Foes Part 23

He stepped back from the willow. He took off and dropped upon the moor hat and riding-coat and boots, inner coat and waistcoat. Then he entered the Kelpie's Pool. He searched it, measure by measure, and at last he found the body of Elspeth. He drew it up; he loosened and let fall the stone tied in the plaid that was wrapped around it; he bore the form out of the pool and laid it upon the bank beyond the willow.

The sunlight showed the whole, the face and figure. The laird of Glenfernie, kneeling beside it, put back the long drowned hair and saw, pinned upon the bosom of the gown, the folded letter, wrapped twice in thicker paper. He took it from her and opened it. The writing was yet legible.

I hope that I shall not be found. If I am, let this answer for me. I was unhappy, more unhappy than you can think. Let no one be blamed. It was one far from here and you will not know his name. Do not think of me as wicked nor as a murderess. The unhappy should have pardon and rest. Good-by to all--good-by!

In the upper corner was written, "For White Farm." That was all.

Glenfernie put this letter into the bosom of his s.h.i.+rt. He then got on again the clothing he had discarded, and, stooping, put his arms beneath the lifeless form. He lifted it and bore it from the Kelpie's Pool and up the moor. He was a man much stronger than the ordinary; he carried it as though he felt no weight. The icy water of the pool upon him was as nothing, and as he walked his face was still as a stone face in a desert. So he came with Elspeth's body back to the glen, and Mother Binning saw him coming.

"Hech, sirs! Hech, sirs! Will it hae been that way--will it hae been that way?"

He stopped for a moment. He laid his burden down upon the boards just within the door and smoothed back the streaming hair. "Even the sh.e.l.l flung out by the ocean is beautiful!"

"Eh, man! Eh, man! It's wae sometimes to be a woman!"

"Give me," he said, "a plaid, dry and warm, to hap her in."

"Will ye na leave her here? Put her in my bed and gae tell White Farm!"

"No, I will carry her home."

Mother Binning took from a chest a gray plaid. He lifted again the dead woman, and she happed the plaid about her. "Ah, the la.s.sie--the la.s.sie! Come to me, Glenfernie, and I will scry for you who it was!"

He looked at her as though he did not hear her. He lifted the body, holding it against his shoulder like a child, and went forth. He knew the path so absolutely, he was so strong and light of foot, that he went without difficulty through the glen, by the loud crying water, by the points of crag and the curving roots and the drifts of snow, by the green patches of moss and the trees great and small. He did not hasten nor drag, he did not think. He went like a bronze Talus, made simply to find, to carry home.

Known feature after known feature of the place rose before him, pa.s.sed him, fell away. Here was the arm of the glen, and here was the pebbled cape and the thorn-tree. The winter water swirled around it, sang of cold and a hateful power. Here was the mouth of the glen. Here were the fields which had been green and then golden with ripe corn. Here were the White Farm roof and chimneys and windows, and blue smoke from the chimney going straight up like a wraith to meet blue sky. Before him was the open door.

He had thought of there being only Jenny and the two servant la.s.ses.

But in the time he had been gone there had regathered to White Farm, for learning each from each, for consultation, for mere rest and food, a number of the searchers. Jarvis Barrow had returned from the northward-stretching moor, Thomas and w.i.l.l.y from the southerly fields.

Men who had begun to drag deep places in the stream were here for some provision. A handful of women, hooded and wrapped, had come from neighboring farms or from the village. Among them talked Mrs.

Macmurdo, who kept the shop, and the hostess of the Jardine Arms. And there was here Jock Binning, who, for all his lameness and his crutches, could go where he wished.... But it was Gilian, crossing upon the stepping-stones, who saw Glenfernie coming by the stream with the covered form in his arms. She met him; they went up the bank to the house together. She had uttered one cry, but no more.

"The Kelpie's Pool," he had answered.

Jarvis Barrow came out of the door. "Eh! G.o.d help us!"

They laid the form upon a bed. All the houseful crowded about. There was no helping that, and as little might be helped Jenny's lamentations and the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of others. It was White Farm himself who took away the plaid. It lay there before them all, the drowned form. The face was very quiet, strangely like Elspeth again, the Elspeth of the springtime. All looked, all saw.

"Gude guide us!" cried Mrs. Macmurdo. "And I wadna be some at the Judgment Day when come up the beguiled, self-drownit la.s.sies!"

Jock Binning's voice rose from out the craning group. "Aye, and I ken--and I ken wha was the man!"

White Farm turned upon him. He towered, the old man. A winter wrath and grief, an icy, scintillant, arctic pa.s.sion, marked two there, the laird of Glenfernie and the elder of the kirk. Gilian's grief stood head-high with theirs, but their anger, the old man's disdaining and the young man's jealousy, was far from her. In Jarvis Barrow's hand was the paper, taken from Elspeth, given him by Glenfernie. He turned upon the cripple. "Wha, then? Wha, then? Speak out!"

He had that power of command that forced an answer. Jock Binning, crutched and with an elfish face and figure and voice, had pulled down upon himself the office of revelator. The group swayed a little from him and he was left facing White Farm and the laird of Glenfernie. He had a wailing, chanting, elvish manner of speech. Out streamed this voice:

"'Twere the last of June, twa-three days after the laird rode to Edinburgh, and she brought my mither a giftie of plums and sat doon for a crack with her. By he came and stood and talked. Syne the clouds thickened and the thunder growlit, and he wad walk with her hame through the glen--"

"Wha wad? Wha?"

"Captain Ian Rullock."

"_Ian Rullock!_"

"Aye, Glenfernie! And after that they never came to my mither's again.

But I marked them aft when they didna mark me, in the glen. Aye, and I marked them ance in the little glen, and there they were lovers surely--gin kisses and clasped arms mak lovers! She wad come by herself to their trysting, and he wad come over the muir and down the crag-side. It was na my business and I never thocht to tell. But eh!

all ill will out, says my mither!"

CHAPTER XVIII

The early sunlight fell soft and fine upon the river Seine and the quays and buildings of Paris. The movement and buzz of people had, in the brightness, something of the small ecstasy of bees emerging from the hive with the winter pall just slipped. Distant bells were ringing, hope enticed the grimmest poverty. Much, after all, might be taken good-naturedly!

A great, ornate coach, belonging to a person of quality, crossed the Seine from the south to the north bank. Three gentlemen, seated within, observed each in his own fas.h.i.+on the soft, s.h.i.+ning day. One was Scots, one was English, and the owner of the coach, a Frenchman.

The first was Ian Rullock.

"Good weather for your crossing, monsieur!" remarked the person of quality. He was so markedly of position that the two men whom he had graciously offered to bring a mile upon their way, and who also were younger men, answered with deference and followed in their speech only the lines indicated.

"It promises fair, sir," said Ian. "In three days Dunkirk, then smooth seas! Good omens everywhere!"

"You do not voyage under your own name?"

"After to-morrow, sir, I am Robert Bonshaw, a Scots physician."

"Ah, well, good fortune to you, and to the exalted person you serve!"

The coach, c.u.mbrous and stately, drawn by four white horses, left the bridge and came under old palace walls, and thence by narrow streets advanced toward the great house of its owner. Outside was the numerous throng, the scattering to this side and that of the imperiled foot travelers. The coach stopped.

"Here is the street you would reach!" said the helpful person of quality.

A footman held open the door; the Scot and the Englishman gave proper expression of grat.i.tude to their benefactor, descended to earth, turned again to bow low, and waited bareheaded till the great machine was once more in motion and monseigneur's wig, countenance, and velvet coat grew things of the past. Then the two turned into a still and narrow street overhung by high, ancient structures and roofed with April sky.

The one was going from Paris, the other staying. Both were links in a long chain of political conspiring. They walked now down the street that was dark and old, underfoot old mire and mica-like glistening of fresher rain. The Englishman spoke:

"Have you any news from home?"

"None. None for a long while. I had it conveyed to my kindred and to an old friend that I had disappeared from Paris--gone eastward, Heaven knew where--probably Crim Tartary! So my own world at least, as far as I am concerned, will be off the scent. That was in the winter. I have really heard nothing for months.... When the dawn comes up and we are all rich and famed and gay, _my-lorded_ from John o' Groat's House to Land's End--then, Warburton, then--"

"Then?"

"Then we'll be good!" Ian laughed. "Don't you want, sometimes, to be good, Warburton? Wise--and simple. Doesn't it rise before you in the night with a most unearthly beauty?"

"Oh, I think I am so-so good!" answered the other. "So-so bad, so-so good. What puts you in this strain?"

"Tell me and I will tell you! And now I'm going to Scotland, into the Highlands, to paint a prince who, when he's king, will, no manner of doubt, wear the tartan and make every thane of Glamis thane of Cawdor likewise!... One half the creature's body is an old, childish loyalty, and the other half's ambition. The creature's myself. There are also bars and circles and splashes of various colors, dark and bright.

Sometimes it dreams of wings--wings of an archangel, no less, Warburton! The next moment there seems to be an impotency to produce even beetle wings!... What a weatherc.o.c.k and variorum I am, thou art, he is!"