed and strange, he knew that she knew the truth.

"I will be going ... now."

"Oona! come ..."—then in a flash his arms were about her as she leaped, and with an effort that nearly hurled both into the pool he swung her back to the ledge.

There she lay on the grass-covered rock, white and still. Nial bent over her, moaning, trembling, moaning.

An hour later, Murdo the shepherd, coming down from the mountain, and going by the Linn o' Mairg, so as to reach Inverglas by the west side of the Strath, heard a wild barking of his dogs. Through the heat-haze he stared indifferently, then curiously, at two stooping figures.

He approached the pool slowly. The dogs were silent. One had stopped, and was sniffing and staring, the other whined at his feet.

Yes, he was right, he muttered; it was Nial ...and Oona! But what did it mean?

Both sat silently by the Kelpie's Pool. The wild, fantastic, shrunken figure of Nial was black against the light. He seemed as though rapt, spellbound. The child was naked, her shoulder reddening under the flame of the sun. He could see her strained, streaming eyes.

His heart beat quick with a vague fear as he moved toward them. He stopped, when Oona's low, irregular sobbing was audible.

Beside him the collies crouched, whining.

Nial looked round, rose, and touched Oona. She, too, rose; her sobbing breath ceasing.

"Màm-Gorm is dead," said Nial simply; "he is dead—there."

IX

In a brief space, Murdo learned what Nial could tell him. For all his shepherd-eyes, he could discern nothing in the pool but a vague blur of darkness far down.

What was he to do? He could not think, with these two staring at him there. He whispered to Nial that he would be back shortly, that he was going upstream to where Oona's clothes were; adding that when he brought them back Nial was to lead the little lass away, take her home, find and tell Sorcha.

When, some minutes later, Murdo returned with the small bundle, he saw that the child was weary with heat and fatigue, as well as with what she had endured. There would be no trouble with her.

And indeed, when once she was in her scanty garb again, Oona went without a word. Nial whispered that he would be back as soon as he could; and would bring the grey horse with him.

The last Murdo saw of them was a momentary glimpse as they disappeared among the bracken, under the pines. The elf-man was carrying the sleeping Oona in his strong crooked arms.

The shepherd, who had betrayed no emotion as yet, stood staring into the pool. A mist came into his eyes, and one or two tears rolled down his furrowed face. A grim satisfaction moved into his mind, along with his dull pain; for now he remembered how his father, who had been shepherd on Màm-Gorm of Iolair before him, had had "the sight" of this very happening. The old man had been laughed at in the Strath; though, by the waterside, he had thrice seen Màm-Gorm's wraith rise out of the Kelpie's Pool. Now the foolish folk down there would not be laughing.

After a time he bethought himself that Nial might not be back for long. It was nigh upon noon, and he wished to get the body away as soon as might be. It was now he remembered that Nial could not tell Sorcha, for he had met her and Alan going after the kye to the hill-pastures. This was well, meanwhile.

At the Ford of Ardoch there was an old boat not used for years past, save by himself, by Sorcha, or by Alan. In it were fishing-poles, a rope, and other things of his and Alan's. They would serve now, he muttered. So once more the gaunt, plaided shepherd strode upstream, mumbling, as he went, through his red tangled beard, and with his wild hill-eyes shining with the thoughts of life and death that were slowly filling his brain; thoughts, memories, superstitious fears, and vague, strange phantasma rising from the dull ache of sorrow.

To his ears the most familiar of sounds, the bleating of ewes and lambs, came down from the mountain as a lamentable cry. That night there would be dread in his heart, because of the lonely hillside, and the wide darkness, and the wraith that would be moving through that darkness.

Soon he found what he wanted, and speedily returned. At first he thought he would need help, but after a time he decided to do what he could himself. To one of the long poles he fastened his shepherd staff, with its strong curved cromak.

The sweat poured from his face with heat and weariness long before he succeeded, at last, in getting a grip of the corpse. But, undaunted by failure after failure, and these even after he had first caught hold, he raised it slowly to the shelving ledge which ran out a few feet below the surface. The rest was easy. He slipped the rope over the feet, arms, and waist; then slid the body along the slippery ledge, and so with a rush to the face of the pool, and thence to a wide cranny in the rock beside him.

Sure, there was no mistake. Màm-Gorm himself, in truth; for all he was so quiet and pale, with the dark brown out of his face now, and all the stern, brooding life of the man no more than an already nigh-forgotten idle song.

So this was the end of Torcall Cameron of Màm-Gorm. There had been none prouder and more aloof than he in all Strath Iolair. Ay, he was a proud man. And now there was an end of it all. Sure, it was a bitter ending. God save us the dark hour of it. Ay, the dull knock and the muffled voice that come soon or late, in the mirk of day or night, at the soul-gate of each of us—Torcall mhic Diarmid had heard them.... Thus, over and over, variously, yet ever on the same lines, Murdo revolved in his mind the passing of Màm-Gorm.

At last, to his satisfaction, he heard the peculiar cry which Nial was wont to give as a signal. Then followed the trampling of a horse: finally both appeared, coming along a stony path in the forest that in winter was a clattering watercourse.

It did not take long for the two to lift the body on to the small, shaggy white horse, and there to secure it; with the white face staring blankly up at the blue sky, the open eyes fronting with unwinking gaze the pitiless glare of the sun. While they worked, Nial told how he had carried Oona home, and laid her on Sorcha's bed, sound asleep and warm. He had feared to leave her there all alone, lest she waked, or lest evil came to her "out of the shadow"; but he did what he could, and that was to take down the great Book from the shelf by the bed where Torcall Cameron would sleep never again, and lay it at the lassie's feet. Then he had gone out to the kailyard, and let Donn the collie leave her two pups awhile, and had given her a shawl of Sorcha's to smell, and then had sent her up the mountain to seek for Màm-Gorm's daughter, wherever she might be with the sheep and kye.

As soon as all was ready, the crossing of the Mairg Water was done at the Ford, and then the ascent begun to Ardoch-beag. Murdo stalked in front, the rope-bridle looped over his arm; Raoilt, the white mare, staggered and stumbled after him up the craggy path. Then came Nial, his shape not more fantastic than the shadow which waxed and waned mockingly before him, as he toiled upward, with bent head and tear-wet, quivering face. Finally, lagging some yards behind, limped Murdo's two collies.

The August heat-wave silenced every bird on the hillside. Not even the grouse cluttered. Far away, in a marshy place, there was a drumming of snipe.

The air was heavy with the smell of honey-ooze from the pale ling and the purple bell-heather. Now and again there was the sharp twang in it of the bog-myrtle, sweltering in the sunglow.

The thin dust rose from the path, or even from the face of the granite rocks. The shadows of the wayfarers lay pale-blue against the hill road, when the path widened into it. The dogs crawled, panting, their long tongues lolling like quivering, bloody snakes. Nial wearily wagged his shaggy peaked head to and fro: at times, too, he let his great swollen tongue fall half out of his mouth, as though to cool the thirst of it against the parched air. Poor Raoilt sweated at every pore of her body, while dark streaks of wet ran down her flanks. Murdo showed less fatigue; but his weather-brown face had become deep red, and about his moist brow a haze of midges hovered. Quiet and cool, one only: cool and quiet, the rider on the white horse, for all that his face was as baked clay in the yellow glare, that his staring eyes were upon the whirling disc of flame in the zenith.

With a sigh of relief Murdo saw at last the cottage of the Gilchrists, sole house on the easter side of Tornideon.

Not a word had he said hitherto to Nial as to the taking of the corpse to Ardoch-beag. If the dwarf had thought of a destination at all, apart from Màm-Gorm, it was doubtless of the minister's house, which lay three miles beyond Ardoch-beag, at the far end of Inverglas.

But suddenly he waked to the knowledge that Murdo was off the road, and on the path leading to the byres of the widow Anabal.

What was the meaning of it? he asked; but Murdo would not hear. As they stopped at the ring-stone, between the byre and the cottage, he went up to the shepherd.

"Why will you be doing this thing, Murdo MacMurdo?" he demanded.

At first the man gloomed upon him, then he smiled grimly.

"Wait."

Having said this, Murdo strode to the doorway of the cot. He knocked; there was no answer. He knocked again; again no answer. Then he opened the door. He did not expect to see Alan, but he was sure the woman Anabal would be in. There was no trace of her. The bed had not been slept in. The peats were black in the fireplace. Yet, strange to say, an open Bible lay on the low deal table, and on the near page was a pair of horn spectacles.

It was very strange. Well, he would search everywhere, both but and ben, out-houses and byre and stable.

There was not even a dog about the place.

He returned to Nial, downcast.

"There is a spell upon this place, Nial-of-the-woods. I wish we had not come."

"Why did you come?"

"This, man, this—this—is why!" he muttered savagely, and as he spoke he drew from his pocket a gold ring.

"That is one reason, Nial-of-the-woods! Look you, I found that ring in a crevice in the rocks on the further left side of the Linn o' Mairg. Look you again, I know the ring. Do you see these letters? Ah, well, you can't read, poor elfin-creature that you are; but I'll tell them to you. They are F. G. and A. G. And now will you be knowing what F. G. and A. G. are for? They are for Fergus Gilchrist and Anabal Gilchrist—and this ring here, that I found by the Linn o' Mairg, is the wedding-ring of Anabal Gilchrist!"

The outcast stared, vaguely impressed, but without understanding what Murdo was driving at. The man saw he was puzzled, so with a rough gesture he pulled him over to the near flank of the mare. "And here, you poor fool—to Himself be the praise, for this and that!—is the other reason. Look at that!"

What he pointed to was a long tress of grey hair, grey-streaked brown hair, firmly clutched in the right hand of the dead man.

A glimmering of Murdo's meaning came into Nial's mind. He glanced at the shepherd, appalled.

"Ay," whispered the latter, divining his thought: "sure, that there is nothing else but a tress of the hair of the woman Anabal. And you be telling me, Nial, if you can, what Anabal Gilchrist was doing last night or to-day afore dawn, that she should leave her golden wedding-ring lying by the Linn-side, and that a tress of her hair—and there is none like it, no, none o' that witchy grey-brown, in all the Strath—should be held even now in the death-grip o' Torcall Cameron o' Màm-Gorm?"

"And that is why you have come here, with ... with ... him?"

"That is why."

The two looked at each other. A fierce anger and lust of revenge burned in the heart of the shepherd. To Nial everything was simply a horrible, incomprehensible mystery. But Murdo knew something, perhaps more than anyone else, of what had lain between Torcall Cameron and Anabal Gilchrist; whatever the outcast knew, or vaguely surmised, was too deep down in his mind now to swim up into remembrance.