THE WIZARD'S SON
A Novel
BY MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF "THE CURATE IN CHARGE," "YOUNG MUSGRAVE," ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1884
[_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_]
LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL.
THE WIZARD'S SON.
CHAPTER I.
When Walter seated himself beside Oona in the boat, and Hamish pushed
off from the beach, there fell upon both these young people a sensation
of quiet and relief for which one of them at least found it very
difficult to account. It had turned out a very still afternoon. The
heavy rains were over, the clouds broken up and dispersing, with a sort
of sullen stillness, like a defeated army making off in dull haste, yet
not without a stand here and there, behind the mountains. The loch was
dark and still, all hushed after the sweeping blasts of rain, but black
with the reflections of gloom from the sky. There was a sense of safety,
of sudden quiet, of escape, in that sensation of pushing off, away from
all passion and agitation upon this still sea of calm. Why Oona, who
feared no one, who had no painful thoughts or associations to flee from,
should have felt this she could not tell. The sense of interest in, and
anxiety for, the young man by her side was altogether different. That
was sympathetic and definable; but the sensation of relief was something
more. She looked at him with a smile and sigh of ease as she gathered
the strings of the rudder into her hands.
"I feel," she said, "as if I were running away, and had got safe out of
reach; though there is nobody pursuing me that I know of," she added,
with a faint laugh of satisfaction.
The wind blew the end of the white wrapper round her throat towards her
companion, and he caught it as she had caught the rudder ropes.
"It is I that am pursued," he said, "and have escaped. I have a feeling
that I am safe here. The kind water, and the daylight, and you--but how
should _you_ feel it? It must have gone from my mind to yours."
"The water does not look so very kind," said Oona, "except that it
separates us from the annoyances that are on land--when there are
annoyances."
She had never known any that were more than the troubles of a child
before.
"There is this that makes it kind. If you were driven beyond bearing, a
plunge down there and all would be over----"
"Lord Erradeen!"
"Oh, I don't mean to try. I have no thought of trying; but look how
peaceful, how deep, all liquid blackness! It might go down to the
mystic centre of the earth for anything one knows."
He leant over a little, looking down into those depths profound which
were so still that the boat seemed to cut through a surface which had
solidity; and in doing this put the boat out of trim, and elicited a
growl from Hamish.
It seemed to Oona, too, as if there was something seductive in that
profound liquid depth, concealing all that sought refuge there. She put
out her hand and grasped his arm in the thrill of this thought.
"Oh, don't look down," she said. "I have heard of people being caught,
in spite of themselves, by some charm in it." The movement was quite
involuntary and simple; but, on second thoughts, Oona drew away her
hand, and blushed a little. "Besides, you put the boat out of trim," she
said.
"If I should ever be in deadly danger," said Walter, with the
seriousness which had been in his face all along, "will you put out your
hand like that, without reflection, and save me?"
Oona tried to laugh again; but it was not easy; his seriousness gained
upon her, in spite of herself.
"I think we are talking nonsense, and feeling nonsense; for it seems to
me as if we had escaped from something. Now Hamish is pleased; the boat
is trimmed. Don't you think," she said, with an effort to turn off
graver subjects, "that it is a pity those scientific people who can do
everything should not tunnel down through that centre of the earth you
were speaking of, straight through to the other side of the world? Then
we might be dropped through to Australia without any trouble. I have a
brother there; indeed I have a brother in most places. Mamma and I might
go and see Rob now and then, or he might come home for a dance, poor
fellow; he was always very fond of dancing."
Thus she managed to fill up the time till they reached the isle. It lay
upon the surface of that great mirror, all fringed and feathered with
its bare trees; the occasional colour in the roofs gleaming back again
out of the water; a little natural fastness, safe and sure. As Oona was
later in returning than had been expected, the little garrison of women
in the isle was all astir and watching for her coming. Out of one of the
upper windows there was the head of a young maid visible, gazing down
the loch; and Mrs. Forrester, in her furred cloak, was standing in the
porch, and Mysie half way down to the beach, moving from point to point
of vision.
"They are all about but old Cookie," said Oona. "It is a terrible
business when I am late. They think everything that is dreadful must
have happened, and that makes a delightful sensation when I get home
safe and well. I am every day rescued from a watery grave, or saved from
some dreadful accident on shore, in my mother's imagination. She gives
herself the misery of it, and then she has the pleasure of it," cried
the girl, with the amused cynicism of youth.
"But to-day you bring a real fugitive with you--an escaped--what shall I
call myself?--escaped not from harm, but from doing harm--which is the
most dangerous of the two."
"You will never do harm to the poor folk," said Oona, looking at him
with kind eyes.
"Never, while I am in my senses, and know. I want you to promise me
something before we land."
"You must make haste, then, and ask; for there is Mysie ready with the
boat-hook," said Oona, a little alarmed.
"Promise me--if it ever occurs that harm is being done in my name, to
make me know it. Oh, not a mere note sent to my house; I might never
receive it like the last; but to make me know. See me, speak to me,
think even:--and you will save me."
"Oh, Lord Erradeen, you must not put such a responsibility on me. How
can I, a girl that is only a country neighbour----"
"Promise me!" he said.
"Oh, Lord Erradeen, this is almost tyrannical. Yes, if I can--if I think
anything is concealed from you. Here I am, Mysie, quite safe; and of
course mamma has been making herself miserable. I have brought Lord
Erradeen to luncheon," Oona said.
"Eh, my lord, but we're glad to see you," said Mysie, with the gracious
ease of hospitality. "They said you were going without saying good-bye,
but I would never believe it. It is just his lordship, mem, as I said
it was," she called to Mrs. Forrester, who was hastening down the
slope.
The mistress of the island came down tripping, with her elderly graces,
waving her white delicate hands.
"Oh, Oona, my dear, but I'm thankful to see you, and nothing happened,"
she cried; "and ye are very welcome, Lord Erradeen. I thought you would
never go away without saying good-bye. Come away up to the house. It is
late, late, for luncheon; but there will be some reason; and I never
have any heart to take a meal by myself. Everything is ready: if it's
not all spoiled?" Mrs. Forrester added, turning round to Mysie, as she
shook hands with the unexpected guest.
"Oh, no fear of that, mem," said the factotum, "we're well enough used
to waiting in this house: an hour, half an hour, is just nothing. The
trout is never put down to the fire till we see the boat; but I maun
away and tell cook."
"And you will get out some of the good claret," Mrs. Forrester cried.
"Come away--come away, Lord Erradeen. We have just been wondering what
had become of you. It is quite unfriendly to be at Auchnasheen and not
come over to see us. Oona, run, my dear, and take off your things. Lord
Erradeen will take charge of me. I am fain of an arm when I can get one,
up the brae. When the boys were at home I always got a good pull up. And
where did you foregather, you two? I am glad Oona had the sense to bring
you with her. And I hope the trout will not be spoiled," she said with
some anxiety. "Mysie is just too confident--far too confident. She is
one that thinks nothing can go wrong on the isle."
"That is my creed too," said Walter with an awakening of his natural
inclination to make himself agreeable, and yet a more serious meaning in
the words.
"Oh fie!" said Mrs. Forrester, shaking her head, "to flatter a simple
person like me! We have but little, very little to offer; the only thing
in our favour is that it's offered with real goodwill. And how do you
like Auchnasheen? and are you just keeping it up as it was in the old
lord's time? and how is Mary Fleming, the housekeeper, that was always
an ailing body?" These questions, with others of the same kind, answered
the purpose of conversation as they ascended to the house--with little
intervals between, for Mrs. Forrester was a little breathless though she
did not care to say so and preferred to make pauses now and then to
point out the variations of the landscape. "Though I know it so well, I
never find it two days the same," she said. None of these transparent
little fictions, so innocent, so natural, were unknown to her friends,
and the sight of them had a curiously strengthening and soothing effect
upon Walter, to whom the gentle perseverance of those amiable foibles,
so simple and evident, gave a sense of reality and nature which had
begun to be wanting in his world. His heart grew lighter as he watched
the "ways" of this simple woman, about whose guiles and pretences even
there was no mystery at all, and whose little affectations somehow
seemed to make her only more real. It gave him a momentary shock,
however, when she turned round at her own door, and directed his
attention to his old castle lying in lines of black and grey upon the
glistening water. He drew her hastily within the porch.
"It gets colder and colder," he said; "the wind goes through and through
one. Don't let me keep you out in the chilly air."
"I think you must have caught a little cold," said Mrs. Forrester,
concerned, "for I do not find it so chilly for my part. To be sure, Loch
Houran is never like your quiet landward places in England: we are used
up here to all the changes. Oona will be waiting for us by this time;
and I hope you are ready for your dinner, Lord Erradeen, for I am sure I
am. I should say for your lunch: but when it comes to be so far on in
the day as this, these short winter days, Oona and me, we just make it
our dinner. Oh, there you are, my dear! Lord Erradeen will like to step
into Ronald's room and wash his hands, and then there will be nothing to
wait for but the trout."
When they were seated at the table, with the trout cooked to perfection
as fish only is where it is caught, Mrs. Forrester pressing him to eat
with old-fashioned anxiety, and even Mysie, who waited at table, adding
affectionate importunities, Walter's heart was touched with a sense of
the innocence, the kindness, the gentle nature about him. He felt
himself cared for like a child, regarded indeed as a sort of larger
child to be indulged with every dainty they could think of, and yet in
some ineffable way protected and guided too by the simple creatures
round him. The mistress and the maid had little friendly controversies
as to what was best for him.
"I thought some good sherry wine, mem, and him coming off the water,
would be better than yon cauld clairet."
"Well, perhaps you are right, Mysie; but the young men nowadays are all
for claret," Mrs. Forrester said.
"Just a wee bittie more of the fish, my lord," said Mysie, in his ear.
"No, no, Mysie," cried her mistress. "You know there are birds coming.
Just take away the trout, it is a little cold, and there's far more
nourishment in the grouse."
"To my mind, mem," said Mysie, "there is nothing better than a Loch
Houran trout."
All this had the strangest effect upon Walter. To come into this simple
house was like coming back to nature, and that life of childhood in
which there are no skeletons or shadows. Even his mother had never been
so sheltering, so safe, so real. Mrs. Methven had far more intellect and
passion than Mrs. Forrester. It had been impossible to her to bear the
failure of her ideal in her boy. Her very love had been full of pain and
trouble to both. But this other mother was of a different fashion.
Whatever her children did was good in her eyes; but she protected, fed,
took care of, extended her soft wings over them as if they still were in
the maternal nest. The innocence of it all moved Walter out of himself.
"Do you know," he said at last, "what I have come from to your kind,
sheltering house, Mrs. Forrester? Do you know what everybody, even your
daughter, thought of me two hours ago?"
"I never thought any harm of you, Lord Erradeen," said Oona, looking up
hastily.
"Harm of him! Dear me, Oona, you are far, very far, from polite. And
what was it they thought of you?" asked Mrs. Forrester. "Oona is so
brusque, she just says what she thinks; but sure am I it was nothing but
good."
"They thought," said Walter, with an excitement which grew upon him as
he went on, "that I, who have been poor myself all my life, that never
had any money or lands till a few weeks ago, that I was going to turn
poor women and children out of their houses, out upon the world, out to
the wet, cold mountain-side, without a shelter in sight. They thought I
was capable of that. An old woman more than eighty, and a lot of little
children! They thought I would turn them out! Oh, not the poor creatures
themselves, but others; even Miss Oona. Is thy servant a dog--" cried
the young man in a blaze of fiery agitation, the hot light of pain
shining through the involuntary moisture in his eyes. "Somebody says
that in the Bible, I know. Is thy servant a dog that he should do this
thing?"
"Oh, my dear!" cried Mrs. Forrester, in her sympathy, forgetting all
distinctions, and only remembering that he was very like her Ronald, and
was in trouble, "nobody, nobody thought you would do that. Oh no, no,
fie no! nobody had such a thought. If I could believe it of Oona I would
not speak to her--I would--no, no, it was never believed. I, for one, I
knew you would never do it. I saw it," cried the kind lady, "in your
eyes!"
Though Walter had no real confidence in the independent judgment which
she asserted so unhesitatingly, yet he was consoled by the softness of
the words, the assurance of the tone.
"I did not think such things ever happened in Scotland," he said. "It is
Ireland one thinks of: and that it should be supposed I would do it, has
hurt me more than I can say--a stranger who had no one to stand up for
me."
"That was just the way of it," said Mrs. Forrester, soothingly. "We
think here that there is something strange in English ways. We never
know how a thing will appear to them--that is how it was. But I said all
through that it was impossible, and I just wrote to you last night (you
would get my letter?) that you must not do it--for fear you might not
have understood how it was."
"But there is another side to it," said Oona, "we must not forget,
mother. Sometimes it is said, you know, that the poor folk can do no
good where they are. We can all understand the shock of seeing them
turned out of their houses: but then people say they cannot live
there--that it would be better for themselves to be forced to go away."
"That is true, Oona," said her mother, facing round: "it is just a kind
of starvation. When old Jenny went there first (she was in my nursery
when I had one) there was just a perpetual craik about her rent. Her man
was one of the Frasers, and a well-doing, decent man, till he died, poor
fellow, as we must all do: and since that I have heard little about it,
for I think it was just out of her power to pay anything. Duncan Fraser,
he is a very decent man, but I remember the minister was saying if he
was in Glasgow or Paisley, or some of those places, it would be better
for his family. I recollect that the minister did say that."
"So, Lord Erradeen," said Oona, "without being cruel you might: but
I--we all like you ten times better that you couldn't," said the girl
impulsively.
"Ay, that we do," said her mother, ready to back up every side, "that we
do. But I am not surprised. I knew that there was nothing unkind either
in your heart or your face."
"There was no time," said Walter, "to think what was wise, or take into
consideration, like a benevolent tyrant, what could be done for their
good, without consulting their inclinations: which is what you mean,
Miss Forrester----"
Oona smiled, with a little heightened colour. It was the commencement of
one of those pretty duels which mean mutual attraction rather than
opposition. She said, with a little nod of her head, "Go on."
"But one thing is certain," he said, with the almost solemn air which
returned to his face at intervals, "that I will rather want shelter
myself than turn another man out of his house, on any argument--far less
helpless women and children. Did you laugh? I see no laughing in it,"
the young man cried.
"Me--laugh!" cried Mrs. Forrester, though it was at Oona he had looked.
"If I laughed it was for pleasure. Between ourselves, Lord Erradeen
(though they might perhaps be better away), turning out a poor family
out of their house is a thing I could never away with. Oona may say what
she likes--but it is not Christian. Oh, it's not Christian! I would have
taken them in, as many as Mysie could have made room for: but I never
could say that it was according to Christianity. Oh no, Lord Erradeen! I
would have to be poor indeed--poor, poor indeed--before I would turn
these poor folk away."
"There would be no blessing upon the rest," said Mysie, behind her
mistress's chair.
"That is settled then," said Walter, whose heart grew lighter and
lighter. "But that is not all. Tell me, if I were a benevolent despot,
Miss Forrester--you who know everything--what should I do now?--for it
cannot stop there."
"We'll go into the drawing-room before you settle that," said Mrs.
Forrester. "Dear me, it is quite dark; we will want the candles, Mysie.
There is so little light in the afternoon at this time of the year. I am
sorry there is no gentleman to keep you in countenance with your glass
of wine, Lord Erradeen. If you had been here when my Ronald or Jamie, or
even Rob, was at home! But they are all away, one to every airt, and the
house is very lonely without any boys in it. Are you coming with us?
Well, perhaps it will be more cheerful. Dear me, Mysie, you have left
that door open, and we will just be perished with the cold."
"Let me shut it," Walter said.
He turned to the open door with a pleasant sense of taking the place of
one of those absent boys whom the mother regretted so cheerfully, and
with a lighter heart than he could have thought possible a few hours
ago. But at the first glance he stood arrested with a sudden chill that
seemed to paralyse him. It was almost dark upon the loch; the water
gleamed with that polished blackness through which the boat had cut as
through something solid; but blacker now, shining like jet against the
less responsive gloom of the land and hills. The framework of the
doorway made a picture of this night scene, with the more definite
darkness of the old castle in the centre, rising opaque against the
softer distance. Seeing that Lord Erradeen made a sudden pause, Oona
went towards him, and looked out too at the familiar scene. She had seen
it often before, but it had never made the same impression upon her.
"Oh, the light--the light again!" she said, with a cry of surprise. It
came up in a pale glow as she was looking, faint, but throwing up in
distinct revelation the mass of the old tower against the background.
Walter, who seemed to have forgotten what he had come to do, was roused
by her voice, and with nervous haste and almost violence shut the door.
There was not much light in the little hall, and they could see each
other's faces but imperfectly, but his had already lost the soothed and
relieved expression which had replaced its agitated aspect. He scarcely
seemed to see her as he turned round, took up his hat from the table,
and went on confusedly before her, forgetting ordinary decorums, to the
drawing-room, where Mrs. Forrester had already made herself comfortable
in her usual chair, with the intention of for a few moments "just
closing her eyes." Mysie had not brought the lights, and he stood before
the surprised lady like a dark shadow, with his hat in his hand.
"I have come to take my leave," he said; "to thank you, and say
good-bye."
"Dear me," said Mrs. Forrester, rousing herself, "you are in a great
hurry, Lord Erradeen. Why should you be so anxious to go? You have
nobody at Auchnasheen to be kept waiting. Toots! you must just wait now
you are here for a cup of tea at least, and it will take Hamish a
certain time to get out the boat."
"I must go," he said, with a voice that trembled: then suddenly threw
down his hat on the floor and himself upon a low chair close to her,
"unless," he said, "unless--you will complete your charity by taking me
in for the night. Will you keep me for the night? Put me in any corner.
I don't mind--only let me stay."
"Let you stay!" cried the lady of the isle. She sprang up as lightly as
a girl at this appeal, with no further idea of "closing her eyes." "Will
I keep you for the night? But that I will, and with all my heart! There
is Ronald's room, where you washed your hands, just all ready, nothing
to do but put on the sheets, and plenty of his things in it in case you
should want anything. Let you stay!" she cried, with delighted
excitement, "it is what I would have asked and pressed you to do. And
then we can do something for your cold, for I am sure you have a cold;
and Oona and you can settle all that business about the benevolent
tyrant, which is more than my poor head is equal to. Oona, my dear, will
you tell Mysie?--where is Mysie? I will just speak to her myself. We
must get him better of his cold, or what will his mother think? He must
have some more blankets, or an eiderdown, which will be lighter, and a
good fire."
If her worst enemy had asked hospitality from Mrs. Forrester, she would
have forgotten all her wrongs and opened her doors wide; how much more
when it was a friend and neighbour! The demand itself was a kindness.
She tripped away without a thought of her disturbed nap, and was soon
heard in colloquy with Mysie, who shared all her sentiments in this
respect. Oona, who stood silent by the fire, with a sense that she was
somehow in the secret, though she did not know what it was, had a less
easy part. The pang of sympathy she felt was almost intolerable, but she
did not know how to express it. The quiet room seemed all at once to
have become the scene of a struggle, violent though invisible, which she
followed dumbly with an instinct beyond her power to understand. After
an interval of silence which seemed endless, he spoke.
"It must be intended that we should have something to do with each
other," he said, suddenly. "When you are there I feel stronger. If your
mother had refused me, I should have been lost."
"It was impossible that she should have refused you, Lord Erradeen."
"I wish you would not call me by that ill-omened name. It is a horror to
me; and then if all that is true----How is it possible that one man
should lord it over an entire race for so long? Did you ever hear of a
similar case? Oh! don't go away. If you knew what an ease it is to speak
to you! No one else understands. It makes one feel as if one were
restored to natural life to be able to speak of it, to ask advice.
Nothing," he cried suddenly, getting up, picking up his hat as if about
to leave the house, "nothing--shall induce me to go----"
"Oh, no, no!" she cried, "you must not go;" though she could not have
told why.
He put down the hat again on the table with a strange laugh. "I was
going then," he said, "but I will not. I will do exactly as you say." He
came up to her where she stood full of trouble watching him. "I dare say
you think I am going wrong in my head, but it is not that. I am being
dragged--with ropes. Give me your hand to hold by. There! that is
safety, that is peace. You hand is as soft--as snow," cried the young
man. His own were burning, and the cool fresh touch of the girl's hand
seemed to diffuse itself through all his being. Oona was as brave in her
purity as the other Una, the spotless lady of romance, and would have
shrunk from no act of succour. But it agitated her to have this strange
appeal for help made to her. She did not withdraw her hand, but yet drew
away a little, alarmed, not knowing what to do.
"You must not think," she said, faltering, "that any one--has more power
over another than--he permits them to have."
She spoke like one of the oracles, not knowing what she said; and he
listened with a slight shake of his head, not making any reply. After a
moment he yielded to the reluctance which made itself felt in her, and
let her hand go.
"Will you come with me outside?" he said; "not there, where that place
is. I think the cold and the night do one good. Can we go out the other
way?"
Oona accepted this alternative gladly. "We can go to the walk, where it
is always dry," she said, with an assumption of cheerfulness. "It looks
to the south, and that is where the flowers grow best." As she led the
way through the hall, Walter took up Mrs. Forrester's furred cloak which
hung there, and put it round her with a great deal of tenderness and
care. The girl's heart beat as he took this office upon him, as one of
her brothers might have done. It was the strangest conjunction. He was
not thinking of her at all, she felt, save as affording some mysterious
help in those mysterious miseries: and yet there was a sweetness in the
thought he took, even at this extraordinary moment, for her comfort.
There could have been no such dangerous combination of circumstances for
Oona, whose heart was full of the early thrill of romance, and that
inextinguishable pity and attraction towards the suffering which tells
for so much in the life of women. A softness and melting of the heart
indescribable came over her as she felt his light touch on her
shoulders, and found herself enveloped as it were, in his shadow and the
sentiment of his presence. He was not thinking of her, but only of his
need of her, fantastic though that might be. But her heart went out
towards him with that wonderful feminine impulse which is at once
inferior and superior, full of dependence, yet full of help. To follow
all his movements and thoughts as well as she could with wistful
secondariness; yet to be ready to guide, to save, when need was--to dare
anything for that office. There had never been aught in Oona's life to
make her aware of this strange, sweet, agitating position--the one
unchangeable form of conjunction for the two mortal companions who have
to walk the ways of earth together. But his mind was pre-occupied with
other thoughts than her, while hers were wholly bent upon him and his
succour. It was dangerous for her, stealing her heart out of her breast
in the interest, the sympathy, the close contact involved; but of none
of these things was he aware in the pre-occupation of his thoughts.
They walked up and down for a time together, behind the house, along the
broad walk, almost a terrace, of the kitchen garden, where there was a
deep border filled in summer with every kind of old-fashioned flowers.
It was bare now, with naked fruit-trees against the wall, but the moon
was hid in clouds, and it was impossible to see anything, except from
the end of the terrace the little landing-place below, and the first
curves of the walk leading up to the house, and all round the glimmer of
the loch. The stillness had been broken by the sound of a boat, but it
was on the Auchnasheen side, and though Oona strained her eyes she had
not been able to see it, and concluded that, if coming to the isle at
all, it must have touched the opposite point, where there was a less
easy, but possible, landing-place. As they reached the end of the
terrace, however, she was startled to see a figure detach itself from
the gloom and walk slowly towards the house.
"The boat must have run in under the bushes, though I cannot see it,"
she said; "there is some one coming up the walk."
Walter turned to look with momentary alarm, but presently calmed down.
"It is most likely old Symington, who takes a paternal charge of me," he
said.
Soon after they heard the steps, not heavy, but distinctly audible,
crushing the gravel, and to Oona's great surprise, though Walter, a
stranger to the place, took no notice of the fact, these footsteps,
instead of going to the door, as would have been natural, came round the
side of the house and approached the young pair in their walk. The
person of the new-comer was quite unknown to Oona. He took off his hat
with an air of well-bred courtesy--like a gentleman, not like a
servant--and said--
"I am reluctant to interrupt such a meeting, but there is a boat below
for Lord Erradeen."
Walter started violently at the sound of the voice, which was,
notwithstanding, agreeable and soft, though with a tone of command in
it. He came to a sudden stop, and turned round quickly as if he could
not believe his ears.
"There is a boat below," the stranger repeated, "and it is extremely
cold; the men are freezing at their oars. They have not the same
delightful inspiration as their master--who forgets that he has business
to settle this final night----"
Walter gave a strange cry, like the cry of a hunted creature. "In God's
name," he exclaimed, "what have you to do here?"
"My good fellow," said the other, "you need not try your hand at
exorcising; others have made that attempt before you. Is Circe's island
shut to all footsteps save yours? But, even then, you could not shut out
me. I must not say Armida's garden in this state of the temperature----"
he said.
"Who is it?" asked Oona in great alarm under her breath.
"Let me answer you," the intruder said. "It is a sort of a guardian who
has the first right to Lord Erradeen's consideration. Love, as even the
copybooks will tell, ought to be subordinate to duty."
"Love!" cried Oona, starting from the young man's side. The indignant
blood rushed to her face. She turned towards the house in sudden anger
and shame and excitement. Circe! Armida! Was it she to whom he dared to
apply these insulting names.
Walter caught her cloak with both hands.
"Do you not see," he said, "that he wants to take you from me, to drive
you away, to have me at his mercy? Oona! you would not see a man drown
and refuse to hold out your hand?"
"This is chivalrous," said the stranger, "to put a woman between you and
that--which you are afraid to meet."
To describe the state of excited feeling and emotion in which Oona
listened to this dialogue, would be impossible. She was surprised beyond
measure, yet, in the strange excitement of the encounter, could not take
time to wonder or seek an explanation. She had to act in the mean time,
whatever the explanation might be. Her heart clanged in her ears.
Tenderness, pity, indignation, shame, thrilled through her. She had been
insulted, she had been appealed to by the most sacred voice on
earth--the voice of suffering. She stood for a moment looking at the two
shadows before her, for they were little more.
"And if he is afraid why should not he turn to a woman?" she said with
an impulse she could scarcely understand. "If he is afraid, I am not
afraid. This isle belongs to a woman. Come and tell her, if you will,
what you want. Let my mother judge, who is the mistress of this place.
Lord Erradeen has no right to break his word to her for any man: but if
my mother decides that you have a better claim, he will go."
"I will abide by every word she says," Walter cried.
The stranger burst into a laugh.
"I am likely to put forth my claim before such a tribunal!" he said.
"Come, you have fought stoutly for your lover. Make a virtue of
necessity now, and let him go."
"He is not my lover," cried Oona; "but I will not let him go." She added
after a moment, with a sudden change of tone, coming to herself, and
feeling the extraordinary character of the discussion. "This is a very
strange conversation to occur here. I think we are all out of our
senses. It is like the theatre. I don't know your name, sir, but if you
are Lord Erradeen's guardian, or a friend of his, I invite you to come
and see my mother. Most likely," she added, with a slight faltering,
"she will know you as she knows all the family." Then, with an attempt
at playfulness, "If it is to be a struggle between this gentleman and
the ladies of the isle, Lord Erradeen, tell him he must give way."
The stranger took off his hat and made her a profound bow.
"I do so on the instant," he said.
The two young people stood close together, their shadows confounded in
one, and there did not seem time to draw a breath before they were
alone, with no sound or trace remaining to prove that the discussion in
which a moment before their hearts had been beating so loudly had ever
existed at all. Oona looked after the stranger with a gasp. She clung to
Walter, holding his arm tight.
"Where has he gone?" she cried in a piercing whisper. She trembled so
after her boldness that she would have fallen but for his sustaining
arm. "Who is he? Where has he gone? That is not the way to the beach.
Call after him, call after him, and tell him the way."
Walter did not make any reply. He drew her arm closer threw his, and
turned with her towards the house. As for Oona, she seemed incapable of
any thought but that this strange intruder might be left on the isle.
"He will get into the orchard and then among the rocks. He will lose
himself," she cried; "he may fall into the water. Call to him, Lord
Erradeen--or stop, we will send Hamish. Here is Hamish. Oh, Hamish! the
gentleman has taken the wrong way----"
"It will just be a boat that has come for my lord," said Hamish. "I
tellt them my lord was biding all night, but nothing would satisfee
them, but I had to come up and get his lordship's last word."
"Oh, he is not going, Hamish! but there is a gentleman--"
Walter interrupted her with an abruptness that startled Oona.
"Let them see that every one is on board--and return at once," he said.
"Oh there will just be everybody on board that ever was, for none has
come ashore," said Hamish. "What was you saying about a gentleman, Miss
Oona? There will be no gentleman. It is joost Duncan and another man
with him, and they cried upon me, Hamish! and I answered them. But there
will be no gentleman at all," Hamish said.