Pharais; and, The Mountain Lovers

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.