Macleod of Dare Part 54

"I don't know what you mean!" said he, in absolute bewilderment.

"What!--not the night we were caught in the storm in crossing to Iona?--and when I clung to your arm, you shook me off, so that you should be free to strike for yourself if we were thrown into the water?

Oh, I don't blame you! It was only natural. But I think you should be cautious in accusing others of selfishness."

For a moment he stood looking at her, with something like fear in his eyes--fear and horror, and a doubt as to whether this thing was possible; and then came the hopeless cry of a breaking heart,--

"Oh G.o.d, Gerty! I thought you loved me--and you believed _that!"_

CHAPTER XL.

DREAMS.

This long and terrible night: will it never end? Or will not life itself go out, and let the sufferer have rest? The slow and sleepless hours toil through the darkness; and there is a ticking of a clock in the hushed room; and this agony of pain still throbbing and throbbing in the breaking heart. And then, as the pale dawn shows gray in the windows, the anguish of despair follows him even into the wan realms of sleep, and there are wild visions rising before the sick brain. Strange visions they are; the confused and seething phantasmagoria of a shattered life; himself regarding himself as another figure, and beginning to pity this poor wretch who is not permitted to die. "Poor wretch--poor wretch!" he says to himself. "Did they use to call you Macleod; and what is it that has brought you to this?"

See now! He lays his head down on the warm heather, on this beautiful summer day, and the seas are all blue around him; and the sun is shining on the white sands of Iona. Far below, the men are singing "_Fhir a bhata_," and the sea birds are softly calling. But suddenly there is a horror in his brain, and the day grows black, for an adder has stung him!--it is _Righinn_--the Princess--the Queen of Snakes. Oh why does she laugh, and look at him so with that clear, cruel look? He would rather not go into this still house where the lidless-eyed creatures are lying in their awful sleep. Why does she laugh? Is it a matter for laughing that a man should be stung by an adder, and all his life grow black around him? For it is then that they put him in a grave; and she--she stands with her foot on it! There is moonlight around; and the jackdaws are wheeling overhead; our voices sound hollow in these dark ruins. But you can hear this, sweetheart: shall I whisper it to you?

"_You are standing on the grave of Macleod._"

Lo! the grave opens! Why, Hamish, it was no grave at all, but only the long winter; and now we are all looking at a strange thing away in the south, for who ever saw all the beautiful flags before that are fluttering there in the summer wind? Oh, sweetheart!--your hand--give me your small, warm, white hand! See! we will go up the steep path by the rocks; and here is the small white house; and have you never seen so great a telescope before? And is it all a haze of heat over the sea; or can you make out the quivering phantom of the lighthouse--the small gray thing out at the edge of the world? Look! they are signalling now; they know you are here; come out, quick! to the great white boards; and we will send them over a message--and you will see that they will send back a thousand welcomes to the young bride. Our ways are poor; we have no satin bowers to show you, as the old songs say--but do you know who are coming to wait on you? The beautiful women out of the old songs are coming to be your handmaidens: I have asked them--I saw them in many dreams--I spoke gently to them, and they are coming. Do you see them?

There is the bonnie Lizzie Lindsay, who kilted her coats o' green satin to be off with young Macdonald; and Burd Helen--she will come to you pale and beautiful; and proud Lady Maisry, that was burned for her true love's sake; and Mary Scott of Yarrow, that set all men's hearts aflame.

See, they will take you by the hand. They are the Queen's Maries. There is no other grandeur at Castle Dare.

Is this Macleod? They used to say that Macleod was a man! They used to say he had not much fear of anything; but this is only a poor trembling boy, a coward trembling at everything, and going away to London with a lie on his lips. And they know how Sholto Macleod died, and how Roderick Macleod died, and Ronald, and Duncan the Fair-haired, and Hector, but the last of them--this poor wretch--what will they say of him? "Oh, he died for the love of a woman!" She struck him in the heart; and he could not strike back, for she was a woman. Ah, but if it was a man now! They say the Macleods are all become sheep; and their courage has gone; and if they were to grasp even a Rose-leaf they could not crush it. It is dangerous to say that; do not trust to it. Oh, it is you, you poor fool in the newspaper, who are whirling along behind the boat? Does the swivel work? Are the sharks after you? Do you hear them behind you cleaving the water? The men of Dubh-Artach will have a good laugh when we whisk you past. What! you beg for mercy?--come out, then, you poor devil! Here is a tarpaulin for you. Give him a gla.s.s of whiskey, John Cameron. And so you know about theatres; and perhaps you have ambition, too; and there is nothing in the world so fine as people clapping their hands? But you--even you--if I were to take you over in the dark, and the storm came on, you would not think that I thrust you aside to look after myself? You are a stranger; you are helpless in boats: do you think I would thrust you aside? It was not fair--oh, it was not fair? If she wished to kill my heart, there were other things to say than that.

Why, sweetheart, don't you know that I got the little English boy out of the water; and you think I would let you drown! If we were both drowning now, do you know what I should do? I should laugh, and say, "Sweetheart, sweetheart, if we were not to be together in life, we are now in death, and that is enough for me."

What is the slow sad sound that one hears? The grave is on the lonely island; there is no one left on the island now; there is nothing but the grave. "_Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery._" Oh no, not that! That is all over; the misery is over, and there is peace. This is the sound of the sea-birds, and the wind coming over the seas, and the waves on the rocks. Or is it Donald, in the boat going back to the land? The people have their heads bent; it is a Lament the boy is playing. And how will you play the _c.u.mhadh na Cloinne_ to-night, Donald?--and what will the mother say? It is six sons she has to think of now; and Patrick Mor had but seven dead when he wrote the Lament of the Children. Janet, see to her! Tell her it is no matter now; the peace has come; the misery is over; there is only the quiet sound of the waves. But you, Donald, come here. Put down your pipes, and listen. Do you remember the English lady who was here in the summer-time; and your pipes were too loud for her, and were taken away?

She is coming again. She will try to put her foot on my grave. But you will watch for her coming, Donald; and you will go quickly to Hamish; and Hamish will go down to the sh.o.r.e and send her back. You are only a boy, Donald; she would not heed you; and the ladies at the Castle are too gentle, and would give her fair words; but Hamish is not afraid of her--he will drive her back; she shall not put her foot on my grave, for my heart can bear no more pain.

And are you going away--_Rose-leaf_--_Rose-leaf_--are you sailing away from me on the smooth waters to the South? I put out my hand to you; but you are afraid of the hard hands of the Northern people, and you shrink from me. Do you think we would harm you, then, that you tremble so? The savage days are gone. Come--we will show you the beautiful islands in the summer-time; and you will take high courage, and become yourself a Macleod; and all the people will be proud to hear of Fionaghal, the Fair Stranger, who has come to make her home among us. Oh, our hands are gentle enough when it is a Rose-leaf they have to touch. There was blood on them in the old days; we have washed it off now: see--this beautiful red rose you have given me is not afraid of rough hands! We have no beautiful roses to give you, but we will give you a piece of white heather, and that will secure to you peace and rest and a happy heart all your days. You will not touch it, sweetheart? Do not be afraid!

There is no adder in it. But if you were to find, now, a white adder, would you know what to do with it? There was a sweetheart in an old song knew what to do with an adder. Do you know the song? The young man goes back to his home, and he says to his mother, "Oh make my bed soon; for I'm weary, weary hunting, and fain would lie doon." Why do you turn so pale, sweetheart? There is the whiteness of a white adder in your cheeks; and your eyes--there is death in your eyes! "Donald!--Hamish!

help! help!--her foot is coming near to my grave!--my heart--!"

And so, in a paroxysm of wild terror and pain, he awoke again; and behold, the ghastly white daylight was in the room--the cold glare of a day he would fain have never seen! It was all in a sort of dream that this haggard-faced man dressed, and drank a cup of tea, and got outside into the rain. The rain, and the noise of the cabs, and the gloom of London skies; these harsh and commonplace things were easier to bear than the dreams of the sick brain. And then, somehow or other, he got his way down to Aldershot, and sought out Norman Ogilvie.

"Macleod!" Ogilvie cried--startled beyond measure by his appearance.

"I--I wanted to shake hands with you, Ogilvie, before I am going," said this hollow-eyed man, who seemed to have grown old.

Ogilvie hesitated for a second or two; and then he said, vehemently,--

"Well, Macleod, I am not a sentimental chap--but--but--hang it! it is too bad. And again and again I have thought of writing to you, as your friend, just within the last week or so; and then I said to myself that tale-bearing never came to any good. But she won't darken Mrs. Ross's door again--that I know. Mrs. Ross went straight to her the other day.

There is no nonsense about that woman. And when she got to understand that the story was true, she let Miss White know that she considered you to be a friend of hers, and that--well, you know how women give hints--"

"But I don't know what you mean, Ogilvie!" he cried, quite bewildered.

"Is it a thing for all the world to know? What story is it--when I knew nothing till yesterday?"

"Well, you know now: I saw by your face a minute ago that she had told you the truth at last," Ogilvie said. "Macleod, don't blame me. When I heard of her being about to be married, I did not believe the story--"

Macleod sprang at him like a tiger, and caught his arm with the grip of a vise.

"Her getting married?--to whom?"

"Why, don't you know?" Ogilvie said, with his eyes staring. "Oh yes, you must know. I see you know! Why, the look in your face when you came into this room--"

"Who is the man, Ogilvie?"--and there was the sudden hate of ten thousand devils in his eyes.

"Why, it is that artist fellow--Lemuel. You don't mean to say she hasn't told you? It is the common story! And Mrs. Ross thought it was only a piece of nonsense--she said they were always making out those stories about actresses--but she went to Miss White. And when Miss White could not deny it, Mrs. Ross said there and then they had better let their friendship drop. Macleod, I would have written to you--upon my soul, I would have written to you--but how could I imagine you did not know? And do you really mean to say she has not told you anything of what has been going on recently--what was well known to everybody?"

And this young man spoke in a pa.s.sion, too; Keith Macleod was his friend. But Macleod himself seemed, with some powerful effort of will, to have got the better of his sudden and fierce hate; he sat down again; he spoke in a low voice, but there was a dark look in his eyes.

"No," said he, slowly, "she has not told me all about it. Well, she did tell me about a poor creature--a woman-man--a thing of affectation, with his paint-box and his velvet coat, and his furniture. Ogilvie, have you got any brandy?"

Ogilvie rang, and got some brandy, some water, a tumbler, and a winegla.s.s placed on the table. Macleod, with a hand that trembled violently, filled the tumbler half full of brandy.

"And she could not deny the story to Mrs. Ross?" said he, with a strange and hard smile on his face. "It was her modesty. Ah, you don't know, Ogilvie, what an exalted soul she has. She is full of idealisms. She could not explain all that to Mrs. Ross. _I_ know. And when she found herself too weak to carry out her aspirations, she sought help. Is that it? She would gain a.s.surance and courage from the woman-man?"

He pushed the tumbler away; his hand was still trembling violently.

"I will not touch that Ogilvie," said he, "for I have not much mastery over myself. I am going away now--I am going back now to the Highlands--oh! you do not know what I have become since I met that woman--a coward and a liar! They wouldn't have you sit down at the mess-table, Ogilvie, if you were that, would they? I dare not stay in London now. I must run away now--like a hare that is hunted. It would not be good for her or for me that I should stay any longer in London."

He rose and held out his hand; there was a curious glazed look on his eyes. Ogilvie pressed him back into the chair again.

"You are not going out in this condition, Macleod?--you don't know what you are doing! Come now, let us be reasonable; let us talk over the thing like men. And I must say, first of all, that I am heartily glad of it, for your sake. It will be a hard twist at first; but, bless you!

lots of fellows have had to fight through the same thing, and they come up smiling after it, and you would scarcely know the difference. Don't imagine I am surprised--oh no. I never did believe in that young woman; I thought she was a deuced sight too clever; and when she used to go about humbugging this one and the other with her innocent airs, I said to myself, 'Oh, it's all very well: but _you_ know what you are about.'

Of course there was no use talking to you. I believe at one time Mrs.

Ross was considering the point whether she ought not to give you a hint--seeing that you had met Miss White first at her house--that the young lady was rather clever at flirtation, and that you ought to keep a sharp lookout. But then you would only have blazed up in anger. It was no use talking to you. And then, after all, I said that if you were so bent on marrying her, the chances were that you would have no difficulty, for I thought the bribe of her being called Lady Macleod would be enough for any actress. As for this man Lemuel, no doubt he is a very great man, as people say; but I don't know much about these things myself; and--and--I think it is very plucky of Mrs. Ross to cut off two of her lions at one stroke. It shows she must have taken an uncommon liking for you. So you must cheer up, Macleod. If woman take a fancy to you like that, you'll easily get a better wife than Miss White would have made. Mind you, I don't go back from anything I ever said of her. She is a handsome woman, and no mistake; and I will say that she is the best waltzer that I ever met with in the whole course of my life--without exception. But she's the sort of woman who, if I married her, would want some looking after--I mean, that is my impression. The fact is, Macleod, away there in Mull you have been brought up too much on books and your own imagination. You were ready to believe any pretty woman, with soft English ways, an angel. Well, you have had a twister; but you'll come through it; and you will get to believe, after all, that women are very good creatures just as men are very good creatures, when you get the right sort. Come now, Macleod, pull yourself together; Perhaps I have just as hard an opinion of her conduct towards you as you have yourself. But you know what Tommy Moore, or some fellow like that says--'Though she be not fair to me, what the devil care I how fair she be?' And if I were you, I would have a drop of brandy--but not half a tumblerful."

But neither Lieutenant Ogilvie's pert common-sense, nor his apt and accurate quotation, nor the proffered brandy, seemed to alter much the mood of this haggard-faced man. He rose.

"I think I am going now," said he, in a low voice. "You won't take it unkindly, Ogilvie, that I don't stop to talk with you: it is a strange story you have told me--I want time to think over it. Good-by!"

"The fact is, Macleod," Ogilvie stammered, as he regarded his friend's face, "I don't like to leave you. Won't you stay and dine with our fellows? or shall I see if I can run up to London with you?"

"No, thank you, Ogilvie," said he. "And have you any message for the mother and Janet?"