"Lord Erradeen!" His appearance was so unexpected, so curiously
appropriate and inappropriate, that Oona felt as if she must be under
some hallucination, and was beholding an incarnation of her own thoughts
instead of an actual man.
And Walter was himself at so high a strain of excitement that the
agitation of her surprise seemed natural to him. It scarcely seemed
possible that everybody around, and specially that she, did not know the
crisis at which he stood. He took the hand which she instinctively put
forward, into both his, and held fast by it as if it had been an anchor
of salvation.
"I am a fugitive," he said. "Will you receive me, will you take me with
you? Have pity upon me, for you are my last hope."
"Lord Erradeen--has anything--happened? What--have you done?"
She trembled, standing by him, gazing in his face, not withdrawing her
hand, yet not giving it, lost in wonder; yet having come to feel that
something he had done, some guilt of his, must be the cause.
"I have done--I will tell you everything. I wish to tell you everything:
let me come with you, Oona."
All this time Hamish, standing behind Walter, was making signs to his
young mistress, which seemed to no purpose but to increase her
perplexity. Hamish shook his shaggy head, and his eyebrows worked up and
down. He gesticulated with his arm pointing along the loch. Finally he
stepped forward with a sort of desperation.
"I'm saying, Miss Oona, that we're in no hurry. There will always be
somebody about that would be glad, real glad, of a visit from you. And
as his lordship is a wee disturbed in his mind, and keen to get home, I
could just put him up to Auchnasheen--it would take me very little
time--and syne come back for you."
Oona stood startled, undecided between the two--alarmed a little by
Walter's looks, and much by the significance of the gestures of Hamish,
and his eagerness and anxiety.
"I will no be keeping you waiting long at all--oh, not at all. And my
lord will be best at home, being a wee disturbed in his mind--and we're
in no hurry--no hurry," Hamish insisted, doing his best to place himself
between the two.
"Hamish thinks I am mad," said Walter. "I do not wonder. But I am not
mad. I want neither home nor anything else--but you. It is come to
that--that nobody can help me but you. First one tries expedients," he
cried, "anything to tide over; but at last one comes--one comes to the
only true--"
"You are speaking very wildly," said Oona. "I don't know what you mean,
Lord Erradeen; and Hamish is afraid of you. What is it? We are only
simple people--we do not understand."
He dropped her hand which he had held all the time, half, yet only half
against her will, for there was something in the way he held it which
forbade all idea of levity. She looked at him very wistfully, anxious,
not with any offence, endeavouring to put away all prepossession out of
her mind--the prejudice in his favour which moved her heart in spite of
herself--the prejudice against him, and indignant wonder whether all was
true that she had heard, which had arisen from Julia's words. Her
eyelids had formed into anxious curves of uncertainty, out of which her
soul looked wistfully, unable to refuse help, perplexed, not knowing
what to do.
"If you refuse to hear me," he said, "I have no other help to turn to. I
know I have no right to use such an argument, and yet if you knew--I
will urge no more. It is death or life--but it is in your hands."
Oona's eyes searched into his very soul.
"What can I do?" she said, wondering. "What power have I? How can I tell
if it is--true--" she faltered, and begged his pardon hastily when she
had said that word. "I mean--I do not mean--" she said confusedly. "But
oh, what can I do? it is not possible that I----"
It is cruel to have the burden put upon you of another's fate. Sometimes
that is done to a woman lightly in the moment of disappointment by a
mortified lover. Was this the sort of threat he meant, or was it
perhaps--true? Oona, who had no guile, was shaken to the very soul by
that doubt. Better to risk an affront in her own person than perhaps to
fail of an occasion in which sincere help was wanted and could be given.
She had not taken her eyes from him, but searched his face with a
profound uncertainty and eagerness. At last, with the sigh of relief
which accompanies a decision, she said to Hamish,
"Push off the boat. Lord Erradeen will help me in," with something
peremptory in her tone against which her faithful servant could make no
further protest.
Hamish proceeded accordingly to push off the boat into the water, and
presently they were afloat, steering out for the centre of the loch.
They were at some distance from the isle on the other side of the low,
green island with its little fringe of trees, so different from the
rocky and crested isles about, which is known on Loch Houran as the Isle
of Rest. The low wall round about the scattered tombs, the scanty ruins
of its little chapel, were all that broke the soft greenness of those
low slopes. There was nothing like it all around in its solemn vacancy
and stillness, and nothing could be more unlike that chill and pathetic
calm than the freight of life which approached it in Oona's boat: she
herself full of tremulous visionary excitement--the young man in his
passion and desperation; even the watchful attendant, who never took his
eyes from Lord Erradeen, and rowed on with all his senses on the alert,
ready to throw himself upon the supposed maniac at a moment's notice, or
without it did the occasion require. There was a pause till they found
themselves separated by a widening interval of water from the shore,
where at any moment a chance passenger might have disturbed their
interview. Here no one could disturb them. Walter placed himself in
front of Hamish facing Oona: but perhaps the very attitude, the freedom
and isolation in which he found himself with her, closed his lips. For a
minute he sat gazing at her, and did not speak.
"You wished--to say something to me, Lord Erradeen?"
It was she again, as Katie had done before, who recalled to him his
purpose--with a delicate flush colouring the paleness of her face, half
in shame that after all she had to interfere to bring the confession
forth.
"So much," he said, "so much that I scarcely know where to begin." And
then he added, "I feel safe with you near me. Do you know what it means
to feel safe? But you never were in deadly danger. How could you be?"
"Lord Erradeen, do not mystify me with these strange sayings," she
cried. "Do they mean anything? What has happened to you? or is it
only--is it nothing but----"
"A pretence, do you think, to get myself a hearing--to beguile you into
a little interest? That might have been. But it is more serious, far
more serious. I told you it was life or death." He paused for a moment
and then resumed. "Do you remember last year when you saved me?"
"I remember--last year," she said with an unsteady voice, feeling the
flush grow hotter and hotter on her cheek, for she did not desire to be
reminded of that self-surrender, that strange merging of her being in
another's which was her secret, of which she had been aware, but no one
else. "I never understood it," she added, with one meaning for herself
and one for him. The hidden sense was to her more important than the
other. "It has always been--a mystery----"
"It was the beginning of the struggle," he said. "I came here, you
know--don't you know?--out of poverty to take possession of my
kingdom--that was what I thought. I found myself instead at the
beginning of a dreary battle. I was not fit for it, to begin with. Do
you remember the old knights had to prepare themselves for their
chivalry with fasting, and watching of arms, and all that--folly----" A
gleam of self-derision went over his face, and yet it was deadly serious
underneath.
"It was no folly," she said.
"Oh, do you think I don't know that? The devil laughs in me, now and
then, but I don't mean it. Oona--let me call you Oona, now, if never
again--I had neither watched nor prayed----"
He made a pause, looking at her pitifully; and she, drawn, she knew not
how, answered, with tears in her eyes, "I have heard that you--had
strayed----"
"That means accidentally, innocently," he said. "It was not so. I had
thought only of myself: when I was caught in the grip of a will stronger
than mine, unprepared. There was set before me--no, not good and evil as
in the books, but subjection to one--who cared neither for good nor
evil. I was bidden to give up my own will, I who had cared for nothing
else: to give up even such good as was in me. I was not cruel. I cared
nothing about worldly advantages; but these were henceforward to be the
rule of my life--pleasant, was it not?" he said with a laugh, "to a man
who expected to be the master--of everything round."
At the sound of his laugh, which was harsh and wild, Hamish, raising
himself so as to catch the eye of his mistress, gave her a questioning,
anxious look. Oona was very pale, but she made an impatient gesture with
her hand to her humble guardian. She was not herself at ease; an
agonizing doubt lest Walter's mind should have given way had taken
possession of her. She answered him as calmly as she could, but with a
tremor in her voice, "Who could ask that, Lord Erradeen? Oh no, no--you
have been deceived."
"You ask me who! you who gave me your hand--your hand that was like
snow--that had never done but kindness all your life--and saved me--so
that I defied him. And you ask me who?"
He put out his hand as he spoke and touched hers as it lay in her lap.
His face was full of emotion, working and quivering. "Give it to me,
Oona!--will you give it to me? I am not worthy that you should touch me.
It has been said to me that you would turn from me--ah, with
disgust!--_if you knew_. And I want you to know everything. For you gave
it then without pausing to think. Oona! I am going to tell you
everything. Give it to me," he said, holding out his hands one over the
other to receive and clasp hers, his eyes moist, his lips appealing with
a quivering smile of entreaty. And how may it be told what was in Oona's
heart? Her whole being was moved through and through with tenderness,
wonder, pity. Her hand seemed to move of itself towards him. The impulse
was upon her almost too strong to be resisted, to throw her arms around
him, like a mother with a child--to identify herself with him whatever
might follow. The womanly instinct that held her back--that kept all
these impulses in check and restrained the heart that seemed leaping out
of her bosom towards this man whom she loved in spite of herself, and
who had need of her, most sacred of all claims--was like a frame of
iron round her, against which she struggled, but from which she could
not get free. Tears filled her eyes--she clasped her hands together in
an involuntary appeal. "What can I do? What can I do?" she cried.
"You shall hear all," said he. "I have tried everything before coming
back to that which I always knew was my only hope. I fled away after
that night. Do you remember?" (She almost smiled at this, for she
remembered far better than he, and the wonder and despair of it, and his
boat going away over the silent loch, and his face eager to be gone, and
she indignant, astonished, feeling that her life went with him; but of
all this he knew nothing.) "I fled--thinking I could escape and forget.
There seemed no better way. There was no one to help me, only to mar and
waste--what was all wasted and spoilt already. I want to tell you
everything," he said faltering, drooping his head, withdrawing his eyes
from her, "but I have not the courage--you would not understand me.
Nothing that you could imagine could reach to a hundredth part of the
evil I have known." He covered his face with his hands. The bitterness
of the confession he dared not make seemed to stifle his voice and every
hope.
And Oona's heart quivered and beat against the strong bondage that held
it in, and her hands fluttered with longing to clasp him and console
him. What woman can bear to hear out such a confession, not to interrupt
it with pardon, with absolution, with cries to bring forth the fairest
robe? She touched his head with her hands for a moment, a trembling
touch upon his hair, and said, "God forgive you. God will forgive you,"
with a voice almost choked with tears.
He raised his head and looked at her with an eager cry. "I want--not
forgiveness. I want life," he cried, "life, new life. I want to be born
again. Is not that in the Bible? To be born again, to begin again from
the beginning, everything new. Help me, Oona! I am not thinking of
the past. It is _now_ I am thinking of. I am not thinking of
forgiveness--punishment if you please, anything!--but a new life. He
knew man who said that," Walter cried, raising his head. "What use is it
to me to forgive me? I want to be born again."
When he thus delivered himself of his exceeding bitter cry, this woman
too, like his mother, answered him with a shining face, with eyes
swimming in tears, and brilliant with celestial certainty. She put out
her hands to him without a moment's hesitation, and grasped his and
smiled.
"Oh, that is all provided for!" she said. "Yes, He knew! It is all ready
for you--waiting--waiting. Don't you know our Lord stands at the door
and knocks, till you are ready to let Him in? And now you are ready.
There is nothing more."
He received the soft hands within his with feelings indescribable, at
such a height of emotion that all the lesser shades and degrees were
lost. He twined her fingers among his own, clasping them with an entire
appropriation.
"Oona," he said, "the house is yours, and all in it. Open the door to
your Lord, whom I am not worthy to come near--and to everything that is
good. It is yours to do it. Open the door!"
They had forgotten Hamish who sat behind, pulling his long, even
strokes, with his anxious shaggy countenance fixed like that of a
faithful dog upon his mistress, whom he had to guard. He saw the two
heads draw very close together, and the murmur of the voices.
"What will she be saying to him? She will be winning him out of yon
transport. She will be puttin' peace in his hairt. She has a voice that
would wile the bird from the tree," said Hamish to himself. "But oh
hon!--my bonnie Miss Oona," Hamish cried aloud.
This disturbed them and made them conscious of the spectator, who was
there with them, separate from all the world. Oona, with a woman's
readiness to throw her veil over and hide from the eye of day all that
is too sacred for the vulgar gaze, raised her face, still quivering with
tender and holy passion.
"Why do you say 'oh hon?' There is nothing to say 'oh hon' for, Hamish.
No, no; but the other way."
Hamish looked across the young lord, whose head was bowed down still
over Oona's hands, which he held. The boatman gave him a glance in which
there was doubt and trouble, and then raised his shaggy eyebrows, and
addressed a look of entreaty and warning to the fair inspired face that
hovered over Walter like a protecting angel. "Ye will not be doing the
like of that," he said, "without thought?"
And all the time the boat swept on over the reflections in the water, by
the low shore of the Isle of Rest where death had easy landing, away
among the feathery islets, all tufted brown and crimson to the water's
edge, where nothing but the wild life of the woods could find
footing:--nothing near them but the one anxious, humble retainer,
watching over Oona, for whom no one in heaven or earth, save himself,
entertained any fear. He quickened those long strokes in the excitement
of his soul, but neither did Walter take any account of where he was
going, nor Oona awake out of the excitement of the moment to think of
the descent into common life which was so near. Hamish only, having the
entire conduct of them, hastened their progress back to ordinary
existence--if perhaps there might be some aid of reason and common
judgment (as he said to himself) there, to see that the man was in his
right senses before Oona should be bound for life.
There was no excitement about the isle. It lay as calm in the sunshine
as if nothing but peace had ever passed by that piece of solid earth,
with its rocks and trees, that little human world amid the waters; every
jagged edge of rock, every red-tinted tree against the background of
tall firs, and the firs themselves in their dark motionless green, all
shining inverted in the liquid clearness around. The two were still
afloat, though their feet were on solid ground; and still apart from all
the world, though the winding way led direct to the little centre of
common life in which Oona was all in all. But they did not immediately
ascend to that gentle height. They paused first on the little platform,
from which Kinloch Houran was the chief object. One of those flying
shadows that make the poetry of the hills was over it for a moment,
arrested as by some consciousness of nature, while they stood and gazed.
There Walter stood and told to Oona the story of Miss Milnathort, and
how she had said that two, set upon all good things, would hold the
secret in their hands. Two--and here were the two. It seemed to him that
every cloud had fled from his soul from the moment when he felt her
hands in his, and had bidden her "open the door." Oh, fling wide the
door to the Christ who waits outside, the Anointed, the Deliverer of
men: to peace and truth, that wait upon Him, and mercy and kindness, and
love supreme that saves the world! Fling wide the doors! Not a bolt or
bar but that soft hand shall unloose them, throw them wide, that the
Lord may come in. Not a crevice, or corner, or dark hiding-place of evil
but shall open to the light. He said so standing there, holding her hand
still, not only as a lover caressing, protecting, holds the soft hand he
loves, but as a man drowning will hold by the hand held out to save him.
It was both to Walter. He told her, and it was true, that from the day
when she had put it into his a year ago, he had never lost the
consciousness that in this hand was his hope.
Oona was penetrated by all these words to the depths of her heart. What
girl could be told that in her hands was the saving of one she loved,
without such a movement of the soul to the highest heroism and devotion
as raises human nature above itself? Her soul seemed to soar, drawing
his with it, into heights above. She felt capable of everything--of the
highest effort and the humblest service. That union of the spiritual
being above his, and the human longing beneath, came back to her in all
the joy of a permitted and befitting mood. She was his to raise him
above all those soils of life of which he was sick and weary; and his to
sweep away the thorns and briars out of his path; to lead him and to
serve him, to mingle her being in his life so that no one henceforward
should think of Oona save as his second and helpmeet: yet so to guide
his uncertain way as that it should henceforward follow the track of
light by which the best of all ages has gone. Even to understand that
office of glory and humility demands an enlightenment, such as those who
do not love can never attain. To Oona it seemed that life itself became
glorious in this service. It raised her above all earthly things. She
looked at him with the pity of an angel, with something of the
tenderness of a mother, with an identification and willingness to submit
which was pure woman. All was justified to her--the love that she had
given unsought, the service which she was willing and ready to give.
He stopped before they had reached the height upon which stood home and
the sweet and simple existence which embraced these mysteries without
comprehending them. A darker shadow, a premonition of evil, came over
him.
"And yet," he said, "I have not told you all. I have something more
still to say."