Pharais

I

It was midway in the seventh month of her great joy that the child

moved, while a rapture leaped to her heart, within the womb of Lora,

daughter of the dead Norman Maclean, minister of Innisròn, in the Outer

Isles.

On the same eve the cruel sorrow came to her that had lain waiting in

the dark place beyond the sunrise.

Alastair, her so dearly beloved, had gone, three days earlier, by the

Western Isles steamer, to the port of Greenock, thence to fare to

Glasgow, to learn from a great professor of medicine concerning that

which so troubled him--both by reason of what the islesmen whispered

among themselves, and for what he felt of his own secret pain and

apprehension.

There was a rocky spur on Innisròn, whence the watcher could scan the

headland round which the _Clansman_ would come on her thrice-weekly

voyage: in summer, while the isles were still steeped in the yellow

shine; in autumn, when the sky seaward was purple, and every boulder in

each islet was as transparent amber amid a vapour of amethyst rising

from bases and hollow caverns of a cold day-dawn blue.

Hither Lora had come in the wane of the afternoon. The airs were as

gentle and of as sweet balmy breath as though it were Summer-sleep

rather than only the extreme of May. The girl looked, shading her eyes,

seaward; and saw the blue of the midmost sky laid as a benediction upon

the face of the deep, but paler by a little, as the darkest turquoise is

pale beside the lightest sapphire. She lifted her eyes from the

pearl-blue of the horizon to the heart of the zenith, and saw there the

soul of Ocean gloriously arisen. Beneath the weedy slabs of rock whereon

she stood, the green of the sea-moss lent a yellow gleam to the

slow-waving dead-man's-hair which the tide laved to and fro sleepily, as

though the bewitched cattle of Seumas the seer were drowsing there

unseen, known only of their waving tails, swinging silently as the bulls

dreamed of the hill-pastures they should see no more. Yellow-green in

the sunlit spaces as the sea-hair was, it was dark against the shifting

green light of the water under the rocks, and till so far out as the

moving blue encroached.

To Lora's right ran a curved inlet, ending in a pool fringed with

dappled fronds of sea-fern, mare's-tails, and intricate bladder-wrack.

In the clear hollow were visible the wave-worn stones at the bottom,

many crowned with spreading anemones, with here and there a star-fish

motionlessly agleam, or a cloud of vanishing shrimps above the patches

of sand, or hermit crabs toiling cumbrously from perilous shelter to

more sure havens. Looking down she saw herself, as though her wraith had

suddenly crept therein and was waiting to whisper that which, once

uttered and once heard, would mean disunion no more.

Slipping softly to her knees, she crouched over the pool. Long and

dreamily she gazed into its depths. What was this phantasm, she

wondered, that lay there in the green-gloom as though awaiting her? Was

it, in truth, the real Lora, and she but the wraith?

How strangely expressionless was that pale face, looking upward with so

straightforward a mien, yet with so stealthy an understanding, with dark

abysmal eyes filled with secrecy and dread, if not, indeed, with

something of menace.

A thrill of fear went to the girl's heart. A mass of shadow had

suddenly obscured her image in the water. Her swift fancy suggested that

her wraith had abruptly shrouded herself, fearful of revelation. The

next moment she realised that her own wealth of dark hair had fallen

down her neck and upon her shoulders--hair dusky as twilight, but

interwrought with threads of bronze that, in the shine of fire or sun,

made an evasive golden gleam.

She shuddered as she perceived the eyes of her other self intently

watching her through that cloudy shadow. A breath came from the pool,

salt and shrewd, and cold as though arisen from those sea-sepulchres

whence the fish steal their scales of gold and silver. A thin voice was

in her ears that was not the lap of the tide or the cluck of water

gurgling in and out of holes and crannies.

With a startled gesture she shrank back.

"What is it? What is it?" she cried; but the sound of her own awed voice

broke the spell: and almost at the same moment an eddy of wind came

circling over the rock-bastions of the isle, and, passing as a tremulous

hand over the pool, ruffled it into a sudden silvery sheen.

With a blithe laugh, Lora rose to her feet. The sunlight dwelt about her

as though she were the sweetest flower in that lost garden of Aodh the

poet, where the streams are unspanned rainbows flowing to the skyey

cauldrons below the four quarters, and where every white flower has at

dusk a voice, a whisper, of surpassing sweetness.

"O Alastair, Alastair!" she cried, "will the boat never be coming that

is to bring you back to me!"

Not a black spot anywhere, of wherry or steamer, caught the leaping

gaze. Like a bird it moved across the sea, and found no object whereon

to alight.

The _Clansman_ was often late; but her smoke could be seen across

Dunmore Head nigh upon quarter of an hour before her prow combed the

froth from the Sound.

With a sigh, the girl moved slowly back by the way she had come. Over

and over, as she went, she sang, crooningly, lines from a sweet song of

the Gael, _O, Till, a Leannain!_

As she passed a place of birchen undergrowth and tall bracken, she did

not see an old man, seated, grey and motionless as a heron. He looked at

her with the dull eyes of age, though there was pity in them and

something of a bewildered awe.

"Ay," he muttered below his breath, "though ye sing for your dear one

to return, ye know not what I know. Have I not had the vision of him

with the mist growin' up an' up, an' seen the green grass turn to black

mools at his feet?"

Lora, unwitting, passed; and he heard her voice wax and wane, as falling

water in a glen where the baffled wind among the trees soughs now this

way and now that:--

"_Mo chridhe-sa! 's tusa 'bhios truagh, 'bhios truagh,

Mur pill is' 'thog oirre gu cluaidh, gu cluaidh!_"

She went past the boulder on the path that hid the clachan from view,

and within a net-throw of which was the byre of Mrs. Maclean's cottage,

where, since her father's death, she had dwelt.

A tall, gaunt, elderly woman, with hair of the ivory white of the

snowberry, was about to pass from behind the byre with a burthen of

fresh bracken for Ian Maclean's bed--for the old islesman abode by the

way of his fathers, and was content to sleep on a deerskin spread upon

fresh-gathered fern--when she caught sight of Lora. She stopped, and

with an eager glance looked at the girl: then beyond, and finally

seaward, with her long, thin, brown arm at an angle, and her hand

curved over her eyes against the glare of the water.

Silence was about her as a garment. Every motion of her, even, suggested

a deep calm. Mrs. Maclean spoke seldom, and when she said aught it was

in a low voice, sweet and serene, but as though it came from a distance

and in the twilight. She was of the shadow, as the islesmen say; and

strangers thought her to be austere in look and manner, though that was

only because she gazed long before she replied to one foreign to her and

her life: having the Gaelic, too, so much more natively than the

English, that oftentimes she had to translate the one speech into the

other nearer to her: that, and also because the quiet of the sea was

upon her, as often with hill-folk there is a hushed voice and mien.

Lora knew what was in her mind when she saw her gaze go seaward and then

sweep hither and thither like a hawk ere it settles.

"The boat is not yet in sight, Mary; she is late," she said simply:

adding immediately, "I have come back to go up Cnoc-an-Iolair; from

there I'll see the smoke of the _Clansman_ sooner. She is often as late

as this."

Mrs. Maclean looked compassionately at the girl.

"Mayhap the _Clansman_ will not be coming this way at all to-night,

Lora. She may be going by Kyle-na-Sith."

A flush came into Lora's face. Her eyes darkened, as a tarn under rain.

"And for why should she not be sailing this way to-night, when Alastair

is coming home, and is to be here before sundown?"

"He may have been unable to leave. If he does not come to-day, he will

doubtless be here to-morrow."

"To-morrow! O Mary, Mary, have you ever loved, that you can speak like

that? Think what Alastair went away for! Surely you do not know how the

pain is at my heart?"

"Truly, _mùirnean_. But it is not well to be sure of that which may

easily happen otherwise."

"To-morrow, indeed! Why, Mary, if the _Clansman_ does not come by this

evening, and has gone as you say by Kyle-na-Sith, she will not be here

again till the day _after_ to-morrow!"

"Alastair could come by the other way, by the Inverary boat, and thence

by the herring-steamer from Dunmore, after he had reached it from Uan

Point or by way of Craig-Sionnach."

"That may be, of course; but I think not. I cannot believe the boat will

not be here to-night."

Both stood motionless, with their hands shading their eyes, and looking

across the wide Sound, where the tide bubbled and foamed against the

slight easterly wind-drift. The late sunlight fell full upon them,

working its miracle of gold here and there, and making the skin like a

flower. The outline of each figure stood out darkly clear as against a

screen of amber.

For a time neither spoke. At last, with a faint sigh, Mrs. Maclean

turned.

"Did you see Ian on your way, _Lora-mo-ghràidh_?"

"No."

"Do not have speech with the old man to-night, dear one. He is not

himself."

"Has he had the sight again?"

"Ay, Lora."

Again a silence fell. The girl stood moodily, with her eyes on the

ground: the elder watched her with a steadfast, questioning look.

"Mary!"

Mrs. Maclean made no reply, but her eyes brought Lora's there with the

answer that was in them.

"Ian has never had the sight again upon ... upon Alastair, has he?"

"How can I say?"

"But do you know if he has? If you do not tell me, I will ask him."

"I asked him that only yester-morning. He shook his head."

"Do you believe he can foresee all that is to happen?"

"No. Those who have the vision do not read all that is in the future.

Only God knows. They can see the thing of peril, ay, and the evil of

accident, and even Death--and what is more, the nearness and sometimes

the way of it. But no man sees more than this--unless, indeed, he has

been to Tir-na-h'Oigh."

Mrs. Maclean spoke the last words almost in a whisper, and as though she

said them in a dream.

"Unless he has been to Tir-na-h'Oigh, Mary?"

"So it is said. Our people believe that the Land of Eternal Youth lies

far yonder across the sea; but Aodh, the poet, is right when he tells us

that that land is lapped by no green waves such as we know here, and

that those who go thither do so in sleep, or in vision, or when God has

filled with dusk the house of the brain."

"And when a man has been to Tir-na-h'Oigh in sleep, or in dream, or in

mind-dark, does he see there what shall soon happen here?"

"It is said."

"Has Ian been beyond the West?"

"No."

"Then what he sees when he has the sight upon him is not _beannaichte_:

is not a thing out of heaven?"

"I cannot say. I think not."

"Mary, is it the truth you are now telling me?"

A troubled expression came into the woman's face, but she did not

answer.

"And is it the truth, Mary, that Ian has not had the sight upon Alastair

since he went away--that he did not have it last night or this morning?"

Lora leaned forward in her anxiety. She saw that in her companion's eyes

which gave her the fear. But the next moment Mrs. Maclean smiled.

"I too have the sight, _Lora-mo-ghràidh_; and shall I be telling you

that which it will be giving you joy to hear?"

"Ay, surely, Mary!"

"Then I think you will soon be in the arms of him you love"--and, with a

low laugh, she pointed across the sea to where a film of blue-grey

smoke rose over the ridge of Dunmore headland.

"Ah, the _Clansman_!" cried Lora, with a gasp of joy: and the next

moment she was moving down the path again toward the little promontory.

The wind had risen slightly. The splash, splash, of the sunny green

waves against each other, the lapping of the blue water upon the ledges

to the east, the stealthy whisper where the emerald-green tide-flow

slipped under the hollowed sandstone, the spurtle of the sea-wrack, the

flashing fall and foam-send of the gannets, the cries of the gulls, the

slap of wind as it came over the forehead of the isle and struck the sea

a score of fathoms outward--all gave her a sense of happiness. The world

seemed suddenly to have grown young. The exultant Celtic joy stood over

against the brooding Celtic shadow, and believed the lances of the

sunlight could keep at bay all the battalions of gloom.

The breeze was variable, for the weft of blue smoke which suddenly

curled round the bend of Dunmore had its tresses blown sea-ward, though

where Lora stood the wind came from the west, and even caused a white

foam along the hither marge of the promontory.

With eager eyes she watched the vessel round the point. After all, it

was just possible she might not be the _Clansman_.

But the last sunglow shone full against Dunmore and upon the bows of the

steamer as she swung to the helm; and the moment the red funnel changed

from a dusky russet into a flame of red, Lora's new anxiety was

assuaged. She knew every line of the boat, and already she felt

Alastair's kisses on her lips. The usual long summer-gloaming darkened

swiftly; for faint films of coming change were being woven across the

span of the sky from mainland oceanward. Even as the watcher on Innisròn

stood, leaning forward in her eager outlook, she saw the extreme of the

light lift upward as though it were the indrawn shaft of a fan. The

contours of the steamer grew confused: a velvety duskiness overspread

Dunmore foreland.

The sky overhead had become a vast lift of perishing yellow--a spent

wave of daffodil by the north and by the south; westward, of lemon,

deepening into a luminous orange glow shot with gold and crimson, and

rising as an exhalation from hollow cloud-sepulchres of amethyst,

straits of scarlet, and immeasurable spaces of dove-grey filled with

shallows of the most pale sea-green.

Lora stood as though wrought in marble. She had seen that which made the

blood leap from her heart, and surge in her ears, and clamour against

her brain.

No pennon flew at the peak of the steamer's foremast. This meant there

was neither passenger nor freight to be landed at Innisròn, so that

there was no need for the ferry.

She could scarcely believe it possible that the _Clansman_ could come,

after all, and yet not bring Alastair back to her. It seemed absurd:

some ill-timed by-play; nay, a wanton cruelty. There must be some

mistake, she thought, as she peered hungrily into the sea-dusk.

Surely the steamer was heading too much to the northward! With a cry,

Lora instinctively stretched her arms toward the distant vessel; but no

sound came from her lips, for at that moment a spurt of yellow flame

rent the gray gloom, as a lantern was swung aloft to the mast-head.

In a few seconds she would know all; for whenever the _Clansman_ was too

late for her flag-signal to be easily seen, she showed a green light a

foot or so beneath the yellow.

Lora heard the heavy pulse of the engines, the churn of the beaten

waves, even the delirious surge and suction as the spent water was

driven along the hull and poured over and against the helm ere it was

swept into the wake that glimmered white as a snow-wreath. So wrought

was she that, at the same time, she was keenly conscious of the rapid

_tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet--o-o-h sweet!--sweet!_ of a yellow-hammer

among the whin close by, and of the strange, mournful cry of an

oyster-opener as it flew with devious swoops toward some twilight eyrie.

The throb of the engines--the churn of the beaten waves--the sough of

the swirling yeast--even the churning, swirling, under-tumult, and

through it and over it the heavy pulse, the deep panting rhythmic throb:

this she heard, as it were the wrought surge of her own blood.

Would the green light never swing up to that yellow beacon?

A minute passed: two minutes: three! It was clear that the steamer had

no need to call at Innisròn. She was coming up the mid of the Sound,

and, unless the ferry-light signalled to her to draw near, she would

keep her course north-westward.

Suddenly Lora realised this. At the same time there flashed into her

mind the idea that perhaps Alastair was on board after all, but that he

was ill, and had forgotten to tell the captain of his wish to land by

the island ferry.

She turned, and, forgetful or heedless of her condition, moved swiftly

from ledge to ledge, and thence by the path to where, in the cove beyond

the clachan, the ferry-boat lay on the tide-swell, moored by a rope

fastened to an iron clank fixed in a boulder.

"Ian! Ian!" she cried, as she neared the cove; but at first she saw no

one, save Mrs. Maclean, black against the fire-glow from her cottage.

"Ian! Ian!"

A dark figure rose from beside the ferry-shed.

"Is that you, Ian? _Am bheil am bhàta deas?_ Is the boat ready? _Bi

ealamh! bi ealamh! mach am bhàta_: quick! quick! out with the boat!"

In her eager haste she spoke both in the Gaelic and the English: nor did

she notice that the old man did not answer her, or make any sign of

doing as she bade him.

"_Oh, Ian, bi ealamh! bi ealamh! Faigh am bhàta deas! rach a stigh do'n

bhàta!_"