THE SURRENDER OF THE BELOVED
But something in the air of the chamber struck to the heart--something
different, subtle, unfamiliar, dazing. As his eyes grew accustomed to
the gloom, he saw the figure of a girl lying on a couch of heather over
which was thrown a rug made of the skins of wild animals. The face was
turned from him, but the girl was not asleep, for he could see that
quick, helpless sobs shook her frame, and that her attitude betokened
the abandonment of despair. Wat Gordon's heart leaped within him and
then stood still, when he realized that for the first time in his life
he stood within the chamber of his love.
At the noise of the opening door the girl slowly turned her head, and
her eyes fell on the figure of Wat. The young man sank on his knees a
little way from the couch. The girl continued to gaze at him without
speech, and as for Wat, he could find no fitting words. He strove for
utterance, but his tongue was dry to the roots, and the roof of his
mouth parched like leather.
Presently Kate sat up with a world of wonder and fear on her face. She
was wrapped about the shoulders in a great shawl of fleecy wool, such
as a hundred years ago the shipwrecked mariners of the Spanish Armada
had taught these northern islanders to knit. Beneath it, here and
there, appeared the white glimmer of fine linen cloth, such as could
only come from the lint wheels of the Lowlands.
The girl's lips were parted, and her eyes, great and black, appeared so
brilliant that the shining of them seemed to lighten all her face there
in that dim place.
"Wat," she said, "you have come back to me! I knew you would, and I am
not afraid. I knew you would come if you could and speak once to me.
For you are mine in all worlds, and you gave your life for me. It is
but a dream, I know--but ah, such a sweet dream!"
She held out her arms towards him with such wonderful pity that Wat,
kneeling on the floor, could not move; and words he found none to
utter, so marvellous did her speech seem to him.
"It is a dream," she repeated, in a voice full of hushed awe, "I know
it. And it is a very gracious God that hath sent it to me this first
night of my loss. I saw my lad go down in the deep, hurrying waters--my
love, my love, and now he will never know that I loved him!"
"Kate," whispered Wat, hoarsely, and with a voice which he knew not
for his own--"Kate, it is indeed I--myself, in the flesh. I have come
to save you. I did not die. I did not drown. It is I, Wat Gordon, your
own lad, come to kiss your hand, to carry you safe through a world of
enemies."
The girl leaned forward and looked towards him wistfully and intently.
She was shaken from head to foot with strange tremors. Love, fear, and
most delicious shame strove together within her maiden's heart.
"If indeed you be Walter Gordon in the flesh, I thank the Lord for your
safety. But go, for here you are in terrible danger every moment. I
have said, I know not what. I was asleep, and when I awoke I saw you,
and thought that I yet dreamed a dream."
Wat reached over and took her hand. He bent his head to it reverently
and kissed it.
"Sweet love," he whispered, "have no fear. In a little while I shall be
away. I must go from you ere the dawn comes. But your friend and mine,
your hostess of the isle, brought me to this dear and sacred place,
thinking me not unworthy. She waits at the door. In a little space the
light will come and the island men awake. Then I must take my life in
my hand and be far away before the day. But rest assured, I am at all
times near enough to watch over you, my beloved."
Wat looked steadfastly and adoringly at Kate, and lo! the tears were
running silently down her face and falling on the pillow. He drew a
little nearer to her.
"Love," he said, softly, "you have forgiven me. You forgave me long
ago, did you not? I loved you over much. That was the reason. See," he
whispered, pulling his gold heart from about his neck, "this is the
token that you forgave me." And he bent and kissed it before putting it
back again in his bosom.
She raised her eyes to his. They shone upon him with a strange light
that had never been kindled in them before. The light of a great love
shone out of the wonderful deeps of them, beaconing the way clear into
the haven of her heart. It was the maiden's look of gladness he saw
there--the joy that she had kept herself for the beloved--so that now
at last she can give him all.
"Oh, Wat--dear, dear Wat," she whispered, "I love you; I cannot choose
but love you. I cannot be proud with you any more. I am so tired of
being proud. For my heart has cried out for you to come to me this
weary, weary while. I have been so long alone--without any one--without
you."
And she made a little virginal gesture of pain which sent Wat's arms
about her in a moment. He could not answer her in words.
But he was wiser, for instead their lips drew together. He kept his
eyes on hers as their faces closed each on the other. His head reeled
with the imagined sweetness. He seemed to remember nothing but her
eyes, and how they were ocean-deep and world-large. He felt that he
could plunge into them as into the sea from an overhanging cliff.
But just ere their lips met Kate suddenly dropped her head against his
breast.
"Wat!" she whispered, intensely, "tell me--you heard what I said when
I thought you had come to me in a dream--that--that I loved you and
wanted you to return to me? You will never think less of me, never love
me less for my words, nor for letting you love me thus?"
Wat Gordon laughed a low, secure, satisfied laugh deep down in his
throat. He had forgotten the watchful woman at the door, the waking
enemies without, the coming dawn swiftly striding towards Suliscanna
from the east, the long, dangerous passage of the sea-cavern, the
perils innumerable that lay about them both. He loved, and he held his
love all securely in his arms. She questioned of his love, and he felt
that he could answer her.
"My love," he whispered, "I love you so that all things--life, death,
eternity--are the same to me. Nothing weighs in the scale when set to
balance you. I loved you, Kate, when I thought you must hate me for
my folly and wickedness. How shall I love you now, when your sweetest
words of this night are writ in fire on my heart? But all is one--I
love you, and I love you, and I love you!"
The girl sighed the satisfied sigh of one who listens to that which she
desires to hear and knows that she will hear, yet who for very love's
sake must needs hear it again and yet again.
And her arms also went tremblingly about him, and they twain that had
been sundered so long, kissed their first kiss--the kiss of surrender
that comes but once, and then only to the pure and worthy. The dewy
warmth and fragrance of her lips, the heady rapture of the unexpected
meeting so thrilled his heart and dominated his senses that broad day
might well have stolen upon them and found the lovers so, "the world
forgetting, by the world forgot."
But the voice of Bess Landsborough from the doorway caused them to
start suddenly apart with a shock of loss like the snapping of a limb.
Yet it was a kindly voice, and one full of infinite sympathy for those
who, like Wat and Kate, were ready to count all things well lost for
love.
"My lad," she said, gently, "ye maun e'en be tramping. In an hour or
so the sun will be keekin' ower the hills of the east, and gin ye
tarry your lass will mourn a lover. There are more days than one, and
nights longer than this short one of summer. Trust your love to me.
Bess Landsborough chose a strange way of love hersel', but she keeps
a kindly heart for young folk, and you twa silly bairnies shall not
lippen to her in vain. Come your ways, lad."
And Wat would have gone at her word. For the hope of the future had
possession of him, and, besides, his head was dazed and moidered with
the first taste of love's sweetness.
But the girl raised herself a little and held out her arms.
"Bid me good-night just this once," she said, "and tell me again that
you love me."
So Wat took his sweetheart in his arms. There seemed no words that he
could say which would express the thoughts of his heart at that moment.
"I love you--God knows _how_ I love you!" was all that he found to say.
And then, "God keep my little lass!"
There came a strange hush in his ears, and the next moment he found
himself outside, breasting the cool airs of the night as if they had
been the waves of the tide-race, and listening to the voice of Bess
Landsborough, which carried no more meaning to his ears than if it had
been the crying of a seagull rookery upon the rocks of Lianacraig.
"Come back to-night and I will meet you at the shore-side," was all
that disentangled itself from the meaningless turmoil of his guide's
words. For the fragrance of his love's lips was yet on his, and he was
wondering how long the memory of it would stay with him.
Without even waiting to take off his clothes, Wat pushed out into the
channel of the sea-passage. He swam as easily and unconsciously as
though he had been floating in some world of dreams, in which he found
himself finned like a fish. And when he came to himself he was lying
under the shelter of his boat in the cove of his own green islet of
Fiara, trying to recall the look that he had seen in his love's eyes in
the gloom of Bess Landsborough's guest-chamber. But though he buried
his head in his hands, and laid his hands on the sand to shut out the
sky and the shining breakers, he could not recall the similitude of it.
Only he knew that it had been most wonderful, and that his eyes had
never seen anything like it before.