Gilian The Dreamer Part 13

Nan confessed her ignorance; but a story--oh, that was good enough!

"Come to the Linn and I'll show you the place, then," said Gilian, and he led her among the gra.s.ses, among the tall commanding brackens, upon the old moss that gave no whisper to the footfall, so that, for the nymphs among the trees, the pair of them might be comrades too, immortal. A few moments brought them to the Linn, a deep pool in the river bend, lying so calm that the blue field of heaven and its wisps of cloud astray like lambs were painted on its surface. Round about, the banks rose steep, magnificent with flowers.

"See," said Gilian, pointing to the reflection at their feet. "Does it not look like a piece of the sky tumbled among the gra.s.ses? I sometimes think, to see it like that, that to fall into it would be to tangle with the stars."

Nan only laughed and stooped to lift a stone.

She threw it into the very midst of the pool, and the mirror of the heavens was shattered.

"I never thought I could throw into the sky so far," she said mischievously, pleased as it seemed to spoil the illusion in so sudden and sufficient a manner.

"Oh!" he cried, pained to the quick, "you should not have done that, it will spoil the story."

"What is the story?" she said, sitting and looking down upon the troubled pool.

"You must wait till the water is calm again," said he, seating himself a little below her on the bank, and watching the water-rings subside.

Then when the pool had regained its old placidity, with the flecked sky pictured on it, he began his Gaelic story.

"Once upon a time," said he, in the manner of the shealing tales, "there was a lady with eyes like the sea, and hair blowing like the ta.s.sel of the fir, and she was a daughter of the King in Knapdale, and she looked upon the world and she was weary. There came a little man to her from the wood and he said, 'Go seven days, three upon water and four upon land, and you will come to a place where the moon's sister swims, and there will be the earl's son and the husband.' The lady travelled seven days, three upon water and four upon land, and she came to the Linn where the sister of the moon was swimming. 'Where is my earl's son that is to be-my husband?' she asked: and the moon's sister said he was hunting in the two roads that lie below the river bed. The lady, who was the daughter of the King of Knapdale, shut her eyes that were like the sea, and tied in a cus.h.i.+on above her head her hair that was like the ta.s.sel of the fir, and broke the crystal door of dream and reached the two hunting roads in the bed of the river. 'We are two brothers,' said the watchers, standing at the end of the roads, 'and we are the sons of earls.' She thought and thought 'I am Sir Sleep,' said the younger. 'And will you be true?' said she. 'Almost half the time, he answered. She thought and thought. 'I am very weary,' she said. 'Then come with me,' said the other, 'I am the Older Brother.' She heard above her the clanging at the door of dream as she went with the Older Brother. And she was happy for evermore."

"Oh, that is a stupid story," said Nan. "It's not a true story at all.

You could tell it to me anywhere, and why should we be troubled walking to the Linn?"

"Because this is the Lady's Linn," said Gilian, "and to be telling a story you must be putting a place in it or it will not sound true. And Gillesbeg Aotram who told me the story--"

"Gillesbeg Aotram!" she said in amaze. "He's daft. If I thought it was a daft man's story I had to hear I----"

"He's not daft at all," protested Gilian. "He's only different from his neighbours."

"That is being daft," said she. "But it is a very clever tale and you tell it very well. You must tell me more stories. Do you know any more stories? I like soldier stories. My father tells me a great many."

"The Cornal tells me a great many too," said Gilian, "but they are all true, and they do not sound true, and I have to make them all up again in my own mind. But this is not the place for soldier stories; every place has its own kind of story, and this is the place for fairy stories if you care for them."

"I like them well enough," she answered dubiously, "though I like better the stories where people are doing things."

They rose from their seat of illusion beside the Linn where the King of Knapdale's daughter broke the gate of sleep and dream. They walked into the Duke's flower garden. And now the day was done, the sun had gone behind Creag Dubh while they were sitting by the river; a grey-brown dusk wrapped up the country-side. The tall trees that were so numerous outside changed here to shorter darker foreign trees, and yews that never waved in winds, but seemed the ghosts of trees, to thickets profound, with secrets in their recesses. In and out among these unfamiliar growths walked Nan and her companion, their pathway crooking in a maze of newer wonders on either hand. One star peered from the sky, the faint wind of the afternoon had sunk to a hint of mingled and moving odours.

Gilian took the girl's hand, and thus together they went deeper into the garden among the flowers that perfumed the air till it seemed drugged and heavy. They walked and walked in the maze of intersecting roads whose pebbles grated to the foot, and, so magic the place, there seemed no end to their journey.

Nan became alarmed. "I wish I had never come," said she. "I want home."

And the tears were very close upon her eyes.

"Yes, yes," said Gilian, leading her on through paths he had never seen before. "We will get out in a moment. I know--I think I know, the road.

It is this way--no, it is this way--no, I am wrong."

But he did not cease to lead her through the garden. The long unending rows of gay flowers stretching in the haze of evening, the parterres spread in gaudy patches, the rich revelation of moss and gra.s.s between the trees and shrubs were wholly new to him; they stirred to thrills of wonder and delight.

"Isn't it fine, fine?" he asked her in a whisper lest the charm should fly.

She answered with a sob he did not hear, so keen his thrall to the enchantment. No sign of human habitation lay around except the gravelled walks; the castle towers were hid, the boat-strewn sea was on their left no more. Only the clumps of trees were there, the mossy gra.s.s, the flowers whose beauty and plenteousness mocked the posie in the girl's hands. They walked now silent, expectant every moment of the exit that somehow baffled, and at last they came upon the n.o.ble lawn. It stretched from their feet into a remote encroaching eve, no trees beyond visible, no break in all its grey-green flatness edged on either hand by wood.

And now the sky had many stars.

Their gravelled path had ceased abruptly; before them the lawn spread like a lake, and they were shy to venture on its surface.

"Let us go on; I must go home, I am far from home," said Nan, in a trepidation, her flowers shed, her eyes moist with tears. And into her voice had come a strain of dependence on the boy, an accent more pleasing than any he had heard in her before.

"We must walk across there," he said, looking at the far-off vague edge; but yet he made no move to meet the wishes of the girl now clinging to his arm.

"Come, come," said she, and pressed him gently at the arm; but yet he stood dubious in the dusk.

"Are you afraid?" she asked, herself whispering, she could not tell why.

He felt his face burn at the reflection; he shook her hand off almost angrily. "Afraid!" said he. "Not I; what makes you think that?

Only--only----" His eyes were staring at the lawn.

"Only what?" she whispered again, seeking his side for the comfort of his presence.

"It is stupid," he confessed, shame in his accent, "but they say the fairies dance there, and I think we might be looking for another way."

At the confession, Nan's mood of fear that Gilian had conferred on her was gone. She drew back and laughed with as much heartiness as at his story of the heron's nest. The dusk was all around and they were all alone, lost in a magic garden, but she forgot all in this new revelation of her companion's strange belief. She turned and ran across the lawn, crying as she went, "Follow me, follow me!" and Gilian, all the ecstasy of that lingering moment on the edge of fancy gone, ran after her, feeling himself a child of dream, and her the woman made for action.

A sadden opening in the thicket revealed the sh.o.r.e, the highway, the quay with its bobbing lamps, the town with its upper windows lighted. At the gateway of the garden the Cornal met them, He was close on them in the dusk before he knew them, and seeing Gilian he peered closely in the girl face.

"Who's this?" said he abruptly.

Gilian hesitated, vaguely fearing to reveal her ident.i.ty, and Nan shrank back, all her memories of conversation in Maam telling her that here was an enemy.

Again the Cornal bent and looked more closely, lifting her chin up that he might see the better. She flashed a glance of defiance in his scarred old parchment face, and he drew his hand back as if he had been stung.

"Nan! Nan!" cried he, with a curious voice. "What witchery is this?" He was in a tremble, Then he started and laughed bitterly. "Oh no, not Nan!" said he. "Oh no, not Nan!" with the most rueful accent, almost chanting it as if it were a dirge.

"'It _is_ Nan," said Gilian.

"It is her breathing image," said the old man. "It is Nan, no doubt, but not the Nan I knew."

She turned and sped home by the seaside, without farewell, alarmed at this oddity, and Gilian and the Cornal stood alone, the Cornal looking after her with a wistfulness in his very att.i.tude.

"The same, the same, the very same!" said he to himself, in words the boy could plainly hear. "Her mother to the very defiance of her eye."

He clutched Gilian rudely by the shoulder. "What," said he; "were you wandering about with that girl for? Answer me that. They told me you were off after the soldiers, and I came up here hoping it true. It would have been the daft but likeable cantrip I should have forgiven in any boy of mine; it would have shown some sign of a sogerly emprise. And here you are, with a la.s.s wandering! Where were you?"

Gilian explained.

"In the flower garden? Ay! ay! A la.s.sie on the roadside met your fancy more than Geordie's men of war. Thank G.o.d, I was never like that! And Turner's daughter above all! If she's like her mother in her heart as she's like her in the face, it might be a bitter notion for your future."

He led the way home, muttering to himself. "Nan! Nan! It gave me the start! It was nearly a stroke for me! The same look about her! She is dead, dead and buried, and in her daughter she defies us still!"