The Wind Bloweth Part 14

Though she never said so, yet he knew she wanted to go on board the s.h.i.+p that was so much of his life, and one day he had her rowed across to the _Ulster Lady_. He smiled as he saw how firmly she got on board, though s.h.i.+ps were unknown to her. Queer, how she never lost dignity, grace. And it was so easy for a woman to look silly, undignified, getting on board s.h.i.+p. She never disappointed him....

She mused over the sweet line of the schooner, the tapering masts, the snug canvas, the twinkling bra.s.s. The wake of a pa.s.sing paddle-steamer made the boat pitch gently. It was like breathing.

"She is so much a pretty lady," Claire-Anne said. "So much like you, Shane, in a way. She might be a young sister--a young, loved sister. And where is your place on board when she sails?"

He pointed her out the s.p.a.ce behind wheel and binnacle.

"Whenever there's any need, I'm there, just there."

"And Shane, great waves like you see in pictures--great enormous waves, does she stand those?"

"Yes, great waves, like you see in pictures, she stands those. Drives through them, and over them, and under them."

"And Solomon said"--she was just thinking aloud--"that he couldn't understand the way of a s.h.i.+p on the sea. And he was immensely wise.

Dearest ... it can't be just wood and canvas, a s.h.i.+p ... power and grace and beauty.... It's like great people...."

"They're as different as people are, Claire-Anne."

"Are they, Shane? I knew they weren't ... just things."

He took her below in the dusk of his cabin. She filled the s.p.a.ce like some gracious green tree.

"And here is where I live on board s.h.i.+p."

The Aberdeen terrier came forward to greet her, his tail waving gently, his ears up, his brown eyes grave and warm.

"_Duine uasal! Duine uasal!_" she knelt to him.

"You remember?" He minded he had told her casually of the dog's name.

"Of course I remember! Shane, what does _Duine uasal_ mean?"

"_Gentilhomme_," he translated.

"He has the eyes," she said.

The framed ma.n.u.script of his father's verses caught her eyes, and she looked at him in inquiry.

"What is it?"

"A poem of my father's, in Gaidhlig, Claire-Anne. 'The Bed of Rushes.'"

"How queer the letters are! Slim and graceful, and powerful, too. Would you read it, Shane?"

"_Leaba luachra_," he read, "a bed of rushes, _bhi fum areir_, was beneath me last night, _agas do chaitheas amach e le banaghadb an lae_, and I threw it out with the whitening of day. _Thainic mo chead gradh le mo thaobh_, my hundred loves came to my side; _guala ee qualainn_, shoulder to shoulder, _agas beal re beal_, and mouth to mouth."

"Now I know you better, Shane."

"How, dearest?"

"I know how you come by your--your sense of beauty, Shane. It's from your father. You have it just as he had. But he could say and you can't, Shane. You have it, but it doesn't come out that way. It comes out in the sailing of the s.h.i.+p, Shane. You must sail beautifully. Shane, I should love to see you sail."

With a quick movement she dropped on her knees, and her beautiful dark head on the pillow of his bed.

"Couldn't you take me with you once, Shane, when you sail? Away on just one voyage?"

"Of course I could, dearest, and will."

"Would you, my heart? Would you?" She stood up again, and swift tears came to her eyes.

"I couldn't come," she said.

"But, Claire-Anne--"

"No," she said. She turned her back to him, so that he shouldn't see her face, and her voice vibrated. "No, Shane dear. No. You go to sea and sail your s.h.i.+ps, and take care of them in the tempest and coax them in light weather. And go from port to port, watching the strange cities and the peoples, and seeing into them, with ... _tes yeux d'enfant_ ... your eyes of a child.... And have your life, free, big, clean.... And just in a corner ... _le plus pet.i.t coin_ ... keep me ... so when you come to Ma.r.s.eilles, you will come up the garden path in the dusk, and call, 'Claire-Anne!'" There was something like a sob from her. "Just say, 'Claire-Anne'...."

She turned around and caught his hands for a minute, looked at him, smiled, laughed.... From his desk she picked up the Young Pretender's dagger.

"What is this for, Shane? Is this yours?"

"Mine now, Claire-Anne; but it was--some one else's once. My Uncle Alan, Alan Donn, gave it to me."

"Yes?..."

"It belonged once to Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender. He wore it at his knee in '45. Do you remember, Claire-Anne? He landed in Scotland and advanced on England, and got as far as Derby at the head of the Scottish clans and Jacobite gentlemen. 'Black Friday' they called it in London."

"But he never got to London."

"No, he never got to London. Crash and whir of battle, and when the smoke cleared, there were the gallant Highland clansmen scattered, and the st.u.r.dy English n.o.bles, and the bonny Irish gentlemen. And a king on the run!"

"And, Shane, what happened to him after that?"

"I think--my history may not be right, but I think he spent the rest of his life a pensioner of the king of France, playing petty politics, drinking, and accepting love from romantic women, and loyalty from the beaten clans."

"What a pity, Shane! What a pity!"

"That he failed, dearest? I don't know."

"Not that he failed, Shane! No! The most gallant fail, nearly always fail, for they take the greatest odds. But that he lived too long, Shane ... the high moment gone...."

She looked at the dagger again that had once snuggled to Prince Tearloch's knee, hefted it, caressed it.

"Shane dearest, why didn't he use his own knife to--set himself free?"

"I don't know."

"I think I know."