CHAPTER XXXVII
THE ISLE OF BLISS
Under the double shelter of the great cliffs of Lianacraig and thelower but more effectual barrier of the ridge which runs across thelittle island of Fiara in the direction of its greatest length, Watand his love abode for a season in great peace. Scarlett acceptedthe situation with the trained alacrity of a soldier of fortune. Hebuilt camp-fires of the drift-wood of the shore, allowing the smoke todissipate itself along the walls of the cliffs upon dark nights, andusing only charred and smokeless wood on the smaller cooking-fires ofthe day.
He also took Wise Jan under his sway and rigid governance, so that,very much to his own surprise, that youth found himself continuallyrunning here and there at the word of command, as unquestioningly asif he had been a recruit of a newly formed regiment under the drastictreatment of the famous master-at-arms.
At first Kate felt the strangeness of being left upon a lonely islandwith none of her own sex to speak to or give her countenance. But shewas a girl of many experiences in a world which was then specially hardand cruel to lonely women.
While yet a child she had seen houses invaded by rude soldiery. Shehad fled from conventicle with the clatter of hoofs and the call oftrumpet telling of the deadly pursuit behind her. Even the manner ofher capture and her confinement on this distant isle told a plain taleof suffering endured and experience gained. Hers had been, largely byher own choice, no sheltered life passed in the bieldy howe of commonthings. She had met sorrow and difficulty before, face to face, eye toeye, and was ready so to encounter them again.
But to be on the island of Fiara in daily contact with her lover, togain momentarily in knowledge of her own affection, to feel the bondswhich bound her to this one man continually strengthen, were some ofthe new experiences of these halcyon days.
Wat and Kate walked much under the shelter of that wall of rocks whichstood a hundred yards back from the sandy northern shore of the island.Here they were screened from observation in every direction savetowards the north, and that way the sea was clear to the Pole. Blue andlonely it spread before them, the waves coming glittering and balancingin from the regions of ice and mist, as sunnily and invitingly asthough they had been the billows of the Pacific arching themselves inthunder upon a strand of coral.
Here the two walked at morn and even, discussing, among other things,their loves, their former happenings, the strange ways of Providence:most of all their future, which, indeed, looked dark enough at thepresent, but which, nevertheless, shone for them with a rosy glow ofhope and youth. There are no aspirants more sure of success than theyoung who, strong in the permanence of mutual affection, take handsand look towards the rising sun. All happens to those who know how towait, especially if they have the necessary time before them. If theybe young, the multitude of the coming years beckons them onward, and sotheir hearts be true and worthy, the very stars in their courses willfight for them. The hatreds and prejudices which oppose them lose theiredge; their opponents, being of those that go down the slope to thedark archway of death, pass away within and are seen no more. But theyoung true-lovers remain. And lo! in a moment there is nothing beforethem but the plain way to walk in--the sweetness of a morning stillyoung, a morning without clouds, the sweeter for the night and the longand weary way they have come together, hand in loving hand.
"Kate," said Wat, "tell me when you first knew that you loved me."
They were walking on the sand, across which the evening shadows werebeginning to lengthen over the intricate maze of ripple-marks, and wheneach whorled worm-casting was gathering a little pool of blue shadow onits eastern side.
The girl clasped her hands behind her back and gazed abstractedly awayto the sunsetting, her shapely head turned a little aside as though shewere listening to the voice of her own heart and hearing its answer tookeenly to dare give it vent in words.
"I think," said she, at last, very slowly--"I think I began to love youon the night when I saw you first, after I had come across the seas toHolland."
"What!" cried Lochinvar, astonished at her answer; "but then you weremore hard and cruel to me than ever--would not even hear me speak, andsent me away unsatisfied and most unhappy."
Kate gave Wat a glance which said for a sufficient answer, had hepossessed the wit to read it: "I was a woman, and so afraid of my ownheart--you a man, and therefore could not help revealing yours."
"It was then," she answered, aloud, "that I first felt in my own breastthe danger of loving you. That made me afraid--yes, much afraid."
"And why were you afraid, dear love?" Wat questioned, softly.
"Because in love a woman has to think for herself, and for him wholoves her, also. She sees further on. Difficulties loom larger to her.They close in upon her soul and fright her. Then, also, she has towatch within, lest--lest--"
Here the girl stopped and gazed away pensively to the north. She didnot finish her sentence.
"Lest what, Kate?" urged Wat, softly, eager for the ending of herconfession, for the revelation of the maiden's heart was sweet to him.
"Lest her own heart betray her and open its gates to the enemy," sheanswered, very low.
She walked on more sharply for a space. She was still thinking, and Wathad the sense not to interrupt her meditation.
"Yet the chief matter of her thought," she went on, "the thought ofthe girl who is wooed and is in danger of loving, is only to keep thecastle so long--and then, when she is sure that the right besiegerblows the horn without the gate, she leaps up with joy to draw thebolts of the doors, to fling them wide open, to strike the flag thatwaves aloft. Then, right glad at heart, she runs to meet her lord inthe gateway, with the keys of her life in her hands."
She turned herself suddenly about with a lovely expression of trust inher eyes, and impulsively held out both her own hands.
"Take them," she said, "my lord!"
And Wat Gordon took the girl's hands in his, and falling on his knee hekissed them very tenderly and reverently.
Then he rose, and keeping her left hand still in his right, they walkedalong silently for a time into the sunset, their eyes wet because ofthe sound of their hearts crying each to each, and the shining of loveglowing richer than the rose of the west on their faces.
It was Wat who spoke first.
"Love," he said, "you will never change when the days darken? You willstand firm when you hear me spoken against, when you cannot thushearken to my voice pleading with you, when there is none to speak wellof me?"
"My lad, was it not then that I loved you most," she replied, verygently, "when men spoke evil things in my ears, and told me how thatyou were unworthy, unknightly, untrue? Was it not even then that myheart cried out louder than ever, 'I will believe my king before themall--before the hearing of my friend's ears, the seeing of my mother'seyes, before the sworn word on the tongue of my father?'"
"Ah, love," said Wat, "it is sweet, greatly sweet, to listen to thespeaking of your heart."
And well might he say it, for it was, indeed, a lovely thing to hearthe throb of faith run rippling through her voice like the sap of thespring through the quickening forest trees.
"But," he added, with quickly returning melancholy, "doubtless thereare dark days before us, of which, however, we now know the worst.Will my Kate be sufficient for these things? We have heard what Barrasays--bewitched by what cantrip I know not; but certain it seems thatyour father hath ta'en him a new wife, and she hath so worked on hisspirit that he would now deliver you to our enemy over there, on theisle from which I took you. Suppose that all things went against us,Kate, and that I was never more than a wanderer and an outcast; supposeyour father ordered, your friends compelled, your own heart told youtales of our love's hopelessness, or others carried to you evil thingsof me--would you be strong enough to keep faith, Kate, to hold my handfirmly as you do now, and having done all, still be able to stand?"
The girl looked at her lover a little sadly while he was speaking, asif he had, indeed, a far road to tra
vel ere he could win to the inmostsecret of a girl's heart.
"Wat Gordon," she said, "know you not that there is but one kind oflove? There are not two. The love of the wanton that grasps and takesonly is no love--but light-o'-love. The love that flinches back intoshelter because the wind blows is not love; nor yet that which hidesitself, afraid when the lift darkens or when the thunder broods and thebolt of heaven is hurled."
There came a kind of awful sweetness on his love's face as she stoodlooking up at him which made Wat Gordon tremble in his turn. By hisdoubts he had jangled the deepest chords of a heart. He stood in thepresence of things mightier than he had dreamed of. Yet his fear wasnatural. He knew himself to be true as God is true. But then he hadeverything to gain--this woman who held his hand all things to lose,everything to endure.
Kate went on, for strong words were stirring in her heart, and themystery of a mighty love brooded over the troubled waters of her soullike the mystery of the seven stars in God's right hand.
"But one kind of love," she said, in a low, hushed voice, which Wathad to incline his ear to catch. And there came also a crooning rhythminto her utterance, as if she were inspired and spake prophecies. "Howsays the Writing? 'Love suffereth long and is kind.' So at least thepreachers expound it. There is no self in love. Self dies and is buriedas soon as soul has looked into soul through the windows of the eyes,as soon as heart has throbbed against naked heart, and life been takeninto life. Dead and buried is Self, and over his head the true-loversset up a gravestone, with the inscription: 'Love seeketh not herown--is not easily provoked--thinketh no evil.'"
"Oh love," groaned Wat, "if I could but believe it! But all things areso grievously against me. I can only bid you wait, and after all theremay be but an exile's fate to share with you, a barren, unfruitfullordship; while there are those, great and powerful, who could set thecoronet on your brow."
The girl let his hand drop. She stood looking a long while to seaward.Then with sudden, quick resolve, she turned and faced him. She liftedher hands and laid them on his shoulders, keeping him at the fullstretch of her arms so that she might look deep down into his heart.
"I am not angry with you, Wat," she said, softly and slowly, "though Imight be. Why will you let me fight this battle alone? Why must I havefaith for both of us? Surely in time you will understand and believe.Hear me, true lad," she put her hands a little farther over hisshoulders and moved an inch nearer him; "you make me say things thatshame me. But what can I do? I only tell you what I would be proud totell all the world, if it stood about us now as it shall stand on thegreat Day of Judgment. I would rather drink the drop and bite the crustby the way-side with you, Wat Gordon; rather be an outcast woman amongthe godless gypsy-folk with you--aye, without either matron's ring toclasp my finger or maiden's snood to bind my hair--than be a king'swife and sit on a throne with princesses about me for my tire-women."
She had brought her face nearer to his as she spoke, white and drawnwith her love and its expression. Now when she had finished she heldhim for a moment fixed with her eyes, as it were nailing the truthshe had spoken to his very soul. Then swiftly changing her mood, shedropped her arms from his shoulders and moved away along the beach.
Wat hastened after her and walked beside her, watching her. He strovemore than once to take her hand, but she kept it almost petulantlyaway from him. The tears were running down her cheeks silently andsteadily. Her underlip was quivering. The girl who had been brave fortwo, now shook like a leaf. They came to the corner of the inland cliffof Fiara, which had gradually withdrawn itself farther and farther upthe beach, as the tide-race swept more and more sand along the northernfront of the inland. A rowan-tree grew out of a cleft. Its trunkprojected some feet horizontally before it turned upward. Kate leanedagainst it and buried her face in her hands.
Wat stood close beside her, longing with all his nature to touch her,to comfort her; but something held him back. He felt within him thatcaressing was not her mood.
"Hearken, sweet love," he said, beseechingly, clasping his hands overeach other in an agony of helpless desire; "I also have something tosay to you."
"Oh, you should not have done it," she said, looking at him throughher streaming tears; "you ought not to have let me say it. You shouldhave believed without needing me to tell you. But now I have told you,I shall never be my own again; and some day you will think that I havebeen too fond, too sudden--"
"Kate," said Wat, all himself again at her words, and comingmasterfully forward to take her by the wrists. He knelt on one kneebefore her, holding her in his turn, almost paining her by theintensity of his grasp. "Kate, you shall listen to me. You blame mewrongly; I have not indeed, to-day, told you of _my_ faith, of _my_devotion, of the certainty of _my_ standing firm through all thedarkness that is to come. And I will tell you why."
"Yes," said the girl, a little breathlessly; "tell me why."
"Because," said Wat, looking straight at her, "you never doubted thesethings even once. You knew me better, aye, even when you flouted me,set me back, treated me as a child, even when others spoke to you ofmy lightness, told you of my sins and wrong-doings. I defy you, KateMcGhie," he continued, his voice rising--"I defy you to say that thereever was a moment when you honestly doubted my love, when you everdreamed that I could love any but you--so much as an instant when thethought that I might forget or be false to you had a lodgment in yourheart. Kate, I leave it to yourself to say."
This is the generous uncandor which touches good women to the heart.For Wat was not answering the real accusation she had brought againsthim--that he had not believed her, but had continued to doubt her inthe face of her truest words and most speaking actions.
"Ah, Wat," she said, surrendering at once, "forgive me. It is true. Idid not ever doubt you."
She smiled at him a moment through her tears.
"I knew all too well that you loved me--silly lad," she said; "I saw inyour eyes what you thought before you ever told me--and even now I haveto prompt you to sweet speeches, dear Sir Snail!"
At this encouragement Wat would gladly have drawn her closer to him,but the girl began to walk back towards their heather-grown shelter.
"Yet I care not," she said. "After all, 'tis a great thing to get one'sfollies over in youth. And you are my folly, lad--a grievous one, itis true, but nevertheless one that now I could ill do without. Nay,"she went on, seeing him at this point ready to encroach, "not thatto-night, Wat. All is said that needs to be said. Let us return."
And so they walked soberly and silently to the wide-halled chamberrecessed in the ancient sea-cliff. Kate paused ere they entered, andheld her face up with a world of sweet surrender in it for Wat to kissat his will.
"Dear love," she said, softly, "I beseech you do not distrust me anymore. By this and by this, know that I am all your own. Once you mademe say it. Now of mine own will I do it."
She spoke the last words shyly; then swiftly, as one that takes greatcourage on the edge of flight:
"Bend down your ear, laddie," she said, and paused while one mightcount a score.
Wat listened keenly, afraid that his own heart should beat too loud forhim to catch every precious word.
"I love you so that I would gladly die to give you perfect happinesseven for a day," she whispered.
And she vanished within, without so much as bidding him good-night.
Lochinvar: A Novel Page 40
